trivial things

Weighed in yesterday and today. Yesterday I was down two pounds. Today I was only down 1.5 from my starting weight.
Might have something to do with the chimichanga I had for breakfast. Or the BLT I had for lunch. Or the lasagna I had for dinner.
Whatever.
Last night was not a stellar night in Casa Bennett. There was fighting. There was NO SLEEP. There was silently thinking I should probably smother my husband me being quietly bitter.
I don't like fighting with Eric and I specifically don't like doing it in front of his parents and that happened last night. I'm not going to go into the whole situation here, but we bickered, quietly, and then I felt exceedingly uncomfortable. Having house guests means feeling like you have to be always 'on' if you're me and 'on' does not include heated arguments. But, when the guests are staying for 6 weeks, I think there is bound to be at least one of those moments. Still, there was no resolution and I went to bed with a chip on my shoulder. I'm trying not to hold onto that chip - That's a lie. I love my chip right now, but I will try to get over it by the time I get home tonight. Because I'm a grown up, as much as I hate that fact right now.
Eva got up at least five times last night. She could not rest, for some reason, and I am at my wits end with that whole business. I needs me some sleep. Straight through the night sleep. Eight hours, uninterrupted would be great, but I'd settle for seven. Really. I don't know what to do with her. She wakes up and she does not settle down and try to fall back asleep. She immediately calls out for us. She wants to come to my bed (at ten thirty). She wants to go downstairs and play (at somewhere after midnight). She wants to go potty (thirty seconds after I left her room after she wanted to go downstairs). She wants to come to my bed AGAIN (somewhere around three when I'm at my weakest) and I finally let her. Eric also got up with her once or twice, but I can't remember those times. Anyone? Anyone have any advice on this? Home girl is three, going on four. Her bedtime falls between seven-thirty and eight. We read a story. Rock. Sing a few songs. Lights out. EVERY NIGHT she is up at least once. Sometimes there is fighting before I even get out of her room. Someone tell me how to get this kid to give me a break. I beg of you.
I have been running the stairs at work barefoot today. Just two flights. I think anything more than that might be conspicuous. Someone might find the shoes.

I have a new goal. I'm going to run a 5K. For real this time, though. The Color Run is in St. Louis on my actual birthday - my 30th. I think that's as good a time as any to get my ass in gear. Who's with me?

Weight and other items of interest to no one but me.

I lied. I said I would probably be weighing in on Fridays, but that is a damn lie.
I am weighing on Wednesday. Because my facebook challenge told me to. And I am down half a dang pound. That is not impressive. That is not good. And I have been a failure at my challenges to myself for the most part. I DID plank and do wall sits yesterday and I will today, but prior to that was a big fat zero. I lose.

My in-laws are still visiting. It's been a fairly delightful visit so that's very nice. Last night, I was doing my planks and my mother-in-law, Angie, wanted to know what the heck a plank was. So, I showed her. And she proceeded to whoop my ass at planks. Thanks Angie. The woman has never done a plank in her life and she held for a full minute the SECOND time. The first time Eric didn't time her throughout, but I guessed it to be about forty-five seconds. For the love. Really. I did fifty seconds and wanted to die. Planking is boring, yo. I seriously despise it. But, I really would like to be able to do a two minute plank at some point because right now, Eric is showing me up in that department. Anyway. After Angie schooled me in planking, I showed her some other basic yoga moves that I like and the little ladies decided to get in on that. They were kind of rock stars at mountain pose. Startin' 'em young.

I said "other items" and that included an 's' so I feel like I need to come up with something else to discuss with you, but this is pretty much my life for the time being. Tonight I am going out for drinks with my friend Sheena. I'm so cosmopolitan! Drinks on a Wednesday!

Tell me something good.

Weekly Weigh In

No, I am not sharing my weight with you people, whoever you may be. I'm not that brave and I'm also not that much of a fan of hating myself publicly. What I will do is tell you that my weight is up AGAIN. UP. I am now almost at the weight I was after I gave birth to Audrey 19 months ago.
19 months.
Holy crap.
I have got to get it together, yo.
Confession: I have not worked out since the New Year. And, to be honest, I have not worked out in a shameful amount of time before that, either. Shameful. Instead I have been spending my lunch hours eating like crap and effing around on the internets. I'm not excited about the work that it takes to lose weight. I'm excited about the prospect of not being fat - obese, even -but I'm not excited about the journey. I'm hoping that Operation Red Bikini and the new challenge I'm joining via the Mama Laughlin Fit Camp on facebook. (I'd link, but I can't access facebook right now, so just google that business if you're interested)(or go to this link and see what it's all about! FitnessUnscripted.) The challenge will run the course of The Biggest Loser's television season and will even overshoot my birthday goal of thirty pounds.
So, I need to be clear here with my goals. I will report my weight issues once a week, probably on Friday. I won't be giving my actual weight because that's insanity and terrifying to me. But, I will tell you how much I'm up and how much I'm down. And, I'll be keeping a rundown of my work outs. Sorry if that stuff is boring, but it's what I've gotta do. I need some accountability now and I need ya'll to hold me to my goals. The plan is to get up Monday-Friday at 4:25 when Eric leaves and get my ass on the elliptical. Just thirty minutes, probably, but still. It's a start. And I'm going to do what I can in those thirty minutes. It'll be pathetic to start, but that's just the start. I'm hoping to work out somewhere, somehow at lunch every day as well. Or, I'll even say just four days a week. AND, finally, I'm challenging myself to a Plank-A-Day, Yoga-A-Day, and a Wall-Sit-A-Day as challenged by FatChick2FitChick. Yeah, it's a lot, but each of those things will only take a minute of my time to start with and can really help get my focus going. I hope.
Who's with me on any of this? Anyone? Anyone? Is this thing on? Steph, you better be reading this, since you're the reason I'm trying to write it again!

A little self-indulgence

I love reading about the people who's blogs I read. I recognize that I have like four readers and that two of you know me in person already, but I'm going to indulge myself and pretend like there are people out there wondering about me and my life. Makes me feel like a real blogger.

A. Age: 29. I turn 30 in April and I am not even really panicking about it at all. 
B. Bed size: Queen. I'd be fine with a full, to be honest. I'm one of THOSE people. I like to be all up in Eric's business when we sleep. I chase him off the bed, pretty much. 
C. Chore you hate: Folding the girls' clothes. So many tiny socks. Ugh.
D. Dogs: We had one, once. For about a month. It ate everything. My clothes. Shoes. Door frames. My wedding bouquet. He's gone now. I'm only mildly disappointed. The truth is, we didn't have the time and it wasn't fair to him to be alone so many hours of the day and not get the exercise he needed. Poor puppy. 
E. Essential start to your day: I don't really have any thing essential outside of the ordinary. 
F. Favorite color: Today? A green with just a hint of blue. I bought a cardigan at Target in this color and am loving it.
G. Gold or Silver: Silver. 
H. Height: 5'7"
I. Instruments you play: I played the flute in grade school. I was... not good at it.
J. Job Title: Receptionist. 
K. Kids: 2 little ladies. Eva is 3, will turn four already in July and THAT makes me panicky. Audrey will be 2 in May. 
L. Live: On the East Side. I'm from a little town in Illinois, east of St. Louis but still in the Metro area, I guess. 
M. Married: April 19, 2008.
N. Nicknames: I don't have any.
O. Overnight hospital stays: Just with the ladies. Two nights with Eva and one with Audrey. But, then there were four more with Audrey, but I wasn't admitted. I just refused to leave her. 
P. Pet peeve: Poor grammar. Bad manners. People who scuffle their feet. Mullets. Leggings as pants under inappropriate tops. Tardiness. I could go on and on. I'm crabby. 
Q. Quote: I don't really have a favorite that I can think of right now. And I'm not feeling clever enough to come up with something original.
R. Righty or Lefty:  Righty.
S. Siblings: 2 sisters. Both are older and both are pretty damn delightful. 
T. Time you wake up:  Prior to this year? 5:10 a.m. but the new goal (which, I recognize I'm a few days late on) will be 4:30 or so for some friendly time with my elliptical or a video of some variety.
U. University attended:  Pfft. College is for kids who don't have a deadbeat boyfriend to support, right? I dropped out of SWIC (a local college) after about a semester because my boyfriend was a piece and I felt a lot of pressure to work so I could support both of us. Yay for great life choices.
V. Vegetables you dislike: Green beans. Peas. Brussel sprouts (though I've had them cooked right ONCE and loved them.)
W. What makes you run late: I'm rarely late. It makes me twitchy. But, on occasion, something will happen with the girlies and that will put me behind a bit.
X. X-rays you've had: Ultrasounds. Teeth. Um. My back when they were worried I had some kind of autoimmune thing. My leg when I was in a car accident while in high school. I think that's it? 
Y. Yummy food: Almost all food is yummy. This is why I need to lose about fifty pounds.
Z. Zoo animal favorite: OH! I love the zoo. St. Louis has probably the best zoo in the country, I think. I went to the San Diego zoo and I was not that impressed. They have Pandas, which are my favorite, so they win in that category, but... Man. So, Pandas. And Red Pandas. I love me some Red Pandas. 

Resolute

Last year, I didn't make any resolutions. I'm consistently a failure at them and so I opted out. This year, I'm opting back in. I'm a failure because I don't hold myself accountable and because I'm lazy and one of my resolutions this year is to be decidedly UN-Lazy and to be Accountable. Brace yourselves, because I have a feeling I'm about to get wordy with this one....
There is no reason, at the age of 29, I should be indulging in cookies for breakfast or having more than one dessert in a day, just because I want to. I need to get control of myself and make some better freaking decisions. My schedule does not really allow for much down time for working out. That's a fact. It's the way my life is right now. So I will have to MAKE time. I will have to get my happy behind out of bed at four thirty instead of five ten and get on the dreaded elliptical. I will have to work out WITH my children present and deal with them climbing all the hell over me. I will have to actually work out over lunch instead of sitting here at my desk screwing around. It is time.
Another resolution is to master my new camera. That bad boy cost my parents a pretty penny (yes, my parents still get ups all Christmas gifts. This year, they went big for Eric and I and we got the camera) and I'm not going to have it go to waste by taking pictures only in automatic. That's for pansies. (Note that I've now owned a fabulous camera for over a week and I still haven't even downloaded the software so I can put the pictures on this here blog. Because of the Lazy. See? it's full circle.) I don't have any delusions that I'm ever going to be a fabulous photographer or that anyone will pay me to take their pictures, but I'd like to post pictures that other people will not scoff at and maybe take FREE pictures for some family friends who don't have the money to pay someone to do it for them.
Joy. That's the word of the year for me. I'm going to seek it and I'm going to create it. I'm not going to sit back, anymore, and wallow in my feel-sorry-for-myself. And I'm GOOD at wallowing. I am. But, hell, even I'm tired of me being that way. So, it's time to put on some sassy pants and grow the eff up. I'm not going to let other people's drama eat away at me anymore. I'm going to work on recognizing that the only person I can control is ME (well, and the little ladies because at 3 and 18 months they don't get to have a whole lot of decision making) and I'm going to focus on that. I spend a lot of my time being bogged down. I'm not a happy person by nature. I find a lot of joy in the little things, but I also find a lot of sorrow if I let myself. And, as I've stated, I'm an excellent wallower. It's a skill. I'm hoping to find little ways, every day, to bring joy into my life, but not just for me. I want to GIVE joy, as well. We'll see how this goes, but I started yesterday. Found a little something that made me think of my best friend at the store and bought it. It's nothing much but I know it will bring a smile to her face and I love that I will be giving her a little piece of joy without even having to work hard at it.
Another thing I love is what Megan at Honey We're Home did. Instead of creating a list of regular resolutions, she created a More and Less list. It's a wonderful idea, I think, so I'm going to ALSO steal that concept and jot down a few of those things myself:

Less Worry~More Faith
Less Quantity~More Quality
Less External~More Internal
Less Down~More Up
Less Television~More Movement
Less "Not now, girls"~More "Let's play!"
Less Processed~More Fresh

With that, I'm going to shut up for a bit. Hopefully I will spend some of my time today learning about that camera and thinking of little happy things I can do and not eating terrible things. Wish me luck.
What are your goals this year? Do you do resolutions, have a 'word for the year' or are you looking to change your life in some other way?

New Camera

So, I got the fabulous new camera for Christmas. It's a Canon Rebel and I'm so excited about it!
But I am poor at using it.
And, well, let's be honest. There's a lot of pressure to post beautiful photos. I feel like if I'm going to post a picture, it better be lovely. It had better be the most wonderfully staged, well composed picture that I have ever taken. And, that's a tall order. I have yet to even download the software onto my computer to take the pictures off of the camera and put them out there for use. I am behind, friends. I am not good at this. But! I am practicing. I have been taking ridiculous pictures of Steph, my deskmate(?), and I am hoping to just copy down a bunch of other fabulous photographer's setups for beautiful pictures and magically transform into a fabulous photographer myself.
Why is this so hard? Why do I have such high expectations for something that, in truth, is trivial? Frustrating.

Aside from my glorious new life partner camera, I got a lot of delightful things for Christmas! A bluetooth thing so I can drive and talk and not scare my mother to death. A beautiful scarf from my mother in law. A stellar new crockpot. (Incidentally, I felt incredibly old when I opened my crockpot and it was as if my wildest dreams had been fulfilled.) Eric bought me a beautiful sweater throw blanket from Target that I repeatedly showed him. He also got me a FitBit and I'm so looking forward to trying that baby out! It was a wonderful Christmas and I could go on and on about that, but not today. Today I'm going back to obsessing about figuring out how to determine ISO, Apeture, and Shutter Speed to take the most beautiful, blog worthy pictures that have ever been taken.

How was your Christmas? Did Santa treat you nicely?

Operation Red Bikini

I am not a self-motivated person for the most part. I don't get excited about working out and I don't have a 'game plan' in my head. I do best if I have someone screaming in my face, making me do the work. That is the only way I have ever lost real weight. I was a member of a gym where the instructors knew me and guilted me if I didn't show up and give it my all. I lost about fifty pounds and felt fabulous.
I have gained that and more back in the last seven years.
It's shameful, really.
So. I am taking the challenge from Southern Girl Gets Fit! A red bikini is so far out of my comfort zone that it kind of makes me dizzy, so my 'red bikini' will be a size ten. Nothing amazingly small, nothing out of this world. I'd even take a twelve, but the ten... that's my red bikini. The twelve would be like a black tankini, but actually wearing it in public. The red bikini is the holy grail.
Saying this makes me feel like a broken record. I'm forever promising myself that I'll get back into some semblance of a healthy shape, but then giving up at the first turn. Maybe this challenge will help me stick to the plan. I'm currently searching for a gym like the one I had before. One I can AFFORD to attend. I don't like working out alone. Like I said, give me someone yelling in my face to push harder and I'm gonna put it all out there. Give me a treadmill and some free weights and you might as well hand me a hot dog and a 32oz Ski.
After Christmas Eve I'll FINALLY have a camera and I will post a "before" picture and then I will weep. It won't be one of those like some brave women do where they're just in a sports bra and tight fitting pants. I'll be in yoga pants and a tank top, but trust. You will be able to see the horrors.
Hold me to this, yo. I need to get my ass in gear.

House Guests

Happy holidays!
I have pretty much been sucked dry lately. There is not an ounce of motivation in me to write, move, think, etc. All I want to do is eat delicious food and maybe nap? I'm not sure what the story is here.  I just really want to lie down most of the time, maybe in the bath, with wine. Whatever. Moving on!
My in-laws will be here a week from yesterday. They live in Mexico and we haven't ever had the chance to spend Christmas with them, so I'm super excited that they're driving up. Previously, when they've visited, we had a spare bedroom upstairs. Then we had Audrey and that became her room. They came when she was tiny, and we just left the bed up in there for them and let her sleep with us, but this time we decided to go a different route.
We built them a bedroom in the basement.
From scratch.
And by we, I mean my husband and his friend, my father, and my brother-in-law with some help from my uncle on one occasion. I mostly painted. And hung stuff up. But, whatever.
I wish I had a camera because the before and after pictures could be really stellar, but I'm not getting one until Christmas Eve. So, you'll just have to trust me. We've got a blue-grey thing going on the walls, which was a disappointment because it is NOT true to the color chip. We put up white curtains and used furniture we had around the house. I finally got to put up a pretty chandelier in a bedroom, so I'm pretty freaking pleased with that. (Eric insists on ceiling fans mostly.)
We also redid the stairs going to the basement. The area had previously been completely unfinished, with raw wood stairs and naked drywall on the walls. We had my brother-in-law texturize the walls in there and the bedroom and slapped some fantastic Palladian Blue (Benjamin Moore) paint up.  We bought treads at Lowe's and some 1xsomethings at our local hardware store and painted the treads black and the 1X's white to use as risers. It turned out pretty fabulous, if you ask me!
Anyway, that's what's been going on in Casa Bennett. Have you had any projects going on lately?