Its that time of year again...

The most depressing time of the year...season finale time. Sunday was Desperate Housewives, done 'til the fall. Monday & Tuesday I said goodbye to Dancing With The Stars. American Idol is again no more. *sniff* In just a few short minutes it will be the beginning of the end of Grey's Anatomy as well. The only thing I have to look forward to next week is the finale of Lost...although, on second thought maybe that's not such a bad thing, that show can be so irritating! And all the other shows that aren't so high on my list or I only catch occasionally...they are gone for the summer too.

What's a girl to do...clean my house...laundry...read books...*gasp* go to bed early???

Sure soon enough the crappy summer shows will start and there'll be something to watch now and then, but its just not the same. If only we, the tv devotees, weren't cheated out of months of our favorite shows by that stupid writers strike it might not be so hard to take. But this year, JUST when we got them back, our shows are ripped from us yet again. *sigh*

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Yeah, I SO need a life...but until I can get one of those, this is my connection to the outside world, so I'm content to sound totally pathetic, LOL!

Bunch 'o random stuff...

So its been awhile...not much going on and tons at the same time.

R's g-tube fell out a month ago, we decided against putting one back in. It was exciting and scary at the same time. He's been doing pretty much the same as he had been. He is gaining weight, albeit veeeeeeeery slowly and in veeeeery small increments. Got the pictures back from the photo shoot they did, some very cute ones in there. Haven't seen the finished newsletter yet, not sure if they'll send us one or not.

Kids were all sick this month, very congested, ear infections, puking, coughing...the whole nine yards. R had it first and is over it now, haven't heard any of E's residual coughing for a couple days, and K is still at the tale end of the stuffy nose & cough. C is sick too and still feeling miserable. And me...I'm bowing at the feet of my Grapefruit Seed Extract. I've been downing it and the Emergen-C every time I feel even the slightest tickle in my throat or ache in my joints and I've managed to be coughed in my face, puked on, gotten surprise open mouth kisses complete with a snot covered nose...and I'm still healthy!! Good thing too, it was a nasty bug and this place would have gone to hell if I had gotten it. Its halfway there on a regular basis anyway, can you imagine if I was incapacitated for a few days, eeek!!

I managed to meet my resolution of keeping the house clean for over a week, yippee!!! However, it only lasted about 2 weeks and is now pretty much back to a pit. Ah well, it was nice while it lasted.

I've gotten a bit back on track with exercising this month. Started going for walks again a couple times a week. That first time was weird, I got to the gate of our apartment complex and had like this mini anxiety attack. I was stepping out of my comfort zone on so many levels, who could blame me. But, it felt good, and I've been feeling good. Haven't worked out as much as I should, but I'm still plugging along.

K is no longer nursing, stopped just a little short of a month ago. I'm sad about that and happy at the same time. I was really glad to be able to give her 16 months worth of breastmilk, and I was really happy that she chose to stop nursing instead of it being my decision. I met all the goals I wanted to and never got to with my boys. I had been feeling totally ready to have my body back to myself for a while, and yet it was still bittersweet to know that part of my life is over. It is truly an amazing experience to nurse a child, before I had children I thought it was just the best food for your baby, but it is so much more than that. I never thought I would feel that strongly about it, its wonderful. But not only is the nursing over, but my baby is growing up. WAAAHHH!!!!

E is well, if you know him, he's E... I must say I am very proud of him, he is an amazing reader. I knew from his teacher that he was in the top reading group in his class and was able to choose books from the "2nd grader part of the library" and has gotten to read to the kindergarten classes. But, not having any other older children to compare to, I didn't realize how good he really is. Went to one of his read alouds and out of all the other kids in the group doing the reading...he really was the best. I was surprised hearing the other kids struggle on some of the words and were kinda slow. Not that they are bad readers by any means, its just I guess I never heard what a "normal" first grader reads like...and they weren't even the "normal" kids, they were the others in the top reading group. He is reading chapter books all by himself and he loves it.

Well, I'm being paged so I guess I'd better finish...nothing much else going on anyway!

You wanna know one of the worst things about being fat?

Bras!! They just suck when you're fat. I dunno, maybe its just me, but they are just NEVER comfortable, they dig in here and there, I feel like I'm always adjusting them, and the wires are ALWAYS breaking on me, ugh! (And yes I've measured a gazillion times to make sure I'm wearing the right size.)

Anyway, this past weekend I went bra shopping. I'd been wearing cheapy, stretched out, saggy nursing bras that had as much support as a wet noodle for way too long. K is only nursing very early in the morning when I'm not even wearing a bra, so I decided it was time. I also decided to skip the Walmart bras I usually get and spend the money to go back to wearing really GOOD ones.

I went into 2 plus-size stores and all they had were padded bras! Come on, I have enough as it is, I don't need MORE. And really, don't most women who'd need to go to a plus size store have plenty of breastage?? Seriously, so those women wearing a size 46G WANT padding???

I finally found a couple styles sans stuffing at Lane Bryant, but still my selection was pretty poor. So, I caved in and tried a couple padded ones on. Big mistake!! It was a very scary sight, nobody needs boobs that big! Ok, well I'm sure there are some women who come by it naturally, but nobody needs to purposely make them that big!

I guess there's worse things than wearing only one style of bra for the rest of your life. Hmmm...guess that's just another reason I should get my arse in gear and lose some weight.

Anyway, I make my purchases and despite the sparse selection was very happy. I even went into the bathroom and put one on right away, depositing the ratty nursing one that had less support than my shirt in the trash on my way out. I felt pretty and perky for the first time in a long time, LOL.

But then, I started to realize the ONE good thing about the wireless bras I'd been wearing...they don't STAB you in the armpits over and over and over again! Maybe I'm the only one with this problem, but the wires are always way too long and whenever I sit or reach down they poke into me really hard. About halfway through a day I want to rip the bra off because its so irritating.

So my bra revelry was short lived. Perky isn't a whole lot of fun when your pits are bruised. *sigh*

Hello, my name is Amanda, and I am a slacker...

But you knew that already, right? *sigh* I was doing so well with my workouts in January, I met my goal of 21 out of 30 days, I was actually liking to work out and wanting to work out...I was feeling good! And then February came. Not sure what happened, but I just don't have the motivation anymore. I feel like such a slug. I need a big 'ole kick in the rear, cuz if I don't stop slacking soon February is going to be a total wash in the weight loss department.

I'm also a total slacker house keeper. But you knew that already too. I had to frantically clean the kitchen and part of the living room last week just so that it was presentable enough for the maintenance guy to come in and fix a leak. R is getting his pics taken here next Tuesday for that newsletter thing and I'm already stressing about it. One of the boards I frequently read/post on has been down for over a week and will be until Saturday. I'm suffering withdrawals! I thought I'd get more done around the house without the biggest part of my internet addiction...but alas not even that is enough to get me up off my butt and clean.

I hate this apartment. Wait...no, I don't. Can't forget my resolution to think more positively. This apartment is wonderful, it really, really, really is.

From "never gonna be good enough" to "poster child"...

So anyone remember all the crap I had to go through in order to get R into that hospital feeding program? In short it took forever, they didn't think he was ready and constantly made up new reasons when called on the ridiculousness of their previous ones, I could never get any info from anybody, they kept making us jump through all these hoops and when we did would still say R wasn't ready, yadda, yadda, yadda. They finally let him in but I'm certain a huge part of their decision to do that was based upon the fact that they were sick of my bitching to them all the time about their incompetancy and hypocrisy.

Of course, he goes through the program and lo and behold a miracle occurs!! He started at 100% tube fed and ended at 0% tube fed. In the room with these people who didn't think he was even nearly ready for their program the air was so thick with the shock at how well he did and with the pleasure in themselves you could slice it. He has now been completely off of tube feedings for almost 6 full months. I bet they are still patting themselves on the back...

Really, I'm trying not to be bitter, I AM thankful that my son is eating, but at the same time these people really ticked me off and still irritate me beyond belief and I can't let it go. No, that's not it...I just don't want to, LOL.

Ooooh, but now guess what they want to do??? Put his story on the front page of a newsletter for the hospital!!! This newsletter that goes out to the people who give them money to run the program! Whaddyaknow! The director of the program keeps making sure that I've spoken to the woman in charge of R's story, she REALLY wants him to be on the cover. Shocker!

I *might* feel a bit better if any of them would admit they were totally wrong, oh and apologize for not letting him in a year earlier the first time they evaluated...yeah right, not gonna happen!

Why do I bother?

So I spent some time this morning picking up the living room. I didn't get ALL of it done, but the majority of it. And less than 10 hours later...it looks worse than it did before I cleaned it up. Maybe the more dirt the crappy carpet accumulates the more gravitational pull it has. And so all the objects in the house have no choice but to end up on the living room floor. The dining room is the same, no, actually, its worse. I could clean that floor every day and every day it would look like nobody had picked anything up off of it in 2 weeks. Makes sense...more food, more dirt, more gravity. So seriously, why do I bother? Its obviously a losing battle, you can't fight gravity, right?

Back on track...

So, yeah, my weight loss efforts for last year totally tanked. I think I just got too overwhelmed by life...the house, the kids, the dog, school responsibilities, etc, etc, etc. I've also gotten into a total funk about our living and money situation and C and I are both completely miserable living in this apartment. I let my depression about all that get in the way too much. I also let my exhaustion from not getting any decent sleep for the past 14 months + get in the way.

But I also gained weight as a result of letting all that interfere and I'm totally disgusted with myself. This has been the first time in my life (aside from pregnancy which doesn't count) that I've really noticed myself getting bigger. I guess all along its just been a slow progression that didn't really stick out as "wow, you're getting fat!", but not this time, this time I can totally see it and I hate it. And I'm disguested with the way I've been living life in general. I'm tired of being miserable and right now I'm going to start making a concerted effort to change my ways of thinking to more positive ones. If I can get my mind set right I'm sure it will go a very long way to getting my body set right.

I'm back on phase 1 of the Best Life Diet. I'm eating healthy breakfasts, trying to get in tons of water, increasing my exercise, and not eating after 8 pm. Well, I'm trying to do all that, and I've done a pretty good job of it the past 4 days. As long as I can keep my motivation up I'm sure I'll be doing each of those consistently before the end of the month.

I'll have to go back and answer all the questions that I posted again since its been so long. Maybe some things have changed, and maybe they haven't...we'll see.