I think I might be a very bad person. This August I closed my home daycare, I had been operating for 3 years. There were a lot of reasons to quit. I hit a good point where many of my kids were moving or starting school, it made it easy to shut down. I had spent three years of people not paying me when they were suppose to, showing up to drop off kids or pick them up when ever they felt like it. I can remember one mom showing up at 5:30 in the morning to drop off her daughter and actually being mad at me for sleeping, by the way, she forgot to tell me she needed me that early, apparently I should have known! Another parent didn't come to get their child until after 8PM. I tried calling mom and dad with no answer and had to make cancellation for another group that I was volunteering for, made me look really good. I couldn't do things with my kids, not even give them a hug or kiss without a whole herd wanting the same. It became a problem.
One parent ranked far above the rest in inconsiderate. She would pay me late and her checks would bounce. She would drop off and pick up when ever it suited her. Complained constantly about the bill. She would stay to visit when she picked up her son, expecting me to feed and change him the entire time. She would have little complaints about how I cared for the kids, what I should be doing with my own children, so much so that I wondered why she would allow someone so incompitent to care for her child! Then it started on other things, she would critique my knitting (she doesn't know how to knit), how I cleaned my house, how I did my laundry, how I decorated my cookies! I couldn't stand it, I would cringe everytime she knocked on the door. Then she decided to move back to her home town. Demanded that her husband get his boss to let him work remotely from another state AND give him a massive raise, something I got to hear about for months before they left. When my husband started to really hate his job I told him that we had 7 months of bills in savings and he could quit his job to spend his time looking for a new one full time. This only made the mom worse, her husband would never quit his job, her husband could get another job in a hearbeat, his company would never let him go. Then she started in about their house, how, despite the declining housing market, their house would sell in a couple of days and they were going to make a profit on it. I had a little party when the moved!
Well, here we are three months later, their house still hasn't sold, hasn't even gotten an offer. The other day I found out that her husband didn't get a huge raise when they moved and he just got fired! I know it's horrible but I'm happy he lost his job. These people severely need to be humbled a little bit. I'm sure he will find something again soon but for now I get the satisfaction of knowing she gets to be just like the rest of us!
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
Weight Loss
A couple of months ago I leaned over to wrap my hair in a towel after a nice hot bath and noticed that my stomach was jiggling around like a bowl of jello in a plastic baggie. I stood up and wiggled my arms, then my thighs, and then noticed a few ripples and jiggles where there should never be a ripple or jiggle. I need to lose some weight or, at the very least, tone up a little. Since then I have been tracking my measurements every monday morning, watching what and how much I eat, spending 30 minutes at curves 6 times a week, and another 20 minutes on my stationary bike 6 days a week. I'm happy to say that I've started to see some progress, now I'm going to help hold myself accountable for my weight loss by posting it here. So as of today:
Weight: 163, this is up two pounds from Friday! Of course I had the flu last week so some of my weight loss might not have been anything I was purposely doing.
Height: 5'7
Arms: 11.5 inches
Chest: 36.5 inches
Waist: 31.25 inches
Stomach: 38.75
Hips: 41.25
Thigh: 21 inches
My goal is 135lbs which should put me in the dead center of my weight rage for my height, age and sex. More than that I would like to be a size 8 or maybe a size 6. I remember, vaguely, being a size 8 once and seemed to really enjoy it. The thigh of my pants didn't wear out, I could look at a pair of courderoy's without the horrible thought that eveyone would know where I was walking based on the sound of my pants rubbing together. I could wear a sleeveles shirt without fear of my arm flaps taking out passerby. If, by some chance, my shirt pulled to reveal my stomach I wasn't asked when I was due. Nope, size 8 is the goal. At the moment I am firmly in between a 10 and 12. The 12 is just a little too big while the 10 is still a little tight. I know that I can do this, I have confidence in myself.
I did notice something interesting about losing weight though. Some friends of ours said, "Oh you don't need to lose any weight, you look good!" I know it's a nice thing to say and I'm not that big, unless you've seen the jiggle you would agree, I'm fine. Unfortunately, obesity and all the problems that come with it run in my family. If I don't do the work now I'm going to dramatically reduce my life expectency through my weight. I'm trying to be proactive. Here's the part that I don't understand, we know that obesity is a problem and that is can cause a long list of health problems, we also know that smoking causing lots of health problems as well. We know that both habits are addictive and require a lifelong commitment to stop and get under control. We know that children can be harmed through either bad habit, even if their only exposure is knowing that a parent participates in an unhealthy lifestyle. What I don't understand is that it is perfectly acceptable to tell someone that they don't need to lose weight, but you wouldn't dream of telling someone to quit smoking. Likewise, it's acceptable to tell someone they should quit smoking but if you were to tell a friend that they should drop a few pounds you would be drawn and quartered. Don't misunderstand, smoking is bad and I need to quit for me, my family and the family that I hope to have but weight is an important issue as well, why don't we recognize that, why don't we get supportive about that? Why is ok to critize someone for making choices to prevent weight gain but's unthinkable to discourage someone from smoking? I just don't get it.
Weight: 163, this is up two pounds from Friday! Of course I had the flu last week so some of my weight loss might not have been anything I was purposely doing.
Height: 5'7
Arms: 11.5 inches
Chest: 36.5 inches
Waist: 31.25 inches
Stomach: 38.75
Hips: 41.25
Thigh: 21 inches
My goal is 135lbs which should put me in the dead center of my weight rage for my height, age and sex. More than that I would like to be a size 8 or maybe a size 6. I remember, vaguely, being a size 8 once and seemed to really enjoy it. The thigh of my pants didn't wear out, I could look at a pair of courderoy's without the horrible thought that eveyone would know where I was walking based on the sound of my pants rubbing together. I could wear a sleeveles shirt without fear of my arm flaps taking out passerby. If, by some chance, my shirt pulled to reveal my stomach I wasn't asked when I was due. Nope, size 8 is the goal. At the moment I am firmly in between a 10 and 12. The 12 is just a little too big while the 10 is still a little tight. I know that I can do this, I have confidence in myself.
I did notice something interesting about losing weight though. Some friends of ours said, "Oh you don't need to lose any weight, you look good!" I know it's a nice thing to say and I'm not that big, unless you've seen the jiggle you would agree, I'm fine. Unfortunately, obesity and all the problems that come with it run in my family. If I don't do the work now I'm going to dramatically reduce my life expectency through my weight. I'm trying to be proactive. Here's the part that I don't understand, we know that obesity is a problem and that is can cause a long list of health problems, we also know that smoking causing lots of health problems as well. We know that both habits are addictive and require a lifelong commitment to stop and get under control. We know that children can be harmed through either bad habit, even if their only exposure is knowing that a parent participates in an unhealthy lifestyle. What I don't understand is that it is perfectly acceptable to tell someone that they don't need to lose weight, but you wouldn't dream of telling someone to quit smoking. Likewise, it's acceptable to tell someone they should quit smoking but if you were to tell a friend that they should drop a few pounds you would be drawn and quartered. Don't misunderstand, smoking is bad and I need to quit for me, my family and the family that I hope to have but weight is an important issue as well, why don't we recognize that, why don't we get supportive about that? Why is ok to critize someone for making choices to prevent weight gain but's unthinkable to discourage someone from smoking? I just don't get it.
Here we go
So, here we go, I'm blogging! Hurray for me. Actually, I have been blogging for a few years now on myspace but recently found out that crazy people are reading it. People like my husbands friends. I thought I would give something a little more anonamous a try. I am a stay at home mom with three kids and a wonderful husband. The kids are 1st grade, kindergarten and 3 years old. We go to dance class, play hockey, karate, gymnastics, Girl Scouts, and a couple of dozen other things. My son has an IEP which is always a good time. Our middle child is completely flakey, I think her brain might be leaking, but is the most loveable child you could ever want to meet. The little one is a terror, she will beat on kids, get into things, and generally make me want to pull my hair out. The husband is wonderful, works hard, is a great dad, and completely anti social.
While my life mostly revolves around the family there is a little more to me. I don't have many friends, primarily because I think people don't like me. Somehow that doesn't keep me from volunteering for things though, I'm a girl scout leader, sunday school teacher, scheduling coordinator for hockey, secretary for the local knitting guild, director for our church photo directory (that's a yearbook for the church), and if that doesn't take up enough time I will radomly volunteer to host dinner parties, bake cookies, do things for the school and so on and so forth.
So here's the plan. I want to use my blog to talk about things that are important to me. Cooking, cleaning, raising kids, training an enormous dog, volunteering, people who annoy me, knitting, quitting smoking (yeah still one of those people), losing the rest of my pregnancy weight, getting pregnant again, and anything else that comes to mind. If that coming from someone who should probably be seeking pschyicatric help and possibly a class is spelling sounds like fun, come on down!
While my life mostly revolves around the family there is a little more to me. I don't have many friends, primarily because I think people don't like me. Somehow that doesn't keep me from volunteering for things though, I'm a girl scout leader, sunday school teacher, scheduling coordinator for hockey, secretary for the local knitting guild, director for our church photo directory (that's a yearbook for the church), and if that doesn't take up enough time I will radomly volunteer to host dinner parties, bake cookies, do things for the school and so on and so forth.
So here's the plan. I want to use my blog to talk about things that are important to me. Cooking, cleaning, raising kids, training an enormous dog, volunteering, people who annoy me, knitting, quitting smoking (yeah still one of those people), losing the rest of my pregnancy weight, getting pregnant again, and anything else that comes to mind. If that coming from someone who should probably be seeking pschyicatric help and possibly a class is spelling sounds like fun, come on down!
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