Shredhead? Perhaps?

I'm on a mission to lose. At the end of August, I felt like this. I blogged about it. I started doing one or two workouts a day. I was all EYE OF THE TIGER! Then I had surgery and blah blah blah, I've sorta half arse tried to lose weight. I'd be on a few days, then I'd take a few days off and find myself knee deep in a sushi buffet.

Last week, EYE OF THE TIGER came back and I'm so happy about it. I'm counting my calories and working out like a banshee. I've been (half arse) training for a 5k race using the Couch to 5k app on my phone. I've stepped it back up, and now I am on week 5. On Tuesday I ran 5 mins at a time followed by a 3 minute walk, then repeat. Tomorrow morn, I am supposed to run 8 minutes at a time. Wowsa.

Have I mentioned that when I couch to 5k it, I do it at 5am? 4:45 on work days. In the dark. Listening/singing showtunes or Pink the whole time. I got caught by my neighbor busting out some tunes. Luckily she was walking her five poofy white dogs, so who is she to judge?

I've now lost 2.5 pounds. In a month. 2.5 freakin pounds. I know all that crap about how its not the scale, its how I feel in my pants, and I'll be honest, the size 16s I bought are way loose and my 14s feel better, but I want to see poundage!!! So, I'm stepping it on up. And I'm bringing in an extremely fit and mean lesbo to help me out via her video, 30 Day Shred.

I'm on day 2 and I already hate this biotch.

At 8:01pm (kids go down at 8 on the dot!) for 30 days I will do The 30 Day Shred. I will. I will. I will. I'm also going to try to throw in walks and workout videos and continue my Couch to 5k thingamajig. Cause mama is tired of being tired.

The workouts are so hard on Lola too.

I can honestly say with 100% assurance that I will never be pregnant again (the surgery I had on mah angry uterus shut down the baby factory). So, every pound I say good-bye to is good-bye forever. And ever and ever. That is why I wanted to do this on no diet with no gym. Because I wanted to relearn my habits and know I can do this for life. Knowing myself, going on a diet would mean gaining all of it back the minute the diet was over. I'm focussing on eating a million more fruits and veg and cutting my portion sizes drastically. I am tracking calories on myfitnesspal.com. (my name on there is saraqualls, friend me!!!!)

And I don't want to rely on a gym. I want to be used to finding ways of working out when it's raining, or a holiday, or we have a sick kid, or we are saving money. It's too easy for me to make up excuses. I'm learning to hold myself accountable. It's hard! ****

****I'm not saying that if a groupon comes out with half price jazzercise classes that I won't snatch that baby up and dust off my jazz hands. Mama just found out they have a daycare!!!!

I got served and the pumpkin patches begin!!!!

I got served. By Rylan. Using my own words against me.

I'll set the scene: in our car, on our way (of course) to the doctor's office.

Rylan: "I want mooosic" (what, you don't speak 3 year old? MUSIC)
Me: "K!" I put on Pandora, which goes straight to a fast song, and I say "its a shake your booty song"
Rylan: "You can't say that! That's a bathroom word!"
Me: "Shake your groove thing? Is that ok?"
Rylan: "yeah, you can say that."

Thanks Rylan.

I've also been told that when I do good girl things, good things will happen. So far good girl things include: taking them for ice cream, to the park, making cookies, and picking him up from school early.

On the losing weight front, my body likes the weight it is. It LOVES it in fact. Wants to hold on tight on keep it close. It does this. It'll show up on the scale eventually. Cannot wait. I have lost 2.5 pounds, depending on the day. I am trying to exercise 4-6 days a week. I've made it to week 5 of the Couch to 5k (I've been "working" on it since July, go me!) and I very much enjoy running. Its a mood lifter and helps me get the angst of getting yelled at by a 3 year old and having a 2 year old that likes to remove his diaper and run with wild abandon. I just can't do it every day, because I have wonky knees, courtesy of my gene pool, and wonky ankles and feet courtesy of Death Fever and wonky knees courtesy of having 40 pounds too many on them. Last week I started Zumba. And it is fun. And not too terribly hard. I've only done the beginner's video, more updates later.

And now.......the Halloween playdates have started!!!!

Rylan with his friends Shayla and Matt

 Fun in the corn pit

The scary steep and slippery slide that goes into the corn pit. And by scary steep and slippery, I mean, scary and steep and slippery only to the moms, the kids loved it.

Feeding the goats. Max liked a good 5 feet between him and a goat.

Trike time

Hay bale maze

Cow train. Has anybody noticed that Max has gotten so freakin old lately? Riding with a bestie? Holy moly.

And Ry is riding the upgrade of the cow train-the Bull Train all by hisself. OMG. Old.

I asked Rylan to strike a models pose on his side. This is what I got. Hmmmm.

This is Fiona. And she has Max pulling her around. Nicely done.

 Not too bad

This is Matt and Shayla's sis. Could you just eat those cheeks?

 Lookie who I got to join MOPS!!!! Krystal and Hayes!!!!! Harper had to go to school this day.

Sweet Hayes

Precious corn lover

 Studs

Playdate for Max and a recipe for cheapos.

Rob and I decided to not stress over Max's birthday, that he would not remember it and that he would just enjoy a day with us at Chuck E. Cheez and a few presents. And a cookie cake.

And we were right. He loved it.  I felt good not planning a big party and buying extra stuff for my kid's birthday. After all, we are going to Silver Dollar City in November as a joint present to the kids. I felt good about it.

No I didn't.

I took oreos and juice to his school on his actual birthday.

Then I planned a playdate at my house and invited his friends. And made cupcakes. What's that saying about not being able teach and old crazy mom new tricks? I cannot be taught to keep life simple.

I think Santa Max enjoyed Birthday part Deux

During previously mentioned playdate, my friends Krystal and Michelle, started asking questions about my homemade laundry detergent. Then it became pretty much blasphamous that I hadn't blogged about it yet. And when Krystal and Michelle tell you to blog about something, you do it. Cause they are drama free and fun and I love their kids and they have awesome taste in 2 year old birthday presents.

In an effort to make myself go completely and totally batshit crazy trying to do everything save money, I have taken to making lots and lots of stuff homemade. It started with having to go dairy free, it was easier to make waffles, pancakes, and such homemade than pay out the arse for dairy free stuff. Then I realized that homemade pancakes tastes so. freakin. good. and cost almost nothing to make. Seriously, they cost so little. At the same time, I was getting so tired of buying laundry detergent. Its so pricey and I hate buying it. I heard that some people made it at home, so I thought I'd try it. LOVE! One batch of this laundry detergent lasts about a month and costs about $3. I wash a lot of clothes. I have two boys that I let play in mud, eat spaghetti, help me cook, everything. Rob also wears jeans everyday to work and I wear scrubs that I strip out of the minute I step in the door (Because I work in a nasty place), so on work days, I use two full outfits. I probably do about 7 loads a week. So, to a normal person, this amount would probably last more like two months. I believe someone broke it down to costing $0.03 per load. And, Oh my gosh it smells so good and it cleans so well.

So, here you go, girls.

1 cup Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda (not baking soda)

1 cup Borax

1 Fels Naptha Soap Bar-$1.87

I buy the Super Washing Soda and Borax at Kroger and its usually less, the Amazon price is $6 for the Super Washing Soda and $6 for the Borax. All of these are located in the laundry section at the store. I have better luck with the Fels Naptha with price at the hardware store in my town, so Rob is trained to grab me one everytime he goes to the hardware store. The Washing soda and Borax make enough for 6 batches or so of detergent. 

Using a cheese grater grate down the bar of soap till it looks like above. Stir in 1 cup Borax and 1 cup Super Washing Soda and mix until well blended. 1 tbsp of soap to a load of laundry. Unless it was a play in the ditch day, that gets 2 tbsp.

New "before pic"

My first before pic did my extra baggage too little justice.

Here is part two. And a restart**

My original "letting it all hang out" post is here. I feel I posted it a tad early, seeing as to how I had to have surgery the next week. Our lives are crazy. And I don't blame them for why I'm hefty (I am why I'm hefty), but I do blame the craziness for why I can't get up and go. 2 therapies, work, at home preschool, sinus infections and surgery have all become part of our life since that post. The first hurdle for me is for me to learn how to juggle all this and not turn to food when I'm stressed or make reasons not to work out.  I've healed, started working out again and am back in the game. 40 pounds  38 pounds is a lot to lose, but I have so much to gain. Self appreciation is a mighty fine thing. So is a healthy heart. And healthy kids who have a good role model.

So, I'm letting it all hang out on our blog. I need to lose 40 pounds. And I'm gonna bore you with the details of how I get that done. Because what will give me more umph than knowing I need to blog about my success. I've thought and prayed and asked advice about whether to put it on the blog. Whether it mattered to me that my far away family and friends and slight adequateness and, even, strangers would know my size, my struggles, and my worries. I hope its not annoying. I thank you for being my friends and family and I hope you'll support me, and all of us and if you don't want to look at it, scroll down to a different post and read about my cute kids. I probably would I was you!!!  

**And, for all of you that are enjoying the 5000 things on my cabinets and feeling better about yourself based on the looks of my kitchen last Sunday night: your welcome. I did clean it this week and it looked fabulous for 5 minutes. Till Crazy Train and Talks Back woke up. 

Max Is TWO!!!!

Oh holy moly! I thought I told my boys to quit getting older, but they just won't listen!!!

Today is our sweet Max's 2nd birthday. I love almost everything about Max. Correction, I love everything about Max, even the food throwing, occasional meanie side of him. Because, without those little issues, he just wouldn't be Max.

Two years ago, we showed up at the hospital at 5:30 am, and by 7:57am, we were holding Maxton Robert. He was a calm, happy baby. He had a mean belly that made him puke a lot, but he was the happiest puker in all the land. I wish life had slowed down for us a bit that first year with him, we had lots of illnesses and a few hard times, but I feel like we did our very best to enjoy snuggling and loving on him. Those cheeks of his are perfect for kissing and his happy demeaner made you want to kiss him all the time.

This past year has been a joy. Max started walking on his first birthday and really hasn't slowed down since. Incidentally, he has only gained a couple of pounds in a year as well. I'd keep weight off too if I threw 1/2 of my meal and ran everywhere.  Hmmm.....weight loss idea????

Max's language is on fire. He can speak in  some full sentences and gets his needs known quite well. He talks about Chuck E. Cheez a lot, but loves to talk about animals, cars, and, really, anything. He "sings" Twinkle Twinkle and the ABC's (the tune is there, just not all the words) and would sit and read 100 books a day with you if you were up for it.

He is an awesome sleeper. He likes a good 2 hour nap and lays back down at 8pm and sleeps till at least 6am, sometimes as "late" as 8am.  I pray that he never learns how to crawl out of his crib, because with his weight being a good 15 pounds less than Rylan at this age, I'll keep him behind bars as long as possible. We only moved Rylan because my back couldn't take it anymore. And bedtimes have not been fun ever since.

So....Guess what Max wanted to do for his birthday? Chuck E. Cheeze MOUSE!!!! I am having a birthday playdate for him this Wednesday and we are spending what we would have spent renting some big birthday place on a trip to Silver Dollar City for both boy's birthdays early next month. But, our family of four enjoyed some quality Max bday time (with 20 extra tokens sent to my email for Max, from the mouse himself, wowsers!) at Chuck E. Cheez Mouse. He never gets sick of this place, and on a cool, rainy Sunday morn, what better place to take him for a birthday celebration?

1st ride on the horse. Neigh

2nd ride on the horse. NEIGH!!!!

Quality b-ball with dada. 

A visit from Chuck E. himself. Chuck E. Cheez Mouse and Max have a love-hate relationship. The mouse in the "flesh"/costume/fur causes nightmarish whimpers out of Max. The mouse in any picture, on any commercial, on any game, causes thrilling enchantment from Max.

I was told once you sometimes have to sacrifice your kids if you look decent in a pic. Really good mothering advice that wasn't in any pics.

Later that night we opened gifts. Rylan "bought" Max something.

It was cars!!!!

Next up was educational blocks. Max's feelings? Meh.

Now we're onto something!

Shazam

 And the grand finale!

 Loved it!

 Cookie cake!

Max, we love you. Thank you for being you. You are our very favorite youngest son of all the youngest sons we have. To quote your pal, Dr Seuss:

"There is no one alive that is Youer than You"

Razorbacks and Therapy

First of all, the Razorbacks are going to cause Rob to NEED therapy. 

But, having awesome friends, like Justin and Debbie and Becca and Drew, who threw AWESOME tailgates sure helps.

The spot they got us had SCENERY! What????

And a picture of a Hog pushing an Alabama thing in the ground. The team did not see this play apparently. Sigh.......

Now lets talk about an area of our life that we are WINNING! I am sure that, as faithful blog readers (bleaders?), you remember that we have had our ups and downs in the speech department with Rylan. There was the 2 year visit where the doctor didn't think there was a problem. There was screaming of the word "NURCH" in JC Penny, there was the moment Rylan asked me "what you doing?" that I, literally, cried because I read that asking a question is an absolute positive sign that all synapses in the brain are firing on demand.

At Rylan's 3 year visit, the doc agreed he needed speech therapy. The long therapin' process began January 2012.  We live in the boondocks, and live off one income, so we chose to go with the local Speech Co-op rather than drive 30+ miles and pay out the whazoo for therapy. This is helpful on the driving and moolah front, but seriously unhelpful in the "too many kids, not enough therapists, too much work, not enough pay" category of life. 

They told me he would need to get evaluated for both developmental and speech therapy. I thought he'd sail through the developmental and qualify for speech in 12 different ways. Ummmm....he qualified for developmental therapy in 3 categories and qualified for speech in only one. I was wrong. 

It took them FIVE. WHOLE. MONTHS. to accept Rylan to speech and developmental therapy. Lots of evaluations to work through. Lots of tape. Lots of crappity crap. They accepted him May 20. School let out May 28. They work on the school's schedule. Where am I going with this? They took 5 months to accept him, and accepted him in time to take a 3 month break. 

Over the summer, I did what I could with Rylan. I got lots of worksheets from sister Tammy (who, by chance is a speech therapist FOR KIDSSSS whoop whoop), worksheets off the internet, and we got Rylan (and Max) in an actual preschool that has provided lots of classroom time, lots of playtime, and lots and lots of social interaction. From our home-work and his 2 days/week at school, Rylan's speech has gotten so much better.

Now we are in September. School is in session. So is speech and developmental therapy**. We have a lady that brings us Hippy work (basically "preschool at home) on Tuesdays. On Wednesdays and Thursdays we go to the local elementary school for speech. When Max goes down for a nap, Rylan and do extra work so that we can show the Hippy teacher and the therapists just how awesome he is. 

I am amazed at Rylan. He is a hard worker and very good and attentive with his teachers and therapists. And, I am so, so, so, so thankful that all of these things have started. It is stressful to have somewhere to be and homework for a 3 year old, but GOOD stressful. For 2 years, Rob and I have carried this weight on our shoulders and it feels like there are many people helping us carry that weight now, and at the same time the weight is getting lighter and lighter.

Practicing cutting. I got a free subscription to Martha Stewart magazine a while back 

and I am more than happy to donate that stuff to Rylan to cut the shit out of. Martha is 

not my people. Her stuff is too difficult and she has an attitude. It carries through in her magazine.

 I do appreciate her help in getting Rylan mad cutting skills.

And brother gets a little developmental therapy as well. Side note.: Don't give Max scissors. If you like your skin, hair, table, cocker spaniel ect.

**If you are wondering why Rylan, who could climb to the top of a jungle gym at 1 year of age and has been able to get himself in and out of his carseat since he was 2 and can throw trash away, put stuff in the laundry basket for me and already knows his left and right feet qualified for developmental therapy in lots of categories, I'll tell ya. Rylan has trouble with things that go in order. He gets overwhelmed. He can't count to 10, but he can stack 13 blocks. He can't say his full alphabet at almost 4 but he can recite his favorite song. If I give him a paper with several items on it and ask him to count them, he starts out fine and then just names every number he's ever heard and looses patience. He doesn't hold a pencil right, he holds it like a baby does, with a fist instead of three fingers but he can work just about any toy he was ever given. In an older person, he would probably be tested for a form of dyslexia. Developmental therapy is helping him with this. And it is getting better. The best thing is that this is what they are good at and they give me direction for how I can help him. Thankful. Thankful. Thankful.

An update and a review

An Update:
I've lost 3 pounds. Not unbelievable awesomeness, but not shabby considering I had surgery in the middle of it and caught myself laying in bed shoving Nutter Butter bites in my mouth in the aftermath!

I FEEL better than I have in a long time. The symptoms that caused me to have the endometrial ablation were not fun, then in August they put me on medicine that made me go into temporary menopause. Just a suggestion? Don't do this in August.

Menopause=hot flashes
August+hot flashes=Sweaty beast

Just sayin'. I'm a sweaty beast as of late. But its getting better. Its all getting much better. I don't lie, that I was dealing with the symptoms and trying to ignore them and I straight up puked in front of my patient at work one day. Called the doc that very day and asked for a visit.

A Review:

During my surgery recovery, in a percocet induced state, I had the BEST IDEA I'VE EVER HAD (it felt like it at the time). I decided that as part of my weight loss I was going to try all different workouts and workout videos and blog about them for the betterment of mankind. All two of mankind that will read this. So, with the help of a percocet happy high, I put approximately 42 workout videos in my Netflix queue**.

So, here's my first installment:

I like Boot Camp type workouts. For as jovial and bouncy as I seem, I can't stand happy go lucky workout instructors. Drive me nuts. I like for people just to yell at me and be super serious and I don't want hard routines that  you have to learn. I just want to get in, get out and burn some calories.

This video MOSTLY does this. I, personally, in all my 40 pounds overweight knowledge, think its inappropriately named. I don't think its a Boot Camp workout, as much as Interval Training or Cross Training. That being said, it was a good workout, had options for high and low impact, used weights and your own body weight to increase calorie burn and 30 minutes went by in a blink of an eye. And the next day I. WAS. SORE. So, obviously something got worked that hasn't been worked in a while. I have done a different Biggest Loser workout that was super cheesy, this one was less cheesy, but no without a decent amount of cheesy comments and not great music.

On a scale of 4 fat rolls being AWESOME and 0 Fat rolls being NOT WORTH YOUR TIME, I give this a solid 2.5 fat rolls.

**I also pinned about 900 things on Pinterest and earned 520 Swagbucks. Its a really good thing I didn't have a credit card at the ready, I would own like 10 As Seen On TV products.

Scenes from last week

We started the week out right with some Whole Wheat Pancakes. They aren't as good as whole WHITE pancakes, but I'm trying to drop a few alot of poundage, so whole wheat it is. Pretty dandy.

Then we ventured out to enjoy a snippet of non-rainy day

OMG the cuteness

Gosh he is so freakin cute, too.

On the hunt for acorns. 

Rylan and his sticks. Love.

I remembered why you don't put your kid in a white monogrammed shirt and go in the backyard to play.

Then, we embraced the crazy amount of rain from Hurricane (Ivan, Even, Isaac?) and went to Chuck E. Cheez. Max's newest phrase? Chuck E. Cheez. When your almost two year old utters Chuck E. Cheez with lots of spit and toddler-ism thrown in there, its so freakin cute, you race to Chuck E. Cheez. The actual mouse himself was on hand to dance with the kids and throw out free tickets. To which Max got a face like he was being chased by an ax murderer and pretty much told Chuck E. Cheez where he could shove his pizza. Now if you ask him where we went he says "Chuck E. Cheez MOUSE!"

Then I did a little of this.  Look at me with a protective hand over my uterus. "mah angry uterus is gonna get a beating!" I happily accepted all sedatives and pain meds offered. It was a pretty incident free experience. I did have to stop myself, in a drug induced state, from asking my anesthesiologist why he chose the Yosemite Sam moustache. It was really hard not to say anything. Really really hard.

While I surgeried, my sons played with Grammy and Papa. And they had a blast.

They was pepper picking

Dolls? My kids are pretty secure in their manhood.

Popsicles!!!!! Side-note, Max calls these Cocksicles. Its funny every time.

And then Rob went and picked my precious boys up and brought their sleeping selves home to me and I couldn't stop kissing and cuddling and smelling them (Percocet?). Never realized that I smell my kids till Rob handed me Max and he laid on my shoulder and I took a big whiff and sighed happily. I'm so weird.

Our awesome neighbor, Ms. Renee, made us dinner. Maxers liked the corn. A whole lot. Side note- Rylan calls Ms. Renee "misanay". I'm pretty sure its going to stick forever. Its one of those I hope does. I'll be so sad if he sees her and says her name normal.

And I rested, and Rylan snuggled me and all was well.

And we got our Max and he snuggled Daddy and Daddy read him his Razorback book 17 times and all was even more well.