Staying positive...despite all the snot

Let's get it over with:


Same as last week. And you know what? I'm actually okay with it. I had visions of being in the 160s by now, but I've seen progress, even if the scale doesn't show it. The progress is what I'm focussing on. My clothes are looser, but better yet, I'm jogging 4 miles at a stretch now. I never thought I'd be able to do that after less than a month of jogging. The breakthrough happened last week when I dropped my speed. I'm a slow runner to begin with...now I'm even slower! I dropped it down from 5.5 to 5 mph. Ever since doing so, I've been able to run longer and with practically no pain in my knees; whereas before, my knees hurt every time I ran. I haven't been so good with my weight training this time around...add onto that my period, and the scale's results aren't really a surprise. I'm excited about something, though! I've had my eye on this guy at the gym for a couple weeks now. I only see him on the weekends. He's a trainer and he knows his sh*t. You know how you can just look at someone and know whether or not they love their job and that they're the best at it? Well, I took one glance at this guy and I knew it. I wanted to ask management for his name a couple weeks ago so I could try to set up a session, but I wasn't sure if he was an employee. I thought he might be a contractor there against the rules, and I didn't want to be the one to call him out and get him into any trouble. However, I finally broke down and asked about him over the weekend, and the front desk people gave him my name and number, which he ended up not needing 'cause he stopped me on my way out of the gym and we ended up talking for close to an hour. All I want is one training session about every 6 weeks. It's crazy that I'm so intimidated by the machines, but I am...I need my hand held for a little while until I get my confidence back. Well, he basically told me that my gym has no plans for me, that I'd be throwing away a lot of money, but that he'd be happy to help me. When I asked him for how much, he said "Whatever you think is fair." Argh! I HATE that! I walk by yard sales that don't have prices marked 'cause I HATE to negotiate prices. HATE IT! So then he asked me what I used to get paid to teach a class. When I said $20, he said "Sold!" Then I said "No way, that's not fair." Anyways, you can only imagine how long this went on! We finally settled on a "fair" price and I have my first session on Feb. 8th. I'm so excited. SO excited. Needless to say, Chris is totally making this hard on me. He's all about teasing me about my "gym boyfriends." Sigh.

So a question to all the moms out there. Am I crazy or is this baby fat totally different from the fat I had before having baby? I swear it is. It's like reinforced steel/super glue kind of fat. I seriously feel like I'm in some weird fat suit. I've been big before...200 pounds a few years ago...so I'm used to carrying extra weight. This weight just feels different. I can't really describe it. Hopefully you know what I mean.

News on the homefront...baby is sick. There's all sorts of snot, crankiness, and clinginess going on. The snot is gross. I'm not a fan. It's just running out nonstop, and her preferred way to deal with it is rubbing up against me. Yuck! I've kind of grown dependent on our trips to the gym...it's like guaranteed me time that I look forward to a whole bunch...but I think this cold of hers will have us staying home all week. Here's a little pic of her from today...I was trying to capture the snot, but this doesn't do it justice...



More baby stuff...So we used to give her a bath every night, but we cut down to every other night about a month ago 'cause her skin was starting to get really dry. Chris was thrilled 'cause he hates bath duty, so this change made it possible for him to go a couple weeks without bath duty falling on his baby duty night. Well, as of about a week ago, Raina has started to ask for her bath specifically. It's super cute...she'll stop what she's doing, give you puppy dog eyes, and sign bath (which looks like she's rubbing her chest with both hands). It seems as though bed time doesn't go so smoothly when we ignore her requests, so more often than not, she's getting a bath every night. She's even started asking for it multiple times a day, but I'm not going there with her! She's still not walking. She's discovered crayons and enjoys "drawing" with them. She talks a lot but doesn't say much, if you know what I mean. She's got "Daddy" down. For some reason, I've always been "VaVa." She tends to say "MaMa" only when she's really upset. Banana is still "bababa" and she's playing around with different ways of saying "penguin." Still no hair. Grrrr!

On the hubby front, a lot going on....His company is asking for voluntary lay offs. If they don't get enough people to volunteer, whatever "enough" may be, they'll start with the firings. Needless to say, it's worrisome and my defense mechanism of choice is avoidance. So, to that end, moving on...

Provided he still has a job, he's being sent to Europe in February. They're still not sure on the dates...something like the 9th to the 20th. That's a long time! I knew this trip was coming, but I had really hoped it would be in March, when the weather was better. I'm not really looking forward to being a single mom for that amount of time, but I am looking forward to the quiet nights of being alone. Oh, and the king-sized bed all to my myself ;) I know I'll get lonely, though, and desperate for me time, so I'm hoping friends and family will be willing to make themselves at home here every once in a while.

So I figured out the main reason behind my serious decrease in computer usage: I no longer have a laptop. Every time I go to sit down at my computer now, Raina crawls up to me all excited saying "Daddy?" and signing "up" until I pick her up and we look at pictures and videos of Daddy. I can get nothing done other than the short facebook status updates, which I have to do when she's not looking. Once evening comes around, I'm cleaning and working out and ready for time to myself to do nothing. So there. I don't quite know how to fix the situation. I'll have to think about it...

That's all for now. I hope to be back sooner than next Monday. Another reason I've been slacking on the blog is that my camera battery has been dead and the charger has been missing. I remedied that today :)