Well, I’ve joined Weight Watchers online. Again. Hubby has been really helpful this time — probably more than ever before. Last night, we talked over how I’d been doing, points-wise, the last few days. That’s very unusual for him, as he usually is pretty uninterested.

Today was actually my first weekly weigh-in. I didn’t lose anything, but, I also didn’t gain, despite attendance at a business conference which was awash with delicious, free, free-flowing food. So, I’m feeling pretty positive. I get tons of points as a serious fatty, which makes things easier, as well. My treadmill is repaired (though my son wails every time I turn it on). One step at a time.

——-

I am loving my new pressure cooker. I feel like a total cooking nerd for even mentioning it. Every time I’ve mentioned it in passing to my real world friends, I get quizzical looks, even though I honestly think pressure cooking is the next big trend. It lets me cook much more economically and healthily, and quickly. Beans and lentils and rice and tougher cuts of meat — all cook well and much more quickly in the pressure cooker. (For anyone not turned off by this talk, check out Miss Vickie’s site — the pressure cooker bible.)

Was my last post mysterious enough?

Well, it’s all still a bit mysterious to me, too, but here’s how it went down. My husband has been frustrated with his work situation for a very long time. It’s not that he worries about the security of his job or anything, but he feels supremely underutilized, and surrounded by people who are squandering opportunities to do positive things for the company. He’s just not the kind of guy to sit around collecting a paycheck, so, over time, he’s been bitten by the entrepreneur bug. He wants to start his own business — desperately — and he has for many years.

I’ve generally been very against the idea, to be honest. We have two kids now, and it seems crazy to me to jeopardize the security we have to pursue something he has no experience doing. And, because of the line of work he’s in, going into business for himself requires a big investment of money, and a continuing investment as things proceed. It’s not like it would be for me if I were to become a freelance writer — that would mean we’d lose the security of a regular paycheck, but we wouldn’t incur any additional costs for equipment, office space, etc. So, this business idea has always struck me as a pretty huge dramatic risk.

I’m not sure exactly what has changed. He got a bit more experience at work so I feel more comfortable that he knows what he’s doing. I’m getting a little more frustrated in my own job and could use a fresh start. And, most importantly, we started talking about the changes we’d need to make to start a business — the primary one being that we’d need to reduce our living expenses so we could live on one income… mine. That just doesn’t seem possible in New York.

So, one day, we were chatting on instant messenger, when the idea of moving to my home state of Texas came up. Austin now supports some industry that’s at least tangentially related to what I do. And Texas would offer the additional advantage of being closer to my family — a couple of cousins live in Austin and another is moving nearby this summer. Then, my dad would be in driving distance, as would be my aunts, uncles and other cousins. We could go to birthday parties, anniversary celebrations, etc. The boys would have the opportunity of getting to know their family in a way that is impossible right now, and we’d have the advantage of developing those relationships more, as well. It’s really the most natural thing in the world. And it now seems possible.

All we have to do is raise $ to buy a bunch of equipment, get me a job, find a new home, and haul the whole family across the country again. Simple!

It’s been kind of a crazy few days. My family is basically in the throes of a big ongoing serious financial discussion that promises to change the status quo, one way or another. And it’s very upsetting and stressful to me. I’m the kind of gal who loves a routine, and enjoys getting all familiar and sentimental and in a groove. Alas, my husband sees HIS current groove (employment-wise) as a rut, and he’s running around upsetting things, trying desperately to shake them up. My instinct is to just hope his feelings go away — I’ve been clinging to this hope for years now — but I’m pretty sure they won’t, and we’re headed for major change.

What does this have to do with diet, health and fitness? Well, it turns out I do pretty well, diet-wise, unless I’m stressed or lonely or….

——

I wrote that a few weeks ago, and I was right… now we are looking at moving, yes… moving. This time it’s pretty major, involving changing jobs, changing states, selling major assets. It might as well be changing countries, our expected lifestyle will be so different. Hopefully we’ll also be less poor, we’ll have more room, and we’ll be closer to family. Fingers crossed.

Ok, so the inimitable DietGirl is linking to me today, so I feel like I need to be a better blogger and actually update this site. Welcome, DietGirl readers!

I don’t have tons to say lately, especially on the diet/fitness subject, but I will give it a stab.

If I wasn’t previously a believer in the set-point theory, events of recent weeks might convince me. While pretty much eating/exercising as is natural — which is to say, eating fairly crappily and not exercising at all, save walking — I’ve stuck nearly exactly at the same weight: 217.7-ish. There’ve been ups, and there have been downs, I’m sure, but this has been the story for months now. Hmm…

So, I obviously need a change. (Go, Obama!) Given the overall economic picture (both globally and in our wee household), I don’t think I’m going to be joining a gym anytime soon. We actually have a great arsenal of goodies to move me toward fitness. Just need to avail myself of them. Here’s what I’m blessed with:

• Good shoes
  
• A jog stroller
  
• Exercise videos (and some steps)
  
• A Wii Fit
  
• And a pretty awesome treadmill.
  

The challenge is still a 4-month-old baby who’s either screaming to be held or attached to my boob. And there’s also that pesky 3-year-old who regularly insists that I “play with me!” or wants to sit on my lap. Oh, and that little matter of a full-time job, not to mention a diminishing food budget and a dearth of time to cook. I’m not making excuses. I’m just still not focusing on diet/exercise at this very moment, but I’m still feeling OK and hoping to get in a good long walk this weekend. TGIF.

Well, him and work…

Here I am… showered, vitamins taken, teeth brushed and face moisturized. I’m even wearing clean clothes. Finally, I found some “me” time to do the very basics.

Next steps: find more “me” time every day to improve my fitness and eat healthfully. That’s what it’s all about, after all. It’s about taking care of myself instead of spending all my time on kid or baby or husband duty, and putting myself last. The past couple of weeks, especially when my aunt was here visiting, I got some glimpses of what it would be like to tend to my own needs again.

This seems simple, but one day I ran into a friend when we were both dropping off our kids at day care. I strolled along with her as she walked over to her gym, and she even gave me a tour. There we were, two women, walking along together, no kids in tow (baby was with my aunt at home). We could set a brisk pace. We could jaywalk. We could worry about no one other than ourselves. And then there was the gym. It was small, but nice, and close by. Hmm… I’d not considered it in my earlier digging (probably because I’d been thinking a lot about the rest of the family), but I found it had definite possibilities, and its proximity to the apartment is a big plus. After saying farewell, I popped over to my favorite bakery and picked up a couple of muffins for myself and my aunt.

Then, another time, my aunt and I were walking home from Target and stopped off to have lunch in this cute little restaurant in my neighborhood. The baby (picture here) did us the favor of sleeping the entire time. So, we ordered two lunches, split them both in half, and each got a taste of both. One came with a free half-pint of a draft beer, so I picked a local brew, which was as tasty as I remembered. We sat in this small restaurant, with wooden booths, exposed brick walls and gorgeous decorative light fixtures… and I felt like myself. I love trying new restaurants and this was just classic Pamela. Oh, how these small moments have helped me recapture who I am and what I want my life to be like.

For those of you without kids, it might be hard to imagine how these seemingly mundane interludes meant so much to me. With being pregnant, and now having my breasts given over to producing milk for the baby — not to mention the constant demands of the now-3-year-old — there just is so little time for me to indulge myself in my hobbies and interests. (Notice how long I go between blog posts.) However, I’ll soon be getting back to work — we’ve hired a nanny to take care of the kids when I return — and life will be getting back to “normal.” In there, somewhere, I need to keep these interludes coming. Time on the treadmill or out for a walk. Manicures and pedicures. New clothes. A night out with a friend. I can’t wait….

—-

P.S. I’m down to around 223 at last weigh-in (after eating and fully clothed), which is about 10 lbs above my pre-pregnancy weight. Haven’t made much of a special effort, but I have noticed that pushing a stroller with the 3-year-old inside can be a really great core workout, especially uphill.

Hello!!! I’ve missed this blog, and anything else other than nursing and mothering, over the past couple of weeks. It’s good to be back!

A couple of snippets of news. I’d reached around 250 lbs with the pregnancy, but lost around 20 just with the delivery. Approx 7 lbs of baby, some placenta, amniotic fluid, etc. — gone, instantly. Now I’m breastfeeding like crazy and hoping to drop some more poundage. The great thing is that I’ve actually been craving HEALTHY things, unbelievably. Fruits, whole grains, etc. have all been high on my list post-partum, and I’m just totally going with it. Of course, I’ve been eating the odd ice cream (and an occasional frozen yogurt when I go out), so it’s not like I’m on the picture-perfect diet. Still, it’s generally been good and there’s been no real binging. Weighed myself this morning and I’m down another 4 lbs. I think perhaps the nursing has gotten me hyper-aware of the “food as fuel” concept — if I go too long without eating it’s scary the way my body reacts, and so I want to keep it fueled up as effectively and efficiently as possible.

The current fitness plan (to begin in the next couple of weeks) is to do the “Couch to 5K” program, and pick a target 5K to participate in. Was thinking of the Race for the Cure on Sept 14, and still may do that. But my potential training partner (yes! I have one of those now!) will be out of town that weekend — though she’s still up for training with me, anyway. So I need to either settle on that race, or find another that we can both run in. Must scour local race schedule.

–

One of the biggest weights on my mind may soon be lightened. We (finally) got an offer on our house, and our counter-offer was accepted. So we are in contract and set to close around July 20. It wasn’t that close to our asking price, but it looks to be fair, given comparables in the area, so we are pleased. The house (and the uncertainty surrounding it) has been sort of draining us dry, what with expenses like trash pick-up, water, electricity, gas, etc. that we’ve been paying for, but not using. Not to mention the mortgage! Anyway, fingers crossed that everything goes smoothly in the next stages of the process, and that we actually close as expected. It’d be fantastic to get that behind us, as we ramp up to doubling our child care expenses when I go back to work.

–

What else? Well, things with the little one are really nice, though demanding. He’s eating and gaining weight like a champ. We are also set to go on a big trip for a family wedding in Italy. (Not that we can afford it, but they came to our wedding despite difficult financial circumstances…) So, that’s exciting, but I have nothing to wear! Ok, baby crying so this is a good time to call this post quits. Until next time…

Well, I’ve been a while in getting to post the news here, but, indeed, there is news. Last Thursday, at 10:15 p.m. NYC time, our little baby R. came to be with us. I ended up being induced, rather than going into labor myself. So, I’m still not quite sure if my body knows how to naturally go into labor, but it sure as heck knows how to respond to Pitocin. The entire labor process, including pushing, took just 4 hours. Thankfully, I had the epidural to kill the pain, which was intense. Anyway, I have been remiss in posting here, so I just wanted to jot down an update. More when I’m more free to post.

A book I read last night described birth as one of the most important and transformative experiences in a woman’s life. No wonder, as I stand at the brink, that I’m feeling so emotional and confused and worried and even guilty.

It all goes hand in hand with how I’m feeling physically, which is actually pretty fantastic when you consider how I might be feeling at 38 weeks (ok 37.75 weeks). But, when I stand up, I get the distinct impression that the baby’s head is dropping down into my pelvis, and I waddle. Then, there are the contractions. They come and go — not super-strong but definitely present — which is just enough to panic me (is it time? should I be timng their frequency and duration?) when they’re occurring. When they stop, I feel a mix of relief and disappointment. There’s also this “boy that cried wolf” feeling, when I have told my husband about them. Will he take me as seriously next time, I wonder, if this particular contraction session turns out to be a false alarm?

Then, there’s the baby, who, reassuringly, is as squirmy and wriggly as ever. It’s almost odd how the labor and delivery looms so large, when the real rock-our-world experience will be adding #2 to our family. In these last few days, a new candidate for a name has emerged, ironically from a kids’ TV program. Should this one stick, we’ll have a lot of funny stories about its origins. Whatever his name turns out to be, I’m beginning to feel like he’s welcome to join us anytime. I think all the physical and emotional “tuning up” has gotten me ready, even if I still have tasks to finish here and there. There’s truly a delicate balance between finishing everything up and leaving enough to do to keep me busy and feeling productive. Will keep walking that tightrope, for now.

Still pregnant, and nearly 250 lbs, according to the doctor’s office scale. 1 cm dilated, which doesn’t mean much. Everything seems to be going well. It’s like eerily well, compared to my last 2 pregnancies. Instead of thinking this means that something’s bound to go wrong, I’m instead coasting along on the positivity, and I’m hoping the labor & delivery are equally as smooth.

I’ve always thought my uber-curvy body, my amazing fertility (never had to try more than once, and sometimes didn’t try), and my general monthly regularity meant I was particularly suited to be a mother. But, until this pregnancy, things never came quite as easily as I thought they should. Anyway, it could be any day now, but we still could be looking at several weeks. I suspect that once it starts, it will come quickly. The baby’s head is down already. Last labor (even induced) was only around 6 hours, which is quick — and 2nd babies usually come faster.

So, fingers crossed. If I am not able to check in again before the actual birth, I will be back with an announcement about the arrival. Also, I’ll be looking to step things up, fitness-wise, once I get over the initial survival hump, so this blog will go back to topic. Crank up that treadmill!