Babysitter Amy

It's been a really really long time since I actually full on babysat someone else's kids. My brothers and sisters? Sure. Nursery at church/small group? Definitely. At someone's house while they got out for dinner? Yeah, not so much.

We're talking at least eight years. Crazy, I know.

Regardless, here I am babysitting for our chaplain's family while he and his wife, Charlene, have a delicious meal alone for the last time in a very long time. He deploys Friday or Saturday to join Luke.

I will say this -- having Luke go ahead of everyone else has made me incredibly sympathetic and very available to support the rest of the wives in the group. If Luke was leaving right now, too, I would no doubt be very busy wallowing on my own. Since he's not I'm ... well, I still wallow a little bit, but not like it's a full time job. So there's that.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Taking the baby to the library did not work out as planned. The library was closed at 945 when I was there and since I had the rest of the day booked with studying and stuff like that, oh well. We'll probably try again tomorrow.

Two Days In a Row -- Go me!

Here I am, keeping my promise to start blogging more. Go me.

Took my little baby to a doctor's appointment this morning so he could get weighed and stuff. It was super great until they took out a variety of needles and stabbed him. One second he is laying on my lap cooing and smiling and the next he is screaming. Poor baby!

Anyway, he now weighs more than 13 lbs and is about 23 inches. Crazy growing child. And for the record, I kinda cried when they gave him his shots. Poor little baby.

~~~~~~~~~

Bethany came over for dinner tonight. I am dubbing today my first ever deployment dinner. I'm hoping to have a weekly gathering like this of deployed spouses. I enjoy feeding people. And I enjoy people company. So all in all it sounds like a good idea.

~~~~~~~~

At the moment Im marathon watching Gilmore Girls. Ok, Ok it's a good show. There, happy? Primary complaint at this time is the annoying opening song. But that can be skipped -- so no worries! The sad news is that because Abigail is in hiding with the husband she found at the airport (like magic! like Christmas! like a Christmas miracle!) I shall likely be without tv on DVD soon. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that. Gonna have to come up with an alternate plan for my life. I know, it's really shocking.

~~~~~~~~~

Im going to go to bed now. Tomorrow: change the oil in the car, take the baby for his first library trip, work on school stuff, babysit four lovely young ladies.

Bad Amy!

As I was just perusing my blog of yore, it dawned on me that perhaps it would be appropriate if i made more of an effort to blog consistently now. The best intentions ...

Life has been clipping along, Dave getting bigger, me staying busy doing ... well ... Im not really sure what, but it's taking up all my time. In the last few weeks I've thrown a 4th of July Party with Abigail, hosted (with the help of some wonderful small group folks) my entire family minus Shelly for three days (short version: barfing child, clogged toilet, new tires, finding the mess hall, gross dinner at the PX, ferry, Pikes Place, Ivars, traffic, bowling) and purchased way too much at Costco.

Abigail got her husband back today, if only for 15ish days. This is exciting for me on some level, too, because if SHE can go eight months without seeing Brett, surely I can go eight months without seeing. At the same time, however, it is bitter sweet. While getting so excited that Brett was coming back I slipped up and let myself get excited that Luke was coming back ... except he isn't. Now as soon as I realized this was happening and tried to bed it back down again, but it was already all riled up.

But you know, we've made it six weeks. On the one hand, it seems like he's been gone forever already, a little bit like maybe he was never even here to start with. The six weeks has pretty much flown by. At the same time, however, it seems like I cannot possibly make it another Lord only knows how long until I get to see him again.

Im actually going to make an effort to blog more often. I promise.

I'm alive, no really.

I know you may not believe it. But really, I am alive.

I've just been busy. Very, very busy.

After I last wrote I spent a lovely weekend with my sister. Evidence:

And then I went to Ohio for what was really a lovely wedding and a truly, honestly wonderful time had by both me AND Dave. No, seriously, I had a good time. It was warm. And humid. And everyone was shockingly nice. And I kind of want to go back.

Evidence of Ohio:

When I got back, I had approximately three hundred million things to catch up on and do, and didnt even have time for the gym until yesterday. More about that in a second. Among the crazy list of things:

- Write research paper

- Write other essay

- Read part of book for essay

- Design/write newsletter

- About a billion things that I cant remember at this particular moment

And man did time this week fly by. Plus both Dave and I were absolutely exhausted from the whole trotting across the country business (which reminds me: key to traveling with an infant. Limit the amount of crap you haul).

Now, when I finally got back to the gym yesterday I was pleased to discover that I managed to loose 6 lbs in the last two weeks without even trying. Excellent! Sadly this STILL does not mean that my jeans fit. What the crap is up with that?!?! But it DOES mean that I am officially under my wedding weight. And it means that I have 9 lbs to loose until Im at my ideal weight. The real question is, however, at WHAT POINT my jeans are going to start fitting?! For the love.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today is my first wedding anniversary. I'm not really that interested in talking about it. But I do want to say ...

Spending your first anniversary alone kind of blows. It is infinitely better, however, when your husband is thoughtful from far away and sends you flowers and calls to tell you how much he loves you and writes you the sweetest email ever. And it also helps when friends take special care to make sure you are going to be OK.

~~~~~~~~~~

Baby Dave has been having something of a bad attitude of late, insisting that yours truly hold him all of the time, lest he scream. Not cool. And can I just say how hard it is to write any kind of anything when the baby is screaming?

There are some moments of some days when I think I can't do it anymore. Those are the moments that I feel the most sorry for myself that Luke isn't here ... the baby is screaming, Im exhausted and sometimes a little bored with it all and I remember that I have to keep doing it all by myself for the next year! And then I just have to sit down and cry.

But just when I think my mind may actually explode from it all and melt out my ears and/or my heart will burst God comes through and again and it gets better. And Im OKish to just plain old happy and am able to carry on.

Luke has been gone 1 month today. God has been gracious to me this month -- Ive kept very busy, the time has flown in some ways and I havent been nearly as miserable as I felt I would be this month, all told. Now to take on the next 11 ...

Fat Burning Friday

It's been a week since I posted ... but I've been busy. I'm not sure with what, come to think of it, but I know I was doing stuff the entire time. Wednesday Shelly came into town to visit - so I know what I've been doing since then. But before that? Not a clue, really ...

Except that I do know I was going to the gym. I confess that I did NOT go Saturday and Sunday like I had wanted, mostly because child care was not open on Saturday when I could get over there (in the a.m.) and on Sunday when I had planned to go Dave desperately needed a nap in his crib, not in the car seat surrounded by other noisy children. So I stayed home.

I stuck to my work out all week, increasing my run mileage to 2 miles and doing swims on the off days. I've hit the point where I'm starting to feel like the exercising is DOING something. Today in the pool I could feel my pull was stronger, like there was some new found muscle behind it.

And this muscle could be to blame on the slow down in weight loss. Muscle, I remind myself, is heavy and when it increases even tho you are technically burning the fat away the numbers arent going to go down as quickly.

And thus:

Lost this week: 1

To go: 14

~~~~~~~~~~

On Monday I head out to Ohio for a week of wedding work/festivities and to introduce Dave to his midwest family. I'm actually getting quite excited about this and really honestly looking forward to seeing everyone there. I mean it.

I doubt Ill have time to update next week, so this may be the last you hear from me until I've got wedding pictures to post.

Fat Burning Friday

I've decided to start a little blog series to keep on track with my plans for skinny awesomeness. This was inspired by a mommy money blog I read. The plan is to make my weekly confession regarding how wicked or holy I've been regarding getting in shape while Luke is gone. 

First you should know how I roll and how I plan to make this whole exercise thing a success:

-- I joined the Y, a place I enjoy working out that has child care. Enjoying the facility is key to getting me there.

-- I am making exercise and health my top daily priority (after taking care of Dave and Jesus, of course).

-- I am making eating well and self control a priority as well. It helps that I can't eat any dairy because of Dave. Everything delicious is made with dairy. 

So every week I'm going to brief you on what I did exercise wise and give a tally of the lbs lost. 

Here it goes:

I joined the Y last Saturday and went for my first workout Sunday. My plan is to run and/or bike and do weights/ab work three days a week, rewarding myself with at least a mile in the pool three other days. I really really don't like the run/bike/weight circuit compared to the pool, so I basically have to bait myself to do it. If I miss a run/bike/weight day, I make up for it by missing a day in the pool. Wednesday is my day off. 

Since starting Monday I've managed to stick to the plan. I swam a mile Sunday, Tuesday and this morning and ran Monday and Thursday with plans to do it again tomorrow. Since I havent run in eons, I started out with a mile 1.25 on Monday (although that was kind of a joke ... baby Dave wasn't cooperating) and 1.5 Thursday. I hope to knock it up at least .25 tomorrow, maybe more.

As for the weight, I'm not going to 'fess up on the starting number. Here are the stats, however. 

Day before baby was born: Big Giant Number

Monday weigh in: 29 lbs less than that

Today: 33 lbs lost.

Loss goal starting right now: 15 lbs

HOW do they know?!

Evil evil evil. Last night I thought "at what point in time will the day after Luke leaves spider come out?"

Answer: this morning. Giant spider on the ceiling in the living room! Not cool at all.

I think the spiders know when Luke leaves. This is at least the third time this has happened. One. Two. And today.

~~~~~~~

Last night Luke called and talked for about 4 minutes before having to go. "Don't worry, Ill call you before I leave the country no matter what time it is."

He called at 2 a.m ... or so my phone tells me. I somehow managed to sleep through it ringing, even though it was right by my head. I have no idea the next time he'll call me. I can't believe I'm such a moron.