Pnuemonia

I meant to spend this weekend writing a few posts about losing weight and low fat recipes. That didn't happen, though, since my 11 month old was diagnosed with pneumonia today. Ugh. He is miserable. I feel so helpless and so bad for him. He had to have a chest x-ray which was about the worst experience I've had as a mom so far. Well, except for when he was born and stupid breastfeeding wasn't working and my baby wasn't getting the food he needed and the stupid nurses weren't helpful and he ended up losing a whole pound and I basically starved my new baby. Except for that. Anyway, so the x-ray had to be of his chest, obviously, so the first one wasn't so bad. He just had to lay down over the machine, on his back, and I had to hold his arms up. He didn't love it, but we got through it pretty quickly and painlessly. But then they needed a side angle, meaning he had to lay on his side over a hard machine, with his arms up over his head and his legs straight out and still. Um. Have you ever tried to make a baby lay in that position, when he's scared and sick? IMPOSSIBLE. So, given the position I needed to be in to help hold him down, I was right in the line of fire. So I had to swear that I wasn't pregnant and don a giant lead vest, which scared the baby even more. Not to mention he had to have a tiny little lead crotch-guard (I guess they didn't want to scorch his balls with the radiation?) which he wasn't pleased with either. So it was me and another tech trying to keep him in position and get him to hold still, while my little boy was sobbing so hard he was choking himself, little body rigid, trying to reach for me and looking at me with a wild look in his eyes like "Aren't you going to help me?!?" I didn't cry or anything, I'm pretty good in medical situations, but I was so glad to hear he had pneumonia (I know how that sounds, just wait, I'm not finished) because I have done a lot of research on various forms of radiation since my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer, and so I was thinking "What if it is just a little cold? What if it is just all me overreacting and here I am subjecting my little baby to two doses of radiation when it isn't necessary?" but it turned out he has pneumonia in the lower lobe of his right lung. The tech was awesome and the whole thing was probably less than ten minutes, but it felt like we were in there watching him scream for an hour.

So now he's home, and finally asleep, and I'm stocked up on amoxycillin, Tylenol, Motrin, Pedialyte, Jello, baby Vicks rub, baby freezer pops, and a few beers for me, because my god it was a long day.

Halloween

When I was a kid, my mom made Halloween costumes for me and my younger brother. We'd decide what we wanted to be a few months beforehand, and my mom would start planning and sewing. She made some awesome costumes. I have been a China Girl, a pumpkin, a witch, and Glinda the good witch from the Wizard of Oz. We always had much better costumes than the neighbor kids!

Here we are as pumpkins.

This is my Snow White costume. There is a little blue bird on my shoulder. There was an apple, too...I must have put it down for the picture.


Witch...


I love this costume...so pretty! This is the China Girl costume.

We  would go trick or treating in our neighborhood. We'd go to every house...there were kids all over the place, giant groups of them. Things were safe back then..I think my parents stopped coming with us when we were 8 or 9. We'd take a pumpkin shaped trick or treat container, a pillowcase when we were older. Then when we were done, we'd have the neighbor kids come over and we'd compare and exchange candy. Our candy got dumped into the big silver bowl in the kitchen after dad checked it for needles and drugs or whatever was possibly in there. Then we'd get to take a baggie of candy to school every day until it was gone.

It makes me sad that Halloween these days is on a lesser scale for kids than it used to be. It seems like trick or treating has all but disappeared, doesn't it?? These days kids go to the mall instead and trick or treat at the stores. Last year my parents got about 30 kids. When I was growing up they got more than 100 every year. I haven't had a trick or treater at my house for 5 years!

We'll have to tell our kids tales about how it used to be.

Happy Halloween, everyone! Don't forget to hit up the stores for Halloween candy on clearance on Monday morning!

Beautiful Earrings

I want to share with you this Etsy shop. The jewelry is very fairly priced and absolutely stunning. I have two pairs of her earrings, and they are very well made and I get compliments on them all the time. Shipping is cheap and fast.





These and more can be found here..

http://www.etsy.com/shop/LoisAndLinnea

Weight

I am overweight.

I'm 5'10, a size 14, and I weigh 211 pounds.

I don't think that I look all that overweight, though. I am lucky enough to be tall, which creates kind of an optical illusion. I have a flat stomach, and a waist.

My BMI is high, however,  and I am incredibly unhappy with my body. I think about it all the time. ALL THE TIME. There isn't an hour that goes by where I'm not thinking about my weight, how I look, how my clothes fit, what I look like to other people.....and I'm so sick of it.

I did "just" have a baby, 10 months ago, but none of this is baby weight. Thankfully, I lost all of that within 4 weeks of the baby being born. I was 207 the day I went to the doctor for my pregnancy test, and 204 pounds a month after he was born.

Growing up, through my teen years and until I was about 26, I was always slim. I was 142 pounds when I graduated high school, and a size 6. My "happy weight" is about 170, which is a size 8 on me. Anything less than that tends to be too much starving. I don't have a small frame, and I have boobs and hips, not to mention my height.

So that's my goal. 170 pounds and a size 8. Starting today. By May would be great, but I'll settle for July. I hope to just make better choices and get more exercise. I also want to try some Pilates videos. You'll never catch me running in a trillion years, so don't suggest that. I also don't much enjoy outdoor activity. Like jogging, biking, hiking...I know, it's no wonder I'm a fat-ass, right? I do enjoy walking, and exercise videos. I need to renew my gym membership so that I can take some classes. I do best when I'm told exactly what to do and how long to do it. I tried the personal trainer route and that was absolute disaster, I don't even want to talk about it. All I'm saying is leave it to me to get the only 125 pound male personal trainer in the gym. Seriously. I felt like a sumo wrestler next to this cocky little pipsqueak.

I'm pretty sure that if I just stop doing things like eating a Family Size bag of Doritos for breakfast, I'll get somewhere.

Welcome.

I have wanted to start a blog for awhile. The problem was, I could never settle on a theme. What was my blog going to be about? I had a few ideas in my head...about my weight and losing it, about finding easy delicious healthy-ish recipes, about shopping, about bargains, about my blooming photography business, about adventures with my best friend who I fondly call my wife, about being a new mother, about the complicated feelings that come from being the daughter of a stage 4 lung cancer survivor/patient....so I finally decided today on the 4 hour drive home from "the island", which you will soon hear more about...it will be about all of these things. Why should I have to choose? I want the main gist of it to be about losing weight, sort of to track my process and keep me motivated, but the rest of the things I listed are my life, so why should they be excluded?

I am a little nervous...I plan to give this blog URL to only a few "real-life" people....but what if I'm found out? I plan to reveal my current weight and my current problems and my current fears....what if someone "finds" me? But you know what? Screw it. If they don't like it, they can suck it. (here's where I mention that there will be some obscenities on this blog. Just warning you.) I have always liked to write, and I find it therapeutic to write about whatever I'm going through at the time.

I chose the name of this blog because originally it was going to be about weight loss. "Lighten Up" can be about many things, though...weight, recipes, spending, feeling insecure or sad.

Eventually there will be product reviews and giveaways. Assuming I can get an Internet following that is more than my Wife. By the way, my Wife is having a baby girl on Thursday!!! That's right, she grew a wife for my 10 month old son. Very exciting stuff. I had a C-section with my son, and as far as we know, Wife is having an induced labor, so I am very nervous for her. Very different experience. I wish I could pass along some wisdom regarding going through labor, but all I can really say is "Dude, I went through 2 hours of it and it hurt a bit and then they cut him out of me." (also, I'm blunt. Get used to that, too.)

So, here are some things about me.

LIKES
 - bacon
 - casinos
 - gambling
 - binge eating
 - binge drinking
 - binge anything, really
 - writing
 - reading (faves include Wally Lamb, Douglas Coupland and Tawni O'Dell)
 - photography
 - travel
 -"Jersey Shore"
 - the internet
 - baseball
 - thrift shopping
 - true crime
 - crafts. But not scrapbooking. Or knitting. Or crocheting or sewing. OK, basically I glue things to other things.
 - antiquing/flea markets/rummage sales
 - my family
 - fireplaces
 - "Teen Mom"
 - being an aunt to three beautiful little girls
 - chili cheese dip
 - "Word Warp" on my iphone
 - light beer
 - owls
 - staying in crappy hotel rooms
 - mustard
 - STFU Parents

DISLIKES

 - mayonnaise
 - Dave Matthews Band
 - tequila
 - science fiction
 - capris
 - Crocs
 - Twilight
 - the word "moist"
 - beans
 - when you wake up and you think it's like 1am but it's actually 7am and you have to get up
 - the movie "Inception" and the hoopla surrounding it
 - snakes
 - Mexico
 - the smell of lavender
 - Minneapolis
 - Kindles
 - movies that involve time travel because I get so damned confused.
 - recycling (I'm really endearing myself to you, aren't I?)
 - Josh Groban
 - Lady Gaga
 - overdrafting my checking account

I think that's it for my first blog post. I hope you want to keep reading. Sorry if I offended you with that Mexico thing. It's nothing personal. It's not you, it's me.