Pregnancy

Today I found out that my cousin is expecting her second child. She and I were pregnant at the same time back in 2004/2005, where in April 5 she gave birth to her daughter and on April 10, I gave birth to my son. We were the first ones on the that side of the family to start the next generation, so the pregnancies were buzzing with excitement.

My cousin is due in September. I'm happy for her, truly I am. There were speculations and predictions of sorts (old wives tales and other foolery) suggesting that she'll have only one child. I'm happy that's not the case. I'd hate to have been pidgeonholed like that, like fate.

However, it's like I'm missing something here. Like I mentioned earlier, I was questioning when to have another baby. My son will be 4 next year. I definitely don't want him to be much older before having a second. But it's like I'm ready....yet not ready.

One of my good friends gave birth to her first child, a boy, this past week. Through unfortunate circumstances, we haven't had much opportunity to spend time together while she was pregnant, so I didn't really get to enjoy her pregnancy with her. I have yet to see her, but have wished her well with the new addition. I'm sure more pangs of mommyhood will hit me then.

But, getting back to why I'm not ready. Many reasons.

Number one reason: I'm not ready to get fat again. Look, I don't care what people say about you where you're pregnant. You're glowing! You look wonderful! How beautiful! My ass, I'm beautiful! Rotund, pot-bellied, wide-load, jabba-the-hut all come to mind instead. Gimme a break. I'll never get to be one of the women who look still ungodly beautiful and thin while pregnant. (Ok, so I'm not ungodly beautiful and so much thin right now, but follow me on this...). Or one of those women who bounce back to paper thin normalness after a couple of months after birth. I'm destined to be fighting pregnancy flab until the NEXT kid after that, if I ever get around to the third kid I thought I'd always have.

I'm just about enjoying the most normal body I've had in 3.5 years. I've done a couple of bootcamps and have been hitting the gym everyday for the past couple of weeks, and I am still not happy with my body. Granted, I've always been unhappy with my scale and my thunder thighs and flabby arms, but now I've got that and an added muffin top that I never had to deal with before (I had a 25 inch waist at one point....I'd be lucky if I can get under 30 before I cave in to pregnancy).

I said there are a number of reasons. But they're all shadowed by the fact that I don't want to get fat. I'm not ready yet. I need more skinny time! But my son does need a playmate desperately...I can't be playing livingroom hockey with him forever!

5 a.m. Rude Awakenings

Tomorrow will mark the end of my second week on my crazy workout routine....only 10 more weeks after that!

The goal is to get up early in the morning and either run or lift weights, riding on the fact that 20 minutes of exercise prior to eating anything is better than an hour of activity in the afternoon. When I can't get to the gym by 5:30am, I have to hold off on breakfast, pack the kid up for daycare (after he eats, watches some TV, changes out of his pajamas....a passage that can take up to 2 hours some days), then head to the gym, which by then I'm a bit delusional on the treadmill but manage to make it though my 20 minutes.

Today was a strange day. Got up at 4;50am. I had a 45 minute workout today, which meant if I got to the gym by 5:15, I'll be able to make it back home by 6:15 so hubby can leave for work.

For the first time, the gym was completely deserted when I arrived. Being a 24 hr gym, there's usually ONE person there. Not this time. I had to turn on the lights....pretty spooky. I figured I had 15 minutes before one of the regulars came in.

Sure enough, in a couple of mnutes, in comes little Miss Terminator.

Miss Terminator is a nickname I give this lady who I see at the gym at 5:30 on most days. Tiny framed, looking a bit old for what I guess is about 48 (she's probably younger, but I don't want to give her any benefit of the doubt). Because she's on the thin side, you can see her thin biceps and deltoids. She has a thin runner's body. And her demeanor seems as cold as the pavement she probably runs on outside of the gym.

I said good morning to her when she walked in, and quite cheerfully, I might add. Did she reply back? Ok, she may have been taking a sip of water after she walked in the door, but neither did I hear her say anything after she guzzled. Pshaw! Whatever to you.

Good thing I was working on my lower body today; I was mainly using the leg press machine and not the range of free weights I use for my upper body. When working my upper body, I use a range of weights, increasing in weight but decreasing in reps performed. One day, she grabbed my 17.5 lb weights I needed (so I left them back on the rack....my mistake). The next time, I kept those 17.5 lb-ders with me and I "let her" borrow them. She didn't even say thanks.

So, note to self: no point trying to look all hot by working out and being bitchy getting there.

I did my 45 minutes and left the gym, with not even a glance or a hmph in her direction. See you Monday, Miss Terminator!

And when driving home, yes, I was driving a little like a maniac, doing 65 in a 50km zone (it was shortly after 6am, after all), I was zooming down a slight hill and some idiot decides to quickly take a left turn. I very nearly clipped this guy's rear bumper, had it not been for my quick braking and blasting my horn for 5 seconds to tell him I was pissed off. Good thing you screeched your wheels, sucker, and flew past me.....you did not want to encounter me after my Miss Terminator issue.

I was glad to reach home, in one piece. 6:15am. Another 24 hours until I do this whole thing over again.

Have Mercy!

My Body-For-Life

Ok, I'm on a new fix.

I haven't blogged in the longest time, but I've been busy. I WAS in the middle of writing up a post about the new family budget, but a gave that up about a month ago, seeing that writing about numbers is just about as boring as writing numbers, so I'll save that for another time.

Right now, and I'm in a middle of a challenge with my coworker. We started the beginning of February. She's trying to lose weight, I'm trying to lose weight, so we're trying to motivate each other in getting active. We even have this calendar pinned up to the cork board by our desks, where we write down what we've done for the day, hers penned in red, mine in blue. At a glance, we can see how much we're doing, and hopefully motivate the other to do better.

Seeing that I haven't stepped into the gym since Dec. 31 (read, I haven't been to the gym so far this year), I thought what better way to take on this friendly challenge by finding a plan and simply following it. Enter Body-For-Life.

Now, if you haven't heard of this, I encourage you to check out Body For Life. I've had this book, Body For Life, on my bookshelf for years, probably going on 5 years or more, and I was always in awe at the transformations I saw in the photos that lined the cover. Twelve weeks to a new body. Pshaw! Yeah, right! So I say this everytime I pick up the book. But this time, maybe it'll be different, maybe if I give it a try it might work. Even if I get half the results I expect, at least it's something, right?

So the program consists of doing approximately 45 minutes of upper body exercises, 45 minutes of lower body exercises, and 20 minutes of cardio, alternating between each of these for 6 days a week. I'm so used to do doing mostly cardio and adding the occasional weight training session, so going to the gym without sweating like crazy on the treadmill will be very strange.

I started this past Monday, and if I were going to give this 12 weeks, I'll be finished on May 3. I'm hoping for anything, yet expecting everything. It's a game plan anyways. Wish me luck.

The Family Budget

My New Year's Resolution, if I were to call it as such, was to get a better grip on our family's finances and bring us to a comfortable financial position. After 5-1/2 years of marriage (read: sharing my hard-earned money with someone else), I finally started an official budget for the family. I've been planning to do it for months, but I finally put my foot down, bit my lip and said "This is the month!"

My husband jumped on board. Oh, alright, he didn't jump but he wasn't kicking and screaming, which is a good sign. I must add, I am the shopper in the family, but my husband takes the cake when it comes to accumulating receipts for snacks, pop, junk food. While I haven't bought anything in months, he routinely charges ridiculous amounts on his credit card.

So it's now mid-February and we're not quite over the hump yet. We've got a Vegas trip we're saving up for, end of March, so a lot of our extra funds are going there. After this month, hopefully we'll have a better idea of how to really allocate our hard-earned money, when there are no credit card bills to pay.

The only things charged to the Visa are preauthorized bills. I did charge a small number of items, such as some gas purchases, but it really works out well if I pay that amount immediately back onto my Visa. When I look back at my online statement, these amounts cancel each other out and it's like have a debit card rolled into your Visa. For the first time, hubby has a zero balance on his Visa statement, mine has a credit rolling over for the 2nd month (Dividend dollars...looking online for something to spend), and our family Visa has just preauths of under $300.

Life is looking good again.