Oh, What a Mixed Bag of Nuts am I!

Sometimes my head feels like a mixed bag of nuts. Being a new mom has been incredibly wonderful/emotional/scary/exciting and my opinions about my life change depending on what day or time you ask me. My son is 4 months old now and time seems to be flying by! (Note to baby: Don't grow so fast please!)

Over the past couple of months, I became a new mom, my husband lost his job, he then found a new job, I graduated with a Master's of Science in Mental Health Counseling, and as of now I'm trying to figure out where I fit in the grand scheme of things. I was hoping to stay at home with the bambino until he was at least a year old but God has a different plan, it seems. My husband earns enough for us to survive (barely) where we're at, but doesn't afford us to do the things we've been hoping for such as move to another apartment in a quieter, safer neighborhood for our son, and start to save up for our dream home.

So I've been having mixed feelings. I feel like I am between a rock and a hard place. If I choose not to work until the baby turns 1, we'll have to re-sign the lease and our goal of having a better life for him would be squashed. (Did I mention that we only have one bedroom? So by that time he'll be a toddler , and a toddler sleeping in our room will. be. chaos.) But if I choose to get a full time job at the end of the summer so we can have two incomes and start working towards our plans, then I feel like I'll miss out on some major milestones that my pumpkin will go through.

I have this fear that I'm going to hear from my mom or a day care worker that baby said his first word. Or took his first step. But where was mama? Out in the rat race unfortunately. I mean, I always knew that I'd eventually go back to work because I worked so hard for my Degrees and really want to help people with emotional difficulties. I even want to own my own practice one day. So yes, there are a number of things that are a part of my life goals that I would love to fulfill - but one little 16 pound chunky monkey has me all sorts of confused.

I try not to speak with my husband too much about it because he ends up feeling bad that he can't be the "ideal breadwinner" that he thinks he's supposed to be. But the fact is, this isn't the 1950s. We live in NY, the economy sucks, and we're both 20 somethings just trying to live and love life to the best of our ability. I mean, we're in this together so I don't feel any resentment towards him at all. I just wish that maybe we lived in a different state, where rent wasn't $1200/month minus utilities. Ahh well.

I think I know what I have to do, but it still makes me sad at times. I'm sure I'll feel differently once we're more comfortable financially and I'm decorating our new place and moving all of baby's toys into his very own room. But for now I'm going to continue being a mixed bag of nuts and enjoy every last moment being a stay at home mom. It's amazing how time can be your best friend and your worst enemy, all at once. Go figure.

It feels like Groundhog's Day.

BABproject - Week 3 - Remember that movie Groundhog's day? Remember how the main character kept waking up and doing the same things over and over again? OMG. That's me. I had major intentions to workout last week but guess who came to town for the first time since before I got preggers? AUNT FLOW. I hadn't seen the wench for over a year and I did not miss her one bit. But alas, she showed up less than two weeks after I stopped nursing. Bah.

In any event, when Aunt Flow is around, especially this being the first time she came in a long time, I did not have any motivation to move when I felt so bloated. so crampy. so icky. So exercise was a big fat zero last week.

But I did pretty well with my eating. As a matter of fact, around Friday I weighed myself and was actually down 2 lbs! But hold your applause everyone. Yesterday, July 4th, I made probably 2 bad food choices and this morning I weighed the same as last week. Talk about discouraging! I did a full week of eating great and one day where I decided to have two buttermilk biscuits and a regular coke, it all came creeping back.

I'm thinking that I may need to start a low carb type of eating plan because when I eat any bad carb, even in the littlest increment, it sticks to me. But in the past when I stuck to eating good carbs like veggies, along with poultry, fish, and a little fruit, weight came off quicker... The only problem was, yet again, if decided to have a treat like a small piece of cake, there goes the scale dial again. Gee wiz!

In any event, I'm glad Aunt Flow has left town so I feel more energetic and will try AGAIN. New goals though:

Goal #1 - Stick to a low carb type of diet plan for one week.

Goal #2 - Take a multivitamin and green tea capsule each day for one week. (I need the energy!)

Yup, that's right, if I finally reach my goals this week, I'll get a pedicure. My feet need it bad! This is why I put a reward for such a small amount of time (in case anyone was wondering) because it's so hard for me to reach even that! LOL Ahh well! Here's to another week of trying! At least I'm still motivated to try! Thanks BABproject!! :)

Birthday Fun and Back on Track! (week 2-BABproject)

Today is my 28th birthday! I did a ton of celebrating this weekend... which included some unhealthy food choices. I also was doing some emotional eating earlier in the week so my first week in the BABproject wasn't so successful. But the good news is, I'm back on track and have resolved to be in a MUCH healthier state this time next year. It kinda feels good to start things off on my birthday. It's like turning over a new leaf!

Yesterday I stayed within my calorie limit and I also did 30 minutes on my Cardio Twister. I plan on doing the same today. I'm hoping to do some form of exercise for 30 minutes, 5x/wk. But since I didn't reach my goal last week, it remains the same:

GOAL #1 -If i can stick to my calorie limit for a whole week, I get a pedicure! Woo hoo!

Conclusion: No change in stats this week, BUT I am a lot more optimistic that by next week I'll reach my goal AND lose a pound or two. :)

I'm a part of the BAB Project!

Hey! I came across this blog: Hope Springs Eternal where this lovely woman put together something called the BAB Project which is the Body After Baby Project. It's a way for mothers to keep each other motivated and accountable with losing weight after having a baby. I'm so excited because I really need the motivation. The first bunch of weight fell off like butter, but I have about 15-20 lbs that is extremly stubborn. Plus, as many of you moms out there know, taking care of a baby all day is exhausting!! After taking care of my son, cleaning up a bit, and making dinner for my family, I'm about ready to drop into a puddle at the end of the day!

But now that I've found the BAB Project, I think I'll be more likely to make an effort to get healthy! We have to post our progress every Monday, so I at least will have motivation to reach even small goals by the end of the week so I can post by Monday.

I was reluctant to do this, but here is my current picture (which is my BEFORE):

That photo is very depressing! But I'm motivated to make a change. My next photo will be updated in one month.

This week's small goal is to stick to 1800 calories per day. If I can do that for the next 7 days, my reward will be to get a pedicure! I also will be working out also, but I don't want to add that to my first small goal because if I put too much on myself, I usually don't stick to it, then I feel bad about myself and have pizza and brownies! (Big no no!) So it will be small goals that I will add on to as I progress. Here's to gettin thin by the end of the summer! Woo hoo!

Are there any REAL Work From Home positions out there?!

My little pumpkin is 10 weeks old and things are finally starting to normalize. Praise God! We have a pretty good schedule going. He wakes up at 5am, he gets fed, then goes back to bed for another 2 hrs (which makes mommy happy). Then we start our day with a ton of mini naps, play time, and mommy trying to clean, cook, and do research for my internship. By 10pm, he has his last feeding, and is put to bed. Don't wanna jinx myself but he's been sleeping through the night, woo hoo! Every once in awhile he gets up at 2am, but for the past 2 weeks, he's mostly been sleeping from 10pm-5am.



Though the past two months have been wonderful because of the munchkin, it's been extra stressful as well. My hubby lost his job 6 weeks ago and we've been barely surviving ever since. He's gone on 4 or 5 interviews and hasen't gotten any of them. It's really starting to bum us out. And the thing is, I would definitely be out working myself if it wasn't for the fact that I have to finish up my internship hours by August to officially get my degree. So I'm kinda stuck.

This is what led me to try to do research on reputable "work from home" jobs. I know I know, everyone says that it's impossible to find a real work from home job. But I've been doing research and this is what I found out from ppl who are doing it themselves:

1) www.workplacelikehome.com - It's a forum where ppl come online and talk about what jobs they've tried, what worked, and what were scams.

2) www.liveops.com - hires salespeople and licensed agents for both health and life insurance.

3) www.arise.com - recruits agents with specialized language skills.

4) dsa.org - offers a list of 200 companies that offer "direct seller" jobs, kinda like Avon or Pampered Chef.

The one I'm currently pursuing is www.chacha.com It's a service where you can text "chacha" which is 242242 and ask any question you can think of and they send you an answer in 3 minutes or less. Apparently the ppl who are answering you are ppl sittin at home in their undies searching the net for you LOL So I took two tests and I'm waiting for an answer on whether I can be one of the "underwear answering ppl" :) You have to be really good with internet searching and fast typing skills. And you get $.20 per question. They say if you do a question every 3 minutes, you make about $6/hr. If I could do that for 3 hrs a day, 6 days a week, that would be a nice little chunk of change to pay a bill or two. We shall see!!