Wild

Hang on, this is going to be a really random post because I haven't posted all week.

1. Last night was rough. twoK did NOT want to sleep without her Mommy or Daddy. It was after midnight when I resorted to yelling and threatening her. MWH was still being "good cop," but I was done. DONE. She's 6, is it too much to expect that she falls asleep in her own bed? I had stayed and snuggled with the girls for an hour and I thought twoK was asleep.

Tonight, I'm giving them 1/2 hour of snuggle time and then I go.

2. I am typing this on my iPad. I have a dock for it and I never use it. Tonight, I dug it out to use. It is nice. I think I could really write something with the dock. Pretty cool! I have a new project starting up next week, it involves writing a small article. Maybe, I'll try to do it on the iPad with the dock.... That could be fun! I can at least start it that way. Ooooh, fun!

3. My knee is so much better with PT. I'm thinking of going back for a "tune-up" for my back. I think, now that I"m stronger and very healed, the PT and me can make more progress on my knee. I'm hoping for the same with my back. My back feels soooo much better than last year, but if it can feel any better, shouldn't I try?

4. Three-a has now outgrown most of her clothes if they are sized "5" or XS. My Baby! She's growing! I can't believe she's starting kindergarten soon. We go for an orientation on 8/10. YIKES!

5. I've been taking the girls to the park on Friday afternoons. It's a great way to start the weekend.

6. I'm still troubled by my blood sugar. I'm going to start cutting carbs. I eat a lot of carbs, and they are all HEALTHY, unrefined carbs, but apparently, they are still a carb and my body can't handle them very well. My fasting blood sugar has been above the magic number of 100 more often than I like, so I am going to cut some carbs.

I eat about 200-250 grams of carbs a day normally, accounting for about 40-50% of my calories. I usually eat quite a bit of fat, 40% or higher and I usually eat about 10-15% protein. I'm going to see how low I have to make my carb intake get my blood sugar to behave itself. I'm testing my blood sugar after every meal and doing way too much obsessive behavior, but that is what I do. I don't want my blood sugar to negatively affect my health. I think that I've eaten between 48 and 68, today, but i haven't had enough food yet I'm still HUNGRY. I ate nearly a whole avocado, and 2 eggs today, but I still need to eat something else I think.

It's going to be hard to make this switch because I want to stay as vegetarian as possible. I'm not going to be able to be vegan I don't think. I need more protein in my diet and I don't want to do it with just adding soy. There are debates about how good soy is for you (I'll link some other day.) So, my plan for now is to add 1) a little soy and 2) salmon, other fatty fish, and eggs. I'm troubled by this because I'd like to stay vegan.

However, I went vegan because I thought it would be healthier for me. My ANA (did come down) and I was pleased, but now my blood sugar is bad. I don't want my blood sugar high, so it may not work for me to be all the way vegan. SIGH. I'll try this new soy, eggs and salmon (plus so many veggies it makes your head spin) diet until October and then I'll have my ANA re-tested. We'll see if it negatively affects my ANA. I hope it doesn't. (GETTING OLD SUCKS!)

(Salmon salad from the cafeteria where I work. The chef swore it was wild salmon. I sure hope so! It was YUM! It is in a paper to-go container. Classy, eh? I ate it in my office.)

7. As we were driving to the park, the 3 little girls were telling me that I was NOT old. That I looked great and that I didn't look at all old. I love them! :-) It was super nice to hear this after all the thinking I've been doing about blood sugar and feeling like I'm 80 years old because of it.

I guess, there are lots of Moms at the school who are my age, a few younger, but I guess, I'm sort of average to them. Plus, I do run around quite a bit with them. That probably helps me seem younger. My Mom didn't really run around, ever. Tonight, Three-a round her scooter around the park and made me "race her." I had to run. She thought it was the greatest game EVER. It was fun.

8. I have very soft fuzzy socks on--KH gave them to me years ago... LOVE THEM! Thanks! xoxo! The girls just asked if they could have them when I outgrow them. Heh.

And now, to end this VERY RANDOM post.

Good night!

(p.s. are you impressed that I did this post on the iPad with dock???)

I really love my iPad

I love it so much that now I want all my books on it. I decided I should read Harry Potter 5 to see if I thought oNe could handle it. I decided I should buy it in electronic form--even though I own the hard copy. However, I discovered it is not yet available on the kindle reader or in iBook reader. Oh no! I ask you, what is a tech-girl supposed to do? Do I read it in the old fashioned form? Yikes.

More on summer stuff

Related Post is here.

I don't have time this week to do a lunch with a little girl.... Sad. I made an eye doctor appointment for me for W afternoon--I was thrilled to get in so quickly, but just realized that it takes my W afternoon away.

Let's see... Maybe I can do one girl for lunch and Mommy-time this weekend, one August 9 and one the next weekend.... The only potential complication is that my brother might come visit, but hey, maybe that will be good. Maybe I can take one for the afternoon, my brother can take one for the afternoon and MWH can take one... that might work well. Hrmmm... Must plan this.

What else....

oNe is reading Harry Potter (HP)!!! She started on Book 1 on the last day of school. Now she's on Book 4. When she's done, she wants to read Book 5, but I don't know...

Book 5 is when Harry gets all angst-y and teenager-y. I'm not sure I want her to read that yet. I know other Moms with kids (girls and boys) who are oNe's age and they've read all the HP books. I haven't asked them about what their kids took away from the later HP books, but maybe I should.

If you've read HP, what do you think, would you let your 8.5 year old daughter read Books 5-7?

Refreshing

Ah... I like the new blog look. It looks refreshing to me. We need to go to the beach again.

Let's see, there's just under a month until school starts, I should make a list of what we want to do:

1. Have a Mommy-lunch and afternoon with each girl by herself.
2. Another beach trip.
3. A trip (involving a plane) to a touristy animal park?
4. A trip to local amusement park where we have free admission all summer.
5. Gymnastics camp (we have it reserved for the next time N3nny is on vacation)
6. Something for Three-a's birthday
7. Figure out if one of my brother's is coming to visit
8. Get more tomatoes from our garden... the plants look pretty good, but in terms of production, it's been lame so far this year.
9. Get cat for twoK.

(I don't think #3 will happen, but who knows.)

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A similar list for what has occurred this summer:

1. Trip to see super friend
2. Trip to family reunion
3. Two rounds of swim lessons with the girls (all are swimmers now!!)
4. Dance class for all 3... hip hop for oNe and twoK and ballet/tap for Three-a (these are super fun!!)
5. Lots of swimming with our wonderful friends
6. A play date with one of oNe's friends
7. Play dates, but not enough, with our neighbors
8. Lunch with Mommy (all 3 girls at once at Mom's work)
9. Lunch with Daddy (the whole fam at Dad's work)
10. One trip to the beach
11. Once a week tutoring for the girls

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Things that I would like to happen this summer, but we'd need a miracle

1. New carpet on the first floor

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Things where we made progress, but not enough

1. Our backyard

Feeling BLUE!!

Goodbye Purple... Hello Blue!

Note to self, the little girls' picture from the purple blog era can be found in "BeFunky-6.jpg" from 2008. Apparently, that picture was taken in August of 2008... have I really had the purple design for nearly two years?

(Apparently, I have... I talked about a new design in August, 2008, and that's when the photo was taken. Yikes! I was stuck in a rut! I do really like that picture of the backs of the little girls, and apparently time flies!)

So, what do you think of the new digs? I like the new picture. Thank you MWH for taking it!

Obviously, this week at work isn't as busy for me as last week was. Last week was crazy and N3nny was on vacation. This week, she's back and I'm less busy. Isn't it funny how that happens? I dislike it when I'm super busy and I worry that I don't have enough work when I'm less busy. I guess, it's good to have a little break this week--it meant I got to re-design the blog.

A big Happy Birthday to PS (yesterday) and another one to KJ (tomorrow).

Less than one month until school starts...I don't want them to go back! YIKES!

A year later

A year ago, I hurt my knee in Zumba. I spent a long time in PT (physical therapy) and it got better. When I went to PT, I had several things wrong with my knee:
1. Tight IT bands
2. Popliteal muscle and tendonitis problem
3. Weak VMO
4. My kneecap not aligning properly because of 1 and 3.

It hurt. I learned many things to do to make it feel better. I'd have "perfect knee days" where it would feel great. Feeling great meant that I didn't feel it at all; days where I took my knee for granted and just did stuff. About 3-4 weeks ago, it started hurting again--I was even dreaming that I needed knee surgery because it hurt while I was sleeping.

I was worried that I'd done something to it. I spent a couple of weeks worrying and then I called and got an appointment with PT. After 3 appointments, it is MUCH better. The problem seems to be 1, 3, and 4 again. Not as bad as last summer, but still there. I have to keep working on the VMO... The PT said not it's nearly impossible to get it strong enough to compensate for IT bands as tight as mine.

If you need to see a picture of it all, here's the VMO. The VMO is on the "inside" part of your leg.















Here's the IT band; it's on the outside of your leg.














So if you know about knees, you may recognize that I have "patellofemoral syndrome." Some people think it means "bad knees" and that there is nothing you can do for it. I don't accept that. I realize I'm going to have to work to have "good knees." I'm okay with working hard as long as it will work. So far, it's been okay. I am thankful that I've had two really good PTs. (Next steps: I'm going to talk with my PT about this article to make sure I'm doing enough with strengthening other body parts too.)

It sometimes sucks to have to work hard to be able to feel good, but working hard and staying active is way better than not doing anything, taking medicines, and having lots of pain. If you don't use it, you lose it. Using it is very important!

Vaccine reaction

Three-a just got a DTaP shot. Her arm is pretty swollen. I think her arm swelled from this vaccine before. I need to tell the doctor about it and not get her tetanus shots every time they offer them. Tetanus shots can cause bad reactions (I most likely had one).

Electric

Three-a wants an electric car. She loves 2-seaters. Maybe she'll get a Tesla? It's beautiful. I want one.

PSA: mosquitos

Please, if you get an email telling you listerine repels mosquitos, don't believe it. Please, check emails that sound too good to be true before sending them to others.

Home sweet home

We got home last night. No delays on our return flight, thank goodness! The flight left late in the day and got us home around 11:30. The girls were in bed by midnight-ish. Now, today, lots o' laundry.

One year, MWH and I traveled to see my family, we were newly married and had no kids, and we got delayed for 9 hours at the airport where we connect for the final leg of the journey. (It's unfortunate that there are NO direct flights to where my family lives.) It was a long 9 hours. I felt so sorry for this family who had a little baby with them. I couldn't even imagine how awful it was for them.

On the way home, on that same trip, we got delayed AGAIN for about 9 hours in that airport again. We finally got on a plane that took us to an airport about 3 hours away because it was going to be an even LONGER delay if we hadn't. (Good times on U*n*ited. And yet, we continue to fly them--yes our flight was on them this time when we were delayed too.)

Okay, back to the current trip, um, I'll list brief high lights and low lights.

0. The girls are GREAT travelers and flights are so easy with them (ages almost 5, 6 and 8). As much as we dislike airlines and travel, they are a delight! (BIG high light!!!!)

1. Seeing the extended family was fun, but made our VERY short trip insane. It is also a little odd to be with people who you are related to but have NOTHING else in common with them. Lots of taboo topics. (You pick, high light or low light?)

2. Seeing my brothers (only 2 this trip) is always good. I like them. I got to see my niece too. I love her to pieces, and usually love visiting with her (we had one not so good visit a few years back, and I blogged about it, but am not linking to it), but on this trip it was great fun to see her. (high light)

3. Swimming for the girls was fun. They got me to jump off the side of the pool with them in the deep end... It was a little silly with all four of us standing there saying "1, 2, 3" and then jumping, but definitely a high light.

4. My Mom... She wanted us to come for the family reunion. However, the family reunion made it difficult to spend any quality time with her. Alas, I left feeling like she felt short-changed by the visit. She was a little testy with me the night before our last night.

I know she is frustrated that I don't live there, and her frustration stymies her and makes it difficult for her to communicate her feelings, and she ends up saying little things that ANNOY ME TO NO END. I should be the grown up and ignore them, and mostly I do, but they still echo in my ears and weigh me down.

Perhaps, I'll try to plan a trip back to see her with just one of the girls later this fall. (Right now, I have no desire to travel ANYWHERE for a LONG while. Thank goodness, the trip I almost had to go on in August for work is happening without me!!!!!)



There's probably more, but I should get back to work... I have 2 phone meetings and no nanny--she's on vacation this week. (You ask, why she couldn't take off the same week as we did and I say, good question!!! I am a little annoyed, but whatevs.)

Adventures

If you think you might be bored by a post about planes and delays, scroll down and admire our lovely beach picture. As soon as I get a chance I'll re-do the blog to make it a permanent (at least for summer) part of the blog.

We got to the airport in time for our flight and discovered that it was delayed. Its delay meant we wouldn't make our connecting flight. We could 1) take a flight at 7:30 am the next morning, 2) take one at 11:30 or 3) take one even later in the afternoon. Since we already were on a short trip, I wanted to get us in as early as possible; if we took the 11:30 am we'd get in at almost 8 pm. If we took the 7:30 am one, well, we'd get there earlier, but we'd be MISERABLE.

Oh, what to do.


We felt like leaving the airport and going home was pretty anticlimactic, so we opted for option #4. The savvy reader will have noticed that I only presented three options above. The savvy reader is most likely on the edge of his or her seat wondering what out-of-the-box option we created.

Here's what we did. We took the plane to the city with the connecting flight (even though we knew we couldn't catch the flight) and got a hotel room. Since we're here in connecting city, we can catch the second leg of the journey as if we'd left from home on the 7:30 flight, but we don't have to get up at unholy hour. We'll get in much earlier than if we took the 11:30 am flight from home. *We'll lose 4-6 hours of time at our destination, but that's better than 8-10. We were getting in to our destination so late tonight that we weren't actually going to see any one until tomorrow morning.)

After we made the decision to go ahead and start our journey, we had to call and tell the rental car agency to delay our rental and the hotel in the final destination city. The hotel here in this middle stop was a little more than the hotel in our final destination, but we don't have to get up DAMN early, so that's priceless.

Things I forgot to pack.
-My tea. D'oh! It was even on my list. I think the chance that I'll be able to find the tea I LOVE to be pretty slim where we're going. Not zero chance, but 20% maybe.

-Floss, but MWH had some and there's a Target where we're going

-My "good" mouth guard. Somehow I grabbed my old one. While I'm bummed I have the old one, at least I have one.

-Larabars, hopefully they will have some in the place we're going.

I did remember to pack my chocolate bars....I'm trying to decide which is worse, forgetting my tea or forgetting my chocolate.

Oh, and the girls all want to play checkers with ME on the plane on my iPad. I taught oNe how to play them on our last trip and now her sisters think life isn't fair because they haven't gotten to play. I promised them I'd play with each of them sometime on the trip.

Summertime

We like the sun protective swimwear! It was a beautiful day! We saw dolphins not too far out--probably 100 meters? Ahhh, the beach! This picture almost makes me want to re-do the blog and place it in the upper right hand corner... What do you think? Should I?

almost Christmas

My Father used to say, "It's the fourth of July, and then it's Christmas." Yea, I've probably told you that before, but I think of Dad saying that (often). It's amazing how quickly time goes and I think his saying captures time speeding by nicely.

We took the girls to the beach yesterday and they became sand monsters. Today, was a low-key day. We watched Sound of Music this morning. It's not particularly a movie you think of as a 4th of July kind of movie, but twoK wanted to watch it. She loved it all. We watched it in a couple of parts--about half before breakfast and half after. I had little girls sitting and snuggling with me the whole movie... lovely!

MWH ran into work for a little while. After MWH came home, we finally got ourselves out of the house around 3:30 and went to a park. It was the "teeter totter park."* It's such a lovely park; I thought it would be totally crowded for the holiday, but it wasn't crowded at all. It's got huge trees so it's always nice and shady. Our thermometer said 87 at our house, but it didn't feel that warm in the shade at the park. I was even a bit cool. (Now, 7:30-ish, it's a lovely 75 or so.)

After we got home from the park, we had dinner. Now we're heading for another park to go watch fireworks. It doesn't feel like the 4th, yet. It's been such a quiet day. When I was a kid, we'd have HUGE parties. We'll be hanging with our friends tomorrow and then it'll probably feel more like the fourth. Watching fireworks ought to help make it seem like the fourth too.

Happy Fourth to everyone!


*I played on the teeter totter with the girls. I haven't done this for a while (year or two). I was excited because I could do the teeter totter without my back hurting! Go Pilates!

it's not JUST me

This blog is not usually about other people because, well, I don't like to gossip--errr, I don't like to gossip on the Internet or in print... BUT... Today, I ran into a colleague I like and I asked her how it was going. She replied, "It's one of those days. I was at the office until 5:30 am and had to be back at 7." Pardon the posting of non G-rated material, but WTF??????

I was telling another colleague to be nice to ___ (colleague described above) today as she'd been at work all night and she replied, "I know. I sent her something at 2:30 am and she went through it and sent it on to the client and they returned it to me at 10:30 am."

I'm not even sure how to end this post. Do tell me what you think of my colleagues.

College!

Ever since we saw Toy Story 3, we've been discussing college. All 3 of the girls decided they wanted to go to S______ (large, private, excellent university near us). I'm thrilled. I will be able to see them often. Of course, minor detail, they all have to get accepted. Their Dad went there for his Masters.

oNe also decided to take all of her toys with her to decorate her room. twoK wants to room with her sisters and they like that idea, and they want to take night classes.

I'm glad we got all that determined.