Unresolved

I am a New Year's resolution quitter.

Well, not exactly.  

I am still on my no sugar, no alcohol, 1,500 calorie a day diet.  I'm doing quite well on it actually.  I'm down 8 pounds.  My goal was to lose 10.  8 pounds in 3 weeks in nothing to sneeze at.  I look thinner. (Trust me, if I think I look thinner, I look thinner.  I am my own worst critic.)  I am most definitely in a smaller clothing size.

I would give my left arm for a glass of wine.

One of the reasons I wanted to do this was to make sure I could.  My drinking and my eating habits had gotten a little gluttonous and I needed to scale back.  Reign it in.  Remember that we were, in fact, not running out of food and alcohol and that there would still be food and alcohol tomorrow.  I needed to get in control of my eating and my drinking and I have done that, quite successfully.

But there are other, darker, scarier reasons that I don't always talk about.  My friend Jennie did so beautifully, and I recognized so much of myself in her words. 

Detox diet, sometimes, is just another word for eating disorder.

I'm not saying I have an eating disorder, exactly, but I certainly have, at times in my life, had a tendency towards an eating disorder.  And I certainly have a voice in my head that says "not thin enough, not good enough, keep going, keep dieting, be thinner."  And when I start counting calories, as I have been doing, it gets louder, and more pronounced.

Some days I haven't even been eating 1,500 calories.  And the funny thing is, I'm not hungry. I'm too excited when the scale numbers go down to be hungry.

When I started my no alcohol, no sugar, no white flour, no processed foods plan I said I would go six weeks.  I think I am calling it after four.  I don't like what it is doing to me, the places I'm going in my head, and the silent cheer I give myself every time someone says "you look really thin."  I was pretty sure I had gone too far when I was trying to figure out how to hide a juice fast from my husband.

I may be a quitter, but I'm a quitter for a the right reasons. 

 

 

 

And Then I Tried to Kill My Family With A Home Soda Maker

Let me preface this story by saying home soda makers are SAFE!  I WAS NOT FOLLOWING THE DIRECTIONS! DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME! DO NOT SUE ME! 

(Legal disclaimer over.)

We have one of those "home soda makers," and since this post was sponsored by no one, and once you read it the makers of the "home soda maker" will probably not want to be associated with me, I will not tell you which one.  But I generally like it.  I don't drink soda, but I use it to make flavored seltzer water and Doug makes natural soda.

There is a warning that you should not fizzelate (our made up word for using the machine) after you add the flavoring.  But I messed up and thought Doug had already fizzelated so I added my seltzer flavoring. Not wanting to throw out an entire bottle of water and flavoring, I attempted to fizz it.  I figured what was the worst thing that could happen.

THIS IS WHEN I STOPPED FOLLOWING THE DIRECTIONS THAT CAME WITH THE PRODUCT.

If you are familiar with these home soda makers, you know that you infuse the water with CO2.  And when I did that with water that had already been flavored, the bottle exploded and water went everywhere.  I mean everywhere.  And the water was powerful.  It went on the ceiling.  It went across the room.  Doug ducked and thought he had been hit by a bottle.  Michael screamed.  It was all pretty dramatic.  And humorous.  

Directions people, this is why you follow directions.

When the dust settled I was soaking wet and laughing.  Doug did not think this was so funny because he thought I ruined the ceiling.  We cleaned up the water, realized the bottle managed to somehow survive, and once Doug calmed down he found humor in it as well.

Our ceiling is fine in case you were worried.  (I never was.)  We all survived my attempt to termite us all via home soda maker.

Lesson learned: when a product says not to do something, they are not kidding. Because you might die via fizzelation.

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Are you reading The Broad Side, from the brilliant Pundit Mom?  If you are not you should be.  I have a new post up about John Edwards and his delay in trial. I can not be the only one it occured to that he is making up the heart condition. 

I May Be A Fashion Don't

I consider myself a relatively fashionable person. I know what is "in style." I know what looks good on me. I am complimented on my clothes regularly. I have a whole my style pinboard on pinterest that is frequently repinned and liked and commented upon. 

I have a confession to make.  I have fallen unabashedly in love with leggings. I keep buying more. I had a $50 amazon gift card, and I bought leggings. Leggings! (The amazing thing about that is that I did not buy shoes.) When I am not at work I am wearing leggings, sweaters, and uggs. (I need another pair of uggs, desperately.) I KNOW. It is awful, horrible, and I look like I'm 18. The first time my husband saw this outfit he said "are you going to class?" I'm convinced Stacy and Clinton are going to hop out from behind a tree any second. But it is so cute. And comfortable. 

Like this, but with uggs:

Today I'm meeting a friend for lunch. I think I'm going to mix it up and wear boot boots instead of uggs. Call me crazy!

I see other people dressed like me at school pick up and the grocery store so I know I am not way off base as far as what is in style, at least for the suburban mom. But seriously. Someone tell me to stop this. Or something. Or tell me what their favorite leggings are. Because I've stopped drinking and I've replaced it with shopping.  

Image credit: polyvore.com via pinterest

-I'm featured on Tots 2 Tweens today.  Check it out!  And you can still jump into our totally awesome Get Your Body Back Community, where soon, I will look even better in my leggings.  2 pounds down!

 

 

Resolutions

I've never been a huge New Year's resolution person.  I tend to make random changes whenever.  Like 2 years ago on a random Monday I declared I was done with diet soda and I was.  (It was a bit more complicated than that, it was giving me terrible headaches, but it really was a random Monday.)  I took up running, I don't know, in March, or something like that.

My point is, I don't really do the whole New Year's resolution thing.

But 2012 is the year of change, and in honor of the year of change, I'm making some New Year's resolutions.  

I'm committing to running a 10k this year.  It is totally, absolutely, entirely insane, but I am.  I ran my first training run on Dec 31st.  I'm trying to remember if I wanted to die when I started couch to 5k. Because the very first run in bridge to 10k almost killed me.

People who know me in real life are about to fall off their chairs, but I'm giving up alcohol for 6 weeks. (And sweets, but that is not really that big of a deal.)  6 weeks, January 2nd to February 18th, the day we leave for vacation.  (I'm not flying without liquor.)  I'm doing this for a variety of reasons.  To kick start some weight loss (also a resolution, because when is it not?), to get my butt in gear, to get serious about changing some bad habits.  But more than anything, I want to know that I can do it.  So I'm going to.  6 weeks. Alcohol free.

Yes, I'm serious.  Really truly serious.  So serious I took a picture of my last drink. It was sangria.  I also ate a lot of chips.  

Our family resolution is to keep the house neater.  The cleaning service comes and the next day the house is a disaster again.  I can't do it anymore.  We bought this house two years ago and as much as I love it I just want it to be clean, and neat and grown up.  But I can't do it by myself.  So we are going to put things away and keep it clean.  At least we are going to try as best we can with a 6 year old and a dog.

I have one more resolution but I'm still keeping that to myself for now.  

I'd love to hear what some of your resolutions are.

**If losing weight, getting in shape, and healthy eating are on your list I'm moderating a forum on getting your body back and all that good stuff.  With some really awesome people,  @musingsfromme, @ciaomom, and our fearless leader @dumbparent.  Come, talk to us.

 

Lists

I'm a big list person.  I write shopping lists for the grocery store and present lists and packing lists.  And even though I have a million iphone list making apps I still write them all out by hand.  I like to cross things off, it makes me feel better.  It gives me a sense of accomplishment.

It also wastes paper.  I know.

I've never gotten into the whole "life list" or "bucket list" craze.  I know many, many other people have, but I just can't.  I can't think that far ahead.  I can barely think about what I want to accomplish TODAY let alone what I want to accomplish IN MY LIFETIME.  I'm pretty sure I'd like to go to Tuscany and maybe retire someday? Maybe run something further than a 5k?  Raise a healthy well adjusted functioning member of society? Spend a night at The Inn at Little Washington?  (We have had dinner there but never spent the night.)

I write a terrible life list.  I think other people's vision boards are lovely.  Mine would be awful.

I'm going to do one thing in 2012 and I'm going to do that thing if it kills me.  I'm going to work harder at that than I've worked at anything in my entire life.  I've got one thing on my list and it is starred and bolded and underlined.  And in all caps.  

I'm not ready to tell you what it is just yet, (no, I'm not going to have a baby), but I promise, the minute it happens, you all will be the first group of people I tell. (Well, maybe the second.)

2012, the year of change.

Who is with me?

 

I'm A Conundrum

I'm a little bit of an old soul in some ways.  I miss the days of when people RSVPed to things.  I like when people send thank you notes, and always, always send them myself.  I believe in hostess gifts.  I don't care for evite, and believe that if you expect me to bring a gift, I should get a proper invitation.  The first time I get an emailed wedding invitation I may die. I'm not going to make it through my son's Bar Mitzvah years, I suppose, where I believe email and evites and OHMYG-D Facebook event invitations have become the norm.  (Do not get me started on Facebook events.  I think many people using Facebook events need to have EVENT defined for them.)

I love sending, and recieveing paper holiday cards.  I don't really mind the ecard, but there is something about the paper holiday card that I still love.  I know, I'm a dinosaur.  

I have a no niche memoir blog.  Who has one of those anymore?  I like Hipstamatic better than Instagram, but I never, ever use a real camera anymore.  I have a Flip, somewhere, buried on my desk.

I love social media except I don't really care for Facebook, and came to it kicking and screaming.  Even so, I'm not really ON Facebook, posting blog posts, and Instagram pictures and random tweets.  I'd much rather be on twitter or pinterest or anywhere than Facebook.  

I'm an early adopter.  I was on twitter before it was twitter.  I remember twitter before hashtags and twitter parties.  I remember twitter before twitter was TWITTER.  I was on twitter before every celebrity was on twitter.  

I hate the phone.  I groan often and loudly when it rings.  I'd much rather send a text message or an email than talk on the phone.  There are few people left in the world I have phone conversations with. My husband, my mom, my sister, my two closest friends.  Pretty much no one else in the planet calls me unless it is work related.

I spend much of the day gchatting my husband.  Am I the only person left on the planet still using gchat? I have a skype account but I always, always forget to open it.  I frequently forget Google+ exists.  

Are we all a little bit like this?  Picking things from days of yore we cling to (RSVPs, paper invitations) and letting other things go (can we please get rid of the phone, please?)

As a rule I hate all pictures of me.  And then Amie took this at Ice! on Sunday and I love it so much I kind of wish I had it for when we ordered our holiday cards.

 

 

 

Solving Skin Problems

Thanks to L'Oreal for sponsoring my post about my favorite beauty looks, tips and tricks! Check out Makeup.com for beauty advice from the experts.

If you have been reading me for a while, you know that I have been struggling with frequent breakouts ever since Michael was born.  And I have literally tried every acne line under the sun.  And nothing has been working.  I was prepared to throw my hands up in the air and surrender to accutance until an esthetician at the Aveda salon I was getting a facial at convinced to me to go a whole other route. Ditch the acne products and try something else.  Skin Brightening products.

These types of products are popping up everywhere.  I know Clinique has one, Kiehl's, and so does the Body Shop, and I'm sure there are more, but I've been using Aveda's Enbrightment line.  I purchased a trial kit that was much cheaper than purchasing all of the full sized products and two weeks in I'm seeing a noticeable difference in my skin.  Not only are the breakouts clearing up (finally) but the acne scars are also going away and my skin is brighter (obviously) and less dull.  The esthetician explained to me that this product speeds up cell regeneration and will help clear your skin, even though it is not specifically developed for acne.

My tip, sometimes you have to take a leap.  At first I was like, "but it is not designed for acne.  You have an acne line?  How can you not be recommending that?"  And then I thought to myself, I have tried everything on the planet designed for acne, maybe I need something else.

It hasn't been very long, but I'm thinking that once the trial size products are gone I'm buying the full line.  And that is saying a lot.  I've hated everything else I've bought.

*photo credit Aveda.com.  I purchased the products discussed myself.

I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective. Click here to learn more about Makeup.com or become a Facebook fan by clicking here.

 

I'm Not Sure If I Should Laugh Or Cry

I'm coming up on what is possibly the busiest two weeks of the year for me.  In between hosting Thanksgiving for both families, I have two major trials at work, Foster needs emergency surgery, Doug is starting a brand new job, so he is totally out of pocket, and Michael has just started spelling tests at school.  So on top of all of his regular homework, he has spelling homework.  While school thinks all of his homework should take "no more that 15 minutes a night in addition to reading and basic facts practice (WTF)" I have yet to talk to a parent that this is ACTUALLY the case.  He also moved up a belt in karate this weekend (yeah) and his classes are now an hour later on Monday nights.  Which means we get home an hour later.  So homework starts an hour later.  Maybe I'll make him do homework before we leave for karate.  I haven't decided yet.

I haven't set my Thanksgiving menu.  I haven't thought about Thanksgiving other than having Doug order the Turkey and mentally thinking, I need to find my Thanksgiving folder from my last year.  Every year I freak out about Thanksgiving and every year I swear I'm not going to do it again and every year I do it again. Where exactly is my Thanksgiving folder from last year?  I don't know either.  I lose that thing every year.   

I have started to get evites and emails to a bazillion holiday parties and brand events and I'm all, can I just get through the next two weeks?  And then I will think about cookie exchanges and Toys for Tots and Holiday Fairs.  I promise.  Give me two weeks.  If I owe you an email or a contest vote or a post or anything, I promise you will get it from me.  Give me two weeks.

I also haven't started Hanukkah shopping.  I still can't find anywhere to go for New Years weekend.  I bought an outfit, yesterday, for the event we have this Saturday night.  I feel like I'm always running about 20 minutes behind on everythng in life lately.

After writing about how I have nothing to say I have things to write about!   We went to see Spiderman the musical in NYC.  And my awesome parent teacher conference.  But I have no time or brain power to write about those things.  Instead I'm writing this riddiculous post about how I'm too busy to write a real post.  Bear with my please.  

And later this week it is the 5 year anniversary of jodifur!  I'm shocked too.

 

Holiday Comforts

This post is sponsored by Tempur-Pedic, the brand millions of owners trust to deliver their best night’s sleep every night. Enjoy our Buy 2, get 1 free pillow offer now and give the gift of custom comfort to someone you love.

I have tried to be in denial about the holidays.  Every time I go on pinterest and I see a Thanksgiving recipe I click away.  But the bottom line is the holidays are here, and I need to get with the program. My inbox is filled to the brim with holiday invites, my Thanksgiving turkey is ordered, and my holiday cards are in a box upstairs, waiting to be addressed.  And I even have some presents hidden in our storage closet, waiting to be wrapped.

The reason I am in denial about the holidays is that they are just so busy, and never fail to stress me out. Every weekend is jam packed.  I feel overwhelmed before they even start.  It starts with me hosting Thanksgiving for both families and doesn't end until after New Years.  The endless parties and work events and wrapping and holiday cards and I feel like I never have a chance to breath.

I have learned in recent years that I have to say no.  I do not have to attend every event we are invited to.  I cut my holiday card list way back, simply by ordering less cards.  If I haven't spoken to you in a year, you do not need a holiday card.  We celebrate Hanukkah, and our tradition is to do one gift a night.  I have decided that every gift does not need to be a big gift.

This year, holiday comfort is going to be about keeping close friends and family close, and trying to filter the noise and busyness away.  Saying no is okay.  Staying home is okay. Buying small gifts, or something homemade is also ok.  While this is my 10th year doing Thanksgiving, it never fails to get me completely stressed out. I'm trying to breath and remember that the most important things about the holidays are the people you love, not the perfect mashed potatoes.

Although my mashed potatoes are really good.

Comfort is the perfect gift for everyone on your holiday gift list, so be sure to take advantage of Tempur-Pedic's Buy 2, get 1 free pillow offer! I was selected for this sponsorship by the Clever Girls Collective.

Wiiiiiiiiiiii

I hosted a party last night, for the launch of Wii Play Motion.  I always worry when I host a party.  That no one is going to come, and if people do come, that no one is going to have a good time.  But I didn't need to worry about this party, there was a ton of ice cream and wine and a fun game to play.  And it was a great mix of people, bloggers and non bloggers a like.  And we talked about everything from running to how to control the toy clutter in our house.

But the focal point was Wii Play Motion and we definitely had a blast playing the game.  Amy was afraid that during the Spooky Search game there were actual ghosts in my house, and we all enjoyed knocking out some aggression by whacking some vermin in Veggie Guardin'.  Especially Janine.  

Of course, the delicious ice cream and wine didn't hurt.  And sometimes the best way to relax after a long weekend and prepare for the week to come is to laugh and hang out with your friends.  I could not have asked for a better Sunday night.

Disclosure: As a party host, I received a copy of Wii Play Motion, 3 remotes, all the supplies needed for an ice cream bar, party favors for guests, and a party gift for one lucky party attendee.  I was not compensated for this post, nor was I required to write it.  All opinions are my own.  Links are affiliate links. 

(All photos taken with my new iphone 4s.  I could not love it more.  Paid for by me.)