Thunder Thighs

It is no secret to anyone who knows me that I gain all my weight in my lower half. My butt and thighs are in no way in proportion with my arms and stomach. When I bought my bathing suits I would have to go to a place that sold pieces separately so I could buy a small top and a large bottom.

The good part of this is that I have always had a pretty flat stomach and thin arms. The bad part of this is probably obvious. I once had a 6th grade boy say "Damn Ms., you have a ba-donca-donc (I have no clue how to spell that, but is is slang for big ole' booty). Of course to this young man, it was a compliment, but in every day life...not so much.

I like having some curves...but thunder thighs that touch are not fun. If I gained 10 lbs next week, 9.5 of it would go directly to my upper legs.

As I took my shower this morning I spotted a bottle of baby powder behind my makeup and something miraculous occured to me. This is the first summer in 5 years that I have not felt the need to baby powder up my thighs to prevent the discomfort of having two fat legs rubbing together.

This fact alone will insure that I continue to hit the gym every day. I would really prefer not to go back to big ole' sloppy thighs.

Oh sunshine, where are you?

Summer vacation has started. I am home with the babies and looking to embrace all things summer. You know like,
Sunshine and warmth
Long days at the beach
Cookouts with friends
Trips to the park
Hiking
Kiddie Pools
Healthy veggies and lean meat grilled outdoors

Sounds great right? Well it has been raining and miserable here since Wednesday (my first day of vacation). It is now Saturday and I am 3 steps from lossing my mind. I do not do indoors with two kids very well. I have taken them to all possible indoor favorites: indoor play place, Children's Museam, Library, Friendly's.
I even walked around Petco and pretended it was the zoo.

I am out of ideas and the sun had best come out tomorrow.

The other major reason this weather is cramping my style is that I am eating too much. I am most definietly a boredom eater. As mentioned above, I even took the kids to Friendly's ( a kids restaraunt for the non-New Englanders) with a friend and her son. Needless to say, I did NOT order a salad. I keep opening the fridge and picking at things. This must stop!

Tomorrow is supposed to get better. We are off to see family and celebrate Charlotte's birthday. This will mean picnic food and cake. Monday needs to be a fresh start. Come on Summer, where are you?

A recipe...finally

I have been way too lazy to type up a new recipe, but I liked this so I will share.

Greek veggies with wheat cous-cous

What you need:
1 medium eggplant, washed and peeled and thinly sliced
1 bunch of asparagus with ends snapped off
1 cup whole wheat cous-cous, cooked according to directions (I sub maragrine with olive oil)
1/4 cup sundried tomtaoes (the kind that is NOT packed in oil) diced into small pieces)
1/2 cup feta cheese

Brush veggies with a very small amount of olive oil and add your favorite seasoning. I just used some fresh herbs and a tiny bit of sea salt.

1. Grill eggplant and asparagus for a few minutes on each side
2. In a sprayed glass baking dish , spread out cous-cous all over the bottom
3. Sprinkle 1/2 of the feta over cous-cous
4. Spread out grilled veggies and sundried tomatoes over feta
5. Add remainder of feta
6. Bake in 350 degree oven for 10-15 minutes.

YUMMY! This is a great side dish for your grilled meat and is clean eating.

Babies do grow up...

Yup. It's true. Babies always grow up, and even though I do not love every second of the infant stage...it sure is sad when they grow up.

Ms. Charlie (Charlotte) will be 1 years old this week. I really can't believe it. There are just so many times when I say to myself...I cannot believe I have two kids!, let alone two kids, neither of who are babies.

It has been a crazy year. I had to go back to work 8 weeks after having her. My husband went from working 60 hour work weeks, to being a stay at home dad. We made some major lifestyle changes and had our struggles living on one income with one car. But we made it and I actually think we did a great job.

I feel pretty good about myself and am glad that I managed to make myself a priority without neglecting the needs of my kiddos.

I absolutely adore having a little girl. There is no doubt that the love between my son and I is special, but my Charlotte is my soulmate. She and I have a connection like no other. I love her equally to my son (obviously) but our love is different. She is a mini-me, while my son is my total opposite. I see Charlotte as a gentle soul. She is like a little butterfly and is so feminine and delicate. Of course I already worry about her. I don't want her to make my mistakes, or be the painfully shy child I was. I cannot even imagine watching her hurt, or knowing someday someone just may break her heart. My son is tough..he has been since the day he was born..Charlotte is not tough, but I hope that we will teach her to be strong.

It is hard not to channel your own insecurities onto your child, especially when they are the same gender as you. I will have to work on this. But for now I just know she has a great daddy to teach her how a man should treat her and a mommy who has a goal to be sure her kiddos will feel good about themselves and are allowed to get good at many different things so they have a place to draw confidence from.

I love you Ms. Charlotte. Please don't grow up too fast.

Why I teach...

I have 2.5 days of school left and I am overjoyed. Today was our end of the year field trip and I spent the day in the sun laughing with kids and other teachers on the water front in my bathing suit.

Teahing is HARD. It is seriously difficult for so many reasons. There have been so many days where I feel like I just can't do it anymore. But this time of year reminds you that it was all worth it. You get to say good bye to a group of kids that you have grown to love. It is like having a new family every year. We have our moments of joy, hate, sadness, anger, accomplishment...but in the end we end up missing each other as we float into the summer.

If it wasn't for vacation no one could teach. It is like hitting the reset button. But once again I find myself sad to leave these kids. They have challenged me all school year long, but there will be a hole in my heart when they walk out on Tuesday. I guess I will just have to heal that hole sitting on the beach all summer. Life is good!

Health check in

My brother in law and nephew are staying with us this week, which is great...except for the fact that my eating was OUT OF CONTROL yesterday. They brought home pizza, I arrived home from work starving and I ate my face off.

I seriously felt sooo sick this morning. It felt like I had a bad hangover. Since we started eating clean I am not used to the extra sodium and carbs. It was so bad that I didn't make it to the gym..which isn't a good thing after a night of binging.

However, for the most part we have stuck to our healthy eating. We still go for frozen yogurt too much, but otherwise we are doing well.

I am holding strong at about 132lbs and hitting the gym at least 4 days a week. I feel stronger lately and have been lifting heavier weights. I even did some real (not girly) pushups the other day and I could NEVER do those.

I will be attempting to stop nursing my daughter in the next few weeks. My plan is to go back to calorie counting for a little while. Especially since the stopping of nursing coincides with me being done with work for the summer. I know I will need some help staying on track. I am going to do myfitnesspal.com and see if I can keep my weight where it is. I will also try to workout getting to the gym at least 5 days a week.

We are going on a 2 week vacation in the middle of the summer and I know I need to go into it in really good shape so I don't fall totally off track.

Only other big healthy/ life related factor is that we need to face the decision of if we want to have a 3rd child...GULP. I am the worst at making huge decisions. We always said we wanted 3 kids...but the thought of doing this all over again scares me. Hmmmm...........................

If I had a million dollars....

I try to live in the here and now, I really do. But the military brat in my is always looking to the future and dreaming of living somewhere or doing something else. I really hate this about myself because I really thought that at this point in my life I would just be happy with where I am, especially after my husband built us such a beautiful house.

But I still think about my "dream" life. I think part of why I think about it so much is that really my dream is not ALL that unrealistic or extravagent and my husband has a very similar fantasy.

If money was no object and if some of our family didn't need us so much, here is what I would do:

I would buy a bed and breakfast or inn on a large farm in rural New England (probably Maine) with at least 25 acres. I would have huge organic gardens to grow the produce for the inn's breakfasts. At this inn I would hold special programs for families traveling with children. I would run activities for the kids during the day. We would have a house right on the property and our dog would wander around and greet people. I would raise Scottish Highland Cattle and would have a donkey. My kids would help with the business and animals and each would have their own horse. I would snow shoe and cross country ski all winter on our property and we would build our own semi indoor ice skating area. My husband would make original home decor items to sell and we would have a farm stand in the summer.The town we lived in would have one church, one store and everyone would know our name.

We would close down for 2 weeks in the winter and go on a family trip to some new place each year.

Ahhh, my fantasy life. Pretty simple right? Maybe someday.

What's your fantasy life?