Ways You Can Help: Haiti Help Donation Roundup

I know everyone is touched in some way or another by the tragic disaster in Haiti.
The Red Cross is in desperate need of monetary donations. Sending clothing, food etc may be well-intentioned but actually requires more resources to sort and ship than they have, so money is really better. Please consider donating to either them or another charity that you support.


Here are some ways you can help, as listed by a few fellow bloggers:

1. Todd and Erin, Help for Haiti  (Ways you can help)
2. Money Saving Mom, Help for Haiti Drive (List of ways everyone can help)
3. Parenting Magazine (a whole list of charities and organizations in need of donations with phone numbers or links)

I will be updating this as I see more, and as the above ways to help close. Thank you for caring!

Keep breathing. In and out.

Everything is temporary.

The Universe will provide.

Keep breathing.

Justice for Noah

Yesterday a breakthrough occurred in the way the legal system treats the perpetrators of Shaken Baby Syndrome.

That justice has been served lightens my heart, even as I feel sorrow for the family of the woman who did this.

http://www.noahsroad.com/?p=297#comments

Stay strong, little Noah, and keep on thriving.

Hey, look, it's Wednesday!

Lame title, I know. Whatever.

My temperature dropped today. Ugh. Looks like another short LP. Currently on my list of things to buy at the store:

• Vitamin E, because damn I hate sore boobs. It's easy to forget when you haven't had any 100% normal cycles in almost 3 years, and before that I took 400U a day so my boobs were never really sore during PMS. It was nice...
• Vitamin B6, because this short LP thing will be a problem in a few months when we'd like to have baby #2. 

I have also lost 6.2 pounds! Yay! I had been getting really frustrated because these antibiotics are slowing down my digestion and I've been bloated due to PMS, but I was actually able to get a (reasonably) accurate weight this morning in spite of that. This puts me back in the regular BMI category (YAY!!) and it means I only have 15.8 pounds left to lose. Hrm. But hey, I'm like 25% there, and I have until July 1st-ish, so I'm feeling good about this. I have been doing well about jumping rope, but it's really hard on my knees (God I feel old...) so I took a day off from it and I am going to start wearing my knee braces while I jump rope.

J is still cute. He named one of his stuffed puppies (the brown one) Athena (which he pronounces Feen or Feena, depending on the day), and he named the black puppy Felix Doggie (at least that's what he said, who knows what he actually meant, maybe "Feena's doggie") and the white puppy Doggie.

Blah. Hate PMS.

I could really do without the "PMS starts 1 week after ovulation" thing. My boobs are sore, I'm exhausted, I'm irritable. Good times. And my temperature is still lovely and high (98.2, if you care to know) so AF is not, in fact, pending at any second. I need to start taking Vitamin E again. I used to take 400U a day due to massive breast tenderness during PMS, and it worked amazingly. I haven't taken it since I got pregnant with J, but I haven't had problems with sore boobies until the last couple cycles. Good times.

Note to Self:

If I'm going to be jumping rope for cardio, I need to put on a pantiliner first.

Apparently all the Kegels in the world won't make up for pushing a kid out.

Oh yeah

I think I've got a sinus infection. I'm feeling fine except the copious amounts of nasty slime that seems to be multiplying in my sinus cavity. And the burning. God, the burning. I should find my neti pot.

The Fitness Diaries!!

I am so very proud of myself right now, so just bear with my attention whoring.

As you probably noticed, I want to lose weight. 22 pounds, to be exact. By July first at the latest. That's my goal. To do this, I've joined SparkPeople. This is a fantastic website that includes a calorie calculator, exercise plans, meal tracking, and community support. My calorie goal is to get between 1200-1550 per day, with 8+ glasses of water. I consistently have problems getting enough protein, but I've made all my goals and only went over 1550 twice (including the first day, when I hit almost 2000. Yikes. No wonder I gained so much weight). Anyway, I am trying to find ways to incorporate more protein but it doesn't seem to matter what I do. Even if I feel like I'm eating tons of protein I'm still short at the end of the day until I have some milk or eat some almonds or something. I have been trying to make better food choices but with J's leftover birthday cake that's been hard (however, the recipe calculator really helped me figure out how much I could eat without going nuts). C and I finished that cake yesterday though so I'm in the clear. Until my birthday. Which is in 2 1/2 weeks. When I'll be 27. Which means that I'm only 3 years from 30 and having to be a real adult. But I digress...

Where was I? Oh yeah. I weighed myself on Christmas day at my MIL's house, with her Weight-Watchers scale, so I assume it's accurate, and I came in at 142. With all my clothes on. Well, as of J's birthday, I weighed (on a medical quality scale, with all my clothes on) 139. So in 2 weeks, I lost 3 pounds. Not too shabby! I don't technically weigh in until this Thursday. I'm going to keep weighing myself in the evening just for consistency, although I did play with my new scale from Costco (Taylor brand, usually $24.99 but with the coupon it was only $14.99! Woot!) and I apparently lose 3 pounds at night. Hmm. I weigh about 138 nekkid, so I'll probably use that weight just because different clothes weigh different, but we'll have to see what Thursday brings.

On to my bragging about today!
1. I have imbibed 9 glasses of water today.
2. I took J and the dogs for a 30 minute walk which covered about 1.5 miles.
3. I did my entire core strength training workout, which about killed me, but I did it. Including 2 sets of 12 reps of modified pushups. I almost didn't finish the pushups but I kept telling myself that if fat people on The Biggest Loser can do it, so can I.

I am feeling rather noodley now, but I will persevere! Yay!

When J Became a Smartass

Yesterday J was nibbling on one of his toys. I told him to stop biting it, and he looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and said "Not bite. Taste."

I think my laughter may have negated my authority with trying to get him not to bite his toys.

Happy Birthday, Little J!

I can hardly believe that two years ago today, you were this:

Happy birthday little man. You have changed my life for the better in ways I never imagined. I love you.