Mother Lion Roars

Let me set the scene for you. We'd just arrived at the beach. I was still putting sunblock on myself and Claire. Nathan decided to introduce himself to a little girl in the water by splashing her. I've told Nathan not to do this, but he's three, I have to remind him everyday. Meanwhile, the father is telling his daughter that she should splash Nathan back. I don't like this advice, but I need another minute, and acknowledge to myself that Nathan would deserve it if she splashed back. She's at least five, maybe older. Nathan dumps water from a scoop onto her head, and then splashed her a third time before I can get down to stop him. The father responds to this by splashing water right into Nathan's face.

I lit into him. My voice carried across the whole beach, and probably into town. Dan could have heard me in the kitchen. "He is three, he was just playing. You are an adult, SIR." (I kept saying sir, but in the really sarcastic way that would get me kp duty in the army)"If you have a problem you come see me, you do not splash a THREE year old in the face." etc, etc, etc. He argued that he was trying to teach his daughter to stand up for herself, and I yelled back that he was teaching her to be a bully. He thought that was pretty rich coming from the mom of the boy who started things.

But my point was the same that schools have been making for years. That you don't respond to bullying by fighting back, you teach kids to leave the scene and go to an adult. When Nathan or Claire get splashed, knocked down or generally run over by older kids, I remove them from the area. Does he think that if Nathan had hit his daughter, he'd be justified in hitting Nathan?

So we removed to the opposite end of the beach, and spent an hour waiting for my heartbeat to slow, and wondering if I was going to have to deal with the father during the swim class we'd come for. I mentioned it to the swim teacher when she arrived (who I've gotten to know slightly) and she'd heard about it from the lifeguard on duty. The guard thought I was gonna clock him, and felt that he would have deserved it. I'm probably going to be the talk of the lifeguards for a few days.

Okay, I think I finally calmed down now.

WOW

Can you imagine going to your prom in a dress made of duct tape?



How about over 6000 kids going to the prom dressed in duct tape? Check out this.

Diet Day 3

Okay, so I lost 4 lbs already. I know it's mostly water, and the rate will slow down after the first few weeks, but it's still pretty cool. My short term goal is to lose 25 lbs by Joy's reception. It may be tough without exercise, which I need to talk to my doctor about.

The diet is Good Housekeeping's Supermarket diet. No gimmicks, no fads, very little "banned" foods. Processed white flour and soft drinks are the only real evil foods. For two weeks each day's meal, and one snack, is planned out. But it's all pretty good, and fast to make. There's a few instant meals, like energy bars or frozen dinners. And some cooked meals, like Penne Rigata last night. Friday night there's even beer allowed, to go with the Amy's organic veggie pizza. The shopping list for the first two weeks was 5 pages, because it had info on how many calories, sodium, and fiber should be in the products I bought. The one drawback is that it assumes I'm cooking for more than one, so I have leftovers of some things that Dan isn't around to eat, and that I can't eat while on the 2 week bootcamp. But I can plan things differently when I get to the main diet so that doesn't happen.

Today's breakfast was toast topped with P-butter, honey, apple and cinnamon. Snack will be a whole fruit popsicle. Lunch is leftover Penne, and then canned Lentil soup for dinner with spinach, feta and 1/2 pita. Yum.

At The Beach

If this doesn't get your biological clocks whirring, nothing will.



She's been standing for short stretches since about Mother's day, but whenever I got the camera out, she would lunge for it. So this is the first picture I have of her standing. The strawberry Teva's are too precious for words.

BTW, the camera is an Olympus Stylus 600. I haven't read all the instructions yet, and it has about 24 "scene modes" to use. The pictures don't seem as sharp as the Fuji was, so I need to check to make sure I have it on the highest setting. It fits in my pocket, is weatherproof (which presumbly will also make it thrown food proof) and has a long battery life. Perfect mother camera.


Now, to get the video camera out so we can get her walking. Dan's Aunt & Uncle were so nice to give us a video for Nathan's birth, and we never, never, never use it. I'm just not a home movie person. But I'm feeling bad now that we don't have more of Nathan's toddler years to show his grandparents and Gram-gram.

I'm Full

Pretty good start to the diet. Had some whole-grain cereal for breakfast. It has flaxseed, which is good for my RA. Not very tasty, but I topped it with strawberries. Had a handful of nuts for a morning snack. Lunch was a chicken/spinach/tomato wrap with baby carrots. And I just finished an egg topped spinach salad. And I still get to have a glass of milk for another snack. Yippee!

Full Confession Time

Okay, here goes.....I weigh 224 pounds and wear a size 24 pant. Ugh. I'd like to blame some of that on the prednisone, but that only covers the last 20 pounds. Where'd the rest of it come from? Oh right, I eat candy and/or ice cream everyday, never eat veggies, and eat out too much.

So the diet starts tomorrow. I HATE the term diet, it makes me think of skinny women trying to meet impossible goals. This is more of a lifestyle makeover. I'm following a two-week 1200 cal bootcamp with every bite of food planned out. I need that, because I've forgotten how to shop and cook in all the years that Dan has worked nights.

Then it's up to 1500 cal. Although the diet plan says if the 1200 really kills me, I can go to 1500 early. I've really only dieted once before, when we were in Georgia, but too quickly fell into a rut of eating the same thing everyday. So it got tiring quickly, plus I was still eating junk on Dan's days off. This needs to go well, 224 is a scary number.

Looking for friends

Awhile back I found a blogger who lives near me and decided to bookmark her site to see if we had enough in common for me to introduce myself. Now, it's two months later and I'm still checking in everyday and have yet to say hi. Partly it's that she was talking about moving, and it took awhile to determine that she was just moving across town and not to her fiance's town. She knits, she likes the same movies and books, but she has no kids. I know that's not fatal to an established friendship, but it's a little tough on a new one. Meanwhile, I keep thinking I'll run into her in town and feel weird that I know about her job, fiance, and the fact that she's wearing renaissance costume to her wedding. Does this make me a stalker?


In other news, the attempt to meet people at the playground fizzled in the face of weeks of rain. But I ran into a woman at the mall yesterday (hippie british chick) and Nathan and her son had fun running around the toystore and pet shop. So we made tentative plans for the beach today, but it was overcast so she didn't come. We'll try again on Sunday, at which time I'll test out my new Olympus weatherproof camera.

Lake Placid Lodge

If you have a few thousand dollars to spare, I'd definately recommend a week here, or at any Relais et Chateax property.

Exhibit A. When we arrived, we were offered champagne, juice, tea and a cruise around the lake before we'd even checked into the room.

That's Whiteface mountain in the background. The lake was gorgeous. It was in the eighties but nice and cool on the water. We checked out the estates and boathouses on the lake and picked out one for when we win the lottery.

Exhibit B. The cabin room.



The bed was gigantic, I had to do a pole vaulting move to get up on it. Too warm for the fireplace, although they had a fire for roasting marshmallows outside after dinner. And all the minibar items were comp, which is a nice change of pace from the 3.00 cans of sodas at regular hotels.

Exhibit C. The view from the room. Enough said.


Exhibit D. The bath. We were there less than 24 hours, and I spent about 3 hours in the tub. Huuuuuugggggeee!!!



It wasn't quite the experience it should have been without the main Lodge building. The kitchen (a temp set-up in a Semi) is too small to do a 7 course meal, so instead they have a small bistro set-up in one of the cabins. The plus is that we could eat on the deck right over the water. But I would have enjoyed a full gourmet dinner, and a chance to relax in the library or lounge. Dan didn't want a picture of the big gaping hole in the ground, but we noticed many boaters who slowed down to take a look at it.

They were busy gutting one of the buildings that technically survived the fire, but had extensive smoke and water damage. Hopefully, they can move on to the building phase soon and meet their target to fully reopen next June.

Ah, peace

Pretty, huh? That's where I'll be tomorrow night. Dan went down to Lake Placid for a staff meeting with his once and future employers. While he was there he finagled an all-expense paid night for father's day/my birthday.

Three cheers to the in-laws for watching the kids for 24+ hours. Hopefully they'll survive the experience.

Need a new Camera

I haven't posted in a few days because I like to post pictures, but my camera doesn't work. I turn it on, and two seconds later it powers down. Changing batteries doesn't help, but it's possible that all my rechargables are low on juice. So maybe I just need to buy new batteries.

Unfortunately, once I started looking at the new camera options, and the smaller sizes, I'm got hooked on wanting a new one. Any advice on which one to get? Amazon has about a thousand options and it's impossible to narrow them down.

Working for a living?

I need to write this down to help me think through the problem........

I was just doing the math again trying to decide when I should go back to work. My current fomula of weekly rate-taxes-daycare=$3000 year. Which just about equals what I'd have to spend on health insurance since I'd lose our current coverage if our income rises. That might be a little pessimistic, but even my optimistic calculations only come out to taking home $6000 a year. Yuch!

What to do, what to do.
1. The Lodge is supposed to be on schedule to open next May.
2. Daycare rates will drop as Claire gets older, and when Nathan starts preschool.
3. We really need to guard what is left of our savings so that will have money to move back.
4.It'd be better to add to the savings so we can buy a house asap.
5.Weekly expenses will probably drop if I'm not taking the kids out to lunch and going shopping every other day. Heating bills in the winter will also drop if no one is home.
6.We'll probably lose the current health coverage in Nov. anyway when they realize that Dan gets overtime. I should get a job that provides ins. before then.

A. I'll never see Dan.
B. The kids will be sick more often, and I'll need to take time off work for my Dr.'s appnts.
C. R.A. is still not under control, I shouldn't start work if I may have pain.
D. It'd be nice to be with Claire for first steps, words etc. (She's a slowpoke re:walking)

Hmmmm, I think this means I should go back to work. As long as I find daycare and a payrate that skew toward the optimistic. Then work on our budget some more to make sure that our net worth goes up after I start working, or at least goes down at a slower rate. Nothing would stop me from quitting two months later if it's a disaster.

Country Weekend

Went to the demolition derby today. It was just down the street, we could hear the engines revving from the driveway. The green car in the center is 38DD, driven by a woman, she won this heat. Completely ridiculous, weird fun. Nathan was not as into it as we thought he would be, although as soon as we got home he took a couple of cars and started smashing them together. I think the crowd just about equaled the entire population of the town.

Friday night was the beginning of the Dairy Princess festival in Dan's hometown. We went over for the big wheel races, although Nathan wasn't old enough to compete yet. There were a lot of John Deere tractors to crawl around in, and the night ended with a bluegrass/honky tonk band playing. 

Arthritis Update

I was feeling good before my Doctor's appointment on Wednesday. It's been two months since I had the flare-up in my shoulders (a week of having pain everytime I lifted something), so it seemed to me that the Methotrexate I started 2 1/2 months ago must be working. But I'm still on 7.5 mg of prednisone. I tried to cut down to 5 mg two weeks ago and it did not go well. It wasn't horrible pain, but for two days I ached in every single joint in my body. I think that's over 30 points altogether, 10 fingers and toes, wrists, elbows, shoulders, knees, hips, feet, hands and neck. I could get through the day fine, but when I tried to sleep, each of those points throbbed slightly as if someone was driving small tacks into the bone.

Patty, the nurse practitioner, did not see this as a success. "We're going for perfection" is what she said. Patty, by the way, is great. She saw me at the first appointment and spent more time listening to me cry over the lost job, lost house and lost apartment then most doctors spend talking about the disease. So, we've added leflunomide (or Arava) to the mix. It might not last, because the side effects are pretty unpleasant for 30% of the people who try it. But if it works, it's been shown to boost the effectiveness of the MTX by 20%. And in the win-win column, if it doesn't work, then I'm one step closer to getting my insurance to approve the newer, hopefully better, drugs.

Meanwhile, I'm wondering if the old wives tales of knowing when the rain is coming based on the pain in your knee have some merit. Because it's been raining all day, and rained two days ago, and I've been feeling worse than I have for weeks. Yuck!