A Post You’ve Been Waiting For

Hello, Internet land!  How have you been?  Swell?  Excellent.

I managed to get off my rear (actually, I have sat down ON my rear to do this, but I digress) and take some pictures of our home.  I figured that all of you have been WAITING to see some of our renovation photos.  Well.  It’s your lucky day!  I took some pictures of our living room.  So, here we go!

Here are the “Before” shots.  Please excuse the mess!

From our front door:

From the fireplace (tucked behind the couch):

From the fireplace, other direction:

During the renovations:

Front Entrance:

The wall above the fire place:

So. We didn’t do a huge amount in this room, really. We closed in the ceiling to increase the square footage upstairs (and essentially give us our bonus room), replaced the yucky carpet with laminate, and painted the walls. In the front hall, we replaced our lino with tile, as well as closing in the ceiling, and painting. We had a bit of fiddly work done at the top of the pony wall railing to make it look nice. We left the glass insert in the pony wall, so we didn’t lose the light into the stairwell.

We added an overhead light in the living room, as well as the spot lighting because I dislike not being able to turn on an overhead light in the living room. I figure that I can always just use lamps if I want mood lighting, but it’s hard to make a lamp really get a lot of light in a room, if you know what I mean. To be honest, this is not a room that Rob and I spend a ton of time in, although the girls do like to read and play in here sometimes. Mostly, this is our “formal” living room, used when guests come over.

From the front door:

From the front door, but a wider angle:

From the kitchen:

From the fireplace:

We still have a few things to do in here. I’d like to get a couple of end tables, for both of the couches. A lamp might be nice, on both tables. Especially seeing as how we use the couch near the book case for reading and relaxing. We have family pictures and wedding pictures to hang above the couch, as well. I would like to find a matching rug for the front entrance, as well. The carpet scraps we have are working well, so far… but they’re not ideal for the long term, I think.

Thanks for looking!

Scrapbook Sunday 01-08-12

Scrapbook Sunday!!! Who is excited? Only me? Ahem.

So, I’ve been back at the scrapbooking since we’ve had our computer back up. I’ve done a zillion pages (or so) in the past week, and I’m excited to show them to you!

This one is Halloween 2009. Kitten dressed up as a witch (although I think she told people she was a fairy. I can’t remember). This graphics package called to me – it’s just too cute with the little bats and such. I picked this one up at Designer Digitals.

So that’s it.    Maybe next week I’ll post a scrapbook page with Birdie.  Or maybe not. 

You guys. I am alive.

Well, we’re “done” the reno (as in, the construction stuff is mostly done, barring a few touch ups, but we are still in unpacking and decorating mode). But I’m not ready to do all my before and after shots until the decorating is done. So, patience, grasshopper.

I completely went off of the Paleo Diet thing during the last month or so of the reno. It was difficult and uninspiring to not have a kitchen and have to chose from a very limited selection of items while eating out. I ended up gaining some weight back (I think 7 pounds?), but it came off really easily during the month of November (another Whole 30). Rob joined me on the Whole 30 this time, and he lost a few pounds… not that he was even remotely near fat or even had that much to loose. However, his eczema has completely disappeared, and it seems (to me) like he has more energy/drive… but maybe that’s because the computer has been in storage until the last week Christmas didn’t derail us too much, although I did play a little food bingo, where there were certain things I really wanted to eat during the holidays that I only get to eat once a year, or even every other year.

I’ve been making an effort to move more these days, and that’s kind of my plan for this year. I feel like I have the eating thing down (I would say that I’m paleo 90% of the time, allowing for treats on ocassion), and now it’s time to start moving. So I’ve been doing some strength conditioning at home (body weight exercises), and I’ve started doing yoga at home again, as well (did you know that some people have put 1 hour long yoga routines on youtube? Amazing – now I don’t have to go take a class). I did buy a 20 punch pass card for a local Crossfit gym… but have been to afraid to go. I should just get going and receive my beating. Ha ha. I feel like I wanted to get a little bit stronger before I go. Which is stupid, as the POINT of going is to get strong THERE. But yeah.

The kids are both good. Kitten has been a busy girl, and is very into Pokemon and Disney Fairies right now. Birdie is the same as always, except she now has 4 teeth, and is willing to play in the basement (finished, all the toys are down there) for long stretches of time by herself. She has moved out of the crib in the closet, and is now sleeping on a double mattress on the floor of her new room. She was in a sleep sack for a little while, but she seems to prefer to sleep under a big blanket now. Silly girl.

Rob is doing well at work, and has aquired a bunch of new skills at home. He did all the dapping and the lions share of baseboard painting in our house. He also learned how to install laminate floor, paint an entire house in a weekend, and just generally be bonkers. It has been a fun ride, although I’m not terribly sure that I would want to live in our home during construction of that magnitude again. The major plus was that we noticed a lot of things that needed to be fixed as we went along, instead of having to make the contractors go back and fix it.

Well, it sounds like the girls are done their breakfast. I should attend them. Watch this space for new before & after pictures, for both the house and myself, as well as some new scrapbook pages (and hopefully pictures of the kids as well as of some knitting!)

Whole 30–The Aftermath

Hey, Hi, Hello.  I’ve been done my Whole 30 (or W30, as I’ve become prone to typing) for a little while now, but have forgotten to blog about it.  Errr… sorry about that.  So!  Here I am.  Blogging.  About it.

First and foremost:  There are bathing suit pictures (of me) at the end of this post.  Just so you know.  So if you want to avert your virgin eyes, or are offended by stomachs, you might want to turn away before we get there. 

Ok, so on to the actual thoughts and stuff, about the W30.  I think I shall do this bullet point style, for funsies. 

• The first week sucked.  Hard.  I had a really hard time cutting out the sugar (mostly) after spending a week + in Disney, eating mostly sugar.  But after that craving went away, it was pretty smooth sailing.
• My meals mostly looked like this:
  • Breakfast: 2 eggs & 2 pieces of bacon, sometimes with some veggies, sometimes with some fruit, and sometimes, by themselves.  I didn’t eat bacon every day, sometimes I had scrambled eggs, and sometimes I completely skipped breakfast all together (this is ok on the W30, if you’re not hungry in the AM)
  • Lunch:  Big assed salad.  Usually a “refrigerator salad” – so anything in the fridge went on.  I usually put in avocado for fat and a hard boiled egg or tuna for protein.  Then I would also put in whatever lettuce I had, and cut up a bunch of veggies, and drizzled the whole thing with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.  You’d think that you’d get tired of the same dressing every day, but I really found that I didn’t.  The flavours in the salad changed enough that it didn’t taste like the same salad every day.
  • Dinner:  Usually a meat with 3 veggies, or 2 veggies and some sweet potato.  There aren’t a lot of sauces that are W30 approved, but we did enjoy the basic flavours of what we were eating.  There were nights when I would make everyone else some pasta, and I would have veggies instead, and that was ok.  I didn’t want to do that often, but every other week or so, it was ok. 
  • Snacks: I would snack when I was feeling hungry, but tried to avoid mindless snacking, or boredom snacking.  My choices were fruit (mostly berries, but not terribly often), nuts (pistachios, almonds, pecans), veggies with guacamole.  Most of the time, I picked pistachios because they are super duper awesome, and the cracking them open helped me to not just shove handfuls in my mouth.
  • Beverages:  I drank water.  I also switched out my cream in my coffee for coconut milk, which turned out quite nicely.  I suppose there is some level of coconut milk in this context not being W30 compliant, as it is a direct substitute for either a dairy or artificial creamer.  I was willing to overlook that.  I also enjoyed club soda with a bit of lime juice (NOT lime cordial, people) on occasion.  I tried to keep it down to only a couple times a week.  Either when I was really craving pop (it’s mostly the “bite” of the carbonation that I want), or when others around me where drinking pop/beer. 
• I think I would do this again, later, with some caveats. 
• Right now, I’m keeping about 90% Paleo, with the exception of cheese.  I don’t believe that life is worth living without cheese.  But I know now that my gut can tolerate small amounts of cheese (although it really hates sour cream).  I have not gone back to drinking milk, which I don’t really miss.  I have found ways to eat out instead of having to stay home.  I have added white basmati rice back to our diet (rice is pretty much a hypoallergenic food, so it doesn’t usually irritate the gut.  However, it’s a very nutrient sparse food, so it’s not usually consumed by people who follow a paleo/primal style diet).
• I found the biggest change that didn’t have to do with weight/size in my allergies and my eyes.  I didn’t take any allergy medication for most of June.  I took it very sparingly in July (when I wasn’t as strict).  I also found that the bags under my eyes almost completely cleared up.  I still have some dark circles because I’m not sleeping perfectly, but I have 2 small kids.  Thing is, if I have ANY amount of grain (especially wheat), the black eyes come back with a vengeance.  So I don’t get much stomach upset from cheating on my diet, I just get ugly.  Ha ha.
• I will say that I have more energy.  More stamina, really.  I don’t have any more motivation than I did before – inertia is still my greatest enemy and my best friend.  But after a day of cleaning the house, I’m not as tired as before.  Although I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that I still have some cortisol/adrenal wonkiness. 
• I have lost, give or take, about 15 lbs.  Without doing any form of exercise.  I’m trying to get a bit more active now, so I can continue with the fat loss… so we’ll see how that goes.  Since I took the pictures, I’ve lost a few more pounds, but not very much. 
• I would guess that I have dropped 2-3 dress sizes, although the biggest change, by far, is around my tummy.  If I haven’t had any “treats” (especially grains), my stomach is pretty fat.  Not perfect, but not very round.  I’ve lost weight other places, but this is the biggest difference. 
• I really wish that I would have taken measurements, to really have a quantitative value for how many inches I’ve lost. 

Ok, there is one thing I need to address about this, before we get on to the before & after pictures:  Breastfeeding.  Thing is – I almost completely lost my milk supply.  I know that Birdie is getting pretty big, and that she doesn’t *need* to be nursing at this point, but I had really wanted to nurse her until she was somewhere between 18-24 months (as per the WHO recommendations).  She only nurses 2x a day, and it’s working for us, so we continue to do it.  Except that it stopped working, and she stopped sleeping very well at night.  So I tried to eat more fruit.  I tried to eat more fat.  I tried to eat more carbs… but it didn’t seem to help.  So on day 25, even after reaching out to Every Day Paleo for help as a last resort, I made a batch of No Bake Oatmeal cookies.  I made them as paleo as I could get them.  Used coconut milk instead of dairy.  I used coconut oil instead of margarine.  I even used honey instead of sugar.  But the oats… they were the magic ingredient.  So I had to keep them.  I didn’t do this on a whim – I know that for me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, these cookies and a lot of water will boost my supply.  And it sure did.  Once my milk supply was back up (and Birdie was back to sleeping at night), I have been able to maintain a better supply by eating more carbs.  I have found that by being more attentive to how MUCH I’m eating, and making sure I’m getting enough (it’s easy for me to skip meals and not notice), and making sure that I am getting on the higher end of carbs (150g + per day), I can maintain a supply.  I still get some dips if I’m not eating well enough, but it’s been easy to boost my supply again.  I guess all said and done, I would NOT do this again while I’m nursing.  I would NOT recommend it for other nursing moms.  If you want to eat a paleo diet, I think that is a GREAT idea, nursing or not, but I would not recommend the Whole 30 for nursing or pregnant moms.

This post has some pretty good resources in it, if you’re interested in reading further.

OK, HERE ARE THE PICTURES!  THIS IS WHERE YOU EITHER LOOK AT ME IN A BIKINI, OR AVERT YOUR EYES.  LOOK!  KITTENS!!!

So there you go.  Was it worth it?  Well, the fact that I can wear jeans that I wore 10 year ago pretty much makes this a HUGE yes for me!

Update

I’m still following the Whole 30, as I mentioned in my last post.  I’m on day 19.  It has got progressively easier to say “no thank you” to things, although the muscle memory of doing something like sticking my fingers in my mouth when they have something (oatmeal, mac and cheese, etc.).  Fortunately, I haven’t slipped up that way yet!  The only time that I’ve “cheated”, is when I had some meatballs at Ikea.  I found out after that they had bread crumbs, sugar, and milk ingredients in them.  Bummer.  But life when on.

So far, since switching to Paleo but not since starting the Whole 30, I’ve lost about 10 lbs (15, if you count the 5 I gained in Disneyland then lost again).  This puts me nearly at my wedding weight, which is pretty exciting.  I can see a difference in how my pants fit, and a few pairs don’t fit me at all any more.  Which is pretty awesome, actually. 

Last week I didn’t lose any weight, which either means that I’ve reached that point in which I actually have to work to lean out some more, or I just need to adjust my diet a bit – a little less fruit, a little more fat.  I’m interested to see what the next week brings.  I might add in a few more days of intermittent fasting (skipping a meal now and then).  But we’ll see. 

I don’t have any progress pictures for you yet.  I’m waiting until the end of the month.  I’ll have to put on some of my old pants and show you how much room I have in them, as well.

I am looking forward to being done the Whole 30.  I miss cheese.  I miss being able to grab a Lara bar when I need one.  I am excited about trying some of the paleo dessert recipes that are out there (these things are all not supposed to be eaten when on the W30).  I said that the first thing I was going to do on July 2, is make that paleo coconut cream pie, and I’m still planning on doing that!  Ha ha. 

I don’t think I’ll go back to have regular cream in my coffee, not at home any way.  I don’t think I’ll go back to drinking milk, or eating lentils for the most part.  I’m definitely sticking with the paleo style eating regarding grains and sugar, that’s for sure.  You really can’t argue with the weight loss or with the lack of belly bloat. 

If dialing in my nutrition doesn’t really help, I do plan on getting a little more exercise.  I guess we’ll see what form that takes.  I’ve been interested in Crossfit, but I don’t think I really want to put the money out for a gym membership.  So we’ll see what form it takes. 

Anyway, that’s all.  Just wanted to let you know that I wasn’t passed out from hunger, or that I hadn’t given up.  NOT ONE CHEAT!  I am so proud.  LOL.

General Update

We’re back from Disneyland, and hopefully that means I’m back to the blog a bit more regularly.  I don’t have very many Disney pictures posted yet – I have to get my best ones together and put them up on flickr, then I’ll put them up here.  I haven’t had a ton of computer time, but slowly, one at a time, they’ll be put up, I’m sure

We had a great time, though.  It was pretty interesting, at times, traveling with my in-laws, but overall, I’m so glad that we did.  They were able to watch the kids on occasion so we could do things like go on the big kid rides   The kids really enjoyed the trip.  Birdie really doesn’t travel well.  She’s only good on the plane for about an hour and then she wants Down!  Off!  And pretty much for everyone to stop touching her.  I don’t blame her, but it makes the last 2 hours of a flight pretty sucky.  Kitten loved everything.  The princesses.  The rides.  The beach.  Sea World.  I’m really glad that we did this at this age – she had a wonderful time.  She wasn’t the most well behaved kid, but I think she did well considering. 

Rob and I had a nice time.  I tried some of the rollercoasters that I was too afraid to last time (Matterhorn, Big Thunder Mountain), and decided that some of the rides I loved last time were completely lame (Indiana Jones, Pirates).  We also got a chance to eat at the Blue Bayou, the restaurant inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.  My favorite part of the whole trip was eating at the Jazz Kitchen Express.  ZOMG.  I would have THE hardest time keeping Primal/Paleo if we had one here!  I didn’t get to try everything on their menu, although I would have really liked to.  I love the bread pudding and bignets the most, though.  We also got to try out Sonic’s Drive-In, Carls Jr and In-and-Out (sooooo good!  I wish we had IiO here!!).

I also had a bit of a snafu with my back.  I’m not sure what happened, although it was likely a combo of rollercoasters, sleeping funny and not bending over properly, but I completely threw it out and had to visit a chiropractor.  If you ever need a chiropractor in Anaheim, near Disneyland, I really recommend Dr. Eskew.  He was very professional, and I felt miles better after my adjustment.  He also recommended an ib profen regimen for the next few days, and gave me a bunch of stretches to do if I felt like that area was seizing up again.  Such a good experience! 

Currently, we’re working at getting the kids back to their usual routine for bedtime/naps/morning wake up time.  Birdie has been the most out of sorts, but Kitten has been a bit of a trial as well.  Hopefully everything will be straightened out by the end of the week. 

Rob is back at work today.  He had a nice, long vacation.  It was really great to have him home for the extra days between returning home and going back to work.  Kitten is pretty lonely for him today and bummed he’s not home. 

The day after we got home, I started the Whole 30.  Previous to our trip I was eating along the Primal Blueprint guidelines, and had lost about 7 lbs in 3 weeks.  It wasn’t easy to give up the sugar, grains and legumes, but not terribly hard.  This time (especially after eating very little but over-processed carbs for almost 2 weeks), giving up the sugar/grain/legumes PLUS dairy and natural sweeteners (honey, pure maple syrup, etc.) has been excruciating.  I feel like such a wuss.  Part of the point of the Whole 30 is to stop your current food habits and start new ones.  I know that I use food to improve my mood, and that’s really not the POINT of food, you know?  So I really want to change that.  I also want to see if my allergies and a few other health issues clear up a bit being casein/gluten/sugar free.  I’ve heard reports that it can.  So we’ll see. 

Today I’m on day 5 and I’m exhausted.  I know that this is normal when giving up sugars and grains.  Yesterday I was full of The Crank, because I just wanted some sugar.  Ha ha.  Days 4-6 are supposed to be the hardest, and after that you’re supposed to start feeling better.  I know this to be true because I already went through it last time, before our trip.  I just have to stick it out for a few more days.  I’m looking forward to losing the 5 lbs I gained on our trip, that’s for sure!  And I’m interested to see if I lose much more beyond that.  More importantly, I’ll be very interested to see which foods I am most sensitive to after I’m done.  This way it will be easier to figure out which things are worth the discomfort after eating. 

I’ve also been trying to move towards buying foods from the farmers market, and am working towards buying some grass-fed meat.  But I really need to get a deep freeze before I can do so.  It’s been an interesting adventure, trying to find local meat.  Mostly because the majority of producers I have emailed have had discontinued email addresses on the Eat Wild website.  Ha ha. 

If you are interested in doing some more reading on the Paleo diet, here’s a few websites you can look at (warning: not all of them kid appropriate due to language)

• Mark’s Daily Apple (Primal eating – includes dairy the diet)
• Archevore
• The Paleo Solution
• Free The Animal
• The Whole 9’s Manifesto Series

Those are some good places to start.  The Primal/Paleo community believes that evolution is a scientific fact.  If this is not your view, you might be annoyed by this in the articles.  However, there is still good information to be gleaned from the websites.  I found, overall, that the focus of this “diet” or “lifestyle” is on food QUALITY.  What’s the point of drinking your calories in a sugar drink that lends NOTHING to health, etc. 

Anyway, enough ranting for today.  I’m tired.  I’m a tiny bit cranky.  I’m on day 5, and I know that in a few days I’ll be feeling better.  It’s my intention on blogging what I’m feeling and up to, as well as my favorite things we’ve eaten while on this crazy journey. 

Scrapbook Sunday 05-15-11

I haven’t been doing any scrapbooking lately because I have been completely uninspired.  Last night, I was doing some surfing, and found a new website to download content from that I really like: http://www.designerdigitals.com/digital-scrapbooking/supplies/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=kit&x=0&y=0  They seem to have kits that are more paper piecing than just graphic art, if that makes any sense.  More paper, less cartoon?  I don’t know.  Anyway, I purchased two kits, and came up with this while I was playing around:

Groovy, yes?  This particular kit is called Conifere, and I also bought Fairytale.  I am looking forward to using both of them a lot. 

Here’s a few more updates, mostly pictures. 

I finished the bedbug, and have been working on Kitten’s sweater.  Otherwise, just pictures of the kids. 

In other news, we had to move Birdie’s bed to our walk-in closet. She’s a really light sleeper, and seems to wake up if you just look at her hard! Now that she’s been sleeping in her own little (!!!) room, she’s sleeping properly, through the night. No wake-ups half an hour after she goes to bed. She just keeps sleeping. The other thing that we’ve found really helps is her new Sleep Sheep. It’s a cute little white noise machine, and we put it on the "rain" setting, and she falls asleep and stays asleep, no problem. I love it, and wish we had it a million years ago. Ha ha! This picture is not of her sleeping in our closet, FYI. But it’s still adorable.

Kitten has been expanding her imagination lately. She loves to play dressup quite a lot. The other day, she had been wearing a long white shirt with pockets on the bottom of it. So she put all her doctor’s tools in the pockets, the stethescope around her neck, and played doctor with her animals for over an hour. It was great. In this picture, she is dressed up as a knight.