{motherhood} #1: speak softly.

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I came across this little number last month, during my daily pilgrimage (okay, one of many daily pilgrimages) through Pinterest. I felt like I'd just smashed face-first into a wall.

The kids got up from their naps, and things went poorly in the obedience department, and the more I thought about this quote the more horrified I became, because, despite my best intentions I realized that I had become a yeller.

It kind of made me sick to my stomach, to be honest. Putting those sweet things to bed that night, kissing my sleeping girlie when I went in to put her blankets back on before I went to bed. How could I yell at these kids? But I did. Frequently.

no yelling.

So my first focus has been simple: no yelling. My kids were kind of getting immuned to it (I hate admitting this, but there it is), and that is BAD because what if there is a car about to clip them or something that a good yell could call attention to, and they don't listen to it because Mom always yells?

speaking softly


I love Proverbs. It is just full of good advice. Like this in 15:1:

A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.

I'm trying this, too. To speak softly--use my "indoor voice" if you will. A lot of times that means I have to walk down the hall to stop a fight instead of just yelling for someone to stop it!!! And sometimes it means I am bodily carrying someone to timeout instead of yelling them there.

But it also means that my kids are hearing more, instead of just reacting to volume. Especially my tender girl, who is so so in tune to people's feelings already. I think it is important to get down on her level, look into her eyes, and really talk to her about things.

So step one, for me, is no yelling--speak softly.

Well. Unless there's a fire. Or a really cool trash truck they have to run to the front door to see.

{check-in} writing, fitness, this month's goal, & etc.

So, blog, I haven't been super loyal to you lately. Sorry. But I know you'll understand. Because when we started this goal-tracking thing back in the day (well, you know, last Fall) the deal was no guilt, just pick up and keep moving.

Anyway part of your abandonment has been for good stuff. All that time I was spending on Pinterest and reading emails and blogs and finding coupons and other rationalized-time-wasting stuff during naptime? Well, that whole 2 hours every weekday is now spent working on my book. I've been researching and emailing up a storm contacting experts (and one of them even sent me an 88-page draft of a project he's been working on, which thrilled me to pieces in a super-geeky way) so I can learn more about what I'm writing. And I've also been writing a lot lot lot. We are almost up to 30,000 on the rewrite, and I finally know where everything is going, and how things are going to tie in. So sorry I haven't been writing to you about it--I've been busy enjoying just doing it (or forcing myself to, depending on the day).

Part of it is burn out. I don't know what it is about January. I think a lot of things. Like I'm starting to realize that our life is going to go through upheaval again soon--starting this May when a huge mass of our friends move on to residency and new jobs (I'm happy for them, but a little sad for me) and compounding with the hubs' away rotation(s), match day (ours is in December), and them a move and my girlie starting kindergarten. I know some of this is a long time (over a year) away, but I think we all get it--change is hard.

And I know in my brain that all this exercising and calorie counting is making a difference. I have dropped a lot of poundage, I've gotten better at ignoring the pain of workouts, and I am a regular gym-goer, usually 5 days a week, but even a bad week is usually still a 3-dayer. So that is progress. But I don't look the way I thought I would after 3 months. I am lighter, stronger, but not trimmer. And I'm not going to lie--I'm a little bummed out. And I miss eating just for enjoyment. Without portion control. I know that's silly--moderation in all things, right? But, at least with brownies, I like not so much moderation.

Good news, though!

I chose a goal to focus on for February. Since it's such a lovey month, I decided to work on the goal I've been kind of nervous about touching: being a better mom. Or maybe what I mean is being a more true-to-myself mom. There are some wonderful things from my childhood that I cherish: reading with my mom, art projects, family "field trips"... And I haven't been super great at doing these with my kids so far. I want to focus in on what I want my kids to learn, love, and focus on, decide how best to teach those things, and slowly start putting them into practice.

It's going faster than I expected it to. I only have Gracie home all day for another year-and-a-half. I want to make it count.

{the dream} Writing the Book

I just emailed a stranger to ask him about an old landmark in San Francisco, which he visited as a boy in the 1930's, and told him I was doing some research because I am writing a novel.

I actually wrote that, to a stranger. So now its not just you who knows. Strangers know. Or at least one will, when he opens his email. If it didn't go into his spam folder.

Actually, if you like history and humor, you should take a look at his website. He is an 89 year old gentleman and writes about life in the 20's and 30's--and he's pretty funny. I'm really hoping he writes me back.

Its been kind of funny, the things I've looked up researching just random things for this book--its not going to be a great work of historical fiction or anything, but I find that I am writing things a little out of my scope of knowledge. And I want to be right if I can, because someone somewhere with a much broader scope of knowledge might pick it up, and I don't want them to toss it aside because I use a poor metaphor or give some bad information. Here are just a few of the things I've looked up, book related:

caves breathing (like this one in Australia)
English cucumber tea sandwich recipe (like this one)
How to type French accents on a Mac (keyboard shortcuts)
the top baby names of 1951 (here are the top 100, if you're wondering)
Betsy-Tacy books (they have their own society!)

So, can you guess what its about?

Actually, most of these are not at all related to the plot--they are the background stuff, but I feel like a lot of times that is what makes a book feel real. It has been pretty fun, actually, learning new things like this. Sort of at random. I haven't focused on learning a lot of non-parenting/marriage/household new things since I've been out of school & not formally working.

And now that I've looked through my google search history, I'm a little disturbed by how much of my life gets typed in to google. Hmm...

{thinking out loud} lighten up, it's just fashion!

Guys, according to my mom as a child I would walk into a room, ask a question, and then leave. Without waiting for a response. Because I liked the sound of my own voice. :)

So this is basically that. I mean, you're probably not going to get much helpful out of this.

fashion.


Um you guys, thank goodness for Pinterest. (Here's me on Pinterest.) I swear I did not know how to dress myself beyond T-shirt and jeans before this website came about. But as I have slowly pinned things onto my fashion board, I have realized that I have a sense of style! Holy vintage dresses, Batman!

Here's what I like:

Neutrals, jeans, layers, and a nice pop (or two!) of color.

Flirty vintage (or vintage inspired) dresses.

Layers for interest.

(How gorgeous is her hair, too?!)

Retro lines, bright colors.

I could never pull off this bathingsuit, by the way. Toooo many curves.

(Too late at night to post all the photo credits, but you can find them all here.)

important (?)

Here's the thing, though, you guys. I mean... Should I buy leggings? Leggings are so in right now. I think you wear them under dresses and with boots and such, but guys, my thighs. In leggings. The world has not seen the likes of that since I was in about 6th grade, with my oversized shirt tied at the hip. You know what I'm talking about? There's got to be a small small gap between the bottom of the shirt/dress and the top of the boots for me to dive into the leggings trend.

But Santa is for sure brining me a skinny belt for my layers.

Okay that's all I have to say about fashion. Hopefully I start looking like I can dress myself soon. Before I'm 27. Seems like you should be able to dress yourself by then.

also p.s. did you get the PR quote as the title?


Thank you, Santino, for our favorite season of Project Runway ever (it was like 5 years ago) which we watched on DVD and still quote on occasion. ("Where's Andre!?")

{Money Smarts} Anatomy of a (Mostly) Money-Saving Grocery Trip

I'm not a hardcore "couponer." I mean, I use coupons, but I don't devote a good portion of my day to searching, clipping, organizing, and driving to several stores with kids in tow. I use them, but there are actually a lot more ways to save on your grocery bill. Most of them are pretty easy, so I thought I'd share, using today's real world, average day shopping trip example:

Total Spent: $31.65

Total Saved: $29.88

Ready?

The Receipt

This is the receipt from an everyday grocery trip. You'll notice that I paid a reasonable amount ($31.65), not $1.75 for everything. But you'll also notice that I saved almost as much as I spent ($29.88! Are you wondering where that number came from since it isn't on the receipt? I'll tell you later.). And most of it was pretty easy. Read on and I'll break it down for you.

Buy On Sale.

We've talked about this before. Store sales go in 6-week cycles, so the best way to buy is to grab what you need at the lowest price point. Glancing at my receipt I found only 3 things I bought that were not on sale--sour cream, salt, and our favorite salad dressing--added up to about $5.

I could have saved that $5, but these I felt were worth spending the few extra cents on because we had things at home waiting for them (like, for the dressing, 6 heads of lettuce from Costco that would spoil) and we are picky about our brands of a couple things. Also, my dressing stockpile had run out.

Use a Store Rewards Card.

The store I shop at--Harris Teeter, we'll call it HT--has a rewards card AND a bonus online program called e-VIC. If you sign up for their card and bring it in, you get discounts. If you sign up for their online program, you get unadvertised discounts! They have great deals on the weekends that they email to you, and I was able to score a freebie today because I had some coupons & my e-VIC card. Oooh!

So sign up for it.

Oh! And it also helps with those coupons that get printed out for you at the end with your receipt--they track what you buy so they can print relevant coupons.

Store Card Coupons.

Guess what? Some stores allow you to load online-coupons right onto your store card (no printing!). Those will work in conjunction with paper coupons, so you can get a deeper discount! Woo!


Paper Coupons.

Don't be afraid! They help. More discussion of non-scary-coupon-tactics coming up.

Find Out About Additional Discounts.

My brilliant friend Nicole recently wrote an AWESOME post about dozens of ways to save money (on all kinds of things). You should read it; it will blow your mind. One thing she mentioned was that she got stores to let her use her husband's student discount even when he wasn't there.

HT offers a 5% discount to students, but I'd always missed out on it because the hubs is usually at school when I shop. Today I tried Nicole's suggestion and just told them (honestly! Don't lie guys--keep your karma clean) that my husband was a med student and asked if I could have the discount. They gave it to me no problem, even without his ID.

Soooooo check if your grocery store has discounts that apply to you! Military, Hospital/Government/Teacher, age relevant (HT also has an Over 55 discount on Tuesdays), etc. Just ask at customer service if they do discounts.

Paying with a Rewards Card.

I mentioned before that the hubs and I use mostly credit cards (which we pay off in full at every statement, so we carry no balance and pay no interest charges) because they offer rewards per dollar like miles or cash. So every time I pay a bill or buy groceries, I'm getting a little of it back.

Did I mention Online eCoupons?

Okay so the bottom of my receipt says $27.88 in savings, but I wrote that my end number was $2 more. That is because I used an eCoupon from SavingStar. (FYI--Upromise has a similar program.) You sign up with them, register your store card, and then choose the coupons you want online. They get notified after you buy the items in question, and add the coupon amount to your account.

You get a payout of a giftcard to somewhere (Target, Amazon, you choose) at $5. So today I used two of those, 1 for cereal and 1 for crackers, and saved that additional $2. :)

One More Thing... Split Big Deals!

My friend Melissa tipped me off to a great sale on buy-three-get-one-free oranges at Whole Foods--20lbs for $15! I never pay less than $0.99/lb, so 75 cents was too sweet a deal--but there is no way we can go through that many oranges before they spoil.

So I called my neighbor and asked if she wanted in--we split it and each got 10lbs for $7.50.

The hubs will be a happy man when he sees these babies waiting for him in the kitchen. ;)

{Check-In} November Fitness Report

Friends: I weigh 108.25lbs.

I am only 3.25lbs away from my goal weight.

I. AM. SO. EXCITED!!!

November was easier and harder than month one of this. I know you're sick of hearing about calorie counting, but since I'm still working on it, I'm still writing about it. This month it was easier, because I'm starting to get a feel for estimating calories and portion sizes, so I don't have to look everything up or measure/weigh everything quite as much. But I also got tired of watching what I eat. I love to eat. It was hard.

That said, I am kind of shocked that it is still working. I always thought weight loss was this mystical thing--some people exercise and fat melts off, others can't seem to kick it. For no apparent reason. And I was really stubborn about not wanting to count my calories, because lets face it--it sounds intense and obsessive. And kind of like a party-killer. But its not. I was wrong. It is the "magic" solution. Even if I didn't exercise, I could still lose about a pound a week just by knowing how much was going in and how much I used up during the day. It is crazy. Anyway, if you are trying and failing (like I was FOREVER) to lose weight, consider learning more about it.

Calorie-Counting-Without-Imploding Strategies


This month I noticed just how crazy I was going trying to stay within my 1200 weight-loss-calories per day, so I came up with some strategies to help me be a normal person but still get these last darn pounds off my body. Here they are:

• Save Them Up. I love eating with the hubs. I don't know why, I just do. Especially dessert. Seriously, what could be better than eating dessert with a cute guy, right? So I save up my calories for the meals I'm eating with him. I keep it low-cal for breakfast and lunch (under 300 if I can) so that I've got a good 600 calories waiting for me for dinner/dessert.
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• Work Out. Obviously. Earn more calories by exercising. Totally worth it to me to go 30 minutes on the elliptical so I can eat a Ghiradelli brownie. I think I've said this before.
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• Take a Day Off... Sort Of. Some days you need to have a smoothie without feeling bad about it. (Or, okay, a package of Reese's cups.) So on those days, I eat my "maintain your weight" amount of calories, which is 310 more (or even MORE if I exercise!) So like, Thanksgiving weekend? Every day was a 1510 day. I didn't lose an ounce--but I didn't gaine one either. And I got to eat lots of yummy things.
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• Remember Why. When I'm reaching for a cookie and hesitate, I think about why I'm doing this. Part of it is because I want to look good, but most of it is because I've never gone this far before. I've never bothered to take care of my body this well, or been on the track to look & feel this good. Some days I still need the cookie. But most days, I don't.

I don't feel that Kate Moss is a good role model as far as healthy weight goes, but she did say one thing that stuck in my mind, "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels." We should probably replace "skinny" with "healthy" or "fit" but other than that, its an interesting thought. I think it to myself a lot when I'm fighting my stubborn I-want-to-eat-all-day side.

The Rest

I'm glad I got off my butt and tried to do this, even though I thought I couldn't. It has been really empowering. I'm thankful for a husband who treats this as a real, legitimate goal--he goes to the gym when he can and high-fives me for going on my own when he can't. He counts calories when he cooks so I can enter my numbers, instead of treating that like an obnoxious woman thing that he doesn't want to deal with. I'm glad he's got my back.

I'm glad I started here, glad I've stuck with it, because this first victory is really gearing me up to feel like I can do the other things I want to do. Still scary to stretch, but it feels good once you get past the scary.

{Money Smarts} Saving on Groceries - The No Coupon Edition

With the feast-of-all-feasts coming up, I thought it an appropriate time to talk groceries. I've done a lot of learning-the-hard-way over the years, and many of you shared awesome grocery tips.

I'm going to be sharing your couponing tips in the next post, but this one is just for those days/weeks/lifetimes that you can't deal with coupons, but still want to save!

1. Meal Plan!


I'm using that as a verb. Sorry if that offends you. I started meal planning a few years ago, and now I can't imagine NOT doing it. What on earth would I do at the grocery store before that?!

We are too fickle to plan out what we're going to eat on a specific day, so I just plan for the number of days between shopping trips (usually 7, because we run out of fresh fruit by then). I come up with 8 meals--7 that I'm planning on, and a back-up easy one in case we're fickle AND too lazy to really cook.

For a while before I got pregnant with Charlie I was crazy and would only grocery shop every two weeks. The second week we just ate canned or frozen fruits/veg. Part of it was I wanted to resist impulse buys, and part of it was, I hated Wal*Mart. (Now I just don't shop there.)

2. Plan Around Sales


I'm still not great at this, because we are picky eaters, but some of you mentioned that you do your meal plan based on what is on sale that week--beef v. chicken, pasta v. rice, fruits/veggies. Brilliant! I am adding this my list of financial to-do's. (It is getting long.)

3. Stock Up


From my limited couponing knowledge I can tell you that grocery stores put things on sale in cycles, with the lowest price happening about every six weeks. Sites like Southern Savers are great for this--they only post items when they are at their lowest, so you don't have to track it yourself. When things are super cheap, stock up! We go through cereal and pasta like crazy, so I always snatch a bunch of that up when its cheap, and then it is always in my pantry ready to go.

4. Get a Raincheck

If the thing you want that is on crazy good sale is wiped clean off the shelves, get a raincheck! (Rainchecks are a little certificate the store issues saying they will honor the sale price for you at a later date when they have stock back in.)

This can work out GREAT if you coupon, but is wonderful even if you don't. I bought 6 jars of Prego last week for less than $1 each a couple weeks back, because I had a BOGO raincheck, and then they went on sale. So I paid the sale price of 3 and then got 3 more free. It was awesome.

5. Stick to the Budget


A lot of you mentioned this (wait, do you want your names dropped? Nicole, Jenna, and Madeline!) and I think it is key. First, budget an amount that you think you can actually keep yourself under (not the amount you WISH you could handle--there's time for that later). Then, stick to it. That means if you're two days from the end of the month and there is $0 in the grocery budget, eat out of the fridge, freezer, and pantry.

This is one of those things that I've never done. If we run out of food, I've always just gone to get more. But that makes no sense considering how much we have already. This month, we're going for it, and so far, so good!

6. Batch Cooking/Freezer Meals


My friend Melissa is a mother of 6 kids, all 8 and under (yes, she is amazing), and she is one of my guru's for everything motherhood. (I've emailed her about everything from budgeting to getting a baby to sleep through the night--she always seems to know the answers.) Anyway SHE WOULD KNOW, right?

She said freezer meals save a bunch. I started doing this mostly because I hate cooking at the end of the day, but now I will also do it because it saves money. Two ways: first, it is usually cheaper to buy in bulk. Second, having something on hand to defrost means we are FAR less likely to order pizza instead. Which we did waaay to much in September. Just saying.

What I do is just make dinner for that night, plus 1 or 2 more batches of it, then freeze. Some stuff gets frozen before its cooked (like pizza dough) others after (like I just made a huge batch of chili and we ate it and had 2 meals worth left).

7. WIC


Okay this is a little off-topic, but I'm going to mention it because (a) lots of people don't know about it and (b) it really helps our grocery bill. WIC stands for Women, Infants, and Children, and it is a state-run grocery supplement program for pregnant or nursing women, babies, and children under 5. If you are under a certain income level and are one of those things, you qualify.

You go in once every 3 months to get "re-certified" which means they do weight check and an iron-level check, talk to you about eating habits, and occasionally you take a short nutrition class. It usually takes about an hour and a half. Then they give you vouchers for things like fruits/veggies, milk, eggs, cheese, bread, cereal, beans, and peanut butter. For babies, they provide formula, grain cereal, and baby food.

I know some people feel iffy about using WIC, because they feel like they are mooching off the system, but here is how I see it. Right now we are in a situation where it really helps our family. That is what it is there for. I know that I pour my girlie more glasses of milk than I would if I had to foot the bill on my own. It is a great program, and I am really glad it exists. Someday we will not need it--we'll be making more money and we will be paying more in taxes, and I figure some of our tax money will go toward helping someone else get more milk for their babies.

Also, I usually don't pick up things I won't use just because they are on the voucher. For example, we don't eat tuna, so I never got it. Charlie is just about done with baby food, so I probably won't be getting that anymore, either, even if they give me a voucher for it.

Here is the national WIC website if you want to learn more about your state's WIC program.

Phew! We're done.