Saturday, July 28, 2012

Pink

The color pink has been haunting me recently. It started with the hot pink bridesmaid dress that did not fit. The dress has been hanging on the inside of my closet door taunting me every time I enter my bedroom. The annoying ‘Final Countdown’ song by Europe would play in my head as I’d make a mental note of just how many days were left before I had to wear the dress. There were back up plans in place to have a seamstress alter the dress or even a plan to cross border shop for an entirely new dress.

With 28 days left until I have to wear the dress, the dress fits!

Remember my ‘I’ve joined weight watchers’ post? Well, 10 weeks in I’ve lost 17.5lbs, am back in all my pre-pregnancy  clothes, and am 9lbs from the lowest weight I recall in the last oh say decade. But I’m not stopping now there is more pink!

Check out these beauties:


These are NIKE lunarglide +4’s and they are the best pair of running shoes I have ever owned. Sure I find them a little flashy, but who cares – they are beyond comfortable. These shoes along with the new jogging stroller from my previous post and a child who wakes me up between 5am & 7am most days have allowed me to get back to running 5k each morning!!! I run 5K most mornings before T even leaves for work.

And there is still more pink!

On September 30th I have decided to do the ‘Runfor the Cure’ for The Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation – you know because my pink shoes will fit in there J I may even dress G in pink and bring him along for the run? I felt so amazing after my ½ marathon a few years back and don’t have the time to train for anything that large, but I think a fun 5K, and maybe even a 10K in the fall might be do-able. A friend and I will be participating as a team – which is still nameless, but if you’d like to donate shoot me an email: neener19@hotmail.com

And just for shits and giggles here is Aerosmith’s ‘Pink’

Friday, July 13, 2012

Hoarders: Stroller Edition

I have a problem, admitting it is step one. How many strollers do you think one 6 month old needs? If you are anything like the people I have asked this question the response is one or maybe two. How about four? For a combined total of about $1,000. That is JUST on strollers people?! You want to know how expensive kids are? Well, there’s a start. I won’t even get started on the accessories to go with the strollers and the baby carriers (where you strap your kid to you) that I have also purchased.

It all started with stroller envy, and at that point I didn’t even have my kid yet. I’d go for a walk and see these fine pieces of art strolling buy and think “I need to get me one of those, one of those will make having kids easier”.

Then started the research – amazon reviews, mommy forums, resale values – where I learned types of wheels, and weight, and cargo space required, and what fancy features each had and here is where I began.

Picture if you will me bored at work (not even pregnant yet) browsing kijijiji (Canada’s craig list) for baby items – you know just seeing what was out there. When I came across a woman selling a barely used peg perego stroller that had good reviews I jump on it. I sneak over one day and pick it up on my lunch and realize it takes up the entire trunk of the Jetta (ok, maybe not the entire…but 85%). It seems huge to me, and I realize it just isn’t what I’m looking for… you know for my un-conceived child. BUT, I decide it is something that I would take to my mother’s so that she can use it for all her future grandchildren. I then proceed to sneak it into the house and hide it in the spare bedroom closet as if T saw it at that point he’d probably have crapped his pants.

When I really started to look for what I wanted – light, colorful, adapts to a car seat etc, I remembered a stroller friends of ours had on vacation previously. It went through sand and on trails and packed up pretty small, so I looked it up - $700. Ouch. My dream was to own an Uppababy vista. (SHOULD NOT have gone to the site to link it for you, I just saw the G-Luxe and G-Lite and now want one of those!!!)It has a bassinet so when my conceived child at this point was born they would be able to use it inside the house and out. It came in yellow – perfect for spotting in large crowds. It turned on a dime and took up less space in the Jetta and it was oh so light! I stalked mommy forums until someone posted a 4th of July sale and scored it for $500. I told T resale would be awesome, and I could attach a second seat for a future child, etc. It was mine – well, Banditt claimed it as his J

For the first five months or so of G’s life I had the uppababy and loved it. Then one weekend I wanted to go to a market that was in an old building – plenty of stairs, no elevators, and I didn’t want to strap him to me because I was having some back issues – so this situation started the hunt for an umbrella stroller.  I had gone cross border shopping with my mom and aunt and found a lovely Graco umbrella stroller – technically it isn’t an umbrella that it just folds up – I went for the $70 deluxe version that has a basket, canopy, and cup holders. It takes up a tiny bit of room which is what I need when I have other purchases and I needed the basket for said purchases. T kinda got upset when this one came home.
This is my aunt assembling it IN target with a hammer from the hardware dept.

The final stroller and the one I’m likely to get in shit for is my new jogging stroller. I went back and forth with do I want one or need one, can’t I just be happy with a low quality one, will it motivate me to jog more? Again I searched reviews, forums and discovered the stroller I wanted was a BOB Revolution. So I started hunting kijiji in hopes of finding one used. It was like searching for a unicorn. Then it happened – first thing one morning I see an ad for one – never used still in box and the ad had been posted for 8 hours (seriously, who posts stroller ads at midnight?). It was 2 hours from where I live, and had over twenty something hits. I responded with “I will take it, have cash, can be there ASAP”, and got no response. I checked my email eighty zillion times. Nothing. I check the ad and the price had gone up $100. Now I was walking away – I could find a deal on a brand new one from the store. The seller emails and asks if I want it for $100 more. No….and I sulk for long enough to forget about it and tell myself I just wasn’t meant to have a jogging stroller. Then today an email pops up “I still have it. $300 and it’s yours”. Unlike shoes I can’t hide this from T under the bed. This one might be living in the trunk of the Jetta.
Ahhhh....... I'm having an ah-ha moment. My expensive purse addiction has been replaced with strollers!...well, not really. Maybe just put on hold.
Also – if you’re in the stroller market and want some reviews, I got plenty!

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

WW


As I am brutally honest I will tell you I’ve joined weight watchers. The oh so little bright pink bridesmaid dress showed up and it didn’t fit and I’m not about to go spend another $235 on a bigger dress that I’ll only wear once.

I was looking for something that will hold me accountable and that doesn’t rely 100% on exercise as walks with G is about as far as I get, and even that hasn’t happened lately because it’s too damn hot outside. The program is a little pricey (Over $100 for 6 months), but the software is amazing, and the app for iphone and ipad is great.

I’ve been on weight watchers for 6 weeks and have lost 13lbs. I’m one size away from my pre-pregnancy weight 6 months after G was born. I’m about ½ way to fitting into the dress, and just under 2 months to get there. I will.

I’ve learned my portion sizes used to be WAY too big, and I paid too little attention to what was in the food I’ve been consuming. I didn’t eat enough fruits or veggies, and drank too many calories as I lived on iced tea my entire pregnancy.

What I love about weight watchers (crazy to relate that word to a weight loss program)? I love that you can still eat whatever you want, it just tells you how much of it you can eat. If I want something like popcorn or chips or fast food I have to plan for it.

I drank a ton of liquids while pregnant so it has been pretty easy to keep that up, but prior to that I’m sure I was dehydrated more than not.

The hardest part has been finding the time to look up products or finding the time to record every single thing I’ve eaten, but it has been worth it.

I signed up for 6 months of weight watchers, so I’ll keep you posted on the final results. As much as I find the Jennifer Hudson commercials annoying, it is true. If you don’t think you can lose weight – you can.