Currently....

Reading:  I read the Washington Post every day (especially the Daily 202). Other than that, I am reading Eviction: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond.

Watching: Nothing amazing right now. CP and I finished "Living with Yourself"- the Netflix/Paul Rudd series a few weeks ago and we LOVED it. I have watched a few episodes of the first season of You and continue to be intrigued so I will probably continuing watching.

Listening: To the Scene On Radio podcast series Seeing White. Highly recommend (I'm currently on episode 2)!! 

Drinking: Black coffee with Coffee Mate Sugar Free Peppermint Mocha. It's a flavor that is only out for a few months before Christmas so any time I saw it, I stocked up on it. At one point I think that I had 10 bottles in our extra fridge. LOL. I'll be sad when I finish that last bottle....the sugar free French Vanilla is simply not as good.

Eating: Nothing for another 40 minutes. One of my goals this year was to try Intermittent Fasting and so I stopped eating at 7:10pm last night and my first meal will be lunch at 12pm (17 hours- whoop whoop!). All I have had so far is water and a cup of black tea. I really can't believe that I was able to do it.

Wearing: My Cubs World Series Championship sweatshirts and a pair of super comfortable Columbia hiking pants. It's snowing outside and I work from home. :-)

Loving: Not having to dress up to go to work every day. It's glorious.

Anticipating: A fun weekend as one of the kids' Christmas presents was tickets to Disney on Ice. We took them last year and they LOVED it. Surprisingly enough, we had a great time too.

Hoping: That I can get my plantar fasciitis under control this year. I'm sick of the constant pain every day and want to get back to running. I would say that I'm done with anything over 5 miles, but it would be nice to run at 5K with Izzy in 2020.

Worrying: That the orange cheeto that is currently our President will somehow cheat his way into 4 more years.

Planning: Fun activities for our trip to Maui next month.

What are you currently doing? 

2020 goals

Goals for 2020

1. Eat one vegetarian dinner a week.

I am mindful of how terrible meat is to our environment. We certainly eat more chicken and turkey than red meat these days, but it still has an effect. I generally don't control what we eat but will push for this change in 2020. I would even be okay if the meal is fish. :-)

2. Lose 25 pounds this year.

I am feeling reinvigorated in my goal to lose weight again. I had a goal before I turned 40, I met that goal, but then have slowly gained 10 pounds after I had to stop running in June. I'm back in the Weight Watchers app, tracking my food and paying attention again. I'm not happy in my clothes or my skin so it's time to get back on track.

3. Finish Morning Meltdown 100 by February 21st.

As of today I have completed 72 out of the 100 workouts- this is the LONGEST I have lasted on any Beachbody program! I love this program. I mean, I hate some of the days, but I push play anyway and then celebrate the days where I feel strong and I love the program. It took me 70 days to complete the first 50 workouts....I have exactly 52 days in 2020 to complete the last 50 workouts. I had two work trips already this month and I stayed dedicated but I really want to finish this workout before we leave for Hawaii on February 21st!

4. Get rid of my plantar fasciitis.

I should have known better than to run the 5k on Thanksgiving after I hadn't run since September. Continuing to do MM100 has not exactly helped but I really scale down my jumping- especially on cardio days. I'm just really sick of heel pain that lasts for months on end. My new Hoka One One shoes help, but I desperately need to do something. There is something called the "strechlab" coming to my town in March, so maybe I need to try that out?

5. Spend at least one day knocking on doors on a get-out-the-vote effort. 

I want to make sure that I have done absolutely everything to get the orange asshole out of office. It's no longer enough to write a postcard or contact elected officials (which I will still do). I need to step up my level of effort in 2020, even if it makes me nervous. 

6. Practice tennis with Izzy. 

We have two tennis courts a few blocks away from our house...I just need to stay patient with her and remember that she will only get better with practice.

7. Try at least one day of Intermittent Fasting.
I've read some articles on the benefits and at a minimum it should keep me from snacking at night. I figure it can't hurt!

I should have more goals, but this seems like a good number since it is already almost the end of January. :-)

2019 Goals- how did I do?

Let's check in on my 2019 goals!

1. Eat at least one vegetarian dinner every week. 

I don't really have control over this as CP is the person that cooks every night, but we did very poorly with this one. I would like to push for this in 2020.

2. Lose 25 pounds this year. 

Well unfortunately this fall I backslid into TERRIBLE habits when I couldn't run anymore and while 
I definitely work out more working from home, my daily step count is terrible. It has

turned into gaining weight....so now I have even more to lose in 2020. :-(

3. Work out for at least 30 minutes at least three times a week. 

This has gone pretty well. I started Morning Meltdown 100 (MM100) through Beachbody this

fall and all of the workouts are less than 30 minutes. Even when I travel I can do the workouts

that don't require weights so I should hit workout #50 TODAY! 

4. Continue monthly dates with CP.

We probably hit this.

5. Get our credit card balance to $0 this year.

Done! We hit this halfway through the year and have continued this even through 

Christmas. Woo hoo!

6. Get a new job. 

Done! I love my new job!

7. Continue to be politically active whether it is writing postcards to voters, contacting my

elected officials about things that are important to me, or participating in marches.

Still doing this. Will likely step up my game in 2020.

8. Run in at least three races this year including the Soldier Field 10 miler.

Done! This spring I did a 10k, Soldier Field 10 miler, and a half marathon. On Thanksgiving

Day I powered through a turkey trot 5k which left me in pain from plantar fasciitis for days (I did

not run at all before the race). I have new shoes (Hoka One One) but still find myself in pain 

because I do some jumping in MM100.

9. Run one race with Izzy this year.

Izzy sprained her ankle right before Thanksgiving so we couldn't do the turkey trot together (I

had signed her up for it). Maybe we can do a race next year?

My 41st birthday

Let me tell you all about my annual pretty princess day this year (aka my birthday) on December 10th. CP was in MA for a work trip and I was working from home. The day was pretty normal and boring until I got a call at 2pm from a local number. Turns out it was the nurse for Izzy's school. She proceeded to tell me that Izzy was in her office and that she was sorry she was going to ruin my day....but that Izzy had lice.

OMG. I felt absolutely TERRIBLE because Izzy had been itching her scalp for the previous two weeks or so but lice didn't even cross my mind. She has eczema issues so I chalked it up to dry scalp and had started to use Head & Shoulders on her for a few baths. It turns out she was in class and PULLED A LICE BUG OUT OF HER HAIR and told her teacher about it. OMG OMG OMG.

I IMed my boss and coworkers about the call to let them know that I wouldn't be working the rest of the afternoon and headed over to the school to go pick Izzy up. I felt like a TERRIBLE mom. How could I not have seen bugs in Izzy's hair? I brush and put a braid in her hair almost every day!! The nurse could not have been nicer and told me that the buggers are actually pretty fast and hide from the light. She gave me a bunch of tips and was even nice enough to check my hair to see if I had lice too. Izzy and I immediately went to the drug store where I bought the hair wash and a comb that zaps the bugs. 

I spent the next two hours working on Izzy's hair. I put A LOT of the treatment into Izzy's hair vowing the seriously kill the f*ckers. After the requisite amount of time, she got in the bath and we got to see the carnage. I counted at least 30 adult and teenage lice bugs and then felt even more terrible that I didn't catch this sooner. Izzy started to get freaked out that there were so many dead bugs in the bath with her so we switched to a shower. Afterwards I then spent a long time combing out her hair to get all of the nits. She has pretty long hair so it took a while. I also gave myself a treatment just in case before we went to pick up Wes. 

We were supposed to go out to dinner that night but I nixed those plans and we had leftovers. I also started loads and loads of laundry. The highlight of the day was listening to Izzy sing the Philadelphia Eagles fight song for me (she just needed help spelling at the end).

For the next week or so I would go through Izzy's hair at night. Thankfully CP was able to come home a day earlier than expected (Thursday instead of Friday)- after the lice issue in addition to an urgent care visit Sunday night (only a few hours after CP left) for Wes after he split open his chin, all I wanted to do was tap out on parenting.

Let's hope my 42nd birthday is much better than my 41st!

Winter fun

Holiday pictures

Decorating our Christmas tree. We intentionally did not buy a huge tree this year.

Making gingerbread houses at a friend's house.

Going to see the model trains at our library. Wes was in heaven.

Light show at the Chicago Botanic Gardens.

Light show at the Chicago Botanic Gardens. We brought glasses that make lights into gingerbread cookies, candy canes, reindeer, etc. It was great.

Check out this humongous inflatable in our neighborhood! The kids are so tiny compared to it!

Izzy turns 6 (a month ago!)

 IZZY TURNS 6

Morning birthday balloons

Height: 48”. Surprisingly enough she barely grew between July and her birthday.

Weight: 62 lbs

Physical milestones: Izzy is super strong as evidenced by the fact that she can pick up my mother (who weighs 120 lbs). She continues to be fast and won first place in the Healthy Kids Running Series in the spring (50 yard dash) and placed third this fall in the K & 1st grade division (1/4 mile). She is a better swimmer at this point and didn’t use floaties this summer. She had been doing karate this fall but we found that it is simply not enough exercise for her so we have enrolled her into an obstacle-course class which she is LOVING so far. It’s 45 minutes of climbing walls, monkey bars, pushups, situps, etc. Next month she will also start basketball classes through the park district.

Language/Reading: Izzy has a good number of sight words and likes to try to read things. She is very curious about words so if we use a word that she doesn’t know, she will ask us what that word means. Izzy doesn't quite have the "r" sound, so rabbit sounds like "wabbit." I'm told it's normal and she will grow out of it.

Loves: Unicorns, glitter, sparkly things, soft things, puzzles, art, the Eagles and the Cubs (Woo hoo!)

Personality: Izzy is still super competitive. She is also still fairly emotional and gets upset (cries) quickly. She can be smug at times and often wants to parent Wes and tell him what his punishment should be for doing something wrong. LOL.

Favorite Toy: Izzy has been big into games. She is fairly obsessed with Mancala and every time we pick her up from her after-K program she is playing. She also really enjoys Monopoly Jr, Scrabble Jr, and Ticket to Ride.

Favorite Book: She is making her way through an illustrated version of the first Harry Potter book with CP that she got for her birthday.

Enjoying some pizza before the Chicago Red Stars game

Sleeping Habits: These days she goes to bed around 8-8:30 and wakes up around 6:30-7. There is no more nap and we basically have stopped with required "quiet time" upstairs in her room. Our bedtime routine is to get her upstairs to change into pjs and pullup, brush her teeth, and read her 1-2 books or 1-2 chapters of a book. Generally she is in her room with a flashlight looking at books for a bit before falling asleep.

Eating: Izzy can eat A LOT of food if she is hungry. Her favorite is still mac n cheese.

Teeth: Izzy has lost FOUR teeth so far (all on the bottom).

After her most recent tooth loss two days before Christmas

Potty: At 6 Izzy has no issues during the day, however she still needs a pullup at night. I'm pretty sick of buying pullups so I'm hoping that the chemical in her brain switches "on" soon.

Clothes: Size 7/8 or usually a M. Size 1.5 youth shoe. She loves to wear athletic leggings and continues to wear a lot of dresses with leggings underneath.

Sickness: A few months ago Izzy turned her ankle and got a high ankle sprain. Unfortunately her doctor said that she is likely to have it happen again because of the type of sprain...so I taped her ankle like I remember physical therapists used to tape my ankle when I would sprain it.

Mommy's first tape job

Also, she had lice (that's a story for another post).

Treating Izzy's hair

Media: We have relaxed our tv standards a bit as the kids usually get a show or two each weekend day and sometimes we will do Friday night movie night as well. The kids do not get any iPad time, nor do they get to play with our phones. We'll see how much longer that lasts....

Big sister: At a recent wine night one of my friends was complaining about the fact that she has to "pretend play" with her daughter. All I could think was, man I'm so glad that my kids pretend play together. The only thing the kids ask me to do is be the "mommy monster." DONE.

Pulling Wes

Birthday: As usual, Izzy's birthday turns into at least two weeks of celebrating Izzy. It started with her shared birthday party with her best friend (third year in a row). This year they went to a nearby climbing gym. Then it was Izzy's actual birthday the day after Thanksgiving. All four of us had the day off so we went to the Field Museum in downtown Chicago to check out dinosaurs and finished the day by going to dinner at a spy restaurant with the most ridiculous dessert. Finally, the Sunday after Thanksgiving we had a family birthday for four of us that have November/December birthdays (me, Izzy, my BIL, and my dad).

Family birthday party

Birthday party with friends

Ridiculous dessert at the spy restaurant

We love our energetic, smart, athletic little lady and can't wait to see what she does this year!

Fall fun

We have been very busy on the weekends with fall activities.

Every year we head to my parent's house in MI and go to a local farm to pick out pumpkins and go apple picking.

To make sure that the kids are getting lots of exercise, we got them out to a local woody trail so that they could run around under the beautiful changing leaves.

CP had a work trip and it was nice enough for pumpkin carving to do it outside, so Wes mainly drew on his pumpkin with markers, while I mostly cut Izzy's pumpkin for her since I couldn't find the kid-friendly pumpkin carving knives.

The day of Halloween the snow started early and didn't stop until about 6pm so we ended up with cold and snowy Halloween! Izzy went with her current obsession, a unicorn, and Wes had a scary glow in the dark skeleton costume....but refused to wear the mask and opted for a hat.