Miss Me?

Wow. I feel bad for not making the time to blog since August 20th! Life has been busy and the Petrosians have quite a few updates.

First of all, we bought a house! Finally! We became homeowners on October 25, 2013. My brother and sister-in-law were nice enough to let us live with them for 7 months. Of course, none of us knew it would take that long, but unfortunately it did. I posted quite frequently about the tough time I was having finding a job. It was very stressful and frustrating. I finally got a job at the beginning of August. We got pre-approved for a home loan shortly after that. We found a house and I love it. Now just comes the hard part...decorating. I am not a good decorator. I have ideas, I pin the things on Pinterest, but then it's always an epic fail. I ordered a few decorative pieces from Kohls and I am waiting for them to arrive. I am doing our kitchen in a wine theme. :)

Brynlee finally warmed up to daycare and now she likes going. We call it school. It took her 6 long weeks to stop crying every day. Now she loves her friends and her teachers. She has brought quite the attitude home from one of her sassy little friends though. She says, "Nanana boo boo you can't get me" and "I don't care!" complete with eye rolling and lip smacking. I can only imagine what 8-18 is going to be like. She is so smart and funny. She seriously cracks me up every day. She has full on conversations with us and sometimes I have no idea where she gets the things she says. Today she told me that her Daddy is at church. Um...I doubt it, lol. She is obsessed with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (still). She has every Minnie Mouse toy and thing imaginable. We buy her Minnie stuff all the time and of course she got a ton of Minnie things from our family for Christmas. Brynlee is currently in a baby stage right now. We got her a baby doll for Christmas with a mini pack 'n play, high chair, food, clothes, etc. She got a stroller from Joey's aunt. I have been talking to her about having a little brother or sister. Joey and I are talking about trying for another baby sometime early this year. March, April, Mayish. We were eating at a restaurant last weekend and Brynlee said to me, "Mommy and Daddy have baby? Yeah??!" with a cute little head nod. So we're making progress on the issue. Originally, she would say NO! when I asked her if she wanted a little brother or sister. Then she started to warm up to the idea of a little sister. She told me she wanted to hug her and hold her hand. She only warmed up to that idea after meeting Baby Laynea in August. Now she is just warming up to the baby idea altogether. I think she will make a great big sister when the time comes.

As for me, I joined the gym at the end of November then I got sick. Then we had a bad ice storm where everything was shut down. I was off work for an entire week. Brynlee got sick. I got sick again after feeling better for only 2 days. Then Joey got sick. Then it was December 20th and we still hadn't bought any Christmas presents. Joey and I dropped Brynlee off at my brother's house to go shopping that Friday evening after work. Bad idea. I was really sick and feverish. That lasted a few more days. I couldn't even get out of bed on Saturday. It was awful. I was pretty much sick the entire month of December. I started to feel better on Christmas Eve, but not 100%.

I weighed myself and am surprised that my weight has stayed between 199.8 and 200.8. I honestly figured that I was up to 210 by now, lol. I guess I will be one of those people who starts hitting the gym now that it's a New Year. I have seen lots of people on my Facebook complaining about the "New Year crowd". I wish those people would be NICE to people starting the gym for the New Year. It'd be nice to make them feel comfortable, smile a little, help them out. For some people (like myself), it takes a lot of courage to join a gym. You want to do everything right. You don't want people to laugh at you. You don't want the "gym rats" to see your jiggle. I think the mean gym rats forget that they (probably) used to need to lose weight, too. It's hard. If you see someone confused about the weight machines, help them out. Teach them the ropes. Be NICE to new people starting the gym and maybe, just maybe, they won't be 2 week gym goers. Maybe it will become a habit because you took the time to be nice to them and make them feel comfortable. Make them feel proud that they took a big step and joined a gym.

I like the gym I go to because no one ever makes me feel uncomfortable. I like to run on the indoor track and there's hardly ever anyone up there. When there are people on the track, they are usually just walking anyway. As far as the machines, there's plenty of 3 different levels. If I want to use a machine, there's always plenty available. Now I don't know what it will be like here at the New Year, but there are signs everywhere saying to limit your machine time to 30 minutes if there's people waiting, but I've never seen people waiting. I also like the gym I go to because there's a Women's Only weight room. If there wasn't, it would take me months to work up the courage to use the machines that all of the beefy guys and hot girls use. I also like this gym because it is VERY close to my house and my sister-in-law goes to this gym, too. So we can have gym dates.

The bad thing is that I am trying to figure out a time that WORKS for me to go to the gym. I have tried to set my alarm for 4:30am to wake up and go before work, but that hasn't happened yet. I always get everything together the night before. Everything from my headband to my clothes to my heart rate monitor, head phones, and arm band. I lay out my clothes and Brynlee's clothes. I pack my lunch. I go to bed early. I set my alarm. I put it across the room so I have to get up to turn it off. Nothing works to get me up earlier than I have to be. So I am starting to think that early morning workouts aren't for me, lol.

I don't have time to go to the gym directly after work because I have to have Brynlee picked up from school. If I go to the gym then I'll barely make it to her daycare on time and it's also a lot of backtracking since the gym is closer to my house. I think the best thing for me is to have a buddy (HELLO PAIGE) who has to meet me there at a certain time. Once I get into the habit again, if she has to miss or doesn't feel up to going then I will still go. I've got to get my habit back!

 

 

I am also happy to say that I have finally found a fish that I like. I want to like seafood, but I just can't get over the fishy taste. I know that my husband likes all kinds of seafood. Fish is good for me so I know I need to eat it. Paige introduced me to a non-fishy white fish, Swai fillets. They are so good! So I am happy to branch out. Now I just have to find many different ways to cook the same type of fish, lol. We're having fish and asparagus for dinner tonight.

I've got a gym date at 7:30pm.

Here's to being happy and healthy in 2014,

Mommy Guilt

Busy, Busy, Busy. Things sure have been busy lately. I started my new job on August 7th and I LOVE it. Just love it. I love my supervisor, my co-workers, the company and other employees, the campus I'm at...everything (except my tiny cubicle). I am not typically the type of person who says, "God has a plan" because I don't really believe that but it's kind of hard not to say that right now. I feel like someone must have just known this was the perfect job for me and that's why I didn't get any of the other jobs I interviewed for. *shrugs* It's easy to agree with that notion when everything is turning out right instead of wrong. Either way, as Brynlee would say, "Happy happy happy!"

Speaking of Brynlee, she is finally starting to kinda sorta a little bit warm up to daycare/school. I started her in daycare on August 5th so she could start getting used to the routine before I had to go to work. The last 2 weeks have been awful. She screams, cries, and clings to me. When I drop her off, she screams, "No I don't want it!" She gets so upset. Then when I pick her up, she runs to me crying. On her first day, I cried after I dropped her off. I didn't cry because I didn't want to leave her at school. I cried because she was so terrified. She did not want me to leave her and there I was doing exactly what she didn't want me to do. Leaving her with kids and teachers that she didn't know. We did visit the facility twice before she started going there full-time, but her little 2 year old mind didn't seem to remember that. All she was focused on was that I was leaving her and probably never coming back. I only left her there for a few hours while I cleaned house and started getting things ready to start working. Then the next day was the exact same way. And the next...and the next...

I have completely slacked off on running. I have such "Mommy Guilt" about her being so upset every day. (Yes, it's really. I have done lots of googling about the way I have been feeling about leaving her to do something for myself.) When I get home, I just want to hang out with her and reassure her that school is fun, Mommy HAS to go to work, and that I will always come get her. For the first week, she was GLUED to me from the moment I picked her up until the moment we went to bed. She has been cranky, emotional, and super grumpy. Her teachers said that she cries off and on all day long. Sometimes she just sits by herself at a table. Other times she sits on the floor and cries. They said she plays with toys here and there and only plays with a couple of the kids in her class. Then when other kids start getting picked up, she starts saying she wants to go home and asks where her mommy and daddy are. I know that she will be fine and it is taking time for her to get used to being in school again. Now she is at the age where she realizes that I can leave her (and vice versa) and that worries a little 2 year old mind.

Today was a little bit better. She was happy and talkative in the car on the way to school. We kept talking about Baby Laynea. We FINALLY get to see my new niece. My sister, her husband, and baby Laynea will be in Texas today! Brynlee is so excited to see Baby Laynea. She was talking about seeing the baby, Noni, Papa, Shelby, Cody and then she'd say, "Who else?" Ashley, Mark...then I'd have to tell her that Ashley and Mark won't be here. So she'd repeat her list of people that she gets to see tonight. :) She's so smart. When I dropped her off, I was telling her to tell her friends about Baby Laynea. It helped keep her calm, but she started crying when I started walking away. :( But at least she wasn't crying when we pulled up to school. Baby steps.

So hopefully she is starting to warm up to school and I can feel good about having my "me time" back. I just can't seem to shake the guilty feeling. I feel like I am away from her all day long and she just wants to spend time with me after work and school. I am happy to say that I haven't gained though because I am still doing pretty well (not perfect) with my eating. My weight has been fluctuating between 199.6-200.4 since I started working again. So I know my weight will start going back down as soon as I get back into running!

Okay, that's a nice little update so now I've got to get some work done!