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In the air

Jennifer — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:15:01 +0000

So many things are up in the air right now. I don’t believe in a god – so I have to put my faith in invisible unknown forces – karma – or whatever – that everything will somehow work out. I’m on the cusp to some big changes (which of course I can’t talk about in specific until something has finalized). There’s a few different options/directions that may work out – or maybe none of it will, and I’ll have to figure something else out. So hard to plow ahead like normal when you don’t know where “ahead” might be tomorrow or the next day. I’m going through the daily motions – waiting for an answer. Once you get an idea in your head – don’t you want it immediately? I’ve heard of people completely changing the course of their lives when they were so close to finishing something – and always thought that was a bit crazy… but at this moment it makes perfect sense. I want my new direction.. now. I want to know where I’m going right now. I don’t want to wait a few more days or weeks or months to know… Is it any wonder that anyone who proclaims themselves to be a psychic can make a decent living? It’s because of impatient, obsessive people like me! (But I’m not hiring any psychics. LOL)

Since I can’t talk about that – and really, at the moment there’s nothing to talk about anyway, yet – here’s weight-loss status update. My body took a two week hiatus from losing weight. Not me. My body. I continued to exercise, watch calories – and during these two weeks, I gained three pounds. Seriously? I have no idea what that was about. I was so frustrated I was ready to call my doctor to have them start running tests. And don’t say it was muscle – it wasn’t. I might agree that I could have been bloated from too much sodium. I was having those gazpacho soups daily for lunch. But according to my calorie log – that’s a lot of sodium. When I stopped having that soup every day – my body started behaving again and I’m back to slowly losing some weight. I started this journey – well technically at 158lbs – but shortly after beginning it went up to 159! (Grrr) – but I am now down to 151lbs. So either a 7 or 8lb loss in 2 months depending on how you look at it. That’s pretty close to 1lb a week which is the max I can loose at 1200 calories a day. Still doing Zumba – at least 2x a week, 3x week when I can. I’m now able to make it through the whole class without having to “tone it down” towards the end to make it to the end of class. I can go full steam ahead for the full hour.

No related posts.

High Energy Child

Jennifer — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 08:10:30 +0000

My son has always been extremely active. He doesn’t ever stop moving. Ever. I signed him up for soccer in the fall and he loved it – but it didn’t necessarily have the desired effect which was to tire him out! He could exercise all day – come home and still run laps. With that much energy, it’s not hard to get into trouble. Our house isn’t big and there’s not much room to run – so furniture just becomes part of the raceway. I’m constantly on him to settle down, not run on the furniture, etc. etc. but it doesn’t make a difference. I was afraid that with so much activity – no one would want to set up any playdates with him. We don’t do many of them – but I swear that when he does have one, it’s because he runs circles around everyone so much that THE OTHER kid is sure to get a good night sleep. Mine, on the other hand? He’ll be awake until about 9 or 10pm. Sometimes even later on the weekends. (Even though his actual bed time is much earlier) Going to bed is a punishment – or at least that’s the way he sees it. I used to think that maybe the hyperactivity was just a symptom of him being overtired. But there is literally no “making” him go to sleep. He sleeps when he’s ready to and not a moment before – regardless of what I do. You can’t make someone sleep.

Last night I was at the end of my rope, and patience. I know he doesn’t have ADHD or anything along those lines – he is capable of sitting still. I’ve seen him do it at school. When he’s finished with his work, the kids are supposed to go to a quiet corner and read a book – which he happily and proudly does. I don’t get complaints from the teacher about him acting out – so I think he’s doing ok (although I will be grilling her next parent teacher conference on exactly how well he really is doing on that to make sure). So I turned to the all-knowing Google. “Kid never sits still” “Excessively active child” “High energy child” – the last one came up with lots of good hits. “High Energy Child” is apparently the key phrase to describe him – and he’s not the only one. Here is what I got out of the links I read:

1) Limit TV and Video Games. Big time. These will overstimulate him. Other kids get over stimulated, but not nearly to the degree a high-energy child does. So our new plan: I have a chore chart – when all the things on the chore chart are done he can either have ONE (and only ONE) hour of TV OR video games – OR he can have a quarter. (He loves to buy junky toys from those bubble-gum vending machines)

2) Did you see the movie Gremlins? I didn’t actually – but I know there was something about not feeding the things after midnight. Similar rules apply – with similar results when you don’t comply – but in this case it’s the TV and video games again. That hour of media entertainment? Not to be done before bed!!!

3) Redirection. This is where that chore chart comes in. Once he starts complaining about not having the TV and video games – I remind him how he can earn it for an hour for the day. Try to give him “jobs”. Keep him assigned to a task. If he’s idle – trouble will follow.

4) Whatever you do. WHATEVER you do! Don’t lose your cool. Getting angry will make things worse. It will make him amplify his hyperactivity and make you even angrier. You’ll begin a viscous cycle. That’s not to say don’t tell him to get off the furniture or don’t punish him when he refuses to listen. But all punishment and directions must come completely without emotion.

I’m trying to see the world through his eyes and it is helping me to understand how to deal with him. Imagine you have boundless energy… and then imagine there is someone there who is always trying to bring you down – make you go to sleep? How can you sleep when you still have enough energy to jump tall buildings in a single bound.

The good news is that he’s a good kid. He’s sensitive to others. (Well to the extent a 6 year old is capable of) He doesn’t get into fights. He has a lot of friends at school. He’s bright, creative, smart, funny and can focus on school work when needed. He’s going to grow up and be an amazing human being some day. If we can direct that energy to something positive, I can’t even imagine the things he’ll be able to accomplish.

We’ll see how the plan above goes as time wears on. It’s always difficult to maintain these things in the long term. I’m hoping we do, and I’m hoping it works so we can all live a more happy life together. It has been really stressful to say the least.

Writing practice and connecting with your child (a two-fer)

It comes once a month…

Jennifer — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 21:19:03 +0000

I’m referring to my blog posts. Gone are the days of daily blogging! I had a client ask me recently about my blog and I had to explain that while I always liked blogging, my bigger interest was in MAKING the blog, not so much writing on it. Hence the beginning of Scriptygoddess and then the beginning of my new job/business.

But I do like looking back on life. So here’s this past month’s rundown.

My daughter is wrapping up her part in the local theatre/musical group’s production of Cats. She has an ensemble part – but really does seem to enjoy doing the shows. She wants to do the next show too – against my better judgement, I’m pretty much decided to let her. Her grades were hurting in the beginning, but she’s pulled them up (I can take some credit here too because I’ve been seriously on her case about keeping up) – she’s cooperated for the most part – so I think we’ll do the show. Cats has been fun for me too – the program requires parent volunteer hours and I signed up for makeup. I *love* doing facepaint/makeup – especially cat makeup. At the same time, it’s also crazy stressful as there are A LOT of kids in the show. There’s a bunch of us working on makeup – I have about 6 kids I need to do makeup for – but we only get a little less than 2 hours before the show to do it. For each show, I’ve had the kids waiting in line, waiting waiting waiting for their turn. I’m going as fast as I can, but I feel bad about making anyone wait for me! There’s three more shows left – I’m sure by the last one I’ll be so fast!

Zach just finished up his first soccer season. He is really good at it and I think we’ve got him convinced to do it again. I wish they had a spring session for his age group but they don’t (not unless we want to drive a few towns over each time!) So we’re stuck waiting for fall! I’d like to sign him up for another sport for the spring to keep him active, but I’m not sure what’s available and what programs are good. The ones through the town I wasn’t terribly impressed with. (The soccer program was great – it was through AYSO) There’s T-ball – but I really wanted something where he’d be more active (more than just waiting around for someone to hit a ball – or waiting for his turn to hit the ball… etc.) Flag football might be good if they have a group his age – but I wonder whether he’d be able to STOP himself from wanting to tackle other kids. LOL! Maybe I’ll just invest in a giant gerbil wheel… That would do the job.

Work is the same. Feast or famine. This month has been more on the “lean” side. But we’ll see how long that keeps up. (It usually doesn’t last) I’m thankful for the breaks anyway.

If you follow me on pinterest, you may have noticed a crazy amount of pinning recently for “doodles.” I’ve really gotten into this and started collecting inspiring doodles there. I almost always doodle while talking on the phone – next to my notes etc. but these would usually end up getting tossed in the trash. Some of them were actually kind of cool. So I got a few notebooks I’m solely dedicating to doodles. In fact, I’m thinking of buying a real “sketchbook” (since the paper in the notebook is ruled and isn’t the greatest quality) – maybe even pick up a few super fine point artist pens. I’d like to post some of the things I’ve done – but there always seems to be some little thing that bugs me about the drawing that makes me not want to share it. Sometimes, I just do a partial drawing. If I ever get anything that feels “complete” and “clean”, I’ll finally post it.

One month later

Break In The Clouds

Jennifer — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 20:38:32 +0000

WOW. What a whirlwind the last few months has been. It’s literally been non-stop, one big project after the next – very often overlapping. I pushed back (at the expense of possibly losing a new client – but I couldn’t keep it up) and I finally have a little breathing room. I mean, you know it’s bad when you’re thinking to yourself “I wish I could get sick – sick enough that I have to go to the hospital – but not life threatening – just enough so I have a good enough excuse to sleep for even just one solid day.” (I’d say I’d wish for a vacation, but somehow our vacations are never very relaxing. Seriously – a trip to the hospital would be more of a “vacation”)

In any case – I don’t think I mentioned last time – we did get a new puppy. He is an AWESOME dog. If I had any doubts about our decision to bring back Moose – having our new dog is definitely proof. He is so good. So loving. So tolerant. He hangs out in my lap all day while I work. He chases my son around the house (for fun! Not to bite him! LOL!) when he comes home from school. He’s smart. He is the best dog ever. Truly. Have a look:

He is a cairn terrier (like Charlie was) The woman we got him from may want to show and possibly breed him – so we won’t be able to have him fixed right away. If she does decide to breed him, we would have dibs on a one of puppies (which I would seriously consider – the only thing better than a Carin Terrier… is TWO Carin Terriers!!! And certainly if the pup had the same kind of personality!)

Pizza that won’t break the (calorie) bank

Happy Puppy

Jennifer — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 03:09:05 +0000

Puppies

Jennifer — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 09:39:44 +0000

Ok, enough bad stuff… I can’t just leave you with my last post up. I have to post something good. We decided to get a labradoodle puppy. The litter was born on Jan 20th. We still have to meet him to be sure (going to meet him in February – and they’ll be ready to come home at the end of March) but we’re strongly leaning towards this guy:

It’s going to be a hard decision though – ALL of those puppies from that litter are just ADORABLE.

First Night

Jennifer — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 09:09:47 +0000

Tonight we finally get to spend the night in the new house. We are buried in boxes. I know we’ll get through it eventually, but it’s hard to get anything done. Just walking down the hallway, I’ll pass a box and feel compelled to open it and start putting stuff away – even though I was on task to do something completely different.

It is pretty cool to finally be HOME. The challenge with this house will be storage – the house itself is quite a bit smaller than our last and there’s just less storage space overall. It’s going to take some creativity to solve the problem. Especially since we’re minus an office ROOM. My new office is now basically a hallway. So no office closet or anything like that. To compensate, I put a book shelf in the hallway with me, and bought some pretty baskets that fit on the shelves to put stuff in. So when you walk down the hallway, instead of seeing a bunch of office supplies hanging out everywhere, you just see the pretty baskets on the shelves.

Our kitchen has a lot of available space, but to make the most use of it, we’ll have to get some roll out shelves. Wherever I can put a piece of furniture that can hold things, that’s what we’re doing. And of course, we’re continuing to junk as much stuff as possible.

But even with all the boxes everywhere… I’m still so glad we’re done.

Ah, the fun never ends

Jennifer — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 08:01:37 +0000

We were so close. Every night I close my eyes and pretend I’m sleeping in our new house. In our new room. I picture Rachel in her room. Zach in his room. BOTH in their own SEPARATE rooms down the hall from us – as opposed to sharing the same room like they have been the last two months. (I use the term “sharing” very loosely here. I’m not sure constant yelling at each other constitutes as “sharing”) The new house is within walking distance of town, so I picture us waking up Sunday morning, throwing on some clothes and walking to the pancake restaurant that’s around the corner from us. Most especially, I had really wanted to spend Christmas there. I was so sure things would be reasonably settled that I even planned on hosting a New Year’s Eve party. (Family members only – since they would understand/tolerate the fact we’d still be mostly in boxes)

It was so close I could taste it.

And now it’s gotten just a little bit further. Today was the first day we could go in the house, despite the fact that the sellers have been out of the place for a few days. We were told they wanted to hang onto it an extra few days to “clean.” Riiiight. When we moved out of our old house, I hired professional cleaners to come in and clean everything. They scrubbed the kitchen, bathroom, vacuumed every room and closet. Dusted. The place was probably cleaner than it ever was when we lived there. But in our case, despite telling us they were “cleaning” the place, I did not get the same treatment on our new house.

Hair all over the showers and tubs. Garbage on the floor in the closets and in some of the drawers. Paint we didn’t want, left in the garage. Dust piles on the baseboards. Dust and dirt throughout the floors. Hair even on the dirty counters in the kitchen. Toilets that haden’t been cleaned in at least a few weeks (they had that tell-tale mold ring where the water meets the bowl). But as grossed out as I was – that wasn’t even the worst of it. The worse was the strange pile of something that looked like sandy dirt in the corner of the master bedroom.

Termites.

We still have to get someone in there, inspect and officially confirm, but based on the pictures I’ve seen online, what we saw is EXACTLY the same as the examples of evidence of dry-wood termites. The house was inspected for termites and had “section 1 clearance” – which means that the inspector said there were no termites. I don’t understand how we can go from that assessment, to OBVIOUS evidence in such a short amount of time, and on the first day we can get the house. I have no idea what recourse we’ll have, and who will have to pay (we’re already strapped for cash – so I’m just afraid what this means for us)

On top of that, the painters came in today, but didn’t get as far on the job as we would have liked. Our movers are, at this very moment, making their way here and will be here on Thursday, but I have no guarantee that the painters will be done. (In fact, I’m 99% sure they WON’T be done and will still have paint and tarps everywhere) As well, I don’t know what we’ll do with our stuff if we have to have the place fumigated. Oh, and the New Years Eve party? I can pretty much forget about that – as well as having Christmas there. Until the place is cleaned and termites dealt with, I’m not staying there and we can’t unpack.

So… you can probably guess I’m just a WEE bit disappointed. And freaked out. And grossed out. And SERIOUSLY pissed off.

After this whole experience, I NEVER want to move again. Ever.

One month later

Jennifer — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 07:39:56 +0000

Holy cow. A whole month went by in a blink of an eye. Here’s my update on life.

Thanksgiving
We went to Sam’s mom’s house. It was a nice reminder why I don’t want to live where it gets cold. (It was really really cold!) Otherwise it was good. Rachel spent a ton of quality time with her aunt. Sam’s mom got a good look into the insanity that is 5-year-old Zach. I had wanted to take a trip into the Boston, but it wasn’t in the cards. Instead we visited the Yankee Candle factory in Deerfield. Haven’t been there in years.

House
We closed on the house – but the sellers are renting it from us until next week. With Christmas around the corner, we’re not sure when we’ll be able to get our stuff in there though. So it will either be early next week or the week after. The kids sharing a room is really getting old for everyone involved – I’m anxious to give them their own rooms. We bought a new washer and dryer for the house, and I’m looking forward to using it. (We had old ones in the last house, so getting new ones really is exciting. Yes, I need to get out more.)

Dog
We finally came to the conclusion that there was a very specific list of things we wanted in our next dog. Size, look, fur length, weight, personality, etc. etc. so we’ve decided to get a labradoodle. We’ve put a deposit down on an upcoming litter – the same breeder my brother bought their dog from. It won’t be until mid march until the puppies are ready to go home. … and then the fun begins. It was just a little over a year ago ironically, that I posted about how I’m all too aware of all the training involved with a puppy. But, how can you resist a face like this:

(That’s not our puppy – but we’re hoping there’ll be a chocolate puppy in the litter like this one.) We even already have a name picked out.

Sam’s Job
There’s more news on this too, but I can’t talk about it yet.

Weight
With everything that has happened in the last few months, I have totally let my weight get out of hand. I know it’s bad, but I refuse to look at the scale. But I don’t get real control of my own life until we get moved into our own house. So I’m just going to deal with it then. Whatever I’ve gained… I lost it once before. I’ll lose it again. :/ Besides. I’m going to have a dog in a few months that’s going to need a lot of walks/runs. Need to get in shape!

It comes once a month…

Settling in

Jennifer — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 18:52:43 +0000

Things have settled down from when I posted last. We got some resolution on some open and scary issues. With that resolution, we were able to make an offer on a really nice townhome, just outside of a really nice town (walking distance). Everyone has signed off on the paperwork, so now we just wait. It will be about a month or two before we can actually start moving in, but at least we know a home is definitely within our future.

Living here will not be easy – and we’ll be carefully watching every penny we spend. We’ll be living on a tighter budget than we ever had. That is pretty scary to me – but we’ll do what we have to do.

Anyway – the last time I posted, things were pretty much at their worst. So I felt I had to update. The next few weeks will still be hectic – I have work that has piled up while we’ve been busy with house stuff. And then there’s Thanksgiving – we’ll be visiting Sam’s family back in Massachusetts. And then right after that is Hanukkah… then Christmas… Then sometime then or shortly after we’ll start moving into the house… I’m glad we went to Hawaii when we did. It will be a long time before I can afford another trip like that – and while the rest of the chaos is going on, at least I know the place now and can go there in my mind when I need to escape.