Hi

Hello, my friends...

Sorry I've been M.I.A.  Things have been so crazy around here.

The holidays were awesome, but very busy.  We are blessed to be able to share Christmas with both my family and Josh's, plus we squeezed in some celebrations with good friends as well.  Over the New Year we were at a church retreat, but before we left we had to move every.single.piece.of.furniture we own into the garage and dining room, because we had new carpet installed.

It is so so crazy how much the carpet has changed the house! I am so thankful we were able to replace the original stuff that probably shoulda been taken to the dump a couple years ago.  Anyway, so that was a huge undertaking, between packing and moving furniture.

Then from the retreat we went straight to the coast for a family get-away while the carpet was being installed.  We got to ride on Uncle Tim's boat and we all had a fabulous time, despite the fact that I almost got dumped right into the freezing water.  ;-)  Anyway, then we came back from the hour long car ride, hopped out... and had to put all the furniture back.  With 4 grumpy/tired kids.  And a cold house cuz we'd turned the heat off.  Yeah, probably not our smartest idea ever.

AND on top of all THAT... my dear, sweet, precious Nora has forgotten how to sleep at night.  Like, she doesn't even FALL asleep until anywhere between 1 and 3 in the morning.  I've tried going in and soothing her... she just cries and cries and cries.  For hours.  I've tried letting her cry it out.  She just cries and cries and cries.  For hours.  I know she is dry, fed, medicated with Tylenol in case her teeth are hurting.  Nothing helps.  Only me holding her.  Then she's happy as a clam. Good thing she's cute, huh?! (And WHERE has the time gone????? 7 months already? Really!?!?!)

But mama is TIRED.  Tired actually doesn't even come close to covering it.  More like a zombie.  I'm so tired that I'm at the point where I can't even think of what to do next.  What to try next.  Because, my friends, this is going on 3 weeks now.  I talked to her pediatrician about it at her check-up and he thinks she is just overstimulated from the holidays/moving around.  But we've been home for over a week and it's still just as bad.

So I am toast.  And as you've probably figured out, I fell off the HCG wagon.  Hard.  Like, they probably felt the reverberations from my fall in China hard.

It's taken me a long time to get my head back in the game.  I've been fluctuating between FREAKING about how large I am and FREAKING about how hard dieting is.  It was not a pretty cycle, believe you me.  And it was affecting my entire family, because I was so down on myself and was drowning in depression and failure and hopelessness.

I don't know what changed, but suddenly I'm ready to tackle it again.

So today is the first of two binge days.  I'm making sure to drink my special breastmilk booster recipe, as well as eat some "lactation cookies".  It really helped last time.  I didn't notice a decrease in my milk last time, but better safe than sorry.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to trimming down, and then at some point getting back into actual exercise.  I actually enjoy spinning, so I may find a class around here.  I also have this weird, deep-seated longing for running.  I don't know why.  I don't have good form.  It hurts my joints.  But it's like my body longs for it.  So I'm hoping once I get these extra pounds off that I can work my way up into some kind of running routine.

Basically, this is it to a T:

:-D

So that's where I'm at.  I'm thinking I'll keep track of my weight loss every day on my calendar at home and then report in maybe once or twice a week here on the blog.

Hope you all are well and I'll do my best to be better about consistently updating you all.

Have a great Monday!