Smith Family Weblog

Like most of you, I have a few resolutions this new year. I always have resolutions, and oddly enough, they’re usually the same ones. Perhaps my first resolution should be FINISH WHAT YOU START, but whatever. Also, be less snarky.

Anyway:

1. Under promise, over deliver. I seem to have a problem with over commitment, which leaves me tired and crabby, especially when it comes to the people to whom I should be the nicest. And, speaking of…
2. Be nicer to Bryan. Spend more time playing with the kids. Be a better wife and mom. (So much for that whole “under promise, over deliver” business.)
3. Keep a more organized home. And car. And office. Sure, they look neat on the surface, but you’d better duck for cover when you open a cabinet or closet. To this end, I have a three-page list of all the nooks and crannies around the house that need to be organized. And, just because I spend an hour or more a day in my car, it doesn’t need to look like I actually live there.
4. Lose 25 pounds. I lost 30 last year, so this seems somewhat manageable. To make this work, I need a follow-up resolution: Do not get pregnant. Still thinking about that one.
5. Stop sharing so much personal information with the world at large.
6. Read more books. And not the kind with pictures (sorry, Ava). Read four–just four, for crying out loud–actual, real books that have at least some literary merit. Try to convince Bryan to read them, too, so we have something to discuss besides the Forbes cover story and the current state of Olivia’s ears.
7. Spend less time online. Or at least cut back on celebrity gossip. As Katie said, TMZ is not the news. She makes a good point.
8. Make more time for real hobbies, like quilting and cooking.

The irony here is that to really achieve my first resolution (and my fifth, seventh and eighth, too), I shouldn’t have posted any of these.

What a rocky start!

And, as I noted over on the THOH, together these resolutions can be summed up in one: Be someone else. Maybe next year I’ll resolve to be at peace with who I am.

I have a longstanding distaste for the dentist. I have hated going since I was very young–and once semi-annual check-ups became my responsibility, they became far less frequent.

As an adult–who is trying (at least on occasion) to set a good example for her children–I am going in every six months. I’ve found a hygienist that I like, and the dentist is quite nice, too.

At my last appointment, they discovered that a filling I’ve had since junior high was cracked and needed to be replaced. I have pretty strong memories of obtaining that actual filling–and it was not fun. After they assured me that it really did need to be fixed before it caused problems, I relented.

I arrived at my appointment this morning to find a heated chair, flat TV screen and wireless headphones. Not bad.

Then, the hygienist asked if I’d like nitrous. I’ve never had it before, but I will tell you this now: If you are ever posed this question, the answer should be an emphatic YES.

It’s not without side effects, though, as I found myself in several exchanges like this:

Dentist: You’re doing great. The hardest part is holding your mouth open so wide for so long.

Me: Well, I work out. (Laughs hysterically.)

I’m pretty sure they shut it off when I declared myself a “big fan” and asked if I could take the tank home with me. Since that won’t work, I’m going to cut down on my brushing a bit so I can spend another morning with Dr. Justin.

Now that I’m back off the wagon, I’m enjoying a couple of glasses of wine a few times a week. Usually, a bottle is more than enough for the two of us, but there are those nights where one more glass would be nice, but it seems wasteful–and kind of expensive–to open another bottle.

Enter the boxed wine.

We picked up our first last week, thinking it would be nice to pour a single glass without uncorking an entire bottle. It is far less expensive than bottled wine, and it keeps for six weeks.

That is, of course, if you don’t drain it within a matter of days.

The good thing about a bottle is that there’s an end–and it’s only four glasses. A box, on the other hand, that goes on and on and on. And portion control has never been my strong suit.

So, the other night, I found myself tipping the box to get to the last little bit of wine. When that didn’t work, I ripped out the bag and funneled the wine down to the spout.

Bry, watching from the other side of the counter said, “I bet you could get more out if you clipped the corner.”

This seems like a slippery slope.

I finally pulled my bike out of storage. (Well, to be exact, I asked Bry to drag it up the basement steps, air up the tires and remind me how to work the gears.)

Still, though, my $89.99 Target special, which hasn’t seen daylight since about 2003, is completely accessible and ready to ride. I even took it for a quick spin Monday night.

I look forward to riding it again.

In 2013.

And I don’t just mean the shards of glass lodged in my ear.

I’ve had a BlackBerry for about three years now. I bought it for work, telling Bryan that it would help me advance my career. Six weeks later, I was promoted to the director of public relations in my organization. If I had been allowed an acceptance speech, I would have thanked my new phone first.

As I became more attached, Bryan’s hatred only grew. (I secretly think he was jealous.) Soon, I was hiding in my nightstand drawer, but more often than not, he would spy the green light when I tried to sneak it out overnight.

I became a pro at typing on the thing–BlackBerry thumb be damned. It was a constant connection to my job, my family, my friends. I’d hide in the bathroom to send messages at home, hoping to avoid the inevitable, “Will you put that thing down?!”

The great thing about a smart phone is that you’re always connected. The downside? You’re always connected. When you have constant access to email, there’s an inexplicable need to respond immediately. And, if the person with whom your communicating is also furiously typing on a tiny keyboard, it just escalates. Then, before you know it, you’re sending emails to coworkers at 4 a.m. From the hospital. Ninety minutes before giving birth.

Still, I haven’t had any desire to part ways with my BlackBerry. Not until recently.

When Apple introduced the new iPhones, I decided I had to have one. Bryan talked me into waiting for the second generation product, which just came out a few weeks ago. Ours have been on order for a week and a half, and we just picked them up today.

But, I’m finding that I’m not completely excited. I will miss my BlackBerry. At the risk of sounding even crazier than I already do, I will tell you that I’m mourning a bit today. I’m terrible at typing on the iPhone’s touch screen. I can already feel my productivity diminishing. And, now instead of enjoying free text messaging to other users over the BlackBerry server, we’ll be back to paying 15 cents for each. My daily communiques with Katie alone might offset the savings of the new monthly package.

I will say, though, the new phone is pretty. And, I’ve always been a Mac girl. I even requested a MacBook Pro as part of my negotiation in my new job. My BlackBerry doesn’t exactly play nicely with it, so I should be thankful to have a phone that will.

Still, I feel a bit adulterous, turning on the one that’s always been there and replacing it with something shiny and new.

Seeing as how I’m publishing this entry from my iPhone, though, I suppose this feeling will pass.

Our family doctor, who is built a lot like I am, has recently dropped about 35 pounds. I know this because I manage to see her about once every two weeks. (If I don’t drop at least $60 a month in office visit co-pays, I just don’t know what to do with myself.)

Anyway, I finally asked her what she was doing. As a health care professional, I assumed she’d have keen insight into something that’s always been a challenge for me. Her response? “I stopped eating.” I laughed, and she said, “No, I’m serious.”

So much for that.

When I saw her again recently, I asked exactly what “not eating” entails. She said she’s keeping her caloric intake to around 1400 calories. I said, I can do that–I mean, I get to add about 500-600 on top of that because I’m nursing, right? She responded that nursing only burns about 200-300 calories a day, which–by the way–is not what they tell you when they’re trying to talk you into nursing in the first place. Still, though, 1700 calories seems like a lot. Totally manageable, right?

Despite my five (okay, seven) year affair with Weight Watchers, I’ve really fallen out of the habit of counting calories. I know roughly how many points are in various things, but I couldn’t tell you how many points I should be consuming a day. Now that I have a target, certainly that will help, right?

I started the day like I usually do, a bowl of cereal, a piece of fruit and coffee. I’m thinking that’s about 200 calories.

Except that it’s Kashi, and not the kind that suspiciously resembles hamster food. This actually has almonds. And honey. And 200 calories a cup.

And the milk? Normally I buy 1 percent for Ava, and sometimes even skim for myself. Apparently, though, I picked up whole milk yesterday. Do you have any idea how many grams of fat are in a cup of whole milk? Eight! That’s a huge difference. Plus, there’s almost double the calories, so it comes in at 150. And that banana I sliced over the top? 125. So before I downed the iced coffee (with a bit of cream, and alright, some sugar, too), I’m near 500. For breakfast! And a relatively healthy breakfast at that.

At this rate, I’m really going to have to reign in my brownie consumption.

This morning I had a fitness evaluation as part of my training at Fitness Together. I’ve been going twice a week, and more recently, three times a week, for strength training and cardio work with a personal trainer. Since you all helped me make this decision, I thought I owed you an update.

This morning’s assessment brought good news and bad. First, the bad–I haven’t lost much weight, at least not as much as I thought I would in three months. I’m down 20 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight, but I am now struggling to get much lower. I gained 20 the year I nursed Ava, so I guess I should count my blessings that hasn’t happened this time, too. Still, the computer generated report at FT sets my target weight at 114, a number that at this rate, I should see sometime around my 97th birthday.

On the bright side, though, my body-fat percentage has dropped 3.2 percentage points, and I’ve lost a couple of inches from my waist, hips and thighs. My arms, on the other hand, are up a full half inch. Considering my arms were the area I wanted to see results in the most, I’m slightly irritated. I understand that the increase is due to muscle, but I DO NOT CARE. I want SMALLER arms, not larger arms. My trainer assures me this will happen, and it will probably only take another $400,000 in sessions.

Back to the good, though. At my baseline assessment in March, I completed 16 push-ups. This morning, I managed 35, putting me into the “well above average” category. My sub-max bench press test shows that my maximum bench press would be about 100 pounds, up from 60 a few months ago. This puts me in the “well below average” category, despite the progress. I can’t understand why one is so much easier than the other.

Remember the “V-Sit and Reach” test from the Presidential Fitness Assessment? We do that here, too. I started by reaching 12.5 inches past my feet; now I can reach 16 inches, which I guess is freakishly good, or more techically, “well above average.” Pregnancy causes your ligaments to become more pliable, maybe I have that to thank.

I’m so focused on the appearance or strength indicators of this whole effort that I rarely think about how this is helping my overall heath. But, a three-minute step test shows that my heart is working a lot less harder under aerobic conditions. This means, I suppose, that cardio should be easier (and more beneficial) for me. I’m thrilled to note that I can run a mile without stopping, and while that won’t impress those of you that call a one-mile jog a warm-up, it’s meaningful to me.

Also, I no longer dread waking up at 4:45 three mornings a week, and I don’t fall back into bed once I get home anymore, either. I find my energy level has dramatically increased. So, while I often find myself thinking, “I can’t believe I am actually paying for this” during those workouts, overall I couldn’t be happier about the whole situation.

In fact, I’d love to go five days a week. We’d have to sell the house and live out of the Accord, but for smaller arms, it might be worth it.

I know a lot of you are working on your own and with trainers, too. How do you measure success? What keeps you going?

I think my email in box is quickly becoming the bathroom scale of my office.

My scale holds an inordinate amount of power—almost every morning, it tells me how to feel about myself. It dictates what I wear and what I eat and even sometimes how I act. The number on the digital screen appears for only a split-second, yet–positive or negative—it stays with me throughout the day.

I’ve noticed that there’s another number in my life with the near same effect: the number of messages in my email in box—my “needs response” file, if you will. If it’s high, I feel completely overwhelmed in all aspects of my work. If it dips below 30, I am victorious—a “can do” attitude emerges and my productivity soars.

It’s just a number, right? It really shouldn’t matter. Yet, it does.

At least my in box rarely goes over 150. If only that were the case for my scale…