Fall

For the first time in a long time, I'm looking forward to cooler weather. Not cold mind you. I'm still not ready for that. But autumn with the changing of the leaves, crisp air, pumpkin spiced everything... I really can't wait. I almost bought a pumpkin at the store yesterday figuring it could be a pre-decoration.

Right now, dare I say it? I'm actually content. For the past few years I've wanted to move, find a new career, change our family life (try for one more, without drugs?) suburbs, houses, warmer weather, garages. I've had a laundry list of wants. 

Perhaps I'm so looking forward to a new season because it's a new start. It's a new start in a place I'm going to be for a little while. Somehow my thoughts have shifted. I see the blessings in my life, and I want to enjoy them. 

I have made a few tentative decisions too, which might help. No expensive school for me now. I'll take a 14 week paralegal course though that will ensure that I'm employable, when the time is ready. I'm looking at early pre-school with the hope at it will work out. If it doesn't, that's okay too. I've cut out budget down as much as possible, and we might just be able to breath again. That doesn't hurt for a more positive outlook either. 

We still might make some major changes, but I'm actually at a place where I can imagine being happy here for a while. And instead of dreading the change in weather, I'm rather looking forward to it as a new adventure. (and I'm still in denial about winter). 

Chasing the Dream

So after I found out that my mind-blowingly bad news that I didn't get this job I wanted wasn't as bad as I thought, I felt a little better, but still at a cross roads of my life. 

Big changes are coming. It might take a few years, but they're on the way. I can feel the wind in my hair. 

Place:  we are thinking of moving. No real news there, we want to move before the kids go to school. While the local Catholic school remains a real option if we do decide to stay, something about it just doesn't hit home, at least not yet. Where we are thinking of going is a work in progress. Montreal is on the list. So is Leipzig. 

Just when I start to enjoy a place, make friends, I think about moving! But many of my friends will also move, and I can't plan on life being the same in 2-3 years. We can always back out if the thought of going far sounds terrible when the time comes. If we decide to stay we will move to a nearby suburb, Belmont or Newton or Arlington, or less preppy neighborhoods if we do decide on one of my top 3 private schools. 

Purpose: I want to go back to school. I can't quite decide in what, but I've done some self reflecting a d come up with my two passions. 

1) Nutrition. Not in the sense of helping women at Jenny Craig (although I appreciate people who do). Not in the sense of becoming a chef. I'm not a great cook to begin with, and the hours are pretty terrible. Not in the sense of farming. I love to grow things, but I'm kind of ambivalent about weeds. No, more along the lines of, I want to work with children to ensure they get a good education. I want to work with the environment to ensure healthy options that are more local and sustainable. I can imagine working with prenatal patients, or postnatal nursing, or children, or somehow being a food activist. 

2) Helping people overcome obstacles. This used to make me think I should be a social worker, but I've since had concerns about how that would affect me. I think too much of me would be invested in it all, and right now my children need as much of me as they can get. Instead I've been seriously thinking about Physical Therapy. The idea started with a thought that I'd like to help veterans who have come back worse off than me. Truth is, I hope we aren't at war by the time I would fill the 7 years it would take to get there. But I like the idea of helping someone get stronger again. And this is a profession that actually earns some money. 

The big thing here is, can I do these things in the places I'd like to live? 

I'm just starting to explore my options. I have concerns about all options. It's been 20 years since I last took a standardized test (not including teacher certification exams, which are generally pretty basic). I could go to school in Boston, way, way, too many schools around here anyway, and then move to Germany, stay, or move to Montreal. I could take prerequisites and go to school in Montreal. cost is a huge factor. The PT program, not including prereqs, at least in Boston, would cost $106,000 over 3 years. Nutrition at Tufts would run around $70,000 for 2 years. At these costs I'd better have enough earning power to pay for the costs before our children would need to go to college!

So I'm still exploring. But I know I want to do something. My brain has gotten a bit mushy over the past few years and I'm really excited about studying again.  

Failure

I have very thin skin. Rather, I should say my ego is fragile. I did not get a job I applied for, and to explain the whole thing is both too complex and painful to go into right now, but basically I'm feeling a bit like a complete failure right now. I really miss being good at something. I miss people having confidence that I will do something well. I miss feeling like I have talent at something. Parenthood is not exactly an ego booster. Self doubt, lack of sleep, and unexplained bouts of crying don't exactly make me feel like supermom. But as a parent I have a new vantage point. How would I want my children to see me take failure, and how do I want them to deal with disappointment. I'm still processing all of that, so I'm not sure of the answer. For now though, perhaps failure is an opportunity. I can consider how a person should overcome a mistake, and work on that a little before my twins are old enough to need some advice. As for jobs, perhaps one lesson I can learn is to forget about being good at anything. I'm probably going to feel bad at everything I do. I'm sticking with the idea of just continuing to do the things I like to do, and maybe that will take me somewhere someday.

Dieting

I'm not much of a dieter. Most of my life I've been pretty thin and could eat whatever I wanted without consequence. A bucket of red vines, no problem. French fries and a shake for dinner, no problem... And then I had twins. At first I was loosing weight pretty easily. I wasn't nursing, but pumping provided the same weight loss benefit. But then I stopped pumping, and while I *was* only 8 lbs over my prebirth weight, I'm inching back up to 15lbs over. Is 15lbs going to kill me, no. Do I like the way I look? No. I have a belly and I'm not too happy about it. So I've been doing a lot of research. I already eat pretty healthy, so I'm not entirely sure what I should do. One thing I've noticed is that I'm always hungry. In fact, I've always kind of been like that. I graze all day, and eat small meal portions. I started running, but that hasn't helped at all either. According to different sights, I should be eating around 2000 calories to maintain my current weight with my current level of activity. Since I want to reduce my weight, that amount should drop to 1500. According to low grain diets, I shouldn't need more than 100 grams of carbohydrates a day, and if the Palio diet is to be believed, I should be able to get this all from vegetables and fruits. I like some of the ideas behind the paleo diet because you don't have to count calories, and you aren't supposed to get hungry as often. I've thought for a while that our grain intake doesn't match a sustainable food model, but let's face it, bread is soo good. Not to mention muffins, pies, cookies, even just pie crusts! No, I can't entirely believe that the Palio diet is completely right. I wouldn't want to give up everything that I love. Sure, for a few weeks, but long term... I think not. Plus, why is coconut butter alright on this plan, but peanuts aren't? I think there are a few flaws in the system, and a few compromises that paleo experts don't want to admit. Let's face it, cavemen weren't using olive oil any more or less that they were drinking cows milk. But I like the idea of a 80/20 plan. 80 percent of the time you eat within the confines of the diet and 20 percent of the time you splurge. in a traditional diet I would get 300 grams of carbohydrates a day. I think that gives me 200 grams of carbs a day that I could play with, at least 2 out of every 10 days, right? So I think I can't really go wrong if I: A) keep calories at 1500/day B) keep carbs at 100-300 grams/day C) save grains for every 4 days D) go back to drinking raw milk/raw milk products E) keep exercising. 3x + a week Now how to keep track of it all?! No way am I joining weight watchers for 15lbs. I don't like their point system anyway (my cousin had a pickle for dinner so she wouldn't go over her points when she had a beer later that evening, and point wise she was fine...). Maybe if I just make a meal plan and stick to it? I think this is going to suck. But I really, really want to stop the weight gain before it gets worse!! So here goes nothing.

Another car decision

It seems like car decisions are the topic du jour. we need to decide what to do with our car situation. Right now, this very moment, our cars are costing us nearly $1500/ month. What!

Breakdown:

Yaris: $175/month
CRV: $270/month
Parking: $525/month (notice given to parking spot A, so should go back down to $275)
Insurance: $400/month (also should go down now that Passat plates have been turned in)
gas: $100/month
EZ pass: $10/month (or so)

If we got rid of one parking spot we reduce ourselves down to $1230/ month. We can also bring insurance down to around $300/month...$1130/month. BUT if we get rid of the Yaris, we reduce everything exponentially.

CRV: 270
Parking: $275
Insurance: $250
Gas: $100
EZ Pass: $10

We're *only* at $900/month then. $350/ month savings or $4200/year.

So why don't we just go down to one car? Well, because my husband will get a new job someday, even if it is within the same company. We owe $5000 on the Yaris, and it's financed at 0% interest.  We have about 2 more years of payments and it will be paid off. If we sold it, we would probably get $8,000, so we could have $3,000 for a downpayment someday, but another car would probably not be as inexpensive, and I bought this car with the idea that we would keep it for a long time. Plus it's great in the city. If we sold it, and then a year later, or even 2 years later, we needed another car, we would be kicking ourselves because other payments would be higher. And I love my little red car!

On the other hand, if you add up the $3000 from the sale, and the monthly savings, we would be at $7200/year.

The realities of one income are kicking in. I can keep my babysitter, or my car, or my organic food, or our current amount of travel, but I can't have it all, and build any savings! This is so frustrating!

Not going Virgin

For the past few months I've been debating a change in cell phone carriers (not what first piped into mind with the title right)

My AT&T contract is finally over so I could make a change. But looks like I won't, at least for the moment. Virgin Mbike has a pretty attractive package. For $45/mont I could get 1200 minutes of talk time and unlimited web (4gb high speed). But of course there's a problem. Or rather, a few problems.

1) I'm sure the plan actually comes to more after taxes. My guess is that I would spend at least $60/month, while now my plan has me paying $85/month including taxes. That's not really a huge saving.

2) the plan doesn't include mobile to mobile minutes, so while I only use 300 minutes a month now...usually for phone calls to my mom, the number would sky rocket if I didn't have this feature. I used to use 1400-1600/month.  I could get unlimited talk for $55/month, but wouldn't the bill actually come close to my current $80?

3) they won't unlock the phone. Okay, so this is the same as every other carrier, but the problem really lays in that we travel overseas a ton. They don't have coverage in Germany, so I couldn't use my phone there anyway, and they won't unlock it so I can use another carrier while there! At least with AT&T I can use my phone if there's an emergency. It would cost a pretty penny, but it would be an option.

4) In a non-contract plan they could change the rates, and what I have now is already pretty affordable (for a smart phone). Since I'm now month to month, I don't have to worry about contacts anyway. I have unlimited high speed data right now (grandfathered in that way) , so I would hate to switch, and then come back later with a less beneficial plan!

In the end, it's not really worth it to me to switch. AT&T coverage is terrible in Boston, but they have pretty decent customer service, a good website, and are big enough that I don't have to worry about roaming(only dropped calls). I'm really bummed that Virgin Mobile wouldn't unlock the iPhone. If they would have I would have switched in an instance! Now that my contract has expired perhaps I'll jailbreak and unlock my phone anyway...I cam now get a free upgrade with a new contact...a security blanket if something goes very very wrong. I think it should be required that they unlock phones after your contract expires. So frustrating!!

Violence

The images on the news are a little too familiar.  A little too much like war. 

I wonder if other countries have this much violence.  I wonder if I should move.  What I can do to keep my children safe.  Where I could go to regain that sense of security I once felt.

I suspect that safety doesn't really exist.  A quote I heard somewhere said something like the following:  the only safety is being strong.  Or something like that.

Basically, you can't prepare for everything...or anything really.  Instead you just have to be strong enough to do what you must do in any given circumstance.

But how do you be strong when someone puts a bomb around the corner? How do you make a good life for a child when violence is just so prevalent around us.  Bullying, school shootings, bombs.  These are all things that I never thought of as a child.  They were things somewhere else. 

But when two explosions go off 2.5 miles from your house, everything seems to be a lot closer than I could ever have imagined.

Sad isn't enough to describe this. Worried, that too.  Overwhelmed is a bit more like it. 

It's just so unreal. So wrong.  So frightening.

Post pregnancy update

For the past 7 months I've pretty much been avoiding photos as much as possible. It's not that I haven't lost weight...I've lost about 75 pounds...but I just don't have the same shape. I've spent the past half hour looking up rib cage size post pregnancy and it looks pretty positive. I think it's possible that I can get a little of my shape back. Really I only have 10 lbs to loose, but I've got to get my abs back in working order!

The question is how?!

Option 1: join the community center near our house. By near I mean a 10 minute walk if that. The cost? $95 per year including group fitness classes. The problem? It's kind of run down, isn't exactly a place that makes me want to go to the gym. No child care, no pool, and class times are mostly during the babies bed time routine. Only a few daytime classes would work, and I'd need a sitter..

Option 2: the Kroc center. $10 day pass or $40 a month. A 15 minute drive away and there's parking. They have daycare so I could go anytime.  The problems? I still have to find parking when I return or add on another 10 minutes to travel time walking to and from our parking spot. That makes an hour workout more like 2 hours. Also, group classes are often during baby nap times or bedtime. A few classes would work. They have a pool, but it's tiny and overcrowded.  

Option 3: get into a daily routine that I can do from home. Probably the most realistic option, but it's not like I've manage it yet. I really like going to the gym, and it seems like a nice break to get away from it all for a while. It would be the least expensive optin, unless I need to buy any equipment. I love the idea of an eliptical machine, but don't want to she'll out any money if I won't actually use it. Plus I really like to swim.

In addition, I'd really like to work with a trainer for a while. I've never needed help that much, but I think I need some guidance. I don't want to spend much, so I'm hoping that there is someone atone of the gyms that can help out a little.

I'm sure there are some online programs to check out for accountability, but I really would like some adult interaction. I'm leaning toward creating a daily exercise workout at home and trying to make it to the gym once a week. My main problem is the trainer. If only I knew a fitness buff!

I feel like I am so close to finding a body that I can live with. I just need a little push to make it to the next step.

Delayed Nesting

I thought I was done nesting. My "nesting" involved various home improvement projects around the house. Projects that I felt were necessary for our new life with kids.

First was the lead paint. While we do still have some lead paint, mostly on the baseboards and window sills of the living and dining rooms, but the second floor is almost entirely clear. Then I moved on to the aespestoes ceiling. It has now been encapsulated in drywall. Of course that project also involved removing a few walls so that the ceiling could be done in one go.

Then I looked at the floors that the babies would be crawling on... Out came another wall before we could put in new flooring. We are still debating carpet verses laminate, which is a very difficult choice.

Then we went to California and I started to "nest" again. This time it was about our home, and where we really want to raise our children,  the reason our flooring decision has been so difficult is because we are trying to decide if we stay or go,  we would put down carpet if we decided to stay...better for crawling munchkins, but laminate if we go, better for resale value. And in California I was back in familiar territory. Somewhere where people knew their neighbors and kids were all over the place. Everyone had a front yard and a garage, and it was warm enough that our friend Jeannette had to keep telling her son to put some shoes on,  it felt like home.

It could not have been more different from Boston. Now, I have a great community of friends in Boston...none of whom have kids. We see friends at church, but rarely even hang out with the other parents of the 19 children born in the last 2 years (yes, we have had a baby boom).  I am the only stay at home mom in the group...Boston is expensive enough that mot people need both incomes.

We could head for the suburbs. Arlington, Natick, Needham, Waltham...all are a bit more expensive than where we live now, but we would be done with home improvement...but we would still be in Boston, with all the traffic and snow, and stress.  But we would be within driving distance to my mother.  Having sick children has really pointed out how much I really need a support network.

We could take a transfer to California.  It is more expensive, but I think we could make it work.  I would actually be willing to sell my Albuquerque house to live in Santa Clara. That says something right there. BUT, is it not totally absurd to move somewhere where they are just waiting for the next big earthquake? And how much farther from my family can I get?!?

There's also the possibility of looking for jobs in Denver. There are neighborhoods I like there, and mountains. I love mountains. Less earthquakes, more snow.  Closer to New Mexico, but not exactly around the corner. And we don't have friends there.  At least in both other places we know people. 

Over the last few months we have spent SO.MUCH.MONEY.  We aren't poor, and we don't have excessive debt, but our accounts are not where we would like them.  And other than stopping the renovations, and stopping the travel, there's not much else to cut back on.  Have I mentioned that we have to go back t Germany this summer for my husband's grandmother's 100th birthday.  Not that I don't want to celebrate...just that I don't see how we can afford another trip! 

So the current plan is to try to hold on for another year (or two).  A year (or two) of saving and not spending. A year (or two) of my husband sticking to a job he doesn't love. And hopefully they don't ask him to transfer before then, because I don't know if we can make that kind of decision yet...can afford to make that kind of choice yet...even for a position that he would like.  

I really want my forever place.  I want to be somewhere so our kids can develop roots. So they can know where they're from. Somewhere where both my husband and I feel comfortable. Somewhere where we have a community I can stay involved with. Somewhere my husband can find a job that helps him develop professionally (his requirement, not mine). 

So carpet or laminate. Cringe. I used to be good at making decisions, but this is kind of overwhelming. I sure wish my husbands top two choices weren't Dublin or Leipzig. Mine woud be Albuquerque or Glens Falls.  None of the options are lifetime valid. :/ how can I be homesick for a place I've never been?!?

Less Than a Week!

This is either the best or the worst idea I have ever had.  There's so much I'm going to miss while away from Boston...Maple Magic Day, our youth minister's ordination, among other things, but there are so many things I hope to do in New Mexico too.

Friends stopped by and checked out the NM house and found it to be intact...but full of smoke.  Although I'd said not to rent to any smokers we found yet another reason we needed to fire the property manager.  Hopefully we can get the smell out without repainting everything, because home renovation was not on the to do list.

I'm not sure what we will end up doing with the house.  We will leave it set up at least until May when we return for another friend's wedding.  After her wedding we've debated renting as a holiday or furnished house, but after our last bout with a property manager...well, I guess we will see.  I'm trying to convince a friend who lives in Boston that she really wants to transfer to the acupuncture school there and stay in our house.  It could save her between $30,000- $70,000, but I'm not sure she'll go for it.  It's a big change, and pretty far from home.

We have a huge list of things to do while in Albuquerque.  The list includes:

(biweekly with friends while I hire a babysitter or Gerd watches the kids)
Flying Star coffee and cake
Pedicures with friends
Betty's Bath hot tub and massage
Game night with friends

(once while there)
Restaurant week
A night of music

Wednesdays with Gerd & Kids (he will schedule his day to work into the evening after the kids are in bed)
Explora
The Art Museum
The Atomic Museum
The Aquarium/Botanical Gardens
The Zoo
The Natural History Museum

(Saturdays)
Ski Sandia (or Santa Fe if the snow is bad)
Hike Tent Rocks
Los Golandrinas (closed for winter)
Ojito Wilderness?
Ski Sipapu

(Sundays)
a walk along the Bosque/Rio Grande
A walk along Old Town
A walk along the Petroglyphs
Quarai
Walk the trails by my house

It's a lot.  Like, a lot a lot, but we might as well enjoy the experience if we're going to go through this enormous effort. Hopefully we fit it all in.  I feel that it's busy, but not completely over-scheduled.  I'm debating writing the events on popsicle sticks and pulling one out each event day to determine what we do

Praying that the flight on Monday goes well.  3 people, 2 babies, and 2 cats on an 8 hour flight.

oh boy.  I need to look at that list again to remind me why I'm doing this...

Love Them

Driving back from our doctor's office yesterday I was again reminded of how much we love her.  During the visit I used the time to grill her on all kinds of questions about health, behaviors, the typical stuff a first time mother always wonders about.  She patiently answered all of my questions, releasing all of my fears, and then she gave her typical disclaimer...

Doctor's don't really know anything.  Well, they know about the functions of the body and medicines, and troubleshooting, but the cause of many problems is still an enigma to everyone.  The AMA is constantly changing their mind about the best treatment practice, etc., and then she got to my favorite part.

The only thing that is 100% proven and agreed upon is that children need love.  Give them love and they're going to be okay.

Of course there are serious medical conditions that this would not apply to.  She is not a Christian Scientist.  But basically, the heart of the matter is this...just do the best that you can.  As with most things in life, if you act out of love, everything will eventually turn out alright.  But always remember to love.

And a simple reminder like that is why we love our doctor.  Just what I needed to hear :)