The Last July Weekend

I seriously cannot believe that the last weekend in July has come and gone. I blinked and missed July. I guess that's what happens when your husband breaks his foot during your busiest time at work and your days run together. July was like 4 long days, with each week being a day.

This weekend was one that is worth talking about though. It was interesting, fun, and productive.

Friday was spent at the pediatric gastroenterologist with Tuck. The doctor said the first place to start is generally eliminating dairy to test for a milk protein intolerance. Since we are still breastfeeding, that means no dairy for mama. No milk. No milk products. Nothing with milk in it. No more picking up something at random at the grocery because it looks good without reading the ingredients. And the most disheartening restriction... no more beloved hot pepper cheese cubes from Tillie's. womp womp wommmmp. So, after the appointment and a visit to Gigi's work, we went to Cheesecake Factory for a "last supper" if you will. I buttered the shit out of my bread, ordered a chicken dished topped with mozzarella and a side of mashed potatoes, and ordered a piece of cheesecake for me to eat once we got home. I figured it was already 4pm and I had a cheeseburger for lunch so I might as well start fresh on Saturday. I'll be talking more about this little challenge later on once we know if it's helping. I still have some more reading to do on it, but I think it will be beneficial to both Tucker and me.

Saturday was our fun/relaxing day. We headed about an hour north to go hang out with a group of friends at the campground. We spent the whole day so we could get a feel for what it's like so we are ready for next year when we hopefully have a camper of our own. The amount of crap you have to take when you have an infant when the high is in the 80s but there's also a chance of rain, but you might also go boating, is incredible. We had a lot of fun. Danny enjoyed about a whole case of beer and I had a good time socializing, which I really have only done a few times this month. We headed home way past Tucker's bed time which led to an hour nap on the way home at 7:30 and him not going to bed until 12am then getting up again at 1am. I won't lie, I shed a few tears because mama had been up since 6:15 and was tired. And hungry.

nap time in the cool A/C of the camper

Sunday was better and entirely too productive and busy for a Sunday and went a little like this: up at 7, breakfast, meal and grocery plan, pick green beans, shower, grocery and back, rush to a birthday party. Then with the help of my mom and Danny, I made dinner, cleaned the kitchen up, took a bunch of trash out, prepped some food for the week, froze the green beans, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something else. My mom swept the floors and washed bottles for me. I thanked her with dinner. After she left I made some homemade make up wipes. After I use them, I will share my thoughts and the recipe source.

It was a pretty good weekend and I'm looking forward to a similar one next weekend. Life is getting back to it's "normal" state.

Weigh In Wednesday

This girl has about 20 minutes of spare time this morning, so it sounds like a perfect time to jump back into Weigh In Wednesday.

The last time I participated was over a month ago and I was in my second week of T25. Things were going smoothly. I was back in my pre-pregnancy jeans, I was consistent with my workouts, and my food choices were better than they had been in probably months.

And then Danny broke his foot and life got in the way. I decided to put T25 on hold for the first week of his recovery then I would pick it back up the next week once I got my bearings on the whole full time working single mom and nurse thing...

Yeah I haven't done a single T25 since and the only exercise I've gotten in the last month, aside from being on the go from 5:30am-9:00pm every night, is one Zumba workout and .7 miles at the park with Diesel. I plan on getting back to Zumba next week. Right now, a 2-3 time per week workout program with the occasional walk at the park is about all I can commit too until Danny can walk without crutches and help me take care of the house and Tucker again. I'll re-evaluate after that and come up with a free 10 or 11 weeks to try T25 again. I was seeing results and would love to give it another shot.

Now to the eating. I'll be honest. It's been shitty. My 2 biggest food problems are that I: 1. I have a "finish my plate" mentality and 2. I eat my feelings. Happy, sad, mad, stressed... I eat... or drink sometimes. Mostly I eat though. Plus, being so busy and having few spare moments has left little time to meal plan and grocery shop as often as I'd like.

Also, it's fair week. Deep fried goodness lines the walk ways at the park. I've already  had half of a breaded tenderloin (if you're not from Indiana, you likely have no idea the deliciousness that is a breaded tenderloin) and a corn dog. If it weren't for the broken foot, we'd be out there every single night. Plus, with free parking courtesy of my father in law, the food is too easily accessible.

With all that being said, with all the stress and craziness, I have managed to lose 3 pounds in the last month. I'm not sure how between the ice cream, chips, nightly glass of wine, peanut butter bars, pizza and take out from every single restaurant in town, but I have. Gotta love breastfeeding.

The numbers:

Starting Weight: 175

Last Month: 169

This Week: 166

Change since last weigh in: -3 pounds

Total change: - 9 pounds

We're getting somewhere!

Normal is Overrated

God must have laughed when he saw that I had hoped to get back to my normal, which is anything but normal. Because what 24 year old owns a company? That's normal right? Anyways...

Monday was the only "normal" day. I worked my normal schedule and everything went fine.

Tuesday I spent the day running Tucker to doctor appointments and tests. He's been having some poop troubles for quite some time and had gone 3 days without going, meaning the next one was going to be painful. Well, pile that on top of him having a cold over the weekend and having bloody snot on Monday, it was time to go to the doctor. The pedi was full so we went to see the nurse practitioner who felt a "mass" and ordered an ultrasound and gave a referral to a pediatric GI doctor. We go see him next Friday. We were instructed to give him straight apple juice (we've tried prune and pear, along with pureed prunes everyday) and just wait for the appointment. The "mass" didn't show up on the ultrasound thankfully. I decided to go to Zumba since my body needed a good sweat. It was a great workout. I burnt almost 700 calories in an hour.

Oh Wednesday. I woke up with the flu that hit me about an hour and a half before I was suppose to leave for a big meeting that was almost 2 hours away. I chugged some Pepto and prayed I could make it to my meeting, through my meeting and back. My brother went with me so I was able to relax on the way home while he drove. I went home and straight to bed. Danny's grandpa picked him up on his way to Danny's mom's for dinner so I could rest. I felt like pure shit all night long. Mostly just my back hurt, which is always the case when I'm sick. Tucker and Danny got home and come to find out, Tucker had hardly eaten (for him anyways) all day and Danny slept for almost an hour at this mom's. We were a MESS! Tucker went to bed, I finally ate dinner and went to bed myself.

Tuck got me up at 4:30 Thursday morning and I still felt pretty bad. Him and I laid in bed until 7:30 and at that point I was back to my old self. 24 hours on the dot I felt better. So, off to work I went hoping for a better day. And I had a better day, until I was 2 blocks from home, where my tire blew. My tire that was just purchased back in December. My tire that my Jeep has been telling me was low but some men in the family kept telling me "tire pressure monitor systems are junk" so I ignored it for a month. Danny did tell me to go get it looked at by a shop here in town but I'd like to know where the spare 30 minutes-1 hour was for me to do that?

Basically, this week has been a continuous pity-party. I am almost at the end of my rope and I can't wait for things to settle down. I don't need normal. I just need a few days where I can relax. I generally have a pretty good outlook on life. Hopefully I can get out of my funk soon.

Weekend Recap

I'm going to try to get back into the swing of things and start resuming my normal activities in regards to eating, exercising, and blogging. I may even throw some socializing in there. We'll see. I've had 2 weeks to adjust to my crazy new schedule and its time.

Friday was a pretty busy evening. I didn't leave work until almost 5:15 (which if you know me at all, that's not okay) and then when I got home from picking Tuck up, I took Danny to check on his pigs so he could get out of the house. After that we drove around while we waited on our Chinese take out to get done (like I said, I need my normal eating activities back) so we could go home. Then it was bath and bedtime for Tuck and before I knew it, it was 8:30 and I could finally eat dinner.

Saturday Tucker got up at 5:30, but I brought him into bed with me and he nursed and went back to sleep for an hour and a half. We finally got up, ate some breakfast and watched tv. That afternoon Tuck and I met up with my brother and his girlfriend to clean up our Gram's house that we just put on the market last week. While there, Uncle Drew tried teaching Tuck how to crawl. I like watching Drew and Tuck interact. Drew has never really been around babies, or shown interest I guess I should say, but babies LOVE him.

That evening we went to eat with my mom, my uncle and Drew and his girlfriend. Tuck enjoyed some refried beans and a couple pieces of rice. This kid LOVES to eat anything. It's hilarious. We brought dinner home to Danny and after Tuck went to bed, we watched 3 episodes of Orange is the New Black. We finally started season 2. And I am pissed at Alex. I get way too involved in my shows.

Sunday was a pretty relaxed day. Apparently I got a little grumpy, but an hour and a half nap with Tuck fixed that right up. Danny said we were both much more pleasant when we woke up. After our naps, Tuck and I went to Target and the grocery.  I whipped up a yummy dinner for Danny. He mentioned a couple weeks ago that a smoked sausage pizza sounded good. So, a smoked sausage pizza is what was going to get.

I bought a Grands crust then topped it with light alfredo sauce, then smoked sausage slices, green peppers, banana peppers and mozzarella cheese. Danny was in love and before he even tried it said it was "instagram worthy" He doesn't even have instagram so I'm not sure how he knows this?

That was pretty much it. Like I said earlier, hopefully this week will resemble life before Danny's broken foot. At least a little bit anyways.

Survival Mode

Well hi there! It's been a while (9 days to be exact) since I posted, even though it seems like it was just this past Tuesday. Things have been NUTS and I am running on fumes. I thought I'd give a rundown on the happenings in our lives while I have a spare minute. The only reason I have a spare minute though is because I'm at work. It's crazy that work seems like a break, especially since its the busiest time of the year right now.

Danny - He had surgery on Tuesday. Nope, not last Tuesday, but 2 days ago. A surgery that almost 2 weeks ago almost seemed like it needed done the day he did it, just happened about 51 hours ago. The joys of dealing with worker's comp and having to run everything through the city. Let's just say someone dropped a ball or two and didn't get paper turned in on time for the surgery to get approved sooner. Might I also mention that we had the papers turned in LAST Monday, June 30th at 7:15am. The papers didn't get faxed until July 3rd. Thanks for that one! End rant Danny is doing okay. Right after his surgery he was doing really well, but when the nerve block wore off he was begging me to cut his foot off. I hate this for him. My busy body, doesn't know how to relax husband does not do being down well. At all. He goes back to the surgeon on the 22nd and at that point they will remove the staples and put him in a cast for 3 more weeks. After that the pins will come out and he will be put in a boot. Hopefully at that point he can resume SOME normal activity. He is dying not being able to work in the garden, get his barn set up, check on his pigs, drive his truck, or mow.

Tucker - I have a 7 month old! Crazy crazy stuff! And he is an eating machine! He still nurses and takes the same amount of bottles as before and eats 3 whole containers of baby food. He's also loving munching on apple slices and cucumbers. I hope he stays this open to all foods. Picky eaters are tough.

 

Me - I'm surviving. From 5am-11/11:30pm I am on the go doing something. I haven't worked out since the day Danny broke his foot. I honestly don't have the energy and I'm not sure how I would fit it into my schedule. Initially I just wanted to take one week off to gather my thoughts and evaluate, then jump back into T25. The program was going so well and I was sticking with it. When Tucker goes to bed though, I just can't imagine putting on workout clothes and doing it. I can hardly keep my eyes open and I still have bottles to wash, dishes to do, laundry, get Danny meds/ice/water/snack, let the dog out, water the garden and flowers, etc. I'm going to try to start walking next week but my dilemma with that is I can't imagine going to the park without Diesel. But I also can't imagine going to the park with Diesel and also having to push a stroller with Tucker in it. The logistics of getting the stroller out and Tucker into it while keeping Diesel from running off is mind boggling and I'm just not really sure how it would work. Tucker HAS to go because Danny can't take care of him right now. I'm going to have to find a walking buddy or go at 5 while Tucker is still at Danny's mom's and its hotter than hell out. All I know is I need to do something because I've been stress eating and my muffin top is coming back. I will probably cry if I have to put maternity jeans back on.

7am selfie. Yes, I am as tired as I look.

That's all I have time for today. Someday soon I'll be back in the swing of blogging things. Hopefully. I miss it.

In Sickness and In Health

This weekend threw the Summers family a major curveball.

Danny had water rescue training at the city pool Saturday morning at 10am.  He met the majority of his co-workers for breakfast (all but the 4 who were on shift), which he organized a couple hours before training was scheduled to start. After he left, I ate breakfast, fed Tucker and got my workout in.

At 10 am on the dot, I got a phone call from Danny. Except it wasn't Danny, it was one of the other firefighters and also one of his best friends. "Erin, everything is fine, but we're taking Danny to the hospital. He broke his foot." Initially, I thought he was messing with me. Training started at 10, so how is it possible that Danny has already hurt himself, let alone broken a bone (by the way, a broken bone doesn't even begin to describe what he did to his foot" Once I realized he wasn't joking, I gathered my thoughts (I had literally just hit stop on T25 and was completely and physically dead, or so I thought), called Danny's mom, waited on my mom to get to my house to watch Tucker (which she was already planning on doing because I had a surprise planned for Danny that day) and beat feet to the ER. The whole way over I thanked God that it was just a broken foot and not something worse. Given his profession, it could have been so much worse.

I got to the hospital and Danny's foot was completely and utterly deformed, and was causing him an awful lot of pain. X-rays showed dislocated and broken bones in about 5 different places. His foot was so bad the ER doctor didn't even know what to call the break. It was also bad enough that word had traveled to the other hospital across town that Community had a patient with a really bad broken foot. (A really good friend of mine was working and I happened to text her to tell her what had happened. She informed me that Danny was the topic of discussion in the OR at her hospital).  The ER doc said there was a 1-2% chance that they setting the bones back in place in the ER would work. That meant there was a 98% chance that he would need surgery.

By the time they got the bones set into place and in the splint, they had already started sliding out again, meaning pins would be needed. They put a splint on and we eventually were sent home with instructions to follow up with the orthopedic center on Monday. Now were are waiting on the surgeon's office to call us back and tell us when to come in to schedule surgery. Hopefully that happens today because Danny is ready to get the ball rolling with his recovery, which will be at least 6 weeks, if not 8 or 12.

Although this is the WORST time of year for Danny to break his foot (4H fair is in 3 weeks... Danny's favorite week of the entire year), I am so, so thankful that it was just a broken foot. There are a number of things that could go wrong every day he is working or goes into work off duty.

So, until this is all over, I'm going to need endless amounts of energy and wine, to take care of my injured stubborn husband (paramedics make the WORST patients), a 7 month old, the dog, work and the house. God help me.