Soup to Dutts

Well, last week was interesting, wasn't it...? And this week probably isn't going to be much different. My family and I have been sheltering in place; N is off from school, and the Mr. is working from home. With all this extra time at home, I thought this would be a good time to kick off an idea I've had for a long time: sharing some of my favorite things at the moment. It might be a new product I'm trying, or something more generalized; I imagine it will vary from week to week, but without further ado, here are 10 things I am loving right now! 1. Audiobooks! My local library is closed until further notice, but their audiobook/ebook app is alive and well. Last night, I finished Where the Crawdads Sing , and now I'm listening to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn . 2. TV shows featuring funny women. If you checked the Keep Watching tab of my Hulu account, you would see I Love Lucy , The Mindy Project , Sabrina the Teenage Witch , The Mary Tyler Moore Show , and The Golden

It has been a CRAZY two months! Since my last post, we celebrated two birthdays and an anniversary, spent about two weeks as a 1-car family, went out of town a few times, started N at kindergarten, and went under contract for a house! With all the craziness going on (in addition to the ongoing struggles with anxiety and depression), it's been a little too easy for me to make my health less of a priority. I haven't exercised in several weeks. I've been eating whatever I want, whenever I want, and I haven't been tracking any food in the WW app. Most days, I try to justify it by saying things like... "I'm too tired to exercise; I just need rest." "I'm going to have this treat because I deserve it." "I'm sad/angry/stressed, and eating junk food will help me feel better." "I'll get back on track tomorrow." (Tomorrow never comes, though. In fact, the longer I stay off-track, the harder it is to get back on.) An

It's been exactly four months since my last post. Yikes. Well, here's a quick recap of some things that have been going on with us... Little E turned 2 in March, and we threw her an Uncle-Phil-themed birthday party. No, not the Uncle Phil from Fresh Prince ; I'm talking about my brother Phil, who is pretty much E's favorite person. We made decorations in red and black plaid (Phil's wardrobe color/pattern of choice) and cat-ear headbands, in honor of Phil's cat Kiki. The  pièce de résistance , though, was the Kiki birthday cake made by yours truly. So, it's not a great likeness, but it was my first time ever making a cake like this, so I was pretty proud of myself. Also, don't tell E, but I really don't like cats, so I think this was quite the labor of love on my part. Just sayin'. Anyway, she loved her party, which was the most important thing. Tom was in Louisville for classes at the end of May/beginning of June, so it was just the kids

Happy Friday! How was your week? Or month, I should say, since that's how long it's been since my last post... Weight change since last GFF post: +0.9 pounds Net weight change since starting GFF: +6.9 pounds So, I'll start out with a couple of celebrations: 1) A weight gain of any amount usually isn't cause for celebration, but I'm celebrating it today. Why? My last weigh-in was four weeks ago. Since then, I've been to a Super Bowl party and gone out to eat several times (including a pizza buffet with my family on Valentine's Day). I've also been sick most of this week, which has made it difficult for me to exercise. The fact that I've only gained 0.9 pounds since then is pretty astounding to me. 2) In the last couple of weeks, I've become much more diligent when it comes to tracking my calories, and most days I've had a pretty easy time staying within my limits. It hasn't been all good, though. I've actually been dealing

Starting out with a couple of celebrations today: 1) Worked out three times this week, in spite of having a nasty cold. 2) Ran on the treadmill for four whole minutes last Thursday! It might not sound like much to some of you, but this is a huge fitness milestone for me. It's been years since I was able to run for even one minute, let alone four. This is not simply due to being overweight; I've also had asthma for over two years now, so being able to run at all without having an asthma attack is a pretty big deal. There have been a few lowlights as well: 1) I'd made some good progress with losing the holiday pounds, but I'm up about half a pound from last week. Could be worse, I guess. 2) Ripped a hole in a pair of jeans I bought less than a month ago. It was a weird rip, too; not on the seam, but kind of started from the seam and went toward the middle. Ugh. I'd like to assume that they ripped because they just weren't very good quality, but it's h

Happy New Year!!! Who's excited about 2019? I know I am! I don't know about you, but if I were to post my Facebook relationship status with New Year's, it would definitely be "complicated." When I was a kid, I loved New Year's Eve because it meant staying up late, but then I kind of hated New Year's Day because I was expecting to suddenly feel different but never did. When I got into my teens, I grew to hate the whole idea of celebrating New Year's because it was an annual reminder that I had resolved to lose weight and failed miserably once again. In my 20s, I was sort of indifferent, especially when it came to resolutions. I would often try to sound cool by saying things like "Why wait until the start of a new year to change for the better?" (I still feel basically the same way, but I'd like to think I'm less pretentious about it than I used to be.) Now I think I'm back to loving New Year's, but for different reasons. It