Red Beans & Rice Noodles

What the... I haven't posted in a month?

Oh, I know, I know, it's been a while. Nice work, Ann Marie, you prodded me out of hiding. I needed that shove to remind me. It's been a very busy month. They're keeping me exceedingly busy at work, we had my dad and stepmom in town for a week, I've been working out, going to yoga, learning to meditate, and on and on and on...

I've been eating pretty healthy, and about 96.5% vegetarian, which my body seems to appreciate. I've lost about ten pounds, actually did something resembling a handstand in yoga class... well it was against the wall and the teacher was helping me, but I did a headstand and a full backbend on my own! Feels awesome, I love doing yoga. I'm still working hard on making these things into habits before the wee one comes along, so that it'll be easier to keep doing healthy stuff. I haven't been as consistent about going to the gym, but make it once or twice a week. So lets see how I'm doing on the goals I laid out in August:

• to be able to keep up with the youngin' when he or she comes home
remains to be seen, but on the right track

• to build up my strength and endurance
The yoga and elliptical are doing the trick here. Muscles are growing, soon I'll look like Popeye or maybe the Hulk.

• to be less tired, and more energetic
Check!

• so that the habit of exercise and eating healthy will be in place when the wee one arrives, so it may stick
Still need to go to the gym more, and the amount of cheese I eat is outta control. But I haven't had Ben and Jerry's in over a month! And I've sworn it off for 90 days.

• to generally feel better
Check! Feelin purty good.

• to look cute in my clothes again rather than frumpy
Still oozing frump. Need to lose another 30 lbs before defrumpifying is possible. At which time I may get a cute lil haircut to go with my defrumped figure.

On the baby front: no referral yet (unsurprisingly, our dossier went to Vietnam only a month and a half ago), but it seems people are getting referrals pretty quickly judging from our adoption agency's yahoo group. Like 2-4 months from DTV. Which is insane. I never expected it could be so fast. But, again, things change all the time, and we're still just on the waiting list for now... but I am already starting to get a little hopeful when I see unfamiliar phone numbers on my phone.

In other news: my neighbor, who is an uber-cool chick (surfer, rocker, masseuse, and much more), after suffering two miscarriages in the past year, is now 4+ months into a healthy pregnancy. So we're both going to become mamas at about the same time, and she and her husband live right upstairs... this is gonna be so fun. It's fun already figuring stuff out together on what to buy... she has no idea about baby gear, and the bulk of my child-rearing (i.e. babysitting) experience is from the early '80s, so baby products have become much more advanced. And we're both being idealistic and hoping to save the planet by using a cloth diaper service instead of disposables... Reality may hit us hard. Having our wee one is going to be quite the learning experience. Speaking about baby products... cribs? Anyone have some recommendations of safe, sturdy, reasonably priced cribs?

Damn, my dog just farted. Gross.

China’s Bachelor Generation

“China to act on gender imbalance”

Hope this helps. At least they're talking about a move in the right direction... I guess...

On the other hand, imposing more laws will probably just create even more of a cluster-fuck. How about reforming or eliminating some of the current ones instead?

“Chinese challenge one-child policy” (read: abuse of fertility drugs to escape fines and conflict with the government)

“Wifeless future for China’s men”

Getting healthy

When my friend Larissa was in town last week she noticed our scale which is hidden under the island in the kitchen. Silly girl pulled it out and stood on it! And she didn't even care that Chuck and I were standing there too and could see the number on the scale. So out of morbid curiosity, I decided to weigh myself too (only after shooing Larissa and Chuck away of course). When I looked down at my weight, my eyes popped out of my head and I had to spend the next half an hour feeling around for them on the floor. Surprised at the number? No. You can't eat that much ben and jer.ry's and be "surprised." More like surrendering myself to the idea that too much yummy food and hardly any exercise aren't going to work if I want to lose weight. And this isn't an "ooh, I wish I could look like a model" thing, but these are my reasons for wanting to drop 50 lbs:

• to be able to keep up with the youngin' when he or she comes home
• to build up my strength and endurance
• to be less tired, and more energetic
• so that the habit of exercise and eating healthy will be in place when the wee one arrives, so it may stick
• to generally feel better
• to look cute in my clothes again rather than frumpy
• and the kicker: type 2 diabetes runs in the family – and since I can probably list 90% of the flavors available from b & j, as well as recite the pizza menu from our local pizza joint (not really true: we actually get pretty much the same toppings every time) – I'm not an unlikely candidate on down the line

So far, the schedule is looking like this: Yoga six mornings a week (at home, and one of those days is more meditation than yoga), weight/interval training 2x a week, and cardio (at the gym) 3x per week. Now that I'm done with all of the paperwork and am waiting, I have a lot of time freed up. So instead of my usual hobbies – artsy crafty stuff, reading, writing, seeing movies – this will be my hobby and interest until it becomes a habit. Wish me luck.   

1926 Ad for Lysol

"It’s gentle deodorant qualities are the safegaurd of feminine daintyness."

-or-

"Hey gals, fancy a yeast infection? Here's a surefire way to get one!"