New beginnings

So I wasn't sure I wanted to make this too public, but since not many people READ THIS YET, I guess I'll go ahead and put it out there.

Before I do, some background is in order. A couple of years ago, I embarked on a weight loss journey, and ended up losing over 100 lbs. I have since gained almost exactly all of that back, even with an awesome trainer who came out to my house to help me workout. A big part
of it was that I didn't do it for myself. I started the journey with a friend, and did great when we were both in it, but once she was at a maintenance weight, I slowly slipped off the wagon. I never did find my own motivation to keep it up. Also, two years ago, I walked a half marathon. It took me 5 hours, and I weighed 300 lbs when I did it (had already gained back some weight), so to be honest, half the time, I don't feel that I truly DID a half marathon. I won't make excuses for
it, but I had some shoe/foot issues, which caused a ton of pain. I had done a training walk 3 weeks prior to that where I did 12 miles in just barely over 4 hours, so for 1 more mile to take that long, was quite disappointing. Most half marathons give you a 4 hour time limit, and I
was so grateful for them letting me go longer. However, it sticks in my craw that it took so long. And ever since I've wanted to go back and do it again, but just couldn't get it together to get the weight off and get it done. And with the emergence of heel spurs, I took myself out of the running before I ever started.

So with all that said, today is a new day. And I am making a renewed commitment to lose the weight AND walk/possibly run a half marathon in one year, next September. The same half marathon I walked exactly 2 years ago. My plan is to start simple. Today I weighed myself and will take a picture of myself in skimpy clothing this evening. I will immediately start several small changes to get my weight under control such as completely cutting out sweet tea/soda (which is a big vice for me), starting to count calories again, bringing my lunch to work, and possibly going Paleo again for dinners. Paleo made it SO easy to do dinner, cook some meat, toss some veggies in or put them in the oven and shazam! My son is SO particular lately, but we'll see how it goes.

As far as the workout side of things, I will be taking a walk at the mall or outside at lunchtime several times a week. No long walks yet, as I need to see how my heel spurs do. The focus right now is to get as much weight off as possible through eating better (in a healthy manner) before the holidays. After the holidays I will focus more on the exercise aspect, and will start ramping up walks. I plan to do the Walk Away the Pounds dvd several days a week as well, as it worked SO well the first time, and even if I just do a mile, it will help keep me motivated as it's easy.

So there ya go. I won't be posting daily updates about my food or whatever, and I'm not sure how often I want to weigh myself, but just putting this out there will be a big help. Wish me luck.

A tale of two Cherry Limeades

What was supposed to be a quick run to Dairy Queen for a quick dinner, turned into TWO restaurants, and...two Cherry Limeades. A Cherry Limeade sounded so good when we first got to the drive thru, so when I realized that they didn't have the hot dog that D wanted, I ordered just a drink, before we hit up Sonic. While at Sonic, I decided to get a cherry limeade there as well and compare the two. Here is my review.

To begin with, Sonic has the better ice. Hands down. However, my overall vote goes to the DQ one. The emphasis is more on the cherry, I think. You can taste it more, it has a more smooth texture. The Sonic one, while good, is definitely limeade, with the cherry flavor as kind of an after thought. Both had real limes in them, neither had actual cherries in there. The DQ one had more...lime essence, I guess. You could tell they had squeezed them a heck of a lot more.

In closing, I do believe DQ will be my main place for that random Cherry Limeade craving from now on. It just really satisfied at least for the cherry side of it, more so than the Sonic one did.

Sickies and other fun

It has been a LONG week. I ended up with a sinus infection last week which has dragged ON and ON. I think the infection part is now gone, but I'm still dealing with a crapton of drainage. Lovely sinuses. Over the weekend, I was averaging MAYBE 3 hours of sleep a night, if that. So I took Monday off to rest (didn't do too much of that tho). Tuesday was back at work, but around 11 or so, I suddenly had this...attack? I got dizzy, sweaty, nauseous, and pretty much was certain that I was either going to puke or faint at work. Neither of which is preferable. After laying my head down on my desk did nothing to help, I ended up laying down on the floor of my office. No, not the ideal place to lie down, but...it was all I could think of. Thank goodness, I have a door to my office which LOCKS. Ha. So as that did not ease the attack, I finally decided I was going to have to suck it up and go home, lest I seriously embarass myself at work. Again, not ideal. And probably dangerous...but I cranked the A/C on the way and made it, where I passed out in my bed for 2 hours. Not sure WHAT caused that but likely a bad combination of allergy meds, drainage, lack of sleep, too much caffeine and too little food/liquid. Fortunately I've been feeling a bit better since.

As if being sick wasn't enough...D had to add his own issues into the pot. No, not his fault at all. We went to see his neurologist for a check up, and as his seizures are not under control, we decided to change one of his seizure meds. This means weaning off one at the same time as ramping up the new one. That started on Sunday, and there has been a definite difference in homeboy. He basically has been acting like he has no rules to follow. Not cool, little man, not cool.

And to top off all the icing on that cake, I've been having huge eating issues with D. To the point where he's lost weight. He just won't eat half the time, and I know my friend who kept him this summer struggled all summer to get him to eat anything. The neuro is sending him to a nutritionist. I'm not quite sure what good that will do, but we'll give it a whirl. In the meantime, I FINALLY got him to at least willingly drink Pediasure (watered down). But eating is still a struggle. I worry so much about my little man, I wasn't near this worried til it turned out he had lost weight. His pedi wasn't concerned at his 7 year well visit back in June, but the weight loss hadn't happened or wasn't as bad then. She just called it a "phase" and made me feel a bit crazy. Well, guess what, lady...it's a problem! I hate when people brush you off, when your momma instinct is just screaming. But I'm glad we have somewhat of a game plan now to get this little monster boy eating!

Hug me!

You'll soon come to find that I love skimming random news articles. I can get lost in news websites just clicking on articles. Well, I came across this one about the power of touch this morning. The author speaks about how much touch affects our everyday life and how much we need to incorporate it more.

While I heartily agree with everything she says, part of me shys away. As a single chick, my touches tend to come from a 7 year old munchkin. Other than that, I don't get touched much. So overtime, I find, that I actually don't WANT to be. It's a sensory issue, and I start feeling edgy if I'm around touchy people. This is something I fight all the time. Now don't get me wrong, I would never not encourage my child to touch me. And I am constantly touching him, a hand on his shoulder, on his head, etc. I don't want him growing up not being touched, which I rarely was, and is likely a big part of my issue now. But just because I have a hard time with it, doesn't mean I don't crave it. It's, in my opinion, one of our biggest needs, aside from food and water, ya know, necessities!

Spongebob...really?

So yeah, a news article came out the other day about how Spongebob is so evil, that it *gasp* affects kid's concentration right after watching it, because it's so fast paced. Do they really not have enough to do otherwise to be sitting around studying kids who watch it? Seems to me that there are so many more important things that could be studied. Maybe like why Caillou (which they compared Spongebob to) is so freakin whiny and is still on the air.

And frankly...for my kid...Spongebob CALMS him. Go figure! No, I don't let him watch tv all day long (most days...lol) but considering he's at school at 7am, and I don't pick him up til 5pm from afterschool care, that's a long day for a little guy. And if he can chill for a bit and space out to some Spongebob for abit while I fix dinner, all the better for it. I'm not asking him to take his SATs right after that. He's still a very active little boy who could play outside all day if it wasn't for pesky things like school getting in the way.

All that said...quit picking on Spongebob. Sure, he can be annoying, but for some blessed quiet time, I'll take it!

Gettin his limp on

Nothing like a 3.5 hour ER visit. I took D as he'd had a limp all weekend, and by then, he was refusing to put weight on it and crying. He would only say that he had "bent it". So I took him in and after a long wait, then xrays, it was determined to be just a sprain. No break. Unfortunately, the treatment...is to rest it. Hah! He's 7 and silly, I don't see that happening!

On another note, it boggles my mind what people do to their kids. A little girl, just a little peanut, maybe 14-16 months old, was in the ER waiting room with her parents. She was there for a distended tummy and diarrhea. So...WHY...after about 30 minutes, did her parents go get
Doritos out of the snack machine to feed to her? Seriously? Diarrhea and Doritos???? There were crackers in the machine if she needed SOMETHING. Sigh. Not my place to judge, but ya know...I'm judging...lol

September 11th Remembering

No, I'm not gonna post about "where I was" when America was attacked and the Twin Towers in NYC came down. Because it's not about me. It's about the brave men and women of our country who risked their lives to help others, it's about the 2900+ people who lost their lives because of hate, it's about the countless numbers of families affected by the tragedy. The closest I come to that, is that a second cousin of mine worked for the Pentagon. But we found out quickly that she was fine.

So I will keep this simple: we will never forget. There is so much more I would like to say, but it just sounds trite. My prayers go out to those who were affected and those who need comfort still.

Special Needs and all that that entails...

So I promised earlier that I'd write up a post about my son ('D', aka D-man, aka Homeboy, aka whatever else I come up with, but mostly just 'D'), and I am one to keep promises. For the most part.

I like to write about D and educate people on his issues/needs. You never know who might see it and glean a bit of information for someone they know who has the same.
Bear with me as this may get long.

I adopted D when he was 2 from foster care. Without going into too much detail about his birth circumstances, he does have some brain abnormalities that stem from when he was in the womb.

First in line, is a condition called Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum, which basically means that the middle part of his brain, which connects the two sides, never grew. Amazingly, his brain has made a way where there is no way. They didn't think he'd ever walk or talk, and now he runs and yells. So he's doing pretty darn good! It does mean that processing things is slow, but that's ok. He CAN learn, it just takes a ton of repetition for it to finally click.

He also has what is called Colpocephaly. This means that, out of the 4 ventricles in his brain, two of them are huge and filled with fluid. One is about 10 times the size it should be, and the other is about half of that. They are considered "stable" though, so draining the fluid apparently would do no good. The ventricles aren't being pushed larger due to the fluid. As I understand it. It does cause D to have headaches at the back of his head quite often lately, and esp when he's having seizures.

And third, he has Gray Matter Heterotopia. This is where some of his gray matter in his brain did not grow in the right spot, so it's just kind of hanging out there, causing problems. The majority of it is in his frontal lobe, unfortunately, which affects his short term memory, his impulse control, critical thinking, etc. It also is what is likely causing his seizures.

He has two kinds of seizures so far. Absence seizures which are basically staring spells, where he'll just be frozen for 15-30 seconds, even up to a minute. And he has drop seizures, where he'll just hit the floor unconscious for up to a minute. Thank goodness he's usually either already ON the floor playing or sitting at a desk when these have happened, to avoid a head injury! For the most part, they are under control with lots of medication. However, every time he has a growth spurt, they start back up again, and we have to adjust that.

Overall, D is a wonderful little man. He's so sweet and caring, loves to be social. He does have some developmental delays, esp with cognitive, he's behind there, and is about at the level of a 4 year old. But despite these challenges, I wouldn't change him for the world. Lil homeboy has lit up my life and taught me so much about how to get through life. Wherever he is, there he is...is what I like to say about him. That doesn't mean he doesn't struggle with getting overwhelmed at times, or get mentally exhausted from dealing with it, but he handles it.

He goes to an awesome public school, that provides him with aides through the day, plus special ed pull out. His special ed teacher, he has had her for the past two years, and he ADORES her. I love that everyone there really has tried to figure him out and understand him. They don't just discipline him for things he can't control.

I hope this helps people understand a bit more why he might freak out at times, or alternatively why he's super quiet at times. Some of that is when the meds kick in, they make him a bit zombie-ish. Other times, he's just done.

This is classic D-man (and also the pic from his first day of First Grade this year).

My wealth is in my friends.

I was chowing down on some beef and broccoli the other day from a little place near work called Texas Wok N Roll. Yeah, I like the name too. But that's not what the story is about.

We order from there quite a bit, and typically the fortune cookies are super generic. It had been a rough couple days in general, but I wasn't really expecting to see this when I opened my fortune cookie. <3 It was exactly what I needed right then. Funny how that works.

Mama Night Out

Ya know...us mamas...gosh we work hard. And we rarely get time off for good behavior. I decided to take matters into my own hands, so I hit up a friend to see if she could babysit (she said YES!), hit up another friend about going to a movie, and it was a done deal!

I dropped off D with my friend K this afternoon. He was raring to go, and I knew he'd have a blast. It was going to be quite awhile til my mama movie date, so I went and got a haircut and then ran some other errands. It sure was nice to go into a Barnes and Noble and SIT. And READ. In QUIET. Yes. Oh yes. That kinda thing is just heaven. I followed it up with a quiet dinner at McAlisters Deli, where I got to eat straight through with no interruptions and continue reading.

As for the movie, another friend and I went and saw Bridesmaids. Now, let me say first off, I should have known something was up, as it was Rated R. I was expecting a total sugary chick flick. Boy, was I wrong. This movie WAS hilarious, and it still was a chick flick, but with an edge to it. A "cover your face with your hands, cause someone is about to poop in public" kind of edge. Yeah. It was awesome.

And after all that fun...I even got to sleep in the next morning, as my friend kept D over night. Yay for kidfree nights! May they not be so few and far between!!

And we begin...

Hi, my name is Brandie, and this is my blog. Don't hate, you could get your own too.

Real quick about me, I'm a 30-something, single mama to a hot mess lil boy who I adopted. I'm also a Christian. I dig going to movies, reading fiction, and basically staying online as much as I possible can. I may have a slight addiction to Pinterest.

That hot mess lil boy I mentioned up there? Typically, I don't put his name out there, so online, he goes by 'D'. Homeboy is 7 now, but thinks he's 16 already so he can drive a mermaid car. He also wants to be a knight for Halloween so he can "cut dragons heads off" ala Alice In Wonderland. He pretty much rocks in every way. I'll do a post with more detail on him later.

Ok so I've done this blog thing before, but really what I have going for me right now is a photo blog of my son's adventures. And that doesn't really give space for my ramblings. That one, is all about the boy. So here I am to have a space for just random stuff. It might be a picture I find, might be a ramble about life, it could be anything. I just needed a spot for it. Welcome to my world. I can't promise I'll entertain you, but as I never know what will spring forth, check back here when you can.

And as it's getting to be fall, I'll leave you with this thought: