Excuses and such

I've always been quite good at coming up with excuses as to why I'm late or why I haven't been able to accomplish something. Let me demonstrate by telling you some most excellent excuses for why I haven't been keeping up with my blogging duties the past couple of months :)

*Landon has been teething a lot this winter. This causes him to be more whiny and clingy and it affects his appetite and diapers (ahem). It also affects his sleep. I don't care what some of the books say. It definitely affects his sleep. He wakes up at random times in the night (sometimes soothing himself back to sleep, sometimes needing help) and then starts his days ridiculously early (one day this week it was 4:30 a.m. when he decided no more sleep was needed no matter what we tried). The molars have been the worst. One has come through completely and there are two more that have recently started breaking through. I can't believe what a long drawn out process these molars are. I will be so relieved when they are done coming in! Although I know there will be more to come, at least there will be a break. I bought some homeopathic teething tablets that seem to be helping. He's been taking some good naps and last night he slept his usual 11+ hours straight. I'm feeling a little bit of hope that we may get some better sleep around here! (Poor Brad has been pulled into this lately as well because we've found that Landon goes back to sleep much better for him.)

*One night earlier this week Landon slept awesome, but he still woke us up. Somehow he managed to set my alarm clock for 2:55 a.m. Neither Brad nor I got much quality sleep after that. The little stinker:) 

*Landon and I suffered from a miserable stomach bug just over a month ago. He had it first and I didn't realize how sick he was so we went to the store and he threw up everywhere. Luckily at home most of his puking was done on his bib when I was attempting to get him to eat something. I can't throw up because of the surgery I had last year, so you can imagine how fun having the stomach flu was for me. 

*Landon also had some immunizations that were the worst ever. It was one that included tetanus which caused him some pain. He was up five times that night screaming.

*One week after that, as I was sitting down to clip his fingernails (which I hate!), I noticed his thumbnail had a snag in it and was halfway torn off. So I simply pulled on it to get it the rest of the way off, thinking it would be one less nail to cut. Well this was a mistake because it tore down too deep into the nail bed and started bleeding. Of course this was the thumb that he sucks on to soothe himself. It was hurting him so much that he wouldn't suck on it. So he took no nap that day (which is a really big deal for him) and was up screaming all throughout the night because he is so attached to that thumb for soothing. We ended up just sleeping on the couch so I could soothe him (I felt bad for causing such trauma for him!). This was another couple of rough days, but luckily his thumb healed up fairly quickly. You better believe I was so mad at myself for causing this situation that was completely avoidable!

*I had an allergic reaction to who knows what, which resulted in yet another sinus infection. It was shorter than usual. It only lasted about 2.5 weeks but it was the most intense one that I've had in a long time. 

*I've been working with a new doctor the last couple of months (she specializes in Functional Medicine and she is fantastic!) for some of my health problems and making some changes to my treatment plan. This has also affected my sleep significantly (3 a.m. seems to be my cue to be wide awake), but it should get better (hopefully soon!) as I adjust to all the changes. It's just frustrating because it seems like anytime Landon is sleeping well, I'm not (like last night I woke up what seemed like every hour and I was wide awake 1.5 hours before Landon was), and when I'm in a nice deep sleep, Landon isn't sleeping well. Part of my treatment plan is getting plenty of quality sleep. It seems a little out of reach at the moment, but I'm hopeful (praying) it will get better. 

All of these things separately don't seem like all that big of a deal, but combined it seems like there's always something causing me to revert into survival mode. And when I'm in survival mode, blogging is the last thing from my mind. I cut out anything I can. Especially when I feel like a walking zombie from so little sleep. I'm starting to get the urge to get back into the blogging scene so this is where I'll start. Not sure if this post will be read, but it sometimes just feels good for me to put some things into words. Now I know that a lot of people have it way worse than me. This probably seems like no big deal to the seasoned parent. But for me, it's quite a bit to handle. But I do feel like I'm doing the best I can for right now. 

I'll make sure to get some updated pics of Landon up soon!

Grateful for the experience, but grateful to be moving on

As I've mentioned before, I started a part-time job at a small gym in town a couple of weeks after we moved here. It wasn't exactly my style of workouts or personal training and the pay wasn't awesome, but I figured for a first job as a personal trainer it would do. I would get some experience under my belt without having to round up my own clients. And I thought it would be useful to learn about this type of strength training known as SuperSlow. It is far different from the circuit training workouts I was originally trained to do earlier this year.

So for the first 3-4 weeks I was basically learning and in training. I was there about 3-4 days a week for several hours at a time (mostly hearing stories mixed with little tidbits about training). Then once I started taking people through the workouts, we had decided that I would work 3 days during the week and probably one Saturday a month (of course always getting home before Brad left for work at 3 pm). After a few weeks of this it became evident to me and my boss, Mike, that they simply were not busy enough during the hours that I was available to need me there that often. So I cut down to usually only working two days a week, for a total of about 9-10 hours a week. This sounded like a fine set up to me. He kept saying that we'd hopefully get it narrowed down to two specific days and times for me to work. But it was always changing. I always worked on Mondays because that was their busiest day. So even though the time frame changed sometimes, at least I could plan on being at work on Mondays.

The kind of frustrating part was that I would never know what other day of the week I would be working, usually until the night before. This made it hard to plan. And not only that but often minutes before I'd be walking out the door in the morning and had already woken Brad up, I'd receive a text telling me to come in 30-60 minutes later. One time when I was attempting to pick up an extra shift over the holidays, when Brad was home more, my shift kept getting bumped back until eventually it was 2 hours later than I had originally been told the night before. When I received the final text about this I was already in the parking lot and pretty frustrated. This was the day that I finally asked for a raise from my "training hourly rate". As it turned out, he had way overbooked on staff that day. Just trying to make everyone happy with extra hours. It didn't work.

To add to the situation, the method for deciphering how many hours were worked by the employees was less than ideal, and I was often underpaid. I'm thinking that's because I did more chart preparations and phone calls than the other trainers did (I'm the only female trainer that worked much...not to stereo-type, just saying...) And this extra time was often forgotten by the time my boss would get around to payroll (especially the extra time that was spent listening to his stories while I was trying to get stuff done and get out the door so I could spend a few minutes with my husband before he left for work.) Wow, sorry to vent.

So two weeks ago, I only worked a Monday because it turned out that the only other day that he would have needed me I had a doctor appointment. How could I have planned for that when that hadn't been his second busiest day for a few weeks? Then last week, as I was waiting for a text to find out if I was working the next day or not, I just decided to let Mike know if I wasn't needed for a second day, I'd be fine just working Mondays for a while. I didn't hear from him the rest of the week so apparently he agreed. In my defense, along the way he had made it clear that he wasn't lightening my load based on my performance. According to him he was pleased with how I was doing. He simply had enough gaps in the schedule that it seemed to me that he and his one full time worker could easily cover all the mornings but Mondays for now. He was just trying to be nice finding more hours for me to come in even though it wasn't absolutely necessary.

Then in the middle of last week we found out that Brad could switch to first shift if he wanted to. We decided that since this job wasn't turning out to be such a good fit for me after all (schedule-wise), I would quit so Brad could work day shift. We both feel like it will be a much better routine for our family in the long run. We're both excited about the change. Brad will be able to get more of his project questions answered throughout the day, so it should help him be even more efficient at work. He's really liking it there so we're hoping that this is a good sign that he will be hired on directly with the company in March.

I should mention that there were really good things about this job also. My boss was very nice and friendly and I really did like him as a person. It was just more the nature of the business that was frustrating. He was just trying to keep his labor costs as low as he could and I understand that is important when money is tight. He didn't have control over cancellations or people moving all over the schedule. He had rules regarding this, but it didn't make too much of a difference. Most people didn't care that they were getting charged for a workout due to a late cancellation. How would that be to have that kind of money...?

Anyway, I also learned a little bit more about personal training and strength training in general that will be useful to me. I learned that, yes, I am capable of bulking up if I lift very heavy weights:) (Not that this is a good thing, I was just surprised because strength training hasn't done that to me in the past, but I never lifted such heavy weights in the past.) Don't worry, I toned it down (despite the philosophy of the SuperSlow method) once my shoulders were too broad to wear my favorite coat. It was so strange...I hadn't gained any weight but suddenly everything was fitting tighter in the shoulders and lower body. Not that this is the case for everyone, but it was for me.

Another thing that came from this job was meeting a variety of people from the community. I had some very interesting conversations while I was taking people through workouts (some people liked the distraction of talking so they didn't notice the pain:). We talked about community events and doctors and health things and religious things and books and hobbies and kids etc. I only ever took through women, so you can imagine there was usually plenty of talking. And I had gotten to the point where I enjoyed taking people through the workouts and I was getting better at it. My favorite day was when I had back to back appointments for 4 hours with just a small break (the appointments are 30 minutes each). That's when it felt fulfilling to me.

It was also good for Brad and Landon to get some quality time together. Now Brad knows Landon's little routine and what to feed him for meals and snacks and when to put him down for his nap. It's great! And they got lots of good playing time together. Plus Brad and Landon often did the grocery shopping for me on Mondays while I was at work which I will definitely miss.

So, today was my last day as a regular worker at Absolute Fitness. It ended well. I said Mike could give me a call to work if he was in a bind and gave me plenty of notice. So I'm basically in "reserves". He said I could keep my key for now and that I could still come in for workouts either during the slower times or after hours. And I could still get my employee discount (20% off) at the health food store next door that his mother in law owns. This was very nice of him. Plus my last paycheck that he gave me today was very generous. He really is a good person and was totally understanding about our situation and why I was quitting. I feel bad that I vented throughout this post, but I just wanted to get it out for some reason. I'm grateful that I worked there for the past four months, but I'm grateful to be moving on with my life.

Through this short experience, I've learned a lot about myself and what is important to me in life. I would so much rather scrimp and save and have the time and energy to focus on what I value most, my family, the Gospel, and health, than to have an extra income and be distracted from the things that are of most value to me. I know some families do not have a choice and I know that a lot of people are perfectly capable of doing both, so I'm not passing any judgment whatsoever. Some people can handle being very busy and being pulled in a lot of directions and still function at their best. This is not the case for me. I need things a little simpler to be able to deal with the ups and downs in life. I hope that my capacity will continue to increase, but for now I am learning to accept what I currently am capable of.

Ever since Landon was born I've felt this need to add in something more to complicate life. First I had a major surgery which took a lot of preparation and recovery time (which I'm still glad I did), then I got my personal training certification (which took every spare second I had for several months) and spent a lot of time training for a job that eventually fell through, then I got wrapped up in couponing which takes a ridiculous amount of time, and then we moved across the country and I got a job. I'm beginning to see that this tactic of bringing in more busy-ness to feel that I'm okay is not working for me. So I'm going to make some changes that will hopefully help me to feel more joy in life. So I'm excited for this new chapter in life, and I'm going to make it a good one. Here's to simplicity!

If you've made it this far, thanks for listening!

Landon in Locomotion

Landon is getting to be quite the good little walker. These videos were taken over the last two weekends and don't include as much walking as I meant to capture. He has made even more progress since then. I'll take more footage soon. Grandparents enjoy! Oh and once again, please disregard my commentary. I lose self awareness when I'm trying to get Landon to do something for the camera:) I'm still working on figuring out how to capture all of his cuteness on camera. 

Taken on New Year's Day

These videos were combined but were giving me grief. So I separated them and they finally uploaded. Sorry so many videos. Couldn't decide what to cut out! Yes I am a biased mother and these are probably only entertaining to me:) 

Taken last weekend

A few pictures from Christmas 2011

This was our first time having our own little family Christmas. It felt a little weird not getting together with a lot of family like we are used to. But we made the most of it and tried to start some of our own family traditions. 

We enjoyed a yummy ham, homemade rolls, steamed veggies, and egg nog on Christmas Eve. Simple, but very tasty. Then we got Landon ready for bed and into his Christmas PJs. We listened to and looked at The Cajun Night Before Christmas, like we have ever since I've known Brad (he went on a church mission to Louisiana). It always gives us a good laugh. Landon was pretty intrigued with the little tape recorder. Maybe next year he'll get into the story. Then we read in Luke about the events surrounding Jesus' birth. We finished off with a few Christmas hymns. We put Landon to bed and exchanged our Christmas Eve gifts (a sweater for Brad to wear to church the next day and Just Dance 3 for the Wii!). I was super exhausted so we watched A Christmas Story while we folded some laundry. Lame, I know. Christmas time is a little different when you throw real life and responsibility in the mix:) Here are the few pics that we remembered to take that night.

On Christmas morning we went to church. It was a very nice meeting and helped us focus on the real purpose of Christmas. We held off on the present opening until after because we didn't want to be late. I was surprised by Brad's self control, as he's been known to almost hyperventilate with excitement about Christmas morning:) Maybe it's because he knew he wasn't getting many surprises this year. Poor guy. He did get some cool stuff, just not much that he didn't know about. Had to stay within the budget. He was a good sport, but I'll have to surprise him big time next year:) Brad did a good job of spoiling me. I'm loving my new Kindle! Landon liked tearing into the wrapping paper for a little while, but once he got playing with his new toys, he wasn't so interested. He's been having fun learning how to use his new toys!

After opening gifts, we threw together a salad and headed to the home of a family we met at church for Christmas lunch/dinner. It was fun visiting and eating and playing games with them. Then we headed back home to make some Christmas calls to family and get Landon fed and down for bed. Overall we had a pretty laid back Christmas. Here are a few pics from Christmas day. With church and going to another town for the afternoon, we were busy enough that I forgot to take too many pictures. Plus Landon is really a challenge because once he sees a camera out, he just wants it. So there's always got to be a strategy. And sometimes I'm too tired to come up with that strategy as to how to get some decent shots of him. I have to be sneaky:) Hopefully more to come in the near future. 

It's about time!!!

With Christmas Eve being tomorrow, I thought I had better get my Thanksgiving pictures posted before we take a whole bunch more this weekend. Sorry to our family about the blogging drought. New Year's Resolution: blog at least once a week! (Brad is fixing our laptop which will make this more doable. Trying to get much done in the office while Landon is awake usually feels like a comedic act. So the mobility of a laptop will help.) I haven't been so good with the record keeping this past year (or ever), so I'm thinking about doing more blogging this next year and then having it made into a book. If any of you have done this, I'd love for you to pass on any pointers about how to make it simple and easy and cute.

Anyway, we had a lovely Thanksgiving in Indiana. Brad's cousin, Maren, was kind enough to invite us to spend Thanksgiving with her family. We were able to get away to stay with them for a couple of days. It turned out to be a really nice Thanksgiving. The food was fantastic! We had a really nice visit with Lance and Maren and their sweet little kiddos. It was fun getting to know them all better. We felt right at home. Landon loved all the new toys and having buddies to play with. We did notice that he growled more for a little while after our trip:) It's a blessing to have family only a few hours away. We hope to spend more time with them while we are living in the midwest. Here are some pictures from the holiday that occurred a month ago. I know, I know. Better late than never, right?! Oh, and I regret to say that we didn't get many pictures including the Madsen family. We'll do better next year:)

 Just getting comfortable with the new territory

 So many nooks and crannys...so much space! 

 Drinking from a play-doh cup is the best!

 Competing for toys! Okay Landon doesn't get that yet, but I'm sure it's around the corner...

 This is as much of a smile as you're getting today with so much to look at!

 You can see that Landon had some good entertainment while we were there:) 

 Attempting to get casual family pictures

 This was the winner out of the family pictures, I'd say. Good job, Maren!

Don't make me walk, Dad!

 Freedom!

 Just too cute

 This is the life!

 Sorry, Spencer. Got you beat!

Here is some video of how he was walking a month ago. Now he is able to take quite a few steps in a row by himself. It seems like it just clicked the last couple of weeks. We'll be sure to get some footage of his cute little toddling right away. And post it pronto!

What we're up to...

Fun and trouble!

 "Just got done cleaning out Mom's purse for her...You're welcome, Mom!"

 He was standing there with barely a hand on the table, but the second he saw the camera he was down and coming at me!

 "Gotcha Mom! Now give me that camera...pleeease!"

Matchy matchy for church

Don't worry, Landon. I love refolding all of your laundry. Enjoy!

Landon is making progress with his walking, slowly but surely. He loves pushing this little firetruck around, especially if I pull the siren. He tries to imitate the sound of it:) So cute! Sometimes he pushes it with just one hand. Don't mind the boxes in the corner. It's all the decorations that I haven't gotten around to yet. I'm having a hard time getting motivated to do much decorating since we will only be in this house through the spring. 

We're continuing to get settled here. Brad is really enjoying his job. He likes how the company runs and is feeling really good about being hired on. He likes the types of projects that he is assigned and is enjoying using his engineering skills. I really can't explain very well what he does, so I'll have to leave that to him:) We feel really blessed that it has turned out to be such a good fit for him. It's also nice to know that his chosen field of study was a good choice for him. He works second shift so he has been able to spend a lot more time with Landon since we've been here. I've enjoyed having him be able to get more involved in the various aspects of Landon's life. 

With Brad being home more during the day, I've been able to find a part time job. I got hired about 8 weeks ago at a small gym called Absolute Fitness 2-3 days per week as a personal trainer. They specialize in a specific type of strength training called Super Slow. I was skeptical at first, but I'm becoming a believer in this type of exercise. I'll have to explain it more some other time. Basically it's a very efficient way to stay fit. Anyway, I'll probably average about 10-12 hours per week (which is plenty for me! On the days that I work, I only get about an hour with Brad and that is spent eating a late lunch and packing his dinner. A couple of weeks while I was getting trained I was there 16 hours a week plus doing some reading for it at home and getting ready for a project I was in charge of for Super Saturday at church and it was just too much. I think part of the frustration was that the training I was receiving was not very efficient or effective. Lots of stories along with tidbits about future business plans, but not a lot of practical info for me to work with. I've learned more from just taking clients through the workouts. Anyway...). This is my first job working as a personal trainer. It's quite different than the other job I was training for back in Twin Falls that fell through. It was very intimidating to me at first, but each week I'm gaining confidence in my abilities. I still come home and pick apart my every mistake, but I'm working on that:) So far the clients have been very nice and patient and understanding. I've met some very interesting people and had some good conversations. It's definitely stretching me. Brad and I get to use the equipment at our convenience which is a nice perk (everyone else has to pay a premium price per session and have trainers take them through, except for the handful of other trainers and one sweet little old lady and her daughter:)). One down side to it being such a small gym is that there is no daycare, so we haven't worked out together yet. I'm taking over Brad's workouts this week. My boss has been taking him through for a bit to help him get his settings figured out on the machines (which is really nice of him). I'm sure eventually Brad will do it on his own, but I think he might need a cheerleader for a little while longer:) We might just bring Landon along in his stroller...we'll see how that goes. Anyway, I'm hoping that as I get better at this I will learn to enjoy it. I know that it could be a really great outlet for me and help us save up for a house next spring. So I'm just trying to push through this tough phase so that I can get to that good part. I know, I know, I'm supposed to enjoy the journey. But can I just get to the part where I feel like I'm a great personal trainer and I come home feeling energized and ready to tackle any task at hand rather than coming home and feeling completely spent? I'm hoping that it will come with time and practice. 

Anyway, we are keeping busy. Never a second to get bored. I guess that's good. We are fully recovered from the recent bouts of colds and pink eye, and the teething pain has eased up for a bit (on Sunday afternoon and evening Landon just wanted to be held for several hours, all I can come up with is teething pain). I can't believe the holidays are right around the corner. Looking forward to some good company and some good food!

Halloween 2011

I had fun dressing Landon up for Halloween. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Call who sent us the cute dinosaur costume! I loved it on him, especially when he would crawl and his little tail would wag:) Landon had fun playing at the playgroup Halloween party on Friday morning. Then the two of us went to the ward trunk or treat Friday night. Brad was at work:(. Brad talked me into to wearing his old football jersey to the trunk or treat. It suits me, right?! Then, tonight Landon helped me pass out candy. We had quite a few trick or treaters. He seemed to be enjoying all the visitors and made lots of cute sounds and faces for them:)

 We had to get a pic with one of the several dinosaurs at the activity:)

 Landon was so curious about what was going on with all of the trick or treaters outside

 Evidence of the cold he picked up last Friday at playgroup:( A sick little kid was hauling his sippy cup everywhere and of course Landon got his hands on it and took a sip. I guess it's part of being a kid, but I'm a little annoyed that this could have been avoided. Oh well, hopefully he sleeps better tonight. 

 "Okay, that's enough fun for one night"

"All done!" (okay he didn't really say that, but I'm just guessing that's what he was thinking:))

This video is kind of long, but I wanted to post it for the grandparents of course:) He does wag his tail pretty cute in that costume. Just ignore my commentary, maybe just turn down the volume cause I sound kind of ridiculous:)