Fitting it In

Honestly, I don't know how I make it through the day some days. No really, I don't.

There is work, two full time jobs, with some after hours work for both adults in the family, getting a kid to daycare, keeping my house at least pretending to be clean, cooking all of the meals, and taking care of the preschooler, while pretending to also not lose my mind.

It feels most of the time like I balance on the edge. I am just barely cutting it at work, at home, as a parent. I know that isn't true, well, mostly. My cleaning commitment leaves much to be desired.

It is one of those times where the universe conspires to make things even more crazy. Both A and I have major projects at work, that will include evenings and weekends, M is at an age where she is very needy, and has learned to talk back, like a two headed monster, and I'm trying desperately to find a way to stay on top of my health goals. That means exercise near daily and no more eating out, including lunch.

So far, I'm finding only a little bit of success. I've managed to work out in the morning twice, with serious good intentions for the third time. (I was diverted from my goal by a missing sports bra. I only own one.) It seems to work best when I lay out everything I need to wear the next day the night before. That includes socks and that one lone bra. The realization that if I work out in the morning I don't have to again at night seems to drive me to get up at the ungodly hour of 5:30 AM.

Cooking/eating is still hard. I'm starting to realize that M is now old enough where I don't need to feed her five minutes after we get home. I can wait just a bit longer to make something healthy. I still need to figure out how to expand my winter cooking, but thanks to Andrea, I took a look at something other than dried fruit and frozen veggies at Trader Joes and found us some more options. I even tried to make oven baked chicken fingers tonight for dinner. I can make the seasoning choice better, but my yogurt marinade followed by bread crumbs worked pretty well. Small steps, right?

For the local women. My absolute favorite women's athletic clothing store (though it looks like they have a lot more other stuff now) Title Nine, just opened a store in Edina. I found it when I followed them on Twitter while perusing their site for some more bras. I am seriously thrilled about this since I am a long time fan, but I liked their store in Boulder (where I found the best sports bra ever) more than trying to find what I needed in a catalog. I will be going on Friday at the latest, and I promise to report back.