When Are We Again, Anyway?

[Sciread77]

This is my sixth attempt to post this since October 21.  So, I'm still struggling here.  I'm up another couple of pounds and basically nocturnal now.  The baby make that easy but the toddlers are strictly of the early-rising diurnal mindset.  Given the whole end of Daylight Savings time, that means they were up before 5 am.  To make matters worse, we live in unincorporated county, just outside of the city where it's not quite rural but not entirely city either.  And that means that it's apparently not illegal to shoot off fireworks 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 day a year.  No noise ordinance in the county.  They scare the kids and make nights miserable.  I've gone from loving fireworks to mostly tolerating them unless they're a prat of an organized display, because lots of people shoot them off.  We rarely go a full week without a night of fireworks, and last night, they went off until 1 am.

 

But, I digress.

 

Goals:

 

1.  Help my wife (at the very least) return to diurnal living since she's got only one more week of leave left.

She's got a 45-minute drive that is worse with traffic, and I don't want her to be miserable or dangerously tired.

 

2.  Actively lose weight at the 0.5-2 lbs/week rate of my goal, including prioritizing my protein like before.  

And limiting non-goal foods to once a day.  I've become terribly lax about piling the junk food in without thinking, especially when I'm up late or in the middle of the night.  I am awfully close to where I began, and I have an established goal ceiling as well-  never let the hundreds number go up a digit again.  It's lower than it's been since before the oldest was born and I generally feel better than I have in years.  It's fantastic for the joints and basically the rest of health so I'm working to keep the weight down and the muscle on.

 

3.  Get the house in order and establish routines. 

I'll be living the SAHD life for 10 more weeks.  I've made progress on the house but my routines are non-existent outside of what's required to get the oldest ready for and taken to/from school.  I've been able to wing it for the last six weeks with my wife home but I'll quickly drown without said structures alone.

 

4.  Keep reading, keep keep reading.

It's been terribly helpful to me mentally. I've made good progress in my biography, picked up a Terry Pratchett, a J Patrick Allen, and an Amalia Carosella for fun, and it's been doing wonders for my mental state.  Stress levels are, with the exception of occasional spikes, the best in memory.

 

5. Read to the kids daily. 

We're usually pretty good about it, but as I said many routines just fell apart with a newborn.  Hopefully, we learn from these disruptions for child 4.  The boys love to read, and we have so very many books that they haven't even read yet.  When it's just me I'd like to get into the habit of going to the library regularly, too.  

 

6. Rock the interviews.

I have interviews for two promotions on Thursday.  I want offers from both.

 

 

[Sylvaa]

Hey! I deleted your second thread - they looked the same. So if there was anything additional in the second, I'm sorry - you'll have to edit this one!

 

Good to see you back. It can be so hard to get back in the groove after a baby - you seem to be doing better than I would have done! 

[Sciread77]

Thanks, I didn’t even realize I added two threads. 

 

I hope I haven’t junk fooded myself out of my suit. 

[Teros]

Good goals: how are you planning to implement them?  As in, what *specific actions* are you doing for each?

[Sciread77]

8 hours ago, Teros said:

Good goals: how are you planning to implement them?  As in, what *specific actions* are you doing for each?

 Good question. 

 

1. Go to bed half an hour earlier each night all week this week.  This primarily involves tweaking baby feedings and making sure we don’t start a movie or something like that too late. 

 

2.  Same as my previous success. Basically, focus on macros with an emphasis on getting protein. Fat and carbs are fairly self-regulating when I have enough protein. Also, I allow one non-goal-specific food choice a day so I can indulge without going overboard. This means my fat and carb choices are reasonably healthy and in line with my goals, I.e. veggies, whole grains, and fats from things like olives, fish, flax, poultry, and dairy. 

 

3. I’m organizing the house and setting routines I can follow when my wife goes back to work, like making lunches and finding new places to put things so we don’t have to search for them. The goal is to get her out the door ready and on time while prepping to do the same with the oldest. Getting lunches and clothes for the next day out is the way really helps so I’m making sure to add those routines. 

 

4. Reading is easy. I just carry a book with me and leave books in each bathroom, by the chairs and couches, and on my bed stand. 

 

5.  Reading to the kids works as in a similar manner, with the added requirement of making sure bathtime stays sedate instead of escalating into madness. 

 

6.  The interviews were today and I think both went well. I’ve laid a lot of groundwork over the last few years and I’m as close to an optimal candidate as I know how to be. I’ve also been in touch with the teams and made myself pretty visible for a guy who is out on 16 weeks of paternity leave. Here’s hoping. I’ll be following up tomorrow or Thursday with the hiring managers. 

 

[Teros]

All of that sounds awesome.  How are you feeling?

[Sciread77]

Exhausted each night, and each morning I wake up feeling a bit like I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds. Pretty standard, really. 

 

Right now, ok. Good physically, stressed over a couple things mentally (although they’re largely unrelated to my goals here).  All in all, substantially better than before the baby arrived because I’m off work and have more access to stress relievers such as naps, reading, and being silly with toddlers. 

 

I have everything except the standing mixer (which is currently missing and probably still in storage tubs) in the new kitchen storage area downstairs. I know where everything we need for Thanksgiving is and I’ve opened a lot of valuable kitchen real estate up. Our cabinets are pretty small and oddly placed, and we have two pantries that aren’t quite big enough for storing both food AND less-used kitchen appliances. 

 

I’m working on a surprise for my wife as well. I’m converting a space in the basement to be used as a craft room, because she’s been dying to be able to use her stuff without specially setting up every time. 

[WolfDreamer]

Congrats on the new baby, and I'm glad you're back. Your goals looks awesome. I especially appreciate how much you value reading to your kids. I don't do this enough myself, so I'll take this as a kick in the pants to read to my kids more. :-) Let me know if I can help in any way.

[Teros]

17 hours ago, Sciread77 said:

craft room

Craft Corner.  Fuck yeah

[Sciread77]

 

On 11/9/2017 at 6:56 AM, Wolfen said:

Congrats on the new baby, and I'm glad you're back. Your goals looks awesome. I especially appreciate how much you value reading to your kids. I don't do this enough myself, so I'll take this as a kick in the pants to read to my kids more. :-) Let me know if I can help in any way.

 

Thanks, its good to be back. My biggest hurdle so far was finding the keys that were hiding in my pocket this morning lol. 

 

I wish I were better about reading to the kids and to myself. It got waaay away from me reading for fun personally for a few years. Full time job + grad school for the wife and I both on top of having the kids and trying to move a few times killed a lot of my good habits. Reading is probably the most useful skill I ever learned. I learned to read very well as a kid by ridiculous amounts of practice. My parents didn’t read too much to my little sister though, and there’s a huge difference in both skill and desire to read. Being that I’m off work until mid-January, there’s really no better time to read like crazy to them. 

 

All that said, it’s been a goal on my character sheet from the beginning at NF to read to both boys 7 days straight and I’ve yet to achieve it. I want this to be the month it happens. 

 

[Teros]

On 11/13/2017 at 10:59 AM, Sciread77 said:

All that said, it’s been a goal on my character sheet from the beginning at NF to read to both boys 7 days straight and I’ve yet to achieve it. I want this to be the month it happens. 

 

What are some reading options?

[Sciread77]

On 11/16/2017 at 5:54 PM, Teros said:

 

What are some reading options?

 

So far we’ve read Annabelle and Aiden, Lyle at Christmas, Tacky’s Christmas, Merry Christmas Curious George, The Night Before Christmas, The Finest Christmas Tree, The Night Before Halloween, The Raven, Jurassic Park (which we’ve read a chapter or three a night most nights of the year and we’ve finally finished), the ABC Space book, What is a Wookiee,  and many others. I just started keeping track on a Goodreads shelf for each kid. We have a few hundred children’s books and I have no idea what we’ve read with the kids anymore. Baby girl is hearing 50 Women in Science: Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World (I read whenever I feed her). Gotta start the science and empowerment young, doncha know. 

[Sciread77]

On 11/5/2017 at 11:22 AM, Sciread77 said:

This is my sixth attempt to post this since October 21.  So, I'm still struggling here.  I'm up another couple of pounds and basically nocturnal now.  The baby make that easy but the toddlers are strictly of the early-rising diurnal mindset.  Given the whole end of Daylight Savings time, that means they were up before 5 am.  To make matters worse, we live in unincorporated county, just outside of the city where it's not quite rural but not entirely city either.  And that means that it's apparently not illegal to shoot off fireworks 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 day a year.  No noise ordinance in the county.  They scare the kids and make nights miserable.  I've gone from loving fireworks to mostly tolerating them unless they're a prat of an organized display, because lots of people shoot them off.  We rarely go a full week without a night of fireworks, and last night, they went off until 1 am.

 

But, I digress.

 

Goals:

 

1.  Help my wife (at the very least) return to diurnal living since she's got only one more week of leave left.

She's got a 45-minute drive that is worse with traffic, and I don't want her to be miserable or dangerously tired.

 

2.  Actively lose weight at the 0.5-2 lbs/week rate of my goal, including prioritizing my protein like before.  

And limiting non-goal foods to once a day.  I've become terribly lax about piling the junk food in without thinking, especially when I'm up late or in the middle of the night.  I am awfully close to where I began, and I have an established goal ceiling as well-  never let the hundreds number go up a digit again.  It's lower than it's been since before the oldest was born and I generally feel better than I have in years.  It's fantastic for the joints and basically the rest of health so I'm working to keep the weight down and the muscle on.

 

3.  Get the house in order and establish routines. 

I'll be living the SAHD life for 10 more weeks.  I've made progress on the house but my routines are non-existent outside of what's required to get the oldest ready for and taken to/from school.  I've been able to wing it for the last six weeks with my wife home but I'll quickly drown without said structures alone.

 

4.  Keep reading, keep keep reading.

It's been terribly helpful to me mentally. I've made good progress in my biography, picked up a Terry Pratchett, a J Patrick Allen, and an Amalia Carosella for fun, and it's been doing wonders for my mental state.  Stress levels are, with the exception of occasional spikes, the best in memory.

 

5. Read to the kids daily. 

We're usually pretty good about it, but as I said many routines just fell apart with a newborn.  Hopefully, we learn from these disruptions for child 4.  The boys love to read, and we have so very many books that they haven't even read yet.  When it's just me I'd like to get into the habit of going to the library regularly, too.  

 

6. Rock the interviews.

I have interviews for two promotions on Thursday.  I want offers from both.

 

 

 

 

1.  Success. She’s back on the day schedule and I’m mostly there as well. 

 

2.  Success. I lost an average of ~.75 lbs/week. 

 

3. Laundry is mostly organized. I know where virtually all of our decorations are, sans our tree skirts and one very special ornament. Halloween and Thanksgiving stuff is organized, condensed, and put away. I’ve located but not entirely organized all of our kitchen stuff in the new area. If I went back to work tomorrow I’d be substantially better off than I’ve been for years. 

 

4. Been doing fairly well on this. Yay! Read 4 books not on Goodreads yer because they’re still in the publishing process. 

 

5. The kids are getting several books a day. One new one that I choose and one of their choice at the least. The baby is almost through my women of science book. 

 

6. I did well on the interviews. Didn’t get one job, waiting to hear about the other. Terribly frustrated with work. 

 

Overall, a very productive challenge. I was way more successful than I thought I’d be!