New Year, New Me

It's pretty awesome having a baby two weeks before a new year starts.  I've already lost twenty pounds!  And all while I have been drinking the leftovers from the festive hot chocolate and coffee bar I assembled for Christmas!  No detox tea or de-bloating mint water this January!  

Hot chocolate with reddi-whip and white chocolate chips and there is a crunched up candy cane in there too...oh yeah oh yeah...

But, being serious, I have had the urge to do some self-improvement this January.  It came to pass that I had three days over the weekend minus two kids when Justin took the kids to Texas...in a car...for the NDSU game.  Yes, you read that right.  It will be a post of it's own and I was slightly horrified but I guess it all went well.  I had big plans for household projects but Calvin decided it was a growth spurt and cluster feeding weekend so I spent a lot of time on the couch which was also nice.  I managed to tackle one of my favorite organizing projects if I can say any organizing project is my favorite-cleaning my closet and drawers.  

It was good time for this because I haven't been able to wear most of my clothes since approximately July and for some it's been even longer.  I don't think I've worn pants with a button since May.  It was fun to rediscover what I had buried in there.  In addition, I last did this chore two years ago and after that major purge my closet was just a pleasure.  It was to the point of having space between the hangers.  Somehow, over two years the spaces disappeared and my drawers were stuffed so full they barely closed.  The shelves above the closet rod on my side were heaped with clothes with no rhyme or reason and when I pulled something out other items would avalanche down on my head.  It was quite embarrassing so I didn't take a picture. You don't get to see it.  Only me, Justin, the kids, our realtor and the approximately fifty strangers who paraded through here this summer for showings and open houses got to see it. Finally, I was inspired because my mom gave me a big pack of these fancy hangers:

They are the flat ones that are covered with fuzzy material so the clothes don't slip off.  I have six of these coveted hangers already in two different mismatched styles so I know how nice they are.  Hanger continuity has never been a concern of mine as you can see from the photo below. 

Ahhhhh.  Yikes.  

The best part is how I use freebie store hangers for my skirts and strapless dresses.  That blue dress is one of my nicest dresses.  It should really be in my garment bag with my other nice dresses.  It's probably wondering what it's doing with all the outlet mall/Kohl's Vera Wang clearance rack/Old Navy crap.

I even admit to still having a few of these beauties around: 

But, we all know having a wire hanger around can save the day sometimes.  I recall using one that time Ben closed himself in the bathroom of our old house with the lights off and pulled a drawer open in front of the door so it couldn't open and I used a bent wire hanger to close it from the space under the door.  

Anyway, I hastily got to work while both Milo and Calvin were sleeping and ended up with a garbage bag full of actual garbage clothes that I won't waste the thrift store's time with.  I also had a much larger bag full of what I think are decent clothes which would be a shame to throw away but it might happen anyway because you can't give away women's clothes around here.  The thrift stores are so overwhelmed with crap they won't accept them and after rummage sale season they reject pretty much everything but furniture.  There is a very very non-profit organization that might take them so I will try that and otherwise they will probably sit in the garage until we move or until I have a friend who is having a rummage sale.  

The stuff on the ottoman there is my borderline pile-things I actually like but honestly never wear and haven't for a long time.  It will sit there for weeks until I realize I really don't care about it anymore.  There is a Bison shirt in there that has always had a weird fit that I will stash with my sewing stuff for the NDSU t-shirt quilt I plan to make in approximately ten years.  

Then, there were the maternity clothes.  Those dreaded, outdated, ill-fitting garments that I honestly could not wait to stop wearing this time around.  I was beyond tired of them.  I didn't have room to put them away properly and after a few months I just started thinking there was no point in making room for them so they were just piled in a laundry basket in the corner.  I hear women say they continue to wear them after their babies are born while they wait for their other clothes to fit but I am not one of them.  I prefer to wear stretch pants and fat jeans for a few months.  I sorted and removed these before Calvin was even home from the hospital. 

This pile is the items that were so old, so raggedy and gross that they went into the garbage.  Included is my swimming suit which had broken elastic protruding from it in many places, jeans with a waistband that was completely shot so they would not stay up at all and various pilled, holey and stained shirts.  Good riddance.  The rest I sorted to return to my sister and for the ones she never liked I gave them away to some ladies on Facebook.  Yee haw.  

People have been asking how we are doing and they usually ask, after hearing about the baby, how I am feeling with hesitation, expecting me to be in marginal shape.  The truth is I physically feel wonderful and almost like a new woman.  Like I said in my post about the birth, it wasn't bad for me at all and having the excess weight drop off is so invigorating.  Of course, I haven't been getting enough sleep but at least when I am sleeping it is quality sleep.  Let me show you some insights from my fitbit...

The following screenshots are from November and December before the birth...the red waves mean I was awake during those times.

I don't know what was going on here...it sure wasn't a restful night though.  

The next graph is from last night.  Less than six hours of sleep but at least it's a normal pattern and I actually got hours in a row of uninterrupted sleep.  

Then there is the issue of my crazy elevated heart rate that became jacked up immediately when I found out I was pregnant.  Check out his graph and see if you can pick out the day Calvin was born...

I cannot stop being fascinated with this.  The elevation is due to having double the volume of blood in your body during pregnancy and also, I'm sure, the extra forty pounds had something to do with it too.  It certainly makes me happy.  I look forward to actually exercising again.   I feel like I already could start but SOMEONE with cute fuzzy hair and skinny little arms and furrowed eyebrows is too young to go to the Y still...

It's OK, Calvin, I'm fine hanging out all morning at home with my cup of hot chocolate and reddi-whip.  

And so I start the slow climb back to being "normal" again.  When people hear the girl mix-up story many half-jokingly say something along the lines of "well, you can try again!" and, although the thought of that daughter will haunt me for awhile, the answer to that statement is a confident no way.  I am so over pregnancy that I can hardy find the words to express it.  Also, I am 34 and I keep thinking ahead to my life when I'm 40.  Ben will be 12 then and I imagine seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, a time when maybe the kids will be able to stay home alone for a few hours in the evening because that is the age I started staying home alone with my siblings and my parents were able to drop the evening babysitter.  I see us watching middle school sports and school concerts. What I don't envision is potty training a toddler, carrying a diaper bag and disassembling the little rubber regulators in sippy cups on a daily basis.  I don't want to be clipping five point car seat harnesses and hauling around a stroller.  Babies and little kids are special but...to everything there is a season.