My addiction to food is like a tidal wave. I can see it building, far off in the distance. And it comes and it gets bigger and bigger and I watch it with awe because it is massive. And there is this point where I could escape, but I don't. I wait for it and it washes over me and I eat the whole package of hazelnut candies.

This happened to me this week, this tidal wave. Yes, I am addicted to food and yes, I have been overeating and yes I have felt terrible about it. Monday I took the bus to work so that I wouldn't pass either of two Starbucks or the Krispy Kreme. Tuesday I realized that was stupid because if I walked to work, I could actually eat something. Enter me in the Krispy Kreme walking out with TWO donuts. I don't even like Krispy Kreme. You eat it and it sits in your stomach like a sickingly sweet lump. Wednesday I walked to work and got Starbuck low fat muffin for breakfast on the way. Getting better, right? Today I walked to work, picking up my slothy pace and didn't stop anywhere for breakfast. But I just broke down and ate 3 swedish fish. Not many calories, but still gross and fat girl behavior.

Why I am telling you this? The first step to healing an addiction is being honest about it. So here I am. I won't even tell you what I ate for lunches these days (gyros and fish and chips and burritos, oh my!). But I will tell you that I had Subway for dinner each night. This is why I have dropped two pounds this week.

Let's recap this for anyone who didn't read the blog during my first weight loss adventure. I used to weigh more than 300 pounds. I don't know how much more because I didn't have a scale that went up high enough. I was gigantic. Over the course of 14 months I lost over 70 maybe 80 pounds. It was hard. But it was life changing. I went from a size 28 to a size 16. The day I got pregnant I weighed 224 pounds, still plump, but healthy and happy. At that weight, I actually felt hella skinny. Weird. I did all of this with increased exercise and less food. I didn't starve myself.

Then I got pregnant with twins. I should have lost 50 more pounds first, but I could not imagine myself being that small and the hubby wondered if we would ever have kids so we decided to get pregnant. The day I gave birth, I weighed 310 pounds. And so it began again, the pounds had to come off. Some shots in the butt to make me pee out extra water weight helped. By the time the girls were 4 months old, I was down to 243. Not bad for 4 months.

Enter the tidal wave. It brings with it all kinds of fun. Like rocky road ice cream and easter candy and nachos and all the things that I love. It is ok to eat these things if you are just getting a taste, but when you eat and eat and eat until there is no more than there is a problem. This is classic fat girl behavior. This is classic food addiction. This packs on the pounds fast.

So on Monday I weighed 254.5. My knees were starting to hurt and my tummy was starting to pull at my c-section scar. I know, gross! Something had to be done. I am preparing myself mentally for this new journey. The more I think about it, the more I realize that all I need to do to feel better is lose 30 pounds. How hard is that? 30 pounds equals 15 weeks. So easy! When I drop 30 pounds, I will be back to my pre baby weight and at that point I will decide if I should continue with this. But for now, I just keep thinking of the 30 pounds. And how my heart will feel better and my knees will work right and these sized 20 pants will be replaced with the 16 again.

Rereading this post, I think about what the fat positive movement would say about me and my dreams of being smaller. I saw Marilyn Wann, fat activist on the Today Show this morning and she looked so huge. I mean, just huge. She kept saying she was healthy and skinny is ugly and she eats her veggies. The story was about how America hates fat women and how they make 20 percent less money than other women. This is such a touchy subject with me. I hate the fat positive movement, but don't want anyone to judge me for my weight. I agree with them because I think that we should love our bodies no matter what we look like and I have always felt beautiful as a big girl. But there is a difference between fat and obese. I have said this before. At 250, I feel obese. This number is different for everyone. After I drop 30 pounds, I am going to feel soooo great! But 230 is obese for someone else. And the whole thing about fat women making less money is just silly to me. That isn't about fat women, that is about women with low self-esteem. I am a fat women who has always had good jobs and salaries and I think it is because I am positive and present myself as an emotionally healthy person even when I wasn't. So it isn't relaly about weight but about how you present yourself.

So, the fat positive movement drives me crazy. But I know it is a reaction to the totally messed up culture of thin that is America. But it still drives me crazy and I think it gives girls an excuse to not be healthy.

The wave has passed and I am getting out of the water. I will watch the waves from far up on the beach. I will not let them crash down on me again. At least this is my hope. I have failed many times in the past 4 months. But I hope this time it is different. A friend of mine who is losing weight worried about writing about it because she didn't want a "fat girl" blog. Screw that. There is nothing wrong with a fat girl blog even though I understand her concerns. Welcome to my fat girl blog. I don't expect everyone to understand or take this journey with me. I know I might be going over old territory, but I need to do it, so this is me and I am it.

Posted by tina at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

House hunting, day one. We saw three houses. One was in our price range, the other two just at the top of it.

The first two bedroom "townhouse" was smaller than our apartment and had a pile of rocks for a back yard. All the applicances were older than me and the rugs were stained with pee. We could afford it.

The second one (three bedroom, detached) was stucco and so cute and looked like the Alamo or a house that you would put at the bottom of a fish tank. It smelled like Jeff's grandma's house (a plus) but needed a new kitchen and was in a questionable neighborhood. Jeff loved it. I knew how much it was and felt kinda sick that this was this expensive. But it was cute.

Third house was in a "better" neighborhood, but oh my was it a mess. Same price as the cute underwater house, though. It looked like zombies had been living in it for the past few months. Really. A mess. Closet doors hanging off of hinges, horrible contact paper on the exposed dirty kitchen shelves. A wall had been knocked down in the basement to create one big rec room with a wet bar. Yep, a wet bar. The bar was beautiful stone, but who needs a wet bar? I envisioned zombie key parties. The roof on this one wasn't too good either. The stares to the basement were steep and not baby friendly. Over all, it is a mess. Lots of space in a "better" neighborhood, but a mess and no place for babies to live.

For full disclosure, the first townhouse (less than 900 square feet) was 225k (we saw why) and the other two were 300k. We were a little horrified at what 300k will buy you now adays, but decided to put in a bid on the little fish tank house once we heard back from our loan guy how much the monthly payments would be. We got excited. What a cute little house, sure the neighborhood wasn't great and the kitchen was barely acceptable, but the yard! and the cute porch and it smelled like grandma! So excited. Until the numbers came back about 400 more a month than I thought it would be. I didn't take into consideration the property taxes (soooo high) and insurance and etc, etc, etc. This is my fault. This is my first time doing this. So, no bids from us.

Here's the thing. We got preapproved for about double what we would like to spend on a house. This is not a good place to be in. Without the daycare bill, we would be fine, but here we are in a market trying to buy a house when we can't even afford a condo in the neighborhood where we live now. And the fact of the matter is, we are so much better off than other people. I know this. I know this and it makes me even more angry. This crazy real estate market is making it so that a family like ours cannot buy a decent house in a good neighborhood for less than 350k. Our big problem is a lack of a downpayment. But I told Jeff, even if I have 20k to put down, I wouldn't want to spend it on these places. I wouldn't want to hand over my hard earned cash to live in these run down, barely liveable houses in neighborhoods where I wouldn't send my children to school.

Here's my secret. I don't want to buy a house. I don't want to live in the suburbs. I don't want to work on a fixer upper. I don't want to paint and repair. I don't want to mow the lawn. I don't want to pay a 2000$ a month mortgage for a dirty mess and then have to drive an hour each way to and from work.

What I do want is more space for my children to crawl and play. A yard, a parking space, a bedroom for the girls, etc.

The fact of the matter is that I am not willing to give up our standard of living to buy a house. It seems like everyone tells me, "This is just how the market is. You have to spend this much. You have to live this far out. You have to compromise your lifestyle." Not only do I not know HOW people are buying homes in Washington at these prices, I don't know WHY they are.

So I guess my probelm is that while we NEED a house. I don't want one if it means our quality of living will go down. Buying a house should make your life better, not 50% worse. It is also the principle of the thing. These places aren't worth this much to me, why should I pay it?

I want to just say, I choose to not participate in this.

So I pray for the bubble to burst. I want it to burst and burst loud and fast, not a trickle. I want all the morons who paid 600k for their McMansions to fall hard. I want whoever is going to pay $300k for the zombie house to lose big. I want things to go back to normal so that buying a house means living well again.

For now, Jeff and I search the homes database for townhouses under 250k and laugh at at what we find. Jeff said, "next thing you know, they will start digging holes and selling them to people for $200k." You will go to see the hole and they will still be digging it. "This will be a nice hole," they will tell you. And you will marvel at the beauty of your hole and you will smile and pay for it. And you will wish you had bought the zombie house or the fishtank house or the tiny one with the rocks in the back. Anything to not live in the hole.

Posted by tina at 3:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

Just a quick note that all proceeds from the seamonsters store for the month of March are going to my friend Edie's March of Dimes team. I should have done this sooner as March is almost over! But I just emptied my paypal account out to her (not much, but still!). Anyway, if you wanted your order to go to a good cause (besides my house fund!), do order this month.

Edie has had to deal with prematurity first hand, and I really admire her strength. You can read about her family on her team page: www.teamtomato.org.

Oh! I added a new item that is pretty cool, it is a necklace of the month club. Fun fun fun! Take a look. So if you join the club this month, that money, too, will go to the March of Dimes.

To all my commenters... you really make things easier for me. Thank you. Truly. I hope that someday I can meet some of you and your wee ones. I bet there are loads of people just as nice as you right here near me, but I find that in person people never want to be caught complaining about their lot in life. We are all smiles and baby pictures. I wish people would be more honest about how hard it is. Because it is.

Posted by tina at 2:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

i am greedy. i am greedy for sleep and dreams. even nightmares. i want um. give me some nightmares. my eyes are heavy today, i can feel them sitting in there, all ... heavy and slightly worthless. i couldn't carry the bags under my eyes a block. they are so big and warm. my old ma (great grandma) had these amazing bags and dark circles under her eyes. i used to stare at them all the time. she had 19 kids. now i understand, as i only have two and i look old and tired and sad.

time to sleep and dream. i sing this to the girls. we both sing it now. this song. "now its time to sleep and dream and sleep and dream, cause sleep is what we do." we break this one out when we are in the last stages of falling sleep. i usually start and jeff chimes in and we sing it until it frelling works. rachel likes to put her mouth on my mouth as i sing this. it is strange, but comforting. i call it sleep kisses, and she loves do it so i let her.

i write this and my eyes feel hot with tears. i love my babies, but i am feeling negative about parenthood today. parenthood is a war to feel normal again even though you know you never will. you will at some point accept the new normal and move on. but i haven't accepted it yet, as i am still greedy for sleep and dreams. i am still tired of this achy back. i am still sick of not dropping these pounds. and i just want an hour to myself, except i would use it to sleep and thus waste it.

nearly 8 months, this war has seemed so long. i know it will be easier soon. it has got to get easier. it will get easier. i know it. i know it. i know it.

Posted by tina at 2:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

No matter what the girls are sick with, they always look happy. This is nice, but also sometimes scary.

Rachel hearts carrots:

Anya lives in a land of books:

We saw a realtor this weekend. We can't move until July... but we are in the process of looking. The prices are crazy and this might not happen, but at least we are on the road to buying a crappy house. It sucks that we can't afford to live where we live anymore... if we buy. The prices in the city are so crazy, a house went for 600k around the corner and we can barely afford 300k, so we will see. Makes me want to move to Vermont or some place that I imagine is cheaper, but prolly isn't.

No more complaining from me. For now, know that any time you buy from the seamonsters store, the money goes directly to our crappy house fund!

Posted by tina at 8:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

I climb into the back seat of our bluish purple Matrix. Pajama Anya is already there, sitting in her carseat, ready for adventure. It is dark, but for the apartment lobby lights this 4 am. I sit next to Anya and she looks at me surprised. Her surprise is followed by delight. Delight equals a gigantic smile from this jimjam girl. Anya thinks it is wonderful that mommy is in the back seat as she usually sits next to her sister, but not this 4 am morning. No not this morning. This morning I am a mommy in the backseat with a baby. And we are happy with the wonder of it all.

We walk through the parking garage, feeling our way around this dark campus. Tiny drip drops of rain smell like spring. Red brick under my feet, I am filled with this dejavu. You are ahead of me in a maze of buildings, trying to find the entrance and I ask you if this reminds you of Maryland. Yes, it does, you say. This is when you realize that we have missed our anniversary. The anniversary of our first date. I am trying to keep up with this labored breathing of mine. You with the baby, me with my counting. How many years has it been, I ask? 1994… 2006, 12 years. Back then we used to roam around college campuses looking for adventure, finding buildings to climb up to roofs. Today, we are taking the one daughter and the one mother to the emergency room. Funny how the situations change, but the you is still you.

We are on this little outing because Anya has had what we think is an asthma attack. At the same time, my cough won’t go away and I feel like I can’t breathe. I need a chest xray to tell me I have pneumonia, as I know this is how it feels. Anya and I both get chest xrays and blood drawn. They even attempt to give Anya an IV, but she isn’t having it. She kicks the nurse in the face, thus giving us a mean nurse for the next 8 hours of our emergency room stay. Anya screams what sounds like baby when she is in distress. There are Pandas painted on the wall and I say ‘panda bear, panda bear, panda bear’ over and over until she says, ‘bear” very clearly.

We try to have fun as we await the decisions from the white coats. But we are just too tired. We worry about who will have to stay and who will get to go home. We feel like this is jail. In the end, the white coats think both Anya and I should stay, but understand that there is another little lady at home with an over-tired grandma. So I drag my unhappy pneumonia lungs to the curb of the hospital and catch a cab home while you stay in with the whezzy girl.

This is our 12th year together. We take babies to the hospital now. We are parents. We are in charge. We are trying to get used to this. But we remain, as always, terrified.

Posted by tina at 2:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

We are all sick again. This is making Jeff and I question the whole daycare thing. Would having a nanny make them less sick? We are coughing and I had a fever yesterday. Hot, cold, hot, cold. Hot. The fever also gave me physical flashbacks to my hospital stay. Phantom c-section pains are no fun.

We have thought about getting a nanny in the past. I mean, paying for two babies to go to daycare costs more than a nanny would cost, money-wise. But the emotional issues involved with a nanny are too much for me to deal with right now. First, coming from a working class background, Jeff and I are not ready hire an employee. Who are we to have a nanny? Ya know? The other thing is that our apartment is small and messy and no place for two babies to spend their days.

So, we are all in the land of the sick again. It is getting old. I can only hope that this will end soon and we will all get better fast. In the past month, we have had both a stomach flu and a cold and now a nasty cough. Blah.

I have not been answering my emails. I will get back to that soon. As soon as things calm down some. I also can't get my home email at my new job... poop!

Oh! New thing to report. Anya has a great sense of humor. Whenever someone does something weird, she laughs and laughs. Last night, I was nebulizing Rachel (for her cough and wheezing) and Rachel kept turning her head into her carseat to get away. Anya laughed and laughed. Then Rachel would peek out at her and Anya would laugh some more. We also caught them making each other laugh the other day. Anya was sitting up in her crib and decided to fall back. This made Rachel burst out laughing. Then Anya did it again and again to make Rachel laugh. Then Rachel did it to make Anya laugh. It is just amazing that at 7 months old, their sense of humor have developed. There are many minutes in my life when I hate being a mother. I will not sugar coat it. I hate being sick and having to take care of babies at the same time. I hate the stress that having twins has put on my life. I hate not sleeping. But then there is always redemption. There is always a wonderful moment when someone laughs at something silly and it is all worth it. I just hope those moments increase as time goes by.

It seems like Anya has gained like a pound in the past two days. She is just gigantic. We having been calling her LunchBox. I know, mean. But so funny. Along those lines, Rachi has come to be known as Bento Box.

Ok. Sorry if I haven't emailed you back. I have been busy fighting germs. I will get back to you soon.

Posted by tina at 9:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)