So one of my high school friends shared a story on Facebook this morning with the comment, “ Married or not… you should read this.” I thought it was going to be one of those lighthearted, inspirational stories, even if it started out with the husband asking for a divorce. (I Googled the first few lines to find the original source of this story. You can read it on Snopes.)
I’m reading through, and the husband was cheating on his wife and decided to leave her for another woman. The wife is angry, then tells him she’ll agree to the divorce in one month, but he has to carry her out of the bedroom every day like when they were first married. I’m thinking there’s going to be this really romantic ending where he realizes he loves his wife after all, and he’ll stay with her and live happily ever after.
I figured I’d post a picture of my desk to show the bloggers at MomCrunch what a messy desk really looks like. Things got a little wonky when I tried to edit the photo, but I like the mystical purple glow that ended up surrounding my laptop. Yes, there are piles and piles of paper everywhere. And dirty dishes. And some used paper plates, napkins, and empty string cheese wrappers. My mostly-empty Tupperware cup of Pepsi Max. And my two-years-expired Member in Good Standing certificate from the Saratoga County Chamber of Commerce.
TJ and I have an after-school routine when he gets off the bus, and it was slightly thrown off today because Tom is home sick from work. I didn’t get my hug and kiss when TJ came through the door.
So instead of pointing out that he hadn’t done so and asking for him to come over and give me a hug and a kiss, I decided to get up from my desk, go over to where TJ was sitting on the couch, and just stare at him.
At first, I just got a sidelong glance as he continued to watch Curious George on PBS Kids. As I continued to stare at him, TJ furrowed his brow and shot me a few puzzled looks, but he still didn’t say anything. I got a few uneasy smiles and funny looks over the next 60 seconds or so before he finally looked at me and said, “Is this supposed to be a staring contest or something?”
So I laughed and told him, no, I just hadn’t gotten my hug and kiss when he got home. He laughed, too, before he hugged and kissed me.
So apparently there’s been another factor in my increasing waistline that I didn’t even realize until this week… My prescription medication. Depression itself is a huge factor in my appetite and eating habits, but apparently my antidepressant of choice is, too.
It turns out that Effexor XR (venlafaxine hydrochloride) has a side effect of weight gain. I just never noticed it before because I’ve been on a relatively low dose for approximately two years, so the increase in my appetite was insidiously unnoticeable. This is likely because the drug I switched from was Remeron (mirtazapine) – which had me absolutely ravenous all day, every day. By comparison, Effexor brought my appetite back to normal.
But my doctor and I agreed to increase my dosage this week, and I haven’t felt full for more than 30 minutes after a good meal since then. With weight loss as one of my goals for 2012, this is a big problem. And no – I can’t stop taking it. Effexor XR helps me too much. I need it for my mental health; I don’t think I could function without it.
Most people I know have some sort of weight loss or fitness goal, if they make New Year’s resolutions at all. Well, I know me, and I’ve gone and done just that. Why? Because 4.5 years ago, I posted this about how I’d gotten down to 135 pounds after having TJ. I’ve put on slightly more than 20 pounds since then, and it’s really stressing me out. It’s not just a body image issue, it’s an I-can’t-afford-to-buy-a-whole-new-wardrobe issue. I’ve purchased two new pairs of size 10 jeans after having to retire a few too-tight pairs of size 8 jeans, but the rest of the size 8s are pretty uncomfortable, too.
As a Mom Select member, I was asked to try out GoalForIt’s Chore Chart and review it on my blog in exchange for financial compensation. It sounded like something I’d want to check out anyways, since we’ve done sticker charts with TJ in the past, so I went for the opportunity. (Don’t worry: even though I am getting paid for talking about the chore chart, my opinions are my own, and I always give my honest opinion!) TJ was recently asking me when we were going to start a new sticker chart for him anyways, so this spurred me into action!
There are a lot of great lessons that kids learn on the television shows on Nick Junior, Disney Junior, and PBS Kids. Kids learn manners, how to share with friends, how to recognize and understand feelings, and a host of other helpful things by watching their favorite characters. But there are also some really horrible lessons some of these shows are trying to teach them. Here are some of the worst.
You Don’t Need to Respect Your Friends’ Boundaries
No, Virginia, you can’t have people LIKE your Facebook page as a method of entry for your blog giveaway. Facebook released a video earlier in December that has confused much of the blogosphere. The video can be summed up as Facebook’s official Facebook promotion guidelines.
The most important thing to note is that it is the official FACEBOOK PROMOTION guidelines. The video is specifically address the rules for how to administer a contest or sweepstakes ON FACEBOOK. This is not a set of rules for blog giveaways. This video is telling you the rules for how to run a promotion that is being administered via a Facebook tab on a Facebook page. When it talks about third party apps, it is talking about third party Facebook apps like Wildfire.
