Yes, that's right, we're moving to Portland

As some (most?) of you that follow me on social media may know, I have left my 7.5 year position at Squarespace.

I’ll let that sink in for a minute.

I know! I’m freaking out too. Well, not really anymore, I’ve actually had a lot of time to come to terms with it and am actually very very happy. And freaking out a little. Ok, maybe more than a little.

A little over 3 years ago I moved my family up here to NJ so we could be closer to work. Our apartment is tiny, but the area where we live is beautiful (if not super expensive) and the schools are lovely. For the first time in a long time we hated the physical space where we lived, but our girls were able to enroll in activities (swimming, gymnastics, Girl Scouts, karate, and on and on) and everything was great.

Until it wasn’t.

I had to deal with hellish commutes (whether by car or by train) and loads and loads of time away from my girls on a daily basis. At one point it was not uncommon for me to leave the house before they woke up, and to come home after they had gone to sleep. Everything is expensive. Groceries, activities, riding the train, etc. I briefly entertained the idea of moving into Brooklyn to make the commute shorter, but I couldn’t justify 2x the rent for less space and having to go to a laundromat or taking a taxi to the grocery store.

Eventually I reached a breaking point.

I hadn’t picked up a book that wasn’t work-related, or touched a knitting needle or sewing machine, or even done any of the projects around the house that I had really wanted to get done. Let’s put it this way: only about 3 months ago did I hang curtains in the living room. I was losing the person that I thought I was, or the person that I want to be.

I just couldn’t live like that anymore.

In my travels I’ve been to Portland now twice, and we have lots of friends that live in that general area. Not to mention my family, Bryan’s family, and most of our history is in SoCal, which makes Portland an easy choice (close enough to travel without major expense) and it definitely seems like our kind of people. (Coffee! Tattoos! Cross stitch with bad words on it!)

I’m mentally trying to recover and separate who I am, my life, my self-worth, from the work I used to do for Squarespace. It’s been in some ways an easy transition, but in some ways it’s been very very difficult. What has continued to propel me forward is my love of my family and figuring out who *I* am and what I have to offer.

Customer Service is most certainly my career passion, and I hope to continue that work when we move. I want to learn, grow, and be challenged. I want to go somewhere where I can have proper work/life balance and continue to spread my customer service philosophy. I want to go somewhere where I can meet, learn from, and be inspired by new people.

With this transition for not just me, but our whole family, I see lots of bare feet, hands in potting soil, more time for home projects, making bath paints and building a dress-up wardrobe. It is possible to have an appropriate work/life balance, and it is possible to have a happy home life and a happy work life. I didn’t choose to come to NYC because I wanted to - but I am choosing Portland, and therein lies the difference.

So, forward we go, flying a little bit by the seat of our pants but with light hearts and high hopes. We’re ready to jump in with both feet.

xo

Fitness & Being Healthy

Shit, you guys.  I’ve literally written this post in my head like a millions times, and just sat here and wrote out, then deleted 3 posts about it.  Writing about this is hard, and I’m struggling with how much to say, and how much background to give, and what’s the right way to talk about this.  This is all extremely personal, but I’m really proud of myself and I want to share my progress.  

I will say this: I have body-image issues.  I guess I’ll probably always have them.  I try not to talk about it much, and I try to watch what I say around my girls.  For a very long time I’ve worn clothes that hide my shape because my body and I, well, we have a complicated relationship.  It’s been very emotionally hard on me doing this whole weight loss thing.  My instinct is to just stop eating.  Period.  I’m fighting that instinct, but it’s something I struggle with every. single. day.  I don’t want my kids to think that starving yourself is healthy, or heaven forbid “normal.”

It’s hard to convey how far I’ve come without really getting into all the nitty-gritty details.  I get that.  But for me, this journey isn’t just about another mom who decided to get off her ass and work out.  For me, it’s much much deeper than that.  For me, this is about trying to change the way I feel about me, the way I think about me, the way I take care of me.

Around the end of September I forced myself to get off my ass and work on myself.  I sort of didn’t want to talk about it, because it’s a really hard thing for me to do.  Also, if I failed, I didn’t want anyone to know.  I also get really tired of hearing, “What? But you look great for having 4 kids!”  That’s like a knife in the guts.  I just want to look good, and frankly the number of kids I’ve had shouldn’t factor into it.  

I’ve lost about 15 pounds since I started this whole thing.  I went from 150lbs to 135lbs, and that was a shit-ton of work.  I don’t do diets, and I never will.  That’s not what this is about for me.  This is about making overall healthier choices.  This is about choosing to continue to eat while trying to lose weight.  For me, that’s fundamentally counter-intuitive.  My brain screams at me to stop putting food in my mouth, and I have to fight that feeling and sometimes it’s exhausting.

But look, I’ve come really far.  I have photos on Flickr (they’re marked private to friends and family because I don’t want the whole internet to see me in my underwear) so if you check out my Fitness set you’ll see my progress.  The last one I took was about 2 weeks ago, and I’m fine sharing that because it’s not too revealing.  Those are pants that I used to be able to wear, and then pushed to the back of my closet because they were too tight.  I took them out just to see if they would fit me now, and they’re loose.  Which absolutely shocked me.

I’m not done, I’m not 100% where I want to be, but I get that I’m a work in progress.  I’m starting to be a little bit more proud of the way I look.  I’m starting to wear clothes that are flattering, that don’t hide my shape.  I like showing off my baby arm-muscles, because I worked really hard to get them.  My new goal is to get some abs and get more muscular definition, whatever the number on the scale says.  I’m starting to care less about how much I weigh, and more about making myself stronger.  I would like to get my overall body fat percentage down, but I’m not going to say no to a piece of cake, and I’m sure as shit going to eat pizza if I feel like eating pizza.  So, we’ll see what happens.

But I’m getting better and better every day, and I’m sticking with it.  I’m giving myself a big hug right now, because frankly I deserve it.

Halloween. In November.

Oh hai.  So, yesterday we finally celebrated our Halloween.  Hurricane Sandy blew through right before Halloween, so our festivities were postponed.  And then postponed again. And then finally we were told that we could take the kids trick-or-treating from 1pm-4pm yesterday.  

I have to tell you, the whole thing was pretty sad.  I don’t think we would’ve even done it this year, but the kids had been begging and begging to get dressed up in their costumes.  I guess all the makeup testing I did sort of fueled the fire there. Oh well.

Our pumpkins (we actually found some this year!) had been stored in a dark closet for days and days, and then it occurred to us that we should probably take them out before they fell to pieces.   It was almost too late, but we put them outside anyway.  Where the squirrels then began to feast upon them.  They actually ate clean through one pumpkin, those little suckers.  

So we scraped the mold off and worked around the half-eaten mess, and carved our sad mushy pumpkins.  There was a pumpkin or two that made it through relatively unscathed, so I was even able to roast some seeds. 

After pumpkin carving I got the girls all dressed up, and we went trick or treating.  Many houses weren’t participating this year, and some of the ones that did only put a bowl of candy out on their porches.  It made us all a little sad, only because half of the fun is having an adult hand you candy while telling you how scary/cute/great your costume looks.  

The neighborhood still looks pretty bad after the storm.  The streets are covered in leaves and branches, and there are many houses that sustained damage and were clearly vacant.  It was a fairly somber affair.

I’m glad the town did reschedule, though, and I’m glad the girls had an opportunity to show off their scariness (or in Charlie’s case, her super-hero-ness).  Last year we had a 3-day power outage for Halloween, and this year we had a hurricane.  I have to say, I’m a little nervous what next year will bring.

Ack, projects!

The kids go back to school in a few short weeks, and I have yet to sew them a single thing for school.  Gah.  I at least need to make them their typical “first day of school” dresses, and I was hoping to have a few extra things thrown in there for good measure (shorts, tees, casual dresses?), but I’m running short on time.  

Also, I know a few people having babies soon, so I wanted to get some handmade gifts squared away for them.  I’ve started the sweetest afghan pattern ever, and thankfully it’s working up quickly.

I also have my eye on this sweater and this bonnet, but I seriously doubt with my slow-ass knitting skills that I would be done in time.

And that doesn’t cover Halloween, either.  I’m making 3 custom costumes again this year, and they’re pretty ambitious, involving lots of material and hand-made pieces.  I have to sew a leotard.  I’ve never sewn a leotard, people.  I must be losing my mind.

Ah, well.  Too many projects? I wouldn’t have it any other way. :)

Belle goes to Junior Prom

Read: AND THEN I DIED.   Our biggest big kid is 14, and in 8th grade.  Which means junior prom.  Lemme tell you, there is nothing junior about how old she looks now.

I did her hair and nails.  She did her makeup.

She bought her dress, I bought her shoes.

She borrowed my cardigan and handbag.

*sigh*  I'm so scared for the real prom, you guys.  I need a pause button right now.  PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE.