Socal Mom by Donna Schwartz Mills

Look Before You Leap Day

Did you notice that it's Leap Day?

If you are like me, dates on the calendar only have significance in relation to your children's activities and your volunteer commitments. It takes me a while to put the calendar in the context of a holiday, or (in today's case) a rare day that only comes once every four years. So consider this a Public Service Announcement.

I mean, how many times have your caught yourself wishing the day had more than 24 hours so you might have a shot at completing all the tasks on your To-Do list? I know I've said that about a zillion times this week, as I haven't even made a dent in all the things I'd planned to finish.

So this year, we have an entire extra DAY. What are you going to do with it?

That's the question posed by Heather Cabot, publisher of The WellMom, weekly Huffington Post contributor, and the Web Life editor at Yahoo!. The latter company polled 2,000 adults to see what they would like to do with their extra day, and discovered this:

80% chose doing something fun like hanging out with family/friends, going on some wild excursion or shopping

63% said they might work, do some sort of organizing around the house or clean the garage

40% would do some online clean up, like cleaning their email box, their many online profiles or back up computer files

What about you? I'm with the 80% who would do something fun! Today is a minimum day for my daughter, so she and I and her best friend and mom are going to have a "ladies' lunch" and shopping.

Too bad we can't enjoy extra "Leap Days" more often -- or can we? Heather Cabot has some tips to help you make more time for yourself.

(This post is continued at my Review blog, SoCal Stuff.)

links for 2008-02-29

• The Down Fall of Main Stream Media=a few MOMS
  Erin Vest makes some interesting points about the power of the new media and how women are wielding it.
  (tags: politics internet twitter web mommyblog momocrats)

Just Call Me Hussein

I wish I was as funny and fierce as Stefania Pomponi Butler, who is one of the forces behind the MOMocrats.

Like anyone with a brain, she's outraged by all the brouhaha certain so-called pundits have been making over Barack Obama's middle name. So she came up with this great idea: Just Call Me Hussein Day.

Here's what Stefania says:

We here at MOMocrats have decided to make today an impromptu "Just Call Me Hussein" Day in response to people like Bill Cunningham... who is obviously still seven-years-old.

Read more here (including my own contribution).

New Beginnings, New Routines

Tuesday was my final day as a patient at the weight loss clinic.

From the time I started in mid-July until the finish of my third weight-loss module two weeks ago, I lost a total of 54 pounds, and shrunk from a size 14 to a size 2.

I know this for a fact - my new favorite hobby is going into clothing stores, trying on the 2's -- which look impossibly small -- and then marveling that they fit. (That doesn't mean they all look good on me -- just that I can zip them over my hips and zip them up.) Then I put the clothes back on the racks and move on. I have yet to clean out my closet and dresser, and I need to, because the clothes that do fit are about 20 years old and the rest are way too big. Then, maybe I can figure out what I really NEED and actually BUY something.

I'll get around to it in time.

Anyway -- my culmination from weight loss into Maintenance marks the end of the routine I've followed faithfully for the last several months: After dropping Megan at school, I swing over to the clinic for my weigh-in and counseling session, then to the gym for my daily workout (except on those days when I see my trainer, as he doesn't get in until the afternoon... and days like today, when it's convenient to go late afternoon while my daughter is in Hebrew school).

Now, my visits to the clinic are optional. They suggest I come in three times a week to start, eventually tapering off to once a week. I told them I planned to continue coming in daily.

Then I spent my first Maintenance day consuming 100 more calories than I was supposed to, and my bathroom scale this morning reflects it.

The routine I just finished only allowed me a very limited variety of food (adding up to a total of 600-800 calories per day). I kept track of what I ate, but only added up the carbs.

Now, I'm supposed to track EVERYTHING: Calories, carbs, fat grams and protein. I was given a new form to fill out for my food diary, and a new, very comprehensive, pocket sized book to aid me in this task -- which took me about a half hour to do after every meal and snack yesterday.

My new maintenance routine allows me a lot more leeway on what I can eat, and a calorie target of 1400. You would think that would be enough after practically starving myself for the last six months.

I know - one hundred calories isn't a lot in the long run, but if I do that every day, it won't take me long to regain everything I've worked so hard to lose. And believe me, those National Enquirer photos of Kirstie Alley have me spooked. I don't want that to happen to me.

Self-sabotage is one of my biggest fears, and I'm not alone. Carmen, who has achieved the incredible feat of losing 80 pounds WITHOUT the assistance of an army of nurses and trainers, also worries - as do the folks who visit her diet site. I understand and share the fear. Anyone who has succeeded in overcoming the weight yo-yo is going to worry that what's gone down will inevitably go back up.

So today is another day. I have a lot of work to get done (which is one of the stresses that might make me go off program), so I decided to skip the counseling session. If I finish the day below my target calories and work out a little harder tonight, I should be able to go for my weigh in tomorrow without much change.

Anyway, that's the plan. For the rest of my life.

In Over My Head

If you read yesterday's post, you would be forgiven for thinking today's title refers to my little 15-Minute post experiment. Sheesh. All I can say is that I think I was preoccupied with the specter of that dental appointment, and I never got to the point that I intended to make...

...which is that this week, I'm feeling that same old fear I've always had -- that people will see through me, think I'm a fraud or a total asshat.

In the fall, I volunteered to run for the parent board of directors' at my daughter's gym (which is a non-profit). The other members of the board -- in their real-world, non-parent lives -- have some high powered experience as business executives, attorneys, bankers. And me? Aside from some entertainment industry experience from 20 years ago (which never got any closer to an executive's suite than the secretary's desk outside) and a few years as a meeting planner -- consists of what you see right here. DIY web stuff and blogging.

I had thought that I could use that experience to do something about the gym's dreadful website and improve communication with team parents, but I've hit several roadblocks on the former, and all I've accomplished on the latter is to establish a little networking site for the parents on Ning. (And I've sadly neglected that -- it needs to be nourished to make it viable for everyone).

Tuesday night's board meeting was an interesting one (to put it mildly). There were issues that had to be dealt with. But I really couldn't contribute much wisdom or experience to the situation at hand. As the title says, I'm in over my head. And I hope the other board members don't notice.

I'm feeling that way a lot lately, and I have to remind myself that I DO have experience to bring to the table, even if it's not traditional. I've been asked to send a bio to one of the new collaborative sites I'm
contributing to now, and as I tick off my past lives ("radio producer," "interviewer of rock stars," "music video programmer," "WGA Member") I remember why I once thought of naming this blog "I USED to be Interesting."

I just wish I was interesting NOW.

links for 2008-02-27

• Fabulous After 40: Oscars~ Red Carpet Reviews!
  I want Helen Mirren's hairdo.
  (tags: fashion oscar academyaward celebrity)
• Deadline Hollywood Daily » The 411 About David Letterman & Oscar
  Interesting...
• Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business
  A study of "freeconomics" - Thanks to Beth of http://www.techmamas.com for this one.
  (tags: free economics business marketing technology wired web)
• Deadline Hollywood Daily » Gil Cates Apologizing To Whoopi, But…
  When I first read this, I thought Gil Cates apologized for obit omissions. Click on the link in the post to see what Nikki Finke has to say about it.
  (tags: hollywood oscars academyawards obituaries)
• Soccer Mom style: What to wear on the weekend | BlogHer
  Since losing weight, I've been trying to figure out what kind of new clothes to buy. Here's a guide that not only fits my lifestyle, but indicates that I'm already halfway there (just need to get a couple of more stylish pieces - like shoes)
  (tags: fashion style mom)

A Day in the Life

You Stay at Home Moms... What the heck do you DO all day?

Yesterday began as Mondays usually do: running late for school.

I dropped Megan off, drove to the diet clinic for my daily weigh in (today is the last official day on the program - tomorrow I begin "Lifetime Maintenance"), drove to the gym. I'm still supposed to spend one day a week eating nothing but their product (which I usually refer to as "glop"). Mondays are usually that day. After gym, I pulled out a "protein bar" and gobbled it in the car, on my way to my next stop.

And here's where yesterday veered off from my usual routine Mondays: I had an appointment to meet with my friends from LexieWear. As I mentioned before, I have bartered web work for them in exchange for new clothes. They had some data entry for me to do and I had an order to pick up.

Fortunately, the data entry was something I could do at home. And as that's something that doesn't require a lot of mind work, I decided to postpone it until the evening, when my brain is no longer functional for more complicated activities -- like blogging. So I hightailed it out of there, ran some more errands and pulled into my current favorite Starbucks (the one close to Megan's new school, as opposed to the one near her old one). It was lunchtime. I pulled out another protein bar.

I spent the next two hours writing yesterday's two-part post on this blog and SoCal Stuff. At 2:00, I grabbed my things, got back in the car and drove past my daughter's school.

The kid usually gets out of school feeling ravenous, even though I pack her a pretty big lunch. And since Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are training days for her, she needs a protein snack before she begins four hours of intensive gymnastics conditioning. We usually stop and get a turkey sandwich on our way to the gym, but I had been asked to help out in the gym snack bar yesterday afternoon, and wanted to get there as soon as possible -- so I went to Subway first and got Megan her sandwich...

...only to discover that someone else had already opened the snack bar. (They finally got someone to handle Mondays on a permanent basis - hooray!) This was good news, because there was a meeting of the gym's board of directors at 6:00, and I would have had to close the bar early.

So I hung around the gym until the meeting -- which did not conclude until after 9:00 p.m.

I had been out of the house since 7:30 a.m.

And in that time, I got a TON of email.

I answered back as many as comfortable on ye old Blackberry (I LOVE that thing)... but I have spent all THIS morning finishing that task. I even skipped the gym -- because I have a dentist's appointment in an hour.

Fun in Long Beach

My university student niece and nephew were visiting us this weekend. Rather than just sit around and hang for two days, we decided to take advantage of a brief moment of sunshine Saturday to visit the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach.

Our family could be classified as "Aquarium People." My sister's in-laws (Carly and Alex's grandparents) have long been involved with San Pedro's Cabrillo Marine Museum. This is the oldest marine education facility in Southern California; in operation for over 70 years, and their innovative programs have served as a model for many of the public aquariums that have opened since, including the larger, more famous ones in Monterey and California's newest one in Long Beach. One of the best things about Cabrillo is that it is owned by the City of Los Angeles and is FREE to the public (they do request that visitors consider leaving a discretionary donation).

"Don't tell Grammy we're going to Long Beach," my niece admonished her brother.

The Aquarium of the Pacific IS bigger, more modern and has a location advantage: downtown Long Beach has become a really happening place, with restaurants, shopping and nice hotels.

That's a good thing, because the moment we got there, my husband announced he was hungry (which usually means we must drop everything and feed the beast -- he has low blood sugar or something, so these things must be taken care of quickly). It was warm and sunny, so we walked along the pier to the Shoreline Village restaurant development and ended up at the YardHouse: Great salads, sandwiches and a huge beer menu (which we did not partake of -- will have to save that for another visit).

Lunch done, it was time to head back to the Aquarium.

(Oops! The 15 minutes I've allocated for writing posts on my main blog is up... this post continues over on my Review Blog, Socal Stuff. View more photos of our day in Long Beach at Flickr.)

The 15-Minute Challenge

I've overextended myself again! So I'm trying an experiment: For the next few weeks (until I figure out how to better manage my time), I am going to post here every day... but limit the time I spend writing posts on SoCal Mom to just 15 minutes.

links for 2008-02-25

• Citizen of the Month » A Little Anorexia is Hot
  I love Neil's honest insights into the male psyche. Well, often the insights are into his own psyche, but he seems like a pretty representative man. :)
  (tags: bodyimage men women advertising marketing)
• Karl Rove 60 Minutes Expose: GOP Operative Explains Smear Campaign - Politics on The Huffington Post
  Thanks to Karoli (http://www.drumsnwhistles.com) for this link. I will most likely miss 60 Minutes in favor of the Oscars -- but this story is important. I'd like to see Rove and his crew prosecuted for stunts like this.
  (tags: politics election dirtytricks corruption karlrove)