i’ll be writing a post soon about my latest epiphany on staying-at-home. tom hears a lot more of my rants (negative and positive) than what appears on this blog. as i hear his. that’s (exchange of rants) what marriage is all about, right?

Tammy — this is funny to me because Tom ordered a dr. pepper at chickfila last night (tues. are our ritual night with Grampa bec. kids eat free; and with Grampa generously paying often, it doesn’t interfere too much with the spending moratorium). anyway, i assume tom was being helpful to me by ordering dr. pepper rather than his usual coke, bec. he knew i wouldn’t be tempted by it like i would have been if a coke had been sitting at the table.

You are a much, much, much stronger woman than I.

GOOD LUCK TO YOU!! Hope to see you later today.

By the way, Shannon commented to me today about how much she actually enjoys being a stay-at-home mother. She was kicking herself for complaining about it so much earlier. Wow, she is really coming around to some new realizations lately.

Shannon- i went through the same thing with Diet Coke. for a LONG time i had to have it. i promised my husband that i wouldn’t drink it anymore, so i “quit” it. it has been 2 years, and i recently gave in and let myself have one. it made me sooo sick. you’re definetly better off without it. keep it up!

Adam chides me for my chocolate ?addiction? Not sure if it’s a real addiction but I really love it. I can and do go days here and there without, so maybe not an addiction. I guess what I’m really addicted to is sugar. Not like candy, but baked goods: cookies, cake, ice cream, yum. Someday I might just swear it off altogether. For now, get this: Adam has 5% body fat. How is a girl supposed to feel next to that? Yes, I know it’s an unhealthy percentage. Still, I’m 6x that. Adam bought a new scale that calculates that stuff–you’ll have to try it when you’re here!

Keep up the good work!

yes, water is just a TINY BIT boring. i like crystal light (the grapefruit flavor is my favorite) and walmart makes pretty good generic stuff. i do dilute it quite a bit, though, because it’s pretty strong. (diluting is good on this because i’m sure that aspartame stuff isn’t the greatest… but that is a subject for another day).

as i said, my headaches haven’t really been as painful as some of the other times (i am a serial quitter too). it’s more like i feel i’m operating under a great thick cloud. hopefully this will pass in a couple of weeks. if i were to get a headache that ibuprofen can’t handle, i wouldn’t hesitate to take one of those excedrin migraine pills (which do contain caffeine, but as i said, this would be in an extreme case, and since it’s already been 5 days, i think i’m definitely over the worst).

i feel almost silly being so dramatic about this kind of addiction. i’m sure it’s not as bad as a nicotine habit or alcoholism, obviously, but it is still a major lifestyle change for me: kids being awful–drink a mountain dew; frustrated with the computer–drink a mountain dew; tired but still have tons to do–drink a mountain dew. plus, i like how it tastes.

thanks for the support, Marie!

1. To ease the transition, drink a glass of iced tea each day, it doesn’t have as much caffeine as soda but has enough to keep the headaches at bay until yo’ve gotten used to the lower dose, then you can stop the tea too.

2. Instead of water, which, I’m sorry, just doesn’t cut it, LOL, try keeping around a lot of beverage options that don’t have caffeine but are tasty, so you actually want to drink them. Tampico is good, and it’s about $1.50 a gallon (in the dairy section). I also like Gatorade. There is also caffeine free Pepsi and such.

Good luck!