Last night I cleaned out the laundry room cabinet, only to find a really old bottle of Downy that had decided to leak and deposit blue/green waxy stuff on the shelf. Took me a while to clean it as well as throw away all sorts of products I have never used. I felt really good afterward.

So what was this bottle of Downy and other unused items doing in my laundry room? I got it from someone who didn't want to throw it away. They probably would have felt guilty for doing so; it would have been wasteful. I have never used these products and they have been wasting space in my cabinet. This person has often burdened me with their issues in such a way I became weighed down and stressed, and they were relieved. I realized with the disposal of the junk that I don't have to take their burdens. I can listen in an empathetic manner, but I do not have to carry these burdens. They are not mine to carry. I can put them out on the curb as I did the unused products and not let them take up any of my space.

Hi. Yes, it's Meg. I feel like I owe a post, but not feeling much creativity now. I'll do just a dry update:

1. I defended my dissertation almost a month ago. I am now officially a Ph.D. I don't feel different and it doesn't seem like people treat me any differently. I'm not sure what I expected, but the whole end process was definitely anticlimactic.

2. I am 14 weeks pregnant. Yes, I defended my dissertation, did taxes in one night, and threw a baby shower (which was the fun part of the three) all within the same two weeks or so. I'm not sure how everything got done. It was God.

3. Stuart and I have decided to postpone going to Peru until baby #2 a.k.a. "Monkey Wrench" is born. (MW will be a much cuter name for a boy...) We were thinking about going at the end of June and then coming back to the US to have MW. At that point we would have finished up what fund-raising needed to be done. For a wide variety of reasons we have decided that waiting would be the wiser choice. We are a little bummed that we're not going so soon, but maybe a little relieved at the same time; the pressure has been released.

4. My Aunt and Uncle (from Japan) decided not to come to my commencement because they're worried about catching swine flu. Slight overreaction in my opinion, but I suppose I would rather they feel safe. My parents and sister are still coming. Hurray! BTW, if you'd like to come, it's going to be super boring. May 22 (friday) at 10 am in the coliseum.

5. One year olds can be a lot of work sometimes, but they are so entertaining! Watching SRM learn and imitate is fascinating. The level at which she understands astounds me. It reminds me of the fact that just because people cannot communicate at a particular level doesn't mean that they're stupid. Like people who have degenerative muscular or nervous diseases - there is probably so much in their heads that they want to communicate, but because of their disorder, they can't get it out and people think they're dumb.

6. Our lab moved from the VA to UMC. Pluses: UMC has a good coffee shop, I don't have to walk over to seminars or administrative offices, no more noisy secretaries, I rejoin the rest of the microbiology department (sort of), and no more security checks at the door. Minuses: I have to park in the stadium parking - can be pretty bad on hot/rainy days, and I have to relearn where all the good snack machines are.

7. ?

Yes, I'm posting...

Recently, baby girl has dropped her nursings to twice a day. I don't mind. It's way more convenient. However, I now have reached the stage that the amount of calories I'm consuming is exceeding the amount of calories I'm burning. Some kind of activity is going to have to replace the missing 3-4 nursings or I'm going to have to cut back on the goodies.

I was able to eat dessert any time. So many times I'd have seconds. *sigh* I'm getting further away from fitting into my very skinny jeans (my favorite pair!). I actually fit into them when baby girl was 5 months, but ... oh wait, that's when she started solid food... gradually they've become tight enough to not be publicly acceptable for a 30-year old and now I can't button them without a little something over the waist band.

I've decided to begin seriously exercising. I now have access to the VA's workout room and if I go after most people have left for the day, I have the place to myself. I decided to start doing 30 minutes of cardio type workout three times a week for the first two weeks, and then throw in some weight work to help tone the muscles. I was hoping that increasing my activity level will be enough and i can consume more or less the same amount I had been. I try to remember what you always hear about getting in shape: you have to burn more calories than you intake. The problem is that doing cardio work makes me crave carbs like a crazy person. I see rice, cookies, pasta, etc. and my body tells me that i have to eat it. I try to resist, but it's as though I have a deficit and I have to make up for it. I do know that when you work out you initially burn the glycogen (long chain of glucose molecules) in your liver. Supposedly when you start running low on glycogen you begin to burn fat. I don't think I ever get to that point, not in 30 minutes. After exercising, my body tells me to eat glucose!!! It's replenishing the glycogen. So I have a theory. In the past, the times that I've lost the extra poundage and been able to fit in my jeans is when I've gone somewhere I have to walk alot. No excessive sweating or increased heart rate (>140bpm). In addition, I would be eating out alot and enjoying it. I am thinking that high intensity aerobic exercise burns up the glycogen and only begins to touch the fat stores when the glycogen begins to get really low. If I can anthropomorphize the body , I would imagine it would say something along the lines of, "Oh, we're working really hard, we need quick energy. We'll go to the reserves only if we need it." However if you're just doing a lot of walking at a normal pace, the body would burn some of the glycogen, but because the activity is not so intense, the body is at leisure to use some glycogen, and doesn't "feel" the necessity of sticking to the quick energy. The resources can be engaged to initiate fat burning.  [All this is unsubstantiated. It's only based on my personal perception and imagination :o) ]

Sometimes I think about how things were originally intended. Were we meant to go to gyms and spend an hour a day running on treadmills and starving ourselves, not able to enjoy food? I don't mean being gluttonous enjoyment. I would imagine people way back in the day would do a lot of walking for their transportation and would burn a lot of calories that way. None of this three times a week intense cardio stuff.

I would really like to begin walking to and from work. The only problem right now is that doing so would consume 1 hour per day, during which I couldn't be "productive." At the VA, I can start a PCR reaction and go work out while I wait for my products.

This is getting long. I don't know if anyone would be still reading, but I must go on.

The other issue about exercising is that I don't think stationary equipment do a person much good other than getting their heart going. Thinking about the physics of it, when you're on a stationary bike, the only part of you moving is your legs in little circles. You are not propelling your entire body through space. Remeber that work is defined as the product of distance and the force, and force is defined as mass times velocity. If you are biking on a real bike, you are moving your body and the bike a particular distance. On the stationary bike, the only mass moving are your legs.

Mass of your legs < Mass of whole body + bike 

Distance of legs moved < distance of body+bike in real biking.

Therefore

Work of stationary bike < work of real biking.

It just drives me crazy that these machines tell me (paraphrasing), "Yay! you've walked 5 miles and burnd 400 calories!!!" When I actually get outside and walk 5 miles I'm sore!

Solution? As of now, I think I'm going to ditch the intense stuff and the stationary machines. I'm just going to go walking with baby girl outside and do weights. we'll see what happens.

Ok disclaimer:
I know some of you may say, "oh Meg, you're so silly. you look fine. " Thank you for making me feel good, but I know where I'd like to be physically and this is not it.

I just posted some rantings. If you would like to read them, but do not have an LJ account, email me.

I found an old anime I used to watch in Japan. I idolized this character. I wanted her ability to transform into another character.



Is there anything you ever wanted to transform into?

We are going to Providence, RI the first week of October. Yes, we are bringing baby girl. Yes, we still hope that it will be a vacation regardless of the fact we'll be toting an 8 month old around.

We were not looking forward to the idea of toting the pack n play around the airport. Not to mention, we were planning on leaving behind a few things just to lighten the load we will have to carry around the airport.

My discovery? Baby equipment rental!!!!
What a concept! We won't have to tote the PNP around and we can even rent an exersaucer or high chair. This particular company also delivers. Yahoo!!!

Ok. I'm working in the lab at night which means I have dinner here (at my desk, not the lab). Sometimes I like to let things run on their own so while I am eating, I'm still being somewhat productive. I was filtering a solution and decided it was going too slow, so I set this up:

I'm siphoning my solution into the funnel with the filter. voila!

Rant:
People always talk about being out in the yard and worrying about stepping on a rusty nail, as if they could get tetanus poison from the rusty nail itself. It has nothing to do with a rusty (iron oxide) covered nail. What the real concern is that you step on something which has the bacterium Clostridium tetani or its spores which can be found in the ground.

If the object breaks the skin, the bacteria could multiply and release the toxins into your system. So it could be a piece of glass, or an aluminum (which would not rust) nail that might harbor the bugs. You just want to avoid getting cut by something that has been sitting in the soil or has been pooped on by some animal harboring C.t. in its GI.

The shoes are not too pretty, but people say they're comfy.

We received our economic stimulus payment check!!!
I am very excited. It's as though we won the lottery except most everyone will get one. It's hard to decide what to use it on. There are the wise choices:
A. Pay most of baby delivery expenses
B. Buy the much needed and overdue tires for both vehicles
C. Pay a decent chunk of a student loan

Not as wise, but fun choices:
A. Go on a vacation
B. Buy a better violin bow
C. Buy a Nintendo Wii
D. Of course, I could buy shoes

What are you going to do with your ESPC? See the link above to see the schedule if you haven't gotten yours.

JUST FOR FUN:
Mad libs valentine
I know it's  late, but it's still fun.

Adventure in cake decorating:
I decided to make a cake for a friend who happens to like Lance Van-O-lunch vanilla sandwich cookies. I had the crazy idea of making a cake that tried to look like one. I started at 11:30 pm yesterday. I chose to use cake mixes to save time: Duncan Hines classic white cake and Phillsbury butter yellow. I chose stabilized whipped cream frosting. I iced the cream part of the cookie which went fine. I then proceeded to use Betty Crocker gel food coloring to make the remaining icing a light tan (there was no brown food coloring at the store). Yuck. the frosting meandered from a pukey greenish color to a moldy lavender to a color I'd see only on an old petri dish gone bad. On top of that, the frosting began to separate. I had purple/green/maybe brown liquid with chunks of butter. I hoped that somehow beating the frosting would help it (like you can for custards), but it only made matters worse. I threw that away and began with "quick icing I" from the joy of cooking. It was fine until I tried to color it. Once again I managed to dance around brownish. I gave up and went to bed - 3 AM. In the morning I realized I could color the frosting with cocoa powder. I went to the store and got more heavy whipping cream. This time the color was decent and it was tasty too! I added the details of the cookie with Betty Crocker tube of white (I was running out of time!). It turned out ok. at least one person recognized what it was supposed to be. Not exactly what I had imagined in my head.

She had her four-month checkup the other day. She has doubled her birth weight and is now 26 inches. Strangely she's in the 98th percentile for weight and height. Strange because Stu and I are not 98th percentile people! The doctor said she's very healthy and to keep doing the same thing we've been doing. He also said that we could start solids if we wanted, but it's really not a big deal. I think I'm going to wait until she shows a little more interest in us eating or when what I give her is no longer enough. I am very excited at the prospect of giving her solids. I don't know what it is that seems so fun. Maybe because it's a sign of her growing and is the next milestone? (Did I mention she finally rolled over a week ago? - only from her back to front though, and she gets frustrated when she gets stuck on her tummy.)

I am running a DNA gel with 5 minutes left. Will post quickly.

I love being a mom. This is the hardest and most fulfilling thing I've ever done. I have come to accept that I just need to lay aside aspirations for getting the house clean and doing other "necessary" chores. We wear clean underwear everyday, so I suppose it's not too bad. I've laid aside desires for doing fun "me" activities such as sewing, leisure reading, keeping my ears very clean, etc. I'm ok with all of this, but... am I doing something wrong? Right now Baby Girl sleeps through the night (WOO HOO!!!) but nap time is like pulling teeth (I think she's about to start sprouting some). I am currently not using the "cry it out" method. I envy the moms who could just lay their babies down to fall asleep on their own; the struggle to sleep makes me sad. Maybe I'm spoiling BG by easing her into sleep. I don't want to knowingly set her up in a pattern that will "mess her up" later. (We're doing plenty of that by the fact that her parents are sinners!!!) I just don't know. I need to get stuff done, but she hardly naps. Do all babies do this?

I swing back and forth between two extremes: A. I am doing something wrong; BG's behavior is odd. OR B. I just have to keep doing what feels right and follow my instincts. Every child is drastically different, and I have to do what works for us.