The 15 Week Shape Up

So at some point I read that men are more likely to view their houses as the places that they live, whereas women are more likely to view their houses as a part of themselves-  which allows a messy, disorganized house to reduce a woman's self confidence, while it would have little to no impact on a man's confidence. (I can't find the article, but here's another interesting read on the gender gap of self confidence).  For sure, I feel like my house reflects on me, so it messes with my confidence when I know it's a disaster. But then again, my confidence is already kind of messed up right now anyway. There are aspects of both the house and myself that are kind of embarrassing and cringe-worthy, that I've been very slowly trying to fix up or just putting off altogether. For a variety of reasons, the time has come to get both the house and myself back in shape.

house shame 1: the plywood gap-filler between the dining room and kitchen floors

Part A: Me
So, more than a year since having a kid, I'm still carrying pregnancy weight that just won't get lost. I'm tired of not fitting into a bunch of my clothes and feeling not like myself. I have been losing weight steadily over the past 8 or 9 months, but not fast enough - so it's time to get in gear. My goal: in 15 weeks, I will lose 15 pounds. I don't want to turn this into a weight loss blog, but I'm tired of feeling crappy about myself and ready to be back to normal.

Part B: The House
If you've seen our house lately, you would think that we're in the middle of major construction - but really nothing much has happened in quite a while. After the Great Renovation of 2014, we left a bunch of half-finished spaces that we thought we could close up ourselves, but never got around to. Other spaces, like the bathroom and kitchen, have not been touched really since we moved in - more than 3 years ago. The time has come. First, the spaces are just hideously ugly and constantly filthy, which drives me crazy. Second, the kid is basically walking now, and can easily and quickly get to all of the hazardous and dangerous places - which are of course, exactly where he wants to be. He crawls over plywood floors, tries to eat bits of plaster that fall from the ceiling, and picks at the chipping paint and black mold - so, as a well-intentioned parent, I need to do something for his safety. Third, most of these spaces are completely nonfunctional - we have piles of books and office supplies in the office, and piles of trash and donations in the half bath. So, the goal is to finish up all the partially finished spaces (half bath, mudroom, dining room, kitchen, sleeping porch/office) and to redo the main bathroom - or, generally to fix anything that makes me cringe. This is a considerable amount of work to do, but not quite the entire house to-do list - these are just the big projects that have safety/health issues, or major functionality issues. I'll leave the smaller cosmetic things, like refinishing the fireplace hearth, for another time. We've already got a contractor lined up to get started on some of this, but will do most of the work ourselves.

house shame 2: "mudroom"

Here's the list:

• Finish the back porch
• Close in open ceilings and floors in kitchen and dining room
• Fix the eyesores & other hazards in the kitchen
• Finish Mudroom
• Finish Half Bath
• Finish Office
• Refinish main bathroom
• Finish the entryway
• Renovate the kitchen?

For the Boy
So, obviously, this is largely for myself, but it is also hugely related to the kid (as is, basically everything we do now). On the house front, most of the projects on the list are there because they pose health or safety risks to the kid - either rough edges that he could cut himself on or flaking paint and plaster that he could choke or poison himself with.  It's impossible to make a completely hazard-free house, but it would be damn close to irresponsible if we don't fix these things. On the me front, while he isn't quite talking yet, he is already absorbing and repeating just about everything we do in front of him, so we are clearly teaching him all kinds of things right now, including both healthy and unhealthy habits. Just as I wouldn't want him eating junk food and sitting around playing video games all day, I wouldn't want him to feel self conscious about his body when he's older - and that all starts right now. So my goal is to create both healthy lifestyle and habits that he will see and repeat - like exercising and eating lots of produce, and to eliminate unhealthy body shaming and weight loss mentalities.  If we had a girl - I would be even more psycho about this, but even boys get a lot of pressure about body image, so I want to get him off to a good start.

this guy. 

The Plan
So, for me - the plan is the obvious  "exercise more, eat less bad stuff" plan. I'm signing up for a 10 mile race in October to keep me on track - so I have plenty of time to build my base before starting a 10 week training plan. I'll plan to mostly use my lunch hour at work for running and a couple yoga classes for weight training/flexibility to reduce my likelihood of injuring my bad knee. I'll have to do long runs on the weekend, so scheduling that around the boy will be a little tricky. For food,  I'm going to make an effort to bring in my lunch and snacks so that I don't have to buy food at work, and will cut back on useless calories at home.

house shame 3: the current office/sleeping porch

For the house - we have already hired a contractor to get started on some of the stuff we can't do ourselves. For the rest of the stuff, the plan will be to work  mostly during weekend nap times, with some minor work during weeknights after the boy goes to bed. We might also have to take a day off here and there. Balance will be key - since we also want to do fun summer stuff and don't want to waste the whole summer working on miserable projects.

So, a very ambitious, but hopefully doable plan to get everything back in shape by the fall. I'll report back with updates as we proceed. Wish me luck!