Month: May 2020

Posted in family, momlife, parenting

Finishing up Quarantine Homeschool

Posted on by Mom Boss

This has been a crazy time for all of us hasn’t it? A lot of us have been working from home, kids have been sent home from school, businesses have been shut down, events canceled, no sports… 

I can honestly say that I have had it way easier than most of you, being that I was already a stay at home mom, not much really changed for me. Except, of course, that I had both children in my face…all day….everyday…no breaks. I try not to complain too much about it though, because again, I know all this Coronavirus Craziness is a million times harder for working parents who now have to find childcare for their children AND still find the time to help their kids with their homework after they get home from work… and God forbid spend any quality time with their kids after that or… *gasp* alone time by themselves. God bless you working parents; because you all really are some of the MVP’s of  coronavirus. 

However, us stay-at-home moms wouldn’t mind having a drink, or 6, with you sometime too… cuz’ man, are we sick of our kids… Well, I suppose I should only speak for myself. But I have a feeling, a lot of you are right there with me. Listen, I love these little monsters more than life itself… but all I want, seriously, is to be able to take a dump without someone yelling “mommy” or barging in and showing me something on an ipad or playing barbies at my feet. I mean… get away from me, ya know? …Too harsh? 

Anyway, what was this blog about? OH… finishing up homeschooling. That’s right…

So depending on your district, you may still have a few weeks left, our district wraps up at the end of next week so it’s crunch time here in the McDaniel house.

This entire homeschool thing has been a struggle for both me and Eli. I’m not a teacher. I don’t have the temperament or patience for this kind of stuff. The young kids are hard to get focused because since school was let out, most of them have switched to Summer mode. I totally get it. You’re not on your regular schedule, you’re not in a school building, not with your peers or teachers… I GET IT. But listen pal, I graduated the first grade about 26 years ago- I’m not doing this for me… I’m not just doing this for fun. So we’ve pushed on- through the tantrums, whining, complaining, the sloppy work, distractions- and here we are, the last two weeks.

So what can we do to really knock out these last couple weeks of school? Let’s see….

  1. Write out a delicious color coded homework chart for the week
    • Start with what time to start each day (earlier in the day, before they get too involved with Piggy from Roblox)
    • Include what assignments you want to finish that day and any videos or practices you want to go through that day as well
    • Add time for finishing late work. Let’s be honest.. no one’s perfect, we may not finish something in the time we allotted so if you have a day that may be a little shorter than others, use that day to finish up some homework that’s still incomplete.
  1. Next thing you’re going to do is take your schedule, crumple it, and completely disregard it because… Girl, you aren’t going to follow it anyway…
    • It’s the end of the semester, we’ve been homeschooling for 2+ months now…we know our kids don’t give a damn about our schedules. We are hanging on by a thread. A color coded schedule isn’t going to save you; but it does give you something to do when you’re bored having your morning coffee….

DO NOT OVERTHINK THIS

  • You are a parent, not a teacher (Well, some parents are teachers- y’all handle your own business though..lol.) We are not meant to operate like a school, no matter how much we try, our young elementary kids are not going to take us or the school work seriously- we are just not that specific authority figure.
  • Homeschooling is completely possible, but it takes time and consistency. Because this has only been for a few months… it’s basically just been a crap storm. If you were to do homeschooling for your kids full time, permanently, you would eventually fall into a rhythm and it could work out. 
  • Do not think you’re a bad parent because you’re struggling with this. MOST OF US ARE.
    • Your kid will be fine if you didn’t submit every single assignment
    • Don’t worry if you’re not submitting their work in on time- just try your best to get it done by the end of the semester
    • Your teachers are NOT judging you. They are having just as hard of a time with all of this as we are. They get it. 
    • Keep pushing because we’re almost done
    • The fact that you’re trying at all, is a testament to your ability and dedication to parenting.

None of us are sure what the future holds for fall semester with school, hopefully some answers come soon. One thing I do know… if I need to homeschool all Fall semester I may start putting away money now for my own personal Teachers Assistant.

Keep on pushing moms and dads because Summer is almost here! Then we can make our children be outside all day and hopefully we can all get a little bit more peace!

Posted in weight loss

A Mom’s Transformation

Posted on by Mom Boss

Happy Mother’s Day everyone!

Since my last blog post was a transformation update on my kids and their development, I figured this week I should update everyone on my own transformation progress!

As I’ve mentioned in a past blog, with the help of my doctor, I’ve been working on a serious weight loss journey. 

When I started my antidepressants after my daughter was born in 2017, around 2 ½ years ago, my energy started decreasing and my weight started increasing. Last summer I was the heaviest I have ever been at 194lbs. Since January I have lost around 30 pounds.

I have been taking Phentermine for several months now to help boost my energy levels and decrease my appetite. So what am I doing aside from just taking a “magic pill”? Let’s do a quick run through… 

Foods

I have stopped drinking pop (soda to my readers reading from outside the Midwest,) I eat very little carbs, sodium, and sugar, I also try to avoid processed and prepackaged foods. No pasta, or potatoes. A few days a week I skip lunch and opt for meal replacement protein shake. Of course I also have my cheat days (like today…way too many carbs for Mother’s Day…)

Blackened chicken with pan fried veggies, Thai chopped salad, protein shake, loaded cauliflower soup, sugar free Powerade.

Workouts

I work out about 30 minutes a day, usually about 6 days a week. My workouts are low impact cardio routines. I follow workout pages on Youtube that I play from my laptop right in the middle of my kitchen. Since gaining the weight, I have a lot of lower back stiffness and frequently reoccurring bursitis in my right knee, so there are a lot of workouts that are still hard for me to do like lunges, running, too much up-and-down routines in a single session. I am hoping that with some more weight loss I can lessen the physical limitations and really push myself to my full potential soon!

one of my workouts I recorded in my sister’s backyard in the end of April

Yoga

I’ve also discussed before that I have started doing yoga most nights. I actually started this to increase my mobility and flexibility. It has helped my lower back issues a little. At the end of my yoga sessions, my lower back feels much better, but the next morning it’s back to being stiff with low mobility. One thing that I have noticed since starting yoga, is I have a lot more awareness in my body, how it works, and how I can control it. I do my yoga at night after I’ve put the kids to bed. This allows me to do it in peace and quiet so I can really focus and relax. I find that doing it before bed does usually help me sleep better since I’m stretching my muscles and relaxing myself. 

Tree pose (Left) Baby Dancer pose (Right)

Despite making all these changes and improvements over the past few months I am a little discouraged that I’ve only lost 30lbs. I know that probably sounds crazy to most of you… 30lbs is a LOT of weight and I am very proud of myself for the weight I’ve lost so far and the lifestyle changes I’ve adapted; but I feel that given the extreme changes I’ve made I should have seen more of a loss. Then again… that is probably just the depression and self-doubt that I still do constantly battle within myself. 

I do think that the antidepressants that I have been on are playing a major factor in my weight. I started gaining most of my weight after I started them and I think it could be part of the reason I’m not flourishing with my weight loss right now. The next step with my doctor is to work on finding the right antidepressant for me. My end goal is to be at a place where I can get off antidepressants completely; but if I am being completely honest here, I don’t think I am ready for that yet. I can see yoga and meditation being a good help for me when I do start to wean off of them, and that is something I never thought I would say. I never would have pictured myself being a yoga/meditation person.

I have never been an active person. I’ve never worked out for fun, I’ve never been super motivated or committed to something for so long. I cannot express how proud of myself I am and how grateful I am for the support I’ve been receiving from friends and family. 

If you’re interested in following my weight loss transformation, follow my Instagram account @transparent.transformation