Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!

According to the clock on my oven, it's still Lindsey's birthday for two more minutes, so I still have time to post an official birthday photo or two!

Lulu, I can't believe you're a year old already! I know you won't remember this birthday, or your party on Saturday (including the fabulous rainbow cakes I'm currently baking for you), but we can't help but celebrate how happy you've made us this past year. Your daddy and I love you bunches, darling girl. Happy Birthday!

Is it cake time yet?

It's time

It's time to finally face it: I need to lose this pregnancy weight.

Becoming a first-time parent is hard enough, so I didn't put any weight-loss pressure on myself for the first few months. By month five or six, I figured the baby was still young enough that I could get away with not caring. By month eight, it was Thanksgiving, and what's the point of trying to lose weight at that time of year?

Rationalize, justify, repeat.

But Lindsey's first birthday is in two days. My baby-weight grace period is over.

Don't get me wrong: I am crazy excited about my baby girl's birthday. It's an amazing milestone, and it will be so fun to celebrate with our families and get those cake-in-the-hair photos. It's just that I'd pictured myself looking... more like ME next to Lindsey in those pics.

That's actually the problem: I still do look like me, but I look like me circa 2002. At that point I was wrapping up college and had moved from Kansas to Florida to Texas within six months. Though it was an exciting time, it was also stressful, uncertain, and often lonely -- and I reacted to every one of those emotions by eating. Whether I was happy or homesick, it called for food. I was the heaviest I'd ever been.

Over the next couple years, I managed to lose about 30 pounds. Now, I realize that every day, people are dealing with true hardships and overcoming serious problems, and I won't minimize that for a second. But people? Losing those 30 pounds is one of the hardest things I've ever done. It sucked pond water. I hated it.

And now, I'm staring down those same damn 30 pounds again.

I know it can be done, I know how to do it, and I know how great I'll feel when it's over. But so far, I just haven't been able to make myself start. I've been eating crap, lying on the couch and hiding behind the baby whenever a camera is around. It's pathetic. I'm using her as my prop to say "See?! I have one of these! That's why I look like this!!"

Enough of that. It's time to stop idly hating what I see in the mirror. I'm ready to put in the work and feel good about myself again.

It's time.

Love Me Some... Miranda Lambert

Welcome to the first installment of a series that I just made up! See, I can do that, 'cuz it's my blog. I am in charge, and stuff. Anyway, this series is called "Love Me Some..." and it's simply about things that I love. I make no promises about regular updates to this series, because that would be crazy talk, but I hope you enjoy them whenever they happen.

First up! I love me some... Miranda Lambert.

Now. If you saw that name and thought "ugh, country music, NO THANK YOU," I am begging you to stick around for a minute. I had written off the entire genre, too, until my persistent friend Dara slowly changed my mind during our freshman year of college. (Deana Carter's sweet "We Danced Anyway" was my gateway drug, as I recall.)

Don't get me wrong; there is a lot of bad country music out there. But there's also a lot of bad "insert any other genre here" out there. That's the problem with categorizing music too broadly: Amazing artists like Miranda Lambert can be overlooked, and that makes me sad, because Miranda... well, she just kicks ass.

Waaay back in 2003, she was on "Nashville Star" during its first season. I still don't understand how it is that she came in third, but thankfully, someone signed her anyway. She writes most of her own songs, which I really respect, and has a gorgeous, sincere voice. A few things to note:

• Do not make her angry. Though she claims it's not really who she is, songs like "Kerosene," "Gunpowder & Lead" and "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" have given her a vengeful, violent reputation. Maybe it's just a persona, but I wouldn't bet against her in a fight. She could take Carrie Underwood, that's for damn sure.
  
• Right after she scares the crap out of you, or maybe at the same time, she will make you laugh. She shows her sense of humor in... well, lots of songs, but my faves are "Dry Town," "Only Prettier" and again, "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend."
  
• Once she's got you thinking she's this tough, funny chick, she'll drop her guard and break your heart a little bit with "The House that Built Me," "Desperation" or "More Like Her." On that last one, she manages to be both pitiful and a little catty.
  
• Random sample lyric that I love, from the breakup song "Dead Flowers": "I'm living in a hurricane, and all he can say is 'Man, ain't it such a nice day?'"  Love that. That song is pretty melodramatic, but she sells it.

That's my little (and by "little" I mean "way longer than I intended it to be") sales pitch for Miranda. Lord help me if I ever write one of these about Barenaked Ladies or Ben Folds. We'd be here all night.

Note: I apologize for all the YouTube fan videos linked above. I'm sure there are more sophisticated ways to link to songs, but I am a noob, so YouTube it is!