One…

Last week, I got a haircut. I hadn’t gotten a cut in over six months, and with the post-partum hair loss I have been experiencing (it’s not as bad as last time, but it’s still pretty disgusting), my hair was in dire need of some servicing.

I was about to go make an appointment with my usual stylist but then I forced myself to reconsider. Do I really need to spend $100 on a haircut? The answer was no. So I decided to take a chance on a little, hole-in-the wall salon just 10 minutes away in Secaucus, NJ…

Dark hair is difficult to photograph when you’re looking to highlight its layers. (Also, webcam
pictures aren’t that great.) I tried to fluff my hair out a bit to make the layers stand out, but
it ended up looking messy instead. Oh, well.

My stylist was a soft-spoken Japanese immigrant who was absolutely meticulous with a pair of scissors. She really listened to what I requested (a rarity among Asian stylists), and did such a fantastic job with the blow-out that I actually considered going back to her in the future for blow-outs before special occasions, when I have never gone to a salon just for a blow-out before!

The price for the cut was $50 — pretty high in other parts of the country, I’m sure, but very reasonable in my neck of the woods. I will definitely be returning to this salon and stylist for my next cut!

Two…

I have never been the mom to carry around JUST a diaper bag when going out with my baby. I see diaper bags as just that: a bag to carry around essentials for the baby, not for myself. Besides, I never liked the idea of my stuff getting mixed up with the baby’s.

So I have always carried around a separate bag. I know, it’s very impractical. At first, I was able to get by with my usual medium-sized shoulder bags but they soon became too bulky and oftentimes heavy. (There must exist some law of physics that state that the larger a woman’s bag, the more stuff she feels she must carry with her at all times.) So I downsized to clutches/wristlets, but those became annoying because they usually require one hand devoted to them.

That is when I had my epiphany. The kind that only sleep-deprived parents get during a middle-of-the-night feeding, the type that makes you feel like you just discovered gravity, only to later realize that the rest of the population already knows about this and YOU’re the idiot for not having caught on earlier.

The cross-body clutch.

J was very gracious to insist on getting me something nice with his hard-earned bonus money. I chose the above bag, which can be used with gym clothes as well as a night on the town. Better yet, the color is a discontinued one so I got it for $100 off. Score!

Three…

Remember how I had lost all 50 lbs of my pregnancy weight with Claire within just three months of giving birth to her?

And remember how I had also gained 50 lbs with Aerin, but I wasn’t worried because I thought the weight would just melt off magically again?

Well, I was wrong.

After losing 30 lbs in the first month, my weight loss slowed considerably. As in, I have only lost an additional 5 lbs since then.

So now, at 4 months post-partum, I have only lost 35 lbs, and I still have a good 15 more to go. 🙁

It’s time to step up the weight-loss plan. Or, in my case, start a weight-loss plan because I didn’t actually have one before. It’s getting a bit depressing to look at a closet full of clothes, knowing that you can’t fit into 95% of your own inventory. It’s not only my vanity talking either — it’s economical as well, because buying a new wardrobe a size up can be expensive, y’all!