Family of Eight

On June 6th, I became an Auntie! I’m very excited to be a part of my new nephew’s life, although living almost 2000 miles away makes it quite a challenge. So for right now we have to suffice with holidays and vacations to meet up with the new addition to the family. As a childfree person, I feel incredibly happy to have the opportunity to be a part of my nephew’s life and to enjoy being around the little guy, but I’m still eternally ecstatic to not be raising a child myself.

It used to be that the term “family” referred to a husband, a wife and their children. I would like to think that times have changed and that we now have a broader perspective on the definition of family. Today, I was cured of that fantasy.

Evidently, my husband, I and our pets are not “family enough” to be included in holiday celebrations. My husband and I are welcome, but our pets are not. Now I understand that we have six pets: five cats and a dog. We were certainly not planning on taking all six pets with us at Christmas! We only wanted to take Rama with us, because part of the reason we got a dog was so that he could come along with us on trips. However, that option was never offered to us. So while other family members can bring their human children to visit at Christmas, we cannot bring our dog because (pick one or more):

1. Rama’s a dog and therefore not considered family
2. Since we don’t have children, our family must only consist of the two of us.
3. We couldn’t possibly want to bring along our dog, who we very much consider part of our family and would want him with us as part of holiday celebrations.

If we had human children, this would be a non-issue. However, since we only have pets, they are not welcome. Again, we were never going to take all six of them with us! The cats cannot travel and that’s why we only wanted to take Rama. So the only way we can join in the “family” holiday celebrations is if we board Rama, and maybe the cats (if my Mom can’t cat sit), because our version of “family” is just not acceptable. I can’t even begin to explain how hurt I am. I’m not entirely surprised because as I’ve mentioned before, my MIL hates dogs, and I guess she hates Rama too, even though Rama was literally an angel when she visited. I’ve never seen my dog behave so well when we’ve had guests! But it still cuts me to the quick to know that the reason we’re being excluded is because we don’t have a child, we have a dog. They told us that we’re more than welcome to visit… but we can’t bring the pets. To me it essentially means that we’re not welcome either, because if you don’t understand that our dog is family, then you just don’t understand us. By excluding Rama, you’re excluding us. After we hung up the phone, I was so upset that I seriously couldn’t concentrate on anything else. To me it felt like someone said that I couldn’t bring my human child to a family event. I feel so incredibly hurt and left out.

I have to add this caveat: we don’t regard Rama or the cats as our furbabies (aka child substitutes). The cats offer us companionship and love. Rama is a working dog, whose jobs include protecting our person, looking scary which reduces the need to protect our person, a hiking/camping/travelling buddy and a source of companionship. We have never considered our pets to be substitutes for human children and we don’t treat them as such. In essence, we know that our dog is a cainid and not a human!

Up until now, I haven’t really come into contact with the negativity that so many childfree people encounter. I’ve been bingoed a couple of times and been lectured about the “institution of parenthood,” but I’ve never come face-to-face with being excluded from a family get together because we don’t have children. I guess a part of me knew that it was inevitable once people started having children, but I just didn’t want to believe it.

Welcome to reality. Check your happiness at the door.

Can You Feel the Burn?

Today is the start of Week 4 of my new healthful routine. It’s going quite well and it feels good to be working out and eating clean again. Even though I get pretty tuckered out after the gym, I have tons more energy overall.

The second week was really tough for me after I weighed myself and had not lost any weight, but had actually gained 0.8lbs. It turned out that I really need to maintain a daily maximum of 1600 calories. It’s amazing how 400 calories can undo all the hard work I put in at the gym. There’s a limit to how many calories one can safely burn in one day. If your caloric intake is higher than your caloric usage, it is quite impossible for one to lose weight. Also, the first two weeks I was only doing weights three times a week. I added cardio three times a week for Week 3 and I think it really helped.

Of course, just weighing myself is not the best way to judge how my weight loss is progressing. So we purchased a Fat Loss Monitor that calculates your body fat. Fat weighs less than muscle, so for example, even if my overall weight did not change over the course of the week, it could be because I gained muscle and lost some fat. There’s no way to get an accurate picture unless I’m measuring my overall weight as well as my body fat.



I also bought gloves because I’m not a big fan of calluses on my hands. Plus, I feel like I can grip the dumbbells/ bars better.



I’m so happy to be getting back on track and getting healthy again!

I'm Still Alive!

Yes, I’m still alive and blogging! Life just got really hectic and crazy. Between Mr. Tyger’s job at the end of last year and getting settled into my job, I was in no mood to blog. Then at the beginning of this year my laptop, Alejandro, died. The hard drive was fine but the motherboard was toast. Thankfully, my birthday was coming up so my parents bought me a new computer: Brigitte.

Freshly Unboxed:


Protective packaging:


Without the packaging:


Front view when she’s on:


Inside view when she’s on:



This time I decided to go with a desktop. I’m out of school and I don’t need a personal laptop for work. I got a really good machine for just under $2000.00. Fortunately, I already had a great monitor/ keyboard/ mouse setup so I just needed the computer tower. It also gave me an opportunity to clean off my desk and reorganize. I finally have a clean desk! Huzzah!

In other news, the last time I was in a gym was May 2009. Since then I haven’t been eating clean, nor have I been working out. Needless to say this resulted in weight gain. Additionally, I feel awful, I ache and I can’t fit into my pretty clothes. So, I decided that I was done. I’m sick of hearing myself complain about being unhealthy. I’m sick of feeling crappy all the time. I’m sick of not being able to fit into the nice clothes I have and I’m sick of not looking good in the clothes that do fit me. So, I’m done. And I’m ready to move on to a healthier me. Mr. Tyger has a lot of experience with body building and nutrition so he is my personal trainer and my nutritionist. I feel really fortunate that I the only thing I have to pay for is a gym membership because hiring a personal trainer and/or a nutritionist can get really expensive. Also, I’m one of those people who like to have someone with me when I work out. Not to chat with, just to have a workout partner. I get lonely I guess.

I’m starting tomorrow, bright and early. My primary goal is fat loss followed by building muscle and improving my cardiovascular endurance. I won’t survive the zombie apocalypse if I can’t outrun the undead!