One Day At A Time

Day 20

2011-06-19T23:43:00.002-04:00

Today is the last day of the new foods challenge, I didn't quite make 10 new foods. My next challenge is supposed to be to eat vegetarian for 10 days. Although, since I'm not prepared to start that tomorrow and I have some meat in the fridge to consume first, I think I might make the next 10 days the challenge to eat 2 different fruits or vegetables at each of my big meals, so that I reach 6 servings a day and of a variety of vegetables and fruits. In the mean time I'll prepare for the vegetarian challenge by looking for meals and trying out some recipes.

So far I have the following for vegetarian meals:
Quiche (with vegetables, I'm thinking bell peppers, tomatoes, spinach and cheese)
Black Bean quesadillas
Vegetarian chili
Vegetarian enchiladas (with the leftover chili or quesadilla filling)
So I just need 6 more meals. I do have a vegetarian cookbook, so I should be able to find some there, I just don't like cooking with lentils, beans and tofu are OK.

Day 13

2011-06-12T20:58:00.002-04:00

So I've done OK with the 30 day shred, except today I was interrupted mid workout by a baby poo emergency, or at least hubs swearing loudly and a lot and baby screaming. So I went to assist.

As for the new foods I'm adding to my diet here's what I've tried so far and my personal opinion. It's more likely an opinion on how well I can execute new recipes (i.e. no well).

Swiss Chard - the stems were boiled in a chicken stock then added to the frying pan with the leafy portion. The stems were good the leafy portion was bitter and gritty (maybe I didn't wash it well enough).

Dragon Fruit - good mild taste, it has the texture and watery-ness of a water melon and the taste of a kiwi

Parsnips - not bad, much like a potato, I roasted it with thyme. All the veggies in the roasting pan were dry, including the carrots. Next time I think I'll add a little chicken stock to the roasting pan.

Acorn Squash - good, sweet, a little dry again, probably due to the recipe, which was the same recipe as the parsnips.

On the docket still to try and in my fridge already: Rutabaga & fennel. I need to go shopping for 4 more new foods. I'm thinking one will be quinoa.

Day 11

2011-06-10T09:14:00.002-04:00

After the first 10 day challenge I've lost 5 pounds, or 2.34% of my body weight. For measurements I've gained 1/2 and inch in all measurements, I'm thinking PMS is to blame :)

I purchased a 10 pound Shred book that has exercise and meal plans for 31 days, so I begin it today. This will be my exercise challenge for the next 31 days. My eating challenge for the next 10 days will be to follow the meal plan, but also to eat a new food every day of the meal plan, so it will require some food replacements.

Today I'll be replacing some of the vegetables in dinner with Swiss chard.

Other vegetables and fruits I'll be trying over the next 10 days:
Dragon fruit
Parsnips
Rutabaga
Swiss Chard
Artichoke
Spaghetti Squash
Acorn Squash
Pomello

I need to find a few more options, squashes are something I don't have a lot of in my diet so that's an easy replacement. I might also try the following which are rare in my diet: kale, avocado, sweet potato. Although I really want to try things I've never had before.

Days 7 & 8

2011-06-07T22:05:00.002-04:00

Still working on the first challenge, I've pretty much given up on the exercise portion of the challenge. Today has been particularly hard as I'm craving sweets right now.

Interestingly, I've given up many grains other than rice and corn, and I find myself a lot less "windy". Victoria has the same issue when she's eating wheat and oat cereals, but she's fine on rice cereal.

Day 5 & 6

2011-06-05T15:26:00.002-04:00

Well the weekends are harder than the weekdays to manage my intake. Saturday I didn't get my leafy green again, but Sunday I did get the leafy green and the orange vegetable.

As for exercise, none Saturday, but Sunday I intend to walk to the videao store and bank, so that is at least 2km. No running though, it hurts my joints too much. I'll have to figure out some new exercise challenges that are easier on my joints and can be accomplished at home or at least with the baby. Ultimately I'd like to achieve the 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise every day that is recommended by ParticipACTION.

I did weight myself yesterday, although I think I should wait until the end of each 10 day challenge. I've lost 1.5 pounds so far, we'll see where I'm at on Friday morning which begins the next challenge.

Day 4

2011-06-03T22:32:00.003-04:00

Well, still no exercise today and the eating was pretty good considering the amount of temptation I was presented with today. Friday's are coffee and goodies with the ladies from my baby classes there are about 6 to 10 that meet regularly, but there must have been 15 of us today and everyone brought goodies to share! There are actually 35 of us in the group all together, and it keeps growing because we invite other mom's we meet at other groups. Hubby and I also went out for breakfast, and to a movie tonight. Here's what I ate though.

Breakfast: Coffee with sweetener 2 milk, 1 cream and an omelet with ham rolled into a crepe and grilled like a panini. Also 1/2 a large plate of fresh fruit.
Snack: 3 dried apricots
Lunch: Nothing - big breakfast
Snack: 1 vegan bliss ball about the size of a large marble, 2 sips of a frappaccino
Dinner: Chicken salad with cheese and blackberries and asian sesame dressing
Snack: 1/4 bag of small movie popcorn and 6 gulps of a small movie cola
Water: 5 bottles

I might have something overnight. Last night Victoria was waking me up every hour until 4am when I gave up and took her to bed with me (where she tossed and turned for 45 minutes). I had a yogurt as I was pretty hungry at 3am after giving her a bottle. I think I might have had either cashews and dried cranberries too, or more dried apricots, but my memory from last night is a little fuzzy.

My next challenge is going to be 10 new fruits and vegetables, I have a recipe for roasted veggies that has 3 vegetables I've never had before, so I haven't decided if I get 2 days off from something new or if I should aim for 12 new items. Ultimately I'd like to try something new every day, but at least I have a little leeway.

Day 3

2011-06-02T22:06:00.002-04:00

Not such a good day today - no walk/jog with the dog. I also had an extra coffee and an alcoholic mixed drink.

Breakfast: Oatmeal with peach yogurt, and 1 hard boiled egg white coffee with sweetener and skim milk
Snack: 2 coffees - 1 with cream and sugar, the other with sweetener and skim milk
Lunch: Pineapple chicken with red peppers on brown rice
Dinner: Beef noodle back with spinach and green peppers
Snack: 6 apricots and alcoholic drink
Water: 5 bottles

Made the orange vegetable goal today (twice), but only 1/2 the leafy green.

On the upside, at least I didn't eat the donut my in-laws brought for me.

Day 2

2011-06-01T21:41:00.003-04:00

Pretty much the same today as yesterday. I did 7 intervals with the dog, and house cleaning.
Breakfast: Cereal with skim milk, coffee with sweetener and skim milk
Snack: Yogurt
Lunch: Salad with chicken, cheese and 15 blackberries
Dinner: Pineapple chicken on brown rice
Snack: Coffee with cream and sugar (while out walking the dog)
Water: I don't remember, but probably 6 or 7 like yesterday, I do drink a lot of water at least.

Tomorrow hubby has to work late, so I'll be having leftovers for dinner tomorrow. Tomorrow I also plan to start the baby on egg yolk, so I'll be having the whites with the centres filled with unsweetened applesauce, which is apparently called a sweet tooth round in one of the recipe books I have.

Jogging was difficult tonight, my calves and shins really hurt with every step, but I pushed through. I'd like to have 60 minutes a day of moderate to vigorous exercise that is recommended for children, so that I can make sure my daughter is getting the right foods and exercise for her body when she's old enough to start doing that.

Day 1

2011-05-31T21:25:00.004-04:00

One day almost complete and it's gone pretty good so far. Here's what I ate:
Breakfast: 1 Minute Oatmeal with 100ml of blackberry yogurt (35 cal 0 fat). Coffee with Splenda and skim milk
Snack: Unsweetened Applesauce
Lunch: 1 large romaine heart (probably 3 to 4 cups). Small handful of dried cranberries, small handful of cashews, 3 slices of low fat old cheddar cheese, 1/3 cup chicken cubes and Asian Sesame Dressing.
Snack: Coffee with Cream and Sugar
Dinner: Tilapia Fish with Hosein sauce almonds and pecans, 1 cup shanghai bok choi with oyster sauce, 14 baby carrots (raw).
Water: 6 bottles so far, I'll probably reach 7 (or 3.5 litres or 3.5 US quarts).

It's 10pm now, so I doubt I'll need a last evening snack, but if I do then I'll have a mango.

I also did 7 walk/jog intervals with the dog this evening, so I'm wide awake now. I also noticed that when I jog, even a light jog, unexpected things jiggle, like my bottom. Being rectangle shaped and a control freak, I've never had a jiggly bottom before.

I recorded my weight this morning, I forgot to do my measurements, so I'll do that tomorrow. I'll blog about any weight and/or inches lost after each 10 day challenge.

100 Day Challenge

2011-05-28T10:53:00.002-04:00

It's 103 days until my 39th birthday. I've decided to challenge myself to eating healthier and exercising for 100 days, therefore my challenge begins May 31. I've looked up a few websites for 100 days eating and exercising challenges. I did find one for eating real foods that I kind of like their concept of taking 10 day mini challenges, so I'm going to adopt that idea with respect to my eating and exercising habits.

Overall, I really do eat a lot of easy convenience food that might not be all that colourful, I also tend to eat 3 larger meals and then get really hungry at night. I also live a very sedentary lifestyle.

My first challenges need to make baby steps to change these habits, but also be a challenge and change in behaviour. Ultimately I'd like to get to the point where I'm doing the 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise every day that is recommended for children, and to eat mostly fresh, real food for all my meals.

Eating Challenge #1
Eat one leafy dark green and one yellow fruit or vegetable every day

Exercising Challenge #1
Interval training in jogging every day with the dog - 1 block jog, 1 block walk for at least 6 intervals, but preferrably 10.

Some other challenges I'm thinking of for myself:
Eating:

2 different fruits or vegetables with every major meal (brekfast, lunch and dinner)

No eating out - and that includes coffee

No processed foods

No foods that result in something going to the garbage dump - recycling and composting is OK (i.e. stickers off fruit from super markets, twist ties off bags of bread or milk, pull tabs off milk and juice cartons etc).

Vegetarian for 10 days

Exercising:

10 exercise ball and 10 weight training exercises every day

10 exercises using only my own body

Swimming daily for 10 days

Games of basketball or soccerball with family

Would love to get some ideas from all of you with respect to eating and exercising.

Personal Epiphanies on Weight Loss

2011-04-16T11:30:00.002-04:00

Today I had a personal epiphany or two on weight loss. I have struggled with my weight since graduating university 15 years ago. At that time I wanted to lose 20 pounds, now I'd like to lose 60. Before I really began struggling with my weight, I made some comments about weight gain that were hurtful, stupid and ignorant. Today I know how much those comments hurt, because I've received the same ones myself. There is nothing I could say to take away the pain caused, but I now know and have known for some time how much it hurts and how deeply sorry I am for the thoughtless comments. Now for the epiphanies.

I know that if someone I cared about were to lose weight, I would be deeply happy for them. However, whether they lost or agained 100 or more pounds, would not change one iota how much I care for, love and appreciate them. I know (now) the same is true in their regard and love for me, I didn't know this, in my heart, yesterday. I might have known it had someone pointed it out to me, it's pretty obvious.

Although the love and care my friends have for me would not change based on any weight loss or gain, how I feel about myself would change. I've lost the weight once, and I felt free. I can't say I was completely happy with myself or my body, I didn't feel as happy or attractive as I thought I might, but I did feel free. Free from what you might ask. Free from the weight, from putting myself down when clothing didn't fit or look as good as I would have liked it to look. Free from comments about my weight.

I've begun a new weight loss journey and my motto (when I remember it) has been that "I'm practicing being healthier" so I won't eat perfectly every day. I've lost 6 pounds over the last month, maybe with my new epiphanies, and if I put my motto in places where I will see it every day, I'll feel better about whatever progress I do make.

My Favourite Moments

2010-12-30T23:56:00.003-05:00

I was thinking today (because it was a tough morning) that there are 2 things I need to remember.
1) When I have a long to do list and taking care of Victoria, I need to take things 1 small task at a time.
2) I need to remember the small moments that make every day wonderful with my baby.

These are the small moments we have every day right now, but she's growing so fast that I know they will be replaced soon with other small moments and I don't want to forget these ones and I want my daughter to know about the small things that make my day with her special every day.
1) Breast feeding - because we've worked so hard to get here.
2) Dancing and singing to her. I like to sing "Believe in you" by Amanda Marshall to her. Oddly, though I've never seen the video I looked it up and it actually starts with the birth of a baby.
3) Having her soothe to sleep on my tummy all curled up in a little ball
4) Watching her look and smile at other people as they hold her

I've written these things in the little journal I'm keeping for her, and I've shared them with all of you. I want to have pictures taken of them so I can share them with Victoria when she's old enough to see them.

Most Surprising Thing

2010-12-08T23:31:00.003-05:00

Today I went to a "thank you" meeting at work for a project that delivered to production after I had started maternity leave. I was asked by one of my teammates what I found to be the most surprising thing about motherhood. My answer would have to be just how much my brain is no longer functioning. I'm hoping this is a passing phase.

Examples of brain deficiences post partum:

The use of incorrect homophones in writing: "here" instead of "hear", "there" instead of "their" etc
The inability to complete spoken sentences because I can't recall a key word, maybe that's why my mom often uses thingamabob etc, this does not bode well for my brain returning to some semblance of its pre-pregnancy function
The inability to comprehand more than 2 or 3 sentences in an instructional manual. I've been trying to apply or update various documentation for benefits for me and Victoria after the birth, but I can't comprehend the instructions and actions that I need to take and there is a timeline on most of these of 30 days

Well hubby helps out with the documentation of Victoria's birth that needs to be completed.

Home at Last

2010-11-27T12:50:00.000-05:00

Thursday at 6:28pm little baby girl Victoria (Tori) was born after 11 hours in hospital (only 8 hours with the oxytocin drip).

Weight - 4.180 kilos (9 pounds 3 ounces)
Length - 51 cm (20 inches)

Daddy, Mommy and Baby are doing OK (I hurt OK... but man is she cute!)

Drake is also adjusting pretty well with the new family addition. More later after I sleep in my own bed and hopefully the swelling in my feet goes down.

40 Weeks + 12 days

2010-11-27T09:50:00.001-05:00

Baby or no baby? You don't really know yet, hahahaha!

Today on FlyLady is to pick a mission, which is a little extra tidbit after the weekly quick clean. In reality, there isn't much to keeping a clean house. This is what FlyLady seems to have as a regular maintenance, it's just the 30 day FlyBaby portion adds to it and establishes a schedule and seems to get your whole house well cleaned so that maintenance is easier.

1) Morning Routine
2) Afternoon Routine (if you need one)
3) Before bed routine
4) Quick clean your house 1 day per week
5) Zone cleaning - 5 zones in the house - 1 zone per week so you rotate through in a month. The zones are the high traffic areas and you do a more detailed cleaning when you hit that week on a particular day. These are also called the missions. This week is the master bedroom and for today's challenge I'm supposed to pick one of the daily missions for the master bedroom to do today. I already cleaned off all the dressers and night stands.

40 Weeks + 11 Days

2010-11-26T10:44:00.001-05:00

The baby is supposed to be here by now, provided the induction worked yesterday. Honestly it could have been a few days ago, I've scheduled posts for several days since I won't be home and can't access my blog from the hospital. Sooner or later you'll get a post of the birth (might be several days after I get home).

Today's FlyLady.net challenge is to delete all the emails I've received so far from the list. It's good practice in removing things we no longer need. I've actually already done that twice, so it's not much of a challenge for me.

40 Weeks + 10 Days

2010-11-25T10:10:00.002-05:00

Another day of waiting for baby (maybe - have I mentioned that all these posts are pre-scheduled for quite a while now and there are still 4 more to go on the scheduler?). Baby does practice contractions every 2 to 3 days, and I sit for 7 to 10 hours, finally timing them in the last couple of hours. The annoying thing is, once I reach an hour of contractions that are 4 to 6 minutes apart I'll go take a shower and rest up until a more reasonable hour of the day arrives (because usually the contractions start around 6 to 8pm, so it's 4 or 5 in the morning when I've reached the 4 to 6 minutes apart) figures I end up falling asleep and the contractions go away. Sneaking baby, maybe it just wants to get the process down perfectly before it arrives.

I did find out that if we are induced it takes 8 to 12 hours typically for baby to arrive after labour gets started. Although apparently inducing labour doesn't always get things going and either you try again another day, or have a C-section.

Today's flylady.net challenge is to write down some inspirational quotes for motivation. For example, even cleaning incorrectly still blesses your family and clutter can't be organized.

40 Weeks + 9 Days

2010-11-24T09:03:00.002-05:00

Not much time left but still waiting for baby to arrive. Yesterday after seeing the doctor I started having some feelings, not happy ones, but not sad either. I've spent some time exploring just what exactly I am feeling, because I was having a really hard time putting words to describe it.

I believe what I feel is related to the unknown of bringing home baby. We still don't have a name, the baby's room is not quite ready (haven't hung the shelves). I'm not sure I'm ready to take take of an infant which is weird because I used to babysit one with no problems. Can it really be so simple as change, feed, burp, sleep those first few weeks? What if I have trouble breastfeeding? What if like my SIL I come home from the hospital so confused and out of sorts that I can't even figure out how to make a bottle. For example, I have a microwave sanitizer for the bottles, but oddly there are no instructions in the sanitizer on how to use it. Do I put the nipples in the sanitizer, or do I sanitize them a different way? I feel like I have so many questions and no answers, and what answers I do have I'll forget when I need them.

I confess that some of this has to do with my profession as an analyst. Part of my job is to look at defined requirements and determine solutions, but sometimes the requirements are ambiguous and its my job to refine them so there is a clear yes/no path and dealing with the alternates that can occur. I've actually noticed in the last 6 to 12 months that this analysis I do has made filling out forms somewhat interesting because when answering questions the question can be somewhat ambiguous and I could put many answers. For example, the hospital pre-registration form, asked if I have any children, then asked if I had made care giving arrangements for my children and if not why not. The way it was structured is that the care giving question was mandatory and not optional based on the number of children being greater than zero and they asked it twice, so was there supposed to be a different context the second time I had to answer the question?

Then there's my need to plan, and I feel very unplanned for being able to take care of a baby. For going to the hospital I knew I would be there at least 36 hours and hubby would be with me, so care for the dog had to be arranged. He needs to be feed twice a day and let out preferrably 3 times a day. I felt the need to have plans for the following scenarios:

Go into labour during the day - not an emergency
Go into labour during the day - emergency (need to rush to the hospital, so can't take Drake to parents or boarding)
Go into labour at night - not an emergency
Go into labour at night - emergency

See, we're not sure how Drake will initially react to our parents coming over to feed him without us being home. We also couldn't take him to be boarded if it was at night or on the weekend, and since labour could occur at any time also didn't want to take him to be boarded the day before the due date and have the baby be 10 days late as that's quite expensive.

Anyway, moving on to the cleaning topic. Today's cleaning challenge is that we can do anything for 15 minutes, so I have to set a timer for 15 minutes and go through the house to throw out all the garbage I can find and take it out to the curb/garage. Then I set the timer for another 15 minutes and I sit back and read a magazine. I'm not much of a magazine reader, perhaps I'll watch TV, listen to music or read a chapter of one of my books.

40 Weeks + 8 Days

2010-11-23T10:36:00.001-05:00

Today I thought I'd share how Drake (our dog) has been following me around for the last 3 weeks that I've been home instead of my husband. Hubby truly is Drake's favourite person, but I think that might change over the next year while I'm home and spending time with him. Drake isn't a cuddly dog, but he has been sleeping in the same room with me more frequently rather than sleeping by the front door waiting for hubby to come home. He also sometimes sleeps beside the couch I'm on, although I think that is related to me having eaten something while sitting on the couch first. Drake often comes to sleep with me for our daily nap on the bed, although if hubby is home then Drake will likely stay with daddy than napping with me.

Today's new cleaning challenge includes decluttering an area for 15 minutes. Yesterday was to make a journal of my morning and evening routines for cleaning and tidying the house and getting myself ready and organized.

There are also weekly things that FlyLady.net does. Monday is home blessing day which is spend 1 hour cleaning, no more than 10 minutes on any one chore (vacuum, dust, mop, change sheets, garbage etc). Tuesday is planning day for the next week, i.e. menu planning, date night/family time planning, activities planning, wardrobe, trips, etc. Seems this continues throughout the week, I kind of like that there's only 1 day for quick cleaning (beyond the zone cleaning and FlyBaby 30 day habit maker) and that it is at the beginning of the week so that your house starts the week out clean.

40 Weeks + 7 Days

2010-11-22T10:00:00.002-05:00

Not sure what to say today, I have an appointment at the hospital for a weekly non-stress test to make sure the baby is still thriving. I was kind of hoping to be in labour by now though.

I did nothing on yesterday's to do list, oh well, I need hubby to help with the shelves as it's a 2 person job. The bathrooms and kitchen are done, except the floor, mostly because it's difficult to get down to scrub the floor properly.

The house is actually pretty clean and organized now, yay! I think I'll work on finding 30 items to toss and 30 to donate. Always good to purge a bit of stuff every now and then. When in doubt it's pretty easy for me to toss hair, skin care and make-up products, and to donate books or clothes (or maybe I'll sell the books to a used book seller).

Hubby's working from home because, honestly, I'm a little scared to go into labour by myself. I keep worrying I'll be one of those rarer labours that require emergency assistance and I won't be able to get to the front door to unlock it to let the EMTs in. I know, everything will be fine, and likely I'll be a scheduled induction anyway.

40 Weeks + 6 Days

2010-11-21T09:50:00.005-05:00

Another day of waiting. Another day to do tasks around the house.

Last night I felt a pretty much rhythmic movement from the baby, I thought it might be stress from the false labour, or some other thing that was beginning to worry me and I thought about calling the on call doctor. Finally 'hiccups' occurred to me because I have felt this from the baby a couple of times before, I just never realized it was hiccups! I can't believe it took me until being almost a week overdue to recognize hiccups.

I've learned something else today, it seems that no matter how much I clean, even after I just finished some things actually look less clean? For example, I just damp mopped the floor and I vacuumed it yesterday, yet I currently see 2 doggy hairballs, I just mopped it 20 minutes ago! I'm thinking the damp mop must have caused the hairs to stick together more and then they fell off the mop. Same for dusting the (glass) coffee table, now the 2 long edges actually look more dusty with stuck dog hairs. Maybe I should be using microfibre clothes to dry dust everything first?

Today's to do list:
Finish cleaning the bathrooms
Hang the shelves in the baby's room
Clean up the construction materials in the baby's room

40 Weeks + 5 Days

2010-11-20T10:06:00.003-05:00

Finally got the upstairs vacuumed, and I've tried to find those knitting books, but I'm at a loss, I've checked every logical place, so only the only places left are either buried in a box somewhere, or in an illogical place while I was doing a very quick cleanup must have tossed it somewhere strange.

I made my sciatica pain worse in my right leg today, so I'll likely be taking it pretty easy, maybe I'll just take a few clothes to the donation box today and tidy up the kitchen. Although today is the day to identify and spend a few minutes tidying up your hotspots at FlyLady.net I'm on Day 6 of the baby steps program.

5 more days until inducement and the baby arrives.

40 Weeks + 4 Days

2010-11-19T11:50:00.002-05:00

Still waiting for baby to arrive. I'm pretty tired today, so I'm thinking I'll take a break from my to do list today. I did however, finally, get the thank you cards written, I just have to mail them now. I still want to find my knitting books and vacuum upstairs, but if it doesn't happen then it doesn't happen.

40 Weeks + 3 Days

2010-11-18T08:43:00.003-05:00

The doctor and hubby and I have set a date for inducing labour. I had a choice between Nov 20 and 25th. The doctor didn't think we'd naturally go into labour by the 20th, but that we would have delivered by the 25th. Have I mentioned that I think the delivery date will be the 23rd? Anyway, at least now I have a firm end date! The doctor wants me to take it easy until the birth, so I guess some of those activities to induce labour, like walking, is off the table as an option. Can I also remove cleaning (smile)? Also shopping for Christmas presents will be online, so I suppose I should start doing that, fortunately I have a small family, although 2 family members have birthdays close to Christmas. If I send hubby to shop for his family, then I only have to purchase gifts for 5 people for 7 occassions (10 occassions if I include my in-laws).

Today's to do list:

Complete the thank you cards (yah, it's been on my list for 3 days)
Finish the composting and recycling (it's collection day)
Check the light in the garage, hubby thinks it's on some setting that it's not shutting off automatically
Vacuum upstairs

40 Weeks + 2 days

2010-11-17T10:03:00.004-05:00

Very early this morning I thought I wouldn't be writing this post today, but alas falso alarm and here I am. I asked hubby to work from home today since I was up all night (OK until 4:30am) with labour pains, seems the hot shower at 4am helped ease the pain, relaxed me, and I fell asleep sometime between 4:30 and 5am.

Today's list:

Shower and dress
Have breakfast and coffee
Clean the kitchen
Finish the thank you cards (I went shopping yesterday instead for b-day and xmas prezzies)
Pack the maternity clothes
Find my knitting books (I did clear 2 boxes from the office/dumping ground, but didn't find my knitting books)
Go to my weekly doctor's appt and find out a few things, like the last possible day she would induce me, so I can look forward to a maximum length of time.

Update: The doctor will be inducing me on Thursday November 25, although she thinks I'll go into labour on my own early next week.

40 Weeks + 1 day

2010-11-16T10:21:00.005-05:00

Well I'm 1 day overdue. I was thinking last night I should come up with ideas to occupy and reward myself while waiting for baby to arrive. I was thinking of blogging my daily list of activities, but that doesn't necessarily include a reward. Here's today's activity list though.

Dress, make-up and hair done
Have breakfast
Start the beef stew in the slow cooker for dinner
Clean kitchen & shine the kitchen sink
Have coffee
Try to find my knitting books so I can finish the baby blanket and baby sweater I'm making (this may take a few days)
Put some maternity clothes away
Put the remaining laundry away (hubby had to bring it upstairs for me)
Finish writing thank you cards for shower gifts - just 5 more to go

I'm thinking one of these days for a reward I would like to get a pedicure.

40 Weeks - Due Date Arrives

2010-11-15T08:32:00.006-05:00

Today is my due date. I'm not yet in labour, and I don't think it will be today.

I started reading FlyLady.net today, the baby step to a clean and organized home on day one is a shiny kitchen sink. Well baby step number 1 is actually "a shiny sink" but since all the pictures are of a kitchen sink, I'll just be doing that.

Since I'm not in labour yet, and feeling a little motivated to do things other than sit around and watch TV, I've put together a little to do list for the day.

My to do list:

Eat breakfast
Shine the kitchen sink
Put away 1 basket of clean laundry
Shower and dress
Have a coffee
Dry hair and put on makeup
Apply for government maternity leave benefits
Apply for work top-up to maternity leave benefits - turns out this one I can't complete until I have proof of #7 being completed.

Bonus Items:

Fold and put away another 2 clean baskets of laundry (it was done last night to take advantage of the cheaper electricity rates).
Clean master bathroom tub - just in case I go into labour because apparently a warm bath can help. It's just getting down on my knees and leaning over the tub with a huge belly to do the cleaning that is daunting.
Take clothing donations to the donation box (maybe I'll do this at lunch time if I go pick up a lunch).
Put some of my maternity clothes into a box for storage (the ones that don't fit or are no longer appropriate to the season, like my shorts and Capris).

Updates:

The main list is done, and I even gave myself a manicure!

I Wonder

2010-11-06T23:14:00.002-04:00

As my due date approaches I think about a number of things.
Will everything be ready for baby, there are still a number of things to do?
Will the baby be a boy or a girl?
What will the baby's name be, we still haven't settled on a couple of names that we love, none seem quite right?
When will I go into labour, how will I know, will my water break, what will labour be like?

All I can do is take things one day at a time, and I guess finish those last few things to be ready, or at least what I think is ready, for baby's arrival.

9 days left, or 9 days days according to my estimated due date (EDD), since that's no guarantee as apparently only 5% of babies actually arrive on that date. I suppose I should also plan that likely I would go into labour the day before the EDD.

Vacation time

2010-10-31T23:38:00.003-04:00

Friday was my last day of work, I'm now on vacation for either 2 weeks or the baby arrives. I have to start maternity leave on either the arrival date of the baby, or on my due date, even if baby is late.

For the next 2 weeks, there are a few things I would like to do.

Finish hanging the shelves in the baby's room
Tidy up the gifts from the living room and dining room
Finish packing for the hospital, I have some ideas of what I want to change that is currently in the bags
Finish 2 knitting projects I had started for baby. I need to find my knitting books first though for the rest of the instructions

I admit to having been detached from the pregnancy, however, at my last baby shower mom gave me a cute little fleece sleeper, for some reason, after receiving it, for the rest of the day, all I could imagine was holding our baby dressed in the sleeper on my knees slightly rocking the baby back and forth to soothe the baby to sleep.

3 weeks to go

2010-10-11T17:37:00.005-04:00

Just 3 more weeks of work to go, and this week is a short week for 2 reasons.
1) It's Thanksgiving Weekend in Canada, so Monday is a statutory holiday
2) I'm taking Tuesday off due to needing to take 6 days off before my official vacation begins and having 2 doctor's appointments on Tuesday.

I can't count on how long it will take for baby to arrive, but I can count how many days of work left, there are 14 business days left, or which I should take 6 off, so 8 days :) I probably won't get all 6 days taken, so I'll have to take a few as payout at the end of the year, but the fewer the better. At most I hope to be able to take 3 of those 6 days remaining because they are lieu and floater days, so if I don't take them, they are lost.

I still haven't taken any pictures of our pregnancy, I suppose I should do that since the baby could come at any time. I'm debating between having hubby take some, or one of our friends, since we have 2 that are professional photographers. It's more the timing than anything else.

New stuff

2010-09-18T14:06:00.002-04:00

I've been thinking for a year or 2 now about a career change. I've decided I want it to be something related to my degree in Environmental Science. Lately 2 things have been on my mind.
1) Sustainable design - in that when furinishing/redecorating using environmentally friendly products or reusing furniture.
2) Off grid home reno - when I think about the home renos I want to do in my new place, it's all in an effort to lower my costs for utilities. So I'm currently thinking about solar panels or other alternatives for energy production. Mostly because dear hubby falls asleep in front of the TV a lot.

So while off with the baby over the next year I'm going to be doing research in what direction I want to take my career and educating myself. In the meantime, I've started a new blog about sustainability. So I invite you to visit me at Sustain & Contain It

Count Down

2010-09-16T18:02:00.003-04:00

I'm counting down the weeks left at work until my vacation then mat leave, 54 glorious weeks away from work! Just 6 more weeks and one day to go.

I've pretty much lost all enthusiam for my job and really don't want to do it anymore, perhaps I'll consider a career change when I'm home on mat leave. I'm just not sure at this time what I'd want to do with at least some of the remainder of my expected working career of 21 years.

For some reason, I think the baby is going to be a week late, I think D-Day is going to be November 23, current EDD is November 15. I also think the baby's weight will be 9lbs and 14oz, as for the sex well I thought it would be a girl, until about a month ago, now I think it will be a boy. Only God, the baby and maybe the technician know for sure.

Tuesday the crib was delivered, and hubby and I set it up that night, so the baby's room is starting to come together. Mom, or should I say grandmom, painted it for me last week in a light green colour.

I'm finally starting to plan a bit more for the arrival, I haven't been all that communicative about the baby or pregnancy and done minimal planning for the baby's arrival, just a side effect of having had 3 miscarriages, sometimes I forget I'm pregnant until I try to pick something up off the ground and there's a big belly in the way. I should have hubby take some photos to document these last weeks of growth. Right now though...naptime.

Counting

2010-08-15T22:21:00.002-04:00

Hubby bought some of those solar night lights for outside, we have 10, I went to tell him we needed 2 more, because it's better to count to 12 than to 10. Then I sang a little song from my childhood and he had no idea what I was talking about. It took me 20 minutes but I finally found it, the ses.ame st pin.ball song. I was also trying to find the songs for 5 and 7 which has a band I think of mup.pets playing, but no such luck. I forgot all about rock and roll telephone, but another great one from the classic ss.

So now baby's bopping around in m tummy, I should call up hubby to come feel!

Hubby Participates

2010-08-08T23:14:00.002-04:00

For the last 2 weeks hubby's been putting his hands on my tummy trying to feel the baby move, and either the baby isn't moving at the moment or he can't feel it. Finally, today, hubby felt the baby move. I was napping on my in-laws couch and he woke me for dinner by playing with my hair. I could feel the baby moving under my hand, although oddly not internally, so I got him to put his hand on my tummy and he felt the baby move 3 times!

I still think it's sweet that he's been putting his hands and forehead on my tummy trying to interact with the baby.

The post where I declare what a naughty mom I will be

2010-07-26T19:56:00.002-04:00

In this post I admit my short comings as motherhood approaches.

My house will not be as clean as I like, not even close to how clean the house I grew up in was.
Meals will be pre-fab more often then they should be.
I won't be as active with my kids as I should be, i.e. 30 minutes a day (I don't have that kind of energy without kids, don't think that's going to improve).
I likely won't breast feed for very long, if at all, which is why I'm not putting any of the related baby shower items on my list.
My kid will likely be spoiled rotten with things, maybe we'll stop that by the time the child is old enough to understand they can't have everything they want (Drake isn't as spoiled as he used to be).

Things I will be doing

Reading regularly with baby/child
Hugging a lot and telling them I love them all the time
Spending time with my child at home doing crafts or playing board games
Helping with homework

More Kicking

2010-07-23T09:53:00.002-04:00

This morning I woke up at 5am and couldn't get back to sleep. The baby was moving a lot so I thought I'd see if I could feel it from the outside, and I could. I tried to wake up hubs, but he was too tired and I didn't want to wake him up too early just in case the baby stopped moving or it wasn't as obvious to him. By 6am when he woke up the baby wasn't moving as much, so he didn't get to feel it. I'm hoping this weekend though he'll get an opportunity to feel the baby move for the first time.

Belly Rubs

2010-07-22T02:28:00.002-04:00

Today I had my first belly rub request, which I granted since I know the person and my belly button hasn't gotten sore yet, and still exists, but is getting smaller, in fact the scar from the peircing and the gall bladder removal is no longer inside my belly button. Makes me think this is what my tummy must have looked like when I had the gall bladder surgery since they fill your stomach up with gas in order to do it.

Mostly this pregnancy has been really easy, although there are a few things to get used to. For example, half my favourite sleeping positions are no longer an option some nights. Having to go to the ladies room more often and before I sneeze. Climbing stairs makes me winded and tired and want to cry at the thought of having forgotten something up there that I need before I head out the door. Bending over to put my feet through the legs of clothing is becoming difficult and will get more diffcult. I threatened hubby that he might have to start dressing me for bed at night by the end of the pregnancy (seems easier to do in the morning). Going to bed early because I'm so tired sometimes means not being able to get back to sleep after a potty break. All of these things though are just minor inconveniences though, so I have no complaints when people ask me if the pregnancy is going well, just hubby sees me struggling at times by the end of the work day to keep going for a couple more hours so I'm not falling into bed at 5pm before even eating dinner.

Writing of dinner, I'm thinking to adjust my diet, which is pretty much what it was prior to pregnancy so that I'm eating more fruits and vegetables, and fewer simple carbs. I'm hoping it will give me more energy as I know I tire easily on a high carb diet. I'm also hoping it will keep my weight gain slow and steady for the remainder of the pregnancy (so far so good). I'm craving more fruits anyway, so it shouldn't be too hard to do.

10 selfish things I'd do if I won 50 million

2010-07-19T14:12:00.002-04:00

In response to Julie's post last week, I'll post this week about what I would do if I won 50 million.

I would travel looking for a city where I might like to spend most of my time (home base).
I would build an ecologically friendly home - or at least one that is "off the grid".
An infinity pool and a hot tub
Get a maid
Regular esthetician appointments in home
Remove all the birthmarks/moles on my body
Laser hair removal
Dye my hair blonde
Hair weave when I decide on a preferred colour

Other not so selfish things I would do:

I would give my brother and hubby's sister enough money to pay their mortgages and then retire so that they could at least live the same standard of living that they would should they have to work for the next 25 years.
I might open a sustainability related business, lately I've been thinking about home furnishings in recycled or sustainable matrials.
Alternately I would consider donating funds to something that is close to resolving some issue of humanity.

22 weeks

2010-07-15T17:18:00.002-04:00

Well baby is kicking a lot now, I was concerned when I hadn't felt anything for 3 weeks. It still only feels like butterflies or air bubbles. It's all the time too, not just certain times of the day. Well only 15 weeks and 1 day left until my vacation then maternity leave!

On the knitting side I messed up on the blanket and have to start over. I need to learn how to rip out stitches and pick them back up on the needle as well as how to pick up dropped stitches. The bootie on the other hand is slowly progressing.

Lastly I have to figure out how I'm going to invest some inheritance money, so I suppose I should start doing some research.

Day 2 and 3 on the project endeavour

2010-07-06T21:25:00.002-04:00

Well, I tried 4 or 5 more times on Sunday to knit 6 rows, and still ended up with 0. It doesn't [ay to knit when tired, frustrated and pregnant.

Monday went better, I ended up with 8 rows completed (although I probably knit close to 20 and had to keep pulling them out because I kept adding a stitch).

Today I completed the 4 rows to make 12 on the first half of the bootie cuff, and then did another 4 on the other half of the cuff (although this one took me three tries to get to 4 rows, pulled out 2 rows twice due to extra or dropped stitches).

Tomorrow I endeavour to complete the last 8 rows on this second half of the cuff. I find knitting two rows at a time and then taking a break for an hour means fewer mistakes.

Knitting Day 1

2010-07-04T18:51:00.002-04:00

So I'm making a pair of booties for the baby (actually it might be 3 booties, since the first bootie is likely to be practice.

This morning I cast on the 18 stitches and knit 2 rows, at which point I counted and realized I had dropped a stitch, so I pulled it out.

Then I cast 18 new stitches, knit four rows, all good. So I went to unpack some boxes (my hands get a little tired and I don't want to get tired and make a mistake.

Outside later this afternoon I knit 2 more rows, counted my stitches and had 1 extra stitch, so I pulled it all out again. I came back inside, cast 18 more stitches, knit 2 rows all good, so I took a little break. I took the empty boxes from unpacking my books to the garage and the recycling, bicycle pump and a couple of wire shelves. When I came back inside Drake (the dog) had stolen the ball of yarn (to which my 2 rows was attached) and dragged it and the needle up to the master bedroom from the living room. He was told he was very naughty and had to have a timeout in the corner for a while (about 5 to 10 minutes). I then pulled out the stitches again. At this point I calculated how many rows I have to stitch per day to reach the point I want to reach for my class on Thursday night. The instructions for the booties contain 2 items for which I cannot visualize and there are no instructions in the book. I need to do 6 rows a day (including today).

Grand count thus far...... zero.

I did get a nice little sunburn around my neck yesterday at the beach though.

A new craft

2010-07-03T11:38:00.002-04:00

So I've decided I'm going to try my hand at a new craft. It's one I've tried before but become bored with doing learners crafts. I've decided to try to knit a pair of baby booties. I know, not exactly a learners first attempt.

The way I figure it, it's small, so there's not a lot of outlay for wool. There's enough difference in what you're doing than just knitting row after row of one colour for a scarf (the projects I've previously tried). I have 4 months before the baby is born and the bootie size is 3 to 6 months, so I have until next spring to make them. I'm also going to take a beginners class where you bring your own project and materials and they help you out with it.

Today I plan to go buy the wool and needles.

Last Day of Vacation.

2010-06-22T11:12:00.004-04:00

We've moved, and I took 4 days off work to do it, today being the last of those 4 days. I still have lots of unpacking and organizing to do, but I'm hoping to get at least the kitchen completed today. At least yesterday I finished off everything at the old house, so I only need to return once more for a contractor to fix a window that sprung a leak the week before we were to move. That wasn't the only surprise my moving weekend, dad's place also received 2 offers so I spent some of that 4 days helping mom sign and fax the offer back and forth to the buyer to accept the offer. Then there was a really short closing date so mom and bro went up to the place on Sunday to clear it out. They did (mostly my bro and his friend) cleared out all the furniture and most of the garage in 4 hours. They filled 2 large dumpsters (30 yard ones, or 18ft long, 8 wide, 4 high). Yes dad had a lot of junk.

Today I'm 19 weeks along in my pregnancy, last week on Tuesday and Thursday I felt the baby move, but not since (probably too busy and stressed to notice any movement). Today is my ob/gyn appt. I also had an ultrasound last week, we'll be on the green team because hubby wants the sex of the baby to be a surprise. Baby didn't cooperate much with the ultrasound and the technician had a hard time getting all the information she needed to capture. We did get a couple of pictures though and I think hubby thought it was neat for the first 20 minutes (the room was hot with 3 of us in it and he started getting sleepy after that).

Anyway, big goals for today are grocery shopping (time for some real food and not takeout). Seeing if the place down the street does doggy daycare at a reasonable rate, doctor's appt and more organizing at home.

The other funny thing for the last couple of days the dog has been following me every where, normally he spends his time with daddy when daddy is at home.

16 Weeks tomorrow

2010-05-31T21:26:00.002-04:00

Really, has it only been 3 weeks since I posted? It surely feels like 2 months have passed...really only 3 weeks?

Obviously I'm very excited, and I want the weeks to just whip by, they seem to go SOOOO SLOWLY! Next major milestone is the move back into the city proper on June 19th, just 2.5 weeks away. I've done some of the documentation to get the move underway in changing our address. There is still a lot of packing to do and mom has been helping me, since hubby wants to do his own packing. At least hubby takes apart the big items for the move, I just have to pack my stuff and the joint stuff.

The pregnancy has been very easy, I have only 1 complaint, I think I pulled a muscle in my back way back in Feb (due to the loose muscles & ligaments of pregnancy) and it's hurt by 6pm everyday since (OK, I got about a week's relief with no pain about 2 weeks ago). Right about now I'm debating on taking it very easy for a few days, seeing an acupuncturist, seeing a masseuse or seeing a chiropractor, any of them are covered by my health insurance at work, I just have to submit the bill, I'm just lazy.

Today I noticed that my belly is finally bigger than my boo.bs, I'm sure that will change tomorrow. Also apparently I could even start feeling movement this week, if I'm really attentive and guess correctly that it's the baby moving rather than my digestive track. It's more likely that I won't realize the movements until week 18 or so. I wonder when hubby can feel the baby moving.

Oddest craving. Cold milk, by the 1/2 litre or more (pint for my American buds). Odd because I'm sensitive to lactose, and although I have lactose free milk in cereal, tea, coffee, have yoghurt and cheese, I haven't had a glass of milk in years. I crave it by the glass though!

Finally

2010-05-10T13:09:00.003-04:00

13 weeks tomorrow! Yippee, I've finally made it through the first trimester with a healthy pregnancy. It was easier this time in a sense, because I didn't even know until I was 8 weeks along, so I only had to really worry for 5 weeks. When I did worry I just kept telling myself I've had really bad luck, it doesn't mean that there is a repeatable reason why I keep miscarrying that had yet to be diagnosed and treated.

The expected due date is November 15 or 16, depending on which doctor or application you'd like to reference. I'm kind of hoping for the 11th, just because in hubby's family most of them have their birth month and birth day as the same value (i.e. 7/7, 8/8 and 9/9).

I've had to use some maternity clothes for the last couple of weeks, just because my pants keep slipping low under my tummy and either that's uncomfortable, also if I move my arms about then my tummy is exposed as the shirt rides up. The problem I've found with maternity pants though is that I don't have enough tummy to keep the elastic waist up, so the weight of the pant itself drags down and then I trip on the cuffs of the pant.

Anyway, very excited! I'm already planning the theme of the baby's room, I'd like to paint it a light green with a gray undertone (I want to use the term sage, but that might not be right), and then to have a jungle/safari theme to room. I've already got a stuffed elephant and a stuffed giraffe (both by Ty Pluffies). I want to also put up one of those shelf like moldings around the room at about 4.5 ft high. I've been seeing it in model homes, I think it's just crown molding with a 3 by 1 on top to make the shelf (and maybe another 3 by 1 against the wall to attach the crown molding and other 3 by 1 too).

So although I'm really excited, I'm still scared and like some of my friends say, although I might not realize it, I'm probably stressed about the pregnancy going full term and probably won't take a truly deep breath until the baby is born healthy. Which is true, I still often say when talking about plans for maternity leave or the future are prefaced with the condition that this pregnancy works out.

Cause for Celebration?

2010-01-14T17:23:00.000-05:00

I never thought I'd have cause to celebrate a miscarriage, but that's exactly how I feel today. Yesterday I saw the doctor and since the baby had died 2 weeks ago and was so early on in the pregnancy there wasn't a possibility to test the genetics of the embryo, hubby and I are having ours done though. However, the doctor told me given the pattern of the HCG levels (the beta as she calls them), the pregnancy was ectopic. This morning I had an ultrasound to see if they could see anything in my uterus or tubes, as it's very rare for a tubal ectopic to clear on it's own.

Thankfully there is no fetal tissue found in my uterus or tubes, and I'm so happy I want to dance. I was so worried I would lose my right tube as I almost always ovulate on the right, so losing the tube would significantly reduce my prospects of becoming pregnant again.

I have one other thing to be thankful for, as often as I've miscarried I truly believe that one day I will have a daughter, and that I couldn't be more proud of the woman she grows up to be. I just don't like the idea of having to wait until my early to mid forties to have her.

Where to begin

2009-12-31T11:47:00.003-05:00

Here we go again.
Another pregnancy
Another failure
Another wait to miscarry the products of conception

This is number 3. I thought the doctor was supposed to take action to investigate possible causes, at least genetic testing of the embryo. When I talk to the nurse though about what the doctor wants, I just get that I should stop the meds and come back for another blood test next week.

I booked an appointment with the doctor to discuss genetic testing, now I just have to hope I don't lose the fetal tissue before I can meet with her, and then schedule the tests. With my luck though I'll pass the tissue this weekend.

I've decided to stop the fertility drugs. I took a break 6 months ago, and during that time I felt that the drugs are not the right way for me to conceive, I returned to the fertility clinic, since I had paid for a year of support, I then became pregnant in the next cycle, and lost the baby. The next cycle I could conceive in I became pregnant again, and now I'm losing this one too.

I wish I felt more angry, I'd really like to feel angry, I'd really like to express anger, but any time I want to be angry I just cry instead.

This sucks.

2009-10-17T19:10:00.003-04:00

I've been thinking lately about starting a website of my experiences, I was looking for a book on working through miscarriage after I miscarried this time, and surprisingly there was only 2 on the website I checked, all the other books were about lower the risk of miscarriage and pregnancy after miscarriage, obviously niether of which I was looking for.

I have been on other blogs and pregnancy and infant loss boards, but since there's often little to no organization within these types of forums I found it difficult to get what I needed. When I was in the depths of the loss, working to finding what I needed isn't what I was willing to do, crying and sleeping was more along the lines of what I was doing.

I've been back at work for 2 weeks now, and it's helping me to give me a break from the grief and somethin else to focus on while my body heals. I'm still conflicted about starting again trying to conceive and the risk of another miscarriage. I have in my head that there are still 3 losses I'll experience before successfully delivering a baby. I'm not prepared for that at this point. I know that I can approach pregnancy without fear of miscarrying, I did it for this last pregnancy, but it had been nearly 2 years since the last and I wanted a baby very much. I'm not prepared to experience the loss again so soon. For now I'm thinking to wait before starting fertility treatments again, no point in spending the money when conflicted on fertility treatments.

May this be the end - TMI

2009-10-04T22:59:00.003-04:00

It's been nearly 2 weeks since my second miscarriage, apparently there is still a little bit of tissue in my uterus. The doctor wants me to wait 2 weeks to see if I pass it myself, if not she'd try to remove it in the clinic. I feel the wait is preventing me from moving on in my grieving process, and I fear that there's a risk of hemorraging again or infection that could cause more fertility issues for me. I called the office on Friday and asked to have the in office procedure scheduled for early this week. So it will be Monday morning. Hopefully it works.

Finally yesterday is the first day I didn't cry a lot, a confess there were a few tears, literally only 3 or so. One day at a time, some days will be easier than others, otherall, it will get easier with time.

First day back to work

2009-09-28T08:21:00.004-04:00

Today is my first day back to work. I was hoping it would be a little easier than it's been so far, although it's only been the drive into the office and booting up my computer.

My biggest emotional trigger right now is answering the questions "how was your vacation" and "what did you do". I asked some people for feedback on what to do, I like to be truthful, but in all honesty I'd probably burst into tears.

I figured larger meetings I'd just show up late for the first week.
Hubby said to tell people that there were some family emergencies, that left my vacation certainly less than expected.
One of the boards I'm on mentioned saying fine and turning the tables right back by asking what's occurred at the office while I've been away to keep things business focused.
I guess I could say I was sick most of my vacation.

Maybe I'll update through out the day, it's currently 8:30am.

Update:
I ended up bursting into tears and leaving at 9:30. The remainder of the week I worled form home in the morning. The afternoons I spent mostly in pain, turns out there is still some tissue left, hopefully to be removed Monday. At least I'm not cramping anymore.

Shattered

2009-09-25T08:06:00.002-04:00

As my vacation draws to a close, I have a confession to make, my vacation was a terrible one. I started out this vacation with such high hopes of accomplishing a lot. I was hoping to knock several items off my to do list, which I did with mom's help, and I was hoping to go back to work and soon announce an extended vacation period for maternity leave next April. Alas, that's not to be, the second [week]day of my vacation I learned the baby's heartbeat was slow and there had been little growth since the week before (there was no heartbeat the week before). The following week I learned there was no heartbeat, our baby had passed away. I miscarried on Tuesday Sept 22, 6 days before the 2 year anniversary of my first miscarriage. I found out I was pregnant this time 2 days before the anniversary of the same last time, to an extent I've felt fated to miscarry since day 1, but tried to take hope from this time having pregnancy symptoms, whereas last time I had none.

I had so many plans for my impending leave and they've all been shattered, my heart is breaking, and in some ways, because I desired the change at work so strongly I feel trapped to continuing with it, since changing jobs and trying to get pregnant again I don't feel right about. I'm fearful and worried, sad and disappointed and angry. I've been journalling my feelings, and the associated thoughts with them to try to get a handle on my grief.

It would be nice to take some extra time and go away for a few days (and my boss would allow for it), but hubby started a new job a month ago and is still on probation and doesn't feel comfortable in requesting to take the time off. Instead we'll be going away later, after his probation period is over, a short holiday for us.

Why am I here?

2009-09-19T08:17:00.003-04:00

Have you ever wondered at why you're on this earth?

For myself I like to think that there is some plane of existence in which the essence of me investigated the different possible places I could go, if I so choose, and for some reason I decided to come to this planet. Why would I choose to come here though, I like to pretend there are rules in choosing.

Moving to certain planes means you don't get to have knowledge that other planes exist and what they are really like. If you learn about them, you have to take them on faith.
When in one of the planes where you can see the other ones, you can't go to them all directly, you need to pass through another before, and depending on how you conduct yourself you may or may not get to go to the plane you were aiming at initially.
When you go to a new plane (one where you don't have knowledge of the existence of other planes) you don't get to choose which life you'll be born into, you take your chances.

So why would I choose to come to earth?

I could take the selfish route, there was some other plane I wanted to get to and although earth was one of multiple routes, maybe it was the shortest. I wouldn't be here more than 125 years (and likely less), maybe the other planes I could have lived for hundreds of years.

Alternately, maybe I looked upon the earth and I saw something I wanted to participate in, for example

The great joys possible here in pursuing relationships with other people
Helping people that are in pain or righting a societal injustice
Experiencing faith in things that are unprovable

I think in figuring this out would help me feel purposeful and happy, because if I'm not doing what I thinking I'm supposed to be doing, then I'm not going to be happy.

Ahhh Vacation

2009-09-13T14:42:00.003-04:00

I'm off again for 2 glorious weeks, looks like the nice weather will hold for at least the first week and I'll have some time to myself since hubby has to work (he just started a new job a month ago with one of the "big 6" banks here).

I don't have many plans for the 2 weeks off, I few house chores and redocorating I've been meaning to do for a while now, I made a list and prioritized it, there are 41 items on it and I completed 2 of them a couple of weeks ago. I hope to complete 3 or 4 more while on vacation. Other than that, just me time to relax and chill out.

I went shopping today for some new jeans, I got 2 new pairs. I didn't find any tops that I liked though.

Now I'm going to go back to relaxing on the couch and watching TV.

Freedom

2009-07-03T18:23:00.002-04:00

Last cycle was great taking a break from fertility testing, I'm not going back this month either. In fact, I never want to go back. The one and only reason I want to go back is to have an ultrasound to see if they can see a cyst or fibroid on my left ovary. The acupuncturist says there's one there -- did I mention that already?

Work is crazy busy I could use another holiday, but I don't have one scheduled for another 2.5 months, boohoo, but I'm hoping things will settle down in a month (yah right, they'll just give me another huge thing to do).

I'm taking the weekend off to relax!

Updates

2009-06-07T10:00:00.002-04:00

Last cycle I was on Puregon. For 3 weeks straight I was angry, mad, annoyed, pissed, aggravated...I think you get the point. Usually when I become angry I can take timeout to think about what is triggering the anger and deal with the issue to resolve the anger, I don't yell. I know now that it was primarily the drugs, but it was really hard month. Well no baby this month.

I'm taking a week off work to relax. I've also thought a lot about whether to take some time off cycle monitoring or continuing. Being an analyst, I decided to make a list for each. Here it is.

Keep going:
1 year of cycle monitoring has already been paid for
I really want to have a baby
I'm not getting any younger (I'll be 37 in Sept)
DH could be out of town for 6 months effectively ending any more ttc'ing until he returns
Stopping the drugs - it could take my body months to return to normal cycling - i.e. ovulating and producing enough progesterone

Stop for 1 cycle (maybe more)
Doesn't feel like the right thing to be doing to get pregnant
Hasn't felt like the right thing since the beginning of the second cycle (I've done 4 now)
Cost of IUI (DH is unemployed and can't afford anything extra in June)
Hormonally induced emotional breakdowns (left work in tears last cycle and broke down crying 2 other times during the same cycle)
Stress levels at work until July are very high, and not conducive to conception

So I've decided to take a month off of cycle monitoring, including no BBT to see if there's a temperature shift. Right now I think I might go see an accupuncturist, but I haven't make the appointment yet, and for me thinking about and making the acctual appointment are pretty far apart (even if I am pretty sure I should at least try it).

Anyway, I have this week off, and I'm trying not to look at anything work related. I thought it would be hard because I've been working every night and weekend for months, but I shutdown my computer and black.berry on Friday after work and have absolutely no desire to even contemplate work.

I was hoping the coming week would be nicer out, I was thinking of going to the local amusement park and art gallery. I can still go to the art gallery, but the amusement park would suck in the rain, and since it's not supposed to be very warm then the waterslides would not be much fun either.

I guess I'll do reading and gardening instead.

Baby Dust Needed

2009-05-18T06:07:00.003-04:00

Last month didn't work out, so this month we're trying IUI again, with a different FSH drug. Today is the second treatment and I'm soooo tired from waking up early in the morning to be at the clinic by 7, especially when the treatments take place on the weekends and holidays (it's Victoria Day weekend today, also known as May two four weekend - always the Monday on or before May 24th). I'd rather be sleeping in rather than trying to nudge hubby awake to participate in treatments too.

Would love prayers to conceive this time, if successful I could have a Valentine's Day baby!

Vegetable Garden

2009-04-30T21:42:00.003-04:00

This year I decided to plant a vegetable garden, so a few months ago I bought about 8 packages of seeds. Have you ever noticed that the seeds in the packages are much larger than the seeds you see in the veggie normally. I wonder how they do that. Well I thought it might also be good to see how they grown indoors to see if I can have home grown vegetables all year round. Anyway, 2 weeks ago I planted my seeds from the 3 packages that take the longest to reach maturity, those would be romaine lettuce, green onion (or spring onion if you prefer) and zucchini (or courgette if you prefer). I bought 4 aluminium lasagna trays to plant my veggies and I made 6 little homes for the seeds in each. Now the lettuce and onion are tiny seeds, so I put 3 or 4 in each hole. Today finally the zucchini sprouted (it was supposed to germinate first, but it was last). I now have 1 zucchini sprout, 5 lettuce and 2 onion. I'm quite proud of my little veggies and I hope they grow to maturity. I plan to put them in my backyard in 3 weeks (which is considered to be the big planting weekend in my little corner of the world). I'm hoping the dog won't eat them as I grow them. I plan to put up a little fence to discourage him, but enough space between the edge of the bed and the fence for me to knee on the other side to remove weeds.

My other veggies are yellow wax beans and snow peas, and I bought a couple of packages of flowers too. I want to also grow red peppers (actually any sweet or bell pepper will do, but I tend to use the red, yellow and orange ones and those are pretty expensive off season). I wonder if I can plant the seeds from the veggie when I cut it open, normally I just compost the parts I don't use. Also I think I might buy a tomato plant, I'm not a big fan of tomatoes, but I've started making a couple of recipes and each calls for a whole tomato, so that's 2 per week consumed, so maybe a plant would be a good idea.

So seeing my little veggies grow has been making me feel a little maternal and I keep telling hubby how the seedlings are doing, at least I don't check daily or drag him to look at them daily, I check about 4 times a week, because I have to remember to water them (I'll forget if I don't look in on the plants, I try to remember to look at them daily, but I usually on manage alternate days.

Well off to read my book again.

Timeout

2009-04-24T13:36:00.003-04:00

Yesterday and today we did our first IUI treatments. I decided to take the time off work to try to relax. Being off for 2 days has made me realize 2 things.
1) I need to take more vacation
2) I need to be less available when I take time off, rather than checking email 2-3 times a day, at least I have a smartphone making it easier to check, but it still leaves me feeling stressed.

Now for the 2 week wait, wish me luck, I'll know if the treatments were successful just before mother's day.

Expectation Setting

2009-04-18T09:51:00.002-04:00

So when I went to the doctor on Wednesday we talked somewhat on procedures & costs. Not much on procedures, because she needed to know 2 things first.

My budget
Insurance coverage

Hubby and I defined a basic budget for this, we decided to spend $5000 and no more. That number depended on insurance coverage of medication and procedural costs. So my insurance will cover 80% of all meds to a $9000 lifetime maximum. I'm hoping with this information I can find out from my doctor the plan for the next 3-5 cycles.

As for timelines, to be honest, I don't feel like doing cycle monitoring anymore (it's only been 2 cycles), since you have to pay for a year I'll continue with the monitoring and we'll see month by month what I feel like doing.

Hubby and I also talked a little bit about long term plans if we don't get pregnant. I've thought about it a fair bit (I'm a planner, I've been thinking about it since my early 20s). These are my thoughts/options obviously I can't do them all at the same time:

Downsize to a condo or possibly sell all property and travel the world working here and there to support traveling.
Quit work, and do something I find more fulfilling, less stressful and socially responsible
Be a foster parent, and/or join big sisters in my community

I suppose #2 I can do anytime, well, hubby has to be working, and downsizing might have to be done first or pay off the mortgage.

Maybe next month

2009-04-11T14:35:00.002-04:00

It occurred to me as I titled this post that it's the same URL as Hope's blog. Although I don't want to do IUI, I do want to conceive. I think this cycle in addition to whatever the doctor's put me on, I'll take some time off and work from home the week after the IUI. Maybe a little relaxation on top of the more agressive treatment will make things happen this month.

Current treatment

2009-03-30T20:44:00.003-04:00

I forgot to mention that I am currently on progestrone to lengthen my luteal phase. It didn't do exactly what it was supposed to last month, the doctor thinks it's because I have trouble absorbing it so she increased the dosage. There are other, rarer, causes of a short luteal phase, so we'll see what happens this cycle.

I did some more research, turns out clo.mid and h.c.g is a treatment for LPD because sometimes the body fakes ovulation and for all intents and purposes it looks like ovulation occurred and progestrone is produced, but it may in fact not have occurred.

Oh well, here's hoping this cycle works out.

This cycle in fertility.news

2009-03-29T11:45:00.002-04:00

So this month the doctor put me on 6 days of clo.mid and then a shot of h.c.g to make me ovulate. The doctor also wanted to do a sp.erm.wash, which I declined for this cycle, but I'm feeling rather pressured about doing it, and I don't exactly have the funds for it with DH having been laid off almost 2 months ago. I however did do a budget to see if we could manage to live on my salary and have his employee insurance benefits go to the savings account for emergencies. It's possible if I don't take into account saving anything for known quarterly or annual expenses.

Anyway back to ttc'ing. So I know I have an issue with a short luteal phase, I don't think I need the drugs for hyper ovulation or the wash, but they are pressuring me to do it next month. We'll see what happens when I decline to do it. The other thing is last cycle the drugs to lengthen my luteal phase didn't work quite as expected, if the same thing occurs this month, then I want them to fix the known issue rather than trying to help me conceive faster, because otherwise I'm just throwing away money if the luteal phase isn't long enough to support a pregnancy.

So now I'm in the 2 week wait (2ww). Testing on Friday April 10, I think I'll take that day off work, I could use a break anyway.

Grocery Shopping

2009-02-22T10:33:00.003-05:00

I went grocery shopping yesterday, seems I only go every 2 weeks, but it surely feels like weekly. Maybe if I went weekly I wouldn't have food spoil on me :)

Anyway I made a list of things I would like to eat and then bought groceries accordingly, although when I went to the store, surprise surprise other things not on my list ended up in my cart, and I don't have children.

I thought I'd share what I'm going to make over the next 2 weeks some for dinner, some for lunch:
No Pasta lasagna - Cook yourself Thin (uses zucchini for layering)
Easy cheeseburger pie - Kraft Foods
Quiche from 2007's Milk calendar - real crust though, not the cracker crumbs from the calendar
Slow cooker beef stew on garlic and sour cream mashed potatoes (yummy cooked with red wine).
Mongolian Beef
Pork and green beans in an olive mustard sauce or maybe oyster sauce (asian dish)
Easy chicken wraps (chicken cooked with salsa, add cheese, green onion to wrap and microwave) then add veggies (peppers, lettuce, tomato etc)
Chicken with red peppers and kale or spinach with vodka rose sauce on penne
Coconut pie (it will be the first pie I have ever made)

Now, you may have noticed there are only 6 main dishes here, likely they will last the weeks until I go grocery shopping again.

Fertility - The first visit

2009-02-19T21:03:00.003-05:00

Today was my first visit with the new doctor.

I had an ultrasound and a sonogram, and 13 vials of blo.od withdrawn. Hubby had a few vials done too.

The ultra was fine, the sono was crampy (worst cramps I've ever had, but I admit, I'm very lucky in that respect, I only gets semi-noticeable cramps 2 or 3 cycles a year). The sono, if I understood correctly, showed that the fluid wasn't highlighting something in the left corner (not sure if it was the tube or the uterus), so they kept pushing more fluid in (5 times), eventually it was highlighted (yay?) Sorry I can't seem to get too excited about that it was very uncomfortable, I'm sure I'll be estatic if I get pregnant this cycle.

Ssorry mom I won't know in time for your birthday although that would be a great present for your milestone year!

Anyway I start cycle monitoring on Monday. Apparently I should expect an unltrasound and blood work every visit while cycle monitoring. Hey at least I'll know I'm about to ovulate hence the best time to conceive.

For now, I need to check some tax data so I know how much more I should contribute to RRSPs.

I Dare You

2009-02-05T09:04:00.002-05:00

So I'm kind of bored, and I thought I would put together a list of things I should try in my lifetime that would challenge me. Then I thought, who better to challenge me than my invisible internet friends. So, I could only think of 2 rules to the challenges:
1) Not illegal
2) Not against my morals

So to start things off I give you 3 items from my list
1) Go parasailing (like behind a boat, I'm not sure what it's called when it's on a tow line)
2) Go hang gliding
3) Take at least 2 singing lessons

So hit me with some ideas.

Confessions

2009-01-18T11:45:00.003-05:00

I have a confession to make. Over the last year I've been using work, reading and food as an escape from my feelings about trying to conceive. Most especially since September, which was the 1 yr annniversary of my miscarriage (I wrote "the" first rather than "my").

So for the last 2 weeks I've been tracking how much time I really spend working, and I don't get overtime for it. I was planning on doing it for the month. This is what a typical day looks like:

5:30 am hit snooze three times, take temperature for graphing BBT
6:00 get out of bed, wash, dress
6:30 prepare breakfast, check temperature and work email
7:00 Dry hair do makeup put on socks
7:10 pack bag for work
7:15 leave house, drop hubby at station, Drake at daycare (M,W,F only), go to work
8:00-8:15 arrive work (depends on traffic and if Drake is going to daycare)
4:30-5:30 leave work (depends on the day how late I leave, and if Drake's at daycare or not, I leave earlier when he's not)
5:00-6:00 Pick up Drake (if hubby arriving within 40 minutes pick him up from station). If waiting do work at the station.
If Drake's not at daycare I go home first to let him out to pee, and then I'll wait for hubby to call to pick him up from the station, I'll work during that time, which is typically from 5-6:30.
6:30 Typical time to pick up hubby
6:45 Home, change clothes make dinner
7:30 Eat dinner
8 onwards more work, I'll stop anywhere between 9:30 and midnight
Read until I feel tired enough to go to sleep, which is typically between 12 and 1:30. Now you know why I hit snooze three times in the morning.

By the end of the week I'm typically going to bed to read after dinner and may fall asleep between 9 and 9:30, but then I'll wake up at 3:30 or 4, at least I don't work until my normal wake up time :)

This continues on the weekend too, any time I'm not sleeping, eating or reading, then I'm working.

So instead of working after I get home or first thing in the morning, or weekends, I've made 2 lists of other things I can do, but I need some help.

I'm going to give you list 2 first, because it's list 1 I need help with.

List 2: Other things I can do
Clean
Tidy
Organize/purge stuff
Dust
Vacuum
Pay Bill

List 1: Stuff I can do for me
Manicure, pedicure, eyebrows, facial
Shop
Workout
Bake
Eat Healthy
Read
Walk Drake
Blog
Needlepoint, quilt, sew
Listen to music, sing, dance

I need more things that make me happy, but I'm having a little trouble coming up with things that make me happy. It's getting a little easier. I've always liked crafts ever since I was little. Music and dancing is my stress relief that I used in university. I'd like to do some redecorating but I'm not sure if that belongs on list 1 or 2, I suppose if I made a very concise list of what I want, then I could shop for it and put it on list 2.

Although hubby and I were planning to go to Italy after tax time, part of me thinks I should go south, because last year I was going to try something new every month and parasailing behind a boat was one of those things (as was snow tubing and horse back riding for the year, I did do the horseback riding).

So any ideas of things I should try on weekend or evening rather than working?

Finally a date

2009-01-10T10:45:00.004-05:00

February 19 2009.

That's the date I go see the specialist and start with assessing my current health, I'm not sure if they'll do any kind of diagnostic reproductive testing on this date, that would be nice, get the ball rolling a little faster, I hate waiting.

To be honest, I hate the idea of going to see a specialist for diagnostic testing to see if there are any reasons I'm not getting pregnant again, because sometimes I just don't like the idea of asking for help, and feel like a bit of a failure that I'm not getting pregnant easily. But I guess that's a common feeling in women trying to conceive. I keep trying to remind myself that although in total we've been trying for 18 cycles, those cycles have been broken up over a 2 year period and any individual length of time is not very long (3, 5, 3, 7) I just keep thinking of the 27 months it's been and the 34 months I've been wanting to conceive. OK that's just depressing, so I'm going to stop blogging now.

Happy New Year

2008-12-31T15:52:00.002-05:00

The last year has been very difficult for me. I've decided that I'm going to let everything go. I've no plans to do any of the following:

Get Organizated/clean more
Be a better person or wife
Work harder

The only plan I have is at the end of the day, no matter how much I feel I've failed at any of my own expectations of myself, there must be at least one thing I can think of that I can be proud of, and if not I can spend 5 minutes doing something to be proud of.

To be or not to be

2008-11-29T16:03:00.002-05:00

I'm thinking about unplugging, taking down my facebook account, linked in, blog, and personal email address. I'd even consider transferring my personal cell phone and all it's time to someone else if they needed it.

There, linked in is gone.
Now facebook.

That was kind of freeing, if my blog disappears you know why.

Hey hey hey bye bye

2008-10-26T20:31:00.004-04:00

Yay vacation, very very very much needed vacation. I've been working incredibly long hours the last 2 weeks, and now I'm taking a week of lieu time, so I still have 3 weeks of vacation to use this year, I guess I'll be carrying it over again and next year I'll have 6 weeks to take :)

So looking at the title of the post? Wondering what's gone? Jenn knows, though she hasn't seen yet. I'll give you a hint...a foot. Do you know yet? No? I cut my hair, about a foot has gone bye bye. hehehehe, it was so much fun to go to work the next day, or tell my mom I had a hair cut on the Friday when she asked what I'd been doing and mentioned I "trimmed" it. She likes short hair so she was happy.

Hub's and I bought a new TV for our anniversary, Sony LCD Z Series, so the old one is coming up to the living room (not the new one, he watches TV too late and too loudly for me to sleep, he laughs really loud at the late night shows on Com.edy net.work). So since we got a new TV, I need a TV stand for the old one, so to Ik.ea we went. The old TV stand had to have the shelves removed to hold the new TV, so we also needed more media storage, and since we're having it delivered might as well add another bookcase for that ever expanding book collection. I also (hopefully) got a matching Po.ang chair for the existing one the dog likes to sleep in. A new cover too, so that I can replace the one Drake sleeps in with a clean one when...er if...we have company.

OK, so off to watch a movie on Zed.

Sugar Free

2008-09-06T13:24:00.003-04:00

Lately I've been coming across a few posts and articles about removing sugar from one's diet. I remember the last couple of times I removed sugar, empty calorie and fatty foods from my diet. I felt a lot better and had more energy, but it takes more planning and commitment than I'm prepared to do again. So for the last week I've been removing just sugar from my diet, I'm not completely without sugar, I just aknowledge that if there's something I'm intending to eat that contains sugar, I remind myself that it does and how that seems to affect my attitude.

I have noticed the last 2 or 3 days that my energy level and attitudes are improved over the previous month, when I felt lethargic and apathic about almost everything. It could just be a response to taking control of something and doing it for myself than the actual removal of sugar.

Yesterday I had a completely sugar fee day, today I had one spoon in my coffee, but that's all. Tomorrow we'll try for another sugar free day. The one thing about cutting sugar is the withdrawal. In the evenings I would wander around the kitchen looking for a little something to eat. I wasn't hungry, I wanted something sugary, and we don't have a lot of sugary foods in the house (only ones hubby likes and I either don't mind or don't like, so they aren't as much of a temptation). I'd keep popping little things in my mouth and wanting more because whatever it was, it wasn't sugar and the craving continued. I consider myself fortunate that the withdrawal for me typically only lasts about 1/2 a day where going cold turkey is really hard, apparently it can last up to a week for some people. For me it starts around 2 or 3 pm on an average work day and last for the remainder of the day (i.e. bedtime), so I go to bed early :) I'm fine the next day, or if I'm still craving is is so much reduced from the previous night that it's not noticeable to me.

So you might be seeing more sugar free posts from me in the near future, I want to chronical how I feel to encourage myself not to go back to eating sugar regularly.

Been awhile

2008-08-17T10:57:00.009-04:00

It's been awhile since I last posted, that's because I have nothing to say, I still don't.

Today hubby and I went to breakfast and Drake was naughty at home, he tore up a plastic bag, took my running shoe to the basement, tore up a facial tissue, tried to eat a bag of ginger snap cookies and barfed on the basement carpet (which strangely is the nicest carpet in the house). Hubby found it, so I'm letting him clean it up, all the way up. Apparently it came off the carpet with no stain, but I told him we should probably wash it anyway. So he asked me if we had cleaner other than the rug doctor stuff (nope) so I told him to just mix the rug doctor with water and there's a rag and a scrub brush in the laundry room. So he's cleaning it, hehehehehe. Makes me happy as I usually get that job because 90%+ of the time I find the mess.

Friday I took the day off, just because, it was really hard to entertain myself for the whole day while everyone else was at work. Sometime this week I'll re-highlight my hair as the roots annoy me. Nothing else is new, I'm just waiting for a change at work on the systems to get to my steps of the process (supposedly between 2 and 4pm, unless they are late in delivery). I have another one next weekend.

Hmmm, I've been thinking about my goals lately, I'd like to redo the flooring in the main part of the house, so I'm saving up money, I figure 5K-7K aught to do it. I'd like to put down a darker laminate than I have today (it's currently blonde laminate). I'm still debating between a reddish colour and chocolate/ebony colour. I like the darker tone, but not everyone likes it soo dark, and we plan to sell within 5 years, maybe less, then again life can change a lot in 5 years and we might not be able to move at all, so maybe I should get what would make me happy :)

Here's what the floor currently looks like:

And 4 options I'm think of
1)

2)

3)

4)

Commercials

2008-07-12T08:48:00.003-04:00

So yesterday as hubby and I were driving home from the bookstore I heard a minivan commercial where they were offering $10,000 back from the purchase. 10K! They also mention how that buys a lot of gas (a lot of car comercials mention money back and gas these days). So I did a little math in my head of how much I spend on gas, and how long 10K would last for gas. I used to spend $200 a month, it's now about $250, that's $2400 to $3000 per annum, so 3 to 4 years and I've spent 10K on gas (holy cr**!) so I figure a minivan uses more gas, so a tank in a minivan should take me as far as a tank in my car. The tank size of the minivan is 60% larger than my car, so I should be spending 60% more on gas i.e. $3800 to $4800 or take between 2 to 2.5 years to spend $10K on gas! I tell you, I wanted to get rid of my car immediately, take into account that between parking, gas, repairs and insurance, I'm spending currently $7000 per year maintaining the vehicle. So I looked up bus fare, in 2 cities since we're considering moving. Current city it's $175 + $38 = $213 (or $2556 per year) target city is $109 (or $1308 per year). Even if I add another 2K per year for taxis, I'm still saving at least $2k in either city over using the car. Dang I want to chuck the car bad, it's just so darn convenient in my current city at least, I'll have to make a list of what I want to be near if we move into our target city.

Pictures

2008-07-02T19:56:00.008-04:00

With and without my glasses. Posting for a limited time only . I got it cut on the 28th (just the post was written sooner but sat in draft mode for 2 weeks.) OK so the parts that look red in the picture are actually closer to blonde.

Time's up, pics removed.

How lucky are you?

2008-06-22T15:44:00.003-04:00

Do you ever think about how lucky you are? I do, not a lot, but every few years I think about how lucky I am to be placed where I've been placed, simply from an accident of birth. I've been thinking about that today.

I found a grid of global population by age and sex, about 268,000 people alive today were born the same day I was. Probably 300,000 people where born the day I was born (taking into account mortality rates). I had originally calculated the percentage of people in North America and earning a middle class income or better giving me a 2.5% chance of being born as fortunately as I was, but it would be higher than that as there are lots of other wealthy countries I could have been born into. Still, I'm pretty fortunate. I believe I have a responsibility to humanity to help others because I can, but what to do? There are so many choices. I think some of the first things I need to choose though are to look to the needs of others before my own comforts, do I really need that piece of pie? Could not the $2-3 it costs be put to better use? What about that new item? Do I really need more clutter in my life? More things?

In other news, I got a haircut and highlights, can I just say something meekly? That although it was more than I intended to spend...I feel pretty, so it was worth every penny.

Happy Mother's Day

2008-05-11T07:09:00.001-04:00

To all the mother's out there Happy Mother's Day.

Things I know about my mom:

That she's always there for me, and even though I'm married and living away from the home I grew up in, she still worries, just a little, if she calls me and I don't call back that day.
When she got so mad at my little brother for calling her his maid that he was sent to his room. Mother's are not employees of their children, no matter how much some company says a stay at home mom should be paid in monetary funds. They are paid in the unconditional love of their children.
Despite how much I love my mom, not even if I think there is nothing she could do to make me withhold that love, she loves me infinitely more. A love I won't fully comprehend unless I have a child to care for, that I am to teach and love and help grow up into a responsible adult.
No matter how old I get, how many children I have, what I accomplish or don't in my lifetime, I will always be her little girl and she'll always be proud of me.
My mom will always be my mom, she can't be replaced with another. When she's gone no other woman would fill her shoes in my life. Other women might be mentors, supporters, friends, confidants, care givers, but not my mom because they can no longer fulfill item #3 in my life.

Happy Mother's Day mom.

Kim

The Trip

2008-04-25T21:11:00.002-04:00

We're home, we have been for just over a week now. Here's a synopsis of our trip to London.

April 7 4pm arrive at airport
April 8 10am check into hotel room in London, freshen up leave bags and head down to Kensington park to look around. We walk south through the park seeing various statues and stop at the Diana Memorial. Grab a lunch at the local cafe and head west and then north back through the park and see the Albert memorial. Go back to the hotel room for a little sleep and then out to dinner.
April 9 we went to the Science Museum and the Natural History museum. The large museum's in London are free, which is really great.
April 10 Try to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, it's only done on alternate days, today is not the day, oh well. So we head to Westminster chapel and have a look around there, then head to the Parliment buildings and big Ben, and go to the London Aquarium
April 11 Go to Harrod's and Oxford Street
April 12 See MI5 and MI6
April 13 Go to the Tower of London and spend the whole day there
April 14 Go on the London Eye, see Westminster Cathedral
April 15 Decide to go to the wax museum, but it's 25 pounds per person, do the conversion and for $110 dollars decide I don't want to see it that much, so we go to Sherlock Holmes' house nearby, then souvenir shopping for family.
April 16 Fly home

I know there was other stuff we did, but I can't remember now, or at least can't remember which day, and I don't guaratee the above is correct.

I don't have many pictures on the camera, and they are currently on hubby's computer not mine to post. Maybe I'll get around to it.

The last couple of days have been tough, the due date was either Saturday the 19th or Monday the 21st of our baby. Saturday I had a good cry, Monday I was distracted by being back at the office and my brother's 1 year wedding anniversary. I expect the next few weeks will be hard, especially Mother's Day, and then August/September will probably be hard again as anniversaries of the miscarriage come around. Please don't comment about being pregnant again soon, hubby wants to pursue his dreams, so it means waiting 1 to 3 years before trying again, I find that very depressing, especially seeing as I've already waited 2 years and we've stopped trying twice now for this dream.

My bro's having a potluck for his one year anniversary, they've invited over both sides of the family, so that will be really nice. I'm bringing a cheese tray and mongolian beef with noodles (pretty much steak strips in a black bean and garlic sauce with sweet bell peppers, it's hubby's favourite meal right now). Speaking of which I should go make sure I have all the ingredients I need, ta.

Cleanup

2008-04-06T17:53:00.002-04:00

I'm doing those things one does before they travel:
Updating the booking info
Getting the house super clean for the neighbours to check on it while we're out
Getting the dog's stuff together
Laundry
Packing
Updating flight check-in info
Printing e-tickets
Aggregating all travel docs together for easy access
Maps documenting where all the things are that we want to do in London

Well my vacuum stopped again (needing the dust cleaned out, because I forgot to do that first, so I best get back to the tidying up and cleaning.

Spring time? Not here.

2008-03-29T18:09:00.004-04:00

I long for spring, green grass, pretty flowers, warm bright sunshiny days and mostl importantly no more snow. The first evidence I've seen so far is the bright sunshine we've had over the last week, but the snow hasn't melted yet. In the mean time I have holiday plans for traveling, yay, I'm very excited. It's our second big trip as a couple. Today I purchased a dress and a top for the trip, which to most might not be a big deal, but I typically don't wear dresses and this one even contains hot pink as a colour (I normally wear dark earty colours), maybe I'll take a picture later and post it.

Drake will be off to boarding at daycare, at least I know he'll be happy there, he'll probably be exhausted after our trip, heck he might even prefer to stay at daycare it's so much fun there.

Tomorrow, Cora's for breakfast, yummy, and they are opening one near us soon, that's very exciting news too, I really should go check the projected date for the grand opening. Also get my hair cut tomorrow, it's long overdue, it's been 4 months since my last hair cut and 7 months since I last coloured it (which I'll do next week).

Doggie Daycare

2008-02-21T21:18:00.004-05:00

Some of you may know that we take our dog to daycare 3 times a week. DH and I work about an hour from home (he slight more than an hour, me slightly less), and we work long days, so typically we're away from the house for at least 10 hours, usually 11 hours though. I feel bad for the dog because he doesn't eat or drink during that time so that he doesn't have to go to the bathroom, we're also tired when we get home, so he doesn't get a lot of long walks to burn off the energy from sleeping all day. So Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays Drake goes to daycare and plays with lots of other dogs in the playroom all day (he even has a little lunch pail for some kibbles cause he's working up an appetite). The ladies at the daycare tell me about his little friends and his girlfriends at daycare that he plays with, there's Buddy the boxer, Summer and Taffy the goldens etc.

Tonight when I went to pick up Drake from daycare (yes he went 2 days in a row), the young lady at the counter asked me if I noticed if he was extra tired last night. I hadn't but apparently my DH had. So anyway since we couldn't get out of Drake why he was so tired she informed me of how he spent all day Wednesday fulfilling most men's primary fantasy. Yes dear internets, he was in a three.some, apparently today Drake had her all to himself, but was apparently a little worn out from yesterday.

So now I have to wonder when the ladies at day care mention Drake's little girlfriends. And I know why he gets so excited when I turn the corner towards daycare, and I so naively thought it was because of the daycare ladies paying attention to him and he getting to play all day with other dogs.

Good thing Drake's fixed or we'd have a lot of puppy support to do. Daddy's thrilled to know his "little dude" as DH calls Drake has gotten to experience safe relationships with other female dogs, he was concerned that after being fixed Drake would not get the opportunity.

This didn't come out quite as funny as the talk with hubby about Drake's escapades at daycare, but I was trying to use clean language and innuendo so as not to be picked up by a bunch of search engine results. Maybe we should drop the "D" from the dog's name...

The 11th province vs the 51st state

2008-01-08T11:16:00.000-05:00

Lately I've been hearing advertisement on Canadian radio stations for Florida tourism, billing the southern state as Canada's 11th province. Out of curiosity I decided to visit the website to see if it was a particular company, or if the advertising was sponsored by state sponsored tourism. Looks pretty offical to me, the footer says that the site is the "Official Florida Tourism Industry Marketing Corporation" you can visit the site at sunshineprovince.com. I wonder if there are any other states billing themselves as the 11th province to Canadians to promote tourism, and I wonder how Americans feel about that.

Personally every once in awhile I hear someone expounding upon Canada being the 51st state, and personally I really don't like that. I'm a proud Canadian, I love my country, I get teary eyed when I hear the national anthem, and though I love my American friends, I don't want to be the 51st state. Going through Wikipedia and Google links most references to Canada or any other country being termed the 51st state is usually used either in jest to indicate the influx of American culture to the country or well not in a positive context and I'll let you go and research it.

So what are your thoughts on states billing themselves as the 11th province to promote the state?

Goals - January

2008-01-05T20:33:00.000-05:00

So not exactly taking it one day at a time to talk about a whole months worth of goals here, but I didn't think you'd want to read that many posts ;)

I've decided to add once a week a good habit to my routine. This week it was going to the gym to work out once.

Since I'd like to get back onto a healthy diet and exercise regime, I've also decided that my weight loss goals would be small, 5 pounds every other month. For example in Jan I'd like to lose 5 pounds, then maintain that loss in Feb, lose 5 more in March and maintain the total 10 pound loss through April etc until I reach a weight I can maintain (and if that's the weight I am right now, then I'll have to learn to accept that).

Starting Monday, I'd like to add a daily 15 minute walk about to tidy up the house every night, now I've had that on my list before, but it didn't stick, so we'll try again in the coming week.

I've started using my composter more, so I'd like to add another environmental goal, I just have to think about it...maybe taking public transit to work once a week? Bring a coffee cup to work? Limit prepared foods to ones where the entire package is recyclable or reusable? Limit prepared foods (including meals out) to no more than 3 meals per week? Well I have lots of options for months to come anyway.

Visit The Lazy Organizer for more SMART Habits

New Year's Resolutions

2007-12-30T18:53:00.000-05:00

Being that time of year again, I've actually spent a little time pondering my new year's resolution for 2008. I've decided this year will be the year of making a difference.

Like many, I wish for world peace and harmony at Christmas, but honesty, what do I really do to promote that? If I'm not willing to compromise and sacrifice on an individual level, then how can I expect it of the world as a whole? Answer, I can't.

I also wish for my life to leave an impact on the world, be it large or small, but unless I'm willing to take the time or acknowledge making the effort, then I'm likely to feel unsatisfied. I do believe that we all make an impact on the world, daily, just we fail mostly to acknowledge what that impact is (large, small, good, bad, neutral). I want to be more conscientious of the impact of my daily decisions, and to do more things that I want to do to make a difference.

Here are somethings I'm thinking of for making an impact.
Environmental:
Be better about using and managing my compost bin
Get that hot water heater blanket
Look into replacing the furnace with a more efficient one

Helping others:
Get Drake certified as a therapy dog so that he can go to long term care hospitals and centres to brighten the lives of the sick.
Volunteer, donate

Whew - first week back

2007-12-14T21:59:00.000-05:00

I've been very busy this week catching up at work after having taken a week off, and it pretty much feels like I need, make that **NEEEEEEED**, a vaction again.

I've almost finished Christmas shopping, I just have to get hubby something, I'm debating getting him something off his wishlist, but many of the items are hard to find locally and usually need to be ordered online (I got 5 of them for his b-day last week). So if you could give me some hints for good hubby presents. He like video games, but he wants the XBOX 360 next, not a Wii, so we have to wait for the new chip on the 360 first. He's into sci-fi & alternate history for reading (i.e. William Gibson and Harry Turtledove). He like geeks toys. He's not hard to shop for and he's pretty vocal about what he likes, you just have to order it all rather than going to the store, and I'd like it to be a surprise. I've debated making him something, but I'm not sure what I'd like to make. Hubby is not handy or into do it yourself projects, so nothing like that would do. Any ideas?

Vacation Week - Thursday

2007-12-06T09:52:00.000-05:00

I woke up late again today, 8:20 because hubby reminded me that we had to finish putting out the recycling before the collector comes. I don't have any big plans for today, mostly just lazing around the house. Maybe I'll do some cleaning today, get rid of those cobwebs I just saw coming down the stairs this morning.

On another note, last night I was reviewing my BBTs pre m/c because I felt I was ovulating a little late this month. Looking back I was ovulating before around day 16 and menstruating around day 21-23, so I have a very short luteal phase, or at least I did during the summer when I was last tracking my temperatures. My cycle was longer last month but I wasn't tracking my temperature for that cycle, so we'll have to see how long this cycle is, I'm thinking about going to buy B6 vitamins to help lengthen the luteal phase. Yes, I am now aware that a short luteal phase makes pregnancy difficult as you start your period often before implantation can occur and if it does occur you menstrate soon after effectively causing a miscarriage. So I should go to see my doctor for my annual check up in March, by then I should have 3-4 cycles tracked so we can see if my luteal phase really is short, or if that was just a symptom of coming off birth control.

Vacation Week - Wednesday

2007-12-05T09:16:00.001-05:00

Today will be a busier day, Drake's off to daycare again and we're having breakfast with hubby's parents (dim sum).

Hubby wants to go downtown, so I'll be dropping him off and then going shopping more locally for Christmas presents again. After that I'll head home and try to finish this course of mine so that I can take the final exam either Friday or on the weekend.

More to come later.

Breakfast was nice, then I went shopping at Fairview (hubby went downtown on the subway). Although I was intending to buy Christmas presents, instead I bought bras for myself, then I found a new winter coat at Melanie Lyne (red) and since I was there and there was this great red suit, I bought that too. So much for Christmas presents, maybe tomorrow.

Now I'm off to study my course until hubby comes home.

Vacation Week - Tuesday

2007-12-04T11:54:00.000-05:00

Today is hubby's birthday, so at midnight I gave him his prezzies, we decided to open one of them, some books from Indigo that he had on his wishlist. Since I woke up late yesterday I didn't go to sleep until about 2am, and I didn't sleep very well, my neck is achy today. Hubby tried to wake me up at 9:30 and gave up by 10, the snoring pup wake me cause he's so cute and I got out of bed at 11.

This morning I woke up at 11, and since it's so close to lunch I decided to just have OJ and coffee for breakfast and I'll have salad or leftovers for lunch. It snowed again last night a couple of inches, so good thing we bought a new shovel (sorry mom, maybe I'll take one off your hands anyway so we can both shovel the driveway).

I spent the afternoon playing with the dog and watching TV, we went out to dinner at Spring Rolls, while out we visited Best Buy and hubs picked up a copy of Terminator 2 for $7 and BattleStar Gallactica: Razor which was released on DVD today.

All in all a quieter day for hubby's birthday.

Vacation Week - Monday

2007-12-04T11:43:00.000-05:00

I figured I haven't blooged in a while, so I would bring to you a week of blogging about what I did on my winter vaction ;)

I woke up late around 10am. Hubs and I took Drake to daycare and then went to breakfast at Cora's. I had a raspberry Begian waffle, yummy.

Then off to Markville to do some Christmas and birthday shopping. I purchased my brother's birthday present (it's on the 20th) and perused a number of stores looking for prezzies for mom, bro, SIL and hubs. Hubs bought track pants (sweat pants).

Hubs and I skipped lunch, because well we were still full from breakfast and went home. Once home he shovelled the driveway and broke the scoop portion of the shovel right in half.

We had a nap from 4 to 5 then went to Lick's for burgers for dinner at 5:30. We picked up Drake from daycare and then went to Canadian tire, Home Depot and Canadian Tire again looking for a snow shovel.

I finished the laundry, dusted the main floor while listening to bodyrockers, read a comic book and watched Heroes (which cut their season short due to the writers strike).

And I didn't look at my work email at all, although I did think about it. I have to submit some receipts at work by Friday and it turns out I will have to go in to do it because the tool doesn't work over VPN at home. I also have to finish an online course I'm taking for work by the 12th, so I'll be doing that this week too.

Voila

2007-11-04T21:49:00.000-05:00

So here's the new bathroom (sorry I forgot to take before pics and the ones we had from the purchase of the house are lost).

The vanity:

The tub:

The picture from the manufacturer, because it's almost the same and they had a professional photographer :) (Copyright Vanico-maronyx)

I took a picture of me, but it looked like I have an even larger spare tire than I think I do and I wish to remain in denial.

Finishing Touches Day

2007-10-28T12:08:00.000-04:00

So today the master bath should be finished. Mom and I are putting on the final coat of paint, and so long as I can paint the trim and I don't wear out the bathroom (minus the shower curtain) will be finished. I suppose I should go pick up a tension road from Canadian Tire for the shower curtain so we can use the upstairs shpwer tomorrow morning.

New Stuff

2007-10-14T19:32:00.000-04:00

Time for a new post I'm tired of looking at the last one!

It was another release weekend this week, it went very well and pretty quick (3 hours). My project was pulled from the release on Wendesday as we were not comfortable with the robustness of the new infrastructure and technologies we were implementing. So we're now intending to deploy in January so I'm updating the documentation to indicate the current state and since we have 3 more months adding detail to functionality that was descoped due to lack of detail and time.

I think this week the contractor is going to come to redo our master bathroom which has been in a state of disrepair for 2 years, I guess I should take some before and after photos for all of you. One thing though, I primed it in order to repaint and never repainted, so the cover plates are off all the lights and plugs, etc. Just a warning for the before photos :)

Are you excited? I'm excited just writing about my first major home reno (the biggest one I've done to date is replacing the handles on the kitchen cupboards, and I still haven't finished that).

The return - TMI

2007-10-02T16:12:00.000-04:00

OK, not so finished Friday, if you don't like bloodily fluids stop reading now.

It all started up again on Saturday, went to the hospital as I passed out from blood loss. They brought my blood pressure back up and I stopped passing blood and clots on my own, but since it was 11pm the OB/GYN wanted to see me in the hospital the next day for a potential D&C. Well Sunday I didn't have any issues, so they sent me home. Monday of course I started bleeding heavily again, so I was back in emerg, which was packed and it took 8 hours to see a doctor. Strangely when I finally got to see another OB/GYN when she checked me out I had stopped bleeding again, so she was going to send me home, but before she did she wanted to check the size of my uterus, which was tiny she said and I bleed all over her and the table, so she decided I was bleeding and she did the first exam again and decided on an immediate D&C and more blood tests to see where my hemoglobin count was (it dropped from 107 to 79 in the 6 hours between test, so no wonder I was dizzy and weak, the normally value for a woman is 115).

Anyway, the D&C is pretty quick, they wheeled me out of ER at 12:30 and I woke up in the post op at 1:20 and pretty lucid, although I got sleepy again when they were wheeling me to my room, I stayed overnight due to my weakened state.

I'm home now recovering, still weak and headachy. Today hubby and my inlaws stayed, tomorrow, my hubby is going into work late and coming home early and my inlaws will stay with me in the intervening time. I hope my mom doesn't read this before I get to talk to her, I didn't want to let her know what was going on on Saturday until they made a decision, Sunday morning she left for a short vacation, forgive me mom the docs didn't know what to do with me until Monday night, well technically Tuesday morning.

It is finished

2007-09-28T21:40:00.000-04:00

Well at least I hope it is. Since Saturday I've been spotting very lightly, yesterday it finally got a little heavier with cramping, but then went away. Today though, the cramps were strong and the bleeding heavy. Strangely, I only feel relief that it's finally resolved, not grief or remorse, I expect that will come in time. For now, I shall relax and be thankful that it was quick and not as emotionally draining as I expected it might be. Tomorrow is another day, and when the emotions flow I'll deal with it then and not wonder why I'm not a basket case now, hopefully, I'll remember that I was thankful to God that I'm not a basket case,

What's new pussycats? Whoa oh oh oh oh

2007-09-11T18:45:00.000-04:00

I guess ya'll would like an update? Hmmm? Maybe? Maybe not?

So in my last update I had shots to terminate a potentially ectopic pregnancy (they think that 1 out of 4 ultrasounds showed a mass on my left ovary).

Anyway, my horomone levels at the time were 9K (on Wednesday the 29th). Tested again on Saturday (19K), Tuesday (20K), Friday (19K). Monday I went to see the doctor in the hospital and he wanted more tests to see where we were at so he could determine a course of action, since my hormone levels were steady, not dropping or rising (I'm 8 weeks now I suppose). So we did, he was on call, so I guess he had to go deliver a baby, so he writes the results and next steps in my file and gives it to the nurse to tell me. The results? "Ultrasound looks normal, come back to hospital Friday for more blood work".

So what does that mean any? I'd take it as positive, but well they did give me a nice chemical cocktail to end the pregnancy, so maybe "ultrasound looks normal" means nothing on the ovary and development of the embryo stopped somewhere around 6.5 to 7 weeks (i.e. soon after the shots), so expect HCG levels to drop and miscarriage to start? No ask to make a doctor's appointment after the blood work Friday, tough, he's getting a visit anyway. Either Friday or Monday or the next time one of them is in the office.

Tests, Tests and more tests

2007-08-30T15:10:00.000-04:00

So had more tests on Wednesday, not good. The doctor found a mass on my left ovary and although he's not sure, we're treating our pregnancy as ectopic just to be safe. So last night I had shots that cause the termination of the pregnancy and I have to have follow-up blood work and doctor appointments for the next 3 weeks to make sure my hormone levels drop (because this method only works in 75-90 percent of cases).

I'm feeling better today, I didn't sleep very well, so hubby took me out for brunch which has me in a better mood now.

I'm taking the rest of the week off work and I think I'll go read a book now.

Results

2007-08-26T15:50:00.000-04:00

So my hormone levels are up again, a good increase of 3700+ to 5500+ the radiologist can't see an ectopic embryo in the ultrasound either. Until I can see the OB/Gyn next week I'm going to go with positive thinking that we're a go, although high risk and I'll likely be closely monitored.

I'm in shock, so I don't have anything more to say and I think I'll go relax now.

Where have I been?

2007-08-23T17:07:00.000-04:00

I haven't felt much like blogging lately, too busy and tired, then dejected, now disappointed.

For the first couple of weeks of August I was too tired.
Since mid August I've been feeling dejected.
Aug 19 things changed. I started spotting mid cycle, not unusual, but it was bright red. Since DH and I are trying to conceive I decided to take a pregnancy test, ya, it was positive. So all week I've been going to the hospital for a variety of tests so the doctor can determine just what is going on so he can determine his course of action. He believes I'll miscarry (I don't disagree, and I'm OK with that), right now he wants to make sure it's not an ectopic pregnancy. So anyway, it's been a quiet and hectic week, so I'm taking Friday off to do tests and then the afternoon as a brain break, I always feel more emotional after the test results.

Maybe I'll blog more about the results tomorrow.

SMART Habits Saturday - Aug 4

2007-08-04T12:28:00.000-04:00

So it's Saturday and time to develop another habit, please go to Lara's blog to join in.

Last week went terribly for my new habits, not a one of them was followed. So this week should probably be a follow my habits week.

Previous SMARTs

15 Minute Walkabout Nope none at all

15 Minutes with God also not good this week, does Friday's post count?

2 days/week extra curricular activities Nope none at all

Control Freak I forgot entirely

15 Minute Fridays - August 3

2007-08-04T12:18:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I had networking problems, so I could get my post up.

John 3: 1-36

This week in chapter 3 of John 2 things are covered, Nicodemus visiting Jesus and learning that to be part of the world to come he must be born of water and spirit. The second being John the baptist teaching his own disciples about who Jesus is, and that all should follow him.

I wonder what Nicodemus wanted to know when he came to Jesus. He came to Jesus acknowledging Jesus being a great teacher and obviously loved and acknowledged by God because of the miracles he can perform. I think Nicodemus came to Jesus with questions to ask about the Law. Nicodemus was a member of the ruling council. The council decided Jewish matters in Jerusalem and were a moral authority. I guess they are a lot like the Pope and his cardinals in deciding what the correct interpretation of scripture for all Catholics. I could see why Nicodemus would have questions, that's quite a burden, and it's been along time since there's been a teacher touched by God to correct the paths of His people.

What kind of questions would you ask Jesus if you had the shared responsibility of deciding the interpretation of doctrine for all of your country men? I think I would ask Jesus if I was leading His people away from him. I'd ask what needs to be corrected, certainly after 400 years there are corrections to be made. I'd wonder if I've followed God's law correctly. I'd also hope whatever the answer it wasn't too hard to do.

Before Nicodemus can ask a single question, Jesus says to him "I tell you the truth, no one can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born again." I could just imagine myself thinking, but I thought we had to honour God by following rules, what rules have we led God's people to break, have we all broken God's covenant and that's why the Roman's rule us. Have we misplaced some of Moses' writings, there is no mention of being born again in the Law. So Nicodemus asks how to be reborm and Jesus tells him with water and spirit. It took me a while to make some sense of this in my understanding of the Jewish Law and the observances at that time, apparently Nicodemus didn't get it either.

What does being reborn of water and Spirit mean to you?

In terms of the Law (and I'm no expert in it, or accepted opinion of what these teachings mean not having any formal teaching) I see that for water, the Jews had a lot of rules about ceremonial washing, so I could see water as being a renewal of cleanliness and righteousness before God. The Jews also had a lot of rules around ceremonial defilement and the sacrifices required. So water makes my body clean from defilement, and sacrifice makes my soul clean from defilement. I remember reading all the sacrificial items and when individual sacrifices had to be performed, I knew I would never be considered cermonially clean, or at least not for very long following those rules, and that was based just on the nature of my mensus alone during that first reading. If that's even close to what Jesus meant, I guess I could see how Jesus would say to Nicodemus, surely as a teacher of the Law and interpretter of when and how to wash and sacrifice for removing defilement, and knowing that being defiled you cannot come before God, certainly a teacher of that should understand that to come into the permanent presence of God you need to be renewed by water and Spirit.

Where I'm at right now is trying to understand verse 8 which follows more examples about what reborn means Jesus says "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." What does this passage mean to you? How do you know if you've been reborn of the Spirit? How does a person, being reborn of the Spirit identify with what Jesus says about the wind?

SMART Habits Saturday

2007-07-28T17:11:00.000-04:00

Lara's computer is on the fritz, but I think I'll participate anyway. This week has been a tough one at work, and I'm actually feeling dejected, not much in my control though, but I don't like having to give unwelcome news, or basically tell someone to shape-up. So on to this week, I think I should concentrate on what I can control and let go of the rest. As the prayer goes "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference".

Previous SMARTs
15 Minute Walkabout really bad this week (1/7)
15 Minutes with God also not good this week
2 days/week extra curricular activities 1 of 2, went to work out at the gym on the treadmill, fun but hard to get up the energy to do it. I guess I did 2, if reading counts, I did it as a second...