So can you guess what happened? Pregnancy, nausea, fatigue, and a month long battle with bronchitis and a nasty sinus infection have kept me both too busy with my 15 month old and household to blog. Not that I haven't been thinking of blogging and wishing for the time! But I've gotten through the worst and am ready to be back on track.
I have a plan. During first pregnancy I was in the mountains at winter time. Cumulatively over the winter we got over 9 feet of snow. And the snow was built on several layers of ice. Needless to say I was in pretty terrible shape from not being able to go outside. This pregnancy is going to be different. Now that I am through being sick, I am going to train, train, train! I have been told by many that being fit helps decrease the pain and quicken the recovery from labor and the postpartum period. So here is my trial: will I be able to tell a difference between the first and the second time of birthing a baby?
I am excited! I am so ready and done with being fatigued and out of shape. So here I go!
Three days a week I will participate with a group of other moms who walk 2.5 miles with their strollers and then do various resistance and weight training exercises. On alternating days I plan on walking/light jogging (cause nothing else helps my rear slim as quickly as jogging). And on the weekends, I will do something active with my hubs!
I will be using dailymile.com to keep track of my workouts and help keep me accountable. :)
See you on the road!
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
So there I was . . .
...Holding a pee-stick in front of my husband's face. On Saturday morning. Before 8 o'clock, poor man. I had just turned on the bedside lamp. The hubs was blinking bemusedly, trying to focus as I was wildly waving the pregnancy test under his nose.
"Two lines! Am I seeing two lines, or am I hallucinating?!"
Yes, there were two lines. There ARE two lines. And I am due in early December! Caution was the first reaction that we both had; I have had several miscarriages in our short 2 years of marriage. However, I am now feeling the blessed morning sickness and am confident that this child is going to be just as hale and hearty as his/her older sibling. I may be the only woman alive who actually prayed:
"Lord, it would make me feel better, if I felt a little morning sickness. Amen."
And so, every time the wave of nausea hits, I smile a little inside and am thankful. Our son will be 20 months old when his little brother/sister will be born. And we are just thrilled!
"Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep. Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward."
"Two lines! Am I seeing two lines, or am I hallucinating?!"
Yes, there were two lines. There ARE two lines. And I am due in early December! Caution was the first reaction that we both had; I have had several miscarriages in our short 2 years of marriage. However, I am now feeling the blessed morning sickness and am confident that this child is going to be just as hale and hearty as his/her older sibling. I may be the only woman alive who actually prayed:
"Lord, it would make me feel better, if I felt a little morning sickness. Amen."
And so, every time the wave of nausea hits, I smile a little inside and am thankful. Our son will be 20 months old when his little brother/sister will be born. And we are just thrilled!
"Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep. Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward."
Psalm 127: 1-4
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Turn this girl out of door!
TO THE THAWING WIND by Robert Frost
Come with rain, O loud Southwester!
Bring the singer, bring the nester;
Give the buried flower a dream;
Make the settled snow-bank steam;
Find the brown beneath the white;
But whate'er you do to-night,
Bathe my window, make it flow,
Melt it as the ice will go;
Melt the glass and leave the sticks
Like a hermit's crucifix;
Burst into my narrow stall;
Swing the picture on the wall;
Run the rattling pages o'er;
Scatter poems on the floor;
Turn the poet out of door.
That is how I feel today! Can't the warm weather come, open Spring's windows and let the fresh, quickening air in! Please, turn this girl out of door!
It's going to be a beautiful spring! :)
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Don't Let the Men Have All the Good Tools!
Here I am, sitting with a cup of chamomile tea, writing to you. It has been an extremely productive day. If ever I had a day that I accomplished the Proverbs 31 challenge, today would have been the day.
But I have to tell you, I have a lot of great appliances in my kitchen to help me along. And today, two of them definitely proved more useful than the rest.
The first, my BreadmanUltimatePlus. An unbelievable find at a thrift store! It has served me faithfully for the past 3 years, kneading out loaf after loaf. Minimum 3 loaves a week, and frequently many more. One of my favorite tricks with the Breadman, is to stop the process right before the baking starts. I preheat my oven (of course), pop the dough out of the Breadman and into two lovely cast-iron pans (bless my mother-in-law!) and Presto! it looks like I kneaded all day!
The second favorite appliance of the day is my British Berkefeld. This water filtration device is a step above the rest! My husband and I cleaned it out just the other day and here are the results:
The top three ceramic filters are waiting to be scrubbed. The lowest one has already been cleaned. The British Berkefeld (a.k.a. Big Berkey) prevented that nasty silt from the old lead pipes from getting into our drinking water. I cook with this water, I water my plants from this water and I drink this water! It is some of the purest tasting H2O that I have ever enjoyed. And not only does it take out any large molecules, there are four more filters that take out fluoride and any other stray chemicals that should not be consumed. It's a step above any other water filtration technology I have ever seen. The British field troops use this same technology, and, theoretically, you could pour ditch water into this beast and get clean drinking water. Not that I haven't been tempted to try it... I just don't want to have to clean it out! :)
Both of these appliances make it into our "must have" list. They have proved their usefulness time and again. I love being able to put in less than ten minutes of measuring and wheat grinding to get a fragrant, delectable loaf 3 hours later. And I love the fact that, no matter where we live and what water is supplied us, we have pure drinking water.
But I have to tell you, I have a lot of great appliances in my kitchen to help me along. And today, two of them definitely proved more useful than the rest.
The first, my BreadmanUltimatePlus. An unbelievable find at a thrift store! It has served me faithfully for the past 3 years, kneading out loaf after loaf. Minimum 3 loaves a week, and frequently many more. One of my favorite tricks with the Breadman, is to stop the process right before the baking starts. I preheat my oven (of course), pop the dough out of the Breadman and into two lovely cast-iron pans (bless my mother-in-law!) and Presto! it looks like I kneaded all day!
And I haven't even mentioned my Nutramill, which makes all of this delicious, nourishing goodness possible! :)
The second favorite appliance of the day is my British Berkefeld. This water filtration device is a step above the rest! My husband and I cleaned it out just the other day and here are the results:
The top three ceramic filters are waiting to be scrubbed. The lowest one has already been cleaned. The British Berkefeld (a.k.a. Big Berkey) prevented that nasty silt from the old lead pipes from getting into our drinking water. I cook with this water, I water my plants from this water and I drink this water! It is some of the purest tasting H2O that I have ever enjoyed. And not only does it take out any large molecules, there are four more filters that take out fluoride and any other stray chemicals that should not be consumed. It's a step above any other water filtration technology I have ever seen. The British field troops use this same technology, and, theoretically, you could pour ditch water into this beast and get clean drinking water. Not that I haven't been tempted to try it... I just don't want to have to clean it out! :)
Both of these appliances make it into our "must have" list. They have proved their usefulness time and again. I love being able to put in less than ten minutes of measuring and wheat grinding to get a fragrant, delectable loaf 3 hours later. And I love the fact that, no matter where we live and what water is supplied us, we have pure drinking water.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Therefore, do not be anxious...
I have been reading The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis. Last week at small group, we were discussing the attributes of the devil and the importance of knowing your enemy. This brought up the book, because it is so enlightening on the manners of temptation that we are faced with. It exposes the tricks that the devils employ to make us ineffective and hypocritical.
We are to submit, with patience, to the Father's will. But the fears and terrors of the night have nothing to do with His will. He will give grace, daily bread, for each actual need or trial.
As an aside, while it is important to know your enemy, it is of endlessly greater importance to know your Champion. If you know Christ, then no plan of the enemy can triumph.
(Please note that in The Screwtape Letters, Lewis is playing devil's advocate and is, in fact, writing as a senior devil, Screwtape, to his understudy devil, Wormwood. Therefore, everything is reversed. The patient therefore, is us. Their "Enemy" is Jesus. Our Friend.)
Your patient will, of course, have picked up the notion that he must submit with patience to the Enemy's will. What the Enemy means by this is primarily that he should accept with patience the tribulation which has actually been dealt out to him—the present anxiety and suspense. It is about this that he is to say "Thy will be done", and for the daily task of bearing this that the daily bread will be provided. It is your business to see that the patient never thinks of the present fear as his appointed cross but only of the things he is afraid of.
Let him regard them as his crosses: let him forget that, since they are incompatible, they cannot all happen to him, and let him try to practice fortitude and patience to them all in advance. For real resignation, at the same moment, to a dozen different and hypothetical fates, is almost impossible, and the Enemy does not greatly assist those who are trying to attain it: resignation to present and actual suffering, even where that suffering consists of fear, is far easier and is usually helped by this direct action.
The Screwtape Letters, by C. S. Lewis
We are to submit, with patience, to the Father's will. But the fears and terrors of the night have nothing to do with His will. He will give grace, daily bread, for each actual need or trial.
"Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."
Matthew 6:34
As an aside, while it is important to know your enemy, it is of endlessly greater importance to know your Champion. If you know Christ, then no plan of the enemy can triumph.
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