Pick YOUR Brain

I am totally partial to the self-improvement themed books out there. I don't know why, but ever since my middle school years, I have been fascinated with the idea of improving myself. It led to a phase of perfectionism when I was still in middle school and on through high school, which made my teenage life much more emotional than it already had become from just... growing. But, thankfully, much of that perfectionist and "need to please" mentality has waned throughout the years. 

But every time I feel down or overwhelmed, there's a site that I love to go to that has lots of professional blogger guests who contribute really great posts in regards to self-improvement and the overall struggles associated with being a normal human being.

It's called pickthebrain.com.

I've had a ton of setbacks when it comes to college. That move to California was worth every struggle I've had with the University, but it still gets me down from time to time. I get down about people who feel compelled to talk about me, and most especially if I consider them any kind of a friend. I get really down thinking about some of the things my family has been through, because sometimes I really think that we've had more hardships than the next family, but that's certainly narrow-minded. I usually catch myself with these downward spirals of thought, but it doesn't mean that I don't have a mini-breakdown from time to time. 

This website touches on so many topics. It's certainly a quick pick me up for anyone who likes the subjects of psychology, neuroscience, health & wellness, writing, reading, and philosophy. There are over 1500 archived articles dating all the way back to 2006, so check it out if you are curious! 

Until soon!

One Week Down

Yesterday I really realized just how much I miss Justin. I have been on a "high" from my neighbors being so great, friends and family being so supportive, and just keeping busy. I've felt so strong and relaxed, and I've honestly embraced the extra responsibilities of living alone. 

Yesterday was also my official day off from school and work, and there was nothing to do but clean, hang with the dogs, exercise, cook... all that jazz. I've been tidying up the house a little more, but I think a part of me keeps it in limbo, as far as never quite being clean enough, so that I'll always have something to think about doing. If the house is clean, what will I do with my spare time? None of that spare time will involve hanging with my hubby, and that's a huge bummer. But if the house always needs some sort of organizing project or cleaning project done, then I'll always wake up with a to-do list. How's that for a little analysis? 

Justin is almost in the same boat. He misses me, Mags, Weezy- and secretly, Fred- yet he's enjoying the fresh environment, making friends and being around guys like him. He hasn't found very much of that since we've been home, and I know that it's been difficult to try to make friends with a bunch of people who don't quite understand you. They get you, but not on certain levels, I guess. I can appreciate that. And hearing him say those things really does make me feel good about his job and what he's trying to do for us. But we both agree that sleeping alone really blows.

Currently, the hardest part about being here alone is taking care of our zoo by myself. I love these animals, but they dominate my life right now. If I work or go to school and I'm gone for more than 8 hours, I feel horrible about the dogs being locked up in their kennels. What's almost as bad is when they have all this pent up energy that they can't calm down for a bit after I get home. They don't run through the house or anything, but they can't just fall asleep with me when I get home from work. I'm trying to be better at walking them, but one is 52lbs and the other is 73lbs, and I have to walk them separately. After they walk with me, if they still have tons of energy, I let them take it out on each other in the back yard. So far, it's going well, but it's more time-consuming than when Justin and I could split up those duties between our schedules. Either I'm going to get in really great shape from taking care of these dogs during pregnancy, or I'm going to pull my hair out :) I imagine I'll be in really great shape and love this process. It's just been an eye-opener in this first week by myself. 

Other than that, I am so grateful that I hit my 2nd trimester last week! It's true for my pregnancy- I really do feel so much better! I took each dog for a walk, challenged the hills in my neighborhood, and jogged as well. Justin called in the middle of my second walk, and I was so out of breath he couldn't figure out what I was doing, haha! But I told him I was really proud of myself for finally getting to a point where exercise and eating well were feeling really good again. No more nausea-friendly starches for me! I ate a bowl and a half of fresh sauteed collard greens and I couldn't have felt better. This trimester feels like a blessing! My heart really goes out to those ladies who had to deal with nausea/morning sickness and other 1st trimester woes well into the 2nd and 3rd trimesters. It's no bueno :(

Until Soon!

My Hubby has a New Job

Okay, so I've been a little aloof with a public announcement of my hubby's new job. There are many reasons for this: 
1. Our plans could have bottomed out for any number of reasons, so why get everyone worked up? 
2. We have and will receive negative comments for this decision and its timing. 
3. The hiring process moved so quickly, we really didn't have much time to talk about it. 

Justin is contracting in Afghanistan for a year.
There. I said it. Judge as you may... I'm sure there are thoughts like, "You're pregnant!" "He's going to miss everything!" "Is he really going to leave at a time like this?!"

Yes, I know I'm pregnant, and it's unfortunate that we youngsters let ourselves be surprised by this pregnancy (this very happy, huge blessing of a pregnancy). Justin and I were very happy to find out we are pregnant. But if you've seen my other post, you'll know that a mere 9 days prior to finding out this news, I had convinced him to leave his job. 

Justin will not miss everything. He is involved in this pregnancy, and even calls my stomach "Liam" when he refers to "him," haha. Of course, I'm sure that means we are having a girl, which we will be thrilled to have, no matter what! :) But back to missing everything- he won't physically be here, but he will be constantly updated with my blog, Facebook, emails, letters, pictures, care packages, and Skyping. Thankfully, he'll have internet access in his own room, with his own computer, with a webcam. Of course, it's not nearly the same as running out at 3am for my strange cravings, or rubbing my swollen feet, or seeing the ultrasounds at the very same time that I do. I fully understand there's a difference. And trust me, it hurts. It hurts us both. We don't need people asking such obvious questions or making equally obvious statements. We already feel the sting of our decisions, but there's a much bigger goal in mind here, and that's to create an incredible financial support system for our future little monster. 

Justin likes to remind me that he's just in the "vetting" process. He likes to whimsically declare that "anything can happen" so that I could get the idea that something could always go wrong and he'll be headed home from Virginia rather than heading out of the country. I simply don't believe that. I know that he's in his niche. I know he's happy to be around guys like him, and all of them are highly motivated by the potential income when they deploy. It's uplifting to hear his voice on the phone, talking about the crazy 50-something-year-old man who smoke checked the whole group of younger guys by pulling a 9 minute 1 1/2 mile run! Well, that's pretty intense, so I like the story, too. But what I really love is that he's entertained and feeling good. He deserves that. It makes these first couple of lonely days so worth it. 

But I certainly miss this face.

It's poor lighting, but such a reminder of a wonderful night <3

I love seeing him happy. It makes my heart smile. 

Anyway, Justin is currently in Chesapeake, VA, continuing the vetting process before he heads out for training, and from there, Afghanistan. I certainly hope I'll be able to see him before he officially deploys. Right now, we are just taking the whole process day by day. 

Did I mention how incredible I think he is, for wanting to be so supportive of his future child, that he'll give up a year of his life  to be in the desert so we can have a stronger foundation for our family? What a good husband I have!

Until soon.

We Have a Zoo.

It may seem, through my social media outlets, that I'm a tad bit obsessed with my animals. Truth is, I am- Justin and I both are. You would likely think that we are quite strange as you find out how we narrate our dogs' and cat's actions and thoughts (what we think are their thoughts, ha!) all the time. 

For example, Weezy gets a really high-pitched, cracked out voice when either of us narrates her behavior. We definitely play around with her the most because she really is off her rocker. When we call her and she comes running, or she makes really strange faces, one of us says something in our "Weezy voice" that is somewhat reflective of what we honestly think she thinks. I'm sure we are totally off. The picture below may give you an idea of the voice we deem appropriate.

Mags gets a sweet voice. Innocent, thoughtful, kind. She's the best dog you could ever ask for. Yes, there's a voice for that. 

Unfortunately, I can't show an individual pic of Mags, because she's terrified of anything that remotely looks like a camera. She was so photogenic as a pup, but one day, she decided to shake vehemently and pant uncontrollably after I took a picture of her. I have no idea where it came from, but any time I pull out my phone (black and rectangular like the camera) she walks right out of the room. That goes for my Kindle, too.

And then there's Fred. 
To me, he has a normal, teenager voice. He's got attitude, wants very little to do with his Momma, but is as sweet as can be when he wants something. So, in my head, Fred's got teenage angst. 

Justin gives Fred the whiniest voice you could ever imagine. He thinks Fred is weak, annoying, and nerdy (because he's got allergies and sneezes, which translates to nerdy, in his book). 
 
My hubs pretends to hate the cat. (Is this a guy thing?) He tells Fred he's stupid. He calls him names and acts like he's a waste of space, but at the end of the day, Fred ironically chooses Justin as his cuddle buddy. It's ridiculous and unfair in my world of animal love, because I've had Fred longer than I've known Justin, and quite frankly it offends me. But you know cats. They do what they want. And Justin secretly loves him.

Every day we wake up to two dogs in the bedroom. Ideally, they'd stay on their large makeshift palette on the floor. They do, but they've also mastered somehow getting on the bed ever so softly, so that we honestly do not notice until the wee hours of the morning. For that, they are spoiled and pretty much impossible to train differently. We don't mind for now. But tell me: How could you not adore waking up to this?

Or this?

Or this??

Anyway, we have some serious love going on in this house. In a later post I'll show you what we're dealing with currently, as I humbly admit our beautiful house fell prey to this ridiculous love. Yes, I have pictures for that, too. 

 


 

 

12 Weeks and a Day

Ha! 

Reading my older posts has me giggling a good bit. For me, fluctuating between baby fever and no baby fever has been pretty consistent, it seems. I know when we got the house, I initially thought that it would be a great time, despite the fact that we're both college kids and don't quite have our careers going. But, Justin and I would have long talks and come to the conclusion that we simply weren't prepared for bringing a human into this world...just yet. We don't want them to need for anything, and we simply couldn't guarantee that. But you know, not a whole lot of people can guarantee these things, anyway. We should certainly try by properly planning, though.

Well, to say the least, this post's headline is reflective of our current pregnancy! If you've read past posts, you may have seen that I had a very early miscarriage back at the time Justin and I were married. I would have embraced that pregnancy just as well, despite being too young and way under prepared. We have been able to take this last 4 years and grow together, move closer to family and friends, buy a home, and be slightly more prepared for baby. I'm very thankful for that time. 

Ok, so above is the initial picture I took of myself and sent to my mother first thing- after I told Justin, of course. I couldn't be more surprised! According to previous posts, you'll know that I was careful to cut out caffeine and other restricted items during pregnancy, during occasional pregnancy "scares." This time, I thought I was wasting a perfectly good pregnancy test. Little did I know. Plus, this provided some much needed comic relief after I got over my heart's incessant racing ;) 

Here is a snippet of the calendar we have on our refrigerator. July 10 is when we found out, but what you'll see below is conducive to the "WTF" you see above:

 

So, I hope all of you reading have seen Anchorman. If you haven't you won't understand this picture. I convinced my husband to leave his job (of 3 years), which was around the time of July 1st. He called me while I was having a coffee break at the Blue Eyed Daisy in Serenbe (check this place out, if you haven't!). He vented to me about management and just all of the daily problems he's had with this place, and honestly, I couldn't take anymore. We've had a super busy summer at work, and I've been working enough to handle a few short months of Justin's peaceful hiatus from work, if he would so choose. So, after instilling some confidence in him to chase after some peace- on his lunch break, mind you- he drafted his two-week notice. He handed it in that afternoon and I honestly have to say I was really proud of him. I wanted him to take a break. I wanted him to be happy. He's a wonderful man, a hard worker, and deserves to enjoy where he works, considering he, along with the rest of the world, will spend a majority of his waking hours at his job.

Thankfully, Justin quickly nabbed a part-time job and we didn't have a huge gap of unemployment (as I knew he would not rest until he found something- that's my hubby!). Nonetheless, we are still completely and totally taking life day by day, trying to plan for the future which is seemingly moving at lightning speed- well, except for this challenging first trimester, but I'll get to that in a later post. 

So, right now, I'm inching toward the end of this first trimester, and looking forward to what the second one brings! I hope it's all it's cracked up to be, and I certainly cannot wait until I feel more like my normal self again. Really, I just want a little energy boost ;) But I can't wait to see what life hands us, and how we'll face this new challenge of being parents. I'm beyond freaked about pregnancy and all of it's out-of-my-control-surprises, but I'm on board with it, regardless. I sure hope you'll enjoy reading this blog and keep me company- especially if time calls for commiserating! 

Until Soon. 




 

Baby, Maybe?

This week has been a whirlwind of emotion for me. It's silly, really, because as I think of all the women out there who are trying-I'm talking YEARS worth of trying- for babies, my plight and struggles are so meager. Earlier this month, Justin and I realized that we had possibly put ourselves at risk for having a baby. I don't need to go into all the details. I have read plenty, know my body decently well, and I'm aware that I was ovulating at a time when we weren't careful. That's as far as I'm going to go with that.

Anyway, this led to an entire host of "symptoms" and "what-if's" and basically sent me on a nice little emotional rollercoaster. Since September 4th, I've pretty much been on my guard about this possible pregnancy thing. I decided for ONCE I wouldn't call my mom and tell her what I was feeling, but rather wait to know more, maybe a definite answer before I speak to family about any of it. After all, Justin and I have not made a decision to try for baby, so there's no need to put family on board if it could technically be another three years before we really start trying. (That was dubbed as our "ideal" time).

Anyway, the only people who have been privvy to my ten-day rollercoaster are Justin, my friend Jenn, and my boss. Justin, I told on our anniversary. We were spending this great quality time together and I just had this feeling that I shouldn't leave him out. We were having great conversation and I felt he'd be receptive to the news of the possible pregnancy, even if it wasn't in our original timing. I told Jenn one day at work while we were outside, because I just felt I wanted a woman, sympathetic to my feelings, to know. And Jenn's really great at that. Finally, I was having such a hard time sleeping the last weekend, that I really wanted a Sunday morning off of work. I saw the opportunity to ask, and I didn't want to lie to my boss, because I felt if I said I were sick, upset, or had plans, then something could prove me otherwise, and I like my job too much to fib, haha. So, I told him, and asked him to be respectful of my past miscarriage and the fact that I didn't have proof I was pregnant, only a strong suspicion.

At this point, I don't know if I am. It's been about ten days past my ovulation day, so it's really the first real day to *possibly* get a positive test. It's also a fat chance of positive considering it's usually about 51% correct at this point. So, I tested negative. I'm bummed because I really think that being a mom at any point would be super. I want a little curly-haired, blue eyed baby full of squeals and coos, and I just think being a mom is really going to be my calling. But, I have to be okay with the idea that I may not get this chance right away and that I might have to actually wait another three years or so before that happens. I'd love to have a baby now, but there are positives and negatives to having one now and/or later, so I'm just making myself aware of all of it.

Another thing, which I think I could use to relate to many, many women out there, is the fact that I don't know what symptoms I've had to be true, or what symptoms are made up in my head. Know what I mean? Of course, three years ago, when I had my miscarriage, I was simultaneously on birth control, and I had no idea what was a pregnancy symptom and what was the side-effect of the birth control I had been prescribed (I got birth control a few days after conception, unknowingly). So, I've had pregnancy scares since then, all of which I've been incorrect, and all of which I've supposedly had symptoms. We poor women have symptoms of PMS, which unfortunately go hand-in-hand most times, with pregnancy.

Just to keep the faith, and hope, that there's still a chance I'm pregnant, I'm going to list out the odd things that I noticed- possibly pre-menstrual, but not a monthly experience for me- and maybe this will give me peace of mind for the next four days:

1. Waking up bloated. Who wakes up bloated? Maybe after you eat something salty or drink a soda... but when I wake up, usually I feel skinny, and that's when I like to weigh myself and get dressed! ... and this includes period days. Mornings are always my weight-conscious friend.
2. Getting excited to cook bacon for a salad that I got a new recipe for, only to be disgusted by the smell of the bacon while I was cooking it. I ended up not making the salad.
3. Being tired. Not necessarily every single day, but there have been days where I do very little, and still feel tired. Also, there are times where I do a small chore or something, and lay down on the couch afterwards. But I do have to credit my lack of coffee... Instead of the typical 2 cups/day, I usually have about 3/4 of one cup, and throw the rest out for the sake of lowering my caffeine intake- so this could be a major contributor. But I did sleep at work last Saturday, and in two years, I've never been so tired that I had to sleep on a bunch of chairs in a restaurant on my break.
4. Finally, every. single. time. I eat. HEARTBURN. Doesn't matter what I have to eat. Today's lunch, romaine, strawberries, pineapple (2 chunks), grilled chicken, avocado, raisins, and almonds. Doesn't scream heartburn to me. This happens every time. And I don't doubt that heartburn could strike after a lot of things I eat because I love spicy foods and I love acidic foods. No fresh tomatoes today (and I LOVE tomatoes), and no acidic fruits. So, I have to admit, I don't get heartburn this easily on a regular basis.


Okay, I'd better stop while I'm ahead. Thanks for reading, and if you have any advice, feel free to write comments. This has just been a crazy week, and I keep praying that the Lord's will for my life is in line with my dreams, goals, and desires. This desire to be pregnant runs deep in my heart, and I just hope and pray that maybe this time, it could be true!! :D

Home Sweet Home: A lovely cliche...

Well, I'm happy to say it was in the Lord's will that we buy a house!!! It's incredible! I always heard people talking about how having a home is motivating, because every time you pull up in the driveway, you see what you're working for... and I totally understand that feeling. It's not like a burden, and it doesn't make me scared; it just makes me really proud of Justin and myself and inspires me each day, because I feel like we're on a really great "track" in our life. If we were to have babies one day, I'd already be giving them so much more than I had when my parents were pregnant with me. We have a stable, beautiful place we can call home, in a great neighborhood. I love my job, and I adore my husband. And anything that happens from here on out is just... good!

Speaking of babies; I have baby fever once again. I don't think it's something that ever goes away when you have been pregnant once before. It's like something inside of me changed and my "mommy" instincts kick in and every child I see is so precious and every baby just melts my heart. I know you don't have to be pregnant previously to feel this way, but I think that's what did it for me. I can't wait to be a mommy! I probably shouldn't post this in a blog, and if it makes it to the final draft, it's because I'm desperate to speak my feelings without having to directly involve anyone or be accountable to anyone at this time. I don't want someone to call me and ask how I'm feeling, if I had symptoms this month or not. I don't want to talk about how I think I'm pregnant, only to find out it's just a hormone-enraged period afterwards, leaving me more confused and upset with my body. Justin and I aren't actively trying to have a child soon, but "accidents" happen, and I like to be on high alert so I don't experience another miscarriage. That's probably why I'm so quick to think I'm pregnant, prematurely cutting out alcohol, caffeine, and cleaning the litterbox. But yeah, I don't want anyone to directly be involved in my baby wishes, because as I continue to hope for a pregnancy, it's easier to just deal with myself when the time comes for me to take a test or start my period. It's just nicer to know that I don't have to relive it in several conversations... I can just move forward and hope for the best in the coming months.

But I'm not sorry for myself for any of this. My miscarriage was mild compared to so many other women out there. My pain that I feel at the start of each period is mild, considering I have so much ahead of me to keep me preoccupied and busy with our plans for the future. I think the sadness I feel when I know I'm not pregnant is just a bittersweet feeling, because I don't get to have that crazy exciting feeling when I see the positive results on my test... I don't get to imagine my baby and its hair, eyes, nose, future name, and how I'll do the nursery. Since we are not actively trying for a child, it's not a huge deal that we become pregnant or not. But I just remember how my stomach flipped, my heart jumped out of my chest, and my nerves ran straight through my fingertips when I saw the word, "PREGNANT" on my test that day. Back in 2008. Man, that was the coolest feeling...

Okay, well that's another huge life decision that I must leave up to God's timing. It's definitely His will that I am living for, and I keep trying to whole-heartedly accept His plans for mine and Justin's life together. It's been an awesome ride so far, so I trust that the Lord has some great plans for us!!

AMEN people!

:)