Learning

Week 36 (4 weeks to go)

Lilypie - (JhXM)

Today is my busy day with couponing and cleaning and random other tasks that I need to do. BUT YAY it’s Friday! It’s about time that it got here. It’s been a long boring week. I’m excited for tomorrow to get here… Saturday. Saturday is our day off. Just one more day to get through. My nausea has been really really bad this week. Thank heavens for Zantac and Zofran and Tums (which I’m not sure work?)… I would be throwing up all of the time without them. Still nauseated most of the time but it could be a lot worse. I know a lot of other ladies who can’t take anything because it just doesn’t work for them. I consider myself lucky that the Zofran and Zantac take the edge off. They may not make it go away but at least I’m not throwing up ever two seconds. At this point I will take all of the positives I can get!

Today I officially made it past 35 weeks! The doctor said once you make it to 36 weeks you can deliver and it isn’t considered premature. That’s good news. Still have almost a month to go before we talk about options. He doesn’t believe in letting you go over 41 weeks because of the new studies on risks of over-term births. Hopefully this little one will decide to come on its own so we don’t have to talk about inductions or c-sections or anything like that. At this point I just feel large and uncomfortable. They say the last month is the hardest… I can’t say that whoever “they” are, are far off. It’s hard to say. Right now it’s a tie between first and third trimester.

The good news is we’re feeling mostly prepared. Found a steal on biodegradable diapers online. Not sure how long we will use them but we are going to try them out. Originally I wanted to do cloth diapering but with how often I’d have to do laundry.. no thanks. So these look like the next best thing. I’m sure we’ll use some regular disposable as well when we have to but I’d really like to try and stick with biodegradable if possible. There are a few different brands of them so I’ve ordered samples to see if any work better than others. If we have a boy he’ll have to suffer through a few pink diapers at first but I’m sure he’ll live through it. If it’s a girl… well then we’ll have some cute diapers at first. We don’t have a huge stockpile right now but we have enough to get us through the first week or so. After that… who knows.

Lilypie - (yjIL)

Jay and I have done a lot of talking and planning lately. We’re looking over paperwork and talking about our so called birth plan. We’ve made a few small decisions but still have a lot to go over. Our hospital has a lot of options. Things that I’ve never even thought of. Since our doctor hasn’t brought most of them up we’re trying to figure out things on our own to the best of our ability. We’re kind of hoping that our normal doctor is not the one going to deliver but if he is I don’t think I will care that much. Pretty sure I will have other things on my mind.

We have decided that we are going to hold off on having visitors for a week after we get home from the hospital. Hopefully this will give us a little time to adjust and a little time for me to heal and get used to breastfeeding. This will also give us a little time to bond as a new family. I know a lot of people are comfortable having visitors right after they give birth but because this is our first we feel we need the time with just the three of us (and the cat of course). After that visitors are more than welcome but please be patient with my first time mom paranoia as I’ll probably make you was your hands and do who knows what else. Please just let us know ahead of time.

We will however make sure that people are notified with the tiny person arrives. I’m coming up with a list of people to contact after and once I’m feeling up to it we’ll post photos on here. Please feel free to ask questions and I’ll answer to the best of my ability. We’ll make sure that after the little one is born we announce the gender and name. Until then we have decided to keep everything a surprise. I guess it’s even a surprise to us right now because we don’t even know the gender and can’t decide on a name. We’re just as curious to find out as you are.

*Forgive my typos, spelling errors, and lack of grammar… I just don’t have the energy for it lately.

Musing Over Old Letters

In Beauty, Family, Learning, music, Rain, relaizations by admin / September 22, 2013 / No comments

Well today I embarked on the journey of going through some of the stuff in the spare room. There is so much stuff that we probably don’t need but I find I’m having a difficult time letting go. I opened a couple of boxes and started pruning away. Inside one of the boxes I found a smaller box filled with old letters. Many of them from friends but quite a few from family. I opened a few just to reminiscence. Letter after letter I read my childhood through the eyes of my loved ones. Letters from grandparents who I never got the chance to meet, family who I tried to get to know but communication dwindled as I aged. Family and connection has been so important to me and as of late I have failed to keep in touch. Facebook has stunted my letter writing, my phone calls, and my meet ups. It’s just easier to be a lazy friend. I’m trying to get the courage to no longer communicate through facebook but it is so hard. Facebook is one of the few ways that I see photos of my nieces and my nephews. Not to mention other family who I miss like crazy. However, facebook is poison to human connection. Sure it seems like a good idea but in reality it is so impersonal. People just don’t connect like they used to . It’s sad.

As I continued to look through letters and notes and unset but stamped thank you cards I realized that in the blink of an eye my life has passed me by. I’m not 22 any more and life is just speeding up. I keep praying that God has this plan for me that I can’t see and that some day I will wake up and think “oh it all makes sense now”… but I must still be dreaming because I just can’t see it yet. Life just keeps moving forward. I sometimes feel like I am moving backwards. Not using my degrees… doing exactly what I said I wouldn’t be. Life is funny like that.

Here we are in the city we least like living, in a small little condo, and hoping for the best. So many snags from day one. We arrived during a monsoon only to have to unpack in the pouring rain. Water past our ankles, running through puddles, and trying to out run the down pour that just seemed to chase us. Yet, somehow we managed to unpack the very stuffed U-hall in a short amount of time. Our floors were wet and our boxes had little puddles we had to pour off but we lived through it. The next few days we unpacked and spent money we didn’t yet have on things we deemed necessary. Both of us became discouraged as we dislike purchasing anything on borrowed money. I especially learned my lesson from student loans. But without any furniture or kitchen stuff… we had to bite the bullet. We made our way into the valley of defeat where we are now owned by the shackles of debt. We’re doing our best to make the best of it. We’ve been searching for the silver lining and looking for the positives. Jay hasn’t had an appetite since we’ve been here. I can tell he is struggling. Life seems to be spinning out of control in a sense. It’s like we got on a treadmill but can’t jump off.. just have to keep going. Faster and faster and faster. You want to turn off the controls but they aren’t within reach. So you pray. Pray for the beauty of life to show itself and hope that you can see it when it does. And then maybe things will slow down and feel somewhat normal (whatever that is).

We really miss LA.. we miss the green and the weather and the ocean and all the beaches and the beauty… so it’s not hard to understand why we wonder if something beautiful can happen in a place so opposite.

I keep thinking of that song by Gungor… Beautiful things. I keep thinking that even though things aren’t ideal maybe something beautiful can find its way through.

Here’s a picture just before the flood!

Next To the SeaShores

In Learning, Liberation, relaizations by admin / June 14, 2013 / No comments

The ocean lately has been sparkly and perfect. Despite wishing I was in better shape so I could enjoy them more, I have no other complaints. We spend many of our weekends next to the seashore and tackling waves that sometimes tackle us. I really wish we could stay in SoCal. I think in my heart I am becoming an Angeleno. Not entirely because I am not a native to California but as a transplant. I can’t imagine being anywhere other than the west coast. I think it would be the straw that broke the camels back (me being the camel). I just don’t think I could withstand that kind of disappointment. I’ve had a lot of huge disappointments as life has not been easy too me from the start. But heaven knows I’ve been blessed beyond all measures. I’ve been given a lot too.

My old hard drive recently came alive to unlock countless priceless memories. Some I remembered some were triggered by the images I saw. It was nice. I remember that girl. I remember her drive. I remember her hopes and dreams. I remember her self esteem. But things change. People change. Life changes. I’ve been reading this great book about finding happiness in everyday. It gives some pretty cool insight on simple things that make a difference. I’m only half way through it and I am captivated. Of course it says all of the same things that you hear all of the time… meditation, prayer, journaling, and making room for one thing that captivates you. At least 15 minutes of something you love, something that sets your mind free. I’ve really been considering playing the flute again. It’s been a while. But when I play without thinking I really love it. The issue is making time. And making myself stick to it without making it feel like a chore. ~~I think that the book is onto something.~~ Scratch that I know that it is onto something because I have read the statistics. I know making time for such things makes an impact on your life.

I was also talking to an old friend today and we talked about having the lives we always wanted. We have dreams… but making plans to achieve them at our age seems almost impossible. Kutless has this awesome part in one of their songs that says

“It doesn’t matter what you’ve heard
Impossible is not a word
It’s just a reason
For someone not to try”

Lately I’ve felt a lot of things were impossible. But talking to old friends and reading good books is kind of inspiring. Perhaps I’m not too old to still do the things I’ve dreamed of doing. I just don’t really know where to start. But I know life is going in the right direction. I just don’t know how long it will take to get me there!