Just spring fever or is this nesting??

Just a note: I love these vintage pictures. TOO CUTE! Check out art.com for more!
I have so many things I want to write about.. but I just can't find the time to get my thoughts together.
Right now my whole focus is on my home and yard. It's either spring fever or nesting.. maybe both?
Roy has agreed to help out with the garden this year so we can expand it. We have also brought the kids in explaining to the older girls, especially, how much their help will be needed through the spring and early summer.
We are putting in a container medicinal herb garden, a container cooking herb garden, some more citrus trees, and two more veggie boxes. It's a lot for a house we hope to be moving out of in the next year or so, but it will help the landscape and it will give us good experience. Our real plan was to put it on market this summer, but baby changes all sorts of plans. :)
I'm researching which flowers attract bees the best. We are planning to have more flowers this year. For bees and for cutting. The girls and I would love to be able to take fresh flowers and herbs and veggies to friends one day. Maybe not in this year because we are still learning, but we have the Patience. I know I do, because this will be my third year gardening with less than substantial results the past two years.

In the house I am on a new declutter kick. I have two boxes of books, I will be either goodwilling or PBS (paperbackswapping) in the next few days. I do need some school books and a few other books so I might PBS for a few weeks and see what happens. Or not. The whole idea is to get rid of the clutter. I need to finish our room this week so I can talk Roy into painting and finishing the floors. I will then slowly begin replacing our bedding and redoing the room. Lily will spend her first year in that room (in a separate bed) with us so I need to have it all clean, beautified and space carved out for her in a few months. I also need to do it as cheaply as possible. Lots of ideas for that though. :)

I mention our room because that's where the majority of our bookshelves are. I am yearning right now for beauty and organization.

I will work through the rest of the house as I am able. I have started some things in the kids rooms. That's my next big project. I want to start on the main part of my home, but I so want us all to have peaceful bedrooms first. I want to replace beds and mattresses in the kids rooms. Lots to ponder there. I'll save it for another post.

Of course it all comes down to budgeting. We were doing well with Dave Ramsey before Roy lost his job. As a matter of fact a lot of what has kept us a float and let us have some money to spend this last year is the fact that almost all of our debt was paid off. Of course circumstances allowed us to come into extra money throughout the year so that helped as well.

Now we need to get back on the DR bandwagon. Not because we are running out of money, but because we need to have as much cash as possible to put towards a new car. There is much fear and trepidation in the older children when they count spaces in our van. They wonder who is getting kicked out of the car to make room for baby. It's actually quiet amusing.

We have actually considered going back to one car for awhile to save even more money.

I dropped a lot of our outside activities. We have a few left, but we could work those out just fine with one car. It's not my favorite solution, but as my buddy Dave says, "To live like no one else, you have to live like no one else!" Wise words indeed.

We are also close to needing some new living room furniture. So we need to get our car bought and paid for so we can start saving for the next purchase. And don't forget I want new beds and mattresses for the kids rooms. Believe it or not we could do almost all of that by the end of this year if we really put our mind to it. We are at least shooting for the car this year and starting our furniture savings.

I desperately need to work out new schedules for cleaning around here. It's gotten mundane and it's really showing in the kids' work. Things are being left uncompleted and I don't notice until much later. Also, some things are not being done correctly. Correction is needed, but so is help, I think. I am working on some ideas that I just need to get down on paper. Once again the need for clean and organized right now is about to drive me through the roof. Is it spring? Is it baby? WHO KNOWS!? LOL

I do know I seem to have more energy right now. I have to be careful not to overdue it. I spent last Sunday in bed because I was super woman on Friday and Saturday.

My blood sugar was great because of all the activity. The pain, fatigue, and cold symptoms.. not so much! LOL

Well those are the musings of a crazed pregnant lady! I will try to post at least once a week. I appreciate the fact that some of you are still reading. :)

Be Blessed!

Randomness

I have been lacking in motivation lately. Motivation to do anything. I don't know what it is. I am glad to say that we got a whole week of school done last week. We are almost to the third week in January. *Sigh* My house is... mediocre clean. Nothing to write home about. My kids have spent hours watching videos. Hours. It's quiet ridiculous. Even my Bible time has seemed to be lacking lately. I read through a chapter mumble some words of prayer and go on. I just want out of this rut.
I'm still waiting for that miraculous burst of energy that is supposed to come in the 2nd trimester. Anyone seen it? Could you send it my way?

Someone mentioned the other day that all the states had snow. Not in my part of the state. *Sigh* I would like snow. It was cold and rainy all day yesterday but the snow just went on it's merry way. We saw it on the weather map yesterday heading out to sea. Oh well. We had fun. A day at the museum. We were supposed to be cleaning the beach for our Give a Day/Get a Day Disney tickets, but the beach was not the ideal place to be yesterday. The museum, however, was. I hope the guy is able to reschedule us the kids were looking forward to it.

I have been busy planning Karly's sixth grade year to start in September. Yeah. My poor little guinea pig. I have no idea how it's going to work out, but we will jump in with both feet and see where we land.

I signed up for a Bradley Birthing class starting in April. I don't know. I'm super nervous. I will most likely be induced before 40 weeks. I have heard the horror stories of induced child birth. Does not sound like a ton of fun. Bradley, for those who don't know, is a natural childbirth method. Teaching you how to let your body do it's job and not fight the contractions. I have heard that contractions from induction are a lot worse then regular contractions. I am going to the Bradley classes to try to empower myself. We'll see.

Next week we go for another sonogram. There will also be a fetal echo cardiogram. So far her heart has sounded great at my weekly OB appts. I just hope that it looks great as well. They will also be checking her organs and other stuff. I pray everything is where it should be and working properly.

Well, that's my random update. I hope you all are doing well.

Be Blessed!

Learning, always learning.

I started insulin back in January at my first OB appointment. I pretty much knew it was coming because I'd read everything about pregnancy and diabetes. I also knew because my blood sugars were out of control no matter what I did. That was actually my first clue to being pregnant. Although at the time I did not know it was a clue.

It's been a struggle. My BS went from over 200 to the low 100s on most days. Trying to adjust to eating so my BS stays in the right place, not to high and not to low, is a whole new world.

My fasting is supposed to be 90 or less and my two hours after a meal is supposed to be 120 or less. I was having a hard time with my fasting and after breakfast.

I take Insulin regular and slow release (NPH). With the regular I have to eat within 15m or my sugar will bottom out. The slow release starts working within about 6-8 hours. I take one of each before breakfast and was supposed to be taking one of each before dinner. The problem I ran into taking the NPH after dinner was that I would crash to around 50 between the hours of 3-4 am. So I would have to eat. Then my fasting would be high when I took it at 8-9am.

Now, what does crashing feel like? Most the time not too bad. I can feel it coming on. I get a little light headed, my heart speeds up some, I feel cold and clammy.. I know to eat. Waking up from a dead sleep at 3am with those symptoms is NO fun! Usually a cup of milk and some PB or cheese and crackers helps.

The bad part about your fasting being high (for me it was between 110 and 120, high since it's supposed to be around 90) is that it takes awhile for your BS to regulate so your two hour test after breakfast is high.

I finally got in to see a dietitian and her suggestion was moving the NPH to just before bed. When I mentioned it to my OB he said I could go ahead and try. I did on Feb 1. Today he was astounded at my fasting and breakfast blood sugar. They have consistently been between 80 and 90. My breakfast has been between 110 and 120. PERFECT! I was so excited. The one high fasting I had was when I forgot my bedtime snack and ended up crashing at 4am.

So, there you go. That is one of my first lessons from being on insulin. I said I would try to keep you all informed as to what I am learning.

Be Blessed!

"Green" Bags not up to par

Click on picture to go to Bags on the Run. Cute affordable "green" bags.

So, here is an interesting article about the tax or ban of plastic bags. I have some issues with the whole idea.

First with a few kids the "green" bags just don't always cut it for me. I have a few and on trips to the store during the week for extra milk, eggs, produce.. I can use them.
For my BIG grocery shop every two weeks... well, that's a lot of bags.
Now, before people get bent out of shape because of course I am ruining the environment with my large family, I would like to point out that while I do have a lot of groceries during my big shop it's not nearly the amount of processed, packaged stuff that families with just one, two or no children come home with. Our "little" family only has one garbage can by the curb every week. Our neighbors with no kids? Three. Yeah, I'm the one bad for the environment. :) (Not, that I'm saying our neighbors are, I'm just saying lets look at the big picture here!)

Second, what good is a green bag when you have to throw it away after one use because the meat leaked in the bag? But just wash it. Um, no thanks. A bag saturated with meat juice is probably never going to be the same to me. I'm just sayin'! And while we are on the subject are all of these green bags biodegradable? The article above seemed to think not. Do we expect them to never wear out. IMO they are pretty flimsy. I can't see some of them making it past a month of good grocery shopping.

Third, if you take away our plastic bags then we will have to find non-recycled bags for poopie diapers, cat litter, wet clothes, small trash bags for the car... the list goes on. We use those plastic bags from the grocery store over and over and over. Sometimes three times. Sometimes only once. But we still reuse them. So... now you want me to go and buy the plastic bags for one time use for the poopie diaper? You want me to use one BIG trash bag one time for the cat litter? I guess I should buy the smaller trash bags to keep in the car for one time use? Really? I'm not going to use the "green" bags for those things.

Do I think "green" bags are good idea? Sure, to a reasonable extent. I have a mess of them hanging up in my kitchen. We use them for everything. I'll even tell you I can be convinced to use them on smaller trips to the grocery store. No problem. But don't treat me like a child and act like you have to tax or ban plastic bags because "YOU" say they are no good for the environment. Lots of stuff is no good for the environment. Let's go after processed, packaged food first. I'm sure that takes up a lot more room in the landfill. How about drinks of any kind. Wouldn't it just be better to drink tap water from a glass at home? No packaging there.
I'm just sayin'. :)

Be Blessed!