Nesting

Yesterday I crossed off "drink a cup of green tea every night" from my list. I crossed it off because I know I'll have no problem doing that every night. I'm trying to slowly start establishing a night time ritual and drinking a cup of tea is one of the things I'd like to incorporate. Now, I do find regular green tea a little too bitter for my taste, but I really like (well, not really like in the way I would really like regular tea with milk & sugar... but as far as green tea goes...) this Tazo Zen green tea (http://www.amazon.com/Green-Tea-Zen-Low-Caffeine-Bag/dp/B00028PPOQ). It's blended with lemongrass & spearmint. I think it's the spearmint that does it for me. Anyway, I'm not drinking this every night because I want the ritual of drinking tea, but because it's supposed to help with fertility.

I think that I've started nesting.

I'm finding myself realizing that I'm going to be ready to start trying for baby #2 in a few months and it has triggered that nesting instinct in my brain already. I'm finding myself craving organization and am starting to feel honestly ready to start watching what I eat so that I can get my weight down to a healthy BMI range.

It took us two years to get pregnant with Andy and we were only able to conceive after I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) and I started taking 1500 mgs of Metformin a day and did one round of Clomid. I would like to conceive without Clomid this second time around if at all possible. It was one thing to risk multiples the first time, but it just feels more risky now that we have a toddler running around at home!

I honestly feel that my body will respond appropriately and ovulate monthly if I can get the weight off, exercise reguarly, keep my refined carb intake very low and take my Metformin. It is hard for me to start all of that at once, so I am taking small steps one at a time to get there. I want to feel like I have done everything I can to get my body ready for a second pregnancy before we make the decision to "pull the goalie." Although when we actually make that decision is still up for debate!

Yes, we are that crazy family with 3 dogs and a cat!

I just crossed today's item off my check list. I finally called and made a vet appointment for Callie for her annual check up. She's a little overdue. The hardest part about having 3 dogs and a cat (he's just going to have to go on next month's list!) is definitely the expense! Of course they are all 3 due around the same time every year for their annual exams and they are all 9 years old now so of course they always want to do bloodwork, etc. and I can never afford it so I always say I'll set up a separate appointment for that... and then never do. I have a monthly amount in our budget for pet expenses, but I never actually set that money aside every month. That is really what I need to be doing. We have an account already that I could use for that. Maybe I need to set up an automatic transfer or something - even weekly if that makes it easier - so that I won't spend that money on other things.

I had two dogs when I met my husband and then he got one shortly after we started dating. Of course I love them all dearly, but I know we won't ever have 3 dogs again. It's difficult when we travel as well, paying for care for them all and dealing with the dog hair from a house that hasn't been vacuumed since we left!

Last night and today I've been feeling very overwhelmed with all that I feel like I need to do to get caught up on my own life. I keep feeling like if I can work a little bit each day on simplifying my life, I will eventually get to the point where it becomes easier to just maintain. It's been harder than normal for some reason though to remind myself of that lately. I think that part of it might be that I am frustrated with myself for letting things go for so long and it just seems like too much to focus on. I know I am doing the right thing by tackling one thing a day, and I certainly feel a sense of accomplishment just making it 7 days so far (and p.s. I STILL haven't had any Coke... go me!! ... even when faced with temptation) but some days are still hard. So, today I picked a little thing on my list, so that I could focus the rest of my time on catching up on cleaning and laundry. Oh, and I baked a chocolate cake :-) That made me feel much better! ha ha

Boobs

Yesterday I crossed another item off my list ~ following up with the health insurance company about my MRI. I had a breast cancer scare in October and the breast specialist I was sent to see ordered a mammogram and a breast ultrasound. Both were negative, however, I apparently have very dense breasts and the radiologist was concerned because he didn't see what he thought he would on the ultrasound, so he sent me for a breast MRI to rule out inflammatory breast cancer. IBC is the most aggressive form of breast cancer, and also the most rare. The other scary thing about it is that more often than not, it's not detected on a mammogram. Most people have probably never heard about IBC and would have no idea what the signs and symptoms are. I highly suggest that you read the symptoms here:

http://www.ibcresearch.org/home-page/typical-symptoms-of-ibc/

I was acutely aware of the symptoms and the aggressiveness of IBC because my cousin battled against it for nine years before passing away this past August. She was only 41. Fortunately for me, all of my test results came back negative and I will go for a follow up mammogram and visit with the breast specialist in June. My health insurance company however is saying that the MRI was not medically necessary because it was "investigational and/or experimental". So, I'm having to appeal and had to have my doctor send a letter with additional information, etc.
So, I followed up yesterday and found out that my claim has been sent out for "outside medical review" and I should know by the middle of January what their decision is. I'm praying that they will cover the test because we will be hard pressed to pay for that out of pocket. It's frustrating feeling like something so big is out of your control, but given the alternative, I'd rather pay that medical bill and have negative test results than the other way around.

My Very Bare House

Well, today I finally got all of the Christmas decorations down and packed away. I took the tree down 2 days ago and packed up all of the ornaments, but things didn't start to look so bare until tonight. I even took down the wreaths and all of the lights outside. The outside of the house is back to it's boring, non-festive self. Since moving into the house in July, I still have yet to get anything up on the walls, so it was nice to have Christmas decorations to fill the void.

Since I've been making it my goal lately to try and do things that the future me will appreciate, even if I'm tired and want to take the shortest route possible to getting things done, I very strategically packed all of the lights, ornaments and decorations this year. I actually went to Walmart the morning after Christmas and bought several of the red and green rubermaid containers, wreath holders and ornament holders. Although this was an investment, I did get it all on sale, and this is the only time I'll have to buy them. The end result is that I'm super pleased with having everything organized in color coordinated containers that are easily stackable. I even put all of the strings of lights in zip lock bags and labeled them so that we will know right where each strand goes outside next year when we lug everything back out!

I did have some of my Christmas stuff in large rubbermaid containers before, but I decided to buy new red and green ones for the Christmas storage and use the old ones for my recycling bins. Starting my home recycling center is on the list of goals for January, so at least now I already have my containers.

The next step will be actually storing all of the containers away. I would really rather not store them in the garage and since we live in the "Lowcountry" we don't have a basement, but we do have a coat closet that backs up to the stairs and I know there is a whole bunch of space under our stairs just waiting to be tapped into... so Matt... if you are reading this, feel free to cut a hole in the wall at the back of that closet so that I can use it for storage space!

Baby Steps

So, yesterday I finally put my re-usable grocery bags in the back of my car. The bags have just been sitting in a closet for over a year. Occasionally I'll use them to throw some of my son's toys in if we are traveling, but generally, they go unused. Meanwhile, we have a gazillion plastic grocery bags piling up in the cabinet under our kitchen sink! I actually have a thing to mount on the wall to hold all of those (because we do have 3 dogs... we need some for poop bags on walks) but that will come when I organize the pantry. I'm planning to mount it in there.
Anyway... I put the grocery bags on the floor in the back seat of the car on the side that I usually get my son out of his car seat. I'm hoping that I will have no trouble remembering to actually bring them inside and use them!

I'm noticing that a funny thing is happening as I work my way through this list... I'm starting to work on other things not even on the list yet a little bit at a time. I really thought that this would be a way for me to not feel overwhelmed because I'd only HAVE to do one thing a day, but I'm finding that I'm accomplishing my one thing and then working a little bit on some of the "bigger picture" items. For instance, I'm really wanting to start becoming good at using coupons. I'm just starting to read up on the best methods, etc. There are a TON of blogs out there to read about couponing. I'll have to compile a list of my favorites once I really get into it.

Tonight I just finished writing, addressing and mailing all of our thank you notes from Christmas. I am absolutely terrible at procrastinating on thank you notes. I feel incredibly guilty that I never sent them for my son's first birthday (which was at the end of August), but after a certain amount of time I kind of just said "forget it!" It still nags me though. The funny thing is that it takes an average of about 3 minutes to do each note. Really, it isn't hard! I don't know why I always put that off. Especially considering how good it feels to get it done! I even just walked up the street to the mail box at 9:45 p.m. in the 30 degree weather to put them in the mail. I know myself well enough to know that if I didn't do it right then that they had a 99.9% chance of sitting on my counter all week waiting to go to the mail box.

I have to say, I'm pretty proud of myself for the things I've gotten done so far. My son has had an ear infection and then an allergic reaction to the amoxicillin and I haven't slept through the night in almost a week, so I'm exhausted. BUT... I've been catching up on laundry and housework since our family left on Sunday and still knocking things off my list. I know that the old me would have been laying on the couch watching TV instead and just feeling stressed that nothing was getting done. That said, I am really tired and definitely need to go get some sleep!

Team in Training

Well, I'm pleased to say that I FINALLY got my Team in Training support letters mailed out yesterday. That was for sure something that I should have done back in September, but just kept putting it off and putting it off. I even had all of the letters printed at the end of November and all of the mailing labels printed & stamps purchased at the beginning of December, but for some reason just kept procrastinating.
I'm running my first half marathon in February with Team in Training (http://www.teamintraining.com/). It's an awesome program that raises money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. My cousin Lisa passed away at the end of August after a 9 year battle with breast cancer. I am running in memory of her. I wish that they had a similar program here for breast cancer research, but Team in Training was the closest thing I could find. I'm actually really nervous about my run. I know I'll be doing run/walk intervals for the whole race, and I'm okay with that, but I'm still pretty anxious. I'm about half way to my fundraising goal, so I'm hoping that I can raise the rest of the money through donations from family and friends after they receive my support letters. If not, I'll start approaching local businesses for donation requests.
I'm proud of myself for signing up and following through on this. There hasn't been a whole lot that I feel like I've actually followed through on in the last several years. I'm hoping the changes I've been making recently are the start to finally breaking that pattern.
I have to say, it feels really good to finally cross something off my list that I should have done a while ago... I'm hoping that feeling will become addicting and I'll start clearing out my severe back log of "to-do" items!

Coke... Oh how I will miss you so!

Well, I guess I'm officially kicking my year off! Welcome 2010! In place of the usual can of coke I would have had by now I just took 2 Advil and a drank a glass of water to fight off the headache that I can only assume is due to lack of caffeine. Reading over my resolution list for the month, I'm realizing that some of the things seem like resolutions and some seem more like a to do list. The thing is, that they are things I have been putting off for a long time (some a VERY long time!) and they constantly nag at me. I think that most of my 365 (if I can come up with that many!) resolutions are going to fall into the same major categories:
1. Health & Weight Loss
2. Organization
3. Finances
4. Communication with Family & Friends
5. Spirituality

It will be interesting though to see how things evolve over the course of the year. My guess is that the first few months will be loaded with taking care of the backlog of things I've been neglecting to take care of for such a long time and then as the year goes on, I anticipate transitioning more to the emotional and spiritual side of my resolution aspirations.

I already know from reviewing my list that the two hardest things on there for me this month will be to give up Coke (That's why it's my first thing and I'm going to try to maintain it for the whole year) and to start taking my Metformin regularly. I've been putting that one off for forever because I will feel sick for the first 4-6 weeks that I'm on it and it never really seems like a "good" time to feel sick. I'm going to wait until our family leaves on Monday to start that though.

I would like to eventually get to the point where I can have a can of Coke as a treat, but I'm not really sure how long it will take me to get there. I've given up Coke before for stretches of time, although I don't think I've ever lasted a month, and then I tell myself I'll just have one... well, of course that just opens the door to start having one a week, which leads eventually to one a day, and if it's a Coke from a restaurant or drive through, then that's even worse!

I hope that by making this my very first resolution that I won't falter on it because then I'd feel like I failed at this whole experiment. This is my trick to making it stick!