MoreyPee:The Time of My Life

So I’m at the end of my 13^th week being pregnant and what a ride it has been so far.  Kudos to all the women out there who choose to have more than one child, because the havoc it reeks on our bodies is not for the weak.

I started my week on the couch and stayed there until Friday, feeling ill and having no motivation what so ever to move. I wake up most mornings needing some food; my food of choice is cereal such as Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Then, I have to lie on the couch and wait for the food to settle before I can even attempt to do anything else. Some days my stomach hurts all day and other days it only hurts for the morning.

Let’s see what else; oh I had to buy some new, bigger bras due to my enlarging and hardened breasts. They aren’t as tender as they were the first few months, but they are hard as rocks.  I had to go up an entire cup and band size and I think I will need an even bigger one before this pregnancy is over.

This week we went in for all the genetic testing to make sure we were having a healthy baby. They test for all kinds of genetic diseases including down syndrome. It was a little nerve racking because no one wants to hear their baby could have serious problems and then you are faced with a dilemma on what to do. Anyway, no worries are baby is perfectly healthy so far and we continue to pray it will stay that way. 

Here is a picture of our baby at 13 weeks:

It has the infamous Peterson chin… 

We will find out the gender on July 27^th and I can’t wait. We are hoping for a girl, but of course we will take a boy too.

Here’s to week 14, I hope I feel better and that my energy level and motivation level starts to improve. I guess I can just pretend I feel great and maybe I will for a change. Until next week!!

So, I will officially hit 13 weeks in a few days marking the end of the first trimester and the beginning of the second one. I’ve been told things get much better, but so far I have not been seeing it.

Here are some great things I experienced during my first 3 months: 

1)      Fatigue: I have never been so tired and it’s all the time. I can lie on the couch and be out in less than 2 minutes, which is rare for me. There are some days when I need more than 1 nap.

 2)      Morning Sickness: Now, I was not throwing up every day but feeling sick to your stomach and nausea is no walk in the park.

 3)      Non-stop Hunger, yet nothing sounds good at all.

 4)      Aversion to all meats and eggs…which have always been a staple in my diet.

5)      Constant urination: it seems I always have to go especially in the middle of the night and wee hours of the morning.

6)      Waking up at 4 or 5am starving and needing some food.

7)      TMI alert!!! Constantly having to poo, and most of the time it comes on all the sudden and I have to go right then.

Those are the main things going on in my body for the last few months and I’m waiting for those symptoms to stop, of course who knows what is in store for the next 6 months.

I have decided this will probably be my only baby. I am too old for all this body crap and I don’t have the patience to wait for a baby. 6 more months? Are you serious? I just want to be done being pregnant and have a scary baby. Simply meaning having a baby scares me, but we will do okay, I have a good man who will help me out.

I will try to blog more about my experiences of being pregnant since this all new to me and it’s kind of interesting. For now, I must nap.

I wrote this post back on April 10, 2010, before any knew we were pregnant.

Kevin and I have talked about having a child for a while now. We have actually been trying to make a baby for about six months now. This was by no means an “accident”, this was totally, completely on purpose. However, talking about having a baby and actually knowing you are going to have a baby are two different things.

For the past week, I have been having pains similar to cramps and right around my normal time. I hadn’t started to bleed though, and last month I had the same issues. I would have cramps for almost a week before I actually started my period. Sorry, TMI, I know but it’s my blog and I’ll write what I want. Anyway, this month, April, I had the same thing again. Cramps and pains but no bleeding.

There was on small difference though. These cramps were in a different spot. When you are a woman, you know your body. After twenty years of periods, you know your body even more and you know your cramps. These ones were definitely different; it hurt more up toward my cervix.

After a week of nothing but cramps, I did some research online. I have never been pregnant before so I have no idea what to expect. I read a lot of discussion threads where women had strange cramps but no blood, around the time they expected their period. So, what the heck I decided to take a home pregnancy test. I didn’t really expect anything of it, but when I looked down and saw a pale, double blue line I gasped to myself. I ran out and grabbed Kevin, who was lying on the couch with no idea as to what I was doing. I told him I needed his opinion on something. I showed him the test and he said “Does this mean?” and I shrugged and said “I think so.”

A week later I went to the Doctor to get things confirmed and sure enough I have a baby growing inside of me. I’m not sure what to think about the whole thing. I’m excited, nervous, and bursting with news I can’t tell anyone quite yet. Of course, by this time everyone knows, however we aren’t telling anyone until the end of the first trimester. Month and a half to go.

Notes: Yeah, we didn’t make it to the end of the first trimester before we spilled the beans. Information like that is sure hard to keep to yourself.

So, six weeks ago, or so, I wrote about my choice to go low-carb. I gave up breads, pastas, and junk food for Lent as a starting point. Now, Lent is over and I’m choosing to stick with my low-carb lifstyle and I love it. I lost 10 lbs and have about 10 more to go, plus I would like to tone it up a bit.

Going low-carb was one of the hardest things I did, at first. No breads, no pasta, no junk food, killer. For the first week, I was hungry all the time. I would snack on cheese sticks, veggies, and almonds all throughout the day. I discovered little treats I could have like jello and whip cream and creamer in my coffee.

As the weeks past, I fell into a nice routine and found some stuff I could eat that would fill me up. Honestly, I think I just had to teach my body that carbs sitting in the gut was a bad thing. In the morning, I eat scrambled eggs with cheese (and sometimes spicy sausage), for lunch I make a low-carb wrap with meat, cheese, mayo, and mustard, and for dinner I make some sort of meaty dish.

A few weeks back I got myself a low-carb crockpot cookbook that I am in love with. I made 3 meals out of it last week and have three meals lined up for this week. Eating low carb gets easier and easier with each passing week. The hardest part is finding low-carb things in the grocery store. They have gluten-free stuff galore, but sugar-free and low-carb isn’t quite as popular. I have found a few websites where I can order low-carb things. I should be getting my first order in the next few days. I bought some low-carb baking mix, sugar-free chocolate chips, sugar-free honey, and some coffee mixes that are low-carb.

I no longer eat snacks all throughout the day. I eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner and have no need for snacks. I feel better about myself and watching the pounds go away is always a good feeling. I just recently started working out again, doing weight training and some cardio, which has kicked my weight loss back into gear. I had stopped working out while my body adjusted to low-carb, but then got lazy and busy. Now, I’m working out in the mornings again and I can feel all that excess fat burning away.

I’m glad I choose to give up carbs for Lent and I intend to embrace a more healthy lifestyle full of protiens, fruits, and veggies and very little carbs or sweets.

I finally finished my first novel and sent it out to many agents. The results were promising but not good; meaning I got some great advice but I didn’t sell the book. For now, I will set it aside and start on my second novel and revisit the first one later. I think it has a good plot, but needs some stronger characters.

For my second book, I’ve decided to make the setting Graham and Eatonville, WA. There is enough lakes and country out there I think it makes a good place for a murder or two. In this book, I’m going to focus a little more on police procedure and have even formed my own sheriff department and county. It will have more characters with more depth and a small town feel.

To get a better visual on things, I went out with my mom a few weeks back and took pictures of potential murder sites. I know its sounds morbid, but it is all for research. As a writer you really have to get involved in the story and each and every character to make it as believable as possible.

Here are some of the pictures I took:

Nice isolated places with little to no houses around. Grassy areas for dumping bodies and all revolving around water, which is part of the story line.

I think I pick some good, scary places. You have to figure out where they are, but with visuals it helps me paint a much more descriptive picture. Hopefully this book will be ten times better than the first.

February 12, 2010 (when I actually wrote this)

Kevin and I have been trying different tactics to lose weight and get in better shape. We workout, go for walks, go for hikes, and have even cut down the calorie intake. Nothing really seems to work. I haven’t gained any weight but I haven’t lost any either.

This past week we decided to go drastic, do some research, and then take some steps to more permanent lifestyle changes. Kevin found that the best way to lose weight and keep it off is to limit the amount of carbohydrates you eat each day.

Here is a brief history and the science behind the low-carb diet:

If you look at our ancestors many moons ago, their diet consisted of whatever they could hunt and gather. Meats, fruits, and vegetables. They did not eat processed foods, breads, or pastas for the main reason they didn’t have any available to them. This is the concept of the Primal Diet (http://www.marksdailyapple.com/definitive-guide-to-the-primal-eating-plan/), you can browse through this website and blog and get an idea of the science behind the diet. Kevin is really into the science behind things so I let him read about it and then condense it in layman terms for me.

The brief science behind low-carb: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/diabetes/) if you want to read it yourself or just remember this Carbohydrate drives insulin drives fat. What does this mean? Well, all carbs break down into sugar (glucose) in the body which runs through the liver and is transformed into glycogen, which is fuel for the muscles during exercise. However, we only need to eat a maximum of 100-150 grams of Carbs each day to burn off; otherwise all that extra glucose and glycogen is stored in the body as fat, saturated fat, which sits in the body and doesn’t seem to go away.

The thought process behind the low-carb diet (keeping yourself under 100-150 grams a day), is that with the lowered amount of glucose being produced, your body won’t be storing all that extra fat. And with the lowered amount of glucose producing, your body will tap into those stored fat cells and actually start to burn off some of that fat that’s been sitting around for years. Hence, you will lose weight and eventually keep it off.

When starting a new life changing low-carb diet, it’s a good idea to cut down your carb intake to no more than 20 grams per day for at least two weeks. This will force your body to tap immediately into those stored fat cells and use the fat for energy. Proteins are your body’s best friend, because proteins are what the body burns off as a last resort. So if you are eating more proteins and less carbs, your body has no choice but to pull all of its energy from those pesky fat cells and poof rapid weight loss. However, buyer beware, if you choose to go the low-carb route it would behoove you to keep it up after you lose the initial 10-15 pounds or it will all come back.

What does this new lifestyle entail? Well more meats and proteins, vegetable and fruits, and less breads, pasta, rice, snacks, and junk food. It means looking at labels and not buying things that have more than 10 grams of carbs per serving. However, don’t limit yourself too much or you won’t succeed. Its okay to splurge once in a while and it might actually help limit cravings. I don’t even think it would be bad to eat bread with a meal once a week; or make your own low-sugar bread. Cake at birthday parties, fine just don’t overdo it.

Over the next few weeks, I’m going to put myself out there and document the diet as it goes by. I’ll share what I eat and how much weight I lose each week. I try to only weigh myself once a week and take some measurements to track my progress. I also plan on taking weekly pictures, so that’s really putting myself out there; since women are so defensive of our weight. Hopefully, if this diet works for me it can also work for you.

Look for my posts, I’ll make a commitment to 1-3 posts a week for the next 6 weeks.

Mapi is probably the most spoiled cat around these parts. He has tons of little mice to play fetch with. He has two or three special forts build just for him because he likes to be buried when he sleeps. And he has many humans to pet him, cuddle him, and do his dirty work. Mapi Deuce is clearly the most spoiled thing in the house, besides maybe Trenton (but he deserves to be spoiled).

For weeks Kevin has talked about building Mapi a ramp across the living room wall up to a perch in the top most corner of the room, and the highest point in the house. Mapi likes to look down on his minions from his high perches.

Finally, Kevin found the time to build the ramp. Over the course of a few months, we slowly accumulated all the supplies we needed to make this happen. It became a matter of finding extra time to construct it.

Kevin spend a few hours on a Friday night putting the pegs in the wall, carpeting the wood, and hanging the wood to complete a masterpiece for a cat. Mapi watched with curious eyes the whole time; it was like he knew something amazing was about to happen and his life would never be the same.

Once the ramp was done, Mapi was a little unsure on how to proceed. Kevin put him on the ramp and then used the laser pointer to guide him to his perch. It took a few trys, but Mapi finally made it to his perch and peered down at us.

The ramp is a little narrow and sits against the wall, so Mapi had to back down the ramp a few times, which was hilarious to watch. He would get halfway up the ramp, get scared, and back quickly down. He hasn’t quite figured out that if he makes it to the perch he can turn around.

We also discovered the perch is a little small for Mapi to lay out on, so eventually Kevin will fix that and make it a bit bigger. For now, Mapi enjoys going up and down the ramp and overlooking his vast kingdom.

One of the biggest joys about living in Washington State are all the great mountains we have here. Real mountains, with snow and everything. Not dirt hills that are a little bit higher in elevation then the road.

My favorite mountain by far is Mount Rainier; this may be a biased opinion because I was born and raised in Puyallup, WA and this is the mountain I woke up to each and every morning.

Sunday morning-ish, Kevin and I decided to go hiking on this mountain. We checked the weather reports and the snow levels and found we could drive all the way up to Paradise which is at about 5400 feet of elevation, so not even halfway up the mountain. But it was covered in quite a few feet of snow though the roads were clear so the drive was easy and didn’t require chains.

We took Brian, Andrada, Trenton, and David with us. The wind was extremely chilly when we first go out of the car, but after bundling up it wasn’t so bad. Also, once we got on the trails the wind died down even more making it a bit warmer.

We walked around and played in the snow for bit, but none of us were really dressed for it. Trenton found a great hill to slid down. It was pretty fun for them for a few minutes, too bad we didn’t have any sleds or anything, but they seemed to do fine without them.

After hiking around for about an hour, we headed back down to the river where it was sunny. I packed everyone up some lunch, so we all ate our lunches by the river. It was quite a difference from Paradise. There was no snow and the sun was blinding.

We walked along the river. Trenton and Kevin made a bridge out of logs to forge the river and explore the other side. Kevin, my adventurous one, pole vaulted back across the river, but he wisely made Trenton and David cross back over the bridge.

All and all it was a fun day up at the mountain in gorgeous weather. In the next few weeks, we are hoping to go up there for a weekend and camp overnight. Of course that means buying new gear. I have no snow pants and no snow jacket, so I’ll have to get both of those things. Thankfully, we got a few gift certs. for Christmas that need to be used.

On Saturday, I made plans to kidnap my eldest niece for a few hours. I helped her set up a blog, like mine, and then we cooked dinner together. Okay, seriously, she didn’t need any help I was just making myself sound better.

Halie came into my life almost twelve years ago, give or take a few months. I was a whopping 21 years old then and I was excited to be an aunt. Halie was always a sweet little girl and she was fun to be around. When I moved to Vegas in 2001, Halie and I would write back and forth to each other a few times a months. I always loved getting letters from her over the years. Watching her handwriting improve, her letters got longer, and her pictures were fun too. In fact, I still have some letters she wrote to me.

(Halie when she first came into our lives)

Time has gone by and its easy getting caught up in life and forgetting what is most important, family. Now, I have 5 nieces and nephews (2 nephews, 3 nieces, and soon a fourth niece when I actually get married). It gets hard to try to have a relationship with all of them, but thankfully I do.

(All the kids together)

The past two years have been difficult because my brother and Halie’s mom got divorced, which makes it harder for me to see Halie. I have taken her out to lunch for her birthday, but that is only once a year and I really need more time with her. She is growing up so fast and I love discovering the women she is quickly becoming.

A few weeks ago, Halie asked me how to set up a blog like mine. I thought to myself, ‘what a perfect reason to get together with her’. So I made a date. Halie wants to be a chef so I added on a dinner making date to plan, so she could show off her skills.

I picked her up a little after 2pm on Saturday and headed up to my mom’s house (grandma wants to see Halie too). She looked through her Julia Child cookbook and found a recipe she wanted to try. Then, we made a shopping list and headed out to Safeway. It was a good way to have some one-on-one time with her.

We came back to my parent’s house and Halie started the cooking process. I’m impressed with her skills and though some might say cooking from a book is easy, I think it still takes some skill and timing to get things right.

She made us some Chicken in a Cream and Onion sauce. Mom cooked the broccoli and Kevin made the salad. Then, Halie also made deviled food cake for dessert. It was delicious, she did a great job.

After dinner, I helped Halie set up her blog (which I added to my blog roll if you want to read it). I gave her the basic rundown and she did the rest, she is smart like that. Then, she hung out with her future cousin, Trenton, and his friend David. They were drawing pictures and then taking pictures of those to make movies or something.

Sadly, I had to return her home. I think she was a having a really good time with everyone, and it was so good to see her again. I think next time we will have a girls night. Just Halie, myself, my mom, and maybe Halie’s BFF. It will be fun and we can cook again, watch some movies and just hang out…slumber party!!!  I hope to start spending some more time with Halie because I love being around her.