All Is Going To Change (Come October)

This last weekend was sad. Dearest Elaine, my cousins real grandmother, and my "adopted" grandmother, passed away on Saturday, the 15th of September. Only in her 70's, she was quite young, but she had so many health problems it's a relief she's not suffering anymore. Her passing is made much more bearable by the fact that Grom, as we liked to call her, loved Jesus so much, there is now no doubt where her eternal soul came to rest--in the bosom of her beloved Savior.  Grom, you will be missed. 

But that wasn't the only thing that made the weekend sad. At least, not for me. 

To start off, you should know that this month Jon and I are trying the Sperm Meets Egg Plan. 

Sunday night I made a big decision, and was in mourning Monday. (Today I feel better about it, but it will still be difficult.) Sunday night I was praying to God. I told God that we would continue to try to get pregnant this month, but that if we didn't, I would take it as a sign that I need to lose weight first. Meaning that after this month of trying to get pregnant, if we are unsuccessful,  attempting to achieve pregnancy will be put on the back burner for a while while I lose weight.

I have long been overweight and sick of it, but it's gotten to the point where I need to do something about it, not only for myself (eczema, embarrassed to be in public, feeling distinctly unattractive, etc) , but for my husband and future children as well. Hence, we will be starting the GAPS intro diet in October (if I don't get pregnant this month). The goal of this diet is to cleanse out our innards; to heal our bodies; to gain health; and for me, to lose weight. Once we complete the intro diet, we will move on to the full GAPS diet, and go from there. I don't know how long it will take us to heal our bodies. But I am committed, despite the Holiday Season coming up, that I will do this, that I NEED to do this. And it's now or never. 

SO. My plan is to lose at least 80 pounds, then wait 6 months, before we try to get pregnant after this month. I am anticipating that it will be at least 18 months, then, when we can start trying again. I am giving myself a year to lose the weight (that's only 1.5 lbs a week! Doesn't sound so bad, then! And I'm thinking I'll probably lose quite a bit right at first) and then I want to wait the 6 months after losing the weight to allow all the toxins to be flushed out of my body. (Note: if I lose more than 80 lbs, I wouldn't mind... wow, I'm fat! But that is ALL GOING TO CHANGE.)

This was a surprisingly easy decision to make on Sunday, but I was really depressed Monday, thinking that I will have to wait so very long for my dream of a family. But then I realized: I'm still working toward achieving that dream! I could sit here, over weight, trying (in vain, more than likely, as I believe my weight is what is hindering pregnancy) to get pregnant each month and then being depressed it doesn't happen, OR I can do something about it! It won't be easy, but I feel good about having a plan and knowing that this has so many AWESOME repercussions. Not only will I start to feel better about myself, but healing your gut helps with anxiety, depression, IBS, and moodiness (all of which we both suffer from) , as well as joint pain, eczema, food allergies and intolerance, and increasing energy levels. It can also minimize the symptoms of autoimmune diseases (which Jon has not been diagnosed with, but his mother has, and he has many of the same symptoms as she does).  

I am not looking forward to going grain free, dairy free, and refined sugar free, but I know this is what I need to do. I doubt it will be permanent. I like my rice and bread, my cheese, and cookies, cake, cupcakes, cheesecake, brownies, pies, and bars way way WAY too much. But for now, that's where we are. I will do updates weekly on how I'm doing weight-wise (we weigh ourselves Sunday morning, so it will probably Sunday that I update) .

I AM USING THIS BLOG AS MY ACCOUNTABILITY.

 ENCOURAGEMENT ENCOURAGED. 

Please pray for us. 

Happy Birthday, Jon!

Today is my husband's birthday! 

I think I was more excited for it than he was... We didn't do anything special. He worked. I did the dishes and swept the floor, picked the house up a bit, made it nicer (he likes having things in order, and who can blame him? Too bad I'm so lazy most of the time...). We're ordering Jim's pizza for dinner. I got him Coke for some Rum and Coke (one of his favorite drinks!) and some "real fruit" popsicles for dessert. We'll probably watch a movie tonight. I got him a card, a hat, and Lady and the Tramp on Bluray and DVD.  Nothing terribly exciting.

But I'm just so glad he's here... Glad that he's mine.

I cannot begin to tell you how much I love this man. He is SO PERFECT for me. Laid back. Quiet, Calm. Calming. Sweet. Kind. Gentle. Loving. Amazing. Gentlemanly. He does things for me. Helps me. Loves me. He's irreplaceable. And I love him.



Okay, sappy much? Sorry, guys. I'm done.

I love you, Jon!! Happy birthday!!

 

 Okay... now I really am done!

We Will Never Forget

I bet you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing eleven years ago today.

I know I do. I was eleven. We were just starting our day of homeschooling, and it was in the "early years" of homeschooling, so we were downstairs sitting at our desks (mom relaxed the rules after a while). We were listening to Classical music-- Jesu, Joy of Man's Desire, I think. Dad called. "Turn on the TV," he said. Fox News. We watched as the World Trade Centers, the Twin Towers, were bombarded with hijacked airplanes. 2,606 people lost their lives, including the al-Queda suicides. The worst part was watching those poor people jumping to their deaths rather than go up in flames. NYFD lost 340 firefighters, a chaplain, and 2 paramedics. The police department lost 37 officers. 8 more private EMTS were lost, as well. Citizens from over 90 countries were killed. Makes my heart sick just typing this.

Then the Pentagon was hit. 125 people killed there. They had more warning. But still, I remember thinking, "How can this be happening?! Our own capitol!" This was the kind of thing from movies; something that only happened in distant, far away places, not my beloved country!!

Eventually we found out about United Airlines Flight 93 over Pennsylvania. The one that was headed for our capitol building. About the 40 heroes that died bringing that plane down to save their capitol, my capitol, your capitol. The plane went down only 130 miles from Washington, D.C.

That was a very solemn Tuesday. And We Will Never Forget.

We will never forget the 3000 people who died. We will never forget the attack on our nation by terrorists. We will always hold up, appreciate, admire, and remember the heroes who died. The families of the victims.

WE WILL REMEMBER 9/11. WE WILL REMEMBER THE FALLEN.

(Source 1, Source 2)

I Still Love You

HEY, LOYAL READERS!

(aka my best friends)

I just want to inform you that I HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN ABOUT YOU! Oh no; on the contrary, I've been thinking quite a lot about you all! I have just been CRAZY BUSY. We went up to my parents' cabin over the long weekend, and I had to play catch up getting things done at home. And I have nothing good to write about :-( Except that I made a sourdough starter (any name suggestions for it?), drank a pint of whole, chocolate milk all at once, soaked some almonds, made some butter, that type of thing. Nothing really worthy of their own post (partly because I forgot to take pictures AGAIN). But soon that will change!!

I have really kicked off my healthier eating initiative, thanks to this article that I stumbled upon on how to Slay the Sugar Monster in Four Doable Steps. I am going to be getting rid of my processed sugars, but in the meantime I did buy some Sucranat (evaporated cane juice, a natural sweeter that's not refined like other sugars) and made some cookies with it; Jon was a huge fan. They tasted very different than regular chocolate chip cookies, but they were still awfully good with a glass of organic whole milk. I have also increased my [healthy] fat intake; no more trans fatty veggie oils, hello whole milk, butter, and coconut oil (which is AMAZING in a pot of brown rice, by the way. [Soaking rice and flour, etc. is next on my list of healthy-things-to-get-used-to]). We also will be purchasing a quarter of a cow (you read that right. One-fourth of a giant bovine. 126.5 pounds, to be exact) that was grass fed and hormone/antibiotic free. This is surprisingly cheap. Expensive up front, but when you figure out per pound, then realize that some of that is going to be high-quality cuts, it's really very reasonable. (My parents rock; they're letting us store all the extra meat at their NEW RANCH. So awesome of them.) I am also making bone broths/stock to consume/make CHEAP soups with this winter (like this one). Doesn't that sound amazing?

Speaking of winter, I AM SO EXCITED FOR CHRISTMAS!!! I want to put up our Christmas tree and string it with lights, drink hot cider while reading a good book, take a hot bath... Ahh, I'm just ready for cool weather and holiday cheer! Can you believe they're already putting decorations and stuff out for Halloween? Insanity.

Anyway, keep checking back for more posts on my experiments with "real food" and healthy living. Let me know if there's anything you're particularly curious about and would like to see a post on.

Love you all!

"How My Brain Works"

This is me. And I am currently obsessed with healthy foods and going back to foods not riddled with hormones, antibiotics, homogenization, pasteurization (I spelled those two right the first time! Go me!), synthetic additives, and myriad other disgusting stuff I'm sure you've heard of.

Two websites that I've recently stumbled upon and have led me in this new obsession are mommypotamus.com and foodrenegade.com. Mommypotamus talks a lot about natural supplementation and remedies, and more. Food Renegade has posted articles on how your honey is fake and how most olive oil isn't really olive oil and what real food really is. The best part? Well, besides learning that all this food we ingest is rancid and/or has absolutely no nutritive value so after they homogenize and pasteurize the foods they add back in the [synthetic] vitamins and minerals. Yeah, besides that, these people actually source their posts! They're not just he said/she said, they actually post links to their sources. The geek in me loves it.

My inner geek also loves taking this information and actually applying it. My husband isn't so keen on this side of the equation, because in order to get quality food and supplementation (fermented cod liver oil anyone?) we have to shell out lots of dinero (no, that does not mean dinner!) So we'll go slow. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we are part of a CSA co-op this summer, and although slightly disappointing, we have gotten some nice goodies. My parents are moving to a hobby farm in the next month or so, so we'll hopefully be getting fresh eggs, buffalo, goats milk, and who knows what else, from them in the near future. Plus we're cutting back on a lot of processed foods and going the more natural, homemade route. It's a big change. It's expensive. But in my mind, it's worth it. For my health, for my husband, and for our future kids, I want us all to be as healthy as we can. And eating junk is not the way to do it.

So I'll keep you updated on how this all goes. What we do and how we do it. Our journey to eating healthier. To whether or not this healthier eating enables, or at least aids, us in achieving our much-desired pregnancy. So stay tuned. I hope you're as interested in this as I am!!

Un-Paper Towels

We go through a lot of paper towels. A LOT. Or, at least, we used to. Now we hardly use any! How is that even possible!? you ask. I'm glad you did. And I'm here to save the day. Or, the paper towels, at least.

The fabric I used

Now, I'm not a "tree-hugger." Sure, I love nature, and I'm glad all those loggers are replanting trees as they go. But these just make sense. I mean, paper products are expensive. And if you skimp on price, you skimp on quality. I've used paper towels that tear quicker than a page in a Bible, and absorb half as well. So these un-paper towels were a quick, easy solution. Sorry I don't have any pictures of the production of such fine merchandise. I will get better at this blogging thing, I promise.

As you can see from the picture above, I used three different fabrics: red flannel, patterned flannel, and white terry cloth. Because I wanted these to be cute as well as functional. I wasn't thinking I'd ever have to bleach them. WRONG.

Terry/flannel cloths

The flannels were 7.99 a yard and the terry was 6.99 a yard if I remember correctly. I got two yards of the patterned flannel and one each of the solid colors. This was enough to make a dozen 12"x12" towels with fabric left over to make more. So, some towels are flannel and terry cloth while some are just flannel. NOTE: I like the terry cloths the best. If you want to make your buck go even further, just do single layer terry cloths. It'll basically be a wash cloth, but at a fraction of the cost. Also, I'd make them white so you can bleach them... one of mine is stained pink already and it's been like 2 weeks. They get dirty fast.

Wash your fabric first. Not with whites!! I colored a white tank top pink. Joy. (I'm so home-savvy!! I thought it would be okay if I used a color catcher. It wasn't. Nothing else got colored, though, just the tank top... the white terry came out nice and clean even though I washed it with the red flannel... go figure.) Iron. Now to the fun part!

Flannel/flannel cloths

Match right sides together. With the flannel be sure the fabrics stretch in the same direction. Then I just used a ruler and some fabric chalk to mark 12x12 inches, then cut them out. Pin together. Using the sewing machine you borrowed from your mother (if you're not lucky enough to own one) do a quick basting stitch around the edge. I used the presser foot as a measurement, and it was probably 1/4 inch from the edge of the fabric. Really, it can be as close as you want. (Since I used 12"x12" for the starting piece, my un-paper towels are a little smaller than that. You can add a seam allowance if you want, or if you don't care, I found the ruler to be quite easy.) Try to make your corners square by leaving the needle in the fabric, lifting the presser foot, and pivoting the fabric around the needle. Be sure to leave a few inches open so you can flip your towel right-side-out. Do so after you've finished sewing around the edge. Once it's flipped the right way, iron again.

Then simply go around the edge again with the top stitch to close up the hole and make it look purrrty. Make your corners the same way you did before with the whole pivoting-on-the-needle business. Iron a third time, if you so desire. I didn't want to, so I didn't do it. I think they're just fine. =] But I'm lazy.

Big picture of where the basket is on our kitchen wall.

Now figure out how to keep them in your kitchen. We have next to no counter space and not much cupboard space either, so I didn't want a basket some place it would take of valuable space. So I had Jonny nail a little basket to the wall above the sink.

Close-up of the basket. You can see the pink cloth towards the bottom of the stack.

To extend the life of your cloths, or if they're not very absorbent, wash them several times with an extra rinse and dry without fabric softener. They should start absorbing better.

I find that for now, a dozen cloths has been sufficient for us. I do wash these with our clothes (bad me; you'd think I'd have learned by now), and do a couple loads a week. We go through the terry cloths the fastest. If I were to make more, I would be sure to make them all terry.

This is a super easy project, that I, as a novice sewer, had lots of fun with. Be creative. Change the size, fabric, or stitches to gain expertise. And remember, when you make a mistake and end up ripping out stitches for hours, that you can chalk it up to EXPERIENCE.


**EDITED TO ADD** These are single use towels. I don't just use one per day, or use them till they stink (I hate smelly towels). Also, I let them hang dry on our oven door handle before putting them in the laundry basket so they don't grow mildew while sitting in that nice, moist, dark environment. An added precaution against stink is putting some soap on them (especially the soaked ones) and rubbing it in so that when you wring it out, it's all sudsy. That will help prevent build up as well.

My Heart's Desire

Let me preface this post by saying that I absolutely adore my husband and my relationship with him is precious to me; that he is my comfort, my stronghold, my knight in shining armor. Next to God, he is first in my life and I don't want that to ever change. Having said that:

I haven't really kept it a secret. Most people that know me (or have met me, or know of me...) know that, more than almost anything, I want to be a mommy. I want to feel the flutters of their first movements and know that my husband and I created another being. I want to see my belly move and feel the baby grow. I want to hold the baby, and smell its head; to watch it grow and mature and hear it call out to its daddy. To be called "Mommy" and to nourish and be nourished in such a unique way. I'm not hesitant to tell anyone that more than food (as I am proving by working to lose weight!) and drink I want a baby of my own. Even the morning sickness, labor pains, and middle-of-the-night wakings don't daunt me from wanting this one thing.

But so far, God has not seen fit to give me this, the biggest desire of my heart. And it's hard.

Jon and I married in September, 2010. We never really tried to avoid pregnancy, but we didn't push it either and weren't "actively" trying. (Well, at least, he wasn't... I did make sure we were more "active" when I was fertile!) We figured that if it took a year or so that would be fine, but before wouldn't be bad either. Obviously, nothing happened in that first year. Then in October 2011 we decided to get serious. I had been charting my cycles before, but now I got serious and temped every single day, not just when I felt like it. I was diligent. We were diligent. We determined when my ovulation would be and got busy. But month after month, my menstrual cycle would show up, and month after month I'd have gotten my hopes up only to have them dash, rather uncomfortably, against despair.

I read a book titled Taking Charge of Your Fertility after we got married, and they say that with charting and knowing your cycles, etc., 4-6 months should be sufficient to achieve pregnancy. But I  know that most doctors suggest trying for a year before you start to worry, so I thought maybe we would just need more time and I tried to stay calm about it all. Let me tell you. THAT. DOES. NOT. WORK. Worry I did. I had been told in 2011 that I had a tilted uterus, but that by itself that was no cause for concern and many women with that same problem got pregnant and successfully carried their babies to term. But I had, and still have, a feeling that something is wrong; that there is some reason why, despite almost 2 years of no contraceptive, we're still not pregnant. Maybe my low basal body temps and short leuteal phase (the time between ovulation and your period), which should be a minimum of 10 days (mine is 10 on the nose) indicate low progesterone, but I have not been tested for that, simply because we don't have the $$ for it right now.

But I am convinced that part of the reason is my weight (which, thankfully, I can fix without a visit to the doctor!) I have prayed to God about this desire often, and several--if not every--time, God has lain it on my heart to be healthier so that I can better nourish and support a new life. This sacrifice has been so difficult for me. I love my tucker. My entire extended family has centered their lives, more or less, on food and its perfection. And let me tell you. We are good cooks. So, smaller portions, healthier food, exercise, and more movement are all things I've been striving for--and by and large, succeeding, I think. But it's a daily battle for me.

Another daily battle is giving this desire to God and coming to a place where I can honestly say that, if He were to take away everything that I held dear: my ability to be pregnant/a mom, my husband, and my family; I could still say, "The LORD gives and the LORD takes away; blessed be the name of the LORD. He is my all in all; without Him I would be lost, but with Him I am safe and secure, no matter what may come." I want that. More than anything. But it's still a practical issue that I need to give it up every.single.day.of.my.life. Not just in this area, but in every area. It's not easy. I'm stubborn. But I'm getting better.

Jon and I have decided to go back to the "not trying, not preventing" stage for a few months (since July and probably through this month or September), since we had some major bills come up that needed to get taken care of, and Jon was stressed about finances should we become pregnant right now. But in the next few months we're going to try the Sperm Meets Egg Plan. If that doesn't work, I don't know what's going to happen. We don't have money for fertility testing or infertility treatments or adoption. So hopefully God will, in His perfect timing and graciousness, provide a child for us; whether that be naturally, or through other means. I know He will. He is good, and wants to give us the desires of our hearts, if they are godly desires. And I believe this is. So for right now, I need to learn to wait on God. To do what I can to improve our chances of becoming pregnant and not lose hope; to continue with "prayer and supplication," to honor Him and my husband in this time of trial. So pray for me. For strength. For patience. For happiness. For peace.

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful." -John 14:27 esv