New Beginnings

With the turn of the season, I've been entering unexplored areas of my life.

 

In knowing that you'll soon have a little human being to influence, you start to pay close attention to how you live your life and the intentions behind everything you do.

 

I've always been a rather self-reflecting person, and along with my dreamy side also comes an honest perception of self.  I'm not a fan of self-delusion, and as much as I like to view the world through rose coloured glasses, I've learned that you cannot experience a dynamic range of living if you close your eyes to the parts that scare you.

 

I feel like the correlation between the change of season and what I'm now experiencing in my personal life is uncanny.  It's a mirror, the outer world to my inner one showing me in plain view; the meaning of it all. 

 

 

Transformation.

 

It's inevitable, and often avoided by most. 

 

I can remember the oh-so-accusing words coming from the odd friend at pivotal times in my life, echoing "You've changed".  

 

I used to feel so much guilt behind those words, as though I had committed some sort of cardinal sin. 

Looking back now though, I was simply just more open to change than the people around me were at the time. 

 

  Through changing your actions, words, mind, etc. you undergo an abundance of learning.  You learn what fits you and what doesn't.  You learn who you are and who you definitely are not. 

 

I've witnessed too many people stay in the safety of their comfort zones, only to end up unhappy and unfulfilled because they simply let fear control their fortune. 

 

Change is such a crucial part of life, and if I could go back in time to console my worried little friends who rolled the word "change" around in their mouths like a dirty sock, I would. 

 

It's not to say that change isn't at times terrifying, disappointing, or devastating even, because it can most definitely be all of those things.  But it's the end result of change that creates experience, that in turn builds character. 

 

 

I welcome this change more than any other I've ever experienced in my life, not because I think it will be easy, heck no.

 

I welcome it most because I know it will change me for the better, in ways that nothing else can.

 

 

I'm enjoying my 5th month of pregnancy a lot.  My energy is back, and aside from tiring out quicker than my non-pregnant self would, I'm feeling wonderful.

 

I've even started a mini stock-pile of items from my work (a natural health food & supplement store) because I'm paranoid I wont be able to find anywhere back in Kingston to buy all this stuff!  

 

 

On a random note, I've been struck with more motivation than usual to put effort into my physical appearance.  I'm loving the new curves of my body and surprisingly feel kinda sexy! However I'm gonna chalk that up to the 2nd trimester honeymoon phase and the crazy wild pregnancy hormones.  I have doubts that these feelings will stay once I near the end of my 3rd trimester, when I'm waddling around like a penguin because I can't see that feeling very sexy...

 

 

For anyone interested in the products I've been using...  my pre-natal vitamins consist of:  New Chapter Perfect Prenatal and Megafoods Baby & Me.  I'm also taking New Chapter's Wholemega prenatal.

 

As far as caring for my skin and preventing stretch marks, I've been using Alaffia's fair trade Shea Butter and Weleda's Stretch Mark Oil.   I'll give reviews on everything I've used throughout my pregnancy once I feel I can accurately judge their capabilities, but so far so good on the stretch marks!  Not a single one yet!

 

 

Scott's been working, but we make the most of his weeks off. 

 

Seeing him adjust to the idea of being "Daddy" has been the biggest turn-on for me.  Nothing has been more attractive than his cute little jokes and ideas, and simply knowing how amazing of a father he's going to be just makes me melt.

 

He recently commented on how weird it's going to be once our own habits become evident in our child.  I laughed at this conclusion of his, and playfully pointed out funny bad-habits of his that our child may inherit.  I then asked what bad habits of mine he/she would end up with,  and to my surprise he said "None. If it's a girl, I hope she's just like you."   And it's things like that, that make him get away with murder with me. Haha

 

 I also kinda felt bad after for all the bad habits I listed of his. 

 

 

 

Before I go, I just want to thank the ladies that stop by and leave me such supportive comments in the blogger community.  I know a lot of friends and family read these posts, but there's also a range of readers that I don't know personally and have only gotten to know through the world of blogging.  To them I say; Thanks!  You all make blogging THAT much more FUN!

 

Have a great weekend everyone!!

18 weeks

 

Hey folks!

 

I'll be around this weekend to update on my pregnancy, share a few products that I now swear by, and also share some photos of my world lately.

 

The above photo is from our 18 week Ultrasound, we were unable to find out the gender, but I'm actually kind of glad now.

 

It's going to be so much more fun not knowing! :D

 

Stay tuned...

A New Adventure

 

As of today I am 17 weeks pregnant. On Jan 22 I saw, for the first time, two striking pink lines on a drug store pregnancy test. My eyes didn't believe what they were seeing at first, and I would look away and look back again as if I somehow expected one of the lines to disapear. The past 4 months have went by so unbelievably fast, yet at the same time, so much has happened and changed.

 

 

 

At about 7 weeks, I began to get incredibly sick. Once that dreaded gut-wrenching morning (all day) sickness hit me, my levels of excitement were completely eclipsed by the stuggle of getting through every day. Now most people who know me, know that I'm not always very grounded. I'm usually a day-dreaming space cadet most of the time, but let me tell you; nothing grounds you faster or harder than a bad case of morning sickness. (P.S. Let me now proclaim my deteste for the term "morning sickness" as it couldn't ring any less accurate to what I had experienced) In the morning, I would force feed myself cereal, only to throw it back up after I showered and then have to force feed myself a 2nd breakfast in order to have any strength. Some days I couldn't keep any food down at all, and it simply became a panicked state of drinking glasses of water so I wouldn't be just throwing up stomach acid. Yeah, pretty fun right?

 

 

I tried EVERYTHING to cope with the sickness, from eating little bits every hour, to having saltine crackers in bed before I got up. The cracker part was a big fail, because my mouth was often so dry, and the dryness of the crackers would make me gag and induced vomiting soon after. I quickly learned to judge foods by their "throw-up" ability. 
Some foods would come up easy and I'd feel fine after, but others would cause bad rounds of heaving to the point of hardly being able to breathe. I never realized there could be so much science to throwing up, but much to my dismay, I became quite experienced at it.

  Another trick I learned was to blow my nose often. Sounds ridiculous, but post-nasal drip is often a side effect of pregnancy, and it was a large contributor to my throwing up because it made me gag so bad. It's basically like having a really bad cold that produces excess mucus that you can feel at the back of your throat. Alberta's dry air doesn't help this condition, so steam and frequent nose-blowing helped a lot.

I know this all sounds horrible, and well, it was, but in the grander scheme of things, it was somehow all okay. Even the days when I felt like it would never end, and I could sense a wave of depression come over me, it didn't last. I would occasionally have an okay day; a break from the constant vomiting, and I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, and out of this experience, I can honestly say I've never been so grounded to my physical self before. Being so sick forced me take care of my immediate needs before others and I learned how to be a little more selfish, which honestly, I'm starting to learn isn't entirely a bad thing.

 

 

Now at 17 weeks this all seems to be but a distant memory, and you can bet your ass I'd go through it all again for the sake of this little life that's inside of me. It's truly amazing; the process in which we're created and how it changes all of us in the journey. I'm only fast approaching the 5 month mark, and I already feel a substantial change in the person I am and will soon be. I feel like I was born to do this, and as messy, scary, beautiful and blind the journey may be.. I'm no doubt 100% willing to throw myself into the depths of all of it.

 

 

 

Spring is "technically" here.. but the signs of it are JUST around the corner in these mountainous parts, so expect to see more around this blog now that I'm well again, and have the motivation to capture life around me! Here's to change, and starting new chapters!

Calm Before the Storm

 

It's Easter weekend, and I'm missing home. I'm missing the warmth of family and the sleepy satisfying feeling of being completely over-stuffed with turkey dinner. I'm missing a lot, but that's ok.

 

Because a lot in my life is changing right now.

 

I need to be here, and I need the peace.

I need my mountain walks, and time with my man.

I need my independence and most of all I need this summer to just stretch my wings and prepare for the changes that we'll soon be embarking on.

 

It's the proverbial calm before the storm. ;)

So I haven't been around for a bit...

Hey Folks! Sorry I've been gone for a bit, but it was a much needed break, and in the next month I'll be able to catch up and update a lot more of what's been going on in there parts since January! For now, here are bits and pieces of my world lately..

 

(Photographing new supplies, and Bovie had to be right in there, touching it all)

 

(A piece of barn board I found floating in the river, so I used it!)

 

(over the holidays I acquired 2 cameras for my collection.. this being my first Nikon, and a gorgeous film Canon.. some day I'll post my entire collection once I have them all united.)

 

And in most recent excitement.. today I encountered a herd of elk in my backyard!



Every year around this time, the parks set off controlled avalanche explosions to prevent any unpredictable snow slides, and they were setting them off today after the big snow storm we got yesterday. The explosions are so loud from my house that it feels a bit like a mini earth-quake.. and my cat just hates them. Well today I went out back to try and see them off the back of Rundle Mountain, and instead I was startled by this huge herd of elk!

They grazed out there all afternoon, and at one point I even stood in the doorway with Bovie in my arms to show them to her. Her reaction was priceless!

Well Folks, I'll be back in a few weeks to properly update, and share many more stories and photos. I hope everyone is well! I'm so excited for Spring!!

We Ride It All Out

 

"I'm coming back, I'm coming back,

(s)he follows me into the woods,

takes me home"

Life Over Here..

 

Since arriving back to the mountains from my vacation in Ontario with family, I've been back to work, and been busy with scott being home, and trying to do all of our "running around" before he had to go back to work.

 

I really enoyed being home, visiting family, celebrating the holidays, but in all honesty, I was just as (if not more) tired than when I had left.   This is another obvious reason in my mind as to why I can't live so far away from family anymore; it's draining.  Travel, scheduling, holiday planning/shopping, it's friggen nuts to be quite honest.  I know, I know, I sound like such a stick-in-the-mud, and I'm sure a few of you are thinking "Wow, she only sees her family once a year, and this is how she feels?!"  Hear me out..

It's not that "seeing my family" has begun to wear on me, not at all.  It's the cram-a-whole-year's-worth-of-love-and-visiting-into-two-weeks-once-a-year that I'm entirely sick of.  So I suppose it's a great thing that I no longer have to worry about this anyone, as next fall, we're Ontario-bound.

 

When I got back to work from holidays, I didn't get a chance to catch up with my good friend Kelly, and we had been trying to get mini-doses of visiting when we'd walk by each other's desks at work. 

 

The other day she nearly broke my heart when she brought up how sad it is that I'm leaving this year.  I didn't want to face this side of my impending departure. I pushed down the lump that started forming in my throat, and we reassured each other that "we have all summer, we'll make the best of it."

 

Like I previously stated, this year is going to be an interesting one.  Full of coping with my restless nature, and wrapping up my last winter here in the Rockies. I have a burning need to move onto the next chapter that I've been fully anticipating before finishing the one I'm currently living. 

 

Scott and I are super excited to start house hunting once we're fully moved back to Ontario, and we've been plotting and planning where we would like to start our first home together. 

After spending 2 weeks in the city, I was more than reassured of my choice to find a house in the country.  The moment I realized I couldn't do city-life was when I took a drive to the grocery store and somehow managed to work myself into a panic about it.  I was not keen on my surroundings.  Too many people, too much traffic, and the looming feeling like I was a hampster on a wheel chasing after a piece of food.  A bit dramatic?  I'm not exaggerating.  When I got back to Scott's parent's house, I felt a bit of depression settle in my heart, a feeling of "I'm going to leave my beautiful mountains for this?"

 

Family has always been my saving grace, but sometimes that isn't always enough.  That day I knew, that if I was going to leave this euphoria, I sure as hell wasn't going to leave it for a house in the city, with nosey neighbours, lack of privacy, and less than clean air.  No sir.

 

So anyway, that settled that, and now Scott and I are exploring ideas of what we're looking for in a house and property, and what our budget will be, etc. It's an exciting thing to anticipate!  Although I'm nervous about the house hunting aspect, since I know how I am, and I know how Scott is.  I fall in love with things in a non-sensible fashion, and Scott makes better use of his logic.  So I worry that we may clash a little in the process, but overall, I trust that we'll find the house that's perfect for us.

I also can't wait to have chickens.  :)