Saturday, June 26, 2010

Exercise, Food, and Nesting

I am in month 6 and it is cruising! I love the 2nd trimester. I'm not huge, I feel movement, I still sleep comfortably, and only occasionally need to get up to pee. And then there's the surge of energy. My workouts are a little harder to do, but not much. It's mostly the belly that gets in the way and makes some of the moves a little difficult, but I feel FANTASTIC! I still drink my Shakeology every day, and I eat pretty clean, with an occasional indulgence;) Honestly nothing sounds better than a big salad, or a huge bowl of fruit. Also is it just me, or are hamburgers just DELICIOUS, stacked with tons of lettuce, tomato, onion, and a pickle, with a side of home-baked sweet potato fries, and fresh sliced watermelon? YUUUUMMMM! It's on our menu at least once a week. And then there's the BBQ'd chicken. Kelcey cooked a ton of it the other day. We portioned it and threw it in the freezer. We since have used it for fajitas, grilled chicken salad, chicken quesadillas, etc. It makes dinner prep less than a half hour. So good too! We make our own Cafe Rio salads. We run there and grab 2 of the house dressings and then stack the vegies. The kids gobble it up:) I'm happy cuz they get good nutrition, they're satisfied, and it tastes WONDERFUL. It's a great trick. Eating healthy doesn't need to be boring people. Believe me...I love food, and who wants to eat bland boring crap? Add flavor using ingredients like fresh herbs, which we have planted in herb boxes on our deck;), garden tomatoes, lemon, vinegar, a little BBQ sauce goes a long way. You can use ranch, but just go easy on the the portion. For example, 2 Tbs. of ranch goes a long way if you toss it with a salad. I don't know about you, but I like to taste my vegies. Go for the reduced fat kind cuz it tastes the same. The fat free is disgusting, but that's just my opinion. There's lots of tricks that make food taste awesome, but also cut the fat and calories. Just experiment. Most of the time I take recipes that were part of our old diet, and just see where I can tweak it to make it more healthy. It never tastes any different either, just has less fat, calories, and preservatives. I use fresh stuff instead of canned, or buy freezer vegies. They sometimes have more nutrients than fresh vegies at the store because they freeze dry them at their peak, which means they hold in the nutrients as if they were picked from your garden. Plus, they're fast, and make meal prep easy. When they go on sale I stock up. The other day they were on sale for 58 cents a bag at Ream's. That is a great deal, add a coupon, and you can almost get them free:). Anyway...

Another perk of the 2nd trimester...nesting! I've got it bad this time around. Almost every closet has been cleaned out, which is saying a lot. The clutter had me going out of my mind. Not to mention the kids need to be rotated so we had to figure out how to make the small space work. Kody slept on a big boy bed, and did great. I like to start them early so they don't feel like they're being replaced once the baby comes. Both the kids rooms look awesome. I'm still working on Kody and Tanner's, but I'm pleased with the results so far. Keira and the baby will share. She's got a princess bed, a small pink dresser, and a princess lamp. The other side of the room will be all boy...baseball everything. I plan on painting some baseball pics and have them framed. The dresser has moved into the closet, and we took down the sliding closet doors and will put up a curtain instead. It has to be generic, but match both sides of the room. I'm still working on that. I'm just so grateful everything has a place. For a while nothing was organized and was just tossed in the closets all willy nilly. It's hard working with small spaces, but we've worked it out. When I'm done I'll post some pics.


Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Just Bouncing Around Some Thoughts

Life is busy to say the least. I am steadily getting bigger, and have noticed that trudging up the stairs has me winded. You would think I hadn't exercised for quite some time, but if you know me, you know that is not even close to the truth. It is, however, very frustrating. I hate feeling weak at any capacity. I am not okay with this, but I don't think I have a choice in the matter. I think it only gets worse? That shouldn't even be a question since this is baby #4, but every pregnancy has me wondering, is this normal, is that normal, etc.?

My central air is WONDERFUL! I am sooo glad we did it. Every time I walk in the house and feel the non-moistness, but cooling refreshment I am so happy. Definitely a good call on our part:) With that said, though, my house is feeling smaller and smaller. With 3 boys and 1 girl who will share what rooms? I feel like the clutter will overtake me at any moment. I am storing baby clothes, and toddler clothes (for both boys and girls), and toys, and bedding, coats, and shoes, and miscellaneous items I feel like I should keep, but that we never touch! Not to mention when I decide to take on a project, and throw stuff out, I move in slow motion. And then I feel I need a break after 30 minutes, and then I never get back to it.

I am a hopeless case I'm afraid. Perhaps it is adult A.D.D. In any case I feel like I can't focus on any one thing for too long. Kelcey says, "take one thing to focus on and become a master of it." That is very practical and good advice, but when you have more than one thing calling for your attention, how does one focus long enough to become a master? I'm not so sure I have what it takes. I love the idea of a new adventure or idea. I get excited about ALL the things I could do, then when I get involved I suddenly realize it takes a whole lot more effort than I had anticipated in my mind. And then once again my focus is dragged elsewhere...it's an endless cycle. So this whole "mastery" thing has me stumped. I wonder how people do it honestly.

Take my husband for example. He is good at anything he does, and is definitely not afraid of hard work. He could work all day, be exhausted, and because I asked him to mow the lawn, he'll do it! No complaining. He'll give me a wink and off he goes. Right now he's working on finishing his Master's Degree. The man has a mind that can focus on one thing get her done, and then move on to the next, get that done, and the next, and so on, and he does it superbly well I might add. He's a straight A student. What is up with that?! How do you have a mind like that? I'd like one:)

We were talking about super powers the other day when Jim, my brother, and his family came up for Memorial Day weekend. Jim asked me if there was one thing in sports that I could be phenomenal at, I would keep all other abilities I had, but I could pick one thing that would be my super power talent in sports, what would it be? Pretty loaded question, so I picked jumping. I would be able to jump high, long, whatever. I asked Kelcey, my husband, that same question because he wasn't there when we talked about this. Without missing a step he says, his mental game. The reason? Success in athletics is 10% ability, 90% mental. He is sooo dead on too! I was suddenly wishing I had said that. If my mental game were perfect everything else would fall into place. And that is why he's a coach. A GREAT one I might add. If only those kids realized what they had....they have no idea...It's also why he'll be a GREAT administrator too.

Anyway, I didn't mean for this to turn into an Ode To My Husband, but when I find a quality that is admirable I want to find out how to get it. How do I perfect my mental game? All super powers aside, I would just like a smidgin of mental toughness, just so I can focus longer than a kindergartener. I know you're all thinking it's pregnancy, but it's something I struggle with pregnant or no pregnant. Pregnancy just has a tendency to magnify what's already a challenge in my life.

I'm not really sure why my thoughts went in that direction, but there you go. Oi...maybe I share too much, and maybe not, but you get whatcha get when it comes to me. Random, random, random.