I can’t believe week one of training is over and I barely did anything!
Now, I do have an excuse, and I probably could have done more. Sept 14, I had two surgical procedures done and was put on a two week pelvic rest. When you’re pregnant pelvic rest basically means bed rest and no sex. When you aren’t and you homeschool two kids, it just mean no sex and heavy lifting.
It took a solid 7 days post operation before I felt like I could do more than just parent. So I’m trying to get my house into some kind of order (order never existed because I don’t know how to be a house keeper) and figure out life with the diagnosis from the procedure and homeschool two boys and not just crawl under a rock and cry.
What did week one of half marathon training look like?
One extremely slow 3/4 of a mile walk on my treadmill and a night walk with a friend for 2.6 miles.
Wahoo! 3.5 miles!?!
The training plan from the people behind the BCS Marathon has week one and week two the same, so I’m going to push a little to get the actual mileage in for week two.
On top of that! I’m starting 75 hard!
Wait!?! Hold up didnt you just say you had MAJOR SURGERY!?!
Yup! Did you know that the rules of 75hard don’t dictate your exercise or diet? That the only hard fast rules are the gallon of water and that you have to complete two workouts at least 45 mins in length. (Yes, there are more rules. Yes, they’re non negotiable, hold on.) So I would LITERALLY do 45 mins of yoga and a 45 min walk everyday for 75 days and still be within the rules. As for “diet” the rules are pick something don’t change it and drink 1 gallon of plain H2O. So I could also eat all my meals from McDonald’s and drink 128 oz of water and still be following the rules.
What makes 75hard hard?
The other rules!?! 10 pages of reading nonfiction/self improvement/entrepreneurial books doesn’t seem hard, until you realize how much time two 45 min workouts and peeing from drink a gallon of water take. The other rule that trips me up the most is the daily progress picture, I got to day 63 before I realized morning of day 64, I forgot the daily picture, complete and utter disappointment!
Tuesday, Sept 27 would mark 75 days before the half, so I figured this would be a great way to get some extra motivation to actually train for it.
Wish me luck and come cheer me on as I document my workouts and life on 75hard on instagram!
Does that title make you think of a ridiculous country line dancing song about a guy named Joe…
Howdy! I know it has been a real long time. This last year has been a long one, full of ups and mostly downs.
Motherhood is hard, life is hard, and I hit a real low point about 10 months ago. It has taken a lot of hard work, therapy sessions, and some help of antidepressants to help me figure out my normal.
I have been working on some things and I’m ready to start sharing them. I have some recipes, some life things, and some house things.
My goal, so to not get to overwhelmed, is one blog post a week starting in October. I hope to have one recipe a month published and other topics the three weeks. AND I hope to have them posted on THURSDAY so that you can something fun for your weekend.
Thanks for sticking around waiting for me.
Anyone else picture Cotton-Eyed Joe as a scarecrow looking thing?
Last week, I talked about how I have transitioned from trying to control my hair into accepting and learning what it needs. In the almost 8 months I have been a Curly Girl, I have found a few products my hair LOVES and a few my hair HATES. My number one “I love this product” is from Sally’s Beauty Supply, Generic Value Products Conditioning Balm.
It says right on the bottle “Compare to: Matrix ® Biolage ® Conditioning Balm”. Price wise, the GVP version is less than half the price of the Matrix version. Now I have not tried the Matrix product, so I can not compare the actual products, but I do know that paying $19 for a smaller bottle is not going to happen.
I like that this conditioner can lather up a little, like a shampoo does. The lathering helps to make me feel like I am shampooing and therefore cleaning my hair. Even though, it is not the lathering that is cleaning, when you co-wash it the the scrubbing of your scalp that does the cleaning.
Some people complain that the conditioner is too heavy and it weighs down their curls. I make sure to rinse it all the way out, and don’t use any leave-in other than the curl cream, Curls Blueberry Creme Brulee.
I use it both for my co-wash and for conditioning, and so I go through about a bottle a month. It has little fragrance to it, so it’s not strong and overpowering like some products.
Another thing I love, is when it goes on sale for buy 2 get 1 free! So instead of spending $6.19 a bottle (I have the beauty card that saves me 60 cents a bottle.) I can get them for about $4 a bottle. Sally’s just recently had this sale so I ordered myself 6 bottles and a couple other things (to get free shipping, all things I will use). I got a salon cape for the boys for when I cut their hair. I also got two sets of clips for root clipping for volume. I spent less than $30 when all said and done! Now, I have enough conditioner for the next 6 months, I hope!
In January of 2015, I decided to start a needlepoint kit stocking for Mr. Z.
By Thanksgiving 2016, I realized that I would never finish it. So I started knitting us stockings.
By Christmas 2016, I had finished one for Mr. Z and Mr. Wonderful.
And I January 2017, I had finished mine.
I started Baby Hercules’ stocking in January this year, and am close to finishing it. Having a stocking for everyone in the family will be great! Especially, since before Christmas 2016, no one had one!
I know it is early to think of what Christmas crafts you have planned, but please share what you are doing! I have some other ones I have been working on, but I can’t share those until after Christmas.
Having a new baby, means a lot has gone to the wayside. Now that life, has kinda reached a normal, I am ready to really dive in to this blogging scene.
NourishingWhole is all about self discovery and becoming the best me. Recently, I decided to accept that I have CURLY HAIR. For women it is huge thing, and I have been working on it for a couple of years now.
Moving to Texas has helped me to see that fighting my natural hair is just. not. worth. it!
2016, Texas, Learning what the Texas humidity does to my hair.
I really like minimal effort things: recipes, hair styles, makeup, everything. So when I decided to try The Curly Girl Method, I wanted something basic and simple.
Oct 2017, before going full curly girl, still fighting the humidity.
When I first tried it, I could not figure out co-washing (washing your hair with conditioner) and just felt like my hair was constantly greasy. So I gave up. But I stuck with natural products not full of sulfates and silicones.
January 2018, pre-curly girl
In January, a friend found and added me to a facebook group that was full of thousands of women around the world who are going “full curly girl”. I start reading posts, files, and comments. I watch video after video, and I decide to give it another try.
January 16, 2018: Before final wash.
After final wash to start the method.
January 16, 2018 I started the Curly Girl Method and have yet to look back! I am LOVING it. My hair is healthy, my curls are the best I have ever seen them, and I have simple routine that I love.
Sept 2014
July 2018: 6 months Curly Girl
My routine:
Co-wash: Generic Value Products Conditioning Balm
Conditioner: Generic Value Products Conditioning Balm (leaving in while I finish my shower, about 5 mins) Rinse with cold water.
Squeeze out as much water as possible and then finger comb in Curls Creme Brule whipped curl cream and “plop” while I get dressed. After I am dressed, and usually after having to stop and feed baby Hercules, I then use praying hands and scrunch in Herbal Essence Body Envy Volumizing Mousse until I have nice big clumps. Then I defuse with my head upside down, to help with volume, until dry. (This TAKES FOREVER, so I usually only do it on Sunday or for dates) Once it is dry I, fluff and scrunch out any crunchy parts with the damp cloth I plopped with.
I chopped my hair too! 7 months in and I am loving my hair!
I have been working on this recipe as a Christmas recipe actually. Growing up my mom rarely made anything “fun” for breakfast, that was my dad. I remember Saturday mornings all of us anxiously waiting for the next waffle to be ready.
But this isn’t about waffles, it is about blueberry muffins, which we only got “homemade” for Christmas breakfast. Mom wasn’t one to make things from scratch, so the Kruteaz Blueberry Muffin mix became a staple for us on Christmas morning.
When creating this recipe I wanted muffins that were sweet, fluffy, and jammed packed with blueberries. These muffins are exactly that. To make sure the blueberries don’t sink or that the muffins are overly moist, be sure to use canned blueberries. The brand that I have been able to find at almost any grocery store is the black can, Oregon Specialty Fruit.
The blueberries are canned in a light syrup, but the ingredient label is 3 things: blueberries, water, and cane sugar. They are also large berries not those tiny Maine blueberries.
This recipe has a little customization, in that you can use either palm shortening, vegetable shortening, or butter for the solid fat and for the milk, you can use whatever your milk of choice is. I will say, that these brown nicer with cows milk.
We have been taken up to Labor and Delivery, and are put in a closet.
Seriously, this room is so small the bed and two chairs hardly fit. She attaches me to the oh so lovely monitors and says I need to be still for 20 minutes so they can check on baby. Then she will run the test to check that my water has broken and to see how dilated I am. Oh and “if” I am having decent contractions they will admit me. Awesome, everything stops. So I lay there attached listening to the baby’s heartbeat and waiting. Nurse, after we tell her that this isn’t baby number one, we kinda know what is going on, decides to check me and do the test before making me sit on the monitors for 20 minutes. So she does that, repositions things and leaves.
The doula looks at the output and says that when we first got there I was contracting every 4 minutes, now after about an hour of sitting, it was about every 10. I don’t feel the contractions, I feel tightening but it isn’t uncomfortable. The nurse comes back in and says that she talked to Dr. Rice (my doctor, not the doctor on the floor like she planned to) and I am getting admitted to have a baby, and that we will be in the low intervention room. Dr. Rice comes about noon and we talk about what our options are.
At this point we had been in the hospital for two hours and things had basically stopped. She gave us some options: walking, nipple stimulation with the a breast pump, the Cooks Balloon. I ask, “what is the time line?”, I know we are on a clock now, so what does SHE need to see and when. Ideally she wants baby here by 2 am. At 8 pm if things are not moving she would like to start pitocin. We decide to eat lunch, and walk until doctor will be back after office hours about 3.30 pm.
Mr. Wonderful runs and gets lunch, and Rachel, our doula, and I start walking… We pause for lunch and we walk more. Rachel leaves to take care of a few things at home. So Mr. Wonderful and I walk a little and have some “adult time”, and get back to walking. Dr. Rice comes back and checks me and does a cervical message and says that I am at a 3 and if she wanted to be generous I could be stretched to a 4. Baby head was coming down, but we still had a lot of work to do.
Back to walking, and walking, and walking. Now, I wasn’t just pacing the halls, I would get a contraction and I would stop, hold onto the handrails and try to just let everything go as loose and relaxed as I could. Around 5, I ask the nurse to check me, feeling like I was maybe at a 7, only to have her say, “Well would you like to try the breast pump now?” (I am not actually told where I am at.) Disappointed, I say I would like to eat dinner because I know it is going to be a long night and I try to take a little nap. Mr. Wonderful lays with me for a bit and I tell him that I am feeling really disappointed and really lacking the motivation to do this. 8 pm seems so close and I don’t want to have pitocin. Plus, I am trying to relax but I am afraid that I will just go backwards if I do nap. He goes and talks to the nurse and Rachel before going to get dinner. Rachel comes over and talks to me about how far I have progressed already in a short amount of time and that taking a nap won’t close my cervix, and that it might actually help me to relax and help me later having conserved some energy.
So I try to nap, but I start to get some contractions in bed. (The low intervention suites at this hospital have really comfy queen sized beds, so I had lots of room.) After a few contractions I decide to walk more because it was more comfortable. So off Rachel and I go. Mr. Wonderful comes back with dinner and I eat a few bites and decide that if I keep eating I am going to throw it up, and I really don’t want to ruin Chick-Fil-A. I pace the room while Rachel and Mr. Wonderful finish eating and start to have some good contractions.
We stay in the room and we put a large exercise/birth ball on the bed and I am leaning over it and squatting during the contractions. At about 7, I let out a good moan that has Mr. Wonderful and Rachel ask, how was that different? Shortly, my two nurses come in, the day nurse and the night nurse, shift change. They contact Dr. Rice and she comes right over. I am oblivious to most of what is going on, just doing my thing and making jokes about the music choices Mr. Wonderful is playing.
At this point in my head, I have an hour before the doctor hooks me up to the pitocin and in my mind everything will cascade. The doctor checks me after she get there and tells me I can’t push, I still have work to do. So I keep going; swaying, squatting, grunting, moaning and changing positions: Standing, kneeling, lying down, on my side, you name it. The doctor checks me again probably about an hour later and tells me I am really close, I have a lip that needs to open up before I can push. I don’t know what time it is, I haven’t noticed that they have wheeled in a few things, or that there is a nursing student watching me.
I just keep doing what I am doing, until I start to express to Mr. Wonderful how I really can’t do this anymore. In my head I am thinking about how great some drugs would be, and am trying to think about how to ask from something, “Maybe they can just give me some Tylenol.” is what I am trying to figure out how to express. Things keep going, I roll over exhausted, and say “I can’t do it, it hurts too much and is too hard.” Dr. Rice checks me again and says I can start pushing if I want.
Now this whole time I have to poop. I have already mentioned it, and the staff joked about how it was for them, my nurse, doctor and doula, all in turn share and we all kinda chuckle about it. So I keep just trying to poop, but I also don’t want to push too hard, because I don’t want to tear really badly like it did with Mr. Z. So now that I am feeling mentally and physically done and have given a few pushes, the doctor tells me she is going to help things move and relieves me. I think, ok sure, whatever, I don’t think this baby is really ever going to make it out of me.
Doctor is coaching me, and has been doing hot compresses to help keep things loose to help prevent tearing. I finally say, “I am done, I can not do this.” “I need you to give me one good push on this next contraction.” I start to push but then I am worried about tearing and stop in the middle. “NO! Don’t stop, keep pushing.” “I can’t! It hurts too much.” “Baby’s head is right here, PUSH!”
So I do, I push, it burns, I know I tore, but baby head is born, my water fully brakes in a gush and the rest of baby slides right out. Baby Boy Teare was born at 9.27 PM. Mr. Wonderful announced to the room it was a boy, as he gets placed on my chest, and I comment on how much hair he has. We get about an hour of time with baby on me and I get to latch him and nurse him before they take him and weigh and measure. Mr. Wonderful got to help with all of that in the room. He was 5 pounds and 14.8 ounces and 18.5 inches long. I had a second degree tear and Dr. Rice did an extra thorough job of checking and there wasn’t any extra damage like with Mr. Z, recovery has been so much better than with him.
Wow, it has been since February! Well, let me give you some updates, I finished my last trimester of prerequisites in April for my IBCLC, Mr. Wonderful spent a week in Colombia, we moved apartments, bought a house, and had a baby.
So life was a little crazy and stepped away from a few things so I could keep a bit of sanity. I promise to tell more details of the whirlwind 2017 was for us. First, because many are asking, here is the story I know a few of you are waiting for.
Many of you know how Mr. Z’s birth went, and for those of you that don’t, let me summarize it. Crazy. Fast. For a first birth, it was the fastest most of the hospital staff had seen. No one was prepared.
Baby Boy Teare, as he was know for almost his first 24 hours, was not like his brother’s birth at all. Around week 28, I started to get fairly good contractions. One night, they were consistent enough, that with our history of Mr. Z’s birth, we decided to go into Labor and Delivery. Four extremely uncomfortable hours later, I was allowed to no longer be strapped to monitors and to go home, NOT in labor.
No one was able to decide what was going on, and so I decided to mostly just ignore them. For the next 9 weeks if I was too active, walked too far, stood too long, twisted wrong, I would get a few contractions and would therefore, have to do a lot of resting.
Now, you would think with all the contractions that I was having we would have been ready for an early baby, but no. Mr. Wonderful, came home Wednesday from an overnight work trip and woke up Thursday morning feeling really sick. He had a high temp, and so everyone stayed away from him. He slowly got to feeling better and Saturday I went to my baby shower. It was fun and my girl Colleen is crazy creative. I really should have taken some pictures.
Sunday morning, I wake up and realize I caught whatever it was the Mr. Wonderful brought home. I start watching my temperature, because in pregnancy it is extremely dangerous if it gets too high. I call my doctor’s on call service, and wait while taking Tylenol and downing fluids. I don’t hear anything back and call the office first thing in the morning telling them I am 37 weeks pregnant and I think I have the flu. I get in that afternoon and they run a flu test. Doctor is positive I have the flu, and orders up Tamiflu for me and Mr. Z, and suggests we get the flu shot for him. He wasn’t showing any symptoms. My test comes back negative, but she suggest that I still take the anti-virals just in case baby does come early, we need me to better fast. So we get Mr. Z the flu shot, and pick up anti-virals for us.
I start taking them, but they make me so sick, I fight throwing them up for about an hour to an hour and half and then lose. So I take them for two days and make Mr. Z do the same. His, we had to bribe him to take, it was not fun for any of us. So now it’s Thursday, I am starting to feel close to 100%, Mr. Z hasn’t shown a single symptom and Mr. Wonderful is back to about 90% and finally heads back to campus after being gone for a week.
Thursday afternoon/early evening I am starting to feel more crampy than normal, so I eat dinner and lay down to rest. I get things to stop and Mr. Wonderful convinces me to go out with some friends for a girls night. I go out, laugh, and have a good time. I go home feeling fine and go to bed.
Friday morning, I wake up about 8 (Mr. Z is a night owl like us, and sleeps in to about 8-8.30, don’t hate. His bed time is 8.30, but usually is it 10 before he is actually asleep, oops!) I go to the bathroom, and notice bloody show. I text my doula, as I did not experience this will Mr. Z and get back in bed for a few more minutes of sleep. I am thinking that this normal and in a week or so MAYBE there will be baby. Mr. Wonderful gets up and so do I. I then have this moment where I think, “That’s not me peeing, I just went.” So I go back to the bathroom and realize my water just broke. So I inform Mr. Wonderful he will unfortunately not be going to campus today and he needs to pack some bags.
Now, I am not contracting, so I am calm in knowing that this baby isn’t going to shoot out onto my bedroom floor. I get in bed so I can relax and start calling our list of people to watch Z. I also start texting the doula about when she should come and what we should do. Mr. Wonderful packs bags for Mr. Z for school and for overnight and a friend comes and picks him up. Our doula arrives about that same time and we chat about how we should progress. We get the hospital bag packed and I start making a list of what we need to do ASAP. With my water broken, we know this baby will be coming within the next 24 hours and we are not prepared. On my to-do list for the first was install car seat and pack hospital bag, we were not ready!
My idea labor was to labor more like Mr. Z’s and be at home for as long as possible. The hospital policies here are very different than where he was born and from our earlier visit 9 weeks before, I knew would need to go in much earlier than I wanted. With my water breaking and knowing I was on some artificial clock, we wanted to err more on the side of caution. Who knew, maybe my water had not broken.
So we take a little bit of time, Mr. Wonderful and I go for a little walk and talk about what we should do. We decide that for everyone’s peace of mind we would go in after morning traffic dies down a bit, but before the lunch rush, as we live about 20 minutes away from the hospital. Yes, there are two closer hospitals to us, but I found a doctor that I KNEW was going to listen to me and let me deliver this baby how I wanted and she only delivered at this hospital.
We get to the hospital at about 10.30 am. We have to wait in the ER to be sent to through to admittance, where we have to fill out some paperwork. Finally a nurse comes down and we are allowed to go up to the maternity wing. I ask to walk, not take a wheelchair, because I want my very irregular contractions to pick up. This frustrates the nurse, and we also ask to be allowed straight into the low intervention suite. She states that won’t be happening and puts us in a closet.
I am doing another round of Whole30, this round I am doing with some friends. Well, we are spread all over the place, but we are doing it together. It is really fun to be able to share with the others.
This is not my first Whole30, nor my first January Whole30. One thing that I have noticed with Whole30, is that there are THOUSANDS of recipes. Of those thousands of recipes, most of them call for some random hard to find, unicorn ingredient.
SERIOUSLY!?! Isn’t Whole30 about eating real food, and making real food accessible to busy people? So why does your recipe call for salt mined by virgin unicorn breeders?
This has been something that has been frustrating for me. I find a recipe, it sound delicious, but it calls for some ingredient, that I can not find or is only available at speciality places. I am not one to order or drive hours away to get the one ingredient. So I just don’t make the recipe.
When I am not Whole30-ing, I will play with the recipe, maybe use a similar, yet not compliant ingredient in place of the specialty. One of these experiments lead me to make my own complaint substitute. AND IT IS DELISH!
I really enjoy spicy foods, so this pork sausage has a bit of a kick (I think it could use more, but Mr. Wonderful says it is hot enough). It is great for Italian dishes or with just some sauted zucchini or carrots. Plus, since ground pork is cheaper than pre-made sausages, it is cheaper! So save a little and try this!
Note: I use a mortar and pestle to grind up the fennel seeds. Mr. Wonderful does not like fennel, but if I grind it up, he doesn’t notice it. You can leave it whole if you wish.
Moving to Texas has been H. A. R. D. Moving in general is not easy, it zaps just about every single resource. And then, just because life isn’t already hard enough a curl ball gets thrown right at your face.
Our first month was alright. We arrived at our new place and instantly wanted to demand our money back. Actually, I did. But they promised to fix the water, even though it was out of their control, and promised to replace the nasty disgusting, I wouldn’t even wash my pet dog in that tub, which they did.
We got our stuff on time and we only lost a few things from poor packing. Shipping our stuff was most definitely the BEST DECISION EVER! Then we spent the rest of the month getting used to the Texas heat and humidity (Still not used to it).
June turned into July and we thought life was going well. We visited our farmer friends, The Dragon’s! We celebrated Mr. Wonderful’s birthday and had a fun 4th setting off fireworks.
August came, and we just pretend August 2016 didn’t happen. The domino of events last month were devastating and heart breaking. As I heal from the roller coaster, I will share all the bumps and pits of August.
Now, we are in September. The floods of August receded but left some pretty deep wounds. As we try to pick ourselves up, we have had some hiccups (Budget? What budget? You mean, crap what did we spend our grocery budget on…)
But moving to Texas, hasn’t been all “OMG WHAT DID WE DO?!?!” We have had some really wonderful moments.
Like taking Mr. Z to the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
Visiting my mom’s parents in San Antonio.
And frog catching in Dallas, at my cousin’s son’s birthday party.
Right now, we are holding on to the things that bring us Joy here in Texas. Like slowing down and making cookies with Mr. Z.
