I forgot to post my Friday Five Yesterday and since I have two children and the days just run together, Friday and Saturday are pretty much one in the same and I will share my five today anyway. So here it is in descending order via short blurbs and photos…
5. I spent some extra time in the scriptures this week and it was good!
4. Exercise time quickly became reading time.
3. Last Saturday I spent 3 hours straightening my hair. It was fun but took entirely too long!
2. We picked 50+ lemons from my parent’s yard this week…lemonade, lemon bars, lemon cookies, lemon chicken.
1. Homemade Strawberry Pancakes
Send me some lemon recipes and ideas to make via comment and follow the blog to stay updated regularly as I post through out the week. The rest of the day will now be devoted to spending time with the family, getting my new couch into the house, and finishing up my meal plan for the month.
While you wait for more blog goodies from me and because it’s September, have a listen to Kirk Franklin’s take on the classic…
My toddler generally participates in morning workout time by dancing along with my music or trying to mock my movements. Today she brought her bathmat from her bathroom and put it next to my exercise mat and then laid on it.
This was a total reminder of one of the reasons why I want to be consistent with incorporating daily exercise into my life – to be an example to my little ones. They say what you say and they do what you do. I don’t want my kids seeing me sitting on the couch with a plate of pop tarts all the time. (And believe me, I do love my pop tarts!) Nor do I want my girls repeating my rants and raves, rebuking the extra weight I put on or complaining of the little issues that come from lack of exercise and good nutrition.
If this isn’t motivation to keep it moving, I don’t know what is!
And now I give you my end-of-the-week brain dump by way of a Friday Five…YAY!!!
1. Fear
I woke up to feed the baby at 3:30 am and at first I was so happy because she had slept for 3 hours and I felt very rested and grateful for the extra hour, and then I celebrated because she ate a little more than expected before knocking out at again which means I could anticipate another 3 hour stretch, and then fear settled in. Fear because I realized that it’s 4 am now and a 3 hour stretch puts me at 7 am by which time the toddler will be awake and morning chaos will begin as usual. On a happier note, the infant is officially 3 weeks old and growing so fast!
2. Fitness
This week could have been worse but it certainly was not a great week for my workouts. I attempted to workout Monday through Friday, but it became Tuesday & Wednesday. I did the Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred by suggestion of my brother, whom you can find at Homeworkdad. Especially if you haven’t worked out in a really long time and you were on bed rest for many months, it’s no joke. My motivation and adrenaline has been trying to convince me that I could make this intense 20 minute workout a 40 minute workout and do it twice and then my dear husband reminded me of how hard the 20 minute workout was and I how I missed like two parts of the circuit…oh yea, oops! So, today is going to be all about coming up with a really difficult, sweaty, mean workout to impress you and make you forget this was a flop of a fitness week and to more importantly, to make me forget and put me back on track for next week.
3. Food
I made some really good, balanced, healthy meals this week. I mean tasty, low-calorie, cut the sugar and hold the dressing type of meals. Can you believe I used the word “tasty” at the beginning of that sentence. It’s true and I promise I am not just becoming a health nut living in denial. My taste buds are still totally drawn to bluebell ice cream and candy on a daily basis. Proof ~ On Thursday I ate at Olive Garden. On my way there, I gave myself a pep talk about how I am just going to eat soup and salad. I mean, their soup & salad is amazing anyway right?! And then I took a glance at the never-ending pasta bowl menu and after I had thoroughly cleaned my plate of all the linguine and meatballs that my fork could possibly pick up, I took a glance at the meatball that hubby decided he didn’t want. The End.
4. Freedom
This afternoon I have to get an MRI of my brain done. Right now I am on the fence about how I feel about this. Either I am nervous about the outcome or I am excited to get out of the house, get a few hours away from the babies, get some alone time! I kind of hope that between filling out paperwork and the time I go in for my MRI, I will have just enough time to finish a few pages in the book I am reading. And considering that my brain is full of stuff and it will probably take me 3o minutes to get through those pages, I am also hoping that the wait will not be much longer than that!
5. Four becomes Five (…and I can’t come up with a fifth word that cleverly starts with F. Darn!)
I realize that I never posted an update on my health or explained why I am getting an MRI. Well, the story begins mid-July when I was admitted to L&D (Labor and Delivery) which I vaguely explained mentioned in this post: Pregnancy Complications.That week I started to feel very unstable as I walked around the house. At first I thought, “clumsy me!” But then it got worse and I thought, “Ugh, Pregnancy fatigue is lame-sauce!” And then one day I went to lock the door behind hubby and I couldn’t make it across my living room without the feeling that I was going to collapse any second and I thought, “Perhaps I should call my doctor.” And so I called and then I went to the hospital so they could run some tests. And then they decided to keep me for a few days. I saw many a doctor that stay ~ two OB’s, High-Risk OB, Cardiologist, Neurologist, Physical Therapist, etc.
So long-story short, there was no diagnosis for what was going on with me. At first they thought pre-eclampsia but my blood pressure was and continued to be perfect throughout the pregnancy. The neurologist had an MRI done and found inflammation in my brain. He put me on steroids, decided not to run anymore tests until after the baby arrived, and sent me home. (I was pregnant if you hadn’t picked up on that). The steroids masked my symptoms but by the time they were up, my symptoms pretty much came back so I headed back to L&D. We weighed all the pros and cons and reviewed the possibilities and decided that we would deliver baby early and then begin running some tests to figure out what’s going on. And now here we are. Updates to come as we figure this thing out!
Sorry I ended this five with a bummer. Perhaps this song will cheer you up!
