Wildrose D-Tox Day 1

So I've decided to undertake another cleanse or detox and hopefully I can stick through this one for the full 12 days.  I've tried juice fasting (only consuming freshly juiced juices from fruits and veggies) and I didn't make it past Day 1, so hopefully this will be less of a struggle.  The foods allowed on the detox are mostly things I already eat, so I think the only things I will be giving up will be wine (not going to lie, super sad about this) and balsamic vinegar (how am I going to flavor my salads?!?!)

So I've already fucked up on day 1.  I had balsamic vinegar in my salad before I read all of the directions.  Damnit!  Oh well, c'est la vie.  1 tsp of balsamic vinegar on Day 1 isn't going to make me or break me.  Onward and upward.

You are supposed to take the pills and drops before breakfast and before dinner.  Since I couldn't get the kit until my lunchbreak today, the pills got taken before lunch.  Hope that doesn't = catastrophe for my bowels.

Our Beautiful City, Underwater

So Friday June 21st, our city, and those surrounding us, experienced a natural disaster.  The Elbow and Bow rivers flowed over their banks and into our city.

I dropped my son off at daycare on Friday morning and drove the short distance to work.   I took the route I normally do and had to drive through 6 inches of water at one point and was horrified to see the river coming up and spilling onto the road.  They closed that particular stretch of road within 20 minutes of me passing through.  I got to work and heard about the road closures and immediately left again.  Mama bear instinct kicked in and I became panicky until I could get DS from daycare.  His daycare was in an area unlikely to flood, but the roads to get to his daycare were all being shut down, one by one.  Here are some of my photos I was able to snap:

You can see some of the houses covered in water

That's DH wading through a "pathway" that we normally jog.  The above picture was from Friday, and we were back down checking it out on Sunday and there is no longer water blocking that pathway

The following is where I normally jog and that is a bridge I have run over hundreds of times. 

It's so absolutely crazy to watch your city destroyed by water.  It's been surreal.  We are lucky that the waters seem to be receding, and we are gearing up to put in as many volunteer hours as needed to get the city cleaned up.  

I'm back to work today but will be going home and gathering up what I can to donate to flood relief.  If you want to make a donation, you can donate to the Red cross

New Family Member!

We are pleased to announce that our family has grown by 4 paws!

Meet Jake the Dog:

His Mom is a pure bred golden retriever and his Dad is a maremma x husky.  We think he's going to be a pretty big boy!

Here's a shot of Jake the Dog and Owen the Human:

And for those who don't get it, we named him after "Jake the Dog" from Adventure time:

Growing a Garden

We had a busy busy busy Father's Day this year!  Hubby never wants to do anything that I consider conventional, like attend an amusement park or take Owen to the zoo or something like that.  He doesn't want to go fishing, or drinking beer with his buddies, nope, he wants to be outside and working on our home.

So for Father's Day 2013, DH built me a raised garden!  I've been trying to try for years to grow a garden full of veggies that we could eat, even if we only got a carrot or two.  Most of the time I get started and then forget all about my garden and it gets neglected and dies out without ever producing a single edible plant.  C'est la vie.  This year will be different because now I have a raised planter to keep out the animals and (hopefully) ants

Before:

And After I painted it with some left over stain and paint I had kicking around:

Notice the little rocks that we painted and labelled so we know what's where and what's what!!

Now, to keep them watered and my fingers crossed that we can get something edible this year.

My Garden is growing!

So for the third year (not in a row, I didn't bother last year with a crawling colicky infant) I am planting a garden!  I'm super excited because this year we are going to tear out some old and ugly bushes in our backyard and build a raised garden.  Now if only the snow would GTFO we could get on working on it!

In the meantime, I've decided to plant and grow inside so my plants are ready to transplant and (hopefully) flourish once the weather and temperature is good enough to move them outside.

My peas are outta control!  These things are growing like weeds.  I had to make a make-shift cage for them because they have grown so well they are toppling over themselves.  I used wooden skewer sticks to prop them up.  Here are my moster peas all tangled up:

My salad mix is also coming along wonderfully.  Here they are sprouting!:

Flying Shark!

So for DH's birthday I bought him one of those remote control helium sharks.  He loved it!  It was so much bigger than I thought it would be and a lot of fun, but Owen broke it shortly after it's take off!  Here's a photo of the beast in our living room:

Hilarious!  But Owen didn't like it at first and would run away crying from the thing

Blurry, but you get the gist :-)

My Garden!

This will be year 3 (attempt #3) to grow a garden in which we actually use the food grown and consume it.  The last two years I got started WAY too late and nothing grew in time for us to eat anything.  The pumpkins never came up, they just sort of "meh'd" in the backyard and then withered with the first frost never to be seen again.

So I have a little indoor greenhouse going and it's actually working.  I'm surprised with how delighted I am that my plants are growing.  I'm giving them love every day and the results are amazing!  My peas are nearly 12" high already!  I don't know what I'm going to do with them as I'm not going to be able to plant them outside until at least the end of May (it's still possible to get snow where I live in June)

Jogging my way to 5 K!

So DH and I have signed up to run the Color Me Rad run.  If you've never heard of it, google it!  Here's a promo photo from them:

I mean, how awesomesauce does that look?

So let the training begin.  I recently hit the "being able to run for 20 minutes at one go" milestone *Yay!!* and I'm so stinkin' proud of myself.  It's such a big life goal for me to be able to compete in a 5k and then a 10k and I'm so close to being able to accomplish it this year!

I'm also hoping that all of this running helps me drop the 12 lbs I put on with my whole thyroid fiasco (quick recap: viral thyroiditis this summer resulted in an overactive thyroid for a brief period, followed by months of underactive thyroid to now, finally, back to normal). 

TGIF!

Thank God It's FRIDAY!

DS has been keeping us up at all hours of the night lately and it's really starting to wear thin.  The little bugger gets up at 2, 3 and then at either 4 or 5 to start his day.  We leave the house for daycare by 7 am and by that time he is already exhausted and ready to nap again.  But then I come home and find him in Dad's big work boots and I melt. 

He's my little man.

On a more frustrating note, I am so upset with my co-worker.  Since the boss is out of town we've been taking turns going home early.  Each person stays late once and gets to go home early twice.  Today was supposed to be his day to stay late and lo-and-behold, right before our pizza lunch he shows up saying he's going to faint.  Like seriously dude?  WTF?  He then goes into the lunchroom and starts eating pizza and after finishing his share, he takes off to go to the "walk in clinic"  Walk in clinic my ass.  Dude has been sick for two full weeks and complains to every person who will listen about how he's "toughing it out" by being here.  We sit at a desk all day and answer phone calls.  It's not hard labor.   So now I have to stay late again and he's at home sitting on his ass and watching tv.  Bastard.

First CD1 in nearly 2 years

My last menstrual period?  Sometime in April of 2011.  It looks like it's back.

I have mixed feelings.  I was hoping to be KU this cycle, I was so sure of it.  I even wasted money on expensive HPTs all for BFNs.  I feel like an idiot.  On the other hand, it's nice to see that my body is getting back into the swing of things.  It will be interesting to see what my cycles look like now.  After my miscarriage back in January of 2011, I had wonky cycles until I got pregnant with Owen. 

Looks like I'll have to order another round of OPKs.  Hurray for peeing on things.  

Today was supposed to be a healthy day, but fuck that.  I'm going to pick up a bottle of wine and some Reese's peanut butter cups on my way home from work and indulge in a jog and a nice warm bath this evening.

Cheers

Sad Day

My God Father passed away yesterday

RIP Uncle Don



WTF am I doing?

Just completed day 4 of back to work and I'm asking myself.... WTF am I doing?

I dropped off Owen at daycare this morning and he was so sad to see me leave.  That's difficult.... then add to that DH calling to make sure he was doing alright and hearing that he had parked himself in a stroller and would not budge for the ENTIRE DAY!  My son is nothing if he's not stubborn.  Thankfully DH was able to pick him up early and take him home.... sigh....  I wish it were me.

I'm so conflicted about returning to work.  On the one hand I enjoy the first hour or so in the morning when I can sit and actually drink my entire coffee and check my facebook (it's been thankfully quiet upon my return to work) and most importantly...  use the washroom without hearing Owen smash like a diesel powered jackhammer on steroids down the hall to squall and scratch at the bathroom door until I guiltily let him enter upon which time he strips the toilet paper roll of its pesky paper and tries to sample toilet brush and toilet seat before I whisk him away from the germ factory that is our shared bathroom.

But that's it.  That is all the satisfaction that I get from my job.  I don't feel like it grants me any sort of satisfaction or sense of accomplishment at the end of the day.  I feel like, for me, the most satisfying days I had were the ones where I was completely worn out chasing Owen around and I thought I could kill him or become an alcoholic by the end of the day but I fell into bed feeling that my life was complete and happy.

Well, c'est la vie.  I made my decision.  I want this job in order to facilitate the hours necessary to qualify myself for another 50 weeks of paid maternity leave.  I have to keep reminding myself that means 50 weeks of all day, every day play dates with my son and his theoretical little brother or sister getting paid to play with my children.  That's the payoff.

And here, my special little guy getting picked up from daycare:

 How on earth did I get so blessed?!?