Good morning. Well, for as lovely as it was earlier in the week, it sure is dark, cold, and sullen outside today. Just like last Saturday. It puts the kids in a mood. Fortunately, they’re out with Nate right now raiding the comic book stores for Free Comic Book Day.

There’s a “day” for everything, isn’t there?

So I have music playing, and have lit candles around the house. It’s very mellow and quiet. Clark has recently decided that anywhere that isn’t “being held by mom” is unacceptable, so he’s in the sling again.

I love this thing.

On to Health Group-

I’m fluctuating on the scale between 220 and 223. So I think that’s as low as I’m going to go from delivering the baby. No complaints.

I did my physical therapy exercises and stretches last Friday, Saturday, Sunday, this Monday, and Friday. The only time I remembered them on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, I was busy feeding Clark, or hauling laundry around, or something. So I wish I could say I’d done more, but I’m happy to have started anyway. And I’m already increasing reps on a few things, and adding new exercises and stretches. Nothing too vigorous.

Water consumption is going well.

But what I REALLY want to talk about are the breakfast shakes we discussed last week. They so rock. I appreciate your comments and suggestions so much! We’re still really liking the frozen bananas. I like the fact that I can use a few slices, and don’t have to stick a whole banana in. I don’t like too much banana in my shakes.

Nate likes to make complicated shakes with lots of ingredients. I prefer to keep mine simple. So far, I have 2 favorites. The first is 3/4 cup of soy milk, a handful of frozen strawberries, a scoop each of unflavored/unsweetened protein powder and vitamin powder, and this is the best part, a small handful of pecans.

YUM YUM YUM!!! I can’t stand how yummy that is!

The other one is similar, just instead of the strawberries and pecans, I add 1/2 to 2/3 of a frozen banana and a handful of walnuts. I will add Wheat Germ in the future, but I continue to forget.

These shakes are quite satisfying. I’m craving them at various times throughout the day, but so as not to burn out, I resist.

And now, let me first say that I’m not looking to start a war, but I want to discuss soy milk a little bit. A friend of mine emailed me after reading Monday’s post and said that she used to drink a lot of soy, but has switched off of it because of hormone problems. So I looked on line and found all sorts of conflicting info on soy products, (along with the all-too-common conspiracy theories, of course), however it was confirmed that they do contain a relatively high concentration of plant estrogen. My OB said that it isn’t enough to be a problem, and that women in countries that consume a lot of soy products tend to have less women-specific health problems, but they have higher occurrences of other things. (I think he mentioned stomach cancer, but I don’t remember for sure).

We’ve used soy milk for years, but not a lot. Just for cereal and in baking. We don’t drink it by the glass. We don’t do tofu, or soy cheese, or any of that. Abigail is lactose intolerant, so we can’t do cow milk. Plus, I don’t think it’s healthy to drink in quantity. So our soy intake isn’t high, but it was about to increase with the shakes, which is why I was looking into buying a soy milk maker.

I’m kind of bugged. I want whatever the base of my shake is to be healthy, not just fill the role of liquid. I’ve looked at some recipes for rice milk and almond milk. I tried the almond milk this morning, and while the flavor was fine, I couldn’t strain enough of the pulp out. It was gritty and gross, and made a mediocre shake. I could try it again with cheesecloth or coffee filters or something. I don’t mind buying rice milk already made, but I don’t think of rice milk as being particularly healthy.

I’m not attacking soy milk, or telling you not to drink it. I’m saying that the conflicting information is frustrating to me, and I can’t readily think of another, unquestioningly safe option that sounds appealing.

Even if I decide to continue using soy milk myself, what about my growing girls? They’re my biggest concern, to be honest.

Any thoughts?

Hey all. It’s another glorious day, and although I’d love to spend it lounging around, I think that poor Veronica could use some stimulus and socialization beyond the inside of our house.

So we’re off to Moorehaven with some friends. It’s gorgeous there. If you live locally, I highly recommend a visit, whether or not you have a pond.

For visual interest, have a look at the pretty violets.

And come by tomorrow. I’m really excited about posting Health Group this week.

Abigail and Olivia each won the humanitarian award in their class. In Abigail’s class, the award was given to one boy and one girl, and in Olivia’s class, the award was given to a small group of kids.

Yay, girls! Way to be!

Last night, I tried Clark’s little koigu hat on him to see if it still fit.

He looks like a baby-doll, doesn’t he?

It fits good, I just wish I would have made it longer. Come late summer/fall, I’ll be knitting him another one, and sweaters. :-).

I received a fantastic gift in the mail this week.

The wonderful lady that gave Abner a good home sent me yarn she spun with his hair, and attached the brass name-tag from his collar. What a thoughtful gift.

Knitters are wonderful people, aren’t they?

I’m loving reading your comments to Saturday’s post. Thank you! It’s very helpful as we try to work out how we want to do breakfast.

As a little follow-up, I’m feeling good. Nate bought a whey protein powder and a vitamin powder at Super Supplements Saturday evening, after we picked up a couple blenders.

Our current blender is connected to my big Bosch mixer, and we figured that if we’re going to be using a blender a couple times each morning, (Nate eats 2 hours before I’m awake), we’d need something a little easier to access, rather than lugging the mixer out of the cabinet each day.

Following Teresa’s advice, I sliced and froze a bunch of bananas yesterday. Nate keeps popping them like candy. They’re good. And I’m looking at soy milk makers, since I intend for most of my shakes to be soy milk based.

I tried making soy milk once. It was a big, smelly mess, and rather labor intensive. I think a soy milk maker would be a good investment, and will undoubtedly save me a ton of money. Soy milk is expensive. We’ve been buying it for years for Abigail, because she’s lactose intolerant, but if I’m drinking a significant portion of it every morning, we’ll end up going through it a lot faster.

Change of topic-

Clark is 4 weeks old today. I still can’t believe how fast the time goes.

I know it’s been awhile since I talked about it, but remember Clark’s blanket? I still love it. It’s been washed and dried a couple times, it’s still gorgeous, and I love the way it feels. I’m going to be knitting with Dale of Norway’s “Stork” again, I’m sure.

I still need to line it, and the flannel I bought mysteriously disappeared in the move. I haven’t lost hope, but it hasn’t turned up yet.

Good morning! I’m feeling pretty good. I haven’t bled in a couple of days, and last night I did some stretches and physical therapy exercises.

I’m weak.

The exercises were difficult, so I know I have some SERIOUS “catch-up” to do. But we expected that. However, I will say that it felt SO GOOD to get moving again. As I was stretching, I could feel the oxygen getting into my muscles, and my mind felt brighter. It sounds weird, although I’m sure some of you know exactly what I’m talking about.

I’m doing better with water consumption, and I’m trying to decide what to do about breakfasts in the mornings. Most mornings, if I’m even hungry, food sounds nauseating. Sometimes I make myself eat anyway. Sometimes I don’t eat at all, which I know is very unhealthy. And sometimes, I just snack on junk, a bite here and there, instead of eating something nutritious.

All of those scenarios suck.

Sooooooo, I’ve been thinking about trying to do breakfast shakes. I know my brother-in-law does them a lot. I think he does fruit, yogurt, and dry oatmeal. I’m not sure what else. I don’t like the idea of commercially processed “meal replacement” shakes. Mainly because I don’t trust them and can’t imagine they’re healthier than something I could make with real food. But I’m not opposed to supplementing a homemade shake with a vitamin or a protein powder to make it more balanced.

Anyone have any thoughts or experience with this? What do I put in a breakfast shake? How valid is the salmonella hype as it pertains to adding a raw egg?

I know that when I start my day out right nutritionally, I’m much more likely to exercise, drink my water, and continue eating well. When I start it out with junk and empty calories, or none at all, I spend the rest of the day trying to climb out of a pit.

Tell me about your week? How’d it go?

Ok, so you want to hear about the house?

It’s 2950 square feet. Twice the size of our last house. There are 4 bedrooms, and the large one downstairs is currently Nate’s office and the workout room. So we’re still in 3 bedrooms, and everyone is sharing, but the bedrooms are significantly bigger than they were in the last house. At some point in the future (as we intend to be here forever), we may build an office for Nate onto the back of the house so we can reclaim the 4th bedroom.

The new house is 2 miles away from the old one, so we don’t feel uprooted. We’re going to the same school, our church congregation is the same, and we still have the neighbors over for dinner and family celebrations.

That was very important to us, staying very close. We’ve put roots down here the past 6 years, and had no intention or desire to start all that over again. We LOVE the new house. Everyone that comes over says that it is very “us.” We agree.

The orange wall you see in the photo is the wall that had the diamonds. Remember those? The funky plants in the foreground came from Molbaks, along with the gorgeous glass pots they’re sitting in. I love them.

We seem to be going with a very green & orange theme in the living room. It’s cheery. And it must be trendy right now, because there is green and/or orange stuff EVERYWHERE in the stores. I’m not worried about changing trends though. Nate has loved orange forever, and aside from the fact that I REALLY like green, it plays very well off of the leafing maple trees right outside of the large windows, bringing the outdoors indoors in a way.

Not the best picture, but this is the carpet that went into the girls’ room. It is “Playground” carpet in the Kathy Ireland collection. I don’t remember the name of the color, but it’s the less bright of the two available greens. As it turns out, it’s the right color for the living room, and the remnant they left is the perfect size. The carpet company said it’d be $120 to bind the remnant edges into a rug, which seems very pricey to me. I might shop around for a better deal.

It was amazing. Absolutely beautiful.

New carpet was installed in the girls’ bedrooms today, so we can unpack “for reals” now and establish proper places for things, removing any legitimate excuse for the girls when they leave their stuff all over the place, or can’t find things like socks. And pajamas.

Also, the really nasty smell that showed up each time the sun came through V’s window and hit the mysteriously discolored spot on the floor… is gone.

We’re very excited.

I feel like it’s getting to the point where I can take a deep breath, let it out slow, and get back to life. The move is done. The baby is born. I can eat again. The taxes are paid. The girls’ birthdays are over. Spring Break is over. Abigail’s baptism and the accompanying festivities are over. Nate is going back to a more regular work schedule, and work is picking up rapidly for him right now, so he’s going to be busy. Which is a return to normal.

I’m having knitting thoughts. Like, bibs for Clark, who is developing quite the little spit-up habit.

By the way, he’s 3 weeks old now-

and cute as a bug.

I make no promises that this will turn back into a legitimate knitting blog anytime soon, but I can at least visualize knitting without hearing a “yeah right” in the back of my mind.

But it might be delusion.

Hello all! I’m doing very well. This week has been busy. Abigail was baptized this morning, my mom is in town and staying with us, and we had a very large family luncheon at our house this afternoon following the baptism. About half of Nate’s family hadn’t seen the new house yet, so it was fun to have them all here.

Whew! Now that that’s over, I might actually get some rest!

Clark is doing very well. I’m feeling great, aside from the waves of fatigue and sleepiness. I’m being as sensible as I can, doing what needs to be done slowly, and sitting/resting as much as I can.

Health Group-

I’ve been cutting down my sugar/candy consumption this week, and have decided to avoid fast food. I’m not much of a fast food consumer as it is, but I’m going to make efforts to do it even less. It feels good. I’m still having difficulty drinking a lot of water. I used to love it, but I’m fighting with it right now.

My original goal was to start exercising next week, but after all the excitement of this last week, I’m not going to push myself. I’m really tired. But I might start some of the easier toning exercises I learned at my physical therapy sessions.

The flabby abs are starting to bug me.

Tell me your news!

As I’m sure many of you know, my site was down most of yesterday because I had exceeded my bandwidth allotment. This happens on a semi-regular basis, and although we keep upping my bandwidth and checking our usage, it happens still. Then when we DO up it again, it takes several hours to come back online.

Argh!

So here I am, back again.

Yesterday was Olivia’s 7th birthday. Everyone in the house was happy to see the big day finally arrive. Liv was happy because she’s been looking forward to it since Christmas, and the rest of us are thrilled it’s over, because we’ve been hearing about it since Christmas.

That girl is persistent. More so than anyone I know.

We all made the trek to the school cafeteria to help her celebrate.

Nate brought the flowers, I brought the baby for his first public school appearance… and cookies.

I’ll just say that a nice, big kitchen with ample counter space is every bit as wonderful, if not more so, than I thought it would be. Liv wanted to make gingerbread cookies to take to school on her birthday. The girls and I made up the dough. I rolled it into balls which were then passed down the counter to one of the girls who each had their own bowl of sugar to coat the cookie in before putting it on a baking sheet.

It worked out so well, and went much faster than it used to, when there was room for only ME in the kitchen.

Veronica helped me make pretzel dogs for dinner one night, Olivia helped with dinner rolls on Easter, and all three of them helped with Liv’s birthday cookies.

It’s great. I love it.

For her birthday, Liv wanted piano lessons. My mother-in-law gave/lent us her electronic keyboard, and yesterday, Veronica and I went to Guitar Center to buy her a stand and seat to go with it.

What a cool store that is! If I were a musician, I think I would live there.

I’ve cleaned up my sidebar a little bit. All of the knit-alongs are inactive, so I’ve changed their status and left links to completed items.