The joys of pregnancy

Well, I've gone public on facebook that I'm pregnant so here is the blog about it! I'm in my 6th month and have to say, I'm loving it. The whole experience has been 98% amazing. The 2% of ick comes from fears/financial stress (maybe it should be a few more percents in truth but I HATE to lead with fear, instead I trust trust TRUST in the universe to provide) and the other 1% is from the 2 times I've wanted to take pain relief SO BAD but didn't. Like today, I'm dealing with a whiplash like neck pain and have no idea where it stems from but my neck is on fire and the pain is so intense. I've put Arnica gel on it and felt minor relief for a few minutes but nothing long term or seriously pain relieving.
Sidenote, I listen to KPFK every morning on the way to work and they are in the middle of the longest fund-drive but one of the gifts they are hoping to tempt peoples donation with are Dr. Mario Martinez, The Mind Body Code DVD's. They play his clips and it's very interesting and inspiring to lead with your thoughts. So I'm trying to convince myself that this feeling of pain isn't real, that I feel great. Not super successful but I'll keep it going because there's not much else that can be done.
Back to the lovely 98% though, that's the good stuff. I have so much love and good energy flowing through me and around me. It's so important to me to keep the yuck out of my life and body. I don't need it and neither does my baby. I believe the ride she's having in me right now is doing a lot to inform her of the world she's about to come into. A world I hope she feels stress free in, loved...oh so loved, open to explore who she is and follow her passions.
It has been amazing to watch my body grow and change. Even better is to be sharing it with my partner who is giving me so much love, compassion and support. And a lot of food squeezes and help up when it's just too hard to get off the ground by myself. Seriously carrying around an extra 20 pounds ONLY in the front of my body is intense on my balance and comfortability. I'm so thankful for the Snoogle pillow.  A must buy for any preggo's you know. It is my saviour at night.

I'll post soon about the books, classes and ways I'm preparing for my home birth as that is in my mind super share worthy information and I would love to hear back from mommas and mommas to be, especially any who've gone the home birth/midwife route as well. xox

adding feathers to our nest...

So we bought the house, now we are having a baby and have finally dug into some actual house projects. Feels like we are living some sort of American suburban dream or something. Nothing has really changed but our address and the size of my belly but it does feel like we are right where we were always meant to be. Happy together and growing our life. It doesn't feel too radical (as in extreme, it does feel cool/rad) being pregnant. The biggest trip these days is just watching my body grow and to see a different profile when I look in the mirror than I've ever had before. I know this feeling is minimal to the way my life will grow and change with the arrival of our munchkin but beyond day dreaming and imagining I have no actual factual idea of how my days will be come this fall. I know without a doubt that my heart is growing even more than my big ole belly. I feel so full of love and happiness. I know I'm so lucky to have a supportive husband and family. I also know, that the love I feel today is probably tiny when compared to how much I'll love our child. And with that love comes paradoxical fear, how fun! Fears of parental failures, fears of losing myself, financial fears and the fear of having it all and then losing it but I'm guessing this is normal and fortunately  I'm keeping those thoughts at bay because honestly, there is just no room left in this body for fears. Especially now that my creative mind is kicking in and demanding A LOT of attention. 

I usually blog way more about home projects because I love decorating & design so much however the last 4 months have been pretty full and overwhelming just with moving into our home (our forth move of the year). And it's definitely taken some time to discover what our flow here would be. As it is our first home and we can literally do ANYTHING to it, we've had to decide what anything would look like. The house we bought was a flip so basically it's brand new inside but not necessary all our style and we can't afford to redo everything we don't love but we've finally started picking away at the smaller projects.

Here's what we've done so far.

~~Repainted the front door & shutters in the front a deep blueish grey. They were an orange brown before, it was awful. Our home & style is much more in the range of cool tones than warm. I wish we had darker wood floors but we are just lucky to have wood at all so absolutely no complaints.

~~We put in  some fruit trees and 2 raised garden beds for veggies in the backyard.

Still need to stain the wood.

~~Fireplace in the living room was very blah before (upper left pic) so it's been painted and refinished to be more of a rustic and darker aged brick. Soon the walls in this room will be a very dark matte grey.

~~Next up, changing out the ugly green granite counter tops in the bathrooms to a delicious crema marfil that my mother in law gifted us with. We went fancy on it and purchased top of the counter sinks that happily didn't break the bank. The added counter space in the master (top pic) was much needed and I love the squared off edging. It completely changed the whole space. The bathroom walls in the master are now a light grey to play off the grey walls of the bedroom. Feels VERY grown up and chic. We still need to pick out a color for the guest (bottom pic) bathroom and it seems like we are leaning towards a light green/blue with more of a grey (theme of our house!) tone to it.

Then this weekend we put up these new side wall lamps that give us so much more side table space and look really nice in our room (on sale at o.co). I'm so happy with the look. I still haven't figured

out my ultimate bedding colors but what we have definitely works for now.

My nesting instinct has been centered around us and getting our creature comforts addressed so that we can comfortably start our life as parents but soon we will start getting the nursery ready! We have a few ideas but we don't know yet which ones will stick. Oh and the dreaded garage lays ahead, ugh. More to come.....

Adventures with Coconut Flour....PIZZA!!!

We've been dipping our toe in the recipe pool of gluten free -- Specifically using coconut flour.
My guy is eating a full on ketogenic diet these days so in order for him to have anything resembling a carb we've been cooking with coconut flour. So far he's perfected coconut pancakes and we've made coconut flour cupcakes with a delicious cream cheese frosting but he's been craving the savory taste of bread with cheesy goodness in the form of PIZZA! So I found what looked like a simple enough recipe online and luckily we had all of the ingredients http://www.freecoconutrecipes.com/index.cfm/2010/1/15/herbed-gluten-free-coconut-flour-pizza-crust

I liked that the use of herbs in the dough overpowers any sweetness from the coconut flour so you can really embrace the savory tastes of the dish. The only issue was flipping the dough at 10 minutes in as it sticks to the parchment paper, but he figured out that by icing the opposite side of the paper for a moment it helped to release the dough on the other side.
We topped ours with a mix of alfredo and tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella and our favorite Salami from whole foods (wine & garlic, non-nitrate). I may have thrown some marinated artichoke hearts on mine because I'm an addict but that's another post. They were super delicious and satisfying as was having company in the kitchen for me. Cooking & shopping together for new ingredients has been so rewarding for me. I love anything that we can do together!!

Rainy day perfection

I love a rainy weekend, especially a rainy Sunday like yesterday. When I wake up to the sound of rain a romance washes over me that fills me with sepia toned ideas for snuggling away the day. First a delicious breakfast made together, sipping  teas while watching TV all snugged up on the couch with blankets & cats. Then I skipped off to do a little rainy day shopping with my mom, found a cute new lunch spot then back home to my babe. Grocery shopping together, which for us is fun. We like to pick out healthy tasty treats for the week including a yummy new unsweetened cocoa powder that we warmed up with coconut milk, stevia, vanilla, cinnamon and topped with homemade whipped cream. Such a Delicious rainy weekend treat.
I painted the bedroom a gorgeous shade of grey while he hung with some friends and shot some rainy & random YouTube vids.
Then back on the couch for Mad Men and homemade chicken veggie soup. It's been 17 months since the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce graced us with their presence and it was good to have them back.

The only thing better than Sunday was our Saturday night but some days and dates are meant to be private;)

Don't take a cheat!

I was reminded the other night while watching Smash just how much people cheating makes me uncomfortable. I always skip to the end of the scene when its on.
I wasn't always like this, I could watch it and shit I could even do it but once I learned my lesson you could say that lesson was my new moral code.
My husband is the same way and I love that about us. We don't like movies centered around cheating -- Unfaithful, no thanks. It makes us both squirmy and sick. We are not puritanical people by any means, not religious at all really but we both hold a strong belief that it is not how we are going out.
Seriously, been there -- yuck that, so not for me.

Can't get no....storage satisfaction

We've lived in 4 places in the last year but now finally we are settling into our home and trying to solve the problem that is lack of storage. Specifically our bedroom closet is not big enough for both of our stuff so it's time to buy an armoire. These seem magical as a kid, a standing wardrobe big enough to hide in but I'm just finding that it's challenging to find one that isn't too big as it'll be taking up precious floor space and that looks good. Oh yeah, and at a deal as we are house rich, cash poor these days.
The PAX wardrobe system from Ikea seemed like an option but man is it BIG. Too big for us.
Scouring craigslist is a part time job these days.
We are also looking for storage shelves for our garage. We found some good ones at Ikea but they were and are still out of stock. We clearly aren't getting much satisfaction on the storage front. Crossing my fings that the perfect items are just around the corner.
Any ideas are welcome...
smile, leigha