Contests Coming Up :)

I'm starting to come up with new ideas for my shop and I want to start making samples...and since I'll have sample pieces of jewelry or key chains lying around, I might as well put them to good use and promote my blog.  This blog is obviously a bit unconventional, considering I write about so many different topics (writing, breastfeeding, parenting, jewelry, even weight loss), so I don't know if I'll ever have a real audience, but it can't hurt to try, right?

So, in the next couple of weeks, I'm going to post photos and info about some sample products.  At some point, I'll start a contest that if people follow my blog, or comment on a post, they'll be entered to win the sample jewelry.

Sound good?  I've never done this before, and I'm too lazy (busy?) to really look into the proper way of going about it, but if you comment as yourself, or 'follow' my blog, it's easy for me to keep track and I can use the profile you comment with to contact you when you win.  There will probably be other ways to enter the contest (like sharing the blog on facebook, or liking my jewelry shop on facebook, I'll have to figure out the logistics before the contests really start).

Just wanted to plant the seed, since I've been considering this for a while.

Who knows, the odds will probably be pretty good that you'll win!  :)

Trying to Get Healthier

When I had my first daughter, I lost weight much quicker than I'm losing now.  I know this because I used Calorie Count and I've gone back to check (since it keeps that kind of crap for forever...so I can easily go back and see how much less I weighed in 2008 than I do now).  Since Peanut Butter was born, I've been eating as much or more than when I was pregnant.  So I've lost about 5 total pounds since the water weight went away after labor.  That puts me at about 20 pounds more than I was before I got pregnant.  TWENTY pounds.

So, starting this past Sunday, I began calculating my calories again on Calorie Count.  It's not like this is the first time I've tried using this since it worked so well for me...back in 2008, of course...I actually lost 20 pounds then, keeping track of what I ate and exercising. I ate 500 less calories a day than I burned and lost that much weight in less than 4 months.

In just the 3 days since starting this, I've 'lost' 2 pounds.  FYI, I know this doesn't mean I actually lost that much weight.  It's water weight and it's probably about what I would be if I was eating a little less crap and a little more fruits and vegetables.  I've decided only to weigh myself every other day, hoping this'll keep me from getting discouraged when the weight isn't changing.  Weight isn't the only thing that matters, blah blah blah, but when you look in the mirror and see a size you've never been before, and most of your clothes don't fit, and the number on the scale calculates with your height to put you in the 'overweight' range, it's okay to want to worry and work on changing a self-destructive lifestyle.  My baby deserves a cleaner supply of breastmilk and I deserve to care about how I look and feel about myself.

There is a bit of talk that losing too much weight, too fast while breastfeeding can result in toxins in the milk, but trust me, I'm not going to lose too much weight, too fast.

...
On a total side note, I freakin love my new bluetooth.  Wore it running tonight with the dog, stayed put and didn't cut out at all...having something in just one ear gives me the chance to hear whatever I'm listening to (currently 'Dark Places' by Gillian Flynn) and the traffic.

Breastfeeding

This baby girl has been a piggy.  She definitely weighs more than what I think an average 2 month old should weigh.  Our older daughter got comments like 'she's so small' and 'look how little she is'...this baby gets shocked and fast remarks of 'what a big baby' she is. And I can't help but agree.  She's a heavy kid.  I just did a little research and found that the average baby of 2 months (boy or girl) is 10 pounds.  This was after really loose research...and I know my peanut butter was already 11 pounds at at least 6 weeks old.  She turned 2 months this past Monday and I think she weighs at least 13 pounds now.  Probably more.  And nothing but breastmilk has given her that poundage.  She has never had a drop of formula.  I love that she's getting so big off of purely eating what I provide for her.  I felt that way about her sister, but her sister had formula for a little over a week of her life.  I don't regret that, and I think if I'd have known better, I still would have had to formula feed her in the beginning.  She had a terrible bruise on her head from a vacuum during the birth, and they say that bruises can cause jaundice.  Jaundice can cause drowsiness, and drowsiness prevents the desire to eat...and eating can help bring down the billirubin levels.  It's a bad cycle.  And with peanut butter, I pumped for a few days before the birth (to try to induce labor), which I think helped my milk come down easier, and she was still borderline jaundiced and almost needed to be kept another night for it.  She ate every 2 hours and her levels were still that high.  I wonder how any mother is able to get their baby to breastfeed enough to expel all that yucky billirubin filled marconium (I'm probably spelling all these words wrong) in enough time to get discharged after a day.

So there you go...one of the quickest ways to stop a mother from breastfeeding...pressure her into formula feeding during the first 24 hours because of the billirubin levels.  We think, automatically, we must not be doing something right.  And I have no clue what the real right answer is.  Was I just the anomaly?  Do I just produce jaundice-prone babies?  Or is this possibly one of the reasons a lot of moms out there decide not to breastfeed?  I would have given up on it with my first if I weren't so obsessed with making it work.  So I'm so glad we got it to work, me and my first daughter.  If we didn't, I probably wouldn't have had it so easy with the second, and I'd be formula feeding for both.  The reasons why I am so glad they were/are both breastfed are so plentiful that I'll have to save that for another post, but I will say that it's my favorite part about this stage of my children's lives so far.  I love my toddler girl...but there's a connection I had with her while she was breastfeeding that I just won't ever get again.  A closeness I can't describe with words.

Like I said in an earlier post, you'll hear a lot about breastfeeding over the next year and change.

Time to go to bed, because peanut butter will surely be awake in about 3 hours to eat.

Trying to get back into it...

I'm really having trouble juggling my responsibilities with the amount of time I have (it feels like none). I'm in my third trimester, I'm uncomfortable and tired and excited to have this baby. We got her room together, which is exciting. J got a real toddler bed and her old bed was converted back to a crib. I washed a huge load of clothes from when J was an infant (this little girl, we'll call her A, will have enough to wear a new outfit everyday for a month with just that load of laundry). I washed the cover to my 'Brest Friend' pillow (awesome way to breastfeed a baby...just wait, you're going to hear a TON of stuff about breastfeeding soon...when I breastfed J for 14 months it was sort of an obsession for me, I'm kind of a crazy person when it comes to whether someone should breastfeed if they are able to).

Anyway...I got a little sidetracked...the reason I'm writing today (finally) is because I'm trying to make myself accountable (again) and I really want to finish editing the manuscript before the end of 2013. I hate the number 13...so it's only appropriate that I get this cleaned up and have a fresh start with it in 2014. I'm also due to have A on 1/6/14 so I know I really won't have any time to do this part of it after she's here. So one of the things I'd like to be able to focus on after she's here is working again on the query letter and getting it out to agents.

I also started using a new app to edit the pdf version of my full manuscript (after I make my notes, I'll move over to my light Asus laptop so I can work side by side with the pdf in Scrivener....Scrivener, if you could release an app for your program in the next couple of weeks, I'd be SOO grateful). The new app I'm using is Notability...which is AWESOME. My all time favorite app to date. You can add photos, pdfs, AUDIO notes, handwritten notes etc. AND it syncs between iPhone and iPad AUTOMATICALLY....it's incredible. Below is a note I made about the schedule I'd like to follow in order to get this manuscript edited and finished up.

We'll see how I do!




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