Meet the newest member of my family

I gave birth to a healthy baby girl on May 3rd.  She came in at 5lbs 10oz and measured 18 inches long.  She's itty bitty but great things come in small packages right?

As if my blogging wasn't spotty this past year or so, it will be even worse from now on.  As you can imagine there's a new love in my life now and she takes top priority. 

Change the World Wednesday - vegetable garden

 This week's challenge is from Gaby who says "Grow one vegetable. You can actually just buy a bag of soil, lay it down, cut it open, and plant seeds in it. No green thumb necessary!" With hints of warmer temperatures and flowers beginning to bloom, I think it's a perfect activity.

This week plant a vegetable or herb. And then, tell us what you decided to grow and where (your yard, a container, a pot on the window sill, etc.).

Or ...

If you are a gardening guru and plant veggies each year, please offer us any tips, ideas and advice. We'd like to know if you plant in containers or till the soil ... how do you fertilize your garden ... and what about keeping pests away. We want to know it all!

I love the challenge being hosted by Reduce Footprints this week.  Last year was the first year I attempted to grow any vegetables.  I just used pots on my deck because I didn't know how good I would be about keeping up with the vegetables and didn't want to go to the trouble of creating a spot in the yard and then not following through.  I did really well last year and the husband loved having a steady supply of tomatoes (the only thing I grew) so we cleared a spot last fall in hopes of have a garden this year.

Tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, and onions

Earlier this month, due to the unseasonable warm temps we have had, I went ahead and planted everything outside.   I planted tomato's, lettuce, spinach, and onions.  I accidentally bought too much lettuce and the onions was a huge bunch, I ended up running out of room in the garden.  Luckily all the pots I had used last year were still on the deck.  Now those pots are all full of lettuce and onions.  One pot has a tomato plant in it that was given to me a couple of weeks ago.  Two pots have strawberries. I had attempted the strawberries last year and gave it up for a lost cause but they came back!

I don't  really know what I'm doing and I don't know how much time I'll have to tend to the garden but I'm excited about it.  We didn't do anything special when creating the plot.  We just took up the grass, built the enclosure, and put some extra soil/dirt we had on top.   When I planted each plant I made the hole bigger than it needed to be and added in organic manure we bought at the store.  I have been working on composting but, well, that isn't going too well as I don't have any yet.

Lettuce and onions...2 strawberry plants thrown in

Oh..and we had to enclose the plot because our subdivision backs up to a state park and the deer love to hang out in the yard.  I'm hoping they don't jump the fence.  

While the focus is on vegetables, I wanted to show off my fruits.  Three years ago my sister gave me 2 very small cuttings from her blackberry bush.  I planted them along the fence that encloses our pool and I believe that year I had 5 pieces of fruit total.  I figured it would take awhile to really get a good crop though.  Last year it took off and I had a lot of fruit. I made blackberry desserts, ate a lot, and froze the rest.  In fact, I just used the last of the frozen blackberries in my smoothie yesterday (I make a smoothie for breakfast 1-2 times a week).   From the picture, you can see that it is huge this year!  The husband wants me to cut it back and I keep telling him I will after it fruits as that's the right time.  However I don't want to.  I like that it offers privacy for when we use the pool and love that it costs me absolutely nothing to maintane (except watering it sometimes) and gives me a ton of fruit I would otherwise buy as organic.

Blackberries!!!!!

The two plants with tags are the blueberry plants
the one outside the fence is the raspberry

Since Husband has seen the benefits of having the blackberry bush, we planted other fruit bushes this year.  We planted two blueberry bushes and one raspberry.   The Raspberry bush is planted along the pool fence on the other side.  The hope is that eventually it will do just as good and the two plants combined will provide all the privacy we need while using the pool as well as keep costs down as far as buying all the fruit for desserts and smoothies year round.  The two blueberry bushes are actually planted in the landscaping inside the pool area.  We needed to get two more plants to finish the landscaping and thought..why not something useful.  I buy blueberries for my smoothies as well so it was a logical choice 

Change the World Wednesday - pick up trash

It's been awhile since I've been able to participate in Change the World Wednesday with Reduce Footprints but I'm glad to be back!  I love reading the other posts for this challenge and I like doing the challenges myself.  You never know what tips and tricks you'll pick up.

This week the challenge is to pick up trash you see as you take a walk or reflect on ways to reduce trash in your home.  Both of these are excellent!

I'm very happy to report that when we walk the dog every night we rarely see trash in our neighborhood. So glad the neighbors are good about keep their yards clean and picking up trash if they see it, or maybe people  in the neighborhood just aren't litter bugs..even better!

We live in a cul-de-sac and I noticed several months ago a couple of bottles in the middle circle where the landscaping is.  We have new neighbors with 3 teenage boys and I thought maybe it was there's. So for about a month I saw it every time we walked the dog and every time I got annoyed by it. haha!  I finally picked up the bottles and put them in our recycle bin. I should have done it right away but was hoping whoever left it would be responsible and pick it up themselves.  Oh well, the good thing is that it ended up being recycled by somebody.

I run at a local park every weekend and am happy to report that even though a lot of other runners use the park and use gel packs, etc, I rarely see any trash along the trails.  Go runners!

As far as ways to reduce trash, unfortunately we've had a lot of trash lately.   I hate it!  With the impending arrival of Baby Girl (3 weeks!!!) we've had to get her room ready and get everything that we need.  This means a lot of waste.  I've bought organic where I could but even organic items are packaged.  I have hated seeing so much waste go into the trash but haven't seen another option.

The best thing, however, is that we have bought as little as possible.  This might come back and bite me as I run out of something but we are both with the belief that we don't want to buy a ton.   We have also been incredibly lucky that my sisters have young kids and are both not planning to have any more.  This means that we have been able to borrow a lot from them.  I didn't have to buy any swings, we have a bigger one and then a smaller one that we'll use in the bedroom when Baby Girl comes home.  One sister just bought her youngest (he'll be 1 next month) a new car seat and since the infant seat was less than 5 years old we have both her bases and the seat.  In fact, as far as the bigger items most people register for, the only thing we needed was a stroller.  Not too bad!

Both of my sisters felt bad asking me if I wanted all their stuff and bringing it to me, thinking that with this being our first (and as far as Husband is concerned our only) that I would want all new, etc.  Not the case! I told them that I would take as much from them as I could. It not only saves us money but it keeps so much packaging and other waste from hitting the landfills and resources used to make the products.   I even talked to one sister today and since we haven't received many toys for Baby Girl, I'm going to go "shopping" at her house after her arrival and pick out toys that I think she might like that my 3 yr old and almost 1 yr old nephew don't use anymore.  Win-win!

Oh..and for inquiring minds..we will be using cloth diapers and cloth wipes.  We already bought all the diapers (either no packaging or recycled packaging for all of it!) and wipes and are ready to go.   I'll be sure to do a post on what we plan to do and then another post on how it actually works out.  Husband is on board but would rather use disposables, so it's going to be an interesting adventure.

Wordless Wednesday - small treasures

A signed copy of one of my favorite books.  Sometimes it's the little things
that matter.

More Wordless Wednesday can be found here.

Sometimes being nice sucks

Do you ever get that overwhelming urge to just say what is on your mind?  The urge to go off on somebody who has done something to piss you off?  The urge to just yell and get it all out?  I have that urge often but rarely do it.  Some days, like today, I hate being a nice person.

I'm not going to get into what the current thing is that pissed me off today. I don't know who all reads this blog although the person who pissed me off, I highly doubt they do.

The thing is, what pisses me off is something that they refuse to do for me right now...really almost the entire time I've been pregnant.  However it's something that I would do for them in a heart beat if the roles were reversed.  It's something I have done for others without thinking twice.  It's something I would do for friendship.

Perhaps I shouldn't say I'm pissed off, I'm hurt.  That's it. I'm incredibly hurt.

That leaves me to really think about my relationship with this person and if the friendship is worth it.  Some people, it's all about them.  They are very selfish and can't see past what works for them.  Do I need that in my life?  No, not really.  However do I look forward to losing a friend over it?  No.  It's a war of emotions right now. A war I would rather not deal with.

If I could just yell at this person and tell them how I feel, I would feel better.  It feels good to get it all out.  However, the problem is then they would probably feel like crap.  Which would in turn make me feel like crap. So in the end I don't say anything because I would rather just be upset by what they did to piss me off instead of being upset because I made them feel bad.  Sometimes being a nice person really sucks.  Sometimes being nice is overrated.

I can't be alone in this?  Do you guys ever have these types of issues?  I hope so.  Not that I want you to feel like crap, I just want to know that I'm not alone.

Vegetable Garden and Baby Food

It's that time of year, the time to start planning what to plant and actually do something about it.   Last year I attempted to grow lettuce and tomatoes.  The lettuce I started from seed and not much happened, totally flop.  The tomatoes I bought plants from a local store and those worked out really well.  I didn't have a vegetable garden at that point and since this was my first attempt I just put the plants in pots and put them on my back deck.  This was due to the large deer and rabbit problem we have.  I kept up with taking care of them all summer, Husband loved having fresh tomatoes to snack on and I liked all the BLT's he made for dinner.  Success!

Blackberry bush from last Spring..it's even bigger this year!

Last fall we cleared an area in our yard in preparation for a vegetable garden this year.   Wish us luck!  Ok, wish me luck as this is my project and not Husbands.   We're already talking about what to plant and that's where the humor comes in.  We were walking the dog and discussing what to try.  We know we want tomatoes again.  I want lettuce..but I'll start from a plant and not seeds.   Then Husband says to plant a blueberry bush. I just looked at him and said "You don't eat blueberries."  He said yeah but they are healthy. I again repeated that he never eats them.  Then he said "But they are healthy and you could use them to make baby food for baby girl."

Did your heart just flutter a bit?  Mine did.  See, from the start I told him I wanted to make baby food instead of buy it.  There are a lot of chemicals in baby food that I don't feel she should be eating.  I also feel it would save money and peace of mind knowing exactly what was in the food.  He's been somewhat against this the whole time because he just sees all the work involved.    I figured the extra work was worth it.  I told him that I wanted to at least try it and if it didn't work, I was ok buying baby food but to keep in mind it would be organic.  So when he mentioned planting blueberry bushes because it's healthy for the baby and I could use it for baby food, that just made my heart flutter.  He's actually been thinking about it and thinking of ways to make this work.  He came up with a couple of vegetables that we could plant and he followed each suggestion up with "You could use it to make baby food."  I just love that.

I'm not sure exactly what is going to end up in our vegetable garden yet.  I don't know how easy it will be for me to keep it up but I'm looking forward to the effort.  We aren't going to plan to much this year, just enough to get into a routine and test out this adventure.

As for the blueberry bush, we decided to get a couple of them.  I've been wanting to add a raspberry busy to the mix so we're looking into that as well.  For those of you who have followed this blog for awhile, you might remember that we already have a blackberry bush.  It did so well last year that I'm still using frozen berries from it in my smoothies.  The blackberry bush grows along the fence that is around our pool and we plan to put the raspberry bush on the other side.  Eventually I imagine they'll connect.  Of course, we might decide to put the blueberry bushes in the middle. That will be interesting.  Either way, I can't wait to get the plants and put them in the ground. I imagine it'll be a couple years before the new ones start to give us a decent crop but I'm willing to wait it out.  Just keep your fingers crossed the deer decide not to eat the fruit. They leave the blackberries alone so let's hope they leave the others alone too.

Triathlons

Last year I got it stuck in my head that I wanted to enter the world of triathlons. This was before I could do the swimming and before I owned a bike. I'm not exactly sure why I decided I could do it or wanted to do it.  Husband didn't think I could do the swimming part of it, as we have a pool that I never swim in (it's for relaxing..how did he not know that?).   He made a deal with me that if I could prove the swimming part I could get a bike.  Well..I've proven I can do the swimming and now I'm waiting on a bike. 

Since I don't have a bike yet I knew the only way to compete in one would be to do an indoor triathlon.  When I found out I was pregnant I figured it would be even longer before I could do a triathlon.  However, I was given the ok to add swimming back to my routine and due to feeling pretty good most days I was able to remain active.

Run portion at the 3rd triathlon I completed

Husband was ok with me competing in a couple of sprint triathlons during this time as he knew it kept me motivated to be healthy and it helped my depression.   You already know about the first sprint triathlon I did, I blogged about it  in this post.    I recently completed two more, three days apart.  One was an event my work held. It wasn't open to people outside of the University, instead it was just a way to try and get people active.  The other one was held at my gym and was open to gym members and non-members.

The first sprint triathlon I competed in was at 26 weeks pregnant.  I came in 91 out of 108 total.  I was 11 out of 15 in my age group. 

The second sprint triathlon I competed in was the one at my work and I was 30 weeks pregnant.  I came in 10 out of 15 in the novice division.  

The third sprint triathlon I competed in was at my gym, also while I was 30 weeks pregnant.  I came in 55 out of 63.

While normally I wouldn't be happy with my placement for any of these events I'm actually really happy with my performance for all.  I have to watch my heart rate so I can't put as much effort into each leg of the race as I would normally be able to do.   So to not finish last or even second to last and knowing I could have gone faster is huge.   The swimming and the bike portions are the hardest for me.  Once I hit the run portion though, my legs ease up and I've felt awesome and ready to go.  

I'm actually somewhat glad I attempted my first triathlons while pregnant.  Knowing I couldn't actually race them meant that I went into each race just focusing on finishing and not on hitting a certain time/mileage or placement.  Sure I went in to each knowing I didn't want to be last but also not dwelling on it since there was  nothing I could do about it.  I was nervous, this is a new sport for me, but not as nervous as I would be otherwise.  

I've fallen in love with triathlons.  It gives me something to work towards, something that is different from just going out for a running and building up mileage and speed. Running is still my love and what I prefer to do. Triathlons just add another dimension and help me get in cross-training and feel like a more powerful athlete overall.  I love the challenge.   I hope to get a bike later this year.  If so that means I can start to do some outdoor triathlons next year.  I do want to compete in all three of these same triathlons next year when I'm not pregnant and don't have to watch my HR.  It will be fun to compare my results.