A mystery unfolded

A combination of 2 comments has provoked today's post. The first came from the UPS guy who packed up my last few pressed flower pictures to be shipped. His comment, "How do you do that??!"
The second comment is just FUNNY and it came from my 7 year old son. The background for this is that we had a LOT of snow, and hubby went out to snow blow it off the driveway. When he came in, he very solemnly told me that he had destroyed a phone book with the snowblower. My son's comment, "Oh! there must be flowers everywhere!". HA HA HA!! Ok, now why would he say such a thing?

I'm going to answer both questions, but I'm going to let the pictures tell the story on this one.

And whoa-la! It starts with phone books and ends with beautiful artwork. :) thats my story and I'm sticking to it.

A bit of randomness

You'll have to forgive me ahead of time for the complete randomness that this is. :) First of all, I just want to warn anyone else who happens to be unaware of this phenomenon; Apparantly, leather gloves shrink and distort when exposed to the salt that you throw on the walkway to melt snow. I grabbed a handful, and some of it was hardened, so I was rubbing two peices together to break it up and spread it out. I put the gloves in my pocket and when I put them on again several hours later, they looked like distorted and mangled old woman hands. :( Well, now I know.

Second, I have to tell you how creepy it is that migraines are not only a daytime event. Night before last, I had a dream. I was in school when I realized that the aura was starting. I went up to the teacher and told her I had to leave NOW because I was getting a migraine. I got as far as the door and sat down to put on my shoes. While sitting there putting on my shoes, the headache hit full force. I remember just sitting there with my head bowed between my knees and crying. That's as much of the dream as I remember. What creeps me out is that the aura and headache didn't wake me up (sometimes they do). I woke up in a completely dark, quiet bedroom in the morning. I remembered the dream vividly and I was afraid to move. Before moving, I optomistically thought it really was *just* a dream. Unfortunately, once I got up, I realized the headache was very much real. No fair. More tylenol, and a Dr Pepper. I hope this isn't a trend until the end of my pregnancy. I sure don't handle them well. Luckily, I feel a lot better today.

Last piece of randomness for this post, I actually need an opinion for. I just finished a pressed flower picture done of the Nauvoo temple. My afterthought is that I made most of the picture sort of "old fashioned" with the dirt looking road and all. The original Nauvoo temple was built in 1846 had an angel Moroni on the top that was horizontal. The original temple was destroyed by fire in 1848, and the new temple was constructed in the same design as the original in 2002. However, the angel Moroni was changed to an upright Moroni the same as most other temples currently built. SOOO!! That's the history. The question is, would the picture be better with a horizontal, "old fashioned" Moroni, or should I leave it as it is? Here is a link to what the Moroni originally looked like.

Thanks for any advice you may have!

My Son's Journal Entry

I don't know if this will be as funny to you as it was to me, but I have to preserve this! My son is in second grade, and has to write a journal entry for school once a week. This is what he wrote about earlier this week (complete with all the spelling he used)

Yay Colette! On Saturday it was Colettes birthday but first I had to clean my room because it was messy and monday night my mom burley killed herself in it. So I moved the thing she burley killed herself with. I also made a path for mom to come in for prayer and then I snuck down and watched tv and for dinner the family went to makedonalds. Then we had cake. it was yummy. Then Colette opened her presents. She got a polly pocket, markers, a horse stuffed animal, baby kit. She uses the baby kit alout.

LOL LOL LOL! I told him I nearly killed myself walking into his room to check on him before I went to bed because of all the stuff on the floor. Guess that was an effective threat. I don't think he wants to be responsible for his mother's death! I love kids and the great things they say!

We DID have a great day with Colette I must say. :)

Failure

I'm so bummed. I failed my 1 hour glucose tolerance test to screen for gestational diabetes. Apparantly only about a third of women who fail that test go on to test positive for gestational diabetes. However, in order to be sure they make you go through a horrible test: the 3 hour oral glucose tolerance test. The short story here, is that I DON'T WANT TO DO IT!

Here's the long story. :) The 1 hour test isn't horrible, they make you drink a yucky drink then test your blood an hour later. They don't tell you to fast ahead of time and they give all women the same amount of sugar in this drink. I have a hard time believing that my 5 foot 2 inch small frame metablolizes sugar in the exact same wasy as a 6 foot, 300 pound woman. However, we get the exact same test. And if I had a candy bar right before the test (I didn't, but hypothetically here...) they still would tell me I needed the further test in order to be sure it was the candy bar that caused the level to be high. How is this an accurate test?

I'm just whining in case you couldn't tell. The 3 hour test involves fasting overnight to get a fasting blood sugar level, and spending the next 3 hours of my life at a lab. That is bad enough itself, but they also make you drink a glucose LOADED drink (twice as much sugar as the syrup they made me drink for the 1 hour test) on an EMPTY stomach! The thought of that makes me want to puke. Then you can't have anything else while they test your blood once an hour for 3 hours (thats at least 4 needles yuck) And to make things worse, I really felt awful after the 1 hour test. I stopped at the store on my way home, and by the time I got home, I thought I might pass out. I was shaking like crazy. My sugar level may have been high when they tested, but an hour later, I'm SURE I rebounded back down below normal levels. Urgh. I can only imagine what the 3 hour double the sugar test will do to me.

I work for a doctor, so I was able to get a "free sample" glucose meter. I plan on testing my sugars on my own for the next couple days to see if I can convince myself and my doctor that I don't need the 3 hour test. Wish me luck. Anyone been through it? Is the test as bad as I'm thinking it is? HELP!

My valentines day gift

I meant to write about this last week, but I have to tell you how much my husband loves me. I should start by telling you that ever since I met him, my husband has not been a fan of Valentine's Day. He feels like anyone who needs a specific day to celebrate true love, must not be in love. So, he truly tries to make sure he does small acts of kindness throughout the year to show his love. He specifically excludes valentines day.

So that's the background. The story continues that I had been trying to get together with a good friend of mine for a couple weeks to have what we fondly refer to as "noodle night". Its basically just a girls night out to chat, talk and vent. :) Our favorite place to go is Noodles. Well, earlier in the week, we had set a tentative noodle night for tuesday, but it we ended up with conflicts. My friend sent me an email (to the address my husband and I share) saying maybe thursday would work better. I talked to her later and reminded her that thursday was Valentines day. Ironically, her husband is rather anti-Valentine's day too, SOOOOOOO!! The moral of my rambling is that I got a girls night out for my Valentine's day present. I can't think of anything I would have enjoyed more. Flowers fade and die (unless I press them first LOL), and candies are even shorter lived . . . I got a fresh outlook on life and some great advice for Valentine's day. What did you get?

In the words of a 2 year old

My daughter brought her cabbage patch kid girl into the room I was sitting in. She climbed up on my lap and showed me her doll. Just so you get the whole picture, let me explain, the doll is one of the great ones from the 80's. She is well loved. Today she is wearing a newborn dress that ended up in the doll clothes bin. It is a darling little pink dress with a little pink flower in the corner. Ok, picture drawn?

"Isn't she cute?"
Yes she is!
"Smell this mom!" She proceeds to inhale the darling fabric flower on the dress, then offers the flower for me to smell as well. Then in the most fervent, adult like voice "doesn't it smell pink?!" Well, yes, yes it does. :)

What could possibly smell better than the color pink?

Migraine's STINK!

I spent my entire day yesterday trying to cope with a migraine. It started just as I woke up and looked at my clock. Hmm... couldn't see the face of the clock. Stretch... Adjust... look again, fuzzy right down the middle. Panic sets in.

I get an aura with my migraines, and though I am grateful for the warning so I can get medicine as quickly as possible, it literally causes a panic attack the moment I recognize it. For any who may not know what an aura is, it starts similar to when you look at too bright of a light. There is just a spot in the middle of your vision. However, the tiny spot grows and expands into lines of what seem to be flashing lights in the middle of your line of vision. They grow and move out into your peripheral vision until they disappear. It is truly a disturbing experience all by itself, but for me, in addition, I know that my head is about to take on a blow that feels like a backpack full of bricks as well. So, instead of just an annoying disturbance, I feel PANIC.

So, I go down the stairs, grab Excedrin, then remember, "CRAP!!! I can only take Tylenol!" Excedrin has aspirin in it and, you guessed it, thats off limits with pregnancy. URG. I take my tylenol fully realizing that it won't do a darn thing, then sulkingly make my way back to bed. I told my husband I was getting a migraine, and put a pillow over my head to try to ignore anything else that might happen that morning.

The worst part was that since I had just woken up from a good night's sleep, I couldn't fall back asleep. Instead I got to hide under my pillow and experience the full force of the experience called a migraine. Lights, sounds, smells, pretty much anything make me nauseous, and my head feel like its about to explode. . .

Once again, I know I am lucky, because most of my migraines only last between 4-6 hours. This one was no exception. About 4 hours after the start, I was able to at least pull myself out of bed to go get some breakfast. The cruel irony of my day yesterday was that I had a second episode. Mid afternoon, my vision went nuts again, and a full force blow followed soon after. Sometimes life is ironic, sometimes its just cruel.

Anyone know of any natural remedies for migraines safe during pregnancy? I've heard celery works for some people, but I really hate celery, I'm not sure I could stomach it with the nausea my migraines cause anyway. Any advice is welcome!

lightbulb moment

I think I figured it out! If you can believe it, I think I know why this pregnancy has been harder than my others. Ok, first, let me rule out the obvious, I have 3 other kids I am trying to take care of, plus my business, and I work part time and blah blah blah. Thats just not it. Every time I've been pregnant before, I've had a good friend, or family member be pregnant with me. Someone to say, hey are you feeling this? is that normal? and don't you hate it when....

With my first, I was actually one of 11 coworkers (yes ELEVEN!) who had babies within one years time. 3 of us were due within a month of each other and we shared our woes, our aches and pains constantly. Then we got to console and help all the other pregos as they went through theirs. (I was the first of those 11 friends to deliver)

My second pregnancy, I was due within a month of my sister and a friend.

Third pregnancy, I was due within a month of my sister (honest, we didn't plan it!) and 3 friends...

This time, I don't have any friends or family members pregnant. I think I'm lonely!

Anyone happen to be due in May who wants to be my new pregnant friend I can console with? Maybe a little whining to the blog reading world will help. I feel huge this time, I HATE doing the diabetes test (that's coming up in a couple weeks. EWWWWW!), my back is aching so much, its hard to find a good position to sleep, and just to round things out, I LOVE feeling the baby move.

thanks for listening :)

Good enough to eat!

While browsing on etsy today I came across these SUGAR COOKIE - Soap Bath Bars!
Yummy.. I think I might want to eat the soap. She has a bunch of other delicious scents as well.  Anyone looking to buy me a gift?  Feel free to browse
her shop.  :)  She also has some amazing lip balm flavors. You can click *here* to see more from KreatedbyKarina on Etsy.

ahhh....

I'm trying to figure out which came first... the chicken or the egg.

The beginning of this pregnancy was very difficult for me. I know there are those of you out there who are puking for months and months, and though I'm sorry for you, that was not the trial I have. For whatever reason, I've been really struggling with my mood through this pregnancy. Especially during the first several months, the fatigue and nausea really complicated everything. Now that the nausea is past, (the fatigue never goes away-I'm a Mom! LOL) I've just been feeling rather "blah". I complained to my husband the other day about how I don't feel very attractive, people are telling me I look huge (see 2 blog posts ago), etc etc etc. Poor me. I have to admit, I really wanted to hear from my husband how beautiful I look, however what I got was: "well, what are you going to do about it?".

Today I took his advice, and went and got my hair cut. I have to admit to being VERY delinquent in this part of my life. The last time I had my hair cut was before my sister's wedding last JUNE! Although I've had a few good hair days: I've had a lot more bad than good. But when you aren't feeling good anyway, what does it matter?

I'm so excited to feel good about my hair for the first time in a long time. I love short hair! It is SOOOOO much easier than long hair to manage. I was feeling so good today, I got a bunch accomplished! I framed 2 of my pictures and got an order of cards ready to go. That is on top of the laundry and dishes and all the other must do's. So, the question remains, do I really feel better because of my haircut, or was I beginning to feel better and wanted the new haircut to mirror how I feel. hmmm... Anyway, what do you think?