Happy Halloween Weekend!

My handsome Apollo, dressed up as a lion. He is so tolerant :)

Cycle 7 was a really tough one for me, as made obvious in my previous post. It took me longer to move past that yuck feeling and stop myself from obsessing that I just can't ever get pregnant. I am feeling better now though and I'm trying to stay positive. Lucky number seven, right?! If we were to get pregnant this cycle, we would likely find out on our Panama cruise. That could be a good or bad thing, depending on the result.

I am very proud of myself this week. After my BFF and I made our pact, I was on a roll. Monday we cycled for 15 miles, Tuesday we ran at the track, Wednesday we did P90X, and yesterday I did Couch to 5K on our treadmill for 30 minutes. Woot! Nothing tonight, but P90X and/or treadmill both days this weekend. I am hoping for some change in my weight on Sunday. And by change, I mean I hope that it has gone down. Even if it hasn't, it feels good to be working out so much.

Our landscaper starts removing all of the dead sod/weeds tomorrow morning and said he hopes to be completely done with the sprinklers & new sod by Wednesday, depending on the weather. EEEE! I am so excited to see it all done!

Our neighbors must be wondering about our front yard! It is certainly dead, and that was the goal.

Backyard

"When witches go riding,
and black cats are seen,
the moon laughs and whispers,
‘tis near Halloween."
Author Unknown

 

Happy Halloween everyone! xoxo, Mrs. B

Another one bites the dust....

Fudge. Yep, that's the first word that pops into my head on this lovely Monday morning! Like I thought, I started my period over the weekend and we are now on cycle 7. Something about passing that half year mark sucks ass. Again, that feeling that I just cannot get pregnant pops back into my head. Where did that come from?!?! I have pretty normal cycles and I am SUPER excited to be a Mom, so why did I decide that I just "know" I cannot get pregnant? I guess the idea of actually being pregnant with a child just seems impossible to me. When it finally happens, I will likely be shocked & probably won't believe it. Great. More worrying LOL!

On another note, my BFF (umm, 24 years now we have been friends!) is amazing. I love her like she is my sister. She and I are keeping each other in check with our weight loss goals. We have a weekly check-in going on Sundays. I ate good all weekend. Woot. Today it's rainy out, so I am running on the treadmill tonight. Then some jump roping. I am excited. And like I always say... the one positive of a new cycle is more time to lose weight. It's on!!!!!!!

"A true friend is one who thinks you are a good egg even if you are half-cracked." Author Unknown

xoxo,

Mrs. B

Meet Sydney

My friend (and co-worker) had her beautiful baby girl two weeks ago and we got to meet her on Friday.  I was smitten!

yawning baby

Me holding her

I even burped her after she ate :) It felt so good to hold a newborn again. It's been a while since I have held a baby and some years since I babysat. I missed it. I want it for us so bad.

And on that note, it looks like I have started spotting and we are onto cycle 7 soon :(

"I hope we can be happy where we are, be grateful for our blessings now, here accept that challenge that is ours and make the most of it, and not be envious of others." Ezra Taft Benson

xoxo,
Mrs. B

Shout out to The Veggie Grill!

I received an email last week from The Veggie Grill about a free lunch offer for businesses in the area. I responded right away on our company's behalf and received a response to pick up our free meal today! Yay! I love The Veggie Grill already, but this made me love them even more. And they were so sweet to us when we went in. The chillin' chickin' is a seasoned and marinated veggie protein blend. Onto the food...

All Hail Kale Salad

Marinated kale and red cabbage, roasted corn salsa, agave-roasted walnuts with a ginger-papaya vinaigrette.

Santa Fe Crispy Chickin' Sandwich

Crispy fried chillin' chickin', lettuce, tomato, red onion, avocado, southwestern spiced vegan mayo served on a wheat bun

 

Carrot Cake

Delicious dessert, free of dairy, cholesterol and refined sugar.

 

My plate :) plus their delicious lemonade!

THANK YOU TO THE VEGGIE GRILL FOR OUR DELICIOUS (AND FREE) LUNCH!

p.s. I really should have titled this blog "A blog about life, love, food and making a baby." I love food, if you haven't noticed yet ;-)

Heartbroken

Yesterday was horrible, terrible, worse than I could have ever imagined. I woke up with an ache in my stomach that never left. Our Hudson was being adopted by someone in Kentucky, so the driver picked him up yesterday early to drive him from southern California all the way to his new home. I knew this was the right decision because it was the best one for everyone involved. But it didn't matter yesterday morning. It was still sooooo hard to say goodbye. It ripped my heart into a million pieces. Literally. I sat there with my Mom, sobbing so hard I couldn't breath and started to throw up. It was horrible. I don't even think I can describe the feeling in a blog post. It felt like I just couldn't do it, it was that hard. I wanted to run after the van and pull him out and change my mind about sending him to a new home. But I knew I couldn't. It was done. And I had to go on.

I was a complete mess at work, sobbing every few minutes at my desk. I got home yesterday from work before my husband, which I wasn't hoping for. I went to let my other dog, Apollo, out of his room and I saw Hudson's bowl stand and bed sitting there. And I really lost it. I can't look at pictures. I can't think about any of the wonderful memories. I can barely function. I feel like I am on auto-pilot right now.

I am sorry for the depressing post, but I needed to write these feelings down.

"sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same" - The Fray, All At Once

I am not counting or anything...

But it's 9 more days until we find out if I am pregnant. I took a break from temping and charting once I confirmed ovulation. I realized that this whole trying-to-conceive business obsession was adding to my stress. Plus, the time goes by so much faster when I am not entering data into my chart every day. It's so hard not to get your hopes up, but the let down of another failed cycle is hard too.

We took the train down to San Diego and picked up our car yesterday! It's an Infiniti FX35 and I loooove it :) It's a small SUV that handles like a car. It is so luxurious compared to my truck and has so many fun features. We then drove up to Los Angeles to have dinner with my BFF, then off to the Universal Halloween Haunt. We bought front of the line passes. Totally worth it! We finished everything in 4 hours!

Tomorrow morning is going to be a very difficult day for my husband and I. One of our Mastiffs is going to live with someone else. I took on too much and it's been affecting my health. I know it's the best thing for all of us, but it's VERY, VERY hard :(

"Giving up doesn't always mean you are weak; sometimes it means that you are strong enough to let go." Author Unknown

xoxo,
Mrs. B

Burnt Out

Things have been go-go-go lately and I need a break. Work has been crazy for both me and my husband. I am literally busier than I have ever been in the almost six years I have been with my company. Thankfully, we booked a vacation for ourselves over Thanksgiving. We are going on a cruise that stops in Panama, Colombia, Aruba, Costa Rica and Jamaica. So the good thing is that we do have a wonderful and relaxing vacation in the near future :)

I am also trying to get negotiations done on the new (used) car we are purchasing, coordinate the landscaper (and inform him that they were NOT supposed to kill the plants in my tortoises' home - GRRR), and finalize the details of a heart-wrenching decision we have made, which I don't want to talk about. My point being - a lot is going on right now and some days it's really tough.

On the baby-making front, we are just waiting now. I am so much more relaxed during this wait than the wait to ovulation. I don't have to worry about timing anything right, I can just stay busy & wait. I really do hope this is our cycle. I hate seeing negative pregnancy tests, so I have promised myself going forward that I would not test until I have passed my longest luteal phase. That is 16dpo, so I can test October 26th if Aunt Flow does not show up. My husband's birthday is October 29th, so it would be sweet to give him good news.

"I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once." Jennifer Yane


xoxo,
Mrs. B

First Day of Couch to 5K

So, my husband and I started the Couch to 5K program today. I even bought a nifty sport watch with a timer! It felt great. And it was definitely an easy pace, which was good for our first week. The new shoes and new shorts are awesome. This is a 3 day a week program, so we are doing this Monday, Wednesday & Friday. We are planning to do our P90X and some cycling in between. Go us! We seriously need this!

xoxo,
Mrs. B

I love Fridays

For more reasons than one. I finally got a positive ovulation predictor test yesterday! Woot! This means that my luteinizing hormone has surged and I likely ovulated yesterday or today. The only sure way to confirm ovulation has occurred is a thermal shift of your basal body temperature. Every morning at 6am, I wake up and take my BBT with a thermometer before moving or getting out of bed. I should be seeing higher temperatures in the next few days. Then it's more waiting. There is lots of waiting when it comes to conceiving a baby. Hopefully this will be my last wait until I am waiting 9 months for the baby to be born :) I hate getting my hopes up because it hurts so much more when they are let down. But I am trying to stay positive! I hope this is it for us!

"Hope is putting faith to work when doubting would be easier." Author Unknown

xoxo,

Mrs. B 

Reminisce Thursdays - Apollo

As soon as we found out we were going to move into a house four years ago, I fell in love with a fawn puppy over the internet. How could you resist this face?!

I will never forget driving to the airport to pick him up. I was smitten. It was love at first sight and he has had my heart since that day. 

Driving home from the airport in my front seat. Such a love bug.

Can you tell he is spoiled? I tucked him in like this every night those first few weeks :)

And he spent every day with us while we remodeled our house. He was the BEST puppy!

He is all grown up now and loves to swim at the beach...

...And play in the snowy mountains

We love him very much.

"My goal in life is to be as good of a person my dog already thinks I am." Author Unknown

xoxo,

Mrs. B

Landscaper - Check!

YAY! I am so, so happy to announce we have found our landscaper! A reference from a co-worker finally got us the price we were budgeting for. We signed him up to do our front and back yard. He is going to kill the existing weeds/grass a couple of times first, then prep the soil and install sprinklers & sod.  It's raining here (what?! It rains in So Cal?!) so the weed killing has been delayed until Friday when it's supposed to get back into the 80's. The really exciting part is that he is going to use Manage to get rid of the nut grass. Wikipedia calls it "the world's worst weed." Seriously. That is no joke. It is IMPOSSIBLE to kill. Manage is the only way and it's really expensive.

I am so excited to lay a blanket down on our new sod and take a nap. And no more dust when the dog runs across the back yard. Did I mention... I am SOOO happy :)

"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet." James Openheim

xoxo,

Mrs. B

Look what I bought!

New running shoes :)

I also bought some new shorts. Mr. B picked up a sports magazine at lunch this weekend and that inspired these purchases. There are several 5K's coming up this year and early next year in southern California, so I thought we would start training for them. We are doing the Couch to 5K program to start. We are also doing our P90X in between. I am pumped. 

It's raining today, so off to do P90X Cardio...

xoxo,

Mrs. B

I hate my body

Ugh. I hate this topic. But I need to talk about it.

I have always weighed around 155 lbs at 5'9". Healthy and fairly lean for my height. But the last two to three years, I have been slowly (although right now it seems quickly) gaining weight. I believe it is partially because my metabolism is slowing down, partially because I have slowed down on the exercise and mostly because I love food so much. I have no problem eating lean chicken, veggies & rice, but chicken fettucine alfredo at our favorite Italian place sounds so much better! I am up to 180 lbs now. Sigh.

So basically my weight problem is more of a will power problem. I have to tell myself every morning what I am going to eat all day. And I have to constantly remind myself how much I hate the way my body looks every time I prepare or order a meal. It's tough. I also need to get my exercise routine more stable. MH and I ride our bikes and we have a treadmill & P90X.

Now that we are trying to have a baby, it makes the weight loss issue even more complicated. I want to be pregnant and I want to lose weight. But those two things don't really go hand in hand. I guess that is the one positive to a failed cycle... I have more time to try and lose weight. I guess if I get pregnant, I will focus on a plan for after the baby is born so that I can get back down to my 155 lbs.

In the meantime, I am off to do P90X and eat a healthy lunch :)

"I've decided that perhaps I'm bulimic and just keep forgetting to purge." Paula Poundstone

xoxo,
Mrs. B

Foodie Friday: Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cake

A fellow Bumpie had a picture of this cake in her siggy, and it looked delicious! So I made it :) It's really good, but uses lots of butter so I will probably only make this once a season. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cake

Ingredients

Cake:

• 1 (18 1/4-ounce) package yellow cake mix
• 1 egg
• 8 tablespoons butter, melted

Filling:

• 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 8 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 (16-ounce) box powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine the cake mix, egg, and butter and mix well with an electric mixer. Pat the mixture into the bottom of a lightly greased 13 by 9-inch baking pan.

To make the filling: In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese and pumpkin until smooth. Add the eggs, vanilla, and butter, and beat together. Next, add the powdered sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and mix well. Spread pumpkin mixture over cake batter and bake for 40 to 50 minutes. Make sure not to overbake as the center should be a little gooey.

Serve with fresh whipped cream.