iamhealthiernow

Earlier this month I decided to create Mid-Year 2016 Goals . Things I wanted to accomplish before year-end. I am breaking these goals out each month, to make them more manageable and also to hold me accountable. Since I posted my goals, I made some tweaks to it and also added to them! I tried o make them more measurable, so it wasn't just "open ended." Here are my revised 2016 Mid-Year Goals:  Goal # Category 2016 Mid-Year Goals 1 Budgeting Project Budget: 1) Complete Budget before the month begins. 2) Reconcile at least 2x's a month. 3) Track budget items that go over/under. 2 Budgeting Project Debt Snowball: pay Debt #2 50% down 3 Budgeting Project Finish Smart Kids/Smart Money Book/Online Classes (6 lessons) 4 Decluttering Project House Decluttered: 1) Make monthly target goals to tackle clutter areas. 2) Have loft, extra room, and son's room clutter free. 5 Photo Booking Project Photo Booking: Family Year Book 2016. 1) Choose 10 pictures per month. 2) Storyboa...

As part of my August 2016 Goals , I wanted to start working on my 2016 Family Year Book and work on completing my son's adoption book. I'm happy to say that I've actually made progress on this!  Using My Mac Photos I haven't really been organizing my photos on my Mac. I started working on this a little bit and getting Photos in a good order. 2016 Family Year Book  I'm tasked with actual completing a Family Year Book! I've always wanted to make one and am so very excited that I have the opportunity to make one this year... a year where we have been a Forever Family :) Creating a photo book, yet alone a whole years worth of memories, is no easy task. I'm already years and years behind on moving these digital memories into a cohesive photo book. Small steps... and small tasks... will get me there (hopefully). For August, my task was to pick 10 photos ONLY for two months: July and August 2016. Luckily July and August weren't difficult to pick pictures from! ...

One of my goals this month (August 2016 ) was: Go through baby/toddler clothes, sort by size and label boxes I *thought* I had gotten rid of a bunch, but it turns out I've accumulated more than I've gotten rid of. Of course it's hard for me to get rid of any baby clothes because I might need them for a future foster child or future birth child. But it has gotten a bit out of control: Clothes were randomly thrown into boxes. Some folded, some not. Sizes were mixed together. There was no order in the madness!  The boxes of clothes were stored in different places. In a closet here, a closet there, under a bed.  It took me a few hours at night time to get through this project:  Empty all boxes Sort all clothes by sizes  Fold all clothes.  I have boy clothes from 0-3 months all the way to 3T. Then the problem I had was, " How do I store all these items? " Some options were: clear plastic bins (which can still be bulky and $$), still use the cardboard boxes I have, or...

Just when I thought I knew everything there was to know about my uterus, something new comes up! Endo Scratch  After my endometrial scratch last Friday, I had cramping for a few hours after the procedure. I also started spotting, almost was like a light period. I'm still spotting a little today - 6 days after the procedure, which isn't really "normal." At the scratch, they took a uterine biopsy. I totally forgot about it until I received a call from the nurse with the results.  Biopsy Results  Originally I wasn't worried about the biopsy. Figured everything would be normal. It's always the procedures/tests that I don't worry about where I should have worried about it! Turns out I have Chronic Endometritis. What? At first, I wasn't concerned. The nurse made it seem like not a big deal. Go on antibiotics, continue on FET protocol as scheduled, and that's it. It's not going to impact my cycle? Well, good. Then, it's nothing to worry about. Ri...

As part of my budgeting project , I stopped my gym membership . I needed to find places to cut costs and I haven't been attending the gym in forever! I do have to say, that before kids, I did go to the gym 5-6x's a week and really utilized it well. At that time I felt like the cost was justified. I had a good monthly cost of $19.99/month. But when life got busy (I started TTC or my volunteer commitment or foster care obligations) and I stopped going. I made the gym work previously because I would use my lunch-hour to go to the gym. With new obligations, my lunch hour was going to my TTC appointments, my volunteer activities, or ushering my foster kids to appointments. There just wasn't enough time in the day to make the gym work. I was always hesitant to stop my membership because I knew I had a great monthly cost. Most gym memberships are $30+ a month. Well, I just received notice that my gym will let me re-start my membership at the same monthly cost, no initiation charge...

For the most part, my son has been very easy. Transitioning to a crib from the bassinet = Easy Transitioning from a bottle to a cup = Easy Transitioning from formula to milk = Easy Transitioning from crib to toddler bed = Easy He's taken transitions and changes like a champ. Then came potty training entered our lives.....!!!!! My easy, adaptable, child = GONE . Potty training has been like a war zone. There have been casualties. We've lost some beloved pants and underwear through this process. I first introduced potty training in March/April . At first, I thought, "Oh, he has this! This is going to be Easy!" NOPE! Wrong. At first, things were going lovely. He was totally getting it. He had hardly no accidents. Then BAM. it started to become a battle. I didn't want potty training to be a war between us. So, I started to back-off a bit on the potty training. It didn't help that daycare didn't want to help with the potty training at the time. So, I think it w...

I've been working on trying to give my son some "independence." Meaning, letting him do things on his own without me pestering him :) To help with this, I made some changes to make things more accessible to my son: 1) Used a command hook so my son can hang his towel himself in the bathroom. Even added a little letter for him. Saw this on Pinterest. Now he can hang up his own towel. He loves hanging his own towel and really likes that his letter is there. It looks crooked! But it's not, it's just the angle of my camera. :) 2) Saw this trick I saw on Pinterest to put kid's toothbrush lower and under the sink. She used Velcro and attached to the cabinet door. http://livingwellmom.com/2013/10/organizing-toothbrushes-toothpaste-out-of-sight/ I was going to do the exact same thing, but when I was at the store, I decided to just use an over-the-door basket instead. I only have one child for now, so this will do. If I have more and this doesn't work anymore, I wil...

Since I had my FET appointment today, I thought I'd gift them with my sharps containers. I've been meaning to bring them for awhile now, but kept forgetting. Not even sure which cycles these sharps containers are from. But here are three of them: Endometrial Scratch Saying I was a "little" anxious/worried about this appointment was an understatement. I had NO CLUE what to expect from this darn scratchy thing. I just hate pain and knew I'd feel some. The first thing we did was the Endo Scratch. My RE tries to "relax" me by having some small talk, but it actually didn't work - it made me distracted more! LOL. As many times as I've had that darn speculum put in, it is still uncomfortable every-single-time! Ugh. I don't know how to really "explain" the scratch. But basically, he cleaned off my cervix, put a catheter-type thing through my cervix into my uterus, then did this "windshield wiper" technique. It hurt. I had my eyes ...

I had an interesting medication situation this cycle. I had to order from 3 different pharmacies (since my old insurance is going away). Order #1 (Old Pharmacy) Ordered: Lupron, Medrol, Vivelle Patches, Progesterone Suppositories. It arrived today: The box is so small compared to the IVF full retrieval box! Not many meds. Order #2 (Local Pharmacy) For the FET, I have to take a Diazepam/Valium an hour before the procedure. They don't carry that at the speciality pharmacy, so I ordered it with my local pharmacy. Order #3 (New Pharmacy) Progesterone In Oil (PIO) has a short shelf-life of about 30 days. Since I'm not starting PIO until next month, there was no point in ordering it now as it would just go bad. So, I need to place an order with the new pharmacy for delivery sometime next month. I still need to call them, going to try getting that done tomorrow. Tomorrow is the Endometrial Scratch, which has me freaking out a bit. Trying not to over think it and just go with it. This ...

In my TTC, I just never know what to expect! Recently I've been going into each appointment with an "idea" of the drastically different directions a cycle can go depending on the results of the procedure or monitoring. Today, I had a saline ultrasound (SHG aka Sonohysterogram). Basically they insert fluid (saline) into your uterus to see if there are any uterine defects (polyps or fibroids). It's my 3rd one since I started my TTC journey. First one was for pre-testing , second one was prior to starting IVF#1 , and now this third one prior to FET #2.  At my first SHG, they found a uterine defect, which turned out to be a polyp. Which delayed my first IUI by 4 months. I had a hysteroscopy to remove a polyp.  Now that I've been TTC, I know that polyps can grow back. I also know that I  do not have to remove a polyp, if I don't want to. I also know that polyps decrease chances of implantation (since they can be attached to the uterus where the embryo would implan...

I've been thinking a lot about Little Guy's adoption and communicating with his birth family. I haven't written much about it on my blog, although it's been on my mind a lot. Since my son was adopted from fostercare, his birth parents didn't voluntarily put him up for adoption. We went from court hearing to court hearing for 18 months until the very last one to terminate parental rights (TPR). It was at this hearing where his birth parents stopped fighting and expressed interest in me adopting him. For more on the specifics of our adoption, see my Adoption Timeline . At the time of the TPR trial, there was also discussion about communication post-adoption. We do not have an official post adoption agreement. But verbally, I agreed to some sort of communication, but was not specific. I set up an email address and a PO Box for them to communicate with me.  My son's birth mother has consistently written... Almost at an obsessive level. We receive multiple letters a ...