Mine was not bad. My husband went back to work yesterday (after one month off) and so I’m still adjusting to our new routine. I started working again after maternity leave next month and I’m still navigating the changes that come with working part time while taking care of two babies all day long.
My favorite things from this week include:
1. Dalila’s birthday party
This was technically last week, on Saturday, but I’m including it here. Unfortunately, some of our favorite people couldn’t attend so we were a smaller group than last year (about 16 people, instead of 30+) but we still had so much fun. We also ended up having to have the party inside because it was very cold, windy and rainy, but we made it work. I have no idea what we would have done if everyone had come the party as we certainly can’t fit 30+ people in our house. We went with a cat theme since cats are one of Dalila’s favorite things. Here’s some pictures:
Yummy foodParty favors (assorted candy)The most delicious red velvet cakeMore cats!
2. Pizza date with friends
On Monday, we went on an impromptu pizza date with our friends (Olívia’s godparents) and it was really great. The pizza was good and the company was even better.
3. Annie in Paris by Carmen Reid
I’m a huge fan of the Annie Valentine series and I devoured the new book in two days. Annie is a frazzled, busy, fashionable, funny mom of four and I can 100% relate to her (except for the fashionable part).
4. Olívia rolling over and Dalila owning everything around here
So far she’s just rolling front to back (probably because she hates being on her tummy) and it’s the cutest thing. As for Dalila, she has started saying “it’s mine” about everything, especially her sister’s toys. She also tried to brush her sister’s non-existent teeth last night, which was the funniest thing ever.
5. Banana Bread
I have *finally* made a good enough to eat banana bread. I wish I had taken a picture but Rui and I literally ate the whole thing in one afternoon (I’m honestly hopeless around carbs) so it didn’t live long enough to be photographed. Dalila thought it was “yuuuck”, though. I’m definitely making this recipe again next time I need to save a couple of bananas.
Weekend plans include working (only 4-5 hours total), house cleaning, grocery shopping, laundry and celebrating Mother’s Day on Sunday.
Today I’m linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl and telling you all the petty reasons why I DNF a book. Here’s my list:
1. Poor grammar and too many spelling mistakes.
If the book is so poorly written that I’m spending most of my time mentally proofreading it, I definitely won’t finish it.
2. It makes me angry.
Looking at you, Fifty Shades of Gray. I mean, I wasn’t expecting a literary masterpiece, I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. If you know me, you know I don’t like being told what to do, so it probably doesn’t come as a surprise that I tossed it aside as soon as I realized Christian had a set of written rules for Anastasia. Because I clearly don’t learn from my mistakes, I still watched all four movies and hated every moment.
3. There’s a very obvious male saviour.
If you read a lot, you’re probably very familiar with the concept. Nice girl is in a bit of a pickle, meets a kind man who’s going to make everything better. He’s usually kinder than any men she’s ever met and will treat her with all the love that she’s always deserved but never got. It’s very sad that this is usually written by female authors too. I’d rather read about a strong woman who WANTS a man but DOES NOT NEED one because she’s more than capable of handling her own crap, thank you very much.
4. Too many clichés.
I mean, if it feels like I’ve read it before, it’s not for me. Even though I’m a millennial, I also get SUPER annoyed if they mention basic millennial things too much. If the characters call each other babe, speak in hashtags and drink nothing but Starbucks and watch too much Netflix, I get very mad. Am I petty or what?
5. The book is just too boring.
If the story is putting me to sleep (and I suffer from insomnia), I’m going to put me out of my misery and just find something more exciting.
6. It’s too painful for me as a mother.
Since becoming a mom, I can’t read books about kids losing their parents or vice versa, it just hits too close and I keep picturing my daughters going through the same. I made the mistake of reading The Midwife of Auschwitz (a wonderful book, btw) while pregnant and I’m still recovering from it. I guess this is not exactly petty but it’s definitely one of the main reasons I might not finish a book.
What about you? What are your main reasons for not finishing a book?
I’d love to know what books you were unable to finish and the reason for it.
I’ve decided to cut way back on my blogging, mainly because I don’t have a lot of free time now that I’m back at work. I’m working no more than 10-12 hours a week, but the kids and the house keep me pretty busy. I’m also taking driving lessons, having weekly therapy sessions (they do take a toll on me) and now studying for a biology exam I’m taking in May (I’ve just been accepted to take a college admission exam and I might finally transition to a healthcare career in the next couple of years). I love to keep busy and promise I’m thriving on having so much going on. Blogging is simply not a priority right now. Honestly, with whatever free time I have, I much prefer to spend it reading books.
With that said, my blog schedule is now:
Tuesdays: Top Ten Tuesday (my absolute favorite bookish linkup)
Fridays: Friday Favorites (a linkup and weekly update)
Occasionally: Book reviews, random life stuff and WordPress prompts, whatever I feel like.
Good morning, everyone! (it’s 11.48 am when I’m starting this post)
Honestly, it feels like afternoon to me because I started working at 7.30 this morning. Olívia wake up to eat somewhere around 3 am so I didn’t really get much sleep last night. I’ll try to sneak in a nap with the girls later.
I haven’t been blogging much, mostly because I’ve been busy and also because I haven’t really felt like it. These days, at 32 years old, I’m not big on making myself do things I don’t want to do, unless they’re an obligation, which blogging is not.
This is what’s been happening around here:
1. Postpartum Health Check
Last week I finally went for my postpartum bloodwork, which I should have gotten done back in January. Because I suffered from gestational diabetes in both pregnancies, I had to do a very thorough glucose test, where they took my blood (while fasting), made me drink this nasty sugary concoction and then drew some blood every 30 minutes for 2.5 hours. Thankfully, the test was negative for diabetes, which I’m still at high risk of developing after my pregnancies. My thyroid is also fine, after suffering from hypothyroidism in both pregnancies. My pregnancies sound like they were so much fun, don’t they?
Anyways, not all was well. It turned out that my iron levels are extremely low (they should be somewhere between 30 and 300 and they were at 5), which made me a little worried. I couldn’t get a hold of either my gynecologist/obstetrician or endocrinologist so I immediately scheduled an appointment with a general practitioner, who basically told me I was not dying, I just needed to take an iron supplement for a while. The next day, my gyno called and said she’d be more comfortable if I went to see a hematologist, so I scheduled an appointment with the one she recommended. Luckily, I got an appointment for a couple of days later. The blood doctor turned out to be quite the character and we spent most of the appointment talking about our kids, I absolutely loved her. She told me my iron levels were indeed very low but that, since my hemoglobin level was good, I wasn’t actually anemic, just needed to replenish my iron reserves by taking a daily pill. She also told me that I needed to get on the birth control pill, otherwise I’d keep having very abundant periods (apparently one of the causes for my low iron) so I’ll be starting it on my next period. I’m hoping it will also make me less bitchy as my hormones have been a little wacky lately. Finally, she told me my vitamin D levels are also extremely low, so I’m taking a monthly dose of it and was advised to go to the beach as much as possible in the Summer (I laughed because it made me think of Ken in the Barbie movie “my job is beach”).
TLDR: I don’t have diabetes, my iron levels and vitamin D are very low so I’m taking supplements and I need to get on the BCP so I don’t bleed like a pig when I have my period.
2. Redecorating
We’ve been taking advantage of my husband being on paternity leave to change a few things around the house. Our tiny house was more than enough for us when we first moved but it has since become too small for our family of 4 + medium sized dog.
Last month, we decided to start looking at houses to buy but ultimately decided we’d stay put for now, as the market is absolutely insane right now. Because we can’t really stretch this one house we’re finding ways to better utilize the space we do have. We ended up buying a bigger couch (which doubles as a guest bed) and new living room rug. We spend a lot of time in our living room and I wanted a bigger, more comfortable couch and a larger area rug so we can sit on the floor and play. Here’s some before and after pics:
Obvious, the living room was picked up and vacuumed before taking pictures. Things don’t usually look this tidy.
Now, I’m still looking for a couple more couch cushions, a nice throw and some new cabinets for the dinning room side but it’s already looking so much better and more spacious. It also helps that I decided to transfer all of the kids’ toys to their room and just bring out a little box of toys each day. Less clutter around.
I’m not sure how long we’ll keep the couch and rug in pristine condition, though. The whole family is currently forbidden from stepping on the rug with even slippers on, and food and drinks are absolutely not allowed on the couch, unless the kids are sleeping and can’t see us breaking the rules. Hopefully, no one will spill anything on it for at least a couple of weeks.
(As I type this, I just remembered someone had a diaper leak on my new rug just this morning. I won’t name names, I’ll just say it wasn’t me or my husband)
Days without peeing on the new rug: 8 0
Oh, we also have a new kitchen side table which we had to almost fight an old lady for. We were in the process of buying it (on our way to our first date night in months so picture us carrying it to the car while very overdressed) when an old lady approaches and says “oh, I was coming to buy that one!” to which my husband proceeded to ask “had you asked them to save it for you?” and to which I wanted to reply “mam, you’re not going to live long enough to enjoy it”. She hadn’t asked the store to hold it for her, so we ended up getting it, the last one, at 50% off. I honestly have never seen my husband so happy. Our wedding day and the birth of our daughters don’t compare to that moment of pure joy.
Here she is: (the table, not the old lady)
TLDR: We have a new couch and rug, someone already peed on the rug and we fought an old lady for a piece of furniture and won.
3. The New Therapist
Readers, I’ve changed therapists again. My ex-new therapist was lovely, but I wasn’t feeling 100% feeling it, so I decided to try someone new. I chose someone with more experience (30 more years, to be exact) and a male, for a change. We’ve had one session so far and I can honestly tell you that those 30 years of experience do make a difference. I have a little guilt about breaking up with my previous therapist but I feel like therapy doesn’t really work unless you find the right therapist for you.
TLDR: I’m a therapy whore.
4. Olívia is eating solids now
And by eating, I mean making faces and spitting everything out. We tried to feed her rice cereal for the first time yesterday, and she basically told me to eat it myself. Today she’s having vegetable soup/purée (potato, carrot, lettuce and onion) for lunch so we’ll see how that goes. I didn’t really want to start solids until she’s 6 months old but her pediatrician advised us to replace two of her daily meals with vegetable purée (we call it soup and that’s how everyone mostly weans their babies here) and baby rice cereal to help with her spitting up. We’ll probably do what we did with Dalila which was a mix of purées and Baby led weaning, meaning we’ll mostly feed her purées for now and then give her fruits and veggies to eat by hand after she’s 6 months old.
TLDR: Babies don’t keep.
Update: Olívia has since eaten her lunch and absolutely loved her soup. She couldn’t get enough of it. I’m very pleased.
I’m sure I have more to update you on but this post is already too long. I’ll be back soon.
Love,
Cheila
P.S. I’m writing this post on my phone, on 3 hours of sleep so there’s probably many spelling mistakes and grammar issues. I’m just saying this to defend my honor as an English teacher. Bye.
Having anxiety, there’s plenty of things that make me nervous, to be honest.
Some of them include:
– Places where people swim without a lifeguard present. Private pools, river beaches, lakes, etc.
– Driving or being in a car.
– Making or taking phone calls.
– Plane takeoff and landing.
– Being on camera.
– My babies being sick, even if it’s just a cold.
– People possibly choking on their food (for some reason I’m always expecting to have to perform the Heimlich maneuver, even though no one has ever choked in front of me)
– My daughters crying or throwing a tantrum in public. I’m not bothering by anyone else’s kids being noisy but I’m always worried mine might be bothering someone.
– Alcohol. I don’t drink and I get a little nervous when people around me are drinking.
I’m sure there’s plenty more but this is what I managed to come up with right now.
Pink for Days 