Tweet

A few weeks ago my husband and I were invited to go to a seafood festival in Everglades City, a little fishing village in the middle of nowhere in the Florida Everglades.
We arrived at our friend’s house half an hour late ( as usual ) with all the guys ( his friends) waiting for us ( oops). I was the only female in the group. My girlfriends were going to arrive a little later by car, while we took a leisurely 4 hour  sail by boat.
Hubby was, of course, the last one out. He has this amazing ability to always be the late, regardless of how early he starts gettting ready and if there’s a group of girls waiting for him who took 2 hours to do their make up and hair. He’s still the one we always wait for.

We finally took off. The boat was rented by J., who I knew through a mutual friend, who happens to be my NYC best friend’s dad and lives in Naples ( small world, right?). I know it’s super complicated, but isn’t it fun how you meet people via the most random ways possible. It was docked at his amazingly gorgeous 8000 square foot house ( you’d faint if you heard the price ). As we were started sailing I couldn’t help it but took a picture of it.

The way to the gulf through the canals took only 5 minutes, but I have to say the beauty of that place always blows my mind regardless of how many time I’ve seen it. I keep trying to remind myself that I am still in the continental United States and not somewhere in the tropical waters of the Caribbean and that it’s (OMG!) where I live.

This little island right before the opening into the Gulf of Mexico is my favorite little secluded beach. The sand is so soft and it always has a layer of super hot watery sand that you can roll around in and pretend you’re getting a mud bath.

Of course, they let me steer the yacht. Ok, no, who am I kidding, it’d totally freak me out. That thing was huge. This was the interior cabin and for some reason it had some of the controls here, though the capital was upstairs in the main area where he does his “capitain-y” things. { sorry I know nothing about boating, so my vocabulary there is very limited}

After about 3 hours we finally reached the Ten Thousand Islands, an area of Everglades that is covered with little canals among mangrove trees that make up literally 10 thousand islands.

Everyone is the group was about 20-30 years older than us, since they were all buddies of my friend’s dad, but that never really bothered us, since in our business we mostly deal with people twice our age and usually find more common ground with them than some of the couples in their twenties.

The Everglades City area is really a trashy place, in my opinion, very rednecky, God’n'Guns type of town, but it was fun to visit for a day just to see all the odd people gathered for the festival.

Thankfully, one of the guys was the owner of a local resort so we spent most of our time at the clubhouse, by the pool and at restaurants.

The resort itself was really beautiful. It had this old Key West type of feel with a lot of white and tropical colors. It was a heaven for a photographer. I posted the photos of the resort on my photography blog, Selfie Magic, so go over to check them out. They will warm you up if you’re still dealing with cold temperatures.

CLICK HERE

As soon as we arrived the first thing the guys did is raid the bar, and I ran all over the place snapping pictures. I think I heard a few of them laughing at me “Does she ever stop taking pictures?”. They all loved the pictures though. They kept asking me if I’d post them on Facebook haha.
I really couldn’t stop taking pictures. The sun was in the right place for all the shots throughout the day and i just kept snapping. By the way, all the shots were taken with my 50mm lens, in manual. I love that thing and refuse to use anything else.

Eventually, we took a golf cart into town to look at what this whole Seafood festival was about. There were a ton of very bizarre people, lots of local arts and crafts.

A small fair with people actually riding those awful looking things. I never understood why one would want to go on a ride in a local fair. Seems lame and, honestly, unsafe.

When we finally found the food, I refused to eat anything since it was buffet style but most people were happily enjoying local fish. I would have loved to try it if I didn’t see all the workers handling the food out in the open with no gloves and such. Yikes! I know I might be a snob when it comes to food, but I’d rather not indulge my taste buds, than  spend the night puking due to food poisoning.

When we were ready to go home, we realize someone took our golf cart, so we walked about 2-3 miles back to the resort, which was a nice small work out for the day.

When we arrived back, the other part of our group was still gone, so I took the time to do some self portraits in the beautiful settings of the resort.

Then the guys came back and demanded to be in the picture :)

We spent a few more minutes taking self portraits with hubby.

and as the sun was setting, we got ready to finally eat in a normal place with clean food :)

My two girlfriends finally arrived and took some pressure off of me being the only girl in the group. Trust me it’s tough when the attention of super roudy 50 year olds is on you.

Tweet

Another week of being a better person has gone by and some of you had successes, some of you had setbacks. It’s expected. It’s understandable.

We fall down, we brush ourselves off and we keep on going.

For those who had the strength to join Sonya and I today, you’re awesome!

If you’re new, WELCOME! Feel free to put your name down on our virtual list of participants here.

RULES:

1. If you haven’t yet, join the challenge here: GET FIT and GET HEALTHY
2. Every Saturday come back to The Art of Making a Baby and ShutterMama to read the tips on how to be fitter, healthier and more confident.
3. Weekly write a post about your progress, following the questionnaire below, take a self-portrait (optional) and link up with us.
4. Don’t forget to grab the GET FIT challenge button on the sidebar and display it proudly on your blog or GET FIT post.
5.  Link your post with Selfie Saturdays if you took your week’s self-portrait.  

____________________________________________________________________________________

So today I’d like to discuss something very important to me that changed the way I eat: Breakfast habits

I was never a big breakfast eater. None of that eggs, bacon, sausage patties + a stack of pancakes for me. I went through years of not eating breakfast at all ( not good), and then eating whatever I felt like (not good), until I finally stumbled onto a concept that made a lot of sense to me and changed my mornings completely.

That concept was introduced to me by an old book that my booker from the modeling agency gave me to read and follow before I could go to New York. A lot of things in that book shaped my current eating habits, but the idea behind the whole concept is what blew my mind.

Basically, as many of you might know, we eat for one reason and one reason alone: FOR ENERGY. Food shouldn’t be for pleasure or indulging. We were meant to eat food for survival. That’s why we have taste buds, and that’s why we find food so good tasting, because year after year of evolution  allowed only those to survive who were motivated enough to find their own food ( and honestly, would we want to hunt days and nights on end for food that doesn’t even taste good? I don’t think so). Actually sexual pleasure has the same reason. If sex didn’t feel good, how would we ever procreate in the stone age and continue our line?

So we eat food for ENERGY. Calories = Energy.

via Lisa Clark

However, 3500 unused calories equal 1 pound of fat. So next time you look at that scale and see that you’ve gained 1 pound, please know that it’s exactly 3500 calories that you ate that your body didn’t need and didn’t burn.

What many of you didn’t know is that there’s one process in our body that requires more energy (calories) to accomplish than anything else. It’s digestion. It’s a very complex and very important process, therefore our body puts a lot of priority on digesting your meal and extracting every possible nutrient and calorie it can. Have you noticed that how after a big meal ( Thanksgiving dinner, anyone?), every single person unbuttons their pants and goes into a coma. That’s your body at work prioritizing and taking the energy away from your body and giving it to your GI.

So that means we need food to have energy and we need energy to “have” food.

Now what happens in the morning is that we wake up from 8-10 hours of sleep without any expendable energy, because , well, we didn’t eat all night. Then most of us go ahead stuffing ourselves with eggs and bacon, and refined carbohydrates and syrup, mixing all that mess of protein and carbs and sugars in our tummy and expect it to digest. Except our body has no energy to digest it yet. The worst thing is meat has the toughest time digesting, especially when mixed with grains. We keep taxing our system like this day after day without even realising how much damage we’re doing to our colon.

Some people don’t eat breakfast at all, robbing their body of that needed energy to function first thing in the morning.

The solution is FRUIT. Fruit is the only thing that is partially digested in your mouth by saliva. So by the time it hits your stomach, it needs very little to finish digesting giving you a little burst of energy to continue functioning. Then in about an hour or less after the first breakfast, you can allow yourself to eat some of the heavier foods, being assured that your body can handle it.

Either way, it’s never a good idea to mix meats and starches and grains, they don’t digest well together, because they need different digestive juices. Meat and veggies, and grains and veggies is your best option. And I’d leave meat till later in the day anyways. So get up and before you even had your morning cup of coffee, have a fruit or two.

There’s a school of thought that believes that it’s important to have protein in the morning. That’s not a problem. Have the 1st breakfast of fruits (fruits alone, no sauces, no dipping, no sugar), and then continue in about an hour with your choice of protein.

I’ve been eating like this for 2 years now, and I gotta tell you, I’d never go back to no breakfast or heavy breakfast.

Cutting back on coffee is a good idea too, since most of you don’t realize how addicted your body is to the caffeine ( and anything that hinders your functions is never good). Apples has similar effects on a human brains as caffeine does, making you feel more awake in the morning.  My husband followed suit and quit coffee cold turkey after being a 2-3 cup drinker, and he had withdrawals for 5(!!!) days. He, as well declared that he’ll never go back to drinking caffeine after experiencing the kind of effect it has on your body. Coffee in itself isn’t that bad, but it’s the addiction and, how disabled it makes us feel if we don’t have it every morning, that is troubling.

Give me your thoughts on this!

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Now, my entry for week 4

1.  Height: 5’11″, weight: 132 lb  {-1lb, not good, need to get back to 133-135lbs}

_______________________________________________________________

NOW LINK UP!

Tweet

Do you guys LOVE getting mail?
Like going to the box and finding something there that is not junk?

Well, today I finally got an official acknowledgement from Blue Cross and Blue Shield that my new health insurance policy ( with maternity option) is going to start on March 1st!

That means that with my wisdom teeth gone and the insurance in force starting March 1, there is nothing holding us back from ditching birth control ( YIKES!) and doin’  THE NASTY!!!!

Well, except the 30 days waiting period before conception after the coverage starts ( but do we have to concentrate on that?). So the actual date WILL be April 1st like originally expected. But now it’s confirmed!

My thoughts on all this:

1. OMG Am I ready? I’m not ready! I don’t think I am ready! Shiiiiiit!!!!!  *breathe…*

2. Am I sure there isn’t something else I haven’t taken care of that I should prior to TTCing? (Vaccines-check! Pre-conception tests, blood work and physical- check! Can his boys swim?-YES! Dental work- check! A year of prenatals- check! Perfect eating habits- Check! Good fitness level- check! Maternity Coverage- (YAY!) MASSIVE CHECK! Ovulation schedule- Check! 3 pre-conception books and 5 pregnancy books read- CHECK! WOW I think I HAVE done it all! You can read about it here)

3.Do i want this? Is it time?  Am I sure? Shiiiiit!!! *breathe….*

4.  If we conceive in April (I know, long shot) according to my ovulation calendar, my due date would be around New Year’s. Not a good thing! Should we postpone it 1 month?

5. Man, we’ll get to have so much sex!!!!! I always want more sex than hubby. But I am not normal. I want to make this thing fun and not stress out about babies since all the planning is done and now it’s all about luck!

6.What am I thinking? I am not even recovered from my teeth surgery. Ay! It hurts…. :(

7.I still can’t believe that all the items on my Pre-conception to do list are done. It took a year of passive planning and 6 months of active planning to get fully ready for this, with the worst things being dental work and switching the health plan to the one with maternity coverage ( did I tell you BCBS health insurance sales people are morons and I had to literally research everything on my own and get answers from managers of managers? It was like pulling teeth)

And maybe soon, closer to the actuall start of TTCing I’ll tell you what we’re going to do to try and maximize our chances of having a girl.

Are you excited for us or what?

{self-portrait}

Tweet

Not just chocolate but chocolate mailed straight from Switzerland.

We have the best clients ever, that often turn into friends.

A Hungarian couple that lives in Switzerland who we helped buy a house not too far from our street ( Yay to fun foreign neighbors) sent us a little yellow package for Christmas: some of the finest Swiss chocolate.
And oh was it fine! All kinds of flavors and nuts and even alcohol, and my favorite was a simple 99c bar.
I spent months savoring it, eating it only with tea after dinner.
Now it’s gone.

But what I have left is a couple of clients turned friends who will soon be living across the golf course from me. Isn’t it fun!?

Oh and the girl is pregnant, so we’ll be having babies around the same age ( sort of).

Tweet

I think only when you’re sick and in need do you truly understand how important people you live with are.

While I’ve been suffering with pain and low grade fever ( pain due to swelling), my baby has been the most loving and comforting and accommodating I’ve ever seen him.
He’s been running back and forth from bringing me water and salt water rinses and liquid foods to working and answering the phone and closing loans and deals to lying down with me to give me some attention to cleaning the house!

I’ve been sick before but I’ve never seen him be so attentive. I think it has to do with the fact that men need to see proof to sympathize. So seeing me be the size of a 300lb woman in just my face alone (Why? read here), makes him realize that yes, I am in fact sick. I remember dying from pain from my root canal a year ago and while he was very sweet, it wasn’t to the same level and there was definitely a limit to his patience :)

I’ve been definitely taking advantage of his niceness. I don’t really need him to help me go to the bathroom, but i like the company so I call him. I could get my own ibuprofen on the bedside table, but if he’s around, I ask him. It’s comforting to have him around at all times… So sue me :)
I know I’m spoiled rotten, but how often do we get to feel like little princesses? I say not often enough! So I’m gonna milk it!

I love my rock star husband!

_____________________________________________________
Linking up with

Tweet

So my final step in preparation for pregnancy has been completed.
Or will be when I stop looking like a chipmunk.
I’m still waiting on the maternity coverage to get issued, but it’s supposed to start March 1st as far as I know.

The thing that weighed heavily on me was the whole wisdom teeth ordeal. I knew I had to get them out before pregnancy, since they’re all impacted. The price was an issue. $2800 just to pull 4 of my teeth. Yikes!
I had finally found a dentist that accepts both my dental plans, so my out-of-pocket so far has been $585, which isn’t miserable.
The problem was I really didn’t like him that much. He was weird and treated me like I was ten, asking questions that you’d only ask a little kid to keep him entertained. He had no bedside manner ( is there such a thing as bedside manner when it comes to dentists?) and was just downright strange.
It’s like he didn’t listen to a word I was saying and was moving soooo slow, and  kept repeating:
-”We’ll get to that!” 
- “No! Answer my damn questions!”

So after the first visit I was seriously debating scrapping this whole wisdom tooth idea and if they get infected during pregnancy, then so be it. The alternative was to pay $2800, or to get them  out with this weirdo!
Later as I discussed it with my husband who had been present at the initial appointment, we had come to a conclusion that the doctor HAD to be Asperger’s. He was just not normal in the way he talked, was so focused on this one thing he knew and just didn’t make any sense or listen to us. Now, people with Asperger’s tend to be really good at the one thing that they do, so I figured the fact that he’s a weirdo doesn’t mean he isn’t a good oral surgeon. So after a few hours googling him and talking to his receptionist, I decided that what the hell, the guy had been in business for 21 years, and all he does is pull teeth!
Oh by the way, another thing that irked me about his office is {brace yourself}
THEY DON’T DO EMAIL! or anything digital for that matter!
They still do Xrays in FILM! I volunteered to email them my panoramic X-rays from the previous dentist, so that I wasn’t charged an additional $150. AGAIN!
And I couldn’t because they have no access to email or anywhere they can download it from. He was blown away that i showed him my panoramic Xrays on my iphone and could zoom in :)

That just blows my mind! I love technology and to think that some businesses don’t email…I’m sorry that’s just absurd.

Anyways, I’m getting sidetracked…

I decided that I really needed the damn teeth out, because otherwise I’m sure they’d drive me crazy in the future, especially when pregnant. I sucked it up and went for my scheduled appointment yesterday.

It wasn’t THAT bad. Or I just have sedative induced amnesia. It kind of felt like getting a root canal done or something similar. A few times he had to REALLY pull and that sucked, but I was kind of loopy so it didn’t bother me that much.
The first day the pain was manageable. I took half the Vicodin pill they gave me before bed, since it was starting to really hurt and I woke up towards the morning to go to the bathroom and suddenly felt really nauseous and  collapsed.
I felt like a huge wave of heat hit me and sucked ALL the energy from me and then I had broken in sweat and “fell” on the floor. Hubby was there by then, since he heard me almost throw up ( sorry for the details), and covered me with the blanket as I lay on the floor. I’m telling you I have never felt anything like this in my life. The absolute lack of strength and energy that made it impossible to stand…it was crazy.
Hubby told me that my blood pressure must have suddenly dropped because of the sedative and the Vicodin combined with the fact that I hadn’t eaten or drank a thing since 10 pm the night before my surgery.
That made me want not to take any more Vicodin even more, and I don’t like strong pain killers to begin with.

I’ve been on 800 mg of Ibuprofen every six hours since then and have felt quite a great deal of pain, but honestly I’d rather suffer than take Vicodin again.

So for those, who have not gotten their wisdom teeth out yet, it’s not as scary as it seems. The whole process is pretty painless, it’s the recovery afterwards that can be a bitch, but still manageable.
I had all 4 teeth out at the same time, so all four surfaces of my mouth hurt. I am running a low grade fever and look like a total chipmunk, but my doctor said it’s completely normal.
I have no numbness or any other complications that we are always warned about.

All things considered I am happy I got it done and the dentist turned out to be pretty good and responsive despite his lack of social skills.

Picture below: me looking like a chipmunk {photoshopped, but that’s pretty much what I look like right now}

Tweet

Rules:

1. If you haven’t yet, join the challenge here: GET FIT and GET HEALTHY
2. Every Saturday come back to The Art of Making a Baby and ShutterMama to read the tips on how to be fitter, healthier and more confident.
3. Weekly write a post about your progress, following the questionnaire below, take a self-portrait (optional) and link up with us.
4. Don’t forget to grab the GET FIT challenge button on the sidebar and display it proudly on your blog or GET FIT post.
5.  Link your post with Selfie Saturdays if you took your week’s self-portrait.  

My week 3 entry 

1.  Height: 5’11″, weight: 133 lb  

2. Your  fitness challenge(s) for this week:  30 minutes of pilates every other day + 30 minutes of cardio ( rollerblading, running, swimming or treadmill) every other day. Special exercises designed for pregnancy to increase flexibility (daily) + Kegels (twice daily). A total of about an hour of physical activity a day.

3. Your health challenge(s) for this week: My eating habits are close to perfect,  however I could improve on my water intake. My goal will be 8 glasses of water daily + continue eating the way I do now.

4. How well did it go: Since I bought this Clean Kanteen bottle, I’ve been doing a lot better with my water intake. It houses 27 ounces of water, so it only take about 2 and a half bottles to fullfill my requirement. What I love about it, besides the look and colors, is that it’s free of anything harmful is stainless steel AND doesn’t taste like metal at all. I had used quite a few drinking bottles in the past and you could always taste the metal, especially if it sat out overnight. This one- NOTHING! Just the taste of water. Love it!

5. Failures and slip-ups: I was out of town for 3 days and wasn’t able to exercise. I did walk for 10 hours non-stop one day, so I guess that does count as a work out.
Foodwise, I did as good as one can do while eating outside of home, by buying from Whole Foods, but still not as good as i would have ate at home. 

6. Weekly challenge wisdom:  Don’t make excuses. Even if you’re not in a position to work out, don’t use it as a way of getting out of your work out. I could have done some exercises at my hotel room during those 3 days, but I didn’t. I regret that now.

7. Advice to fellow GET FIT members: Don’t lose sight of what’s important, which is your health, your fitness level and your lifestyle. Such things don’t only impact us, but our kids and families as well. It’s easy to get discouraged, or get tired, or lose sight of things, but you need to dig deep on keep on keeping on.

 8. Self Portrait, Couple’s Valentine Day Photo:

LINK UP

Tweet

This morning I found out that one of my photos entered into the above mentioned contest at Six Cherries was picked as a part of top two. I’m new at this , blogging, challenges and stuff, so it’d be very nice to win …or get into the top 4.

I am asking you to go to Six Cherries and vote for me there. It’d mean a lot to me. My photo is third from the top and voting is below the post. It takes only one vote from each person, so that’s all you’ll have to do. I won’t bug you from then on.

Thanks, guys! I appreciate your help!

Tweet

Valentine’s Day also happens to be our wedding anniversary, which makes it very hard to celebrate. You never know whether to keep saying “Happy Valentine’s day” or to correct yourself and add “and anniversary”. The fact that it’s our anniversary gets lost in a slew of heart shaped candy and red and pink madness. As romantic as it had seemed to get married on Valentine’s Day, it’s really more of a hassle.

But you deal with it.

We used to try and separate the  holidays and celebrate them apart in its own special way, but after a few years it was just too much work.

So now, we call it Valentine’s/Anniversary and make it one thing. The whole gift gifting thing stopped after a few years simply because, well if there’s something each one of us needs/wants we buy it. If we hadn’t bought it until now, then it’s too expensive and neither one of us would approve the expenditure. So we take trips: sometimes big ones, sometimes small ones, sometimes day trips.

This year, since I am back on the photography kick and we couldn’t get away for long, we decided to go to Universal Studios in Orlando, and then for VDAY Sarasota and Central Florida and spend the day touring their beautiful gardens and taking pictures. I was given a green light to take as many pictures as my little pink heart desires. AJ was wonderful and put up with all the pictures taking and participated in it like a champ with only a few pissy/exasperated comments that we, photography people, are oh so used to from our spouses regarding our picture taking habit.

The result is 948 breathtakingly beautiful pictures. The place we went to was out of this world. As we were walking out of it after a day of strolling around and taking pictures, I sighed “This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen in my life”.

We both agreed that OUR day was spent in the best way possible.

As soon as I get done editing all the pictures and sifting through a thousand of them, you will get to enjoy the special day with me.

Tweet

It is our 8th year together. Our 8th Valentine’s Day together and our 8th year of marriage.
Eight years seem like a lifetime and a blink of an eye. I know you so well, sometimes it seems we are one person.

You have grown so much in these 8 years, as a man, a husband and a friend.
We complete each other, and each other’s sentences.
We’re always on the same page.
We think the same thoughts, we fear the same things, we love the same stuff.

I absolutely love it when you come to me each morning and give me “morning kisses”, and then rush down to cut my “morning fruit”. It has become our routine, however it is never going to get boring.

I love how we have special names for each other, which evolved into more complicated and more adorable names over the years, and transformed into unpronounceable words that only you and I can undertstand and say.

I love how we know each other strengths and weaknesses and help each other do things we don’t like. I am good at research and marketing, you are great at sales. I’m a planner, you’re a procrastinator. I hate doing dishes, you don’t mind taking it over for me.

I love how we have the exact same parenting styles, even though we don’t have kids yet.

I love how you put up with my picture taking and actually get into it once in a while.

You are my best and my only one.
From the day we spoke on the phone for the first time at 3 am my time for 3 hours to this moment on.

I can’t imagine a more perfect man for me.

I LOVE YOU!

_____________________
Linking up with Say Hi Sunday and Sunday Snapshot