The Second Illness is Upon Us :(

Alex is sick again...her second illness ever. This time it's a cold-and hopefully it will stay a cold and not progress into something else like last time. She woke up tonight at 11:30 pm crying because her nose was stuffy. My poor little monkey. So we sat on the couch together for awhile, had some bottle, some children's Tylenol and, for the moment, she is sleeping peacefully. Keeping my fingers crossed that this stays mild, as my cold did. Still kind of paranoid after the whole pneumonia diagnosis a month ago. No coughing though-just a runny nose and sneezing-which were pretty much my only symptoms.

Oh...I forgot to mention that Dan is still out of town on business, so it's just me tonight. Looks like it could be a long one! I have to try to resist the urge to let her sleep in my bed for the rest of it-when they're sick, you just kind of want to keep them close!

What To Do, What To Do....

Loving her pups

Sitting up like a big girl & playing with her toys!

Alex's first time at the park. She loved the swing!

Dan is out of town; he's on a business trip to NYC. Usually these trips are only one night; however, Dan left at 6am yesterday and doesn't come home until midnight on Friday. Bleh. The house is super quiet without him around and I am getting kind of bored. Granted, I'm not doing much, myself, because I am fighting a cold and trying to get Alexandra to take it easy so she doesn't get said cold. So yeah-I'm going a little bit stir-crazy....hence this hodge-podge of a post. I'm thinking that I might shoot out to Wegmans today, though, and buy stuff to make pumpkin bread with chocolate chips. It's a good day for baking-cloudy and kind of fall-like.

We have a busy weekend ahead though-so hopefully I'm feeling better and hopefully Dan and Alex don't come down with this cold. Tomorrow, my friend Colleen and I are going to the State Fair (mom is watching Alex), Saturday, I have a wedding shower to go to and we have a surprise party to go to at night and Sunday we have another party. So I guess I should just revel in my boredom for today and just rest.

Oh...on a positive note....I lost 5 pounds in 9 days :) And only a few more weeks until we go back to our fertility specialist. If I keep this rate up, I will be well past pre-pregnancy weight! Could make getting pregnant easier!

I Just Never Knew...

....how quickly calories could add up before I began tracking them online! Seriously-it's amazing how a cookie here, a cracker there, can add up! I generally eat healthy-but I am a grazer. I snag a little something throughout the day and don't think too much about it. It's amazing how much more conscientious I am about what I eat when I actually have to track it!

Anyway, hooray for me because in three days-I have lost three pounds (granted, I'm drinking 100 fl oz of water, which I'm SURE has something to do with it)! I know I know-you shouldn't lose more than two in a week and all that, but I needed a kick start. And I'm being healthy-just exercising and sticking to about 1200 calories a day. It was getting frustrating before, when I *thought* that I was being healthy and not losing anything; but again, I don't think I really added up all of those little snacks. Apparently I thought all those calories went into a black hole or something.

I'm happy though, kind of feel like I'm back in the zone. Which is what I need since I have about five or six weeks to go before we see the RE again. I really want to be back to my pre-pregnancy weight when I go back. And, of course, losing some weight will only benefit me in terms of pcos.

Wish me luck, ladies! I am determined NOT to fall off the wagon OR become completely obsessed with it. I just want to have a healthy life which means healthy body and healthy mind ;)

It's Official...

...Back to school season is officially in full swing. Why is this important, you ask? Well, like for all the kids out there, this marks the winding down of summer. As a school psychologist I, too, have to go back to school-er-work. And just like most kids, I have mixed emotions about going back.

On one hand, it will be nice to be on a set schedule again. Gone will be the "willy nilly" days of summer where Alex and I are in bed until 9:30 and laze right through the morning. Yep-they will be no more, baring the weekends. Instead, it will be me getting up at six, getting ready, leaving my baby girl at home with her daddy and sitter, and doing the whole commute thing. There are certain things I look forward to though, I must be honest. I like my morning commute, listening to my early morning radio shows and having a cup of coffee. I like hanging out with my friends/colleagues before the kids arrive-inevitably drinking more coffee. I enjoy the work-the counseling and the evaluations and using my brain for something different than what I use it for domestically-which is not to say one thing is better than the other. Anyway, it's a bittersweet time because I'm a tiny (I mean tiny) bit excited about going back....but know that the novelty will wear off and that I will just want to be with Alex all day again.

The saving grace is that I do love fall and I love the progression into the holidays. Right now, the tree in our side yard is *just* beginning to change colors-which fills me with excitement and dread, in equal measures. I love the cool, crisp air, apple picking and pumpkin picking. I adore walking into the house and the crock-pot being full of something rich and hearty-and having the smells waft through the house. I love fall cooking. I love sweaters and scarves. I love the first frost and warm apple crisp and homemade applesauce. I love Halloween decorations and Halloween parties. I cannot wait to see Alex in her first Halloween costume and "carving" her first pumpkin. I love the way that the air smells in the fall-like smoke and leaves. And Thanksgiving this year-well-I am truly thankful to have a wonderful husband and a beautiful baby to share the day with.

So yes, it's exciting and sad to see all the "back to school" sales and ads. Life is marching on though and I can't live in summer limbo forever. Here's to hoping that this school year is a good one-and not too stressful!

Jealous???

I think I might have new baby envy?! Friends of ours are due to have their baby any minute-they're overdue really. I keep remembering the excitement of that time-of thinking about what the baby will look like and sound like. The excitement of adding a whole new person to the family and to your life (I think I have conveniently blocked out the sleepless nights though). I guess I'm surprised that the feeling of envy struck me this early. I didn't expect it for another six months at least. So perhaps I'm more ready than I had thought to go back to our fertility specialist.

I've been really torn between wanting to have another child, to complete our family....and wanting to keep Alexandra an only child for a little bit longer. I really am just enjoying us being a family of three and probably would be content with this for a few years longer. But the reality is-I don't know how long it will take to get pregnant this time around. I don't know what we'll be facing. Will it be easy? Will it be a long and difficult process? Will I have any more losses? Despite these worries and some conflicting feelings, I think we're ready to move ahead. It's kind of one of those things where you sometimes just have to jump feet first in and stop agonizing over the decision...and just hope for the best....

Outback Pictures

This is a typical, old-school, Queensland style house

See the Emu?

Yes, this is a real road and there are cows in our way

An uninterrupted view as far as the eye can see

Alex, hamming it up ;)

One of our very fun dirt roads

In Tambo

Another typical western house

One of my favorite pictures, Alex very happy after coming out of the hot spring

Alex and Auntie Genevieve in the spring. In this picture, you can't see the water being pumped into the pool from the ground, unfortunately

Alex and the bull, right before she grabbed his horns

Animal training demonstration

Watching the dog shepard the sheep....onto the bus?

The general store in Long Reach

The inside of the store-looks like a display, doesn't it?

Where we stayed our first night

Drive through bottle shop-something we're missing in NY

Dan and his sisters

Mmmm....meat pies with tomato sauce! Something the U.S. is missing!

Looks like the tourist center in Alpha is doing a lot of business, doesn't it?

Our Outback Adventure!

Despite this trip being my fifth or sixth to Australia, I had yet to really venture into the outback. Mostly, we just stayed on the coast near all the beaches and hot spots. For those who aren't familiar with Australia, the vast (vast) majority of the population lives on the coasts-mostly the east coast. The outback certainly is not a buzzing metropolis. It's mostly miners (along with small mine towns) and cattle country. Cattle stations can be hundreds of miles from each other. Anyway, I did want to get the outback experience so Dan, Alex, Veronica, Genevieve (Dan's two sisters), Shannon (Veronica's husband) and I went for a road trip.

We had a great time. The outback is a gorgeous, desolate place. The first day was mostly a driving day. We stopped in a town called Alpha for some lunch, which of course consisted of nothing other than meat pies. Americans do NOT know what they are missing with meat pies-they are scrumptious. Dan and I keep joking that we are going to open an Aussie eatery with various flavors of meat pies, sausage rolls, chips w/ sweet chili sauce and sour cream, kebabs (not kebobs...totally different), Lamingtons, Pavlova, dapper, etc. We would do a killing, I reckon. Ok, tangent done. We continued driving out to Long Reach, where we spent the night in a little cabin in the desert. Beautiful beautiful beautiful. Of course, that night we went for steaks at the local pub, as we were in cattle country.

The next day went to the "Stockman's Hall of Fame" where we were able to go through a museum which focuses on the history of the outback. I was particularly fascinated with the early women settlers of the outback. It's amazing what they had to cope with in terms of living conditions. We also saw a demonstration of how animals are trained....we even got to see a dog shepard sheep.

After that, we stopped in another pub, had a few pints and a burger and went to a nearby town (can't remember the name right now) that had a natural artisan well with a hot spring. After a long day of driving the day before, we couldn't resist. We jumped into our suits and enjoyed the spring. It was so nice and warm, but not too hot. Alex loved it. She kept laughing at the bubbles and was kicking like crazy. After that, we drove to Tambo, where we stayed the night. Tambo is a very small western mining town. Veronica's husband, Shannon, is incidentally from Tambo-his dad is/was a miner. We went to the local pub, got some dinner, hung out with some locals and had a good time.

The next day, we got a nice breakfast and Shannon called a woman he knows in order to open up her shop. This woman sells something called "Tambo Teddies". About fifteen years ago, a group of women got together and pitched ideas to make money for themselves and to improve employment in the town. They came up with the idea of making teddy bears 100% out of local wool. Each bear comes with a number, which is registered to the person who bought it, and a name. The name consists of an outback station name with a normal name. For example, we bought "Ercidoune Elliot". Ercidoune being the station. So-Alex got to take home her very own, original, handmade Tambo teddy.

The rest of the day, we just drove around seeing the sights and slowly worked our way home. We took several dirt roads, which was really neat because you saw so much more of the raw outback, than if you were on a paved, main road. We saw dozens of 'roos and a few emus too. In all, the trip was very successful! I'll post some pics, because there's no point in trying to describe the sights if there are pics!