Natural cleaning

As we wait for our family to begin, we have been choosing much healthier options for our cooking and cleaning routines. We don't think that anything we are doing in our lives is PROBABLY contributing to our infertility but just on the off chance that it was... we are making some shifts.
We have always cooked healthily, always. We grow our own vegetables in the summer, we use whole grain EVERYTHING, we eat lots of veggies and low-fat dairy. We cook from scratch 5-6 days a week (we go out for a date night every week). So we weren't sure what changes could really benefit us. We looked into dairy-free, gluten-free, all organic, etc. and decided to make some lifestyle shifts.... to be discussed at another time.
One of the big shifts we have made is what we are using around the house. As it is the end of April and our garden is up and running, we decided this year to go completely organic with our soil and fertilizer. We did this mostly last year but couldn't resist the temptation of Miracle-Gro in the beginning. We have also switched to totally organic fertilizer and compost for the lawn (we will see how this goes in mid- July when we have weeds up the wazoo). We also decided to nix many of our home cleaners as I felt it wasn't safe for me to be breathing the fumes while trying to get pregnant. Now, here's a little tip that you probably never knew about me.... I have OCD tendencies... but they are only focused on certain things. I am not super clean around the house as my EXCELLENT house wife of a husband will tell you. You could follow the trail of what I did when I arrived home by the evidence of school bags, shoes, coats etc. And if you lived with me, you might think we had a poltergeist by the way I open every drawer and cabinet and then leave the room. Buuuuut, I do have certain things that I am borderline control-freak over. School is one of them... and BATHROOMS are the other. I have had a very certain way that I clean the bathroom since I was young. In fact, when I was about 10 I typed up instructions on how to clean the bathroom and taped them on the inside of the cabinets so that when it wasn't my turn, it would still be done right. Yikes. Needless to say, Mike doesn't even attempt this chore.
Ok, so the changes... I like a REALLY clean bathroom and so giving up my harsh stuff was tough but essential oils are one of the things that have made bathroom cleaning so much better! I love doTerra oils' On Guard cleaning concentrate. It smells awesome and has great disinfectant, anti-microbial properties. I know this for sure because we struggle with mildew in our shower and this spray once a week has drastically decreased it. I also use a daily shower spray with a mixture of half vinegar and water with a teaspoon of tea tree oil and a teaspoon of eucalyptus. This is used after each shower and keeps it smelling and looking clean until the weekend. The other AWESOME tip that has cut my cleaning in half is the use of what I call a dish "scrubby". It is the sponge thing that you put soap in to wash dishes. I bought one and filled it half with dawn dish soap and half vinegar and keep it in the shower. This RULES for cleaning the shower, bath and sinks. I spray the On Guard spray, let it sit and then scrub everything with the scrubby and then rinse/wipe down. This leaves everything sparkling, yay! Another great tip I got (all of these ideas from pinterest) was to put the toilet lid down on the toilet brush after using it to let it drain. This helps you not have that nasty toilet water in the bottom of your brush holder. Did I say I was OCD?

Ok, last thing. Cleaning your mattress!! This has always annoyed me as I am a weekly sheet washer... what about the mattress? Well, I have started using a mixture of baking soda and lavender oil in a mason jar. I poked holes in the lid with a nail, mix up the soda and oil and spread it on my mattress while washing sheets. then vacuum it up before putting them back on. This makes the mattress smell wonderful and apparently kills dust mites and other gross stuff. YAY FOR A CLEAN BED AND BATH...

So there is a glimpse into our weekly cleaning routine and a little insight into my OCD. :) Have a great week!

Infertility

This isn't an easy post to write... which is possibly why I have avoided posting anything for many months now. I have written and deleted or written and saved many entries that will never be read. I would have posted about the smaller things going on in our lives like the holidays or home projects but when the biggest thing in your life is so difficult, it makes it painful to post about anything else.
Infertility is such a terrible process that no one will understand unless they have been through the horror themselves. I didn't want to write about this publicly for exactly this reason. Blog posts are supposed to be happy and uplifting and have a positive ending, right? Well, I thought this until a few friends encouraged me to be raw, to be real, that it is not my responsibility to only write about the happy things in my life in order to support everyone else's idea about what my day-to-day is like. I have also learned so much about sharing struggles as a way to help others not feel so alone... So here I am, sharing our struggles and I hope that it will be met with open hearts.
As many of you know, Mike and I have been hoping to start a family for close to three years now. We have struggled to get pregnant and have gone through two very painful miscarriages. As of now we are seeing a reproductive endocrinologist, an reproductive acupuncturist, a counselor, and a support group. I am taking lots of medications that make me feel (and look) absolutely terrible, I am on restrictions of caffeine, alcohol and certain exercises. I am taking concoctions of herbs and teas, getting ultrasounds multiple times a month and am trying to keep my stress levels low. Insurance does not cover infertility in most states and the cost of the medications and procedures can be astronomical especially considering that they are not even close to being guaranteed to work. Our particular insurance is better than most being that Mike's company is from Massachusetts and they are a more forward thinking state. They actually recognize infertility as a disease to be treated. But as it turns out, they don't consider me infertile enough due to my two (failed) pregnancies. Who wants to get pregnant if it doesn't actually result in a child? We are frustrated, tired and not sure how to hold on to the hope of ever having a family with the many roadblocks facing us at every turn.
So this is us right now... trying to hold on our marriage in the wake of an infertility hurricane and trying to put on a happy face and be stress-free within waves of disappointments, failed treatments and pregnancies of friends and family all around us. This post isn't uplifting but it is honest and will hopefully break the ice for me to share more about our process. Maybe someone who reads this has been in a similar place and can offer hope or maybe there will be someone just starting out that just needs an understanding ear... I don't really know what to expect from sharing this information. I am hoping that we don't get a lot of unsolicited advice about relaxing or adoption as these are more complicated processes than you can possibly imagine. We do not need any judgmental comments about fertility procedures as related to religion or morality either, believe me, we are more than aware of the MANY factors involved here... I guess what I am hoping for is compassion and understanding through this very difficult time.

Summer Sun Tea

One of my favorite things about summer is the iced tea!! I crave it when the weather is hot and it reminds me of when I was little and my mom would always have a jar of sun tea sitting on the wall in our back yard. Having cold iced tea always available in the fridge as an alternative to water is one of the things that simply makes the summer for me (not to mention I am not the biggest water fan and if I can encourage myself to drink more liquids in some form, that is a plus!) A few summers ago on our visit to Lake Powell my mom had made the most AWESOME sun tea and I have been making it every summer since. I do not like my tea really sweet but sometimes just plain iced tea needs a pick-me-up. I am also trying to get swimsuit ready and do not need the added calories of honey or sugar (I am very against artificial sweeteners and refuse to use them in anything but gum). So here is the awesome concoction that I came up with for my tea with a sweet twist. I have a pitcher from Pampered Chef that I LOVE and it is perfect for this function. Fill it with hot water (makes the process faster) and just put in approximately 5 bags of green tea (caffeinated or not) with 2-3 (depending on how sweet you like it) bags of Good Earth's Sweet and Spicy Herbal Tea which is naturally caffeine free. Let it steep in the hot sunshine for a few hours and then put in the refrigerator immediately. Apparently there is some controversy over how safe it is to leave the tea out for a few hours because it can grow bacteria but growing up we never had a problem and so my motto is just to make sure to put it in the fridge immediately from the hot sun. In AZ or CO the tea makes pretty fast because the sun is so intense (probably why the bacteria isn't really an issue). This tea comes out refreshing and slightly sweet without adding ANY sweeteners and I LOVE IT. Try it out and let me know what you think :o) {from the pampered chef site} {from the TAZO website} {From the Good Earth webiste}

growing a garden

The garden is finally in! After months of taking care of the little seedlets in the basement then moving them outside to get them heartier we finally planted them in the grow box! Mike never ceases to amaze me with the little hidden talents that he has. We went back and forth about what kind of grow box we should have, I of course wanted the hardest, most expensive kind and he (as always) was the practical one. We ended up going with his decision with the caveat that we could always make it more glamourous in the coming years if this was something we were successful at. But Mike just whipped out this ability to build a grow box... just like that. He just picked out the wood, came home and bam- GROW BOX in like 1/2 an hour flat... shocking talent :-) I love me some handyman-ness. The successful part is the big question mark at this point because once we planted all my little green babies outside they suddenly looked like the tiniest plants anyone ever put in a garden... So who knows if they will really grow/thrive/produce vegetables... maybe next year we will go with already established plants... maybe we will decide that the farmer's market is cheaper and easier... who knows but at least we gave it a go right? Here's hoping for some awesome peppers and onions so that I can truly call it a SALSA GARDEN.

The sad plot

babies ready to move on up

skillzzzzz

looking good

salsa garden!! Can you even see the plants?!? lol

Spring time!

I love spring. It makes me happy. I feel like there is just so much more time to get things done and to enjoy being outside. Winter makes me grumpy and dreary and I am just really enjoying the sunshine and the fact that SUMMER is getting closer. After a long winter I always feel the need to freshen things up a bit and this year we did that in the bedroom with a new duvet (why did I never knew how much more awesome duvets and duvet covers were than comforters?? I love this thing!) and curtains from IKEA.... ok now, I might be REALLY behind on this excitement but I had never gone to IKEA before a few weeks ago. I thought of it as cheaply made furniture and crowded parking lots... ok so this is still true but HELLO, I loved some of their choices for decor! The fact that it was cheap didn't hurt either. Hooray for thrifty cuteness to brighten things up in April. ;) We are also (still) trying to figure out our furniture arrangements and have moved the entire house around trying to see the best fit... Now, what was our living room is sort of a computer/sitting room that I am not sure that I love but we decided it needed some tables. I thought it would be NO PROBLEM to get some old tables at the Salvation Army, sand and re-stain them and VIOALA, new living room furniture... Not so easy my friends.... three weeks later and I am still sanding and staining ONE stinking side table... I will post pictures when I feel that I have made enough progress to have something to show for it. We are also planting a salsa garden this summer (yaaaaay) so I have been growing peppers, onions, jalapeños and cilantro in my basement with my brand new grow-room, courtesy of Mike and his dad! We will be building grow boxes out back to transplant everything when Colorado stops snowing randomly. So that's that, new plants, new duvet love, new projects.... must be spring!

Growing a family. One year later

Yesterday marks the anniversary of a pretty dark day for us. As I look back on the events of one year ago, I have sad feelings and tender feelings, bitter feelings and even grateful feelings. It is interesting all the directions your mind can go when navigating something so deep and personal. Ultimately I have decided that I am not sorry we went through it, I wouldn't take it back or wish that it never happened to us. I think that it has made us a stronger couple and it has truly helped me realize that women need to speak up and support one another. Miscarriage is such a taboo word around women my age that are in that baby-making mode. It's like if they say it out loud, it might happen to them, or happen to them again. Through my experience I realized that women that have gone through such heartbreak are aching to connect with others, to know that they aren't alone and that their story isn't hopeless. As difficult as it is to share the details of such personal loss, I have found that people can come out of the woodwork with their own stories of grief and then stories of hope and happiness again. That needs to happen more often. Why are we so reluctant to talk about these things? Women see this as a failure. A friend of mine recently said that she just wants to be able to do the most natural thing that God made us for, to reproduce. It feels like we are not complete women, that in a different time without science and adoption, our dreams of motherhood would be lost. I am not sure if it is competition between us or shame of the "failure" that keeps us from reaching out to one another but I wish it were something that we would just get over already. The more we share those "failures", the less alone we are. My very best friend from high school called me as soon as she heard what had happened and I can not tell you how sweet her voice was to me. She had experienced multiple miscarriages in between her first and second child and just the fact that she could relate to my pain and knew immediately how much her words would carry me will always stay with me in the most cherished part of my heart. So where are we now in the whole scheme of things? I can not tell you how often I am asked, "So when are you guys going to try again?" or "Did you guys give up?" Seriously people? These are some of the most insensitive comments to a woman who lost a child and is not having success getting pregnant again. Now that it has been a year it is like it makes people uncomfortable that I am not pregnant yet. Like the pain that was just mine and could be kept on the inside where no one else had to look at it is now being worn on my clothing like a scarlet letter. You know how when people are uncomfortable they will inevitably try to ease the discomfort by offering advice? ugh. "Just relax". That is the best one. Thank you so much for telling me to do that. Before I was trying really hard to be stressed about it all and each month when I'm not pregnant just makes me more and more relaxed... so thank you for pointing that out. Really. Also, I think it is a scientific fact that when you have one woman trying and "failing" to get pregnant, five of her friends or family members will get pregnant by accident and then complain about the pregnancy/ child to said "failing" woman. I promise you, it is a fact. Although the above sounds cynical, Mike and I are trying to keep a sense of humor about the whole process. What else can you really do when you are going in for fertility testing and tracking your cycles like they are the newest trend? It's all very bizarre and so we are trying to keep it light and remember the positive things. Like... nothing is technically wrong with us (fertility stuff keeps coming back happy), we have more time to spend together, we might be able to take that vacation we keep talking about, we still get to sleep and have a glass of wine. But most of all we have learned that when we do become parents either naturally, through IVF or through adoption, we will be so grateful and have a deeper appreciation for what took so long and was so painful. I truly believe that this has taught me patience, how much I want to be a mother, how to reach out to others and that I am not in control, that I MUST give my worries over to and trust God. In the mean-time... I will just keep adopting puppies. :o)

well hello

Wow, I am terrible at this blogging thing. I guess that I just never feel that the trivial things that are going on in my life are worth sitting down at our computer to share with the one or two people that might actually read it. Well maybe that number is 0 now that I have have been an absentee writer for 6 months. Oh well, on with it. Instead of yada yada yada about what has happened in the last few months ( you know the drill anyway... school, stress, work, meetings, school, children etc.) I will just pick up as if I had been dutifully writing all along. We are gearing up for the Christmas season. Our house is looking festive. I absolutely love the holiday season for so many reasons, but putting up the decorations makes our pretty home that much warmer. We don't have enough furniture yet to fill up all of the corners of our house and the front room (that used to be formal dining room/ sitting room) is just sad and empty. My mom came for Thanksgiving and we bought the cutest accent table in a completely irrational color that I love. She also helped me break out of my creative stalemate and move our limited furniture in a way that breaks up the room a little better. Don't you love how moms do that? Now we have a cute little sitting area by the fire that is separate from the TV area along with the Christmas tree and it almost feels like an actual room. We also spruced up the upstairs bathroom which is another irrational move because that bathroom gets used about twice a year when we have enough guests that the guest bath is in use and we have to set up another bed in the empty rooms upstairs.... However, the bath turned out so cute that I want to force my guests to use that one instead of the guest bath downstairs :o) I am in love with gray and thought that this out-of-the-way bathroom would be a good place to experiment and now I am wanting to paint all of my walls in this cool, soothing color. We collected shells while in Provincetown on Cape Cod this summer. I had THE most amazing time on the Cape with my best friends and I decided I wanted to capture the feeling of perpetual peace and freedom by creating a beach bathroom. Now, if you have ever been to New England, their beaches are not the aqua blues and bright sunny yellows of California. New England beaches are misty and grey, lighthouses and lobster traps. I tried to capture some of that melancholic coloring but then accented it with a fresh lime green. I am very happy with how it turned out. So even though this blog is about furniture and paint it is my "just jump back in and type" moment so bear with me and I work off the rust.

love the color it adds to the room

my quiet little sitting room away from the football game :o)

sea stars make me smile

just be free!

this makes me take a deep breath...

I LOVE sea turtles... this little guy needs to be turned to the side.

My inspiration shells from {special place in my heart} the Cape