Friday, March 11, 2016

Fezzik, Pregnancy Hacks, and Lent (7QT)

Happy Friday, everyone! I hope that you are all doing well. I have been thinking some deepish thoughts lately that I'll probably blog about someday, but in the meantime, I figured I'd share some not-so-deep thoughts and life updates with y'all! Don't forget to visit Kelly's blog for some other takes from the internet's great bloggers!


1. First off: holy smokin' incense, people! Where is Lent going??
I have this reaction pretty much every year. Lent just always seems to fly by for me, and I don't understand how this happens time and time again. My Lent has been fairly peaceful; there have been tougher moments of growth (hard, but awesome) and bright sunny moments of serenity. I haven't been getting to daily Mass as much as I had planned this Lent, but there's always tomorrow, right?

 2. Do you fail at being athletic? Me too! Yet-there is so much hope for us.
I am happy for athletic people who, even when they are not "in shape," can do some magnificent physical stunt of awesomeness. That's a beautiful gift, and I was not blessed with it. I am also happy for all of those people who run 5ks, marathons, and half-marathons. That's an awesome achievement, and one that I am happy to live without! I do very tame (as in, super tame) workouts in my living room twice a week, as well as different pregnancy exercises, but that's about it.
As Fezzik said so well. 
Our prizes: super cute burp cloths
handmade by our teacher! 
Point being: about a month ago, when I heard that our childbirth class was having a squatting competition-and I could only squat for a minute or so at the very longest-I did not feel very hopeful for myself. But...there are times when I get a little competitive. So, my competitiveness motivated me to practice for the next few weeks, so that I could have some sort of shot at not being a complete embarrassment. When, just hours before the competition, I could only squat for 5 minutes, I just resigned myself to inevitable failure. That night, men vs. men and women vs. women, the competition began. And who won her division with a 15 minute squat? This girl! Who won his division with a 30+ minute squat? My husband! I'm a little lot excited. It's the small things in life, okay, people? Granted, I could not move the next day, and I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to pull that stunt again. But, this whole experience has taught me that no matter how out-of-shape or unathletic a person may claim to be, doing something athletic-ish is always in the practical realm of possibility! 

3. Springtime is here! Well, it's "more here" than before...
Since Oklahoma didn't have much of a winter this year, we've been in really nice weather (for the most part) for several weeks already. But, the trees are blooming, I've already spotted some gorgeous dandelions (my favorite flower), and the birds are always singing! It all makes my heart really happy.

4. I've been discovering "pregnancy hacks" that have been working well for me (for now!). 
SO GOOD! 
I've learned that getting in squats or other pregnancy exercises is much easier if I do them while microwaving my lunch, steeping tea, or brewing coffee. I also was super excited to find a really easy way to increase my protein intake. See, as part of my childbirth class, we have to fill out nutrition charts with all of the food that we eat. The goal is at least 80 grams of protein a day, in addition to getting in a lot of food groups. I do a pretty good job of eating from various food groups, but I'm really bad at eating enough protein-I attribute this to the fact that 1.) I don't eat a lot of food to begin with, and 2.) I don't eat a lot of meat. The other day, while trying to finagle a way to sneak in protein, I had a thought: What if I put peanut butter in my coffee? I hit up the internet, and discovered that apparently bunches of people already do it. So I made myself an iced peanut butter latte, and it was awesome.

5. I've also been discovering just how quickly time is moving.
I'm not far along into this pregnancy; I'm still in the second trimester. Plus, I'm planning for our little guy to come at least a week late (Seriously, what would be more epic than having a baby born on the Solemnity of the Birth of John the Baptist? Right??? So that's what I'm hoping for), so I haven't really given much thought to my vague "Things to do before Baby Pops Out" list. In part from reading about recent happenings in the lives of Ann-Marie and Dwija, the thought just occurred to me that I should probably start getting around to some things on my list. And then I looked at the calendar, and realized that every weekend until the end of April is booked already. So, as much as I don't like planning things out far ahead of time, I planned a day for sewing projects and have started making a list of things that my husband and I need to eventually go over and figure out. I don't feel rushed, and I'm not freaking out at the rapid pace in which the weeks are slipping away, but I am more aware of the reality that we need to get certain things done before birth.

6. Books are awesome.
I mean, I already knew that, but I keep re-learning it! It's been a sleepier kind of couple weeks (which is weird, because the weather is gorgeous) and curling up with a good book has been lovely. I just finished reading All the Light we Cannot See in preparation for Haley and Christy's podcast discussion this week, and I have a stack of "arrived holds" that I'm picking up later today. If I get around to it, I'll throw together a literature post sometime so y'all can see what I've been reading! 

7. Finally, if y'all haven't read Angie's great post about "Gossip in the Age of Facebook," then you really should.
Angie really speaks to something that can easily happen on any kind of social media, not just Facebook, and challenges us to rise above it. I really can't do her post justice in one tiny paragraph, so you should just read it

I hope that you all have a wonderful start to your weekend! 

12 comments:

  1. hahaha at your #2 story! It's amazing the things a competitive streak can make you do! I'm a total non-athlete married to an athlete...last summer we had a "Family Olympics" tournament for his birthday, only all of the events were not the silly games you might think of when you think of Family Olympics, they were actually a foot race, long jump, sit-ups, push-ups, etc. competitions. Angel won almost every single event. HOWEVER! My Mom, who is both ultra-competitive and extremely not-athletic, won the planking competition because we all planked at the same time and she just kept holding on because she wouldn't go down until all of us fell down. And I won the jump rope competition because I'm actually good at jump roping forever. If there would have been a hula hoop competition, I would have won that too, because that's my only other skill.

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    1. Oh, that is hilarious!!! Kudos to your mom for letting her competitive streak win the planking competition for her :) And good job with the jump rope competition! That's really cool that you can jump rope for great lengths of time; I like jump rope, but after a while I get bored with the repetition and then I get tired and stop. Also, I think it is super awesome that while most families would do "silly" Olympics, your family does legit athletic features of endurance!

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  2. Thank you for the 7qt and will make a comment this weekend. Angie's post was very helpful. Time to do the Stations of the Cross.

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    1. You are very welcome! I'm so glad that you appreciated Angie's post-I thought it was really thought-provoking and excellent! I hope that you had a blessed time praying Stations!

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  3. Thanks so much for linking to my post!

    And how have I never heard of this pregnancy protein hack after 3 kids?! Brilliant! Definitely remembering the peanut butter trick next time around ;)

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    1. My pleasure, Angie! Thank you so much for writing it-your words and thoughts on the matter are quite splendid.

      Haha, no clue! I think the whole peanut-butter-in-coffee-thing is just one of the internet's Great Secrets. My latte got me a whopping 12 grams of protein, which is kind of awesome. Let's be real-I get sick of eating handfuls of peanuts after a while, so getting to toss some good ol' pb into a fancy drink just makes my life wayyy better :D

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  4. It's always good to have a list going of things to do before the baby gets here. And maybe even sort it by "nice to do" and "need to do." The blanket doesn't have to be knitted, but a car seat installed is pretty important. Something to keep in mind is that by the end, it will be physically much more difficult to do things. I literally couldn't strap the car seat in the other day, my belly would just not let me fit in the car to do it. ;). But, in other, much happier news, the baby did indeed flip head down! Yay spinning babies! I just haven't made myself waddle to the computer to update the blog yet (because, really, everything is harder right now!). And major props and congratulations on winning the squatting competition. That is awesome!

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    1. First off, I am soooo happy for you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wahoo!!!!!! Congratulations! I'll be praying that Baby stays there and doesn't get back into a breach position (not sure if babies really do that, but I figure it's good to cover the bases). Thanks for sharing your perspective of someone who is much further along than me! I've slowly started to think that way, because while I am super active and mobile now (my tummy's pretty small), I keep reminding myself that any day, I may just blow up huge. So while I initially thought I'd have a day to sew a baby carrier and nursing pads in May, I realized that I'd best do that ASAP, so that I'll actually be able to sit at the sewing machine!

      Random-but do you have any good car seat recommendations? This weekend, Jacob and I started working on our "important topics to discuss" list, and we haven't gotten to that one yet. But, if you have any thoughts or advice on car seats, I would appreciate it so I can mention it to him when we talk through that whole topic!

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  5. Good for you! I'm super unathletic, too, so it's always a victory when I can do any kind of small physical feat :)
    Also, that peanut butter latte sounds delicious—what recipe did you use?
    I read All the Light We Cannot See last year, and I loved it! Can't wait to hear what you thought of it.

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    1. Unathletic people unite! :) For the peanut butter latte, I read a couple recipes and then sort of combined them (I'm not an "exact measurements" cook, by any means!). I dumped about 3 T. peanut butter for every cup of milk into my blender, added a couple of ice cubes for a little icy crunch, and blended it. Poured it in a cup and added about 1/2 cup cold coffee. One recipe recommended heating the peanut butter with the milk first, to help it blend, which I did the initial time I made this. But today, I didn't feel like getting a pot dirty, so I just dumped it all in the blender together. One time, I also tossed in a dash of cocoa powder before blending, to add a tiny chocolate flavor. It's really whatever your heart desires! :) I wish you luck developing a peanut butter latte!

      So cool that you read that book! I haven't thought all of my deep thoughts on it yet, but I really liked it. I've read a lot of books on WWII and the Holocaust, and I appreciated how this novel struck different ground than many of the pieces I've read before. Seeing events through the sightless eyes of Marie-Laure was really neat, and I enjoyed following the development and life of Werner a lot.

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    2. Sounds good—I will have to try that!

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  6. Thanks! It was pretty thrilling Now I just need to discipline myself so that I can keep my practice up. That Greek yogurt tip is awesome-thanks! It's crazy how much more protein is in that vs. what's in regular yogurt. I like Greek yogurt, but I don't buy it very often because I usually don't think of it. I will try to remember to put that on my store list now!

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