I'll put a better title here later

Photo Card

2011-10-03T17:05:00.001-07:00

Andante Dots Pink Baby Announcements

Turn your favorite photo into a birth announcement.

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I said I would post here more...

2011-06-13T09:11:00.001-07:00

...but I've been bad. I haven't even updated my son's baby book in several months. Ugh, there's just not enough time in the day and I cherish my sleep, especially since I'm pregnant.

Anyway, here's a quick update on the pregnancy. We found out at 20 weeks that we're having a little girl. We decided to name her Emily Rebecca. Rebecca is my maternal grandmother's middle name. We went with Emily because my husband and I both liked it.

Emily kicks like a bucking bronco. She's my little acrobat. I had my glucose test done this past Thursday. I failed it. So I went in Saturday to the medical mall to get the 3 hour test done. They drew blood twice from both arms and my left arm is bruised a little. I won't know the results probably in about a week. Hopefully everything is fine. I didn't have any problems with my last pregnancy. The nurses said I would probably pass my 3 hour test since my glucose numbers were just over the cutoff mark of 140. I was at 145. There's apparently a history of diabetes on my dad's side of the family which I didn't know about until recently. My husband and I are going on a diabetes diet regardless if I have gestational diabetes or not. He's lost 10 lbs (I'm so proud of him!) in a week so far and I've lost a lb. I don't need to lose too much, just maintain a healthy pregnancy weight and I'm a little over into the unhealthy weight range. Cutting back on bad carbs and eating good carbs makes a big difference it seems =)

But Emily is doing well, her heart rate at my last checkup was 148 and measured at 26-27 weeks (i'm 25 weeks). She likes kicking the nurses and swimming around while they try to find her heart beat lol. She got the hiccups for the first time last night. It was so cute =)

So just 3 months to go before we get to welcome our next little bundle of joy!

I'm so lucky

2011-02-23T17:52:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine posted a link to a blog and I couldn't help but to cry while reading it. A woman lost her her 4 month old baby last week and she and her husband had to bury her today. She didn't say what happened, just that the baby stopped breathing while at the babysitter's and it's still under investigation. After reading all that she had to go through, I feel so lucky to have a healthy baby boy. I don't know what I would do if I lost him. It's hard to believe you can love something so much it hurts but feels so good at the same time. There's no love like the love of being a parent.

I may not have been so emotional on a normal day, but today is not a normal day. I'm 10 weeks into my second pregnancy. I'm slowly getting over morning sickness, which hasn't been that bad. I'm able to keep food down.

I had my 8 week appointment on the 10th. Everything looks normal. The baby's heart rate was in the 150s. I have still have that cyst on my right ovary, but it's nothing the doctor is worrying about so I'm not going to worry.

So far this pregnancy is going exactly like the last: no morning sickness the first month, then morning sickness through the second month, and subsides after that. Also, the heart rate is the same as my first, so I'm thinking I might be having another boy. Which is fine with me, I won't have to buy new clothes! A small part of me wants a girl, but I'll be happy with either.

My 12 week appointment is on 3/10 where I get the pelvic exam and cultures done, oh boy, fun fun.

So for anyone following this blog, I'm going to try to keep up with updates on the baby on here. I'm doing horribly with keeping up with my first's baby book. I haven't written anything down for Christmas yet!

Healthe Trim - Day 2

2010-11-18T14:30:00.000-08:00

This morning I woke up exhausted. I didn't sleep well last night because I had that soda too late in the evening. So no more soda while on this stuff.

I had a scary symptom this morning. It felt like someone put a large bell over my head and rung is hard as they could. Think of how that would feel minus the sound. I felt like head was buzzing and I was disoriented. The feeling only lasted a minute or 2 but it was scary. Maybe this is because I didn't sleep well last night. Who knows.

I took my dosage like yesterday: one in the morning and one after lunch. However, I think I'm going to reduce the dosage to only one in the morning. I feel so loopy after the second pill and there is no way in hell I'm going to take 2 in the morning.

So I just weighed myself and I'm down another pound. Again, this may just be water loss. I usually retain about 2 pounds of water while ragging so if I'm down more weight tomorrow I'll know it's working.

The appetite suppressant seems to be working. I don't feel as hungry but I'm starting to get a headache which may be from low blood sugar.

Healthe Trim - Day 1

2010-11-18T12:53:00.000-08:00

My bottle of Healthe Trim came in on Tuesday, so I started taking it on Wednesday (yesterday). The dosage I started out on was one capsule in the morning before breakfast and one after lunch. After taking the first dose and a water bottle full of water, I start to feel the caffeine surge through me within 15 minutes. It made me feel a little light-headed and fuzzy like caffeine normally does to me. I eat breakfast about 3 hours later like the instructions say (by this time it was lunch, but whatever). After about an hour or 2 of the initial dose the rush wears off and I had a decent energy level. About lunch time, though, the spike in energy almost completely wore off leaving me a little run down. So I took another and had a glass of water and I get the rush once more. And again it dies down after about an hour or 2.

However, with dinner I had a Dr. Pepper. This was a bad idea. I got the jitters bad. Also, I was a little restless that night. I mainly attribute that to the Dr. Pepper. I have a rule for myself and that's no caffeine after 7 pm, I broke that rule and I payed for it.

One thing to note, since the product urges to drink lost of water, you will pee a lot. Caffeine is a diuretic which dehydrates you. So to replace the lost water, you must drink water. Now, I was also coming off my period so it might have been retained water that was shedding, but I had to go 6 times in a period of 4 hours and each time was a full bladder.

When I checked my weight this morning, I had lost 1.5 lbs. But this is probably all water weight. My weight tends to fluctuate about 1-2 lbs throughout the day.

I will try to post regularly with updates on weight, mental status, etc.

Healthe Trim - Intro

2010-11-18T11:34:00.000-08:00

So as stated in my last post, I have about 15-20 lbs of pregnancy weight to lose. My friend started a group on Facebook called "Fatty McFatterson and the Pleasantly Plumps" in which we talk about dieting and staying fit or trying to get there, at least. So someone in the group had mentioned her Healthe Trim diet. She said she lost several pounds on it before she got pregnant. Another friend of mine decided to try it and she says she has more energy now. So, given my situation, being a mom, not having the time or energy to exercise, I decided to try it out too.

And so starts my Healthe Trim Diet series.

A little bit about this product:
It costs about $60 after shipping and taxes and you can only buy it online. It is a dietary supplement that contains several different herbs including hoodia (appetite suppressant) and green tea extract (energy boost from caffeine) and the mineral chromium picolinate (supposedly increases metabolism). The instructions tell you to take 2 capsules first thing in the morning before breakfast with 2 glasses of water and avoid food for 2-3 hours. Or, if you're sensitive to caffeine, take one capsule in the morning with water and another 1 hour after lunch with water. Don't drink and sodas, tea or coffee (even decaf). This could mean a caffeine overload and if your sensitive to caffeine, it's bad news. The instructions also say to avoid artificial sweeteners (which you should avoid anyway, they're bad news as well) and even chocolate.

I did a little research on chromium picolinate and found that safe levels of this mineral are 50-200 mcg (micrograms) per day. Two capsules of Healthe Trim contain 200 mcg of this mineral. So even though the instructions say "If you are not feeling the energy or appetite suppressant, increase the amount of capsules you take" I would recommend not taking more than 2.

So the downfall of Healthe Trim, according to reviews, is that none of the ingredients are backed by research. All in all, this product may or may not work for you.

A quick update before I post my next blog...

2010-11-18T11:24:00.000-08:00

So after reading my last post and realizing how old it was, I thought to myself, "Jeez, that was a long time ago". Almost 2 years, in fact.

Well, a lot has been going on since then. I found out I was pregnant around July last year. I now have a beautiful currently 8 month old baby boy named Sean.

During my pregnancy I gained 45 lbs total, 10 of which was baby, placenta, amnio fluid, etc., and another 10 of which was retained water (doctors gave me 2-3 bags of fluids before my c-section to counter-act the side effects of the spinal). I managed to lose 10 lbs on my own by breastfeeding and walking the baby 3 times a week. But when baby got to a certain age, going for walks was a little more tasking and it being mid-summer. No mother wants to take their infant child out in 90-100 degree weather. So with the lack of exercise and weaning Sean, I've not lost any more weight since 2 months after giving birth. Before weaning, I didn't want to starve myself or reduce the amount I eat since that goes to the baby. But now that he's weened, I can focus on myself.

This leads me into my next post: Healthe Trim.

And It's Been a While

2008-12-23T11:06:00.000-08:00

Since I've last posted. But I guess I'll make a quick update for anyone who reads my blog or whatever. So, married life is good. It's not much different than before since we were living together before, except the fact that our car insurance is cheaper.

I posted the pictures from the wedding in my last post. Hawaii was beautiful and the photographer did an amazing job. I have many other pictures that i have not posted. I need to get those uploaded to flickr or photobucket so I can share then easier.

So I'm having the family over tomorrow night for dinner. It's mine and Phillip's first Christmas together as a married couple so I figured I'd have the immediate family over. We'll probably do stuff with friends that weekend or weekend after for new years.

So, yeah, life is good. Still trudging through classes trying for that degree which seems so out of reach. But when I look back to where I was a few years ago I can see I have made good progress. But I still have so far to go. *sigh*

Wedding Photos

2008-11-24T09:41:00.000-08:00

HTML:
http://www.hawaiiweddings.com/photos/view.php?col=04_Pirates_Cove_Sunset_Weddings&alb=/html/081011%20Daphne%20and%20Phillip/&start=0

Flash:
http://www.hawaiiweddings.com/photos/view.php?col=04_Pirates_Cove_Sunset_Weddings&alb=/flash/081011%20Daphne%20and%20Phillip/&start=0

Goodbye Dear Friend

2008-05-12T07:41:00.000-07:00

I hate that this occasion is why I'm posting, but I just wanted to say goodbye to a friend of mine who passed on this weekend. You have some great friends who are going to miss you dearly. I guess it was your time to go, but we can all agree it was all too soon. This world could have used many more years of Pat in it =)

We miss you already.

Wish List!

2008-04-18T13:42:00.000-07:00

I want this dress.

Pretty Dress

That is all.

Continuing Boredom...

2008-04-09T11:22:00.000-07:00

This is one of my favorites. It's a URL hack I learned and it's hilarious. It specifically designed for those who have ill feelings towards our president. Make sure you have headphones on for those at work =D

How to pronounce Dubya's name

This one made me actually laugh out loud!

Alternative pronunciation

What's in a name?

2008-04-09T08:13:00.000-07:00

So today I've been looking at baby names. No, I'm not pregnant, just bored. But what sparked this, I have not a clue.

Anyway, a few years ago I found out that my great aunt Gaynell's first name is Callie. Why she goes by her middle name, I have not a clue lol. Anyway, I thought this name was pretty and decided if I ever have a girl I want to name her Callie. Well, Callie sounds like it is short for something else, but my aunt said it's not short for anything. At least her name wasn't. I went online and saw that Callie, and other variations of it, is short for Callista which is an absolutely beautiful name. The name itself is greek meaning the most beautiful one.

This is where my boredom kicks in. I went online today to look at other female greek names to use as a middle name. I have a thing for greek names, considering my first name is greek in origin =D. So, I came up with this combination: Callista Enora. It just rolls off the tongue. Enora means light. Together you could say the name means the most beautiful light =)

Yeah, there's my morning so far. I had to jot this down somewhere, else I would have forgotten.

Ah, Spring...

2008-04-02T07:52:00.000-07:00

More like ah-choo. Yeah, yeah. My humor sucks. But nonetheless, it's allergy season. Surprisingly my allergies haven't been as bad as they were last year, but it is still early spring. My boss suggested to me last year to eat a spoonful of local made honey to build up my immunity, however I have a cat I live with every day and I'm still allergic to her. The degree to which I'm allergic to her is less than when I first adopted her, but still allergic...

I absolutely love spring: the colors, the aromas, birds nesting in my attic...I should go for a hike this weekend. I haven't been hiking in quite a while. I should go after I finish my Chem lab this Saturday, that is if it's not raining...

So yesterday was April Fool's Day and I thought that I would go all day without getting pranked, but I get home from class. I'm tired, it's 8:30pm and I haven't eaten since 12pm. So I get home, and my fiance tells me that his work wants him to attend a launch in Florida and that he would be gone for 2 - 3 weeks and that 2 - 3 weeks happens to fall within our wedding/honeymoon plans. Of course I go off on a rant. After he tells me he's just joking I call him a few choice words, just out of playfulness. Ah, spring, how I hate thee. Spring is just one big cruel joke...

This is irritating....

2008-03-25T09:33:00.000-07:00

This is pretty much continuing from my previous post. So, I'm driving to work again and I hear talks of an English government official wanting to sterilize the poor to combat an economic crisis. So, when I go to look up this news on the internet I find nothing of the sort, except of course of cases in South America that occurred a few years ago. So, I'm beginning to doubt the news reported on my favorite radio show. This really doesn't surprise me since they are not a news reporting show. I'm sure they're just trying to get ratings.

I do want to make a few comments on this idea that seems to be happening in struggling countries. Of the articles I did find, Peru had passed a law stating that the poor be forcefully sterilized against their will. Of course, this is a gross infringement on human rights. However, I have a better idea. In all lightheartedness, I say we should castrate the idiots in this world, George Bush, Jr. being the first one on the list. We're overrun with them and it is an infection we must cure. We must cleanse the gene pool.

In reality I may feel that our society gets dumber by the minute, but I would never wish anything like that upon another human. I let Darwin kill off the idiots for me.

Yeah, he looks like a killer, don't you think? ;)

Well burst my bubble...

2008-03-18T06:49:00.000-07:00

I had this great idea to rant about, but I can't rant if I don't have anything to back it up. On my way into work this morning I heard on the radio that many parents are sueing Wii becuase their boys are mimicing the movements in real life fights making them look like wussies. The DJ mentioned one incident where a kid was sent home from school for flicking his wrist at another boy's head.

I figured this would be something great to go off on, especially how a lot today's parenting skills are lacking. However, I cannot find one single article about a recent lawsuit. The only articles that come up in my search are those about the wrist straps or copyright infringement, or about how people are throwing out their backs because they're just now getting their lazy asses off the couch.

I was going to go into a rant about how I can't stand people who think the world owes them something, people who try to get rick of other people's misfortunes. My office mate told me a story about her sister in law and how she had hit a mailbox while turned around in her big honking SUV yelling at her kids and thought that the owner of the mailbox should replace her mirror because it was too close to the road. Yeah, people like that piss me off.

Well, it looks like I went into a rant anyway, even though I technically had nothing to rant about... Heh. Oh well.

It's about time...

2008-03-17T07:49:00.000-07:00

...for an update. The past couple of weeks have been for wedding planning. We decided to just get married in Hawaii that way we can have the honeymoon there too. For us, this route is much cheaper than having a 5 minute, "wham bam thank you ma'am" ceremony and reception. Although it would be nice to have our friends and family witness the ceremony, this way would be more memorable.

So we bought our airline tickets, courtesy of the groom's parents, 2 weekends ago. And this past weekend we reserved the hotel. The only thing left to plan is what we're going to do while we're there and the reception when we get back. I'm thinking the reception is going to be a small one. At our house maybe. Or we can have 2 receptions, one for the family and one for our friends. That way we can accommodate everyone and no one's panties will get in a wad because of alcohol being served (family).

Several weeks ago we called up the place that's doing our ceremony and put a deposit down to reserve the date which is October 11. So that's taken care of. Now we just have to come up with some money for the rest of the cost of the trip/wedding =) I don't think it will be that difficult. We have plenty of time to save money. I've started saving between $100 and $200 a month which I will end up with at least $1000 by the time we leave. And that'll be our spending/backup money.

Everything is coming together and I'm excited!

This has been a crazy week, and it's not over yet

2007-12-20T11:09:00.000-08:00

This is out of chronological order, starting with the more light hearted stuff then on to the more depressing. Yes, this is your warning. This post will get depressing.

So Tuesday, Phillip (my fiance), his mom and I went to Tokyo to have lunch. We had taken separate cars except his mom rode with him. So I get back to work and he calls me to tell me what happened to him on his way back to work. Apparently, this chick was driving a Buick with a guy as her passenger. They were stopped at a stop light when he decided to get out of the car, walk around to her side and try to pull her out of the driver's seat. He failed at that so he decided to shove her over to the passenger's side. When she finally moved he got in a drove off after the light turned green. Phillip followed him because he feared for the woman's well-being. so when the guy realized he was being followed he tried to do some quick maneuvering to lose him. Unforturnately for the asshole, Phillip was driving a 2008 Altima Coupe and can outrun that PoS buick any day. So While they're following this guy Phillip's mom calls the police and gives them his tag number, where' their located, etc etc. Finally the guy turns into an apartment complex not realizing it's a dead end. From the street it doesn't look that way (He was from out of town). He gets to the dead end, does a u-turn then, bam! there are 6 cop cars on his ass. The idiot tries to drive around the cops! But they block him in and pull him out of the car kicking and screaming. So that's that.

Then, yesterday morning Phillip's little sister is on her way to pick up her boyfriend and go to school when another teenager cuts across 4 lanes of traffic and she ends up t-boning the guy. Her car is totaled and his truck may be as well. She's ok, just a little sore.

So back to Tuesday. I get back to work and I find out a coworker of mine, who I found out not too long ago is also family, came by my office wanting to see me. So I walk over to see her and she mentions a bad car accident in my hometown and that she thinks they were our cousins. She wasn't sure about it because it was just hearsay at that point. So I call up my mom to confirm who was in the accident and it was them. They were older ladies, sisters. They had just come from the post office to mail Christmas presents and cards when they crossed the highway and were hit by a dump truck. He had a full load so there was no way he could have slowed down. Tonight is the viewing although i think it's going to be closed casket, and then tomorrow is the funeral. I'm probably going to be a basket case. I read an article that was in the paper today and it kind of hit home. I had to excuse myself for a few minutes while I composed myself. I will miss them. They were always the life of the party at family reunions.

Vertigo

2007-08-01T08:49:00.000-07:00

Vertigo is an interesting experience. For me, I get severe vertigo probably twice a year. The experience isn't very pleasant, especially if it hits you while your are walking around and you suddenly get motion sickness.

Well, I got vertigo today. A bad case of it, too. I'm still experiencing lingering symptoms as I'm typing this. So how it happened is I was just typing away on my computer and all of the sudden I started to feel a little dizzy. I thought at first it was just my sinuses until it started getting worse and the room looked like it was spinning.

So I tried slumping back in my chair to help the spinning, then it hit me. I have to pee. lol

I tried getting up to go to the bathroom; I get about halfway there and the motion sickness sets in. I'm getting sick because I'm having tunnel vision and the fact that I can't walk in a straight line.

So I turn around and head back to my office to wait out the spell. I call up my boyfriend to see if he could help calm me down. Unfortunately, he was on his way to a meeting.

So, for me this is a very scary experience. The last serious vertigo I had I nearly fainted. The room was spinning and everything started to go dark. But I didn't faint and eventually came out of it.

So, I just wanted to share that experience. I didn't realize how much it exhausts me too. I'm really sleepy now...

Testing

2007-07-09T12:16:00.001-07:00

IMVU - The World's Greatest 3D Chat

Car Update

2007-06-22T12:20:00.000-07:00

As of Wednesday, the body shop officially stared the process of fixing my car, after waiting 2 weeks for my insurance to get on the ball and get stuff done.

So, obviously, my car is not totalled, which is a good thing. For some, it's not, but for me, I'm not in the position to buy a new/used car. I've had my car only 2 years and I would have broken even (minus the $500 deductible) if insurance had totalled it. So I wouldn't have had any money for a down payment on another car. So, luckily, I get to keep my car! I liked that car anyway.

As of right now, I'm in a rental which I'm going to swap out on Monday. The rental I got is a PT Cruiser. I didn't realize how crappy gas mileage it gets. 17 city/27 hwy. I'm doing a combination of city and highway driving and I just calculated the gas mileage and it's 20 mpg.

Oh well, maybe the rental car place will have fuel efficient car.

Firsts

2007-06-11T08:45:00.000-07:00

Well, this is my first post, just to get a feel for this.

But while I'm are on the topic of firsts, I will share an experience, in brief.

Last week was my first car accident. I've been in car accidents before, but never as the driver and never my own car. That was stressful. I'm ok though. I'm still waiting to hear from my insurance company on how bad the damages are. I don't think the car is totaled, but you never know, especially since I was hit from the side. *crosses fingers*

Another first I want to share is the first car accident as a passenger. I was 8-years-old and wasn't wearing a seatbelt. The paramedics said my mom and I were very lucky because we hit the other person going about 50 mph. Amazingly, the only injuries I suffered were a headache and a split lip. But also, weighing at a whopping 25 pounds, I had hardly any inertia, so that worked in my favor. My mom, on the other hand, wasn't as lucky. Still lucky she didn't get hurt worse, but not as lucky as me. She was ok in the end, but she was banged up. Nothing broken, but lots of bruises.

And to sum up my post on firsts: my first kiss sucked.