Summertime-ish

Now that all I have left is finals this Thursday and Friday, I have already grew bored with my time off.  How on earth will I kill time before Ivy arrives?

It only have one summer class scheduled for July — and it’s online. My new job starts in August right after I attend on of my good friends wedding and during which my online fall term begins.

Sometimes, I look at how busy my life is going to be being a single mom, and just want to take in as much me time as I possibly can right now, but I feel like there is not much to do considering I’m trying to save money for Ivy. The way I look at it, I’m still young and even if an entire year is almost completely dedicated to Ivy then it’s not that bad. Life will still just take on different shapes…

Namaste ❤

Let the nesting begin!!!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I dedicated my spring break to classic spring cleaning/organizing/prepping for my daughter Ivy Rose, getting ahead in my homework, and much needed me time getting as much sleep as humanly possible.

I actually was lucky in the sleeping aspect of my entire pregnancy because of late classes my first trimester, winter break for the start of my second trimester, massive amount of snow days towards the end of my second and beginning of my third, and thankfully spring break. I got much needed rest during those days and now I have about 5 weeks left, including finals.

I was thankful I let myself have a weeks to organize and deep clean the space that Ivy will be in contact with in her first days and rearranged furniture for optimal space. In pre-pregnancy this would have taken me about a day, max a day and a half, but as I quick found out standing longer than 20 minutes was nearly impossible! It took me 3 days! I’m very proud of it how it turned out.

I even began my Ivy wall decor and discovered that I really enjoy doing arts and crafts, and it’s a great way to de-stress and pass time! Thanks Pintrest for additional ideas of things I could make!

35 weeks

Now that I have 4-6 weeks before I’m supposed to meet my beautiful daughter, Ivy Rose, I’ve can proudly say I am blessed because I have not had any of the common complaints that you often hear regarding pregnancy. Up until now, I had mild bouts of prego symptoms, but nothing that would be the reason for me to say that I never want to be pregnant again.

Two days ago,I think my body finally started to realize it was responsible for having a healthy, growing baby girl housed inside of it and it was the major provider of her nourishment and her protection and it would need to prepare for her to exit. I all of a sudden started to be able to feel the Braxton Hicks contractions, my mid to lower back is constantly achy, I am nauseous and congested. I’ve had tummy aches and been excessively irritable and EXHAUSTED.

As I write this, the words blur on the screen due to lack of sleep. I just have to make it through this week and two days of finals next week and I’ll be able to rest and nest before her arrival!!

I CAN’T WAIT!!

Chiggers!

Until I moved to the South, I had no idea what a chigger was. Which makes sense because they are most commonly found in grassy, moist areas LIKE Arkansas–not the desert terrain of El Paso, Texas and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

How to tell if you have become a victim still baffles me since it’s very hard to tell the difference between a chigger and a mosquito bite. I, being me, Googled chigger bites to try to get myself acquainted to try and understand the difference, but that has proven futile.

I did learn a lot about them though:

•  the bites should come in groups. People that understand this mite say that that isn’t always the case until today I noticed an “Orion’s belt” pattern appear on my forearm after a good scratch.
• they are actually a mite
• they are undetectable due to their extremely small size
• when you notice symtoms, they bit you 1-2 hours before

Treatment is to control itching, you really just have to wait it out!

Be the Match

My school had a bone marrow drive on Wednesday called “Be the Match”. I originally offered to volunteer because I would receive extra credit if I had or if I had registered to donate for my Developmental Psychology class . Unaware of the linguistics of how they went about deciding who was eligible or not, I decided to be on the safe side and just volunteer as a cushion since my accident and past drug use have been issues for these types of things in the past.

I’ve been teetering between a 89%-92% all semester, and I showed up nervous as hell to get in there and get it over with to hopefully ensure I make Dean’s List this semester. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed it, and I want to look into volunteering at my school or other places more often. I kind of wish I had looked into this type of thing before I was a month away from giving birth! Oh well, plenty of time!

Namaste!

Anchoring

I anchored for the first time yesterday. I don’t like anchoring because I get very thrown off by the audience. I decided to try it because studies have shown that babies need to try a new food about 10 times before they develop a desire for it. I think, in theory, the same principles could apply here. In the broadcast world, I’ve been told my writing is more for print than TV, but I love writing and working in the studio, and I am not shy to say I’m proud of the level of work I do.

So yesterday, for the first time I anchored and wouldn’t you know it was the first show that I have been apart of in a year and half that anchors had to not only do the News, but we also had to do Sports. It was nerve racking, but it got approved to go live. I know I’m more made for behind the scenes, but I am happy to expand my knowledge and grow in this part of myself.

I was awkward, but surprisingly we made the cut to go live…next week I’ll go back where I belong.

Namaste.

Bye, Chap!

Every time I would walk in and out of my class that was located inside the Library , I would notice the same Blistex Original laying on the ground. The first time I saw it, I thought it was mine, but that one was still in my pocket. It was almost comforting to see the same thing not change over a few months. Sure, it would variate it’s position through the months, but it was always there.

Last week, I took the initiative to throw the sucker away. If no one else would, I should, right? It’s not that it was annoying, but I almost felt like it should be me. It’s the least I could do..

False Marketing

In my Intro Multimedia class, we learned how marketing companies have all our demographics on file in order to turn around and sell our information to companies that sell a product or idea to make a ‘more than likely buyer’ out of us. For example, since I have set up a registry at Walmart (the only major chain within 60 miles of my small town and is also accessible to my New Mexico friends) I often see ads to buy the merchandise that I actually have on my registry on other seemingly unrelated websites like Pandora.

Another example would kind of be how when we go on Google and the search engine automatically tries to finish our search sentence. Since I often look up my pregnancy ailments and end with a ’33 weeks pregnant’ everything I Google always ends in __ pregnant.

I learned this info last semester, but my teacher said that it typically just stays for a month–like my Fisher Price Rock n Play appeared on my Pandora for that amount of time. I get this, we are bombarded with ads constantly and it shouldn’t really bother me–and it usually doesn’t. Until I started noticing Kate Hudson’s workout gear being advertised on every single website I visit–Pandora, Yahoo! News, Facebook, ect. I can’t understand why, I have NEVER been even slightly interested in her clothing line, nor her movies! On top of that, it has been appearing for about a year!

A year!! I wonder if it’s just me? I seriously wish there was a person I could talk to to ask for them to remove it or a set of demographics I can edit in order to make use of their advertising space. I would rather see something I’d be more than likely to buy than stupid Kate Hudson yoga pants!!

My vow to my current friends:

I spread my friendship wisdom in a previous post, I mentioned how I didn’t want to make the same mistakes with my current friends. I will do anything to keep these people in my life.

I told you guys about how much my best friend meant to me for sticking by me through all my jail time, hospital, suicide attempts,and my drug drama. No one could mean more to me more than him and I try to make sure he knows it. It’s hard to not walk away sometimes, because before I left New Mexico, I created a heroin monster.

I am moving on with my life in a more healthy way, but he is living the life I lead 5 years ago. I want to  tell him how I got my life right. I offered to pay for him to move here (be nice to be close to my oldest  and best friend) but he always has excuses not to. I can’t completely blame him: he’s an addict. I was one for  almost 10 years.

I know I shouldn’t hold his life and choices hold so heavily on my conscious, but I lost enough people I cared about, and I seriously don’t know how I would deal if I lost him too. I can only offer advice and hope he follows the right path. I can’t brush him off like I did everyone else who was still involved in drugs. I don’t have it in me. He’s the best person I know.

Tom is my other friend (yes, both boys!) we briefly and loosely ‘dated’. We shared a common life experience of almost dying and getting sober and are always there to comfort each other when times get tough. We call each other the “boy/girl” version of the other. His humor is EXACTLY like mine! We can talk about anything from our bowel movements, sex, our weight gain, past drug experiences. We find the same things funny and hes such a sweetheart.

I can’t afford to loose my friends. I will stick by them, because that’s what loyal friends do when you love the other!

 

How my life has changed in the past 18 months:

• I moved to Arkansas from Albuquerque, New Mexico
• I got off hard drugs
• I stopped drinking
• I stopped smoking
• I got pregnant

• I became okay with not being a size 0
• I became okay with not being a size 9 after I got pregnant
• I became okay with going over 200 lbs since I moved and got pregnant

• I became okay with the fact that most of my weight is baby related and I will bounce back
• I became determined to finish school–NO MATTER WHAT
• I became okay with being single and pregnant
• I became okay with not having many friends
• I finally can honestly say don’t care what people think or say about me
• Goals take time, sacrifice  and dedication, it doesn’t fall into your lap (usually)
• I am ready to ‘settle down’ and move on with these changes

I don’t recognize myself sometimes, but that’s okay! Let’s see what the next 18 ,months have to offer!!