Relaxation Ritual and Other Routines

When I was preparing my body for conception, I did a lot of work around de-stressing my life. I worked on eliminating commitments from my life that drained rather than nourished me. I tried to get into a consistent exercise schedule. I analyzed the link between nutrition and stress and tried to reduce my refined sugar and flour intake. I also cultivated the habit of breathing all the way into my belly on nearly every inhale.

For a month, I also instituted a nightly Relaxation Ritual. At 8:15 every night, I would stop whatever I was doing (I would even leave night meetings early to honor this sacred time in my day!) and spend about 15 minutes restoring our home environment (i.e., picking up stuff that had cluttered our house throughout the day). Then I would do 15 minutes of yoga and spend the rest of my time reading or chatting with Matt before our 9:30pm bedtime.

After successfully implementing this Relaxation Ritual for a month (plus all the other strategies), I was actually able to bring my menstrual cycle to a much more normal/average length. I also felt great.

As I prepare to start the school year next Monday, I want to get back into the habit of setting aside this sacred time as much as possible. It can be so easy to go, go, go right up until bed (or go, go, go right past my bed time!).

I'm also trying to think about what kind of routines I will need to put in place to help me balance my work, all the "work" I do outside of school, plus my pregnancy.

Here's what I'm thinking:

• 5:30-5:50 = Shower and get dressed
• 5:50-6:00 = Eat breakfast and journal
• 6:00-7:15 = Work on school stuff every day
• 7:15-7:30 = Make my green smoothie and pack up my stuff
• 7:30-7:40 = Drive to school
• 7:45-3:30 = School
• 4:00-4:30 = Nap
• 4:30-5:30 = Exercise
• 5:30-6:30 = Blog
• 6:30-7:45 = Make dinner with Matt and clean up
• 8:15 = Start relaxation ritual

Of course I'm not going to hold myself rigidly to this schedule every day of my life, but it helps to have it in place. It shows me that I can fit everything into my life in a sustainable and balanced way.

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Green Smoothie Recipe

At my last visit with my midwife, she said I should work on increasing my iron. I'd really rather not have to take an additional iron supplement (my prenatal already has 167% of the recommended amount). Too much iron can lead to constipation, which is already something that pregnant people have been known to struggle with.

Instead, I'm going to try and incorporate more iron-from-food into my diet and see if that brings me up to adequate levels for birth. As a vegetarian, I think the easiest way for me to do this is through spinach.

Now that I'm sailing into the second trimester (I'm due in mid-February), I think I can start eating vegetables again. I was so repulsed by pretty much every vegetable for the first couple months (especially leafy green ones!). I still have a hard time eating salads (even though I used to eat them at least four times a week before I was pregnant!). So instead of salad, I'm going to get back into green smoothies.

Today's recipe:

1. 1 cup tightly packed baby spinach
2. 1 banana
3. 1 cup frozen mangoes
   
4. filtered water to make the blender work
5. crushed ice

So smooth! The flavor is very mild. I think I'll start bringing one of these to work with me every morning and sip on it as the children and I settle into our day.

As I was putting together this post, I started investigating the iron content in spinach, and it turns out that it might not be the best place to get my additional iron, due to absorption issues. But still, eating a cup of spinach every day has got to have a ton of health benefits, right? Maybe I'll try to get more iron through edamame and prunes, as well...

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Revisiting the Budget

So last week I was talking about the new couch and eco-friendly mattress I wanted to get. Matt and I looked at a few furniture stores this weekend, and then I came home to look at our budget.

Um, we will not be getting a new couch or an eco-friendly mattress any time soon.

I was thinking we could make a few upgrades to our home because we have enough in the bank, and we've been adding to our "Lima Bean" savings account every month. I did not, however, take into account that my entire maternity leave would be unpaid. I haven't talked to an official representative of the Human Resources department within my school district, yet but I did talk to another teacher who has gone on maternity leave before (and will again this October). She said we get 12 weeks of unpaid leave.

So it's time to kick our savings into high-gear. The irony of the situation is that "to kick our savings into high-gear," I basically need to do nothing. My next step is to spend less. That's it!

I've already combed over our budget again (you can see our budget categories here), and there's really nothing more we can cut out. We just need to make sure we are sticking to our budget. Once the new month starts, I'm going to implement our index card system again. That should help keep us on track.

In terms of other action steps, here it goes:

1. Give our couch a good cleaning. Once it's clean, we need to start cleaning it on a weekly basis.
   
2. Continue to save money by checking out pregnancy and parenting books at the library rather than purchasing them.
   
3. When we do go out to eat, we should be really conscious about choosing more inexpensive restaurants.
   
4. Rather than seek to improve our home with monetary additions, I will try to find other ways, such as keeping it more tidy and by rearranging pieces we already have.

It's so tricky to find the balance between enjoying life now and saving more so we can enjoy more in the future. But in this case, it's pretty clear-cut. We need to spend the next 6.5 months saving, saving, saving, so I can enjoy at least three months of maternity leave. Once I make it through those 12 weeks, I'll go back to school for approximately three weeks and then I'll be on summer vacation for another 10 weeks (getting paid this time!). Woo-hoo!

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Eco-Friendly Mattresses

While Matt and I are busy trying to squirrel away more savings (for things like a midwife and doula, nursery, new couch, 12 weeks of UNPAID maternity leave, etc.), I keep adding to the list of things to buy. For example, I really want a new mattress.

Throughout my first trimester, I found sleeping to be pretty difficult on our uncomfortable bed. However, every time we traveled this summer, I had no problem falling asleep (usually on pillow-top, hotel mattresses). Plus, Matt has been hankering for us to upgrade from a queen to a king.

The thing is, if we buy a new mattress, I'm pretty convinced we should get an organic mattress. Regular mattresses are chock-full of disgusting chemicals that off-gas as soon as you bring them home. In general, I don't mind paying more for products that are healthier for us and the environment. Plus, I try to spend one third of my life in bed, so it's a worthwhile investment to me.

However, the folks over at Young House Love did lots of organic mattress research and settled on the Savvy Rest, which would cost us $3,000. Gulp! That is a serious financial commitment! Sheesh!

So what are our options?

1. Postpone buying a new mattress until we can save up enough money. I really don't like this option because I agree that it would be nice to upgrade to a larger and more comfortable bed now, especially since I'll be heading into the third trimester in a couple months, and after that we'll be heading into serious sleep deprivation.
2. Just go ahead and invest in an expensive, organic mattress. This option doesn't feel right either. So many other things are financial priorities right now!
3. Upgrade to a quasi-eco-friendly mattress (like the ones at IKEA). This option feels like such a waste because we'll probably want to upgrade to a nicer mattress in a few years. Then again, we could probably resell it on Craiglist, which would keep it out of the landfill.
4. Upgrade to a quasi-eco-friend mattress but invest in an organic mattress topper. Hmmm....this might be the way to go. That way, our faces would be pressed against something that is eco-friendly, while the rest of the mattress wouldn't be too terrible. Then again, if the total cost comes to something like $1,500, it might make more sense to just double it and go with quality from the very beginning.
   

Oy vey. It's moments like these that make me a twinge sad that Matt and I rake in non-profit salaries. (But just for a moment. Then I'm really happy that we managed to find jobs that we enjoy and that make the world better. I just wish they paid more!)

What are your thoughts? Are there other options I'm not considering?

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Breaking (and Making) Bread

I'm so excited about the fact that I pulled out our breadmaker and made some bread this week. It's so simple! (I have to confess that I took even more shortcuts by buying a bread mix from Whole Foods).

I simply added water and oil into the breadmaker, dumped in the contents of the bread mix, made a hole for the yeast, and added it. I shut the lid and pressed start. Four and a half hours later, I had a loaf of freshly baked bread (and a delicious-smelling house!).

The plan is to use the bread to make grilled cheese sandwiches later this week.

As we prepare for the arrival of an infant in February, I'd like to add easy recipes to our binder. Right now, most of our recipes take at least 45 minutes to cook. Things like grilled cheese and ready-made ravioli from the pasta section seem like good ways to spend less time in the kitchen.

What other ideas do you have for fast, vegetarian, mainly-homemade meals?

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Midwife Visit #2

P.S. I'm on the verge of needing to start wearing maternity clothes (either from excessive gas or from my ever-expanding uterus). I hate to buy new maternity clothes for such a relatively short amount of time, and I'm a bit too busy to scour Houston for good, used stuff (school starts s-o-o-n!). If you happen to have a box of maternity clothes that you aren't using and would be willing to lend to me, please e-mail me! I will gladly pay for shipping. I'm 5'7" and I used to wear a size 6/8 or medium.

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Baby Announcement Idea

I know I'm getting way ahead of myself here, but I've been thinking about baby announcements ever since we promised the innkeepers at The Desert Thistle that we would send them one when the baby arrives in February (Editor's Note: I'm going to the midwife today, so I'll be able to give you an update about how the baby is doing.).

I realized that I want to be able to get as much as possible done before the baby arrives. Here's the plan I came up with:

1. Matt and I could make a collage of pictures from the pregnancy using the collage feature at Wallgreens or Snapfish. We could leave one open spot for a picture of the new baby.
2. We could order some sort of big labels from Etsy. On the labels, we could write messages to our friends and family.
   
3. We could get other labels to print everyone's names and addresses.
   
4. We could mail both sets of labels and stamps to a friend or family member who wants to help.
5. Once the baby arrives, we would e-mail a photo to the helper. The helper would then add it to the collage, use our credit card information to order the prints, stick on both sets of labels plus the stamps, and then mail them. Voila!
   

Matt and I always send regular photos as postcards. It's better for the environment (no wasted envelopes!) and postcard stamps cost less. For example, that's what we did for our wedding thank-you cards.

I think this plan is a great way to make personalized, inexpensive announcements that will allow us to do the bulk of the work before the baby comes. I also imagine that a friend or family member who lives far away will be eager to help out in some way.

As a side note, has anyone seen cute labels for sale at Etsy? (I would make them myself, but Matt and I don't have a color printer...)

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