Week 31, Day 1! 2 Mile walk this morning & my fave breakfast

It just feels so nice to turn the corner into a new week, you know? All of a sudden 30 weeks pregnant seems so....lame, and 31 weeks seems alot better! I'm glad to be in the 30's for sure, it's all that much closer to the end!

This morning I had my walk all mapped out to 1.5 miles, bumping it up just a quarter of a mile from the 2 previous days. It's hard to know how slow exactly to take things, improving the distance that is, when I'm this pregnant. I know you're not supposed to start new routines and stuff when you're pregnant but me, I just listen to my body and go with that. My hernia is doing fabulous so I'm glad for that, for sure.

Anyway, came home from bringing the kids to school all revved and ready to take my power walk (although to be HONEST, this 3rd day in a row of going for walks I didn't really feel like it. I HATE being put in a box of HAVING to do something the same every single day but I made myself do it anyway. My secret? Tell the little ones we're going! Then they will NOT let me not go, they're soooo excited!) and DH was still home getting ready for work...he wanted to talk about some money issues with me.

So my walk, was very reflective as my mind was busy trying to figure out ways that we can save in different areas, praying about finances and the things that God knows we need, yet we're not sure how they are going to happen (the baby's birth will be pretty expensive - they want a large amount of it up front at the birthing center, and also a van must be purchased before we can drive once this the 8th baby is born). I love walking and praying, just giving myself wholly to God once again, my time, my thoughts, my energy, my money - my children. It reminds me that He cares for me so much...and will take care of us.

It looks like...I'm going to have to wait on updating the rest of my room. I have a long list of things I want to do, to get, like all white bedding and a pretty chandelier to make it romantic...but the extra money I have saved is going to have to go to other things. It's hard for me to let go of my dream/plan, but I know God will bless me if I cheerfully give this for Him, for my family. The GOOD thing is, all the paint is purchased and ready - I already have a new light waiting to be put up over the bathroom, nothing is really going to look "unfinished" when I am done doing what I can do now. Mostly it's caulking, painting, sanding - and then cleanup. It will look really nice and still be a sanctuary for me in there, when I have the baby. And I can still dream and plan! =)

I was feeling pretty darn good coming to the 1.5 mile mark, so decided to turn into the mobile home park nearby and take another extra bit of distance on. The kids love this particular "street" even though it's kind of more like a long parking lot, because it has lots and lots of speed bumps which are apparently super fun to go over while in the stroller and little bikes. So I made it 2 miles and feel great!

The only thing that is a little bit annoying is that I can't go as fast as when I used to run, obviously, so any amount of distance is going to take longer than before - and that means time taken out of my day. =( I am finding the past couple of days, that I drop the kids off, come home & change, then embark on my walk, come home & make breakfast, eat while catching up on blogs, maybe post one myself, and by that time it's only about 20 minutes until I need to go get Marie from school. =( I miss having a good solid two hours to clean or do whatever I need in the morning!

However, I do NOT miss the feeling of despair and never-ending-days on end, struggling with emotions...I love how going for walks energizes me and most of all, puts me back in the mindset of being fit and eating well.

I'm surprised at either how out of shape I am, or how pregnant I am, because I work up a pretty good sweat and my face is flushed when I am done. I am not breathing hard really, but my heartrate is up - I feel like I got a good workout (okay, not as intense as before, but pretty good) and my legs are feeling the need to rest. It makes me feel like maybe doing those power walks IS doing something else besides just boosting my mindset.

My new favorite breakfast is this:

3 eggs w/a handful of spinach, onion powder, chives, pepper, salt, and a sprinkling of cheddar cheese - scrambled.
1 cup of cooked oatmeal with honey, frozen blueberries, cinnamon, and raisins (no milk, cooked in water).

This is pretty far from eating raw, but I am at this point just trying to eat as healthy as I can - trying to avoid sugar and flour and meat. Dairy in limited amounts, and the rest - fruits & veggies!!! We'll see where that takes me. Yesterday I made THE MOST scrumptious whole wheat bread....I seriously ate like, 4 pieces! Gotta' stay away from that today. I'm trying to be frugal and make as many snacks & bread and food in general that I can until we get paid on the 5th to stretch our money. But I have to stop eating it MYSELF!

I also made the chocolate chip breakfast cookies - I didn't realize they are made entirely of whole wheat flour! And just use honey for the sweetener...I really like this recipe. I had some leftover fig/date pieces from the food bank and I snuck those in there in place of raisins and didn't hear a peep from the kids about it. Yay! They ALL liked them, and they are very hearty and filling with just a touch of sweet. Recipe is here. The recipe calls for one cup (!!) of butter, and since we only use real butter and nothing else in our home, ouch, that gets expensive, especially when I doubled the recipe! So instead I used 1 cup of butter and 1 cup of applesauce we got from the food bank a while back, and they turned out great.

Oh yes, the food bank. Hmmmm. Yesterday didn't work out quite so well. The food bank I usually go to is open only once per month, and it's Saturday mornings. So I don't have any kids, I arrive at 8:30 and usually there is at least one other Mom from our church there so we chat and have a great time. Usually by 9:45 I'm out of there with tons of food that we use, and all for free.

This place I was trying out yesterday, is open 5 days per week and yesterday it opened at 11am. I picked Marie up at school at 11:15 and made it there by 11:25 or so. I opened the door and oh, my word. There were like THIRTY people in there, and not just that - 100% of them were obviously poor or at least didn't have good hygiene. 85% of them were overweight, unwashed hair, grimy, and in general just, ick. All eyes turned on me and I felt so out of place! Ugh. But it was for my family, and at this particular location when they call your number you get to go in the back pantry and pick out xx pieces of bread, xx cans of food, etc - and I like that idea. The one I usually go to, they pick it out FOR you, and often we end up with way too much of something we never use like cranberry sauce.

So I sat on the dirty chairs with my 3 children and big belly, I was number 36. Guess what number they were calling? ELEVEN! I sat there for maybe 20 minutes -- the kids were pretty good, they were kind of just staring at everyone, lol. But then they started to get restless and I realized that 1)it was lunchtime and 2)we could very well end up sitting there for over an hour. They were calling numbers very slowly and also, since I was one of the last numbers, what if most of the food was picked over by then?

So I ended up leaving. =( I know, but I think it was a good choice, the more peaceful one. We're not OUT of food or anything, I'm just not sure how long I can stretch what we do have, it would be nice to have other things to add in lunches, etc. I ended up at Roth's which seemed so(!!) clean and upper class compared to where I just was, and the kids got a free cookie while I stocked my cart with WIC food.

I was able to get 12 lbs of bananas, 4 boxes of cereal, 4 bottles of apple juice, 2 dozen eggs, 2 18-oz peanut butter jars, 4 loaves of bread, 2 1/4 gallons of milk - all for "free" using my WIC coupons. It is such a blessing!!! The only thing I paid for was ice cream for Rachel, since I ate hers a couple of days ago and she would not let me live that down. Oops. =) I'm going to stay out of this one, I promise. =)