I'm still here!

I only have a minute but for those wondering we are alive and well.

The move was fun (cough, cough). We are mostly settled now. Living in two travel trailers is different than I imagined. In some ways better in others not so good. I have to admit that so far though I don't dislike it. Space is my biggest issue. Where to put things has been a challenge. I discovered we all have way too much clothing. This is a two fold issue. Storing it and washing it. We have to go to the laundromat so less stuff would be better. Or maybe disposable clothes would be the best. Wear once and throw away. I like that idea.

Joe started work on Wednesday. He loves it. It is a physical job and he comes home filthy (again, my laundry issue comes into play here) but he seems very happy. The girls are adjusting to school. Some days are better than others. LuLu had a project to build a volcano. Joe and her finished it this morning. It is wonderful. Tuesday she will do a speech on it and then cause it to erupt. Now that I no longer work full time I get to go to the volcano party. I can't wait.

J and Baby are doing great. I'm still inducing lactation. Wedding plans are right on target. I only have Internet sporadically so not sure when I will be posting here again. Stay tuned!

Yippee!

Joe got the job he wanted. It is certainly not anything near a 'glamorous' job. But he is very happy and so am I. He will start on November 16th so we have time to get settled. This just might all work out...

Food and Stuff

I haven't been making my weekly menu for about 2 weeks now. I thought that I would be doing myself a favor by being able to be spontaneous each day and just make a meal based on the time I had available. WRONG. This has been awful. I hate not knowing what I am making in advance. So last night I planned out the rest of the week for dinners. Breakfasts will be oatmeal, cereal or toast and eggs. All served with fruit (if I can make it stretch for the rest of the week). LuLu and KiKi are eating lunches at school this week. Not ever my first choice but it helps me for the week and they think it is a 'treat'. Joe is only working part days and I am not going into the office at all (except for an hour here and there) so we are eating whatever we find in the fridge for lunch. Here are my dinner plans.
Tonight: Pot roast with carrots and onions. Served with rice and salad
Tomorrow: Beef enchiladas (made with leftover beef, cheese, onions), Spanish rice, salad
Friday: Pork Chops, pasta and green beans

That's it. Saturday is our moving day.
I pretty much stopped buying groceries about 3 weeks ago. I have been just picking up the absolute essentials (milk, cheese, veggies, fruit) since then. I had a pretty full pantry and freezer that we have really emptied out. The trailer obviously doesn't have the storage space that I have been used to so my food stock ups had to be depleted. But I'll tell you a secret. I do have two large totes almost full of food that I'm going to keep at Joe's parents house. I figure I can 'shop' there each week in addition to the regular grocery store.

It is almost pumping time again. I pumped at 6:10 this morning. I'm trying to pump every 3-4 hours. I have my fenugreek tea brewing right now. Today I'm going to try to keep track of my water consumption too and see if that helps. Thanks Cyn for the tip about the lanolin. I'll try and find some of that (but probably not until I get relocated).

I got my bookkeeper duties done for the day so the rest of my day will be spent working on the house. WhooHoo. I forgot just how much fun that moving is.

Moving Right Along

Angel just left- again. She had came back for a few days but since she has to work tomorrow she went back to the city. I won't see her again until a couple of days before her wedding. I'm feeling sad but happy that she is stepping out on her own. And also happy that I was able to pass off lots of household items that she could use for her apartment. So much easier than packing it up and putting it in storage.

Lactation induction went better today. I still am not getting much milk but I am getting some. I have lots of hope that I will see improvement in a week or so. I am experiencing some cracked, ummm, 'parts' but I think that will get better soon. I know that pumping is not going to be anything like the actual nursing so it will be good if I can get my 'parts' toughened up. lol.

Another big day for packing and organizing. The walls are beginning to close in on the trailer with each load of stuff I take out there. What seemed like a semi-spacious area appears to be getting smaller and smaller. Putting my clothes in the closet I was beginning to wonder (as I was trying to shove a sweater in a drawer not meant for sweaters) what in the world were we thinking?

LuLu is feeling a little sad tonight. We won't be able to move our chickens. I thought we had a new home for them but that didn't pan out. I posted an ad on our freecycle and I'm hoping some very nice person wants them. These chickens are more like pets. And while they do give us great eggs their true purpose has been more of entertainment. One of the chickens (Bambi) even gets carried around. We got the chickens as freshly hatched babies with the assumption that they were all girls. We brought home 8. They were just little balls of feathers that looked like fur. A few months later we realized that one of our 8 was not a hen. LuLu was quite surprised the morning that she was out caring for them and 'Sara' started crowing. We renamed Sara Samuel. The 8 of them were a riot to watch. They talked all the time it was great. And then we lost one of our girls- very sad. When Samuel was about a year old he discovered just what a rooster was made to do. My poor little hens. He liked them so much that he rubbed the feathers off of 5 of them. Not a good thing. Then Samuel decided that he liked the girls so much that we couldn't go anywhere near them. Samuel now lives on a free range chicken ranch with about 80 hens to 'take care of'. A much better situation for Samuel.

Tomorrow will be another day of packing and pumping. I might try to throw in a little bookkeeping too.

Inducing Lactation

I am sitting here with my breasts attached to a machine. I began the pumping stage of the lactation induction. If I told you it was fun I would be lying. If I told you it didn't hurt I would be lying. If I told you that I am thinking that inducing lactation might have been a bad idea that would be the truth. I plan on sticking with it anyway. But I can say that it is nothing like nursing or pumping in addition to nursing. It is not even like pumping after giving birth and having the baby in NICU (been there, done that). It is hard. And very disappointing to only see drops of milk. The first time I pumped I got about 1/2 an ounce total. Second time same amount. Third time less, and each time after even less. I have read that it will take 2-3 weeks before I start to get any noticeable amounts. Once I start hitting one ounce at pumping (and once we are moved) then I'll start freezing it. We have just over 2 months until our due date so I do have some time to get my output up. I started on fenugreek tea the same day I started pumping. I actually don't mind the flavor of it but it has an odd side effect. It makes my urine smell like maple syrup. How weird is that? And aren't you glad I shared that with you?

Moving prep is going well. Today I spent doing lots of little things. Joe got home around 3Pm which was great. He did a lot of little things too. I'm working on a list of the things I want to get done tomorrow. Saturday will be here soon!

Counting Down

Our goal is to leave here on Saturday. We have had a super busy weekend. All of our big items (except the beds) and many, many boxes have been moved to the storage unit. Today Joe and I started loading up the trailer that we have here. It is challenging to get everything that we think we will need pared down to what will fit in two travel trailers. I find myself thinking and then over thinking if we will need something or not. At one point today I decided to throw a lot of additional items away that I was planning on keeping. I'm surprisingly okay with it.
Tomorrow, I have a full day. I have a meeting at the school at 7:30 AM, then I'll go into work for a couple of hours, then back home to work on packing and cleaning. Tomorrow will be my last day going into the office. Most of the work I do is from home on the computer now anyway. I was just finishing up a few projects. My replacement is doing wonderful and the less I am there the more it helps the owners transition to relying on her the way they did me.

Joe and I had a wonderful phone conversation today with my friend G and her husband. In the back ground we could hear Baby L. She sounded so cute! I wish we lived closer to them so we could go and see her live and in person. G and her husband sounded on top of the world. It was wonderful to hear the excitement, awe and love in their voices.