September is PCOS Awareness Month

PCOS Awareness Video-YouTube

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common hormonal disorder among women of reproductive age. The name of the condition comes from the appearance of the ovaries in most, but not all, women with the disorder — enlarged and containing numerous small cysts located along the outer edge of each ovary (polycystic appearance).
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/polycystic-ovary-syndrome/DS00423

PCOS Challenge TV Show
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/september-is-national-polycystic-ovarian-syndrome-pcos-awareness-month-102054873.html

Weekend

I watched my nieces again on Friday. We watched my VHS tape of Cinderella. Can't believe I still have the tape and a VCR! We also made a fort in our living room. I can't wait to have little feet running around our house. I sent a picture to my husband of the girls watching Cinderella and our dog, Bailey, cuddling next to them. He replied, "Scenes like that make me even more excited to have children". <3

My husband and I went for a 2 mile walk today. Before we left I took some pictures of our backyard

Eggplant in our garden

My favorite spot

Walked past Catching Fireflies

Pillowcase Dress for Kids and TTC

I am super excited to learn how to make this Pillowcase Dress for Kids Of course, I will be making the first dresses for my nieces. I probably wont start until the end of September but I will be shopping for pillowcases before then! I think it will help me relax and get me excited about trying to conceive again. That brings me to getting a new basal thermometer because my CVS brand is not working right. How does my temp go down after moving around? I have come to terms with the fact that PCOS is causing false positive ovulation tests since I got one last month and my five blood tests confirmed that I wasn't ovulating. My doctor wants to do a progestrone test again this cycle to see if I ovulated. Only, I may be on Mackinac Island then. I hope they have a lab I can go to thats on the island because taking a ferry is a bit pricey. If there is no ovulation again, we move on to meds. I'm just thankful that I lost 18lbs so I am in a normal weight range and that my doctor found out that I had PCOS before we tried for a year. We are a year ahead of the game. I just have to keep telling myself that.

The Basal Thermometer I am getting

Halloween plans for the kids

They loved listening to Monster Mash while dancing on the

 bubble wrap

Last year my husband and I started a Halloween party tradition. We have a Halloween party for our 5 nieces and 1 nephew. This is something I am going to miss so much when we move away from our family in Metro Detroit. Last year we got sacks for races, made bowling pins out of pop bottles, made a pin-the-grin on the pumpkin game, made cupcakes so the kids could decorate them and we finger painted pumpkins. Of course, like any good aunt and uncle, we got whistles and other loud toys as prizes. It was a blast! We also read them a fun Halloween book.

This year, we are going to do all the above again, but I am going to get a real pumpkin to play pin-the-grin on the pumpkin. We were really excited because in the spring we planted pumpkins and the vines were growing like crazy! Unfortunately, we watered them from the top and they ended up getting white spots all over them. In order to save the other plants, we had to cut the leaves off. Sadly, the pumpkins didn't survive. I haven't thought up any more games. We don't want to do bobbing for apples. The idea of all those germs during a time when the kids are always getting sick just doesn't make any sense to us. I suppose we could do
individual buckets.

I am also going to try my hand at making a little bit of a different version of this cake. Witch Hat Cake but with half a face. I'll post pictures in late September when I do my trial run.

Can't wait to have this Halloween Party in our own new house! Last year we were renting a house.

Hanging out with my nieces

Today, my brother and his wife dropped off their two little girls. The oldest is 5 and the youngest is almost 2 1/2. I pulled out some paper, crayons, a few coloring pages, feathers and some tape. Then I watched as their imaginations took off while making hats and pictures!

After crafts we walked around the block doing a scavenger hunt. I love watching those two discover new things. I think every other word is "Why" or "What is" - I LOVE it! I hope they don't lose that yearning to learn. We walked past some other kids and my niece, who is 5, waved at them. I love this age because they want to be friends with anyone and everyone. They aren't judging anyone by what they are wearing or what they look like. They just want to run around and explore this exciting world.

On Being Happier. From: December 6, 2009

I signed up for the site, 'The First 30 Days' which sends emails to you once a day on various subjects for, you guessed it, 30 days. I chose "Being Happier." My day six email was about fighting fear. It went on to say how you shouldn't feel fear about trying new things in order to be happier. My initial response was, "why would I be afraid of being happy? Happiness is a good thing - a good feeling, who wouldn't want to live a happier life?" Then, I put more thought into it. So many of us go throughout life with such negative attitudes, we look at the bad more than the good. And how can we not? The bad is all around us, just turn on the TV, pick up the newspaper or a magazine and you will see shootings, a down economy, people losing their homes, people telling you to lose weight, scams to watch out for, the list goes on and on. The news doesn't often report on good things happening around our world, and why would they? Unfortunately, tragedy sells. Why, because we buy it. Are we as humans putting ourselves up for failure to be happier? We have a tendency to focus on the negative things that could happen from change, rather than the positives. Change is hard, therefore getting to a happier place takes more work. Staying in a negative state is far less challenging because it is familiar. Or is it harder? I have negative people in my life, and when I finish with a phone call from one of them, I am actually emotionally drained. I always think, it must take so much effort to be so negative about life. Or does it not, because it is so familiar?




As for me, I am up for the hard work in finding serenity. After all, life is too short to be afraid of a challenge.

Welcome! From: December 6, 2009

My husband and I recently bought our first house. It's considered a small home at around 1,100sq ft, when the average American home is 2,500sq ft. I have decided to make a blog based on redoing our small home and finding our way to serenity - something, I think, most people want to find in life. We are in our early to mid twenties, going from one day to the next, conflicted about the future some days,and so certain other days. This is our journey, and we invite you to read, to comment just like I have read and learned from so many other bloggers out there.