Toxic Pregnancies

Maybe I just read too much, but this article and this article really worries me. Does my bebe even have a fighting chance before it's even born? Maybe I should just stop reading this stuff all together, after all, they say that ignorance is bliss.

I do like the second article's tips of what we can do for living a healthier lifestyle. I think a lot of those items are doable. However, going green can cost money, especially if you're buying organic, toxic-free everything. There are plenty of green products on the market, but it's still a bigger cost than the non-green items.

I'm still researching how else I can go green, but I'm finding it pretty draining even trying to focus on things that are non-baby right now. My biggest obsession is finding the perfect cloth diaper, but I do have a desire to slowly green other parts of my life and our household, not just for the bebe, but for ourselves as well, while being mindful of the environment. And on a budget too.

I've managed to bookmark a bunch of sites, but there is so much information out there that it's hard to filter it out the real information from the noise. And if even if I am able to do so, trying to find what works best for our family takes time, research and experimentation.

Baby steps, Weed, baby steps.

Flushable Diapers?

If you haven't heard about flushable diapers, there is one on the market. I won't identify the brand, but the name will be in this article. As much as the makers of this brand tout this as the best of both worlds between disposables and cloth, and an "eco-friendly" option, there are a lot of things that people don't think about that are pointed out in the article. The article also points out that it's still cheaper to use real cloth diapers.

Again, there is a price for convenience. If it's not on your pocketbook, it's on the environment, or your health, or something else. I have lately been questioning if things that are advertised as being "green" or "organic" or "eco-friendly" really are. It's easy to take things at face value, especially since the green movement has really picked up over the last few years. However, people are lazy, or they are misinformed, or they are uneducated, and don't always realise the impact of their choices. And people will buy just about anything as long as they feel that the work is done for them.

To be fair, we all don't have enough time during the day. I for one am finding it more and more difficult to balance my work-life situation, how more difficult will it be to balance everything out when the bebe comes. But I suppose everyone dictates how they will run their own life and what they choose to spend their time on.

However, you must be somewhat informed and consumer savvy. For instance, I've seen "organic" mandarin oranges in our grocery stores. Not only was there no "certified organic" label on the box, but even better, these oranges were imported from China! Had we not taken the 2 minutes to even look at the label, we may have been duped into believing that they really were organic.

My point: do you homework people. This green movement is confusing enough as it is, but at least be educated in what you're buying. If you choose to buy the product even after weighing the pros and cons, that's your prerogative. As they always say, cavet emptor, let the buyer beware!

Early Retirement.

I've been reading some blogs lately in the hopes to learn tips and tricks on how to be a little more frugal with our own money, especially in light of the fact that my income will be chopped in half for a good part of my mat leave. However, lot of financial/money type blogs out there tend to be a little t0o technical for my tastes. While I commend the fact that people are taking the time to educating themselves and others about how the markets, the economy and investments really work, the time they put into researching the topic tends to boarders on a part-time job. They are passionate (or obsessive, whichever way you want to look at it) about their hobby the same way I am looking for the perfect cloth diaper.

So what I like particularly about this blog is that this guy writes in a matter-of-fact kind of way, in language that most people can follow (plus, it's Canadian, an added bonus for me as it makes it even more relevant). His goal in life is by the age of 45 (he's 31 now) is to retire. He's even recently written a series on an update of his road map to retiring by age 45. It's interesting to see the assumptions and decisions that he's made for his plan.

But whether right or wrong (after all no one can predict what the future will hold, either for the financial markets or what sort of tomfoolery the government will come up with next), he at least has a plan, which is more than most of us have. Keeping a pulse on how much your net worth is and actually coming up with a plan for the short, medium and long term is always good personal financial acumen for anyone, no matter how much or how little you make.

I find it interesting that he's figured to retire at 45 and to live off of the money for the next 30 years, he needed close to $1 million between himself and his wife, and he's already taken into account inflation. I feel that his numbers are conservative at best, but I also feel that it's a reality that most of us have to live with when we retire. I also feel a little more justified as I have had other people scoff at me when I mentioned such a large dollar amount is needed for retirement.

This is why Hubby and I are adamant about not touching our retirement savings for anything (except for a last, last resort, which I hope we will never get to), and that includes for the Home Buyer's Plan and for the Life Long Learning Plan (to pay for a house down payment and for post-secondary education respectively). Once you dip into the retirement savings, any tax-sheltered compounding gains you've earned is lost, and to reach that lofty $1 million goal takes that much longer. But to each their own, everyone's comfort level is different. This is simply our attitudes towards money.

Goodbye Baby!

No, not the alien in my belly kicking at my bladder. My electric bass. After about 10 years, I've decided to sell my bass? Why? Well, I wanted to pick up the bass and the piano again, but now that plan's pretty much gone out the window with an addition of another warm body in less than 8 weeks!

Since I had bought a fairly expensive electronic weighted keyboard and hauled it all the way back from Calgary last summer, I really should be at least banging on that. Plus, I still remember how to play the piano, the bass, not so much, so the piano won out. Finally, my poor bass was sitting at a friend's place for over a year, untouched, and unloved. I thought it was high time I gave it a better home.

After a lot of reflection, I figured it would be better if I gave my bass a new home, with someone who would use it more than I have the last few years. It was a hard, hard decision to give it up. I love playing the bass, but I had to be realistic: I have no time to pick it up again within the next few years, and no space to really store it. This house will be littered with baby paraphernalia soon enough.

So last week, my friend finally returned my bass, my other friend, who is also an avid bassist, picked it up and brought it to its new home, and I made a few bucks out of the deal (not that I was needing the money). As sensible as my decision was, I can't feel that I've lost a good friend.

Finally, furniture in the baby room!

Believe it or not, we finally picked up furniture for the baby's room. Only it's not for the baby, not really. It's for me. When I'm nursing the baby at 3am. We picked it up today after looking around everywhere! You'll be surprised how expensive a new glider can be, this isn't priced too badly. The brand is also fairly reputable, and it's made in Canada, so I know it'll last a long time.

And to match the chair, a nursing pillow, but in blue with alphabet patterns. If anyone really knows me, I would never buy anything pink, even if I do end up with a girl. Pink is horrid, and I refuse to clad my child in such a vile colour.


And I don't think I've posted this yet, but we got this stroller a few weeks ago. The thing I love about it the most is that it's got the big bad-ass 16"wheels on the back. For about $100 more, you can get a 12" wheel version with aluminum spokes, but I like the 16" one better. It says, "I'm here, now get outta my way!". This thing is not any bigger than most other strollers on the market, and it's only a tiny bit longer, so I don't know why people think it's big. It maneuvers like a dream, and can do very tight turns one-handed, something that the cheaper and "smaller" strollers can't all do.

8 more weeks!

I won't post too much today, as I had a pretty hellish week at work (more like month), which ended up me crying myself to sleep last night, and waking up in the middle of the night praying and reflecting on things. Nonetheless, I must keep moving forward. I was hoping to take a belly pic tonight, but I'm just not in the mood for it. Happy 32 weeks to me!

I just wanted to post this article about the importance of children's play more so that I don't lose the article than for anything else, although parents out there may find it interesting too.

SGS: Electricity Vampires

Yesterday, one of my friends and avid readers of this blog mentioned that he's going to learn how to be green from my posts. As this friend of mine is an avid computer geek, I think that this post will be interesting to him.

This article tells you some ways in which you may be using extra electricity and not even realize it. Did you know that such things as the clock on your microwave uses more electricity than you using to heat up food. These sort of Energy Vampires can represent a significant part of your electricity bill, up to 20% in the article posted.

For a while, we had a hot water thermos that was always plugged into the wall. It's a device that you plug in, you put water into it, and it boils and keeps the water hot indefinitely (as long as it's plugged in). Instant hot water when we needed it. We got it as a gift from one of Hubby's friends. Well, within a month or so of using it, I noticed that our Hydro bill shooting up significantly. We finally figured it was the thermos and have kept it unplugged ever since. In fact, we now use a stainless steel kettle on the stove to heat any water we need. It takes some time to get the water heated, but it's well worth it in my mind, and after a while, I don't notice the wait.

Some other things that we have done to lower the Energy Vampires around our house:

• Our cell phone chargers are left unplugged unless we need to use them.
  
• We have also identified a number of other adapters which we have unplugged or shut off. The adapters are essentially transformers, and actually suck a bit of electricity whenever it's plugged in and not charging anything.
  
• We had three appliances in our kitchen, right next to each other, which told the time and heat food. We've since unplugged one of the them when not in use, after all, we don't need three clocks.
• Except for our PVR, our entertainment centre (TV, DVD player, receiver, etc) gets switched off during the day when we're out of the house.
• I actually unplug my work laptop adaptor when I'm not using it at home. No small feat for me as it requires a pregnant woman to crawl under her desk each time she wants to plug and unplug the adaptor.

I'm hoping in the future to arrange all the things that we keep plugged into walls and that are in a standby mode onto a power bar and to turn off the power bars when we are out of the house, or at least somehow get them off the grid when not in use. But baby steps is better than nothing at this point.

Some Green Stuff: Plastics

One of my original intentions before I got all knocked up was to green myself and my household as much as I could, lighten my "carbon footprint", and somehow be frugal while doing it. And to that end, create a separate green blog to document my thoughts, struggles, frustrations and triumphs. Well, that idea pretty much flew out the window because, frankly, I don't have the time and energy right now, or for the next few years to do so. So I've decided to stick these topics on this blog. I'm naming this series "Some Green Stuff".

Today's topic is plastics. I've been doing a fair bit of reading about plastics. Plastics are everywhere. Plastics are in places where you least expect them. And plastics can be toxic, to both you and the environment.

This article has a good summary of the most common types of plastics out there, what kind of harm it can do to the environment and to your body, and lists some alternatives that you can try out. I'm certain that there are nay-sayers out there who don't believe in this stuff, and that's fine, that's your opinion. However, the evidence is growing that plastics in general are not good.

I will admit that even within my own household, I haven't really taken a lot of steps to reducing my plastic consumption. What steps I have taken, I will blog about at a later date and time. I figured for myself, it will be baby steps, reduce plastic items slowly, one item at a time.

A couple of blogs that I read:

Fake Plastic Fish: I one thing I like about this blog is that the blogger shows all the plastic she encounters in her life. And it's surprising where some of the plastics she finds.

Life Less Plastic: Another person's quest to de-plasticise her life.

A Girl's Life in IT

I actually work with someone named Doug. Only he's 60. And gay. And you don't want to piss him off. I'd managed to piss him off today. Sigh. He's also not very technically savvy, but more so than many end users that we support.

10 more weeks to go!

Today I am exactly 30 weeks. I have 10 weeks left to go. I seriously can't wait for this bebe to come out. I never enjoyed being pregnant, and now that I'm getting to the point where I'm supposed to be gaining a bit more weight, I'm definitely feeling like a beached whale, and feeling more uncomfortable by the day. Lying on my stomach seems to be a distant memory. My back and hips are constantly hurting, despite the fact that I see my chiropractor and massage therapist on a regular basis, stretch and try to maintain good posture. I have mild to medium heartburn and acid reflux, which is not a pleasant thing to deal with already. My stomach seems to be sore all the time from all the stretching and growing my baby does.

Life has been quite busy for me. Every weekend (and many days during the week), I'm still trying to figure this whole baby thing out. I still don't complete have my head wrapped around the basics of changing a dirty diaper, and that I mean from the time you take a diaper off to the time you put a new one on. I may be just making things more confusing for myself by over thinking about it. I also don't know how to clothe a baby properly (although I bought a few cute clothing), and it never occurred to me that the you can layer clothing on a baby until a few days ago. I worry that the breastfeeding thing may not work out for me. I pretty much don't know anything!

The baby's been kicking quite a bit, definitely when I want to sleep or if I wake in the middle of the night, but it's doing more karate chops during the day as well. We went to the midwife's today and I asked how big my uterus is. Apparently everything that's sticking out, which is pretty amazing. And the kid's only taking up half the space still, so the rest is filled with amniotic fluid I imagine. I definitely notice sometimes when the kid does somersaults because I feel kicking going around in a circle.

I notice that my appetite has increase, and I want to eat more stuff. I'm trying to stay away from eating junk, but it's really hard sometimes! Never mind the foods that I'm not supposed to eat! I really miss those foods too. There is also a misconception that I should be eating for two. Technically, I only need an extra 300 calories per day, and that really amounts to one or two healthy snacks, not three extra meals. I definitely don't want pregnancy as a license to eat whatever I want and whenever I want. It's not healthy for me or the bebe. Yet my family insists that I'm not eating enough. Sigh.

I get stared at quite a bit at the gym. People wonder if I should still be exercising, and sometimes they ask. Today at my step class, the substitute instructor that I had was 5 months pregnant with her second one, and while she had to take frequent breaks, she was still able to jump around like crazy (I think was able to be as energetic as her when I was 5 months along, not anymore though). I'm also still doing weight training (at a much, much lower intensity and weights) to keep my body strong, and I have to say that I'm probably stronger now because I'm going to the gym more often, than I was even a year ago. Some women in some countries work hard labour in fields up until the time they give birth, I certainly think that my body can withstand a bit of exercise. By the way, I'm still doing Pilates, but that'll probably end by the end of February. I definitely have much less control over my ab muscles as I get bigger. If you watch me trying to do a roll up, it's, well, pretty much comical.

People also tell me the oddest things, and I feel there is so much misconception about the fragility of pregnant women and babies that I almost think people make it up. For instance:

• I shouldn't be moving so fast, the jiggling may hurt the baby.
• I shouldn't bounce up and down when doing step class or going up stairs, the bouncing motion may hurt the baby.
  
• I normally wear a set of keys around my neck at work, and the key chain is long enough so that the keys constantly hit my tummy. I shouldn't be doing that as that may hurt the baby. You should see how hard the midwife presses her fingers into my tummy when she's checking me out, and that doesn't hurt the baby one bit, so I don't think a bit of tapping against the stomach will affect it in any way.
• I've been told that I should stop exercising, I may hurt the baby. This was from someone who doesn't exercise.
  
• My favourite from my 95 year old grandmother: I shouldn't be wearing constricting clothing (I was wearing maternity clothing at the time), I may harm the baby by squeezing it too much: I shouldn't be wearing looser clothing and let everything hang, you know so the baby has more room to move. Gee, I wonder how my baby likes it every time I cough or sneeze, because my stomach muscles squeezes the baby like crazy. I'm definitely not telling her that I still do crunches.
  

My other biggest headache right now is figuring out my maternity leave. I wanted to give myself the flexibility of returning to work early if I wanted to, but which ended up complicating things. That turned out to be a lot of emails back and forth between myself and the HR lady. I'd managed to corner my boss today so that he can check over my job description, and in his typical fashion, he rearranged, added and chopped the entire thing, which means another edit. I need to submit it soon as HR has go through it's own rigmarole before it's even posted. Hiring at work is at least a 6 week process, if I'm lucky, so I need to get on this pronto!

My other headache is trying to figure out daycare, but that's another post unto itself. Sigh.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Okay, I've read a lot of different Pride and Prejudice spin-off/fan fiction/whatever you want to call them. I'm actually not a big fan of Elizabeth Bennet because I find her too self-righteous and annoying, and sadly enough, I'm okay if I read a story where Darcy ends up with a different heroine. That's how much Elizabeth annoys me.

But I simply have to read this book! I don't think I've ever heard of a plot line quite like this, I think it's hilarious! And the book has illustrations too, how awesome is that?!?!

A synopsis can be found here.

Happy Robbie Burns Day!

Okay, I'm one day late technically, but I was super busy yesterday, and had no time to blog! Although he's more famous for writing Auld Lang Syne, I will leave you with my favourite poem by Robbie, To A Louse. If you don't know what a louse is, it's singular for lice. The poem is brilliant, you must read it!

Happy Chinese New Year!

Today is the beginning of the new Chinese New Year! My sister pointed out that not only is she an Ox, but so is my grandmother (she'll be 96 this year!), and so will the bebe. She was very chuffed when she realised that her niece/nephew will be the same zodiac sign as her. I think if they're so similar, then my sister can babysit lots for me, she'll get along great with the kid. Ha.

I want to hire this guy

Mordac rules. Someone at work pointed out that our office managers should hire the cow, he's smarter. I agree.

I had a week from hell, and I knew it would be a week from hell, I just didn't anticipate it would turn out to be something that blew up on the server. The person at work who solved the problem can never leave our group or retire. Seriously. He's not supposed to be doing the low level technical stuff any longer, but quite honestly, he revels in it. I've spent many a late night with him in the past. The man is brilliant. He's been promoted to an Architect level, but doing the low level techie stuff is where his passions really is.

Third Trimester!

So today is the start of my Third Trimester! Yes, I'm finally 28 weeks and can hardly believe that I've made it this far!. I'm starting to get a little heavier, and starting to feel a little more miserable. My back hurts more, and I can never find a comfortable enough of a position to sleep in, although I'm still able to sleep on my back. I'm also back in the routine of stretching before going to bed, I need it to ward off the back pain somehow. The SI joint pain, I've given up on ages ago. I really look forward to my massage therapy and chiropractor visits.

I've caught a cold, and was very unhappy that I wasn't able to take anything for it. Fortunately, I hydrated like crazy and tried to sleep as much as I could, that seemed to do the trick. But this perpetual dry cough that I've had for about a month just won't quite go away. Sigh. I'm still going to my doctor's for my flu shot sometime soon.

I'm definitely huffing and puffing going up stairs. Apparently from this point onwards, I'm going to gain about 1/2 pound a week. I'm really hoping I don't go above 20 lbs, last I weighed myself, I was about 12-13 lbs over my pre-pregnancy weight. I already feel like a beached whale.

Nonetheless, we had moved my due date, I am now due April 9th. But anything can still happen between now and when the bebe decides to finally pop out. A lady at my gym today told me that her second child came about a month early. We still haven't moved out the old furniture from the bedroom, I've hardly bought anything that we need, and I just don't feel ready yet. I'm hoping by this time next month we'd be a little closer to being prepared for this kid.

Frankly, while I'm grudgingly getting used to the changes in my body, it still hasn't hit me yet that I'm going to have a baby. Or that my life is forever going to change. Overall, I still go about doing my own thing, and albeit my life is taken over by planning, doing and buying baby stuff, I still treat it as another hobby, or just another thing to do. And of course, there is that lingering resentment that I'm going to be giving up a lot of my independence for a good long time. Hey, I'm just being honest. I know I am not the only parent-to-be to feel this way.

Yes, I know I'm in for quite a shock.

Cloth Diapers

In an effort to reduce costs and to be somewhat more environmentally friendly, Hubby and I will be trying to use cloth diapers for the bebe. Today, we went to a diapering clinic to help us understand a bit more about what cloth diapering is all about. I had done a ton of research on cloth diapers, but until we actually held the different ones in our hands, it was hard to conceptualise all the different choices out there.

And there are a lot of different choices! I'm not even going to get into all the differences you can have with diapers, diaper covers, liners, doublers, and inserts. You can read this Cloth Diapering Guide here, and more Diapering 101 info here.

I will tell you that there is a bit of experimentation, and trial and error; that's what I've heard from a lot of people. So that may be a bit of frustration, patience and endurance to go getting it to work. But if I can reuse my diapers, or even have them recycled, biodegrade or reused by someone else, I'm going with this option. Or at least try. I definitely will try not to let the lure of convenience with disposables be my scape goat (by the way, I lot of people also tell me that you need to sometimes experiment with different brands of diapers, and they are notorious for leaking as well).

Will I never use disposables? I'm not naive enough to think that will never happen. But I'm at least willing to give the cloth diapering thing a good college try. Some of my friends have looked at me like I'm crazy when I mention using cloth diapers. Some things I've heard is that "they leak" (so do disposables), or "you'll have to do a lot of washing" (still costs less over time than buying disposable diapers), or "you'll get diaper rash" (you get them more with disposables).

My stance on this is that, like everything else with the baby, you need to figure out how things are going to work, yes it takes time and perseverance, and yes, it's going to be frustrating. However, there are lots of resources online, if you're patient enough to look for them. I've already bookmarked a number of diapering reference sites. And it never hurts to ask people for advice, that is sometimes the best source of information.

Often convenience comes at a heavy price on the environment, and I feel that this compromise isn't good enough for me. So cloth diapers, here I come!

Trying to be greener...

This is a very familiar symbol to most of us: reduce, reuse, recycle. This is certainly not a new concept; I was taught the 3 R's from an early age. But as we live in an ever-increasing world of instant gratification and disposible materialism, I think many of us (including myself) have forgotten this lesson in favour of getting what you want, now! and convenience.

One of my goals this year is to green my household more. I feel this is a ongoing work-in-progress, because as I do more to green myself, I also learn more. But for the basics, I try to think about the 3 Rs with any product that I use day-to-day:

Reduce

• Do I really need to buy this item? Perhaps I can think about buying it, or find a better/cheaper/more environmental option out there.
• Does the item really need all that packaging that gets thrown into the garbage right away?
  

Reuse

• Can I reuse this item in a different way?
  
• Can someone else reuse this item after I've been done with it?

Recycle

• If you really think about it, everything, and I do mean everything, eventually has an end-of-life: in other words, it will end up being thrown out. So, is there another way the item can reincarnate itself without having to end up in the dump?

This past month it really hit home how much crap we had. We actually threw out, sold, gave away or recycled a good portion of what we had. I normally insist on doing a major purge every year, but Evil Homework took up all of my spare time over the last three years, so we didn't purge and we accumulated stuff. However, with the bebe coming, it really put the purge in a much different perspective, mostly because we really don't have a lot of storage space and we're introducing a third warm body into the house who will be a big magnet for lots of baby stuff.

You'll be surprised at what you can recycle or give away nowadays. Some things that we sold, recycled, or gave away included:

• CD-R/CD-RW: we had about 50 or so, and it was really hard finding a place who would take them. Fortunately, Future Shop and Best Buy has bins that will take this stuff
• Old electronics, including cell phones
• Batteries
• Paper (a lot which we shred as it confidential information)
• Books: given to the library where they turn around and sell them for a profit. The monies then go back into the library to fund their book circulation supply
• DVD/VHS tapes/CDs: also to the library
• Clothing: went to the shelter
• Older cameras: Hubby sold them on Craigslist. There are still people who like and use film cameras, go figure
• Furniture (still yet to be gotten rid of): it will go to a good home as soon as it stops snowing and we can move them out of our house
• Computer parts: At one point, we had about 6-7 computers between the two of us, never mind all the miscellaneous computer parts floating around. Most of these have been disassembled, and the parts brought to the recycling depot
  
• Misc electronics, including adapters: to the recycling depot
  

Don't get me wrong, we are still guilty of throwing things out, we just trying to do less of it. And we will still buy things that are not reusable nor recyclable. We are, after all, the product of this materialistic society that we live in.

It's also getting difficult to figure out what we need for the baby, and what is deemed "nice-to-have", mostly because I've never done this baby thing myself yet. I'm not trying to reduce the number of things just because I'm trying to be more environmentally friendly, it's also easier on the pocketbook as well. I've managed to source out some baby consignment stores around town, and I'm hoping to use Craiglist, UsedVancouver, Kijiji and eBay to keep costs down. But I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't buy things that were frivolous for myself, my household, or for the baby. Trying to figure these things out, especially for the baby, is a hard task, and one way to do so is by doing research and reading what others have to say.

Wish me luck for a greener year!

Happy 2009!

Happy New Years Everyone!

I normally never make New Year Resolutions, one doesn't always tend to keep them. Instead, I thought I would make a list of things I would like to do. They aren't goals per se, just things I'm hoping to do or look forward to this year.

1. Learn to be a good mummy!

Yes, the kid will be coming sometime early spring, and with that, a lot of adjustments. Over the years, I've learned to be a much more patient person, but I think learning to be a parent will stretch my limits even further. Many people have said so.

I think I will stretch and grow in other ways as well. If you know me well enough, you know that I tend to be a very anal and organised person. I'm a planner. I like to make lists. I like to know that everything is in it's place before I start anything. The kid's going to throw everything in for the loop, I won't have time to plan and organise, much less execute these tasks. Let's just see how much of my old ways I'm going to have to either let go or at least modify.

2. Greening my home

Hubby and I have spent a portion of 2008 greening our household, but we could do better. To learn to be green takes a lot of research: there so much information out there and so many products touting to be "green" that one really needs to sit down and determine for themselves if it's doable for their lifestyle. When I mean green, I mean not just things that we buy and the environment (which are important), but overall lifestyle, the foods that we eat and how we take care of our bodies as well.

Another challenge of course is tied with #1, greening the household with the kid. I've been telling everyone that I'll be trying to use cloth diapers over the disposable ones when the kid comes, and all the responses that I've gotten so far were pretty negative: they either laugh or someone would tell me that they've either tried it themselves or know someone who did, and failed at it. Only one of my co-workers told me that he and his wife successfully used cloth diapers for almost two years with their son. My usual retort is that convenience has a high price and a high toll on the environment, and to do something like this takes time to research, asking people for advice, and lots of perseverance. I have no illusions that this is going to be easy, but I have to at least give it the good old college try.

I've also been thinking for some time about starting my own green blog, separate from this one, but threw in the towel when I found out I was knocked up. It was too much for me to assimilate at once, and to set up a blog like that properly takes a lot of effort and research. I only have energy for one thing right now, and that's the kid. But that doesn't mean I won't be blogging about all things green here.

3. Spend less money

Going on mat leave is a bit worrisome financially. Even though I've been saving like mad, it's a little disconcerting not knowing how much the kid's really going to cost. We'll be going down from two incomes to about 1.25, so it'll have to be an adjustment on our expenses as well as our savings.

The big question a year from now is daycare costs. One of the things that I will need to really get my butt in gear with is signing up for several daycares. Nonetheless, I anticipate that full-time daycare will cost over $1,000! Eeep!

There also a temptation to buy stuff (and less than necessary stuff) for the kid. It's hard to figure out what you need and what you don't need when there are some many more baby and kid products out in the market nowadays.

4. Start re-learning the piano again.

I purposely went out and bought a weighted electronic full-keyboard piano last year and lugged it all the way back from Calgary, so I could re-learn the piano. I really like playing, but it does take a bit of time and discipline to even be passable.

I also made a very tough decision to sell my bass guitar. I love playing the bass, but I've forgotten how to. After some thought, I knew it would be simpler for me to re-learn the piano than the bass (as I still remember the basics and had 10 years of piano lessons), and the kid's not going to give me time for both. I'm still hoping that some time in the future, I will pick up the bass again, but for now the bass has gotta go. A friend of my said that he'd find it a good home for me. Sob.

5. Learn to cook!

This is for the benefit of Hubby, who has been bugging me to learn how to cook for some time now. I was going to start once Evil Homework was finally done, but by the time EV was done, I was about 2 months pregnant and fighting nausea and fatigue, so that went out the window. Here's hoping for a better year for this particular goal.

6. Blog at least once a week.

We'll see how much time the kid lets me blog this upcoming year. I'm still hoping to put something up once a week if possible.

Ringing in the New Year!

I just realized that FLIB-ur-teejib-it (n.) turned three years old on Dec 27th. My only excuse is that I've been a tad busy. And tired. And overwhelmed.

Highlights of this year:

• May: Going to Rome/Southern UK (pictures are still not up!)
  
• July: Getting knocked up
• Aug: Finding out I was knocked up
  
• Sept: Finally finishing my Evil School

This whole baby thing has really taken over my life. So far, we've managed to mostly re-organize the house, purge I would say about one-sixth of what was originally there and clean out most of the baby's room.

There's still some large furniture in the baby's room that needs to be moved out, and we were prevented mainly from the four large snowfalls we had within a span of two weeks! This is the most snow I've seen ever fall on Lotusland! Nonetheless, it doesn't mean we haven't made great headway in the the baby-front. I've been doing a lot of reading on what the baby needs before I go out and buy things like strollers, car-seats, clothing, baby's development, etc.

We did buy a little bit of stuff: a swaddling blanket, two organic cotton onesies and an organic cotton sleep sack. The biggest purchase so far was the Natural Rubber crib mattress. A regular crib mattress costs anywhere from $80-100. This one was significantly more, but we feel it's worth it. Why a Natural Rubber mattress? I'll be answering that question in a later post, but here's something to get you started.

What to look forward to in 2009:

• Well, I'm still pregnant, so you'll be hearing a lot about that. A cloth diapering session and prenatal classes are on the calendar
• I'm giving birth to a baby! Enough said. Being a mother should be interesting....
  
• We're slowly greening our house. I was going to start up a separate green blog, but then I got knocked up, and quickly realised that maintaining yet another blog won't be feasible.
• And other things as they come along...

I am determined to post at least once a week in 2009, even it is only "My baby won't sleep and mummy is sleep-deprived.". But you'll definitely see a bit of a shift with FLIB-ur-teejib-it (n.) next year as I go through my own life changes.

Repeat after me...

SNOW BELONGS ON MOUNTAINS AND ONLY MOUNTAINS!

So within a week's time, we got about 30cm of snow dumped on us. This is the most snow that I've ever seen fall in Lotusland. Ever.

For those of you who are enamored with snow, you cannot say that love snow only when it's convenient for you. If snow becomes an inconvenience, you still must love it, and can never change your mind about not loving it later on. Or else you become a hypocrite.

I hate snow. Refer to first sentence of this post.

This picture was taken today. The big piles of snow is our front yard, and the trees beyond that is our neighbour's yards. Hubby and my mom spend a fair number of hours this past week just shovelling and shovelling and shovelling and shovelling...

Never mind the stoopid people on the road who are scared, can't drive in the snow, get their cars stuck because they have bald summer tires on or their cars just isn't powerful enough, whatever. People become very selfish when it comes to winter driving around these parts. It's every person, or vehicle, for himself. A passerby told Hubby today that there were actually people down the street from us who were getting into a big fight. While he didn't have full details, we could probably guess that people were getting very frustrated by the snow and not being able to go or get around anyone else.

It will be one of the few Christmases when it's actually a White Christmas, but honestly, white Christmases are so over-rated. Forecast says it should be raining later this weekend. I can't wait for that.