Good Morning!

It's roughly 6:15 AM at the start of this post. I've been up since about 3AM, and since I figured it would be awhile before I go back to sleep, I might as well post. I'm running on less than 4 hours of sleep, so if something doesn't make sense or my grammar is even worse than it usually is, you'll know why.

Unfortunately we haven't had a chance to take any pictures over the last month. The weather has been gross and Bo has been working quite a bit. I think if I remember, I'll make it a priority to do that this weekend. I do enjoy seeing our progress and hopefully you do too.

We had an appointment about two weeks ago and everything seemed fine. We got to briefly hear her heartbeat again, which is always nice! At the 14-week appointment, she had to search awhile for it, but this time we found it almost immediately. In a couple of weeks I'll go for another appointment and they'll test me for gestational diabetes. I'm really not looking forward to this. I have to fast for something like 12 hours and then drink an orange-flavored glucose drink. Lately, I've been either waking up starving or having to eat in the middle of the night. Yesterday morning I felt horrible and I'm 100% sure it was all blood sugar. I should have tested it...I have a glucometer around here somewhere.

Little girl really started moving a lot these past two weeks. She's been quieter the past few days, but she's picked it back up this morning. It's even to the point now where Bo can actually feel it. He gets so excited and I'll never forget his first reaction. I'm just glad he gets to experience those aspects of the pregnancy. Overall, I've felt pretty good. Bo probably wouldn't know that because he gets to hear me whine about every ache and pain :) I have some pretty serious reflux that sometimes responds to enzymes or the occasional Tums, but other than that everything else has been manageable. I feel constantly hungry...all the time. A friend of mine, who is also pregnant, asked me if I ever got tired of eating. I said YES! I'm glad I'm not the only one. As much as I hate going to the grocery store, I find that going twice a week ensures that I have a good variety of things to eat. Having fresh eggs available is also nice. I had a great omelet a couple days ago.

I'll stop talking about food now. In all seriousness, I would like to ask for prayer for Bo. We are going through what I call a "busy season" of work. I guess this all started about a week or two ago, so we're both still a little shocked by it all, but hopefully we'll hit a stride soon. Not that it will be any easier. He's concerned he might be getting sick, which is not uncommon during these stressful times. He's such a hard worker and I'm incredibly thankful for everything he does for us. He rarely complains and despite the late nights, he's rarely crabby (unlike me -ha!).

Well I'm going to try and get some sleep before I need to wake Bo up for work. We miss everyone "back home" and will come back for a visit once our Bradley (child birthing) classes are over in mid-March!

Quick Update

I've been wanting to update the blog for sometime now, but I just never seem to remember to do it when I actually have the time (I think this is "pregnesia"). Anyhow, I finally remembered and thought I would try to do a quick update. Hopefully everyone knows by now that we're having a GIRL!!! I felt all along that it was a girl and of course I had a 50/50 chance, but it's still cool that my feeling was right. We're absolutely thrilled to be having a healthy little girl!

Here she is:

As for names. We do have a name picked out, but our plan is to wait until she's here to tell everyone. I'm not giving out any hints either :)

On January 15, we started our Bradley Method classes. Basically, it's a naturally approached childbirth method that emphasizes the husband's role as the birth coach. So far I've really enjoyed it, although we haven't really gotten into the nitty gritty. Last week was the nutrition part and so that was nothing new for me :) However, we had to keep a food log and I realized that I am not eating enough, especially protein. I was really surprised by this because I already felt like I was eating all the time. Now I really feel like I'm constantly eating. I find that it's really important that I eat right before bed, regardless of whether or not I'm actually hungry. No bed time snack and little girl has me up at 4:30-5AM eating a snack. Bo even got to partake in an early morning breakfast with me at Kerbey Lane Cafe. You can get the breakfast platter for like $3.50 before 7AM, how cool is that ?!

Lately we've been really busy cleaning out the "office" and purging it of anything we don't need. Most notably, we've taken out the desk and replaced it with a giant bookcase from Ikea. The painting is almost done, the bookshelf is almost ready for books and soon we'll be able to take put everything back in there. The nursery is FULL of office stuff. Seriously, I can't walk into the room. I'm not worried though, we have just over 4 months until we need the nursery.

Lastly, I thought I would post a picture of my progress. I'm currently between 22 and 23 weeks. If I got to see everyone on a regular basis, I would not put pictures of myself like this online...so I hope you enjoy them :) We likely won't get around to taking pictures each week, but hopefully every 2-3 weeks we'll do it. Brodie sat in with me on this one, haha.

Better Late Than Never...

I must apologize to our wonderful families. You all have asked how our trip to San Francisco went and I probably told you "good" and left it at that. Well, we have pictures! I'll try and do a quick photo montage. I don't know who still has dial-up so I'll make the pictures small. If you have issues viewing them, give me a ring and I'll try to help you. Otherwise, you'll see us soon and maybe we can show them then.

Without further ado...

Day 1 we got to SF and planned on seeing the Golden Gate Bridge. What we didn't plan on was being 4 miles away from it and it was Fleet Week (a huge display of planes and ships) so there were literally thousands of extra people hanging out. So we ended up renting bicycles and cycling up to and across the bridge.

Before the bridge, there was a little park full of tents and picnics. I thought it was funny so I took a picture.

Here I am on the bridge. We enjoyed cycling across, but there were quite a few snooty "real" cyclists who enjoyed giving tourists the evil eye. Cyclists take themselves way too seriously. I'm glad runners aren't like cyclists :)

The other side of the bridge was beautiful.

Here's Bo on the other side.

Sausalito is on the other side of the bridge. It's full of wonderful touristy shops and restaurants. We ate at a nice Italian restaurant for lunch. We didn't have much time to spend there before the ferry came to take us back (yes we cheated). After eating a bunch of pasta I was NOT about to bike back 4 miles!!

I have more pictures, but I think I'll try to upload those in a couple of days. Let me know if the pictures should be bigger...I uploaded them on the smallest setting.

**Edit: The pictures are pretty small. I might try making them bigger later.

Well Hello May!

So I don't think it's a secret that I'm not very good at blogging. I'm trying to think about what has happened since my last post. In February, I started getting a lot more hours at work and started seeing patients at the outpatient cancer clinic. I also started taking sewing classes at the Stitch Lab (Bo's Christmas present to me). In March, we celebrated Bo's 26th birthday at Hudson's on the Bend where we feasted on a variety of wild game - it was delicious.

April was a big month. I started quilting and I got a full-time job. Yep, my first full-time job! On Monday I started orientation at the Austin State Hospital. Orientation will last another week. We've spent a lot of time learning about mental illness, intellectual disabilities and a technique called Prevention and Management of Aggressive Behavior (PMAB). I've learned so much in such a short amount of time. I find it all very interesting (and I love to learn about new things). Bo has also been doing well at work. He was commended by his manager for doing such great work that they gave him a $200 gift card for Eddie V's (and there is a choice of two other restaurants that I don't recall). He's been working hard since he started his new project, so it's nice to know that his manager recognizes his hard work.

Here is a picture of my first completed sampler block. You don't have to look hard to find mistakes, but it's my first and I'm proud of it.

I took the picture will my phone, so the lighting isn't great. (the background is my ironing board). Hopefully I'll have the previous month's block finished by the end of the week. I attend a monthly quilting class taught by a woman that I go to church with (Dolores). Each month we start another block of the quilt. I think it'll take a year or so to do the whole project. Dolores has offered to give me some instruction on a scrap quilt to work on also. This should be a nice project that doesn't require much skill. Which is nice because I don't have much of that...haha.

Where Did January Go?

Well January isn't over yet, but it seems like it's flown by so quickly already. On my way to the grocery store this afternoon, a song came on the radio that brought me back to this time last year. The song in-and-of-itself isn't relevant, but it was new and very popular at the time so it was on the radio pretty much every time I was in my car. Anyhow, this time last year I was my foodservice management rotation. First off, I HATE hospital foodservice. Bless those that love it and are successful at it, but it just wasn't for me. I didn't like what I was doing, felt no connection with my preceptor (cold as ice!), and I missed my husband terribly. I don't think there are words for how much I missed being away from home. I haven't lived a very long time, but I'm going to say that was the lowest, darkest point of my life. Praise God I'm back home with Bo and even have a job! It's weird thinking about how different my life is now - just a year later.

Speaking of my job, in addition to my PRN in-patient position, it looks like I and the other PRN dietitian will be working with the outpatient cancer clinic. I'm pretty nervous, but excited at the same time. We haven't started yet, so I'll try to keep everyone updated on how that goes. We're first going to start by teaching people how to use their PEG tubes (feeding tube) and then will progress into doing some counseling and educations. There's also another opportunity that I might have. I would really appreciate some prayer for this as it's not definite that I will get it or even if I will be a good fit for it. I would love for it to pan out, though.

Bo and I started a new budget with the You Need A Budget (YNAB) software last week. I'm anxious to get this budget going. God has blessed us with educations and jobs and I think it would be in our best interest to honor those blessings by paying off our school debt! We've set everything up, so now we'll just need to update it weekly and actually follow it! Ideally, if we do it right we'll be paying the current month's bills with last month's income.

We're smoking a brisket right now. Bo bought a smoker from Craigslist awhile back and this is the second time we've used it. This is the first time we've ever done a brisket. It smells beyond wonderful. On one of our visits, Bo went down to the river bottom land and found a hickory tree that was about to fall so he took it back with him instead of letting it rot. I hope you all are jealous :)

Tomorrow our church is moving. I'm happy about this for many reasons, but the main one is that we will go back to one service. I miss not seeing everyone each Sunday. We're helping with the move because Bo is on the sound-team and I'm the hospitality coordinator. Hospitality is going to have a new set-up so I'm interested to see how this is going to work. I'm not worried about it though, there are so many people available to help and give input.

I'm not sure when we'll be in to visit next. Perhaps March or April. I know that seems like a long way off, but our schedules are NUTS! Love you all!

Happy New Year

I worked the first week of January so I'm just now getting to the Happy New Year post. First of all, we had a great time visiting our families for Christmas. It's always nice visiting everyone, but Christmas makes it that much more special.

Santa came to visit Grace and some of her little friends on Saturday. She was so excited to see Santa and then once he came she was suddenly shy. I've never seen her so shy before, so it was pretty funny!

Luckily, I don't have a picture of Bo and I sitting on Santa's lap. Yep, I don't think we had a choice in the matter...haha. I don't even know what I asked him for, but I'm pretty sure I got everything I wanted :)

Over the last part of December we dog sat for a co-worker of mine. She was going to drive back to see her family in Kansas City, but decided it wouldn't be safe as they were having some major snow flurries and ice. We watched Lucy, her Italian Greyhound, for a few days while she was gone. I think it was the first time Lucy had been away from her, but she did really well. Lucy didn't care much for Cannon, and vice versa, but her and Brodie managed to get some play time in. For a dog that isn't around other dogs too much she did really well.

We didn't do anything for New Year's eve, except go to sleep. However, we went camping on New Year's day so we needed our rest. We had never been to Bastrop State Park so us and another couple from church went. It's a beautiful park, right there inside of the Lost Pines. If I get around to it, I'll try to do a write up on our camping page.

Today I'm going to start my somewhat annual "Spring Cleaning" marathon. I know it isn't Spring yet, but the house could use it and I have the time. There's always the chance that I might not have the time come Spring. Spring cleaning is a time to purge our house of the things we don't need or haven't used in the past year and re-organize. We don't have a lot of extra space in our house so it's important to only have what we need and for it to have a place. Otherwise, I go crazy looking for things. Off to clean...

Unintentional Hiatus and My New Job

I lost track of time and so here I finally am updating our blog. Since most of our readers have seen us recently and will see us soon, I thought it might be pointless in updating. However, I really enjoy having a blog so I will update anyway!

Probably the main reason I haven't updated in awhile is because of my new job. I was hired by a local hospital system as a PRN Clinical Dietitian. "PRN" means that I work on an "as needed" basis. So basically whenever a full-time dietitian needs a day off, I will cover their position. There are 5 hospitals that I cover! I've been trained in at each one, so that's exciting.

I'm frequently asked what exactly my job entails. People mostly tend to think I make sure people get the right diet or that I write menus. That is a small part of my job, but not really the sole reason I'm there. I can tell you that what I love most about my job is that every day is different. It really depends on the patient. Everyone is different.

Some patients cannot eat. This might be because of their diagnosis or they might be mechanically vented, which means a machine is breathing for them. Whatever the reason is, they might need to be fed through a tube. I determine their "nutrition needs" (calories, protein, etc) and choose the appropriate formula. There are different formulas for different needs: more concentrated for those who need fluid restriction, high protein, some that a lower in certain minerals, etc.

There are also times when a person cannot be on a tube feeding. So they will be fed through their vein, so to speak. Again, I determine their nutrition needs and then determine how much amino acids (protein), lipids (fat), and dextrose (carbohydrate) to give them. This method of nutrition is very expensive, but it's cool to think that you can receive nutrition right into your blood instead of your body digesting them first! Okay maybe I'm the only one here who thinks that's cool :)

I also do diet educations. I typically enjoy doing those because I get to visit with people. Of course, not every patient wants to hear me talk about their new diet, so sometimes it's not fun. I also talk with nurses and doctors about the patients. It's a team effort, which I like.

When I make my recommendations to the doctors, I have take the diagnosis, lab values, medications, past medical history and of course the patient's personal needs into consideration. There's seriously not a day that goes by when I don't learn something new.

So there's a brief overview of what Taylor Wingo, RD, LD does as a clinical dietitian. The RD stands for Registered Dietitian and the LD stands for Licensed Dietitian. The RD is what I studied my rear-end off for and is a national designation. The LD is a state of Tx designation and I had to take an exam over the state laws of my licensure. Both licenses require continuing education and of course a yearly fee! That part is pretty much the same with any other health professional with a license.