My 365 Day Photo Challenge-Week One

I am not very good at taking photos. I'm the one who gets home after a fun day/event and thinks "hmm..I should have taken some pictures...oops, maybe next time..." I've gotten better since having our daughter Eden. She is always doing something cute or just cute in general. I've even gotten not so great at taking pictures of her. I saw that one of my friends was doing a "365 photo challenge", where you take at least one picture every day. I happened to see it on January 1st so I decided to give it a try to help me take more pictures. So here goes

January 1st- We took down the Christmas tree today and set up some of Eden's new toys to make a cute play area for her. (I found my friends post about the photo challenge after Eden went to bed, or she would be in these pics)

Since Eden was already in bed I decided to take my first selfie before heading to work. This was my first night as the full time night nurse on my unit. woo hoo :)

January 2nd- Today was my sister's last day in Spokane for her Christmas break. It was so fun having her in town. Eden loves hanging out with her. We will miss you Auntie Ginny!

Guess who dressed Eden today? I'll give you a hint it wasn't me or Auntie...

January 3rd- A pretty uneventful day. Derek plays guitar and Eden loves to dance. (That's why she's blurry, lol) 

One of my favorite pics of Eden :)

January 4th- Derek and Eden went to church while I slept since I work night shifts :( Eden loves to sit at her new play table that Grandma and Pop got her.

Eden likes to put on Daddy's glove :)

Eden with "pengi" a dream lites pillow pet, one her new favorites. It already stopped working though :(

Another favorite of Eden :) She loves books :)

January 5th- Oops we missed this day...We just had another lazy day at home.

January 6th- Today we went to Barns and Noble. Eden had a blast looking at all the books. Derek took some pics in the morning too before I got up. 

Eden was eating lunch when I got up. mmm grilled cheese

We told Eden that we were going bye bye so she grabbed her purse :)

Yay new books!!

Eden discovered that she can climb into the rocking chair in her room. She's so cute :)

January 7th- Today we went to the YMCA to work out. Derek loves to swim and I just use an eliptical while Eden gets to go play for a while. No pics because I'm still not great at taking pics in public. We also stopped by a thrift store called Value Village to look for some study books for Derek. No luck finding study books but we did find Eden a new dress and some snow pants. She was too cute not to take a pic :)

Ok, there is week one. More next week! 

Living in the hoarder's basement

Ever since I've been in the nursing program i would get emails from our advisement center about employment opportunities. There was one particular one that I got quite often about an elderly couple looking for someone to rent their basement apartment and take care of the wife sometimes. Rent was only $500 and included utilities and a washer/dryer. We always thought it sounded like a pretty good deal but we were always a little hesitant. Finally, last November, after our apartment went up in price for a second time, we decided to look into this basement apartment.

I called the elderly gentleman and he seemed so excited that someone was interested. We went to look at it that day. The only downside we foresaw was that it was in Pleasant Grove which is about 25 minutes from Provo. He also warned us about the "mess" in his backyard, which we didn't think much of. When we got to the house, it was definitely "messy". Looking back we should have realized something was off, but we just sort of brushed it off. We really liked the apartment but were a little hesitant. The elderly gentleman was quite pushy though and before we knew it we were signing a contract.

Almost immediately after leaving we got a very bad feeling about all of it. But being the nice people that we are, we didn't want to back out and let the guy down. Derek was sure that they were hoarders, and the more I thought about it the more I thought it could be true too. We tried to keep in mind how much we liked the apartment so we didn't have to think about how worried we were about the whole ordeal. We moved in the next month. Within a few days of living there we had confirmed that they were hoarders...What did we get ourselves into?

Here are some of the reasons we knew they were hoarders.

1.  The night we moved in we had to get into two of his storage units off of our apartment. They were both filled to the ceiling with furniture and other items. Somehow we were able to fit his old mattress(we brought our own) into one of them after moving a bookshelf to the other.
2. We found out that his garage is FULL of scrap wood that he keeps "just in case". He claims he uses it to fix furniture, which is one of his hobby's but wow. 
3. There are also two large storage sheds in his backyard that are full also.
4. There house is scary. There is stuff stacked up everywhere with little tiny walkways. We often would hear a large crash and think, "Oh, there went a pile of stuff..."
5. The kitchen was really scary...I helped him do dishes once and found silverware that had been in the bottom for a while and it was molding...blah, so gross. 
6. Upon talking with the ward we found out they had come several times to take stuff to the dump when the city was threatening him. They also told us that most people that live there don't last more than 3-6 months. That is why we never received callings I guess. 
7. Every night before trash day, we would see him raiding other people's trash for who knows what...Oh and we figured out that he was going through our trash that we would put in the same bin as his...kinda freaky. 
8. Oh and did I mention the smell? I don't know how we missed it at first, but wow it was bad. We bought air fresheners to cover it up but it didn't really help. It's a good thing our noses adjust after a little while or it would have been unbearable and it almost was anyways...yuck
9. And I could continue on and on.

We tried really hard to help him get rid of stuff. We even went through one his storage rooms off of our apartment and got him to get rid of extra couches, REALLY old food storage and some board games that had mouse poo all over them. This gave us a little hope that we could actually help him. Most other times we would try to get him to rid of stuff he would always have some sort of excuse for needing it. It really took a toll on us. We started looking for a new place to live so we could escape the craziness. 

The husband was the one who needed help, not the wife like the ad had said. Since I have CNA experience it wasn't too big of a deal for me to help him every once and a while. That was until his wife got jealous of me...She thought we were having "relations", oh dear...She even started yelling at us in the floor vents...it was very creepy. Sometimes she would yell while the baby was sleeping and wake her up, I was getting so MAD. I guess she was having some mental health problems, probably related to the hoarding. We kept praying for something to work our and finally it did. We found a great place in Orem for a good price and it has a washer/dryer. We moved in March and are so much happier.

We feel bad for this couple. We really wanted to help them, but we realized that it wasn't our responsibility. They weren't really ready to change yet either, which makes it even harder. We realized that it was not a good environment for our sweet baby girl to be in. Being in a messy environment really takes it's toll on you too. It is impossible to feel the spirit, which just makes life even harder. We have gotten better at getting rid of stuff we don't need and to keep our house cleaner because of this whole experience. We definitely realized why we were so hesitant and got such bad feeling about it. I don't think we regret doing it though. We are grateful for whatever help we did give them. We are still on good terms with them(well the husband and least, we're not sure about the wife...), which is not always the case I guess. We are much happier now and look back on the experience almost like a bad dream.

Could we survive without facebook?

The answer is obviously, yes...But why are there 500 million* active facebook users then? What is it about facebook that makes it so important to so many people? Are there negative effects of being on it too much?

Here are a few of the reasons why people use facebook/social media. There could be more but here is a good start...

Some of these need a little explanation I think. Lets start with narcissistic. There was a study done that tried to prove that people who use facebook are narcissistic. It could not be proven because there are so many reasons that people use facebook and obviously not everyone that uses it is narcissistic. It is thought that people who spend a lot of time on it could be though. And what about the people who tell us almost every detail of their life?

This goes along with the notion that some people need attention, or to feel important. They may feel like if other people "like" what they say that they are validated in some way.

Is facebook just a big popularity contest though? Is it all just a big competition between our friends to see who has the most interesting life? I think on a mostly sub-conscious level, yes. Some people think that if they have more friends than someone else that it means something. Others think that if their statuses or pictures get a lot of likes that people really like them. I think what it really comes down to though is the need to feel like they matter. 

Everyone needs to feel like they matter in one way or another. Facebook seems to create a community where people can feel like they matter in a virtual world. Some people are able to express themselves in ways that they may not have been able to before social media. People can join groups, post memes, and upload photos to help people know who they "really are".

The interesting thing about facebook is that it's a virtual world that often coincides with the real world. We can find out more about people we met in person by looking at their facebook profile. We can keep track of friends that have moved away and reconnect with childhood friends. It is hard to say though whether this allows us to connect with others on a deeper level or a more superficial "fake" level.

Opponents of facebook claim that we can use the "old fashioned" way of communicating like phone and email that existed before facebook. But does facebook allow us to make connections with people that we otherwise would never make? 

I think that the bottom line is that there are good and bad things about having a virtual world, like facebook. I think that we need to be careful how we use such a thing. It is ok to use facebook as a tool to aid us in keeping in touch with others as long as we also connect with them in the real world as well. It is ok to want to feel like we matter, but we shouldn't end up mattering only in a virtual world. 

Here are some of my sources:

*  http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/psychology-of-facebook/

http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2011/09/why-do-we-hate-facebook-so-much.html

https://www.openforum.com/articles/yes-b2b-needs-social-media-marketing-too/

https://www.openforum.com/articles/top-10-reasons-people-dont-like-your-facebook-posts/

http://socialtimes.com/what-can-psychology-tell-us-about-why-people-go-to-facebook_b27531

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/facebook-friends-how-many-is-too-many/

Life has been a little crazy but is finally calming down

So I guess I'm not so good at blogging. After Eden was born life was pretty crazy. I got to be home with her for about 4 months which was so great. It was still hard though. She loved to eat, sometimes that felt like all I did all day was feed her. It was hard to do much else. We went on little adventures to the laundry place and mailbox and that was about it. She didn't sleep great either. She would always fall asleep while eating and then I would try to transfer her to her crib, usually I was successful but then she would only sleep a couple hours at a time and we would start all over. I was sure that something was wrong with my milk that made her want to eat all the time but the Dr. told me that everything was fine, that some babies are like this...I was so overwhelmed during this time that I didn't feel up to doing much so that is why I never updated my blog...

Oh and then we moved...twice in three months...that will be a story for another post i think. It was a little crazy but we survived somehow. I also started back at school in January. It felt good to be back into "normal" life but it was hard to leave my sweet baby girl for entire days! Mostly Derek would watch her but we had a couple baby sitters as well. Everything worked out fine but was very busy. I pretty much felt like all I did was  take care of Eden and do Homework. I had a hard time even keeping the house clean or doing anything fun. It was ok though because I loved my time with Eden. She wasn't eating quite as often, which helped me have time for homework. I figured out that I was causing her sleep problems by feeding her to sleep so we started some "sleep training" as they call it and she started to sleep better...not great, but better, haha (maybe I'll do a post about this too...). We moved for the second time while Derek and I were both in school so it was a little nuts. We were so happy to be out of the other place though so we were happy. I made it though my first semester back with a couple A's, A-'s, B+'s and a B. I was happy with it considering how hard it was.

 I was able to have a week off, so I went home to Washington to visit my family. They were so excited to see Eden. She had so much fun, even though her schedule got all messed up. She even had her first camping trip! Well camping with electricity and a cabin to sleep in. We had a fun get together with my cousins too. One of them has a baby boy a couple months older than Eden. They had fun playing together.

 I am in school for spring term but it's much easier. We are doing our global health experience and my group is working with the Refugee population that lives in Salt Lake City. It's been pretty exciting and overwhelming so far. We visit 3 families from different places in Africa. I'm learning a lot! I've finally been able to organize our apartment and I even made some fun decorations for the wall that I'm excited about. We are trying to cook more meals as well. It was pretty rough for a while. We pretty much lived on fast food and freezer food and like sandwiches for quite a while. All of this crazyness has been so worth it though. Baby Eden is growing up fast! She will be 9 months old on the 21st. She's not crawling yet, just rolling some and scooching a little bit on her tummy. She sits up though and loves her toys. She loves going on walks and being outside. She is happy except when we try to get her to sleep when she doesn't want to(even though she is clearly tired). She's pretty stubborn, but so sweet and cute as well. We love her so much and are so grateful for her.

Eden's birth story

The story of Eden's birth is definitely not what I expected. I never even got to feel what real labor pains feel like. At about 8 pm on Monday the 20th I started to feel this strange tightening in my lower rib cage starting by my sternum and radiating around even to the back. At first it wasn't too bad and I had had pain sort of like it before so I didn't worry too much. The pain slowly got worse and worse to the point where I had to lay down and even that didn't help much. Derek wasn't home from work yet so I didn't know what to do, I started getting really scared. I didn't know what the pain was but it was bad so my mind started to fill with all sorts of scary ideas. I even thought I might be having a heart attack because my heart was pounding pretty hard.

When Derek got home I told him how much pain I was in and he suggested I call the emergency number of my Dr.'s office. I had been thinking of just going to the ER. I'm glad he suggested this. I called the office and actually was able to get my Dr.'s phone number which I was happy about because I don't really like the other Dr.'s at the office. I called her and she told me she wanted me to come into labor and delivery at the hospital to be checked out.

Arriving at the hospital was kind of weird considering at that point we didn't even know what was wrong and I wasn't even in labor. The nurse did all the basic things and asked me a lot of questions. It sort of sounded like the might send me home until they called my Dr. She ordered a urine test, blood test and EKG. The urine and blood test where to check for pre-eclampsia. If you have it there will be protein in your urine and liver enzymes in your blood. I didn't have much protein in my urine but I had a pretty alarming number of liver enzymes in my blood. I was told I have pre-eclampsia and that my labor would have to be induced and possibly have a c-section. I am so grateful for a knowledgeable Dr., without her ordering those tests its scary to think what might have happened to me. We were pretty excited that we would have our baby soon. It all felt so surreal that she would finally be here.

Here's me, already started on the epidural and magnesium.

From the blood test they also found that my platelet count in my blood was starting to get low as well. I found out later this is another condition called HELLP syndrome. It means that if I bleed to much my blood wouldn't be able to clot very well, which means I could potentially lose a lot of blood. This worked out great for me because that meant getting my epidural in before my platelets dropped any lower. They got it in right as the began inducing my labor so I never felt any pain. They also started me on the most horrible medication on the planet-magnesium sulfate. This was because pre-eclampsia can cause seizures so the magnesium helps prevent this. It makes you feel hot and so tired and lethargic that you can't function. I had to stay on it for an entire day after the delivery as well.

After about 4-5 hours of being on the pitocin, I was still only dialed to 3 and a half. My Dr. came in to tell me that I would have to have a c-section. My platelet counts had continued to fall so the sooner the better. My daughter would be here soon! I wasn't really scared to have a c-section at this point. I was just happy I would get to meet my daughter soon. I felt very well taken care of by all the Doctors and nurses so I knew everything would be fine. 

The surgery went really well. I had a nice Dr. up by my head to talk me through what was going on and to reassure me and tell me I was doing good. Derek was also right next to me. He was too scared to actually watch the surgery. He looked so cute in his OR clothes :). Eden took a while to get out. My Dr. told me later that she was so wiggly that her little arms and legs where getting stuck. Because of where her head was they where worried about her air being cut off so my Dr. had to cut me just a little further to get her out finally. It really helped build the anticipation of her arrival. When she finally came out the Dr. by my head told me to lift my head to look over the sterile field. There was my beautiful daughter. All I managed to say was "Oh my gosh!", then I just started crying tears of joy. She was actually here! I don't think I've ever been happier. She was taken from there to be weighed and tested. I already missed her so much. Derek brought her back to me after this. She got a 9/10 on her APGAR score and had almost no trace of billirubin. She was 7 pounds 3 oz and 19 and a half inches long, so healthy and beautiful. I couldn't stop kissing her. I call her my little angel baby.

After this life got much more difficult, more difficult than anything I've ever experienced. The magnesium I was on made me so dizzy and drowsy I could barely function. My blood counts and platelets where very low as well so that didn't help my cause either. Breast feeding Eden was a bit of a challenge. The first night was so hard. I need a lot of help but the nurses almost seemed to busy to really help. Eden cried and I cried. Eventually I got her to eat and everything was ok. I couldn't even stay awake though while she ate, I was so out of it. The nurses tried to get me up a couple times because that is what they usually do the day after a normal c-section. I couldn't even sit up without almost falling over from the dizziness and pain. I cried some more.

The next morning they took me off the magnesium and things started looking up from there. I slowly started feeling better and I even was able to eat solid food. I was able to get up to the bathroom a couple times and even go on a walk. The next day I took a shower and went on a lot of walks. I felt almost back to normal. They were still waiting for my platelet counts to come up and they finally did that day. I could go home the next day!

Going home was very surreal. I sort of felt like I had been out of town or something. It was so good to finally be home though.

Pennies from Heaven

Coming into this pregnancy we really had no idea how we were going to pay for everything. It was so overwhelming to think about all the stuff we had to get for our baby. We are both still in school and working part time. We were doing ok financially, but we really didn't have any extra money, just what we needed to get by. The thought of adding the expense of a baby was a little scary. We felt like from the very beginning that having this baby was the Lord's will and this gave us confidence that everything would work out ok. The first blessing we received was a free crib set. I had a habit of checking craigslist every morning when I got up for any good baby deals. This habit had been pretty unsuccessful so far, but I was determined to find a good deal so I continued checking. One morning I found an ad for a crib, cradle and changing table. There was no price listed but I figured it was worth a look. When I opened the ad I found that the lady was giving away the crib set for free because it had a stripped screw. Whoever would come pick it up could have it for free! I emailed her right away and she got back to me to tell me I was the first to respond the the ad! We where super excited. The only thing we were worried about is the crib fitting in our car. We have a 1990 Toyota Camry and since its so old the back seat has trouble folding down for some reason, something is broken with the mechanism I guess. To fix the problem we took the entire back seat out of the car...It was a bit of a mess but my husband is pretty handy so we got it all back together later and we got the crib set home.

Here's the set we got :)

 Most of our other "pennies from heaven" came from Derek's awesome Aunt Judy. She is really into couponing so she got us a ton of wipes and diapers. A friend of hers also gave her a car-seat and bathtub to give to us because she had no use for them. She also gave us an awesome old rocking chair and made us some great receiving blankets. She and a few other members of Derek's family are also pitching in to pay for a nice breast pump for me. I don't know what I would do without all of her help. Thanks Judy!

 Our last blessing came in the form of a stroller. I was on our ward/apartment facebook page and someone had mentioned something about some strollers that needed to be taken away because they had been left in a stairwell for a long time. I walked over to the stairwell to take a look and sure enough there where two strollers, one big one and one of those umbrella strollers. Some neighbors where outside so I asked them if they thought it was ok for me to take the strollers and of course they didn't object. They where super dirty because I found out they had been left there for about two years, but they cleaned up just fine. Here is the bigger one.

I am also getting a baby shower this Saturday which I am super excited about. I didn't think I was going to get one because I don't have too many close friends around here and no family except for a few members of Derek's family around to throw me one. Luckily a friend of mine from the ward and the relief society president asked if they could have one for me. Yay :)

 I almost forgot,we also recently got approved for medicaid which will pay for the rest of our dr. bills and for the birth. This pretty much covers every expense that we where stressing out about. I feel so blessed. I know that Heavenly father is watching out for us and that he really does love to see us happy. He really does answer our prayers. All of these blessings really have been "pennies from heaven."

Pregnancy so far

Since I just started this blog I thought I would give everyone an overview of how my pregnancy has gone. I am currently 34 weeks along, only 6 weeks left! I can't wait to meet our baby girl. We are going to name her Eden. We don't have a middle name yet but we do have some ideas. My pregnancy has been pretty good I think just from what I've heard from others.

I was never very sick thankfully. I felt a little nauseous sometimes in the first trimester but it was manageable. I did discover that my motion sickness that I've always had got much worse. In my very early pregnancy I went on a marching band trip to Texas so of course we flew. I usually do fine with turbulence but on both flights I nearly got sick I was so nauseous from the turbulence. It was awful :( Other fun pregnancy symptoms I've had are heartburn and reflex(Its gotten worse and worse towards the end here. I also have very swollen feet already. They have gotten so bad that I couldn't even wear church shoes today for church. I had to wear flip flops, which is somewhat unacceptable for church standards...Oh well, I think they'll forgive me :) I've had a few aches and pains as well. I have scoliosis in my back so my back has been hurting a lot lately. I've also had some hip/sciatica pain that has come and gone. Overall nothing too terrible. My favorite thing about being pregnant is feeling her move. It's so fun to try to figure out whether its a knee, elbow, hand, foot, or even bum that's stretching out my belly. She's fun to play with already. When she leans against my tummy, I'll poke back and then she moves and pokes back, so fun. We are so excited to meet her!