New doctor

STILL waiting on the Provera to do its job and start my period. I would really like to get this show on the road!!

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CP and I decided a few months ago that I was going to switch to a new GYN doctor because it would have been nice to know about my fibroid/surprise endo BEFORE wasting a year of trying to have kids with no success. I had told my old GYN that I was having tremendously heavy periods with large clots and that wasn’t my “normal” until a few years ago. She never did anything about it. Even when I had my HSG test she noted that my uterus was shaped a little funny, but didn’t think to have further tests run to make sure there wasn’t a reason for that (aka a fibroid pushing into the uterus). It would have been nice.

So yesterday I had my annual ladies exam with a doctor who was recommended to me by a close friend. She had three C-sections with the group and thought they were fantastic. They take my insurance and they are located five minutes from my house. Perfect.

My new GYN is really nice and made sure to go over the records sent over by my old doctor. Her comment? “I see you had a busy year last year.” Yep.

She told me a bit about the practice and how it works if I do get pregnant. When she mentioned how it would be fairly easy for me to plan ahead to have a specific doctor do my C-section, I couldn’t help myself and asked why I couldn’t do a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean- something friends of mine have had). I’m glad that I asked because although my fertility doctor told me about the recent studies and the risks, my new GYN told me exactly why it wasn’t a good idea.

When you have the surgery that I had to remove the fibroid, the doctor cuts into the side of your uterus. That is the best place to cut because it allows for faster healing….however, it is a weak section of your uterus. When you have a C-section the bottom part of the uterus is cut and that is actually the strongest part of your uterus. So women that have had C-sections can often go on to have a vaginal birth because their uterus won’t rupture in the middle of childbirth. Because a weak part of my uterus has been weakened further due to my surgery, it is not advisable for me to have a vaginal birth.

I left the office satisfied with that explanation….and satisfied with my new doctor. I told her my concerns with my previous doctor and she understood. Hopefully I’ll be back in her office again prior to my next annual visit because I will be pregnant! Trying to keep the hope alive.

Hair help needed

Ladies, I need some hair help. I have been using Garnier Fructis Mousse for years now on my curly hair. I started using the brand because I used Garnier Fructis shampoo and conditioner- they smelled so good! With my switch to more natural products that brand was taken out of my shower, but I never made a switch for my hair styling product.

Sometimes the mousse works great and my hair looks nice and natural. Other times my hair gets frizzy or the opposite occurs- it looks stiff or wet. No bueno. I’m getting to the end of my latest bottle and I’m wondering if anyone out there has a suggestion on another kind of mousse that keeps the frizz down, but keeps the hair looking natural (aka not wet or stiff).

If it helps, I have curly hair that is somewhat fine. The picture below is from my wedding day…I don’t normally curl my hair with a curling iron. Usually I get out of the shower, wrap my hair in a towel for a minute or two, and then scrunch mousse in my hair. A fairly simple routine.

Now that I am trying to wear my hair down to work more often, I would like to buy a product that is a bit more consistent. Bonus points if it is a more natural product!

Any help?

Ten for Tuesday

1. How do you feel about Groundhog’s Day? I don’t really pay attention to it because here in the Northeast, we are going to have weeks more of winter anyway.

2. What color are your fingernails right now? (Bonus points if you include a picture.) I don’t like to wear nail polish on my fingernails because it chips after a day, but I do have on a sparkly blue color on my toenails right now (it’s Sally Hansen HD Hi-Definition Nail Color in “Laser”).

3. Do you like riddles? Umm sure?

4. When you were 10, how old did you think “old” was? At your current age, how old do you think “old” is? Old was definitely someone over 30 when I was growing up. Now old is probably 60?

5. Do you wish on stars? No. I am too logical and boring to think about doing that.

6. Do you recycle? Of course! We also compost. Between the two we have drastically cut down on how much garbage gets hauled away each year.

7. On a scale from 1-10, how good of a cook are you? Oh I’m probably only a 5 while CP is definitely at least a 10. The boy is ridonkulous (and I LOVE IT!).

8. Do you color your hair? Professionally or at home? Hell yeah. Sadly I have had gray hairs since the age of 6. I remember in high school when I was bored in class I would look through my hair to find grays in order to pull them out (now thinking back to that- gross!). I now have a lovely skunk patch near the temple on the right side of my head and I HATE IT. I have to go every six weeks to get my hair colored, but at least I love my hair stylist (she truly is the best). I’m thinking about changing up my brown hair to add in a few red highlights next week!

9. On a scale from 1-10, how do you rate your manners? It definitely depends on where I am and whom I am with. If I am at home with CP, my elbows are on the table and manners are partially thrown out the door. If I am at a fancy restaurant with work folks or even my parents, I make sure to follow my manners. I do think that anyone that chews with their mouth open- no matter where they are- is nasty.

10. Who are the last 5 people you have texted? My sister, a friend from college (who saw my sister at a Super Bowl party), and then three local friends.

Monday bullets

I *might* have drank a bit too much this weekend….thus the bullet points.

• I got my blood test results back on Friday night. I am not pregnant (DUH) and I haven’t ovulated. The doctor decided to put me on Provera, a type of progesterone that should bring on my period in a few days. BRING.IT.ON.


• Saturday morning a friend and I found some outdoor stairs and proceeded to “train” for our stair race in late March. We couldn’t remember how many steps we will have to climb during the race (688), so we did the outdoor steps a total of 17 times. Turns out we did WAY more than needed for the race. Yay! However, we didn’t stretch afterwards and my calves are SO TIGHT. Walking down stairs is the hardest thing to do right now- I keep trying to stretch my calves any chance that I get….hopefully the soreness subsides by tomorrow morning.


• Saturday night CP and I headed over to a friend’s house for Game night. Since there were a bunch of people there we split up and played a few different games and then switched part of the way through the night. My favorite new game? Apples to Apples. That game was so much fun- I think we may buy it to play it at home!


• Yesterday CP and I hosted a Superbowl party. Buster made it his goal to furiously bark at everyone that came into the house…which is great for would-be burglars, but not so great for parties. Luckily he calmed down quickly. I saw on Jillian Michael’s Facebook status (yes, I am “friends” with her) that people eat an average of 4200 calories the day of the Superbowl. I ate a light breakfast and no lunch, but we had way too much food (as always), and although I drink light beer it still adds up. So yeah, gym time and healthy eating is quite necessary!


• I rooted for the Pats yesterday and was disappointed when the hated Giants won. Boooooo. Also? CP not happy.


• What did you think of the commercials? I liked the chocolate M&M commercial that played early on, the Matthew Broderick commercial made me want to watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off someday soon, I wanted the St. Bernard dog-lookalike (albeit a little smaller) from the Volkswagen commercial, and I loved the Sketchers commercial with the pug beating the greyhounds on the track. What were your favorites?


• I thought Madonna wasn't too bad. Half the time she looked like she was phoning in the performance, then half the time she looked into it. I thought it was smart to have younger performers on stage with her, but thought that Cee Lo Green was pretty bad.

DIY wreath

Have I mentioned recently that I love Pinterest? Despite the annoyance of having to be "invited" to join the site, I have been having fun pinning! I pinned an awesome acorn wreath and used the idea to create my own!

Here is the final product:

It was so easy!

Buy one straw wreath from Michaels (this one is 12").

Pick up half a grocery store bag of mini pine cones from your yard (really you can use anything that has an interesting shape/color!)


Using a hot glue gun, start to glue the mini pine cones to your wreath. I started off moving straight across the wreath....but with different sized pine cones I changed my strategy and started shoving pine cones wherever I could fit them in.

Here is a closeup. At first I was worried about seeing the straw wreath behind the pine cones (should I spray paint the straw either brown or black?), but decided not to worry about it too much. Turns out it wasn't a big deal.

The whole project took me a few hours to complete but I think that the time was totally worth it! After finishing I tied a silver ribbon on the wreath and hung it on our front door.

Success!

Veteran DIY people- do I need to spray the wreath/pine cones with anything?

What have you pinned lately?

Natural running

Bloodwork was done yesterday morning to figure out what is going on in my body- results to come later today! Hopefully the doctor has some good news for me….

Meanwhile, yesterday I went to my local Fleet Feet Running store (where I did my half marathon training last year) for a Natural Running Clinic, put on by Newton Running Company. Last year I read Born to Run (my review is here), which made me want to start thinking about running in minimalist shoes. At the time though, I was training for my half marathon and wasn’t about to jump into a whole new running style.

But recently I got to thinking that maybe the only way I am going to get rid of my plantar fasciitis is by changing my running style, getting minimalist shoes, and continuing to stretch/wear my night braces. I also hope to get rid of the knee brace that I have to wear every time I lace up my sneakers for a run. So when I saw this clinic pop up I knew that I wanted to attend.

The Newton rep was friendly and very helpful. We all laced up demo shoes and headed out for a few drills. A lot of the drills I had seen my college track teammates do during practice and before meets so they were not foreign to me. We then took about a ½ mile jog out and back from the store to test out the shoes. I was focusing on my cadence (get tips on natural running here) because with natural running your foot should strike the road more often (ideally three times a second). However in focusing on my cadence, I started running on my toes instead of hitting flatfoot….which made my calves cramp. Thankfully I figured out that I was doing it wrong and corrected it on the way back.

Turning into a natural runner is going to be hard. The rep said that it would take at least a month to get to the point where you don’t have to think about it anymore after going out for a run. That’s probably if you run more often than I do…. But the clinic got me excited about pain-free running so I found the “beginner” Newton’s on sale and ordered them today. I can’t wait to take them out for a spin (hopefully this weekend but most likely they won’t arrive until next week)!

Have you tried barefoot/natural running? Have any tips for me?

In other exercise/fitness news, I found a great quote on Pinterest recently: “No matter how slow you go, you are still lapping everyone on the couch.” LOVE THIS. I swear I should put it up in every room of my house for motivation.

This post is not sponsored by Newton.

The State of NSC- January 2012

The State of NSC
A monthly take on my world.

Weight: Not sure because we need a new battery for our scale (but I'm sure the number ain't pretty).

Current Feeling: Bloated and fat. Frustrated by my reproductive system.

Running Stats
Total Miles Run: 11. Despite wanting to be more consistent with my runs, I only ran 4 times this month. Having to wake up the next morning after bootcamp AND an afternoon run was difficult so I didn't do it very often.
Time Spent Running: 2 hours, 31 minutes (I’m SLOW because I am in the beginning stages of C25K again).
Longest Single Run: 3.33 miles

Current aches and pains: Just my usual- plantar fasciitis.

Current Favorite Song: Rihanna- We Found Love

Looking forward to: NO MORE WAKING UP AT 5am!!! I was not a happy person waking up that early and I am impressed that my friends and I made it as long as we did. That being said, I wasn’t a huge fan of the boot camp that we did so I didn’t sign up to do it after our Groupon expired.

Annoyed about: Despite the tough boot camp workouts, I don’t think that I lost any weight this month.

Proud about: At least I have gained back some core and arm strength from boot camp. My surgery pretty much wrecked any ab strength I had.

Ummm HOW IS IT ALREADY FEBRUARY???

How are you feeling with the start of this new month?