Laura's Visit and The Second Trimester

All throughout my first trimester I looked forward to the second trimester where things would be easier. I have been happy to find things have been easier (for the most part).

25 weeks 

Matt and I have officially settled into our new home. This does not mean that we have finished unpacking, just that everything is liveable now. We had to do a bit of rearranging to determine where we would put things with a different layout. Luckily due to the end of financial year sales we were able to get a much needed rug that fit the space for half the price!

I had extra motivation to get things organised in our new home because my best friend Laura came to visit from Oregon! You know you have a good friend when even though there are long gaps between visits, it feels like you can easily just pick up where you left off.

For her first day we went to Redcliffe, which has the nearest beach to where we live. We didn't get in the water, but just talked while walking around on the beach and at the nearby pool. Later Matt went with us to the shopping centre where Laura was able to try her first waffle with ice cream at Oliver Brown. She also decided to take log of the different flavours of Tim Tams so friends back home could tell her which ones they wanted to try. I think this resulted in something like 40+ packages of Tim Tams in the end!

The next day we went to the Gold Coast and chilled on the beach at Surfer's Paradise. It still wasn't ideal beach swimming weather, but Laura felt it was perfect and the temperature was only a little cooler than summer in Oregon. We had organised an AirBnB place to stay that night so we could see the nearby glow worm caves at Springbrook National Park. We got there at the perfect time because right as we were leaving loads of Asian tourist groups arrived. One bus carried at least 70+ people and there must have been 6 or so more groups that we had seen on the trail or at the start.

Glow worms picture

View from our AirBNB

Surfers Paradise beach

We decided to go back to the same trail the following day. It was a completely different experience to see the falls and the surrounding area during the day.

the Natural Bridge glow worm cave

Instead of heading home after that we took a different route that would go past Fingal Head, an area a friend recommended we visit. We LOVED it! I was in no great condition for climbing on the rocky cliffs, but Laura took advantage of it. I think it was one of the most beautiful areas I've ever been to. It felt like I was on the coast of Ireland or something, but with warmer weather. I took a nap on the rocks in the sun and decided I would definitely have to come back with Matt sometime.

To finish off our day we met up with Matt and visited our friends Cate and Dan to watch the QLD vs NSW State of Origin game. I figured Laura would enjoy it more if we watched with a bunch of Aussie's that could actually tell her about the rugby league rules and whatnot. It was a pretty good game, but it had been a long day and we were all very tired by the end. I think the best part of the night was just spending time with friends, eating good food, and watching this video:

The following day I slept in a little too long so we rushed to try and make an early session at the LDS Brisbane Temple. Unfortunately the endowment session was full so they couldn't accommodate us. We decided we'd wait to go with Matt on Saturday instead and toured around Brisbane. As I've done in the past, we hired bikes to ride from Kangaroo Point to the botanical gardens on the other side of the river. The weather was absolutely perfect and the gardens was a great place to walk around and explore. Laura even did a live video on her Facebook page to show the awesome trees we have.

We stopped at a place to eat lunch nearby at the Aroma Cafe and it was amazing! It's just a simple cafe but they serve everything from sandwiches to pizza and pasta. I was glad we discovered it as I'll likely go back when my mom comes to visit in October if not sooner.

After riding bikes back across the river we explored South Bank which includes a bunch of fun things to see like the street beach, a Nepalese pagoda, and the Wheel of Brisbane. To finish off our day we ate at my favourite chocolate place, Max Brenner. Although I didn't intend this to be dinner, we were both too full to eat anything else the rest of the day. To finish off the night we went to a West Coast Swing event that Laura had found. Dancing is her passion and so she was very excited to find a place she could attend while visiting. I had no desire or energy for it so I sat and read a book while she took part of the lessons and the freelance dancing afterwords. I'm pretty sure the dancing was her favourite part of the trip so I'm glad it worked out for her to be able to go.

Laura chose to be the "lead" during the lessons since they weren't enough guys.

Friday we had arranged to go to the Australia Zoo and also meet up with a friend of Laura's that she met through Facebook I believe. It turns out the woman lives only about 15 minutes from me! We had fun exploring the zoo with her two boys before they had to leave early. I really like that zoo, but I kept telling Laura she'd get opportunities to take pictures with more native wildlife at the zoo and had forgotten that they really didn't have a lot of options. In Sydney, Featherdale Wildlife Park has a lot more native animals including kookaburras, eagles, and quokkas that you can see up close. Australia zoo didn't really have that much, but at least she was able to see koalas, kangaroos, wombats, and crocodiles. Surprisingly I don't think she got to hear the kookaburras at all while here! Listen to some recorded calls here. When my sister visited us in Sydney she woke up to them at 5am every morning. I think we will have to search around to find other wildlife parks to go to with visitors.

Saturday we went to the temple as planned. I had a really good spiritual experience while there so I'm glad we made the effort to go. Afterwards we headed to the Brisbane Powerhouse Markets. I hadn't been to this market before, but I was expecting a lot of artisan foods and crafts and a good place for Laura to get souvenirs. I was wrong, it was mostly just a farmers market with fresh and organic produce amidst some other things. Oh well, we still had a good time. The rest of the afternoon we split up so Laura could attend another West Coast Swing event that was during the day. She was so lucky they happened to have two in the same week and the second one was better. I was happy one of the dancers was willing to help her with rides because I wasn't that motivated for the drive. Matt and I got to enjoy the afternoon eating cinnamon rolls and walking around the river.

Laura got to try a homemade Aussie pie - seafood style

We had planned to meet up with Laura at Eat Street Markets for dinner. Eat Street is a huge venue with 70+ food vendors, live music, and other shows. The place was amazing and they had so many different types of food from paella to curries, pizza, fish and chips, cronuts, pastries, and much much more. We wandered for a long time not sure what place to try. We finally picked a place right as Laura arrived. It was a lot of fun, but I think the best part of the night was the beautiful sunset!

Sunday was Laura's last day with us and luckily she had a night flight so we could spend the day relaxing from the busy week. After church we pulled out my tiger puzzle that you may recall I have been working on for about 3 years during General Conference. Laura and I used to do puzzles all the time when we were roommates so it was a great way to finish off our time together. The biggest surprise wasn't finishing it, it was that I hadn't lost any pieces amidst all the many times of taking it out, putting it away, and moving it. I definitely highly recommend roll up puzzle mats! We had a wonderful time together and I'm so glad she was able to come visit and we could catch up on life events. Next time I hope I'll have more energy and we can do a lot more things where I won't have to fit in a nap somewhere.

Regular life hasn't been as interesting. We had a visit from our ward home teachers and it turns out one of them used to be an IT and he agreed to help me put my new PC together. We took all of the stuff over to his place and worked on it for about 4+ hours! It was a HUGE blessing because it became quite evident I would've really struggled to put it all together myself. Now we finally have a nice computer that should last us quite a while.

Matt has been able to have sufficient work to stay local in Brisbane the whole month, but we are unsure how long before he has to start seeking jobs out. One of the big jobs he quoted for in Sydney contacted him for a revised quote so we are hoping they will finally go ahead with that. Big jobs are great because they provide a bit more of a buffer between work. Right now funds are getting pretty tight since we have had to pay to get our cars registered in Queensland, my medical stuff including psychology appointments, and lots of other little things we didn't account for. It doesn't help that I don't have an income.

Originally I was going to find part-time work, but the reality is that it wasn't practical as I had no idea what work I could handle mentally and physically. We ended up setting myself up as Matt's employee and I am now his Finance Manager/ Accounts Administrator. I did all of his taxes and paperwork before, but now I make a weekly effort to put things in order and log my hours. This makes me eligible for the paid maternity leave provided by the government. I am now at a point where his taxes need to be prepared and I officially need a professional to help make sure I have all the correct data in the system. It's too easy for accounting errors to compound to become a massive problem and I don't want to have any penalties from the Australian Tax Office. At this stage I'm not looking for additional work and I feel that somehow we will be able to make do without me having to have a regular job.

How do I spend my days you wonder? I'm not even sure myself! Most days are filled with at least 30% watching some kind of TV show or Netflix. Sometimes I'll organise or unpack a box while watching something. There's always some laundry or dish washing to do as well so it's amazing how quick the day fills up. I spend a lot of time on the computer doing something or other like researching how to renew Matt's passport, or how to import invoices into the accounting system. I'm excited because I've finally organised most of my desk and I unpacked my overlocker! Now I'm ready to start unpacking my sewing items and work on some projects.

One weekend we attended the medieval festival just north of us. It was fun and significantly larger than I expected. If you wanted the educational aspect of it you could easily visit the different camps to learn more about the viking way of life, the knights, etc.. We mostly just enjoyed the shows, but to be honest the jousting wasn't that exciting.

The baby is doing well. As many have asked, we had decided on names long ago. Since we're having a girl her name will be Sakura Lily Rose. In my family all of the kids have six letters in their name with the girls ending in "a" and the boys ending in "n". I liked the tradition and wanted to keep it going. When I was young I used to love a Japanese anime show called Cardcaptors with the main character being called Sakura. I LOVED the name and wrote it down in my journal so I could remember it one day when I would have kids. When Matt and I married we had discussed my 6 letter arrangement and to my surprise Sakura was a name he had always liked and wanted as well. Over the years we've had other ideas and we keep a list, but it seemed certain the first girl would be Sakura. To my surprise I just met a woman in my ward from New Zealand who is named Sakura! There aren't too many here in Australia, but she says she loves her name. Matt sometimes changes his mind and thinks it should be something more unique or different like Saqora or Quorra, but I won't let him change it at this stage. At my last appointment with the doctor she said it was so great to see someone who was so healthy and everything is going well. I don't feel like I'm very healthy, but I was glad she was happy with how things are going. The baby likes to move daily and sometimes she kicks quite hard and it startles me. I'm getting used to it. All is well for now!

Pregnancy and Moving to Brisbane

It’s officially been over three months since my last blog and a LOT has happened! Unlike my usual organised self, I have not been recording important events or anything in my diary since getting pregnant so there is a lot that will be missed.

The Pregnancy

As I bet most who know me are most interested in how the pregnancy has been going. If I could describe my pregnancy in two words I would say awful and overwhelming! I believe in being 100% honest and open about my experiences and I can’t say I have liked anything about being pregnant. Literally the day I told my employer I was pregnant (at 6 weeks) I started to have pregnancy symptoms. I absolutely HATE vomiting and at first, I thought I was lucky because I felt nauseous but wasn’t vomiting much. However, my nausea and stomach discomfort was lasting all day long so I started to think maybe I needed to vomit to feel better. I helped coax my body to vomit once and did feel better, but the same attempt didn’t work later so I gave up trying. Add to all this the debilitating tiredness I was miserable at work. My co-workers were great, and my boss let me go lay down if I really needed it so I was really glad I told them right away. It wasn’t hard for anyone to notice I was “off” and not doing well.

Gluten foods like Pasta are so tasty!

After just a couple of weeks I was hating life. It felt like I had the flu or some kind of sickness and didn’t know if it would ever end. Food was a problem as well. You may recall I was doing a gluten free dairy free diet prior to pregnancy and this was likely a major contributor of me even being able to get pregnant. I quickly discovered that not only was I hungry every two hours, but I had to have something heavy and substantial otherwise I still felt sick so I gave up and bought bread and found it was the first time something I ate had settled my stomach. This was stressful though because I was terrified that eating gluten and dairy would actually harm the baby (the MTHFR gene mutation I have is linked to miscarriages and pregnancy problems). Matt gave me a priesthood blessing and stated that “my body would handle the gluten” and that “the Lord does not take bringing a [child] into this world lightly.” After that I learned that I just had to eat what I could eat and that seemed to be mostly unhealthy foods like pizza or something that sounded really tasty. I had all these plans to exercise and eat well throughout, but quickly learned that during pregnancy I couldn’t control what my body wanted. In the end, I could only do whatever helped me get through the day.

Eventually I started to get general anxiety and have various triggers that would make me feel VERY sick and vomit. There was an app that would send me daily e-mails about the baby and pregnancy based on my timeline. Thinking about the “alien” in my body just made me feel sick so I had to start deleting them. One day at work my boss asked me about what size the baby was and after responding I felt so sick I had to run to the toilet to vomit. Discussing other topics like the new computer I was going to get made me nauseous. The idea of eating vegetables sounded disgusting and there was chicken coconut curry Matt and I liked that I had only a little one day and then after that the smell would make me want to vomit. Matt continued to make it often so I had to lock myself in the room till all the smell was gone. Over time I feared going anywhere because I was so sick and tired and I constantly worried I would vomit somewhere public.

I had my first ultrasound around 14 weeks which I was glad I hadn’t seen one earlier because the baby didn’t look like an alien and that might have made me sick. It was the first time where I really accepted I was having a baby. At this stage I had left work and could finally just take a breather and worry about other things such as our move to Brisbane. I was so glad I had quit when I did because I reached the stage of vomiting mid-meal. Luckily, I made it to the toilet every time (mostly) and was surprised that I was hungry again and could finish the rest of my meal without a problem. It was also nice that I could take naps throughout the day if I needed it. Finally, around 16 weeks my all-day sickness had subsided, my energy improved, and I could eat normal size meals.

14 Weeks

Although the sickness is mostly over, I am now still trying to come to terms with the other body changes. As I started to get bigger I made myself some maternity pants that I can continually expand the elastic and maternity maxi skirt so I have some clothing options. Pregnancy hormones have led to me getting acne all over and experiencing heartburn for the first time. To make things more interesting sometimes when I sneeze my bladder releases a little. Too much information? Well it’s the truth and if I have another child someday I want to remember what I went through the first time. I also get sciatica pains at night so I constantly have to switch sides to avoid the pain. So far, I have struggled to comprehend that women can actually hide their first trimester from people, that some women like being pregnant, and that others don’t experience many of these symptoms at all. Matt pointed out that I have never experienced period pains before so I guess my months of pregnancy pains isn’t as bad as the millions of women that experience period pains monthly. 

This week I got to find out the gender of the baby and for the first time I’m happy about something related to pregnancy. We are having a girl! Both Matt and I were hoping for a girl first. This may seem silly, but neither of us are baby people and have struggled to be excited about a baby on the way. We both felt we would bond easier with a girl at first. People told me once you had the baby it wouldn’t matter, but I wasn’t so sure and so it was a relief to find out we are having a girl. Additionally, this is the first time where I have started looking forward to having a child since getting pregnant. Things will get better and at least now I can say I am half way!  I now feel the baby on a daily basis and I described the feeling to Matt as if I have a bubble move in my lower abdomen. Sometimes it makes me jump because it’s unexpectedly strong. Pregnancy has not been fun, but at least now I am accepting what is happening to me.

21 Weeks

The Move

We planned on moving to Brisbane by the end of May before we knew about the pregnancy. At first it seemed like good timing because I would be near the end of my first trimester when I would be leaving work to get things ready for the move. Unfortunately, as I left work I was still sick and didn’t get near as much done as needed. I started to have anxiety about all that I needed to get done and it just got worse each day. Finding a place was proving difficult as I couldn’t just fly to be at the open house whenever I wanted. My friend Cate could go to a couple houses for me, but my applications didn’t go through. I was really trying to find a house that would have lots of extra space for Matt’s painting gear, our food storage, and hopefully room for all my sewing stuff. In the end, I found a complex of townhouses called Vidorra that would let me apply for an available townhouse that fit the floorplan we wanted. I felt good about the location and confident that it fit our needs at least so although I hadn’t physically seen the place, we organised a 12-month lease for a unit and could finally move on to the other steps of moving.

Before I had a place set up I was able to get a cheap flight to Brisbane. I figured if I hadn’t found a place by that time it would give me about four days to finalise things. By the time the day came I had already gotten the place so it became more of a holiday in a way. I stayed with my friend Cate who had her baby that week and was dismissed from the hospital the same day I arrived! It worked out perfectly because her mother couldn’t be there until next week and at first, she really needed a lot of help. I was so glad to be able to be there and help at such a crucial time. It was also beneficial for me to learn from her experience and watch what needs to be done when taking the baby home for the first time.

I did spend one day while in Brisbane to travel out to our new place and get the keys. It took about 1.5 hours on public transport so it wasn’t a short trip. For the most part I was pleased with our new home, but quickly discovered a couple of real issues – no space for Matt’s painting stuff (without sacrificing the garage), and the phone reception was basically non-existent. Other than that, I felt like most things would work out, but I wasn’t sure how everything would fit until our stuff arrived. The property is brand new so we get to be the first ones to give it some wear and tear. After reviewing everything and taking pictures, I had to eat before heading back. Unfortunately, while walking I quickly discovered there were no food places anywhere within walking distance. I had to use Uber to get to the nearby NorthLakes shopping centre. To my surprise it took even longer to get back to Cate’s place from there so I was gone nearly all day!

Before I left for Brisbane I had organised how to get all our stuff to Brisbane, which proved to be quite difficult. The largest truck we could hire and drive wouldn’t fit our stuff so the next cheapest option was to get it all taken on a backloaded truck. This also posed a problem because the small driveway we lived on won’t accommodate such a large truck so I had to talk to many companies to determine the best solution. We ended up having them send a loading truck to be put on the backloaded truck later. I was never entirely certain how much space we needed because we hadn’t boxed everything yet. We had 44 boxes in total at the end! We had 12 boxes that we had brought from the states, 20 or so that had been dumped and were basically new, and the rest we bought at the hardware store. The free ones were not double walled so weren’t sure how well they would hold up, but the day the truck arrived they seemed to be not be collapsing. Luckily our ward had four new elders that could come help load the truck and we got everything out quickly and it all fit! The truck with our items was going to arrive at our new place before us so I had met with the bishop of our new ward in North Brisbane and had given him a set of keys so he could let the drivers in to unload. Luckily it all went well!

That last week was hard because most everything that needed to be done Matt had to do because I wasn’t supposed to use any chemical cleaners, lift heavy items, overwork myself, etc. We just did as much as we could and relaxed at the end of the day. In retrospect, we decided we should have kept some chairs to sit on at home because sitting on the floor was uncomfortable. At least we were getting a good night sleep on our air mattress. The youth from church came to help clean, but in the end, they only had 20 minutes so the most I could have them do was wipe down the cupboards. At that point, I knew we needed help to get the place cleaned so we decided to hire a cleaner and I had a guy come look at the place to give me a quote. I told him the main needs were the windows, the kitchen including the oven, and the bathroom. From our chat, it seemed like he was going to do that and more so I felt pretty good about it. The catch was that we had to have the whole place gutted for them to clean. The day of the cleaning we literally were rushing to put everything in the garage.

Shade didn't want to leave the bed, even as I deflated it.

It became quite clear we had A LOT of things to pack in the cars! I was really overwhelmed and had to take the cat and fridge stuff to some friends until the cleaners were done. Matt was going to put some of his painting stuff to a storage garage he rented so he could still work in Sydney for the time being. This became an issue because he wasn’t back for the guy to pick up the dishwasher so I had to leave my friend’s place to take care of the dishwasher guy. To my surprise the cleaners finished at the same time which was a good 2 hours earlier than I had expected. I walked through the home quickly and noticed the shower still had soap scum and the screens didn’t look clean. When I asked the cleaner, he said that the screens were old and they can’t scrub them without potentially breaking the glass. I didn’t really like his answer, but he was in a rush to get to another job and I didn’t want to argue so I paid them and headed back to get my cat. It was a VERY long day, but we were able to sell the fridge and dishwasher (way cheaper than we wanted though), the place had been cleaned, and all our leftover items were in the garage and ready to be put in storage or the cars.

The following day was moving day! I had booked a pet friendly place in Coffs Harbour for that night so we really needed to leave by about 1 or 2pm. We had a pest treatment guy coming at 11am so that morning we had to finish anything not cleaned and Matt had loads of painting touch-ups throughout the place. When cleaning the shower, I felt that the cleaners hadn’t even touched it because they could have easily gotten the soap scum off. With a bit of Windex, I was able to get the screens cleaned and felt the cleaner was just making excuses. I decided to take a picture to show how much of a difference it was.

Can you tell which I cleaned? 

They also clearly hadn’t done the windows as we had hoped so I rushed to do interior and exterior windows. By that time the pest guy had arrived so we had no time to really double check anything, just vacuum and get out! I was exhausted and stressed and felt there was a lot of things that needed to be checked and wiped down, but because of the chemicals I couldn’t go back into the house. Matt went to drop stuff off to storage again while Shade and I sat in the garage with our stuff.

I gave Shade a sedative to prepare him for the long road trip and let him explore a bit while I waited for Matt. It was easy to see it was working as he started to walk funny and just plop over. We packed up the cars and could just barely fit it all in. I had my giant Panda bear in the front seat and Shade in the back in his carrier. I tried to organise everything so he would have decent space to move around. We finally dropped off the keys around 3pm and headed out. Luckily when I called the hotel about our very late check in they just told me the room number and said it would be open when we arrived. I was worried I would be tired and desperately needing a nap, but Shade solved that problem. He meowed constantly! At this stage, the sedatives made his eyes all weird and he seemed really unhappy. He was trying to claw and bite his way out of the cage so I opened the cage thinking maybe he would settle if he could roam around. He didn’t. The sedatives made him not very coordinated so he would lose his balance and fall at times and I was worrying he would hurt himself. He sat on me and meowed in my face then tried to claw his way down to my feet. I got him to go back in the carrier, but then he started passing out in odd positions as if he was dead then wake up and whine even more. I decided he was more aggressive, unhappy, and confused with what was happening to him because of the medicine. Not much I could do about it other than bear with it for the 6-hour drive. Luckily the medicine was starting to wear off when we arrived at the hotel and he instantly adjusted to the room without a problem. Thank goodness!

The second 6-hour drive to our new home was a lot more relaxed. I decided no sedatives for Shade this time and although he whined the whole time and was panting, he wasn’t trying to escape the car and hurting himself. We stopped for lunch at Macadamia Castle for pancakes and let Shade have a break walking around. The drive was absolutely beautiful! Matt and I would often call each other and chat throughout or we would try calling family, but the reception wasn’t very consistent. We eventually made it to our new home! There wasn’t much time to absorb things though because we had prearranged to get a fridge at Costco and hired a guy with a trailer to meet us there. When we returned and installed the fridge Shade was happily curled up in his cat tree in the garage so I was happy he seemed to have adjusted quickly to the new space. The worst was now over!

Our Resident Peacocks

The area is pretty nice. The few neighbours we’ve met in the complex were friendly, the ward was nice, and we absolutely love the nearby North Lakes shopping centre. Matt was going to head back to Sydney, but I convinced him to wait and help move boxes since I couldn’t lift most of them. This proved to be a blessing because a member of our church contacted us and had work for Matt! We had only been in the area for two days so this was a big surprise. Within a week I had unpacked the majority of the kitchen and a few other essentials, most of the furniture was in place, and the place was liveable. I had to go to the shopping centre to use the internet for a few days in order to get our internet and some other things set up. We had to buy a fancy router that would work with the NBN, but it was well worth it. Once I got it all set up we now have over double the speeds we had before! Since we have poor mobile reception we also really need good Wi-Fi for making calls as well.

Matt had to go back to Sydney for some work there and unfortunately, I got a bad cold just before he left. Instead of unpacking I spent all my time resting, watching TV, and trying to get better. At least at this stage I had internet at home and could get our addresses changed and do other computer tasks. Matt flew back this weekend for a job here in Brisbane and will go back again on Sunday.  I don’t mind Matt being gone and in some ways, it makes me feel less stressed about what I didn’t complete as he’s not at home to see. I’ve been motivated to cook more and even made dulce de leche and gluten free tortas fritas! Matt calls them fried turtles because “torta” sounds like “tortuga” the Spanish word for turtle.

I’ve been feeling rather anxious about all that still needs to be done, but mostly I am worried about finding work. In Australia, you can get up to 16 weeks of paid maternity leave from the government. There are a lot of conditions to this, and one is that you can’t have more than 8 weeks of a gap between working. My eight weeks from when I left my job is up on June 16^th and I haven’t felt well enough to even consider looking for work. I really want to work from home and considered doing self-employment for renovating, but it seems to get myself set up that way will require me to spend more money to set it up without any money coming in for some time. Other jobs such as tutoring have the same kind of problem. The other option is employment that is casual or part-time, but I’m not sure what I could handle or if they would want to hire a pregnant woman. Another option is for me to be employed by Matt as I already do a lot of his tax work and administrative work. I’m just not sure that will give me the required hours either. I have six days to figure this out. I’m meeting with my GP on Tuesday to discuss my mental health and to start seeing a psychologist again. Maybe this will make me qualify under the “unable to work” category and I can still qualify? Too many questions. At this stage I need to confirm with the government authority Centrelink exactly what they need for me to be able to meet the requirements for this and what option will work best for me. The truth of the matter is I am not mentally well and I don’t really feel fit to work anywhere at the moment.

Despite all the negatives, we are doing well and I am hopeful for the future. I know that we have been very blessed throughout the pregnancy and move so I know that the Lord is watching over us. The weather has been beautiful here in the Brisbane area and I look forward to making new friends and having everything finalised at home. I better get back to unpacking now because my best friend Laura from Oregon is coming to visit in 9 days! Currently our spare room is more of our junk room so there’s definitely a bit to do! 

Changes

February has proved to be an interesting and memorable month.

After my last blog I had an unexpected occurence at work. The operations manager left the company after 12 long years of working with them. I won't get into all the details, but after struggling with the last time he was on leave I wasn't looking forward to doing the operations role long term. Nevertheless, I have been handling the stress much better this time. I had to come up with better ways for me to do the job long term and although there have been lots of issues, I'm managing. My boss tried to convince me to stay to do the job with a payrise instead of moving to Brisbane, but Matt and I both felt it wasn't the right path for us. My hope is that I can still do my best with the time before I go to get things ready for the new operations manager and new admin. To make me feel better Matt and I have gone out to eat a few times... yumm!

Another bit of exciting news is that my tiger research from my Master's thesis got published! I knew it was accepted, but it's now officially published with the Journal of Bioacoustics. You can access the article here: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/kbv2mD5NkJC477ZiV9Vd/full.  Although I did all the reserach, my supervisor Jennifer Clarke did all the work to get this published including revisions and whatnot. This was such a blessing! I had gone through depression while doing the research and I don't know that I could have dealt with working on that stuff again.

The last bit of news is the most dramatic. I'm pregnant! I've been off birth control for a long time (maybe a year?), but we haven't been actively trying really. Matt and I just agreed that we were ready to have it happen when it happened. Last week I thought I was late on my period, but I wasn't sure. While at the store Matt and I got a pregnancy test and I figured I would try the following week. When I got home though I remembered I had recorded my period in my diary and sure enough I was a week late! So the next morning I took the test and it was positive!

I wasn't so sure since I hadn't had any symptoms, but by the beginning of the next week the fatigure and uncomfortable stomach issues started full force. I had to stop my exercise schedule at 6am since that was awful with an upset stomach and I wasn't getting enough sleep. I started going to bed earlier too so I could get through work. I don't really vomit, I just have a perpetually uncomfortable feeling in my stomach and its worse when I don't eat, but it doesn't go away when I do eat. Trying to maintain my gluten free dairy free diet is really difficult when if something doesn't sound good it's really hard to eat it. I caved and had a grilled cheese sandwich yesterday. On the bright side, Matt and I found some great dairy free ice cream at the grocery store!

Well no one said pregnancy was fun. Mostly I just don't like how I don't feel like myself. I'm excited for the new chapter in my life, but it's also nerve wracking that my life will never be the same.

Anyway exciting times for us! A short month means a short blog so we'll see what March brings!

No Pain No Gain?

Back Pains

If only all back pains were so simple

After Christmas holidays it was back to work on the 3rd of January. The operations manager at my work was on much needed annual leave and so I was helping organise deliveries in his absence. I was actually quite grateful to go back to work that week because it was quiet and the perfect way to ease back into the regular work schedule. Two weeks later was a lot worse as organising deliveries proved to be quite difficult. Between delays from suppliers, or customers needing to change dates, I felt like every time I came up with the best plan it had to change. I was understandably stressed for two weeks. Unfortunately this caused quite a toll on my back. I didn't realise it at first, but I was tensing my back muscles a lot at work. When I switched back to my normal role I thought all was fine except I was still getting pain on occasion at my work. Later Matt and I attended a personal delevopment conference that is for 3 days from 8:30am - 10pm. This proved to be a VERY bad idea for my back condition. I spent many hours sitting in a chair and let's just say I really struggled to focus and relax when I was getting really painful stabs in my back. It got so bad that sometimes at the end of the day just standing would hurt! It wasn't as bad back at work with my ergonomic chair, but I had to do something about it ASAP. My boss let me take a morning to get helped by a guy recommended to do massage therapy/ acupuncture. I'm not sure what techniques he used, but it did seem to help! It seems that my month long back pains are finally on the mend! I have an appointment on the 21st of February to see my rolfer (similar to deep tissue massage) so I'm pretty sure after that all will be good.


Birthday

So amidst all the back pains I had my 31st birthday. I got sick the week before with a virus my boss gave me. I had a really awful sore throat for about a week. Nevertheless, I went out to dinner at TGI-Friday's a couple times the week before and on my birthday Matt and I played a bunch of games and watched Stargate SG1. Instead of a birthday cake, Matt made me gluten free brownies! Even though I was sick I still had a couple people visit which was nice. Overall it was a pretty good birthday. I didn't want anything special because we had done a lot for Christmas and I had bought a Wii U. It was more fun just to play games with Matt because he has been working a lot and we haven't really spent a lot of time together lately.

TGI FRIDAYS!

Betty Crocker Gluten Free Brownies

 Australia Day Weekend

I had planned a lovely day off work reading and getting things done, but in the end Matt had the day off work. So we did what anyone would do...we drove for an hour to pick up 20kg of raw honey. The back story is that raw honey has the best health benefits and I was referred to this lady from a woman in my ward. It's great honey and the ants thought so too. We had to filter one of the buckets to get the ants out. Later we went to this large Australia day event in Parramatta. They had load of old cars, a bunch of rides and blow up stuff for the kids, concerts, food trucks, and a whole lot more. We just went for an early dinner and sat on the grass while watching people. It's amazing that the whole thing is free and on such a large scale! It was a really good day!

Stuart Zadel Experience

Last weekend Matt and I attended a three day personal development conference organised by Stuart Zadel Property Education. I won't go into all the details, but it was three very long days as I stated before that took me three days to recover from the lack of sleep. We basically covered mental and physical health and how to have a better positive attitude that will lead to a happier and more successful life. The best part were really the things I learned about myself. Most people that know me know that I am a strict "Follow the Rules" kind of person. Well I learned that this can be a major limitation. I try so hard to do everything perfectly as I am instructed even when it doesn't feel natural to me. In one exercise I found that trying to conform to what I "thought" I should be doing actually prevented me from completing the task. We also had a couple of meditation sessions that despite the back pain I was experiencing, was a great moment to sit and think about what I wanted out of life. I realised that I put so much time into constantly doing things, that I don't take nearly enough time to just sit and really ponder about things. I don't really enjoy meditating, but quiet time to just sit and think is definitely something I should do more of.

Other News

Waiting to pick up Matt's car from NRMA

Matt and I are moving to Queensland! Our lease ends May 21st so our aim is to be out by then. We are looking at North Lakes area above Brisbane or potentially South, but we won't really know until we get closer to May and can really see what is available. We visited North Lakes when we were in Queensland for Christmas and really liked the area. It felt kind of like California. The hardest part is there are so many unknowns. We'll see where we end up, but I'm excited for the change. As for what I'll do when I'm there, I haven't got a specific plan yet. I signed up for a renovating course on Saturday which I know is going to be awesome! So I'm thinking maybe I will just work part time, while trying to get into renovating. Part time work might also be better for me as I've already been told by a few health professionals that the data entry and desk job is not helping my wrists and my back. Next year the plan is to finish my Psychology degrees. I need to do a 4th year psychology degree and then I can do a 4 year Professional Doctorate at the University of Queensland. My hope is that renovating may help me save up money to pay for school. Life is an interesting journey and I am learning that you don't always have to know how to get from point A to point B, just have enough desire and motivation to get there.

Other news is that it's HOT! I like warm weather but multiple days over 40C (104F) is too hot to really do much of anything. See the below message from The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday:

Today is officially the hottest day on record for Sydney. The mercury hit 45.7 degrees at Observatory Hill at 2.54pm. The previous record of 45.3 degrees was set in January 1939.

Generally hot weather isn't a huge problem except for when it doesn't cool off at night and repeats the following day. As there is no insulation in homes here, and we only have one air con unit in the bedroom, the house is like a sauna and there is no cooling it down. Basically the only solution is to strip and sit in front of a fan, or go somewhere with aircon. Luckily my work is air-conditioned, but unfortunately Matt has been painting a bank and the aircon is turned off. I'll be happy for the heatwave to be over, but if given the choice I would still prefer the heatwave versus the bad winter and cold weather going on in the US.

As a side note I wanted to add a few things from today's lesson from Sunday School that were really meaningful to me. Here are some quotes from Gordon B. Hinckley found in Chapter 3 of Teachings Of Presidents of the Church: Gordon B. Hinckley 

Cynics do not contribute, skeptics do not create, doubters do not achieve. 

Be believing. Be happy. Don't get discouraged. Things will work out.  

You look with optimism, work with faith, and things happen.  

Do not despair. Do not give up. Look for the sunlight through the clouds. Opportunities will eventually open to you.  

There never was a greater time in the history of the world to live upon the earth than this. 

Life is to be enjoyed, not just endured. 

Believe in yourself. Believe in your capacity to do great and good things. Believe that no mountain is so high that you cannot climb it. Believe that no storm is so great that you cannot weather it. ... You are a child of God, of infinite capacity.