July GBOMB

Good

The pool. If we ever move from this condo, the pools will be what I miss the most. It's so nice to walk three minutes to it. I don't have to make special plans or arrangements. I don't need to load up a car. I don't need to do anything. Just walk over. I've been at the pool more in the past two months than I probably have in the last 9 years of living here. 

Matthew started work at Alpine. I feel like this is and will be a good thing for lots of reasons. 

4th of July. We went to Logan for most of the day to be with my brother and his family. They went overboard and spoiled us with dinner. It was fun to watch the cousins play, and good to just be with family and not have anywhere else I needed to be or other things I needed to be doing. 

Rooted in Play. I signed AJ and I up for an outdoor sensory class on Fridays. It honestly has made my Fridays a lot busier and more challenging, but it's also good to have an obligation to be outside for a while. He has had a day playing with mud, a day using his nose (his dad took him), a summer symphony, and water color session (August 2). It's actually been really hard because he's had a meltdown afterward every time, except yesterday. It almost would be easier to just stay inside and hang out, but I like to think there are benefits to both of us going. 

Bad

Summer hair. I feel like my hair washing schedule is all off when we're at the pool multiple times a week. I do what I can not to get it wet in the pool, but my toddler jumps in and sends a tidal wave my way as I have to stay nearby. By day four or five, my hair is super shiny and almost crunchy. It's gross. And yet as I write this, I know AJ will wake up in a couple of hours and want to go swimming, so I don't even want to bother washing it. 

Monotony. I feel like my life is boring. I exercise, go to work, and I come home. I make food. I clean up food. I do laundry. I clean the house. I need a change of pace. But it feels impossible to plan any weekends away when I don't know what is happening with Matthew's catering schedule, and most of the events are on weekends. I'm feeling very burned out on a lot of levels. Breaking up the monotony requires a lot of mental energy too, which is hard to come by. 

The floors. I love them. They're beautiful. But I never ever feel like they're clean. It is hard to give myself permission NOT to mop every week; it takes me so long. I got a new vacuum/mop thing I want to use, so as soon as I wrap this up, I might give that a go. 

On My Brain 

Fertility. I recently made a list of everything I am doing to try to conceive. Daily I drink red clover tea and oat straw tea, take Vitex, and apply progesterone cream (2x/day). I also take my basal body temp under my tongue, in addition to the Ava bracelet I wear every night and sync each morning. I track my cycle in two apps and log my cervical mucus. The last two cycles, I took guaifenesin before intimacy, and used a menstrual disc afterward overnight. I do LH strip testing during my fertile window to find my LH surge. I haven't lost my mind yet, and I don't even think I've had a full meltdown. I've only identified two significant LH peaks since January. It's just getting worrisome, really. It's been almost a year of trying, and I've tried to trust that it will happen when it is supposed to. But at the same time, if I don't even consistently ovulate, and have very early spotting almost every cycle, I feel like I have reasonable cause for concern at this point. I've also been doing Whole 30 to reduce inflammation--more on that below.

Whole 30. I started Whole 30 on July 24. I've thought about doing it for literal years and have just put it off. But even if a temporary elimination of a few foods would help, it seemed worth an immediate try. I'm doing OK--no meltdowns yet either, but a few grouchy moments. And I really just want an Oreo or a piece of chocolate. I don't feel much different, to be honest. I guess we will see when it's time to reintroduce, which feels super far away. 

Reading. Not a great month for me in July, honestly. I got stuck on an audiobook that I wasn't loving and ended up spending too much time on before finally finishing. The paperback I finished in July was started in August. I think August will be a better month for reading; we're off to a solid start. 

I supported my first birth as a doula in July. Things didn't end super great for my friend (though baby ended up fine). It's just on my brain a lot because I wonder if there are other things I could've done to have reduced the damage that was done for her. I've still been rolling around in my brain how I want doula work to look in my life. Do I need a website if I only do one birth a month? How much is a sleepless night or two worth to me? All TBD. 

Check in on goals for this year: 

• 2 minutes of breathing is going OK. It's more of checking a box than me actually benefitting, so I need to stop phoning this one in. 
• 1 new restaurant a month. I never did make my list but feel like I've accomplished this one easily. 
• 1-2 hikes with AJ. I haven't done this yet. Maybe we can go tomorrow. I started complicating this and wondering if I needed a hiking pack for him and stuff. I don't have one. 
• Read 5-10 minutes at bedtime. This has been hit and miss, especially depending on TTC. But mostly I'm doing this because I enjoy it. 
• Weekly check in with Matthew: we're probably at once or twice a month. I would like to do weekly. 
• One date per quarter. We're only one month in to Q3 and have yet to plan a date. We did go to dinner with Matthew's family in July though. I don't think that counts. It's hard to do this because I don't like asking my mom to babysit more than she already does.