Week in Review

We had a pretty full week around here! It started with Jon having a fever, rash, and then awful blisters around his mouth, palms of his hands and finger, and all over his feet and toes. Welcome Hand, Foot, & Mouth Disease! It is a very common virus for babies and toddlers, and two of Jon's little friends had it at the same time, caught from the big brother of a friend. Jon was a trooper, and did very well as the virus ran its course. The worst was sleeping - he woke frequently during the night for several nights and wouldn't go back to sleep unless I was with him. I pretty much just slept in Jon's room for about three nights to help him settle back to sleep each time he woke up. The picture below doesn't really do him justice (note the blisters around his mouth), but he looks pretty pathetic.



He's healing up pretty well now, and his rash and blisters are fading. So glad we have a chicken pox vaccine now! I don't think I could go through chicken pox after dealing with HFMD for a weekend!

I have learned not to leave crayons lying around...

Thankfully my 80's dishwasher was very easy to clean off and no longer has Jon's red crayon masterpiece on it.

We took a quick trip to Dallas Thursday through Saturday to see my parents and also give Jonathan some time to help my brother prepare for an Algebra test next week. Since we have season passes to Six Flags, we couldn't pass up a trip to the original Six Flags Over Texas. Jon's favorite ride was the log flume; he actually smiled and giggled on the ride. Jon usually has a very concerned look on his face while on rides at amusement parks. Below is a picture of Jon taking a nap while Jonathan and my mom are riding the Texas Giant.


My dad recently got an iPhone, and he spent a bit of the trip talking with Jonathan about apps, settings, HD video, etc. Here they are playing with their toys in my parents' living room.


There is a new fountain/sprinkler area at a shopping center in Cedar Hill, and it is quite the hang out for young families in the town. We didn't bring a swim suit for Jon, but he was able to have fun in a onesie! He loved it, and unfortunately left crying...well, we couldn't stay ALL day : (


On the way home last night, we stopped in Round Rock for dinner and frozen yogurt. As I looked down at Jonathan's cup, I had to take a picture. Can you tell which one of us is trying to lose weight??


I also shared mine with Jon, and this counted as Jon's serving of fruit with his dinner. Speaking of losing weight, one of my sweet little friends at church came up and gave me a hug today, and then asked if I was having another baby. She poked my tummy and said it looked like I was having a baby. In her defense, she is 6 years old, and I have gained weight since becoming a stay-at-home mom : ) I wish I could blame my weight gain on a baby, I actually weigh as much as I did when I was about 3 months pregnant with Jon, but I can only blame myself, eating too much sugary and fat stuff, and not exercising enough. So now I'm tracking what I'm eating and making myself exercise everyday. It certainly helps that it is the summer and Jonathan is home to watch Jon while I go to the activity center to go to classes.

So that was the past week in our family! Hopefully this week we will all sleep well, get plenty of exercise, and have a ton of fun : )

Farmer's Market

We finally went to our farmer's market today in San Marcos. It is teeny tiny - about 10 vendors in all. I bought peaches and tomatoes, and almost bought a chicken, but I decided I would use the already-paid-for-and-industrially-raised chicken in my fridge for dinner tonight. The vendor explained that the chickens are slaughtered the day before the market, and they are good for six days. I usually don't like imagining my food being slaughtered...but I know these chickens get to run around in the grass and eat bugs and stuff before they die, instead of living in a tiny pen with thousands of other chickens, eating who knows what and having their beaks and claws cut off while they are still alive. Once I actually purchase one of these chickens, I will report back on how it tastes : ) This vendor also sells eggs, so I guess we'll start getting our eggs from him.

On our walk back from the farmer's market, we stopped in at our local taco place and each got a taco and drink for an afternoon snack. We may live in a small town without big city amenities, but it is nice to be able to walk from our apartment to the farmer's market that is pretty much on the complete other side of town in about 10 minutes and get to swing by our favorite Mexican place on the way home.

I also made it to yoga at our community center last night. There are wall to wall mirrors in the work out room, so I got to see what a fat piece of lard I have turned into over the past several months...but maybe it will be motivation to walk away from the cookies and -ahem- tacos in the future. There is a boot camp class offered tonight, and I think I'll go to it too!

Eggs

Felt the need for an update, but nothing is really going on. I've been in a funk which I attribute to a cold, hormones, and lack of exercise. I tried to go to a yoga class at our community center today, but when I got there I saw on the schedule that the yoga class is on Fridays, not Saturdays. As I walked to my car, I had to physically fight back tears. Hopefully next week will be better! The biggest thing going on is that I bought free range nesting eggs at the grocery store. They were only about $.50 more than my normal eggs, since I already bought vegetarian-fed eggs before. What was kind of funny is that I am making about 3 meat-free dinners a week to save money, but now I'm buying more expensive eggs.

FRESH

Last night, Jonathan and I went out on a date...to see a documentary. One of our friends is about to start an internship in organic and sustainable farming, and he was hosting a screening of FRESH last night. We met with a lot of friends, ate decent pizza and drank amazing beer, then watched an informative and uplifting documentary about the food industry and the growing movement of organic and sustainable agriculture. I told a friend before the viewing that I am still lazy and just buy the meat my grocery store sells because it is easy. After seeing FRESH, I want to do whatever I can to help out sustainable farmers. We don't have a great farmers market in San Marcos, but there are several farmers markets in towns near us, and of course I can buy grass fed beef and cage free chicken at Whole Foods in Austin (a 40 mile drive...). We also have a community garden, and now that I know we will live in San Marcos for a few more years, I have more motivation to look into renting a plot and growing some stuff! I have read about several of you in Memphis who have plots out at Shelby Farms - I would love to learn more about how you researched how to grow your food.

Most documentaries I have seen about agriculture leave me very depressed, but FRESH was encouraging and positive. I highly encourage you to seek out (or even host) a screening!

Quick Update! (and a soap box that you can skip)

Just wanted to post a quick update about some new stuff!

a) I am slowly getting into a bit more of a cleaning routine. Bed is made every morning, I refuse to put clothes in a pile, dishes are completely done before going to bed each night, Jon's toys are picked up (nearly) every night after dinner, and bathroom is getting cleaned once a week. My next big things to tackle are keeping my work space organized (I work part time from home), figuring out when to vacuum on a regular basis. Your comments have been very encouraging : ) My brother and I talked about how we are having to figure out how to do daily chores as adults since we didn't have daily chores as kids. Wouldn't trade my childhood for anything, but there are some downsides to not being made to keep your room tidy. : )

b) Jon is eating his vegetables!!! Thanks to his new skill of using a spoon and dipping, we are packing the veggies in. Today he ate an entire helping of semi-pureed vegetables without any problem at lunch. He was so excited to be using a spoon and feeding himself : ) He also ate an entire ham and cheese sandwich (well, a toddler sized sandwich) at lunch! I am very thankful for this good week of eating. Last week was...shall we say...unpleasant.

c) Jonathan has a job! We had some drama with health insurance options earlier this week, but I think things are going to work out. I'll report more on the job once Jonathan gives me the okay. (He hasn't officially signed any paperwork yet).

Soap box of the week: HEALTH INSURANCE
Most of you are probably insured through an employer, and probably have a large pool of people on your insurance plan. That is what I had at Youth Villages. Let me tell you: all of the 60+ hour work weeks, getting cursed out by the occasional kid or parent, and crying every now and then was TOTALLY worth it for the rock star health benefits. I don't think I will ever have an insurance plan like I had with YV. Low premium, low co pay, low deductible...very nice! Our current health plan is good, I think probably on par with most folks. What Jonathan was offered with his future job was simply not affordable at all. Our monthly budget just would not have been able to manage. So I started looking into purchasing individual coverage. There are actually several very good individual plans out there for families. IF you are not going to have any more children. Apparently insurance companies only used to offer maternity coverage as a rider, or add on, to individual plans. I suppose this makes sense, since anyone can get cancer or get in a car accident, but only women can get pregnant. (Does it really make sense though?) However, due to a loop hole in the health care law, insurance companies are not mandated to offer maternity riders, so guess what? Since they don't have to do it, they aren't! There is no way in the state of Texas to have pregnancy and delivery covered by an individual insurance plan. No way. It is not offered. At all. So if you are self employed, or your employer doesn't offer group insurance, or your group insurance is crazy expensive because one colleague has a family member with cancer and you can't afford your premium...you have to pay out of pocket to have a baby. I always thought of maternity coverage as basic, and maybe...maybe...quality medical care while pregnant and delivering your baby might help lower our infant mortality rate. But apparently only those who have employer coverage or Medicaid should be offered insured medical care while pregnant. Does this not make you want to throttle both insurance companies and politicians? What makes me more mad is that politicians are arguing over federal funding for abortions, and no one has even mentioned that individual insurance plans do not even offer the option of a maternity plan. If you have an unplanned pregnancy and are facing either paying $15,000 out of pocket to carry your baby to term and deliver it in a hospital or have an abortion...what do you think people are going to choose? If you do not want people to have abortions, please make carrying a baby to term and delivering it affordable. Please : ) I had no idea that this maternity rider issue was there until it affected me**, and I am sure there are many other aspects of our health care system that are equally as unimaginable, but I am just not aware of them because they do not affect my every day life. So now I am telling everyone I know that this is out there. I think I'll even write to my legislators.

** Note: I am not pregnant. Just didn't want to confuse anyone ; )