What I've been up to lately

Life has been catching up to me as of late, and although I'd like to say that I'm keeping up with the flow of things, sadly that is not the case.  I've been tired, mostly due to there being a baby growing in my belly, but not truly tired enough to crash completely.  The one thing that has helped me is figuring out what hours were my "prime hours of energy".  My most productive hours come between 11am and 4pm.  And at 4pm I wilt.  Seriously.  Like a dead flower.

So I've learned that 4pm is the time when I should rest.  (obviously on a work day I am not able to nap, but I've been trying to at least schedule less energy consuming tasks for that time of day.)  After about an hour of that I can carry on through the rest of the evening without any major meltdowns. 

And eating.  Eating has become a major issue.  I'm never hungry.  It might be the nausea but I hardly ever feel like eating throughout the day so I have to force myself to eat the bare minimums and then they usually don't settle well.  Then 7:30pm arrives and I'm ready to devour a meal the size of Montana.  And I'm not the least bit nauseated.  Which is odd.  And then I wake (if I'm not still up) at around midnight and want to eat again.  Mostly really unhealthy stuff too, stuff that we do not keep in the house..  Stuff that Michael will NOT drive to town to buy me.  Like chili dogs or bacon cheeseburgers.

But the upside is, the whole rescheduling of my days has allowed me to actually start enjoying a book that was sent to me by my Scrapshare secret santa this year.  It's called March and was written by Geraldine Brooks with the purpose of exploring Louisa May Alcott's world of Little Women through the eyes of their absent father Mr. March.  Thus far I'm enjoying it greatly.  It's not a frilly tale; details of war and slavery never are.  But so far it's been an interesting read, although I think it makes a difference that I loved Little Women and all the books that stemmed from it. 

It's not a long read either, so you'd think I'd be finished with it by now but it's quality writing in a classical way which is not something that I often find in newer books so I've been savoring it.  I'm trying to read a chapter every day or two.

There are a few more books on deck at this point so I'll probably be letting y'all know if I end up liking or disliking them.  Another recent addition to my down time has been crossword puzzles.  I like them but I detest leaving a puzzle unfinished so I found a book of intermediate level crosswords that aren't ridiculously difficult yet still challenging.  It's helping to keep my brain on track on those days when I don't want to chance falling into slumber and not getting back up off the couch after my afternoon siesta.  I can usually finish one or two of these puzzles while resting and I enjoy them. 

So that concludes the update on my daily life.  In case you haven't noticed, I've also been updating the look of this blog, along with the appearance of our recipe blog also.  I've also been adding some ads too. I've struggled with advertising because, let's face it on a blog of this caliber there isn't much money to be made.  But with the knowledge that I would one day hope to switch to a hosted site of my own it would be nice if I could make a few dollars to cover the monthly cost. 

So in conclusion, I hope you don't mind the ads.  I'm going to try to keep them as helpful and appropriate as possible so that they are actually something that you might want to click on at some point.

Cheers!