Hello! It’s been a long time. I really miss blogging, so I’m making a real effort to get back into it.
A lot’s happened in the last 18 months. Jesse graduated from his PhD program! We moved to California! Keira turned 2! We cooked lots of delicious food and created new recipes! I continued to struggle with health issues! (Okay, that last one’s not so fun.) Let me share the highlights with you.
Leaving Colorado for California
The day we left Colorado
In October of 2014, Jesse finally finished up his 6 year PhD program and we moved from Boulder, Colorado to San Jose, California. First we moved in with my parents while Jesse was looking for a new job. In April, he found a job as a data scientist, which we were sooo happy about. We started looking for our own place and soon moved into a two-bedroom duplex in Mountain View.
We are really, really happy in California. The local food here is amazing. There are tons of options for organic produce, pastured/grass-fed meats, and grass-fed dairy, most of which are available year-round. And even though the general cost of living here is so much higher, I’m mostly paying the same or less for what I paid for the same foods in Colorado, since it’s just easier to grow things here. We love shopping at the farmers’ market every week. Even our Costco is better than what I’m used to; it has great real food items like pastured eggs (!!!), grass-fed cheeses, and sprouted seeds.
Jesse really likes his new job. He was very unhappy by the end of graduate school, so this is huge for us. He goes to work early, before Keira and I are even up, so he still gets to spend a lot of time with Keira and me in the afternoons and evenings.
July 2015, at my sister’s wedding
Toddler Keira
Keira turned two back in August. It feels like she was born a long time ago, but at the same time I can’t believe that she used to be a tiny baby and is now a real kid who plays at the playground, arranges her Duplo people, pees in the toilet, and can carry on a conversation. Of course I intellectually knew that she would do all of those things, but it’s really something else to see it all happen in front of you.
October 2015
Aside from the normal toddler quirks, she is a pretty great real food eater. She loves chicken skin, roast chicken, taco beef, tortillas, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, cinnamon butter bites, salad, and virtually every fruit she’s encountered.
We are also still breastfeeding. I had a really rough first few days of breastfeeding, so it makes me so happy to still be going strong 28 months in. We’ve dropped down to three sessions per day, but may end up staying there for quite a while longer, as I’ve yet to see her lose any interest in nursing before nap, bed, and in the morning.
Struggling with Health Issues
The only big downside in our life right now is my health. I have several persistent health issues that I’ve been attacking head on but just can’t figure out. I’ve been embarrassed to talk about them, both here and in person. I’m not totally sure why; I guess because I feel like I should have it all figured out? Or that people will assume I don’t care about my health? I don’t know, but in any case I’m trying to be more open. Reading about other people’s health struggles and successes has always been really helpful to me.
I’ve been dealing with chronic insomnia since my pregnancy. One to three times per night I wake up starving, and can’t go back to sleep without having a large snack. It’s horrible. Most nights I manage to sleep around eight hours, but I still feel exhausted most of the time. And in order to get those eight hours, I have to spend 10 to 11 hours in bed, since I’m usually awake for at least an hour or two in the middle of the night.
I’ve been actively trying to diagnose and treat my insomnia with natural health practitioners for almost a year now, and have yet to have any success. There have been many theories: toxin overload, hormone imbalance, magnesium deficiency, leaky gut, adrenal fatigue….and so far none of them have panned out, or at least attempting to treat them has not made ANY difference in my sleep. This has been incredibly frustrating, and of course incredibly expensive.
My other big health issue concerns my feet. For the last 12+ years I’ve been dealing with pain on the bottom of my feet, which occurs when standing or walking. The more I stand and walk during the day the worse the pain gets. Back when I first noticed the pain it was mostly an annoyance, but it has gotten worse and worse over the years. These days I try to stay off my feet as much as possible, because even a normal day of cooking, cleaning, taking care of Keira, etc. means that my feet really hurt by the end of the day. Fun outings like going to the zoo, a museum, or even to the park are completely unrealistic for me. I hate feeling so limited. I’ve spent so much money and time trying to figure out this problem, with no success so far. Everyone has their own theory, but like my insomnia, various treatments haven’t made any difference.
I’m also a lot heavier than I’ve ever been before. I was gaining weight before my pregnancy, then gained a bunch of pregnancy weight, and for the most part it’s all stuck around. I’m not totally sure what’s up with that, either, although my personal guess is that my body can’t lose any weight while it’s so stressed out from not sleeping well for the past 3 years.
A few weeks ago I started seeing a new chiropractor who specializes in craniopathy. He has his own theory (of course!), which is that I have distortions in my skull that are causing my foot pain AND insomnia. Which is fascinating. And also I really, really hope that he’s right. I’m so ready to feel better. And I really want to have another baby, but I can’t handle going into another pregnancy already dealing with chronic insomnia.
November 2015
So….sorry to end on a down note, there. But that’s what’s been up with me. Life is good, except for health stuff, which hopefully we’ll have breakthrough in soon. Looking forward to seeing you all here as I get back to posting regularly.
Please, tell me what you’ve all been up to the last 1.5 years? 🙂
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