Had to post a pic of the new puppy, Penelope. She is a little different then our other dogs – still a miniature dachshund but a silver, black and red dapple. She isn’t related to Sophie and Baby but her daddy is Phinn, my cousin’s dog.

Penny has fit right into the family like she has been here for years. Tara, now 16 months old, is wonderful with her as she is with the other dogs and they with her. We are blessed!

June 1st saw me back at work, which was a good thing I thought. By June 23rd, I had a “nervous breakdown” and took myself to the psyche department at my local hospital. The good news is that I am not really crazy like I thought

There is a wonderful unit in the women’s health hospital here – the Reproductive Mental Health Unit. I have been under their care since the end of June, thank God. They have been very helpful. Yep, I am on different medications then I was taking when I was first pregnant AND I am still off work. I work with clients and their money – I am terrified to go back to what I was doing. Ethically and morally I am struggling with this. I have been told that my fears are from a lack of confidence, not a lack of ability. Perhaps, but it doesn’t help my fear of screwing up something for a client or the company I work for.

One day at a time I guess. The meds I am now on – Effexor – I have learned are the heavy duty anti-depressant and also help with anxiety which I have a big problem with too. Never did when I was younger, I think it was turning 40 that caused that!

Tara, bless her heart, is a wonderful, happy, healthy 10 month old. My husband has gone back to work after taking some parental leave and I have Tara in daycare during the week. Now that hubby is not around in the day, the daycare does two things – one, Tara gets to spend time with her little friends and learn social skills and two, lets me work on getting better. A happy mom makes for a happy family.

Some days are rougher than others. My husband is the most amazing guy and has been my rock through all of this. Would you believe that alot of husbands are not so supportive of their wives with post partum depression? the psychiatrist at the hospital was very impressed when hubby joined me on my appointments – he said that most wives don’t have the same level of support. One more reason why I am so lucky. Often, I wonder why he hasn’t divorced me since I have been so horrible and bitchy to live with, but he loves me. Always and forever right honey? in sickness and in health……I love you.

So we are prepared for Earl anyway.  Have lots of water (bottled), infant formula for Tara, canned food, a generator, candles, flashlights, my medications, the dogs medications etc. Thankfully, it’s still really warm (hello heat wave the last few days!) so we don’t have to worry about staying warm. Lots of blankets if is gets cold anyway.

As I write this, Hurricane Earl is tracking just east of Florida and north up the eastern seaboard. Looks as though North Carolina and Virginia will be affected in the early hours of Friday morning – 2 am or so. My thoughts and prayers are with everyone there! Be safe – nothing is as important as life – things don’t matter, just people (and pets as they are a part of so many families.)

Travis and Jeannie are teaching to very new beginners. I am a little farther along than that at this point as I have been learning, learning and more learning from several different places. The two primary websites I have learned oodles and oodles from are Wealthy Affiliate and WordPress Goldmine ($4.95 for a 7 Day Trial – great opportunity!). For anyone who is looking to do internet marketing – affiliate marketing, adsense, CPA etc, these two sites will be the best investments you have ever made.

I have been building a couple of sites of my own before building the one for my best friend. Just as a refresher as to what Travis and Jeannie’s Project Mom is, see my last post on this topic. I am trying to figure out what kind of site I want to build my buddy. Obviously, I want to make money on the site to help her supplement her income but at the same time, I want to make a site that is interesting to her also. I may just go for the money making route and not worry so much about the subject appealing to her. The next site I build for her we can do together so I can teach her how to do it – that one can be one that she finds really interesting.

Well, I need get back to writing articles for my sites to drive organic traffic to them. I have about 50 more articles to write I figure! As I make more money on my sites, I will take some of those profits and look at buying article spinning and submitting software!

• weight gain
• always feeling cold
• low sex drive
• itchy, dry skin
• depression
• puffy face and eyelids
• bad PMS (my poor husband)
• fatigue
• constipation

The symptoms I listed above are the same that many hypothyroid sufferers have. There are also other symptoms like muscle aches and cramps, heavy periods, loss of appetite, slow reflexes, poor concentration and memory loss but fortunately I didn’t experience those too.

I am a big fan of being proactive about my health (and my family’s health). If I am feeling crappy and have symptoms that are the same as those of a person with a hypothyroid, or underactive thyroid gland and I am being told that I am not hypothyroid according to my test results, a red flag goes up and I need to explore it.

Google is my best friend sometimes I googled “borderline hypothyroid” and found an article written by Mary Shomon about borderline hypothyroidism. Her articles are always really well written and informative. She found a reference to “hypometabolism” in the book Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction: Trigger Point Manual. Hypometabolism is the bodies’ inability to convert T4 to T3 (hormones produced by the thyroid gland) that is needed by the body and results in normal TSH results but hypothyroid symptoms.

The treatment for hypometabolism is prescription drugs – I don’t want to take any more drugs then I absolutely have to! I found a natural way to deal with hypothyroidism using diet and natural supplements. Check out The Hypothyroidism Solution – a great comprehensive report that taught me a ton of stuff I did not know about hypothyroidism and how to use the foods in my local grocery and health food store to alleviate the symptoms I have been experiencing! It’s been pretty miraculous the way my symptoms have almost all disappeared.

So the moral of the story is, even if your thyroid tests come back normal, there could still be thyroid hormone issues. If you can treat them naturally instead of with unnatural drugs then isn’t that the best for your body?

The native of Russellville, Arkansas, USA is doing something really good for his mom. He is most definitely a sweet southern boy (with an awesome southern drawl to match – sorry Travis, but you DO have an accent to my Canadian ears) that has been brought up a gentleman by his momma and wants to help her out in a way that won’t embarrass her.

Let me tell you a bit about Travis. I heard of him first through PotPieGirl, an internet marketer that I have a great deal of respect for and has taught me how to make money on the internet. PotPieGirl directed me to Travis’s website www.bummarketingmethod.com and this is where I took an amazing FREE e-course – yes, I said FREE – on article marketing.  Travis has coined the term “bum marketing”, (actually, his wife Jeannie did and Travis gives her the credit!) as it is one of easiest ways to earn money on the net – even a bum off the street could do it with the guidelines that Travis has set out. I credit this e-course with helping me earn my first of many $$$$$ on the internet. (Thanks Travis!) Travis has been perfecting his knowledge on the internet since 2004 when he started internet marketing part time, in between working 70 hours per week at his job. Now, he makes a great living doing it full time and answers to no one but himself (LOL, well he has to answer to Jeannie!)

Travis and his wife Jeannie have a new project starting May 1 – called “Project Mom” – here is the link so you can see his video and more information – www.bummarketingmethod.com/projectmom. Now the plan is this – Travis  is going to go through the process of setting up a way for his mom to earn an extra $100-$500 per month effortlessly – but she doesn’t know about it yet, and she won’t know until she starts to receive checks from Clickbank. Jeannie is in on this too – but here is another cool thing – Jeannie is not all that familiar with internet marketing, so Travis is going to use her as the guinea pig to help teach everyone else. They are going to video tape every lesson together so we have a visual to follow. Personally, I learn much better with visual guides first so I am excited about this!

You aren’t sure what Clickbank is? No problem, Travis and Jeannie are going to go thru what it is and how to set up an account and make money from it. This is a FREE follow along project – NO PURCHASE IS NECESSARY! Travis is extremely generous with sharing his knowledge and is trying to teach as many people as possible how to earn extra money online. If you want to earn an extra $400 per month to pay your car payment – you can do that. If you want to earn $1000 per month to pay your mortgage payment – you can do that too! This is not a get rich quick kind of thing – it takes some work to implement the steps but once you do, the internet is your oyster.

I am doing “Project Best Friend” as my project. My best friend is a single mom of a great 9 year old boy. She finds it tough being a single mom financially. I understand this as I was a single mom for 9 years and I made a much higher income than she does and it was VERY hard. She works in childcare and lives in assisted housing. She struggles every year to keep her son in hockey (he is potential NHL!) and provide a good life for her son. Her dream is to own a house and run her own daycare business out of it. She is an amazing mother, friend and person and I love her dearly. While Travis is setting it up so that his mom starts to receive cheques from Clickbank, I am going to set things up so that my best friend can receive cheques too – so I can help her without embarrassing her and maybe even help her achieve her dream.

Go to www.bummarketingmethod.com/projectmom to sign up to learn (for FREE) from a great teacher and follow me along as I use Travis and Jeannie’s methods for success. Let me know how it goes for you!

(an aside, just an interesting tidbit – the name Gesine means “strong spear”, is German in origin and is a diminutive of Gertrude according to www.babynames.com)

Not only is the blog really cool, with lots of very tasty recipes that I need to try (but not eat since they are not low carb!) but it lead me to Gesine’s book Confections of a Closet Master Baker – One Woman’s Sweet Journey from Unhappy Hollywood Executive to Contented Country Baker.

While my heart goes out to Sandra for the crap her husband has put her through, my intellectual mind goes to her sister Gesine for the awesome book that she wrote and I thoroughly enjoyed – $14.04 at Amazon Confections of a Closet Master Baker – One Woman’s Sweet Journey from Unhappy Hollywood Executive to Contented Country Baker. I really related to this book (except I have never lived in Hollywood, never been a movie executive and don’t have a famous sister LOL).

Gesine talks about her love of baking and her mom, both subjects that endeared her to me right away. The fact that she has followed a childhood dream after living a lifestyle that undoubtedly taught her a great deal about what she didn’t want in life is inspirational and shows that anybody can achieve their dreams, even with the bumps in the road that are the realities of life. Following her dream lead her to Montpelier, Vermont where she appears to have achieved what makes her genuinely happy.

She is not necessarily a warm fuzzy kind of person, is quite blunt and even she admits that she is not a people person and the anonymity of the bakery kitchen enables her to not deal with people. Even with her self proclaimed “flaws” one needs to appreciate the honesty of the author. Montpelier, Vermont seems to have gotten around these quirks of Gesine’s and can see that baking is really Gesine’s way of spreading goodness around her and have made her an integral part of their small town.

Montpelier, Vermont is actually the smallest state capital in the US. Montpelier became a city in 1895 but with a population of only 8,000 I imagine it has a lovely small town/village feel, no matter that it is technically a city. This is defiantly a place that I want to visit. As a Canadian, there are many places in the US that are on my list to see – Georgia, South Carolina, Texas and Colorado are some states that are at the top of the list – Vermont is now there too. As its only a 12 hour drive from my home in Nova Scotia I might get to Vermont before I get to Texas!

The recipes that the author shares at the end of her chapters are truly delicious looking – I have not yet tried any of them but I have no doubt that they will be as mouthwatering as they sound. Gesine’s memories about her childhood in Germany and Austria are ones that invoke fond remembrances of my own childhood in Germany. I am thinking that Gesine and I would get along famously if we met in person!

Gesine Confectionary in Montpelier, Vermont would most definitely be a destination to go to. If you can’t get there in person, I highly recommend reading her book Confections of a Closet Master Baker – One Woman’s Sweet Journey from Unhappy Hollywood Executive to a Contented Country Baker. I would also suggest going to www.gesine.com to order some macaroons to munch on while you read

This desire for a cheat day came from my thorough frustration at losing a big whopping 1.5 lbs in total for the 2 weeks and 1 day I was so good. That was the end result – 1.5 lbs lost, after much up and down on the scale. Not so nice. I was very disappointed to say the least.

Today I went to the doctor to get results of my blood tests. I had asked her to check my thyroid since I have been having so many problems losing weight since Tara was born 5 1/2 months ago. Well, let me correct that. I had lost all my pregnancy weight (30 lbs) by the time Tara was 11 days old. Boy was I excited! and that wasn’t even from breast feeding! By the time she was 3 months old, I had put 15 lbs of that back on.

Unfortunately, its not my thyroid (well, fortunately I suppose depending on how one looks at it) The good thing is that it is functioning normally and I don’t have to be on thyroid medication. The bad thing is that my thyroid is functioning normally so that is not the reason I am gaining weight and having problems losing it!

As my doctor reminded me today – its harder to lose weight after the second child and I must remember that I am 40 now so that makes it even harder. She is a great doctor and is very matter of fact. She admits that being age 39 herself and just having had a baby (her second) that its way harder to get the pounds off. She did mention that there are a couple of weight loss drugs that are approved to be prescribed, but I really don’t want more medication on top of the anti depressant I take and the IUD I will be getting in a couple of weeks. I will work on this myself.

My cheat day was a mistake. Not only because the cheat “day” turned into the whole weekend, but because I feel like crap after eating high carb foods. Now it is Monday and I am back on the low carb track.

With a cheat day, I was hoping to shock my body into releasing some of its weight but I suspect it didn’t work. The scale is telling me it didn’t anyway. I feel better on a low carb way of eating, I just need to stick with that but I will make a couple of tweaks:

• keep fat intake down (ie don’t go crazy on the bacon, easy on the butter and heavy cream)
• eat more salads – make a low fat vinaigrette to sprinkle on for taste
• will use the Atkins Induction phase to start (keep carbs to 20g per day)
• start walking! its spring now, no excuses, need to get the lazy big butt off the sofa
• use the gym membership I have for weight training (good for my aging bones and to increase metabolism)

I will work on my new plan and report back the results. How can I not be successful if I am being a good girl?

She is on the brink of teenagedom – I see peeks of that already – and I pray she is not going to be a teenager like I was. My mom always told me that I was horrid between 12-18 and she was right of course. I was a nasty teenage child and when I had my first daughter my mom lovingly laughed at me. “Payback time” she chortled, several times, as if once was not enough.

Unfortunately, my mom died three years ago so has not seen her oldest grandchild on the brink of womanhood. Fortunately for me, my daughter is turning out to be a much better human being than I ever was. I wish my mom could see that.

The fact that she is turning out well really has nothing to do with me in my opinion. Yes, I have raised her strictly. She has had manners drilled into her since she was small. She knows the importance of being kind and not judgmental to people and animals and that lying is one of the worst habits anyone can have. She is an enthusiastic volunteer and believes strongly in recycling, sustaining our world and getting good marks so she can go to veterinary school when she is finished high school.

She was born with great intelligence and personality. As a baby she showed off both of those traits very early and very well. As a single mom, I had the huge benefit of my parents and other family contribute to the raising of my girl. It is so true that it takes a village to raise  a child and I had that in spades – what a blessing for my daughter (and for me).

Michaela has learned alot in her 12 years. She has been through deaths of loved ones, parents that are not together (and have had some nasty fights), moving across the country, being away from family, new schools and gaining a stepdad and two brothers. Through all of these life events she has adapted with grace and patience, sadness and enthusiasm. I am so proud of her – she is an amazing human being and I am so blessed to have her as my daughter.

Now that Tara, the baby girl of our family, is 6 months old, I see the benefits Tara and Michaela have on each other. The love, the happiness, the learning and patience is a joy to behold. Tara will help Michaela get through the trials of teenage life I think – and Michaela will do the same for Tara in 12 years or so. They are fortunate to have each other.

And I, selfishly, am thankful that my girls will probably not be as horrid as I was.

There have been ups and downs in my weight in the last 3 years particularly – from the highest of 272 lbs to a low of 207 lbs. Pregnancy in 2009 added some but mostly, when I crept back up to 237 lbs recently after the birth of my daughter, it was from poor eating habits. By poor eating habits I mean eating mostly high carb foods -  too much sugar, white flour, pasta and processed foods – and not enough fruits and vegetables.

At the age of 40 now, I have committed to being healthier by the time I hit age 41 in September 2010. Healthier means alot of things, not just losing weight so I can be classified in the “normal” weight range, not the “morbidly obese” range (I hate that phrase!) Being healthier means eating more fruits, vegetables and fiber, decreasing my cholesterol and triglyceride levels, increasing my aerobic capacity and decreasing my chances of becoming diabetic. A low carbohydrate way of eating works for me and it will help me achieve my goal weight (150 lbs) and healthier lifestyle. From now to September – 5 months – it is definitely possible to lose 82 lbs, but if it takes me longer that is ok too. It’s a lifestyle, not a diet – a journey, not a final destination.

A love of sweets does not lend itself well to a low carbohydrate lifestyle but I have found ways to work within the parameters of low carb to satisfy the desire for something sweet. Fortunately, the longer I am controlling my carb intake, the less cravings I have for something sweet. When I do need something sweet there are two things I turn to – Splenda and protein powder – read about what I do with protein powder in “How to Handle your Sweet Tooth on a Low Carb Eating Plan – Part Two”.

Splenda is a godsend to those of us that choose to eat low carb. While it tastes like sugar and is made from sugar, it isn’t sugar – it is sucralose. Sucralose does not contain aspartame (a potentially unhealthy sweetener) and it is low in calories and carbohydrates. It is recommended as an alternative sweetener for diabetics too. You can find more information on the Splenda website (click here).

I am a coffee drinker but I don’t sweeten it – just drink it black. My hubby is a diabetic so when he sweetens his coffee, its with Splenda. I have baked with Splenda and it works really well but baked goods don’t work well for me trying to eat low carb!  What I do make for a low carb sweet snack (in very small quantities) is custard made from heavy cream, egg yolks, vanilla and Splenda. This is how I do it:

1 litre heavy whipping cream

8 egg yolks

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1/2 Splenda granulated ( I buy it by this 1.2 lb bag normally but if you just have the individual packets you can open enough of them to make 1/2 cup!)

I keep my separated egg whites in the fridge for when I make egg white omelets so they are never wasted.

In a stainless steel bowl over a pot of simmering water, or a double boiler, whisk the egg yolks until blended and add all of the heavy cream. Whisk well to combine. Cook the egg and cream mixture, stirring constantly, until the mixture has thickened. This will take about 10 minutes or so. When the mixture has thickened, take it off the heat and let it cool for 10-15 minutes or so, stirring occasionally. A skin will form over the top but don’t worry about that. When the mixture has cooled (it will continue to thicken the colder it gets), stir in the vanilla and Splenda. Place a sieve over a bowl large enough to hold the custard and strain the custard through the sieve to remove any lumps. This makes the custard a nice silky texture. Refrigerate until pudding like consistency. Serves 16 – 1/4 cup servings. It is very rich so you don’t need much at all to satisfy a sweet craving – besides, cream has carbs in it so too much of this can throw your carb intake out of whack for the day.

Try out this recipe and let me know what you think!