A Few Random Updates

• C turned 6 months old a few weeks ago and I'm left wondering what happened to my little peanut and who this new baby is that has taken her place. She's not babbling that much, or saying consonents but instead prefers to just make random moaning sounds and practicing her vowels. No crawling yet but she wants to so badly. She can get up on her hands and knees and rock but she will either go back down to her tummy or make a huge lunge forward on her knees and face plant onto the carpet.  I've been making her baby food and so far we've introduced her to avocado, bananas, sweet potatoes and apples which she has loved and sweet peas which she has not.  This week we will keep feeding her apples and next week I think we will try peaches (I went peach picking so I need to puree these peaches while they're still fresh).  

• My weight loss journey has been great so far.  I've stayed on track and listened to my body more than I usually do.  While I count my calories every day there are some days that I just feel SO hungry all day, no matter what I eat.  On those days I choose to eat more calories instead of starving myself.  Yesterday was one such day.  My daily calorie deficit is 750 so I can eat an extra 100-200 calories if I'm hungry and still have a deficit for the day.  I never beat myself up over eating extra food on those "hungry" days.  

• Exercise is another story.  It's been in the 90's all week this week and our house lacks central air.  While we have some window A/C units we tend to close off some unused rooms to keep the air conditioning costs low.  Those rooms are where I usually work out.  Even with the A/C units running all day our house only gets down to about 75-78 degrees during the day.  So to sum it up it sucks working out right now.  Some morning I do a little strength training with my free weights and yoga mat but most days I don't work out at all.  However I do take advantage of the cooler, rainy days with workouts so I can still stay in shape.  My short-term goal is to be able to run my first 5K this fall and my long-term goal is to run in the Disney Princess Half Marathon in 2015. 

• I've been looking for ways to stay busy while at home so I've gotten back into writing articles for Yahoo! (check out my list on the right sidebar).  I'm also looking for ways to get C more socialized.  Next week we will attend a free class at Kindermusik.  I'm trying to decide whether to sign her up for those classes or sign her up for swim lessons.  I think that getting out of the house once a week will be good for both of us.

• In a couple of weeks C and I will be going on our first road trip alone.  We're driving back to Pennsylvania to visit family (the ones she saw when she was 3 months old).  My sister and nephew will be coming up from NC as well and we plan to take a trip to Idlewild Park.  This was an amusement park that we went to as kids and so we want our own children to have the experience of going.  I can't wait to walk through Storybook Forest and ride the trolley through Mister Roger's Neighborhood.  It brings back such wonderful memories!

• We still haven't finalized C's adoption yet.  We were hoping to get a date set sometime this month but with all the delays that the court has been giving us it seems that we could end up finalizing as late as September.  I'm pretty disappointed about that. 
• I finally decided to link my travel blog to this one.  It's on my sidebar under "Other Blogs".  The title is Travel Fearlessly.  Pretty fitting huh?  I'm planning our next international trip (and C's first!) to Nova Scotia next summer.  

Well that's about all that's going on for now.  Sometime this week I need to clean up the blogroll and hopefully add a few more new faces to the list.  If you're a follower and have your own blog please introduce yourself in the comment section and I'll get you added to my list!