From the city of St. Petersburg, Russia. Today, I live in Tampa Bay, Florida with my husband David (a professional blogger) and my baby girl, Elyana. MORE
This is a quick note, mainly for myself, about what is happening with my blog today. I started this blog in March of 2008. The inspiration came from my husband, who is a successful internet blogger. I thought it would be a fun thing to do, and I didn’t have any particular goal in mind. My blog is kind of a hodge-podge of everything. It’s a personal blog, so I pretty much write about whatever comes to my mind.
This is my 89th post. So far I have total of 179 comments and my Google page rank is Continue reading →
After two unappealing reviews of Seacret’s Eye Cream and Age-Defying Eye cream I received a message from the company’s marketing manager with an offer to try out their Restore Age-Defying serum and Refresh Vitamin-Rich moisturizer. I happily agreed.
It’s been at least a month since I’ve been using the products. The goal is to use them at least once per day, preferably before going to bed. First the serum needs to be applied over face and neck, followed by the moisturizer. This is exactly what I did!
I probably am one of the worst home organizers you will ever meet. Why? Before I met my husband, I didn’t have much stuff, didn’t care for having lots of it, and I seemed to always have enough space for what I had. So home organization was one of the last things that ever popped into my mind. When I bought my first house, and it’s the house that we’re currently in, I thought to myself, there is no way I will ever fill this space. It’s a four bedroom house with a large kitchen, decent family room and a good size living room/dining room combination. At the time it seemed to have unlimited amount of closet space.
Well, was I wrong. Five years down the road, and two additional occupants with the third on the way, the house is officially packed to its max. These days I look in the closets thinking to myself, how could they go from completely empty to being stuffed like this? The three-car garage is now a two-car with tons of crap in place of third. Now I have no choice, but to start getting creative and get organized!
Leaving my 2-year old at the daycare this morning, left a very bad taste in my mouth. Since I am almost 37 weeks pregnant and having a harder time keeping up with my daughter’s social and everyday activities, we decided to put her in the daycare for couple of days a week. It should give me a chance to reorganize the house, make room for the little one, move Elyana into her new “big girl’s room”, and to simply catch my breath from constant demands for attention and unlimited energy outbursts of the 2-yr old.
This is her first week at the daycare. Even though she’s not new to it, she went there for a brief period when she was 18 months, few months have passed in between. And today is her 2nd day there without mommy, so she probably knew that my intention was to drop her off and leave. As we got there, she started making her sad face as I was holding onto her. As soon as I started to let go and making moves towards the door, she grabbed onto my leg and started screaming and crying. The teacher had to grab a hold of her, so she doesn’t run outside after me. As I was walking away, I kept hearing screaming and crying and sounds of pounding on the door.
This giveaway is closed, the winner is Storm, the owner of comment #35, congrats Storm! Thanks for participating everyone!
There isn’t a more perfect time to use Skin MD Natural Shielding lotion than in the winter. Even though I live in Florida, as the temperature drops below 60F and subsequently does the moisture in the air, my skin feels it big time! My hands suffer the most. Being a mommy to a toddler, I wet my hands close to every hour throughout the day. When the temperature outside is warm, the skin on my hands seems to hold pretty well. But as the cold hits, same skin gets extremely dry and rough. I’m a 32-year old woman, but by looking just at my hands, you would probably give me all 55 or more. I can’t even imagine how folks up north deal with their dry and itchy skin. Besides my hands, my elbows and my knees take #2 place in dryness. During such times I try to use very rich moisturizers, petroleum jelly and even olive oil! They help a little, but feel extremely oily. I have to rub them in forever and then wait a while for the oily feeling to go away.
When I tried Skin MD Natural Shielding lotion, one of the first things I noticed Continue reading →
With the 2-yr old and the second one on the way, I decided to look for a double stroller. I wanted a side-by-side type, with jogging/running capability, good size canopy for sun protection and compact enough to fit through a door. By looking through a ton of strollers online at the Babies-R-Us store, I decided to go with the Baby Jogger City Elite double stroller. It seemed to have everything, nice soft reclining seats, good size basket underneath, large size canopy for each seat and an easy fold-up technology. What else could a mom dream of? I found the stroller on the Babies-r-Us site under Jogging/Running strollers. Though the price tag wasn’t small, it retails for $420.
When my mother-in-law brought over the heavy box, she pointed out that there was a warning right on the box: Continue reading →
If anyone is offended by my title, I’m sorry. The reason I called the post like this, is that since I became a mommy, I seem to be more out of focus, more forgetful, and simply out of it! Well, one of my new year’s resolutions was to do something about it!! Being a mommy and forgetful is justifiable, but is it fair to myself, my spouse, family, friends…? Little kids do take up a lot of attention and when one is with them all the time, one gets what I call the Attention Split Disorder! LOL.
I tried to figure out what would be a better approach for me. Many people use a computer to set reminders and tasks. But what if I’m off the computer most of the time? Then it doesn’t work! In order for me to enter a new task or a reminder I have to open up my laptop, wait for it to get online, open whatever program I use, type the task in and then set a reminder for it. Whew, just thinking about it, I know it’s not very realistic.
With such cold temperatures sticking around Florida, I got to thinking, how much cheaper would it be to have natural gas to warm up the house versus electricity. Energy used to heat the house probably takes up the largest percentage of the electric bill (that is during cold times). Other big energy guzzlers like the water heater, clothes dryer, the oven can be powered by the natural gas as well. For my number crunching, I got most of the data from Energy Information Administration website.
National average for electricity in 2009 was 10.4 cents per one kilowatt-hour and 1.29 cents per one Therm of gas. Since one kilowatt-hour is equal to 3.412 therms, the electricity cost is 3.05 cents per Therm. So looks like the electricity was almost 2 ½ times more expensive than the natural gas.
Today we went to do a 4D ultrasound at my OBGYN’s office. I’m 32 weeks and 3 days pregnant and apparently the best time to do a 4D ultrasound is between 28 and 32 weeks. For some reason I was under the impression that I needed to wait until 35 or 37 weeks to do it. But luckily I asked my doctor about it 2 days ago and they managed to squeeze me in for a 4D ultrasound appointment this week!
The technician told us that the pictures came out great. Apparently it has to do with the clarity of the liquid in the womb, and mine seemed to serve the purpose well. Technician told us that 32 weeks is one of the best times to get a clear pictures. She took total of 39 pictures and uploaded them on a CD. I picked 4 best ones to share with you.
The 4D ultrasound experience got a lot cheaper in the last couple of years. Today it cost us $149 at my obstetrician’s office. Two years ago when I was pregnant with my daughter, my obstetrician didn’t even have the 4D machine. We would have to go to a place specializing only in 3D US and they charged over $300 for a similar experience. We decided not to pursue it at the time.
I am so excited about our soon to be born son! He is definitely a kicker. I don’t think I had nearly as much activity with my first one. It feels like he kicks and stirs all the time. I actually had to ask my doctor whether there is such thing as too much movement. She laughed and said no.
I think when we just started the ultrasound he was sleeping. But he probably got woken up by the pressure from the ultrasound mouse that the tech was sliding all over my stomach. So we got to witness him move around and open and close his mouth. The technology today is amaizing!
So as I was mentioning in my earlier post, I decided to start making a little bit of money for myself. It’s not like we need it to survive, it’s more for the sake of keeping my sanity. At the moment I am a stay-at-home mom, and my main priority is taking care of my family. My daily tasks are housekeeping, cooking, taking care of my daughter and keeping husband happy. But the longer I do it, the more I realize, that my mind is starting to go numb. I am realizing I have no game in my life. It’s not like I wake up in the morning and go, oh goody, I get to scrub the tub today and do a load of whites! Admit it, it’s not terribly exciting.
Obviously, I could always go back to a full-time job. Except that in couple of months we are expecting a son. I would feel terribly guilty dropping an infant at the daycare just so I can keep my life exciting. It would be selfish. I want to keep my son at home until he’s at least a year and half. And even then, I am not sure if I could leave my kids at the daycare for a full day.
After two unappealing reviews of Seacret’s 
This giveaway is closed, the winner is Storm, the owner of comment #35, congrats Storm! Thanks for participating everyone!
If anyone is offended by my title, I’m sorry. The reason I called the post like this, is that since I became a mommy, I seem to be more out of focus, more forgetful, and simply out of it! Well, one of my new year’s resolutions was to do something about it!! Being a mommy and forgetful is justifiable, but is it fair to myself, my spouse, family, friends…? Little kids do take up a lot of attention and when one is with them all the time, one gets what I call the Attention Split Disorder! LOL.
With such cold temperatures sticking around Florida, I got to thinking, how much cheaper would it be to have natural gas to warm up the house versus electricity. Energy used to heat the house probably takes up the largest percentage of the electric bill (that is during cold times). Other big energy guzzlers like the water heater, clothes dryer, the oven can be powered by the natural gas as well. For my number crunching, I got most of the data from Energy Information Administration website.