pink

5 Weeks to go…

Here we are…only five more weeks of pregnancy to go if everything goes according to plan. I kinda feel anxious, scared and happy at the same time, so I decided to give you an update on how everything is going right before we enter the last month of pregnancy and right before the holidays. To celebrate this landmark, D (thoughtful as ever – I am so lucky!) surprised me with a bouquet of my favourite flowers: pink peonies! Not the small type, but the big and fragranced ones! In December! Of course there are 5 flowers in the bouquet for each week he has to help and care for me until he will have to divide his attention between me, our bundle of joy and our little doggie. Tough times await him…maybe I should have bought him flowers… I am writing this post before our third scan so no new photos of the little one as well as no news on how everything is going in my belly, but I can tell you that thus far, I feel that everything is going according to plan and the little one is doing well inside. Lots of things have happened during these last two months of pregnancy-wise: lots of activity going on and this time some real kicks, the belly is growing unexpectedly fast, getting out from bed is becoming more and more difficult every day, eating has become a love-hate relationship and so on…

Now, let me detail on all those things for a bit. First of all, during the seventh month, I really, actually felt kicks and fists and actually saw my belly change shape while the little one was playing inside and I have to say that it does not hurt at all, but rather feels like ‘home’ – I mean I get all warm and fuzzy inside and feel like this is the most natural and beautiful feeling in the world. This is a lot coming from someone that thought this must be the most alien-like feeling in the world, and when I say ‘alien’ I mean Sigourney Weaver’s Alien, but as it turned out this actually feels so, so nice. If in the seventh month there was mild activity going on, nowadays it really feels like she is one strong lady. The feeling is so satisfying and makes both of us so happy that I can’t really describe it in words.

The growing belly is becoming more and more uncomfortable to carry around and seriously impends lots of movement on my part and thus I have become even more addicted to D. Getting out of the bed, or up from a low-couch has become nearly impossible without help, not to mention that putting on socks or shoes with laces is a real struggle. Luckily we laugh a lot about the entire situation and he helps me with most of the stuff when he is at home. To be honest I have really felt the adding of weight in the middle section and right now after going one storey up the stairs I usually struggle to get my breath back. Kinda like Kung-Fu Panda when he declared his greatest enemy the stairs. Putting on body lotion is a workout in itself, so I getting my daily cardio twice. I am now very happy that we did all the shopping for the nursery and for the little one in the second trimester because right now, only thinking about going shopping gives me blurred vision. Honestly, until this week I have never noticed how close together all the stuff in shops are. I literally have a hard time going from one side of a shop to another simply because I have a hard time fitting in through all the racks.

A bit on the eating in the last trimester, actually in the eight month as the seventh month has been very comfortable. First of all, because the bundle of joy is growing fast, I do feel the need for more fuel a.k.a. food these days. You might think that this is not such a big deal, or not really worth mentioning here, but honestly, in the past few weeks eating has become difficult because of the growing baby and the limited space inside me. If I eat my usual serving (or at least the amount I used to eat last month) in a sitting I immediately feel intestinal reflux, therefore I am always hungry as I have to eat minimal amounts of food at a time. This is tricky as you tend to eat more frequent and more of the shitty junky foods because let’s face it, you can’t always have healthy food servings with you all day long and thus getting fatter faster. As far as weight goes, thus far I have gained 13 kgs throughout the entire pregnancy, but considering the fact that fatty, sweet foods are coming this Christmas, and I am craving more sugary things than ever, I will probably gain a lot more weight by the time I give birth.

Thus far I have been lucky enough to not have swollen hands or feet and was able to still wear my wedding band and beloved cocktail rings on a regular day basis. I hope that everything will continue to go this way until the end, but I am well aware that there is a 90% chance that this might not happen and I am ready for that (I think). Also thus far, I have not had a single stretch mark in sight, but I must confess that I have been using litres of Bio-Oil twice per day throughout the entire period and I think that might have helped with that. I seriously hope that no stretch marks will appear until the end of the pregnancy as I am not morally ready for that whatsoever and will get very upset. I did however get a weird no-irritation itchiness throughout my entire body for the last two-three days that seriously annoys me, but I am trying not to panic (read about it on the internet) too much about it, as my following appointment with my doctor is on Tuesday and I do not trust Dr. Google at all as I think it really messes with your head. So keep your fingers crossed that it is nothing too serious and rather an allergy or something that does not affect the little one.

Also, this past month I have been experiencing a lowering in the quality of my brain cells. What does that mean? It means that I have gone full-pregnancy-brain and that is one serious condition as I forget stuff two seconds after I make my brain promise that it will not forget something, I have zero space orientation with a map in my hand – to be honest, I was not good at that before the pregnancy, but now I feel that I am holding some sort of alien object in my hands instead of a map. This is no biggie if you’ve got an understanding husband but I must confess that being honest with him from the moment I took notice of my failing brain did help a lot as he now knows where this is coming from.

That is about it for the seventh and eighth month. I did not experience anything out of the ordinary or uncomfortable thus far and I really hope that everything will proceed the same from now on. As far as maternity clothes go, if you have been following this blog, you’ll have noticed by now that I did not buy anything more than a few pairs of maternity jeans and I advise all future mothers to not splurge on maternity pieces but rather on different cuts. I also urge future moms to try and buy all the stuff needed for a new baby in the second trimester as the energy levels in the third trimester go down a lot. I will keep you updated on everything as much as I can considering Christmas is coming and I also promise to start a Christmas-Tree Series and choose different themes each year from now on. I can’t wait to show you this year’s theme, but I will reveal it on the 24th!

December 18, 2016

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Apple Watch

(Note: All Screen-shots are from my iPhone in regards to the Apple Watch. If you would like to see screen-shots of the UP App see the full post on Jawbone UP3 here)

It has been more than three weeks since I’ve switched from my Jawbone Up3 to Apple Watch and I think a review is needed as there are a lot of things to say and weight-in when a change like this emerges. I do not want to influence your fit band/smartwatch choices, but I do want to talk a bit about the advantages and disadvantages of having one or the other as well as show you how I use mine and truthfully what I think a smartwatch is most used for – let’s be honest, while it is nice to see who’s calling you on your watch, we’re not the FBI talking to our wrists therefore people talking on the ‘phone’ on their watch look stupid (to say the least) in my humble opinion. But hey, who am I to judge?

First I’ll start off by saying that I got the Apple Watch Series 1 in pink (obviously!). I did not get the Series 2 because besides it being waterproof – which in my case is completely useless as I am afraid of water and therefore stay clear of it as much as I can (daily shower not included in this category) all it has as an extra is a better (better illuminated) display and as D puts it, soon we will have white displays to look at. Since I got it right after the launch of the second series, I found it at a special price and it made no sense to me to miss the opportunity. That said, D will get the series 2 as he is the type that is mostly in the water whenever we are on vacation and waterproofing is something that he and anyone that is not afraid of the water needs in a smartwatch. Therefore, I do feel that this feature is needed for normal people and it definitely is worth the money.

Since most of our stuff is from Apple, I did not even look at other smartwatches as the OCD side in me likes everything to match and thinks that everything works better if it’s from the same brand, so no, I did not even show a bit of interest in other smartwatches. As with any Apple product, the installation is easy and fast and, unless you did not came in contact with another Apple product before, you’ll find the menu to be intuitive and very easy to use. Getting started was fairly easy, my iPhone detected the watch immediately and I was set.

Jawbone UP3 vs Apple Watch experience – health tracker

Activity Log

For the first few days, I kept both my Jawbone and my Apple Watch on just to compare the two. The nice thing about the watch is that you can see all your notifications on your watch so, if you are like me and always leave your phone somewhere in the house, you will not miss any notifications/phone calls/messages/Instagram or Facebook notifications ever again so this is a big plus on my Jawbone band. Also the screen helps a lot in keeping up with your activity. However, let’s not forget that the Apple Watch costs double than the Jawbone UP3 but it also does a lot more than track your activity. As step trackers they have the same accuracy, however the Jawbone band detects when you are exercising more easily than the Apple Watch and that is a big plus especially if you do not want to constantly log every walk you take beforehand so that the Apple Watch can measure it (both in time and length). This is one thing that I did not like as much about the Apple Watch – it fails to detect exercise on its own while the Jawbone UP3 does that impeccably.

Sleep Log

Another feature that the Jawbone UP3 has and the Apple Watch does not have is the ability to track your sleep on its own. Again, for the Apple Watch you have to manually log in when you go to bed and set an alarm to wake up – I hate alarms, but that is the only way I can track my sleep. I suspect this is because the Apple Watch uses a third party app, called Pillow to do that. Do not get me wrong, I think that the sleep tracking on the Apple Watch is a million times better than the analysis I used to get from my Jawbone UP3 and therefore, alarm or no alarm and as much as it bugs me to manually log when I am getting into bed, I think that in this category the Apple Watch is by far better. Now it all depends on how much you value a good sleep analysis. For me this is very important and that’s why I started loving the Apple Watch quickly.

Nutrition

This, in my opinion is where the Apple Watch won me over for good. Again we are talking about using a third party app and to my best knowledge the best one out there so far is MyNetDiary. This app is so complete and so easy to use! I just love it. As opposed to the Up App, I can find most of my daily food choices without having to add them myself (I hated having to add all the nutritional info to most of my food), so one can say that the database is way larger and that makes the whole logging experience a lot better. Another cool feature that this app has is the ability for the user to make their own recipe and divide it either by serving or weight. This is very helpful when you want to cook stuff and also keep things as healthy as possible. I also love the fact that this app is easy to use but I hate the fact that it does not sync with the activity tracker on my watch and therefore it does not give me a throughly ready-calculated calorie count and I have to do that by myself. It does however sync with the step-numbers on my watch and it makes no sense to me why they didn’t manage to sync it to the Activity app.

Mindfulness

This is a feature that the Jawbone UP3 does not have, or at least not to this level. The Apple Watch can track your heartbeat live and when it gets too high it usually makes you take a 1 minute break. The Jawbone UP3 only tracked your resting heart rate which, again might or might not be important to you. It is to me, especially during my pregnancy and it will probably be important post-pregnancy when I will restart going to the gym regularly.

All this data is nicely stored in the Health App that the iPhone has pre-intalled and that most people do not use until they get an Apple Watch – or at least that was my case. This is a very good nutrition analyst in my opinion and not much else. I mean, yeah, it does put everything together and all but it does not tell you anything. It does however do a great (and I mean GREAT) job at analysing your food (vitamins, minerals, etc), which no other app does. This again is very important to me right now, and to be honest it always was important, but the Up App did not provide that. This is something that I loved from the very beginning and really made me change my mind and go from the Jawbone UP3 to the Apple Watch.

This is where the comparison between the Jawbone Up3 and the Apple Watch stops as the Jawbone is just a fitness tracker while the Apple Watch does so much more. If you are only interested in a fitness tracker, then go for any of the tracking bracelets out there (I loved the Jawbone UP3) and save your money. However if you want more than that, keep on reading.

Like I said earlier, this watch is like your mini iPhone on your wrist. It basically has every app on your phone and it has most of the abilities you phone has. That being said, you must keep it connected to your phone for it to actually work and having your phone in the near vicinity usually makes you use it as opposed to using the watch. There are a few situations where I used the watch to answer and talk on the phone – when I was too lazy to actually get off the couch or when my phone battery was almost over – but overall, I use my phone. Also, it is nice to have the ability to reply to messages but scribbling every single letter on your watch tends to be time-consuming but helps in the earlier mentions situations.You can also check Instagram, use Shazam and lot more apps that are compatible with the watch. The interface, as I said at the beginning of the post, is very user-friendly, and, especially at the beginning, you are tempted to over-use it.

The Watch app on your phone allows you to customise virtually anything about your watch (see the print-screens) and also gives you a full insight on your device (apps, notifications, setting, font size, sounds, app layout, etc). The battery life is decent, and because I want to wear it all day and night, I usually charge it before I go to sleep for about 20 minutes and again in the morning for about 20 minutes, but if you do not want to wear it during the night you could get away with only charging it once.

Overall I am very happy with my watch and I have been using it non-stop for the past three weeks which means that I have been ignoring my other beloved watches, but I did also keep my Jawbone bracelet at arm’s reach as whenever I want to wear another watch I need something to track my activity (yes, I am crazy like that and that craziness only got worse one the doctor forbade me to got to the gym during the pregnancy). So, is the watch worth the money? Hell yeah! Not saying the same thing about the watch bracelets that Apple are selling and are waaaay overpriced – if you know a good third party bracelet seller for my watch please leave a comment below as I am really bored by my Sport band that the watch came with.

November 14, 2016

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We’re having a…

We are beyond excited about the news we got from our last appointment. First of all, the little human growing inside me is very healthy, active and has all the toes and fingers in place. And it’s a GIRL!!! D is going to be surrounded by girls – me, our beloved dog and the little princess that will soon join us! And when I say soon, I mean we are about three and a half months away from meeting her and we can’t wait! No, we did not paint the nursery pink, nor will we buy pink things for her, but we did feel the need to have a pink photoshoot despite it being October and quite cold outside.

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Both of us suspected that we are going to have a girl from the 12th week when the doctor told us that there is a very good chance of that, but we decided to not get over-excited until we knew for sure. This time we are 100% sure that a little princess will be joining us in January – yes, we saw her hoo-ha and all so this is happening and there is no chance of any surprises. We did not have any preferences going into this pregnancy only that the baby be healthy and that I will feel fine. Up until now, these two wishes have come true and hope things will go on just as smoothly from now on!

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On me:

Dress – Guess by Marciano; Shoes – Versace; Bag – Furla; Vest – ZARA; Bling – Swarovski (bracelet1, bracelet2 and ring); Watch – Tissot

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On D:

T-shirt – Polo Ralph Lauren; Jeans – ZARA; Shoes – Polo Ralph Lauren; Bling – Fossil; Sunglasses – Ray-Ban; Watch – Tissot

That being said, I do not want to make this post about the fashion bit in it as we are under no circumstances dressed for autumn, but rather for this very happy announcement. Since I am coming closer and closer to the last three months of pregnancy, I will soon upload yet another ‘Pregnancy Feelings’ post about the second trimester and besides the feelings, weight gain and healthy bit of it, I really want to share with you all the stuff we planned and did during this trimester to help you understand why any pregnant woman should take fully advantage if this period.

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Hopefully, we will soon finish all our redecorating (nesting) and we will be able to share with you all that we’ve been doing for the past few weeks (months?). Until then, enjoy our announcement photos and brace yourselves as our little one is coming and she will come kicking and screaming (hopefully not all the time!).

October 13, 2016

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Pinky Promise!

Nope, this is not the announcement post, mainly because we still do not know 100% what the baby’s sex is. Yes, I know that by the 20th week I should’ve known, but the truth is that my next ultrasound is in two weeks and we didn’t want to submit our bundle of joy to a useless ultrasound just for our own selfish reasons. We can wait a few more weeks, even though, the reality is that the suspense is killing us. The good thing about not knowing combined with the fact that the constructors will be in our house in a few days is that we will not be tempted to do the nursery in pink or blue, but rather in a neutral shade like yellow or green.

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So, these photos were taken a few days ago, but, as I mentioned in our last post, processing and texts takes a bit of time and right now I am seriously lacking in that department. The belly appears to keep getting larger and larger every single day and we do make a lot of effort to find the time to photo-document this amazing period almost on a daily basis, but unfortunately, the photos will come up online with a delay of a day or two.

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On me:

Dress – Tommy Hilfiger; Shoes – Bigote Paris; Bag – Furla; Bling – Swarovski, Pandora and Tomorrowland; Watch – Daniel Wellington

This time we went for a pink based ensemble, again, because this is yet another dress that I did not want to go to waste simply because it could not fit my belly anymore and I honestly think that in two weeks time that will happen. I just love this dress, I have worn it numerous times this summer but didn’t get a chance to take photos in it. I think we had about three or four missed photo attempts. Anyway…this is a Tommy Hilfiger dress that I think I bought even before knowing anything about the pregnancy and now, you can find it on sale. I love it because of the cut and the very soft material – I have no idea what it is but it is lovely! To keep the pink theme all the way I wore my pink Bigote Paris espadrilles that are yet another find in my (now) clean dressing-room and that I have for at least three years.I could only find their blog online but any pink espadrilles will do, really…

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On D:

T-shirt – EXE; Shorts – H&M; Shoes – Paez; Bling – Fossil and Constantin Nautics; Watch – Daniel Wellington

I also wore my beloved pink bag from Furla that for some reason I’ve been neglecting this summer, even though it was a staple for me last summer. As for the accessories, I opted for my pink floral Swarovski ring that you can’t currently find online as it is from last spring’s collection, but I have linked a decent alternative. I also wore my usual Pandora and Tomorrowland rings that I can’t seem to get enough of lately. Both D and I decided to wear our Daniel Wellington watches with the original nato straps they cam with.

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D seems to always be happy whenever we wear pinkish clothes or light blueish ones, so he was really responsive to my pink theme. He opted for his H&M shorts that are currently nowhere to be found online and paired them with his lovely asymmetric t-shirt from EXE, a Romanian brand, that he got while at Untold festival. To complete his look, he wore his blue and pink espadrilles from Paez that he also got from the recently mentioned festival. Bling wise he wore his usual Fossil and Constantin Nautics bracelets.

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We took these photos in the park as recently that seems to be our go-to place mainly because it’s a very comfortable location, especially since we’ve been out and about in the city quite a lot lately.

September 5, 2016

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Watermelon season…

…well not yet here, but it better hurry up and come already as watermelons are my favourite fruits during summer. As much as I’d like to have a slice (or a whole one) I know that until July they simply taste like water.

As you can see in these photos, we’re back to the whole Rose Quartz trend. Funny, it was so big a few months ago that I actually thought that it’s here to stay, like last year’s colour of the year, but it would appear that despite the fact that this year we have two colours to rely on, the fashion industry just isn’t very fond of either of them. In all the stores I looked (online or not), I could barely find anything pink. I mean this dress here has been lying in my closet for a few years now, tags on and everything.

On me:

Dress – Mango; Shoes – Sophia Webster; Bag – Furla; Bling – Tomorrowland, Pandora and Swarovski; Watch – Tissot

Trying to keep in topic…the topic being this damn heat wave…Yup, it still hasn’t decided to leave us alone, and we still have temps hitting 40 degrees. The only solution to actually survive is to wear loose clothes and as few accessories as you can. Oh! And drink lots of water! The moment I stepped out of the car and left the comfort of my air conditioning, I realised that these Sophia Webster shoes, adorable and comfy as they are, were not really a good idea in this heat and humidity. I mean, I’m telling you, anything plastic in this heat and you are a dead man walking. Good thing we only spent 30 mins taking these pics and then I was back in the comfort of the AC. As for the dress, you know by now that it’s not a new addition and now it’s time to let you know that it’s from Mango (apparently I have a lot of stuff from Mango as well). The bag you’ve already seen a hundred times and it’s from Furla and the bling, aside from the usual, I wore the big Nirvana ring from Swarovski. Pretty clean and simple if you ask me, though I would’ve preferred to be on a beach somewhere.

On D:

T-shirt – Polo Ralph Lauren; Shorts – H&M; Shoes – Tommy Hilfiger; Bling – Fossil; Watch – Tissot

D also went a bit on the pink side with his pink Polo Ralph Lauren t-shirt with, obviously, H&M grey shorts. I’m telling you, he has a hundred colours worth of shorts from H&M. He decided, unlike me, on wearing his very comfortable and weather appropriate boat shoes from Tommy Hilfiger and as for the accessories, he only wore his Fossil bracelet. Naturally, we both wore out paired Tissot T-Race watches to finish our looks.

With all the watermelons in mind, I am one degree shy away from starting to actually do the dance of the rain in order for the temps to actually become a bit more bearable. On that note, I’m off to hug the AC in our living-room.