Hello again! Back to Blogging...

Hi friends! Hello again after being absent for almost a year. I am so sorry! What happened? A lot, actually... but the biggest news is that we had another baby! (See below for pics). Although I didn't talk about it much, this pregnancy was pretty rough on my body- the first 6 months were filled with constant nausea. Once that finally subsided, I broke out into a widespread nasty itchy rash known as PUPPP (Pruritic urticarial papules and plaques of pregnancy) that lasted for the remainder of the pregnancy, not to mention almost 60 pounds of weight gain. I also had to deal with gestational diabetes and check my blood sugars a couple times a day. 

Baby Nathan was born on July 5th, at 8lbs 4oz and he seriously ripped my pelvis open. I walked around for the next few weeks with quite a bit of pelvic pain and instability, was battling ongoing swelling, shortness of breath and then... just when I thought the worst was over, the rash came back with a vengeance! Despite all this, I am just so happy to know that we have a healthy baby boy. I would go through all the torture in the world just so that he is healthy. I feel well enough for the first time in a long time to finally get back to enjoying blogging again. Hope you all have been well! I can't wait to catch up with everyone.

I love dark clothing. Everyone always keeps encouraging me to try some brighter and fancier colors, but at the end, I'm the most comfortable in a monochromatic, dark look. I suppose it's my signature style, and I think it has a nice contrast to the autumn colors. This sweater dress is from Theory.

Enough of outfit pics, ready to meet the kiddos? Here's Nathan at 3 months and 14 lbs!

And remember big sister Grace? Look how big she is now, almost 3 years old.

I hope you have all been well! 

Blind as a Bat

If I lived in the Stone age, God help me I would've been one of the first to die. I certainly would not have been part of the elite "survival of the fittest" club. My vision started deteriorating when I was in first grade, and since then I have become severely myopic (near sighted). I actually have a hole in the back of the retina because my eyes are so deformed, which is closely being observed right now. So back in the caveman days, if I hadn't already been chased down and eaten by a panther, I would've already killed myself by running into a tree. Finding a pair of well fitting glasses have been pretty difficult for me over the years.

Every pair of prescription glasses I got in the past, I always ended up with a bad case of "Heavy coke bottle lenses repeatedly sliding to my nares" syndrome. You know what I'm talking about. In residency, I had to tape my glasses to my forehead when I performed sterile procedures in the ICU so that they wouldn't fall off. Talk about embarrassing!

I'm happy to say that my search for glasses is over. I renewed my prescription this year, and was lucky enough to find a team of wonderful ladies who work at EyeQ Eyewear, who introduced me to Alain Mikli glasses. These carefully handcrafted glasses factored lens weight into the equation, and is made such that the ear pieces are heavier in the back to balance out the front. GENIUS! The lens itself is the thinnest I have ever gotten (despite my ridiculous prescription of -9.5R and -8.5L), held intricately together by a unique french designed, durable titanium frame. As long as my eyes don't get worse, I may wear these glasses for the rest of my life.

Outfit: Back to school Inspired

Dress: Theory

Eyeglasses: Alain Mikli from EyeQ Eyewear

A thousand thank you's to Tammy and Simona at EyeQ eyewear for your help. I can actually SEE now, and I don't have to tape my glasses to my forehead anymore! Thank you Mayo Insurance, for your generous eye insurance/stipend for making this affordable for our family :)

Linking up this week with Stylelixir, Life of the Party, Thirtytwocents

Thanks also to Friday's Five Linkup on Coffee Beans and Bobby Pins and FACE IT CATALOG for the feature!