We're Getting Close To Baby!

At this point I actually can't believe that we're finally getting so close to baby being here. Less than a week to go before we'll have two children in the house! It's been such a long process with sickness, decluttering, and other preparations being done over the past nine months. Finally we're on the home stretch, with less than a week to go before our new baby is born no matter what.

I really think we have everything set up and prepared for the arrival of our new bundle of joy. The crib is set up as well as the bassinet. We have all the bottles out and ready. Mentally I'm a little bit nervous seeing as I haven't had a newborn for quite some time now, but I'm also feeling comfortable with what's on the way because I've dealt with it before. It also helps that I'm getting in some practice for getting up early and being tired thanks to Isabelle currently waking up around 6:00 AM each day. I also have a bit of a surprise blessing in the form of not currently working. As strange as that sounds, I've been given an opportunity to spend so much more time with my daughter and I'll be able to help so much more with the newborn than I would have been able to otherwise.

I'm so excited for everything to come with our family being complete and working towards our career goals of the future. We're going to have such a wonderful time ahead of us and even though I'm sure I'm going to be absolutely exhausted in the coming months, I'm looking forward to it. I wouldn't trade my life for the world.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

My Wife Is An Absolute Trooper!

For anyone who doesn't know, my wife is the most absolute trooper ever!

You may ask... "Why is your wife so awesome? What makes her so tough and amazing?" Well first of all, she's pregnant; that's enough right there that she has to go through that process and make it out the other side! Let me tell you it was pretty bad with the first one on the way how sick my dearly beloved Carley was feeling each and every day... pretty much like morning sickness on crack! This one will be our second child together and oh my goodness, I didn't possibly think it could ever get worse!

It's a special thing when your wife isn't able to get around and do as much as she wants to... not because it's hard to move around when pregnant, but because she's just so sick that she can't get out of bed without puking almost every morning. Medications don't make the sickness go away; they only serve to make her tired and keep her locked in bed like a caged animal instead of spending good time with her family as she would prefer to do. I can't imagine what it would be like to go through that each and every day, but I would gladly share the burden with her if I could even up to the point of taking the full sickness upon myself if for nothing else than to give her a much needed break.

Now of course we can't be sure of the final result, but perhaps the reason for the increased sickness is due to this child being larger than the last? Our first daughter was quite small... I believe 4th percentile if I remember correctly? And... based on the ultrasound results from recently, this one MIGHT.... be around the 94th percentile mark. Of course there's still a few months to go before we find out the end result, so maybe that size will level out to be closer to her older sister, but I do still think that an increased size may be the cause.

So here I am trying to help out by doing dishes, laundry, transport the child to daycare, and make enough money to get by... only hoping that I'm able to do a fraction of what needs to be done to make it all the way. I can't imagine where I'd be without such a tough woman in my life right beside me each and every day.... that I wake up in bed.

Wish us luck with our upcoming second child. I've heard it gets more difficult when more come along and I haven't yet figured out whether I'm excited or scared for what's in store for us.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

UPDATE

Back to Family / Life

New Job, New Routine, New Friends

Hey everyone! If you haven't heard, I have a new job! Unfortunately my new job has be being extremely exhausted after work most days which makes it quite difficult to do much of anything... including my blogging. Now, I truly do enjoy typing and sharing my stories with the world, but when you're so tired that you can't even bring yourself to spend some time typing for a bit is quite something.

For anybody wondering, I'm now working at the Thunder Creek Pork Plant in Moose Jaw. Historically, I haven't done MUCH for physical work. Instead, I've done a lot of cashiering and customer servicing and whatnot of that type... this work requires much more lifting and using of the arm muscles that I haven't had much of previous to now. So as a result, I end up being quite tired and sore at the end of the day especially given the fact that I have to get up by 5:00 AM at the latest if I want to have enough time to comfortably get ready for work in the morning.

So how crazy is that? I still like to stay up much later than I probably should whether or not I have to get up so early in the morning... though I find that because what I do for by entire work day is pick up and move meat around, I don't exactly need to be in the best mood and super awake and all that. Basically I still like to stay up late and watch shows and YouTube and Twitch and things, but I often don't have the energy or willpower to get anything else done while I'm here.

Luckily with this new job and new routines around it, I've surprisingly managed to find new friends! Never did I ever think I would find people that I would get along with working in a pork plant of all things, but strangely enough there are people there who enjoy joking around and even playing games outside of work. I've been needing to find new friends to game with for quite a while now and suddenly finding people I can chat about games with and play games with is such a rush that I haven't had for quite a while now. I finally feel like I have interesting things to talk about again!

So for the time-being I'm looking for an office job to take advantage of my schooling and get a higher pay to better support the family, but in the mean-time I'm much happier than I ever thought I'd be working in a cold pork plant. It's definitely something to get us by for now that I can stick with if I for some reason can't find what I'm looking for in an office. With that, wish me luck in my continuing search and let us see if we can get back on track with everything we're wanting to do.

In the mean time, have a great day everyone! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Being Sick SUCKS

Holy man, let me tell you guys, being sick SUCKS. It's hard to get a good night's sleep, difficult to get up in the morning with your perfectly wide-awake child, and the worst part is keeping yourself up and motivated to do things you know need to be done. Even washing the dishes feels nearly impossible when sick.

And it's all thanks to this little thing here:

I have never been sick so much in my life since Isabelle started going to daycare and now she happily brings home every bit of germs and sickness that she can and spews it everywhere either by coughing all over things, or in my face, or by putting her mouth all over the stuff that we touch all the time. On the bright side... I SHOULD (in theory) become a healthier person with her strengthening my immune system. On the other hand, I still have this cough that I haven't been able to get rid of since... I don't really remember anymore, it's been more months than I can think of. I just can't seem to stop coughing ALL THE TIME. Now there's probably something to do with "Kyle needs to drink more healthy liquid water with no sugar in it..." Or.... Uhh..... No, that's probably something to do with it. IT'S A WORK IN PROGRESS!

If that wasn't bad enough, in all the kerfuffle my wife got sick as well. Now, Carley getting sick is something that happens from time to time and I'm quite used to taking care of her including the additional requests when she's not feeling well, but something about this sickness was a little bit different than usual. I just couldn't put my finger on it, but I knew something wasn't quite right... is it true that she's really just that cranky and annoyed with everyone only because she's sick?

As it turns out we were hit with the unexpected inconvenience of Carley's doctor being away during the time when she needed to go in to renew her prescription for Concerta. If you don't know what Concerta is, it's a slow-release medication for ADHD which really helps her focus and not hate everybody. So because the doctor was away, we couldn't get her prescription renewed which meant she had to do without her medication for a week. Something we didn't expect which never occurred to use as a possibility is that she went through some withdrawal. As it turns out, taking Concerta daily doesn't make you think much about it other than notice how much it helps with day-to-day life, but quitting it cold-turkey actually causes a withdrawal period which would be similar (though likely not as bad) as quitting something like heroin so suddenly. Insane, right?

So needless to say, dear little Isabelle was happy as a clam the past week or so, Carley got sick and went through withdrawal which made her tired and want to stay in bed but also get out of the house because she couldn't stand anybody (while also needing to go out for a walk due to excessive energy levels), and I just held on to sanity while being sick and having to cater to the demands of two ladies who were so very in need... oh, and of course the dogs still needed to go out and in and out and in and out and in and out and in all day long again. No rest for the weary as they say.

Anywhos, now that I'm pretty sure I'm over the majority of being so very sick, and now that I've finished watching the Netflix show "Strong," I'm feeling much like I should start getting back into producing blog posts and new content to keep you all entertained. I have so much in my brain brain BRAIN, that I want to get out there and share with you all!

Keep an eye out for more stuff coming up very soon! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Get Ready For The Best Time

Are you ready for the best time? What better time could there be then now to begin anew with all the stories and videos and reviews and everything that I've been working on?

Now, I could have made some posts and some videos over the past few weeks, but I just wasn't feeling it. I didn't think that forcing myself to make a video while sick would be of the best quality that I'm looking for. I didn't think that making myself stay up while tired would make for the best quality thoughts put onto a page. And to top it all off... the Summer Games Done Quick marathon started which played for a week straight. So I effectively took a vacation from my content production and in only a couple days I'll be taking another week for a REAL family vacation.

This is great you see, because I have been sick for like the past month. Well, I was sick for a couple weeks followed by having a lingering cough for a week followed by... Well it's mostly gone but still a little bit there. And I'm sure the whole reason I got sick in the first place was because of the new influx of germs from Isabelle and all her adorable little friends coming and going from daycare all the time.

There was also the major adjustment which I'm still working on right now of Carley starting her new job which was part time at various different hours, but now is a full-time position all the time five nights a week... nights. Now I do love that Carley is so happy working and getting herself out of the house, building connections and relationships, and generally being happier. The hardest part is that we have to learn to exist together within the same household still seeing each other at least a little bit every once in awhile. If you have never worked opposite hours from your significant other, you wouldn't believe how difficult it can be to not see your significant other except for like two days a week. The rest of the time, one of you is tired and the other is not, or one of you stays up later than you should to see the other followed by being exhausted the next day. There really is no great in-between point. But for us, it is what is best for us right now.

So hey, I'm going to upload a few things while I have the time today, go on vacation, then get to work on finally making something of my everything I want to do with this here blog and everything else I do. During the time I'm gone, I will do my best to at least take down some thoughts of what has gone on each and every day which I would then be able to turn into a blog post very quickly after coming back.

I have to say, I love the job that I have and I love being able to share my life and my experiences with all of you fine people out there. Please continue to share with me any ideas you have for Content that you would like to see or hear. I have lots of great ideas but your feedback is the most important to me for what you want to see. You can always comment right on each blog page, comment on any of the links that I share out there, or even email me at Kyle.Welykholowa@gmail.com.

Enjoy yourselves out there, and look forward to more great content coming at you soon! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Keeping Up With Life Is Hard

I've kinda posted about this sort of thing before, but it's honestly quite hard to keep up with life sometimes.

There's so much I want to do and I always feel like I just don't have enough time to do it all. Yeah, a bunch of it is things like blogging and streaming which most people I know would probably think is a silly thing to want to do all the time, but for me it's a fun thing I like to do that makes me happy. There are other things I would like to do as well including reading, drawing, writing, and getting back into playing my violin.

The worrying part is when I feel so apathetic that I don't feel like doing any of these things, especially when I don't even feel like playing games which is normally a very fun thing for me to do. Lately I've found it very hard to get up enough willpower to do any of these things which is actually rather concerning to me now that I think about it. Besides being always tired, I find myself not really wanting to do anything and only really able to get up and be energetic for the purpose of working.

I have great plans for so many things I want to do and how I want to be great and energetic and happy and be so much fun, and then I find I'm fighting with myself to do anything else but sleep in my spare time. I find it very frustrating to feel like this, but at least I know I'm in a pretty good spot to deal with this sort of thing right now with my family close by me and a comfortable place to feel safe and able to handle my problems.

As always, look forward for more awesome things happening in the future. I may try to mix things up with a few longer and shorter posts just to keep things rolling every now and then even when I'm not totally feeling it.


Have a great day everybody! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Rollin' rollin' rollin' ===

     So recently Isabelle has decided that she understands how to roll from her back to her front and from her front to her back. Lately she's been rollin' rollin' rollin' all the time back and forth. It's kind of adorable that she just does it whenever she pleases, but at the same time it can be a little bit dangerous and occasionally mind boggling when she decides she's too lazy to roll back and then cries about it.

     We used to leave her on the couch at times to hang out in comfort rather than being on the floor, but now we can't really leave her anywhere with some height to it because she might roll right off and hurt herself. This isn't too much of a problem, we just have to be careful to remember to put her somewhere safe before leaving her for a moment to do something else. I can't imagine how awful I would feel if she fell off of anything because I forgot to put her down.

     Then there are times when she wants to roll over a bunch but she's too tired to keep going. Sometimes she will roll from her back to her front then she'll get frustrated that she can't make it back over again. She'll start to cry like a banshee in pain so we'll go help her out and flip her over only to have her do it again and again. Sometimes I absolutely don't understand what could possibly be going through her head. Unless she somehow understands that it gets her the attention that she's looking for.

     I actually watched her one morning after putting her on the bed with Carley roll over onto her tummy... then Carley turned her back and she rolled right over again... so Carley turned her back and she kept doing it again and again until Carley adjusted and picked her up. I'm pretty sure it won't be long now until she starts figuring out how to move and then it'll be all sorts of fun having her wander around the house.

Good luck to us. ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Engagements ===

     Recently I have found myself quite busy with many engagements going on which are making it quite difficult get much done other than work, eat, and sleep. As always there's so much that I would like to do, but I'm usually either too tired from driving or I have some sort of school assignment due that night. Although there's plenty going on to keep me busy, I have managed to work through some of these engagements, and have even gotten some to work out to my advantage.

     The most prominent engagement I have currently would probably be school. With only half a month left before the finals, I'm quite close to being done the course. I'll unfortunately have a class which I'll have to retake to officially have the course certificate, but otherwise I should be quite employable in a real office setting. As much as I enjoy working where I am currently, I need to work towards something better for myself and my family because we just don't quite have the funds to get through everything we need. We're really close, but it seems like just when we're almost there, something happens which sets us behind again. This time it's a stone-chip which has become much worse than a chip. Just as we left to go get it fixed, we found that it turned from a chip to a crack which is just getting bigger each day.

     After school, I'm finding myself somewhat engaged with getting everything together at work; There's a lot of paperwork to keep up with and get on top of every day. I do however really enjoy my job. There are days when I find it difficult to get out the door and go to work and then once I get there, I find myself not wanting to make the necessary phone calls or whatever I need to do. I think if I were able to eat properly that I wouldn't have so much of that issue and I would be a much happier and more energetic person; perhaps I have an iron deficiency.

     The engagement I'm wanting to work on most is my content production. I've been so busy lately that my willpower to work on this sort of thing including my blog, Youtube, Twitch, and other projects (which also includes my garden) has declined drastically. I would like so much to work more on these sorts of things, but as of right now there are more important things to do. I'm sure I'll have much more time next month after school is done when I'll be able to live a more normal life not so full of things to do at every waking moment of the day. I keep getting the occasional subscriber or follower on YouTube and Twitch which makes me want to keep going. I keep seeing the numbers of viewers of my blog increasing over time which drives me to write more. These are things I really enjoy doing and want to succeed at without it feeling too much like work and without being exhausted all the time. I look forward to the day when I can confidently say I've truly done good work with at least one of these helping out in just a simple small way... even if it only pays for an ice cream one day down the road.

     The most exciting engagement is without a doubt the amazing news that Carley and I are ENGAGED! No seriously, there's a ring and everything. She had been saying for some time that she would be fine with a silver band, or a ring carved out of wood... or a ring pop. I managed to get her a real ring with a sapphire gem and get her out to Lake Diefenbaker where we explored the wild surroundings before finding a wonderful spot to propose to her without her having any clue about it before hand. She thought I just wanted a video of us kissing on the beach to remember the trip, but I then told her to wait and told her I had forgotten something. She had no idea what was going on and didn't believe her eyes when she saw a box get pulled out of my bag then get opened to reveal an actual engagement ring. It was such a beautiful experience going out there in general and it was made so much better by finally being able to propose to my love Carley. I look forward to our next trip out there. I only wish it didn't take 6 hours and a whole tank of gas to get there and back, but it's absolutely worth it. I wouldn't trade it for the world, and I wouldn't trade my love for the world. I'm the luckiest guy... in the world.

There are a lot of engagements going on right now and I can't wait to see how they all turn out. ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Incoming Baby!

     You really don't realize how unprepared you are for an incoming baby to pop into your life until you end up in the hospital twice either thinking you're going into labour or thinking you may have to be induced if you've managed to hurt yourself. Let me just say, first of all... it's just not fun to sit in the hospital for four hours. Luckily, our lovely hospital in Moose Jaw gets us in and looked at nice and quickly and they have touch-screen TV things that make the stay so much nicer than every other trip we've ever made to the hospital in Regina.

     Recently we've been into the hospital twice for two different reasons. The first time, Carley lost her mucous plug and started having a constant pain and consistent tightenings which made everything seem pretty real. We got a hospital bag and a snack bag packed and went off to the hospital. Turns out the baby just turned or dropped in a funny way which caused all the pain, but that along with the loss of the mucous plug certainly seemed like a reason to think it could have been going on. That... and we have no idea how much pain or what the feeling SHOULD be like once Carley ACTUALLY goes into labour.

     Our second trip to the hospital was because Carley fell down the stairs. I know! That's crazy, right? Don't worry, she's alright. At the time we were quite worried about the baby because Carley hadn't felt much movement if any since the fall and she normally feels lots of movement pretty often. She was also a little bit dehydrated because she wasn't feeling well and couldn't keep anything down throughout the day; not even water. This was concerning to us because she was leaking clear fluids after the fall which we thought could have been a ruptured bag of waters. The doctor came to take a look and found everything is well, so we stayed for another hour and a half which totalled four hours of sitting in the hospital to make sure everything was alright.

     Now I find myself thinking we need to prepare just a little bit more for the baby to get here. We have to install the car seat and get things a little bit more cleaned up; we have plans to move the furniture around in our living room and steam clean everything in the next couple days. I'm also finding that I need to get myself into more of a routine of doing things such as eating in the morning considering it'll be up to me to feel the baby in the mornings. Carley seems to like staying up later and honestly I prefer to be up late as well, but I may have to start going to be early and letting her stay up after me if I can ever get her to let me go to bed without her attached to me. I'm sure like most first-time parents we're going to be just as unprepared and clueless as everybody else and that's alright; it won't make us bad parents. I'm sure there will be times when we're just not sure what to do, or exhausted beyond belief and wanting to break down and cry, but we'll make it through. We're both stubborn people so I'm sure neither of us will let something beat us just because we're tired.

Wish us luck! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Using Work Skills At Home

     This isn't really something I've thought about greatly previously, but I think I may have had a wonderful brainwave. At work, we have a daily task list. I'm sure it seems simple enough, but it's a really good reminder of what we have to do each day. And of course, we have the option of adding new tasks to future days if anything comes up that isn't normally on the list. I'm beginning to think more and more that this is something I should implement around the house somewhere. I think the easiest way for me to do so would be to use my whiteboard for such a thing.

     In the past I have tried a few different things with varying amounts of success. I've tried to just remember everything in my head... which works alright, unless you get distracted by something or are tired or anything to that effect.

     I've also tried using programs on my computer like a notepad or something; this works alright as long as you remember to open and update it every time something changes. This should be simple enough, but I've notice that if it isn't visible, it can be quite difficult to remember to update continuously.

     I've also used Google Calendar; this actually works really well also if you remember to update it all the time. This COULD be what I will start getting myself into a habit of doing along with updating my whiteboard. I think both options together would be a good habit to get into.

     Anywhos, I just wanted to talk a little bit about something we do at work that I think would be a good tool to implement at home to help keep everything under control and organized going into the future. We'll see where it goes from here. I'll keep you all updated.

     Have a great day everybody! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Story Time - February 26, 2016

     One upon a time, there was a simple prince living in a small secluded forest town. This prince wasn't fancy like all the other princes. In fact, hardly anybody knew he was even a prince... but that's the way he liked it. This prince didn't really like lots of people knowing about him, so he often kept to himself.

     As much as the prince liked being on his own, he always felt like something was missing; a companion for his travels and adventures. The prince couldn't have just anybody accompany him though; he needed someone to spend time with. So he went on a new adventure to find a proper companion.

     He found many possible companions, but an overwhelming majority of them were unable to hold a conversation with him. That was a pretty important thing in a companion, so none of them were considered. They could be found everywhere. There were so many of them that it was difficult to find what he was looking for. So the prince went to a wizard who sold him a potion that would filter out all those people who wouldn't make a good companion.

     The prince decided to go back to his adventure. He went to a clearing in the forest town to enjoy some sunlight. He drank the potion and was amazed to see his vision much clearer. His vision became so clear that he was able to see right through everyone to the beautiful princess of the secluded forest town. The prince had seen her before and thought that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, but he knew that she had many friends and not much free time.

     The prince wasn't very good at coming up with ideas for things to do that weren't creative or that used a lot of thought, and he knew that people who were always busy tended to not like doing creative things or thinking too much all the time. So he wasn't very sure about the princess... why would the potion reveal to him someone who was always busy with other people? That seemed like an odd choice for a companion.

     But the prince believed in the potion and decided he would try to get the beautiful princess's attention. He tried and tried, but she always seemed to be busy. Sometimes she wouldn't be busy and would notice him. She would make plans with him to spend time with him and get to know each other... but then their plans would be cut short or changed because she would be too tired.

     The hardest part was when the princess would tell him she wanted someone to spend time with; that she liked people who wanted to spend time with her... the more, the better. But then she would tell him to go do things on his own without her. So the prince was sad that he was unable to spend more time with the fantastic princess. He would keep trying, even though she was so busy... and one day... everything would change.

~ Kyle

Getting Better

     I haven't felt awesome for the past couple weeks. Getting broken up with when you think everything is stable... especially over a text message you didn't know about that obviously means you must have cheated on the person you were in love with and did everything for... just because you didn't mention this text message that you didn't know about... is really difficult. I mean, I feel like shit... but at the same time I realize that if she so easily believed that I would cheat on her just because of a text message, then I guess we weren't meant for one another. The crappiest part is that I didn't even know about this text message that supposedly came from me. And it's difficult to believe that there ever was a text message because she didn't say anything about it. She just deleted it.

     So here I am, two weeks later. I'm feeling better; I'm eating again. I also got some work done. I have a bit to catch up on after not really going to school for a week, but luckily it's not too much to handle I think. I have decided that I don't want to go through with attempting to learn this math 226 class though. I mean I already missed at least two weeks of it before I was officially back in the class, and then with this life-drama going on, I just don't feel like I'm in a good position to try to learn something like that after missing so much.

     But the good news is that I went in today and got some work done! Finished my AutoCADD template including the block that had to be updated which included me needing to learn about something new on my own. I'm feeling pretty good; Rather tired, but pretty good. I think next I'll tackle my new logo and finish the watch that's past due. But as long as I take things one thing at a time, I think I'll be good.

I can get through this. Everything will be better in the end.

~ Kyle

Moving To A New Home

   So my Carley and I have decided to make the leap together into having a place of our own in Moose Jaw. We figured it would be nicer for me to live close to school, her to live somewhere that they're actually offering her jobs, and for us both to live together to avoid the driving back and forth from each other's houses.

   Now last time I was living here was also for school, but it was on my own. And I certainly don't remember it being so difficult and tiring. We rented a large Uhaul truck to carry all of our stuff together... and maybe that's why I remember it being easier. I'm pretty sure last time I only had enough stuff to pack up my old car, maybe a little bit more. This time, we had a whole 20 foot truck to load and unload... lots of heavy things.

   I had plans to do so much more today, but I was actually exhausted and didn't get it all done.  I had to take a nap today instead of going in to Regina for my dentist appointment. Carley is pretty tired from working full time the past few days, she's not used to it after not doing so for quite some time. So while she's sleeping, I'm working on unpacking some boxes and moving other ones to the rooms they're supposed to be in to make it easier to work through. It sure is dark in the living room without a light on... just gotta move a few more things until I get to the lamp...

~ Kyle