The big hole

As a couple I feel like we often have ADD.  Actually sometimes I feel like I have ADD because it is hard to focus on doing one thing for a long period of time- oh I must take the dogs out- oh I must clean that counter- oh I should empty that suitcase.  CP often gets annoyed because it is hard for me to stay on task.  I sometimes don’t finish sentences before heading off into another thought.  I have never been checked for ADD, but have read articles that our digital lives are making it harder for people to stay focused- maybe that is what is wrong with me?

But this post is not really about whether I have ADD or not.  It’s more like I feel like CP and I turn our attention to things, big life events, and hoping they will fill the hole in our lives that would be filled with children.  Sort of like...getting pregnant is not working so we will turn our attention to X!  When we first started trying and not having any success I was really focused on GETTING PREGNANT. While I continually got my period and tried not to get my hopes up every month, pregnancy was always in the back of my mind. 

We did our best to stay busy with moving to CT, signing up for a half marathon, creating raised beds/doing a lot of gardening, and deciding to get a new puppy.  All to keep our minds off of the infertility tests and the monthly disappointment of my period.

We were hoping that the three IUIs we did in April, early May, and late May would lead to us getting pregnant.  That obviously didn’t work out as planned.  Instead, once CP got the call from the headhunter, we were off and planning the logistics of our move to Chicago.  Not completely forgetting about getting pregnant, but not thinking about it as much.

And now, now that we have a major fixer upper of a house on our hands, was there a little part of us that bought this house knowing that with so much work to do, we could stay busy and not think about the fact that over two years later we still can’t get pregnant? 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big proponent of staying busy and continuing to live your life while trying to get pregnant.  If I had put my life on hold for the past two+ years by limiting my alcohol content, not eating sushi, not dying my grays, not pushing myself during workouts (ha ha not recently!), and in generally, not living and doing what I want to do I would have gone crazy.  The one place where I feel like I haven't pushed myself to continue living is my job.  I have stayed at my current job partly because I didn't want to look for another job AND move at the same time, but also because I have saved up vacation time/sick time to take if I ever get pregnant.  Leaving my job would mean starting all over again....so I stay, even though I am not happy or fulfilled in any way.

Since our last IUI in May CP and I haven’t even tried to get pregnant.  In June and July it was because he was in IL and I was in CT and my one visit didn’t match up with ovulation; this month we decided to not try because we have been around a bunch of chemicals in trying to re-do our house- turpentine, paint (low VOC but still), spray paint, etc.  Plus there is a gas smell in our bedroom that we can’t get rid of (the gas company has been out and the plumber couldn’t find any reason for it- not sure what we are going to do).  So not quite ideal conditions.

But….we should be trying.  I hate being on the sidelines.  We haven’t really talked about it, but part of me is resigned to the fact that well, what’s the point?  (Does CP think this too?  Not sure.)  If we haven’t gotten pregnant yet, then obviously the only way we are going to get pregnant is through IVF....and our consultation isn’t until Oct 1^st with our new doctor.  And after that, when are we going to have the money for it?  We just had a bunch of contractors come through the house and we are trying to pay their bills….next up we need new windows throughout the house and who knows how much that is going to cost.

Hmmm I wasn’t meaning for this post to start to sound bitter, but I guess that is where it went.  It’s part frustration from over two years of being completely unsuccessful, it’s part frustration with not having won the lottery yet (maybe I should start playing) because how else are we going to pay for everything house related and IVF, and part….well, I don’t know what.  Did we bite off more than we can chew with the house?  Only time will tell.  Meanwhile my eggs are getting older and I am creeping towards my 34^th birthday.  Still trying to find ways to plug up the hole in my life.  

I'm clearly insane

I think that I should be labeled insane.  My sister got me to sign up for stair climbing race happening on Sept 22^nd. 

NSC, you say, but you just did a stair climb earlier this year- why do you think you are insane for signing up for this one?

#1-  I haven’t worked out in weeks (actually probably more like at least a month).  Bad NSC.  Sadly, working out is simply not on my radar right now- not when we work 12 hours a day on the weekends on home improvement stuff and then continue that work during the week after work until 10pm every night.

#2- The race happens exactly ONE MONTH from now.  Is that enough time to train?  Probably not.

#3 (this is the big one)- it’s not just a regular stair climb.  This is STORM THE STADIUM.  The full climb is 6,000 (!) steps- up 3,000, down 3,000 at Soldier Field.  The half climb is obviously half those numbers.  My sister and I wisely decided not to push it and only do the half climb.  Only- haha!  I didn’t do great in March with my climb of only 688 stairs…..what makes me think that I will be ready for 3,000?  And yes, half of those will be going down the stairs, but I’m not sure the “break” is going to be enough to rest my muscles.

So I guess I should start training for this?  I’ll have to ask my building if they allow people to walk the stairs.  That would be a good lunchtime workout.

Hold me.

Thankful

After a weekend of two 12-hour days working on our house, I am thankful for a couple of things.

Weather

This weekend was absolutely beautiful- in the 70s and sunny which was perfect weather to quickly dry the kitchen cabinets after priming and painting.  It wasn’t too hot and it didn’t rain.  Just perfect.

CP

I am very thankful to CP for being so handy.  The highlight of our Friday night was our (what seems like) daily trip to Lowe’s where we decided to buy a new dual flush toilet to replace the black, nasty, poor draining toilet in our bathroom.  He claims that it wasn’t that hard to put the toilet in, but while I was busy painting outside, CP installed it and it works!  And it’s clean!  And it’s good for the environment- yay!!

This was the black toilet- that we put a new seat on before it was used because the old seat was so nasty.  Bye bye ugly black toilet with cracked porcelain and insides that I could never fully clean!

Hello clean, high efficiency, dual flush toilet!

Electric Sanders

When you have a room that is covered in wood paneling- even the CEILING- an electric sander is super handy when needing to sand everything down before priming and painting.  My arms are sore from the vibrations and holding the sander up to the ceiling, but they are probably not as sore as they would have been had we had to sand the entire 14 x 16 room by hand!

Pain Relievers

When my body was aching after a long day of working, I knew that I needed something to combat the soreness:  Tylenol PM on Saturday night, Extra Strength Tylenol last night.  I’m still sore, but it helped to dull the pain.

What are you thankful for this Monday morning?

BEFORE pictures of the new house

A couple of you have asked for our "before" pictures of our new house.  We still don't have internet and have no idea when we get it, so I took some pictures with my iPhone.  I focused in on the things that bother me the most about the rooms, so you will have to wait until we get internet to get a picture of a full room.

For a reference, here are pictures of a couple of rooms from our updated and pretty house in CT.  Ahhh the vast difference....

Let's start on the first floor.

Why yes those ARE yellow metal cabinets (and our new stainless steel double oven and refinished floors) in our kitchen.  For now, we will be spray painting the cabinets until we save up enough money to bump out the kitchen and completely re-do everything.  The kitchen is TINY.

There is no overhead light in the family room (on the electrician's list of things to do) so it's kind of hard to see, but the entire room is wood paneling- even the ceiling.  Don't be too jealous.

The disgustingly dirty carpeting in the family room is doing it's best to match the color of the wood paneling.   CP and I have already been to Lowe's to look for new carpeting.

What a lovely bathroom, right?  (sorry that pic is sideways- can't seem to change it!).  What a lovely floor, right?  That lovely floor extended into the kitchen and sadly was covering up pine wood floors.  I try to stay out of this bathroom because frankly, it smells like pee and grosses me out.  One of our projects will be to rip up and replace the floor and subfloor as there are have been some piping leaks over the years (hence the pee smell).  Check out the lovely blue plastic tile on the walls too!  

Now to the second floor....

Who buys a black tub (there is also a black toilet)?  My friend suggested that I wouldn't have to clean it as much because who would ever know that it was dirty?  *shudder*

To go along with the black tub and black toilet, the previous owner decided to not only wallpaper the ceiling.....

....but also wallpaper the back of the door???!!?

I have an idea- let's wallpaper the smallest room in the house with a really dark colored paper!  What a great idea!

Oh yes, that IS military wallpaper inside the second bedroom closet.

For some reason my phone isn't sending all of the pictures, but you guys will at least get a taste of what we are dealing with.  We have a long road ahead of us.....

Best 50 Shades of Grey review EVER

For THE BEST review of Fifty Shades of Grey, please visit this.  It's amazing.  The GIFs alone are hilarious.  She does a far better job at reviewing the book than I did today.

*warning- you may want to read this at home if your work computer picks up swear words*

Nook books

I have continued to read a bunch of books on my Nook.  All ratings out of a possible 5 stars.

A World I Never Made by James LePore (free Nook book)

2 stars

An American father is summoned to Paris to claim the body of his estranged daughter, who has committed suicide.  However, it is not his daughter’s body and the father is convinced that she is in trouble.  After about a day the father falls in love with a police detective (ridiculous).  Thank goodness this was a free Nook Book because the love story is hokey and the book is about a clichéd as one could get.

Bring on the Blessings by Beverly Jenkins (free Nook book)

2 stars

A rich recently divorced ex-social worker buys a failing town on the Internet to try to turn it around.  She not only wants to save the town, but also create a community for troubled foster kids.  The characters were silly, the plot was obvious, and the writing was awful.  I can’t believe that it gets such great reviews on Goodreads.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith

4 stars

After stumbling upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln, the author pens a biography of Abraham Lincoln using historical facts and describing how vampires played a role in Lincoln’s life.  Maybe I am not doing the book justice with that one sentence synopsis, but I was impressed that the author did so much research into Lincoln’s life while intertwining the whole vampire hunter aspect into the book. 

Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James

2 stars

So my coworker happened to bring the first two books on our trip down to DC so I asked to borrow the first one to see what all of the hype was about.  Let’s just say that I wasn’t impressed.  The writing was really awful.  I mean, I get that this 21 year old girl is naïve, but saying stuff like “then he touched me down there” is ridiculous.  My coworker was seriously gaga over the whole story and Christian Grey (she is really excited about the C.G. adult toy line coming out) whereas I want nothing to do with it.  I will not be reading the next two books.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

3 stars

A “humorous” memoir of the author’s early 20s when he loses both of his parents to cancer in the span of five weeks and inherits his 8-year-old brother.  At times a great book, at times a confusing book.  I loved the references to the northern suburbs of Chicago, but I thought that sometimes he was trying to be too funny and too out there.  He is a talented writer, but I don’t think his style of writing is for me.

Summer of Fire by Linda Jacobs (free Nook book)

3 stars

A fictional tale of Claire Chance, a firefighter and single mother, who after losing her mentor and co-worker in a roof collapse, heads to Yellowstone in 1998 to battle the fires in the National Park.  The author used real fire reports from 1998 for the story which was a nice touch.  The book was entertaining enough- I think that it was helped by the fact that when I went to Yellowstone back in 2006, I could still see the fire damage.

212 (Ellie Hatcher #3) by Alafair Burke (free Nook book)

3 stars

Standard detective novel where plot twists are not tied up until late in the book after a series of murders that can’t be connected.  Entertaining enough for a free book, but I’m not sure that I will pay to read any of this author’s other novels.

Birdman by Mo Hayder (free Nook book)

3 stars

Five bodies, all young women, all ritualistically murdered and dumped in a wasteland.  In his first case Detective Jack Caffery has to find the sexual serial killer before he kills again.  I have to admit- this book was pretty gruesome.  It’s also set in London and had a bunch of lingo that I couldn’t quite catch onto because the acronyms are not ones that we use here in the States. 

So, not the best crop of books these past few months.  I did save a lot of money by mainly reading free Friday Nook books thought....  At least my current book (Dark Places by Gillian Flynn) seems to be bucking the trend.  Have you read any good books recently that you can recommend?

Moving in

I feel like every post for the past couple of weeks and for the immediate future is going to start out with “I’m exhausted” or “Things are really hectic” or something of the like.  Because it truly is hectic up in these parts!

·         Friday we spent one last night at my parent’s condo before getting up early to meet the movers at the new house.

Saturday was a circus show of people in our house.  The movers dropped off all of our furniture.  Our electrician showed up early with two guys to bang out the can lights we put in the living room.  

Our new can lights in the living room look great!  Check out the Miami Vice paint colors- can't wait until those are gone.  :-)

·         Thank goodness the electrician did show up because all of our kitchen appliances showed up on Saturday too.  However, the guys that were supposed to deliver and install everything didn’t want to do more work than necessary, so right now we only have a working oven.  But the only reason that it is working is because the electrician was a rock star, not because these guys did anything.  The new washer, dryer, fridge, cooktop, and microwave/hood combo all are sitting around, doing nothing.  It’s a bit frustrating.

·         Needless to say, we are kind of bleeding money right now because without a working kitchen and fridge, we can’t make any meals.  I’m trying my best to eat healthy every time we go somewhere, but even the healthy options have more calories than something we would make at home.

·         I originally thought that we were going to be unpacking most of Sunday, but the electricians need access to all of the sockets and lights this week, so we had the movers put most of the furniture in the center of rooms so that the entire house can be rewired and all sockets changed from two prong to three prong.  Instead, CP and I did some landscaping.  I’ll wait to show you the after pictures because we have the before pictures on our nice camera with no internet, but the whole day was cathartic, taking the chainsaw to huge overgrown bushes and ripping out overgrown ivy. 

·         Our neighbors loved the new landscaping (even though we had to leave the stumps)- especially our next door neighbor because we had a very large bush in our front yard that blocked our view of the sidewalk.  We have kids and dogs on either side of us and certainly didn’t want to be known as the new people that ran over someone’s dog or kid!

·         Speaking of our new neighbors, so far everyone has been very nice and no one cut down any trees before we moved in!   One neighbor brought us a bottle of wine and an orchid, another one brought us homemade cookies.  Score!  The houses in our neighborhood are a bit closer together than in CT so I suspect that we will be hearing people on both sides a bit more.

·         No internet or cable any time soon in our house because cable wires have never been run to the house (I’m totally missing True Blood and my Real Housewives shows!).  So far Comcast is a bunch of idiots (why are all cable companies so hard to deal with?).

·         I’ll leave you with my random thought of the day.  CP and I went to both Home Depot and Lowe’s this weekend.  I went to the bathroom in both stores and in yet another Home Depot, I notice there is something wrong in the bathroom (the store in CT always had something wrong/dripping/falling off/etc. in the bathroom).  This time it was a leaky u-tube below one of the faucets so someone stuck a bucket underneath to catch the water.  Shouldn’t a store manager think to themselves that because they are a HOME IMPROVEMENT STORE and supposedly have people experienced enough to answer your questions that they should and could find someone to fix the leak?  It’s not like they are lacking the tools available- they are only feet away!  On the other hand, I noticed no problem in the Lowe’s bathroom.  Guess which one CP and I will probably frequent more for all of our home improvement items??

Did you have a busy weekend?

New job

Four days into my new job and so far I am enjoying myself.  Well, technically it is not a new job as I have the same title, simply in a different location.  Anyway, the “newness” might wear off in two-three months like always- I’ll just have to see if this place can keep my brain entertained and occupied.

My boss so far seems nice and happy that I am here.  Yesterday we had a meeting with a director and she called me a “subject matter expert.”  Ha!  I mean, I gave presentations about the subject in CT, but I wouldn’t call myself an SME by any means.  No matter because yesterday it was decided that I would sit on a panel at a two-day conference and speak in front of 200 people.  Yikes.  That makes me excited and nervous at the same time.  I hope I can live up the SME title!!

Can I just tell you how much I love working in a big city again?  The energy, the people walking around, the noises.  I love them all!  All of the “cities” in CT never really had that so I definitely have missed it.  Even though we didn’t want to move to downtown Chicago (CP more than me), at least I get to experience the city during the week.  It’s nice to have a bunch of lunch options.  It’s nice that I will get to walk 1/2 mile every morning from the train station to my office, and then back that afternoon.  I may not be so happy about the walk come January when it is freezing out, but I’m hoping that my North Face jacket makes it bearable!  I’m not that far from my parent’s office so I could have lunch with them if I felt like it one day.  

I think that living a train ride away from the city (without having to drive to the station) is going to provide a nice balance.  A yard for the dogs/our garden with some privacy from our neighbors and a big enough house for our stuff on the weekends/weeknights versus the busy, loud, and crowded city during the workday.  My total commute (even with the 1/2 mile walk) will be about 45 minutes.  Not the fantastic 10 minute commute I had in CT, but that is the price we are paying to be in the middle of our two jobs with a decent sized yard, good schools, etc.

My new office has a gym in the basement that for now is free (score!).  My building also allows people to walk the stairs so instead of taking the elevator up or down one or two flights, I have been hoofing it.  I am thinking about doing the Hustle up the Hancock race which is an awesome stair race (94 floors up the John Hancock building) that I did with friends back in 2005 when I lived here.  My mom even said that she might be willing to do it with me!  My office is on one of the top floors of my building so I could train during my lunch hour or after work.  :-)

So things are going well here, despite all of the chaos.  I’m ready for a busy day tomorrow dealing with the movers, along with the delivery of our new fridge and all new appliances.  The cooktop won’t get hooked up just yet because we need the counters in, but hopefully they can get installed sometime in the next few weeks.  In the meantime we will at least have an oven and a microwave.  Sunday we are going to be in UNPACKING H*LL.  Wish us luck.  :-)

I made it!

I’ll try to make this quick….

Last week the moving process went fairly well.  CP and I had some fights because he didn’t understand why I had to run around town doing errands and packing up stuff in advance, things that were stressing me out.  Ummm hello who wants some random guy packing up your underwear, toiletries (especially the ones that scream I’M INFERTILE), and other potentially embarrassing items?  Not to mention we were told we could save money if we packed some things in advance.  CP thought that I was making things harder on myself, but I saved us some money by returning boxes to U-Haul, by selling a few items on Craigslist, and donating items to the Salvation Army.  Right now, we need to save money so to me it was worth it.  But yeah, I was a bit on edge last week.

I have to say that I am most likely moving-spoiled now.  Having other people pack up our house and then move everything into a truck that they drive across the country for us?  LOVED IT.  Especially because the day that they packed up the truck it was 90 degrees out.  It was a little boring watching other people do the work (it made me want to jump in and help), but instead I sat in the AC and that wasn’t half bad.

After the walkthrough on Thursday night, I finished cleaning the house and set out for central PA with the dogs.  The dogs had been in doggie daycare all day and were thankfully exhausted.  We got into our hotel around 1:30am (I unfortunately got a later start than I wanted to), I threw on a Sleep Machine App so that Buster wouldn’t hear people in other rooms and bark, and slept for about 3.5 hours….until the person above me woke up and started stomping around at 5:30am.  Sigh.  That woke up Buster who didn’t bark, but did start to pace around the room.  I threw on the Sleep Machine App again and fitfully slept for another hour before deciding that it was time to wake up and get on the road.

Friday was spent driving in the car.  It took me about 10 hours, but that was probably because I stopped a bit too often.  Starbucks Refereshers and various NPR’s Freakonomics Podcasts kept me awake and entertained throughout the drive.  It was scalding hot every time I stopped so I would take the dogs for short walks at the rest stops but nothing too long because there wasn’t much shade to speak of.  The closing on our CT house went well that afternoon and CP and I were officially homeless.

The rest of the weekend was spent at my parent’s second home in Southwestern MI.  Buster got to meet my Dad for the first time (and bark at him as he likes to do to strangers, but then later snuggle) and the dogs got to run around the large yard.  They will be heading back there this weekend with my parents so that they are not in the movers' way when they drop off the furniture.

Monday morning CP and I dropped the dogs off at a nearby boarding facility (where they so far seem to be okay despite it being a new place for them) and headed to our closing for our new house.  The seller is still crazy, but everything worked out and we now are IL homeowners (pictures coming soon)! 

Yesterday CP left for a work trip and I had my first day of work at my new office.  Everyone here seems really nice and happy that I transferred to the office.  It’s nice to work in a big city again!  This week I’m staying with my parents in the city while the hardwood floors in our new house get refinished and stained a different color before our furniture arrives.  Saturday our new appliances and all of our furniture get delivered.  Then next week the electrician and the HVAC guy will be working in the house.  It’s getting hard to juggle everything!!

What has been going on with you guys?  I have been trying to keep up with my Google Reader, but I’m still a bit behind.

Excited to see CP

(Scheduled post)

If all goes according to plan, the dogs and I will be pulling in to my parent's place tonight and all three of us will once again be in the same state as CP!

Buster has been quite confused and wondering why he hasn't seen CP in a while.

Fuzzy Britches is REALLY EXCITED whenever she hears CP's name.  She can't wait to reunite with him (this is the longest they have ever been apart)!

YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY!

Almost wordless Wednesday

 My last picture post from CT....

It's hard to believe that our house went from looking like this just two years ago with two dead trees in the front yard....

....complete with large, overgrown bushes (the azaleas are pretty, but not well-maintained).....

...to this.  The front features more flowers now that the trees are gone and it gets full sun.  (The large bush on the left will turn purple soon- I'm sad I'm going to miss it!)

I love our daylilies!  So pretty.

The herbs are more like bushes after they thrived in our winter garden.  In the back the yellow squash are looking good, along with the chinese kale and chinese broccoli.

The spinach bolted a while ago, but the swiss chard is doing great.  The garlic still has a way to go.  (Please ignore the  weeds that I haven't had time to tend to.)

Tons of green tomatoes- but so far they have turned!  So sad that I am going to miss out on fresh tomatoes from the garden.  In front the eggplant is flowering and the buyers should have jalapenos pretty soon.

After ripping out the bolted lettuce, the sugar snap peas, and the green pole beans, the yellow wax beans continue to thrive and produce!

We will definitely miss this view- our favorite walking/running path in our town!