Non Sequitur Chica

Am I being too sensitive?

2012-02-15T08:50:00.000-05:00

After getting my period yesterday, I suddenly felt hopeful once again. Things are starting to get back on track with trying to conceive. I want to continue to hold on to that hope. I don’t want to have wild hopes of getting pregnant the first month back on the wagon, but positive thinking can’t hurt. Was the surgery all that we needed to get rid of our infertility obstacles? I’m not entirely convinced that it was, but who knows?

Our plan has changed slightly on the IUI. We are a little skittish in trying an IUI this month after it took so long for my period to come back. We only have three IUIs covered under our insurance plan so I don’t want to “waste” one when I may not even ovulate this month. So, I have started to track my temperatures once again and hopefully I will not only ovulate, but also have a normal luteal cycle (thanks to my trusty B6 pills), AND a regular 28 day cycle. Cross your fingers!! If all goes well and we don’t conceive naturally this month, late March will be our first IUI.

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While I have positive thinking and positive thoughts running through me again, something that I saw yesterday on Facebook stopped me in my tracks. A family friend of CP’s that comes to family functions posts a lot of articles on lactation, as she is a lactation consultant. CP has already warned me that if we get pregnant we should probably hide it from her because she is a little nuts (she cornered my friend at my bridal shower who just gave birth two weeks beforehand because she wasn’t breastfeeding). She is the same woman that posted the birthing video of a woman using dolphins as “aquatic midwives” (if you have been reading me that long).

Anyway, the article she posted is how c-sections may hurt premies. Her comment? Nature designed babies to be squeezed out, not pulled out. On the face of that, I completely agree. Natural births are how we were intended to have babies. I too have watched The Business of Being Born and think that the rise in c-sections in this country is scary. But maybe the rise in c-sections is not simply because women want to schedule their births and then get a tummy tuck afterwards. Maybe the rise is due to more people like me having to go to fertility doctors and have surgery to remove endo, cysts, or fibroids in order to get pregnant….then destined to have c-sections.

In general, why do women have premies? Usually because there is something wrong with the pregnancy- an infection, bleeding, etc. So I would think that while it would be nice to say you don’t want to have a c-section with a premie, if there is an emergency, wouldn’t you rather get the baby out and alive? I don’t know the answers as I am clearly not a doctor.

I guess I took offense to the fact that I assume that she is going to think that I am a bad person for having a c-section instead of a vaginal delivery, despite having a reason for it. Or maybe I took offense because I am still sad that I will never be able to have a natural childbirth. Either way- am I just being too sensitive?

Happy Valentine's Day

2012-02-14T10:48:00.001-05:00

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

I got the best V-day present ever- MY PERIOD!!! Okay, so it’s not the best present ever and it makes for an unromantic evening, but still YAY!!!!!!!!!!! Double YAY to the fact that it seems to be back to what I consider my “normal” period- no seriously heavy flow days and no big clots. TMI? Sorry. Here’s hoping now that the endo and the fibroid are gone it stays that way! Actually, best case scenario is that I don’t get it again for at least another 10+ months, but that might be pushing my luck! :-)

So I finished my 10 days of Provera, the progesterone that was supposed to jump start my period. The prescription information said that I would likely start my period within 3-7 days of starting the medicine. When I finished the pills and saw nothing, I waited another day then called my doctor. I guess it depends on the woman, but it can take up to two weeks after finishing the 10 days of pills to get your period. Good to know.

In real V-day news, CP and I won’t be doing anything romantic tonight. I am hosting a fondue party tomorrow so we are going to tidy up the house and have a delicious, but unremarkable dinner. Saturday will be our celebration dinner. I’ll be making some sort of pie or tart for dessert and CP is going to make rack of lamb. Not sure of the sides or even how he is going to do the lamb (I did request no mint jelly-ewww), but that’s the plan. I’m looking forward to it!

What are you doing this Valentine’s day?

Word vomit

2012-02-13T12:31:00.004-05:00

My life these days is full of non-baby making thoughts and events, but every time I sit down to write, it’s what I feel like fleshing out. Bleh.

Saturday was spent cleaning and trying to tire the dogs out before CP’s dad & wife, uncle & aunt came to visit. I really like to hang out with them because unlike CP’s mom and her husband, we have stuff in common. They also don’t tell the same stories over and over and over. I hate to say that I like them better, but I kind of do. They actually want to go out and do things (like go to a museum like we did that afternoon). They also like to partake in good food- so we took them to our favorite Peruvian restaurant for dinner. They LOVED it. And I loved my passion fruit pisco sour drink. How had I not tried that yet?? We even introduced his family to Archer once we got home (the third season is currently showing on FX but we have seasons 1 and 2 on DVD). They loved it- which is the reaction of everyone that we get to watch the show. Why are you not watching it yet????

Yesterday after the family left we met two friends and their dogs at a local state park and watched as all of the dogs played and generally got along. Score! Our dogs decided to wade into the river- I can only imagine how cold it was! The high yesterday was 27 so as soon as they came out icicles formed on their fur. They couldn’t have cared less. Both are STILL tired today from all of the running around. Unfortunately now both of them need a bath so we are off to the do-it-yourself dog wash tonight.

Whitney Houston’s death is tragic, but she hasn’t been all too relevant recently so I’m not broken up about it. I guess that’s pretty normal for me though. If a celebrity dies I feel bad for their family, but I don’t personally know them, so I’m not sad myself.

Instead of watching the Grammys, CP and I spent last night curled up on the couch in front of a fire reading. It was very relaxing and I hope to do it more. No electronics (not counting my Nook of course) or tv needed. It was nice.

A friend posted this link on Facebook showing Twitter and FB statuses of girls saying that they would let Chris Brown beat them up. It is horrifying (and so, so sad). Why did the Grammys let him perform again? I'm all for second chances, but when Hollywood applauds people like Chris Brown, Woody Allen (marrying the adopted daughter of your wife), and Roman Polanski (raping young girls), etc. what kind of message are you sending?

Enough word vomit from me. How was your weekend?

New doctor

2012-02-10T09:10:00.001-05:00

STILL waiting on the Provera to do its job and start my period. I would really like to get this show on the road!!

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CP and I decided a few months ago that I was going to switch to a new GYN doctor because it would have been nice to know about my fibroid/surprise endo BEFORE wasting a year of trying to have kids with no success. I had told my old GYN that I was having tremendously heavy periods with large clots and that wasn’t my “normal” until a few years ago. She never did anything about it. Even when I had my HSG test she noted that my uterus was shaped a little funny, but didn’t think to have further tests run to make sure there wasn’t a reason for that (aka a fibroid pushing into the uterus). It would have been nice.

So yesterday I had my annual ladies exam with a doctor who was recommended to me by a close friend. She had three C-sections with the group and thought they were fantastic. They take my insurance and they are located five minutes from my house. Perfect.

My new GYN is really nice and made sure to go over the records sent over by my old doctor. Her comment? “I see you had a busy year last year.” Yep.

She told me a bit about the practice and how it works if I do get pregnant. When she mentioned how it would be fairly easy for me to plan ahead to have a specific doctor do my C-section, I couldn’t help myself and asked why I couldn’t do a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean- something friends of mine have had). I’m glad that I asked because although my fertility doctor told me about the recent studies and the risks, my new GYN told me exactly why it wasn’t a good idea.

When you have the surgery that I had to remove the fibroid, the doctor cuts into the side of your uterus. That is the best place to cut because it allows for faster healing….however, it is a weak section of your uterus. When you have a C-section the bottom part of the uterus is cut and that is actually the strongest part of your uterus. So women that have had C-sections can often go on to have a vaginal birth because their uterus won’t rupture in the middle of childbirth. Because a weak part of my uterus has been weakened further due to my surgery, it is not advisable for me to have a vaginal birth.

I left the office satisfied with that explanation….and satisfied with my new doctor. I told her my concerns with my previous doctor and she understood. Hopefully I’ll be back in her office again prior to my next annual visit because I will be pregnant! Trying to keep the hope alive.

Hair help needed

2012-02-09T14:41:00.003-05:00

Ladies, I need some hair help. I have been using Garnier Fructis Mousse for years now on my curly hair. I started using the brand because I used Garnier Fructis shampoo and conditioner- they smelled so good! With my switch to more natural products that brand was taken out of my shower, but I never made a switch for my hair styling product.

Sometimes the mousse works great and my hair looks nice and natural. Other times my hair gets frizzy or the opposite occurs- it looks stiff or wet. No bueno. I’m getting to the end of my latest bottle and I’m wondering if anyone out there has a suggestion on another kind of mousse that keeps the frizz down, but keeps the hair looking natural (aka not wet or stiff).

If it helps, I have curly hair that is somewhat fine. The picture below is from my wedding day…I don’t normally curl my hair with a curling iron. Usually I get out of the shower, wrap my hair in a towel for a minute or two, and then scrunch mousse in my hair. A fairly simple routine.

Now that I am trying to wear my hair down to work more often, I would like to buy a product that is a bit more consistent. Bonus points if it is a more natural product!

Any help?

Ten for Tuesday

2012-02-07T10:35:00.001-05:00

1. How do you feel about Groundhog’s Day? I don’t really pay attention to it because here in the Northeast, we are going to have weeks more of winter anyway.

2. What color are your fingernails right now? (Bonus points if you include a picture.) I don’t like to wear nail polish on my fingernails because it chips after a day, but I do have on a sparkly blue color on my toenails right now (it’s Sally Hansen HD Hi-Definition Nail Color in “Laser”).

3. Do you like riddles? Umm sure?

4. When you were 10, how old did you think “old” was? At your current age, how old do you think “old” is? Old was definitely someone over 30 when I was growing up. Now old is probably 60?

5. Do you wish on stars? No. I am too logical and boring to think about doing that.

6. Do you recycle? Of course! We also compost. Between the two we have drastically cut down on how much garbage gets hauled away each year.

7. On a scale from 1-10, how good of a cook are you? Oh I’m probably only a 5 while CP is definitely at least a 10. The boy is ridonkulous (and I LOVE IT!).

8. Do you color your hair? Professionally or at home? Hell yeah. Sadly I have had gray hairs since the age of 6. I remember in high school when I was bored in class I would look through my hair to find grays in order to pull them out (now thinking back to that- gross!). I now have a lovely skunk patch near the temple on the right side of my head and I HATE IT. I have to go every six weeks to get my hair colored, but at least I love my hair stylist (she truly is the best). I’m thinking about changing up my brown hair to add in a few red highlights next week!

9. On a scale from 1-10, how do you rate your manners? It definitely depends on where I am and whom I am with. If I am at home with CP, my elbows are on the table and manners are partially thrown out the door. If I am at a fancy restaurant with work folks or even my parents, I make sure to follow my manners. I do think that anyone that chews with their mouth open- no matter where they are- is nasty.

10. Who are the last 5 people you have texted? My sister, a friend from college (who saw my sister at a Super Bowl party), and then three local friends.

Monday bullets

2012-02-06T16:26:00.003-05:00

I *might* have drank a bit too much this weekend….thus the bullet points.

I got my blood test results back on Friday night. I am not pregnant (DUH) and I haven’t ovulated. The doctor decided to put me on Provera, a type of progesterone that should bring on my period in a few days. BRING.IT.ON.

Saturday morning a friend and I found some outdoor stairs and proceeded to “train” for our stair race in late March. We couldn’t remember how many steps we will have to climb during the race (688), so we did the outdoor steps a total of 17 times. Turns out we did WAY more than needed for the race. Yay! However, we didn’t stretch afterwards and my calves are SO TIGHT. Walking down stairs is the hardest thing to do right now- I keep trying to stretch my calves any chance that I get….hopefully the soreness subsides by tomorrow morning.

Saturday night CP and I headed over to a friend’s house for Game night. Since there were a bunch of people there we split up and played a few different games and then switched part of the way through the night. My favorite new game? Apples to Apples. That game was so much fun- I think we may buy it to play it at home!

Yesterday CP and I hosted a Superbowl party. Buster made it his goal to furiously bark at everyone that came into the house…which is great for would-be burglars, but not so great for parties. Luckily he calmed down quickly. I saw on Jillian Michael’s Facebook status (yes, I am “friends” with her) that people eat an average of 4200 calories the day of the Superbowl. I ate a light breakfast and no lunch, but we had way too much food (as always), and although I drink light beer it still adds up. So yeah, gym time and healthy eating is quite necessary!

I rooted for the Pats yesterday and was disappointed when the hated Giants won. Boooooo. Also? CP not happy.

What did you think of the commercials? I liked the chocolate M&M commercial that played early on, the Matthew Broderick commercial made me want to watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off someday soon, I wanted the St. Bernard dog-lookalike (albeit a little smaller) from the Volkswagen commercial, and I loved the Sketchers commercial with the pug beating the greyhounds on the track. What were your favorites?

I thought Madonna wasn't too bad. Half the time she looked like she was phoning in the performance, then half the time she looked into it. I thought it was smart to have younger performers on stage with her, but thought that Cee Lo Green was pretty bad.

DIY wreath

2012-02-03T09:09:00.006-05:00

Have I mentioned recently that I love Pinterest? Despite the annoyance of having to be "invited" to join the site, I have been having fun pinning! I pinned an awesome acorn wreath and used the idea to create my own!

Here is the final product:

It was so easy!

Buy one straw wreath from Michaels (this one is 12").

Pick up half a grocery store bag of mini pine cones from your yard (really you can use anything that has an interesting shape/color!)

Using a hot glue gun, start to glue the mini pine cones to your wreath. I started off moving straight across the wreath....but with different sized pine cones I changed my strategy and started shoving pine cones wherever I could fit them in.

Here is a closeup. At first I was worried about seeing the straw wreath behind the pine cones (should I spray paint the straw either brown or black?), but decided not to worry about it too much. Turns out it wasn't a big deal.

The whole project took me a few hours to complete but I think that the time was totally worth it! After finishing I tied a silver ribbon on the wreath and hung it on our front door.

Success!

Veteran DIY people- do I need to spray the wreath/pine cones with anything?

What have you pinned lately?

Natural running

2012-02-02T09:10:00.000-05:00

Bloodwork was done yesterday morning to figure out what is going on in my body- results to come later today! Hopefully the doctor has some good news for me….

Meanwhile, yesterday I went to my local Fleet Feet Running store (where I did my half marathon training last year) for a Natural Running Clinic, put on by Newton Running Company. Last year I read Born to Run (my review is here), which made me want to start thinking about running in minimalist shoes. At the time though, I was training for my half marathon and wasn’t about to jump into a whole new running style.

But recently I got to thinking that maybe the only way I am going to get rid of my plantar fasciitis is by changing my running style, getting minimalist shoes, and continuing to stretch/wear my night braces. I also hope to get rid of the knee brace that I have to wear every time I lace up my sneakers for a run. So when I saw this clinic pop up I knew that I wanted to attend.

The Newton rep was friendly and very helpful. We all laced up demo shoes and headed out for a few drills. A lot of the drills I had seen my college track teammates do during practice and before meets so they were not foreign to me. We then took about a ½ mile jog out and back from the store to test out the shoes. I was focusing on my cadence (get tips on natural running here) because with natural running your foot should strike the road more often (ideally three times a second). However in focusing on my cadence, I started running on my toes instead of hitting flatfoot….which made my calves cramp. Thankfully I figured out that I was doing it wrong and corrected it on the way back.

Turning into a natural runner is going to be hard. The rep said that it would take at least a month to get to the point where you don’t have to think about it anymore after going out for a run. That’s probably if you run more often than I do…. But the clinic got me excited about pain-free running so I found the “beginner” Newton’s on sale and ordered them today. I can’t wait to take them out for a spin (hopefully this weekend but most likely they won’t arrive until next week)!

Have you tried barefoot/natural running? Have any tips for me?

In other exercise/fitness news, I found a great quote on Pinterest recently: “No matter how slow you go, you are still lapping everyone on the couch.” LOVE THIS. I swear I should put it up in every room of my house for motivation.

This post is not sponsored by Newton.

The State of NSC- January 2012

2012-02-01T15:38:00.004-05:00

The State of NSC
A monthly take on my world.

Weight: Not sure because we need a new battery for our scale (but I'm sure the number ain't pretty).

Current Feeling: Bloated and fat. Frustrated by my reproductive system.

Running Stats
Total Miles Run: 11. Despite wanting to be more consistent with my runs, I only ran 4 times this month. Having to wake up the next morning after bootcamp AND an afternoon run was difficult so I didn't do it very often.
Time Spent Running: 2 hours, 31 minutes (I’m SLOW because I am in the beginning stages of C25K again).
Longest Single Run: 3.33 miles

Current aches and pains: Just my usual- plantar fasciitis.

Current Favorite Song: Rihanna- We Found Love

Looking forward to: NO MORE WAKING UP AT 5am!!! I was not a happy person waking up that early and I am impressed that my friends and I made it as long as we did. That being said, I wasn’t a huge fan of the boot camp that we did so I didn’t sign up to do it after our Groupon expired.

Annoyed about: Despite the tough boot camp workouts, I don’t think that I lost any weight this month.

Proud about: At least I have gained back some core and arm strength from boot camp. My surgery pretty much wrecked any ab strength I had.

Ummm HOW IS IT ALREADY FEBRUARY???

How are you feeling with the start of this new month?

Medical

2012-01-31T11:56:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I ended up getting so frustrated at my body that I called the fertility doctor. He said to call if I don’t have my period by February 1st, but it is close enough and I had to ask for my paperwork to be sent over to my new GYN anyway. Tomorrow morning I am going in for bloodwork to find out what is going on with my cycle. Hopefully it gives us a clue as to what is going on.

In other news, remember my possible jaw breaking surgery saga? Well after taking out my nightguard my teeth are moving back (my dentist says that I am the first patient he has seen have this problem- fantastic!), but progress has slowed. The opening between my front teeth and back teeth has closed somewhat, but it is still there. I was thinking that as soon as the back teeth on my left side started touching and I could chew on that side again (now I can- woo hoo!) then I would be in the clear. No surgery needed, no braces, etc. HOWEVER. My dentist is now telling me that I am still making way too much contact in the back right side of my mouth and that at some point I will probably fracture a tooth, thus needing a root canal/crown/other work done. No bueno. So we are going to re-evaluate when I go back for my next teeth cleaning to see if my teeth are still moving back. The other work would be the same/more expensive than braces, plus involve a lot of pain plus I will continue to have the problem even after I get the work done, so it looks like I will at least have to have braces. Crossing my fingers for no surgery though!!

The only good news on the medical front is that I called my doctor’s office to see if I could pay my latest fibroid surgery bill in two installments instead of the full amount. The woman on the phone said that if I could pay the entire bill off next month then she could take $300 off the bill. Ummm YES I CAN. Mental note to call hospitals more often about bills to potentially save some money!!!

Have you ever called about a hospital bill and had money taken off?

Tricked

2012-01-30T11:23:00.000-05:00

I thought that my long wait had ended last week. When I got out of bed Thursday morning I saw what I thought was the start to my first period since early September- so I happily put a tampon in, ran into the office to tell CP, and went off to a 13+ hour day at work. However, when I went to change my tampon later that day, I realized that it was my body playing a trick on me. I waited all weekend for the real thing to come, but there has been nothing. I’m beyond frustrated.

CP and I had a talk about all of it yesterday while walking the dogs. We came to a few conclusions. First, I have to call the doctor to see if there is anything that he can do to jump start my period. Second, maybe we need to wait until I am sure that my period is back on track/that I am ovulating to have our first IUI. We only get three of them through my insurance and although I am supposedly more fertile now than ever, it would seem silly to do the IUI when my cycle could be out of whack. So this may mean delaying our first IUI until March, April, or who knows when?

I’m learning over and over that nothing is ever easy in our quest to get pregnant.

Potential for an awkward trip

2012-01-25T17:50:00.001-05:00

This week CP and I booked a week-long trip this summer to Lake Winnipesaukee (NH). We will be sharing a house with two couples that we met while I went to law school (the husbands went to school with me). We have all managed to stay friends despite the fact that we live in CT, one couple lives in Chicago, and the other couple lives in DC.

I’m definitely looking forward to the week as we all haven’t been together since our wedding over two years ago. However….both couples have two kids. The couple that lives in DC had their first kid without trying very hard and their second was a “surprise” when they didn’t use a condom one night. One night.

The other couple tried for almost a year and were about to head in for infertility testing when they got pregnant with twins.

Of course we are super happy for both of them. But is it going to be weird spending a week with four kids if I’m not pregnant by this summer? Both women know about our fertility struggles. They know about my surgery and that we have been trying for a while. They both don’t push it in our face, but that doesn’t mean that the potential for awkwardness still may be there.

To top it off, we are not allowed to bring our dogs that week because our friend is worried about her kids and the big dogs. They used to watch Fuzzy Britches in law school so they know that she is gentle and kind, but the mother alarm has gone off in her. CP and I decided not to push the issue, but it’s rather annoying because yes, we do have big dogs but doggie gates can be used in the house and our dogs are well behaved (not to mention they would act as vacuum cleaners for anything that fell on the floor). Hopefully CP’s dad can watch the dogs that week or else our expenses go way up.

I’m just crossing my fingers that I am pregnant by then….but we all know how that venture has gone so far!

Thank you

2012-01-23T09:13:00.000-05:00

Recently a close friend of mine suffered a pregnancy loss at 21 weeks. My heart went out to her as she sobbed on the phone to me. I wish that I lived closer so that I could have given her a hug and comforted her in person.

Over the course of our conversation she beat herself up because while devastated, she felt guilty for wondering when she could try to get pregnant again. My friend is a few years older so time is of the essence for her. Because I have started to read other infertility blogs in the past year, I was able to tell her that this was completely normal. That she should take the time to mourn her loss, but that when you are expecting to have a second child in your arms in a few short months, most people would want to know when they could start trying again.

She told me that my words were comforting at such a horrible time. I hope that they were.

The point of this story was simply that I am very grateful to this whole online community- and not just the IF community. Sharing your words helps EVERYONE because we all don’t have the same paths in life. If people didn’t open their lives and talk about their feelings on their blogs, I would have been at a loss as to what to say to my friend. Your words about depression, breakups, amazing vacations, workouts, funny stories, frustrations, etc. enrich my life. They make me a better person by seeing situations through your eyes.

THANK YOU.

ICLW week

2012-01-22T09:12:00.001-05:00

This month is my first ICLW (learn about it here). I guess it would be fitting to introduce myself to all of the newcomers. I’m Non Sequitur Chica and I live with my husband CP and our two Bernese Mountain Dogs. We met through Match.com a few years after graduating from the same college (despite mutual friends we didn’t know each other in college). More on our story here.

We have been married a little over two years and decided to throw away my birth control pills in May 2010. CP has some male factor infertility, but most likely our biggest hurdle has been my baseball-sized fibroid and endometriosis that I had surgically removed in November. Currently I am waiting for my period to appear after a three-month Lupron shot that shut down my ovaries back in late August. I’m getting a little worried that it is taking so long. Once it does, we plan on an IUI with Clomid.

Other than that, I graduated from law school, but don’t use my degree and hate my job. CP loves to cook and is really good at it. I’m a huge Eagles fan so the fact that the Giants are in the Superbowl again really burns my britches (CP is a Patriots fan so at least he was happy yesterday). We enjoy a lot of outdoor sports- hiking, skiing, kayaking and I’m a fan of running most of the time.

Thanks for stopping by! I look forward to reading your blogs as well!

Friday fun

2012-01-20T16:23:00.004-05:00

I swear I'll be back next week with a real post (I have worked A LOT this week in addition to 5am wakeups for boot camp!)...but in the meantime this was too funny not to share.

I give you, the literal interpretation of "Party Rock Anthem."

HERE because Blogger is pissing me off and not embedding the video.

My favorite shot is of the guy shuffling the cards while the days of the week flash by, Grandparents Day, Arbor Day, etc. ("every day I'm shuffling"). Awesome.

Enjoy your weekend!

Creme de la Creme

2012-01-13T15:32:00.004-05:00

As last year dragged on and we were stamped as “INFERTILE” in June, I started trying to read blogs about infertility. Since we weren’t sure what was going on (other than CP’s lower than normal “good” sperm), I tried to find blogs about male factor infertility. Surprise, surprise….there isn’t much out there. But as I searched further, I came upon a great infertility resource: Stirrup Queens.

Want to know more about adoption? Anovulation? Surrogacy? The various fertility treatments? The various infertility tests? Do you need a how-to video for injections? This is your site. It’s pretty amazing. Every year Mel, the woman that runs the site, asks bloggers to submit their best post from the past year for the "Creme de la Creme." She writes a little blurb about what the post is about and puts a link to every single post up on January 1st. So far there are 219 (!) entries (I’m #14. Looking back probably not a very good post, but oh well).

The Creme is not just about infertility issues though. It's about pregnancy losses (those posts will BREAK YOUR HEART), adoption, having to leave Facebook, and everything inbetween.

I obviously don’t have the time to go through ALL of the entries, but what struck me (and saddened me) about every single post that I did read was that when I looked at more recent blog entries, the blogger was STILL not pregnant. This happened in every single entry except for TWO. Disappointing. Disheartening. So many other words come to mind- but certainly none of them are particularly hopeful.

So as I continue to wait for my period to return, thinking ahead to our first IUI, I’m not very hopeful that it is going to work. *sigh*

Exhausted

2012-01-12T15:45:00.001-05:00

Turns out getting up at 5am to workout every day this week makes this girl VERY TIRED.

I have been trying to make sure that I get in bed before 10pm but the past two nights have been hard. CP went to a concert Tuesday night as a fill-in for his friend’s sick wife. He didn’t get home until 11pm as I was drifting off to sleep. I was rudely awaken by the dogs who heard him come through the side door downstairs. They immediately barked (something that I’m okay with because a very loud and deep bark hopefully will scare off any would-be intruders) and ran downstairs. A sudden noise like that will send anyone’s heart racing!

Then last night I snuck out of a girl’s night event at 10:30pm so that I could head to bed. Because I was gone for the night, CP headed over to a friend’s house. When he got back at 11:30 he once again woke up the dogs with the same result of my heart racing again.

The result? Today I am EXHAUSTED. I had planned to run today after work but honestly? I just want to take a NAP. A bunch of my friends have come down with bugs this week so maybe I need to take tonight to rest so that I don't get sick? Maybe a run will have to wait until Saturday morning….

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So this morning I weighed myself prior to jumping in the shower. The first number I got was really high. I got off the scale, let it reset and got on again. Now I was 5.5 pounds lighter than the first number. Ummmm WHAT? I mean, I would LOVE to know how I lost 5.5 pounds in the span of 30 seconds. I’d like to do that more often!!

Maybe my scale needs new batteries??

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Sadly, this is my post for the day. My brain is not functioning on a high level right now and I can’t wait to leave work!!

Retirement

2012-01-09T14:57:00.002-05:00

Friday night CP and I went to the MOST elaborate retirement party I have ever seen. It was similar to a wedding. Held in a hotel conference room there were centerpieces at each table, a color scheme (purple), a huge cake (shaped like a purse), passed appetizers, dinner buffet, a slideshow of pictures of the retiree and friends/family/coworkers, favors (mini bottles of Cooks champagne), speeches, a dance floor, DJ, and two hours of open bar. It was ridiculous.

Then again, the retiree is the coworker in my division that had been with the company for over 31 years. That is a LONG TIME to be at one place. People flew in from a couple different states to celebrate her working career. She has never been married and therefore has never had the pleasure (ha ha) of planning a wedding, so her retirement party WAS her wedding.

I am happy that she has retired because I am busier at work. I’m still not doing stuff that I LOVE but this will be my job for the foreseeable future so I just have to live with it. Having said that, my company just lost a great employee. While at times she was passive aggressive and rude, she did some great work and a wealth of knowledge just walked out the door.

I just hope that I can step into the big shoes she left behind. It doesn’t come with a pay raise or a promotion…but hopefully more personal satisfaction?

Have you ever attended an over-the-top party?

Weight loss challenge/ Boot camp

2012-01-09T12:06:00.006-05:00

I joined the 10-pound Challenge hosted by Newlyweds on a Budget. Lose 10 pounds in 12 weeks, win $$$. Are you in?

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Two months ago a Groupon popped up for a boot camp class in my town. I convinced my friends to grab it and we decided to do the class together. They patiently waited while I recovered from surgery and we made a plan to start the class in January.

Well, our first class was yesterday and we have 30 days to get us whipped into shape (before the Groupon runs out). The workouts are based on Marine Corps workouts and remind me a bit of a Cross Fit workout. Today there were 6 different stations (burpees, medicine ball mountain climbers, moving planks, kettleball thrusts, large rope undulation, and TRX-assisted pikes) that we did for 30 seconds each before moving to the next station and getting ready for the next move within 15 seconds. After we did the circuit 4 (5? Ha! I don’t even remember!) times, we did burpees. LOTS of burpees. Sets and sets of burpees. Today was seriously the first time EVER I had the feeling that I might throw up during a workout (for the record I didn’t.)

I have no problems with the workout. It’s HARD and I am seriously out of shape (especially in my core because of the surgery). Most of the exercises seem to be for shoulders, core, or arms where most women (including me) have a lot of difficulty with strength. I wouldn’t mind more squats, lunges, etc. but I’m sure we will get to those. Plus I guess not doing as much lower body work is good if I am going to continue to try to run throughout the week (including today when I get home from work!).

But the trainers so far have yet to yell something at me that motivates me. For some reason I just want to tell them to SHUT UP. I would never think of talking back to Jillian Michaels like that while doing the 30 Day Shred. Maybe I like getting yelled at by a woman rather than a man? Maybe I just like more positive yelling?

Either way, I have 18 workouts left so I’m going to make the best of it and try to jump start getting back into shape. My friends both have kids so we are going to the 5:45am class which is SUPER EARLY for me. With my short commute these days I’m generally getting up around 6:30am. However for this class the 5am alarm is KILLER. But it is really nice to be done with my workout before heading into work. I wonder if I can continue to do that after the boot camp is over?

Do you exercise in the morning?

Waiting waiting waiting

2012-01-04T09:06:00.001-05:00

When trying to conceive, EVERYTHING is a waiting game. Waiting for your period to end. Waiting for ovulation. Waiting to see if you get your period.

These past few months have been nothing but a big long waiting game- except it has been much longer than the usual “two week wait.” Once I found out that I had to have surgery, it was then waiting to get the Lupron shot that would shut down my ovaries. From there it was waiting to get a surgery date. Now it’s waiting to see when I will get my period again. In addition, it is waiting until February to start trying again.

By the time next month rolls around, we will have lost HALF A YEAR of trying to conceive because of the fibroid. The waiting has been especially frustrating because we aren’t getting any younger.

But it is really going to be odd when we start trying again because it will have been so long. I feel so removed when I read other bloggers in the midst of charting and patiently (or not so patiently) waiting the requisite two weeks. Do I feel removed because I am not charting? Because I haven’t had my period since the beginning of September? Is it because we have been so busy with Buster it has taken my mind off getting pregnant?

Knowing that we had to wait this long has resulted in less stress. I’m not stressed about wondering if I am pregnant or not. I don’t have to worry about whether I am in the mood at the right time of the month or not. With not trying there is no Googling of possible pregnancy symptoms. There is no check the underwear every time you pee drill. There is no question of whether I should or should not drink alcohol, dye my hair, eat sushi, etc.

But I would rather be back in the game, stressed or not. Crazy behaviors and all.

The waiting continues….

Running recap of 2011

2012-01-03T15:42:00.002-05:00

Total miles run
2009- 117 miles

2010- 108 miles
2011- 256.55 miles

Miles per week

2009- 3 miles per week

2010- 3 miles per week
2011- 9 miles per week (despite taking Sept, Oct and Dec off)

Average Pace

2009- 13:03/mile (running/walking)

2010- 13:12/mile (running/walking)
2011- 11:53/mile

Calories burned

2009- 13,934

2010- 16,058
2011- 39,543

In 2010 my best month was November when I ran 21 miles.
In 2011 my best month was April when I ran 65.7 miles. That’s of course when I was training for the half marathon, so no surprise there.

Weight by month
March- 206
April- Not sure. One day I weighed 201, the next 207. I’m still confused about that one!
May- 202.5
June- 199
July- 198
August- 203
Sept- 205
Oct- 205
Nov- Forgot to do a post!
Dec- 211

I’m starting off 2012 with a weight of 209. Looking at the numbers above, it shows me just how important RUNNING is to losing weight. There is an OBVIOUS correlation in weight and the number of miles I put in running.

I MUST REMEMBER THIS while I am still trying to lose weight.

That being said, I’m pretty impressed with myself. Running 256 miles and burning almost 40,000 calories is awesome. While I may not get back into half marathon shape, I plan on being more consistent this year (PLANTAR FASCIITIS BE DAMNED!). I don’t want to call it a resolution, but…..

Bye 2011

2011-12-30T08:43:00.002-05:00

While I kept saying that 2011 was a sh*tty year, in the end it wasn’t so bad.

We started off the year with CP’s mortgage problem out west. While that mess was a pain and we are having to pay more, the loan will get paid off sooner.

Fuzzy’s britches seizure was awful. Thankfully she hasn’t showed any signs of another one. Recently we took her into the vet to get sedated for Xrays and found out that while she doesn't have arthritis, she does have a partial tear in the ligaments in her hind legs. Poor baby. We have an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon to find out if surgery is necessary/possible or if there are other treatments we can pursue.

Fibroid surgery was a success and I am fully recovered. I'm crossing my fingers that I get my period soon and that we are successful in getting pregnant this winter/spring!

The jaw surgery and braces may not have to happen because my teeth are starting to move back together now that I am not wearing my mouth guard. This would be fantastic news! As long as I can chew on the left side of my mouth and stop breaking teeth I'll be happy.

The 13 DAYS we spent without power this year because of Hurricane Irene and the freak October snowstorm sucked (especially while I was recovering from my surgery). But having the power off meant playing cribbage with CP with a lantern, getting to know our neighbors a bit better, and getting to know our friends that did have power better after we spent every night at their house for dinner!

Amazingly, I completed a half marathon. I'm still not sure how I did it! Of course my heels are still giving me problems, but I have started to wear this boot to bed and the pain is lessening.

2011 brought Buster into our family. He was a HANDFUL in the beginning, but is a smart, adorable, cuddly and loving puppy. I’m so glad that we made the decision to get him!

Our friendships in our town are deepening. I have a great group of girls to go to dinner with, hang out with, etc. CP even likes their husbands which is great. In addition our monthly dinner club has been a huge hit!

My awesome healthy family. Even though I don't get to see them as much as I would like, I talk to my parents all the time and I will be eternally grateful to my Mom for flying out after my surgery. It wasn't necessary as it certainly wasn't life or death but it was nice to have her help around the house...especially because we didn't have any power.

Far away friends that are all doing well.

We were able to take two vacations this year. One to Southern CA/Denver for weddings and then another to the Bahamas. Can’t complain about that.

Our garden has been great this year. Bumper crop of cherry tomatoes (man I miss picking them right off the vine and popping them in my mouth!), sugar snap peas, swiss chard, kale, etc. I’m crossing my fingers that our winter garden continues through the cold months. So far we have had great lettuce and swiss chard. Everything is definitely taking longer to grow, but that is to be expected.

My weight has steadily increased this year. I look back through my monthly posts and cringe. But I have started to try to run again and on January 10th my friends and I are going to be doing a high-intensity month-long boot camp.

Basically after clicking through the most powerful photos of 2011, I once again realized that my life is not all that bad.

Looking back, how was your 2011?

Weird holiday season

2011-12-29T10:43:00.001-05:00

In general this holiday season has been very weird. Thanksgiving was nice, but it came right after my surgery and recovery period. A scant two weeks later we left for the Bahamas. We had a week of work before Christmas, and then two weeks of four day work weeks. Let me be clear - I AM NOT COMPLAINING AT ALL. These past two months (other than surgery pain in November) have been pretty easy. Luckily it hasn’t been too busy at work because of the holidays or else I would probably be really behind!

But the random vacation in mid December, while it was fantastic, totally screwed me up. I rushed to get presents out the door before we left so that we didn’t have to pay extra in shipping. Despite the Christmas music playing during our vacation, the Christmas trees and decorations all over the Atlantis property, and the knowledge that Christmas was coming up, it didn’t FEEL like Christmas. 80 degree weather can do that to you.

So when CP and I got home? We put up outside lights, put the candles in the window (sooo New England-y of us), and neglected to decorate the inside of the house. Well, I guess the blame is mostly on me because as soon as we got back from the Bahamas, CP had to fly to OH for work and I was supposed to drag Christmas decorations out of the closet. But frankly, I was too lazy. We didn’t get a Christmas tree, we weren’t going to be around Christmas weekend anyway, so what was the point?

Maybe in some subconscious way I was displaying my unhappiness that our family hasn’t grown this year (in babies, not puppies). It would have been fantastic to put up a tree for a baby’s first Christmas or even to take pictures of me with a belly. But obviously that was not going to happen. Or maybe I’m just not a person that gets into the holidays that much. It takes effort. Effort that I hopefully want to expend once we do have kids.

On a side note, at least I wasn’t crying and grumpy this year when heading to CP’s family Christmas Eve and Christmas gatherings like two years ago. It certainly helps that I know everyone better, but I think that my mood stems from accepting the fact that I do have to share Christmas celebrations with CP’s family now. Next year we are headed back to Chicago (unless I can’t fly from pregnancy)!

Do you have problems getting into the holiday spirit?

Decisions decisions

2011-12-28T09:02:00.002-05:00

Last week was our latest doctor’s appointment at the fertility clinic. CP and I went to discuss our options with the doctor now that the fibroid and the endometriosis is out of my body.

Right now we have three options: try on our own, an IUI, or IVF.

From age 30-35 (I’m 33), a Fertile person has a 15-20% chance of getting pregnant in a given month.

Same age range, but with an Infertile person the percentage drastically decreases to less than 5% in a given month (my surgery probably knocks me up a few percentage points, but not all of the way to that of a Fertile person).

If we decide to go the Clomid/IUI route, the percentage for my age increases to 10-12%.

If we try injectables with IUI, the percentage increases a bit more to 15-18%.

If the 3 IUIs that my insurance cover don’t work then IVF is our next step (you have to have a major justification to jump to IVF without trying an IUI first). The percentage of pregnancies after an IVF procedure jump to 50%!! I had no idea that you had a 50/50 shot of getting pregnant after IVF. According to my doctor my insurance covers 2 IVF procedures, but I’m not sure that’s correct AND getting CP on board for an IVF might be very difficult. Boy is it expensive if insurance doesn’t cover it though- $15,000-$20,000!!

In general I’m a bit confused coming away from the appointment. The doctor that did my surgery said that the endometriosis was the reason that I wasn’t getting pregnant, while this doctor said that it was the fibroid. Both of them are now out of my system but what if there is something else wrong? From my research (and what the surgery doctor told me), fibroids generally don’t keep you from getting pregnant, they generally cause a woman to miscarry. As far as I know, I have never been even a little pregnant.

We have been told that the most fertile time for me to get pregnant will be the first few months after my uterus has healed. Depending on when I get my first period since early September, we can start trying sometime in February. The question is- do we try on our own or do we go the IUI route? I asked about any side effects of Clomid and the doctor said there are usually two. Hot flashes (OH BOY THOSE AGAIN!) and PMS-like symptoms. That’s nothing too major- especially if I am only taking the medication for 5 days. Meanwhile, CP and I both remarked that we aren’t getting any younger. CP will be turning 36 in June and if we want to have two kids we need to starting getting on board the pregnancy train. But it would be nice to be like a “normal” couple and get pregnant on our own.

Decisions, decisions. We don’t have to make the call right now but we do have to think about it in the next month. Do we risk my most fertile months by trying on our own? Not only do we risk fertile months passing us by, but every month I don’t get pregnant is a month closer to when another fibroid could form or endometriosis could come back. So should we jump onto the IUI train?

Happy holidays!

2011-12-23T09:42:00.005-05:00

Happy holidays!

I hope you have a safe and wonderful weekend!

P.S. No animals were hurt during this photo shoot....except for maybe their egos! :-)

Almost Wordless Wednesday- Bahamas edition!

2011-12-21T08:59:00.000-05:00

Our Bahamas trip in pictures (at least the ones that I can show because we are not in them)....

We had free access to Atlantis which was AWESOME because they had a fun water park. I didn't think that I would still enjoy a water park at age 33, but it's a blast. This was one of the slides in the park- you could challenge someone to see who hit the water first. On the back side of this "Mayan Temple" is the slide that is shown in the commercials for Atlantis. It is a huge drop off, then you go through a tube that is surrounded by sharks before you hit the pool at the end. Very cool. By the end of the week we went down all of the different slides (half you went down with just your body, half you were in a tube) at least once.

We also enjoyed the "Raging Rapids"- think lazy river except with rapids while you are floating down in a one or two-person tube. That was especially fun after a few mango daquiris!

Atlantis has a HUGE aquarium where you can view all of the various fishes, sharks, manta rays, etc. three different ways- outside near the pools, in tunnels, and in a tube where the animals can swim right over your head. Here we were outside watching a funny looking shark swim around.

Hammerhead shark

Reef shark swimming above us in the tube.

This was the pool and a view of the condos where we stayed.

A local Bahamian restaurant where we had a delicious conch salad (think ceviche just with conch instead of shrimp or fish). Mmmm.

The amazingly turquoise waters of the Bahamas.

The horses in downtown Nassau all wore hats. Adorable!

One afternoon CP and I wandered around Paradise Island. I was ready to head home because my feet hurt when we came upon this place. Very pretty, even though we have no idea what this place was or who owned the property.

We did a total of three days of diving with Stuart's Cove Dive Shop. The reefs weren't that amazing, but we did get to do some wreck dives which was cool. A lot of celebrities dive with this shop so they had pictures all over the place with the various celebs (Matt Damon, Heidi Klum, Andy Samberg, etc.). One of our dives took us to an underwater Cessana plane used in one of the James Bond films.

View from the dive shop

Our last day of diving we went SHARK DIVING! The whole experience was very cool. We were surrounded by ~30 reef sharks for about 40 minutes. The dive masters had to wear chainmail because they fed the sharks the chum via a long stick. No cages for us which made me especially nervous, but after a while I relaxed and enjoyed the experience. The dive masters stressed keeping our hands as close to our body as possible, no sudden movements, etc. Towards the end a shark was gliding past me and I bravely stuck two fingers out to touch its body as it glided by. Very cool.

Overall we had a fantastic time at a very beautiful place. :-)

Back from vacation

2011-12-20T15:46:00.003-05:00

Our Bahamas vacation got off to an awful start on the 9th. We show up for our 10am flight at 8:15am. We park the car in the economy lot and head to the check in desk. There is no one lined up and no one behind the desk, so I swipe my credit card into the Jet Blue machine.

That's funny. The machine is telling me that I can't check in earlier than 24 hours in advance or within 30 minutes of my flight.

CP walked over to the departure screen....there was a 8:15am flight down to Fort Lauderdale, but nothing at 10am. He glares at me, then asks if we are supposed to be on the 8:15am flight. I check my iPhone calendar and confirm that we are supposed to be on a 10am flight. But then I check the Orbitz travel reservation printed out just a few days prior (that I clearly never glanced at) and OH NO we were supposed to be on the 8:15am flight. WTF??!??

With no one at the desk, I dialed the Jet Blue contact number and grabbed a baggage handler to ask if they could get a Jet Blue person at the desk. A Jet Blue representative comes out and proceeds to tell me that the flight time had changed and that I should have received an email from Orbitz telling me about the flight change (she also said this happened to someone yesterday so I didn't feel so stupid). Luckily there were seats on the late afternoon flight out to Fort Lauderdale and we were able to get on that flight for no cost.

I was thankful that CP didn't get angry because really, what would we have done? Yes we were arriving in the Bahamas a few hours after our originally scheduled time, but it could be worse.

With no flight for hours, CP and I went out to breakfast and did some Christmas shopping before heading back to the airport. The flight to Fort Lauderdale kept getting delayed and we only had an hour between flights as it was. Halfway through the flight I asked the flight attendants to see if people would stay in their seats so that we could run to our next flight (I would have thrown in a "but it's our honeymoon!" if needed). Thankfully the people in front of us complied and we ran to our next flight, making it just in time!

The rest of the trip was smooth sailing after the rocky start. I had a great birthday- a wonderful facial at the spa, fun at the water park, many mango daquiris and then an amazingly delicious dinner at the Mesa Grill, a Bobby Flay restaurant.

Other than the HIGH HIGH HIGH prices for food (we got a little bitter towards that at the end), we had a great week. Pictures to come tomorrow!

Bahamas baby!

2011-12-09T08:09:00.000-05:00

After a flight to FL that leaves this morning, a three hour layover, and then a flight to Nassau, CP and I will be in 80 degree weather for the next 8 days. I can’t wait. I will most likely get sick due to the weather change, either when we get there or coming back but WHO CARES!

The past couple of years I have been calling my birthday my “Pretty Princess Day” because it annoys CP (ha ha). I will be turning 33 (!) tomorrow while we are in the Bahamas….so I think that calling it my “Pretty Princess Week” is in order. :-) We don’t have anything specific planned, probably just head out for a nice dinner. We don’t have ANY part of the vacation planned which usually works out well for us. I will be getting a facial at some point in the week (CP said that he would give me one for free- HEY-O) and we will do at least a day of scuba diving, but in general our plan is to RELAX.

Needless to say, no blogging until I get back. Try not to freeze too much while I am gone. :-)

Nook books

2011-12-06T14:25:00.000-05:00

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

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home by Rhoda Janzen
2 stars
A woman whose husband leaves her for a man he met on gay.com only a week after a horrible car accident heads home to her Mennonite family for solace. I wanted to like this book. The author has a sharp wit and remembers minute details about various stories. However, she jumps around so much while telling stories I would often get lost. The book needed to be more structured.

Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man: A Memoir by Bill Clegg
4 stars
I am such a sucker for stories about addictions. Bill Clegg was a literary agent who walked away from his job, boyfriend, and home to go on a two month crack binge. As usual, I was horrified but couldn’t put it down.

Run by Ann Patchett
3 stars
Two families come together unexpectedly after a traffic accident in a snowstorm. I think that this may be the last Ann Patchett book I read because nothing compares to Bel Canto. The story was interesting enough, but I certainly wasn’t rushing back to the book.

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
4 stars
In the days following the Hurricane Katrina Syrian-American Abdulrahman Zeitoun travels the city by canoe, feeding abandoned animals and helping elderly neighbors. On September 6th police officers armed with M-16s arrest Zeitoun in his own home. Some of the background information on Abdulrahman Zeitoun and his family dragged at times, but overall this true story makes for a riveting book. It’s so amazingly sad that this actually happened in the US.

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall
3 stars (basically 3.5 stars)
Golden Richards, polygamist, is having a midlife crisis. His family is in turmoil, his business is failing, and he hasn’t dealt with the deaths of two of his kids. I wanted to like this book more, but didn’t like Golden, the main character in the book. When the author told the story through one of Golden’s sons and one of his wives I found the book to be a lot better.

Have you read any good books lately?

Restless

2011-12-05T14:29:00.004-05:00

This weekend I felt restless. Walking was just not cutting it.

On Thursday CP and I had taken the dogs for a walk and let them off their leashes at a park. I started to jog to get the dogs to run around a little more and lo and behold, it didn’t hurt! So on Saturday I decided that I would go out for a jog to see how it felt. Technically I am not supposed to run for another two weeks but I was feeling pretty good.

I decided to start allllll the way back at the beginning. Week 1, Day 1 of Couch to 5K. I haven’t truly been consistently running since MAY when I ran the half marathon, so there was no need to kill myself. Plus I figured that if my body could handle it, I would try to run at a 10 minute/mile pace instead of my usual 11.

I’m proud to say I DID IT!! With no pain near any of my incisions! The only pain I felt was afterwards- in my heels of course. This plantar fasciitis is killing me! It’s already been a year of pain….maybe it’s time to think about the boot that I can wear at night…

Oh yeah that is sexy- aka poor CP

I stretched out when I got home but was definitely sore yesterday and was sore when I woke up today. Today during lunch I ran Week 1, Day 2 and it also didn’t hurt.

I guess I should start thinking about goals. Three days a week of running through winter? What will be my first race back?

The State of NSC- November 2011

2011-12-01T09:48:00.001-05:00

A monthly take on my world.

Weight: 211. YIKES. I’m not sure if I am getting ready to get my first period in a while or if I really have gained that weight (I guess it’s possible although two weeks ago I was around 204). Looks like I need to start weighing myself weekly and post it so that I am paying more attention to what is going in my mouth because this is EMBARASSING!

Current Feeling: Fat. I am wearing the same black pants into work on the days that I go into the office because I am nervous to try on some of my other work pants. I’m pretty sure they are not going to fit. (Thank goodness for Jeans Friday even though I can’t fit into my jeans right now…). I have been walking at least once a day but it doesn’t seem to be helping.

Running Stats (taking a break until the new year from running to rest my heels/recuperate from surgery)
Total Miles Run: 0
Time Spent Running: 0:00
Longest Single Run: 0

Current aches and pains: Despite my lack of running, my plantar fasciitis is back! It’s so ridonkulous that I have been talking about this for A WHOLE YEAR. JUST GO AWAY. Other than sharp stabbing pains at random moments near one of my incisions (good times), I don’t have much pain from my surgery anymore.

Current Favorite Song: Fitz & the Tantrums- “Moneygrabber”

Looking forward to: Our trip to the Bahamas in 8 days!! My birthday in 9 days! Christmas in 24 days!

Annoyed about: I am going to look like crap in a bathing suit for our trip. I curse my MIL for bringing down the apple pie and pumpkin cheesecake for Thanksgiving as I’m sure it didn’t help with my current belly.

Proud about: Frankly, nothing right now. Booooo.

How are you feeling with the start of this new month?

Almost Wordless Wednesday

2011-11-30T09:29:00.000-05:00

Saturday morning my MIL and I got up early to hit the New Haven Flea Market. My coworker told me about the market- she went last year and found North Face, Tiffany jewelry knockoffs, Ugg boots, etc. She did warn me that she heard the place got raided earlier this year so the merchandise might be a little different.

My MIL LOVES flea markets so we headed down, unsure of what we would find. I should have taken a picture, but it was rows and rows and rows of fake purses (every label imaginable- Coach, Hermes, Dolce & Gabbana, etc.), jewelry, clothes, music, rugs, etc. It was pretty impressive, despite the fact that some of it was repetitive.

Sorry about my manly-looking hands but I got these three rings for $1 each. Super cute!

I have needed a clutch for a while and this fake Burberry clutch fit my iPhone and was only $7. Score!

I have also wanted a light gray purse for a while and this fit the bill as it was only $10. It's not my favorite, but for $10 it works!

My favorite purchase was the moose hat. CP HATES it which means I love it. Ha! Actually I have been threatening to get a hat like this for a while....once I found one (only $8!) for an adult (they also other animals like a cat and a cow), I knew it was allllll mine.

I wouldn't head to this flea market every weekend but it was not bad. All four purchases added up to less than $30 which is a good day of shopping for me!

Do you own a piece of clothing that your significant other hates?

Baby shower

2011-11-29T16:27:00.001-05:00

Today my office held a baby shower for a coworker who is due in the beginning of January. I have to admit, it was a little hard. I am, of course, very happy for her. I have no idea if she had problems conceiving or how long they tried to have a child but at this point it doesn’t matter as she is almost to the finish line.

But during the shower my mind kept wandering to whether the office will ever get to throw ME a baby shower. Will I ever get to complain about a lack of sleep because I am too uncomfortable and big? Will I get to talk about the labor and delivery tour that I took of the hospital? Will I get to ask older coworkers about whether I should take a Lamaze class (it’s not applicable to me because I have to have a c-section, but still)?

When she was opening her presents I oooohed and aaaaahed with everyone. I mean everything is just so small and adorable! But afterwards while in a circle talking with the mother-to-be and four older women who all have kids I tried to play down my knowledge of giving birth/all things babies because I didn’t want to tip anyone off that we had been trying….or that I read pregnancy blogs…..or have talked about giving birth/pregnancy with friends that have kids.

Thankfully, the “NSC you are NEXT!” was not uttered. I have to be honest that I contemplated NOT going to the baby shower because I am literally the only childless married person in the office of child bearing age. The few others who could get pregnant or get someone pregnant are not in long term relationships (except for the gay guy and I don’t think pregnancy for either him or his partner is in the cards). I was terrified that someone was going to say something and I don’t know what my reaction would have been. Turn bright red? Start crying? Make a sarcastic deflective remark? Suddenly clam up? I have no idea.

These days not knowing what my reaction is going to be is tough. The hope that I have of getting pregnant is still tempered. I am still planning things for the spring thinking that we won’t be pregnant. If I didn’t do that I am not sure how emotionally stable I would be right now because if I can’t look forward to a pregnancy, I need to look forward to something else.

Non sequitur thoughts

2011-11-25T12:30:00.003-05:00

Why does Buster feel the need to lay down in the bathroom every time I need to pee? He always cocks his head trying to figure out where the sound is coming from which is hilarious….but still. Why does he feel the need? Is it because I watch him pee every day? At least he gets praised while doing that- I just get a weird look!

CP and I realized that for the next few months while my uterus is healing we are going to actually have to prevent pregnancy. An odd concept after trying for a year and half with no results. But if what the doctor said is true (that CP’s sperm is okay and the endometriosis was the reason we couldn’t get pregnant), then we will have to be careful. Now I just have to wait and see if my periods are going to go back to normal cycles. *crossing fingers*

So I finally decided to check out Pinterest after hearing so much about it from you guys. I love the idea, but why do you have to request to get an invite? That is kind of annoying.

I think that this extra workload is going to be around for a while. The coworker who was put on a special assignment wrote on another coworker’s Facebook wall that she will be retiring at the end of the year. Since she is older, I don’t think that she is very tech savvy….so I’m not sure that she knows that I could see her post. My company won’t be hiring anyone to fill her position so although I hate my job, at least I’ll stay busy.

Would you get falsies for your dog? We will be fixing Buster after he turns a year old (waiting that long is better for his joints since he is a bigger breed) and CP wants to get false balls put in. I think that the idea is absolutely ridiculous, but CP claims that Buster needs them. Someone mentioned that Kim Kardashian had falsies put in for her dog and I keep asking CP if he really wants to be like Kim Kardashian…..but that doesn’t seem to sway him. Thoughts?

I'm not happy that I am working today, but at least I don't work in retail and have to deal with crazy shoppers. What happened to spending time with your family on a holiday? I feel bad for all of the hourly workers that have to deal with people that PEPPER SPRAY others just for a discount. Unfortunately I think that stores are helping create chaos by holding these intense sales for only one day and at weird hours when people are tired/drunk. Why not buy more of the in-demand products and spread out the discounts throughout a weekend or a week? Even if the stores don't make the discounts as steep they could get more people through the door, produce less craziness, and get more product moved. Do you shop on Black Friday?

Comment so that I can be entertained during my very boring work day today!

Turkey Day!

2011-11-23T10:24:00.004-05:00

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I am so excited about all of the yummy food that CP is making! CP’s grandmother, his mom and her husband are coming down from NH later today. We would have gone up to NH with the dogs, however I have to work on Friday. :-(

As usual, CP is planning on making way too much food for only 5 people. But at least I know where he gets it from- his mom is baking 4 (!!) pies (AGAIN) to bring down which is so ridiculous. Her excuse is that her friend and friend’s brother will be stopping by for dessert on Thursday night. Luckily I only like two of the desserts so I won’t be tempted by the other two.

Our meal:

Butternut squash bisque
Salad with pears and gorgonzola cheese (featuring lettuce from our garden!)
Turkey (currently sitting in a maple brine)
Mashed potatoes
Wild rice salad (healthier than stuffing)
Roasted root veggies (carrots, parsnips, turnips, sweet potatoes)
Kale and bacon
Cranberry sauce (since CP is the only one to eat it he got it in can form this year)
Gravy
Dinner rolls (made by me!)

Dessert:

Pecan Pie
Squash Pie
Apple Pie
Pumpkin Cheesecake
Vanilla Bean Ice Cream (made by me!)

Interested in what our meal looked like in 2010 and 2009?

Does your family make too much food for Thanksgiving? How many people are you having over to your house? Whatever you are doing, I hope that you have a great Turkey Day!

Looking forward to warm weather

2011-11-18T09:27:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I alluded to our upcoming vacation….in three weeks CP and I will be headed to the Bahamas (Paradise Island to be exact)! My parents have a time share so we are staying right next to Atlantis FOR FREE. Yay for a free hotel!

Check out that water!!!

We really haven’t planned this vacation too much. Partly because that is our m.o. for vacations and partly because we have been too busy with having no power, my surgery, etc. I have been to the Bahamas before, but it was a quick cruise so I only got to spend a couple of hours on each island. CP has never been down there before so it will all be new to him!

This is not our usual type of vacation because it is a pretty touristy place. We certainly aren’t going to complain, but I think that it is going to be hard to get to a local restaurant to sample REAL food….not just the meal plan Atlantis tries to push on you (which we didn't get. $69/day? Ridonkulous). But, we are going to try to find a grocery store (locals have to get their food somewhere right?) to search out weird and new things to eat as we have a full kitchen where we are staying.

Has anyone been there? Do you have suggestions on things to do there? How about a nice restaurant? We will be there during my birthday which means we will be headed out for a nice dinner! I think that we are going to try to do one day of scuba diving. The doctor has cleared me for that, but I have a feeling that the doctor doesn’t realize how heavy the tank is out of the water. :-) I’ll just have to see how my stomach is feeling when we get down there. Other than that we have no plans except for kicking it at the pool/beach drinking fruity drinks.

Warm weather awaits…..

Back on the horse

2011-11-17T15:23:00.002-05:00

Today is the first day that I am allowed to drive….but that’s not what I am excited about. Today is the first day since my surgery that I am allowed to exercise!* It’s just walking, but at least it’s something.

During lunch today I took Buster on a 25 minute walk. After that I took Fuzzy Britches for a 20 minute walk. For the most part, it felt great. I had a dull pain in my lower right abdomen, close to one of my incisions, but it was manageable. I have it when I am just walking around our house on a daily basis anyway, but I made sure not to push it too much.

So walking is my only allowable form of exercise for another three weeks or so. It’s frustrating, but I can only imagine how much pain running would produce. Even though I can only walk, it would be nice to lose a few pounds before our vacation- does anyone have any suggestions for walking weight off (other than just walk a lot? Ha ha.)? I know that losing weight/toning up is 75% eating right so I’m adding more salads/healthy things….the good news is that my two weeks off from the surgery didn’t add any weight to my body. I never asked the doctor if I could do squats, lunges, etc. so I’m guessing those are out of the question….along with weights. What is a girl to do??

*I sort of cheated and took Buster for a 25 minute walk yesterday because I had to get out of the house! Shhhhh.

Almost Wordless Wednesday

2011-11-15T14:42:00.013-05:00

This is what our street looks like 2 1/2 weeks after Winter Storm Alfred. Our town has promised to pick up the tree branches- we just aren't sure when.

The dogs have enjoyed their new chew toys.....

Especially this limb....

Fuzzy Britches' favorite thing these days is to squeeze herself into the smallest places possible....here it is under a side table.

Being at home while CP works has made me bored....so I made a test batch of dinner rolls for Thanksgiving. They turned out great!

We also had very brown bananas so I made banana bread muffins with raisins. Yum!

Despite lots of leaf stalks breaking due to Winter Storm Alfred, the brussel sprout plants are surviving and the sprouts are getting bigger!

Winter beets are looking good under our winter greenhouse.

Spinach on the left, swiss chard on the right and out-of-control lettuce in the back!

New trees

2011-11-15T09:04:00.009-05:00

Earlier this summer, we received an advertisement from the Arbor Day Foundation. If we joined (for only $10), we would receive 10 free trees and 2 shrubs for planting (the trees you receive depend on your location in the country)! We don't have a ton of room in our small yard, but we have been looking for a tree for the front yard and we would love a nice shrub to cover up the concrete wall on the back of the garage....so we sent in the membership fee and promptly forgot about it.

Fast forward to Saturday. What looked like a newspaper bag arrived in the mail with 10 dormant trees and 2 dormant shrubs. The instructions suggested planting them in a raised bed or garden for a year so that the tree doesn't have to compete against weeds. Because of our winter garden we didn't have any room for the trees in our raised beds so I decided to plant them in pots. I planted all of them in case some don't make it (if all of them end up surviving I will have to find family, neighbors, or friends to plant the leftovers!).

The dormant sticks

I am hoping that the trees survive the winter. I can either leave them near the side of the house (where they are now) or bring them inside to our sunporch. They will get more sun outside, but will obviously be subjected to the cold. If I bring them inside they will still get some sun (but not full sun) and will stay at least above freezing. Any thoughts on what we should do?

Meanwhile, this is what the trees will look like YEARS down the road....

Crapemyrtle

Eastern Redbud

Sargent Crabapple

Washington Hawthorn

White Flowering Dogwood

*I was not asked to write about the Arbor Day Foundation- I just wanted to get the word out!

Finally some good news in 2011

2011-11-14T12:22:00.002-05:00

With every passing day, I feel a little bit better. Today I was able to get out of bed unassisted with only a twinge of pain in my stomach. That is quite a difference from a week ago when getting out of bed by myself elicited moans of pain. My doctor is allowing me to work from home this week and thank goodness he did (and that my company allows that)- I was getting extremely bored at home while CP did work. Turns out there is only so much tv you can watch (and that’s when we had power).

I had my post-op appointment on Thursday. I had wanted to post about it on Friday but OUR POWER WENT OUT AGAIN. I was seriously going to shoot someone, anyone. But luckily it came back on in the late afternoon and lives were spared. :-) The appointment went great. The doctor usually sees patients two weeks out so he was surprised to see how well I was doing only a week out.

Basically he believes that the reason that CP and I have been unable to get pregnant is because of the endometriosis* he found during the surgery. To recap, the doctor found three things: the fibroid, endometriosis, and a cyst.

-The cyst that he found was not a big deal (it was benign) and he removed it because if we ever do IVF down the road, it can be mistaken for a follicle.

-The fibroid was big (size of a baseball) and stretched my uterine wall. It probably would have caused a miscarriage, but wouldn’t have hindered actually getting pregnant. He took pictures that I REALLY wanted to see (because I’m weird like that) but couldn’t pull them up while we were in the office. Boooo.

-The endo was a surprise to find. I don’t have any of the symptoms (bleeding in between periods, pain during sex), but the doctor said that often times people don’t have symptoms (the one symptom that I did have was irregularly heavy bleeding during periods but that is also a symptom for fibroids too). The only way to really know if you have endo is to have laparoscopic surgery (less invasive than mine). I obviously no longer need to have that surgery as my doctor was able to remove all of the endo. I guess I was kind of lucky to already be heading in for surgery for the fibroid because I got a two-for-one surgery! Ha ha. I was a “Level 2” endo patient which means that it wasn’t too bad, but it was located in a bunch of different places. I didn’t have any scar tissue from the endo which is great news.

My doctor looked through our health records and concluded that the endo was likely the sole reason I wasn’t getting pregnant. He checked CP’s sperm analysis and although the number of “good sperm” swimming around is low, CP is producing more than the normal amount of semen and should have enough good sperm to get my pregnant. This was music to CP’s ears. It also made me happy because this is what I wanted all along….to be the reason that we didn’t get pregnant because it is often easier to fix whatever is wrong with the woman than it is to fix what is wrong with the man.

We do have to wait until the end of January to start trying again (for my uterus to heal), but my doctor said that we have a great chance of doing it on our own now that the endo is gone! In about a week and a half the Lupron will be out of my system and I’m hoping to get my period sometime soon afterwards (but who knows how long that is going to take). I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much….

* Endometriosis is the growth of endometrial tissue-which normally lines the uterus-in other parts of the body. Endometriosis typically grows in the abdominal cavity and most often attaches to the ovaries, fallopian tubes, outer surface of the uterus, bowels, or other abdominal organs. Endometriosis growths, called implants or lesions, often bleed during menstruation, causing pain. They may also develop scar tissue (adhesions) that can interfere with an organ's normal function. Scar tissue can also cause pain and difficulty becoming pregnant.

Recovery

2011-11-10T09:53:00.000-05:00

This week has been at times painful, at times boring, and at times annoying. The first night in the hospital was a mix of short bouts of sleep, then bouts of pain. I asked for morphine twice and then decided that twice was enough for me. The second time I think that the morphine resulted in a 30 minute long hot flash which originally convinced me that I had an infection in one of the incision sites (temperature turned out fine).

CP brought cut up pineapple that I tried to eat throughout the night. The nurse brought water and ginger ale- the latter to help move the CO2 gas out of my stomach.* At 2:30am the nurse had me sit up in bed which felt like my insides were ripping apart. Eventually I stood up with shaking legs and walked around the nurse's station (walking helps with soreness the next day).

After getting discharged with a prescription of Percocet and Motrin, CP took me home to no power (thankfully he hooked heat up to the generator Thursday night). I feel asleep on the couch while he picked up my mom at the airport.

My mom was here until Monday morning and was a big help. She helped CP move fallen limbs from Winter Storm Alfred, wash dishes and take care of me. I know that she would have done more cleaning-wise if we only had power! After EIGHT DAYS of no power, it finally came on Sunday night- and thank goodness. Reading put me right to sleep, now at least I can fall asleep to the tv.

I feel better than I thought I would. Walking isn't too difficult, it's just sitting up. I have someone help me when they are around because otherwise it is seriously painful. Having to pee in the middle of the night is the worst because I would feel bad asking CP to wake up to help me get out of bed. Also, weird movements trigger pain.

Even more painful than sitting up is the constipation. Percocet and Motrin both constipate people which the doctors warned me about. They didn't warn me that a stool softener once a day and five laxatives in addition to fiber-friendly foods would result in the most painful bowel movement I have ever had on Monday. Thank goodness that is over with....

Today I have some bruising and soreness around all of the incisions which is normal. My belly is still inflamed, but hopefully that goes down soon. Cross your fingers my post-op appointment goes well today!

*During the procedure the doctors pump CO2 gas into the stomach to blow it up. After the procedure they remove as much as possible, but inevitably leave some. The gas is eventually absorbed by your body, but often patients have shoulder pain for a day or two after surgery like I did.

Fertility busters

2011-11-09T09:23:00.000-05:00

As you saw from yesterday's post, I survived my surgery. During my surgery I was placed on a table with an incline with my head towards the floor. I guess it helps to move the organs out of the way for the robotic arms to do their job. It took a little bit longer than expected because while the doctor said during the pre-op appointment that he would take a look around my uterus to make sure there was nothing else going on, he didn't expect to find a cyst and endometriosis.

I had some trouble waking up after surgery. CP was supposed to be able to see me afterwards (the doctor finished around 4:30pm) but around 6:30pm he left to take out the dogs and feed them. I remember being wheeled from the recovery room to my hospital room and every time we hit a bump it HURT. Once we got to the room I asked for CP and the nurses told me that he had to go home so I didn't get to see him until 8pm or so.

When CP told me about the extra infertility-causing items in my uterus, I was surprised, crushed and in a way, relieved. I guess I always figured that it couldn't just be the fibroid and CP's sperm. Maybe now that my uterus has been cleaned out CP and I won't even need the help of a fertility doctor?

But then again, cysts, fibroids, and endometrosis ALL can come back. Whichever way we work on getting pregnant, we need to do it as soon as my uterus heals (three months) so that the pregnancy will keep those things away. I definitely don't want to have to go on Lupron again, take birth control or go through another surgery.

I survived!

2011-11-08T11:19:00.001-05:00

This is what I tried to post from my phone in the wee hours of Friday morning:

Surgery went okay. It ended up lasting 4.5 hours. I didn't get a chance to talk to my doctor afterwards, but CP talked to him. Not only did I have a baseball-sized fibroid tumor, but the doctor also found and removed endometriosis AND a benign cyst. Triple threat!

No wonder we haven't been able to get pregnant!!!

Morphine is the bomb-diggity but the after-effects of anethestia suck. Everytime i get cold i start to shake uncontrollably. That doesn't make my belly area feel good at all.

Going under

2011-11-02T14:10:00.001-04:00

Fibroid surgery is tomorrow. I’m not worried about it because I am too busy at work and then when we are home, we are dealing with the whole no power ordeal. I keep telling myself that having no power could be worse, but then again, how sanitary are things going to be around my house when I get home from surgery if we don’t have power? We have been heating water on the stove (thank goodness for a gas stove) in order to wash dishes, but we would have to heat a lot of water for a shower!

CP found a Courtyard about an hour away that has an open room for the weekend and was urging me to go there (worried about me? Or not wanting to deal with my complaining? A little of both?). I don’t want to spend the money- I also worry about being able to sit in a car for an hour. I would just rather be home than in a hotel. I’ll hopefully sleep most of the powerless-days away anyway. I HAD planned on a bunch of trash tv watching, but with the power out I guess I will read a lot of books and be very very bored.

Our power company says our electricity should be back on by Sunday at midnight. My timeline until then:

*CP and I head to the hospital tomorrow morning at 10:30am.
*Surgery starts at 12pm.
*Surgery should last until 3pm or so.
*I stay the night at the hospital with heat and electricity (CP will go home to be with the dogs).
*Friday morning I am released from the hospital to a home with no power, heat, hot water, etc.
*Friday afternoon CP picks up my mom from the airport. My poor mom is flying out for the weekend to help CP out and will have to wear sweaters all weekend and a headlamp! Moms are great.

At least the temperatures for the next five days should be in the 50s during the day.

I may not be posting for a bit. First we have to get our power on. Second I have to be able to sit at a computer (my work laptop does not allow for WiFi and we don’t have a tablet) long enough to craft a post. I’ll try to at least update that I survived! :-)

In the meantime, I have a few restrictions for the next couple of weeks:

*Stairs only once a day so that means staying on the first floor all day (where we have a bathroom, the couch near the fireplace, and the kitchen) until I am ready for bed.
*No driving for two weeks (!)
*No walking for exercise for two+ weeks.
*No lifting anything for a month.
*Eating, showering, etc. should be normal, but I won’t have much of an appetite when I am on the heavy drugs the first couple of days.
*I may have some pain the first couple of days as the CO2 they have to pump into my stomach gets absorbed into my body. It tends to be pain in your right shoulder (weird).
*I will likely have bruising and soreness for a week+ in my incision points.

As my doctor said, this is major surgery on the inside (to the uterus), but not major surgery on the outside.

…..And here we go!

Winter Storm Alfred

2011-11-01T15:33:00.006-04:00

Winter Storm “Alfred” hit our town at 12pm on Saturday. CP and I were in the middle of trying to put up greenhouse plastic on our raised beds when the snow started. Afterwards we had lunch, ran a few errands and came home before the roads got bad. By 4pm, in the middle of doing laundry, our power went out.

The dogs when it first started to snow

The greenhouse plastic held up through the storm!

Out came the headlamps and hand-crank lantern we bought after Hurricane Irene. We grabbed bags full of wood to start the fire. Heavy snow mixed with the leaves still on our trees spelled disaster. Soon after we started to hear tree limbs crack and fall down to the ground- at least one every five minutes. That continued through Sunday morning.

Our street is a mess

At least the dogs are enjoying the snow (Sunday morning)

Buster's first snow (he LOVED it)!

The first two nights we slept downstairs on the floor in front of the fire in our sleeping bags with the dogs. Last night we decided to sleep upstairs in our bed because the low was only going to be 30 (only! Ha ha) and our backs were a little sore. CP was able to procure a generator from a coworker yesterday so we were able to save the hundreds of dollars of homemade food and CSA beef in our downstairs freezer. Work has power so I have been there the past two days. Going into work means the ability to take a hot shower and the chance to plug in my phone.

There are no estimates on when we will get our power back and my town looks like a war zone. Things could be worse though. We have tons of limbs down in our front and backyard from neighbor’s trees, but nothing hit our house or cars. It would just be nice to have power….and heat….and grocery stores/gas stations/ATMs/etc. open.

Friday dump

2011-10-28T12:26:00.002-04:00

Wow. The work week flies by when you don’t post (or don’t really have any time to read other people’s posts)! My life these days:

Work has been crazy. Trying to attend meetings and get caught up on reading background for projects that were just explained to me the day before is stressful. Not only do I have projects from the person that is leaving, but new projects are getting announced that I am a part of so most of my day is sitting through trainings or conferences.

I met with my oral surgeon for my jaw surgery. Because my teeth started to move right after my wedding (when I started to wear a night guard for grinding), he thinks that the guard could possibly be moving my teeth. He had me not wear the guard while sleeping for a month and already my bite has closed 1 millimeter! We are going to wait another three months to see if my bite moves back to normal even more and then depending on where the teeth sit, I MAY NOT HAVE TO GET MY JAW BROKEN!!! I might still need braces, but frankly if my teeth are not perfect and I can at least chew on both sides of my mouth, I could put braces off for a little bit.

Last weekend CP and I had our cookout. We had perfect weather and a good turnout. Buster was a little scared with all of the new people- he would bark at them- but he got better as the day wore on. The kids weren’t huge fans of the barking, but everyone made friends with the dogs at some point. Both dogs were very excited to get all of the dropped food. I didn’t end up having enough time to run out and get any of your suggested toys for the kids but it turns out that we didn’t need any! The kids spent an entire hour giggling and having a blast while going in and out of the doggie door. Kids can make anything fun.

After the kids left we played Beirut in our basement. I was originally against the idea because who wants their finished basement to smell like a frat house after a party? But we kept a mop out just in case a cup fell over (only two) and the tiles are just fine. It was definitely much more comfortable in the basement without the cold and the bugs.

The next day we were hungover from drinking for 12 hours, but knew that we had to at least plant the rest of the seeds and get the garden cloth covers over the rest of the raised beds. Good thing we did because CP was out of town for work all week and it SNOWED last night! After work today and during the day tomorrow we are going to have to work quickly to get the greenhouse plastic on the beds because we are forecasted to get 6-10 inches of snow tomorrow!!!! TOO EARLY.

My friend and I went to a hip hop class last week. I REALLY REALLY REALLY wanted to like it and start taking the classes. Unfortunately the woman who runs the dance studio is disorganized. She likes to talk too much at the beginning and doesn’t have music or the steps ready before class starts. I have never taken a step class or a power class where the instructor has to sit and think about what they want to do next. It was extremely frustrating because she would put together moves that required too much movement within the beats of the too-fast music. Thank goodness the class was free!

A bunch of friends and I went on a haunted hayride on Friday. There were some things that jumped out at you, but for the most part I was tense and looking for the things that were trying to scare us. Other people sat back and had fun, whereas I intentionally ruined the experience for myself because I didn’t want to look foolish jumping at something that came out of the woods. *sigh* I suck.

Yesterday we got our house insulated. It had some insulation, but it was most likely original to the house (1948) and seriously needed an update. I’m hoping we see a difference in our gas bill this winter!!

Phew. It’s been a busy week and the beginning of next week is going to be just as bad with trying to cram things in before my surgery. Thank goodness for the weekend!

Uncomfortable

2011-10-21T14:20:00.001-04:00

One of my coworkers is….odd (we’ll call him Mike). He is very smart, but doesn’t have people skills. I would say that it is highly possible that he has some form of autism. He will ask nonsensical questions in meetings, go off on tangents and pull facts and figures from who knows where. He openly takes magazines from the break room into the bathroom (ewwww) and regularly eats only three oranges for lunch (I mistakenly asked him about it one day and got a 30 minute lecture on why. I can’t tell you what he was talking about, just that most of my thoughts when listening to him were about how to get out of the conversation). I am never rude to him and say hi in the hallways, but generally don’t engage him in conversation because I simply don’t want to have 30-60 minute conversations with him (I use this tactic on other people in the office too because some people are TALKERS).

Anyway, Mike is known for his overeating. He is not overweight but if given free food at a meeting, conference, company function, etc. he eats EVERYTHING possible. At our last employee meeting he took an entire bowlful of fruit (along with a muffin, bagel, yogurt, etc) then hovered while the rest of us got food. Meanwhile he is shoving food into his mouth the entire time so that he can make room for more food on his plate once the line died down.

Taking him to conferences and meetings can be embarrassing because of his eating habits. Yesterday I attended a conference with a number of my colleagues, including Mike. We sat down for lunch and he quickly shoveled down his salad and dessert because it was in front of him. Our entrees came and he quickly ate all of his chicken piccata, vegetables and rice. The woman sitting next to me recently had lap-band surgery and can’t eat much so she offered up her extra piece of chicken to him. He took it and ate it. Another woman at the table is pregnant and also can’t eat much anymore so she offered up her extra piece of chicken. He ate that too. Another woman didn’t want her dessert so she offered it up to him. He said that he was too full, but said she could put it in front of him. Two minutes later he ate that too. He turned to me afterwards and said, “I don’t normally eat like this. This is a special occasion.”

After lunch he left the table and a couple of coworkers were joking that he probably went to look for more food. I felt disgusted not only with how much he ate but the fact that it almost seemed like my coworkers were pushing their food on him. If they know that he overeats in these situations and they themselves get embarrassed, why push their extra food towards him? Did it make them feel better? Are they doing it because they are overweight themselves? Does it make them feel better because then they didn’t eat as much as him?

I don’t know what the answer is but the whole thing made me uncomfortable. There was no chance for Mike to get any extra food after the meal was over. If the three women hadn’t pushed their extras to him, I don’t think that he would have asked for it. It’s almost unfair that they push their food onto him and then when he leaves the table, then make fun of him.

Kids help

2011-10-20T11:00:00.002-04:00

This weekend CP and I are having a cookout. I’m excited to get friends together from different stages of both of our lives (that was one of the best parts of our wedding), including new friends in our current town.

This is our problem: most of our friends have kids. Our house is not set up for kids/childproofed so we are going to have to be careful about that. But we also don’t have any games or things for kids to do at our house. Obviously if there were no kids coming we would break out the stump and the Beirut table for some over-21 fun. But with kids that makes it more difficult.

We will have a mix of kids ranging from 18 months to 8 years old. We have the entire backyard to use- we were thinking of playing Bocce Ball (as long as the dogs don’t think the balls are their toys) because that is something that most of the kids and the adults could play. We also have a Frisbee and dog toys that squeak (ha ha). But other than that? No idea.

We don’t particularly want to spend money on things that will just sit at our house unused after this party. And with such a large age range, how are we going to keep all of them occupied? We were thinking that keeping the kids outside as much as possible would limit the damage they would do to our furniture/house inside. Thankfully it is scheduled to be a nice day out on Saturday.

HELP US. Do you have any ideas?

Time to stress

2011-10-18T17:35:00.001-04:00

BOOM. Right before I was scheduled to leave work today my division had a quick meeting. The passive-aggressive woman that I thought was getting transferred down to Philly? Well she is now heading down to DC instead…but it may only be for 90-120 days. Not the permanent basis that I was hoping for, but this may mean more work for at least the next three months….

However, this comes at the worst possible time. She literally leaves Monday so I have two days to figure out what is going on with her projects. Not that she won’t be available while she is down in DC, but she will be busy working on other things and won’t have a ton of time to answer questions. In addition I have a week and a half of work before I am then out for two weeks with my fibroid surgery. I will have just gotten introduced to everyone…..then they will get the dreaded out of office notification.

This is exactly what I thought would happen. No time for a transition and right before my surgery. That’s just how my company rolls. Nice. Not only that, but we are getting into the holiday season which means the two other people in my division are going to be away a lot with their families. I might start to be a major stress ball. Already next Thursday I have three conflicting events. One in Boston, one at my office and one in southern CT. Ridonkulous.

In addition, although I can handle speaking in public just fine, a speaking engagement just fell onto my plate for next Tuesday. There will be cameras. Elected officials. Press. And I will probably be crapping my pants. I didn’t set out to be a prosecutor in law school because I am not a big fan of public speaking. If I am comfortable with the topic I should be fine….but this project is one of the ones that I know the least about. YIKES. Guess I have some reading up to do!!

At least this change allowed me to weasel out of a project I had been putting off because it requires zero thought....

DIY Winter Greenhouse

2011-10-17T16:51:00.008-04:00

With our summer garden almost finished (the only plants left- eggplant, leeks, brussel sprouts, swiss chard and hot peppers), a few weeks ago CP and I planted seeds for our fall/winter garden. With some plants still left in our raised beds, we had to work around them. No biggie (especially for things like carrots and beets) because with staggered planting, we then won’t have to pull the whole crop out at once.

So most of the seeds have come up and are starting to grow. We took down the Buster-proof fences in order to turn over the soil after taking out plants and I wish that we had kept them up because we have a bunny (bunnies?) that is eating some of the seedlings. Oh well.

Anyway, this weekend we started to erect our homemade winter greenhouses over our raised beds. For anyone interested, here are the basic DIY steps to do it on your own.

Supplies needed:
Winter seeds
Metal wire
Garden cloth
Plastic greenhouse film
Heavy duty wide tape
PVC piping
Garden staples
Scissors

Our experimental guide to a winter garden:

1. Buy The Winter Harvest Handbook by Eliot Coleman and read it. Coleman is an organic farmer in Maine whose farm produces four seasons of veggies. If he can do it in Maine, why couldn't we do in CT?
2. Buy winter seeds- there are a few seed companies recommended by Coleman (We used Johnny’s Selected Seeds).
3. Plant winter seeds before first frost.
4. Use metal wire from the Home Depot and shape it into a wicket (or really any shape you want). Push the metal wire into the ground as much as you can, but you want to leave 2-3 feet above the ground for the plants to grow.

Metal wire

Metal wire shaped like wicket

5. Drape wickets with garden cloth. Garden cloth (which we also used this spring to keep out pests/protect against the cold nights) can be found at a bunch of places, we get ours from Gardeners Supply. Rain is able to pass through the fabric while it also allows 85% of light to shine through (according to the website).

6. We then used garden staples to hold down the garden cloth. (See picture above.) Use them all around the structure to keep the cloth from lifting up and off the ground.

7. Next we took PVC piping and made hoops. In the spring we put 1 1/2 “ pipe into the ground at all four corners and depending on the size of the bed either one or two more down the sides. We then took 1” pipe and bent it to make the hoop.

PVC piping

8. Then, using the plastic greenhouse film (see picture, CP found it on Amazon) put up a sheet on the hoops at both ends of the bed. Using the big roll of tape (also found on Amazon), tape the film to the hoop with the tape located on what will be the inside of the greenhouse. Tape up most of the hoop, but leave about two feet at the bottom on both sides so that you can access the plants inside.

Roll of plastic and tape

9. Then take another sheet of the plastic film and drape it from end hoop to the other end hoop (make sure there is a little bit of overhang as you are going to tape the ends down to the plastic film already on the end hoops). Use tape to place about five pieces (per hoop) on the inside of the greenhouse to affix the plastic film to the inside hoops.
10. Make sure that the garden cloth does not touch the plastic anywhere around the structure.
11. Tape or somehow affix the plastic film to the wood all around the raised bed. You don’t want any wind to get in there.

Our first bed looks like this:

Not the prettiest thing, but hopefully it works!

We used a bungee cord to keep the plastic down on the left side. Because the top of the raised bed on the right side is flush with the ground (stupid sloping backyard), we currently have bricks holding down the plastic. We will probably have to do a little more once there is danger of freezing temperatures at night.

Coleman claims that we won’t have to water the entire winter. The plastic will keep the freezing temperatures out and as long as the cloth and plastic film don’t touch, the temperatures in the bed will stay right above freezing. Condensation from the cold outdoor temps and the hotter temps inside the plastic will help water the plants. Crazy huh?

This winter we have planted (the plants need to be ones that are hardier/grow in colder temps. They are going to grow at a slower pace, but according to Coleman, things like carrots are going to be very sweet because they do take a long time to mature):

Bok choy
Pak choi
Golden beets
Carrots
Kale
Spinach
Romaine lettuce
Asian greens
Swiss chard
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Radishes

So now that you have a bit of a primer, will you try winter gardening too?

Debating

2011-10-14T09:06:00.000-04:00

I am having an internal debate over exercising. Specifically, exercising prior to my surgery.

As of yesterday I have three weeks until my surgery. Not tons of time to whip myself into shape, but three weeks COULD make a difference. I could continue walking the dogs every day (at least a mile) and do something like the 30 Day Shred or Killer Buns and Thighs. My brain KNOWS that the more exercise I put in before the surgery, the easier it will be to get back into exercising when I am cleared to do so. It will probably aid my recovery from the surgery. Not to mention the fact that only a month after surgery CP and I will be in the Bahamas and I’ll have to be in a bathing suit (who’s grand idea was that???).

But my other LAZY brain keeps telling me that three weeks isn’t going to do anything. That I am going to be a blob by the time I get to exercise again anyway….why not relax before the surgery?

Anyone have any insight into working out before surgery? Can anyone give me any inspirational words to get my a** into gear? I clearly have a bunch of reasons why I should but my lazy brain is currently winning…..

Now it is real

2011-10-13T09:07:00.002-04:00

This week I FINALLY got a surgery date- it is now November 3rd….and suddenly it feels real. Suddenly I am nervous. Only three weeks away.

I had two options on the date….Nov 3rd and Nov 23rd. I decided to go with the earlier date for a couple of reasons.

1. Why shouldn’t I get this surgery over with as soon as possible? If I waited until the 23rd that would be the absolute last day I could have the surgery without having to get another Lupron shot. Just in case we get a freak snow storm in late November, I am NOT going to pay another $1000 for a shot.

2. The sooner I have it, the more Lupron I have left in my body (even though I think that it is supposed to be a time release-type shot over the three months). The more medication I have left in my body= less bleeding during the surgery.

3. Thanksgiving will be three weeks after the surgery which means I should have no problems walking around, hanging out with CP’s family, etc.

4. The surgery will now be a full five weeks and a day before CP and I leave for the Bahamas for a quick December vacation. I’m hoping to get cleared for some scuba diving!

5. The earlier in the month I had the surgery, the greater the possibility my mom could fly out and help CP out.

6. Last but certainly not least, the sooner I have the surgery, the sooner my uterus can heal and the sooner CP and I can start the first IUI treatment!

I recently found out my genetic test results. No cystic fibrosis or other genetic problems with me (YAY!). The only thing that I do have is something a bit weird…. Pseudocholinesterase Deficiency (huh?). From the website:

Pseudocholinesterase deficiency is a condition in which a person's body is abnormally slow at breaking down a certain class of drugs used for surgical anesthesia. Known as choline esters, the most commonly used of these drugs is called succinylcholine (suxamethonium). This drug is used by doctors to induce muscle relaxation and temporary paralysis, often for the purpose of inserting a breathing tube. After receiving a normal dose of succinylcholine, people with pseudocholinesterase deficiency will experience a longer than normal period of breathing paralysis. Typically medical teams who administer these drugs would be equipped to handle such an event.

People who are carriers of pseudocholinesterase deficiency - that is, people who have one copy of the gene with a mutation and one normal copy - show a slightly prolonged period of breathing paralysis after receiving choline ester drugs. This period lasts longer than 5 minutes but less than an hour. For people with two mutated copies of the gene, this episode lasts more than an hour and can last as long as three hours.

Less than 1 in 1000 people have pseudocholinesterase deficiency. It is more common among the some Alaskan Eskimos, where it may affect as many as 10%. In the Persian Jewish community, 1 in 10 individuals is a carrier of the mutation. Among white Americans, the mutation is thought to affect 1 in 3,000.

Who knew? I have never heard of this and as far as I know, I am only a carrier. This is only a big deal if CP also has this mutation….so we will have to talk to my doctor to find out if it is worth CP getting tested for this mutation too.

Book reviews

2011-10-11T09:16:00.000-04:00

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

County Line by Bill Cameron
4 stars
When a good friend (who he secretly loves) disappears, Skin, an ex-cop, sets out to find her. His journey leads him across the country and into her desperate past. I guess this is the fourth book about the ex-cop’s character and although I was a little behind (he kept talking about a scar on his neck that was obviously obtained in an earlier book), this was a fast-paced and easy to follow. I enjoyed the writing style and will probably purchase the first three books!

Stealing Faces by Michael Prescott
4 stars
John Cray has a secret. For twelve years he has stalked and kidnapped women, setting them loose in the mountains of eastern Arizona, hunting them like animals, and taking their lives. He has left no clues and is suspected by no one. But now he has a problem. Somebody -- a woman whose name he doesn't know -- is stalking him. Cray plans to turn the tables on his mysterious pursuer. He will become the predator, and she -- the prey. Once she's in his power, she will tell him who she is and what she's after and then she will die. But even Cray isn't prepared to confront the truth when he discovers it -- or to deal with the shattering implications of a past he had thought long buried and an obsessive madness he cannot control ... This was a fast-paced thriller that I kept me interested throughout the book.

Lucy by Laurence Gonzales
5 stars
A young girl rescued from the Congo turns out to be a human/bonobo hybrid. The stunning revelation of who—and what—she is sets in motion her fight for survival and for her very right to exist. This book was fascinating, including the author’s ideas of how various groups in our society would view a human/ape hybrid. I actually wish that it was a little longer because I enjoyed it so much! One of the reviews on the back likens this author to Michael Crichton- and I would agree with that. I will probably check out some of his other books.

Untouchable by Scott O’Connor
4 stars
This book is a character study on a father and son. The father, David Darby is a heavily-tattooed technician for a trauma-site clean-up crew. His son, nicknamed The Kid, is an artist and bullied at school. The mother/wife mysteriously died about a year ago- because of this David can’t sleep in the house and The Kid won’t speak. At times it was hard to read because The Kid blames himself, his bad breath, etc. as the reason his mother is no longer with him. But I thought it probably was a fairly good portrayal of the father and how hard it is to pick up the pieces when you are suddenly a single parent.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
4 stars
I never had to read this book in high school, but have obviously heard about it for years. In case you don’t know, this is the book that exposed not only the atrocities at meat packing plants in the last century, but also the plight of poor immigrants working in those plants. I think that I wasn’t as shocked about what went on at meat packing plants because I have read Fast Food Nation and know what goes on NOW. I wasn’t a huge fan of the socialist propaganda ending, but thought that this book was well worth the read.

A Wicked Snow by Gregg Olsen
3 stars
Hannah was a young girl when she became the sole survivor of a horrible fire. She has been haunted by that night since then and even suspects that her mother not only played a part, but is still alive. As more details emerge from the night of the fire, she gets closer to finding out the truth about her mother. This book was good enough to continue reading, but the end came quickly and there were definitely some part where I started to skim because it became boring.

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
4 stars
I really enjoyed Bel Canto, Ann Patchett’s last book so I was looking forward to her latest. After her colleague dies in the Amazon rain forest, Marina Singh is sent out by her company to discover the cause of the death and oversee the progress of a mysterious researcher, Dr. Annick Swenson. The story was bogged down a bit when Marina first arrives in Brazil but can’t find Dr. Swenson….but then the ending felt a bit rushed.

In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan
5 stars
To be honest, Michael Pollan could write 500 pages about taking a poop and I would still love it. “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Ever heard that? Those lines are from this book. In this book, Pollan goes into why the science of nutrition is flawed and outlines “eating rules” to live by. If you read The Omnivore’s Dilemma, I would definitely continue your education by reading this book.

Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit by Barry Estabrook
5 stars
I first heard about this book when the author did an interview on NPR. Tomato fields are sprayed with 100+ herbicides and pesticides because Florida, our biggest producer of tomatoes, is the worst possible place (climate, soil, etc) to grow these crops. The tomatoes are picked when they are still hard and green, then artificially gassed until red. Despite it being against the law, tomato pickers are regularly gassed with pesticides as they work in the fields and treated as if they were modern day slaves. This was an EXCELLENT book and I’m glad that I finally know why tomatoes from the grocery store taste like sh*t while my garden tomatoes taste so good.

Almost Wordless Wednesday

2011-10-11T09:08:00.010-04:00

CP and I have been very busy this last couple of weekends. This past weekend we decided to tackle the 20 or so hemlock bushes that line the side of our yard. The previous owners clearly did nothing to the bushes except cut them back a bunch. Unfortunately there was a ton of dead wood inside the bushes- so despite the 80+ degree temps, CP and I donned long pants, long-sleeved shirts and gloves to cut and pull all of the dead wood out. The branches were killers- I ripped up my forearms and now have holes in the gloves and the shirt I wore! I ended up running three full loads of dead branches in our Ford Escape to the town recycling center.

My scratched up forearm. Ah the joys of homeownership!

I finally broke down and installed Instagram on my iPhone. Had I known that it was a FREE APP I would have done it a long time ago. It's really fun to play with!

Thankfully we didn't pull out the huge brussel sprouts you see in the back...because they have just started to sprout! And finally our leeks are growing thicker so we can start using them.

Lemongrass planted from seed. That is going to make some great lemongrass ice cream! :-)

Yummy eggplants! This plant will be pulled this weekend because eggplants need hot weather.

CP made this last night for dinner. It was a a delicious mix of beef, fresh sage from our garden, onions and spices.

With the colder weather approaching, the dogs were fighting over the one dog bed that we have, so I went out and found the biggest one available. As soon as I dropped it into our bedroom and left for two seconds, Buster peed on it to mark his territory. Arrrgh. I steam cleaned it, but Buster seems to be the one to lie down on it at night.

The dogs getting along on their new dog bed. This only lasted 10 minutes. (The crazy eyes are due to the flash- in people it causes red eyes, in dogs, yellow.)

Our town has a decent farmers market so CP and I decided to can a bunch of veggies/herbs from our garden and fruit from the farmers market.

A full weekend of canning while it rained outside! From left to right: Curried apple chutney, Cranberry Pear Jam, Apple Pie in a Jar, Green Tomato chutney and Herb Jelly. Not pictured: Apple butter.

Halloween Ideas

2011-10-10T09:18:00.000-04:00

Every year I enjoy the candy from Halloween, but not the actual holiday. This is due to the fact that I never have a good costume. CP and I haven’t celebrated Halloween in a few years now- mainly because he hates getting dressed up for the holiday. This year CP and I have two parties to attend where we have to wear costumes.

Here is where you come in- help me find a costume.

I DON'T use the holiday to dress like a slut, I DO use the holiday to be funny.

For a couple years in a row in college (because I didn’t have any money) I would wear a brown t-shirt and pants, a halo, and a pair of wings. My costume? Holy sh*t. It was, in fact, hilarious because as soon as people got drunk, they would scream across the room “Holy sh*t!” all night long. But I have used that costume too many times.

One year in college I dressed in green and taped fake leaves to my body and wore a fake green leave crown. I was Jolly Green Giant and my best friend J (dressed the same way but 6 inches shorter) was Sprout.

I have been looking online for DIY funny Halloween costumes but thought that all of you creative types out there have some good ideas. I’m looking for something that I can put together myself….not too expensively. Do you guys have any suggestions?

Don't settle

2011-10-07T09:40:00.001-04:00

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.”

That quote from Steve Jobs truly makes me want to cry. Early on in this blog I talked about not settling for a job simply because of the money. And how much I hated one of my jobs before law school because I basically took it in order to make more money.

While I certainly didn’t take my current job for the money, you all know that I am not happy. And I HATE people that complain about their unhappiness but then don’t do anything about it. However, I am stuck. I am not happy, but I can’t leave my job. Yesterday I received my approval from my insurance company for my jaw surgery. That’s great news that I don’t have to fight my insurance company….however, it also means that I can’t leave my company until I have the surgery.*

Trying to get pregnant complicates my jaw surgery too. If we weren’t trying to get pregnant then I could slap the braces on next week and have the surgery 8-12 months from now.

However, CP and I discussed the insurance approval and we easily came to the decision to put off getting braces while we try to get pregnant this spring. We aren’t getting any younger and we clearly need assistance in getting pregnant.

Here is the timeline that we are hoping for:

November- fibroid surgery
December, January, February- uterus recovers from surgery
March- first IUI. Hopefully pregnant within the first couple of tries (only 3 are covered by insurance).
Once I get pregnant, get braces put on after first trimester.
Have baby.
Have jaw surgery.

So yeah, for now I am stuck. But the sad thing is that even if I wasn’t stuck I am still confused as to what I want to do with my life. Should I still be feeling this way at age 32? Why can’t I find something that I enjoy? I don’t want to jump to another job without really, truly figuring out what I want as a career. Otherwise I fear that I will just jump from job to job with no end game in mind. At this age shouldn’t I be an expert in something? Or at least on my way to becoming an expert? *sigh*

How did you figure out what you wanted to do with your life?

*The insurance coordinator at my jaw surgeon’s office basically told me not to leave my job because getting an approval is very difficult. She said that I wouldn’t want to have to get an approval from two different companies as getting ONE approval can take up to two years.

The State of NSC- September 2011

2011-10-06T08:33:00.002-04:00

A monthly take on my world…..a few days late this month.

Weight: 205. My goal is to get below 200 before my birthday in December. Totally doable….depending on how much the surgery messes me up.

Current Feeling: Sick. For our anniversary CP gave me his cold. Boooo. I have had tons of sinus pressure, headaches, achy joints and a runny nose since Tuesday. I’m hopped up on Dayquil and can’t stop sneezing!

Running Stats (taking a break until probably the new year from running to rest my heels)
Total Miles Run: 0
Time Spent Running: 0:00
Longest Single Run: 0

Current aches and pains: Hot flashes and headaches are my main complaint these days. The hot flashes happen at the weirdest times. Last weekend it got down to the 40s outside. At 2am I had a hot flash and HAD to turn on the all-house fan and open up the window a bit more. For about 30 minutes I had trouble falling asleep because I WAS SO HOT. Meanwhile CP is barely warm enough under our duvet cover.

Current Favorite Song: “Pumped Up Kicks” by Foster the People

Looking forward to: The long weekend. Even CP has the day off on Monday so we will get some extra time to get the winter garden set up!

Annoyed about: My passive-aggressive coworker. She was reassigned to another office, but now something is going on behind the scenes that my boss won’t talk to me about. There is a distinct possibility that she may not leave now and I won’t get her work. Meanwhile, I thought that we were friends….but now I am finding out various things like her efforts to keep me off projects. At one point last week I was ready to send her a seriously b*tchy email but had to calm myself down. She has been with the company for 30 years and has a lot of friends here. Even though she really does need to get put in her place, I fear as soon as I say something she will get all of her long-term friends (with whom I have good working relationships with and often need something from) to not help me when I ask them for information. So if she stays it is going to suck even more because I will not get her work AND I will have to see her/deal with her on a daily basis and know that she is trying to sabotage me!

Proud about: Making it through Jillian Michael’s new DVD- Killer Buns and Thighs (Level 1). It is set up like the 30 Day Shred with three levels, going through a circuit two times before moving on to the next one. My legs were SCREAMING after finishing the workout.

How are you feeling with the start of this new month?

Two years

2011-10-03T09:30:00.001-04:00

Today is our two year anniversary! Looking back on our wedding pictures this past weekend made it seem as if we have been married 10 years and not two years. I attribute part of that to the fact that we were together four years and one day before we got married. To read up on our story, go here.

This past year has been....interesting. In last year's post I talked about all of the big decisions we had made since getting married. Buying a house. Trying to get pregnant. Deciding to get a second dog. A lot of those things have spilled into this year.

This year was making the house more "us". We still need to paint various rooms, but creating our raised beds in our backyard this past spring brought us a lot of joy (and fresh veggies!). We have other, more ambitious things that we want to do to the house (redo the sunroom, clean up the basement, organize the garage, etc) but my medical bills may keep those projects at bay for another couple years.

We obviously have continued to try to get pregnant...until I found out about my fibroid. While that "project" is on hold and my hope of getting pregnant before our second anniversary didn't happen, I (and we) still have hope that we will be able to get pregnant before our third anniversary. We have even talked about me putting off braces/my jaw surgery for a few months so that we can try IUI once my uterus has healed from the surgery. My jaw problem doesn't have an expiration date like my eggs do. Ha! Our hope is tempered, but we still have hope.

And then there is Buster. I am so happy we made the decision to bring him into our family. He has been a good distraction so that we don't have to be sad every month when I get my period. He was a HANDFUL for the first month and we had to do a lot of extra work with him to make sure that he was going to be a normal Berner in terms of personality with people and dogs. He still jumps. He still eats anything and everything on the ground. But he is a smart dog, learning tricks quickly because he is food motivated. I have to keep reminding myself that he is only 7 months and therefore still a puppy (sometimes his 70 lb body tricks me into thinking that he is older).

What do I see for us in the coming year of marriage? One, possibly two surgeries for me. A trip to the Bahamas in December. A possible trip to the Dominican Republic for a wedding. Hopefully a successful fall/winter garden (more on that later). Going to the fertility clinic for an IUI this spring (hopefully we only need one)! But what I hope for most in the coming year is just that we are happy, no matter what life throws at us.

Love you CP.

Fall new loves

2011-09-30T12:30:00.004-04:00

Starting to get my blogging mojo back....hopefully it's back for a while.

Eddie Bauer pants. My new Eddie Bauer pants that are super comfortable. They roll up into capris if it gets hot out and are lightweight enough that I could go hiking in them.

Columbia pants. My new Columbia pants that are seriously the MOST comfortable pants I have ever worn. Plus, they make my butt look good (always a good thing). :-) The fabric is some sort of soft, dri-fit material that is medium weight. I guarantee I will be wearing these A LOT this fall.

L'Oreal Double Extend Mascara. My sister and law raved about her mascara on our trip to CA and I tried it out one night. I have been suckered into buying expensive mascara from MAC and after trying out this mascara, I am hooked. I have long eyelashes already, but the best feature about this mascara is how easy it is to take off. We went into the pool with it on and instead of looking like a raccoon and having to practically rip skin off under my eyes to get rid of the mascara, one quick swipe with my finger and it was gone. As soon as I got home I ditched my MAC mascara (which I have had for way longer than the recommended three months!) and bought the L'Oreal stuff. Love it!

Spotify. I really enjoy Pandora and have made a bunch of playlists. I also downloaded the new I Heart Radio iPhone app because you can create playlists that will run commercial-free through the end of the year. I love the IDEA of creating my own station and then being able to choose more discovery (aka unknown artists) vs familiar artists, but unlike Pandora, I Heart Radio doesn’t go back to the original artist. So if I create a playlist on John Mayer, Pandora will play a JM song every 4-5 songs (which I like). I Heart Radio’s app never goes back to the original artist.* Spotify is great because I can listen to an entire album (currently Mumford & Sons “Sigh No More”) or listen to the current top songs. It will be a great way to figure out whether I should buy the entire album or just the few songs that I like.

*I will never quit I Heart Radio though because I ADORE the KBCO Studio C channel. If you haven't heard it check it out!!

New television shows. So far I am enjoying Revenge, Ringer and Modern Family (I’m late to this party). I tried Up All Night last night and couldn’t get into it. CP and I are new to Game of Thrones and it is awesome! We watched the first season right before it was taken off of Directv’s video-on-demand. It took me a few episodes to get everyone straight but it is enjoyable (CP especially likes all of the boobs). Too bad the second season is not until next spring! We are still watching Community, Parks and Rec and The Office. Andy has so far been a good stand-in for Steve Carell. Next week is the premiere of American Horror Story on FX and I have to admit, I’m intrigued based on the teasers.

What are your new fall loves?

Changes at work

2011-09-19T15:11:00.002-04:00

Last week my offices moved. It wasn’t a big move….just a few floors down in our building. The move means that although we have fewer open cubicles and are crammed together a bit more, I actually end up with more privacy in my new cube. WIN. Not to mention I am farther away from my boss so she can’t yell at me from her office anymore/ I can pretend that I don’t hear her. DOUBLE WIN.

Speaking of my boss, late Friday afternoon she came over to talk to me and gave me some surprising news. The woman that has my same position but has been with the company a lot longer (and thus makes more money) has been reassigned to a different office in a new state. I will miss her company, but her departure in about a month means more work for me! While I still won’t love my job and will try to leave as soon as my surgeries are over, I will at least be busier and have more bullets for my resume. Yep, trying to stay positive.

In other news, my closest friend at work has decided to transfer to another office down south. Although it will be great for her (especially personally because her problems have grown since this post), I will miss complaining about work with her and laughing with her. Her departure means that I will lose my close confidant at work- which means CP will most likely hear more of my b*tching (poor guy).

Vacation pictures

2011-09-15T11:01:00.015-04:00

Sadly, CP forgot his nice camera, so the only thing we had was my iPhone. I think that it still took some good pictures.

California

Mission Inn in Riverside was absolutely beautiful! CP's dad and new wife hosted a brunch for all of the wedding guests here on Sunday morning. (Yesterday when I was catching up on "Bachelor Pad" I saw that one of the couples had a date here!)

Barker Dam hike in Joshua Tree National Park

Joshua Tree National Park

A Joshua Tree

View of San Jacinto Mountain (in Joshua Tree NP)

Chollo Cactus. There were warnings everywhere to not get too close as getting the spikes out of your clothes body is a very painful process!

Chollo Cactus garden in Joshua Tree NP. I had never been down to the southern section of the park and it was completely different!

Santa Rosa and San Jacinto National Monument hike. We kept seeing these plants and thought they were so cool.

Santa Rosa and San Jacinto National Monument hike

Northern Santa Rosa Mountains

Colorado

Air Force Academy chapel in Colorado Springs. The Academy is open to the public and seemed to be having reunion weekend while we were there.

Inside the Air Force Academy chapel.

The ceiling of the Air Force Academy chapel. It was really neat inside.

The good and the bad of our vacation

2011-09-13T12:04:00.001-04:00

The Good:

*Spending time with CP’s family.

*Spending time with law school friends- some that I haven’t seen since graduation. It’s amazing how many people in my class have had to open up their own law firms because they couldn’t find a job after graduation.

*Spending time at the pool, walking around National Parks/monuments and then hiking near Rocky Mountain National Park.

*No Lupron freakouts. Yay!

*RELAXING.

*Adding a new TV show to the list of shows that we can watch together. CP and I had never heard of Archer, a cartoon on FX about a secret spy who is completely self-absorbed. The show is HILARIOUS. Chris Parnell (from SNL), Aisha Tyler (Ross’ black girlfriend on Friends), Jessica Walter (the mother on Arrested Development) are all voices on the show. Do you like inappropriate humor? Then you would love this show.

*Eating DELICIOUS Mexican/Southwestern food that we simply can’t get in CT. Boy I miss things that contain green chili sauce in them/on them.

*Luckily for us, New Mexican hatch chiles were in season and we found a place to buy two bushels. We gave some to my SIL and some to our friends for letting us stay at their place in Denver. This week my SIL is shipping us the frozen chiles. I can’t wait for CP’s green chili stew!!!

*Spending some time with one of my bridesmaids, her husband and her new son. He was adorable! We also found out that she is expecting another one!

*Hearing that two more law school friends will be starting to try for a baby in about a year or so. I hope that they don’t have the problems that we are having.

*Hitting up the outlets in CA. I was able to snag some great deals on cute clothes and some new shoes.

The Bad:

*Not making it into Rocky Mountain National Park for the start of the elk rut.

*Although my hormones stayed in check (partly because my doctor had me take 5 more days of birth control pills after the shot), I started getting hot flashes two days after I stopped taking the pills. It feels just like it sounds- the heat runs through your body and lasts a minute or two. It’s not too bad so far….although they would have been awful in the heat in CA! My mom said that the worst ones wake you up at night.

*Not only am I getting hot flashes, but my body decided to (ahem) “flush out” my system before my ovaries shut down so I started going through super tampons like it was my job the past two days. I had to leave brunch at dim sum to run to the store to grab more tampons with my friend’s car because it was that bad. Mr. Fibroid must know that his end is near and is trying to aggravate me as much as possible while he is still around. Bastard.

*CP had some flushing out of his system too- except from a different orifice. He is such a giving guy that he gave whatever illness he had to me yesterday. That’s a very uncomfortable illness to have on a four hour flight home on 9/11 when you don’t want to arise suspicion for going to the bathroom too much. Thanks sweetie!

*Jet lag. Once again CP and I were not tired when it came time to go to bed. So we were up until almost 12am. That 5:45am alarm came way too early….

*Thanks to our poor eating, yesterday morning I weighed in at 208. Must get back on the workout train!!

I'm baaaaack

2011-09-12T16:23:00.002-04:00

I’m back at work and it sucks. Even though we only took a week off from work, it seemed like longer….and we certainly didn’t complain about that!

The first six days were spent near Palm Springs, CA as CP’s dad was finally marrying his girlfriend of 12+ years. The two of them tying the knot was more of a legal formality, but it was still cute. It was a short ceremony with only 20 people or so. CP and his sister were tasked with giving the toast afterwards. Neither of them are very sappy, so they went with a story of how they were so excited to have a little brother or sister coming (thus the need for the short engagement). Needless to say, CP’s new stepmother is almost 60 and won’t be having any children…. Everyone thought it was great.

It was great to see my sister in law, her husband and the kids. My nephew wanted to watch Ice Age or Ice Age 2 every minute of the day he wasn’t in the pool. He also has decided that he knows how to speak Chinese and will make up words that sound more Spanish. Silly kid. Now that the kids are a bit older they are better behaved and more fun to hang out with.

In addition to wedding activities, we did a few things around Palm Springs. At times it was difficult to do things outside because it was over 100 degrees every day. Blech. I don’t care that it is a dry heat it is still ridonkulously hot! We went to the Living Desert (basically a zoo) where we saw many of the animals we saw on our honeymoon in Africa. Obviously it was much cooler to see them in the wild, but the kids loved our various tidbits of information on the different animals. We went to Joshua Tree National Park and did a few quick walks. I have been there a couple of times but have never driven to the southern section of the park. There was a really cool cactus garden (pictures Weds). CP and I did a hike in the Santa Rosa & San Jacinto National Monument, along with driving through the San Jacinto Mountains.

Then on Thursday morning CP and I flew to Denver for our second wedding for a friend of mine from law school. The morning of the wedding we got up and tried to drive to Rocky Mountain National Park for a hike, but there was either an accident or the park was simply too busy and we hit traffic a few miles away from the entrance. After waiting for a while, we decided to hit a trail a few miles away instead. I was SO BUMMED because that was the ONE thing I wanted to do. :-(

The bride is Chinese so our friends had a non-legal ceremony already in China, but were making it official in Denver. The wedding was fun, but ended at 11:30 so had an after party (aka drunken dance party) at a friend’s house that lasted until 4am. Yikes. The next morning we all got up for dim sum and my head was pretty cloudy.

We ended up getting home at 12:30 this morning so CP’s alarm at 5am came waaaay too early. I suspect that it will be an early night for both of us tonight.

I can’t wait to pick up the puppies in an hour! I bet Buster grew a bunch while we were gone.

What have you been doing while I have been gone? I haven't checked my Google Reader today- I can't imagine how many posts I have to go through!!!

The State of NSC- August 2011

2011-09-01T14:06:00.001-04:00

A monthly take on my world.

Weight: 205- which means I gained weight again this month. I’m going to blame it on the processed food I had to eat during the power outage and the birth control pills that I had to take before my Lupron shot. Yep. That’s the ticket.

Current Feeling: OVERWHELMED. But hopefully that goes away tomorrow.

Running Stats in June
Total Miles Run: 5.5 miles
Time Spent Running: Nike+ is being a b*tch and won’t load but I am guessing a bit over an hour. Haven’t run since August 20th. I suck.
Longest Single Run: 1.9 miles

Current aches and pains: I am hobbling around these days not because of plantar fasciitis, but because of some mysterious pain on the outside of my left ankle. I have been noticing that I am rolling my ankle a bit (maybe due to wearing flip flops?) and so I am trying to make a conscious effort to change my stride. Sadly it doesn’t seem to be working.

Current Favorite Song: I keep singing “Moneygrabber” by Fitz and the Tantrums.

Looking forward to: VACATION. We leave tomorrow for two weekends of weddings and while that is not technically a vacation I DON’T CARE. I will be away from the office for a glorious 6 full work days and with CP’s family and then friends from law school. Here’s hoping hormonally-unbalanced NSC doesn’t come out on this trip… Speaking of which, I didn’t have enough time to write any posts in advance so you will just have to pine for my words until I get back. :-)

Annoyed about: The price of ONE shot. $1024 out of pocket for ONE shot. That still blows my mind. Also the price of where we have to board the dogs. Almost $100 A DAY until Wednesday. We have NEVER paid more than $25/day before (for one dog). The fact that it doubles because we are in CT? CRAZY.

Proud about: Uhhh that I am not bat-sh*t crazy yet? Because I only get one shot for the entire three months the side effects are going to be bad in the beginning but will taper off. The nurse who gave me the shot said that although it is a bigger dose, it’s better to get it once instead of once a month. Although I was hoping for a hot flash today at work because they have the AC turned up to ungodly levels…..

How are you feeling with the start of this new month?

Injected

2011-08-31T15:28:00.002-04:00

First off, our POWER is back on! We were over at a friend’s house having dinner (because they had power) when we got word from a neighbor that everything was on. YAY!!!

This morning I took a shower because the water department showed up to fix the water main break. They GUARANTEED that the work would be finished by this afternoon and it looks like they are already done. YAY again!

I met with the oral surgeon for my jaw breaking surgery. He said it sounds like my VERY SEXY night guard that I use for teeth grinding may be affecting my bite so he is going to have me not wear it for a month and see if it makes a difference. If it is my mouth guard then I might not have to have surgery- just braces. We’ll see. In the mean time they will contact my insurance company to see if the surgery will be covered. All of this means that I can’t leave my job because sometimes getting the surgery approved can take up to TWO YEARS. I don’t want to have to go through this with another insurance company, so I guess I am stuck.

Finally, I was injected with Lupron today….in my butt. My insurance company called yesterday to tell me it was ready and to give me the final bill. $1024 FOR ONE SHOT. So ricockulous it is not even funny. The injection site is a little sore to the touch but no crazy thoughts running through my head or hot flashes…..yet. My doctor wants me to continue taking the birth control pills for five more days and then throw the rest out.

As I was running around to my various doctor appointments today, I realized that I have never seen so many doctors at the same time at any other point in my life! I drove home from getting the Lupron shot and started to feel sorry for myself. Why is this all so hard? Why is it all happening at the same time? I feel awful for being such a drain on our finances. But then I told myself that none of these things are life threatening. I don't have canceror a life long illness. Right now we don't have kids so we are in a better place to afford out of pocket expenses for surgeries and medications (even if it means not being able to put money away for other things). Even though it is all so overwhelming I can get through it....right?

Hurricane Irene

2011-08-30T12:14:00.009-04:00

Timeline of the past couple of days

Friday
4pm- Leave work to let out the dogs. Change settings on fridge, freezer and basement freezer to the coldest setting possible. Head to the store to buy more processed food than I have bought in a while (Ramen, Easy Mac and Cheese, Whole Wheat Pasta, Pasta sauce, granola bars, etc). Can’t bring myself to buy canned fruit, so I buy bananas and apples as they don’t need refrigeration. Cringe when I pick up a 24-pack of bottled water. The store was VERY busy but people were not freaking out. Water was almost gone. Chuckled when I saw people stocking up on beer.

6pm- CP arrives home with a 30 pack of Coors (eww). He laughs at my store purchases, but little did he know….

Saturday
8am- Heavy rain starts to come down. The rest of the day it is either pouring or not raining; there is no in between. During one of the breaks of rain CP and I decide to take the dogs for a walk for some exercise so that they don’t go stir crazy. Of course it starts pouring a few minutes into our walk. Afterwards, we moved everything that could potentially fly away during a hurricane in to the garage.

11am- We decide to download the first 10 episodes of Game of Thrones on HBO for a lazy day inside. While they are downloading we head to Best Buy to buy a new receiver for the downstairs tv. We drop the car off for an oil change, use a Groupon for lunch and head home to set up the receiver. I fill up tons of water bottles and continue to make ice in the freezer.

7pm- Pick veggies from our garden in case Irene rips up the plants. That night we make a dinner full of garden delights: Caprese salad with our cherry tomatoes and basil with fresh mozzarella cheese (deemed my favorite meal out of our garden so far), Creamed Swiss chard (similar to Creamed Spinach), Beets with butter, dill and chives and then whole wheat pasta with homemade pesto. CP makes a tomato sauce out of the Roma tomatoes we picked for the next day. We shower in case we aren’t able to the next day and head to the basement to watch Game of Thrones. Meanwhile, I charge my Nook and both of our cell phones just in case.

12am- The couple glasses of wine have gone right to my head so I go to bed. I fill up the bathtub just in case we lose water. I turn on the news and hear that a tornado warning is in effect for SW CT. I head back down to the basement and tell CP we are all sleeping there that night.

Sunday
6am- Wake up with the dogs to take them out and feed them. We still have power and it is just a lot of rain/wind. Turn on the news and watch for a while. Play Words with Friends. Check Facebook to make sure friends down south are okay.

9:28am- Directv signal is having problems; the lights flicker and everything goes out. Bye bye power. :-(

9:30am- We head upstairs to use natural light and play Cribbage by our living room window. Notice people walking around in the neighborhood and a few cars driving around. Idiots. Wind is REALLY starting to get strong.

10am- OH MY GOD. There was a big gust of wind, CP saw wires in front of our house arch, there was a huge flash of light and suddenly there is a HUGE tree in the street. It took out a telephone pole and we now have LIVE WIRES across our front yard and driveway! YIKES.

Holy crap!

Tree took down a telephone pole

Tree is almost as wide as the height of our neighbor's Jeep!

Broken telephone pole

Live wires laying across our driveway

View from our house

See our next door neighbors outside and call to them to make sure they are okay. They are so lucky that their house and/or cars weren’t affected. I call our electric company to let them know.

10:30am- Fire department shows up to string up caution tape and close off our section of the street. A few of us take pictures. The fire department warns us that the wires are still live so to stay very far away from them. After the fire department tells us that it will probably be at least three days until we get power back, we invite our next door neighbors over to our house in case another tree decides to fall down and break open the fridge. Cheese, crackers, beer, etc. are all consumed. We move perishables from the fridge/freezer to a cooler (thank goodness I stocked up on ice). I joke with CP that he shouldn’t have made fun of me buying food because now we are going to need it!

1pm- Rain mostly subsides and people start to come out of their houses. Our street is a spectacle- people are taking pictures, pointing, etc. We start to joke that we should charge admission. Meanwhile we meet neighbors we have never seen before and everyone talks about their experience. We hope that power will come back on soon because we are so close to an elementary school and middle school. We check our garden and although plants have definitely been through a storm, everything survived!

Windswept leeks

5pm- CP notices water bubbling up our neighbor’s driveway…and then we notice it in our driveway. The water department is called and it is confirmed- we have a water main break. I run inside to take a shower in case the water gets shut off.

5:30pm- Because there isn’t any damage being caused by the break, the water guys promise not to turn off our water. They have to wait to do any work until the tree/electric company fixes everything anyway.

7pm- Thankfully we have a gas stove so we are able to heat up leftovers from the previous night’s dinner. We play cribbage with flashlights before retiring to bed. I finish my book with my Nook and a reading light. Thank goodness it is nice and cool that night because otherwise falling asleep would have been difficult without fans/air conditioning.

Monday
6am- After letting the dogs out and feeding them, I call into work to find out that we only have a delayed opening. I call my boss to let her know that I can’t work from home because I don’t have any power and I can’t drive into work because I have live wires blocking my driveway. CP and I decide to walk into town with the dogs to get breakfast and get the dogs some exercise. Afterwards we do yard work and I take a nap.

10am- CP and I start to discuss getting a rental car so that we can get to work this week and run errands. I suggest seeing how wide our cars are versus an opening in our side yard between the telephone pole and our shrubs. We can just barely squeeeeze the cars through, but both of them make it. WIN! We head off to find a generator, but to no avail. Thankfully REI still has headlamps (as we couldn’t find our camping ones on Friday night) and this cool lantern that needs no electricity to run (just a hand crank).

5pm: Heat up water on the stove so that we can do dishes.

7pm- Our friends agree to take the contents of our basement freezer (35+ pounds of homemade sausage, what is left of our beef CSA, homemade chicken stock/beef stock, kefta and meat pies) and store them in their currently empty garage freezer. We transferred them over just in time!

Tuesday
7am- Into work we go! I shower at work so that we can keep any hot water in the tank for CP to shower with. A neighbor texts me that the crews are working our street right now, but they have to replace four damaged telephone poles, remove the tree, string new wire, etc. so I am hoping for power by the time we get home tonight, but won’t be surprised if they are just cleaning the street up.

Ahhhh Hurricane Irene. I’m glad that you didn’t destroy our house and cars, but you have been quite a pain.

How did you guys do in the hurricane?

Natural disasters

2011-08-26T13:03:00.001-04:00

Hasn’t the East Coast had enough this week?

First it was the earthquake. I was sitting at my desk looking at the window (I’m on the 19th Floor) and I felt some swaying for about 30 seconds. I called over to my coworker in the next cube over, “Did you feel that?” She replied that it was probably just a large truck barreling down the highway. Ummmm no. I spent the rest of the day freaked out because my building is NOT earthquake compliant (buildings on the East Coast are generally not, but my building doesn’t even have a solid base- it’s hard to explain but I don’t want to post a picture) and I was worried that the puppies were completely freaked out.

Turns out that Buster didn’t react to it while at doggie daycare. A couple of the dogs freaked out and hid under things for about 30 minutes; I guess it didn’t even phase Buster. When I got home Fuzzy Britches seemed perfectly fine and ready to play with a ball in her mouth. Berners must be too stupid to be scared.

Now Hurricane Irene is heading towards NC and should be hitting CT around midnight Saturday night. Our governor, local meteorologists and newscasters are all stressing to take this storm seriously. I guess Hurricane Gloria hit CT really hard in 1985; unfortunately people were unprepared and without power for at least a week. I guess the state has more trees than in 1985 so downed trees and flooding are going to be the biggest problems.

CP and I have already started to find all of our batteries, find flashlights/headlamps, charge the camping lantern, find our camping water jug, find a bucket to put water in for the puppies, etc. Hopefully our local grocery store is not sold out of food easy to make with no power. We will gas up the cars today, buy more gas for the grill.

We were thinking of sleeping downstairs in the basement Saturday night in case the large tree in our backyard decides to fall down on the house (or any neighbors’ trees for that matter). We will have to watch water levels to make sure that the basement isn’t flooding. Otherwise, we can sleep in the spare bedroom on the first floor and if the tree does fall it would have to hit the second floor first.

*crossing fingers we are overreacting*

Knowing my luck this year though.....

Attitude

2011-08-25T09:15:00.000-04:00

Recently one of my coworkers spilled the beans that she is pregnant. Considering there are only a few of us young enough to have kids, everyone in the office got excited. I was talking to one of my friends who has one child (working on another) and told her the news.

“I’m sorry. I know how hard that must be for you.”

I was confused why she said that. Finding out that someone else is pregnant doesn’t upset me. I am happy for them. I was happy when two close friends announced that they were pregnant. I was also jealous because OF COURSE you want to be in the same boat as them…but not pissed.

Maybe she meant that I must be sad? I must admit that sometimes I do get sad. I wonder if I will have some of the experiences my friends have had….a baby kicking in my stomach, seeing my child’s face for the first time, watching CP be an amazing father, hearing my child’s first words, teaching my child how to walk/play sports/etc, teaching my child right from wrong, and generally watching them grow up. I do want these experiences and all of the good AND bad that comes with having kids. Sometimes I worry that if we stay childless we are going to lose some friends. Are some of our friends that have kids going to take vacations and not invite us because we don’t have kids?

Despite my occasional sadness over not being able to conceive so far, I would never want ANYONE to have to deal with infertility. It’s not something that I would wish on an enemy of mine. To wish and hope every month that THIS TIME will be different….and it is just the same old story.

But hating people that get pregnant (okay, I admit that I am not happy for druggies that are still able to get pregnant despite the fact they are ruining their bodies with illegal substances and in turn ruining their babies)? Wishing that others were going through my same journey? No.

It’s possible that I won’t have this attitude in a few years if we are still not pregnant….

2011-08-24T15:12:00.002-04:00

Funny story. You know how I was supposed to get my Lupron shot yesterday? Well, that didn’t quite happen.

I woke up yesterday and called my boss to let her know that I would be in a little late. I had to get my Day 3 blood drawn to make sure my ovaries are doing their job, pick up my Lupron shot from the pharmacy and bring it over to their office for the nurse to inject it.

Sounds easy right? That’s how the doctor made it seem. But in reality I spent almost two hours calling pharmacies to find one that had the drug in my specific dosage (one had it…but it was the pediatric form).

After a while I gave up, had my blood drawn and went to the doctor’s office to talk to the nurse. Maybe she knew where I could find Lupron in the correct dosage. She called all around but no one had it. I had one pharmacy that could have it by this afternoon and one pharmacy that had a lab attached and they could have it ready by that afternoon. The nurse told me that she could give me the injection today but I would probably have to take a pregnancy test beforehand. Ummm lady? I’m on my period. No sex happening over here and I can tell you that there is absolutely no way that I could be pregnant right now.

So I rushed to a fax machine to get the pharmacy the prescription. Five minutes later I received a call telling me that my insurance rejected the medication because it was not pre-approved and that it would be $1800. Would I like to proceed? HA HA HA HA HA. $1800??? For ONE SHOT???? Yeah right.

So once again I call the nurse and tell her the situation. She called the insurance company and I had two options. 1. Pay for the medication myself and ask for a reimbursement from my insurance company. 2. Wait until my insurance company orders the medication through their “specialty lab.” In the meantime I have to take birth control while I am waiting for the shot to arrive (something I haven't taken in over a year now).*

I opt for 2 because I don’t trust my insurance company to reimburse me.

So now I am on a birth control pill that I have never heard of (at least it was only $20) and hopefully the Lupron comes in from my insurance company before next Thursday as I am then out of town for 12 days. CP and I are confused as we have a ‘case manager’ at the doctor’s office and shouldn’t she have talked to my insurance company beforehand to make sure that the drug would be covered?

Oh and I’m feeling quite nauseous right now but have never had that feeling from birth control. Has anyone else had that side effect?

*I guess they need to keep my body in a “suspended” state.

Gasland

2011-08-23T09:41:00.002-04:00

Last week I watched the documentary Gasland. I finished the movie completely sick to my stomach and wanting to cry.

About the film: The largest domestic natural gas drilling boom in history has swept across the United States. The Halliburton-developed drilling technology of "fracking" or hydraulic fracturing has unlocked a "Saudia Arabia of natural gas" just beneath us. But is fracking safe? When filmmaker Josh Fox is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarks on a cross-country odyssey uncovering a trail of secrets, lies and contamination. A recently drilled nearby Pennsylvania town reports that residents are able to light their drinking water on fire. This is just one of the many absurd and astonishing revelations of a new country called GASLAND. Part verite travelogue, part expose, part mystery, part bluegrass banjo meltdown, part showdown.

Trailer can be found here.

My thoughts:
* Where is an Erin Brockovich when you need her to help out everyone with health problems from the drilling? The filmmaker received a letter offering $4k/ acre for his land in rural PA. He had 19 acres so he stood to make $100,000. I can only imagine how people in rural areas jumped on the chance to make that kind of money before thinking of the environmental and health consequences.

*The fact that the various state Department of Environmental Protection agencies are turning a blind eye to the problem is both horrifying and terrifying. Most agencies received tons of cuts because of the recession. Who is going to protect us from greedy companies that are all too ready to ruin land, animals and people all for a quick buck?

*In one scene the filmmaker talks to an organic beef farmer. He has drills all around him and won't drink his water because of all of the chemicals in it. However, he still allows his cattle to drink the water- he even says that he can't believe that they want to drink it because it smells so bad. How is this even allowed as an organic beef farmer? The cattle may not be getting antibiotics, feed corn, etc. but all of the chemicals in the water will be present in the meat once the cattle is slaughtered. Disgusting.

*Even though CT doesn't have any natural gas drilling, I still went on the website and emailed my senators and representatives about this subject. I really worry for my friends in the shale states.

Have you seen this documentary yet? I would highly recommend a viewing of it as you might be in one of the 34 states affected by the natural gas drilling. Even if you don't live in one of the states, the entire water system will eventually be affected by this drilling.

Weekend

2011-08-22T11:13:00.003-04:00

This weekend CP and I didn’t have anything planned per se, but managed to have an exhausting weekend nevertheless.

On Saturday CP needed to do some work so I went for a run (C25K Week 3, Run 2)- it was much easier than the run last week (Week 3, Run 1). That may have been because it was a little cooler outside. I then came back to the house and popped in The Biggest Loser’s Weight Loss Yoga DVD. Working out win!

Lunch that day consisted of a salad with lettuce, cucumbers, radishes and cherry tomatoes all from our garden. Yum. We then took the dogs to the brook so that they could cool off in the water and went food shopping. I made two Indian dishes for dinner (Butter Tomato Sauce- with fresh tomatoes from our garden and Zesty Green Beans- also from our garden) while CP readied the meat.

Zesty Green Beans

We ended up buying almost 40 pounds of meat on Saturday because CP decided he was going to make sausage all day. And I mean ALL DAY. While I took the dogs for an hour walk, CP made Chicken Apple sausage, a delicious breakfast sausage. I then helped him put together the spices for an Argentinean Chorizo. Next up was a Chicken/Turkey Sausage with Roasted Green Chiles. Finally, a Buffalo sausage that CP ended up smoking until 10pm last night. The last sausage is AMAZING and is super delicious with cheese as an appetizer. Mmmmmm. So now our basement freezer is stocked with vacuum-sealed sausages….which we are going to have to start eating as our beef CSA starts up again in November!

Smoked Buffalo sausages

The only bad part of the weekend? I got my period which meant that I couldn’t sleep last night because I was up worrying about getting the Lupron shot tomorrow. I really need to stop reading Internet comments about the side effects. All I can do is stay positive and hope that I come out of the three month shot unscathed.

But today is another day and hopefully I am able to sleep tonight. After work today I am taking the dogs to a local pool for a dog park fundraiser. After the pool is closed for the summer (yesterday), the town allows dogs to jump in for a day. Fuzzy Britches is going to be so excited! Buster will probably just play with other dogs instead of swimming…. But it should be hilarious.

How was your weekend?

Back to basics

2011-08-19T14:43:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I decided to switch up my running training a bit. So far my runs have been about two miles at about a 12 minute/mile pace. That is SLOW. So slow that it is hard for me to admit my pace, despite the fact that I am coming from a two month break in running.

So as I thought about it, I decided to go back to the mainstay- Couch to 5K. The program is supposed to help you run 10 minute/miles by the end. (I was certainly not running 10 minute/miles during my half marathon.)

My next race is the Hartford Marathon Relay with friends in two months. While they are not going to care how fast I run, I don’t want people running the actual marathon (as opposed to the one section that I will run) to fly past me. It’s a matter of pride.

So I am going back to the basics. I won’t start at Week 1, but yesterday completed Week 3, workout 1 which sadly was HARD. It was hard because I pushed myself and made myself run faster than an 11 minute/mile pace (my Nike+ pace ranged quite a bit). My heart pounded and I was out of breath by the time I was allowed to walk. But I know that it will get better. Once I get used to the pace I will up my miles so that I am ready for the race. I probably should have started this earlier, but I still have two months to try to increase my speed. The longest section is a 10K which is totally doable.

Unfortunately I am limping around today from my plantar fasciitis. Yep, it has reared its ugly head again. I really should stop running, but I am not going to. I am not willing to take more than two months off right now. Maybe I will take some time off after my fibroid surgery…..maybe I won’t. Maybe I will just wait until I (hopefully) get pregnant. I will just have to decide based on my pain level. I read an article on Jillian Michaels and she said that although she hates running, before every workout she runs three miles. She said it is absolutely the best way to lose weight. And I would have to agree.

How did you increase your running speed?

Almost Wordless Wednesday

2011-08-17T14:56:00.009-04:00

Buster is a fairly smart puppy.

Within a month of joining our family, he figured out how to open the door below. He jumps up and with his paws hits the door handle to open the door going out to our sunroom. CP thought it was cute when he figure out how to do this, I wasn't so sure. In about a month we will teach him to use the dog door, but wanted to keep that closed until we no longer were running a/c.

Recently he has figured out how to get past this gate that usually keeps him in the kitchen. We had hooks in the door frame, but took them out when we realized that we could just put the gate inbetween the door frame and the basement door.

However, a few weeks ago Buster figured out how to jump up with his front paws on the gate, use his nose to open the basement door, push the gate and run upstairs to wake us up. (He sleeps in a crate at night but we let him roam the kitchen during the day/after CP gets up for a work and while I am still getting ready upstairs.)

We tried to put a shoe underneath the gate so that the gate wouldn't slide but he broke through that. We put a heavy hamper of clothes but he broke through that.

Buster is one determined puppy.

This is our latest try. I put the hamper on the other side so that he can't jump up on the gate. So far escape has alluded him....but probably not for long.

What?!!?? I didn't do anything. I just wanted to be next to you instead in the kitchen by myself!

On a totally different topic, this is what I had to resort to doing to the vent above my cube. It prevents the steady flow of freezing cold air from hitting me. So far my boss hasn't said anything and since I put it up I still have to wear a winter sweater in the office, but it has helped a bit.

Rainy errands

2011-08-16T08:31:00.001-04:00

Yesterday I decided instead of driving the 1.8 miles to drop off mail, I was going to walk to the mailbox. In the pouring rain. With Buster.

And you know what? It wasn’t so bad.

During the walk I patted myself on the back for doing something healthy during my lunch hour instead of driving and wasting gas. I not only mailed the letters but also tired Buster out for the afternoon. In addition, the walk woke me up for the rest of the day. Earlier I had been very tired but the walk made me downright perky for an afternoon of work.

Yes I got wet despite my umbrella. Yes it was a bit difficult trying to deal with the umbrella, Buster and a bag filled with poop for half of the walk until I came upon a garbage can. But it was no big deal to come home after the walk, towel Buster off, and take off my wet shoes, socks and pants.

Yesterday weather-wise was a bit of an anomaly because the rain kept the temperature in the low 70s. This whole summer has been a bit difficult for the pups as it has been pretty hot in the middle of the day. But lunch hour errands that I can also use as exercise for one of the dogs and myself, while also saving a car trip? I hope to do that more often. I used to walk all of the time in Chicago- driving a car was much too annoying when you could take the El….but I don’t live in a downtown area any more so I don’t have as many opportunities and things are farther away.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Overall yesterday was a good workout day. In addition to the walk with Buster during lunch, I took Koda for a mile walk after work. Then I ran to the gym to take my first 1.25 hour power yoga class.

The instructor decided to turn the heat on which was unexpected- it is August. I was dripping everywhere throughout the class which made my mat slippery (which made downward dog more difficult). It's possible that I don't have a true yoga mat and just more of a workout mat....

So I guess I can say I have now taken a hot yoga class? Thank goodness I wore a Dri Fit shirt as I was nasty! I think that I would enjoy the class a bit more if I was better prepared for the heat.

Too bad I don't have time to work out this much every day!!

Monday bullets

2011-08-15T13:54:00.004-04:00

*My interview on Friday was going well…..until they informed me that it was only a part time job. Hmmm. I didn’t see that anywhere on the job details and all of my job searches had been for full time employment. I found this out about 10 minutes into the interview and we hung up shortly after that because there was no use in continuing the conversation. Oh well.

*Friday night I went to see OAR with a friend. It was my first time seeing them and it ended up being a really fun concert.

*Saturday CP went over to a friend’s house at 7am to help smoke pork and drink Bloody Mary’s (crazy men and their meat). Meanwhile I went to a yoga class, took the dogs for a long walk and cleaned the house. That night we headed over to the same friend’s house for the delicious pork dinner and drinks. We never mean to stay late/drink a lot at their house but it always seems to happen…..

*Sunday we didn’t have anything planned for the day because it poured rain all day, but we ended up being very productive. We went to the mall to get outfits for my father-in-law's upcoming wedding. I bought the dress below which isn’t usually something that I would wear but I thought that it would be a great dress for a HOT HOT HOT wedding in Palm Springs and hopefully the wedding in Denver the following weekend (meaning I only have to pack one dress for both weddings).

What color shoes do you think would work with this dress? (NOT purple)

*CP and I also got busy cooking and baking. CP put a beef roast (our last roast from our beef CSA last year) on the rotisserie in his grill with some salt and pepper and later made a chimichurri sauce- delicious. We also used cherry tomatoes and basil from our garden, pairing it with fresh mozzarella for an amazing salad. Meanwhile I made two loaves of banana bread, two loaves of sandwich bread and chicken salad using herbs from our garden so that we would have lunch for this week. Whew!

What did you do this weekend?

Interview

2011-08-12T08:27:00.001-04:00

In a few hours I have an interview with a nonprofit that I would absolutely LOVE to work for. It’s kind of funny that I even got the interview. The job notice was posted in mid June; I didn’t see it and apply for it until mid July. The posting had already been removed from their website, so I sent in my resume and cover letter to the Executive Director. I didn’t hear back from them so I figured that they had already filled the position.

On Monday I received an email from the nonprofit asking me if I would be available for a brief phone interview this week. This was the ONE cover letter and resume I sent out before I got the news of my fibroid surgery so it’s pretty amazing that I got a call back. So send good thoughts at 2pm today!!

The only potential problem with this job? I don’t think that it is going to pay enough. I am going to reserve judgment until I hear straight from the nonprofit, but if the salary is not close to what I am being paid now I won’t be able to take the job even if sounded like the best job in the entire world. Between our mortgage payment, the braces, two upcoming surgeries and out of pocket costs for IUI(s) next year, I need to maintain my salary level. Also, our renters out west are moving out at the end of September so we are currently trying to figure out whether to sell the place or rent it out again. Either way there is probably going to be at least a month where we will have to float two mortgages.

So yeah, while I am excited about the phone interview, I am trying not to get too excited because if I to make it through to the next round, my bet is that I won’t be able to take the job if offered it. *sigh*

Anxious

2011-08-11T11:49:00.003-04:00

I’m a bit frustrated today. I finally got in touch with the nurse for the fibroid surgery and she told me that the reason I haven’t gotten a call to schedule my fibroid surgery is because my hospital is getting a new robotic arm and they don’t have the schedule yet. So hopefully I will have a better idea of when I could have the surgery by the end of this month.

I would like to get it scheduled because with Thanksgiving, our mid-December Bahamas vacation (which may or may not happen at this point) and Christmas, there is a small window of opportunity to have the surgery. I have to wait three months for the Lupron to work and I can’t start that until my third day of my next period (late this month). So late November would be the earliest I could have the surgery. I will probably be out 7-10 days and I don’t want to feel too crappy on our vacation, even if our plan is just lay by the pool and drink fruity drinks (with some scuba diving if I am allowed). Of course I also have to be cleared to fly too…. I also don’t want to feel crappy on one of the holidays because we will be with CP’s family and I don’t want to be cranky around them (despite the fact that they will completely understand why).

Of course I am already stressed about this which is silly, but something that I can’t seem to control.

And then I am also nervous because I spoke to one of my African American coworkers (MJ) and it turns out that she AND her twin sister have had the surgery. Fibroids happen more often to AA women (they have no idea why)- which makes me want to joke about what a mistake it was to date my AA boyfriend in college as he clearly was the cause of the fibroid (ha). Anyway, her sister took the Lupron shot and had the surgery three months later. MJ said that she was an emotional/hormonal basket case from the Lupron…which is what I am afraid of. I had a period of two months in law school where I went NUTS because of the weird birth control I was taking (lucky CP was out of town a lot from work or else we probably wouldn't be together!). Her sister was so crazy that MJ refused the shot prior to her surgery. I shared my fears of being crazy due to the Lupron with CP and he said he figured that it was going to be a hard three months. Oh boy.

So yeah, the planner in me is going nuts because I just want to be able to write my surgery date into the calendar so I can start mentally preparing. I am also anxious to meet with the oral surgeon at the end of this month and get things moving on my braces. *sigh*

Almost Wordless Wednesday

2011-08-10T08:41:00.002-04:00

I'm not sure why this picture keeps loading upside down because it is saved correctly, but these are some of the Natchitoches Meat Pies that we made this past weekend to save and make in the next few months. Yum!

Quiche made this past weekend with swiss chard from our garden!

After meeting with the fertility doctor, he suggested that we test for various genetic diseases. If my insurance doesn't cover the test, it is only $316. We decided to go ahead and do the test because if we are both a carrier for Cystic Fibrosis (which would give any baby that we had together a 1 and 4 chance of having CF), we won't be having kids. The test was easy- just spitting into the container I am holding up the picture, mixing a preservation liquid into my spit, sealing the package and then calling FedEx to get the sample picked up. I should hear back in a couple of weeks.

Kefta Beef Fingers made this past weekend to freeze and make later. We used 5 pounds of beef so we made quite a bit! I promise they look better

once grilled. :-)

It's not the prettiest of pictures, but this Roasted Veggie Stacked Enchilada (recipe from The Sweets Life) was delicious! CP is not always a fan of the entrees that I choose to make, but he really enjoyed this. We will definitely make it again.

I got bored one day and decided to make cinnamon rolls. They are surprisingly not that difficult and I got to use my bundt pans. It was really hard to not eat more than one or two for breakfast!

It's blueberry season in the Northeast so while CP and I were in NH we picked up some fresh blueberries. CP LOVES when I bake pies. I really only like baking pies if the bottom crust is premade and I can make a crumb topping (because it is easier). :-)

Weekend in bullets

2011-08-09T15:37:00.001-04:00

*Friday night was spent at a friend’s new house. We drank entirely too much, stayed up too late and I came home with about 5 million mosquito bites (give or take a few), but it was a fun night.

*I woke up early Saturday morning with a headache and achy body from the alcohol. I dragged myself out of bed, dressed and picked up my friend. She was feeling equally crappy. We headed down to the center of our town for 1.5 hours of power yoga in the street to celebrate the opening of a Lululemon store. About 200 people set down mats on the pavement while random people took pictures and watched from the sidewalk. Every time the teacher made me close my eyes the world started to spin. Surprisingly, I made it through the class and actually felt better. Yoga really does some amazing stuff!

*Saturday CP and I took his car to Carmax, hoping to sell it for a good price. Kelly Blue Book said we could get $11,000+ from a private sale and $9,000+ for a dealer trade-in. They ended up offering us $6,500 despite nothing wrong with the car. Needless to say, an ad went up on Craigslist that day. Hopefully we can sell it soon!

*I took the dogs to the river again. Buster played with his favorite puppy friend and Koda took other dog’s toys. They were both exhausted after the trip.

*CP and I watched The Kids are Alright on Saturday night and were once again disappointed at a movie that everyone raved about. I think that this is why I don’t see a lot of movies these days- they just aren’t that good.

*Sunday was a day spent making food. We made 5 pounds of Kefta Beef Fingers (a Lebanese dish) and 16 large Natchitoches Meat Pies (kind of like Cajun empanadas). Thank goodness for our freezer downstairs as we now have a bunch of food stored for easy dinners the next couple of months!

*This weekend we signed up for the CSA beef share again. 20 pounds a month of grass fed organic beef for six months. We are still trying to finish the beef that we have left in the freezer from last year’s CSA- we have until November! All of that beef will come in handy while I am on Lupron as the doctor said that you can became anemic on the medication.

How was your weekend?

Hope

2011-08-05T15:27:00.002-04:00

It’s the end of what has been a hard week here in NSC land. But you know what? Despite the two surgeries that are looming over me in the next year or so, I’m starting to feel better. The one good thing about this fibroid is the fact that it is something wrong with ME not CP. So I can make the decision to tell whomever I want about it. That doesn’t mean that I have to give away that CP and I are trying to conceive…fibroids can be found during a regular annual exam (ahem…despite the fact that mine were not).

Telling people/complaining has helped my mood. Just getting it off my chest to various people has been cathartic.

Having this surgery is not the end of the world. It is frustrating that I feel absolutely fine yet need to have two surgeries. But hey, I can’t complain that I am otherwise healthy. Hopefully this surgery is just a bump in the road to motherhood. At least that is what I keep telling myself.

I have to be patient (not my strong suit). 32.5 years old is still fairly young when trying to conceive. There is still hope.

Book reviews

2011-08-04T09:38:00.000-04:00

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

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
4 stars
A white woman is determined to find out more about the family and background of Henrietta Lacks, a poor African-American woman who had cervical cancer. Cells taken from Henrietta were reproduced in a lab (without her knowledge or permission) and years later, billions of them are used all over the world. The book was great and the ethics discussion at the end was fascinating.

The Child Al Confino: The True Story of a Jewish Boy and His Mother in Mussolini’s Italy by Eric Lamet
3 stars
This book is about a Jewish boy and his mother sent into internal exile in Italy during World War II. I had no idea that this happened so it was interesting to read about the restrictions put on him and other Jewish people by Mussolini in order to appease Hitler. I was amazed that he could remember conversations he had as a kid with such detail, but sometimes the book became a bit too detailed.

Alone by Lisa Gardner
3 stars
Bobby Dodge, a police sniper, is the prime suspect for the death of a man he didn’t even know. Once he starts fraternizing with the man’s widow, he is sucked into family drama while trying to deal with his own past. I wasn’t a fan of how the detective found the widow so mesmerizing- does that really happen in real life??? Also there were plot points that were not plausible. Quick read though.

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
2 stars
French naturalist Dr. Aronnax embarks on an expedition to hunt down a sea monster, only to discover instead the Nautilus, an amazing submarine built by Captain Nemo. Together they explore the underwater world while Dr. Aronnax tries to figure out why Captain Nemo never wants to live on land again. This book was written back in 1869. I was AMAZED with his knowledge of ocean currents, underwater life, etc. However, too many details bogged the book down.

Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen
4 stars
Jacob, newly orphaned and penniless right before finishing his vet degree at Cornell, joins the circus. He meets a broad cast of characters and falls in love with Marlena, the star of the equestrian act. I thought that it was interesting that the book kept jumping between the main character when he is in a nursing home and then his memories of his time in the circus. Haven’t seen the movie yet, but I doubt that it does the book justice (plus it has the guy from Twilight in it).

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
3 stars
A novel about the Bergland family and how they spectacularly fall apart. Every character was self absorbed. I thoroughly enjoyed the first 200 pages or so, but got bogged down when the husband became wrapped up in his work. I have heard some complaints about the book being hard to follow because Franzen jumps to different characters to narrate the story, but I didn’t seem to have a problem with that. I hated the ending- it felt like Franzen figured that he had already written enough pages and just decided to wrap it up quickly.

The Front Porch Prophet by Raymond Atkins
4 stars
I picked up this book as a “Free Friday” selection on Barnes and Noble for my Nook. I’m not sure that I would usually pick it up but the book was fun to read. The book is about A.J. Longstreet, a man trying to deal with his childhood best friend’s terminal cancer diagnosis. While it sounds like a depressing context, the book is full of funny memories and stories with quite a cast of characters.

Infected by Scott Sigler
3 stars
This was another “Free Friday” selection from Barnes and Noble. The premise is that a mysterious disease is suddenly turning ordinary people into paranoid murderers. While the CIA races around trying to find a live victim, the CDC analyzes the quickly decomposing bodies. Meanwhile, a University of Michigan former football player becomes infected and has to fight the parasites on his own. I lot of the time that I spend with my Nook is during lunch when I can sit for 45 minutes to read while eating. This is NOT a good book to read while eating lunch because it is fairly graphic and gory.

Read any good books recently?

Cranky

2011-08-03T09:22:00.001-04:00

I love CP very much. However, this summer has been tough.

For the past couple of months CP has had a daily three hour commute (1.5 hours each way) to a project in MA. I used to hate my daily two hour commute myself…I can’t imagine having to add another hour on it.

It’s not just the commute though. CP works for a small company and although he told his boss that he needed help months ago, his boss has refused to send anyone to MA to help him with the project saying that he can’t spare anyone. Meanwhile, CP has been working crazy hours and trying to catch up on paperwork on the weekends. CP’s client even called CP’s boss to tell him that CP needed help. A month too late, CP’s boss finally sent someone….but only for two weeks.

CP is tired. CP is stressed. CP is cranky. CP doesn’t have time to work out (which would help his mood).

Unfortunately he comes home and isn’t much fun to be with because he is worried about work, worried about the next day and everything that he needs to do. (Needless to say, all of this stress can’t be helping his sperm.)

Recently CP has started staying over in MA one night a week and frankly, I welcome the night off from his crankiness. He is much more relaxed and fun on the weekends.

I hate that I can’t do anything to help his mood. My job is not stressful so I have time to make doctor/vet appointments, pay the bills, walk the dogs, train Buster and generally keep the house together. But there are some things that I can’t do because I am not authorized to do them (i.e. call his credit card company to get the “pay by” date changed) and then I have to remind him to do it. That shouldn’t be my job since I am not his mother, but his brain is focused on work and not much else right now.

I REALLY can’t wait for this project to be over in a few months. I want my husband back.

Yep. Worst year ever.

2011-08-01T16:19:00.002-04:00

How do I characterize the infertility appointment CP and I went to yesterday? On one hand it was hopeful….but it mostly just left me depressed.

First off, the experience itself is just so invasive. Before we even got to our appointment we had to fill out 8 pages of information about our health, our sex life, etc. Then when we got to the appointment we had to answer even more questions from a nurse. It’s embarrassing and weird. One question was whether I have PMS (one of the least-invasive questions). CP chimed in that I have to clean when I am about to get my period- which I guess would be considered PMS??? When asked if we thought my PMS symptoms were mild, moderate or severe, CP tactfully said mild. ;-)

After the question and answer session, the doctor came in to take a cervical cell sample which just felt like I was getting yet another pap smear this year. Then he did a uterus check with one hand inside and one hand outside pushing and prodding (ladies, you know what I am talking about). After that he took an instrument that looked like a long dildo (no joke- CP and I both looked at when we were waiting in the room and laughed at it…..little did we know that it was going to be inside me in a few minutes) and did a vaginal ultrasound.

His first words? “How long have you had this fibroid?” (record scratches to silence) HUH? He points to a large object on the screen and says, “that is a large fibroid on your uterine wall. I’m surprised they didn’t see it during your HSG test.”

My fibroid is like the one on the right- as far as I know it is not attached to the uterine artery.

So it turns out that I have a 4.7 inch fibroid growing on the side of my uterus. The HSG test did show that my uterus wasn’t triangular- the doctor noted that my uterus is asymmetrical but I guess didn’t catch the fibroid. I have most likely had it for a couple of years because of its size. Fibroids can cause infertility- miscarriages, early labor, etc. They can also cause heavy periods, painful cramping, etc (which helps explain the past few years). The more estrogen you have in your body, the faster they grow so it probably grew quite a bit while I was on birth control and slowed when I stopped taking the pill about a year ago.

Pregnancy means a surge of estrogen in the body which means that I need to get the fibroid taken out before I can get pregnant.

CP and I both had blood taken yesterday for various tests. On the third day of my next period I will head into the office to get more blood drawn (to check my ovaries). Right after that I will call in a prescription to my pharmacy, pick up a vial of Lupron and have a nurse at the office inject it into me. The drug will shut down my ovaries/drop my estrogen levels in an effort to shrink the fibroid before surgery. The shot will basically give me a early taste of menopause for about three months (hot flashes, headaches, bone loss, possible joint pain, etc).

I can look forward to the surgery to remove the fibroid right around my birthday in December (YAY!), an overnight stay in the hospital and then being out of work for 7-10 days. The doctor will go in through my belly button and two other spots on my stomach in order to remove the fibroid. If I ever get pregnant I can count on a c-section because the surgery will weaken my uterine wall and natural child birth may cause it to rupture. There goes my hope for natural child birth....

After the surgery I need to give my uterus at least three months to heal from the surgery. After I start to have regular periods we can try the IUI procedure…..but I also have to worry about the oral surgery aka breaking my jaw surgery that will happen 8-12 months after getting my braces on- so the timing is up in the air.

I have to say that I am at least happy with our doctor (unlike my last surgeon). He took the time to sit with us, answer any questions that we had and generally made us feel comfortable. He explained that he thought that we were good candidates for an IUI procedure because we were both young. We like the fact that he had a plan.

However, I am extremely depressed that I am have yet another surgery dropped on my plate in the coming year. I don’t even want to think about the out of pocket costs CP and I are going to incur. Between the braces and the fibroid setback, it is entirely possible that we can’t even have the IUI procedure until NEXT JULY.

The other thing that will now be put on hold? My job search. I'm looking at four weeks out of the office for two surgeries/recovery time. There is no way I can accrue enough time at a new job to manage that. That makes me even more depressed....

Sigh.

Boy do I need a vacation.

The State of NSC- July 2011

2011-08-01T15:46:00.001-04:00

A monthly take on my world.

Weight: 203 (It is no fair that I keep having to weigh in while I am on my period). That being said, it looks like I gained some weight in July. Boooo.

Current Feeling: Sad. Anxious. Worried. Not at all ready or looking forward to the next year or so (more tomorrow).

Running Stats in July
Total Miles Run: 4.11 miles
Time Spent Running: 50 minutes, 9 seconds (I’m SO SLOW after taking almost two months off!!!)
Longest Single Run: 2.06 miles

Current aches and pains: I haven’t had any plantar fasciitis pain during my two runs so far, but I did wake up this morning with some pain after getting out of bed (booo). I’m trying to stretch as much as possible.

Current Favorite Song: Mumford & Sons “Little Lion Man.” I don’t listen to teenybopper music ALL the time. :-)

Looking forward to: Something good happening to me this year.

Annoyed about: As always, my job. But after the doctor’s appointment today, it looks like I won’t be able to switch jobs for a while now. :-(

Proud about: Absolutely nothing. Life is kicking me in the a** right now and I feel utterly defeated.

How are you feeling with the start of this new month?

August plan

2011-07-29T09:24:00.001-04:00

My plantar fasciitis has been doing a bit better lately. I don’t hobble as much in the morning. I am happy about this because (obviously) it is nice to not be in pain and because I REALLY REALLY REALLY want to do the Hartford Marathon Relay with friends. The event is October 15th with 5 legs: 10K, 5 miles, 5K, 10K or 5.7 miles. I don’t want to be the person that does the 5K- because in my crazy mind it will look to others like the biggest person on the relay team is running the shortest distance because I can't physically handle long runs). That means that I have to get up and start running NOW so that I can be ready to run 5-6 miles by mid-October (aaaaaaand hopefully not be the slowest person out there).

I ended up running two slow miles yesterday. I didn't want to push too hard on my first run since June 5th. It felt nice to get out there and I didn't have any heel pain. Sadly, that was my first run IN ALMOST A YEAR without heel pain. Hopefully the pain will stay away. If it doesn't....well...I ran an entire half marathon training program and race with the pain so I will just run through it again. (Clearly that would NOT be ideal, but what can you do?)

Currently my worry is shin splints that literally just started to hurt this week. I have been doing a ton of walking with the dogs and I must not be wearing shoes that give me enough support because walking should be LOW IMPACT. I have had shin splints before- both in high school and college when playing tennis. They aren’t fun, but they are probably something that I can run through if need be. I will just start to ice and pop Advil when necessary.

But I have even more of an exercise plan in mind. Not only am I going to be starting up my running again, but I also have a recent Groupon for 30 days of unlimited yoga at a nearby studio! My plan is to go yoga-crazy the month of August because the pool at my gym is closed for two weeks anyway. With the plantar fasciitis and the shin splints, maybe I do need to spend more time stretching. And if I am getting back into running, I will need to do even MORE stretching.

I’m pretty excited and hope that I can follow through with a yoga class at least three times a week. Couple that with running and hopefully I will also have lost a few pounds before the two weddings we have to attend in early September!

Are you starting a new exercise program in August?

Male egos

2011-07-28T09:47:00.001-04:00

Last week I downloaded Pitbull's new album from iTunes. While listening to my new album, I came across this ditty:

"Come N Go" featuring Enrique Inglesias.

This song has a catchy beat, but the thing that made me snort was the lyrics. "I make the girls come, I make the girls go" with some woman in the background singing like she was in an opera (i.e. having an orgasm).

Now I realize that this is just a song, but the balls that these guys have to have to put out a song like this....proclaiming that they are god's gift to women in the bedroom...well, it just makes me laugh.

Have you ever had a guy come up to you with a pick up line to the same effect? Thankfully I have not but I would laugh right in his face. I was never interested in egotistical guys so right off the bat I would write the guy off. But it's not only that. What makes some guy think that I would be willing to even let him TRY to rock my world? I was not a one-night stand kind of girl- at most I would drunkenly kiss strangers. So the fact that he thought that he would be able to get into my pants just because he said that he was good in bed? HA HA HA HA HA HA.

I'm not quite sure why this song inspired me to write an entire post about it, but while admiring the cajones it took to write, perform and put this song on his album, I also have to laugh.

Do you have a reaction to this song?

Almost Wordless Wednesday

2011-07-27T15:51:00.001-04:00

I keep forgetting to post these pictures! They were taken Fourth of July weekend at the watering hole by a guy that was once on Dogs 101 (an Animal Planet tv show about various dog breeds). He has two Leonbergers- HUGE dogs that love water. We met him July 4th when Buster and his puppy had a great time playing with each other (despite a huge weight difference). He offered to bring his bad-a** camera the next day to take pictures while the puppies were playing. Luckily I happened to be taking the next day off so we got some GREAT shots of Buster that day.

The swimming picture of Buster in the caramel color water I posted here almost became the cover for the latest Dog Naturally magazine! Buster would have been famous! Ha ha. :-)

Buster and this Leonberger puppy are the exact same age- yet the other puppy is about twice Buster's size (and will probably end up being about 180 pounds!).

Buster taking a break from playing

Shaking off the water

Eyeing his prey (ha ha)

Running after his puppy friend

My favorite shot of them all- what a great tongue shot!

Dinner club

2011-07-26T14:23:00.003-04:00

Sunday night CP and I started a new tradition here in CT- a dinner club. Hopefully we can keep it going for a while!

A few ladies from the newcomer’s club decided at an event that we wanted to start going to dinner together (outside of club events). We started out with four of us going once a month, just the ladies, to a local restaurant. Some wine, good food and good conversation. A nice chance to spend some time with girl friends and for two of them, a break from kids.

At last month’s dinner I brought up the fact that in law school, we used to do a monthly cook-off with friends. We would decide on a theme (appetizer, soup, make something with beer, Indian, dessert, etc.), meet at someone’s house to eat and rate each other’s food. (One half of each couple was in law school- we are the epitome of competitive people.) We had comment cards and everything. It was always a great time and someone was crowned a winner at the end of the night.

The ladies LOVED the idea- except we wouldn’t make it a competition (booooo). So I offered to host the first one on Sunday. CP and I had been thinking about making lobster tamales recently so we went with a Mexican theme. One couple took appetizers, one couple took the side dish, CP and I made lobster tamales and fish tacos and another woman made margarita cake (the fifth friend couldn’t make it this month). CP and I also broke out our Margaritavilla machine to make mango daiquiris. Yum!

Everything was delicious! We had a few mishaps when CP ran out of gas on the grill to cook the fish and the mangoes for the drinks were a little too frozen in the beginning….but overall it went great. The puppies settled down quickly, the AC cooled the house down enough to keep the house comfortable, and everyone had a good time.

Unfortunately people are out of town in August so we are going to have to wait until September for our next “Dinner Club” but the theme is “Farm Fresh/New England” and CP has already offered to make clam chowder. He makes a mean clam chowder so I can’t wait!

Once again it was a nice reminder of how I am growing to love living here. It is still not out west but it is 10 MILLION BAJILLION TIMES BETTER than the small town we were living in up until a year ago.

Do you have potluck dinners or other events centered around eating with your friends?

Friendship

2011-07-25T16:20:00.004-04:00

So after a fairly crappy day in the office on Friday where I once again huddled in a heavy sweater and froze my a** off despite the 109 heat index outside, I came home to two panting dogs because our power was off.

Fan-f*cking-tastic. I called our provider who estimated it would take about three hours to restore power.

The only place I could think to take them was a swimming hole about 25 minutes away to cool them off. Fuzzy Britches was estastic and immediately jumped in to start stealing toys and sticks from other dogs (lucky the other dog owners there are very nice). Buster was a bit more cautious, but for the second time I got him in the water and swimming for a bit. WIN. His "technique" is adorable- more vertical than horizontal but he will learn. Buster also got to play with a Leonberger puppy that we have seen a couple of times.

When I got home with the two wet dogs the power was still not on (grrrr) and CP was nowhere to be found. Turns out when he arrived home to no power he headed outside to weed (???? I don't know why either) when one of our friends drove by. Once our friend found out that we didn't have any power he invited us over for the night to bask in their AC, drink some beer and have dinner.

I fed the dogs, opened up the basement door for them and headed over to our friend's house (they have two cats so the dogs couldn't come). I kept calling the power company throughout the night....7pm turned into 10pm, 10pm turned into 12am, 12am turned into 2:30am. Meanwhile CP and I are enjoying the AC, food, alcohol and conversation/laughter.

We finally made our way home around 12:30am with still no power. We headed down to the basement which was a little cooler but still not comfortable. CP immediately started snoring and I couldn't sleep on the hot leather couch. I was estatic when the power came back on at 1am! I ran upstairs to kick on the AC in our bedroom and get some sleep.

Needless to say, I love that we have friends nearby. It was great to spend an unexpected night with them. :-)

How did you survive the heat wave this past week?

Hot and bothered

2011-07-22T14:55:00.001-04:00

Maybe because the heat index makes it feel like 109 degrees out today. Maybe I didn’t get enough sleep last night. Whatever it is I am a bit annoyed.

It’s invasive and somewhat weird to have to talk to people about wanting to have kids. They get all excited for you but it’s because they don’t know that you have been unsuccessful in the venture for a year. They think that you and your husband just started to have discussions about the idea. But you don’t want to make them feel bad about getting excited so you don’t say anything.

When I went to the orthodontist we had the conversation about when I could get pregnant and still have the oral surgery. When CP and I went to get long term disability and life insurance we had to tell our representative that we wanted kids in the future. When my dentist wanted to prescribe me special toothpaste to combat the possible cavity growing between my teeth, he asked about pregnancy and I had to tell him that we were trying (and therefore couldn’t use the special toothpaste).

I can’t match these random people’s excitement over the prospect of having kids. It’s hard to get my hopes up these days. I wonder if they think that I am weird because I don’t get excited when talking about it?

Either way I am slightly b*tchy and/or cranky about the subject these days. One of my coworkers ran into me in the hallway and said, “how’s it going mommy?” She meant how was it going with the puppy, but I told her that she needed to say “puppy mommy” next time. I don’t need rumors floating around the office. I can’t imagine getting questions about that while not even being pregnant.

The other annoying thing lately is all of the mothers in the office that say things to me like, “don’t have kids for a while” or how I “will find out soon enough about kids.” I get that kids aren’t sunshine and rainbows. But no, I may never find out what is like to have a kid. And I do want a kid right now- I am going to be 33 in December.

None of these people have any idea what is going on with me- I haven’t told anyone at the office that we are even trying. So I certainly don’t snap at them or say anything. But it is still frustrating……

TGIF.

Follow up

2011-07-20T09:38:00.002-04:00

So yesterday I had a follow up meeting with my orthodontist to find out the specifics of what I need done after she took molds, pictures, etc. of my mouth. She said that I am somewhat of a mystery as my jaw realigning isn’t simply because of my grinding. They can also see “pitting” in my teeth- which is usually because of acid in the mouth. I let them know that I had been taking medicine for acid reflux, but realized that I didn’t want to take anything for the rest of my life, so I quit a year ago and just take charcoal pills whenever I have a problem (about once a month or so).

So the final verdict? A year and a half of braces. No teeth need to be removed (YAY! I don’t have to look like a hillbilly for a few months!) but both of my jaws need to be reset (aka broken). That requires a one night stay at a hospital, heavy drugs for at least 3-4 days and out of work for at least a week or two.

The problem of course is the fact that we are trying to get pregnant. I can’t and won’t have surgery with Xrays, anesthesia, heavy drugs, etc. if I am pregnant. They would generally put the braces on and then after 12 months I would have the surgery. The final 5-6 months of braces would just be finishing the final alignment. My doctor said that she could move the surgery up to possibly the 8 month mark.

It all depends on when I finally get the braces on. The next step is to meet with the oral surgeon who then has to ask my insurance for permission to do the surgery. I would think that with an open bite, only two teeth making contact, a lisp and TWO BROKEN TEETH they would deem the surgery medically necessary….but we’ll see. It will take at least a month for the insurance company to get back. If they approve, I just want to get this process over with as soon as possible and I will get the braces put on (at this point that would probably be around Oct). If the pre-approval is denied, then we have to appeal which would add on a few more months.

So CP and I need to seriously hurry up and get pregnant or else a few months into my braces we need to go into prevention mode (ha ha ha ha what a joke). I really can’t imagine having jaw surgery and being out of it with a new baby but if I am truly only out of it for a week one of our mothers could come and help out. CP’s mom is basically retired at this point anyway. Not ideal but a baby is more important than this surgery.

We have our appointment to discuss IUIs on the first of August. My appointment with the oral surgeon is not until August 31st.

So yeah. I can say let’s hurry up and get pregnant but we know only too well that nothing in that area has gone well.

*sigh*

Tests

2011-07-19T14:44:00.002-04:00

When CP and I applied for life insurance and long term disability, the company had a woman come to our house to draw blood and ask us medical questions. Prior to our appointment we had received an email from CP’s dad talking about cholesterol and how most of his family must be on medication in order to keep their cholesterol in check. No one in his family is overweight- in fact his sister runs half marathons, eats organic foods, etc. But yet his dad, mom, sister and uncle all are on medication.

So we were a little worried to find out CP’s test results. Then after joking with him about his probable test results, I worried that because we weren’t worried about MY test results that I would suddenly have something pop up in my results.

Well, the worrying was for naught. CP’s cholesterol test came back at 192, just barely in the normal range, but still normal. That is FANTASTIC news because this year we have been eating quite a bit of beef (albeit grass-fed and organic) through our CSA.

My cholesterol came back at 137 which is lower than normal (140-200). Amazing considering I eat at least 6 eggs a week (and not just egg whites), eat beef, etc.

All of our other tests came back perfectly normal too.

So even though we are infertile, at least we are otherwise healthy….The nurse that came to take our blood told us about a guy that seemed healthy but found out through the blood test that his kidneys were not functioning correctly. That led to finding out that he had cancer which they caught very early because of the blood test!

Monday afternoon bullets

2011-07-18T15:09:00.002-04:00

CP and I finally saw Black Swan last night. Man that movie was weird. We both didn’t think that it lived up to the hype. According to CP, every interview that he has seen with Natalie Portman makes her seem boring and kind of an ice queen. If that is true then it wasn’t too much of a stretch to play her character in the movie- let alone grab an Oscar for the performance. Ultimately we were disappointed in the movie.

CP has been working really long hours at his job. Right now he is commuting into MA so he has a three hour commute every day. I feel bad for him now, but this is only for a few months. After the project is over he will go right back to working from home five days a week….so you can’t feel too bad for the guy. But the long commute = a cranky CP. He has even started to spend Wednesday nights in MA so that he can stay at work longer and not have to make the drive Thursday morning. I’m ready for this job to be over for him so that a more well-rested and good-humored CP comes back.

My job search isn’t going well. I did apply to one job today but I’m not even sure it was still an active job because it was posted June 12th. The posting was still up, but who knows? I sent my cover letter and resume anyway because it would be a pretty awesome job if I got it. Otherwise, the market here in CT is not generally geared towards my background so it’s hard finding jobs to apply to. I guess I just have to keep looking….

Our sugar snap peas have been coming in nicely along with the start of our yellow cherry tomatoes. CP keeps admonishing me not to pick the veggies right off the plant and eat them because otherwise we can’t save up to put them on a salad. They are just SO TASTY right off the plant- it’s hard not to pop them in your mouth as a delicious snack!

Friday gave me more ammunition in why I need to leave my current job. We had people in for a presentation on Friday about our office. The directors each had a presentation to give that they first edited before my boss (aka control freak) had to edit it. First she wouldn’t let them edit the electronic version themselves because she wanted total control. She printed the presentation out, they made pen edits and then the presentations were given to me for edits (thus rendering me an Admin person despite my LAW DEGREE). What a complete waste of my time. But then, despite the fact that my boss made edits herself and thus knew the substance of each presentation, she arbitrarily decided when directors were taking too long in giving their presentations. When SHE decided their time was up, she gave them the stink eye, rested her elbow on the table with her forearm in the air and used her long fingernail to tap her watch- repeatedly. Not just a few times to try to be discreet. She went on for a good three minutes at one point (click click click click) during two different presentations. It was rude and ridiculous.

*sigh*

Big decision

2011-07-12T16:17:00.001-04:00

This weekend CP and I made a big decision. We decided that we are going to see a fertility doctor about possibly having an IUI treatment.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t a long conversation. I thought that I would have to convince CP to even go in for an appointment to talk to a doctor. But no. I’m not completely sure why he was suddenly fine with it, but didn’t want to push for an answer. :-) I just accepted it and made the appointment.

We will be meeting with a doctor on August 1st to talk about the procedure. I’m cautiously optimistic going into the procedure, even after reading on the internet that IUIs are about 10-20% successful. Maybe inserting the sperm directly into my uterus will help the little buggers out on their journey….

The good news is that my insurance pays for most of the procedure. I can have up to three total under my plan. So that at least helps us with the cost.

Here’s hoping this gets us pregnant!

Still lost

2011-07-07T09:32:00.000-04:00

Yesterday CP and I went to his latest doctor appointment. Unfortunately, we didn't get any answers.

CP got poked and pulled a bit more, along with a probe that he was not too fond of (that *might* have made up for my HSG test). The doctor proclaimed him fit and healthy with no need for surgery to fix a varicocele.

In other words, we have no answers as to why CP has a normal amount of sperm, but just a lower amount of "good" sperm.

CP is going to start taking a multivitamin which could help according to the Mayo Clinic.

We now have to discuss whether we are interested in finding out more about the IUI procedure. From what I know about it, CP would give a sperm sample. That sample would be put into a centrifuge where the seminal fluid would be separated from the sperm. Sperm would then be injected into the uterus via a syringe.

I wouldn't have to take any fertility drugs, but will the procedure be too artificial for us? At this point I am willing to give it a chance, but I am not sure that CP is. We were putting off discussing it until after the appointment, but with no new answers it looks like it is time to figure out what we are willing to do.

Almost Wordless Wednesday

2011-07-06T15:36:00.007-04:00

I might, just might slow down on the pictures of the puppies but it is REALLY HARD because they are so darn cute!!

Buster with the puppy head tilt. I like to say things to him in weird voices or make funny sounds. So adorable.

This weekend is was pretty hot. Koda is in heaven while in a nearby brook.

According to CP it took Koda a while to like to swim. Buster was out and swimming on his first day in the water. Check out the tongue!

Wet Buster after his swim.

The still wet snuggling puppies. Every once in a while Koda isn't annoyed by Buster....and the result melts your heart.

Hope everyone had a great and safe holiday weekend!

The State of NSC- June 2011

2011-07-01T09:24:00.002-04:00

A monthly take on my world.

First off, I can’t believe that it is already JULY. Where has 2011 gone? Oh yeah it is been a crappy year so bring on 2012!!

Weight: 198

Current Feeling: Overall? Blah. I was a little shocked to see 198 on the scale this morning because other than walking the dogs, I haven’t been doing ANYTHING exercise-wise since the half marathon. I guess I have been eating healthy enough to lose a pound since last month. I’ll take it!

Running Stats in June
Total Miles Run: 16.3
Time Spent Running: 3 hours, 3 minutes, 35 seconds
Longest Single Run: 13.1 miles

Current aches and pains: Still having some plantar fasciitis pain, but it is not as bad. I haven’t run since the half marathon and every time I see someone out and running it makes me sad. I really just want the pain to go away entirely before I start back up again.

Current Favorite Song: Britney Spears, “Till the World Ends” (Hey if I have to get braces I might as well continue listening to teeny bopper music!)

Looking forward to: The long weekend. I feel like I have taken a bunch of time off of work lately and it is still not helping with my mood. Next week we have a doctor appt for CP so maybe we will get some answers and maybe some sort of path?

Annoyed about: Having to get braces. My job situation. I’m still having problems figuring out how to take one or more of my interests and turn it into a good paying job.

Proud about: Finishing the half marathon in my goal time. That our garden is doing so well. That Buster is doing better with strangers.

How are you feeling with the start of this new month?

Almost Wordless Wednesday

2011-06-29T15:18:00.011-04:00

It is almost July so the garden is starting to get big! We have already finished the bok choy that we planted in late April and have seedlings popping out of the ground for a new row that we planted this past weekend! We also took out the bibb lettuce and romaine lettuce- we didn't get a great crop this year so we replaced them with green and red loose leaf lettuce.

Herb garden

Green pole beans. They are slowly climbing up the trellis. I think that they are going to take longer because they do not get a full day of sun.

Hot peppers already starting to grow!

Bush cucumbers flowering.

We have snap peas! The plants are already as tall as me (5'9")!

Cherry tomatoes. Can't wait to put these suckers in salads!

Zucchinis are flowering which means we will soon be inudated with zucchini (not a bad thing- grilled zucchini is DELISH).

Brussel sprouts

Mmmmm beets.

Carrots.

I am so proud of our garden right now. Other than a few of the herbs which we wintered over inside and the tomatoes we planted all of that from seed this year. We saved so much money buying $1.99 organic seed packets rather than buying already-started plants. We thought it would be a lot harder to do....but it turns out it is really simple. Yay!

Heading back to 6th grade

2011-06-28T11:25:00.001-04:00

Wow I don’t think that this year could suck any more. Last week I got even more bad news.

Over the weekend I broke part of my back lower right molar while eating. I wasn’t entirely surprised- I have what is called an “open bite” because my jaw has shifted so much the past few years. So with this open bite the teeth on the back right side of my mouth are the only ones that make contact with each other. So for the past few years I have mainly been chewing on the right side of my mouth.

My open bite is most likely due to the fact that I grind my teeth. Dentists have told me for years, but until my dentist here in CT told me that I was seriously losing enamel on my teeth, I didn’t think that it was too much to worry about. Ha ha.

So grinding my teeth has completely f*cked up my teeth. I went to the dentist to get my tooth shaved down (thankfully it wasn’t that bad of a break) and he told me that this would continue to happen if I didn’t get some orthodontia work done. BRACES??? AT AGE 32???? But I already had them for two years from 6th grade to 8th grade! F*ck.

My dentist also said that he had to send me to a “special” dentist because I have a “complex case.” That sounded ominous.

I made my appointment and afterwards wanted to cry. $6200-$7200 to fix my teeth. Probably a year and a half of braces. No possibility of getting Invisaline (the clear retainers). No possibility of braces on the back of my teeth. But I can have clear brackets for $250 more (but with a metal wire). FML.

Oh! And they will mostly likely have to BREAK MY JAW AND REMOVE FOUR TEETH. FANTASTIC.

My insurance is not paying for a lick of the orthodontia work but will pay for part of the oral surgery (aka BREAKING MY JAW and removing teeth).

Unfortunately, this has to be done because my teeth will just get worse if I don’t get them fixed now. We were planning on putting away extra money towards a household savings fund because we will need a new roof/new windows soon, but it looks like that money will be going towards my teeth.

I get all the prep work done next Tuesday. At that point I will get a better estimate price-wise, time-wise and whether they will have to break my jaw and/or remove teeth. No idea as to when the braces will actually go on but at this point I just want to get it over with.

The moral of the story? If you are told you grind your teeth? Get a freaking mouthguard for night-time use so that you don’t have to wear braces. AGAIN.