Job hunt

Two days later I think that I am finally out of my funk.  I’m not sure if it was the whole Mother’s Day stuff, PMS, a combination of the two, or something completely different.  I just felt CRANKY and OFF the past two days (poor CP).

But today is a new day and although I am a bit sleepy, my mood is finally better.

For one, I received word that I won an award at work for an event that I put together and participated in.  It was so unique that I was given a cash award.  Woo hoo!  Of course it won’t be much once taxes get taken out, but hey, it’s something for my resume and I’m not going to turn down a few extra dollars.

Those few extra dollars might go towards polishing up my resume though.  Last week I applied to three jobs in Chicago and joined TheLadders dot com for a free 14 day trial.  A resume critique came with the trial and the reviewer basically told me that my resume is outdated and I’m not showcasing my talents.  I can totally see that because it is the same resume format that I have been using since college.  I’m sure things have changed quite drastically since then.  So for only $495 (ha!) someone will retool my resume.  I know that it is a lot of money, but I’m kind of tempted (has anyone used TheLadders?) as I already have my first “we have gone with another candidate” rejection.

Last night I told CP that even if he doesn’t get the job in Chicago that I am going to start looking for a new job here in CT.  I know that I say this every few months and there are valid reasons as to why I shouldn’t leave my job (my accumulated vacation time and sick time if I get pregnant for one)…..but I am not pregnant.  And there is no end in sight to my infertile ways so why not get a job where I feel useful and happy?  Even with taking on the work of my retired coworker I am still bored.  CP says that when he sees it, he will believe it.

After almost four years of being unhappy at work, it’s finally time to change that.  Hopefully with a move to Chicago and a new job!!  


*UPDATE*  I just got an email from my boss saying that as long as Corporate HQ approves the transfer to the Chicago office, the Chicago office would love to have me.  I know that things wouldn't change as far as hating my job, but if HQ does approve this then I wouldn't have to scramble around trying to find a job in the next few months and instead could take my time.

Mother's Day weekend

Blergh.  Nothing like coming back to a boring job to make you miss your weekend.

The highlights:

·         Seeing law school friends during the day on Friday and meeting their 7 month old twins for the first time.  They were adorable! 

·         Surprising my parents Friday night.  We decided on heading to the restaurant early and when they turned the corner to hold up our water glasses with a sh*t-eating grin on our faces.  Everyone else wasn’t paying attention when they walked in, but I managed to follow the plans.  It took my parents about 30 seconds to register that both of their daughters were at the restaurant.  Hee hee.  Neither of my parents had any idea!

·         After the surprise we had a great (albeit short) weekend with the whole family.  We played dirty Scattegories- which is basically played the regular way but if you can find a dirty answer for a category you get double points.  That was quite interesting with my mother who doesn’t know a lot of the slang terms (but quite hilarious).

·         The magnolia tree my sister and I ordered for my mom came on time.  I was worried that it wasn’t going to deliver in time for us to plant it this weekend but it came and it looks great!

·         Seeing my sister’s condo that she bought with her boyfriend and meeting her rescue puppy.

The lowlights:

·         For the past couple of days I have been seeing a little dark blood mixed with the Crinone (progesterone).  Yesterday (aka Mother’s Day) I saw more blood (red) and even had to wear a tampon last night.  At first I thought it might be implantation blood but at only 10dpo this is right around the time I should be getting my period without the progesterone help….so I think the progesterone didn’t work this month.  I’m calling my doctor just in case, but I didn’t even have the heart to use a pregnancy test this morning.  The fact that I started bleeding ON Mother’s Day is just my body’s way of saying “F*CK YOU of course you are not pregnant!”  Lovely.

·         Getting annoyed at the airline stewardesses that proclaimed “Happy Mother’s Day!” five different times throughout the flight.  I’m fine with the holiday and it doesn’t make me too sad because I can celebrate the fact that I have an amazing mother- but when you continually say the phrase, it starts to gut punch those of us that have been unable to even get pregnant.  Gah.  Why not just mention it once??

·         Spending too much on dinner at Rick Bayless’ restaurant Topolobampo.  I mean, the food was good, but my Artic Char dish wasn’t worth $35.  We couldn’t get into Frontera, his less expensive and more well known restaurant, so we settled for Topolobampo.  I guess I was expecting more from a Top Chef Master winner.

·         Getting a call from the vet on Friday.  She gave us the bad news that although Fuzzy Britches’ UTI is gone, she still has crystals in her urine.  We have to go back in 2-3 weeks and bring in another urine sample.  If there are still crystals it means she most likely has either bladder stones or kidney stones and will have to undergo an MRI.  Poor baby.  :-(

While it seems as if I have just as many lowlights as highlights, the weekend with my family was great.  I didn’t think about anything related to a potential pregnancy until Sunday morning when I saw the blood.  :-(

Surprise!

This afternoon CP and I leave for a long weekend in Chicago!  We have been planning this for MONTHS.  The impetus behind the trip is my mother’s 60^th birthday.  So back in 2010 we had a surprise party for my dad’s 60th birthday.  However, we knew that if we suddenly showed up around the time of my mother’s 60^th birthday this past October, she would be wary of a surprise party.  She would definitely know that something was up.  So my sister and I told my mom that we were getting her a tree for her 60^th birthday (which she knew couldn’t be planted until the spring) and CP and I didn’t fly out to Chicago.

I then got an idea to fly out this spring to surprise my parents…but to do it the weekend that my mom was going to plant the tree.  I’m not sure if we tipped her off or not when I pushed for a date (because we had to get flights), but I kept saying that I needed a date so that I would know when to get the tree delivered (I was handling all of the tree ordering/delivering logistics).  My sister has a lot of weekend events for her job so we also played it off as if they needed to pick a date so that my sister could meet up the same weekend to help plant the tree.  Well, the tree is (hopefully) getting delivered today or tomorrow and I’m crossing my fingers that my mom has no idea that we are flying out.

It has been SO HARD not saying anything to her and remembering not to ruin the surprise.  I was on the phone with her earlier this week talking about watching our friend’s dog and I started to talk about the fact that it is nice that our friends will then turn around and watch our dogs while we are gone….before I saw CP’s head whip around and I realized what I was doing.  Luckily I had something else to plug in and I adverted disaster.  I’m tempted to lock my phone away today and tomorrow so that I don’t post something on Facebook like “so excited to be back in Chicago!”

CP’s interview is next week in Chicago (unfortunately two separate trips for him) and my mom was wondering if he would have time for dinner the night before the interview.  I ALMOST said, “well, you guys will have just seen him” but thankfully I bit my tongue.  I really am learning NOT to say whatever is in my head with this event.  :-)  I think this is a lot harder than my dad’s surprise because he knew that we were flying out that weekend so we could talk about it. 

I think that I am just not cut out for surprises!!  CP’s 36^th birthday is coming up next month and I joked about throwing him a surprise party.  He replied that his reaction would be much like Don Draper’s reaction to a surprise party on Mad Men.  For those of you that don’t watch (and you really should)- he was not a happy camper.  So I guess planning a surprise for CP is just not in the cards…which is probably a good thing!

Are you good at planning and carrying out surprises?

BTW, I could potentially bring a pregnancy test for Sunday morning (10dpIUI), but I decided that I simply didn't want to think about it while on this trip so I will wait until I get back.  How's that for restraint?!!??  

Dog sitting

For the past week CP and I have been watching our friend’s dog.  Today is thankfully when that dog gets reunited with her owners.

We have watched other dogs many times before.  Especially when I was going to law school we had numerous friends with dogs- it saved all of us a lot of money to switch off watching each other’s dogs when someone would be away.  This is the first time that we can’t wait to give the dog back to friends.

The dog in question is an English bulldog.  And she is dumb as rocks.  I’m also not sure that our friends have done much in the way of training her….or else she just doesn’t listen to us because we are not her owners.

The first day with her went like this.  She gets dropped off at our place and immediately starts playing with Buster.  No problem, except English bulldogs make these awful wheezing/choking-sounding noises when they get out of breath.  Meanwhile, CP is on the phone with a work client.  No bueno.  We put them outside in our fenced in backyard only to have the dog run through our raised beds (despite my commands not to do so).  Also not cool.  So I get out the plastic fencing and hammer poles into the ground so that she can’t get near the beds.  She then decides to sit on new plants that we have in our backyard, despite my commands not to do so.  More fencing is put up because we don’t want our new plants ruined.  Inside we turn all of our chairs to face the wall and put a dog fence across the couch so that she doesn’t jump up on the furniture (her owners claimed that once we told her “no” about getting on furniture she would understand….but that doesn’t seem to be the case).  

Amazingly she and Buster play the entire day and CP and I wonder what we got ourselves into (A WEEK?).  Later that night when she should be exhausted from running around all day she paces around, still trying to play with Buster despite his insistence that he just wants to sleep (this I understand….she is in a new place and is understandably anxious).  Then when we head up to bed she tries to get in bed with us (again, multiple “no” commands) and then proceeds to JACKHAMMER SNORE the entire night.  Needless to say I didn’t get a lot of sleep that night (the rest of the week I download a free sleep machine app onto my iPhone, pick the heavy rain sound and go to sleep with headphones on).

The subsequent days have been a little better, but she truly is not trained and not a smart dog.  She barks at electrical outlets.  She barks at wooden stools.  She barks at anything and everything.  When playing with Buster she actually sticks her mouth into his to try to take whatever he has (ball, stick, etc).  Thank goodness Buster is a patient dog because most dogs would NOT allow this and she would get her head bitten off.

So yeah, I am ready to be back to a two dog household.  And I completely understand that our dogs are NOT saints and far from perfect.  We are used to our dogs’ flaws and don’t think that they are a big deal.  We are also used to the breed. 

The bulldog’s owners will be watching our dogs when we are away this weekend and they are likely going to be frustrated with our dogs.  Our dogs pull on the leashes when taking walks.  Our dogs will eat another dog’s food if given the chance (but they respond to “no” if you see them moving towards a bowl that is not theirs).  Fuzzy Britches is at this point cranky with other dogs so she will likely growl a lot at the bulldog.  But at least our dogs will respond to commands- sit, down, stay, drop, no, heel, come, etc.

To me, that is the main difference.  I have no problems watching a dog if it is trained.  If it is not it just makes dog sitting not so much fun.

Have you ever dog sat?  What was your experience?

And so it begins....

Yesterday I showed up a little before 11am to get turkey basted.  I waited and waited, wondering why all of the other women were called in before me.  Was there something wrong with CP’s sample?  Wouldn’t they have called me if something was wrong?

Turns out they just ran out of ultrasound rooms and it was a very busy day at the office.  My doctor was a resident that I saw right after my surgery and although she is geeky, I enjoy her.  I ended up having one follicle on my left ovary of a good size and my lining looks good. 

CP’s sample was once again fit for a ROCKSTAR.  The doctor said, “Oh yes, this is good enough to post on a fridge.”  SUPER SPERM!  Ha ha.  He was WAY ABOVE normal in all of the categories….so now it’s up to me and my body.  I asked the doctor if my fibroid or endo could be back.  She said she didn’t think so (and didn’t see a fibroid during the ultrasound)…..but that there are a lot of things that science can’t explain (thus the diagnosis of “unexplained infertility” that some couples get).

I told her that CP complained because they only have a VHS player and bad 80s porn in the sample room.  (Not to mention this time they used one of the exam rooms and just wheeled a television/VHS unit into the room.  How sexy it must have been for him to give his sample while in a room with stirrups and ultrasound wands that look like dildos.  Ha ha.)  She just started laughing and couldn’t believe that they don’t have a DVD player.  If CP has to give another sample (fingers crossed that he doesn’t!), he said he is going to buy an iPad and bring it into the room.

CP didn’t even end up using the videos this time.  He ended up thumbing through a magazine looking at lesbians….which is why we joked later that all of his counts from his sample were so high.  His “boys” thought that they needed to impregnate both of the women!  Ahhh and that was probably TMI.  But also very funny.

And now the two week wait begins…..

Smiley face

Yesterday afternoon I got quite a surprise- a smiley face from my Ovulation Predictor Kit!  Last month I didn’t see one because my RE nurse didn’t believe that I ovulated so late into the cycle (day 18) so I never tested the day before my IUI because I was going in for a blood draw and ultrasound anyway.

So when I saw the smiley face I was shocked.  Today is day 16 so ovulation has decided to come a day or two early!

Right now I am thinking good HEALTHY sperm thoughts for CP as he gives his sample (hopefully he gets a better room without 80s porn).  And then in a few hours I will head to the office to get turkey basted once again.  Here’s hoping for a better result than last time!

The State of NSC- April 2012

A monthly take on my world.

Weight:  214 (up 2 pounds)- but I was just 210 yesterday so who knows?

Current Feeling: Exhausted.  It’s rainy today which means I am also feeling entirely unmotivated and cranky.

Running Stats

                Total Miles Run: 16.42 miles

                Time Spent Running: 3 hours, 20 minutes, 36 seconds

                Longest Single Run:  3.84 miles

               

Current aches and pains:  Nothing.  Color me amazed!

Current Favorite Song:  “Starships” by Nicki Minaj.  It’s getting overplayed on the radio very quickly though.

Looking forward to:  Heading to Chicago next Thursday night for a three day weekend.  We are surprising my parents!  We will also get to see our friends and their new-ish twins (born in late August). 

Annoyed about:  I’m wearing glasses today because I didn’t realize that I used my last pack of contacts last month.  I can’t order contacts in CT without seeing the eye doctor….luckily they were able to fit me in this afternoon.  I’m hoping they are able to give me a “trial” pair or something for the next couple of days before my contacts shipment comes in….

Proud about: CP and I went way under budget for food this month.  It helped that he was out of town and on his company’s per diem dime for a week, but still.  It will help pay for the expensive month we had with Buster’s surgery, Fuzzy Britches’ vet bills, the new roof, etc.

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