This Week I Will Be Mostly...

Wow! That was the only post I was able to crank out last week! Hopefully I'll do better this week.

...wearing brown
...reading *The Ultimate pH Solution*
...watching nothing
...listening to Christmas music
...eating fruits and vegetables
...shopping for kids and co-worker gifts

Much like last week, really. I suspect it won't really change too much until after Christmas. I've also resolved that even though our local radio station stops playing holiday music on December 26th, I will listen (via Pandora) to Christmas music all the way into the new year. It is so depressing to have a whole month leading up to Christmas and then have it disappear in one day. While I'm near-frantic about cleaning up the wrappings and putting the gifts in their new places, I want some of Christmas to linger a bit.
Also, here's a picture of a snowy Smoky:

This Week I Will Be Mostly...

...wearing my new Little Miss Matched socks
...reading *The Ultimate pH Solution*
...watching nothing
...eating cold-weather goodies
...listening to Christmas music
...shopping for an ornament for my husband's faculty party

It Looked Like a Lumpy Strawberry Milkshake

As I pulled into work this morning, I had to veer sharply to the right and park next to my normal parking spot. "Why," you ask, "was there a bum person in your way?" No, no person. It was vomit. That's right: a big, splashy pile of puke right there in our parking lot. I have often called the sidewalk that runs next to our building the Hobo Highway, because, well, our office seems to be situated in a sort of Bermuda Triangle of homeless hotspots. Not that the homeless people are getting lost; we are just situated on the inside of three great homeless hangouts: a church that distributes food on a regular basis, the library (nice and warm), and the city park. We shall call it the "Tramp Triune." And within the Tramp Triune, we have become accustomed to pulling into the parking lot and seeking various empty liquor bottles and beer cans, but this is a first for the side-effects side of things. I don't know what you should expect out of the rest of your day when the first thing you witness as you come in to work is Vagabond Vomit, but it seems to promise more of the unexpected. We'll see...

Please Look the Other Way...I'm Being Pitiful

It's that time again, folks! An infertility pity party! *sad noisemaker bleat*

Schlepping around in New York a couple of months ago, I spotted this conglomerate of maternity stores and made the boys stop so that I could take a picture. I can't help but think that this area is ineptly named: it should be called "Arrival Maternity," because the merchandise in that store is for women who are mothers, even if their kid is still in utero. No, Destination Maternity is where I live; I would have no business shopping at Arrival Maternity at this point. I could definitely shop at Destination Maternity, though. An appropriately-stocked Destination Maternity should have stuff like Monica and Rachel gave Phoebe in that depressing episode of Friends: stuff pregnant ladies can't use, like leather pants and tequila. Of course, if that's all the store stocked, I still couldn't go there, because I don't drink, and I'm pretty sure if I ever wore leather pants the Fashion Police would jail me in a heartbeat. So we'd have other things, too, like sushi, deli meat, hot dogs, and unpasteurized cheeses. Oh, and a tattoo parlor in the back. And an x-ray machine that you can use free of charge. It doesn't sound like a classy place, I know, but it's the one place I can go and know that I'm not in jeopardy of seeing a plethora of blooming bellies. (Have you been to ikea lately? It's like a Pregnant Lady Convention!) So, if you need me, you know where to find me. I can't wait to be kicked out of the store.

Facebook: Quod Me Nutrit, Me Destruit

 

You know that lovely saying, "Don't hate the player, hate the game"? Well, that's my current relationship with facebook. I certainly don't hate the players. They are people I really care about and love. But facebook itself started messing with my head. An author that I really admire, Byron Katie, talks about the problems we cause for ourselves when we ignore our own business to purchase headspace in other peoples' lives. And that's what I've been up to, thanks to that mastermind of incognito voyeurism, the stalker page. I found myself doing things and taking pictures for the express purpose of putting them on facebook. True silliness. And worse yet, I began measuring my life against the lives of others. I began looking at other people's children and other people's vacations and thinking that my life didn't stack up. If that's not ingratitude, I don't know what is. I've been so abundantly blessed; I have zero right to compare my life to those of others. And I don't like myself as a voyeur. So while I want to keep my facebook account so that I can keep in touch with people that I wouldn't necessarily be able to stay connected with otherwise, I no longer check my page daily. I don't even check it on a weekly basis. And, really, it feels good.

Happy December 1st! 'Tis the Season...

see more Lolcats and funny pictures
Sorry the whole thing doesn't seem to be showing up. Click on the picture to see the entire picture.

This Week I Will Be Mostly...

...wearing my rain jacket
...reading *Don't Swallow Your Gum! And Other Medical Myths*
...watching old movies on Netflix Instant
...listening to Christmas music on Pandora
...eating leftovers
...shopping for my husband's "big" gift

Thanksgiving...Go!

Typically, I wake up on Thanksgiving Day in a Very Bad Mood. Thus was not always such, mind you; as a child I loved Thanksgiving. But our family has had a very rough transition in transferring the actual activity from one generation to the next. My mother now hosts dinner at her house, and my grandparents aren't able to travel anymore. The first few years that my mother hosted, my grandparents and degenerate uncle (we all have one of those, right?) were invited, and a purely stressful time was had by all.
All that has changed. I'm no longer pressed by the stresses of timing and travel; I'll get to spend all day with my sister and her family, along with my darling husband and my parents. It's going to be a Great Day. And what better way to start it by putting the parade on mute in the family room and singing "Bust Your Windows" at the top of your voice while cooking in the kitchen?

Richard picks up the knife and becomes Carrot Man! Every one I know cringes when they watch me do anything with a knife. Sorry if I am a let down to the left-handed community, there. I make up for it with nice handwriting, right?

The eggs in their "angel" phase. (They are about to be Deviled - heh, heh.)

Smoky retreats to the bed. Mmmm....coziness.

Small Graces

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
I'm so grateful to live in a place where I can watch the mountains change. I hope I always have that privilege.

This Week I Will Be Mostly...

...wearing scarves
...reading *Howards End*
...watching warm fuzzy movies with my family
...listening to Slacker.com - just discovered it
...eating Thanksgiving foods and too much of them!
...shopping for the odd stocking stuffer (but no Black Friday for me, thanks!)

The Ladybug Stalker

I don't know if it's only in Northern Alabama, but in the past month or so, we had experienced an influx of ladybugs. The first afternoon that I noticed them, my sister and I counted 12 of them on my front porch. But that was just outside. Inside, they were all over the house. But, being polite little insects, they limited their imposition of our home to mainly the angles of the house where the walls meet the ceilings (Hello, there, ceilings!). There were six of them in our bedroom, but this little group of four was most curious to me. For days they were huddled up like this, not moving a bit. I became convinced, in my little emo head, that they had scrunched up like that to die. And I was waxing over how sweet that was, and how long should we leave their little remains up there, etc., and I took this picture:

Well, a couple of days after I immortalized their poignant group death on my iphone, they proved me wrong: one of the beetles had moved about two inches to the right from the group! He's alive!! But why did he move like that? My guess is that he had gas, and the others asked him to step out of the vicinity if he was going to keep that up. That's the way it goes in our house. Sure enough, the next day he had rejoined the group, only he was just under the three remainders. Next day, he was on top of the three. A few days later, I saw a black dot tearing across the wall. I panicked at first, because I didn't have my glasses on, and I was afraid my little visitors were about to be attacked by a raging spider, or something else that is vicious to ladybugs, I don't know. But when I put my glasses on, I saw that it was just old Hypey Hyperson the Ladybug, acting like he had just taken a hit of Ladybug Ecstacy. He was crawling, or I should say running, all over the place, going up on the ceiling, making little circles around the rest of his family. I think he was the first documented case of Ladybug ADHD. Anyway, the day after that little spectacle, they were gone. What they were doing, I have no idea. But they were the sweetest pest invasion I have ever experienced.

My (In)Fertility Rant

I'm not sure if this is inappropriate in this format, but with the mood I'm in, I just don't care. I need to vent. I went to Huntsville Reproductive Medicine early this morning for my usual Day 3 Ultrasound - looking to make sure "it's quiet" in there - I'm surprised they don't see tumbleweeds rolling around on the screen - when the doctor came in at the conclusion of the visit. This was new. And to be honest, I'm not sure what it was he wanted to tell me, other than to confirm that I will begin a 2nd round of Femara today, and that he was encouraged by the way my cycle responded last month. What stands out most to me of this visit;however, is that I started to cry. That is the first time during this whole ordeal (which is officially 10 months of fertility drugs now) that I have really, truly started crying in front of the medical professional who was trying to help me. And even though I am used to crying, this one humiliated me. And after I thought I was handling things so well, too! I left the office feeling like a complete idiot. On the positive side, the doctor believes that I have a few more chances before we go to "heavy daily injectables." I intimated that I wanted to hold off on that for as long as was feasibly possible.

So now, I don't know what else to say. Here we go again, I guess. I feel like I shouldn't be complaining, and that I need to keep faith, but I'm feeling small right now. Hopefully this will have purged this morning from my system and I can move forward.

I Double-Dog Dare Ya

Hey! I'm back! And with not a little bit of shaming from a couple of parties...

Anyway, we've got my sister-in-law's dog, Nesta, visiting us while his owner is in Arizona at her sister-in-law's baby's christening. Nesta is a big, sweet, German Shepherd-Chow, etc. mix, and to my yorkie-accustomed eyes, he's HUGE. I realize a ba-jillion people have two or more dogs, and I'm waxing on about something that is so not even an issue to so many people, but I grew up only having one pet at a time, and having another dog in our house, particularly one so different in size from ours, is a fun experience. Although, it's clear that I am not used to being around a big dog.
First off, a confession: as I was putting dishes in the dishwasher, I accidentally bonked Nesta on the mouth with the dishwasher door. I felt like total scum and apologized for two minutes. He seemed fine, but still. I felt awful. Smoky can walk under the dishwasher door when it is all the way down - hitting anyone with it never even occurred to me! Another size issue I still haven't adjusted to: when I threw away the breadcrusts from my sandwich (because I am, in fact, in Kindergarten) I just tossed them on the top of the garbage of our medium-sized, no lid garbage can; Nesta deftly whiffed them right into his mouth and thanked me for not making him even have to bend over like he does at his food bowl. Oops! At least it was just bread.
But now they have joined forces and together, have figured out how to absolutely take over the household and any will of my own has been tossed out the window like so many breadcrusts into a dog's mouth. I stayed home from church this morning due to some side effects from a medication I am taking (more on that later, perhaps) and was trying to quietly, restfully nurse a headache. Richard had already let both dogs out multiple times, they had all been fed, all needs had been met. Except not really. About thirty minutes after Richard left, Nesta started whining a bit. He walked over to me and I scratched his ears, etc, thinking that he was needy for some attention. Attention duly given, I pulled my hand in to try and sleep. The whining resumed. I petted again. The whining came back and then roiled into a bark. Okay, okay, more petting! Well, now Smoky was into it, and I'm petting a dog with each hand. But Smoky started barking - so Nesta started barking. Now they're both barking for no good reason other than, it seems, the acoustics are nice in our bedroom. I let them out, back in, get them quieted down, and I attempt to rest again. In three more minutes, they are both barking again, and then they both begin pacing around the room. They will not be appeased! Until, that is, I went and got Smoky's leash. "That's it!" they said, "and we promise not to be quiet until you've walked us!" What choice did I have? None, I tell you. So walk we did, and that seemed to do the trick. They're both chillaxing quietly on bed and doggy-pallet, respectively. For now.