Happy New Year!!!!

Happy New Year everyone!!!

I hope this is going to be a great prosperous year for many! I hope that this will be the year I finally have a baby along with many other of my infertile friends.

Tonight I'm just staying home and off the roads. I've got myself a pizza and some movies, not to mention the 20 some blankets I have in the works and I have no plans to go anywhere. I am sort of thinking of going to the beach tomorrow though. Money as usual is a bit short but I really want to go. I haven't been to the beach in a while and something about spending the first day of the new year walking in the surf is appealing. It's also supposed to be nice there tomorrow. I hope everyone has a fun safe and happy holiday.

My Cat Is Strange

So I'm sitting here in my bedroom taking a break from sewing and checking in on blogland and I hear noises from the living room that indicates that the cat is after the thread on my machine again. Don't ask me why cats want to eat thread, I don't understand myself. So I go out to the living room and she has pulled the thread out of the needle on the machine and has grabbed the end and strung it all the way around the living room. The last 2 feet of it were wet where she had been chewing on it (ewwww!) . Goofy cat.

I'm still hanging in here. Sinuses are still sore although better than they were Friday and Saturday. I'm also coughing now which is a pain in the ass and throat. Two more days of work and then I have another 3 days off. Thank goodness.

Dare I Say I'm Feeling Better?

I am. Of course 12 hours ago I was still feeling pretty freaking miserable and some tyeln0l c0ld and sinus and some advil hadn't helped much. So as much as I don't want to take any unnecessary medications I put on enough clothes to be considered decent (although it turned out not particularly clean as I noticed stains down the front of my shirt later) and headed off to the local urgent care. Some antibiotics and a shot of steroids in the ass to decrease the inflammation in my sinuses and so very slowly I feel as if I'm feeling better. I think. Of course the antibiotics were an arm and a leg but Target was wonderful and gave me $20 in gift cards for filling my prescriptions there (where I had filled them before but not recently) which covered about half of my after Christmas specials. Or maybe it was a third. At any rate I'm hoping by the time I head back to work on Monday I'll be all better.

I've also managed to get mostly all caught up on my reader. I only have 19 things left there, 17 of which are Mel's and 2 of which belong to this fabulous blog by another RN who posts things that make me laugh about the crazy life of being a nurse. Her blog unfortunately though went password protect sometime in the last week or so and I can't get to it anymore. Darn it. If she doesn't come back I'm going to miss that one.

Still Sick

Yes the cold or whatever hit fully on Thursday. Last night I was certain it was turning into a sinus infection but today it feels a little better so maybe not. I still have a headache though which is annoying me. Neither the cold medication or the advil I'm taking is helping much. Other than feeling like crap though I had a mostly good day yesterday. I got a lot of sewing done which is nice. I'm hoping to finish up 7-10 of my blankets this weekend. I made myself (haha) a nice dinner last night. I had a h0ney*baked turkey breast (which I put in the oven to warm), mashed potatoes (premade at the grocery store) and gravy (from a jar), and yams which were the only thing I really cooked but they were yummy. I just boiled them then mashed with butter and sprinkled some brown sugar on top, pecans and a few marshmallows and stuck them in the toaster oven for a bit. So even though my dinner was mostly premade I'm not particularly picky about that stuff so I didn't mind. It was all pretty darn good. And I've got left overs. Yummy.

Today I am going to go to a movie with a friend I think and then work some more on my sewing. I will post pictures of the blankets when they are done.

Merry Christmas!

So I got my extra day off today which is oh so nice. I also got off work early yesterday as it was totally dead after about noon. I went and got myself a H0ney*baked turkey breast and am having that tomorrow. I've got lots of sewing to do this weekend. It's nice and sunny out and I'm just loving it. Of course there is a bit of a glitch to my long weekend. Seems like it always happens. I started getting sick last night. One of the guys I work with has been sick all the last week and last night I started getting sniffles. Today it feels like my sinuses are going to explode. I just took some medicine and I'm going to lay down and sleep for a bit and hope I feel better later. Damn germs.

Hate It When That Happens

Over sleeping that is. Seems to set the whole day off balance a bit. I was up late last night as I couldn't sleep and wasn't tired. I knew I would pay for it today since I had a doctors appointment early this morning at 8:15 but I set the alarm for nice and early at 6:30. Turns out I had one of those moments (that in a few more years I can start referring to as senior moments) where I forgot the basic function of an alarm clock. That part that you can set the damn clock for whatever time you want but if you fail to turn on the alarm part it just doesn't work right. So I woke with that feeling of doom for having slept too long. Sure enough, it was 7:50. Amazing part? I still made it to my Doctors office at 8:15. I wasn't early at all and my BP was up a little since I had been in such a frenzy. I pulled my hair up, dressed and ran out the door. I ended up putting on make up at work when I got there. But I got there. I have new prescriptions to go back to my pregnancy friendly BP medication and to wean myself off of the chronic pain medication I take (not looking forward to that one). Down side was that I've gained some of the weight I had lost back. I knew all that candy last week was my undoing. I do still have time though between now and 2/23 to get myself back on track and hopefully lose at least another 10 pounds. Trying to have lots of activities that don't require me eating. Or aren't easy to eat and do. I spent yesterday ironing and cutting the fabric for more blankets. I've got enough fabric for 10 of the receiving blankets I make all cut and ready to go. That will be this weekends project.

Now to go work on finding a nice healthy dinner for tonight.

What A Day

I had an absolutely fabulous day today! The clouds/fog finally cleared off mostly today and it was so nice to see the sun. I took a drive out of Fresno to a near by lake which was a nice drive. Nothing much to do there other than walk which I did a bit of. I had went in hopes of seeing eagles as I've heard on the radio that you can sometimes see them there. I didn't see any but it was still nice to get out and then go for a walk in the sun. Then on the way back I stopped in the little down town area that's really close to where I'm living and did some exploring there. I found a J*im Sh0re Santa that I want really bad. No, I don't need it. Anyways walked around there some and then went and got a massage. It maybe wasn't the best one I've ever had but it wasn't the worse either and I'm hoping it will be just what I needed to get rid of the knot in my back between my shoulder blades that keeps spasming. I've also managed today to finally pretty much get rid of all the candy stuff in my house. And no we won't discuss how I managed that. We'll just say that I'm not feeling so hot right now and I need to remember this next week when I'm craving some sort of sugar. I also have a short week coming up. I get Christmas off and word is that we all might get Christmas Eve off too as we have no appointments scheduled for Thursday right now and if don't have anyone coming in we may as well take the day off. That would be so nice to have a 4 day weekend. I bet I could get a lot of sewing done then.

Now I'm off to bed. Maybe tomorrow I'll clean house. Or maybe not.

Weekend For Relaxing

I have almost nothing I "have" to do this weekend and I'm so freaking excited about that. I could do a bit more making things (although I really shouldn't) but I have not much I have to do. So I'm going to just relax some and try to stay away from the stores which should be mostly easy since I have no money.

The tree appears to be gone for good. I have walked all through my apartment complex and seen not a trace either than the one piece I found. Who knows but whoever it was is pretty much pond scum.

So I had been doing pretty darn good on my diet. Then I went home for thanksgiving and it was a bit harder after I got back (even though I did good while I was home). Now I'm pretty much failing miserably. Yesterday and today was a complete candy fest. The thing that I really need to remember though is that I really don't feel very good. I've eaten so much sugar and I just feel yucky. So I really need to start working on my eating habits again.

I also finally have some additional information on the FET. I got an e-mail yesterday that had a very short profile of the person who produced the eggs and sperm for the donor embryos. It doesn't give me age etc, basically hair color, eye color, occupation and a small amount of family medical history. Part of me wishes I had a little more but the reality is that even if I did it likely wouldn't change my mind on going through with this. The really good news?? I have 7 embryos. 7. I'm beyond excited. The FET is a little farther out than I thought it would be but that's ok. They have it schedule for 2/23 right now. I'm thinking I will likely take the whole week off work and just try to relax some. It will be interesting to not be in the middle of a move or some sort of big upheaval for this. Both my IVF's I was moving around the time of transfer. It's getting hard to keep this quiet. I want to jump up and down and tell everyone I'm so excited. Trying though to just keep my mouth shut.

I Hate Thieves

So last night sometime between when I went to bed around 10pm and this morning when I left for work 9am, some fucker stole my lighted wire Christmas tree from in front of my house. This seriously pisses me off. I found the stake that holds it in the ground just down the parking lot from where my apartment is and I'm willing to place money on the idea that it's someone who lives right here in this area and who saw it. Nice thing is that no one else's decorations seems to have been bothered. While I'm happy for them it makes me feel even more upset that why did they take mine and leave everyone else's alone. I'm glad I never put Frosty outside. Assholes.

Christmas Parties

Tis that time of year that every day is like a party. Every day someone at work has goodies to share. I love it too. Munchies every day. It's funny though how a few days after Christmas there are no more goodies and how shocking this usually is. I always have this crazy feeling of where's the good stuff a few days after Christmas. Granted I can definitely do without. In the last few days I've made fudge, peanut brittle, peanut butter snow balls, jello salad, and short bread. While I'm still not eating nearly as much as I usually do I'm still eating more of it than I need to. Enough so that I'm afraid to get on the scale. Of course AF showed up on Monday so there is no way I'm getting on the scale to see how much more I gained for that. I was down last week though to a weight I hadn't seen in quite a while. Bummer that I'm probably back up above that. At least I'm still exercising somewhat regularly.

It's kind of nice at work too as it's slowed down some. Makes it a little nicer. I got to leave early yesterday which was really nice. Of course there is as always the fun stuff. I was going through a chart today for a patient that is having a procedure done next week and trying to see what labs etc had already been done. I found a dictation that HAD to have come from a resident, likely a first year resident. First it described the patient (92 year old, alert and oriented and so on) and then was discussing what the problem was. The doc then says he also discussed with the patient that the problem could possibly be that she has cystic fibrosis although that is something that would have likely been diagnosed earlier in life. You think??? Really??? I laughed so hard at that. Some of these doctors seriously crack me up.

Not really much else going on. Kind of a slow week. I'm hoping too for a slow weekend. Where maybe I can get my sewing out and work on it for a bit.

Christmas Baking

So this year I started getting out all my recipes I love to make and decided to do some baking. Or maybe I should say cooking because much of what I love to make is candies that are more cooking than baking. At any rate it should be very yummy. I'm totally aware that I really don't need to be doing this but I don't care. I know I need to be careful about what I'm eating and all that and I'm working on it. But it's important to me to be able to make all this stuff. Yes I love it and yes I am going to eat some of it. I'm also planning on taking some of it to work to share though too so I'm not going to be eating all of it. Little steps. I'm still working on watching what I eat most all of the time. Yesterday was a bit of an exception. I went to a Christmas party at a coworkers house yesterday and had a great time. Fabulous. The food was amazing. I had no idea H0ney*baked had such good ham and turkey. I may have to get myself one. Maybe for Christmas. I love Ham but I hate buying a whole one. I end up eating a bunch of it and then put the rest in the freezer where it stays about 6 months or so and then gets thrown out. Maybe I need to buy me one and take what I want and then give the rest away to someone else. At any rate I ate more than I needed to yesterday. It was all really good though. Now today cooking. Yes I went and worked out this morning. I'm still losing weight (slowly though) so I must not be doing too badly. I can't believe Christmas is almost here. I still have some things to do too. And things to ship. I suppose I should get busy again.

Further Thoughts On The Book Tour

I wanted to thank all those who came to visit yesterday from the "Primal Wound" book tour. All your comments and visiting other blogs has been a great experience. It helped very much to read other peoples perspectives on the book and helped me to gain some perspective myself. With reading the book I sort of got so overwhelmed by many of the feelings it brought out that all I could see was the perspective of the author. It was helpful to see many others perspectives too. I am more able to look at the situation as a whole. Yes, I have issues, baggage, whatever the hell you want to call it. I have difficulties in liking myself, low self esteem, and problems trusting others among others. Did the fact that I'm adopted possibly or probably contribute to this? Yes. Is it the only thing that caused it? Hell no. I can see again that I still believe that who I am is related to many different things that have happened during my life. Adoption, the nurturing parents I did have, the crazy ass religion I was taught to believe and all of the really kooky things my mom did in an effort to teach me those things, the fact that when I left the religion my adoptive mom left me. All of it has affected me. So just as I don't think that it's all my mom's fault it's not all the fault of adoption. I also think that in many ways it's also up to me. The more I understand the process behind my wounds the more that I will hopefully be able to address those wounds and heal them. As far as my mom? I know in my heart that when I was a child she did the best she could with what she had. There is still a couple of things that I would look at her today and say "You were wrong to tell me this..." but outside of those things (religion related) I had a mostly good childhood and a far better childhood than many. Things my mom has done since I've been an adult? I'm not quite as ready to dismiss. I struggle with the fact that I know she truly believes that she is doing the right thing and yet know how much she has hurt me so many times and I truly don't know if we will ever be able to go back to a place where we have a good relationship. To some extent I see some of those things as sort of unforgivable. When you decide to have children, no matter what path you choose, you are saying you will love them unconditionally. I haven't felt loved unconditionally for a long time by her. I think she was wrong. While I can maybe see why she would react in the manner she has doesn't make it any more right. At any rate, I know that it is up to me as far as what I do with my life.

Book Tour

First of all I know that there are those who read my blog that have adopted or are trying to adopt and I would like to say that this post in no way is meant to offend or hurt anyones feelings. These are just my feelings that I'm just discovering and still trying to find my way around.

A little over a month ago I signed up to do a book tour that Lori had mentioned I think on her blog and also in some things she had written at the Examiner. I'm not even totally sure what motivated me to sign up for it as I don't usually do these and I almost never commit myself to reading a book that's non-fiction. For me reading is a fun past time and an escape and I've never been very good at getting into non-fiction books and having enough interest to continue reading them. For whatever reason though I decided to give it a go.

I didn't really know what the book was even about other than it had something to do with adoption. A Saturday trip to B&N and I had the book in my hands, ready to start reading. I stopped for a moment to look at the back cover and found myself thinking "Hmm. This doesn't sound like what I expected." From what I saw on the back cover I started reading this book with a preconceived idea that I wouldn't believe the premise that the author was trying to make. I mean really. I'm adopted. I'm an adult and while I'm far from a perfect example of a well rounded (unless you count my shape) individual I'm pretty much ok. I know that I have faults and fears and quirks and a while back I had decided to live with those faults, fears and quirks to the best of my ability whatever that entailed. Besides whatever problems I have were of course related more to my mom's strange ass religion and not because I was adopted. I don't remember ever feeling like I didn't fit in to my family because I was different. Yet after the first 10 or so pages I was intrigued. Still disbelieving but intrigued. By page 34 though I started getting uncomfortable. Because the first paragraph on that page described me and many personality traits that I have and have struggled with exactly. Through the rest of the book I've come across many other things that also have made me feel like there is definitely some merit to this idea. I've had a hard time with it though too. I've had a hard time with the fact that lately I feel even more "broken" that I usually do and sometimes it feels like I'm irreparably broken. Like how do I go back to fix that which happened almost 40 years ago. And I don't know. I've tried therapy before with a couple of different counselors and haven't had huge success with it. I never felt much better or more able to deal with things after the therapy. So basically I have to admit that I don't know the answer to the "What now?" question. I don't know what's next. It's given me a lot to think about though.

I received a little bit ago a list of questions to answer. I'll try to answer these to the best of my ability. I will say please forgive me for not getting out my college books to properly do all the quote stuff etc and I sure as heck don't remember all that stuff. I'll do the best I can though.

1. What 2 or 3 concepts in this book made you say, "Yes! That's my experience!" What others did not resonate?

The first concept that truly hit me was the one of the "False Self." This was described as "the children being people pleasers, constantly seeking approval. As children they were/are cooperative, polite, charming and good." While this section also talks about some adopted children feeling as if the baby they were died which I don't really feel like I relate to. I do however very much relate to the whole people pleasers thing.

Another concept that truly hit home for me was when the author was talking about adopted children being told they are special and chosen and that the child needs to then "be perfect to retain the love and acceptance of his parents." This I also relate to very much. I was told I was special, that I was chosen and how much I was wanted. Yes I've spent years and years of my life feeling like I wasn't good enough. I have in the past associated this with the religion I was raised in. I felt like I was a bad person because I wanted to do things that were bad according to the religion I was raised with. It never occurred to me that maybe I had already had this feeling of being "bad" and that the religion simply compounded a problem that was already there. I know that I truly have no self confidence and for the most part I can't even explain why.

2. Has being adopted/abandoned affected your past or present relationships (marriage, family, etc.) If so, how?

This is another one of those areas that I never before connected the "problem" to my being adopted but something that I can look at and see the possibility and if the sureness of being related. I'm not great at relationships. Of much of any kind. I frequently don't know how to interact with people on a regular basis. Most people who know me would have no idea that it's very difficult for me to reach out to others or to ask to be included. Asking for help from someone is pretty much a near impossibility. I have to be truly desperate to ask for help. Also when I have been "rejected" by someone while I am able on some level to forgive them, I am unable to trust and mostly unable to let them back in. This is likely evident in many relationships on some level or another but the two main and somewhat recent ones are with one of my cousins whom I used to be very close to but after a falling out a few years back I find it very difficult to allow her to get close to me. I very much keep her at a distance. It's the same with my adoptive mom whom rejected me (completely and on one occasion very publicly) based on my refusal to remain part of the religious group to which she belongs. I've talked to her a couple of times since then and while she has been mostly kind and even possibly tried to rebuild things I have been unable to participate and don't truly feel as if I can ever trust her again. The interesting thing is that she states I abandoned her when I left her religion. I am able to see a bit that her reaction to my leaving the religion may be related to being an adoptive parent and feeling rejected by me. I can see that but still don't know if I can make my way past it without a huge amount of work on her part.

3. To those who have adopted or are planning or hoping to adopt, does this change how you feel about adoption and how would you or will you deal with things in the future?

This was listed as a question for adoptive parents but it also asks about those hoping to adopt so I felt I wanted to answer or discuss this. I've looked at adoption as a back up plan for several years now. I even considered foreign adoption as a primary path to parenthood (at least until I figured out how much it cost). Reading this book has changed my feelings about how I may feel about adoption and I can no longer say that I'm fine with the idea of adopting. I won't say I would totally rule it out but I'm much more skeptical of it than I was before. I'm not saying that adoption is bad. I'm not saying that those who adopt or that those who decide for whatever reason to relinquish are bad. I'm just saying that this has given me a lot more to think about than just the quickest path to a baby. I feel very much that I need to understand myself better before I try adopting and maybe making things worse for not just me but a potentially fragile or wounded child.

So if you've made it this far, thanks for reading. Please also remember this is my feelings on the subject and not every one's feelings. To visit another stop on this tour check out the main list at the Examiner and see other peoples thoughts.

Wow, A Week Already

It's been almost a week since I've posted. Funny thing is that I've had lots going on in my mind but somewhat unsure of how to put it down.

Last weekend in midst of putting up the tree and all the Christmas lights I also got notification of a potential problem in relation to my house in Washington. The issue was dealt with by Sunday and it's fine but I left me very much with a lingering feeling of hopelessness. I know that with the house I'm walking a pretty fine line. If something major were to go wrong or need fixing I wouldn't have the money to fix it. Not and pay the house payment. Yes I have it rented but the rent doesn't cover the mortgage and because of IF (and my not so great spending habits) I don't have a savings and have several fairly significant bills that I'm paying on, ie: IVF numbers 1 and 2. So there's that constant state of anxiety that's associated with my house. Things going wrong are inevitable since it was built in 1955 and most everything is original. Then my brain started working on the fact that I'm planning on going out and spending more money for another possibility that may turn out to still not be enough. And the idea that I've spent the last 3 Christmas's and this year being the fourth obsessing over how to have a baby. To the point that I haven't really gotten to completely enjoy Christmas like I usually do while focusing on TTC. At any rate I spent the weekend and some of the week feeling a bit down. I'm doing better but I'm still working on working my way through it all. And trying not to think about how much I want to drown my sadness in cookies and Christmas candy. That of course has been a rough aspect too. I've had a lot of anger associated with the trying to eat healthy thing. Anger that I don't want to do this even if I know I have to, baby or no baby. I know it's all a work in progress but sometimes all the work of keeping myself together and sane is making me crazy.

Good news is that my tree and decorations look really good. I had a snowman that was supposed be an outdoor decoration. I've had him for 3 years and this is the first year I put him together. I actually tried to sell him a couple of months ago and I'm glad he didn't sell cause he's seriously very cute. So cute in fact that I couldn't stand to put him outside. So I have a 5 foot lighted snowman in my living room. He looks good there too.

TGIF

So glad it's Friday. I've been so busy since I got home Monday night. I didn't get home until late and had to work Tuesday and then Wednesday I had a cookie exchange party to go to. It's been busy at work too.

So much going on and so much on my mind. Work is still great. I've got a project (may have mentioned it before) that has sort of become mine since I'm trying to pick up some overtime for it. I don't mind that it's mine but it's still been a bit frustrating trying to figure out the process for it. Today I also had a big reminder that even though I'm not working on the floor anymore, I still have much I need to remember. Stuff I seem to have forgotten. Which left me very embarrassed when I had to call the physician's assistant for the 3rd time in about 3 hours for the same patient. Yes, next time I go to call someone I will look at all the of the labs etc before I page them. Funny how when we change environments we forget some of the basics just because we're not always having to be so super vigilant since most of our patients are reasonably stable. At least the PA was nice about it and even laughed when I told him he could come beat me with a wet noodle. Of course I've also gotten the laughable stuff this week too. I love how peoples perceptions are so vastly different sometimes. One guy when questioned about alcohol intake stated he didn't drink much. Only 3 32 oz beers a day. Dude, that is some serious drinking. Not much my ass. I also got the lady with chronic pain issues. As I've stated before I figure it's not my job to reform the addicts of the world and I do believe that even addicts have chronic pain problems. What I find myself wondering though is how they get all this stuff. I've got chronic pain and while I don't want all the narcotics etc I will also say that for all the times I went to the doctor for my pain and was never given much more than ibuprofen I can't figure out how these people get all these meds. I spoke with a lady who took multiple heavy duty meds on a daily basis. All I could think was holy shit I'd be dead if I took all that and how did she get all that prescribed. Crazy.

Now a weekend off to work on decorating for Christmas and getting festive. I better make my grocery list now and figure out what all I need for baking.

Blog Slacker

Yes, that's me. A blog slacker. Or should I say "Forgive me blog land I haven't blogged in 6 days." It's been a busy week. Last week I was trying to get everything ready to leave and then heading for Washington for Thanksgiving. Yes I've had a good time. Lovely Thanksgiving dinner with the chosen family was just what I needed. Not to mention the mashed potatoes and gravy. Yummmm. I've had lots of fun visiting, and relaxing. I've eaten stuff I haven't allowed myself much of lately although not a lot of it (don't want to undo all I've accomplished so far). I did find a gym and go work out one day but their ellipticals were really strange and I couldn't use it and the treadmill made my knees and feet hurt. So I've stuck with the stairs I go up and down too many times a day to count. Not as much as I'd like to be doing but better than none. I've been over to my house and checked things out and spoke to my tenant about some things that needed to be addressed. The house seems to be doing mostly good and I went to the home improvement store and picked up a few things that were needed around the house. The sucky thing about having an older house is that things eventually start breaking. Luckily the tenant is pretty handy and has been doing a lot of the fixing himself.
I also got to go see The Lion King again. Yes I'm crazy but I just love it. I've seen it 3 times now and could see it another 300 times. This time though I got to have my picture taken with Simba which was pretty freaking cool.
It's been nice to be here and yet it will be nice to get on that plane tomorrow afternoon and fly home before it does something awful here like snow. I miss my kitties and my own bed. Not to mention my own shower. Then Tuesday is back to work. Long week ahead but oh well. It's been worth it. And I'm getting ever closer to the January FET.

Do You Ever Feel...

Like the machines in your life are smarter than you are? Today at work I stuck to pieces of paper in the copier and asked for 10 copies. When I went to go sort them out and staple them I only had the first page. I went back to the copier and looked again, nope. No more pages. Then I happened to pick up the copied pages. There was the second page on the back of the first page. My first thought was "oh shit, the copier is now smarter than I am." It did this (as far as I can tell) independently. Then tonight I came home and downloaded some music. It's been a really long time since I've bought much music. Partly because I was getting all my music from Walmart and then I changed computers (a couple years ago when I got my first lap top) and realized that I couldn't take all my music with me to a new computer. It was only playable on the first computer and my mp3 player. So I haven't bought much since then. I've been using the mp3 player a lot more often lately though and wanted to add some new stuff (and hopefully delete some older stuff that I don't care for which has been pretty much beyond me for a long time). I decided to go with Itunes even though my player isn't an ip0d. Easy right. No. I can't figure out how the hell to get new music onto my mp3 player because the damn thing keeps trying to link up to windows media player and sync with that (transferring all the songs that I have just now figured out how to remove from the mp3 player back on to it). I can't figure out how to get it to link to itunes instead. To those of you who have an actual ip0d, is this easier if you have their product? Cause this is a pain. I can't really afford to go get a new player but find myself wondering if I should. However if I did I'm guessing all of the songs I bought from Walmart would then no longer be able to play on the ip0d because I wouldn't have the "license" to play them. I just want to listen to the music I've actually purchased. Is that too much to ask??????

Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Yes, there are Christmas decorations up all around. I seriously considered putting my tree up before I left but I'm a bit worried that the cats will make a mess while I'm gone. Maybe I'll try to get it up with the lights only. I did get out some of my other Christmas decorations today which is fun. I usually do my decorating the weekend of Thanksgiving but I will be gone that weekend. As much as I'm excited about going home I will miss have 4 days to get stuff done. Oh well. I also made cookies today. Sort of. I was invited to a cookie exchange party (yes I am fully aware that I don't NEED 6 dozen cookies) that I really want to go to, just to see people and to get out. But I get home from late Monday night (as in close to midnight late) and have to work the next morning. Ugg. Then the cookie exchange party is Wednesday evening. Which sort of left me Tuesday after work to make 6 dozen cookies. So today I made the cookie dough for my molasses sugar cookie, rolled it all out in the balls I'm supposed to have and stuck them in the freezer. Once frozen I put them in baggies and when I come home Tuesday after work I'll start baking them. Hopefully they shouldn't take too long to bake. Yes, I'm probably crazy. Otherwise I haven't done much this weekend. I did laundry. And I got a new hidden object computer game which has mostly consumed me today. I did work out though so I don't feel too bad about it. I also only had two small cookies. And maybe a little bit of cookie dough. Which doesn't count since it's not really a cookie yet. Sometime in the next 2 days I really need to pack too since I'm leaving soon. Yay, it's almost Turkey day!!!!

Busy Week

It's been a busy week. I've worked late almost every night this week and while that will make my paycheck nice it makes for a tired me. A new project at work became mine temporarily while I get it started and train someone else to do it. I'm enjoying it sort of but it's a bit messy too. All if this is for the overtime. It was funny though because the charge nurse came over yesterday and was like "I have nurses who can help you with this so you don't have to stay late." Um, yeah. I want to stay late, that's the whole idea. She still didn't get it. So I had someone come over to help me and I spent more time explaining what I was and wasn't doing that I did anything else and it would have been much easier to just do it myself which I pretty much did end up doing. I also had a patient I called last night to ask her to come in a couple of days before her procedure for some lab work. I spent 30 minutes on the phone with this woman while she restated what I had told her for instructions about 70 times. I was alternating between wanting to laugh like crazy and beat my head against the desk. I feel bad for her but it was kind of funny too. The whole change of plan made her so anxious she had to keep repeating everything over and over again. Then she called back a little while later and wanted to repeat it all one more time.

I've spent part of today looking for a list of things I KNOW I had but for the life of me I can't find. It's driving me crazy and I have no idea what I did with it. I still need to pack and get ready as I'm leaving Wednesday morning early. Yikes. I'm excited though too. Looking forward to seeing everyone even if I'm not looking forward to freezing my now California ass off.

This morning I put on a pair of pants that I hadn't been able to wear most of the summer and they fit again. Even a little big on me. I'm feeling good. Both physically and mentally. I haven't been loosing as fast as I had hoped but I'll live with that. I have been working really hard on my eating habits. Trying to get rid of most of the sugar I consume and add in a lot more fruits and vegetables. It's not easy but I'm taking it one day at a time. Knowing that I feel better helps. Still working on exercising often too. Now to go do some other stuff around the house. So much to do, so little time.

Two Days Short

Ooops. I never did claim to be perfect though. Tonight after work 3 of us girls ended up going out for Mexican food and margaritas. Oh and they were sooooo good. It was a busy day. Lots of patients today. I also had my yearly review (I've been here almost a year). It went pretty well. My raise sort of sucks but it sort of sucks company wide. It was all pretty much good which I was fairly worried about due to the first 9 months of no one liking me etc. No problems there though and I got some very nice peer evals from some of my coworkers. I also may end up being able to pick up some extra hours which will be nice. It would only likely be a couple hours in the evening after my regular shift is over but it could add up. It would help to make up for the amount I lost in changing jobs and help to fund the FET. So hopefully that works out ok. I could use the extra money. Especially since my bathroom in my house in Washington developed some sort of a leak and affected the entire bathroom. Ugg. Luckily the renter is handy and has been fixing it and getting a good deal on supplies too. That helps.

I'm still working on organizing my recipes. I've tried 3 different soft wares so far. The first I didn't like at all. The second was ok. The third seems more like able so hopefully it will work. I basically have been downloading trials and trying them by entering a few recipes in and seeing how they work. Then I have to combine everything on one. That and trying to organize my house more and get more settled. I get a little more done every weekend. I might someday be able to leave the second bedroom door open. Oh and next weekend (or some evening this week) I need to figure out how to take apart my vacuum and clean the filter thing. I'm supposed to do it like every 6 months and haven't done it yet.

See, that's my boring life lately. Now off to bed.

Lazy Saturday

Well, I forgot to post last night. Tonight I sat down and wrote a post (not a long one but a post) and my internet connection crapped out and apparently didn't save the post I had typed as it's all gone now. Oh well. I'm too tired to come up with anything else and am going to bed. Hope you're all having a good weekend!

Almost Friday!

Thank goodness. Those couple of easy days we had at work the beginning of the week? Yeah, totally paying for them now. Today wasn't horrible but was steady busy. Then we are supposed to be done at 3:30, no new patients and we had 2 show up after that who managed to talk their way in. One insisted on being seen today then had the gall to ask if it wasn't too soon to be having their labs drawn for a December surgery. Yeah sort of but you're the one who wanted to be seen today. I also had a lady telling her significant other to take care of that dog while pointing at empty space. Yes I had a pretty good idea what she'd been taking. Then she tried to tell me oh I take sudafed every day. What so you think when we run a toxicology on you we'll think that's why it shows up in your system? Whatever. I ended up calling the doc and asking if he wanted me to run a urine toxicology. He asked if he should want that done and I said Oh yeah. Wonder if she'll actually have surgery tomorrow.

Otherwise mostly uneventful day. It's getting cold here finally. My house right now is 69 degrees and much colder and I'll have to turn on the heat. Funny how I go from AC to heat in a little over a week.

For now I'm beat and heading off today. I hope you all have a great Friday.

Hump Day

So, half way to the weekend!! Today was a very busy day. Today we paid for the last 2 days being sort of slow. It went by quickly though which was nice. I had of course several interesting patients today. First I had an older gentleman who spoke only a language I don't speak so I was using a web cam interpreter thing we have. I had asked about food allergies and the guy started telling me about some rancid bologna that made him sick. I looked at him and said, "that's not an allergy it's supposed to make you sick to remind you not to eat it again." I thought the interpreter was going to lose it laughing at me. That whole interview ended up being amusing. Then I had a guy come in and we did the interview for past health history, meds etc. When we finished I explained that the doctor had ordered a chest xray and where he could go to get it. I offered also to get a volunteer to help him get there as his mobility wasn't the best. He said no, it was ok and he left. Late this afternoon when I was getting around to checking my charts there

was no xray for this guy. A call to radiology showed that he hadn't shown up for the xray. So I called the patient at home and he was like "no, I didn't go. I thought it was wrong since they're operating on my leg." Really? And you didn't think to ask??? Then he asked if he had to come back in to do it. My reply was you do if you don't want your surgery postponed. Goofy people.

Some of you on Fac*book may have seen me going on and on Saturday about a Buffet that I wanted and had been going to the store to visit. Yesterday I finally couldn't stand it any more and went and bought it. Of course the clerks at the store loaded it up and made it look so easy and light weight. Then when me and my friend from work went to move it into the house we learned it was anything but light weight. Heavy sucker. But oh so pretty.

I just love it.

I also have some fabulous news.

I GET TO GO HOME FOR THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!

I'm very excited about that. I found out I could get a decent deal on a ticket if I stayed a day longer and I found someone at work to work for me so I leave on Wed the 25th for home. I can't wait. Of course I come back on a Monday at 11pm and have to work the next day but oh well. Thank goodness I don't go to work until 10am.

Another Nice Day

Today was another nice day (slow) at work. Slow enough that at 3:30 I asked if I could go home. I got to leave while it was still day light out!! Of course I still didn't get home until after dark. I ran around to various banks looking into their checking accounts and what I thought about them. One bank stated that Sat. deposits don't get processed until Monday night and all the banks do it that. To which I pointed out that my bank used to not, until they were absorbed but big bank. I finally end up going to the credit union and opening an account there. It seemed to have all the features I wanted with no little extra charges etc. So, I have a new bank. Or credit union. Not much else happening. Oh, except my feet feel like they are getting thinner. My shoes are looser. At least some part of me feels like it's losing weight.

The Fly

There is a fly dive bombing my face. Little fucker just tried to fly up my nose. Yuck. It seriously won't leave my face alone.

It was sort of a nice day at work today. For a Monday anyways. And considering that they are grinding the roof right outside out office windows and it was so noisy we couldn't hear ourselves. I also figured out a way to manage to go home for Thanksgiving. I'm taking an extra couple days off and the cost of my flight drops by almost half. I just got word that someone from work can work for me one of the days. I'm so excited!!! Oh and I also got some more information from my doctor today about meds etc for the upcoming FET. Plans for meds that I need to change, what I can keep taking and what I'm going to start taking. I'm going on Metformin. I just feel better about doing that, like I'm doing everything possible.

Today I felt better, less fatigued and I've been upping my protein intake and will continue to do so. I'll go work out tomorrow so hopefully that goes well. Oh and I'm also searching for a new bank as the money deposited on Saturday STILL wasn't available all day today.
Now I think I'll go find a fly swatter and sit and watch House.

Almost Monday

Another weekend almost gone. That is the only hard part about this job is that I sometimes miss having 3-4 days a week off. Granted I like working less hours a day but I sometimes miss the days off.

I've gotten a lot accomplished today. I did an ass load of laundry. That's what happens when I wait 2 weeks to do it. I also got a shelf hung up above my washer and dryer and a shower curtain thing hooked up to sort of cover the washer and dryer from the outside elements. I guess we'll see how that works. I'm in the process of organizing my recipes. I have cookbooks. Lots of cookbooks. Many of the cook books I have contain a few recipes that sound really good (most of which I have never tried) and a bunch of recipes that sound horrible. So I'm doing a trial on some recipe manager software and loading recipes I want to keep into the computer and will get rid of most of the books. I'm sure it will take me a while but I think it might be worth it. I think I might be more likely to use some of the recipes if they are easier to access.

I also went to work out this morning. I did manage the 30 minutes but my muscles felt so fatigued from yesterday when I pushed myself really hard. Then for the rest of the day my muscles continued to feel tired and shaky. It makes me wonder if I'm lacking something nutritionally and if so what. The problem is that in my attempt to diet and drop 20-30 pounds for my FET in January I'm having a very hard time finding things to eat that I like. So I end up making a lunch out of cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes and some fruit. Basically I think that I'm just not getting enough of everything. Hence another reason why I think it might be a good idea to work on the whole recipe thing. Bring in a bit of variety. I'm also hoping to find some recipes that I can sort of make up and freeze that I can then take out during the week and heat up. That way I'm not dealing with the whole trying to figure out what to cook when I get home from work. Maybe after grocery shopping I'll be able to work on that more. Of course I can't go grocery shopping until I can actually access the money in my checking account which I still can't do. Yes, I'm still really pissed off about that.

Anyways, that was my day. Sort of boring for all of you. Sorry. Last week I had all sorts of ideas about what to write about every day. I guess I should have wrote down the ideas.

Beautiful Saturday

Wow it was beautiful here today. Sunny and around 70 all day. Perfect. I can't say I went bike riding though. I did work out for 35 minutes this morning on the ellipitcal which wore me out. Ran a lot of errands and such things. It was nice to just be outside though. Still not much organizing or cleaning done. Oh well.

I came to a realization today. I hate it when something that's good changes and then it sucks. Last year my bank that I had been with for 11 years was bought out be one of the BIG banks. I didn't have much of an opinion on that then but I sure do now. Today I deposited $1600 in my checking account, half of which was a cashiers check. They put the funds on hold anyways and this afternoon when I tried to withdraw cash I wasn't able to. Hmm. Looks like I will be looking for a new bank as this along with other minor annoyances isn't making big bank look all that great. What a pain in the ass.

I also went today and bought the book that I'm going to read for a book tour for the Open Adoption Examiner page. I read about the book tour on Weebles Wobblog and it sounds interesting. Lavender always has all these great posts about open adoption and while I'm not really in the place where I'm looking at adoption, being adopted myself still makes me interested in her posts. I've read the first two chapters so far and I'm not sure what I think. But I'll be posting eventually about it.

Not much else going on. I have a bunch of little projects to work on around the house. I might do them tomorrow and I might not. Someday though it would be nice if I could walk through my second bedroom.

I hope everyone else is having a good weekend.

Friday!!

Oh how I love Fridays now that I'm working Monday through Friday. Weekends are days to sleep in and wander around running various errands that didn't happen during the week. My plans for tomorrow include working out and then who knows. I might go into the little "downtown" area of this town I live in (I'm no longer officially in Fres*n0 but am in the area). I drove through there the other day (the day of me sitting at a non existent stop light waiting for it to turn green) and it looked really cute with lots of little gifty sort of shops and antique shops. Maybe this time I'll ride my bike or something though. It's pretty close to where I live. I also seriously need to do more cleaning and organizing. Otherwise, the days are mine. The weather is supposed to be mostly nice. Maybe a little cooler but nice. Now though I think my bed is calling my name. And yes this is mostly a rambling post so I can keep up with the post every day.

Diet Suck Ass

Yes they do. And yes, I'm on one. Sort of. I know that diets aren't successful in the long term etc etc and yada yada yada. I'm not looking for the long term. I'm looking to be a bit lighter before January when the FET with donor embryos occurs. I'm looking to give myself a little wiggle room for weight gain during pregnancy. So I'm dieting and trying to lose weight. I'm also trying to stick to the eating plan that my doc recommends just because I may as well give this my all right? So I haven't bought bread in like 2 weeks. By Monday I thought I would just go mad with cravings. I say this of course admitting that I still haven't managed to cut sugar out of my daily foods and knowing that sugar is one of the most important things to ditch. I'm working on it. I've cut back which is good. Work in progress and all that stuff. So Monday. I'm going crazy. All I can think about eating is a huge plate of mashed potatoes and gravy. Cause of course potatoes are bad too in low bad carb land. Which sucks even more than diets since potatoes are seriously one of my favorite things. Monday and Tuesday I kept telling myself I could over come it. Wednesday I went out to breakfast with the girls from surgery and had French Toast. A small order though and I was mostly good otherwise. Finally last night I couldn't take it any more. I stopped at a local steak restaurant on my way home and ordered Chicken Fried Steak with mashed potatoes and gravy. They gave me a big ass plate of potatoes too. And they weren't that good, definitely not good enough to be worth the cheating. The gravy was kind of bland and the potatoes had too much garlic and basically more than anything they weren't Jan's (chosen family)mashed potatoes and gravy. Which I don't see myself getting any time soon. I had been hoping that I would be able to manage going home for Thanksgiving. Last night I priced plane tickets. It's not happening. It's like $600 and when you're still trying to figure out where to come up with $3600 for your next try at your dream it just isn't going to work. So no good potatoes for me. Bummer.

Today I had a couple of interesting conversations. Me and several other co-workers were talking to another nurse who had recently met her daughter who she had given up for adoption 30 some years before. It was a great story. I started asking how she had went about finding her daughter since I'm adopted and it interests me. I got some potentially good information from her. Later though one of the other girls who was there told me that when she met me she had a feeling about me (from something she saw in my eyes) that I was happy but that there was also something else that made me sad too or something that was missing. She had wondered if she had imagined it and after the conversation today about being adopted she felt like she had been sort of right. Funny thing is that she doesn't really know how right although it's more about infertility than being adopted. It's more about feeling unfinished without the chance to be a mom. I wonder if whatever it was she saw will ever go away.

Crazy Busy Day

So I have seen several of you post about the whole blogging every day this month. I thought I would give it a try although at first I kept silent. I think I have posted something though every day. So here it is. I can't even remember what it's called but I'm going to give it a try. It might all be boring crazy ranting from that batty nurse lady.

Today was a bit crazy. We were really busy at work. Busy is good in that it is job security but it's also difficult when patients don't understand why it takes a couple of hours for their visit, much of it waiting for what they think is simply lab work. I don't always understand it either but it is what it is. It's also more than just lab work and EKG's, it's a start to ensure their surgery is accomplished as safely as possible.

I did get another boob flasher today. Some lady trying to express to me where it hurt lifts up her shirt and whips out the tit. Umm, yeah. Could you please put that away. Really even in the hospital there are times and places where it's inappropriate to whip out ones boob. I was getting the idea pretty well just with the pointing. Oh well, gives me something to blog about. Oh and then there is the reminder that spandex velvet body suits really truly don't work for everyone. Honestly, I'm not sure they work for anyone but it certainly didn't work for this lady. Yikes.

Then of course there was the conversations about how people get to the place they are. That and different peoples perspective. One nurse I work with admits to being cynical and her perspective is that certain people are being polite to manipulate the system and most know how to work the system. Maybe they are, definitely there are those who know how to take advantage of the system as much as they can. Me, I find myself wondering how someone got to where they are. This is something that has hit me several times in the last week. One patient who stated he had "no one" to make decisions for him if he were unable to do so for himself. No one. No friends, no family. He went on to explain how he had no contact with his family. I of course have no idea what kind of life he has led but he seemed like such a nice man I can't help but wonder how that happened. How he got there. Then the guy who has done time in prison. Yet he is very polite and respectful, none of the crude behavior or speech often seen etc. Wondering what happened to this person that he ended up where he is now. Wondering if whatever it was was significant enough to be a life changing event that will enable him to choose a different life. I know the odds are against it but still I wonder. I also wonder if I'm the only one who thinks of these things. I have a hard time not seeing the person behind the person sitting at my desk telling me their life histories. Sometimes this feels like a really heavy thing to be taking in all these peoples stories and putting things down on paper. Helping them to find their way through difficult and scary times and diagnoses. Other times it feels like a great honor to have been witness to their strength and just who they are.

Missing Checks and Blonde Moments

So last night I started to get a little concerned that the refund check for my deposit on previous rental property was sent off a week ago and I still hadn't gotten it. Further investigation showed that apparently I had a blonde moment when writing down my address and forgot to include the apartment number. I did finally get the check today which was at the rental office for my current apartment. They hadn't called because apparently the guy who I haven't dealt with much didn't realized that my long distance cell number was still a good number. I'm guessing the check arrived Saturday and has been sitting there since then. This of course was all determined after driving all the way to the post office this morning. So I was on my way back to my apartment driving through a small commercial area in town and came to an intersection that required stopping. I stopped for what I could have swore was a red light. An undetermined amount of time later I looked in my rear view mirror to notice a police officer behind me and then looked up to realize that I couldn't see a light at my intersection. All I could see was the light at the next intersection. I have no idea how long I sat there or how long the cop was there but I felt pretty stupid. I think there was a stop sign for a 4 way stop but nothing requiring me to sit there and wait several minutes. Then leaving work tonight I forgot my cell phone. Today was obviously not a good day for my memory which just sucks sometimes. I hope tomorrow my brain decides to join me at work.

Oops

So some of you are likely wondering if I'm crazy. That was the dresser I refinished and some how last night I typed desk. Probably because I'm still recovering from the trauma of having to assemble a desk on Friday night. I loathe furniture that has to be assembled. Mostly because I usually do something wrong and have to go back and take things apart and redo them which makes me crazy. No matter how much I try to do it all right. Anyways thank you for all the comments on my dresser and my costume.

I'm so tired today I'm hoping to get to bed a little earlier. I went and worked out this morning and I felt even more tired afterwards which didn't help. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Working with the public I am often struck by things people do that don't make sense or that I can't imagine what they were thinking. I had one of those moments today. I hope that when I'm an old lady if I only have one tooth that I will get dentures (and wear them) to fill in the gaps. I hope that I will also realize that just because I'm an old woman doesn't mean that bras have become optional attire in public. Especially if I'm wearing a thin t-shirt. Cause that's just way too much information for most people. I also didn't really need the explanation of why you think you're allergic to latex and what the believed reaction looked like.

Now off to watch House and eat dinner.

Finally!

So the other night when I couldn't find my camera it was driving me nuts. I went back to looking for it as soon as I finished the blog post and finally found it like an hour later in one of my boxes of fabric. Oh yeah, that's where I put it. Then I ran into another difficulty. I couldn't find the cord to upload the pictures. So I finally gave up and went to bed. I spent a bunch of time on Wed and Thur getting my Halloween costume all ready. This weekend has been full of running errands and trying to get my house in order. It's getting there. I still can't find my way through the second bedroom but the rest of it looks better than it did. So finally tonight I'm sitting down to post the promised pictures.

Here is the before picture of the desk, before I sanded and painted it, before I cleaned it.

Now here is the after:

Looks much better I think. I could have done a little better job with it by spending a bit more time sanding it and such before painting but I was getting very tired of living without a dresser and wanted it done so I rushed it a bit. I still think it looks pretty good though.

Next is my Halloween costume. I bought the hat with the feathers and then got the idea to add feathers to the shirt. It turned out really cute and I loved it. I did lose feathers all over all day long but I got a lot of great comments about it. I had a lot of fun too. For the most part the costume was pretty comfortable although my hair looked awful if I took the hat off so I couldn't take the hat off and the false eyelashes I had (sparkly, glittery silver) sort of sucked. The glue made my eye lids itch really bad. Other than that though it was a lot of fun.

What Was Supposed To Be and What Is

So I finally had a bit of free time and was going to post some before and after pictures of my dresser that's all finished now. As usual though there is a bit of a wrinkle to that plan. See the other day I had posted a desk on CL that I had bought off of CL but got home and realized it was too big. No big deal, I paid $15 and sold it for $30. Works for me. The person who called called around 9pm and wanted to come get it that night as she was worried I would sell it to someone else the next day before she could come over and get it. I said sure whatever and told her how to get to my house, hell I wasn't planning on going to bed any time soon. Then as soon as I hung up I realized what a dumb ass I can be in the thinking things through department because I was inviting total strangers to my house late at night. I reasoned that I had heard kids in the background. In the meantime I hid my expensive stuff before they got here because of course not knowing where the laptop is will stop them from murdering me or something, put a weapon of sorts close at hand (good ol trusty hammer) and made sure I had the phone in hand when I answered the door in case I needed to call 911 quickly. Yes, Bleu, I know. Not so bright. It was fine though. Nice couple about my age. Wife had a little guy looked like 3ish hanging off her like a monkey, he wouldn't even let her set him down to carry out the desk. So I helped her husband carry out the desk we laughed together about the craziness of going to a strangers house at night and they went off on their merry way with the desk. I went and dug out my computer of course since I can't live a day without it. However I discovered another issue today. I can't for the freaking life of me remember where I hid my damn camera and whether or not I pulled it out of hiding and subsequently set it down somewhere I can't remember or if it's still hidden. Hopefully I manage to find it before... oh say Christmas. Anyways, as soon as I find it I'll post pics of the dresser and hopefully take it to work on Friday so someone can take a pic of me in my Halloween costume.

Garage Sales

I've done garage sales before but it's been a while. I'm aware of the whole offering less for something. Yesterday though seemed a bit crazy. I had people offering a dollar for things that to me were worth way more. And walk away when I insisted on more. It seemed that I only had a few items that sold for more than $1 or $2. I had a couple of pans, a set of photo albums and a dog food bin. Other than that it seemed like it was one or two. I still did ok and got around $80 but some of the things that I thought I would sell didn't. Oh well. Not bad for a morning of watching a bunch of people dig through someone elses junk. I did have a couple of things that seemed to disappear. Nothing worth much money but the were gone. I also though got a fun find. I have mentioned before that I collect/buy Daisy Kingdom stuff, particularly the stuff with Nina the bunny on it. I found a Daisy Kingdom bag among my friends stuff that had Daisy Kingdom fabric in it. I was so excited by that find.

Yesterday afternoon I felt a little like I was getting sick as I had the beginnings of a sore throat but it seems to be gone today. I hope. I took some air*borne yesterday and took a nap which I think helped. We started the garage sale at 5:30 am so I hadn't gotten much sleep. This morning I feel fine. Other than almost falling off the treadmill. I went over to work out this morning. I was on the treadmill and had increased the speed as I'm working on increasing my endurance, calorie burn etc. I went to wipe the sweat off my face and stumbled and was going fast enough that I almost went flying. Kind of scary at the time but funny to think about after I was trying to regain my footing while holding on and hoping not to go flying off the treadmill when luckily I remembered the emergency stop thing that you're supposed to attach to your clothes (it hooks to your clothes and then is attached by a magnet and if you pull it off by getting too far away or loosing your balance it stops the machine) and yanked that off the treadmill and it stopped instantly. After that I was a bit too afraid to get back on it but still wanted to workout for another 10 minutes so I did the ellipitcal. I made it 10 minutes on it too. I haven't done too good with exercising this last week as I've had so much going on first thing in the morning. I hope to do better this week.

Now that I've cooled off a bit from working out I think it's time to start sanding the dresser drawers.

Sticks And Stones

Sitting here tonight playing one of my computer games when I should be working on gathering more stuff for the garage sale I'm joining in on tomorrow. I found myself thinking back to a conversation that happened at work last night. Several of us were sitting around and one was talking about something someone she cared for said to her and how much it hurt her and damaged their relationship. It made me think about things that people say either knowingly or unknowingly that are hurtful. How much those things said can damage our hope, spirit, and psyche and yet how often many people internalize that hurt and don't speak out or speak up. How we may rationalize that the speaker didn't mean it to be hurtful or that in some way they are right and therefore we deserve what was said.

How many of us haven't heard the phrase "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me."? I know that I've heard it many times. I'm sure one of the times I heard it was as a child when I went home crying to my mom that this person or that person who I had been friends with yesterday had told me today that they didn't like me or said something mean to me, or told me I was fat or ugly. I remember feeling so hurt that my mom would usually say something like "don't worry about it" or "don't let them bother you". I'm sure that in her mind she was "helping" me. Trying to tell me that people change and paths change and that likely tomorrow my friend and I would be friends again, or that the person saying mean things was jealous of me for something. I'm sure that she rationalized that if I just ignored it, it would go away and that all would be fine. Looking at it now though I realize how stupid that phrase is and how untrue. Words do hurt. Sometimes to the point of beyond healing or beyond repair. You can't take words back, apologies don't wipe them away or delete them. They will always be there in the mind of the hearer. Words can ruin someones hope, dreams, and spirit. Words in the form of bullying have been a reason beyond extreme violence in schools and suicides. Words can hurt so much more than many people even realize. No, they won't break your bones but what they can break is so much more important.

All of this makes me think about the type of parent I want to be, or the type I don't want to be. I don't want to ever be the type of parent that tells my child to ignore it, or that the words won't hurt them. I hope that if ever faced with that situation I can gracefully validate their hurt and champion them to those who have hurt them. I also hope that I can teach them how much words can hurt and that they should never be used as weapons against someone else.

Minimize

Today I've spent the day working on a project that I've been wanting to do for some time and trying to finish unpacking those last few boxes etc. Granted not a very easy task when my inside temperature is 84 degrees. The AC guy is on the roof as I type trying to fix the AC.

I feel like I've been productive though. I have a fairly good sized project I'm working on. I wanted some furniture I could paint. So with a little help from Lori at Just Nesting I've gotten started on that. I bought a sander and first sanded down the dresser and then today I painted it. So far I must say it looks pretty dang good. I still have the drawers to do and the mirror but I think it's going to look really good. I'll post before and after pictures of it when I'm done.

The emptying of the last final boxes, not going as well. I did get Halloween decorations up today though which is nice. My doorway looks festive. Right now part of my dilemma is that I'm tripping over all the stuff that I'm planning to get rid of. I have a ton of stuff to get rid of. Some of it ready to go and some of it I'm still working on. I'm finding though how funny it is the things I develop an emotional attachment to. For instance I sat down today with my 3 storage baskets of IF related stuff. Needles, syringes, expired medications etc. For my last cycle I had gotten a lot of meds that were recently expired and my doc was ok with me using them. It turned out though that I had plenty of up to date stuff and didn't end up using much of the expired stuff. And it's been sitting in my closet for almost a year now, first at the old house then here. For some reason the idea of just throwing this stuff in the garbage was so difficult. It made me sad to see all those (expensive) meds that had never been used. Now they were all like a year past expired and even though I know they never would get used the idea of throwing away something that had cost someone so much money was so difficult to do. Plus the idea that I won't likely ever be using g0nal f again. So, finally almost a year later, out it went. Along with a huge baggie (gallon sized) of Q caps. Those I never would have used since it's just as easy to use a needle. I had a ton of them though. I don't like them, I wouldn't use them at work and yet the idea of throwing them away bothered me. Go figure. I also have a big baggie full of 22 gauge 1 1/2" needles. I finally realized that keeping them is just plain stupid since I have no intention of ever sticking myself in the ass with a 22 gauge needle when I can instead use a 25 gauge needle that hurts less, especially when I'm hoping to do it daily for about 12 weeks. I kept the viv*elle patches of course. I have 3 boxes and while I'm guessing I will need more for my FET that should at least get me started.

Now to go find more things to take to the garage sale and to bring the dresser indoors since it looks like it could rain and that would just seriously piss me off.

Saturday

It's really kind of fun these days having weekends off and having a normal schedule. You know, the Monday through Friday kind? The kind that most nurses never get. I feel really lucky. I also feel really lucky that I have the coworkers that I do and that I've made friendships there.

Next weekend is the garage sale that one of my coworkers is having and I'm taking a bunch of stuff over to contribute to it. I'm hoping to take any money I make and put it in savings for my FET in January. I've been trying to come up with other ways also to earn some extra money. I have a question though for anyone whose done an etsy store. How does it work? I was thinking of maybe making some of my baby blankets that I've been making and selling them in an etsy store. Trying to come up with ways to earn some extra. I'm also looking at maybe picking up some hours with another job for weekends for at least a while. I guess I'll wait and see. Any other ideas??

Now to go shower, I'm all sticky after working out this morning. Yay for me. I've walked on the treadmill 3 mornings this week!! I'm working on it. It's so hard to make myself get up and go do it but I feel so much better after I do.

Show And Tell

I haven't joined in on show and tell for a long time. I however managed to get some amusing pics the other day and thought I'd share. This is why my cats hate halloween. Little Luna in her pumpkin costume:

And poor little Sara in the same pumpkin costume.

I did only buy the one costume as I knew there was no way either one of them would wear it for very long. No they weren't very impressed with it either.

Now head on over to Mel's blog and check out what everyone else is sharing.

Going To The Movies *with a little update*

Or went actually. I went to see "Couples Retreat" with a friend from work. Super funny really good movie. There were a couple of moments where you worried a bit about what they were doing but it was really good. **Oh and I forgot, there is a bit of an infertility subplot** Go figure. After the movie we ended up standing outside for a while talking. I'm not totally sure how we worked our way around to the topic but we ended up discussing my mom and her absence in my life. I know part of it is that a few of my coworkers are now aware that I was formerly associated with the religion that another coworker currently belongs to. I've voiced that I don't want her to know that I used to belong to that religion as I'm afraid it would cause tension. Anyways, we were discussing my mom, the things she has done to hurt me and the mind fuck games she has played with me all based in her brainwashed mind as being the work of God. Talking about it made it hurt all over again. It made me angry that she has checked out of my life completely but yet still feels compelled to say that I've checked out of her life and to lie to my sister and say that she's been in contact with me. It hurts again how she has completely failed to support me as an adult who is capable of making independent decisions. It hurts that she can go on to her friends and the relatives she is in contact with about how she reaches out to me and tries to help me when it's nothing more than a pile of lies. It pisses me off that after 7 fucking years it still can hurt. It pisses me off that I can still feel badly that she isn't at some life event for me or that it's not worth sharing my moments of happiness or pain with her and it pisses me off even more that I would even want to. It makes me angry to think about how she always told me that I was chosen to be their daughter that they longed so much for but couldn't have and so they adopted me because I was special but when I don't turn out just the way she thinks I should have then she checks out. It pisses me off that it was almost 3 years ago when I wrote to her and told her of my decision to become a mom and it took her 3 months to even respond with 2 sentences and she has never bothered to e-mail me or call to ask what happened with that. It pisses me off that my child may not ever have a grandparent. She can play grandma to my sisters baby (hell I guess she even played grandma to my sisters dog before the baby came along) but yet she can act like I don't even exist. Then it all comes back to being so mad that this still hurts me and makes me cry.

Whoohooo!

My blog reader is empty. I'm guessing that is only going to last until tomorrow morning. But I finally caught up with all of Mel's posts which have been building up for a couple of weeks. Sorry Mel. And everyone else.

I went to the old place today and cleaned. And I really truly hate cleaning. But I did. I still have a little to do. I need to sweep out the garage and likely I will have to do another run round the house with the vacuum although it didn't do much good the first time. I hated those fucking floors. Rough stone tile floors. They did accomplish the purpose of my cat not peeing on the floor although she did continue to find other locations. Outside of that they sucked. The tiles were very uneven and dirt would get caught in the grooves on the tiles, in the grout between them etc. Some tiles were higher than others and some had large grout spaces and some very small. So sweeping wasn't much of an option either. I know bare floors are supposed to be cleaner (if you sweep daily) but I hate them. I like carpet. Even the cats were happy with the carpet again. They both roll around on it like they love it and I just buy puppy potty training pads and all is well with Sara too. The new place is still a bit of a mess and I have a huge stack of things to get rid of. The garage sale for this weekend was postponed for a couple of weeks which is good. I find myself also considering what else around my house I can sell and maybe even starting an etsy store although I love giving my blankets away. It's a thought though. Creative ways to an FET.

Now before I yawn myself out of the chair I must go to sleep. No one post for a few hours ok???

Nominated

So this week I've had several people nominate me for stuff which is so sweet. Now if I could figure out how to load the picture for the award on this page I'd be doing great but blogger doesn't seem to want to let me do that. Anyways I was nominated for The Over the Top award by Raining Raining, Confessions of an (Infertile) Shopaholic, and 2 + 1 = family.

The Rules:

• USE ONLY ONE WORD! It’s not as easy as you might think. Copy and change the answers to suit yourself and pass it on. It’s really hard to use only one-word answers so try your best.
• Tag 6 other bloggers and let them know that you think they are 'Over the Top'!

1. Where is your cell phone? Purse

2.Your hair? Brown

3. Your mother? Minnesota

4. Your father? Dead

5. Your favorite food? Potato

6. Your dream last night? vivid
7. Your favorite drink? soda

8. Your dream/goal? baby

9. What room are you in? living

10. Your hobby? books

11. Your fear? spiders

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? beach

13. Where were you last night? Home

14. Something that you aren’t? skinny

15. Muffins? pumpkin

16. Wish list item? furniture

17. Where did you grow up? Washington

18. Last thing you did? sat

19. What are you wearing? pajamas

20. Your TV? New

21. Your pets? two

22. Friends? great

23. Your life? busy

24. Your mood? happy

25. Missing someone? Rhonda

26. Vehicle? Subaru

27. Something you’re not wearing? bra

28. Your favorite store? target

29. Your favorite color? purple

30. When was the last time you laughed? today

31. Last time you cried? ?

32. Your best friend? Seattle

33. One place that I go to over and over? Washington

34. One person who emails me regularly? Jan

35. Favorite place to eat? Chilis

I'm not going to tag anyone though so whoever feels like doing it go for it.

Then Rebecca nominated me for the honest scrap award. I am however out of unknown things about me so for now that will have to wait.

I also a while back was nominated for an award by meandbaby and now I can't seem to find it.

Thank you though everyone.