A Day in the Life...

Job Journey Update

2009-01-08T10:25:00.002-05:00

This week in between being sick and feeling better and getting sick again I've been trying to look into my job journey of 2009.

Job Opp #1 - I contacted a person on Tuesday about this position. She is the hiring manager and I work with her quite extensively already and she knew I had planned to apply. Anyway the job reposted, so I just sent her an email and asked her if they had someone else leave or what was going on? She called me and said she had planned to call me already. Apparently two resumes didn't pull in her first batch. Mine and another person she knew applied. She said we were both qualified and even more qualified than some of the other resumes she got and she was mad. She has been going round and round with HR to just simply get our two resumes but they made her repost it. It's ridiculous! So now she has to wait 5 more days before she gets the new batch of resumes. She said she hoped to get started late next week. So it sounds like I'll definitely get an interview at the very least. Hell she reposted the job for me (and another person, but still)!!

Job Opp #2 - This position is exactly what I do now except for it's just undergrads. (I do both grads and undergrads). I haven't heard a word. I emailed a lady I know in that department and she hasn't responded either.

Job Opp #3 - A position came open this week that is advising. It's a 10-month position meaning you have June/July (I'm assuming those two months) off. So I contacted our business office to see if a 10 month position could be paid out over 12 months since I know faculty have that option. And I wasn't going to apply for it if I had no paycheck for 2 months a year. We just aren't in a position to do that right now. They said that should be an option for staff as well so I just applied for it this morning.

However I've been thinking about what happened with Job #1 so I decided to contact HR to get some more information and details. I'm concerned my resume may not even be pulling for those other jobs. That will PISS me off!!!

Happy New Year - 2009

2009-01-01T19:19:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year! I can't believe it's already 2009. We rang in the new year with great people and I truly feel like 2009 is going to turn over a new leaf in our life. I looked back and I didn't make any (or at least post any) goals for 2008, but I wanted to post some goals and things I'd like to do this year. In addition to those, one thing I want to do is to start blogging more. I have been missing it and while I'm getting better at posting pictures in my flickr I haven't quite got around to writing an actual post.

2009 To-Do List and Goals

Eating & Exercise

1. Make meals for lunches at work (cook things on weekends like casseroles, roasts, etc.)

2. Do some form of exercise 3 times per week.

3. Plant a garden!! (Plans in progress)

Finances

1. $2,000 in Savings - MINIMUM!!

2. Reduce Total Debt by $10,000

Intellectual

1. Read 1 Book per month (Currently reading "Eat Pray Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. Also have the Barack Obama book "Dreams from My Father" awaiting

2. Learn how to Crochet

3. Update Blog & Flickr

Career

For my career, I absolutely love what I'm doing when it comes to the students but I hate some aspects of my job. So I've decided to make a career change. At least start that journey. I want to focus on students and in particular student advising. I realized over this break and really even before break that I've been so driven on controlling so much in my office and it's probably made me more stressed than anything. I'm going to be very picky with this job hunting journey. I've applied to two jobs to date. They are very specific to student advising. I'm hoping now that the holidays are over I get a call for at least one of them for an interview.

At Ease

2008-08-05T15:36:00.002-04:00

I've been thinking about this a lot lately and Eric & even had a conversation about it the other day while driving. It seems within the last year of living here that we've finally found our "place". We've met new people and started socializing more and I just feel so much happier and at ease with our lives. Sure things are still crazy (debt, family, the list goes on), but the life Eric & I share is starting to come together so to speak. Just had to share that.

Heap Full of Heaven

2008-07-28T18:57:00.002-04:00

So I've got lots of Heaven time lately. Two weeks ago my sis and her bf brought the girls up and we went to the local zoo. It's not very big and in fact, still under construction, but fun nonetheless. Here's some of the best shots from it.

This past weekend I also got to watch her for a couple hours while sis and her bf went to a birthday dinner for his sister. I think Heaven let in every fly in a 10 mile radius, but we had a blast.

S'mores Bars

2008-07-20T12:52:00.001-04:00

Smores Bars
Originally uploaded by Mrs-T

I made this today especially for my husband who loves s'mores!! Such a great wife I am!!

Ingredients:
8-10 Whole Graham Crackers
1 Pkg Brownie Mix (plus ingredients to make brownies
2 Cups Mini Marshmallows
1 Cup Chocolate Chips (I used milk

Arrange graham crackers in a single later in a greased 13x9 pan. Prepare brownie batter according to package instructions. Spread over graham crackers. Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Sprinkle with marshmallows and chocolate chips. Bake 5 minutes longer. Cool on a wire rack before cutting.

Neighborly

2008-07-15T13:20:00.003-04:00

So a couple months ago a new neighbor moved in. We heard from another neighbor that the lady was pregnant with triplets and on bed rest so we have not met them yet. Well yesterday when I got home I saw three balloons on their mailbox all blue saying "It's a Boy!". Obviously she had the triplets and they were three little boys. They have a little girl as well and she is probably around or likely under 2. So I decided I would cook them a meal and take to them. I talked to my neighbor and on Friday this week she and I are getting together and cooking a meal to take to them Saturday morning. I feel so neighborly and feel even better that it was my idea. I've never done anything like this, but have thought about it in on numerous occasions. Missy has a good chicken/rice/broccoli casserole we are making and then probably some brownies or something as well. Just something easy for them to heat up. God I love my new neighborhood!!!

4 Day Weekend Wrap-up

2008-07-13T14:40:00.003-04:00

So I'm sitting her on Sunday afternoon feeling refreshed after my long weekend. A few weeks ago Eric decided to take the week off and I was able to take Thursday and Friday off as well. He ended up only taking Wednesday and Thursday though due to his work schedule. On Thursday we went down and played Golf with my papaw. He was so excited we came down to play with him. Did I mention it was the second time I had officially played golf?? Fortunately we only played 9 holes as my finger was bothering me and the gnats were horrendous. What is with those little jerks this year?? Anyway papaw won and they didn't even keep my score. hee hee After golfing we went to dinner and then headed home. We intended to meet up with the neighbors, but were exhausted. We found out later they came over at 7:30 and knocked on the garage door, but we didn't hear it. And Missy texted me at 11, but I was sound asleep by then. Darn.

On Friday I slept in while Eric went to work. After I got up I took a shower and planned my day of Target and cleaning the house. After I got out of the shower I got a call from Miss asking me if I wanted to go to the pool with them in the afternoon. I could totally skip cleaning the house for a day at the pool. I went to Target and got a couple pairs of shorts and a new shirt off the clearance rack and then came home to head to the pool. Her mom's dog is obsessed with bringing people toys and you have to throw them in the pool so she can jump in and repeat the cycle. Oh and she also intentionally goes up next to someone and shakes all of the water off of her. It was hilarious! After I got home that evening I decided I really needed to clean the house so I did. That night we ended up sitting outside with several of the neighbors. The teenagers and Eric and Drew ended up having a water balloon fight so who knows (but who cares) what the other neighbors throught.

Saturday I went over and visited my youngest sister in the "hospital". She's in there for drugs/probation violation. It was a nice stormy afternoon so we stayed in and watched movies on the tube.

Today has been just as relaxing. I've been watching movies (Jumper is a good one), surfing the web and going through some personal emails on my work account. I also finished up my cleaning from Friday by mopping the kitchen and bathrooms in the house.

I'm so glad I took a couple days off. I feel very refreshed and relaxed. This week is going to be quite busy at work with several trainings and meeting. I'm also going to pick blueberries one day with my stepmom since we didn't get around to doing it last week. Oh and my sister Lindsay is supposed to be stopping by tomorrow evening. Should be a nice week overall.

Family, Friends & Fireworks!

2008-07-07T09:29:00.004-04:00

Wow! Our weekend was great. On Friday we slept in. After we got up and showered, I made brownies and homemade macaroni & cheese for our cookout in the evening. Around 4 my cousin's showed up and we headed over to our family's house for the cookout. It was actually a pleasant visit without too much drama. I got to visit with my family, eat some good food, and play with the kids (especially my niece who is freaking adorable).

The guys went to get fireworks after dinner and they put on a lovely display for the family. They get a little out of hand at times...

We headed home around 11:30 or so and sat outside and visited with the neighbors for a while, too. Eric and Drew (neighbor) ended up TP-ing another neighbor's house for fun as they were gone that night. It was funny.

Saturday I got let in on the news of Danialle's news and helped her confirm it by taking her to Wal-Mart for a digital test. Congrats again Danialle & Chadd!!! After they left we vegged around the house. Then got ready and headed over to some other friends of ours. They had a nice cookout and fireworks as well. They put on a show for over an hour!!

Yesterday we just recuperated from the weekend. I ended up sleeping in until 10 am, which was later than I anticipated. I watched a couple movies and then decided to make a cheesecake and cut up some watermelon. YUM!! My stepmom is coming up this week and bringing me some raspberries, so I thought I needed the cheesecake to go with them. She's coming up to go pick blueberries so we will be full of fruit this week for sure!!

Happy 4th of July!!

2008-07-04T14:54:00.002-04:00

This evening we are heading over to my family's house for a cookout, fun, laughter and later some fireworks. We have done this the last few years and it is quite fun. I made up a yummy batch of homemade macaroni and cheese and some brownies. Hope everyone has a safe and spectacular 4th!!

P.S.
The person who did my layout is no longer blogging and apparently my "header" is not longer available. I have made my own for the time being because the stupid "image unavailable" was driving my crazy, but if anyone feels the urge to make me a header I'd be delighted...

Patio Garden

2008-07-02T14:03:00.006-04:00

So this summer I decided to try my hand at a patio garden. Here's a little tour.
(Click to make pictures bigger!!)

My Herbs: Arugula, Basil, Chives, Oregano, Parsley

Also has wanted a lime tree for a really long time so we got him one last weekend since they were on clearance. I don't expect an abundance of limes though. We are hoping to get a lemon tree maybe this weekend, too if there are any left.

Finally my "vegetable garden" which includes: yellow tomatoes (not as acidic), cherry tomatoes, green peppers (can't wait to make stuffed peppers) and jalapeños.

My neighbor planted roma tomatoes and banana peppers to they plan is to share them if we get that many. Supposedly my mom has a garden as well, but I've yet to see it or receive any "products" of it. hee hee

I'm embarrassed to show this, but early in the season I planted some herbs from seeds... It didn't work out to well... On the left was supposed to be something. In the middle I think I actually mixed oregano and basil. And I have a few lonely pieces of parsley. Very sad, I know.

Finally these are some snapdragons I got from my stepmom.

Back to Blogging

2008-06-30T08:17:00.004-04:00

So I've been thinking a lot lately about blogging again, but today I was reading an article, "My Shrink Says...Blog!" in the Newsweek from last week and decided there is no better time to start than right now! This is supposed to be my "creative outlet" and my "medicine".

I have so much to get caught back up on... Let's see...We have been in our house 9 months or so now and absolutely still love it. The neighborhood is fantastic and we love our neighbors. In fact our immediate neighbors we have practically became best friends with! Its not uncommon for us to be sitting in our driveways a couple evenings a week chatting away with various neighbors. We also have a couple dog sitter options. I feel so safe in the neighborhood, too. If you remember way back when... We HATED our neighbors in our old neighborhood. Everyone in that neighborhood was so anti-social. If you were outside others would go in, no one ever waved at you, it just plain sucked. I couldn't ask for any better neighbors than the ones I have now.

I originally started this blog for a couple of reasons. My first post was 9/12/03. We had just began trying to conceive our first child and had only been married since April of the same year. I had no idea I'd be sitting here 5 years later without a single child. Honestly I thought I'd have 2 and be done by now... Boy does life throw you curve balls time and time again. There are times I look back and think "Thank god I wasn't pregnant" especially when my brother passed away. I've come to terms with some things in my life and there are still things I struggle with. All in all I think I am becoming a better person and I'm sure I will continue down that route.

I feel like I've written enough for today. Actually work is calling me and I need to get back to it. The plan is to get back to posting nearly every day. I'll try to post pictures as well. If you are still reading my blog, please let me know with a little comment saying "hi!". Just curious who is still out there checking in on me.

I'm still alive

2008-03-05T09:41:00.002-05:00

I have not any motivation to blog about anything. I've had many things to talk about, just not blogging... Here's a little recap

We got moved into our new house, which is absolutely fabulous!! I love it and I love our new neighbors. We painted out kitchen, but other than that we moved right in. Shortly after moving in we had a GWO at our house. We also had Thanksgiving and Christmas at our house. It was a lot of fun.

My sister K had another baby, a girl, at the end of December. I got to be present for her birth. It was fun and she's a cute baby.

My other sister A recently got engaged and also found out she's pregnant again. It's rough for me, but whatever. It's not like I can do anything about it. I am glad she finally got engaged though.

I'm anxious for spring to come. This winter has been rough and I'm ready for the snow to be no more. I'm ready to get my hands out into my new landscape and meet more of the neighbors and just generally being outside. It makes me feel so much better overall.

Let's see... We are still trying to get pregnant obviously with no such luck yet. I just have to keep believing it will happen eventually. That's about the just of my life these days. I'm trying to get healthier, but I struggle with the working out part. I really want to start doing yoga, but it's so hard to find the time/motivation in the evenings. And there is no way I'm getting up in earlier. ha ha ha

I'll try to update more often. Maybe now that I've done this I can get back into the swing of updates. I know a couple of you have emailed me and I really appreciate you thinking about me still. I still read blogs daily even if I don't comment.

1 Week to Move

2007-09-20T10:13:00.000-04:00

This week has been so crazy packing things up and getting ready for the move next week... OMG - We move in 7 DAYS!!!

Here's the state of our garage at the current moment...

We ran out of boxes last night, but I've been "whoring" at work and so far have 6 really nice boxes and a couple smaller boxes... Nothing like giving them a guilt trip.

I've been trying to cancel some things and change some things to the new place, however I've hit a couple walls because of freaking "security reasons". AKA some bills are not in my name, so I can't change them... So much for trying to help Eric out. Poor guy is overwhelmed with training on his new job this week...

So that's the status so far.

Box Whore

2007-08-31T09:54:00.000-04:00

So in preparation for our upcoming move, I've been collecting as many boxes as possible. I've been sneaking around the corners at work stealing all the boxes, making them order cases and cases of paper b/c those are really the best boxes ever. Eric left this morning to go to Chicago with his co-workers so tonight and tomorrow I'm planning on doing some major packing. I think he's worried. hee hee

We had our inspection last week and only had a couple of things for our sellers to fix. Thank goodness they are working with us on them. I also received an email (through our realtors) from the sellers explaining some of the other "non-major" things. Like how there isn't a screen door on two of the doors b/c their dog went straight through them. And how one of the neighbors would probably re-screen them for a couple of beers. Oh and how its not uncommon on a Saturday night to sit in someones garage or driveway and play poker or watch a game. AWESOME!! This is exactly the type of neighborhood we were looking for. I'm hoping they go all out for Halloween and Christmas too b/c we'll give them a run for their money!! Wait til the kids find out we give out full-size candy bars to the trick-or-treaters!! I just cannot wait!

To pass your time you can check out some pics of our new house here. The red kitchen is my only "issue" with the house. I'm thinking about either sponge painting over it, stenciling some borders or just priming it and re-painting it. Not sure yet what I'll do.

So you thought I was back to blogging...

2007-08-24T08:22:00.000-04:00

I had good intentions... A lot has happened in the last month since I blogged last. The biggest things are that my husband finally got a much needed and deserved promotion at his job. The downside is it requires more traveling, but I'm okay with that. It will be an adjustment, but I'm going to find things to keep myself busy.

We also put our house up for sale so we could buy a new bigger house. Well we put our house on the market on a Thursday and then went the following Saturday to check out some houses. No rush or anything, just get a feel for what was out there in our price range, etc. Guess what?! We absolutely fell in LOVE with this one particular house. It was everything we wanted and more. We put a little longer close date on it in hopes of our house selling in the meantime. We close Sept 27. Just under 5 weeks now. So far we've had 1 person check out our house and it's been on the market 2 weeks. We also have an open house in a couple weeks.

Besides that we've just been doing all sorts of things. We went to the "Dave" concert last weekend and had a great time. I've had some shows with my business. Hoping it picks up a little more although I'm not sure exactly where I'll find the time to fit it in my schedule. Also work has picked up like mad. The students are back and I can barely get a lunch in. I don't mind being busy though. This weekend we have absolutely nothing planned. Of course I'm sure we'll be doing some summer cleaning in preparation for the move. Plus we need to clean the house and do some landscaping. All this rain has really messed up my mulch!

That's all I have for now. I might be back to regular blogging so stay tuned.

Hey Y'all

2007-07-17T09:18:00.000-04:00

I'm back from Texas. Completely exhausted, but I think I'm getting caught back up on my sleep now. I pretty much survived on 4-5 hours of sleep each night we were there. This is not good for a girl who sleeps 8-10 hours nightly... It was worth it though.

On Tuesday of last week I spent the evening packing. Blah!

On Wednesday I got 4 phone calls from a certain airline (AA) saying my flight was delayed, put on another plane, blah, blah, blah at 2:30 AM!! I screamed at the 4th lady who called and by then I was wide awake. I met my co-worker at 6 a.m. and headed to the airport. We almost missed our plane gabbing away. I looked down at my watch and realized we had 15 minutes to get through security and to our gate. Thank god it was smooth and our gate was just around the corner. After we got to Dallas we caught a shuttle to the convention center and signed up for the manufacturing tour at 3:30. Then we headed back to the hotel, checked in and grabbed lunch. The tour was AWESOME!! Gave me a whole new respect for what really goes into the jewelry and how many hands it goes through before it's the finished product, etc. I was floored! Made the 1 hour bus trip and car sickness more tolerable on the way back. That night we had dinner at Chili's and then headed to bed.

On Thursday I got up at 5 a.m. and we all got ready in shifts. Our group was really good and we were out of the hotel by 7 heading to breakfast. There was a little place in the hotel that we got breakfast at. That morning I ordered this oatmeal that sounded awesome. Weird thing though is that it came out cold. It was supposed to be cold. I ate most of it as it was surprisingly very good. After breakfast we headed to training which lasted all morning. It was very good. The meals sucked, but everyone kept saying you don't go to rally for the food. They were definitely right! The rally itself started after lunch. They do all kinds of recognition, guest speakers, entertainment. Also people from the mission trips they've funded, etc. I heard there were over 7,000 people there. It was jam packed. The excitement in the air was awesome, too.

Friday was more of the same thing. One awesome guest was the marketing or something lady form Stein*mart who spoke about fashion tips & trends. Oh my gosh was she awesome!? I took several pages of notes and plan to use a lot of it at my shows in the future. After it ended Friday we had a group meeting, which was nice. We did some recognition and played a couple games. Not everyone knew each other either so it was nice to visit with them personally.

Saturday was again more of the same. It was patriotic day so everyone was decked out in red, white and blue. They had an awesome show with singing, dancing and fireworks. We left a little early to catch our flight. Had dinner at the airport at Chili's where our waiter hit on me... Calling me sweetie and baby. I was flattered and left him a nice tip. :D Oh and Tony*Dungy was on our flight home. (Colts Coach). I got a picture of him, but not "with" him. We got home about midnight.

Finally... The new jewelry line.... OMG!! Let's say I spent more than I budgeted... I can't wait to get it on and start wearing it!!

P.S.
Pics up soon, I promise!

Crazy Week and it continues...

2007-07-10T07:59:00.000-04:00

Since my last post things have been quite crazy around here.... Let's see...

Thursday morning I got a call from my sister that my niece, Heaven, was still sick and her temp had been spiking. She had called her ped and they told her to take her to the hospital, so they were on their way. Sis called from the hospital and they were running a bunch of tests on her to find out what was going on. They ended up getting some whack doctor hell bent on meningitis... You know how they test for it?? Freaking SPINAL TAP! So my 9 week old niece got a freaking SPINAL TAP. She didn't have any symptoms, but this doc says they get ~1 case a month and test 2-3 babies weekly. Since they did that they wanted to keep her overnight, but that hospital was full so they took her by ambulance to a hospital nearby. The second hospital was much better. The doc said he doubted she had meningitis and that it was likely just a viral infection.

I ended up taking off Friday and dropping Eric off at the office and heading to see Heaven. She was doing better thank goodness. The doc came early afternoon and said all her lab results had come back find and he saw no reason to keep her any longer. They would continue to watch them and she already had her shot appointment on Tuesday so they could just do a follow-up then as well. Heaven was adorable by this point. Obviously feeling much better flirting with the young doctor and getting uncle Eric tighter around her little finger. She knows exactly what she's doing at such a young age. ha ha ha

Friday night my dad & Peg came up and we went and picked blueberries. It was nice visiting with them b/c we don't see them very much and it was a lovely evening to be outside.

Saturday I got up early and headed south for one of my best friend's mom's jewelry show. It was warm outside, but the show turned out great!! They had some great food and drinks and a lovely deck as well. Thank goodness it was covered or we'd all be fried!

Sunday Eric & I got up and went to the gym and the grocery store. Then I headed to Target. Let me say that it turned out to be a great day at Target. I found 2 pairs of pants and 1 skirt that fit great and I was forced to buy. It's not very often I find pants that fit me that good. When I got home we had a relaxing evening.

Tomorrow I'm leaving for Texas and will be gone until late Saturday night. I'm going down for a jewelry rally so I hope to come home really pumped up and ready to get down to business. I just love going to these things. I love this new thing I'm doing, but sometimes you get stuck in a rut. You know, I've never done sales so it's all still fairly new to me. All in all I think I'm doing pretty darn good.

Oh and I have several pics to post, but won't get around to them until probably Sunday now. I hope you can wait that long. Sorry! I have some of both nieces, plus some other things and hopefully some pics from Texas.

So I'm outta here for now. Be back Sunday.

Happy 4th of July!

2007-07-04T13:49:00.000-04:00

Not too much going on with us today. This morning went to the gym and then the grocery store. We are getting ready to head out now to check out a wine & cheese place downtown. Then hit up the movies, Transformers. After that it's blueberry picking (since it was closed yesterday) and then relaxing for the evening. I was thinking about making some things with blueberries, but we'll see what time it is when we get home.

Anyway, just wanted to say Happy 4th!

Did you miss me??

2007-07-02T12:26:00.000-04:00

Well... I haven't been lost, just no desire to post anything here. Let's see if I can give you a short recap of my life for the last few months.

I welcomed a new niece on May 2. I got to be present for her birth and found out this weekend that we are her godparents. She already has uncle Eric so wrapped around her little finger... Maybe me, too...

My sister K is having another baby. I believe she is due in December. While it stung when I heard the news it is serious b/c this will be her last child. When she has the baby, all those females parts are going, too.

We're still having our Girls Weekend Out and lovin' them! Here's a picture from our recent visit to Chicago. We are getting together in a couple more weeks at my house.

My new business is going pretty well. This summer has been unfortunately slow, but I think it will pick back up this fall. I'm actually going to Texas next week for a conference and can't wait!! Still working my regular full-time job in the mean time.

Eric & I are still trying, but with no luck. We decided recently to really buckle down this fall and save all we need to for the FET. The plan is to do the transfer early next year. I think we both are more than ready to have babies. It will be our time soon I hope!

Last week we started back to the gym and my short term goal is to lose 10 pounds by August 9, which is when we are supposed to go to California for an incentive trip (assuming Eric wins). So far I've lost 1 pound. I'd like to lose the other 10 pounds by the end of the year, which is absolutely doable! It felt so good to get back to the gym and I really want to get in tip-top shape for getting pregnant, which is my long term goal.

That's all I can think of right now. We got a laptop now so I'm hoping to keep up with this blog again in the evenings in front of the TV. :D

TGIF

2007-01-12T09:54:00.000-05:00

I meant to start a meme last Friday, but didn't get around to it. Today's is from the Friday Fiver

1. When is your birthday? March 9

2. How old will you be? 28...gulp

3. Do you prefer to throw a party or attend a party? Depends on the situation I guess. I like to throw small little parties and do all the planning and hosting, but sometimes I'd rather just attend one and not have all the work. hee hee

4. Presents: take'em or leave'em? Take 'em. I like getting and giving presents.

5. Best birthday so far? Probably my first birthday I celebrated with Eric. He planned a surprise birthday party for me with a bunch of my friends. There was dinner, drinking & a limo ride. Absolute B-L-A-S-T!

2007 Goals

2007-01-02T12:34:00.000-05:00

I was going to recap 2006, but it just depresses me more, so I'll just give you what I hope to accomplish for 2007.

Health
1. Cook healthy dinners at home - 4 to 5 times weekly
2. Cook 1 new meal monthly
3. Reduce red meat to once/week, increase fish
4. 30 Minutes of Exercise 4 times a week
5. Make better choices when eating out.
6. Make meal plans

Finances
1. Reduce Debt by ALOT! We did pay a lot off in '06, but put it back on (especially with my new business) Goal is to close Discover by the end of the year.
2. Pay off new business expense
3. Save $3,000 for IUI/Injectible Cycle (after 2.)

Intellectual Development
1. Read more
2. Learn how to knit/crochet

Spirtuality
1. Iron Yoga 3 times per week.
2. Read Daily Devotions book daily.

Personal Development
1. Increase positive well being

I really scaled down my goals from last year to ones I think are more attainable. Everything in my list is attainable. as long as I don't get into a depressed funk again.

Happy New Year!!!

2007-01-02T12:01:00.000-05:00

God, please make 2007 a much more tolerable year for me.

Ahem...

Where was I? Oh yes, I'm back. I'll start off with a recap of the last 6 or so months that ultimately led to my lack of blogging...

*June was ok except I was depressed and didn't do any gardening or really anything outside, which is what I normally love.

*July was ok as well except we had the first year anniversary of my brother's death. Heather got married, which was nice. I started getting together with my family for card night, which was a lot of fun.

*August brought on a ton of work for me. I was swamped. Met Jimmy Buffett at his concert. Took over another duty at work.

Here's where it spirals downward...

*September I helped my cousin D with a baby shower for my cousin J. It was extremely hard, but went relatively well. Had a colonoscopy, which turned out fine. Found out my sister A is pregnant and due May 18 (read - Jesus Christ every one of my siblings has been pregnant but me!) Work still swamped. Went to Ohio for girls' weekend. Sometime around there I found out my friend S was pregnant with number 2. (numb to baby news at this point).

*October I got sick right off the bat. Work again swamped. Spent the day at the bridge festival, which was ok, but damn cold. Visited Heather and helped Danialle with a photoshoot. The head of our department stepped down, which actually relieved some stress at work. Little Coen was born on Oct 30 sweet as could be.

*November I got a totally new hairstyle, but was depressed about the body that went with it. Got a second job selling jewelry. (If anyone wants any info, let me know b/c it's an awesome opportunity!) Had my training show, which netted me a few shows after the first of the year. Thanksgiving was a lot of traveling and seeing family.

*December I spent lots of money getting ready for my jewelry parties. Had the only two scheduled for December cancel. Christmas parties and get togethers galore! Work crazy! Found out my youngest sister is bad into drugs. Spent rest of the year getting her stuff straightened out and finally taking her to Godville on Saturday, December 30. (Drug rehab about 5 hours away) Did have the ladies and their hubbies and Grace over for a relaxing new year's eve party. Made some awesome champagne punch, too.

Ok. so that doesn't seem as bad as I've felt, but I was just depressed and couldn't wait to see 2006 go. Hopefully 2007 will be much better. I want to get out of this funk. I'll start a new post for my goals for the year.

Stayed Tuned for After the Holidays...

2006-12-14T11:20:00.000-05:00

I know I've been MIA for quite some time. The last few months have been a rollercoaster and I think I just needed some time "away". I hope to be back to regularly scheduled blogging after the holidays... Happy Holidays!!

P.S.
I still keep up with most of the same blogs weekly and I do think about you all!

Happy Birthday Jamie!

2006-10-09T14:35:00.000-04:00

I know I'm a day late on posting, but you probably won't read this and I DID talk to you yesterday on your birthday! ha ha ha I really missed seeing you this weekend, but you can bet that I'll be up soon after your little one arrives to spend some time with you! Miss you and love you bunches!

Remember this... Bird aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

365 Days

2006-09-25T21:05:00.000-04:00

of me!

I recently took a tip off of Kitten and joined the 365 day pool. Basically the challenge is to take a picture of yourself for 365 days. It's a way to sort of look back at yourself over the year and also to play around with your camera and different things you can do with pictures. I was hesitant at first because I wasn't sure if I could keep up with doing it every day, but it intrigued me at the same time so I decided what the heck. I may miss a day or two here and there, but I think I can do it. Take a look at the pictures for the first 5 days...

Feel free to join me in this fun new photo op, too. Leave me a comment if you decide to join so I can keep an eye on your pics.

5 Years Ago...

2006-09-22T07:22:00.000-04:00

I met the man of my dreams. I don't know where my life would be without him nor do I care. He is my everything and I love him so much. I haven't been the easiest wife at times and we've had some major obstacles to overcome. Heck I'm sure there will be more to come in the future. But I love him and I always will.

GWO 14 - Ohio

2006-09-21T08:31:00.000-04:00

This weekend we had a Girls' Weekend Out and it was a lot of fun. Thursday I picked up Danialle and we headed to Ohio. We talked all the way over and it really made me feel good. After we got there we got into our pjs and watched Survivor & Flavor*of*Love with Jennifer & Eric. It was hilarious. Then went to bed. Friday we got up and went golfing. (My grandpa always told me I should be a golfer. He used to take me to the driving range when I was younger and I loved it, but didn't really have the desire to do it in high school because I wanted to play softball. Well I realize now that I picked the wrong sport!) We only played 9 holes, but it was a blast. The girls were really impressed with my skills even though I'd never set foot on an actual course! It really made me feel good, too. I ended up not doing so hot on the last couple of holes, but still came out not to shabby overall. Danialle had never played either and only had 3 more shots than me. I think she and I might go on occassion and I think we might do it regularly for girls' weekends.

After golfing we grabbed lunch at Chipotle and decided to hit up Target. We shopped and tried stuff on and just had a blast. I ended up only buying one cute necklace since we were doing a bunch of shopping on Saturday. We also stopped at a couple of shoe stores to check out some of their shoes. Both were pretty blah and we really didn't find much. We went back to Jennifer's and played with Grace for a while before dinner. Heather arrived just as Grace was getting a bath and getting ready to go to bed. After Grace was fast asleep we made a drive over to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things and then stopped to pick up some wings for dinner. We caught up on life and watched more Flavor*of*Love then headed to bed.

Saturday we got up early and started our day at Kohl's. In fact we spent 3 hours there. Between trying on loads of clothes and shoes, we stopped by the cosmetic area and Danialle & Jennifer put on their makeup while getting several samples and tips from the chic there. I think I ended up with a shirt, pair of cute ballet shoes, and a blanket for Godiva. We went to Filene's and DSW next and it didn't fair too well. I think only Jennifer bought something (sexy new boots in black AND brown). Our last stop was the mall. We tried on quite a bit of stuff there as well and made out like bandits, especially in the jewelry area. I found some sexy dark, low rise jeans, too.

After the mall we headed back for a disco nap. Then we got ready for our night out. We got all snazzied up and headed over to dinner with Jennifer's husband Eric chauffering us around. After dinner we decided to head downtown and scope up the best place to shake our booty's at. We stopped at one bar and they were having a hip-hop band, but we weren't sure if they would be playing stuff we knew, but it was an option. We walked along and Heather ended up getting us into this fun bar w/out having to pay a cover long enough to do a shot. While we were inside doing our shot, Eric was outside and found out the next bar down might be the place to be. We were a little skeptical at first, but decided to go ahead and try it out. At first it was a little dull, but it finally got going and it was a blast. We danced and danced and danced. I think we finally left around 2 and got to bed around 3. I didn't sleep well and we all ended up getting up around 7:30 and hit the road shortly after 8. It was a super long ride home being so exhausted, but the weekend was great.

Click here for my pictures!

Happy Birthday Danialle!!!

2006-08-18T07:09:00.000-04:00

We have known each other our entire lives and for that I am thankful. You are one of my best friends and I couldn't imagine my life with you not in it. You have helped me through so many hurdles in my life and I am sure there will be more. You are a great listener and know when to give advice or to just listen. You are so kind and thoughful and I couldn't ask for a better friend. Yes we have some blood that runs through us that we share, but we have taken that blood further with our friendship. I know we will be friends for the rest of our lives and that puts a smile on my face. Anyway...

Happy Birthday to You!
Happy Brithday to You!
Happy Birthday Dear Danialle!
Happy Birthday to You!!

Presented to you by...

Cheeseburger in Paradise

2006-08-09T07:16:00.000-04:00

I lost my virginity last night and attended my first ever Jimmy Buffett Concert. It was awesome!!! I told Eric he created a monster and we have to go back again next year. :D

Oh, did I mention we got to MEET HIM???

Wedding Weekend

2006-08-01T11:46:00.000-04:00

Friday after work we grabbed dinner at BW*3s and visited the bike store.

We had a fabulous weekend. Saturday we went south to see the lovely Heather get married. It was viciously hot outside, which is where Heather got married in a cute little park dwon the road from her house. Thankfully they had a short & sweet ceremony. Can't you just see how giddy she is on her wedding day?? So cute!!

After congratulating the couple we dashed off to the air conditioning at the reception. It was quite packed there, but we had a great time. We stocked up our purses with some liquor and made drinks at our own table.

After some dancing and many laughs Eric & I made our 2 hour trek home.

I barely got my clothes and make-up off before collapsing on the bed.

Sunday was a wee bit difficult to get out of bed. Eric let the dogs go and they made sure I got up in a timely fashion though. We/I lounged around for the morning, ran the vaccuum cleaner and then we left to go see Pira*tes of the Carr*ibbean 2. It was pretty good. We spent the evening inside, on the couch just plain being lazy. It was nice.

I almost forgot!!! You can check out more pictures from the wedding here!!!

Blueberries!!!

2006-07-29T08:58:00.000-04:00

For a long time I've told myself that I didn't like blueberries... Last Saturday we went with Danialle, Chadd, Jennifer & Grace to pick our own blueberries. Since I didn't think I liked them I decided I'd pick some for my stepmom. Well, while we were picking I popped a few in my mouth and they were pretty darn good and realized I was going to have to keep all that we picked. Picking them was pretty fun, too. This farm was very clean and non-buggy and only 5 minutes from our house! Grace was as cute as can be out there, too. She at first took fistfuls from the buckets that we were filling. Then she realized she could pick her own and eat them, so she did that. I tried to convince her to only pick the dark ones, but she didn't quite get it. Although she didn't mind when she got the tart ones either, so I guess it was ok.

After we left I made the call to Peg to tell her she was going to have to come up and pick her own.

Oh the bonus is that they are SUPER easy to freeze, too. You just rinse them off and let them dry completely. Once dry you throw them in a freezer bag and toss them in the freezer. Voila! This weekend I'm making homemade blueberry pancakes and maybe some blueberry muffins, too. YUMMY!

There's more than CORN in Indiana...

2006-07-28T08:31:00.000-04:00

I've had this urge for a while to start freezing corn and finally decided to take a stab at it. I called my nanny up and got her recipe. I wasn't sure how much to start with, so we headed to the farmer's market and got 3 dozen ears. It took a while to DE-cob all of the corn, but once that was done it was a breeze. I call it the "3-2-1 Freeze!" recipe*. I called my nanny during the process and ended up adding too much sugar and salt to one batch, but it was easily fixable by just adding plain corn to it on the next round. I ended up with 8 pints of corn total, which was not too shabby. Here's the mess I created...

*In case anyone is interested, here is the recipe I used

3-2-1 Freeze...Corn

Cut corn off the cob with a sharp knife
Use the dull side of the knife and run it up and down cob to get juices

In a bowl
Mix 4 cups corn
1/3-1/2 cup water (depends on how good you are at de-cobbing)

Microwave for 3 minutes
Stir
Microwave for 2 minutes

Stir in
1/2 Stick Butter
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar

Microwave 1 minute

Put bowl in a sink full of ice to chill, stirring occassionally.

Once chill put in container or freezer bag then freezer.

Card Night!!!

2006-07-27T07:17:00.000-04:00

Recently a few ladies in my family & Eric (because he loves cards) started this weekly card night. The last few nights we've had it at my grams house and last night everyone came to my house. It was such a blast!! We played some mean Shanghai, which is similar to rummy, but a little different, and a few rounds of Mexican Train Dominoes. We feasted on some keish, chips & salsa, oreos, and sipped on my lovely tea.

Last week we learned some new words such as

Sneuter - sneu·ter (snū'tər, nyū'-) pronunciation
adj.

**A castrated animal neither masculine nor feminine in gender.**

You would sneuter a...

Hermaphrodog - Her·maph·ro·dog (hər-măf'rə-dī'dog) pronunciation
n.

**A dog who has both sets of sex organs.**

It was quite funny at the time let me just tell you. Last night the F*** word was thrown around a few too many times and grams thought she was going to have knock Sherrie out of her chair or drag her on the back of her car back home. Please believe me when I say my jaw hurts from laughing so hard last night.

Dog Biscuits - Take 1

2006-07-26T08:24:00.000-04:00

I recently bought some "homemade" dog biscuits at the farmer's market. As soon as I got them home I checked the ingredients and new instantly that I could make them myself with very little effort. So off to google "dog treat recipes" I went. I found several. My first recipe I tried consisted of wheat flour, baking powder, milk & peanut butter. It was a cinch. I made probably around 50 biscuits, but they were much larger than I wanted for daily treats. So now I'm off to find some smaller cookie cutters. It was fun though and as soon as I find some different cutters I plan to make more and maybe even freeze some.

New Kitchen

2006-07-25T09:03:00.000-04:00

So it took me forever to post that final part of our trip to Jamaica, I know. I've been quite busy the last few weeks and it was hard to make myself finish what I started. However, I vowed to myself that I couldn't post anything else until I finished it, so thus the lack of posts. Now I get to play catch up, so hopefully there will be lots of posts for a while. Enjoy!

A few weeks ago Danialle came up on a Saturday morning to help us paint our kitchen & dining room. We made a trip to the farmer's market first thing followed by a trip to Wal-Mart then got back home to begin our project. Eric & I had taped everything off the night before, so we waited for Eric to get everything ready to get started. Danialle broke out a peach from the farmers market before we got started. Well, Godiva through it was a treat (all that was left was the peach pit) and devoured it right out of her hand. She didn't even chew it because Danialle tried to get it back. We were a little concerned, but decided we'd just check and make sure it passed.

We got started on painting. It was a chore painting around all the cabinets and stuff. We painted the entire kitchen a pale yellow (pineapple fizz) and in the dining room we painted the yellow on top and a dark blue (planetarium) on bottom. Then we bought chair rail and cut and stained it and put it up between the colors. Here's how it turned out.

Dining Room...
Before

After

Kitchen...
Before

After

We are really pleased with how it turned out. It feels so warm and inviting now. The white drove me crazy. We finished around 7:00 that night, so it took all day.

To elaborate a bit more on Godiva by the time I got ready for bed she still had not passed it. Eric decided to google "dog eats peach pit" or something to that affect and we found out that peach pits are poisonous to dogs. Lovely. We called the emergency vet and they said she should be ok since she didn't actually chew into it, but they weren't positive, so we should call this poison hotline to make sure. So Eric called and they basically said the same thing. Apparently the inside of the pit is what is poisonous and normally they show signs of being poisoned after 6-8 hours. It had been over 12 by this point. They said to make sure we check her BMs and she should pass it within 48 hours. If not then we'd have to take her in because there would be cause for concern for a blockage. She was still doing #2 that day and even on Sunday, but no pit. Finally monday morning almost exactly 48 hour later she passed it. We nearly threw her a celebration party. Eric took a picture to send to Danialle for confirmation, but I won't share it with you all. Hopefully Danialle didn't even look at it. ha ha ha

Jamaica - Day 3, 4 & 5

2006-07-23T16:49:00.000-04:00

So it's taken me long enough to post the rest of our vacation I know... Sorry

So on Friday we got up early, grabbed breakfast and departed for our trip to Mayfield Falls Riverwalk. We made several stops to pick up people at various stops. Finally we were on our way. The ride there was long, but very interesting. We saw so many things that you definately would not get just staying at the resort. You can see many of the things we saw in the photos. The drive to the falls was probably an hour to an hour and a half long, but again was super interesting. When we got to the falls you walk down this long set of man-made stairs. Then across this bamboo bridge which made me a little nervous. Then you get to an area they call the bar. We had to sign consent forms and made a restroom stop. Then they grouped us into 3 tiki huts. We ended up with 2 other young couples (one from New York, the other from Canada) and another couple that were probably a little older than us, but I can't remember where they were from. Finally they came around and got our lunch order. Our entire table ordered fried chicken. Then our guides came around and told us to leave everything there except what was absolutely necessary to talk. We were told to get in our bathing suits, but keep our shoes on. They had a waterproof bag that we could put valuables in. Finally we got to head to the river. It was cold going in, but so totally awesome once you were in. While we didn't see any ginormous falls. We did see a lot of small ones and one big one for the end. We took so many pics, plus there were two guys along with our guides that took pictures and video. We got to see so many gorgeous things. It was absolutely the best part of our trip without a doubt!! After the falls we walked on a path back to our tiki huts. We sat there and dried off for a bit and then they brought us our lunch and something to drink. The fried chicken was awesome and I'd never had red beans & rice, but it was very good, too. While we were eating we chatted with our table mates and the camera crew came around and gave us a preview of our pictures and video. We ended up getting all of the pictures. I think we ended up with about 20, so it wasn't a bad deal. Finally we walked down this long path back to the bus. Along the path we stopped at a little hut where a local woman was selling stuff. Our bus was down in this huge cliff it seemed and it was a little scary going back up. Thankfully I sat on the side closest to the hill and not overlooking the cliff. The ride back wasn't as long thankfully because we were absolutely exhausted. When we got back we relaxed for a while and then got ready for dinner.

Dinner that night was at the main dining area. The resort had a huge gala with all the food from all the restaurants at the resort and life music and dancing. It was really nice. We were so exhausted that after dinner we headed back and lounged around the pool with another couple for a while. Then we headed to bed.

Saturday we got to sleep in thank goodness. We got up and had breakfast then lounged around the beach for a while. It was nice just to relax for a while. We grabbed our regular lunch and then headed back to our room to get ready for the Rhino Safari Tour. Another couple who had heard it was awesome actually joined us. We left in the early afternoon and headed down the road. It wasn't long before we arrived at our destination. I had a bad feeling when we got there, but it seemed reasonably ok. We waited around until a group came in then we went over some things and got on our pieces of shit floatation devices, I mean boats. It was the worst experience of my life. It's really hard to explain, but you have to basically hang off the front of this thing at full throttle until you get the nose down, then you can sit down. However we couldn't get it very well and the other couple were taking in water and couldn't get the nose down either. Once you get the nose down you have to go at full throttle and our seat ended up falling off. All this in 20 minutes and we finally said screw it and told them to take us back because we were done.

When we got back to the hotel the guys went to the office and got a full refund thank goodness. That stupid "excursion" was not cheap by any means. Then we headed back to our rooms to get cleaned up and ready to meet up with everyone else to go to Rick's Cafe. This was absolutely worth every penny, too!! We watched several people jump off. Then Eric and another guy from our group decided to go. Ironically I wasn't nervous for him at all. I guess I knew he would be fine and of course he was! We watched some more and Eric jumped one more time. Then we sat down and ordered an appetizer and listened to the band. Two other guys from our group jumped a little later, then it was off to the other side of the restaurant to watch the sunset. The sunset started out gorgeous, but some clouds rolled in and we didn't actually get to see it duck below the horizon. You can see in this picture how I feel about it. Finally we made our way back to the resort. We had only eeaten the appetizer at Rick's so we joined a few others and had some italian, which wasn't too bad. Then we headed off to bed for our last night in Jamaica.

Sunday morning we got up early and packed everything up and grabbed breakfast. We walked around the resort one more time and took several more pictures. Made a last stop at the gift shop and met everyone in the lobby to head for the airport. The ride home was pretty uneventful as well. Our connection flight in North Carolina was delayed for about an hour because of a storm that was rolling through Indiana. As soon as we arrived it started downpouring again. We had to run to our car and were drenched, but we made good time on our way home and was glad to be home with the puppies again. I think they were pretty happy to see us again, too. We would go back again anytime. It was a great trip and we vowed to do more excursions on our next trips like we did in Jamaica. You just get so much more out of your trip. :D

View our entire photo album from Jamaica!

One Year Ago Today...

2006-07-19T09:19:00.000-04:00

I lost my brother. My only baby brother. Life has not been the same since. I have so many great memories with him and for that I am thankful. Not a day goes by that I don't think of him. Because I am remembering the good times today I'll leave you with some of my favorite pics of he & I.

If you want to see more pictures of him, check out Matt's Photo Album

Jamaica - Day 2

2006-07-07T10:04:00.000-04:00

Thursday morning we got up pretty early. Eric swam in the ocean while I relaxed and got ready. Then we headed down for breakfast. After breakfast we schedule two excursions, the Mayfield Falls River Walk for Friday and the Rhino Safari Cruise for Saturday. We had known before we even got down there that we wanted to go to Mayfield. Someone in our group had heard that the safari was "awesome" so we thought we'd try it out, too. We also checked out the gift shop and scoped out our purchases. I ended up getting a gorgeous tanzanite ring for an awesome deal. After that we lathered up in sunscreen and hit the pool. Around lunch time we headed back to get changed and then head down for lunch.

After lunch we found out that our new room on the "CO" side was ready so we got everything ready back in our room and headed over to the new room. The room was exactly the same except for a couple of things. First we actually had a view!! It was also on the ground floor as opposed to the second level, so we could open our door and walk right out to the beach. It was awesome! We spent a while unpacking all of our bags and getting settled into our new room. Then we went out to the pool and Eric played some volleyball. I sat in a chair and sunbathed and watched. Later I was still a little tired so I decided to take a little nap and Eric had to go to this "blending seminar" (so they could make it a business trip). I ended up not sleeping very well, so I ordered a tortilla & vegetable chip basket w/ salsa, sour cream and guac from room service and ate the whole thing just before Eric got back. :D After he got back we got ready and walked around for a while before heading to dinner.

Dinner was at the Japanese place at the resort. I thought it was good, but Eric wasn't as fond of it. I guess we are spoiled from our local japanese place. Our chefs were great. They were singing and telling us jokes/riddles. I actually tried some spicy tuna sushi rolls and loved them. I was pretty proud of myself for the things I was eating and trying. After dinner we headed back over to the "CO" side and lounged around the pool.

Again I added more pics to flickr from Day 2. Only a couple more days before it's finished.

Jamaica - Day 1

2006-07-06T09:41:00.000-04:00

Jamaica was absolutely wonderful! We enjoyed it and it is now our destination of choice. We would go back in a heartbeat.

Tuesday evening we dropped the dogs off at the kennel. We ran some last minute errands and grabbed dinner before heading home. It was so odd going home that night with the doggies not around. We packed and just tried to relax for the rest of the evening.

Wednesday morning we got up at 4:00 AM, showered and headed to the airport. We were excited about getting there, so getting up early didn't bother us too much. We were one of the first couples to get there an check-in. We grabbed some Star*buck's and did some people watching while the other's arrived. Our flights were pretty uneventful. We caught the second leg of our flight in North Carolina. It wasn't much of a layover, so we grabbed some snacks to eat on the plane. We talked with a couple on the plane who were goingt down to get married on Saturday. They were pretty cute. Once we landed in Jamaica we had to go through immigration. I swear we walked 5 miles to get there and then waited in line for about an hour w/ only a fan blowing on a small area of the line, so we only got it on occassion. As soon as we got through immigration we went to this room especially for the grand lido guests. They took our luggage and we filled out these cards for the resort and waited for everyone to arrive. They did give us a complimentary small bottle of water. Finally we were off to the resort. It was about an hour drive. We stopped once at this little place and I got my first taste jerk chicken, which was yummy. I hated how they just took a butcher knife to it and chopped up the bones along with the meat, but that just made it finger food.

Finally we arrive at our resort. As soon as we got off the bus someone greated us with very cold washclothes which were heavenly by this point. Then ladies came around with classes of mimosas and rum punch. We were then sent to this waiting area. Finally someone came & called our names and walked us to our rooms. Our room was very nice, but the view sucked. We pretty much had a view of a damn tree w/ a tiny bit of ocean on either side. Eric went back down and complained and they said they didn't have a room for that night, but they'd move us the next day. It was around 5 pm and we were meeting for dinner at 6:30, so we just walked around the resort and took it all in. We took some pictures, etc. There is this huge tree (you can see in the pictures) that we are standing in front of and the look on my face means "there is a huge bee hive behind me, so please take the picture fast!!" After checking out the area, we decided that we actually wanted to be moved to the "clothing optional" side and ended up getting that settled for our move the next day. The reasoning was b/c it was further in and not right up next to the road like the clothing side was. Also it was just more quite & peaceful over there.

Dinner that evening was with everyone. We chose a table with a "cock" as the centerpiece, although someone eventually took it away from our table. Dinner was decent. After dinner we went for a swim on the "CO" side and just hung out with another couple for a while. Then we headed back to our room and ordered room service. before falling asleep.

See more pictures from the first day here

Rested and Refreshed

2006-06-21T07:16:00.000-04:00

We are back from Jamaica. Well, actually we got back late Sunday night, but Monday we stayed home and recooperated from our trip, did laundry and went grocery shopping. Yesterday was my first day back to work and I spent the morning going through e-mails and the afternoon going through postal mail. Ugh!

Anyway, I am working on some posts and I'm sure I will have to do them in a couple of posts. I hope to post them soon. I also need to download nearly 200 photos to flickr... hee hee I just have to find some time for that.

Stay tuned for scenes from Jamaica...

On a differnt note, I joined my friend Jennifer in doing Weight*Watchers. I'm pushing a dreaded weight and really need to get my butt in gear and get it off and keep it off. So far it's going well. I didn't start until Monday afternoon technically, which didn't go too bad and yesterday was perfect. I even got a short walk in over lunch yesterday. I'm not thinking of it so much as a diet, but more of a guide to help me control portions, which is essentially what it is. My goal is to get back down to my ideal weight and feel more sexy again.

We're off to Jamaica!!!

2006-06-14T05:07:00.000-04:00

See you next week!

Weekend of Shopping, Bridal Showers, Girls including Grace, Wax

2006-06-12T08:02:00.000-04:00

My weekend was really nice. Friday Danialle got in around 10:30. She came to my office and we chatted while I worked. I hadn't planned on getting of work until 12:00, but managed to squeeze out at 11:30. We ran to my house to let the dogs out and then headed to C'ville. Danialle found out the day before that she would be moving back in 2 weeks to start a new job. She happened to call her soon-to-be boss on Friday morning during her drive down and learned that he bought her a house to rent off him so she and her hubby wouldn't have to live with relatives for a little while. He asked her to come down and take a look at the house, pick out carpet, and possible countertop. It's a small house, but sits on a decent size lot, so they can have a huge garden next spring. We met our grams and headed over to check it out. Boss already had a crew in patching the walls, tearing out old carpet and getting ready to paint everything "eggshell". They are free to paint the walls whatever color they want after they move in. After doing the house stuff, we headed over to our grandparents house and visited with everyone. Then we headed back to my house. We ran to Wal-mart to get some stuff for Heather's bridal shower on Saturday then headed to a local shop. I had scheduled a "waxing" for my trip to Jamaica. I had never had this done before, but thought I would "go to brazil". Well, I the pain was intense, so I didn't "go all the way". Just ended up with a landing strip. Plus I got my eyebrows done. It was a rough ride, but the chick doing it was awesome! After that we headed over to Goodwill then headed home. Eric left to get us pizza and we watched a few episodes of Sex & the City. Jennifer & Grace arrived around 9. Grace got a bath and went to bed, while the three of us hung out and talked until about midnight.

Saturday morning we got up and had breakfast at home. After everyone was ready we headed back to C'ville. Jennifer wanted to check out Danialle's new pad. After that we grabbed some super yummy chinese at our favorite chinese restaurant and then headed to TH for Heather's shower. We had planned on getting in early so we could see Heather's remodeled house, but we hit a detour and it ended up taking us longer than anticipated, so we headed straight for the shower. She had it at a friend's house and I was in awe over this lady's landscape. It was absolutely gorgeous! We had a great time at Heather's shower. She got some really cute lingerie and it was good just to see her again. We can't wait for her wedding at the end of July! (See shower pics here) We also got some lovely ideas on a baby shower we are throwing for Jamie in September. After the shower we headed back. Once back in Lafay, we grabbed dinner at Olive Garden, where Grace found a hottie waiter/bus boy that she couldn't keep her eyes off of. It was so hilarious! Then we stopped at Target for some shopping before heading home. We were all exhausted when we got home, so we stayed up to talk for a while and finally headed to bed. Oh and check my flickr pics to see how adorable Grace was!

Sunday the ladies left pretty early. After they left I cleaned house and got ready. Eric & I headed out to grab lunch and ran a few errands. We ended up getting a few more items than anticipated, but it was worth it. I got this adorable new Fossil purse (on clearance) & some jewelry to go with the dresses I got last week.

I spent the evening making lists and laying stuff out for Jamaica... We leave on Wednesday. We are a little nervous b/c of Alberto. We hope he's gone by the time we fly in although we are connecting in North Carolina... I think we'll be fine though!

Major Addiction

2006-06-07T07:50:00.000-04:00

Last Friday we went to the Dave Matthews Band concert. It was pretty good, however he played a lot of new stuff and it was more instrumental than I was in the mood for. I wanted to sing and dance. I did...just not as much as I would have liked. The weather was perfect for it though.

Saturday I found my new addiction...Sex & the City... I watched 30 episodes in one day... Granted they are 20-25 minute episodes, but 30!!!

Sunday Eric mowed the lawn in the morning while I caught a few more episodes then took a shower & got ready. After Eric was done mowing, he showered and we headed to the movie. We saw The Davinci Code. I thought it was pretty good and quite thought provoking. Definitely raises a lot of questions, too. After that we headed over to the mall to grab a few things then headed home. I watched a few more episodes of S & the C and hit the bed.

This week has been rather hectic at work. We are still moving stuff and cleaning some things out. I can't tell you how many file cabinets I've moved. I'm ready to get into a normal routine and start purging some of my files. Today I have a recruitment workshop that initially sounded great, but I'm tired today and it's not sounding as fun. I'm still going, so hopefully it's worth my while.

This weekend my girlfriends are coming in and we are heading south to go to my friend Heather's bridal shower. Should be fun, so expect some pictures. And, of course, this time next week I'll be in the air heading towards Jamaica!!!

Oh and stay tuned for an issue I will be facing Friday night... I'll definitely post "pics"...

Memorial Weekend

2006-05-30T12:48:00.000-04:00

My weekend was pretty good. It was so freaking hot out though. Friday after work we stopped by our bike shop and ordered me some Chacos for Jamaica. Eric got some a few weeks ago and we decided they would be good for when we go to the falls and stuff, so I ordered mine. Then we grabbed dinner at BW3s and headed home.

Saturday we went to see "X-Men 3", which was ok, but not as good as the first two. After the movie we ran some errands and then met Danialle & Chadd for dinner. It was nice seeing them as they passed through. We also did a little shopping (or more browsing). I did buy 2 little chocolate lab magnets, 1 for home and 1 for work. :D

Sunday I was l-a-z-y. My allergies kicked my butt majorly. You know that commercial with the chic talking about sneezing, nasal congestion, itchy, watery eyes, etc. etc. well I could have starred in that role. It sucked. Eric played outside with Godiva with the hose. It was quite cute!

Yesterday we had a cookout. We got ready yesterday morning, stopped and grabbed some flowers and then went to visit grave's. After that we headed over to my grandparents house. Everyone was late or rather no one told us they had changed the time, but that was ok. We visted with everyone and finally ate around 3:30 or so. It was yummy. I even got to play with my niece. She's so darn cute! I could just eat her up. Unfortunately I forgot my camera so I didn't get any pictures of her. I know...Bad Aunt! Last night I started getting a horrible headache and ended up in bed around 7:30. It was so bad I thought I was going to puke, but thankfully didn't. It lasted around 3 hours and I was finally able to get some sleep around 9:30-10. I haven't had one nearly that bad in a really long time and I hope it doesn't come back anytime soon either.

It's back to work today. We have some student workers starting so I will finally get some filing done and can start setting aside some of my easier tasks for them to do. Yay! I'll try to post pics in the next couple of days and do a post about my cousin's wedding and my florist skills. :D

JAMAICA Mon!!!!!!!

2006-05-27T10:38:00.000-04:00

So Eric won/earned a trip to Jamaica!!! This couldn't have come at a better time... We are staying at the Grand Lido Negril. It is an all-inclusive resort. We fly out on June 14 and return on June 18, so 5 days in Jamaica (3 full days, oh my!). The resort has complimentary manicures and pedicures, which we plan to take advantage of. I even convinced Eric to partake, too. Plus we are getting the couple massage in the cabana. We are trying to get our room moved to the "clothing optional" side as well b/c we've heard its much better on that side. Some other places on our agenda include:

*Mayfield Falls
*Negril Lighthouse
*Rick's Cafe (where Eric plans to jump off the cliff)
*Drinking fruity slush drinks by the pool
*Maybe some Snorkeling
*Possibly a boat ride
*Fun in the sun
*Oh and LOTS AND LOTS of sunscreen this time. :D

I can't wait to get away for a few days and have nothing to think about but ourselves. I'm sure there will be a little worrying about our puppies, but they'll be in good hands.

Post-Cycle Appointment

2006-05-26T10:02:00.000-04:00

We had our post-cycle appointment with Dr. B on Wednesday. It went well. Basically he thinks the most likely reason we didn't get pregnant was a chromosone difficiency. He used this "A" word that I can't remember. He said even though my embryos "looked" great that's the most common reason for women to not get pregnant. He said it's hard to tell. Sometimes average looking embryos that they aren't sure will implant do great and then perfect looking ones don't. Just one of those things.

Dr. B said the chromosone thing is a lot more common than people think, however our body recognizes it and doesn't allow implantantion. He said if that is the problem that it's unlikely ALL of my embryos.

If you remember when we were going through all of the tests in the beginning we found out that I am A- blood type and Eric is O+, which can cause antibodies to build up and attack after the first pregnancy. I asked Dr. B if it was possible that at some point I could have gotten pregnant and miscarried without realizing it and if that could be the problem now. While he said it was unlikely we could do a simple blood test to check for antibodies to be 100% sure. I love that he did it just to appease me. Haven't heard back about the results though although I'm sure the results are fine.

We went on to discuss the FET, which we plan to do later this fall. I would call them about 2 weeks before I'm supposed to start and let them know that I want to do it on the next cycle. They will put be on a low dose of FSH for 5-7 days, basically until my lining is at 8. Then they will unfreeze all 4 and transfer whatever make it. He figured 2-3, but if all 4 make it then we'd transfer 4 (that scares me a bit), but not enough to say "No". hee hee

I'd like to have a couple "normal" cycles before we start, too. That's my idea not the doc's. Plus we need to come up with some money. It was a little more than we both anticipated, but that's ok, too. It will all be worth it.

Yesterday, the day after meeting Dr. B and after 60 LONG days the flood gates opened up I just wanted to go home and curl up in bed. Ugh! I wasn't expecting it until next week per what they told me when taking the prometrium, so this was a rather pleasant surprise I suppose... Guess they just needed a little talk from the doc...

Matt's Grave

2006-05-23T10:19:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago we got together with my sisters and mom and landscaped my brother's grave. It was nice that all of us could do it and the grave itself really does look nice. See...

It was sort of soothing for me to get it done. It really sets it apart from some of the other graves, too.

Last fall after my brother's death I had already planned on landscaping his grave this spring. I found these two rocks as well that are just perfect to put out there. Click on the image to read what they say...

So now the landscape is done and I'm as happy as can be. I miss him so much. I think about him every day, too.

I've been neglecting another thing in memory of him that I hope to check off my list soon as well. We put together some videos of Matt when he was younger and my cousin Danialle put it together and editted it. I just need to make a DVD cover and make about 20 copies. I think I'm going to start working on this and give it to all of our family members around the 4th of July.

See last year our WHOLE family got together during the 4th and had the most spectacular time ever! This was just a few weeks before my brother's sudden death. Thankfully we were able to get that picture because that is how I will always remember the last few weeks of my brother's life. He was happy, maybe not on the inside, but you couldn't tell on the outside. I'm so thankful that I got to spend time with him before he was gone, too.

One of my favorite memories of him was the day before he died when we were all at my aunt's house. We couldn't find him and finally we looked outside and Matt was floating around in the little pool they have with a huge smile on his face. When I think about that it makes me smile.

I'm still around

2006-05-22T08:34:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I updated... Between my new job kicking my butt, sadness of our IVF/C not working, my cousin's wedding (in which I did all the flowers) and just laziness, I haven't gotten around to posting. I hope to get caught back up this week/weekend and get back to regular posting. Some posts you can look forward to in the near future are:

**Landscaping my brother's grave (pics), which was particularly soothing for me.
**Pics from our trip to the Wisconsin*Dells.
**Pics of my cousin's wedding including the corsages, bouteniers, and bouquets I put together.
**Hopefully my post-cycle consult appointment, which is this Wednesday w/ Dr. B.
**Pics of the rock we are putting down in our landscape in the next few weeks.
**Info about our much needed, all-inclusive, trip to Jamaica in mid-June for 5 DAYS...

I've been so busy at work that I have only been skimming your blogs and haven't been commenting. I hope to get back to commenting soon as well. This week is the start of some slower times at work and I can do things more at my own pace. I've been thinking of all of you though.

My life is just crazy and I think I'm fighting some depression issues. I quit going to therapy since I got my new job and shouldn't be taking off work. Maybe I should go back. I'm hoping that getting outside and doing some landscaping and getting into some regular exercise (walking, biking, maybe gym) will get me to feeling better, too. Anyway, I'm hanging in there and just wanted to let you all know I'm still around.

Rubbing salt in my wounds...

2006-05-12T07:24:00.000-04:00

I've been a bad blogger. Since we got the good news and since starting my new job I haven't had the time or even the desire to post. I've thought about it multiple times, but then either get busy or don't know what to say... Thank you all so much for checking in on me. I greatly appreciate it. I'm hurting, I'm angry, I'm numb. I just feel so lost. I haven't started my period. That is what upsets me the most b/c it's just like a horrible tease.

Yesterday we had our post-cycle appointment with Dr. B. We got there and G called us back and said that Dr. B was way behind and we were going to have to reschedule b/c he had a surgery at 11:00. (Our appt was supposed to be at 10:30) I stood there in shock. Eric asked if we would get information about our 4 cryo'd embryos and she said that we would get all that in our post-cycle appt. She went back to see if she could reschedule us and I just stood there, numb. Then it occurred to me I needed to let them know I hadn't started my period. As soon as she came back I told her and lost it. She hugged me and was understanding. She said it takes 60-90 days for my cycle to get back to normal and if this was normal for me. I said no, that I was very regular. I was pretty much sobbing at this point. She said to follow her and she wrote us out a Rx for a beta (that hurt the worst) b/c of the med she then gave me to induce my period.

She said we could sneak out the back and call later to reschedule, but I sucked it up and said it was ok, we'll just reschedule for next week. She told us to wait and she'd go over a chart a little bit with us. I think she could tell we were dying inside...

They cryo'd 4 embryos, which we know. There are three stages where they cryo... I can't remember the names. Stage 2 was something like cleavage (what I heard) or cleaved (what Eric heard) and Stage 3 is balast (heard that one before). They cryo'd ours at Stage 2. This is good. They cryo them in "straws". Our were cryo'd 2-1-1, so 2 in one straw and the other 2 each in individual straws. Success of them surviving the unfreezing is somewhere between 60-70%. Don't know the percentage of getting pregnant w/ FET, but it's less than IVF.

For the FET, they basically give you meds (similar to clomid), but injectible for 5-7 days, then check your lining and 5 days later transfer. Then some progesterone, just for additional support. Have no idea on $$ though. Very easy cycle though. We told her we would be doing that later this fall in the Sept-Oct timeframe.

We rescheduled our appointment for May 24th.

Today we are leaving for Wisconsin for a vacation with my inlaws, SIL & BIL. It should be fun except it's supposed to be cold and raining. We'll still have a good time though. I'll be back to somewhat regular posting next week.

GWO 12

2006-05-01T12:10:00.000-04:00

We had our quarterly Girls' Weekend Out this past weekend. Thursday night Eric & I cleaned the house up and sat down to watch TV. I made it through Survivor, but not all the way through CSI. Danialle showed up around 10:00 and we sat up and chatted for a while. We were both exhausted, so we headed to bed.

Saturday morning we got up and took our time getting ready and things. We grabbed some breakfast and headed over to this flower shop to check on some flowers for my cousin's wedding in May. After that we made a stop at Starbuck's and the bank. Then we headed back home to meet Jennifer, who arrived around 11:30 am. We headed straight to C'ville and had lunch at the China Inn. It was so yummy! After lunch we did some road farming while trying to find this house Danialle is interested in renting. It was quite fun. We made a quick trip to Kroger to pick up some cards and headed over to my gramp's retirement party. It was sorta fun seeing some people I hadn't seen in a while as I worked there for a short time. Unfortunately we got sad news that my great-gramps was in the hospital and he wasn't doing good at all. He has a huge mass on his brain and is going into renal failure. He was in good spirits though. After we left the part, we decided to go ahead and get our tattoos.

Danialle got 3 stars that represent us 3

Jennifer got three chinese symbols that mean "Survivor"

And I got this symbol we found that means sisterhood

James of Jak of All Trades was awesome! If you are ever in the area definitely go to him & tell him 3 awesome girls sent ya!!

GWO Tattoos...

After getting tattoos we went over to my grandparents to check on the status of great-gramps. He is basically slowly dying. He's still in good spirits though because he asked the ambulance driver who was taking him to a bigger hospital if they could stop by DQ and get him a "wizard" (that's what he calls blizzards). He still hadn't got one as of last night, so Eric & I are taking one to him tonight. He has prostate cancer and it is now in his brain and causing his kidneys to shut down. He keeps telling everyone that he's going to visit with all his family and then he's on the road to visit his wife. (She died in 2001) We visited with the family then headed home and pretty much went to bed. It was an emotional and exhausting day.

Saturday we got up and headed to iHop for breakfast. Then we headed to Target and walked around there forever. Finally a quick stop at PetSmart and Michael's and then headed up to see great-gramps. He was doing pretty good when we got there. We visited with him for a while then headed back to my house. Heather had already arrived. By this time we were starving, so we sat down and had a yummy healthy lunch. (Sandwiches, pasta, fruit) After lunch we decided to play some Phase 10. Heather hadn't ever played and ended up winning. Next we decided to break out the dominoes. We played a few hands of that and then got started on our "Build Your Own Pizzas".

That was a blast and they were pretty good, too. We played some more dominoes, had several drinks and then decided to watch a movie. That was all she wrote for me. I didn't make it very far before my eyes were closed. I think around 11 I headed to bed.

Sunday everyone got up and got ready to head home. After a quick breakfast they were on the road. It was a great & much needed weekend, despite the bad news about great-gramps. Later we ran a few errands, visited gramps and spent the evening on the couch. I was exhausted and just didn't feel well.

Today I'm back to work. I woke up with a sore throat, so I hope I'm not getting sick, but I have a feeling its coming my way. I just feel a little icky. I don't have time to read blogs or update much. This week is crazy busy and I have several trainings & meetings on top of the regular stuff. I'll be catching up as I get time.

Here is more pics from the weekend as well. GWO 12 Photo Album

Away for the Weekend

2006-04-27T18:26:00.000-04:00

I'm not actually going "away" this weekend, however my best girl friends are coming in for the weekend. It just happened to be a girls weekend and boy is it ever right on time and HIGHLY needed by all three of us. Danialle will be coming in tonight and Jennifer will be coming in tomorrow. We don't have major plans, but a few things include eating, hiking, picnics, pizzas, white zin, asti, bloody mary's?, games and LOTS & LOTS of girl talk. Probably some tears, too. However there is some happiness... We are celebrating Jennifer's cancer free-ness, which is W-O-N-D-E-R-F-U-L!! Expect a full update and pictures on Sunday.

P.S.
I've been super busy at work this week and will be for several weeks, so only expect blogging from me at lunch or in the evenings. I'm trying to stay up-to-date on blogs, but that's challenging, so I apologize if you don't see me around yours for a while. Priorities, right? ha ha I'm swamped to say the least. It's a little overwhelming with everything else that's going on, too. This weekend is a much needed break!

GOD DAMN HOPE

2006-04-26T11:21:00.000-04:00

My hcg dropped off the face of the earth... Set up 2 week post cycle appointment.

Hope lingering...

2006-04-26T10:18:00.000-04:00

Spotting has eased up tremendously. Did go for second beta today. Talked to them and they said 75% of pregnant women spot and/or bleed, so don't give up all hope. Nerves are driving me crazy though. Just waiting on a phone call for the results...

ZERO Hope...

2006-04-25T07:03:00.000-04:00

What I didn't update yesterday was I started spotting yesterday afternoon. Then yesterday evening it was just flow. It's over, I know.

Well...

2006-04-24T12:50:00.000-04:00

I'm pregnant...at least for now... We are guardedly optimistic right now...

Beta = 12.8

<5 = Negative

Will do another beta on Wednesday. Obviously it must at least double. I might even have to do a third depending on Wednesday's number.

Goodbye Assholes!

2006-04-21T14:25:00.000-04:00

I am NOT talking to you lovely internet readers!

Today is the last day of my current job. And I couldn't be happier! I won't go into all the details, but I am happy to move on to much bigger and much better things. I contemplated thanking them for how shitty they treated me, but decided to just smile and pray for the next person who follows me. I've spent the entire week having my 500+ students come in and tell me how much they'll miss me and how wonderful I am. It's been great and especially wonderful when my co-workers are in here and hear it. hee hee

I start my new job on Monday, only after going to Indy to give blood for my first (of two) betas. What an exciting week. I will update Monday, probably evening, with results of my beta since I'm not sure if I'll have time at my new job. Stay tuned for a fun and exciting week! Yay!

CD 25

2006-04-19T16:42:00.000-04:00

My sister, Ashlee, was over at my house last night doing her laundry. It was nice chatting with her and making her change the background of her ppt presentation on gay marriage to a rainbow effect. Anyway, I was getting ready to go to bed and was changing clothes. We were still talking until she noticed my belly and commented, "Man you really are bloated...and it's not even jiggly!!" I poked my belly and said, nope no jiggles. It was quite funny.

So this morning I did what any girl who had just been made aware of her bloat would do. I got out my "regular" dress pants as opposed to my drawstring pants and sucked in my gut...well it doesn't suck in but I tried... and made those damn things button. I wore them today, but they aren't the most comfy. I'll go back to drawstrings tomorrow... :D

I don't think I said this before, but she also gave me one of my shots when I was still doing injections. She was shaking terribly and scared to death, but she did a great job although I did bleed and buise. Eric tried to say his had never done this, but I corrected him... I think this inspired her to get back into her dream of nursing. I hope at least a little... And now she has a bit of experience. She even got to mix it together. Watch out nursing! Here comes Ashlee!

CD 24 - Cryopreserved Embryos & Case of the Dribbles...

2006-04-18T10:46:00.000-04:00

Due to recent up roar, I have been leery about posting... But I have to go back to this is my blog and I shouldn't be leery about it. I can and will post whatever I want. And be perfectly happy about it. Here's the latest news though...

I've been having the case of the dribbles lately. It seems like it's just been in the mornings, but yesterday it seemed to have stayed all day. I suppose it's because of the monstrosity of my ovaries pushing on my bladder, but the bloating is going away, so you would think that this "problem" would be subsiding, too. It's annoying, but I'll take it if that means...well, you know... I guess I'll just have to start wearing a liner. I can only imagine how much worse this will get when those little ones grow.

Yesterday afternoon I started noticing some slight cramps in my belly, too. Not severe or even in a specific location, just sort of like I have floaties in there or something. I even had to do a panty check this afternoon too make sure I wasn't starting my period or something. Hopefully this is good cramping!!! Fingers crossed... The look on Eric's face when I told him made me feel like he was ready to take me home and put me on bed rest indefinitely though. hee hee

CD 23

2006-04-17T07:11:00.000-04:00

Weekend Update

Overall our weekend was pretty good. Friday night I was exhausted from work. We grabbed dinner and I was able to find some cute drawstring crop pants at Target for $9.99 EACH! I snatched up 3 pair! After we got home the weather was wonderful so I opened the windows. A storm was brewing and we were watching the radar. At one point several of our neighbors, including us were standing outside just watching the storm roll in when the tornado siren went off. Come to find out it was for an area north of us and we were fine. We watched a huge storm cell coming towards us and then break up and go around us. This was good for us, but the part that went below us hit my hometown fairly hard. I was on the phone with my nanny when my papaw yelled he heard a train whistle so she gave me her last goodbyes and hung up. We can joke about this now as they were safely in their basement and only had some limbs down. I called my dad in a panic though. Finally the storm seemed to move out of their area and head east and finally was out of my family's way. I called me dad back and found out that they had lost a huge pine tree in their front yard. The funny thing is I had mutilated this tree when I was young trying to make a fort or something, so while it was a pine tree it was missing about the bottom 5 feet of branches, so it was the ugliest damn tree you ever saw!

Saturday we got up early and I actually felt great! I even decided that the gorgeous weather was calling and couldn't stay inside any longer. I went outside and cleaned up around my magnola tree. For some reason the weeds there are terrible. Anyway, after I got this looking nice I realized that I shouldn't be pulling anymore weeds, but I did pick up some dead foilage around the house. Eric & I had made a deal (sort of) that I wouldn't over-do it and I could just leave piles around the yard and he would pick them up when I was done. It was wonderful to be outside. Of course I got in trouble because I did over-do it a tiny bit and was feeling quite bloated and tired when I got done. It was worth it though.

Saturday evening we went down to my grandparent's house for dinner. We haven't seen them since Christmas so it was nice to see them and the rest of the family, too. I also got to play with my cute little neice who is doing much better now. I just love that kid to pieces.

Sunday was a lazy Easter. I wanted to go outside, but I couldn't do anything in the front yard because Eric had put down fertilizer, so I merely just walked around and surveyed my flowers and pond and such. Now that I think about it, I should have taken pictures and given you a little photo story. (I'll try do that soon.) It was nice just hanging out on the couch and cuddling with my puppy and relaxing. Of course the evening ended on a bad note or at least with a major bump in the road. I sat down on the floor to breathe and do some stretching, but my little Godiva decided it was play time, so I spent about 45 minutes playing with her and went to bed. Oh and Eric came in and rubbed my back and shoulders while I tried to get to sleep.

**Note about Yesterday's Post:
I apologize for those of you loyal and supportive readers that read my blog. Please understand that it was for that sole reader and I love the rest of you unconditionally. (Well, unless you stab me in the back, too. ha ha) While I am still hurt and angry about it, it doesn't surprise me in the least that it happened the way it did. This woman will never learn her lesson and maybe I did stoop to her level my calling her out on my blog, but it is MY BLOG and MY THOUGHTS and honestly, I feel better about it. So please don't bother leaving me hateful comments or messages, b/c they will be deleted immediately. I hope she realizes the hurt she's caused by putting her nose where it didn't belong. And if the problem continues I will be forced to go password protected for my own sake. From this point forward this will not be talked about again.
:D

Public vs. Private

2006-04-16T20:06:00.000-04:00

It has been brought to my attention that some of my family members are reading my blog now. While them reading my blog does not bother me.... OPENING THEIR BIG FUCKING MOUTHS AND TELLING THE ENTIRE FAMILY ABOUT MY LIFE DOES!!!!!!!!! If I wanted to tell the family about certain things in our life I WOULD. There is a reason that NO ONE KNOWS!!! THE BIGGEST REASON BEING THEY CAN'T KEEP THEIR BIG MOUTHS CLOSED. Plus they all of a sudden become VERY involved in my life. And considering they can't call me on a regular basis to see how I'm doing and then spread very deep private aspects of my life really bothers me. What gives this person the right? Isn't it obvious that I don't want them to know? If she has been reading my blog for very long at all she'll realize the reason I didn't tell any of them. STRESS!!!!!

It amazes me how someone who wants so much attention only strives for the worst kind of attention. She thrives on gossip. She wants so much to please people, but yet she does everything to hurt them and stomp on them while they are down.

You want to know why I called in SICK to my family thing on Saturday??? Let's see I kept our fertility issues a secret for a long time. I think around this time last year is when they found out. All of a sudden they come out of the woodwork with all their fucking ASS-VICE!! Again these are the people that could give two-shits about our lives the day before. BUT NOW THEY HAVE SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT AND GOSSIP ABOUT. Before long there will be an article in all the county newspapers.

Headline
"Mr and Mrs T - Infertility - IVF - Multiples - Tell Everyone!"

My uncle happened upon my blog a while back by accident. I commend him because he actually sent me an e-mail and told me then ASKED if he could read my blog and that he would keep it private. To my knowledge he has lived up to his word. Thanks Uncle Brian!

I'm not trying to hide anything. Obviously my blog is public and we have lots of pictures up. I am just so disappointed that my BIG MOUTH aunt got to tell the whole family and not us sharing the news when we are ready. That's what upsets me the most... So Sherrie I hope you are fucking happy sharing all of OUR news and having all the fucking glory and I will somewhat blame your big fucking mouth if we don't get pregnant (now that I am quite upset and stressed). Hope you enjoyed it while it lasted!!

What's the worst part is that we are in the most crucial time and don't even know if those embryos are stuck and I'll even get pregnant.

**edited to add**
For anyone close and personal with me (friends, family, etc). Whether you have let me know you are reading or not, I really appreciate you just following me and hoping and praying for us. Our dreams will one day come true and I know just how much those close to us really mean to me by just silently following. Thank you so much! I commend you!

CD 20

2006-04-14T13:44:00.000-04:00

H0-hum day. I had to go back to work today. Boo! Hiss!! We should have this holiday off, but "if they observe X religious holiday then they must observe Y & Z, too..." Of course they do observe MLK, jr, but not president's day for god's sake. Anyway, the point is that I don't want to be here! I shouldn't complain though b/c it is only 1 day of a 5-day work week.

I was this.close to crying this morning. Yes, I'm super bloated and already feel like I'm about 4 months pregnant, but it never really occurred to me that I couldn't wear my low-rise dress pants....until I put the damn things on... Yea there was no way I could get them buttoned let alone be at least a bit comfy all day. I panicked and woke Eric up. Then I scoured through my "Drawer o' pants". Lo and behold I found a single pair of linen drawstring pants. They were wrinkled to all hell, but were iron-able (is that a word?). Praise the heavens above! I immediately told Eric we had to go to Target or anywhere else tonight and find me a couple of pairs of pants to get me through for the time being. It was not an option. I can't wear this single pair of pants every day! Plus we have 2 family things this weekend. Ugh! I tried checking Target on-line, but couldn't find any hits on "elastic dress pants"! Imagine that. I may even have to hit the "older" women's section. I'm ok with that though. When I say older I mean like all my grandma's wear elastic waist pants. It's actually a great idea as they are fairly expandable.

So I had to go to work today. My desk was, of course, piled high. Thanksfully I'm so damn proficient and organized that it took me only about an hour to get through everything. Then on to reading the news, blogs, etc. My nosey co-worker G asked me some questions and I answered some of them. She asked me twice when I'll find out if I'm pregnant or not and I just said, "in about 2 weeks". She knows that I know the exact day, but I'll be damned if I'm telling her. She said to keep her posted, but I don't intend on it.

Then she started asking me about my new job... I can't remember if I told you this or not, but she's nosey... Yea well before I gave my notice she e-mailed someone in my soon-to-be department pumping them for info on me (interview, offer, etc.) The person came straight to me b/c she's not all gossip-y and stuff. So here she is asking me all these questions and me fully knowing she already knows the answers. I swear that I wanted to tell her she should confess her sins on Sunday at church b/c I don't think God would be very happy about her lying & deception and I wanted to explain the HIPA rules to her, too since she's always preaching them, but I didn't. I just smiled and half-answered her questions.

Oh can you tell I've got a little pissiness to go along with the bloating? Yea, not a good combination.

The progesterone thing... Yea I just love shooting those up my ho-ha morning and night. Makes me feel like jumping Eric's bones, too. Poor guy! I noticed that it's starting to come back out a little, too. Icky. (Sorry TMI!) From what I've read and what they told me in the Dr.'s office this is normal. I had just hoped I would be one of those people that never saw a trace of it once it was inserted... No suck luck

In other news my mom is having Easter at her house tomorrow... This is such a touchy subject anyway, but needless to say "I'm calling in sick tomorrow morning". Eric & I both agreed I don't need to have any of the stress during such a crucial time in my cycle. See they would gossip non-stop about each other non-the-less. Then they would talk about my cousin J who just got married and only b/c she's pregnant, blah, blah, blah (grrr...) And I'd have to get mad and yell and defend my poor cousin J b/c I love her and while she did get pregnant on accident and they did get married right away, I truly believe that they would have gotten married regarless. They are happy and in love and I think they made the best decision. In fact I've already point blank told my mom not to bring it up to me that I didn't want to hear it. I think she's brought it up 2 of the 3 times I've talked to her since...

Ok, have a Happy Easter everyone! I'm going back to news & blogs...

CD 19

2006-04-13T15:24:00.000-04:00

Have you missed me? I'm finally back at least long enough to post a bit...

So yesterday on CD 18 we had our transfer. As my dear husband said we were up way before the birds and on the road. I slept horribly the night before. I had major heart burn and I'm sure a lot of it was nerves, too. I couldn't wait for the alarm to go off. I had this sensation of throwing up all the way to Indy (1 hour) and I was so scared to take my valium b/c I thought for sure it would come back up. When we got there I took it. As soon as we got in we bee-lined it for the vending machines and got some animal crackers. My life saver! I munched on them up to the second floor and then had Eric get me some complimentary hot chocolate. Then it hit me...the valium that is. I started feeling great! There was another girl already there who we had seen before, so we knew she was there for the same thing. I wanted to go wish her luck, but Eric wouldn't let me. Finally the nurse came to get me (first) and we headed back. As I stood up I nearly spilt my hot chocolate and the nurse chuckled that the valium must be kicking in. I swear I felt drunk.

After we got back to my room I changed into a warm gown and laid on the bed and they took my vitals. They said they would be paging Dr. W for my acupuncture and she'd be in shortly. The wait seemed like forever, but she finally arrived. She put 13 tiny needles in my and I laid there for 20 minutes and tried to focus on breathing and relaxing. After the 20 minutes another nurse came in and took the needles out. Shortly thereafter Dr. B came in. I asked him about this enormous amount of discharge that developed on Tuesday and he said it wasn't anything abnormal and it would go away after today. I was satisfied. Next a nurse came in and said they were ready to go. I got to walk down the the "IVF Transfer" room. It was dimly lit and I sat down on the table. There were 2 nurses in there and then another door that opened to another room, which we realized was the lab. As soon as I sat down Dr. B started getting ready and told me that removing the diaphram would be the worst part and OMG was he right!! It was horrible. AFter that was done they said it would take about 15 minutes before the transfer. The lab would spin the device a few times and then see what was inside.

The wait seemed like a long time. We made small talk, but everyone knew we were all just waiting for the results... Finally one of the nurses peaked around the corner and said it looked like it wouldn't much longer. Then we heard the others started getting really excited. We thought to ourselves that it must be good news. Dr. B came in and said that 7 of the 10 inside fertilized and they would be transfering a 9 cell and a 13 cell back into me. I thought those were huge numbers from what I read and they confirmed that they were great. While waiting on stuff the frenchman who developed the device even came in and chatted with us saying I had beautiful embryos. I was so proud and happy! And we were ecstatic to have even met this man. He was there on the day of our retrieval, too, but we didn't meet him then.

Next I got to slide back down in preparation for the transfer. I was a nervous wreck. I'm pretty sure the valium was wearing off. Dr. B "washed" my cervic and whatever else he had to do before transfer and then VOILA....

This pickture was taken as soon as they transferred the embryos into me. It's the little white glob that contains the 2 embryos. I sat there in shock for a minute. It was almost surreal yet I was on cloud nine. After that Dr. B shock our hands and we thanked both him and the frenchman. The nurse said I could go to the bathroom now and on our way out they gave us this picture of our embryos.

The biologist stopped us, too and said that they would be cryo-ing some today. (Eric heard 6 and I heard 4) and they would watch the remainder and call us in a few days with those results.

I, of course, headed straight for the bathroom and that was a relief. After we got back to the room they took my vitals again and my b/p was up a bit, but that was normal. Then we waited on Dr. W to come down and do the acupuncture again. After she put the needles in this time I couldn't relax and concentrate on breathing. I was just too excited! I think it still served its purpose though. After the 20 minutes the nurse came in and removed the needles, we got dressed, and headed home. Well, we made a stop at McD's for breakfast then headed home.

Once we got home I took a nice long nap and spent yesterday in bed. I was getting really restless last night though. Today has been worse. I got up this morning around 11 and took a shower. Then relaxed on the couch. Then I made mac & cheese while Eric made us some turkey sandwiches. I watched a movie and now I'm updating. I plan to spend the rest of the evening on the couch though. That's all for today. It's back to work tomorrow to the job I will be leaving one week from tomorrow. Hooray!! I'll be catching up on blogs and back in touch with the world.

And as Eric said thank you all for your abundance of comments and support! We love it and are so thankful for each and every one of you! You are great friends even if we've never met some (most) of you!!!

Transfer Complete

2006-04-12T11:48:00.000-04:00

I am updating for Mrs. T because she is a little tired to say the least. We got up around 4:45 AM this morning to get going. We left the house around 5:15 AM and got to the hospital around 6:20 AM. Everything went well with the transfer. 7 out of 10 eggs fertilized in the device. So in total, we had 12 total embryos. Dr. B placed 2 embryos in Mrs. T, a 9 cell and a 13 cell. They are going to cyro 6 embryos today and watch the remaining 4 to moniter cell division. Mrs. T will probably update later today, if not tomorrow. She also has pictures of the embryos which she will most likely post on Friday. On behalf of Mrs. T and myself, I would like to thank everyone for their support as you don't often get to see me posting. Again, thank you to all for your support, I know it means a lot to Mrs. T, and also to me.

CD 17 - Time Changed Again

2006-04-11T14:07:00.000-04:00

Dr. B's office jsut called and our appointment tomorrow has been changed again. Our transfer is now schedule for 8:00 AM and we have to be at the hospital at 6:45. Ugh. Good thing I'm on bed rest for the next 2 days...

CD 17 **updated*

2006-04-11T09:19:00.000-04:00

My transfer is tomorrow, Wednesday at 11:45. Eric talked to them when they called, so we didn't get to ask about the extra egg. So I guess we won't find out until transfer now. I have been taking extra strength tylenol and that seems to be helping with the cramping I'm having. Nothing major though. Definitely don't need the pain medicine. I felt pretty good this morning and got up and took a shower, but I am exhausted now and still need to dry my hair, which is a chore in itself. My stomach is still bloated, but doesn't seem to be as bad as yesterday.

**updated to add**
I'm so out of it today! I forgot to mention that tomorrow is also our 3rd Anniversary!!! So it's even more special to have our embryo transfer tomorrow!!

CD 16 - Fertilization Report

2006-04-10T11:41:00.000-04:00

The biologist called around 11 this morning. We had 5 of 11 show signs of fertilization. I think this is a good number. That is exactly what my goal was so I'm happy. You might notice that I said "of 11" and yesterday I said 10 and 10... I have no idea where that extra one snuck in and didn't think to ask until after I got off the phone. ha ha ha As my friend Jennifer said, it must have been a sale, "Buy 20, get 1 free". We probably won't know anything about those 5 until Wednesday. They won't be transferred back into me either, unless god forbid, none of 1-10 fertilize inside the device. But I highly doubt that will happen. My goal for the device is 5 of 10 as well, so hopefully we get our wish there, too.

I got super sick last night, but I think it's the pain medicine, so I'm not taking any more. I had already been taking a minimal dosage anyway. I'm just going to stick to extra strength tylenol now. I was feeling pretty crampy, but I'm actually feeling better now. I still feel bloated, but that's normal, so I'm not worried about it. I just need to make sure I'm getting lots of fluids.

I will get a call this afternoon from Dr. B's office for the time of my transfer on Wednesday. Hopefully they can tell me about the extra egg, too. They might not know though.

And in case you missed it when I first shared all this information with all of you this is the article that tells you a little about the device and process. I'd be happy to answer any questions though. Oh and I do not feel the device inside me at all. It's similar to wearing a tampon except when they put it in, they turn it horizontal and put it up next to your cervix then put a diaphram in to hold it in place. So I'm incubating for 3 days. :D

CD 15 - The Story

2006-04-09T16:22:00.000-04:00

So we got up at 5:15 this morning and headed down. I showered last night so I wouldn't have to this morning. :D We got there about 7:00, so we headed to the 2nd floor where I was supposed to check in. The lab didn't open until 7:30, so Eric waited with me. Finally around 7:15 a nurse came by and said she'd be with us shortly. Eric decided to go ahead and head upstairs to "collect". A few minutes later the nurse came back and got me. They took me back to my own little room. I got a warm gown and blanket and laid back on the bed. They came in and started taking my vitals. Another nurse came in and starting working on my IV. I was cold and hadn't had any water, so my veins were not easy to find. They checked each arm twice and finally the nurse went back and got a really warm blanket and put on my arm to get the blood flowing. She said she'd only stick twice and then leave it for the anesthesialogist. This nurse rocked though and found one and got it. It didn't hurt a bit.

Eric came back down and we talked while we were waiting. At one point I got really mad at him because he took a big swig of water and swished it around in his mouth. I just sat there and couldn't believe it. He realized as soon as he swallowed (probably by the look on my face) what he had done and immediately apologized and felt horrible. hee hee I was dying for some water!

Next the biologist came in and went over a few things. I asked what Eric's sperm count was and she said the measured it different for this, but that he had 63 million. Eric asked what they want and she said 20 million, so he was really excited about that. Next Dr. B came in and we chatted for him a little while. Finally the anesthesialogist came in and went over some stuff. He said he'd give me a couple "martini's" first and make me a little funny to relax me before we got started. We waited a little while longer and finally right around 8:30 they took me back.

When we got back there they introduced everyone and starting getting me ready. The anesthesialogist gave me my two martinis right after I got in there. They put my legs up in stirrups that were actually 1/2 boots. They put both my arms straight out on boards and strapped me down. He asked me how I was feeling and I said pretty good. He hooked up my heart monitors and then gave me two more martinis. That made me feel quite nice. Shortly after that I fell asleep.

I woke up and was quite chatty. They only put you under twilight and let me say I am a huge fan of that. Apparently I told Eric about going in there twice, but that's ok. When I was waking up Dr. B had come in and that's when he told us about the 20 eggs. I was in shock. I had told Eric before going in my goal was 15. I asked him a few times if he really said 20. Yep. I said 2-0? Yep. Eric said I kept saying "F*ing Cool". I have no idea why though. ha ha ha We are trying to cut that F-word out of our vocabulary. They let us go at 10 and we were on our way home. I did stop at the little machine and get some hot chocolate on my way out of the hospital though. :D We stopped and grabbed breakfast and headed home.

I still feel bloated and a little sore, but overall I'm doing great. I took one pain pill when I got up home and went to bed. Apparently I was exhausted because I slept until 4. Eric is out hunting down some dinner for us now. I'm starving and plan to eat, take another pain pill and watch some TV.

To answer questions about the device:
The device is what they put the eggs (1-10), sperm and media in. It's inside me where it will stay until Wednesday, transfer day. The device is actually what the study is. I know I talked about it somewhere, but can't remember where or I'd link.

The other eggs (11-20) will be fertilized via dropping sperm on them in a the dish. They will call us tomorrow with the fertilization on those and freeze whatever any that fertilized. They will only transfer the ones from the device back in me.

Hope that helps!

CD 15 - Retrieval

2006-04-09T13:00:00.000-04:00

Total Count - 20!!!!!!!!

T-W-E-N-T-Y!!!!!!

2-0!!!!!!!!!

HOORAY!!!!!!

So that means 10 in device, 10 regular invitro'd. Will find out tomorrow how many of the regular initro'd ones fertilized. This should be a good indicator of how the 10 in the device will fertilize.

Off to bed now! More details later!

CD 14

2006-04-08T09:30:00.000-04:00

My massage last night was wonderful! I was apparently quite talkative b/c we pretty much talked through the entire massage, but it was nice and still very relaxing. Trigger last night was a breeze. I had to take 2 pre-filled shots, but the needles were small and they didn't hurt much. I'm definitely getting needle shy though. I guess that's what happens. Today I'm being super lazy. I got up and Eric made me some toast w/ peanut butter. Yum! No plans for the day though.

24 More Hours til Retrieval!!!

I want to thank you all for your well wishes! You are such great support. I wish all the best for all of you as well. Hopefully I can at least have Eric post a quick update tomorrow. I'm sure he will if I ask nicely. :D

CD 13

2006-04-07T15:02:00.000-04:00

So let me recap what happened yesterday. I started working on a post while I was waiting on Dr. B's office to call. It was all perfect and ready to just add times when I got the call. I was in shock that I don't even remember all the conversation. Nurse L went over my blood work with me and said my estradiol had spiked and increased about 1000. I didn't really know what this meant. Then she said Dr. B wanted me to continue taking my medication for 1 more day and come in for a scan on Friday morning. I asked if this included my cetrotide because I didn't have any more. She said yes and that we would need to come down as soon as possible to get it and take it. She put me on hold for a long time while they tried to figure out where I could pick up the Cetrotide because their office was actually closed. Finally she came back on and said we could pick it up on the ER. So as soon as I got off work at 5 we sped back down to Indy and picked it up. Even shot up in the hospital of the parking lot. After that we grabbed dinner as we were both starving. We ate at this mexican restaurant called "Cancun". Then we headed home. I was exhausted and barely made it through "Survivor". I was in bed my 9:00.

I didn't sleep very well last night at all. I am getting so uncomfortable and just toss and turn. Around 3 am a storm started brewing and our black dog hates them so she started whining and being a baby. At one point she got up in our bed and slept between my legs with her head on my belly. Godiva was between Eric & I and had her head on my belly, too. Finally around 4 am I couldn't take it any longer or more Eric couldn't take it any longer and moved the dogs to the living room. I did get a little sleep between then and 6 when we got up.

Our trip down was uneventful as usual. We waited in the waiting room for a bit before Nurse A called us back. I got undressed, hopped up on the table, put my feet in the stirrups and laid back on the bed. Then asked Eric to dim the lights. It feels much better lying down. Nurse A came in and was a little surprised we had already dimmed the lights. As soon as she got over to me I asked her to explain what was going on b/c we were confused. She basically said I could have probably went on Saturday, but there are a couple of us going at the same time and they needed another day, so they went ahead and pushed me back to Sunday as well. I assumed this was the reason. She did the scan and the follies had definitely grown just since yesterday. The left side had 5 that were between 18-20, which is where they need to. She said there were several that were just under that could very well catch up by tonight's trigger shot. On the right side there were 7 between 18-20 and again several that were just under that could very well catch up. After the u/s we headed over to the consultation room and went over pre-op again since everything was bumped back a day. She even gave me a day's worth of meds to take home just in case, but she was 100% they weren't needed. She said she'd call me this afternoon w/ the trigger time tonight and retrieval time on Sunday.

After we left there we went up for a quick and final blood draw just to check my levels and headed home. I spent the afternoon taking a nap, too.

About 3:15 Nurse A called with the details, which are as follows:
*Friday - 8:30 pm - Take 2 Pre-filled syringes of HCG
*Saturday - Nothing to eat or drink after midnight!
*Sunday - 7:15 am - Be at Hospital - I will register, Eric is to go directly to lab for collection.
*8:30 am - Retrieval

I'm guess I'm the first one on the list, but that's ok. I'll be done first, too. :D She also said that I would be doing the 3 hcg booster shots (day of transfer, 2 days later, 2 more days later), too. So this means I'm not done with shots for a little while, but that's ok, too.

Tonight I go for my massage at 5:00 pm and tomorrow Eric has insisted I be pretty much on bed rest.

Wow...It's SO real now. Like really real!!

Funny thing Eric said... On our way home we were talking about how nice it is out. He mentioned that he'd love to go for a bike ride, but didn't think we should because he didn't want anything to happen to me or our eggs. I told him I'd be fine and that sounded like a good idea. He said that all of our eggs were in one basket, me, and he didn't want anything to happen to his basket. Aaaawwww... He's so sweet. If it's not storming when I get back from my massage I think we should at least talk the dogs for a walk!

CD 12 - Complete with Bunny ears and a cotton tail!!

2006-04-06T16:33:00.000-04:00

Last night I believe my eggs had a massive growth spurt. I started feeling very bloated and tender. I've been wearing my pants as low as possible on my belly. Oh and my breasts are quite tender, too. I even tossed and turned more in bed because I just couln't get comfy.

Blood work was a little different this morning. She pulled out this butterfly thing and I was confused so I asked her why she she was drawing it different this time. She said that I was getting 2 vials drawn. Again I asked why. She said the second vial was for pre-op. Hooray! I said draw away and stuck out my arm!! I'm getting super excited and anxoius now. I even did a little squeel telling Eric about it although he overheard it anyway. Next stop, Dr. B's office.

G was not in this office today, so we got Nurse A. I hopped up on the table and we got started. My uterus lining measured at 8.7 and she said they like it to be at 8, so mine was good. Next over to my left ovary. The monster stood out right away. He measured in at a whopping 36 mm. Besides that one I had 11 others they measure between 15-20 mm. They like to retrieve them at about 20 mm and they grow 2-3 mm per day) They only have room to measure 12 on each side, but there were definitely more that were a little smaller. Next she wondered over to the right side. Again there were several. She measured 10 between 15-20 and again there were several smaller ones she didn't even measure. So final count is 22+ FOLLICLES! Eric has dubbed me the Easter bunny and let me say that my easter basket is overflowing! Dr. B will have a lot of eggs during his hunt on Saturday. hee hee

Next we went over to the consultation room and met with Nurse L. Very sweet lady! She went over some paperwork, my trigger shot, the progesterone, retrieval, transfer, etc., etc. This was all the pre-op stuff, so we don't have to come back tomorrow. We got our trigger shots and enough progesterone to get us through Beta #1 today and before we left Nurse L HUGGED me and told me good luck. I nearly melted into tears. (I'm getting a touch emotional now.) That was so sweet of her and I had never even met her before.

So where are we now you ask?????

I got a call at 4:30 that we need to take meds one more day. I don't have any more Cetrotide, so we have to drive back down to Indy (1 hr each way). Go back Friday for a 9:00 am scan. NO IDEA WHAT'S GOING ON... On my way out the door. Likely to push back retrieval 1 day, so Sunday...

I'm changing jobs!!

2006-04-06T14:39:00.000-04:00

This week has been so crazy. A position opened up in my old department. This isn't my actual old job that I talked about a few weeks ago, but the job that I REALLY wanted. So obviously I applied for it. I got a call on Monday for an interview. We ended up having the interview 5:00 pm on Tuesday. The whole interview was actually comical. One of the professors I used to work for was doing the interviewing along w/ my old boss. Basically as soon as we got started he asked me when I could start! I asked him if didn't want to go over any of the job or what? He went over the briefest description ever lasting, oh...maybe 2 minutes and then said "When can you start?" He is hilarious. So we went over some other things, the professor left the room and said see you in a little over 2 weeks. (All that took about 15 minutes.) I sat and talked to my old boss, D for another 45 minutes. We talked about salary and raises for a bit then just gossiped about some recent events. I just love her!

So yesterday about 4:50 pm, I got a call and she e-mailed me my offer letter. It was for more money than we had originally talked about and I was stoked! She told me to talk to Eric and let her know whenever. Of course I signed it as soon as it got done printing, then got started on my resignation letter to my current bosses.

Today after we got back from the Dr.'s office I stopped over there and accepted my new job. I will have my own office even. No more cubicles. Unfortunately it doesn't have a window, but that's ok. I'll live. The great part is that I'll still be working with the students and not "being someone's secretary". I'm so glad I got away from that. Yucky! The funny part is that I came in late to work today and am giving them my notice this afternoon, then taking tomorrow and Monday through Wednesday of next week off. ha ha ha It's really not that funny, but yea... well, it really is. What am I saying?!

I'll update about today's ultrasound as soon as I get the final details this afternoon!

CD 10 updated

2006-04-04T15:07:00.000-04:00

We have returned from another eventful scan. G actually did the scan this time and didn't go through all the measurements and things. I was dissappointed and kept asking questions, but she said we'd go over them in the consult room. She did say they wanted them to be around 20mm for retrieval. The scan itself was pretty uneventful and fast. I changed and we met her over in the consult room.

She took two pictures, one of each side of several small follicles that they didn't measure. Basically I have 6 big ones on each side making a totall of 12. The monster from Sunday's scan is up to 29mm now. The 11 remaining range from 9-16 mm. She said it is likely that Dr. B will reduce my Gonal-F down to 75iu and we might retrieve on Sunday or Monday depending on Thursday's scan rather than Saturday. That's not confirmed yet as they will also wait on my blood levels before making the final decision. We got back on Thursday - 8:00 Blood work & 8:15 Dr. B.

I'm to continue taking the FSH twice a day and the cetrotide once a day unless otherwise indicated.

*updated to add*

G just called. My blood levels are good. She said to keep up w/ 150iu of Gonal-F morning and night, Cetrotide once a day. She said if she was going to Vegas she'd bet on retrieval Saturday. Woohoo! Sooo.... 4 Days til Retrieval!

April Showers Bring Fresh Cut What??

2006-04-04T12:36:00.000-04:00

Fresh Cut What??
Originally uploaded by Mrs-T.

Received this from a friend in an e-mail and did not get to witness this in person, but I believe it to be real. Apparently someone doesn't know how to spell P-E-O-N-I-E-S...

Is this a good price? hee hee

CD 9 updated

2006-04-03T12:53:00.000-04:00

I feel like I just participated in an illegal activity... Eric just met me at the back of our building to shoot me up (with Cetrotide). hee hee

Also G called this morning because she couldn't remember if we were doing accupuncture so she's setting that up. Hopefully we'll be able to do that consultation tomorrow as well.

5 Days until Retrieval!!

*updated to add*

Just got a call from Dr. W about the acupuncture on the day of the transfer. It was a nice conversation. She was super friendly and down to earth. She did some explaining of things. Here's what she told me

* Doing Acupuncture has been proven to increase the success rate by ~30% making the success rate for IVF ~63%.

* Doing acupuncture increases the blood flow to your uterus by ~40%. They believe that no only does it helps with cramping and such from the procedure, but it also helps to relax your uterus to help incease the chance of implantation.

* They just started doing acupuncture in January. They've done the procedure on ~50 patients and have had ~40% success rate.

* For the procedure itself, I go in early for my transfer. They will take me to this room where Dr. W will administer the needles and leave them in for 20 minutes. Then I will go for transfer. After my transfer I will go back to this room and again she will administer the needles and leave them in for 20 minutes. Then I'll be done.

Seriously, if it increase my chanced even a little bit, then SIGN ME UP!!

CD 8

2006-04-02T13:10:00.000-04:00

We got up 15 minutes late this morning. I had adjusted my clock last night and even adjusted my alarm, but did NOT turn my alarm on. Thankfully we only woke up 15 minutes late. It could have been much worse. I didn't have time to take a shower, so I freshened up and got ready. We got a quick shot in and was on the road. We also forgot to get gas yesterday, so we had to make a quick stop there, too. We got there in time and made a bathroom stop before heading upstairs for blood work.

Blood work was a breeze this time thank goodness. Then we headed down to Dr. B's office. Nurse A was there and said she was going to do our scan. G had told me last week there were several of us around the same time, so we knew they were busy. First off she checked the lining of my uterus. It looked great. Next over to the left side. There were a total of about 8 (7, 7, 11, 14, 22, plus some smaller ones). They would sacrifice the 22 in order to allow the others to grow more. Next over to the right side. I told her about my huge cyst and thankfully it was NO WHERE to be found. It had either shrunk and was included w/ my follies or was gone totally. So there were around 7 on the right side (9, 11, 11, 14, 15). Overall I have 9 great eggs, 1 sacrificial lamb and 3-5 smaller ones that are likely to catch up. I'd say that's pretty good.

We met back in the room with G after the scan. She gave us the cetrotide and said that she might call this afternoon depending on my blood levels. The cetrotide is used if my LH starts surging and I'm getting ready to ovulate. I told her I only had 4 more shots of Gonal-F, so she gave us some more of that, too. We go back Tuesday at the same time. 8:15 blood work and 8:30 ultrasound.

After that we grabbed breakfast and went back to the hospital as if we'd never been there before. My niece is there with feeding issues. To make a long story short it looks like she's learned how to make herself vomit after she eats and spits up a ton causing her to lose a lot of weight. She's 9 months and should be around 20 pounds and is around 15 because of this problem. We visited with them for about an hour and headed home.

After we got home we relaxed and haven't been doing much. We realized we had missed G's call. (She calls us with our results of the blood work). I accidentally gave her Eric's phone number instead of mine. Not a huge deal though. Well from her message apparently my LH is pretty high b/c I needed to take my cetrotide immediately and I needed to take 2 instead of one! Holy crap! Realize this means 4 shots today... She then said that I would need to take just one tomorrow at around the same time, which was 1. That means Eric is going to have to meet me for lunch and give me this shot because it also needs to be kept cold. Good thing he took this week and next week off as vacation. :D He's going to have to meet me at work to inject me. I don't know what I'd do without him!

Let me just say that the cetrotide sucks. It's at least double the amount of gonal-f and as soon as it goes in the area gets all red and itchy. It's also swollen, too. Ugh!

CD 7

2006-04-01T10:53:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was a nightmare. I had to drive a van from work and ended up taking the students a little off-roading. They even commented that they didn't think the van was made for off-roading. I replied telling them I own a SUV, so I think I can go anywhere. We didn't get stuck though. Then I had to park the dumb thing in a parking garage and had to fix it 4 or 5 times. When I first pulled in I was about 1" from the car next to me. I think after all the reversing and pulling forward I think I ended up about 2" from the car. hee hee

I think my belly is officially bloating and getting quite tender. It actually hurt getting my shot this morning, too. Ugh!

This time next week I should be going through or finishing up retrieval. Yay! I'm getting anxious. Tomorrow we go for our first ultrasound, so check back for an update about my follies! Woohoo!

CD 5

2006-03-30T12:24:00.000-05:00

I spoke too soon about the moods... I am feeling very annoyed and pissy today. I think it's showing, too. O'well. I'm still very happy though. Can you have all of those emotions at the same time? Yea, I guess so.

This dumb open house at work is getting on my nerves, too. We were supposed to have our current students as drivers and now somehow I have been conned into driving one of these vans and I'm not happy about it. I just keep thinking hopefully I'll be giving them my 2 weeks notice soon and be gone by the end of April. Why can't someone just drive me or better yet I'll walk or drive myself.

I called and scheduled a Swedish*Massage for April 7, which is the day before retreival. I decided this was a perfect day. I took the whole day off work b/c I will be doing pre-op stuff in the morning and thought relaxing to a massage in the evening was perfect way to lead into retreival. Yay! I wasn't sure at first where I was going to fit it in as it's unlocked, but then I realized I was getting accupuncture right before and right after transfer, so I better get some relaxation before retreival, too.

I want to go home and go to bed. My poor puppies are going to be shut up all evening and I'll be exhausted when I get home, but I'll still have to play with them and feed them before I go to bed. Godiva is already being a baby and knows Eric's leaving. I'm sure my moods are going to spike tomorrow being that I won't get too much sleep tonight. Great...

Chocolate sounds so yummy right now. Anything chocolate! I think I'll make a trip downstairs and get some chocolate milk...

I'm rambling...

CD 4

2006-03-29T19:02:00.000-05:00

4 Shots Down! I did my first shot tonight by myself. It wasn't so bad, but Eric is definately much better than me! Mine bled a tiny bit even. It's all good though & I know I can do them by myself tomorrow night and Friday morning, maybe even Friday evening. I'll be glad to get back to just pinching and looking away though. :D Plus it's better when Eric is really involved.

So far I'm not feeling much. I noticed my very first shot spot is bruising a bit, but it's still light in color. I think we decided to do the smiley face under my belly button or at least that's the route it's going so far. I've been happy every morning this week and haven't been too grouchy or moody. I do feel a little evil though. I did something yesterday out of spite of my co-worker and thoroughly enjoyed it, too. :D I'm a little more tired, but not a lot more than usual although I think I could go to bed now and it's only 7 pm. I'm sure the next couple of days will drain me as I'll be out a little later Thursday & Friday. Plus I have to work Saturday morning. Oh and we have to get up early Sunday and head to Indy so no sleeping in for me anytime soon...

Sidebar addition

2006-03-28T13:53:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I updated my sidebar again. I decided to just put a calendar up that you can click on and see what's going on w/ my cycle... Yes I'm anal like that... I will change periodically. For instance I don't know when all of my ultrasounds are schedule next week yet.

<<<----- Go take a peak!

CD 3

2006-03-28T08:00:00.000-05:00

I survivived! I was really dreading the first shot, but it wasn't too bad. We decided to do them in my belly as it was too hard to pinch an inch in my thighs. I know it's hard to believe. ha ha I definitely have enough to pinch on the inside, but not so much on the tops and outsides. So stomach it is. Eric is doing the shots for me with the exception of a couple I have to do myself b/c I'll be away from the house Thursday & Friday for our department open house. Overall not too bad though.

Collection

2006-03-27T19:06:00.000-05:00

Here's the start of my collection... I will get the rest next week. No sense in stock piling it when I don't need it until then. Helps keep it from getting too overwhelming, too. :D

CD 2

2006-03-27T16:44:00.000-05:00

We got up this morning, got ready and headed to Indy. Right off the bat we realized we forgot the checkbook, so we did a u-y and ran back home. Thankfully we hadn't got very far. We got there around 10:15 and went up to the lab to get our blood drawn for FSH, E2 and LH. We were also supposed to pay our money, but the price the lab quoted was less than what Dr. B's office had quoted, so I wanted to make sure that was correct before I wrote a check. They tried calling Dr. B's office, but G was busy, so lab lady said we could just come back up and pay after our meeting with G. She took me back to the room and asked me if I have any problems getting my blood taken. I told her that I've been told my veins roll and she told me normally when people say that the nurses just aren't very experienced. I just laughed and said ok, but don't dig around in there... Well, guess what? My vein rolled and she missed and had to dig around. She was gentle about the digging though. It wasn't too bad. On our way out I asked when the results would get to Dr. B's office and she said 1:00. It was only 10:30.

We headed down to Dr. B's office and waited there for a bit before G called us back. We talked about a few things and she gave us 2 pages to fill out while she checked to see if the ultrasound room was free. She came back and said we could go on back for the u/s. I had figured I would be getting one of these. No biggy. She told me to undress and hop up on the table. She started with my uterus and said it looked great, taking a few measurements. Next was my left ovary, again great. Then over to the right side she said, "Oh, what's that doing there?" I panicked and asked what and she said I had a "huge residual cyst". I said obviously that's not good to which she confirmed. She went on to say that she needed to talk to Dr. B. We weren't out yet, but we might have to skip this month and get it next month. There were some options. I sat in there, by myself as Eric had stayed in the conference room, for what seemed like 20 minutes. (I'm sure it was maybe 5) Finally she came back in and said that in order to be excluded from the study it had to be 25mm. Mine was 23.2mm. However it would likely compromise the production of eggs on that side. They'd really like to aspirate it, but she had to make some calls and see if/when I could get it done for cheap. She told me to get dressed and meet her back down at the conference room. I wanted to start balling right then, but I maintained myself, got dressed and headed down the hall.

G was already talking to Eric and the look on his face made me even that much closer to breaking down, but we both were ok. She said to go ahead and finish some paperwork and she was going to make some calls. We had some options.

1) They could aspirate it
2) They could let it be
3) They could put me on B/C for a few weeks and then do IVF next month

She left us to think about it (and stare at the pic of this huge cyst I named F-er) and went to make some phone calls.

Finally she came back and said that she was still making calls and we should go grab lunch and come back. That way they would have my blood work back and really everything was really contingent on what those numbers were.

Lunch sucked. I didn't know what to say. I was in shock. I tried to keep positive, b/c it wasn't over yet, but I just felt horrible. We grabbed lunch at this little pub down the road and headed back.

When we got back they were finishing up lunch so we waited a bit then G came for us. First thing out of her mouth was "It's a go". It didn't even sink in what she meant by it. She said my levels had come back great (FSH-8.9, E2-28, LH-6.7) They decided the cyst was non-functioning and that it should disolve itself. They were going to keep an eye on it though. BIG RELIEF!!!

So onwward we went. We signed a bunch of documents, went over the injections and training and talked about what was going to happen. We also let her know we want to do the accupuncture so they are going to get that scheduled. We start injections tomorrow and go back on Sunday for more blood work and an u/s. The u/s' will continue through next week. Retreival will be 4/8 and transfer on 4/11. And to add to the excitement our 3 year wedding anniversary is 4/12!!

<<<----I'm adding a timeline over in the sidebar to track all this, too.

This cycle is a GO!!! Yay!

Weekend

2006-03-27T07:59:00.000-05:00

Our weekend was pretty good. Friday night we grabbed dinner and hung out at home. It was a pretty lazy evening.

Saturday I got up and lounged around for a bit. Then I got a burst of energy. I decided I was going to clean the house. I worked on dusting the living room and cleaning up some things (like the mass accumulation of magazines my MIL bring us). Then I worked on the rest of the house. After that I worked on sanding some holes that I patched 3 or 4 weeks ago. :D The major ones were in the bathroom that we painted months ago. We've just been lazy and procrastinating. After sanding I painted them and also around the top of the tub where Eric had put caulking. I spent the afternoon being lazy after that. I finally started my period in the evening and was excited!! My sister came over and we made spaghetti for dinner.

Sunday we decided to go see a movie since we really needed to get out of the house. We headed over to see V*for*Vendetta. It was awesome! After the movie we made a quick trip to Pet*Smart and headed home. We grabbed pizza for a late lunch/early dinner and ended up watching Into*the*Blue. However we were apparently grand central station as everyone decided they were going to call us. It tooks us almost 3 hours to watch the movie, but it was good. I watched Cold*Case and then headed to bed.

This is going to be an exciting week for us. We will be leaving shortly to head to Indy for blood work, training & drugs. Please think about me and keep everything crossed in hopes that our blood work comes back fine. It would be a sad trip back to Indy to return those drugs... I'll update this afternoon after we get back and I know the results! Hope you had a great weekend, too!

CD 1

2006-03-26T09:08:00.000-05:00

Such a relief to finally be saying that... Come on FSH & E2 levels! Let's get this started.

Just a note that I won't be home until the afternoon tomorrow, so don't expect an update until then.

Finally!!!!!!!

2006-03-25T17:25:00.000-05:00

I finally started just a while ago. I've never been so freaking happy to start my period. Since I started later this evening CD 1 isn't actually until tomorrow, so I won't log it in FF until tomorrow. Called G and have an appointment at 10:30 Monday morning for blood work. Then after that I go to Dr. B's office for drugs & training! Yay! This is really happening... Assuming my FSH and E2 levels are fine... Always something to worry about, right?

Congrats!

2006-03-25T15:11:00.000-05:00

Special Congratulations to Jamie & Lance who tied the knot this weekend! Can't wait for their reception down here in May!

Check out their pics here

Hmmmmm............

2006-03-25T08:47:00.000-05:00

A whole ".1" drop on the thermometer... Maybe that will do the trick...

I'm really NOT alone

2006-03-24T10:52:00.000-05:00

OK, so I know that there are "20 total participants", but I assume we'll never know the other "19" involved. I've spent the last several weeks searching for different "keywords" on the study we are about to participate in. Searching for anything really... Other participants, press releases, any sort of information I can find! So far I've only found the same articles over and over... Well, if you can imagine, I actually happened upon a message board today and found someone who is also participating in the study. Yay! I don't feel so isolated now. I'm keeping her anonymous b/c well, I don't have her permission to talk about her, not that I would anyway. Isn't that exciting though? Someone going through the very same thing as me! I know, I know. People do this all the time, but seriously we are going through something a little different than regular IVF. Wow! I'm elated! Keep us both in your thoughts, pretty please!

Any weekend plans for you gals?
I hope to spend my weekend being doubled over in pain w/ cramps and flo-age... :D I know you all hope that's how I'm spending me weekend, too and I know you mean it in the best way possible! hee hee

No Friday Five or Feast this week. I don't feel like taking my mind away from imagining up symptoms that flo is coming. :D I swear I've had cramps yesterday AND today when I woke up, but they keep disappearing about mid-morning...

Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting....

Same as yesterday

2006-03-24T07:09:00.000-05:00

Temp that is... Still no sign... Do I have cramps? A little. I don't know which is worst, waiting for AF to see if you are pregnant or waiting so you can start invitro...

Still Nothing

2006-03-23T15:54:00.000-05:00

"OPP" is up to 561,264,954...

Operation Panty Patrol

2006-03-23T07:59:00.000-05:00

If you check my chart you'll notice I decided to temp these last couple of days so I can start my morning off right so to speak. It's obvious we've had quite the dip today, so as you can guess from the title, I will be on "Panty Patrol" anxiously awaiting the arrival of my dearest flo. I think I've officially checked the panties 158,564,995 times so far this morning. I'm having some slight cramps so I'm guessing she'll be coming at some point today... Still waiting... Let's hopes she arrives in the next couple of hours...

My records have been received... Eric's, oops... updated

2006-03-21T17:17:00.000-05:00

Finally I confirmed with Dr. B's office that all of my records have been received. Unfortunately they forgot Eric's bloodwork, so I made an urgent call to Dr. S's office who said they would fax it out today. I just hope they follow through. So here's the breakdown of all of the information I got today...

- Apparently my pap came back abnormal or ASCUS (atypical cells of undetermined significance), which they then tested for HPV as routine procedure. Thankfully that came back negative, so we are in the clear. Apparently another patient had the same thing and they cleared them, so there won't be any problem with mine.

-Gonorrhea & Chlamydia test came back negative/fine.

-My blood work-up came back fine.

-I am a type A- blood type. This is vital information to know. Basically if Eric is A+ then we have a 50/50 percent of our baby being A+. If it is a + then my body would produce antibodies that would reject it and I could miscarry. If I miscarried then I need to let whoever does my D&C know I am A- and they will give me a shot, which has antibodies so I won't reject future pregnancies. Unfortunately they don't normally do this until after you miscarry. Although from some research I've done on-line it looks like they might be able to give me small doses of the shot at certain points in the pregnancy, too. So it doesn't seem to be quite as scary as when I was first told, but still a little scary. I guess I understand the whole idea of it, but it's sorta confusing, so if anyone else has anymore information or is in the same situation, please e-mail me or leave a comment.

We also went over where I was at in my cycle again. As I think I said before G is going to be gone this weekend. Here's a breakdown of possibilities of start dates. Of course all this really depends on when AF decides to show...

-If I start Thursday morning it would be CD 1, then we would go to Dr. B's office on Friday for bloodwork, drugs & training.

-If I start Thursday afternoon/evening, they would consider Friday CD 1. We'd go down on Friday for drugs & training and back on Saturday for bloodwork.

-If I start Friday morning, again it would be CD 1 and we'd go down that afternoon for drugs & training and then back again on Saturday for blood work.

-If I started Friday afternoon (making Saturday CD 1) or later we'd go down on CD 2 for bloodwork and go back in Monday morning for drugs & training.

Obviously the best would be to make a single trip for both meaning I'd need to start sometime Thursday or Friday morning. I guess we'll see how that plays out. Maybe for once AF will arrive early and please us all.

I think I covered it all. We talked about so much and my brain is overwhelmed right now. Back to sitting and waiting on my period...

**Updated to add**
G called back this evening and she got Eric's blood work. Hooray for a fast response at Dr. S's office. Anyway, everything on him came back fine and we found out he is O+.

I asked her a little more about the A- thing and she said it won't make me miscarry my first pregnancy. They just need to know in case I start showing signs of rejection. Also regardless I will get the shot when I deliver because if the baby is '+', then I will have already built up some antibodies that could effect future pregnancies. I'm relieved that it won't directly affect my first pregnancy. She understood my concern and questions, so that was good, too. :D

Giving ample warning to my work...

2006-03-21T09:12:00.000-05:00

I scheduled a meeting with my 2 co-workers for 4:30 pm to talk about some upcoming appointments I would be having. I spent the day going over things in my head (what to tell them, what not to tell them, how to say "don't ask me questions", etc.) Finally 4:30 rolled around and I gave them the details they needed and left out the ones they didn't. Overall it went ok. Of course I could only give them warning and told them I would know more details next week. My female co-worker asked some questions and I just told her I didn't want a lot of questions because it is too much pressure and said that I would tell her stuff that I felt comfortable with. In fact, none of our family (besides my in-laws) are even aware of what we are about to go through and for that reason. She said that she could still ask and I said, "yes, but I might ignore you or tell you I'm not discussing it" and smiled. I think she got the point. Of course she also brought up multiples to which I replied twins at most... She asked why and so I told her they are only transferring only 2 embryos. She just said "oh." This is the co-worker that drives me crazy, too.

Record Transfer - Round 2

2006-03-20T12:00:00.000-05:00

I called Dr. S's office this morning to find out if my records had been faxed to Dr. B's office. I was put on hold forever, and then they realized I was talking to the wrong person so they forwarded me to the nurse's station. The nurse was clueless! (surprise!) She didn't even know if my blood work had come back. They were going to pull my file and call me back.

Finally got a call back & they just received the rest of the blood work results today, so they will be faxing everything this afternoon. Not sure why it took an entire week to get my lab results when it should only take 1-2 days, but whatever. They have it now and Dr. B's office will have it this afternoon. Now I just hope everything is ok for Dr. B's office. I guess I'll find out this afternoon or tomorrow b/c I imagine they will call if it's not. If not then I'll call tomorrow afternoon b/c I'm anal like that...

I'm starting to stress a little now... I'm getting a fever blister... This time next week I will likely be injecting drugs into myself. YIKES!

Hair, Caidence, Anal Probes, Chicken Poop, Pacers & Speed Humps

2006-03-20T08:20:00.000-05:00

Saturday morning I got up and headed to C'ville first thing. I visited with my dad & Peg for a while and she trimmed my hair. I wanted it more angled, shorter in back and angled longer in the front, but she didn't angle it enough, so I wasn't extremely pleased, but it was ok. She knew I wasn't as pleased with it, but it's also different when I get home and actually fix it myself. After cutting my hair we headed to town to meet sister K & Caidence for lunch. Isn't she the cutest?

We played with her and ate. She was cranky b/c she's having problems eating. She has reflux real bad and actually spits up everything she eats. Needless to say K's going to make her an appointment this week at the children's hospital. It was fun seeing her though regardless. I kept telling her I was going to photoshop her bib to say "I love my aunt!" Oh and do you see her teeth coming in? So cute!

After lunch I met up with Danialle. We stopped by a local tattoo shop to schedule an appointment for some tattoos we are getting done in the future. The guy was super nice and we were pleased with his work and such, so we scheduled the appointment. He is new in town and has had several people cancel out on him, so he's requiring a $20 downpayment, which was fine, too. Neither of us had cash, so we headed over to the atm to get some real quick. As I was pulling out of the bank, I got sidetracked by this...

which caused me to turn the WRONG WAY down a one-way street!!! You'll notice all the cars are parked facing me and there is even a car turing towards us... We got so tickled that I even did it that I pulled a U-y and then pulled back into the bank, so we could get a picture for evidence. By this time we were in tears from laughing so hard. Good times.

After we dropped off our $20 deposit, we headed over to the local ice cream shop for some cherry & vanilla cokes. YUM! We then headed out to visit my brother's grave & cleaned up some leaves that were around it. (I miss him loads!!)

I had mentioned that I really wanted to dye my hair again and so we decided to head to Wal*Mart so she could help me pick out some hair color. We found a color that was quite bold and got out of that crazy store fast. After leaving there I dropped her off to her husband and headed home myself.

Eric & I ran a few errands when I got home, then my sister came over and dyed my hair this color...

It's really dark and had a hint of red in it. I like it, but it's definitely bold. We made some healthy chilli (using V8, ground turkey, & wheat pasta) and enjoyed the rest of the evening.

Sunday we picked up Ashlee & Hugh and headed to the Pacers game. We had intended to get them to a Colts game, but weren't able to get the tickets, so they were content with going to see the Pacers. We saw this on our way there...

How'd you like to rub that on your lips? GAG!

Here's a couple pics from the game.

Finally we headed home, exhausted from our weekend. We dropped them off and took a picture of this...

We see this sign all the time and keep saying we wanted to get a picture. So it just so happened we had our camera with us as we passed this time.

We spent the evening on the couch and went to bed early.

2006-03-17T08:23:00.000-05:00

Blood work from hell.... Part Two....

2006-03-16T16:03:00.000-05:00

I called Dr. B's office this afternoon to find out if they had received the paperwork from Dr. S's office yet although I was pretty sure I already knew the answer. Had to leave a voicemail...

G called me back and they have not received anything from Dr. S's office yet. I told her I would call them and she should have it tomorrow or Monday at the latest. Dr. S's office is slow obviously. She didn't seem concerned as long as they had it when I started. She told me that they had a recent retrieval of 23 eggs! Wow! They have also had great fertilization with the participants who have gone though so far, too. Their goal is a minimum of 10 good eggs retrieved and fertilization of 8-9 eggs. That sounds just fine to me. She asked me again where I was in my cycle. (You would think she'd write down an estimate since its all based around that...) Apparently G is going to be away the weekend I’m expecting my period, but it wouldn't be a big deal as one of the nurses would just get me set up. She also said that on Day 2 when we came in for the blood work they could just go through injection training and give me all of the meds that day. If something happened and my levels weren't right then we would just bring everything back to them. This made me happy because that's one less trip there and back. She said that if for some reason my levels weren't right then we still had another month to try and be part of the study. Woohoo! Finally she made sure we were aware that when we go in on the Day 2 testing we had to pay our out-of-pocket that day, which is fine. We have it in the bank and ready. I told her I'd call her again on Monday afternoon if I hadn't heard from her that she'd received anything.

I immediately called Dr. S's office. There are out today (figures), but I was able to talk to his receptionist. She said they were waiting on my blood work (surprise). She said it's likely that he got it today, but just hadn't looked at it yet and gotten it to my file. She had my records waiting to be faxed, but since I put on my form that I wanted that blood work faxed, too they had to wait on it. Dr. S is in surgery tomorrow, but he usually goes through some paperwork so they hope to get it out tomorrow or Monday. I will say that Dr. S knows it's urgent, so I am certain he wouldn't hold it up on his end.

Still more waiting... I'll be glad to just have to worry about the Day 2 testing...

How do you like me now??

2006-03-14T14:23:00.000-05:00

If you'll remember a while back I asked for helping changing up my blog. Well, the wonderful and creative Miss Milenka offered up her services. She came up with this lovely new look! I'm loving the new look. Please let me know how you like it as well. Or if something changed that you loved from my previous look or a color that's bugging you. I've changed a few things (adding, deleting, tweaking) so I may well have not copied everything over right. :D My mind is going about a gazillion different ways right now. ha ha ha

Thanks again Milenka! You are the greatest!

Blood work from hell...

2006-03-13T14:31:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we went to get our blood work for infectious disease, HIV, hepatitis, etc.... What a nightmare!!! My favorite blood drawing nurse was not in much to my disappointment. Nurse I (for idiot) took us back and we were back there for nearly 1 hour! She had to enter all of our information in the computer. It took her f-o-r-e-v-e-r to figure out what exactly I was supposed to get done. You would think she had never done this before... At one point she even had to call the lab to find a code of one of the blood draws. Finally she turned around to take my blood. One down, one to go... Eric & I switched seats and she started going over all of the stuff he needed tested for. It was same as mine minus a couple of things. At some point she decided she did something wrong and went back to mine and printed new labels. She kept mumbling things and said she hoped we got it right. I honestly think she changed my insurance company to Eric's (we each have our own). She entered Eric's information and finally took his blood, too. We also found out that they still had me under my old doc at that clinic and I'm sure I've had blood taken since I changed over a year ago... Needless to say, I'm calling Dr. B's office on Thursday and if they haven't received my information I'm going in with my blood boiling... :D I guess if this is the worst thing that happens then it isn't so bad.