therapy

I’ve been extra cranky lately.  I think I’m going to go eat a sandwich.

bothersome

Last night, my friend offered to be a surrogate for us.  This really bothered me on a couple of levels.  We’ll start with the legitimate level and then move on to the shallow level.

Legitimately Bothered:

I haven’t given up yet on Husband and I having a biological child the old fashioned way where I get huge, eat lots of ice cream and french fries, complain about looking like a barn, etc.  Call me crazy, Internet, but I feel like until I give up on that idea, my friends shouldn’t either.  This is the second comment she has said relative to the idea that I will never have a sustainable pregnancy (to be fair, she could be right).  Now maybe if I had 37 miscarriages and a diagnosis, and was refusing to give up it would be okay for my friends to give up on me, but I’ve had TWO miscarriages and no diagnosis; and have clearly communicated that I’m only willing to endure a maximum of one more miscarriage, so I feel like it is within the realm of reasonable-ality that my friends get on board with me and pray that attempt #3 will be a success rather than making alternate plans for me.

Shallowly Bothered:

She had a baby in November.  I love the baby with my whole self.  I love my friend with my whole self.  However, she drove me crazy through her whole pregnancy – complaining about being sick, feeling uncomfortable, talking about needing maternity clothes at 6 weeks, complaining about being hospitalized for a blood clot (hello! you have a blood clot! you could die! your baby could die! and you’re concerned that the doctor gave no consideration to the fact that you have a life and didn’t want to be in the hospital?).  After labeling their OB (who also happens to be mine who I love) an alarmist for the hospital stay, I disagreed and her husband said to me: “What if you were pregnant and something went wrong?”  I calmly replied with, “I’ve been pregnant and something has gone wrong.  I’ve appreciated Dr. H’s reaction.”  Friend’s husband then proceeded to act like my pregnancies didn’t count as real pregnancies.  I mean I get that people who haven’t experienced miscarriage don’t understand it.  I didn’t understand it this time last year, and sometimes I have a hard time referring to former pregnancies as pregnancies rather than “the first miscarriage” or “the second one”; I don’t need to be further invalidated (is that a word and if so did I use it correctly?) by others.

I declined the surrogacy offer.

P.S. If you comment, please don’t bash my friends.  You’re seeing only a limited picture of them and its not very nice/fair for me to only show one part of one side of the coin.

catching up

I haven’t been much of a blogger lately.  Here’s what’s been going on:

• Husband and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary, and unlike last year, no bones were broken in the anniversary celebrating.
•  Last weekend one tiny part of the sermon at church was about how part of Jesus’ message was freedom from bondage, recovery of sight for the blind, etc.  It convicted me that I needed to allow myself to be freed from the bondage of anxiety that I feel like I have.  I’m working on it.
• I’ve gotten annoyed by friends with babies.  I’ve gotten hurt feelings by friends with babies.  I’m working on this too.
• I realized this morning that there are a few tv shows that I’m a little too involved in – namely, One Tree Hill, Project Runway and The Real Housewives of Orange County.  Did I really just admit that?
• Husband and I made our first ever budget.  Neither of us have ever had one, we’ve always just kind of managed to not spend more than we have and save some while we were at it.  I think this is a better way for us to keep track of how we’re spending our money.
• I’ve got the dry skin of winter.  Bring on the lotion.
• I’m working on a project by project basis for my former employer – work I can do from home, whenever I feel like it (within reason).
• I played Wii for the first time.  It was fun.  I’m easily addicted to these types of games.  I’ve been playing PacMan on my computer quite a lot recently too.
• I made some homemade mint chip ice cream that was To. Die. For.
• Husband and I are house shopping, meanwhile our house isn’t quite ready to list.  Yes, we often do things backwards – its good motivation for us to get our house ready.  Procrastination is paying off in that the fed lowered the interest rate.  Wahoo.
• My small group and I (after all experiencing rough years last year) have officially declared the theme of this year – 2008 is Great.

when I grow up

I’m sitting here snacking on girl scout cookies and I thought that you, dear Internet, would be hoping for something new and shallow from me.

 This is the first year that anyone has sold me girl scout cookies.  I mean my mom bought them all the time when I was a kid, but this is the first year that my doorbell has been rung by an enterprising little girl, and boy was I excited.

I finally felt like a real grown-up.

That’s right.  I’m married, I have a mortgage, I pay taxes, I bought a car, I’ve voted in multiple presidential elections, I pay bills, I’m nearly due for a class reunion, I’ve had two miscarriages, my sister is divorced, my parents are starting to have the physical ailments of senior citizens, I cook meals for people with new babies, I’ve worked in “the real world” (not the one on MTV), speaking of MTV - I feel old when I watch it, I’m a card-carrying Costco member; and being sold girl scout cookies was my true coming of age moment.

Here’s to eating thin mints and hoping you are what you eat!

decades

I just got a myspace message from a high school classmate asking me about our ten-year reunion.  My eyes won’t stop rolling for a few reasons:

1. We graduated in 1999, we’re EIGHTEEN months away from 10 years.
2. He emailed me because I was class president and there is this mistaken concept that the class president will plan a reunion.  I could go off on this for paragraphs and paragraphs, but I won’t.  I will simply say that anyone who thinks that a 17 year-old running for class president is in a place where he/she is ready to commit to something that is 11 years in the future is a few colors short of a crayon box. 
3. I have no intention of organzing a reunion.  I might attend one, if it happens to be at a time that fits in with the rest of my life, but I’m not going to arrange my (next) summer around one.  I’m a firm believer in making your here-and-now life the priority and letting the reunions/college friend get-togethers/etc. fit in where they can.

Just for kicks, here is a picture of me and some classmates from the summer of ‘99 and then one from the state basketball tournament my senior year.  (Please forgive all of the fashion mistakes of the late ’90s.

I’m incredibly shallow.

I don’t want to be that person that sends all of the forwards, but says that I don’t normally do them and yet here I am.  I got tagged, and since I’ve never been tagged before, I thought I’d do it (darn, I’ve used that excuse now).  Actually, sometimes I like reading memes.  Sometimes I don’t.  Without further ado…

1. THE RULES:
   Each player starts with 5 gifts that they want.
2. People who are “CARDED” need to write their own Blog about their 5 things & post these rules.
3. At the end of your Blog, you need to choose 5 people to get “CARDED” and list their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a COMMENT telling them they’re “CARDED”, and to read your Blog.

My Wish List:
1. A new purse…I like these:

 

2. A 30 pound weight loss. 

 (30 pounds of potatoes just to give you an idea.)

3. A baby.

4. Granite countertops (in my new house).

5. A way to get paid for watching tv.

the in-laws and the ick

So, its been a few weeks now, but Christmas with the in-laws was great.  It was fun to see nephew and niece and nephew (almost 2) was a lot of fun and a great helper when it came to unwrapping presents…and the presents were great.  Husband finally got some non-clothes gifts.  You know, the kind he actually gets excited about.  I loved everything I got, which is amazing considering the differences between my mother-in-law and me.  (Don’t get me wrong, she’s great – just sooooo different from me).  The greatest thing about Christmas with the in-laws is that I didn’t get sick.  Why would I even think that you might ask?  Well, I have a history of tossing my cookies in the presence of my in-laws – on holidays.

The first time I went to Husband’s home town (not the first time I met his parents), was Mother’s Day.  It was before we were engaged and I had spent all of about 3 hours total with the folks prior to this.  I wasn’t feeling great in the morning when Husband came to pick me up, but I figured it would pass and I’d be fine.  I didn’t want to cancel at the last minute and come off looking lame.  Instead, I had to ask my boyfriend to pull over at a gas station on the way there, so I could vomit.  I had the luxury of walking out of the restroom and seeing him waiting for me – definitely within earshot of my heaves.  I opted (stupidly) to be brave and continue the journey.  On top of that, I opted to meet at church as planned instead of skipping church to go lay down.  Long story short, I puked in the bathroom at church a couple of times (within earshot of my mother-in-law) before we left to go to his parents house where I finally fell asleep and Mother’s Day lunch was ruined and then had to settle for pizza.

The first Christmas with Husband (2005) was a few weeks before our wedding.  We went to my parents’ house for the few days before Christmas, then woke up Christmas morning and drove the 6 hours to his parents’ house.  About 30 minutes before we got there, I started feeling a little ick.  I managed to hang in there until all of the extended family showed up, so that I could hurl within earshot of my fiance, his brother, his brother’s wife, his parents, his grandpa, his aunt, his 3 uncles, and his 5 cousins during the gift exchange.  It was so glamorous.

The first vacation that we went out with the in-laws (Husband’s parents, Husband’s Brother, Husband’s Brother’s Wife and baby Nephew) was Labor Day weekend 2006.  We got a great condo on a lake and mostly hung out at the great condo because we couldn’t go anywhere or do anything because Nephew was either napping, eating, almost napping, or almost eating.  Husband’s Brother’s Wife had been sick earlier in the week and Husband’s Brother was having some “stomach issues” (if you know what I mean) the first couple of days we were there.  On the day that we actually ventured out to an outlet mall, we all got some fudge.  I ate way too much fudge and felt kind of pukey.  I certainly chalked that up to the fudge.  I mean one person is not supposed to eat 8 pound of fudge all in one day.  We went to an outdoor show that evening.  It was all downhill from there.  The evening included me seeing very little show, but a lot of the inside of the toilet bowl; and with the rest of the family seeing the show and me vomiting behind a truck on the way to the parking lot.  The best part was when we were all in a mini-van on the way back to the condo and I vomited into a trash can in the mini-van full of my in-laws.  I mean, its just what I always dreamed of for in-law bonding.

(part of) a year in review

The story of the in-laws is coming, but I promise – its not what you think.

I saw this and liked it, so I’m doing it.  Here ya go:

2007 blog review
The first line of the first post of each month…

May -  I am a friend, a wife, a sister, a christian, a daughter, a shopper, a napper, an aunt, a reality tv addict, a snacker, a granddaughter, an awful housekeeper, a soulmate, a fast driver, a college graduate, an email addict, a blog lurker, a baker, a follower, a leader, an emotional eater, a twentysomething, a church member, a critic, a judge,  a nose picker, a work in progress.

June - I called the doctor Monday.

July - Things that I got done this week: [nothing]

August - Things that have been on my mind lately: 

• Did God invite corndogs to try to teach me self control?

September - I was wearing turquoise wedges when I met my best friend.

October - (the title of this one was “are you kidding me”): Breaking News…

A.l G0re Wins N0bel Pea.ce P.rize.

November - I often remind myself and my husband of the “way I used to be” or the “old me”.

December - I’m alive.  And I have new bangs.

Bring it on 2008.