Thursday, September 30, 2010

disappearing act

I feel like I've been MIA lately in the blogosphere. Don't worry-- I'm still reading/stalking as much as ever. I just don't feel like I have anything to contribute. And here it is the last day of September and I just can't leave the month with only 5 little blogs...so here's one extra for good measure.

Fall finally showed up this week. It's been very nice enjoying cooler temperatures (and even rain...since it's been so long). I have noticed, however, that with this fall weather has come the realization that I own very few "fall" clothes. I have lots of summer clothes. And lots of winter clothes (sweaters, cords, boots). I have pretty much nothing in between. All week I've been either over or under-dressed. Freezing or sweating. I can't decide if I should go shopping (ummm...in need of funds) or...hope for winter?? No, I just can't do that. Well, I do look forward to the holidays. But not the weather. Oh poor me...those long Georgia winters...how EVER do I stand it?

I did my first round of Clomid (50mg) this week. Sadly, there were not very many entertaining side effects to speak of. Unfortunate, I know. A few hot flashes were about as exciting as it got. And a slightly elevated body temperature (all the time). Yawn. I have a follicle study (ultrasound) on Monday to see how many eggs I'm gonna drop. That's layman's terms, obviously. I haven't decided yet what our deal-or-no-deal point is. You know...how many eggs is TOO many to go ahead with the IUI? I'm sure the doctor will have some guidelines. I guess we'll see.

We're going to Augusta for the weekend. It was a last-minute decision (if by "last minute" you mean "last Monday", which I do). I'm going to help my mom with some wedding stuff and shopping (oh, what strife...to help with shopping...) and hopefully squeeze in some rest and relaxation. And good food. Ooh and the Martinez (my hometown) branch of our gym, which is way fancier and awesomer than the branch we go to out here in the boonies! Did you know that some gyms actually have TVs on EACH CARDIO MACHINE?!?!?!! I know, it blew my mind too.

Well, that's all the news I have. Off to finish packing and watching 30 Rock and doing laundry and paying bills and...bed. Sleep sweet sleep.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

cheap entertainment

Um...make that free.
Step 1: Do nothing. Sit in the living room, enjoying the evening news Baggage (come on, it's hilarious!!) with your husband.


Step 2: When you hear your dog suddenly start growling in the bedroom, go investigate.


Step 3: Die laughing when you realize she has suddenly noticed the full-length mirror propped against the wall. The one that's been there HER ENTIRE LIFE. And today she notices it...or rather, notices a strange black dog in the corner of the bedroom.


Step 4: Chase her around the house with the mirror, laughing hysterically as she cowers under tables and behind furniture, terrified of that strange black dog.


Step 5: Decide to acclimate her to the mirror by forcing her to pose for a photo shoot.


It doesn't get any cheaper (or funnier) than that, friends.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

festive

I know-- two posts in two days? What is this world coming to??

So yesterday was a busy day. We had a commitment at church for a couple hours in the morning. Unfortunately, our church is located just outside of downtown Athens...and as you may know, downtown Athens is home to the University of Georgia, which was home to a pretty major football game yesterday at noon. A football game that we lost, by the way, but I guess that's neither here nor there. But anyway, the reason that I even mention the game is to say that it means that gameday traffic is...something special...to say the least. So our trip to church was carefully planned to avoid as many major roads as possible.

I feel like I'm on a major tangent here. Why am I talking about my travel route?? I think I've gone off track somewhere...

Oh, yeah. So anyway. We went to church, we went back home as quickly as possible. We watched the game on TV. It was depressing.

In the midst of all this junk I was doing...what was really going on in my small town was the annual Sunflower Festival.

Oh yeah. A Sunflower Festival. In a small town. This HAS to be good!

I remember last year, when we first moved here...I saw these signs everywhere for the Sunflower Festival. And then I found out all about it in the Monthly Newsletter (that is enclosed with the water bill...come on, I've talked about this before!) And I really wanted to go, but couldn't...don't remember what we had going on, but I remember being very disappointed that I was going to have to miss a SUNFLOWER FESTIVAL. Because if there's anything I love...it's sunflowers. And festivals.

So this year, about mid-June, the signs went back up. Sunflower Festival!! September 18!! A 5k (at SIX A.M.!!!!!)! An antique car show! Food! Fun! Street Dance at 8pm! Bring your friends and your family!

Um...you had me at food. You really had me at the STREET DANCE.

What, pray tell, is a STREET DANCE?? Using my powerful skills of reasoning, I figured it must be some sort of thing where you dance. In the street.

Street dance?? In my very tiny town's downtown streets? Count me in.

So while I was super sad to miss the first 15 hours of Sunflower Fest-ing yesterday (remember...church thing, football...de-stressing from football...grocery store...dinner) we knew we had to at least go down there and look into this street dancing.

How does one dress for a street dance? I gave it my best shot. (Sorry, no pics! Your loss!)

We live about 1.5 miles from downtown. We coulda just walked, but my Street Dancing shoes aren't exactly the comfiest. Plus, if it was lame, we wanted to be able to exit quickly. So we drove. We were actually surprised to find some "traffic" (I use this phrase very loosely when referring to anything happening in this town. This is not to be compared to actual TRAFFIC in Athens on gameday!) about a block away from downtown. We parked in someone's yard because everyone else did. As soon as we got out of the car and started walking towards the main street downtown (because where else would we assume a Street Dance could be?), we heard loud music and saw --could it be??-- the flashing of strobe/stage lights.

Wassup yall, this small town is getting CRUNK!?!

So there's this band (made up of NO ONE under the age of 60) set up on a "stage" (sidewalk) in front of one of the antique stores (because that's about all there IS in our downtown. Antique stores, and a Subway.) In the street in front of the stage there's a "dance floor" delineated by bales of hay stacked in a semi-circle. There are TONS of people hanging out in lawn chairs, picnic blankets, golf carts...I mean, this is for real!! The band is playing some rockin' renditions of oldies and classic rock songs...and they weren't half bad...or in tune, for that matter, but no one seemed to notice. Unfortunately, most of the people were dancing were kids. They were entertaining to watch, but since there were no adults really joining in...Matt and I just danced over off to the side, next to the train tracks. I'm not really into being the center of attention on the dance floor (we didn't even do a "first dance" at our wedding), so even though I'd checked to make sure I didn't know anyone else at the festival (no neighbors), I didn't see a need to embarrass myself anyway. So we stayed for about an hour...and I must say, it was a lot of fun. Real life entertainment-- in the comfort and closeness of my own town! Now that I know what fun this Sunflower Festival really is, I will be sure to make it a priority for next year. No football game should stand in the way of a FESTIVAL. And next year, I'm taking my camera.

Although...there was no funnel cake. It's kind of hard for me to really celebrate without funnel cake, but I tried to make do. Actually, I bet they did have funnel cake earlier. I bet they sold out. Dangit!!

All this festivity makes me want to pull out my fall decorations. But then I remember that it's 94 degrees outside. So I'm a little torn. Should I just pretend it's fall? Go with an if you build it, they will come mantra? If you set out your fall decor...it will become fall?

Off to ponder things such as that...have a good rest of the (quickly fading) weekend!!

Saturday, September 18, 2010

SUYL: Living Room

Hello friends, family, and random blog-stalkers! I know it's been awhile since we've chatted, but trust me-- it's better this way. I've saved you from a lot of hearing (reading?) me whine and complain, so you can just thank me for that later. For now-- one of my all time FAVORITE things: Show Us Your Life from Kelly's Korner!

This week's topic is Living Rooms. I remember last year when this was the topic-- we'd either just moved or were about to move-- can't remember which, but I definitely remember that my living room was in NO shape to be photographed! Fortunately, now that we've been here for over a year, the living room is blog-picture-worthy. It's still a work in progress, but all-in-all, I like it a lot. Which is good, since it's our only "living" space...we spend a lot of time here!

Here's the view from the front door. I can probably count on one hand the number of times people have come in through the front door...but it still seemed like a logical place to start photographing. Please observe (and be jealous of) our 1990s era TV. It requires roughly 4 strong men to move...which makes me feel confident it will never be stolen.


The mantel (above) is one thing I'm still not happy with. I am totally bored with the lack of decorations, but just haven't found the right thing yet to spice it up. The door to the left of the TV is our master bedroom (it's blue), and the arched doorway to the left of that is the kitchen! Just so you can get your bearings...


Below you will see the piano. If you're walking in the front door, this is directly to your left, behind the couch. Having the couch right there sort of splits the room into two spaces...so this area in front of the piano feels a little awkward...but I haven't figured out how to fix that, either...and there's NO WAY we're moving the piano. Physically, it's impossible. Although it's on rollers, a few of them are stuck, so it has to be dead-lifted or else it will pull our floors up. Therefore, it will be in precisely this spot until the day we move...which will probably be never!

Now I'm standing in our bedroom doorway looking in. If you look carefully at all of these pictures, you may notice that I've developed an obsession with baskets (or basket-like things, such as the trunk). I'm not sure how this happened, but yardsales have definitely been fueling the fire!


View from the kitchen doorway. The doorway between the bookshelves goes to a small hallway where the other two bedrooms and bathroom are.



And finally, my favorite part of our house, the Lola. She hates the hard floors, so she truly does spend all of her time curled up on furniture rugs. And please don't judge me since it is obvious that this rug has not been recently vacuumed. I've been busy *sigh* lazy. The truth hurts.
So that's the living room. For the most part, I like it. It showcases my favorite colors, green and brown, and my love of books and baskets...and artificial trees (don't hate, it's a Southern thang. Or so I've been told). I'm still trying to work out a few of the awkward kinks to the room...and I'm sometimes overwhelmed with how un-kid-friendly it is, so one day I will have to do something about that...but for now, it suits us just fine.

Head back to Kelly's Korner to join up and feature YOUR living room-- yall know I'm nosy and want a peek!

Thursday, September 9, 2010

new(s)

It's been a whirlwind of a week, but since I'm on doctor-ordered couch-rest for the rest of the day, I guess I'm out of excuses for not-blogging. More on the couch-rest later, promise. But first...stuff I have pictures for. :)

We started last weekend with a little stop by Academy, one of our favorite stores. We've been hoarding a gift card for there since last Christmas (I know, can you believe I had that much self-discipline?) and stop by every so often to see if there's something worthy of buying. For quite some time we've been planning to use the card towards getting a glider for our porch. They've had one all summer that we like, we just keep putting off getting it. On Friday night, we discovered that all their summer porch furniture stuff is marked WAY down since it's the end of the season...so we not ONLY got the glider we've been wanting all summer (for almost half off), we had enough money left on the card to ALSO get an adorable little table-for-two set for our back porch!!


I was just SO excited that we were able to get these things-- it was a nice reminder that good things will come to those who wait. :) And we've enjoyed eating a few meals and having coffee out on our porch. That is, when it's not 94 degrees. And the flies aren't rabidly attacking. Well, whatever.

The main goal for the weekend was to get a car. Without making this story way too long...let's just say that by Saturday afternoon, I was OVER the whole car-buying thing. I was tired of shopping and comparing and debating, and I really just did not want to spend a bunch of money. Let's face it: right now, I'd rather save as much money as I can towards our infertility treatments. So we decided to just get a car (rather than another SUV) that will hopefully meet our needs for the next few years and to get it as cheaply as we can, saving the rest of the money we'd set aside towards the vehicle towards our medical bills. God totally pulled through for us on this one-- one of my dad's old friends (who lives in Savannah) sold us his 2004 Toyota Matrix for a really awesome price. Even though I agreed to buy it basically sight unseen (other than a picture online), it turns out that I absolutely LOVE it! Not only is it cute and sporty, but it has way more technology than I've ever had...so I feel like pretty hot stuff!



And since it's a hatchback, with the seats folded down it looks like there will be more than enough storage space for whatever we need to haul. So I am really excited about the whole thing. Also, since we had to drive to Savannah to get the car, it meant we got to spend the weekend with our friends the Moores...an unexpected and excellent bonus to the weekend!


I love my new car-- but I think one of the funniest things is this warning label on the back of the visors. Now, it's probably not all that funny if you speak/read French. But I don't. So I think it's hilarious. Please notice the words I circled in red.


Now, I have enough brain cells to realize that the "BLESSURE GRAVE" is probably the French equivalent of "SERIOUS INJURY". But to me, the word "blessure" looks an awful lot like the word "bless" or "blessing," which to me, are words with positive connotations. The word "grave" looks like...the English word "grave," which does not really have any positive connotations. You're either talking about a hole dug for a coffin, or it's an adjective meaning "serious"...like "there will be some grave consequences for your actions, young lady." So the idea of some "grave blessings"...I don't know, it just makes me laugh. And the whole thing also makes me wonder...why French?? Is that really the most useful second language they could think of to put on this visor? Anyway...


Ok, so...is it possible to have a butterfly infestation? Not inside my house...but in every single flower bed on my property? And don't get me wrong...I'm not complaining...it's just really weird. I have a bunch of sedum (the plant below that's starting to turn pink) and apparently it's where it's AT for these brown butterflies. I tried to capture the essence of the situation in a photo...but a lot of them fly away (not AWAY...just off the flower they had just been sitting on) when I got close...but if you look carefully (where's waldo??), you can count 5 of them in the shot below! But I'm serious...this bed below is around our mailbox. When I go to get the mail, I'm almost SWARMED by these butterflies! I'm swatting them down! I'm worried they will fly in my mouth! They're some devoted little suckers! And it's just really weird. The end.




So today I had an IUI. Things did not really go according to plan...but compared to last month, it was a lot better. **WARNING: Personal medical information ahead!! If TMI might not be your thing, then move on!! But leave a comment before you go! :)** Our post-wash sample was not good at all. They let us look at the slides under the microscope, which was REALLY cool. I think that deep in my heart, I'm a scientist. But that's just a side note. Unfortunately, there was only ONE living and swimming sperm on the whole slide. That's not really a "good count." Although yes, it "only takes one!!!!!" (as many well-wishing people will want to point out)...well, most people get a couple MILLION (post-wash). That's gonna help your odds a lot more than ONE. Our other slide had 2. So my doctor said that it was completely up to us, but we were probably wasting our time/money going ahead with the procedure. But you know me-- I'm just made of time and money! (hahahahahaha) I said go ahead, because if we went ahead, we have a chance. It might be a microscopically tiny chance, but it's a chance. If we didn't do it...well, we'd have no chance this month. So we went ahead...but unfortunately, even this rather simple procedure wasn't in the cards for me today. The doctor (two of them, actually...I appreciate that they exhausted every possibility trying!) wasn't able to *ahem* get the equipment where it needed to go because my cervix was not cooperating. They think there may be some scarring there from the HSG. Anyway, what was supposed to be a relatively quick and not-too-uncomfortable procedure (discomfort akin to a Pap smear) turned into a much longer, quite painful procedure. And in the end, they were still not able to complete it. So it turned into an intra-cervical insemination (versus intra-uterine), which is not nearly as good...and given that there were still only a couple of viable sperm...well, basically it was a failure. A painful failure, at that. BOO!


But unlike last month, I am totally okay with what happened today. I don't feel sad or discouraged. I am disappointed, but I still feel like we made progress. My doctors said that it's not at all unusual (the scarring from the HSG and the cervical muscles spasming closed due to the anxiety/pain of the procedure) and in no way indicative that I won't be able to successfully complete the procedure next month. They were even SUPER generous in charging me for only a fraction of what it should have cost, since they felt so bad that they weren't able to complete the procedure. They are going to be talking with Matt's doctors (and getting in a bunch of new lab work he had done this week) to make a plan for next month...looks like it might be a DOUBLE MEDICATED cycle, meaning we BOTH get to be jacked up on hot-flash-inducing, mood-altering fertility drugs-- what fun!! They're also going to do some ultrasounds to determine my cervical length and a few other things that may help them next month. So...that's good.


And as an added bonus, I got to take the whole day off from work, not just the half-day I'd planned. Since the extra hour of pinching and stabbing on my inner parts induced a lot of cramping and bleeding, they said I needed to just rest and *hopefully* let the one lone sperm find his way to what he's looking for. So yay for an afternoon of laying on the couch and Keeping up with the Kardashians.

So that's all the news here...let me get back to my regularly scheduled SLOTHING. Happy Thursday!!


Friday, September 3, 2010

happy

Today, I just feel happy.

Maybe it's cause it's Friday. And the beginning of a long weekend.

Maybe it's cause college football starts tomorrow. And the weather is going to be beautiful.

Maybe it's cause we finally got some good news from Matt's doctors yesterday. It's about friggin time, really.

Maybe it's cause I had a good week at school. I actually went for FIVE WHOLE DAYS (first time that's happened this whole school year) and it just felt like a good week.

Maybe it's cause Lola is recovering from some pretty gross injuries she sustained in a run-in with some thornbushes and poison ivy last weekend. She was miserable for quite a few days, but seems to be on the mend now.

Maybe it's cause we're going to buy me a new car this weekend. And I don't know what it will be or where we're going to get it, but I'll be excited to not be driving Matt's itty-bitty Civic anymore!

Maybe it's cause I'm feeling so much better. I actually went to the gym last night...and it wasn't an intense workout by any measure, but it was better than sitting on the couch for another night!

Maybe it's cause I read a whole book this week. And I've already started another!

I don't know why I feel happy today. I'm just glad I do.