Dinosaur--Are You Listening?...

Christmas has come and gone and we survived...  Sort of.  The Husband, as I type, is laid up in the bed with what I'm going to start referring to as "The Worst Virus Ever" or TWVE which is similar to the virus that struck the 3rd graders during IQ testing-- but worse.  Worse because the Husband, unlike the 3rd graders, lives with me and shares a bed and bathroom with me.  Needless to say my new best friend is Lysol.

So after pigging out all day, Christmas day, on delicious foods and sweet treats at approximately 1:00am Eastern Standard Time, the Husband fell ill with "The Worse Virus Ever" and from that point forward every hour on the hour up until about 10:00am he regularly 'called dinosaurs.'  Unfortunately he was not successful in making contact with them, but he did manage to wake me up... 

I had intended to take a nap today, but I keep thinking of new things that I haven't Lysoled yet.  My hands are all kinds of chapped because every time I go into the hot zone-- our master bedroom-- I have to scrub up.  And it is not like I can just pack him a bag and drop him off with his parents while he rides out TWVE (although the thought did cross my mind) because that is not how it works.

The Husband has a new list of foods he will not eat anymore... sorry Daddy but Fried Turkey is at top of the list.  Apparently the flavor of Fried Turkey tastes the same going down as it does coming up and can mask the flavors of asparagus, spaghetti noodles, spaghetti sauce, tenderloin and steak!  Good to know, but I'm guessing you as well as the Husband and me didn't need that juicy detail.  Sorry for the juicy reference...

I'm going to go check on the sick who is the afflicted.  Have a good one y'all.

Christmas Check-Off List..

I had acupuncture today.  While Kolleen was taking my pulse-- the customary way we start all my sessions: just after discussing my bowel habits in detail and just before she looks at my tongue's fuzz-- she asked me if I've been having trouble focusing and remembering things.  I'm not sure how taking my pulse can tell her these sort of things, but she was spot on.  Not only am I having trouble remembering things, but I'm having trouble remembering to remember to do things.

So I'm taking time to do a little reflective Christmas Check-Off List:

1. Have You Purchased All Your Christmas Presents?  Thought so, but after talking to the Sister, I found out that I have at least one more gift to purchase, probably tomorrow, for our Aunt and Uncle as well as finish stocking stuffers for the Husband.  Sister is lucky-- she just got married and is basically giving pictures as gifts...or at least that is what I would do if I had just gotten married.  In fact, five Christmas' ago I did just that! 
2. Have You Wrapped All Your Christmas Presents? No. The Christmas Gifts are not wrapped. Although many are. Remember that part above about forgetting things-- I went to Michaels' today-- twice. I was only supposed to go once-- to get what I thought then was the last few Christmas presents and tissue paper so I could start and finish wrapping presents. But I got so distracted from picking out the "last two" presents that I forgot all about the tissue paper until I had paid and was in the parking lot going to the next store for another present that I had forgotten all about. So I had to go back for the tissue paper... So soon, the presents will be wrapped and the mess on my living room floor will be cleared.
3. Have You Cleaned the House for Santa?  Nope.  But the Husband and I are planning to have a small gathering-- mostly our folks and etc., over for dessert and the best hot chocolate ever on Friday night, so probably before then I'll get to mopping and junk.  You know Santa doesn't come to messy houses?  Right?
4. Have You Done Your Holiday Shopping at the Dreaded Grocery Store?  Not yet.  I'm making a list tonight.  I hate going to the grocery store, but I'm thinking that sometime during the day tomorrow it won't be such a pain the ass to go.  I read somewhere that you are best prepared to deal with stressful situations first thing in the morning-- I suppose that is why tests (pregnancy and state standardized) are recommended for mornings. 
5. Have You Baked Anything Yet?  Not exactly, but I plan to for the 'Just Desserts' gathering.
6. Have You Decorated Your House-- Inside and Out?  Yes!  We finished last week.  I finally broke down and got greenery for the first four windows, wreaths for the kitchen windows and tear drop swags for under the coach lights by the doors.  I tied the bows and everything-- even though I don't really know how to properly tie a bow-- it probably has something to do with me being a lefty and that I never took Horticulture I in High School-- who knew that bow-tying was part of the curriculum?  From a distance you can't tell and that is all that matters.
7. Have You Gotten the Perfect Dirty Santa Gift for Christmas at Grandma's?  Yes.  I have the best gift E-V-E-R!  A pornament from Spencer Gifts-- blown glass and cute as pie-- it's Santa bending over his pile of gifts and his black thong is peaking out along with a tattoo on his cute little butt!  I think it is going to be a big hit...

Aside from ruining any chance of a Christmas surprise for the Husband, I'm feeling good about my chances of turning all the no's to yes' and I'm thinking that most likely tomorrow I'll be done with Christmas shopping and possibly Christmas present wrapping.  And it is not hard to ruin a surprise when you basically call up your husband and tell him that you are buying a J. Crew wool coat.  It wasn't meant to be a Christmas present, but try explaining that to the Husband...

I sure hope I've not forgotten anything...

Just in time for Christmas Vacation...

Christmas Vacation officially started exactly one hour and thirty-six minutes ago.  And it is just in time if I do say so myself.  It has been a long three weeks with very excited students waiting for Santa and looking for the Elf on the Shelf all over the school.

I'm exhausted and yet, I have a long way to go.  I have bought exactly NO presents.  We just did get the rest of the decorations up last night, outside!  I'm no Scrooge, but I've been having a hard time getting all excited about the hustle and bustle of the Holiday season. 

So after I take a nap, I suppose it is time to start getting things all merry and bright.

Stay tuned...

And the Waiting Ends...sort of...

My period started.  Can you feel the relief?  I've not been this happy to see a period since that time during my senior year of high school.  But we won't go into that right now.  Regardless I'm so very happy to get this fertility show on the road...

So the next morning after getting the not-so-monthly-visitor, I called up the friendly RE's office to schedule an appointment. 

7:45am.  I got Matter-of-Fact Nurse this time.  She is very nice, but blunt... which generally I appreciate in a person.  She led me back to the examining room, plugs my name  into the ultrasound machine.  The CNA was putting what must be some sort of condom on the internal probe-- and regardless of how many times I see them do that, it always takes me by surprise.

Minutes later I'm in the stirrups, waiting for the probe.  Matter-of-Fact Nurse inserts and up on the screen, next to a bunch of baby follicles is a rather large 4 inch cyst on my left ovary.  Funny, I wasn't expecting that.  If I had just finished a cycle I would have, but it has been weeks since we've done any sort of cycle.  Funny.  Ha.  Ha.  Ha.

So we've got two options... 1) wait this cycle out and hope over time it will go away with my next period or 2) take two weeks worth of birth control pills to try to make the giant disappear.  After thinking it over for about two seconds, I told her to get me the pills. 

I'm very much against birth control pills.  I feel that some, if not a lot, of my condition was made worse by years and years of taking them.  But in college, after the scare in high school, I was determined to regulate my period and take away the worry for good.  And for someone like me, who hoards stress, less worry was just what I needed-- at the time.  Now I have a whole new set of worries.  Don't think the irony of the situation is lost on me.

So now I am taking the pill... again.  And from there we will try this again, from the top.  The good news is that I will be on Christmas break!  Don't tell me that God doesn't have a plan greater than mine!

Southern Living Should Hire Me--Seriously...

So I'm thinking of sending these pictures to Southern Living. I'm not going to brag or anything, but I think I do a great job decorating trees and possibly a better job than the people who currently are decorating for them and maybe they'd like to hire me???

Decorating trees was a talent that I didn't know I had until I got married. Up until then, I let my mom do the decorating. I had absolutely no interest in putting ornaments or ribbon on a tree and frankly I didn't understand why so many people, namely my mother-in-law, got their panties in a wad about Christmas decorations and Christmas trees in the first place.

But then I got a tree of my very own... with decorations of my very own and of my choosing. And a new addiction was born.

This year our house looks like a damned florist showroom. Two full-sized live trees are in our living room and foyer and the cheap white artificial tree from the Dollar General is greeting our backdoor guests in the back entry. For a while there I thought that my house along with myself would be permanently covered in glitter and I began to understand why back in 2001 my mother banned glitter from my possession and threatened to cut me off financially if I ever dared bring that crap back into her house. Glitter is everywhere... I literally found it in my Kleenex after blowing my nose--you know you look at your snot too.

Regardless, before you view these pictures, keep a couple things in mind. Mainly, we have not been in the dream house for long... so don't expect architectural digest quality furnishings. Currently we've decorated in the style of "early attic" and over the coming months and years that will change.

Secondly, please remember that I'm not a photographer, regardless of how well I did in a black and white photography class in undergrad. These were taken with my point and shoot Cannon after a very long day at work so bare with me...

Finally, keep in mind that my decorating style for the interior of my house is somewhere between modern-contemporary and traditional and I believe, firmly, that less is more-- except when it comes to my Christmas trees. I believe in excess... over-the-top, jammed-packed-full of spirited goodness when it comes to my trees. And if you want to argue the point with me that too-full trees are just too much, please let me point out that having a tree in your house is an already out-there concept so why not just dive in and go crazy. This is the one time of year when more is completely acceptable!

Enjoy...

The Memory Tree
The big tree in the foyer is my stab at traditional red and green Christmas. I like to think of this tree as our memory tree. Each year I add a new framed picture to our tree of our Christmas card (this year makes 5 married Christmas' together) and each year I add a new Radko ornament that my grandmother gives us as a present from the year before. I also use burlap on my tree as a homage to our livelihood--tobacco farming. My tree skirt is an actual tobacco sheet-- and reminds me of when I was little sheeting tobacco on my daddy's farm with my whole family. Husband still grows tobacco and I love how I was able to incorporate our background and culture into this tree.

Please excuse the bare walls. After Christmas I plan on having a metallic wallpaper hung to tie in the metallic paint in the dinning room in with the rest of the house.

The Safari Tree in the Living Room

Last year I knew, even though we had not started building yet, that I wanted to do blue and browns in my living room. And so last year at an after-Christmas sale at Dewayne's I stocked up on blue, gold and brown ornaments. This tree is the "Safari" tree because I have all sorts of subtle animal references throughout. The ribbon is a mix of gold and glittery cheetah print & velvet-y brown and cream zebra print. Pheasant feathers and blue rooster feathers are throughout and tucked into branches are balls covered in pheasant and peacock feathers. The colors go great with what little decor I have. You'll notice some burgundy chairs peaking in my pictures-- don't worry they will be blue, green and brown stripes soon!

For this particular tree I did not use a topper. Instead I used feathers, artificial brown hydrangeas and loops of ribbon to create the illusion of a tree topper.

The Naughty Tree

This tree was purchased at a Dollar General 5 years ago for about 30 bucks. It is bare and cheap, but a dream to decorate. Because it is just about hollow I basically dump ornaments of various shapes, sizes and texture into the bald spots and then when I think the the tree can't hold anymore items I start stuffing in more things. Those of you that are super critical will notice that the bottom is barely lit because Christmas lights hate me and burnt out already. But I think the tree still looks good and fun.

You'll notice that for all of my tree skirts I've swaddled some sort of fabric around each base or trunk. I simply go to the local fabric store and purchase about two yards of a good quality fabric that will compliment my decorations. I prefer this method of dressing my tree trunk for two reasons-- no sewing and it adds to the lushness of my decorations I hope that you enjoyed my trees.

Maybe I'll get some more pictures in the days and weeks to come. I hope you are enjoying your Christmas decorating... for now I've got to start working on Christmas Cards!

Merry! Merry! Everyone!

Wait for it...

I'm anxiously awaiting my period to start.  Having been prescribed Provera to bring on a period and nothing happening south of the border, I'm a little worried.  I've read online that it can take some time... like anywhere between 7 to 14 days.  And even though I'm well within that 14 day window, I'm ready to get this period going. 

I had a little fantasy that we'd be back in the RE's office doing our last-ditch-effort-before-IVF-cycle right around Thanksgiving and that we'd be looking at our first postive pregnancy test just in time for Christmas.  Talk about a great Christmas present!  But my body, as always, is doing it's own thing.

And it probably is for the best-- I've been super busy at work.  I even had to cancel a much needed acupunture appointment because of all the maddness... at least for this last week I've had no time for early morning RE probes and blood draws.

But speaking of blood drawing... I had a sort of physical yesterday at home.  A few days ago the Husband and I decided it was time for me to get more life insurance, so the insurance company sent this cute little lady out to draw my blood, ask one hundred probing questions, and make me pee in a cup.  Just when I thought my veins would be safe for at least a few more days, there she was with her little butterfly needles and blood viles. 

Yuck.  But I'm anxious to see if everything checks out.  I was shocked to see that my weight has dipped considerably more than I thought it had.  Eating healthy has really paid off.  All the happy weight I gained over the last four years has been shed and for the first time since I can remember I don't complain of feeling so bad all the time... and my size 00 fit again.

Who would have thunk it?

Regardless, I'm sure that in the next couple of days my sometimes-monthly-friend will come back into my life and my regular visits with the RE and his probe will resume.  For now I'm appreciating God's plan for my life and taking things one day at a time.