Poll Comments

If you'd like to elaborate on my baby supply poll, please feel free to comment here. :)

Thanks for your input!

10 Months? REALLY?

I just noticed that I've entered the 10th month of trying to conceive... thank you ticker at the bottom of my blog. I feel like time is rushing away from me, I can't believe it's been 10 months.
I've got my hopes up, and I think that's a good thing. Why not have hope? Life without hope is dank and depressing.
Of course, feel free to check back with me when I hit the one year marker, I might not be so optimistic at that point.

New Martini Glasses!

That's right, this shopaholic in recovery went out and blew a couple bucks on something unnecessary... what of it?! :P

No, but seriously, I found some very cute martini glasses on clearance at Target (which is also where I got those nifty plates 2 posts below).

These were only $10!


I love clearance sales... :::::sigh:::::

"How are you, Daddy?" "I'm breathing, sweet stufflings."

That is how the beginning of my conversations go with my father when things are not going as well as we would like.
To say that this past week was hellacious would be a gross understatement. From terrifying marital problems to my grandmother getting a potentially bad outcome on her quarterly cancer checkups, it seems that we are destined to feel misery and the weight of our worlds crushing our shoulders.
Through all of these obstacles I have tried to maintain a positive attitude, lest I damage my marriage further with my negative outlook on life.
I think, in times of woe, that it can be beneficial to familiarize yourself with the suffering of others. As morbid as it sounds, there is a certain gratification in knowing that, yes, it can get worse... it can get much worse.
In a moment of clarity, I stopped at the library to check out Night by Elie Wiesel. I knew full well that I was about to embark on a nightmarish journey where babies are ripped from their mother's arms and thrown into crematoriums while they are still alive. I knew that, in my mind's eye, I would witness the death of Elie's father, as he was beaten relentlessly, all the while pleading for his son. I cried as a starving old man's son beat him to death for a small chunk of stale bread, only to find out soon after that the old man had intended to feed the bread to his son anyway. A sad twist of irony.
And to think that more than one of these six million men, women and children, were my blood. My very own great aunts, uncles and cousins. So many lost... we'll never know what sort of impact they would have had on our lives. What a waste of potential.
One line from that book rings in my ears more than any other. As a Kapo at Auschwitz was preparing a gallow to hang a small child, one of the concentration camp prisoners said "For God's sake, where is God?"
It's something to contemplate.
I have 10 pages left of Night, and I am terrified to finish it. My heart is broken from reading this book.
And so, while looking at the problems I've encountered this past week, it is safe to say that things could get worse. I could lose my family, my belongings, my dignity, my life... my name and my spirit.
In retrospect, you could say that I'm lucky.
How am I doing? I'm breathing.

Come Sit At Our Table

I never thought that napkins, place mats and napkin holders could be so exciting!

I was actually too embarassed to show a "before" picture... there were probably 15 books stacked one on top of the other, a month's worth of spam snail-mail, and some of Russell's t-shirts all just sitting on top of our table. It was so upsetting to me that it actually made me cry. I just kept cleaning and cleaning and cleaning it, and somehow within a week or two it would become a heaping pile of mess all over again.

After cleaning it off himself, Russell came up with the brilliant idea to permanently set the table, which would physically prevent anyone from just tossing their junk on top of it.

We both had different ideas and visions for what we wanted, but (just like everything else in marriage) we compromised .

Russell was looking for more of an Oriental and elegant setting, I wanted my usual tribal/Hawaiian/bohemian look. He had already bought me the dishes, bowls and cups as a Christmas gift, so we just needed to match the accessories to them. I think we came to a nice compromise.

I'm sooooo happy that we won't have to clear off that table again... and even happier that I won't be embarassed every time we have guests!

Giveaway on Life 2.0!

I recently joined a Giveaway group on 20SomethingBloggers. One of the giveaways was from a very cool blog called Life 2.0 (http://catherineslife20.wordpress.com/). Her friend Julie is giving away one free ring from her Etsy site to a lucky winner. The contest ends August 7th. The rings are SUPER cute, I am very partial to the shell one (obviously, since I'm such a beach psycho) :P.

If you want to enter to win, you just have to visit Life 2.0 and follow Catherine's directions in the post titled "Giveaway!"

Good luck! :)

Recipe: Swank Chocolate Martini

I was staring at the beautiful chocolate martini from my last post and I thought I should probably share the recipe, just in case any readers are interested in trying it out.

I have no problem giving credit where credit is due :)... I nabbed this recipe from Swank Martini's website. Here it is:

6 parts vodka
1 part chocolate liqueur
Chocolate curl

Combine vodka and liqueur in a mixing glass with ice cubes and stir. Strain into a cilled cocktail glass and garnish with chocolate curl.

Easy and delicious!

I found the picture when I was surfing the net for a buddy's upcoming b-day gift. I wanted to get her some cool martini glasses... swank martini definitely has some neat stuff! Here's the site: http://swankmartini.com/

Happy surfing!

Here's Your Period... Now Enjoy this Chocolate Martini.

I actually got my period... and it's actually on time (sort of). In reality, I got it yesterday or the night before, but I always experience at least 2 to 3 days of light spotting before all hell breaks loose. Considering the fact that I am used to 3, 4, sometimes even 6 months of no period at all, I am schocked, happy, and amazed. My last period ended at the end of June, so early August is not only waaaaay sooner than I was expecting, it's close to being within the "norm" for a healthy ovulatory cycle.

I've begun to seriously contemplate the idea of charting. I honestly don't want to, and I know that sounds stupid, but I have my reasons. Almost everyone in my family is in the medical field. My mom is a nurse, brother is a paramedic, I have an uncle and aunt who are doctors, my cousin works for a pharmaceutical distribution company, one uncle is a retired blood lab owner... well, you get my point. We are a pretty open family and a few of them know that Russell and I have been trying to have a baby. My mom, cousin and aunt keep telling me that I should stop worrying so much because "it's all a crap shoot." I know that's not true, as I'm sure they all know as well... I think it might have been more of an attempt to get me to relax on their part, but I never ever thought that I'd be looking at conceiving from a scientific point of view, and I really never wanted it to be that way. I always thought that it would *just happen* ... like *POOF* I'm pregnant! Even as recently as 9 months ago, when we first started trying, I was blogging about what crib we would get and how we'd decorate the nursery. It makes me feel really uneducated about my body and how things work, but I'm pretty sure that there are other people out there who were just as hopeful when they first started trying. I'm pretty big on hope, so sometimes I mistake my own positive outlook for stupidity or naivety. I should probably stop that. I think having hope is extremely important.
Uh oh, there I go on another tangent :P... back to charting! Thanks to a friend of mine, I learned that Fertility Friend is actually free. I was under the impression that it cost money to use their charting software, but I was wrong, hooray! It's one of the rare occassions that I'm happy to be wrong.
Like I said before, for some odd reason I have been hesitant and sort of scared to start charting, probably because it's the last bit of my stubborn mind telling me that my body needs no help in getting pregnant, but I think it might help me to have a more in-depth understanding of my body and how it works.
In the meantime, I think I'll take the advice of a very wise Nestie and enjoy some chocolate!! Mmmmmmm!