Joys In My Life

I'm going to attempt to post every day for the next few weeks. I usually have something to say, but always forget or get too busy. Phoebe did get to sit on Santa's lap on Saturday night. She did really well. This was the first year we didn't have to go with her. What was really funny was that last week she told me that the Santas in the malls weren't real and she knew that because their beards are fake and can come off. Well, the Santa at the King of Prussia Mall was the real Santa! He had his real long white hair and long white beard. She was very impressed. She told Santa she wanted art supplies and an American Girl doll that looks just like her. I'm going to try to see if I can upload the picture to blogger.

Am I the only one with a strange sense of humor? Last week on the car ride home from Phoebe's school, she's telling me about a conversation they had that day with some of her friends and it was so hard for me not to laugh out loud. She apparently has two boys that are Jewish in her class and they were talking with another boy that is not Jewish that they could make him Jewish. Phoebe wanted to know if that was possible. We talked about it, but the one thought in my head was, "Don't give those boys scissors during craft time!!!" I crack myself up.

Definately not this month. AF showed up late yesterday afternoon, after my temp dropped in the morning. I was hoping that I could add a lack of PMS symptoms to my victories, but unfortunately, I can't. Although they didn't show up until the day of the temp drop. I was so cranky yesterday. Definately not in a good mood. Today I'm feeling cranky, but on the upswing. I recently watched pieces of "The Secret" online. It is extremely interesting. From a fertility aspect as well as a career and overall life aspect. It reinforces what I've always thought around the power of positive thinking, or as they like to call it "The Law of Attraction." I know I haven't exactly been the most positive person about other aspects of my life recently. I used to be such a positive person. In my senior year of high school, I was nastily voted for an unofficial class poll as "The Person Most Likely to Think They are Most Likely to Succeed." I kn...

And of course my body is messing with my brain again. Sorry if this is TMI for the readers that I'm friends with IRL, but last night I had a small amount of spotting. This happens to me often when I spot and then don't get my period for another five days. What is that? Is that implantation spotting but then it doesn't work out? Who does this happen to, except me as my body's way of fucking with my head? Anyway, I am going to test this week on Thursday or Friday morning. I probably wouldn't get my period until Friday or Saturday, but if I am pregnant, I've decided I do want to go to the RE that I was seeing before for bloodwork before the weekend. If my progesterone level is low, I want to make sure they put me on suppositories straight away. I was on those when I got pregnant with Phoebe. Low progesterone does seem to be an issue with me. I'm hoping that my lifestyle changes are fixing that (like giving up coffee!), but if I can manage to get preg...

Well it's official, Phoebe is extremely tall. She had her six-year physical yesterday, and she was 48 inches tall in bare feet!!! Four feet tall. Oh my goodness! Everything else in the physical went fine. She's in very good health, hearing good, etc. So last post was good. I outed a friend I didn't know what reading my blog! Thanks, Glenn! BTW, Phoebe says my hair looks like "Aunt Kelly's" with my new red hair color. Hopefully when Tom get's home this afternoon, he can spend more time getting used to my new hair than one evening on Thursday. I'm also not sure how the unwanted advertisement in my comments came about. I mean, I have word verification turned on. I guess someone figured out how to get through it.

Phoebe did the cutest thing last night when she was stalling to fall asleep in bed. I was downstairs and she called me to come back up. She sounded like she was trapped under something, so I came quickly... turns out she was just calling from under her blankets. First she asked me to kiss the palm of her left hand. Then she asked me to kiss the palm of her right hand. Then she took each palm and put them on the cheeks of her face, like she was pressing the kisses into her cheeks. Too cute!!!! Well, my hair is officially red now. I got a different haircut too with some long sweepy bangs on both sides. Poor Tom, he's trying to get used to it. Phoebe of course loves it, because like me, being a girl is all about makeovers!!!! I've really been loving reading fan fiction these days. My latest is under the Gone with the Wind section, but it's a changing/continuation of Scarlett, the sequel to GWTW that was done in the last decade or so. I read it twice and absolutely l...

I was really good today with my diet. Someone had pizza for a lunch meeting today and they put the leftovers in the breakroom. I had already eaten my vegetable/barley/tofu good for you soup, but it was so tempting!!! All that cheese and bread.... I went back to my desk and had a cup of tea and two dates. What will power! And still no coffee!!!! But I hate the two week wait. I know we all do, but I'm going a bit crazy. I think I need to really try to focus on other things - like work and Phoebe, but it's very hard. Phoebe was funny putting her to bed tonight, she was seriously stalling and she called me back in her room to ask me a question, "Why do we call a blanket a blanket and other things like a purse a purse?" I gave her a quick answer of, "If we didn't label things, how would we know what each other were talking about?" I am doing something, by the way, to give me some excitement that probably isn't great for infertility. I'm seei...

It's official. I'm in the two week wait. I wasn't necessarily a saint over the Thanksgiving weekend when it comes to my diet, but I didn't slide completely off track. I only had a half a cup of black coffee at my mom's on Friday. I did have wine on Thanksgiving and over the weekend. I'm going to try my darnest not to have any for the remainder of the month. At least I've given up on weeknights after work. That's movement in a positive direction. I'm going to try hard to be calm and peaceful the next two weeks and not go crazy in anticipation. I did end up reading the posts I have on Phoebe's birth. Reading about the night before my water broke and how she was kicking trying to find her exit makes me nostalgic about the past and how I'd like to feel that again in the future. I also did look it up and if we are pregnant this month, I'd have an August/Leo baby. DH is a Leo and it's awesome. I can't help but think I'd l...

We had our first Parent-Teacher Conference last night and her teacher gave us her first report card. I let out a big sigh of relief when we left. She's doing great. Her teacher told us she's ahead of where she should be for both reading and math and that her writing is coming along fabulously. No issues with her getting frustrated or playing with others. She is however a bit of a hypochondriac about any little issue and likes to go to the nurse's office. I think she likes the freedom of walking around the school by herself. We talked to her about that. I was also really happy yesterday because in the morning, Phoebe told me for the first time (unsolicited too!) that she loves school. I really was getting worried, because she never really told me that. She always seems to act like going to school is too much work and she'd rather be playing outside. I think maybe now that she's comfortable in the new school, she's ready to enjoy all the new things she...

We're on CD8 at the House of Joys. Tom's at school, so I let him borrow my car when he went yesterday so I could take his car for it's badly needed oil change. Instead of sitting at the dealer and waiting, we walked up the street and relaxed at my favorite (and only that I know of) juice bar. Phoebe had a berry smoothie and I had a cabbage, celery and parsely juice. I also had my first shot of wheatgrass. I am a wheatgrass virgin no more. I have to admit it wasn't that bad. We then went next door to the natural food co-op and picked up some supplies and Phoebe's favorite breadsticks. By the time we walked back to the car dealer, both of us with juices in hand and me with a box of food, our car was done. We must've been quite a sight! Yesterday my False Unicorn Root came in, so I started taking that three times a day in some water. I've taken that before and it didn't work, but I wasn't doing all these healthy diet changes. Still no coffee. ...

I've been very good. Still no coffee or dairy products. Taking all my vitamins. I started back up on my Flylady routines last night. It was nice to wake up to a clean kitchen sink this morning. I also started up a load of laundry this morning, emptied the dishwasher and cleaned up the breakfast dishes. I left the kitchen as clean as it was last night. V.g. I'm really starting to enjoy my trips to the organic food store on my way home. Their produce selection is really quite good. I've started cleaning up Phoebe's lunch and snacks we pack for the day as well. She's only allowed to take one fruit roll up or packet of Yogos. The rest must be carrot sticks or some kind of fruit to go with her lunch. I'm trying to make sure I'm keeping her natural hyper state a little more low-key. Trying to cut down on her sugar consumption. Of course the fruit and veggies she's taking are organic, so that's good too. She was so cute in the car ride home la...

No, I didn't get pregnant this month; however, I'm feeling very hopeful about the changes I've made and will be sticking to them. No coffee, take my vitamins/supplements, drink my herbal teas, eat healthy with lots of organic vegetables and fruits, no dairy, avoiding wheat and alcohol. My period was a lot different this month. No real "spotting" for a day or two before my period like I used to. There were only a few clots in my blood this month. It seems smoother and brighter. Sorry if TMI, but that's what I'm here to track. Also I found out DH has still been reading my blog and he knows were officially "trying." He seems to be OK with it. Probably knowing that I don't want to go crazy this time, just be healthy. I'm also glad to be on this journey officially again. I really think Tom would be great with another child. We've already agreed it would be nice to have a son. We went to the zoo on Saturday with another family we're fri...

Temp dropped this morning. I guess yesterday was a fluke. I'm sure I'm on the right track with the changes I'm making. Just gotta keep moving forward.

I had a temp spike this morning. Spot has gone away. Do I dare hope?

Things are going well. I haven't had a cup of coffee in quite some time. I think I tried to have a Pumpkin Spice Latte on Sunday, but it wasn't from Starbucks or Borders, and it tasted like shit for lack of a better term. I threw it out after a few sips. I really thought it tasted like bug repellent. Sounds tasty, eh? I'm still working on giving up alcohol too, but I only had one martini on Saturday night and nothing since. I've been taking all my new vitamins and making sure I'm not skipping. I've added DHEA (low dose 25mg/day), B-vitamin supplements, L-arginine, and 60 mg zinc/day from 3-20mg zinc lozenges. My lower back is killing me. I'm sure it's PMS, but that is no excuse. I've been working to get rid of this annoyance. Granted it's not as bad as it used to be ages ago, but I'd like to be pain-free. I was most of the month, and considering I'm due the end of the week, I'm thinking its the PMS backache. I've been spotting a l...

To all my US citizen readers, please vote today! I don't care what your political beliefs are, but we are very lucky to live in this country and participate in the decision of who our leaders are. I'm off to vote now!

And it felt sooooo good. I love Girl's Night! BTW, Girl's Night around here is the Friday nights DH is at school and Phoebe and I buy junk food, watch movies, and later she get's to sleep in my room. Yes, my life is very exciting. Last night we got frozen pizza, pizza rolls, potato chips and cheese popcorn. I had some of everything and made myself a mango martini. Unfortunately for my trying to not have alcohol, DH found these yummy martini mixers, raspberry, cosmo and mango. So I let myself have a reprieve from being a saint and feel rejuvinated again this morning. I sit here drinking my green tea, in the kitchen, on my newly-working wireless network. I'm going to run some errands today with Phoebe and clean the house. Things are looking good!

Things are going very well with Operation Taking Charge. I've done some research on some additional supplements I should take, and I'm going to put together a menu plan for me next week on what foods I should be eating - no wheat or dairy. I'm not big on sugar to begin with, but I will stay away from the leftover Halloween candy. I've been drinking green tea again in the mornings instead of coffee. I've been away from coffee for 14 days now and it feels good. I have had a splurge of one cup maybe once or twice, but I've usually only half finished it. This morning I did allow myself a 1/2 decaf cup, but didn't really enjoy it like I used to. Also last night I not only did the bills, I fixed our wireless network!!! We can now leave the study to use our laptops!!! And it supports more than one laptop at a time!!! This is very exciting. We might get a repeater for the upstairs hallway to extend the network even farther for us. I'll be able to blog...

That's it. I've had enough wallowing. It's take charge time. I think I've been fighting the fact that I know I really want another child. I've been trying, but only half-heartedly to have another. I think I haven't been fully committed because I know how crazy and stressed out I was when I was trying with the doctors. I hated the weight gain, the hormones, hating sex, etc. But I know a lot more now. I'm in tune with my body more, even if my temps are all over the chart right now. I know something is not right and needs to be fixed. I believe I can fully commit myself to getting pregnant again without losing myself, gaining a ton of weight, and isolating DH and I from our friends. So with that in mind.... what are my passions? 1. My family - I love DH and Phoebe immensely. I want us to have a fabulous life together. And I'll state it. I want our family to grow!!!! We have more love that we can all share. 2. My friends - We have a very sup...

I've been having a hard time posting lately. Just trying to find the time. Very, very busy, but also still figuring lots of things out. My temps have been all over the place. I have no idea what's going on. The herbalist that I talked to did recommend another TCM practicioner/acupuncturist, but I'd rather wait until after the holidays because of the cost. I have been able to get back on my exercise program again, being able to go down to the basement to use the elliptical machine a few times a week and practicing yoga a few times a week on my own or with a DVD. So I should have no complaints there. I just have so much to get done and have periods of not wanted to do any of it, but escaping with some Bridget Jones fan fiction, TV, or what have you. I need to get the better of this. I know it's my Pisces nature that I need to keep myself on track. Anyway, I made a lovely dinner last night. It was simple and not necessary health food, but very good. It was crab c...

I'm at a Data Management conference for work today and tomorrow. I arrived by train last night. DH came with me, as he has some work to do up here. It was really nice to have a relaxing dinner last night. We've talked more in the past 24 hours about things that usually stay unsaid. It's been very nice. I've cried a few times, but it's been very healing. We almost thought I got pregnant this month, but AF showed up for real yesterday afternoon. We talked about our mixed feelings if it did happen ... Phoebe being so self-sufficient, going back to diapers is so not fun ... Phoebe is at such a wonderful age. She enjoys going places and doing a lot of the things we do ... We're not as young as we used to be ... will we have the energy with our pace of life to do babyhood again? But then we talked about the perks and I was very honest. I mentioned that I might feel better about my body, not feeling like it's defunct or broken. He admitted he knows that...

As the days go by and I'm trying to push myself into remembering what I'm passionate about in life, I'm going to record them as I find them. I got the family room curtains finished last night. They look gorgeous. Having beautiful fabric hanging on walls really warms a room up. Tom also finished hanging up the 5' hand-carved Thai wood medallion on the wall over the fireplace. The room looks fabulous. In order to keep myself motivated sewing the curtains, I brought DD's Barbie CD player into the room I'm sewing in and played really upbeat music. I went through The Indigo Girls, Erasure, and lots of The Beatles. Can't go wrong with The Beatles. The room I was sewing in has no blinds or curtains and it's on the first floor with bright lights. I can imagine what the neighbors thought as I was bopping away until midnight sewing up a storm. I picked that room as it has the most space and bright lights to work in. My sewing room will be in the basement...

Really busy, busy day today. Work is slamming me since I'll be at a conference out of town the beginning of next week. We're have a lot to do before the birthday party for FIL on Saturday. I need to finish the living room curtains tonight. I just love sewing two stories worth of fabric four times over (sarc). I did finish one of the four panels last night, though and it looks awesome! I have to finish them tonight, because I have to finish cleaning tomorrow night and we're going grocery shopping for the party on Thursday night. DH is also really busy between work, hanging a 5' hand-carved wood medallion from Thailand over the fireplace mantel. It used to be in our bedroom at the old house, but our new bedroom while roomier, doesn't have a wall to put it on that makes sense. He got the middle piece hung up last night and I can tell it's going to look so cool. Well I have to go as I'm still at work at almost 6 PM. Tom picked up Phoebe since work is sl...

We've been very busy the past few weeks. Phoebe starting school, having issues, being grounded, getting through that, having a birthday (very low key), and we're getting ready for a huge surprise party for FIL this Saturday. It'll be about 80 people at our house and we're cooking. I've rented tables, chairs and chafing dishes and we are cooking. But I've been feeling very blah. It sounds wierd, but I'm trying to find the passion back in my life. What am I passionate about? I feel like I've been going through the motions for so long, pushing myself to do each and every little thing. I really can't live this way. We did have a great weekend for Phoebe's birthday. Friday the 6th was her actual birthday, but Tom was at school. I came to her school with snacks for her Kindergarten class we left when school was over so she didn't go to the Y's aftercare program and we started Girls' Night early. We built things with Legos she got...

Our closest friends, K&G, had their baby girl Thursday evening around 7 PM. Her name is Jameson Claire and she's absolutely beautiful. She weighs 5 lbs 14 oz and she's 20 inches long. Her weight is a little small because the doctor's wanted to take her early as she was measuring small on ultrasounds. I think she just needs to fill out now. She's definately long enough. I visited them at the hospital yesterday during my lunch time and she is gorgeous. She's got dark brown hair that we wonder if it will fall out and come in red or continue dark brown like her daddy (before he started shaving his head, LOL!). I didn't see her with open eyes, but she slept so sweetly with little rosebud lips and tiny eyelashes and eyebrows and a button nose. Can you tell I'm in smitten already? Phoebe's been doing better. She had one incident on Thursday which caused her to lose TV and friend privs for another week. But I can tell this is working because Frida...

Where to start... we'll start with my poor brother-in-law who was in a car accident this morning. A 17-year-old driver ran through a stop sign and into the driver's side door of the car my BIL was driving for work. It's also a very small car he was driving. They had to cut him out of the car. He has a broken pelvis and his left arm is broken in two places. He's supposed to have surgery for the arm, but he's now on his way to the third hospital in order to have this surgery. The first was a local, rural hospital, had to transfer him to larger hospital for surgery. Found out at the second hospital that the only surgeon is on vacation and he has to go several hours away to another bigger hospital. Did I mention he lives in the middle of nowhere in Wisconsin? I know I sound like such an East Coast girl. I am. Poor guy. He's going to be on a rough road to recovery. It'll probably take months. Then I'm on my way home from work. Tom was working at ...

The name of this post is taken directly from this article I read today, and I'm very excited to see that the issue of women in science and engineering studies being treated differently from their male counterparts. I'm especially excited for Phoebe. Yesterday in the car we were listening to NPR and they were talking about the development of new computer chips to make them run faster. They were talking about the difference of wires vs. optical. A light when on in her head, "If computers can go faster, you can get your work done faster and then I can play my games when you're done!" We started talking about if she would like to be part of building faster computers. She liked that idea immensely. We talked about how she would need to study math and science a lot, and that's what Mommy and Daddy went to school for (we both have a B.S. in Electrical Engineering). It was exciting because very often she doesn't seem to show an interest in being anything w...

My friend Kelli has tagged me, so even though I haven't posted much lately, I need to do my part. I'll respond to the words, but I'm not sure who to tag. 1. autumn - Best time of the year. My wedding anniversary and Phoebe's birthday are both in October, prime autumn season. 2. hand - My mother's hands. Mine look a lot like hers do. I wonder if Phoebe's will be the same. It would be nice as I do get some comfort in looking at them. 3. dream - I have lots of them. Not at night though. I post about my wierd dreams at night. But decorating the new house. Having my family around me. I want to study yoga with Joan White in Philly when Tom's done school next spring. 4. avoid - procrastinate. I do that sometimes. I force myself not to on a regular basis.

Great post yesterday from Motherhood Uncensored ! Kudos to her for having a phone conversation with THE Gloria Steinem! They had an interesting conversation on men being more involved in child rearing, and it's prompting me to write on the topic. For those of you that read this that are about to have babies, pay attention.... My husband is a very involved father. He doesn't do everything exactly the way I would, but does anyone ever? I knew right from the get-go to let him take care of Phoebe in his own way when I'm not doing it. I have to say, we split raising her 50/50. I can't say that about house work, but he does his share. I just prefer things cleaner, more often than he does, so when I clean it's for me more than anyone else and I know that. When Phoebe was a baby, I never said he was "babysitting" when I went to the hairdressers. Babysitting is when it's not really your child. People would ask and I'd say, "She's with he...

Today it hit me. I have a school-age child. No more preschooler is she. We're trying a new schedule these days. Tom's taking Phoebe to the YMCA morning program, and I'm trying to leave work early to pick her up from her after-school program. I picked her up today and I'm watching her while we're walking to the car. Here is this almost 4-foot tall girl walking next to me with a backpack and lunch bag. Wait a minute this girl is mine! She looks so sure of herself, so old. All last week I didn't get to witness this by myself, so I don't think I had time to register it. Too many things were going on in my mind last week. She had her first homework assignment tonight, and I'm very pleased with how I handled it. She said she did her homework during the afterschool program time. I cleaned out her bag as soon as we got in the house and we found her homework. I wasn't really pleased with what she did, but I held my tongue. The assignment was to dr...

Phoebe has been obsessed with tornados over the past few months. And it's not that she's watched The Wizard of Oz recently. The first time she watched it was over two years ago. But since we've moved to Landenberg whenever we have a strong thunderstorm with high winds, she swears we're going to have a tornado and starts crying and is really hard to console. She even went so far as to tell my parents in the Poconos that she wants to move in with them because I happened to mention that the mountains protect you from tornados from forming. Well, check this news report out! This tornado touched down yesterday evening around the corner from our house!!! Tom started to mention it this morning and I stopped him with my hands waving violently around "Please, stop!!!" because Phoebe was in the room. She asked "What happened?" and we instantly changed the topic. My mom told me to tell her our house is "tornado-proof." I may need to if she hears abou...

Phoebe had her first day of school yesterday and I think she really liked it. As usual, it was hard to get information out of her about what she did. She goes to the YMCA for a morning program and then they bus her over to PM Kindergarten. After school, she's in the cafeteria with the YMCA afterschool program. She eats her packed lunch at the Y and then has a snack she has to bring at the after school program. We asked her if she made any friends at the YMCA, and she said no, but this morning Tom found out she did make a friend named Heather and they hugged each other when he dropped her off and they went to circle time holding hands. That made me feel much better, because both Tom and I were not happy with the chaos we witnessed at the morning program yesterday. I tried to remind myself it was the first day back to school and everyone was trying to get their bearings and all the kids were over excited about the first day of Kindergarten. She really liked the bus ride to scho...

Tomorrow is Phoebe's first day of school. All weekend was like right before Christmas... so much pent up energy and excitement she can't sit still for one minute. All of a sudden she has two modes: really fast or asleep. Tonight we put her to bed and she kept trying to read books under her covers. I kept coming in and taking the books away, otherwise she'd never get to sleep tonight. A lot has happened since my last post. My stitches came out on Thursday. Found out I'll probably never be able to feel part of my forehead going back to the back of my head ever again. It's a really wierd feeling, but they say I'll get used to it. At least I can say I'll never need Botox on the left side of my forehead. It doesn't move as much as it used to with my facial expressions. Most likely no one else will notice but me and DH. My temp dropped Friday morning and spotting commenced. Wierd thing is I also got a horrible yeast infection that morning. It must...

Just taking a break from cleaning up my emails to let everyone know I'm doing fine. I'm cleaning up personal emails from, like, since the beginning of the month. Tom's school at the end of this term was really kicking my butt as well as his. My accident came the night before a final presentation he had to give. He gave it on two hours of sleep, poor thing. I'm doing OK. My head hurts like the dickens. My left eye is really black and blue and red and yellow. It's pretty.....mm hmm. And I keep taking Tylenol or the pain of the stiches gets on my nerves. And the need for sleep!!!! I've been taking a nap every afternoon. It feels so good, but I can't keep doing this. We're supposed to take Phoebe to Sesame Place tomorrow. I have no idea how I'm going to handle that. I've really been feeling like crap, but I don't want to be laying around like a slug the last few days before Phoebe starts school. I've had lots of people reminding...

Really, I didn't hit a deer. It hit me! I never made it to Villanova on Friday night. I left for to take Tom his suit with my windows down, enjoying the breeze, and listening to the Pet Shop Boys. I was around the corner from home when two cars were coming toward me. They started slowing down and moving a little erratically, so I slowed down thinking they were drunk or just plain stupid. As I was passing the second car…. WHAM!!! I thought the second car went into my lane and hit me from the side. I stopped the car in the middle of the road. A little dazed that I just had been in an accident, I sat up a bit more and noticed blood coming from the left side of my forehead. I had a sweatshirt on and pulled off the left half of it and pressed it to my forehead to put pressure where the bleeding was. With my other hand, I picked up my cell phone and started calling 911. I slowly got out of the car and started walking to the two cars behind me that were originally coming towa...

I guess I need about eight hours of sleep in order to dream anything. No wonder I don't have too many! I did last night and had another strange dream. I dreamt that I was at the new house and someone was visiting (I don't know who). They went to the front door to look at what was going on outside. I assumed it was the deer, which you can regularly see around our house, but where she was looking looked to be near my day lilies which the deer keep eating the flowers (Damn Them!!!). So I open the front door to yell at the deer, and I see the development landscaping crews putting a bunch of new trees in my yard, that I didn't know were coming!!! And they are putting the dirt they are digging up on my day lilies!!!! I go out to start yelling at them, and the ground was very wet. We must have had a lot of rain lately. While I'm talking to these guys trying to figure out what they were doing as I didn't authorize these new trees, the ground starts getting very qu...

My parents and my grandmother brought Phoebe back from her weekend visit in the Poconos. This was their first visit to our new house. Mom called when they were driving here, not sure if she was on the right track, "We're at a Walmart in the middle of nowhere on Route 1." Yes, Mom... We live in the middle of nowhere. Thank you for confirming. But I love it out here!!! They loved the house and we all sat down to a great dinner of barbeque chicken, grill stir fried zucchini, a spinach and romaine lettuce salad and a loaf of tomato and basil bread from the grocery store. Nan (my Nan) had the La Prima Donna white wine from VaLa and she said it was fabulous! One really cute thing about Nan. Whenever she visits someone out of the area who once lived up there, she brings the day's local newspaper for them. I've come to rely on her always doing it. It's so cute! I did get yesterday's Times Leader. We sent her home with two bottles of Barbera (red) and tw...

I'm at my hair salon. Right now. Under a dryer having my hair color set. They just finished redesigning the entire place, and they have computers at many of the stations. So I'm going to catch up on some blogging while I wait for my hair color. Maybe I can update some links to new blogs I've found. If you live in the Wilmington, DE area, the salon I'm at is Michael Christopher . It's pretty cool! BTW, I'm off work tomorrow and we're going to pick up Phoebe and take her to Cirque du Soleil. She's so excited! I miss her so much though. I can't wait for school to start, so I can see her everyday instead of her doing all this visiting/vacationing with her grandparents/cousins. I need my daily Phoebe fix.

And sometimes that's a good thing. It's been pretty quiet around here. Just waiting to see when I'm going to ovulate this month. Curious if we'll do the job properly this time around. Drinking lots of tea (alternating nettles, red raspberry leaf, and red clover), staying away from coffee and dairy products, taking my vitamins/herbs, trying to use the elliptical machine in the mornings and yoga/meditation at night. If it doesn't work, I'll be looking good and healthy at least. Phoebe's at her grandparents this week, probably spending a lot of time underwater, now that she loves to swim underwater, doing somersaults underwater, crawling on the bottom of the pool, doing cannonballs jumping into the pool. Good summer fun. We're picking her up on Friday morning and then going to Cirque du Soleil in Philly for a 4 PM show. She went two years ago and still talks about it to this day. After we get home, I'll be driving with her alone to my parents i...

So Phoebe (my five-year-old) is asking about birth control already! Should I tell her she probably won't have to worry???? LOL. Here's a rough transcript of our discussion in the car ride home yesterday. Parenthesis are my inner monolgue.....the things we don't share with our children: "Mommy?" "Yes, dear." (I always get a kick of how she calls my name when we're in the car and she wants to say something. Like I think she's talking to someone else? he he) "I don't want to have any kids." "That's fine dear. You don't have to have kids." "What does that mean? I can't get married?" "No you can get married, and choose not to have any kids." (Or be like many of our friends that have that choice thrust upon them that they can't.) "How can I do that?" "Well it has to do with sex and we'll talk about that more when you're older. You have to have sex to have babies...

I didn't make a home run this month. I'm happy I'm back on the right path though. Giving up coffee for me is huge. I've also been working on giving up dairy, and I've read up on another herb or two I should take to build up my Spleen Qi to increase my luteal phase and other getting older symptoms. I'm going to pick up some astragalus and atractylodes. I'm not going to take ginseng, as from what I've read that would be contraindicated for my heat symptoms I have as well. I'm just one big science experiment! Went shopping a little yesterday and found some great sales at Ann Taylor. Spent less than $200 and got a black pencil skirt, black dress pants that fit awesome, black gaucho pants in the best silkyish fabric ever, and two v-neck sleeveless summer sweaters. I'm wearing the pencil skirt and one of the v-neck sleeveless sweaters. I feel like a million bucks.

I think I've gotten over that dream now. I don't think I'll ever forget it, but I have to move past it. I started reading my favorite parts of the book Inconceivable by Julia Indichova. This book has meant a lot to me in the past. It proves to me that I can take care of myself, no matter what. Holistic medicine is where it's at. That said I've given up coffee, dairy and wheat products again (starting today!) and taking my herbs. Part of it is that even if I don't get pregnant, I don't want to slip back into pre-menopause again. Short monthly cycles, low sex drive and irritability is not where I want to be.... ever! That said, I spotted on Tuesday, a week after ovulation. I thought immediately that I was going to start one of my 21-day monthly cycles, but it went away??? I'm trying not to get excited thinking that maybe it'll be implantation spotting. I want to think I've thought these things before and was disappointed in the end. So ...

We had an OK weekend. Had fabulous dinner party for 6 (including us) on Saturday night. Neither Tom nor I cooked and the food was fabulous. The dinner was for two of Tom's study partners at Villanova and their spouses. The daughter of one of Tom's study partners cooked with a friend of hers from school. She's going to school to be a chef at Drexel University (our alma mater). Her friend was pre-med at Drexel, but works in a kitchen. Needless to say, our kitchen got used to the fullest. All plates were used. Many gadgets were used, especially my 14-year-old KitchenAid mixer. Here was the menu (Rachel created the menu and sent to us a month ago): Pre-appetizer (I can't spell the French word for this. It sounds amoosing, LOL): cantelope with a bit of cream sauce wrapped in proscuitto with a mint leaf on top. Appetizer (two appetizers, three of each) - 1. tomato and mozzarella salad with pesto sauce between layers with balsamic vinegar on top. 2. crab salad i...

What a crap week! I'm so glad it's over! The crap part started Tuesday night at 7 PM. It was a beautiful, hot summer evening. I had chicken on the grill, Phoebe playing upstairs with her friend from next door (it was too hot to play outside), I was straightening up the kitchen and putting a salad together to go with the grilled chicken. All of a sudden, the lights in the kitchen go out. I look over at the ceiling fan in living room and it was turning off. WTF???? I look outside and the wind is really kicking up and the sky is getting dark. I go outside to put down the patio umbrella and notice the gas grill fires were blown out by the wind. No point in lighting it again, it was so windy. I call the girls down and told her friend she should go home. I'd watch her walk next door it was so windy. I would've walked with her, but Phoebe's freaking out that there's going to be a tornado. I try explaining that we know what to do if that happens, but she...

I've really been in a funk the past few days. I'm getting a lot done at work, but not much on the home front. But in general, it seems like things always take longer than I would like them to. I just wish sometimes I could curl up in bed with a good book until this feeling goes away or vegetate in front of a recorded episode of Footballers Wives . Heck with that Desparate Housewives. Footballers Wives is much much better. And my hair looks like Tanya's these days. That scares me quite a bit. Maybe I could get a new career if I develop some of those "over-acting" faces. LOL! Phoebe keeps me smiling though. She's really gotten into watching Star Trek: The Next Generation with me. I love this and the original show. The themes and existing life parallels are wonderful. We've been having some good conversations around the themes of the episodes. There's one we watched last week where Worf's son, Alexander, is not interested in learning t...

I'm going to have some serious quiet time from tonight to tomorrow evening. Tom is at school until about 5 PM Saturday evening, and Phoebe's at Tom's parents for the weekend enjoying some great pool time. I think I'm going to have some pampering time, take the dog for some long walks since it's not too hot out, watch some of my favorite movies (Bridget Jones, A&E's Pride & Prejudice), drink some wine, sleep late, clean the house. Lots of fun. So in the meantime, I noticed that there are other people out there that love Johnny Depp as much as I do. The People magazine website have a photo collection they've put together of him as preparation for the new "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie out this weekend. Go check it out. I'll wait..... I might convince Tom we should go to a Sunday matinee to see the movie. I'm much more excited about Jack Sparrow than Orlando Bloom's character. I was popping through channels sometime last w...

Phoebe is getting over a double ear infection. As usual, no one could tell she wasn't feeling well until it was unbearable for her. She was at my ILs this past weekend, enjoying time with her cousins and the pool. We got a call at 2 AM on Saturday morning. Of course when I heard the phone ringing, I figured it was a wrong number and no reason to answer. Then it hits me, "Phoebe's not home. There's something wrong with her!" I woke up Tom to answer the phone as it's on his side of the bed. She woke up in the middle of the night screaming her ear hurt her. Tom's mom wanted to know what she could give her. Some Tylenol and time later, she's sleeping soundly and we're driving the 1 1/2 hours to pick her up, so we can take her to the ped during their Saturday morning emergency hours so we can get some antibiotics into her system. At the doctor's office she doesn't have a fever or any pain, and the Tylenol should've worn off by the...

Lots to post about. We've been very busy and it's been interesting. We finally picked up Phoebe's ice skates on Wednesday afternoon. It took awhile for the final fitting, screw the blades in their final resting place, sharpen blades, and get us out the door. Since by the time we left it was rush hour, I decided to take some back roads home instead of main routes. Unfortunately I haven't learned what roads on the way to our new house flood after 8 days straight of rain (at least), we couldn't get home easily. The one-lane covered bridge we usually use was closed as the Brandywine creek was wayyyyy high. So I turned a different way and figured I'd take Route 1 into Kennett. I'm thinking "It's Route 1, big road. It'll be fine." Wrong! It was closed. So I turn back into some different back roads, finally made it over the Brandywine Creek and then got stymied again with high water on the other side of the creek. I'm turning around...

Decided not to pick up Phoebe's ice skates yesterday. It would've required me to leave work way too early. I'll find out if they are ready for Saturday morning, and we can pick them up before she needs to be at a birthday party in that area at 11:30 Saturday morning. She did great at ice skating class, even with the rental skates. She was really tentative at first but after awhile she remembered what she knows. She had a hard time remembering how to do swizzles, but then after the practice time at the end she could do them with no problem and very smooth and fast. Her new teacher, Sarah, came over to say hi to me. That's the first time one of these teachers have ever done that, so I like her already. Not that I don't like the teachers, but they don't seem to take time to make small talk with the parents. It's a really small class this summer, so Phoebe should do well. There are five kids signed up, but only three (including Phoebe) came to class thi...

I wish they would finish Phoebe's damn ice skates already! They are being customized and were supposed to be ready last Thursday. We went there and they said they weren't ready yet, so then the phone calls commenced. I won't even think of driving out that way until they are really ready. I called Friday, not ready yet. I called today (as they were closed Monday), not ready yet. They said they will be ready tomorrow, but that's when I needed them. She has her first ice skating class for this session tomorrow night at 6:30 PM. Tom will be out of town, so I need to go home to release the dog before we go to U of DE for her class. That means now I have to leave extra early in order to pick up her skates, drive home, take care of dog, feed kid, and drive to skating rink for class by 6:30. It takes a 1/2 hour to drive there from our house, so I have to leave a little before 6 PM. It'll take me 1/2 to take care of the dog and feed Phoebe dinner (and that's b...

Lots of updates. First off, I feel like I'm going crazy. I have a serious earworm going on today. "More Than a Woman" by the Bee Gees. Don't ask. I heard it on the radio this morning, and I can't get it out of my head. We had a great family night last night. Every year, we go to an Italian Festival at one of the churches in Wilmington, and last night was our night to go this year. We all had such a good time. Phoebe rode lots of kiddie rides. I think this is the last year for the kiddie ones. She's looking longingly at the big kid rides this year. I'm sure she can handle it next year. After the rides we got a bite to eat. We each got a different sandwich: Tom, sausage & peppers, Phoebe, meatball, me, porketta. To eat dinner, all the tables were really crowded, so we sat across from some people we didn't know. They laughed as much as we did watching Phoebe try to open her mouth wide enough to fit this meatball sandwich. She ate 3/4s...