Joys In My Life

Have you ever noticed that the things you wanted most in your life you usually had to work the hardest for? Is that just me? I don't know. My life until college was relatively easy. College was really, really hard. I worked my ass off and did not party like my peers did. If you don't know, my degree is in electrical engineering, that's how hard it was. Most of the time when I tell people what my degree is in I get this crazy stare like, "Whaaaattt?! Really?!" So my college experience, including affording it as well as studying, very hard won battle and it was really worth it. I think meeting DH was the only thing that wasn't that difficult (met at college), but keeping our relationship fresh has been very difficult. Learning to communicate with each other has been really hard, but the rewards have been worth the hard work. We get along so well now after 16 years of marriage, I can't imagine my life without my best friend that I can say anythin...

I'm sure I've mentioned before, but DH is an amazing cook. When we were dating he used to woo me by making me fabulous dinners. He still does it after 16 years of marriage, making something special when it's just the two of us. Last night he made me poached salmon over a bed of an Asian-inspired cole slaw made with cabbage, bean sprouts, onions, sunflower seeds, toasted sesame oil, rice wine vinegar and I don't know what else. It was really delicious. Here's DH in the kitchen, just where I like him! Here's our fabulous dinner! I know it's not the most exciting colors, but it was out of this world! And our date night simple table setting: I tell him he can keep feeding me fabulous food forever! I'd love to share the recipe, but he does everything in his head and barely tells me what's in it. I think he forgets what he did.

So for those of you who fought infertility and were successful thus far, have you thought about having more children? Do you get that weird pang inside when you see a baby of "Ooooo - maybe I should try again?" If you heard that someone was doing IVF with your RE and they were paying extra to have an outside lab select the gender, would that give you pause to think about trying again. Especially, if it would be nice if you had "just one more daughter". And yes, I did hear this recently from the lady going through IVF with my RE that they are doing gender selection. She has two daughters and never had a son, so they are trying for a boy. I would've thought they wouldn't do that for ethics reasons, but for some reason it is OK. I don't know if I would ever really decide to do something like that if we had a chance, but I know DH really wanted another daughter when we had the twins (he really wanted boy/girl twins), Phoebe would love to have a sister ...

I got to watch Sex in the City 2 and I know it got bad reviews, but I still loved it! I continue to feel I embody every character in the show and movies. I know I've written about it before, but with this movie, it was even more as they continue with the movies. So here's a round up: Carrie - I love fashion, shoes and spending time alone with my husband. As we find ourselves with one more week sans kids, I'm enjoying the time we have together to relax, eat dinner, talk and watch TV. If you've seen the movie, it even makes me think of wanting to watch old black and white movies like we used to, just like Carrie and John James Preston do. Charlotte - I love my family so much, had a hard time having children, now they are all here and I do think it's nice to have some time off. Miranda - I'm fiercely driven by my job and career, but I do need to figure out how to have better balance just like she is trying to in the movie. Samantha - I do like sex, I'm...

I am completely floored with how nice today is turning out considering how icky yesterday was. I was in a full melt-down last night that I haven't known in ages. So what happened is I seem to be getting a forced day off of work! On a beautiful Friday! What happened it seems is that the PC computers at my office are all down! We can't login to our computers, check our schedules or emails. Thankfully, it is a quiet time of the month at work, so I don't mind one bit! I do feel for the people who are working on the issue, which we don't know what it is. So what happened is I woke up this morning with my pretty toes, fingers and glowing skin, thanks to the well-needed primping I did last night, but I still wasn't feeling 100%. I know there is still a lot of personal stuff I want to get done and considering I had to shower and go to work, and then try to leave early today as DH and I are going away for the weekend to the mountains with friends, kid-free, there w...

Ever feel like you just had the worst day ever? I'm not sure if it's hormonal or just that it was a rough day. I did take my birth control pills late in the day the past two days when I usually take them in the morning. Right now I feel like I could cry. I got home after a rough day at work to find out that I got something in the mail that said a credit card payment was past due. I was really hungry from working late tonight, so I grabbed some leftovers before I dealt with the mail piece. After I ate, I checked the checkbook and sure enough, there was the listing for the check and what the payment amount was at the beginning of the month. I called the credit card company and they took care of everything, but I had to stop payment on the check. So I went to the checking account's online service and did a stop payment on the check, but then noticing after I hit complete that it costs a $25 fee. Considering the bill was probably lost in the mail or on the floor of the...

I do feel good about being very open about my infertility struggles. Hopefully, it has helped people I've come in contact with. I do often feel that one meets certain people in life so that you can be "at the right place at the right time." I feel that happens to me a lot recently. Today I actually shared my blog URL with someone at work, which I never do (if she reads this, I don't mind - you seemed to really need that support today). I hope reading about what I went through, which is so similar to her situation, she will find hope that I found my happy ending. I know not everyone does, but I hope just knowing is a bit uplifting. I've also been talking with another woman at work who is currently doing IVF as well. She says all the talks we've had over the years have helped her come to this current place and she seems really secure with her decisions she's discussed with me. She does currently have two older children, 14 and 10 years old, but for ...

My very good online friend, Marcia of 123Blog , has finally gotten me to break down and create my Life List. She has 36 as she's 36 years old, so since I'm 40, I went with 40. I don't expect to get all these things done this year, but I'd like to get quite a few done over the next 5 years. I'll research how I can put this link in my header of my blog and keep everyone updated. 1. Pay off credit card debt (yes, we have some) 2. Build a successful online business 3. Write a book 4. Be able to stop working in the corporate world 5. Buy a rental property and obtain successful renter 6. Declutter house 7. Build my routines I can stick to 8. Have a pool installed 9. Build our outdoor living spaces 10. Get new flooring in the house (carpet, hardwood floors, leather floor in study) 11. Decorate all the rooms in our dream house, including organizing the garage 12. Buy a new family car to replace the current one 13. Learn to wear heels regularly again 14. Have my breasts d...

We had a great time in NYC the weekend before last. We left Friday afternoon by Amtrak and headed to Penn Station to meet DH who was there already for work. We had a fabulous stay at the Marriott East hotel in Manhattan. See our fabulous room: See how happy the peeps were at our room as we were leaving for some Friday evening adventures. We got a New York Pass , which was a great value for us, as we wanted to do lots of museums and stuff for this trip. Friday evening we went to Madame Tussaud's wax museum. Here's some of our favorite moments there. Then we were pretty hungry. It was almost 10 PM and we hadn't had dinner yet. So we started walking back to the hotel by way of Bryant Park and had a late supper at an outdoor cafe there. It was really yummy! I think I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow Friday night (although I think I did every night we were in NYC). The next morning, we went to the Today Show and stood outside while we waited for the weeken...

So this week, DH was away most of the time as well as Niki, my SIL and the boys nanny. The boys were in day care Tuesday and Wednesday and they loved it. Here's a recap of the week: Monday Took a personal day as the day care medical forms weren't finished as Liam didn't have a physical when we went in for his two year check, as he was sick. They rescheduled for Monday afternoon at 1PM which was nap time. It still went well and Liam did great for his appointment. We got the forms filled out and that night I got everyone ready for day care the next day, packing bedding, extra change of clothes, diapers, wipes and lunch. Getting stuff packed the night before really helped. Tuesday Got Phoebe on the bus for school and took the boys to day care. I was a little later for work that usual, but everyone got where they needed to be and the boys were happy to go outside. It took awhile to get them into school, as I needed them to walk and they walked in really slow, but the go...

I've been hard at work the past few days. Sunday afternoon my sweetie was flying to Dallas, so I weeded the garden. It really needed it. The funny thing is I have some plants like peppers, tomatoes and lettuce popping up in random areas. I'm letting it do it's thing. I think they are from last years crop. I'm going to move some of the random tomato plants that popped up that are doing very well. Here's what everything looked like when I was done. For the record we have zucchini, onions, garlic, asparagus, lettuce, carrots and tomatoes. Yes, I have some random tomatoes popping up at the entrance to the garden. Those will be moved. Mmmmm. Lettuce and carrots! Here's my tomatoes where they are supposed to be and some view of the peas that I wish I had a trellis for. We'll have to see how it goes. I didn't need one last year.

I really really love where we live. It's beautiful and we're in the country where there's lots of beautiful sights and creeks. Niki and I took the boys for a walk when Phoebe and DH had to work on Phoebe's school project. We got lots of exercise pushing the stroller up and down hills and had lots of fun!!! I took these pictures with my new camera I got for being able to have something easily portable for on-the-go type pictures and movies. It's a Sony Cybershot DSC-WX9. It does HD movies and panoramic and 3-D photos, although I haven't taken advantage of those yet. I loved this garden gate that led to someone's backyard. We walked down this path to get to the creek. The boys worked on throwing stones into the creek. Here's Niki with Tommy coming back up the path! I bet she'll love that her hat hid her face in this picture. She hates having her picture taken. This was our view on our walk. This was about a 30 minute walk from our house. Also...

Again I got a lot done today, but I'm exhausted! This morning I got to make up for not seeing the boys last night as when I got back from getting my hair done they were in bed. Niki had a doctor's appointment and I watched the boys and got some work done from home on the computer while she was gone. Then I realized when I was changing Liam's diaper that he had a rash on his body, so took him to the doctor for the second time this week (and we'll be back on Monday to finish his physical!). Turns out that high fever was really a virus and this is the rash that follows it. That's what I thought anyway. The thing I'm worried about is he needs to get his appetite back. He was 23 lbs on Monday and today he was 22 lbs 10 oz. That means he lost 6 oz in a few days and he's a skinny kid to begin with! After I brought Liam back home, I went to work and got a ton of stuff done there. I got the computer accounts requested for the new contractors that are startin...

11:20 AM - Had meeting with my boss this morning. Now I'm currently reviewing resumes for the Mumbai manager position on my team and getting interviews setup. I have a meeting in 10 minutes, so let's get through this fast. There are only 3 resumes to review. 1:25 PM - done with communicating with Mumbai HR and setting up interviews for Monday and Wednesday. Also cleaned out some emails. Now I need to do some research on a bunch of emails from one topic that someone is looking for more information on. 3PM - lots of people stopping by my cube today. All work related conversations, but I finally figured out what I need to do for the research for someone. I need to look up some metadata and send them info on 39 fields we send. I don't have time to do it right now, as I have to go home, pick up SIL, Niki, as we have a hair appointment at 4 PM. I'll finish this research later at home. 5:20 PM - I love my iPhone! I'm at the hairdressers getting my roots done. Will...

I've had a great day today. At work, after coming back from taking a four day weekend (not just a three day weekend), I got caught up on most of the emails. There are a few I have to do some research to answer. I also started folders for each of the two contractors that are starting on 13 June, which contain information on the accounts and other essentials I'm requesting for them. That's my way of keeping papers for new hires on what they need for their first days on the job. I also left work at a decent time. I picked up an old Apple laptop I had in the shop, and I'm so proud of me for dropping that off at a local computer repair shop. Apple had told me it would take over $1,000 to repair and it wasn't under warranty, so I should probably just buy a new one. We did that as I really needed a computer that would work at home (to work from home when the kids are ill, juggling appointments, etc.) and I figured I'd try to get the old one fixed somewhere else,...