Today's task

I know it's not the new year yet, but I might as well get off to a good start, right?

Today I tackled the bathroom closet. It's been bugging me for a while - can you see why?

Here's the "before" shot of the bottom half...


And the top half...



And, an hour later, the top half...




And the bottom half.


Ok, the bottom half could use a little more work. I'll restack the towels when I put the next load of them away. And, well, the very bottom could be better stacked, but at least the toilet paper is back in its place and stuff isn't flying out all over the place, right?

The two-week wait

For those of you wanting to keep up with my adventures in infertility...

I'm at the latter end of my first round on clomid. Clomid is this wonder drug that helps women who don't ovulate to do just that. It's been an interesting cycle. I was warned, told horror stories about hormonal torture, emotional outbursts, and general unhappiness while taking the drugs. But, I was also told that after lupron, clomid would be like a walk in the part. That pretty much was the way it happened for me. One day of extreme irritability (to that cashier at Joanne's, wherever you are, I'M SORRY). one day of extreme munchies. And one day of a face full of zits. Other than that, I was pretty much myself, and for that, I am grateful.

Until I got to day 18 or so. That was the day I called Kaiser to say I hadn't ovulated, and shouldn't I wait for my progesterone check until after I did? That's a blood test to confirm whether or not a woman ovulated.

Kaiser should really give their OB/GYN nurses special training in dealing with the infertile people. I think we're a special breed. We tend to get extremely annoyed when dealing with stupid people about items pertaining to our infertility.

I left a message on the advice nurse line, since it wasn't urgent. Many hours later (within two hours my butt!), a nurse called me back. "I got your message but I'm not sure I understand the question..."

So I patiently explained again that I hadn't ovulated yet and wanted to know if I should wait for the blood test till after I do. She said there was no way I could know that without a blood test. I told her about all the ways I knew - my temperature was down (goes up after ovulation), my saliva tests were negative, and I've never seen a whiter white than my ovulation predictor strips. Apparently to Kaiser, those all mean crap. She said they ALWAYS do it on day 21, and if it was negative, I'm either pregnant or I didn't ovulate.

Um, ok, how could I be pregnant if I didn't ovulate???

Try as I might, I absolutely couldn't get the nurse to acknowledge that not all women ovulate on a perfect cycle when on clomid. Apparently it's Kaiser's policy that if you're on clomid, you ovulate on day 14.

Too bad my body didn't read the Kaiser policies. I ovulated on day 23, the day AFTER my blood test (since day 21 was Christmas). How do I know? My temp was up, my saliva test was positive, and lo and behold, there was a second line on my ovulation predictor strips. I called yesterday to get my test results. They left a message when they called back, and the woman said emphatically, about six times, YOU DID NOT OVULATE. Duh, I could have told you that.

Oh, wait, I did tell you that!

Freaking morons.

So now I'm officially in the proverbial two-week weight. The time when women wanting to be pregnant cut back on caffeine, eliminate alcohol, and start eating more fruits and veggies in anticipation of the time when they can start peeing on sticks.

Wish me luck, because I really, really, really want to have the opportunity to see the look on the nurses' faces when I come in for a positive pregnancy test after officially not ovulating!

Well, I've done it!

I just switched over to the new blogger. Hopefully there won't be too many hiccups...let me know if you see anything too weird!

Resolutions, anyone?

Merry Christmas, everybody! Hope you all had a wonderful, blessed holiday, and I hope Santa was as good to you as he was to me.

Now my thoughts are turning to the new year, and yet another fresh start on the journey of life. 2006 was interesting - it was the year I was going to get my finances under control, my weight under control, and my house under control. Oh, and get pregnant.

Well, one out of four isn't TOO bad, I suppose...we did pretty well with our finances. I lost 14 pounds and managed to only gain two of them back, but I still have a long way to go. My house, well, is a disaster area. And, drugged as I may be, I'm still not pregnant, unless some miracle has occurred in the last few days and my body just isn't telling me.

I think I may have bitten off more than I can chew.

I think 2007 will be the year of the house. My resolution is to stop being such a tremendous slob. Can I do it? It's not in my nature - I've been a slob my entire life. It honestly doesn't bother me that the dogs track mud all over the floor, that there are dirty dishes all over the counters, and that I've actually talked to a pile of dog hair, thinking it was one of my dogs. I can block out messes with ease - I have decades of practice.

But, it does bother my husband. And, at some point, I just might actually succeed in getting pregnant, and I suppose I should develop some good habits before there is a wee one crawling around on my floors.

So, in the interest of being a better wife and future mother, I hereby declare 2007 to be the year of the clean house. I will take 20 minutes in the morning, at least three days a week, and clean something. Don't worry, I have two hours every morning between the time hubby leaves for work and the time I do. Usually I'm just on the internet. I might as well do something productive!

I will file, not just pile.

I will break out our old room assignment sheet, which worked for all of about two weeks, where we each take a room of the house each week and clean it. We have it broken into eight areas, so the whole house gets cleaned once a month. It's a reasonable schedule, we're just lazy people.

This will, in turn, help me keep my finances in order (because I cook more in a clean kitchen, and I'll actually know what we have so I won't buy multiples of stuff), and heck, it just might help me get my weight in order (because I cook more in a clean kitchen).

Wish me luck!!!

A little trip down memory lane...

Thank you, Boston Globe, for reminding me that YouTube is a great place to watch all the videos for sappy 80s ballads that I love so much!

http://www.boston.com/ae/music/gallery/top_ten_worst_songs/

At least they're entertaining...

I'm home sick today, and Hershey is amusing me. She lays out in the middle of the living room floor and randomly moans. She doesn't want anything, really - she doesn't need to go out (she just did), it's not meal time, and she's been getting love all morning. I think she just wants me to know she's still alive. Silly puppy!

Ringo, on the other hand, made me laugh so hard I cried on Saturday. We have these stupid yappy dogs in the yard behind us, who think that they could actually take my dogs in a fight. In reality, either of my dogs could step on one of them and that would be the end of it, and the other one would just require a good shake. But whatever. Anyway, I let the dogs out, and stupid yappy dog #1 ran up to the fence and started instigating something. Ringo, of course, took off to the fence, but he knows he's not supposed to bark (and lately he's been good about it). So what did he do? He calmly lifted his leg and peed through the fence onto stupid yappy dog! I laughed SO HARD! And yet stupid yappy dog just kept barking...

No one can ever say that pets aren't entertaining!

Listen to that little voice...

No, this isn't a story about some tragic circumstance brought about because someone didn't listen to their conscience.

This is a story about a Christmas ornament.

Yesterday, I was putting ornaments on the tree. We have a fake tree, and it's smaller than the real trees we've had in years past, so this year I decided I was only going to put ornaments on that really mean something to me (I have A LOT of ornaments - probably enough for two or three trees of the size we have). So I was going through the boxes, pulling them out one by one, and thinking about where I got them, and what the story was behind them. There was the little girl swinging in the wreath, given to me by a very dear family friend. The WWU teddy bear, purchased at a bazaar shortly before I graduated. "Our First Christmas Together", given to us as a Christmas gift the year we got married. And then I came to the one I bought when I got my first apartment.

It was one of those delicate ball ornaments, covered in glitter, with the year (1996) on one side, and a Santa Claus on the other side. After graduating in December 2005, I finally moved out of my parents house in November 2006 and I wanted an ornament to commemorate my finally being a grownup. So I went out and shopped around and picked this one. It's been on my tree every year since.

Then I went back to the box and pulled out two from my former place of employment. We had pewter ornaments made for our donors each year, and the staff always got to take one too. I hung the first one up. Then I held the second one in my hand, thinking "do I really need two? This place isn't THAT important to me, and besides, I don't really like the design of this one." But, I was standing in front of the tree already so I decided to put it up. While trying to separate the loop so I could put it over a branch, I dropped it. Right onto the "my first apartment" ornament.

It knocked a big hole in the top of the ornament, and sent tiny shards of glass flying. I swore, threw away the rest of the ornament, got out the vacuum, and cleaned it up. DH came out to see what the fuss was about. I went to the garbage and picked it up by the hanger, which promptly broke off, and what was left of the globe went crashing to the floor, spraying shards of glass all over the kitchen. Guess if you're going to break it, break it right. Swearing wasn't enough by that point, I had to cry.

The moral of the story? I should have listened to my little voice. That glass ball had much more meaning to me than the second pewter ornament. Every year when I took it out of the box, I remembered how excited I was to be out on my own, finally an adult. And now every year when I take the other ornament out, I will remember that little lesson in listening, and doing what you say you're going to do.

It's a small, seemingly insignificant story. But an important reminder, nonetheless.