I made these last night. I’ve been eyeballing this pattern for the past 2 years. I always said the first time I made these would be for my own baby. I say that about a lot of knit baby things. Last night, I decided to take some leftover yarn and leftover buttons and see what happened with this pattern. I love them. I might save them for our baby. Or I might give them to the next friend who gets pregnant. We’ll see how I’m feeling when that happens. Click here for the pattern.
My period started early this morning giving cycle 25 exactly 30 days. There was enough time to actually get pregnant, I just didn’t. I’ll call Dr. B’s office in the morning and we’ll start monitoring all over again. My veins are not looking forward to it. I bruise far to easily when it comes to blood draws.
We’re seriously considering our third IUI in March or April. Even if my body is healing. I want this horrible horrible time to be over. If that doesn’t work, we’ll save for a fourth and maybe even a fifth.
It snowed here this weekend. Finally. We’ve hardly had any snow this winter. Skill Set and Snow White had never gotten to play in the snow off of their leashes. Yesterday, we took them to the dog park and let them run and goof off in the snow. They loved it. 🙂
I am home. Finally. And I plan on staying here for a good long while. I enjoy traveling. I enjoy seeing new places, people, and things. But I really like how happy I always am to come home. 🙂 Especially after all of the traveling we’ve done lately.
I spent one last afternoon at the pool in Texas today. I burned my boobs… 😦 It seems I managed to spray everywhere but right above, right below, and right between my bikini top… ouch. Nothing a little aloe won’t fix.
And then Jeremy took me to the airport for my first ever flight alone (he has to stay in Texas until tomorrow or Friday 😦 ). I’ve been to a lot of places, but I’ve never flown alone before. I’m not going to lie, it was kind of nice. I got through security after my very first full body scan and wandered to the bookstore because I ran out of books to read yesterday. I bought the second book in the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy (have you read them? I’m torn. I’ll update when I’ve finished the series) and a decaf coffee. Then I moseyed on over to my gate and sat down. It was calm and I got to ignore everyone. No, Jeremy, I’m not saying I want to start traveling alone. But it’s nice to know that I can do it without much stress.
I sat by the window and read for a while. The sun set while we were flying. It was really pretty to watch from the air.
It was prettier in person…
And then we flew into Chicago in the dark. It’s one of my favorite times to fly into Chicago. I love Chicago at night.
All in all, it was a nice trip. I relaxed, got a TON of reading done, and am 95% positive that I ovulated while I was gone. 🙂 That was the whole point to the trip after all.
I’m in a good place today. The temperature in Chicago is supposed to hit 60 degrees. LOVE it!
The last time I posted, I mentioned burning down my parents’ barn… No, that wasn’t an emotional threat. It happened. 😉 It was old and unsalvageable, so away it went.
Isn’t the view behind it pretty? They’re putting a pond in instead. These fires were massive. They were so hot it was hard to get close to them. We didn’t need coats and it was fantastic. We had fun too.
I call this series "Smooches"
In other news, Jeremy and I are the proud new parents of two 8 week old rats. Yes, rats. They’re like mini cats, dogs, and bunnies. They’re adorable!
Roxy and Molly
They live in my office. We’re still getting used to each other. When they’re adults, they can weigh up to a pound and a half each. Woo! Right now, Roxy weighs 2.8 oz and Molly weighs 2.3 oz.
Last night, I feel like they gave us a glimpse into parenthood. Molly was sitting on my shoulder and Jeremy said, “I hope we’re not going to screw them up.” 😉 We’re very nervous about getting our baby rats to be super tame. If we’re nervous about this, how bad is it goes to be when we get an actual human baby? They give us something to focus on though, something to parents that needs parenting.
We even have feuding siblings! 😉
Meanwhile, Jeremy got his appointment with the urologist moved up to March 23rd. That’s in 2 1/2 weeks! We’ll have some definitive answers in 2 1/2 weeks! I feel like this whole process has been dragging on and on and on and on. I see the light at the end of the diagnostic tunnel. The infertility treatment tunnel is on the other side, but we’re coming to the end of a HUGE tunnel.
I’m getting outside today with Alice and Bella. It’s almost garden season. ❤
I had another acupuncture appointment yesterday. I had a much less painful period this month, so I’m going to guess it’s doing something since it’s the only change I’ve made. She added a few extra needles to my neck and ears to help with anger. I’ve had a lot of anger lately. Part of it is stemming from normal pms, but honestly, I feel like I’m angry at the world lately. I’m angry that we’re going through this, I’m angry that other people are having babies, I’m angry about having that HSG test next week, and I think most of all I’m angry that I’m so angry. If that makes sense…
It seems like the crying out of grief has subsisted and this horribly intense anger has taken its place. I think I would prefer the crying though. My anger is causing arguments and that’s never good. Poor Jeremy has to live with me… 😉
We had an argument last night (that turned out to be a misunderstanding on both of our parts: fail) and through the arguing, I started to realize that I’m not as ok with that HSG test as I was wanting to be. It bothers me that something foreign will be in my body. It makes me uncomfortable that so many people we be looking at these parts of my body.
Will this theoretical baby ever know how much we want it? What we’re willing to do to have it? How hard we’re trying to fight for it? I think that makes me angry too (and I know it shouldn’t). My parents didn’t have a hard time getting pregnant with my sister or I. We were planned, but they didn’t have to try very hard. While we were growing up, I don’t think we stopped and thought about how much we were wanted; that two people decided to bring us into the world. I appreciate it now. I appreciate the emotions that went into those decisions. Would I ever have thought about it without being in this situation?
Another thing on my mind today is the dreams I’ve been having. Tell me if this is normal… I dream about a baby, our baby. Over the course of the dream, the baby is either taken away from us or dies. The details are usually completely obscure, but last night things got hauntingly detailed. Our baby was born. It was a girl. We knew her birthday. She had a name. I remember being irritated that my family forgot to throw a baby shower ;). All of a sudden, our baby is a year or two old and she’s dying. She’s had some kind of illness that couldn’t be cured. My mom and sisters were there and they just didn’t understand why I was so upset. Then she got taken away from me. Then I woke up.
I hate these dreams. They happen a couple times a week. They’re getting bad enough that I don’t want to sleep any more. I understand why I’m having them. I understand what they’re supposed to represent. I would just really like them to stop.
And for the very last bit of news, I got admitted to graduate school over the weekend. It feels like a ounce of sanity in the middle of complete insanity. 😉
It’s cold in Chicago today. Like Epically cold. It’s even ice cold in Starbucks. All the more incentive to make myself some fingerless mits… 😉
In other news… Finals have begun..
Or, rather, they’ve been begun. I’m so close to being finished for the semester it hurts a little. My motivation is lacking more than ever. I have to give a debate today about the dire negative effects of global warming. Who might really disagree with me I have no idea. After that, I need to write a 6 page paper on Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” It will probably only end up being 5 pages because I just don’t care anymore. To finish the week, Lukasik’s final portfolio is due on Wednesday afternoon. Cake.
I have a final on Monday, but I don’t plan on even thinking about it until Saturday night.
I found out after my sociology class today that I received an A+ on my final paper and thus secured an A in the class. I really liked that class. For the first time, I think I’m a little sad about a class ending. I know I often complained about the class not presenting multiple sides to an issue, but I feel like it’s one of the first times I’ve had a class that helped me learn how to think critically about the world I live in. Everything we talked about this semester is applicable to current events. I do love English and literature, but little of it has real world applications.
I don’t think I’ll be getting my masters in English. I might work on an MFA at some point, but I think I’m finished studying English literature. I’ll look into sociology or education or something that can be more productive in helping people. I definitely wasn’t ready to choose my career at 18. Or at 19. Or at 20… Or at 23… So, I’m very glad I opted to get a degree in something that allows me to be more flexible with the direction I go in next, something that grew as I grew and allowed me to become anyone I wanted to be.
In other news, an elderly gentleman next to me just asked me what “LOL” means… It made me laugh out loud. 😉
Off to a week full of caffeine!
PS. CHRISTINE, DON’T LEAVE ME!! KOREA DOESN’T REALLY NEED YOU!! 😉
I’ve always hated poetry. It was only two or so years ago that I actually started reading it. Its grown on me to the point that I can read it for class, do the analysis and hold a conversation. But anything more than that? No, thank you. 😉
Unfortunately lovely Professor Lukasik doesn’t share my lack of sentiment towards poetry and as we are now in our poetry unit in Creative Writing, I have been forced to write my first poem… It’s a list poem — no rhyming, no rhythm.. is that really a poem?
Anywho, I was thinking about what I wanted to write it on when I was going home on Monday. I stayed in the library studying later than I really meant to and it was pretty dark and dead downtown by the time I started heading for the train. A street performer was playing the saxophone down the block. If I had any money on me and he was anywhere near me, I would have given him a dollar. He was very good.
I couldn’t find the exact song he was playing on youtube, but here’s something for you to listen to while you read my first poem.. 😉
I have fabulous news!! My beautiful, new iPhone 4 has arrived and I love it!
When I got my first iPhone a year or so ago, I wasn’t so sure about it. It had so many capabilities (some awesome, some completely unnecessary) and was a little intimidating. Soon enough, however, I grew to love and even (*gasp*) be slightly dependent on it for directions, entertainment, and communication. It was probably a slight blessing when it got stolen by one of Chicago’s infamous miscreant youths on the train earlier this summer (and thereby proved the CPD really is useless…).
How is that a blessing, you might ask? It showed me that life goes on just fine sans technology… or something… 😉
This has only been compounded since I offered my computer a glass of white zinfandel last weekend. It didn’t care for it, unfortunately, and is still drunk and passed out on my dining room table.. Light weight… 😉 Life goes on, right?
So what have I been doing with myself lately without my phone and without my computer?
Welllllll….. I dug out my old CD player and some old CDs (Nsync is making a come back, you’ll see 😉 )
I’ve been unpacking, cleaning, reading, knitting, writing… and I’m loving it!
Its obviously the summer of socks.. =)
You know what else I’m loving? The WordPress Blog app! 😉
It stormed in Chicago today. Well, it stormed all over the Midwest, but as I was in Chicago, we’ll go with that. Torrential, sideways rain, wind, thunder, lightning, and, of course, the tornado sirens made the evening complete. 😉
A friend from high school, Emre Cihangir, posted this picture on his facebook shortly after things started clearing up and I love it!
Chicago after Storm by Emre Cihangir
I’ve never loved storms. I don’t mind a nice rain, but I’ve always been pretty scared of storms. Nothing traumatic ever really happened to scare me (unless you count being allowed to watch Twister at age 8 –thanks, Jennie…) but to this day I’m very uncomfortable with warm weather storms. Love snow storms, hate anything tornado related. Granted, tornadoes are very scary things that can definitely happen, but my fear is a little irrational.
The contemplative mood that has currently taken over my life made me wonder why I’m so scared of something I can’t control. It made me wonder what other things I’m scared of and why.
The more I think about it the more it all seems to fit together. I’m petrified of dying without accomplishing my life goals, without seeing the world. Am I really not as invincible as I’d like to believe?
Ernest Hemingway once said that, “Cowardice, as distinguished from panic, is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination. Learning to suspend your imagination and live completely in the very second of the present with no before and no after is the greatest gift a soldier can acquire.”
So here’s my question: Am I cowardly or just ambitious? We’ll go with a little of both. While I’m not a soldier, Hemingway is right in that I can’t live the life I want to live if I’m always stuck in the “what if’s.” Life has a way of working itself out, and sometimes my imagination is a little to vivid for my own good. 😉
Jessica
From My Bathtub 