In Memory Of Evelyn

One year ago today, tragedy struck my friend Brandi's family. Her five-year-old niece, Evelyn Miller, went missing from her Iowa home. After days of searching, Evelyn was found murdered in a local river.

The investigation into Evelyn's death is still open, and her killer has yet to be arrested.

I didn't know Evelyn personally. Over the last year, though, I've heard so many stories of what a great kid she was. How much she loved her younger brothers, how she enjoyed spending time with Brandi and her husband Joe, and how much she loved getting to dress up as a flower girl in Brandi's wedding. She was a five-year-old girl whose life was cut tragically short, and whose family misses her every day.

A memorial fund has been set up in Evelyn's memory. The fund will be used to make donations to community programs in Evelyn's name. Anyone interested in making a donation can send it to:

Evelyn Miller Memorial Fund
First Security Bank & Trust
809 Clark St., PO Box 577
Charles City, IA 50616

Just call us Mr. and Mrs. Social Butterfly

What a week! J's team at the hospital has been having one social function after another this week, and we're kind of pooped! Wednesday night we went to a baseball game, last night it was a barbeque at his program supervisor's house, and tonight we're hosting a few friends from his medical school for a pre-start of internship dinner. Saturday he's officially an Intern, and I may not see him again for the next three years.

It's nice to be getting out so much, though. One of my biggest problems when I moved to DC was that I didn't meet many friends until we'd been there for over a year. That first year was tough, especially since I'd come from my hometown where I have a close-knit group of friends I've known since high school. Right now I'm spending a lot of time getting to know the wives of J's colleagues, and so far they all seem like really nice, down-to-earth women. I'm almost embarassed to say this, but I'm especially loving the group because only one of the intern's wives has kids. All the others are around my age and childless. After that first social function where I was the only woman there without a toddler or baby in tow (I later discovered that all the wives I met there were married to second or third year residents) I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to really hang out with or relate to any of the other wives in the program. Happily, that doesn't appear to be the case.

I'm liking this place more and more every day.

Meme

I've been tagged for a meme by Olympix, so the pressure is ON! ;-)

7 Things I Want to Do Before I Die

1) Be a mom (well, duh)
2) Live in a foreign country
3) Visit Egypt
4) Learn to sew
5) Learn to cook (not just boil water)
6) Live in an urban area, not just in the suburbs
7) Become a teacher

7 Things I Can't Do

1) Get pregnant (HA!)
2) Cook
3) Sew (okay, okay, I'll think of some new things)
4) Calculus
5) The splits
6) Leave my husband alone when he's irritable
7) Break my internet habit

7 Things That Attracted Me to My Partner

1) His rugged good looks
2) The way he held the door open for me without even thinking twice about it--just did it out of habit.
3) His sense of humor
4) His laugh
5) The way he treated my friends like his friends
6) How much my cat liked him the first time he met her
7) How he's one of the only men on whom a buzz cut doesn't look weird

7 Books I Read Over and Over

1) High Tide in Tucson
2) Pride and Prejudice
3) Master and Commander
4) The Princess Diaries
5) Outlander
6) Good in Bed
7) Confessions of a Shopaholic

7 Movies That I Love

1) Beauty and the Beast
2) Good Will Hunting
3) Gone With the Wind
4) Ever After
5) The Incredibles
6) Notting Hill
7) Shrek

Okay, now I'm going to tag a few people. Ummm...

Jamila
Muffy
Erin

Random Thoughts on My Screwed-Up Body

Tonight's another rough night. I think I'm finally coming out of my moving-induced good mood and realizing that hey, I'm still not pregnant. I'm also having a hard time even booking an appointment with the doctor I need to see BEFORE I can get a gynecology consult, and my spotting is getting worse. A lot worse. It's actually been this way since I had my HSG, but I'd convinced myself for the last two cycles that it was stress-induced and that I'd go back to being "normal" after the move was over. Well, it's over and my cycle is still really screwed up.

I'm starting to have fantasies about giving up. About just saying "fuck it" and getting in touch with adoption agencies. I almost don't care about getting pregnant anymore, I just want to stop hurting so much. I just want to be able to go to a freaking baseball game with my husband and his colleagues and not get teary-eyed in the middle of the fourth inning because a couple with a baby sits down next to us.

I'm not really serious about giving up yet, but I'm getting close. J feels very strongly that it's important to figure out what's causing the spotting, just in case it's a more serious problem than infertility alone. I think he's right. I also think that I'm not the type of person who can go through this year after year. I knew a woman in DC who had been trying for three years. I couldn't do that. I couldn't take that many failed cycles or that much heartbreak.

So I'll keep plugging along. I'll keep pestering the hospital until I get my appointment. I'll probably nag Juan a few more times about getting a dog, just so I can have something small and needy to focus on during this process. And I'll probably post a lot more entries like this--generally frustrated and sad, but not being able to take any action towards fixing the problem just yet.

Chapter 547 of "I am not a nice person and I am easily provoked"

I yelled at the carpet cleaning man today.

Since we're officially out of the temporary apartment this Friday, I had to arrange for professional carpet cleaning. It felt like a big waste-o-money since we only lived there for two and a half weeks, but whatever. Rules are rules. It took me no fewer than 12 phone calls to different carpet cleaning companies before I found one where the person answering the phone WASN'T an asshole, so I was already irritated about the whole process. Who knew that people who cleaned carpets for a living were such jerks to prospective customers?

Anyway, I also had to mop, sweep, and generally clean things before we checked out, so I got to the apartment around noon. Ate a little lunch, cleaned, and settled down with a good book to wait for the carpet guys to come out.

I waited, and waited, and waited.

Finally, 5 minutes before the end of the window of time they'd told me to be at the apartment, I called J and asked him to give me the company's number. Were they coming or not? I got ahold of the guy, and it turned out that he was still 10 minutes away. Ten minutes isn't a big deal, but DUDE, if you're going to be late, CALL ME! It's not like he didn't have a cell phone, and especially since he wasn't even going to arrive until after the window had expired, the least he could have done was to give me a call from his last job (and they had my cell number--it was written right on the order form I had to sign after I paid him) to let me know that he'd be a little late.

I let him have it. Told him that if he was going to be late, he should have called me, the customer, to make sure that I was still going to be there. I really got more upset than the situation warranted, but if there's one thing I can't stand, it's people who are late and expect me to just sit around twiddling my thumbs until they arrive.

The guy arrived, I let him in and barked a few things about an enzymatic cleaner they needed to use because we have cats, blah, blah, blah, and then we didn't talk again until he was done 30 minutes later. I handed him the check, ushered him out the door, and drove home still pissed off.

I don't know. This is the third time in the last week that I've lost my cool at someone this way. First at P.F. Chang's where the kitchen screwed up our order and our server avoided us for 45 minutes rather than fix the problem, then at the P/X (base shopping center) for a variety of reasons all involving a coffee table I want, and now this. Maybe I need to work on my anger management.

Time to step away from the computer, C

It's no secret that I love internet message boards. Love them. When I was working, I'd keep at least one minimized on my computer screen at all times and check it obsessively during the day for new posts. Since being diagnosed with infertility I've joined several pregnancy and infertility-related boards for support, information, and entertainment. Some are better than others. Some suck. There are days when I think that I really should just stop going to a few because the members annoy me too much. Then there are the ones that make me mad...

Tonight I got into a raging flame war on one of the boards. Some women were bashing a couple of infertile ladies for asking completely understandable questions. Questions that I've asked myself, though not on that forum. I had to speak up for them. Had to point out that the women who were accusing them of being bad wives or bad friends had never been through infertility. They had no idea what these women were going through emotionally and physically, but were judging them pretty harshly. I called people bitches, told a few of them to go to hell, and then I decided that I needed to take a deep breath and figure out why I cared so much.

The thing is, it's so easy to feel like you know people you meet on these boards. Heck, I count some of my internet friends among my best friends. In my opinion, it's not necessary to live in the same state or time zone to connect with another person. But when do you draw the line and say to yourself that these people and their opinions don't matter? That they're going to go on with their ignorant, judgemental lives whether you flame them or not? That in the long run these forums don't really mean much?

I think it's high time that I take my own advice and just step away from the computer. It's not doing me any favors at the moment.

House: Version 2.0

Let me give you a little taste of what the last few days have been like at our house.

-Friday: Unpacking
-Saturday: Unpacking
-Sunday: Unpacking with a side of very frustrating furniture shopping
-Monday: Cleaning and unpacking

Needless to say, almost everything is now out of its box, but maybe half of those things are put away where they're supposed to be. I'm torn between feeling like I've really accomplished a lot and wanting to throw my hands up in the air and scream in frustration because things are still so disorganized. Lamps without lightbulbs or shades. TVs without stands, books without bookcases. We still have a lot of work ahead of us.

However, things ARE progressing and I'm going to post a few pictures just to give you all an idea of what this place looks like with furniture.


Family room, complete with TV that won't get a stand until next week and assorted homeless lamps. But look at the sofas! And the mantel clock that I spent time and effort centering!


The kitchen (slightly askew) viewed from the family room. Sadly, the kitchen is the most "done" room we have, mostly since Juan and I decided to start unpacking pots and plates as soon as the movers left. Guest appearance by the pretty, pretty roses J gave me for our third anniversary last week.


Our living room, which now sports an attractive pile of boxes that's approximately 3 1/2 feet high. I kid you not, this is a serious pile-o-boxes.


Aaaaaand the books. Everyone who knows me has been expecting this photo, and I agree that it's not pretty. I blame my book fetish mostly on the six years I spent working at a bookstore (I loved the employee discount a little too much) but freely confess that I've added substantially to my collection over the last three non-bookstore years. Virtual cookies to anyone who can spot the cat amongst the piles of literature.


Finally, Arcadia, who in my opinion has been spending FAR too much time lazing around, and not nearly enough helping me to unpack. Wake up lady, I've got a box of office supplies with your name written all over it!

DIE, DIE, DIE!

Guess what I woke up to this morning? If you guessed a BIG FAT SCORPION, you would be right.

J didn't have to go in until later than usual this morning, so after he woke up he went downstairs to drink some coffee and check his e-mail. That's when he found this on our couch.



AIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

Unlike me, however, J didn't scream or run around like a maniac after finding it. He managed to get it into a plastic cup, took a few pictures to scare me with later, and released it outside. Outside in our yard where I go every single day. In case you were wondering, no this is not my preferred method for dealing with potentially lethal household pests. You're supposed to kill them, make sure they're dead, and then destroy any and all evidence that they were ever there.

The good news is that we already had an appointment scheduled for an exterminator to come out today and he sprayed both inside and outside the house with stuff to kill scorpions, ants, and cockroaches. The bad news is that the scorpion he found is one of the most dangerous ones that lives in this area and we don't know exactly how it got in the house. I HOPE it came in while the movers were bringing our things inside yesterday or that it hid in one of the boxes that had been in storage all month. Hopefully there aren't more of them.

In any case, it's already been a very eventful day, and I haven't even made much headway with getting things unpacked. We have almost everything out of the boxes except for the books (and there are over 20 boxes of books just waiting for me upstairs) and office equipment. With any luck things will look good enough for me to post more pictures by the weekend.

Romance didn't die, it just grew up and bought a house

Focking Time Warner Cable Internet can bite me.

Oh, hi there. This was supposed to be a sweet, sappy entry about Juan's and my third anniversary (which is today) but instead I'm going to spend most of it cursing TIME WARNER CABLE INTERNET for being STUPID and NOT WORKING. Gah. We've spent (and by "we" I mean "Juan") several hours and a bazillion cell phone minutes over the last six days trying to get Time Warner to fix our internet service. It goes down every day around 1:00 in the afternoon, and doesn't come back on until after 5:00. The cost to us to have them come out and figure out what's wrong? A cool $200. Ergo, Time Warner can bite me, and we're totally switching to AT&T as soon as we can get them to come out and flick whatever switch needs to be flicked.

In other news, I'm giving the evil eye to anyone who dares to walk without clean socks on my shiny, clean hardwood floors that I spent 2 hours this afternoon Swiffering and mopping with Murphy's Oil Soap. Murphy's Oil Soap is the bomb. I love it.

About that anniversary thing--I feel like an enormous heel. Juan went in early this morning to try to get some personnel stuff sorted out, and I left him a somewhat snippy voicemail around 10:00 asking if he was going to call me at some point to let me know about how the personnel stuff was going. About five minutes later the doorbell rang and it was a florist with a big bouqet of roses, just for me. From Juan. Because it's our anniversary. I, on the other hand, didn't get him anything except very clean hardwood floors. Me = enormous heel.

I suppose that I did let him buy a big grill over the weekend, but that was less a present from me than from my parents. Thanks, Mom and Dad! We haven't cooked inside since we brought it home!

Tonight we're going out to dinner at our favorite local restaurant, and then tomorrow our furniture arrives. Hopefully Juan is able to get off the phone with FOCKING TIME WARNER CABLE INTERNET soon and we can start enjoying our anniversary. Happy three years to us!

Just for Adrienne

Apparently certain people who read this blog are impatient for more pictures, so here are a few to tide her over until the REAL pictures go up next week.


Here's our new bed with our too-small wedding quilt. The only thing I don't like about this bed is that we won't be able to use the quilt anymore.


The staircase, which the cats LOOOOOVE. Stairs are the best cat toy since bottle caps.


The family room, AKA junk central. Everything is getting stashed here until the furniture arrives.


My rosebushes, which I'm hoping will bloom more now that I've cut off all of the dead rose hips.


Codi, who really needs a drink of water since it's 103 degrees outside.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to take a nice cool bath in my lovely whirlpool tub.

Settling in

We're HOME!!! We got the keys shortly after my last post, and I've spent the last two days lugging all the stuff we had in the apartment to the new house and unpacking again. Unpacking sucks, but at least this time I know that I don't have to move it all again for 3-4 years. I'll post more pictures next Wednesday/Thursday after our furniture is finally delivered.

My top priority for now is cleaning everything and bringing the lawn back to life. Around here, having grass is more of a curse than a blessing, and since water is rationed I can only water Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. I also think our tree out front may have bugs or something, since it's losing a lot of leaves and the ones left on the tree aren't looking so hot. I may post pics soon to see if any of my gardening-savvy readers have ideas about what can be done for it.

Speaking of bugs, we found a scorpion next to our front door on Wednesday night and I proceeded to completely freak the hell out. Thankfully you can spray for them, but the fact is that this is the Southwest and scorpions are part of the package. I'm still calling the exterminator on Monday, though.

In other news, I should have my application for the teacher certification program turned in by the end of the month. I went over to the university earlier today to pick up some paperwork, and really liked the lady I talked to at the ATCP office. Hopefully that's a good sign about the type of people who run the program.

The Waiting Game

Well, it's official! We closed on the house this morning! Closing was amazingly easy, especially when compared to our last home buying experience. This time there were no last-minute suprises with the HUD-1, everyone showed up on time, and the woman from the title company was incredibly nice and helpful. None of the above were true when we bought the condo.

BUT, thanks to a weird Texas state law, we have to wait until our bank releases the funds to the title company before we get the keys. We didn't actually know this until last night when we did the walk-through, and it felt a little anti-climactic to sign all those papers and then go back to the apartment. We've got our fingers crossed that our bank is on the ball and does what they need to do this morning so we can start moving this afternoon. Not that there's much to move, but I'm guessing that it'll take at least 3 car trips to get everything we brought with us over to the house, plus we scheduled internet installation and delivery of our bed for this evening.

I suck at waiting...

Some exciting news

Two items of news that I think it's time to share. First, J and I are starting to look into adoption. We're giving the doctors another six months or so to at least diagnose me and possibly do an IUI cycle or two, but after that we're going to make a decision about how far we're willing to take ART before formally beginning the adoption process.

I may or may not write anything else about this before we reach that six month mark. Honestly, I've been spending a lot of time gathering information in the last few weeks, but until Christmas (or thereabouts) we want to focus most of our energy on getting pregnant. The good news is that the idea of adoption doesn't scare either of us--it's something we talked about LONG before we knew we'd have problems having biological kids. The bad news is that adoption is a long, difficult process, and being Active Duty military doesn't help.

The second piece of news is that I'm applying for a teacher certification program at the local universtiy! Provided I get all the paperwork I need soon, I should turn in my application by the end of the month, and hopefully know if I've been accepted by mid-July. I've been looking at this program for nearly a year now, and have been on the fence for a long time about whether or not to apply. Applying felt like acknowledging that I would be able to finish the entire 12 month program without any baby-related interruptions. Lately, though, I've decided that if I don't do it now there's a good chance I'll never do it, and I know that I'd come to really regret that.

In any case, I'm very excited about both the adoption research and the teaching program. We're also closing on the house tomorrow morning, so I'm sure that I'll be posting lots of attention whore-ish pictures in the very near future. I can't believe that in less than 24 hours I'm going to be HOME!

Happy House News

We just got confirmation from our agent that closing has been moved up to this Wednesday! That's almost a full week before we were originally supposed to close, and it means that we only have to spend another day and a half in this crummy little apartment! Hopefully the movers can deliver our things sometime this week too so we can finally get settled in for REAL!

In other news, It's hot as Hades here right now, and I'm starting to dread the hours between 2:00-5:00 because they're the hottest of the day. At least our air conditioning works well, which is more than I can say for our poor friends who also recently moved here. They have a swamp cooler that's barely working and their house just never cools off.

A Ton of Bricks

Tonight J and I went to a party for all the people in his new department. His boss was there along with all of the other residents and new interns. I'd been looking forward to going, mostly to meet some of the other wives and possibly start making some new friends. One thing I really hadn't thought about, though, was that there would be young children and babies there.

You may have noticed that I haven't written about my infertility in awhile. That's partly because after we cancelled our IUI last month I stopped seeing my RE and frankly there just hasn't been much to say. The bigger reason why I haven't written about it, though, is that emotionally I've been doing really well. The stress of moving and quitting my job and getting settled in a new place has totally and completely pushed infertility to the back burner, and I've really been enjoying my good moods and ability to be in the same room with a baby without feeling sad. Tonight seems to have brought it back front and center, and it's got me pretty down.

Why is infertility like this? Earlier today I was sitting in a room full of babies and pregnant women at the DMV and I was FINE. I mean, I was a little wistful, but I wasn't tempted to cry or feel very sorry for myself. But tonight all it took was seeing one 10 month old baby just as we walked in to the party, and I was fighting back tears for the next three hours. I couldn't believe how awful I felt, and it hit me even harder because it's been so long since I've felt this way. Felt like everyone in the world can have a baby except for me. Felt like I'd jump at the chance to give my right arm to get pregnant. Felt like running out of the room so I could bawl my eyes out in peace.

Of course, what I actually did was sit there on the couch, eat barbeque, and make small talk with all of the wives who were carrying around their gorgeous babies. Every single one of them asked me if we had kids, and every single time I almost said, "No, we're infertile." It's been so long since I've socialized with people who didn't know what we were going through that I actually have to stop myself from talking about it since it's not really something you bring up with a casual aquaintance. I hate that I don't have kids like they do. Hate that I'm looking for a job right now instead of settling into life as a stay and home mom. Hate that infertility is once again starting to dominate my thoughts and I don't know how to focus on anything else.

I think tomorrow I'm going to make an appointment with the OB/GYN clinc at the hospital. Clearly I'm ready to start getting some more answers about what's going on with me, and hopefully I'll find a doctor who'll take me seriously and try to figure out why this is happening to us. I'm also going to call the infertility clinic that I recently discovered is just down the street from our apartment. Maybe there's a support group around here I can join. I need some outlet for my feelings, and unfortunately I don't think the online community alone is going to cut it anymore.

Ahem.

Attention This Sorta Fairytale Readers:

THE CONDO IN MARYLAND IS OFFICIALLY SOLD!!!

10 Things I Hate About This Week

1) The SIX AND A HALF HOURS J and I spent trying to get new military ID cards today. SIX AND A HALF HOURS. The kicker is that we actually arrived at the office an hour before they opened this morning to try to avoid the usual massive wait. After the third or fourth hour we started openly laughing at the poor people who were over 100 spots behind us in line but refused to leave and come back tomorrow morning. No way, no how they're going to get cards before the office closes tonight.

2) In addition to the SIX AND A HALF HOURS we spent waiting today, we'll need to go back next week because J's school didn't submit the papers for his promotion and switch to Active Duty correctly, so both of our cards still have him listed as Reserve. Thankfully we won't have to wait in line again, but I'm mighty peeved that we have to go back at all.

3) Our next door neighbors at the apartment, who have started smoking on their balcony all the damn time. This wouldn't be a problem except that their balcony is right next to our A/C unit, so our living room smells like smoke. It's icky and I hate it, but it's not like I can ask them not to smoke on their own balcony, you know? At least I only have to tolerate it for 12 more days until we close on the house.

4) Our realtor in Maryland who still hasn't called us back to confirm that the closing for our condo actually happened this morning. It was scheduled for 11:00 am and we're assuming that no news is good news, but would it kill her just to pick up the phone to confirm that we are, officially, no longer property owners there?

5) The practically nonexistant cell phone reception we get in the apartment, which makes getting a call from our realtor a little difficult.

6) The dust storm that kicked up no less than 10 minutes after we washed my car yesterday, completely caking it in mud. Haaaaate dust.

7) Not having a microwave. I never realized just how many things I use it for or how much of a PITA it is to heat up a Lean Cuisine in the oven.

8) Not having my TiVo. I MISS MY TIVO!!!!

9) Our sucky, sucky air mattress that is so deflated by the time we wake up every morning that we're effectively sleeping on the floor. My back is killing me and we won't get our bed delivered until the 21st.

10) Having to buy a new washer and dryer AND refrigerator because the sellers of our house are taking theirs to San Antonio. It feels like we're just hemorraghing money right now, and while we can afford it, I don't like it.

Viva, Las Vegas!!!

I think this picture pretty much sums up just how awesome (and necessary) our weekend trip to Vegas was.


Yes, that's me with a margarita the length of my arm. It was tasty.


Juan had fun too, even though it's hard to tell from the photos I took of him.


We went to some kickass parties thrown by my former employer


Had truly excellent food (all paid for by my former employer)

And I did a little work too.


Not very much, though, because we were in VEGAS, and I had far more important things to do than work. Like find the chocolate fountain at the Bellagio.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip and a great way to once and for all say goodbye to my friends and former coworkers from DC.