The Good Egg

My temperature spiked this morning, which I guess means that my egg dropped yesterday. *shrug* Too bad it was wasted.

I had my follow-up appointment on Friday with my doctor, and despite my bribery attempts to get her to let us start trying THIS cycle, she wants me to wait one more. So, I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of Aunt Flo yet again. I am venturing to guess at the very latest, it should show up about sixteen days from now, which would put us around Valentine's Day. Ye-ha.

Overall, my doctor said I look very good and everything looks normal, although my uterus is slightly enlarged, so I am going back in about two weeks for a follow-up sonogram to see if there is any problem. Which, she is sure, there is not.

I don't know. I'm just along for the ride.

The doctor's appointment otherwise was fine. I was able to be IN the same room with pregnant women with no tears rolling. I didn't relive the whole miscarriage over again just by being in the office. Both good things.

The only bad thing that happened was when the nurse walked me into the room after weighing me and after asking how I was, to which I answered quite chipperly, "fine", she proclaimed that "Everything happens for the best and for its own reason."

Okay, I've made my feeling on that statement quite clear. I just looked at her and said, "Have YOU ever had a miscarriage?" She got very quiet after I said that.

Moral of the story, and my tip to everyone out there...if you don't know what to say to someone when they have had a miscarriage, the best course of action is to say NOTHING!

Enough of that. Nothing much else has happened this week since my pseudo-sick day. I have worked my little tail off and then some, I went to a Mary Kay party Saturday and scored some great stuff, and spent the rest of the weekend hanging out with my hubby. No stitching, if you can believe it!! Now I'm sitting here on my bed, getting ready to paint my nails, wondering why Moira is scratching furiously at the door of my closet, and watching Shrek 2. I have a very early morning tomorrow, so I'm going to hit the sack a little early and see if I can get a head start on my shut eye for the week. Tomorrow is my FIRST FIELD DAY alone in I don't even know how long and to be honest, I'm kind of looking forward to it.

And it's a short week! Thursday I am flying to Charlotte to see my best friend S who I haven't seen in years for a great girl weekend. The next three nights will be filled with laundry and getting packed up for the weekend.

Wish I had more to report, but I just don't. We bought two sets of Grandwood blinds for our living room tonight from Home Depot, and I bought a couple of inexpensive sterling silver costume jewelry rings this weekend from Target. That's about the extent of the excitement today. More later!

My first finish of 2005!

As promised, here is my first 2005 finish! This is Friends, by Terrence Nolan of Dimples Design, and even though it is gorgeous, it is the worst leaflet I have ever stitched from! This took 22.5 hours and is stitched on 32 ct. distressed vintage linen. I started it in 2001.



Very sparkly and pretty after I added all the beads and things. SKH stands for the initials of my bestest friend, S, whom I'm going to have the pleasure of visiting weekend after next!

Note: I stitched this for my house in honor of my friendship with S. I needed to clarify that!

I'm not sure yet what I'm going to put in its place in my rotation, but it'll be one of my small projects from my hatbox. And I stand corrected...I finished two projects in 2004! Crystal Heart by Nan Caldera and a wizard bookmark by Cross My Heart.

I'll get this put up on my website as soon as Verizon decides to cooperate! Grrr.

Good morning, Rip Van Winkle

I called in sick this morning, and thankfully, I got Queenie's voice mail so I didn't have to lie to her face. But it wasn't a complete lie...I did feel pretty poorly at 8 am this morning when I called in, and P said I sounded sufficiently pathetic on the phone. And THEN, I went back to sleep and slept in until 12:30. Granted, I stayed up until almost four, so that's only just under nine hours of sleep, nothing crazy, but I feel like I have slept the entire day away and if I had wanted to, I'm sure I could have gone back to bed for several more hours. But, I admit, it's mostly sick-of-work-itis. I don't call in sick very often, but every now and then I just need a day off.

Not much to report so far this morning. I'm having a problem with my Dooney bag...the first one I bought. I noticed back in September that the straps were starting to look cracked and dirty, a problem that I thought was the result of carrying the bag during the day when I went to fires, but I cleaned the handles yesterday with saddle soap and it is obvious that the handles are defective or something. Fortunately, the cool thing about Dooney and Bourke is that they offer a no questions asked guarantee on their bags for one year from the date of purchase, and my purses are the ONLY things that I keep the receipts on. I already emailed Dooney and they said that they will take a look at the bag if I will ship it to them, and reimburse me for the shipping if it is deemed to be a product defect. So we'll see. I'm not exactly thrilled with sending a $155 purse through the mail, but if I want it fixed, it seems I have no other options. I'm going to send it through UPS so I have a record of it, and we'll see what the alternative is. I think they should just replace the handles, but apparently if they deem it is not cost-effective to repair the bag, they will just replace it. I can't imagine in a million years that my bag would not be repairable, but we'll see.

I guess I'll get going now and walk the dogs and get my "sick day" started. P called in sick too and he's been doing nothing this morning so far but playing his new Playstation 2 basketball game that he got for like $20 at Target. Guys are so easily amused.

Later, tators.

Why can't I be happy?

Last night, after I posted my very late night blog entry, I went to this fertility board that I hang out at and read up on some of the entries in the journals, threads, etcetera.

Along with all the women that are still pregnant when I was pregnant, I got to read one of the girls' happy news that she just found out she is having a girl.

This is the same girl that I shared a due date with. Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled for her, but I couldn't help thinking about how I wish that were me too. And of course, the sadness started all over again. All I could think about today was how if I were still pregnant, I'd probably be finding out right about now if I were having a boy or a girl, I'd be well into maternity clothes instead of wishing my period would hurry up and get here, and I'd be probably getting my nursery ready. Shopping for baby stuff. Registering at Toys R Us. Hurrying to finish all my baby stitching. I'd be at about nineteen weeks right now...almost halfway there.

In other words, I'd be doing a lot of things right now that I just can't bring myself to do. It's amazing how one second you can be doing fine...I've felt fine for the last week or so, and then bam, something happens to remind you of what you lost. It's still so sad for me. I'm trying to focus on the bright side and think about how fun it's going to be to find out I'm pregnant all over again, etcetera, but I'm also very scared about miscarrying again, which I guess is pretty normal from what I've heard.

The silver lining in all of this is that my body is definitely back to normal. I'll spare the groty details for the male readers of my blog, but for those who know fertility signs, the egg white has arrived! It is SO TEMPTING to just start trying now, but I read on the internet last night that if you get pregnant before your uterine lining is thick enough, or before the progesterone levels are back to normal in your body, or whatever, you could risk having another miscarriage. I certainly don't want that, so I'm going to resist temptation and just be patient. I'm still charting my temperatures, so we'll see what happens over the next week or so. The sooner I ovulate, the sooner Aunt Flo will come, and the sooner I can start trying again! I want to be pregnant again very badly!

It's only a few more weeks, right? I can be patient.

I think I'm going to be a bad kid tomorrow and take the day off from work. A, it's 3:30 am and I'm still awake, which isn't a good sign, and B, I have a serious case of don't-want-to-work-itis. So, I just need to contemplate whether or not I'm going to think of a creative excuse for being sick, or just come clean with my boss and tell her I want to take a personal day.

In stitching news, I'm only about an hour or so away from my first finish of 2005. It could be my only finish. I didn't do so well in 2004...I only finished one thing and it was a Just Nan, which in my mind doesn't really count. I am stitching what I honestly consider to be the worst leaflet I have ever purchased. Any Dimples Designs fans out there, you might want to stop reading. I took a Terrence Nolan class about four years ago and bought the Friends kit. Here's the link to my friend Annette's finished piece so you can see what I'm talking about. I really put it on the back burner and threw it in my hatbox, so up until about a week ago, I only had about ten hours into it. I have since come to the conclusion that it is the WORST leaflet I have ever stitched from. There are errors everywhere, it is confusing, and I consider it a bad sign when you rely more on the leaflet picture for guidance on where to stitch than the actual leaflet, don't you? I really wish he had proofread that leaflet before giving it to us. Anyway, as torturous as it was, I finally was able to get the stitching done on it, thanks to my buds Annette and Terry, and tomorrow I'm going to sew the beads and treasures on and call it a day. I have done one other Dimples Designs pattern...the Himalayan Blue Poppy...I have For Amelia in progress, and I have a small selection of other Dimples Designs leaflets, but I think that's probably going to be it after I finish them. I just can't stand being so confused!

Oh, well. More tomorrow. I made myself a promise that I'm going to get back to working out starting tomorrow, but I can't take that too seriously...I've made about a million "I'm starting my diet Monday" promises over the last month since I miscarried and haven't held true to any of them!!!

Open Water

I watched Open Water tonight.

If anyone has not seen that movie, be warned...it'll scare the crap out of you. It basically is a movie about a couple who goes diving in the Carribbean on vacation, gets left behind by their boat, and then basically sits out in the open water in the ocean for about twelve hours while sharks circle around them.

Let me preface this by stating that I am deathly afraid of sharks. I think I watched Jaws at too young of an age. I actually had dreams of sharks in our pool when I was a kid and one night, even dreamed that I saw a shark fin in our carpet. Then there was Jaws 2, Jaws 3, Jaws: The Revenge, and then that recent shark movie, Deep Blue Sea.

Then you add in all the OTHER movies with things in the water that eat people, like Anaconda, Lake Placid, and it basically makes me never ever want to go in the water again. I've never really been keen on swimming in non-chlorinated water to begin with. I don't like not knowing what's below me. I don't like not being able to see down below where I am, and even if I could, would that make it better? I don't think so. It's just freaking creepy!

When P and I went to Cancun a few years ago, we went snorkeling, and after we spied some barracudas about forty feet away, that was the end of that.

And after I saw THIS little gem of a movie tonight, uh...well...I don't think there are any scuba diving trips to Grand Cayman in my future. No, thank you.

I know it's been nearly a week since I blogged, and it's really just because I have nothing to say. Nothing new to report. I've worked an insane amount of hours yet again this past week. The man that hates me (the a$$ that threw me out of his house) has now siced his wife on me, and the email war is continuing. I'm waiting very patiently for my new company car to come in. I'm stitching up a storm as usual...I worked on Guardian for almost seven hours today! My face is breaking out like I'm thirteen years old. I'm anxiously counting the days until I get my period again and P and I can start trying to get pregnant. I'm not eating great, but not eating bad...no time to work out this week although I did get on the treadmill Monday night for a while.

The one ray of sunshine in my life right now is that my best bud, S, found a fare to Charlotte for $176, so I'm going to spend the first weekend in February at her condo! I can't wait! It's been over three years since I saw her, and I really am looking forward to it. A weekend with my nearest and dearest will really do my soul some good.

Welp...I guess that's it, folks. Sorry I don't have more exciting news...

Mary Kay, steak, and The Spy Who Loved Me

That was pretty much my day yesterday. I took the dogs to the vet, went to a Mary Kay party, met P and a couple of his friends at Saltgrass for dinner, and then came home and watched The Spy Who Loved Me on cable. I had never seen it before. But then again, there are many James Bond movies I have never seen. The only ones I have seen are:

-Octopussy
-For Your Eyes Only
-A View to a Kill
-Tomorrow Never Dies
-The World is Not Enough
-Die Another Day
-Goldeneye

And now, I can add The Spy Who Loved Me to that list.

I also fell asleep last night watching tv after the movie, so not only was the Sunday Brunch not posted on time, but I also only got about 45 minutes in on Titania before I gave up. It wasn't that it wasn't fun, I think I was just tired!

I really quite honestly don't have much to report. And I don't have much to do today either. I'm going over to a friend's house this afternoon to stitch for a bit, and then tonight I need to focus on laundry and getting things ready for the week, as is the custom on Sundays. I'm not working today at all. I decided Friday on the way home that I would not be spending any of my weekend working, and aside from checking my work email a few minutes ago and making plans to stop by the office today and pick up something I need for tomorrow, I'm holding true to that promise. I have one big estimate to write this week which isn't complicated, a few supplements, and that's about it, but my boss already told me that I'm getting either a fire if one comes in tomorrow (which I'm sure it will) or some storm claims.

Thanks to everyone for the happy wishes. Aunt Flo is just about packing her bags, but there was no mistaking her visit!

Oh, well. I'm off. Time to walk the dogs. I hope everyone has a great rest of their weekend.

Here's my Sunday Brunch:

1) Do you have a neighbor that just drives you insane? No.
2) Does one of your neighbors have something about their home that you covet? I am supremely jealous of the fences of two of my neighbors because they are brand-new and look great!
3) Do you have a neighbor on your street that neglects their home, pure and simple? There used to be, but they moved away. They never took care of their front lawn and their house always looked so messy and grungy. Their backyard was full of crap that they needed to throw away and never did.
4) Is there a neighbor on your street with interesting decorating habits? Same people. They painted their soffit and fascia boards electric blue and it was just nauseating.
5) Do you have a neighbor on your street that you find attractive? Yes. *blush* There is this guy on the corner that runs his own landscaping business named G and I just think he's hot.

Welcome home, Aunt Flo!

I apologize in advance if this is too much information, but I have not been so excited to see my period show up since I got it when I was twelve! I started spotting lightly last night, and I held my breath today, and voila, BINGO tonight!

YAY! I'm not a barren reproductive loser after all!!!!!! I'm just kidding, of course, but I was really starting to worry that things weren't okay and that my body hadn't pressed the reset button. My doctor is insistent that I wait two periods to start trying again, so every day that it didn't show up was one day farther away. She had predicted it would show up 2-6 weeks after the miscarriage, and it'll be six weeks exactly on Monday.

Nothing like waiting until the last minute to torture me, but I'll take it. P said he hasn't seen me that happy in a long time. Talk about a ray of sunshine breaking through the clouds.

This week has been pretty awful. I'll spare everyone the details, but I got a HORRIBLE email from my mother Monday night in response to my returning the check. I can't even bring myself to post it in my blog. It's just horrible. I had to move it to another folder in my inbox so I wouldn't see it every time I opened my email. I think it's a safe assumption that I will not be speaking to my mother for quite a long time. P is so angry with her, he immediately applied for a small loan from his 401K so we could finish paying her back for our foundation repairs that we borrowed money from her for two years ago. I can't even say anything about it really, it just upsets me so.

Let's see...what else has gone wrong? Well, the guy that threw me out of his house a month ago is making me absolutely crazy at work. He and his wife are playing the "let's email Erica a million times a day and make her insane" game, and it's just wreaking havoc on my work schedule!

A guy at work asked me this week how pregnancy was going. He obviously hadn't heard about the miscarriage yet. Uh, the fact that I'm not showing wasn't your first clue? I know he felt bad, but sometimes guys are dumb. I would be nearly seventeen weeks by now...definitely in maternity clothes by now.

Oh, and my insurance changed on January 1, so I have to file a bunch of papers with my new carrier before I can see my therapist. I miss her.

My skin is breaking out, but at least now I know why!

I'm craving chocolate like crazy, but at least now I know why!

Tomorrow should be an all right day. I have a team lunch and meeting that will take a few hours and then I can work quietly this weekend. I plan to start Titania tomorrow night, so that'll be fun.

With that, I'm off to bed, but this entry is posted in red JUST FOR AUNT FLO! I want her to feel welcome and show up ON TIME next month! I'm being a gracious hostess!

I love you, Aunt Flo!

The beauty of stitching

Hum de dum dum.

I know my blog has been pretty quiet lately, but I just don't have a lot to report lately. Pretty much my life has consisted of work, work, work, more work, sleeping, and the occasional few hours of stitching thrown in for good measure.

Yesterday I slept in until 11 am, and then spent 10.5 hours stitching. Seriously. I stitched for 6.5 hours on Sweetheart and then 4 hours on Summer Faerie. I can't even remember the last time I stitched that long continuously, but it's been a few years. I didn't leave the house. I did shower and walk the dogs, but other than two loads of laundry, I didn't do anything productive other than rest my mind and concentrate on making little tiny crosses. It was fantastic! And I slept great last night.

Stitching is a beautiful thing. I first started stitching when I was nineteen. I used to be a waitress and I'd wait tables all night after going to class all day. What would end up happening is that I'd come home at night, wired and hyper, and wouldn't be able to go to sleep. My mom had suggested that I start stitching the summer after my first year in college, and I just really jumped on it and ran away with it. Stitching was my way to wind down at night so I could sleep. And ever since then, it has been the best therapy I can ever find for anything that is bothering me.

I love my rotation. My projects are so much fun. I have so many colorful ones in it, and I am really enjoying them all so much right now. I have 15 projects left to go, and then I'm either going to start another round or do a "baby" rotation, not sure what yet. I had thought when I was pregnant that I would pull out my baby projects and do a small rotation of like six to get them finished quickly, but now I'm not sure if I'll do that. Still thinking about it!

The only problem is that it requires a lot of sitting. It is now official...I feel fat. If you subtract a few pounds of water, I've gained ten pounds. I'm now one size above my normal one. I can't find an ounce of motivation anywhere. Ten pounds compared to the seventy I lost is a fart in the wind, but yet I can't seem to find that inspiration, willpower and motivation that got me so far in 2003. I'm still looking for it.

I got a raise on Friday...8%. I was extremely disappointed. I really expected that I would get more like 10-12% considering how much I worked in 2004. But I guess I should just be grateful.

Here's my Sunday Brunch for a change...

1) What color (or colors) is your home painted on the interior? It is pale jade in our workout room, lavender in our office, juniper blue in our bedroom, pale blue in our bathroom, and this nasty eggshell white throughout the rest of the house since we haven't gotten to it yet.
2) What color (or colors) is your home painted on the exterior? A disgusting peach color. It really needs to be repainted as well.
3) If you could paint your car any color with no loss in value, what color would it be? Turquoise!
4) Do you paint your fingernails and toenails? What is your favorite color for each if you do? I do...and my favorite for my toes is bright red because it shows up well, pale pale pink for my fingernails because it looks delicate and feminine.
5) Have you ever played paintball? Have you ever wanted to? Never have, never wanted to.

What is a gift?

What exactly is a gift?

I went and looked it up tonight. According to Webster's, a gift is defined as the following:

Something that is bestowed voluntarily and without compensation.
The act, right, or power of giving.
A talent, endowment, aptitude, or inclination.

Someone needs to explain that to my mother. This post will be classified as a vent, because I'm just so darn irritated and my feelings are hurt!

For Christmas, my mother told me not to get her anything. She even emailed me to be emphatic. Pursuant to her wishes, I didn't get her anything and sent her a card. I told her also not to get me anything, which of course she ignored. The day after Christmas, we received a card in the mail with a check for $100. In the memo line, she wrote, "E and P-Xmas".

Am I right to assume that this money is mine to do with it what I will?

Apparently I assumed WRONG. P and I took the money she gave us (sort of...we hadn't cashed the check yet), a check from my great-uncle, the rest of my bonus from my company for doing that on-call nonsense during the holiday week, and the giftcard to Best Buy from my father and stepmother, and bought a Sony surround sound system for our living room on sale this past weekend. P has been drooling over them for quite some time, so it's not like we made a rash decision. And the sound system that was there previously? It was an old stereo that I got in high school...no joke! (It's now back in my bedroom and desperately needs a cleaning.) My point in going into details is just to illustrate that this was NOT a spur of the moment purchase. P and I never take trips or do anything fun...it's for occasions such as this. And we watch a lot of movies!

So tonight, I'm instant-messaging with Mom on AOL and I casually mention to her what her gift went toward. I instantly get a lecture that I should have used that check on bills or saving for future events. Over the computer. And then she proceeds to tell me that spending money on material items does not buy happiness.

Exsqueeze me? Baking powder? Since WHEN do gifts come with instruction manuals??????? Since WHEN do I have to justify anything to her? Granted, yes, I've been shopping a little bit more than usual lately, but so the f*&^ what?

Please keep in mind that this is NOT the first time that my mother has pulled a stunt like this and made an insensitive comment (I won't even touch the comments she made while I was pregnant and after my miscarriage), but it's the first time in a long time that she's made me feel like a fourteen-year-old asking for permission to buy a CD.

At first I was very incredulous and asked her if she was kidding...when she told me that she wasn't, I immediately ended the conversation and told her that I would send back the check tomorrow and not to send me ANY MORE money. And I meant it. The check is already sealed up in an envelope and I'm sending it back. She and her husband have like 350,000 Frequent Flyer miles and they were going to give me some to use on a flight to North Carolina to visit them and my oldest dearest friend, but now, forGET it. There is no way I would accept that now after what she said to me. I do not need to justify anything that I buy or do. It's no one's business but mine! I'm an adult, I work very hard, and if I want to buy a surround system (a reasonably priced one at that), I should be allowed to without being subjected to judgement!

At first, it really hurt my feelings and I cried...I couldn't believe that she had said something like that to me, just when I'm starting to kind of get it together emotionally...and then I just got plain mad. P, of course, had no reaction...he came to the conclusion long ago that my mother just has no social skills, plain and simple.

Wish it were that simple for me. I'm VERY angry, hurt and disappointed, and I'm SO SICK of my mother making comments to criticize what I do with my money. When I told her that P and I were starting a family, I got a thirty-minute lecture about how P and I really just can't afford to have children. Uh, who CAN afford to have children when the average cost of a college education is like $100K right now? That's SO not the point, and if P and I wait until we can afford to have children, it'll never happen!

Anyway. That's the current drama in my life at the moment. Grr. Am I just totally nutso here or am I justified in being upset? Please, share your opinions!

Otherwise, I'm fine. Dell will be out in the morning tomorrow to replace my motherboard. I was able to borrow a loaner laptop from the office and switch out the hard drives (mine is intact, thank GOD), and work is...well, it's going along. I broke a nail today, it rained cats and dogs, I actually got my fat butt on the treadmill for 20 minutes of steep incline walking, and stitching is going just swimmingly!

Off to bed...thanks for checking in with me. I'm horribly behind on my blog reading...must change that this week and see what's what with everyone!

Also, a special shout-out to my dad tonight...today is his birthday! Happy birthday, Dad...hope your day was special!

Happy New Year

AS IF the month of December could get any worse, my laptop chose TODAY to break down. Being that this is my fifth laptop since I've been employed with my company, my first instinct was to panic and start making panicky teary phone calls to my help desk, Dell, my boss and our operations manager...but after a couple of hours on the phone with Dell's tech support, I finally figured out that it is a worn out memory, worn out motherboard, and probably my ac adaptor that is going on the fritz, although I seriously doubt that last one. So...I am without my laptop this weekend...and it will not be fixed until Tuesday, which means until then I am STUCK on my husband's desktop which I hate! At least the lack of my laptop means I have no excuse not to stitch and work out!

This week has been extremely busy with work as usual, I've worked out a few times to the moaning and groaning of my muscles, and I think I've lost a few pounds of water, not that you can tell by the way my jeans are fitting. *sigh* I don't know what I expected...it takes several weeks before everything starts running smoothly and the weight starts coming off, right?

Anyway. I'm going to write more tomorrow...but right now I'm exhausted and ready for sleep. It's been a trying day with lots of tears. I just pray that the over-the-phone diagnosis was correct...and I didn't lose my hard drive. I really need to start making a habit of backing up my data on my laptop every week on CDs.

Happy New Year to all and best wishes for a great 2005!