Follow Friday Four Fill-in Fun–Week 14

A blogging friend of mine hosts this event on Fridays, and I’m FINALLY getting around to joining in!    You can check out her blog at http://wwwfeelingbeachie.blogspot.com/.

This weeks statements:

1.      I cannot eat just one…… potato chip.  Oh my goodness.  I will eat the whole bag if I let myself…

2.      When I am in a bad mood…. my husband… always makes me feel better.  Love that man! 

3.      Happiness is… spending with my husband on his day off!

4.      The most comfortable thing I own is … my sweat pants.  Love them.  Why aren’t I wearing them right now?

We’re still here!

Just a quick note in case we have any readers left!  We’re still here!  Here’s some highlights (and lowlights) since our last post…

March–Stephanie’s birthday!

April–Daniel’s last day at Amazon

May–8 days in Orlando, visiting friends and the Magic Kingdom.  I’ll post pictures later. 

Now we’re anxiously looking forward to the future, and excited to see what God has planned!    Daniel is starting back to school at the end of June, and I have several projects on the go for work. 

Will try to update more often, but please, leave us a comment and let us know you’re reading!  Thanks!

Recent Happenings

On the positive side, Steph’s sister came down for a “surprise” visit. It was very fun to see her again and give Steph some sister time.

On the negative side, I got turned down for a change to go permanent and given a written reprimand for failing some security procedures. First time I have been reprimanded for anything in the professional sphere in a written format.

And my brother called me this morning to announce to let me know that they were pregnant with their second. I am happy for them, and at the same time somewhat disappointed that its yet another instance of something we aren’t. I made it my goal this year that I would finish with some concrete understanding of where I was headed in life. So far that goal is looking a bit hard to come by.

I emailed the following to friend of mine, trying to express some of the fears and frustrations that I am dealing.

Have you ever run into students who after college seem to have run off the tracks? They got married to a wonderful spouse, managing to hold down jobs that are paying the bills, and in many ways doing as well as could be expected.

But,

The passion is gone.

They remember what they were like in college, the hopes, the dreams, and it all seems like a distant memory as they try to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. They were raised well. There parent’s taught them how to learn, and be good at just about anything they set their hand too. Unfortunately, every opportunity they look at, involves some type of sacrifice of themselves or relationships close to them and they seriously wonder if there is anything left to give up.

In yet, they have also been called arrogant and self-centered for
being confident in their opinion about the world. They have been hold to stop thinking, stop complaining, stop wondering and start moving.

And their in lies the challenge, are they simply missing something that is right in front of them that they could simply step into and everything would start moving again or is everything as dark as it appears and there really is no place to move…yet.

Its a strange place to be in and yet something I never expected. There is hope, but it feels very abstract right now.

We made it!

No baby on DH’s birthday! 

Other than that… DH had to work on his birthday, which by now is technically yesterday.  After he got home, I made him open his presents.  (I think I was more excited than he was.)  Then, we went to Denny’s for dinner.  That’s pretty much our “sit down dinner” place unless we’re REALLY splurging, and then we’ll hit PF Chang’s.  The service was unusually bad at Denny’s tonight.  Disappointing.    But, we had a good time anyway, and it was nice to get out together.

I do have to say… it was nice to be able to go out for dinner at 10:30pm and not have to worry about a baby or a toddler… 

Please, not this. Not now.

I know I haven’t said much about what I do for work, beyond the fact that I’m an online community manager.  Well… the online community I manage revolves around… fertility.

Yeah… you can all see where this is going.    Anyway… one of the ladies is due to have her baby on Sunday or Monday, and it sounds like she’s been losing bits and pieces of her mucus plug today, and now she’s complaining of AF-like cramps.

Tomorrow is DH’s birthday.  I don’t know if I can handle it if she has her baby on MY DH’s birthday. 

We got a blog award! :D

This morning DH and I received our first blog award!  Thank you to Cattiz of Colours of Cattiz for passing this along!

So, now I get to share 7 things about myself, and then choose 15 newly discovered bloggers to pass the award on to.

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you the award.

I did that! 

2. Share 7 things about yourself.

3. Award 15 recently discovered great bloggers.
- Hmmm… this could take a little thought.

4. Make sure you contact these bloggers to let them know about the award.
- Easy peasy!

Okay, 7 Things About Me:

1. I’m an online community manager.  Yes, I have a real job.  No, I don’t get paid.
2. I don’t really enjoy cooking.
3. I love to crochet.
4. I play flute.
5. I met my husband the very first day of college. 
6. I’m a cat person, and really, really, really want an orange tabby.
7. I am recently gluten-free, and feeling a lot better for it.

Drum roll please! here are the fifteen eight that I pass the award forward to:

• Project Open Hearts

• Jewels & Treasures
  

• Life & Times on the Hein Farm

• Captured: My Life in Photos

• Reach in, reach out, reach up

• Feeling Beachie
  

• Blawnde’s Blog

• On the Lanai

I feel like I should post…

It’s now DH’s weekend.  He works Tuesday-Saturday, so our weekend is Sunday/Monday.

We went to church this morning, and I could.not.concentrate.    Lots of stuff on my mind from work.  But… when we got home, it was all good!  Yay!  So… I’m not feeling so stressed out now.

We went grocery shopping after church and spent way more money than we had budgeted.    But, we have food for the next two weeks!    Gluten-free too!

After we got home and put the groceries away, we ran next door to the open house at the crisis pregnancy center where I used to volunteer.  It was really nice to see all my friends again!    I haven’t seen most of them since November ’09.

And, now I’m starting to think about dinner.  I’m getting hungry!    I’ll have to check the menu and see what we want to eat tonight.

What’s your favorite food?

Welcome ICLW!

For those of you who don’t know what ICLW is, you can read all about it here on the  Stirrup Queens website.

Let’s see… what else to say…

Our journey began in July 2008.  We’d been married almost a year, and we decided that we were going to stop preventing pregnancy.  I had always had irregular cycles, but I’d been charting for a little over a year already, so I knew that I was ovulating almost every cycle.  We tried on our own (and unsuccessfully) to get pregnant until December ’09.  Our family doctor took one look at my charts, and how long we had been TTC and sent us to an OBGYN.  Dr. T ordered an SA for DH, and more blood tests for me.  The SA came back with a high WBC count, so DH got to do a lovely round of doxy.cycline.  We have not done the repeat SA yet.  As for my bloodwork… PCOS.

We haven’t been back to Dr. T since my diagnosis, so we’re just TTC on our own for now.  It’s really more like TTW because we’re not charting or timing, or doing anything of that sort.  Just enjoying being together, just the two of us.  It’s odd.  The longer it’s just the two of us, the more I enjoy it. 

So… as for non-fertility “stuff”, DH works for Amazon, and I’m an online community manager.  I’m going to try not to talk about my work on this blog too much because, honestly?, sometimes I need a break!

As you can see, it’s been kinda quiet around here lately.  I sorta forgot that we had this blog!  I’ll try to be better about posting this week so you all have something to read.  DH’s birthday is on the 29th, so if you want to leave him a comment, I’m sure he’d like that!

2010 A Year In Review

That about covers it on the international scene, now on to more personal matters.

Daniel took a new position with Amazon.com as a Digital Specialist. While I look forward to being hired permanently it has taught me a lot about my character in terms of confidence, and being confident even when you don’t feel like it.

Stephanie saw a net gain of 24 people join the Christian Family Planning Network, and they are working on inviting more men to create a more balanced community.

We started financially supporting a young boy in Bangladesh named Nirob. He lives in the slums of the capitol city, with his parents and one brother. We have been praying for him every day.

2011

My hope and prayer would be that I would end this year with some concept of where I am going in terms of a career.

When you are a jack of all trades, master of none, and built up a student loan debt that you are only slowly paying off one begins to wonder about one’s abilities some times. (Please see Amazon above for counterpoint) Or atleast whether going back to school makes financial sense. That said, my father owns the cattle on a thousand hills and he can most certainly sell some if necessary. My father has also placed in me a peculiar pull towards the Mid-East, we will see what becomes of that.

When Things Don’t Go As Planned…

Christmas with Daniel’s family yesterday was good.  The fellowship was fun, the gifts were given, and food was eaten.  A big THANK YOU to my MIL who prepared gluten-free food that my SIL and I could eat, including dessert!

But… part way through dinner, I received a phone call that I didn’t want to get.  My parents weren’t going to be able to come to visit after all.  Silly snow in the Pass!  They’ll hopefully be able to come visit in the spring.  In the meantime, I’ve got a clean apartment, articles to write, an Annual Report to prepare, and a website to oversee.  The next few days will be busy as I prepare the CFPN, as well as our home, for 2011.