Vegetable Garden

This year I decided to plant a vegetable garden, so a few months ago I bought about 8 packages of seeds. Have you ever noticed that the seeds in the packages are much larger than the seeds you see in the veggie normally. I wonder how they do that. Well I thought it might also be good to see how they grown indoors to see if I can have home grown vegetables all year round. Anyway, 2 weeks ago I planted my seeds from the 3 packages that take the longest to reach maturity, those would be romaine lettuce, green onion (or spring onion if you prefer) and zucchini (or courgette if you prefer). I bought 4 aluminium lasagna trays to plant my veggies and I made 6 little homes for the seeds in each. Now the lettuce and onion are tiny seeds, so I put 3 or 4 in each hole. Today finally the zucchini sprouted (it was supposed to germinate first, but it was last). I now have 1 zucchini sprout, 5 lettuce and 2 onion. I'm quite proud of my little veggies and I hope they grow to maturity. I plan to put them in my backyard in 3 weeks (which is considered to be the big planting weekend in my little corner of the world). I'm hoping the dog won't eat them as I grow them. I plan to put up a little fence to discourage him, but enough space between the edge of the bed and the fence for me to knee on the other side to remove weeds.

My other veggies are yellow wax beans and snow peas, and I bought a couple of packages of flowers too. I want to also grow red peppers (actually any sweet or bell pepper will do, but I tend to use the red, yellow and orange ones and those are pretty expensive off season). I wonder if I can plant the seeds from the veggie when I cut it open, normally I just compost the parts I don't use. Also I think I might buy a tomato plant, I'm not a big fan of tomatoes, but I've started making a couple of recipes and each calls for a whole tomato, so that's 2 per week consumed, so maybe a plant would be a good idea.

So seeing my little veggies grow has been making me feel a little maternal and I keep telling hubby how the seedlings are doing, at least I don't check daily or drag him to look at them daily, I check about 4 times a week, because I have to remember to water them (I'll forget if I don't look in on the plants, I try to remember to look at them daily, but I usually on manage alternate days.

Well off to read my book again.

Timeout

Yesterday and today we did our first IUI treatments. I decided to take the time off work to try to relax. Being off for 2 days has made me realize 2 things.
1) I need to take more vacation
2) I need to be less available when I take time off, rather than checking email 2-3 times a day, at least I have a smartphone making it easier to check, but it still leaves me feeling stressed.

Now for the 2 week wait, wish me luck, I'll know if the treatments were successful just before mother's day.

Expectation Setting

So when I went to the doctor on Wednesday we talked somewhat on procedures & costs. Not much on procedures, because she needed to know 2 things first.

1. My budget
2. Insurance coverage

Hubby and I defined a basic budget for this, we decided to spend $5000 and no more. That number depended on insurance coverage of medication and procedural costs. So my insurance will cover 80% of all meds to a $9000 lifetime maximum. I'm hoping with this information I can find out from my doctor the plan for the next 3-5 cycles.

As for timelines, to be honest, I don't feel like doing cycle monitoring anymore (it's only been 2 cycles), since you have to pay for a year I'll continue with the monitoring and we'll see month by month what I feel like doing.

Hubby and I also talked a little bit about long term plans if we don't get pregnant. I've thought about it a fair bit (I'm a planner, I've been thinking about it since my early 20s). These are my thoughts/options obviously I can't do them all at the same time:

1. Downsize to a condo or possibly sell all property and travel the world working here and there to support traveling.
2. Quit work, and do something I find more fulfilling, less stressful and socially responsible
3. Be a foster parent, and/or join big sisters in my community

I suppose #2 I can do anytime, well, hubby has to be working, and downsizing might have to be done first or pay off the mortgage.

Maybe next month

It occurred to me as I titled this post that it's the same URL as Hope's blog. Although I don't want to do IUI, I do want to conceive. I think this cycle in addition to whatever the doctor's put me on, I'll take some time off and work from home the week after the IUI. Maybe a little relaxation on top of the more agressive treatment will make things happen this month.

Current treatment

I forgot to mention that I am currently on progestrone to lengthen my luteal phase. It didn't do exactly what it was supposed to last month, the doctor thinks it's because I have trouble absorbing it so she increased the dosage. There are other, rarer, causes of a short luteal phase, so we'll see what happens this cycle.

I did some more research, turns out clo.mid and h.c.g is a treatment for LPD because sometimes the body fakes ovulation and for all intents and purposes it looks like ovulation occurred and progestrone is produced, but it may in fact not have occurred.

Oh well, here's hoping this cycle works out.

This cycle in fertility.news

So this month the doctor put me on 6 days of clo.mid and then a shot of h.c.g to make me ovulate. The doctor also wanted to do a sp.erm.wash, which I declined for this cycle, but I'm feeling rather pressured about doing it, and I don't exactly have the funds for it with DH having been laid off almost 2 months ago. I however did do a budget to see if we could manage to live on my salary and have his employee insurance benefits go to the savings account for emergencies. It's possible if I don't take into account saving anything for known quarterly or annual expenses.

Anyway back to ttc'ing. So I know I have an issue with a short luteal phase, I don't think I need the drugs for hyper ovulation or the wash, but they are pressuring me to do it next month. We'll see what happens when I decline to do it. The other thing is last cycle the drugs to lengthen my luteal phase didn't work quite as expected, if the same thing occurs this month, then I want them to fix the known issue rather than trying to help me conceive faster, because otherwise I'm just throwing away money if the luteal phase isn't long enough to support a pregnancy.

So now I'm in the 2 week wait (2ww). Testing on Friday April 10, I think I'll take that day off work, I could use a break anyway.

Grocery Shopping

I went grocery shopping yesterday, seems I only go every 2 weeks, but it surely feels like weekly. Maybe if I went weekly I wouldn't have food spoil on me :)

Anyway I made a list of things I would like to eat and then bought groceries accordingly, although when I went to the store, surprise surprise other things not on my list ended up in my cart, and I don't have children.

I thought I'd share what I'm going to make over the next 2 weeks some for dinner, some for lunch:
No Pasta lasagna - Cook yourself Thin (uses zucchini for layering)
Easy cheeseburger pie - Kraft Foods
Quiche from 2007's Milk calendar - real crust though, not the cracker crumbs from the calendar
Slow cooker beef stew on garlic and sour cream mashed potatoes (yummy cooked with red wine).
Mongolian Beef
Pork and green beans in an olive mustard sauce or maybe oyster sauce (asian dish)
Easy chicken wraps (chicken cooked with salsa, add cheese, green onion to wrap and microwave) then add veggies (peppers, lettuce, tomato etc)
Chicken with red peppers and kale or spinach with vodka rose sauce on penne
Coconut pie (it will be the first pie I have ever made)

Now, you may have noticed there are only 6 main dishes here, likely they will last the weeks until I go grocery shopping again.

Fertility - The first visit

Today was my first visit with the new doctor.

I had an ultrasound and a sonogram, and 13 vials of blo.od withdrawn. Hubby had a few vials done too.

The ultra was fine, the sono was crampy (worst cramps I've ever had, but I admit, I'm very lucky in that respect, I only gets semi-noticeable cramps 2 or 3 cycles a year). The sono, if I understood correctly, showed that the fluid wasn't highlighting something in the left corner (not sure if it was the tube or the uterus), so they kept pushing more fluid in (5 times), eventually it was highlighted (yay?) Sorry I can't seem to get too excited about that it was very uncomfortable, I'm sure I'll be estatic if I get pregnant this cycle.

Ssorry mom I won't know in time for your birthday although that would be a great present for your milestone year!

Anyway I start cycle monitoring on Monday. Apparently I should expect an unltrasound and blood work every visit while cycle monitoring. Hey at least I'll know I'm about to ovulate hence the best time to conceive.

For now, I need to check some tax data so I know how much more I should contribute to RRSPs.

I Dare You

So I'm kind of bored, and I thought I would put together a list of things I should try in my lifetime that would challenge me. Then I thought, who better to challenge me than my invisible internet friends. So, I could only think of 2 rules to the challenges:
1) Not illegal
2) Not against my morals

So to start things off I give you 3 items from my list
1) Go parasailing (like behind a boat, I'm not sure what it's called when it's on a tow line)
2) Go hang gliding
3) Take at least 2 singing lessons

So hit me with some ideas.

Confessions

I have a confession to make. Over the last year I've been using work, reading and food as an escape from my feelings about trying to conceive. Most especially since September, which was the 1 yr annniversary of my miscarriage (I wrote "the" first rather than "my").

So for the last 2 weeks I've been tracking how much time I really spend working, and I don't get overtime for it. I was planning on doing it for the month. This is what a typical day looks like:

5:30 am hit snooze three times, take temperature for graphing BBT
6:00 get out of bed, wash, dress
6:30 prepare breakfast, check temperature and work email
7:00 Dry hair do makeup put on socks
7:10 pack bag for work
7:15 leave house, drop hubby at station, Drake at daycare (M,W,F only), go to work
8:00-8:15 arrive work (depends on traffic and if Drake is going to daycare)
4:30-5:30 leave work (depends on the day how late I leave, and if Drake's at daycare or not, I leave earlier when he's not)
5:00-6:00 Pick up Drake (if hubby arriving within 40 minutes pick him up from station). If waiting do work at the station.
If Drake's not at daycare I go home first to let him out to pee, and then I'll wait for hubby to call to pick him up from the station, I'll work during that time, which is typically from 5-6:30.
6:30 Typical time to pick up hubby
6:45 Home, change clothes make dinner
7:30 Eat dinner
8 onwards more work, I'll stop anywhere between 9:30 and midnight
Read until I feel tired enough to go to sleep, which is typically between 12 and 1:30. Now you know why I hit snooze three times in the morning.

By the end of the week I'm typically going to bed to read after dinner and may fall asleep between 9 and 9:30, but then I'll wake up at 3:30 or 4, at least I don't work until my normal wake up time :)

This continues on the weekend too, any time I'm not sleeping, eating or reading, then I'm working.

So instead of working after I get home or first thing in the morning, or weekends, I've made 2 lists of other things I can do, but I need some help.

I'm going to give you list 2 first, because it's list 1 I need help with.

List 2: Other things I can do
Clean
Tidy
Organize/purge stuff
Dust
Vacuum
Pay Bill

List 1: Stuff I can do for me
Manicure, pedicure, eyebrows, facial
Shop
Workout
Bake
Eat Healthy
Read
Walk Drake
Blog
Needlepoint, quilt, sew
Listen to music, sing, dance

I need more things that make me happy, but I'm having a little trouble coming up with things that make me happy. It's getting a little easier. I've always liked crafts ever since I was little. Music and dancing is my stress relief that I used in university. I'd like to do some redecorating but I'm not sure if that belongs on list 1 or 2, I suppose if I made a very concise list of what I want, then I could shop for it and put it on list 2.

Although hubby and I were planning to go to Italy after tax time, part of me thinks I should go south, because last year I was going to try something new every month and parasailing behind a boat was one of those things (as was snow tubing and horse back riding for the year, I did do the horseback riding).

So any ideas of things I should try on weekend or evening rather than working?

Finally a date

February 19 2009.

That's the date I go see the specialist and start with assessing my current health, I'm not sure if they'll do any kind of diagnostic reproductive testing on this date, that would be nice, get the ball rolling a little faster, I hate waiting.

To be honest, I hate the idea of going to see a specialist for diagnostic testing to see if there are any reasons I'm not getting pregnant again, because sometimes I just don't like the idea of asking for help, and feel like a bit of a failure that I'm not getting pregnant easily. But I guess that's a common feeling in women trying to conceive. I keep trying to remind myself that although in total we've been trying for 18 cycles, those cycles have been broken up over a 2 year period and any individual length of time is not very long (3, 5, 3, 7) I just keep thinking of the 27 months it's been and the 34 months I've been wanting to conceive. OK that's just depressing, so I'm going to stop blogging now.

Happy New Year

The last year has been very difficult for me. I've decided that I'm going to let everything go. I've no plans to do any of the following:

• Get Organizated/clean more
• Be a better person or wife
• Work harder

The only plan I have is at the end of the day, no matter how much I feel I've failed at any of my own expectations of myself, there must be at least one thing I can think of that I can be proud of, and if not I can spend 5 minutes doing something to be proud of.

To be or not to be

I'm thinking about unplugging, taking down my facebook account, linked in, blog, and personal email address. I'd even consider transferring my personal cell phone and all it's time to someone else if they needed it.

There, linked in is gone.
Now facebook.

That was kind of freeing, if my blog disappears you know why.

Hey hey hey bye bye

Yay vacation, very very very much needed vacation. I've been working incredibly long hours the last 2 weeks, and now I'm taking a week of lieu time, so I still have 3 weeks of vacation to use this year, I guess I'll be carrying it over again and next year I'll have 6 weeks to take :)

So looking at the title of the post? Wondering what's gone? Jenn knows, though she hasn't seen yet. I'll give you a hint...a foot. Do you know yet? No? I cut my hair, about a foot has gone bye bye. hehehehe, it was so much fun to go to work the next day, or tell my mom I had a hair cut on the Friday when she asked what I'd been doing and mentioned I "trimmed" it. She likes short hair so she was happy.

Hub's and I bought a new TV for our anniversary, Sony LCD Z Series, so the old one is coming up to the living room (not the new one, he watches TV too late and too loudly for me to sleep, he laughs really loud at the late night shows on Com.edy net.work). So since we got a new TV, I need a TV stand for the old one, so to Ik.ea we went. The old TV stand had to have the shelves removed to hold the new TV, so we also needed more media storage, and since we're having it delivered might as well add another bookcase for that ever expanding book collection. I also (hopefully) got a matching Po.ang chair for the existing one the dog likes to sleep in. A new cover too, so that I can replace the one Drake sleeps in with a clean one when...er if...we have company.

OK, so off to watch a movie on Zed.

Sugar Free

Lately I've been coming across a few posts and articles about removing sugar from one's diet. I remember the last couple of times I removed sugar, empty calorie and fatty foods from my diet. I felt a lot better and had more energy, but it takes more planning and commitment than I'm prepared to do again. So for the last week I've been removing just sugar from my diet, I'm not completely without sugar, I just aknowledge that if there's something I'm intending to eat that contains sugar, I remind myself that it does and how that seems to affect my attitude.

I have noticed the last 2 or 3 days that my energy level and attitudes are improved over the previous month, when I felt lethargic and apathic about almost everything. It could just be a response to taking control of something and doing it for myself than the actual removal of sugar.

Yesterday I had a completely sugar fee day, today I had one spoon in my coffee, but that's all. Tomorrow we'll try for another sugar free day. The one thing about cutting sugar is the withdrawal. In the evenings I would wander around the kitchen looking for a little something to eat. I wasn't hungry, I wanted something sugary, and we don't have a lot of sugary foods in the house (only ones hubby likes and I either don't mind or don't like, so they aren't as much of a temptation). I'd keep popping little things in my mouth and wanting more because whatever it was, it wasn't sugar and the craving continued. I consider myself fortunate that the withdrawal for me typically only lasts about 1/2 a day where going cold turkey is really hard, apparently it can last up to a week for some people. For me it starts around 2 or 3 pm on an average work day and last for the remainder of the day (i.e. bedtime), so I go to bed early :) I'm fine the next day, or if I'm still craving is is so much reduced from the previous night that it's not noticeable to me.

So you might be seeing more sugar free posts from me in the near future, I want to chronical how I feel to encourage myself not to go back to eating sugar regularly.

Been awhile

It's been awhile since I last posted, that's because I have nothing to say, I still don't.

Today hubby and I went to breakfast and Drake was naughty at home, he tore up a plastic bag, took my running shoe to the basement, tore up a facial tissue, tried to eat a bag of ginger snap cookies and barfed on the basement carpet (which strangely is the nicest carpet in the house). Hubby found it, so I'm letting him clean it up, all the way up. Apparently it came off the carpet with no stain, but I told him we should probably wash it anyway. So he asked me if we had cleaner other than the rug doctor stuff (nope) so I told him to just mix the rug doctor with water and there's a rag and a scrub brush in the laundry room. So he's cleaning it, hehehehehe. Makes me happy as I usually get that job because 90%+ of the time I find the mess.

Friday I took the day off, just because, it was really hard to entertain myself for the whole day while everyone else was at work. Sometime this week I'll re-highlight my hair as the roots annoy me. Nothing else is new, I'm just waiting for a change at work on the systems to get to my steps of the process (supposedly between 2 and 4pm, unless they are late in delivery). I have another one next weekend.

Hmmm, I've been thinking about my goals lately, I'd like to redo the flooring in the main part of the house, so I'm saving up money, I figure 5K-7K aught to do it. I'd like to put down a darker laminate than I have today (it's currently blonde laminate). I'm still debating between a reddish colour and chocolate/ebony colour. I like the darker tone, but not everyone likes it soo dark, and we plan to sell within 5 years, maybe less, then again life can change a lot in 5 years and we might not be able to move at all, so maybe I should get what would make me happy :)

Here's what the floor currently looks like:



And 4 options I'm think of
1)


2)


3)


4)

Commercials

So yesterday as hubby and I were driving home from the bookstore I heard a minivan commercial where they were offering $10,000 back from the purchase. 10K! They also mention how that buys a lot of gas (a lot of car comercials mention money back and gas these days). So I did a little math in my head of how much I spend on gas, and how long 10K would last for gas. I used to spend $200 a month, it's now about $250, that's $2400 to $3000 per annum, so 3 to 4 years and I've spent 10K on gas (holy cr**!) so I figure a minivan uses more gas, so a tank in a minivan should take me as far as a tank in my car. The tank size of the minivan is 60% larger than my car, so I should be spending 60% more on gas i.e. $3800 to $4800 or take between 2 to 2.5 years to spend $10K on gas! I tell you, I wanted to get rid of my car immediately, take into account that between parking, gas, repairs and insurance, I'm spending currently $7000 per year maintaining the vehicle. So I looked up bus fare, in 2 cities since we're considering moving. Current city it's $175 + $38 = $213 (or $2556 per year) target city is $109 (or $1308 per year). Even if I add another 2K per year for taxis, I'm still saving at least $2k in either city over using the car. Dang I want to chuck the car bad, it's just so darn convenient in my current city at least, I'll have to make a list of what I want to be near if we move into our target city.

Pictures

With and without my glasses. Posting for a limited time only . I got it cut on the 28th (just the post was written sooner but sat in draft mode for 2 weeks.) OK so the parts that look red in the picture are actually closer to blonde.

Time's up, pics removed.

How lucky are you?

Do you ever think about how lucky you are? I do, not a lot, but every few years I think about how lucky I am to be placed where I've been placed, simply from an accident of birth. I've been thinking about that today.

I found a grid of global population by age and sex, about 268,000 people alive today were born the same day I was. Probably 300,000 people where born the day I was born (taking into account mortality rates). I had originally calculated the percentage of people in North America and earning a middle class income or better giving me a 2.5% chance of being born as fortunately as I was, but it would be higher than that as there are lots of other wealthy countries I could have been born into. Still, I'm pretty fortunate. I believe I have a responsibility to humanity to help others because I can, but what to do? There are so many choices. I think some of the first things I need to choose though are to look to the needs of others before my own comforts, do I really need that piece of pie? Could not the $2-3 it costs be put to better use? What about that new item? Do I really need more clutter in my life? More things?

In other news, I got a haircut and highlights, can I just say something meekly? That although it was more than I intended to spend...I feel pretty, so it was worth every penny.

Happy Mother's Day

To all the mother's out there Happy Mother's Day.

Things I know about my mom:

1. That she's always there for me, and even though I'm married and living away from the home I grew up in, she still worries, just a little, if she calls me and I don't call back that day.
2. When she got so mad at my little brother for calling her his maid that he was sent to his room. Mother's are not employees of their children, no matter how much some company says a stay at home mom should be paid in monetary funds. They are paid in the unconditional love of their children.
3. Despite how much I love my mom, not even if I think there is nothing she could do to make me withhold that love, she loves me infinitely more. A love I won't fully comprehend unless I have a child to care for, that I am to teach and love and help grow up into a responsible adult.
4. No matter how old I get, how many children I have, what I accomplish or don't in my lifetime, I will always be her little girl and she'll always be proud of me.
5. My mom will always be my mom, she can't be replaced with another. When she's gone no other woman would fill her shoes in my life. Other women might be mentors, supporters, friends, confidants, care givers, but not my mom because they can no longer fulfill item #3 in my life.

Happy Mother's Day mom.

Kim