And the Fertility Saga Continues...

It's been awhile since I've updated our "fertility status" so while I'm waiting for an opportunity to post pictures from the birthday weekend, I thought I'd let you all know where things stand.

We've finally gotten the results back from all the tests. We were labeled "very normal" except for one small test that left our Doctor saying things like "I would absolutely not recommend trying or getting pregnant in the next few months" Hah! Given our current track record, I don't think we have much to worry about! Not that we were really worried anyway...

The test that we/I failed was the thyroid test and I knew it was coming. See, back when I was 17 and heading off to college, I went in for the college physical. The Dr. asked if there was anything in my family background that they should be aware of and two weeks before, one of my family members had come back with abnormal results on a thyroid so I mentioned that in passing, not thinking much of it.

Well, turns out my thyroid was not functioning and they have no idea how long. I was skinny as a rail, had none of the obvious symptoms except exhaustion which is considered normal for a teen anyway. I feel like I've been tired most of my life so I never thought much of it, I've learned to function quite well on lowish energy and on days where I have "normal levels" I turn in to the energizer bunny and am unstoppable.

Anyway, they put me on meds and that was that. From time to time they'd retest and make sure things were somewhat normal. I guess I am blessed to not have the kind of case where it fluctuates weekly and the Drs are having to constantly change the dosage and meds.

Well, flash forward to several weeks ago when they pulled the thyroid test and hello, apparently that stupid thing is incapable of performing a days work! With my levels being higher than normal, the risk if I were to get pregnant now is that the baby wouldn't have enough thyroxin during the formative weeks (first 7 weeks they rely solely on the mother's thyroxin before their body has formed enough to produce it's own). If there isn't enough thyroixin, you are a higher risk for miscarriage, low birth weights, lower IQs and all the other general sorts of risks that seem to come along with any sort of "condition."

The Dr. seems convinced that once my thyroid is in line, pregnancy will be no problem, I'm not sure I quite share the same feelings as her but I figure God's got a plan in all of this and I'm grateful this is an area that we are "forced" to follow His master plan vs. my own.

Control is never an easy thing up.

Interestingly enough, I've been praying that God would bless us with fertility and if it's not in the cards for us to have kids right now that He would take the desire away. Well, wouldn't you know we have been surrounded by a lot of miserable parenting lately and terribly bratty kids (see my last post for an example), that's left us rather relieved that we have some time to get our act together.

Ultimately, we've decided to ignore the Dr.'s advice and continue "trying" and not worry about the results. Clearly my body has protected itself so far and hasn't allowed itself to get pregnant with abnormal levels, so I don't think that it will get pregnant until things have righted themselves. And if it's not my thyroid that's preventing the pregnancy than I guess we will simply get to fall in that lovely "unexplained" category of which medical science can't quite figure out God's design/plan.

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future..." Jeremiah 29:11

I have confidence that that hope and future contain children for us, hopefully this post hasn't read as us giving up, because that's definitely not the case. Some might mistake peace for lack of desire. The only thing that has changed for us is the peace. I thought I had peace before but it would waffle back and forth between me being ok with waiting on God to being overwrought with worry and sadness. Throughout the last months it's steadily grown to being decidedly more peaceful and decidedly less stressed.

Up until very recently, everything I did, I worried and debated whether it would stress or exhaust my body too much and result in another negative test. Now, I'm in a place of focusing on living healthy and doing the best I can to care for my body and health just because it's something I want to do for me and not because I want it to result in a positive test. If the positive test happens, praise God! If not, I've still gotten myself to a much better place. I've gained a lot of health back since the "black hole" time period of my life, but now I want to see how far I can take it!

Un-Birthday Recap

Blogging has ended up on the back burner these past few weeks but I'm quite hopeful things are getting ready to slow down. Hah! I don't know if there is much truth in that statement or if my sleep deprived mind is simply lying to my run-down body. Today, if you saw my tweet this morning (purelyelegant if you don't follow me!) I mentioned that I was feeling like Dr. Krunklehorn from Meet the Robinsons. For those of you who haven't seen the movie, she has this wonderful caffeine patch and is so hyper she has all these hilarious random screams. That is exactly how I feel today: hyper exhaustion.

Moving on, we celebrated my birthday over the weekend (I'm still in denial that I'm another year older) and can I just state that for the record, I would like to request a re-do? In fact, I've even decided exactly what my birthday re-do would look like!

Hubs took me out the day before my birthday and we did a whole bunch of stuff that day that was all very fun, but thoroughly exhausting too. We didn't get home or to bed until well after midnight and frankly, I think I am getting too old to do things like that anymore.

Hubs and I both questioned whether we should have scraped the whole day and just stayed home and relaxed but I will write up a proper post WITH pictures soon. I'd have posted it yesterday but I had to work late and had too much work to do when I got home. I will try again tonight!

The day of my actual birthday we ran all over town celebrating with everyone else that shares my birthday. While this may sound fun in theory, it was not and I think the entire family regretted our "fun social weekend from hell" as we dubbed it. First we drove an hour away to celebrate my grandfather's birthday over breakfast. This was fun and the day should have ended here and we would have all gone home happy.

Except we didn't...

We drove straight from my grandfather's house to my great aunt's house, over an hour away from my grandfather's house, caught glimpses of the Raven's game while "celebrating" with my second cousin, his wife and kids, his brother, brother's wife and kids and my great aunt and uncle.

Again, while this may sound fun in theory...it wasn't. None of them really seemed in the mood to celebrate and most of them were quite grumpy. In fact, watching my second cousins interact with their one kid a piece....made me EXTREMELY happy I didn't have kids...same with hubs! We always think that's so sad when that happens, but I feel like there is nothing worse than hanging out with grumpy parents who don't actually parent and bratty spoiled kids who WHINE and throw fits the whole time... Kinda puts a damper on things, you know?

So after "celebrating" for a few hours, we tried best we could to duck out gracefully and drive over an hour home. At this point it's now late dinner-time and my mom and I had to sit down and collect prices from all our vendors and email out the price list to all our customers for this new produce business we are doing. We hadn't even finished this before it was time to leave for Hub's hockey game. I ended up hauling the computer to the game and finishing work while freezing my tail off watching his game. It was especially cold that night for some reason, you know it's bad when the players complain it's cold!

We didn't get back from his game until after midnight and I was pooped! Headed straight to bed and didn't even open a single present on my birthday! So sad... I mean isn't that the best part about birthdays? No? It certainly is for me...the presents always make the fact that I am getting OLDER easier to bear...

Oh well, I suppose that's what happens when you get old. I teased Hubs that I was going to go out and buy my own birthday presents, but he whipped out a few surprises for me yesterday (I should note that he did have them Sunday we just weren't home long enough for him to give them to me) and apparently there are a few more on the way. I will report back with the final tally!

How is everyone else's weekend shaping up? We've had on and off torrential rain and a mini tornado the past few days that left a tree laying across our neighbor's house/roof!

Feature Friday: It's My Party and I'll Cry if I Want To

Everyone enjoying the wonderful weekend? I am so glad it's here, this work week has seemed particularly long!

My birthday is coming up this weekend and I haven't had anytime to get excited yet or even make a birthday list! Booooo, that's not fun! I enjoy the process of narrowing down all my virtual wish lists from all over the place and force it all into my concentrate list of what I really want/need! Plus, given that presents are my love language...birthdays and anniversaries and Christmas can be especially fun! I'm still working on narrowing down my camera choice, I don't want to make any snap (haha no pun intended) decisions so I still have a bit more research to do. Rest assured, your advice has been very much appreciated and if you left some helpful advice, don't be surprised if you get an email from me, pestering you with more questions!

With a camera and lens being my "main" gift, the rest of my gifts will probably be on the smaller size, but here are some of the other items I've been dreaming of!


My hunters have taken a bit of a beating and I originally ordered a half size up from my normal size rather than a half size down, so I'd like to replace my red ones with some glossy black ones. Although, the dark purple and teal ones are fabulous as well! I'd love to get the above cream cable socks to go with them for this winter! Last year with all the snow, I learned the wonders of tall hunter boots with the accompanying socks, really the only thing that worked against the 4-5 foot snow drifts!

I absolutely adore the TB Revas and have been longing for a pair for years now, the Navy and Purple are my top choices, with the forest green ones close behind!

The acting out skirt from Anthropologie is a very sexy black menswear print pencil skirt that is at the top of my clothing must-have list.

Cross body bags seem to be all the range this year, which I am SO glad because there is a much broader assortment to choose from and I might actually stand a chance at finding the one I've been looking for, for more than 2 years!

My north face from college needs to be replaced, as the fleece is so thin in some spots that I feel like I can poke through it, the gray and black is my top choice.

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking

This book is aaaamazing, I keep getting it from our local library but I would really like to have my own copy. One of the best bread cookbooks!

Jane Austen Collection (Sense & Sensibility / Emma / Persuasion / Mansfield Park / Pride & Prejudice / Northanger Abbey)

A classic collection, I've seen the main ones before and own three different versions of Pride and Prejudice, but I'd really like to own the whole collection and check out some of the lesser known stories.


I've searched everywhere for this make-up set. Called stores, searched online...everyone seems to be out. If someone where to find me this for my birthday, I would be a very happy girl!

Lastly, there are several jewelry pieces from Etsy I've been eyeing for awhile but haven't quite bit the bullet yet. One way or another, these pieces will be making their way into my wardrobe!









P.S. I've linked to as many of the items via the pictures as I could. If the picture doesn't link to a site and you'd like to know where it's from, just leave me a comment!

An Assortment of Randomness

I know these posts are probably the most boring to read but I'm afraid it's the only way my brain is thinking right now! I haven't stopped for a moment since the week started (as evidenced by my lack of blogging) and the weekend was filled with its usual craziness! Fall is shaping up to be one busy season! We've got apple picking, Renaissance festival, National Apple festival, my birthday, our anniversary and a camping weekend all on the horizon. Add in hockey and I'm rather aghast at how quickly our calender filled up!

What happened to my lazy weekends taking long walks and enjoying the cool breezes and fall foliage? What about fall cooking, baking and football? So much to do and I'm excited to do it all, but I find myself already exhausted!

Autumn is without a doubt my favorite season. The weather & temperatures, the clothes, the food, the schedules and routines...yeah, about that last one?! My typical fall schedule seems to have been turned upside down, what happened to the sloooooowed down routine?

I mentioned that my mom and I are starting back up the produce business. Yesterday was our first day and it was definitely off to a crazy start. To start with-we are supposed to have price lists emailed and faxed to us Sunday evening. The fax failed to go through and the email never materialized, meaning we had to stay up until midnight (when they opened) to get price information to email out to our customers. Once we were provided the case prices, we still had to calculate out what the breakdown would be a piece or per pound. This was down by my mom at 2am and unfortunately in her sleep deprivation, a number of prices were miscalculated in the customers favors and resulting in losses for us, not a great way to start out the first week!

On top of this, the price list went out much later then we'd told customers to anticipate so people were late getting orders in and...well it was all a snowball affect. It was a heck of a lot of work and several late nights but on the positive side, we know what kinks to work out for future weeks! We've since had a ton more people request to be on the price list so we have high hopes that we'll be able to provide even more variety in the future.

Next on our list of shenanigans, sit that hubs will be rejoining the reffing world for hockey after taking a bit of a break. Between his own games and the ones he's officiating, he's going to be at the rinks a lot!

On top of all this, you can add in our regular full-time jobs plus juggling a house and a yard and involvement with two churches and it seems to be sheer madness!

I feel like I'm always running around but can never fully account for what I've done with my time. I end up feeling unproductive and exhausted for reasons I can't quite a finger on!

In light of the time of year, I'm doing the best I can to get Hubs and I back on to a schedule of sorts, as well as trying to prioritize what's important to us.

For Hubs, if he doesn't get his workouts in, he's mopey.

For me, if I don't have time to blog and relax or have the energy to putter in the kitchen and keep the house clean and organized, I get all mopey.

So! I'm working on making some short term goals to make sure that fall doesn't fly by before we get the chance to prioritize our life.

My hope is that instead of surviving, I want to thrive, you know what I mean?

Friday Feature: Comfort

Happy Friday Y'all!

I'm sorry for the lack of a blog post yesterday. I had to take my car in for some emergency repair which caused significant delays in my day and the bill was painful, to say the least. Between repairs on the "new" car and my car plus renewed registrations times two, our extra transportation costs are already more than $2000 this month...gotta say that's totally killed the budget right now!

*sigh*

Not left with much of a choice though, gotta have a car to get to work here, there is no public transportation out where we live and it's too far and too dangerous to bike!

Today's feature Friday is a little trick I discovered awhile back that has saved me a decent amount of money. I was never a fan of uggs in highschool and college, they reminded me of moon boots and there was just nothing sexy about them. I hate the look of ugg boots and shorts (and still do) and also the fact that every single girl wore ugg boots and a north face jacket that was just no originality...I just couldn't do it my friends!

Well, I finally caved when I started spending significant amounts of time in unheated hockey rinks sitting on metal bleachers and chairs that send cold air right up through your feet. I tried everything-heavy socks, shoes, boots, wool socks, three layers of socks, three layers of wool socks...regardless, by the end of the third period my feet would be frozen and walking around bordered on painful! So I gave in, my husband bought me my first pair of black ugg talls and the rest was history.

So on to my savings... For any of you Ugg fans out there, you know how expensive the boots are, $180 for a fuzzy pair of moon boots? Kinda ridiculous! But, you can buy the youth size and save $40 bucks a pair and get the same exact identical pair of shoes! For example, youth size 6 translates to a woman's size 8 (which is what size I wear in Uggs), so by buying youth, I automatically cut $40 off my price, I promise it works! Overtime, the savings practically add up to a free pair of Uggs. :)

I'm picking up a pair or two this fall, here are my favorites!





Anyone else tried out this trick or an Ugg fan?

Super-hero Powers

Continuing with last week's question theme, I thought I'd pose another one every ones way since you all had so much fun weighing in last week.



If you could pick any one super-hero's power, what you would choose and why?

After much discussion and deliberation, Hubs and I were torn between two, so we decided we should each pick one and "share". I would use my power to help him and vice-versa. :) I'm not sure if that's cheating but since I made up the game I suppose I can make up the rules! Some options could include

Flying
Super strength
telepathic powers
invisibility
elasticity
transport powers (ala Paige in charmed)
ability to freeze time (ala Piper in charmed)
the ability to control metal and other various "powers" via x-men

Feel free to get creative, I'm sure I'm not well versed on all the possibilities and super-heros!

A Victorious Monday Night!

The shenanigans continue as the weekend craziness seems to have merged with the rest of the week.

Yesterday was the first Monday night football game for us and we ended the night victorious with the Ravens beating the Jets in a horrendously played football game. It wasn't pretty but we'll take it. Plus, it was the opening game at the new Jet's stadium and they have that ridiculous new reality TV show PLUS they've been trash-talking us all week so there was an extra bit of smugness and satisfaction when the game was over. *heart my ravens*


Today is election day here in MD for the primaries and I made the dreadful decision thinking it would be an excellent day to go to the MVA. My logic was, it's the beginning of the month, towards the middle of the week, first thing in the morning, we should be in and out right? WRONG! There's no school today! And if I had kids I would have known this....so unfortunately we got there and the line for new licenses was at least 25 deep when they opened. Hubs had to get a new license before we could register the "new" car so we had to wait in both lines.

On a side note, I will be SO happy when every yard/street corner stops looking like this!!)

Oh, have I not mentioned the whole car situation in awhile? That's probably a whole 'nother post but in the meantime, I will state for the record, his "new" car is a 1994 Galant with 194k miles on it and we got it for the cost to the timing belt and several other smallish repairs. It wasn't pretty when we got but it seems to have cleaned up ok, we'll see how well it drives...we've been unable to actually take it out on the road until we got the plates today.

Today is my Mom's birthday and we'll be celebrating tonight. I am making my famous crab cakes and I think we're going to forgo the typical birthday cakes and do banana creme pie and coconut creme pie instead! Tonight wraps up with the season finale of two hours of Covert Affairs, Hubs and I are extremely looking forward to it!

Lastly, my mom and I have decided to start back up the business that my parent's did on the side when I was a kid. For a number of years, they ran a produce market out of our basement one day a week. With the many advances in technology since my family closed the business, I'm quite sure it will be much easier this time. A price list will be sent out Sunday night to all our customers, we will take orders until Monday evening and Tuesday morning we will pick up the produce and fill the orders. The goal is to have it at least cover the cost of Hubs and I and my family's food in the beginning and then maybe after a month or so, start producing revenue above and beyond that. I'm excited because if it's successful, it should cut our grocery bill down to pennies if all we need is meat, dairy, rice milk and a bit of junk food. I only buy all that stuff on super sale or by the case so I'm hoping to cut the grocery budget down by at least half!

Wedding Gone Wrong

The weekend was it's usual craziness but I thought I'd recap the wedding shenanigans we suffered through over the weekend for your-all's enjoyment.

Saturday started out lazy with lots of lounging and movies but quickly got busy once the afternoon hit. We had a wedding that the invitation said started at 5:30. Well, it turns out that they purposefully printed the wrong time on the invite (wedding actually was scheduled to start at 6) to make sure everyone showed up on time, so for those of us who are always early to weddings? Well that means instead of sitting standing there for 15-30 minutes before the wedding, you were looking at 45-60 minutes. Strike #1...

Strike #2 was when we arrived and discovered that the address on the invite had no parking, parking was a hilly 10 minute walk away that we passed multiple times as we went up and down the windy hills in the woods trying to find out where we were supposed to go (and almost totaled the car by nearly hitting a very large buck in the process). The "shuttle" was a one-way "shuttle" only taking us up to the wedding and it was a Mini (great car but I don't think they were intended to transport a lot of people). I felt so bad for our friends that were requested to volunteer to shuttle the guests, they seemed quite stressed out when we got there.

To get back to our car after the wedding would mean walking on very steep main roads with no shoulders, in the dark, with lots of blind spots and cars would never see us in time to stop. Again, no heads up in the invite or from the couple-to-be.

Strike #3 would have been the lack of seats at the wedding. The wedding was standing room only except for about 10 chairs provided for the brides and grooms families. The rest of us apparently didn't merit a chair. No where on the invite did it state there would be no chairs and the number of times I helped the bride out with projects or loaned her stuff from our wedding, she still didn't think I needed to know. To make matters worse, the wedding spot was on a very steep hill looking up and the majority of the ladies were wearing nice heels...it was quite an unpleasant combination (I couldn't stop my shoes from continually sliding the hill-even when I dug in my heels), especially combined with strike #1 of starting the wedding a half hour later than stated on the invite. The bride and groom's reason for not telling anyone? They didn't think anyone would come if they said anything...nice to know you think I'm a good enough friend to come to your wedding but apparently not a good enough friend that I'll still support you even if it means I'm standing.

Normally, I wouldn't complain because I know how hard it is to plan a wedding but I felt it would have just been common decency to let us all know! Especially when you think of all the time and expense many of us went through to help them get the wedding together! Ugh! I could have just as easily worn a different pair of shoes and been a lot more prepared if I could have been informed ahead of time!

It was fun to see a lot of our other friends and to be there to support our friends getting married but it felt like guests comfort was towards the bottom of the priority list. The location of the wedding was gorgeous but the only restrooms available were port-a-potties, the dance floor our table was located under rained dirt and debris down on the food and all over us and all the bridal party and friends were requested required to stay behind after the wedding was over to clean up and take everything down.

And all the supplies I loaned to the bride that I was supposed to be getting back? Well I discovered it being given away by certain members of the bridal parties to any takers before it was all tossed...yeah. *sigh*

Is wedding etiquette no longer? I can't believe it would have changed so much in the two years since we got married! Any of you all experienced a wedding like this? I will post pictures tonight, once I can access facebook!

Your Professional Opinions Needed!

I tremendously enjoyed everyone's responses yesterday. Both Hubs and I decided on #1, whereupon we both kind of looked at each other and I asked how exactly did that reflect on our character? :)

What can I say, if I could be perfectly healthy, I would definitely pick to look good over fantastic athletic abilities! :) That seemed to be the general consensus with most of you as well.

Right now I'm at that stage of life where it takes a while of bad eating for it to show up on my hips and as long as I keep up with laid-backish work-out routine, my body passes my standards of acceptable. Really I can't complain! That being said, I'm still in my young 20s so I figure I better enjoy this ride, however short-lived it may be! My current goal is to got my body to the point that it can respond and adapt to most physical athletic activity without too much groaning and aching the next day. Also to greatly improve my flexibility. That last one is going to take a while...

Moving on to today's topic, yours truly has a birthday coming up in a bit and if money were no object, I'd be gifted the camera of my dreams. The only thing holding me back is the fact that I have yet to determine which camera that will be!

This is where you all come in!

I know many of you have DSLRs and some of you are either pursuing photography professionally as a business or it's a favorite hobby of yours. Pretending that your budget was unlimited, what would you wish for? Please pile on the advice!

I have done minimal research so far and with what I have done, I've not yet developed a preference to brand.

I don't want something incredibly heavy to lug around but I know I want something that I won't quickly outgrow.

Photography has long been something I've enjoyed and I plan to take a few classes on photoshop and with a few local (but extremely talented) photographers.

Oh, and when I say camera, I'm referring to both the body and lens.

So what say you?

What do you have now?

Do you like it?

If you could go back, would you do it differently?

Also, for the various lens, I'd like to start with one or two and then branch out as I learn, recommendations on those?

I know that some models come with a basic lens or you can buy the body alone, I have no preference but don't want to buy it because it seems to be a better deal and then discover that it's pretty average.

Whenever I see posts similar to these, I feel half the responses are, you don't need to spend a lot of money, it all comes down to the operator. Yes, there is truth in that but I'd rather have a camera with more capabilities than I know how to use and to grow with the camera, then to buy a lower model and then end up trying to unload that camera and recoup some of the cost to put towards a better model.

Also, now is the time we want to be spending money on this. Down the road when we have kids, spending money on a nice camera will not be our top priority but good pictures of us and our family (now and in the future) is extremely important to us. We both want to develop the skill before the kiddies start popping out!

This will probably be one of many posts on this but I hoped to get advice from some of you experts out there in order to narrow the search a bit more!

Would You Rather?

Hubs and I were having a discussion last night in which I posed the following question. We both came to the same conclusion in the end but we'd love to know which choice you would pick. Here goes...

"Would you rather have physically attractive muscles: sleek, toned for the ladies and buff and muscular for the guys but have average athletic abilities-be able to run a mile or two with some effort and lift average-moderate weights, nothing crazy and not too terrible coordinated when it comes to athletics.

OR

Have what's becoming the "typical American build" (fill in the blank with whatever you find super unattractive and unhealthy looking, examples could include large beer gut, man boobs, gobs of cellulite, flappy arms, cankles, muffin top etc.) but extraordinary athletic abilities. For example, be able to run a marathon no sweat, or be able to perform any athletic feat you put your mind to with ease.

Now the catch is, no matter how much you work out in option number 1, it will never get any easier, you will always have average abilities and it will never get better. The catch for number 2 is, no matter how hard you work out, your bodies physical appearance will never change.

If both situations, your body is perfectly healthy and your bodies shape has no bearing on your overall health.

Which would you pick?

Tuesday Randomosity

The past weekend was amazing! I have come to the conclusion that I NEED 3-day weekends. Did anyone have any crazy plans?

Friday we got off mid afternoon and headed home and got a nice long workout in. Usually on Friday nights we have our married small group and we're always rushing. It was nice to be able to come home and leisurely prepare to workout, make a yummy dinner and relax before we headed out to group. A perfect way to start the long weekend!

Saturday started out with a big family breakfast. I woke up and made biscuits and then we walked down the short distance to my parents house and were treated with delicious home fries, scrambled eggs, pancakes, sausage and bacon. I ate so much I was pretty full the rest of the day! The weather was gorgeous, high 60s, low 70s so after breakfast we opened all the windows and snuggled down in blankets on the couch and watched movies all day. Definitely Maybe, Knocked-up (ick), Mama Mia and The Proposal. A friend of ours had asked for my help making flowers out of coffee filters for her centerpieces and I ended up spending most of the day Saturday making those while we watched tv.

Sunday our church was having a picnic and baptism after the service so we spent the afternoon on the Chesapeake Bay at a park. The weather was gorgeous again and it was so relaxing to hang out with my friends and my family. I fell asleep in the car on the way back so I ended up taking a nap when we got home, glorious! Sunday evening was a big family dinner as sort of a farewell for my brother in the army. My brother came home for college and we had the whole family plus my brothers girlfriend at the table, 12 of us! It was a delicious turkey dinner with mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, salad and scrumptious desserts, I was stuffed by the end of it! We then proceeded to stay up far too late playing Nerts (card game).

Monday, we slept in late and then proceeded to lay around napping, reading, working out, tidying the house, menu planning and eating a yummy dinner of salad and gourmet grill cheese sandwiches while we watched a movie.

Can I just say it was a glorious weekend? We had big plans to go to a fair and a drive in movie theater and a cookout but...when it got down to it, we realized we were both in desperate need of a break. We've been so run down and tired lately that I think the weekend was just what the Doctor ordered! Maybe it will even help in the fertility department! ;)

Thank you for your helpful feedback with regards to the jackets! I still need to finish up going through the comments and responding but it looks like the cream and neutral came out on top! I was initially leaning towards the cream (I really like all three!) but the neutral is growing on me as the perfect color for fall. I think I'm going to hang onto both for the time being and see which one I end up reaching for. The black was lovely as well but I think the coat was made of a different material because it was slightly itchy (whereas the other two are very soft) and had a funny smell. Weird...maybe I just got a bad one?

Your Opinions Needed!

First things first, before we get down to business, a big thank you goes out to Chloe and her mom Madeleine! They picked out this lovely sweatshirt for their recent giveaway and I won! It arrived on my front porch last night and I was so excited to try it on! Thank you both!


Now on to business. You all might remember last week when I posted on this amazing amazing goodness. Well....Hubs thought it would be a good idea if I ordered all three jackets (since our local store was not slated to get the jacket at all and free shipping was about to end) and try them all on and determine which one was my favorite and if I really HAD to have all three colors. :) So, before he reconsidered, I jumped on and ordered the jackets in the final days before we started the new budget. lol, had to get my last shop in!

Anyway, the jackets arrived yesterday and were waiting on my front porch for me when we returned home quite late in the evening. I tried all three on and *think* I have a favorite but I want to know which one you guys looks the best! Please excuse the rather poor quality of the photos, I had just gotten out of the shower and it was like 11pm at night so....I was dunzo for the day.

Option #1: The Neutral


Option #2: The Black (note I lightened these photos a lot so you could see the ruffles, the color is actually a true black)




Option #3: The Cream





Thoughts? Opinions? I'd love to hear them!

Hope everyone has an amazing holiday weekend!

I'm a Mean Wife...

I'm afraid I'm not brimming full of wise and deep marital thoughts today (am I ever really though?). Actually, I'm feeling rather rankled as my 16 year old sister who's never had a relationship in her life and who constantly gives my husband crap and an attitude (in fun) told me that I'm always mean to my husband and pulled an attitude on me.

And as much as I think she's wrong and know she doesn't have a clue about marriage, it still really got under my skin that she'd have the nerve to say such a thing... *humph* People these days! I think I need to grow thicker skin, otherwise this blog will become "the things people have the nerve to say".

I've felt so busy and rundown lately that I feel like our marriage may have taken the back seat a bit. Sure we do plenty of things together and talk aaaaaaaall the time (this is what happens when there is only car and your combined commute becomes a few hours a day!) but I can't remember the last time we went out or stayed in and did something deliberatingly relaxing or fun together, just the two of us, on a date. A chance for us to just chill and be kids and carefree.

You can only turn the grocery store into an adventure so many times I'm afraid. And going to a new one doesn't count.

See also flipping on the tv to watch NCIS reruns because you are too tired to move. Though watching NCIS reruns can count if it's deliberate and planned to be a date! It just doesn't count to me if it's because I'm using the remote to prop a eyelid.

I don't know when we turned into such adults but all of a sudden it feels like we're both carrying the world around on our shoulders... Worries about money, careers, cars, bills, the house, health and medical stuff... When did I become so old!?!?!

Hilariously enough, due to the TTC efforts, THAT department is doing just fine. :-D

Oh the irony...

As tired as I am and as much my head hurts thinking about adding one more thing to the to-do list, I think planning and GOING or committing to more dates and chill time with Hubs needs to move to the top of the list pronto.

I am soliciting you all for suggestions, because so far all I've written down is nap... Feel free to get crazy creative, they don't all have to be going OUT somewhere. Annnnnd go.