Reunited and it hurts so good

So the entire clan is gathering on Sunday to witness the CHRISTENING, not baptismal, of my nephew Joey and then immediately following we will be celebrating my other nephew Jake's 2nd birthday. I really don't think you're ready for this jelly. People don't believe our family stories until they meet the kinsmen themselves. Some of it is rather hard to believe. It's mostly difficult to fathom that all this craziness is wrapped up in one family tree. Monday morning I will be posting pictures and I'll be armed with enough blogger material to last a lifetime I'm sure. But before the weekend comes I'd like to give you guys a primer, so as to not skeer ya right outcha britches come Monday. A who's who if you will (don't worry, I'm not covering the entire guest list, neither you nor I have that kind of time):

-Nanny & Pappy: My paternal grandparents. Nanny is Irish and only in the last 5 years did she become a citizen. Pappy is my blind grandfather who until his eyesight totally left him, would watch his 60 inch plasma tv with binoculars. Unfortunately, due to Pappy's health, they won't be able to make it to the party (they live in Florida). But they'll be there in spirit.

-Uncle Kevin & Aunt Marcia, Troy: my Dad's brother and his wife & their son. Just last year at this time Kevin cut his thumb off in the woodshed. We visited him to check up on him as well as Troy because Nanny told us Troy had gone blind. Troy actually had hives (Nanny's just hard of hearing) and Marcia was keeping Kevin's severed thumb in a paper bag in the freezer. You can't make this stuff up.

-Stephanie, Mike, & Cody: Cousin, her husband, their newborn son. Mike, bless his heart, is the skinniest highway patrol officer I've ever seen. I have earrings bigger than him. His head is so tiny it's hard to believe he's not a shrunken head from some tribe. I'm DYING to see this baby.

-Junior, Marilyn, Chad: My Dad, his 4th wife (we think, he's shady, could be # 5 or 6), my brother. They all live in Florida so we don't see them much. Marilyn married my Dad around Thanksgiving so she's new to the family craziness. She seems relatively normal, although we're thinking they may smoke the ganja (sp?) on occasion. Chad is 18 and is epileptic. Breaks my heart. I don't joke about him. Now my Dad.....oh Lord. Where to begin? He's just a nut job. The poster child for why you should never drink or do drugs when you're young. He's recently calmed down enough for us to allow him at family functions again. We went about 10 years without seeing him. That's why we're not exactly sure how many wives he's had. I don't know if he even knows for sure.

-Lisa: My best friend. THANK YOU LORD for lowering air fare enough so she can be here. I need a witness or you may all cry liar later.

-Rita, Gary, Jody, Pete: Aunt, Uncle & cousins on Mom's side. They live in a town called Tookiedoo in a double wide trailer with a big screen tv, satellite dish, & golf cart. Gary's the one who blew his face off a year or so ago with lye while unclogging a pipe in a pool. He's healed now, and looks exactly the same as he did before the accident.

-Grandmommy: my Mom's mom. Grandmommy lives in a house in the country. Her boyfriend, Ray, lives in a trailer in her yard. Ray's the one who got so drunk he fell out of a tree while hunting, had a heart attack and a stroke, landed on his face and stayed there for 2 days before he was found. HE SURVIVED. Grandmommy is a no nonsense country girl who does not like fuss. The last time she was told there was a big function and she had to put on a dress she took a drag off her cigarette and drawled "Oh, shiiiiiit."

Now, since my sister apparently refuses to post pics of her darling boys, I'll do it. Here's Joey:

And here are some more pics of him and Jake that I took last night. Such cuties! They have no idea what kind of family they are growing up in.

Where's your head at?

Sunday is my nephew Joey's Christening and my nephew Jake's 2nd birthday party. It will also be the first time I've seen a lot of friends and family in a long time as I missed Jake's 1st birthday (I had my fallopian tube surgery the day prior) and it seems my girlie bits like to schedule d&c's and other random girl medical crises during holidays and family get togethers. I'd been worried about this gathering since I first heard of it. I know who's invited. I know that 99% of them are either pregnant or have babies. I know what 99% of the people are going to ask me as soon as we get past the hey how are ya's. And that is...So, what's taking you guys so long to have kids? Or, I figured ya'll would have kids by now. Or, my favorite Are you still having problems getting pregnant? No- I'm 8 months pregnant with triplets right now, I just don't show much. I have Truthful Tourettes and have a really hard time using a vague stock answer like "Oh, we'll have kids when we're ready." Especially since we were ready over 3 years ago. So if you ask me about our fertility issues you're bound to get an earful. You're lucky I don't have pictures or we'd set up a slide show. And then, inevitably, I'd cry.

Not anymore. Now that it's a done deal, now that we're adopting, we've started the process, we've named her, we're on our way, things are better. I've been doing a lot of reading, praying, and studying material on adoption. A couple of weeks ago I had a remarkable day when I watched a dvd sent by an agency that really addressed a lot of my feelings and answered so many questions. I now know that I'm not the only one who asked "Why me, why us? Am I being punished for something? Maybe those poor choices in college hookups? What am I supposed to do if my whole life I wanted to grow up get married and have kids and now I can't?". Stuff like that. This dvd showed me that adoption isn't plan B. Like Oh you can't have kids so you've sunk to the bottom of the barrel and are going to adopt. Adoption is just as wonderful as birthing your own. I learned to stop saying things like "We can't have kids" because yes we can, we won't be giving birth to them, but we can have kids. And I realized that not everyone can or should adopt, that it takes special people. So even though my girlie bits are screwed up, God knows that my heart is good and He chose a Chinese baby for us to bring home. (By the way, Ling means bell, or tinkling of a bell in Chinese so Lingling is ok to say. I was worried maybe we'd chosen something weird like the Chinese word for upset stomach or cow turd, but we're ok).

Back to the party. Now that my head is in the right place, and I have friends and family to support me (Lisa is flying in for the weekend to be with me- how awesome is she?), I know that I can face those people, hold my head high, answer questions, and hey, maybe even educate someone just a little about how great adoption is.

Plus, my favorite cowboy is turning 2 and he needs his Aunt Shanny to be all smiles on his big day!

Say my name, say my name

At Easter brunch we got to talking about names. We are referring to our future daughter who we'll be bringing home from China in approximately 18-24 months as LingLing. For a few reasons:

1. It is much easier and more fun to say LingLing when we speak of her than to constantly say our future daughter who we'll be bringing home from China in approximately 18-24 months.

2. Our last name rhymes with Ling and if you know our last name and say it with LingLing as the first name you'll realize how ridiculous of a name that would be for a child.

3. We've already chosen a forever name for LingLing, but we are keeping that secret. Adoption means so much isn't secret, no surprises. If you give birth you can wait and see if you're having a girl or a boy and that is a HUGE surprise (Jake was a wait and see). So by keeping her name secret we at least have that.

So we shared our decision with family on Sunday (Jon's aunt & uncle & cousin were there at the inlaws, as well as a couple Marsha & Larry who are very close family friends- we think of them as our cool aunt and uncle fate forgot to give us). And we answered a lot of questions. And it was so great to see how excited everyone is! There's already talk of how spoiled Lingling will be, and how to decorate the nursery, etc.

And then the conversation turned to names and it was so funny, and yet so horrifying to hear what real people actually named their children. I swear to you it seems like people are just throwing sounds and letters together with no regard to spelling or how their children will deal with these names. Everyone seems to have known someone with a terrible name and here are the ones we heard on Sunday: (they are all true I swear!) & (I've left off last names to protect these poor souls)

-Shasta

-Valencia

-Princess

-Unique (pronounced Unikay)

-Dorkus (a girl!)

-Janel (a boy!)

-Early May (guess when she was born)

-Kids who's parents have gone nuts with spelling- Breeahnnah (why not just Brianna?) Charee (supposed to be Cherie the french name)

Then we started talking about unfortunate pairings of first and last names.

-Cherry Berry (the lady who signs off on the safety of elevators. I've seen her name every time I ride one).

-J. Peter Seaman (say it outloud then wonder why not use whatever the J stands for?)

-Harry Butts (asked Marsha out in high school)

-Blank Beaver (I dated this guy for 4 years. I won't publish his first name, but nothing goes well with Beaver. Thank God his name wasn't Harry. It all got out of control when I had to place a take out order for Beaver at Cluck U chicken in New Jersey. Oy.)

-and the prize for most unfortunate name heard on Easter Sunday goes to: Ima Hoar . (went to high school with Larry) Poor, poor girl.

So- what crazy names have you heard? Please share!

Puggy Bank

We received fabulous Easter baskets from Jon's parents. They gave us beautiful wine glasses suitable for red wine (we only had white wine glasses), a great corkscrew, a couple of books, lots of candy, a cute Nicole Miller umbrella, adorable pug note cards, and my favorite item in our baskets was this puggy bank that I've been wanting for over a year. So cute!

Happy Easter!

Love the Easter Puggies!

Goin to the Chapel

Congratulations to Rachel & Matt! They got married today! I've been keeping the secret for months and it's finally out in the open! Have the most wonderful time on your honeymoon!!! This really is a Good Friday for you two! xoxo

Egg-cellent

Have you seen the Eggstractor? I love this thing so much. Click the pics to enlarge. I gave a bunch of them for Christmas presents this year and kept one for us. We use it all the time. I'm constantly looking for excuses to boil eggs. It comes with a big egg slicer and a recipe/instruction book. The recipes are a riot. Dishes like "Boiled eggs and Jam": boil eggs and serve with Jam. Ha! It's so fun! And so fast- I can peel 18 eggs in no time flat. The eggs make this pop noise when they get blown out of their shells. And the shells are left pretty much intact. Now if I could just figure out a craft that uses 3/4's of an egg shell. Hmmmm.

I've Been Everywhere, Man

bold the states you've been to, underline the states you've lived in and italicize the state you're in now...

Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C /

Go HERE to have a form generate the HTML for you.

Ok, so not really. Not yet anyway. But one day I'd love to buy an RV and tour every state. Jon's cousin's wife's parents (got that?) sold their house and did that for 2 years. How cool. I love RV's anyway. I love those RV shows on HGTV. But they don't come cheap! But if you're living in it for a while you might as well splash out right?

Ears up!

Click to enlarge- you won't regret it! For your viewing pleasure I present to you one of the rejected Easter photos for this year's cards. Jon said they look like tired maids wearing little kerchiefs since their ears kept sagging. Bless their hearts. We went through 3 different backdrops and 2 costume changes. I just couldn't get a shot I was satisfied with. I finally went with a photo that is a departure from the norm. You'll have to wait til Easter to see it of course. My puggies are so good though- they'll endure an hour of torturous posing and headpiece wearing all for some sliced Kraft singles. That's love people.

In other news, my Mom has entered the realm of eBay sales. I'm listing a bunch of stuff for her to get started. Then she'll take over for her next set of auctions. Click here to see her stuff. She's got a lot of cool things. I've still got some formal dresses to list- new with tags- never worn. And there's some of Morgan's things on there too- girls' clothes from Limited Too etc. Morgan grows so fast she will literally wear something once and then it's done. Not so good news for my Mom's budget, but good news for you!

Where I am crowned local jackass queen

Everyone's a jackass sometime right? I've got two examples over the last couple of weeks of my jackassiness. I hope in this case it doesn't come in threes.
1. My new nephew Joey is being baptized in a couple of weeks. The entire family is coming to town for this event so it's been a frequent topic of conversation lately. For the last few weeks I'd been calling it "Joey's baptismal". Baptismal is actually an adjective. I'd like to think I'm a smart girl and here I've been running around talking about a baptismal to anyone who'd listen. Finally Lisa corrected me. It went something like this:

L: Sweetie, it's not baptismal, it's a baptism.
S: Dag. I'm such a jackass. Ok. Baptism. (sounding it out like I'm on Sesame Street or something)
L: Just say Christening. You can't screw that up.

That's what friends are for.

2. We eat Chinese take out a lot. So much so that the people that work there know us by voice and don't even take our names when we call in. They just say "ok- 10 minutes". We walk in and hear "Last Name!" called out like Norm on Cheers. Well it's a good thing they like us because we pulled up to the restaurant the other night and I looked in my purse and my wallet wasn't there. I asked Jon for his. He was counting on me bringing mine so he was empty handed. Jimshun saw me pull up and had put our bag on the counter (it was slow). I had to go in. I went in and told him what happened and he said don't worry about it pay me later and let us go! How awesome is that?! Only in a small town I tell you. I felt like such a punk leaving there with free food for the night. But I did promise to go back and pay him the next day. Yeah, this is the part where we forget about our tab at China East May I help You for a couple of days then we have to order Chinese again because we forgot about the tab and I have to sheepishly remind Jimshun under my breath when I'm paying and I hope to God noone heard me. It is a small town you know.

Please tell me I'm not alone and that you've been a jackass lately too?

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Comments

I've been getting lots of emails from people saying they can't comment here for various reasons. The blogger comments just weren't working out. So I installed Haloscan. Hopefully this will solve our commenting problems. Please email me if you're still running into trouble.

***So I'm getting feedback that maybe it was my template that was the problem. I've changed that now too. Sweet Monkey Biscuit this better work- I'm tired of looking at html!

Erin Go Pug!

This year we skipped doing St. Patty's day picture cards since Easter is so close this year. So I'm recycling last year's card for this blog. I'm not making corned beef & cabbage to the shame of my Irish relatives I'm sure. But I did eat some Lucky Charms so that counts right? =)

I realized that even though it's been decided in our minds I haven't officially posted that we have officially decided to adopt a little girl from China. We're currently trying to decide which agency to go through. We're really excited. It's going to take a while (around 2 years- hopefully less), a lot of money and patience, but I know in my heart that it is meant to be. I was looking at some personal adoption stories of people who adopted from China and I just cried looking at those sweet babies. Beautiful children who are unwanted in their home country but are completing homes in this country. I read this Chinese proverb on one site that said something about how a red thread connects us to each other from birth until we are united. I thought about wearing a red thread bracelet until my baby comes home. I just hope noone thinks I'm Britney or Madonna wearing a Kabbalah red bracelet. Heh.

So now I'll be talking about adoption as well as pugs and travel and crafts etc. Hope you guys will want to hang out and see where this new adventure takes us!

Wash & Curl MY ASS!

As you can imagine, I've been a little on edge recently. I've been noticing tiny things that really, REALLY get on my nerves that wouldn't normally. One is that we apparently can not watch game shows at home because Ike thinks people are constantly ringing the doorbell so a barkfest ensues. Another is a commercial that tends to air during said game shows for Wash 'n Curl shampoo. This morning my hair was straight, then Brad called so I went curly. Thanks wash and curl. No you didn't! You DID NOT wash your hair then step out of the shower with big springy curls. You lying bastards! Why do they let such stupid ass products promote themselves on tv?! Shut up you overcompensated wench you know they spent hours curling your hair with a curling iron because I CAN SEE THE MARK IN YOUR HAIR FROM THE IRON!!! Ok, sorry, I'm going to go take some more meds now. And maybe a bath. But I can promise that even if I did have that moronic shampoo I'd still get out of the tub with thin fine hair that laughs an evil laugh at any curling device. Muhahaha!

One seller that won't lead you on with impossible promises is me. I listed some more stuff on eBay. We've officially started fundraising for the hefty price tag that comes with adoption. The silver shoes I'm selling won't make you famous or curly headed, but since they are heels you will get taller. Click here for the whole list.

Heartborn

My Mom treated my sister Sara and her husband Marc to a night in a hotel this weekend. So Mom & Hale babysat the boys and I went over to visit for a few hours. Trying to get Jake's pjs on was a challenge and he sure did look at us like we did not know what we were doing. Joey's looking more like himself every time I see him. You know how newborns all kinda look squished up and pink? So now he's growing into his face and turning into a real cutie- very alert and looking around and smiling already. Both of those boys are just so sweet. Sara's a great mom and it shows in her kids.

Thank you for all of your support. The loss of the ability to have a child is huge. Knowing I can never give Jon a child with his eyes or my freakishly short legs is heartbreaking. But we're dealing with it and while it will never be easy we're learning that even though our children won't be born from my womb, they'll be born in our hearts, and that's pretty amazing.

The Reason

Thursday we saw the best fertility doctor in the city, and probably the state. It took a long time to get an appointment with him, but I kept hearing that if anyone could get us pregnant it would be him. Plus I knew he'd figure out a way to stop the bleeding. I filled out a huge amount of paperwork and answered all sorts of questions about myself and Jon for our file. They took blood for various tests. We spoke with the Dr. for a good long time and he answered a lot of questions. Then it was time for the ultrasound.

If you haven't had a vaginal ultrasound before let me tell you, it's no treat. I've had plenty over the last year and it's still a bit shocking. And cold! Have they not figured out how to warm up that lube? Anyway, there on the screen were all of my problems. Here's your left ovary (on the side where they removed my fallopian tube) and see all those black balls? Those are cysts. They are eggs that grow but never get released (no tube). And there's your right ovary. It's worse than your left. Look at all those cysts. Your body isn't releasing the eggs into the tube because your hormones don't tell the ovary to let them go. So they grow into large cysts.

He confirmed that I have PCOS, which we knew. He told me the only way we could get pregnant is through in-vitro and to expect 3-4 tries and a success rate of around 40%. My insurance doesn't cover in-vitro. Neither does the insurance offered by Jon's job. We don't have the money to pay thousands and thousands of dollars up front and hope we're in that 40%. And that's delivery rate. Not pregnancy rate. He said I could get pregnant through IVF but miscarry once, twice, a few times before it takes. No thank you. We aren't financially or emotionally equipped to handle those odds.

You may be wondering, but what about IUI or those fertility shots they give? Well, because of the PCOS he said that was out of the question. If I'm given drugs to force my ovaries to release the eggs he's worried that they'd release 5-7 eggs and then it's possible I could be pregnant with 5-7 babies and he said that would be very dangerous with my hormonal history but we could talk about selective reduction and I'm sorry but no we can't go in and selectively reduce the amount of babies. Not us. Not when we've been dreaming for so long of just one. Or two if we're really lucky. I can't reduce my pregnancy to 2-3 and then hope they survive.

He changed my medication around a bit to fix the bleeding. He's thinking this will work. He won't do a hysterectomy until I've been on this new cocktail for 6 months and I'm still having problems. I haven't bled for a week now, so it's a start.

We're left we what we'd figured would be the outcome. We're adopting. And we're ok with that. Really. I don't ache to give birth, I just ache to be a Mom. But I can't deny that I wasn't hoping for some small miracle. Some tiny thing that the other doctors missed. Some medical treatment or process that could mean we could just get pregnant somehow then bring home a baby like so many other people do. It seems so easy when I think of people getting pregnant and having babies. And so unfair. Why is it feast or famine? Why do these people on tv have 7 kids then get a new house from ABC and we can't have one? And we aren't asking for a new house. Why can't it be more even? Let all of us who want kids have them, even if that means we all just get one. So now we'll continue to save our pennies and prepare for the long, hard, expensive road that very few choose if given the option. For us it's not an option, it's the only way.

It was so hard to see myself on that ultrasound screen. The machine that normally prints out sweet little blurry pictures for parents to take home. My screen just showed how broken I am. All of my missing parts. All of my parts that for so long have been denying us the one thing we've always wanted. The only part that the Dr. deemed normal was my uterus. Lying there empty, never to know it's purpose. Lying there healthy while being taunted by two screwed up ovaries pockmarked by black cysts. I wish there was a better reason for all of this. Something to blame it on. But there's not. The only reason is me.

Back in the saddle

I'm leaving in about 45 minutes for my appt with a new Reproductive Endocronologist. I'm sure I've spelled that wrong but I have to type this quickly as I just learned that I'll be getting an exam and an ultrasound so I have to go Nair so as to not scare the man with my sasquatch legs. Anyway, hopefully this visit will give us some answers. Keep your fingers crossed for us! Let's all chant: What do we want? Hysterectomy! When do we want it? Now! Down with the bleeding! Fight the power and what not!

There's a hole

Does anyone know the song there's a hole in the bottom of the sea? We've sung it in my family for as long as I can remember. It starts with:

There's a hole in the bottom of the sea. There's a hole in the bottom of the sea. There's a hole, There's a hole, There's a hole in the bottom of the sea.

There's a log in the hole in the bottom of the sea... and so on until you get to There's a germ on the flea on the hair on the wart on the frog on the knot on the log in the hole in the bottom of the sea.

I sang that song for Jon and he'd never heard of it. After I sang the whole thing he turns to me and says "That's just unrealistic. That poor little frog can't live at the bottom of the sea. His little face would cave in."

Purge

The ridiculous shoe purge continues. I love these shoes. I fell in love with them and bought them a couple of months ago. They have never seen the light of day. I tried to walk in them and just couldn't. I must have become temporarily graceful in the shoe store. Good for them, bad for me. So, I've listed them on eBay at almost half price. Take a look!

Mas Zapatos, Por Favor

I lurve shoes. Not all kinds, not the lace up, hot & stuffy kind you are forced to wear in winter. But come spring, and ahhhhh. It's time for flip flops and cuuute strappy sandals. Now, here's the problem. I have Flintstone feet. Wide paddles with corn niblets for toes. And they are short too. There are just some shoes I've never been able to wear. Mainly- cuuute strappy sandals. I've tried and it just looks like I'm being tortured. So all my life I've stuck to flip flops and on the occasion that called for a dressy spring or summer shoe I've had to go up 47 sizes until I could cram my foot in, then I tried to ignore the extra inch at the front and back of my toes. Besides, the numbing caused by the straps digging into my feet was enough to keep me occupied.

Until now. My dear, dear friend Lisa told me about this store Avenue that sells a brand of shoe called Cloudwalkers in wide widths. I pulled up the website and found that they did indeed have a store about 30 minutes from me. Such cute shoes online! But would they have any in store? So Jon indulged me since we couldn't go to Wilmington and he took me shopping for shoes.

Oh. My. Word. I can barely describe the joy that was in my heart when I picked up a pair of cuuute strappy sandals in a size 9w and they fit perfectly. I didn't have to summon pagan gods or use implements of torture to get my foot in them. They slid right in. And fit. And my foot looked normal. I suddenly had toes the length of human toes! And look- my arch was in the right place! And best of all, they were so comfortable. I was standing there channeling Sex and the City and Carrie looked down at me from syndication heaven and said "Sweetie, it is your time." The other store patrons cheered and cleared a path to the register for me to purchase my newfound glorious shoes. Not really. In fact, Jon kept telling me to shush because I was getting weird looks, what with all my dramatic sighs of pleasure and relief, and shouts of Thanks be to God!

So I whipped out the credit card and brought my babies home with me. Pictured above are my zippy lilac cuuute strappy sandals. I'd like you to meet her sister black suede mule with cute flower embellishments: I'm particularly fond of these suede shoes because they were on clearance for just $9.99. Click the pic to enlarge all of the photos in this post, you'll kick yourself later if you don't. Next is pink strappy sandal, fraternal twin of lilac strappy sandal. Hey, when the shoe fits, buy it in all the colors you like. Now I present to you dressier knotted black sandal . How I've lived without you for so long I'll never know, dressy knotted black sandal! I could not sleep the night we returned home with my shoes as my mind was assembling outfits to go with each pair. Thankfully there are a handful of occasions coming up that call for cute springy shoes. Unless we get another winter blast paired with an invite to dinner it looks like suede mule will be hanging out til next winter, but I'm cool with that. I purged my closet of all ill fitting shoes and came across the shoes I wore in my sister's wedding. I love them so much, but I look like a half foot amputee in them. So I've listed them on eBay as they are too cute to go directly to Goodwill. Not that poor people shouldn't look cute too, but I did pay a good bit for them and wore them for a solid 3 hours so I wouldn't mind getting something back besides a warm feeling inside and a tax deduction.

It is taking every ounce of willpower I have not to go online and purchase every pair of Cloudwalkers in my size. Well, that and Jon telling me that I'm not Mrs. Howell and we haven't gotten to the point where I can afford to buy shoes for every outfit. A girl can dream.

Come n get it!

I've listed some more scrapbooking supplies on eBay. Go check it out!

*Side note: the lady that owns the house we rented in Wilmington was so understanding that she is letting us use our deposit and reschedule our trip for October. Yay! Here's the link to the house we're renting- it's just amazing!

Whippersnappers

Jon got up early this morning and ran to the store to bring me home a box of my favorite cereal ever, Lucky Charms. I could not believe my eyes when I read on the box that the prize inside is a VIDEO GAME! I opened up the box and there it was on top, wrapped in plastic, outside the cereal bag. What is wrong with the youth today?! When I was a kid you had to eat the entire box of cereal to get to a crummy rub on tattoo or some jacks or something, and you were happy with it! Jon snatched the video game out of my hands and started playing right away. It works! A functioning video game in cereal. Unbelievable.

Mooched

For our anniversary dinner we went to Mickey and Mooch. It was a really cool place with that Frank Sinatra 40's atmosphere. Our dinner was so good. Pictured is my Hypnotique martini. Very yummy. Jon wouldn't taste it though because he said blue drinks just aren't natural. Afterwards we tried to go to Lollicup for some bubble tea, but they were out of business already. Why won't the South embrace bubble tea?? I'm tired of being denied fun trendy drinks!

Fruit, flowers, or appliances

That's what you're supposed to give each other for your 4th wedding anniversary. Odd. Time's really flying though, I can't believe it's been this long. In May we'll have been together for 7 years. We dated a year and a half before we got engaged, then our engagement was a year and a half. At this time 4 years ago I was on my way to the church for pictures. Our wedding was at 5, a time I highly recommend because on your wedding day there just isn't enough time to get it all done. Yet somehow it still turned out perfectly.

We were supposed to be almost to Wilmington, NC right now. We're supposed to be staying in this fabulous rental house I found with a koi pond and a huge veranda and they allow pets so the pugs were psyched. But my uterus has been acting up again. I may need another d&c. The bleeding is off and on but when it's on I can't leave the house it's so bad. I literally can not keep up with it. I just want them to rip all those parts right out of me. They already told me nothing works for baby making anyway so why do I need it? And it's all causing me nothing but problems. And now my stupid uterus is making me miss the trip I've been looking forward to since I booked it last summer. Not to mention the $200 deposit we'll lose. Nice. But Jon's scared to take me too far away from my Dr. and I understand that. I don't want to force him to vacation and watch him worry himself sick for 4 days.

To try and make up for it he's taking me shopping and to dinner and he said we can even see all those girlie movies he hates. Mr. Safety Man loves me and that's why I'm home, but I can't help but be sad. I wanted this anniversary to be special. We've been through so much the last year.

Ah well, there's always next year. And next year come hell or high water we'll be in Vegas!

Anniversario

Jon's parents took us to Buca di Beppo for dinner last night to celebrate our fourth anniversary. (Our actual anniversary is tomorrow, the 3rd.) We sat at the kitchen table again, which is always entertaining. The food was fabulous as always. My in-laws gave us a gift card for another dinner and a cd compilation of songs from the Cirque du Soleil shows. We saw 'O' on our honeymoon, so Cirque is pretty special to us. Next year we'd love to go to Vegas, where we spent our honeymoon, and see Cirque's new show.

Oh Deer, Ike's in Love!

We took Ike & Kea to their first official dinner party the other night. Marsha & Larry (friends of Jon's parents) invited us and the in-laws over for Venison stew. I hadn't had deer meat since I was much younger and mah Daddy did him some huntin. So it took a while to get over the mental hurdles, but I did eat some. And she did a great job with it, it tasted mostly like a beef roast.

Marsha and Larry have 2 lasa ahpsos (sp?) and 2 Tibetan spaniels. The Tibbies are around the same age as Ike & Kea so we've been trying to have a little puppy mixer for quite some time. They all got along famously. Ike promptly fell in love with the girl spaniel Namba and proceeded to shake his little pug tush every time he'd walk past her. He smiled all night long, and at one point we found the two of them nuzzling in the kitchen! I've never seen anything like it. More pictures are found here.