Elusive Sleep

 

Some things I am thinking about:

1. Do you ever wonder if you are really good at things, or if you just THINK you are good at them?

2. Should I eat a midnight snack?  Yes, definitely.  What should it be?

3. I keep giggling over the fact that I accidentally told a co-worker (a fifty year old woman mind you) that I love her. 

4. I may be getting rid of this blog soon.  You can e-mail me if you want the details.  All three of you that actually read this that is, hahaha. 

5. I am quite close to finishing my quilt and am really excited about it. 

6. I’m ready for a vacation.

7. I miss seeing my Spencer!  A LOT!

8. I am excited to go to the county fair this weekend.  Super excited actually.

9.  I feel achy achy bo bakey.  I am contemplating amputating my shoulders. 

10. I may be getting sleepy so it’s time to end this weird post and say goodnight. 

“Goodnight.”

Piles of Ideas

Lately I have been spending lots of quality time at the Library.  My current fetish has been with home decorating books.  I have checked out STACKS and STACKS of them to bring home and pour over.  Spencer continues to tease me about my love for picture books.  I do; I love lots of pictures. 

The thing is, this has been my first opportunity in life to REALLY decorate, not counting our itty-bitty one bedroom apartment with cinderblock walls (which I don’t because we couldn't even hang pictures up for pete’s sake).  So, I have been decorating with gusto since we got here. 

I have discovered two main problems during this endeavor of creating our home. 

1. I have the hardest time committing to a style!  I like this and that and this and that.  I tear pages out of magazines and bookmark ideas in my stacks of library books.  I save inspiring pictures I find on the internet.  But my tastes are kind of everywhere.  Even settling on a color scheme is a huge task for me.

2. There is simply not much room in the budget for home decorating. 

But, S L O W L Y very S L O W L Y we have worked on really making our little house our own.  Our decor is pretty simple.  We don’t own anything expensive.  Most of our furniture was free and much of the décor was handmade by yours truly.  It has taken us months and months for us to get things to look just the way we wanted.  Sure there’s things we would change if money would allow, but we are totally in love with our little space. 

Plus, I have this philosophy that no matter how simple your decor may be, a house can look fantastic as long as it is clean!  I LOVE cleaning.  I really do.  Give me cleaning over cooking any day.  And it has been so fun to take care of our little place.  So even though it’s not the fanciest, at least it is usually pretty tidy.  We also try to be careful what we allow into our home so that it is a place where we can always feel the spirit.  And that is, of course, the most important part of a home anyways.  

Well, now that I’ve blabbed on and on, I thought I would share some of my favorite library book finds.  If I absolutely HAD to pick a style, it would probably be Shabby Chic… enter designer Rachel Ashwell.  I really like her taste.  Her homes are always really light and airy.  Take a look at a couple of pictures from her book.   

Holy beautiful.  I love that white piano.  And I must figure out how to obtain that ocean front view. 

 

My picture of a picture just doesn’t do this room justice.  Still, I love her “casual thrown-together yet everything matches perfectly” style.  And, I love that she has fresh flowers all over her house. 

The dishes!            Be still my heart.            SO LOVELY!  I wish my dishwasher looked like that, I tell you what.  But I was so inspired that I have started collecting pink china as well.  I only have one or two pieces right now, but someday, many moons from now, I will have a whole dishwasher of happy mismatched vintage plates also.  It has been really fun to hunt for pieces one at a time at thrift stores.  

Someday soon I’ll have to share pictures of our cute little house.

Hard to Come By

When I decided to start a blog as sort of a therapy for our struggles in infertility I thought the blog should have a fun/funny url.

Here's a list of a few urls I came up with:

1. infertilityme.blogspot.com
2. gospermgo.blogspot.com
3. wannabeamomma.blogspot.com
4. adventuresinbabymaking.blogspot.com

The funny thing is all of those were already taken (along with a few other cool ones that I tried to adopt but can't remember their names right now).  This current url was probably my seventh choice.  But whatev.

The point is, that there are lots of people who want what we want and can't have it either.  Even though I joke that I don't know anyone besides us in this situation, I know there are people who feel as we do.  And they're taking all of the good infertility urls.  And we're all coping with the situation by spilling our guts on the internet.

But in all seriousness, I wish there was something that I could do to help all of you who want to have children but can't.  I wish I could reach out to you in some way.  One thing I hope to gain from all this, is empathy for those who struggle with infertility and a better understanding of what I can do to help them.  Because a kind listening ear and a genuine understanding for fellow infertilists (as I shall hitherto call them) is hard to come by.

Oodles of Poodles

I kept really wanting to title this post “Poodles on the Noodle.”  Admittedly, “Oodles of Poodles” isn’t much cooler, but when you have to use a fantastic word like “Poodle,” there are just so many fun title possibilities…

… “Poodles Love Doodles”…

… “Poodles in my Strudel…s”…

Okay I’ll stop.

A couple of weeks ago we puppy sat these little cuties.  Lizzy LOVED the poodles so much.  She followed them all around the house trying to get them to play with her.  I’m not sure they loved her as much as she loved them, but it was fun to have them over.  Yes, I pose dogs for pictures.  I’m weird. 

(One of these things is not like the others)

So the other day when I was in the mood to get out my clay and play for a while, I knew exactly what I wanted to make. 

I really like her little tail. 

If making a fat little poodle out of clay doesn’t make your day, I don’t know WHAT will. 

Smile

My sister, Chelsey, is about the happiest person you will ever meet.  Everywhere she goes she has a smile on her face. 

One time, when my sisters and I were quite little we were told that we had to do our Saturday chores before we could leave for an anticipated excursion.  Saturdays were probably the day of most conflict in our home because we always wanted to skip the cleaning and get right to having fun.  I’m sure some such argument had occurred and Mom sent us to our rooms to clean and shut herself up in the office.  We all sat angrily in separate rooms.  Chelsey, feeling the need to rectify the situation, scribbled the words “Chir Up” onto a crumpled up piece of paper.  She crept quietly to the office, flung open the door, hurled the piece of paper containing the all-important message onto the floor, slammed the door and ran away.

I’m pretty sure my mom still has that piece of paper.  There have been many occasions when Chelsey has “Chired” me up.  She’s the kind of person who is positive, kind, and enjoyable to be around.  She has the kind of energy that just draws people towards her.  I have tried to follow her example and always carry a smile on my face.  Sometimes it is really hard!  I don’t know that I will ever be as good at it as she is.  But I’m really grateful for her gift to see the best in people and the good in the world.  I want to be just like her when I grow up!  

One In Four

Question of the day: If one in four couples struggles with infertility, why don't I know ANYONE besides us who can't get pregnant at the drop of a hat?

Where are these other infertile couples?  I mean, I've read some of their blogs on the internet, but have never actually met one in person.  Even at the doctors office, there are usually five or six pregnant bellies to my left and seven or eight pregnant bellies to my right with my comparably flat stomach sandwiched in between all of them.  So, fellow infertile couples, are you really out there?  Do you really exist?

Scrappy Tote

I have been putting off putting this up, because it’s not the best picture of my bag.  Mostly, because it’s kind of hard to see the print on my favorite scrap of fabric (the cute little cloud print!).  I made the entire tote out of fabric scraps.  But, I can never seem to find time to snap a better photo, so you’ll just have to look at this one and know that it’s cuter in real life.  Perhaps I’ll post a better one another day.  Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps.