Today I'm Tired

In February or March hubbs went to have a stress test b/c he'd been feeling weird and heart problems run in his family. We JUST got the results back yesterday. The reason for the delay is such a long story, but in the end the doctors were negligent/lazy and I'm totally pissed. Anyway, he has "slightly abnormal flow" when he's exercising. He also got back blood results and his LDL is 121--21 over optimal. His testosterone is back down--303. Not good. We're eating better than we ever have and he's consistently working out. I don't understand.

I'm just sick. I simply can't take all this at our age. Maybe I'm overacting and lots of people have these issues and infertility to deal with. Whatever. It still sucks. I made some cookies and drank a bottle of three-buck-Chuck. I gotta look for a cardiologist. Hopefully a good one. My Thanks to Rebecca from Which Way to Baby? for the advice. Her husband just found out he has a heart condition.

Keep your head down and plow through. That's what I'm hearing in my head tonight.

Blogher and Infertility

Pamela Jeanne from Coming 2 Terms posted this video and I wanted to post it too. Pamela attended the Blogher Conference recently in San Francisco and spoke on a panel titled "When the Road to Motherhood is Anything but Smooth."



I want to commend all the ladies that shared their stories and tears. It's often not easy to talk about infertility, but it is SO necessary. I also want to add that in my opinion it does not make you a "drama queen" or "overly sensitive" if you can't attend a baby shower. If nothing else, infertility has made me more empathetic to the feelings and emotions of all those that suffer. Everyone experiences things differently. We are not all suffering from the same causes of infertility and we will not all deal with it in the same ways.

Mememememe

I stole this from Rosie's blog. The questions have to be answered with one word.

1. Where is your cell phone? basket
2. Your significant other? work
3. Your hair? bun
4. Your mother? Florida
5. Your father? uninvolved
6. Your favorite thing? food
7. Your dream last night? violent
8. Your favorite drink? wine
9. Your dream/goal? happiness
10. The room you’re in? bedroom
11. Your hobby? crafts
12. Your fear? bugs
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? happy
14. What you’re not? happy
15. Muffins? blueberry
16. One of your wish list items? baby
17. Where you grew up? Florida
18. The last thing you did? cook
19. What are you wearing? boxers
20. Favorite gadget? mp3
21. Your pets? love
22. Your computer? many
23. Your mood? blah
24. Missing someone? always
25. Your car? hot
26. Something you’re not wearing? bra
27. Favorite store? grocery
28. Like someone? most
29. Your favorite color? yellow
30. When is the last time you laughed? ...?
31. Last time you cried? yesterday today

Monday, Monday

La daaaa la da da daaa. I think that's how the song goes. At least that's how I hear it in my head. There isn't much going on with me these days. I made a great Alfredo sauce that contains cream cheese. Who woulda thought it would turn out so well. Never buy the jarred stuff again! Today I expressed the checks ransom money and documentation promises in blood to the mortgage company. Now we wait. I've been learning so much about fish keeping. I saw a really disturbing video last night of a clown (Nemo) fish killing a damsel fish by feeding it to an anemone. The fish world is pretty interesting. Some fishes are really mean. Hubbs says after seeing the video he doesn't think we should get a clown. He was quite bothered. Says Nemo is an evil sonofabitch...lol

Todays bits

Today I had my first mammogram. I've been having breast pain for a few months and some swelling on my right. Thankfully nothing showed up on the mammogram or sonogram, but now what? There is obviously something wrong, but I have no idea what to do next. Should I keep pushing?

The mammogram itself was of course uncomfortable. And good grief did my boob look HUGE plopped on that machine all squashed down. I was a total basket-case and cried all morning. Anyway, it's done. Real life sucks sometimes.

On the house front, we ran into a bit of a snag. The insurance checks were made out to include the mortgage company as a payee. Our bank wouldn't take the check. After many phone calls, turns out this is common practice and we have to send the checks to the mortgage company with the insurance estimate, contractor estimate and all this other crap documentation. Then the mortgage company will send us some of the money to get the work started and once 50% is done a reevaluation will have to take place and thennnnn we get the remaining money. Can you believe this shit? Anyway, it's annoying and causing a lot of extra unnecessary paperwork and time. Ughhhh.

We're seriously contemplating getting an aquarium. Right now we're trying to determine whether it will be salt or fresh water. I love the look of the salt/marine aquariums so much more, but neither of us has ANY experience. Not even a childhood goldfish...lol I don't want us to get in over our heads. I dunno. Anyone have experience with aquariums?

Quick Updates and Q&A

Grouted, caulked and ready to roll

Well, we're still working at it. This week we grouted and caulked. Check. Check. I did some shopping for bathroom accessories and we settled on this set from JCPenney's and this cabinet from Target. I also picked up wood trim for windows that I'm going to use to frame the original bathroom mirror. See an example here.

Deathstar asked: How do you find working together on projects with your hubby?
Well, it's getting better. Our main issue is that we tackle problems very differently, although the goal is usually the same. Also he hates planning and I'm an obsessive planner. Opposite <--- ---> ends...lol Often I give in and let him do things his way to keep the peace just as long as the result is one I agree with. It helps some that I have a lot of DIY experience. My mom was a shop teacher as I was growing up and she taught me a lot too. So far we've only had one screaming match with this project :) I wish I could say it's a blast working together, but it isn't all the time. We always make it through to the end though.

Thanks for all the wonderful compliments. You all are so kind!

Progress

Foyer & closet. The tiles are placed down to determine pattern and spacing. Hubbs is there cutting the closet door jamb.

We worked all weekend and got most of the foyer finished. The section around the stairs has to wait for the laminate install. I'm pretty excited about the look of it. Not bad for novices I think.

The tiles are "glued" (thinset) and waiting for grout.

We'll probably grout tonight. Woo-hoo! Well, not exactly. Not much excitement for grout. Just to be done. I'm tired of all the messy stuff and we should be using gloves more often b/c in California this stuff is known to "cause reproductive problems and cancer." Good grief. I suppose we should have been more careful with this crap cuz goodness knows we don't need any additional issues.



Hubbs decided he wanted to do a mosaic for the transition space between the bath and foyer. Here it is before grout. Isn't he crafty? :)


DIY: I'm showing this pic b/c we used American pennies (see tiles on right) for tile spacers. Worked great for a small grout line and we didn't have to spend actual money for spacers.

We ate like crap all weekend and I found out I didn't get invited to a baby shower. I think people are getting the hint. I'm officially off the family baby shower circulation list. I usually send gifts, I just can't attend.

Wordle

I've seen this on a few blogs and I think it's pretty neat. This is Me Now:

Go to Wordle to create your own. It's an automatic program that creates a "Wordle" based on your blog text or words you type in. I love that based on this I'm pretty obsessed at the moment with food and DIY. So very true.

Another salad

Spring mix salad with red onion, red bell pepper, grape tomatoes and feta

I've been making my own salad dressings this summer. Gotta say I love it. Of course I'm getting the recipes from Allrecipes.com. Here's my favorite dressing recipe so far:

Absolutely Fabulous Greek/House Salad dressing

INGREDIENTS (scaled down to 10 servings)

• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1-1/4 teaspoons garlic powder
• 1-1/4 teaspoons dried oregano
• 1-1/4 teaspoons dried basil
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon Dijon-style mustard
• 1/2 cup red wine vinegar*
• 1/4 cup red wine or White Merlot**
• 4-5 dashes balsamic vinegar**
• 1-4 teaspoons sugar to taste*
  

DIRECTIONS

1. In a very large container, mix together the olive oil, garlic powder, oregano, basil, pepper, salt, onion powder, sugar and Dijon-style mustard. Pour in the vinegar and wine and mix vigorously until well blended. Store tightly covered at room temperature.

*Altered or added as recommend by other reviews.
**Added by me.
The wine and sugar help lessen the punchy vinegar taste. Yeah...that's it :)

Here's my cat wondering when we're gonna be finished with the downstairs already! He makes me so nervous when he does this.

Bribing the neighbors

My husband can be quite determined. He has a hard time stopping when in the middle or changing direction no matter what the circumstance. DIY Tip: If ever you decide to rent tools from Home Depot--if you rent on Friday night at 6:01pm, you can pay the minimum (4 hr.) rental fee and keep the equipment until 9am the following day. So we rented a wet saw and got to cuttin' on the front porch. Well, the saw was LOUD. Very loud. And it was the 4th of July and people were out on their porches and lawns celebrating and waiting for fireworks. We were still cutting at 10:30pm. Ughhh. Hubbs paid no mind to my un-neighborly worries and forged on. So then I had to spend tons of time on Saturday baking bribery-thank-you-for-not-calling-the-police-on-us-cookies. See the picture above. This was my first time making shortbread cookies and melting dark chocolate Hershey's Kisses. Really great combo.

Today my ass and thighs are burning. I hate DIY. Officially. We finally cut and put in all the marble for the bath and grouted. I'm a little pissed about the grout b/c it's much lighter than the color on the box. Warning: Laticrete Almond looks White. Next are the sink connects and the toilet connects and we move on to the foyer tiles. Sooo not looking forward to it.

We had a pretty healthy 4th meal of sauteed veggies and yummy potatoes. No meat. However, we more than made up for it with pizza on Saturday :)