Happy New Year!

This year was a complete fail as far as getting a Christmas letter written! Instead, everyone will just have to read the blog for a wrap up of our year!

We began 2011 with the Glanville family and their six children living with us. The moved out over the summer and in the fall we were joined by a new renter (who has been the easiest one yet). While we miss the Glanville family, it has been good for us to have a little more space.
Mark started a new job this summer, for a company that he loves, and passed his journeyman's exam shortly afterwards. I went to school and volunteered at the children's justice center. Spring found us ripping out walls in one of bedrooms in order to make a closet more usable, summer and fall found us installing laminate flooring, and building custom desks out of old doors. Add in the year round gardening and our work kept us quite busy.
Though if you know us at all, you also know that we play as hard as we work! We had several camping trips this past summer, including our first backpacking trip. We made several day hiking trips as well. A road trip to Montana occurred as well as a brief jaunt down to cedar city for the night. We even visited an aquarium and hand fed sting rays. Through in swimming at the rec center, board game nights with friends, my crafting and Mark's computer games and we had a lot of fun to balance out our work!
We kept moving forward with fertility treatments all throughout 2011, but in October were told that we should move on to In Vitro Fertilization. We found an amazing doctor who is at the top of his field and we are hoping to do the procedure in April. Currently we are trying to stretch our pennies until they scream n an attempt to fund the IVF. We are a third of the way there, in just over one month! Not so shabby! Mark had been working a ton of overtime to add to the baby fund. The opportunity for so much overtime would normally not be there, but things have just fallen into place since we decided to do IVF. If things keep going as planned, we may actually be fully funded by the end of January. The IVF is not the only thing that we have planned for 2012, though!
I am hoping to have a great garden again like we did this year, as well as finally getting rid of the tree stumps in our back yard. I am determined that this year we will finish some of the partially completed home repairs that we have done. Just little things like replacing the flooring but not putting the base boards back in. We don't want to plan any projects that are too big in case we get a successful result from the IVF, but I would love to gt a new fence put in! There will probably be at least one road trip to Montana, and if we are able to, I am sure there will be some camping too.
We hope your year looks as hopefully and exciting as ours!

One-Third.......

We are officially one third of the way to our $12000.00 dollar goal for IVF!

Mark has been working crazy overtime out of town, so we have been able to add a lot to the baby fund during December even with Christmas, needing to buy a new laptop and some minor car repairs. He is going to be continuing the crazy hours for a month and a half to two months, so we may manage to be fully funded by the end of January.

We really appreciate the love and support that we have gotten from everyone. The Christmas cash gifts, and the donations for our upcoming yard sale have all been immensely appreciated. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Something that I never thought possible!

Progress!

Our IVF fund grew by $1700 dollars today!

Insulin resistance

This clip is great to show exactly how insulin resistance can mess with your body. I have been going low carb for about a week now, and it has been great for me. I feel better and I am finally losing weight!

Maybe it's hormones.....

......but this made me cry more than a little!

The reason for the season....

as only kids could tell it!

Hi there, ICLW'ers!

Welcome to all of you from ICLW! Feel free to look around, put your feet up and stay awhile!

We have been trying to conceive for eight years with only a few miscarriages to show for it. I only ovulate a couple times a year, and do not respond to clomid at all. Our next step is IVF in march or April of 2012! I am scared, excited and apprehensive. After so long it seems dangerous to feel hopeful.

Flower shop

What a fun way to explain a complicated subject!

Babies Everywhere!

A dear sweet friend of mine is pregnant...........again. Since we began fertility treatments she has gotten pregnant, delivered and is now pregnant again. This will be her seventh child. While I am happy for her and think that she is an amazing mother, I can't help but feel as if this pregnancy of hers is some great cosmic joke. The unfairness stings and makes me want to yell at the world.

Yet, I am still glad that she told me. As much as it hurts to hear her news, I am so glad that I didn't have to hear it from someone else. I am also immensely glad that she told me over the phone so that my face didn't give me away as I congratulated her. Yes, it does seem a little two-faced to congratulate her while holding back tears, but that is my problem, not hers.

Infertility certainly has a way of tainting things with mixed emotions!

Poetry

A while back I purchased a tattered poetry book at a yard sale for ten cents. I picked it up and began reading this afternoon and soon could not see through my tears.

The Childless Mother’s Lullaby
by Ella Rhoads Higginson, 1925

Oh, many’s the time in the evening
When the light has fled o’er the sea,
That I dream alone in the gloaming
Of the joys that are not for me;
And oft in my sorrowful bosom
Swells up the mother-love flame,
And I clasp with my arms that are trembling
My child that never came. . . .

The hours swim on the midnight,
The moon looks over the hill,
And the u-lu-lu of the night owl
Sinks mournfully and shrill;
The solitude aches with rapture,
And my heart with the mother-love flame
As I sing alone in the gloaming
To the child that never came.

Hee Hee Hee

Mark just reminded me of a silly memory and I just had to share!

Ever hear this song?



My Def Leppard CD is one of my favorites, and one day while we were cleaning, I had this song blaring. Does anyone else have to have music playing in order to clean? Anyways, Mark and I were both singing and dancing to this song as we cleaned, but his lyrics didn't sound quite right. When I asked what he was singing his response was "super awesome hunger" instead of "pour some sugar on me." It still makes me giggle.

How we are paying for IVF

Our goal is to find a way to fully fund our IVF within the next six months. We are going to:

1. Have a boarder, this puts $600.00 a month into savings.
2. Continue to save from paychecks, this adds $600.00 a month to savings at least.
3. Mark may be able to put in some serious overtime, we will find out on Monday.
   
4. A yard sale.
5. There may be side jobs that Mark can do.
6. Tax returns.
7. I may pick up some babysitting jobs.
   
8. Sell extra books on half.com
   

I still worry that this will not be enough, however, I feel better just knowing that we have a plan. Any other creative ideas out there?

Wordless Wednesday

Mazie

Our dog Mazie absolutely hates having her picture taken. She usually will run and hide under our bed as soon as the camera comes out. This time our door was closed and I was able to get a few shots. You can tell that she is not happy about it!

I needed this today..............

"It's going to be okay in the end. If it's not okay, then it's not the end."

Confession Time

I have had a weight problem since I hit puberty. It has gone up and it has gone down, the last few years it has mostly gone up. It has really gone up while I have been on clomid. Now that my clomid days are over, and we are moving on to IVF, I am more concerned about my weight than ever before. With that in mind, its time for me to reevaluate my habits.
My first goal to a better me is to kick my soda habit. I so love a cold coke! I am currently enjoying the last coke in the house, and I am not buying any more! Losing weight may be one of the hardest parts of the IVF!

Mt. Timpanogos picture taking

Our friend Nathan was nice enough to take us up on Mount Timpanogos to take pictures, since my dear Sister in law (you know who you are!) was threatening us with black mail photos for the family calendar.

These are just a few of the pictures that he took, but we had a blast in the process!

Paint stick Snowmen

I love Christmas! I also happen to love home made ornaments! So when I saw this cute tutorial from Today's Fabulous Finds, I just had to try it! Here's what I ended up with.

Penny by Penny....

Our IVF fund grew by $125 today. Almost $800 in less than a week!

We have found additional sources for funds, and Mark might have a chance at some overtime too!

Cost of IVF

We heard the news that every infertile dreads....it's time to move on to IVF. We have found a great doctor that has been at the cutting edge of reproductive technology since the early eighties, so we feel as though we are in competent hands. The only problem is the cost. Mark has only been back to work for four months after almost two years of being under or unemployed. At this point, we should be able to save roughly $1200.00 a month towards our $12000.00 goal. We hope to make the total within the next six months so that leaves us with a $4800.00 deficit. Will tax returns, side jobs and a huge yard sale be enough?

Goal Making Monday

I find it extremely easy to just be living life and then suddenly realize that an entire week has gone by and I have accomplished nothing. I want my homemaking and my life to be meaningful. With that in mind, Monday will see me creating a set of goals, and I expect the rest of you to keep me motivated! I am hoping that these mini goals will help me reach my larger goal of becoming the homemaker that I hope to be someday.

1. Work out everyday M-F, increasing the duration by five minutes a day.
2. Make two things in the house more functional of prettier.
3. Make two things in the yard more functional, or prettier.
4. Make five things in the garage more functional/organized.
5. Make the bed everyday.
6. Do two things to show someone I care.
7. Stick to the menu plan.
Monday: Citrus tilapia, garden salad, sweet potatoe fries
Tuesday: leftovers, fend for yourself
Wednesday: Mustard chicken, sauteed zucchini and garden salad
Thursday: Taco soup
Friday:
Saturday: Pinto beans and rice, homemade tortillas
Sunday: Tator tot casserole, sauteed zucchini

Belated Birthday!

Last Friday was Mark's 29th birthday, but we ended up not doing anything because we were both very ill with a horrible head cold. So in honor of his 29th birthday I decided to share 29 things I love about him.

1. He has stood by me through every challenge and hardship we have encountered.
2. Mark is willing to do all the crazy little projects that I decide have to be done right now. Paint the kitchen at midnight? Sure!
3. The way the world melts away when he wraps his arms around me.
4. Mark can always make me laugh.
5. The fertility drugs have made me a little....intense, and he has taken it all in stride.
6. He always will eat the food I prepare...even the total kitchen flops.
7. He works so hard, and plays just as hard.
8. He allows me to be me in whatever form I happen to be at that moment.
9. He provides so that I can go to school and not have to stress about working.
10. He makes me feel beautiful.
11. I feel so safe when he is the one to check out the strange noises in the backyard.
12. He understands my insecurities and does what he can to eliminate them.
13. He gets my love for pretty things, especially jewelry.
14. He loves my brothers as much as I do.
15. Hand holding. Enough said.
16. He smells good....most of the time.
17. He treats me as an equal.
18. He holds me when I cry.
19. He just smiles when I change my mind for the five thousandth time.
20. He is my best friend.
21. He will do laundry.
22. Since I find it terrifying, he waits until I'm not looking before climbing trees.
23. He ALWAYS kisses me goodbye, hello and goodnight.
24. He calls me from work at lunchtime just to say hello.
25. He lets me pick the restaurant.
26. He bought me the best anniversary present this year.
27. He forgives me when I fail to stick a budget.
28. He wants me to be happy.
29. He loves me as much as I love him.

2 X 4 Pumpkins

I had a blast making these cute 2 x 4 pumpkins while I watched a movie yesterday. I stole the idea from this post. The best part? Everything I used was left over from previous projects, making this essentially free! Enjoy!

P.S. thanks for cutting the 2 X 4, honey!

Wordless Wednesday

Fun song

This made me smile!

Either Or....

Mark and I have reached a difficult point in our fertility journey. It's time for us to move on to injectibles and the costs are horrifying! While we are at a comfortable place financially, we simply do not have an extra $2000+ to spend on infertility treatments every month. Thanks goodness for insurance, right?

Not exactly.

Mark's new job has a wonderful insurance plan that does not cover one iota of fertility costs. Not a dime. That leaves us with a decision to make. Mark has free health insurance through his company, but for me it is $500 a month. Would we be horribly crazy to skip the insurance so we have that $500 to use towards medical costs...i.e treatments that are not covered by insurance?

What do you think?

School again!

A new semester began last Monday and I am swamped! My class load includes math, research principles, issues in diversity, intro to literature, English and philosophy! I have lots of reading in store for me!

Another one bites the dust

Another clomid cycle, that is. Clomid failed us once again! I got my day 21 progesterone blood work back and the result was 0.6, not good when we are aiming for the teens! We are upping the dose to 150 mg of clomid. Hopefully, this coming cycle will be successful! At least I can once again get onto the up swing of the yo-yo of hope and despair that infertility is!

Hand Feeding Sting Rays

Mark and I went to the Living Planet Aquarium with our friend Nathan this past weekend and we had a blast! The best thing was Mark and I got to hand feed the sting rays! It felt so weird to have them come up and suck at your wrist and hand. It was a really neat experience!

This is what we were feeding....



This was us feeding the sting rays. Nathan had to hold the camera way above his head (and he's tall to begin with) in order to see above the crowd, so the pictures are a bit blurry.





Here are a few other fun pictures we took while we were there.






All in all, I highly recommend the aquarium, it's reasonably priced and we had a lot of fun!

When the garden gives us a zucchini......

When the garden gives us a zucchini...and other veggies too...



We will want to make a lasagna...



Which means we will need these things....



And then we will do this:
* 2 1/2 cups zucchini, sliced 1/4 inch thick lengthwise (about 2 medium)
* 1/4 cup onion, chopped (I used dehydrated)
* 1 jar spaghetti sauce (feel free to season more)
* 1/4 cup water*
* 2 Tablespoons ground flax seeds*
* 3/4 cup low fat cottage cheese (or low fat or fat free ricotta)**
* 1 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded (I use 8 oz. divided)
* 2 Tablespoons flour
* lasagna noodles ***
* grated Parmesan

*instead of water and flax seeds you can use 1 egg
** This works just fine without the cottage cheese or ricotta.
*** If you have to have the carbs..or your husband does ;) then you can alternate zucchini and pasta for a more typical lasagna texture.

If using the cottage cheese/ ricotta: In small bowl slightly beat water and ground flax seeds. Add cottage cheese, and half of shredded cheese. Set aside.

In a (1 1/2-qt.) baking pan, spoon a small amount of sauce and spread it around the bottom. Place sliced zucchini in a single layer and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of flour. Layer with cottage cheese mixture if using, 1/4 cup of shredded cheese and sauce to cover. Repeat layers until pan is full. Reserve extra cheese.

Bake at 350 degrees until bubbly (30-45 minutes)

Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake 10 minutes longer.

Let stand 10 minutes before serving with grated Parmesan.

Wordless Wednesday

Hooray!!

Just a quick post for all of you that have been cheering Mark forward, He passed his Journeyman Electrician Exam! No more apprenticeship for him!

Congrats love, I am super proud of you!

Why?!?!?

Why!?!?!

Why would a professor assign over 200 pages of reading to be accomplished in one week?!?!?

It's not like people don't have other classes, jobs, families, and homes!

What do SAHWs do all day?

I had a most interesting trip to Walmart on Wednesday morning. It took me a wee bit of time to process what occurred, and it has been bother me ever since. We are currently a one car family because Mark hydroplaned and totaled his car and we haven't found a replacement yet. So on this particular morning, I dropped him off for his carpool, and headed out to grocery shop at 5:30 in the morning. Walmart, being the only place open was my destination. My shopping went fine until I got to the only open checkout line. There was one woman in front of me in line and no cashier in sight. As we waited, we started vaguely chatting, and I complimented her on her really awesome purse, and she told me about the business she owns. At that point she asked me what I do. I simply answered that I am a homemaker and full time student. Then the dreaded question came.....

"oh, How many children do have?"
Yikes! Awkward! However, it was no where near as bad as her follow up question when she found out we are childless.
"What on earth do you do all day?"
Which was then followed with...
"What a step backwards for the feminist movement!"

I walked away from that conversation feeling as though I am not good enough while "just" being a homemaker. Yesterday afternoon I did some real soul searching as to whether being a homemaker without children in the picture was a selfish act on my part, if I could contribute more if I worked outside the home. I will be honest, the extra income would be great if I had a job, but....so many other things would fall apart. Mark works such long crazy hours, while also being a student, so there really is no way that he could help take up the slack. On top of that...isn't the feminist movement about having choices and options?

So in answer to your questions nosey-Walmart lady, I am proud to be the keeper of my home, a helpmate and a shelter from the storm. I refuse to let you make me feel ashamed!

How does your garden grow?

Our summer has been unusually cold and wet, so we aren't doing as well as we normally would. We do have snow peas, yellow wax beans, sugar snap peas zucchini and yellow squash coming in though!

The winds of change...an update.

I have definitely been dealing with some changes the last couple months. All the changes have caught me up in a bit of a whirlwind in fact, leaving me feeling a bit frazzled, and reflective.
Things started out a few months ago with the clomid being pseudo successful. What do I mean by that? We had a very short lived big fat positive....I refuse to think of what that positive meant. I just can't right now. Then things followed with Mark finally getting regular, full time employment after two years of being underemployed or unemployed. While this is the best job he has ever had, and has been great for us, it has been an adjustment from him always being around! Follow that up with school starting again, and the G family moving out of our home after two and a half years! Yes, things have been quickly changing!


So where are we now? We have another boarder lined up, but he won't move in until the first of September. School has me uninspired and unmotivated, but I am plodding along. The garden is growing, I harvested our first zucchini and yellow wax beans just the other day. We have began some minor remodeling, and I have started to install laminate flooring throughout the main floor of our house. The infertility treatments......well, that's complicated.

We decided after our loss that we needed a break, so I have been on birth control pills in an attempt to regulate some hormones while we did some soul searching. Soul search we did! To get straight to the point, I am ready to give up on fertility treatments. Mark is not. I know, I know, we have only been at it for a year, and I shouldn't give up so easily. The thing is that I am finding that infertility is starting to define who I am. I mentioned that I have been installing laminate floors in our house, that has actually been a clarifying experience for me. Two years ago, I would have been excited, confident and eager to do that project on my own. When I recently began, it was only because between work and school, Mark simply does not have time to do it. So I started with trepidation, fear and uncertainty. You may be asking what that has to do with infertility, and well, the thing is, it has everything to do with it. Since we have been trying to start a family (versus just hoping it would happen) my self confidence has taken a major hit. There is this not-so-small voice in the back of my mind screaming that my worth is only connected to my procreating abilities, and since I can't seem to get that right........I won't be able to do anything else right either. So I want to quit in order to regain myself. Mark isn't ready to give up though, and while he would never hold it against me if I did, there would always be a part of me that would regret giving up when he wasn't ready. So, in about a week, we will once again be joining the ranks of the clomid users, and will be hoping for some baby dust....does anyone want to share?

remodeling the fourth of July

Parades?....nah
Barbecues?...nah
Fireworks?....nah, well, just a little.

We remodeled our fourth of July, by kicking off a small remodel to our house! Once again we called our trusty friend Nathan, and began our project. We had this closet in our front bedroom that was almost six feet wide....but the door was only two and a half feet wide. No more! Th entire closet is now accessible! Sorry for the blurry photos, there was ALOT of dust in the air from drywall demo!



Stay tuned...I have been putting new flooring in that very same room, I'll show it off after the closet gets some paint!

Montana Spring 2011

We went to Montana this past week in order to visit my parents and little brothers. While there, Mark and the boys had some high flying fun and some wrestle mania!!

Valley of the Whispering Winds

Several weeks ago we went backpacking with the Glanvilles and Nathan in Provo Canyon and spent the night at this cool little meadow. It was very cold and very windy, but we still had a blast playing hide and seek in the sink holes, picking flowers and hugging the blue rock. Donna even named the meadow The Valley of the Whispering Winds in true Anne of Green Gables style.

Monkey'ing around

Today was early out day, so I supervised while D made these yummy monkey cupcakes

From drab to fab!

Camping at Maple grove

This past weekend, we had plans to go camping at Hittle Bottom near Moab, but at the last minute, the weather turned rainy, so we set off for Maple Grove near the sleepy little town of Scipio.


While we were there, we had a lot of treat eating...


...baby carrying...


....Picture taking....


....exploring...


...lizard chasing...


...hiking...


..kid scaring....


...waterfall watching....


....fort building........


.......naps......


....all in all, it was a great weekend!