Things that make me happy

I got this idea from Jessica at A Little Dose of Sweetness and I wanted to copy her because she has a good point that sometimes we forget to record the happy things on our blogs - that often we focus on the frustrating or stressful things in our lives because they are easier to write about, or we use our blogs as therapy to get out our frustrations, etc. But we need to remember the happy, fun times, too. Sometimes even more importantly than the negative.

So without further ado, here is my random list of 10 things that make me happy at this point in my life:

1. That daily, sometimes several times a day, Fuss bursts into song and dances around the room, singing some made up song that is in her head. Lately, her 2 favorite topics have been Racecars (she even makes a whooshing sound within the song) and Flowers. The songs go on for awhile and she will sing "I'm not done yet" if we clap too soon.

2. That the one client (a friend of ours' father) that Daddy Fuss got last month was so happy with the work he did for his business, that he is now having him do a ton of stuff for his personal computers and his family's personal computers. We may be able to finance our entire trip to Disney based on the work he is giving us lately. Very exciting stuff.

3. Cute baby boy clothes. I always though that boy clothes weren't as fun as girl clothes (and I still think that might be the case, if you line them up side by side), but I have found and been given a lot of really cute little boy clothes that make me smile when I see them. Of course, anything that tiny is pretty cute in general.

4. Elephants, especially in stuffed toy form. My mom bought a stuffed elephant for the baby to add to the decorations for my shower (I've been oddly obsessed with elephants this pregnancy) which was jungle animal themed and it is SO cute and cuddly. And then my friend Jo did an elephant-themed invitation for my other shower and it is absolutely precious.

5. This is my birthday month! We've been making our plans to celebrate, which is always exciting. Despite the fact that my birthday is 10 days before I deliver, I am still looking forward to it quite a bit. I don't want a big party, even though it's a big birthday, but I am looking forward to spending time with my family and a few friends and my annual make-over with my mom.

6. Fuss has been especially mommy-centric lately. Sometimes this can be frustrating, but it's nice to see that in fact, she DOES like me as much as she likes her daddy and sometimes it's nice to be the only one who can make her happy.

7. Breakfast foods. This is a weird one for me, since I am a self-proclaimed hater of breakfast foods, but lately I cannot seem to get enough of several special breakfasts that used to be rarities in our house and have now become much more regular. I had a habit of always wanting to go out to breakfast on the weekends and often skipping breakfast altogether during the week, but these special breakfasts are really appealing to me all the time, so I'm forgoing eating out to make these and often even adding one to the weekday mornings. My breakfast obsessions these days are Daddy Fuss's Sausage Gravy and Biscuits, a dish we call Brie Slug, muffins, and cinnamon rolls. All of them are especially yummy and start my day with a smile.

8. Rain. As hot as it's been lately, a nice afternoon rainstorm does a lot to relieve some of the heat and mugginess from the air, and listening to the rain drip onto the windows is so relaxing. Especially when Fuss is taking a nap and I get some down time, too, it is so peaceful. I am happy to have anything relaxing and peaceful in my life these days.

9. My husband. He is amazing. He works hard at a job he dislikes so that he can support us and then he has been so supportive and encouraging of me during these hard days of pregnancy and he does more than his fair share of work around here. He cooks or brings home food when I just can't handle cooking. He helps with Fuss - giving her baths or diaper changes or serving her her dinner. He has been helping out in the middle of the night this week when she has been waking up and being difficult in the night.

10. My Birkenstocks. I can't seem to get any other my other shoes on my feet, so it's wonderful that I have some comfortable shoes that are supportive. It's also convenient that it's summer time I can get away with wearing them with everything.

7 Quick Takes on My Anniversary

1. Today is my 5 year anniversary. We are headed out of town. Aunt J is staying with Fuss and we are going to enjoy the better part of 2 days without being parents. I am in need of a break and I think, maybe, she is too. Things have been tough this week, for all of us.

2. Today would have been my official due date with Numfar. I don't think about it much, these days, but sometimes the longing is tough. But then, it wouldn't be the baby I am carrying and I know God is in control of all. He has a plan, He knows what could have been and what should be and I can trust Him for that.

3. Yesterday I was BUSY. I had errands to run and didn't quite get all of them done, but I got the most important ones completed, so that is what counts the most!

4. Daddy Fuss is taking my van in for an oil change this morning, since we are past due and we don't want to put the extra miles on it before taking care of it. I am so grateful to him for taking care of these little things, sometimes! It is SO hard to get the van into the shop for a regular oil change with Fuss in tow. We used to just drop off one car, and the other person would pick the driver up and we could go do what we wanted to do. Now that involves switching car seats to a car in which it doesn't really fit very well and that is more trouble than it's worth. So he is sitting in the shop, waiting for them to do the van while I am at home finishing up details like packing.

5. I don't think I'll have the energy to climb the lighthouse this trip. But we may take the tour at the fort. St. Augustine is the oldest city in Florida and it's full of some great historical landmarks. But mostly? I want to relax. And eat. And rest and relax some more.

6. I finally bought a second pair of maternity shorts yesterday. There was no way I was going to survive the summer with only one pair of shorts - eventually they have to go into the laundry and I have officially decided that it is too warm for jeans. This is weird for me, since a few years ago I didn't even OWN any shorts because I hated the way my legs looked. (I still do, but now I feel that my comfort should transcend my vanity.) I would mostly rather wear next-to-nothing, but since that is frowned upon in public (and I REALLY don't look good enough for that - sometimes vanity DOES have to win), I need shorts and tanks. It's unfortunate that maternity clothes have to cost so much, when you only really wear them for a short time (and I wear them as long as possible, trust me), but I had to bite the bullet and just DO IT this time.

7. How did my house get to be such a mess again? It was looking fabulous a week ago. This is going to drive me crazy.

For more quick takes, click here.

Random Things on a Wednesday, Cont.

1. Last week, we purchased/ordered my new wedding band. We bought my original diamond and yellow gold band at a promotional price of less than $100 (honestly, I think it was about $50, but that seems SO low, that it may have been closer to $90) and had ALWAYS planned to get another in a few years.
So, since this is our 5 year anniversary coming up, we thought it would be a good time to get a new one. Plus, I haven't been able to wear it in over a year and when I do, it has a weird channel in the back that traps water between the ring and my finger and gives me a horrible rash. So, it was time for an upgrade so that once again, I can wear both my engagement and wedding bands. I wanted to keep a similar look, since my engagement ring is a little fancy and a flashy anniversary ring or something would detract from it. And I LOVE my engagement ring (which my husband had re-sized for me over Christmas and I've been able to wear ever since) so I didn't want to take anything away from that.

2. My new couch is FAB-U-LOS. I love it. It goes perfectly with the rug in the living room and is so soft and supportive and pretty and comfy. And I no longer feel like I need help to get up and out of my couch! It's a great feeling to love the way my living room is coming together!

3. I am very much looking forward to our getaway next week for our anniversary. It will likely be less than 48 hours total, including drive-time, but I will take what I can get. I told my husband that the only thing I really wanted to do was have a really nice dinner and he's been researching restaurants for brunch, lunch and dinner. There is a Cajun place there that I loved when we were last there for our anniversary and several nice seafood restaurants that I remember being really good, too. I am looking forward to just relaxing with Daddy Fuss and not worrying about ANYTHING.

4. I'm gearing up to begin writing, I think. I keep getting little snippets of ideas for a story and while I don't have anything solid yet, I'm getting more and more into the idea, especially this summer when I've got a little more time on my hands and I want to be where there is AC anyhow. I may end up taking a page from Maggie's book and spending some evenings parked out at Panera or Starbucks with my laptop and leaving Daddy Fuss and Fuss at home on occasion to spend some dedicated writing time and I'm thinking that sounds more and more appealing lately.

5. This week, my husband has commitments on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights after work, so each of those nights he will be home late. This gets to be frustrating for me, because I really look forward to him coming home in the evenings so that I can get a break from Fuss-patrol, but 2 out of the 3 nights are for free-lance jobs that he is taking on and I can't complain about him bringing in some extra money!

6. We had the misfortune of overdrawing our account repeatedly for 2 days before we realized it when we bought the couch. Daddy Fuss thought he had transferred the money to pay for it (I even asked him while we were filling out the paperwork) and for whatever reason, the transfer didn't go through, so every purchase we made for the rest of the weekend added another overdraft fee. Unfortunately, it may have cost us my new recliner and I am peeved about that. I really want that darn recliner.

7. Got to see my sister yesterday for the first time since Thanksgiving. Don't know when I'll get to see her again, since she's booked the rest of the summer and is expecting a baby(!) in January, so she's not sure how much she'll be up for traveling around the holidays. She's fairly sure she won't be interested in coming for Christmas, with her due date only a few weeks away (cannot blame her for that! I wouldn't want to be traveling the 10-12 hours w/ 4 kids at THIS point in my pregnancy, let alone toward the end!) And our own Thanksgiving plans are booking up fast, too - my SIL and family are coming down, we're taking the kids to Disney that week, we're hosting the meal at our house, as usual (but possibly on Friday).

8. Got my paperwork for my glucose test. So not looking forward to it. Though it will be an excuse for a babysitter, as I don't want to bring Fuss along to sit in the lab for an hour while I wait to get my blood drawn.

Quiet Disagreement

Have you ever had an argument/fight where voices were never raised, no harsh words were spoken, and yet you still felt completely drained from the conversation? We had a disagreement like that tonight.

My husband has a job where he is miserable. He works a thankless job that he only partially likes that has morphed into something that he really hates to do. (He likes the IT and the tech problem solving, but hates the managerial aspects that have fallen to him over the past 6 months, and that is becoming an increasingly larger part of his day-to-day job.) And yet, he has such a good work ethic, that he can't seem to let it go at the end of the day. This means that he NEVER gets out of the office "on time" and that means that I am always waiting (often impatiently) for him to come home from times ranging from 6:10 PM to sometimes 7PM or occasionally even later. (He SHOULD, in theory arrive home at 6 if he were to leave at the time the office closes.)

My argument is that he always has "one more email" after the end of the day - and those are the days that his boss doesn't corner him at the end of business and force him into a 30-60 minutes status report or some such. (And those he can't even call or text me to inform me he will be late, so I am left wondering what time he will be arriving, etc.)

Now, when it's something he is aware of, he does (often, or should I say most of the time) try and let me know ahead of time and he has never complained the very few times when Fuss just needed to eat and I had dinner ready, so I fed her. He has no problem with me doing what I need to do and eating warmed up food himself. He never complains on the rare occasions when I eat with her instead of waiting for him.

However, I am frustrated by this scenario. I want him to come home, on time, regularly. I want it to be the norm instead of the very rare exception.

And yet, I do "get it." He works hard. He wants to do a good job. And he does. He has so much to do, and never has enough time to do it. Sometimes, he chooses to bring work home, so we can at least be in proximity with one another while he finishes his work. But more often than not, he is stuck at the office, dealing with last minute problems that he just wants to get finished, instead of having to pack it all up and carry it all home. His boss is demanding, and has no care or concept of his having a family at home. (His boss has no children, a string of ex-wives and is currently going through a divorce to a woman who has annoyed him for years, so he has no desire to be home. His boss is also a workaholic in the truest sense of the word.) He has very little recourse for changing the situation, other than to find another job that is more family friendly, which, in this economy...

So there is no solution. We are both left frustrated by the situation, and I feel like I need to vent about it sometimes, but I have no idea what to do about it, truly. I have suggested that he tell the people who are taking his time at the end of the day "it's time to go, we'll discuss this tomorrow," but that doesn't always work, and he absolutely cannot do that with his boss. (His boss doesn't take no for an answer in these situations.)

So neither of us is happy, but we are trying to not make the other feel worse about it.

Hiya

It's been a very busy few days. Friday, I had MOPs and then had to do the grocery shopping on the timer of Fuss's nap being over due. (What a challenge! She also hadn't had lunch yet!) Saturday we did our Disney thing and spent the night in Orlando and when we returned on Sunday in the early afternoon, Fuss was completely off her schedule, hadn't slept well all weekend long and alternated between being cranky, being mad at me for leaving her, and being very clingy.

I have all sorts of randm thoughts on our Disney experience. I plan to come back to those in the next day or so. But today I want to introduce you to my dear husband's new blog. During the month of September, he competed in an office "Biggest Loser" contest and did very well. In the end he was 18 lbs lighter and $100 richer for his efforts. He is planning to continue his healthy living and wants to blog about his experiences and what he is learning about it. His first post went up today, so if you are interested, check out his journey on Weight Loss Odyssey! It would certainly encourage him to have some followers/readers. :) Now that we are through with the Food & Wine festival, I plan on examining my own eating habits and working on a little weightloss of my own.

So that is what you can look forward to here at Philosopher Jagger!

In the meantime, I have a few random tidbits for you...
We are searching for the perfect Halloween costume for the Fuss. I began my search on ebay and found a couple of cute costumes for little girls. The one Daddy Fuss and I agreed on the quickest was Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz an dwe have been searching for a costume that isn't going to cost us a ton of money. We've been to the local stores and they are costing a pretty penny to get the mediocre costumes brand new, and that's if I can even find them in her size. (This happened last year, too - plenty of tiny, non-mobile baby costumes and plenty of toddler costumes, but none for my reasonably mobile 9-month-old. This year I can find an assortment of baby costumes, and a bunch in 3T and larger, but my just barely 2T-sized kid is out of luck!) so we are back to searching on ebay. I am also considering Minnie Mouse (saw some adorable little girls in Minnie costumes at Disney) or Tinkerbell or a ballerina. These are all costumes I hope she will someday want to wear, but who knows what she is going to like as she gets older and exerts more of her own opinions? I was a girlie girl, but I don't know that she will be. She has a lot of her aunts in her, too!

What are your kids going to be for Halloween? Do you take them trick-or-treating? Why or why not? I'd love to hear input from all sides of the arguement.

4

Today marks 4 years since the happiest day of my life.
.
Today is my 4 year wedding anniversary and I have the best husband in the world. He's not perfect, but he is amazing. He is a great father and a great friend, lover, confidant. I love him with all my heart. I respect him with every part of my being.

The past 4 years have been the happiest in my life. It hasn't always been easy, we've had our ups and downs, but he can always make me laugh with his jokes or a well-placed movie line or his funny expressions or even a random elephant noise. He inspires me with his intellegence, his work ethic and his trustworthiness. He makes me feel like a woman, a beautiful woman, even when I know I'm not. He holds me when I cry and cheers me when I need it. He is such an awesome father to The Fuss - he plays with her, he comforts her, he makes her behave.

He is a good son and brother. He puts up with a lot sometimes, but he does it willingly.

The 8 years before our marriage changed my life, too. He has been my best friend for as long as I can remember not being a little kid (and by that I mean that other than childhood memories, he is in almost all of them). I couldn't ask for a better best friend than him. He is amazingly strong, funny, compassionate, and loving.

He is a hard worker and puts his all into providing for our family.

I think that I am possibly the luckiest woman in the world. He is mine and I love him with all my heart.
Happy Anniversary, my love. May we have many, many more.

To the Love of My Life

Dearest Husband,
Today marks 3 years of marriage for us - it seems like we have been together for a lifetime (In a good way) and I cannot picture myself living my life with anyone else. I love you more with each breath I take. I am so grateful to have you in my life. You fulfill me in more ways than I can count and every day with you is a blessing.

I am also grateful that you gave me our beautiful little girl. Each day with her is a gift and though I sometimes get stressed out, I want you to know that we have the best baby ever and I wouldn't give her up for anything.

You are the love of my life and I look forward to many many more years together.

Love,
Me

CD - oh, who cares?

Whoa is me! Temp was back up to usual post-ovulation ranges today. I actually slept really well last night, so I am confident that this temperature is correct at least. But does that mean I O-ed today, or that the last 2 days were flukey?

Had a really awful pain in my abdomen at one point today – ovarian pain – reminded me of the weeks leading up to my surgery.

A friend mentioned yesterday that she hated TTC. I can sort of understand that – the stress, the uncertainty, etc. But so far, if you can discount the stress of wanting it to happen ASAP, it hasn’t been too bad. I know – ask me again in a few months.

I’ve started to join the community of TTC-ers at BabyCenter.com. I need answers from those who have been there and were told they seem to really know their stuff. Hopefully I will get some answers for my apparently unusual questions (I call them that since I can’t seem to find answers from Dr. Google.)

Have decided to wait another couple of months before taking my concerns to my OB/GYN (who is the GREATEST OB/GYN in the WORLD, BTW). I love her. She reminds me of my sister, which is probably part of it, she is totally awesome. Typically, I refer to her by her first name – I think she needs a nn here on my blog to have a reasonable amount of privacy, etc. I’ll work on that.

Mr Moose is feeling better, I think – he returned to work today while taking antibiotics.

We’re watching Season 1 of Veronica Mars right now – I think I’ve got him hooked. We recently signed up for the new Blockbuster by mail deal and VM is our first experience. I heart Veronica. She’s just too cool. A friend from work hooked me onto the show this season and now I’m looking for backstory and watching the previous seasons. It’s interesting to see the guest stars/recurring stars they use – Harry Hamlin and Lisa Rinna play Logan’s parents (I’m told Alyson Hannigan – love her – plays his sister later on), etc. I think coming home yesterday and relaxing and watching some enjoyable TV was what I needed – it helped me sleep really well.

Soon to come: a discussion of my TV addiction in response to Arwen’s discussion of how they don’t own a TV and how they plan to handle TV and child.

CD 18

Another low temp this morning, dropped even from yesterdays. And I made sure I wasn’t freezing cold under the covers this time by adding a blanket. Fertility Friend went red light on me and I’m assuming I didn’t ovulate at all this month. I’m typically a 26-27 day cycle sort of girl, so doesn’t leave me much time, does it? What should I do? Go to the doctor? Keep checking my temp for another couple of months and then go to the doctor? But isn’t that just wasting time? If I know there is something wrong, do I have to wait the 12 months?

My sister wrote to me today to tell me she was really depressed about being so far away from her friends and family. She said she knows that life goes on whether you’re there or not, but she feels like she’s losing her friends and not being part of their lives, etc. It looks like they are only going to be able to afford to come home every other year now. So if she comes home this spring (they’ll be stateside April 1), I guess that means there is no way she’ll be here next spring for the birth of my baby if I manage to get PG by this summer. I really wanted her there for that. Not that I have any idea if I will be giving birth next spring, but I was hoping. This totally sucks.

Something happened with Mr Moose this week that made me think about what I would do if something happened to him. It terrified me. I didn’t sleep very well last night thinking about the possibility.

Happy Heart Day!

It’s Valentine’s Day and my dear husband’s birthday – of course, he is temporarily stranded in a snow storm in Indiana, so who knows if I’ll have a Happy V-day or not?

Sorry posting has been so unsteady – my promotion is finally going through and I’ve been spending lots of time prepping for my vacation and move to new office.

It’s been a rough couple of days without Mr Moose. He’s left on business before and I don’t remember my depression being this bad. I was in a funk all weekend with his immanent departure on Sunday. He did the best he could to cheer me up/spend time with me, etc.

My mom got a new puppy. My childhood dog, Tiki passed away in October and she has been wanting a new dog. Angus MacTavish MacFarlane McGee (either Angus or Mac for short) joined the family last Saturday. He’s a Scottish Terrier, if you couldn’t tell by the name. He’s nothing but fluff and belly right now at 8.5 weeks old, but very cute and rambunctious. Mom had forgotten how much energy new puppies have, I think. He plays hard and then just flops out exhausted. Cute little guy.

We are going on vacation beginning tomorrow (if he can get a flight out) to officially kick off our baby-making days. According to the calculator, the dates of our vacation are my fertile time, so we’re keeping fingers crossed and liquor to a minimum.

Pain and Frigid Indiana

So last night I was freaking out that I had an ectopic pregnancy. Out of nowhere, my shoulder started hurting and I’m talking some serious pain. I didn’t want to alarm Mr Moose, so I didn’t say anything, but then I was fairly confident that it was just muscle pain and he rubbed my back while I whimpered. Just to be sure, I googled this morning and it sounds like I’m okay. Muscle pain isn’t the same as the referred pain they refer to in the symptoms. However, my muscle aches have spread and now I can barely walk. No clue where that is coming from unless it was my 8 flights down evacuation yesterday for a false alarm fire alarm in our building yesterday. Am I in that bad of shape that I can’t walk DOWN 8 flights of stairs without being sore the next day? I seriously need exercise.

Mr Moose has to go out of town to the frozen land of Indiana for a few days. I’m bummed. I hate when he has to go away and since he is The Man Who Never Gets Cold, he of course has no jacket even remotely capable of dealing with Indiana weather in February. He comes back mid afternoon on Valentine’s Day, so at least we get to keep that and go on our vacation the next day.

.

My period started at 2am with a vengeance. I feel like I’m 13 and first getting my period. I used to get the back pain, the cramps, the headaches. It was awful, but I out grew it. Apparently not. Obviously, my body took at least a month to get used to not being on BC. Interesting. They say that you can start trying to get pregnant immediately and don’t need to flush it out of your system. Apparently not. This is just awful. I was pretty sure I wasn’t pregnant this month since with so many people in the house during Christmas (my fertile time) we didn’t get with the trying very much. I’m okay this month, though I would have loved to have been able to say “my child was conceived on Christmas Eve”. Hey, my nephew was conceived on a roof top… his secret nickname is “Rufus”.

Babies: Faster

I started spotting last night. I haven’t slept well in weeks. I’m up a minimum of 2 times per night to pee. Usually, 1 of those times is within an hour of the alarm (usually more like 30 minutes) and it’s the worst – I cannot wait until the alarm no matter what. Saturday night I woke up with really bad pain that seemed odd and I had a brief panic that I was having an ectopic pregnancy that had just destroyed my tube. I ended up being one of my obnoxious bowel movements. I’ve had a lot of those lately. The spotting confuses me, since I’m not due for another several days (Thursday). I haven’t had early spotting on my period for months, so it’s even stranger to get it now. Of course, last months period was kinda wacky – maybe this is the overflow from that. Ether way, I’m obviously not in a healthy place right now and it’s making me nervous.
Mr Moose has decided that we can move up our “actually trying” date by a month. Sometimes, he baffles me – there is too much confusion on this subject to actually write it out clearly, so bare with me.
1. A month ago we got into an argument of sorts regarding the schedule of said trying. He didn’t want to start officially trying any sooner than his “stated date”, even though he had been totally psyched during our first pregnancy scare in mid-November.
2. He told me this out of the blue while he was at work. I was completely surprised.
3. This is more of a fiscal thing than a desire to start trying thing, I think. We were going to take a vacation during the fertile time the month we began to start out by having some fun with it. Those dates are more expensive than the previous months’ dates for hotels and airfare, etc. So, to save money, he wants to take the vacation earlier. I have no idea how I feel about this reasoning.

Update on Resolutions

Update on goals for the year:
I know it’s only 4 days into the year, but thus far, I’ve been doing pretty well. Mr Moose and I have gone on a mile walk (with the dogs) each night of 2007 so far. I really didn’t want to go last night, but he pushed and I did and it wasn’t awful. I was in SUCH a bad mood last night, it was crazy. I’m 1 week away from CD1 and I must be really PMS-ing.

We’ve been eating reasonably healthy for dinners and been consistent about eating breakfast, which in the past has not been even remotely a priority.

Not doing so well with the morning stretches. We both did on Tuesday, but that’s been it for me. I need to do more of that.

I still have not written my Christmas thank you cards. I know EXACTLY what I’m going to say to my Gramma, but I have yet to actually pull out the card and write it. I’m also behind on printing my 2006 in review holiday letter. I’m such a slacker.

Random thoughts: I hate student loans. While I appreciate that they were blessedly easy to get in order for me to get the education that I wanted, I had no idea at the time what it was going to mean to have that much debt over my head. It’s insane. I know there are people who have it WAY worse, but it’s still frustrating. Student loan debt is actually keeping me from being able to pay old credit card debt. And I can’t quit working until my student loans are paid off because while we can LIVE on my husband’s income, we can’t pay off old debt without mine. I need to win the lottery.

More random thoughts: I am exceedingly grateful to have the husband that I have. I read other women’s blogs – especially the ones about infertility or trying to get pregnant, and I realize how amazing my husband is. He listens to my complaints and my fears about my body, he can even talk intelligently with my about my cycle since he’s been listening to my research findings for months now. When he talked to sister he was able to ask her some intelligent questions about how her struggle to get pregnant because he had been paying attention to my factoids.

Random Thoughts for Today

I work in an office with several women under the age of 40 - childbearing years. I realize that they aren't married, but it sort of surprises me that neither of them seem to be even remotely thinking about marriage and babies. It’s on my mind all the time.

My sister in law is trying to get pregnant. I’d love to talk to her about it, but I always feel like she thinks I’m an idiot. There is no way she’d take advice from me, even if I’ve put in the research hours. She doesn’t even want to start reading any of the books because she thinks she’ll start obsessing over it. Mr Moose says she doesn’t think I’m an idiot, but every time she talks to me about an experience (planning the wedding, the wedding night, etc.) she talks down to me as if she knows better than I do. (She’s older). I helped behind the scenes of 7 weddings before I was old enough to drink. I did a lot of work on my BF’s wedding, too and had been planning my wedding since my sister got married when I was 15. I’m the type of person who when a project or event comes up, I do all the research. I’m scouring websites and books, etc. When I had gynecological surgery this past summer, I did research for weeks on best and worst possible outcomes, what it would feel like, etc. I’ve already read one pregnancy book (I highly recommend to anyone thinking about, TTC or already pregnant The Girlfriend’s Guide To Pregnancy – even if you already know what you’re doing, it’s worth it just for the laughs.)

I have the most wonderful husband in the world. It’s his last day off and he went to Bath and Body Works to buy me a wallflower so that our sunroom (that we put the dogs in while we’re gone) won’t smell so bad. B&BW is having its semi-annual sale this week. He even called to see if I wanted anything else. Isn’t he sweet?

SIL and BIL leave tomorrow. I’m so exhausted from trying to keep up with the family (they are all night people, I am certainly not) that I’m almost relieved.

Saw the Night at the Museum movie last night – I thought it would be really dumb and cheesy (“it’s like searching for meaning in a Pauly Shore movie”), but it was actually really quite funny and amusing, etc. It also put history in a positive light and might hopefully encourage some kids to do a little more reading in history, etc. so that was good. Mr Moose is a major history buff (I like history, too, but not like he does), so he really enjoyed those aspects of the movie.

"I've loved another with all my heart..."

My favorite book is The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. I’m totally addicted to it and I cry every time I read it. It is the most beautiful and poignant love story and I never tire of reading it. There is a quote in the first “chapter” that Mr Moose had engraved on a journal for me for our wedding.

“I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul and to me, this has always been enough.”

I haven’t written in that journal yet because I’m afraid to mess it up. I want to write our love story in it, the way the character in the book wrote theirs, but I don’t know how to begin it. I hope he doesn’t think I don’t love it, because I do.

Sometimes I feel like Mr Moose and I are the most special couple in the world. I look around at other couples (I won’t mention who here, but there are several) and I think “are we so different that we have something so incredibly special between us?” We are best friends. Have been for years. Even back when we were 16 and I gave him his first kiss (or did he take it? Don’t know) we were best friends before we were anything else. And now we are still best friends, though I use that title for my girlfriend, K. We are best friends, lovers, roommates and all of that together rolled into one is how I define “husband and wife.” But not everyone has that complete combo. I know several people who would not consider their husbands (or their wives) their best friends.

Still no word on whether or not we have a baby coming… Mr Moose was ready to test again last night, but my “What To Expect” book said that while most tests say they CAN detect the Hcg hormone level 4 days before your period, that it’s more accurate 1-2 weeks after. We’re going to do it Sunday morning, which is 10 days after my period was due. I looked up more on implantation bleeding and I’m still not convinced that what I had was or was not implantation bleeding. I truly have no idea. Of course, their description at Baby Center was pretty vague, but I guess it’s different for everyone. Depending on the outcome, I may still have to wait another 2 weeks or so to find out for sure. I’m due again January 11th.