A few days, a few pictures

Thank you THANK YOU for your sweet comments and birthday wishes! I always love reading what y'all have to say :) I did have a wonderful week and like I said before, I'm really thinking this is going to be a great year! I suppose I sort of feel how you would January 1st...the start of a new year...new chapter.
Even though the place we planned on going to was closed, we found a new place and still got to go dancing. My bday celebrations included family, friends, lots of yummy food, chocolate, my favorite color balloons and.....wait for it.....

a magician! Random? Absolutely. However, I did find out I am strong enough to bend a penny in my hand! (My favorite trick ;)





Dancin' attire.

    



















Memorial Day is always such a wonderful opportunity to be extra prayerful and thankful of all who serve our country! I think about them often but am always thankful for the extra reminder.  Dh and I each have cousins who are deployed at the moment and we are praying especially they come home safe. I am just floored when I hear of what they've gone through already or stories of what Dh went through when he was in Iraq. Definitely nothing I will ever experience in my life.
"Thank you" is just not sufficient for their sacrifices.

Weekend sky.

Aaaaaand, I am very proud to announce that I can now check "Capture Lightening" off my bucket list!  It stormed last night and into this morning and I was so excited to get this picture when I was driving to work! (Don't worry, I was extra careful ;) I have been wanting to do this for some time and though this won't stop me from trying to get a better shot at some point, for now, I am satisfied.

 I have my appointment tomorrow morning at 10am! This month of charting dragged on, so I am excited it is here and I am so ready to start this bloodwork and get a new game plan!


 I know that there are no guarantees in life, so I am thankful for this
new year God has given me and pray I will use it to..
not take one moment for granted
trust God AND His timing
appreciate even more the people in my life
tell them so.
  


As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest
appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.  ~John
Fitzgerald Kennedy

Reasons to be happy even though it's CD1...

--Dh came home with these pretties yesterday..




Love gerbera daisies :)


--He has a FOUR day weekend! Even though parts of it have been hard work, we've been able to be together all day. My aunt gave us a ton of shrubs that they didn't want so we're planting them around our fence line. I don't think it would have been nearly so difficult if not for our ridiculously rocky soil! We've been pulling these monster rocks out of the ground and seriously wishing we had a pick axe! We got 8 done today so only 12 left! (ugh...ha)


--It's a pizza, beer and movie night!



--So you think you can dance comes back on tonight! Yes, I am a sucker for any sort of singing or dancing reality shows and no, I'm not making Dh watch it with me ;)


--And last but not least....
Tomorrow is my birthday!!! I really love birthdays (or birthday weeks as we normally stretch it out that long). I will be 26 tomorrow and I am really pretty excited about it.
Call me crazy but I have this feeling that 26 is going to be a really great year. Maybe its just the excitement of feeling like a new chapter is starting but I am definitely looking forward to finding out what God has in store.


"When you believe in God's plan for your life, every age is the perfect age to be!"
-not sure who said this...it's in Dh's GM's house ;)



Well, I'm going to enjoy my super healthy dinner. (Yay for calories not counting during birthday week!!)


I am thankful for....
Everything listed above! :)





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Location:..a perfect age to be

Girly-ness

Well, that's that. Another Mother's Day down.

Celebrated 3 grandmas and a momma, 4 cards, 4 flower arrangements, 1 Mother's Day blessing at mass, and a bulletin with a beautiful image of Mary and Jesus on the front that said Happy Mother's Day, my GM asking me when it will be my turn for a M's Day...
All of that I managed fine and didn't even get emotional all day, and yet it was the momma with baby in front of me at the grocery store yesterday that nearly did me in.

Go figure, right?

Apparently facing an under 3 month, perfect toed, sweet faced little one causes my judgement to go hazy because then I start wondering things like if kidnapping would still be considered a felony if the baby gets a really great home??
I kid, of course, but OH those pink, perfect toes!!
Anyhow...

This weekend was busy, but good with a wedding Saturday night and M's Day festivities. The wedding was one of the fanciest I had ever been to! (Think 17th floor and chandeliers.) My only complaint was the lack of country music to dance to. Our dance moves are rather limited so we found ourselves two stepping to Sinatra but oh well. We have fun no matter what :) This event also gave me a chance to wear bright red lips.
I'm totally not normally one to get excited about makeup but I have to say that Maybelline's 24hr super stay really did the trick! I've never had something stay on all night without it getting weird or fading (even after eating, drinking, kissing.. ;)

I got my hair cut on Friday too, so I was trying out all sorts of new on Saturday.





New shorter cut and more bangs this time.





And here are the flower arrangements I made for my Mom, both of my GMs, and Dh's GM.




Good thing I like doing flowers!


I was definitely thinking of all of you who are mommas now and praying this will be the last year for those of us who are waiting to be mommas!

Well, I've never really thought of myself as a particularly "girly" girl, but then I realize this post is all about flowers, makeup, hair....good grief. ;)



Thankful for the perfect weather last night that allowed Dh and I to sit out in
our open garage last night to watch the Rangers. It's the little things..

Breakthrough

Three babies born and three pg announcements (one with their THIRD baby, married the same year we were) in the past two weeks. Wow.

That's not what this post is about, but I just had to get that out of the way first.

I am a little behind on reading and commenting but I am trying to catch up. These past few weeks have been extremely difficult as well as emotionally draining, and it hasn't even been because of IF.

It's been my marriage.

I thought quite a while about whether or not I would post about this..last week, I almost wrote a,
"please pray for us, things are really not so great right now" post, but I didn't.
Apparently I can post all day about IF and the hardships/emotions that go along with it but I am finding it difficult to admit that my marriage is anything but fantastic. Even to (mostly) complete strangers! I decided to write a post about it after all to sort through emotions and to just be able to talk about it in general. I have felt so alone (and even embarrassed to be in this situation) and have not wanted to open up about this to anyone IRL. I never wanted to speak poorly of my Dh or bring it up that I couldn't handle it.
As the title would suggest though, this story does have a happy ending, and that is really the only reason why I am able to write this at all.

For as long as we have been married, we have worked to combine mindsets, ideas, expectations, from 20+ years before meeting each other. This is nothing new. Two people coming together who have been molded with completely different habits and ways of thinking and doing things and it is the idea that you will both take what you know from each and figure out how to do things from there. Every married couple goes through this.

The semi-short version is that I have certain things I have struggled with my entire life. One of them is timeliness. My whole family has traditionally been late to nearly every event over the years and as you could guess, this made things quite difficult when I married a 'even one minute late means complete failure principle of the matter, Marine.' I do not blame him for this...it is how he was raised and taught and I actually admire this quality in him so much!  (I mean, could you imagine how messed up it would be having kids and TWO of us who couldn't be on time?!)

I have tried to correct this terrible bad habit for years and just keep coming up short. I have certainly put my poor Dh through quite a lot over the years and I am not pleased with myself because of it. My lack of time management skills have been a major source of tension for as long as we've been together. Let me just say though that I have always agreed with his intentions of helping me to be on time/responsible/courteous of others' time, etc.. (things I very much want to improve in myself) ...I have only disagreed with his methods and how he has gone about "helping" me do this.
(There is more to this story, but I don't think it is necessary to explain every single detail)

Two thoughts have always pulled at me very hard in opposite directions...
The first, a loud voice saying to myself..."Why can't you just be on time and gets things done when you are supposed to? Why can't you just change?? What the hell is wrong with you??!
The second, a more subdued voice saying..."I don't deserve to be treated like this. I know this is not how things should be."

These voices have repeated themselves over and over again and I could never seem to reconcile them.
Things had been so good earlier this year. Everything, it seemed, had clicked into place and we were just so happy together.  Things started to fall apart again about a month ago.

Hurtful things were said. Many, many tears and conversations and prayers. Things got better, but the sting of the words was still there. To feel better I would have to tell myself, "God still loves me.."

One day last week I was driving to pick him up and sitting in traffic I realized I was going to be late.
I started having a panic attack. Or at least I think that's what it was.
I started having trouble breathing, felt light headed, my arm and legs and one small spot on my stomach started tingling and then went numb. I thought I was going to have to pull over but I was afraid of being even later than I already was so I kept going.

My self esteem was very low. My stress way up. And there was absolutely no one I wanted to open up to.

Then, this past Sunday, we had a breakthrough.

We had a conversation full of ups and downs but we were able to keep it together...
I very calmly said that I feel like a project instead of a person..not like his wife, but like a problem to be solved.  I told him that I know I've put him through a lot and that I have issues, but what I need from him are encouragement and prayers, not him constantly trying to "fix" me. I have felt like his love and respect for me are solely dependent on whether I have checked everything off of my to-do list for the day. I know without a doubt that he loves me no matter what, but I told him I want to feel like it as well.
For whatever reason, this time, after many many conversations, it made an impact.
I could tell immediately that he was sorry for how he had been treating me and he said so.
I know that it wasn't just a "I need to be nicer to you" that was normally said lightheartedly. It was truly genuine. 
I have two quotes that I wrote on a piece of paper and gave to him.
"Be patient with me, God isn't finished with me yet!"
And,
"God loves you just the way you are today, but he loves you much too much to let you stay that way."
I told Dh that is how I hope things can go from now on. I want to be loved unconditionally, but I also want encouragement to become the person God has called me to be. To never stop growing. Improving. I hope I never get to the point where I think I am perfect and no longer have any need to improve. I have a tremendous desire to become that good, holy, organized, timely wife that I should be. However, I need to know that you still love me even if I didn't iron enough shirts for the week, or didn't make it to the grocery store that day.

I can say that I am extremely happy about the way things have been just in the few days since this happened. The change has been so amazingly freeing. It feels like a weight has been lifted from both of our shoulders!   He knows that he can stop trying to "fix" me and leave that up to God, and I can set my own goals and improve without any panic attacks or fear of being called a failure.

He really is such an amazing man and I know God put us together for a reason. We would always joke and say that he needs to learn from me to stop and smell the roses and I need to learn from him to not stop and smell them all day long ;) We have had SO much fun in these past few days and even though I know we will still have hard times in the future, I know that we will go about things much differently. Loving each other for who we are, and at the same time, encouraging the other to be better...to strive for holiness. To build each other up, not tear each other down. I KNOW that we have both been changed for good! Thank you Lord!

And, I might add, that I have been on time/early to work the past 5 times in a row! Though this may not seem like much to some (I am ashamed to say this is definitely NOT the norm for me), it is certainly a good start. It takes constant vigilance on my part and a "you don't have time for that, your first priority right now is to be on time" mantra in my head while getting ready. I am hoping and praying to keep up this winning streak! I truly want to change and be someone people can count on and be proud of and even to set a good example for our future little ones!

Despite this trying time, we have both learned a lot and for better or worse it is part of our story.
Dh and I are definitely not perfect, but I am more optimistic about our future than I have ever been, and I NEVER want to revisit the place we were.
I wanted to write this all out, mostly for a bit of closure for me. To get it all out, and then move on. I also, in a weird way, like explaining this certain weakness of mine for increased accountability. (As if anyone ever believed I was even close to perfect, you now know the truth ;)
I may even delete this at some point but for right now I feel better getting it all out of the way.
I cannot help but believe that God absolutely knows what he is doing and that when He does choose to bless us with children, we will be all the better for the time He gave us while waiting.



Today I am thankful for new beginnings. For struggles that help us grow, and for a wonderful Dh who is willing to get through the "not so fun" to continue to grow and find joy with me.

Still not friends..

..with aunt flow.

She is that ridiculous, smelly next door neighbor who comes to my door every single month bringing the same brussel sprout stew and then tells me she hates my shoes
despite the fact that I have told her repeatedly that her insults and disgusting dinner are just not welcome.

Ugh.

I got a fb message today from a friend from high school that I don't really talk to much anymore that said..

"I had a crazy dream last night that you were pregnant. Anything you want to tell me?!???! Hope all is well!"

I immediately start thinking..oh my goodness, what if I am pregnant?! What an awesome story that would be and I can't wait to tell my friends and family and the whole world and I have had such crazy dreams lately maybe they are crazy pg dreams and...
Approximately 4.37 seconds later I realize that AF has arrived.
No joke.
Seriously super timing.

Anyways, then I start thinking of what it will be like to be in pain or sick or tired for a really great reason (like for actually being pg, or in labor, or tired being up at night with a little one) and I remember why I go through this every month.

Not just dealing with CD1s over and over, but why I put myself through the...hopeful, excited, this could be it emotions that turn into, not this time, and let down emotions..

Because someday it will be worth it. Because someday I will see those two pink lines and jump for joy. Because someday I will hold my sweet baby love in my arms and wonder how life could be any better. And because someday, at some point, I will most likely be near total exhaustion with a messy household and need encouraging...

And that once infertile lady of my past life will whisper in my ear how very lucky and blessed I am.
And I will remember that it WAS worth it all along.

So, even though today was really rather not so great, I am looking forward to that day in the future where I can look back and actually be thankful for this cross.
This cross that taught me to endure pain and to be strong and to find joy in the most unlikely circumstances.

And on that day, when the old me reminds the new me to be thankful, I will take her advice.


God knows what He is doing and I know He has not given us this cross without reason.

Praying tonight that He will continue to keep reminding me of this (as I tend to have a very short term memory)


Thankful tonight for extra hugs from Dh, Reese's (my favorite!) cookies, and a W for the Rangers!! ;)




Just wanted to end with something pretty. (obsessed with collages at the moment..)

Goodnight!


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10 points if you can guess...

...what I brought home yesterday.

I'll give you a hint. It's something you would never expect someone trying to have a baby would get before getting that BFP.
...

I got a crib!

Sounds funny to say that! Ha!

Well, you may remember that I am a nanny for a family with twins . They are 2 1/2 and have been in big kid beds for a while now. The lady I work for, A, is giving one crib to her sister and she offered the other one to me! I thought about it for a while and tried to decide whether or not having a crib but no baby in the house would make me sad, depressed, etc..

I finally just said...what the heck, Why not?! It's a free crib! And I'm using this opportunity to practice being super positive and trusting God and his timing. Who knows? I may get to put it to use sooner than I think! I talked to Dh and he said, "well, we're not going to set it up right, because that would be pretty weird to explain to people."Ha! Of course not. It will remain in its current state (in pieces) until we get some super fantastic news ;) Anyhow, we now have our very first baby item, and it is patiently waiting in our back room to be filled.

In other news, I have been having the most bizarre (and sometimes scary) dreams! On Monday night, I had two in a row which were dreadful (I won't go into details) back to back and I woke up after the second totally freaked out!  Last night, I dreamed I was in this small town I had never heard of before. It was a much longer dream, but I'll skip to the end..

We were going into this small diner for dinner and for some reason I had 2 cartons of ice cream and brought them in with me. I was walking by the front counter when a lady that worked there said, "that's fine, but just make sure no one else eats your ice cream or you'll be screwed."

For some reason, I knew she was talking about our infertility...like if someone were to eat my ice cream, we wouldn't be able to have kids (so weird!) I kept walking and put my stuff down at the table where Dh was sitting with some random other people and then left again to use the restroom. When I came back, I could see that some girl was EATING MY ICE CREAM!!! I actually do know this girl IRL and she has a little baby girl but I guess she didn't yet in this crazy scenario. I was SO incredibly angry and upset all at once I wanted to run over there and punch her!  I turned and walked outside, trying to calm down and fully prepared to walk home when I saw how dark the sky was. Then I saw that a funnel cloud was stretching down to the ground right in front of me!!  (y'all may have heard of the 12 tornadoes that ripped through North TX a few weeks ago..guess it was still on my mind)
The huge black cloud grew even bigger and swirled around to the other side of the diner. For a moment I was frozen but then all I could think of was my Dh still inside. I rushed back in only to see the giant tornado through the big glass windows on the other side of the diner. My husband was at the other end, still eating, and no one saw what was happening. There was no time and I was the only one that could warn them. I tried to yell and...

Nothing came out.

I was totally panicking and then I YELLED....
.....

And woke myself up. And my husband. Because I actually caused myself to yell out in real life. I was still trying to shake myself from the dream and I could hear Dh say, "what the heck!"
He says I yelled something like "COAT!" but I assure him that what I was trying to say was.. "GETAWAYFROMTHEWINDOWS!!"

Ice cream. Infertility. Tornadoes. My subconscious is weird.


Needless to say, I am really hoping to have some good, calm dreams about puppies or sunsets soon.

Thank y'all for your encouragement after my last crazy person post. I am feeling better but definitely still working many things out in my head. I know your prayers help so much though so thank you!
As for my appointment, it went really well! It's always a wonderful thing when your doctor wears a precious feet pin and you leave his office with holy cards and 2 miraculous medals :)

I had stopped charting a while back when we started with Dr. H (not Hilgers, and not Catholic..fyi)
because it wasn't really necessary. The new Dr. P wants me to start charting again and when I have a cycle to show him, he will order a full set of labs (he said 10 blood draws during my cycle) to see what things look like throughout. I've never really particularly liked charting but I know it is necessary and I am certainly excited about a new plan of action. 

Well, that's all for now, and I'm off to do not so fun things (like researching electricians..boo), and fun things as well (like a craft day with my mama and youngest sister :)



Today I am thankful for our awesome, Catholic doctor and
for a new path to follow!
Today I am also thankful for our beautiful home.
Even though things break sometimes, I know
how blessed we are!

Drifting.

Oh so many things going through my head!!

Had a slight freak out moment yesterday. I felt like I was floating in a sea of uncertainty and I couldn't get a grasp on anything...

What am I doing??
What should I be doing??
What does God want me to do/who does He want me to be?
Where do I go from here?!

I had to slow down and literally go through all the things that I absolutely know to be true.

My name is _____. I am a child of God. He loves me more than I could ever imagine and wants me to be happy. I am married to an amazing man who also loves me so very much. I am a wife, daughter, sister, granddaughter, sis-in-law, cousin, friend, godmother, nanny, etc...and I desire to be a mother with all my heart.

I haven't worked my nanny jobs at all this week due to sickness on my part, and other things going on with my nanny families. The house is pretty darn clean (trying to be a good wife!) and I find myself just wondering what I'm actually doing and what I am supposed to do? Just in life. In general. Feeling a little without a purpose this week I suppose. Most days I absolutely love going to nanny and taking care of these kids that mean so much to me and other days I am reminded that they are not mine. And it just doesn't quite get there for me. I also love photography and am learning more and trying to decide if this is a direction I actually want to pursue as a way of bringing in income. Then I think of how many others try to do this, wonder if I could possibly be good enough, remember how little I know about running a business...and this notion goes out the window once more. I am also passionately pro-life, and have been quite active in the past, but have since fallen away from the "super-involved" person that I once was.

Definitely took a step back from things when the reality that getting pregnant was going to take more work than just "getting lucky" set in. 

Despite the fact that I pray everyday my life will soon change in a big way when dh and I become parents, my life will not begin when I become a mama. God has given me my life today and he wants me to use it to the full and to live for right now. For today. Period. I think I remember a quote somewhere that worrying robs today of its joy and I certainly do not want that.
 
Even scarier, I will not magically change into the best version of myself overnight. I will have the same faults I have right now...I will be a disorganized, untimely, sometimes scattered.....mama. And that sometimes scares the heck out of me!!
I want so badly to be the woman, wife, and (please someday God!) mama that He wants me to be but I have to remember that getting there takes time. Falling teaches us to pick ourselves up. And this feeling of floating around shows me that I need to anchor myself to Christ more than ever!  Dh and I are doing amazing praying the Divine Mercy Novena every single day and this is quite an accomplishment because I know I can count the novenas I have actually stuck to for a whole nine days without a miss on one hand.


Guess I just felt my faults, my fears and uncertainty a little stronger yesterday than normal.

Adoration yesterday evening after all of these thoughts worked wonders though! I know that I need to pray more and cling to Christ! I know that He has given me many MANY blessings and I trust that He has the plan for my life all worked out. So I am going to work harder on....
Stopping everything to LISTEN to what He is telling me on a day to day basis.
TRUSTING that no matter what I know or do not know about my future, God is already there and there is no need to worry.
KNOWING that I am in this very place for a reason, and that I can use every day God gives me as an opportunity to better myself.

Sorry for the crazy ramble! Does anyone ever feel like this?!  Sometimes I just need to unwind the tangled mess of my mind onto something I can read later and try to decipher.

Tomorrow at 1:30 is our appt with that Dr P and I know it is just a consultation but I am confident that it will help us begin to find the answers we need. Prayers are greatly appreciated.

I very much dislike when my brain goes haywire. I know that I am calming down and I hope to be back trusting, joyful, hoping, loving, appreciating every moment that God gives us very soon! God has all the answers, but I don't have to. God has all the answers, but I don't have to. Repeat to self.

Most importantly I know that even when I feel like I am out to sea without a raft, God is holding me.


Today I am thankful for times like this (even though they are not all that fun)
because they remind me how much I need God in every moment of every day.
Thankful for this mini wake up call. He loves me, and really, isn't that all that
really matters?