Goodbye 2006

This morning we took our last hike out the access road for 2006. I'm having a bit of trouble with today. This is why I'm actually glad we're staying in tonight and celebrating quietly with a bottle of champagne, some snacks, a little Yahtzee and Ned. I know I'm supposed to be happy and looking forward to the New Year and a blank slate. But the thing about New Years Eve, is it's starting to become the night we continually make a toast and say "this is the year of making a baby". Again. and again. 2007 is the year I turn 37. I hate that. The age of 36 has come and gone, 4 IUI's and emotional exhaustion later and still no baby. And 36 is 'the year' everyone makes a big deal about. Plus I know that 2007 is going to be the year of fertility clinics, lots of emotional ups and downs, financial worry and baby worry. Woofriggin hoo. I should be excited, but its a bit more like dread. I could also be suffering post event disorder, everything is quiet after Christmas, so I'm being all dreary. Plus its cold and rainy now. So to get it in perspective, I'll do some lists:

Events from 2006:
4 failed IUIs
We lost April
But we gained Ned
I started Accupuncture
We had a great Christmas
we traveled a lot for our summer vacation
we spend a lot of time with friends
we spent a lot of time around our house and garden
we found out our friends are moving back to England
but we found out our friends in England are getting married this year in the states!
Dan started a new position
I seem to be getting more freelance gigs

Things to look forward to in 2007:
Ned gets nuetered - good for us, bad for him
We're supposed to go on a trip in March to Vegas or California, just the 2 of us
Starting working with a fertility clinic & getting pregnant
Maybe visiting our friends in England in spring/summer
A big wedding of our friends in the Fall
Another big year of gardening
Hopefully bookclub keeps going
Finding a new yoga instructor or organizing my own class

I have a feeling if I was in a happier mood, I'd have more good things to look forward do. Right now I'm kinda just looking forward to this evening being over. But also looking forward to probably getting good and drunk with my husband.


Oh, and I do have one New Year's Resolution: to cuss less.

Picture Posting problems

I've been trying to post my Christmas pics, but having difficulty. I'm on Dan's work laptop with a phone card, and the connection speed doesn't seem to be good enough for uploading pics to blogger. I keep trying, but it will have to wait till I get back to work next week. I have a bunch of great ones to post!

Dan with Pia and Ned (Neddy)

Best Christmas Ever

Christmas has come and gone. Our house is now quiet, all of our guests have gone home. I had really high expectations for this Christmas: it was our first actually celebrating in our house, not traveling away to visit, the first time in many years to get to celebrate with my parents, and our friends Greg and Gitte and their children were spending it with us.

My OCD kicked into high gear about two weeks prior. We had the house decked out this year! More lights outside than we've ever had - which doesn't mean it was tacky, just that we actually had some. We made a huge wreath for the side of the house (which Ned freaked out about and barked at for a few days) and had lights all around our deck. We got the BIGGEST tree we've ever had - 10 foot! Frasier fir. Also the prettiest tree we've ever had. Even had to buy more balls it was so big we needed more ornaments! We also had to make our table bigger. Our tiny 4 seater from IKEA just doesn't hack it for entertaining. I took one of the bad doors from the remodeled back room and taped it to the dining room table. Then covered it with our good holiday tablecloth - it looked great! really - you couldn't tell. It was nice to actually have room on the table and not be eating touching elbows.

We had a few parties, Friday before Christmas we had a nice get together - about 20 people. Very mixed crowd. You always end up having to entertain the odd balls, and not getting to actually hang out with the people you wanted to. But it was a good time. Dan got a keg a Yuengling in for it. Always nice to have good beer easily accesible for the holidays. After Christmas we had a small gathering as well. Jodi and Neeta came over. Which means I was in heaven. I had four of my closest girlfriends in the same room at once. The only thing they all have in common is me, but they all get along great. I got a great photo taken of us all that I'll post.

Saturday G&G came in. I was so looking forward to just spending as much time with them as possible. Dreading them moving back to England in the spring. I think my parents were also looking forward to seeing them and their kids. I think they had a great time. I just really wanted to give them a great last Christmas in the states to remember. I think we succeeded. We had so much food in the house it was ridiculous. I finally broke my fertility diet and ate my weight in cheese!! mmmmmcheeeeese!

We had Christmas dinner Christmas eve, this way Christmas day was just spent relaxing, eating and napping. Christmas day it took us 2 full hours to open all the presents. G&G brought a lot from relatives, and my parents went way over board this year and bought us way too much. Dan's big gift this year was a huge shop vac. He loved it. Ned made out as well, he got lots of chew toys in his stocking. I was a pretty lucky girl myself. Dan seriously made up for zilching on my birthday. He got me a pair of Frye Boots. I've been wanting a pair for years, and just assumed it would be awhile before I ever got a pair. They're the kind of thing you have forever. They're prefect too, plain, brown, tall, square toed cowboy boots. I love them! I also got "Donnie Darko", lots of stocking stuffers, a cool shirt from Australia, jammies and a sweater. Not bad. But to be honest, I just loved having my house full of family and friends. I loved it loud and chaotic and messy. As OCD as I am about cleaning and pickingup after everone, and as exhausting hosting is, I hate it when everyone leaves and the house is quiet again. Christmas is when I wish we had kids, especially to pass traditions down to. This Christmas my best gift was spending it with everyone I love.

Are you gonna let me out or what?

Neddy Boy

I haven't talked about Ned much lately. He's been so good lately. He just has such a funny little personality. He's all grown now. After the holidays he needs to go and get snipped. We - I - keep putting it off, but it needs done now. I don't want him out making babies.

We've just about quit using his crate altogether. He hates it. It's the only place in the house he'll make a mess or have an accident. He sleeps with us at night now. HUGE mistake on my part, but at least he doesn't have an accident in the night now. We've kept him in the kitchen during the day a few times, and he's been an angel. Doesn't even get into the garbage. So I think that's it for the crate. Probably put it in the basement when we finish cleaning this week.

He's taken to burying things. It's his mission. Last night I couldn't find one of my slippers. Eventually found it when I went to bed - under the pillows. He buries things in corners, under beds, under blankets, in the dirty clothes basket, in closets. It's really funny to watch him. Used to he would let you watch, but now he's just like April, if he sees you watching him bury something, he picks it back up and moves it somewhere else. He has stuff buried all along the side of the house in the mulch. I think he goes out and checks it every morning.

He's also incredibly chicken-shit. Anything new - that wasn't there (anywhere) 5 minutes ago needs howled at. He freaked when D out a spot light in the yard to uplight our wreath. First he barked at the light, then he stood and howled at the wreath itself. D cut up some fallen trees at the edge of our yard, Ned flipped out and went and howled at them. He hates the laundry baskets. He was in the basement once when one of us rolled one down the steps, he's hated them ever since. Slinks out of the room when we fold clothes.

He licks. A lot. He licks so much he gets lazy and stops mid-lick with his tongue still on you, stuck on you, then he gradually pulls his tongue off. He likes to sleep on your head. Like right across your face or neck. You have to roll him off.

We took him to Roanoke with us and he had a great time with the dogs there. Here are a few pics of Ned from the trip....

37 days is the apparent limit

Kind of having a miserable day today. My cycles are all messed up. Last month it was a 21 day cycle, this month it was 37 days. When we decided to just drop everything and try to quit worrying about getting pregnant, we also figured I should get off of the glucophage. I was only on it to begin with because the Dr. thought 'might as well'. I guess between being off that and my accupuncture, my hormones are out of synch. What sucks though is when 32 days went by with no sign, we took a test. It was negative, which we pretty much expected. But then yesterday was 36 days and still nothing. We thought there might be a chance we tested too early, so we were going to test again this weekend. Until I got my period this morning. Day 37. Sucks. I knew I wasn't pregnant, it's just it sucks when your body decides to f with you. I was really looking forward to all the money I was going to save at Christmas this year in presents. Everyone was just going to get a gift box with a note inside that said we were pregnant. Now I actually have to buy gifts...grrrrr.... hate to shop.

And I had been putting off calling the clinics this month. I'll start calling later to have them send info. We're comparing Columbus to Pittsburgh.

Oh well. At least we know now for this month and can get on with shopping, decorating and celebrating Christmas. I'm really, really, really looking forward to it this year with our friends coming to stay with us and my parents coming up and being with them as well this year. And as usuall, getting my period means I get to drink a nice big glass of wine tonight.

Christmas Scent Bags

I hand these out to just about everyone at Christmas:

1 Gift bag
1 ziplock baggie
1 orange
1 apple
1 lemon
3 bay leaves
3 cinnamon sticks
1/4 cup whole cloves

Spices in the baggie, everything in the gift bag. Make a recipe tag and attach to the bag with pretty ribbon.

Recipe:
Fill a quart size pan with water and set to simmer on your stovetop. Throw in all the spices and half of each fruit. Just let is sit there and simmer and your house will smell like Christmas. You can add a bit of water to it as it boils down. Careful not to scorch the pot.

My Christmas Traditions

D has been out of town for a few nights, so I've been decorating the house for Christmas this week in the evenings. Last night I followed up on one of my favorite Christmas traditions - watching "White Christmas". I usually watch it by myself as D can barely take old movies - but that's ok. I watched it last night while I finished stringing cranberries on floral wire for the tree garland. SIX bags of cranberries later it's finished, and looks great. Anyways, watching that movie always makes me feel good and gets me in the holiday spirit. I love old movies and how elegant and polite people seemed to be back then. Although I'd hate to do it myself everday, I loved how women wore skirts and gloves and hats. And everyone knew how to dance. I'd love to have a party, just once, where everyone came 'dressed' not just jeans, sweaters and a six-pack of OM. But I'm rambling....the thought was having watched the movie was one of my traditions. I have a lot of them that seem to be just 'mine'. One of the things that makes me want kids is to be able to pass them along. I thought I'd list out some of them that I can think of.

• tree garland - stringing either popcorn or cranberries while watching a holiday movie
• always have christmas candles burning
• put out the nativity set my grandmother Huggins made us
• hang all my old childhood ornaments along with new ones
• open one gift Christmas eve
• always do stockings
• stockings should have those little foil wrapped chocolate santas in them (my mom did that)
• Hide the christmas pickle ornament in the tree (got that from my friend Gretchen's family)
• make a huge breakfast Christmas morning
• the dog always gets a stocking and a bunch of bones
• take time Christmas day to relax and read a book for a bit in front of the tree
• make Baklava, oyster crackers and mom's cheeseball
• hang jingle bells on the front door
• somewhere you always have to use the big colorful outdoor lights from the 70's because my dad always did and to me that's christmas
• mulled wine
• make Christmas scent bags to hand out to just about everyone

That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure there's more!

Getting ready for Christmas

After traveling the past two weekends, it was so nice to wake up in our own bed this Sat. But it doesn't mean we had a relaxing weekend.

My office holiday party was Friday night. It was great this year. The place, the food, everything was really good. Last year we started making it a casual event, and everyone seems to have so much more fun that way. This year before we all swapped Secret Santa gifts, we all played Christmas pictionary, which was hilarious. Esp. when people really can't draw. Someone had to draw a 'fruitcake" and ended up drawing something that looked like a dead brown chicken with its feet in the air. The feet turned out to be 'candles'. After the party we had a few drinks at Wilson Lodge with a few people who stayed - we had a good time.

Saturday and Sunday though we took a beating. We spent Saturday shopping for stuff for the house - outdoor decorations mainly. We also got the tree Saturday. We went someplace different this year. I was tired of paying way too much(for trees I didn't even like) from the place we'd been going - Fisely's - even if it was a family tradition. So this year we went to another, smaller, locally owned tree farm and ended up with a 10' Frasier fir. This tree is perfect. Not only is it the largest tree we've ever had, it's the prettiest. It's gigantic. We had to buy more lights. We have cathedral ceilings, and had to put it on the high end this year. Usually we only get about a 6' tree. So far we've only got it in the stand and in the house. Both going much easier than in past years.

Tonight we're going to put the lights on it and decorate it. That just leaves a few decorations around the house and we're done. Oh, I didn't mention the outside work we did.

After we bought everything Saturday, we spent Sunday putting up lights. Usually we don't do much - this year it looks great! Very Christmassy (is that a word?) We like to call the house a Christmas Mullet = party in the back, classy in the front. In the front we made a huge, gorgeous wreath that is on the side of the garage as you drive up to the house. It has a spotlight on it. Then we have two small 3' trees in the pots on either side of the garage door, with lights framing the garage. Then on the front porch we have another small lit tree and a wreath. I may add lights around the door if I have time. Everything out front is white lights and elegant. In the back we ran the old-fashioned big, mulit-colored outdoor lights from the 70's around the deck. I love it because you can see the lights on the deck from just about anyroom in the house through the windows. Its all getting very festive.

After we got all that done, we vacuumed, scrubbed and polished the great room. We still have the kitchen floor to do. And I need to clean the bedrooms and bathrooms - but I'll get those done this week. Dan's going away a few nights, so i'll keep busy doing the drudgery.

It's next weekend that will be awful. We've had to wait til the last weekend before Christmas to do our shopping. ugh. We're going to Robinson in Pittsburgh, and I want to get there early, so we can get as much done as we can before we're tire and grumpy, then hit a bar for a few drinks before we go back out and finish up. I just know the traffic will be horrible.

Roanoke

This is the view looking down at Roanoke from the Valhalla winery. A few weekends ago we visited our friends Lee and Jon who live in Roanoke. We hit the winery for a few hours that Saturday. It was a small winery, but very good. We did a small wine tasting, then split a bottle and cille dout, enjoying the view.
We had a really good visit. We took Ned with us, and he spent the entire time wrestling with their three dogs. They have Guiness -a black lab - the Alpha dog who didn't really play, just air-humped Ned now and then to put him in his place; Brody - a golden lab, who didn't really like Ned until the last day, and Sampson, the Dalmation who loved Ned. Those two would not rest, they wrestled or raced or played tug of war without stopping. Ned was soaking wet the entire time from the bigger dogs putting their mouths around him. Little Ned has a lot of spunk which I love - he just kept dishing it out to the big dogs.

The winery had a nice outdoor patio with a fireplace, lots of chairs. We lucked out and got there on a really sunny day so we could hangout in the sunshine and enjoy the wine.

View out over Roanoke from the winery

Hello December

where did November go? I've either been busy or not interested in posting lately. Here's what's up in life in a brief, bulleted overview:

• for no reason I have the song 'Birthday" (Bjork/Sugarcubes) in my head. I had this on tape. I really like her voice and one of these days I want to get the soundtrack to the weird indy flick she was in

• been in a really good mood. Due primarily to saying "fuck it" for awhile to the fertility stuff. (again) Had a bit of an emtotional breakdown mid-November. Our 4th IUI didn't take, and had this feelingof let's hurry up and just get another one done. Brokedown, re-thought it. Decided to take a few months off of thinking about it at all. Also what my accupunturist told me to do. Still staying on my no wheat/sugar/dairy diet - but did take up drinking again. I missed the red wine. Made up for it over Thanksgiving.

• skipping the local Dr. and will be researching whether to go to Ohio State University in Columbus or Magee Women's Hospital in Pittsburgh for a Reproductive Endocrinologist.

• Thanksgiving in Philly was great! Had very relaxing days with D's family. His mom had so much food it kept falling out of the fridge. She fed us well! Played street hocky with the kids and went to see "Happy Feet". Baba - it was as cute as it looks in the previews. Great upbeat soundtrack as well.

• highlight of holiday was my brother-in-law hooking us up with free tickets to see The Who. I've always wanted to see them. Had a huge crush on Daltrey in High School. Had a few of his less then great solo albums. Damn he's still hot for a 60-something. But they sounded great. And really friggin loud! great stage show/graphics as well. Heard all the songs I wanted to hear.

• Little Ned is doing great. gave up on crating him at night. He now sleeps in bed with us. He never has an accident when he sleeps with us - but always pees in his crate at night. He hates it I think. He got a bath at 10 pm last night. Was covered in deer poop. Roll alllllll around in it. gross.

• going to Roanoke this wknd to visit Lee and Jon. Saw them last at 4th of July. They're in the process of adopting a little girl f/ China. I'll have to find their blog and link it at some point. Really looking forward to visiting, just wish it wasn't another 5 hour drive. But it will be fun. They have a city market square that is very European and is filled with people, shops, lots going on. They do a "Dickens" of a Christmas with Mulled wine stands, chestnuts roasting, etc. should be cool.

• as soon as we get back I've got to clean the house for Christmas and start decorating. And we'll get our tree next week as well. And shop. Not sure what I'm going to do about holiday food this year. I can eat a cheeseball by myself usually. Going to be hard to avoid dairy and wheat for awhile. I'll just drink more wine....

• planning on starting an offical office in the house first of the year for a freelance business for myself. I've been getting more and more work lately and got a permanent gig that will be a nice steady side income. Might as well get all the tax breaks we can from it.

• Pics - have a bunch to post - just haven't been inspired to. Maybe i will when we get back from Virginia.

• this time last year I was excited and getting ready for my trip to England. I would love to be able to go there around Christmas every year. Can't wait til we go this year - just not sure when. Late spring early summer hopefully.

So there's the update!