Journey to the Center of the Uterus!

Hey Ladies,

( I am alive)

I have been off birth control for over a year now, and alas, my eggo has yet to become prego. We had a sit down with a specialist on Monday. We reviewed my blood work from a month ago, and its not showing anything totally obvious. My vitamin D is crazy low, not super shocking; its a 7 and the number they look for is 30. I will be receiving a remedial course of vitamin D over the next two months. Two doctors over the last year seemed to think I have PCOS, but this new guy, does think that is not the case, so he is retesting. I have received a vaginal ultra sound and every thing was normal! I have very pretty eggs nestled in my belly. YEAH! Tomorrow they are putting dye up my cervix to see if my tubes are working. It can be very painful and I am really looking forward to it. Mr Q, will also be receiving in-depth testing, he, will will be getting friendly with a cup.

Its worth it!

Q

Katie

Munckin was kind enough to be a model for my latest hat.

So I am thinking about giving my hats names, for the purpose of inventory; or does that just sound crazy?

Finals

What I see when I look at Q's final. ;)

Check out my final project: Artistic Reflections on Deepwater Horizon. I did the site building & design & technical mumbo jumbo.

Not to Toot my Own Horn but.....

TOOT TOOT!!!!!!!!

This week I took a class on making hats. In four days I was able to form 5 hats and this is the one I got completely done. I am very proud of myself, and you can officially reefer to me as a Mad Hatter! I love this hat, its truly amazing! I was able to buy a hat block from my teacher and rest assured hats are going to accompany me to craft sales now.

New "Disease"

Hey Ladies,

I have been seeing a new allergist and he as been running a slew of tests. A few weeks ago I was diagnosed with vocal cord dysfunction, it is not really treatable other than breathing exercises; but it explained why my asthma meds were not helping me breath sometimes.

My doctors English is very poor, so communication has been a hoot for the both of us.

So today at work I was taking my lunch and took a moment to check my voice mail; Its was Doctor calling to tell me that my CT scan from two weeks ago showed that I have Tracheomalacia Its a big fancy work that means the cartilage in my throat is weak, I am not sure how bad it is because I had to hear to the message five times to figure out what it was called. He did call it moderate and I should be hearing from a Otolaryngologis very soon. The treatment for this does not sound all that painful so I am looking on the sunny side.

Q

Good News

Ladies!

I have a job! After a long year of disappointed I landed a job in a shoe store today. Not the same store I have worked in the past. This one is privately owned and nicer. Its a part time job that may lead to full time.

An average day on the job!

Balsamic Chicken

I am contributing my first recipe. Chicken with whole grain penne pasta, glazed with a delightfully tangy Balsamic Vinegar sauce.

6 chicken breasts

Cube the chicken and cook in a skillet with a little olive oil, and pepper.

1 box of hole grain penne pasta

Cook the pasta! lol

Balsamic Vinegar sauce:

1/4 cup of sugar

1/2 cup of water

1/2 cup of balsamic vinegar

1/4 cup of light olive oil

3 cloves of crushed garlic

1/4 cup of Dijon mustard (Please pass the Gray Poupon?)

Combine all ingredients in sauce pan, whisk together, and warm. If you like you can add mushrooms to the sauce. Its tasty tasty!

Walmart Fabric Department

Hey Ladies,

Walmart is pulling its fabric departments at the beginning of the new year. Its a financial disaster for me, I get 90% of my fabric there because of the prices. I'm not sure how much it will help but if you thing this is a bad move for Walmart, here is a link to a petition.

http://www.petitiononline.com/savefab/petition.html

Thanks!

Lonely...I'm so lonely...

I'm sitting here listening to my Blue October channel on Pandora, being lonely. I looked through a friend's wife's photo album of their kid born last July, and suddenly realized, I think, why people have kids. Damn she looks happy.

No, I do not want one anytime soon. (Nor am I drunk right now. Yeah, I can see you thinking it!)

But I am is sick of school. My give-a-damn's broken, as it were, and I think I'm okay hitting an 80% for my final projects this semester--none of them are particularly inspiring to me.

However, I have been given a lovely opportunity at work to beta a really cool product that's getting released to the public on December 3rd, and that really has been inspiring. I swear I love this job so much it's the only thing keeping me in school through these rough times.

Today we had the first big Christmas craft sale of the season, and Q really raked it in yesterday. Today was a bit of a bust due to heavy snow last night and this morning keeping the crowds away. We collected a bunch of cards and I had personal conversations with some of the crafters, getting email addresses for our online site. Fuzzy noticed early on these people don't like the word "consignment", because those businesses "screw them over." All in all, a pretty successful endeavor, as it looks like there is a lot of interest in such a site.

But I am now in an overly sentimental mood and my husband leaves again tomorrow. Poop.

And I have homework to do. Double poop.

I'm going to write a book this week. And I'm probably going to put up the Christmas decorations on the site early. I'm sorry if this annoys anyone; read my post on Slacker Productivity for the reason why this happens every finals season, and doubly so during holiday sentimentality.

...Were back!

Hey Ladies,

I'm gonna try to get back in the blog spotlight. Tons of things have happened, tons of things are happening, and high school still sucks!

Mr. Q is working full time, and going to school full time. I see him in passing now.

I still am unemployed, and I think that makes me officially useless. Avon is not paying the bills yet but its something to do. I am still hopefully optimistic about getting a job before I have been unemployed for a year.

High school is still high school, the faces have changed but its till the same game. I'M HALF WAY DONE! Its something to celebrate for sure.

I got a washer and dryer a few days ago. They are wonderful! The dryer is acting up but I think its just being too smart for me. I might have to read the manual! Today my Uncle dropped off a fridge and a oven. The fridge is really old but its better than the back up in the garage. Of course the oven is too big for my kitchen so we are sill brain storming about how to get a working oven in the house. Mean while I may be cooking in the garage. (what will the neighbors think!)

Cars, Business, Wasps, Screaming, and Camping

Once again, I find myself in the situation that a lot has happened in my life and I'm behind on posting. I've written a summary in prose for those of you who don't want to read the novel:

Mr. B's Outback had just gotten fixed and gone to Pueblo,
It got into a fight with a hailstorm and to more fixing insurance said "no",
Went car shopping & tried to trade in the '93 trooper C4C,
Found it wasn't eligible due to procrastination by Mr. B,
Then went Rolla on a business dealing,
Mr. B found a wasps' nest in the kitchen ceiling,
Had to beg Q for assistance due to husband's vanity,
Q of course came through and saved my kitties and my sanity,
Mr. B freaked out and decided to clean basement,
Apparently got rid of my stuff with permission and still hasn't f-ing apologized,
Got off the plane just in time to fight with husband,
Packed my crap post haste and almost decided marriage was canned,
Briefly discussed if free education was prudent,
Got accused by Mr. B of being perpetual dirty-hippie student,
Went camping one hour later with Q, Munchkin, and spouses,
Banned fighting for the weekend even though all men are louses,
Had 6 hours to share alone with Mr. B on Sunday,
Then we both woke up and went our separate ways.

And the long version:

Well, in case I didn't say this already, Mr. B's Outback had just gotten fixed from the run in with the deer when he drove it down to Pueblo and got stuck in a hail storm. It didn't do any real damage, but apparantly it dinged every exterior portion of the shell of the car to the extent that insurance called it a total loss: cost of repair exceeds total value of car. So we took a settlement and now have a no-value dinged up car.

Realizing we were nowin possession of two cars in need of replacement, we decided to make a move on Cash for Clunkers because my trooper is 16 years old and gets 15 miles to the gallon. Well, thanks to the fact that my husband dragged his butt getting it registered (and had me driving it without registration for 3 months without knowing it), we have not technically "owned" this vehicle for 1 year so it does not qualify. And my husband's procrastination has finally screwed us over in the form of losing a $4,500 coupon for a new car.

I went to Rolla, MO for my first business trip last week; I feel I should note here that they took really good care of us because the flights and hotels were awesome. On Wednesday morning I get this phone call just as I walk through the door to my first meeting:

"Hello?"

"Hey."

"Oh, hey Mr. B--unless something serious is happening, can I call you back around lunch?"

"Oh, um, well...I woke up this morning and there's wasps inside the house?"

"Inside the house?"

"Yeah they're coming through a hole in the kitchen ceiling."

"Uh...okay."

"Can I take care of this when I get home tonight?"

I laugh. "Not unless you want to come home to a house full of wasps--they could swarm and kill our cats. You need to take care of this like now."



Said in irritated tone: "Well, Alula, what do I do?"

I sit there in stunned disbelief for a moment. Then I respond: "Well hon, I'm in Missouri right now, so you're going to have to take care of this one by yourself."

"By doing what?!"

"Call someone."

"Who?!"

And about this time, in my head, I'm going well, there are bugs in the house and you don't want them there...who the bleep do you think you call? I say: "I'm guessing anyone from your dad to 911 depending on how many there are and what they're doing. Jesus--just assess the situation and take care of it. Or keep calling responsible adults until you find one that can help you!"

And I hung up and went to my meeting. I text him that he needs to call Orkin and then let it go. I call his father a little later to be sure he isn't suffering death by wasps alone in our home. Turns out Mr. B has gone to work.

The irony of the situation? I call Q later and she starts with "I got this frantic call from your husband earlier. He needed to know what to do to get wasps out of the house..."

The wasps really freaked him out. Orkin came the next day and gased the invaders and the nest, which was apparently inside our kitchen ceiling. We're still dealing with stragglers trying to rebuild.

Apparently Mr. B thought the basement was too dirty for Orkin to see (no kidding, that was his reasoning) so he "cleaned" it. By breaking a lot of my stuff and donating some of it without permission. I'm still not okay with it and much screaming ensued.

Then when I got home I saw the real damage and there was more screaming. And then I tried to talk to him about how my work is now offering to pay for me to get a PhD--literally pay for it. And pay me regular salary in addition and accomodate my scheduling needs for school. Mr. B said I can't do it because I was "going to become a permanent student" and blah blah blah. We were both pretty pissy and yelly and angry.

Then we took a fifteen mminute breather, started over, and just packed our crap and went out to the camp site where Q and Munchkin and spouses were waiting. We had a lovely weekend of geocaching, s'mores, and freezing our chicklets off. The tight sleeping arrangements of our tent allowed me the perfect excuse to get an albeit amature form of revenge on my husband by breaking gas while we were forced to spoon.

Then we got home, watched some TV, fought a little more, went to bed, and woke up. Now I'm back at work and he's back in Pueblo and we're getting along fine and missing each other terribly. I'm exhausted and I have to plan Movie Night for tomorrow and my family is not making things easy.

Ociffer and Snow were having a rough time of it with Post Partum Depression--she kicked him out and basically absconded with his child for a couple of weeks only allowing him visitation. According to my mom they're "doing better now". God bless him, I hate to see my brother going through these situations. My sister is having some sort of issue now too that she won't tell me about, and my cousin had her baby--another August baby--a healthy little girl. And my grandmother wants to spend more time with me, which I feel guilty about because she lives literally on my same block and I have like no time. I'm setting something up with her for later this week.

Alula

Happy Birthday, Q!

Just so everyone knows, Q tried to cancel her birthday. Twice.

I uncanceled it. Twice. :)

Happy Birthday to Q!

Alula

P.S. Who keeps making superfluous categories in the tags? As an information management professional, I do draw the line here. Do we really need both crazyness (SP! craziness--I will become a bee-otch about this because I can now confirm that some 6-year-olds have better spelling than I have seen here) and weirdness? Work and (Un)employment? And WTF is "topic"? We do know how to use tags, yes? Click on "Show All" to see the existing ones?

Good News!

Hey Ladies!
Wetpaw got into the school he wanted to. So there is a chance he is moving out before the fall semester! Woo Hooo!
Mr. Q and I might get to be a married couple!

Perks of my job!

Hey Ladies!
When I get a job I am hopping its gonna come with the perk of a pay check! At the moment having a job would be a perk! :)

Its officially spring!

Hey Ladies!
Its officially spring I stepped on my fist Gardner snake yesterday! If you do not know this already, I have a curse! If there is a Gardner snake in a fifty foot radius I'm gonna step on it. I swear to you they slither out of now were and I find them under my foot!

Week of the Sisterhood

It's finals again and I'm tired as all get out. Emotional, too.

This week I got to see all of you, which was a rare treat. If Fuzzy had been able to make the wedding, we all would have been together for the first time in who knows how long--even so, I'm still glad I got to see all of you.

DoHP, you need to move back, sweety. We all miss you more than you realize. You can stay in our front room cheap, and we'll find you a job. You can have your own bathroom if you're willing to deal with our OCD cleaning nueroses. I can't even tell you how much you were missed after you left--they way we all kept staring at the empty spot on the couch. This time around, the couches were full, and it was good. Plant those black eyed peas I sent you home with, because we need to break your black thumb curse. And thanks for not killing my orange trees.

Munchkin, congratulations on getting married. I can tell you it's the most frustrating and rewarding thing you'll ever do in life. Just remember--that first year is a doozy. Everyone thinks they will be different, but the first year is hard. It's like dating all over because suddenly you think he's going to change, and he will, but probably not the way you want him to. Just weather that first year, and as a subtle recommendation, don't add pregnancy hormones to the mix. One year either way won't make a difference at this point, and when you're screaming about dishes or trash removal or money, he won't be able to throw it in your face that your just hormonal.

Fuzzy, when did that boy get so big? Seems like just yesterday I was sleeping on a wooden hospital bench at 3am while you were sitting there in the worst pain of your life, trying to bring new life into the world. Remember when we were like 12 and we rode our bikes around the block? Remember when we read Animorphs? Remember when we used to get dropped off and picked up together in middle school? Kiddo, you need to move back too. I don't see enough of you anymore, and I really want to know your kid.

And Q, these last few weeks were really special. I'm sorry if I creeped you out with all the smiling--I just kept looking up and seeing you and Mr. Q, all cuddly and together again, and the two of you just look so happy. You're a different person when he's around; it really is like the two of you own a piece of each other, because I can tell when he's been away too long. You fake smile a lot and you're a little hallow when you talk. This past week you really smiled. You really laughed. And you looked really, really happy. I'm happy to have my old Q back, because when you shine, the rest of the world does too.

Alula

Anniversary!

Hey Ladies,
Mr. Q is home, and yesterday was our one year anniversary. Yeah!
We went to mass then out to lunch with my aunt and uncle. We were planning on staying at home for a little while then going out for a dinner and perhaps a movie. Unfortunately I flopped down on our spear bed around 6 pm because Mr. Q was playing on his computer in there. At some point he curled up next to me and we woke up this morning at 6 am, fully dressed, in a full size bed. Good Anniversary! Were gonna extend our plans into today. We can't be known as the people that slept for 14 hours on our anniversary.

Travel Plans

Hey Ladies
Mr. Q is coming home on leave this week. Yeah! I'm so excited I could pee my pants, and that's a understatement.
Now if I could just get him home. Due to security reasons they will not give him a flight plan, but I am starting to think its because the army does not have them ether. Right now I have no idea where he is. I have not heard from him in 24 hours. I'm trying not to freak out but I am. Its hard not too. I keep telling myself that he is fine and he must be traveling or his cell is not working. I would be so much happier if I knew he was safe! I just have to keep myself busy! Good think the house is not clean yet!
Would it be a overreaction to go wait at the airport?

Friday Night Dinner!

Yummy! Yummy! Supper for a hungry Catholic during lent.

And for dessert freshly imported fruit! God bless this Country!

See Mister Q, I do eat good stuff!

Playing with paint!

Hey Ladies!
I got my braces off!
Mr. Q someday I need a better program than paint to do stuff like this with!