10 days later...

It's hard to believe it has been ten short days since my universe has been turned on it's side. I don't know where to begin so I decided to update you on my -so-called life with a list of firsts that made me laugh, cry, cower, shriek and helped me to grow.


Here are some thoughts located at the forefront of my mind...

Wondering how long I could stay at work, one night last week, when faced with the thought of where to go - I had no idea and my mom's isn't quite like home - yet.

Going from "we" to "me"

Killing a spider with febreeze - I know, who knew? Febreeze? (without begging D to come and kill it first)

Not wearing my wedding/engagement rings daily (I nearly wept when typing these words)

Meeting a friend for dinner and not worrying about "getting home" to the husband

Wondering how I was blessed to have such an amazing support system - family, friends (both IRL and in blogland). Thank you all for checking in on me.

Speaking to my RE's assistant who asked me to call her when I was ready to become a mom ( I will more than likely pursue adoption through the foster care system, once I get settled into my own space)

Realizing (for the first time in a very long time) that I have an entire, exciting life ahead of me.

Tomorrow I start my day early and pack the remnants of my married life, moving them from the home I own to a storage unit or to the home I am living in. D and I met this evening to discuss our finances. YUCK and super YUCK. I hate and love money all at the same time.

Wish us luck - er, wish me luck.

One month

A month from today I will delete this blog.

I am no longer looking to become a parent as d has decided to no longer want to be in our marriage. He states that he is filing for divorce tomorrow. No shit.

Things I know... I am a beautiful, humorous, smart woman that will be able to love again (one day, probably not in the near future though) and while the curse of IF was not the exact cause of the end of our union I know that it certainly didn't help. I can't help but wonder what path we would be on right now if we were able to conceive or keep the girls.

There isn't a whole lot I want to talk about publicly however, if you want to keep in touch please email me so I can let you know where my next bloggy brilliance will take place. I will be deleting this blog, one month from today.

It's been a journey, I thank you all for your friendship, love and peace-filled thoughts. I count each of you as blessings and for this I am eternally grateful our paths have crossed.

Really????

CBS news reports the US military warns of the rapid and sudden collapse of Mexico? Because our crappy ass economy doesn't have be freaked out enough? Then again... I heard this on the news so there you have it. Say it with me class - Pro-pa-gan-da. Another reason to keep watching the Daily show with Jon Stewart. Does anyone else have a super-size crush on him, just me ?- ok.





Update on Kashi - some guy named Phil called and sadly they did not offer me CEO of Marketing and Tasting. I got over it when he offered me some coupons though I pronounce it koo-po-nays (it's what my good friend Regina's dad used to call them and it just stuck).





I spent the entire day scared to death to open my email account from school fearing that I will receive yet, another email from one of the two teachers I had last term requesting some report, power point, upload to ecompanion or paper they seem to not have. Ironic, let me explain, I have completed and turned in all of my work and received ANOTHER email today requesting some random technology assignment that I have already completed and uploaded (and not received by Professor Hottypants).



And lastly,

Photo from Perez Hilton

This is my current fitness goal. And she is 60 years old, five years away from being Medicare eligible. Sadly, I will never have those legs but I love that she has the balls to do this at her age.

Smokin Serendipity

Heed my warning.... It tastes (and smells) like an ashtray - totally disgusting. No Joke.

This was a huge bummer as I really love all Kashi products. Have you tasted their cookies - YUMMY. Back to the ashtray rice - It has to be the smokey black bean, perhaps the smokey black bean has taken to the coffin nails. It's rank, it's wrong and I have left a message for the Kashi folks. Naturally, their office closes at 4:00 PM - probably so they can all go to some super yoga class on the beach because they get to wear their yoga clothes to work and do sun salutations during staff meetings and are forced to take mandatory meditation breaks. I' am not bitter or jealous. at.all.

I look forward to a return call tomorrow asking me if they can pay me 100k a year to move to San Diego (where thier corporate offices are) to become a professional food taster/developer/extraordinaire or maybe they will just mail me a refund for the rice. Either way it will be a win/win.

I just wanted a tasty/healthy side dish to go with my greasy, organic ground beef tacos and all I got was the stinky, ashtray rice. YUCK. Fortunately, the Sun Vista pinto beans with jalapenos came through and shined like a big bright star.

***

On another note - I met with an employee who is planning to retire, yep, big surprise. Rarely do I share personal attributes regarding my life but today was a just a bit different. We spoke about the continuation of her health care benefits and she mentioned she used to work for Kaiser. Well, long story very short - she used to work for our primary doc (whom I love) and knows our RE (no comment) as well and then she shared that she was a fellow infertile. Moments later she was showing me a picture of her adorable 9 year old boy who they adopted when he was 2 months old. I typically end my counsels with a proper and professional handshake and for the first time I leaned into the arms of a stranger as she leaned forward to give me a hug. I will admit I wanted to just stay there and cry. Finally... someone, before my very eyes, who gets me and knows EXACTLY what I am going through and here.In.Real.Life. and reminded me how lucky I am to have the IF blogosphere of support. I love you guys.

I'll never forget her parting words to me. Don't give up and don't lose hope, it WILL happen and stay strong.

Once again I feel hopeful that I will be a parent oneday.eventually.hopefully.Godwilling. please.withcherriesandwhippedcreamandstrawberries.prettyplease.

School, snacks and the sucky economy

I am so HAPPY to be sitting in front of the TV watching House, counting down the minutes until 24 starts. I am also incredibly HAPPY to not have to *physically* attend school and am THRILLED to participate via the virtual classroom. Spring I starts next Monday and I will be happily attending in the comfort of my PJ's while not wearing a bra. HALLELUJAH!!! Life is grand.

Speaking of school - with the light in the tunnel shining brighter each day I am becoming increasingly and acutely aware of the approaching feeling of burnout. I went full force through my B.S. program (while doing IF treatments and getting a promotion at work) and look forward to the day where I won't have some project hanging over my head or choreographing our social schedule around impending school deadlines.

While I look forward to being released from the ball and chain that is a Master's program I am not looking forward to paying the student loans *YUCK* or continuing to take the CSET (again and again and again). I find out the results a week from today and while I would love to think optimistically I have to remain a realist.

In other important news, I have found my new favorite snack from Trader Joe's. Edamame Hummus and Pita sea salt crackers. I promise, it's the snack that delivers - hearty, salty with the perfect amount of sweet but all savory goodness and fairly healthy. Ok, there are worse things - I could be chewing on some flaming hot funions.

I know - this has been riveting. Remember my whole Blood and bones, blah, blah, blah post about warning you to brace yourselves as I was going to be going so much deeper into the bowels of my brain. Yeah - well here it comes...

While our little world is comfortable, happy and quite pleasant, I am overwhelmed with much survivor's guilt knowing that at any moment now my parents business will close (unless there is a miracle lurking around the corner), my brother who is employed at said business will loose his job, I have friends and relatives who are worried about loosing their jobs in completely different industries. We revisited the thought of restarting fertility treatments using money we have locked up in savings and then realized what if we need to loan it to a family member or (YIKES) even to save our own mortgage. Fertility treatments seem totally and completely frivoulous, almost like a vacation in the Caribbean.

I never thought I would compare Chlomid to the Caymen Islands.

Happy (Chinese) New Year

I went wine tasting and forgot how lucky we are to live so close to a fast paced wine growing area. It's not Paso Robles or Napa but it certainly works for a cold, wet and rainy day.

Pics from South Coast Winery.

The front area had these beautiful potted plants displayed and we had a nice, relaxing and yummy lunch

Our next winery stop was a small guy on the outskirts of the wine region.

After we tasted, we walked outside and said hello to a few friends. I was just a tad nervous (um, can you tell?) to be near this guy - he was rescued and the owner warned us about his nervous temperament.

My friend Andi at one of our wine stops.

I found this cute "B" at Anthropolgie and decided it would go nicely between two prints from Paris, in the kitchen.

D installed these faux wood blinds and while normally I am not a fan of blinds, these will work until we blow out this wall and start our kitchen remodel

My favorite phrase for 2009.

My family celebrates the Chinese New year (my father is engaged to a Vietnamese woman) and received our red envelopes this afternoon from my dad. This year the envelopes were very different than last years.

Envelopes from 2008

2009's envelopes and one of our favorite sayings.

We don't own a Buddha statue so we placed our big bowl of fruit near our owl cookie jar.

He kind of looks like Buddha. It is tradition to place a large bowl of food (usually fruit) at Buddha's feet in honor of prosperity, good health and plentiful food in the coming year.

Happy New Year and may 2009 bring you good health, happiness and fortune.

Innocence lost

We watched the Clint Eastwood movie Gran Torino today. It was quintessential Clint - brilliant, absolutely effing brilliant. Clint is one helluva badass and I just love him. D has a tattoo of him on his back, he is his hero.

I don't want to give too much of the movie away so all I will say is that there is a Gran Torino car in the movie (not a huge surprise-right?) which led to significant flashbacks of the very first boyfriend I ever had who drove a Gran Torino. Ironically, memories of this boyfriend led me to memories of a time when I was a completely different person. Unsure of what the future will hold and scared to death that I would get accidentally pregnant and pretty much in that order - even though I was on the pill.

I had just graduated High school, most of my friends went to 4 -year reputable colleges and I was doing time at the local community college. At that time I enrolled, I was certain that I would drop out in a matter of days, not meet any friends, just be completely miserable, wonder the streets of our city aimlessly until I figured what I would want to be when I grew up. I joined the S.E.A. club - the sea and environmental awareness club on campus and meet two of the worlds coolest people that I still happen to be friends with in addition to the first man that would break my heart. This club proved to be a great social outlet - friends, a boyfriend and gatherings such as beach clean-ups that also counted towards extra credit in my science class. Win-win - all the way.

I struggled my first semester and often skipped classes to spend time with the heart breaker. He was from the East coast, the New York area and had this thick accent - I loved it, I loved him. We would go speeding off in his blue Gran Torino, when I was supposed to have my nose in the books and head to his house - where we gave into our raging hormones. He was a few years older and *experienced* and I was naive, very naive and thought it would be just my luck that I would get PG while taking the pill. Little did I know I would grow up to be an infertile. As I type this I have to chuckle about my mindset of that time and laugh at the irony of the situation.

There were some really turbulent and horribly sucky times which I won't recount here, not the time or place but watching that movie brought back so many good memories of driving in this fast car and the innocence we shared. Wind blowing in our hair, Van Halen blaring from the speakers and not a care in the world.

Ahh, youth.