Quitting & Starting

September is running out - there is less than an hour left. I've been so focused on October 1st, and now it's practically here!

Tomorrow is a big day - not only the much anticipated appointment with the new doc, but it'll be my first day as a non-smoker. Again. Yes, I've quit several times before, with varying levels of success. Once for about 3 years, many times for just a few days.

I have a great feeling about this, though. What better reason could I have to quit? I cleaned the hell out of my car & Febreezed it beyond recognition. It now smells like the detergent aisle in the grocery store rather than a wet ashtray. Smoking in the car is always the hardest thing for me to give up. Well, so is smoking with a cup of coffee in my hand. Or a cocktail. Or any old time.

I had a great night on Friday but wiped out a little early. For a big, bad, last blowout before cleaning out my bod and starting on baby drugs, it wasn't all that wild. But it was nice to just chill out and have some girly chit-chat. Singing along to Prince was nice, too. I do highly recommend vodka + pomegranate juice. But perhaps not so quickly. Naw - no regrets, just a headache the next morning.

I was able to get myself going (thanks to a great home-made latte) in time for my WW meeting. Great news there - down 6.8 lbs in the 2 weeks that I've been back at it! That was a surprise, since I haven't really been following 'the plan.' I celebrated with the customary bagel & omelet brunch with my mother-in-law and friends. Shout out to The Bagel Factory. They have my order memorized - veggie omelet, no tomatoes, jalapeno cheese bagel, sun dried tomato cream cheese, hold the hash browns & trade 'em for an orange. Don't forget the salsa - and keep the coffee flowing. I always think I'll change this, but rarely do. I've been ordering the same meal there for years. I have a habit of doing that at all of my favorite restaurants. At Thai Kitchen it's all about the Shu Shee Pla. At Glacier Brewhouse it's blue cheese salad & bread pudding. Gimme the halibut tacos at Bear's Tooth.

I didn't plan on writing about food tonight. Nice how I toot my weight loss horn and go on to the rich meals I enjoy around Anchorage.

Anyway, I'll have a follow-up entry tomorrow on how the appointment goes. I'm sure it'll be great - she comes with such high recommendations. Danny and I talked about buying pregnancy tests in bulk after this. Seems funny right now, but maybe a good idea?

Off for one last smoke... maybe two. Then on to tomorrow.

Birds & Bees

My 'pre-conception' appointment is coming up on Monday. I typed up a whole page of info to remember to tell the doctor and a bunch of questions for her. I had another little chat with my boss today about the doc. She's been seeing her pretty frequently lately, as her baby is due in less than a month. It's been really cool to watch the baby grow and get some of the inside scoop on how it all came about. My boss looks great - she's been taking such great care of herself and the baby. Good example for me, if I ever get there.

I keep swinging between feeling like this is going to take forever, not work at all, or be the golden ticket that works right away. Overall I'm just amped up to be getting started. Really getting started. Finally. Danny and I have been talking about having kids for years. We're constantly giving self-righteous speeches to each other about how our children will be raised. It'll probably all go out the window once it actually happens. If it does. And it will, right??? But how much can we actually plan about how we're going to raise and interact with someone who doesn't even exist yet!

I'm running out of time as a smoker... only a few more days left. I feel positive about it. I mean, I've done it before so I can do it again. This time I have an even better reason to quit - not that smoking was ever a good idea in the first place.

I missed WW last week due to my friend's wedding, but I'm going this weekend. We'll see how that goes, but I've been pretty good about avoiding ye olde gas station fare. I drive a lot for work and am easily tempted by junk that comes in a crinkly bag. Cheesy pretzel Combos became my poison this summer. And then there's the pizza. Danny and I have a pizza problem, there's no doubt about it. We even served it at our wedding.

And did I mention cream puffs? I miss midnight trips to Carrs with my good buddy Jonny! I miss him an awful lot. He's off on an adventure but maybe I'll see him over Thanksgiving. I hope so...

I need a raincoat

We've got another cold, wet day here with snow falling at higher elevations. I can see the termination dust (winter's first snow on the mountains) collecting through the clouds. I'm so done with wet weather - gimme some snow. It is pretty, though. While I miss the oranges & reds of New England, I'm getting used to Alaska's golden autumns. After all, this is the time of year that I moved here. A couple of weeks ago, I celebrated my seven year anniversary as an Alaskan. Whoa!

I made a little headway on my photo printing project yesterday. A little. I was battling my printer and finally gave up after about an hour. I decided that, rather than wait for it, I would let it sit and think about what it did wrong. I went downstairs and had a bite to eat, only to return to find seven pages of fresh glossy prints all over my desk. They were all stuck together and ruined. Damnit! I was able to salvage some of them by cropping a lot, but overall it was a wasted effort. At least I know my printer is still working. Sort of.

Danny and I watched the first episode of the new Ken Burns documentary, The War, on PBS last night. I'd been looking forward to it for so long! I thought it was great, but seemed a little slower than The Civil War. We've got it set up to record on our DVR for the whole run.

I've always been very interested in WWII history. Not so much the war itself, but what happened to women and families on the homefront. I consider myself to be a pacifist, but the idea of virtually everyone behind the same cause fascinates me. That's far from the case with today's wars. But maybe I don't know enough beyond the glorifying books I've read. Was there much of an anti-war effort? How could there have been, considering what was happening in Europe. But then there were the Japanese-American internment camps. Americans weren't innocents. I guess I'll stop there, as I'm no historian and I have a lot more to learn.


QUIT SMOKING COUNTDOWN:
6 more days to treat my lungs like garbage

Weekend Wrap

Danny and I went to a friend's wedding yesterday and met a guy who opened up about his wife's PCOS. His wife wasn't there to chat with, but he said they tried for SEVEN years before a successful pregnancy. Seven years?! And without medical intervention! No thanks, I thought to myself. But I was a little drunk at the wedding and so, of course, prattled on.

Then I heard today that the very dude rolled his car on his way home from the reception. He's ok - I guess he was sloshed enough to land softly. Yikes, I didn't realize he'd been drinking until Danny jogged my memory today. He should know, he tended bar for a while. So did I, but I was distracted by the need to eat, drink, and be merry. Kinda scary that the same guy who worked so hard to get his family in gear would be so irresponsible with himself.

I'll be getting the booze out of my system soon enough, so I was grateful that Danny was my driver. I've got plans with a friend to have a blowout this coming weekend - one last time before getting my bod nice and clean for baby-making. There will be many martinis and cigarettes.

This afternoon I'm finally going to print some photos to put up around our place. I bought a few nice frames and found places to hang them, now I just need to fill them up. Lots of wedding pictures, for starters. Then on to shots of our trip to Ireland, and any other cute pics we've got.

I'm also a little more busy when it comes to blogging. Just when I got the hang of this one, there are two more! I've got one I'm working on with my family, and another one with friends. I'll do my best to keep them up - I'm hoping they'll all do the same! Right, folks?

Heat Misers

It's September in Alaska. We have fresh snow on the mountains around town, our first frost appeared yesterday morning, and my flip flops are gathering dust. Last week, Danny and I discovered that our heat wasn't working. Good thing to find it out now, before survival depends on it. Our house stayed at a cool 60 degrees with no heat, although we got the temp to jump up a bit downstairs when we did some baking.

Yesterday I came home from work to find Danny and a friend of his working away in our boiler room. They replaced the heater's motor and attached an air compressor to get the pressure up and now we have heat! The coolest thing about this was that Danny did lots of the work (he's 'mechanically minded,' as my dad put it) and the more complicated stuff was free labor from his buddy and his buddy's neighbor. We settled the deal with the promise of a bottle of rum for their trouble. What a bargain!

On another note - at my office we have Tae Bo on Monday & Wednesday afternoons. I joined in on yesterday's workout and it was a riot. I'd done it a couple of times before, but had forgotten how goofy it felt. The music, the spandex, the motivational narration - it all adds up to an entertaining little workout. I didn't know what I was doing, but I don't think that really mattered. I'll get the hang of it, I guess. I promised my fellow Tae Bo'ers that I'll keep it up. Paid to work out - why did I ever pass that up? Oh yeah - sloth. I googled sloth, and found the Seven Deadly Sins Quiz where I discovered I am headed straight to hell. Bummer.

Your Sins are Revealed, Your Fate is Sealed Your sin has been measured. You have committed many sins, but Sloth is the mortal sin that has done you in. Just below, discover your full sinful breakdown and learn what it is about you that codemns you to hell.

Greed: Medium
Gluttony: Medium
Wrath: Very Low
Sloth: High
Envy: Very Low
Lust: Low
Pride: Very Low

Now that my house is nice and toasty, I think I can handle it.

Sucked in

Warning: The Internet Is Dangerous. I just wasted an hour surfing from hopeful to sad to terribly depressing pages and had to come back up for air. I love being able to find what I'm looking for, but hate being overwhelmed by a million answers that tell me my worst fears are true and that I have a lot more to worry about than I ever knew. I don't want to be blissfully ignorant, just a little less clueless. If the topic you're googling involves your health, then you must always brace yourself for a tidal wave of bad news.

What am I looking for? I don't know, really. I'd love to find a group of local women who are dealing with the same stuff. Come on, Alaskans, where are you? Our population is big enough, and I know I'm not the only one up here!

In other news, I dyed my hair today and it looks awful. I look nothing like the chick on the box.

Ahhh... weekend

I had a pretty productive Saturday, which felt good. With the patient instruction of a friend, I was finally able to take on the curtain project. They're done and they look much better than I'd imagined. Almost straight stitching. Close enough. I also moved our coat hooks and put together a chintzy shoe rack, which got our entry cleaned up.

What else? Well, not much. The sewing took ages. I did go to WW this morning, though, as planned. It was a depressing number that popped up on the scale, but I just reminded myself that I'm starting over (again). Here goes.

I had the lofty ambition of printing out a bunch of photos and framing them before the end of the night. Instead, I screwed around with my photo software for hours. At least I got to feel like I'd done something halfway creative. We have yet to print or display any photos from the wedding. Not that we want the house covered in them, but there were some nice shots. Other than those, Danny and I have hardly any decent photos of the two of us. Neither one of us is particularly photogenic, so it takes a lot of luck and/or skill to catch us both looking good.

Looks like I ought to get to bed. A little too much coffee, I think. Otherwise, why would I still be awake? It's just past 3:00 in the morning. Danny will be waking up for work in just a couple of hours. At least it's dark outside this time of year so I can actually get to sleep once I really try.

Can weld. Can't sew.

I bought a sewing machine a few months before my wedding with big plans to become an expert and sew a zillion tablecloths. I did learn how to thread the bobbin and operate the thing - but I am far from being able to sew in a straight line. My big project to do at home is hemming our bedroom curtains. Pretty simple, right? But the main thing there is creating the elusive perfect hem. A couple of friends are coming over this weekend to give me a tutorial, so hopefully we'll have decent curtains by Sunday night.

In other news, I'm going back to Weight Watchers tomorrow. Like one of my old college pals, I need to get the bod ready for the babe. I was able to lose quite a bit of weight with WW last year, but since the wedding I have given up and gained back more than I'd like to admit! So, it's off to WW I go with my mother in law tomorrow morning. Lucky for us, that will be followed by a tasty bagel breakfast. Yum. I have to build up my strength for a frustrating afternoon of struggling with the curtains.

On to... ???

I just finished reading through my friends' blog about adventures in baby-making. I'm now feeling more educated on the topic, but behind the times! If we hadn't waited until getting married to get down and dirty with fertility drugs, maybe we'd be parents by now! But who knows? I'm feeling impatient and worried about what will happen once we officially move down that path. It won't be long now until I know just how it feels to get my hopes up every month while dealing with screwy hormones every day. The end result is what we're looking for - parenthood. But who knows? My friends have been trying so hard for over a year with frustrating results. They have a huge additional challenge, in that they're a lesbian couple so they're working with insemination (and moving on to IVF) - but it all looks the same to me at this point. The one-up they have on me is that they're both women, and they're both totally committed to the process. Danny is all for it, don't get me wrong, but I don't think he really knows what we're in for. Then again, neither do I, truly.

Lady Parts

So. I'm infertile. Yes, it's true. Kind of relieving to write that down, actually, although it still feels like a dirty little secret in some ways. Not dirty - shameful somehow. I know that's not a good attitude, but hard to snap out of, nonetheless. 4 years of good old fashioned unprotected hetero-lovemakin' hasn't knocked me up. Now that I'm married, we're ready to rock and roll on baby making and we're enlisting help.

I went to my regular MD on 8/16 and was disappointed. I knew more about the topic of my PCOS than she did. I left my appointment bewildered, holding a prescription that was written way too easily. The script is for Glucophage, but I didn't fill it. I don't want to be put on meds that both my doctor and I don't understand!

Later, I talked with my boss about it. Normally, my lady issues wouldn't be discussed in my director's office. But my boss has the same condition and is very much pregnant. Yeah! Hope! She referred me to her OB/Gyn and I set an appointment for 9/10. I had to re-schedule due to issues with Danny's insurance (I just barely made it onto his policy) and I'll be seeing her on 10/1. That's my new quit smoking/drinking/all that good stuff date. More on that later.

Yesterday I spent an awful lot of time online searching for a reproductive endocrinologist in Anchorage. Then in Alaska. No luck on either. It looks like the fertility-challenged folks of Alaska have to fly down to Seatle for help from experts. Not to say that I'll definitely need it - but it's highly recommended. I'll just ask my new doc about it. Hmm.

Might I Mortify?

Well - here I am. I thought I'd give blogging a try, since I've been enjoying my friends' writing. I used to be a dedicated journal keeper, but that's become less and less frequent as the years roll by. Last week I was doing a little organizing in the library and couldn't resist taking a peek at fifteen-year-old-Faith. I got sucked right in. There I was, in all of my self-conscious teenage glory. Wow. I just might have to scan some of it in here and post it.

I've heard some readings from teen journals on NPR's This American Life from the show/collective/web community Mortified. Worth checking out. I'm thinking about posting there - I'll just have to think about how mortifying I'd like to appear.