Sunday, August 24, 2008

The Two Week Wait

In an update to my last post, by the time my husband came home I was missing his terribly. I was feeling really bad about being glad he was gone and was really happy to have him in my arms as soon as the plane landed. He got home on his birthday, so I gave him some gifts and took him to dinner and really gushed over him since he had spent most of his birthday on planes and in airports. It was really nice.

It just so happened that the timing was optimal for baby making the same day he returned and since we were so happy to see each other, I am now hoping that we are pregnant! This is the first month when the timing was this dead on, so I am cautiously optimistic. Of course, I have to wait a few weeks before I can even test, and I am on the lookout for any "symptoms" that might help me know as soon as possible.

Smug-Hub told me the other day that he feels almost fully grown up. He just needs to be a father and then he thinks that he will be all grown up. This is his way of letting me know that he is totally on board and hoping that we will be pregnant soon too.

I am feeling really good about this! I really feel like all the cards are stacked in our favor this month. I am just so ready to have the pregnancy experience and finally be the mother that I have been wanting to become for so many years.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Glad He Is Gone??

I have been really concerned about my feelings of joy at the thought of my husband being out of town. It is not that I don't miss him when he is gone, it is just that life is so much easier without having to consider someone else's thoughts, feelings, needs, etc.

He was gone last week Thursday - Saturday, getting home about 7pm on Saturday night. While he was gone, the house stayed picked up, the sheets stayed tucked into the bed, the remote was all mine, the kitchen sink stayed empty of dirty, stinky dishes... you get the idea.

I really wanted to spend the whole day Sunday with him, so I got up really early on Saturday morning (6:45am) and proceeded to clean the house within an inch of its life, grocery shop (which included stops at the mall of birthday gifts, Bed, Bath and Beyond for a food processor as mine started smoking and smelling of burned rubber, and Gander Mountain for a gift card), laundry, and cooking (to make meals for the whole week, since I don't have time during the week to cook).

I finished up everything in time to shower and shave my legs and get to the airport to pick up my baby. I was so exhausted that I was really concerned that I was going to fall asleep while driving to the airport.

As soon as I picked him up he started with the grouchy whining. He was tired, he did not fit in the seat, the plane was full of people opposed to the use of deodorant, he did not sleep well, etc... When I told him about my day (including the need to purchase a new food processor) he had nothing but evil comments and barbs.

Once home, he then started to order me around - rub my feet, rub my back, give me the remote, get me some water, etc. When I brought it to his attention and let him know that I did not find this acceptable, he began again to list his woes. Come on people, he sat on a plane, he went fishing, he was up late eating and drinking and talking with his account. I don't find this as taxing on the body as over 12 hours of being on ones feet, cooking and cleaning.

He kept pulling the CPAP machine off his face that night and then snoring, so I was awake A LOT more than I was asleep. When I would poke him and tell him to put his machine back on, he would bite my head off. Oh joy! So glad he was there!

All day Sunday was more of the same, we kept bickering the whole day about everything and nothing and it was damned irritating. I hate the feeling of "I can't wait for him to leave again" because he did - he left again this morning for Vermont. He will be home Thursday night.

Here is what I think his problem is - he hates being away from home, me, work, his bed, etc. He will be gone the majority of two weeks. He isn't coming home until the evening of his birthday. He will be spending Friday through Sunday at this trade show our company is part of. He will not have a weekend to himself/ourselves until Labor day weekend! All this makes him grouchy.

Also, I think we put too much pressure on ourselves to be together and to have a nice time together since we only had the one day.

My head totally understands all this, but I am still pissed at him for being in a bad mood and ruining the little bit of time we had together. I am also slightly pissed that he will be gone during the week when I am working and unable to enjoy the solitude. I have class tonight and a homeowners association meeting at my house on Wednesday, which only gives me Tuesday after work to enjoy being home alone with the remote. At least the house will stay clean!

Does this make me a bad wife? Is my marriage doomed? Is it normal to really enjoy when your husband is out of town? Is it terrible that I am glad he is gone for a few more days? Is it bad that I am dreading his return because I know he is going to be grouchy again???

Friday, August 15, 2008

Other Blog Thoughts

I was reading the Bloggess's guest blog at Her Bad Mother which talked about her fear of finding dead bodies in public restrooms, which is really really funny, but it got me thinking about my irrational fear, because, I do have one that is pretty odd.

I am afraid of snakes, this is no surprise as a I know a lot of people are afraid of snakes, but my fear goes beyond the normal I think. I can't watch snakes on TV or I will have bad, snake related dreams that night. And, here's the biggie, I will not use the bathroom in the dark for the fear that there will be a snake in the toilet. Sometimes I try to push myself to overcome my fear by peeing in the dark, and manage to get the job done, but am always freaked out and pee fast, wipe faster and jump up and dance around to get away from the snake I just know is there trying to bite my butt.

OK, I know that the chances of a snake getting into my toilet is very rare, but it does happen to people sometimes, and I am very frightened about it.

There has been some ongoing drama at a couple of the blogs that I read, Dirty Uncle Mark recently witnessed a dog die from heat stroke, he blogged about the experience, what he had done to try to save the dog and how the whole thing made him feel. His post generated a lot of comments from people of all walks wishing him well and talking about how the owners of the poor dead dog really sucked ass for tying the poor thing up in the heat and leaving for the day. Marnie was the most vocal and I gather she knows the dogs owner personally. This outpouring of comments reached the ears (eyes?) of the owner who then posted her own response to Mark's post and all the comments. She was very quick to make excuses about why what happened to her dog was not her fault, and very quick to hurl insults at Mark.

Mark posted this response which set off another barrage of comments - Marine pointed out that Mark should not be held responsible for the comments of others, including herself and provided the owner an e-mail address, so they could correspond directly.

All this got me thinking about neighbors - we generally don't get to pick our neighbors and since most of them are here to stay, it's not a nasty co-worker who will eventually get sacked, people sometimes stay in their same house for decades. Mark is going to have to deal with this person next door for the foreseeable future and there are going to be hard feelings. Even though Mark did not say one bad thing about the owner, she is going to hold a grudge for the simple fact that she seems unable to accept responsibility for her actions. Somehow this will be his fault and his problem.

We currently have decent relationships with all 6 of our neighbors. The two of either side of us are extremely great, and while I don't know the other 3 that well, they all seem nice - with the exception of one. The husband and wife are retired and I think that they did not get on well with the people who used to live in our house and it seems that the husband especially wants to dislike us just because he disliked them.

I make an effort to say hello when I see him, wave when I pass him in the car, and be very respectful to him over the phone. It doesn't seem to be working - perhaps he is just not an overly friendly person. I know that the woman who lived in our house before was kind of a pain. She apparently did a lot of partying and came home late at night a lot, she also once parked in his yard because she could not get up the hill in the snow. When he asked her to ask first next time, she told him to "fuck off" - I never met this women, and I don't think that I like the sound of her, but I am not into the party thing and I haven't yet needed to park in his yard, so I can't figure out why he would have any reason to dislike me.

Point being... I guess I don't really have a point. I just feel sorry for what Mark has to deal with now. One neighbor should not be held responsible for the actions of others I guess.

Another blog that I read daily (sometimes more than once a day) is Becky. She is a wife and mother, and is currently pregnant with her second child. She is lots of fun to read, because she uses her blog like I use mine, to get things off her chest. She recently got a comment from someone (who was too much of a coward to leave their name) that was very hurtful and judgemental. She addressed this "dill hole" on a post which generated another anonymous comment from some crazy Smug-Hubtian freak who admonished Becky for cussing, and how this use of bad language might make her a bad Smug-Hubtian and bad mother.

Anyone who knows me knows how I feel about the "Smug-Hubtians" (not normal people who chose to follow the path of love, and peace that Jesus taught, I am talking about those hypocrites who judge everyone else but don't judge themselves). The whole point of blogging, in my mind, is to get out all the feelings and thoughts that you may or may not feel like you can get out otherwise.

I know that some of these "Smug-Hubtians" feel it is their duty to make judgements about others and try to "correct" someones immoral behavior, but the way I see it, only God can judge. Most of the religions that I have been exposed to believe that God (or whatever name you see fit) is all knowing and all seeing, thus God knows what is going on on a person's heart and mind. No one letting off steam needs to hear that they are a bad mother because of a few choice cuss words.

As I told Becky, sometimes "fuck" is the only word that works!!

Blog and let Blog I say!!

Friday, August 8, 2008

Another Month Passes & Motherhood Still Alludes Me

Well, what I was hoping were strange pregnancy symptoms turns out to have just been PMS. So, I did not do too well on my plan to eat vegan this week. I am slightly bummed about that, but much more bummed to not be pregnant again this month. This makes 6 months of trying and I called the doctor to see if they would just test us for fertility issues now rather than waiting until we have been trying a year - they wouldn't.

If we try for a year and then get tested and find out that there has been a problem from the get go, I am going to be pissed! Oh, well... nothing I can do, but keep trying! At least my husband is seeming more on board with both the baby thing and the finding time to just love me thing!

So, what happened this week....

I have a friend whose heart has been broken in just a horrible way. She is feeling humiliated and is full of self (and world) loathing. However, she is one of the strongest people I have ever met, she has overcome some of the worst things life can throw at you and she always rises above and comes out on top. This has really knocked her over, but I have faith that she will do as she always does and make lemon martini's from all these lemons!

I have thrown a fit in the general direction of my school study team. They have once again not done anything toward the teams 2 projects and then gone and ignored my attempts to pull everything together. It has, once again, fallen 100% to me to get everything together. I have one guy who has been helping me, but even he needs to be prodded and reminded daily.

I also had to complete my individual projects, three different papers for the class that is going to China in October (oh, yeah, the instructor changed the syllabus to reflect the due date of 8/15 on 8/5 - 10 days to ready 12 chapters and write 3 papers!!).

I am happy to report that all my individual stuff is complete for this class, the 3 China papers are complete and turned in (yes, I totally BS'd my way through those), the team service project is under way and the team presentation is as far along as it can be without the input of the other members. I gave them all until noon today to get it turned in to me (it is currently 1:04pm). I am not going to worry about this over the weekend. I will yell at them some more at class on Monday.

My darling husband has been using the CPAP machine almost a week now and it is really helping for the most part. He is still getting used to it and sometimes pulls it off in his sleep. We are both sleeping better, but not really starting to feel a reduction in the deprivation yet. I think that it is going to take time to recoup all those losses.

We are having dinner with some friends tonight and tomorrow we are going to try to get all the remaining materials to finish the bathroom as well as house cleaning, laundry, food shopping, all the normal weekend stuff. We hope to start laying tile on Sunday. I would really like to get this bathroom finished before the end of the month. I doubt that this will happen because my husband is going to be out of town on business next weekend and then we have a thing to do all weekend the next weekend for work. Maybe we can finish it up over the labor day weekend!

I really want to get all these little projects finished before his family comes to visit for Christmas! I want to have all the boxes unpacked, all the stuff out of mom's attic, all the storage stuff stored!

OK, I have to get back to work and knock out a few things before heading off on a wonderful, free to do only our own stuff, weekend!

Friday, August 1, 2008

The Return of Ice Cream

So, I have been eating totally vegan this week and really loving it! I have been feeling really good about myself and everything. What really helped put this all into perspective was that I accidentally had dairy at lunch today. I went to have Thai with the girls, since it will most likely be the last time for us since everyone is moving away, but I digress! I ordered the tofu with red curry, which is made with coconut milk, but I did not realize that it also contained heavy cream.

My mood almost immediately changed and I started having really bad cravings. I could not stay away from ice cream and thus ate a good helping and then starting having stomach pains within minutes. I became very sleepy, something I had not realized that I had felt all week long. I became cranky and spent a good amount of time snapping at my husband.

I am not attributing all this to the dairy, just 99% of it. I also realized that I should have been having bad PMS this week as I am due this weekend, but it has been fairly light, until today. So, I know that PMS is part of the issue, but I think that both the dairy and my unhappiness with myself for not resisting the ice cream is the main cause.

I did receive my cookbook in the mail today and picked out a couple of recipes to try this upcoming week. I think that I will try to stay vegan as much as possible without getting nut-so about it. There is still a lot that I am not ready to say good-bye to forever, but I like the way that I have been feeling the majority of this week and hate how poorly I feel today!