Cleaning house

Ok, I knew I had a book problem.  My husband is always telling me I have to many books, but I didn't beleive him.  That is, until I started cleaning the house.  And put all of my books in one place.

So, here's my question for the Interwebs:  Anyone up for a book share?  I'll mail books to you if you in turn mail books to me!  Win win, right?  It gives me new things to read, gets rid of the books that I haven't read in forever.  Send me an email if your interested.  lifechatsandrants at gmail dot com.

Away for the weekend

Yeah, I know I promised a post about our wedding, and how we met and all that.  But let's be honest here. . . .did you really think I was going to get to it before I left?

I'm off to Vegas!  If you should happen to see me there, and I'm doing something stupid, then that wasn't me.  And any photographic proof to the contrary must have been photo shopped.

Talk to you ladies on Monday when I get back!

Did ya miss me? (and a question)

And quite honestly, if you didn't miss me, I don't want to know!

Here's the scoop on why I've been absent blogland for awhile.  Wait, I don't actually have a good reason, so I'll give you a bunch of lame reasons instead.

Work.  Work was really evil and busy and time consuming, and when I got home from work, I just wanted to jump into bed and fall asleep.  Work also had Dingbat, so most night I came home incredibly frustrated and annoyed.

Dingbat.  I've been meaning to blog about her again, and update you on her new level of annoyingness, but I was afraid that if I blogged during the heat of the moment, I'd say something I *might* regret later.  Might.  Probably not.  Anyway, here are Dingbat updates, in no particular order.

• Dingbat update #1 - Dingbat gave me a long lesson yesterday on why the Second Coming is going to happen SOON.  Her proof?  Cancer and gay people.  I don't know if the news story about Latter Day Saint Apostle Boyd Packer has made it national or not, but it's blown up huge here in Utah.  And Dingbat was using his talk about gays as proof that the world we live in is deteriorating.  Luckily, I let Dingbat live, because although I don't believe in a lot of the things organized religion talks about, I know that other people do, and I'm not going to change their believes anymore than they will change mine.
• Oh, and cancer.  Yeah, she says that is the incurable disease that bodes "the end of time but not eternity".  Actual quote, btw.  She said "I used to think it was AIDS, but you don't hear about that anymore, so they must have found a cure."  Yeah.
• I've decided Dingbat has a hearing problem.  Either that, or she has no shame.  She has been walking around and farting for the past week.  Loud ones.  And she doesn't seem fazed by it in the least. 
• And to tie in the farts to something else. . . .I got back from lunch a few weeks ago and Dingbat wasn't here.  In fact she didn't come back until I'd been back from lunch for two hours.  I welcomed her back when she arrived and tried to go back to work.  But no, she had to tell me where she'd been.  Which was at home.  Changing her clothes.  Because she (and I'm going to quote her again here) "had explosive diarrhea that got all over her pants and shirt" and she'd had to go home and change and shower to come back to work.  I sent a quiet text to my husband to tell him what she told me, and he responded "don't sit in her chair"  Love my hubby!

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Another reason for not writing?  I went to a party.  A pirate party.  And everyone had to dress up like pirates or pay the consequences.  The party is an annual tradition for one of our friends.  He does it every year for his birthday, and every year it gets bigger and more fun.  I even went and got one of those slutty grown up pirate costumes for the party.  It was a great party!  I'll post pictures when I get them on my computer.
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I've got even more reasons.  Like getting ready to celebrate my anniversary in Las Vegas!  Today is our three year anniversary!  I can't begin to imagine what we've been through in three years, and everything that's changed in our life since we met four years ago.  But that is a post in and of itself, and I'll try to write it before we leave.
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Finally, I've got a question for you (and if you've read this far, bravo you!)

I took my last provera pill on September 24.  I got some spotting on September 29, and AF showed up big time on October 5th.  Honestly, this is my worst period ever.  Or at least since the one I had in middle school that lasted 3 whole months.  It's not going away.  It has slowed down, and it sometimes looks like its stopping, but I've had 8 days of bleeding now, not counting the spotting, and I'm really sick of it.  Our anniversary trip?  At least we'll be in Vegas so we can keep ourselves entertained in other ways!

So here's the question.  Has anyone else who used provera to start a cycle had a heavy period afterwards?  My doc said it's normal, but well, I wanted to hear it from someone else too.

Versatile Blogger Award

Wow, Interwebs, I got an award!  Samantha at And Baby Will Make 3! gave me the Versatile Blogger Award.  Samantha is my light of hope.  She also has the nastiness that is PCOS, and yet, she is pregnant!  Not only pregnant, but at 27 weeks!  She's such a happy person, and always leaves the sweetest comments on my posts.  She really has made a huge difference in my life from her support.  This IF journey may suck, but at least I'm not traveling the road by myself anymore!  Thanks Samantha, for the award, and more importantly, all your support!

The Rules of the Award:

• Thank and link back to the person nice enough to give you the award
• Share seven things about yourself
• Pass along the award to seven other bloggers who you think are fabulous, and let them know they got the award

Seven Things About Me:

1. I am an only child, but I have three half sisters.  The reason I still call myself an only?  The three sisters don't really talk to me because they hate our father.  Which is crap, because my dad is awesome!  It really bugged me as a kid, but I'm getting more used to it as I get older.  Their loss, right?
2. I am a bibliophile.  No, its not as dirty as it sounds.  I love books.  I love the way they can transform an otherwise uneventful car ride into a magical place.  I love the way books feel, and love the smell of bookstores and libraries.  Yeah, I'm a nerd, but I'm a happy one!
3. And speaking of the nerd thing, I might as well confess now that I play computer games.  My favorite one right now is Civilizations V, which came out a couple of weeks ago.  It's a turn based game where you control your civilization from beginning (huts and villages) to end (glorious victory and world domination!).
4. Another nerd thing: I was in the FBLA in high school.  Not only in FBLA, but I was actually in the presidency my senior year.  I went to state competition every year, and placed in the top five each time. 
5. I am hugely competitive.  This makes me a sore loser.  Friendly game of cards?  I will ruthlessly try to take you down.  If I lose, don't expect me to forget either.  I'll remember and get you back when you least expect it!
6. I create little animals out of oven bake clay.  It's really soothing to me to take a block of something, and create something cute out of it.  They aren't masterpieces by any means, but I love doing it.  It's also fun to break out the clay when friends bring over their kids.  It instantly turns me into the cool one because I'll sit on the floor and create with them.
7. Along with number 6, I might as well confess that I prefer being around kids to most adults.  They have such a beautiful easy take on life that makes me smile.  I may not be able to be around newborns, or pregnant friends, but once the kids hit the age of two and up, they are my best friends.  I regularly have neighbor kids come up to my house to see if I can play, or just to tell me about their days at school.  I keep a freezer stocked with popsicles for them as well.

Now for my 7 nominations!  I'm sure I'm going to be giving the award to some people who've already recieved it, but tough cookies!

Robin at Looking for My Keys
Marla at Marla's Austin Chronicles
Jenny at Among the Blossoms
Stickles McQueen at Overcoming Obstickles
Lauren at Lauren Vs. The World
Kakunaa at Spermination Station
Toni at The fertility-challenged black sheep

Survival

Did you know October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month?  Maybe you do, maybe you don't.  I'm guessing however, that you know a domestic violence victim.  You might now know for sure, but maybe you suspect something.  maybe you have a friend who used to be so outgoing, but now says she prefers to stay home.  She may have stopped wearing her "cute" clothes in favor of jeans and long tees.  She might flinch at loud sounds, or jump when surprised.  Does she have new habits, like making sure the house is clean by obsessively checking that everything is in it's correct place?  I bet she also defends the abuser and tells you that "You don't understand.  He loves me"

I can also promise you that her self esteem has nose dived.  She is convinced no one will ever lover her as much as the abuser does.  In face, she feels she's lucky he tolerates her.  She doesn't even feel worthy of the "love" he gives, and has no hope of finding love again someplace else.

There are times when you'll see her come to her senses, and threaten to leave him.  She might even follow through.  Don't be shocked when she goes back.  After the high of standing up for herself wears off, she'll fall back into believing she's worthless, and "Besides," she'll say, "he's changed."

How do I know all this?  I'm sure you've guessed, but I know because that was my life, my world for almost four years.

Don't give up on the friends you see this happening to.  They need your friendship now more then ever before.  It was my friendships that finally convinced me that I was worth enough to not have to stay with him.  Even then, once I left for the final time, I NEVER  thought I'd find someone else to love me.

I'm still not healed fully from the effects he had on me.  I still startle easy, I hate when people sneak up behind me.  there are still times when I feel that I don't deserve my husbands love.  I fear that one day he'll find out he married the wrong woman and I'll be without love again.

But you know what?  I am healing.  I am strong.  I survived.

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If this sounds like anything you are going through, think hard.  Has it really changed?  Has he?

Help is available.

Aack! Work

Wow, Interwebs!  It's been a very busy week for me!  I've been trying to keep up with ICLW, but not doing as well as I'd hoped! 

It's all Work's fault.  You see Work has been making me get up at 6am every day.  Then Work makes me skip lunch because I have no time.  You'd think that Work would be satisfied by disrupting those two, well, sacred things.  But no.  Work then doesn't let me get home until around 630 or 7 at night.  And even then, Work doesn't leave me alone.  Nope, Work has been following me home every night.  Sometimes Work keeps me up talking to people until 9pm.  And when I try to sleep?  Work has been invading my dreams. 

Expect to see a slightly diminished presence from me until I get Work under control.  In fact, I have to run. Work found me on my blog, and it's now destroying my desk!

Attention Deficit, Oooh, Sparkly!

I love, love, love jewelry.  Especially bracelets.  And I loved the idea of using crystals to help center my focus and help with infertility.  And I found both in fellow blogger Jenny's Etsy site, Bloomtastic.  Go check it out.  Seriously, right now, I'll wait.

Back?  Aren't they amazing, and beautiful?  Don't you love how the stones are not just pretty but have meanings behind them?  I got this one, but added a special charm to it to make it mine.

Isn't it beautiful?  I got it in the mail tonight, and I put it on right away.  It feels like it belongs on my wrist, which sounds weird to say, but its the truth.  This bracelet is already a part of me.

The charm was my own, and one that I've had for many years.  I got it at a time in my life where I was scraping bottom emotionally (I've actually written a post about this, but it's not going to be posted until October 1st.  There's a reason for that, and I hope you come back and read it!).  I wore it on a necklace every day to help me believe in myself.  One day, I didn't feel like I needed it anymore, and I put it away in my jewelry chest and forgot about it.

Then IF hit, and I started to doubt myself again.  I started sinking back into my depression.  I started believing things that had been said to me long ago; things that I thought I'd overcome.

And then I saw Jenny's bracelets.  And as I was looking through the pictures, I felt like I needed one, but I needed it to be mine.  And all of a sudden, I thought of that charm.  The one that helped me so much before.  Jenny added it to the bracelet, and now my charm has come back to me.  Back to remind me that I have to believe in myself.

Thank you Jenny.