Back to Life

...back to reality

I feel so relaxed, I have no idea how I'm going to get out of bed at 6:15 tomorrow morning. But I'll back up and recap.

The Date -- in a word, dull. I was actually very proud of myself for not fixating on the extra eyebrow hairs growing between his eyebrows or on the fact that he desperately needed a haircut. These are all things that would have been immediate deal breakers in the past, but I moved beyond them. He was just very dull. Couldn't carry on a conversation. And it wasn't that he was shy, he was just dull. So that's an hour of my life I won't be getting back, but I did it.

Baltimore -- was so much fun, if not very very quick. I met my friend Mort for lunch on my way into town. I hadn't seen him in four or five years, and I immediately thought how much he had aged. He's in his early 60s, but he was always very youthful looking. At lunch he told me that he had had a bout of esophageal cancer last year. He was cancer-free now, but had to go for biopsies every few months. If it comes back, they will have to take his esophagus. It was scary to hear that, but he was putting up the fight.

I opted not to call J and treated myself to a pedicure before heading over to T&S's house. I got there about a half hour before the girls got off the school bus, so chatted with S and gave her the updates on the adoption. The girls were excited to see me, and I can't believe how grown-up they seem, even since just the spring when I saw them.

T and I headed downtown for the game. There were many, many beers and a shot of tequila, and a late-night run to Burger King for grease on the way home. The game was really good -- it's so nice to see the Orioles playing well, and then even nicer to see A-Rod hit a home run in the top of the 9th. I saw my favorite beer man, visited in the press box, got my picture taken with the Oriole Bird, and as we wandered around the stadium finding better and better seats, I gave little PSA's to all the out-of-town Yankee fans and made them promise they would go to the museum over the weekend.

The next morning, after a little shaking in the shower, I ate a bagel and started to feel a little better. Nothing like grease and/or carbs to help the hang-over.

Once in Richmond, I went wedding dress shopping with my sister-in-law, my niece and her future step-daughter; saw one of my best guy friends from college; went to my brother's softball game; had girls' night at a Mexican restaurant with Debbie and Tiff; took the dogs for a walk every morning and then myself on a three-mile walk; enjoyed the sunshine and 85+ degrees; dealt with two minor work emergencies; managed to get one nap in; took some luxurious soaks in the garden tub; attended Bunco with the neighborhood house-fraus; and sanded and painted my $5 garage sale dresser.

Before.....

After...

...back to the here and now.

I Need Feedback

I'm interested in knowing your opinions on two things:

1. IF, very big IF, the dating thing pans out, when do I tell someone I'm in the process of adopting?
2. And....is it strange that I'm going to a baseball game with my friend on Friday night. My friend who is roughly my age, married, with two kids -- and the wife is not going with us. I am spending the night at their house, going to get there early enough on Friday to see the girls get off the school bus and hang out with them, but then it will just be him and me at the game.
   
   A friend asked me last week who I was going to game with and when I said my friend's name, she said, "his wife isn't going with you?" And I could hear the disdain, disapproval and judgment in her voice.
   
   So is it weird? Is it inappropriate?
   

$500 and 5 pounds...a month at a time

Or I could call this post "Random Updates"

I figured if I can lose 5 pounds a month until I get my referral, then I will have lost in excess of 60 pounds. That allows for some holiday and vacation ups and downs, and is totally doable.

Working out has been great. I'm back in the groove, sweating and loving it. And with the exception of a little blip last week when I was bloated and retaining and having my period and gained a little bit of weight, I have lost almost 7 pounds in four weeks. Goal #1 met for this month.

I also figured that I need to save $500 a month (either savings or from the raffle income) to put me close to my goal. I really need to save more, but I know that $500 is reasonable, doable and some months exceedable. (I know that's not a word, but it works here.)

Friday will mark my four-month wait on the waiting list. And it puts me at exactly a year to a year-and-a-half of waiting left. A very long time, but time I need to become a little more healthy. To become a little more wealthy.

I am also half-way through my three-month experiment on eHarmony. They jury is still out. There is talk of meeting someone for coffee after work on Thursday, but until it's confirmed and I'm sitting there with the handsome stranger sipping some hot cocoa or hot cider (I'm not a coffee drinker) will I say that progress has been made. Call me a cynic, but I've had too many disappointments. I won't set myself up for another.

I did hear from E last week. He was hosting a MNF thing at a sports bar in Albany. I asked if it was an FYI or an invite.

"both, but I'm not staying over."

What to do? I stroked his ego and let him down. I was not going to drive three hours one way to spend an evening in a bar while he was working and hanging out with 500 other people.

We went back and forth, and in the end, I got an "I'd love to see you. When you get back from vacation?"

So, when I get back from vacation, I'll need to figure out how to fit in a visit with him.

And so yea, vacation.....I'm headed to the Yankees game on Friday night and then a week in Richmond, relaxing, napping, walking the dogs, and some more napping.

I'll try to post from vacation, but if not, I promise to be better on the other side.

I am Woman, Hear Me Roar

This sucks. I honestly do not remember feeling this lousy, ever, when I was on the fertility drugs. I was more bloated, I was more puffy, but I was not in this much monthly pain.

And it's not just monthly pain, but every two weeks pain -- ovulation and then that special time of the month.

I've got one more month before I go to the doctor. I only have to go through this dreaded cycle one more time. At that point, they can do a full panel of blood work, tell me all the meds are out of my system, tell me that my insides are useless (knew that), and that will happily give me a hysterectomy.

I don't think it will go quite like that, but here's hoping. If the uterus and/or ovaries are doing me no good, why should I be in this much pain?

And really, we all know how I am, the very next time I have sex, you know and I know that I'll be counting. I'll know exactly where I am in my cycle. I'll hear every single person who told me (over the course of my nearly three years of trying) "as soon as you stop trying, you'll get pregnant."

I'll freak out about when my period is supposed to come. I'll check and double-check. I'll work myself up over every little twinge I feel. And I'll be thinking so much, that I'll make myself late and have to take a HPT. And it will negative. And I will be crushed.

So for all the pain I am in every two weeks, and to save myself from my self-imposed torture after having sex, here's hoping my doctor believes in elective hysterectomies.

Ouch

Yesterday, I was in a meeting for a committee I serve on. I haven't seen another woman on the committee practically all summer -- either she has missed meetings or I have. When she came in, she was overly excited to see me.

"How are you? How's the baby?"

My stomach literally dropped. I couldn't even speak. Just looked back at her blankly.

"Aren't you just coming back from maternity leave?"

I shook my head. "No. That's Heather."

"Oh right," she laughed. And I tried not to cry.

So Much for Growth

Not that I did anything bad, but I was just writing (wow, more than a month ago -- WHERE did the summer go?!) that July 31 came and went without me thinking of it as Chris's birthday. I had a new reader even comment on that post recently, and so because of that comment, I have to fess up that I have been thinking about him.

And even though I deleted his number from my cell phone, and deleted his email address from my address book, I thought about reaching out. I think, after a couple of tries of combining military.navy.us (some combination of that) with either his first name then last name or last name then first name for his email address.

I was near where he lives last weekend. I thought about the stalker drive-by, even though I know he's not there. Although, do I know that? I haven't talked to him in almost a year.

But I didn't drive by -- partly because I couldn't remember his house number and he lives on a mammothly long road, but also because I have more pride. And that's why I will not combine navy and military and us and first and last names, with dots and @ in between.

This way, I'm the one who never called him, I'm the one who ended it. And, as Bubbles says, "always keep the power."

27 Dresses

There's a part in that movie, when James Marsden asks Katherine Heigl why she does it, why she's in so many weddings, wearing so many hideous dresses, going out of her way for all of these people in her life. And her answer?

Because they're her friends, and she wants to be there for them, because she knows when it's her turn, they'll all be there for her.

I've been thinking about that lately. Certainly that wasn't my intent when I did things, when I bought girl scout cookies, or magazine subscriptions, or candy bars, or raffle tickets, or donated for this walk or that walk. I did it because they're my friends or family and I wanted to support them and their interests.

And so was it too much to think, to expect, that the same friends would be there for me? I've got some amazing people -- selling hundreds of dollars in tickets, donating items, selling their chicken's eggs and giving me the money, and even as simple as buying $5 or $10 or $20 worth of tickets.

And then there are others, who are seemingly ignoring me. Ignoring emails about the adoption, are blind to my multiple FB posts and tweets.

And they're people who I always thought I could count on. Brothers and sisters, closest friends. It's so disappointing.