Thankful 1.15 - 1.23

Lots and lots to be thankful for!!

I am thankful for DVR. I love that I can run errands and live my life while my favorite shows are on TV, then watch them later, commerical free whenever I want. Some technology is grand.

I am thankful for books. I am a huge advocate of reading and love love love to curl up with a good book. In fact, I would rather read a good book than watch a TV show or movie (don't get me wrong .. i like TV, but I like books better). Books are the windows to imagination and allow the reader to experience worlds and situations far removed from every day life.  Books provide knowledge, and knowledge is power.

I am thankful for my Reproductive Endocrinologist and staff at Reproductive Health Specialists for helping me in trying to make my dream of becoming a mother come true.  I would not have briefly experienced the joys of pregnancy without them.  I hope that in this next year, with their help, I will truly achieve my dreams.

I am thankful for good friends, especially Jessica Stephenson for taking me to see Breaking Dawn (or did I take her since I drove?) and to dinner after. I am a total Twihard.  Although I love the books way better than the movies, I still like the movies and have to see them on opening day.  Maybe next year  I will actually go to the midnight showing.

I am thankful for being an Aunt. I have an amazing bunch of nieces and nephews who make me smile, laugh, and cry and give me a glimpse at what mommyhood will be like. I love you Angelica,... Stephen, Logan, Kylee, Audrey, Lindsey, Dante and Samuel!! and can't wait for my newest niece or nephew coming in May. Also, lots of love for my many "adopted" nieces and nephews. Life would not be complete without them all.

I am thankful for some amazing coworkers. They make work worth going to most days. There are definitely days when I hate my job, but the people I work with can really be great.  Plus they know my personality and my faults and most of them like me anyways.
 
I am thankful for alcohol - nothing like a yummy drink before bed just because you can. I am not much of a drinker, but it's nice every once in awhile to have a drink and just enjoy myself.

I am thankful for my movers, shakers, and miracle makers gals. They are the most awesome women I have ever had the opportunity to know. You girls are the best and I can't thank you enough for all of your love and support. You all have made a huge difference in my life!!!  I met this group of girls through the BabyCenter chat boards.  We have been through a lot of fertility hurdles with each other. 

I am thankful for my mom.  She is one of my best friends and some day if I have a daughter, I hope that I have a relationship with her like the one I have with my mom.

Day 1 My Husband
Day 2 Music
Day 3 Fridays and 5 o'clock
Day 4 Friends and Family who are there when we need them most
Day 5 my dogs - Sassy and Sadie
Day 6 Sick hours
Day 7 My husband's job
Day 8 A supportive family
Day 9 Faith Huss - my BFF
Day 10 Veterans
Day 11 My Big Comfy Bed
Day 12 Online Classes/College
Day 13 AIM girls
Day 14 Chocolate
Day 15 DVR
Day 16 Books
Day 17 Jessica Stephenson
Day 18 RE and RHS
Day 19 Being an Aunt
Day 20 Amazing Coworkers
Day 21 Alcohol
Day 22 Movers, Shakers and Miracle Makers
Day 23 My Mom

Indoor Water Feature

Ok ... so finally as promised, I am posting about my experience with the indoor water feature. 

The week after we went on vacation, I came home from work and couldn't hear my dogs.  Usually they hear my car pulling up outside and immediately start barking and getting all rowdy in their cage.  On this day they weren't barking, even when I put my key in the lock and I started to get scared that there was something wrong with them.  I thought for sure that they were dead.  But as soon as I opened the door, I realized why they weren't barking.  They couldn't hear me.  Why?  Because I had water pouring out of my foyer/hallway ceiling.  I ran upstairs, assuming the water was coming from the bathroom and as I went into the bathroom, my first thought was "Did I forget to turn off the shower this morning?".  It was not the shower however, it was the supply line running from the floor to the tank on the toilet.  Luckily there is a shut off valve on this line and miraculously it worked and the water shut off.  But I still had the immediate problem of what to do with the water that was not flooded throughout my house.

Steve had left that morning to go out of town for two weeks, so I called a good friend of ours and asked him to come help me.  I knew that I was going to have to move furniture and stuff to clean up all the water.  At this point the water had completed saturated my upstairs bathroom, the carpeting in my bedroom was wet in the doorway, the upstairs hallway carpet was soaked and the water had started to soak down the stairs.  In the downstairs the water had soaked the entire ceiling, the walls and the flooring in the hallway/foyer(mind you we had just installed brand new laminate flooring in our living room, kitchen, and hallway/foyer).  The water had also come through the ceiling in the living room and soaked our entertainment stand, it was sitting in 3 inches of water.  And of course we have a ton of electronics in the living room - our 55 inch plasma tv, blu ray player, xbox 360, ps3, and wii (can you tell that we have no kids and spend lots of money on video game systems?).  The water had also soaked into our basement.  Needless to say, I think the water had probably been waterfalling in the house pretty much all day. I'd always wanted an indoor water feature, but this was really a little much.

Thank goodness that Steve decided he needed to be home and immediately left the job location he was on and drove 5 hours home.  He took care of filing the insurance claim and dealing with the water disaster people.  They came to the house the next day armed with industrial fans and massive dehumidifiers.  We couldn't turn on certain lights because it would trip breakers which then meant a trip to the basement and the electrical panel to reset the breakers. And the worse part is that they had to tear down a few of our walls and rip up all of our flooring. 

After 7 days of dehumidifiers, fans, and deconstruction, the house was finally dry. But it was bad. Really, really bad. We needed a new ceiling in the living room and hallway/foyer and new flooring in the living room, kitchen and hallway/foyer.  They tore out a wall in the living room, 3 walls in the hallway/foyer, the flooring in the bathroom, the carpeting going up the stairs and at the top of the landing.  All together the insurance adjuster said we had 10k in damages.  And then began the reconstruction.

Oh wait .. we are still living in reconstruction world.  2 weekends ago we rented a storage unit to put all of our living room and dining room furniture in. Steve rented a drywall hoist and we began hanging drywall on the ceilings.  But we couldn't finish the hallway/foyer ceiling because our bathroom shower started leaking.  There was no sense putting up drywall until we knew that the shower wasn't leaking anymore.  In addition to fixing the damaged rooms, we decided that we should do the dining room at the same time. It was the last room we had to finish in the house and I figured that if we were already going to be living in mass chaos, we might as well get it all done at once.  Plus I didn't want to spend the time, effort, and money to do all of the other rooms and finish the dining room later, it just didn't make sense to me.

Right now most of the drywall has been hung, minus the few pieces in the hallway.  We are just waiting for a friend of a friend to come in to mud and tape the drywall.  He was supposed to come this weekend but had an abscessed tooth that led to an abscess on his jaw which led to emergency surgery yesterday morning.  Hopefully he will be feeling well enough to come finish the work this weekend.  I would love to be able to paint the weekend after Thanksgiving.  Then we would only have to worry about the flooring and the bathroom.  Yesterday I made the deposit for the flooring installation and ordered the hardwood from Lumber Liquidators.  Hopefully, the floors will be installed the week before Christmas and we can move our furniture back into the house the week between Christmas and New Years. 

But for now we are living mostly out of the kitchen downstairs and our bedroom upstairs.  Thank goodness I bought Steve a tv for our bedroom as an anniversary present this year.  Otherwise, we would be in big trouble.  But our bed is comfy and the TV has a cable box and blu ray player attached, so for now we are set.  I just hope I can last another month living this way. I miss my couch.

Thankful 1.14

Today I am thankful for chocolate.  Although I am not a plain chocolate kind of girl.  I prefer something with my chocolate - like peanuts, almonds, peanut butter or pretzels.  Chocolate covered pretzels are my downfall.  But I am equally in love with Reese's peanut butter cups and I love love love the holiday versions like pumpkins, trees, and eggs.  I want to kiss whomever invented this tasty delicousness.

Day 1 My Husband
Day 2 Music
Day 3 Fridays and 5 o'clock
Day 4 Friends and Family who are there when we need them most
Day 5 my dogs - Sassy and Sadie
Day 6 Sick hours
Day 7 My husband's job
Day 8 A supportive family
Day 9 Faith Huss - my BFF
Day 10 Veterans
Day 11 My Big Comfy Bed
Day 12 Online Classes/College
Day 13 AIM girls
Day 14 Chocolate

Thankful 1.8 - 1.13

Again because I really slack sometimes at getting online daily, especially on the weekends, I have to combine several of my thankful posts into one.  This is so far the biggest post yet, but at least I am still being thankful right?

I am thankful for an amazing family who has been there and supported me during some very hard recent events. I am especially thankful for my Aunt Fawn Pernelli and my Aunt Sally Henry who offered lots of love and support. When I had my miscarriage, my Aunt Fawn was super supportive and really understood where I was and what I was feeling.  My Aunt Sally sent me a wonderful care package with a great book and an angel of courage that is sitting on my desk at work looking at me right now. Sometimes you don't truly know how loved you are until you hit hard times.

I am thankful for Faith A Huss. She has been my best friend since the 6th grade. We have been through many a life changing event together. I only regret the times where we let life cause us to drift apart, but we've always found our way back to each other and our friendship is and always will be a strong and lasting one. Thanks for being my friend - my chosen sister. Faith and I are both extremely busy girls.  She is married with a son, a stepdaughter, and a baby.  She has a very full plate, but still manages to make time every week to have dinner with me.  I love our weekly dinners and look forward to them all week long. 

I am also thankful for all of the men and women who serve for, fought for, and died for our country. Thank you for all that you have done and all that you do. This was my post for Veteran's Day and it was the perfect day to show my love and appreciation for all of our service men and women, past, present and future.  Without their time and sacrifice, we would not be the country we are today.

I am thankful for my big comfy bed.  With having all of our furniture in storage during the house repair, it's nice to have a comfy bed to relax on. I could not imagine spending as much time in my bedroom as I have been if the bed wasn't very comfortable.

I am thankful for online classes and college. I do not think I could have finished my college degree or would be doing grad school and working full time if I had to actually drive to and sit in class every week. There's nothing like doing homework at any time of the day while in your pajamas. I love the freedom and flexibility that online classes offer and would recommend this type of schooling to anyone who is disciplined enough to work independently and within the specified time frame.

I am thankful for my AIM girls.  These ladies are some of the greatest girls I have ever "met". I treasure our friendship and I hope they all know how much of a difference they have made in my life. I joined a group on MSN about 9 years ago and met the majority of these women online.  As MSN groups went away, we moved our group to MySpace and finally to Facebook.  It's amazing how much friendship and support can come from a group of women that you have never met in real life.  It may seem silly, but these girls are some of the best friends and we are all very close and share in each others lives as much as possible.  Many of us have talked on the phone and a few of us have met in person.  I look forward to meeting all of these girls in person someday.


Day 1 My Husband
Day 2 Music
Day 3 Fridays and 5 o'clock
Day 4 Friends and Family who are there when we need them most
Day 5 my dogs - Sassy and Sadie
Day 6 Sick hours
Day 7 My husband's job
Day 8 A supportive family
Day 9 Faith Huss - my BFF
Day 10 Veterans
Day 11 My Big Comfy Bed
Day 12 Online Classes/College
Day 13 AIM girls

Thankful 1.4 - 1.7

It's been an exceedingly crazy weekend so I haven't been able to post a lot to the blog, ok .. I haven't been able to post at all.  I am also doing the thankfulness thing on Facebook, so don't think I haven't been thinking daily of something to be thankful for.  And let me tell you, it's not an easy thing to try to come up with something new and original each day. Plus I don't want to be completely serious about all of my choices each day and there are definitely things I have in mind, but I want to spread some of those out.  With that being said, here are the past 4 days of Thankfulness ...

1.4 - I am thankful for great friends and family who are there for us every time we call, who make time for us (even make us a priority :) and can be counted on, especially in a pinch. This was especially true on Saturday as some of the best friends and family came over to help us with home repair after our indoor water feature. (I know I know ... future blog post to come).

1.5 - I am thankful for my dogs, Sassy and Sadie, who love us even while living in chaos. they are sometimes a pain, but more often than not they bring us joy and happiness and unconditional love.  Sassy is a two year old chocolate lab that we got from friends when she was a puppy.  She spent the first year with her sister Maxie living at my mom's while we house hunted.  We bought our house in May 2010 and brought Sassy home.  In February 2011 we decided that Sassy needed a playmate so we adopted Sadie from the local shelter.  She was just 11 weeks old when we got her and she was a tiny little thing.  We quickly got to experience the "joys" of puppy ownership and realized how lucky we were that my mom had house trained and raised Sassy.  But after a rough year, she is finally starting to calm down and is turning out to be a really nice dog.

See my pretty dogs:



1.6 - I am thankful for sick hours. After a long weekend of home repair, my muscles are rebelling - my body was not made for manual labor .. lol. I spent 4 hours on Sunday pulling staples and carpet tacks out of the stairs, risers, landing and upstairs hallway.  Unfortunately I cannot do the heavy lifting (like drywalling and stuff) so I get the menial jobs (you know .. the ones that are tedious and extra horrible). But at least it's done and I don't have to worry about me or the dogs stepping on anything sticking up out of the floor.

1.7 - and finally today I am grateful for my husband's job. While I hate when he has to leave, I am grateful that not only does he have a job, but it's a job he loves as well.  His job also will give me the ability one day to be a stay at home mom. Unfortunately it costs a lot of money to pursue infertility treatment, but his job allows us to pay all of our bills so that the majority of my paychecks go towards our savings.

Day 1 My Husband
Day 2 Music
Day 3 Fridays and 5 o'clock
Day 4 Friends and Family who are there when we need them most
Day 5 my dogs - Sassy and Sadie
Day 6 Sick hours
Day 7 My husband's job

Thankful 1.3

Today as I sit at work and it's 4:30 pm, I am grateful for Fridays and 5 o'clock. It just can't come soon enough!!!  Don't get me wrong, I like my job, but there are times when the days and weeks really seem to drag.  I think it's worse when you have big plans for the weekend or when you've had a horrible day at work and all you want to do is escape.  Have you ever noticed though that the day always drags when you are counting down to 5 o'clock?  I like days that are busy and productive, it makes the time fly and 5 o'clock seems to come so much quicker.

Here is my list of things to be thankful for:

Day 1 My Husband
Day 2 Music
Day 3 Fridays and 5 o'clock

Thankful 1.2

Today I am thankful for music. Music has played a major role in my life.  When I was little I wanted to play the saxophone some day because that's what my older brother played in the school band.  I was certain this was the instrument I was going to play in 4th grade when you could join the band. The year before you can join the band, the school hosts a meet and greet with kids who are interested in the band and their parents.  The band teachers take the opportunity to introduce the possible instruments that students might like to play.  Most often girls choose to play the flute or the clarinet.  Boys like the drums and tuba.  It's a pretty even mix with trumpets, saxophones and low brass instruments. My mom laughs when she tells the story of how I was so certain I was going to play that saxophone, but when they brought out the trombone and played it for us, my eyes got saucer wide and I told my mom that was the instrument I was going to play.

I loved playing the trombone.  It's a beautiful sounding instrument and it's different.  I played in the band the whole way through high school.  In high school I played in several different bands - Marching Band, Jazz band, Concert Band and pit band for the musicals.  I loved every minute of it.  I had such a blast in marching band and eventually became the drum major my senior year with two other girls (a clarinet player and a flute player). 

But band isn't the only way music has affected my life.  I love music.  I really don't care what it is ... I will pretty much listen to anything. Except maybe really hard core rap .. but who calls that music anyways? Music is a beautiful addition to life.  It's amazing the power music has to bring up some of the best and worst memories. Music is used in movies to convey all kinds of feelings and emotions. 

I hate to ride in the car without having music playing in the background.  It's just too quiet without it.  I also have music playing all day at work.  It helps me tune out the sounds around me and lets me focus on my work.  I don't think I will ever lose my love for music.

Here is my list of things to be thankful for:

Day 1 My Husband
Day 2 Music

Vacation

Steve and I had an amazing vacation last month. We left on a Tuesday and headed out for Gatlinburg, TN to spend 5 nights in the amazing Smokey Mountains.  We rented a cute little cabin right outside Pigeon Forge.

We spent several days exploring both Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge.  We spent an evening at the Dixie Stampede, something Steve wasn't so sure about, but ended up having a blast at.  One day we got up early, went to the Aquarium and then spent the day walking around Gatlinburg. 

Let me just tell you, the Ripleys Aquarium is an amazing place to go.  They have this massive shark tank that you get to see both from above and below.  It's really a neat thing to be walking along and look up to see sharks swimming above you.  Here are a few pictures of some of the things we liked the most at the aquarium. 

After the Aquarium we went to Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum.  Here are some of interesting pictures we took in and of the museum.

We spent one morning horseback riding and another we hiked to a popular waterfall.  It was a wonderful, amazing and totally relaxing vacation.  It was the perfect get away from everything we have been through.  Just look at our smiling faces!!



23 Days of Thankfullness

Today marks 23 days until Thanksgiving and in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I will be posting every day a short blog post about something that I am thankful for.  I think this is a great opportunity to take stock of my life and really appreciate and be grateful for all of the wonderful people and things around me.  Some of them are going to be silly I am sure because I am grateful and thankful for some silly things, but some of them will be serious too.  I encourage everyone to take this month to appreciate and show thankfulness for all that you have.

With that being said, today I am thankful for my husband.  He really truly is an amazing man.  He works so hard to provide for us.  He is often very selfless and volunteers his time to friends and family who need his help.  He is loving and funny.  He makes me laugh all the time and he makes it difficult to stay mad at him for a prolonged period of time.  He is so supportive and has gone above and beyond in our quest to have a baby.  I realize that many men may not have agree to go through all of the testing and providing "samples" for all of our fertility treatments, but he has been a trooper, even when he hasn't wanted to be. My husband loves and accepts me like no other and he "gets me".  He honestly is my best friend and the best husband I could have ever asked for.