It's all getting better...

Over the past 6 months to possibly even a year, I’ve become so disgustingly relaxed regarding the cleanliness of my house that it reached embarrassing levels of filth. I’ve contemplated the possibility that I could be actually experiencing a real bout of depression, because never in my life have I allowed my home to get this horribly out of control while not even giving a shit about it the whole time it was happening.

Even in times of great stress and sadness, I’ve found solace in a shiny clean toilet bowl. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m one of those obnoxious cleanliness/godliness folks. But those days suddenly disappeared. I’m sure it all happened slowly over time. I don’t think it was a dramatic date that I decided that we should see how many layers of soap scum could build on the surface of the tub before we could scrape through it with our toe nails and leave our initials for the next bather to see.

And so to get my ass in gear and “STOP THE INSANITY” as dear Susan Powter would say, I devised a plan to slowly ease myself back into the land of the clean and respectable population. I have a schedule written in a notebook wherein I tackle one or two rooms of the house every night. Each day shouldn’t take more than ½ hour and if I stick to the schedule, my house should get and remain clean the way it should be and the way that I used to take pride in.

I didn’t tell anyone about it – I just set out to do it and I finished my first weekly cycle last night. This morning’s conversation with Ziggy:

Ziggy: “Damn, did you clean the bathroom mirror or something? The whole bathroom looks all bright all of a sudden. It’s hurting my eyes.”

*I move to the tub and slowly peel back the shower curtain*

Ziggy: “Holy shit! The tub is WHITE! Jesus, woman, welcome back!”

And then he hugged me.

And the more I mull over the whole experience, the more I realize that yes, YES, I think that the sadness, the fog, the dense matter hovering over my head for the past 6 – 12 months could truly have been depression that normally would require an Rx and a pat on the back…but this time…I just lived it and mucked through it and am very slowly, oh so slowly, coming out of the fog. It’s still very hazy around me, but the brightness from the tub and the inches of dust removed may be helping to push me along.

Shoot, if I keep this up, I might actually cut my toe nails and eat a vegetable or two!

Open Letter

Dear Husband,

Please understand. Please understand that I cannot take your humor tonight and that your dancing around to cheer me up is only reminding me that I am in need of cheering up and why I am in need of cheering up.

I miss my son. Christmas is a time for family and with 50% of my immediate family missing and 100% of my offspring missing, I just can't seem to get into the mood to "blow up the air mattress and sleep next to the tree" as you so romantically suggested, though I will, for you, but I just can't smile about it.

I'm on Day 1 of an extremely heavy period forced upon my body unwillingly by man made drugs. My son is with his father.

I am sad.

Allow me to wallow just a smidge and please stop taking it personally. If you need a blow job to get it out of your system, I will willingly oblige...anything to get me back to my silent ache that only I can understand tonight.

I love you, I truly do. I know that you need me just as much as I need him, but I just need you to please...just...please. I will be so much better for New Year's, when both of my men are by my side and the house is filled with love and laughter...just not tonight. Please.

Always,

Your Wife

Didn't mean to lead you on...

My ex-husband has a cat. He needs to get rid of the cat and has decided to tug at the heartstrings of two fierce animal lovers, yours truly and Ziggy, to help him find the cat another home.

The cat is the most lovey sweet cat on earth, but at night, he goes around the house and pisses on everything (yes, he's neutered). They have no idea why, and in true style of my ex-husband, he just wants to get rid of it.

So my husband and I developed a plan to convince my mother-in-law to take the cat. We were over there tonight opening presents with Luke since it's not my year to have him for Christmas.

Erick called him mom over to a quieter room in the house to talk to her about the cat. As soon as he pulled her into the room, she got this goofy grin and teared up and hugged him...and that's when it hit him...she thought he wanted to have a heart to heart to tell her that she would FINALLY be a grandmother in 9 months.

Ouch.

Sorry mom...we just want you to have a cat is all.

The woman has 3 kids between the ages of 34 and 22 and has probably been dreaming of her big grandmother moment for at least a decade now. Ziggy's sister's brief stint at being a lesbian nearly crushed her dreams, but with sis now flying straight again and Ziggy being married for almost 2 years and youngest bro being engaged...she's probably getting beyond the point of antsy about becomming a grandma.

Poor ole gal. I'm so so so sorry that our bodies SUCK ASS and that we can't make that dream come true for you. In the mean time, she's known Luke since he was four and gets to kinda pretend with him...but we all know it's just not the same.

I feel like shit and so does Ziggy. Sometimes we forget that the intense desire to create life isn't only our own and that others in our family could be hurting over it just as much as we are.

Brilliant!

I must brag - my son is JUST as obnoxiously astute as his mother! WOO HOO!

Luke came home from Christmas at my sister's house with a copy of the Time for Kids 2009 Almanac. He read the 2008 one cover to cover - we all did, to be honest, it's GREAT toilet reading! (hey, metformin gives you the craps - I spend ALOT of time on terlits!)

Anyway, while pooping and flipping through his new Almanac, he starts shouting from the bathroom - MOMMY, ERICK COME HEEEEERE!

So we run to the bathroom and he says, "LOOK! I found a mistake in this book!" He was so proud.

And yes, he did find an error. The book was describing the State of Missouri on one page, and on each state page, they have a blue USA with the state they are discussing colored in yellow so that you can see where it is on the map. In the Almanac, for the State of Missouri page, they actually had the State of Mississippi in yellow.

Wow. BRILLIANT. I'm so proud.

Heck, at least now I know I won't be the only one who has a notebook filled with notes regarding errors found in every book I've read over the years from the Bible to the Louisiana Notary Study Guide to my son's Religion textbook.

Yep, I'm that dorky.

The bully

My bully's name was Elton Simpson. It was 5th grade and I had to ride the bus. It wasn't actually a bus, but rather a huge green van that held 15 kids easily, and was driven by Mrs. Stamply, a moody 30 something lady...I never understood how she couldn't hear what was happening to me...or did she just not care?

My sister had just gone to high school, so I was alone on the bus.

In 5th grade, I was chubby, already developing my soon to be size D's, had greasy skin, my parents had just gotten divorced, we had moved into this tiny rented piece of shit house in a horrible gang banger neighborhood in New Orleans East that I wouldn't even consider driving through these days without a loaded gun for protection, and I was miserable.

Elton made fun of my weight, my skin, my hair, my house, my "poor ass whore of a mother" - just about anything you can think of. He literally terrorized me from the second I got on the bus until the second I got off and even shouted insults at me out the window as the bus drove off...for two years...it didn't end until I decided to start walking to and from school in 7th grade.

I was the only white kid on that all black bus and I experienced a type of harrassment that social norms would lead you to believe would only occur if the color scheme were reversed...oh but it occurred.

His dad was a doctor and my newfound poverty level since my parent's divorce, along with my weight were his favorite targets.

Screw him - to this day, I hate him and I hope he is living under an overpass somewhere eating rats for dinner - and yes, I totally mean that from the bottom of my heart. He was pure evil.

My boy has been acting out ALOT lately. His grades have had a mild downward shift. His behavior at home has been outrageous. I attributed it to the baby sister he doesn't want, but will be getting anyway in February when his stepmom gives birth. I've read the books so I expected some behavioral or school issues when the baby's arrival got close.

In a total panic attack type melt down tonight over doing his homework, we finally learned the truth - my baby has a bully.

Oh god...oh god...oh god....NOOOOOOO! Just the thought of him having to endure even an ounce of what Elton did sends shivers down my spine and has put me in attack mode.

I took Luke tonight out to go see Christmas lights after dinner - just me and him. We drove through neighborhoods known for having lots of lights and stopped in 2 lighted parks to walk, and he unloaded the whole story. My son will talk and tell me everything...but I have to do it carefully or he'll clam up - it's an art I'm just learning since he outgrew the "freely and exhaustingly telling mommy about every minute of his life" stage.

Thankfully, it doesn't appear to be nearly as bad as Elton, but you can see his heart hurting in his eyes and his fear screaming for me to fix it - just fix it mommy, please! And you can see very easily how this situation could escalate too quickly into something much more.

So his father and I are going in tomorrow to meet with his teacher and begin the process of hopefully "fixing it". Some people may criticize me for stepping in and not just letting him work it out on his own - and even I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing yet - isn't parenting 99% jumping in without testing the water?

So, if you stuck through this post for this long, I love you and now I hope that you'll share with me your thoughts - is going to the teacher the right thing to do? God, parenting a 4 year old is so much easier than this drama filled 8th year. Help!

I suck

Why haven't I posted? Mainly because I suck. Other than that, the reasons are many. (Prepare for ridiculously long run-on sentence)

I thought life would calm down with football ending, but then basketball started, on top of work being hella crazy nuts lately, on top of being the Room Mother for my kid's class which during Christmas is like having a whole other part time job, on top of me taking a class and being a dork who demands upon herself that she MUST read the textbook completely before the class begins, on top of extreme moodiness from fake progesterone, on top of the whole Christmas hullabaloo of buying gifts, wrapping, visiting, planning, tree putting upping - AHHHHHHH!!!!!

So I suck. I'm sorry. I'm still reading all of you guys though - your blogs are my sanity!

I will think of something that is actually interesting to read very soon!

Too good to not post:

I emailed this out to many of you, my readers, but this is just too good not to post here also for those of you who I can't email, but who stop in and read...

See if this makes you scratch your head too. I've been battling with the "Room Mother Leader" lady over how many pizzas I should order for Luke's school Christmas party.

I told her I need 4 pizzas (20 kids, 2 slices per kid, 12 slices per pizza, should leave 8 pieces left for me, teacher, a helper and a fat kid who wants more).

She keeps telling me I need to order 5. When I got aggravated and asked her why, here is her exact reply, copied and pasted below:

"Got your pizza order. I personally would order 5, just to be safe 12 x 4=36 and if each child has 2 slices, that’s 40). Whatever pizza is left over, you can take home so it won’t go to waste."

Um, yeah - see that? I didn't know that 12 x 4 was 36. Shoot, I must be an idiot! I hope she didn't graduate from my son's school!

March?

For those who are asking about the whole fertility thing and why I haven't done more to take charge of the situation, I wanted to let you know that it looks like March may be it!

I went to a Reproductive Endocrinologist back in June. I walked in scared and clueless and I walked out loaded with pamphlets, prescriptions, test procedure prescriptions, condoms, cups, birth control pills and pages of handwritten notes. All of these things were hilariously placed into an Enfamil plastic bag for me so I actually looked like I was walking out of my first pregnancy appointment.

The descriptions of the procedures and their cost scared the shit out of me. Her "plan" was to give Ziggy a sperm analysis (hence the condom and cup), put me on progesterone to bring a period, then put me on birth control and antibiotics for a month, give me an hsg in that month, then after we got all of the tests, barring no further findings, we would proceed with a highly monitored injectibles cycle (daily shots of fertility drugs) once my period came after the birth control pill cycle ended.

Total cost over those two months of tests/procedures - about $4,000 out of pocket since lovely Louisiana does not have mandatory fertility coverage like more progressive states do.

I was scared to even dicuss the "plan" with Ziggy. It was then that we decided to wait at least 6 months, give God a little more time, before proceeding.

So here we are at the 6 month mark. In the car tonight, out of the blue, Ziggy asked me if I could pick up a small pack of condoms at the store. He said that he wanted to practice with the feel of a condom so that he wouldn't be all freaked out by it and not be able to "perform" and waste the $13 condom that we got from the RE.

I looked at him and said, "um, sure, so does this mean?" And he said, "yes, it means that I'm ready for the testing." So we agreed to go au naturale through March since we have a lot going on with birthdays, holidays, Luke's 1st Reconciliation, Mardi Gras, sports, taxes and all that stuff.

So, March, it is. I can't believe that we're going to actually do all this. I'm scared and excited all at the same time. We're going to go ahead and knock out his SA in January. That's the easiest part of the whole process anyway and hearing that he is "normal" will both help us breathe easier (IF he's normal, oh please God let him be normal).

It would be so much easier for me to deal with being the "problem" than it would be for him.

So that is that. Now...if only God would intervene in between now and March??? Please???

Grass

I was never able to give Luke the gift of grass when he was a baby. When I found out that I was pregnant with him, I lived in a tiny efficiency apartment. I moved into a large one bedroom apartment where I remained with Luke until I was able to buy the condo when he was two and a half.

So he never got to be laid down as a baby, tummy down, in his own fresh green fragrant squishy grass. I've always thought that grass must be the most amazing thing for a baby. Even for me now, at the age of 31, I very regularly take off my shoes in my backyard and just - walk. I let my toes squish into the thickness and imagine a whole world underneath my feet.

Of course Ziggy thinks it's strange when I do this, but I just love my yard. It was my one and only demand when we were house hunting. He would be staring at foundations and roofs while I would be searching every window to catch a first glimpse of the yard. We passed up many a house nicer than the one we have now only because the yard was inadequate.

Grass has always amazed me. I guess it may be because I didn't have it as a child. I grew up in an amazing place - a camp out on a lake. My house had shells for a front yard and waves crashing as the backyard. I loved it. But, no grass.

And so it took me 7 years of his life, but I got my son a huge backyard with fence to fence grass and we spend a lot of time out there. It's the first grass for the both of us.

From the first step that I took into the backyard when we first came to view this house, my mind immediately envisioned me gently laying a baby, tummy down, in this backyard. I've envisioned first wobbly steps, and then plops bum down on the green carpet with the sunshine kissing our cheeks while we both giggled. Almost everytime I walk in my backyard I have these dreams.

And then lately, only very recently, new thoughts have been playing in my head. Scary thoughts. Thoughts that I try to push out quickly before they are allowed to take over. But more and more often the thoughts are coming and I'm feeling this serious need to really sit in a quiet place and allow them to come.

And I did, tonight.

The thought is this - I've spent the past 8 years sure that Luke's sibling would come one day and that the only question was "when". The question was always "when" and the dreams were always attainable. And now the "when" is beginning to fade not just into an "if", but all the way to a "won't".

In other words, my mind keeps suddenly telling me that I need to explore the possible reality of Luke's sibling never coming. Not every dream comes true. I know this. And I may be one of those people - one of the ones that I never imagined being, who simply cannot conceive.

And then I look at this great big house that we bought with all the extra rooms that remain empty that we figured we would need for our growing family, and I look at my grass and I'm beginning to think - well, you know.

Luke asked me last week if he could have the front room for a playroom and my first thought was NOOOOO, THAT'S THE BABY'S ROOM! But I smiled and held back the tears and said, "you know what, buddy, that might be a good idea. What color to you think that we should paint it?"

I want a box.

Being the child of a recovering Alcoholic Bipolar dad and then also being married to a recovering addict bipolar man makes for interesting blogging and I really should talk about the crazy men in my life more often.

Just to recap for newbies and for the oldies with bad memories:

Dad = recovering alcoholic, sober for 21 years this coming June, diagnosed bipolar for 17 years and VERY active in 12 step programs.

Husband = recovering addict, clean for 3 years on 12/11/08 and diagnosed bipolar for 2 years as of November.

I can recite the 12 steps better than you can! LOL!

Anyway, I was talking to my dad today who lives in TN and he was telling me that he was in Walmart buying gift bags for his friends to give them the "worry boxes" that he had made them.

Apparently, he has a tradition of creating handmade boxes for his fellow AA buddies every Christmas. The worry boxes are for you to write down your worries/fears/problems/dreams/needs, place them in the box and leave them for your Higher Power (in our case, this is God) to deal with and sort through.

Nice. Where's my worry box, dad? Always like my dad to treat AA more like his family than his own family, but I will not turn this into a temper tantrum over my dad's attention or lack there of. I've already given that story to a handful of therapists along the way - no need to rehash.

I told him how nice I thought that was and then mentioned that I had a particular problem that I've been worrying about for 15 months now. His reply was, "well boo, maybe you need to put that worry away and finally just walk away from it and stop trying to control how God handles it."

Having a 12 step parent must be equally as rewarding and maddening as having a psychotherapist parent...since every 12 stepper that I've ever met seems to moonlight as self taught therapists.

My dad is always game for deep thoughts and meaningful conversations in the middle of Walmart.

So my thoughts are this - I want my own dang worry box and we all know the worry that I want to put in there. I'm going to mull this over and maybe do my own worry box type deal (since I'm sure I ain't getting one for Christmas, right dad?) Oh, sorry, there's that neglected child temper tantrum again.

Mrs. Scrooge

Sorry I haven’t said much. I’ve often thought of posting, but I’ve had a “case of the Mondays” for about 2 weeks straight now.

Maybe it’s the cold, which I LOATHE. Anything under 50 degrees is my own personal hell. Maybe it’s work which has been particularly busy/stressful lately.

I have no clue, but every time I think of posting, I just shrug and say, “blah”.

News? Well, we decorated the house for Christmas this weekend – everything except the damn tree (that’s just for you Ames) I’m so not holly jolly yet this year and normally I am by now.

I mailed off my Christmas cards already, because I’m THAT person who mails them right after Thanksgiving and annoys the shit out of the procrastinators. And then I sit and obsess the rest of the season wondering if person X sent me a card because they planned to, or just because I sent them one first and now they feel obligated?

How’s that for sick thinking?

Yes, I know. I would go to a therapist, but they all say that I’m perfectly healthy. Weird.

So let’s give some shoutouts – in no particular order to peeps who may read this and have been on my mind today!

Lan, I MISS you and I LURVE you and if you were here I would give you big smooches and hugs and eat snacky cakes with you.

Ames, you don’t Tweet nearly enough lately and I need your witty spontaneous type of humor to help me get through my day. Start tweeting because I need you, lest I bust a cap in one of these bitches at work for pissing me off.

Rissa, you’re becomming my first ever Internets BFF and I can’t wait to hopefully meet you AND rub all over that belly for Mardi Gras.

So that’s it for now. I gotta run. Moms is coming over for dinner and I get to spend the evening watching her nail herself to her cross…again…

I’ll write more soon, I promise.

Useless Turd

Average day in the life of my boss - with absolutely not an ounce of exaggeration:

8:00 - 9:15am: Oh what? Work started? He wouldn't know, because he has yet to arrive.

9:15am - 10:15am: Check on fantasy football team, stare at monitor and click mouse many many times and look super busy. Get up and bother/chat with middle managers who are actually working.

10:15-11:45am: Find a group of guys to talk business with...ahem...plan lunch with and make fun of co-workers with.

11:45-1:15pm: Business lunch...ahem...go to Hooters and stare at boobies.

1:15-2:45pm: Important meeting, then chat with middle managers about how unfair it is that the VP's have such a cushy life, then disappear for about a half hour (we presume it's poop time).

2:45-3:30pm: Hurry up and approve bills! Send out several important emails and delegate the rest of the unfinished work to unsuspecting and very tired middle managers.

3:30-4:00pm: Take credit for middle managers hard work with President. Pat self on back gratuitously.

4:00pm: GOTTA GO!! Son's basketball game starts at 5:00 so he has to run out at warp speed without telling a soul, much less saying goodbye to the middle managers.

Must be nice.

Thanksgiving

Since I've been down in the dumps throwing myself a giant pity party for a while now, I figured I would force myself to find some joy and be thankful for everything that I DO have...and I have a lot.

Pretty much, if I went back and sat with 18 year old Sandy, I would tell her that there is only one thing missing from her life and her dreams...that second baby. But everything else, the house, husband, career...all of it is actually here and I live it every single day and still have pity parties.

So lovers, I'm like CDwhatever today and no period, no positive test. I've pouted and cried and wah wah'd all over the house and here I am to say this:

I've decided to bring sexy back!

What does this mean? Well, since the day I went off of birth control, I have gotten progressively further away from...sexy. Everything wonderful about me is now hidden under a fog of failure. I live every day either waiting to ovulate or waiting to get a period. I've succumbed to absolute laziness and sloth every day because I can justify it as...well, I can't bleach the ring around the tub in case I'm pregnant. Or I can't color my hair in case I'm pregnant. Every day i get further from the spunky gal with tons of energy that I once was.

ENOUGH.

Screw New Year's Eve. I'm ready for the resolution now. Tomorrow morning at 5:00am, my 174 pound blubber butt ass that used to be a hot mamma 145 WILL be walking 2 miles and I WILL be thinking positively and I WILL get my sexy back.

I'm tired of waking up hurting every morning physically and being depressed and sad to a point where though I hide it well, I'm not sure if a solid dose of lexapro could knock me out of the ditch I've dug myself into. That's no joke folks. Infertility is a bitch and that bitch can destroy you.

I WILL find joy where I used to find it 15 months ago and I WILL find new joys and damn it to hell, if I can't have another baby then at least I will be enjoying life and loving it again.

I told you so dance

I get to do the I Told You So dance...and I'm not thrilled about it.

You all know that my husband is a recovering opiate addict and has been clean for 3 years as of 12/11/08. If you didn't know then you know now.

He has an Addiction Specialist doctor that he sees and has seen for all 3 years. In the beginning, he saw him monthly. Then it became every 3 months and now it is every 6 months.

We just realized that he hadn't gone in almost 8 months (woops) so he called today to make an appointment for Monday. His "recovery plan" that he set forth himself says that he will see this doctor for the first 5 years at least - you know - just to make sure he's ok and not struggling or anything. It's a smart move and I'm proud of him.

So, he went to call the doctor today and was simply told, "he no longer practices here, but your records are with another doctor." Hmm. Interesting.

Interesting enough to google. I googled and HOLY SHIT! This is what I found:

http://www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?S=8121679

Um, yeah, wow. Oh Shit. So the man that I entrusted my husband's sobriety to in those first few worrisome months was no less...a drug dealer? This article says very little, but if you keep searching his name you find out that the bastard pled guilty to all charges. His office and home were stocked with enough X, marijuana, opiates and cash to qualify him for "major drug dealer status". They found $200,000 in CASH in his house and he stored many of the illegal drugs in his office.

Wow. I can't get over it. I didn't like this man. I found him troubling to some inner sixth sense and I never liked him. Unfortunately, Addiction Specialists in a post Katrina New Orleans metro area are extremely difficult to come by. But I've told Ziggy for years now that I just don't like this man. We've actually had knock down drag out screaming matches about my distaste for this man. Ziggy would defend him and has LITERALLY used the word "savior" when describing him. Mamma was right.

Ziggy is really upset about it and feels almost betrayed and embarrassed. I don't fear my husband going back on opiates, but it's scary to know that the person who we were paying to get/keep him off the opiates is the very man that could have sold them to him in the first place. God.

Screw you, Dr. Auzine. You are a piece of shit to prey on the very same people that you claim to "save". Burn in hell, bastard.

Drama

The drama has excalated to a point where I swear that I'm ready to change my phone number and put my kid in a different playground for sports. But I won't over load you again with boring details of that.

I am CD 32 and not a cramp or a positive test in site. And now I begin to worry that this could very well be an anovulatory cycle that refuses to end until I infuse myself with fake progesterone and force the bitch down.

Bah Humbug.

On a side note, my son's field trip today to the African and Native American Cultural Show at City Park kicked ass! It was hot and tedious and tiring, but the actual show and lessons were so awesome.

It made me realize how much more tolerant and knowledgable of diversity our children are than we were. It makes me hopeful of a future generation that will be infused with tolerance and peace - way more than what we already have.

Anyway, pray that the drama ends as well as the cycle. I'd rather have my period and have the chance to start again than be in the limbo hell.

Is that a knife in my back?

My best friend, Lan decided to up and move to a place that rhymes with Shoulder Holorado. So it left me sad and in need of a new friend or two. I decided to take the easy route and aim for the playground moms.

I easily made friends with two moms. Jenna and Sue - (Sue is Coach's wife by the way). I started hanging out with them and chatting and eventually we swap emails and cell numbers and then our husbands become pals and play poker and talk guns like most redneck Louisiana men wind up doing and before you know it, we're all hanging out at each other's houses on weekends.

As previously stated, my husband doesn't drink at all and I drink very little out of respect for him. Our new couple/pals are HEAVY drinkers - they are the type who pour beer into travel coffee mugs and drink at every game/practice. Classy, huh?

Ziggy and I tend to be the only sober ones around. Ziggy actually tends to just hang out with the kids and will play ball with them for hours while their parents got sloppy drunk.

While this is not our normal sort of friends, they are very fun and we overlook such behavior and appreciate how easily they welcomed us into their group and honestly - they are a ball to be around.

Enter Halloween night. On Halloween night, I arrive to Jenna's house and everyone is already thoroughly trashed. I went to the party without my husband and was a little sad and didn't feel like being there anyway. Since I have had nothing but a Pepsi, I get to view the party and the adults through the eyes of the children present and I'm stunned at what I see. It was a moment of clarity. These children are witnessing things that I would NEVER allow my 8 year old to see. (Note: since Luke is with his dad most weekends during the school year, he is never with us when we hang out with them, so I don't often think about their behavior in that motherly way).

I took the children into the living room and watched TV with them. There was a grandmother of Jenna also in the room - a fellow undrunk person. The coach's two kids were there. One is 13 and the other is 8 and I noticed that Coach and Sue were missing from the party. I asked the boys where their parents were and what I got in return was SO totally unexpected. (turns out their VERY drunk parents had gone to visit another party around the corner and they came back later).

Both boys opened up and freely spoke about how drunk their parents get and how their dad was lying in the street last week and Sue was yelling at him in the street and how their mom starts drinking beer at breakfast and on and on and on. I'm shocked and had no clue what to say.

I talked straight to the 13 year old, since he was older and said, "Look I understand, because my parents drank too, I promise you that I know exactly how you're feeling. But I need you to know that it can and might get better, because my parents did. And even if they don't, you know that they work hard and love you and take care of you so just pray that it gets better and love them anyway."

It might not have been the perfect things to say, but I was backed into a corner and had to say something.

One week later, Jenna comes to me. At this point I'm beginning to notice her backstabbing drama magnet nature. I've also come to realize that she lies a bit and likes to flirt with EVERYONE'S husbands (including mine). At this point, I already started distancing myself from her, because it was almost like a slow motion movie where I could see that she was ready to create more drama. Basically, if her life is not in a total shambles, then she feels uncomfortable and creates the shambles. So I had already started hanging out a little less, and Ziggy and I were talking often about how uncomfortable we felt with their level of drinking, especially around the kids.

She told me that her grandmother, who was in the room with me, told her about what Coach's kids had said because she heard it too. All I told her was, "yeah, I know. I was there and I've been trying to decide if I should say anything to Sue about it, but I don't feel like it's my business." And Jenna told me, "no you shouldn't say anything, it will only hurt her."

So I didn't. Seeing that Jenna is way closer to Sue than I am, I took her advice. I decided that it wasn't my place to come between Sue and her kids and I'm not here on this earth to try to save every drunk that crosses paths with me. So I let it go.

I find out tonight from a totally random third party that Jenna told Sue everything and told Sue that I was the only one in the room and told Sue that I went and told everyone at the party about it. And now Sue hates me and Sue even went so far as to confront her two boys about it and supposedly she yelled at them about it and now her kids hate me too for betraying them.

I hate fucking drama. I hate it. I am the least confrontational person on earth and my husband and I both are just quiet homebodies who were looking for a few friends to hang out with and it's like - JESUS, LAN WHY DID YOU LEAVE ME?? (don't feel guilty, Lan, I know you made a good decision to leave). It's like I suddenly went from have a filet mignon friend to having bologna sandwich friends - know what I mean?

So here's my question. What should I do? Should I confront Jenna? Sue? Neither? Both? I don't know what to do. If I confront, would it do any good other than to exacerbate the situation? If I don't confront, then am I just a door mat?

So that ends my attempt to make friends via the playground. I'm am the least innocent person on earth, but in this one instance, I was totally sideswiped and have no idea how to handle it.

Obsession kicks in

My period is officially due tomorrow. To test or not to test. That is the question. I felt a smidge crampy when I woke up this morning. Crampy enough to pack the prepatory pad in my purse, but nothing since.

Hold my hand. I will try to hold out tomorrow, but if it doesn't come tomorrow then gawd help me - I'M TESTING!

She

This may be a long post, but I ask you to bear with me as I would absolutely love to hear your advice/wisdom/opinion on this topic via comment or email.

I’ve spent all morning trying to figure out how to put into words a night so absolutely horrific and so decadently delicious all at the same time that I’m left in full acknowledgement that I will be unable to verbalize the exact feelings. But I will try.

I dreamt of my daughter last night. My unborn daughter. In the past 15 months of trying to conceive, I have now dreamt of her 3 times. Each time, she looks the same and each dream is so deliciously realistic that I can see her exact face, smell her sweetness and feel her warmth. I hold her and I feed her and I fret over her. Last night, for the first time, she smiled at me – a full wholehearted baby giggle smile.

I know her name, even though her name is not one of the ones that Ziggy and I have chosen for a girl. Given the names of people in our family that we particularly dislike, it’s almost funny what her name is. And I cringe to think that this person may think that we named our child after her, but no matter what names Ziggy presents to me, I KNOW that this would be her perfect name and I play with it on my tongue often.

But I will hold that name secret in my mind just like I have to hold her sweet face, because she is not real and I may never share her with anyone, so why share her name?

All three times that I have dreamt of her, I have awoken feeling so perfectly motherly that I have risen and walked straight to the room that should be her nursery to check on her – only, she isn’t there and that is when I realize that the dream in which I have relished for god knows how many hours or minutes is truly a nightmare. This morning, I entered the “nursery” only to find my husband snoring away in our spare bed. At some point in the night, I must have kicked him out of our bed for snoring and this is where he winds up occasionally. And when I entered the room expecting to see her crib and only saw bare pink walls, I felt a sense of despair and desperation –where IS she?

Why pink walls? Our home’s previous owners had 3 daughters and there is quite a bit of pink all over our house that we haven’t painted over or removed.

I don’t pretend to know the meaning of dreams. I don’t know if they are prophetic or if they merely represent a picture view of your fears/hopes/desires. I don’t know if they foretell future events or if they are nothing more than a picture image of the last thing that you fell asleep thinking about. I do not know if they are gifts from God or tools of the Devil. What I do know is that this particular dream, just this one, has me baffled as to whether I should accept it as a lovely gift wrapped in finery or if I should shun it as a cruel reminder of what I am lacking and what I cannot create.

Now, I’ve heard all of the stories of women who awake from dreams of positive pregnancy tests and babies only to run into the bathroom and oh so finally get their beloved positive. Don’t you think I tried that? Don’t you think that I stood in front of the mirror, gently and oh so lovingly rubbing my belly that I just knew held my newly formed baby girl while I waited the 3 minutes for the test to process and yet, no matter how I turn the test and no matter what light I hold it under, there is still no second line and my baby girl has yet again decided to taunt me in dreams rather than show the rest of the world how beautiful she is.

And why a girl? That is the part that confuses me. If dreams merely represent your desires or hopes or thoughts, then why the pink little baby girl? Everyone on earth knows that I can’t stand the thought of having a girl and that all I’ve ever wanted is a house full of rough and tumble boys. Outside of my dreams, the thoughts of a daughter actually make me panic – so why the girl?

And so, I am CD29 and I am not pregnant. I am sorry for being weak and testing during my “off” cycles, but you tell me what you would have done. Would you have tested?

FIRE!

My husband and I are not wealthy, however, we made a decision (more his decision than mine) that we would spend our youth sacrificing some luxuries to purchase property and then eventually perhaps be able to retire early and hopefully wealthy.

So we own a bit of property. I don't tell people often because they immediately put the "oh they're rich" label on us and we ARE NOT RICH. Trust me people. We live pay check to pay check just like everyone. The difference is that we choose to forfeit many vacations or furniture that actually matches or desperately needed renovations on our home for the pursuit of early retirement.

We own 5 condo type townhouses. Four of them are in one square building unit and are two story and about 1000 sq ft and we own it in partnership with a friend of Ziggy's...so I guess technically, we own 2 of the 4. The fifth is my townhouse that I bought when Luke was 2 and lived in until we bought our current house last year.

We rent all 5 out and net about $200 more a month than the total bills - so like I said - we ain't rich because most of that $200 winds up going back into the places in repairs.

That's the background, now here's the story. All day I was bemoaning the "Pregnant Man's" second pregnancy that occurred so quickly after his first. I was angrier at God than I would like to admit. I focused on it all day, feeling forgotten by my Creator or punished or ignored. It was probably unhealthy exactly how angry I was. I mean, why HIM when there is a real woman inside and out who is begging and pleading with every cell in her body to have a baby? Why is he better or more deserving than me?

So what did God do? Nah, he sure didn't let me be pregnant, but He did remind me that He is still there and still looking out for me. My old house, touwnhouse # 4 caught on fire tonight. Our tenant, God Bless Her, was home at the time and was able to call the fire department and everything is fine and they are still in the home as we speak.

It was obviously an electrical fire, the firemen told us, and they refused to leave until we had an electrician there. THANK GOD, Luke's coach is...you guessed it...an electrician! He was coaching my son's game, but he had a buddy of his there before my husband could even get there.

It turns out that it was the fan in the air conditioning unit and the air condition needs to be repaired. Lo and behold, coach again came through and has an a/c guy meeting us at 8:00am tomorrow morning. It was the smoothest running disaster of my life and that's when I exhaled and said, "oh yeah, thanks God, I see you, I hear you and I'm an ass for doubting you and sorry about that. And Oh! Can we talk about that baby now?"

You want me to drive where? with who?

There is a woman at work that I don't particularly like. Maybe it's because she is a compulsive liar. Maybe it's because her work ethic is despicable. Maybe it's because she is "triflin" to say the least. Maybe it's because she takes advantage of me at any chance she has and would gladly roast me over a fire if it meant that she might get a nod of approval from someone...anyone. Maybe it's because she once filed a ridiculous complaint about me with Human Resources and gave me 3 months of ever lovin hell while trudging through that. We'll call her Stripper Trash Barbie. That's a fitting name. STB for short.

It's been a year since the STB drama at work, and her and I have managed to find a few superficial things in common to keep us from loathing each other too much. I deal with her. She puts up with me. We smile at each other and try to hide any underlying hatred. Did I mention that I'm her boss. Oh yeah, that adds to the joy of it all.

My own boss, god love the douche bag, decided that it would be a fabulous idea for STB and I to go out to lunch with a Sales Manager and the personnel from a large chain that we service (i.e. important manager plus important customer). I very unhappily accepted the invitation. I knew that getting out of the office would be a huge morale boost for her and hell - a free meal is a free meal, right?

Small detail that douche bag boss forgot to mention until much much later - we have to travel to the customer...in Mississippi...together...in the same car...alone. So now I get to spend 2 and a half hours driving with someone who not only loathes me, but I sure ain't her biggest fan.

ANXIETY! As a person, she can be fairly cool to chat with, however she is VERY chatty and I highly doubt that I will have 2 minutes of silence in the total FIVE HOURS of driving.

I hate this. I hate douche bag boss. I hate making nice nice. And puhlease do not lecture me on how this is a golden opportunity or any bullshit like that, because I've already heard it and it's hogwash. We will loathe each other just as much after we return as we do before we leave - we'll just have a possible fun memory to attach to the loathing.

You guessed it...

For those of you who asked, YES!!! My coach IS in the smoke machine photo below. White shirt and jeans oh yeah, that's him.

And a few more

They had a smoke machine for their entrance for their Championship game. It was a BRUTAL loss for them, but they finished 2nd in the League.

Luke and his BFF, Jonathan. Jonathan was born 1 day before Luke in the same hospital so they say they have been BFF's for life. Isn't that sweet?

And one more for good measure...

And here's one more sweet face...

Screw Anonymity

With nephews as cute as this, who cares about anonymity!

Slow but steady

I thought that a month or two of not trying to conceive would automatically make the time fly by - you know, since I'm not obsessing over days and such. I just did my count and I'm CD 19. I haven't done ANYTHING to check if I'm ovulating so who knows if I have or not. However, I have had the most perfect sex schedule EVER so please god, I hope that I did ovulate. Ziggy and I have somehow managed the sex every 48 hours for the past two weeks. Seriously. I know. I'm just as shocked as you are.

He knows that it's about that time and he asked me about it and I just told him that I have no idea and we kept on keeping on. I plan to try to keep up that momentum through CD25 if possible since normally I ovulate between CD 17 and CD 23 (and then an extra day for good measure). Who knows, maybe there is something to be said for this whole break thing.

I know I haven't written much and I actually DO have things to say, I just haven't had time this week. Football ends 11/23 so plan to hear ALOT more from me by then.

Oh and I just registered to take the Lousiana Notary Exam in June of 2009 and I registered for a prepatory class at UNO for the Spring. I'll talk about that more later as to why I'm doing it and such, but I just feel good to actually DO something to advance my life out of the rut that I've been in for the past year or so.

I promised...

I promised a photo of the shirts that I made with Luke's class, so here it is. Also, I actually posted twice today, so scroll down to read about Mr. Stranger Danger!

Thank goodness Asshole was there....

It's not often that I am actually thankful for the prescence of my ex husband, Lieutenant Dan. Normally, having him around is just uncomfortable, particularly when his very pregnant wife is in tow. He is EXTREMELY rascist, opinionated, condescending and a whole slew of other bad adjectives on top of the fact that he is almost 2 full months late (as usual on his child support). I would love for the Police Department, for which he SO proudly works, to know that he is slipping slowly into deadbeat dad-dom (the particular police department that he works for has been known for suspending officers for being behind on child support...seriously).

But yesterday was a rare, very rare moment that I thanked God for his prescence. In the midst of Luke's birthday party, at Chuck E Cheese's (where a kid can be a kid, and a parent can need a xanax) a very large stranger walked into our party area. The fact that every kid and parent was white with the exception of Fernando and his mother who are Nicaraguan, and Hannah and her dad who are Vietnamese, made him stick out even more since he was HUGE and black and reminded me of the prisoner from the Green Mile.

I looked at him and wondered who he was with and then continued to dish out cake and ice cream to the chubby kid who was screaming that he wanted it NOW.

I turned back and caught Lieutenant Dan's eye and we both gave each other a knowing look that only people who have once been in love can do. We saw Mr. Stranger Danger sit at a table next to one of the mom's that was at our party.

He reached out his hand and started stroking her leg. Lauren's mom just turned red and kind of looked around praying that someone noticed, and that is when he leaned in to attempt to kiss her, and that is when Luke's father, Lieutenant Dan sprung into action.

Dan jumped up and grabbed the man by the arm and very very calmly, in a style that only Dan is capable of - he walked Mr. Stranger Danger out of Chuck E Cheese into the parking lot and called our local police.

It turns out that the man was not okay in the head, was fairly mentally retarded and that this was not the first time that he had wandered into this Chuck E Cheese and harrassed people.

I thanked Lieutenant Dan when he came back in and truly was just that - thankful. At the time that this happened, Ziggy was playing games with the kids, which is what he's normally doing when children are around - any excuse for Skeet Ball! Ziggy just loves kids and given the opportunity to shoot deer with a fake gun, or hang out with adults, Ziggy will be shooting the deer and winning over every kid in the room.

Other than Ziggy and Dan, there were no other men around. It was all moms at Luke's party and the average age of the Chuck E Cheese personnel was about 17, so without Lieutenant Dan there, I'm not sure what we all would have done.

Once the drama was over, Dan resumed his place at the party - sitting there, being dull and generally useless. In all that free time, you would think he may have had time to write out a god damn child support check, but oh well.

Mine was the cleanest in the whole class

Yesterday, as Luke’s class Room Mother, I got to spend 3 hours in his class making Halloween T-shirts for them to wear on Friday. Trust me – a picture will follow once he brings home his dried shirt, because it’s too good to pass up.

Both 2nd grade classes were making the same shirts with their respective room mothers. My child’s teacher really missed out, because she selected the one person on earth who is 100% inept at all things crafty. Seriously, I have no skills…at…all. But hey, she came asking me to be room mother and not the other way around, so she gets what she gets.

The other 2nd grade room mother is my exact opposite. It’s almost as though she was born to play the role of room mother. I’m the working room mother who has to break her neck just to find time to obtain and put together 20 Halloween goody bags. Picture me ironing/folding clothes/calling out spelling words/stirring a pot and making goody bags all at one time and THAT is a typical evening in the life of me.

She is the stay at home room mother who apparently has so much free time on her hands that she can not only make Halloween goody bags, but she can make homemade paper mache’ bags to boot. (No offense to my stay at home peeps) Us working moms just get a bit envious of you occasionally, and have notions of you lollygagging about home painting your toe nails and taking bubble baths even though I know that isn’t true.

Ms. Perfect Room Mother arrived with her kids’ shirts 50% done by her and then proceeded to have each child come out of the classroom one at a time so that she could perfectly manage (control) the rest of their shirts.

Then there was me – I came in with white shirts and a bag o supplies and just let all the kids go to town at one time.

The results? Well, her 20 kids have gorgeous Halloween shirts that I would actually consider purchasing if I were in a shop and saw them. My 20 kids? Oh goodness. I wouldn’t use their shirts as hand towels. Our spider webs are blobs of black paint (especially the boys’). Our orange air brushing is splotchy and wild. They are just a mess. However, MY 20 kids had a WONDERFUL time.

They all hung on me when I was leaving and I even got TWO shameless hugs from my own son during the 3 hours (he barely hugs me in private anymore, much less in front of 19 classmates). Later that night, he asked me if I could puhlease come back to his school soon and do another art project. (yeah, me who has the crafting skills of a 4 year old).

The other mother? I don’t think that half of her class even realized that they had done an art project, much less even realized that she was there. They had to watch a movie while she pulled them out one by one. They probably just thought that she was there to show them her shirts that she made for them because all they actually got to do was press down the spider sponge one time after she had already applied the paint for them. My kids were covered in paint and glue and googly eyes and were laughing and just thrilled to be alive.

So, I have decided that our shirts suck and they are a mess and borderline embarrassing, but dammit we had WAY more fun than Ms. Perfect’s class did.

On a side note, and the reason for my title of this post…do parents just not care about their kids anymore? Before I left, the teacher had the kids in Luke’s class do a little Halloween skit for me that they had learned. As I sat there and looked at 12 boys standing in a row, I realized, my son was the ONLY kid who had his shoes tied, had his hair brushed, didn’t have sleep stuck in his eyes, didn’t have wrinkles in his shirt, didn’t have wrinkled pants, had his shirt fully tucked in – AND his shirt was white as snow and made all of the other boys’ shirts look yellow.

I was so proud! Who would have thought that this overly busy, overloaded, overworked, exhausted as all hell, barely getting it all done, working mom – could have the cleanest and neatest and sharpest kid in the class.

P.S. - Sales Managers who come in my office at 4:52pm and ask me to research tax info ASAP EMERGENCY STAT - well - they suck ass. Gotta go.

Cold

Short post, very short, just to say that I HATE/LOATHE/DETEST/DESPISE the cold. Miserable. And it's only 50 degrees outside and I'm already that miserable. The though of February makes me ill. I've always hated the cold. Although fall is lovely, once the actual cold hits (which to me, in Southern Louisiana is anything under 60 degrees) - I am miserable.

Cold pisses me off too. It's not just a dislike - I literally get PISSED OFF when I'm cold. All I want to do is sit inside and be toasty and snuggled.

I am 100% Louisiana blooded - swamp blood, marsh blood, alligator blood - we don't like cold. no way. no how.

April? I hope to see you SOOOOON!!!

This time of year reminds me of that night in the truck...

I have a photograph of my husband on my desk. It is not the best photograph that he has ever taken. In fact, it may be the worst. He appears sweaty and sallow. His skin seems clammy and almost a translucent green color. His Adam’s Apple is jutting out from his neck, which it normally doesn’t do. In this photo, he is 30 pounds skinnier than most anyone has ever seen him. He appears weak, sickly even. His eyes show a mixture of absolute bliss and pure panic and fear. His mouth is turned up into a smile that looks as though it could start to quiver at any moment.

When you look at the photo as a whole part, you may wonder if this man had a terminal illness – is he dying? When you pick apart every piece of the face, then you begin to see the story unfold.

When people at work see this photo, they usually ask if Ziggy is ill in the photo, or if he had cancer or something – he does look that bad and most everyone at work knows him, because he did work here years ago.

And yet, with all of the bad things that I know and that I hear about this photograph, it is still the ONE photo that I refuse to ever move away from my line of vision. This photograph means more to me than almost any other photograph that I own. It humbles me and brings me feelings of warmth towards him during times when I want to hit him and it reminds me of who I am and what I can handle.

This photograph is the very first one that was ever taken of Ziggy where there are no lies behind his eyes, no double life hidden inside his brain. This photograph was taken on 12/24/05; two weeks after Ziggy stepped into the world of the clean and sober for the first time and for God willing, the rest of his life.

He was suffering in this photo. Physically, he was still experiencing painful withdrawals. He was not sleeping well. He was still crying out and screaming and thrashing in his sleep. He was not eating yet. He was probably closer to death than any of us realized or cared to admit. He was panicked and fearful of old friends knocking on the door when they figured out that he had changed his cell phone number. He was paranoid that I would change my mind and withdraw my hand from his hand and decide that, no, I cannot stand by your side through this and I cannot forgive you enough yet to put myself to the side for a little while longer while we get you well.

Anyway, for those of you who think you know a lot about that time of my life, there is so much you don’t know. For those of you who don’t know anything about that time in my life, get ready. Now that the first few cold fronts have blown in, the memories have begun rushing in and so have the dreams. Ziggy’s three year sobriety anniversary is coming up, and while I love to celebrate this time of year, I also loathe it. The months of October and November 2005 were the worst, the rock bottom, the near death, the hell before the dawn. While most of the city was suffering in the aftermath of Katrina, rebuilding my home was nothing compared to the events that followed on the Saturday in October that Ziggy returned home from where he was evacuated in Dallas.

On strike

My period arrived with a vengeance this morning. I woke up, checked my temp, saw that it had dipped back into the 97's and bam, I was flowing before I got in the shower.

In honor of this, my 14th month since beginning the conception journey, I took a sick day. I took a day ALL for me me me me to just sit at home and watch pay per view movies and maybe even cry later if I feel like it.

And now the official "break" begins. No more trying to conceive until 2008 is over - nothing, nada, zip, zero, zilch. No watches, no Clomid, no temps, no checking mucus and timing sex and peeing on sticks and worrying/waiting/begging. None of it.

Infertility? - I will revisit you in 2009. I will enjoy my 31st birthday this Thursday (GAH!) without you rearing your ugly head. I will chow down for Thanksgiving and enjoy Christmas without you nosing around to ruin the fun as you did last year.

I am done with you for the next 3 cycles (which will probably end up only being 1 since I won't medicate myself to make it otherwise).

This sucks.

Random

I've had the hiccups terribly off and on all day. Not just your normal hiccups, but the kind that really piss you off and jolt your body in great spasms.

Luke's dad actually came to his game tonight. That was rare and I wonder what brought him there. I know it wasn't the joy of seeing his son play because he sat next to me and berated the child's abilities through the whole game. Ah screw it, at least his being there saved me a long car ride tonight and for that I am thankful.

Our outside cat, Big Effin Red (he's a monster red/orange tabby), as we affectionately call him, has another Big Effin Blackie cat trying to hone in on his territory (and I say Blackie as in, he is a black cat, people). We love BFR and he has become like our yard dog. It was hilarious tonight to see me and Ziggy standing on opposite ends of the yard attempting to thwart Big Effin Blackie's proposed turf war by squirting him with Luke's water guns every time he came near. That is one ballsy cat. Good times. Don't worry, Big Effin Red - we got your back.

And I still ain't pregnant. Although I am 2 days late now and my temps are still way high. Negative tests though. Poo.

Ziggy is calling me to bed, I need some sleep. G'nite.

With tears in my eyes...

This is my first blog post that is written with tears streaming down my face and dripping all over the keyboard and snot hanging out of my nose. Will it be my last? Probably not, but it is the first.

You should see my boy light up when it comes to football. He has a talent, a gift. Every coach sees it. His step father sees it. My mother sees it. Fathers of his friends see it. He is the ONLY 7 year old on his All Star team, and a starting center at that.

So why am I crying so? Because Luke's real father thinks that football is nothing more than "an attempt to steal HIS time away from HIS son." He says things like, "it's not like he's even good" and "I bet the coach tells every mom with boobs that her kid is great."

Luke's Jamboree is this weekend which is basically a weekend celebration of football at his playground. There are booths and food and beer for all. It's a weekend of fun and screaming and sweating and pride. Luke has 4 games this weekend. A rough schedule for a 7 year old? Yes. However, he is THRILLED and totally psyched up and ready to kick butt.

And as usual, I had to be the bad guy that had to call his father regarding his schedule. I have just spent an hour and a half literally begging a man that I almost cannot stand to allow MY son to play football this weekend. I was told things like, "he's only 7 and he'll forget all about it if we tell him he has to quit" and "there comes a time when parents need to stand in and say no to their children".

FUCK HIM.

Luke will NOT forget it if we make him quit. Luke remembers that the Easter bunny hid eggs around the house stuffed with quarters when he was THREE. He remembers things from when he was 2 that he will repeat out of the blue and shock the hell out of me.

I could understand if his grades were slipping. Then, yes, I would step in. But my child has my gift that not many ever understood in me, and I now see developing in him...he, like me, NEVER has to study. We are freaks who absorb knowledge in class and don't forget it. The kid has not only straight A's this quarter, but straight 100's this quarter and ask me how much I've studied with him? Zilch. I know, it's sickening but it's my gift too. I comfort myself with this gift when I see skinny bitches who can eat all day long and still be skinny bitches.

I digress.

And so, after an hour and a half, this is as far as I got. If I "want" him to play football (because of course it's ME who is forcing him to play) then I have to drive to and from Asshole's house FOUR times this weekend to pick Luke up, dress him out, get him to his game and then drive him back to Asshole. Asshole lives 27 miles away. Four games times two drives times a half hour each is four hours I will have to spend driving my child this weekend. Add to that 4 hours of games, and 2 hours of practice - oh and throw in that wedding on Saturday night for Ziggy's cousin he never met and all I can say is that I may need a drink at some point this weekend.

So now I have the task of telling Luke, while holding back tears that no baby, daddy did not say it was ok for you to just spend the weekend with me, which is what he really wanted. He even said as I put him to bed, "don't worry mom, I'll pray that daddy just lets me stay with you this weekend."

Pray harder, baby, pray harder.

What happened to respecting your elders....

In which I introduce you to my sister, Scarlett O'Hara. I have two sisters - one of them is the one I introduce you to today. The other is Jackie Joyner-Kersee whose impressive speed with which she ran away from her family years ago could set records (but she's fairly normal lately, so you may not hear of her much since normal = boring in our family).

My older sister, 3 years my senior, and the mother of my twin nephews is one of the largest bitches on earth. No. That's for true. She's the type of human that I could despise, loathe and detest if I weren't a blood relation.

My sister has hated my mother and I as much as she has loved us since the time she was a teenager. While my mom and I were rockin out to Friday night videos, eating popcorn and drinking cokes, my sister was in her room with cucumbers on her eyes a beauty mask on her face and thoughts of escape on her mind. Think of Goldie Hawn pre-bump-on-head in Overboard...now you are getting close.

We are trash to her. We are common and we embarrass her. We always knew that she would marry "well". Marrying well would be her ticket out and away from my mom's standard black Ford Escort and her permed hair and hooped earrings and her cigarettes and her foul mouth.

And so she did - she "escaped" and managed to marry up in her eyes - into a marriage with a man as judgmental as she is and she has earned in laws who were just as trash as we were until striking oil on a plot of land made them wealthy and forgetful of their roots.

I'll give you two examples to get them off of my chest and then I will hopefully be able to let the anger go for another day and maybe this will give you a taste of sweet Scarlett.

1.) The twins are 6 weeks old and NO ONE from Scarlett O'Hara's side of the family has received photos yet. I was able to swipe and email to myself one batch from the first day that they were born, but beyond that no one has received a single photo. We know for a fact that her husband emails photos out regularly, at least weekly, and we are never included on the emails. We know for a fact that one friend of Scarlett's gave her a photo of Scarlett holding the two boys in the hospital in a lovely frame...now where could she have gotten such a photo? And it is not that we haven't asked. My mother has asked for a picture to show her friends at work and at church for weeks since she doesn't have a computer, and she has not gotten a single shot. And don't tell me it's because Scarlett is too busy, because precious girl only goes to the hospital for about 2 hours a day lately.

2.) My mother went at lunch today to see the boys and possibly hold one. My sister called her when she was in the parking lot and told my mother, "make sure you finish that cigarette well before you come in because my children can smell it on you and it's disgusting". Oh god help me from killing her. This is OUR MOTHER, you bitch!

My mom smokes and she curses and she listens to music like Ratt and Kiss and god dammit just leave her alone. That woman knew a tougher life than most of us will ever know. She's in extremely great shape and very healthy and if a cigarette calms her nerves before seeing YOU, you bitch, then leave her alone. At least she's not a gambler like your husband...oh did I say that? Woops. Sorry.

Does my mother aggravate me? Sure as shoot she does. But I love her and respect her and would give her a roof over her head and treat her well until the day I die because I remember what my sister has forgotten - I remember my mom cleaning houses on the side to afford our private schooling and I remember her being there when my precious Luke was born and my post partum depression couldn't even slack off enough for me to look at him for the first few days. It was my mother who pulled me out of those dark days and introduced me to the most precious boy on earth.

Anyway, I wanted to introduce you to Scarlett, because you may hear of her often, particularly with the birth of these babies that my mother and I have to practically beg to be a part of their lives.

Oh and I GOT INTERNET!!!!! WOO HOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My boss finally broke down and gave me one of the spare wireless cards that he had that they were paying for anyway and was just sitting going to waste and now it's mine and now I have fabulous Internet without having to pay a dime for it. God is good.

Hurry, before they catch me....

I figured that since it's back to work tomorrow and gawd knows when I'll have computer access again, I should post again while I had internet access and a minute of quiet.

I took my first pregnancy test this morning, negative. Of course, what did I expect? But it still stung like a huge mamba jamba jellyfish. I woke up with a mild fever (in the uppper 99's) - isn't that supposed to be very promising? I also had some mild menstrual cramping this morning. I've forced myself not to pay attention to days, but I'm pretty sure that my period is due sometime between now and Wednesday - so here we go...let the disappointment, feelings of inadequacy, depression and self loathing commence!

I got to hold a twin finally this week! My sister's boys are finally a robust 4 pounds each. I held the one that is named after his asshole father. I know it's not fair for the poor infant, but my mother and I very guilt-fully (not sure if that is a word) favor the one NOT named after the asshole father. It's just so hard to speak his name to a baby with love in your voice when the person that you've known for years who holds that name is a total prick of the elephantitis variety. Especially when prick father is in the room and can hear you speaking his own name in that baby voice. Puke.

They've both had their oxygen tubes removed and will be introduced to the boob this week rather than being fed through tubes in their guts. Very exciting. Plus, they are out of their tiny incubators and into a plexiglass open faced box where they can lay side by side.

In other news: I had my credit card stolen at the oil change place yesterday and about an hour after I left the oil change place, my credit card company called me to report "suspicious activity" on my account. After hours on the phone and much drama, the oil change place busted the person using my card on the company computer to try and buy things. Turns out there was a video camera on the ceiling pointed directly at that computer. Gah! That was stressful/lucky/wild. (Little known fact - my mom does the books for the oil change place, and so that's how I now know all the down low info). Now I'm am tapping my toes for my lifetime pass for free oil changes. What? They don't give those out? Turds!

Again, I'm so sorry not focus on one subject, or to be hilarious, or entertain you in any way - it's just that time is short and I still have 3 other blogs to read and catch up on before I get kicked off this computer.

Oh and Ms. Lan, if you read this, did you fall off the face of the earth? I'm feeling unloved and forgotten!

Soooo Sorry

Where in the hell have I been? Well, work is now monitoring our internet usage. No one knows except management so far, so since I got the info on the down low and I know exactly who has been assigned to monitor our internet usage - it's best for me not to show visits to this blog at work.

Then, to make matters worse, my computer at home is broken - AGAIN!!! GRRRRRR!

So I'm at my mother in law's house using their computer and feeling very weird about them having this blog in their history.

I don't have very long - I just wanted to say that I have so much to tell you all, and I haven't been able to read ANY of your blogs this past week either. I feel so cut off from the whole world.

My father in law is a Second Life addict and honestly spends up to 12 hours a day on Second Life - he's tapping his toes to get his computer back, so since I already got my bills paid, I need to jet.

I'm so sorry I haven't been around and the computer will hopefully be fixed on Monday. I miss you all and I miss your blogs and I hope to get caught up with everyone very soon.

Oh, and I haven't tested yet - I have ZERO symptoms. My hopes are SLIM but I do plan to test by Monday.

Smooches!

Just chill

Well, since I only had actual sex one time during the entire 6 fertile days, my hope to reality ratio is something like 1:100000000000000.

But, I'm unusually ok about it. All of my freaking out and panic and general psychosis that was displayed earlier this week is now gone and I'm just...chill.

I wonder how that happened. I haven't even bought any tests yet - which is very unusual for me by this point, seeing that I am officially in the anxiety laden "dpo" days.

I even had a daiquiri last night...no, make that 2 daiquiris and I just had fun with friends and let loose. In fact, I did something really wild last night. It was the six of us that normally hang out together on weekends lately now - me and Ziggy, Coach and his wife and one other couple. We all piled into Coach's truck, all 6 of us with our daiquiris in hand and drove around with the windows down and the music blaring all singing at the top of our lungs like we were 16 and not 30-something and we went...are you ready?...we went...to Mr. Binky's!!

Oh my goodness, it was wild. For those non-locals, Mr. Binky's is an "adult superstore". Oh yes! A wonderland of fun, not only to purchase, but just to walk around and make general fun of all the weird shit...you know, handing coach the "Fatty Patty" doll because she is just his type of woman, or handing Ziggy a gallon sized vat of "butt butter" for him and his buddies - that type of juvenile fun.

Ziggy and I used to be so much wilder in our younger days. We had a "toy" or two along with a few books on sensual massage (highly recommended) and a few other adult type things, and we used to have great fun. All that ended over the past year as we settled into old married coupledom.

Well, each couple walked out with a bag o goodies and let me tell you, I had the most exciting night with Ziggy that we have had in well over a year. It was really good fun once we got past the initial embarrassment that a year of vanilla reproductive sex can bring.

Why am I sharing this? Well, I made a huge decision after last night. If I am NOT pregnant this month, then I have decided to take the rest of 2008 completely OFF from trying to create life. No watches, no peeing on sticks, no counting days, no pills/potions/herbs, no temping - nada/nothing/zip/zero. Instead, I'm going to try to find my "spark" again with Ziggy and just remember what it was like to have a kick ass time together. I want to use fun stuff again without worrying about the way cool fun tingly lube inhibiting his sperm's ability to swim. I just want to have fun with my husband again, dammit.

13 months ago people warned me that trying to conceive would take all of the joy out of my sex life and I didn't believe them. I thought we would be immune to those problems. I think it happened right from under us, without us even noticing until we got to this place where we are now and are trying to climb out from.

Anywho - kudos to Ziggy for being open minded enough to give it a whirl again (and yes! I'm totally PISSED he didn't come out of his fog last week...but oh well.) And I'm sure that in about 7-10 days, I will begin frantically peeing on HPT's regardless of my aloof attitude today about it. But like I said, one day of sex within 6 fertile days, and the semen I got was 5 day old semen - bah!, my chances are very slim.

Second chances...

My OV Watch was either wrong or the stress over Ziggy's job postponed my O - I get a second chance!!! My OPK is positive NOW. Gotta go shave! Wish me luck!

Word Quota

I swear that I am a flashing billboard for people who have not used up their word quotas for the day.

What do I mean? I attract EVERY chatty human on earth - not just chatty, but the types who sit and tell you their ENTIRE life stories and don't realize that your head is becomming dislocated from sitting there and nodding for so long to make it appear that you care - THOSE people.

It's like someone handed out word quotas and then pointed to me and said - there's your girl, go get her!

Tonight at football practice I actually sat and texted my husband FOUR times with the following text while a man told me ONE story that lasted the ENTIRE hour long practice (NOT AN EXAGERRATION). I texted, "please help me". And my husband would try (piss poor attempts though, if you ask me). He would walk over and try to get himself into the conversation to free me long enough to walk off or become engaged with the next talker waiting in line for my ear. Didn't work.

I think that most people I meet believe that I am mute because they talk so much that they never hear a word out of me.

There are very few exceptions to this rule. Lan will allow me to talk my own head off as will a select few others - very few others. But for the most part, from my mother in law to the pill poppin football moms - I am nothing more than a mirror for them to practice their life stories in front of.

Whew!

Yep, I got The Sex. It was feverish, sick sex, so it was probably no good (Dr. Google wouldn't give me definitive answers on a fever's affect on sperm) on top of the fact that now I will probably get sick too, but at least I got the goods! Now if I can get it again tonight, we are set to have a real actual chance this cycle.

On a side note, it was late sex and I'm so tired, because when I woke him up for the sex he decided it was the perfect time to confess something that had happened at work that day.

Ziggy has a long history of work issues, due to being bipolar. Bipolar plus career often do not go hand in hand. This is a topic I may blog about often, so prepare yourself with an open mind and tolerance towards the mentally challenged. He has trouble walking normal lines that normal people can walk. He is immensely brilliant and well educated and can land any job on earth, but he just has problems with rules and the following of those rules.

Fortunately, he has a job now that is very easy on his mental health, which he decided to take advantage of, and he wound up being written up yesterday for coming in late too often and taking 2 hour lunches too often. He's been there for about 4 years total and he's been warned about this often - GAH! He's an ass.

So he is now ashamed and embarrassed and ready to make ammends to the job and to me and please I pray that it's just not too late and that he doesn't get canned because...um...have you noticed the economy lately?

Heart palpatations begin. Prayers commence. Oh and him getting up earlier and taking shorter lunches truly only equals more work for ME! I had to get my own self up a half hour earlier to manage him getting up earlier and get him out the house and make him a brown bag lunch - phooey! I don't mind so much, and it was actually a really nice morning having him up with us and not us up and leaving before he was even up.

Disclaimer

The blog that preceded this one was truly a rant session. I'm not truly going that nuts and I actually feel a bit better just after having it written out - almost as though the writing of it validated the feelings. I don't want the Internet to deem me as totally bonkers in my first month of blogging!

You all are amazing and I truly thank you for the amazing support that you've shown me just minutes after posting the rant entry. Thank you thank you and of course I will update everyone tomorrow on whether or not I get a piece of ass tonight!

The Devil Came Down to Louisiana

Last night was night # 1 in our new (used) mattress set. I’m not sure if it was just the new bed or if it was the spirit of Lan (previous owner of bed, who is probably going to laugh, and then hit me at the fictional name chosen for her) that was infiltrating my brain, but I had two WILD dreams last night and both were so real and so vivid that I woke up confused.

Dream # 2 had to do with me becoming a lesbian and while it is very fun and probably much more entertaining than Dream # 1, I feel like talking about dream # 1 so that’s what we’re going to do.

Dream # 1 – I dreamt that I had a blog troll who left a comment on my blog telling me that the reason that I have not gotten pregnant yet is because I have no faith in God and that I’m a hypocrite and I’ll never get pregnant unless I commit my life to God and stop being a terrible sinner. It was a horrible mad comment and I remember seeing it as a whole paragraph and actually reading it and I remember everything it said.

I do know a possible reason for this dream occurring. A fellow football mom gave me a book called something like Supernatural Childbirth (I think that’s the title) and there is a specific chapter in there that begins on page 108 that is an entire 3 to 4 page long prayer to God regarding conception and being “barren”. I figured that I have absolutely nothing to lose at this point, and I do believe in the power of God, so I read the prayer last night before bed. I remember thinking while reading it that God would never bless me because I’m not good enough and I suck and I’m bad and blah blah blah, but I read the prayer anyway and I’m guessing this is where this dream originated.

Tonight is THE MOST FERTILE NIGHT OF THIS CYCLE and my damn husband just emailed me this mamby pamby email that he is getting sick and thinks he has a sinus infection and wah wah wah and DAMMIT!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m so damn sick of this bullshit. I pump massive amounts of artificial hormones into my body, monitor my body all month long, fret over everything I put in my mouth, and ALL I ASK OF HIM is to have sex on 3 or 4 nights that I need him to, and I swear that every single month, there is something that prevents us from having sex during the most important days and I swear to GOD that if he doesn’t do it tonight I very well may have an actual truly really REAL nervous breakdown.

Last cycle, there was that little ole fucker named Gustav that ruined it for us. The cycle before that was Ziggy’s end of quarter at work and he was stressed and working 70 hour weeks and collapsing by time he got home. The cycle before that, my sister was put on bed rest and living with us and it’s really hard to have boom boom when you’re up getting ice chips all night long and your bed ridden sister is in a room down the hall. Oh I can keep going…EVERY cycle has been SOMETHING. Everything will be fine and then Ovulation week comes and BAM – it all goes to SHIT and then as soon as I finish ovulating, it’s magically delicious again.

And people say “relax” and it will happen. “Stop trying” and then it will happen. NO! See, I have a physical condition that will NEVER allow it to “just happen”. Maybe when I was 20 and weighed 30 pounds less and was still young enough, even with my condition, it maybe could just happen, but not now, not anymore. And I’m just so sick of this – so sick of the trying and the fighting and the begging and pleading with God and the feelings of desperation that get so intense that you question the existence of your faith and your God, and you question your inner strength and wonder if you could even still resist the temptation if the devil himself sat on the edge of your bed and promised you a pregnancy in exchange of your soul.

And I’m sorry if I sound like a raging mad lunatic, but this is my blog and this is how I feel and I’m obviously hormonal thanks to the 100’s of milligrams that I purposely pumped into my body to create this very occurrence, and if you tell me to “relax” or “let go” or anything like that, I may bust a cap in your ass at this point so please tread lightly. I’ll let you know tomorrow how tonight goes. This is it – tonight and tomorrow night and that’s all the chances I get for month # 13 before it’s over and I get to begin the arduous task of building up my hopes for month # 14.

My new enemy, Charley

For about the past month now, I have woken up 5 out of 7 nights with excruciating Charley Horses in my calves...sometimes just one calf and sometimes both. I cannot pin point the reason.

According to Dr. Google, these occur either from dehydration or lack of potassium. I checked my vitamins - they contain 100% of the daily recommended value for potassium, so I'm good there. I drink ALOT and I actually drink a lot of water or water-esque drinks. I looked up my Rx's (metformin and Clomid) and I can't find anything about either one causing Charley Horses or causing a potassium deficiency.

I'm perplexed. Any ideas? Any suggestions? Old wives tales? Miracle tonics? Assvice? I'm open ears!

Other than that, all is quiet on the homefront - I have ALOT of chores to accomplish before my son returns from his dad's house, including setting up the Halloween white trash lawn ornaments that he has begged for us to buy for two years...we bought them this weekend to surprise him. So I'm just all over the place.

I've had no chance of truly creating life this cycle just yet - Ziggy had the anxiety problem last night and after a half hour I was just too tired to keep going so we quit for the night. SOOOOO frustrating. EVERY ovulation week is exactly like this and then he's perfect for the entire rest of the month. However, it was a really good time and we actually bonded and talked for a while after (I cried) and it was a nice evening anyway (*note-NOT easy to find bright sides in this*)

According to the OV Watch manual, I had a 13% chance if we had sex last night and then I have a 13% chance today, a 28% chance tomorrow, a 26% chance on Tuesday and then a 5% chance on Wednesday (actual ovulation day). So I'm not out - not by a long shot - yet - but dang it, if I could just get a shot or two of the good stuff in there, I sure would be feeling much more hopeful.

Last night's all you can eat bbq and cabbage ball was a bust. The "all you can eat bbq" turned out to be a few hamburgers that were gone by time we arrived, because Ziggy forces us to be fashionably late everywhere we go - he's a total chic. So we had to eat weiners. The cabbageball turned out to be volleyball, and my crush, Coach, was fighting with his wife, and decided to just get drunk and hang out with other Coaches. Truly no fun was to be had.

So bring on the Charley Horse suggestions if you have any and please keep on keeping on with the conception prayers/vibes/chants - whatever you've got.

Oh WOW!

YOU SEE THAT????
Not only is it Fertile Day 1, but it's also ONLY CD12!!! The very earliest that I have EVER ovulated is CD20 - oh happy day!!

Now, here comes the hard part - the sex. As usual, my husband and I had tons o sex over the past couple weeks and he's been in a fabulous mood and life was grand. Now I wake up to this, and he, as usual, has A LOT going on right now that could prevent the Sex.

I can't go into much detail because I have a house to clean right now and should be cleaning, but please just keep on praying, chanting or whatever it is you've been doing for me, because it is obviously working. I need the Sex as much as possible over the next 4 days and it may take quite the effort on my part to seduce my husband. I don't have one of those men who will screw when the wind blows up their shorts - my husband requires some skill in the fine art of coercion, particularly if he finds out that my watch says what it says. He must be woo'd without it appearing desperate. He must feel like he suddenly married a nympho without putting two and two together and realizing that I am just lusting for his seed.

In other words - my husband will have the sex passionately IF he has no notion that it is for reproduction purposes. And it's not that he doesn't want a baby - he wants one more than I do on most days. It's that once he knows it is for reproduction, something in his head overtakes him and he just can't do it. The doctor says it's performance anxiety and I just say that it's maddening!

Self Love leads to problems...

I'm going to have so much free time at work to sit and stare at ceilings that I don't know what to do! Some jack ass was busted in the act of self-love whilst admiring online porn and now my company is taking the internet away from the masses...totally. We will all have "approved" websites that we can visit, and I'm positive that my blog, MySpace, Twitter, TWW and all of your wonderfully entertaining blogs will NOT be in the approved list. BAH!!

I've worked there for almost 10 years and this isn't the first time they've done something rash like this - it's kind of like the "no eating at your desk rule". *inserts cookie into mouth while sitting at desk* See what I mean? So in a few months, I'm sure you'll see me more often during working hours - I just have to lay low for a while to keep up appearances that I am an extraordinary employee.

Luke won his real season football game last night - 12 to 7. :-)

My secret crush is still on with the possibility of great fun updates this weekend - it's the annual all you can eat bbq and cabbageball event at the playground! Just the theme alone leads me to believe that it shall be a raucous occasion! Nothing like a bunch of rednecks and beer and bbq and cabbageball to bring out the wild in everyone! Other than that, contact has been minimal, particularly since I don't purposefully seek him out and most of the time, he's just the kid's coach and I'm the kid's mom.

He and my husband plotted together this week to put my son's helmet stickers on upside down on purpose to see if they could get a rise out of me, because that is something that normally would aggravate me enough to confront the coach about. That's what they do - they plot together to see if they can push me over the edge - like 2nd graders! The joke was on them though because I was too tired that evening to even care and I just ignored them (see Clomid Haze).

Oh and did I mention that I got tickled last weekend by Coach? Um, yeah, I was standing in a door way and he came up behind me and gave me a solid tickle on his way out the door. It was one of those quick side tickles and nothing to write home about - BUT - I have thumb print bruises on both of my love handles! AH! (disclaimer - I bruise extremely easy, so the smallest tickle has always given me bruises) Ziggy asked what happened and I told him that he "must have been grippin on too hard the other night". And then he beamed with a look of male pride and made a gorilla noise and everyone was happy. Men are such simple creatures and I love him.

Our O days are a little more than a week away - so please keep up the prayers and good vibes! I've been having these daytime fantasies about how I would tell Ziggy that I was pregnant and how wonderful of a father he will be - and I just hate to even say this, but I have this great feeling about this month.

Randomness:
A lady came to the ballpark last night in rhinestone studded jeans and a hot pink rhinestone studded tank top and 100 pounds of makeup. She sat and drank beer from a styrofoam cup and smoked cigarettes and said the "F" word ALL night. So why couldn't I stop staring at her? Well, honestly, she was remarkably gorgeous - not make up gorgeous - but really really gorgeous - I mean just absolutely stunning from head to toe even beyond the nastiness. I felt so mad at her. If I was 10% as gorgeous as she was, I surely wouldn't dress/act/talk like trash. What a waste, and it made me so sad that she felt that she needed to look/dress/act like that to be beautiful when she already was so so gorgeous.

Clomid Haze

Forgive me for not posting - I've been in my Clomid Haze. Last night was my last dose for this month - you know - I just swallow the pills for shits and giggles because seeing them actually assist me in getting knocked up seems more ludicrous with each passing month.

Anywho, during the 5 days that I actually take the Clomid, I go into this weird fog of a world - not much matters to me, but everything (EVERYTHING) annoys me. I'm needy and yet want to be left alone and I'm sad, yet ridiculously bouncy. It's annoying to me, so I have to imagine that it's downright maddening to those around me.

If you have any prayers or angels or voodoo magic (we're not choosy!) that you would like to lend or extend on behalf of our reproductive organs, Ziggy and I would greatly appreciate it.

In the meantime, the only other thing going on is football, football and then a little more football. Luke has either practice or a game for 5 straight days which means that our greasy bodies are running on a diet of corn dogs, spagetti-O's, pizza rolls, McDonalds and whatever else is fast and quick and gets us out the door. Luke actually eats the healthiest right now since I pack his lunches full of good things - but beyond his lunch, we are just gross this week.

And so here I sit - still pissy and moody from the Clomid and fat and greasy with bad food gassiness. But life is good and who knows, maybe October will be our lucky/blessed month!

I'm crushin...

I know it's been a while since I posted - forgive me. I've been trying to figure out how to word this post correctly to ensure the least amount of frowns and disapproving eyes.

Here it is - I have learned the power that a crush can have on your marriage...for the better, people!

See, I have this really strange crush - it is on a man who is NOT attractive at all. No, seriously - I have no physical attraction to him - NONE. But for some reason, I constantly find myself crushing on this guy to a point where I have had dreams about him. Anyone that I have told about this crush has either laughed at me or made nasty "ew" faces at me.

So why do I crush on him? No clue. I would NEVER cheat on my husband or even think about cheating on him. In fact, the crush is totally non-sexual. I've never had a sexual thought about this man - ever! (Except that one dream...but I can't be held responsible for that, right?!) It's just a crush as in - he has a fabulous sense of humor and he's a good time and I love to be around him kind of thing - he is wildly funny and the life of the party and he cracks my husband up too, and we both just love the guy. I just love to be around him...not "alone" around him - just around him in general.

So this weekend - I spent an unusual amount of time with or near or in some vicinity as him. On Saturday night, we had a girls' night out for all the football moms, and his wife was with us, so he wound up being a regular part of the conversation. Then on Sunday there was a barbecue at another football mom's house and he was there the whole time. Add in a little football, some hot grilled meat and a beer or two - and it was a damn good time! It may have been the best time that Ziggy and I have had together with a group of other couples in a long damn time.

Mr. Crush loves to mess/flirt with me because I'm a moron who blushes uncontrollably and embarrasses easily, and I guess this is fun for him. It's totally innocent, so don't fret. Anyway, this flirting that he does with me - or this "joshing" that he does - must be a totally huge turn on for...MY HUSBAND. I don't know why - maybe because some other dog is sniffing his hydrant, but he has been all over me - huggin, kissin, holdin hands, complimentin - being sweet with me.

In turn, the joking/flirting has given me this unusual self esteem boost (I'm normally the low self esteem title holder) and I feel kind of good lately - a bit prettier - a bit spunkier - a bit...dare I say...sexier. And my husband reaps all the benefits of that.

And here I am now at work doing something I have NOT done in a long time - I'm longing for my husband! Literally, longing for Ziggy - the way I did when we first started dating. I just want to talk to him or text or email or be together in any kind of way that I can and I'm feeling all giddy about when I will see him in a few hours after work. I'm actually giddy with anticipation of being next to him, my husband, again. WTF?

These feelings are NOT normal - my marriage is very comfortable and relaxed - sure we love each other, but we passed up those puppy love days years ago. We're now more like close business partners who have sex a couple times a week and know each other's secrets. I honestly don't even think I felt like this on my actual wedding day - but now I do!

What the hell? I can't explain it - but all I know is that I can thank my son's football coach for not only teaching my son the perfect 3-point stance - but for also pouring a little spice into my marriage???

I've read in magazines before that a little careful crush can actually help a marriage - but I never believed it until now.

Must. Get. Work. Done.