Snow Day!

So over the weekend we got a total of almost a foot and a half of snow. And since a big chunk of it fell on Saturday night, it was quite hard to get anywhere on Sunday morning. And since it was hard to get anywhere, church was cancelled. And since church was cancelled, we stayed home and did nothing all day! It was wonderful! We never even started up the car! Which, for us, is VERY unusual. We slept in late, watched a movie, had a late lunch, played card games, slept some more, watched the Oscars… and by about 10 pm, I was getting totally stir crazy! But it was really great just to be home all day together. Saturday we had spent most of the day helping my brother and SIL move, so that was a busy day for us, and we were up late, plus Troy was tired from shoveling and not to mention he worked REALLY hard moving. Seriously, he is an animal when it comes to moving! I think he missed his calling in life – he should have been a professional mover! He just works SO hard whenever he helps anyone move… it’s impressive, really. Although I think I’m glad he didn’t become a mover - knowing his luck, he would have had a hernia or 2 by now. :P So that was our weekend.
My Shaklee vitamins came! So I’m going to start taking those religiously, and we’ll see if I notice a difference or not. I’m actually not supposed to expect any noticeable changes before I’ve been taking them for 3 months, but she said sometimes people see them sooner. It just depends. But at least it will be something. And after reading more about the company and the products they sell, I feel more confident that it’s not just some company trying to make a buck by slapping “natural” on their label. They’ve been around for over 50 years, and you can read all about what they make their stuff out of – it’s all organic materials so your body can recognize it and break it down the way it’s supposed to be broken down. So I really hope it helps. And I guess even if it doesn’t help my hormones to get regulated, which it is supposed to do, at least I’ll be healthier overall for it, right? :)
Nothing else much new going on. We got our tax return on Friday, so Friday night we went out and had some fun with that. ;) We’re going to save most of it, but what fun is a tax return if you can’t spend a little bit right? So Troy got me some new jewelry (we found a jewelry store that was going out of business and everything was like 75% off!), and some more of my Angels Heavenly perfume that I needed, and he got some new PS2 games. Oh, and we got new pillows! We got memory foam ones, and oh my, they are amazing! I just love going to bed now. :) And now the rest of the tax return is going into a CD to earn us some interest. We will need all the help we can get with big expenses coming up!

Hubby's Happy Homecoming

Troy’s home!!! I picked him up at the airport at 11:45 last night, and it’s been WONDERFUL having him home again! ;) So consequently, I REALLY don’t want to be at work today. I’ve been getting next to nothing done… I know, I know, slap me on the wrist. It doesn’t help any that I have like NOTHING pressing coming up, so I really just don’t feel like doing the things that I should, but really don’t NEED to do. Oh well. Troy’s home!
Although, I have to admit that having him gone all week motivated me to get some things done that I had been putting off/wouldn’t necessarily have done when he was home. This week, I…
1 – Got my hair cut! It’s not all that different, I just had her shorten up my layers, and give me some chunkier bangs, which I really like. My boss said it makes me look younger, so I guess that’s a good thing! I can’t wait to get highlights this summer, though. Ahhh, summer.
2 – Called and got and appt with the RE (as I stated in my last post), and received the confirmation/info in the mail yesterday. May 9th can’t get here soon enough!
3 – Ordered some vitamins/supplements from Shaklee. I’m hoping that it will have some positive results while we’re waiting to get in to the RE.
4 – Spent some time with my SIL last night, just her and I, which we don’t usually do, and it ended up being really nice.
5 – Cleaned/aired out the apartment. It got up into the 40’s this week here(isn’t it sad that 40’s seems warm? :), so I took advantage of it, and although it was still cold, I opened up the windows and got some fans going to try and circulate some of the yucky smoke smell out. It helped… for a few hours, at least. :P
So I would say that, although I missed my honey terribly, it was a very good week, and we were both really glad that he went. He said that not only was the conference great, but it was just a very stretching experience for him. Since we’ve always had each other, neither one of us really made an effort to reach out and try to get to know people at college – but he was forced to do that this week, and he really enjoyed getting to know some of the other guys that he goes to school with, but didn’t ever really talk to.
Another result of his trip is that we may be having a change of plans for our near future. See, Troy wasn’t really planning on taking graduate classes after he gets his Bachelor’s degree in May, but being at a seminary where there were excellent professors and just some really sweet Christian people made him rethink his decision. So although he WILL be graduating in May, it looks like we’ll be revisiting the whole education scene come next fall. Which is okay. Good, even. But it will probably have an effect on what we were thinking of as far as kids, house, etc… all the other things that we had “planned” for when he was done with school. You know, at this point, I’m just finding that it’s better just to sit back and LET God have control, because although I said that I WAS doing that already, really, in the back of my mind, I had been planning out exactly how I thought things should go. And we all know what God does when we do that. Ha ha. :) I must just be having a really hard time learning the whole I-don’t-have-control-of-my-life,-He-does thing. So we’re going to be praying about where we should be come August/September. Troy might stay at the college he’s at now, since they do offer graduate classes also, but we could also be looking at a move to either Pennsylvania or Virginia for the seminaries out there. Wow, would THAT be a big change!
But you know, I’m ready for it. I really, honestly feel that WHEREVER God wants us to go next, that is exactly where I want to be. Whether that’s here or 1,000 miles away.

Day #2 of my solitary confinement

...Well, maybe not exactly “confinement”… and, well, maybe not even so “solitary” but dang, I miss my husband! We talked briefly yesterday afternoon when his plane landed, and then for a good 40-45 minutes last night, so that was good, but talking to him on the phone just reminded me how much he wasn’t there! I honestly don’t know how some couples do it week after week, for days/weeks at a time. I give them a lot of credit, because, frankly, not having him around just sucks! One thing I know for sure – I was not cut out to be single! But he’s doing great – he’s really enjoying everything so far, and doing some bonding with some of the other guys that he’s there with, so I GUESS it’s not THAT bad. :)
I made our first appointment with the RE! It’s not until May 9th, but really, that’s only 11 weeks away, so I’m sure it’s going to go fast. I’m really looking forward to it, actually, just to move forward again and be able to find out what our options are. The only thing I’m NOT looking forward to is the money. :P We have to pay $248 just for the first appointment to meet with the Dr. and talk about our history and everything… the receptionist lady that I set the appointment up with said that we need to bring the $$ with us, and if our insurance will cover some of it, they will figure it out that day. So I had a little mini-freak out session over how we’re going to be paying for all of this since I haven’t been thinking about the money like AT ALL. We have been saving, but we were planning on using it for stuff like, oh you know… a house. A car. A cruise. Weddings coming up this summer. But I think that this is going to take priority over any of those things. Not that we wouldn’t want it to, but I guess I just wasn’t THINKING about it. You know? So, here we go again! Overall, though, I AM feeling hopeful and excited about this since we’re going to see someone other than the OB that seemed like he just wanted to get me out of his office. So it should be good.
My furbaby Isi is doing a lot better already! She has been jumping up on the couch and bed and, well, basically everything just fine, although she still holds her paws up sometimes, so you can tell she’s still sore. But she’s pretty much back to herself, which is great. You can tell she’s a little confused that her claws are gone now, though, because every once in awhile she attempts to jump up on the couch and falls right back down because she can’t grab on like she used to. It’s really sad, actually, but I’m sure she’ll adjust fine. It’ll just take a little bit. :)
Well, payroll awaits so I should get back to work. I hope all you lovely ladies are enjoying your week! Be sure to give your hubbies a kiss when you get home! 2 more days till I can! Woo hoo!

News on my sister's adoption, and some other stuff thrown in...

They are through the review room! Which, roughly translated, means that the Chinese gov’t has approved all of their paperwork, and now they are just waiting for the referral for their little girl! Unfortunately, they still may have at least 6 months to wait. The whole process has gotten SO long and drawn out… when my sister and BIL started the process, the wait time from start to finish was about 8 months. It is currently at 18 months, and still could get longer. They have been waiting about 11 months at this point, so we are hoping and praying with them that maybe by next Christmas they will have their little Mae home. So, that’s a little update on them. I realized that I haven’t said much about their adoption on here, but we are just all so excited for them to get her home. They’ve been waiting for a baby for going on 10 years, and I know they’ll make wonderful parents. :)
Speaking of waiting for a baby… boy oh boy. So one of the girls at work just had her baby, and brought him in today. I did the good little HR thing and went and saw him, and ended up having him basically handed to me, so I held him for a little while, and then passed him off and got out of there relatively quickly, and tried to pretty much dismiss it from my mind, so as not to come unglued at work, right? Well, about half an hour later, one of the girls who had seen me holding him stopped me. Now before I switched positions, I worked with this girl every day, so we were relatively close - like in a work-relationship sort of way. So I go over by her, because I thought she maybe had a question about something HR related. Oh no. I was totally blindsided when she said, “So does that make you want a baby?” It was weird then, because it was like just out of impulse I just turned right around and as I walked away I just said “You just don’t even want to know!” She just sort of laughed, but as I walked away I just knew that if I talked about it right then with her I would have been a big blubbering mess. I don’t know, maybe eventually I’ll start telling work ladies about it, just to avoid those awkward questions. (Awkward for me, anyway – obviously not for them, or they wouldn’t ask) It’s just that I know how they talk, and if I told one, soon they’d all know, and I’d get those pitiful “oh you poor thing” looks, and attempts at advice, and words of “comfort” that it will just happen when the time is right, blah blah blah. I don’t know. I’m sure eventually we will start telling more people, especially if/when we start doing treatments. I finally got back in touch with the Dr’s office, and got the referral for the RE, so on Monday I have to call and set up an appt. They actually gave me 3 options, so I think I’m going to do a little research and find out which one is the best, if any one is better than another. We’ll see. I’m excited at the thought of moving forward again, though. Only 11 weeks till Troy graduates, which translates into 11 weeks until we can start doing this stuff that we’ve been waiting for. Sigh. I’m ready.
So my kitty made it home! Poor thing, she’s in so much pain. I just held her my whole lunch break long! And I’m planning to go home and spend lots of time with her tonight, too. My poor baby. :( At least they gave us pain meds for her for the next couple of days. That should help. And next week Troy’s going to be gone, so she’ll have plenty of attention from me all week!
So yeah, Troy’s going to a National Leadership Conference through school next week in PA, and it will be the longest that we’ve been apart since we’ve been married! :*( I have to drop him off at 4:30 in the morning so he can catch the flight out there, and he won’t be coming home until 11:30 PM on Thursday… so I’m not going to know what to do with myself. Seriously, I don’t think we’ve been apart for more than 2 days since high school. But I’m excited for him to be able to do this. It’s something he’s wanted to go to since he was a Freshman in college, so it’s going to be great for him. He’s going to be checking out the seminary that it’s being held at while he’s there, too, just as a possible option for when he graduates. He’s not really planning on going to seminary at this point, but we’re open to it if that’s where we feel that God is leading us. So it should be a really good trip for him.
And tomorrow night, kind of as a send-off, we’re going out to our favorite restaurant. It’s the one that we had our first date at, as well as where we got engaged. We haven’t been back for about a year, so it should be special. I think I’m going to talk him into getting nice and dressed up for it! Should be fun! Besides, he owes it to me for leaving for a week, right? ;o)
Oh, and he got me the most amazing Valentines' Day flowers... Hydrangeas! My favorite! It's actually a plant, so come spring I have to find someplace to plant it... I teased him that now the only thing I need is a house to plant it in front of. :) But it's soooo pretty - I'll have to post pictures!

Making a woman out of her

Well, my little baby Isi is no longer my baby. :( I guess it could have been safe to say that a couple of weeks ago when she was driving us nuts meowing, cooing (or whatever it is that they do), pawing at the windows, and obviously trying DESPERATELY to get some male kitty attention… but as of today, she officially has all of her girly parts gone, and is now a menopausal woman. And not a moment too soon! She was getting so bad that I was tempted just to let her out to get knocked up! It would have been fun having kittens in the house, right? But I resisted the urge, and this morning I took my baby in to become a woman. Last night she was being about as cute as a cat in heat can be, though, all rolling on the floor, putting her paws over her little face… I told Troy that she’s so dang cute if I were a boy cat I’d bang her! Ha ha ha. Okay, that may be a little weird, but seriously! So I called the vet this afternoon and they said she came through the surgery fine, and she’s doing well. We have to leave her there overnight, though, :( so we’ll be picking her up tomorrow after Troy gets off of school. I know I’m going to miss her terribly tonight…. I’m so pathetically attached to that little girl. Or rather, that little woman! ;)

Windy City Weekend and a little of this and that

Well last weekend was the wedding that I referred to a couple of posts ago… it was in Indiana, but it was so close to Chicago that after the wedding we went downtown and it ended up being a lot of fun. I just love Chicago, so of course I was going to enjoy it. :) We went up in the John Hancock building to the Observatory Deck, and it was just awesome. I had been in the Sears tower a couple of years ago, but had never been to the John Hancock, or done it at night, and it was really neat. So we got some fun pics up there, and then everyone went to the Cheesecake Factory, which is at the bottom of the John Hancock building. Very cool! So it ended up being a fun weekend. I would have loved to stay another night in Chicago, but we had to make it back to teach Sunday School on Sunday morning. So we’ll probably be going back to Chicago next month sometime and spending a night/day there. In fact I just talked to my friend Susie last night, the one who moved to AZ to teach, and she’s coming up over her spring break to visit, so we were thinking of going to Chicago then. And I’ll get to meet her boyfriend! Excited about that, especially since this is the guy she’s most likely going to marry.
Troy and I had some great talks on the way down and back, too, which is a big part of the reason that I love traveling so much! No major distractions like there are at home, just us and the road, and we end up talking about some things that we don’t necessarily talk about in our day-to-day conversation. So it was great. In fact, Jess, I brought up your post about the question of timing and God’s will and everything, and it sparked some great conversation and made us think through it together. For us, it reassured us that even though we still question why we are going through this, at least now we know that we will be able to relate with other people who are hurting, from infertility or otherwise, because we know how it feels to hurt. He is going to make such a wonderful Pastor. See, so you had no idea how far the effects of that post would go!
I put in a call to the Dr’s office to get the referral that I need for the infertility specialist. I figure if we want to go see them as soon as Troy is done with school, I should get moving on it now. Not sure how long the waiting list is. So I’m waiting on them to call me back now. I’m also thinking about contacting a lady who sells Shaklee - my SIL recommended this lady to me who sells it. It’s another natural, herbal thing, which I’m not 100% sold on, but I don’t think it could hurt to give it a try. She said it has helped several women that she knows of to get their cycles regulated/get pregnant. So we’ll see about that. I just don’t want to have to deal with my cycles as they are now until I get in to see the specialist. My last period was 2 weeks long. And I don’t want to go back on the pill, so I’m hoping maybe this will help a little bit – at least keep my periods a little more bearable. We’ll see.
Oooh, and we got our taxes done last night, and we are going to have a great tax return this year! Woo hoo!!! So we’re already figuring how much of that we’re going to save for the cruise, and the rest we’re going to probably save for a new car, which, by May or so, we will need quite desperately. Our car is still running great, but we can tell it’s starting to show its age and mileage. (155,000 miles! Seriously!) We KNOW God is just holding it together. :)
And tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. And you know what that means? I’ve officially been blogging on the Nest for one year! Wow, time flies. But anyway – I haven’t gotten Troy anything yet, but I think I’m going to look for some new cologne for him tonight. He ran out of his CK Eternity a little while back and I’ve missed smelling him! :) Anyone have any suggestions for a great cologne that’s not too outrageously expensive? I was just going to go with Eternity again, but I think I want something different this time. We’ll see what I find. And of course a mushy card. I love being all sentimental in cards! ;o) I hope everyone has a wonderful day with your sweeties!

A mini Yay for Friday! post

Well here we are at Friday again. Woo hoo! We don’t really have any plans this weekend. Which is totally fine by me because Troy has a lot of homework that he needs to get done. I just want to stay in and stay warm! We’re supposed to have the coldest weather we’ve had yet this year – and maybe this decade – this weekend. As I sit here now, it’s a whopping 2 degrees out, and supposed to get down to something like 10 below, plus wind-chill. Oh my goodness, that’s cold! So I think we’ll stay in and I’ll make some soup (and maybe cookies!) this weekend. And besides church, and maybe running to Wal-Mart, that’s about the extent of our plans. We might get together with a few friends for the super bowl, but we’ll see how much homework Troy still has at that point. We might just have our own little party with the 2 of us. :)
About Troy’s chest pains, we really don’t know anything at all beyond what I said in my last post. The Dr. told him it might possibly be some kind of viral infection that will just go away, or maybe something to do with his esophagus deteriorating because of the heartburn that he gets… but otherwise they don’t really know. He gets them occasionally and they last for a few seconds or minutes and then go away. Weird. So he’s having an EKG done next week just to make sure everything looks okey-dokey with his heart. He has a family history of heart problems, and even though he’s only 24, you can never be too careful right? So that’s where we’re at with that.
I’ve been getting the worst itch to go to a water park (like the Dells!) or something. I don’t care if it’s indoor – I just want to be warm and go swimming! I think I’m already getting cabin fever and it’s only the beginning of February. Winter usually lasts until at least the middle of March here… so I’m in for a long wait at this rate. And I don’t think we’ll even be able to do a weekend thing anytime soon because of Troy’s homework load this semester. Oh well, the end is in sight!
So, I’m off to start my uneventful weekend!! TTFN!