121/365

HIT ME BABY ONE MORE TIME

I called today to make an appointment with a reproductive endocrinologist... the poor girl on the phone was practically in tears when I told her my story.  A few hours later she called me back and said she talked to the doctor and they actually only do embryo preservation so unless I can find someone willing to contribute they aren't going to be able to help much. It was up to me if I wanted to still keep the appointment or she gave me some names of some other DRs that may be able to give me some other options... so now I have two appointments with two different doctors. This is all a little too much on top of everything else - I just don't want to regret not trying all that I can - though I'm not sure I can do this all myself.

They needed some info, some dates and stuff and things are all starting to get foggy. Luckily, I found the box that had all my fertility info in it and came across all the journals and notes I made through the years. I started these mini novellas - documenting all that was baby... with titles like Swimming in Quicksand and others just as dramatic.  ;-) Somehow I've always been able to keep my head above the quicksand.... even if it was just peeking out. After all the other losses - my mother, and RoseBud after the hike and all the miscarriages and my husband leaving me... and now, cancer... I honestly have to ask myself - is this one last attempt at a baby going to be the thing that puts me under?

120/365

LET YOUR CONSCIENCE BE YOUR GUIDE
The Disney Store had a Vinylmation Jiminy Cricket to celebrate World Wish Day for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Artist: Quincy Sutton.

Jiminy always was a fine looking gentleman... Well, I guess, gentle cricket. ;-)

119/365

SHE CAPTURES LIFE'S MOMENTS
She just can't always download them when she wants to!

We celebrated Janel's 17th birthday tonight at Rivertowne... I ordered her a "live your dreams ~ love your life" Beth Quinn necklace and she loved it.  I would post a pic but I can't download my camera... so here's a phone pic of my pig wearing mine.  Yes, I had to get one for myself! Mine says "she captures life's moments" and has a little camera charm.

Thanks, Beth for putting up with all my emails and getting this just right for her with the perfect custom dangle!  Visit her site here to see all her lovely creations!

118/365

EVERY NIGHT IS PASTA NIGHT

It's been brought to my attention, more times than once,  that every night is pasta night - somewhere...

There was a marathon long Skype session tonight with The Bro... it started getting bad when the dogs started Skyping and then random things were displayed in front of the screen like some silly show-and-tell.  I started it with the stuffed meerkat and then the stuffed pug came into the picture.

and lottery tickets...

and rulers...

and all kinds of random stuff...

Lessons learned tonight on taking care of yourself and taking care of others... plus Rick learned it's probably not a good idea to forget his phone over here.

Chrissy and I spent hours yesterday trying to come up with a plan - measuring every nook and cranny in this house... Barbie and Cara shot down all our ideas and solved my computer problems in record time. Bravo, girls. Though, using the bar and the wine racks to hold office supplies and chafing dish pans to hold computer paper is not my first choice! ;-)

117/365

SUPER MOM

Busy bee all day today... too tired to talk about it.

116/365

NOM..NOM...NOM
I can't stop thinking of Bubba's now. This was one of my first "pins." It should have been on my things I love board instead of the food board.  I love CCPeppers but Bubba's - yum-o! I can still see myself walking over there near the bus station and all those times Leslie and I would get our money out and wait for the Bubba Man to deliver our luscious cheesesteaks to Cedarbrook! ;-)

115/365

TOT - TEN ON TUESDAY 

1.  Dorit's new book is out... Girls Don't Ride Motorbikes. My feet and I really would like to see her soon.

2. I had a great lunch today with my SIL Tina at Flowers in the Attic... we questioned whether our Arnold Palmers had alcohol in them or not, though!

3. Glo was pretty bad today and it got much worse as the night went on... it's easier said than done to say I need to take care of myself right now but it's really not possible. I'm not looking forward to the next few months for many reasons.

4. Remember that small house living thing I talked about the other day?  Yeah...decision made - not for me.  I broke my damn laptop charger because I got stuck in between the desk and the bed and pulled the cord out... I literally have 15 inches between the bed and the desk. It's like living in a dorm room and it's starting to piss me off more and more every day.

5. I would like to do a cake decorating class some time... I want this for my birthday this year... in addition to an Almond Torte. ;-) Directions here.

6. I know I don't watch a lot of tv but how the heck did I miss that Dick Clark died???  I just found out last night.

7.  I did see the 20/20 special on Dancing With the Stars that was pretty good... they said that they train 6 hours a day 5 days a week... and you burn 250 calories and hour... so 30 hours a week is 7500 calories... they said that was the equivalent of 2 marathons a week. I really was considering going to dance classes but I guess that will have to wait for a little while.

8.  Love "Condescending Wonka." More here.

9. Have you seen this? Sherwin Williams - Chip It... turns any pic into a paint chip! Click on the link to play. Love this.

10. Even though it's been on a few times I still haven't seen the entire surgery episode of Guiliana and Bill, though from what I did see I'm starting to rethink my decision... I just put on the baby special and watched that and when I heard the girl say "If you want to be a parent you will find a way"  I looked at the clock and it was 12:16.  Should I take that as a sign?

114/365

SPEAK SOFTLY AND CARRY A BIG STICK

I have 226 drafts on this blog... things I wanted to say and something else came up...  things I had every intention of saying and then chickened out at the last minute... photos I like... quotes I wanted to share...things I wanted to remember but just weren't ready to be said... things that should be deleted -immediately! I had planned to start going through them tonight but I'm super exhausted and am going to have to put that off for the time being. I've been thinking about my upcoming surgery and I've watched enough Ghost Whisperer shows to know that if I don't say what I want to say, and die on the operating room table, I'm going to be one of those people that's going to resist going into the light.

113/365

THIS SMALL HOUSE

Since today is Earth Day let's talk about a greener environmental footprint... starting with your house.

Small house living is a big thing these days... part of me feels like I'm doing it myself here in this room. I've seen many different styles and types - this one in the picture is adorable.  I actually thought to myself this would make a great "dog" house for Lily so I don't think I'm terribly committed to the whole tiny house living idea just yet. That plus the fact that most of these houses are smaller than my storage unit so I can't see myself getting any bins in something like this.

You would have less to clean in a small house... would probably be outdoors more due to lack of space... lower energy bills obviously, eat fresher foods because your refrigerator would be dorm size, you could even tow your house somewhere else when you are ready to move.

It is kind of fascinating... figure out exactly what you need and live accordingly. I read that we spend about 80% of our time wearing 20% of the clothes we own. And you could get a laptop with a tv tuner and not have to worry about multiple tvs, a DVD, VCR, Blue Ray, etc... Want what you have.. no excess and be happy.

Tumbleweed Houses has some of the best little houses I've seen.  Check them out here.
------
I forgot to talk about this yesterday - I had a dream Friday night... it was in a house that I've dreamed about before - don't know who it belongs to or if it's mine but I was getting into bed... which was kind of like these little houses - up against a wall - one way in - one way out.. like a camper.  I just settled down and someone else gets into bed with me.. the space was so small I couldn't tell who it was... all I saw was a body over me - then she turned and I saw her face - it was Denise. It happened right when I fell asleep and I freaked myself out for the rest of the night.  She didn't say a word, though I literally woke up instantly so I guess I didn't give her a chance. Weird.

112/365

STRIP TEASE
We went to see Joe and Natalie today and ended up in The Strip... he wanted to go to "the macaroni company." It was a miserable day so we made it a quick trip..

2 minutes out of the car we had to get a snack so we got some donuts...

I liked the salted carmel with the pretzels on it. The maple bacon was ok too... haven't tried any others yet.

Next was Penn Mac to buy way too much stuff.  I considered this $85 jar of Nutella but figured Ted wouldn't be too happy lugging it back to the car.


We stopped at DeLuca's for lunch...

I got the mixed grill with an entire little piglet on top.  I felt bad and pondered if I should become a vegetarian for a minute... then I figured I couldn't go to Burgatory as much as I do so I carried on with my meal.

They must have run out of glasses because they brought our iced tea in milkshake cups!

I want my iced tea in milkshake cups from now on!We ran into some of our regular stops and decided to call it a day. The little pup was excited as always to go through all the bags and smell all the good stuff...

...and I'm kind of excited to be home!  7:30 isn't too early to go to bed - is it?

111/365

KEEP CALM AND STFU

I saw these little Fiesta dishes in Kohl's today and I got really angry.  I'm exhausted and don't really have the energy to get into this right now... so I'll show a little restraint and keep my mouth shut for the moment.  Here's a cute pic of The Bud and Spider in lieu of a rant this evening.

110/365

LADYBUG LADYBUG FLY AWAY HOME

I am a big fan of ladybugs... there was a little girl and her mother in Target today... the little girl was excited as anything hugging this little pink ladybug... I overheard her telling her mother that she loved this ladybug so much and she was never going to give it up - even when she got older and had to give away her toys. She said she loved it-she loved it-she loved it. I had to hunt those lady bugs down...

They were on clearance for $7 something. So cute. No... I didn't buy one... but if I did I think I would have been hugging it too.

OK - side note... Lily is doing zerberts on her spider and it's hysterical!

Anyway, I was at storage the other day checking on my things and checking to see how many stink bugs got into everything. I'm hoping the bins are ok.... like my four bins of (terribly packaged) dog costumes and clothes... I didn't go through them yet.

I only got a chance to look at some of the bins to check if the invasion took over. Most were ok... though I got a little sad opening this one. I love you ladybug (and everything else in there.)

Do you know those little buggers, though, took refuge in the clippy part of the handle on those kind of bins? Gross.

Note to self... no more clippy bins. I'm trying to get all the important stuff out of boxes... I just haven't had much energy to do it and I'm out of bins... I have to go get more - like 30 more, or 60 or 100.

What a shame... Most of my life is sitting in a garage in plastic...with no place to fly away home to. ;-(

109/365

THERE'S NO WINKY'S IN WILMERDING

I went to a special Healing Mass at St John's with Barbie and some friends... There is a Fraternity of Priests from Pittsburgh and Greensburg that have a special gift. The main priest that spoke is now in Swissvale but he was originally from Wilmerding... hence my post title... he was talking about the Winky's commercial that proclaimed those words. ;-)

Anyway, this group of priests do monthly healing masses. Before the mass they ask the Lord for words of knowledge... which led to us hearing about "Rose who will be healed from worry" and "knees will be healed" and "someone that works in the meat department will not have financial troubles." There were marriage issues and conception issues and some brain and skin cancer issues. It was all over the place. There were pages of things read - general and specific... after mass you could speak to any of the priests - I think there were nine of them... everyone formed lines. We only saw one person fall to the ground... they just let her stay there and everyone kind of walked around her. I was kind of drawn to a different priest while waiting in another line so I jumped ship... I told him what was going on and Barbie (watching in the other line) said he kind of looked a little startled - that's probably when he said I had "quite the cross to bear." ;-) As he laid his hands on me and blessed me with oil he said he was drawn to two words when they were all gathered together receiving their messages... peace and trust - and told me to believe the same...

It was a nice night and as I left - I made the sign of the cross and (judge me if you want) put holy water on my boobs. I need all the help I can get.

108/365

TOT - TEN ON TUESDAY (random thoughts)

1. I love Hipster Dog... I pinned some of my favorites here. Check them out - so funny!

2. I absolutely love this...

3. An A-ha moment!

4. Pug dressed up from Where The Wild Things Are.... Go to this link and scroll down to the end and click on the other Halloween Costumes to see Shelby in some seriously cute costumes...OMG that Teen Wolf one - Lily what do you think?

5. If your dog could text... ;-)

6. Hidden (blueberry) Mickey at Giant Eagle...

7. I met Carey and Sharon the other day and we went to Construction Junction and Creative Reuse... of course I gravitated to the rusty stuff... hello gorgeous.

8. This fire pit is spectacular and a little scary and reminds me of Epcot.

9. Believe it or not - Chrissy and I just exchanged Christmas presents yesterday... yes, I said Christmas! It's not like we haven't seen each other - we just never got around to it until now. ;-) You got to love when part of your gift comes with a disclaimer... I know these are going to go right to storage but you liked them (in November) so I had to get them...Fiesta mugs are the best mugs!

10. I haven't been able to download all the Easter pics yet. Here's one of Lily looking a little miserable after opening her not so exciting Easter Basket. I know you were sick Lily but you could have turned that pug frown upside down for the picture.

I got Deluca a Captain Calamari stuffed toy when he was born and Lily hasn't forgiven me for not getting HER one... at one point she must have taken it out of the diaper bag because we found it under the dining room table - her secret hiding place for all things special... Here she is "apologizing" to him for taking his toy. ;-)

107/365

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GLO!

Aunt Gloria turned 84 today... Chrissy and I took her to lunch and then went back to her house for cupcakes...

I couldn't believe that it's been 4 years since RoseBud died. I actually had to go check the date and then I realized it was on Glo's 80th birthday. Oh, RoseBud... 4 years - already.

Love the Bud.

106/365

PUG IN A TUB

Lily got a (much needed) bath tonight.

I read somewhere to put a towel down so she doesn't slip... I tried that and it worked for the most part...

I wish she liked the hair dryer like RoseBud did. She doesn't cooperate very well when it comes time to drying her. I have to do it old school with a towel...

I think I overdid it the past couple days... so my clean pup and I are going to bed.

105/365

GIRLS NIGHT IN

I had to play catch up tonight from running around all week... It was Boys Night Out so The Lil Bud and I had the house to ourselves for most of the night. I made pasta fagioli and panko crusted chicken and did ONE load of laundry... This quote always makes me laugh... I hate laundry!

I moved my bed because I can't stand it next to the wall - it's too difficult to make it. Now I'm afraid the Bud is going to fall off the other side and I have about 2 inches of space between the bed and my desk chair. It's kind of ridiculous but I don't know what else to do.

I started a bunch of things I just couldn't finish - papers, clothes, stuff... I hate to pack up all the things I love but I am to capacity in every room in the house... my computer is still in the box because there is no place for it... I can't find anything when I need it because it's in some box or some bin somewhere! I'm trying to get rid of as much as I can and reorganize what I have and need here... I need to get to storage so I can rearrange there so I can bring more out - it's been hard not being able to lift or move anything and I think I may have over done it with the whole bed moving thing now. I brought a couple boxes home (of papers) the other day and as I was sorting I was greeted by these guys.

9 of them... 2 were dead. They fell out of envelopes and were in between papers. I wanted to throw up. Nothing in boxes is safe obviously... IT'S DISGUSTING.

Anyway, sick puppy update: She still doesn't seem to be feeling that great... she had three pills so far so hopefully they will kick in soon. She still wanted to play earlier - we found the Zapata's soccer ball that went missing on Easter. She wasn't too good at kicking but she liked to run after it.

104/365

YOU DOWN WITH OPP?

Hmmm... ;-)

How many times have I done this??? Too many. I had to drop Lily's pee off to Dr. Mann. She has another urinary tract infection! I have to see how this goes and then she needs xrays to figure more out. I'm just hoping it's not some major kidney issue. Poor thing hasn't been herself for awhile.

I had some time to kill so I ended up at Marhsalls. I miss my Marshalls!!!!

I really, really wanted this bird house...

I didn't get it though.

I did get these colored pencils...

...which Lily thought were for her - at least she thought the box was for her.