My new favorite show: The bird is supposed to be blue

Some of you who follow me on Twitter or know me in real life may know that I have a secret (or not so secret) love for Toddlers and Tiaras. It's my favorite train wreck aside from Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant. So you can imagine the absolute euphoria I felt (and the dread Dan experienced) when I saw this beauty was airing on TLC last night:


Yeah, boring logo. Awesome show. Perfect show for me to recap: found. The series premier featured the ridiculously over-the-top princess party of Gracie, who was turning 6. Initial budget for the party: $15,000. Kind of. Or $10,000. Or, if Dad had his way, $60. So it starts off with little Princess Gracie and her delusional mom meeting with the planner to discuss this budget. Basically, right off, we can tell Mom is going to be hiding costs from Dad. Which makes me wonder - how does this guy, who is the breadwinner since Mom is a stay-at-home air-breather, not have any idea what's going on with his finances? How do you hide spending $15,000 from your husband? And their house, while big, is not a mansion (the kitchen is sad, folks), so it's not like it's $15,000 out of $1.8 Billion.

Speaking of which, I also watched The Unpoppables on TLC, about balloon figure designers. This woman was throwing a party for her husband, who she says is stressed about providing for their newborn son while she stays home. So she goes and throws him a huge surprise party in this wicked fancy hotel ballroom, complete with these monstrous crazy balloon things. And those were only the decorations. Now, call me naive, but I'd imagine that paying a staff of 3 people for 4 days to blow up, tie, twist, and build a sail boat and tiki bar out of 3,000 balloons can't be cheap. So definitely, when your husband is stressed about being the manly sole provider, the obvious choice is to spend his hard earned money on a party decorated with a boat load (literally) of balloons. And again, how did this guy not notice that his money was being spent like that? You'd better believe that if I was our sole breadwinner, I'd be watching our accounts like a freaking sniper. There'd be no surprises. Ever. Moral of the story: stay-at-home moms need something to do other than plan parties, because things get carried away.

Anyway, Gracie. Gracie's a piece of work. She's quite the demanding little thing. Spoiled rotten. Dances on chairs during dinner, slurps down Starbucks like it's going out of style, the whole bit. Her mom explains that she was a surprise - she found out she was pregnant with Gracie at 40, when her older kids were 9 and 11. If Gracie's turning 6, that means the older siblings are turning 16 and 18. Older Sister makes sure to note that therehas been no mention of huge parties for their milestone birthdays. More than once, Mom refers to the older kids as "already gone." What she means by this is that they no longer believe in fairytales and might as well be shipped off to an old folks home because they're no longer entertaining to their mother. But, Mom has a solution for that. Older Sister gets to make her cheer squad make up a Gracie cheer (G-R-A-C-I-E... creative). She looks mortified. Older Brother and his friend, who was unfortunate enough to have been sitting on the couch, get to dress up as royal page boys or something or other and go door to door yelling "hear ye, hear ye" to deliver Princess Gracie's $3,000 scroll invitations. They both look thrilled, let me tell you.

The party is obviously getting out of control when Mom and her equally delusional mother take Gracie shopping for her cake. Mom says she thought that Gracie would choose a kiddie cake. Oh, no. Not Gracie. Child picks out a $2,000 wedding cake and wants a BLUE bird on it. At the dress shop, she chooses a puffy pink and white gown that cost $750. My wedding dress? Cost half that.
Next, Mom goes to pick out Gracie's horse and carriage. Yes, Gracie will be arriving in style in a Cinderella-style pumpkin carriage. Cue Mom stating once again that her older kids are fuddy duddies who don't believe in fairytales and this is so special for Gracie and her last chance to do this. You'd think believing in fairytales was as necessary to sustaining life as oxygen, according to this woman. Next up is a visit to the venue to sort out details, where we discover that the cost of the party is going to be at least $20,000. Ruh roh. Mom goes home and tells Dad about all the amazing costumes and special effects. Dad clues in and wisely states there's no way you can plan a party like what he's hearing about for $10,000 and Mom skates like Tanya Harding around his questions, saying "it'll all be so magical and worth it."

Finally, it's party day. Gracie's hair and makeup stylists cancel last minute, which is probably what everyone else involved in this monstrosity should have done. Little Princess refuses to let anyone dress her or do her hair. Mom is running around like a crazy woman and throwing the coordinator under the bus because the buffet table isn't where it should be. Dad is walking around turning pale taking it all in: costumes for every guest (cha-ching), at least 10 decorators (cha-ching), hired dancers (cha-ching). At this point, I'm giddy with anticipation of the big blow out, and Dan is looking nauseated. Gracie pulls up in her horse and carriage with 6 of her rug rat friends. She doesn't look any more excited than if she were at Chuck E. Cheese. Mom, however, is squeeeing all over the place.


Once in the party, there's not much going on. Six year-olds don't seem to do much at parties. Finally, the hired Good Witch of the East/Fairy Godmother (cha-ching) announces it's time for the cake. And out comes pretty much the biggest cake I've ever seen. It's beautiful and very elegant considering a kindergartner chose it, but Gracie instantly spots something displeasing. The bird is blue! She freaks! "The bird is supposed to be bluuuuueeee!" I wait for her to go all Hulk Smash and instead she just bursts into tears and ruins her makeup, along with her dad's costume (cha-ching).


Thankfully, she gets over it, and it's on to present time! The Good Witch tells Crazy - er Gracie -to open her gift, and a pink Power Wheels Cadillac Escalade is revealed. Gracie's response: "but I don't know how to driiiiive." Womp, womp, womp. "Thank you" would have sufficed, kiddo. Stick that in your back pocket for next time.

Final party cost: $32,000. Eeek. The credits say Mom and Dad are still happily married, but Mom seemed pretty out of touch with anything even close to reality, so I doubt it. I'll be waiting for the spin off: When Kid Birthdays Cause Divorces. Hopefully, someone is able to come up with a better title, but you get the gist.

Until next week....

Under contract

We are under contract! Hooray! We had an offer accepted verbally yesterday, and got the contract signed officially by the seller this morning. I'm equal parts ecstatic and freaked. I know there are a few more steps to get through, but this is the first hurdle, and we did it! We have a contract.

The house is a 3 bed, 2 full bath ranch style in the area we originally wanted. New carpet and tile, fireplace, nice back yard for entertaining, tons of cabinet and counter space in the kitchen, and room for 2 RV gates. Pretty much, everything on our list. And it's completely move in ready, which allowed us to really use our cash budget well. So keep your fingers crossed for us as we go into inspection and appraisal week. Our close date is tentatively scheduled for March 9th, giving us almost 3 weeks before our lease is up to get settled in.

Phew.

The week in Morristown was a killer. Early mornings, 10 and 11 hour days, sometimes with dinner after. A lot of info that didn't pertain to me, a lot of training type crap that anyone who does the stuff it did pertain to should know, and a lot of annoyance from the co-irkers. As expected, it was Mrs. ESPN that saved me from going postal (er, tax analyst) on some people. The lead-up to flight home was about the punchiest I've ever seen her, which was quite amusing for me. This weekend is nowhere near long enough to make up for the incredibly boring week we endured. Buuuuut, the VP did give us all a video camera as a thank you for our time, so I'm willing to forgive and forget a little. My soul can officially be bought with flashy electronics.

We're now off to Tucson to pick up our pups and help my dad with a project. I'll hopefully get a chance to do a mock-up of my sister's shower candy buffet table and get some tissue poms made, too. Watch out, Mom, you're about to be put to work.

Friday Randomness

It's been a very busy week. It's month end close at work, and we have the added pressure of making sure things get done before we head to our corporate head quarters in Morristown for a week. More on that in a minute. I haven't had a chance to form a coherent and sensible thought in a while, but I'm going to give it a whirl.

- The potential deal on the house with the divorcees is a no-go. They seriously can't seem to communicate, and we gave them almost a week to come through with either a counter offer or an acceptance, only to find that the wife doesn't even seem to want to sell. Take it off the market then! I swear, these people are bat shit crazy. We're going looking with Raluca again tomorrow morning, and hoping that one of the six that we see is a good one, and then also that the 3rd time is a charm.

- Morristown. Oy. My group at work, along with Mrs. ESPN, is going to Morristown, New Jersey on Sunday. I'm mostly (like 67%) dreading it. Not only is it going to be super cold, but I can see my boss and coworker (the one who talks endlessly about weight loss while eating brownies and clips his nails in his cube) driving me insane. I also just like being at home - a week away living out of a suit case and not doing my own cooking and not sleeping in my own bed is going to wear on me. I used to travel for work, so I know that what makes a business trip enjoyable is who you're with. I'm going to be with a 75% anxiety-inducing crew. I'm just thankful Mrs. ESPN will be with me. She'll keep me sane when everyone else pushes me toward the edge.

- I'm getting very anxious about my sister's shower and hoping it all comes together. I'm really really excited about the candy bar. I got all the candy and the containers for it sorted out about a week ago. Dan and I practiced making tissue paper poms and they came out really well! Dan's actually a very talented pom maker. I just need to figure out how to exploit his talent. I also plan on making some of the candy bar stuff myself - chocolate covered Oreos and pretzels, cupcakes, and mint meringues. I bought a mold and gave the Oreos a try last night and they came out really good! My coworkers certainly appreciate me practicing goodie-making.

- Even though we don't celebrate Valentine's Day, I want this super cute "Kiss the Cookie Decorator" sign and adorable sheet of cookies cookie favor on the Cookie Crumbs blog by A Dozen Eggs Bake Shoppe. I love this blog, and the shoppe is something like what I'd love to have myself someday. I might just have to send Dan this link as a not-so-subtle hint.

- This may seem weird, but I was super excited the other morning about Clover. As you may very well know, she's not a cuddly puppy. She likes us mostly because we give her food, but she isn't attached to us like Paisley is. I take that back. If Paisley's not around, she'll curl up on our lap, but for the most part, she's far too busy with chasing shadows and ripping socks and trying to sneak stuff out of the pantry to give us much attention. Anyway, yesterday, we were hanging out in bed in the morning, like we always do. I started talking to Clover and telling her how sweet she is and she started wagging her tail, people. She never does that. She wags it when I come home and when she's playing with Paisley, but she's never wagged her tail just with me talking to her. I'm a total dork, but I imagined it must be how a parent feels when their baby gives them a smile for the first time. Okay, that might be taking it far, but still. It made me very happy. Maybe she loves me after all!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!!

Get your sh*t together

House hunting round 2 began at 9am on Saturday. Dan and I met our agent, Raluca, at house #1, a house than Dan wanted to see because of the large lot. It was in a nice quiet cul-de-sac and looked nice from the outside. We knew it qualified for a renovation loan and the estimate in the listing was $2800. Not huge, and workable depending on what the renovations were. Inside: huge mess. We nixed it quickly.

House #2 was a brand new listing, on the market as of Thursday morning. The bedrooms were clustered and there was no space for a dishwasher without removing cabinets, which were sparse to begin with. There were multiple listings, and we had to get a preapproval with the listing lender. It was okay, but not feeling it to go through the hassle.

We got in the car to go to #3. It was literally 300 feet away on the other side of the street. I hadn't been super stoked about the pictures, but we looooooved the inside. It had nice spacious living spaces, and an enclosed Arizona room off the living room. Compared to the first house we put an offer on, which had similar square footage, it felt very homey. The house had new carpet and tile, as well as new paint, throughout the whole house. It had a bonus room off the garage/laundry room that we could use as a pantry or office. It also had a separated master bath - the tub and toilet were separate from the sink - just like we have now. We ranked it highly on our mental list and moved on.

Houses #4 and 5 were nice, but not it. They were near to each other, but just didn't have that instant attraction we had to house #3. Plus, they had HOA fees and were at the top of the budget. If you're going to be at the top of our budget, an HOA fee and a small kitchen and/or odd entry won't get ya far. Nix and ixnay.

So we discussed House #3 as we stood in the living room of House #5 and decided to submit an offer. House #3 was priced well below the area's market average of $60/square foot. Raluca called the listing agent, an investment company, and learned that there were two offers: one below list price, and one "very close." So we decided to go over, and ask for closing costs to be paid, making the bottom line $4K above listing price, yet well within feasible appraisal value. A fair and more than reasonable offer. And then we waited.

Raluca called me as I was on my way to Tucson later the same day. She told me that she'd gotten a contract signed by the investment company (!!!) but then (!), then, she'd gotten a call from the investor's wife saying she was part of the LLC and they were going through a divorce and she didn't agree and her soon-to-be husband's contract was void without her signature. What.the.fuck? In subsequent conversations, Raluca learned that the husband wanted to take our superior offer, and the wife wanted to take an asking-price cash offer. She pretty much wanted to have a quick deal and get out of their business partnership. And neither of them can sell without the consent of the other. Well, shit. So we're stuck in some couple's feud. I told Raluca to keep me posted.

Two hours later, Raluca called again. Evidently, Mr. and Mrs. Happily Ever After weren't able to come to an agreement and decided to pull the house - the house we wanted as OUR house - off the market. Pretty much the opposite of her goal of getting all assets off their books ASAP and moving on. We went from a 50/50 shot to a 0% shot in a snap. We're torn between hoping they resolve their feud and accepting our offer, and wondering if pursuing the deal is stupid, as we could pay for an inspection and appraisal only to have them get in another fight and then we're out $600, if not more. I seriously don't know what to do. We could really see ourselves living there. I guess we'll take it day by day and see what happens. I honestly don't know if we should cross our fingers this will work out, or move on and thank our lucky stars they didn't pull out 1 day before close. I asked Raluca to get a status update tomorrow, as the investors are supposed to meet with their lawyer regarding their LLC. I guess I just hope the lawyer will order them to commit to the highest offer (us) and wash their hands of each other.

Everything has always come so easy to us. This has truly been our first challenge. We're running out of market listings we agree on to see. We've put in notice with the apartment complex. We can go month-to-month, but it would increase our living costs by 50%. We're just hoping we find something in the next few weeks that will allow us to not have to extend our lease. Hopefully, the third time will be the charm, but I'm quickly learning that it's not nearly as easy as hoping.

Back to the drawing board

Well, the house went to auction. Apparently, the bank never even responded to the offers. Our agent confirmed that the house is on the auction website. I hope the bank gets like 50% of the asking price for being greedy and not accepting our 95% offer. Yes, I'm a bit bitter. I'll get over it though. I give it another hour or two until I'm excited about looking again.

So now the search continues. Dan and I will re-evaluate the favorites on our list and we'll probably go looking on Friday after work. None of the pictures of them are as appealing as those of that house, but I'm hoping we'll be pleasantly surprised by them in person. And hey, bonus, most of the houses on our list are $10-25K less than this one was, so "yay!" for lower mortgage payments. Thanks everyone for crossing your fingers for us :)

Another annoying thing well-meaning people say

"Whatever will be, will be"
"If it's meant to be, it will be"
"Que sera sera"

I have a feeling people are going to disagree with me on this one, but I kinda don't care. I'm ready to throat punch the next person that says any of those phrases to me. Yes, I know the people that have said them over the last week mean only the best, and are just trying to reassure me and probably keep me from feeling crushed if this house doesn't work out to be ours. But it doesn't make "if it's meant to be, it will be" any less annoying.

First, it's not going to make me want it any less. We want this house. Obviously. Or we wouldn't have put an offer in on it. We liked it from the start, looking past the imperfections and necessary repairs to see our potential home. We spent the weekend talking about how we'd decorate it. We're not delusional - we know there are a lot of steps between making an offer and moving in. But we love the house, and want it, and it was fun to talk about what we would do with it. The things we dreamt up aren't any different from what we'd probably do to any other house - we just have this one in mind in terms of visual reference. Someone telling me that there may be another plan out there in the universe for us isn't going to change the fact that I want this house.

Maybe people are trying to keep me from being disappointed if this house doesn't work out. I appreciate it, but I'll still be disappointed. It's a great house, and it's going to be a bummer if I pick up the phone and hear my agent say "you didn't get it." Yes, I'll wonder if we should have increased our offer - no matter how confident I am that we did the absolute right thing for us. But I assure you, I'll get over it. We'll find another house. We may like it more than this one, or we may like it less. But we will find another one we will be happy with. My disappointment won't last forever. I'm not going to cry or throw a fit, but I'll be miffed for an evening and then I'll wake up ready to resume the house hunt.

And I'm sure there may be people who read this and are thinking "oh crap, I said that to her." I'm not upset with anyone. I appreciate that you're trying to make me feel reassured and like everything will work out. I know things will work out. Right now, I'm just tired of the implication that this is all out of my hands and in the hands of someone or something else. I'm disliking the lack of control in this situation, and "whatever will be, will be" only heightens my awareness of that fact.

BTW, we're supposed to hear who "wins" the house by the end of the day. It's 4:33pm. They're really pushing my patience. I just want to know so we can move on to either another round of showings or an inspection period. Just.tell.me!

Fingers and toes are crossed... UPDATE

Well, here's the update on the house situation. We put in an offer on house #3! After looking over the list of other available homes to see on Saturday, Dan and I decided we didn't like the specs or photos of anything as much as we liked house #3. Not to mention, it's in a great neighborhood and would be by far the best investment in the long term. So, we got together with our agent (whom I work with, which is super convenient) and submitted our offer. We feel pretty confident that it's a fair offer, and hopefully they'll take it over the risk of taking the house to auction. The situation on that, by the way, is that they scheduled it to go but hadn't yet committed it for auction and so we had until tomorrow to go for it.

So the wait is on. We requested a response by today at 5pm, and I'm already anxious. Because I work with our agent, she keeps me up to date and I know that the offer has been received and so now we just wait for them to either accept or counter. We're pretty confident they won't counter - we offered full asking price less closing costs, which is pretty standard in today's market. Because the home is owned by Fannie Mae and therefore is sold as is, there are no major things we can ask to be repaired. We just have to hope nothing major comes up in the inspection, and if there is, we decide what we are willing to deal with or pull out. I feel like I say "if" a lot lately.

Of course now, I'm thinking of all the things we somehow didn't think of before, like the fact that we currently own zero appliances. That's a bit of a big one. The good thing is, if we close based on my realtor's projected timeline, we'll have 5 weeks between closing and the end of the apartment lease to get things in order. Not to mention, we have to paint because two of the bedrooms currently look they got vomited on by a Crayola box. No joke. The master is purple and orange (like the Phoenix Suns) and one of the spare bedrooms is bright blue and Christmas frosting green. Yuck. Oddly enough, the entire rest of the house is white, save for bedroom #3, which is a calm, sensible taupe. Go figure.

So please cross your fingers for us!

We spent the weekend being bums, for the most part. We did venture out to buy Dan cowboy boots that he's been wanting. He got a gift certificate from my mom for Christmas and he was excited to finally go pick them out. Then we had dinner and talked about our ideas for our - hopefully - new home. Yesterday we went to Scott and Melissa's. Dan got tattooed while I entertained the kiddos with their new belated Christmas gifts. I played about 4 games of Monopoly with Dawson, and Kadence loved her new baby doll stroller. She probably did 3,475 laps around the living room with her Build-a-Bear, giggling away the entire time. Oh, and the Sing-a-Ma-Jig I was soooo excited to give her? She couldn't have cared less. Bummer.



Your fingers are still crossed, right? :)

UPDATE: After sitting on the market for freaking 150 days, suddenly there's a multiple offer situation, with a deadline of tomorrow at 8am for our best possible offer. Dan and I talked it over and decided we'd already given it. It's hard to think with your brain and not with your heart. I don't want to lose this house, but I did all the math and figured out what each $1K increase in purchase price means for monthly expenses and we decided we're not willing to go higher, considering that this house is already going to cost us some change just to get it move-in ready. Now the waiting is even worse. I'm trying to prepare myself for the worst, yet remain optimistic that hopefully, our offer is still strongest. Cross your fingers tighter, please.

The hunt begins

Yesterday was our first round of house-hunting. I think it went well. We have a "no," a "pretty much a no," and a "heck yes! but probably no." But more on that.

The first house we saw was a 3 bed, 2 bath in Glendale. The pictures online were good, but they were NOT representative of the house itself. Someone got creative with angles or Photoshop, people. The layout and the structure was good, but it was so dirty and destroyed that it was hard to imagine how it could be our home without a lot of work. And there'd be hours and hours of cleaning before we even got to the "lot of work." We're willing to put in some elbow grease, but not that much. Note to people who are leaving their house: it's not necessarily to rough it up before you go. Also, if your 10-year-old son is as tall as me, as indicated by the marks on the exterior kitchen wall, you're feeding him too much processed hormone-y meat, and I'm just plain scared. That is all.

The second house was one that Dan had picked to see. It's a short sale, which has me hesitant. I want out of the apartment ASAP, and I find it hard to believe that we can't find something we'd like just as much that wouldn't require us to go through a process that I hear makes people say "I'd rather pull my own eyelashes out." But he was all jazzed about its big driveway, so we went. The house was cute, and in a cul-de-sac, which is nice. The living area was spacious, and the eat-in kitchen was modern and has a ton of counter space. The backyard had a covered patio, and the house is getting a brand new roof thanks to recent hail damage. The downside: the bedrooms were clumped together and the master bath was tiny. Like "hey, we have a failry big closet, let's make a tiny bathroom in it" tiny. Nothing redeeming enough to endure a short sale.

The last house was one we weren't sure we'd get to see. It's in a beautiful neighborhood. There were people walking down the street with dogs and there were kids on bikes. Nice area, and super convenient to all the things I have here in Ahwatukee. We walked in and instantly loved it. Fireplace, all tile floors, wood flooring in the bedroom, split floor plan, a ton of kitchen counter space, really nice master bath with double sinks. Great foundations. The listing says "as is" and there are some obvious things we'd have to deal with - the guest bath would need tile replaced, we'd need some drywall work done, and the master bedroom would need a new door to the patio. The counters in the kitchen are also an ugly pink, but they have a lot of potential. None of this is stuff we wouldn't be willing to do, and quite honestly, with my husband being the fixture snob that he is, we'd plan to work with the bathrooms before we ever even moved in. Yes, my husband is the guy who replaces toilets before he even puts his clothes in the closets. The kitchen is something we plan to eventually upgrade unless we're lucky enough to find a home with an amazing kitchen in our budget, which isn't likely.

Point is, we love it. We'd seriously put and offer in like right now. Of course, everyone is all "look more!" Well, Dan and I operate the same way, which is great for us as a married couple. You see, we don't have to look at every house on the market in our price range to pick a favorite. We know what we like when we see it and can say "yep, I'm happy with that." I did it with my wedding dress, the frame on my Sistine Chapel print (we looked for 3 hours and ended up getting the one I first pointed out), our wedding venue, etc. We don't need to shop by elimination. It's just not our style. So to those of you who are reading thinking, "that's only 3 houses! You can't put an offer in on the first day!" Oh yes, I can.

However - and this is a big "however" - the listing also says "auction." The realtor said that usually with auction properties, the MLS states where and when the auction will be, and this info was missing. So there's a small possibility that this was added prematurely and that the house is still available to the general buying public. The realtor is going to call today to see what's up. So we may still have a shot at this house, though it's probably not likely, and we're realistic about that. If we don't have a chance, this house will at least be a standard against which we measure others. It's got everything we hope to find.

We're seeing between 6 and 8 more houses this weekend. I'm very excited, because at least I've seen that there is at least one house out there in our budget that we can love. It's going to be a long Saturday, but we're both really hopeful.

The one where I talk about trying to conceive

In the 8 months that Dan and I have been trying to add to our family, we've told some people about our endeavor. This may or may not have been a mistake. I don't really think so, because it's been great having the support of friends, but it also opens us up to people's opinions. Which, if you haven't heard, are like assholes. It also opens you up to the suggestions and comments of people who just don't know better. That's fine, people aren't educated in conception most of the time, and I know a lot more than I sometimes wish I did.



Let's cover what I do know.

- I know it can take a healthy couple 12 months to be successful at conception. A full year. Heartbreaking when you're wanting something so badly, but at the same time, completely normal. Also, allow me to preface the rest of this post now that I understand that we have not been trying for a long time. It feels long, because we want it, but I understand that it's not.

- I know that there's only a 20% chance in a given cycle that conception will occur. That's for a healthy couple with perfect timing. Let's do math. There's an EIGHTY percent chance we won't get lucky in any given month. What does this mean? Getting pregnant is difficult.

- I know that "perfect timing" means insemination must occur in a - at most - 4 day fertile window beginning 3 days before ovulation and ending the day after.

- I know when I ovulate. This is helpful because I'm not constantly wasting pregnancy tests because I think I'm late. It's also mostly helpful because I know my plumbing works at the basic functional level.

- I know that 28 day cycles with ovulation on day 14 is more often than not a myth. Trust me, this was the biggest thing to shock me when I started reading up on fertility and conception. I'm pretty sure we were all taught this little formula in 8th grade health class and it's simply not true. If you're a "textbook" cycler, spare telling me so.

If you want to put all these concepts together to see just how miraculous it is that any of us are here, go to Youtube and search for "The Great Sperm Race." Wait, make popcorn first. Then go to Youtube. You're welcome.

I also know that people just don't know what to say at times, or they say the oddest things. While trying to be helpful and supportive, people's "advice" is often misguided.

Examples:

"It'll happen when it's meant to" or "Maybe it's just not the right time." I really dislike these statements. Conception has nothing to do with all being right in the world. Obviously, or my cousin wouldn't have 4 kids by 3 baby daddies. Her life is chaos, and there was surely never a right time for her to have children, and yet she has them. I know some people are also delving into the religious aspect of this one, indicating a certain deity's plan. While comforting for a believer, it's just aggravating for me.

"Just get drunk and have sex." Yeeeeah, no. If that were true, I'd have about 8 babies by now. If you know what I know (above) about timing and all that good stuff, it's all just coincidence that you or your friend went out drinking and came home and drunkenly seduced your husband and your kid was born 9 months later. In fact, all of it is chance when you think about it. Who's to say what worked in a given cycle when there's an 80% percent chance against you every month? People who never had to really try for a baby say this a lot. My cousin also probably says this.

"Well if your mom/sister/aunt had no problems having kids, you won't either." Fertility isn't like eye color. My mom's ability to have kids has no bearing on mine.

"Stop thinking about it and it'll happen." Yes, it's true that stress can affect fertility. Allow me to tell you why. Stress can delay ovulation. Your body will withhold from ovulating because it feels that the elevated stress makes your body a less than ideal home for a fetus. Illness and travel have the same effect. If you don't ovulate, you can't get pregnant. Once you ovulate, however, your chances of conception and implantation occuring are no less than an unstressed person. Secondly, if you can tell me how to stop thinking about it, I would. Gladly. Baby rabies isn't fun.

Side note: telling a couple to "just start the adoption process and it'll happen hahaha!!" is even more obnoxious. Just don't do that. For the reasons above and also because if they're at the point where adoption is up for discussion (which they may not have shared with you), they've probably exhausted every option, along with a lot of money and time and emotion, to get pregnant. While some couples opt for adoption quickly, others don't, and they spend thousands of dollars on hormones, testing, and procedures before coming to the realization that it just isn't going to happen. Either way, there's a lot of emotion wrapped up in the decision, so joking about it is just lame.

"Well, maybe you're pregnant right now and you don't even know it!" Ummmm, if it's before I'm late, I can't argue with you on that one, because I could be. But this one is especially fun when I've just started a new cycle, and I'm sad, and get I tempted to show you my stock of tampons as evidence. When I say "no, really, I'm sure I'm not," just take my word for it.

"You should do _______. It worked for ______." Again, someone else's ability to get pregnant has nothing to do with my own. What "worked" for one person won't necessarily work for me. In the end, the only thing that works is sperm meeting egg and embryo snuggling in and growing. End of story. And even if something does "work," think of trying to conceive the same way you'd think about weight loss. The same thing doesn't work for everyone.

I'm not trying to rant and rave at anyone who's made the above statements. I probably made them myself before I knew some of the things I know. I'm just in need of a good vent. I understand that people just say things because they're excited for us, just like people asked how wedding planning was going and then how married life is. I get that. I guess I just felt a need to let out what frustrates me about this.

Eight months have probably made me a little jaded. The intial "squeeeeeeee!! We're gonna have a baby!" from the first cycle has turned into "I hope this is it" ::sigh:: As we approach the one year mark and possibly having to face testing, I understand the need for more compassion and thought in my comments to others. You never know what they're wanting and waiting for. I guess I just hope that with my little vent, others will have some compassion and thought as well.

A potpourri, if you will, of randomness

I apparently suck at this whole blogging thing. Or maybe life really is just that mundane that I don't have much to write about. It's probably a mixture of both, if we're honest with ourselves.

So here's what's going on this week:

- After like 3 weeks of not being serious about the South Beach diet (during which I gained 2.5lbs) during the holidays and the wedding and all that jazz, I'm back to Phase 1 and serious again. My blood pressure medicine dosage was increased (bummer), so I gotta support its efforts.

- I'm super excited about how my sister's bridal shower planning is coming along. Salt designed the cutest invitation based on napkins I found and my sister loved it! The candy for the candy bar (which I'm so stoked about, it's ridiculous) will be here today. I have a few small other projects (like homemade tissue poms! Suggestions welcome, people...) to work on, but I think it's going to be awesome.

- Tawny Kitaen is following me on Twitter. I win at life. However, Dan doesn't know who Tawny Kitaen is, so now I feel old, and therefore FAIL. It's a draw.

- Dan and I got our preapproval for a house done this week and we get to see our first round of potential houses.... tomorrow!! So excited! I was looking at a website and saw a really cute, great-sized house with an amazing remodeled kitchen and showed it to Dan. He wanted to put an offer in then and there. Unfortunately, we discovered in talking to a realtor that the listing was out-dated and it's actually under contract, so no dice. But we have a list of 7 or 8 we want to see and we're headed out to start the search tomorrow. Dan told me to notify the apartment complex that we won't be renewing our lease at the end of March. Yay and Eek!


And now, because I haven't done it in a few weeks, I present to you....

Meal Plan Monday!

Monday: Dan and I discovered the sirloin salad at Native New Yorker and now he craves it al the time, so we went and split one. Soooo good!

Tuesday: Pot roast. Yummy yum yum. Potatoes for Dan, brocolli for me. Plus I'm going to bake some chicken to put in our salads the rest of the week.

Wednesday: Some kind of chicken. Haven't decided yet, but probably baked with a really delicious rub and served with zucchini and squash

Thursday: Pot roast taco salads with black beans and cilantro rice for Dan

Friday: Turkey chili - it's easy and will get us through the weekend as leftovers.


Hope everyone is having a wonderful week!