This is Halloween, this is Halloween...

(cue the Nightmare before Christmas music...)

My friend Abby turned me onto CakeWrecks.  It is a hilarious website devoted to cakes gone wrong...which admittedly would not be hilarious if it were my cake.  For some good laughs go daily.  I checked today's cake and saw a most excellent cake.  (for fun she posts awesome cakes gone right on Sunday)  See for yourselves:

I LOVE the Nightmare Before Christmas...and this cake is absolutely FABULOUS!  If I were this talented I would make it for our Halloween party - not that we'll be lacking awesome treats for that though (I'll be sure to post pics).

as I was saying...

Not much going on here in our household. Nathan and I still spend our days in service to 'The Man'. (Notice how evil bosses are referred to as the MAN, not woman?? hehe) Winston and Frank are on a diet...they are chunking up a bit much. Winston is NOT happy about this new arrangement, he would prefer to have a trough of food slung around his neck and for me to fan him and feed him treats...seriously. So at 3am when they are hungry because they have gorged themselves and now their dishes are barren, they come-a-cuddling...and by cuddling I mean purring too loud and biting tender places. Winston's favorite 'I'm biting you so you'll feed me' spot is the back of my arm...you know, the part that eventually turns into batwings? That part. Ouch.

We are getting our house ready for my favorite holiday: Halloween. (Isn't it funny that my favorite holiday isn't the one I was born on??) Decorations will go up and preparations will begin for the Fright Night Fest at our pad. If you're in the neighborhood - feel free to party crash (well, not actually crash, because I will probably kill you for ruining our fun...) - costumes are required. I am VERY VERY excited for our costumes this year...I can't wait to post the pic here. :) But for now it will remain secret so that if I am putting on my winter weight too quick and can't fit into it and end up changing ideas, no one will know. :) Maybe I should go on a diet with the fur kids... ?

I am also honing my photog skills. I have been snapping photos of the beautiful fall, and of course of the fur kids, and tomorrow I'm taking fam photos for a friend of mine. If you need to be shot (hehe, lame joke I know) let me know - I need the practice!

Well, gotta run, I must report back to The Man. Four more hours until freedom!

Remembrance

Today is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. I have several friends who have also lost babies and it can often feel like a lonely pain to suffer. I wanted to make sure people were aware of this day. If someone you love has gone through the horrible experience of losing a baby, hug them tight today and tell them you love them. And my friends out there who have lost, I will be thinking of you today. :)

Here are some sites I found helpful.

http://www.pregnancyloss.info/ is a tremendous source for everything reltaing to miscarriage. It answers all your questions - whether they be of physical nature or emotional. If someone close to you has suffered a miscarriage this site will give you some good info on how to help the person grieve and heal.

http://www.october15th.com/ is a site dedicated to today. There is info on this site about local remembrance activities - if there is not one in your area, think about starting one.

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep is one of the most selfless things I have ever heard of. This is a group of professional photographers who provide their service to families during their time of loss, and they do all of this for free. I want to spread the word about them - because I don't think many people are aware of their services. And I would hope in my heart of hearts that no one would ever need them, the hard truth is that chances are, someone who reads this will need them at some point, whether for themselves or a close friend or family member. I know my brother-in-law's family would have loved to have them when they lost their little Hannah.

Almost

I almost didn't notice what day it was...almost. I was on facebook leaving happy birthday messages for a couple people and I glanced at the date...October 9th. Funny thing is that I have been typing things this morning with the date on them and have written out the date at least a half a dozen times already - but it wasn't until I coupled it with a birthday that the painful truth surfaced on my conciousness.

Today we should be celebrating our sweet child's second birthday. I should be worrying about balloons and cake. I should be party planning instead of fighting back tears. Two years after that loss we have yet to have a successfull pregnancy. We've lost two more and have had months and months of heartbreaks...each time there is only one line on that test a little bit of our hope is chipped away.

Even if we were not actively trying, we kept hoping that someday our miracle would happen. Full of optimism and hope, we approached our Dr about fertility treatments again. In fact, we just finished three rounds of Clomid - for some reason I thought it might work for us this time....I should have known better. I didn't tell many people about it because I didn't want to get anyone else's hopes up and I didn't want everyone constantly asking if I had ovulated or if it worked. Feeling like a failure is easier if you don't feel like you've also disappointed everyone else around you. So I (and poor Nathan) suffered through hot flashes, mood swings, irratibility, cramps, and dashed hopes for four months...all for naught.

Losing a baby is not easy - and in a way I am glad that of the three, I only remember one due date. I think there is a part of my brain that has shut out the dates and memories of the second and third losses...a defense mechanism, for my heart.

Tough Decisions

It's hard when you are faced with tough decisions in life. Some people have advised us to make Pro/Con lists...but what happens when the columns are even? We have evaluated our current lives and where we want to be in five years and have found that we have three main goals we would like to accomplish.

1 - Adopt some kids
2 - Stabilize our finances (pay off debt, build our savings)
3 - Get my degree

We have looked at and analyzed (ad nauseum according to Nathan...but hey, that's the OCD in me) our choices for the next step in our lives with these goals in mind. While I admit it is wildly optimistic for me to hope that one choice would yield positive results in all three goals, I had hoped for that very outcome...I thought if I got three check marks next to a choice it would make the decision a little easier.
Now we are stuck, because no option allows for all three goals to be realized. We must weigh each goal and decide which is the most important and make our decision accordingly... while also considering the Pro/Con list and adding the weight those Cons and Pros...

The hard thing for me is deciding which Con I could live with. Some are heftier than others - but all are still Cons. I could choose one path that would help us financially, but would leave me alone for months at a time, thousands of miles away from any family in a country where I do not speak the language. Another would enable us to adopt, but I would have to deal with SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) which is scary when I have a history of depression. Yet another choice would place us close to a small amount of family, in a beautiful climate, but would limit my school options and I'd find myself co-habitating with rather large multi-legged creatures...

I wish I could peek into the future and see just a sliver of my life in 2-3 years...to know which choice to make, which path to take, which Cons to choose.

Poll

You may have noticed a poll on the sidebar.  By me having the poll, it does not admit to any action, rather just a collecting of information, if you will, to possibly act in the near future.  

Please vote - you know, for informational gathering reasons. 

Blog Awards

Back a couple weeks ago my friend Kim gave me a blog award...I was supposed to follow-up soon, but I am just a slacker.  Better late than never, right?  Here we go.  I will pass the award on to:

Ryann - We met in Virginia.  When Nathan wrecked the car and we didn't have a car to drive she and her hubby let us borrow their second car.  She is always leaving supportive comments on here, and when we lost a baby last spring I was touched to receive a box of beautiful Iris' from her. 

Abby - I also met Abby in Virginia.  She was the last person we saw there before we pulled out of town.  We share a love of kittens and politics, although our views fall on opposite sides of the line. :)  I love reading her blog because her commentary on even the everyday things is so entertaining.

Chelsea - I lived just up the street from her growing up.  We were fast friends and shared a love of The Greenery and caroling and washing our clothes in Bear Lake (hehe).  I hadn't seen or talked to her since my wedding ... and I just recently found her on facebook.  I love her and am so glad we're in contact again!

Kimberly - I don't see a rule about awarding who awarded me...so she gets one.  I met Kimberly in Newport.  She was a HUGE part of the success and fun of the choir there and once she moved it just wasn't the same.  She is a tremendous piano player and we had many quality hours spent together scrapbooking in the cultural hall.   

Lori - I have known Lori since high school - we were the piano players for the Jazz Band my senior year.  Since I found her online just this year, she has inspired me to want to pull out my running shoes again.   She's had quite a few challenges in her life and remains positive - a good role model!

Ann - She and her hubby are the only ones who have been nice to us from this ward...no,  really.  They adopted an adorable little girl right about the same time we moved in and she has answered MANY questions of mine on adoption. She is so happy and cheerful all the time - even with painful green things in her mouth. :)

Kristen - We were band geeks together in high school....we had some good times. Drunk Indians, screwdrivers, Farrs, Burger King, Windsor, Marching Band, ugly band dresses, etc, etc, etc... She just had an adorable baby boy - and her husband is going to med school.  Oh, and she LOVES Halloween too. :)

Okay, those of you awarded, here's what you do.  

1-Put the logo up on your blog

2-Link to the person who you received your award from

3- Nominate 7 other blogs

4 - Put links to those blogs on your post

5 - Leave a message on the blogs you've awarded.

10,000

According to my sitemeter thingy I had my 10,000th visitor this past week - on the 25th at 6:11am to be exact.  

Thanks to all of you out there who listen to my ramblings and encourage and support me (and Nathan).  It helps more than you will ever know.