Just Make Stuff

My Christmas Planner...

I'm happy to say that it is going to be a class at Scrapbook Oasis...and it's coming up quick...Wednesday, November 15th...that way it can really be used this holiday season. 

There's almost a dozen different forms I developed to organize gift giving, holiday meal planning, Christmas cards, and endless to-do lists...and it's ready to use year after year.

Okay, enough shameless promotion...but I've got to admit I'm super excited to get to share my obsession with organization with whoever is willing! :)

ETA

Wanted to let those who were not in the area, but interested, know that the store does a great job with phone orders & shipping for kits...there will be instructions and color photos so you can easily put it together yourself. (The phone # is on their blog)

Happy Halloween

Cannot wait to spend tonight sitting here passing out candy and drinking too much hot apple cider. :)

I won't bore you...

with the list of everything I've accomplished in the last couple of days...although it's tempting...well okay, just a Cliff Notes version...

Cleaned my desk, wrote thank you notes, wrapped and shipped November birthday gifts, decorated the front porch for Halloween, got the invitations for our neighborhood progressive dinner ready, wrapped Christmas gifts, and I finished the holiday organizer I've been working on...soooo excited about it...list's galore--meal planning, gift ideas, Christmas card addresses...my holiday organizing will never be the same! :)

Now before you admonish me that it's not even Halloween, just know that every year around this time I start working hard to get shopping done and I wrap as I shop...that way it doesn't pile up into a miserable task a few days before Christmas...I spent too many years watching my mom, a single parent, stress her way through the holidays and I never want to do that if I can help it...by the time December rolls around I like to have almost all of it done so I can relax and enjoy...so far it's worked for me...although, this time of year it probably seems pretty crazy.

Extra hour...

I was under the impression that daylight savings time was next week...but apparently it doesn't get pushed back until next year.

Good thing because, taking a look at this desk, wouldn't you say I need an extra hour this weekend? 

I'm ashamed of what a disaster it is...in my defense, I can probably get it all cleaned up in about a half hour, but I actually have to do it.

I just need to take some good, solid time to get organized in general...I keep coming up with ideas for all different kinds of stuff I want to do and things I need to do...I need to spend quality time with my palm pilot and get some lists underway.

But, first the desk...must tackle the desk...at least I get an extra hour to do it...it's seriously one of favorite days of the year...a 25 hour day...does it get better than that? 

Decompress...

Oh boy today...not the best of days...sorta kinda...

It all started yesterday when I saw her number on our caller ID...she didn't leave a message, but there it was and I was dying to know why the hell she would call me since I really haven't talked to her for a year and a half...whatever she had to say couldn't be good.

Then today, as my good friend from high school was over for lunch, the phone rang and it was her...my sister...and I couldn't help but shake as I picked up the phone...she was brief...said she was calling for two reasons to ask to see Mac and to let us know they just found out they're having a boy.  I said congratulations, no I don't feel comfortable having you see Mac, and I had no interest in arguing about it. 

So, Jen and I go back to eating lunch, but I'm thoroughly unnerved...with-in a few minutes the phone rings again...again it was my sister and this time she was calling to let me have it...she's fuming...as was I...she claimed she wanted to understand why I've "shut her out of my life"...I told her I was pretty clear about it when it all came to a head 18 months ago...she's adamant that she should be in Mac's life regardless of the problems between the two of us, that she was his family.  Our conversation was brief and heated...if I was unnerved before, now I was barely hanging on...thank good God Jen was with me...and in her endlessly kind and calm way talked me down with lots of reassurance that my problems with family were pretty universal...that it wasn't just me.

The way I left it with my sister is that I would see about further contact to explain why I felt they way I felt because, supposedly, she really wanted to understand and not have the animosity anymore.

After Jen went home I couldn't help but start shaking again...I knew the relentless stress would eat me alive.  I talked to Sean as he left school and ultimately decided I was going to call her and get it over with, knowing full well she probably wouldn't really listen, she certainly would never agree or validate any feeling I had, and she would be pushing her own agenda, but at least I could get it all out...instead of letting it fester for weeks just because I didn't want to deal with it.

I guess I called and let her have it...I was reserved, but brutal and I laid it all out...and she acknowledged it.  She explained, not argued, but explained...it was tense, yet we were getting somewhere.  My whole stance is I no longer have an ounce of patience with drama...and in my family there is all kinds of it...my sister and brother have made atrocious decisions and have been self-centered and entitled.  They're also convinced that I think I'm perfect and am an altogether judgmental bitch.  I reassured her that I KNOW that I am far from it and I know full well that I spent a few years making poor decisions too...the difference is I somehow, someway learned to stop...but if she needed me too, we could go through each of my poor decisions and bad behavior blow by blow for accountability's sake. 

At some point a little later she says that she's grown up...and I curiously quiz her..."why do you think that?"..."what's changed?"..."how?"...and so on...rapid fire questioning...and, in listening to her answers, it occurs to me that just maybe she has.  She took full responsibility for her mistakes...a first for her...no defensiveness. 

Then we talked...for three hours...and it felt good...it wasn't perfect, but it was something.  I still don't trust her and I told her that, but ideally of course I would want to be close with my family...and thankfully we both seemed to be on the same page about our deep desire to break this loooong cycle of family dysfunction.  I don't know if I could really handle seeing her...the thought of her pregnancy has been soooo hard on me the last couple of months...and she said she totally understood and just hoped for a future.

So that's my day...thanks so much for reading it...I just wanted to write it to further decompress...the last thing my body needs right now is stress...so I'm trying to get it all out as fast as I can.  We'll see where it all goes...

And the winner is...

Or rather, the winners are...

Leah

Jen

Melissa

Wendy Sue

Liza

My lucky # is 3 and they were the first five closest...please e-mail me your address ASAP and I'll get them out in the mail today. :)

Cleaning up...

Trying to straighten up around the house...my pile of clothes at the foot of our bed is shameful...my desk is covered...just general clutter in every room.

I did clean up my stuff from last night and divided the kit extras I had leftover into five envelopes...they are nowhere near complete, but I didn't want the stuff to go to waste. 

So I'm going to pick a number between 1 and 100 the first five people with the closest guess will have an envelope in the mail to them tomorrow.  The cut off time will be 11am PST that way I can get them off to the post office.

A thank you note...

Oh my goodness gracious...if you were in this room tonight and happen to be reading this...THANK YOU...what an amazing experience!  It was so much fun, after my initial nervousness, and you were all way TOO nice...just thank you so very much!  Please know that every last kind word you shared just meant the world to me...and to Sean, because now he can say, "I told you so" for all the times he reassured me when I freaked the class would be an utter disaster.  I hope you enjoy your little books...you all did such a great job putting them together!

So, as promised, recipes...

First the chocolate pumpkin cupcake recipe is here

And bear with me for the frosting recipe because I just mixed amounts together and got lucky so these are just estimates...

Carmel Cream Cheese Frosting

3 sticks of unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 8oz bricks of cream cheese, softened (12oz total)

1 cup of powdered sugar

1 tbs of vanilla

3/4 brown sugar, packed

Use a Kitchen Aid mixer or hand-held mixer.  Whip together softened butter with brown sugar then powdered sugar, add vanilla, add softened cream cheese.  If you need to thin it out you can use a dash or two of milk, if you need to thicken it up use a little more powdered sugar.

Please let me reiterate these are only estimates, but frosting is reasonably forgiving and now you have an excuse to taste a lot of it while you make it because you have to check the ratios :)

Off to bed...thanks again for such a great night!

Taking it easy...

trying to get pregnant...we had insemination's yesterday and today so I've been busy doing nothing...literally laying around...watching lots of TV, continuing my attempt at crocheting a blanket, and reading magazines...it's a tough life I tell you. :)

There are so many things I could be doing, but I'm trying to not care.  I'm also trying not to care that the next two weeks are seemingly endless at this point...I've got plan A and plan B all ready & organized in my head...I just would love to know which one it's going to be.

Tonight I have a major distraction though...my class at Scrapbook Oasis...I'm trying to wrap my head around the fact that it's actually happening tonight, that I really get to try it...I swear last night I had half a dozen different dreams of how much I was going to suck...yikes. I feel as ready as I'll ever be, and I have an assistant who volunteered to help & knows the kit backwards and forwards...because he put together more than half of it. :)

One of these things is not like the other...

I have loved using those new 7 Gypsies stamps for a couple of weeks now...in fact there's another layout sitting on my desk right now that I'm using one on.

So I'm checking my e-mail for a minute this morning before I take Mac to school and Mac is poking around on my desk like he loves to do...I hear the sound of him moving the stamp and ask him not to play with it.  Done, right? 

Downstairs, a couple minutes later, I'm getting his lunch out the fridge for him...I turn around and see this on his uniform shirt...apparently this is where that one stamp landed...

 

Um, yeah...

My ass...

don't have a photo to go along with that title...be grateful. :)

I've been thinking about it a lot today, because in about an hour I'm going to have to show the upper corner of it to my good friend's husband.

Doesn't that spike your curiosity?  Let me explain...

Been going to the doctor everyday...the usual ultrasound and blood-test...they haven't had me do anymore shots...then the nurse practitioner called late this morning with my blood-work results...apparently she ran everything by Dr. Werlin and says that he wants us to do a shot of Ovadrill (sp?) at 10pm tonight...that strikes me as strange, first of all because that's not the name of the medication Sean's been injecting all week and the 10pm thing is a totally different time...then it occurs to me she's talking about my shot of HCG...my huge needle, intra-muscular, usually nurse-administered shot to trigger ovulation...she wants Sean to give it to me.

I start to sweat and shake while on the phone...I think I was almost in tears...I apologized and told her I knew I needed to be an adult here, but that's a BIG needle for Sean to brandish... and into a muscle?  I hand the phone to Sean to get the instructions...which she kindly offers to send an e-mail reiterating along with her home phone number if we have any questions at 9:59pm...so nice of her...but I'm still freaking out...until it occurs to me that my friend Laura's husband works weekend nights at my local emergency room...so I immediately call them in a panic and he said he'd be able to do it if I needed him to...and I need him to.

However, that also means he is going to see the corner of my pasty, stretch-mark ridden, fat ass...and the crescent moon with three stars tattoo that I got in college when my ass wasn't fat...oh the humiliation.

But I'll deal with it...and I'll get to hold Sean's hand instead of it been armed with a three inch needle...

Done...

Sean the wonder-husband surprised me with these last Saturday...8 stems of my favorite flower...one for each day of injections he would be giving me...but it turns out I only needed seven...they've been checking my estrogen levels everyday and decided to stop the shots...it seems as if I have five follicles that are all really hanging in there for the most part...it struck me the other night that this might really happen, but I quickly tempered it...going to stick with the "we'll see" attitude as best I can...it's looking like the insemination might be somewhere around Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday-ish.

Other than growing follicles, I have nothing to show for the week...I have been sooooo ridiculously lazy...finally today I've done some straightening up around the house, cleaning out the fridge, baking brownies, tackling paperwork, and some of the to-do list hanging over my head right now...so I've slightly redeemed myself.

Sean's golfing with friends this afternoon which means I have a few extra alone hours before he gets home...I think I might scrapbook...I have a fresh pile of Scenic Route paper sitting on my desk...

10...9...8...7...6...

So as of today there are four or five follicles...he said they were all growing well...my blood-work came back high so he's lowering my injections and wants me back in the office tomorrow...I'm can't tell how happy that makes me because really at this point my day just doesn't feel complete without my feet up in stirrups, blood being sucked from my arm, and my husband coming at me every night with a needle...good times :)

Oh and the ribbon tree...totally easy...and the most time consuming craft ever in the history of the universe...seriously will probably never make one again...Sean actually had to finish it for me because I'm ever so slightly impatient.  Anyways, get a styrofoam ball at Michaels, some rolls of ribbon, little stick pins and your utmost patience...you just cut little pieces of ribbon, roll it, stick a pin through it and into the ball.  You also need a little pot/bucket for it, some foam to fill the bucket, a dowel that you paint, and some of that fake foliage moss stuff (that's the technical term right?). How cute would little Christmas trees be?   

Outside...Inside...

Granted there's been plenty of Fall inside our house for a few weeks now...but in the last couple of days Fall is starting to show up outside on my neighbor's trees...LOVE seeing the leaves change.

Lots of good stuff in the next few days...my dad is coming to town for a conference so we have dinner with him Thursday night...Saturday is the centennial homecoming at the good old UofR--which also means it's the alumni basketball game for Sean...who I'm proud to say has last year's 3-point contest win to defend :)...oh and that whole insemination thing...as of yesterday there were 10 follicles...um, yeah, 10...we'll see what tomorrow's ultrasound says...

6:45pm

That's what time I get my injection each night...they have been going okay...still kind of freaked out by Sean with a needle, but he's doing great...totally unphased...even though I literally grab a handful of his hair to squeeze since his two hands are busy. :)

So, what were we doing at 6:45pm tonight?

This...

I was sitting on the porch while Sean was turning on the sprinklers...and somehow I double-dog-dared him to run through them (and Mac wanted to join in)...until we realized it was 6:45pm and we needed be adults once again. :)

The Grand Finale...

So file this under "something I'd never think would be on my bathroom counter"...a sharps container...for the discarded needles...from the daily injections Sean will start giving me tomorrow night...I put it all in a basket because it makes it look much more cheery, huh? :)

This is it...our third try and our last...after this it's time for a new life plan...either way I guess. We just can't do it anymore...too long...too much. On to other goals and learning to enjoy the life we're lucky to have without reservations...without thinking too terribly often of what didn't happen for us.

I suppose this is bad attitude to head into this cycle with...preparing myself for disappointment...but in all honesty I'm full of hope too...these injections will hopefully mean that the multiple eggs that I manage to develop will have a better chance of maturing and releasing...instead of just one...if I head into an insemination with more than one...it'll be a whole new level of promise in my eyes...we'll see what the next couple of weeks have in store...

Half full...

My glass is half full...of wine.

You've got to focus on the good stuff, right? :)

Feeling better, dinner is almost done, went to the doctor's office this morning to start on our next, and last, cycle.

All is well enough...

So, about that weekend...

Wasn't quite as blissful as I was hoping...it's Sunday night...I'm in bed, sick with a cold...like a rip-roaring cold.  Also no pregnancy test for me tomorrow...I started today...not too surprised...still not fun though.  On the bright side, if there is one, not being pregnant means I can treat my cold with whatever medicine I want...and right about now I'm pretty thankful for that...thanks you guys for all your good wishes and prayers the last couple of days...please know your support means the world to me. 

It's going to be a good weekend...

Friday is my favorite day of the week...when the whole weekend is just getting started and there's the possibility that those two days might last forever...instead of Sunday night when you realize, once again the days flew by.

Lots of stuff planned this weekend...but a good balance between busy and lazy...and hopefully some of that lazy time will be comsumed by playing with this stuff...

Doodlebug Frills and 7 Gypsies stamps...oh have I been waiting for these...I would be so happy to make a a little dent in my pile of photos this weekend...we'll see.

Of course all this blissful weekend stuff will most likely come to a halt Monday morning...not just because it's Monday, but because the pregnancy test is at 9am...not looking forward to it at all...I just wish I could get the "Nora you're not pregnant this month" phonecall over with now so I can move on as best I can...

Confessions...

...I stayed in my pajamas all day today...granted I got stuff done, but I got it done in my pajamas :)

...my main nutrition today was the pan of rice crispy treats Sean made last night...although I did drink milk while eating them

...I had Sean turn on the fireplace even though technically it's not quite fireplace weather...then we had to open the sliding door when we got too warm, but the flickering flames were the perfect backdrop as we caught up on TIVOed shows

So that was today...I just took a loooong, hot shower and am going to bed...I get to sleep in tomorrow because Bryce's mom told me she could take Mac to school since she had the day off...God bless that woman :)

Goodnight

It's official...

Scrapbook Oasis is taking sign-ups for my class...here are the kits, which I'm happy to say are almost done...just a few little things left to include...which means I HAVE to make a trip out to Paper Source this weekend...soon there will be one right down the freeway from my house, but it won't open until late fall...so Sean and I are going on a "fieldtrip" (remember that's my codeword for craft shopping excursions) Saturday afternoon...it's so much better than just ordering what I need from them online. :)

E.T.A.  If, for some reason :), you are interested in buying a kit you can call the store directly (949-756-2729) and they'll get you all taken care of. Thanks so much! :)

Okay, now it's perfect...

...all the stone cutting dust is hosed off

...the plants are back in their correct places

...the fall decorations are back out to finally be enjoyed

...the lights are on

...& I got to read magazines on my porch at night

NOW it's perfect. :)

Almost After...

Okay so everything's not quite perfect yet and our grass is looking pretty darn thrashed, but I wanted to share a couple house photos...to start off with another look at the before shot...

and now the "almost" after shot taken this morning...

finally a little closer look at where I will now be spending as much time as possible :)...our new porch...