Who doesn't love a solstice?

Happy summer solstice to everyone. Enjoy all that sunshine, especially you folks way up north who get to enjoy a hint of light until almost 10. We're so far south here in Hawaii that the longest that the light is pretty much gone at 8:00. I do miss those long, Minnesota summer days.

I don't have much new to write about. My weekend was pretty good. Zac and I spent a lot of time hanging out. We even checked out a nightclub last night, since I was itching to go dancing. Turns out the place isn't as much a dance club as a lounge, but we still had a good time. It felt good to get dressed up and break out of the shorts-and-tank-top routine.

As many of you know, Zac and I have been trying to get pregnant for awhile with no success. It's something that I've stayed away from on this blog because, really, it's no one's business but ours. But I know many people are curious and, frankly, it's been one of the major topics on my mind and it's been tough not being able to talk about it. So I'm breaking the silence here and catching you all up on where I'm at.

Zac and I have been trying for almost a year. That's pretty normal I hear. But I'm also just about 33 and while I know I'm not too old, I also know that time is not on my side. I decided I need to know if there's something amiss, or if our timing is just bad. I spoke to my doctor about a month ago and she referred me to a fertility doctor. I had a bunch of blood drawn last week (test results pending) and an HSG on Friday. An HSG is not fun. Not at all. After experiencing the procedure I could probably list off 1,500 other things I'd rather do than endure another one. Essentially it's a procedure to see if my, er "plumbing" is free flowing. It involves iodine, the radiology department and some serious discomfort. But the results of the test were positive: my tubes are nice and open and a blockage is not the reason for my lack of pregnancy.

I'll go in for more blood work in a couple of weeks and Zac will have to go in to have his numbers counted. (I'm going to try and leave Zac out of this conversation as much as possible, since I'd like to protect him as much as possible.) We won't know if there's anything "off" until we get him checked. I'm still convinced that our timing is just wrong and we've just been unlucky up to this point. But it is frustrating. I have friends and family that are in various stages of parenting and pregnancy and while I am deliriously happy for them, it's hard not to feel frustrated about the whole thing. I hear about people getting pregnant unintentionally or at a young age and I think, I did it right, right? I waited until I was married and in a good place emotionally and economically in my life - why is this taking so long? There are moments I feel incredibly selfish and angry, and then there are moments where my patience kicks in and I'm fine with waiting until Fate decides it's time. But it can be an exhausting roller coaster ride.

Adding to the emotion is that there are moments where I want nothing more than to be a mom, which are then occasionally followed by moments where I absolutely relish not having children. It's a give and take that I intellectually understand - you give up some perks as a childless couple for other perks as parents. I say "intellectually" since I can't understand what it's like to be a parent yet. I know full-well the perks of being childless. Going on vacation whenever, going out to dinner without interruption, the lack of child-rearing-expenses, etc. You life gets to be all about you and your spouse when there are no kids. And doesn't that sound pretty gosh darn appealing?

But then the other day I was in line at the check out at the grocery store and there was an 18 month old little girl in the cart in front of me and I couldn't help but make silly faces at her, trying to make her smile. And then she smiled at me and we played peek-a-boo for a few minutes. And that's when it washes over me - I'd be good at mothering. I believe that. And I would like the chance to try. I swallowed the lump in my throat as she and her mom paid for their groceries and headed to their car.

If kids aren't in our cards, for whatever reason, I'll be able to make peace with that. I've got plenty of love to give my nieces and nephews and friends' kids. I just want to know if it's a physical issue or just Fate messing with me. Since it's the summer solstice tomorrow, perhaps I need to sacrifice a small woodland-creature to some fertility goddess like Haumea. I suppose it couldn't hurt. Or maybe I'll just leave Her a chocolate chip cookie. I never was one for harming cute, furry animals, even if it potentially tilts the scales in my favor.

Memorial Day, work and travel plans

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend last weekend. We spent almost the whole weekend socializing with friends. It's fun to spend time with everyone, but at some point you feel like you've been eating and drinking for too long. It also didn't help that one of our friends made a key lime cheesecake as a dessert for their bbq. A key lime cheesecake. It was sooooooo good. It took a fair amount of restraint to keep from having a second piece. Like I needed cheesecake in the middle of this weekend! It was good to get back to normal life (and normal eating habits) when Tuesday rolled around.

After a three week hiatus, I'm back to working on my legal editing work. It's always nice to have some time off, but after a while the bank account starts to dwindle and the panic starts to set in. The impression I got from my supervisor is that this is the last project for me - really and truly the last. I've had a stay of execution for the last 12 months as he's always been able to find more work for me to do. He warned me this last time that there isn't anything else available after this current assignment. I spent some time the other day updating my resume and searching online for jobs. I even applied for one - another job submission off into the mysterious hiring world hidden by the internet. I got the confirmation e-mail that they received my submission, but I won't be holding my breath to hear from them.

My contractor status been the best possible work situation for me out here in Hawaii. If I was working a full-time office job I wouldn't be able to do nearly the amount of traveling and spending time with Zac as I do. I've heard from other Navy wives that sometimes it's better to cut back on work when they're home (shore duty) and ramp up to full-time when they're gone (sea duty). Especially as the ships have leaner and leaner manning, the guys are working longer and longer days, even when they're in port. And then they leave for months on end - why not work then? (I suppose having kids changes that equation - once the guys are underway, why pay for childcare so you can go to work to pay for said childcare? I'll debate that issue when it comes up.)

Anyhow, I'm happy to be back working, even if it is only for a few more weeks. It's money in the bank and good for my sense of self worth. Once the project is all done I suppose I could work on that children's book that everyone keeps harping on me about - it's a lot harder than you think people! Blogging does not make me good at creative writing. I've got friends that went to school for writing - and they have spent years working on their craft. I have not. I've got writer's block and I haven't even started. (And beside not knowing what to write I have other issues like, how the heck can you write a picture book when you have no pictures? 15-30 words on a plain white page doesn't make for engaged readers.) It's all rather formidable and daunting and it's like standing at the base looking up at Mount Everest.

[exhale]

Wow. Got a little sidetracked there.

Going back to the flexibility that being less-than-full-employed offers, Zac and I are in the process of trying to figure out a trip back to the mainland this fall. We'll probably spend a good chunk of time in Nebraska together, then he'll head back to Hawaii, with me continuing on to Minnesota for a while. Zac is due a long trip home to the farm - he hasn't been back since we came out here. I'd like to get him up to MN, but that just isn't going to be in the cards for 2010. I'm planning on being out in MN after Megan has her second child (in July) and my cousin has her first (in August), so I'm shooting for something in September. I should start looking for Minnesota Twins tickets and Gopher football tickets now. The thought of catching a baseball game and a football game in our new stadiums sounds delightful. Living in Hawaii is kind of like living in a live-sporting-event-abyss. Yes, I can go to Warrior football games but going to a UH football game at Aloha Stadium is like going to a Gopher game at the Metrodome. (You MN people know what I mean.)

I'll have more concrete dates as September approaches. Just keep me in mind, and hopefully I'll be able to be see everyone this time around. I missed seeing my friends last time. Hopefully I'll be able to spend some time reconnecting this time around.

Ready to relax for a few hours

It's been a crazy last five days or so. I'm emotionally and physically spent at the moment. I plan on doing a whole lot of nothing tonight and, hopefully, tomorrow.

It all started on Thursday of last week. I was having one of those days. 99% of the time I love living in Hawaii and the isolation of being on an island in the middle of the Pacific (and additionally working from home) doesn't bother me. But for some reason on Thursday I felt . . . stuck. I wanted to be able to call up one of my non-Navy girlfriends and meet up at a bar, have a few beers, shoot the breeze and chill out. I just wanted to get out of the house. To hang out. To spend some time with friends.

And as quickly as the desire to go hang out with my friends swept over me, so did the recognition that it was impossible. The friends that I wanted to hang with aren't here. I love Zac. I love spending time with Zac. But that's the thing - I spend almost all of my time with Zac. We both know that we occasionally drive each other nuts because we spend so much time together. Even when we socialize with other people, we're still together. It's either me hanging out with Zac and his single friends, or it's Zac and I hanging out with another Navy couple. Especially since Bernadette left, I don't have anyone that I regularly see without Zac being there too.

This is the long way of saying that on Thursday of last week I wanted to ditch my husband and go hang out with my not-affiliated-with-the-Navy-in-any-way friends. And when I realized that I had no where to go and no one to go with, I got really crabby. So Thursday wasn't a great day.

Thursday was also the day that I started dog-sitting for a friend. (A Navy wife and Bernadette's heir apparent. Since Bernadette's name was changed to protect her, I shall refer to this friend as "Claudia".) Claudia's father had passed away and she and her family were going to the mainland for the funeral. I offered to watch her two dogs for the long weekend. I have interacted with her dogs many times, and I didn't think there would be any problems having them stay at our house with Toivo and Zoe. Alas, I was wrong. The short version is that after cleaning up the "territory marking competition" between her dogs and mine [multiple times], and not getting any sleep on Thursday night, I ended up taking the dogs back to her house and spending the rest of the weekend dog-sitting from there. (Claudia gets back tonight.)

On top of dog-sitting this weekend, Zac's cousin, Cressy, came out to visit. She came in on Friday and left for a neighboring island today. We spent Friday afternoon, Saturday and Sunday showing her around Oahu, all while making regular stops at our house to let out Zoe and Toivo and Claudia's house to let out her two dogs. All the driving, plus the exertion of hiking and swimming and hosting wore all three of us out. Zac and I had a long conversation yesterday afternoon about how worn out we were and how we were starting to get on one another's nerves. We had a great time with Cressy and we'll get to see her again next weekend when she comes back to Oahu. Hopefully Zac and I will be a little less stressed when we see her.

I think it was just too much at the same time - hosting and dog sitting. But you don't always get to plan life. Sometimes things happen all at once and you just have to roll with the punches. All I know is that I'm glad it's Monday evening and the only thing that's in my immediate future is "Wheel of Fortune".

The simple joy of being able to stand up from the couch

About three weeks ago I tweaked my back at kickboxing. I didn't think much of it when I woke up sore the day after the class. I routinely feel a little stiff the following day. But that day I was particularly sore and the soreness continued for a couple of weeks. At one point the pain was so intense that I couldn't do much more than lay on the couch. Simple things like putting on jeans, feeding the dog and going up stairs were pretty much unbearable. (Upside - I couldn't unload the dishwasher for a few weeks and had to leave that task to my dear husband.)

After a couple of weeks I realized that my back wasn't getting much better so I finally broke down and scheduled a doctor's appointment. My rationale for not getting an appointment earlier was this: "They'll tell me it's a pulled muscle, to take some ibuprofen, and put some heat on it." So I went to the doctor and she told me, "It's a pulled muscle. Take some ibuprofen and put some heat on it." Shocking, eh? The doctor did have me perform a few leg raises to pinpoint the source of the pain to make sure it wasn't a pinched nerve or anything. She gave me a prescription for some ibuprofen and also took the opportunity to teach me what class of pharmaceuticals are okay to take during pregnancy. (No, I'm not pregnant. But in case it ever happens I'd like to know what I can and can't take.)

The doctor also prescribed me some muscle relaxant that I was supposed to take at night. I didn't take it the first few nights I had it. Truthfully, I was a bit anxious about taking it. I don't like the idea of a drug that is supposed to render you unconscious. (Well, more like sleepy, but you know what I mean.) I am wary of taking a Tylenol PM so the idea of an honest-to-god muscle relaxant worried me. I didn't want to feel groggy or loopy or . . . off. It's just not my thing. Maybe some folks like to take a muscle relaxant, chase it with a glass of wine and pass out but not me.

Finally on day three of having the pills on the nightstand (and after some scolding from my mother who instructed my husband to firmly remind me that "Your mother told you to take them") I broke down and took a half a tablet before bed. The dosage on the label read 1/2 to 1 tablet per dose and I decided starting with the lower dose was best. I took it and then laid there in bed, waiting for the room to spin or strange psychedelic dreams to start. Color me surprised when I woke up in the morning with no ill effects from the drug. I've continued on the ibuprofen and 1/2 tablet of muscle relaxant for the last four days and, wouldn't you know, today I was actually able to bend over to pull up my pants when I was getting dressed. Progress!

On the Zoe front - she's slowly worming her way into our hearts but there have been a few hiccups along the way. For one thing - she doesn't know any commands. So whereas Toivo will sit, stay, come and lay down as we instruct him to, Zoe looks at us with this glazed look. It's going to take some work with her too - she's easily distracted by everything. Getting her to focus on anything for more than a nanosecond is a chore. I think even Toivo occasionally rolls his eyes at her.

Zoe is crate trained, so she's used to being in her crate at night and while people are gone from the house. We wanted her to be roaming the house free at all times, like Toivo. She's been great so far - only one accident on the first day. She doesn't seem to want to sleep upstairs in the bedroom on the floor with Toivo at night. Maybe she will eventually. She's really friendly and sweet tempered. Unlike Toivo, who is content to be on his own 23.75 hours a day, Zoe gets antsy without attention. During the day every hour or two she comes up to you demanding to be pet for a few minutes. She isn't as vocal as Toivo, but she's starting to make more noise. She was absolutely silent the first 24-48 hours. She also is one of those dogs that eats her food lightning fast and will eat any other dog food left out and unattended. This poses a problem as Toivo is a grazer. We'll fill his bowl in the morning and he'll snack on it throughout the day. We're going to have to figure out a way to keep Zoe from devouring Toivo's food as well, otherwise she's going to end up as one rolly-polly pooch.

I took her and Toivo to the dog park yesterday for the first time and she played well with the other dogs. Well, for the time she actually spent interacting. Like Toivo, she spent much of the time at the park on her own - smelling all the interesting smells and investigating the entire park. It must be a Finnish Spitz thing. Too cool for school or something. At least she followed Toivo to the gate when I called to Toivo that it was time to go. I had been worried that I was going to have to chase her around the park, trying to snag her, but apparently she realized that Toivo is part of her pack and should follow him.

Overall, I'm glad we got her. Even though it is going to take some serious patience to get her into our routine, she has certainly made things more lively around here and she really is a sweetheart. Hopefully now that I can bend at the waist again(!) I'll be able to work with her and she'll become a little more obedient. Until then, Toivo, Zac and I will just have to sigh and roll our eyes a lot at her.

Sesame Street: Lena Teaches Grover To Say "How Do You Do?"

I loved Lena Horne on Sesame Street. I was sad to hear of her passing.

I just thought I'd share some of her goodness.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present . . .

Zoe!

With her new family! (Zoe is the one with two good eyes, on the left.)



Zac, with Zoe and Toivo.



Yahoo!

Ombudsman, unemployment and Zoe

Unless you all want to read about grocery shopping or rearranging furniture, I don't have much to write about . . .

I'm taking an ombudsman training class starting tonight and continuing for the next four nights. For those that aren't familiar with the ombudsman role in Navy life, they are usually a spouse of a sailor at a particular command. The ombudsman's job is to be a communication point between the command and the families. From what I hear the position is more involved when you're the ombudsman for a ship or on sea duty. When you're at a shore duty command it's pretty easy for the sailor to get information to the sailor's family - after all, they're usually home for supper. When the sailor is deployed ombudsmen can supply information about benefits, resources and other topics for people. Even if the ombudsmen don't know the information first hand, they have the training to know where to find out the answers. That's what I'm interested in - the information. I'm okay sacrificing a few nights to obtain it.

I'm sort of unemployed at the moment. I wrapped up my part of the project last week. At that time I reached a point where in order for me to continue to work on the project I would have to be granted access to some of the company's secure programs. My supervisor is in the process of seeing if I can be granted access to those programs. It might work, it might not. I'm waiting to hear how it turns out. I'm hoping that I will be granted access, but I wouldn't be surprised if it took a while. Things don't always move swiftly when it comes to big companies. If I don't get access, then I guess I'm really unemployed and will have to do some job hunting again. For joy.

I realized last night that as long as Zac and I have been together (literally together, as in our time in Oklahoma or here in Hawaii) Zac has never seen me work outside of the home. (Again, literally outside. I've been working from my couch.) It seems strange to me that he's never seen me get up in the morning, get ready for work, leave for 8.5 hours, and come home again, tired from a 40 hour work week, because that's who I consider myself to be - a full-time, office worker. These last 18 months in Hawaii (and four months in Oklahoma) are the anomaly, not the norm. I do think he will be in for a bit of a shock if/when I do get a full-time job outside the home and suddenly I only have two weeks of vacation to take a year. All that flexibility that he and I both enjoy will be out the window.

Lastly, it looks like Zoe will be arriving on Friday. I'm hoping that everything goes smoothly and we'll be able to pick her up directly after her arrival. Then I'm hoping that she gets along with Toivo. Lots and lots of hoping.