A Sniffle and a Blog

Currently brewing: Linden Flower Tea (from Cornelia Bean...I absolutely LOVE it), and it will be served in one of my mugs that I inherited from my aunt, there are 4 handmade mugs that are delightful with a blue flowers sort of water painted on...hard to explain I guess). It's been a while, so I forget the rules. I believe I am to drink something hot, describe the mug, include a picture, and I had a 2 day deadline to write the next post...which, I failed at. I'm sorry. Things that are new? Not a whole lot. There are leaves appearing on trees. The sun is up longer. I am outside more. I've taken to 10k strolls, or 5k strolls if time is crunched. (Today I took my first 5k walk where I was able to walk up the stairs without being overly winded after...perhaps I am on the mend!) Quite nice really, although I noted today that those black and green worms that hang out of the elms are back. I didn't have to deal with them last year as I left before they came out, and returned once they were gone. I had this lovely box of Kleenex, and I used it all up, and I am incredibly disappointed because it was quite a nice box. I shall have to keep my eye out for another one like it. Did I tell you how angry I was at my Dr? I was so angry when she gave me the antibiotics, I almost didn't take them, but I knew she wouldn't do anything else for me if I didn't. So, I then brought up that the other pills she had me on made me irritable and cry a lot, and she said to take them for one more month, and so I bought magnesium supplements to take so that I am not irritable and hysterical (because I had heard from someone that this significantly helped their daughter) and I have not felt irritable or hysterical since. It's quite a relief to know that I probably won't burst into tears when the pressure is on. My boss was very worried about me after one incident where I stood in her office door, said "I suck at nursing" and burst into tears. Quite the experience. Below is a picture of the mugs, the kleenex box, and one of my pie plates...I bought a little set of of them, because they are beautiful. This months pie, which I think I'll make on Wednesday, will be a chocolate mousse base with fresh strawberries sliced on top. I think it's going to be awesome.

Now I'm going to finish my tea (and my diluted orange juice...I read somewhere that if I stop being dehydrated maybe my sinus' will clear up...so, as of 2 hours ago, I am drinking as much as I can!), and then go to sleep, because tomorrow is work...a blessed short 8 hours of it, but work nonetheless. Happy day to you!   I also have no idea how to make paragraphs...I promise when I wrote this it had paragraphs, and they changed blogspot and now I can't make paragraphs, so it's going to have to stay a giant slab of words.

Blogging from Prince George!

Currently: sitting on the couch, watching Kris play NHL on his Xbox, cuddling with the 2 white dogs- Carlos and Murphy!

Prince George has been great! Of course you know how happy the tattoo I got has made me :) we're also having a great visit with Kris' parents and looking forward to a BBQ with 15-20 people tonight!

We come home tomorrow, hoping to stay til lunch and be home around 10. Monday will be a busy day of last minute pre-Mexico tasks.

I hope Norquay is SO great. I wish I was there, but I'm also glad I'm here.

I don't have a lot to say, it's been an interesting week. Lots of sad mixed with hope in this whole baby process. Praying that this is a mark of progress and that there will be a babe growing soon. If not, it's on to A.R.T. and learning to give myself needles. Should be an adventure with a steep learning curve if nothing else!

This is my first from-the-iPhone blog, the app is actually super easy which is nice. I'm debating a map before I get too into this day so I guess this will be a short little blog! Love you!

Can you find the 2 white doggies in the picture??

And a picture again of the new tattoo because I'm infatuated with it and so freaking happy it's part of me!!!!

Hey hey hey! I like this place of blogging.
I actually loved your blog. I thought it was beautiful, minus the puking thing and not being able to sleep. Hopefully that has continued to decrease since work ended today.

I babysat today. It was a long day, but it was fun. B is adorable. Funny. Loveable. I can't believe she is 3 and knows so much.

I also had Irish step dancing class tonight. It was exhausting. I've been so busy I haven't been keeping up with my other activities (swimming, skiing, occasional excursions to the gym, dog walks) and so with an hour a week of dance on Thursday's as my only cardio...I'm starting to feel it in the class! I'd like to reprioritize exercise...once I catch up on my sleep and house keeping and friend seeing. Dre suggested, before our birthdays, that we come up with something we'd like to do with our 26th year. A goal of some kind. Hers was to complete a triathalon. Mine was to write more. I've been blogging more, a kind of test-write I suppose, and sort of thinking about what exactly I would actually like to write and that other people would like to read, or if it should just be something I write and save on my computer and my grandkids can find and publish it when I'm old and gone. Anyway, the actual point (and reason this is included in the exercise paragraph) is that Amanda sorta stopped her whole training thing, and I questioned her, and she explained that a triathalon was a lot of work and she'd never get there anyway. So I had to step up and remind her of what she had said when we were 25 and told her she didn't have to race the thing she just had to do it. So, as the encourager, I guess I am doing it too. So if, in the rather nearer than I'd like future, I have to swim 1.5km, bike 40 km and then run 10km without actually literally dying, I had better make exercise a bit more of a priority...or find a machine that makes me exercise in my sleep...

Speaking of sleep, I was falling asleep while stretching after dance today, so I am going to go to sleep now. I am drinking water, because it is Lent and I am only allowed to drink water, and I didn't find warm water appealing, so it's just room temperature...

Here is my picture...I'm very excited to this guy in a few weeks...will you be there? I surely hope so!!

catching up.

So, it's been a few months again.

I didn't figure out if there's a blogger app. I should do that.

I've been home sick all day (like icky puking sick) and now suddenly can't sleep and am wide awake. Odd. So I decided I should visit our little blog and even though my stomach hasn't been able to keep anything down, I've made some Mother's Helper tea that will hopefully be both easy on the stomach and sleep inducing.

I am going on an all-expense-paid trip to Whitecourt this weekend! HAHA, not generally an exciting thing, but that's where Kris is working, and I get to stay with him for free and his food allowance is plenty enough to cover both of us, so off I shall go to Whitecourt. A lady my mom works with used to live there, and is adamant that they have many lovely shops that I will enjoy to browse and spend my money in. Looking forward to that ;)

Being the conformist rebel I am, I've finally decided on my next tattoo. Following in the footsteps of my current ones, it has a charming cheese factor with a bit of cute to it. It will have the silhoutte of two birds on the top of my right foot, with the script 'if you're a bird, i'm a bird' adjacent to it. The quote is from The Notebook, which alone makes me swoon. Being the cheeseball I am, I really wanted a relationship/wedding commemorative tattoo, and now I'm just giddy at the prospect of it! I'm hoping to book the tattoo soon, as long as I can back out of it if I end up pregnant.

And getting into the nitty gritty of my many failed attempts to make a baby, this month I've adopted a 'go with the flow' attitude that I had abandoned when I first started fertility drugs. I was trying to be relaxed, but also charting and ovulation testing and making sure timing was optimal and everything. And this month, nada. I still have to go for my ovulation confirming bloodwork in a week, but that's it. I took my drugs, but I'm just not worrying about it. God knows when He is going to send us a baby, or in the event fertility drugs live up to their street cred babies, and I am becoming really okay with that again. This happened to me last year too, as my chances to have a baby in a certain calendar year dwindled, I became kind of desperate. But I'm realizing my timing means nothing, God's timing means everything. My desperation will only negatively impact me, but relying on God to provide in His time will impact me only positively. So really, it's a no brainer. I still have to do everything I can do as far as trying drugs and what not, but I also know God is in this and He has a plan for us and all the future mini Richter's. And it's a good plan, a really good plan. I just have to have patience tempered with persistence, an interesting battle to wage for sure.

I really like having an iphone, it's truly an 'all in one' in my life. Kris suggested we not take our phones to Mexico and I went all teenage girl on that idea! How will I take pictures? How will I set my alarm? How will I check the forecast? I'm so dependent on this device, it's kind of sad. But also, so awesome at the same time. I sold my soul to Apple, and I have no regrets.

Speaking of Mexico, I am ELATED that the swimming suit finding expedition is finally completed and was successful. It sucked as bad as I thought it would, and I had to lower my standards a bit, but I'm happy with the outcome and excited for the fun shopping now. I need new sunglasses, beach reading and am convinced i *need* a big, floppy hat. Fun!

I wanted to go visit Rae and Kyle while I'm there, but it turns out it is like an 8 hour trip each way, so I don't think that will be happening. However, I'm 100% debt free which is SO exciting, we still have some student debt of Kris' to take care of, but it definitely frees us up to go on more trips in the near-ish future! Which is SO exciting, I really hope Kris catches the travel love while we're away and wants to see more places, I know these gypsy feet are itching to feel some new ground beneath them! It also has me legitimately considering home ownership which is crazy. It feels just crazy. We keep saying we don't want to buy until we can buy our ideal home (build new, outside of the city), but we're realizing that we hate renting, and are now readjusting our thoughts and thinking about town houses or duplexes. SO WEIRD that we're even having this conversation. But then I remember I'm 26 and married to a 30 year old and then it just feels like it is time to make this leap. Maybe we won't do it yet, but maybe we will. Who knows what the next 6 months hold!

And those are my random updates. I don't have any fun pictures to share, I will try not to break rules next time :) Love you friend, hope sleep has come far more easily to you tonight than it has to me! At least the tea is staying inside my tummy. Yay for life!

And the Cat Came Back...a few months later

Drinking: the coffee is perking on the stove (I added cinnamon...apparently I own THREE containers of cinnamon and one of them is GIANT), and the coffee will soon be in a mug that is rather tiny, black on the outside, white on the inside, with the tiniest ring of grey around the edge(it's barely noticeable)...but that mug got hijacked by a London travel mug from Starbucks because Dre called and we're going for a walk once she gets here.

But I want to blog anyway. It's been a while.

And that time flew.

Let's see...
My apartment is a disaster, but it shall be clean and nice once you and Kris come...and even if it's not, I'll still let you come to see it.

I was running around downtown with K yesterday for a bit, and forgot that I have Winnie the Pooh stickers all over my sweater. K didn't tell me. And I just realized it today when I was walking the dog in the same sweater. Sigh.

I have a cornbread addiction. It started at Erik and Kristie's and has resulted in me making it twice to eat with soup...but I still have soup, and NEVER have cornbread left...

At church we are talking about the affirmations of the Covenant Church, which is very interesting, because I don't remember ever looking at them before. Did we cover that in Confirmation?? OR is it a membership thing? Anyway, then our small group kind of discusses the affimation after, and we were talking about the centrality of the Word last wednesday and all I could think of was if the Word was really central, then it would be like when I read too much Jane Austen/Charlotte Bronte and I actually start to think and speak with an English accent...if the Word was central it would taint EVERYTHING...every thought, every action, every word. That sounds kinda incredible...and I have no idea how to get there, or near there...

For halloween yesterday I went to Lindsay and Geoff's for their halloween party. It was fun...I of course sat in the crowd of people and listened, and didn't have too much to say...but I had fun...and am hoping I wasn't a total loser...my costume was my plaid shirt (it's a trendy one), my skinny jeans, your boots, and a trucker hat that K and I found at goodwill with my hair in pigtails...so not that far off from what my normal is lol.

Umm...I should go, Dre will be here soon, and Anna, and I need to prepare my coffee. (I ate cornbread for breakfast and need something like coffee to actually give me energy)...hmm...I need a picture to leave you with...let me find one...ooh, here are some poppies in Israel...to remind us that next up is Remembrance Day weekend...and your visit!!!

Maybe the destination is the journey?

Drinking: Mother's Helper tea from David's in a Chicago Starbucks mug, (the oversized city mug, not the musical), it's a 'relaxing' tea, not an actual sleep aid tea, but I really like it.

So, like I said earlier today on bbm, I've been thinking a lot about journey vs destination. I know the destination matters a lot, but I often find myself wholly focused on the destination and not remembering that even when I reach one destination, I'm already envisioning the next. So really, my life is spent in the journey. It's a good reminder that I need to live the journey, to be present in the moments of life that will quickly pass me by when a new stage of life is ready for me.

For me, it relates a lot to the whole having a family thing. While I ache for my womb that refuses to grow a child within it, I also know that these years of just Kris and I (plus Murph!!) are precious, and won't last forever. I don't want to rationalize or trivialize how hard it is to battle infertility, which we officially are now, infertile that is. But I also want to make the most of these 'bonus years' we have as just the 2 of us, to take little trips, to be indulgent, to pay things off, to enjoy being just we two. Because we 2 is amazing, and shouldn't be a phase we just rush through, as much as we'd love to be moving on to 3.

And, maybe the destination is the journey. I think that's at least largely true, that where we're going is really just a lot of how we get there, the destination is influenced by the journey, and so part of what the destination is, or evolves to be, is the journey. And the journey is what grows us, shapes us, forms us. I need to remember that, and to remember that find the joy, grace and love in day to day living is maybe, just maybe, what the destination is.

That's maybe all a bit stream of consience, but I think (hope) it makes sense.

I'm watching Big Brother right now, I'm lame, I know. But I also brewed this pot of tea because Christen is on her way over to hang out, so yay for that!

I'm thankful that we seem to be having a bit more sunshine than we have of late, even tho there's still consistant rain. I miss there being summer in the actual summer months, but I'm definitely not taking even 20 minutes of sunshine for granted this year, that's for sure!

I'm looking forward to family camp, more so now that I'm aware of k's imminent arrival. Sorry that we're stealing her back, except barely sorry. Ha. We can't keep Murph at the camp, and we didn't look into kennels in time, so we're going to camp at Neil and Barb's and then family camp from there. I think it will actually give us a nice bit of separation, if that makes sense. I'm excited for it, and excited that Neil and Sharol are speaking!

I hope your long weekend is wonderful :) I'm very much looking forward to mine, and also, I'm now very much looking forward to sleep that will hopefully come and meet me in the next little bit. Murph is cuddled beside me, he's had quite the day, so I think he's ready for it to be bedtime too. Christen is still here, watching tv in the other room until she has to go pick up a friend at the airport, but Murph still chose to come to bed. That says a lot!

And I even emailed myself a picture of Murph's big day, and forgot to add it! Jeepers :)

Murph came to work this afternoon during the showing, here he is, helping Kimbo process a chart for payment:

Goodnight, my friend.

An abundance of opportunity

Drinking: apple cinnamon neocitrin...it tastes like hot apple cider and it has tylenon and 2 other drugs I can't pronounce in it...the combination promises to make me feel wonderful. It is in my large green Capricorn/Jiminy Cricket mug because I felt it would be too sweet if I only put 1 cup of water in, I was right.

The theme verse at camp was Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" which led to the staff campfire sharing theme to be "What is God's calling on your life?" I did not have to share, but it did get me thinking and I realized a pattern in the opportunities I had been given recently.

This pattern is one that has led me to believe that I am being called to intentionally involve myself in community.

NOT in a Life Together House kind of way (I'm way too selfish to want to spend all my time with people...I like the idea of "My space"), but in a get-out-there-and-be-involved kind of way.

What is leading me to think this way? Let me enlighten you:

1. I went to Israel with a group of people I didn't know, or hardly knew and really enjoyed it. I love all the people on that trip and would love to see them all again sometime in some setting.

2. I was asked out to camp where I made some new Faith Covenant Church Winnipeg friends, and chatted with some people I kind of know but don't really know well (Nadine, Shauna). It was good, and I'm grateful for the time I spent with them all.

3. Going to the wedding was a strange decision I felt like I couldn't say no to, and then the fact that it meant so much to Josh that we were there confirmed that it was the right thing to do, and that reinforced the fact that the sense of community is not just my own belonging, but it is also something I am responsible to foster in others.

4. Tonight I was wondering if I should go to the Weather Permitting thing tomorrow and I had decided not to, VERY shortly after an e-mail invitation from Jeff and Darlene to our small group was sent to encourage us to come to the Weather Permitting thing.

5. I rode in a car for 5 hours with Gavin and we chatted the entire way. I'm not lying. It's true. You can ask him. I talked, and I don't think I was terribly awkward.

6. When I was gone adventuring, I missed my small group. I realized they are like my Winnipeg family (even though I am not yet ready or comfortable with the idea of Faith Covenant Winnipeg as my family, the small group is my family).

7. I am moving again soon, and need a truck, and wouldn't mind some help hauling my stuff up to the 3rd floor. In order to get any of this without just being ridiculous and hiring a moving company I will need to ask people for help. This is a challenge because I'm realizing how addicted I am to my own independence, which I suppose is not how Christ wants us to live.

8. I went to Saskatoon Covenant Church on Sunday and the message was, in a roundabout kind of way, about not separating ourselves or holding ourselves apart from others (be they believers or not).

9. At camp I had this incredible conversation with Andrea about the Covenant and how it is a bit challenging to come into it as an outsider. She has a magic pass though, if it gets awkward she can say she someone's granddaughter and then she GETS HUGS. Can you believe it? I am taking this as a sign to do something about that and try to talk to people at church. They probably don't bite.

10. B and I played Apples to Apples tonight...and by played Apples to Apples I mean we built towers out of stacks of the cards. This reminded me of SFG and I really wanted to send out an e-mail to everyone, but am slightly afraid they will all be really annoyed. I might do it anyway. We'll see.

There were a few other things, but the Neocitrin is kicking in and making my thoughts difficult to pay attention to. So, I am going to sleep. I look forward to your blogging. Here is a random picture of Briony after the strawberry farm field trip I took her on: