nobody said it would be easy

Happy Birthday to ME! I can't believe I'm 28 years old. For my birthday John took me away. We spent the night in a jacuzzi suite at Turning Stone. It was an awesome room, and we had a great time. It was so nice to get away, and both of us wish it could have been a longer time away. Unfortunately, real life is calling. I'm the lucky one who has tomorrow off, too. :) I feel bad John has to go back to work. But I have lots of house cleaning to get done, so it won't be a relaxing day for me either.

John's car drama continues. I don't know if I ever really told the story of what happened, so I'll summarize as quickly as possible. I forget the exact date, but I think it was around November 20th, when John was driving straight and the woman coming towards him turned left, right into his driver's door. Thankfully John wasn't hurt. Unfortunately, it did lots of damage to his truck. We've gotten the run-around from the insurance company and had to FIGHT them just to get a 30-day rental car (which is part of our plan!). We kept the car a few days past the 30, but then had to return it because we just can't afford to pay for a rental car everyday. I've gotten rides, John's brought me to work, and one day Sarah let me borrow her car. All this is happening because the door for John's truck is on back order. Has been this whole time. So today John got a call from the mechanic saying the door will be in NEXT Wednesday (January 7th) and it will take 4 days or so to finish it after that. YIKES! Now we're basically setting up our calendar for the next 2 weeks to see when we'll need a rental (or rides) and when we can get by with only one car (weekends, mostly). We're learning to be flexible.

I feel the need to do a "year in review". I'm trying to think of all the good things that have happened this year. My 2nd nephew Zachary was born. Jamie's son Cash was born. John got a new job! I got a raise. I changed classes at work, which has turned out great. We're doing better financially. John and I went on our second cruise. We celebrated our 2nd anniversary. I got pregnant. Christine got pregnant. Our house wasn't damaged by the huge tree that fell during the ice storm. Our families have been very supportive of us. My Dad fixed our furnace!

That said, there's obviously one event that has overshadowed every good thing that happened this past year. I try to be positive and look on the bright side...but I've come to realize that not only is that impossible, it's unhealthy. So sometimes I'm just sad. Certain things just randomly set me off. I know other people who have lost babies this year as well. My prayer for all of us who are still greiving is that 2009 will be a fresh start for us. I know I'm not going to wake up January 1st and be suddenly happy. But I am hoping that 2009 will bring us all what we desire. I know that's the only way I'll be able to move on from this loss. So here's to 2009 making us all a little happier, a little less emotional, and a lot fatter. :)

Happy Birthday to me.

I'm Trying

I can be happy most of the time. But it's hard sometimes. Right now, I feel like the rest of my life will be like this...sad days to remember. November 10th, our anniversary, is when I found out I was pregnant. Now it's going to be a sad day to remember. November 25th, 2 days before Thanksgiving, was the day I lost my baby. That makes all those days surrounding Thanksgiving sad for me. Then I'm thrown right into the Christmas season, which is all about a baby. And it's just hard. I know that I'll be pregnant again, and John and I will have a family. But right now, it just hurts so much, it's hard to imagine how happy we could possibly be in the future. I'm missing my baby. I would be 11 weeks pregnant now. I'm not angry for what was taken, I'm just so sad. And today it's really hitting me hard.

Is One of the Twelve Gifts of Christmas Procrastination?

About this time of year, the stress starts. I'm a procrastinator, and this year has been worse than most. I blame having surgery, that set me back a couple weeks. John says that isn't a good excuse. How is it that no matter what I do, I always end up finishing my shopping and wrapping on Christmas Eve? To make matters worse, we're down to one car. I'm having to find rides to and from work, tomorrow John's driving me and picking me up. Tonight after work I got dropped off at the Police Station where he was working to pick up the car, because I had errands to run. Now I have to go back and pick him up at 11pm, which sucks big time. In the meantime, I have TONS of wrapping to do. My blogging is actually just me procrastinating.

One of the Mom's at work gave me a huge thing of homemade cookies today. They have nuts in them, so I couldn't eat them at work. As soon as I finished my dinner I started chowing down, and now I feel sick because I've eaten so many cookies!! :) They are SO yummy though. It's so nice to feel appreciated by the families of the kids that I take care of every day. Makes it feel worth it. It reminds me that I should be more openly thankful to people that help me out throughout the year.

Today I got my wedding album! I absolutely LOVE it! I also got a DVD with the pictures on it, so I'll post a couple when I get a chance.

Tomorrow I work till 3, then we're having dinner and spending the evening at John's parent's house. I'm so excited. I love Christmas! Despite all the stress and craziness, it's my favorite time of year. I love giving people gifts, and, I'm not gonna lie, I like getting them as well. :) On Christmas day we'll have lunch and open gifts with my family, then at night we have a dinner with my Mother-in-law's whole family. Unfortunately I have to work on Friday. :( But then I have Saturday off, and Sunday we're going away for the night! My birthday is Monday, so we're just getting away for a night. I can't wait, I need to have a break from regular life, even if only for one day. Then I don't go back to work till Wednesday.

Have I procrastinated enough?! Merry Christmas to everyone, I hope you have a great holiday with family and friends. And if I don't make it back in time, Happy New Year!

The Aftermath

Wow. What a night. And day! Let me give you a run-down of what's happened around our house in the past 20 hours or so.

John and I went to bed last night around...10:30 or so. Didn't fall asleep for awhile. I was anticipating a delay (hopefully closing) and he was dreading having to get up early so he could make it to work on time. I think that John left around midnight on his first fire call. First of many. He had only slept about 10 or 15 minutes. I woke up around 1am. I think all the scanner chatter woke me up. I went to the bathroom, then listened to the scanner as I started to fall asleep. I heard John at a structure fire. Then all of a sudden I woke up because there was this bright flash and loud noise...I don't remember what kind of noise, but it woke me up. I got out of bed and looked out our bedroom windows. Nothing. Looked out the living room windows. Nothing. Looked out the laundry room window - and saw wires down, laying in the road at the end of our driveway. I called the police department, and they said they already knew. I'm sure lots of our neighbors called too. I kept watching for awhile outside, and suddenly realized that I was seeing fire reflecting off the ice and stuff. Something was burning a little ways down the road. I opened the window and smelled the awful electric burning smell. I saw neighbors out there with flashlights, so I wasn't too worried, but I knew I couldn't leave the house because of the wires that were right in front of our driveway. Then fire broke out closer to our house, basically right behind our shed, from my view. I guess it was actually several feet away, but I was scared everything was going to catch fire! Here's a picture of the reflection of the fire behind our shed:

I spent about an hour watching this out the window. I had the portable scanner too, listening to all the fire calls. They were constant. Let me tell you, if you have a volunteer fire department in your town, give them a big thank you. They were out (atleast in Rotterdam) all night for wires down, trees down, trees into houses, structure fires, flooding and many other things. These guys worked all night, obviously with no pay, so that we could be safe. I have a new appreciation for what my husband and many other people do. They put themselves in harm's way for our benefit, and I'm so thankful for them.

Anyway, around 2am I was still in the laundry room watching the fire department watch the wires. :) All of a sudden I heard a loud cracking noise, then a huge crash and our entire house shook. I was so scared that something was going to come crashing through the roof. I walked into the kitchen and shined my flashlight out into the backyard and I saw...well, I'll show you what I saw. Bear in mind I took this picture later, when it was light out. This is the view out our kitchen window:

That's our garage on the left and that massive branch hit the roof of the garage, and hit our grill (with the blue cover). I'm thanking God that it didn't hit our house! After this fell my adrenaline was pumping and it took me forever to get in bed. I didn't sleep. I kept hearing branches fall, and getting up to check and see where they hit. John was out on fire calls until 5am, then he came home, showered, and had to head straight to work. I slept for maybe an hour after he left, but then I got a call that work was closed (yay!) and I couldn't sleep anymore. I got up and took some pictures.

This is our patio, covered with that huge branch, plus others that fell. They took out our fireplace:

Where the fireplace used to be (more of the patio):


The icy branches on the right side of the picture are my lilacs. :( I hope they bounce back. One branch was broken, the rest are just so weighed down with ice they're touching the ground:

This branch fell in our front yard around 5:30am:


Branches covering our driveway, plus the wires down:

Wires smoking and sparking (we saw lots of flames too):

Backyard view of the back of our house and garage:

Damage to the roof of the garage:

Live wire right by our fence:

Through rain, sleet, snow...and everything else! :)

Amazingly, we actually had power, even with those power lines down. Around 2:30pm National Grid showed up and cut the power to work on the wires. It took them quite awhile to repair everything, and our power was back on at 8pm. Soon after that our cable, internet and phone were back on too. So life is back to normal. Now I'm going to sleep because I'm tired. No sleep will do that to you. Hope all is well with all of you!

Ice Ice Baby

Nothing like a little ice storm to welcome in winter in the great Northeast! Not that I'm complaining. There are definitely some benefits to me because of this nasty weather. School closed early, so I got out 2 hours before I normally would have. Therefore, John and I got to spend a couple hours together that we wouldn't have otherwise. He's now at a drill at the fire house. Another benefit, which hasn't happened yet, but I'm hoping does: SNOW DAY! Or atleast a delay. I'd be happy with either. :) I'm wearing my pj's backwards tonight. That's the surefire way to guarantee a snow day. :) Very scientific. Honestly, I'm assuming we'll just have a delay, but I'm hoping for the whole day off. (Watch, we won't even get a delay, with my luck.)

I actually braved this nastiness to go to Hannaford tonight. I wanted to get some water in case the power goes out, plus lots of baking stuff in case I have a snow day tomorrow (and the power is on...lol) Of course the roads were horrible, but Hannaford is so close I wasn't too worried. The worst part of my whole trip (besides forgetting batteries) was the nasty parking lot. (Am I favoring the word nasty tonight?) Seriously, the parking lot was a pond. I took one step and my feet were soaked. Granted, I was just wearing sneakers, not boots, but still. How annoying. Wet, cold feet. I came home and took a nice hot shower. I also bought some neosporin at Hannaford, because one of my incisions is kind of infected. :( Nasty. It's red and hurts and it has some puss coming out of it. Ewie. So hopefully that will help.

There was a down side to us closing today. Our Christmas program was scheduled for 4pm. Now it's rescheduled for next Wednesday. I was anxious to have it over!! Now we have to stress about it for a few more days. Oh well.

Now I'm relaxing with Zoe. :) If you're reading this Thursday night...wear your pajamas backwards for me!

Merry Christmas Baby

Today was my first day back at work since my surgery. It was not too bad! I'm extremely tired, and my incisions are sore. I did a lot more moving today then I've done in awhile. That's what happens when you have a room full of 2-year-olds to keep up with! The kids were excited to see me. They're so sweet. I really am glad to be back, even though my days are so long. Those kiddos make it worth it. I had a few cards from parents, and a few parents mentioned how sorry they were, and asked how I was doing. I appreciate it all so much, but when people say stuff to me I feel like I almost blow it off, because if I even start talking about it a little bit, I start to cry. So I just say, "Thanks, I'm doing great!" Even if that's not entirely true. But what else can I do? I'm not going to start crying while I have to be working!

I finally finished decorating the whole house - tree and all! I love our tree. We got in at a local fire department, and they delivered it, since John's car is still in the shop! It was perfect. Now it's all decorated and lit up...well, let me show you! :)

For some reason it's all orangey-red. But this is it. :) Hopefully there will be presents under it soon! :) Speaking of....I still have NO Christmas shopping done. And only about 2 weeks left. This is gonna be crazy.

I had my post-op appointment yesterday at noon. Well, it was scheduled for noon. I got there at about 11:40. My name didn't get called until 2:00. Over 2 hours in the waiting room! It was insane. All that, just for her to say everything looks fine. I'm supposed to wait a few months before trying again, which is going to be hard. I really feel like my sadness would subside if I could just get pregnant again! But I want to do what's best for my body, and for my future babies. Oh, I got to see pictures of my uterus and fallopian tubes that my doctor took during the surgery. Very cool. :)

All last week John worked 12-hour shifts. Very boring for me, since I was home bumming around, nursing my wounds. I tried to keep my mood upbeat since I didn't want to be laying around crying all day. Everyday around 3:30, John's usual time to come home, Zoe would go to the window and just sit and wait for him to show up. He wasn't getting home till either 11pm or 3am....so she had awhile to wait. :) One day I took a picture of her looking out the window, just waiting. It was so cute, her ears sticking up into the sunset as she patiently awaited her master's return.

Snowmen

There's one sure sign that Christmas is on it's way, and that's the parade of snowmen appearing in our house. For the past several years I've been a snowman collector. I don't even know how it really started. I love snowmen. There are so many cute, unique snowmen things. Through the years it has (pardon the pun) snowballed. I don't even buy snowmen things for myself anymore because I have so many, and continue to receive them as gifts! It's hard to pass up all the cute snowmen stuff. So last night I began pulling the boxes out of the attic. Not an easy chore since I'm not supposed to be lifting. I despise having to pack away the "normal" house decorations and unpack all the Christmas stuff. It's such a nasty chore. But I love the house all decorated. :) Anyway, I started yesterday, and then kind of quit in the middle (well, maybe not quite to the middle yet.) I got tired. So tonight I'm blogging and procrastinating instead of picking it back up again. But I plan to put on some Christmas music and get to work as soon as I'm done here.

Today was, I think, my busiest day since the surgery. Granted, I didn't get up until about 9am, but I showered (then lounged around for awhile), got BK with John, visited my parents for awhile, got my hair cut (thanks Becky!!), bought some new jeans at Old Navy, 2 new Christmas CD's at Target, then visited my parents again. Phew. I'm glad I did all that...kind of made me feel like a normal person again. But now I'm sore. I guess I need to do a little more everyday to work my way back up to normal.

We STILL haven't gotten our Christmas tree. John's truck is still in the shop (that's a whole other looong, annoying insurance-run-around story) so we have no way to get one home. I thought about caving and just getting a fake one, but I want a real one!! And I know if we get a fake one, he'll never want to get a real one again. I think one of the Fire Departments in Rotterdam delivers trees, so maybe we'll do that this weekend. The house doesn't feel Christmas-y enough until the tree is up and decorated. I hope I can have the rest of the house done by the time we get the tree.

We've already gotten 2 Christmas cards. DARN you early-bird people who already make me feel behind! We have yet to take a picture for our Christmas cards, buy the cards, update the list, fill out the cards, address them, buy the stamps and mail them! Some tasks just seem overwhelming at times. Maybe I'll skip them this year. :)

Well...here I go. Back to the snowmen. Maybe I'll post a few pictures when I'm done.

I have this incredible urge to blog, but nothing specific to blog about. A huge thank you, first of all, to everybody. All the caring thoughts, sensitive words and promises of prayer have meant so much to us. It's amazing to realize how much people really care. I know alot of people go through the loss of a baby very privately. That wasn't an option for us, as we'd already spilled the beans to anyone willing to listen. But because of the surgery, it wouldn't have been an option anyway. In a way, I think that's helped me. Everyone knows, and everyone is praying. That's what's sustaining us. There are definitely times when I just want to be alone and cry. Sometimes I don't answer the phone, because I don't feel like talking. But I am so grateful for the love everyone has shown us.

John went back to work yesterday, and I had a very productive day. I did laundry. That's pretty much all I did, but hey, I did something. I rested alot in between loads. :) Since John is working 12-hour shifts this week my Mom came to spend the evening with me yesterday. We just hung out and talked and watched Shrek the Halls and The Grinch. She brought me home made pea soup. Yummmm.

Today I ventured out for the first time by myself. It's been a week since I've driven! Weird. John had a special child he needed to buy Christmas gifts for, so I handled that. I also bought soap and toothpaste. I thought about buying ingredients to start Christmas baking, but I'm not up for that yet. I stopped at Subway and now I'm home to relax a little before I head to Sarah's house for dinner. Maybe tomorrow I'll get some more cleaning done. We'll see.

Life is slowly getting back to normal. More so once I finally go back to work. I'm assuming it won't feel totally normal for awhile. Thanks again to everyone for the prayers...keep 'em coming.