Life Lately

The sweet husband and I have been very busy lately, but having a complete blast while we're at it. I should admit, when he has his weeks off, I tend to have trouble finding time to blog. We'd just rather spend the precious free time together, ya know? But he's back to work today, so I figured I'd take a few mins to fill everyone in on the whirlwind of fun we've been having these past few weeks.

With my new job comes new responsibilities. For the month of October, our parish runs a pumpkin patch as a fundraiser for our youth group, which actually means I run a pumpkin patch. And I'll tell you what, while it's a fair bit of work, it's also a fair bit of fun. During the first weekend of October, with the help of over 40 teens, we unloaded over 1,000 pumpkins from a large truck trailer, all sent to us from a Native American Reservation in New Mexico. We've worked with this pumpkin supplier for over 10 years and though they travel far to bring us pumpkins, they're great, high quality pumpkins, and we're happy that our fundraiser also supports Native American families out west.

After several hours of unloading and pumpkin patch set-up, we're
kinda stinky and very happy with the work we've accomplished.

After the great pumpkin unloading, I now mainly spend all my time begging the youth group teens to sign up to work the cash box every day and checking for rotten pumpkins. Oh, and I also try to wrack my brain for creative ways to advertise. So far we've made decent money, so that's been good. What's best about it, though, is the opportunity it provides for the teens to spend more time together, getting to know each other outside of our regular meetings. It's pretty adorbs watching the friendships blossom.

Posing with the pumpkins.

Teens working the cash box. 

Pumpkins!

Last weekend, a friend invited us over for a pumpkin carving party. Good thing I know a good place to buy pumpkins. :) John and I decided on the "skeleton with a mustache and monocle" design for our pumpkin, 'cause we're classy like that.

Our pumpkin mustache you a question.

Sir Pumpkington hanging outside of our apartment with
his two other pumpkin friends we bought at the patch.

Unfortunately, our carved pumpkin didn't last very long...

Ick!

That mold grew overnight! We've had some unseasonably hot and humid October weather here in Memphis, so I think that's what caused it. Oh well, at least we got a cute picture with him when he was moldless.

Last weekend I also got a great idea to make a blanket for my four-year-old niece, Lindsey. My sister is pregnant with baby #2, due in February, so I thought it would be cute to make Lindsey a "big sister blanket." I wrote her a card explaining that her new blanket was for cuddling with her baby brother once he arrives. My sister tells me Lindsey had nothing but a big ol' smile on her face when she read her my card. It can be hard living so far from my family sometimes (they all live in RI), so making my niece smile from afar with this little present brought me lots of joy.

Tying the blanket and watching some Sherlock.

In the past week, we've discovered two new favorite board games - Dixit and Pandemic. Dixit is a great family or party game, kind of like Apples to Apples, but with pictures instead of words. And Pandemic is a cooperative game, where you try to beat the game together rather than competing against each other. Both provided lots of fun in our little apartment these past few days.

We've also gotten into Doctor Who. We heard from a friend that the first season was not the best, so we went into it expecting that, and now that we're past it, it's gotten awesome! Not to mention, the 10th Doctor is prettttty dreeeamyyy! Don't worry, my husband knows, and he's not jealous, because he also knows I think he's the dreamiest of them all.

My sweet in-laws got me season tickets to 2 different community theaters here in the Memphis area as a verrrry early birthday present. I'm pumped that John and I now have a whole bunch of free date nights in our future. Last Thursday, we used our first two tickets to see Young Frankenstein, the musical, and it was HILARIOUS! Also, the acting, set designs, costumes, all of it, was so well done! Looking forward to seeing more shows at that theater now, especially Jesus Christ Superstar in March.

In addition to all the random fun, we've also spent a bit of time tackling some of our adoption paperwork. It's quite a stack to get through, but we've enjoyed diving into it together. This week, our focus was completing several questionnaires - one about our feelings towards adoption and what kind of connection we'd like with the child's birthparents, one about infertility, one about our marriage, and one about our parenting styles. I have to say, I wasn't expecting the questionnaires to take as long as they have. Though all of the questions are good to think about, I don't think I would have reflected on any of them had we gotten pregnant and hadn't looked into adoption. For example: Define how you see your spouse's role as a parent. How or will it be different? What values were emphasized in your childhood and which of these values do you plan to instill?How do you feel you might react to your child's decision to search for his/her birthparents? Hard questions, right? I'm glad I took time to reflect on them, but it gets me thinking...

It's interesting to reflect on how different this path is from the path most families will take to have children. It requires much more screening, much more preparedness, and much more time (not to mention money) to adopt. I understand the reasons for all of these things, but it doesn't help me from wondering why our journey can't just be like most everyone else's. Especially knowing that every day there are women out there who are so far from being prepared to parent a child getting pregnant so easily. Maybe I'm just called to something bigger and better than having a large family. And maybe their own crosses are ones that are far worse than IF. I suppose it'll all make more sense one day.

And that leads me to the last bit of my little life update. I started on a low dose of Clomid earlier in this cycle and now I'm doing a little ultrasound series to see how the follicles are growing. After my first ultrasound on CD10, where the ultrasound tech didn't see a single dominant follicle, Dr. G said he didn't think the Clomid was working the way he had planned it to, so I think that means an adjustment for my next cycle is already in the works. I went back today for a second ultrasound, now CD13, and there was a dominant one on my right ovary (thank you, ovary!) though the ultrasound tech couldn't see signs of an egg, just like the last time I had an ultrasound series. I'm going back on Thursday for a third ultrasound and then for bloodwork around P+7 to see if Clomid has affected my post-peak hormones. The good news is I didn't turn into a Clo-monster on this low dose of Clomid. Yay! We'll see if that story stays the same next cycle; I'm assuming Dr. G will considering upping my Clomid dose.

Honestly, though adoption paperwork and silly follicles can be a bit of work, John and I have had a lot of fun filling our time in between those activities with plenty of adventures this month. Life lately gets an 8 out of 10 from me. And that's keeping this IF girl happy.

Now it's back to the pumpkin patch for me. Time to look for squishy, moldy pumpkins and count the cash box. All in an October day's work!