our last day of staycation was simple and relaxing.  we slept in, went to church, had lunch with friends and then they came back for a beach day.  all in all, i’m surprised that staycationing was such a success.  I never cooked a thing and hubby stuck with me throughout.  we got out and did some things around here that we wouldn’t usually bother with.  and we had the added benefit of getting to spend some of our time off with great friends.  we didn’t do anything huge and exotic but I also feel like i’m rested enough that going back to work isn’t going to be a nightmare (no moreso than any other Monday 😉 ).

today was another park day.  eden gardens state park is just down the road and I hadn’t even heard of it.  we stopped at Panera for breakfast and sammiches to bring for picnicking.  we did a tour of the old house which was Victorian house that was bought back in the 60s and renovated into antebellum style.  it houses the 2nd largest collection of Louis xvi furniture in the US.  I kind of wish that it had been the original Victorian but it was still a nice walk through.  the gardens weren’t at their prime but it was still a nice grounds to walk through.  we sat at a table by the bayou (in fl that means a body of water that is land on three sides and attaches to a bay on one side) and watched the ducks while we ate.  we then walked around some of the nature trails and ran up on a raccoon and the most frightening hive of bees I’ve ever seen.

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9 years into happy ever after

today was a relaxing day of sleeping in and lounging around before our big anniversary dinner. we grabbed a couple friends and made our way west to the melting pot. kids, I can’t possibly express just how much I heart the melting pot.  it’s just always a fabulous meal and experience.  and I can’t even remember the last time we ate at one.  our friends haven’t experienced this joy before so it was great to be the ones to expose them to the wonder that is terrific fondue.  although trainwreck went into it with some apprehension as he thought that fondue meant that everything was going to be cooked in melted cheese (not that there’s anything wrong with that!).  it was definitely a night of great food and even greater companionship.  oh, and mojo bullion… oh my goodness!  I couldn’t stop eating the broccoli florets because they soaked the flavor up so strongly.

since we moved here, I’ve been wanting to go to fl caverns state park.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve suggested this as a nice little weekend activity for the hubby and I.  last year, a couple neighbors invited me to go with them while hubby was out of town and I jumped at the opportunity since it started to look like hubby was never going to be interested.  it turned out to be a very nice little park and pretty decent caverns.  today, I finally convinced hubby to go check it out with me.  we stopped for breakfast on the way and then grabbed some publix subs to pack for a picnic lunch.  we did the cave tour and hubby agreed that it was a very worthwhile experience for fl.  we walked around some of the nature trails and checked out the blue hole springs swimming hole and had an all around pleasant day, aside from hubby nearly stepping on a copperhead snake who was none too happy about our invasion of his solitude.

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to give hubby some down time after his race, we decided to try a mini staycation. the rules are that we have to do things (not just sit on the couch), we have to be together (he can’t go off with the boys for a bike ride), and above all… no cooking! today was a good start. we slept in, walked to a diner for a late breakfast, walked to the mall to see the new ironman movie, came back home and rested, and then went to bonefish for a yummy dinner and anniversary dessert.

hubby completed his second half-iron distance triathlon today. his first one was two years ago and he did a great job and had fun. today, he managed to take 34 minutes off his time!!! I couldn’t be more proud of him. and now we’re halfway through the year of ironman training!

demonstrating his swim technique	for a short while, we had matching purple heads
1.2 mile swim... check!	56 mile bike... check!
a little wet but at least that kept the run cooler	13.1 mile run and completion of another half-iron... check!
so proud of my hubby after 5 hours and 56 minutes of giving his all!

and then this was him upside down in the passenger seat trying to get his legs to stop aching while I drove us to his parents’ for mother’s day 🙂

What a week!  my eldest nephew broke his arm again over the weekend and had to have surgery this morning to add a plate and screws his skeletal assemblage.  the operation went well and i pray that his recovery is swift and smooth.

A very dear friend came to me this morning for a shoulder to cry on.  she is going through some very difficult times.  my heart hurts for her as i have been through that darkness myself and know how hard it is.  i love them and pray that they can find the healing they need.

My daddy stopped in for a brief visit last week and i really enjoyed seeing him.  i got the feeling he was keeping something from me and his wife quasi-confirmed that but wouldn’t fill me in.  i pray for my dad’s health. 

I pray for hubby and me.

Lord, please hear these prayers and the prayers of my heart. in your son, Jesus’ name… Amen

i got a call from my sis-n-law a couple weeks ago saying that they had moved to GA and bought a restaurant.  i was a bit sad over the fact that i won’t get to see my sweet little baby girl very much anymore (not that i see her much now but my visits to Orlando are definitely more regular than my visits to GA).  all in all, though, i know that it’s a good move for my brother and his family.  they have the chance to really build something together and that’s a wonderful thing.  my sis-n-law is a terrific cook and has excellent scruples so i have faith that she can make this work.  they had a soft opening this week and are already off to a booming start.  I’ve done what little i can to help by building a website and spreading the word to all of our friends who are near there.  i can’t wait to make a trip up there and check it out for myself!

this is why i wish we had started working on a family a few years ago.  back then, i wouldn’t have felt rushed and, instead of “trying”, we could have kept more of a let’s-see-what-happens attitude.  now, i’m 32 years old and he’s 46 and i feel like we’re just running out of time for this to happen.  not only biologically but also in terms of energy for child-rearing.  my parents were almost 36 when they had me and i remember thinking they were so old growing up (which wasn’t helped by people always asking me why my grandparents were raising me).  i don’t want my kid to be embarrassed by our age and i don’t want to be too worn out to play with them.  i keep telling myself not to get my hopes up because i’m still dubious about the chances of me being able to conceive anyhow but it’s hard to keep hope away.  i know there are people who keep trying for years… i find myself wondering if i have it in me to face crushing disappointment month after month, year after year.  how many of these monthly devastations will i be able to bear?

So this is the month that we start “trying”.  I wish I could say I know what that means but I don’t.  Since I stopped taking the pill, my cycle had been staying on track until this last month, of course.  It was six days late and only lasted a half day so I have no clue when to start tracking my “fertile” period.  Originally, it should have been this Thursday but now I guess it’ll be early next week.  I guess we’ll just have to “try” all we can over the next week.  Unfortunately, hubby’s ironman training leaves very little time/energy for him to “try”.  And I still can’t shake the feeling that this is not even possible for me.  I hate to get my hopes up too much as we discuss my hypothetical pregnancy during various events over the remainder of this year.  Praying for better than I deserve…

I didn’t make it very far with the whole “I’m gonna be a blogger again” thing, eh?  really, there hasn’t been much of anything interesting going on around here.  hubby has been training for his first IronMan and I’ve been the supportive wife I promised to be.  I have gotten back into a bit of a workout routine.  In that my buddy and I have been doing our aqua-jogging three times a week for over a month now and I’ve been dragging myself to the gym fairly regularly again.  i’m trying to work up to three days a week of weights again but I have been less than successful at that.  I have, however, been supplementing pool and weights with bike and treadmill at the gym also.  I was very proud of myself Monday for dragging myself to the gym at lunch (the whole reason I haven’t been able to workup to 3x weights is because I’m too tired on MWF after waking up at 05:30 for the pool).  Ten minutes into my workout, I was a moron and smashed my hand in some weights.  I think that did it for me for the week.  *sigh* Such is life.  It could have been worse… nothing’s broken as it was, thankfully, my lowest weight machine.  It sure does smart though.

 i was sitting in a class today when i suddenly turned into a blubbering idiot.  a couple years ago, there was an incident in our small town with a shootout in a school board meeting.  i remember hearing about it.  it was a pretty big deal for this tiny area.  but i’m also not much for partaking of news –  i don’t need extra gloom and doom in my life – so i didn’t really follow the story much.  i never knew the details and i never knew that there was video of the whole affair.  well they showed that video in this class today.  and then the instructor spent a long time discussing how nobody can imagine what it’s like to be in such a dangerous situation and how it all happens so quickly and blah, blah blah… and the tears that i had been fighting during all of this started pouring. 

what. a. freaking. pansy. moron. 

i was there with a friend and some of her friends and heaven only knows what they, and the countless strangers, must have thought of me. 

it’s just that… it’s been years since i’ve thought about the robbery.  i mean, i’ve talked about it occurring… but i haven’t really gone back there in a very, very, very long time.  seeing this real life drama unfold and then hearing the guy go on and on about what it’s like… i was right back there with my face pushed into the nasty hotel lobby carpet and the gun repeatedly cracking me over the head.  i was choking on the pepper spray and feeling my eyes go up in flames from it.  i was cutting up my wrists trying to get the zip ties loose.  i was… helpless. 

it was a completely unexpected reaction to this class.  and it made me seriously question my motivations.  and it made me look like a complete lunatic to my friend.  i guess i’ll never be as over that moment of my life as i was.

for all these years, i figured “the pill” was just messing up my hormones and i would be better off if i were au natural.  apparently, not so.  as soon as i stopped taking them, i started growing cysts on my ovaries.  they say this is a perfectly normal and common thing…  but it sucks.  the remedy for ovarian cysts?  going on the pill!  yeh, seriously.  so much for my body being better off without all the hormonal trickery.  so the cyst that masqueraded as appendicitis finally ruptured and i’m assuming i’ve got one on the left side now.  here’s hoping the whole getting pregnant thing works quickly when we start trying.  apparently, i need to go back on the pill.

yep, that was how i spent my birthday this year… all drugged up in the er. i’ve had serious stabbing pains in my lower right abdomen for the last few weeks. i figured it was no big deal but two nights ago, i spiked a wicked fever out of nowhere. it was odd because it went away on its own after a few hours so i still figured it could hold off until my previously scheduled dr appointment that was supposed to be today. yesterday morning, i woke to severe pains, nausea, and bouts of dizziness and shortness of breath. i called the dr office, they brought me in, she said appendix and told me to go to the er where my fever spiked again. happy birthday to me. after six hours and countless tests, it was determined that i am not pregnant (duh!), my appendix is fine, but i have a large ovarian cyst that is going to continue to hurt until it ruptures at which point it will really hurt and then be fine. fabulous. i still don’t understand how all the crazy symptoms figure into that but i guess it was a coincidental bug. nutty.

so, yay! that it wasn’t a bursting appendix but boo! that the pain will continue. although, in the grand scheme of things, i can deal with pain pretty easily… i just freaked out about all the other stuff that was going on. i’m still dealing with nausea but i figured it was time to dig into my birthday cake.