Friday Photos

I thought it would be fun to start posting photos on Friday - so here's the start. Enjoy.

So, I've caught up to Kevin again.

Kevin would be my older cousin. He's 4 months older. I thoroughly enjoy telling him he's older than me on his birthday every year. But then I always catch up. So, yesterday I caught up. It was a good day. My family and many friends wished me a happy birthday (got to love facebook). We had cake in my office at 9:30 a.m. Why so early? Because I had to leave by 10 to go spend the day in court in New Britain for a tax appeal. We never figured out why I had to be there - we being our attorney and the Town Assessor. But, I was listed as one of the people who had to show up, so I went. It was rather boring, but I was with very nice people. Our attorney used the fact that it was my birthday as pressure to move it along as quickly as he could! Court could have been crappy - but I actually enjoyed the day because of the people I was with. Even from the moment I got out of my car in the parking garage, there were two nice men who saw me, asked right away if I was going to court. When I said yes, they redirected me from the way I was heading, telling me the fastest way to get there. When I got home, A and I got ourselves cleaned up and headed to Fairfield to a restaurant called Paci for dinner. Great food there. We hit traffic on the way, so called the restaurant and very easily moved our reservations back a half hour. We had a terrific meal. I had room for dessert. On the way home, we found gas CHEAP - 3.89 is pretty cheap here right now. All in all, a good day.

Is this a mid-life crisis?

I may be having a mid-life crisis. I have a birthday tomorrow. I'll be 47. My age is definitely bothering me. I don't feel my age for the most part. (There is the grey hair and the inability to get pregnant part.) I really feel like my attitude, my health - everything - is so much younger. So - it annoys me that I am going to be 47. I had this realization the other day - I may have lived over half my life already. How weird is that to be thinking! I know that I've worked more than half my working life already. To some, this may be a good thing, and to me it is, but at times I look at it and think - wow, life is just moving along to fast, I used to be young with it all in front of me. So - is this a mid-life crisis? Well - there's more. My car lease is up in October. Time to decide what to get next. I think that this is where my real problem is. I can not decide what I want to do. Do I want to upgrade my car? Do I want to stay with the kind I have? Or, do I want to downgrade and put the savings towards something else - like a yearly vacation to Mexico? I do not know what I want to do. I am so unsettled, this is driving me nuts. I am a bit of a planner. I like to know where I am going, what happens next, etc. If I know that - I'm in my comfort zone. I am so not in my comfort zone right now, not knowing what I really want to do about my car. It doesn't help that A and I have argued a bit over how important the rear legroom is. Add to that, I probably view what kind of car I drive as too much of an expression of who I am. My car has to look good. It needs to be comfortable as well. It's like this - I test drove an Acura TL over the weekend. Fine car, rides nice - but totally bland and boring design. On the other hand, the cheaper Mercury Sable & Toyota Camry have interesting looks to me. It's not just about money, it's about the look, the drive, etc. I also have this thing about not driving my grandfather's car. I feel too young for certain cars - the more plush ones like Cadillacs or the Toyota Avalon. When I think about it though - I think my father was around my age when he got his "Baby" - the Cadillac he had longed for. So - I'm back to the question of "is this a mid-life crisis?" A thinks it may be and has told me to get the car I want - whatever that is. Part of me wants to run out and do that (likely a BMW 335xi or an Audi A4) but there's the Virgo in me that says this is a large commitment, I must make a logical decision.
So - here's my bottom line. I don't think it's a mid-life thing. I think it's that I am so out of my comfort zone, not being able to make a clear decision on the direction I want to go with my car and this is all happening right around my birthday. I identify with the car I drive too much, but I don't think I can change that. Maybe I'll get lucky in the next month and there will be a deal on a car that is just too good to pass up and it will be one of my favorite to drive, not a sensible car that my grandfather would drive.

Some props to the Shithead!

My brother (aka the shithead) remembered my birthday! Woo Hoo! This is the first time in several years that he managed to remember it before my actual birthday. I got a card in the mail from him today. The last few years I've gotten "Happy Birthday" calls as much as a week later. So he's a couple of days early this year. I'm impressed. It used to be a bit of a game - wonder when he's going to remember it this year. Of course - there was a little bit of a dig in the card. He said "I hope you and A are doing well. Mom keeps us informed." Yeah - I know - I don't keep you informed. That's because you are a shithead and I really don't care to keep up with you anymore. But - I'll still give the shithead props for remembering my birthday this year. :)

Now - some pictures from my birthday present - my new camera.

"Just Relax"

Woman with infertility issues hear it all the time. "Just Relax". Just relax and you'll get pregnant. Any woman who has dealt with infertility for a while has heard it a LOT. It can be pretty annoying - more so depending on your diagnosis. Like for me - just relaxing isn't going to make my eggs any younger. So what do you do? The person saying generally means well, they are just misinformed. So, you smile, maybe try to educate a little and - yes, I'm going to say it - you just relax. What else can you do! The person means well, so no point in getting testy. Just relax, smile, thanks for your interest and move along.

I bring this up today, because yesterday, that was what one of the wives at A's firehouse picnic said to me. She asked if we had kids, I said that no, we can't. Her advice was to just relax. That worked for her. So - I took her advice - just not in the way she intended it. I just relaxed and let roll off my back and went on doing something else.

I knew the day would come....

...but I just wasn't ready for it. We got a call from A's brother Saturday. He and his wife are expecting their first child. She's due in March. I could only hear A's side of the conversation, but it was easy to figure it out. I just went upstairs, crawled onto my bed and cried. The dog came up - poor thing doesn't like it when I cry. A came up as soon as he got off the phone. He was just wonderful. I want to be happy for them, but at the moment, it's hard to feel anything but my own pain. It's a little weird - friends of mine have gotten pregnant and I have no problem being genuinely happy for them - why am I not immediately happy for my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. Maybe it's because those friends have struggled to get pregnant and/or stay pregnant. Or maybe it's that this baby will be the first grandchild, not the child that I lost. I suppose it also may be that this pregnancy and this baby will not be at a distance. It will be there right in front of me at holidays, etc. I need to deal with it. I know it will get better. Today is already better than yesterday, which was better than Saturday. I'll get there.

25th Reunion

My 25th reunion from college - yikes - was held in June. I didn't go because the timing didn't work for me and because I wasn't sure that any of my friends would be going. I just saw some pictures. Oy. I hope that I don't look like some of these women looked. Some of them look great!

Some of them look like I expected them to look - matronly. I know my age, but I sure don't feel it and I don't think I look it - but some of my classmates - well - they look even older. And one of them I did not recognize. I had no idea who she was. In fact, my first thought was that maybe she was one of the continuing ed students who graduated with us. Nope. Turns out she is someone I was friends with! Honestly - in this picture, she looks like some one's cute grandmother. So - here's hoping that I look more like Colleen and Mary Pat than like Marion and Sue.

Vent Post

This is a vent post. I don't usually vent about my husband here - for good reason, he's a really good guy, but today, I just have to do it. He was off today, going in this afternoon for an evening tour. He was off yesterday too. Yesterday he felt sick. This morning, he felt fine. So - what did he do with his day. He got his hair cut. He went to see his friend Pete. Did he mow the lawn? No. He was supposed to do it yesterday - but okay, he was sick. Today - he had time to go see Pete, but not to mow the lawn. What the fuck did he do with the rest of the day? He was up when I left. He didn't walk the dog. He didn't do laundry - hasn't done laundry that wasn't his work laundry in ages. But - oh - he had time to go see Pete. Now - mind you - Pete's not sick or anything - this is just two guys hanging out together. I can't tell you how many times he hasn't done stuff at home, but he's had time to hang out with Pete. So - I'm just a bit annoyed. I work full time too. Sure, my work is not as physically demanding as his, but it seems that in my time off, I have to do the work around the house. I do 90% of it easy. I take out the garbage most times. I put the recycling out. I do the laundry, fold it and put it away. I do the grocery shopping. I wash the dishes and unload the dishwasher. I do the vacuuming. I strip and remake the bed. Several months ago, he said that he was going to make the bathroom his job. He would keep it clean. How many times has he cleaned it since then? NOT ONCE! Even when he went on his cleaning binge while I was at the Cape (the one where he organized my shoes and told me that now I have to keep them that way!) he didn't clean the bathroom. I had done that before I left. In fact, that's what sent him on his binge. I told him that when I came home, I wanted to see the bathroom as clean as it was when I left. That led him to say that he would clean the whole house. Since then - what's he done? Pretty much nothing. Cooked a few dinners. I can't say that I cook all the time - but I think it's fairly even. We actually don't get to eat dinner together most of the time because he's either working a night tour or getting off at 6 pm, which means by the time he showers and gets home, it's 8pm and I've long since eaten. Which leads me to another vent - the other day he told me "this business of having to pick up my dinner on the way home is getting old." So - I guess I need to start cooking him dinner. And what do I get? He tells me I'm sexy. This morning he commented that it had been a few days since we had sex. Hmmmm - I've got an idea here! You want to get laid? Do a load of laundry once in a while. He'll do stuff - if I nag him. I tried just asking him to do 1 or 2 things a day, maybe 3 if they were all small. That worked some times. It really doesn't work for mowing the lawn though - witness today. I'll mow it - but I really don't like doing it. Sometimes it just has to be done because it starts looking skelly. It's a pain in the ass. We have trees and tree stumps. We have a sidewalk in the middle of the front yard. We have a picnic table that has to be moved around. We have a side strip that's not a nice uniform shape. It's a freaking pain. The yard was supposed to be his thing. We were going to have the greatest lawn in the neighborhood because he was really fanatical about it. I used to hear all about the yard he had with his first house and how it was the best in the neighborhood. I'm beginning to think they lived in a pretty skanky neighborhood. But okay - I help with the yard. I do it without his asking. Like the grass he's trying to grow around the tree and the stumps. I put the sprinkler on it for him. Do you think he would think to water my flower gardens or put the sprinkler on them? Not if I don't ask. I'm tired of it. I'm not a perfect housekeeper, but I do it when it needs to get done. Why can't he? Why can't he see that the laundry basket is overflowing and do a load? This is one of my busiest times of the year. I should have been prepping for my audit tonight - not out there mowing the lawn. But hey - he got to visit with Pete. He doesn't seem to realize that he needs to put me and our home first in his life. He needs to make that more of a priority than hanging out with Pete. I need to sit down with him and talk to him about it or I'm going to blow soon. For now though - I've got to go. I've got a load of laundry that needs to be moved to the dryer.

GOOOOOOOOOOAL!

I hit my weight watchers goal! I still want to lose 1 or 2 more pounds - but I am at a number that I have not seen in 4 years! YAY for me! Now - with that comes a bit of a problem - but a good problem. I now have a decent amount of clothes which I like, but which no longer fit well. They are too big. Take them to the tailor you say? Yeah - I can do that - and I will do that - in the spring. That's my little test for myself. I want to make it through the winter with the weight loss holding before I get stuff taken in - just in case.

My brother is a shithead, part 2 and some pretty pictures

I talked to my mother today. My brother stopped by to visit her. So you say "why the title then?" Well, shithead has been at the Cape for a week, in the next town over and just called yesterday to say he was there, wanted to stop by before leaving. What is up with that? He waits until he's headed home to say "hey, I'm 10 minutes away Mom." Shithead. I suppose though, it's better than him not visiting at all - which he has done before. Mom doesn't know about that. Shithead doesn't know that my sisters and I know. Someday though. Someday boy. Shithead.



Okay - enough about that. It's been a while since I've posted garden pictures. These are a couple of months old - but still lovely. Oh - and of course there's a Boomer picture mixed in. If I get my act together, I will post some more over the weekend. I've gotten my one bigger area looking pretty good with a nice mix of perennials. I'm excited to take some pictures and post them. Anyway - for your viewing pleasure...

Order - or not

I like order. Maybe it’s that I’m a Virgo. But – I’m not neat. Maybe that’s because I’m not totally a Virgo – I’m sort of on the cusp – close to it anyway. Back to the point though – I like order. I like rules. It’s just not necessarily how you would expect it and I don’t always apply rules unilaterally. Like – traffic rules - speeding is okay, but I believe that you should stop at stop signs and when doing so, you should stop at the stop line. See what I mean? I like rules – I just don’t necessarily want to apply them all. I also have my own rules. Blankets should be folded a certain way. Long ago, I had a roommate who would fold my afghan wrong. She would fold it inside out. I was constantly refolding it. At work, when we store cancelled checks, I like them neatly stacked, no strays sticking out. When walking up or down the stairs or on the sidewalks, I believe the rules of the road should apply, that is, stay to the right. It fits my sense of order. Things need to make sense to me. I’m a logical person. It’s probably why I like logic puzzles and things like Sudoku so much. They fit my world, my need for order of a sort. It’s also probably why accounting has been a good profession for me and why sales was not.

I think – no, I know – that one of my issues with our infertility is that it is out of order. I did things the right way. A & I are good people. So, why can’t we have kids? It doesn’t fit my sense of order that we can not. If other women can have children past the age of 40, with or without medical assistance, why is it that I can not? There is no logic to it. It does not fit. It doesn’t fit my sense of order that people who abuse their children can have them. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to reconcile it all, given who I am, given my sense of order, given my need for order.