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Life or something like it

April 11, 2010 Leave a Comment

So far my 30 day challenge is working, ten days and no restaurants, well until last night. We did grab Delux burger for dinner but I don’t think that one time in ten days is a bad thing. I’ve been trying to use what we have in the freezer and be creative with our meals, so far we haven’t had the same thing twice yet. I’m back baking my own loaves of bread. Tried the King Arthur white bread recipe, made one cinnamon sugar loaf and one sandwich loaf. The recipe is totally simple and tastes fabulous! Tomorrow I will make an attempt to master biscuits, not that mine are bad, they aren’t but I want more height out of them. More fluffy and flakey biscuits. I’m going to add eggs to my recipe and see how that works.

Time away from work has really been therapeutic, I hate thinking that I have to go back in nineteen days. We’re still trying to pull up the old parquet flooring in one of the bedrooms so we can put down the new stuff. New paint colors for the guest room and living room have been chosen. I’m going with a more taupey-grey color which I think will look great against the white moldings. Courtney and I getting organized for the big job of acid washing the pool next weekend. We’ve never done it before but I have faith that we’ll be just fine. I’ll let you know if we burn off a limb

I’m just going to put this next thought out there…have you ever noticed a series of numbers that pop up repeatedly? You’re moving along throughout your day and when you happen to look a the clock it’s 1:11 or 4:44? This happened to me the week before I got my promotion, then after I got the news all was silent. I just find it interesting that these numbers popup everywhere in my life. I feel like I need to be on the lookout for some bigger meaning but maybe it’s all just a coincident. For now I’m taking it as my sign that something big is going to happen so I bought 11 lottery tickets. Who knows??

I’ve been building my fabric stash but I haven’t pulled the trigger on a new sewing machine yet. I also haven’t been scrapbooking. My creative spark is a bit low right now. I’m going to focus on getting my house in order, clearing the clutter in my craft room and then my creative thoughts will be able to flow more freely.

We met with the fertility doc this past week. It’s not great news but I don’t feel completely hopeless. I’m thirty-eight, my eggs aren’t as fresh as they once were and there may not be a lot of them left. There is no clear explanation for the two miscarriages, it just happens. All the numbers she threw out were all within the normal ranges for my age, trying to have a baby at this point in my life will not be easy without some help. Where does that leave us? We have three options, IVF, egg donor or timed insemination, where they will wash the sperm, place the guys in my uterus and hope that they find their way to a good egg. We’re going to go with the third option, we’re no where near financially stable to be able to afford IVF and a donor just doesn’t feel right to me. We’ll be able to do one cycle of clomid with the timed insemination this year and I will be able to budget for the possibility for three more tries next year, hopefully that won’t be necessary. Its a crap shoot but right now that’s all we’ve got. Isn’t life one big crap shoot?

Filed Under It's a All About me Tagged With baby talk, Cooking, crafts, Me

My 30 day challenge

March 30, 2010 Leave a Comment

I’m headed back to the desert in about an hour. That trip was almost too long, it will be nice to get home.

I have thirty days left of my sabbatical and I have huge to do list that seems to be growing bigger everyday. One thing that I’m really motivated to do is stop eating out. Over the next thirty days I will cook all of our meals. I’m doing this to see if I can really do without the restaurants and to see how I can improve our eating habits. As a foodie I know this is going to be very difficult, how will I survive with out a weekly stop at La Grande Orange? But I do think this is going to be a good thing for Courtney and I. Another change, no more quick trips in the car to the Safeway across the street. If I need something, I will have to walk. It’s less than a mile, there is no reason to hop in the car. This will also help me plan my shopping trips better, getting everything I need at one time. Lots of changes in the Hannafin household over the next month…this is going to be exciting.

I have more pics to post and I’ll get to that this evening when I get home. Enjoy your day!

Filed Under It's a All About me Tagged With Cooking, Family, Homematters, Me

Having a wonderful time

March 26, 2010 Leave a Comment

I am having a great time hanging out with my sister and my niece this past week. The weather here in Raleigh is just amazing. I took a look at the forecast on the day I fly back to the desert, 85 degrees….blah. Sure it’s nice but it also means that 100 degrees is just around the corner…yuck!

Maggie

Maggie and I went William B Umstead State Park for an afternoon hike in the woods. What a neat place! We walked down to this creek, Maggie washed her rock collection and I took pictures. A hiker came by and was so very kind to point out two cotton mouth snakes hanging out next to the creek. I told Maggie to get out of the creek and get back on the path with me…dude..that girl moves at a snails pace! I didn’t tell her that there were snakes nearby but I’m sure if I did she would have moved faster.

Next we met up with my sister and headed over to Chapel Hill for dinner. I’m sure I’ve talked about this before but being on that campus is amazing. Since I was a kid I’ve wanted to go to UNC for college. Even after moving to Phoenix, UNC was always my dream school. My grades weren’t good enough to get accepted right out of high school, by the time I got two years done in community college I had created a life for myself and desire to move away from my friends was gone. A tiny part of me regrets not going. But I can’t live in the past, keep moving forward!

We had dinner at Mamma Dips. Traditional southern fare and it was awesome!

More later…have a good weekend everyone!

Filed Under It's a All About me Tagged With Family, Me

Living it up

March 14, 2010 Leave a Comment

This will be the first week without a second job and I am wondering what to do with all the extra time. I suppose I really won’t have extra time this week considering that I have so much work to do before I leave for sabbatical on Friday. Plus all the packing for my trip to Raleigh.

Poor Miss Maggie and my sister have been horribly sick this past week with pneumonia. Miss Maggie had to spend three days in the hospital. Thankfully both of them will be ok.

The search for a new sewing machiene is going well. Looks like the Viking Emerald 183 is going to be the one. I’m going to order it at the end of the month after my NC trip.

There will be more blog posts and pics later in the week.

Filed Under It's a All About me

It feels like I’ve won the lottery

February 28, 2010 Leave a Comment

I didn’t want to say anything on here until everything was set in stone and it was a done deal. This past year I have been taking on more work at the day job, gradually increasing my technical skills and putting my name out there. All the hard work paid off and I got a promotion! And this promotion comes with a long overdue pay increase and bonus. This pay increase will make a HUGE dent in our lives. HUGE! No more ‘creative’ financing and most importantly…NO MORE SECOND JOB! The second job was just becoming a thorn in my side and I was just not having any fun anymore. It’s time to leave.

I am so excited at where I’m at in my job. I have always had faith in my company and I feel like I have been rewarded for hanging in there for tens long years. It wasn’t until I moved to the tech side of the company that I realized how much opportunity there was for me to grow. My boss and most importantly my team is encouraging me to grow. I am very lucky to have the support to learn from the ground up. For once I feel like part of the team. Which is huge for me, three years ago my team hated the idea of me.

Leaving he second job also means that I will have more time for my hobbies. I started working on the quilt top but I soon realized that I need a sewing machine with a walking foot. I tried the generic walking foot but it didn’t fit. So I’m now looking at new sewing machines. I will also be upgrading my Canon Rebel for a new Canon 7D, which I am really excited about. I plan on taking full advantage of my six weeks off from work to dive into all my creative impulses! This is going to be fun!

Filed Under It's a All About me, She's Crafty Tagged With crafts, Me, quilting

Crafty girl

February 12, 2010 Leave a Comment

I don’t know why but I when I have a long period between posts I feel like I need to apologize to my poor little blog for being MIA. Honestly, the second job has been kicking my ass and I am really feeling like my time there is coming to an end very soon. It feels like the job is interrupting my life and keeping me from doing the things I WANT to do. It’s just a bother to stop knitting, scrapbooking or whatever it is that I’m working on to get to work.

Lately I have been feeling the urge to be crafty, not just knitting or scrapbooking, but I want to sew. I want to sew quilts. About ten years ago I made a my first quilt top but never finished it because it seemed so overwhelming. It’s always bothered me that I never finished it. I recently pulled out a small quilt top that I made as part of a quilting class I took. I stared at it all day long, it’s not show worthy or anything but I was proud of the work I did. The other day I came across this amazing site and I was totally blown away at her quilts and craftsmanship. Aren’t they amazing?!! I was truly inspired to make another attempt at quilting.

I don’t know where I get this need to be crafty. Sewing, knitting, or scrapbooking it all makes me feel so good, like it’s something I should be doing all the time. I remember watching my grandmother sew clothes for my sister and I when we were kids, I never appreciated the hard work that went into them. It wasn’t stuff that all the other kids were wearing, but now I realize how much more special those clothes were. I look at my niece Maggie and I’m itching to make cute dresses for her.

So here it is….I will complete three quilts by year’s end. I don’t know how I’m going to get them done, but I will do it. There. Its out there and now I need to stay committed to the goal. I am hoping that with my upcoming sabbatical I will be able to get a good start on them. And I will blog about it, my journey through quilting. This is going to be fun.

Filed Under She's Crafty Tagged With crafts, Me, quilting

Music happiness

January 20, 2010 Leave a Comment

The lineup for Coachella was announced today and I’m pretty excited about going this year. We’ve missed the last two years because of the wedding planning, hopefully we can get the finances together to go and have a great time. I’m looking forward to seeing PIL, Pavement, Echo and the Bunnymen, ZTrip, She and Him, Muse, and The Specials! In my opinion, the overall lineup is pretty good this year. Thankfully I will be out on sabbatical when the show is scheduled which will give me extra days to recover.

Speaking of sabbatical, this is my second sabbatical and this time I took an additional two weeks off, for a total of six weeks off. Oh and it’s all with pay! This is probably one of the best perks that my company offers, every five years we get four weeks off. The first time I only took four weeks and it just wasn’t enough time. I’ve got big plans for my ‘to do list’ during this time off. Install new flooring in two bedrooms, baseboards, and crown molding, acid wash and repaint the pool, and if at all possible retile the small bathroom. It’s a huge list I know, but everything on that list desperately needs to get done. I’ll also be going to Raleigh for ten days to see my sis and Maggie. I plan on hunting down some antique shops too. Good times.

On the baby front, we’re moving forward and have met with a fertility specialist to figure out why I’ve had two consecutive miscarriages and most importantly why now am I able to get pregnant. For the past twelve years we have not had any luck, why now? We have a bunch of testing to get through over the next few months. Courtney has got it easy, me on the other hand, well, I can’t start testing until everything gets back to normal. Hopefully next month I can start all the tests. I’m still holding out hope that the third time will be the one that sticks.

Filed Under It's a All About me Tagged With baby talk, Coachella, Me

Its free

January 7, 2010 1 Comment

One of my goals this year is to make more of an effort to donate. Every week or two I comb through my coupons and spend two hours walking the grocery store aisles for the best deals. I started to notice that there were many opportunities to get stuff for free. Most of the time I passed those deals by because the products are not anything that I can use. It occurred to me one day that I could donate that stuff. I’m not paying for it so why not give it to someone that needs it. Makes total sense right? So tonight when we went to the grocery store I took advantage of the sale on canned veggies. I bought $19 worth of food, I had $12.45 in coupons so I spent $6.55 on food that will be donated. Not too shabby.

We’re not flush with extra cash or anything but for whatever reason, I feel compelled to give back more this year. Even though the holidays are over the food banks still need food to help people all year long. I have about twenty or so cans which isn’t much but if I can do a little every week I can still make an impact.

**UPDATE: if you want to help, here are some ideas and resources to check out: Resolve to Help the Hungry.**

Filed Under It's a All About me Tagged With Giving, Homematters, Me

2010

January 2, 2010 Leave a Comment

Happy New Year! I am completely blown away over how fast 2009 flew by, it was really all a blur to me. I wish I could have pressed the pause button so I could just absorb life this past year. Going into 2009 I was freaking out about loosing my job and how would we survive if the worst did happen. I still have my job and it’s going better than I could have ever expected. I passed my ten years of working for the man this past July and looking forward to the next ten years I am really excited where things are going. I thank the powers that be everyday, I am very lucky to have a job.

In April I became pregnant, which was something I never thought could ever happen for us. For those who don’t know, we have not been preventing pregnancy for the past twelve years and for all that time nothing was happening. Six weeks into the pregnancy we found out that it was not a viable pregnancy. Even though that was a terrible blow, I was happy that I was even able to get pregnant. That was huge for us.

The blistering Arizona summer arrived and it felt even hotter than the years before. I had lost thirty pounds and life was good. Everything came to a grinding halt in late August, Courtney lost his job. We had to come clean to the family about where we were financially and while that was embarrassing, we discovered that our family really stands by us. Thankfully, within a week Courtney was able to find a job. He’s doing something completely different and I really believe that he was meant to be at this job. During all this mess we had to say goodbye to our beloved Airedale, Joey. I miss him everyday. Our newest member to the family, Molly, has really helped us get through loosing Joey. Molly has nuzzled her way in to our armpits and hearts.

I turned thirty-eight this year, I’m closer to forty than thirty now. I’ve said this before..when I look at my circle of friends who are all roughly in their mid to late thirties, I really do not see them as their age. We may all have adult responsibilities but I still see us as we were at nineteen. I went to my twenty year high school reunion (Go BGHS Bulldogs!) and had a great time. I think of reunions as like senior prom, even though you dread going, when it’s all over you’re glad that you went.

Early November brought us another surprise, I was pregnant again! This time we only told close friends for fear that we would jinx it. It killed me to not tell my sister and sister-in-laws. We planned on telling the family just before Christmas, when everyone was in town. As you can read in the previous post, again at six weeks the pregnancy was not viable. Again I am happy to even be able to get pregnant for a second time, and so soon! We’ve made an appointment to see a fertility doc in January, maybe they will be able to tell us what is going wrong at six weeks. I’m praying that the third time is the one that sticks.

Looking at the year ahead, I am mentally putting a plan in place to get things done around this house. 2010 will be all about change. Change is good and it is much needed around this house. I am leaving the rest up to the higher power who will protect and guide us through this new decade. I hope that everyone has a wonderful year full of memories!

Filed Under It's a All About me Tagged With Dreams, Me

Not something I expected

December 18, 2009 2 Comments

I’ve been sitting on this bit of news for a while, trying not to jinx myself. In Early November we found out that I was pregnant. It was just a fluke that I even thought to do a pregnancy test to begin with. This time we didn’t tell anyone with the exception of my BFF’s Dayle and Brian, because I can’t hold anything back from them. You hear all the superstitions that you shouldn’t announce a pregnancy until you’re past the first trimester so we thought we would go that route this time. It killed me to not tell my two sister-in-law’s and my sister. I was just so excited and wanted to share with everyone.

The first few weeks of pregnancy you don’t really have any symptoms so it’s easy to not think about it. When I got to week five I started to feel very tired and a little sick in the afternoons. I started to experience some very light spotting so I call my doc and she setup an appointment for an ultrasound. That was last Wednesday. Everything looked good, you could see the gestational and yolk sac, which was more than what they could see last time, everything was where it should be for five weeks along. My doc asked me to come in on Friday to have my hormone levels checked to make sure that they were doubling. On Monday, we found out that the pregnancy was not viable. Our hearts were completely crushed. It’s completely amazing to me how fast things can go down hill. Fourty-eight hours earlier everything was normal. Makes no sense to me.

The whole fact that we are able to get pregnant is something to be thankful for. We haven’t been preventing it for the past twelve years and had really thought that it was just not in our future. I know things happen for a reason and all, but I wish that reason would present itself already! This emotional roller coaster sucks the life out of you and this time of the year I need all the energy I can get. So we’re getting through it and we’re hopeful that we will be blessed with a baby when the time is right. We have so much to be thankful for and feel very fortunate to have great friends and family who support us.