Wife, Then Mama

Some of these I know are common to everyone that is going through, or has been through, infertility.  Others are perhaps not as common, and I might be the only one, but I am hoping for affirmation that I am not the only weirdo. You have taken your temperature hundreds, if not thousands of times (for those that are not well versed in infertility - lucky! - the only way to confirm if you have ovulated is to take your temperature everyday to see when your body temperature goes up slightly.  Or get a blood test, but that is much more expensive). You know what TTC, AF, BFP, BFN, IVF, IUI, BD, DTD, RE, FF, POAS, and countless other acronyms stand for (again for the lucky ones - trying to conceive, "aunt flo", big fat positive, big fat negative, in vitro fertilization, intrauterine insemination, "baby dance", do the deed, reproductive endocrinologist, fertility friend, and pee on a stick). You have spent days of your life searching for "whatever mild ailment you...

Many people seem to struggle with finding the meaning of their life, or how they are supposed to find fulfillment.  Just go to a bookstore (assuming you can find one, what with e-books killing the real thing) and see how big the "self-help" section is.   The fact is that the purpose of life is simple.  We are beings that were created to worship and glorify God.  There are several verses in the Bible that tell us that. So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.           Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 ESV  Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So ...

I am currently in the middle of a trial separation from soda.  Except that is a lie, its more like a hiatus, because I know at the end of the month, I am going right back to drinking the poisonous, HFCS laden, GMO laced garbage.  Because it is delicious. But the saddest part of not drinking soda is that I am freaking thirsty ALL the time.  I know supposedly soda dehydrates you, but as someone that drinks more soda than water, I am not sure that is true.  So I have to really make an effort to drink more water. These are my top tips for getting more water into your "diet": Keep it handy.  Yes, buying bottled water can seem wasteful and ridiculously expensive, but its one of the best ways I have found to drink more water.  I reuse one bottle for about a week, but its nice to be able to just grab one sometimes. Keep it cold.  Maybe this doesn't apply to everyone, but I LOVE freezing cold water.  The closer to its solid state the better....

On Wednesday I went strawberry picking with my friend Charlene. Charlene is the queen of good deals, and these strawberries cost: $0!  Yup, since the farm was getting ready to till under the second year plants, they were letting people come glean for free! (If you are in the Salem area, you should check them out.  They still had quite a few yesterday.) There were a lot of good strawberries, and even more not good ones.  That is what gleaning seems to be all about, what you lose in time (looking for the good fruits or veggies) you make up for in money (its all FREE!).  Since I have plenty of time, and not a lot of money, it seems like a great trade to me! Ideally I would use a portion of the berries to make jam.  But since I have never made jam before and don't have any pectin, I think I am just going to continue my plan of freezing them for smoothies and snacking.  I know I could easily look up how to make jam, but I would probably put it off until ...

Well if you are me, the answer is: Quite Poorly! This is my first year with a real garden.  I have tried container gardening.  Which was an epic fail due to a stand-off between my husband and I.  He didn't want to have any of our plants go to waste so he refused to let me thin them unless I wanted to transplant the ones I was removing.  So nothing really grew as big as it should have.  Or to really a very edible level. Cucumbers.  And you know, weeds... This year I have a fairly big garden, and if Michael builds the last garden box sometime this month it will get even bigger.  I mean June is pretty late for planting, but my seed packages say its okay. The big plants are sunflowers.  You know the one thing you don't really eat. But I am not really a gardener.  The only thing that seems to be growing okay is the strawberries, and we got those as plants.  Plus the slugs or some other nasty bug is eating them as soon as they ...