I woke up today with a massive migraine.  The kind that keeps you in bed with the covers over your head until you have to go the shower, then you stand in there with your eyes closed hoping it will go away.  I took Patrick into work and did our usual Starbucks stop.  I was kind of praying that it was a caffeine withdrawal type of headache but my Chai did not cure it.  I made it into work but it’s progressively gotten worse.  I have my radio barely even turned up, my office lights off and had to make an emergency run to the store to buy Excedrin Migraine in hopes that I can make it through today.  

I have Tuesday after the 4th off but that barely happened since my boss is out of the office at an all day meeting Wednesday, flying out of town Thursday for a meeting and then has a meeting all day back in town Friday.  Soooo, with this huge state report that we are working on and the fact that as she puts it “she’ll be running around with her head cut off without me” I barely got the day off.  It’s not that she’s not understanding, more of a bad timing issue but I have promised to make sure everything is clearly ready for her and she’s not frantic while i’m gone.  Needless to say, this week has been a bit chaotic on me (not that much more then normal though lol) since i’m trying to get stuff ready for me to be out of town.  I had even slightly debated on staying in bed with the covers pulled up over my ears and trying to get rid of this migraine but decided I would TRY to get through this day and get as much as I could done.   Tomorrow I have to make sure everyone is ready for her next week.  I’m dreading my email box when I get back though!!!  I think there should be a limit of emails sent to me per day to prevent head spinning off my body. 

We are SOO looking for our trip to Oregon.  Patrick was taunting me this morning with comments like “I can’t wait to smell the ocean and hear the waves hitting the beach and maybe eatting some clam chowder” and then proceeded to tell me “and we’ll go drive to Newberg and maybe look at some houses”. 

He did have some good news yesterday though, one of the Patents he submitted is getting sent off for approval.  He gets a bonus check for th Patent being something they are willing to submit (patent lawyers had to go through it and compare to other current patents on the market etc etc.)  and then when it’s actually a legal patent we get a nice bigger check.  He told me that the next patent check to come through we get to use on the office redecoration.  Our office looks like 2 college geek kids not some adults with a nice house.  It’s really the place he spends all his time and well me a lot of time so it should be comfy and nice with good desks.  The rest of the house looks very adult like ..but then there’s our office!  We have splurged for new flat panel monitors but that’s it!

So here’s the office furniture i’m getting ~ which is why we need the patent check badly $$$ It’s from Pottery Barn which is insanely stupidly expensive but I LOVE this desk set and it’s priced pretty good compared to other sets I like.  What I love more is that we can configure it however we want.  We can take to our next house easily and build around it or add on.  There are other woods besides the white which we are on the debate of white or the mahogoney.  

link for it and pic

and to show how UGLY our current office ..here’s Patrick’s desk (mine is next to his but not in the pic) with him on his work laptop and his desk computer with WoW (geek!!!!)   The couch in there we are going to slipcover but it’s actually our couch from our old apartment so it is still fairly new (just don’t like the brown fabric now) and it’s a queen sofa sleeper so great for extra guests. 

Back to my migraine and work!

~heather

So our Neeva girl is getting huge already.  She had her first real training session with the new trainer we found.  Patrick decided against the puppy kindergarten and we found a trainer that does 1 on 1 with us who is familiar with “northern pack dogs”, as they call her breed.  Like Akitas, Huskies etc. she has quirks and dominance issues that other dogs don’t.  The trainer has done sled dog racing and trained teams that rank in the top 15 in the world.    We were really impressed Saturday with him and Neeva is going to stay with him this weekend while we are in Portland.  They do boarding besides training so that is a very big plus for our weekend trips.  While boarding they will let the dogs out to run around and can even do training sessions for us. 
Cold Nose Kennels

The 4th of July weekend is coming upon us, but not fast enough imo!  We are flying out Saturday to Portland, Oregon. (couldn’t get a flight Friday, due to just booking our tix this weekend because of our last minute decision to not drive)  Over the course of the weekend, we are planning a trip to the Coast to do some crabbing/fishing, spending a day in downtown Portland, might hit some wineries since his parents live in wine country and OH OH I had one big request. 

I want us to drive into Newberg, Oregon to see what the town is like since I’ve been eyeing some houses in the area.  It has about 19,000 people (according to the city website).  It’s in a county that is known as the Napa Valley of Oregon - Yamhill County.  That means plenty of wine to drown my sorrows from the massive amounts of rain the state gets.  It’s about 40 mins. from Portland and Salem, kind of in the middle of the two.  It’s about 30 mins. from McMinnville where Patrick’s parents live.  Plus, we’d be about an hour or so West from the Oregon Coast or East we could go skiing at Mt. Hood.

House site, I love this builder Of course I’m looking at houses that say we could grow old with kids in so they are kinda big but I can justify this size honest (even if the thought of cleaning it scares me).  Watch me justify this like I did for Patrick hehe, 2 kids rooms, our master bedroom, guest bedroom (yes, we need for family coming out of town), room for office for patrick and well I (2+ computer households need a good size office) and i’d like a playroom for the kids!   I’d like the laundry room upstairs by the bedrooms but this one didn’t have that (others did though)  We both agree that we need an open floor plan on the main level with the kitchen / great room.  We really really hate the formal living rooms but most houses the size i’m looking at have them.  *sighs*  This has it all about :)    On top, i’d like a nice community that maybe has a pool / clubhouse…if not i’ll be begging for a lap pool!!!  (see, i’m a big dreamer LOL)  Actually, the housing market is better up there and we can get more for our $$ so the equity from our current house should get us into a bigger house with no problem.

Of course, this is in the future as Patrick told me this weekend next year he’ll probably be looking for jobs out there.  We are pretty sure we’ll try to build another house like we did this one as it makes it more personal and your style from the get go, plus the design center part is SOOO much fun.  The thought of moving out there is kind of exciting really, i’ve never liked Nevada much and we’d be closer to his family and friends.  My mom and step-dad are planning on moving to Montana within the next few years and that would put her only 9 hours away from us!!! MUCH closer then we are currently!    

My updates are so long when I do update and i’m sorry I just get rambling.  I probably won’t update much about trying to pregnant in the future since most like to just point out not to stress.  Actually, most that know me wouldn’t think of it as stressing as something that is on my mind and there is no medical studies according to my doctor, that thinking about getting pregnant hinders actually conceiving.  In fact, if anything, i’ve educated myself more on it and am more aware of my body then most.  When you grow up, you get told “oh you’ll get pregnant if you have unprotected sex”.  What you don’t get told much about is the 20-25% chance I have of getting pregnant if I time it perfect with ovulating.   Well, back to work!   Here’s some random pics of a house I thought was kinda cool. 

Neeva and Xaria behaving!

Well my website was down for a week and things were kinda chaotic at work and irl so I haven’t had much of a time for a new update until today – which is actually just a break from the chaos at work.  It seems that people are no longer in certain positions and my boss is picking up some slack meaning I get more stuff.  Plus, we are a bit overwhelmed in our grants dept. so I’m helping them out on projects.  Not to mention, all the tickler systems I have set up monitoring this that or the other.  But enough of my work, which by the way I still love!!

 < ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Last weekend we took Neeva up to Lake Tahoe.  She did sooooo well in the car on the way up.  She just laid down in the back of the car on the blanket I put down for her.  No reason to put a kennel in there yet because she can’t jump over the seats yet.  We went to a dog beach up there that is pretty popular and immediately we noticed tons of people with dogs (labs mainly) playing fetch in the water etc.  Lake Tahoe is seriously one of the coldest lakes I’ve ever been in so these people and dogs are nuts!   It was a nice day, not too hot but just right.  Neeva liked playing in the water but didn’t really do the deep water swimming thing.  I got her to wade out into deeper water but she wasn’t too thrilled.  I think she’ll do better at a lake with warmer water and with us actually swimming with her.  All sorts of people kept coming over and asking what she was and telling how beautiful of a dog she is.  That was pretty cool especially since there’s not a ton of Malamutes around this area so it’s a different looking dog to most people. 

Some random pics  of Tahoe and then her kennel.  (spoiled dog)

Sunday was kinda of a lazy day full of well relaxing.  We rented some movies and borrowed one from our neighbor so kept myself pretty occupied with lounging since we finally had a weekend to ourselves after the parents weekends we’ve had recently.  (which I do love the parents coming to town but it was nice to not have to entertain, clean up or have a million things to do).

Now, I’ve put this entry on friends only because of what I’m about to talk about which seems just well a little too personal for everyone to read.   Since my miscarriage I’ve endured horrible cycles and my period / body all whack.  My first period finally came at the end of March (about 7 weeks after my miscarriage, which is normal).  We were told we could try right away so we have been.  Unfortunately, my next period didn’t come until oh almost 50 days later which we assume I didn’t ovulate in.  I had called the doctor and they wanted to jump start me with progesterone which would start my period for me.   I had put off picking up the pills and wala my period came finally.  The next month I took birth control for 7 days then stopped in hopes, they said, of cycling me for this time.  Well it looks like it worked.  I had my period after the birth control almost immediately (20 day cycle that time around, short but it was forced). 

So, that puts me where I’m at now.  I have been taking my damn temperature every flipping morning *sighs* and sadly I went from my normal waking time of 7:00 to 6:00am so my times effected my temps. just a little bit but not much.  On top of that, I had to take ovulation tests (talk about throwing away $$) to find out if I truly was ovulating this month and when.  All of this, I had to read up on after recommendation from my doctor in “Taking Charge of Your Fertility”  (which is actually a very good book I’m finding out).  Thing is, I never wanted to be the type of person that had to chart all these things and be almost neurotic about it.  I wanted it to just happen.  It did just happen in December damn it..but now my body is a mess and I’m having to do this.  Hopefully this is a good sign though with this current cycle that I’m back to normal.   

Basically ….I had an ovulation test come back positive Monday and Tuesday (tues. might have caught the tail end of my surge ..i’m not going to explain everything hehe) but anyhow.  We did time things “right” to actually get me pregnant.  In fact we’ve been nymphos to be blunt and not just because we are trying to get me pregnant.  It’s just nice not worrying about me getting pregnant since I’ve been off the pill for like 2 years almost just so we could get me pregnant faster.  Well….now I’m stuck in a wait ..the dreaded “2 week wait or 2ww” as some call it.  I’ll know on Father’s Day weekend if I am indeed prego again or if we are back to day 1 trying again.   In the meantime, I’m stuck using this website www.fertilityfriend.com to monitor different signs and such of my body.  Just crossing my fingers that over the next 2 weeks my temperature rises and stays up and welp in the end I’m prego.  /shrug If not, I know I’m young and can try again. 

I don’t know why I’m telling everyone this but I had to get it out and tell someone.  I found out yesterday too, that Patrick’s boss’s wife is having a girl.  She is only 10 weeks behind what I should’ve been so it makes me a bit sad to say the least.  She went through a lot more then I have to get pregnant though.  I guess I look at some people that are so easily blessed and am like wtf, why me?  I have a good job, good education, my husband has a great job, we own a house etc etc.   We are very blessed to not have to worry about their college education as Patrick’s parents are setting up trust funds for 2 kids for their whole college paid for.  I guess it just seems like we are in the right time in our lives but yet, things aren’t happening yet.  I should be patient I know but J I turned 28 recently damn it!!!!  I just guess since my miscarriage i’ve been terrified that I won’t have kids or it will be harder for me or take longer then I want.

 Well back to work or something sorry to ramble and i’m sure it got pretty long and well maybe tmi for most.

hugs

heather