Fostering A Cat

LOL I stole a stray cat off the Animal Control truck today.  I called them in to get a have a heart trap for the stray cat I've been feeding when I heard the cries of a small cat coming from the truck. 

She is small still almost all black with a small white patch on her chest.  If someone claims her it is okay because I know I took good care of her.  My goal is still to get the long haired black stray into my home.

Pictures will follow of her when she holds still long enough to get one that isn't blurry.


Oh the reason why I took her off the truck is because when they catch them they euthanize them within a day.  I had to save her.

So Tired

I'm so tired right now I find it hard to type.

CD 36 and still no AF in sight.

Birthday Photos

Yesterday I had a party with three couples over, the fourth one didn't make it but that was fine too as they had a good excuse.  J and I had a wonderful day together going to yard sales where I purchased a six foot step ladder.  No longer will I have to stand on a chair and stretch up further to put up the paper chains each Christmas season.  I couldn't resist the $7 price for the fiberglass ladder.  We also purchased several dvds for 50 cents to $3.00 at the top end for a boxed set of TNG season 7.

Now to stop boring all of you with only words.  Here are the pictures of the cake and my friends.

A Tardis cake unfortunately didn't stay together all that well when trying to remove it from the box.

We served cake, two types of cheese, crackers, munchies (doritos, sun chips, pretzels, and cheetos mix), ridged chips and french onion dip for food.  The drinks were margaritas, Riesling, and raspberry honey wine.

The blue tongue effect from the Tardis cake.  Adult humor ensued with Smurf jokes that I'm sure most of you can imagine.  Assuredly the alcohol intake made the comments quite ribald.

Finishing off the night on the patio with a naughty bedtime story that I had one gal read aloud from a book, more eating, alcohol and of course toasting marshmallows.

J bought me a sterling silver charm bracelet with two charms, Fifty Shades of Grey, and the final Harry Potter movie.

I had a wonderful time and couldn't have asked for a better day spent with my husband and good friends.  To my friends that are reading this that were there last night...THANK YOU!

The Execution of Noa P. Singleton A Novel

I am a prisoner of my infertility.   I want a child but some how that seems to be always out of my grasp.  I want to achieve a healthy pregnancy with a take home baby.  I want to feel the release of the grasp that infertility has on me.

For almost six years my husband and I have been trying to add to our family.  The only thing we have managed to add to is the receipts from medical treatments and angels to the Christmas tree. 

Infertility has imprisoned me with the hormones I self inject, swallow, and apply to my body.  I'm held prisoner by the regimented schedule that I must stick to in the hopes that I may one day have that take home baby.

Imagine trying to live your life around someone else's schedule that takes away all your fun.  Imagine being told when  you have to have sex, can't have sex, can't exercise, should be on bed rest, can't eat certain foods and more all in the feeble hopes that you might, just might, be pregnant.  I willingly did what must be done just like Noa P. Singleton did what she had to do.  Will I succeed or will all hopes and dreams be dashed with a petri dish that yet again failed to produce the dream I had hoped for?

Like Noa P. Singleton I will never have a baby of my own.  Unlike Noa P. Singleton I still have a chance.  I just have to look outside of this prisoner cell for more options.

In late August my husband and I will have the results of his karyotyping test.  Together we will make a decision that we will need to live with to break free of this prison.  Will we be able to move forward and put this terrible past behind us?  Or will we move on with more treatments lengthening the sentence that already seems to be terminal?

This post was inspired by the novel The Execution of Noa P. Singleton by Elizabeth L. Silver. Mere months before Noa’s execution, her victim’s mother changed her mind Noa’s sentence and vows to help stay the execution. Join From Left to Write on July 30 as we discuss The Execution of Noa P. Singleton.. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

Day 2 of Repairs in the Second Week

So today they'll be coming by to destroy fix my bedroom up all purty!  Well okay I can only hope that they get rid of the nasty smell from the former tenant's animals.  When it rains my bedroom reeks of ammonia.
Before they tear it all apart, though they did already remove some walling and some base-boarding I have photos.  I had to push all the big furniture into the center of the room and remove my clothing from the closet.  J just put his shorter things on the top bars so that the flooring could be torn up if necessary.  I did move out the remaining furniture by myself...pats self gently on aching back.

Now for photos of the remaining work in the bathroom that was done after yesterday's posting.  I'll post more about today on the morrow.

I cleaned up after their clean-up.  They were wearing shoe covers and did sweep up most of their mess but a vacuuming and mopping later the place actually looked clean.  Took forever to clean out the shower!  The toilet continued to bubble out water from its new seal for several hours after.  Today it seems to be fine.  But I can just imagine the water that is standing under it again creating more mold.

Shit and a Shower

Well well it never ends.  The complaining about my housing of course.  I had an appointment scheduled for 1300 hrs today for the bathroom flooring.  Guess who knocked on my door at 0900 hrs?

Yup!  You probably guess it right.  The flooring people.  I was still in my shortie pj's with my mouth guard in place.  I didn't get to be until 0130 and was up at 0424 with J then back down for some much needed sleep. 

Yesterday I had to call Equity up and let them know that 1530 hrs no one had yet to come by and finish ripping up the old wet flooring.  I started doing it myself.  I got the old rubber base-boarding up and said screw it they can do the rest of the smelly, wet work themselves.

Yup that is black mold under the tile flooring.  I was dead on with with my diagnosis when I told them it was there.  They sprayed X-14 without warning me, I'm an asthmatic, and I had to leave the house quickly so I could breathe.

The idiot tech they sent out tried to put the soggy flooring in my guest room.  I said NO!  Outside with that mess!

So this morning I can now take a shit and a shower at the same time.

Lovely how they dumped the new flooring into the tub then put the toilet on top of it to let the water flow all over it.  Didn't I just get rid of wet flooring?  Hoping they realize their mistake and decide dry flooring is a better idea.

Tomorrow the master bedroom is being torn up.  Tonight I get to move more furniture.  I moved all but the  two dressers away from the walls.  I'll probably push my bed more towards the center too and take down the drapes in the morning.

If I Were To Live Child-free

My list of what I'd be doing if I were to live child-free:

1. Go skydiving.  My dad used to be a paratrooper in the Army and I've always wanted to try sky diving or parachuting out of a perfectly good plane.
2. Parasailing
3. Put money away for retirement.
4. Take exotic vacations
5. Have pets and not worry if my child will be allergic to cats or dogs.  J is allergic to cats and I'm allergic to dogs.  I'd just take allergy medicine.
6. Actually go out and buy clothing and not worry about if I were to become pregnant and not have them fit soon.
7. Make the second bedroom into a crafting room/office space/ with a pull-out for guests.
8.  Eat what I want and not worry about certain foods being bad for pregnancy.
9. Exercise as much as I want during those two weeks that I'm not supposed to do strenuous exercise.
10. Get medical care like medicines, x-rays and surgeries that are needed without having to worry about if I might be pregnant!

So that is my list.  All the things I planned on doing when I was done having kids and hit this age.  I'll be turning 44 in a few days.

Ongoing Repairs

As you can see my bathroom flooring is partially torn up.  It might or might not be replaced next week.  Depends on if the flooring people call me.

The hole with the pipes is from checking the tub out yesterday.  He didn't patch it properly, all he did was put the cut up sheet rock back in place with no taping, sanding, or mudding,  and it looks ugly.  Thankfully the ugly is going to be covered up with stuff in my storage shed.

The last two pictures are of my master bedroom.  The tech cut a large hole in the wall, tore up baseboard and left it.  Yes, it still looks like that right now and will hopefully be fixed next week Thursday when they can get around to it.  I'll have to remove from the walls any furniture that is near it as they plan on replacing all the baseboard.  This means taking all hanging items and boxes out of the closet too.  Not fun!  It had better be fixed before my birthday as I plan on having company that weekend which is next weekend!

I'll take more photos of the damage repairs that they do next week.

Busy with Repairs

Sorry to all those I normally follow and comment on your blog posts.  I've been busy, really busy.

This week I had scheduled repairs to my domicile for Monday.  It is now Wednesday and the repairs have yet to be fully addressed by the team assigned to my house.  Equity is slow, tries to do as little as possible in terms of repairs, and enjoys collecting my rent money.

The toilet wax seal is broken, though that was fixed the on Monday they didn't tighten down the base or the plumbing and it leaked meaning they had to come back yesterday and fix it again.  I still have a leak in the tub they are getting around to tomorrow which means that will be four days of fixing.  Today they are coming back with an infrared device to find the leak in the bathroom.

I still have the smell of cat pee in the master bedroom which they tell me is because the cement pad was not sealed to the foundation.  Fun so when is that to be fixed?  No clue.

The patio sliding door refuses to open without a lot of shoving and pushing.  They are thinking that with the bulging tiles (last photo) and the tracking now being bent has something to do with the pad and foundation not being sealed. 

The cracked handle on my fridge was a simple fix but that meant the repair guy would have to go back to the shop and get the part, a fifteen minute drive there and back; I'm still waiting for the part to be brought back and it is two days since that was promised.

Army housing was better maintained and repaired when still owned by the Army.  Equity isn't doing the proper repairs nor in a timely manner.  Mind you I reported the cat pee smell over three years ago and all I got was a "I don't smell it".  If they had listened and fixed the issue back then I can only assume that the door and floor tiles wouldn't be an issue now.

Pardon me for assuming they would have properly addressed the issue.  Repairs continue tomorrow.

Oh the cracks in my ceiling...I almost forgot that.  Yes they looked up in the crawl space.  Ceiling joists are 24 inches apart and supporting but sagging.  So which is it?  Are they supporting or are they sagging?  I get for an answer that with the supporting wall below it isn't an issue.  Okay so when the joists fall on my bed will it be an issue?  It is cracked where they repaired the ceiling before.  I think it is a problem that needs to be fixed the right way and not just patched up.  Not a clue if they are going to even patch it or just leave it for the next tenant.

Weekend Reload

J and I went to the range over the weekend.  First time I got to shoot with his .45 and I had a blast.  Unfortunately we didn't get to shoot for long before the range caught fire and was shut down for the afternoon.

I didn't put the green marker to the target my husband did because he is anal like that.  I told him hands off but yeah okay whatever it is just a piece of paper.  He even decided to put cross hairs on the paper target for me to shoot at even after I told him that I'm only aiming at the "X" in the middle. 

My hand was sore by the time we finished.  I have carpal tunnel and tendonitis in both wrists.  After a while aiming became difficult.  Still if we ever have a break in and I can get to the keys, the cabinet, a weapon and find the ammo the guy is a goner.  But by then I'm sure I'd be better off grabbing the wooden mallet and going after the intruder.

YAY! It's Friday!

Finally at last!

Now maybe I can get some time with my husband without him worrying about class.  Well okay now he'll probably worry about the board instead.

In other news I had a neighbor over for three hours yesterday and we talked about everything!  We even juiced together.

I found out I have a blue aura.  Hey if anyone knows more about that let me know.  I mean I did look it up and all but I do like to have more knowledge on the subject.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Waiting on Karyotyping

J got his karyotyping blood work done yesterday.  One month to go until the results are in.

So now we again wait.

Just sit here and wait.

Oh hell no!  I'm going to go out and live my life and enjoy some vacation from ttc!

Guilt Tripped and Graduation

I was chatting with my father on the phone today.  He is still in the nursing home until my brother flies in to have him released.  My brother will also be picking up my mother from her nursing home too.  Kudos for my brother, it is about time he helps out my parents.

Dad was guilt tripping me today.  He learned it well from his mother.  When grandma was in her nursing home and I'd get ready to leave she'd throw a fit and threaten to throw my photograph and painting (a portrait of me by a local artist) into the trash can in her room.  I said to her to go ahead because I had to get to work.

Well my father is trying to do the same.  I told him to knock it off as it isn't nice to guilt trip your child and he should know better because he didn't like when his own mother did it to him. 

He had told me that he doesn't know how much longer he has to live and that basically I should insist that the Army hurry up and move to me to the East Coast.  Dad was in the Army and he does know that it doesn't work that way.  So yes, he was truly trying to guilt trip me.  I wasn't going to fall for it.

I do feel bad that my brother, who is not competent to care for our parents, will be taking care of them.  I reminded my mother that he'll need to take a shot class as Dad has to have insulin shots.  Really wishing I could be there to administer that drug.  I know I could do a good job of it with all my experience in giving myself injections.

Graduation went well for J yesterday.  I posted some photos for his family on facebook.  Since my mother's cell phone doesn't have the internet on it and she doesn't use facebook I told her that I also sent them to her email and they'll be waiting for her upon her return home.

As for other graduation photos.  I think it is a total rip off to pay out $54.70 for just 6 photos.  But that is what we paid.  We get 1 8x10, 1 5x7, and 4 wallet size for that amount.  I'll be taking a trip to photo developer to get more made for family of course.

Directly after graduation we went out to dinner at Red Lobster.  We had a gift card given to us at Christmas for that restaurant and figured it would be a great time to use it.  Thank you R & M for that gift card.  J really enjoyed his steak and lobster dinner.  I too enjoyed my meal and still managed to lose 0.2 pounds over night!  Bonus!!!

One More Day Until Graduation

Tomorrow J graduates.  I can tell all of you how relieved I am that this class is over tomorrow!  I've been trying to avoid all stress thrown my way but again this cycle is going to be a bust.  The more stress he is under the less he wants to try to create a family.  Understandable!

August is the board and hopefully the stress will be over for a while.

August we'll find out the results of the karyotyping he is going to have done later this week.

August we are going on vacation.

August we will make a decision on where our baby trail goes.  Most likely it will take us the full month to decide but  I'm being patient.

Over the weekend we did some grocery shopping and I saw the cutest baby girl.  She was about a year old.  J saw her too and was smiling at her when she giggled back at him.  My heart melted.  If we decide to not have children it is going to be on rough healing period and I hope that my followers stick with me as I discover a new life.

Hoping we will still decide to have children, IF it is possible.

Until we make a decision we have little things like real life milestones.  Tomorrow J graduates from WLC with a 96 grade point average.

Happy Fourth of July

J was so sweet to water my flower beds this morning.

Lazy Commenter

Sorry if I haven't been commenting on your blogs of late dear friends.  I've been busy.  The heat doesn't like my computer and even with a fan blowing on my computer the video card likes to overheat.

I've taken apart my computer twice in the past month for cleaning to make sure nothing is clogging the internal fans.  The primary issue is that the only place to put my computer set up is against the window, of which faces southwest.

So that is my excuse for not spending more time on other blogs.  Hopefully when cooler weather arrives I'll be able to comment more.  Until then I'll just post a blog when I get the chance.

In other news, my cousin is pregnant for number two.  The first child was a conception of a devious nature.  She had sexual relations, while in the Army still, with another soldier who was still married to his wife who was also in the service and fighting off cancer.  My cousin thought it would be a great way to get the guy to divorce his wife, get out of her deployment, and get him to marry her.  She is damn lucky the Army didn't decide to prosecute both of them for adultery.

The father of her first child did divorce his wife, and he had a kid with his wife.  He didn't marry my cousin.  Now she is pregnant with number two.  When asking my family who the father is they assumed since she was still dating the man, I thought they had broken up since he was abusive to her, it was the same father of her first child.

All I know is that this seems to me to be yet another welfare mom case with a dead beat dad.  I hope I'm truly wrong.  Some folks should not be allowed to breed!

Salad Juice

Yesterday I managed to find the time to make one juice in my busy day.  One would think that I have all the time in the world since I work from home and am an Army Wife. 

My life if far from being like the tv show folks.  Yesterday I needed to mail out a package from my online shop, water the lawn, field phone calls from both of my parents who are in separate nursing homes right now, phone call from husband, phone call from cousin, phone call to oldest and dearest friend that has been so busy I've been missing her by minutes each time I call her and that three hour time difference does cause trouble, finally the laundry on my long list of how busy I was yesterday.

So I juiced a salad.  Well J thought it tasted like a salad.

One large English Cucumber
4 Roma tomatoes
2 stalks of celery
1 peeled lime (I froze the rind for future use in say a cheesecake!)


It made enough for 3 large glasses of juice and one small glass.  I was going to save the pulp from the juicing yesterday but I couldn't decide if I wanted to make a casserole with it soon or not so I disposed of it.

Today I think I'll juice some fruits and maybe a few carrots too.  We'll see.

With yesterday's temps reaching almost 100 F it was a nice way to cool off with a nutritious drink.  I swear all it was missing was the alcohol and I could have had a freshly made bloody mary, just not as pulpy.