Christmas has come and gone!

Well, Christmas has come and gone.  The tree is down and the only thing left to do is take down the outside Christmas lights.  We had a nice Christmas but it felt like we didn't get to relax for a second.  My truck is still in the shop so I have been borrowing my mom's mini van and I am OH SO thankful for that.  On Christmas eve we went to visit J's grandparents.  They live about an hour away from us on a 92 acre farm.  They don't farm anything really, they only have property so I guess i shouldn't call it a farm.  They were delighted to have us.  Nan showed me their new portable fireplaces 4 times and all of their cats.  Pop showed me the rack from his latest buck and we had a nice lunch.  J made homemade mac & cheese and Nan taught me how to make deviled eggs.  I didn't tell her that I'm already a great cook! :)  After lunch we came back home to start preparing food to take to my mom and dads on Christmas Eve night.  We made our famous chicken dip along with pinwheel sandwiches.  We traditionally have a meal of appetizers at my parents on Christmas even and exchange gifts with my family.  We had a great time.  Me niece M had so many gifts I doubt she remembers what she go and from whom. I kept thinking forward in my head to next Christmas when I may be pregnant or the Christmas after that when there may be another little one with us.  Christmas morning I woke up at the ass crack of dawn and made hot chocolate for J and I and then I woke her up to exchange our gifts.  I love Christmas mornings with her and I still cant believe that this was our 4th Christmas together.  How awesome!!!  On Christmas day we went to my mom and dads again at noon and my extended family came for lunch.  This used to be a tradition at my Great Grandmothers home but she passes away in 2009. 

So... the truck is still in the shop, as I mentioned before.  No one can seem to figure out what is wrong with it.  As soon as I get paid on Friday I'm going to Dodgeland to buy a car.  I hope it goes as planned.  I honestly don't care what kind of car it is as long as it has 4 doors and is reliable.  I have been kind of bummed about this because I love my truck!!! LOVE it... but this is one of the things on my list before having a baby so I'm thinking positively! I mean, I cant be driving around in a big ass pick up truck with a baby in the car seat in the front! :)

Anyway... we had snow on the day after Christmas! Now, some of you may not think this is a big deal but it NEVER snows in SC and we were so excited about it!  J and I made snow cream for the first time and it was delicious!!!  Snow, Sugar, Milk and vanilla extract and you have a wonderful treat! 

 Oh, on the tracking front, AF was 5 days late this month so I have to recalculate things.  I still haven't bought any smilies because well, they are just so durn expensive but I will buy them soon.  I'm back on my healthy diet today.  I've been eating like a horse since the wedding and I've gained nearly 15 lbs back.  It shouldn't take me long to drop the weight as long as I stick to it!  I drew up an agreement for N, J and I to sign before we start trying to conceive.  Although I love N dearly and trust him when my life I felt like we needed some sort of legally binding agreement outlining the responsibilities and rights of each party involved.  I think it looks great.  I haven't shown it to him yet but I'm sure he wont have a problem with it.    Take Care everyone!!

Christmas Cookies and My Piece of $#!? Truck!!!!!!!!

Christmas Cookie Factory



Mom and Dad's dog BooBoo



Kobe and his yard stick of bubble gum.



Well, our weekend was packed as usual.  Saturday morning we planned to have coffe with N.  We pulled out of our driveway and realized that my windshield wipers were not working.  Throughout the next 2 hours I realized that my horn, turn signals, brake lights and high beams were also not working.  I bought a new battery for my truck last week and had it installed and all of a sudden all of these things quit working.  After much frustration and many phone calls with the place that installed my battery, we diagnosed the problem.  My truck is now in the shop but I am borrowing my Mom's mini van.  I guess this mini van driving will prepare me for the future.:)  J and I were doing some Christmas shopping last night in the mini van and we were having a great time, enjoying eachother's company and really getting down to some rap songs on the radio until we realized...we are in a mini van. :) Anyway, coffee with N was great on Saturday morning.  After that we picked up my sweet as a caramel cream drop cousin Kobe.  He is my heart!  We made Christmas cookies with him all afternoon.  We had a cookie factory going for sure!  He ate as many as we packaged to give away.  Sunday morning we had breakfast at my Mom and Dad's and watched Kobe open his Christmas gifts from our side of the family.  Sunday afternoon we had our bi-weekly Sunday dinner.  This week it took place at N's house.  J and I created a new appetizer recipe that we call T&J's Chickn and friends. Its white meat chicken, medium buffalo sauce, bacon, scallions and ranch dressing, all mixed together sprinkled with cheese and baked! Served with tortilla chips of course! Everything was scrumptious!  I still have 1 more gift to buy for J and my Christmas shopping will be done.  I obviously will not be telling you all what it is just incase she actually decides to read my blog! :)  Today is our Christmas lunch at work and we have all brought gifts to exchange.  It should be a good day and a good week since my bosses will be leaving tomorrow for a Christmas vacation. 

On a baby note, I have tried to mention to my mom several times that J and I want to start trying to have a baby.  She often changes the subject.  I'm not sure if she just needs to wrap her mind around the idea or what but it hurts my feelings. Just saying.  I love Christmas and cant wait to have a little one to share the joys of this great season with!



On a sad note, a friend from high school passed away this weekend.  He was only 30 years old and it has really made me stop and appreciate all I have in my life.  I feel so sad for his family.  Christmas will never be the same for them again.  RIP Corey. 

Crap Crap Crapola

Sooo this has been a not so hot week already.  Yesterday after work my truck wouldnt start.  It finally started but I'm pretty sure I need a new battery. It is also running hot for no apparent reason.  This morning around 5AM J and I woke up to what sounded like someone banging pots and pans around and found that it was our furnace making the noise.  Its been unusually cold here, down into the teens at night which is insane for South Carolina and it seems that our home and car just handle the cold.  So, we tried to turn the heat off but our house is old and you can't just turn it off.  Once the pilot light is lit then its always on and the heat will come on as long as its colder than what the thermostat is set on.  So, I set the thermostat on the lowest possible setting which is 50 and the heat was still coming hom bc it was colder than 50 in the house.  GREAT!!! I called my uncle who is a handy man and he said that one of his rental properties had a busted pipe from the cold so he would make it over but it would be later on this afternoon.  So, in the mean time I hope our house doesn't blow up.  I'm just feeling discouraged today.  I know things will be better once we buy a house but I'm worried about the big payment that will come with that new house.  We also need to buy a car for J...and now it seems like we will need to buy a car for me too.  I just hope and pray and wish that the silver bullet can make it through another year. I know that as soon as J gets out of school and gets a full time job that things will come together without a problem.  I'm just discouraged in the mean time.  I guess the thought of dropping alot of cash to fix my truck and the furnace right here at Christmas just gives me anxiety because well its Christmas.  Oh well, this will be my last discouraging moment.  I'll put on my happy face and have a positive attitude about everything.  Its easier to be positive even if you truly arent because sometimes you can fool yourself.  Its also easier for me because if I'm negative or worried then J gets worried and I hate that because if someone else is worried then I can't fake it anymore. I have no idea if that even made sense but oh well, I just cant worry about that too!  On a side note, I tried to touch up my roots last week and the color i chose was..well.. it should be called stripper trashy trashy blond because thats how I look.  So, Ive been thinking about just going brunette and saying fuck it.  OH I cant believe I just said fuck in my blog!!  I'm so scandalous!  In the mean time, I look like a trashy stripper and my roots are growing out again and my hair seems a little fried and last night I dreamed that it all fell out so I have no idea what I'm going to do about that.  Maybe I'll just go to krispy kreme during my lunch break and eat my worries away...if my truck starts that is.  Speaking of eating, J made an amazing dinner last night.  She is such a great cook.  We had terriyaki chicken with steamed zuccini and squash.  The veggies were amazing! Ok, I do believe that is all for now.  Thanks for listening to me vent..I feel better already!

My Sweet Niece M, KD Decision and Big Fat Wedding

Hi blog world. Its Monday morning and I'm back to work. I've been dreading this work week because I work for 2 attorney's who are married to eachother and they are leaving this weekend to go out of town for a week for Christmas and I know that it will be insanity trying to wrap up loose ends. In the legal world people seem to have meltdowns around the holidays.  Ex-husbands and ex-wives start fighting and getting back together and arguing about holiday visitation with their kids, people start getting DUI's and committing crimes.  Its usually nuts around here near Christmas so this may be my only blog for the week. 

We had a relaxing weekend which is not normal for us. Our schedule is usually packed to the top.  It was nice to have nothing on our schedule. On Sunday we agreed to babysit my 2 year old niece so my brother and sister-in-law could go Christmas Shopping but when we woke up Sunday morning J had a head cold so I went to my brother's house to watch M and J stayed home. M has Cystic Fibrosis so it would be very risky for J to be around her with any sort of cold. A common cold could lead to a lung infection which could lead to a hospital stay for M and we just could not take that chance. M was a perfect angel on Sunday. When I got to their home her first words were "where's J?". She LOVES J. In fact, when she first started talking she would never say T, only J. She called both of us J! :) After I told her that J was sick she then introduced me to her dad.... as if I did not know my brother. Her exact words were "That's my dad, meet my dad" while she was pointing at him. She introduces everyone. M and I spent the afternoon playing tea party with Mr. Bear and Mrs. Bunny and watching cartoons. We then played "puzzle" which was really a failed attempt at a card game and then we also played princess dress up. She devoured a piece of chocolate cake and all afternoon she insisted that I open the Christmas gift that was wrapped under their tree for J and I. The whole afternoon I wondered if our baby will look like M, if it will be a she or a he and what color hair it will have. I wondered it if will have dimples like M and myself both have. Sunday was a beautiful day.

So we made a pretty major decision this weekend. We have decided to use N as our KD. We are so happy with this decision and feel completely at ease about it. We love N so much and he is honestly one of the most genuinely good people on this great planet. What better person to be our KD. All of our past reservations have been addressed. We drafted a list of concerns to go over with N and we are on the same page about everything. I don't think there is another soul out there who we would trust as our KD other than N. So, we are so excited about using N. Obviously it will be cheaper and we have a higher chance of getting BFP than using frozen swimmers! On another baby related note, we went to the pharmacy over the weekend and were browsing the PNV's. I picked up 2 different brands and could not make a decision so I approached the pharmacy tech and asked her if she knew which brand would be better. She was completely rude to me and said "well hasn't the doctor given you vitamins" and I responded and said "no, I'm not pregnant yet, we are about to start trying" and she said "well it's ridiculous to take these now" and threw them down on the counter. I wanted to reach across the counter and pull her eyelashes out but of course I didn't. I just said, "well thank you ma’am and walked away". I will never understand why people must be rude to each other.  

Ok, so onto the Big Fat Wedding section of my post. Before the wedding in October I managed to pretty easily lose 30lbs. I was eating right and walking once a week with a group I started called "Fit Quest". Well, during the wedding week we had a TON of bad food and by bad I do not mean that it tasted bad, I mean that it is bad for you. I consumed copious amounts of wine, cheese, bread, pasta and cupcakes. Since the wedding festivities which I now called The Big Fat Gay Wedding festivities I have fallen off of the eating healthy wagon. I'm not just hanging off of the side of the wagon... I got dumped out onto the road and ran over. I have been eating ice cream and pizza and eggrolls. I have been out of control. So, I bit the bullet this morning and got on the scale which i was terrified about but to my delight I have only gained 5lbs since the wedding. Well Praise the Lord, Mary, Jesus, Joseph and Bob Hope because I am SOOOO happy about that. So, I hitched a ride back onto the wagon this morning so that means I have 2 weeks to get back on track before the Christmas eating begins. After the Christmas eating I will hop back onto the wagon as usual with my one bad meal per week and I hope to continue this indefinitely. I'd like to lose at least 50 more lbs before I get a BFP(big fat positive-preg). I could probably acheive this in 5 months so we shall see how it progresses. Thanks for reading guys and have a great Monday.

cupcakes at our wedding

Our Very First Blog Post



Our Wedding - October 30, 2010 - Columbia, SC

  Well thank you so much for following our blog. If you have read "Our Story" then you already know a little bit about us. I'm just going to jump right into the details because after all, that’s why we created this blog. My amazing DP(domestic partner) J and I have known for quite some time that we wanted to start a family together. Several years ago when we first talked about this we discussed having a KD (known donor) and we asked our wonderful gay male friend N if he would be willing to donate and he graciously agreed. Now that we are getting closer to starting our family we are having second thoughts about using a KD. We have done much research on the internet and to be honest the amount of information available online about TTC (trying to conceive) is consuming me. We have even found that people who are TTC have a language all of their own which is consumed with abbreviations. Through our research, questions have been raised about the legalities of using a KD and although we love N dearly, we are still cautious. We have also researched Northwest Chryo and Andrology and they are simply amazing and helpful. They even have a forum for clients to communicate and trade pictures and to discuss their journey with people going through the same thing. Everyone on their forum is kind and encouraging. Using N as our donor would certainly be cheaper in the event that it takes us multiple tries to conceive. There would also be a better chance at conceiving faster with fresh swimmers. There is a 20% chance of conceiving each time with frozen sperm and a 35% chance with N's little swimmers. It would also be ideal to use him because we adore him and he is such a genuinely good soul. I think we know which direction we are leaning, we just haven’t made the solid decision yet. Another factor that comes into play is that I may be a carrier of the genetic Cystic Fibrosis mutation and our donor will need to be tested for this. If our donor is also a carrier then our child will have a 1 in 4 chance that they will have Cystic Fibrosis and this is not a risk we can take. We are sending many prayers, hopes, wishes and positive vibes up that N is not a carrier of CF. There are a few things that we need to get done before we start TTC. Starting in January my diet will be changing. I currently eat a low carb diet and this has been successful for weight loss but I don’t think the amount of meat that I eat will be healthy for fertility. I need a more balanced died. I am concerned with this diet change because low carb has been very beneficial to me with weight loss and I still have weight to lose. I will also be completely cutting out the caffeine. I know that some people say this is not necessary but I want to do everything right, at least everything in my power to have the most healthy child possible. J will be finished with school in March and should not have a problem at all finding a job in her field in our area and then we need to buy our forever home and a 2nd car. Nothing extravagant, just a little piece of property to call our own. All of these things will be accomplished by early Summer of 2011 and then we will be ready for TTC. We aren’t certain of when to start trying. We are tracking my cycles for now and we plan on buying PNV(pre-natal vitamins) this weekend along with OPK(ovulation prediction kits) so we can really track everything for a good 4 or 5 months and be certain of when I ovulate. We are so excited to be able to share this journey with all of you. I hope that others on the same journey will be encouraged by our blog just as we are by theirs. Much love to you all!