Six to eight inches tonight and tomorrow another ten.  Oh joy.  Silver lining?  Jameson’s cold has cleared up and he’s a pleasure to be around again.  He also brought his laptop home so he will be home with us tomorrow .  I will get through the week though.  I am definitely getting STIR CRAZY.  I found myself studying the help wanted ads today and was eyeing up 3 ads in the town I live outside of, but I know it doesn’t make sense for me to apply because daycare is so expensive.  I have to make more friends so I’m not so lonely.  As of now I end up hanging out with the nanny from next door a lot, and today I called and left a message on her VM asking if she wanted to have a play date this afternoon.  She didn’t respond.  I’m wondering if the next door neighbor has banned her from hanging out with me after she encouraged it.  On the other hand I could be reading into a situation that doesn’t exist.

Brighter side?  Next Wednesday Lovey Girl and I are going to stay with my parents because Jameson has to go away for work and it’s my birthday on the 17th so atleast I won’t be alone on my birthday because that would be pretty depressing.  I guess I am feeling a little low and missing interaction with the outside world.  Next weekend when Jameson returns from his trip, he’s going to assist in moving furniture at the mountain house because my dad is getting a “MAN” room in the basement (ie:  a room where he can watch TV as much as he wants and doesn’t drive my mom crazy), and then staying at the mountain house for the rest of the weekend and we’ll have “date” night because the grandparents have volunteered to babysit.  I find it so pathetic that I look forward to these dinky things now because everything is so quiet all the time.  Bright side?  I have an awesome husband and daughter, I’m taking care of myself, I’m going to the gym, working out, and eating a healthy diet.  Why can’t that be enough?

I was watching Julie and Julia (the movie) with Jameson and I was reminded SO much of the blogging world (& your guys).   I felt the need to dash upstars since Jameson is making dinner for us (pizza).

We had to add baby gates and there are no other words that can be said about this household: baby-jail.

P.S.  The movie?  They hinted that Julia Childs wanted to have children and didn’t/couldn’t because they showed her crying when her sister got pregant.   Then a few weeks agowe saw the movie “Up” and it’s a childrens movie.  That movie also showed the couple going to a doctor and learning they couldn’t have chilren.   Hmm, I don’t know why I get suprised.  I certainly know it’s everywhere, but it seems like the majority of people around me have no problem having children the traditonal fun way.

Cold cootchie Corona is back along with the foot plus snow that is expected this weekend!  It’s been snowing since yesterday evening (sigh). 

I’m warm an cozy NOW.

I’m movin’ and LOOK I’m getting quit the ‘do!  Soon I’ll be able to wear a bow or something .

My wonderful husband has a cold (he caught Lovey Girls cold as did I, but he’s much more sick than I am) and you woud think the world was coming to an end.  He is so GRUMPY when he isn’t feeling well and we’re at the end of week #1 of his being sick.  I am truly trying to not be grumpy back, but when he’s grumpy it’s hard to be happy and perky to him…oh yeah and I guess I’m supposed to be sympathic to his sickness woes despite the fact that today is the first day he was willing to take any cold medicine.  I’m not too sympathetic to shose who won’t help themselves. Ya know?  I’ve been taking M.ucinex for the past 2 weeks because I also caught Lovey Girls cold and he doesn’t hear me b*tching and moaning.

On another note, I’m currently looking out the window and I see the next door neighbor pacing up and down his driveway on his cell phone.  The husband was away this week (I only know because I went out with the nanny next door a few times).   That’s the part I’m going to talk about.  The nanny said the next door neighbor wife actually asked her what we talk about when we go out.  She wanted details and she wanted to make sure she wasn’t telling me anyting personal about them.  The example next door neighbor used was that she doesn’t like her MIL.  She told the nanny that she doesn’t want details of her life spread around the neighborhood.  Hmm…#1, does she really think she’s so interesting that people care if she likes or doesn’t like her MIL, #2 she’s the one who was so gung ho about the nanny and I being friends and now that we are she seems to have an issue with it. Making comments about us getting together and to make sure the nanny doesn’t share any personal details about her life.  The only thing I’ve come away with knowing about the wife of my next door neighbor is that I don’t want to be good friends with her because she’s a germaphobe.  I’ll list the laundry list of items I’ve compiles from hanging out with the nanny and I’m amazed the next door neighbor thinks that she doesn’t like her MIL is the worst thing?  Anyway, she’s anal-retentive, really annoyingly detail oriented (it’s not 5:00, it’s 5:03, etc), treats the nanny like she’s her housekeeper (she doesn’t clean up the dinner dishes or anything in the evening and it’s up to the nanny to take care of that the next day), she told the nanny that she knows her daughter doesn’t like green vegetables so she’s not going to be the bad guy and give them to her…it’s up to the nanny, tells the nanny to change the diaper one morning because the baby pooped and she didn’t feel like doing it, doesn’t clean the house at all and waits for the cleaning person who comes every two weeks and makes the nanny vacuum daily so the baby can go on the carpet.  Yet the baby actually put a piece of cardboard in her mouth that the mom dropped on the kitchen floor and that resulted in a big drama.  Somehow the next door neighbor isn’t picking up things she drops so the nanny can only put the baby on the family room carpet that has been vacuumed each morning.  The plot thickens.  It turns out the next door neighbor was raised in a foreign coutry (P**ck*istan) and her family is wealthy and that’s the way she was raised.  The help (ie:  nannies) did things like that.  Now I’m disturbed for the next door neighbor nanny, and I know she is too, but she does like her job and apparently next door neighbor is very warm in many ways and that makes up for it. 

Hmmm…I was happy to have a young couple move in next door, but we don’t seem to have a lot in common with them.  The one day the next door neighbor did stop by and came into the living room, I remember her saying with such surprise how nice it was.  Did she think our house would be a untaken care of?  In actuality our house is nicer in some way than theirs (granite counter in the kitchen and such). 

Anyway, I’m trying to not let any of it bother me.  I haven’t said anything to the nanny about my feelings.  Actually I didn’t give the nanny anything to pass on if she does share what we talk about.  I’m not a very secretive person, but I don’t see any friendship developing.  If anything the more I learned about her the less I liked, but I do know she would love to be staying home with her daughter, but they moved to this area because of her job so there may be a bit of resentment there and that could be the basis for everything.

Yup, the cold aspect of winter is pretty sucky.  Cold regarding temperature and cold as in cough cough sneeze sneeze.  Lovey Girl just gets over a cold and catches another (sigh).  Cranky-Pants ie:  LG is currently napping.  Today we’re missing out on a play date (and adult time) because of her nap, but I know she needs the sleep (sigh…why not at 3am?).  And it snowed yesterday (grrr).  Since December Jameson has been saying he can’t wait for spring.  I was ok, with the cold weather because we had unseasonably warm weather until Christmas and then my outdoor walks had to end because it was a bit chilly for even me.  Plus Lovey Girl has shared her cold with both of us except I can take cold medicine and she can’t although Lovey Girl now blows her nose when I hold a tissue to it (thank goodness because she hated the snot sucker).  I think that should be considered a milestone, but the pediatrician wasn’t as impressed with that talent as I was. 

Jameson has to go away for work next week.  I’m debating.  Do I go stay with my parents so I’m not stuck in the house with the dog?  Then do I bring Corona or give myself a break since my parents don’t have a fenced in yard and call the pet sitter?  I’m thinking about heading there so I’m less lonely while he’s away.  I’ve been finding myself feeling very unsettled lately.  I’m not sure why, but my gut says it is because of the crappy cold weather that limits outdoor activities.  Anyway, my mom has to work, but her classes are over in the afternoon so LG and I would only have to occupy ourselves for the morning.  

LG is up so I’m off the computer.  Talk to you guys later.

Busy chasing down a little crawler who has learned how to stand up.  All of that crawling and the cold that is caught everytime Lovey Girl goes to the play area at the Y with me has exhausted her (yeah, NAP) so I was taking a moment to check my reader.  How I miss everyone.  The internet seems to be something I hardly get to anymore.   

Currently I’m trying to decide if I want to go to my book club meeting on Friday(I did read the book so I feel somewhat invested), or if want to go to a baby shower for 2 moms in the M.OMS club I belong to.  If I go to the book club meeting I might get some donations for the MS walk and I can’t attend the meeting in March because we’re going away to the mountains that weekend.  Plus, I just paid our mortgage today making our bank account pretty low until Thursday so I’m not really in a place to purchase a snazzy gift.  Hmm, I guess I just answered my own question.  I just have to come up with a good excuse for why I can’t go to the shower (or sprinkle as they call it since it is the 3rd child for both mothers).  I guess I could just tell the truth…that I have my book club meeting.  I won’t mention that I don’t want to spend the money on a gift (that to chintzy, even for me).

Today when Jameson came home from work he and I were talking and I happened to look over at Lovey Girl who was playing on the family room floor.  She was STANDING…supporting herself by this little table she has that plays music.  Then later on she crawled over to me where I was sitting in this leather recliner we have with my feet tucked under my legs.  Anyway, she grabbed my feet and hoisted herself up to standing again.  Like before she stood for a few minutes before falling.

 I’m a baby on the move!

Lovey Girl finally went down for a nap and I’m playing around on the computer instead of doing any of a hundred household things that need to be done.  After her nap we’re going next door to have a play date with next-door-neighbor-super-baby who is always aheard of her age.  Lovey Girl was rebelling earlier until I finally put her in a sleep sack and for some odd reason that did the trick.  We don’t usually put her in a sack, we usually swaddle but whatever, it worked.  Anyway, I’m rambling now. 

I contacted a girl who is a friend of a friend type situation and she’s interested in our embryos.  There’s a very low percentage of passing on MS (the MS S.ociety says it’s 2%) and she and her husband weren’t put off by the slight risk.  Oddly enough they have male infertility issues and have had the runaround with adoption (sounds eerily familiar, huh?). I wasn’t sure where to go from there so I called the clinic that we used and where the embryos currently are and left a message asking about the procedure for donating them to another couple of our choosing vs.  letting the clinic choose the couple because the clinic now does donor embryos (they didn’t used to).  I haven’t heard back from the clinic so I guess I’m going to have to be annoying and keep calling.  It’s a shame I don’t have a sister or a close cousin or something who I could ask and actually use our embryos, but such is life.  You know, after the agency we adopted Lovey Girl through called and asked if we were interested in submitting our profile to an upcoming situation I felt a lot better about adopting a sibling vs. using our embryos, but when it came down to everything we realized we couldn’t afford another adoption.  Not another baby, but another adoption.  I guess my point is, if I donate the embryos what if we can never afford another adoption?  Of course there are always those who say that you’re given what you can handle.  Do I interpret that as I was blessed with 1 child so maybe I wasn’t meant to have 2 childen?  I don’t want Lovey Girl to be alone the way my dad and Jameson who are both only children are.  Having a sibling doesn’t guarantee a good relationship between the two, but atleast there is the chance.     

I have been looking at foster adoption and I guess I just don’t know enough about it.  So many of the children that are listed on websites that are slated for adoption have some sort of disability.  Am I correct in assuming that is why they have not yet been adopted?  People are intimidated?   

This whole living lean time of our life is rough on slightly spoiled me.  Actually I’m fine with living on a budget and everything that goes along with that, it’s that I don’t know when we’ll be able to afford to adopt a sibling.  I never do well with not knowing.  Unfortunately I can’t see into the future and know what Jameson’s salary increase is going to be this year or how large our tax refund will be (sigh).  Yup, I’m a control freak.  I often joke to Jameson about how I’m a Type A person in a Type B Body.

Ah well, Lovey Girl seems to be waking from her nap and I’m sorry I whined to you guys.

Yup, a blur.  We installed a new wine buffet in the dining room (purchased with the interest earned on the ING acct), but we can’t afford chairs yet which is putting me at a loss for what we’re going to do about having a gathering at our house for Lovey Girls baptism.  I asked my other BFF Li’l A to be Lovey Girl’s godmother so we’re going to have 2 godmothers instead of a g-mother and g-father.  This being on one income thing really bites the big one in some ways, but in others it’s great (ie the fact that we don’t have daycare and I get to be with LG everyday).   

I was put in charge of paying our bills and I stink at it.  I didn’t make big bucks at my old job, but I didn’t really have to budget because I had a healthy salary for an administrative person that is.  Anyway I try to be meticulous, but I keep forgetting about charges that are deducted automatically from our account like our oil (grrr) so I pay the bills and think I’m leaving us a couple hundred dollars for the next two weeks until Jameson gets paid and viola we get socked with an automatic withdrawal for the oil.  I was so pissed at myself for not realizing.  I now have learned the hard negative checking account way.  We had a lean 2 week period while we waited for Jameson’s next paycheck since I screwed up by not knowing about the oil deduction.  Then we had some coil on our relatively new heater need to be replaced for the generous sum of eight hundred dollars.  I called and asked if we could pay cash or work out a payment plan.  I was told we had ”reward points” for being a loyal customer and they took three hundred dollars off and are letting us pay in installments (sigh…when it rains it pours).  My parents are helping us though this rocky time period by purchasing items for Lovey Girl like diapers, food, child proofing items, etc.  They said that they are still working so they are glad to do it, but when they retire they won’t be able to help as much.   

Jameson is working overtime so we can try to have more cushion and build our savings again.  After April and we have our tax return and the adoption tax credit things will be much easier.   I admit I’ve been looking around for part-time work, but Jameson keep dismissing that idea.  He doesn’t think it’s a good idea.  We’re hardly poor or anything I’m just not used to living so, uh, sparingly.  For example, we’ve learned how to make our own pizza with dough we puchased at T.rader Joe’s (we’re mulling over making the dough ourselves, but haven’t done it yet) instead of ordering out or going to my favorite BYO pizza place.  Gift cards from friends and family have never been a more welcome sight and I’m learning to use coupons and search for the cheapest prices. 

Well, Lovey Girl is again sick with a cold.  I know that in a way it’s good for her to catch colds because she has to build up her immunity, but a child with a cold pretty much bites the big one.  Atleast now she seems to understand that if I hold a tissue to her her nose the correct thing to do is blow so that’s much better than doing the snot sucker.  I keep wondering how she keeps coming down with all these colds and my goodness if she was in daycare she’d be sick constantly.  Atleast now we get a week reprieve between ailments.  I’m thinking she picked something up at the YMCA where I joined to do weight lifting.  I’m the soon to be buff-Merlot, but I’m not doing it to lose weight, just to gain strength.  I was weighed at the neuro’s last week and I’m now over one hundred so he didn’t give me a hard time about the weight loss that occurred when I did IF stuff which he has done in the past because I had lost so much that I didn’t look healthy. 

Enough whining about our nonexistant money woes.  I hope to be feeling far more comfortable soon with the tax return and Jameson’s annual salary increase so we can think about a sibling for Lovey Girl.  I’d rather it be while I’m fairly young, ya know?

 LG and her BFF .

I went into my old office today because I had a doctors appointment in the big bad city and the city where my old place of work. is located  Not that you asked, but my neuro thinks I’m doing great!  Anyway I was talking to the receptionist and I was telling her that our plan was to add a sibling for Lovey Girl, but our we didn’t want to take that next step until we could comfortably pay all bills (including mortage) and have a little money left over at the end of the month WITHOUT Jameson having to work overtime.  I found myself explaining to my old coworker that adoption usually is 30 thousand dollars and up.  I pointed out that there aren’t many ways to have a lower cost adoption except foster adoption or AA.  I hate to say it, but children who aren’t white are less expensive to adopt (just saying that makes me want to puke).  In Lovey Girl’s situation she was a high risk drug situation so her adoption was fairly reasonable.  As I type all that I think I almost threw up a little in my mouth.  Anyway, it’s frustrating for me that we couldn’t pursue the adoption we were contacted about simply because of adoption costs because we CAN afford another child, it’s the fees we aren’t comforable with.  If I could be pregnant the traditonal way it would be so much easier!  Ah well, who am I compaining to?  A whole bunch of women who are either paying horrendous agency fees or or horrendou IF fees.  Sorry girls I don’t have anyone else to complain to.  Certain not the fertile Murtles of the world.