It's Official
Thursday, April 26, 2007

We're moving back to KC in late July / early August. Yes, I know. It's going to be 800 million degrees and humid as hell, but that's the way it goes.

A culmination of events led to this decision. My grandmothers are not doing so well. Their health is declining and they are both a broken hip or a stroke away from total dependence on someone else for their care. As it is, my maternal grandmother is forgetting to take her medicine and we're afraid one day soon, she'll forget to turn the stove off or fall down the basement stairs. The other grandmother is doing much better, but she has no family left in KC, and I can't stand the thought that she will spend the last years of her life alone. I promised myself, after having worked in nursing homes, that they would not die outside of their own homes in a strange place, having their every movement dictated by strangers. And I know from firsthand experience that there is no such thing as a good nursing home.

We've struck a deal with my mother that benefits everyone; she will move in with her mother so that someone is always there, and we will move into her house and take over her mortgage payments, which will allow her to save money for her own retirement. It will give us a place to live, and I will help with my grandmother's care during the day when my mom is at work.

This is what we've always known would happen. And the time is apparently now.

We're unsure as to whether J will be able to take his job with him and work from home. That would be a big financial bonus as we'd be taking SF money back to KC. If not, he'll just have to take the cut. Either way, we'll be fine.

Besides, if we have children I want them to be close their extended family. And J's grandparents aren't getting any younger, either.

So, we begin the process of planning and packing, once again. This is going to be my last move for a long time. I hope.

posted by Christine Hammond @ 9:00 AM, ,


Sunday Stumbles
Sunday, April 22, 2007

- Dear Cell Phone User, The world is a noisy place. You aren't helping things.

- If a girl’s sensual in small things then she’s sensual in all things. Waiter Rant talks about chocolate covered moneymakers.

- Cupcakes. There really is nothing more to say.

posted by Christine Hammond @ 4:41 PM, ,


Pee on a Stick

Instant message conversations with my ClearBlue Easy Fertility Monitor is the funniest thing I've read in weeks.

I know exactly how she feels. You spend $200 on a device that only seems to mock you at every turn.

posted by Christine Hammond @ 9:35 AM, ,


Is it a baby, yet?
Saturday, April 21, 2007

I hate the days between ovulation and the beginning of a new cycle. I want to go to sleep until the earliest day I can pregnancy test. I want to have sex without wondering whether something we've done has upset the "natural balance" of my ladybusiness.

I just want to be pregnant.

The hardest thing is when the ovulation window is gone for the month and you know it'll be a whole month until you have another chance. A month can be a very long time.

Feh.

How is it that most of my girlfriends when I was a teenager got knocked up at the drop of a hat? Oh yeah, they were 16 and having sex like mad bunnies.

13 days to go...

posted by Christine Hammond @ 11:42 PM, ,


Food, Food, Foodie, Food, Food
Thursday, April 19, 2007

I've been waiting for social networking sites to become more specialized. And I'm happy to find that friendsEAT.com is right up my alley. It's is still in beta, but it looks to have a very promising future. I've only spent a few minutes on the site but I am very impressed.

Some of the features offered:

* Critique restaurants you've been to.
* Post a blog about your going out experiences.
* Setup events for your friends to meet up.
* Chat in the forum to give your "two cents".
* Look at menu items for take out and take in restaurants.

I suppose I ought to sign up, now.

posted by Christine Hammond @ 7:35 PM, ,


So Tired and Sluggish
Wednesday, April 18, 2007

I think there's something going around at the job. Either that, or I'm leveling off on the prenatal vitamins. I really feel like I could sleep for days.

posted by Christine Hammond @ 8:00 PM, ,


"Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt."
Thursday, April 12, 2007

Kurt Vonnegut died last night.

posted by Christine Hammond @ 10:14 AM, ,


I Eat Food!
Wednesday, April 11, 2007

I've been really enjoying the daily emails from Hungry Girl. I usually hate daily emails from any commercial website, but these are actually useful. Today I got a recipe for low fat nacho cheese. Yum! I love the reviews on the website, too. She reviews all the new "diet" foods on the market so I don't take my chances. She also has some really good recipes for healthier versions of stuff, like brownies and chicken fingers. I've tried them both, and they are awesome.

I've also been spending a lot of time on the Calorie King website using the food database (mostly to look up fast food).

When I lived in DC, I used to frequent a little place called Teaism in Dupont Circle. They had the best chai and ginger scones. I was so excited to see a recipe for them, that I've been making them at least once a week for the last month. They do sell the mix, but it never did justice to the ones made from scratch. They are so good warm with some orange marmalade and butter.

posted by Christine Hammond @ 11:52 AM, ,


How to Get Knocked Up 101
Thursday, April 05, 2007

This is the best advice I've received so far:

"Go to a bar...(have your husband be there) act coy, get drunk and pick him up...
Take him out to the car and have unprotected sex, go home and don't call him."

posted by Christine Hammond @ 3:55 PM, ,


My Aunt's Come to Visit

Since the theme of my life happens to be fertility and all things related, I've been thinking a lot about what we're told as young girls about our bodies and menstrual cycles. What I'm finding is that even though I had a very liberal and open mother, I was given the bare minimum of information. Looking back, the most important thing I gleaned from what was taught to me was that period equals not pregnant.

In fact, thinking back, I was never told about my period before mine started. Mine came at a very early age. I was 9 years old and in the shower at my Grandparents when the cramps and bleeding started. I looked down and saw the blood and, terrified, ran screaming out of the bathroom with a towel thrown around me. I thought I was dying. I was in shock and frightened. I remember standing there like a drowned rat, crying. Instead of calmly explaining what was happening to me, my Grandmother grabbed my arm and whisked me away, out of the sight of my Grandfather. I was shushed and told very little, other than this was "normal" and that I was acting like a "big baby". The implications were clear; I had subjected my Grandfather to shame and embarrassment, what was happeing to me was "dirty" and not for the eyes of men. I was given a box of "sanitary napkins" and a belt, no doubt stashed away by my Grandmother after her last period sometime in the early 70s. This was 1981. When I went home to my Mother's house, I was so ashamed that I couldn't tell her. I didn't even know what to call it, anyway, or how to broach the subject.

I hid my period from her for 4 years. If she ever caught on, I never knew. It was just simply never talked about. Not until it was the "right" time.

While cruising Beliefnet today, I came across this gem of a question:

How might it have been different for you if, on your first menstrual day, your mother had given you a bouquet of flowers and taken you to lunch, and then the two of you had gone to meet your father at the jeweler, where your ears were pierced, and your father bought you your first pair of earrings, and then you went with a few of your friends and your mother's friends to get your first lip coloring; and then you went, for the very first time, to the Women's lodge, to learn the wisdom of women? How might you be different?
-Judith Duerk, Circle of Stones


I think that what a young girl is told about her period, how her body works, determines the value she places on her body and sexuality. I believe that at the very least, I would have had the tools and knowledge to potentially make my teenage and young adult years a much better time than I had.

It's a provocative question. The deeper I get into trying to conceive, the more I learn what I don't know about how women's bodies work. I'm learning that there are so many variables. There so many things that I'm now learning at 35, that I wish they would have told me.

posted by Christine Hammond @ 12:30 PM, ,


A New Angle on an Old Habit

For some inexplicable reason about a year ago, after having kept a blog since 2000, I just stopped. I didn't have the urge or the desire to. I let my domain expire, let all the posts go, and didn't look back. I can't explain the reasons why, as I'm not even sure I know, myself. But one day last week, out of the blue, I got the urge to keep a blog. I tried a few of the new blog services and ended up right back here, using blogger (which is what I used for my first and longest running blog).

Once, I was completely immersed in the blogosphere and my whole online world was blog, blog, blog. Any maybe that was the problem. I got caught up and overwhelmed, and finally, just burned out. I think that being removed has allowed me to remember why I initially felt compelled to chronicle my life in this way. I think I'm ready to approach this from a new angle.

My angle.

From the inside out.

posted by Christine Hammond @ 9:58 AM, ,