Just A Little Off Kilter....

I remember as a kid I could never understand what the big fuss about New Year's resolutions was. It seemed a little silly to wait until January 1st to make some big proclamation. If you want to change something about yourself, change it. The older I get though, the more I see the need for resolutions. And the more I learn about the brain, the more I understand why. The brain organizes itself like a tree...the trunk and thick branches are the main pathways that branch into finer and finer distinctions the older one gets. So if you've been building on one habit for many years, it takes some serious pruning and reorganizing to get a different habit to grow it its place. This brings me to my New Year's resolution...talk in a funny accent. Yes, really. You see, for some reason some people have a lot of trouble understanding me when I talk. I don't have a speech impediment or anything like that, I just talk very fast and mumble a lot. There are times when I can speak very cle...

Well, it's Christmas Eve, and I don't know how much time I'll have to post, with the eggnog and the wrapping paper and the jingly bells flying all 'round. Family duties, you understand. So I thought I'd bring in a guest poster, to keep you entertained for the day, while I flit to and fro. I couldn't find a real guest poster on Christmas, and on such short notice, so I've decided to try something radical. Just this once, because it's Christmas, I'm going to let my inner child tell you what she thinks of the holiday season. Unfettered, unadulterated, and no holds barred. I hope you enjoy this look at Christmas through the eyes of my younger, more immature self. ____________________________________________________________ Hi. My name is Janet. I'm firty eight years old. Okay, not really. I live inside another Janet, and she's thirty eight. But I never got older than nine or ten years old. Mommy says that's because I didn't ea...

Last Friday was Cycle Day 3 and while not a momentous occasion, an important day in regards to my fertility nonetheless.  Now that we've made the decision to move forward with IUI in the new year, it was time to measure my Day 3 levels (again). FSH, LH, and E2. I've had this done, many times...always with disappointing results, but disappointing or not, it needs to be done. Simple enough eh? I left work at lunch, made the ten minute drive to my clinic, parked my car, grabbed my paperwork and then proceeded to sit in my freezing car for the next thirty minutes. I could not make myself get out of the car! I just couldn't. I sat there frozen in place...staring at the doors to the clinic.  "What's wrong with you Janet?" that negative inner voice screamed at me.  "Get out of the car" "Go" "Open the door...and get out of the car". I sat there for a few more minutes, paperwork clutched tight in my hands and then started the c...

You think you had a bad day? Clams are getting chowdered. CHOWDERED.

A while ago I recounted the story of a woman walking in on when while I was using the restroom and wouldn't leave (I'm too lazy to go back and find this post so if you recall this great, if not...well...). The only thing worse than being in a public restroom and having someone open the door on you is being the person who opens the door. I always feel so guilty and weird and never know what to say. But, after years of experience, I've come up with the best ways to handle this awkward situation. Silently sneak away - I know your first reaction when you see someone on a toilet in front of you is to scream, but I’m telling you this is the worst possible thing to do. It will freak the person out so much more and it might draw a large crowd. So, I suggest being completely silent in hopes of being invisible to said person on toilet. Overly apologetic - If you can’t silently sneak away you should be prepared to give your sincerest apologies. You can stand outside their doo...

One of the most difficult and hard to accept lessons of adulthood is realizing that you will feel pain and that you cannot go over or under or around it. It’s a terrible place to be in because, well, it’s painful. But the most relevant aspect of pain is that it is caused by something that cannot be ignored or avoided. The most important fact to remember about emotional pain is that it will not kill you. It will sting and make you cry, and perhaps make you not want to eat or talk or whatever, but it will not kill you and you will recover. It will simmer and sift around inside you, then eventually it will pass. After it is gone, you will change as a result of it. Whatever you feel at any point in time is not forever.  Pain is a typical experience to have at some point in life and yeah, it’s super terrible, but you can enact important basic steps to get you through it...eating healthily, sleeping, exercising, getting outside and forcing yourself to be around those that love you ...

I’m having a bit of a dilemma. Which is putting it mildly. I am not sure whether to shut the factory down for good, or keep it chugging along in its pitiful, yet marginally functioning state. If things were normal, if *I* was normal (cue hysterical laughter here), then I might be happy to let things chug along as they were and see what happens. But things (my body and I) are far from normal and so I feel like I need to make a decision either way. Which really sucks and makes me feel a renewed sense of frustration, irritation and mourning for the sorry state of affairs of my reproductive bits. We recently had an appointment with our RE to discuss our options and see where we stand. It was great to touch base with Dr. L but as expected, nothing has really changed. My fertility has been on a fairly rapid decline and there's not much we can do to change that (FSH last tested at 20). It was good to hear that my tubes are open and that my uterus appears to be in good shape but despit...

Loaf me, loaf me, say that you knead me.

Food is delicious. Cold weather and fireplaces are amazing. Friends are wonderful. Loves are magic. Exercise feels awesome. Nature never ceases to be beautiful and soothing. There is so much to enjoy every day in life, yet a lot of us have a hard time staying in the moment, even when that moment is singular and something worth replaying in our minds for eternity. It’s kind of like living in a constant state of looking forward or backward, or always feeling like wherever you are there’s something that needs to be fixed. Something we’re forgetting that we should be remembering. There can be lots of reasons for why we take ourselves out of the moment, but in general I’d guess that it’s a feeling of discomfort with something deep down and ancient, a discomfort with low-self esteem, feelings of depression or anxiety that we’re trying to put logical labels on, or perhaps a fear of a discomfort we knew long ago. One of the best tools I've learned is to remind myself that all those feeling...

Happy weekend you lovely peoples ☺

I've been blogging for a while now (2 years and 8 months to be exact) and it has changed me. I look at things differently, I spend my life looking for things happening around me to happen in ways that I never used to but the biggest change is my inner narrative. I cannot remember when it started, but it must have been since I started writing because I never used to do it. I don’t just mean a normal inner narrative, where you play out the day as you go along, maybe thinking how you will tell someone about it, but I mean an inner ‘written’ narrative, complete with grammar check and title. Whenever and wherever I am, no matter what is going on around me I’ll be writing a story in my head. I’ll change the things I see into a story. Not only that but I will do mental rewrites in order to shape it into something I like. When did this happen to me? It doesn't matter what it is and it never seems to go away. I’m sure I only used to do that when I was actually at the keyboard trying to...

I've always wanted to be one of those people who laughs all the way to the bank, instead of one who cries every time she leaves.

What do we legitimately need nowadays besides a roof, warmth and sustenance?  There are the things that make contact and work more possible...a computer, some kind of cable, wireless in your house. Other things that keep us "us", like our hair stuff, the right moisturizer, etc. Then there are those other things that we tell ourselves we need, or sometimes we tell ourselves we don’t need them but we tend to buy them anyway. The late night binge of whatever sort, or the online/ in store "retail therapy".  In the moment it tends to work (or at least that’s what we tell ourselves) but really it’s like a pause button that costs us more in the long run. All of those "needs" that we have are tied to an illusion. That we have an emptiness. A void of some kind, that we need to fill or temper somehow, with something outside of ourselves. I know the void feelings well and I constantly have to remind myself that it’s just an illusion...a concept that has been c...

Glassblowing is a glassforming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble (or parison), with the aid of a blowpipe (or blow tube). A person who blows glass is called a glassblower, glassmith, or gaffer. A lampworker manipulates glass with the use of a torch on a smaller scale, such as in producing precision laboratory glassware out of borosilicate glass. Saturday evening, despite being sick with the flu, we ventured out to our first glassblowing class in an attempt to make a Christmas ornament and hopefully one worth putting on our tree.  Now I can't quite call myself a glassblower, glasssmith or a gaffer but I did try my best and it was a great deal of fun.... How was your weekend?