Stones and Rainbows

Oh my gosh ya'll. We got the most awesome storm here last night. I have never, never seen anything like it. It has been kinda rainy here the last several days but I had thought that by yesterday afternoon things were supposed to start clearing up and then it would be clear through this weekend. When I left work last night while walking out to the parking garage I overheard some people commenting that 'it' was on 'its' way. They were pointing toward the darkened sky. About half-way through my thirty minute commute I heard a severe thunderstorm warning for several counties about an hour northwest of us. The warning had moved to our county and added a tornado warning by the time I got home. I spent five minutes picking up the lawn tools and toys in the backyard. Don-e called only minutes after I got back inside to tell me to move our car, which we normally parked outside, down the street to his parents house under their carport because golf ball sized hail would be in our area in twenty minutes. I grabbed Elijah and we moved the car down the street but instead of waiting there for Don-e to pick us up like we had planned I made the choice to try to beat the storm and walk home. We made it, with Don-e not five minutes behind us. Within another five it hit. The hail started off relatively small, and to be honest it was more than I ever expected it to be. We have gotten several of these hail warnings since we moved here but have never seen it happen. Within the twenty minutes the storm stayed in our area the stones did indeed reached the size of golf balls. We watched it rip apart several lawn chairs that had been left out on the lawn. It pulled apart strands of lights that we had hanging on our patio and shattered the bulbs. Within minutes the ground was covered. They stacked up to several inched deep. When they hit the ground they would bounce more than a foot high. All of our newly green trees where shredded.

We were in one of the worst hit areas, but not the worst. A friend of a friend was driving on one of the toll roads when she was hit. Both her windshield and rear window were shattered, while she was still driving. She told my friend that she thought she was going to die between the glass shards and pelting ice.

Skylights were broken, cars mutilated, roof destroyed.

The town that was hit just prior to ours had stones that piled up one and a half feet deep in the streets.The fire department there had to do the plowing.

A lady that I work with will have to pay two deductibles on two different cars. One for a rental she was driving and one for her car that was parked at a car dealership.

My in-laws and nephew were stuck huddled under a tree in the parking lot of the store they were going to.

But with all of that, with the fear and the destruction, there was such energy, such power alive in the air. The impact of the stones was like bullets assaulting the earth, but the battle field was majestic.

But afterwards the sky cleared and made way for a rainbow.

This Month

Last month I was pretty proud of myself for how well I handled the entire cycle and the ensuing disappointment that came from one more month that did not work. I was calm during the two weeks of waiting between ovulation and getting my period. Once we knew I took action and made an appointment to see the acupuncturists. I thought that I was going to experience a renewed sense of enthusiasm because we are doing something to help things along, but the only thing that I feel is terror.
And I realized on my drive to work this morning that I am terrified of both outcomes. I am terrified that next Thursday I will find that one more month has been wasted, that once again we didn't get pregnant. We did everything that we could to help the process along. I took the suggested pills and medicines, we were timed perfectly, we 'did it' like rabbits. So if it doesn't work we will have used up all of the tricks in our bag. There will be no more actions steps that I can take to feel useful and productive. That we will never have another baby. I will never again be given the gift of carrying my husbands child in my womb. Elijah will never get to have the amazing bond there is between siblings, the ones that both Don-e and I have relied on so often in our lives.

Seeing baby commercials on the television makes my heart hurt and my eyes tear.

And yet, I know I am also afraid of finding out that in the middle of next week that it did work. That I am pregnant. Because the fear of having that, and then losing it again is almost unbearable. Last summer a very good friend of mine miscarried in the end of her first trimester. I wept with her and then went home and looked at Elijah and wondered how anyone could stand it. I sit here and write this and still wonder that.

We lost our second child in December.

A friend of mine is due any minute and yet I feel such fear for them because I know that there is still a chance that they will not get to come home with a baby. It is not the same friend. They are still trying to conceive again.
And I am so mad that I feel this way. That I have these thought. There is nothing more natural than a man and a woman coming together to make new life, so why is it so hard for so many people? Why is it that something that is supposed to be so joyful is causing me so much pain?

*Cycle Day 16*- Starting the long loooong time of waiting. There are 14 days until we will know if this month worked..

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Our plans for this weekend are to attack our yard with some very aggressive yard work. This past week we got the very large red-tip photena that line our backyard trimmed back, which now means we can started cleaning up the leaves and debris that have lived under them for years. These things took up more than 10 feet on both side of the yard, and when you take into consideration that our yard is almost exactly 100 ft long AND wide, it makes for a lot of clean up. I am excited about it though. We really want to focus on the yard this year, as it has been greatly neglected since we bought the house two years ago. (On a brief side note, I can not believe that it has been two years!)


We want to clean up under these shrub things, then install some edging to create a distinct lawn area/planting bed area. Our next step is to re-seed the lawn. Then some planting under the shrubs, some mulch and it will be beautiful! Don-e does also want to install a larger patio area off the back of the house, but because of our septic system it has to be done in pavers and that is pricey!! Might have to wait on that awhile.

Our goal for getting the yard at least part-way done is Easter weekend, which also happens to be Elijah's birthday weekend. We've (I've) decided that we should have an annual Easter party, in much the same way people have annual Christmas parties. If we can pull it off this year we will get off lucky because we can also make it Elijah's birthday party. (Again, can't believe it has been two years!)


Keep your fingers crossed for us, and I will try to show you pictures as things progress!

On getting stuck..

*Day 15*- Ovulating...

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On Sunday I went to an acupuncturist. A friend of mine that has diagnosed fertility problems starting seeing an acupuncturist on the recommendation of her ob/gyn and ended up getting pregnant the first month into her treatment. So, because I am getting close to the point of craziness over not being able to get pregnant we thought we would give it a try. We found a lady on the recommendation of another friend and she turned out to be the cutest, tiniest white soccer mom (totally unexpected) but was really friendly and she seemed to be very knowledgeable. She ran a few tests on me and found out that the only system that is out of wack is my urogenital system. Which is primarily my kidneys and ovaries. Perfect, no? She recommended a few supplements that should help boost my system and I did about 15 minutes of acupuncture. I can't really say that it was weird to have a bunch of needles sticking in various points of my body because you can't feel them. It was a bit odd to be able to see the one in my forehead though. I will go back for two more one hour sessions over the course of the next four weeks and take the recommended supplements. Kim, my acupuncturist, thinks that after that, more or less, I should be pretty good. She did recommend that we do not try to get pregnant during that time, but after talking about it Don-e and I are not willing to give up two more months of time. My regular doctor ran all kinds of test in January and she didn't find anything so we are not worried about anything being too seriously wrong. I really think that our hold up has been more effected by my stress level and not taking very good care of myself. So I am going to take my vitamins and try to relax! One other thing that Kim told me that I found interesting is that Chinese medicine associates a women's ovaries with her creativity. When she asked me what I do to express myself creatively right away Don-e blurted out writing so Kim said that I need to write, or express myself as creatively as possible to help stimulate my ovaries. Which has been hard because I haven't been compelled to write for awhile, which is probably because my ovaries are block! But here I am, trying to be creative. But if what you are reading sucks we are going to blame it on my ovaries.

Pee and Donuts

This weekend Don-e had to meet with one of the Pastors that we do work for so we attended his church instead of our normal home church. It was a ton of fun and very productive for Don-e. The church we attend now is huge, somewhere around 6,000 people, so it was nice to experience a small church again. This plant church is in a little town just north of us called Round Rock. (Trivia fact- Round Rock is also the town where my ob-gyn is and therefore the town Elijah was born in!) A few weeks ago we were watching the Travel Channel and they had a show on a couple of the restaurants in and around Austin. None of which we have been to by-the-way. But anyway, one of the places they featured was a donut shop in Round Rock called, surprisingly, Round Rock Donuts. Little bitty place, fabulous donuts but one of the things that they are known for is a enormous donut. Something ridiculous like 12 lbs. This is a horrible picture of Elijah, but if you look in the upper right-hand corner of the display case you can see part of one of these donut monsters.

We did not try one. Maybe if we ever become a family of twelve. Maybe then we could consume this thing.

But probably not.

In other exciting news, Elijah went pee in the potty for the first time yesterday. He was running around in the nude after his bath and peed on the carpet. So I was cleaning this up and telling him that no, we don't pee on the carpet we only pee in the potty or in our diapers. (I did refrain from rubbing his nose in it.) So not three minutes later he is bouncing around saying PEE! PEE!! I made the assumption that he had peed again, but after a few more seconds of this little potty dance the light dawns and I hurry him off to his little potty in his bathroom. He sits down and starts peeing like he knew what he was doing! He did try to stand up in the middle of peeing, like all he had to accomplish was starting the stream of urine, but it's a good start, right? Anyway, I squeal and cheer like only someone who has changed diaper for two years could and then I tell Elijah to go get Daddy to share in the exciting news. Elijah drags Don-e into the bathroom and the cheering and squealing begins again. Just for your information Don-e took pictures of the pee, in the potty. And while I flushed the pee. I will not subject you to those. Then Elijah says Pee! again, and sits right down and does it again. Such a stud that kid. Guess I need to start reading up on how to actually go about potty-training. Eek!

Hey, what do you think of the design? Don-e threw it together for me after much begging and pleading and bribing. Hopefully I can get him to finish the rest of it soon...

*Cycle Day 28*- Spotting this morning. Looks like it didn't happen this month. I don't want to talk about it. At all.

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While we were on our trip Elijah kept trying to drag around our luggage, all by himself. Full sized, stuffed full luggage. When my mother-in-law picked us up from the airport the child had to pull our rolling suitcase all by himself, and would scream if we even tried to help him. He and I finally reached a compromise and we made it to our car, but we decided that we needed to get him his own rolling bag to use on any future trips. This weekend when we were at Wal-Mart we found one that would work perfectly.




He loves this little bag. We gave it to him to walk around the store with, and he drug it around behind him very proudly. Anytime he wanted to stop and look at anything he would very precisely put the handle down and do what needed to be done before he went back to parading this bag around. It was the cutest, funniest thing until we got to the check-out line and realized that he had stuffed the thing full! I had been giving him little things to put in it as we shopped but apparently he didn't think it was enough!!

Now he walks around the house with it, proudly announcing to anyone that will listen, "bag!".