Christmas Meme

I went to Toronto with Tarzan for a few days. It was so much fun. We also went to Niagara Falls yesterday - so beautiful with the mist of the falls freezing on all of the trees, sidewalks, benches, etc. It was absolutely frigid at 15 degrees, but so beautiful! Loved it! We are back in Michigan and ready to celebrate the holiday with our families over the next 2 days. Here's a meme that I stole from Music Maker Momma!


1. Eggnog or Hot Chocolate
Eggnog with gold rum and dark rum - hmmmm yummy!!!

2. Wrapping Paper or Gift Bags?
A little of both. This year I used mostly wrapping paper, but a few gifts that had odd shapes are in gift bags.

3. Real Tree or Artificial?
Artificial. I was raised with an artificial tree and since I like to put it up on or right before Thanksgiving, it's easier to use an artificial tree. Plus I don't like the needles from a real tree all over my carpet!

4. Colored or White lights on tree/house?
I have had blue lights on my tree for the past 2 years and I love them. I've had a lot of compliments from the neighbors.

5. How do you decorate your Christmas tree?
First I get the Christmas music playing, and then bring up all of the boxes of lights and ornaments from the basement. I assemble the tree, then string on the lights, and then add the ornaments. I usually stop along the way and sip some egg nog or coffee with peppermint mocha cream! Sometimes the ornaments take a few days to get put on the tree.

6. Do you hang Mistletoe?
No, but I wish I did.

7. Do you have a Nativity Scene?
Yes I got one last year on my cruise to Mexico - it's made out of cow bone. It's nice, but my dream is to have a Lladro Nativity scene - that will take years and many thousands of dollars to collect, but I like to have dreams!

8. Mail or email Christmas cards?
I mail 150 cards out every year with a Christmas letter. I like to include a letter and pictures. I've got a system down and I start addressing the envelopes in early November. This year I got out 60% of my cards the week after Thanksgiving, but there are always cards that go out 2 days before Christmas. Those are usually the addresses that have changed, etc. Also if I ever do have kids - I plan to put a family picture in the card, not just a picture of the kids. Honestly that bugs me about other people's cards - why only put a picture of the kids? Put the whole dang family puleeze!!

9. What is your favorite holiday dish?
My cousin Leigh Anne's buckeye cookies (peanut butter balls)

10. Favorite holiday memory as a child?
It's a toss up between my family's Christmas trip to Hawaii when I was 12 years old, and the time when I was 6 years old and threw a temper tantrum because I was given the Dapper Dan doll instead of the girl doll. I was so upset at the time, but now it's one of the funniest memories I have.

11. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
I was in 4th grade and I snuck down the hallway and saw my dad putting together one of the toys that Santa supposedly delivered.

12. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
Nope, we do them on Christmas morning.

13. Snow - Love it or dread it?
Love it in December, but by February I've had enough of it - oh the joys of living in Michigan.

14. Have you ever recycled a gift?
Only white elephant gifts

15. What is the most important thing about the holidays for you?
Spending time with family and being thankful for all that we have instead of wishing for all that we don't.

16. What is your favorite holiday dessert?
See # 9

17. What is your favorite holiday tradition?
My family's Christmas Eve celebration. It is will all of my aunts, uncles, cousins, and their kids on my mom's side. There are about 40 of us who squeeze into one 1800 square foot house, but we have the best time - we eat, we drink, we play games, and we dance!

18. What tops your tree?
A big butterfly.

19. Favorite Christmas Show?
From my childhood - Rudolph. From my adulthood - A Christmas Story.

20. Saddest Christmas Song?
These Christmas Shoes

21. Favorite Christmas song?
Mariah Carey's All I want for Christmas

Baby it's cold outside

Dang - it's like 15 degrees with wind chills below zero! I'm not leaving the comfort of my home if I can help it today! I did yoga in my living room last night from a free online class. I may be doing that again tonight if I can't get the courage to go out into this weather.

Do any of you watch the TV show Modern Family? It's on ABC Wednesdays at 9PM EST. OMG it is my favorite show. It is absolutely hilarious and I cannot wait until the first season comes out on DVD. I don't buy many DVDs, but this one I want to have so I can watch the episodes over and over. Cam is my favorite character, but honestly they are all cast so perfectly. From Claire's expressions, to Manny's adult statements, to Phil's cool dad-isms, to Jay's non pc lines - it kills me, to Gloria's Colombia-isms (which thankfully I get a lot of them because I understand Spanish). I laugh out loud every week. Did any of you watch last night's episode? I want Cam's poinsettia shirt just to wear to a Christmas party and see if anyone notices where it came from!! I have one to go to a week from Saturday. Oh and did you catch that Manny was wearing his "burgundy dinner jacket" in the very last scene? Classic, just classic. The writing on this show is so great and the fans who watch it every week are able to recite funny lines from the show. I hope this show stays on TV for a long time - it's the best sitcom on TV since Seinfeld.

Break is soon to be over

I started this blog about 5 months ago after my failed DE cycle. I wanted somewhere to write about non-Infertility stuff, about the rest of my life, to have a public blog (since my IF blog is private), and really to be able to write about whatever I wanted. I will continue doing all of that on this blog, but I wanted to just write a quick note to say that our "break from TTC" is coming to an end. I do not plan to write about it here much, if at all (that's what my private blog is for), but I did want to at least be honest. Tarzan and I have talked at great length and we are going to give it another try. We want to be able to look back when we are 70 years old say we gave it our all; either we'll have kids and maybe grandkids by then, and we can say it was worth it, or we'll at least be able to say that we tried - that we did multiple treatments, and went down a variety of alternative paths in our attempts. If it doesn't work we'll be able to look back without regret.

That being said, we know at age 39 and 41 we need to get this show on the road. We are going at this last attempt with a two-pronged approach. We will be doing an FET with our 1 and only frozen embryo, and at the same time will be pursuing traditional surrogacy. Yes I said it, traditional surrogacy. We recently found out that Tarzan has no fertility benefits on his medical insurance at his new job in Chicago (we were really hoping, but the company is not headquartered in Illinois, therefore the IVF mandate does not apply). Considering we've maxed out my insurance over the past 3 years, we just feel that if we are going to spend a ton of money, we'd rather risk it on TS than on a fresh DE cycle that may not work. We haven't started either process yet. The FET will probably be around February, and we have no surrogate. We are just starting the process of trying to find a traditional surrogate who will be willing to help us achieve parenthood. We'll see how it goes. Those of you who follow my private blog - there isn't much there yet, but as these processes get underway I'll post more.

Thursday night update

I can't think of a catchy title for this blog post. Let's see what has happened this week?

• Tarzan started his new job on Monday in Chicagoland and so far so good! He likes it, is learning a lot about wind energy, and says it is a much more positive environment than the automotive industry. We talk every morning and every evening. He'll be home for Thanksgiving
• We are waiting for a "password" to look at his benefits, not sure what is taking so long.
• My niece Blaire and her volleyball team lost in the quarterfinals on Tuesday night, but hey they made it to the quarterfinals - that's the top 8 teams in the state for Class B! She and the other seniors bawled their eyes out afterwards, but we are very proud of all they accomplished. Now it's onto basketball season for her!
• I came down with a cold on Sunday, felt crappy for 2 days and then it practically went away. I thought "wow only a 2 day cold!"......then this afternoon my head got all congested. I have been eating a lot of grapefruits for vitamin C and taking Airborne.
• I'm reading a book called The Gerson Therapy by Charlotte Gerson to try to incorporate some of the therapy into my diet. This is the therapy my friend Christian has used to control his sinus/brain cancer. He's doing very well 3 years later because of this nutritional program. I got a copy for my friend Anne (I'll get it to you soon Anne). I just found out today that my step-mom has melanoma, so I need to get a copy to her too. Basically it's a combination of juicing and coffee enemas to fight cancer - that is a very simplistic view, and it goes into a lot greater detail and science, but honestly that's the summary. I'm going to try to do some of it just to prevent cancer. Of course I found out I have the wrong kind of juicer; I have the Jack LaLane juicer which is a centrifugal juicer which apparently kills the enzymes because of the high speed blades. Oh well, I'm hoping it doesn't kill all of the enzymes.
• I'm loving the XM radio I have in my new car; free for 3 months. I've been listening to CNN in Espanol and the Oprah station the most. Deepak Chopra also has a show on one of the channels, I have to find it.