Curricula 2017-18

If you read my last post, I went over our loop schedule and what our days would actually look like. And this post is all about which curriculum goes with each subject.

Every year I spend a good amount of time researching and praying and trying to find the "perfect" curriculum for us for that year. Sometimes it stays the same from year to year, and other times it changes. Curriculum is a tool, your tool. Don't let it be "in charge." You are in charge. 

For reals.

These are the core classes

For Language Arts we have chosen The Good and The Beautiful. It is our second year using it and I absolutely adore it!!! It is very thorough and advanced, it is a grammar nazi's dream! My mom was an English and Literature teacher, so I am a hopeless grammar nazi. I get giddy almost every lesson!!! It also includes geography, art, and some social studies. For instance; if we are reading a book that is set in Italy, then we will study the geography of Italy, the art of Italy, and even some customs and try some recipes! (The recipe for gnocchi in Level 4 is amazing! Yum!) The spelling and vocabulary words come mainly from the reading. It is all very integrated. That helps it to be engaging and interesting because it matters and connects... it also helps tremendously with retention. Plus this curriculum is so wholesome and uplifting. It is just GOOD. It is a non-denominational Christian point of view. It incorporates values and morals quite heavily. There is no smut. It is beautiful.

We are also using The Good and The Beautiful for Science and History... oh and handwriting and typing. LOL. Everything they have is just so good! I do love it so much!  The history is a different set up, again with a Christian point of view. What really sets it apart for me is that it covers the overall view of world history every year. Each year builds on itself. Most curricula do a 4 year rotation; Ancient Studies, Rome, Dark Ages and Renaissance, and then Modern. But by the end of the 4th year, kids have completely forgotten EVERYTHING from Ancient Studies. This way, each time period is covered every year. The depth is added in subsequent years as they repeat the time period and build on what was learned the previous year. It's still fresh in their minds so they can build on it, and it gives them a wonderful overview and ability to see history as a whole, and be better able to see patterns, cause and effect. 

Math is always the most difficult subject for me to find "the right" one. Maybe because I hate it so much. Or maybe because there just isn't much out there that makes me feel like it is engaging and enjoyable, without sacrificing academic quality. That is super important to me. I have been through many curricula in math, and none of them ever fit. Either it was too much, too dry, too drill and kill... or it was light and airy fairy, going in circles and never really getting anywhere. I think we have finally hit on the perfect middle ground for us! *knock on wood* 

For Math we are using Mathematical Reasoning by The Critical Thinking Company. It is excellent! It is fun and engaging. It focuses on true understanding of concepts, and why they work the way they do. It is full of games, puzzles, logic puzzles, even pages where the answers to the problems gives you the answer to a joke. It is so fun and engaging that my kids actually ask to do extra pages! That is a full fledged miracle in our house! And it is challenging and thorough. It is the first math curriculum which my very mathematically minded husband has actually liked. He is very impressed with how it's laid out and how it teaches them to reason and understand concepts. He feels it's an excellent foundation for moving into the higher maths, which he did all of and I did none. LOL. 

Another class we do is learning about the Constitution. The Constitution is extremely important to me. Original intent is vital to understand. I know everyone hates political talk, but I have very strong feelings on the matter. My children will be taught correct principles and be able to defend their freedoms. We are using 28 Principles of Freedom to study it this year. 

Then another subject that is very dear to my heart... Logic and Rhetoric, otherwise known as Critical Thinking. This is just an introductory course for a 6th grader. We will study more in depth in later years. I think that being able to understand an argument, discern truthfulness of claims, and just generally be able to think clearly is one of the most important skills that anyone can have these days. There is so much falsehood, so much stupidity... too many people base their opinions on sound bites and memes. Giving your children the ability to think and reason will be one of the best gifts you can give them. The world is crazy!!! We are using The Basics of Critical Thinking by The Critical Thinking Company.

We are also going to learn Spanish this year. I haven't taken any Spanish since high school so I need help. We are trying out an online option called Calico Spanish. It's an immersion style option, which is what I was looking for. Basically you watch a video as a family once a day and learn the language together. There are also worksheets you can print off and posters you can buy. I don't have any of it yet because it's a monthly subscription fee and we aren't starting for another month yet, but you can goo.gle it if you're interested. 

Here are some of our electives

For the 6th grader, lots of logic puzzles and brain teasers. Clearly this is an important area to me. 

For the 6 year old, some handwriting and scripture dictation, some logic puzzles and brain teasers, and a "game" that helps you to learn parts of speech. 

I don't know that this is all interesting to anyone else, but I want to keep it to look back on. 

Toodles!

Juggling Health and Homeschool

We will be starting school this year in the middle of August. 

That's so soon! Where did my summer go? 

But honestly, my kids are so much happier with that little bit of structure, even if they do think it makes them miserable. They get along so much better and have much better attitudes when we start the day with school and chores. So, while I do thoroughly enjoy summer break, and part of me never wants it to end, I know that life will get better, and our home will be full of more harmony and less fighting... so I'm also really looking forward to starting.

This is my schedule for the year.

This one is mine. To keep everyone on track.

This is for the 11 year old boy.

This is for the 6 year old girl.

Let me explain. I have autoimmune diseases and I have to plan for it. Some people build endurance by maxing out every day. Eventually doing more will make you stronger. But that's totally NOT true with autoimmune. My health/strength/energy is more like a bank account. If I spend it all, it's gone. More doesn't just magically appear. I'm not earning interest on my energy and health. LOL. If I do too much it's like bouncing a check. I have to claw my way back out again. With all sorts of weird penalties coming out of nowhere to keep me in the hole. I can't afford to max out. 

So every day I have to decide how much I have to give without maxing out. I have my schedule set up to reflect that. It's set up by categories of importance. Set priorities and get most important things done first so you don't freak out if you have to stop and miss something that day. 

No matter how sick I am, we will always do the "Always" category. Hence the name. It is quite rare for me to be this sick, but I have to plan for it, so that I don't feel pressured to push through, which sabotages my health for days, and makes my kids need to go to therapy because I'm so grumpy. This is giving myself permission to take a sick day.

If I'm feeling pretty normal, but not awesome, then we do the core classes which are listed under "Daily." We do school 5 days per week, and all 4 of these classes are done every day that we do school. (Also, note that our Language Arts is an integrated curriculum which includes Geography, Social Studies, Art, Spelling, Grammar, Reading, Writing, etc.) All of these take one on one instruction with each child. 

Loop 1 is the next most important, not necessarily "core classes," but the most important of the electives we're studying this year. So if I'm feeling pretty good, then after the Daily category, we do ONE item from Loop 1, whichever item is "next."  Basically it's set up to be 5 days a week as well, but if I miss a day due to sickness or vacation or anything else, we just do the next thing because nothing is tied to a day of the week. So if last time we did L1, we did a 28 Principles (Constitution) lesson, then today we will do a Science lesson no matter how many days we took off in between. Make sense? These are all taught "family style." Everyone together. We almost always get done with Loop 1. 

Loop 2 is full of the more fun and independent electives, those which could be skipped without too much guilt when I'm not feeling up to it, but that I still want to make sure get done regularly. Again, just one item from L2 per day and whatever is "next" on the list. 

When we get done with all of this then we can do chores, run errands, read books, and maybe get some screen time if there is time and attitudes are respectful. 

The biggest thing I still need to figure out for this year is what to do with my 2 year old while we do school. He is the most energetic, determined, beautiful toddler that ever existed. He can climb anything, and I mean anything. And when he falls and gets hurt, he doesn't much care. It just makes him want to do it again to "master" the thing. He can't be distracted. Rather, he will let you think you've successfully distracted him, but as soon as you look the other way he sprints back to what you thought he'd forgotten and does it anyway. Quoting Mad Eye Moody, he requires "Constant Vigilance!" I need ideas for some busy boxes or something to distract him for longer periods of time... but things that don't make a giant mess for me because I will just never do that to myself. So sand and water based ideas are not for us. In fact, it kills me to let him use play doh. LOL. Anyone have awesome ideas on activities for him during school? He doesn't want to join us. He mainly wants to rip papers and break pencils.

Anxious Organizing

I have a problem.

I love to organize and set a schedule and get everything looking like it will work perfectly.

Okay, so I don't love organizing everything. I actually struggle to keep the house looking presentable. But school schedules and supplies and checklists? Oh yeah, all day long baby!

I guess I think that if I can get it all laid out "perfectly," whatever that is, then the whole year will run smoothly and we'll never miss a lesson and never get sick and never argue. And yeah, that always works. Ha!

Still, the drive to do it every year kicks in and I can't resist it. I mean, it certainly can't hurt to get organized... can it?

The curriculum I use it very open and go, so I don't actually need to do any of this, but I just can't help myself. 

This year I am trying a "loop schedule" for our electives. The core classes will be every day. The electives will cycle through. This is a new concept to me, and it's so simple and "duh" that after 5 years of homeschooling, I feel dumb to not have thought of it on my own.. but I actually got it from a book.

A fabulous book!!! It's called, "Teaching From Rest" by Sarah Mackenzie.

Basically you just do the next thing next. I used to say Subject A is always on Mondays, B on Tuesdays, C on Wednesdays, etc. But without fail, one of those days would have constant interruptions and one of those subjects would get so far behind that we'd give up on it before the end of the year... or worse, try to force our way through and get it done, but be so burned out that we hated even looking at the subject ever again. 

With a loop schedule, it's like you put them in a pile, and they aren't assigned to a day, they're assigned to go in order. So if you do Subject A on Monday, but Tuesday is a pukefest, and Wednesday you still want to Clorox every surface, then on Thursday (or whenever you finally feel back up to it) you just pick up the next subject, in this case Subject B. Just do the next thing next. So simple and brilliant! 

I have 2 loops for each child. One that is much more formal education, real curriculum like Science and History. And the second loop is for more fun type subjects, or shorter subjects like handwriting and logic puzzles. 

And now I'm trying to figure out a way to track it and keep track of it so that I don't get all mixed up and crazy. Not the individual lessons, but "which subject are we on again?" Oy. I almost need to write them on the whiteboard every week and erase as we go. LOL. And I might just do that.

Anyway, what do you do to get organized and set before starting school for the year? 

How do you find that peace that you are really "ready" already?

Filling Your Bucket

So first of all, I think I'm back? 

I'm not all the way sure yet, but I'm feeling the urge to write here more frequently so maybe. But I do think that I will be more focused on homeschooling than I will be on infertility... although I reserve the right to talk about both of them... or something else entirely. Just whatever pops into my brain.

Those of you who knew me before as an infertility blogger... hello! 😃 I now have 3 miraculous children!!! All of them were complete miracles and I am so grateful! I am still really hoping to maybe somehow have more... but I'm now 42, and have been fighting infertility and loss for way too long... so I guess... well I mean Sarah had Isaac in her 90's so there could be hope still.

I think that I homeschool now partially because of how difficult it was to get my children. I can't even imagine handing them over for 8 hours a day to someone else to teach them and raise them. I am basically Hermione, minus the hair, so we do quite a lot of schooling and my expectations for them are high. But I love it so much! It has been the biggest blessing for my family.

To have my children home.

To be their primary influence.

To be "in charge" of everything from the curriculum we choose to the days we take off.

To have our relationships blossom with the extra care we are able to give them.

I love everything about it.

Well, almost everything. I've been homeschooling for 5 years now. And I'm hitting a burn out. It's a little scary. I've never burned out before. It's summer vacation, so it's good timing, but I am a little worried how I'll get the old fire back in time to start up in the fall. Right now, even thinking about doing lesson plans has me wanting to crawl back in bed and hide. Which is dumb because the curriculum I use is AMAZING and is totally open and go, so I don't even have to make up lesson plans anymore. 

I think I just have nothing left in my own bucket. You know the saying about how you can't give water to anyone else if your own bucket is empty... something like that anyway. Well, I'm just not sure how to fill mine anymore. Everything that I love to do involves my family. I do love to do homeschool. It's quite a passion and on its own used to fill my bucket just by doing it. So I'm wondering if I need to find something that's "just for me" to fill myself up? Or is that just a mirage? I would like to be able to pee by myself again at some point. 

So please share. I need ideas. 

What do you do to recharge your batteries? What's your best self care strategy? 

What do you do to fill your bucket?

😘

Well That Was Strange

I have basically stopped using this blog, and removed almost all of my old posts... but they were still saved in memory of the blog. A few of them I like to refer back to periodically, but it was a pain sifting through all the other unpublished junk to find them. So I just decided to re-publish them.

I thought they'd magically reappear in the correct order, and still have the original dates on them. LOL. I guess not! So they're all up front, out of order, and way out of date.

I don't think I'm blogging again yet, but I wanted to have them out there where I could find them more easily. Huh. Weird to see them like that.

Anyway, don't be confused. These are all old posts, the most recent being almost 3 years old... and spanning back to about 6 years ago.

Answers and Encouragement

So this post will depart a bit from my usual. Feel free to read it, or not. I'm really just documenting it because this is the closest thing I have to a journal, and I don't want to forget. Might be totally boring for anyone else. And that's okay. :)

Life has been really really difficult for the last few years. Really difficult. You all know some of it, what with miscarriage, dad's cancer and death, etc. But there are a few, very large and painful problems which I don't feel free to share with people... and especially not on the freaking internet for the whole crappin world. Haha. But I think we're all that way, right? Some things are just too private. Anyway, I am NOT saying that I haven't been blessed... because I have been blessed tremendously... more than I expected or deserved to be. But that doesn't mean that my challenges aren't still... well challenging. And things have been getting worse, or at least coming to a head. (What a mental picture, eh? I think of a giant white head getting ready to pop all over my life.) I'm trying my very best to compartmentalize my life... to be happy for the happy things, and sad for the sad things... and not to let them spill over into all aspects of my life... because then I'd have to poke out my eyes and run screaming from the room. haha. I don't know if this is the BEST way to deal with problems, but it's a good coping skill for me now and keeps me sane and strong enough to keep going. It does have a big down side of shutting me down emotionally, because I just can't stand to face all of it all the time. But I figure that one day I'll just have a large nervous breakdown to make up for it, right? ;)

Anyway, lately I have been just plain old tired and discouraged and overwhelmed. Add to that pregnancy hormones, and the bed rest... which equals solitary confinement... and it's just not good. I've been trying to understand, and I've been praying a lot. Maybe this is just what life is going to be like from now on? Maybe I should just stop wanting/expecting things to change? Is this just my life now? Doing my best to work at these challenges but it's like trying to move a mountain with one of those little plastic spoons that you get with fast food. I can keep digging and working, but it doesn't really make much difference.

Last night was a bad night. I was so discouraged and overwhelmed and just plain old tired... more than tired... I was weary... physically emotionally and spiritually... just weary. I tried to pray about it, but I couldn't manaage much more than to just say "I'm too tired to do this anymore. I'm just so tired." I didn't even ask for anything or thank for anything... I just said I was tired and got into bed, expecting things to just remain as they were/are. But God doesn't give us challenges for us to change the challenge... He gives us challenges to change OURSELVES. My challenges remain this morning, but I am a different person facing them... and I hope it lasts.

I crawled into bed last night and opened a little book by Marjorie Hinckley, who is just the sweetest, most positive and uplifting lady ever. At first the things she said made me feel even more isolated. Her cheerfulness and unquenchable postivity seemed to have no place in my dark life last night. But then she made a few points that struck me... they struck me HARD. First she reminded me that "all have not every gift given unto them" and that I needed to stop comparing myself, my strengths weaknesses and gifts, with others... even with hers, as I shamefully coveted her cheerfulness. God knows who we are and He doesn't need or want me to be anyone but who I am... the BEST me I can be, but still just me... not someone else.

Next, and more profound for me, she talked about Esther. I love Esther, but then, who doesn't? She said that in our lives and challenges, instead of saying "is this what my life is going to be?" we should instead remember Mordecai's question... "Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" ... The thought that the challenges I'm facing might be an assignment from God made me stop in my tracks.... She continues, "Perhaps what you are doing, whatever it is or however humble your offering, could be something that no one else could do." I think I read that line about 50 times, not kidding. I just cried and read it over and over. "However humble your offering" and my offering right now is very weak and humble, but it's enough. Just like bringing only a few loaves and fishes to feed a multitude, God will make my offering be enough... though my little plastic teaspoon isn't nearly enough to move this great mountain, yet God has promised that mountains WILL BE moved, so I keep digging.... IF this is an assignment from God, then a way WILL BE found to accomplish it. "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." "Be not weary in well doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great." And "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass."

So if this is what my assignment in life is, then I'd better get to it and stop complaining. If God is telling me to do something, then He will provide a way for me to do it, even if it's one teaspoon at a time... it will still get done. I'm not all that different this morning, but I do feel a sense of purpose again. I was going through the motions of working through things, but was too discouraged to believe that it would make any difference. Now I feel like MY efforts might be too small to notice, but they are the small and simple things, the few loaves and fishes, which are my necessary contribution, my little offering out of which God will make a mighty miracle. Some day, it will be enough.

Thoughts on Infertility... and Trials

I've been thinking a lot about infertility the last few weeks. It probably seems strange to think about it during pregnancy. I guess it's because I'll turn 35 on Saturday and that's an ominous age for fertility. I really want more children, but will be grateful for whatever the Lord sees fit to give me.

I remember when I got pregnant with our first miracle baby, S. I thought I had "beaten" infertility. I guess I thought that once my womb had opened up and successfully delivered a baby, that was the end of all my troubles. *little laugh* That was as far ahead as I could see, just up to delivery.

So now that he is a couple WEEKS shy of being 4 years old, and I am a few DAYS shy of being 35... and I am FINALLY pregnant with my second child... I am grateful and humbled and overwhelmed. But I also have no delusion that this is the end of my infertility road. I want more children, so I will continue to struggle with infertility until the Lord directs my heart in another direction... or until the doctor forcibly removes my girly parts. Haha.

I have a good friend who also struggles with IF (infertility)... actually I have several, but I'm just talking about one here.... she already has 2 children, but she worked long and hard to get them... and she desperately wants more.... and of course the road of infertility is long and hard REGARDLESS of whether or not you've had any children previously. *I realize that's almost taboo to say inside of IF culture... it seems that most IFers feel how I did when I was pregnant with my first child... once you've had a child then you're out of the club. Which I understand, because I was once there and remember how I felt and thought... but which also leaves you more alone and without a support net as you struggle on for several more years.* Anyway, I can relate so much to my friend and can see myself *back* in her shoes in just another year. I see her often and ALWAYS my heart breaks for her silent sorrows. A sorrow that I still share, even though I'm pregnant right now. Next year I'll be back to trying again, temping, 2ww-ing, hoping for the ever illusive BFP.

I have another friend who has no problems with IF. She said to me the other day, "I wish I could give you some of my fertililty." *so cute* But I know that the Lord knows just who He wants each of us to be. He tries us with those things that will stretch us *individually* in just the right way to make us into who He wants us to be. I know there are MANY valuable lessons I've learned through my IF journey. Life is never the same after IF..... IF changes you for life... but so do many other things.

Everyone has hard struggles, and that's how it's supposed to be. I'm glad that IF has changed me, otherwise the struggle would've been in vain. God INTENDED for me to be changed by IF. God knows what I need in order to grow into the ME that He desires. IF is just another form of the refiners fire. And I am eternally grateful that He gave me not only IF, and not only children, but also other women... Sisters... who also have to endure the same challenges so that we have someone to lean on who understands. And I think that's part of the lesson too. He wants us to give, to receive, and to strengthen one another. None of us can make it alone. Sisters, we need each other.

Afterall, God is not only just refining us as individuals, but as a FAMILY. He expects us to turn to one another, and to cling to one another during our refining fire... it is ONLY in that way that He will be able to forge us together... to make us ONE... to make us into His Family. The strongest marriages, the strongest friendships, the strongest families... are NOT those who have few problems ... they are the ones who have braved the heat of the fire and clung together... they are Welded together by the power of God. If I have learned anything through this last year of miscarriage, caring for a dying parent, and holding his hand as he passed into the arms of God... I have learned that we NEED eachother..... Don't be afraid to reach out..... to comfort or to BE comforted. God wants it this way.

I am grateful for each of you who has strengthened and bouyed me up on this long journey. I wish to be able to do the same for you. Know that I think of you and pray for you. Whether you are struggling with IF or not... each of us has challenges. Job stress, family illness, death, financial woes, marital problems..... they are the fire. I pray for you, and would like to give you a glass of cool water.

I Remember Me

It's been a rough year or so. I've almost lost myself completely. I've been told that I've "lost the sparkle" in my eye and other such things. But I *think* I'm on my way back up. I'm starting to recognize myself again. Starting to laugh again. Able to smile more again. And I've started using sarcasm again, although it's been so long since I've done it no one knows how to take it. Haha. I'm getting back to the me that I know. I won't lie, I'm not quite there yet, but there are some hopeful signs. :)

Most notably, this pregnancy. I have been terrified and tight fisted over it; just sure I would have another miscarriage if I decided to relax and enjoy it. As if somehow my suffering and worrying would *help* my pregnancy? CRAZY! In the last week or so... about the time I got all that fabric... I have been able to let go of that craziness. I am pregnant now. I think it's gonna happen. And even if it doesn't, refusing to feel my joy right now won't take away the pain of losing it later. What's the old saying? "Worry doesn't empty tomorrow of its troubles, it robs today of its joy." Or something like that. So POO ON YOU! to infertility and miscarriage! I am pregnant now, and I am going to revel in it and be ecstatic and giddy, and feel like a "normal" pregnant lady! This pregnancy is a gift from God, and I am going to enjoy every second of it.

And I'm going to opt for the repeat C-section. Two things really influenced me. First when I told my husband about it, I got all weepy and said something like "what's wrong with me? I can't get pregnant, then I can't stay pregnant, and when it's time to labor I can't get the thing out?" He said "You know, back in the day they had a name for women like you." I braced for the worst, just sure that some awful word like "sterile" was going to escape his lips. But he surprised me when he simply said "Dead." Haha. He said that I should be grateful there's modern medicine to help me get my children here... you know without me dying. Haha. Such a simple answer, but true. And the other reason is that I found out that if you opt for trying a vaginal delivery after c-section, they generally won't let you have an epidural. WHAT!!! Deciding to not have an epidural during labor is tantamount to deciding against novicaine during a root canal. Sure you "could" do it and prove you're tough, but WTH? *disclaimer, if your labor is only a couple of hours then it's probably not so bad, but my 28 hours of labor was a special kind of hell until I got that blessed blessed needle.*

Also, I've been invited to 2 seperate girls nights out this week! Honestly this past year has been a bit of a blur, so I may have been invited to others and have totally spaced them or just felt too emotionally frail to parade my crying arse through the world. But I am actually excited to go to these! It's so strange to actually WANT the company of other people. The first one is a dinner with a bunch of friends from high school. That should be a rip roaring good time of laughter and food. :) The second is a bunch of girls from church... most of whom I don't know because they are new... or at least are new in the past year and I haven't been able to get to know anyone. I guess with all the trauma, I just buckled down and did the basics to survive. I didn't have any extra energy or emotion for anyone or anything. I was vaguely aware of all these beautiful young girls moving in around me and thought it was nice in an abstract way. But I'm amazed that one of them actually thought of me to invite me. I think I've spoken to her one time.... for 2 seconds. Excited to get to know some new people and start living life again.... though I will be honest and say that it also scares the crap out of me. What if I'm not really ready, and someone asks me something about dad or the pregnancy and I start freakin crying in the middle of scrabble or something? Or what if I go and start to feel out of place with people who can laugh freely, and withdraw and don't know how to talk to "normal" people anymore? *sigh* Pushing those gnawing doubts out of my mind, I am very excited to start putting myself out there and trying again. Taking it slow, but still starting out. :)

And just a little update. Zofran FOR SURE gives me migraines. Bad migraines. I've been down all weekend with a monster migraine, and am not quite over it yet. So I'm done with that. But I think I'll try the Phenergen they gave me. It's supposed to make me tired, but that's better than puking. Although, no matter what I do, I almost always puke when I brush my teeth. It's the grossest thing ever. So bad that I've started only brushing my teeth in the morning. I know, gross. But have you ever had minty fresh puke breath? It's not much better. And I hate needing to clear my throat because puke got all caught in my vocal cords. GROSS. So I brush in the morning and then chew gum if I have to be in public. Hopefully it hides all signs of vomit and bad breath. If not, don't tell me, just don't stand so close. :)

Well, it was a long hard road, but it's over. Dad passed away last night surrounded by his family. He took his last breath at about 9:15pm on Wednesday night. Funeral set for next Wednesday.

Strange Blessings

So today I am thankful for how difficult this song is to sing. :) I'm supposed to sing at church on Sunday... and yesterday they changed the song I'm singing... and the new one is HARD!!! At least, it's hard if you only have a couple days to learn it and have up to performance standard. I'm SO struggling with this. Don't want to suck. But I am grateful that this song is so hard, because it's making me practice A LOT. Which is good because of 2 things... #1, it's very cathartic to bellow loud high notes all day, even if my dog is starting to howl along. And #2, it is an AMAZING song and just what I needed right now. Feeling like I should share the words....

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is despair, hope;

Where there is darkness, light;

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

To be consoled as to console,

To be understood as to understand,

To be loved, as to love;

For it is in giving that we receive;

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

It is in dying that we are born

To eternal life.

-A Prayer By St. Francis of Assisi

Amazing because I've REALLY been struggling lately to know what to pray for. So many things, so many thoughts, so many angles. I don't want to push God for what I want, even though I want it SO much. I want to make sure that I'm praying for what He wants me to pray for. And THIS is a beautiful prayer.

BBT Charting Question

So, you know how you're supposed to take your temperature FIRST thing in the morning, BEFORE even getting out of bed?..... Do you think it still counts if you're reaching for the thermometer in the dark, and accidentally fall out of bed instead? :) Just curious.

Incidentally, today I am thankful that yesterday I didn't put my clothes away, but just decided to throw them on the floor. It made a nice pillow for me. Haha.

Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you all ate yourselves sick!

Up and Down

My journey this year is kind of like a roller coaster ride. Ups, downs, and a few jerks. :) It is strange because I used to know who I was...or where I belonged. You know... I am a woman with infertility. I am a Christian. I am a mother. I am a wife.... I am a daughter taking care of her dying father. I am a sibling trying really hard to hold the family together through all this stress. I am on Prozac. I am overwhelmed. I am wavering. I am blessed. I am given strength to overcome.....

The labels just got to be more and more specific. I love going to church, and I love my friends... but few of them struggle with infertility and so they don't understand the pain. I found some other infertiles and initially I felt SO loved and understood in the world of infertility. Then other trauma in life happened and I felt like I didn't quite "belong" there anymore. I started going to a group therapy session and felt so AMAZINGLY loved and understood for a few weeks... but then dad was told he was terminal and that just didn't fit into the "discussion" at therapy. So I found some friends who were dealing with the world of taking care of dying loved ones and I felt so understood... for a while. There are a few other things. But as each of them add up, I feel kind of like a frog in biology class. Each group can inspect a different part of myself, but no one cared to look at me as a whole person.... or perhaps I don't know how to open up all of it to everyone. But regardless of the reason... I'm feeling quite as though I just don't belong anywhere. Everyone understands a little, but no one really gets it all. And I suppose that's okay.

I'm not really sad about it, nor do I feel like an outcast. It's actually been an amazing opportunity for me to turn ONLY to the Savior, because He is the only one who actually DOES understand EVERYTHING. I mean, it would be nice to have a couple of close girlfriends who really "got it" and have a place where I could run away to when life just gets to be too much. But I always have my closet, I always have my knees. And honestly, I don't have enough energy to invest in a big intimate friendship right now anyway.

So back to the rollercoaster. I think that I shouldn't ever post in the middle of a crisis. Like last night, I was so tempted to post...because this is really the only place where I can put it all out there. But I held back, and I'm glad. I was frantic last night.. Dad couldn't stop bleeding, and his capillaries were bursting spontaneously.... his coumadin was WAY too high, and there was nothing for us to do except WAIT. Waiting is interminable. I think that the doctors for hospice could have done SOMETHING, but they didn't want to. Which is really hard for me. I KNOW that something can be done, and I hate just waiting and watching....wondering if tonight is the night that dad will actually pass into the arms of the Savior.

Well, we made it through the night. He's very tired and weak today, but stable. And the nurse is SUPPOSED to come out this morning. I'm still waiting anxiously to talk to her about it. But I am glad that I didn't get on here and vomit all my anxiety into all your lives.

And with all that going on, you would THINK that I would dream about it, right? Well, a little. I had a few dream moments about it... But mainly... I only dream about babies. How is that fair? EVERY night I dream that I'm pregnant, or that I'm giving birth, or that I'm having another miscarriage, or that my newborn baby shrivels up into a "good n plenty" and then dies.... that one was SO weird. But seriously EVERY night. So every morning I wake up a little sad and have to shake myself mentally.

My newest devious plan to get pregnant involves little children. I think that little children have more faith than any of us. Simple faith. I remember growing up ... there was an infertile woman in our neighborhood. We were asked to pray for her to be able to have children. Then we moved. I don't remember her at all, but I do remember her name. I remember praying EVERY time I prayed, pleading for her to have babies.

My mom ran into her about 10 years later and told her how all of us still prayed for her to have children. She said "Please tell them to STOP!" :) She had been blessed with many many children. I LOVE thinking about that story. I wish it were me. Could it happen? Maybe. But I am sending out a plea... if you have children.... please have them pray for me to have children. :) It could work. Seriously. :) Kids have a link to heaven that we must lose as we get older.

Tomorrow is my wedding anniversary. I LOVE my husband. Affectionately known (on this blog) as Jonny Von. Hahaha. I can't believe how quickly the years go by. But I'm glad he's by my side. We were going to go out and celebrate, but I currently have the plague. I actually lost my voice entirely this morning. Gah. If you don't know, I'm a big mouth, loud, and I sing a lot. So losing my voice is like the WORST punishment ever. :) I thought maybe he would stay home from work today... just to bask in the silence and get in the last word. :) Haha. Anyway, I think we'll have to postpone our celebration until I'm able to swallow more than just hot tea and chicken soup.

Blessed

So I'm feeling unusually blessed today. Not that things aren't still hard. But it is strange that in the middle of all of this difficulty... there is great peace. I am so grateful to know the truths of the gospel. But even more than that, there is a feeling in my home that has never been here before. I think with my dad being here during his last days on earth, and us taking care of him and helping him with his process of being "born" on the other side.... my house feels almost... holy. I feel it is a very sacred place right now. I am grateful for that Spirit in my home.

It is difficult, and at times we get very little rest. But when I leave the house to "take a break" I feel all hollow and I just want to get back home to feel that spirit again. I know that I need to take a break periodically, but I want to do it at home so that I don't lose that peace which is so prevelant here.

All of my siblings are trying to hurry and come to visit before he goes... and before he goes out of his mind. And I can't help but think that this is his final mission... to die slowly so that hearts can be softened and our family can be healed. My family needs a lot of healing. There are members who could put on quite a good episode of Jerry Springer. I am hoping and praying that this experience will be enough to help them at least appreciate one another in some small way.

Because dad is in my home, and therefore everyone will be coming and staying with me to say their goodbyes.... I feel it is my role to create a safe place. I want my home to be a sanctuary and a place of love and healing. I want to do my part in helping my dad with his last mission of healing my family. I am in a unique situation to be able to do that simply because they're all coming to my home. I think that the spirit they feel while they're here will influence them in the coming days. I want them to feel profound peace when they walk in the door. I want to facilitate healing with the feeling in my home when my family is here grieving. I'm not entirely sure how to do that, or even if I can do it. But it is my goal and my focus.

And I am SO grateful to the women in my church. If you don't know, I'm LDS/Mormon. The women in our church belong to Relief Society. It is wonderful. We all pull together and help to provide relief to anyone who needs it. I've never really been much on the receiving end before. Honestly, I feel kinda stupid about it.... but oh so grateful. A dear sweet RS President came over and she told me that no one could help with the pain or the process, "but" she said "we CAN vacuum your floor. We CAN scrub your toilet. We can bring you meals." I quickly said that I didn't need any of that. I would feel simply awful to have the women in my church, my friends, come in and clean my house and cook my meals when I am perfectly capable of doing it myself. She put her hand on mine and said very sweetly, "I'm not asking you IF we can do it... I am asking you WHEN." She had a calendar with her and said "We ARE coming once a week to clean and twice a week we WILL bring a meal. Which days do you prefer?" I sputtered something else and she said "You know how to give, but you need to learn how to receive." I just sat and cried. I hate receiving. I would much rather give. Today is the first meal that someone else will be bringing in, and I can't tell you how much I need that little bit of a break right now. It's all that's kept me going the last few days. I keep thinking, "Just a little longer and someone else will be cooking dinner."

Mom has injured her knee and is using a walker. Dad is reacting poorly to his meds and is losing some mental function already... hopefully it comes back. Plus I have one brother here now with his 2 year old. It has been a long, hard week for me... trying to take care of everyone else, all of their needs. It has been rewarding beyond measure... I'm not complaining.... I wouldn't have it any other way. Still, just knowing that someone ELSE is helping means a lot to me mentally. I still feel a bit stupid and quite guilty to allow others to do this.... but I am so grateful for it that today I could just sit down and cry about it.

I am so tired. So sore.... and SO nauseated! And what a horrible trick right now. I'm nauseated enough to think "maybe" I'm pregnant. Just like every month I fight thinking it. But I'm really really trying not to puke... it fills me with equal measures of despair and hope. I want more children SO badly. I want to believe I could be pregnant. But the long hard lessons of years of infertility treatments keep smacking "sense" back into me. I'm only 11 dpo, it's a bit early for nausea, and it's probably just my crazy hormones over reacting to all the stress. I know that's much more likely... but it isn't the answer that I want and I just can't shut down my hope. Where is the off button? But really.... maybe this time??? (*Please Please Please*)

Strange Blessings

So I've had a strange couple of days. Remember how I puked on Sunday at church? Yeah, well I guess I had a gall bladder stone the size of a marble. So I kept feeling icky, but Thursday afternoon I exploded into pain... pain that just kept on getting worse. I had a doctor's appt that evening, but decided I couldn't wait for it and just went to the ER. Good thing too because, as I said, it was a gall stone so the doc's office couldn't have done much for me... except send me to the hospital.

So even though the whole thing sucked.... and was PAINFUL.... like being in labor painful.... I feel very blessed at how it all worked out. Miraculous I would call it.

So the doc at the ER said I was okay to wait for surgery for a day or two and he spoke with a surgeon on the phone to give him a head's up. The surgeon said he probably couldn't do the surgery until next week sometime, but that he wanted to at least see me in the office "tomorrow" (Friday). So they sent me home with a surgeon's phone number, pain pills, and anti-nausea pills. Also, they told me that the pain and nausea would probably go away a little and come back, over and over until we just got the stupid gall bladder taken out all the way. So I was a little stressed to have to wait for surgery because, the pain was awful and puking is no fun. Also, next week my husband has finals.... including his final in Organic Chemistry... so his week is SHOT. And I have some really good friends coming to stay with us for most of next week. I haven't seen them in a really long time and they're coming up from many thousands of miles away. Could you imagine "It's so good to see you, but I'm off to surgery, go ahead and watch TV if you want." The miracle in all of this is how it all worked out so that I could have surgery on Friday (yesterday). It was like there were all these obstacles, seen and unseen, and God was kind enough to just move them for me. Like David said before fighting Goliath "It is not my fight but the Lord's."

So the first blessing, strange as it may sound, is that I woke up puking on Friday. If I hadn't been so violently sick, I would have definitely eaten so I could've taken my pain medication. And if you eat, you can't have surgery. So my first blessing came in the form of kneeling on the bathroom floor all morning.

Then when I called to see what time I could get an appt with the surgeon, they said "come in right now and don't eat anything." Hooray! So, next miracle is that we found the office without getting lost because it's a hard one to find. Then we were blessed to not have to wait at all to see the doctor. Literally, no waiting. The surgeon was very good, and very friendly and funny. He said that since I was still symptomatic that he felt I needed to have surgery that day, but his schedule was so full he thought it wouldn't be until the evening. So don't eat anything all day, and don't take any pain pills. Ugh.

But the next miracle is that as we were leaving his office he ran to catch us and said he had a cancellation and at the same time the surgery center had a last minute cancellation so I could go have surgery "right now." So I went up and checked in at surgery and got right in again. They even gave me some IV nausea meds, morphine for pain, and basic fluids while I was waiting. Hooray!

There were many other "little" blessings that were big to me, because they enabled my friends and family to be able to help me without having to miss their own important events that day. But possibly the best miracle of all is that my sister found a fat free chocolate cookie.... Snackwell's devils food cookies. SO YUMMY! And right after gall bladder surgery you're not supposed to eat any fat for a while. They are saving my life!

Anyway that's a long and rambling story and possibly quite boring. :) But I'm on heavy narcotic pain meds and a little out of it. So I hope it makes sense. I feel very blessed.

Feeling grateful

So freezer jam season is starting... Yay! I absolutely LOVE freezer jam! Strawberries have been on sale for a few days now, and I've made no less than 4 batches of jam so far! Yummy yummy yummy. :) Seriously, I can't get enough of the stuff. Freezer jam is one of the simple, every day miracles that we take for granted... can you imagine life back in the dark ages? No lights, no electricity, no PLUMBING, practically no medicine, the plague, and no freezer jam. How blessed are we to live in the days of clean water, penecillin, and freezer jam! And if you think I'm joking, then you don't know me well enough. :) Oooh, and epidurals, don't forget epidurals. I completely believe that whoever invented the epidural should be granted sainthood and guaranteed a seat in heaven. Think of all the pain and suffering that one thing has removed from the world. I know... I was in labor for 28 hours and had to have 2 of them. Best thing in the world, the epidural. :)

So today I'm feeling grateful to live in the age of technology and clean water. I mean, I like making home made bread when I get a wild hair, but growing your own wheat and grinding it by hand, and then baking it every day just to survive? No thank you. I love the super market. I love that I can stop at a fast food chain if I'm just too tired to cook. I love that I can turn up the heater on a cold and dreary day, such as today. I am grateful that women have rights and are treated as equals. That we can vote and that we live in a free country. And where would we be without Spongebob? I mean, come on! The entire society might collapse without that little yellow guy. Although, if I could, I would go back and remove all video games.

Life might be difficult today, but it is so easy compared to what was. Any time I think life is hard, I can almost hear my ancestors mocking me. And don't think that they wouldn't. If they are indeed related to me, then they have quite a proclivity to mock and use sarcasm. I'm spoiled rotten and grateful for it.

Quick and Messy Lasagna with Bechamel Sauce

Wow that's some title! LOL. But I wanted to put it all out there upfront.

 

I love lasagna, I mean who doesn't right? But it takes so much time to make it that I hardly ever do it. But then I saw good ole Rach.el R.ay do this trick and it changed my lasagna eating life. All the yum with half the work.

If you do it quick and dirty, with just browned meat and canned sauce... you could easily pull it all together in about a half hour for a quick weekday dinner. But if you take the time to make a nicer sauce, like mine below, it will take a bit longer and taste a lot better. Still, from start to finish, I had dinner on the table in under an hour.

 

You could use pretty much any recipe for lasagna and then use this method and it would work nicely, but this is my recipe, adapted to this method... and I must say that my own recipe is quite good. :)

 

Basically, you take the lasagna noodles and break them up into pieces before you boil them. I try to break each piece about 4 times. You'll get all different shapes and sizes, and that's great! So you boil them according to the instructions on the package, plus 1 minute. Then drain, and add to your meat sauce.

Then stir to coat them all and get it evenly distributed.

Put half of it in a cake pan (9x13) and then top it with some cottage cheese (or ricotta if you're fancy) and a sprinkle of dry parsley.

Then put the rest of the noodles on top of the cottage cheese.

Top that off with the bechamel sauce (or grated cheese if you prefer), and a sprinkle of grated parmesan, and stick in your oven on 350 for about 25 minutes.

Let it rest for 5 minutes before you serve it.

The only drawback is that I can't get a "clean slice" to make a nice picture. It's "messy" lasagna, remember?

But oh, so yummy!

 

Now if you want my own recipe, which you totally should because it's awesome, here it is.

 

So first, you need to take a red bell pepper and get it roasting in the oven. Put it in a pie tin about 6 inches below the top heating element and set your oven to "high broil." Keep it in there until most of the skin has turned black, about 10-15 minutes.

Cover it with foil, or a bowl of some type to let it steam as it cools. When it's cool enough, remove all the skin, stem, and seeds... throw those away. Finely dice the meat of the pepper and reserve it.

 

Now it's time to make your meat sauce. I believe in using ground sausage instead of ground beef. Trust me, it's so much better.

You brown that up with some finely chopped veggies... I mean finely chopped. You want the taste in your sauce, but you don't want to have visible pieces of veggie.

One onion, one carrot (I grate that), one stalk of celery. Put all of that in with the raw sausage and cook it until the sausage is brown and crumbly.

Add 3 or 4 cloves of minced/pressed fresh garlic. Let that cook for about a minute, then add one 14oz can of beef broth (or chicken broth if you prefer), as well as the reserved diced bell pepper.

 

 Cook it at a boil, stirring often, until pretty much all of the broth disappears, about 10 minutes.

Once the broth has reduced down to nothing, add 48 ounces of canned spaghetti sauce,1 TBS of vinegar, 2 TBS of dried oregano, and some fresh basil. I've stopped using fresh basil during the winter, and I get this stuff instead because it lasts longer in my fridge.

And I add this much...

Then stir and let it simmer while you make the noodles and bechamel.

So break up, boil, and add the noodles how I described above. Then remove the noodle/meat sauce mixture from heat and set it aside while you make the bechamel sauce.

 

First, what's bechamel sauce?

I used to make lasagna and top it with GIANT amounts of shredded cheese. Expensive and yummy. Then I decided to try bechamel sauce. It's a creamy cheesy yummy goodness sauce. I actually like it better than topping it with cheese, plus it's cheaper, more authentic, and is just rich and thick and gooey... mmmmm.

Try it.

 

Melt one stick of butter and then add 1/3 cup of flour. Whisk together to make a roux, let it cook for about a minute, maybe two. Then slowly add 2 cups of whole milk, whisking the whole time. Also add 1/2 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp nutmeg. Yes, that's right, I said nutmeg. Trust me, it's good and doesn't end up tasting like nutmeg, it just gives it a background zing.

Keep whisking (or else  you'll get lumps) until it gets nice and thick, like really thick and creamy gravy.

Can you see the "streaks" that the whisk left in it?

Remove from heat and whisk in 3/4 cup of shredded parmesan cheese until it incorporates (melts into) the sauce. It will get nice and cheesy, almost stringy.

That's when you want to pour it over everything, and sprinkle another 3/4 cup grated parmesan on the very top for color and texture... and gluttony.
350 for 25 minutes.

So yummy.

***

1 pound of lasagna noodles (NOT "oven ready" noodles)
24oz of cottage cheese
1-2 TBS dried parsley

1 pound of ground Italian sausage

1 red bell pepper

1 bulb onion (I use white, but whatever)

1 carrot, grated

1 stalk of celery, finely chopped

3-4 cloves of garlic

1 - 14oz can of beef/chicken broth

2 -24 oz cans of spaghetti sauce

1 TBS vinegar

2 TBS dried oregano

1 bunch of fresh basil/basil paste

1 cube of butter, melted

1/3 cup of flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese, divided

Rosemary Roasted Root Veggies

I love potatoes. But sometimes, you're just in the mood for something with a bit more variety. Still traditional and filling, but a bit different, and super yummy.

Well, this is it!

I love how everything gets turned jewel bright. Such a beautiful side dish!

You'll get rave reviews with it, even my kids will eat it.

I got the recipe originally from my good friend's BLOG. She's amazing.

This is what you'll need... for a giant batch of it.

Last night I had a big family dinner, 11 adults and 8 kids. I made 2 whole chickens in the crockpot... I had to borrow an extra crockpot, and I made this as a side. It was awesome! But this is a lot! So I'm cutting the recipe down to 1/3 of what I made last night, so that it would be appropriately sized for a normal family dinner.

 

1 red beet, peeled and chopped

2 carrots, peeled and chopped

1 sweet potato (not yam!!!), peeled and chopped

1 russet potato, washed and chopped

1/3 of a butternut squash, peeled seeded and chopped

1 TBS olive oil

1 tsp rosemary

1 tsp salt

 

Toss it to coat, and put in a baking pan. For this amount, probably just a cake pan should do it for yah and you can cover it with tinfoil. But for the full amount you see in the pictures... I used my roasting pan. Ha! I haven't used it in forever, because now I always do my chickens in the crockpot... but it has found a use again!

Cover and cook at 400 degrees for 1 hour. I usually stir it around at 40 minutes, just to make sure it's cooking evenly. And quite often I'll cook it for an extra 20 minutes to get the carrots nice and soft enough for my 1 year old to eat on her own... but I find that makes the rest, especially the squash, be really over cooked. My brilliant fix for that is to put the harder veggies at the bottom and the softer on top. So the beets go on bottom, then carrots, sweet potatoes, potatoes, and squash. (Still stir it around to mix it at 40 minutes.)

Look at how pretty!

 More nutrients, more variety, more taste.

Mmmmm.

The only complaint I ever get is from my husband who misses all the extra butter I put in mashed potatoes. LOL. But he just adds it here and is plenty happy.

Cream of Anything Soup Mix

Yeah, so I'm allergic to a lot of things. A LOT of things. And it pretty much sucks. Do you know how hard it is to make a casserole when you can't have canned soup?

And then I found this recipe.

*Heaven!*

I found it on THIS blog, and I have no idea where it originated.... er... originally.

But it is a life saver for me!

Also I must say, that even without all my food problems, I would still choose this over canned cream soup. First, it's pennies on the dollar compared to the canned stuff. So cheap to make! And it only has a few ingredients, so you know exactly what you're eating... no chemicals and stuff you can't pronounce. But most important to me, is the taste. I mean, being healthy and frugal is great and all, but if it tastes like cardboard then no thanks! But this is so good! Tastes SO MUCH BETTER than the canned soup. For serious.

Try it out.

You won't regret it.

(Also, if you're into emergency preparedness and food storage, this is an AWESOME thing to plan on having. All the ingredients can easily be found in a long term storage package.)

2 cups powdered milk

3/4 cup cornstarch

1/4 cup chicken bouillon granules

2 tsp Italian seasoning

Mix it together and store in a plastic or glass container.

To make it into soup:

1 1/4 cup cold water

1/3 cup of dry mix

Whisk it together over medium-high heat until it thickens. The key is to use cold water, so that the cornstarch will dissolve all the way before you even turn on the stovetop. Then just keep whisking (to keep the other ingredients from falling to the bottom of the pan and burning), just like you're making gravy. You don't want lumps, so whisk away. The longer/hotter you cook it, the thicker it will get.

Substitute that amount of mix for one 10 3/4oz can of condensed soup in recipes. Or you can eat it straight, just how it is. Delicious! Only, don't thicken it so much if you're just eating it. You don't want goo.

So I just use my own Italian seasoning when making this. But you could also buy the little packets. In fact, you don't officially have to add the spice at all, it just makes it better.

But that's the beauty of this recipe. You can make it however you want it.

Want cream of potato soup? Add potatoes and different spices. Want cheese soup? Add some grated cheese (I love sharp cheddar!) while you're whisking away until it incorporates with the soup. Want a sauce for salisbury steak? Use beef bouillon granules instead of chicken, or just add some worcestershire sauce and smoke flavoring.

Try it out, you won't be sorry...

Roasted Red Bell Pepper Soup Recipe

We had a very nice weekend with family in town to visit. I ate myself silly. Mmmmm. And that means that I'll be starting my diet again today tomorrow. First, I *have to* eat all the rest of the junk food that's still here so it won't be around to tempt me on my diet. :)

 I've noticed that A LOT of people are getting sick around here. Including us. My little guy is only just well enough today to return to school again. So I decided that I'd post a recipe of my favorite thing to make during cold and flu season.

Seriously this is the BEST thing in the world when  you're sick. Move over chicken noodle! 

Roasted Red Bell Pepper Soup

*sigh*

6-8 red bell peppers

4 TBS sesame/olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

3 celery stalks, chopped

3 cloves garlic, pressed

2 TBS thyme

2 TBS basil

1/2 tsp cayenne (or to taste, I always use at least twice this much)

2 tsp salt

1 can coconut milk  (NOTE: Must be the kind in a can, not a carton. And don't get the lite/low fat version, it's nasty and this is just freakin coconut milk for heaven's sake.)

OR you can use some heavy cream instead of the coconut milk, about 1 cup to 1 pint of that. Whatever.

2- 32oz cartons of broth (vegetable or chicken)

Cut peppers in half, remove seeds and stem. Score the inside with a fork (helps to cook faster).

Place peppers skin side up.



Broil on high for 10-15 minutes, until most of the outer skin is black.

Remove from oven and allow to cool. (If you cover them while they cool, they sort of steam and the skins are SO much easier to get off!) Remove (and discard) as much skin as you can, but don't be too fussy.

While peppers are broiling, in a large soup pot, heat oil, onion, celery, thyme, basil, and salt. Cook until veggies are tender (10-12 minutes) stirring often. Add the garlic and cayenne for the last couple minutes of that. Then add the broth and allow to simmer for about 10 minutes.

Add the roasted/peeled peppers to the soup. Then you can either use an immersion blender to make it all smooth, OR you can do what I do, and just stick it in your upright blender. If you do it in your blender, it will fill it twice, so you'll need an "in between" pan so that unblended soup doesn't meet blended soup... because all of it needs to be nicely pureed.

After all of it is blended, return it to your pot over low to medium heat and stir in the coconut milk (or cream). Simmer for 10 minutes.

Serve.

I make TONS of this in the summer when I have lots of bell peppers growing in my garden, and when the store has halfway decent prices on them. Then I freeze it in pint sized freezer bags. It gets us through cold and flu season every year. Seriously, I can NOT survive a bad cold without this.

Fairy Tales and Special Effects

This month's "assignment" for PAIL is to talk about our plans for the future, and whether or not to continue to try and have more children, and why we choose what we choose, and all that stuff. And honestly, in my mind, thinking about TTC is like watching a My.ster.y Sci.en.ce The.at.ter 3.00.0 episode. 

The whole world of prospective parents is watching this "amazing" film. Fairy tales like being able to time your pregnancy, spacing children, and live happily ever after are flashing on the screen... and surely somewhere, someone is buying the special effects?

But not me. Not IFers.

We sit in the back of the theater making pejorative and sarcastic comments... occassionally throwing popcorn at the screen, and talking about how naive and gullible the rest of the audience is for not seeing through the special effects.... and knowing that for them, it isn't special effects and fairy tales, it's reality.

Laughing at the show, because crying sucks.

So, having said that, what do I think about the movie and how seriously am I taking it?

Well dang. I take it pretty seriously. And despite all my best efforts, I still believe it "could be true." I still want the happily ever after. I still want to think that it could be possible for me to have as many children as I desire. But alas, I've been in the theater too long and my eggs...er, popcorn... has gone stale.

So, my stats.... I have PCOS and repeated miscarriages/high risk pregnancy and Hashimoto's and who knows what else... seriously, they can't decide or figure it out. I am 36, so officially "advanced maternal age" and I have been MIRACULOUSLY blessed with 2 children already. But I hear the clock ticking.

I'm from a family with 6 kids. My mom's family had... crap I can't remember... 11? I think? Maybe 10? I guess I could try to count them, but I'd surely forget one of them anyway, so why bother. And each of her siblings had a billion kids too. So when we had family reunions, we were a crazy spectacle. Think of it... 10ish uncles/aunts with their spouse, and 10-13 kids per family, all of the older ones already married and popping out babies like they were skittles, and even some third generation babies running around. Literally hundreds of cousins. (No, there is NO polygamy. LOL.) I haven't even met all of them, and I'm certainly not close to any of them. My dad's side of the family averages 6 kids per family... which is smaller, but still not a small family.

Growing up, and in early adulthood, I had absolutely NO DOUBT that I would have as many kids as my body was willing to pop out. I was thinking in the area of 8.
Ha!
*throws popcorn at the screen*
And spacing? I figured they'd be about 2 years apart BECAUSE that would give me time to breastfeed all of them for a full year, and then immediately get pregnant again and start over.
Wait! What? My body can't make babies OR breastmilk?
Huh.

So here I am at 36, in my last few years of even being able to pretend that it could still be possible to have more children.... and what do I dream of???
Four kids.
Two more... just two more.
Maybe twins, because then it's only hoping for one more successful pregnancy and that seems more realistic than expecting to survive 2 more rounds of TTC.
And if I somehow got my 2 more kids, what then?... I'd still want more. I'm sure of it. I would continue to try and try until my ovaries dried up and my uterus fell out... just plop, right there on the floor. That would be about the only thing that would stop me from hoping.
But honestly, I think 2 more is all I can even hope for... and even that is really wishing for a lot... but it's still my "goal" or my "vision" or whatever term you want to use.

Because of all my health problems and the extremes I have taken to trying fix them... I won't be doing anymore fertility treatments. My body really does NOT handle those well, and I've spent literally thousands of dollars just trying to get my health back to where it was before starting all of that. And I can't go backward, because I have 2 amazing children who need a healthy mommy to take care of them. So if I'm going to have more children (please please please) it will be up to the old fairy tale of "you can have a baby just by having sex at the right time."
Hahaha.
I know! Can you believe that?

So right now I'm back to charting and temping... not that my chart makes ANY SENSE. Nobody can discern any type of a pattern, and almost daily my charting service changes when it thinks I ovulated. So it's pretty useless. For instance, right now I'm on CD62, and it thinks I'm 10dpo, but the ovulation date will undoubtedly change again tomorrow. BUT it does keep me from spending a gazillion dollars on HPTs. When I get pregnant, my temps normalize. They go up and stay up. So as long as my body is freaking out and weird, and my temps are all over the place... I know I'm not pregnant. I may not know when/if I ovulated, or when/if AFV is coming... but I do know not to POAS. And that saves me a little money and peace of mind.

So, making a long story even longer... Yes I am TTC. Yes, I am charting and temping... and BD often. (Yay! A silver lining!) No, I don't have the luxury of worrying about "spacing" the kids for optimal whatever. No, I don't have the luxury of waiting until I think I'm emotionally ready to face all this again. Truth is, I'm out of time. If it's going to happen at all, it needs to happen soon. And I don't have any time to waste. So I'm going through the motions (hump hump hump. LOL. did I just say that?) but my heart isn't really in it. I am TTC in denial. Meaning, I'm doing everything that I can/should be doing to TTC... but I'm ignoring the fact that I'm doing it. I'm pretending to myself that I'm not really TTC. That way I'm hoping to not go crazy. To not get hurt. So that maybe I'll just wake up one morning, POAS, and have a happy ending... and wonder how I got there.

Popcorn anyone?