Fo. Tos.

Ummm what?



Hannukah dinner

Emma's Christmas cookie contribution.

The best housewarming gift ever.

Lazy dog won't help me upack

Baby makin' time

Well hello to you.

We've moved and we are over the moon thrilled about having a place of our own again. I'm writing this from my new laptop, and have yet to figure out how to upload anything with it, so I'll give you some photos later.

I'm under no delusions that I have a large amount of followers here, but I still have the inclination to apologize for my lack of recent posts. Honestly, we really have been extraordinarily busy what with moving the contents of a 3000 square foot house, Christmas, insomnia, dealing with painters and fridge salesman and landscapers, and most recently, with starting the in vitro process again.

That's right, we're doing it, after much talk about it for that last few years.

I'm wondering if I'll regret having informed so many friends that I'm starting this journey again, because one's uterus (and husband's sperm count) can be a very personal and emotional topic, but I'm just going to jump into over sharing with both feet and with my eyes closed. If it comes back to bite me later, eh, so what. Maybe if a lot of people know about this I'll get more good vibes, assuming that those who are actually visiting my blog aren't just haters following my story to see what happens when a heathen ex-Mormon utilizes medical science in a vain attempt to thwart God's punishment of not being able to get pregnant naturally.

I'm rambling and I know it. But I have only slept for like a total of seven hours in the last 48 so.....

Anyway, we had our first visit to Dr. Troche's office two weeks ago, and he enthusiastically declared that I had a"beautiful uterus" after a quick ultrasound. Some labs measuring my ovarian reserve were drawn, and it turns out I still have plenty of eggs left, so that's a positive. Waiting on good ol' Aunt Flo to make her monthly appearance and then we'll have some more labs drawn and start on some drugs. Probably next week. I'm now taking a prenatal vitamin. (Wheee!) 

And now you know more about Corinne's menstrual cycle that you ever wanted to.

Gird your loins, you're about to get even more information on my body in the next six weeks.

December 4th!  Praise Jeebus, we finally have a closing date.

It's starting to look like a real house finally.

Miss Mems.

 

The fireplace is TALL! I'm actually shorter than the top of it.

Garage.

Two-thirds of the awesome pantry. 

Hallway.

That space on the right will be kitchen.  I'm sitting on the fireplace here.

 

 

 

And this little dude is visiting us for a few weeks. He's Emma's science teacher's and they're on fall break. He's an Arizona Desert Tortoise. They only get to be about the size our six year-old sulcata is now.  Bailey the sulcata will be around 200 pounds in a few years. 

 

 

Bailey and Lightning, a comparison. They can't hang together though, awwww, how sad.  Bailey would try to eat him and I'm pretty sure Mr. Science Teacher didn't lend him to us to serve as a Bailey snack.

 

 

Spiky tortoise buttocks.

 

Drywall!

We have drywall at last. The new house is in the way to and from Emma's school, so I've turned complete stalker and can't help driving by at least once a day. I walk through the bedrooms dreaming of filling them with kids. I've done this once before, when we built a four bedroom house seven years ago. We never got to fill them up so hopefully this time we'll be able to. They should give us a firm closing date in the next week - the sales agent is now saying early November - so we're getting to where we need to think about packing for real. AND a closing date that soon means we're closer to in vitro time.

Anyway, here are some more photos.

The fireplace

Now that I know we're moving into a place of our own I'm really getting excited. Here's a peek of the gas fireplace.....I pulled back the cardboard and found logs!

Here comes the sun

Finally underwriting approval is IN.

Now I can shop! And pack! And shop! 

Big relief, seriously. We had two short sales three years ago right before Chad deployed (rental house that went south and then our primary residence WAY far away from child care while he was gone) so it hasn't been an easy process to convince an underwriter to give us another mortgage. Thank you, Veteran's Administration. Now I can allow myself to get excited about my new fireplace at Christmas time. And about all the room we'll have for in vitro babies, a process that will be attempted in about two-three months when we move. If we can't have another baby that way we've decided to adopt.

Lots of finally.

I'm not going to lie, the last few years have been really tough on our little family.

It seemed that every time we've started to pick ourselves up, another problem reared up. Two foot surgeries. A deployment to Iraq. Discovering Chad's back is trashed. Emma's dad completely disappearing from her life for absolutely no reason that I can figure out. A few big health scares, some of which we're still working through. But today I finally took my RNC-NIC test, the big certification exam for NICU nurses. And I'll get my BSN next June. And we'll finally get a home of our own again, and not be at the mercy of whatever crappy (or currently, completely awesome) landlord we happen to be renting a house from. I'm not trying to sound ungrateful, because I'm vividly aware that it could be so much worse. Chad and I have a strong marriage. We're best friends, and I know a lot of couples who can't claim that. He's a FABULOUS daddy to Emma. (What step dad saves his GI bill for his stepdaughter to use for college? An awesome one!) We still have jobs, we're financially stable. But it's been hard, especially with the in vitro thing. Seems like every time we got ready to do it a deployment or a foot surgery or ANOTHER foot surgery got in the way. It's hard to want a child with your spouse so desperately every day, especially when you're in the line of work that I am, and not be able to have one. People really take for granted their ability to get pregnant, and I never realized it until I couldn't get pregnant myself. And I don't want to hear any BS about how I should be satisfied because I already have one. It doesn't take away the pain of not being able to share a pregnancy and a newborn with the one spouse who truly deserves it.

So anyway, I think some good things are finally starting to happen to us, and I'm thrilled that the sun is finally shining.

Prepare to be amazed at this post

So the house is coming along.

Ok, it's not. They are still covering the whole stupid thing with styrofoam.

Plus Julio was there, apparently.

Still waiting to hear from underwriting.

Head Meets Wall

I was just about to sit down and write out an entry detailing how wonderful and funny age twelve is, with random British accents in the Sonic drive-through and mature jokes about Darwin....

but as I opened up the browser Tweenzilla flung her body on the floor to the right of me with much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth (can't take all the Mormon out of the girl now, can we) because she doesn't GET her math homework and how could her math teacher EXPECT her to do all of THIIIIIIIIS WAAAAAAH. She was shrieking right into my ear and it was all I could do not to give her a big wet willy. Because I'm just as mature as she is, I guess.

Sigh.

So anyway, age twelve is a blast.

At least her feet are still adorable.

The house is coming along. I think. We're having typical issues with the mortgage company, things you would probably expect in this kind of economy. Requests for paperwork from eight years ago (I shit you not), and me having to practically process the loan myself since our processor doesn't know anything about VA loans. I have pulled up underwriting guidelines and today finally got a big HUD mess fixed that the processor claimed she could do nothing about. Unfortunately for her, I used to do this kind of thing for a living before I took a job where I leave work every day with someone else's bodily fluids splashed all over me. They started wrapping the house in styrofoam today (is this why my utility bills are like a million dollars in the summer? shouldn't we be using something more effective than Big Gulp containers to wrap our homes in when we live in the desert?) so I think we'll be closing in the next 45-60 days. I haven't started packing yet, because I'm still a little nervous about a last-minute "just kidding, no house for you" e-mail, but I'm feeling better about it. May just start packing up the jeans I have hanging in the closet that haven't fit me since I gave birth to Tweenzilla.

Here's the garage today.

 

 



I have one week left of the current RN-BSN class that I'm taking, some Ethical Something-or-other in Health Care class, and then I have a whole two weeks off, which I am very excited about because I will need that time to study for the most horrible test imaginable, the RNC exam for NICU nurses. It's a test that certifies me as an "expert" in my field and is supposed to be some kind of honorable thing to take, but since I'm completely overwhelmed with the material and have so much left to study, I'm wondering why I did this to myself, especially since passing it doesn't equate to extra pay. Being a nurse also means constantly trying to keep up with all the info around you, and working toward bettering your profession, but I question why that has to mean memorizing 936 pages of the following:

Wish me luck.

DSC_0025

DSC_0025, originally uploaded by Corn Child.

Bailey Boy

DSC_0042, originally uploaded by Corn Child.

Hibiscus is Sulcata crack.

Yo yo.

Buh-bye summer.

Ok, so I know it's still a thousand degrees outside (and like 90% humidity, I'm pretty much just getting prepped for all that time I'll spend in hell after I die) but for the Dixons summer vacay has ended as of today.  Emma starts junior high in a few hours (hello insomnia!) and I've got a million thoughts swirling around in my overheated brain.

We still haven't really heard about our approval on the house.  Hopefully it goes through (we had a previous short sale, and underwriting makes me neeeeervous) because I've enrolled Emma in the school down near where the new house will be.  Otherwise, my drive is just going to SUCK taking her to school for the next few years. Everybody hated junior high, I know that.  I was a brace-faced awkward nerd for those years and I desperately want my daughter to be happy and not have to go through a dopey teen phase but I also realize it's kind of a rite of passage to becoming a "real" person.  I'm filled with such anxiety over the whole thing (I'm a giant steaming bowl of anxiety on a good day anyway) that she's feeling it and now she's all worried about this new school too.  She's Corinne Junior, I swear.  I'm just waiting for the day she also trips while running and ends up with multiple foot surgeries simply because she's a klutz.  The Klutz Gene is a dominant one.

Other things.

Finished my stats class for my RN-BSN.  Holy shitburgers.  Sorry.  But profanity is really the only way to convey my true feelings about a five week online statistics class.  By the end of the class I just didn't even care about the "weekly posting" crap, I just wanted the torture to be over.  I was aiming solely to underachieve, and I did it.  Got a 90.5.  Way to go me, I'm on the Dean's List of the Pay-Your-Way to a BSN Online Education Program.

Emma and I bonded while we did this:

(Ok, I just unplugged my phone from the wall charger to hook it up to transfer photos and I electrocuted myself.  Ow.  Like I said, Dean's List!)

Anyway, here's the photo:

Right after we buckled him in and got him swinging, the Target security guard showed up smiling. 

And this (APA format states that one should not start a sentence with "and" but this is my blog so kiss it, APA) is what happens when a state that only gets about a half inch of rain a year suddenly gets four years worth of rain in ten minutes.  We had two swimming pools!  Bailey the sulcata was not amused.  After I saved him from underneath the bush where I found him clinging to life, he hightailed it under the grill with his crabby little mug. Of course he's a tortoise and his face always looks like that, so who really knows?  But I like to think that he's got an old man voice in his head that's all harumphy and indignant in situations like this.

Incendiary Chad tried to blow up the entire street on the 4th of July.  That's over a hundred dollars worth of fireworks, people.  We're so rich that we light our money on fire.  Didn't you know that nurses make a ton of money?  (That's what the nursing recruiter told me anyway.  I'm still waiting.)

Emma and Mom at the Dbacks game.

I taught her how to elbow all the smaller kids out of the way so she could get Baxter the Bobcat's autograph.

Well lookie there, my Tylenol PM is finally kicking in, now that I have to get up in four hours.  Awesome.

Night night.

She's actually more expensive than that.

She's actually more expensive than that., originally uploaded by Corn Child.

Playing around on my old flickr account - found this and it makes me smile.

My baby has a birthday tomorrow. These twelve years have been a blast and I can't wait to see what her next twelve are like. How I love this girl. It breaks my heart that she hurts over her sperm donor dad refusing to play a real part in her life, but on the other hand we are both so happy that Chaddy came into our lives when she was three and stepped right into the role of Daddy.

Anyway, enough rambling. Happy Birthday Baby Girl.

My little old lady Missy

DSC_0035, originally uploaded by Corn Child.

New camera time!

DSC_0013, originally uploaded by Corn Child.

The last of the sunflowers.

It's not love unless you share everything

I got my first cold sore today. Chad gets them all the time.

Woord.

Best neighbor award

It's nearly 9 PM and I'm making my daughter practice the piano.  Because I'm the most awesome neighbor in the world.  It's a bit of  passive-aggressive revenge (I despise passive-aggressive in others but indulge in it occasionally myself, I am sad to say) for the neighbor's setting up a basketball hoop six feet from my bedroom window on their side of the fence.  Their ten year-old grandson must be trying out for the NBA because he practices ALL.  DAY.  LONG.  (That's right, CAPS.)  They know I work nights.  A set of earplugs and a pillow over my head is not enough to drown out the THUNK THUNK THUNK inside my sleep-deprived skull.  I can only assume that they also know but don't give a crap that six in the morning on a Sunday is never NEVER the recommended time to host an NBA practice outside my window.

Coincidentally, today I noticed that our garbage bin, which is resting JUST on the other side of the fence from the spot in their yard where Lamar Odom Jr. practices his free throws, has a stench emanating from it that can only be described as maggoty.  I was horrified at first when I realized my mistake of throwing away raw chicken bits in a black garbage container in 106 degree heat.  Then - LIGHT BULB - I realized that Lamar is not going to be able to breathe over there with that smell.  I am now wondering if anyone has an industrial-sized fan I can borrow. 

You wish you were my neighbor, huh?

As if you couldn't already tell I'm going completely mental lying around here.  I desperately want to be back at work, with dopamine drips and babies shooting out of orifices.  Instead, I've reached season 5,672 of Rescue Me on Netflix and when I'm not watching that I'm doing this to amuse myself:

Skinny.

Fluffy!  (Your internal reading voice must scream that word.)

Emma and I both find this side-splittingly funny.  I think my insanity is contagious or genetic, or both. 

PLEASE LET ME GO BACK TO WORK.

Today's word is protuberant

The photos that are uploaded from my iPhone are kind of suckish, so I'll be uploading them from my computer from now on NOW THAT I'M CLEARED TO WALK. I'll get back to that.

A few weeks ago I planted a tomatillo plant because I love white bean chili and wanted to grow my own white bean chili garden.  Except the only other ingredient I planted was regular tomatoes, since I find dumping white beans out of a can much easier than shucking, and I also find it difficult to grow rotisserie chicken in Arizona.  So anyway, my tomatillo plant was all gangly and spindly and not producing any fruit, just a million little yellowish flower blob things.  I finally googled to see what was wrong and CRAP.  It turns out that you must have both male and female plants for cross-pollination and I only have one lonely non-bisexual plant.  I took a trip to the nursery today (because I am also cleared to drive as of today FINALLY) and tried to pick up a new tomatillo plant so mine can have an active sex life and instead came home with THIS:

Creepy? Yes.

Emma named him Henry and as I was cooking dinner tonight (because I can get up on two feet and cook again FINALLY) I turned around to find him sitting on the counter less than a foot away from me, staring with his giant scary eyes, and I actually shrieked.  (Giggle fits for Emma.  Haha, yes, you're very funny with your owl who may want to get his thyroid checked.)  I also found Henry buckled into the back seat of my Explorer.  He is now on the couch covered in a blanket with his head nestled comfortably on a throw pillow.

By the way I ripped out my lame-o asexual tomatillo.  We don't want your kind here, plant.

So ANYway, I went back to my awesome foot surgeon yesterday and was lectured about how many adhesions I have already.  He took hold of my already completely frozen foot and jacked it way over to the side, leading to much profanity, grimacing and sweating on my part.  He kept insisting that I was "protecting" it still, by holding it up straight and not letting it relax.  DUDE.  IT DOESN'T MOVE ANYMORE.  IT IS RELAXED.  I left his office in a really bad mood.  (I plan to take this all out on my physical therapist tomorrow.)  But as I *may* have mentioned I am cleared to walk without my crutches (with the storm trooper boot on) and am now allowed to drive.  (With the storm trooper boot off.)  This means that I can also jump back into being able to do mundane things like dishes and cooking and housework, and you probably won't believe me but I am SO happy about that.  No really, I am.  

More photos:

This is the first year I've planted hollyhocks.  Next time I'll plant them against a wall, since our "gustnado" or "dirtnado" or whatever it is the weatherman is calling that crazy weather we had last week knocked a bunch of them down, but overall I'm in love.  They are covered in ruffly flowers.

Baby zuchinni.

And THIS, my civilian friends, is what an army man getting his brand-new uniforms ready to wear looks like.  He burns off all the extra little threads with a blowtorch while his wife with the anxiety issues worries about him lighting the bed on fire.  He doesn't know that I took this shot, and I don't know how often he even visits the blog, so....HI HONEY!  I find this "new uniform ritual' of his fascinating.

Nighty nite.