second annual no kids summer trip

This year we drove to Ohio to visit Cedar Point and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

Sunday we drove 13 hours, Monday we got up bright and early for our one hour early entry into the park since we stayed at a Cedar Point resort (the cheaper off-site one), so that was awesome.  The park is so nice and clean and it has lots of trees so you aren't just baking in the sun all day.  The rides are awesome.  My favorite is Millenium Force.  D's favorite is Top Thrill Dragster.  Tuesday, we did the same thing, but rode everything we missed the first day, and rode our favorites again.  Wednesday, we slept in a little and then drove to Cleveland, had lunch, strolled through the museum, went inside Johnny Cash's tour bus (by far my favorite part of the museum), had dinner and drove back to Sandusky to sleep and pack.  Then on Thursday, we drove 13 hours home, and then Friday, I had to get up early for a work meeting.  So I have sat around doing mostly nothing for the weekend.

Noticeable childfree things: parents at an amusement park with their kids do not look happy most of the time, parents with young children don't get to ride rides together: they have to take turns.  So we definitely saw benefits to our childfree living.

Summertime

School was out on May 24th, but then I had to help write new curriculum (mentally draining) every day until June 22nd.  So now my summer has officially begun.  I kicked it off with a visit from my parents and my nephew for my birthday weekend.  I am now a perfect square (36 for you non-mathy people).  It was a pretty good time.  We grilled out a lot.  I got the game Mad Gab from my sister and her husband, some money from my parents, and a citrus juicer from my husband. 

So far I have made fresh-squeezed lemonade twice.  It is so good I don't think I can ever use a mix to make lemonade again.  I've made mojitos twice as well.  I have made those a lot over the past few years, and I have to admit that mine are the best I've ever tasted.  Every time I get one at a restaurant or bar, I think "mind are better."  The trick that I learned from a Cuban lady is to steep the mint.  The juicer just makes the job of making mojitos so much faster, and I need fewer limes to get the same amount of juice.  Next up, I want to try the recipe that came with the juicer for citrus mint iced tea. 

Tomorrow night I get to see one of my favorite bands, the Get Up Kids.  In a couple weeks, I get to see another awesome band, HelloGoodbye.  Later this month, D and I will be going to Cedar Point and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  We will drive there in one day, go to the park two days, and drive to the hall of fame the third day, and then drive home in one day.  Then I have a meeting the next day for work, and then one more week of freedom before going back for good. 

I love summer.

Also, I'm thinking about another tattoo.  Last summer, after our failed IVF and beginning the new path of childfree living, I spent a bit of time tending to our garden and various plants.  I noticed this wicked stem growing out of our day lilies, but it looked different.  D and I joked that it was a triffid (from Day of the Triffids), but I let it go to see what it became.  It turned out to be an asiatic lily, starts out orange, and then goes pink.  Orange represents happiness, optimism, imagination, and hope.  Pink represents long-lasting love, healing, and romance.  The lily can represent fertility and death.  That seems appropriate.  ;)  I don't know how the plant got into our flower bed, especially since asiatic lilies grow from bulbs.  But I love it.  So anyway, I want the asiatic lily to be my next tattoo.  Maybe, since the flower has "freckles", I will have the artist put our little embryos as two of the freckles.  It depends how big it is though, I guess.  I'm thinking upper quadrant of my back, but I'm still in the "thinking about it" phase. 

showers

My best friend (aside from my sister) is pregnant, due in September.  Because we are so close, I volunteered to throw her a baby shower.  Luckily, she isn't very girly, so it will be a co-ed shower, so no typical "smell the diaper" game, just a cookout where people brings gifts as well as their own booze.  I was doing pretty good, planning the date and time and invitations.  But yesterday, as I looked at the paper invitations for the older crowd who don't do email, it hit me that I will never have someone planning this kind of thing for me.  So I had a good cry last night, got out all of that, and then when my cats came to cuddle with me, and I got to sit in my bed and read into the wee hours of the morning, I was hit again by how good my life is.  It may be different from what I thought it was going to be, but I still love it.  Even if I won't ever get to register for (and have a party to receive) gifts again.  :)

busy busy busy

End of the school year is always crazy, so there's that. 

D and I went to DC last weekend, and packed in a LOT of activities and a TON of walking. 

My sister and her husband moved across the country to our city, and are currently staying with us until they have had a couple paychecks and can find a place to live.

Throw in some mother-in-law drama and you have my last two weeks.

confirmation

I know I've been enjoying life and my job more this school year, but tonight I got confirmation from the students. 

For the past 10-ish years, I've been a judge for the boy beauty pageant at my school (it's a fundraiser for charity).  It's always a good time.  Last year, in the midst of infertility treatments, I know I was probably mostly a shell of my usual self, going through the motions, still bonding with some kids, but definitely not loving my job (or anything else, really).  They introduce the judges individually, and last year (two months after the failed IVF), when they said my name, it was almost complete silence, maybe some polite applause.  I joked with my friend next to me that I must have been a bitch that year since I had no fans.  I think I was right, because this year, when they said my name, there was a lot more shouting and applause, and some of the kids shouting my nickname, so that felt really good.  It told me that I am back on track to being my normal self and my normal teacher self that connects with the kids and that they like.

So yay! 

too loyal?

The dentist I have been going to for 12 years (always went to my six month check-ups) was the one my first husband went to all through high school and into adulthood.  When we moved to this city (where his parents lived), he wanted to keep going to him, so I went to him too.  My now-husband hasn't been to the dentist in YEARS, and I've been trying to get him to go since we got married (didn't want to nag him before that!), but with his work schedule, it would be very hard to go to the dentist I had been going to.  It was about a 40 minute drive to get to the dentist's office from our house or from work, so with the cleaning, etc, plus the drive both ways, we're looking at almost a two-hour time commitment.  So I started doing a little research and chose a new dentist for both of us to go to that is very close to our house.  I had my first appointment with them today, and apparently, my former dentist wasn't quite as thorough as he should have been. 

I've always been very prone to tartar build-up, so my previous dentist told me to use tartar control mouthwash, before and after I brush, twice a day, and I do religiously, and it has reduced the amount of scraping that they had to do at each visit.  And at every visit, the dentist would look over my teeth, and comment on the bone loss, and always say it was due to having braces.  I trusted his judgement.  Well, today, the hygienist was measuring "pockets" of space between my gums and teeth, and apparently, it's quite bad.  So my bone loss is actually periodontal disease, caused by tartar build-up under my gums.  It builds up, creating a space between the gums and the teeth, resulting in bone loss.  The hygienist asked if my gums were sort after a cleaning from them cleaning up under the gums, and sadly, the answer is no, so I've probably never had the proper cleaning my teeth and gums have needed.

So now the fix is to have some ultra-cleaning sessions, and then have a cleaning every three months instead of every six.  The ultra-cleaning sessions will be an hour and a half each, once for each side of my mouth.  It's supposed to be pretty aggressive and I need to be numbed for it.  The hope is that once that is done, my gums will fill in the pockets and the more frequent cleanings will prevent them from forming again.  If they don't, the ultra-cleanings will need to be done every five years or so.

The old dentist wanted to give me a gum graft to fix my slightly receding gumline on my front bottom teeth.  When I mentioned that to the hygienist, she said that receding gums is a symptom of the periodontal disease, and a gum graft is really only for looks.  So nice that my old dentist wanted to treat a symptom and not the underlying cause.  I really wish I had started looking for a new dentist a long time ago, but he was so nice, and I felt bad leaving his practice for no better reason than "it's kind of a far drive."

I'm not looking forward to the ultra cleanings, but I am looking forward to having a dentist that wants to fix the problems and not just cosmetically make things look good.

only slightly bitter and not at all sad

So my best friend, aside from my sister, is now four months pregnant. She had a miscarriage a year and a half ago after getting pregnant rather quickly, so understandably has been rather paranoid this time. So far everything is going well. They felt comfortable enough to announce it to everyone this week. A lot of our friends use another blogging/networking site, so they each made a post there, and everyone made their congratulations. All expected. What I didn't expect was the girls only post that my friend made telling about the miscarriage (very few people knew about that) and that they had been trying for a year this time to get pregnant again. Again, all things that I knew. What bothered me was the ridiculous amount of support and "I'm sorry that you had to go through that" comments. When I made posts when D and I were trying and going through tests, I got very little support. D and I talked after I read through them all, and made the point that everyone loves the happy ending. So with my friend saying "hey, we struggled, but now we are having a baby" everyone can respond with "oh, that's terrible, but there's going to be a baby!! so happy for you...." With D and me, there's no happy ending in most people's opinions, just the terrible part, so they have nothing to say. Fuck 'em. We're making our own happy ending. And as D put it, "without the poop and the puke." Sort of unrelated, I was noticing the difference between men and women and baby talk. I was sitting at the table by the front door of the school (making sure people check in at the office, you know, protecting the school), and there was a conversation taking place behind me among two women and one man. They were talking about a student at first. But then one of the women started talking about her baby to the other woman, who has a baby about the same age (part of the baby boom of pregnancies last school year), and the guy goes "baby talk...I'm out." and just walked away. The women just laughed it off. My thought was "what the hell? If I did that, I'd probably be labeled a total bitch."