Organic

I'm baaaaack.

Recently, we have been on the search for a healthy brand of dog food to feed our dogs. This is because

1. Our husky is toooo skinny (I know. Don't we all wish we had his problems) so needs some very high quality food to help him pack on the pounds

2. A vet recently told us that the food we used to give our dogs was comparable to doritos. ouch.

Last night we took a trip to Petco in search of a new brand of dog food, and guess what we discovered? There's a whole section there of just organic dog food. Wild, eh? So after a lengthy dog food discussion with one of the workers we decided on an organic/holistic brand.

Nothing but the best for our dogs!

I just think it's too hilarious that our dogs are on an organic diet now. I feel like such a hippie.

:)

The Chaos That Controls My Mind

My title is a song lyric. It popped into my head when I finished writing this post. Can anyone name the song and/or band?

Well, I suppose that it wouldn't be quite right of me to write about my last week's heartbreak and then fall off the face of the earth.

I was completely ready to fall off the face of the earth, but not because I don't have anything to say.

It's just that everything I have to say is a jumble of confusion and chaos in my head right now and I know that even writing about it will not straighten it out.

I'm doing fine, though. Thanks for the thoughts and prayers.

I know that Michael and I will have the opportunity to make another attempt at this parenthood thing before his departure to Afghanistan in March, but I think we have both pretty much come to the conclusion that maybe it just isn't the right time.

We haven't given up; we have just decided to wait.

And my plans for his deployment are just as up-in-the-air as ever, and I am more plagued by it now than ever before.

It just seems that there should be some sign from the heavens telling me what it is I'm meant to do with my life this next year.

After the miscarriage, I had all but mentally committed myself to another year at my place of employment... until the idea made me physically naseous.

And now that I have pretty much mentally un-committed myself to another year at my place of employment, I have found myself becoming wistful about missing out on next year with the students I know and love.

I just can't seem to make up my mind about exactly what it is that I want.

But, really, in my hypothetical I can move to the East Coast for several months world, the biggest dilemma is my house. What is one supposed to do with a living, breathing, needs-to-be-taken-care-of house while abandanoning one's life on the West Coast for half a year?
I won't get started on that ordeal though because it is just a convoluted mess.

I'll figure this all out eventually, I'm sure.
But for now, I'm sure you understand why I considered falling out of blogging for a bit. No one wants to log in to hear me complain about the uncertainty and confusion of my future. So, until I have something more interesting to say.... which could be tomorrow or next week

I bid you Ado.
or is it Adieu?

hmm... well... I suppose I will just have to go with

I bid you farewell.
For now.

5 Days

I was pregnant. Blissfully, joyfully pregnant. For about 5 days.

(Technically 5 weeks, but 5 days of positive pregnancy tests...)

Until I woke up yesterday morning and realized my body had begun to go through the painful process of no longer being pregnant.

I was devastated.

For those 5 days, though, I was floating on air. I can't remember the last time I was so happy. A fair statement might be that I have never actually been that happy before. Beaming from the inside out - that was me.

And Michael?
He was adorable. He went out and bought himself a cigar in celebration. He even bought a little baby outfit when we were at Marshalls one evening. He always said he wanted kids, but it wasn't until I was pregnant that I realized how excited about the prospect he truly was.

I'm feeling okay today - back to normal. A day at school with my students can always do that for me. That's a definite perk of my job. The kids keep me so on my toes and entertained during the day that it's next to impossible to dwell on my personal life there.

But yesterday? I mourned.

I thought that I had finally embarked on the next great journey of my life. I thought I had finally taken that ever-important step into parenthood. For whatever reason, it was not meant to be. I have tried not to guess at or wonder why.

It is what it is. And, at this point, I'm just ready to find out what comes next.

I'm directing a play. The big show is tomorrow.

I've been the drama teacher at my school for the past 4 years, but this year it's different.

We're actually selling tickets and refreshments and having a late evening performance. It's kind of a big deal.

And I'm kind of freaking out about it. Because two of the main characters keep messing up their lines in practice. And it's not remotely cute or amusing.

They kind of got their acts together today, so I didn't have to be the Wicked Witch of the West the day before the play. But I'm still totally freaked.

I just have to keep telling myself that I'm always freaked before and they always mess up before but they always come through in the end.

So I'm crossing my fingers, saying about a thousand Hail Marys, and hoping for the very best.

My Brand New Baby Nephew

My sister had her baby! He was born on a pretty awesome day: January 11. January 11 this year just so happened to also be our brother's 30th birthday and our grandparents' (if they were still alive) 67th wedding anniversary.

Suffice to say, I will not have trouble remembering his birthday and thanks to his year of birth it will always be really easy to calculate his age.

He is absolutely gorgeous. Or, at least, he appears to be gorgeous in all of the pictures I've seen, and everyone says he is, so it must be so.

I haven't actually seen him in person. Nor have I been able to hold him. I have, however, heard him make baby noises into the phone. That was pretty cool.

When his brother was born, I was one of the first people to see and hold him. It's odd that this time around, I will be the very last person to meet my nephew.

I'm okay with it, though. Because I have figured out that when I visit him in April he will be a super cool age where he will be smiling and making all kinds of awesome noises at me. I'm excited for that.

In the meantime, I'm crazy about the shirt I ordered for his big brother. It's a personalized "I'm the big brother" shirt. It has his name on it. And a little stick figure kid. It should provide some incredibly adorable picture moments. I can't wait.

And that's about all for now, folks.

Emergency!

I encountered quite an emergency this weekend! My whole life was thrown upside down. It was quite dreadful!

What happened, you ask? Why... my cell phone died... kind of.

It was AWFUL. In fact, yesterday I had some errands to run, and I was actually worried to leave the house without a working cell phone because what if something happened? I wouldn't be able to make a phone call! GAH!

Seriously. I wanted to go to Target and to the grocery store and I stood in my living room for a good 10 minutes with my purse on my shoulder and my car keys in my hand mentally battling myself as to whether it would be safe for me to leave my house and venture out into the big bad world without a working cell phone.

Thanks to this weekend's crisis, I am now fully aware of how desperately I depend on my cell phone... and it isn't pretty folks... not pretty at all.

And so Reality Sets In...

Michael has finally received what seems to be a pretty solid departure-for-Afghanistan date.

Also, it's sounding more and more written in stone that this deployment will be of the year-long variety.

*sigh.

I know. I know. I signed up for this shit. But that doesn't make it any less shitty.

On my way to work yesterday morning, my mind was a-racing. Reality has set in. And... I have a to-do list for Michael that is nearly a mile long. Not much on the list will be accomplished until the end of January, though. Because he is currently in the midst of a practice for Afghanistan exercise that lasts disgusting amounts of hours, 7 days a week.

Now that Michael's future is confirmed, I find that the wishy-washiness of my own plans is rather off-putting. Since my most recent post about the up-in-the-air-ness of my future, I have changed my mind a couple (hundred) times about my future possibilities. In consideration now is actually *GASP* staying in California for the duration of the deployment, *GASP* continuing to work at that bloated, blasted, maniacal place I call a school, and (not so gasp) recruiting my good friend to come and live with me when the lease is up on her apartment.

But that is all very hypothetical, and I am not yet quite ready to make any definite decisions. I have some more mulling around of ideas to do before I'm ready to do that. Don't you worry, though. I'll be sure to keep you posted.

In the meantime, send happy thoughts my way as I prepare (this is my third time around, and I still haven't quite figured out how exactly one is supposed to go about preparing for such a thing) for the year-long loss of my husband.