Really?!!!

Taking all guesses as to what the heck this is... A new tool promised to increase fertility? No.  A canteen? Nope....A whistle made for the likes of Hagrid? Close, but no.  

Sorry I've been missing in blog-world for the past week or so.  We've been dealing with the suck-storm (insert appropriate S-word) centered around this hunk of metal above since Thursday.  This my friends, is a Catalytic Converter...I don't know much about it, but I do know that if it gets cut  stolen out from under your car, it will then sound like 30 Harleys on 'roids when you start and proceed to drive it.  I know this because it happened to my car on Thursday last week, while I was at work.  

Here's how it all broke (ha ha get it? broke ..) down: (I can laugh now because its now sitting in the garage fixed).

• I return to my car after a long day of schlepping furniture and playing design fairy.  It's summer in the California central valley and it is HOT.  All I want to do is get in the car and blast the AC.  I start the car and it sounds AND feels like my car turned has into a Harley and I have a big loud cartoon-like flame blowing out from under the car under my seat.  My car has indigestion, and I don't know why.  Like it was a bad dream, I stop the car and restart it, thinking surely it must have been the way I turned the key (hopefully?) Negative Ghostwriter, my car is prime-time F-d. 
•  Luckily, someone was with me that new about cars.  He immediately got on the ground and noticed that the Catalytic Converter had been CUT out from underneath my car. Cut and stolen. One and done.  I didn't know what the heck I was looking for, but I got on the floor to take a peek, and there was obviously something missing.  
• I get mad, pissed, frustrated, angry and... a potty mouth.
• Enter mall security (history: I work at a mall, oh the stories I can tell), Enter police.
• Policeman takes my info, enters it in, comes back and gives me a Case#. I ask what my odds are, he replies "Odds? There are none".  He explains further that it took the person that did this less than 2 minutes to cut it out and unless they catch him/her in the act of doing it, or randomly pull over a vehicle with 40 Catalytic Converters in it, they'll keep getting away with it.  
• Drum Roll Please:   This bastard will likely get $40 for my Catalytic Converter.  When the cop told me that, I immediately said "F*&^, I'd leave them a $100 bill to leave my F*&*%$# car alone".  I told you. Potty. Mouth. I immediately looked at the officer and apologized out of some ridiculous fear that I could be cuffed for having the mouth of a sailor.  

The night ended with my DH and I having a very manic case of the Charlie Browns, as I like to call it. We were over analyzing our next steps.  We were cursing the Universe for continually shitting on us.  Is it too much to ask for some fertility Universe? Fine.. if you can't grant us that, could you please, for the love of whatever it is that rules you, please don't F-with our car, so that we can go to work, make the money we need to pay for the likely IVF you'll make us do...and oh yeah, we'd like to be able to use that car to drive to the treatment.

Fast forward to now, the drama has subsided. The car is fixed ($440 later), safely in the garage until we figure out how to prevent this from happening again.

Welcome June ICLWers!

Welcome to my blog!  Have a seat, stay a while...this is my first ICLW and I'm not really sure where to start!!! I haven't had the time to do an "about me" section yet, but if you scroll to older posts I did do an ABCs on my fertility.  So under the ICLWs  site, I believe I listed that my blog was mainly about the 80s, TTC, and MFI.  So…without further adieu: 

80s: I'm a kid of the 80s and proud of it! Every friday I try to do a "Flashback Friday" post that has something to do with the 80s, sometimes its toys, sometimes its food, (actually twice it has been!), maybe this week will be music!  I got the idea from my local radio station. Every friday they play music from the 80s in the morning, and it makes me so happy going to work :) Lately its been the one consistent thing I can blog about because our TTC road is moving along at a slow place (more to follow). 

TTC/MFI: Yup, thats us, we're trying to conceive…and failing as of yet. Which sucks, I hate failing, and I refuse! But some higher being as a different plan, so try try again for now.  DH is 33, and I am 30 (steadily approaching 31..barf) I had been on birth control for about 10 years and thought for sure (like everyone else) we'd be knocked up in no time.  Fast forward to a year later, and still no baby. Well, no human baby at least.  We've got the best furbaby around…no really, she is the best :)  So far we're still waiting to see if I am Hypothyroid (waiting on a second bloodiest) and Monday June 20 is DH's 3rd semen analysis.  All in all it seems as if we're battling male factor infertility.

We're pretty laid back as a couple, and we thought we did everything in the right, logical order: education, career, house, finances, living as a couple and enjoying life just being "us" and then, when we decide to pull the trigger and start a family, things didn't fall into place as we expected them to.  You never expect for life to be like this. There are good days and bad, and on the bad days I like to go around reading blogs because lets face it, misery loves company, and sometimes, my real world is far to full of fertiles and precious grandchildren.  

I had issues with coming up with a name for my blog.  I didn't want it to strictly be about TTC, but lets face it, its a pretty big deal in our lives right now.  If you decide to stick around and be my friend, I'm warning you now, I tend to be a smart a$$, so consider yourself forewarned.  I like to talk about random things, pet peeves and so on.  One of the biggest for me is when people use the word irregardless…I've had big arguments about this!  I've got a few other "non-words" that I hear every now and then that make my skin crawl.  So I figured, hell, I'm not writing about anything earth shattering, and this is basically just a place for me to vent when everyone is tired of listening, so screw it: Let's Conversate About Irregardless. Ha. makes no sense, and is absolutely wrong, but its mine and I love it.  

Thanks for stopping by and reading my ramblings, I promise things will get juicer once we delve further into this whole TTC process (lets hope b/c I'm not getting any younger).  If you're struggling for a comment to leave, I'll throw you a bone: What are some of your favorite "non-words"?  Happy ICLW

Flashback Friday #5

It's the late edition of Flashback Friday!!! Sorry, it's been a hectic week, but I've come up with an appropriate item for today's Flashback Friday since the weather is finally warming up here on west coast!!! We went from winter to summer all in one month.  How many of you remember New York Seltzer?!  I used to LOVE these drinks. I loved everything about them, the little glass blottle, the picture of the NY skyline on the thin foam label that was fun to rip off, and sadly, they just disappeared. I remember black cherry and raspberry being particularly tasty.  Nowadays its redbull this and rockstar that. Barf. Bring back New York Seltzer!

The other drink thats a flashback is: SqueezIt!

It's definitely no New York Seltzer, but it's totally 80s! Bottoms up ~ Happy Flashback Friday!

Hurry Up and Wait...

This past monday, DH and I had the appointments we've been waiting for.  DH had his 1st appointment with a Urologist to discuss the previous 2 semen analyses. I had an appointment to further determine if I am in fact Hypothyroid.  DH got the referral for the Urologist back in April...for a June appointment.  I put off my thyroid appointment for the same day so that I could just take the whole day off work. What were the results at the end of the day?? DH has to do a 3rd analysis since the first 2 were from the same "crop"...and my thyroid results were "borderline" but not enough to warrant my Dr. to prescribe me anything just yet, especially because she said all other blood work came back normal, with normal ovulation.  I have to go back in, get my TSH re-tested (she said sometimes things are off) and she also requested I get tested for an antibody that would predispose me to being hypothyroid. If I test positive for that antibody, then it's possible that we're catching it early and then I would start medication.  So all in all, we did a lot of waiting, to hurry up and wait some more.  I'm thinking its going to be more of the same from here on out.

So...DH 3rd analysis June 20
I go in Monday June 13 after work for a repeat bloodtest (TSH) and antibody test

Flashback Friday #4

Nooney Nooney Noo….  C'mon, say it out loud...do you remember what I'm talking about?  It's the rolling typewriter from Sesame Street!!! He would squeak into frame, and teach us the alphabet, 1 letter at a time.  For whatever reason, I loved it…some of you might remember him, some may not, I tried researching it more for this post, and it seems as if this poor guy never had an official name :(  

This video clip is of the letter "M", as in Magic.  

I'm a believer in magic, why not.   Happy Flashback Friday… Nooney Nooney Noo…. :)

Blogging Training Wheels

Looks like they fell off!! I was trying to add labels to my previous posts, and I somehow managed to list my post about what I do for a living as the most recent....sorry I don't know how to fix that!  I'm also still trying to figure out how to do an about me section, so please bear with me.  This will be a short post for now, just to clarify why that post looks like its new,  it's not...same old post.

I'll update soon about the appointments we had today, but in a nutshell they sucked in terms of gaining information.

I'm A Merchandiser

So, a little about what I do...I'm a Store Designer for a nation-wide housewares/furniture retailer.  I'm like the store fairy. I come in before we open and flip things around all day long trying to generate sales.  I do the windows, the floorplan, design all the displays within the store that are constantly changing.  I can set a Thanksgiving Table that will blow your mind. :) and come Christmas, well, I turn into an elf and I'm covered in glitter for 3 months straight.

I love that I get to be creative each day I come to work, and it's great not sitting at a desk all day in front of a computer. The downside? The lovely PUBLIC.  I like to think that because I'm doing the displays that I'm invisible to customers, too bad I'm not.  My favorite is when I'm standing on top of a ladder hanging something ridiculously too large for someone my size to be even carrying and getting asked "Do you work here?"---Ahh...if I had a dollar.

Here's a funny video that is about a Fashion Merchandiser...although I'm not in fashion, the cartoon speaks a lot to how the conversation goes when people ask me what I do for a living.  If you get offended by language, well, consider yourself warned, but its kinda OK because they're cute cartoons =)

And yes...I do stand on things I often should not be standing on...(like everyday)...and yes, I do hurt myself a lot, probably because I'm usually standing on things I shouldn't be standing on.