Motivation

So I haven't been feeling so hot lately. Nothing major, just the longest lasting cruise-induced stomach bug in the history of the world (that the boy also contracted but seems to have recovered from already).

B.C. (Before Cruise) my days consisted of laundry, sweeping, vacuuming, playing with the Beagador, doing dishes, cleaning bathrooms...etc. A.D. (After Debarkation) my days consist of lying in bed, moaning, sipping ginger ale, and maybe doing a load of laundry so my poor husband won't have to choose between doing his own midnight laundry and wearing a dirty shirt to work, again.

Then today, I stumbled upon this blog, which I generally read every day but had let slide since we got back.

I know that at least half of the world reads Nie's blog, but she has this unique ability that I always find good pastors have at church: they make you feel like they're talking just to you. Every word out of their mouth is something that God knew you needed to hear, and they say it gently, sometimes in a whisper or in silence. Even if they're telling you that you need to do better, or that you've been making mistakes, you still feel like the message is a sweet gift and you welcome it wholeheartedly without defense or anger.

Today she showed me that life sometimes sucks to one degree or another, but we have to get up, smile, and power on. I have not experienced her degree of suffering even in my darkest nightmares, and yet she's ironing clothes in her beautiful dress, probably humming to herself in perfect harmony while marinara from scratch bubbles away on the stove.

So today, while the boy is out watching the remake of "Nightmare on Elm Street" (I wisely opted out), I will tackle the three loads of laundry that need to be folded, the kitchen that looks like we live in tornado alley, and maybe even a few of the weeds that time forgot in the backyard.

Or at least take a shower.

Our cruise

Before my old age completely fades my memory I need to post about our amazing Caribbean vacation. It's unbelievable how the time beforehand and since then has crawled by, but the vacation itself went at the speed of light.

The most nerve wracking part of our trip was the plane ride to Miami, as my darling husband had a seizure on the first plane ride we ever took together, and since then I spend our jet time checking his chest for breathing and making sure he still has a pulse. I'm sure I look like a crazy woman staring at her husband intently while he sleeps, but I don't care.

Luckily, we arrived at the abominable Miami International Airport (never, ever again will we fly to MIA) without incident, and our luggage even arrived too. We took a short cab ride to the Hyatt Regency (not at nice as it should have been for a four star) and then met up with Corey's friends for dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse. We had an amazing time with them, and I was a little sad we hadn't booked an extra day or two to spend before we left on the cruise.

I won't waste time talking about embarkation as it was uneventful, and by noon we were onboard and the boy was enjoying his first of many, many trips to the 24-hour pizzeria.

I need to break our ports into a completely different post because there is no way I'm writing a twelve page narrative right now, but suffice it to say that the stops were the best part of our trip. It amazes me that there are people who go on cruise ships and never get off the boat at the stops, as the ability to travel to four countries in a week is what sold us in the first place, but there were many passengers that did so.

We did enjoy a few shows, a comedian, a juggler, and the drive-in sized movie screen mid-deck that showed movies at night. As a foodie, I was sure I would be disappointed in the cuisine, but it was rare that I didn't think dinner was delicious. Buffets are never my favorite, but I will say that to cook for 3,400 people at once must be quite an undertaking and the few times we partook in the buffet were satisfactory.

We didn't have any complaints with Carnival at all, and thought the service we received from everyone was remarkable. Our room was immaculate every day, and they did a wonderful job decorating our cabin as an anniversary present from my parents. I wish we could have brought our cabin steward home with us, as the boy loved the towel animals waiting for us every night.

One problem we did have revolved around our choice in cabins. When we booked there were few balcony cabins left, so we chose one mid-ship on the sixth floor. Unfortunately, the fifth floor was the activities floor and we had a room directly over the disco, piano bar, and nightclub. These rooms should definitely be flagged for excessive noise, because cruise ship entertainment does not abide by the time constraints of land, and we didn't get sweet relief from the pounding bass until after 4am some nights. Since I am old and like to sleep during vacation, this was a real problem, particularly since we reached each port around 8am. Unfortunately, this lack of sleep caused us to miss our cave tubing excursion in Belize which we were both incredibly excited for.

Fortunately for us, and unfortunately for someone else, a couple had to leave the cruise early for reasons that were never made clear to us, and my husband looked sweet enough complaining that they moved us to the blissfully quiet tenth floor halfway through our trip. It was a bit rougher being that far up on the ship, but I enjoyed my sleep after that and we were very grateful for the reprieve. We heard complaints from many other people near our original room, so I know that we were very lucky to get moved. My advice would be to avoid any and all rooms above or below a noisy area on a ship - sounds like common sense, but we figured that we would be up until late anyway so it would be fine. Unless you can sleep in what sounds like the stage area of a rock concert, these rooms are not for you.

If you cruise at all you are probably aware of the stigma that Carnival has as the Walmart of cruising, and we were very nervous because of this, but also wanted to avoid the pretentiousness of Celebrity and the crappy ports of call that Princess offered, so we took our chances. I will say that we had absolutely no reason to complain about Carnival, but we did find that the population aboard a Carnival ship reminded us of what we would see at Walmart. There were a LOT of obese people, wearing inappropriate clothing, doing their best to eat their fare's worth from the buffet...often. There were a lot of drunk, rude people bumping into you, cutting in lines, smoking where it wasn't allowed, and treating the staff like they were second class humans. There were people throwing trash on the ground, dropping tongs from the buffet and putting them back in the food, and letting their children run around the ship completely unchaperoned. I know that this is basically a cross section of what America has become, but our vacation definitely would have been better if people had required themselves to maintain any amount of decency.

I'm not sure that more money ever equals more manners, but I think next time we will try a different cruise line and hope that the air of pretentiousness scares away some of the classlessness that we experienced from fellow travelers. I understand that people want to let loose on their vacation, but it is never appropriate to be rude, no matter how entitled you think you are. The carnival employees worked very hard, and I felt awful for the room steward who had to clean up trashed cabins every day and the waiter who had to bring our table mates four different appetizers and three entrees per person.

All in all, we had a wonderful time and wish it hadn't flown by so quickly. I was actually able to go with the flow a bit more than normal, which turned out to be a real benefit because micro-managing a vacation like this wouldn't have been possible even if I'd tried.

I appreciate my husband working so hard every day to allow us to go on trips like this, and we can't wait for the next one!

Wordless Wednesday

One down, 79 to go...

Before I get too sidetracked with cruise nonsense, I have been meaning to write a post about our first wedding anniversary last weekend.

Since our cruise is our actual celebration, although not on our anniversary date, we wanted to keep the weekend of pretty low key. Add to that the fact that Nascar is in town that weekend, so my parents were down doing their biannual charity work, and we were pretty set on a dress down celebration.

We attended the race and watched it from the M&Ms suite, and met the driver, Kyle something-or-other.


We also got to talk to Coach Gibbs (who will always be a football coach to me, but apparently he now does something with racing), although I refrained from yelling foul mouthed Redskins/Dallas banter that would have embarrassed my husband. I will say that if you're going to attend a Nascar race, doing so from the suites is the only way to survive the sweaty, drunken, slurred southern drawl, matted back hair crowd, as well as preserve your hearing for later in life. In fact, I prefer attending all major sporting events in the suites, except for hockey because then you are less likely to find yourself in a middle of a drunken brawl and that is precisely why I attend hockey games in the first place.

My parents got us a wonderfully thoughtful gift in that my mom recreated the top layer of our wedding cake, and managed to track down our imported blown glass cake topper that flung itself off of our cake precisely fifteen minutes into our reception, shattering all over the entry area and leaving a gash in our cake the size of a snowball. Had I not been so intensely sick of everything wedding related and more concerned with when I could take a nap than with what our cake looked like, I probably would have sobbed. But now I have it back, and I love it.




My darling husband also researched the fact that the first anniversary is the paper anniversary and he presented me with beautifully rich monogrammed stationery and a journal. I updated his storybook/scrapbook with pictures of the Beagador and got him golf stuff because, well, that's what he likes.

With an entire year of blissful wed-dom under my belt, I feel the need to share my vast wisdom with the masses, so I will tell you the secret to a happy marriage: Choose your mate wisely, because at some point things are going to really suck and they will be what you have to fall back on. That, and to kiss, even when you want to smack each other, because kissing each other whenever you want to is why you married each other to begin with (according to Sweet Home Alabama anyway, which is like the marriage Bible).

Anti-Infertility Bills

The legislation in Arizona is currently determining how to proceed with two bills that are fundamentally anti-infertility. I won't bore you with all of the details, because really, those who aren't dealing with infertility aren't going to find it all that interesting. But, I will say that if you have been previously, or are now so inclined to write to your representatives this is a good time to do so. Here is a copy of the letter that I have emailed and faxed to every single Arizona Representative. If you would like more information, let me know.


Apr 13, 2010

Representative Doug Quelland
Capitol Complex- House, Room 128
1700 West Washington Street
Phoenix, AZ 85007-2890

Dear Representative Quelland,

As a resident of the great state of Arizona I urge you to oppose two
bills, SB 1306 and SB 1307, which will make it harder for couples with infertility to have a family.

I am aware of amendments that have been made to the bills, but THEY HAVE NOT BEEN "FIXED." They are still anti-infertility
treatment and anti-family. I strongly oppose these bills and I will be watching how you vote.

In vitro fertilization (IVF) has been practiced in this country for
almost 30 years, bringing more than 50,000 babies to overjoyed couples each year in the U.S. alone, and something approaching 3 million babies worldwide. This medical treatment is mainstream, medically proven, and accepted.

Donor egg treatment, similarly, has been practiced for more than 20 years all across the country. It is the standard of care for many
couples, especially young women with premature ovarian failure and women who have undergone lifesaving chemotherapy to beat cancer. For such women, if they ever want to become pregnant and have a baby with their husbands, donor egg therapy may be their only hope.

Yet, suddenly the Arizona legislature has decided to single out these life-giving, pro-family medical treatments from among all others and subject them to a new regime of Governmental restriction. I urge you to oppose these bills.

SB 1307 harms us because:
-- it sends our doctors to prison if a microscopic embryo is
"harmed;" this will drive doctors from Arizona and mean no
hope for people with the disease of infertility;
-- it contains vague language which could be interpreted to limit
treatment options such as embryo cryopreservation, a key tool in
minimizing the risk of multiple births which can be unhealthy for
mother and baby;
-- it stops progress on research to better treat infertility;
--- it makes it hard if not impossible for infertility patients to
donate any unused embryos to research, which is the preference for many
post-infertility couples;
-- it accords unprecedented protections to microscopic embryos (policed
by the threat of prison for doctors) that could plainly interfere with
the practice of IVF in Arizona.

SB 1306 interferes with donor egg treatment by:
-- imposing burdensome and inaccurate informed consent obligations on
doctors who offer donor egg treatment;
-- threatening doctors with loss of their medical licenses and prison
if they fail to follow the new informed consents to the letter;
-- limiting or outlawing valuable research involving eggs that could
help treat infertility, and laying the groundwork for further
restrictions by describing egg donation in dehumanizing terms.

If embryo cryopreservation is prohibited, Arizona will become the Triplet, Quadruplet, or Quintuplet Capital of the country, as women will be forced to transfer all the embryos they may produce in a cycle.
Those high order multiple births will wreak havoc on health care costs, not to mention the poor maternal and child outcomes that would likely result.

Alternatively, in the absence of embryo cryopreservation, doctors could be restricted to allowing only a few eggs to be fertilized so only a
few embryos are created in which case patients and doctors will likely
just leave the state rather than receive substandard medicine at
astronomic costs.

My husband and I are currently dealing with the devastation of
infertility, and we know first-hand of the difficulties it brings. I
urge you to reconsider making this process any more difficult for my
family and for all of those dealing with the process of creating a
family in the presence of infertility.

On behalf of the more than 100,000 Arizona citizens who are contending
with the heartbreak of infertility, I respectfully urge you to oppose
SB 1306 and SB 1307 when they come before the House for a vote.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Christina Park

Sweet therapy

It's amazing the things that people use in place of cognitive behavioral therapy: drugs, sex, shopping, food, alcohol, even working out can become destructive in an addictive behavior pattern.

Last year when I had a bad bout of costochondritis, an ER doctor originally diagnosed me with anxiety issues. It didn't feel right to me, but I'm a pretty high strung person so I didn't completely disagree. Knowing that if I was manifesting such serious psychosomatic symptoms I needed help from an expert, I took it upon myself to go to a psychiatrist. Although she agreed that I have anxious tendencies, and she offered me some new coping mechanisms for that, she also diagnosed me with sanity and tried to fire me twice in the last year. I only saw her every few weeks, and each time she tried to tell me that there was nothing else she could offer me, I changed the subject. Unfortunately, people with chronic pain disorders are often called crazy, acutely sensitive, or even hypochondriacs, and I wanted that ace up my sleeve should some doctor again decide that I am simply insane and manifesting my own pain problems. It's easy to tell them that you're in the care of a mental health professional and she deems you completely sane.

Unfortunately, I have officially been booted from the shrink. She told me that she will be happy to consult with any future doctor on my mental health, but that she was offering me no further benefit.

In truth, she wasn't offering me much benefit to begin with, because I choose to cope with my stress in an unusual way: I turn into a modern day hybrid of June Cleaver and Betty Crocker (who listens to Flogging Molly while baking).

With fertility treatments causing me to be moodier than John Mayer, my oven has been getting quite the workout lately. And thanks to our amazing fruit and vegetable co-op, I have had no shortage of beautiful spring produce to use up.

In the last few days I have gotten up, hit the gym, and then come home to don my beautiful pink retro polka dotted apron. I have baked double fudge stuffed devil's food cupcakes with cream cheese icing, a dozen sausage/egg/cheese/potato breakfast burritos, a gallon of fresh strawberry jam, loaves of strawberry bread and banana bread, and now I'm starting on apple cinnamon monkey bread for the boy to take to work tomorrow. I have no idea what my next session will involve, but I have a basket of sweet potatoes, apples, a pineapple and two yellow squash to use up soon (Iron Chef anyone?).

Unfortunately for my poor husband who has been amping up his workouts lately, none of my favorite coping mechanisms are exactly low calorie. Sure, I substitute wheat flour and splenda here and there, but I doubt it makes up for the pounds of chocolate, butter, chorizo, or sour cream I use.

The girl scouts who dropped off cases of cookies to the base today to thank our troops are also not helping his cause.

So while Tiger Woods and Jesse James chose very different 'addictions' (I don't believe this for a minute, I'm just being sarcastic about these creeps), I still didn't choose a very healthy one. Perhaps there are people out there who are addicted to meditation, or volunteering, or knitting hats for homeless eskimo children, but we each choose our path.

Mine looks like this:






Tasty path, right?

April showers don't let me down.

Okay, so it's been months since I've blogged.

I read other's blogs with such envy as they manage to make cooking dinner and taking out the trash news-worthy, while I struggle to figure out what in our lives would make good blogging fodder.

In a little less than three weeks we leave for our Caribbean cruise and I am both excited for vacation and terrified that the bikinis that I must wear will be hideously unflattering. Prior to now, I would have just stopped eating for a few weeks beforehand, dropped ten pounds and been done with it. But, it turns out that starvation mode isn't so good for the body when you're trying to get knocked up so I've been sticking to my promised 1200 calories a day and putting in time at the gym a little more often. Our fertility specialist won't treat us if my BMI falls below 19, and right now I'm at exactly 20, so unfortunately I'm not allowed to lose much more. Although I'd love to get back to my high school weight, I am happy to now be a little lighter than the weight I was when I was diagnosed with cancer five years ago (FIVE - YAY!). If you didn't see me in the year or two that followed I will just let you know that hormone therapy packs on the pounds! At the highest point I think I had put on THIRTY pounds! Yikes. Not ever being heavy before, it was tough to take off, and especially hard to do the healthy way since Corey isn't a fan of me only eating every other day. I have about four more pounds that I'd like to lose, and then I'll be done.

We are trucking along with the infertility treatment. I will spare the gory details because not only is no one interested but me, but it also involves a lot of acronyms, drama, emotion, and disgusting things you'd probably rather not know about Corey or I. So, just rest assured that we are doing whatever we can medically do.

Corey was officially promoted last week. I know it seems like forever ago that he found out he was getting promoted, but the Air Force takes it's sweet time and does things in a particular order so he was one of the last groups to get promoted. Although it doesn't change things much in his particular job, it's still nice for him to see an additional stripe on his uniform and it's another step on our ladder.

Easter was quiet around here, but we will have an eventful April so it was kind of nice to stay home, catch up on episodes of LOST and chill with the puppy (who is almost not a puppy anymore). Next weekend is NASCAR which means that my parents will be down working for their charity, and our one year anniversary is Sunday, which means that I have exactly six days to figure out what kind of lovely paper central present I am getting for my darling husband. Do nudie magazines count for a paper present?