February 10

Tomorrow is February 10. This date sticks out clearly in my mind and I am not sure how I feel about it. February 10 was my due date. It was a date that I was meant to look forward to. I don't know if I dread it now or quite how I feel. Had things worked out, I would have either already become a mother or been at the maximum, 2 weeks from becoming one. I feel like all my thoughts on this date and this landmark are muddled and I don't know what to make of it. I don't know if I feel sadness, anger, depression, acceptance? I spent a lot of time thinking about this day-and I find it strange that I don't know how I feel now that it has arrived. I think the word that might describe it a certain quietness. It was a date that was supposed to be so thrilled about and now it is just another day.

Painting Cabinets

This has got to be one of the most deceivingly difficult projects I have ever undertaken with regard to our home improvement projects - and after this attempt, I think that I will spend the extra money to just buy new cabinet doors.

We are re-doing our bathrooms. We are currently working primarily on our master bathroom. Originally, this room was going to get a complete overhaul-then we went to one income so that plan got scrapped. We decided on simple. New linoleum, new countertops, paint the cabinets, paint the walls, replace the sink, replace the toilet, build a new cabinet unit in the wasted space. Easy enough...ugh!

If anyone ever says, just paint the cabinets! Ignore them! First I had to remove the cabinets. Then I sanded, and sanded, and sanded, and sanded. Then I put primer on them. They were rough. Back to the sanding with finer grit paper. Finally, they were ready for another primer coat. The shellac primer dripped. I sanded again. So far we have a whole lot of sanding and then 2 coats of shellac. Ok - so then I buy the semi gloss paint and primer in 1. Coat 1 on the back side, wait a day for it to dry. Coat 2 on the back side, wait 3 days for it to set so that I can flip the doors. Gasp! Some of the paint dripped from the backside paint job to the front. Ugh. More sanding. Then coat 1 on the front side. The paint drips, the crevices are hard to get into, pooling is tough to avoid. I still have another coat to do on the front side. I dread it. The saddest part about this adventure is that I will always know where the flaws are in the paint - and I will have to wonder if others can see it. Part of me wonders if the effort was fruitless -perhaps we should just buy new cabinets....

Organization

I am taking a stab at organization today. Several months ago, I went through all of my clothes and got rid of things that I haven't worn in - oh - well, since before I started dating N (which was summer of 2004) - um yea, just because you still fit in clothes from waaaay back does not excuse keeping them in my closet unworn, cluttering up everything. So, I gave about 3 boxes the heave ho and said adios to these old and forgotten items. Now - I admit, I kept some things...I am not sure if it is for sentimental value or simply because the items were expensive or because they were from my little sister's closet (um, tee hee-I don't think she reads this..!) but there were things that I kept, despite not donning in the last 7 years.

I made N go thru his clothes too - well actually, I tried - hard. I pulled out all of his clothes that I had not seen him wear since we got together and put them in the middle of the bedroom - and let me tell ya, there were a ton! My little packrat (the hubs) was none too pleased when I told him he had to get rid of some stuff. All told, I don't even think that he got rid of a box - and he was not happy about it (he still brings it up all the time). I love that he is sentimental, but 3 drawers full of tee shirts from high school football seems a little excessive to me. Let me quantify this clothing problem for you. At our cabin in McCall, there are 2 entire boxes full of tee shirts - one just white, the other, memorabilia. There is a whole closet full of hanging items from coats to sweaters (um, I don't think I have ever seen the hubs wear a sweater, and I have known him since we were 13!). Our guest bedroom here at home has an armoire -  it is full of memory tee shirts, unmentionables that will never be worn again, socks that he doesn't like and a handful of other forgotten items. There is a box in the attic with more of these socks that he doesn't like. There is also another box of tee shirts in said attic. While I would love to make the decision for him on many of these things, I am just not mean enough to get rid of his stuff. So, I just keep boxing it up - and it will end up being forgotten and collect dust. I digress.

So today I woke up with an, I want to get organized feeling. So - I went through my already gone thru clothes and lo and behold, I managed to separate myself from a whole 'nother bag full of clothes. Hurrah! We are re-doing our closet, so I pulled everything out - it filled up the whole guest room - not sure how because I can stand in our "walk-in-closet" stretch out my arms and touch walls on both sides. There were a ton of forgotten items in there! I spent yesterday saying "my gloves!" and "I still have this??" Among discoveries I made - we have a TON of coats and sweatshirts - both of us. I mean, whoa! Other discoveries? I wear a small fraction of my wardrobe - and I mean small fraction. Why oh why do I have so many clothes still? And how did I fit everything before I did purge 1 and purge 2. That also got me thinking - I have a small fraction of the clothing volume as most of my friends - so where the heck do they put their clothes and shoes?

Alright - I have procrastinated long enough - I really need to finish up this little project of mine. Wish me luck in letting things go - because sometimes, it's hard. And it is especially hard when you get rid of stuff and the hubs keeps everything.

Finances and other tidbits.

I have been watching the showtime television show Weeds on Netflix. I am almost done with season 1 and for reasons I cannot determine, I really like the show. I feel no connection to any of the characters, however, for reasons unknown - it has caught my attention. The good news is - there are 5 seasons available for me to watch instantly thru my Wii. Netflix is really hit or miss with their streaming library - they have Weeds, which is a show that I have heard very little about - in fact - I don't even know that I have any friends that watch it. True Blood, however, is not available for streaming, and I know many people who are devout fans. I have yet to figure out what the rhyme or reason is behind Netflix's availability of streaming videos.

I know I haven't blogged about our trip to the national championship - I will - I promise I will. Once I find the football pump out in the garage to pump myself back up - losing really takes it out of you. I kid - sorta. The boys played very well, and I am very proud of them and very proud to be a Duck - and no matter what - I still love the Ducks and cannot wait for next season - but I am still sad - sniff.

I had a date night with a girlfriend the other night and we were talking about finances. I mentioned that I had reduced my interest on all of my debt payments since losing my job. This was not magical - pity based reductions - anyone can do it. So, with that - I pass on my knowledge of interest rate reduction (not really knowledge, courage might be a better word). In a nutshell, all you have to do is ask. Have you ever heard the saying "it never hurts to ask" - well - that's the name of the game in debt reduction.

-I called my mortgage lender to ask about refinancing into a lower rate. I had been dragging my feet on this for a while because we had a decent rate (best rate you could get back in early 2008 when we bought our house) and because I didn't want to have to pay points or appraisal fees or any other fees for getting refinanced. We had worked hard to pay down a significant portion of our house so tacking more on to principal just put a bad taste in my mouth. But I called anyway. Turns out, our mortgage lender had a program that reduced interest rate without any of the fees - why? you might ask - well, because the mortgage lender knows that there are lots of low rates out there and out of fear that I will take my business elsewhere and refinance with someone else, they offer to lower my rate without so much as a fee. The moral here? All I did was ask.

-I went into my bank (well, credit union) and asked about lowering my interest rate on my car loan. I have had the loan since 2007 - back when rates for cars ran about 6.75% - since then, the rates have plummeted. So, I figured - what the heck, I may as well ask. So ask I did - low and behold, without so much as a fee, they would lower my rate so long as my credit was above 720. Hurray! There went that rate too. And she lowered my rate on my credit line associated with my debit card to boot!

-The one that will resound most with the ladies (and gents, if there are any that read this blog), is the credit card interest rate. Yep, thats right - the evil, soulless credit card companies will generally lower your rate when you ask (I say generally, because I am sure there are all kinds of circumstances that would cause them not to). I have done this on several occasions. Sometimes you have to get a little, how can I say this nicely...firm? Ok fine, bitchy - but they have always lowered it.

So here is how the call goes - you call the number on the back of the card. You hit the buttons or speak to the machine until you get thru to a person. I generally resort to hitting 0 a million times, or if I am unfortunate enough to get one of those machines that is supposed to be able to talk to you, I just say operator like a million times - don't resort to swearing - she will hang up on you. Once you get a person - nicely say - I think that the interest rate I am paying is too high and I was hoping that you could reduce it for me. Usually this results in them lowering the interest rate and ending the call. This is the best case scenario. There was one instance when I had to threaten to pay off the balance and close my card - ok - there were two instances. On one occasion, I had a Victoria's Secret card - Victoria's card is evil and I actually had to make good on my threat, I paid it off and promptly closed the account and destroyed the card (and learned never to hold credit cards from big box stores or other mall places - happily, I have only 1 credit card now). The other time, they sent me on to the manager and she changed my rate straight away. On the most recent change - I got my interest rate reduced from 21% to 11% - the most infuriating part about the high interest is that my credit is considered Excellent! The happy news is that we pay our cards off monthly - hence the fact that I allowed myself to have a 21% interest rate - however, there was one month that racked up quite a bill and when I got a jaw dropping $75.00 interest charge - my hair stood on end and I called the card company straight away.

So there you go - happy reducing all! Good luck!

NATTY BOUND!

N and I will be leaving early in the AM and driving to Glendale, AZ for the DUCK'S NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP DEBUT!! We are so excited to get to attend this game and be a part of Oregon history! WE LOVE OUR DUCKS!

Pictures from Vacation and Christmas

As promised, pictures galore! Note that there are 3 posts below this one that I added last night and relate to these pictures (ok, well one post below relates to them) -

Christmas with N's family! 

Snow on the mountain while snowboarding

Trooper and N go for a ride!

And then FC (furr child) and Gpaw get

 Skiing/Boarding at Brundage

 On the lift

 Snowshoing - pristine!

 I will replace this with a flipped version....someday!

 She was ready for more, I was beat. This pic says it all!

Epic scrabble. The high scoring word with 38 points? Farm put down by N's Dad 

The snow was deep! 

Hope you had some happy holidays! We did!

The Break - From Facebook (gulp!)

*** Note: Due to the lack of internet service in McCall, I kept posts on a word processor and then uploaded them all tonight. There are 3 posts all together that are new - the first (this one below) is not particularly uplifting, so feel free to skip :D ***

I have made the decision to take a break from Facebook. There was this unhealthy masochistic part of me that trolled through it on a daily (multi-daily?) basis looking for people’s big news. When I would read things like “Hurray, expecting our first!” or “will this morning sickness ever go away?” or the happy posts with ultrasound pics or the “we’re days from becoming first time parents,” there was this part of my stomach that would be sick, this twinge of sadness, moment of bitterness and then the guilty moment where I would think to myself why would you take away from other people’s joy? Why would you take a moment so happy in someones life and twist it into something sad, bitter, heartbreaking?

And so, because I am 27 and will have my 10 year reunion this year and I am in that time in my life where increasingly, people will be having babies - I have decided to take a break from Facebook for an indeterminate amount of time. I am not sure if this break will last for a few weeks, months, until I get pregnant, etc. I have not determined the scope of the break, but I do know that I need a break. I do not want to be the bitter person that I have found myself being lately. I want to be the supportive happy person that I have always been - and so, as an emotional protection, I have eliminated one of the sources to my bitterness. 

I have also made a pact with myself. When/if I do become pregnant, I will not be sharing it on Facebook. Most people who are going through this journey, go through it silently and painfully - they do not pipe up and honestly write about it like I have done - and in fact, I have been silent about it on Facebook because honestly? I don’t want to be the curmudgeon, the debbie downer, the sourpuss. As a result of people being silent on the subject, you just never know what someone’s reality is, what battles they are fighting. I know what posts about pregnancy, sickness related to pregnancy, etc have done for my emotional well being and I certainly do not want to be the source of pain for anyone else. 

I don’t blame people for sharing their happy news. Had we gotten pregnant in May and had it work out and been due in February, I probably would have shared the heck out of our happy news - because I wouldn’t have known any different - I wouldn’t have had an understanding of the struggle it could be to have a baby, I wouldn’t have known the pain of loss, I wouldn’t have the life experience to tell me to stop and think about the possible reality other people were living. 

I would imagine there are similarities in many life situations - everyone getting married when you would love nothing more than to find your forever and get married. Everyone buying a house when financially, it won’t or can’t work out for you. People going on vacation after vacation when you haven’t gone on a single one. People spending happy holiday’s with their families when your family has been rocked by loss. There are many situations that can create a bitterness or pain from reading statuses on Facebook. 

I try to be cognizant when posting or sharing - but I am sure that I have been the creator of someones pain through a post I have made on FB - I will never know. Part of me knows that there will always be things written that will hurt and that I should just grow a thicker skin and not be bothered - but for now, things do hurt, and my emotions are up and down - and avoiding things that cause more hurt is what is right for me at the moment. 

Lying in bed last night, I told Nick, “I think I am going to take a break from Facebook” and he said “I think that would be good” - that was all the confirmation I needed to know that at this time in my life - there are other, more constructive ways to stay in touch with my loved ones.