Yet Another Thing That's Surprised Me About Being Pregnant That Shouldn't
So this coming week is my husband's spring break, and we're going to Vegas! I'm so excited...it's just going to be great to spend some time with him. His mom and brother are there, too (that's why we're going, actually...his mom is recently widowed)...it's going to be good to see them.
I work at home mostly, have been wearing comfy jeans and T-shirts pretty much since I got pregnant. But today I go to pack and I want to look cute for Vegas, right? And have some outfits to dress up in in case we decide to do some fun things in the evenings? And I tell you...trying to find outfits that fit? Not an easy task.
OK, of course I knew I was going to gain weight when I got pregnant. And I thought I was totally fine with that. But the reality is after spending my entire life trying to stay as skinny as possible, to realize that 95% of your cute clothes don't fit and aren't going to fit for some time...that's a little sobering. Especially when you don't even look pregnant yet.
My husband came upstairs mid-packing and I got all teary (I know there's insane hormonal stuff going on these days too, so it's not all me being crazy). He's so sweet and supportive, I know he'll love me even as I, ahem, expand over the next months. He made me feel really beautiful and loved. And with his help I even managed to put together a few outfits. Plus he said we could go shopping.
Love this guy.
Stay tuned over the next week for (sober and nauseous and tired) dispatches from Sin City!
Happy weekend everyone. :)
Image credit: 8 News NOW.
Another Little Road Trip...This Time Brekenridge
One of the snow sculptures we saw up in Brekenridge today.
Another little road trip today...trying to distract myself from obsessing about my IVF cycle. Went over Kenosha and Hoosier passes to Brekenridge, where they were having a snow sculpture contest...pretty cool. We also saw some friends of my brothers that I know who were up there snowmobiling. I asked my brother if I could snowmobile and keep my heart rate down (not allowed to raise my heart rate high with the IVF) and he laughed.
"No," he said (and I knew that was probably the answer...my brother and all those guys tend to be a little extreme). "I'll take you some other time."
Four o'clock and sitting at my brother's house now waiting for my clinic to call and tell me if it's time to trigger tonight or not. Praying not so travel/missing school is not so bad for my husband. Triggering tomorrow would make things so much easier. But of course it's out of my control...we'll just have to make things work however they shake out.
We've got a snowstorm coming, too...feeling anxious about things I can't control...
A Warm January Saturday, Perfect for a Road Trip to Manitou Springs/ Colorado Springs
My uncle's old red VW bug. Love the colors on old cars...there's something about them...
Lovely day today with my brother...really just can't spend enough time with that guy. He's wonderful. One of the silver linings of having to do multiple IVF procedures at my out-of-town clinic is all the time we've gotten to spend together over the past year (I stay with him when I'm in Denver).
Today, we drove to Manitou Springs and went to see the Seven Falls. Beautiful, and warm enough to walk around out there in a T-shirt, which is pretty much unheard of in January. After, we went to my aunt's in Colorado Springs (my uncle died a few weeks ago, so really wanted to see her.) My cousin kicked all of our butts playing Boggle. (At the end I had 8 points, she had 43. Kind of embarrassing when you work professionally as a writer.)
My aunt had up the loveliest picture of her and my uncle at their high school prom...it must have been the very early 60s (they're older than my parents)...my aunt had on the most divine dress, knee-length, white eyelet fabric. And the cat-eye glasses she wore in her wedding picture...to die for.
Back to Manitou for dinner (chili renellos...yum) and then the drive home, most of it through national forest, really remote and dark and quiet and peaceful at night. We did that drive to visit my Aunt and Uncle dozens and dozens of times as children...it was kind of nice to do it with my brother again.
Good day.
Out-of-Town Fertility Clinic
I'm going to Denver next week for two weeks, as we're in the middle of a fertility cycle and my clinic's out of town (we live on the other side of Colorado).
Having to travel for treatment complicates an already difficult situation. I was feeling really overwhelmed this past week trying to figure everything out--where am I going to stay, who's going to be with me when I need someone at the clinic (my husband's in college and can't really miss class so I'm doing the trip by myself), how are we going to get my husband there on retrieval day for his "donation", who's going to give me shots (I am a total baby with needles and have yet to give myself even one), are the passes going to be OK or will there be a ton of snow making driving difficult/impossible, how am I going to deal with missing my husband, etc. This is on top of all the normal stuff everyone has to deal with, such as having to take time off work for all the appointments etc. and trying to keep emotionally calm while doing something with such high stakes while all hopped up on hormones.
It'd probably do me good to focus on the positives of the situation:
1) I am so lucky that I get to go to my clinic, which one of the best in the world
2) My brother lives about an hour outside Denver, up in the mountains, and I can stay with him vs having to spend two weeks in a hotel
3) I telecommute for work, so there's no need to take all this time off
I'm grateful for these small blessings.
I think the best thing to do is to try and really enjoy this time as much as possible, and also make it as easy on myself as possible. There are so many friends that I want to see (I grew up and went to college in the area) that I'm not going to schedule things with, because I don't think running all over Denver/Boulder/the Front Range while not feeling so great and trying to keep all my medical appointments and working is such a great idea.
But I can see my brother, and a couple really close friends. Do some city things that I miss in my small town (good restaurants, boutiques, the art museum, etc.) And I get to have some days resting in bed, which I never do so I'm kind of looking forward to it.
It's all going to be good. And hopefully at the end I'm pregnant and can do for a while what I really want to do: stay home. :)
Image credit: Ishmael Orendain.
Some Nice Things Happened in Vegas
I've always absolutely adored this print on my in-law's vintage lawn furniture.
Glad to be home. And a lot of good happened on what would seem on the surface to be an awful trip, with my father-in-law passing away:
- I am glad beyond words that we got to spend time with my husband’s father in the days before he passed
- Seventy degrees and sunny in January—can’t beat it. Especially when there’s cool lawn furniture to hang out on
- The evening of the day my father-in-law passed, we went out to dinner at a swanky Chinese place with my mother-in-law, brother-in-law, and a close cousin and his wife. It sounds strange to say, but we all had a really, really lovely time. God, it’s sad that my father-in-law passed away, and everybody’s feeling it, no question (there were lots and lots and lots of tears that day), but it’s not the horrible tragedy and utter, paralyzing despair that went on around the sudden death of my young brother. I think it’s been good for me to see that death can happen without everyone’s world being shattered beyond repair
- A Vietnamese food lunch at the Lemongrass Café. This is the one thing I always want to do when I come to Vegas (all the Asian food in my town sucks, and there is no Vietnamese). Vermicelli noodles—yum. Not quite the same as Golden Star in San Francisco on lunch break from the ad agency with Marco and Habeeba, but I’ll take it
- Meeting my husband’s next-oldest brother was such a pleasure (I’d never met any of his siblings before this past year and his dad getting sick). I’m still kind of in awe of what he did for his dad, sat with him day and night in the hospital over the entire last month of his life, worked hard with those in the healthcare system to get him the best possible care. He’s staying with my mother-in-law indefinitely, to help her with the transition. Oh, and he makes the best fried eggs over easy I’ve ever had
Road Trips. Love Them.
Utah's so beautiful, in a wild, desolate kind of way...
It sucks the reason we’re driving to Las Vegas (my husband’s father’s sick), but oh, do I ever love to go on long drives. I’ve done this particular drive a lot, too, as it’s how I used to get to and from visiting my parents when I lived in Southern California. Out of Colorado on I-70, then hours and hours in the wilds of Utah…there are two 100-mile stretches right off the bat of nothingness, no gas, no towns, no cell phone service. The rock formations and the desert are covered with snow right now and very beautiful. The roads were good and the sun was out. We turned up the stereo and sang along to songs from the 70s and 80s—Funkytown, Eye of the Tiger, I Will Survive. We stopped for sandwiches at the I-15 junction in a place with enormous deer and elk heads (hunting trophies) all over the walls. Poor animals, but the hunting trophy thing is so iconic and Western, it made me smile. And then coming into Vegas they were doing training exercises out of Nellis Air Force Base, we opened the sunroof, got to see fighter planes up close. Don’t know why, but I love watching those planes. My husband and I always have good, deep, big-picture conversations when we’re driving, too.
Good drive. Fun drive.
New Year's Resolutions
I know I'm a week or so late with these, but here's where I want some change/movement this year. I want to:
1. Travel less. Way less. Things are already looking bad for this particular resolution, however. Sigh
2. Do everything I/we can to try and get a baby/child into our lives. This is probably going to be the year where it at least becomes clear how things are going to shake out
3. Actually try to publish some of what I've been writing. More specifically: submit one piece each month for publication (multiple submissions per piece)
Wish me luck! And a belated Happy New Year to all my bloggy friends. :)
Venice, Day 21
Glass blowers on Murano.
Mellow day today. Went to the nearby island of Murano, which is know for its glass. Whatched a glass-blowing demonstration that was really cool. Rested this afternoon, nice dinner tonight, home tomorrow. My next post will be from the USA! It's been a great trip, but I'm so excited to be home.
Venice, Day 20
Venice's fish market.
1. The fish market is outdoors, huge and clean, fish and other seafood of every kind you can imagine piled on ice. Smells like fish and the sea, as you would imagine
2. Wandered past some workshops where they were making masks today. There are a lot of cheap, generic masks for sale in Venice, but in places like this they're works of art. I wonder if they're busier this time of year because Carnival is coming up?
3. Peggy Guggenheim museum, for a modern art fix. What a collection! I always love seeing someone's private collection. I got postcard reproductions of three of my favorite works to put on my bulletin board at home: Pablo Picasso's On the Beach, Rene Magritte's Empire of Light, and Joseph Cornell's Setting for a Fairy Tale.
4. A lot of interesting noise in Venice today, with someone playing piano inside one of the old houses along a tiny canal we were wandering down, a soccer game at the stadium down the way from us with cheering and singing (lots of singing), an Italian family arguing loudly inside one of the buildings we passed on our walk to dinner
5. And speaking of dinner, the food here is, of course, amazing, lots of seafood prepared various ways. My favorite's with homemade pasta. Ridiculously delicious
Venice, Day 19
Mosaics are everywhere in Piazza San Marco.
The Piazza was starting to flood the day we were there...you can see the water coming in here.
1. Spent a lot of time on water taxis (eg, the bus) on the Grand Canal today, watching the buildings, boats and gondolas go by. I've heard Venice called the most beautiful city in the world, and I can't say that I disagree. Everything is crumbling and old and in some state of disrepair, but that's part of what gives Venice its charm
2. Piazza San Marco is amazing. The Basilica is incredibly intricate mosaics everywhere from floors to it's huge domed ceilings. Stunning. Also, the plaza, prone to flooding in the winter, was starting to flood. Just patches of water when we were there this morning, but they were growing and you could see the supports and boards for the walkways they use during floods at the ready. Some of the mosaics were already underwater...that can't be good for them
3. Getting off the water taxi at random stops and wandering the back alleys, getting totally lost and turned around is fun. The canals and the architectural detail are beautiful, really no matter where you go. And when you get away from the major sites there are no crowds, just me and my husband exploring, it's so, so nice
4. Venice is famous for its glass, and one of the quirkiest and coolest things I saw today was over the door of one of the weather buildings on the Grand Canal a bull's head done in red and blue glass, the bright colors and smoothness of it contrasting with the crumbling pale stucco facade of the building itself
5. Not much to see on the Grand Canal at night. Many of the buildings are totally black. Although some are lit up with spotlights, and some windows are open and lit. All those windows it seems like have incredibly ornate glass chandeliers
Prague to Venice, Day 18
Venice's Grand Canal.
1. Everything went smoothly/on time today, but it took a lot to get here! Wake-up call at 3 AM, taxi at 4, plane to Frankfurt at 6, plane to Venice area, after which it wasn't at all clear how we were going to get to our hotel. But everyone was nice/helpful, and we took the bus to Venice proper, figured out the water taxi (essentially like a bus on the water), took the water taxi to the right general area, asked a nice older Italian gentleman to point the way to the hotel, which he did with a very friendly "Welcome to Venice!" thrown in at the end. Nine hours later, here we are
2. Our hotel is an old monastery at the very southern tip of Venice, a very green, park-like and residential part of the city. We were in the very center of everything in Prague...kind of nice to get away from that a little. And church bells rang right next to our room at noon, welcoming us to the city. Love the church bells...
3. The sun is shining! And it's still a little chilly, but so much warmer than it's been (it said 4 C on the water taxi, not sure what that translates to.) There were actually people sitting at outdoor cafes today, coats on, but still...
4. For lunch we were sent to a little shop 10 minutes away, where the woman running it had a few bowls of things in the deli case in back, spooned portions onto a paper plate and heated them up for you. I had pasta with broccoli, and chicory (bitter but good) on the side. Yum
5. Back outside our hotel this afternoon after exploring a bit, there was a grey tabby cat, healthy and well fed, that came right up to me, insisted I pet it, even jumped up in my lap when I kneeled down to scratch it behind the ears. Friendliest cat ever
I think we're going to really like Venice!
Prague, Day 17
Another fairytale view...
1. There are very few cars on the back streets and alleys, so few that you can spend most of your time walking in the street, and just hop out of the way if a car happens to come by
2. Everyone smokes indoors here, it seems like everywhere and I am sick of it. Second-hand smoke is really, really bad. Everything I own just reeks of it. Will be sooooo glad to leave this part of Prague behind
3. Cab drivers are very unscrupulous here. A cab to the art museum today took about 10 minutes and cost the equivalent of $35. A cab back (same cab ride) cost $16. Luckily we've been walking everywhere except for today
4. The art museum was great. Modern art, one floor international, which was fine, and then 4 floors of CZ art, a lot of which was a really cool. My favorites were a paper-mâché dog with a head shaped like a dunce cap, very Tim Burton-esque. I also really liked a sculpture made of a wooden table and chairs, a wooden bowl, some logs, all filled with metal hooks and eyes, it looked like the wood was covers with fur. My husband liked the well manufactured belt-driven motorcycle, beautiful design. He was offended by the art that consisted of nothing but a 3 by 5 black square
5. There was a glass elevator in the middle of the museum you could ride from the ground floor up to the fifth, with all the mechanical workings exposed. A little scary to ride. You could only ride up, no one was allowed to ride down. To do that you had to get into the scary Cold War-era silver elevator that flashed random floors at you the whole time you descended
We fly to Venice tomorrow at 6 AM. Home Friday. This has been a great trip but I'm starting to miss home and puppies.
Prague, Day 16 (New Year's Day)
The Charles Street Bridge, where we rang in the New Year, can be seen on the far right in this picture.
1. Got out for a nice walk mid-day. Warmer, like in the 20s instead of the 10s. Sun was shining, which hasn't happened much this trip
2. At noon church bells rang all over town...lovely. And we passed a church at the same time with the congregation singing a hymn, you could hear it from the street, it sounded so happy and hopeful
3. There's a little bar/restaurant a few doors down from our hotel where we've been coming for Internet access. They make me mugs of hot apple cider, so yummy. Stopped in for New Years lunch and the New Years Eve party was still going on...it was like the bartender just brought all here friends to work with her. Glitter on her face, ridiculous amounts of energy (dancing around smoking a cigarette while pouring beers for people) music blaring. She was having fun. It was actually pretty cute
4. I am in love with our hotel room. The boards of the wood floor are placed in a design. It has crazy-high ceilings. And grey silk curtains with vertical gold embroidery. And a faux fur throw that's chocolate brown but turns to grey if you rub it the right way. A clear glass chandelier, not all girly, but very sleek and modern
5. Spent the evening watching soccer at O'Che's. Fun
Prague, Day 15 (New Year's Eve)
The entrance to Prague Castle. Not very welcoming in my opinion, with statues of things being bludgeoned and stabbed.
The cathedral behind the castle. Spectacular.
Changing of the guard.
1. Feeling 10,000 times better today
2. Walked across the Charles Bridge, through the Little Quarter with its hilly windy cobblestone streets, up to the Prague Castle on the top of the hill. So old and beautiful...so much history here. There are violent statues at the front gates, people about to be clubbed and stabbed. I guess they want to send the message that you don't want to mess with this castle
3. Noon everyday at the castle they have the changing of the guards, with maybe 50 guards and a band, quite a lengthy ceremony. The uniforms are cool, gray pants with a darker grey stripe down the side, long dark blue jacket with gold buttons, silverly fur collars and big silver fur hats
4. Hordes and hordes and hordes of tourists in Prague. It's a little overwhelming
5. New Year's Eve in Prague: pretty unbelievable. First, a yummy, quite fancy meal at a restaurant called Phenix, right next to our hotel. There's a cool old silver metal spiral staircase in the back with a four leaf clover pattern stamped into it, so cool. Then we had drinks at a little bar with wood and arched ceilings called the Hemmingway Bar. Eleven thirty we started to make our way to the Charles Street Bridge, and then we were on the bridge just packed with people, everyone so close that it's not even cold. At midnight the boats on the water blew their horns and everyone cheered and sang, some nice Italian women next to us gave us a glass of champagne and the fireworks...people everywhere in the crowd setting them off and then the city fireworks right above us, like you were in the middle of them, they weren't safely off in the distance like in the US, the smell of the gunpowder strong. What a great, great night. We had the best time...
Prague, Day 14
Red roofs looking out to Prague's big central park.
1. Broke down and went to the pharmacy today, acted out my symptoms for the pharmacist who spoke little English and got some pills that are (hopefully) going to help with my cold
2. Bought a hand-knit blue-and-green hat in a tiny little side street shop with all sorts of cute hand-made stuff
3. Went to the Museum of Communism today, which details the communist occupation (is that the right word?) of this country. Amazing that that was in effect up until 1989
4. And right next door to the museum, a casino, where there is a somewhat lengthy registration process and they take your picture before they let you in. Won 3,300 Crowns, which translates to $165 (approximate) on the slots. I never, ever win gambling, so that was kind of exciting
5. Again early to bed. Again can't sleep...
Prague, Day 13
Apparently they didn't use to have street numbers in Prague, but symbols such as this on the houses instead.
1. Wandered around town in the cold, exploring the little streets and back alleys
2. Dogs are all over the city, in restaurants and bars as well as out on the street. We were in a little wine bar and the was the cutest little fluffy white dog with a plaid coat with a fur collar. Too cute
3. String quartet this evening. In a lovely old monastery. The music was beyond beautiful
4. Home to bed early. Losing the battle with this cold/flu, and have the worst insomnia imaginable ( or is it still jet lag?) not falling asleep until four or five in the morning, but generally napping a little each day...
Berlin to Prague, Day 12
The fairytale castle we saw our first night.
Yay, we're in Prague! Here's what's been happening:
1. Eastern European train was late and missing cars, so crowded, but we got seats in a compartment with a super cute little kid...it all worked out just fine
2. Castles through the countryside and canyons with sheer black cliffs, the geography changed greatly from the rolling farmland we saw between Amsterdam and Berlin. The train went along a major river for some distance...beautiful
3. Disney-wonderland castle with a huge Christmas tree in front with white lights streaming down. Except it's real, not Disneyland
4. Cobblestone streets, a maze of them, tiny little restaurants and bars, they feel like little speak-easys. Salad and beef goulash and a pilsner for dinner. Yum
5. O'Che's is a Prague institution, apparently, an Irish/Cuban bar...sounds weird but it works. And we've gone from ubiquitous "baby beers" in Western Europe (they serve beer in such small glasses, there, which I love because I can never drink much), to half-liters here. And they have Kilkenny on tap...my husband's still grinning...
Berlin, Day 11
The Holocaust Memorial looking into it...
...and down in it (note the person in the distance).
1. Snow, snow and more snow. Beautiful
2. Really? Did we really go to McDonalds? Tasty though. And very trendy decor, unlike the US
3. Building cranes all over the city, even in the dead of winter
4. Spent quite a lot of time walking through the Holocaust Memorial, which I'd only seen at a distance the day before. Slabs of dark grey granite, went at dusk and snowing as mentioned, the whole thing covered with snow, in general very somber but there we a few children playing hide and seek on occasion, which sounds disrespectful but there was actually something kind of beautiful about it, like life goes on, you know? Also in the middle the slabs are way taller than you and so when you come to the junctions between the slabs you have to look both ways to make sure you don't run into anyone. Once I came face to face with a woman who looked/was dressed like me and my first thought was that I was looking in a mirror. Surreal. Overall a lovely, peaceful, moving experience
5. Kika Lounge on late night TV starring Berndt, a manic-depressive loaf-of-bread-puppet. Will post a You Tube link when I'm back. My husband's college German kicked in...he was giggling
To check out the Kika Lounge, CLICK HERE.
Berlin, Day 10
A section of the Berlin Wall.
1. Rode all around the city today, wow is it ever big and spead out. The architecture is absoluely amazing, so much of it by famous architects of the last 50 years doing things that for their time are so new and innovative and creative. Love it
2. Went to several Christmas Markets, it seems like each neighborhood has its own and they all sell food and crafts but each is a little different. Saw some things I wish I'd bought...a hanging latern of stained glass lit from inside with a tea light, a paper mache mobile of fish and sharks, brightly colored. They were dismantling the Christmas Markets by last night, though...it's not like the US where they milk every possible retail opportunity for as long as possible
3. Spent some time at Checkpoint Charlie and the museum associated with it. Lots of stories of people trying to escape. The whole place made my husband mad--actually the part about children being allowed to drown in the river because those who could rescue them were afraid of getting shot by the border guards is the part that really made him mad. I don't understand how the regime in charge can think they are doing the right thing if so many people desperately want to leave...
4. They don't sand or salt the sidewalks here to keep you from slipping, they put down irregular black pebbles the size of peas. Have not slipped once
5. The Holocaust Memorial here is amazing and sobering, essentially a field of black rock slabs of different heights (some over head high) that you can walk in amongst. They're like gravestones for a mass grave. Makes you feel like you've been shrunk down and put beside a giant graveyard. I don't understand how something like the Holocaust could happen. Truly don't understand how people can do such things to each other
Berlin, Day 8 (Christmas Eve)
One of our favorite Christmas markets.
1. Christmas Eve is a much bigger deal here in Germany than Christmas itself. Everything's essentially shut down today. But that's OK because my husband and I have "The Ick" as we're calling it, some sort of cold/flu that's got us laying low
2. Fruit tea and Fisherman's Friend cough drops have been lovely
3. Went for a very short and very cold walk while housekeeping did our room, came back to a six-inch-high chocolate tree with cookie ornaments that they'd left for us. So festive! Yay!
4. We had reservations for a nice dinner and were planning to go to Midnight Mass, but both felt terrible so stayed home and in bed. I was feeling sad about missing our plans until we started singing Christmas carols in bed together in our scratchy voices ( my husband to me: "you sound like a squirrel.") We made our own little happy Christmas Eve
5. Couldn't sleep...3:30 AM sat at our window looking down amongst the modern buildings to all the fresh snow that had just fallen on the streets and sidewalks that night, Christmas trees with white lights sparking in windows across the way. All was peaceful and right with the world