The Good, The Bad and The Incredibly Frustrating

Today has been a day full or ups and downs.

Work is always a down these days, so I won't actually go into that.

Huge thanks to both Mrs. Gamgee and Chrissie for sending me invites to Pinterest. This would have made me immensely happy if my computer/modem/Pinterest/something hadn't been acting up. I was completely unable to do anything with Pinterest from my home internet. Since The Hubs had to go for his play practice, I decided to go to my mom's and took my laptop with me. Surprise, surprise, but Pinterest worked at her house! I was excited and I set up my account and pinned a few things. When The Hubs' practice ended, we came home and I tried to go on Pinterest again, only to find the same problem as before. It is so incredibly frustrating!!! And I don't know what's causing the problem.

So, that's the bad and the incredibly frustrating. What's the good, you may be asking? Well, two bits of good news. First, I got an email from Thirty-One today informing me that registration for National Conference will be opening later this week! Since the conference is going to be in Atlanta, I'm really hoping I get to go. That is the plan, as long as I can scrounge enough moula away from the other things it needs to go to in order to afford the registration, etc. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

The second bit of good news? I received an email from my university today telling me it was time to complete my Petition for Graduation!!! I am super excited that, barring anything happening, I will be graduating in April! I'll complete my degree, no matter, but I'd love to attend the graduation ceremony. Since my school is in Iowa, we'd have to travel to attend. We're trying to decide whether to drive 4 hours to the airport, fly 2 hours and then rent a car and drive another 3 hours to get to my school or whether we just want to take an extra few days from work and drive the 17 hours to get there. The Hubs is constantly going on about wanting to make a road trip across the States, and I know this isn't across all the states, but I think that may be the route we go. Now....anyone live in Southwestern Kentucky willing to put us up for the night in late April? Just teasing!

Anyway, it's been an extremely long day, so I think I'll head to bed now. Hope you all have a fantastic evening (well, what's left of it)!

Sunday Ramblings

Today has been exhausting. Due to our trip yesterday, I've had to cram 2 days of housework into one. And, due to my laziness, that one day actually turned into one afternoon. What this has actually meant is that I've had to recruit The Hubs' help. He has, not completely unwillingly, been my cohort in clean today! We managed to get everything we wanted to do done.

In addition to our cleaning, I made an awesome meal this evening (even if I do say so myself) and my mom came and had dinner with us. I made baby green lima beans, rice and tomatoes, roasted sirloin steak, deviled eggs and cornbread. A very Southern meal, but incredibly tasty. Both The Hubs and my mom loved it. The Pog even appreciated it because there was enough left over that she could get a little (not enough to bother saving the leftovers, but enough to give the pup a treat).

The only downside is that I had intended to make a Mars Bar (Milky Way) Cheesecake for dessert and also one for The Hubs to take to his play practice tomorrow but time got away from me and the cheesecake was not meant to be today. It'll have to wait until either later in the week or next weekend. As a treat to you readers, though, I'll share the recipe with you at the end of this post.

During my internet travels this last week, I have encountered two posts I wanted to share with you. In their own ways, they are awesome and definitely worthy of your time to read.

The first one is part of a new feature from Jjiraffe called Faces of ALI. Her inaugural post for the feature is an extremely moving, detailed profile of Courtney Cheng who blogs at Bodega Bliss. I'd be lying if I didn't tell you there were tears streaming down my face while I read this. Jjiraffe manages to capture the very essence of the ALI community in the words she uses to describe Courtney's journey. A fabulous new feature I look forward to reading more of.

The second post I read that had me returning for second and third looks was actually from April of last year. Its a post of slow cooker recipes that can be made ahead of time and put in the freezer! These recipes look awesome and I'm really looking forward to trying some of them! In fact, her whole site had me completely enthralled and I'm sure I'll be spending a little time investigating everything there is to see over the next few days.

I found the last article via Pinterest. I'd never taken a look at it before, but I think I'll really like it. That is always assuming I'm ever able to create an account. I requested an invite and got a response telling me I was on their waiting list. That was about 4 days ago. Anyone have any idea how long you generally have to wait to get your invite to join? I hope it's soon. There were a load of recipes and craft ideas on there I'd love to try out!

Anyway, I promised you a recipe, so here goes:

Mars Bar (Milky Way) Cheesecake

1 package Graham Crackers (3 packages per box)
1 stick butter – melted
¼ oz gelatin
¼ cup boiling water
½ cup super-fine sugar (not powdered)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 ¼ cups heavy whipping cream
9 oz cream cheese
2 Milky Way bars or 6 minis

Crush Graham crackers and mix into melted butter. Press into a pie dish (can use disposable). Refrigerate.
Dissolve gelatin in boiling water.
Beat cream into soft peaks
Beat cream cheese, vanilla, super-fine sugar and gelatin together.
Fold chopped Milky Way bars into cream and fold both into cream cheese mixture.
Pour over base and refrigerate.

Serves 8

Hope you enjoy it! And, have a great start to your week tomorrow!

The Hubs and I made a daytrip today so that I could attend the Spring Product Premiere for Thirty-One. Considering the day started with me spilling coke on the white shirt I was wearing after we had started off, I had a feeling the day wouldn't go as planned.

When I got there, The Hubs let me out (only registered Consultants were allowed to attend) and I looked around for anyone I might know. Fortunately, I did eventually find a couple of people I knew so I had someone to sit with. We had over an hour to wait before the show started and, when it finally did, we had sound, but no video (we were in a movie theatre to see the premiere). Eventually, the problem was fixed and they restarted the video. It seems the problem had been all across the country since the feed was coming in via satellite.

Sadly, the reprieve did not last long and we once again lost video. After waiting about half an hour to see if the problem was, once again, going to be fixed, it was determined that we were going to run out of time in the cinema, so we were given our gift and allowed to go. We did get a small peak at the new products and the video will be available for us to view online tomorrow, but I do wish we had been able to see the whole thing in the cinema. We also got an advance copy of the new catalog and, I have to say, there are some awesome new items!! Keep an eye out for February 1 when I'll be revealing more details about the new products and prints!

After we were released, The Hubs picked me up and we headed to find some lunch. After walking around for the longest time, we finally found the absolute best pizza I've had in a long time! (I know, I know. I've eaten a lot of pizza here lately....it'll be okay.) It was so good! It was cooked in a stone oven and my mouth still waters thinking about it. We'll definitely have to go there again.

So, that's been my day. Not a lot to report, but a taste of the day for you =D

Think Before You Press Send

Why is it that there are some things that are acceptable if done to an IFer, but, if a similar sort of thing was done to someone suffering from a more well-known disease, the person committing the offense would be condemned?

This morning I got to work and opened my email to find a "funny" email from one of my work colleagues.

I will pause here to state that our problems conceiving and the health issues I've gone through over the past couple of years have been no secret to this person. She shares an office with me and knows very well what struggles and disappointments the last two years have held. That's why I was so surprised this email came from her.

The email was - supposedly - a "Thesis on Women" and included several bits of "Medical Information Women Should Know". What is this information, you ask? Well, it consisted of several jokes about pregnancy. One of my favourites (and, yes, that word should be read loaded with sarcasm)? Q: Is there anything I should avoid while recovering from childbirth? A: Yes, pregnancy

Now, I understand this is supposed to be funny. But when you're sending this to someone who can't get pregnant or someone who has struggled to get pregnant or someone who has experienced loss or, heaven forbid, recurrent loss, it's just not funny.

The next bit of the email was titled "10 Ways to Know If You Have Estrogen Issues". A couple of the witticism included in this lot? Everyone around you has an attitude problem and You're sure that everyone around you is scheming to drive you crazy. Now, while this may be true and actually describe the feelings of a woman with estrogen problems, I feel it's highly inappropriate to send this to a woman who is actually suffering from severe estrogen problems.

They want to know the real ways to tell you have estrogen problems? You have to have bloodwork every month to determine what your estrogen level is. You have to take medication that plays with your emotions and makes your monthly period incredibly painful and removes any desire you have for a sexual relationship with your partner. You have to have an endometrial biopsy every 6 months to confirm you don't have hyperplasia. You have to have a D&C when you do have hyperplasia.

Yeah. Not so funny when you know the true side of it. I honestly can't imagine anyone sending out an email with jokes about cancer in it and particularly not to a cancer patient. It would just be inhumanly cruel. So, why is it okay to send this to infertiles or to PCOSers? Why is it okay to poke fun at the real, devestating diseases that afflict us? Why are we accused of over-reacting when we mention that an email like this is not appreciated and that it actually hurts to read?

Will people ever treat those suffering from reproductive conditions as they would someone suffering another, more recognized disease? With the more time that passes, the more I become convinced this will never happen.