End of the Week Roundup

It's been a while since I've done one of these posts! I used to enjoy doing them because it reminded me to be grateful for the little moments from each week. 

1. Friday night was dinner with Aunt Penny and Uncle Chuck. Good food and great company is always the best way to start a weekend!

2. Saturday I spent the day sewing this romper together for a friend's baby's 1st birthday. I got the pattern off of Etsy. The first few days after I made the romper, I'm not going to lie I couldn't stop looking at it, I loved it so much. It was my second time trying a piece of clothing and the first time it turned out as well as it had. I definitely plan to make more to sell soon. 

3. Sunday was spent working on more sewing projects, like this t-shirt quilt in the making and a bear, while Dave installed our new window. 

4. Monday afternoon I met the teacher that I will be student teaching with and she seems really cool, so I have a feeling it'll be a great experience. Monday evening was the last teen book club I'll be hosting. I decided to step down a few months earlier because I knew there was a pretty good chance I would be student teaching. Next month we will meet one more time to have a goodbye party. This month we talked about the last book in the Divergent series, Allegiant. 

5. Wednesday night we went out to dinner with my in laws since it was my father in law's birthday. The meal was delicious!

6. Thursday night I was back at the school I'll be teaching at for "Meet the Teacher" night. It was really fun to meet a few of the students and chat with my host teacher. I'm very excited/nervous for what is to come!

That's all for this week, how was your week?

Fun with the Camera- Part II

A few weeks ago my friends Sheena and Kelly got married. They trusted me to take pictures for the wedding and while I still have a ton to learn (like not being in the way--photographers should be stealthy!) In the year that I've gotten my camera, I've definitely learned how to be comfortable with it (learning photo editing helps!) but I still haven't gone manual, which is a goal of mine. 

Anyway, I think the pictures turned out great! I decided to share a few of my favorites with you today. 

Saved the best for last! This is my favorite picture. Ever. 

Thanks for taking the time to check out my pictures! Come back Friday for a new End of the Week Roundup post, the first in three months!

What I Read

Funny story...I got a little overzealous with checking out audio books at the library and ordered two books that are each 17 and 25 discs long. For someone who only listens to the CD on her half hour ride into work and then home, it's taking me a while to even get through one of the books. The good news is I'm almost done the first one, which is Clan of the Cave Bear, the last of my 15 in '15 reading list, and my library has a really easy renew button on their website for the other book. 

I enjoyed linking up with Jana and Steph so much last month, I decided to do it again! Here's what I read this month:

All Fall Down by Jennifer Weiner- this is the first Weiner book I've read, although I have several more on my list to read. The book was good, it was definitely a slow read and nothing major happens to grip you, but Weiner depicts the struggle a upper class woman who pops pills very well. In real life, there normally isn't some massive moment for them so it makes sense that there would not be one here. I would recommend this book to someone who enjoys reading several books and wouldn't get hung up on this one (so pretty much any of you participating in the linkup! haha).

Before We Met by Lucie Whitehouse- I picked this book up because I needed to find a thriller book like Gone Girl, You, or The Girl on the Train. They're my new favorite genre to read. This book fell flat, so flat if you turned it sideways it would disappear. I knew the ending before I finished the second chapter it was so predictable, even with the "twist" that the author wrote into the book to throw you off.  Whitehouse is a British author so the mannerisms of her characters were very different too and it was kinda frustrating at times. 

I really had hope for the premise of this book and it didn't live up to it. Lucky for me, it was a short read so I wasn't too disappointed in wasting my time on it. If you don't mind the predictability of this story, it wouldn't hurt to pick it up, just don't go into it with high expectations, and maybe you'll enjoy it more than I did. 

Uganda Be Kidding Me by Chelsea Handler- I have read all of Chelsea Handler's books and have loved them all. This book felt like she was phoning it it. There were times when the story she was sharing didn't make sense or just rambled on, and I could literally feel the times when she was just like aw f**k it and crapped out a paragraph. If you didn't compare this book to her others it wouldn't have been so bad, it's not a terrible book, you can just tell her enthusiasm has waned since she first started writing and now she writes for a paycheck. 

That's what I read this month, what did you read?

I'm on Goodreads by the way, and I love new friends!

An Update

Last time I mentioned my struggles with conceiving was when I shared the story of how Dave and I lost Bean in June. In the past two months, we have gotten the results back on Bean's genetic testing, plus my blood work (15 vials!) and Dave's. 

The genetic testing determined that had she lived, Bean would have been a girl. Sometimes it's comforting to know what she would have been, other times it's heartbreaking to know that I could have had a daughter. That word is so different to me now, daughter. The way it pierces my mind now, the context of the word has such a heavier connotation. The thing is, she would have never survived because it was determined that Bean had triploidy, which means she had an extra set of all the chromosomes we normally have. You and I have 46 sets of chromosomes, she had 69. As sad as I am for having lost her, I'm also thankful that I lost her as soon as I did. Although rare, I could have entered my second trimester before I miscarried or even given birth to her only to lose her a short time later. I'm already a mess, if I had gotten through the whole pregnancy only to lose her at birth, I'm not sure I would have survived that. 

Dave's genetic blood work showed he had no abnormal genes that would cause issues in pregnancy. My blood work showed no issues either, although we did determine I am a carrier for cystic fibrosis, so Dave will need further testing to see if he is a carrier too. If he is then we are faced with a 25% chance that we could have a baby that suffers from it. So the good news is that there is nothing major going on with us that would prevent us from having a healthy child in the future. 

It sounds ungrateful to say but part of me is not consoled by the fact that there is nothing wrong with Dave and I. Had there been, there may have been a chance we could have fixed it. What this means is that we've just had really bad luck and  what happened to us could happen an infinite number more times before we have a baby. That, coupled with the fact that we aren't conceiving easily, makes it tough for me to have hope. Like I said, I know I should be more grateful that it isn't something serious, or unfixable, but unless you're in my shoes, its tough to explain. 

So the game plan now is to start trying again. The doctor and I have already agreed that Dave and I will try to concieve naturally for the rest of this year and if we don't have any luck I'll go back on Clomid in January. This works out well for me since I will be student teaching this fall (a sign that maybe God had something different planned for me?) and Clomid makes me very rage-y, which isn't a great mix when I'm trying to teach high schoolers. 

Now I just wait and hope for the best. My biggest struggle right now (besides all this) is trying not to allow myself to be consumed by trying to conceive and not letting all this get me down. I'm not going to lie, it is not an easy struggle to try and overcome and many days it's a battle I lose. But each new day is a different day with a new outlook, so I take each day, bad and all, one day at a time. 

Confessions

Photo by this guy (gratisography), who offers free photos on his website. Thank you good sir!

1. I wish I could draw a perfect circle every time. 

2. I hate that I cannot be completely submerged in a bathtub and that's why I never take baths. The tub in my current home is short so if my legs are submerged then the upper half of me is not, and if I want the upper half submerged then that means my legs are out of the tub. This is not how baths should be taken. 

A dramatic retelling of what I look like when I attempt to bathe in my tub

3. My Aunt Steph, as many of you know, is one of my favorite aunts. We always joke that I'm actually her daughter because we look, sound and act alike. I've always been very sensitive when it comes to her. When she told me she was moving to New Holland when I was 6 or 7, I thought she meant Holland (kudos to me for knowing Holland existed at that age) and bawled. When she took a cruise to Bermuda when I was around that age, I swore she was going to be lost to the Bermuda Triangle and I had nightmares the entire time she was gone. 

4. I attempted to play an old game on my Game Cube and I remembered very quickly why I stopped playing it so many years ago. #gotstuckonthetutoriallevel #fail

5. I take way too much pleasure in my new salad tongs. They're nothing special but they make me so damn happy. 

I can't find an exact match but these are close enough

Do you have anything to confess?