Hitting the road

Well we are heading north tonight. Actually it will be tomorrow, since Ryan doesn't get off of work until 12:30 a.m. Hopefully we'll get there around 8 tomorrow morning. 

I'm not sure how much blogging I'll be able to do while I'm there, because I don't like logging onto my blog from computers of those who may not know my blog exists. I don't mind if people find it, but I still try to be discrete. We're bringing our laptop which is on its last legs, so I might check in, but I at least will be checking other blogs from Ryan's iphone.

Tonight I'm packing and wrapping and looking forward to everything being done and being in the car on our way.

Sorry if you're sick of these, but here are two more aprons I finished:

This one is for my friend. I love the fabric, especially the skirt.

And this one is for my sister. 

I also made a little apron for Madeleine, but you'll have to wait for Beth to post a picture of it when she gets it!

And since I don't know when I'll be posting next, I thought I'd end with our Christmas card picture from this year. It even includes the kitties which I don't think I've ever posted pictures of before! The orange one is Carmie (a boy) and the black one is Jasper (a girl). As you can see, Jasper is crazy.

Have a blessed and merry Christmas!!

Back home

We're back from my in-laws' house, where we had a great time. But the highlight of the trip was that I got to meet one of my favorite bloggers - Lifehopes!

She was the first person I met through my blog, when she left my very first comment on my very first post. We have shared similar experiences with stage 4 endometriosis, surgeries, and of course the whole experience of dealing with infertility as a Catholic. I've gone on to be diagnosed with PCOS, and she's had to have a second surgery for endo, and now we both find ourselves on the cusp of possibly conceiving. It's a scary, yet hopeful, place to be and while neither of us is very optimistic for ourselves, we are very optimistic for each other.

We met up for lunch first, just the two of us, and then we met for dinner later with our husbands. She is just like I expected in person - awesome! She's really sweet and is just like she comes across on her blog, plus she's beautiful. Her husband is really great too! We loved both of them, and we could have talked for hours. We had to hit the road, though, to get back for adoration last night.

I already can't wait to hang out with her again. It's so great to have someone who knows exactly what it's like and what you're going through. I'm so hopeful for her, too. I just know that someday soon we'll be hanging out with our babies!

Today my husband isn't feeling too hot and even left work early. Speaking of him, I've got to go check on the poor guy right now, but I might be back to write more later. I've got a little cycle update and some mood issues to tell you about!

Our two-daycation

Well I apologize ahead of time if this doesn't make sense. I've only slept a few hours today after getting home at 5 a.m., but I really can't complain because my wonderful husband drove the whole way and went to work at 10 a.m. and we had to take a huge detour after all lanes of a portion of 95 were closed for an accident overnight.

We had a great trip, although busy and a lot of it was spent traveling (i.e. the car to and from NY, the train to and from NY, the car all around NY). Yesterday was especially difficult because we happened to be driving around the vicinity of the U.N. right as all the leaders of the whole world were meeting inside. Not smart. We could have avoided the area, except for the fact that I desperately wanted to visit St. Patrick's Cathedral. I'm not even sure why, as I don't typically stop in there each time I'm in town. But I made it, and I said prayers for everyone (including all of you!) in a few specific spots - the Eucharistic Adoration chapel, at the shrine to St. Therese, and at the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

My food experiences the past couple days were also awesome. The first day I had amazing whole wheat pasta at an Italian restaurant, and yesterday we had pizza on whole wheat crust that was very reminiscent of pizza we had in Italy last year. Delicious and G.I. friendly!!

And to top it all off, we actually saw the Mets win for once! It was an awesome game and we had a lot of fun.

Here are some photos to chronicle our trip:

Taking the train from Ryan's brother's house:

Let me explain this one. So ever since Ryan got his new iph.one, he likes to send mobile uploads of pictures of what we're doing to face.book. So since his i.phone doesn't have a flash, here I am actually shooting my camera simultaneously so that my flash would go off. Lo and behold, I thought the picture that my camera took while doing that came out kinda cute! And it makes it look like we have friends with us:

The restaurant where I had my yummy whole wheat pasta with organic vegetables, in the meat packing district:
We decided to go to the top of the Empire State Building because we'd never been at night:

Here's one of the few pics we have that isn't of one or both of us posing (sorry, I just noticed we tend to do that a lot!):


At Shea. The new stadium is in the background:

Our seats were the first row of the upper deck, which surprisingly, made me a little nervous. At one point I took my engagement and wedding rings off because I was scared I'd cheer and fling them to the seats below!

Another shot of the new stadium behind me:

A guy ran on the field and caused some excitment.Here, he is trying to get away from them for like the third time and they resort to dragging him:


Mets win!



Saying my good-byes to Shea. It's the last time I'll be there before it's torn down, unless they make the playoffs and there ends up being a game five in the first round. We have tickets to that game, if there is one:

Road trip

Well we're off tonight for a little two-day trip to NYC. It's kind of for our anniversary, which was earlier this month. And being big Mets fans, we wanted to get to Shea stadium before the end of the season, so we're going to the game Tuesday night. We usually go several times a season, but this was our first baseball season in VA so it was tough. It will be even tougher if they lose on Tuesday!

We leave tonight after my husband is done with work, which is around midnight. We'll be staying at his brother's house, which is outside of the city, but free of charge. We're really looking forward to this mini-trip because New York is one of our favorite places on the planet and it's been a while since we've spent any time there. I've been busy this afternoon looking for exciting restaurant options that offer whole wheat bread, pasta, etc. I'm not cheating on this trip, so I've got to be creative.

Have I mentioned that I've hit a plateau with my diet? I can't really complain because my plateau happened to fall right as I reached 30 lbs. and as I'm comfortably fitting into a size 6. So I am constantly reminding myself of this when I start to get upset, and how as recently as April I would have told you that you were nuts if you said I'd lose 30 lbs. by September. This summer my "goal" became to lose 35 lbs. by my next doctor's appointment on Oct. 6, so I probably won't be reaching that. But since I just randomly picked that number, I shouldn't be too upset.

Alright, time to pack and hopefully get a nap in as well. And I have to drop Sophie off at a friend's house where she will be having a little vacation of her own (both the friend and Sophie are very excited). Hopefully I'll have lots of pictures from the next two days to share when I get back!

Update: I am excited to announce that Sophie Belle has her very own blog! She will be updating it while we are away so we know what she is up to at her friend Matthew's house.