Well, if you can call it a break, but I will get to that in a moment…

Some people have been asking what is going on with us and the fertility treatments.  I’ve not written about it in a while just because I’ve been too exhausted both physically and emotionally.

For the last five months, I have spent a LOT of time (and by a lot I mean way too freaking much) here:

Because my life has revolved around this…

Don’t get excited, there is no baby in there.  That’s an egg follicle.  Every month I had to go to the hospital 3-4 times within one week so they could monitor the growth of my eggs.  This was in preparation for my IUI procedure.  When the egg follicles were mature they would induce ovulation.

Oh, and before you think that’s really not such a big deal (and I’m looking at most of the men here), because you think of ultrasounds like in the movies where they put the blob of gel on the lady’s belly?  No.  Hell no.

You know, I’m not even going to resize that photo because I think it needs to be left nice and big, just so you really get the idea of what I’m trying to tell you. This is what they use for these kinds of ultrasounds, and it does not go on the outside.  I call it the Ultrasound Dildo.  Oh, and just when I would think it ccouldn’t get any more fun than this, it often turned out I’d be having the echo done by some random male intern who looked like he couldn’t be a day over 22.  Oh yah, Doogie Howser, good times!

I can safely say that these fertility treatments have pretty much removed any shred of modesty I had left.  I’m not sure if that’s a good  or bad thing but right about now the homeless guy outside the supermarket could ask to look all up in my lady business and I’d probably let him without even missing a beat.

So anyway, now that I’ve left you with that mental image, I will move on.

In order to grow these egg follicles (plural) my life has also revolved around these…

Daily injections in my stomach and a monthly whopper of an injection in my thigh.  Thankfully I am not even remotely afraid of needles and got quite good at giving myself the injections.  I really feel for the women who are afraid of needles and have to do this every day.

Even though I am not bothered by the needles, that doesn’t mean the injections were a walk in the park.  Sometimes, for whatever reason, it would really hurt.. like REALLY hurt.  I don’t know if I was hitting something or if some days I was just more sensitive than others, but there were times where I had a really hard time with the injections because of the pain.

The worst part though?  The results…  these were hormones I was pumping into myself and I am crazy sensitive and emotional anyway.  With the injections it was like PMS all month long, and that was no fun at all.  Not for me or for anyone around me.  The fact that this was taking place during the winter, when my mood usually takes a dip anyway, and fresh off the back of a surgery?  Let’s just say, it made for a rather unpleasant situation.

Of course, I wasn’t the only one suffering.  My husband suffered, even though his life really only revolved around this.

No seriously, they really are his sperm!

Yes, suffer he did, by proxy of course.  I know I was an absolute nightmare to live with but he did everything he could to try to make it a little easier for me.

Especially during this time… after the procedure was finished and my mind was going crazy, because that’s when the real insanity starts.  Once the insemination was done and I was facing the dreaded two week wait, which always starts with this 20 minutes of laying still right afterwards.  Two weeks is a lot of time to live in that kind of uncertainty, especially when you are up to your eyeballs in hormones.  My head was full of hopes and dreams that kept colliding with my fears and anxieties.  Did I care what I was going to make for dinner, my hobbies, my social life or anything else?  No, it was all about this, every day, 100% of the time… and no amount of telling me to relax, not think about it or go on with my life was going to change that.

So, hubby knew there was only one answer.

Act like a total clown…

… and keep me entertained.

I will love him forever for that, because it didn’t end on that hospital table. It was every day, whether it was urging me to go out and see my friends, curling up with me for a nap in the afternoon, dragging me out for a walk with the dogs or tempting me with photography outings, he did find ways to help make it better sometimes, and that was no easy task.

Ok, he also kept me stocked with chocolate, the man is no fool!  It didn’t bode well for my diet but desperate times call for desperate measures, and these were desperate times indeed.

So, where do things stand now?  It’s over… well, for now anyway.

I have had six cycles of IUI, which is all that I was covered for with my insurance, and this last cycle they really went to town with the drugs. I guess it was a last ditch attempt to make it work, but it didn’t. The evidence of the latest failure came this past weekend and it was a pretty rough time for me.  Even though deep down I’ve always sort of known that IUI wasn’t going to work for us, I was hoping it would.  Of COURSE I was hoping it would, what am I saying, I’d be crazy if I didn’t!  I was disappointed, angry, sad, frustrated, ticked off, PISSED AS HELL!

Now where do we go from here?  That’s the thing, the journey isn’t over.  I am now on a break, if you can call it that.  I need to get back on the wagon and lose another 30-35 lbs in order to move on to IVF.  They were able to start the IUI earlier as this is done at the hospital and it’s at their discretion, but IVF is done at a separate clinic and it’s a firm rule here in the Netherlands that they won’t do it if you have a BMI over 35.

If only I were taller!

On the plus side, I now am getting the chance to let the hormones leave my system, have at least the spring and summer (and probably fall) free from hospital visits, needles, and hormones, and all the other negative shit that is a part of having these treatments.

On the down side… I am not sure it’s really a break at all.  Losing weight is difficult, yes I’ve done it before but I have backtracked and gained about 15 lbs of the 80-85 lbs I’d lost previously. Ok, it could be worse after over five months of the hormones and all that, but still.  It’s hard enough to lose weight without the pressure of our future on top of it.

It’s all on me.  There’s not a thing Xander or anyone else can do to make this happen. It’s me.  Which is fitting, I suppose as it wasn’t anyone else that made me fat to begin with.  So I suppose it should be up to me to make it right.  Still though, knowing that doesn’t make it any easier.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that losing weight is hard in the BEST of situations.  Trying to lose weight while feeling my biological clock ticking in the back of my head, impatience and frustration because I want to do the IVF NOW and get it over with, and having to re-lose weight I’ve already lost.  That’s a bit more difficult.  Both our futures rest on my ability to do this.  All our eggs are in MY basket (pardon the pun) and if we ever want to have a family I HAVE to lose this weight, and soon, because I’m not 25 anymore.

What also makes it difficult is having spent the last five months having one procedure that didn’t work. It feels like it was all for nothing.  I got off track with my weight loss, went through a massive amount of mental anguish and physical pain… for nothing!!! 

I do have the choice of doing three more IUI procedures (if my insurance agrees) after I lose the weight and before moving on to IVF.  After so many IUI already failing a part of me wants to go straight to the IVF, and I also worry about possible weight gain over those three months which will mean another break again before beginning with the IVF.  I will decide that once the weight is off though.  I will probably do the IUI just to completely maximize my chances.  May as well, I guess.

How will I ever cope if I do manage to lose all this weight, have the IVF and that doesn’t work either?  I really don’t know.  With my history of depression tied with infertility, I really worry about what that will do to me mentally. I’m already completely crushed after the IUI’s ending without success, but at least I know there is another step.  We still have IVF ahead of us.  What will I feel and what will I do if IVF doesn’t work and then that it’s, the end?

I really don’t know.  I can’t not try though because I’d never forgive myself. 

So please, be prepared… it’s going to be a rocky few months here on Canadutch!  There may be some ranting and I suspect it will be a lot of talk (and bitching) about weight loss, so please bear with me!

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Today is the day I found out a few things.

I found out that I will have at least one more month of giving myself injections, that in the next few weeks I will have anywhere between 5-7 hospital visits and that my life will once again revolve around hormones.

I found out that for the next three to four weeks I’ll once again be fighting mood swings, side effects, food cravings and emotional tidal waves I’ve been living with for the past three months.  That I’ll spend at least one more month with people telling me just not to think about it, to relax, to go with the flow, think positive and all the other things they try to say to help without realizing that none of that is possible.

This isn’t a flow, it’s a monsoon, and I’m an ant.  I’m being picked up, flipped over, smashed down and spun around and there isn’t a damn thing I can do to control it.  I can’t outrun it, I can’t pretend it’s not there and even if I don’t try to fight it, I still get thrashed about all the same.  I wonder how many people could stand in the middle of a busy highway and just not think about the possibility of being hit… or swim with sharks and just not think about the odds of getting bitten. That’s what it’s like to try not to think about babies, pregnancies, periods, eggs, ovaries, fallopian tubes, sperm counts, cramps, implantation, insemination, hormones, needles, doctors, ultrasounds, medications, and everything else that barrels through your mind day in and day out.

Could they get kicked in the face, stand up, get kicked in the face again, crawl back up, get kicked in the face again, pull themselves back up, get kicked in the face again and the stand up smiling and thinking positive thoughts about how this will be the time that they actually won’t get kicked in the face?  I’d like to meet the person who could do that.

The best part is, that’s just the internal stuff.  The things that go on in the privacy of your own life and mind… that’s not including the feelings and experiences that come up every time you watch a TV show and some teenager is getting pregnant by mistake, log on Facebook to see an ultrasound photo and pregnancy announcement, sit in the waiting room for yet another test while surrounded by swollen pregnant bellies and happy couples or have friends make hurtful comments without even realizing they are doing it, because they’ve never been where you are.  I can’t even begin to explain what any of that feels like.

I am so happy for the people around me who are having children and are getting to experience that joy in their lives.  I hope that any friends who read this who are pregnant at the moment or have recently had children don’t think that my excitement for them isn’t genuine, because it is.  That doesn’t mean I’m not envious though, or that I don’t wish we could have the same.  It’s always hard to see others having or doing something you desperately want, and when it comes to infertility it’s an entirely different and much more difficult experience.

Anyway… sorry, I had to put in a little disclaimer because I didn’t want people to be hurt or think they can’t share their happiness with me, because they can and one day I do hope to share mine with them.

So, in one or two days I will have to start giving myself the daily hormone injections again.  In a week I will have the first of many hospital visits for this cycle.  In about ten days I will spend an evening going to emergency so a stranger can give me a needle in my ass and in almost two weeks I will have my fifth IUI.

That’s not even when the fun begins, because after that is the wait.  The 10-12 days of side effects from the drugs, food cravings due to the hormones and stress and the anxiety that all of it creates.

I’m pretty sure that in 22-25 days I will be sitting right here, feeling the same way I’m feeling right now and dreading the month to come yet again.

In between all of these things, I will be spending time with my husband and trying not to talk to him about it too much and put too much strain on our marriage.  Spending most of my time hidden on chat programs because I don’t feel like chatting, posting on Facebook too much and wishing I could just ditch it and avoid the babies, pregnancies and people who are getting to do something I so desperately want to do too, and going out to see friends, while trying to appear somewhat more stable and normal than I really am at that moment.

I know I haven’t spoken about this much on here and it’s quite new to many of you.  I know I’ve only been doing the fertility treatments for almost three months (almost 5 cycles)… and people could easily think, pff it’s only been three months!

It’s not though…

It’s 11 years of marriage while never trying to prevent having children.

Four years previously of dire hard attempts, doctors visits, stress and tests.

Almost 12 years together without it ever happening for us.

It’s been 12 years of me feeling broken and empty… a feeling only another woman who has never been able to have a child could ever understand.

It’s been 12 years of wondering why I am the only woman in my entire family, as far back as I can look in either direction, to have any problems getting pregnant.

12 years of frustration and pain, wondering what we could have done so wrong that we don’t deserve that kind of happiness.

So yeah,  I’ve only been having fertility treatments for three months but this has not been only three months for us.  For us it’s been our entire lifetime together.  This issue may have gone on the back burner at times, for the sake of our sanity, but it has never gone away… and we’ve never stopped feeling that missing piece in our lives.

I’m going to stop ranting now, because I’m giving myself a headache… but I saw something today (on Facebook of all places) that really hit home with me.  A video of someone singing about infertility and the desire to have children.  I could do without the wind machine dramatics of the video, but the message is close to my heart.

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We all know I’m terrible for taking long, agonizing walks down Memory Lane, right? Well… I’m at it again!

Out of the blue a few days ago I started humming the theme song to The Littlest Hobo.  When I told my husband about it he had never heard of the show so I started singing the tune to him.  Then today I saw my friend Gail posted a video with the same tune.   Most of you probably have no idea what it is, but if you were a child in the 70’s and 80’s in Canada, this will probably tug at your heartstrings the same as it does mine.

I can’t imagine a child out there who didn’t love The Littlest Hobo.  I know I definitely did.

Then yesterday I was talking with my friend Heather when she brought up Little House on the Prairie, yet another of my childhood faves!  I have always been a huge fan of Michael Landon, who I still consider to be one of the greatest TV stars of all times. 

So handsome, so talented… *sigh*  I literally weeped when he died.   I’m sure I’m not the only one.  I gather he was a bit of a heartthrob!  Thinking of him brought on an entirely new set of memories…

Would could forget him as Little Joe Cartwright in Bonanza??

Then of course, the role most people of our generation will remember him for, playing Charles Ingalls in Little House, based on the books by the real Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Finally, another favorite of mine and his last major role, Jonathan Smith in Highway to Heaven.  Big ups to Victor French too for this one.

I honestly don’t know anyone who had such major and classic roles in television as Michael Landon.  Back in the day when TV shows were less about shock value and more about just honest to goodness family entertainment.  I miss that sometimes.

Heather and I also got to talking about Anne of Green Gables.  Quite possibly one of my favorite stories of all time. No wait, it’s definitely my favorite story of all time, there is no doubt.   I first saw the movies as a child and was completely enamored with Anne (WITH AN E), her Kindred Spirit Diana Barry, her darling Matthew and even Marilla with her strict but loving ways.   I grew up dreaming of having a Gilbert Blythe of my own, but happy to love hers in the meantime.   Always wondering why everyone thought Anne was so ugly because I personally thought Megan Follows was beautiful in the film, even with her short hair.

How could anyone not just love the chemistry between them and not watch it again and again… and again and then one or two more times?!

Ok not an opening theme, but that’s not going to cover how magical the story of Anne and Gilbert was, now is it?  I so totally cried just watching that.  Don’t judge.

Who am I kidding.  I STILL love him!  I’ll also be marathon watching the Anne movies tomorrow, you can bet your ass on that.

It would be wrong of me to not give Road to Avonlea an honorable mention here.  While I did watch it and enjoy it, it was never came close to the OMG FAVE status of Anne of Green Gables or Little House on the Prairie.  It was still a lovely family show though.

Aaaah, I am so nostalgic right now.  I think if I ever had a child, a little girl especially, I would buy box sets of all these shows for them to watch.  There aren’t enough heart warming TV shows with good messages out there anymore, and that is such a pity.

There are other shows I would have added, but I’ve already spoken about them in the past.

Like FAME in I’m Gonna Live Forever!
Also, The Facts of Life in You Take the Good, You Take the Bad…

What shows make you all nostalgic?! 

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I just got back from dropping my mother off at the airport.  I’m a bit down and I miss her already but I’ve learned over the years that if I let myself wallow I can sometimes not drag myself back out, so I try to keep myself occupied until it passes.   When I got home I checked my RSS feed and saw the sweetest thing,  it managed to make me smile even though I’m feeling so sad.

On Bakerella.com, one of my favorite (not to mention sinfully tempting) baking websites, a man contacted the blogger and asked for her help in proposing to his girlfriend.   The blog entry starts like any other, with the recipe and instructions on how to make these darling wedding cake pops, but at the bottom it has the photo with the proposal.  I gasped, I smiled, I cried and exclaimed loudly “HOW ROMANTIC!!!”.  Yeah, I’m a little emotional at the moment, but better to cry over someone else’s happy day than my sad one.

I don’t know who Melissa is, but I read in the comments that she said YES! 

Honestly, how could she not?!

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This has been a bad few weeks for me pet wise and anyone who knows me or reads my blog knows that I love my pets and it breaks my heart when anything happens to them.

First there was Bailey’s attack by a pit bull, which frightened the life out of me and has left me still a little nervous when out walking the dogs on my own.

Then within the last week I lost these two turtles.  Radar, my Cumberland Slider and Stelo, my Southern Painted Turtle.  I have no idea what happened to them and I’m still so sad that they are gone.  The mysterious part is that they are totally different species, different ages and were kept in totally different tanks.   To have them both die within a week of each other has left me boggled. 

It’s also thrown me into a total tailspin in regards to the turtles we have left.  I’m obsessed with cleaning their tanks, making sure they eat enough and everything else I can think of because I am SO afraid I’m going to lose them too.   If we could have afforded it at the moment I would have taken their bodies to a vet to find out what exactly killed them but that can get very expensive.

After speaking to the friendly guy who owns our local pet shop, he suspects that the feeder fish we keep in the tanks may have been affected by the drastic heat spike at the beginning of the month, became sick and then the turtles ate the sick fish and were poisoned by it.   I think that is a bit of a stretch but I guess it’s a possibility.  I have since removed all the fish from the turtle tanks and set up a separate tank for them on their own.  It’s easier to keep an eye on them keep track of their numbers and health.

I’ve decided not to take in any more turtles, at least not right now.  I have three aquatic turtles left and Sherman (my tortoise) and I want to make sure they are healthy and thriving before I even consider taking on any more.  Also, as long as we are in this flat it’s probably wise to keep the numbers to a minimum until we have a bigger place.

It sucks, but I guess it’s all a part of keeping turtles.   They are amazing and beautiful creatures but they are a lot of work and sometimes things just happen.  I just wish they wouldn’t happen to mine.

In other news, Bailey is now fully healed and back to his old self.  I had hoped that if anything good was to come of the ordeal that maybe getting his ass kicked would make him a little more humble when it comes to other dogs.  No luck, he’s still a complete asshole every time.  It would seem his little scrap with the Rottweiler, even though he really played no part in it, made him think he’s tougher than ever!

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A friend read the books recently and raved about them.  She went beyond raving though, into a place that I’ve never seen someone go over a book before.  Honest to goodness depression that the story was over.

Could it be that good, seriously?  They are ‘teen romance’ books after all.

Little did I know what I was in for *sigh*… from the first moment I opened the first book, I was completely hooked.   For the following three days I was incommunicado.  I actually bought the first book, so I could read it wherever I was, but when I finished it I was so hooked I couldn’t wait to start reading the next, so I downloaded it… and the one after that… and the one after that.

My friends didn’t hear from me, except the ones who have read it, so that I could blab my thoughts on the story to them.  My husband wondered if I was ever going to come out from behind my laptop for something other than food, toilet breaks or sleep and I’m pretty sure I didn’t bother to shower or answer the door or phone the entire time.  It was bad… really bad.

The Cullen family of vampires

I didn’t realize how much worse it could get until I was finished reading them… and then I understood what my friend meant when she said she was so depressed now that it’s all over.   I was devastated!  Suddenly I was thrown back into the real world and I didn’t want to be here.   I wanted to live in Bella’s world where you are never alone, there is always someone watching over you and protecting you… where the family of the one you love accepts you and loves you wholeheartedly even though you are different… A world of lullabies and baseball in the rain.

Vampire Baseball

I wasn’t there though.  I was sitting at home, alone… my dogs were bugging to be fed, there was laundry to do, I hadn’t figured out what to make for dinner yet, there were bills waiting to be paid and my hair was in that annoying ‘growing out stage’.  It fucking sucked.

Twilight is an amazing story, but it’s quite dangerous too.   It has a way of dragging you into a perfect world where even the most impossible things can seem real.   When it’s over and you close the book, you are left sitting and hating everything real about the world you live in.   Where the love you feel is real but will never have the force or excitement of the completely unrealistic (but desirable) form of it you just read about.   Where everything takes so much more effort and every relationship you have seems to be missing something by comparison.   It’s scary that a story in a book can have that affect on people, but it does and I know I’m not the only one.  I’ve visited a few fan sites and by the looks of things I am (believe it or not) among the more mildly affected.  Frightening thought.

Edward and Bella. Forbidden love at it’s best.

If you’ve not read this series, you (like I did when my friend tried to explain it to me) couldn’t possibly understand, but if you have – I know you’re with me on this.

The world created by the author is one of the purest kind of love.   Not just that but it’s a forbidden love, and we all know that the forbidden fruit sayings exist for a reason.   Put that together with unconditional acceptance, excitement and magic… how can anyone ever finish this story and not feel a little disappointed to be back in the real world?

This is all what makes me love these books, and hate them at the same time.  They are like a drug and they affect you in a way that I’ve never experienced with any other book in the past.   They stay with you, even days after you’ve finished them you can be driving down the road or watching TV and the characters will flash into your mind for no real reason.  It could go on forever and you’d still be left wanting more.

Crazy, right?  I know… even as I write all of this I know how ridiculous I sound… but that doesn’t stop it all from being true.

Our first glimpse of sweet Jacob

So anyway, Saturday my friend came over and we watched the movie together.  Both of us hopping with excitement in our seats as it began.   I know, it was hard to believe we were both over 30, but I guess we’re all still teenage girls at heart…

I was disappointed.  I was disappointed to be disappointed!   I knew that they had no chance in hell of fitting everything into the movie that was in the book, but they really could have done better.

First, the things I did like.  I love the people they chose to play all the parts, they were perfect… (although I did sort of imagine Alice to be more like Daisy Adaire from Dead Like Me).   I loved being able to see these beloved characters “live” and sit there and gush during the parts where they DID get it right.  I loved that for all the parts they left out, they didn’t forget the scene in the meadow, which was one of my favorites.

There were a lot of things I found wrong with the movie though, and they deserve a bullet list.

• The field trip.  What in the hell?  There were so many bits and pieces to fit into the movie, why make up an entirely new scene that didn’t even exist?  I hated that.
• They didn’t get across just how intense the relationship was between Bella and Edward.  You knew they wanted each other and that they wanted to be together, but it came nowhere even close to what you experience in the book… where they love each other so intensely that neither of them know how to cope with it.  Where the world isn’t even worth living in for them unless the other is in it too.  Where they actually say it to each other.   Their love is the foundation that the story is built on, and the book goes quite in depth explaining what exactly these two feel for each other… but in the movie it’s just not there.   That was so disappointing for me.
• Bella’s reactions.  When you read the book you understand that the majority of the reactions Bella has towards Edward stem from her own insecurity and that this makes her nervous around him.   She is worried about losing him, but is never afraid of him or being around him, which I found was the reaction she seemed to always portray in the movie.
• There wasn’t enough of the Cullens.  Some of the best parts of the book are when she is with the them!  For example, the scene with her, Alice and Jasper in the hotel.  That was shortened to almost non-existance in the movie.   None of her true bonding with Edwards family happened in the movie, and that is sad.
• Edward’s mind reading and his competition weren’t much of a part in the movie.  In the books he gets quite a lot of competition from the guys Bella goes to school with and it’s a major source of irritation for him, but that wasn’t an issue at all in the movie.  In fact, the people she went to school with may as well have not even existed, even though they made up a big portion of the story in the book.
• Angela and Eric? Huh?  Wasn’t she with Ben?
• Victoria had flaming red hair – FLAMING!!  Not red – ish.
• They didn’t really show any of the true relationship between Bella and her father.  None of the way she took care of him was shown in the movie, she pretty much just lived there, and that was it.

Oh James, bad boys always are so hot.

Ugh, there’s just so much… I could go on forever.   If you were to imagine the Twilight story as a beach, the movie was just one grain of sand.   They really should have made a miniseries out of it or something.  I’m going to stop harping about it now though.   Even while we were in the process of watching the movie my husband laughed at us. He also pointed out that we were worse than the Trekkies or Lord of the Rings weirdos.   I can’t argue, it’s true.  We’re absurd…

… but you can best your ass we’ll be first in line when the next movie comes out!  Even if, like Twilight, it pales in comparison to the book… we still won’t be able to stop ourselves.   We’ll take any scraps we can get.  Plus, I really want to see more of Jacob.

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While my parents were here we took them to the Rotterdam Zoo.  I really love that place.   I went there one other time with some girlfriends but even in the 1.5 years since I’ve been there, so much has changed.

My (sort of) favorite change is that they have POLAR BEARS.  I was so excited I took about 100 photos of them.

Unfortunately, once I finished taking the photos and really stopped to look at them, I felt really sorry for them.   Their enclosure wasn’t that big and other than this one eating the ice, they looked agitated and bored.   One was pacing and shaking his head and looked so completely unhappy.   It made me feel bad for taking part in the whole thing somehow.

He just stood there on top of the hill, pacing back and forth.  When I looked from this angle I realized just how wrong it was somehow.   Seeing this beautiful huge creature with the city just behind him, he seemed so out of place.

I usually love going to the zoo but I really had mixed emotions this time, mostly with the larger animals like the elephants, polar bears, etc.

Here are a few more of my favorite photos from the day.

Getting good photos of those damn jellyfish is hard, for me at least.

Nemo fish!  I’d so totally love to have a few of these but I highly doubt they’d even survive a day in any of my tanks.  They’d be turtle food!

I think we came around to the penguin enclosure around feeding time.  Normally you can see them zooming around in the water but this time they were all up top and looking at the door.  One of the zoo employees was in there and they were all totally hoping for some food.

No idea what this thing is, but it really looked cool.

The Prairie Dogs, oh my goodness they were so cute.   Another area where I took a ton of photos.

This little guy was another favorite of mine.  We got lucky and caught him at a playful time.  He was running all over the place, climbing all over his mother (if you can believe it) and being a total ham.  Who knew a baby rhino could be so adorable?

Seahorses, yet another thing I’d love to own.   Xander disagrees and made a crack about how exciting they are, which they aren’t really, they just kind of sit there… but I think they are great.

A shark egg!  If you look closely you can see the shark just above the yolk thing.  His tail is just to the left of it and his body curves over the top.

I have loads more photos from both of my trips to the zoo… Have a look here!

So what is your opinion on places like this?  Do you ever feel those same guilty feelings when seeing these big animals being kept in captivity?   I generally don’t feel so bad for the smaller ones as I figure they have lots of space and probably get better care than in the wild, but the bigger ones just seem so dreadfully unhappy.

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I SO wish I felt that way again right now.

My parents left this morning and if I’m honest, I thought I’d be ok when they left.  There were points during their visit where I felt like I was going to go off my rocker if I didn’t get a minute alone to breathe.  After all the hustle and bustle with the renovations and Xander working from home so much over the last few months, having two extra people here who were ‘all up in my business’ was stressful at times.  I’d give anything to have them here again though.

We got up at 4:15am this morning to drive them to the airport and within a few short hours, they were gone.   Our goodbye at the airport seemed rushed and a part of me wanted to go back and hug and kiss them both a few more times and tell them how much I love them, but I didn’t because I’m almost 34 years old dammit!  I should be able to have these comings and goings without turning into a total baby.

I cried through the airport and most of the way home, and that wasn’t the worst bit.  When I got home I felt lost.   My house feels so empty.   I’m tired, I’m emotional and I hate that they are gone.   My new bedroom doesn’t feel like our bedroom.  We renovated it, slept in it for 2-3 nights and since then it’s been my parents’ room.   I’ve gone in there a few times but I felt sort of like when I was 13 and would go into my parents bedroom, it doesn’t have that MINE feel.  Now my bedroom still feels like the blow up bed in the spare room.

I know this is normal and that I even said myself a few weeks ago that it’s one of the stages expats go through when family visit and then leave again, but goddamn it… it really sucks.   My husband is being a total sweetheart, but there’s nothing even he can do to change this loneliness I feel right now.

Nobody other than another expat can understand the feelings and thoughts that we have when our loved ones go away again.  Wondering when we’ll meet up again and hoping they stay safe and healthy until then.   Not to mention the feeling that comes with getting a small reminder of what COULD be if you lived closer to your family.  It was so nice to have my mother here where I could show her things, get her opinion on thoughts I had for the house and all the things other women take for granted and get to do on a daily basis with their mothers.

I’ll be fine tomorrow, or maybe the next day.  Things will get back to normal in the house, the dogs will stop looking for them, and I’ll stop looking over at my empty sofa and wishing they were there… I know this.

I just wish that knowledge would make TODAY a little easier.

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I won’t get into what happened because I know my mother won’t be able to stop herself from reading this, and she is a few seasons behind… but omg.  It was so sad and in a way I think it will ruin the show for me from this point on.  Not that there is much left to ruin, this is the last season.

I literally sobbed the entire 42 minutes it was on, then continued to cry for the first few minutes making dinner.   Not because I’m THAT hung up on this show, but rather the message the show sent out hit me and had me thinking about a few things in my own life… which I also won’t mention as it’ll give away what happened.

In my upset I forgot to check the oven before turning it on to preheat, not knowing that last night my husband had stuck something in there to keep it safe from the cat while we had our dinner.

When I opened the oven to put my casserole in, this is what I found.

Ok it’s not exactly what I found.  This is about 15 minutes later.  What I found was one of my larger casserole dishes with some clear bubbly substance inside.   It took me a moment to realize what it was.

It was one of our plastic cutting boards. Oops!

Last night we had a roasted chicken for dinner.  When we take it out of the oven we sit a cutting board inside the casserole dish so we can disassemble the chicken without the juices going all over our countertop.

When we had our food all dished up and were going to take it into the other room to eat, my husband put the casserole dish into the oven to stop the cat from getting the urge to jump onto the counter to eat the tiny bits of chicken that were on it.

Of course, we then forgot all about it… as often happens when people stick something in the oven ‘to deal with it later’.

It probably would have hardened into one solid mass again but my husband had way too much fun pushing around the melted plastic and trying to mold it into things.  As you can see, he ended up deciding on ‘big blob’.   I think he did a pretty good job with it!

So, I’ve thought about it and decided that the entire thing is the fault of Karl Zwicky, the executive producer of McLeod’s Daughters.   The way I see it is, if he hadn’t let the writers write what they did, the show wouldn’t have been so sad, then I wouldn’t have been sad, and wouldn’t have been distracted with sad things.  Then I would have had the presence of mind to check the oven before turning it on and I’d still have my cutting board.

So, if anyone happens to be talking to him… please tell him he owes me a new cutting board, or a new episode of McLeod’s Daughters that does that ‘it was all just a dream’ thing.   I’ll accept that in lieu of the cutting board.

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Some things aren’t worth mentioning, so I won’t get into them.   I do have an update on the cat situation though.

Lets recap… a week ago Friday the cats went to the shelter.  24 hours later the shelter calls telling us to come get them because Spencer has gone bezerk.  Friday night a lady calls that found the cats on Marktplaats (a site where I had advertised them) asking if I’ve found a home for them.   They come and meet the cats, staying at our place till 1am.   On Saturday evening we take the cats to them to help them settle in.

On Monday I get an email while at work.  Spencer was starting to act out, getting up on shelves and swiping at her when she tried to get him down.   I phoned her to tell her that he was probably just scared and that it would be best if she gave him some space and let him come to her.  I hadn’t heard anything else for a few days so I assumed they had started getting along.

Then I got this on Wednesday:

Hi Tammy,

Can you please come tonight any time and get Spencer, if you insist Salem too.  This morning everything went very wrong when no warnings around to see Spencer attacked again (after the nicest of morning greetings). This time I ended up at the doctor – he decided not to stitch my hand but I got antibiotics and a Tetnus shot… and I think I lost my sun glasses there too. No longer impressed sorry, he’s all yours again.

Linda

Okaaay, so maybe they weren’t getting along so well after all.  Dammit!

Xander and I discussed our options at length and after deciding and re-deciding what feels like a million times, we ended up going and picking up Spencer.  Just Spencer.   The reason being that he is getting older and set in his ways and just refuses to live with anyone but us (seriously, in our house we can swing him by the ears and he’d never flash a nail, never.).  We also agreed that it would be easier to maintain a house with one cat rather than two.

It absolutely broke my heart leaving Salem behind.   When we were there he was rubbing all up against me and in my mind was saying ‘Take me home!’.   Needless to say I spent all evening in tears when we got back home, wondering if we had made the right decision… AGAIN.

Now that a few days have passed I’m sure we did.  Salem is getting along great in his new home and Spencer is home with us and quieter than I’ve ever seen him.   Maybe he’s scared to death we are going to ship him off again!

I’m not even religious and yet I pray to god that this entire ordeal is over.   It may seem like a silly thing to some but deciding to re-home your pets is a big decision and within the last week we’ve had to make that decision numerous times.  Now I think we can finally relax and adapt to the new situation.

At the moment the family feels a little incomplete without Salem but I’m reminding myself that he is in a good home where he is the ‘only child’, which means he’s getting a lot more attention than he’d probably get here with us.   All I can do is take their word for it that he is happy.

Ok well that’s about all this pounding headache will let me write.  Back later with more (hopefully non-cat related) news.

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