Oh sweet hot water bottle, you are my friend! By giving up the birth control pill in order to jump of the baby-making train, I've signed up for all those lovely PMS symptoms in the meantime. While there's not really anything that nurse my disappointment in the fact that I am, indeed, not pregnant yet, I do have a hot water bottle to nurse my physical symptoms. The first month off the pill was too good to be true: no symptoms whatsoever. Now I'm three cycles in and, honestly, it's not that bad. I didn't have much in terms of PMS except for a couple of grumpy days, but today I'm feeling it. Actually the intensity isn't much different that when I was on the pill as it never really did much for cramps and backache for me to begin with, but I will note that it feels different somehow. This could just as easily be in my head, but, man oh man, it's like I'm a bloody teenager again rediscovering all this feminine fun. I feel silly sometimes, but after being on the pill for four years straight one can forget what it's like to not be on it. I taking pride in taking back my fertility, though. It feels good just knowing that my body is no longer at the mercy of a prescribed substance. It also makes me feel more grown up knowing that I've come off of it as a conscious decision to make use of what my body can do. Not to mention, I find human reproduction so freaking fascinating.

I'm at the point now where I couldn't be casual about TTC (trying to conceive) even if I wanted to. I've learned how to read my body in the past couple of months. I know when I'm about the ovulate and I know when my period is around the corner. I chart my BBT (basal body temperature) on a daily basis, which I find rather fun. It's cool to see the chart as it forms, how everyday is different, how every cycle is different. Temps are never a clear indication of pregnancy, but it's certainly clear about the cycle ending as the temps take a nose dive. Here, I'll let you see mine.

TTC has been a little all-consuming of my free time. I spend time on a TTC forum where other women support and sympathize with each other as each month proves unsuccessful. I've only just begun so it's not like I've been hard done by infertility or anything, but I'm quite taken by the ladies that are on there. I like them and some of them I feel really bad for as they have been TTC for not just a few months, but a few years. I'm worried I'll be not so lucky, that will take forever or that one of us has some kind of fertility issue. It's a double edge sword because worry in and of itself can make it difficult. Stress is a huge factor not being able to conceive. I'm trying to be as casual and worry free about it as I can.

Currently Velociraptor By Kasabian Man of Simple Pleasures see related

Communication is lacking, me thinks. Every time Nate has invited someone over for whatever reason he always fails to tell me. I'm not looking to offer permission, I'm looking to receive some bloody courtesy. Now I have to put up with him and his brother watching a stupid rugby game. Thanks for the heads up, dude.

That being said I am tired and cranky today, however I'm not using that as excuse for what I just said about lack of communication. It's starting to piss me off. Not to mention, this morning Nate was instantly pissy the moment he got out of bed. I had to connect my laptop with an ethernet cable because the wireless wasn't working and I have no idea how to go about fixing it other than unplugging the modem and restarting my laptop. With much attitude he gives me the booklet we got from Telus, but didn't bother to tell me that what I needed to do was enter the IP address directly into the web address bar and use the other two words as a username and password to reset the modem using the webpage.

ARGH! I'm just so irritated right now and Nate's lack of consideration and his own pissy mood is only making it worse.

It's pouring rain and blustering. It kind of put the kaibosh on going grocery shopping. Hopefully tomorrow's weather will be better. At least dinner is sorted out, but we're also having friends over and I don't have anything in terms of decent beverages nor dessert. Dinner is starting to smell amazing though. I'm roasting a duck in the crock pot in vegetable broth, apple sauce, apples, potatoes, onion, carrots, rutabaga, garlic and seasoned with cinnamon, salt, pepper and fresh parsley. So autumny. I hope it tastes as good as it's smelling!

Today was such a bad day. Ulgh. I've been extremely emotional yesterday and today because I'm about ovulate (TMI? teehee!). Since ovulating requires a hormone surge it doesn't surprise me, but man does it ever suck. I've been crying over stupid shit to say the least, even creating some unnecessary drama. I didn't sleep well last night, worked at 4 am, didn't eat breakfast, screwed up my stomach for the rest of the day, and have felt soooo uncomfortable physically all day. Now I'm just about to head to bed because I'm so tired and have another early morning tomorrow. At least I'm not pushing stock, thank god! But, even after eating some pizza and chicken wings and drank some water I still have that empty feeling in my stomach. What is going ooooooooonnnn?

Screw it! I'm going to bed!

Yesterday I baked a couple of pumpkin loaves and tried to make pumpkin whoopie pies. Neither turned out the way I would have liked. I traded oil for applesauce just to try it in hopes of making a delicious low fat treat. Blech. No luck. I still have enough pumpkin puree to remake both, so I'm going for gold and remaking both with BUTTER. The whoopie pies call for shortening, but I think butter is richer and would make them taste better. I don't know why anyone would like to use solidified vegetable oil that's also loaded with other shit like mono and diglycerides. Ew. Butter is where it's at! Anyway, I already have the pie filling sitting in the fridge from yesterday so I'd may as well try to remake them anyhow. I'm also going to get a pastry bag so I can squeeze out pretty little dollops of dough rather than messy, giant globs. And the bread...I should have told Nate to take it work with him. Perhaps the ladies at his work would like it. I certainly don't. I'm glad I forgot to put the pumpkin seeds in otherwise it would have been a waste. Anyhoo, gotta go buy some butter, cream cheese and sugar so I can remake those loaves.

I've been on the phone with Clearly Contacts for 20 minutes now. I'm trying to talk to someone about returning the unopen box....AHA! Finally talked to someone! I can send back these god awful lenses! My eyes are so dry, blurry and fatigued. I had such awesome vision with my previous lenses and with these ones I feel sleepy all the time with eye strain. They. SUCK.

I had a 4 am start this morning and after work it was go go go. I didn't even think twice about how tired I might have been and now that I'm home it's kicking in. Even at work I didn't feel all that tired. When I got off work I walked home to drop off the items I had bought at work then headed to the mall to pick up a new pair of shoes. Nate met me there and surprised me with a gift card for a manicure and pedicure at a salon. I think I'll make an appointment for Monday I hadn't had lunch yet so we headed over to the food court. Lately I've been feeling really gross. I haven't been drinking enough water or eating enough raw fruits and veggies and I just feel like a pile of crap. I got a salad for lunch, but it's going to take more than just a salad to help me feel better. I'm going to have to get back to the gym. I think if I even just went twice a week I would feel way better than not going at all. Just for the sake of conversation I told Nate that the movie Drive is supposed to be really good. He looked it up on his phone and said it was starting in about an hour. I totally wanted to go see it, but then he noticed that Our Idiot Brother was starting sooner and he wanted to see that. So we watched Our Idiot Brother. Nate figured our friends would want to see Drive also so we should save it for a night out at the movies with a group of our friends. I wanted to see Our Idiot Brother too, but I didn't think it was theatre worthy. It's not, you could enjoy it just as much as watching it at home plus have the benefit of being able to pause it. I had to get up at one point and use the bathroom. Stupid juice, lol. At the end of the movie they show bloopers with the credits including a woman I didn't see in the film all. I said, "Who was that? She wasn't in this!" and then realized it was a brief scene that happened while I was in the bathroom. Grr. I enjoyed it though. It was funny and I enjoyed watching it. It was one of those movies, for me, where I didn't think about how predictable cookie-cutter the plot was going to be or when it was going to end. I'd watch it again on purpose.

Oh boy! This day is catching up to me. I'm glad to be home, actually. I had essentially been on the go since 3 am. Yikes! Not a fan of these early morning anymore. I was a bit choked when I got to work because both of the regular keyholders were in this morning AND there were more of us than usual. I have no idea why I needed to be there. On the other hand it's hours so I don't want to complain...too much.

It's been an interesting week at work. On Monday there was a power outage around midday. Wednesday the fire alarm went off because a truck apparently backed into a sprinkler and set it off around Save On Foods. Thursday I come in to find out both of the tills at the customer service desk were broken, so I was working it like it was 1995 and selling cigarettes and doing returns through a checkout. This morning an electrical engineer came in to assist us with a power down so that we could reset our terminals and replace the fuse that was blown on Monday. It's a very long process and the terminals don't always play nice afterward so someone is on the phone with our IT department to ensure proper procedures are followed and the computers don't get screwed up. Well! At 9 am after all that shut down stuff was completed and the store was open we had ANOTHER power outage! So we were closed for about half an hour. At least I got to completely fill the cigarettes while we waited for all the terminals to come back online. It's such a piss off though because the electrical engineer and IT are going to have to do it all over again. Obviously there is something going on within the building itself. Not to mention the AC isn't working properly so it's a freaking furnace in there!

Anyway it's made for an interesting week and, this probably sounds weird but, I find stuff like this fun. I love it when a wrench in thrown into the regular day to day to shake things up.

I'm feeling rather nostalgic this morning. For some reason impending autumn along with shadowy overcast and a reprieve from high temperatures brings this on pretty much every year. I'm an adult who's been out of high school for 8 years now and I still get that back to school vibe when autumn comes along. I still catch myself feeling so relieved that I don't have homework. I would have thought this sort of thing would wear off after a couple of years, but then again isnt' this whole point of feeling nostalgic?

I even feel nostalgic for Xanga. While this account is new-ish I've been on Xanga for 10 years. I joined back in 2001 when blogging was a new concept The idea of keeping a journal online for others to read a comment was novel and a fantastic idea. At that time it was really something I felt like I had become a part of. I made some friends, one of which I finally met face to face this summer after knowing each other for 10 years through the internet. He was the fourth person I met in real life whom I met online. There are a few people I would love to still meet in real life as well. I digress...I miss all my old Xangan friends. I even miss the ones I read, but were never close to. Everyone, except for one, is just no longer on here. I'm Facebook friends with a very select few.

Nowadays I find Xanga to be too vast and full of "verbal diarrhea" to find any friendships. The subs that I have found now I enjoy reading, but I feel like it's going to be a difficult search in finding more. Also, Xanga has become so cliquey. For a while I left because nobody would visit my blog or leave me comments even though I understood that it's a two way street and that I needed to do the same on others' blogs as well. So I lost my interest in blogging, but recently I've been enjoying it again and not for the comments or footprints. Oh, sure those are both very nice to see and I appreciate every single comment I get, but blogging isn't a popularity contest and getting eprops. I blog because I want to, because I feel like it, because I want to write but have no patience for the creative stuff so I just blog about me. It's fun and it's honest.

But I don't think I'll ever stop missing what Xanga used to be and the people who made it that way.

Tomorrow I go back to work to four days in a row. I can't even bring myself to complain because I just had four days off and I'll have three more off when these upcoming four days are over. I'm not very excited about starting work at 4am on Friday, but I only have to do it once this week and Saturday is only a four hour shift starting at 7:30am. I still, more or less, have a weekend.

Salt Spring Island was wonderful. The weather was perfect, we got to see a friend and it was nice and relaxing. My father in law met us on the Victoria side and drove us onto the Salt Spring ferry. We went straight to Ganges to check out the market. Turns out it was pride weekend there so it was pretty busy. I think the great weather brought many visitors as well. For those who live in Victoria it's a stone's throw away. My step sister in law lived in Vic and goes to Salt Spring what seems like every weekend to visit her friends and mum
We hung around the market for a bit saying hello to people we only see either there or in Mexico. Our friend Dawn had a booth in the market. She makes and sells feather earrings from naturally moulted feathers from a bird sanctuary somewhere in the island. It's got some tropical birds so she has some some beautiful and colorful feathers to work with. It sucks for her though because when she got into making feather jewelery it was a such niche market and now it's becoming a fad. There were several merchants there selling similar stuff, but at least she makes an effort to make her own designs. I thought about buying a pair from her, but I don't really wear earrings in general. A little later I helped her pack up her table and we went to the pub across from where she was set up. There's no baby yet, so I had a beer, and of course my father in law gave me a hard time about having a drink. All in good fun, of course. One of the ladies with us believed we were already expecting, so I had to clarify that I wasn't. If I knew I was I sure as hell wouldn't be having a beer, that's for sure. My father in law has been hounding us for a grandchild for a few years now and it seems like it's only gotten worse since we told him we're trying, lol. Since we don't see him a regular basis and he's so gung ho, I don't think I'm going to tell him when I actually am expecting until I've made it through the first trimester safe and sound. I'd hate to give him news about a miscarriage if we ever have one. Then he'll only have to wait 6 months instead of 9 anyway. It was really hot and we had some time to kill before dinner so Nate and I took a stroll around the the edge of Ganges Harbour and ended at Grace Point where I could sit and dip my feet because they felt so hot and swollen. I was an idiot and didn't wear flip flops. I took some pics with my phone because the tide was in and the water and sky were clear.

There was a neat old fishing boat hanging out in the harbour.

Nate went swimming.

There were starfish everywhere.

Cooling my feet.

A family of swans swam by us. They got pretty close and made me a little nervous. They can be ornery.

A jeuvie. His feathers were still gray.

I really like this shot.

After the pub we went over to the Salt Spring Inn for dinner. I had very yummy pasta dish with a thick roasted red pepper cream sauce. It was so rich, but so good. It was $5 to add prawns to it and I wish I hadn't because I only got three prawns. Can you imagine? Five dollars for three prawns. That's over a $1.50 per prawn. Ridiculous. I wasn't very impressed with out waitress either. It seemed like she was ignoring me and having a gay ol' time chatting up everyone else at the table. It took forever for her to take my drink order and when she placed my dinner down she didn't bother to ask if I needed anything else when in fact my wine glass was empty and wanted another one. She got around to it when my dinner was half finished. Not to mention she just gave off a bitchy vibe.

We were such party animals that we left at around 9pm, lol. We were all so knackered and supposed to go to Dawn's for a drink or two, but she called and said she wasn't up for it either. It all worked out. We went home, I got into PJ's, had a cup of tea and went to bed. I did start reading a new book before going to sleep though.

So the house is up on a mountain where we get a view of the water and Crofton on Vancouver Island. There are also some wild peacocks that just hang around the neighborhood and particularly like my father in law's property and trees where they roost at night. When I got up they were grazing around the yard.

Sadly, because it's fall, they had no tail feathers. They only have those in the spring when it's mating season. Also, this is the view off the deck outside.

The house so awesome. It's not huge, but it has an open floor plan that had two levels and big windows that overlook this view and the deck in front. As the day goes on the sun rises from over the mountain top behind the house, so it's morning shade and afternoon sun. Sunday was pretty relaxed. We met up with Dawn and had some lunch at a restaurant that Dawn used to work at that has an outdoor patio. I had the best veggie burger in my life. It had smoked tofu, Portobello mushroom cap, locally made goat cheese and tomato chutney. I'm convinced the pickles were homemade too. So. Good.
After lunch my step mother in law was coming home from a trip to Vegas so we picked her up from the ferry, grabbed some beer and went to the beach at Drummond Park. Nate's brother decided to get creative with whatever the beach had to offer and with Dawn's help made this:

We stayed until the ferry we had to take started making its way into the harbour.

Before the ferry left Fulford Harbour.

We got a gorgeous sunset on the ferry going back to Vancouver.

And it only got better. Sadly I was cold and wanted to sit inside and read. I only noticed how awesome it was from inside and wouldn't have had time to get out there and take pictures. Sunsets happen to quickly.

Overall it was a great weekend. It was short, but when we got home it didn't feel like we only left the morning before. At least we weren't gone long enough for our cats to miss us.