Birdo Love Moo

Why is it...

2012-01-09T18:45:00.000-08:00

that people with kids are more interesting than those of us without?

Perhaps I just have too many people with kids or definitely more people with kids than people without kids. Or maybe I am just in contact with the kids people more... I don't know.

I do feel like once we have a kid around that people will want to talk to us more, be more interested in what's going on in our lives, be more interested in hanging out, want to talk on the phone more, perhaps even skype because there will be this interesting little person on the other end. Gosh I feel boring.

I think the reason I like shows like Friends, Seinfeld, and How I met your Mother is that they are people like me and Paul... Just living their lives, no quirky family moments... doing that single person or married without kids thing. I feel like we are on an island or something... we are married without kids. We have married with kids friends and single friends... where do we fit in all of that? We have some great friends, I don't want any of them to think that we don't love hanging out with them and stuff and boy do they have some cute kids. It's just an odd place to be in life.

Well I guess just in an odd mood. I am going to bed in 7 minutes, need more sleep cause I just haven't gotten enough in the last few days. It's making me grumpy, irritable and sullen. So... enough of that.

Side Note- I need a library card. And I want a lot of board games!

A new niece!

2012-01-05T16:37:00.000-08:00

So yesterday my second niece in the last 2 months was born. Both of them are great and wonderful.

I don't even know if I should blog about this right now cause I feel torn. I am happy for my families, happy that there are new babies, more than glad that everything has gone well for them but there's this other side of me, the sad, depressed side that doesn't know what to say or how to deal with this. My due date for Nicholas is fast approaching... thoughts of "I should be crazy big and ready to pop" keep going through my head. I just wish things were different, and I know most people do wish the same for us. I feel like all I can do is just let myself cry, let myself feel crappy for the night if that's what it takes to have a week or two of no crying. January 22nd is coming up fast... bah.

I think I just need to focus on the plan... here's the plan...

1. Lose weight, by February 1, 2013 (or sooner) I plan on being 60 pounds (or more) lighter.
- Step 1 - Follow Weight watcher points to the T
- Step 2 - Wii fit or walk or exercise somehow 3 times or more during the week
- Step 3 - Take pictures. They are the best motivation ever, take a picture of yourself in your undies or swimsuit and all of a sudden you -want/need- to make a change. It is easy to look in the mirror while clothed or completely naked and to like what you see... But yeah to see yourself in swimsuit or undies... well yeah it's a different experience. (Try it... it will motivate you to lose weight or tone some muscles!)

2. Look at going back to school, finishing my degree.
I hadn't thought about it seriously until after this second loss and I started going back to work. I realize that my housewifing isn't the best, and I honestly don't know if I would be any better at it once a baby is introduced. So if I get my degree then I can be the working person and Paul can be the stay at home person. This is still a tentative plan but it's worth going forward with... because I get my degree and Paul gets to practice cleaning and stuff. He would still do some things but it would be mostly contract work and would get paid pretty nicely for that.

3. Get health insurance (will have some by 2/1/12!) and get some health issues looked at.
When I was pregnant we thought perhaps that I might have sleep apnea because of the protein that was in my urine. It was a small amount but still something to look at cause it was more than what should be there. So we are going to get that taken care of.

Above and beyond the things listed above are the general things of hobbies... games, books, friends, quilting, organizing... and so on. I might as well take the time to develop some of my skills and hobbies and interests if I have the time. So this Saturday I will be going to Madison to play board games again with the group of people I had been playing with before. And on Sunday we will be trying to do an online version of DnD with our friends, so some roleplaying will be involved. Hopefully this works out for the best.

Well looky there... now that I am to the end of my blog post I've stopped crying... yay! :) Almost time for dinner, but I am working on cleaning the bedroom... and organizing some papers and stuff. :) Focus time! Thanks for listening/reading.

Kind of bummed

2011-12-28T19:07:00.000-08:00

So today was good for the most part... work was good (I got a job at Roundy's again yay! I might mention this every time I blog until I realize I've mentioned it 20 times... whatever), the commute was excellent, I saw my husband before he went to lift weights, I ate dinner, relaxed in the quiet of the apartment, the cat snuggled with me, we watched some episodes of Star Trek voyager and I perused facebook and reddit to entertain me. As I was reading facebook I noticed my husband had posted on facebook... odd, he's supposed to be lifting weights or something... well he posted about the sermon pastor preached tonight on the Holy Innocents... What? Ok so my husband went to church and didn't tell me he was going. I didn't realize there was a service tonight... I would have gone too. Now I'm bummed. I missed the service that maybe would have brought some comfort, something... in regards to our boys. And now I am bummed. I truly feel as if I have missed out on something, my husband now has the comfort of the word but I feel like I was jipped. Nothing I can do about that though... but I can't seem to unbum myself. I guess I'll just have to wait until Paul gets home, eventually Nathan will drop him off and I can talk to Paul.

I'm pretty sure that my emotional stability isn't there today and I probably would have gotten upset. I probably needed the quiet evening at home... maybe. Although seeing others enjoying themselves when you are feeling bummed out is not easy. I am glad my friends and family are having a good time this time of year... and I do have some good moments to enjoy. But eh, I don't know maybe I should just avoid facebook until the holidays are done. Wait until the first blizzard then get online, people will not be happy then... I will be, but that's cause I love snow and I enjoy the quiet and peace it brings.

I feel like a broken record, all the should have's that go through my head... the should have's aren't the is and the are. I can't change the past but I also can't seem to remove the voice that likes to continually go though the would have, should have and could have's. How do you stop that record? How do I just live my life as it is? That's what I do though, I do continue living, breathing, eating, working... all of the things I need to do. But I am also continually grieving. I am pretty sure that doesn't go away, but I do wish it didn't come up so much in my thoughts.

Maybe it's time for bed. I work tomorrow, am off Friday and then work Saturday. And I turn 30 in the next couple of days... yay? I don't know. I might see if Paul wants to go out to eat or something. That might help.

A Christmas letter

2011-12-22T16:09:00.000-08:00

Or blog post... what's the difference? (well they are very different, but whatever!)

Dear Friends and Family,

These letters are usually used as a way to reflect on the last year, update your friends and family on your life, especially those friends and family who you don't talk to every day or even once a week. So I will attempt to do that, hopefully without too many tears on my part or yours, but I am sure there will be a bucket load of them. Ok well not really starting out that positive... am I?

I received a lovely card from my sister today, saying how she wished there was something she could do or say to help with the year I've had and how there really aren't any words that can be said that can help.. That only one being can help, and that's God. That's why I pray often, read the word often and go to church as often as I can make it. Hearing the word and receiving the sacrament are what I need.

To reflect on the year though... there have been good moments and bad. Good are the moments where I got a positive test result, found out I was pregnant for the first and then second time. Another good moment was the birth of my God Daughter Zoe, she is such a cutie pie and her smile melts my heart every time. My niece was born this year, chubby lovable niece born on 11/27. :) I have another niece due any day now and I am sure she will be a cutie pie too. More good... moving to Wisconsin (again!), getting my job at Roundy's (again!), Paul moving into the independent contractor work with programming, friends getting engaged, friends getting pregnant and having babies, friends becoming pastors, Moving to a new apartment, making new friends at my jobs (Roundy's and Manpower), friends getting jobs (that aren't crappy!), Parents coming to visit, and I'm sure there are many more that I haven't thought of but will probably think of later (or never realize what good those moments were until many years later or maybe never).

The bad and complicated times of my last year are not many but they are painful and heart wrenching. December 3rd 2010 I lost my baby boy Christopher. September 2nd 2011 I lost my baby boy Nicholas. The days after these lossed have had many bad moments, times that I just wanted to throw myself down on the bed and cry for the rest of my life. I hate the moments when people ask me if I have kids, I never know what to say or how to deal with the painful moment. I find it hard to be around pregnant women, women with children, young women with no children, older women past the age of having children, men with children, or just young men or older men... I guess just people in general. Of course there are exceptions, friends and family who I don't have a hard time being around or talking to, people who don't remind me of the boys we've lost. I don't know why there are exceptions... but there are.

So I guess... I kind of suck at this Christmas letter writing this year.

I hope that all my friends and family have a very Merry Christmas. I just keep focusing on the future and hoping that next year will prove to be a little bit less stressful, less sad and hopefully there will be some good news in store if all goes as we hope. I might be working on my degree and we might be expecting a little one or at least be thinking about it again. Who knows what the future has in store for us.

Anyways, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone!

Love,
Cassie

Blogging...

2011-11-14T18:10:00.000-08:00

I want to blog differently. So far it's been kind of like me documenting my life. But honestly going over all that has happened since I last blogged... well it bores me. Maybe it doesn't bore my readers... if I have any of those... but it does bore me. I read some blogs that are just so incredibly interesting... and others well I could take or leave them.

I don't know how to blog differently.

I could say... I love my job. I just started last week and it's so nice. Even my sister says I sound happier... that's good. :) This year is going to be hard, so it's good to have a job that I enjoy.

Two weeks from now will be the one year mark since we lost Christopher. I know a lot of people don't know the pain of losing a child, it's hard to describe how you feel. Some days you are fine, others you feel like your insides are trying to work their way out, your skin is crawling and itchy and you just wish you were in another body, another life, you want to throw yourself down on the bed or ground and just cry until you can't cry anymore, sometimes you even do that but usually the crying doesn't last very long, then you just feel numb and tired.

So thankfully I now have a job to help distract me from these lovely feelings. I've made some good friends in my new department. Have reunited with some old friends, and am trying to work out some of those relationships... hard when you switch departments... the dynamic changes. But I know that I am where I need to be, this feels right, like putting on an old sweater... comfortable... except perhaps not exactly like that since there are new things.

Me working changes things around the house here, Paul and I need to work on a schedule. Who makes what food, and when and such. I think we are doing pretty well at it now. We'll see how things end up in the future, but for now I am happy with how things are working out.

The Cat Foo

2011-10-24T20:27:00.000-07:00

So here's the deal... I love my cat dearly, but I have made some blunders with raising him. Tonight I learned of some of the ways in which I could be better. I went to a thing down in Waukesha called How to tame the tiger, and it was all about cat behavior. And for the most part I thought I knew what cats wanted... but what I've realized is that I don't really know. My parents cats are couch potatoes and those cats I am great with, if a cat wants to sit in my lap and get pet and loved on... great! I am all for that. But give me a smart cat, one that wants to be the predator and that acts like a real cat... well I just didn't get it until now. And I now understand that my cat is the latter, he's not a sit in your lap kind of cat.

I'll start with things I've done right and then move onto the things that I need to change in order to continue living nicely with the cat.

Good things... I made him a nice tall scratchy post thing and have given him places to be (ie behind my head on the couch or recliners cause they are high and happy places), I feed him wet meaty food so that he gets his protein and water, I've used a pheromone spray to help comfort him in different places, and I love him.

Bad things... I've ignored him many times, I reinforce bad behavior by giving it attention, I don't clean his litter as often as I should, I pester the cat and annoy him, I don't challenge my cat, I don't clip his nails consistently, and that is what I know or can pin point.

So definitely things to change... especially since we are moving into a new place. He has a horrible habit of clawing at the carpet, especially near doors, he really hates being confined. I need to find a good way to deter him from the doorway because every place will have a door leading out to the outside world. Some of the things suggested for this... could get a runner to put in front of the door upside down, specifically those runners that have the spiky uncomfortable bits that he probably wouldn't like, also set up some kind of scratching zone next to the door that way when he wants to spread his scent that he is using the correct scratchy thing, sticky paws double sided tape or something like it in that area might help but being as how this is usually in front of the door I need to use something that will allow people to come in and out of the apartment, and then a spray like Feliway is another option. I've read online about people using aluminum foil and how that worked. The only things that I think will work will be the runner thing with a scratcher near by so that he can still leave his scent in that area and then with a nice happy spraying of the apartment with pheromones from the Feliway or something like it.

I was also contemplating making another scratch post area like I did before and I will still do that just not as complicated as I was thinking. I am thinking of making some custom made cardboard scratchy things with some catnip.

The other thing that I think I will try is using a combination of clicker training with some kind of treat reward like baby food if Foo likes that (we'll have to see). But the idea is that when the cat does something you want to reinforce you click and give a small taste/spoonbit of baby food. Just make sure your baby food has no onion powder in it since that is bad for the cat. There's a website for it too... www.clickertraining.com

Oh the other thing is to keep a log or journal about things you notice with your cat, that way if something starts to get abnormal you can look back to see what the cause of it is. I want to start doing this too.

And another thing I learned is that let's say you are holding your cat to clip it's nails and he/she starts to get kind of fussy. Stop clipping their nails and hold them until they are calm again or pet them until they calm down then let them go, then they learn that they will be able to leave once they are calm versus because of bad behavior. Gotta try that too.

Basically lots of different things to do, learned that a lot of my cat's behaviors stem from reacting to me and my reactions. He learns and reacts and continues to learn. So if I want to teach him good things for instance then I need to react to the good things in order to get good behavior. Sounds almost like a kid doesn't it? ha!

Well that's the cat news! :)

Moving! Yes... again..

2011-10-16T10:38:00.000-07:00

We have lived in so many different places since we got married... started in Cedarburg, moved to Grafton, then to South Milwaukee, then a huge change and out to Centralia, WA... then another huge change and back to Grafton, now to Menomonee Falls at the end of this month. Hopefully this move will last us awhile. We can see ourselves living there with one child, but two would make for crowded space... but possibly doable. We will see where we are led with this child having thing. Ideally I would like to have more than one child, but physically and emotionally it's hard to say what will happen. Just keep reminding myself that some things aren't certain, there's no guarantees for some things. And that's fine.

So Paul is enjoying his job, he goes downtown daily to work and gets to see people! people are good sometimes and I think it has helped to have some interaction with others besides his wife, mother and a few others.

Tomorrow afternoon I have an interview with Roundy's! Finally my waiting and patience has paid off. Please please let me get the job! I miss the group of friends that I have there, they have become like family and unfortunately I've been estranged from them for too long now. I am glad to be going back to work, this will be very good.

I went in to see my doctor for a 4 week follow up visit, we got to do the lovely pap smear which all us ladies love doing... right? And we talked about birth control and stuff, cause with Paul and I wanting to wait a year or so before trying again, well we need something. Since I don't have insurance she gave me a 6 month supply of pills, some samples she had. So I am going to take those, watch my blood pressure and hopefully by the time I need more I will have insurance or hopefully they aren't too expensive. We'll see. Just have to now wait for that lovely first period after losing Nicholas. After losing Christopher I kind of dreaded that first period thing, cause it meant I really wasn't pregnant, I really lost my baby. Now I don't dread it so much, not anymore than I do in general (who wants to have cramps and bleeding for a week or so?), now I am much more at peace with the idea of my body getting back to normal. It's a good thing.

Well for now I am going to go, I think it's time for me to play some minecraft... I want to build an inn! So Jeff, Nathan, Paul and I play on a server together, and have started doing this challenge thing where we have certain rules that we have to play within. It's a lot of fun, and I love getting to spend time with everyone, especially Jeff since I never see him anymore since he's so far away. Sometimes we even get on skype so I get the chance to hear his daughter Lydia from time to time... she is really really cute.

I think after we move we are going to try to make a trip down to a couple of friends houses... Sean and Becca's and Jeff and Liz's... they have their churches now and it would be nice to get to spend some time with them. Just have to work that out with them... but we have some time to do that.

Crimson and Clover over and over

2011-09-26T16:26:00.000-07:00

That's stuck in my head, just those words... no other part of the song. Hmm. Oh well.

Life updates... well probably the biggest change in the last week is that Paul gave his notice last week so this past Friday was his last day. He is going to be doing some consultant computer programming work, and will hopefully be a lot happier. I hope and pray that this change is a good one for him. I don't like seeing him unhappy so I try to be very supportive, and thank goodness my husband doesn't spend money to be happy, I would probably be too accommodating and then all of our money would be gone! :( but we don't have that issue... instead he can find a new job and be happy. :)

Speaking of jobs... I am hoping to get hired on at Roundy's again. Not sure if they will or won't hire me ... eh I hate the waiting game. Just get me in there for an interview, let me knock your socks off (which apparently can't happen according to my friend Katie) and hire me! We'll see though, things might not go in that direction.

Part of the job thing is the insurance thing... with Paul's job change this means we no longer have health insurance. I have been working with this lady in hopes of getting a health insurance plan that would work for us. She seemed very reasonable and nice. Sent me quotes and now we will apply for one of them. I eventually that will happen... we'll see. By mid October we should have health insurance again, something that will hopefully not be too expensive but will be good.

Mentally and Physically I am doing alright I guess. I don't think about the boys whenever I can help it, but sometimes I can't help it and when that happens I just let myself feel whatever I am feeling. Most of the time it's despair and then after awhile that moves aside and there's hope again, and the world doesn't feel as suffocating. Couple of things happening there... part of it is that I remind myself that if I can't have my babies then they are in the best place for them with the Father of all fathers and mothers. We are made in our Father's image and i can only imagine the amount of love I have for my boys is only a fraction of the love He has for them/us. So that usually helps. Also the hope and positive outlook we have for our next pregnancy. Just knowing what went wrong and how to fix it has made things a lot easier.

With Christopher, our first son, I blamed a lot of people and just the other day I realized that I no longer blame them. It's funny cause I thought I had forgiven them awhile back, but I just realized that I didn't fully forgive until we found out why all of this had happened. I didn't even have anything to forgive really, but I just needed to let go of anger that I had bottled up inside. It's hard not knowing why you have lost a child, and knowing why I have lost both boys has definitely helped.

Oh right that was all just mental/emotional stuff... physically I feel like I am doing good. I go to the doctor on Friday to just make sure everything is behaving as it should and that I really am on my way towards "normal". Not sure I want to go back to normal... but I guess that's better than abnormal or problems. We'll see though.

I've also started playing Minecraft, which is a fun game where you build things and basically redesign a world. Unfortunately there are some bad guys so they get scary every now and then but I can mostly ignore the baddies. :) It's fun to design little houses and places, so I've been having a lot of fun with that. It's in beta right now so it's still being tested and stuff, but that's ok with me.

Haven't done a lot or any quilting... I want to. I was going to do a quilt a long thing with a few other people... this pattern called Key to my Heart, it made me think of my children (past and future) and it fits perfectly. So I will be doing that one soon here, didn't get it done in time for the pattern share, feel bad about that, but I will do it. I will also finish a mug rug or 4 that I have started and wanted to get done. That's it for now.

Will write later.

I hate saying goodbye

2011-09-12T15:02:00.000-07:00

So mom and dad left today. :(

And we went to the cemetery today to see the boys, I decided to take the flowers that people have given us and laid them on the grave. Hope people don't mind... but I really didn't want to see them here at the apartment anymore just dying... meh. So maybe they will dry nicely at the gravesite.

And all I want right now are my boys. I have one of them (My Pauly husband) but I want my Christopher and Nicholas too. Guess I just have to wait for them to be with me.

I hate that this is something we are having to deal with... :(

So many questions ... no one should have to go through the loss of a child at anytime... it's so hard, your heart feels heavy and too heavy really that you can't imagine why it's still beating or how it's still beating. You just want to fast forward time to a point where you think you might be feeling less vulnerable, less like crying all the time. Just walking around is hard, there are pregnant women everywhere! Also babies and kids all over... I love cute children as much as anyone else, maybe even more than most people, but I think I need a break from seeing them (well some of them, some of them I -need- to see, my little nephews and little "nieces" (not really nieces by blood, but they are the cutest little girls) and of course some of my other friends children), don't need to see quite as many cute children. Especially don't need to see parents yelling at their children, or in situations where they seem just annoyed with their children... that is upsetting for me.

Bah, anyways tired of writing, wanted to write some of this... and probably other things too, but it is exhausting. Perhaps now time to check out and play WoW so that I can just veg... *sigh* later!

The whole story...

2011-09-07T10:05:00.001-07:00

I hadn't posted this yet, and just took the time to write it out as detailed as I can remember. I am sure there are things I maybe forgot or didn't put in here. But this is for those that want to know what happened with our last pregnancy, and who maybe want to know what we went through partially. Of course you can never entirely put your emotional journey into words, there's too many places your heart goes when you are experiencing something like this. Anyways, here it is...

On Friday September 2nd, I lost my second baby boy, Nicholas, at 19 weeks. Last December I lost my first baby boy, Christopher, at 18 weeks. Both losses we now know were caused because of an incompetent cervix. We figured this out because of how we lost Nicholas.

Everything was going great so far with this pregnancy, baby was measuring right on with each of my ultrasounds, he was just perfect. Then last Wednesday evening I had some spotting, which I wasn't going to worry about too much because they tell us this happens. Well I also had some cramping, so when we got home I drank water and laid down with hopes that both spotting and cramping would stop. Well after laying down for 10-15 minutes or so I felt a pop feeling down there... and I knew something had happened. Perhaps at that point I should have just stayed laying down... I don't know, hard to say what would have happened. Unfortunately at that point I had to use the restroom so I got up and peed, and felt a pressure down there, like something was right at my vaginal opening. I got my mirror out and took a look, and I saw blue. Panic seized me and I quickly did a squeeze thing with my vagina and could feel whatever it was move back up some. I felt with my fingers and knew it hadn't disappeared, it was still outside of my uterus... I remember the terror, the moment of "Oh shit", I called out to my husband and said "We have to go now, we have to get to the hospital NOW." I called the on all nurse and laid down to try to keep myself calm. My legs were shaking I was so nervous, I knew I didn't want to lose another baby, but I didn't see how this could be good. The nurse talked to the on call doctor and told me I could either go to this hospital downtown that specializes in preterm labors, or wait until the next day and get into my doctor to be checked out. I knew I couldn't wait, so we decided to go to the ER.

My husband called his mom and her husband, they came and picked us up and drove us down to the hospital. It look an hour to 2 hours to even get back into an ER room. Then another hour or so of them coming in and doing some things then going out and coming back in... it just was happening so slowly. They did a pelvic exam, the ER doctor confirmed that what I had seen was the sac. They couldn't feel my cervix because the sac was holding it open and they couldn't get their fingers around the sac to where the cervix was. The ER doctor told me I was having a miscarriage, I tried to stay hopeful but he just kept saying that "no it was too late, this was a miscarriage." I felt like my heart was ripped out of me, I just couldn't understand why this was happening to us, why again, why did we have to lose both of our baby boys. We talked about how many times we thought we could try again. My husband said maybe 4 total before he would have to stop, I said 5. I hate that we had to talk in those terms, how many losses can we endure, how many baby's can we lose before we just won't try anymore. The ER nurses/doctor said they had called the Labor and Delivery OB on call person, and that he ws going to come down and talk to us.

When the L&D doctor came down, he gave us some hope. He said that he wanted to get me upstairs, wanted to do his own exam and talk with my doctor and come up with a plan that would maybe save our baby. Since the sac was still intact or they thought it was they wanted to see if there was any fluid leaking as well as where the baby was, what the baby was doing (stressed or not), and just get a general idea of the situation. So after 30 minutes or so of waiting we finally were taken upstairs, they got me into a bed in L&D and by 5:30am had finished doing another pelvic exam, and an ultrasound to see where the baby was positioned (head up towards the top of my uterus, no baby bits within the cervix opening area, the baby was all in my uterus). After talking with my doctor they decided to go ahead and put me on total bed rest, so no getting up for anything, nurses helped me with a bedpan and anything else really that I needed help with. They laid my bed down flat and raised my feet in the air, hoping that maybe gravity would move the sac down into my uterus. I prayed and talked to my baby, and just kept hoping that things would be different. If only the sac would just go back in and then I could stay laying down until the end of the pregnancy... tried hard to keep hopeful.

Later that morning they told me I was now under the care of the Maternal and Fetal Medicine group (doctors who specialize in high risk pregnancies). The main doctor that was on my case wanted to do the anatomy scan, which we had scheduled for a week later (tomorrow 9/8), so we were hopefully going to see our little baby moving and measure all the parts and maybe even find out if we were having a boy or girl. Well the ultrasound tech was brought up to me, and boy was it great seeing our little one there, moving and strong heartbeat, everything was perfect. Unfortunately at that time he wasn't being very cooperative when it came time to see if he was a boy or girl, but that's ok. After that was done the doctor came up to discuss the ultrasound and the situation... I had thought he would take a bit of time to get up here so I sent Paul and my in laws away so that I could maybe get some sleep and they could all eat. So I ended up talking to the doctor alone, where as I would have liked it had Paul been around, but there was no helping any of it.

Anyways, the doctor said that the baby looked perfect, everything was measuring right on for 19 weeks 4 days. He said the outcome of the situation didn't look good though, the sac was holding open my cervix and was sitting there. He said he has seen people get as far as 28 weeks or so with this same situation, it's just hard to tell what will happen. He said we had basically three choices... the first was if we wanted to continue the pregnancy, he didn't want to assume that we would but wanted to give us the option, but I told him we definitely wouldn't be ending the pregnancy early if we could help it. The second choice was hospital bed rest until the baby came, basically I would stay in the same position that I was (head down feet up) and we would wait, he said they would monitor me for infection and keep track of all my vitals, and was willing to keep me there as long as needed but if there was an infection then he would have to do something at that point. The third option would be to go home and do bedrest at home or just do modified activities. Well I chose the second of these, I wanted to give my baby as much chance as I could to survive. The doctor also talked about future pregnancies and that now we know it was the cervix causing issues so before we start trying again we will set up a plan for the next pregnancy. So after this the doctor ended up leaving and the emotions/crying just came, this whole situation was so overwhelming, I wasn't sure if I was strong enough to stay in this position but the prospect of getting up and potentially causing early labor... well I just couldn't be so selfish, I would be uncomfortable for as long as it needed me to be. My husband came back with my in laws to find me crying, but I needed to speak to my husband alone, I explained everything to him, he explained it to my in laws and then it was just a matter of waiting.

They put some stocking type things on my legs to make sure I didn't get any blood clots from all my laying around. They gave me tylenol for the crazy headache that I was getting from laying with my feet up. I was finally able to eat some food (yes I hadn't eaten since the night before, almost 24 hours without food!). And I took some naps. As the evening started coming around the doctor came in again, I asked him about some cramping/contraction like feelings I had been getting. He said there was no way to know if that was me going into labor or not because they use the cervix as their guide to labor, and my cervix was currently occupied. So he said only after I had already had the baby would we know if it was labor. But if they got more consistant then let the nurses know. At this point in the evening (8 or so) they were like maybe 15-30 minutes apart and not very consistant. Around 10:30 or so (after talking to a few friends and getting their encouragements) I took an Ambien and tylenol and went to sleep.

At around 1:30 in the morning I was woken up with crazy contractions every 30 seconds to a minute apart. I also had to use the restroom, so I called in the nurse we did the bedpan thing, i was having some bleeding, more so than the spotting from before. She got on the phone with the doctor and got me some Newvain or bain or something like that, put it in my IV and that helped for the next hour... I only felt 3-4 of the contractions versus all of them. Around 2:30 my water broke, and I knew I was going to be having our little baby boy. I woke up my husband, and we waited, at 2:41 am my baby boy ws born. His heart was beating still, not as fast as it had been, but he was still alive. We were able to hold him for quite some time, at one point it was just my husband and I in the room and we were able to watch his little movements I felt him take in some breaths even though his lungs were not developed enough to help him survive. His hand made some movements, and I believe I even saw him moving his eyes some. At 6:15 am his little heart had stopped beating. The nurses were wonderful and let me keep him in my room until later that afternoon when it was just time for me to let him go. I didn't want to, I wanted to keep him with me, I just wanted my little boy to be alive and to be with me.

We decided to do a memorial service for both him and my baby boy Christopher, we still had Christopher's cremains and hadn't yet decided on what we wanted to do (I know it's crazy it was 8 months ago) but now we knew we wanted to have our boys together. So today we have a meeting with the funeral director, we will either have the ceremony Friday or Monday. Not sure how we will get through this, or what we will do, but we will do what we need to. This will be part of our healing, and grieving.

We have also decided that we will wait 6 months before trying again. So sometime next year we will be having a baby, or at least trying to have one. We have been blessed with having no difficulty in getting pregnant so far, hoping that is a sign of what is to come. And once we get a plan in place that will be good.

Harder today than yesterday

2011-09-06T11:06:00.001-07:00

Today seems to be harder for both Paul and I than yesterday was. Perhaps it's cause we were facing a meeting with the funeral director today, things started feeling all too real. I don't know, it just hasn't been that great of a day for us.

As we headed out of our driveway and down the road... I realized I was having a hard time with the brakes as I approached the stop sign. I was able to stop but only after pushing the pedal down to the ground. So we turned around, went back home and called our mechanic, he said we could bring the car in and he would work on it inbetween other cars. So yay! Then I called the funeral director and canceled our appt today, we will see them tomorrow afternoon. I then called my mother in law to see if she could pick me up from Midas... they let us borrow one of their cars until ours is fixed, didn't want us being stranded in case we needed a car. We found out from the mechanic that it's the brake line that needs to be drained and replaced, it has started rusting out and hydraulic fluid was leaking. :( So there goes a $450 some dollars that we weren't expecting to spend, but whatever.

The night we went to the ER I made a point of wearing one of my dad's shirts that he gave me less than a month ago. It felt comforting to have "my dad and mom" there with me, even though they weren't really there. I am finding the same kind of comfort today as I hear the lawn being mowed outside. It reminds me of my dad... like any moment he will come in smelling of grass and sweat, and mom will make something quick for lunch, I feel like my mom should be sitting here next to me on the couch as we wait for dad to come in. I miss them so much right now. They will be here for the memorial service, so that will be good, but I want them here now. Or better yet if I was at their place, it would feel nice too.

So I've been strong for the last few days, but I feel that wearing off, I don't generally like crying in front of people, I just would prefer to be stoic and calm and to be the one that people depend on or need around. I like to take care of people, not so much to be taken care of. While in the hospital on bed rest I realized this a lot, because I was in such a vulnerable position, I couldn't get up and really struggled to do anything besides maybe eating and drinking, or talking on the phone. Just using the restroom involved a nurse and a bed pan, that was really hard to do, I am thankful that I had such great nurses. I even had a sponge bath at the hospital. After that first day there I wasn't sure how much longer I would be on bedrest, and gosh really needed to feel clean so they took care of that for me, I just had to stay in my horizontal position.

Part of the problem today is I am feeling more achy than I was, my head is hurting, and I have already cried like 5-6 times just in the last 7 hours or so. I think the rest of my afternoon I will try to play WoW and forget things if I can. Eat some food and wait for the phone call from the mechanic. And at some point my mother in law will be coming over with Lasagna for us. Last night we had our good friends Nathan and Katie here with their daughters, and they brought dinner which was really good. I am so glad to have friends like Nathan and Katie, especially through the last year when we have been dealing with the hardest thing ever with losing our first son and now our second, they don't expect anything from us and that is nice, cause I don't think either one of us have a lot to give right now.... it's just too hard. And their kids are such a comfort even if they don't know it, the innocence of children is therapeutic for us. Being able to love our friends children, as well as our nephews and nieces is such a blessing.

Loves the pill from the hospital!

2011-09-04T22:40:00.000-07:00

Well my milk has come in... sad but still an interesting process. I have been contemplating possibly getting a pump and doing the whole breastmilk thing... I think there may be a place here in Milwaukee area that accepts donated breast milk... or maybe I am making that up in my head. I don't know how much time I would have to think on this before it all goes away... but I will talk to my husband and do some research. Right now it is crazy painful and can I say huge?! I mean they weren't this big before baby or even while I was pregnant... now they are just crazy. Sorry if you don't want to hear about them... but it is a little bit strange.

The other thing... pain pills are nice, took a wonderful pill tonight and it's already making me nice and drowsy. Thank you! I really hate going to sleep sometimes, especially when you are still kind of awake but you know you should sleep. Laying down at that point only gives you more time to think about things, more times to cry about your losses, your babies that aren't in your arms or still in your belly. The other thing about being this tired and drowsy with the pills is that your eyes don't have the energy to cry... which is nice.

I don't know how to grieve this time... perhaps no one really knows how to you just do. I just want to get through a pregnancy, to have a baby and to love the baby, teach the baby and watch my baby turn into a grown person. I hope we don't have any issues in the future. Praying praying praying.

Anyways, night night world.

And we lost another one...

2011-09-03T13:41:00.001-07:00

So just a quick update I will write more later, but for right now just want to do this quickly.

Yesterday morning at 2:41 am I gave birth to my son Nicholas, he was 19 weeks 5 days old. He lived until 6:15 am when the doctor's could no longer find his heartbeat. I witnessed small movements, a few breaths, and could make out his eyes moving under his eyelids. His tiny hands and feet, his small little nose, cute little cheeks, little ears, everything was so perfect, he had no abnormalities at all. There were physical features about him that reminded me of my husband, my dad, my mother in law, my mom, my sister, my grandparents and myself. He weighed 10.4 oz and was 9.5 inches long.

The cause for early labor was because my cervix just couldn't handle the weight of the pregnancy, they call this an incompetent cervix. Wednesday evening my baby's sac fell through the cervix and never went back in fully, this is called hourglassing. Thursday I was put on bed rest, and my bed was tilted with my head downwards in the hope that gravity would do it's magic and everything would go back to where it belonged. Unfortunately that didn't happen.

For future pregnancies we are considered high risk, so there will be extra measures taken to make sure I go full term. One of the steps is to put in a cerclage, and probably another one will be for me to use progesterone cream, both of these would start around week 12 of the pregnancy. It's possible that I might even need to go on bedrest at some point in the pregnancy as well. But they would watch everything very very closely, I will have appointments with my regular ob/gyn as well as a Maternal and Fetal Medicine doctor who specializes in high risk pregnancies. We are planning on waiting for about 6 months or so before trying again.

I miss my baby Nicholas like crazy as well as his older brother Christopher who we lost 9 months ago. No words can describe the feelings that we are going through right now. Thanks for all prayers and thoughts, both Paul and I appreciate them.

No longer working!

2011-08-22T12:55:00.000-07:00

So some of you may know that I gave my notice and as of 8/12/2011 I am no longer working. I was finding it exhausting to go to work every day for 8 hours, plus the hour-1.5 hour long commute and then I would get home and have to make dinner and possibly do some cleaning if I could manage, at least some laundry. Under not-pregnant circumstances this is fine, but being pregnant this was making it really difficult. I hit second trimester and expected more energy as people have said... but haven't found it, if it was ever here it has now hidden from me and is not existant. So this led to me giving my notice.

Plus the closer we got to when we lost our baby boy in our last pregnancy the more anxious I have gotten. Yesterday we hit the 18 week mark, we lost our baby boy at 18 weeks 5 days, so that would be this Thursday for me. It is crazy how vivid that last week of my previous pregnancy is still, I remember it as if it was yesterday. Perhaps that's why I am having so much anxiety. Who knows. I did get a doppler to help relieve some anxiety, it is helping some but I don't really know how much. I think about our last pregnancy and how everything was going great, no reason to think that we would have any issues, no bleeding, cramping, or anything except for my water breaking at 17 weeks 7 days, but even before that, no reason to think anything was wrong, and after that everything seemed normal for the most part. But oh well, listening to the heartbeat has it's own comforting things. :) Here's a recording I did of the heartbeat, the swoosh swoosh sound is the heartbeat, and the video part is not from the same sound event... two separate things that I put together cause they were about the same length and from the same day. This was 9 days ago. :)

On September 8th we find out if this is a boy or girl growing in my belly. So that's exciting. Below are pictures from when I was 15 weeks and 7 days pregnant, and the ultrasound is from the day prior. :)

Nothing much to talk about at the moment, just not working anymore, trying to rest up, and having a hard time getting anything else done really. :(

Haven't posted in awhile... sorry!

2011-07-22T03:55:00.000-07:00

Wow this month has flown by... or so it is seeming to, I didn't realize July would go so fast. It's a blessing but still kind of crazy. Part of that I believe is cause I have been working... each week that goes by uneventful is great for me.

I want to write a little about our current pregnancy, so for those who don't want to read about it, well stop here. If you didn't know we were pregnant... well now you do. I think most people who read my blog know now.

So we are at 13.5 weeks now... I think this part of my pregnancy until 24/25 weeks will be the scariest for me. Most people relax when they hit the second trimester, but I have only felt my anxiety grow from week to week sometimes even day to day. My doctor has been great with all of this. She has let me decide how often I want to see her, either 2, 3, or 4 weeks between visits. The last few visits have been every 2 weeks. I saw her yesterday and will be doing an ultrasound in 2 weeks and see her in 3 weeks. Then we will be 16 weeks... and that's when the anxiety will really kick in. My memories of my last pregnancy are clear as day when it comes to week 16 through the end. Week 16 I heard the heartbeat for the first time, Week 17 my amniotic fluid gushed out, Week 18 I lost my baby... only 5 weeks until I am at that same point in this pregnancy. My emotions are mixed with a fear for my baby now and the grief over my loss of my first baby. It is hard to imagine getting past that point, hard to think of what the rest of the pregnancy will be like... Can I really carry a baby to full term? I don't know.

Another reason my doctor is awesome, I told her about this yesterday and she totally understood, she didn't dismiss my fears absently, she listened and is doing everything she can think of to make sure we watch everything. If I ever need to go in she will make room for me in her schedule... I've heard the heartbeat now like 3-4 times, each time she makes sure we find it. One week she was having trouble and said "We'll try this one more time and if I can't find it then we'll get an ultrasound." That made me feel so great.

I pray that this will be an uneventful pregnancy... that all this worry will be for nothing. One of the things I think I hate the most is when people tell me it will be all ok... honestly they don't know and shouldn't say that... how can they guarantee that nothing will happen, that there won't be a repeat of events. I know the chances are small but that doesn't mean there is no chance of repetition. All I want to hear I guess is that people are thinking about us and praying for us. Nothing that anyone says will take away this worry that I deal with daily. The life of my child is at risk here, it's not an easy thought to deal with, not just something I can just toss over my shoulder... it weighs my heart down, it is a heavy burden. I am thankful I have my trust in God, I know that to some degree I can relieve my burden by trusting that he will take care of us no matter what happens. It is just really easy to get discouraged and to dwell on the fears and anxieties.

But anyways... guess I should go get ready for work so that I'm not late.

House update!

2011-06-25T20:03:00.000-07:00

We've decided to not buy a house at this time. It just is easier if we wait a year so that we can build up more of a down payment, get on a budget and increase our credit score. Apparently being cash people is a bad thing when trying to get a loan... which I knew but I figured since we had paid off student loans and credit card debt that it wouldn't be a big deal... but I guess it was. I need to call the lady at the bank back and talk to her some about our different options for increasing our credit score. She also was going to talk to me some about the buying house process since there's a lot to it and we had some questions about it.

So yeah, next year at this time we may be looking at houses again. Which is fine, we aren't in a rush to get into debt. We have decided we want a 10 year loan with payments of $850-$950... so we need a larger down payment and then we can get less of a loan. Makes sense right? :) I look forward to having a house of our own but I am fine with waiting at the moment.

Job update - so I like my job ok, but I really don't think it's something I would want to do permanently, so if they offer it to me I will probably end up saying no. i don't enjoy collecting money from businesses... but you never know until you try something. So I have given it a 4 week try and have made some assessments. But for the moment I am still working here, which is fine. :)

Time for bed though, church in the morning and Paul unfortunately leaves me tomorrow for 5 days to go to Asheville, NC :( So I will be alone but I don't think I will be bored. There's plenty to do around the apartment and with friends and family. Ok well night!

Well well well...

2011-06-12T12:44:00.000-07:00

It looks like Paul and I are considering purchasing a home... we were just over at Nathan and Katie's house, and the boys were playing Go and Katie and I were just looking at things on the internet when she suggested I look at Zillow.com. A neat real estate site. So I looked cause... that's what I do. I dream and end up getting really excited about things. Well we want to live in Germantown, it's about 10 minutes from Paul's mom's house. 20 minutes from Nathan and Katie and a little bit closer to church than where we are now. So I started looking at houses that are for sale in Germantown. At first I had no limitations on what I was seeing... but as I started filtering I started seeing some good prices. The one we are looking at is 129k, 4 bedroom 2 bathroom 2-story house, it's victorian style and was built in 1902, about 1600 sq feet. It has a fairly good sized kitchen from what I can tell, a nice dining room, living room and a den. Hardwood floors throughout the home. Sounds perfect. So now we will just see about doing a showing. Want to walk through before we decide anything.

For us this is a huge decision though... it means that we are committed to being in Wisconsin for another at least 5-10 years if not more. We would like to do a 10 year mortgage if we can. So I am taking a look at our finances... trying to see exactly how much we end up spending and where. I'll try to watch this closer so that we can stay within a budget. The other thing about living in Germantown is that we will be so much closer to woodman's too! Which means I might even be able to get food for even cheaper! :) We spend way too much money on food, but I think it's just cause I don't really watch what we buy... I don't really think about the seasons or anything. Just kind of buy what I want when I want. But that will have to change here soon... right? But the main thing about buying a house right now is that we make sure we just use one salary to determine if we can afford it. We do not want to be one of those people who bank on two salaries and then realize that "Oh right one of us isn't going to be working once there are children." So I don't know... we'll see. We want to do the walk through with Mark and Kelly, they have bought houses before, at least once so might be able to help. I might even ask my grandma for help... although that's tricky cause now she is starting to have really bad alzheimers... but I don't know, she might enjoy thinking real estate again.

OH so many things to think about that we haven't really thought about cause we were planning on renting for awhile. But this just seems like a really good deal, and it is such a cute place. It has character. :) So I don't know, we'll see. If you want to take a look at the place and give me your expert opinion here's the link. House! let me know what you think. :)

This week

2011-05-29T09:56:00.001-07:00

So this week I start my job on Tuesday! I am anxious! I really hope they like me and that I don't screw up learning everything. I think I will be spending most of my time talking on the phone or answering emails... easy right? :) I hope so. There's a new system that I will have to learn and hopefully I won't have issues. I haven't in the past... but things change. :)

Some good friends of ours are coming back from Texas after being down there for a wedding. Looking forward to seeing them again. Their daughter Zoe is our god daughter and their other daughter Alia is one of my favorite little people. We tease often that she will end up bossing all the kids around... and she probably will. LOL she's the oldest of our group of friends children so we'll see. When we have ours we'll have to watch how things play out. I have a feeling we will have a quiet peaceful child... but I could be wrong.

Other friends of ours are coming to stay for a couple weeks with their families in the area. They are going to be moving to Missouri because they have been called to a church and will begin their new lives as Pastor and Pastor's wife and Pastor's children. :) I am glad they are staying for awhile, hope we get to spend a lot of time hanging out with them. The last time we saw them was over Easter but we really didn't have a lot of time to hang out so it was kind of awkward cause what do you say when you only have 5 minutes? lol But it was fun to see their children getting bigger (still babies or young ones but not grown up yet!). They were nice and let us stay with them in December when we were on our way home from VA, after the miscarriage. Another awkward moment because Paul and I really didn't know what to say... I wish that it wasn't so hard, but no going back. It's still kind of awkward talking to people after the miscarriage... especially when people ask you about children or anything.

Anyways... I am ... forgetting what I was going to say here... haha got a text message at the time I was writing this. OH well. For now I am going to go... but I will try to get some quilting done this week. I have some charm packs that I want to play with. :) And a Jelly roll! :) So we'll see what I can make! :)

Have a great one!

May Giveaway Winner!

2011-05-26T15:38:00.000-07:00

Random number generator chose number 56... Moira! If you are still wanting to do some giveaways, she is giving away a ton of zippers... so go give it a try! Over 700 commenters!

Moira said...

Hmm surprise fabric? I'm in!

Ok so when I decided to do the random number generator... I didn't realize my comments weren't numbered... so I had to count out the comments to #56... then I had to double check my counting. Ick i don't like counting that high! lol

I wish I could give something to everyone! LOL that would really clean out my fabric if I sent a little bit to everyone... I think my husband wouldn't complain. I do think that I will definitely do this giveaway thing again sometime soon. I feel like doing it today! haha... but that would be crazy.

Thanks to everyone who entered my giveaway! I am glad that we got a chance to speak. I will be saying hi to everyone or trying to take a look at blogs and stuff when I get a chance. We'll just have to see! :) Thanks!

May Giveaway Day is here!

2011-05-23T08:55:00.000-07:00

Comments are closed, giveaway is closed! Winner will be announced shortly!

Ok a picture has been posted! :) Sorry this took so long for me to post... yesterday (May 23) was our anniversary, so we went out to dinner and didn't get home until late and were stuffed! So here are the fabrics!

One lucky winner will receive 4 half-yard cuts of 4 different fabrics. They are bright and colorful, I think they could be used for a baby quilt or really any quilt. I love the lady bugs fabric! (total of 2 yards of fabric!)

Also a 60 mm Olfa blade (picture says 5, it is really 1 blade that you will be getting... a $10.99 value).

I may also throw in some other things as well. We'll see when I go to prepare the box for shipping! :)

Please leave a comment below, make sure that your email is in the comment or that you're email is in your profile. If you don't want to post your email then follow my blog and I will announce the winner on the 26th and give that person two days to reply... if they don't then I will pull another winner.

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Got a Job!

2011-05-19T16:08:00.000-07:00

So I don't think I ever blogged about looking for a job... but yes, I was halfway looking for a job. I was on facebook the other day looking at a friends picture that she posted of her view from her desk... and I thought, "where does she work?" so I asked her and she works at Manpower Corporate Headquarters. So I was like... "OH! I could get a job there!" so she gave me the name of the person she used to get a job at the office there. Basically she pointed me to one of their branch offices, the branch person sent my resume to corporate and then the branch person told me about an interview time and I went to interview today and then later today that same branch person called to ask how it went and to let me know that I had the job if I wanted it. :) I am soooo excited. This will be good. I start that job on May 31st!

Don't know what will happen with my quilting stuff... guess I really will have to choose a hobby and probably won't be able to do many swaps or things. I have one more swap I am doing and then after that I will have to stop probably. But I will still do quilting things, and will still blog about them. And other life things as they happen.

Speaking of which... on May 23rd... my anniversary with my hubby... I will be doing a giveaway! I have a few things that I thought... "Oh I could give these away and it would help clean out some of my fabrics without necessarily cleaning the whole closet out!" So come back on Monday May 23rd to find out what I will be giving away! :) It's part of a May giveaway thing. I did this a few years ago and really enjoyed it, I participated in that I entered lots of giveaways... but I didn't give anything away but won some really cute things. So this year I am going to be giving away some quilting supplies. :) Haven't quite decided what... but it might be stuff that is good for beginners and things that will be wanted by the experienced.

There are some other things to blog about too... but I really can't because I promised I wouldn't just tell folks. So if you are like... "What is Cassie talking about? Is it....?" then ask me and I will let you know. :) That's all I can say. I know, how horrible am I! One thing that I can say ... or I think I can since my sister posted it on her facebook... is that I am going to be an aunt to another little one! I won't say who else... but I have another little niece or nephew on the way from another family member. Lots of babies in the works these days. Going to be an exciting new year as we head from 2011 to 2012. So that's all about that.

Oh the job... I should tell you what it is... I will be a collections coordinator... which means I will spend a lot of time on the phone and in email working with small business's to ensure that their accounts are paid. This is my first ever accounting/finance type job but I am very very excited. I absolutely adore learning new things so I am ready to go! Sooooo excited!

Well that's it for now I think... time to make dinner... not sure what we are having yet... but I will figure that out and all will be happy! :)

Mug shots of my first Mug Rug! (and other stuff)

2011-05-11T12:39:00.000-07:00

Ok so as you guys have read already... I joined in a mug rug swap. A mug rug is a nice little place where you can keep a mug of a hot drink with your little snacky foods next to it on the same mug. So larger than a coaster and smaller than a placemat... got it? :) If you would like to participate in the next swap then please click on the link in my sidebar to the right, it will say Mug Rug Swap v.2. I would love to see what other people that I know would do. :)

So here are some shots I took of my mug rug... wasn't sure what the best shot was (these are only a few of the many I took, others were eliminated because of blurryness).

Two shots of the front...

Two shots of the back, different background... I like the blue best it makes everything else... pop! :)

Close up of my handquilting and piecing. I used 42 different blue fabrics for the middle and 6 greenish blue fabric for the "leaves" of the flower.

And no quilty project is complete without the obligatory picture with the cat. He just has to be in everything that I do.

Close up of the signature on the back.
Now this is a totally different project, this is the hexagon I made for my Hexie swap I am doing with the IFQ group online. I did two versions of this one, one with machine stitching along the outside... not giving that one away... it didn't turn out how I wanted, and then this one I did by hand. I like it better in person but then again when do pictures really say as much as seeing something in person? NEVER! :)

Hope you enjoyed my little tour of my recent quilting adventures. I have some other mug rugs I am making, they are just simple 3x3 squares and some 3x4 rectangles. I will take a picture of them someday soon once I get the binding on them.

Another Mug Rug Swap

2011-05-09T09:03:00.000-07:00

So I am doing another Mug Rug Swap over at Sew Happy Geek. People have until June 11th to sign up and then you have until July 15th to make and ship your mug rug. The one I made for this past swap only took me a few days to do, that includes, thinking, picking fabrics, piecing, quilting and then binding. So not bad.

I've taken other pictures too, but I haven't uploaded them from my camera yet. I will be doing that this week. But this gives you an idea of the size of it. Does it look like a flower? a blue flower with green leaves and a fun yellow background? I hope so. :) If I do another one like this in the future I have changes I will do, but I like this one still.

So if this looks like fun to you then you should go check it out, other people made a bunch of cool ones that they posted on the Flickr group page.

Something to share

2011-05-02T07:35:00.000-07:00

Someone shared this on Baby Center so I thought I would repost. I really liked it and thought it expressed some of my feelings very well.

To the Child in My Heart

O precious, tiny, sweet little one

You will always be to me

O perfect, pure, and innocent

Just as you were meant to be.

We dreamed of you and of your life

And all that it would be

We waited and longed for you to come

And join our family.

We never had the chance to play,

To laugh, to rock, to wiggle.

We long to hold you, touch you now

And listen to you giggle.

I'll always be your mother.

He'll always be your dad.

You will always be our child,

The child that we had.

But now you're gone... but yet you're here.

We'll sense you everywhere.

You are our sorrow and our joy.

There's love in every tear.

Just know our love goes deep and strong.

We'll forget you never--

The child we had, but never had,

And yet will have forever.

Death

2011-04-28T13:40:00.001-07:00

Death is so hard to deal with. Was talking to a friend today and she reminded me about how none of us really know how to deal with the death of a loved one or how to comfort a friend when they are mourning the loss of a loved one. Even having had my own child die all too soon, I still am speechless with others who are experiencing a loss as well. None of us are ever prepared for it, unless we are morbid we don't go around expecting people to just die on us. I know I personally hope that everyone I know will stay alive forever! But I know all too well that this doesn't happen.

When I was a kid, I used to mourn the loss of my grandpa. He passed away a month before I was born in his 40's and from a heart attack, but when I was like 7-9 years old I started to really feel that loss. It started with the death of a pet cat, it reminded me of the death of my grandpa. I would think of all the great things that people said about my grandpa and I knew that I loved him too, even though I had never met him, hugged him or anything.

Later when I was out of high school I experienced first hand the loss of a loved one. In 2001 my uncle was diagnosed with cancer and was told he would only have about 6 months to live. This shocked us all. I remember my aunt was so strong when he was alive, I wonder now if she was just shocked and numb and that it didn't really sink in until he was gone and we were saying good-bye at the funeral home. My sister recently told me that our aunt was talking to her about the loss of her husband, and how I was using the same words to describe the loss I was feeling with my son.

A few years later my other grandpa passed away. He was in his 90's and had Alzheimer's and I wasn't shocked at all when I heard about him passing away. We had all been expecting it, he had been in a nursing home for 7 years at this point, he didn't remember any of us when we went to visit him and it was sad to visit him. He was just wasting away in this building full of other older people who also were deteriorating in front of us. I was sad that he was gone, but the sadness happened slowly over time, because every time we went to go see him he was different, and not quite the same man that he used to be. His eyes were vacant when he looked at you, he didn't remember us, so any love or spark of emotion we used to see was no longer there.

Couple of years later, just a few years ago, I lost one of my best friends to mental illness, and she committed suicide. From time to time I spend some time thinking about her, and her life, remembering her from our college years. I try to not think about all the regrets and time that I could have seen her but chose to do something else instead. She was in her mid twenties when she died, and had so much more life that could have been lived.

And then there are the little ones that have been lost, my son, my sister's child, my sister in law's child, and all of the babies that my cousin's lost. It's sooo hard to think of that little life that is now gone, that never got a chance to live its life. Of course we aren't the only ones who have lost children, lots of women have. Either they lose the child through miscarriage (before 20 weeks gestation), or they lose the child through stillbirth (after 20 weeks gestation), or their child passes away as an infant (any baby that is born with life and passes away at any point after their birth). I've joined a few forums on Baby Center and I am truly shocked at how many women suffer from the loss of their babies, and some of these women have consecutive losses. I really don't know if I want to get on a soap box right now, but I will step up for a moment and just say that something has to change with our healthcare. I don't know the exact number but I do know that thousands upon thousands of the women who suffer from multiple losses shouldn't have to go through this pain. There are a lot of non-invasive blood tests that can be done to determine if a mother is at higher risk for losing a child. Also if a mother loses a child in the second or third trimester there are ultrasounds that can be done more often to monitor the cervix length, to look for blood clots, and other things. Sometimes it's just a matter of the mother being put on bed rest, and given a cerclage and then she can rest easier knowing she is doing all that she can for her child. But many women aren't even given the chance for this type of care.

I don't understand why more people aren't raising their voices about this. Lots of people raise their voice about abortion and protecting the innocent lives of those babies... but what about also these that are lost that didn't need to be lost, where the miscarriage could have been prevented with better care. Ok... I am going to step down for now, let folks read and think about that. It's something that I just get really frustrated with because I am one of those women who has lost a child to miscarriage, and sometimes really do feel like it could have been prevented.

Back to why I started this post in the first place... Death, what do you say and what do you do for someone who has lost a loved one? I think there are definitely some good things to say... and some bad things. Definitely let the person know you are thinking about them and praying for them to feel some comfort. Knowing that people are there for you is a great help. Be there for a hug if they need one, I know I always feel better after hugs from friends and family. Let them know that if they need anything, or anyone to talk to that you are available and willing to talk. Hardest thing for me is that sometimes I think that maybe people are tired of hearing about my loss, they want me to just... move on, stop dwelling on the loss. Well it's not as easy as that, I can't just make a decision to move and and then be done with it. LOTS of things remind me of my baby boy, lots of times I am caught by surprise by it. So yes I still want to talk about him sometimes... I think I use my blog for that most of the time or forums because I figure people can choose whether or not to continue reading or not, if they don't want to hear about it anymore then they can stop reading. Easy as pie! :)

The thing is... when someone has lost someone they love, there aren't very many things you can do or say that will make that person feel better at that moment, all of it takes time and for me lots of prayer and reading of the Word of God. Meditating on the Psalms has helped me, there are some that really do express how I am feeling or at least parts of the Psalm that do.

My sister gave me a little notebook that she had made for herself after her miscarriage, and it's filled with verses that helped her with her grief. Some I find helpful and others not right now but maybe later.

Some of them are...
"The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever." Isaiah 40: 8

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." 1 Peter 1: 3-5

"Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Romans 15:13

"The Lord is your keeper;
The Lord is your shade at your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
The Lord shall preserve you from all evil;
He shall preserve your soul.
The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in
From this time forth, and even forevermore." Psalm 121:5-8

And with that I say, Amen.

Woohoo! Good news!

2011-04-27T09:32:00.000-07:00

Today I found out that the insurance has finished paying off the bills from the miscarriage! This means that both Paul and I will feel free enough to start trying, actively trying! It's been such a long last 5 months that I can't believe that this is over!

I am just soooo happy! *dances around and around* Hopefully we won't have to wait too long to get a nice positive test. But I also am going to try to not obsess about it. I will keep track of my cycle and chart out when would most likely be the most fertile times, but that's it. No OPK's for me. (Ovulation Prediction Kit's for those who don't know what OPK stands for).

Relief! Weight off shoulder! Woohoo! Yippee! I haven't been this happy in a long long time. Although this happiness is mixed with a sadness, it is still happy!

Monday Monday ... was yesterday.

2011-04-26T13:50:00.000-07:00

LOL So I started writing in my blog yesterday and... well I got distracted and that didn't happen.

So today is Tuesday! Woohoo! And yesterday and today I have had two cups of coffee and am bouncy! I should drink it more often, but perhaps then it wouldn't have quite the same effect. Yesterday once I got going I was able to get a lot accomplished... well a lot for me anyways. I cleaned Paul's bathroom! (all of it and not just wiping down things but like scrubbing and the floors and the trash and EVERYTHING! Even the floormat got put in the wash!) I also did the dishes! yay but I do those everyday so no surprise there. Then I did some laundry and took out all the trash! It had been accumulating in our garage and needed to be put in the dumpster, with all the rain/snow we had gotten I just didn't want to go out and get all wet. So yesterday was perfect so I went ahead and did it! Thank goodness I did it yesterday cause today is crappy again! I love the rain, I really do but I think I like Washington rain better than Wisconsin rain. Here it seems like I am always stepping into puddles or something and I really hate having wet pants, but I almost always have wet pant legs. :( Out in Washington it was rainy or drizzly... but it wasn't so bad, only thing I could complain about there was that I needed something to keep my glasses from being completely useless outside. Eh *shrug* there are positives about each place and of course the negatives so I will live here and be happy with it! :)

Not sure if I blogged about my toe a few weeks ago or not... but I had an ingrown toenail removed a few weeks ago and the doctor yesterday said it looks great and I only need to come back in if it is causing me trouble! woot! My toe is like a complete blog entry... this was the third time I had the procedure done and this time I think it's the last. Already looking and feeling better!

So I have decided a few things in regards to baby stuff... some resolutions one might say for modifying my thoughts and behaviors about it. First I am going to try to not think and worry about it as much as I have been. I don't think it's healthy for me to obsess over it, and if the thoughts do come flowing in, as they are known to do, then I will just move past them, through them onto another subject. The biggest thought lately is that I feel like I should have been able to stop the loss from occurring, like I should have done something differently. And boy do I know how unproductive that thought process can be.

So last night before going to bed, and probably every other night before going to bed, I made it a point to 1. pray the lord's prayer... which almost always helps sooth me, and 2. to pray for patience and trust in God's promises. I know that I am here to live my life, to not sit around in self pity and grief, so I am going to work on remembering that. I have a job to do, I am a wife to my husband, the caretaker of my household no matter how many people or pets or whatever are in it. So I will do my job, my calling as one might say. Yes my heart yearns for children, but perhaps that yearning comes from a desire to take care of people and to provide for someone or something that needs me. So I will focus on my husband (who definitely needs me to take care of him) and my cat (who also most definitely needs me) and then my friends and family, and will do what I can do for others.

In quilting news I have a few things that I would like to share... back a little while ago I made a block for Moda for a "just one star" program and they sent me this week a little charm pack of 2.5" squares, so cute! I love them! I can't wait to make some little thing, maybe a matching set of coasters or something. We don't have any nice coasters so those would be fun to make.

I have been doing a few swaps... one of them was an I-spy fabric swap. I got my fabric sent off and will be getting new fabric a little after May 1st, so within a couple of weeks. She's also doing a giveaway for those who sent in fabric so we'll see if I win any of that. :)

I did a mug rug swap... still need to send out the mug rug and will post a picture as soon as I load them on the computer. I really like it and it will be hard to giveaway, but that's ok.

I am also participating in a folded hexagon swap, I will post pictures once I do my first one as well.

Then when I can I am working on quilting Paul's quilt. I have almost three whole circle places done... and will be working on the fourth soon... but that only covers like... a 3 ft by 3 ft section of the quilt... still much left to be quilted! Soon!

And then the hexie flowers, which I have put together the groupings but haven't made a flower in a few weeks, will get back to doing that soon here.

Today I have distracted myself with doing stuff on Pinterest which... if you haven't seen is quite addicting once you start doing it. If anyone would like a invite just let me know, there's a waiting list unless you know someone already on it. Here's my page of pinterest stuff. :)

That's all for now, talk to everyone later!

Happy Easter! Some Giveaways!

2011-04-24T15:50:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone is having a Happy Easter.

Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed, Alleluia!

So if you are perusing the blogs today you might find some giveaways, or you might not... here are some of the ones I have run into...

Dawn's Quilt Corner is giving away some of the new Denyse Schmidt fabric line that is only being released to JoAnn's store. She has two sets of 6 fat quarter bundles that she is giving away. So go enter if you want a chance, giveaway ends on April 30th.

Stray Stitches is giving away some springy fabrics, just have to go talk about some jelly beans in order to enter. Extra entry for blogging about it, so go check it out!

1 Choice 4 Quilting has a new book club they are starting with quilters! Go check it out! They are also doing a giveaway that ends tonight! Chances to win a kit for the first quilt they are doing in the book club!

And here's The Quilting Book Club giveaway of two copies of the first book as well as a kit!

Made It On Monday is giving away a half yard bundle of New sugar and spice in red fabric! :) Pictures are posted on her blog entry, go check it out!

Monday Giveaways!

2011-04-18T12:13:00.000-07:00

So for a moment there I forgot what day it was... "Hmm going to post, but what day is it... Tuesday? Monday? is it still Monday?" Yes Cassie it is still Monday. But it is the start of holy week, so that is good.

Now that we know what day it is, I will tell you about some giveaways I have found today (will be updating this throughout the day if I get a chance).

Cross Stitch and Cupcakes is giving away a few different things that are all supplies for cross stitching or other needle type things. All of these things are part of her blogiversary post. :)

One More Quilt is having a giveaway for her one year anniversary. She is giving away lots of things actually... fabric, dvds, patterns, and some other stuff. Crazy.

KoolBeenz is doing a fabric bundle giveaway! Lots of ways to get entries, go visit!

Thursday Giveaways

2011-04-14T21:57:00.000-07:00

Quilted Journeys is having a giveaway of a fat quarter bundle. Go visit and enter the giveaway!

Oops-Lah is giving away some great fabric! I always love a chance to win some fabric.

Fort Worth Fabric Studio is having a pattern giveaway, fun!

Feeling Whiny today!

2011-04-13T10:08:00.000-07:00

Today my head hurts, and I feel achy all over. I don't know if it's just I slept badly maybe... or something. :( Oh and I am sooo sleepy, I feel a nap coming soon... very soon. As I write this post my eyes are closing, they are ready for some shut eye times. The other day I took a nap and it was soo hard to wake up after my two hour nap.

So last week was the 4 month anniversary of our loss... anniversary seems too celebratory for it, but I don't know what else would work... memorial? Some days I really can't believe it's been that long, and others it seems like just yesterday. We are now less than 3 weeks from when we had been due, May 3rd, 2011. Instead of feeling like a blimp like I would have been if I was still pregnant, I am losing weight and so is Paul, we are looking towards the future, knowing that we will do all that we can do to get pregnant soon. The other day we watched a Star Trek Deep Space 9 episode where someone was having morning sickness. Paul nudged me and said "We are going to make you sick soon." *smile* such a sweet way of saying things. Soon I will be physically miserable but emotionally elated and sooo happy.

Right now I just want to be past the next few hurdles... a few months down the road would be good. Although we do keep ourselves fairly busy these days, we see our good friends Nathan and Katie at least once a week if we can manage it. And we see my mother in law and her husband once a week when they are in town. At the end of this month a friend and his girlfriend are coming up for a day or two to visit. Soon our friends down in seminary will be finding out where they are being called, and we will know if they will be close enough to visit often or not. I hope they are. I am also kind of looking for a job, I think being busy might be a good thing... but we will see what I end up doing.

Quilting has kept me busy as well. Last night I worked on Paul's quilt... I think I need to just make it a goal to do a set of circles a night until I get it done, otherwise it will hang over my head... I just want to get it quilted and bound and on our bed! I have some mini projects I am working on... the flowers that I have been posting as well as a few swaps that I decided to do. One is a mug rug swap, I am pretty sure I have decided exactly what I am doing for that one... a paper piecing method that uses an Iris folding pattern. I am hoping it will give me the desired effect, I think it will end up looking like a blue flower, or so I hope it does. And then I want to do some green leaves and a bright cheerful yellow background. I will post pictures once I have it done.

I guess I should go back to getting stuff done... or trying to. Laundry is behind, dishes need to be done, trash -needs- to be taken out, and I need to make some phone calls and send some emails. The to do list never seems to get smaller... ever. :( Oh well. I did get taxes done yesterday so that can be removed from my "to do" wall! :) exciting.

Have a great day! and hopefully you each have some good weather to enjoy!

Sunday Giveaways!

2011-04-10T18:10:00.001-07:00

The Curious Quilter is giving away 80 - 5inch squares or 500 - 2 inch squares... all different prints! Those would be a lot of fun to play with... so go over and enter if you want. The giveaway ends on April 16th.

Don't look now! is having a giveaway of one of her patterns, she has three different patterns that she has for pillows that are being given away. Such great detail and so pretty! I hope I win one!

Leona's Quilting Adventures is having a giveaway of a book, and fabric. Fun!

A through Z all about me

2011-04-09T20:09:00.000-07:00

Age: 29

Bed Size: Queen

Chore You Dislike: Cleaning the cat litter

Dogs: None
Essential Start of Your Day: Opening the curtains, until they are opened I am sleepy for hours.
Favorite Color: Blue

Gold or Silver: Silver
Height: 5'6"

Instruments You Play: French Horn

Job Title: Housewife

Kids: 1 that left us too early

Live: Grafton, WI

Mom's Name: Roxie

Nicknames: Bird (only my husband calls me this) otherwise Cassie is used

Overnight Hospital Stays: One - for our miscarriage

Pet Peeve(s): Husband correcting my speech... grr, it happens too often.

Quote From a Movie: Sam: What we need is a few good taters.
Gollum: What's taters, precious? What's taters, eh?
Sam: *Po-tay-toes!* Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew... Lovely big golden chips with a nice piece of fried fish.

Right- or Left-Handed: Right

Siblings: Sister

Time You Wake Up: 8am most mornings, except Sunday's and Thursday's which would be 7am

Underwear: Um, yes I wear them

Veggie You Dislike: Onions

What Makes You Run Late: My own dawdling

X-Rays You Have Had: Not sure, dentist has them done every like 3 years?

Yummy Food You Make: Quesadillas!

Zoo Animal You Like Best: Not sure I really like any zoo animals, I really don't like zoos

Thursday Giveaways!

2011-04-07T12:39:00.000-07:00

Fabric Seeds: Welcome Giveaway: She is giving away a charm pack, and this is her first giveaway. Please go visit and say hi!

Sew Inspired: Today my blog turns 5 years old Giveaway!: She is giving away two fat quarter sets of Luna II fabric from Maywood Studios that have been provide by Barbara from Sew Inspired of Nauvoo.

Some Wednesday Giveaways!

2011-04-06T12:02:00.001-07:00

Well I am always a fan of other Cassie's and it appears that domestiCass is doing a giveaway, a book and 2 charm packs! So go check it out. I like her quilts that she shows on her blog too, fun!

Linda over at Stray Stitches is having a 200th post giveaway! Go check it out, she is giving away a $25 gift certificate to the Fat Quarter Shop!

Jaybird Quilts is doing a feature giveaway from Fabric Shoppe, some bundles of fabric are going to two lucky winners. :) Hope I am one of those, they are pretty!

Sew Fabulous Quilt Shop Blog is giving away some Batik fabrics, pretty! Head over to see how you can win!

KoolBeenz is doing a Fat Quarter Shop giveaway, they are giving away a jelly roll! So much fun! I've never bought one but they look like they would be fun to use.

Raggedy Station is giving away some gorgeous black and white fabric in celebration of her new shop! Go over and say hi!

Margaret's Hope Chest is having a giveaway to celebrate her 1000th quilt that she has given away in honor of her grandmother's murder. Go over to her website to learn more, there's lots being given away, and an opportunity for you to give to someone as well.

1 Choice 4 Quilting is giving away a lovely fat quarter bundle of the prettiest fabric. Go check it out if you are curious... you won't be disappointed. :)

Tuesday Giveaways!

2011-04-05T07:09:00.000-07:00

Some fabric is being given away over at AMKreations, go visit and see if they are things you would want in your stash of fabric. :)

An April Giveaway over at Inch Worm Fabrics, some beautiful springy fat quarters for someone!

The Intrepid Thread is giving away two charm packs... giveaway ends on 4/9. Pretty fabric too! Nice and cheery!

*******************************************
And speaking of giveaways, I actually won another one! Got a $25 gift certificate to Fat Quarter Shop! :) fun stuff, now I just have to wait for my order to come!

2011 Golden Quilter Awards

2011-04-04T11:18:00.000-07:00

One thing that I love about the quilting community is how supportive everyone is over everyone else. During the month of March Sew Cal Gal has been rallying everyone together, she has spent a massive amount of time collecting nominations, then collecting votes, and now she has posted the winners of the Golden Quilter Awards. So much fun!

So if you want to see some of the more amazing people in quilting then head over there and check them out. Most of them have blogs or shops or websites to explain more about the person, product, or shop. You can also back pedal and check out the nominees too! Lots of really talented people out there.

Friday Giveaways!

2011-04-01T08:42:00.000-07:00

Only two days (today and tomorrow) to enter in the VinTin Welding and Fabricating Giveaway... so if you haven't yet then take a look. This is the first of many giveaways. This time it's 4 tiny iron hooks, next time who knows! So many possibilities.

Vintage Sheets Blog is having a giveaway! 5 fat quarters of vintage sheets and a cute little blue flower broach made by Vintage Sheets blog.

We love quilting is doing their April giveaway! Go check it out, it's pretty easy to enter!

OCD Obsessive a crafting disorder is giving away some sherbert fabric! So pretty!

How about a non-giveaway update... are you ready?!

2011-03-31T21:33:00.000-07:00

First things first... my goddaughter Zoe Anastasia was born yesterday evening, she is beautiful! I truly can't wait to get to know her, to see what little person she grows into. Her sister is quite the little girl, and I am sure will teach Zoe many many lessons over the next few years. I am also excited to see how my future children work into this mix of Zoe and Alia, as well as the future brothers and sisters of these two. It's exciting times when your friends start having kids, especially when you are hoping to have one soonish to join in all the fun. :)

**************************************

Second while we are talking about kids... figure I should update folks on what's happening with us... well last you guys knew, we were waiting for insurance stuff to settle down. Well I am proud to announce that we recieved a notice from the insurance not too long ago that they are paying for the hospital stay. We have a few more bills that we are waiting to hear back from but that is great great great news!!!! If they are willing to pay off that $5,000 bill then the other $3,275 shouldn't be a problem.. right? Thankfully we had already hit our deductible so now it's just... waiting times. So once all that is done then we will be ready to try officially to have our own little child again. :)

Well it's bed time so for now that's all you get! :) Nighty night!

Thursday Giveaways!

2011-03-31T21:26:00.000-07:00

Quick reminder that until Saturday at midnight VinTin Welding and Fabricating is offering folks a chance to win a set of 4 tiny iron hooks! So cute and so many ideas for them. Go enter the giveaway! It doesn't take much to be in, and if you want more entries there are bonus things that can be done! Winner will be picked and announced on Sunday!

Over at Puddle Jumper Creations, she is giving away a set of 7 towels, each with one day of the week embroidered on them and cute little scenes of Sunbonnet Sue... so cute! I really hope I get lucky with this one! You have three days to enter this one!

Wednesday Giveaways!

2011-03-30T11:08:00.000-07:00

Over at Intrepid Thread ( a new online shop) she is giving away a gift certificate to her shop! :)

Jona and Lili are giving away a $25 gift certificate to one lucky winner. She also made a nice diamond quilt, so cute!

Sew Many Quilts is giving away a pattern from Jaybird Quilts. And she has made one of Jaybird's quilts and it is gorgeous. I love it. Hopefully one day I can make one like it.

All things vintage sheets aka Vintage Sheet Blog is doing another giveaway, today it is a vintage sheet crayon roll, those are so neat. I want to make one if I don't win one. So much fun!

1 choice 4 quilting is giving away some cute little prizes as well as some fabric! Who doesn't love fabric?

Tuesday Giveaways!

2011-03-29T19:28:00.000-07:00

So I have a few from Vintage Sheet Blog that I've run into... And I am sure I will find others and will post them on here if I find them tonight! :)

The first one from Vintage Sheet Blog ends tonight! 12am PST ... so it's now 7:30 PST so you have 4.5 hours to enter! So go over and hopefully you can win some vintage sheet fat quarters!

And next from Vintage Sheet Blog this one ends tomorrow night, she is giving away a cute vintage sheet and doily made by Vintage Chenille, you should go over there and check out what she is selling in her shop also... such cute little things. :)

Then through the 31st of March you can enter into a giveaway over at Vintage Sheet Blog for 5 fat quarters of vintage sheets and some vintage lace. :)

Through April 1st Vintage Sheet Blog is giving away a vintage sheet quilt that has been made by Katie Jean (links to her shop and blog are on vintage sheet's blog post). Go check it out, it's a cute quilt and would be a nice thing to win.

A vintage pillow cover is being given away over at Vintage Sheet Blog. Pretty, I like the other handmade things that Liz Taylor makes. Go check them out! pretty!

Through April 4th Vintage Sheet Blog is giving away some vintage sheet fat quarters. I have a few fat quarters myself of vintage sheets, so looking forward to potentially increasing my supply!

3 Scrap Packs are being given away through April 5th over at Vintage Sheet Blog. Go check it out!

Girl Boy Girl Inspired is having a giveaway, she is giving away a cute little lady bug necklace and a SURPRISE! so go on over there and see what's up!

Over at Insanity Rules, Emily is giving away some cute burping rags. She doesn't have a huge following so go over and give her some love! :) It's always nice to show support to people making handmade things!

An awesome giveaway over at Sew Happy Geek, she is giving away fat quarters, thread and an apron! And such pretty fabrics. Go check her out, follow her blog!

Over at The Plaid Scottie she is having her 4th Blogiversary Giveaway... a FQ Bundle and a cute rainbow like doll quilt!

Cat patches is having a Fun Fact Friday Freebie day! A Free book, pattern and fat quarter could be yours for visiting and commenting! :)

Pink Please is giving away a jelly roll to go along with a new project she made, in later posts she talks about the nifty play mat and changing pad mat she made with the jelly roll. :)

Sunday Giveaways!

2011-03-27T12:17:00.000-07:00

Over at VinTin Welding and Fabricating there is a giveaway for four iron hooks until April 2nd.

All Things Vintage Sheets blog is giving away 50 five inch blocks as well as a vintage backing for one lucky winner.

Dinner time!

2011-03-26T14:55:00.000-07:00

So today I have been lazing around pretty much. Last night I slept in the living room with Paul, he slept on the couch and I put a pile of blankets on the floor. This may seem like an odd sleeping arrangement, you might be saying "Cassie... why didn't you sleep in bed together? Like normal couples?" Well cause we just don't. I have this problem of snoring, and keeping Paul up all night, so it works best if we sleep in separate rooms. Although last night I wanted to sleep in the same room, and he wanted to watch a show to go to sleep to, so we both slept in the living room. Strange I know... but it works for us. Who knows, one day we might be sleeping in twin beds... won't that be fun! LOL

************************************

Today I received books from Hollyhock Quilts I won her giveaway a week ago, and got the books today. I got Quiltmaker's Guide: Basics and Beyond by Carol Doak, Rotary Roundup by Judy Hopkins and Nancy J. Martin, Tessellations by Jackie Robinson, and Weaver Fever by Jackie Robinson. She also included her Fun with Feedsacks "Oh My Stars!" pattern. :) So much fun! Nothing like getting a package in the mail with fun new things in it. :)

************************************

I also won a giveaway over at Ask Anna, which I should be getting in the mail in the next week or so. I sent her my address today. I am excited! I am glad to have won two of the many giveaways I enter all the time... lol, this has been really fun and exciting.

************************************

Now if only people would start entering in the giveaway over at VinTin Welding and Fabricating. It is such an awesome thing to win the giveaways and it really doesn't take any effort hardly to enter them. In the case with my brother in law's blog, you get to see the artistic designs of a welder/blacksmith! My sister keeps his blog up with pictures of his latest projects and designs. I have been helping her by posting the giveaway post and will do the whole drawing part for the winner or helping her do it. One thing is that I was sure that people would be excited about it. I just don't know how to get people to actually enter the giveaway.

Any suggestions from people who have done giveaways?

Right now we want people to follow the blog, visit the etsy site, and like us on facebook, because the more people you have visiting the potential for more customers. I'm not saying that -you- have to buy something from him, but just that if you are telling your friends and they tell their friends then eventually someone would want to purchase something... right? I think it makes sense. We'll see. :) We still have a week to go on the giveaway, so I am hoping it goes well.

************************************

Now off to make dinner... Chicken pot pie for dinner tonight. Mmm something we love!

Saturday Giveaways!

2011-03-26T11:59:00.000-07:00

So there is still the giveaway over at VinTin to enter. You can get 4 hooks for your wall, for free, and they are handmade by Danny (my wonderful brother in law!) That giveaway lasts until next Saturday, so you have a week to enter!

Also over at Pink Please she is doing a giveaway of a jelly roll. So exciting! Her quilts look cute too, she has made a changing pad and a play mat out of this jelly roll, I love them! I think I might have to try that as well.

Quilting Ranny is giving away a pattern and fabric charms to one lucky winner. Go see if you can win something!

VinTin Welding and Fabricating: We are doing a giveaway!

2011-03-25T08:36:00.000-07:00

VinTin Welding and Fabricating: We are doing a giveaway!: "VinTin Welding and Fabricating is proud to announce that we are doing our first giveaway! We are giving away one of our most popular sellin..."

Please spread the word and join the giveaway! I can think of a few ways to use the hooks!

Thursday Giveaways!

2011-03-24T12:11:00.000-07:00

Not sure how many I will run across, but as I see them I will add them to this post. :)

I do know that Jackie's Art Quilts is having a giveaway of 5 fat quarters. She talks about a mini quilt she did, which sounds interesting, artistic way of using scraps. I bet it would look cool with multi-colored scraps too. I might try it out.

Over at To Sew With Love she is giving away some cute items... she actually has two giveaways. One is for the Spring Fling giveaway, and the other is a sponsored giveaway by Stella Saves the Day!

Stitched in Color: Bottled Rainbows {ticker tape quilt-along}

2011-03-23T19:31:00.000-07:00

Stitched in Color: Bottled Rainbows {ticker tape quilt-along}: "At long last, it's time to do something fabulous with all your teeny tiny scraps! Please join me in a leisurely quilt-along inspired..."

I am going to give this a try! I think I can do it!

Wednesday Giveaways!

2011-03-23T06:40:00.000-07:00

Wow it's wednesday already... crazy. Well here's what I have found today.

St. Louis Folk Victorian is going a destashing giveaway, which means she is giving away a variety of fabric. :)

A bowl full of lemons.: Silhouette GIVEAWAY!!!!

2011-03-22T12:17:00.000-07:00

A bowl full of lemons.: Silhouette GIVEAWAY!!!!: "My new Silhouette SD machine finally arrived and I'm dedicating this week to my Silhouette creations. I'm also giving away a Silhouett..."

Tuesday Giveaways! (not all quilty stuff today!)

2011-03-22T08:05:00.000-07:00

Today there are some to be talked about...

Over at A very DandoisLion Life she is giving away some cute handmade rose hair clips, headband and a comb. Go check it out!

Also over at Time Well Spent she is giving away a cute little tutu and some headbands... I know exactly which little young lady I would give this to. She loves to be a ballerina, so hopefully if I win this then she will get a cute little present as well. :)

I have entered in the Spring Fling giveaway at www.askannamoseley.com to win a hand crafted vintage style necklace and you can enter to win here. Anna has a fun blog where she gives helpful hints throughout the week on cleaning different areas of the house or making food or just general housework.

If you go to Decor Chick and do a few of the things required, you could possibly win a Silhouette Cutting Machine, great for card making and now they also cut fabric! Awesome!

Another Silhouette giveaway is being had over at Remodelaholic, it appears that Silhouette has a few of these going on. yay!

How I spent my evening

2011-03-20T21:42:00.000-07:00

I spent it picking out fabrics for my blocks and making the two blocks that I will be sending off tomorrow in the mail. I might end up making more blocks for both of them but for now just the one each.

This one (above) is going to be in the quilt for Japan.

And this one is going to go down to Texas to the Moda office and will be put into a quilt for a soldier... OH right I was supposed to write my name on it. I will have to see if I have the correct ink.

And this is my sewing machine, my lovely friend who helps me get all my blocks pieced and quilting done. :)

Just one Star blocks and Quilt for Japan

2011-03-20T14:33:00.000-07:00

Over at 1 choice for quilting and P.S. I quilt, they are doing giveaways for folks that make star blocks to send to Moda that will be put into a quilt and sent to a soldier to let him/her know that people are thinking about them and supporting them. A little bit of home in every quilt. So I thought, "I can do that" and will be working on them tonight and tomorrow.

The details are listed on both of their blogs. I think I will make two, one for each of them. The instructions don't look too hard, and I have extra fabric, even know of a good blue to be used. :)

*****************************

The other one is over at Love Laugh Quilt where she is making a quilt to donate to Japan Tsunami victims, so she is asking for blocks made by people to be sent to her, she will put together the top and quilt it, and then send it to Quilter's Newsletter and they will send it to Japan to someone who needs it.

The block that she is asking to be made isn't difficult and could be done by anyone with fabric and a sewing machine.

*****************************

Hope everyone is enjoying this wet Sunday, I'm sure it isn't wet all over, but here in Wisconsin it is not too pretty outside, but wet means eventually green! :)

Sunday Giveaways!

2011-03-20T10:33:00.001-07:00

So happy Sunday! here are some giveaways that I have found... enjoy!

1 Choice 4 Quilting is giving away a cute little chicken that she found. Well three of them will go to different homes. I love the froggy one.

Jackie's Art Quilts is having a fat quarter giveaway... pretty. :) Go check her out and hopefully you can win something too!

Where the orchids Grow is having a scraps giveaway! Fabric scraps that is. :) Pretty, would work well for my hexie flowers.

from the blue chair is hosting a giveaway of 75 charms, that's exciting. Charm quilts are cute and it would be fun to have more pieces to make one with.

Southern Institute for Domestic Arts and Crafts has a blogging guest and is hosting a giveaway for three of Sew Much Ado's patterns. fun!

The plaid scottie is having another blogiversary giveaway... some fabric and scraps, there will be three winners. So try out your luck.

Samelia's Mum is sharing the love that she has received in the post by offering a giveaway and hopefully adding some love to someone else's mailbox!

Sewplicity is giving away a side winder, which means... easier time of filling up the bobbin! and possibly save some time... who wouldn't want this practical and useful item?

Hancock is having a giveaway of a quilt kit, nice and summery. :)

AMKreations is having a spring giveaway! "A set of 6 beautiful Moda Fat Quarters ~ 100% Cotton ~ Tropical Camouflage, Designed in London, England by Maggie and Sharon!" And... "the book, Quilting - 20 Fresh & Fabulous Projects, by Karol Kavaya and Vicki Skemp." "The winner of this Spring Giveaway will also receive two surprises...just because...and they have nothing to do with sewing!" Doesn't that sound like fun?

Pig Tales and Quilts is sponsoring a giveaway by Dave and offering one of his lovely quiltboxes as the giveaway prize. Such wonderful work! I am truly impressed. If you do go enter, please say that I sent you... Cassie at Birdolovemoo. :)

Gap Quilter is giving way a LOT of half square triangles... wow. She got them from a friend when the friend didn't want to make the quilt and now she has been looking at them long enough that she's decided she won't be using them. Wow there area lot of them. So head on over there and take a look.

Sunshower Quilts is giving away an Accuquilt Baby Go die cutter... I probably put those words all in the wrong order... anyways, it's an awesome machine that cuts the fabric for you... no scissors or rotary cutters needed for the shapes it can do. Sounds pretty good to me!

Susan's Texas Quilting Adventures is giving away three different prizes to three lucky winners, each of them is a fabric prize! :)

We Love Quilting! is giving away a one complete Gees Bend quilt kit, this includes fabric and pattern.

Some Saturday Giveaways

2011-03-19T01:35:00.000-07:00

Here's the list! :)

Bejeweled Quilts is hosting a giveaway to give away some buttons by ButtonMad a woman in Africa, she wanted to give African women a place to be creative and make beautiful things.

Bee in My Bonnet is having a fabric giveaway, some retro fabrics. Pretty! She needs to clean up her shelves and make room for new fabrics, and I don't mind clearing some space on my shelf for some new fabrics. :)

Quixotic Crafter is having a giveaway in celebration of National Quilting day, which is today (Saturday!). If you go enter then le them know that I sent you! :)

Stitched in Color is giving away batting! Warm and Natural batting, such a nice and pratical giveaway.

One Flower and no more snow!

2011-03-18T13:35:00.000-07:00

This is the bag that holds all my flower making stuff in it. It folds open and keeps everything stored nicely. I purchased it at a yard sale in WA, apparently it belonged to this ladies grandmother... and she was selling it? for $3.00, good deal for me, hope she doesn't miss it later!

I worked on my flowers some this week, I finished one, almost finished another and have one more planned.

Here's my planned one. I think that whoever had initially cut these red pieces that they had intended to make another large flower... but I really do like the smaller ones better. So I made three small flowers rather than one large red one. :)

Here are all the flowers together... still need to do something with those blue ones but... with time. :) I am pretty sure that I will be removing parts and making smaller flowers out of those pieces and making some of the blue flowers the middles of other flowers. :)

Maybe once I am done with these and have extra hexagons I can make a scrappy charm like quilt out of hexies. :) That would be fun. I am sure I have enough scraps.

And it's been so warm here the last few days that the only snow left is where the plow truck had piled up huge piles... so yay! :) I am excited.

Buttons! Again!

2011-03-18T11:06:00.000-07:00

This time I am posting some videos that I made... of me talking about my buttons and my cat. lol. Don't watch if you need the camera to be steady... my hand doesn't hold the camera still very well. watch if you love buttons as much as I do... :)

Yes there are two videos... :)

More buttons!

2011-03-16T22:35:00.001-07:00

I finished all of the colors that I am going to do... 7 of them, lots of choices for people. Going to bed so I can go to bible study in the morning. :)

Buttons!

2011-03-16T18:47:00.000-07:00

So I am working on my pieces for the Catan game. And I am very excited... I've made cities and settlements for Blue, Green, Pink and Red so far... I am working on Orange at the moment... and might do brown, Yellow or Purple... depends on how many buttons I have. :) Wasn't sure I would be able to do Orange, but it is looking a lot more promising now! :)

What do you think? Definitely not using fabric yet... but I will be. My husband is looking at it and keeps saying "It's not quilting, you aren't quilting the quilt" hehe, yeah I am not, but I will be soon. Just need to get my buttons all worked out of my system. :)

Songs that evoke emotions...

2011-03-16T12:52:00.000-07:00

Well two songs that I am thinking of today...

LeAnn Rimes "How do I live" ... Pretty sure she didn't write the song to pull at the heart strings of a mother who has had a recent miscarriage, but wow did it within the first few lyrics. Of course there are some parts of the song that don't apply... but here are parts of the lyrics... Italics to the ones that personally make me sad.

How do I,
Get through one night without you?
If I had to live without you,
What kind of life would that be?
Oh, I
Need you in my arms, need you to hold,
You're my world, my heart, my soul,
If you ever leave,
baby you would take away everything good in my life,

and tell me now
How do I live without you?
I want to know,
How do I breathe without you?
If you ever go,
How do I ever, ever survive?
How do I, how do I,O how do I live?
Without you,
There'd be no sun in my sky,
There would be no love in my life,
There'd be no world left for me.
And I,
Baby I don't know what I would do,
I'd be lost if I lost you,
If you ever leave,
Baby you would take away everything real in my life,

Lyric provided by http://www.sortmusic.com

5 minutes later I was inside the apartment with my stuff from walgreens and ready to make Paul tea... and I realized that I had finally gotten one of my little notecards done on my "Forget me not" wall (basically notecards with my to do list). So I promptly took that one down... and I got this song stuck in my head....

Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust

Those are the only parts of the song I really know... I am reading the lyrics right now thinking... Um these are not relevant. Anyways, I always think of this song as being fun and happy, mostly cause it -ALWAYS- makes me want to dance... and who doesn't get happy when they start dancing?

The last time I had this song stuck in my head was when i was on my way to my doctors appointment to see if this new doctor was someone I wanted to stay with... Trust me, I quickly got something else stuck. LOL I didn't want to bring in any bad thoughts ahead of time. :)

That's it for now, since obviously clearing the wall of things was a good thing. I might try to knock out a few more things before I call it a day... so far I haven't done much... I ran the vacuum... and took a shower! and made breakfast and lunch! whoopy! hehe. I know, I haven't gotten a lot done, it's hard when your head is floating through quilts, and cooking and life projects. Float float!

Ok so I just spent like 20 minutes looking for Paul's bank card, I need to activate it and I had lost it once, and then just misplaced it the second time. I finally found it sitting on a shelf... why did I put it there? I don't know. Anyways gotta call this 800 number now. :) later!

Wednesday Giveaways!

2011-03-16T07:56:00.000-07:00

Today in giveaways....

Quilt Cookies is giving away a book called "Jump-Start your quilting", this is a good book for beginner quilters. People who want to "Jump start" their crafting. :) So go check out the book and comment on her blog. :)

Material Girls Quilts is doing a giveaway that ends today! eep!

Donna over at Churchill Park Studio is giving away some neptune fabrics. A whole jelly roll... I've never used one but have always wanted to make a jelly roll quilt. :)

Em Celebrates! is having a Mini Quilts book giveaway, so she is asking people to think of mini things. :) Especially since big things do come in little packages sometimes. :)

Just some thoughts...

2011-03-14T20:25:00.001-07:00

One thing I found amusing was today when I went to change some AA batteries... I had some batteries with a March 2008 expiration date waiting to be used... something even more amusing once I started looking at the dates... I had two in there with March 2005 expiration dates. When did I buy those batteries? Every battery I have seen recently has at least 5 years before they expire, these are the new ones in the stores... so the March 2005 batteries were from... 2000? Which means they are 11 years old ... crazy!

****************************

Well I made an appointment with a foot and ankle person for March 28th. Because my toe is starting to hurt. :( A few years back I had an ingrown toenail, it got really bad, had to have part of the nail removed. Then they didn't get it all so I had to have it done again. Well they still didn't get it all... it started growing this little sliver, but thankfully it wasn't hurting so I ignored it. I mean really how many times do I want to subject my toe to being poked and prodded? Not a lot, and it seemed like I was sooo close to hitting that point. Well now it has started hurting again... mostly when I push on it, and I know that once it starts to hurt then that's never a good sign. Working at a foot and ankle place really helped me with that one. So now I go in, but I am nervous cause I don't know the doctor and am going to her with blind faith... blind! *crosses fingers*

****************************

We also just watched this movie called Primer tonight... weird movie, very different. I would recommend it to people, but I would also say that it may help to read about it first, but then it also might give away the whole movie... and what fun is that?

****************************

And I wish I was playing a little bit of Catan... isn't this board beautiful.

Ahh it stirs up a longing in my heart. I love playing board games... and this one just is pretty. Today I found a hexagon box for a dollar, and I plan on making myself a quilted version of this game board. I am very excited about the idea. I think I can do it! So therefore I will! :) I am going to start planning it, and I know it might take awhile to do, but I will do it.

****************************

Mmm I think that was about it. I did finish this book the other day though that I really enjoyed. It's the second book in a series... the book is called Linger, the first one is called Shiver and they are by Maggie Stiefvater. A different take on werewolves, and I like it.

And how do they say it... good night farewell. :)

Saturday... or is it Sunday Giveaways?

2011-03-12T21:19:00.001-08:00

Ick I don't like daylight savings time. Don't even know why we do it... who really cares about the daylight stuff? I don't.

Over at A Desert Quilter she is giving away 12 fat quarters... yum. So please go take a look if you are interested. :) (don't know why you wouldn't be).

Somewhere over the rainbow, there is a Pot of Gold... over at Spun Sugar Quilts. $50 gift cards to Fat Quarter Shop... I know what I would get... do you?

Jay Bird Quilts is doing a giveaway sponsored by Wondrous Woven Fabrics, yay! So go over and check it out!

Little Island Quilting is doing an unintentional giveaway of fabric. :) Go check it out! Fabric... yay! :)

The Vegetarian Hunter is giving away some fat quarters and a pattern! :) Thanks!

Friday Giveaways!

2011-03-11T11:58:00.000-08:00

Over at Leona's Quilting Adventure she is doing a giveaway with Quiltmaker Magazine. Stop on by and check it out. Some beautiful blocks have been posted. I really enjoy reading Leona's blog as well.

And over at The Plaid Scottie she is doing a blogiversary giveaway... :) it's fabric and scraps and pieces. so yummy to look at. Go check it out if you are interested in a chance to win some free fabric. :)

Formal Apology to Friends

2011-03-10T22:49:00.001-08:00

So I know many of you are going to say "Cassie you don't need to apologize we understand" but I feel like I should give some kind of written thing to those who want to read it.

I am sorry for being awkward in social situations, for not having much to talk about, or even if I do have things to talk about for not talking about them without stuttering, or looking uncomfortable.

I honestly do want to talk to people, seriously I crave being around people... but I also have a hard time being around people. It sucks really. My mind feels like it is filled with feathers or something, especially when around people. Even around my best friends, I just don't know what to talk about anymore. Some people I talk to just fine... (very few people... sister, mother, friend Ree, friend Clare) ... and others I feel awkward around... I don't know... that's it. So good night!

More flower love!

2011-03-10T22:24:00.001-08:00

So I finished putting on 7 more pieces on this green flower... that means I have 4 flowers done! And look my head is a flower!

Now I know this fabric is kind of an older looking fabric, but... I still like it a lot. the flowers on it are cute.

so I still have two flowers that were started... but no more fabric to finish them... so I need to figure out... a good way to do it. I might deconstruct them to make smaller flowers... I -might- have enough hexes to do that. And even if I have leftovers they can always be centers... better than having halfway started flowers... right?

I also found a bag of 2 inch blocks that I will be using for this quilt as well. scrappy stuff, and multiple prints, so I am excited. :)

Etsy places...

2011-03-10T15:58:00.000-08:00

My favorite etsy shop is my brother in laws... http://www.etsy.com/shop/VinTin He's a welder and loves making artsy iron work. Pretty much anything you want, he can make it. Lately though lots of people want the hooks he's been making, so he keeps making different types. :) Which are pretty cool, got one myself, but nothing to hook.

My sister also has a shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/KloeJakeInspirations She takes photographs and puts a verse from the Bible on them, usually a verse that she has found helpful in the past. She started doing KloeJakeInspirations after she had a miscarriage 2 years ago. She found it helpful to take pictures of this wonderful world we live in and different photos sparked verses in her mind, or vice versa the Bible verses sparked an image and she usually had the perfect one to go along with it.

So I was entering a giveaway where the person asked what your favorite shop was... and I started to have an idea... I want to help my sister and her husband in whatever way I can. So I am thinking I might (if she agrees) start an etsy blog for them. Where they can list different giveaways or things. Hoping to spark some customers. I also think it would add a bit of personality to their shops. I can link them back and forth. And they can do combined giveaways, 4 hooks and a photo of your choice in a certain size. Depending on interest, maybe have a blog entry asking, "What would you like to see given away in the near future?"

I just see so many giveaways lately, that there has to be some kind of benefit to doing them, otherwise these shops wouldn't give things away. I bet it sparks interest and sales. So we will see what happens. But keep your eyes open. I will be posting about it soon if it becomes something we do. :)

Thursday Giveaways!

2011-03-10T15:16:00.000-08:00

So just a few to mention today...

Over at Sew Fabulous Quilt Shop she is doing a March Giveaway. She is giving away a Central Park Fat Quarter Bundle by Kate Spain. I love the flowers and designes on the fabric... so pretty! She has many different ways that you can enter to win, so lots of chances! Giveaway ends on March 31, 2011, and the winner will be chosen on April 1, 2011, seriously, this is no joke! hehe

A non-quilty giveaway... this is a anti wrinkles product that is being given away.. over at The Southern Institute they are giving away some terralina. I know that some people who read my blog like to use products that are full of all natural ingredients that won't cause skin irritation so this might be something you might like... and entering a giveaway just means you can try something for free first if you win and then start purchasing it if you like it. :)

Wednesday Giveaways!

2011-03-09T08:03:00.001-08:00

So rather than flooding people with a million posts in one day... I will combine them daily, so one giveaway post a day. Seems fair right? :) Then I can enter giveaways, blog about them and still let anyone who follows my blog go check them out. :)

First giveaway that I would like to mention is at Quilty Habit she is doing a giveaway, and a tutorial. First the tutorial is on how to make these cute little fabric magnets... I am already thinking of some neat gifts that could be made and given to people, especially nephews who are so awesome that they need fabric magnets... this would be one way for me to give presents to them without spending any extra money (well except on batting and magnets). And to give presents to friends kids and stuff. I am excited! :) Oh her giveaway is... a set of four magnets! Of your choosing no less. So that's awesome! :) Not sure what I would choose... or what options there are, but I can think of some cute things.

Second giveaway that I will mention is at Alderwood Quilts. She is giving away a copy of the book "Weekend Wonders" by Pamela Mostek. It looks like a great book, the front cover has a pretty quilt shown. I always love quilts that can be put together quickly but are still pretty and still handmade. :) So I am sure if I got this book and made one of the quilts out of it that I would probably not get them done in a weekend, but I could try! :) So go over there if you would like a chance to win this book.

That's it for now... I will be adding in some if I find any, otherwise this is it for today! :)

Adding a third giveaway from Sew Jewely, she is giving away multiple things, all fabric, but different ways you can win them. :) And she has some cute posts about her other projects, a very talented artist indeed, not just fabric art, but other textiles. :)

One Flower and lots of snow...

2011-03-09T07:14:00.000-08:00

So I joined One Flower Wednesday (link in sidebar) and am really excited to make a grandmother's garden quilt. Here's the thing though... I started my garden with some flowers previously started and some completed by someone else. *gasp* I know! But they were a great thrift store find. I really had a hard time saying "No" to these wonderful started pieces. So I said yes. Now I want to find a way to incorporate them all into a quilt.

These two and a half flowers were already done/started. The one on the right, the blue one, well I don't have the fabric that this person used. For some of them the group included a whole batch of extra fabric... like that green one in the front left there is a half one of those, but there was also the parts to complete it... so once I finish that one i will have two green flowers. The yellow one in the top left also has additional fabric not yet cut up... so I am looking forward to making an additional one of those.

This flower was one of the half done ones. :) I added in the bottom 7 hexagons and finished it off. I really like this fabric... a lot! There were some of this one left, but not enough for a whole flower, so I might make a multi colored flower or something. We'll see. So this week I haven't done a lot, but I did sew on some hexagons! :)

Now you probably noticed that I also said... "lots of snow" well yes, I woke up to snow falling. Yay! Although I am ready, really ready for spring to be here. And Summer. I love the longer days, and sometimes I even love the warmer weather... we do have an AC in this apartment so that will be nice, but I would love to just get in the habit of windows open. Not sure what we will do... summer here in wisconsin is a lot different than summers in Washington. So we will see.

Yesterday I got all my chores done, only thing I didn't do was call the insurance company. That will be done today. As much as I dread calling the insurance company, it needs to be done. After that, not sure what I will be doing... probably some dishes and folding of laundry. Then maybe straightening up the bedroom some... there are some corners of the bedroom that drive Paul nuts. I kind of like them messy only cause I have that... syndrome. Don't know what people call it, but I generally love just being surrounded by things with happy memories. It reminds me of a squirrel holed up in its tree house for the winter, surrounded by nuts! That is me in my bedroom, it is a very comforting place to be, so I will be sad to see it clean. :( Oh well. It doesn't stay clean for too long generally.

Just thought I would update on how we are doing weight wise. Together we have lost 25 pounds. Woot! :) Apart... I have lost 12 pounds and Paul about 13... maybe even more. We are faithfully taking our weights on Tuesdays, and I am faithfully keeping track of our food intake. We are doing the old weight watchers program, not the new with modified points. But we figured they are both fine, so why spend the extra money at the moment on the new program? Especially since I have all the materials and cook books from the old program.

Today is Ash Wednesday. :) I really hope we don't get too much snow that it makes it dangerous to drive to church... so keeping my fingers crossed. I really wished church was closer, but we can't have everything within 20 minutes drive... not in the Greater Milwaukee area anyways. The three places we go all the time are... Greenfield, WI to church, Sussex, WI to see some great friends, and Mequon, WI to see Paul's mom and step dad. Maybe I can find some place in between all of them. *ponders* maybe. We'll see. For now we are good in Grafton, it just means we have a 30-45 minute drive when we go to Greenfield or Sussex. So I really hope that the snow stops, and that roads are cleared and good to go in time for services tonight.

Hope everyone has a blessed Ash Wednesday. :)

I hate putting titles on blog entries... ! :)

2011-03-08T07:35:00.001-08:00

I keep thinking about being pregnant again, and when I do I just keep praying that everything will go fine. I hate that our first pregnancy ended how it did, it makes all future pregnancies uneasy for me to think about. The doctors did tell us that nothing we did caused the miscarriage and that chances of this happening again were very very low, that most people have normal pregnancies after miscarriages.

I just keep trying to have faith that everything will go fine.

But I don't have to worry about that yet... not pregnant again yet. So I will try to just think about the tasks at hand today...
- Cleaning off the tables
- Cleaning the cat box
- Dishes
- Laundry
- Taking out the trash
- Calling insurance company
- Making lunch and dinner
- Quilting tonight if I get a chance
- And possibly playing on my game Eternal Visions

That seems like a good deal to me... perhaps there are more to be done but I will stick with that for now.

Hope everyone has a great Fat Tuesday. Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, and soon we will have Holy Week!

This Week

2011-03-05T23:01:00.000-08:00

So this week I tried to make time to do some handquilting on the quilt for Paul. So I wanted to share some pictures of it. The idea that I am going for are large group of circles and then in between the circles I have been doing a free handed sketch of a spiral, so it's not perfect but I like it! :) I like the look and feel of it in contrast to the squares of the blocks. And as you can see in the pictures, the cat loves this quilt also!

*******************************************************************

In other news... games! :) Friday night we spent the evening with Mark and Kelly, and played Pinochle and then a lot of hands of poker (not for real money, just fun chips!) I don't normally play poker and don't really know the rules that well... but apparently I am pretty good at the game. LOL I don't know how many times I won the games... but it was so much that often we had to stop and redo chips so that others could stay in the game... and three out of like 5 times we did this because they were almost all in front of me.

Then today (or yesterday, Saturday) I went to Madison and spent all day playing board games. It was a lot of fun! I love playing board games and these were all new and different games for me, except for Settlers of Catan, which we played twice, once with 6 people and the next time with only 4. The person who hosted the game playing is one of the owners of the company that my husband works at, so that was fun. There were 6 of us playing, most of them are from the Madison area. And they each take turns hosting. I was the only girl, but that was fine. It was the first time though that I hung out in an all guy group. I've never been the only girl around in a social group like that. We all got along really well, and surprisingly because I just thought it might be awkward... but they took me into their group like just another guy (I think our love of board games helped things a lot).

When I got there they were playing this card game I had never heard of called Dragon Blast. Then we played this game called Sucker (where you are a used car salesman and you win once you have sold 5 cars, it's a fun game). We also played a game that I can't remember the name of... but it was a lot of fun. It involved building towns, roads and fields using tiles. Ahh I found it! Carcassonne , this game is lots and lots of fun. I might want to one day purchase it, but maybe not. We'll see. I want to play it more though. We played a game called Merc, which was... complicated, but I am willing to play it again, apparently today we played the "not so fun" version of the game, where the bad guy was getting all the great cards. We also played Evo, where you are a dinosaur and you evolve and have so long before the meteor crashes and kills you, but in that time you earn points and whoever has the most points at the end... wins! :) And as mentioned above, we played Settlers of Catan. There are different expansion sets for this, and we played with the seafarers set as well as cities and knights. A very fun board game... which is now sold at Target which is awesome, because before I had to go to a special gaming shop.. which maybe people might still do since it would support small business's and that is always good too.

For some reason I feel like this wasn't a lot of games... but there was a lot of set up. I was there for 10 hours playing games, eating food, and just getting to know some new people. It was nice and relaxing. I left them at almost 10 and was really really hyper... took me awhile to calm down. lol The high of playing board games, new games that were a lot of fun. And of meeting new people. :) fun times.

*******************************************************************

We are still doing pretty well on our Weight Watching. :) So that's good. Paul survived today without me, and stayed within his allotted points. I didn't stay within my points, but I did try hard to eat healthier choices than just eating whatever I felt like.

I think I need to go to bed, so that I can wake up in the morning and be well rested for church. I am finding it hard to get myself to sleep tonight, so hopefully if I just lay here for awhile I will eventually just slip into sleeping land.

Night night!

The Plaid Scottie Giveaway

2011-03-03T23:30:00.001-08:00

Over at The Plaid Scottie, she is doing a giveaway of some fat quarters and a book! :)

Also she talks about Mardi Gras, giving a little bit of insight on the family friendly aspects of the celebration. I suppose we do only see the crazy parts on tv. Cause honestly I only think about the crazy part, not the other parts... cause aren't all people in New Orleans crazy? hehe, just kidding. I know they aren't all crazy!

Sew In Peace Giveaway

2011-03-03T14:38:00.000-08:00

So over at Sew in Peace, Sandra is doing a giveaway of a little doll quilt she made. It is bright and fun! I love it.

She is also doing an I spy swap... which involves purchasing three fabrics with a print on it (like houses, dogs, cats, items, etc) and cutting it into 5 inch squares, then sending 120 blocks to her (40 squares of each print). then she will send them back to you but not the ones you sent her, but 120 different prints. This is in an ideal world where we have a lot of people entering the swap. So hopefully we can get people to join, because it sounds like fun. Plus I-spy quilts are a lot of fun for little kids. I can't wait to get the blocks and to make one or two or more quilts for some little kid. :)

Pleasant Home giveaway

2011-03-02T23:02:00.000-08:00

So at Pleasant Home she is hosting a giveaway in honor of becoming a grandmother! So sweet! she is asking for people to comment about their experience with either being a grandmother, or with being a grandchild.

So go visit her if you want to possibly win a Go! Baby! cutter. And you can impart advice at the same time. :)

Cut to Pieces Giveaway

2011-03-02T22:43:00.000-08:00

I have just recently started following Cut To Pieces and she is doing a giveaway this week with a new sponsor. A gift certificate will be given away, and lots of fabric and patterns to possibly choose from. So that is exciting.

Go take a look if you are interested... :) I don't see how anyone could not be interested... but I do understand some people don't like fabric quite as much as I do... it's more of an obsession I would say.

Vignette in Stitches Giveaway

2011-03-02T22:27:00.000-08:00

So... Vignette in Stitches is giving away 15 fat quarters on March 10th... :) that's exciting. So I hope to win, only cause new fabric is new inspiration and is fun. :)

So go over there if you are interested. They are some nice prints. :)

We love quilting Giveaway!

2011-03-01T18:23:00.000-08:00

We love quilting is giving away a pattern and fabric to go with pattern! That's pretty cool, not often that we get both in one giveaway. :)

Enjoy! :)

Tidbits of Life as I know it

2011-03-01T14:55:00.000-08:00

So I was checking my email and I got this one... that made me laugh and laugh...

"I've wondered alot about this every minute for months now. I have dreamed
of writing this for months however I was scared...I'm in love with you. i
can't make it and not say something. I have to admit everything to you. I
typed everything in a post secretly for you. im extremely terrified but I
know I have to do this or I wont have what i need. If I check my computer
tomorrow and you've answered i will see i didn't imagine it. to find the blog
search securelysocialcom on google and it should be the first page"

Now I know this is just some stupid spam email, but lol. I thought what is the harm in searching on google for securelysocialcom... and unfortunately I got no hits, no secret posts about someones love for me. I am sorry to disappoint whoever this person is, but I will not be answering them, they will have to believe that they imagined it. LOL LOL LOL

The internet makes me laugh sometimes... I am thankful for random spam sometimes.

*************************************************************************

So on another note, I've been thinking about having two blogs, one for quilty things and projects and this one for personal life. But eh I don't know. We'll see. I know that some of the people who follow me aren't into crafts and quilting so I just don't want to spam them with that stuff, when they just want to read my ramblings from time to time. But I suppose they can just ... not read the craft posts if they don't want to.

*************************************************************************

And today I tried a new recipe... actually this week and next week will be a lot of new recipes. Last night it was Buffalo chicken with a buttermilk blue cheese salad. It was really yummy. The Buffalo chicken was made with hot sauce, barbecue sauce and garlic, and the dressing was made from scratch. Although both Paul and I decided that we really could take it or leave it with the dressing, it could have been ranch dressing and less points and that would have been fine.

Today I made a Corn and Red Pepper soup, it was corny, and cheesy and I made some corn bread to eat along the side. It also had ground red pepper in it which made it spicy hot... I drank at least two glasses of water while eating it. But it was good. Paul liked it but didn't want to have just that for a meal again, he wants something else with it. So we will see.

Along with food comes talk of us doing weight watchers. I used to do the program years ago so I still have the old books and things. So we decided a few weeks or so that we would be doing something about our weights. So to give you an idea... I am taking the heaviest I weighed after our loss (I gained weight after it, like 5 pounds or so) and will subtract my current weight from that... and I have lost a total of 14 pounds so far. Which is awesome! Paul has lost like 15 pounds too!

As part of our staying healthy plans go, we have been trying to get in exercise. Last week we did one day of strength training... and then didn't do anything else because we were sore for a few days after. And with all this snow it is really hard to get out for our walks... it makes it less desirable to go out. But I am hoping we can get into a schedule of two days a week of doing strength training... probably like Tuesday and Saturday (I do realize it's Tuesday today... and that I should probably be getting us into doing some of the exercises that we need to do... but... eh), and then doing cardio on Monday, Wednesday and Friday's. Leaving Thursdays and Sundays for resting days. We will see though. Things like this tend to change when life stuff happens.

*************************************************************************

Baby stuff... well to update on that. We aren't sure what exactly we will be doing... if we are going to wait a few months until insurance stuff calms down or if we are going to go into making babies with full gusto. *shrugs* Right now it is all up in the air. So my plan or idea or goal to shoot for would be for us to be pregnant before December of this year. I had wanted to be pregnant before May of this year, but it's hard to say if that will be the case or not. It might be... *shrugs* if insurance and medical bills get worked out and we are all good to go by then, then it might be possible to think about getting pregnant again. I do feel like it would help to mourn with a baby on the way, but I am not going to push things in any direction. I just want to let things happen, let it be some would say.

I will however push and prod at the insurance company, I need to have closure on the medical bills that we are dealing with right now. Thankfully the hospital and other places in VA are very very understanding about us appealing to the insurance, so they have placed holds on our accounts. We will still get bills from them, but we can forgo paying them until we hear back from the insurance company. The insurance company received our appeals letter on February 7th, and said it would take 30-60 days to review and then they would let us know. I am hoping it is closer to 30, cause that would mean we can have things worked out sooner.

The last week or so has been better emotionally for me. Not sure if it's because of hormones or what not... but it probably is. I imagine my hormonal roller coaster will take things from highs to lows throughout the months as they go by. And perhaps it will get easier to deal with the lows as they come, especially the more that I deal with them the easier it will get.

Last night I had a dream that Paul and I had a baby boy, and I kissed and loved on him so much. I was soooo happy. And of course fitting in with dreams and their craziness... well my baby boy was born talking. haha, so of course that won't happen in the future, but maybe the baby boy being born part will.

*************************************************************************

I've been enjoying my local library a lot lately... maybe even too much. I seem to come home with wayyyy tooo many books to read. I believe I have 10 checked out right now and like 10 that are on hold that I need to go pick up... I don't know what has gotten into me. Some of them I am probably going to take back without reading. I picked them up cause they looked interesting but when I started reading them I just couldn't get into them.

Three books that I have gotten recently I had no problem getting through... Fire by Kristen Cashore (very very good, I love reading her books), Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (Also very good, it apparently was a banned book, but I see no reason why it should have been banned. From reading reviews of it, people have said that this book has helped a lot of young girls feel like they can actually talk to adults and seek help after being raped or sexually assaulted. I do think that any resource that we can use that will help people feel safe enough to talk about such damaging situations is a good one.), and then the last one I just finished is Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater (A book that had me 10 pages in, I truly enjoyed this book and I think it was because of the writing and presenting of the characters. The story was interesting, and unique in ways, but it was a classical "Girl sees boy, girl falls for boy, girl meets boy and really falls for him, girl has challenges she must overcome in order to keep boy" kind of book. But in the end it was enjoyed a lot! I even cried at the end of the book.)

This year I have decided to keep a j0urnal of the books I have read. Nothing like my reviews or thoughts on them, just simply, I read this book by this person. I am not even going to do dates, just listing them as I finish them. Not sure why, but it feels like a good way to keep track of books I've read. I have come home from the library before with a book that I had already read... and not even realizing it. Yes I know you can read books more than once, but I really don't enjoy reading books more than once. There are some that I can, like Harry Potter... and I am thinking about reading Lord of the Rings again. Paul and I are reading The Hobbit together, that has been fun. We take turns reading out loud, either while making dinner, showering, driving in the car, dressing or just sitting around enjoying each others company.

*************************************************************************

I've been quiet the last week or so, sorry about that. I really do want to keep up with a blog, and write about the things that are important to me. I just haven't really felt like talking much lately. Sometimes it is hard for me to talk to people, it became hard after we lost our baby. I used to talk to people all the time, looked forward to talking and chatting. But lately it is hard, more like a chore sometimes. My mind often feels blank, and I feel like when I am with people that I have to search for things to talk about. People talk about getting back to a "new" normal after you lose a child, and I imagine it would be the same with losing a spouse as well. Or someone you were living with. Things never go back to how they were prior to your loss. Your mind isn't the same, your heart is filled with sorrow, and you are constantly thinking about the baby or the prospect of a new baby.

I'm sure lots of people ask the question, "Why me God?" I know why this happened, it happened because we live in a sinful world. And I was just one of the unlucky ones to have this particular hardship. I don't blame God for the sin of the world, I am thankful for his sending of his son to take care of the sin, and to die for us and protect us from the results of sin, which is death and a darkness and separation from God. I know that we will live in this sinful world for our 100 years or so, and that we have the resurrection to look forward to. Then we will know a new world, a sinless world, a perfect world where we can worship God and walk and talk with him as it was meant to be.

But since we do live in a sinful world right now, sometimes I find myself grieving the loss of my child and feeling hopeless, but eventually I do find my way back to the hope of the resurrection. I know my child heard the word of God preached, and through me received the body and blood of Jesus every Sunday. And that brings me comfort. As well as also my own receiving of the Lord's supper every Sunday, and hearing the words of absolution and forgiveness of my sins.

On that note, I think I will say good night. :) Time to prepare our dinner.

Happiest when crafting's first giveaway

2011-02-28T09:31:00.000-08:00

If you go over to Happiest when Crafting you will find she is doing a giveaway. I just stumbled onto her blog and really like it, it's written in english and German. Which is fun since she is in Germany! The fabrics she is giving away are just beautiful.

And I have to agree with her blog name... I am always happiest when crafting and quilting and doing little projects. :)

Whoop Whoop Giveaway

2011-02-28T08:53:00.000-08:00

Go to Confessions of a Fabric Addict and you can participate in the first ever whoop whoop giveaway. fat quarters, fabric, quilting magazine... looks like fun. :)

I think by following this blog I might be able to actually get stuff done on my hand quilting of Paul's quilt. :) need to just not distract myself with other stuff like I tend to do.

Quilty Giveaways: Little Louise Quilts Giveaway

2011-02-27T21:54:00.000-08:00

Quilty Giveaways are giving away a pattern for one of Little Louise Quilts patterns, she has some really great ideas and patterns. Some I fell in love with right away, most of them actually.

They also have links in other blog posts to other giveaways. Very cool.

1 Choice 4 Quilting Giveaway

2011-02-27T21:24:00.000-08:00

Another giveaway being done by 1 Choice 4 Quilting, beautiful fabrics in half yard cuts or 4 full yard cuts. That's a lot of yards of fabric. So pretty.

I look forward to reading more of their blog, and gathering some inspiration.

Hilachas Giveaway!

2011-02-27T20:57:00.000-08:00

So I am loving all the fabric stuff people are giving away for their birthdays. I may have to do something similar come this December. Hilachas is giving away fabric, thread and a rotary cutter. :) Happy birthday to you!

Quilting Works in Progress

2011-02-27T19:00:00.000-08:00

Here is a quilt I made for my cousin's daughter... it's small but it will be fun for her I think once I get it finished. Hand quilting takes me awhile.

This quilt is just the top, I am working on making additional rows to make it wider in hopes of giving it to my mom one day... I will be machine quilting this once I get it layered and finished.

Above the bed is my first quilt ever finished.
On top of the bed is the quilt I am currently working on finishing. It's for my husband and I. I am excited because it is pretty but I am trying to handquilt it... in circles. You can see them in the picture. :)

Here is the top before I put the batting and backing on it. It does look kind of crazy doesn't it? *ponders* Oh well. I like it.

This is the backing I chose for it. :) mmm pretty blue.

And here is my cat ... helping? I think not. I wish he would help! but he just likes blankets.

Notforgotten Farmhouse Giveaway

2011-02-27T18:12:00.000-08:00

The Notforgotten Farmhouse is doing a giveaway, some sewing things, and patterns. So it's up in the air as to what you would get, but I enjoy sewing and fabric things so I am excited to see what is available! :)

And keeping my fingers crossed that I potentially win something... that would be nice. :)

Feathers in the Nest is giving away some scissors! :)

2011-02-27T17:57:00.000-08:00

Feathers in the Nest is giving away two pairs of sewing scissors. I used to not understand the importance of sharp scissors for sewing, and would often use my grandma's scissors for every day cutting... now I have learned. :) and you can never have too many good pairs to get you through the day. So I am going to share the blog with you and hopefully you will enter for a chance to win as well.

Sew Fabulous Quilt Shop Blog: February 2010 Giveaway - Lakehouse Totes on Bolts

2011-02-27T17:24:00.000-08:00

Sew Fabulous Quilt Shop Blog: February 2010 Giveaway - Lakehouse Totes on Bolts: "Happy February! This month we're giving away a Fun Flowers Totes on Bolts Kit by Lakehouse Dry Goods. The winner will get to choose if the..."

I love kits for making things, this one looks like an awesome kit!

Rough days

2011-02-17T14:43:00.000-08:00

Today is one of the emotionally bumpy days, and yesterday. Both days I have found myself in tears by 3pm, and just the rest of the night is rough. Well and maybe a few days ago as well... sometimes it starts with reading someone's facebook status, or seeing a picture, or like today I was reading through this book they gave me at the hospital called "When a baby dies". For the most part this book hasn't increased my grieving at all, I mean it has helped me a lot, but today I was reading about the grandparents. How they are not only grieving for the loss of their grandchild but also for the loss that their own child is experiencing, and how they can't just kiss the boo boo and make it better. And actually that wasn't the part that made me upset... it was reading about how this one lady had her father and husband there while she was in labor, and her dad gave her husband a hug, and her husband just started crying. Ok so it's making me want to cry again, so I will leave that thought there and just move on...

After crying and taking a quick shower, and now being dry eyed, I went to Target ... probably shouldn't have done that, for some reason I couldn't help myself I had to go look at the baby stuff. It's all so cute, and adorable... and after about 10 minutes of looking at things I realized I was torturing myself... so I left that section... quickly. Eh I don't know, it just wasn't a happy visit in Target, and that is one of my favorite stores to wander, but I had no fun doing it today, couldn't make myself smile if I wanted to. Still am feeling just kind of down, mooish... sad.

Going to be making Pork cutlets with apples and leeks tonight for dinner... trying a new recipe, don't know if I will like it or not. But Paul thought it sounded good, so I will try it out and see if we really do like it.

I can't wait till tomorrow night, we get to hang out with Nathan and Katie and little cute little Alia, they always tend to distract me and Paul, we can forget about some of our emotional stuff.

We have also been having annoying health insurance things. The bills from the hospital and stuff in VA is just crazy because the hospital there isn't in our network (which makes sense... I mean we were out of state). So I wrote them an appeals letter asking for them to consider the hospital and all those expenses from those two days to be considered in network since it was a medical emergency and we had to go. I just read through the booklet and there is something in there about medical emergencies and non-PPO peoples and how they would cover it as an in-network thing.

We are also considering finding another insurance provider but really aren't sure about it. But I think I could find one that cost less that has a lower deductible... but not sure. Meh so many things.

Also trying to come up with a budget and to eat healthy and to spend more frugally and get housework done... perhaps I am trying to do too much at once. On top of wanting to get pregnant again and worrying about that, it is just all kind of overwhelming. Oh and on top of all that, wanting to actually spend time on hobbies... reading, playing games, and quilting... visiting with friends and family, and actually talking on the phone with folks. How do people keep it all straight? How do they get everything done that they want to do?

So any tips on... any of the above mentioned things are always welcome. I want to get my stuff all worked out, feel kind of organized, feel like things are in control again...

The Emotional Journey

2011-02-14T07:10:00.001-08:00

So I have many nicknames for my cat... cat hat because he sits on my head sometimes or above my head in bed while I sleep, cat scarf because he lays behind my head with his feet hanging on either side of my head, but right now or just a moment ago he was sitting with his front paws on my shoulder... I don't really have a good article of clothing that I set on my shoulder... all I could think of was "Do your ears hang low, do they wobble to and fro, can you tie them in a knot can you tie them in a bow, can you flip them over your shoulder like a continental soldier, do your ears hang low." LOL so maybe that's what he is, low hanging ears flopped over my shoulder. *shrugs*

So I wanted to post a little about the process I have been going through after the loss, hopefully I can post it without getting all sobby and teary eyed, that would be good. :) The whole grieving process in general is different for everyone who goes through a loss, some people get angry right away, some people just get depressed for a long long time, etc. What I experienced, starting at the beginning, in the first few weeks after the loss was a small sense of loss, but also along with that was disbelief, hope that it was all a dream and thoughts of "I am still pregnant!" Well slowly over time that disbelief and hope were shattered and I was in despair? depressed all over again? I guess you could say that, I mean I had finally realized that I wasn't pregnant again, all the symptoms of being pregnant had started fading, my belly felt empty where as the day of the loss, before the hospital visit, it had felt full of life and hope. Things started deflating I guess, belly and everything else. Now most people would be happy for deflating but in my case it was sooo depressing.

After that I started to feel hopeful again, we talked about getting pregnant again and we were just waiting for my monthly times to come back so that we could start trying to conceive if we wanted to. So that hope from another baby really helped. Along with those feelings though are doubt and fear about future pregnancies. I think especially with this being our first child, I began to wonder if we would get past this point again, would I be able to carry a baby full term. Everyone says it is likely since most people after a loss like ours do end up getting pregnant and having healthy happy babies (so still holding onto hope here at this point but lots of conflicting emotions). Well then came time for my monthly, and I was finally happy at this point (before this point I had other happy moments as well, just this one I remember clearly!). This was a sign that my body was healing and moving on and that I could as well (not easily done by the way). It was around this time or a few weeks before this time that I had an upsetting conversation with our ex-doctor (it was because of this conversation and a few other things that really sealed the deal on him being no longer my doctor), I had called him to see if he had gotten the autopsy report back, so he called me back. 1. it takes up to 3 months sometimes or longer to get an autopsy report, and 2. the doctor had received lab results from the hospital. They had run a urine drug test and apparently it had come back positive for cocaine and marijauna. So I tell the doctor "Well those can be wrong right? cause I have never done drugs in my life so I don't know how that would have happened." He then proceeded to say, "Well that is what you said at your appointment, but you know drug use can cause a miscarriage." I was stunned ... he thought that I was lying to him or something, what a jerk! So after persistingly telling him this had to be a false positive, after a few tries he finally said "Yes I guess it could be a false positive." Bah! what a jerk! Paul was mad too. And that sealed the deal... if you can't talk to your doctor and tell them the truth without them second guessing you then you shouldn't have that doctor. Right?

So it was after my monthly and after this doctor's office that I started to experience the angry emotions. I really wanted someone or something to blame, the doctor at the hospital the first time I went there. My doctor here when I went to see him at 16 weeks and we listened to the wonderful heartbeat. For both of them I wish that they had performed an ultrasound on those two days, maybe they would have seen something. If they had insisted on an ultrasound on either one of those days, believe me I would have been more than happy to show them my belly and to see our little guy, see how things were going. But they didn't, so I went through a time of blaming them. I also went through a short time of blaming myself, thinking of things I should have done to help our baby, if only I had been more knowledgeable about things that could have caused the miscarriage. Although I know that this was not productive behavior, for a short while it made things feel better, letting the anger boil things up. Well that didn't last very long, because as much as I wanted to be angry, I also wanted to move to a happier place.

Within a week or two of that I had something unexpected hit me, jealousy. My philosophy for a long long time with my pregnant friends and family members is to be happy for them. Ignore my own sadness about not being pregnant yet, and realize that we aren't like everyone else. Reminds me of what my parents used to say at times, "We are not ____'s parents, we are yours so we are acting like your parents". So I did the same thing with pregnancies for a long time, I am not so and so, and they aren't married to my Paul, our situation is different than theirs, We will have kids soon enough, it will just take patience. So when we finally got pregnant ahh it was happiness beyond any that I had ever known. We were finally getting our little one and I was finally going to be able to experience motherhood for myself and not just through the eyes of friends and families. So when I started feeling jealousy and deep deep sadness about our loss, it was mostly when talking to pregnant friends or seeing pregnant friends and stuff. I knew it would be hard, since I have a ton of people in my life who are pregnant right now, seeing and talking to pregnant people. But I can't allow myself to shut myself off from them. I can be friends with them, hang out with them and try to push aside some of my feelings, because the strongest feeling I have for them is happiness. Unfortunately though the jealous and depressed sides of me likes to push down the happiness so this becomes a huge internal struggle sometimes. I guess this is a current emotion that I've been dealing with for the last 2-3 weeks, which might be why this darn cold or whatever seems to be hanging on. For the most part I feel fine but then my throat will start to hurt or I just feel exhausted.

Each day is a new day, new emotions, new hurdles passed, so I am just working on them as they come. Remembering the day to day chores that need to be done is hard sometimes. So I just do them as well as I can and hope that one day I am not so distracted by my emotions that I can get everything caught up and clean and organized and all of that wonderful stuff. :) So speaking of those wonderful things... well gotta do some paper organizing and filing so that it doesn't feel too crazy in here. :) Later!

2011-02-12T21:13:00.000-08:00

So today I finally finished going through my google reader and stopped following so many many blogs. Hopefully I didn't stop following someone that I didn't mean to... well we'll see. :)

Well a few weeks ago Paul and I decided that we need to do something about our weight and healthy eating habits. So we started with Atkins and within a few days changed to Weight Watchers. So far I've lost I think about 12 pounds or so... didn't really take my weight at the beginning I just know what my highest was prior to us starting. So yay!

We also are going to be starting an exercise program, I used www.fitclick.com to come up with a program. That seems like a good website to join, they tell you how to do the exercises and which muscles they work on when you do the strength exercises. So yay!

Just a few things

2011-02-11T07:08:00.000-08:00

So I was reading my facebook wall as usual and one of my cousin's wife's posted something about Labor and Delivery nurses. Apparently while in a class she heard two people say how they did NOT want to be L&D nurses. So she posted this on her wall and people responded. I was one of those people, I particularly really was glad to have the nurses that we did when we lost our baby. They were all so nice, caring, thoughtful, patient, knowledgeable, and willing to talk to me whenever I needed, everything that I wanted out of a nurse. Anyways one of the the other comments was something like "Are they crazy? I love babies! I want to be an l&d nurse." I had to refrain myself from typing, "It isn't always so happy in Labor and Delivery, some people don't end up coming home with a baby and you would have to deal with those people too. It isn't about the baby at the end, it's about how you treat the mother and the father and everyone around that little infant. Most of the time that people are in Labor and Delivery they aren't spending it with a baby, they are in labor most of that time." Bah so instead of saying that on facebook I just decided to come blog about it. :)

The hardest part of my stay in the hospital was leaving it empty handed and with an empty womb, I would have been glad to have stayed in the hospital for the next 5 or 6 months, however much longer my baby could have stayed inside in order to grow into a healthy baby boy that we could eventually have left home with. I would have done anything to go home with my baby. The next hardest thing for me was to realize that there wasn't anything I could have done.

The many weeks now since we lost the baby have all been a blur, I can remember a day here and there, but I don't remember the order that things happened. I know we were sick for a week in December, and then sick again the beginning of February. I know that we have seen my mother in law and her husband a few times. We have also seen some of our good friends a few times. My birthday passed as well, and I remember that day because we had some friends from Chicago come up, they gave me a new board game and we ate pizza and ice cream and drank some drinks. I have also found a new doctor during this time, on Jan 28th I saw Dr. Kostic up here in Port Washington, she was everything that I wanted in a doctor. I am very very excited to begin working with her. I also started my monthly times a few weeks ago, so that is one more step closer to healing (You wouldn't believe how much of a deterrent that is from feeling ok with things, not that I -am- ok with things, but each day is a little bit different than the last). We have also been to church a few times, wish it had been more but since we have been sick so often it just hasn't been possible to go.

I wonder if my body is more susceptible to getting sick with the state of my emotions and stuff. Surely being in a grievous state has made it harder to heal. Sometimes I just don't care about what is going on around me, at those times I tend to cling to Paul and hope that he can help bring me out of that place. Most of the time he does, and if he doesn't then we try to distract ourselves for the evening and normally things are better the next day.

On a different note I have been trying to get into reading again. As well as back into quilting. I have a quilt I've been working on for a year now that I really should just sit down and finish, get it done. It would be nice to have on our bed eventually. :) I have been getting a variety of books from the library, trying to expand my reading some. Although right now it's been focused in the young adult section... but that's ok I think. :) I hope.

We have been watching a few television series as well, "Curb your Enthusiasm" is one of them, and Star Trek DS9 is the other. Without Paul I've been watching Glee (I love hearing them sing the different songs and everything). Curb your Enthusiasm is interesting because it's Larry David (one of the guys who wrote the Seinfeld show) and his life, the funny things he gets into and stuff. Some of it is painful to watch and others just make us laugh and laugh. Star Trek is starting to be one of my favorite shows, I love the characters from DS9, The Next Generation, and the Original series. I can't wait to watch Enterprise and there is one other one (can't remember the name right now) that I just can't wait to watch, they are in our Netflix queue now.

Also, soon we will have another nephew. My sister in law has been having contractions on and off over the last week, but they believe the baby is coming soon! So I am very very excited. This means I am taking care of my mother in law's cats while they are out waiting for the new arrival. Sunday (yes super bowl sunday) I went over to their house to check on the cats, I changed their litter and gave them food and water. Then I went to throw out the litter in the garbage can in the garage... closed the door behind me, threw out the garbage and then went to go back inside to find that it was locked. Yep, I locked myself into the garage... and yes it was snowing and cold. :( So it took a couple hours but we finally were able to get a friend (thanks!) to come and pick up my husband, drop him off at his mom's house, and he let me inside. Ick what a stupid Sunday. Thank goodness we weren't into the game all that much... never really am unless around people who enjoy it. So that was fun, gotta talk to my other nephew while I was in the garage, my mother in law passed the phone to him. He's 3 and really cute, although at this point he hasn't really learned to enunciate words so it is hard to understand him. But that doesn't take away from the cuteness of it.

Anyways, for the moment that's enough of my ramblings, hope to get back to you soon!

It's been awhile...

2011-02-02T17:04:00.001-08:00

Well so let's see... where to begin. I'm not even sure if anyone even reads this blog... but whatever.

So we went to my parents house for Thanksgiving and had a good visit with family on the actual day. And the Saturday after Thanksgiving we had a baby shower and that was nice.

Now Sunday after Thanksgiving is the day that my life as I knew it changed... That day I was using the restroom in the morning like I usually did and I was pushing because I really had to go... and after a few moments of pushing I felt a gush of liquid come out. Well being 17 weeks 6 days pregnant I knew that something was wrong with this feeling, this wasn't right. I called to my husband and told him about what had just happened. He went and got our OB/GYN's number so I called the doctor, since we were in VA and he was in WI he told us to go to the nearest ER so we did. My mom drove us, then my husband and I went to check in while mom parked the car. They were able to get us back to a room right away. The ER doctor did a test to see if the fluid was amniotic fluid, that came back negative. They were also able to do an ultrasound which my sister and Paul were able to see. After that the ER doctor decided to send us upstairs to Labor and Delivery, where they did another amniotic fluid test. The on call doctor up there also did a cervix check and said everything felt right, the cervix was closed and elongated which was good. We were released shortly after that and went home to spend the rest of the day with our family.

The rest of that week we spent visiting with family and friends. I had some leakage the rest of the week but for the most part was feeling good. On Friday I was getting us packed up and ready to go. We wanted to get on the road first thing the next morning so I was getting everything ready. I had a funny feeling, something that felt like an air bubble was stuck down there, and I wasn't sure what it was, it didn't go away when I went to the restroom, it didn't go away with laying down or anything so I wasn't sure. I thought maybe I should feel and I could actually feel the umbilical cord or what I thought was that, so I got Paul and he looked and said that yes we definitely needed to go in. I called the doctor just to confirm and he agreed that yes we should go into the nearest ER. So we got in the car and were on our way back to the ER in VA. This time we had a wait, about 15-20 minutes of waiting, which felt like an eternity, I was sooo upset and had a hard time not crying because I was sooo worried about our baby. When we got into the ER the ER doctor came in right away, they weren't having us sit around for very long at all. The doctor said it didn't look good and that we probably would lose the baby. He was going to transfer us up to Labor and Delivery where the on-call doctor would take a look and give her opinion.

We got upstairs to Labor and Delivery where we were given the same bad news, that our baby would not survive. He didn't have any fluid around him, he had a strong heartbeat but there was no way for his lungs to develop and he wasn't going to survive. When the doctor checked, I had already started going into labor, I was already 1 cm dilated. So the doctor decided to induce labor and was hoping that we wouldn't need a D&C, so that's when she gave me cytotec to encourage the contractions and labor to continue. I was offered pain medicine but declined until about 2 hours into everything, and did get some medicine put into my IV which lasted maybe 15 minutes before it seemed to not work for the pain. But at this point I had resolved to just deal with the pain, I felt that there wasn't much time left before we were at the end. And I was right, within an hour or so our baby boy was born. He didn't have a heartbeat at birth, he was no longer alive. I was able to hold him, there are some regrets about that day, I wish I had held him longer... I wish that day had never happened. I will always wonder if there was anything different we could have done, anything that could have kept our baby boy safe from passing away. I don't have any answers, and I wish I did. I wish it was like a choose your own adventure story where I could go back and choose the happy ending, keep choosing until I liked the ending.

But I can't... instead I am here 8 weeks 5 days after we lost our baby. We are looking forward to having a child and will continue to try to make a family for ourselves. Some days are better than others, all have a tint of sadness to them, but at least I don't cry every day, only some days and lately they have been farther apart. So anyways, December 3rd, 2010 will be a day that I will never forget.

And in case I didn't say before, not sure if I did, we have moved back to WI. We are dealing with the snopocalypse like every one else right now... yay. So that's it for now. I'll try to update a little more often if I can. Sometimes I forget about my blog, but I think about writing in here and just don't. That's it... signing off. :)

Melissa and Doug Train table and train set giveaway

2010-11-24T07:12:00.000-08:00

This looks like it would be a lot of fun!

http://blog.melissaanddoug.com/2010/11/20/giveaway-multi-activity-table-train-set-closes-12210/

If you want to have a chance to win then go here, and check out their other items too!

Baby is 12 Weeks today

2010-10-18T11:51:00.000-07:00

Well we made it to 12 weeks. This week we have a doctor's appointment on thursday where I hope we will be able to hear the heartbeat... we should be able to if everything is going as it should.

This week my pants have started feeling tighter. I have to unbutton them when I sit otherwise it is extremely uncomfortable.

We have less than 2 weeks before we move... actually 2 weeks from now we will be in Wisconsin beginning our second trimester. That's exciting!

I am trying to decide about an OB/GYN versus a Midwife. I am going to call the insurance company and maybe talk to them about cost of each versus the other. I would like to do things the least expensive way, while also remaining safe. It seems to me that a hospital birth would be more expensive than a home birth or a birthing center. But we will see. I don't know what Wisconsin will be like with either one of them. I feel like if we do have a home birth that I will be wanting to cover the room in plastic... lol or at least the bed or something. Who knows, maybe we can do a home waterbirth... OH my mother in law has a nice tub in her bathroom... I wonder if that would be too weird. To give birth in my mother in law's house. Perhaps I can talk to her about it. haha. :)

Anyways that's about it right now, just packing and trying to eat and not be tired. :) I am excited for us to finally be able to have a little one, and I think Paul is equally as excited.

OH We have decided on names... Emily Rose or Christopher Lewis... We will be happy with either one, although I think this is going to be a girl... perhaps that's just me hoping. Who knows.

Later everyone!

We are expecting...

2010-09-29T10:28:00.001-07:00

a baby, in May. I am excited. I am also nervous because I don't want anything to go wrong. :(

So I will hope that it doesn't go wrong. That everything goes as planned.

Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare Giveaway

2010-09-09T16:30:00.000-07:00

So I am excited cause it's a book giveaway! And a book I so dearly want to read but haven't purchased yet and won't until I find out if i won this giveaway or not... But oh so excited.

http://bookaddictchris.blogspot.com/

Here is the blog where the giveaway is at. :) I am excited. :)

So don't enter, but follow her blog... cause if you enter then my chances of winning go down. *nod*

K thanks! Bye

Isn't school ending soon?

2010-06-07T13:08:00.000-07:00

I'll be glad when it does, my street will become a whole lot quieter. That will be good. :)

So in case you don't know, I put in my notice at work and have stopped working there for the most part. I have agreed to work part part time there as an "on Call" person. This will be good for me. I am also going to help out a little with some of the scanning of the paperwork... yes paperless office is not so paperless. There's one other project I am going to work on but I don't know much about it.

As a result of me not working there all the time I've been able to mostly keep my apartment clean. I've taken care of things that have been sitting around for MONTHS!

My sister and her husband and family are working on moving back to VA, so I am helping them by looking for places for them online. Hopefully they will find something that will be in their price range. It gets expensive when looking for apartments/houses to rent.

Aaron is still living with us, it's been a year and 8 days since he moved in with us. That is an awfully long time, I thought it would be a few months but it's been longer. We will see what time will do for this situation.

I'm still quilting, and still loving it. :) I post pictures on my facebook and flickr accounts so if you are ever curious then there they are. I am currently working on a landscape piece I need to sew the mountains together and then I will be doing pretty good I think. After that the water... :)

I found a card the other day from my friend Amanda who passed away 2 years ago. I can't believe it's been two years. :( I think about her all the time. I miss her, and wish she were around still.

In other news, I've stopped playing WoW again and have started playing this game called EV... it isn't quite up and running yet, but it is an online roleplaying game. I am looking forward to it being done. I am currently working on it as an Immortal, I will be doing rp events and building new worlds. I think this will be a great game once we finish updating it. We wanted to take an old game we all played and make it new, make it ours. So building new places and such is the way we are doing that.

Hope everyone is doing well. I can't keep up with blogs, it becomes overwhelming for me, but I try to stop in every now and then.

Later!

Melissa and Doug Giveaway

2010-04-29T09:44:00.000-07:00

Just thought I would post this for those of you who love little kid toys and have kids that could use some fun Melissa and Doug Sunny day toys.

Here's the link to enter the giveaway:
http://blog.melissaanddoug.com/2010/04/13/giveaway-win-50-of-sunny-patch-products

Good luck to all!

Been awhile...

2010-01-05T13:20:00.000-08:00

Well I thought I should get on here and update a little bit for people. :)

It's been two months since I have been on here, a little bit longer by a few days.

Anyways, one important change is that I got a job. I got THE job, at the Foot and Ankle place. And I do love it! There are always things about new jobs that aren't desirable... like for me the not knowing anything and feeling like you don't know anything. Ick I hate the throwing you into the fire learning method that some places are forced to use because they don't have extra money/time to train you right. Oh well I have learned a lot though...

1. I learned how to do feet, ankle and heel x-rays. Every now and then I still need to refer to notes that I have taken but with time I think I will learn everything I need to know... I hope anyways.

2. I assist the doctor with Ingrown nail procedures, that's kind of fun. I had this done to me a few years ago so I am very sympathetic to the patients when it comes to this. Thank goodness for them though that Dr. Dujela is great at them! He is really good at numbing the patients. Part of this procedure stuff that I have learned is how to fill the syringes with the lidocaine. That's fun.

3. I am learning all kinds of new terms and lingo. That part is scary though because I honestly don't know some of these things. I have tried to study up on them but it's hard. I bet there are other people out there without jobs who would do great at this job, so every day I try harder because I want to do well and would like for my boss to think I am doing well too.

There are other things but those are the three that stand out when I think of my job.

One thing since working there that I have decided I need to do... is loooooooooosee lots of weight. I don't like being obese and for a long time I was in denial, then I was in a lose it mode, then in acceptance when it wasn't coming off. But one thing I have learned is that it doesn't matter if it doesn't come off right away, I need to keep trying and trying. Keep eating right, keep exercising and keep at it. I see a lot of patients at the office with diabetes and if there's one thing that I know for sure is that I do not ever want to be told I am diabetic. I don't want diabetic ulcers or neuropathy or any of the other things that come with it.

So here it is... I weigh 238 as of today and I need to lose at least 70 pounds. One of the things we got recently for ourselves was a Wii and I went out and spent some of my work money on Wii Fit because I think it will work if we do that every single day. So since 12/24 I have only missed one day of Wii Fitting and I will not miss any more if I can help it. I have also found a diet that I think will work, that is healthy and seems to make sense. It's called the Fiber35 Diet, there is a website online where you can register yourself and it has all the meal plans and stuff on there. The plan is that you should eat at least 35 grams of fiber in a day. Fiber does great things for you! It helps lower blood sugar, helps move fat out of your body quicker, helps digestion, and there were some other things she listed in the book. Anyways, the point... is that I have heard these things before with weight watchers and I actually lost 25 pounds doing weight watchers so I am thinking if I do it again perhaps not with the weight watcher program but following the meal plan of this other diet then I will hopefully lose the weight and be happy!

I mentioned last time that my sister is pregnant, well they found out they are having a little boy. His name is Jameson Levi. :) I am excited to have another nephew. :)

I haven't been quilting/sewing as much lately because Paul and I have been playing World of Warcraft again, but hopefully I will get back into the swing of things and begin crafting some more. :)

And for right now that's all... I have this pressing need to finish laundry... and perhaps clean off my dresser... maybe. We will see.

Anyways, hope everyone had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year. :)