Category — Friday Blog Roundup

I was vacuuming on Wednesday, and I managed to tip over a lamp, shattering it.  No one came up to see if I was okay, because… you know… it was only a loud crash and then the sound of spraying glass.  No biggie.

I came downstairs and told the twins and their friend what happened, and then set out to clean up the mess.  I picked up the big pieces and the rest of the lamp, and dragged it through the room they were all in so I could put it in the garbage outside.  In doing so, I cut my foot on some of the glass and commented that I was bleeding, and they dully called out, “sorry that you’re bleeding” as I limped through their scintillating game of ponies.

And then, a half hour later, during dinner — which was late due to the lamp incident — I commented that we’d have to go out to get a lamp that night and the Wolvog said, “whoa, why are we buying a lamp?”

Am I talking to the air molecules?

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Josh ended up picking up the lamp.  The man at the store told him it was six feet tall.  He assembled it.  It definitely wasn’t six feet.

In the middle of the night, I got up to pee, and when I came out of the bathroom, I gasped and jumped backwards.  At first I thought there was a very petite and skinny man in our room.  Then I thought there was an emaciated dragon.  Then I remembered that we had a new lamp.  Then I went back to sleep.

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There is still time to join along for the first book of the GRAB(ook) Club.  We’re discussing on June 13th.  And if you can’t join that one, hop on for one of the later ones in the summer:

• June’s Book: Measure of Love by Melissa Ford (discuss on June 13)
• July’s Book: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (discuss July 18)
• August’s Book: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (discuss August 15)
• September’s Book: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (discuss September 12)

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My brother had some fantastic writing advice on his blog this week, and it has nothing to do with what you put down on the page or the amount of times you tweet each week to build your platform.  It has everything to do with how you treat other people; not the ones that you think you can get something from, but the ones that you treat well along the way just because.  Those usually turn out to be the ones who make the biggest difference in whether you make it out of the slush pile or not.

Frankly, the idea to “remember Joe” is good advice for life in general.  Not to focus on some people while ignoring others; since it’s usually the ones that you ignore who turn out to be the most important.

By the way, he’s been on both sides of agenting and editorial, and he takes publishing and writing questions if you have them because he’s nice.  In fact, sometimes when you ask me something, I, in turn, check with him.

Plus he gives really really good editing notes.  Like he just did for Apart at the Seams.  I could not write without him, even though I do remember the Joes.

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Speaking of which, the winner of the Measure of Love e-book giveaway is…

drumroll please…

Dora from My Preconceived Notion.  Congratulations!  I will be emailing you today.

I will hopefully have another copy to give away soon.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Did I Do That?” (MoJo Working)
• “May the Miscarriage Be With You” (Stupid Stork)

Okay, now my choices this week.

River Runs Dry has a post about having it all… except not really.  It starts with her desire to be a CEO in the future, and ends with her thought of leaving behind that goal.  I love this thought: “it’s a matter of focus. Focusing on what’s needed in the here and now. If that means my career takes a backseat in the coming years so I can focus on other things, then so be it.”

Mine to Command has a post about challenging herself as well as accepting her limitations, which is applicable to so many facets in life.  The post happens to be about running, but she brings it around to babymaking by the end.  I hope she gets pregnant this cycle because the repetition of that number would make for a good story.

Old Lady and No Baby has a post about the talk she gives her softball team before prom.  In years past, she has focused on drugs or alcohol, but this year, the topic was sex and it ran the gamut from pointing out that the pressure has been there for every generation (“Those types of pressures haven’t changed, they have simply become more acceptable.  We HAVE been in their shoes and we DO understand how hard it is.”) to her own personal experience with infertility and loss.  I sort of wish she traveled the country and gave her talk to all teenagers.

Lastly, My Lady of the Lantern has a post about being kind to herself.  I love this part: “But I seem to have developed a habit of looping and repeating the negative experience in my mind till something else comes up. I began taking hurt too personally, and kept it close.”  Me too.  Oh my G-d, and this: “This family drama is jelly. You can press it and take it to any shape.”  Great post.

The roundup to the Roundup: I mostly talk to the air.  Not too late to join the online book club.  My brother’s great writing advice.  The winner of the Measure of Love giveaway.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between May 17th and May 24th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

I paid the twins 50 cents each to try root beer.  I have no idea why it was so important to me that they like root beer.  All I know is that we started at $100 for one taste, and we bargained it down to 50 cents.  And then they tasted it.  The ChickieNob loved it.  The Wolvog said it was okay and he’d try it again in the future.  And I let out the breath I’ve been holding for eight years.

Next up… root beer floats.

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“How are you doing?” my friend asked.

Doing.

It’s funny because I was talking to Josh about this idea of not doing.  Why do we always want to know the action taking place in a person’s life?  What about the negative action; the non-action?

I keep thinking this day will come around where we’ll have nothing on our plate and we’ll just chillax.  When I talk about the summer, I talk about sitting on the Bay beaches, reading books.  Getting ice cream.  Riding our bikes.  We’re going to the ocean a few times and driving up to my sister’s house.  Though I have no idea how we’re going to fit all of this in with all the other things that need to get done.  I keep talking about this day when everything will be off my plate, but that day seems to be permanently a few weeks away.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Mother’s Day When a Friend is Struggling” (Funny Little Pollywogs)
• “Why I Hate Mother’s Day” (Mojo Working)
• “Happy Whatever” (The Bloggess)
• “Happy Mother’s Day” (Hidden Infertility)
• “The Other Mothers” (A Half Baked Life)
• “Hope” (Teach Me to Braid)
• “Hold On” (Mrs. Spit… Still Spouting Off)

Okay, now my choices this week.

I also loved Teach Me to Braid’s post about medicinal hope (see above).  I especially loved this line: “I need a dose that’s big enough to count as positive thinking but small enough that the side effects won’t leave me incapacitated if this cycle’s a bust.”  If only this could be real.

Something Out of Nothing has a post about the Mother’s Day that didn’t end on Sunday but followed after her during the week, tapping her on her shoulder.  She writes, “She was just trying to be polite–probably–but it was one of those moments that stung.  The assumptions.  The invasiveness of a question that seems, on the surface, so innocent.  Not having the ‘right’ answer.  I wonder if she noticed my moment of hesitation.”  Plus, I love the song she ends with.

Battlefish has a note to her mother on Mother’s Day, the first one where she is a mother where she doesn’t have her mother.  I cried hard at this line: “You were just supposed to be here.”  It’s the wish inside the truth.

Lastly, the Barrenness has a post about playing ostrich with Mother’s Day, and it is a gorgeous post about an unexpected moment at church — a must-read for anyone who addresses large, diverse groups in order to understand how small actions can make big differences.  She writes, “When they called for all the mothers to rise, it was like a fortress suddenly popped up all around me.  Like these bodies all suddenly formed deep thick walls; I was shaken, physically and began to fight back a swell of tears, I felt so ostracized.”  And I need to say how much I love her for saying what she said to the aunt.  It was perfect.

The roundup to the Roundup: The twins tried root beer.  How are you doing?  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between May 10th and May 17th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

I threw out my old toothbrush this week and got a new toothbrush. Even though this is a fairly regular occurrence, I forget in between new toothbrushes how lovely new bristles are against my teeth. It’s like making love to my mouth. I use the term “making love” instead of “having sex” because that’s how beautiful and pure it is.  Getting a new toothbrush is like arriving at a Caribbean resort and being told that the staff hasn’t allowed anyone else to book a room in order to give you complete privacy as you roll around with your lover in the sand, the warm ocean gently lapping your bare legs while he/she spills pina colada over your breasts and licks it off in one, long, moan-inducing…

I mean, I just really love getting a new toothbrush.  That’s all.

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I recently learned how to score a baseball game.   I should add that I know how to do this in the most basic way possible.  When the coach first asked me to score, I looked around at every other parent and tried to convince them that they wanted the task.  No one did.  So I sat down with the stubby, eraser-less pencil and started scoring.

It made me watch the game in a different way, helping me shut out anything that wasn’t happening on the field.

If you would have told me twelve years ago that I would be excited to score a baseball game, I would have told you that you obviously don’t know Melissa.  But then I married a baseball-loving boy and became the mother of a baseball-loving boy, and somewhere along the way, I decided to love baseball because I love them.  It’s funny how a person can change due to love.

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A reader asked me to make a PSA request: before Google Reader closes, make sure your blog is updating on the various blog readers others are now using — Feedly, Netvibes, Bloglovin, Old Reader, etc.  This is especially important for people who don’t post often because people may not know whether there is a problem with their new reader not getting your posts or whether it’s simply a time period when you’re not posting.

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All I can say is… it’s coming.  And it’s going to be good.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “In Which We Discuss Sex” (Who Shot Down My Stork?)
• “One Day, This Will All Be Behind You” (Who Shot Down My Stork?)
• “In My Shoes” (Who Shot Down My Stork?)
• “Join the Movement for NIAW” (The Infertility Voice)
• “What IF: Three Years Later” (The Infertility Voice)
• “Secondary Infertility Stories: Just One More” (Bereaved and Blessed)
• “10 Gift Ideas for a Bereaved Mom on Mother’s Day” (Still Standing Mag)
• “How to Support a Friend or Family Member with Infertility” (Resolve)
• “Audrey Pearl” (Real Life & Therafter)

Okay, now my choices this week.

For the Love of Baby Liam has a very moving post about tearing down the old nursery and creating something new between the loss of her two children and the baby on the way.  She explains the difficulty she was having in marking her daughter’s birthday, and a conversation she had with a woman from her grief group whom she still speaks to once per month.  No suggestion for marking the day felt right.  But she was able to come home and keep moving ahead even with tears close-by.  It’s a great post.

Nuts in May has an incredible post about living child-free after infertility.  I love this so damn much: “Life without kids will not suck, will not destroy me, will not lead to my abandonment and feral death, will not burn out my retinas. Life without children will, in fact, be dandy. I will grieve, I will feel burning flailing resentment for the costs to my health and sanity trying to have children exacted, I will heal, I will pull by bloody socks up, and I will move on. This may take years, it may take months. But there it is, and there am I, and that will be that.”  Go read the whole post so you get the part about her retinas.

Lastly, A Life of Choice has a post about suddenly becoming fertile post-divorce after being part of an infertile couple for years.  It was interesting to me because it was the first post I read in the community that goes this direction — moving from infertility to fertility.  She writes: “In a strange way – I spent 7 years mourning the children that I could never have with my husband. I can now, finally, lay their ghosts to rest. I can stop wondering what our children would look like, be like. I can just be.”

The roundup to the Roundup: I love having a new toothbrush.  I learned how to score a baseball game.  Make sure your blog posts are updating on readers.  Secret Ode Days are coming!  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between May 3rd and May 10th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

Thursday was Take Your Child to Work day.  Since my workplace is also known by another moniker — our living room — I don’t take the kids to work.  It’s always a weird day at school because half the kids are absent.

I first tried to convince them that when the remaining students went around the room telling the teacher their parents’ professions, they should tell their classmates that I’m a circus clown and their father is a famous ice sculptor.

“I’m not doing that,” the ChickieNob informed me.

“Then tell them that I invented grass.  They’ll know what grass is.  It’s on all their lawns.”

“I’m not doing that either.  I’m just going to tell them that you’re a writer.”

“What about telling them that I’m a spy for the Spy Museum.  I spy on other museums and tell them what programs they’re running.”

“No,” the Wolvog told me.

They’re no fun at all.

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It has been three years since our last Secret Ode Day, and there has been a request to resurrect this project.  For those who know exactly what I’m talking about, skip directly to the form.  For those who need to understand what Secret Ode Day is, you can read about the history of the Secret Ode Day.  In a nutshell:

Well, basically, the idea behind Secret Ode Days comes from this neighbour growing up whose parents had a floating family holiday where they decorated this tree outside the house with lollipops in the middle of the night and part of the day was to invite all the kids in the neighbourhood to harvest them.  You never knew when the day would happen, so every child woke up each morning and ran to the window to see if the tree was decorated.  And the lollipops were that much better because they were unexpected.

A Secret Ode Day follows the same idea: odes are collected and compiled and posted here on a day when you least expect it.  And then you get to see an anonymously written note about how wonderful you or your blog is when you wake up one morning.

People simply don’t tell other people nice things nearly enough. We save our best words to say when the person can’t hear–I’m not just talking about after the person is gone, but how we tell good stories about others or think kind thoughts about another person, and they never know. Therefore, here is a chance to anonymously let a fellow blogger in the community hear how much their words and actions mean to you.

Click over and read how to participate if you haven’t done this before.  And then get writing.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Life, and It’s Prices” (No Kidding in NZ)
• “Delayed Gratification is Overrated” (No Kidding in NZ)
• “She Likes to Let Them Go” (A Half Baked Life)
• “Some Things Still Make Me Sad About Infertility” (The Lucky Life)

Okay, now my choices this week.

I collected up 21 NIAW posts as of Thursday night, and I wanted to highlight all 21 here in case you missed them, pulling in a brief quote from each one.  Please read, comment, and social media the hell out of these posts to get the word out there.

1. An Unwanted Path: “When you’re coughing up $500 a month, or $3k for one cycle, it’s impossible for it not to get in your face. It’s such a gamble, and I am not the gambling type.”
2. Inconceivable!: “Infertility always involves a certain amount of stripping down for those diagnosed.  I hope for a day though where public understanding of infertility is so normal that there is no more shame.”
3. One Step at a Time: “And I think that’s what is also cool about blogging – we can inspire each other. If I can get through years of infertility and come out the other end with a beautiful baby like Nicky – well, then, there’s hope.”
4. My Cheap Version of Therapy: “1 in 8. That is how many couples will struggle with infertility. For every person I share my story with, I bring a voice to this “silent” disease, and I feel a little bit stronger and heal a little bit more.”
5. From IF to When: “Instead, three months later, I sobbed in a doctor’s office as I heard the word ‘infertile’ for the very first time. I was 23 years old.”
6. Searching for Our Silver Lining: “Through writing about all the failed treatments, our miscarriages, the uncertainty and the myriad of emotions, Grey and I both have been able to not only heal, but also find the strength to continue on our quest to expand our family.”
7. Bereaved and Blessed: “You are not a real mom until you have two kids. Who says that? Especially to a person who is struggling to have another child! Sadly I know someone who did and they said it to me.”
8. Shutterbug Wife: “I heard stories from women that had miscarried. Ones that have been trying for 5+ years. One woman went through TEN IUI’s with no success. Women that have their miracle baby but never forgot the pain of infertility.”
9. Not When, But IF: “These activities normalized my experience, they let me know I was most certainly not alone in my feelings of pain and powerlessness.”
10. Battlefish: “Just because I have my little one, it doesn’t mean I am not infertile any more, nor that I don’t think about it, often. In fact, I am still very much aware of my infertility, especially when I think about wanting another child.”
11. The Adventures of an Infertile Myrtle: “My husband, J and I are embarking upon our seventh year as a couple with infertility.”
12. Beyond the Parentheses: “Infertility has so many tunnels leading off the initial shit-pit.”
13. The Loveliest Way: “I cried alone often in those early days, dreading each month’s cycle that would remind me that I couldn’t do such a natural human thing, heartbroken over the baby I couldn’t have.”
14. Mommyhood After Fertility Frustration: “Now it’s my turn to help those who are still struggling. And more importantly to let them know they are not alone. By doing all of this I’m also doing my part to educate the general public.”
15. Brownies and Onion Dip: “I might not currently be trying to conceive, but I still struggle with pregnancy announcements from fertile myrtles, even though I’m happy for them.”
16. Silent Sorority: “It’s easy to become desensitized to causes, to no longer see the badges, banners, ribbons, stickers and Facebook covers. After a while they all blur together.”
17. The Great Big IF: “I can think of very few things in this world more isolating than being infertile in a fertile world. It’s an incredibly lonely place to be.”
18. From Wine to Whine: “When you are in your lower 30′s you just kind of assume you can get pregnant. You both seem healthy and I had cycles that could have been in a textbook (seriously that is what the RE said to us). But then life is unfair.”
19. Our Misconception: “By breaking the silence we have found support through the IF community, comfort by learning of others who share similar situations, and strength by reading success stories of those that have kicked infertility’s butt.”
20. Stupid Stork: “Whether or not I wake up in the mood for it, infertility is a part of my life Every. Single. Day.  Even at my most distracted, Hope and Sadness will both wriggle their way into my mind if only for a fleeting second.”
21. Wonderfully Ordinary: “One of the things that I wish had been different for me in my infertility journey was support.  I wish I had reached out for support when we were in the thick of it.”
22. Are You Kidding Me?: “If you have a hard time making a child, the last thing anyone should do is make you feel badly about feeding that child if you have the good fortune to get it here.”

The roundup to the Roundup: The kids won’t play my reindeer games.  Secret Ode Days are coming!  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between April 19th and April 26th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

Almost every day, I allow myself one meal of Special K.  I picked Special K because it has a lot of protein for a cereal.  I picked cereal because it requires no prep.  Just pour in a bowl, drench with milk, and eat.  One bowl, one spoon, complete meal.

It is also always exactly the same.  Sometimes, you buy a cucumber, and when you get home and chop it up, it tastes… off.  Not bad, per se.  Just off.  Even though it looks and smells fine.  But every box of Special K is exactly the same.  There are no surprises.  Every bowl tastes the same.  It doesn’t matter that it tastes like wet cardboard; sometimes sameness trumps taste for me.

On particularly stressful days, I allow myself two meals of Special K.  This week had a lot of two-meal Special K days.  Days when I phoned in making a real meal for myself, and instead poured it from a box and thought, “this is good enough.”  One bowl, one spoon, complete meal, lather, rinse, repeat.  There was something comforting in the sameness, in having a lack of surprises.

What do you stress eat?  And if it’s cereal, suggest another one to me so I can at least mix it up a bit.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Antilamentation” (Edenland)
• “My Obituary” (Fertility Alphabet Soup)
• “The I Ching of Jerry Maguire” (Too Many Fish to Fry)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Riding the Roller Coaster has a post about why she hates Tuesdays.  The ticker that had been counting down her pregnancy always changed on a Tuesday.  She writes about this time period following her D&C, “In some ways it feels like forever.  In some ways it feels like yesterday.  My jeans and bras fit again.  I don’t have the big appetite or the scary moods.  It seems like now all evidence that I was even ever excited about Tuesdays is gone.”  It’s the layers of loss, and the hidden meanings we hold for certain days on the calendar.

Adventures for Four also has a post about a recent loss, and how it has unmoored her, leaving her drifting.  It’s a lovely, brief post about having to let go of that alternate universe that contained that wanted future.

Lastly, From IF to When has a gorgeous post processing the events of this week.  She compares the feelings to those that bubbled up after 9/11: “9/11 was so large and distant for many of us. At least for me, it was unbelievable. Watching it felt like watching a movie or listening to a story. It didn’t feel real until I stood at Ground Zero a year later and saw the destruction where the towers once stood.”  It was a perfect piece to sit with and contemplate the week.

The roundup to the Roundup: A two-bowl of cereal per day week.  What do you stress eat?  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between April 12th and April 19th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.