When your world stops....but you have to keep on going.

In just a few short days (4 to be exact) my world will change again, for others it's just another day, perhaps headed to work or to school or maybe getting in that last summer vacation before the fall weather starts to set in. For me it's a whole new year. Most people celebrate the New Year on January 1st or to be more precise at 12:00 midnight, that minute when the last year and the new year suddenly collide for 60 seconds of time.
     In this time on August 24, it will forever be etched into my heart as "Another Year". For on this date was the day that a piece of my heart broke and will never be able to be fixed back into place. Just yesterday I was swarmed with the final memories of seeing my daddy alive. The way that he called me that day a year ago and told me he was on his way down. I honestly can't remember the reason that he gave me but when he got here it was clear to me that he wanted to see and to spoil the new kitties that we had just adopted. We went to PetSmart after the kids I was watching were picked up and spent at least the next hour together trying to decide which Kitty Tree would be perfect for them. He insisted on the biggest one they had and also to throw a purple feathered catnip toy in with it (to persuade the kitties into ECU). Afterwards we went to get some food to eat at Captain Ratty's downtown, it took me about 6 months to find myself going back to that restaurant afterwards because all I saw when I walked in was his face. Before he left it was a long battle trying to decide where to put the kitty tree at so that it wouldn't require any furniture to be moved in the process (it's pretty big!) I remember standing on the porch waving to him as he left, having him kiss my forehead and give me a big hug, telling him to have fun on his trip and that I would see him when he got back, it was after all just about Pirate Football season.
        I wish now that I would have hugged him a little bit longer, that I would have told him to stay the night in hopes to be able to spend a little more time with him. I wish I would have stayed on the porch a little bit longer to see him drive his car up the road.

       I didn't expect it to be the last time that I would ever see him alive again.

    The morning the call came in, I remember exactly what I wore to bed, I remember that I had taken some Advil PM because I hadn't been able to sleep, I remember my phone ringing and me looking up to see who it was calling me. At about 4:00 in the morning, the last person I expected to see on my caller id was my cousin. I knew that something was wrong.
I remember hearing her voice and feeling out of my own body when the words "Melissa I'm so sorry" and "your dad's gone" came through the phone. I remember saying No and Not my Daddy, and I remember screaming so loud to the point that Cammie knew that something wasn't right and started barking. I was the one who had to call my sister and tell her, and through the sobs and hysterical crying the words came out...Daddy's gone...
It's funny how your mind tries to wrap itself around things, when I was told that my sister was in a horrible car accident the first thing i said was "are you joking?", between the phone calls of telling people what had happened and trying to decide what our next move was, I was humming in my head "Shake it Off" by Taylor Swift. I don't know if it was my way of comforting myself or trying hard enough to not fall on the floor into the fetal position knowing that a piece of my world was gone forever. I always thought of myself a routine and scheduled person, or OCD if you prefer, but in that moment as I was throwing stuff in a suitcase, I didn't know what to do, I didn't know what to pack and I didn't know how I was going to go on.

Why I gave up on the Paleo diet....by day three

Now I know what you are thinking...."Really Three days in and you are already giving up on it?! That's not enough time to try it out?!" And I get it, three days isn't enough time at all, it's really not enough time to do anything!
But hear me out! I had started writing a post in here about how I have struggled with my weight, and my working out, and my diet, for many years. I was so excited to get started on this new eating plan that was so dubbed "The Caveman Diet" because you eat basically everything that a caveman would have eaten in his day.
The first day I did great, I was eating everything that was on the plan I was going by, and when I went to go workout, I felt as though I had a bit more energy. The extra energy in itself was a plus for me, because those of you who know me, know that I am ALWAYS tired! I have had almost every test that can be run on me and it was finally a matter of "we can't find anything wrong with you, so we are just going to classify you as have Chronic Fatigue syndrome"...Google it, its not all that it's cracked up to be. That night I woke up every 2 hours to go to the bathroom, because I had drank so much water that day, I was "flushing" my system out. Not too bad, but when it was finally time for me to wake up in the morning and get my day started, I had a migraine already. And I was starving! So I started making breakfast to try and fill myself up. Eggs...that was on the menu for breakfast everyday for a week. Now I can eat eggs, I don't mind eating eggs, but I HAVE to be in the mood for eggs, which only happens maybe once a month. I think it might be a consistency thing, or just a taste thing, but as soon as I put it in my mouth, I gagged so much that I had to spit it back out. The rest of the day was pretty much the same story, my head was killing me, I was constantly hungry and nothing, I repeat NOTHING I was doing was helping me out. Despite the pain and the fact that I was so hungry, I thought my stomach might eat itself, I still went to the gym and pushed through an hour and a half workout. I felt a lot better when I was through, my headache was going away and so were my hungry pains, however I started to feel weak and kinda of woozy while making my way up and down the aisles of Harris Teeter in hopes of finding something I could eat for dinner. I decided on chili with ingredients that I could have that were Paleo Friendly and bought the one thing I love but couldn't top it with for my husband...Cheese.
     You really don't know that you miss something so bad, or how often you think about food...until you can't have something. And for the past 2 days that's all I have thought about, I mean things that I never eat any way. Like Bojangles chicken, I drove past coming back from the Y and I suddenly had the urge to eat some. Weird considering I haven't had any in over a year...maybe 2!
     Which brings me to today, I woke up this morning still with a slight pain in my head and my stomach growling. I decided that I had to make something work for Breakfast, that is where your day starts, you know! So against everything I had read about in the "what not to eat" section of Paleo, I poured myself a bowl of whole grain cheerios and poured some almond milk in, and enjoyed it! Then while I was fixing breakfast for the two boys I keep, I felt the cheese in the fridge that I had bought for Pat last night taunting me! I gave in...I know, I'm weak. For what its worth though I was pretty sure that I was going to throw it back up, as it was a shock to my system. But my headache went away!
So in all this I have made a decision, I have really been thinking a lot about this eating change and trying to figure out what to do. And that's the thing I need to figure out what is best for ME! Diet fads come and go and there are some that work for some people and for others it doesn't. Strictly Paleo just isn't for me, I can handle the fresh ingredients and am so glad that I can eat meat, but for me it was the no dairy, or cheese to be precise! I can give up the bread, I can give up the coffee, and I can give up the sugar. I can't however cut out dairy entirely. I feel that was one of the reasons that my body took it so hard and its didn't quite work out as I thought it would. I gave up everything cold turkey, just like that I went from a daily routine of the same things over and over, to a completely new meal plan.
So whats next for me in this weight loss journey...I am going to continue to eat more fresh fruits and veggies, (I did eat spinach the other night, and actually liked it!) and I spent over $200 on food that will be consumed, as well I am going to continue to not eat any grains and try to target in on gluten free products. I really feel like there are more products and meals that can keep me full and are easy to purchase that are gluten free friendly. Almond milk will be a regular in the fridge, as will other dairy products, I will however be limiting my daily and weekly intake of these dramatically. Processed foods and sugars won't be allowed for me and my workout will increase to at least 5 times a week. I know that going gluten free can be considered another "fad" for those that don't necessarily have an allergy to it, as many of you know my husband and I have been trying for many years to get pregnant, and I have had many people tell me that cutting gluten out of your diet, has been proving effective for many couples. So if it's something that we can try and doesn't include another costly visit to the doctors office, and can also be done in the privacy of our home...I'm in!
So If the Paleo eating plan has worked for you...I am so stoked and applaud your commitment to something that not everyone can do. For me its all in finding out what I can do to get where I want to be and be happy with my decsion.

Today's Generation

I worry about the generations of today, (insert "Back in my day" story here) this generation has never know all that we had when we were growing up and all of the things that we learned and saw along the way. Now I am only 27 so please forgive me to the older generations who have gone through by far more than I have ever known. I was in the in between generation, cell phones were first introduced when I was in Elementary school, but didn't go main stream until I was in middle school we had pagers before that...remember those?! Computers were just starting to come into homes as well, our first one was in our living room. Before we had home internet, I remember sitting on it and playing my Beauty and the Beast game and my Sesame Street game. If you were to show a floppy disk to a teenager today, they wouldn't believe that we actually had to save our home work on that! We stayed outside and played until the sun went down or we were called for supper. We had remotes for our TV's but we still had one that you actually had to get up and walk to, to change the channel. Game boys were as thick as bricks and only in black and white. Nintendo's were still connected to the game console with cords and if you needed to call someone on the road you had to find a payphone.
Ok I could go on and on about the things we did without unlike now generations, but I digress. One of the many things that worry me about these younger generations is their relativity to history. I love history. I am obsessed with history, mainly US history though. And today is the 50th anniversary of the assignation of John F. Kennedy. I know that I was no where near being even thought of 50 years ago today, and both my parents were only 8 years old at the time of death of the president, but this moment in history is such a turn of events that I became fascinated with, and I worry that things like this that happened in history are going to be lost generation after generation.
My love for history started in 7th grade when I had the privilege of having Mrs. Farkas for a history teacher at Allen Jay Middle school. Now Mrs. Farkas was not your ordinary teacher by any means. You know Ms. Frizzle in the Magic School Bus series? That was Mrs. Farkas. Just a more hippy, stuck in the 70's Ms. Frizzle! She loved to talk about two things during the year, One was ancient Egypt and mummification, we even had to create our own tomb. The other historical subject was the assignation of JFK. Now most people have seen the famous Zapruder film, the home video that captures the moment the president was shot. To my surprise my husband had never seen it, or he saw it and just didn't remember it. We watched it in class, over and over and over again. It was nothing new to see, the fatal shot or shots (in my opinion), we also went over all of the conspiracy theories (it was one, by the way), and watched all of the documentaries that came out years after, we also looked at pictures to help my belief that it was all a conspiracy.
But it made me wonder when my husband seemed surprise at the footage, once the older generations are gone, will our history be gone? Now I know that is a little extreme to say but it really makes me wonder. The schools and history books will still teach it and there will forever be the pictures and video to refer to, but will it just be a section in a book?
The same makes me wonder about the horrific events of September 11th 2001. It blows my mind (and make me feel old) that many teens and kids weren't around or were just too young to remember it. It was a day that will forever be etched in my mind, much like the attack on Pearl Harbor, or the assignation of JFK for older generations. I was changing classes in the 10th grade when I first heard the news, at first I thought it was a joke. I mean come one who would fly a plane into the pentagon? When entering yearbook class, is when I first saw the TV and the footage that was scrolling across the screen. Tears starting streaming down my face when the first tower fell. Just months before I had stood before them and my cousin and I had decided not to go up to the museum at the top, because we both agreed that "they would be there next year".
Maybe its because I actually saw it all happen, maybe its because I been at the top of those buildings, maybe its because of the events on that terrible day, so many brave men and women decided to enlist in the armed forces and because of this, many of them never came home. But this day stuck with me, I had become apart of history.
Now off of MY historical history review and onto my topic...Today's Generation. I cam across an article right after Halloween about a girl who dressed up like a Boston Marathon victim, I won't re-post the picture because I myself found it disgusting and disgraceful to the actual victims of the bombing attack. She is 22, old enough to know better. Upon reading this article I also came across another couple of 19 year old's who dressed up like the burning twin towers...disgusting, I know. Is this what we are going to have to look forward to in future generations, such disgust and disrespect? It's a hard generation to come into, everything is given to you in a hurry up fashion. Think about it, when you need to find out who the 23rd president was, you simply go to the computer or grab your phone type it in and BAM Benjamin Harrison pops up. Now think about to the time when you were growing up, what did you have to do? I remember pulling out the encyclopedia that my parents had purchased from someone go door to door selling, and flipping to the index to find where the presidents were located, then flipping to that page and reading down till I found the answer. Not that I am complaining because I find it incredible useful to pull up directions on the road and have them spoken to me rather than looking at a map and trying to decipher which way to go.
Because of this hurry up and all of this information available at our fingertips what happens to the imagination? Kids don't play make believe like they use to, I saw plenty of examples when working in childcare. Rather they are too consumed with TV shows or games that they can play on their tablets, or phones, or game consoles. What will happen when they have to think out of the box? What do we as older generations do to help make sure that they still live in the imaginary worlds that we once played in?
I came across this post on Facebook and fell in love! If its what Pat and I need to do to make sure our kids have an imagination then that's what we will do! Check it out!

So in a world that is growing up in a Miley and Justin Beiber world....here's hoping for the best

One of those days

Do you ever just have one of those days where you don't quit know what to do any more? I am having one of those days right now, and I tend to have at least one a week for the past month or so. Its like the weight of the world has suddenly fallen on your shoulders and the fate of humanity lies in your life's decisions. I know that it is a little much to say it like that, but in those times....that is exactly what it feels like.
Pat (My Husband) and I have been trying to start a family for over 4 years now, with no such luck. I honestly think that we have been through every step of denial, acceptance, depression, etc. along the way. We've cried, we've prayed, we've thought about other options, we've cried some more and so far we are no closer than when we first started. The doctor would continuously tell me "You're young, you have plenty of time" and yes in fact I was young when we first started trying, however its not up to a doctor to tell me when I feel is the right time to start trying for children. We both have been tested for many things along the journey, my husband tested out fine on his part, and I have been pricked, pinned, probed, and tested for just about everything that they can think of to make sure I was up to par. The thing is that through all of the testing they still couldn't find anything that would prevent me from becoming pregnant. So we started the pill popping, and with that came the extra hormones that made me put on the extra weight, and it also made me put on the extra emotions....poor Pat. We have tried this method for many unsuccessful months, which turned into many unsuccessful years with no results. The next step for us was...more pills, I have tried three different medicines in many different dosages some as high as they would allow. Which in turn meant......more hormones, which equals....more moodiness (Sorry Pat). That went on awhile with no plus sign on a pregnancy test, so the next option for us was an IUI, basically artificial insemination. Just thinking about this option honestly brought me back to my FFA days when I saw the procedure done on a cow...excuse me a heifer. Great now I am a heifer! We had a lot of faith in this method and hoped for much more promise than with just the medicine alone. But after three attempts, still no positive sign on the pee stick ( I swear I paid most people's salaries at the pee stick factories) So with that we decided to take a break, we were coming up on the holiday season and with going in and out of town visiting family, it was the smart thing to do. Plus we needed a break, we had both been the strong ones in the relationship while the other one cried, we had reached our breaking point many times, and the hormones were not making me enjoyable to be around at times! The break from it all was nice, it was something that we could do together and enjoy the company of each other without worrying about taking medicine or when our next doctors appointment was. It was nice for me because I had been struggling so hard with it and basically came home everyday and cried whenever I got on Facebook, because someone else I knew was expecting. That is a hard thing now a days with the technology that we have, used to you would hear it through the grapevine that so and so was pregnant or just had their first child, but now you simply open your computer or pick up your phone and it hits you in the face. I had been getting a lot of encouraging words along the way, "Put it in God's hands", "It's his time not yours", "It will happen when you least expect it", "Just stop stressing about it" and Yes these are all great words of wisdom. But take it from someone who knows, when you have to take medicine to get things started, its not going to happen when you least expect it. Everything you thought about making a baby gets thrown out the window when you go in for a procedure, get a shot, then get told to get it on in the next 72 hours....mood killer, believe me.
Now with that lets add my job into the picture. I love kids, I want kids, therefore I work with kids. I have worked in childcare for over 10 years and during this time of TTC I worked at a preschool in Greenville. I went to work everyday and would be surrounded by children. Most of my time there was spent in the infant room. Don't get me wrong, I loved working there and I loved the children that I got the ability to look after and see many of them grow up right in front of my eyes. But at the same time it was hard, considering all that I was going through. It was difficult to, because something must have been in the water, from the time that I started working there till the time I left, at least three teachers at a time were pregnant or had babies of their own. And on top of that many of the parents had become pregnant with their second or third ones too.
Please don't think that I was never happy for these families that were blessed to welcome a new bundle of joy into their homes, I always was. Even during this time my Best Friend of over 20 years found out that her and her husband were expecting after trying for less than a month. I will admit that when I first received that phone call, I had to stiffen back tears and then when I got off the phone I cried and cried and cried. I was happy for her, I was over the moon for her, but the thing I couldn't understand was.....When is it going to be my turn?
So as you can see.....I needed a break from it.
My Best Friend was due to have my God Daughter at the end of April, so I put everything I had into making sure that she had the best of everything. My escape from it all is shopping, when I am upset I like to spend money....even if its paying a bill! So that's what I did, I shopped. I took all of my emotions and spent them on clothes and toys and things to help her get the nursery ready. I threw her a wonderful baby shower which was centered around a princess frog that was on my Goddaughter's bedding which my BFF found online and just HAD to have!

I was driving the 4 hours just about every chance that I could get to go and see her and help her in any way possible. In April just about the time she was due, I received the early morning phone call thinking that the labor process had started, so I hopped in my car (even though I was told to wait) and made the trip up there. Turns out it was just braxton hics, but I stayed the entire weekend and a few days into the week just to make sure. On May 6th she was scheduled for a doctors appointment that turned into a trip to the hospital to get the party started. I got the message while at work and told them I needed to leave. I luckily had a bag packed along with pillow and blanket in my car for weeks (Just in case) and made the trip again up to High Point. This time it was happening, this time it was real, and I was there to help, support, and take pictures along the way! That night was rough for my friend and I was up and down with her all night helping her anyway that I could, being the good friend that I am, I was sleeping on the floor and would wake up with her in any movement to make her comfy. We let her husband sleep as much as we could because we knew at any moment the excitement would begin and he needed sleep. This was my first time in the hospital for a birth...other than my own, so I tried to ask questions when the nurse would come in and pick up on anything that she would say to help my friend ease the pain, I also became a good contraction monitor reader! I was blessed to be able to stay in the delivery room the entire time that she was in labor as well as for the delivery of my God Daughter, and I tried to help out in any way possible and to help my Best Friend stay focused on what she needed to do. We had always joked that I was staying up near her shoulders and that's it, but to be honest when I was needed I went where ever they told me. I love my Best Friend but I saw WAY too much of her! I will also say that child birth in movies and shows is a LIE, and most of the time they never get it quite right. However when the delivery started to take place I was holding a foot and taking pictures at the same time, as well as a movie (got to love an iPhone) I couldn't help but cry, to be honest ball. It was such a moving experience to be apart of and its also a beautiful miracle of God's love, to think that for all of us that is the first step into the world and our life begins.
After that it was a world wind of letting visitors come in and out and getting all of our stuff moved into a recovery room. When we got settled into the recovery room I did something that no one knows...I went into the bathroom and cried. I cried overwhelmed with joy, I cried overwhelmed with exhaustion, I cried because once again it hit me...When is it going to be me? But like so many times before I sucked my heartache and emotions down, splashed water on my face. And acted like I was just fine and started my relationship with my beautiful God Daughter.

All of these events made me want to start back at it, thinking that maybe this time it would be different. So the pill popping started yet again, but this time...nothing new or exciting, just the same answer of "not what we were hoping for" I was done, I just couldn't take it anymore, and that's the last time that I went to the doctor. That was June and here we are in November and all of the emotions and depression about it all is starting to sink in again. The posts on Facebook and the pictures are starting to pop up again, the news of celebrities expecting are dinging on phone and although it may sound easy enough just to turn it all off...I can't.
For me personally its knowing that I am the cause of something that every women should be capable of doing, but I can't. This journey was never what I thought would happen. When your young and you dream of becoming a mother, you just expect it to happen. You never think that it might not, or that it will take years and years of trying. You never think of the emotional toll that it will have on yourself, your spouse, your relationships, or your marriage. You never think of the physical toll that it will have on your body. You never think about these things because its just supposed to happen when you want it to.
Now I know that there are many options out there for couples that are going through the same journey that we are going through. We have considered adoption and I am all for the idea, I am however quite particular and because of this money would become an issue, not saying that it wouldn't happen in the future, because I believe that every child deserves and wonderful and loving home. The hard thing with adoption is that I want to feel the joys of carrying a child, I want to feel the swollen feet and ankles and the morning/all day sickness, I want to feel my child move for the first time inside my stomach. We have also talked about In-vetro, and although this is an option that I would be willing to look more into, it is not something that my husband wants to do, and I respect that.
I'm ready for it though...Motherhood. And I know that my husband is to, it breaks my heart to see him around other children and babies and hear him tell me that he can't wait to be a dad. I can't wait to be a mom and through it all I can't help but think....When will it be my turn?