I just had a thought: remember how I said it was awkward talking about this stuff in person? Well, this is the Internet and the Internet is forever. So to my future child(ren): if you’re reading this, I’m sorry if it’s awkward. One day you’ll be young and ignorant inexperienced and you’ll probably put something in writing that one day you’ll look back on and maybe go WHAT WAS I THINKING. And then one day YOUR children might find out.

So what did I learn? A whole hell of a lot. My former education taught me that of course you can only get pregnant if you ovulate but that was about it. Nothing about how one might confirm ovulation, detect ovulation, nothing. Bare basics. Egg + sperm = baby. But I find that there really are just 4-5 days in a cycle (which is most certainly NOT 28 days every cycle) when a woman is fertile. For some people that might be obvious but it was brand new information to me. The best thing I ever did was read a copy of Taking Charge of Your Fertility. Seriously. Before I read it I had heard it mentioned so much in my “research” that I thought surely they’re blowing it out of proportion. One BOOK couldn’t be that life changing. I WAS WRONG. If you’re wanting to have kids some day, whether it’s soon or 10 years from now, read. that. book. It’s so much of what I was never taught but should have been.

Even the information I got from medical professionals was lacking. Not a single one of them ever told me that a known side effect of the birth control I was using is “temporary infertility.” I was actually told the opposite: when I wanted to have a baby I could just stop using it and there wouldn’t be any problems. AHAHAHA. HAH. Ahem. Remember this when I get to the end of the next post.

Back to the whole “periods are gross” thing. If people weren’t so reluctant to talk about these things it seems unlikely that I wouldn’t have learned this stuff before I am the age I am now. Since it’s seen as a gross, dirty thing that women do it’s apparently a gross, dirty thing to talk about. I remember being younger and feeling absolutely mortified about everything period related. Even the word was to be avoided if at all possible because it wasn’t something you were supposed to talk about. Ever. So I didn’t. Ever. Gee. Is it any wonder that abstinence only education doesn’t really work? Make someone (mostly girls) feel dirty about themselves for things that happen normally and of course many of them aren’t going to be able to ask the questions they need to know because they will only be shamed.

Moving on. Actually, back to the “people have different experiences” thing. One of the most personal questions people have ever asked me, and this has come from near perfect strangers and not just people who know me, is “when are you having kids?” That is such a loaded question. You can never know a person’s full background, events that are going on in their life, or any number of factors that go in to making the decision to have children. (I am not trying to be dismissive of people for whom that isn’t a decision, this is just my experience.) Maybe the person never wants children, for whatever reason. Maybe that person is trying but is experiencing infertility. Maybe that person desperately wants a child but knows that, while that child would be loved, life would be stressful beyond belief and so they wait, heart breaking a little every time someone barges in with that question and that person feels like they have to politely sidestep because it wouldn’t be polite to rip them a new one. (And job interviewers, you can stuff it with your “where do you see yourself in five years” questions. I know what you’re after.)

Bottom line: unless you KNOW you have a right to ask that question of someone else, DON’T. Let them bring it up when and how they want to. This may sound contradictory to what I’ve been saying about talking about the things people don’t talk about but there’s a world of difference. Trust me. Just take a seat and listen.

Next up: where we are now. And by we I mean me and my husband. He knows I’m writing this so don’t feel like I’m airing things I don’t have a right to.

(Commenting guidelines still apply. I am not the government so “free speech” won’t cut it.)

I never really had a grand plan for what I wanted to be “when I grew up.” I had no goals of any sort about a career, marriage, children, none of it. Well, my career ideas are certainly not what they were when I graduated college 5 years ago. (Seriously, it’s been five years this month. Where does time go.) I also got married five years ago; June 30 is our fifth anniversary. Five years ago, having kids was a “yeah some day we’ll do that but not right now” thing. Not having plans may have been a good thing, considering that things hardly ever go according to plan.

Like many couples starting out, having children right out of the gate was not really financially feasible. Could we have done it? Probably. BUT it would have been difficult. Since we planned to wait at least a few years I went on birth control. Knowing what I know now I can say that I knew very little about the actual reproduction process. Sex education was almost like “if you have sex* you will get pregnant and die”. (*Sex outside of marriage, of course.) And if you were married and didn’t want babies yet you went on hormonal birth control. Simple. Except for the times that it fails but like so many things it’s easy to say “that won’t happen to me.”

Obviously I know where babies come from. I’m going to go on a tangent here but I’ve already jumped into TMI territory so why not. Is it not just plain AWKWARD to tell people and/or talk about trying to get pregnant? Cause you’re basically saying “Hi, me and my partner are having lots of unprotected sex!” Actually, it may say something that I’m OK talking about this on the internets but trying to tell people in person? Hella awkward. ANYWAY. (Hi mom! Hi mother-in-law! Hello other people I know who may be reading! Also, I cuss. Some. It depends on how angry I am.)

This isn’t really to talk about the “morals” of birth control so that part isn’t even up for discussion. I’m very grateful that it was available to me when I needed it. I am also not going to talk about what makes a use of birth control valid. Wanting to delay having children is valid. Wanting to avoid pregnancy while taking prescription medications known to cause birth defects is valid. Those have been my reasons and there are myriad others that are just as valid. The point I’m getting to is how my “education” about birth control and the whole process of actually trying to conceive (commonly abbreviated as TTC) was woefully inadequate.

Luckily, I have the Internet and I know how to use it. Seriously, I have Google-fu. (Remember, I worked in IT. Half the things I did, or more, I learned from searching for them.) Something that is just part of my personality is a driving need to KNOW. I don’t always have to be right but I hate answering questions wrong or being asked a question and not having an answer. With the resources available to me there is no excuse for not knowing. So once the people around me started having babies and I heard things from them that I never heard before, I went looking.

Next up: An Education.

I’m going to do something that I don’t normally do. There are going to be rules for commenting on this series. Specifically, these topics are not open for discussion: birth control and the use of, adoption, overpopulation, or anything to do with the choice to have children. You can take those comments and shove them because they aren’t welcome here. And if you are still so inclined to leave one I reserve the right to edit or not publish those comments as I see fit. That holds true for my whole site, actually, but I know some of the topics to come can be inflammatory.

It’s been a while since I’ve picked up my camera. I’ve thought about it. A little. Actually, I’ve spent more time thinking about what it is I want to shoot rather than doing any sort of work. And to be honest there’s more than a small amount of fear.

I know the thinking is important but there comes a time when I need to stop thinking and do something.

Actually, the not writing and the not picking up a camera are related to the things that happened. That shouldn’t be a big realization but it feels like one.

One other reason I haven’t been writing? Every time I sit down to do that I end up with a jumbled mess that goes from topic to topic and never actually get to what it is I wanted to write about in the first place. I want my writing to be better but always end up deleting everything because I feel like there’s no point. (I almost deleted that line.) But sometimes I just have to write what I think, publish, and move on. At least, that’s what I tell myself. I have a lot of hangups, ok?

I think I’m close to moving on. I’m just not there yet. Also, a cat has taken over my lap in spite of the laptop that is already occupying that space.

Back in November I finally bought the macro lens that I’ve been eying for ages. And when I say ages I actually mean that I’ve wanted a macro lens since I got my first Nikon 3 years ago. I’ll also say that when my husband asks me how much money I would spend on camera gear if I could I tell him that however much he can think of, that’s how much I could spend. $2,000? Sure, that will get me a really nice lens. $3,000? Full frame here I come. $5,000? $10,000? No problem. Here’s the thing: I’m not an impulse buyer. (Usually; my new hair straightener was a bit of an impulse but my old one is 6+ years old!) Even when I take my time, do research, and fully consider the pros and cons of buying new camera equipment I often end up with buyers remorse. That’s just how I am about money.

I could talk about all the technicalities of the lenses I already own and all the technical reasons why I bought the one I did but this isn’t a technical post. Basically, the 90mm focal length is helping to fill a gap that I have and the macro feature is a bonus. My problem is that I haven’t actually used it all that much, a problem I need to fix. Warm weather, please come quickly! Considering that we’re in Wisconsin now that’s probably not likely.

These are, once again, some older photos. When we traveled south to visit family for Christmas the weather was warm enough for me to walk around and test the lens out on my mom’s Boxer, Chief, and her flower bed. While her glorious day lilies are not in bloom I still enjoyed it.

This photo makes me think that I did make the right lens choice. I’m very excited to be able to get outdoors and do portraits with it.

This last one was just too funny not to post. Apparently, this is how he reacts whenever anyone first approaches him, stranger or no. It probably didn’t help that I was wearing my hood that is shaped like a wolf and forgot about it…

Today I thought I’d share some photos from last October. It was one of the last times I went out to take photos before the weather turned. This river isn’t so very far away from my apartment. It’s a nice place to go but not without some friends to go along. It’s a rather popular fishing spot but there are parts of the mini peninsula that are rather isolated. I wouldn’t say that it’s particularly unsafe but wandering around alone with my camera just doesn’t seem the best idea. Anyway; on to the photos!

The part that we walked out had quite a few trees growing on it. I loved how you could look ahead and see the path.

That one is probably one of my favorites. For some reason I don’t know they’ve blocked off a portion of the river or are redirecting a dam or something. The backhoe was parked beside the part that is now drained (I think) and the reflection came out looking like a painting. In this last photo you can see the ripples in the water:

What I do have is an enormous back log of photos that I’ve never done, well, anything with. So far 2012 has been rather photo barren, which is another thing that bugs me. So a (largely) unused blog, photos that need something doing with, and lacking motivation to take photos? (Though I can guarantee that the Wisconsin winter is at least partially to blame for few photos this year.) It all fits! The site is a bit of a shambles but I make no promises as to when everything will be fixed because the truth is it probably won’t ever be finished. That’s what happens when you have a lazy perfectionist. If such a thing exists, I am it. I’m going to stop apologizing for not writing, stop making promises that I know won’t be kept.

As everyone knows, the best use of a DSLR is to take photos of one’s cat(s). Can I just stop to say that I googled whether or not “one’s” should have an apostrophe in it? Because I did. Why? It just has to be right. I’m not lazy all the time! Ahem. Anyway, I have more than a few but not a ridiculous amount of cat photos. Here are some that are recent. All shot with my Nikon D90 and 50mm f/1.8.

This cat. This cat. He is huge. He snores, unfortunately not loud enough for my phone to record it very well but it’s hilarious. Sometimes I can hear him over the TV. I think he loves nothing more than to hear the crinkle of paper (usually fast food wrappings) and play fetch with them. Yes, he will wait for us to throw it, go play with it a bit, drop it at our feet, then look at us and let out a hoarse “meow” and wait for us to throw it again. I love him.

Now that I have distracted you with cute cat photos, about that unintended 7 month (ish) break. I’m really not sure what to say. Not much happened. The things that did happen I’m not even sure how to categorize so I’ll just list them in chronological order. More or less. I’ve dyed my hair red and not taken any photos of it. My husband spent 5 weeks working out of town and got shorted on his compensation. One of two expected babies arrived in October, the second is due in March. (I’m still not sure how much to talk about family because I’m not sure how they or I feel about it. This is not me saying that I’m expecting this March.) I worked for exactly 90 days as a freelance newborn photographer. It didn’t work out, and not because of the newborns themselves. I’m currently not working and I’m not sure how I feel about that, either. I still dislike our apartment but we haven’t made any decisions about what we’ll do come May 31. There’s a lot that could happen between now and then. Yes, I’m being vague. I’ve played a lot of too much Skyrim. I’ve read… some but not as much as I’d like. I have an issue with picking up books and not putting them down until they’re finished.

Those last two items show me that I definitely have issues with managing my productivity. As in I’m not very productive. I didn’t make any actual resolutions this year but if I needed to pick on one thing to work on, productivity seems to be the thing to choose.

Life is always hectic after a move no matter the distance traveled. The past month has been full of adjusting, dealing with an incredibly obstinate landlord who refuses to fix certain issues with our apartment, and running around from one event to another. Following up from the last post I bought a car and most importantly my parents are both doing well.

I’m currently posting from Big Bay State Park on Madeline Island (where apparently the park closes at 11PM but there are NO SIGNS POSTED). Signal is finicky due to not having any cell phone towers on the island itself so sometimes we’ll have full 3G service one moment and absolutely nothing the next despite the fact that we haven’t budged from our seat. And thanks to the WordPress app for android I haven’t had to try to type this in the browser rendition of the WordPress installation. I’ve had to edit the post in the browser because the upload failed and there is no edit in the app. Oh well. Isn’t technology grand?

But I’ll be waiting until after the trip to check in again, I believe, because I have such amazing things to do like explore the beach shown in the photo (that should be somehow) attached to this post above. I’ll also be occupied not fixating on the gazillion mosquito bites I’ve earned despite my efforts with bug spray. Mosquitoes are are state bird of Wisconsin, you know.

It seems that even camping can’t break my habit of waking up in the early AM and being unable to fall back asleep.

Today is June 6. I had told my landlord we would be out of our house on June 5. The plan was for us (note the emphasis) to be together in Wisconsin last night. But the best laid plans of mice and men and all that. Hang on because this is the story of the weekend that just would not end.

Friday, June 3
At 9:30 I sat down with a list of people to call. I needed to arrange for our utilities to be cut off and/or switched over to the landlord. First and foremost on the list was to confirm my moving truck reservation, which should be done 24 hours in advance per the instructions I had received. Since my pick up time was 11:30 on Saturday I was ahead of the 24 hour deadline. I made the call, was told that everything was in order and that I would be contacted should anything come up. Thought that was a strange caveat to throw in there considering that it would be extremely late to do something if my truck wasn’t available. But I said OK and continued to move on through the rest of my considerable to-do list.

My mom and I did a few more packing things and visited my cousin, with whom I sort of joked about the whole “we’ll call you later if there are problems” thing because really? Who is going to have problems that close to moving. LITTLE DID I KNOW that possibly while we were having that exact conversation, the moving company was leaving a voicemail on my phone to say that my truck had broken down while being delivered and there was no replacement. I didn’t listen to the message until I had walked into city hall to have our water service stopped but my face just fell. I don’t know what the poor clerk thought when she saw me but I know I felt devastated.

I immediately called the company back and found out that they were going to rent us a 24′ truck at the same rate as the 16′ truck I had reserved. Since I wasn’t the one actually driving the truck (hah!) I had to confirm with the people who were that an increase in size wouldn’t be an issue. Everyone involved was rather leery but what were we going to do?? I called back and agreed to the larger truck.

At 2:30 my mom and I drove my car to get some lunch and pick up my new glasses and a few other items. Or so we thought. While eating we got a call from my dad, who informed me that when I visited the previous weekend my car had leaked something that killed a substantial patch of grass in the yard. This necessitated an immediate visit to a mechanic to have the water pump checked out. Since I don’t work on cars I took his advice. So it was back to my house to pick up my mom’s car and to the garage. The only local garage I had ever heard recommended to me to have anything checked out at. By the time we got there it was closing on 3:30. On a Friday, remember? They said they might not even be able to LOOK at it before they closed at 2PM on Saturday but that no other garages around are even open on Saturdays, much less would any of them be able to fit me in that late on a Friday afternoon. With pretty much no other option I left my car there on the chance they could look at and possibly repair my car by the next day. My mom left later that evening and I tried to get things ready to be loaded on the TWENTY-FOUR foot truck.

Saturday, June 4
A little before 7:00 AM my moving crew from Wisconsin arrived. They all crashed pretty quick to get a couple of hours of sleep before going to pick up the truck and getting things loaded. At 9:00 I was woken up from a dead sleep by a phone call. (You know how when you are SO asleep that your mouth just hangs open and, well, drool happens? That sort of sleep.) It was the truck rental company. The woman I had spoken to the day previous said “I have good news and bad news.” At that point I was just like TELL ME. The bad news? The replacement 24′ truck had never shown up at the pickup location. The good news? There was a rental place in the next town over that might have a truck for me that they would try to rent to me at as close to the same rate I would have paid. The problem? My original reservation was with Company B. This other place? Company P. They would be under no obligation to give me the same rate at all.

Again, what could I do? This was only two and a half hours before my truck was scheduled to be picked up! And both of these places would close at noon that day. So I hauled myself out of bed to look up this other business and to go outside to talk because of everyone else that was trying to sleep. I will say that Company P was on top of things. They called me before I had a chance to call them. They were going to get a 24′ truck for me but it was going to be much more than the rate I had agreed to with the other company. I explained why I was getting a 24′ truck and that I really only needed the 16′ truck, especially since the rates on the smaller trucks are generally less. Company P agrees to try to find me a smaller truck.

While waiting to hear back about whether or not I would actually have a truck to accomplish this move I called my mom to update her on the entire mess since she knew about the events of the previous day. Instead, my dad answered her phone and said they were at the hospital because she had continued to have chest pains after leaving my house! This was mega scary because her side of the family has a history of early heart disease and death from heart attacks.

After talking to my sisters and letting them know about mom! in the hospital! and having a bee crawl on my arm (I am not allergic but have an irrational fear) I got the call that yes! A 16′ truck was available and the rental fee was going to be almost dollar for dollar what Company B had supposedly confirmed for me. The truck was being delivered from Lexington so the plan was for the driver to call me when she was about equal distance from the pickup location as I was.

We waited. And waited some more. And the call didn’t come. We decided to head to this town to get some lunch and hope that the truck would be there by the time we arrived. But when we were about to head into the restaurant to sit down and order I got the call that the truck was nearly there! And the pickup place closed in 20 minutes! Back into the car. Down the road and to a… feed store? Found out it was the wrong feed store and that the paperwork was actually handled at the birdseed store across the street. A little more waiting, signed the papers, copied driver’s licenses, yadda yadda yadda, we had the truck! Found out that it was only due to someone canceling their move that we got a truck at all. Lucky, lucky us.

At some point in the day I found out that my mom was out the of hospital with a diagnosis of severely aggravated allergies. No heart problems, just that her breathing was so thrown off that her lungs were making her whole chest hurt. She was given some predisone and instructions to get an inhaler.

Then it was off to get some lunch. I think it was 12:30 before we finally sat down to eat and I realized I hadn’t received any news about my car. And the garage would be closing at 2PM. So after we got our food and ate I called the garage at 1:15. They apologized for not calling me sooner and said that it appeared to be a blown head gasket and not the water pump as originally thought. If that was indeed the case my car was in no condition to be driven. Anywhere. And it would take longer and more money to repair so it certainly wouldn’t be fixed by 2:00 that day.

FANTASTIC. I called my dad to try to figure what on earth to do next. My dad agrees, no driving the car if it has a blown head gasket. I head off to the garage anyway to drive it the 3 miles to my house. Got there and let my dad speak to the mechanic, at which point my dad says don’t drive it at all, I will drive the 140 miles to come pick it up for you and we’ll work on it in Virginia. I listened to the conversation but I don’t “speak” car. I grasp some of the basics but when specifics are mentioned I have a hard time following well enough to repeat it in an understandable manner. The main point I caught was that an internal system was reading 30 pound of pressure when it should have under 15 pound. Meaning something was in big trouble.

Major panic. That gave me about three hours to help everyone get the rest of the house packed up, get ish ON the truck, and get my bags packed for an undetermined amount of time away. Why did I need to pack a bag? This car was going to have to get to Wisconsin somehow and my staying behind to drive it was the most economical way to do it. My moving help needed to be back to Wisconsin by Sunday night to be able to go to work Monday so they couldn’t stay any longer to help me get it figured out. There was also no way I could drive both my car AND the truck so we decided for all of them, husband included, to stay and head out the next morning while I went back with my dad.

7:00 PM we got my car loaded on the tow dolly and were headed back towards my parents’ house when my dad started to feel very, very sick. After a really rough patch he decided to stop in Really Tiny Town, KY and go to the ER. My dad doesn’t go to the doctor for silly stuff so I knew this was Serious Business. After getting the initial registration papers done and they got him in triage I called my mom, who started trying to find someone who could come with her to drive the truck back.

Then we sat in the waiting room. And waited. And waited. Saw the girl who had an injured foot get up and walk out without being treated because she had waited so long. Waited some more. Saw a couple with a young child walk out without being treated because they had waited so long. Waited some more. Learned that the only other person left in the waiting room had cut his leg with a chainsaw and needed treatment but hadn’t been taken back yet. Waited a little more. Finally my dad felt much better and decided to leave because during all this time they had not ran one single diagnostic test on him other than check his blood pressure and temperature while we were in triage. He thinks he was suffering from heat exhaustion and possibly a near heat stroke because he had worked in the heat the day before, had driven 3 hours without air conditioning that day to come get me, loaded my car in the heat, and then started driving back without taking time to cool off.

We met up with my mom and a cousin who could take over for my dad but he insisted on driving back himself. We didn’t make it home until after 1AM.

Sunday, June 5
After sleeping like the dead my dad and I took my car out to my cousin’s garage for him to look it over. If it was indeed the water pump, like he believed it to be, we gave the go ahead to have that fixed. If it was the head gasket we would make that call later.

Later on that night I got a call from my aunt, who relayed the message that my cousin had worked on the car for nearly two hours and couldn’t find a single thing wrong with it other than a busted radiator cap or hose of some sort.

What.

Everyone has been trying to convince me that the garage I took it to first was just trying to cheat me or drum up more business for themselves. I honestly have no idea. I really don’t think that the people who recommended the garage to me would have done so if that is the sort of business it is. I really have no way of telling but it was majorly disappointing to hear that the only thing my cousin could find, someone who has absolutely no reason to lie to me or cheat me, was a busted radiator cap.

Around 11:00 I talked to my husband to make sure they had made the trip all right. At the time they were about 2/3 finished unloading the truck and would have everything wrapped up soon. Minda was a little pissed about everything but Poe was OK.

Monday, June 6
That would be today, though I’m having an extremely hard time keeping up anymore. We’ve been going back and forth over what to do with my car. If there really isn’t anything majorly wrong with it that would require hundreds of dollars worth of work it seems like this is the best time for me to try to sell it. It really isn’t much of a cold weather car and I will find many more buyers for it here in the South than I will in Wisconsin. If we can get what my cousin thinks we can for it then I’m definitely selling now.

Which puts me in the market for a vehicle. There are just the small obstacles of finding one I like, that is affordable, that is reliable, and the teeny tiny matter of securing a loan. If this had happened a few months ago I don’t think it would have been an issue because I had stable employment and we hadn’t just moved across the country. I’m afraid lenders are going to look at me and decide that my situation is just too unstable for them to grant me a loan. But we’ll see.

For the time being, I’m staying with my parents in Virginia while Michael is back up in Wisconsin in the new apartment (that I’ve still never been in) without me. And at some point I’ll be making the 750 mile drive by myself, which I’m not exactly looking forward to.

These are the events of roughly the past 84 hours. Which is just 3.5 calendar days.

I know last week I made some progress on actually writing. This week that all fizzled. Between attending two birthday parties last weekend, trying to spend as much time with family as possible, going to the dentist three times this week (3!! I had three cavities all on different sides of my mouth so they filled them different days), preparing at work for someone else to come in, and packing (!!!) I just haven’t written.

So here is a photo of a rose.

The big moving dates are June 4 and 5. I’m somewhat prepared but there’s still so much stuff that I need to do. Pack. Arrange. Make calls about. I may not be able to devote much time to writing until after the move.