Another announcement... x2

You would think that hearing the news that a friend is pregnant would get easier... especially after 7 years of hearing those words. It doesn't. It stings a little more each time and chips away another piece of my heart.

While I am very happy for her, my heart breaks. She is one more person who has been given the gift of life, the ability to bring a miracle into this world. One more person who has the one thing that I want more than anything in the world... to know that life is growing within her and that she and her husband have created a life that will be a manifestation of their love for one another. I don't think jealousy is the right word to describe my emotion right now. It's just not the right word, the right connotation. Jealousy implies that I would take what they have... and I would never take the ability to have a child from anyone. No woman should feel this emptiness and sorrow. Jealousy also implies a childness or a selfishness. I don't feel that this feeling is either of those things. In fact, I think its the opposite.

I was talking to someone today about how I just feel that our life is in limbo. I need to be proactive, but somehow I am frozen and can't move from this place of limbo. I need to take the step... I am not going to just wake up one morning and be pregnant. I am not going to be able to naturally conceive and there is a good probability that I will never be able to carry a child at all. We need to decide where we are at with all of this. Are we going to pursue another adoption? Are we going to look into surrogacy? I just don't know what the answer is now. But I need to do something. I can't just assume that something else is going to fall into our laps. That doesn't happen. The stork isn't going to deliver a healthy baby to our door.

But for tonight, I will have my little pity party. I am allowed to feel sorry for myself. I've earned it. I've tried to have faith, I've tried to be positive. It just hasn't worked out that way. I just don't understand. Is it that we wouldn't make good parents? Is it that we aren't meant to have children? I am not ready to accept either of those ideas. Sure, we have our faults. But so do many of the parents I know... including my own! How can we be so good at our jobs that revolve around children if we weren't meant to have children of our own? Why have we been given this strong desire to bring a child into this world if we are just not meant to? I have to believe that God has a plan for us and that children are a part of that. I just have to believe that.

Oh... and there are TWO of them.... two more pregnant women in my daily life.

Proud of Myself!

I am so proud of myself... I actually ran about a mile after school today! I haven't run since Thanksgiving, so I wasn't sure how I would do. I ran with a coworker.. a first for me since I have only ran with Chris up to this point. We ran around the halls at school... I know, naughty teachers! There were actually another set of teachers running as well. They are marathoners, so we aren't quite up to their pace! LMBO. A group of us are planning to run the Shamrock Shuffle in downtown Chicago on March 30th. It is an 8k.... YIKES! It is PACKED with people... I think 30,000+ run the thing, so I am sure it will be interesting! We are planning to run again tomorrow. I am actually looking forward to it a little bit. I have to admit it was nice to run with a friend. When I got home I had a nice soak in the whirlpool tub. I am so glad we splurged on that puppy!

We had an all day training today on a new reading program. I was exhausted after sitting there all day! Too funny how it is so much less tiring to be up and teaching all day! My student teacher has started now... so hopefully things will settle down and we can all get into a nice routine. Wouldn't that be nice!

It's done! :-)

I am so excited that this project is done. Most of the pages are really simple, but I was able to capture the season in WORDS, which was my goal for the project. It's been so long since I finished a project for myself. Most of my projects are in a process eternally. My goal was to finish this project before returning to work. I am so proud of it! I decided to only include prompts through the 25th... that made it doable for me.

Back to work on Monday... just a few more projects that I would like to get done around here before I head back. I also have a basket full of grading... I think I will watch a pay per view movie tomorrow and get that all done. That's the plan anyway. We'll see!

More pages... :-)

So I have a few more pages done for the Christmas Journal. I have GIVEN UP with the scanner. After 45 minutes on the phone with HP, the tech told me that I needed to return the scanner as it is not able to scan any dimensional objects. Nice, huh? When I asked why my OLDER model was able to do this, I was told that the new technology does not allow for dimension on this model. Some new technology, huh? Wait till I tell Chris! YIKES!

Anyway... here are some not so great photos of some more LO's...

Two more before I head to bed...

Here are two more that I did tonight. I really need to figure out this scanner! Ugh!

Two more pages...

We had a great time at the wedding. It was nice to hang out with some friends from work. Part of me wishes that we would have thought ahead and made a weekend out of it. I really love the Grand Geneva resort. It's pricey, but it is a nice little treat once in awhile! For some reason I really wasn't in the mood for photos... so I only have one from the wedding itself. We also had quite the snow storm yesterday and I took some shots of the snow at the resort. It was really beautiful!

I did these two pages while Chris was off doing private lessons this afternoon. I don't love either one, but I am happy that they are done. I would like to get a total of 25 pages done. I know that whatever I get done before going back to school is all that will get done. Last year I stopped at Day 16... so here is to getting at least past that!

I love how this patterned paper mimics my wrapping paper this year... almost like I planned it that way! :-)

Days 13 & 14:




Chris bought me a new printer/scanner for Christmas. My old one was a pain, but this new one is also making me a little crazy. I am really not happy with the quality of the scans so far. I will have to play with it more until I get it to work the way I think it should. Oh well!

4 More pages

So I didn't get all the way caught up, but I did get four more pages done. I would have gotten more done but I realized that I didn't have anything to wear to the wedding we are going to tonight and lost 4 hours at the mall trying to find something. Everything is on sale which is great, but nothing is left in the size or style I need! Since I lost some weight when training for the 5k, I am having a really hard time finding things that fit well. I suppose that is a good problem to have, right? :-) I ended up with a new pair of palazzo pants. They are really comfortable and I think they will be great as the night wears on and I have had some beverages. :-)

Ok... back to the pages. Here are pages 9 &10:



I didn't save any wrapping paper for this page.... so this paper was actually used to wrap a present... very authentic, don't you think? (Thus the creases and "weathered" look to the page!)

Days 11 and 12:


I am not really crazy about Day 12, but hey it's done! I am hoping to work on it some more today but I don't think it will happen. I need to make a gift for the wedding we are going to and also hope to get my eyebrows done as well as maybe a manicure. All before a wedding at 4.... LOL. We'll see. It's early still.