yes, out of practice

Yes yes, a week has passed. We were visiting family in Ohio and New Jersey for about 10 days. And we're home now.

In the world of TTC, I find myself strangely calm. It's nice. Keeping my mind off of cycle days and odd bodily happenings isn't easy. But it's healthy. I feel saner. I have good reasons to think it didn't work this time, as articulated in my last entry. I'm not even sure I ovulated, which would be unfortunate, but my body is not behaving the way it has the past 3 cycles. For example, CD20 came and went and is well gone and the girls are quiet. Not that I mind.

It's been fairly cold and gray around here, and I was thinking yesterday of the summers I spent working in a greenhouse. I remember one particular day so vividly. I'd spent the whole day in one house (House 7? House 10?) - it was one of the bigger ones in the back - alone, listening to Mary Chapin Carpenter, planting something. Probably Mums. The house, as usual, was about 110 degrees (Farenheit, translating to about 43 C). I remember how lovely the heat in a greenhouse was. If you started the day out in the house and stayed there (drinking lots of water, yes), you hardly noticed the temperature rising. The first trickle of sweat down your back was gross and tickly. But then you were soaked with it. And maybe in there I got a glimpse of what a sweat lodge is all about. I just remember standing in the doorway of the house sometime around 3PM, hands coated in clean new dirt, sweaty as all hell, marvelling at the breeze that seemed to sweep itself across my face, and feeling so alive. Those were good days.

In other news, remember the lady I work for? The one who puts up a fuss every time it comes time to pay me? She did it again. Thankfully, after two days of emails, she agreed to pay me the amount we agreed on a month ago. Now, I'm about to throttle her because she won't get back to me with rather crucial information. I can't possibly advertise for upcoming events when I don't have things like the date, the time, etc. She wants me to submit her restaurant to Wine Spectator, but hasn't given me any of the materials. The final application is due Feb 1. I have to mail in an initial application first, receive something back from them, and then include that something in the final application. You do the math. Ug. Annoyed.