31

*sigh*

not thinking about it

Can you tell?

The ups and downs

Here we sit. Square in the middle of CD28. My body is fussing with my brain. Again. Hormones are RAMPANT y'all.

Everything makes me almost cry.
The girls finally just started hurting. In the last 14 months, the only predictable thing has been the for the last 4 months, the girls have started to hurt on CD 20 or 21. This month, a week late. Not that I mind. But why?
Pangs.
Uneasy tummy.

All I know for sure is that I don't want to do these next 4-5 days. I want it to be Friday, so I can be bleeding and on the road to emotional recovery. It's like watching a hammer swinging through the air, heading straight towards your thumb. The thumb will heal, but damn if it doesn't hurt for a while.

Or maybe the hammer will miss this month. Maybe in 5 days I'll be laughing. Maybe in a week I'll be sick and tired. Those would both be very good things.

Either way, I AM going to "do" the rest of this week. I will wrap my coat a little tighter around myself and walk up the hills and down the valleys and come out a little sorer, a little tireder (I know that's not a word but I'm using it anyhow and if you trytostopmeIwillfreakoutonyourassmmk?), and a little stronger.

But in terms of ups. I'm enjoying the "Jason Mraz" Pandora station at present. I'm into these kinds of sounds right now. Jason Mraz, A Fine Frenzy, Maroon 5. Yeahhh.

AND my new computer arrived! And is finally working! Hooked up to the internet! Wirelessly! Finally! In fact I type this very blog on it. It's so spiffy. It has a clock and a weather report right up in the top corner of the screen along with little widgets/gadgets/thingies that tell me breaking news, run a continuous slideshow of pictures from around the world, and allow me to put reminder notes-to-self right where I can see them on my desktop.

Welcome to the space age, y'all.

Diagnosis: hormones

Whatever the reason, my hormones are on the fritz. I've calmed down a bit about the food cravings thing. I remembered that about 3-4 months ago, I went through a week-long phase where I couldn't get food spicy enough and really really wanted strawberry milk shakes at all times, while fighting gag impulses when faced with yogurt or a banana. I'm seeing a similar experience here. All I can think about is pizza, Thai food, and Mongolian fire oil. In parallel with last time, I ate a tiny chocolate bar and have felt sick since. My husband is making chicken pot pies for dinner tonight. I know I'll love them. He's a magnificent cook and I'm grateful he's cooking (I've been SWAMPED with work this week - still am - shouldn't even be writing this). But chicken? Me wants spicy veggies and complex carbs.

Additionally, I've been experiencing a rather odd "high" for the last 2 days. Does anyone know if serotonin levels are known to spike with premenstrual hormones? Because that's how it feels. Aside from the odd moments when I hear about a friend of mine finding out she's going to have a little boy in a few months at the same time as I'm listening to a saddish song and I start crying... I feel inexplicably happily anticipatory. Like a kid before Christmas. And I'm ridiculously productive. Or I would be if my cat would leave me alone. But all signs of elevated serotonin (happy hormone).

And my sentence structure is faltering. Sure sign of some sort of instability. (But alliteration is always awesome!)

It is CD24. Maybe my period will start early for once and that's why I'm going slowly bonkers.

This is my brain, this is my brain on... what?

So my brain is definitely pregnant. Not sure about the rest of me - we're a good 10 days away from any news on that front. But my brain thinks it's pregnant. Today I was grocery shopping, as I always do on Thursdays and I'd already decided to get myself a French bread pizza for lunch. Odd enough - I haven't had one of those in years. And then I thought I'd get myself a jar of pickles to eat with it (I never eat pickles). With orange juice. ? Gordon Ramsay would gag. But it sounds darn good to me.

(Disclaimer: this is not me actually believing myself pregnant and "finding" symptoms. I'm just terribly terribly amused.)

Dinner

I don't think I've mentioned, but my husband and I love to cook, especially together. Most of our dates at the beginning of our relationship involved us in his little kitchen learning new recipes. There was a particular incident with a lobster even, which turned out delicious in the end.

So last night, our weekly date night (we don't have the kids and I don't work on Monday nights), we thought we'd try a new set of recipes the hubby found courtesy of Gordon Ramsay (*sigh* *swoon*). He was in charge of the chicken, and I was in charge of the potatoes. There was supposed to be white asparagus as well, but it turned out to be covered in pink slime, which we didn't take to be a positive omen, gastronomically speaking. So J took the whole chicken, chopped off its legs and wings (we'll use that for soup or something later), stuffed the body with salt, a head of garlic, thyme and maybe a lemon (?) and poached it for 15 minutes in homemade stock (carrots, celery, leeks, coriander, black pepper, and something else I don't remember right now). Then, he took to out, cut off the breasts and pan-fried those skin-side down with garlic and thyme. My taters were cut into tiny cubes, parboiled for 4 minutes, and then pan-fried in olive oil also with garlic and thyme. Towards the end, I added tiny pieces of pancetta. So we have chicken and potatoes. BUT THEN there was the morel sauce. I don't remember well how it was made - something to do with white wine, morels, cream, garlic, and other odds and ends. Results? AMAZING. Be very very jealous.

Hey!

Hey look! It's CD20 already! Wow. Fastest cycle ever. Thank heaven.

There is no excuse whatsoever for little Eggy to not have met with a suitable suitor. Let's not be picky, little cell. They all come from the same place. Just accept one.

Yay for Pandora right now. I've got "A Fine Frenzy" station on right now, and for the most part, I'm loving the selections.

I also have to say that I do not like football (American, you silly Brits and Aussies). I don't understand much about it. I was in the marching band in high school, yes, so I was at every high school game, but that doesn't mean that I know anything beyond the barest essentials. There's a bunch of guys in spandex beating the hell out of each other (HOW do they not die?) trying to get a funny shaped ball onto painted grass. All that to say, I nearly had a stroke last night watching the last two minutes of the Super Bowl. Holy hell. I do have to say that I feel rather sad for that poor long-haired red shirted fellow who had his winning Super Bowl touchdown stolen by the bald yellow shirted guy.

So our priest is on a three month sabbatical. He may or may not be coming back. My vote is in the "yes" column. YES, he should come back. The interim is fine. Nice guy, a little tone deaf which is a shame when the whole service is chanted, the sermons aren't quite as meaty, but a nice guy. But I miss Father Nicholas.

Can I also say it's 3 weeks til Lent starts? weee! I'm so excited. I've been looking forward to it all year. It sounds odd to say, because it's approximately 6 weeks of being a vegan, which I don't much care for (I love cows - eating them), but it is by far the most profound period of time of the year. I remember last year after Pascha actually missing the fast. And with Lent comes Holy Week. There is no other time of the year that you can see so clearly the enormity of the Church - rooted in history and spread out in time and space. It's amazing. We have such a fantastically beautiful legacy, and it comes so near that week. Poor Protestants don't know what they're missing out on.

I should get to work. The crazy lady has finally produced a substantial to-do list. I'm actually quite happy about it. :)