Recipe to Wellville

Here's how I get rid of horrid, awful cramps...

• one prescription painkiller
• 4-5 episodes of Sex and The City
• 1/2 glass red wine
• healthy version of haystacks- a few tortilla chips, brown rice, homemade lentils, baby spinach and salsa...mmmmmm good.

Sorry I Don't Know...no baby this cycle...I don't want a winter baby anyways...our December/January birthday calendar is already chock o' block full...think good thoughts with me that my Big Human will suddenly decide oh around August that it's a good time to make a baby...I think a late May/early June baby would be best...we don't have any other birthdays then.

Cheese baby

Last night I dreamed that I saw a positive pregnancy test. Now before anyone gets too excited, that could be for a number of reasons. The most obvious reason would be because my Big Human and I were hanging out with our best couple friends last night and she found out she was pregnant the day before. This is a much wished for and worked for pregnancy and so we were all very excited. So I had that on my brain before I went to bed.

If you believe in this sort of stuff, it could also be foreshadowing for something in my near or not so near future. It wasn't clear in the dream whether it was my pregnancy test or not but whosever it was, the second line was super dark. Super dark lines = lots of preggo hormones which is generally a good thing. It means that things are sticky. It could be because I have been a little concerned this cycle because there was an *ahem* INCIDENT about 4 days before I ovulated. It wasn't an "oh well, that's it...guess we better start looking for a crib" incident but it was an "are you sure everything was o.k." incident. Soooooo....who knows?

In other news, my quest to use Google to self-diagnose all that ails me is ongoing. I thought I had it figured out. I had identified lactose and possibly dairy altogther as the source of all my pain. So no problem right? Just eliminate sources of lactose and dairy in my diet and take the lactase pill if I must eat cheese or something that may contain cheese. Well that would be a big fat no. Turns out after a couple of doses of the lactase pill, my body has decided that it is even more evil than the cheese so every time I have taken it in the past three weeks, I have vomited. Numerous times. Accompanied by severe abdominal pain. No fun. Now I get bloated, gassy, abdominal pain, nausea and burping for no reason at all. I could have gone all day without eating anything remotely resembling something that has come from a cow and I still get sick. So who knows? I go to the doctor next week to have blood tests done for food allergies. In the meantime, I will continue to look for all sorts of odd ailments that could be the source of all my issues. Cause wouldn't that be cooler to be able to say you have some rare issue instead of saying that cheese makes you so bloated you look 4 months pregnant?

I'm a "6"

"The Life Path 6 suggests that you entered this plane with tools to become the ultimate nurturer, and a beacon for truth, justice, righteousness, and domesticity. Your paternal, or maternal, as the case may be, instincts with a 6 Life Path exceed all others by a considerable margin. Whether in the home or in the work place, you are the predominant caretaker and family head. While the 6 may assume significant responsibilities in the community, the life revolves around the immediate home and family, for this is the most domestic of numbers. Conservative principles and convictions are deeply ingrained and define your character.
You are idealistic and must feel useful to be happy. The main contribution you make is that of advice, service, and ever present support. You are a humanitarian of the first order. It is your role to serve others, and you start in the home environment. You are very human and realistic about life, and you feel that the most important thing in your life is the home, the family and the friends.


This is the Life Path related to leadership by example and assumption of responsibility, thus, it is your obligation to pick up the burden and always be ready to help. If you are like the majority with Life Path 6, you are one who will willingly carry far more than your fair share of any load, and you are always there when needed. In doing so, you take ownership and often become an authority over the situation.


In romance, the 6 is loyal and devoted. A a caretaker type, you are apt to attract partners who are somewhat weaker and more needy than yourself; someone you can care for and protect. The main ingredient that must prevail in the relationship is complete harmony. You don't function well in stressful relationships that become challenges for you to control. It is the same with friends, you are loyal and trustworthy. But there is a tendency for you to become dominating and controlling.


It's likely you feel compelled to function with strength and compassion. You are a sympathetic and kind person, generous with personal and material resources. Wisdom, balance, and understanding are the cornerstones of your life, and these define your approach to life in general. Your extraordinary wisdom and the ability to understand the problems of others is apt to commence from an early age. This allows you to easily span the generation gap and assume an important role in life early on.


The number 6 Life Path actually produces few negative examples, but there are some pitfalls peculiar to the path. You may have a tendency to become overwhelmed by responsibilities and a slave to others, especially members of you own family or close friends. It's easy for you to fall into a pattern of being too critical of others; you also have a tendency to become to hard on yourself. The misuse of this Life Path produce tendencies for you to engage in exaggeration, over-expansiveness, and self-righteousness. Modesty and humility may not flow easily. Imposing one's views in an interfering or meddling way must be an issue of concern.


The natural burdens of this number are heavy, and on rare occasions, responsibility is abdicated by persons with this Life Path 6. This rejection of responsibility will make you feel very guilty and uneasy, and it will have very damaging effects upon your relationships with others."



Yep...it's all true...especially the last part with the negative examples. Unfortunately, it also says that one of the numbers that I am least likely to get along with is the "7". And my favorite online-never met in person-writes awesome blog posts-friend is a "7". Boo.

Making new habits

Today was day five of waking up at 5 AM, feeling around in the dark to put on gym clothes (because I need to ease in to having light in my face when I first wake up) and heading out to be at the gym when they open their doors at 5:30 AM. A couple of days were really tough. This morning was suprisingly easy even though I went to sleep WAY past my bedtime. How many more days until this becomes habit? Only trouble is the gym people think they should be able to sleep in on the weekends so it doesn't open at 5:30 AM every morning...hmmmm...will it throw me off if I have to wait until 8 AM tomorrow morning? I hope not.

Lots of Small Human Lacrosse to watch this weekend. Super excited about that. Lots of cleaning and organizing to do this weekend. Super NOT excited about that. Oh and more eBay listings...cause I need more money in my paypal account!

Bring it on!

We found the most perfect house for us tonight. Only trouble is that it's for sale, not rent and we are not in the market to buy right now. Now if someone would buy it and then rent it to us, that would work. ;) I'm going to employee the law of attraction here and get this house for us. Here are the things about it that are perfect:

• It's in all the right school districts for the small humans so there would be no reason for them to have to switch schools and they could ride the school bus.
• It has four bedrooms so the boys would no longer have to share.
• It has a two-car garage.
• It has a living room and a family room.
• It has a home office/study area.
• It has a wonderful soaking tub that would be perfect for me to labor in...hey, I'm practicing the law of attraction here so I am going to attract my home birth and beautiful baby!
• It's connected to a neighborhood where the small humans have a lot of friends and they could ride their bikes over to visit.
• It's in a super convienent location for work, shopping and church.

So Universe, I'm ready to receive it. Thanks in advance!

I have a lot of words in my head lately

I've got this overwhelming urge to blog these past few days. Not sure where it's coming from but I'll go with it.

So there are a lot of good things about Facebook. You can keep up with your friends, show off your kids, make witty comments, all sorts of good things. But there are times when Facebook leaves me feeling sad and weepy. Like the last couple of days. One of my college friends got married this past weekend. We were good college friends, you know like close at college but it didn't last once I moved back home. We've spoken only a couple of times in the past 8 years so it's no surprise that I didn't get an invite. In fact, I'm not sure what I would have done if I would have actually gotten one. Taking trips right now pretty much require an act of Congress.

At any rate, it still makes me sad to look at those pictures and see all these people together that were my friends at one point in my life and to have the understanding that I don't know them any more. And they probably don't know me. Except for maybe a few that might read my blog and follow my tweets. My life today looks nothing like theirs. We don't match socially. I'm a mom. A Catholic mom. To tweens and teens. They are maybe parents to babies but most of them are not even married. And they are still Adventist for the most part. And I guess the part that is really difficult to address is the fact that we didn't match then. It's probably why I always felt like I was on the outside watching them be friends. And I was the person that was sometimes tolerated. Whew. I'll need to process that some more.

Here's a scene from my evening:

Lauri is sitting at the kitchen table addressing Mother's Day Cards. Her Big Human is standing nearby taking a break from being the Smallest Human's sleeping buddy. Lauri hears the small voice coming from behind the closed door "DAAAAAADDDDDYYYYY!" She looks at her Big Human and says "He's calling for you." to which he responds, "No I think he's calling you." So Lauri gets up from the table and walks toward the closed door. Then she hears "L-A-U-R-I come here please!" She opens the door laughing and is greeted with a small face with toilet paper in a U-shape shoved in two nostrils accompanied by a big grin. "Take a picture of me Lauri! I'm a bull!" "No more pictures tonight! It's time for sleep!" Lauri shuts the door to hide the laughter and heads back to the kitchen wondering where the toilet paper came from...

It's a little early but that's o.k.

We did Mother's Day tonight since the kids will not be home this weekend. Here's the card that they gave me...yes it made me cry!

They are such sweet and loving children and I love them with all of my heart.

Notes from the couch

I've been working on something the last week or so. I'm trying to change my thought patterns. It's pretty tough. I've realized that I have given a lot of my mental space to someone who I very much do not like and that needed to stop. Also I've been working on being happy with what I do have rather than being sad about what I don't have. That was a handy little tidbit that one of my priests shared with me during my last confession. After I left, I was thinking, wow I'm spending a lot on therapy every week, I could just go to confession weekly and get better results!

So speaking of therapy, I've reached kind of an interesting place. I was starting to dread going to see Dr. M every week. In fact, I was beginning to think that it was the therapy sessions that were bringing me down. She's a pretty intense lady. So last week, I canceled my appointment and spent the week working on changing my thought patterns. And I actually felt a lot better. When I went in today, we decided that I am going to switch to every other week. I feel good about this decision and think that soon, I will probably stop seeing her altogether. She kind of rubs me the wrong way. Which is not really a good thing in a person that is supposed to be helping you through your issues, you know? Thinking those thoughts then sent me down the self-doubting path of "maybe I don't like her because she makes me face the tough issues and it makes me feel bad and I just project that on to her" but I am seeing another therapist with my blended family and he makes me face the tough issues and doesn't make me feel like I am constantly defending my choice to stay in this marriage, crazy ex and all. Sooooo, all that means that I think Dr. M is probably not going to stick around much longer. And I'm o.k. with that.

I had an epiphany the other day. It seems so simple that I am almost embarrassed to say it out loud but how many of you are actually out there? 2? 3? So it's o.k. So here's the thing. I was driving somewhere and I was thinking about how I wished my life looked different. I was thinking about all the different things that I would do if I could. And then I thought, "I can do those things." Once I thought that thought, it seemed so simple to me. Longing to wake up in the morning, drink coffee, read the news and maybe the daily scripture reading before work? Well, Lauri, just wake up and do it! Want to go to daily Mass? Nobody's stopping you crazy lady! Just go do it! Geez...I'm a little dense sometimes with the obvious stuff. Yeah so maybe I don't have a cozy comfy chair in my bedroom that I picture in my head when I think about doing those things in the morning but why am I letting that stop me from actually doing that? I'm still working on the timing. See the other thing is that I want to be the person that exercises every morning regardless of what is going on. So right now, those seem like conflicting desires. I'm working on that.