Pity Party

I'm sorry I've been such a bad blogger lately! Things have been a little crazy around here. Hopefully I'll post more about that later.

No news on the IF front. I had a strange cycle this month. It was about nine days long and very light, which makes me think I won't have one next month. My body isn't cycling naturally, anyway (at least I don't think so). If I didn't have to take the estrodial and prometrium for my early menopausal bones, I wouldn't so that I wouldn't have to have periods. lol

I'm getting pretty down about my overall health. My hair is still falling out like crazy (it seems even worse than before, but I could be imagining things), my left eye feels really weird (I'm not even going to try to describe it lol), and I have an almost constant toothache. I went to the dentist about my tooth, who said it's just sensitivity, but it still really hurts. I have an eye doctor appointment on Tuesday...hopefully I get some answers. My brain feels like it's in a fog most of the time. I'll try to make conversation with people, and I have a hard time understand what they're saying and end up looking like an idiot. It's frustrating and a little scary.

My NaPro doctor referred me to an endocrinologist, since she can't figure out why my FSH is 153, which is high even for a menopausal woman. However, the endocrinologist refused to see me until I saw a "reproductive specialist". There are some reproductive specialists in the area, but they do IVF/IUI stuff, and they gave me the creeps. I'm pretty sure they'd just try to force IVF on me anyway, instead of trying to figure out what's wrong with me. None of the doctors I've ever been to has been able to figure me out. I've basically given up hope of ever being "fixed". I'm so bitter about it all...the "Why ME?!" thought and feelings come up almost everyday. Why does MY body have to act like a 60-year-old? The worst part of it all is seeing my husband go through all of this with me. I feel so guilty. He tells me all the time that it's not my fault and it's unreasonable to feel that way, but I can't help it. 

Ugh.

Evangelizing the Family

Boomz and I visited my family on the other side of the state this past weekend. :) I haven't been visited them in months, so I was excited to go "home", but there's always a little part of me that dreads it. Not because I don't love my family, of course, but because they don't understand why Boomz and I are so "into" Catholicism. There's lots of bickering and criticizing, and the TV is ALWAYS on. 


Anyway, I bought my little brother the new catechism for teens (You.cat) for his birthday, because I'm his Confirmation sponsor and I've been doing a horrible job at preparing him for the sacrament. He'd already flipped through it a little, but I wanted to go through it with him before Boomz and I went home. So on Sunday afternoon, I went through some of it with my brother, starting  with Who created us and why. We talked about baptism and the Divine Indwelling (although I didn't use those words lol), the Eucharist, and Confirmation. I showed him pictures of Eucharistic miracles, which he thought were "gross". Generally, I wasn't getting very good reactions from him. lol He said things like, "It's just a bunch of rules" and repeated that Eucharistic miracles were gross many times. I was praying to the Holy Spirit a lot while I was talking with him, but I still felt like I went way too in depth, and I was worried I just confused him. 


Well, late on Sunday night (well, actually Monday morning), I received a text from my brother saying that now that he knows God is always with him he feels more safe (he still gets pretty scared at night for some reason. It took years and years to get him to sleep in his room). Then yesterday evening, I got a text from him asking how he can learn to love God more! And he told me he read a lot of the book I gave him and that he went to the church and sat there and prayed! He said that he feels like crying when he prays but he doesn't know why, and that it feels good to be in the church "just you and God", and that taking about God makes him happy. I was blown away! I can't believe I got those texts from MY brother! lol My crazy, goofy brother who never seems to have a serious thought in his head. I hope St. Joseph (his confirmation saint) and the Holy Spirit keep working on him! :) Please keep him in your prayers! 

An Examination of Conscience and Other Bible Passages

I know, I know! Just what you all want! ;) I know this passage is almost cliche (it could never really be cliche, since it's Scripture), because it's heard at tons of weddings, but it really helps me realize how far I fall short of perfectly loving my husband.


"Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong; but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." 1 Corinthians 13:4-7


Boy, oh boy, do I have a long way to go. I especially need to work on not insisting on my own way!


Other Bible passages that have struck me recently:


"I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I bid every one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith which God has assigned him."  (Romans 12:1-3) Whoa. So much good stuff in there!


"Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain." (Philippians 2:14-16)  Boomz knows I need to work on this! lol

An Excerpt...

...from My Sister Saint Therese, by Sr. Genevieve of the Holy Face (Celine Martin). 

"'That which we need more than anything else,' the Saint used to tell me 'is humility of heart, and you cannot believe you possess it until you are willing to let everybody order you about. You are pleasant enough so long as you can have your own way about things, but as soon as your opinion is ignored and contradicted you become dejected. Is there any virtue at all in that? No, for real virtue 'is to be submissive under the hand of all,'* which means to be happy whenever you are blamed for anything whatsoever. At the beginning this will not be easy, and your countenance will probably betray the effort. Then others will judge you to be imperfect still. That is the best feature of the whole matter because you will then be practising humility-which really consists not only in thinking and in saying that you are full of imperfections but in being glad that others also think you are imperfect-and even say so.'"

Oh man...I have so far to go! lol 

*Imitation of Christ, Book 3, Chapter 44

Happily Distracted :) and a bazillion prayer requests

I've been happily distracted from IF these past few days! :) Boomz and I are working on buying our dream house.  It's nothing fancy, but it's perfect for us. It's cozy and charming-and it has a dishwasher! lol It also has a small deck off the side of the house under some big shade trees, and a screened-in front porch. Please pray that all goes well with the house-buying process! 

I think I forgot to tell all of you that Boomz and I have decided to stay in the area we live in now. For a year and a half or so now, Boomz has been looking for jobs near my hometown (which is hours away), so I could be closer to my family, but to no avail. He's had a few interviews, but no job offers. After a novena to the Holy Spirit ending on Pentecost, and a meeting with Boomz' favorite priest, we decided that maybe, just maybe, God wants us to stay here. When we first got married, we were looking for houses and found the one which we are in the process of buying now. We fell in love with it, and even started the process of buying it, but decided against it because "we don't really want to stay in this area". lol Well, it never sold, and the owner is just leasing it to somebody right now. It stayed open for us the entire time! :) It almost seems like it was meant to be. Again, please pray that this all goes well, and that we do God's will and not our own! Plus, if we stay here, we can help Boomz' mother with her housing situation. Her house is being foreclosed, and she and her 15-year-old son will have nowhere to go. She's unemployed, but trying to start her own business, and going to school full-time to become an  interpreter, so her housing options are severely limited. Please pray for her, too!

The hardest part of all of this is going to be telling my family. That's right, I haven't told them yet. They still think we're trying to move over there. They're going to be so disappointed. My grandma is always looking for jobs for Boomz in the newspapers. I have an abnormal amount of fear of disappointing my family members. I never want them to hurt in any way, and I can't stand to be the cause of that. I'm at peace with our decision to stay here, and the only time it gets disturbed is when I think about how sad my family is going to be. They won't understand the "doing God's will" thing, and they'll take it as giving up, or that I don't want to be near them. Please pray for them-and for me! 

Well, I had more to write about, but adding it would make the post too long, so I'll have to write a part two! lol I hope everybody has a wonderful day!

A Couple of Questions for You :)

Boomz and I are looking into buying a house, which means we can finally buy the dog we've been longing for for over a year now!  The only thing is...we can't agree on a breed to save our lives. lol We both prefer larger dogs (with Cavalier King Charles Spaniels being the exception for me!), but all of the big dogs I like drool like crazy. I just don't know if I could handle having dog drool all over everything! Boomz said he wouldn't mind having a not-giant dog, but it can't bark or shed that much, and it must have a big head. lol  Yes, you read that right. Boomz likes "stocky dogs". We also don't want a crazy-hyper dog that we can't leave alone in the house. So, all you dog-owners out there, what kind of dog do you have and why do you love it (or not love it lol)? :) Maybe this will help Boomz and I decide what kind of dog to get. :)

I've been thirsting for some good spiritual reading lately. Do any of you have any suggestions? :) I especially love saint biographies-autobiographies are even better! I want to re-read St. Teresa of Avila's Vida, but there are so many different translators and I'm not sure which one is best. Do I get the easy-to-understand version or the most literal translation? Any advice for me fellow Carmelite-lovers? lol

Thanks in advance! :)

Wedding Weekend Update!

First, thank you all so, so much for your comments on my last post.  They were such a comfort to me! Thank you so much! :)

My friends' wedding this weekend was wonderful! Boomz and I arrived at the hotel the night before the wedding (so we wouldn't have to wake up super early and drive 4.5 hours the day of the wedding), and saw several of our friends who were also already there. We all gathered in the hotel lobby for drinks, where, after drinking a rum and coke which was much stronger than I'm used to, I blurted out that I can't have children. I'm now super embarrassed about the way it came out, but I'm glad it's out in the open now. :) I also had wonderful conversations with some of my friends about struggling to find Catholic community now that they're out of college. It made me realize how much I miss my college friends and the conversations we used to have. We may not talk for months at a time, but when we finally see each other we just pick up where we left off. :) 

Before the actual wedding, Boomz and I went to a parish near the hotel run by Dominicans for Confession. :) It was so, so wonderful! I looked behind me and there were Dominican sisters in full habit! My heart leapt a little bit, because I thought they were "my" sisters, but they weren't. :) The priest I went to Confession with was so patient and warm (but not fuzzy!), and I was so happy afterwards. After Confession, we went back to our hotel room to get ready for the wedding.  Before Mass, while Boomz and I were trying to prepare to receive Holy Communion, we had people right behind us talking VERY LOUDLY about their careers. Then, there was the constant mention of children (and rightly so), which made me start sobbing. I cried throughout the whole homily and for a little while afterwards. Fortunately, that was the only breakdown I had that day. UNfortunately, I acted like a brat for several hours after the Mass. I didn't want to talk to anybody right after the Mass because I was still upset, and once we got to our hotel room (there was a couple hours between the Mass and the cocktail hour), I didn't want to leave! I wanted to mope in our huge hotel bed and eat chocolate (which I did, for a little bit lol).  Our friends invited us down to their room before everyone left for the cocktail hour, where I discovered that the run in my hose was now three inches wide and very close to the hem of my dress. Well, I couldn't just enjoy myself and the conversation because I couldn't stop thinking "what-am-I-going-to-do-I-didn't-shave-my-legs-because-I-was-planning-on-wearing-hose-because-of-my-giant-bruise-on-my-shin-and-I-don't-have-time-to-shave-now!", which I repeated out loud a few times, until Boomz decided we'd go to Wa.lmart right before the cocktail hour and buy some new pantyhose. He said there was a store right next to the venue, which turned out to be wrong, which made me throw quite the hissy fit, since I would have to walk around with hairy legs for all to see! I got over it once I started eating some hors d'oeurves and had a little of a rum and coke. :) I was able to talk to my pregnant friends without breaking down, and even made tentative plans to visit one of them sometime soon. :) Nobody made any insensitive comments, and there wasn't too much pregnancy talk (around me, at least!).  Overall, I had a wonderful time, and I'm still feeling blessed by the conversations I had with everybody. :) Thank you for all of your prayers! They're surely the reason I didn't break down more often that night!

I'm sorry this is such a boring post!