The recipe

I might just get run out of PA Dutch country on a rail for sharing this but my yaya's are worth it.

Start by boiling off a chicken - a fryer size is fine, but I usually get a roaster. Cook it to death - like meat falling off the bones. Save the broth. Add the chicken meat back to the broth after it's all picked off. Add 1 box of powdered chicken broth - I use Washington's Golden. Simmer while you make the dough.

Mix 6 C flour, 1 stick butter or margarine, 5 eggs beaten with a little water added. Add more flour or water as needed to get a good rolling consistency. Grab out a softball-sized hunk of dough at a time and roll out to about 1/4" thickness. Cut into "squares". Poke each square with the knife so the middle cooks well. Put all squares in the chicken/broth and simmer 20-30 minutes or until thickest squares are cooked through.

Sorry - I guess it's not really a recipe. But that's the only way I know how to make it. Easier done than said.

Chicken Pot Pie has nothing to do with a crust!!

Oh Meredith, I thought I'd had you all straightened out on what Pot Pie really is. The PA Dutch version is NOT a pie. I don't know why they call it that, but it's more of a chicken and dumplings stew-ish thing. Once it's colder out, I'll have to make you a batch and mail it to you frozen so you can see what you're missing. My MIL's pot pie isn't so good. I don't know why on earth she thinks the dough has to have baking powder in it. True to form, Stef refused to eat it. But the last 2 times we made it, she just gobbled it right up. LOL - I won't tell MIL that though.

Speaking of MIL, she's driving me straight up the freaking wall again. She took a new job at Luthercare. It's more hours but less days - every other Sat & Sun I think rather than a few hrs every Fri, Sat, and Sunday. But she loves the residents at her old job at Lancashire and just can't bring herself to say NO when they call and ask her to fill in. Lancashire is a pit of a nursing home and has trouble paying it's bills. That's one reason why she left! Yet she complains that Luthercare is further away (an extra 4.5 miles). And Luthercare's residents are financially well off, much more so than Lancashire's, so she doesn't get to make friends with Luthercare's residents. She's thinking of going back to Lancashire. Then she's definately staying at Luthercare. Then she'll just help out at Lancashire here & there until the end of the year. Talk about a human flipflop (LOL Elisa). So now she's asking me if I can find babysitting coverage for her on all sorts of dates. My mom would be happy to do it, but we're getting into sick season again and she can't predict when she'll be sick. Time to call that one daycare back again that takes drop-ins. UGH! Just make a decision and stick with it woman!

And I swear if she brings up one more time about the amount of "junk food" Stef eats, I'm gonna flip out all over her face!

Ok - I feel better now.

Gravy!

It's a gravy day for meals in my world today. My co-worker Deb is buying me lunch as a thank you for something I did for her last week. And tonight is Chicken Pot Pie (PA Dutch style!) at MIL's. It's not great pot pie, but it's good enough. It's kind of funny. Stef won't eat MIL's pot pie but she will gobble ours right up.

Stef has been expressing her anger lately by throwing whatever she gets her hands on or knocking everything off a table with a swipe of her arm. She's learning that this earns an automatic time out. I'm trying to teach her to hit a pillow when she's angry instead of throwing, but haven't had much luck so far. Consistency is the key! MIL is taking her to story time at Barnes & Noble this morning. Gymboree play class starts this weekend. I can hardly wait to see her enjoying that!

I think he finally gets it

Steve that is. We had our appointment at the RE to sign consent forms this morning. I had Dr F explain to Steve just how unlikely it is that we'll ever conceive again, even via IVF. I thought I saw the lightbulb go on when Dr F said that even using IVF, we have a less than 5% chance of getting pg. The main point of this exercise is closure for me. If we get pg, FANTASTIC! But I'm a realist. I'm very mathematically inclined. I know what the odds mean.

I'm also a hopeful little soul and know that less than 5% still means that 3 or 4 people out of every 100 will still get pg! I know that I tend to be abby-normal so I could very well be Dr F's first over 40 patient to get pg with IVF. I'm not opposed to being the first in this case!

A new obsession

Stef's new love is Max & Ruby, a Nick Jr show that airs on Noggin. We have a few DVR'd. She used to get up and dance when the end song came on. Now she cries and whines "More Max. More Max please" It's a sweet show and Steve & I both like it too. The expressions Max gets sometimes are freaking hilarious. I can't help but wonder though, where are the parents?? I've seen a picture of them on a wall, but they're never in the show. The grandma and other adults are around but never the parents. Hmmmm.

I hate myself today.

Forgive me my time on the pity pot but I really feel like I SUCK today. I'm in charge of the bills. I'm happy to do it. I love working with numbers. I love working on the budget. For some undefineable reason, since Stef was born, I've been bad about getting the bills paid on time. I thought it would all be better when our bank offered web bill pay for free with our account, but that just seems to be making it worse for me.

I thought I was being proactive yesterday and set up all of this weeks bills to be paid today instead of just entering them today. Only thing is, I forgot to change the issue date. We didn't get paid until today. Well, there was some money in there, but not enough to pay everything before payday! They paid everything but also charged us 5 overdraft fees @ $35 a pop. I called and pled my case but they said since this wasn't the first time the acct was ever overdrafted they couldn't do anything to reverse the fees. I started bawling and told her now I won't be able to get gas & groceries, couldn't she please talk to a supervisor. I said it's obvious what I did, it was an honest mistake! I've been a customer for 11 years! Couldn't they cut me some slack?? She went & talked to someone but could only offer to reverse one of the $35 fees at the Call Center but I could call the branch & see if they'd be willing to do anything for me. I will do that once I get my full composure back.

I guess I'm hyper sensitive about it right now because 1) I'm worried about the security of my job and 2) Steve's been upset about the budget the past few days anyway. He won't come out & say anything mean to me, but I know he feels like it's my fault. It is my fault but he shares the blame too. I told him a LONG time ago that we needed to quit spending money like water. Then we I had to get the home equity loan, I told him again, that the loan basically just saved our asses. He thought we were comfortable after getting the loan. NOW he's hearing me that we have to be very careful with what we spend.

I know part of the problem is my inability to say no to him or to myself for things for Stef. I can say no to myself pretty easily.

Added on top of all this, we're thinking ahead to all the costs involved with the IVF procedure, then all the costs involved with a 2nd child, if it works. Why in the hell am I doing this? I'm a logical reasonable person. The baby fever has masked even that part of myself. So then starting down this path leads me into the dark place I hold about being infertile in the first place. Then I start doing all the coulda, woulda, shoulda's that get me nowhere.

I'm on the verge of cleaning out my pitiful 401k account to fix this whole mess. Meanwhile Steve is praying for Kellogg's.

I need to get to work so I can think about something else for awhile. I'm making myself nutsy.

MTFBWY!!

YAY!!!!! The original Star Wars trilogy was released on DVD yesterday. Okay, they've been released on DVD at least once before, but this is a special edition. They include the original theatrical versions! The have all the pre-enhanced scenes with what we would consider cheesy & obvious special effects by today's standards. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE the enhanced versions, but it's nice to see the original versions too - just the way I saw them in the theaters the first time around. Now I just need to block out approximately 6 hours of time to sit & watch them! Haha

I'm trying, really I am

to not let MIL get on my last nerve too badly. Steve is ready to fire her & take money out of his IRA to finance Stef going to daycare. I've convinced him for now to leave it alone. I'll still do the research. I know it would break her heart if we did that. I think we should give diplomacy a try first. It's a precarious situation. We're afraid to say too much for fear of hurting her feelings, but she's just not listening to us anymore.

Case in point
1) she gave Stef a handful of M&M's even though she hadn't gone potty. Then Stef asked for more, so, of course, she gave her more. Umm Hello! It won't work for potty prizes if she gets them whenever she asks for them!

2) For about the 6th time (no exaggeration), she told me yesterday that since Stef had eaten such a good lunch, she gave her a cookie. She's been trying hard to limit that kind of snacks because she thinks Stef gets too much junk. Steve said he's heard the exact same line at least 3 or 4 times from her too. Okay! Who started the whole cookie thing?!? Not us!! Why do you have to tell us 6 times each. It's starting to feel like an insuation that WE give her too much junk food.

3) Calling daycares behind our backs = not appreciated!

4) In discussions about Stef needing to play with other kids, saying that she WON'T give Stef up more than 2 days a week just feels a bit, shall we say, demanding & controlling.

I know there's more, but that's just the main things we're bugged about right now. Steve even actually suspects that when MIL says she can't get Stef to nap it's that she's not really trying very hard. I disagree with that because sometimes I can't get her to nap and neither can my mom. That would just be stupid and counterproductive on MIL's part to do that because she'd also be doing it to herself as well as to Stef. Sorry Steve. I know you're right on most things, but I just can't buy that theory.

I personally don't want to fire her. It would break her heart. But I do want to sit down & have a talk so she knows how we're feeling and what our expectations are. I know my sister had to sit down with my mom about Sarah every 9 months or so to straighten things out. That's the downside of having family as babysitters.

The OTHER Gymboree

Sorry for the confusion. I didn't know Gymboree was a clothing line until I came to BBC. LOL

http://www.gymboreeclasses.com/b2c/customer/home.jsp

That terrible day.

I can't help but think about it. What I was doing, where I was when I heard the news five years ago.

Steve was on a temporary layoff from Tyco, so he was home. I had just gotten another allergy shot & got to the office around 9:15am. There was a note on my desk "Call Steve. A plane hit the twin towers" I still don't know who left me the note. My first thought was "what a stupid accident". One of the girls walked past the window & I asked if she knew about the plane. She said "yes, but now it's 2" I logged into the computer & called Steve. We had MSNBC live feed in a small corner of our computer screens at the time. I wasn't in the habit of watching it, so it took a few minutes to come up. I remember 2 clients came to the window, and I was the one to give them the news. I talked to Steve for a little while, for comfort mostly. I hung up and tried to start sorting the mail. Just as the first tower started to collapse, we lost the MSNBC feed. Nobody was up here but me, but I started saying "OMG, what was that? what was that?" I had to call Steve again.

An email came out to close the whole complex. So I put things away, made a sign for the doors, locked up the mail, locked up the office, and started driving home. I was still shaking. Along Rte 30, my 95 Saturn started acting funny. I knew this feeling because it had done it before. Another alternator just went out. I pulled off into the Giant parking lot, called Steve, called AAA, and sat & listened to the news reports on the radio. We dropped off the car at the dealer, but they were closing anyway, like most businesses. We went home & started watching the news again.

Our friend Ed stopped by unannounced (as usual). He said he couldn't watch the news any more so we watched a DVD - I think it was What Women Want. After he finally left, we went back to staring at the news. I was afraid to not watch for several weeks after.

New Gymboree soon

In my search for something for Stef to do with other kids, I found out that we're getting a brand new Gymboree at the end of this month. They will have open house the 28th, 29th, & 30th - with all classes being free. I talked to the contact person and am pretty excited about it for Stef. I think it's just what she needs. The price is a little ouchy though - $52/month for one class a week ($13/class). At least the registration fee is waived if you sign up before Sept 19. I'm still trying to find out more about 2 other places and a MOPS group.

I may have to break down & take a muscle relaxant tonight. The spasm in my trapezious (?) just won't let go. It made it really hard to sleep last night. I just hate how I feel the next day - hate that drug hangover. I'd make a terrible junkie. LOL

Me & my big mouth

At my semi-annual VA appointment last week, I told the doc that my family doctor had increased my dosage of Prozac. I only told him because I can get the Rx from the VA cheaper than thru my own insurance. Doc dutifully changed my Rx and I received the pills in the mail yesterday. I had a message on the answering machine Friday from the VA wanting me to call them in follow up to my recent appointment. So I finally called today. All this because my Prozac was increased! They want me to do a 15 minute phone questionaire to track my progress with the Happy Pills, see how I do on the increase, and make sure I'm okay. OI!

So the 'me & my big mouth' part is because I answered all the questions honestly. Honest to a fault - that's what Steve says about me. I admitted that I'd had suicidal thoughts within the past year, but I really feel that they were chemically induced from infertility treatments. Among a host of other admissions, this one raises a flag. Now I have to talk to a VA counselor on the phone! Shit shit shit. I really don't feel like getting into the whole infertility issue with some stranger from the VA! Maybe I'll just say that when he/she calls.

MIL pissed me off right & good this morning. She's still going on about Stef being bored and needing some playmates her own age. I agree to an extent. So MIL says she's been calling around to daycares for prices, etc. She's thinking a few hours a day for 2 days a week. Well SURPRISE! Daycares don't usually offer such limited hours. The one church daycare she checked with offers part time care - 3 full days/wk - $80/day! I agree that Stef should be able to play with other kids, but what's wrong with taking her to the playground? Why does it have to be a daycare? Not that I have anything against daycares or anything. It's just the way she presents these things to me and once she gets on something, she's like a pitbull and won't let it go. It really bugs me that she's already been making phone calls. I'm thinking there's got to be some mommy & me playgroups around here somewhere! Time for me to do some research.

So sad

I'm very sad about the death of Steve Irwin aka The Croc Hunter. I really admired his commitment to his ideals, his enthusiasm in learning & educating, and his awesome spirit. I'm less than thrilled with Matt Lauer's insinuations in his interview with Jeff Corwin & Steve's friend. Matt has made it pretty clear that he can't stand Steve ever since the incident with Steve feeding a croc while holding his infant son.

I'm just glad he died doing what he loved. God bless your soul Steve.

GTG

That's military lingo for good to go! My 2nd FSH was 5.5, so we're clear to proceed. Steve's appt is this Wednesday. Our Consent Forms appt, where they explain everything in fine detail is Sept 26 10am. Then I will go back on the injections and the transfer should take place in November.