Mmm, only an hour left until I get to start eating foods that are terrible for me! We're having beefy cheese dip, basil-pesto cracker spread, and Paula Deen's version of pigs in a blanket. Oh yeah, and there's some football or something, whatever. We ate salad for lunch so we can gorge ourselves in front of the TV.

Also, I had a laugh today when CaliValleyGirl asked me how we pay such low taxes. Um, that's what happens when one of you has a job with an annual salary of $900. Knitting teacher doesn't exactly pay the bills.

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The husband did our taxes this weekend and somehow, against all odds of us trying to contribute the bare minimum, we are still getting a refund. The husband just said, "Sweet, the government is hooking us up!" And I feigned horror and said, "Do not ever say anything of the sort again. They are not 'hooking us up'; they are merely only keeping $7000 of our money instead of $9000."

If everyone looked at taxes that way, maybe we could get some reform.

And as I was digging around for receipts on charitable contributions and my husband was trying to figure out how much state sales tax we could deduct, we kept muttering how nice the Fair Tax would be.

Posted by: Sarah at 06:09 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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One year ago today, I assumed I was in the process of getting pregnant. I could barely concentrate on the Super Bowl because I thought there were miraculous changes going on inside my body. If you had told me then that I would be watching the next Super Bowl unpregnant and without a baby, I think you could've knocked me over with a feather. I can't believe we've been running in place for a year.

I know some people think I was incredibly naive when I went into this process. And apparently I was. I did not know that people had to try to get pregnant. Sure, I had friends with actual medical conditions -- endometriosis, polycystic ovarian syndrome -- and I knew some people tried for years to get pregnant and then had to have fertility help, but I thought that if you didn't have Major Medical Problems, you just got pregnant. I know people who got pregnant by forgetting to take one day of their birth control pill. I know a lot of R&R babies, which means people managed a one-shot-one-kill tactic in the random two weeks their husbands were on leave from deployment. And within three months of the husbands' return from Iraq, our entire street in Germany was pregnant. I know of so many people who got accidentally or immediately pregnant that I thought that the female body was dying to procreate the first chance it could get. I honestly thought that all you had to do to get pregnant was not prevent it from happening.

And here we are.

The sad thing for me is that I now feel smothered by a blanket of apathy. Where last year I fretted and fussed over temperatures and charts, now I just don't care anymore. I don't feel excited about getting pregnant, and once I do finally get pregnant again, I know I will feel nervous and detached. I am not going to enjoy it the way I should, which frustrates me beyond belief.

So this Super Bowl is a "grim milestone" of sorts for me. And tomorrow when my husband takes his DLPT, our Safe Year officially ends. And we have absolutely nothing to show for it.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:34 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 You don't have "nothing to show for it". Yes, you do not have an infant, but you had a year with a loving husband. Trust me, that's more than a little "something" to have. Many people go their whole life without that. (Don't jump to any conclusions. I have a loving wife, we've been married for 17 years. I'm just stating something about what you have from the last year.)

Posted by: Gus at February 03, 2008 04:45 AM (V+clK)

2 Incredibly sad post! Just keep trying. That apathy is defensive. When your body deceives you, it's difficult to trust it again. I still don't believe that I have babies. I never, ever, in a million years, ever thought that I would be so lucky. Just keep trying. At least THAT part is fun. If you had to get root canal to get pregnant, that would SUCK! Try not to worry about it. Drink some wine. It worked for me! And I'm OLD.... I wish I could take your burden. I've already been there and back. It hurts to see people that you care about suffer.... I wish I could snap my fingers and make everything all ok.

Posted by: Allison at February 03, 2008 07:12 PM (f2kPQ)

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Yay, the hat I made for Tucker fits!
(I am used to making preemie stuff, so newborn stuff looks gigantic to me.)

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We watched Ratatouille last night. What was the deal with all the guns? Doddering old grannies in France do not keep shotguns in the living room, nor do quarreling couples go at each other with pistols. It was France, for pete's sake. France does not have a gun culture.

Other than that, it was good. But the gun thing was mighty weird.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:22 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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This Chicago Boyz article is really good but also really painful for me to read because I know I am "educated beyond [my] intelligence." But at least I know and can admit it, right?

Yeah, reading that post made me want to puke.

(Gee thanks, David...)

Posted by: Sarah at 11:10 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I'm just kind of flabbergasted that it looks like the Republican candidate might be McCain. Six months ago there was no way on earth it'd be McCain. Shoot, one month ago in Iowa he got slightly less delegates than Fred. I don't know about you, but I sure as heck didn't see this coming.

John Hawkins lays out some good points in his new article, "Why You're Going To Vote For John McCain In November And Like It!" There are some on teh internets who say that they'd rather stay home than vote for McCain, or that we deserve four years of Hillary to wake us up to just how bad it can get.

I told that last one to my husband, who replied that stupid, stubborn Republican voters will indeed deserve Hillary if they can't hold their nose at the polls and punch a chad for McCain, but that our military doesn't deserve Hillary. Our troops don't deserve a fate of fleeing Baghdad à la Saigon. Our troops don't deserve to be told again that they fought and died for nothing.

So hold your nose, throw up in your mouth a little, whatever it takes, but vote for McCain if he's our guy. There may not be a huge difference between him and the Dems, but there certainly is a difference when it comes to the GWOT.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:15 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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