Six days of spotting later I have still not started my period and I had a negative blood pregnancy test this afternoon, I will call Monday to see if the doctor will order me some Provera to start my period. I am on day 52 of this annovulatory cycle from hell.
I finally started spotting, which means I am due to start soon, which means we can start the clomid soon and hopefully the IUI and with any luck maybe soon be expecting!! If it works the first time, Matthew can expect a little brother or sister as an early birthday present! And I would get another great early birthday gift, just like the one I got in ‘05! 
The odds are low, only about 20%, but one can hope, right??
Bobby has always wanted to take a cruise, I just want a vacation at a decent price. I have heard from many people that cruises are a lot of fun, so I am sure someday I will give in and take a cruise. In order to save money, I have found this nifty little website that offers discount to many different cruise lines such as Celebrity Cruises, Norwegian Cruises, and Royal Caribbean Cruises. Not only can you get discounts, but Direct Line Cruises also offers perks like free travel insurance. The website was extremely user friendly, responded very fast with my search parameters and showed multiple dates, rooms, ships, cruise lines, destination ports, as well as a page listing a ton of promotions.
They also have free brochures, a large section of resources and information, and a 1-800 number. I also like that they offer cancellation protection at no extra cost, because you never know when something will come up. Make sure you read the policy because canceling because you changed your mind is not a covered expense. 
School let out for the summer yesterday, and today is my last day watching Baby A. I am excited, for purely selfish reasons…. I get to sleep!! Of course if this morning was anything like this summer will be, Isis may not let me sleep in, she was up at 5am wanting to go out. ::roll eyes::
This year was a great year for Austin who made honor roll all but one quarter, and even then he was close. He made president’s honor roll and even got a certificate from the white house. In order to make this honor, you have to have a 3.5 GPA all year long. This quarter he made Gold honor roll, wherein the other quarters he made silver, so he did not get the Golden Eagle award, but I am still immensely proud. Austin will be in middle school (6th grade) next year.
Christopher’s grades…. well he did not fail anything, however he could have done a LOT better. He had a lot of Cs, some Bs and As. I do wish he had tried harder just to feel the pride of being honored in an assembly for his grades. To be fair, this was Christopher’s first year with letter grades, a tough (great) teacher, and Christopher still has a TON of maturing to do. Christopher will go into the fourth grade next year at the same school.
Overall I am satisfied on how the children did, next year is another year and another opportunity for a fresh start.
There is a new program available from PayPerPost, called PayPerPost Direct which is a really neat addition for anyone interested in paid blogging. First, I will explain PPP and paid blogging; if you are a blogger with interesting material and have a blog older than 90 days old and you update it regularly you can sign up for PayPerPost to review websites, services, products, etc on your blog to receive compensation ranging between $4 and up per post. Unlike other blog advertising companies which tell you what to write about, PPP gives you the freedom to chose what content you want to put in your blog.
Now PayPerPost offers a new program called PayPerPost Direct. Basically, PPP Direct is a program you can install in your blogs to allow advertisers to directly approach you to offer you an opportunity to write about in your blog. This allows Posties and Advertisers to directly hash out a deal and set their own terms without involvement from PayPerPost.
Other pay for blog websites, such as ReviewMe, can charge as much as 50-100% markup, which is CRAZY! Why should I do all the work while someone else makes just as much as I do for being the middle man? With PayPerPost Direct you truly are your own boss! Now I don’t mind the 35% markup from PayPerPost, they do have a staff to pay, they do send me Tax Returns, and they do secure more advertisers than any other paid blogging website I have seen, however, the more money I can keep in my pocket the better… which is where PayPerPost Direct comes into play.
PayPerPost Direct will still offer marketing, they will still offer the security of me not having to put my email address out there and wait for advertisers to connect to me, they still make it super easy for me to get opportunities and for advertisers to find me. It is important that you claim the money you make to the IRS, and PayPerPost does that by sending you the forms you need for tax purposes, however even with PayPerPost Direct they will continue to track your earnings and send them out to you in your end of the year tax statement. Seems like a WIN-WIN situation to me!
Continued from Part Three…
I got to the doctor’s at 1:15 but after I parked, I could not get the key out of the ignition, so I ended up leaving the key and locking the van by arming the alarm and rushing to the appointment. The doctor said it was most likely a strain, but to bring him back if he was not walking by Friday or Monday. When I got to my van I could not remove the key or start it, so before calling roadside assistance I called Bobby who laughed at me asking if I still had it in gear, I fiddled with it a bit to find that it was in gear, even though it appeared to be in park.
While at the doctor’s the weather turned cold and foul and Matthew was underdressed so I felt guilty taking him out in the rain in shorts. Next, we went into Walgreen’s to get some Motrin (we only had Tylenol and Motrin for colds); with the rest of our luck it was no surprise when we went to pay and the cashier’s scanner was broken. I ended up not getting a couple items because she could not get their codes to work.
I was so relieved to be home without any more drama, I got Matthew inside, gave him his medicine and let the dogs in the house… and of course, both dogs were soaking wet and muddy… leaving massive muddy dog prints all over the formerly clean carpets. Bobby told me to watch a movie and relax and he would pick up Subway for dinner and let me relax the rest of the evening; I have such a darling husband, he is so good to me. Other than losing power for 10-15 minutes or it taking me 3 hours to watch 2 hours of my movie, “Memoirs of a Geisha”, the last couple of hours have been uneventful.
So that is it, my sad tale of woe… My baby still cannot walk, my older two boys have no clue the meaning of the word “quiet”, and it is almost 7 pm and I have survived the day without blowing my eating plan.
Continued from Part Two…
Today, I knew it would be a difficult day from the start. The dog and cat kept waking me up, first when the cat was licking a plastic grocery bag, next when they started fighting, again when the cat wanted out, and finally I just gave up and got up when the dog started nosing around and whining.
The day started out normal enough, A. cried for a while, laid down for a nap before Matthew awoke, so I was able to sneak in a nap of my own. The phone waked me up once, but I was able to fall back asleep for a few more minutes before Matt started crying. His leg was still not any better so I called the doctor to make an appointment for 1:20, the only appointment left for the day. Of course, at the time it totally slipped my mind that I had furniture I ordered over a month ago coming from Denver between 11:45 and 2pm and it was too late to cancel. I figured I could get A.’s dad to stay if I needed, but then he called around the time he was supposed to be here to inform me he would be late and to take A. with me to Matthew’s appointment if he was not home.
By this time, I am in total panic mode so I call Bobby begging him to come home and help, but he has an appointment at 1 pm also with a General. While all this is going on, I remembered that I had forgotten to deposit a check yesterday and I had not balanced my account, so it was really no shock to learn that I was $12 overdrawn. While I was trying to get both babies ready to go the furniture arrived so I was thrilled one thing was taken care of, but I also had the matter of having 15 minutes until I had to leave, the check needing to be deposited and the little ones to keep occupied. Thank goodness for the Deposit at home feature, even if I did keep giving me error messages. A.’s dad arrived when I was depositing the check, I had to set her down on the carpet for a moment and of course, she screamed like a banshee. Matthew had managed to crawl downstairs in the meantime, so I carried him back up in major panic mode that it was 12:55 and we were supposed to be there at 1:05 for our 1:20 appointment. I came up to my diet peach tea spilled all over the carpet I had just cleaned, put the dogs outside and rushed out to the van.
One of my favorite memories of childhood were the trips I took to Hawaii when I was a young girl. The first time I went, I imagine I must have been about 8 or 9 and we camped on the beach, for a week and then we got a Kauai vacation condo and stayed at Lawai Beach Resort. I saw so many neat attractions, like Spouting Horn, Mount Kilauea, and Fern Grotto.
The next time we went, we stayed in a hotel in Oahu, and then back to Lawai Beach Resort where my parents had previously purchased their time-share Condo. They offered classes on lei making, hula dancing, snorkeling, scuba diving, and many other neat classes. My parents took a helicopter tour through the canyon that I missed out on because I was sunburned and feeling queezy.
I hope someday to take my own family to Kauai, Hawaii, Maui, and Oahu. The cultural experience I gained from our trip will last me a lifetime. I loved the people, the sounds, the sights, the food, and most of all the memories my family shared.
Continued from Part One…
So the food is great, the company is better the kids are all outside on the deck happily eating when one of the women there hears one of the little ones crying. She rushes outside and sees that it is Matthew and he was on the trampoline with some of the big kids.
After trying to calm him for 30 minutes, we decide he is hurt more than we thought and we decided I would take him to the ER and Bobby would catch a ride home later. To make a long story shorter, they found nothing broken, decided it was a contusion, and sent him home four hours later. The staff was all wonderful, especially the admitting team. I spoke to a couple different nurses, and the doctor twice, but the young lady from admissions spent the most time with us. Around midnight, we left the hospital again and I had to get Bobby who got all the way home before he realized he had not brought his keys.
Sunday and Monday were spent carrying him around since he cannot bear any weight on his right leg. Yesterday was more difficult than Sunday because I had so much to do and I have A. in the morning and could not hold him the entire time. Luckily, Bobby was working from home and was able to help for the two hours I spent cleaning the carpets. I also had to run Austin up to the middle school for more testing, so I did not have to wake Matthew or take Christopher.
Author’s note: I am splitting this story into several smaller entries to make it easier to read. I apologize if it makes it harder to follow.
If you are reading this entry hoping for a happy story of butterflies or cute fuzzy puppies, you better hit your back button right now, or better yet, click the X in the upper right corner of your screen.
In order to tell you this sad tale of woe, I have to go back, back to Saturday the 19th. The day started out ordinary… I slept in, woke up and ate lunch, went to my acupuncture appointment and then came home to relax on my day off. We had turned down the request to baby-sit baby A. that evening because we had plans with our dear friends to have a Chili potluck and we have not seen this group of friends in almost/over a month.
