a journey toward parenthood

Nathaniel and I have wanted a child for a while, but we also wanted to wait until I was far enough along in my PhD program that I would not be sabotaging myself academically and professionally.  So after I passed my general exams (the Master's benchmark), I went off birth control and started tracking my cycles.  I was pretty confident it would only be a few months—most couples get pregnant within 3 or 4 months of trying.

A year of ovulation and pregnancy tests, temperature charting, and prenatal pills (just in case) later, we went in for the infertility diagnosis so we could move on to treatment.  That first year of trying was emotionally draining, but the following year of treatment was far, far worse.

We learned that my body produced too much FSH (follicle simulating hormone), which usually means that a woman has a low egg count.  Even if one could control the FSH somehow, the underlying issue of too few eggs would remain.  My day three FSH reading was usually around 24 or so.  Less than 9 is considered normal for childbearing age—to put things in perspective, my FSH reading was what should be more typical of a premenopausal woman in her mid forties, and I was only 28.  Over 19 means that many fertility centers won't even try to help you with your own eggs.  It also meant that our Aetna insurance was not guaranteed to cover anything, but we could appeal and make a case for coverage.

At first, I was still optimistic.  Of course I would get pregnant, right?  But then I didn't really respond to the pills they gave me to "ripen" more eggs.  So we moved onto the more powerful injectable medications.  In addition to going in to get my blood drawn every few days (which made me look like I was shooting heroin) and getting intrauterine ultrasounds regularly, I learned to give myself shots in my stomach to both encourage egg development and induce ovulation.  And despite all the needles and early morning poking and prodding, I still only produced one egg at a time.  Well, once I produced a lucky two.  Dealing with insurance was also beastly, though our center handled the brunt of it.

At some point during this process, Nathaniel and I realized that we might never be able to have our own biological children and we each went through our own depressions.  I was angry when television shows, movies, and books used pregnancy as a plot point, especially for a single sexual encounter.  I had a hard time being happy when friends and family announced their own pregnancies.  I had to avoid Facebook because everyone seemed to be talking about their kids.  Church was torture, especially when I listened to lessons or talks from the pulpit on parenting or families.  People unknowingly teased us about not wanting kids or asked us when we were going to have them or if we wanted them.  I had been that person previously, asking inappropriate personal questions, but now I know better.  As the receiver, I would respond with a smile, then go home and cry.

Then our story took a happy twist: after about two years of trying, I was pregnant.  We were actually taking a break from fertility treatment and were not at all expecting it.  N pulled the test out the trash and squinted at it to see the first signs, and I took a dozen more tests through the following days.  A huge burden had been lifted, and the grief had passed, replaced by joy.  I was looking up strollers and other baby equipment, and making plans on when to tell everyone.  I figured out how much weight I needed to gain.  I found a doctor and had my first appointment.  I got rid of my sharps container and used kitty litter to safely get rid of my remaining injectable medications.

I reminded myself that not everyone gets this lucky.  That year of grief taught me a tiny sliver about what it would be like to go through a lifetime of infertility.  It wasn't until I thought I had broken down every single emotional barrier that I got pregnant, or so I told myself.  I needed to gain that humility—I needed to be okay with every option, including adopting (which was easy—I was planning on adopting if I didn't get married), having a special-needs kid, or getting an egg donor (this last one was the hardest).  I needed to want to be a parent so badly that I would realize that being a parent isn't about defining my own identity, but about being willing to fill that role for a child who needs it.  I thought I had come so far.

And then I miscarried at just before 8 weeks.

I was in denial.  I kept reading online about how you can bleed and still be pregnant, even after passing pretty substantial blood clots.  I was in contact with my doctor, and holding out hope for the ultrasound in a few days.  I was tense as the technician looked.  After a while she apathetically told me that she didn't have anything to show me, then left me (without bothering to send in my equally anxious husband) to go talk to the doctor.  There I was, half naked and alone, with the devastating confirmation that I was no longer pregnant.  The icing on the cake was the terrible break-up music being pumped over the speakers.  After a while, she came back and, despite my having told her about the miscarriage concerns, she tried to tell me that maybe I just wasn't as far along as I thought.  I might have visibly rolled my eyes at her—I had been monitoring everything pretty carefully and knew when I had ovulated.  The baby was gone.

We took a while to mourn the loss, but eventually the grief passed.  We tried to look at the silver lining: now we knew I could get pregnant.  And so it was never as hard as it was before the pregnancy.  The darkest times had passed.

We decided that we were going to be parents one way or another, and that if I couldn't get pregnant again, then we would adopt.  We had the capacity to be loving parents, and we wanted to use that capacity.  Some infertile couples end up using that love through volunteering or their jobs, but given the nature of our careers, adoption seemed like the best fit for us.  (Though we understand that it's not the right choice for everyone.) That made things easier some days, but it was still a question of when: when should we make the transition from trying for biological children to trying for adoptive children?  Not yet, we felt, especially with so much uncertainty ahead with graduation looming and possibly new jobs on the horizon.  We didn't want to get all set up with the approval process only to relocate.

I started up acupuncture, since my insurance covered it.  I also consumed plenty of Chinese medicinal teas, many of which were incredibly bitter.  Eventually I stopped going because it was a lot of effort for no obvious benefits—I imagine it could work for some people, but it wasn't my thing.

My church asked me to speak on Mother's day.  I thought long and hard about it, and decided to do it. I basically just cried continuously, but told everyone that Mother's day can be hard for some people.  It can be hard for people who have lost their mothers, or don't get along with their moms, but also for women who have never married, who can't have children, or who have lost a child.  I told them that we were struggling to have kids and that biological children just might not be in the cards for us.  But I also gave thanks for my mother, grandmothers, and other women who have touched my life.  I learned to turn despair into gratitude.  Or at least to try to do so.

Eventually, we went back to western medicine.  We were going to do maximum dosage injectables on an IUI cycle to see how I responded.  If that went well, we could move to IVF.  But I didn't respond well.  At full dosage, I still only produced one egg, which meant that IVF wasn't worth the risk.  I took a home pregnancy test at the end of that cycle and saw a very slight line, but then I bled the following day.  Because the medications can mess up urine tests, it's not clear if it was actually a pregnancy, albeit short lived.

When we next met with the doctor, she told us that we should only try a few more IUIs on low dosage oral medication.  She said we had maybe a 5% chance.  Imagine taking twenty alternate universe versions of this situation: only one will be successful.  It's about the chances of rolling a total of 3 with two dice on a single throw.  It's low.

We wanted things to be more black and white.  We wanted "you can't have children" to make the transition to adoption easier.  But they kept stringing us along.  Adoption comes with its own set of emotional challenges, such as a mother choosing you to adopt her child, then deciding that she wants to keep her child.  Of course she has that right, but it's still difficult for the potential adoptive parents.  So we pushed it down the road...we decided that when we moved away from the area in a year or two we would begin the adoption process.  After about three years of trying, we were ready to be parents, but we could wait a little longer to make the logistics easier.

On another break from treatment, due to scheduling issues, I took another pregnancy test.  It was ever so lightly positive.  I tested again in the following days, and it was clearer: I was pregnant again.  But there was not a lightness or joy this time.  Instead, I felt mostly dread.  When would the miscarriage be?  Every twinge was a sign of loss.  Here comes the sorrow, here comes the despair.  I couldn't let myself enjoy it, at least not until I heard the heartbeat, or so I told myself.  But in the meanwhile, I was looking up really morbid statistics, like the chances of stillbirth or late-term miscarriage.  I even worried about having a child that would die young.

It wasn't until around the time I got a call from my nurse at the infertility center that I started to get excited.  She was calling to check in and make the plans for the next treatment cycle.  I was in a meeting at the time, so I listened to her long message with detailed instructions on how I was going to need to get medications from two different pharmacies (a standard one for the pills and an online order for an injectable to induce ovulation).  So I left her a message in return to say let's put a hold on that for now, and let's where this pregnancy goes.

The following day she asked me to check in with my insurance to see if they would cover early monitoring with them, and for the first time insurance was a breeze.  The insurance guy I talked to was incredibly helpful and cheerful, and it looked like everything was going to be covered.

I think there's something about telling other people that starts to make things real, even if those people are medical professionals and not friends or family.  We still were not really to tell loved ones yet, since in some ways, we would rather have waited to find out ourselves until things were more certain—the roller coaster of excitement and loss is exhausting.

The first ultrasound mid-week 5 went as expected—we saw the amniotic and yolk sacs.  But mid-week 6, I had some severe cramps in the early hours of the morning.  Here it comes.  N went for a walk with me, and we watched a Star Trek episode in the middle of the night to get our minds off things.  But the cramps turned out to be digestional, and N had similar ones soon after.  Still, it put us on edge, to be reminded of how suddenly miscarriage could come.

Two days later, we went in for the next ultrasound, and saw and heard a heartbeat of 116bpm.  That meant the miscarriage risk was around 18%.  It put us a little at ease, and even encouraged us to get a little excited, but the risk was still there.  Risk will always be there.

We told our immediate families and some close friends.  The weeks ticked by.  I defended my PhD and graduated.  Now I'm 28 weeks along, and everyone who sees me in person can tell I'm pregnant.  Frankly, we're lucky.  There are many people who deserve to be parents and don't get that chance.  And while I am very happy with out current situation, I would never give up the three years of heartache—it taught me some much needed empathy.  The pain of this journey may fade, but we won't forget it.  I think it makes me a better person, even if I still have a long way to go, because it's stripped away a lot of my desire to judge others and taught me about how to be more sensitive to others' hidden experiences.

For instance, I developed a much deeper respect for those that become parents either through an egg or sperm donor, or through foster care and adoption.  Being a parent is about the love you give your child, and while giving birth and breastfeeding are ways of showing that love, they are only some ways to do so.   And biological similarly does not necessarily help you be a better parent.  Again, it's all about the love and care you give the child.  This applies even if you aren't a guardian, but are an aunt or uncle, teacher or friend—if you have the love of a parent, you are a parent in your heart.

I also learned that there are so many kinds of infertility that it isn't really helpful or encouraging to share a success story for a type of infertility that doesn't match what the person is going through.  Like don't try to inspire someone with a story about surrogates when the person is having trouble making their own eggs.  There are a bunch of articles about dos/don'ts.  Even if you think you don't know anyone struggling with having kids, whether it's secondary or primary infertility, or recurrent miscarriages, I guarantee that you do.  About 6% of married women of reproductive age struggle with infertility.  That means that if you have 100 female acquaintances that get married at some point, about 6 of them have, are, or will struggle with this.

Miscarriage is a whole 'nother ballpark.  The stats on that are a little trickier, because most miscarriages are mistaken for periods.  Recurrent miscarriages (3 or more) happen in about 1% of women, but it feels like almost every woman has a miscarriage story, either her own, or one from a sister, mother, or close friend.  Miscarriage is incredibly common.  I say this not to diminish the emotional impact of a miscarriage, but to remind folks that 1) if you've gone through a miscarriage, please remember that you aren't alone and there are people out there that want to love and comfort you and 2) someone you know and love has gone through a miscarriage, even if you don't know about it—use that as a reminder to always be kind, sensitive, and loving.

There are also people who don't want kids, but get pregnant accidentally or feel constant social pressure to have kids.  There are infertile women who judge those who get abortions, and people on birth control who judge those who are pregnant.  It's so, so messy.

The more open I am with my own history, no matter the context, I find that many other women have their own stories to tell, be it about infertility, miscarriage, or being pressured to have kids.  And men aren't immune—just because they might not go through the same physical processes doesn't mean they don't feel the emotional pain.

So if you don't know, don't assume.  Just try to understand, but be very careful with your personal questions.  I learned not to ask questions about having kids directly—what you think might just be an ice breaker could actually hurt someone a lot.  I'm sure I am guilty of this in many domains, not just infertility, but my go-to ice breaker is now some variant of the vague, "So, what are your interests?"  (If you've made it this far, I'm probably preaching to the choir.)

And yes, you shouldn't need to tip-toe around worrying about everything that could possibly offend someone.  As long a you cultivate true love and respect for other people, that will shine through.  But that kind of love requires putting in the patient effort to understand our fellow men and women, just as one should to understand a child.

I'm putting my story out there because I believe it's important for these issues to be more public.  When you think you're alone, it hurts all the more.  But you aren't alone.

In favor of "BigLaw"

Last Friday, my amazing little brother published an article in the Harvard Law Record entitled Want to Save the World? Do BigLaw! which has had mixed reception, including a rebuttal that was published in conjunction with it.

My brother has an intentionally inflammatory style for humor (see also: our childhood), but his point was this: if you can withstand the indulgent aspects of corporate culture, then you can do more good by making lots of money and donating it to effective charities than you can by donating your career to particular causes.

While I think that there always individual exceptions, I agree with his analysis.  The market has greater capacity for corporate lawyers than for public interest or government positions.  Additionally, the scope of influence for the latter two is usually limited to the nation in which the individual practices.  In the case of American public interest lawyers, the people benefiting from their services are usually American citizens or residents (legal or otherwise).

In all countries there are marginalized populations; these people deserve advocacy and legal protection.  However, if citizens of a nation wait until all of their fellow residents are happy and healthy before they look outside their own country to do good, then they will likely be waiting indefinitely.

The US is incredibly privileged.  We still have problems, but citizens of many, many other countries have it much, much worse off than even the poorest among us here.  We can choose to pay $3 for someone's lunch in America, or spend that same money on a Malaria net that saves a child's life [1].  It simply comes down to the most effective allotment of resources.  (And requires thinking globally instead of nationally.)

In the case of law, I think the numbers work out in favor of practicing corporate law and donating a percentage of your income.  Everyone must make their own choices, but I think if more people took this path, it wouldn't only be good for the recipients: lawyers practicing this lifestyle might begin to change corporate society, steering it away from consumerism and self-indulgence.


Press for his original article:
Above the Law: What Harvard Law Students Tell Themselves When The Demon Come

[1] Probabilistically, it actually takes more than that to save a life, since not everyone is guaranteed to get malaria; the AMF puts the figure at about $2,500/life.  In the US, that could be used for a fancy computer or a vacation.  It's also less than four month's net income for the average US food stamp recipient household.  The average food stamp recipient is gets $133.85/month, or less than $1.50/person/meal.  So the real comparison is helping to feed a family of four (in the US) for a little over a year vs. saving a life.  It's not so cut and dry, but I think the life still wins.

needing a mother and a father

While it feels like gay marriage is well accepted by most American society, official LDS doctrine does not tolerate it.  A common argument against gay marriage is that having both a mother and a father is best for children; they "need" one parent of each gender.  If that's true, then mothers and fathers play truly different parts, and that gender roles are a real and important aspect to the parenting triangle.

Obviously, the LDS church is pro-gender roles, advocating them in teaching children and in the general structure of the family.  But the roles are not well defined: in the eight-thousand-plus word chapter on teaching gender roles, roles are defined as mother/wife and father/husband, and then implied elsewhere along the lines of "each child is learning how to be male or female and about what being male or female means about their relationships with others."  Nur?

In the family proclamation, we're given a sliver of insight as to what they actually mean: men are responsible for providing and presiding and women are primarily to nurture, but that men and women should be equal partners as parents.  This has been picked apart from every perspective, but it's still pretty opaque.

The message I'm getting is that gender identity is important, even if we really have no idea what accompanies gender.  And this brings me back to my original point: if gender defines very little about a person's personality and parenting style, then why is having both genders represented in parents important?

Admittedly, it would be harder for a girl to have two male parents, or vice versa, because there would be social and biological questions that may be more difficult for an opposite-gender parent to answer. Harder, but certainly not impossible.

The irony here is that in the LDS church, we only really have father figures, or male spiritual role models: Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.  There are stories about more men and women, but we're supposed to become like these two figures.  We're not supposed to be like Mary the mother of Christ.  I mean, we are, but only in as much as she is like Christ.  And we're not supposed to try to be like the only-whispered-about Heavenly Mother, since we have no idea what to emulate.

You can't have it both ways.  Either you need both parents, especially for spiritual guidance, or else gender in parents doesn't matter.  Either we have a Heavenly Mother and Her role is clearly defined (preferably with an accompanying Matriarchal Priesthood), or gay marriage is okay.  Which one is it?

An addendum: I didn't talk about single parenting, which is another situation that the LDS church doesn't handle as well as it could.  No matter the doctrine of the church, alternative family structures need to be more welcome, which is a job for the members and not the hierarchy.

European mutt

In an effort to not indulge in watching TV shows or playing games, I've occupied some of my time this evening mapping out my cultural heritage.  It turns out that I'm way more English that I thought, and much less German--I had previously thought that both were closer to a quarter, but it turns out that I have quite a bit of pre-American revolution English emigrant ancestors, mostly from my paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother.  Most of these ancestors lived in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

I used familysearch.org to dig around for these numbers.

up for air: a beautiful, but messy, life

The are too many adjectives for this summer so far; so many that they end up contradicting each other and ending up saying not much at all.  (Kinda like the line about the new macbook pro at WWDC12 that cracked me up: "It's incredibly powerful, and yet remarkably portable."  Too many modifiers.)  Anyway, I'll try to spare you the adjectives and adverbs as best I can, lest this post read like a wordle.

Here's what's been going on, in roughly chronological order:

I've been back to work at hunch, playing with (messy and massive) eBay data.  I'm reading a lot on the commute: 84 Charing Cross Rd and sequel, Growing up Amish, Nudge, a fairy tale book.  I'm working on Cryptonomicon and The Blind Assassin right now.  I don't have a lot of time in the day--it's almost 12 hours from the time I leave until the time I get home, but I've learned scala, cascading, and hadoop, not to mention delving deeper into probabilistic modeling.

N went for a 10-day research-ish trip to Kenya (Drought Monitor installation, etc.).  I missed him, of course, but I got to make the house extra nice for his return, which was fun.  I'm trying to keep it nice too, but that's a bigger challenge.  I've yet to find the perfect balance between anal-retentive and slovenly.

I went to a wedding of two dear friends from college; it was a perfect day and a beautiful wedding.  I also liked seeing so many of my college friends.  I'm working on a wedding quilt for them, but at this point it'll be more like a 1-year-anniversary quilt.  I've got another wedding this month--thankfully it's a low year for weddings.

I caught a baby bunny.  It was much like last year, except the bunny was even smaller (and more stupid) and had a sibling the same size.  It was running in circles in the common garden area and it tired itself out; all I needed to do was bend over and pick it up.  And it ended up outside the community garden this time.  A week later I saw them again, and boy were they a lot faster in running away.

I harvested my first zucchini--10" long.  And then a slew more of them.  And then I made five and a half pints of zucchini relish, my great aunt Elva's recipe.  I tried canning once before--unless you count freezer jam, in which I've done it twice.  Anyway, I tried making pickles, but I was too afraid to eat them, so I just threw them out, even if they were probably alright.  This time, I was obsessive, and I'm sure the relish turned out non-lethal, but I'll have to wait a few months to find out.

I stopped having headaches from my concussion.  And then got a handful more, spaced out.  I think they had more to do with my commute and not eating as regularly those days than the concussion.  At this point I'm pretty much 100% back; even the scar on my cheek is starting to fade nicely.

I learned that lisianthus are called lisianthus.  I've liked these flowers for a while, but I never knew what to call them, and I bought a bouquet of them a flower wholesaler in NYC that's on my way to/from work.  They didn't last cut as long as other flowers have, but that might have been due to my lugging them about NY and on the train, all in hot weather.  I might get some flower seeds for my garden next year, lisianthus or otherwise.

My sister-in-law had her second child, so I have a niece!  I'll get to see their whole family in about two months, so I'm excited for that.

Productivity-wise, I've been playing with a bunch of new things: ActiveInbox and Timing, both of which have free variants that don't expire.  I've also played with Delicious Library 2 to organize and catalog my books.

As I said, lots of stuff going on.  And we've got over half the summer to go...

don't compete with the boys

Growing up, I knew my life was out of phase with "Mormon culture."  Both my parents were (are) professionals with advanced degrees. I academically outperformed every boy in our ward (and maybe even most of them in our stake).  For career day in elementary school, I dressed up as a lawyer, skirted twill power-suit and all.  I babysat twice as a youth, and to this day have never changed a diaper.  Instead of babysitting, I bought wholesale balloons (or really my parents did the buying), fliered the neighborhood, and made bank twisting animal balloon for parties.  I went to a private college-prep high school.  These are small metrics, but that's really the only way you can measure childhood and teenager-dom.  The point is: I was driven in areas that Mormon girls tend not to be, and apathetic in the areas that were culturally emphasized for girls.

One ward conference, all the young men and women were gathered together to be talked at, as tends to happen at conferences, Mormon or otherwise.  Our dear Sister W. made a remark that stuck with me for a very long time.  She was talking about academic stuff, and she says to us girls (with the boys sitting there listening along) "Don't compete with the boys."  I'm sure it could have been interpreted to mean everyone should achieve at their own standard, but then why bring gender in at all?  Sweet and kind as Sister W. was and is, she meant that girls shouldn't compare themselves to boys academically/professionally because either they'd fall short (and they will if you feed them that rhetoric their whole lives) or else it wasn't their place (i.e. they, due to their femaleness, should be more domestically and family focused).  Whatever her reason, it was part advice, part directive, and it infuriated me.  I steamed at church and sobbed for a long time when I finally got home.

It was a long time ago, and I'm very over it.  Forgiveness, healing, repentance of my anger, the whole deal.  And I've changed a lot since I was a kid.  Heck, I'm way more domestic than I'd ever thought I'd be.  I love cooking, crocheting/knitting, and gardening.  I am kindling my quilting skills and have a secret passion for vacuuming.  I've always wanted kids in an abstract sense, but now I actually like playing with toddler-age kids.  (Still wary of the very wee ones, though.)  I haven't lost my drive to achieve at things I enjoy, but I've shed some of the raw material ambition and power-hunger that came with it in the past.  In short, I'm mellower as an adult than I was as a teenager.  Surprise, surprise.

But being over this event (and growing up in general) didn't prevent me from cackling maniacally at the phone call I got today.  Mom and Dad called to tell me they saw Brother and Sister W. at a wedding reception.  They talked about us briefly, how N was in grad school and all.  Then Dad just had say something along the lines: "You know Allison, she just has to compete with the boys.  So she applied to school and now she's getting her PhD too." Stone silence.

ADM

If you head to the main Princeton website, N's African Drought Monitor project made the "featured news" box.  Read the full article here.  Yay for him!

elements

It's rare that I encounter a restaurant that I love. Usually the food is good, but I can make it at home for less cost and equal satisfaction. I might never master some ethnic cuisines, but I've come up with good enough approximations for many of them. Going out for food is more experiential: a time to be with people and not worry about preparing a meal.

Last night, however, my parents took us out to elements, a local restaurant I may have heard of before we went--the name tugged at the fringes of my mind. I loved it. It was, of course, experientially pleasing, but not only because I was with good company. You could tell that the chef/owner was meticulous in his attention to detail, from food to decor. It was the food, though, that made my night.

First they started us off with some artisan breads. And not just the kind of "artisan" where they tack on the label half-heartedly. There was focaccia with three distinct seasonings/colorings/toppings; smooth, thin, crisp bread sticks; swirled bread sticks with a flaky pastry texture; rich, whole-grain rye bread; and small, spherical whole-grain rolls with a honey glaze on top. I could have eaten just the bread and been more than satisfied for the night.

Then they brought out a taster plate for each of us--this was on the house, simply to tantalize us. Some of us got a fried seafood something with dry seaweed shreds over raw scallions/onion with the tiniest little tomatoes I've ever seen. Others got a spoonful of cold, smooth potato soup; a tiny slice of toast with a dollop of some of the best guacamole I've ever had; and a quarter-sized pastry disk with roasted red bell peppers and a dab of goat cheese on top. At this point, I was already sold forever.

I ordered a salad, or "a composed salad," as it was titled in the menu. There was a creamy peachy base, and then goat cheese, hazelnut, Mangalitsa jamon, finely squared peaches, barley, and a poppyseed sponge cake all arranged beautifully on a long, thin slate-like plate. My dad got a melon soup (with those tiny tomatoes again for garnish).  It also had a very mild, refreshing something with an almost ginger-like taste.  My brother a garden salad.  Pfah! Garden salad, you say? Which happened to include vegetable purees, Mangalitsa lardo, and pepato cheese.  I don't even know how to pronounce those.  My mom ordered something wonderful that I can't remember, and N got an eggplant soup with tapioca pearls and a kick to knock your socks off.

Then there were the entrees.  I don't need to itemize everything we got, but suffice it to say that we all tried each others meals and everyone was impressed all around.  I do have to mention that N had fried broccoli (that wasn't greasy) to accompany his dish, which was spectacular.  There was also dessert--a sharp, soft cheese with tomato puree and corn and toast; and then a more traditional chocolate mousse.  Did I mention that everything was well-portioned so that we didn't feel bloated afterward?  There was also a good presence of veggies--all of the dishes were nicely balanced.

I made a special request of N that this be our "special place," or at least my special place.  Love.

google recipes and as close as it gets to a makeover

N was describing tortilla espanola to me, which was a little silly because I've had it before, but so it goes.  Anyway, he googled "tortilla espanola" to find that there are recipe selection options in google now.  For this search, it suggests chives, potatoes, etc., and give cook time options, calorie count options, and suggestions for related foods.  I don't know how well it works yet, but it seems promising.

In other news, I cut off about 13-15 inches of hair, which was a tough choice, but much needed.  The long hair was getting to be more trouble than it was worth, and this is the first new hairstyle I've had since I decided to grow out my bangs in the second grade.  Heavens, some change comes slow.  Now all I need to do is replace the glasses I've had since the fifth grade, and that'll be as close as it gets to giving myself a makeover.  Back to the hair, I'd like it a couple inches longer eventually, but in the short term, this style is forcing me to not pull it back constantly, which may have been damaging it.  I also have zero split ends, which is a novelty.

Here are some low-quality bathroom before and after shots.  Don't be fooled by the mild curls in the left one; they aren't natural.

Otherwise life has been busy, per usual.  There was the wedding in DC, with all sorts of romping about. Then my family took us to see Spiderman on broadway, which was spectacular, though in some ways it was more like a loud, showy concert than a musical.  And then the family will be in town a bit longer, so more good times to come.

gunna be a great week

My cousin is getting married in DC this week, and I'm excited to see her and that whole side of the family.  In preparation for this event, my mom was trying to get the address of the hotel that my grandma was staying at.  The following conversation occurred.

My mom to my grandma: "So mom, where are you staying?"
Grandma: "Oh, at priceline.com" *proceeds to give corporate address of priceline*

Yup, s'gunna be great. :)

Today, not so much with the complete sentences. Forgive me.

Down from the mountains.  Goodbye family I've recently acquired!  Goodbye great aunts and second cousins once removed.  Goodbye raft guides and Penny the cantankerous old mare.  Goodbye elk, mountain rabbits, and magpies.  Goodbye mosquitos.  Goodbye asters, forget-me-nots, and columbines.  Goodbye marsh marigolds, Indian Paintbrushes, and the ever-so-tiny Fairy Candelabras (yes, I did see you; don't be surprised, you're not invisible!).  No more crossing through knee-deep freezing water.  No more red sandstone.  No more energy.

Carrying things piecewise to the airpot.  Giant hat and gift from Grandma Marie.  Thunderstorms on both sides: here and there. Turbulance like I've never before experienced: rollercoaster.  Swollen left knee.  Checking for signs of the sinus headache that pestered me way back at the peaks.  Is it...?  I don't know.  N ran up the mountain: ten miles in three hours, my hero.  Picked me up, my delirious self.  Maybe that's never changed.  Back to the present.

Home again.  Here, there is mess everywhere.  Still not moved in, not all things have places.  Unpacked wonder sprawls over all surfaces like morning glory in the garden which harasses the giant tomatillo plant endlessly.  David and Goliath.  Where was I?  Mail spills out of the mailbox, but not as abundantly as it could.  Package on the doorstep.

The garden is overgrown.  Lettuce going to seed like it needs to reach the sky before nightfall.  Rabbits stayed away, mostly.  Maybe the cayenne oil mix worked.  I ate the only ripe yellow pear tomato standing in the sun sweating.  Gloriously sweet, should have shared.  Fellow gardener passes off tomatillos; he has too many.  That's for dinner tonight, for the pantry is bare.  Heat like a cancer.  Sore shoulders; immunizations.  Pick it up.  Put it away.  Back to normal.  Tighten our belts.

takin' it in

My mom went shopping with my Grandma recently (mom swore that gma hadn't renovated her wardrobe for something like twenty years) and in retelling the happenings to me, mom said that Grandma had small shoulders and in pointing this out to her, Grandma had responded, "Oh, I've always had small shoulders, I'm used to taking them in." (Or something to that effect.)

Since I have a pretty standard body, or at least one that doesn't need much tailoring with modern fashions, this kind of blew my mind; my grandma had altered her clothing all her life, and not in the I-pay-someone-to-do-it-for-me kind of way.  She's so awesome.

Alright, now for a tangent: N and I got called to be ordinance workers at the LDS Manhattan Temple this weekend and we need all-white attire for the job.  I was fine since I got temple clothes a bit ago, but N needed to piece together his outfit.  Sometime last year we picked up a white dress shirt for him at Costco, but it turned out to be a little big around the waist and thus it puffed awkwardly in the back when it was tucked in.

Having recently heard the above Grandma story and faced with the need for a white dress shirt, I decided to try to take in N's Costco shirt.  It was the most complicated alteration I've ever done and it didn't go over too badly. (Most of my past stuff has just been hemming which is pretty much straight lines.)

Here are the gory details via photo documentation, including a very messy interior/back (what do you call the side that goes towards the body?). And don't tell me it's not messy, 'cause I cherrypicked the nicest part...you don't wanna see the bad parts and you're never gunna have to, so there.  It fits him nicely, which is the important part.

there are always more firsts to be had

This weekend was the first time my in-laws visited us--as opposed to us visiting them in Denver, which has happened twice.  I like both of them, we interact well, and they aren't particularly judgmental or nagging or any of the old-school negative in-law stereotypes.  Despite this, I still felt the compulsion to have everything perfect and spent the day of their arrival cleaning and prepping; when I get obsessive over guests (or anything) like this N calls me by my maiden name because it's inherited/learned from my father (Love you, Dad!).

Anyway, I cleaned a bunch and made a nice dessert (which unfortunately I didn't photograph, so I'll just have to make something similar but even nicer for a certain wedding dessert-potluck this summer!) and tried out an experiment inspired by the latest Bon Appetit magazine.  [Imagine the structure of cinnamon rolls but with a savory spinach, shallot, and goat cheese filling.  (BA had a cilantro/scallion filling topped with sesame seeds)  I didn't like the dough that much, so I'll try a second round before posting a recipe.]  I even bought a bundle of lavender for use as a bouquet. (I'm drying the flowers now to make sachets).

Double anyway, the visit went well and now I'm exhausted.  Time for a nap.

Also wik: we saw Memphis on Broadway with them on Saturday, which was amazing!

time passes...

Last weekend (Was it really that long ago?  Yup, it was.  I've been so unproductive...) I went home to see my brother, who was coming home from a 2 year religious mission in Sweden.  I've missed him a lot and it was good to see him.  Yay family!

It wasn't as strange as I expected...he wasn't as zealously religious as I braced myself for; I was happily surprised to find that he had matured greatly instead.  The realization that he had changed a good deal hit me when after 20-some hours of being awake he calmly and efficiently dealt with a lost bag instead of letting someone else take care of it for him, which he would have gladly done a few years ago.  He was generally more collected and reserved than I remembered him.  I'm sure he will change more in adapting to post-mission life, and I know that I am not aware of all aspects of these changes, but it will be interesting to get to know Brother 2.0.

Since coming home, I've been wildly scatterbrained, flitting from gardening to learning ggplot2, Russian history reading to plotting the layout of the new apartment we'll move into in July, and unclogging sinks to watching the second season of the TV series Merlin.  I've also been on a wonky sleep schedule; everything feels like the pieces of a puzzle that don't quite fit together--I need to go capture some normalcy.

graduation

While I'm catching up on recent events, N walked on May 18th.  The ceremony itself was unusually small--it was for the department alone, which makes sense for a large university.  The best part was that I got to meet N's grandparents, who flew out from Idaho.  A day earlier than expected, actually, which was a bit comic.  Surprise grandparents!