I will be very up front and honest. I failed MISERABLY at my Happiness Project this month. Every once in a while, I got in a few exercises here and there, but not to the best of my ability. Hopefully, now that I am no longer a tax widow and I have my husband back, he will inspire me to work out again. It looks like I am going to have my work cut out for me because the 3rd month is now going to have to be combined with my 2nd month. We have already started working on month 3 and can't wait until it really gets rolling.
Now, for the unveiling of the subject.........DRUM ROLL PLEASE.......home improvements!!!! This has already been a very busy and time consuming project, but our house has definitely been a source of unhappiness lately. I guess you could say it started relatively soon after we moved in - actually, right about a week after we moved in when my dad fell thru our deck. Any one who has seen my dad knows that he is not a big guy at all, so it was in pretty bad shape when we purchased the house, apparently. When our contractor asked us if we were doing the home improvements for ourselves or in order to get ready to move, we said ourselves. He was pretty shocked because he said most people who get work done are doing it so they can sell their house. But we are here for the long haul! What are we doing during these home improvements you ask? Well, I will preface this with - our house was built in 1979 and everything in it is still original including the appliances. That's right folks! We still have all Magic Chef appliances. The people that lived here before us just painted the bath tub to make it look new. But when I scrubbed it, a ton of the paint came off. The bathroom walls have quite a bit of mildew, so those are going to be replaced, new counter tops in the kitchen, 1/2 bath, and 2 full baths, new vanities and sinks in the bathrooms, kitchen cabinets, paint in all rooms, and of course new appliances. I am tired of living in the 70's. It was a great decade - I am a product of it. But I think it is about time that we move it along to the 21st century. We will also be doing some landscaping because Lord knows our grass could use a little TLC beyond what we can offer it. So this is something that we are both really excited about. While I am sure that several arguments will break out when it comes to the nitty-gritty, I am sure that it will also be a really fun project for us to work on together.
On to some more fun news......I have a new nephew, thanks to my sister and brother in law. He is just gorgeous. His name is Matthew Joseph Murphy. For those of you who did not hear about my sister's insane labor, I will give you a quick summary. Dana wakes up at 4 am feeling some labor pain. She takes a shower and her water breaks at 4:30 am. Dana and Brian get to the hospital at 5:01 am. After a quick exam, they assess Dana as being 7 cm dilated. She signs the consent with the anesthesiologist to get an epidural, they reassess and discover that it is pushing time - no time for the epidural. Matthew Joseph Murphy was born on March 30th at 5:28 am at 9 pounds 12 ounces 22 inches long. Matthew was born on my grandfather's birthday, whose first name is Joseph, so his middle name is Joseph after my Gramps. I went up to NY to surprise my family for my precious niece's 3rd birthday party. My mom was the only person who knew. I spent every living moment up there with my niece and nephew. They really just rock my world. Christina just turned 3 and she is just the greatest. I can tell that we are going to be best friends. Her personality is just amazing. The things that she says are hilarious. She cried when I left and after I got inside the airport, I cried. Christina has such a beautiful soul and I can tell she is going to be a person who touches the lives of others. Matthew never cries....doesn't make a single peep.....one would say he was peepless. When he is awake, he is so happy. But he is definitely a sleeper. I think it was day 3 of me being there that I finally saw his actual eyes! He was in such a hurry to get here just to sleep.
Now on to the other stuff that is going on with us. Every day that I am at work, I take care of other people's children. I love kids - not as much as animals - but I love them. Being that Sam has cystic fibrosis, we have to deal with infertility issues. We have just recently started talking about a time line for us and when we would want to have kids. While I do like to share my life here on my blog, I am not going to share our time line. Again, that is just one more thing that CF robs us of. Many people get to just get pregnant spontaneously and that is something that we do not get to do. We have to conceive in probably the most invasive, non-intimate way....with a petri dish. After doing some research, we have been hit with some pretty hard realities. The statistics of getting pregnant thru IVF is 50%. If we are not successful, we do not get our money back. The cost is just shy of $20,000. Imagine how heart breaking that is. My health insurance does not consider infertility to be a health problem, so it is not covered at all. Another option would be adoption, but that is something else that is not a 100% guarantee. It is possible to pay a ton of money and still not get a child. What happens if the adoptive parents change their mind? Plus, for my own selfish reasons, I would like to experience pregnancy first hand. When I was looking at some websites regarding couples with a CF spouse going thru IVF, I took a really hard blow. One person posted on there that it was very selfish for people with CF to reproduce because it is already bad enough that the couple has to deal with it and then to add a child to the mix is just plain selfish. It was really hurtful to read and it started to make me second guess whether or not we should have children. After speaking to a friend and one of my co-workers, they both made me realize that this is not something that we should be deprived of because anything can happen to any one of us on this earth. The fact that we have to deal with this on top of CF is kind of like the spoiled whipped cream on top of the melted sundae. One of the hardest things for me to deal with when I am at work is encountering parents who have children who are failure to thrive because they have several children and they don't have enough money to feed them but they are pregnant again and have designer clothes, cell phones and manicured nails. Also, children who are in DFACS custody because they were abused and/or neglected. I know it sounds wrong for me to think this way, but it is just very hard to find reasoning that people who can't take care of their children are blessed with them and then they don't appreciate the gift they are given.
I hope everyone out there is doing well. If you have children, hug them and remember that they are truly a gift from above. Don't forget to tell your family just how important they are and how much you love them. Cherish every day and take in the beauty and joy of the spring season. Thanks for reading and don't forget to become a follower!
A baby is a bit of star dust blown from the hand of God! - Unknown
When God wants something special done in the world... He sends a baby and then... He waits.
