A Back-log of Blogs

(I have been very remiss in my blogging recently, so to catch up I'm going to try to do a bunch of little blogs instead of one giant one.)

This past Wednesday, I returned from a ski vacation in Boulder, Colorado with Chadmo - we had a marvelous time! He is still out there with his brother, brother-in-law, and friend and they're all skiing at Winter Park (no fair!) - he'll be back on Sunday. Neither of us had ever been to Colorado before and we both LOVED it. I'd never even seen the Rockies and they are just awe inspiring, they look like something from the Lord of the Rings movies.

Our apartment in Boulder - just 2 blocks from the Pearl Street Mall! We had the top half of the house, and it was a beautiful apartment. I kept trying to convince Chad we should move there!

The view from our living room windows - incredible! :)

Eldora ski resort, about 35 minutes outside of Boulder, where Chad took ski lessons & we skied together one day (not that we skied any of those black diamonds in the picture below! ;)) Unfortunately I hurt my knee that day and Chadmo was so sore from his first 2 days of skiing ever that we ended up taking the last day off. But all in all we had a wonderful time.

Me, beside a cool teepee alongside one of the ski trails.

Chadmo at our favorite restaurant in all of Boulder - Mountain Sun Cafe - modeling the Annapurna & Blackberry Wheat beers! Mountain Sun had the best beer I've ever had in my life, I'm pretty sure I'll be dreaming about it!

Next vacation scheduled on the books: Paris in the spring time! Chad and I are heading to gay Paris in April - we are so excited! I love the idea of going somewhere Chad knows so well (after living there for a year) and having him show me around and doing more 'local' things instead of just all tourist-y things - though we'll do lots of those too.

We had not been on a vacation just the two of us since our honeymoon 4.5 years ago, so we're making up for lost time!

'Tis the Season

"Only 12 more days till Christmas, my book-hat is extra appropriate this time of year! Everyone should have one!"

Haley's Christmas tree - in the cemetery. We had a bit of a snafu with the headstone, so we are in the process of ordering a new one from a different company. In the meantime, the foundation makes a good spot for her Christmas tree! After Christmas we'll plant this little blue spruce by our house, and think of Haley-Bug every time we look at it.

Just sitting in the Kroger parking lot, guarding Dad's deer head

So since I've been such a negligent blogger, I'm just going to do a quick recap of recent events to catch myself up!

September 10th, 2010 - Haley Bug's 1st birthday and her 1st birthday cake! I know I blogged on her birthday, but I wanted to put up a picture of her pretty pink cake which was most delicious. I can't honestly say that I can imagine Haley 'digging in' to the cake and making a huge mess, she was a pretty neat baby and not overly fond of her two or three ventures into cereal land. But probably she would've changed a lot in the intervening 6.5 months and would've been up for cake smeared all over her face! Regardless, it would've been adorable and I can't imagine anyone not liking frosting! (Especially pink frosting!)
November 6th, 2010 - Poppy shot a big buck (with his new crossbow) after only 1.5 hours in the woods! He's a 10 point buck with 2 stickers (or a 12 point atypical buck) and really he's a beauty. He's off at the butcher's now, and our freezer is anxiously awaiting venison roasts and tenderloin. Which brings us to the title of my blog post today: After dropping the deer off at the butcher's (you have to bring the body to the butchers with the head attached so they know you're not poaching), Dad had the deer head and thus attached rack in the back of his truck. We had to swing by Kroger's to pick up lunch meat and Dad wanted me to stay in the truck so nobody would steal the rack out of the back. So while I'm sitting in the car I decided to call Chad, who asked me what I was doing, to which I replied "Oh, just sitting in the Kroger parking lot, guarding Dad's deer head." Chad thought this was hilarious, and I guess in retrospect it isn't a typical lunchtime activity.
Another buck picture, but with the proud hunter this time.
November 6th, 2010 - Mom's birthday was this Monday (November 8th) but we celebrated on Saturday when Kelly, Jesse, and Grandma McMillan could all come down. I made a carrot cake at Mom's request (there are pecans in the frosting, it is not frosted with mashed red skin potatoes like it looks like in the picture!), and it was quite tasty if I do say so myself. We also had BBQ ribs, mashed red skin potatoes, green beans, asparagus, and Grands biscuits for birthday dinner. All in all it was a really fun and relaxing weekend. Hopefully Mom thought so too!
The birthday girl with her pile of presents! Happy Birthday Mom (& Grandma!)

First Annual Congenital Heart Walk

Team Haley's Comets after the 5k walk this past Sunday, October 24, 2010!

Pictured above from left to right: Front row: Emrie Dickerson, Tobie, Christopher, and Jonathon Wolfe, Me, Jess Steinbrink. Back row: Greg, Heather, and Henry Dickerson, Beth Picklesimer, Cindy Musser, Katy Klingelhafer, Greg Gallenstein, Sydney Waugh, Chadmo, and Tom Steinbrink. (Missing from the picture because they were straggling behind socializing ;) - Mom & Poppy and Miss Libby Carstensen.)

There were over 600 walkers at the first CHD walk and there were over $40,000 raised for CHD research! More than $2,000 were raised by our team - go Haley's Comets! The temperature on Sunday was great for walking, though it was a little over cast but at least it didn't rain. We are so appreciative of all our friends and family who came out and walked with us and who made donations to our team from afar, it really means a lot to us that everyone still loves our Haley-Bug so much that they support this cause in her honor. Thank you all!

Happy 1st Birthday Haley-Bug!

Haley Stevelt-Mitchell, Born at 7:50 am 9-10-09, 6 pounds even, 18.5 inches long ~ our hearts were stolen instantly

Daddy got to hold her first - no fair! ;)

I can't believe it's already been a year since you were born, and at the same time it seems like you were here much longer than that.

We miss you every second of every minute of every hour of every day Haley-Bug. We love you more than anything in the world and would give anything to have you here with us right now. We've made you a birthday dinner and I can't help but wonder, would you like lasagna? I bet you would like birthday cake - it's chocolate cake with 7-minute frosting that we're going to dye pink just for you. We have flowers we're going to take down to your grave tonight and we're going to release 1 balloon for your 1st birthday. But there are no presents wrapped in pink paper here, and there is no 'happy' here, because you are not here. I know you are not sad, and I know you wouldn't want us to be sad, but we are - only because we love you so much there is no other way for us to be. This day last year was the happiest day of my life, besides maybe October 5th - the day we got to take you home from the hospital. And while I'm sad, sad, sad today, I am and always will be eternally grateful for the miracle that was you and the time we got to spend with you. We love you bunches and bunches, Haley-Bug. Happy 1st Birthday, I hope you're spending the day eating cake with Grandpa McMillan. <3

Trying to make lemonade

"Hmm, I'm pretty sure I can figure out some way to get those butterflies down here and into my mouth if I just think hard enough about it!"

For the last few weeks I've been thinking: "If you can't write anything nice, then don't write anything at all." I thought back to vet school and how when I made a concerted effort to look on the bright side of things (I only have 1 hour of homework left!) as opposed to always seeing the dark and gloomy side of things (I have a whole other hour of homework left...) it actually made me feel more positive and upbeat. I changed my attitude and my mood changed with it. So I thought to myself that I should try that now. Instead, I have realized that if I'm only allowed to write about cheerful, pleasant, or optimistic things, that I have nothing to say.

I won't be so melodramatic as to say "Life couldn't be any worse", trust me, it could always get worse. In fact, I'm pretty sure life is trying to prove this theory to me right now by piling on one bad thing after another. Haley is gone. My vacation was ruined by a kidney stone (I know this shouldn't even rank in the list, but I really needed that vacation and having it stolen away did some strange mental damage.) My Grandma McMillan's ovarian cancer is back. I'm not ovulating and apparently haven't been, even in spite of the last two months on Clomid. I feel like life is throwing lemons at me as fast as it possibly can, and all that I'm coming to learn from it is that my lemonade making skills are definitely sub-par.

Currently I feel like I am drowning in despair and that I desperately need something GOOD to happen in life again. It seems like by the laws of karma that we should be due for some good, even if it's just something teeny tiny. But more bad just keeps showing up. So currently I am distracting myself by fundraising for the first annual Congenital Heart Disease Walkathon - in honor of our Haley-Bug. It's October 24th in Hilliard, Ohio, and I'm already planning our team t-shirts. We'd love to have you join us. :) But my heart aches at the thought that by that time our little Bug would have been a year and 1.5 months old, and that she probably would've been able to toddle around at the Walkathon with us. Some days I still just really can't believe this is real, I think to myself "This just can't be permanent." I find myself thinking I will see her soon, because I cannot fathom living in a world without her for the rest of my life.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not crying my way through breakfast, lunch, and dinner, crying in my sleep, crying while I walk, and crying while I read anymore. Who knew you could cry while you did surgery? Or while you drive? You can. It's not easy, but you can. And what good would it have done to just sit around and cry? I wasn't going to let those tears win. And sure, I still cry here and there, but there hasn't been anymore impressive displays of crying for hours straight. So I'll take that as a sign of improvement (or at least deficient tear production), and I will keep working at improving. Here's to another month of acupuncture, increased Clomid doses, blood draws on cycle day 21ish, and ovulation prediction kits. Maybe this month we'll get lucky...

No words

If your spouse dies, they call you a widow. And if your parents die, they call you an orphan. But when your child dies, there are no words for that. So what are we? Certainly I am still a parent, but when people ask me if I have children, an awkward pause inevitably follows. I cannot dismiss the amazingness that was and is Haley-Bug by saying "No", but saying "Yes" also feels like lying. Instinctively I would respond yes, but the pause is due to that moment of indecision when I'm trying to decide if I feel like lying or going to the effort of explaining. Sometimes it's just easier to pretend - pretend I'm just a normal parent with a beautiful little girl at home. And I think the reason there is no word for this state of complete tragedy is because it goes so completely against nature - you're supposed to outlive your parents, one spouse will most likely live longer than the other, but children should not die before their parents do. What we are goes against nature, we are unnatural. Somehow I think it would help if there was a word for it, it is worrisome to wonder "What am I?" and have no responding answer.

I've started acupuncture this week for a variety of reasons - stress, anxiety, depression, lethargy, irritability, and of course fertility - I really enjoyed my session on Wednesday (I've been before a couple of years ago for stress and really thought it helped) and am looking forward to going back weekly for the next 5 weeks and then bimonthly after that. It makes me feel hopeful and proactive about my future. As someone who has been a lifelong avid hater of needles, I don't even think it hurts and in fact feel that quite to the contrary it makes me feel physically and mentally so much better. I've also been making a real effort to get more exercise, mostly walking with the dogs, and I think that makes me feel better too, or at least it gives me a goal to work towards again. So here's hoping that between the two my perspective can change and start to look a little rosier.