Heavy Heart (Would've Been Due Date)

Well tomorrow is the day I've been secretly dreading since I miscarried in May. Tomorrow, December 30th, was my due date. It's been quite a journey to get here, and by no means has it been a smooth one. I think about this every single day, and some days it takes over most, if not all of my thoughts. Right about now I'm thinking about all of the "would have beens" and it's not easy. Everyone told me that Christmas was going to be tough this year, especially approaching the 30th. I thought to myself that I'd be fine, and am far from it.

I had no idea that something like this would take so long to heal. I had no idea that something like this would have me grieving for so long. Nor did I know that having something for only a short time, would leave such a big whole in my heart. I didn't know that being pregnant not even 2 months and losing it could make you feel so empty and robbed.

I do know that while that little bugger was in there I was very happy, and it WILL happen again. I'd give anything in the whole world to be that nauseated and exhausted again.

So since tomorrow is going to be a tough day here for us, we decided to turn it around into a good day. So by chance Scott's sister and brother in law, as well as my nieces asked us to go to the beach over night. If you ask me, the timing couldn't be any better. So tomorrow we're up bright and early! I took off work, we're stopping for coffee and we're off. Our hotel has it's own ice skating rink, and heated pool, I'm so excited! We're ready for a fun day and night away for sure!!!

There is no way that I could have survived these last several months without Scott. I know for sure that he his hurting so much too. Yet, he's always there when I'm having a moment and need to cry, and believe me it's a lot. I'm so grateful for my family, and friends, including my wonderful FB friends who give more support than I could have ever asked for. I thank everyone so much for being there during one of the most difficult times of my life.

Positive thoughts and moving forward.....

What happened to Christmas!?

So this is just a mini checking in type thing. Christmas was definitely different for us this year in so many ways. It started off great with Scott and I on Christmas morning and kind of went down hill from there. Overall we're very fortuante and grateful for what we have. It just wasn't the "normal" fun day that we are used to. Here's why:

*My dad fell at work on Christmas Eve and turns out he broke 2 of his ribs. He is in horrible pain and can barely do for himself. So he wasn't up to doing anything on Christmas. This was the first Christmas in 29 years I didn't see my Dad or celebrate with my parents.

*My Grandmother fell on the ice on Christmas. She ended up with 2 gashes in her head and lots of bleeding. Luckily she didn't need stitches, but we still had to call 911. All of her tests came back negative, but she is extremely bruised and sore.

So we'll try again on Monday to see my parents to do Christmas with them. Today we're going to Scott's brothers with the whole family to do our Christmas there. I get to spend the day with my nieces and nephews, should be awesome, and boy do I need it!

10 Favorite Things About the Holidays

This is my favorite favorite favorite (get it?) time of year!!! So here are some of my favorite things!

1. Christmas shopping-yes it's insane, people are crazy, but I love the holiday energy.

2. Christmas Lights- I love that every year Scott and I go out and look at Christmas lights at our favorite neighborhoods. It's a tradition that we've done since we've been together and I love it!!!

3. Christmas Music- I love the music and love that one of our local stations play Christmas music all season long.

4. Baking- Something about this time of year makes me buy ample supplies of flour, sugar, and general cookie supplies. And the way it makes the house smells, ahhhh.

5. Holiday parties- Love love love getting together with everyone and feeling the holiday spirit.

6. Christmas Movies- I love breaking out the classic movies this time of year. A Christmas Story, The Grinch, Christmas Vacation, Home Alone. Just love it!

7. Gifts- I love how at work we do "Secret Santa" and "Secret Stocking Exchange" it's so much fun and something I look forward to every year.

8. Ugly Christmas Sweaters- Ha ha ha, tomorrow at work we're all wearing Ugly Christmas sweaters, can't wait!

9. The smells- LOVE LOVE LOVE the smell of my Christmas candles. Pine and Christmas cookie, make the house smell lik eno other.

10. My nieces and nephews- Love how excited they are and the joy they have about Santa Claus and the holiday! Makes it so special :)

Snow Dogs Video :)

They love the Snow!! Despite almost knocking me over a few times, ha ha ;)

SNOW STORM!!!!

Well here in MD we are getting pounded with a snow storm, and I am absolutely loving every little, well big flake that falls :) I've wanted a huge storm for years now, as I have felt that we've been ripped off every winter. NOT THIS TIME!!! WOO HOO!!!!!!!!

My favorite things about the Snow are:
*Watching it fall, there is nothing like it
*The way it looks on the trees, especially the pine trees in our yard
*Watching the dogs play in it, their first reaction always cracks us up
*Me playing in the snow too
*SKIING!!! Hoping to go again this year, and Snow Tubing too.
*How it's falling right around Christmas, it just seems right
*How at night, the lights will make the snow glisten
*How it's happening on a weekend, and this Nurse doesn't have to work in it ;)
*That we'll be in the house all weekend and don't have to leave
*I get to bake cookies, listen to Christmas music, while watching the snow accumulate
*That we have a fire in the fireplace during this snow storm

I'm sure there is a TON more that I didn't mention. So far we have several inches and it's supposed to fall all day long!!!! Yippee!!! SNOW DAY!!!

Putting Myself in A Bubble

I don't know what to do.... I feel like I've been surrounded by SO much negativity lately, and I can't stand it. It's mainly at work, and It's bad. I don't understand it, It's Christmas time and we have so much to be thankful for. Why is everyone so damn miserable?

I walk into work and am chipper, making the morning coffee, and It starts already. Why? Literally at not even 5:45 in the morning and people are complaining, hating life, and just being all around mean. Don't get me wrong, we ALL have bad days, and no one is ever 100% in a great mood. However it's all the time lately, all day, nothing positive.

It's starting to wear me out. I try so hard to not let it bring me down, but am sinking. I wish I could just put myself in a bubble all by myself. That way all these negative people wouldn't get to me and try to bring me down. Although, knowing them they'd all be carrying pins.

No more negativity! Please!?

Weekend Recap

I can't believe that it's already this far into December. Anyway it was a nice weekend filled with Holiday fun. Saturday I went to a girls night out, "Wigging Out" party. Yes, you had to wear a wig in order to go to the party. We had a ton of fun, and loved wearing wigs, ha ha ha! Did an ornament exchange, ate tons of yummy food, had drinks, and listened to some hilarious non-traditional Christmas music. Good times.

Then today, we relaxed and watched the Ravens win against the Lions, woo hoo! Then we went out for our annual night to look at Christmas lights. We started out at dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. Then we headed to Starbucks and got some yummy drinks. We headed all around the area to our favorite houses to see the lights. I couldn't have asked for a better day.

Tomorrow is the last full work week until Christmas, we can do this! ;)

So Stupid It's Funny

Stupid? Yes that would be me today. Literally everything thing I did today was a doozie.

Blackberry-Scott fixed my new phone and it was great, only until I realized it had no internet. Duh! So I sat on the phone waiting, and waiting for the Verizon guy to trouble shoot it. He was very nice though, and got it working thankfully. This phone thing pushed back my errands and early start to about noon.

Go to the bank @ the mall, only to see that the bank is not there anymore. No signs, no "hey we've moved" no nothing. That was fun.

Finally got to another bank, fill out my deposit slip only to realize the money that needs to be deposited is still in the truck. So out of line I went, only to return to a line that was 5x as long as when I left.

Went to the post office to get stamps, only to arrive as they were locking the main lobby doors. Luckily they had a machine I could use. Then to top it off, I forgot the mail that I had to stamp and send off. Doh!

Went to the grocery store, and that was actually uneventful, unbelieveable! ;)

Came home to make peppermint bark for a party tonight. I put the food processor together to crush up the candy canes, and didn't have the blade in the food processor.

So in conclusion.....Dear brain, can you come back please!!??
Thanks!
Love, Jess ;)

Friday Fill-Ins

1. Good times: Was last night, being asked to be the Godmother to my close friends daughter.

2. I absolutely love my home.

3. Sleigh bells ring and I LOVE it!

4. Sometimes I miss being little.

5. Once more is a song I've never heard I don't think.

6. Yesterday at work was an awful day, and I thought is it ever going to end?

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to getting a coffee and doing our annual night out to look at Christmas lights with Scott, tomorrow my plans include relaxing at home, then going to a "Wigging Out" party where you have to wear a wig, fun! and Sunday, I want to catch up around the house and start wrapping presents!!!

When It Rains It Pours...

Things have been really crappy in the CF world recently. I can not believe that we've lost yet another friend to CF. It sucks, sucks bad. It makes me want to take a break from the forums and crawl in a hole for a little bit. But then I feel like I'm handling it the wrong way and turning my back on friends, and someone that may need me, as I need them. Again my way of dealing with these losses is just to push myself harder. I've kicking my own butt at the gym and am very happy with myself. Yesterday I did only the treadmill, and ran for 30 minutes. Woo was a I tired, oh and gross, salty, and sweaty ;) TOTALLY worth it!

Speaking of when it rains it pours...so today at work somehow the topic of discussion between 2 of the doctors was miscarriages, awesome! (NOT!) And guess who was accidentally included in this discussion?, ugh, me. I'm been queen emotional today, and this just set me off. I know I know, yes again it has set me off and I hate it. I would have been due in 20 days :( It's not easy to stay positive all the time when it comes to this baby thing, but God knows I try. Sometimes I just can't stop thinking about it. I knew December was going to be hard for me. I've been doing my best to keep it in, think positive, and not let it get the best of me. However, today I was unsuccessful. Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

Today I had to take care of a patient who was blind, deaf, and mentally challenged. I feel like this patient was sent to me to give me some perspective. Despite being kicked and scratched by this poor patient I am grateful for taking care of her today. Things could be worse, and someone always have a worse situation going on. This poor woman broke my heart. She kicked, scratched, and cried.

Please please please let this day get better. I'm so sick of the negativity lately :(

12 Miles

I've been a bit of a blog slacker, but with good excuses. We've had something to do everyday for the past week. It caught up to me yesterday for sure. I left work as soon as possible, aka the last patient for the day was stable in recovery. I came home and crashed for a 3 hour + nap. Wow, it was so needed! I can't remember the last time I felt that exhausted.

I'm happy to report that last week I completed my first full week at the gym! My goal is to go at least 4 days a week. So far so good :) I looked back and realized that I did about 12 miles (maybe more) at the gym last week. AWESOME! It feels great. I have so much energy and of course the lungs are happy, which makes their master happy ;)

Hope everyone is having a great week. Off to continue my crazy busy schedule. Tonight is my company Holiday party. Did 3 miles at the gym today though, so I hope I stay awake tonight ;)

My Nieces and Nephews

Busted for jumping on my bed! Can you tell how much they cared? ;)

Too much sugar in these cookies!

Proud of his Gingerbread house

We had everyone in Scott's family over for our annual "Cookie Night" cookie exchange. As always we had a great time. We ate pizza, listened to Christmas music, baked cookies, made Gingerbread houses, and had Eggnog (the adults anyway). Overall we are up to our eye balls in cookies and loved having everyone over our house.

I think the highlight for me is spending time with my nieces and nephews. For one, they are getting so big so fast, and two, you just never know what they are going to say or do next :) Since we don't have any kids (yet) Scott and I get to be "the cool ones." We let them be crazy, silly, have fun, tell their crazy stories, and just eat up every minute of it. Some of my favorite things last night with them were:

*This was also the first year that my oldest niece brought a boyfriend to our house. Gah! I feel old! However her and her boyfriend played a joke (on Scott) by hanging my "Edward Cullen" poster over our bed. Bwah ha ha!!

*My 7 year old niece was telling me how her "BFF" in school is a REAL elf who works for Santa, "For real Aunt Jess!" ;)

*My 10 year old niece knows more about how to use my Blackberry than I do. (uncool, haha).

*My youngest nephew and I were pretend talking on cellphones and he was pretending I was one of his bestest cool friends from school. He was also upset because he wanted to bring over his pet lizard for Aunt Jess to see.

*Also I should get mega cool points for letting these rugrats jump on my bed, since they aren't aloud to do it at home.....ever.

Ahh I love them :)

It's Everything...

It's been nothings short of a rough week. Good things, yes, but it's been mosty a rough ride. We found out that we lost yet another friend to CF last night. To say I was shocked is putting it mildly. I've been so upset all day long, just thinking about sweet Ginger, her husband, and son that are left behind :( I really enjoyed emailing Ginger and felt very comforted by her words when we chatted. She offered me many prayers when I was in Hopkins for pneumonia, and when I had the miscarriage in May. I can't explain it, but talking to Ginger about the misacarriage gave me hope again....

Sometimes you just feel like you want to turn your brain off but can't. I just feel so sad for her family right now and can't stop thinking about them. It's just so hard when you become friends with these wonderful people who you share this common bond with and you lose them...

My mission today was to turn the negatives into positives. So I went to the gym today and did a kick a$$ workout just for my CF peeps. That was all the motivation I needed! I ran on the treadmill for 30 minutes, fast, and loved it!

Tomorrow is a new day...

The Tree is Up!

We brought in the first day in December with putting up the Christmas tree! I just love this time of year! Usually we have it up after the marathon day on Black Friday, but have been so busy with other things that it didn't happen. So last night was dedicated to putting up the tree. We started out the night with Scott getting Chipotle carry out for dinner :) Then I lit the Yankee "Christmas Cookie" candle, got 2 wine glasses (red and green) opened a special bottle of wine, and let the Christmas music fill the house! We had a great time, and it looks BEAUTIFUL! I love how when the lights are off the tree and basister just glisten with lights! Even the dogs get into the spirit ;) Happy Holidays!