She had me practice my strokes for the first part of class.  I totally suck at the front stroke.  Towards the end of class, she asked if I was ready.  She wanted me to swim the breast stroke from one end to the other and that she would be right by myside.

And so I began. Kick and breath.  As I started to swim closer to the line that marked the deep end, I kept mentally telling myself that I can do this.  A few strokes passed the deep end, the fear slowly started to settle in.  My heart started to pump a little quicker, and the adrenaline was kicking in.  I kept telling myself to breath bubbles and kick, doing my best to push the fear aside.  When I finally got to the wall, I grabbed the wall and took a deep breath.

“You did it!” says my instructor and reaches over for a high five.

I told her that I started to get nervous after I passed the line and that I kept telling myself to stay calm.  She told me that I was doing good and that my breathing was good and that I did a good job.  I asked her if I was supposed to tread now.

She said “Well class is almost over, how about you do the back stroke back?”

And so I swam.

It wasn’t till middle school and later on in life, that I found that there are other parts to Easter. There’s the egg hunt and the food.  I remember going to a sleepover during Easter – and that was when I was introduced to hunting for Easter eggs.  It wasn’t until I met my husband and started to spend Easter meals where I discovered, hey there is ham and Easter baskets!

Today , I celebrate Easter with my in laws and my later on my friends.  Oh, the things I will learn.

Materials:

• The thing to write on:
  • Whiteboard – can use: Tileboard, Melamine or Showerboard
    • I went to Lowe’s and picked up Wainscott’s Mark-R-Board (1/8″ x 48″ x 32″).  Costs: $9.56 (w/o tax).  I don’t know the type of abuse this can take, but we will see…
  • Glass – hit up an art store and they can actually cut glass to suit your needs.
• Frame/trim:
• Tileboard Moulding (plastic) (cheapest)
  • How this works:  You just slide it on the edge of the board. I found these (they fit 1/8″) because it fits the Mark-R-Board easily and was super cheap.   Just cut it to size with corners and bamn!  Because it’s plastic, the best way I found to cut these is by scoring it and then snapping it.  You can also see if Lowe’s can cut it.  Once it’s cut and fits the frame, you will need to put glue on and slide it on the frame so that the trim will stay on.
  • Cost:  At Lowe’s it cost $2.28 a piece and you will need 2 per board.
• U-frame kits/Sectional kits/Frame kits  (metal) (expensive) – These are used to make your own picture frame.
  • How this works:  These come in pairs.  You just buy it to fit the size and put it together.  You will be essentially framing the whiteboard.  You can then put backing on it to make your your white board stiffer (but this may make it weigh more).  Put in spacers (which comes with the kit) and it will essentially hold it in place.  Then you will need to get some picture hanging supplies.  Even though this can get expensive (especially if it’s a big piece of white board), hanging these up and taking it down is a breeze.
  • Cost: For the 48″ x 32″ Mark-R-Board, it will cost about $30 for the frame.
• Wiremold (plastic) – these are used to hide cables along the wall. Not to bad.

A week or so after we told people, my husband and I went for another ultrasound. It is Wednesday, November 9.   I was so excited.  Maybe we can see what Peanut looks like now!  Peanut is what we nicknamed the baby.  I originally came up with the idea of Alien but my husband gave me a funny look.

Our original doctor that we were seeing was out of town, so we met with someone else along with a couple of students in who were in their doing their residencies.  And that’s when the fucking bomb was dropped.

My husband and I were in shocked and I started to cry.  We got fucking blindsided.

The doctor that we met was under the impression that we knew…it would seem our original doctor had left notes that mentioned that there was a good chance that my pregnancy was false.  Why didn’t he tell us this so that we were better prepared?  The last time I saw him he was optimistic and it didn’t seem like we had anything to worry about. It turned out I had a blighted ovum.  Think of an egg that had no yolk.  I had the sac that was growing but no baby inside.

The doctor gave us our options. We could: wait it out and eventually miscarry, take a pill, or have a D&C.  I couldn’t think. I was devastated.  The doctor said he would have someone call the next day and if anything get bloodwork done now in case I wanted to have the procedure.

I sat in the room crying waiting for the nurse, and people are walking by me.  I told my husband to go the desk and pay our co-pay.  The nurse came in after I sat there for 10 minutes.  She asked what was wrong.  How did she not know?  Did she not know why I was there? I said “I’m not pregnant anymore.”  Damn, did that hurt to say that out loud.  My husband was standing there and getting upset and frustate on how long it was taking.  Finally, she got started.  But then ended up having trouble and she started to poke around with the needle looking for a vein.  She does this as I continue to cry.  She finally gives up and goes for the other arm.  Finally, it’s done and my husband and I head out. We originally drove separately.  He called into work and I told him to call my friend Matt to inform my work.  (It’s nice having a friend that works where you do).

I managed to drive myself home.  I went upstairs to the bedroom and crawled under the covers and continue to cry.  My husband comes upstairs and holds me.  After a couple of hours, we talk.  He would be the one to tell people what happened.  What an awesome husband I have.  We decided to have the procedure.  There’s no way I could wait and I hear the pill can be traumatic.

Having something like this happen…well it fucked with my mind.  My emotions were overboard. Although, it probably didn’t help that I was hormonal.  I felt helpless and that it was my fault cause I didn’t do something.  One of the things that irked me was the responses.  There are some things that I didn’t need to hear, such as “Oh, it will be okay.”, “Technically, you weren’t pregnant cause there was no baby” or “You will get pregnant next time.”

Hearing all of this put me into a rage.  I was so fucking sad and mad. How do you fucking know if I will be pregnant next time?  And what do you mean it will be okay?  It’s not like I fucking lost at poker.  And what happens if I do miscarry again? Then what?  Why would I want to go through that again?

I hate being so sensitive.  I know people mean well, but still.  Now when I hear the phrase “Don’t be so sensitive,” I get sad and angry.

Two days later after we found out about the blighted ovum, I had my D&C procedure.  Friday, November 11 – A day that I won’t forget.  A few days later I ended up back in the hospital due to stomach pains.  Not because of the procedure, but because of the pain meds they gave me.

I wasn’t able to talk about what happened for a two months.  It is only now that I am able to write this and not get upset.  Funny thing, I started to write this post on 1/3/12 and it is only now that I was able to finish and publish this.

via jokemail.wordpress.com

I’m currently using 5 different websites to bookmark stuff.  They are:

• Delicious (me) - been using since April 2006 (Note: I changed from iciskaye to isallcaps and deleted my iciskaye account)
• Tumblr (me) - been using since December 2007
• Zooltool (me) - joined April 2009
• Pinterest (me) - joined October 2011
• Pinboard (me) - joined December 2011

So how the hell did this happen?  How did I end up with 5?

I was introduced to Delicious during Graduate school (from Elizabeth Lawley).  It was a good way at that time to keep track of my bookmarks.  Later on, I started to use Tumblr as a way to post things that I found amusing but didn’t necessarily wanted to bookmark.  In addition, the visual layout was much more appealing to me than a straight up list with a bunch of text.  (I’m a visual person).

Eventually, I stumbled upon Zooltool and Pinterest and signed up (once I got my invite).  These two are very similar to each other…although Zooltool is more of a Pinterest + Pinboard.

Delicious has changed.  It’s now starting to look a little like Zooltool.

I signed up for Pinboard because of the whole hoopla with Delicious.

My head hurts.  I need to cut down and stick with one or two.  So I’ve come up with a set of things that I need and will be doing some investigative work.  They are:

1. UI
2. Easy to bookmark – I don’t like to click a lot
3. Easy to search
4. Visual appeal  (I find things a lot quicker by looking at images)
5. Export
6. How it works with any other apps that I use
7. Link back to the original

The one thing I need to pin down for myself is how I use/view bookmarking (ex the Tumblr blog).  Are there things I want to keep so I can remember? I don’t know.