Im going Sew Crazy!

I made my first quilt! I was so excited, Sunday I bought some cheap fabric and made a quilt! It only took me 2 days and I love it!

I had so much nervous/anxious energy I had to put it out there! I cant wait to make some more!

Cassie R.

I used to be a door...

SO as you could probably infer from my absence we are not pregnant. After all of last months efforts and trying we were still unsuccessful, and I know that a couple posts ago I was all empowered and defining my own successful behavior, but it still hurts. It really hurts. Last Tuesday my period started and I hit the couch for a marathon of wallowing. For two days I did not eat, shower, cook, clean, or move. This was a hard one my friends. Every month it gets harder. I was even more hurt when the nurse told me that their protocol for injectable treatments is one month on, one month off. So this month we are NOT taking any drugs. We are gonna let nature run its course and see what happens and after my couch coma last month I think my husband is happy to get his wife back! So of course what do I do, make a project for my husband and I!

On our back patio we have a high kinda pub table thing. It is really nice, it is a hand me down from my dads girlfriend but I still love it. However, we cant have people over for dinner because it only seats two people. So this weekend my husband and I set out with one goal in mind... patio furniture. First let me give you a bit of back story. Last Spring my friend Allison and I drove all the way to IKEA in Cincinnati and when we got there I fell in love with some patio furniture. It was classic black with benches and a table. So I bought it... or at least I thought I did. When we got home (4 hours away in Jasper) I opened the boxes to find I had bought 3 benches instead of 2 benches and a table. We could never find the time to go back and return it so we were stuck with 3 benches. We assembled 2 and put them, around our fire pit. I still wanted a table! In keeping with my whole recycling theme the hubs and I hit our local antique store for an old door that we could turn into a table. After just a little hard work and 2 days we have a new unique patio table for under 40.00!

We Started with this very old door. It is tongue and grove and kind of important not paneled so it is a flat surface

We then added support with some left over molding and removed the doors old support

Then my handsome husband and I made a mitered box frame to support the table and add bracing for the legs. We attached it with simple inexpensive L brackets and wood screws.We used inexpensive deck spindles for the legs 2.97 each. I spray painted them black ahead of time to distress them later!

We attached all the legs with our nail gun to the frame.

When we flipped over the table we realized how high it really was, so we cut down all the legs so the table would be 30 inches. Voila! A table!

Now I gave the whole thing a coat of antique white paint.

Then I mixed a polyurethane and stain glaze with black walnut stain. I distressed the legs a little but on the top I used the glaze hitting the high spots, filling in lines, and using a little bit of dry brushing, then I used the rest of the clear poly to cover the whole table to protect it outdoors.

Then we put the original hardware back on, the key hole, and knob hole.

Here you have it outside with our weathered benches. I can't wait to eat out here! And I keep telling Pat that if our next house has a formal dining room and an eat-in kitchen then we are using this as a table! He says no but I don't care, we will totally use it!I keep thinking that if this table could talk it would say... "I used to be a door, thanks for giving me a new job." Who doesnt love new job?

I am so excited to hang out with the girls tonight and watch Glee! I hope everyone has a wonderful short week!

Cassie R.

Disconnect

The other day my husband and I were watching one of my favorite shows (baby themed of course) Making room for multiples. This show follows people who are pregnant with multiples through the last month of their pregnancy and the first couple months home with the babies. Gotta love TLC programming! Usually the people on this show have undergone IVF in order to become pregnant, however the other day Pat and I were snuggling on the couch watching the show when this really small woman had a HUGE belly started telling her story, We giggled and listened. To my surprise she and her husband had not undergone IVF. They took Femara, Follistim, and had IUI... They same treatment I have been on. I got a huge smile on my face thinking immediately it was a sign. That god was telling me (yelling at me) to stay positive, That this treatment can and will work!
Then it all took a turn for the worse. I was watching as she and her husband were juggling babies, throwing poopie diapers, and parading a troop of volunteers through their house. And then it hit me. THIS COULD WORK. I could be having multiples.
My husband and I met with the doctor before starting this aggressive treatment for a consultation and the doc looked me in the eyes and said "You do realize this greatly increases your chance of multiples, Would you be ok with that?" To which I actually responded "Dr. B at this point I could be pregnant with 10 babies and deliver them all out my nose and be happy!" He laughed and moved on. For any infertile the thought of having multiple babies is really great. You mean I could have two for the price of one...
Until now. While watching this show I saw this wonder woman of a mother bathing one child, making a bottle for another, while carrying the third. Then it really hit me. We could even have one baby and I still wouldn't know what to do with it! This may sound crazy, but somewhere a long the way a disconnect occurred it may have been my self-preservation skills kicking in, who knows, but I had lost the vision of me with a baby. When we first started trying my days were filled with looking at baby furniture on-line, reading what to expect books, and dreaming of nurseries. Some where a long the way I lost that. Now all the focus has been on GETTING pregnant. I haven't in a long time even imagined what it would be like to have a bump, or have a baby shower. All I can visualize is the positive pregnancy test, that's where it stops. While watching this silly half hour show all of those thoughts came flooding back and I was so overwhelmed and I started crying. This could really be it.
Pat and I are smack in the middle of our 2ww and this weekend we are heading north to visit his parents and hopefully take my mind off things. As we have moved forward with this journey the 2ww's have gotten more intense (probably an exact correlation to the increase amount of synthetic hormones I am pumping into my system). With every failed cycle we wait with more anticipation, more hope, and more heart break. However this month I am really positive in a way that I haven't been in a while. I'm letting myself feel it all again and although it scares me I am so proud to report I was laying in bed last night decorating a nursery in my head!
Thank you all for your continued prayers, thoughts, and kind words!

Hoping & Praying

Cassie R.