Happy Birthday Princess!!

Want to know what I was doing 10 years ago. I was lying in a bed, looking at my new baby girl. After trying for 2 years unsuccessfully to have a baby, including all of those early am temperature checks and all of the other gross stuff that goes with charting your cycles, my dh finally went to the dr. Turned out that he needed a variscolectomy. Yeah I know I spelled it wrong...sue me! He had a varicose vein near his - ahem cough cough "package" that was killing all of his swimmers. The Doc let us know that this is a very common and easily treatable cause of infertility for men. So Barry had the surgery on his - ahem cough cough "package". But still no baby. Right after surgery, Barry had been fired from American Distress (please leave home without it). I was on medical leave for my arthritis, also from American Distress. We met there but that is another story for another time. Anyway....still no baby. We had even begun adoption interviews. Well, on the day that I told AMEX that I wasn't coming back, apparently our stress levels were low enough and all other conditions were right, we conceived our Princess. Was is worth all of the trouble we had to go through to get her???? You betcha!!! I'd go through a million times the trouble to have my Princess.

Of course, I went and did something really stupid. We have neighborhood dinners with other couples from our church. I confirmed we would attend, without thinking about the fact that it is tonight...Em's birthday. I have to go because there is only one other couple, besides the host couple attending. I apologized a blue streak, and Em is cool with it because I promised her we would go to Kwan's. This is where we went for Barry's b-day dinner and she loved the whole Chinese restaurant atmosphere. I explained to her that many of the dishes had been Americanized. My friend Lisa was from the Phillipines and she used to make the real deal-her dad was of Chinese ancestry from Hawaii originally. And Barry lived with a Chinese family for a week while in Spokane. So I know from what I am speaking! Anyway, I still like these kinds of restaurants. And my Princess just loved the place, with the hanging lamps, and the calender placemats, and the family style serving platters. Mostly she loved the sweet & sour sauce. She poured it on everything.

The dinner tonight will be fun. The other couples are friends, so I won't feel weird by being around people I don't know as well. I can actually relax and be myself. We are doing shish-kabobs. Then after dinner, we will all go back to the church for a big dessert with all of the other dinner groups. This will be rough for me. I can stand around the church forever talking to all of these people, but get me in a social setting....and I am looking for the farthest corner to stand back and just watch everyone. Until I can't take it anymore and then I am out the door. My goal for tonight is to engage in conversation with at minimum 3 people that I don't know well. And the conversation cannot be about their children. (I have taught in Primary for so long, that I know everyone's children better than I know the parent's). Wish me luck!

For now...back to work. The appraisal/real estate boom is still going strong. Appraisals are coming out my ears. I can't even leave comments on SBB most days because I am just too wiped out to type another word. Tomorrow...I will catch up on comments tomorrow. I promise!