I am back, I am so happy to say that my return journey was upgraded to business class! For me that I have always travelled in economy it was fab! Pity the journey was too short to enjoy a good sleep, but my God, what a difference, the food, the service, the lounge in the airport...
The conference was good, I networked a lot and it may be possible for me to spend a few months sabbatical next year in UC Davis in California. That would be another dream becoming true, I'll try and figure out this week what do I have to do at my university, but this gave me a very nice and important focus work-wise. The weather in Rhode Island was very good, warm but breezy so overall really pleasant. This is the last time at that location, this conference will be moving to Maine in two years time, looking forward to a bit more life and the ocean view! One highlight of the trip was meeting a cyberfriend and her daughter!! Really lovely afternoon with them and the time just flew by.
Health-wise I have had the usual abdominal pain, not good but not worse than normal, I have started joining a few boards on IBS and see how I can tame it a bit.
I don't know if you remember that two years ago I came back to Dublin and Oliver had been admitted to hospital after spiking a very high fever. Well, this year I came back to Martina with chickenpox! Not as dramatic thankfully and the worse was probably over, but the funny thing was that I was collected at the airport by the same taxi driver as two years ago!!
My parents flew back this morning, they had a lovely time and just as well they were here to help between the sickness and the Mike having to work, it was a great help.
Right, that's about it for now, I'll be back soon!
Showing posts with label Boston. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Boston. Show all posts
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Saturday, July 5, 2014
Almost Boston time
Heading off tomorrow and hopefully the hurricane will have lost strength and moved further north. I am very excited about this week away. I admit, I need some me time. I need to switch off the permanently on call button, I need to listen to my music and go back to a proper 20 minutes meditation, I need (desperately) to recharge my batteries as I am exhausted. I don't feel exhausted, I simply am. I may even be able to read a book. I realised it's been two years since I had a night to myself, when I went to the same conference after our amazing trip to California.
My parents arrived yesterday with great excitement on Oliver's part and a little perplexity on Martina's side who, I think, was wondering how it was possible that the people in the computer were now here in the kitchen. But one day in and she has already warmed up to the guests!
I have packed the suitcase (almost), found a few dollars from the last trip in a jar in the kitchen and charged my ipod, laptop and phone. I have packed a swimming suit as I want to go to the pool on campus during the week. However this may be a bit of an optimistic thought as my period has decided to be late again. So it'll probably start tomorrow or sunday, just as I am travelling.
I want to get back blogging a bit more often even if it's just for myself and my soul. It is good for me to be talking about life and feelings even if the original purpose of this blog has morphed significantly. It did me a world of good when I was going through infertility, I think it will help with the anxiety too, I have to write it down. I know it is less interesting for the wider blogging community, specially for those still chasing what may seem a chimera baby (and I wish you from the bottom of my heart that it will be a reality very soon) but it may still be nice for my long time cyberfriends to see how I get on and what we are up too (thank you Valery!). I know I miss a lot my old cyber friends, those that have stopped blogging altogether and those that are now posting very seldom. Maybe there is someone left out there thinking the same about me! Don't worry if you don't have time to comment, I know this is my life and not yours and you may have nothing to say, just let me know occasionally you are stopping by, I'll love it!
I'm considering changing the title of the blog, but I am so attached to it. What do you think?
My parents arrived yesterday with great excitement on Oliver's part and a little perplexity on Martina's side who, I think, was wondering how it was possible that the people in the computer were now here in the kitchen. But one day in and she has already warmed up to the guests!
I have packed the suitcase (almost), found a few dollars from the last trip in a jar in the kitchen and charged my ipod, laptop and phone. I have packed a swimming suit as I want to go to the pool on campus during the week. However this may be a bit of an optimistic thought as my period has decided to be late again. So it'll probably start tomorrow or sunday, just as I am travelling.
I want to get back blogging a bit more often even if it's just for myself and my soul. It is good for me to be talking about life and feelings even if the original purpose of this blog has morphed significantly. It did me a world of good when I was going through infertility, I think it will help with the anxiety too, I have to write it down. I know it is less interesting for the wider blogging community, specially for those still chasing what may seem a chimera baby (and I wish you from the bottom of my heart that it will be a reality very soon) but it may still be nice for my long time cyberfriends to see how I get on and what we are up too (thank you Valery!). I know I miss a lot my old cyber friends, those that have stopped blogging altogether and those that are now posting very seldom. Maybe there is someone left out there thinking the same about me! Don't worry if you don't have time to comment, I know this is my life and not yours and you may have nothing to say, just let me know occasionally you are stopping by, I'll love it!
I'm considering changing the title of the blog, but I am so attached to it. What do you think?
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Life is good
This weekend we are de-clattering. It gives me an immense pleasure to do so. Sorting out children clothing which will go to a charity, tidying up the balcony (soon to accomodate a storage unit for the bicycles and scooters and what not), tidying up the storage space under the stairs etc. Because you know, we are about to start a new project I don't think I mentioned it yet. We are going to replace our en-suite door with a pocket one! As the bathroom walls are tiled, Mike is going to do the job by accessing (and breaking) the wall just on the bedroom side. It is possible, we watched a youtube video, but it's definitely going to be a messy job. Mike never did it before of course but I have no doubt it will be perfect (he is handy that way). So far we sourced the housing structure and the tools. The door itself it's just going to be a plain one. I suspect we'll have to relocate to the attic while Mike is doing the work so it will probably happen when I'm back from Boston in July. Very exciting.
Children are good, Martina is a climber, goes up on everything and of course is not that balanced yet so weekends are definitely more tiring that the working days looking after the two of them! She eats everything (it's a while now we cook the same things for everyone) and she still has 6 teeth but currently drooling and red bum, so who knows, maybe a couple more are on the way. She is a great sleeper, I know Oliver had a major regression at 18 months, so hopefully she will be different (given the she never slept through the night till 10 month old!). She is still in her room but sometime in the future will be moving the children in together. Oliver is very good, with the occasional melt down, but he has started waking at around 6.30 and after going to the bathroom (the en-suite, he is almost always dry at night, we keep him in a cloth nappy just to catch the occasional accident) comes into the bed and that's the end of the sleeping for me. He seems to be functioning perfectly on very little sleep these days and he has black out curtains so it's not the light that wakes him at all, he just does and he's ready to start the day and keeps going till 8.30-9 pm...
I am doing well, I can feel I made a significant change in my anxiety, I don't torment myself anymore with awful thoughts, in fact I somehow came to the conclusion that even if I die, things will be ok for the children as Mike is a great dad. So this thought gives me great comfort and less anxiety and by default I son't think so much anymore about getting sick and die. As my stomach was still bothering me, I went to the gp last week (no anxiety, just to check) and she had me do an ultrasound to make sure there was nothing strange going on as she could not feel anything abnormal. Ultrasound showed a small gallstone which is not what's bothering me at all it seems, but everything else is absolutely normal, so this leaves the pain likely to be muscular (it's not food related). Let's hope it'll pass. I have gone back swimming now so that should help. I want to record here that for the first time in 15 years I think, I got a 3 days delay on my period (which was always early, about 25-26 days). Of course I didn't even bother testing because with no tubes it would be some miracle being pregnant and even if the thought did cross my mind (you know...there is always that one case on the web etc etc) it made me realise that I am really happy with a family of four and so we are thinking what to do with the embryos we have in storage (4 blasts from the same crop as Martina). We are both very much in favour of embryo adoption, but it would have to be an open adoption which here is unheard of. I would never feel comfortable not knowing where those embryos have ended up, not that I consider them my children, I truly believe children belong to who loves them and grows them up, but Ireland is such a small place I would worry they may end up marrying my children without knowing they are related!! I know they can be shipped abroad etc, I would hate to have them wasted, they can be so precious for couples who would like a family but for whatever reason cannot have a biological child. So we'll see. I'm putting this thought out into the Universe for it to be heard and now I'll wait and see what happens.
Less than a month to Boston!! Wohooo! Any takers for a coffee?
Children are good, Martina is a climber, goes up on everything and of course is not that balanced yet so weekends are definitely more tiring that the working days looking after the two of them! She eats everything (it's a while now we cook the same things for everyone) and she still has 6 teeth but currently drooling and red bum, so who knows, maybe a couple more are on the way. She is a great sleeper, I know Oliver had a major regression at 18 months, so hopefully she will be different (given the she never slept through the night till 10 month old!). She is still in her room but sometime in the future will be moving the children in together. Oliver is very good, with the occasional melt down, but he has started waking at around 6.30 and after going to the bathroom (the en-suite, he is almost always dry at night, we keep him in a cloth nappy just to catch the occasional accident) comes into the bed and that's the end of the sleeping for me. He seems to be functioning perfectly on very little sleep these days and he has black out curtains so it's not the light that wakes him at all, he just does and he's ready to start the day and keeps going till 8.30-9 pm...
I am doing well, I can feel I made a significant change in my anxiety, I don't torment myself anymore with awful thoughts, in fact I somehow came to the conclusion that even if I die, things will be ok for the children as Mike is a great dad. So this thought gives me great comfort and less anxiety and by default I son't think so much anymore about getting sick and die. As my stomach was still bothering me, I went to the gp last week (no anxiety, just to check) and she had me do an ultrasound to make sure there was nothing strange going on as she could not feel anything abnormal. Ultrasound showed a small gallstone which is not what's bothering me at all it seems, but everything else is absolutely normal, so this leaves the pain likely to be muscular (it's not food related). Let's hope it'll pass. I have gone back swimming now so that should help. I want to record here that for the first time in 15 years I think, I got a 3 days delay on my period (which was always early, about 25-26 days). Of course I didn't even bother testing because with no tubes it would be some miracle being pregnant and even if the thought did cross my mind (you know...there is always that one case on the web etc etc) it made me realise that I am really happy with a family of four and so we are thinking what to do with the embryos we have in storage (4 blasts from the same crop as Martina). We are both very much in favour of embryo adoption, but it would have to be an open adoption which here is unheard of. I would never feel comfortable not knowing where those embryos have ended up, not that I consider them my children, I truly believe children belong to who loves them and grows them up, but Ireland is such a small place I would worry they may end up marrying my children without knowing they are related!! I know they can be shipped abroad etc, I would hate to have them wasted, they can be so precious for couples who would like a family but for whatever reason cannot have a biological child. So we'll see. I'm putting this thought out into the Universe for it to be heard and now I'll wait and see what happens.
Less than a month to Boston!! Wohooo! Any takers for a coffee?
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