I got a book called "An Empty Cradle, A Full Heart: Reflections for mothers and fathers after miscarriage, stillbirth or infant death."
It's helped because every page has a few words from someone who's gone through this, too. There's no self-help in this book. Just comfort in solidarity.

"Nighttime is the worst. I can stay busy during the day, but in the still of the night my emptiness cannot be filled with busyness. How I long to hold you, my little one. How I long to kiss you and tell you how much I love you. Why did God take you so soon? I miss you."

I was thinking about how much I have changed in the long 2 weeks since the miscarriage. My days have been busy, for which I thank God. And then at night, or in a long quiet drive, I start to think about her. And the tears come. I can be focused on and excited about football, or a good exam grade, but then I drop right back down to the grief. It is such a unique emotion, grief. I feel so many things about this pregnancy...anger about losing her, an intense biological need to replace my womb with another life (this feeling/need goes beyond calculation.)...being incredibly jealous of my pregnant friends and of strangers. My heart feels longing and bitterness when I see a baby. Yet I'm also filled with love and compassion. I had wanted to shower my child with that love.

How I looked forward to this time of year, getting to know him or her, my body changing even more, reaching the halfway mark, thinking about how to squeeze a newborn into a 1 bedroom apartment. The milestones come and go, with only me to remember that someone was supposed to pass them.

"As I look back over the recent past, I see only a blur of pain and numbness. Am I alive or did I die with my baby? i know a part of me did. I think it was the happy part. Will daylight ever come?"

Again, the blur of pain and numbness. The first week felt like a month. A lot of lying in bed (doctor's orders) which allowed for tears. "Will daylight ever come?" I was startled when I left my apartment on Thursday and it was cold and rainy. I would have been thrilled before losing my little one...now I long for sun. Not hot sun. Cool and sunny. The dark was comforting and the rain would have refreshed the little maudlin grey that continually sits at the bottom, innocent and undisturbing. Now I am surrounded by maudlin; worse than maudlin, and fear and sadness. I need the light.

The back of my necklace reads "Waiting for the morning." I am waiting for the morning--for the Lord--to show me how to cope, to trust him in this awful time. I'm waiting for the morning, because there will be a dawn when I die and finally get to meet our little one. So I echo the woman who wrote this: "Will daylight ever come?"

“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own,’ or ‘real’ life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life—the life God is sending one day by day; what one calls one’s ‘real life’ is a phantom of one’s own imagination. This at least is what I see at moments of insight: but it’s hard to remember it all the time.”

They played this video at the church service on Easter. I liked it & found it.

Overall, I didn't think the commercials were stellar or anything. Godaddy.com was dumb, Pepsi re-make of Mean Joe Green was dumber.
Here are my favorites:

I'm still not eating at Denny's, but this one made me laugh out loud.



This was good, too.

1. What are your nicknames?
Awful ones that my dad makes up because...I can't explain him: Roodle Doodle, Roo; my grandpa used to call me Rooskie Booskie Patterooskie...

2. What's your favorite holiday?
Christmas. Lights, decorations, baking, cooking...

3. What's new in your life right now?
A new syllabus for next semester. Haha I tried.

4. Where was the last Starbucks that you visited?
Maryland House rest stop.

5. Are you introverted or extroverted?
Introverted.
( meme fun follows )

It's a good thing I was not playing one of the supporting roles to Helen Keller in this show:

So here's how the cake I made for my niece's 4th birthday turned out.



I'm not exactly a cake decorator, but she liked it. Especially because the kitty head was a mirrored compact with a comb inside. Pretty cool.

This arrived for me in the mail today:




Pete sent it to me. We have a disagreement over dog breeds. I think ugly can be cute; pugs and bulldogs are cute. Scrunched up, fat-rolled faces are cute. He says not cute. I get a stuffed pug because he thinks we will never get a live pug or bulldog.

In the meantime, this guy needs a name. I'm leaning towards Antoine, but I am open to suggestions.

Poll #1248312 Are pugs fug?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 13

Are pugs and/or bulldogs:

http://www.stevemadden.com/item.aspx?id=46252

Unless this is you:

Need a little help with your gag reflex? Feeling the need for a little anorexia motivation? Then look no further than Paula Deen's latest recipe for heart disease. Yummo. I TiVo her show, mostly because it cracks me up to:

a. hear her say the word buh-dur (butter)
b. watch her put buh-dur/butter in, on and around everything she cooks/bakes. Before, during and after cooking/baking.

So Pete and I were watching the other night, and she did a ladies' brunch show. And she made this donut hamburger fried egg monstrosity. And I said to Pete, "is that a donut? That can't be a donut," as though I had just witnessed a unicorn in a pink tutu prancing across my room. And he insisted that it must be, for it had that Krispy Kreme-esque glaze. Indeed, when Paula finished frying her egg and cooking the hamburger, oh and frying the bacon, she slopped it all in between TWO ENTIRE DONUTS. And I cried no, no dear sweet God, sweet Lord in Heaven, and I closed my eyes and looked away. But it was true, and my eyes were burned with the donut burger. Recipe follows.


Paula’s Ladies’ Brunch Burger

1 1/2 pounds ground beef
3 tablespoons freshly chopped parsley leaves
2 tablespoons grated onion
House Seasoning, recipe follows
2 tablespoons butter
3 eggs
6 slices bacon, cooked
3 hamburger buns
3 English muffins
6 glazed donuts

Mix the ground beef, chopped parsley and grated onion together in a large mixing bowl. Season liberally, with House Seasoning. Form 3 hamburger patties.

Heat a large cast iron skillet over medium-high heat and spray with non-stick cooking spray. Add the burgers and cook until desired temperature, 4 to 5 minutes per side for medium-rare.

Fry bacon in a hot pan until crisp. Remove and drain on paper towels. Set aside.

While burgers are cooking, heat a non-stick pan, over medium heat. Add 2 tablespoons butter. Crack 3 eggs into the pan. Cook until the yolks are just set and still slightly runny and remove.

Place burger patties on English muffins or buns, and if desired, on glazed donuts, as the buns. Top each burger with 2 pieces of bacon and a fried egg.

Funny if you've seen the movie Election.

Um, my books are going to cost $700+ this semester. I shelled out $150 for a CPR class, $200 for a fugly uniform, about to spend $100 for fugly shoes, Santa bought me an $80 stethoscope, and I still have to go on a Hanes flesh-colored underwear shopping spree. (White pants, y'all.)

This peripheral stuff is eventually going to add up to more than the $1500 tuition, which I realize is a steal. I'm still waiting to hear if I've gotten any school scholarships. I got a small school grant, but it's only about 1/4 of this cost. My poor, poor bank account. Poor bank account.

Pillaged from wock

Go to your Calendar and find the first entry for each month of 2007. Post the first line/sentence of it in your journal, and that's your "Year in Review".

January
Pete and I went to Valley Forge, PA today.

February
Last night in Anatomy we dissected rats.

March
I woke up this morning with a horrible headache...I think it might be my upper wisdom teeth, the ones that I'm totally, completely in denial about.

April
Went up to Pete's house last night.

May
Tonight, Dad bought a used mattress off of Craigslist.

June
Pete and I went to his high school steel drum band alumni reunion concert.

July
I'm so tired of school.

August
Now that I'm almost healed and stuff, I made some phone calls to the temp agency and did some resume polishing and classified ad-searching.

September
Labor Day was such a fantastic break from my backbreaking, soul-crushing routine of unemployment.

October
Yeah, so I'm kinda out of loose change; a.k.a. spending money.

November
I went into the main floor bathroom today and saw something horrific.

December
It is snowing.