Overwhelmed

I'm incredibly overwhelmed right now and I have no idea what to do about it.

1. We put an offer on a house, and we're not ready to sell ours yet.  My husband keeps saying that we're almost done, but we've been almost done for weeks.  We still have so much to do!  In order for this offer to work, we need to get our house on the market ASAP.  I have been working non-stop on fixing up the house, only taking breaks to focus on other stressors like work and family.

2. Work.  We're entering our busy time, when overtime is pretty much guaranteed.  This usually involves stress, late nights, and horrible eating habits.  If I could take a day or two off work to finish the house, it would be great, but as it is, I don't see how that's possible.

3. Family.  My mother has fallen so many times in the last few weeks that paramedics are starting to grumble about having to come help her get up.  My sister is going to the doctor with her this afternoon, so we'll see what comes of that.

4. My health. I don't even want to think about it.  Also, the health of my dog, which led to an EXTREMELY frustrating vet appointment yesterday.  An expensive, frustrating vet appointment.

5. Everything else in my life.  I can't remember the last time I put away laundry.  Instead, it is piling up everywhere and it now takes me forever to find something to wear to work.  I can't find my motorcycle key, since we took our keyhooks down to paint and I don't know where I put the key after our last ride.  I have no idea what is in our fridge.  Our pantry is bare, because I have barely gone grocery shopping.  Our finances are a mess.  We have been bleeding money like crazy on home improvement supplies.  I could go on and on, but I'm a bit tired right now.

Last night, as we were prepping the fireplace to tile around it, my husband yelled at me because he thought I was bossing him around.  I totally wasn't - I hate standing around doing nothing while he works, so I asked if he was going to be ready for tile soon so I could start bringing it in.  He apparently thought I was implying that he should drop what he was doing and go bring the tile in himself, and got really upset, at which point I started crying.  And here it is, 15 hours later, and I feel so tired and stressed that I STILL want to cry.  But I have several days worth of housework to do in the next day or two, along with working a full-time job and accomplishing normal everyday activities like sleeping, eating, and showering, that I just don't have time for a melt-down.

I haven't even thought of getting pregnant, or when in the world I'm going to have time for an HSG.  Or what's going on with my cycle.  I just want to relax for a bit, with a glass of wine, and then have a full night's sleep, and then get up when I'm good and ready, and not when my alarm tells me to.

More pictures!  They're taken with my phone, so they aren't great.

First up, the demolition of the fireplace surround.  What you see here is the original concrete, with carpet on top of it, then plywood on top of that, then tile, and then finally the base of the fireplace.  That was quite a doozy to get all of that out:

The fireplace once all of the surrounding material had been removed:

The great room, mostly ready to go:

The other side of the great room, which is my crafting area.  I've decluttered a bit more since the picture was taken:

The kitchen, covered with construction debris.  We still have a few more cabinet doors to hang, since I didn't count correctly and we didn't buy enough hinges:

The fireplace area after removing the base of the fireplace.  We have since rebuilt the base, and we've laid out the new tile that will surround it, but we haven't set the tile, which will happen tonight.  Grouting will happen tomorrow.  I had to improvise a way to hold the top part of the fireplace up while we worked beneath it.  Hence, the desk legs from IKEA and some 2x2s that I bought to make an extension for my crafting table:

It makes me kind of sad that we are FINALLY making all of the improvements to our house that I've wanted to do for the last few years, and it's all for someone else.  Assuming, of course, that someone wants to buy it...

Well, now I know why I never got a positive

I have my period!  I think this about CD 22, maybe 23.  Well, now I guess it's CD1.  How strange.  I had a bit of spotting yesterday morning, then some mild cramping in the afternoon and evening but no more blood.  But I woke up this morning with a full-on period, bleeding and cramps and all.  Obviously, not like what I experienced prior to surgery, but there's no doubt that today is the first day of my period.  Which is kind of cool, to have such a definite beginning.  Except that I don't understand why it's starting so incredibly early, I've never had a cycle this short in my life.  The shortest I've ever had was 26 days, and I thought that was weird.

Anyway, we moved most of our living room furniture back last night!  Well, the furniture that we're keeping anyway.  We now have big piles of stuff to move into storage tomorrow, so once the piles are out, I will take and post pictures.  Actually, here are a few before pictures:

 The front entry:

 The living room:

 The dining room/kitchen:

 The master bedroom (this room won't be changing much):

The guest bedroom and bathroom (also not changing much):

I wish I had a before picture of the hallway, because it is SO much better now, but alas, why would I take a picture of a hallway?  Stay tuned for updates by the end of the weekend (I hope!)

Changes

First, I haven't had a positive ovulation test this cycle.  I think I stopped testing on day 17 (probably too early) but I've been so busy with the remodel that I forgot to do it this weekend, and we've been too tired to do anything about a positive anyway.

I forgot that my doctor mentioned to wait a cycle and then do another HSG, so I need to call the clinic and make sure that I can be scheduled as soon as my next cycle starts.  He was worried that all of the surgeries I had could have affected 

We did so much work on our house this weekend.  Finished painting the kitchen, except for the drawer fronts, but I'll get to those soon.  We finished painting the walls, columns, beams, front door.  It was SO MUCH PAINTING.  We got a new stove and installed it ourselves.  We're almost done with installing baseboards.  My sweetheart bought me a nail gun and compressor for Valentine's day, and it's the awesomest thing ever.  Installing baseboards is going ridiculously fast.  And then I just zip along and spackle the holes (super fast!) and last night I started caulking the areas that were already done, which just looks so nice, but doesn't go quite as fast.  But wow, my house looks like it was done by a professional! 

We still need to replace the fireplace surround, paint the trim in the hallway, pain the trim by the front window, and paint the bathrooms.  Fix up the atrium spaces, pack and clean a ton of stuff, touch up the wall paint in a few places.  Oh, and clean up the yard a lot more.  But we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Now for the part of the weekend that is stressing me out the most.  My mother has gone downhill so fast, I almost can't believe it.  I had a conference call with my brother and sister yesterday, and there's a good chance we will be moving her into a home.  D and I visited her on Sunday, and things were not good.  Her car was FULL of unopened mail and rotting groceries.  She couldn't really walk.  I didn't know what to do.  I don't think I'm ready to have a geriatric mother.  I'm certainly not ready to be the oldest generation in my family.

When I was growing up, grandparents (if you still had any) were old, sick people who died while you were young, and great-grandparents were people who died a long, long time ago.  My husband still has three grandparents, and since his brother has children, those grandparents have great-grandchildren.  It boggles my mind.  My children, assuming I have any, probably won't even have a grandparent on my side, but they could have three great-grandparents on my husband's side.

Negative again

If I don't get a positive today, I'm not sure what to think.  Of course, I did test a bit late yesterday.  Perhaps that was the problem?  Normally, I test at 5:30.  Yesterday, I met a friend and her new husband for happy hour.  They were half an hour late, so I ended up getting home even later than I expected and didn't test until 7:30.  So maybe it was a false negative.  I guess we'll see what happens tonight.

I hate ovulation testing

I usually plan to test for ovulation around 5:30 - basically, right after I get home from work.  Therefore, I don't go to the bathroom after 1:30, per the instructions to not go for four hours before testing.  Yesterday, I ended up having to stay late at work, which meant we got stuck in rush hour traffic on the way home, which resulted in my bladder just about exploding.  And then I got a negative.  I think today is day 14, possibly day 15, and the last time I had a non-surgery cycle, I got a positive on day 15, so perhaps today or tomorrow will be the positive.

Last week, I forgot all about ovulation testing and told a friend I would meet her for happy hour tonight.  I haven't seen her since her wedding in November, and it's not like we had a chance to talk that day.  So I won't get home until 7 or so tonight, and I will probably have a glass of wine during the two hours before testing when I'm not supposed to drink anything.  Sigh.  I really don't want to postpone seeing her, and I'm not going to, but it sure is throwing a wrench in the works.

Speaking of which, time to visit the ladies' room for the last time before the ovulation test...

Frustrations

My husband's cousin is having a baby.  Like, right now.  Technically, it's his wife who is the one actually having the baby, but obviously he's part of the process too.  This is the cousin who was supposedly having a wedding the same weekend as us (turned out to be the following weekend, but we didn't know at the time).  It was the third time they had scheduled a wedding date.  They're still not married.  They didn't RSVP for our wedding.  They didn't COME to our wedding, even though we saved them spots (a recurrent theme with my husband's family and friends, at least some of them).  They didn't bother telling my husband they were pregnant, we found out from other cousins.  I'm trying to not let it get to me, but it's pretty hard.

I'm testing for ovulation again right now.  I'm hoping to get a positive tonight, or tomorrow night at the latest.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

We decided to sell our house, and we're fixing it up, and each small item we do leads to another bigger item.  For example, we moved the range away from the wall an inch or so, and the oven door glass shattered, so now we need to get a new range.  We want to get our house on the market ASAP, as most houses in our price range are going fast, and we want to be able to put an offer in right away.  We found the perfect house, and we're just not ready to buy it.  It's frustrating.

In other news, as part of our plan to sell our house, I was hoping to be able to send my dogs to doggie daycare on the days when our house would be shown.  We took our dogs in yesterday so I could paint uninterrupted, and I mentioned to the receptionist that Lola has had a few seizures and was now on medication.  Several hours later, I got a call stating that she wouldn't be allowed back until she was seizure-free for a YEAR.  I'm not sure what to do now.  There is another place that will likely take her, but it's on the other side of downtown (the side that has WAY more traffic), and we can't drop her off before 7, so we'd end up smack in the middle of rush hour trying to get back downtown to work after dropping her off.  Other places may or may not take her with her seizure history, which makes me reluctant to even tell them she's had seizures.  What do I do?

Waiting

My period, the most normal one I've ever had, is over.  I intend to begin testing for ovulation Friday or Saturday.  I explained to my husband, again, how ovulation works and when we need to be trying our hardest to get pregnant.  Now I'm just waiting for the end of the week.

I'm not sure we're cut out for having a baby, though.  The night before last, my cat decided he wanted to go out.  He is no longer allowed outside unsupervised, as several of our neighbors leave cat food out, despite not even having cats, and my cat will eat it.  He's on a special, very expensive diet, and I don't really want him to eat random food left out by strangers, so he's under house arrest for the foreseeable future, with only supervised outdoor excursions.  Well, he decided he absolutely had to go outside no matter what, and was waking us up every 30-60 minutes with his yowling.  We were zombies yesterday, and even after a good night's sleep last night, I still feel tired.  I don't know how we would manage with a baby that needs attention 24-7.

Also, I can't remember if I mentioned, our dog almost certainly has epilepsy.  If it's not epilepsy, it's something worse that is really expensive to test for, like a brain tumor, so our vet recommended we proceed as if it's epilepsy.  Which means medication every 12 hours, and we need to be pretty precise about the timing.  So that's putting a huge damper on our social life.