"How is it Going?", you ask.

3 weeks and 2 days post op. My tissue expanders (hard plastic balloon boobs) were expanded 4 days ago. I will have another expansion in 3 days. My chemo port was installed 3 days ago. I am going to try and go back to work in 4 days. I have my first round of chemo in 10 days.

How do I feel?

Physically: Sore, slightly winded, fatigued, generally uncomfortable 100% of the time. My armpits feel sunburned. The tissue expanders are placed below my muscles so I occasionally have spasms. All of the time it feels like I have done an extreme chest work out. The sternum is tender to the touch, but getting less so as time goes on. The inside of my chest wall feels almost exactly like your skin feels a few days after sitting for a very large tattoo. For those of you reading that have never healed from a large tat, I always compare the feeling to the tattooed body part being dragged along pavement or gravel, full of open wounds and raw, tender skin. I have phantom nipple pain. I guess. When I am cold, it feels like my nipples are rock hard and tender. But i don't have nipples. Maybe its the plastic not warming to my body temperature. The port is still sore and I hope swollen, otherwise this sucker sticks out so far from my body that it appears I have a raging boil about 2 or 3 inches just below my left clavicle. When I stretch my arm a certain way, or roll my neck as I usually do to loosen up, it pulls the port, which is connected very deeply to one of my main arteries. The port gives me the heeby jeebies. Just as I was in the brink of weaning off the narcotics, I have to have one in the morning just to get moving. I am a side or stomach sleeper, but stomach sleeping is not an option, and to lie comfortably on my side I have to wear a tight sports bra or place a small pillow or my hand in between my "breasts" as the hard expanders seem to knock together. No thanks. It is almost impossible to snuggle with my partner. Intimacy demands creativity at this point and the physical discomfort as well as the mental discomfort doesn't so much lend itself to the creative.

Mentally: Frustrated. It frightens me that I get winded after a brisk walk, and when I have trouble catching my breath as I first get out of bed. I can't do the same activities I could do a month ago. Guilty. I feel guilty that my partner is carrying so much of the weight. I don't feel sexy or interested in sex. Sadness.That my gorgeous honey will get bored of what I have become and will be left unsatisfied for too long. Resolved. I feel prepared for Chemotherapy. I am getting better at the waiting game. I am slightly sedated to the fact that I will be chock full of medicine that will kill healthy cells in my body, and that I will remain unaware of what side effects will happen to me until they actually do...or not. Gratitude. Grateful that I am not in this alone. That my friends have become my family and they have proven to stand by me no matter what. That the tribe I have always longed for exists. I feel loved unconditionally and supported beyond measure. The peace that that feeling brings keeps me afloat. Always.

And I miss...oh my God do I miss.. Moving with abandon, that only those without foreign objects surgically inserted into ones body can. Wine. Sex. Feeling sexy, attractive. Running, jogging, hard core work outs. Caring what I see when I look in the mirror. My long red hair, my breasts...

And still, I would not trade any of the things that I whine about for the naïveté of my mind set pre cancer. I would not trade it because I know that with the weight of this burden comes the fruit of a new life. I am not afraid anymore and that alone is the most miraculous innovation of my life. I know that the lack of fear is worth all of the above, because all of the above is temporary. Or so they say.

Anterior to Life

"Love is anterior to life
Posterior to death,
Initial of creation, and
The exponent of Breath~Emily Dickinson

Today was a good day. I have come a long way in a short time. A cancer diagnosis does that to you. You find out you have it. Your life as you know it ends. You live in limbo. You begin to accept that you have cancer. you do so by waking up each morning feeling for a millisecond that you know your life, and then remembering that you now have cancer. And with each moment you gain the strength and the knowledge and hopefully the support to empower you to make the decisions to not only carry on and function with the knowledge of your having cancer, but finding the tools to get rid of it, or fight it, whichever your case may be. You learn that you will change, your life will change, your perspective will change, your partner may change, and a number of other things will most likely change. So, here I am 10 days post bilateral mastectomy and having one of the better days I have had since diagnosis. Despite the scars, my under construction, nipple free boobs look fantastic in clothing and they don't scare the shit out of me or make me cry when I see them naked in the mirror. In fact, I love to show them off. They don't yet feel like they belong to me. I wonder if they will ever feel "private" again. I still have drains which make it a total pain in the ass to get dressed. You have to hide the drains somehow, in my case today, duct tape on the inside of my cashmere cardigan best served me with a suitable disguise (thanks to the infamous Kayla who is a superhero freak of nature that has the ability to solve, with little to no resource,everything that needs solving). Today is the second day that I have actually bothered to wear real pants or put on mascara in over 10 days. It was because Kayla needed a haircut and I still cant do it and we desperately needed to leave the house. So we went to the shop. I love my new short haircut. My skin looks fantastic. I got some new lipstick and some fancy hand me down clothes from my bestie's fashionista mom. I've gained five lbs but I'm willing to ignore it for a minute and cut myself a break. I've been high on narcotics for over a week and I'm bound to get tired of the shit and start exercising one of these days. So overall I feel good. I feel cute. It was nice to see the girls and nice to see my chair, touch my stuff, hang out in my break-room, shop talk for a bit while Jen cut Kayla's hair. After her adorable haircut, we headed to one of our staples for dinner and our gals Shae and Jenny met us there. As always we had a good time and on our way home I spoke with my friend Mel about co hosting my birthday scarf party that we are holding on Sunday. She and her hubs are starting a party planning biz of sorts and I like to promote good people when I can so I asked them to help me with this little last minute project. As usual, as soon as we get home I check the Facebook. My grandma had, unbeknownst to her, unleashed a ripple of effects that would cause Kayla and I to end our evening crying in one another's arms. She commented on a photo that was taken of me by K a couple of months ago on a day date to our favorite Texas winery, William and Chris. On this particular day, we had just come up with the financial solution to how we were going to buy our sperm. We had found our donor. He was perfect. We were giddy with joy and excitement and every natural high feeling that comes along with standing at the brink of what you believe to be one if the biggest and most beautiful, important exciting abysses of joy in ones life. We were going to make a baby. We had a donor and we would be parents, probably by this time next year. Our morning conversation was giddy full,of laughter, high fives, and random jumping up and downs. We had started the date off at brunch, then a drive to our favorite spot in the hill country to pick up our wine club shipment and enjoy a glass. Next time we made this drive I would be the DD and we would pick up a couple of bottles to save until after the baby was born, talking about how we would build up our collection during the pregnancy instead of drinking our shipment with our usual unabashed enthusiasm within days of receiving them. We brought the dogs and flirted with a baby girl who was barely walking and talking and kept wobbling over to pat Marybelle and Bertie. As had become our regular routine with any activity we did, we talked about how these trips would be different for us once the baby was here. As young parents to be, we never went anywhere or did anything anymore without comparing the experience to how it would be once our little person was finally with us. When I look at this photo I see in my eyes how my heart felt that day. I had to harden myself to it, let it melt, and then give in. Just a glimpse into what could have been, what almost was. And with my sniffle, she instinctively moved in from the other room to hold me as I cried. And here we are, a few weeks shy of my first chemo treatment, out of full time work, celebrating the fact that my cancer has not spread and that there are drugs that will keep it from coming back, the same drugs that will prevent me from allowing a pregnancy. I have done a lot of processing on this front. To mourn the loss of motherhood, or at least the idea of physically carrying a child, had to happen quickly in order for me to have the oomph that was required to do what I needed to do to face the cancer treatment. For Kayla, it has been all about taking care of me, and taking over my roles in the household as well as her own, staying professionally available at work, upholding the health insurance, making the bacon, and generally keeping our little world turning, while Im kept busy making huge decisions about how to handle what's happening in my body. For her, it was about getting shit done so I could get well. Renovate the "would be"nursery into a yoga/healing room, turning the trashed out art studio into a family guest room, etc. etc. So, the funny thing about what happened tonight is that after I wiped my tears and blew my nose to go about my business, she found something light and funny for us to watch on TV. We decided on The New Normal, because I had heard it was cute and its a gay show so I'm down...It didn't occur to me that we were setting ourselves up for the little breakthrough that we so desperately needed to finish. In the pilot of the sitcom, one of the men in the gay relationship that wants to become a dad is recording a video for his future child to watch. He gets choked up as he is telling his unborn baby how desperately he or she is so wanted and already so very loved. My mouth dropped in that awkward smirk between a laugh and a cry and I look over to see my beautiful rock as she crumbles. We fall into each others arms and we cry for the first time together, for our baby that we won't yet get to meet. Our baby that will not come in 9 months from my womb, but in almost two years from hers, our baby that will not yet live in the nursery and will not yet celebrate its first Thanksgiving or Christmas next year. We cried finally, openly for what we feel somewhat robbed of.

But our baby is so very loved and wanted. Now more than when that photo was taken. And it's moms are so much more prepared. We are stronger for that baby. We are better for that baby. As for me, I am better because of this love. So grateful for this love. This is what we signed up for. I made the right choice. This is the First Day of My Life.

Fear

"Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.

When we think that something is going to bring us pleasure, we don't know what's really going to happen. When we think that something is going to give us misery, we don't know. Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. We try to do what we think is going to help. But we don't know. We never know of we're going to fall flat or sit up tall. When there's a big disappointment we don't know if that's the end of the story. It may be just the beginning of a great adventure."~ Pema Chodron When Things Fall Apart

The truth is that I have  lived a large portion of my life in fear. Fear of not being taken seriously, not being smart enough, of being alone, not being good enough or successful enough, and most of all fear of getting sick. Terrified, in fact, of getting sick. The anxiety that has permeated my soul from this particular fear dates back to fairly early childhood, and grew stronger in early adulthood. Over the last year I had been facing this fear head on. I had been working to rationalize my irrational fears of getting sick, had worked on sifting through the root of the fear and what it is about getting sick that I'm actually afraid of. Actively i had been working through this, right up to the very morning of my diagnosis. And now I have cancer. And wheni got the phone call, I literally breathed a sigh of relief. In that instant I was cognitively aware that this fear was going to be addressed, once and for all, and that this was the beginning of freeing myself from it. Then there comes the myriad of emotions that I imagine anyone diagnosed with a dreadful disease experiences. There is the anger, the anxiety, the sadness, the depression. But the fear I was familiar with. The fear did not suddenly become more real. I have been practicing the fear for years, and it has always been real. Cripplingly so. So maybe what I am trying to say is that I am willing to embrace this time in my life because I see it as a real turning point for me. I can't know what this disease holds for me. I can speculate. I can do my best to control what I can control about the situation but I really just.can't.know.

The Bridge

Here is the ketchup. I was diagnosed with breast cancer on Monday. Three negative pregnancy tests and today my monthly visitor came. TMI? Such is my life right now. I am squabbling with myself over starting a new blog, the cancer blog, or keeping up with this blog since we are still, technically in our first year of marriage. The marriage and the cancer go hand in hand now. The cancer is part of the marriage. The cancer is in me. The cancer can go fuck itself. To say that I feel disconnected from the world is an understatement. I feel like I can't connect to anything. To live, to cope, is to go through the motions of my life pre cancer. I can do it well. It's called autopilot. I'm passing. Unfortunately there are decisions to be made, and while decisions like whether or not to lop off your boobies in exchange for something else entirely, or just scoop out part of one boob should be made under sound mind and calm spirit, I just don't know that that is a possibility. The decision could still be made for me, although it would be nice to have some control in the matter. Perhaps I jumped the gun when I went about chirping cheerfully that I knew that underneath all of it, without a shadow of a doubt I would come out on the other side of this cancer thing a better and more inspired person. An inspiring person. A fearless person. And by underneath it all I refer to the fear,the anxiety,the sadness,anger, the mourning of my unborn child, the mourning of a pregnancy I will never have,the mourning of my breasts as i know them,the mourning of my hair(that will grow back, i know), the changes that will take place inside of my body once chock full of chemicals and radiation and hormone blocking drugs with horrible side effects. Perhaps I put too much faith in the old adage "fake it till you make it". I am faking it most of the time. What i have become as a result is a vessel completely void of emotion, eerily calm, or synthetically optimistic, or a blubbering,irritable mess. I feel right now as if I'm about to lose myself. If I make the decision to have this surgery I will lose a part of myself. Forever. And I like that part of myself. In fact , I like all of myself. The self that I knew before cancer. This new self, I fear. I don't know her. I don't know this aggression. I don't know this pain. I don't know this fear or this resentment or this loss. I don't know how to bridge the gap between myself and the people around me that don't have cancer. I suppose that the body who is writing this entry is the bridge between pre cancer and post cancer me. I am not familiar with this body.

Last Leg

As I compose this, surprisingly composed as I do, I could have cancer. On the flip side,I could be 0 to 30 hours away from the biggest relief of my life. After a series of events that could turn out to be a blessing, non issues, or one complicated decision laced with painful and difficult decisions, I sit here on the last leg of my waiting period, succumbing to whatever lies directly ahead. You see, I could be 8 days pregnant and diagnosed with breast cancer. I am this close to receiving news that could mean a plethora of new realities for Kayla and me. From one end of the spectrum to the other I have been randomly putting my finger on the map of hypothetical new realities and analyzing what it would mean to be faced with each one. This is torturous, I know. It is what well meaning friends and family advise you to avoid. But it's how I do. And somehow it makes me feel more prepared for whatever I am about to go through. Here are the scenarios, whittled down to the basics, in order from most desirable to least desirable.
Scenario 1: I am pregnant. I do not have cancer.
Scenario 2: I am not pregnant. I do not have cancer.
Scenario 3: I am not pregnant. I have cancer.
Scenario 4: I am pregnant. I have cancer.

Woman Centric Life

The greatest universally understood goal in trying to achieve conception when consciously baby planning is to relax and eliminate stress. So silly because the conscious planning in itself is anxiety fructifying. That said I believe that I have been residing in a pretty awesome place since shortly after my last blog entry. The entry itself brought support via social media that was quite sweet and appreciated. Two women in particular that I hardly knew reached out and resulted in my inspiration to start a private lesbian baby planning support group on Facebook! The three of us planning to carry, along with our wives can now swap stories, share blogs, books, and offer inspiration and support. It has been a really cool thing thus far, and I doubt I would have gotten the idea if I hadn't been faced with the news of the dreaded high FSH levels. Its refreshing to find other couples with similar goals and lifestyles, also lesbians, to share in the journey of becoming parents, the not so old fashioned and sometimes incredibly overwhelming and confusing way. Then there are my precious jewels, the ladies with which we have developed close relationships with over the last few years, coming together for an uplifting impromptu dinner party last week. It was that night that I felt my anxiety truly begin to melt away. There is such great power in the support you gain from the people that know you and love you best, and unconditionally. It is no secret that we lead a female centric life, so it is actually no surprise to me that this is the place my soul has dug it's heels into, in preparation for our pregnancy attempts. I revel in my relationship with my amazing partner, in our cuddly monkeys and in the joy that these kick ass women bring to our lives. I am doing yoga, getting acupuncture treatments, taking herbs, and treating my body well. All of the above turns out to be my recipe for stress relief. I am finding myself observing throughout the days leading up to our first attempt, the peacefulness and stillness in my heart. It's all good.

Fertility

We had our "plan of care" visit with the new OBGYN on Friday. I was expecting her to go over all of the blood work and proclaim that my health and fertility hath no bounds and that we were good to go for an IUI. Instead, she told me that my FSH (Follicular stimulating hormone) levels tested "alarmingly high" which is "indicative" of poor ovarian reserve. This could be a challenge in trying to conceive, and could mean higher risk of miscarriage. She gave us a rundown of options, from giving us a maximum of three cycles without intervention, three IUI cycles with Clomid, or heading straight to a reproductive endocrinologist for stronger fertility drugs or IVF. In a span of 10 minutes or less we discussed multiple birth risks, prices, the question of early menopause running in my family, etc. I sat there smiling and nodding, feeling composed, almost as if I was expecting this news, showing no indication that I would clam up 15 minutes later in the parking lot and drive home stone faced, feeling hopeless and negative. I tried to cry, but the tears were forced. It was fight or flight to me at that moment and I didn't know which option to choose. I went from feeling like a virile young and strong 33 year old woman to a prematurely aging case, broken, eggs shriveling by the minute. Since then I have gotten a second opinion from my acupuncturist. Her opinion is that I will be able to treat my body with herbs and acupuncture to lower the FSH level. I am already responding to the treatments that we have been doing over my last cycle, my 12 day ultrasound did show a follicle and I am ovulating, so those are all good signs. We decided to go ahead with the IUI next month without drug intervention and see what happens. It is ironic. We went into the search for an OB that would perform IUI, rather than head straight to a fertility clinic (the only direction we were pointed by three separate OBGYN's in the last two years) with the opinion that I should not have to be treated as a fertility challenge since I had no reason to believe I would have problems getting pregnant, only to be faced with this news by our new favorite OB. I am working through the emotions that something like this packs on, the internal issues it brings up. It is one moment at a time. Meditation and yoga are to be my right and left hand ladies over the next month. Wish us luck!

Today

Today is about being grateful. It is to wake up in a cozy bed while its 50 something degrees outside. It is to snuggle in bed until noon with my person, my fluffy orange cat, my cocker spaniel and my chihuahua. It is about a healthy breakfast and green tea. It is the swoosh of the dishwasher and the smell of sawdust and the sound of my wife working in the garage.  It is the napping cat and side by side dog tails wagging. It is tending to my flower beds and going to buy lumber together. It is the new herb shelf that my honey built in the kitchen window. It is staining a coffee table. It is purging old stuff and finding a treasure in the form of an old box spring mattress, to be repurposed into an outdoor trellis. It is leftover dinner from last night's first fall feast with friends. It is open windows and the buzz of our neighbors working in their yards. It is a hot bath, feet up, sweet honey and fuzzy pets.

Project Preparation

"What are you looking forward to these days?" asks a favorite client yesterday. I answer with a list of upcoming house projects and then change the subject to what he is looking forward to. My coworkers are all aware of the "thing" that is actually being discussed and planned more than any kitchen or house project. Even though this client is someone that I would never hesitate to share our newest endeavor with I suppose there is a part of me that is trying to preserve some sense of it not becoming the all consuming proverbial baby that things like making a baby just naturally become. So. There. We are planning for baby. We are at the point in our progression toward a family where it is actually kind of fun. There have been moments that have made our quest seem almost too daunting to attempt. There is the decision to become pregnant or adopt. There is the donor question. This can take a while, for us almost two years, to decide on a known or unknown donor, and with that decision comes all of the legal and situational considerations of that decision. Once that decision is made, there are cost considerations and the process just avalanches itself into a myriad of  hypothetical guessing games. Oh, how riveting. But I digress. Now it is kind of fun. We love a project, and the one at hand is Project Preparation: The Body Episode. Doc gave me suggestions on how to tinker with my diet to make things more conception friendly, things like reducing caffeine intake and exercising regularly. We have taken things to the next level and are following a somewhat more stringent regimen. I have almost given up coffee and chocolate and cheese(whhaaa?) all together. This is no small feat for me.  I have reduced my alcohol intake dramatically. Before, we could kill a bottle of red several nights out of the week. Now, just a little red wine with dinner feels luxurious. I smell it more than I drink it, and that not only pacifies, but leaves more (sober) energy for fun projects around the house. Knock down a wall anyone? Tear up some floors? I'm down! I am taking the fancy expensive whole foods prenatals along with some Chinese herbs, and eating and preparing foods that are better for my digestion, and paying close attention to the quality of food that I eat. Another fun thing is the new language we are learning. Our morning conversations now include statements like "What is your basal body this morning, honey?" "No LH surge today! I am guessing I will ovulate on Saturday." And then there is the adorable question that Kayla has been asking me for at least a year, "When does our baby get here?" Hopefully not much longer.

Charade

Last night was the first Presidential Debate. I am only taking a break from my pursuit of facts, trying to piece together all of the shit that I don't understand. At some point I will probably have something meaningful to say. But my first reactions are always from the gut so here is this. This morning I'm feeling tired and frustrated. Last night I went to bed feeling frustrated, angry and sick, followed by anxiety riddled dreams all through the night. Backing up to the debates, I was surprised by how well Romney was able to charm, a little disturbed by how confidently his words rolled off the tongue, especially disturbed by how far he leaned in to the middle,catering to this particular stand off with our President. I walked out of the theater (we watched it at the Drafthouse) feeling deflated. The jury says that Romney wins the debate, and I know that for all that its worth, it was his ability to come across to his audience in the right way, saying what people wanted to hear, that "won" it. I felt irritated that Obama didn't bring it, even though what he brought was the details behind every point that he was trying to make. Romney wins for charm. Obama looks like he is fed up, his face reflecting what I am feeling at any given moment throughout the debate. I am surprised at some of the things that Romney said. The speech about freedom of religion in this country and that we are all children of the same god made me pssht out loud in my seat. Equal opportunities for all families? I'm sorry dudes but he doesn't really mean that. My family is at the moment, unequal. If every other policy he wanted to implement was something that I agreed with, unless he is on board with allowing this progression toward equal rights to take place, I will vote for the other guy. Let us be clear that there is little to nothing about Romney that I am on board with anyway; it is just that for MY particular "middle income" family, having the security of marriage protection would strengthen us a GREAT deal financially. The gay issue is only the big issue for me. I am also fond of "Obamacare, and overall appreciative of the measured intellectual approach that Obama takes to govern our country. It isn't surprising to me that he would look and act the way he did last night. I'm just a girl sitting here in Texas thinking this whole charade is just a bunch of monkey business. And I can't help but watch.

Tearing Down the House

A very nice man who is an architect and happens to be a client of mine offered to us a very unique and amazing post wedding gift. He came to look at our house and gave us any advice we wanted or needed on ways to change things or projects that we could take on ourselves or with very little hired help. What a gift it was! He was here a couple of weeks ago, spent two hours with me, drawing plans and coming up with new ideas on how to fix some problem areas in our kitchen, bathrooms and master bedroom. We went over our vast and ambitious kitchen remodel idea and ultimately decided that the best bet for us at this point would be to do what we originally said we would do with our tiny kitchen. This entails taking a cabinet out and doing simple cosmetic updates with backsplash,countertops,appliances, flooring etc. His other suggestions included building a structure outside of our kitchen window to grow things on, giving us a privacy wall and something pretty and handmade to look at. This will also make the space feel more open, as we would remove the window treatment, not to mention help with energy costs. Instead of a window shade we will put in custom made shelves for herbs and flowers. After he left I was so inspired I couldn't wait to share the ideas with Kayla, and when I did we decided to get started right away. First things first. Take down the useless cabinet. This was a fun project because we have both always wanted to demo something. It took us about 30 minutes to get the thing down, using a drill, our own weight, and taking turns beating it with a hammer.(we should invest in a sledgehammer). Big fun! I knew from the moment I laid eyes on this kitchen that this cabinet needed to go, but I am still impressed at how much more open the space looks now that it is gone. We will add a light fixture to the ceiling and touch up the paint to complete this project. It should be finished soon! I can't wait to tear down something else!

Before from Dining Room

Before from inside Kitchen

Me with my little hammer

Joy!

After from Dining Room

After from inside Kitchen

Morning, garden.

The last week has been so full in that we began to take some tangible steps to fulfill our dream of family, yet the stress of the details are such that many nights are tearful and many days are so rigged with anxiety that the regular stuff seems to elude me. I got in my car to run errands the other day and realized only as I was backing out of my driveway that I had not put in my contacts. Thankfully I had packed my glasses, in the event that my eyes got too itchy from allergies and I would need to remove said contacts. Heh. But yeah, I should back up. We have been dreaming of starting a family, or better yet expanding from dog and cat children to actual human children, for years. Many factors make now seem like the appropriate time, the most pressing being my biological clock. This little detail is hard to ignore, and tends to put the pressure on the already difficult decisions that we are trying to make during this season of our marriage. I will say that with the tears, the anxiety, and mountains of challenge that we are treading each day, comes a sense of comfort knowing that my person is trucking along side of me. In one week we have experienced the gamut of emotion. We have even processed surprise guests like uncertainty and fear, doubts and challenges to our values that seemed to come out of left field. At the end of the day it is always the same question. Do we envision ourselves with a child, or with children? Are we willing to take this step believing in our abilities to parent a healthy, happy, thriving little person? The answer to those questions is yes. Many of the other answers still bounce around unanswered. I suppose there will be unknowns every step of the way. Historically, it is this precise sort of coasting on the tides of unanswered questions that make me the most uncomfortable. But for some reason I am handling it very well. Is it possible that I am shedding unhealthy processes and adopting a Zen like approach to problem solving? I think the main difference that I am noticing in myself now is my ability to stay present. There is a here and now and it is so delicious in its ripeness. Every morning I take a little stroll around the back yard to see how everyone is doing. Today I took photos of our green friends, and some of the things that Kayla has built or is building that make me happy and proud.

Like Whoa

Happy election season, everyone!  I have layers of emotions to pilfer through. There are four major competing emotions.  These four culprits are to blame for my lack of expression, pertaining to this blog specifically.  When so many areas of my mind are clogged up in competition for my attention, it is difficult for me to believe that I am capable of expressing anything that isn't regurgitated or lackluster, with all of the BS that is swarming our senses literally every second that we "plug in". 

Since this is supposed to be a blog about marriage, more specifically a blog about an unrecognized gay marriage, I feel obligated to keep up with the blog, even as all of the above culprits work against my creative juices during this particular election season. In an effort to produce something legible and mildly interesting, I began three separate drafts before heading to the shower, relinquishing myself to another barren blog day.  Finally, as I was on around stroke 90 of my 100 nightly hair-brushings I decided to kick the buckets of the last three drafts and try to express instead my main reasons for procrastination, give each culprit a name, and talk about why they haunt me. This is an exercise to open my mind and heart in hopes that something real and more meaningful can escape from the bars of my blocked intellect in future blog posts during this political season.

Anxiety/fear

 I fear a Republican president. Fiscally, I fear for the amount of lower and middle class Americans buying into a presidential candidate who does not have their best interest in mind. My opinion and belief is that while neither party is perfect and sound, the Democratic party represents my values and the values of "the people." I come from a family of doers, but we have had our struggles, and I have personally depended on pell grants and loans to aid in my education. As long as I can remember, I have identified with a "folksier" idealism.   This is the main reason why the Democratic platform speaks to me.  Secondly, I  hate that we are debating over civil rights for gay people and that we still face so many hurdles in order to gain the rights that my community so greatly deserves. I loathe the idea of taking major steps backward when we have taken great leaps toward equality in only the last couple of years.  Finally, I like affordable health care. My experience with it thus far has been pretty sweet. The refund check from my old insurance company, due to the affordable health care act was an added bonus.  I would prefer that not to go away. 

Hope/excitement

On the other hand, gay marriage is officially on the Democratic party platform. This is huge! This is wonderful! The feeling in my heart is like Christmas!  We are at the brink of real change. The idea that I could someday legally marry my wife in the state where we live fills me with so much hope and joy. The idea of future generations in our shoes, not having to experience the ugliness that surrounds this debate today is refreshing.  It is beautiful. I can taste it... we are so fucking close. 

Frustration

Demons come out in people in hot political climates. I hate the aggressive comments on Facebook, the outright bigotry, the disregard for others' feelings or personal plight. Self righteousness and arrogance trump reason, hard facts and manners. I am saddened that we seem to forget that we are all human. Most of us care deeply about our community, our country, and what our future, and the futures of our children will hold. We forget that there is room for all of us in this country, and we should be able to cooperate and work together to improve our own lives and those lives around us. There is certainly room for us to disagree, but there is no room in my heart, personally, for blatant disrespect.  Those of us whom are of legal age to vote are supposed to be grown ups, and I am afraid not everyone is acting the part. There seems to be more name calling, shit slinging and finger pointing than fact checking and researching, or even soul searching.  More so, I detest the ugliness that the demons bring out in people that I know or have known in the past. I like to practice keeping an open heart and mind, essentially believing that we are all inherently good and that things like hate, disrespect,and bigotry are somehow learned, or are stemmed from self consciousness or fear. Having such a deeply personal issue on the hot seat tests my compassion for people who believe themselves morally superior, especially when their example speaks quite the opposite.  I have to find a way to stand up for myself while keeping my personal peace intact.  It is uncomfortable at best, threatening at times. 

Romance

Kayla and I were set up on a semi blind date to watch the vice presidential debates four years ago. I was already impressed by her scorching good looks and her movie tastes listed in her Myspace profile, and as awkward as our first meeting was, her whip smart  commentary during the debate had me swooning. I was thrilled when she asked me to stay afterward for a beer, and from there we proceeded our rather slow courtship that resulted in the rockstar relationship that we have today. We honeymooned through the election season and baked an apple pie for America the night before the election, when we decided that we would be in a relationship, officially, and discussed in detail what that decision meant to each of us.  So when Obama was elected, we were fresh in love, full of hope for ourselves and our relationship, and full of a bursting hope for our country, that we agreed so passionately was not in the best hands with former President Bush. We cried and held hands as we watched him give his acceptance speech. It was so romantic and wonderful. People were dancing in the streets from west campus to downtown east Austin. I felt patriotic for the first time since I was a little girl, and I imagine those dancers in the street were feeling something similar.  So, as we begin to feel the first winds of fall blow into town, and feel the buzz of energy of election season spring into life, I can't help but have flashbacks of the woman I met four years ago, the sexy little beast who hates onions as much as I do and loves Pedro Almodovar, almost certainly more than I do.  She has deeply affected me, helped me to grow stronger and more solid in my convictions.  She holds my heart and breathes my ideals.  She feeds my passion, supports my endeavors and rocks my world.

These culprits compete for my attention.  I would love to spend these days dazzled by my love, and relishing in the memories of our budding romance that is still so strong today...but we are here now.  At this place in time.  And shit got serious.  We are a family now.  We share a house.  We share a life.  We are ready to have children.

We need this election.

Like Whoa. 

Tired of Talking about Chikin

 As I blog this, my heart races and I have trouble catching my breath.  I have to keep reminding myself that the intensity of this issue will pass away in a few days, and there will be more puppy and kitty posts on FB than heated arguments and finger pointing and arguments about who is right or wrong. Is the Chick Fil A issue about chikin, free speech, or equality?  If I seem angry or disdainful, it is because it hurts to be attacked on such a large scale.  Here again, the political is personal.  Painfully personal.  I try to not take the backlash to heart, but issues like this can't help but bring to light a certain ugliness in those around us that we would otherwise be ignorant to. Ouchy.

Here comes the rant!
Dan Cathy,  President of Chick Fil A's publicly speaking out against gay marriage stinks of publicity stunt to me.  He publicly spews his "family values" on a radio show, offending droves of people who get ruffled,  lash out and protest the company, sending out a backlash of support for Chick Fil A.  And boom.  They have lines for miles of God fearing anti protesters ready to gorge on fast food in the name of what is good and holy. Cha Ching! Chick Fil A win!  Kind of like the JC Penney/Ellen thing.  I get it. I did it too.

 I personally don't give a f--- about Chick Fil A.  After the food poisoning episode of 1998, I haven't touched the stuff.  As a rule, we don't eat fast food at all anymore so the possibility of finding myself in a situation where chikin would sound like a viable or even tasty option at this point is slimmest slim to none.   I am well aware that if given a list of all of the political organizations that were financially supported by all of the places that I patronize, I would find a few if not many that I would find the proverbial beef with, and I may or may not look for an alternative option, depending on how it affects me, my community and whether or not I feel like my dollar or my "$6.50" will make a difference or a dent.  But in this particular case, if I still ate chikin I would most certainly quit.  Why?  Because I can not, with good conscience, patronize a company that's President squeals  out so loudly and publicly against a right that I feel so strongly that I deserve as a human being, the right to be legally married to my wife, and then puts that chikin money right where his big loud mouth is and donates it to organizations like Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, Exodus (Proclaiming Freedom from Homosexuality since 1976), organizations that fight to keep homosexuals demoralized, ostracized and on unequal footing in the eyes of the law.  The above organizations  all sound quite nice and benign (with the exception of Exodus, which is seriously a head scratcher, or a knee slapper, in it's archaic ridiculousness)...but seriously, this is another can of worms and another blog all together.  My point is not just that I disagree with this stance, or that I believe him to be a bigot, or that I find it distasteful that he chooses to ostracize many of his patrons (I mean, gay people like chikin too!) it is that by patronizing his company, I would by default knowingly and willingly be donating money to these organizations. So there are many of us who want to get the word out as to why these issues are so important to us. My issue with Chick Fil A ends here.  I don't think the chikin business should be shut down, nor do I fancy that my monetary donation to an organization that aids in my fight for equality,  in the amount of a  chikin dinner, is going to immediately change the world, but it makes me feel better.  For some, protesting outside the Chick Fil A with a picket sign makes them feel better, and I am proud to see them standing up for themselves, for me, for our values. A dear friend told me this afternoon, as he was leaving me to go protest in front of our neighborhood Chick Fil A, that he wasn't protesting to change anyone's mind, he was protesting to raise awareness. He said "I don't want to argue with anyone.  I just want to put a face to the issue."

At the end of the day, as frustrated and bent out of shape as I can get over these issues, I have to remind myself that there is such a glimmer of hope in these times.  For me this issue is about equality.  And in this fight, we will struggle, just like we struggled in the fight for every civil liberty that we have gained thus far.  It will get better.  We are talking about it.  It is uncomfortable, painful and stressful, but damnit if it isn't going to be worth it!

And now for a couple of  fun quotes that I could not help but share!


  "Great food, shitty morals. I can't and won't tell someone how to run their business - but I won't support something that belittles me as an American and ultimately, a human being. :/"  -My friend Jacob

"I didn't eat at Chik Fil A or any other fast food restaurant today. Let's do ourselves a favor and boycott all of them, not for their political ideologies, but because they are physically killing us.
... " Anonymous FB friend

It is your right to disagree with homosexuality, but would Jesus Christ support discrimination? -My friend S

"If you are going to speak out publicly against [a group of people], and say a bunch of stupid shit about [group of people], that is well within your first amendment right.  You are then opening yourself up to criticism from anyone who disagrees with you.  If I want to point out publicly that you said some stupid shit and tell people that they shouldn't eat at your restaurant, that is well within my first amendment right."  -My lovely and ever so brilliant wife.

Walk, Drink, Eat Portland, Oregon

Portland Walks- Each day of vacation we started from our quaint little guest house in Woodstock, with the chickens and the homemade granola and coffee from Trader Joe's.  We walked through the neighborhood to our bus stop to admire the lush landscaping in the neighboring yards.  For us, Portland consisted of a lot of walking.  A lot.  I like to take in a new city by walking it.   The Clarks booties that I wear to sling hair for hours on end are not conducive to pounding pavement for any length of time.  Who knew? The first day, we walked 3 miles down Belmont, from a coffee shop to a cafe, admiring all of the beautiful old Victorian style houses that the "rich hippies" must live in.  By the time we arrived at a.n.d cafe my feet were destroyed, and for the rest of the vacation, it was all flip flops all the time for me. I always worry that I have packed too many shoes when I travel. This time I packed four too many pairs. 

Portland Drinks- One of my favorite things about Portland is Urban Wineries.  Grapes from Washington and California are delivered to these winery warehouses/tasting rooms in urban areas.  They make the wine, serve the wine, drink the wine, often alongside cheese plates and snacks, sometimes dinner.  We started off Sunday morning at Hip Chicks Do Wine for a little tasting.  When we told the owner what we were up to, she insisted on driving us over to Alchemy in her giant truck with the HIP CHICKS vanity plate on the front.  By then, it was 11:30 am, we were drunk and were pretty certain that the guy at Alchemy was too.  He drank with us as we tasted, served us a taste of the new wine that he was to bottle the next day, and entertained us until our cab arrived with stories of how he came to make wine, meet his wife, move to Portland and build his business.  All of these winemakers are so inspiring to us because they strike a chord.  They are doing something new with the urban winery.  They are bringing something to the community that the community didn't know that they needed.  They are making something amazing and lucrative and they "love doing what they do".  It is this spirit that has led me to work for myself, do the job that I do and live the life that I live, and what drives Kayla and I in our endeavors together, to tap into that creativity and turn it into livelihood.  And.  Drink. Wine.

Portland Eats-  Oregon's foodie culture is what inspired us to visit.  We gathered recommendations from friends and the Internet and set out to eat at the very best places.  Portland has a big food truck culture, but we skipped the trucks (and Mexican food) all together.  We have enough of that in Texas.  We sprang for the Asian food, the french inspired, the foodie food, and the local food. Two of my favorites were  Pok Pok and Clyde Commons.  They both left me craving more as soon as we finished our last bites.   Other notables were Besaw's, Toast, The Delta, and A.N.D. cafe.  I followed A.N.D. on Facebook for a couple of weeks, so I got to see photos of the daily specials and everything looked so amazing.  It is a vegan cafe that also serves a lot of gluten free options.  I am not vegan.  In fact, I love meat and I adore cheese.  So, I ordered the sandwich with fake meat, buffalo sauce and fake bleu cheese, because I will always order the thing on the menu that has buffalo sauce and bleu cheese.  It was impressive!  Afterwards, I was able to walk around without cramping!  I felt full and satisfied, but still light and energetic.  I am not jumping on the vegan bandwagon, but I did appreciate this food.  We ate plenty of pork the rest of the vacation to satisfy my carnivorous desires.  Last but certainly not least, my all time favorite was Bai Mint.  I can not stop thinking about the beef and pumpkin curry dish that we ordered.  It tasted like grandmas pot roast on thai crack.  We ate it two nights in a row and I dream of it daily.  I will study this dish and will not rest until I have it mastered.  So. Delicious.



Lavender Infused Gin cocktail at Besaw's

 

Coffee/Woodworking Warehouse

Besaw's Brunch



Vegan Bbq and Bleu Cheese.



Bai Mint Take Out

Vegan and Gluten Free Biscuits and Bacon and Eggs at a.n.d. Cafe

All Vegan at a.n.d.  I am surprisingly impressed.



Last Breakfast in Portland.  Toast in Woodstock.



Toast

 

Fancy sugar cubes at Clyde Commons, served with our coffee and brandy.



Move and Shake

Excitement!  Moments ago we just came to an amazing decision! We have been pricing all of our kitchen cosmetic updates for weeks. We were pretty stoked about the pretty new counter tops, tiling our own back splash, learning to tile a floor, etc...but at the same time we couldn't stop wondering out loud to each other how difficult it might be to tear down the half wall in order to make our kitchen bigger,open concept, with our farm style dining table floating in the middle.  The toss up is to remodel the shit out of the house that we live in, planning to stay here for the long haul, or do the cosmetic updates that will sell the house in a few years so that we can upgrade (and find things in the new house to change).  But tonight as I was browsing through local real estate listings...yes I still do that occasionally...hush...I found a home for sale (in our neighborhood) that had the kitchen that I have been daydreaming about, in a house that has a practically identical layout to ours.  It is possible that said kitchen even looked like ours at some point, or maybe it was built that way. Regardless,seeing the photo allowed me to envision exactly what ours would look like if that damned half wall was destroyed, and we added more counter space and cabinetry.  I had to interrupt Kayla from her book to share the photos. In a typical 5 minutes or less brainstorm session we came up with a plan for knocking out a wall, moving a fridge and a sink,expanding the pantry and essentially changing the look and functionality of our kitchen all together.  As we mapped it out from our lazy perches on the sofa, our minds seemed to simultaneously make themselves up.  We will do it.  We will slowly turn this house into  the best space for our personal living habits and we will stay here.  Indefinitely.  It requires a little more patience and money, but ultimately more satisfying in the long run.  In the short run we can still DIY the shit out of our smaller endeavors.  We have a patio to finish, some foundation to stain and some light fixtures to replace.  Move and shake!  Kayla is "nose back in book" and I am signing off for the night.

Peek Sneak

A couple of weeks ago I made the observation that  when we are finished working really hard at work we come home and work really hard at home.  Whether building furniture, tearing up our yard to build a new one, making clothes, purses and/or art, it is challenging for us to just sit and be still.  I thought it might be a nice idea to get out of town for a few days so that we aren't tempted by our house and our insatiable need to DO and MAKE. The month of July is a slow one for the hair business, so we decided to take advantage of it and go on a little vacation.  A belated honeymoon!   We decided on Portland.  Neither of us have ever been, the weather sounds nice, and people that we like tend to rave about it. We plan to have some  good food and wine (of course), and maybe sit and be still a couple of times.  In the meantime, business is still slow, and I have a lot of free time on my hands.  We have been bouncing around the idea of starting a little Etsy store for a while so I thought now would be a good time to start that rolling.  Naturally, our crafts are all over the place.  Our products range from little purses to cool furniture pieces, all made from recycled materials. My eye for finding treasures among other people's trash, picking out materials and coming up with new ideas, coupled with Kayla's sewing and woodworking skills, astoundingly endless reserve  of patience, and an eye for detail makes us a pretty rad and crafty team.  I think turning these passions into a business is the obvious next step.  We started doing this stuff to fulfill our own needs, and the "doing" turned into an obsession.  It makes sense that if we like the stuff, someone else will too, and we can get paid to keep making it. I hope so, because it's fun.

We hope to have our first furniture piece (coffee table) and to launch our first clutch collection in the fall.  Here is a sneak peek of what is to come.  Enjoy your peek and your day!

This clutch used to be jeans and a flannel shirt.



The inside of these clutches have designated slots for your lipstick, credit card, and smartphone!



The floral one is made from one of our leftover wedding linens (that Kayla made from old sheets).  Laundered, of course. The lining, not pictured here, came from a pair of pinstriped trousers.



Here is the base for the new coffee table, made from reclaimed lumber.

Here is the top.  An old window!

I repositioned some art on the wall today and took a photo to share with Kayla.  I posted it here to show you the entertainment center that started the avalanche of refinishing.  I found this monster in the breezeway of our old apartment building.  It had a ridiculous faux wood grain 70s asian inspired laquered finish and shutter doors in the middle.  We took the cabinet doors off, sanded everything down to refinish, freshened up the hardware and turned the middle drawers into shelves for our TV equipment....We need a bigger TV.  Bertie photobombs.



Sigh DIY

  I havent blogged in a while, but we have been busy! Business on the DIY front is strong.  Hot damn, it's been hot, and the heat has cooked our brains into overload.   The best thing to do is to stay inside, blast yourself with artificial coolant,  busy yourself with your favorite indoor activities, and make plans. Plans to do this, plans to do that...and wait.  BUT! The last two days we have gotten sweet relief from the heat.  While we haven't finished a single project (blame it on the heat, blame it on our shared OCD brain), we have several that are underway, and this weekend's cool front inspired us to make progress where progress was long overdue.  The gravel patio that we started and abandoned weeks ago made some headway yesterday.  We got the border put in, levelled the ground and laid down the paver steps.  While we were working, the wind started blowing and  the temperature dropped a good 10-20 degrees.   As we labored, a few raindrops came down.  The drastic temperature change, coupled with these heavenly drops was recipe for mad abandon of fatigue and a drive to delve into our work with a new sense of inspiration and energy.  We knew it was only a matter of a day or even hours until the sun punishes us with her heady heat again.  We had to act fast!  We got excited.  The dogs got excited. We had to wet the dirt to get the patio border in the ground, so there was mud everywhere, and Bertie and Marybelle appropriately got muddy as hell.  At the end of the day we got this (pictured below), and Bertie and Marybelle got baths.

Major improvement from a few weeks ago.  Where you see dirt, soon there will be gravel, eventually a pergola to cover the slab, which may or may not eventually be stained for a more polished look. 


Here is what else we have been up to lately...

Last weekend we bid farewell to some good friends that I used to work with in a salon.  They sold their home and moved to be closer to family.  We had a nice coffee party and when we left, they gave us an iris from their garden to plant in ours.  Instead of just potting it, we braved one of our hottest days of the summer thus far making a nice new bed in the shade to plant this iris, who had made her home in a pond of water before.  We vowed to baby this girl so she can survive her new digs. I have been watering her at least once if not twice a day, and so far she is doing okay, a little shocked, but Oka-ay...ehr, I have hope.

When we are in moving/shaking frenzy mode (when are we not?), we sometimes like to scour Craigslist to find free treasures to improve our home environment.  This week we came across an ad for free wood at a curb that was in our neighborhood,so we drove over (in two trips) and scored some reclaimed lumber.  Kayla is using some of it to build a badass coffee table (more on that later), but we used these cute wooden frames to start some new raised garden beds in our lawn.  Here they are...

 We are using the lasagna gardening technique.  Instead of digging up the grass or killing it with chemicals, we just laid down the frame, threw several layers of newspaper and put wine bottles on top in order to hold them down until we get around to coming up with some dirt, mulch, and plants to fill in the beds properly.  In the meantime, the grass will die and the newspapers will slowly decompose, eventually becoming compost for our future grub.

I believe a collective prayer has been answered.  It rained early this morning.  Real rain,as in water falling consistenly from the sky, complete with dark gray clouds.  It helped set the paver stones into our patio area and cooled us down to a delightful degree.  More important, it set the tone for a cozy, romantic, deliciously quiet, but productive day. We didn't have to run the AC at all, spent the entire day puttering around the house, sewing pillows, hemming curtains, touching up paint, making things,  etc.  Come dinner time, the magic reigned and we spent a good hour outside having dinner, chocolate and wine, and dreaming of projects to come, not sweating our asses off and not warding off flesh devouring mosquitios.  This phenomenon in the end days of June, early July in Austin Texas is something to Soak. Up.  We did!