Board Games Night

Editorial Note: Okay....I realize that it is TECHNICALLY Sunday but I've decided to treat my days like the bars do. The 'day' isn't over until I go to bed, kinda like the 'until they close the bar for the night'. Today was a busy day, museum sleepover done by 9am, met my sister and friend for breakfast directly after, shopped with them in the morning, exhausted by 2pm, went home and napped until 5pm, left to pick up my sister-in-law and went to friends for the evening. Totally planned to be home no later then 11:30pm so that I would still have time to post, that didn't happen. Just got in the door now, at 1:30am. So give me props that I still opened my laptop rather than just going to bed and saying f**k it!

Tonight my sister-in-law and I went to our friends to play board games, something we haven't done in a few months and was long overdue. We didn't bother to invite my husband even though the guy friend is his best friend as he does not like board games and I hate continuously reminding him of the rules through out a game only to have him win because we all helped him out. I, on the other hand, LOVE boardgames, specifically strategy games. I'm not a huge fan of games that rely to much on the luck of a dice roll but a game that I have to think hard to play is one of my favorite socializing things to do.

They had just purchased a few new games through an online dealer we had discovered 3 years ago when we were attending Fan Expo in Toronto (yes, I am a geek, married to one and friend with many), called Fun Games Cafe. We decided to try one of their new purchases called Letter from Whitechapel. I think it definitely was one that we will fit into our rotation and after the rules were completely explained very engrossing.

{Letters from Whitechapel is a crime and investigation game, created by the same game designers of Garibaldi and Mister X - Flight Through Europe, inspired by the Jack the Ripper murders and the desperate attempts by Scotland Yard to stop his bloody killing.

Night after night, the player who controls Jack commits a new murder and attempts to reach his hideout, while the other players, in the role of detectives, try to track him down, collecting clues that can lead to his capture. - via Fun Games Cafe}

If you are like me and joy a good board game, here are my favorites, in no particular order:

Set

Settlers of Catan

Blokus

Ticket to Ride

Carcassone

{All pictures via Fun Games Cafe}

If you play board games have you played any of the ones I listed as my favorites? Do you have a suggestion for us to try?

The headaches of volunteering

I am a girl guide leader for a local Sparks unit, which means I plan and supervise weekly meetings that include singing, activities, games and crafts with 5-6 year old girls. This year I have 12 girls enrolled and have one other guider to help me run the meetings.

{Sparks via Girl Guides of Canda website}

When I was growing up I went through the girl guide program from start to finish (Brownies, Girl Guides, Pathfinders and Rangers/Junior Leaders, although Sparks didn't exist when I was 5) but when I moved away to attend university I didn't continue. In fact it was only last year, 10 years since I was a junior leader, that I signed up as a guider. I did so for two reasons.

1. I wanted to volunteer somewhere, as I hadn't since high school, and believe that the Girl Guide organization is truly a great place for girls to build confidence and learn interesting skills.
2. My sister had been a guider for the last few years and peer pressure is an amazing thing.

Last year's unit only had 8 girls, 2 of whom rarely showed up. Also the majority of the girls were 6 years old which meant that they had already been exposed to structure and rules at school for a year so had an easier time listening and behaving during meetings. 2 guiders were more then enough.

This year...not so much!

We have alot of 5 year olds, not to mention all 12 girls show up for almost EVERY meeting. I did not expect it to be that much hard to run a meeting with 4-6 more girls but let me tell you....

Having only one assisting guider is getting to be not enough but unfortunately none of my other friends have shown a huge interest in joining. I'm sure I could twist some arms but I really want women that WANT to be there, not just there to do me a favor. I am now considering asking the mothers of my Sparks if one or two of them would be interested in helping out. I hesitated on this because I think that it would be difficult to tell a girl she is misbehaving in front of her mother, as well as I don't want a mother to come and just 'hang out' with her daughter. I need her to assist with preparation of crafts, activities and snacks, as well as just helping me keep them from running and screaming everywhere!

Which brings me to my newest headache with volunteering. For some reason, some people don't realize that I'm actually a VOLUNTEER, not a paid employee which means I have a full time job during the day. It is not my job to chase after you when you don't submit things on time, nor can I read minds and know that you do not understand a process.

Tonight we are going to the Manitoba Museum of Man & Nature for a sleepover. It is an area event, not a unit one, which means that I don't plan it and it isn't only my 12 girl going, rather 150 girls from sparks, brownies and guides will be attending.

When I sent out the information I told mothers they would be welcome to come as well to act as supervisors. The mothers that chose to attend were informed be me in person that they were required by Girl Guides of Canada to have a background check done and that they needed to contact our provincial office to do this.

Two of the four had no problems, the third misunderstood me and when to the Province of Manitoba's Court offices to get a background check done (this was sorted out but cost her additional money), and the fourth one...on the fourth one....

She submitted the form when I sent her a reminder from our area along with links to provincials forms (links I did NOT have earlier) but she didn't complete it and it was rejected. I was told yesterday that they would not be able to submit a new one in time for her to be approved to attend tonight, which I forwarded to her, and proceeded to receive a wonderful email this morning informing me (and cc'ing area) that she was "extremely disappointed in the lack of communication" on my part to properly inform parents of the change in required paperwork, that she didn't receive emails or paperwork from our organization other then the last minute email reminder. EXCUSE ME?!?!

In an attempt to remain diplomatic I apologized that this situation occurred but reminded her I had spoken to her IN PERSON about the requires, at which time I had told her I don't handle that part and she had to contact the provincial office. Not to mention there was no change as she mentioned. This had always been a requirement. Lastly I told her that I am always available via email, phone and before/after meetings to answer questions and address concerns.

Rather then dropping it, she insists that she had no other information and that she has 'spoken to other parents' who agree with her. Really?!? Well then why the f**k doesn't anyone say something to me? I'm not a mind reader. (Of course that wasn't my response but I wish it could have been. I remained diplomatic.)

In the end, area was able to rush through her second application and she was approved which means she will be attending tonight. My questions is, does she not realize that she will be in close proximity to me for over 4 hours tonight, as well as sleeping close to me, as we are grouped with our units? I am fully prepared to say everything I wrote in my emails to her face if she brings it up, is she prepared to be as rude in person?

I understand being frustrated when things don't go smoothly but when you originally didn't even register your daughter and yourself by the deposit deadline and because I was kind enough to pay personally for additional spots because I KNEW some would be late which allowed you to still get in you think you would be a little more courteous. Not to mention I volunteer my time weekly to create a place for your daughter to meet new friends and come out of her extremely shy self.

Really long story short, I won't quit guiding because of people like this but it doesn't change the fact that I wish I could tell them to go F**K their selves.

Why Google isn't always the best answer...

I woke up today with really itchy breasts/nipples (sorry if this wasn't this is too much information for some people). It is day 32 of my cycle and still no period. As I never really paid attention to my breasts during my menstrual cycle BEFORE I started trying, I don't remember if this actually happened regularly for me.

I decided that this was worth pulling out a test...I know, I know...I said I would wait but HELLO! my breasts are ridiculously itchy right now, you try and patiently wait when an obvious early pregnancy sign shows up.

Regardless the test was a resounding NEGATIVE, again. Perhaps my cycle is really long and it is still too early for my HCG hormone to show up? More likely it is a pre menstrual sign for me. We'll see how it pans out in the next few days.

Wanting to have more answers or basically just read stuff that reconfirms my 'theories', I turned to my trusty friend Google and typed in "sensitive breasts during period". I was rewarded with a lot of stuff that I already knew. I then thought, well mine aren't so much sensitive as they are itchy, so I typed in "itchy breasts" and the results came back "BREAST CANCER". Are you kidding me?!! So rather then turn into a true hypochondriac I decided to end my search at this point and not even bother to open any of the links that were provided.

Sometimes Google is NOT the best answer...

Trying to ignore my obsessive tendencies...

Not sure what I was thinking making a challenge to myself to post EVERYDAY just after the payroll & AR clerk in my division quit and I am currently juggling her position on top of mine, while we look for a replacement for HER replacement (we replaced her internally with a recruiter but now we need to get another recruiter before this one can take over the payroll and AR responsibilities), but I want to give it my best attempt to make it every day so I'm logging on late after our AGM tonight.

So tomorrow will mark a 32 day cycle for me and I still haven't gotten my period. You already know that I told myself to not take another test until I was late but that doesn't stop me from worrying. Worrying about whether my period will actually come, regardless of being pregnant.

Normally I consider myself the calm one in our relationship and my husband is the worrier. Everyone that knows us will agree. D can't help but fixate on the littlest of issues. My friend referred to it as 'festering' once and I completely agree. He'll ask me the same question over and over again once he's decided its an issue until its solved. Its to the point that I either snap or tune him out. I don't even bring certain things up because I know they would be catalysts to a night listening to what ifs. But when it comes to this whole trying to conceive my rational, calm side takes a back seat to the crazy. I honestly have arguements inside my head where one part is tell the other part to take a chill pill. Currently the calm, rational me is winning but its unlikely to continue if I don't menstrate by this weekend and test negative again.

I hate not being able to see what is going on side my body (in a nongross way). Wouldn't it be great to get memo's when your progestrone was going to spike or ovulation was on course for 16 days after menstration? Perhaps an owners manual could come along with you when you were born?

Basically I know I can't do anything but wait right now but here's hoping I'm not having to call my doctor next week to get another perscription of Provera or take more tests. I just want to go back to being NORMAL.

My Journey to create a life of Balance & Contentment

Last fall I attended a retreat, a Leadership Development Intensive, were we worked on understanding ourselves and what really want in life as well as constructive ways to communicate and interact with others. One of the things I left with was my Greater Purpose Statement which is; "Acting without regard for other perception of me, I voice my true opinion & chose to create a life of balance & contentment".

One of the key points that I realized through this intensive and I suppose something I have been thinking about for awhile now, is that now that I'm not worrying about things like getting out of debt or whether I will meet the right man and getting married, I am concerned that I'm actually living the best life for myself. Basically I want to be confident that I'm making decisions that will leave me feeling HAPPY.

This doesn't mean that I don't have more trivial concerns on a day to day basis...need I remind you of my mini meltdown to crazy over the last week when it came to taking pregnancy tests? But what it does mean is that I'm confident with where I am in my life and I am no longer thinking that the grass is green on the other side of the fence or spending hours day dreaming about things that are far out of my reach.

I mentioned in a previous post about how I planned to set monthly resolutions for myself and one of the categories was Motivation. Under this motivation category I had mentioned that I wanted to start a book/women's club where we met regularly to discuss books that we read that helped keep up inspired to reach our goals and challenge what we think of as Happy. I wanted a positive environment where we could feel safe to talk about our problems and dreams. The problem was I had NO IDEA who would want to commit to something like that. Most of my close friends aren't really interested in sharing their innermost thoughts in front of others that would probably be strangers to them, nor do you want to just have the same women that you usually hang out with be the only ones to get together because it would become just another social gather which could quickly break down into just another night out with friends or be demoted as not a priority, or the few friends that I could think of that would really have the same commitment don't even live in the same province, let alone the same city.

Then I thought of my two female coworkers that I attended the LDI with. I consider them friends at work but we don't socialize alot outside of our office so I was hesitant to ask them, thinking that they would be put off by it and tell me they weren't interested. I finally decided to email them after I had a conversation with one of them where I had encouraged her to take advantage of our employee assistances program at work to help work through some family issues she was having. The three of us had shared a lot of our personal lifes with each other on our retreat, they know about my issues with some of my (ex)friends, my miscarriage, problems with my brother and so on, and I know that their personal lives aren't nearly as smooth as they appear at work.

The next morning I received replies back from both of them before I got to work and when I finally read them (yup I put it off for a few minutes thinking that I would be disappointed when they both said no) I was pleasantly surprised that they were both IN! So long story short we have scheduled our first get together for March 1st afterwork at my house.

Our first book is The Happiness Project - by Gretchen Rubin which I also mentioned in my previous post about resolutions and goal setting.

I think this experience should reinforce to me that I shouldn't always assume what others will think and then not do something for fear that that assumption will come true. I decided to ask even though I thought they would say no and now I was proven wrong and am very excitted!

A 30 Day Challenge...for now...

I love blogging. I love reading other peoples thoughts and opinions (especially friends...hint, hint), and I like having a venue to spew out mine (regardless of whether others are reading or not). Unfortunately I have a tendency to fall into slumps where I either have nothing to say or more likely too much to say but no idea where to start.

I wrote in my wedding blog consistently until I actually got married and when I had stuff to post of things I DID and not just wanted to do I stopped.

In an attempt to get into a habit of posting I have decided to take a 30 day challenge similar to my friend Erica's November challenge, although I don't care if I write just about me or about 'interesting' topics. ;) I am challenging myself to post once a day (either on this blog or on my wedding one, which definitely needs some updates) for the next 30 days, in other words, until March 7th.

Hopefully I will then continue to post at least twice a week or more going forward.

Here's to 30 days of writing!

The downside of trying to conceive

I have debated about continuing to post about my trying to conceive 'saga' now that I've made my blog public and some of my family and friends read it, mainly because I didn't want to be known as the women who has TROUBLE conceiving if I end up having a miscarriage in the future or can't conceive without fertility drug help. But I've decided that I've let you in this far so I might as well continue.

That being said, letting YOU in is completely different then posting about it on Facebook where high school classmates, coworkers and acquaintances are also reading. I feel its none of their business and I would rather not receive shallow comments of encouragement or sympathy. I will not be alerting facebook until I'm far along into my second trimester, perhaps even longer if the people I tell can hold back from congratulating me on my Facebook wall. Personally I would NEVER talk about someones pregnancy on their public wall unless its in response to their own status about it. Just because you know, doesn't mean they wanted everyone else to know....that is what private messages are for.

I am aware of the fact that I haven't really been trying that long. That I was able to conceive the second month after we started and that my miscarriage happened so early it is considered 'normal' by the medical standards so my doctor doesn't see why I shouldn't be able to conceive naturally within the next few months. It just feels like forever because of my three month hiatus from my period. Not to mention time slows down when you are counting it in weeks & days; 14-16 days from period to ovulation, 14 days from ovulation to period and when you can take a pregnancy test (if you are like me and can't wait until you are actually 'late').

This month I treated the second week after my period as an entire ovulation week since I'm not sure whether I'm going back to the 32 day cycle I was on or the average 28 day cycles. Since we conceived easily the first time I didn't stress about having sex every night and doing all the other old wives tales, nor do I bother with charting my temperature. Having sex every other night is good enough for me, if it happens it happens - although that sounds a little more laid back then I ACTUALLY am when it comes to me finding out and taking pregnancy tests, which brings us to my mini crazy episode I experienced this month.

Based on my calculations I shouldn't have taken an early detection test until this Saturday at the earliest, unfortunately my wanting NEEDING to know over road any common sense I pulled out a test on the Thursday. No surprise when it showed up NEGATIVE, so I threw it in the garbage immediately rather then wait the allotted 3 minutes. I started to second guess myself and 2 hours later pulled it out of the garbage to take a second look. Surprisingly the test appeared to have a faint line making the minus into a plus. "OMG!!" screams through my head, "my husband has super sperm" is the second thought. I figure the faint line is because its REALLY early so I plan to retest the next day, I bought a four pack from Costco so I was all set. Friday comes along and I retest but this time it stays NEGATIVE.

Okay, I tell myself, the other test (a Shopper's Drug Mart brand) must have been MORE sensitive then this Clear Blue one and I'll wait to retest on Saturday. (Now I realize that I should have stopped the retests and waited until I was ACTUALLY late but I told you already...I NEED to know!). Saturday and Sunday (yes that's right Sunday too) tests came back negative as well. So I'm now completely convinced that Clear Blue sucks and its the sticks fault. In fact when my sister (who is one of the only people I told) asks I tell her that the tests didn't work. She responds back, you mean they were negative, and I say yes, they didn't work. (Note how this is the only option in my opinion, not that I might actually NOT be pregnant).

So its now Monday and I decide that I'm giving myself ONE more shot, I go to Shoppers and pick up a test that is the same brand that gave me the faint + and take the test when I get to work. At this point, even if my period is on Friday I am only 4 days early so something should show up if I'm pregnant. I also tell myself that I'm being ridiculous and that this is it. I am not wasting another test until I am a few days late if this one comes up negative. It did and now I need to realize that the first one was the faulty one not the rest.

I googled false positive results and one of the main causes is when a women 'second guesses' and pulls the test out of the garbage hours later. The test is now invalid and may give weird results. Good to know that I'm not the only crazy women digging through garbage to have that second look though!

So here's hoping that I either get my period this week or I actually am pregnant and the hormone levels are still to low because I really don't want to have to keep taking hormones to cause my menstrual cycle to work.