In my heart, I know I'm cool

So I finished the knitted cell-phone-thingamagig, and you know what? My niece dug it!! She really did! Of course, she dug the cell phone more, but what self-respecting pre-teen wouldn't? Here's a shot of the finished whosiwhatsit:
















And of my niece, The Nodster, modeling said whatnot:




















The problem for me was, I took my small knitting back with me to Texas with only the supplies for the cell phone cozy. And let me tell ya. Texas? It's big. You know the saying, everything's big in Texas. And driving across Texas? It takes a big, long time to get anywhere. And I get bored super easily. So there I am on Sunday, with a big ole long drive ahead of me, and nothing but 8 bazillion country music stations standing between me and my house. Sorry. Not a big country music fan. But that's a story for another time. ANYWAY...

Our car has a GPS navigation system in it that has found us many a place to eat on long stretches of cross-country driving. So I wondered to myself if it was smart enough to find me someplace to buy yarn. I pulled up the Point of Interest by name menu and typed in Hancock Fabrics. And by all the dumb luck, there it was, not a half-hour drive away. So yours truly was able to get her knit on while driving back home across the some of the most boring radioland this side of the Mississippi.

Life is good.

Bliss is a Sopapilla

After a hard week of anxiety and pain, there's nothing like a little taste of home to make all things right in the world.

Let me explain.

I grew up in southern New Mexico, and I'll tell you what. I took New Mexican cuisine WAY for granted. I can remember a time when I was bored, for pete's sake, with the food at the hole-in-the-wall Mexican food place near the dental office where my mom has worked since the earth was young and, oh, sorry, Mom. Anyway, that all changed when I moved away from home and learned that the Mexican food I grew up with was regional. You just can't get that kind of Mexican food outside of New Mexico. But I'm always on the lookout for anything approaching what I remember from my growing-up time.

So tonight we tried a new Mexican place that opened up in what was formerly a "chicken shack." Clucks-R-Us, I think it was called. Ok, that's mean. Not important anyway since they went out of business. So, the food was actually pretty good! Not perfect, but hey, we're in Oklahoma. They do this thing with cheese sauce here. What can you expect? And if you don't know what the problem is with cheese sauce, you're obviously not from New Mexico. It's just not right. But what sealed the deal with this place was the sopapillas. For all you folks who don't know what a sopapilla is, well, it's a little slice of heaven. A 4x4 square of puffed pastry that the New Mexican food connoisseur will fill with honey after biting off one corner. It's lickable-yummy goodness in a small puffed dough pocket.











On to other topics. My niece is having a birthday this week. The reason I say this week is because with all the various family that has to visit to celebrate said birthday, it's taking a week to get through it. So this weekend is our weekend to whoop it up with her, her sister, my brother and sister-in-law. The Nodster is 10 this week, and we, Auntie and Unka are getting her her first cell phone, one of those kind where there's no dialpad, just buttons for ringing up mom and dad. So that's the cool thing we're doing. The OTHER thing we're doing, well I'm doing, is knitting her a cell phone cozy. Is that a cool thing for kids these days? Am I going to get "The Look"? You know. Is she going to sell it next week on Ebay or worse, is she going to give it away on Freecycle? "Free to good home - knitted cell phone thingamagig." Let me know what you think. Anyway, here's the "knitted cell phone thingamagig" as WIP (work in progress).

TTC and TLAs in OKC

The military has a TLA (three-letter acronym) for everything, it seems. Well so does the infertility world. Yesterday, I went for what is known as an HSG, or hysterosalpingogram (try saying that three times fast; hence TLAs). I was warned by all my other TTC friends that this procedure was going to hurt like the dickens. So I was prepared. I took the ibuprofen that my doctor required, but just in case, I took a Lortab an hour before the procedure. Now, something else I've got to fess up to is having a wee bit of the anxiety about pain. So, I reasoned that the Lortab would conk me out so my anxiety didn't get the best of me during the procedure. And of course, the pain relieving effects of the Lortab couldn't hurt either.

Just before I was led into the radiology suite (lamb to slaughter?) my doc took one look at my conked-out-ness and just chuckled. What he didn't realize is that in a few short minutes he was going to have one stressed out, sniffling patient on his hands. So we go into the suite, I get undressed, and he starts doing what he does: inserting the speculum, swabbing the anesthetic, setting up the catheter, etc. I, of course, am tensing up. And all you ladies know what happens we we're in this situation and we tense up? Finally, the doc's ready, and the x-raying begins. "Lie flat, now roll left, good, now flat again, and roll right. Very good! Beautiful!" You would have thought I was back on the runway in New York. "Hey, are you okay?" Me? Sniffle, sniffle, tears, "yes..." said in a small voice. And just like that, we're done.

Now wait a minute, where was this pain that I was warned about? The crying had begun, yes, in anticipation of it, but it hadn't really hurt at all. And then, BAM!, like a bolt of lightening right through my innards, he pulls out the catheter, and you would have thought I'd been stuck with a cattle prod. That hurt!! Now, I had a miscarriage last fall at 12 weeks, and let me tell you, uterine contractions? No fun. And that's what it felt like all of the sudden. But just as suddenly as the pain came, it was gone. And I had gone to all that trouble with the Lortab and the tears and all. And the outcome? Lovely, clear fallopian tubes, and my uterus in equally as good shape.

One test down. Next one? Post-coital test. I wasn't sure it was possible to take even more of the fun out of baby-making sex.

Ruminations on the World Wide Walskes

Greetings world! We are the World Wide Walskes, a military family hailing from wherever the military sends us. Today, we are in Oklahoma, home of the Sooners, and the weather is fine! The Walske World encompasses many diverse elements: we are patriots, environmentalists (read: treehuggers), animal lovers (stop back by for the ongoing saga in the lives of our 7 pets), and Green Bay Packer fans. We are desperately trying to conceive (TTC for all you fertility folks) our first child; in an effort to not stress over the TTC process, Mr. Walske plays video games and Mrs. Walske knits. It's a rough life out there in the infertility jungle. Stop back by and check us out to see where the world brings us on any given day.