Summer vacation

I’m back at work today after a nice, 10-day vacation.  We were so lucky to have a good break but, man, is it ever hard to get back into the swing of things!

We spent our time off at the farm, which was really great.  For the first half (which included the long weekend) we were there with my family.  This is when we got the news of my sister’s pregnancy.  Then, my best friend came for a visit with her sister and her sister’s 8-month-old son.  It was great to see them, but Littleman was definitely showing some jealousy towards the baby.  There was a lot of: “that’s my mommy!”  We’ll have to work on that…

By mid-week, we were on our own, which was really nice.  D took a break from doing farm chores so that we could relax and spend time together as a family.  The weather was a bit on the chillier side, but we managed to squeeze in some swimming in our new pool.

Just kicking around!

 The big “toy” of the summer is the new John Deere Gator that my dad just bought.  D and my dad had been talking about it for a while and, to be honest, I didn’t really know what the big deal was.  Now that we have it, though, it’s pretty awesome.  We can zip around the farm and it’s way more fun than I expected. 

Littleman and his Gator

We spent some time by the creek, looking for frogs and went on an impromptu hike through the woods.

Wandering the trails…

 

…and coming out into the fields

The garden we planted in the spring is slowly coming along and we finally got to enjoy some of our “crops.”  I was able to pick a few cherry tomatoes and an English cucumber.  Yum!  D’s pumpkin patch hasn’t been very successful and we struggled with a few other vegetables as well, but it was nice to see some stuff finally ripening.

I spent a few days feeling pretty crummy with headaches and nausea, which kind of sucked.  But then I had a couple of days where I wasn’t really nauseous at all, which sucked even more.  As it turns out, I’m terrified of not feeling sick.  Logically, I know that I’m reaching the point in my pregnancy where my symptoms may start to get a bit better.  But knowing that is not reassuring to me at all.  Even as I write this, I hope that I start feeling shitty soon.  Argh.

Anyway, all in all, it was a nice vacation and great to have some time away with my boys.

Distractions

I forgot that trying to conceive means spending a lot of time waiting.  Waiting for AF to leave, waiting to ovulate, waiting to test…

So, since I’m still in the early part of my first post-miscarriage TTC cycle, I’ve been trying my best to keep busy and to distract myself from the constant thinking, iPhone app-checking and other crazy TTC rituals.

This past weekend, I busied myself with a different kind of new life – our vegetable garden.  When our family took possession of the farm last summer, the vegetable garden was already well-sprouted.  All we had to do was pick and enjoy the veggies.

This year, we’re doing it ourselves.  Being the city-folk that we are, we bought a book and watched a bunch of You Tube videos to learn some gardening tricks.  My aunt came to help us, which made a huge difference.  She (along with my late Italian grandmother) always planted a vegetable garden in their backyard, so she has a ton of experience.

Planting the lettuce.

My legs are killing me from all the squatting, but I’m proud of all the work we did!  If everything goes well, we’ll have a nice crop of delicious veggies later this summer.  We planted arugula, spring mix lettuce, radicchio, beets, radishes, two types of carrots, green beans, cherry tomatoes, three other types of tomatoes, red peppers, onions, cucumbers, zucchini and butternut squash.

Time to start growing!

Since the garden is massive, D used the rest of the space to plant pumpkins.  He planted four different types, ranging in size from jumbo to mini.

Working on the garden for a couple of days was a great way to keep my mind occupied and focused on something other than the inner workings of my reproductive organs.  However, in an attempt to distract me from my distractions, AF decided to play a stupid game with me.  Today is CD 7 and – after leaving for two full days – she decided to return in all her glory this afternoon.  WTF?  Hopefully she doesn’t plan on sticking around.

Happy Long Weekend!

I love long weekends.  Here in Canada, we’re celebrating our first long weekend of the “summer” and it feels so good.  Who invented the five-day work week anyway?  Four days is much more civilized.

The one bright side of our friend’s wedding being called off is that we got to go to the farm.  After work on Friday, we joined the millions of other Torontonians escaping the city for the Victoria Day weekend.  Our drive took an extra hour, but we didn’t care.  The weather was beautiful and we had a whole weekend ahead of us.

When we arrived at the farm, seven more horses were being dropped off for the summer.  The local farmer who uses our land had brought two of his horses to graze a week before.  Now there were nine in total.

This next part may make me sound like a crazy person.

So, last summer we had four of the horses.  Three of the four were pregnant.  At the time, we were trying to conceive.  On Friday night, the same horses returned with their three babies.

The newest arrivals at our farm.

I know I’ve complained about being jealous of other pregnant people.  And about being worried about potential pregnancy announcements.  But I think I’ve crossed the crazy line with being jealous of horses with babies!

I guess it’s not that I’m jealous per se, it’s more that it reminds me of what I would have if we had succeeded in getting pregnant when we wanted to last summer.  Or of what we would almost have if I hadn’t miscarried.

Luckily, it’s been a busy weekend so there’s a lot to distract me from my own craziness!

One of my favourite discoveries when we took possession of the farm last summer was the vegetable garden.  The previous owners had planted it, so when we arrived in August, all we had to do was pick and eat!  This year, we’re going to attempt to plant it ourselves.  D has a friend who is a pumpkin farmer, so D decided he wants to try growing some pumpkins.  We’ll try a handful of other vegetables too.

To prepare, D tilled the garden while Littleman and I helped out. We plan to start planting next weekend.  I can’t wait to see how it goes!  It was so great to pick fresh sun-warmed tomatoes for homemade bruschetta.  Or butternut squash for our Thanksgiving dinner.  Yum!

The vegetable garden.

 

The helper.

To all you Canadians out there, hope you’re having a wonderful long weekend!