August 18th

I keep getting torn between writing a random, light little post or...I'm not even sure what. Sometimes what I want to write about it buried so deep even I have no idea what it will look like, I just feel as though my spirit is a little more dense or something, as though I weigh more on the inside. If I try to write about it too early, it won't take form. So I've been sitting around for a couple of days feeling the weight of creative energy but not able to harness it.

This whole trying to get pregnant thing has really made it impossible for me to ignore how much I want a family. I used to be able to just focus on my life right now, with a few moments of intense longing. But I could bridge over those moments and refocus.

It is impossible to refocus when actually trying so hard to get pregnant that one artificially manipulates one's own body. There's no where to hide from that. I was actually talking to my body the other day. Basically, I was hoping that my egg was dropping and hoping that it would get fertilized and trying to coax it to implant.

"You would like to stay here," I was telling...what? a figment of my imagination, really...as I was washing the dishes. "Stay, stick around, make yourself at home. It's very comfy in there. It's a safe place to be."

I was reading this blog the other day called "Passionate Homemaking," and was gripped with all kinds of incredible longings. Basically it's all about young families, natural homemaking, cooking, cleaning. It slayed me.

I mean, those mothers bake their own bread and smear their own nipple cream on after and before breast feeding and use chemical free cleaners. I love all of that except the bathroom cleaners. Color me old fashioned, but I just don't believe a clean toilet is possible without bleach.

I was talking to my mother the other day and it left me with the same feeling. I had no idea that my mom is so chock full of excellent advice about babies. And breast feeding? Look no further. She knew about positions and personalities and timing and clothes.

And I just felt so...empty. It was as though I discovered this whole treasure trove of good things that my mother could pour out to me, but I had no where to store it. It just poured straight out through my fingers.

My own body image has drastically changed. I used to take my body gloriously for granted. I knew I was healthy, strong and attractive. Whether walking or sitting, I would stretch on my legs with ease.

If I wanted to put on a dress and some make up, I knew I would transform into a head turning hotty. If I wanted to apply the full force of my strength, I knew I could lift anything I had to, lift or push or pull. I felt strong and capable and streamlined.

Now, I feel like my body is broken. There is some vital link in my body that is missing. It's not able to catch or create life inside. It's just this empty vessel that isn't listening to me.

Years ago, I would sometimes let myself think about my own children, what they would be like, what it would be like to be around them. I would imagine, for example, having my daughter in the car beside me, looking out the window or telling me a story. This would produce such a depth of joy and longing that I would package it right away again and not think about it further.

But I can't package it away anymore. The only thing that I can rest my thoughts on is my faith that it will all work out as it was meant to be worked out. All I have to do is to keep going down this path. If we get pregnant, than we get pregnant. If we don't, than it simply leads us into adoption.

There's just no where to hide from the pain on this particular bend of the path. If I don't get pregnant this month or next month then it's right in my face. I am dreading the end of this month.

August 15th

Larry the Good called last night to let us know that Clan Larry have not seen our renters for a month. It turned out that we already knew the renters were on vacation, but still, how awesome is it to have such good neighbors?

They miss us; Keith heard Mrs. Larry holler "Tell them to come home!" in the background during the conversation. We miss them. They sent us pictures of our front yard, (it's pretty much a dirt pile now, but what can you do?) and just seeing the house made us achingly home sick. It brought back just a slew of good memories, I could taste Doritos and smell barbecue and orange scented floor cleaner and hear the traffic and smell the fresh, fresh air.

Summer continues unabated here. Well, the mornings are getting a little cool and almost fresh. But all that is completely gone by nine thirty. Larry the Good said the temperature in Colorado was seventy five degrees. Seventy five and sunny on a Saturday. We would have been up in the Rockies where it would have been even cooler and where the aspens would be starting to turn yellow and we would have been roaring down the wide, dusty trails in the dappled shade.

I can't remember what seventy five degrees feels like, to be honest. We drove the Jeep on post to do some shopping at the PX and to meet up with some potential buyers. It was hot, meltingly hot and by the time we got home we were exhausted. (They didn't end up buying the Jeep either.)

I made the baked macaroni and cheese. First I had to call my dad to get a check on quantity, as I was merging two recipes into one. Sometimes, though, you just don't know until you try and you just adjust fire as you go. I made a little rou with flour and butter, and waited for it to turn bubbly and take on just a bit of color. Then I slowly whisked in two cups of scalded milk. (This meant that I was heating the milk at the same time that I was cooking the rou, which means I was stirring two pots at once, which was ridiculous looking and did not work so well.)

Then I continued stirring with one hand while with the other impaling a bay leave to an onion with a clove. I dropped that in and stirred for another twenty minutes. This was a labor intensive recipe. It's easy to type, "twenty minutes" but setting your timer and then standing in front of the stove for that long, just stirring, really brings it home. I can see why this sort of sauce is out of style.

I added a cup of mild Cheddar and a cup of shredded Mexican (I happened to have it on hand), pepper and a bit of nutmeg. Then I tasted it.

Holy Crap. I do not even like cheese that much and this sauce was The Bomb. I put a sheet of cling wrap over the top to prevent a skin from forming and boiled some whole wheat pasta (they happened to be shells, not macaroni) and browned some turkey sausage. These I combined. Finally, I topped it with bread crumbs from my own home made bread- how foody am I?

As you can imagine, what with the sausage, the cheesy bechamel and the nutty flavor of the pasta, it was too die for. But incredibly rich. It's not something I'll be cooking all that often, but now I feel like I have a working understanding of white sauce.

The next frontier: home made egg pasta. Oh yeah. It's gonna happen. Then I'll made pasta primavera with the fresh egg noodles. But right now I don't have all the succulent baby vegetables that I need for a primavera, so I'm thinking that for Sunday dinner I might make a ravioli. Which is a ridiculous thing to plan for one's first attempt at pasta, but here's what I'm thinking:

I make the pasta and set aside to dry out a little. Meantime, I roast a sweet potato with olive oil, whole garlic cloves and some rosemary and thyme. I mash this, set aside and refocus on the pasta, which I shape into raviolis or tortellini. Then I make a bechamel, and add a little mozzarella cheese for a sauce. That, or simply a light tomato and basil sauce. I can't decide.

There's also the recipe for spinach egg noodles and I'm thinking, why not butternut squash flavored egg noodles? Wouldn't that be a delicious fall recipe, with a wild mushroom cream sauce and maybe some toasted pine nuts?

Also, I'm planning on trying out a souffle sometime this week. I remember both my mom and my dad being able to make this and how impressive it looked coming out of the oven, all risen and golden-puffy. I seem to remember there being broccoli in it on occasion.

On the baby making front, everything is happening right on schedule, so that is encouraging. Whether or not this produces a baby, I will not know until the very end of the month, possibly early into next. I'm just taking it one day at a time, as much as possible.

August 13th

As usual these days, my thoughts just won't coalesce, so I'm just going to go with the flow.

I made bread! Two loaves of old fashioned country white bread and they came out beautifully. I even separated an egg yolk, mixed it with water and brushed it over the top of the loaf. Also, I tipped them over and rapped on the bottom with my knuckles to test for a hollow sound, and indeed, there was one; and it indeed indicated done-ness.

Possibly as a result of this success in baking I have gained a pound back. But my muscle tone is truly impressive for having worked out for only two weeks.

My curiosity is constantly my undoing when cooking. I'm interested in the exact taste of the traditional recipe, but I'm incapable of religiously following it. Even though cooking is inescapably based upon a fair amount of science, I feel strongly that if cooking is all science and no alchemy, then it's just no fun. Consequently, I never do end up knowing what the actual dish was suppose to taste like.

I finally bought whole cloves, so I'm going to try making a bechamel sauce the old fashioned way, with clarified butter and a clove studded onion. I don't plan on making this a normal course of action, I just want to try it once. I'll use it as the base for a baked macaroni and cheese.

We've sold the Can and Keith has had a few calls on the Jeep, which he has decided to sell because he's so fed up with it. It's had a wiring problem that causes the air conditioning to flip off.

He's been working on it all week long, he even rented a wheel kit from Autozone and pulled the steering wheel out so that he could put in a new ignition. That was a titanic struggle, but last night he emerged the victor.

Once it sells, half will go toward a seed fund for the next project vehicle and half will go toward our vacation trip to the East coast! Yay! My brother in Colorado called me last night and said he's planning on flying in here, spending a few days with us and then driving up East with us.

I'm so excited that he's coming. This means not just an awesome road trip, but also that all of the siblings (and their spouses!) will be reunited with the parents. We will have to have a Sibling Dinner, which normally involves a great deal of money, choice ingredients and drunken cooking. I say we make tenderloin steak au poivre, asparagus with Hollendaise sauce and maybe creamy polenta.

August 12th

I got a call from my dad yesterday afternoon. My mom had decided to sign up for a diabetes testing program and as part of the screening, they gave her an EKG and as a result of those numbers, they sent her pronto to the emergency room of the local hospital. Dad called as they were on the way.

I thought, "Oh my god, I'm not ready to lose my mother. It's not time yet for even that sort of thing to be a possibility."

It turned out that everything is fine and the people at the diabetes clinic massively misread the EKG result.

It's left me with this sense of disquiet. I feel all unsettled and wish I could go over and visit. Wouldn't that be lovely, if it were possible? Let's say I lived one or two towns over, in another sleepy little NH hamlet, in an old creaky house with a slightly over grown garden. It would have faucets that dripped a little, leaving a hard water mark on the enamel sink. Still, let's say it was charming and we planned to restore it, bit by bit.

Then I could just get into my little Honda and drive right over. I could do that anytime I wanted. I would be up on all the gossip and ways of knowing that can only come from lives being entwined in one place.

I feel plum exhausted from all the emotional ups and downs I've been experiencing these seven days of clomid. I could choose not to blog about it, but I would still be feeling it. I feel the emotional equivalent of having rounded Cape Horn.

August 11th

I alarmed some of my relative readers by my last impassioned post; which makes me feel very loved. (Also, I seem to have tapped into the mother lode of excellent advice. One mention of some issue that troubles me, be it gardening or cooking, and the next day I have received a missive on how to make it better.) But to clear up some of the hazy details from my last post, the deferment of retirement is not law, it's a proposal. It wouldn't affect Keith's retirement, only those who in the future would sign up.

In the proposal, those who sign up for service of ten, twenty or thirty years would not start getting their retirement until they were sixty two, sixty and fifty seven, respectively. The amount of retirement would be twenty five percent for ten years service, fifty percent for twenty years and seventy five percent for thirty years.

Aside from the fact that we would be treating our veterans poorly, this system would also severely reduce the amount of seasoned and experienced active duty personal in the system. What would induce them to stay in after ten years? And they are what keeps the system going.

Ever since our second anniversary, I have just been falling deeper in love with my husband. Lately he has been as irresistible to me as fresh baked bread. And he is so in love with me. There is no activity he might be doing that could not, in his mind, be improved upon by my presence.

Working on vehicles? He would love to have me there. Watching "Sliced," going to Autozone, playing "Bad Company?" If I join him at any time, he is always delighted to see me.

I tend to blog about the times when he doesn't like my cooking, but I only do this because, for one thing, they are entertaining and for another, they are rare. The reason he's resistant to new things is because, in his mind, I have already scaled the heights of culinary perfection. He has told me on more than one occasion that my cooking is the one good thing in an otherwise terrible day.

He has ceased to brag about my cooking at all to the other guys because for one thing, he doesn't want them to feel bad and for another, he worries that someone might come, cave man like, and carry me away so that I can cook for them. For example, today he assigned the code word "cereal" to the chili that's planned for dinner. (Yesterday is was chicken piccata, which he stoically ate with gobs of A1 sauce, capers and all, so I figure he deserves some chili.)

What can I say? He is just a good man.

My overstock items arrived and I am thrilled with them. I love the little dress, it's perfect for casual outings, very lightweight and yet the workmanship feels solid. It's machine washable and wrinkle resistant. The capris I got are probably the most comfortable thing I've ever worn. I'm going to have to order more.

August 10th

I was on post very early in the morning a few days ago. It was black as night with just orange pools of light from the street lamps. At an intersection our car was stopped by a soldier and then we watched as a whole stream of soldiers stode past in the dark, their rifles glinting darkly.

They looked so young. They clutched their weapons so awkwardly, some of them looked as though the weight of their packs would push them forward into a face plant. They looked around them with innocent, curious faces or stoically pushed forward, eyes down.

"Are those cadets?" I asked Keith.

"No, no," he assured me. It was a regular company, out on a ruck march.

I forget sometimes how much of the bulk of the fighting force is made of up of very young men. Most of them make the choice to serve their country for four years, so there is just this constant influx of young, inexperienced soldiers and an out flux of older, battle hardened ones.

Then there are those like my husband who give two decades of their lives to the service of their country and to the task of keeping these young men alive, so they can return to their families. These are the men whose bodies begin to break down against the weight of their assignments, their back and their ankles and their knees. These are the men that carry the weight of deployment after deployment; an accumulation of loss that compounds with time and each man who dies beside them.

They give up their innocence, their youth, their health. They give up holidays, birthdays, summers, they give up the luxury of peaceful slumber. They frequently loose even their families to the continued stress that serving their country places on their loved ones, again and again.

But still they get up in the dark of four thirty and take up the heavy responsibility of human lives, the lives of those men they are responsible for, and the lives of all the rest of us. For ten or twelve hours they push and shout and coach and direct. They teach by example.

At the end of the day their job is not done. If they get a call in the middle of the night, they are up and responding to it. Period. If our country calls, nothing matters. They have given themselves up completely to our country for twenty years of their lives.

And yet now, that is not enough to earn a retirement? That is not enough to earn whatever health care is available to patch together their broken bodies, the scars left on them, both inside and out, that won't ever fully go away?

We can't offer this to our servicemen and the families that manage to make it through those twenty years right beside them?

It is outrageous.

Now, I am all about cutting government cost, but to cut there? Is that the only fat the government can find to cut; by pass the bureaucrats making twice the private sector, by pass the waste and fraud in government programs, and simply reach right for the front line, to the very men who have pledges their lives to their country, reach for those men instead and take their retirement? That is the best they can come up with?

This government makes me ill.

Written August 9th

I'm still alive. Keith rescued me by cancelling the event.

I didn't find this out until after returning from Krogers. I don't know if it was anxiety or the clomid, but I was definitely not feeling well. I was experiencing labored breathing, cloudy vision and chest pain while checking out the groceries. When the clerk asked me a question, I had to really concentrate in order to speak and I wasn't sure if my voice was coming out too loud or too quiet.

It's a strange feeling, pouring all this chemical hormone straight into my system. It's such an odds game. Ten percent of women who take it have twins. Thirty percent who take it experience a thinning of the uterine wall and develope sperm killing mucus, basically completely killing any chance of getting pregnant. That leaves sixty percent who have a toss up chance of a normal pregnancy.

In anycase, I was so affected that I had a hard time driving and had to keep reminding myself to breath regularly. I felt better in the evening, but I'm feeling a little hazy right now, truth be told.

We had a frittata for breakfast this morning, as usual. I called it the "Rainbow Fritatta," because it had orange and green bell pepper, red roma tomatoes, sausage and bacon. It was good, but took longer to cook because of the water in the tomatoes, even though I squeezed them dry with paper towels before adding them to the pan.

Anyway, while I was making this, one of the eggs I opened had a double yolk. Strangely, a couple days ago an egg I had hard boiled for a salad also had a double yolk. I've never seen a double yolk before and now two in one week?

I won't lie, this morning when I saw the second one I had a strange reaction, I thought, "Maybe this is a sign that I'm going to have twins. Please, God; please let it be a sign."

How crazy-person is that, I ask you? This was not just a passing thought, either. This was a kick in the gut, oh my god, I want this so bad kind of thought. (For the record, I actually don't prefer twins over one baby at a time, but if that's the way it happens, then I will take it, no questions asked.) Who does that, anyway? Who sees a double yolk and then with every fiber of their being, wants it to be a sign from God, for goodness sake?

The answer to that would be- me, on clomid.

This stupid back to school season we're in now is not helping. All those commercials where the mother sends her little brood off to school in cute new clothes, with clean folders and wire binders, pencils and snacks. I want that; I want a small brood.

Also, one of Keith's men needed child care for his three girls, aged eleven, six and three. We were going to have them from Sunday morning 'til Monday morning, because the father was on funeral detail and had to go out of state.

So on Saturday I cleaned out the upstairs hallway bathroom. In a normal family, this would be the children's bathroom and there would be brightly colored bathmats and toothpaste splatter and other kinds of splatter and little discarded mickey mouse undies moldering in the corner until I could get to the laundry.

But in our household, it's just the spare bathroom and we've turned off the vent in there to save on A/C. We wash the dogs in there and when Keith has guys friends over, they use that toilet. So, it's not the most inviting or hygenic WC option our house offers.

I was nervous about having three unknown children in the house, especially that old. I remember being eleven; I was the mistress of my domain and a royal pain in the ass. If you had asked me who actually ran the household or kept better track of my younger brothers, my parents or myself, I would have replied myself. I wouldn't have been far wrong.

I know this girl would especially be the mistress of her domain, since her mother had moved out and a lot of responsiblity was well and truly on her shoulders. So I figured, as I scrubbed out the tub, that I would greet her as an adult and make it clear that we would be partners in caring for the younger ones.

As I set out three sets of towels, with wash clothes and a new bar of soap, my mind wandered and I imagined cooking and having little helpers, some on chairs, some at my elbow. I imagined explaining to the eleven year old some basic cooking techniques and letting her take over to practise. (Even though in reality she'd probably be glued to the playstation, arguing with her siblings about whose turn it is.)

We planned to take them down to the lake and I imagined playing "Shark in the Water," like I had with my Summer Children (who have long since grown up; one of them is in college.) I imagined totting a large bag with carrot sticks and crackers and grapes and sunscreen and toweling off small heads.

Anyway, they didn't end up needing to come after all, but it got me all stirred up. It got me thinking about foster care or adopting a sibling group. It won't happen right away, we already agreed to give the infertility treatments a year's try. But I wouldn't mind at all adopting a little group of children.

I think I would be very good at understanding that they would always love their biological parents, no matter their history with them. I think I would be good at respecting that history and clearly and consistently explaining the new boundaries and ways of belonging.

Just as long as I knew they would stay with us, I could manage those challenges well, I think. It would be the thought of investing all that care and attention and then losing everything that would be unimaginably devastating.

Anyway, I shouldn't bother thinking about this, because it probably won't happen. We'll end up adopting an infant. Maybe later in life we'll be foster parents; maybe I could run a little home for foster children, just have four or so at a time and they could stay until they get adopted or grow out of the system. Which in their case would be our home.

August 7th

We're having guests over tonight and it's throwing me off.

And here I'm going to discard Army Wife PC and talk about rank. Some bloggers talk about this, some don't, to each their own.

It happens that these two guys are not just people whom I have never met but also a couple of 2nd lieutenants, which, for those of you civilians reading, is the entry level commissioned officer rank, commonly referred to as "butter bars," because the rank is symbolized by one gold bar. After about a year, they get promoted to 1st lieutenant.

Anyway, I digress. This would still be fine and all, because rank or not, guys are guys. They are going to drink alcohol, grill and yell at the TV. In all of these activities, I get to play merely a supporting, mostly invisible role; a role that I'm comfortable in, a role that I vastly prefer over any other.

However, they are not coming solo, they are bringing their wives. This changes the entire dynamic. Will the wives be upstairs in the man room, howling at the TV with the guys? Or will they be downstairs with me? If they are downstairs with me, what in the heck am I going to do with them?

My epic misadventures in socializing have already been well documented in this blog. Now I must socialize with two women whom I have never met, who also happen to be officer's wives. And maybe that shouldn't matter and maybe it won't. But it's there. I know women don't carry their soldier's rank, but it has an impact all the same.

When the wives of Keith's men come by, I'm never entirely sure if they are being nice because they like me, or because I'm Keith's wife. That's just the way it is. When I'm meeting a wife of a man with a higher rank than Keith, especially if he's in Keith's chain of command, I'm on my best behavior. Why? Not just because I'm normally polite, though I am, but because I am aware that the husband of that woman supervises my husband.

I can pretend that this isn't true and that it doesn't matter, but in actuality, it is real and it does matter.

My first experience with an Army wife was a bad one, so I try really hard when meeting other wives to be the opposite of what I experienced. I try very hard to be non threatening, encouraging and warm. I try very hard to completely forget their husband's relationship to mine. This is hard not because I don't like the women, but because I have a hard time socializing, period.

It's all very well and good to say "be oneself." But what if being oneself is to be a mix between a shy six year old girl and a shy sixty year old woman? (I suppose it comes as no surprise that I get along best with people in those age ranges.) I throw people the hell off when I'm being myself. They just don't know what to do with me. I'm overeager, accommodating, warm, tongue tied and awkward; I can literally get stuck in the middle of a conversation and have nothing more to say or add. Nothing. Just marooned there, silent. That's me. That's who I am.

If I were more sophisticated I would have developed an alter ego, a social persona that I could present at social occasions. This would be a great tool, if I had this. But I don't. So I'll do what I always do, simply lower my head like a beast of burden and pull the hell through, as though it were a particulary difficult field to plow. Which it certainly is.

Oh well. No more time for griping. I must go to Krogers and buy stuff. Maybe I'll start like several killer baking projects so that I'm "trapped" in the kitchen all evening, kneading dough and flouring baking pans. Maybe I'll just get really drunk off my head, which actually is not a good idea, since I took the first clomid this morning and have already felt like crying a few times in the past couple hours.

Lord help me.

August 6th

I don't feel terribly cohesive so this will probably be a disjointed blog post.

My stupid container garden has failed.

"Why?" I asked my husband last night, miserable.

He immediately launched into a detailed discussion of root mass, nutrients and insecticides.

I love it when he talks produce to me.

Next year I'm investing in larger pots and mixing manure in with the potting soil. And I'm planting cherry tomatoes and other things that naturally grow small. Lots of herbs, that sort of thing.

A year ago this month Keith came back from deployment. It's so incredible to think about. I've completely forgotten the deployment mindset that got me through that year. It feels like Keith and I have always been together, playing, arguing, making up.

"You are my life's companion," I tell him sometimes, fondly.

For most of my life, if you had asked me what emotions this time of year evoke, I would have answered, immediately and with feeling, nostalgia and dread. Nostalgia for the passing of summer and dread of the school year. Those feelings lingered on, even after I graduated, much like the callus on the inside of my right hand middle finger, formed by years and years of gripping a wooden pencil too tightly.

However, it only took one season to completely change my inner landscape; the year Keith came home. (That, and the heat of a Kentucky summer.) Now August comes round and I feel coziness, happy anticipation and a renewed appreciation for the joys of home.

My marinade actually turned out edible. I substituted onion, sweet green pepper and a pinch of cayenne pepper for chipotle. It was too hot to grill, so I put a nice crust on it before putting the pork in the oven for a half hour to cook through. (Next time I should remember to use the broiler, it's easier and doesn't involve far flung grease splatter.)

It was pretty tasty, though Keith has been referring to it as "mystery meat." Apparently anything that did not come off a cow is unidentifiable to my corn fed farm boy.

I ordered stuff from overstocked.com yesterday. I ordered an A-line dress with three quarter sleeves and a boat neck, with a graphic black and white print. I'm going to remind myself of some sixties sitcom show if I ever wear that around the house- while vacuuming, for instance. All I'll be missing is a beehive hairdo and a witty housekeeper.

Also, I ordered some work out clothes, since yesterday I was reduced to wearing one of Keith's gym shorts and can I just say, they were not flattering in the least. And I forgot to take them off before he got home, which is how I got full permission to spend whatever I wanted on gender appropriate work out clothing. (Of course, the dress doesn't fit into that category, but it was only thirty six dollars. You can't beat that.)

The cookware drew me in too, but after much research I decided I just don't need a special pot just for braising and stewing. After all, I have a crockpot. I do need a shallow roasting pan, but again, using a shallow baking dish with my cooling rack in the bottom works just as well. One day I'll have a beautifully outfitted kitchen with cobalt blue enameled ironware and thick bottomed pots and cupboards that make very clever use of space, but for now I'll just make do.

I've been seeing more articles lately on repealing Obamacare since MO rejected the insurance mandate by 71 to 29. There's talk of defunding key parts of Obamacare if the GOP get enough seats this November to do it, since it would be impossible to actually repeal it until 2012. I hope this happens, but to be honest, I don't have much faith in the GOP either.

But at least if they can defund it, run a viable candidate in 2012 (earth to GOP: Mitt Romney is not your man.) and then repeal and then replace Obamacare with actual reform, that would be awesome. In the meantime, I hope we get more and more candidates in Congress with integrity, who believe in limited government and who can begin the actual work of reform, which I think begins with term limits.

Get that in place, and then start stripping away all the advantages that incumbents voted into place in order to help secure their position. This is a critical building block when looking at reforming Congress. We need short terms and competitive political races.

Once that is in place, we can start trimming back huge government programs that are wasteful (which are basically all of them, if you ask me.) Replace medicare with cash vouchers that can be redeemed anywhere and privatize social security. In Texas, for example, the residents don't have to pay into social security. Instead, that money is actually kept in banks, and actually accrues interest and will actually be given back out to the same people who paid into their own account over the life of their careers.

Mind blowingly simple, no? I hear a lot about Texas that makes me want to move there after Keith retires.

Anyway, it will probably take more than one generation to reverse the direction our government has been heading in and to restore our Republic, because the current government has incredible power, bulk and momentum.

But it can be stopped, and we can start in November. What we start, maybe our children will be able to finish for us. That, or they and their children will be saddled with paying off our debt.

August 4th

Keith has been taking the Internet card with him into work so he can take his online classes during the down time. This means that I have been eating my oatmeal and drinking coffee while watching morning TV, not the most inspiring of activities.

This morning "Red Dragon" happened to be playing, so I watched it all the way through for like the zillionth time. I was pretty sure I wasn't freaked out, but afterward, while I was pottering around the house, Keith turned a corner into the kitchen, just like that. I hadn't even heard him open the door.

I screamed to high heaven. It was a full blown, oh-my-god, I'm going to die kind of scream.

Note to self: don't start your day with a Hannibal Lecter movie.

In other news, I have started the Clomid countdown, so the end of this month is going to be far worse than usual. So many people get pregnant the first month while using this drug and if they don't get pregnant in the first three months, the chances of getting pregnant on it drop.

So, no pressure.

My mood and my thighs have really improved from the weight loss video. I feel awesome. I think my waist line has shrunk a little, but mostly I'm just swapping fat for muscle and therefore the scale is not budging much.

I attempted to make another loaf of bread yesterday. If you are a long time reader, you will remember my whole wheat loaf of death that I made last fall; the one that caused me to stay up all night hugging the commode.

So what caused me to try bread again I have no idea. But I was determined, I even bought special bread flour. The darn thing wouldn't rise. I tried all kinds of things, it stayed flat and cold and sticky. Finally I put the lump in the oven anyway and it made a kind of crusty bread puddle.

But I'm not giving up! I'm going to try a sweet, savory marinade today, but I can already pretty much assure you that it won't turn out well because the local Kroger's doesn't have chipotle. (What a shock!)

Maybe I'll look for another marinade recipe....

Oh, finally, the other day when putting together the lasagna o' Love, I couldn't find my ricotta cheese. I was certain I'd bought some but it just wasn't anywhere in the fridge. Finally I shrugged it off and drove off to the store to pick up some more.

Well, yesterday I got in the car to run an errand and immediately knew where that ricotta had been. It had rolled out of its plastic bag in the trunk, where it later died after a couple days of ninety degree heat. It burst from its plastic container and leaked rancid juice all over the upholstery.

I do believe my car is going to be eternally haunted by the ghost of ricotta past.

August 2nd

This morning, when giving me his goodbye kiss, Keith murmured "Happy day after our anniversary." We had such a good one we wanted to extend it indefinitely.

It was our second one, but really, it was our first one ever. We missed the first one because he was in still in the swamps of southern Iraq. When he came back, we celebrated belatedly by going to Eat At Joe's, where we, naturally, had a crab boil. It so good. I got buttery spice all over my fingers; we used up reams of napkins, they piled up around us like the slightly soiled walls of a snow fort.

I wore my pale turquoise cotton sheath dress with the wide band of embroidery around the hem and felt gorgeous and ended up chasing Keith through the parking lot; I think because he pretended to have forgotten his wallet at home, nearly giving me a heart attack. I was in the middle of initiating tense emergency procedures: "You stay here. I'll drive back to the house and get my purse. Order dessert," when he couldn't keep a straight face any longer. (Don't worry, I got him back.)

It was such a good experience that we decided to celebrate every anniversary by Eating At Joe's. However, on Saturday Keith informed me that he'd made reservations for brunch at a Mystery Destination.

This turned out to be the Galt Hotel and Suites, which sits right on the waterfront in the heart of down town Louisville. The parking lot was at the same level as the Interstate which runs right alongside the river, so getting out of the HD I could look across a few yards to the roadway, behind it a broad expanse of water.

We went up twenty five floors to the restaurant, which I won't lie, made us a little queasy. The view at the top was breath taking. We could see the entire city, the broad bend of the river and the green hills of Kentucky and Indiana all around the horizon.

After a brunch that included pesto salmon and a chocolate tower, we headed off to the mall to buy each other gifts. Keith found his right away, one of those small but powerful remote controlled helicopters and then a new Guitar Hero game that we can rock out to, since we have mastered the one we already have. (I was completely sold as soon as I that the songs included "Hotel California." Unfortunately while there Keith also saw the new Call of Duty game coming out, which means we'll have to take out a small loan in order to purchase it in November...)

It me a little longer to find my gift. I saw White House/Black Market and set myself to walk right past, but Keith noticed and pulled me in. Not only that, but he encouraged me to actually purchase a little frilly black and white polka dot dress that went for a mere hundred and twenty eight dollars.

"If you really want it, hun, you should get it," he said.

I didn't buy it because I have too many cute little dresses already, but if I needed any further proof of how much he loves me, that one sentence would be it.

We went into J.Jill together, where I found an adorable little sweater.

"It's not very warm," Keith said.

"It's a summer sweater."

"A summer sweater? Why would you need a sweater in the summer?"

"It's for walking on the beach in the evening, when there might be a cool breeze," I replied dreamily, picturing exactly that.

"We're in Kentucky. We don't go to the beach and it's never cool in the summer," replied my husband, slightly confused.

"It's about a life style," I began and then gave up and put the sweater back. "Oh what the heck, let's go find a kitchen store."

At Williams-Sonoma I found a little French pastry rolling pin. ( I've been using a floured blue water glass until now. No kidding. An actual glass. It worked. Sort of.) For a while I was torn between that and a regular rolling pin, but I liked the elegant curve of the French one; besides it was less expensive.

Then I went to look at Dutch ovens. Can I just say, "HA!" very loudly? Do you all know how expensive La Crueset ovenware are? They were on sale from two hundred twenty five dollars to one hundred and ninety dollars. There was nothing, under any name, that was less than a hundred dollars.

Yeah. I don't need cast iron that badly, even if it is coated in a very pretty, candy colored enamel, or how well it may or may not improve my roasts. Now, I know I was in Williams-Sonoma, the home of the wildly overpriced kitchen gadget, but still.

Once I lost my cast iron innocence, I looked around and my dejected eye fell upon...cookbooks. The clouds parted and a ray of sunshine came flooding down. Keith stood beside me, flipping through the selection. He was on the lookout for a pizza cookbook but ended up being very interested in one on French cooking, which is a hopeful sign.

I ended up buying the Williams-Sonoma "Cooking at Home" book. This is because it had everything I was looking for. It has recipes for French, Italian and Asian sauces, for making jams, for making stock, for roasts, for vegetables. It even has lists for stocking the pantry, freezer and fridge; all in a very upscale way, of course.

We left the mall delighted with our purchases. When we got home, I started making the chocolate banana loaf while Keith flew his helicopter around in the kitchen, causing Lynn to cower in sheer terror under and around my feet. Fortunately the battery has a short life span so we were ensured short, frequent breaks from its aerial pursuit.

I have already had at least twenty questions that used to hover in the back of my mind answered by my cookbook. I have about ten pages marked by turning down the corners and can't wait to start making some of those recipes. But what I really look forward to is ten or twenty years from now still using that same cookbook, tattered, sauce stained, and remembering the first anniversary we celebrated together.