Light Refreshments Served

Please welcome Annie as our guest blogger this morning! She has her own charming blog here, with very possibly the best blog header I’ve ever seen, she likes Imogen Heap, and she and her husband recycle in a way that makes me feel… inadequate? Or ashamed? Or proud for them? I like her very much. Enjoy!

More about Annie in her own words:

I grew up all over the world, but I’ve ended up in lovely Provo (for now) with my husband and daughter. I love to write letters to her so we can both remember what things were like as she grows up. I hate yardwork, but I find weeding extremely satisfying. I love the color green in a sort of unhealthy way, I love Light Refreshments Served, and I aspire to someday own an Eames lounge chair. (I also love Rice Krispie treats–cropped out of that picture of me is a plate piled high with them…hence the big smile.)

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Another Anniversary

A few things have been making me sad lately. I’m losing my hair like crazy, which is a normal postpartum thing, but it doesn’t make it any more pleasant to be able to see that huge mole on my head if I don’t pin my bangs just right. Also, we had to say goodbye to our broken TV. The replacement is lovely, but I sort of miss the old one that we inherited from my friend Catherine; it was a constant reminder of a lovely girl, and not having it is strangely like losing her to Australia all over again.

Just now, as I was trying to fall asleep and push these and other sad things out of my mind, I was reminded of something so completely unsad that I had to get up and write about it before the feelings left.

This time last year was dark. I was furious at my body for all the things it couldn’t seem to do correctly.

{Stop reading here if the word pee makes you uncomfortable.}

I wanted a baby…a lot. But my body and my doctor were telling me that would be really difficult. Every month we cried and mourned the “death” of the baby that never was. So about this time last year, I had decided to give up for awhile for the sake of my mental health, but I figured I might as well use up the last couple home pregnancy tests so they would stop torturing me with their stupid little potential negative signs. So this week last year, I dejectedly peed (if one can pee in a dejected manor…) on another stick, put it in the wrapper and set it on the floor to run its test and bleed yet another single blue line onto the screen. I wasn’t even going to look at it. I washed my hands and bent down to gather all my hopes and chuck them in the trash can. But of course, you know what happened. This time there were two lines…TWO. And they made a plus sign. How do you breathe after seeing something like that?

I went to work and tried to pretend like everything was normal. My husband was unreachable for the next few hours, so I felt like I was going to explode. I kept telling myself that maybe the test was wrong. It wasn’t wrong, and neither were the other many tests I took that week out of disbelief.

A year ago happiness looked like this:
And now she looks like this:

And I’m reminded of the millions of thing I have to be happy about, with or without my hair.