Life is good.

Dear Lawn,

I hate you. Please stop growing dandelions after we feed you with weed killer, seed you and water you. Ryan works hard making you look pretty. We know you can be luscious and green; you proved that to us last year. We hope that you will take in all the new seed today and make us proud. We know you can do it.

Dear Manager at the St. Louis Park Panera,

I think you should have an all employee meeting and remind your team that the disposable gloves worn while preparing food are NOT to protect the employees' hands from getting dirty, but rather to protect the food from being contaminated.

Seriously. What has become of people? Do people not have common sense when it comes to food preparation? Do not prepare food, use your gloved hand to open the dirty kitchen door and go back to food preparation all while wearing the same pair of gloves. I would rather you just not wear gloves at all. Will I continue to eat at Panera, of course, because I love it, but seriously do people not understand why they are wearing gloves?

I must have this conversation with Ryan about once a month. I just don't get it. The gloved hands portray a false sense of cleanliness in the food preparation process and quite frankly I would rather someone who works with food to practice good hand washing techniques than wear dirty gloves. According to the Minnesota Department of Health, "Although single-use gloves can provide additional food protection, they are only effective if placed on properly washed hands and changed at appropriate times during the food operation. The Minnesota Food Code requires that employees limit direct hand contact with food. Wearing gloves is one way to meet this requirement. Single-use gloves are not specifically required unless the employee has a boil, infected wound or other lesion on their hand. In this case, the employee must apply a waterproof bandage and wear a single- use glove or finger cot over the bandage." Perhaps it's not clear enough. I mean I guess I could infer from the first sentence that "additional food protection" was referring to protecting my hands from the food. Maybe people are just that dumb, we did after all recently put a law in place making it illegal to text while driving. Ugh.

Anyway, after our usual discussion of gloves and food preparation, our conversation evolved to what is cheaper - ordering two cups of Chicken and Wild Rice Soup and one Bacon Turkey Bravo or two "You Pick Twos" with a cup of Chicken and Wild Rice Soup and 1/2 a Bacon Turkey Bravo. By this time, we were already in our car and unable to view the menu prices, but we decided that it would be cheaper to get a full sandwich and two cups of soup which Ryan added, "We'd get two cups of soup, two baguettes, a full sandwich, a pickle and a bag of chips. All that and a bag of chips!" Ha ha. Our next visit, we'll have to price it out - it is a tough economy after all. :)

The End.

P.S. The cat is snoring so loud. I can hear him over the hum of the fan and computer. So cute.

Fun weekend! Ryan and I have had a great weekend. Friday night we hung out just the two of us and chilled. I went to bed early and thus woke up early on Saturday. My usual Saturday routine ensued of going through the Starbucks drive through then home waiting for my lovely husband to wake. I caught up on the new season of America's Next Top Model and enjoyed the "under 5'7" wanna be models." The shorter girls seem to have less drama. I know it's lame, but it's a fun show.

Ryan woke about an hour or so after and we pondered about what to do with our day. With both of us not really motivated to do a whole lot, it took us about two hours to come up with a plan. Ryan suggested mini golf, so we Googled and headed off to Big Stone Mini Golf and Sculpture Gardens in Mound/Minnetrista. What a neat concept. Timeless mini golf infused with steel, glass and wood sculptures. A fun twist to the traditional game for sure. We took lots of pictures and you can view them on Ryan's Facebook page. After mini golf we headed over to Snuffy's Malt shop for burgers and you guessed it, malts. Delicious. At home we were greeted with our lovely backyard wildlife which consisted of chipmunks, bluejays, squirrels and a hawk. Yes, a hawk. When we first pulled in the driveway, we thought it was an owl, it was sitting on our side steps by the door. I was scared it was hunting for chipper, but then later found our friend alive and well. We watched the hawk fly into the try above our garage and I tried desperately to get a decent picture. All I ended up with was a shadowed picture that just looks like a bird in a tree. I'll try to do better next time. We think the wildlife is looking for a new home in our yard because of the trees that were cut down across the street earlier this week. We also had a woodpecker that has put his "mark" to say the least on the back of our house that we will need to patch up! Ahh, the city wildlife. So fun.

After our nature watch, we invited ourselves over to Ken's house to see the fruits of their labor on their basement. It looks awesome. A nice addition to their basement for a family room. It's very neat. I hope their work helps them sell their house! It sure is a great house and will make an incredible home for the next owners. Our visit was short as we were off to see the movie Extract. Ryan's much better at reviews so I'll let him give the details! It was a surprisingly funny movie and I very much enjoyed it. Not being Jason Batman fan one bit, I was hesitant to go, but knew that Ryan wanted to and so I sucked it up. I'm glad I saw it. Although, I have to admit that I DO NOT like to see Ben Affleck hairy (long hair, beard). I like him clean shaved and with short hair. He was believable though!

This morning I woke at 6:45 a.m. and started my Sunday routine of laundry and going to Starbucks. See Saturday and Sunday are different. Sunday I do laundry. :) I decided to work in the front lawn pulling weeds and was glad I did early as it has warmed up very quickly. To my surprise, Ryan got up early too! I guess he was really excited for the Vikings game!

This afternoon I have big plans too! I have my first outing with my sister-in-law. I must say I am quite excited! I'm looking forward to getting together with Teresa and hanging out. We're going to see The Time Traveler's Wife and then I think there were talks of cheesecake afterwards!

This morning I opened my e-amil and was quickly reviewing them when I came across on that started, "Mrs. Nelson ..." For a split second, I thought, oops, I think I got an e-mail that was intended for Ryan's mom. Then I realized, I am Mrs. Nelson too. Wow. 350 days later and I'm still not use to it!

So, I've been a bad blogger. However, at least you get to see a fun slide show when you visit my page even if I don't have a new post.

I haven't blogged since April because I haven't been sure of what I wanted to blog about. I mean I know what I wanted to write, but I wasn't quite ready yet for the "whole world" to know. I don't know if I'm still ready for the whole world to know, but I do know that I am ready to move on and not feel like I have this awful secret that I've been keeping. This blog is mainly for me. I could write it in a diary, but again, I'd feel like I was keeping a secret and it shouldn't be a secret. If I upset you because of this post, I am sorry. And not to worry my wonderful husband does know I am blogging about this! :)

At the end of April, Ryan and I found out we were expecting! How exciting. Our first child. We heard through family and friends that it takes a while to conceive so we were pleasantly surprised to hear the news just a month after going off birth control. We were seven weeks along and so excited that we shared the news with our immediate family. I told my dad on his birthday that he was going to be a grandpa. Everything was going great. I was feeling awesome and Ryan was being a wonderful husband making sure I was taking care of myself and our soon to be little one. We had our first appointment scheduled to hear the heart beat on on May 14. Our hopes of being first time parents and hearing the heartbeat of our baby were short lived. The doctor couldn't detect a heartbeat through the ultrasound in the office, but she was able to see the pregnancy sac. Ryan was shocked and I was scared, what did that mean? Our doctor was very calm and explained a couple different scenarios to us. Based on the sac being present, it was possible that we were not nine weeks along like we had originally thought, therefore making the heartbeat too faint to detect. The other scenario being that we were in fact nine weeks along and I had a blighted ovum. Both scenarios confused us. What the heck was a blighted ovum? Our doctor explained that it is a form of a miscarriage and went on to give more explanation; however after hearing miscarriage, I seem to have blanked everything out. I no longer wanted to pay attention, nor could I. Why was this happening? I didn't know of anyone in my family that had a miscarriage. Why us? I'm thankful Ryan was paying attention because he debriefed me in the car! I did finally come around to paying attention and found that much more testing would need to be done in order to confirm one way or the other. I was to have my hCG levels tested twice (once that day and again 48 hours later) to determine if the "pregnancy" hormone was increasing. In a healthy pregnancy during the first trimester, hCG levels typically double every 48 hours (not always, but generally). If my hCG levels didn't greatly increase then that would be one of the indicators that it was a blighted ovum. I first had my levels tested on Thursday, 48 hours later on Saturday I went back in to have it tested again. I was told I could call the on-call OB-GYN doctor four hours later and that I did. Saturday was terrible. Ryan and I tried to remain hopeful, but the thought of the worst was unbearable. Finally I connected with the on-call doctor and he was so incredibly nice, warm and compassionate. I truly appreciated his time and was thankful to have a kind voice give me the horrible news. While my levels increased, they did not double, not even close. He was hesitant to diagnosis as a blighted ovum and ordered additional ultrasounds to be performed on Monday. My doctor agreed and I had the "high tech" radiology department ultrasounds performed. The sac was measuring at nine weeks however there was no baby. Our meeting with the doctor after the ultrasounds was tough. It was hard to hear everything she was saying because I was still having a difficult time comprehending what was happening. She explained it in the simplest terms that made the most sense, I had built a very nice home, but nothing to put in the home. A blighted ovum (also known as “anembryonic pregnancy”) happens when a fertilized egg attaches itself to the uterine wall, but the embryo does not develop. Cells develop to form the pregnancy sac, but not the embryo itself. The placenta can continue to grow and support itself without a baby for a short time and pregnancy hormones can continue to rise which is why I had a positive pregnancy test and increased levels of hCG. It was explained that once my body figured out that there was no baby, I would miscarry. I also learned that there is not definite answer as to when my body would figure it out. The doctor gave us three options; we could wait for the miscarriage to happen naturally, I could take a medication to induce a miscarriage or I could have a scheduled D&C. I was advised that I had two weeks to make my decision and if I decided to wait and naturally miscarry and did not by the end of two weeks, I would have to take the medication to ensure my health. Ryan and I looked at each other and we both could sense that neither of us were ready to make a decision yet. Our doctor was great, she said she didn't expect us to make a decision right then and to take our time thinking about it and ask her any questions we had. A couple of days later after many talks, questions to the doctor and research we decided to have the scheduled D&C. I went in on the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend. The procedure itself was fine, I have no memory of what happened as I had anesthesia. I wasn't completely under according to the anesthesiologist, but for my purposes, I was under. Physically I recovered well and medically everything was as could be expected. Emotionally, now that was a different story. Ryan was so awesome. We talked about everything we both were feeling. He'd comfort me when I would start crying and I'd comfort him when I'd see the look in his eyes. We're doing well. Four months later it's still hard, but we are getting through it, together. The silver lining to all of this is how much our marriage has strengthened. We really came together as a couple and were there for each other and for that I will be forever thankful to Ryan. I couldn't have asked for a better partner. I am so lucky. For now, we are just taking one day at a time. We're not stressing to start a family and we know that in time it will come. We sure are having fun trying though! Who's uncomfortable? Thanks for reading and for allowing me the opportunity to take this weight off my shoulders and make it ok to not have to keep it a secret!

Summer Recap:

Memorial Day weekend marked the start of summer fun, at least in the Nelson house! We spent the long weekend with Ryan's family and had a great time grilling, celebrating birthdays and watching the Twins. We also went to see the Phantom of the Opera. It was fun. I didn't particularly care for the musical, but enjoyed being in the theater and feeling "cultured".

In June we had our first garage sale in hopes to raise money for Melissa's 3Day fundraising. We raised a couple hundred dollars which was cool. Teresa was a HUGE help and we couldn't have pulled the sale off without her and all their stuff they were selling. The baby/kids clothes and toys were really what made the crowd come. It was really funny to see what people would haggle us on!

June also marked my first Phish concert. It was amazing. I've come to really enjoy Phish throughout the five years of being with Ryan and I was excited to go see them and share the excitement and love for their music with Ryan. The show was particularly fun because of all the people that we went with. Ryan, Melissa, Mark and I drove out to Alpine together and met up with Ken (B&K), Amundo (A&R) and some others that I am having a hard time remembering at the moment. It was a really fun weekend! Ryan wrote a heck of blog about it, if you haven't check it out, click here.

In July we headed out to Savannah to spend the 4th with my mom and dad. Savannah in the summer was awesome. I loved going to the beach and being in the water. We had an awesome time. I miss my mom and dad terribly and wish I could see them more often. If you haven't checked out my pictures from the trip, click here.

At the end of July, we celebrated Peyton's birthday with family fun and grilling at Teresa & Andrew's. I've really enjoyed being able to see my niece and nephew grow up. It's really neat to see their personalities coming out. And they are so darn cute. I can't believe Keegan is starting kindergarden already! A couple days later was Ryan birthday and we had fun celebrating it in River Falls. Why in River Falls? August 2 also turned out to be Naomi's blessing way shower hosted at her Aunt's house in River Falls. Since Reuben also lives in RF, Ryan called him up to see if he was busy, he wasn't so they went golfing. It was nice to drive out there with Ryan. I dropped Ryan off at Reuben's and headed to the shower.

Naomi's blessing way shower was really really neat. I have to admit that when I first got the invitation I had no idea what to expect. For those of you not familiar with a blessing way, it's more of a spiritual gathering of the guest of honor's closest friends and drawn from the Navajo tradition. A blessing way is most commonly held at monumental times in a woman's life such as marriage and the birth of a child. A blessing way focuses on celebrating the bride to be and showing support and words of encouragement of what makes a successful marriage. We were asked to come with "words of wisdom" to share that would be placed in a keep sake book for Naomi. Still skeptical of this "spiritual" shower, I did some research online. What I found really made me excited to participate and share this experience with Naomi. There were many articles that focused on blessing ways for expectant mothers and I was anxious to see how her cousins were going to make a bridal blessing way. I was a little more nervous now to share my "words of wisdom" as I'm still a newlywed for pete's sake, what could I possibly share with Naomi? I did put a lot of thought into what I was going to say. I tried it out on Ryan and each time it sounded like marriage sucks. I don't feel that way at all, but for some reason I came up with all the cliche things to say, "Never go to bed angry", "Always say I love you" and the like. Ryan and I had many laughs over it and I put more thought into what I would say. I finally came up with "Remember when you said yes. Remember the feeling you had when Troy asked you to be his wife and you said yes." I thought it was good advice. Marriage after all is wonderful. While there having been trying times and not so fun things we've gone through together, remembering that feeling the moment I knew I was going to be his wife is amazing and reminds me that I'm not alone that we have a wonderful partnership and I couldn't have asked for a better partner to share all the joys and the sorrows we've gone through. Naomi seemed to dig it which was cool. I also learned a lot from the other women and learned that strength and patience were the most important things. The shower was a great experience and I was thankful to have it introduced to me. I hope that in the future I have the chance to experience another blessing way.

After the shower, I headed over to Reuben's to hang out with the boys. I was bummed that Carrie and the kids were at the zoo for the day, but Ryan and Reuben did an excellent job at entertaining me. I think Ryan had fun and the best part was going to Luigi's for dinner. I have pictures posted from the day on my Picasa page if you haven't already seen them. After Luigi's Ryan and I headed back home to have cake and open his birthday gifts. Again, Ryan being the better blogger, wrote much more about the day than I have. So check out his blog if you haven't already done so.

Also in August, I got my third tattoo! WOOHOO! YAY! Getting tattooed is definitely addicting and I am ecstatic and absolutely love my angel wings I got in memory of grandma. I know for some people it may seem weird, but grandma went with me to get my very first tattoo over ten years ago.

I got my first tattoo when I was 18. I had wanted one for a really long time and decided that I was going to get inked one weekend when my mom and dad went out of town. I wasn't entirely sure how they would react and it felt like a rebellious thing to do. Mind you I was an honor role student, cheerleader, hospital volunteer, teacher to sixth graders about staying away from alcohol and drugs and a part-time clerk at the local cleaners. Not exactly what you would call a rebel. Anyway, not wanting to be too crazy, I brought my grandma! Grandma was hilarious. The ride down to the shop in Northfield was filled with stories about my dad getting his tattoo and how mad she was. It's funny that 30 years later she was going with her granddaughter to get a tattoo after she despised her own son's! She was a cool lady. We get to the shop and the guy that tattoos me is so nice and very patient. I remember being extremely embarrassed and nervous to have to take my pants off in front of a stranger. Apparently the location of the tattoo being at the top of the curve of my thigh and the involvement of being pantless while being tattooed never crossed my mind prior to arriving at the shop. Sensing my uncomfortableness, the artist stepped out of the room which allowed me time to calm down and take my pants off (ha)! Grandma sat right beside me and held my hand the entire time. The artist talked to us about random things and commented several times how cool it was that grandma was with me. At one point I remember thinking that my grandma might have offended the tattoo artist as she made a comment about all his tattoos and over stretched piercings and wondered if any ladies found that attractive. Yikes. She was old though so I think he was ok with it and he laughed it off explaining that he was happily married and his wife who also worked at the shop did all his piercings! The experience was awesome and to have had my grandma there with me was really cool. I turned out to be one of the first of my friends to get tattooed and very much enjoyed showing it off at school the following week, although taking my pants down in abandoned classrooms was probably not the best thing to do, but I never got in trouble! :)

My second tattoo I received at Aloha Monkey in Burnsville and got tattooed with my sister the summer of 2002. Getting tattooed together was a fun experience. And again, my parents were out of town the weekend we went. Weird. I got my zodiac sign (capricorn) on my lower back. I found a picture online that I liked and then kind of redrew it. I'm not too sure if it still has the same meaning, but it has the same meaning to me. :) When I showed it off to my grandma she said it looked like 'Yo' and every time after that when she saw it she'd slap it and say "Yo". Gotta love her.

Since her passing I really wanted to get another tattoo and incorporate Grandma somehow. I wasn't sure what I wanted and struggled for a long time. For a brief second, I thought about getting her portrait on my back. She has this awesome picture that was taken of her when she was 20something and she looks so beautiful. It's sort of a pinup type picture, but it very classy. That idea sort of went away and I found angel wings and fell in love with them and knew that was the new tattoo for me! I called for the appointment in June and was scheduled for August! The day came and I was extremely nervous. It had been seven years since my last tattoo. I remember it not hurting, but couldn't really remember if that's just what I made myself think or if in fact it didn't hurt. I made so much fun of Ryan when he got his second tattoo and I was nervous that I was all talk and would totally wimp out when it was my turn. Turns out, I'm a champ! It stung a little bit, but all in all not bad! Ryan took pictures and again they are on my Picasa page. If you stay on my blog long enough, you'll get to see a slide show. Anyway, this tattoo experience was really special for me. I know it sounds lame but I thought about my grandma the entire time. At one point I started crying, not because of the pain, but because a sad song had come on the radio and it moved me. I was sad that I was getting this tattoo because my grandma was no longer here. I love it. I am so pleased with the work that Damion at Electric Dragonland did. I would definitely go back and get another one from him. Now I'm thinking more and more that I want that portrait …. hmmm maybe I should think about it some more.

The following weekend, I headed to Chicago to spend time with Jen and celebrate the soon-to-be birth of their first child with a baby shower. It was great to spend the weekend with her and her family. Jen and Woj are going to be terrific parents! They are definitely going to spoil him or her! We had a nice time and it's always good seeing college friends!

The Breast Cancer 3Day started on August 21. This was my sister's second time participating! I'm so proud of her. Her amazing strength in all the training and her positive attitude during the walk was inspiring. The best part was that my mom came into town the Wednesday before! My mom spent ten days with Ryan and I. It was so wonderful having her with us. We had a lot of fun together. We also celebrated Melissa's birthday, you can see the pictures here.

The last weekend in August, Ryan and I, Amundo and Ken along with Kristgan (K&M) headed to the Ren Fest. WEIRD. I had never been before and was hesitant to go, but had a surprisingly awesome time. Ryan wore a Clutch shirt and the workers kept asking him "Clutch what? What am I to Clutch?" Another worker came up and started singing one of their songs. It was funny.

And now here we are Labor Day weekend, marking the end of the summer! WHAT? Where did the summer go? I'm ready for football season for sure. Jeans and a sweatshirt please! Friday night Ryan and I spontaneously decided to go to the State Fair. Immediately after rounding the first corner onto the main street I remembered why I didn't want to go. ALL THOSE STUPID PEOPLE! Seriously. The groups of people walking aimlessly around, walking on the diagonal, stopping in the middle of the street, walking on the wrong side. Is this how these people drive? I mean come on, it's the great Minnesota get together, you are not the only family at the Fair. Move to the right if you're going to stop and discuss what crap on a stick you are going to eat. He he. I loved it though. We ate crap, but it was amazing. Cheese curds, funnel cake, Sweet Martha's cookies and a strawberry malt. YUMMY. Ryan also took me on the SkyRider. HOLY CRAP THAT THING IS SCARY. Ryan was laughing at me, surprised because I was so freaked out. I seriously was in a mini-panic attack. I didn't understand why I was having the scared panic feeling. I've been parasailing twice, on a helicopter ride, did the rip cord and countless other rides at ValleyFair. Why was this "ski lift" freaking me out? I don't know. I think now if I were to do it again, I wouldn't be so scared, I could enjoy it more. Probably not. Saturday we went over to Teresa and Andrew's house for a cook-out. His cousin from Kansas was in town and we were pleasantly surprised to see his cousin from AZ also there. All the cousins on his mom side of the family were together. It was pretty neat. And the five little great-grandchildren were also together. So cute. On Sunday, I hung around the house and relaxed while Ryan went golfing with the boys. When Ryan came home we went to Appliance Smart and he bought a wine fridge for his lager beer! I'm excited for him to start brewing lager. Maybe we can find a recipe kit for a Yuengling clone. That would be sweet! Sunday night we went to Ken's and had fun chatting and drinking. Today is my labor free day (with the exception of a small load of laundry being done)! Ken and Gpants are coming over later tonight for some food and the boys are going to brew.

So what else have I been up to? I'm now the President of the my sorority local alumnae chapter and that is a job in itself. It's very rewarding and such a learning experience. I still have no idea what I'm doing, but our District President (our former local president) has been very helpful in showing me the ropes. To give you an idea of what we do check out our website. We have over 600 women in Minnesota and only 35 of them are "active" participating members. My job is to get more women involved, and by involved I mean pay their dues! :) On October 5, you can find us at the Metrodome handing out pink ribbons for THINK-PINK! October is breast cancer awareness month. At a national level, we've teamed up with the NFL teams to help get the word out and raise awareness. The Vikings are awesome and we hope this year will be our best! After all, it's Monday night football against the Packers! Woohoo. So if you're heading to the game, take a ribbon from one of our volunteers and stop by our booth in the Plaza! Ryan will be there!

New idea, blog more often so I don't have to write a novel. I'll work on it!