Happy New Year.  A new year deserves a new look, amiright?  And if you’ve visited before 2013, you’ll notice that we are ROCKING a new logo for HFM.  Designed by my fabulous teacher/designer/DJ husband, Willie Schaefer.  If you’re into industrial music, you’ll enjoy his Buy More Robots webpage.

And, for you crazy kids into all the social media these days, HFM now has a Facebook page.  If you aren’t into the WordPress reader, this is a good way to keep up with new posts.  2013- full of all the things!

In other news, this is the 16th month of our TTC quest, and we’ve decided to take an extended break.  It’s been so nice through the holidays without the highs and lows of fertility meds and waiting and testing.  And well, the man and I decided we would take some time off.  And by that we mean NTNP: Not Trying, Not Preventing.

As I’ve followed other women’s TTC sagas, I noticed that for the sake of their own sanity, they have to occasionally take breaks. I’d say after 15 months of continuous trying and three months of the fertility meds and appointments, it’s about time.  Time to refocus and recenter.  It’s hard to keep a marriage in the right mindset when you’re constantly worried about a third person who may or may not ever show up.

So on Christmas Day, the man and I headed down to SpaWorld.  And OMG guys, you should totally go if you can.  It’s a real treat.  While we were there, concentrating on ourselves, we decided to at least wait until Spring to start trying again.

We made plans for the next few months for ourselves personally, professionally and for our marriage.  There are things to look forward to that have nothing to do with baby making.  And though we won’t be getting back on birth control or anything, we also won’t be taking temperatures, charting graphs, using testing strips constantly and doing the two week wait.   *double negative FTW!*

I’ve been limiting my cruising of mommy blogs and Pinterest nursery pics.  And that combined with no synthetic hormones running my system ragged, I have made a sort of turbulent peace with myself over NTNP.  There’s guilt.  There’s a sense of failure.  Defeat. But also, a bit of a feeling of being on vacation.  And from that, I know that I’ve been looking at getting pregnant as if it were my job.  A job that I’m not very good at.

So I’ve returned to some things that I abstained from during our attempts.  And look down on it or not, one of those things is enjoying my hookah.  Yes, it’s tobacco smoking.  I know- SMOKING!  I never said I was perfect.

Also, I’m picking up on hobbies I abandoned last year because ‘I was gonna be so pregnant‘ that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with them.  I didn’t bother to plant a garden this past Spring because I was just sure that I would be pregnant and so sick in those first few months that I would let all those poor plants die.  I feel like a real jerk for that decision now.  Talk about counting your chicks before they hatch.  And no fresh tomatoes.  *sigh*

The hobby I’m really going to rededicate myself to this winter though is my belly dance. I haven’t mentioned that I am a belly dancer on this blog yet.  So if you weren’t in the know, surprise!  I’ll be writing a separate post about that another day.  But to sum up, there are a lot of really cool workshops, certifications and performances I can start getting geared up for.

I don’t feel I grew much as a dancer last year thanks to my TTC quest.  I was just keeping the beat, but not finding my own voice (in as much anyone can speak while dancing.)  It’s a figure of speech, people.

To sum up, 2013- no resolutions. Not really anyway.  I want to learn to blow the perfect hobbit-esque smoke ring.  And check my voice mail a little more often.  But that’s about it.  And I have made a turbulent peace with it.