Once again I am faced with another month of my own mortality. Once again I am forced to look in the mirror and pronounce upon myself that I am indeed getting closer to 40 and while I may feel more like 30, my body and therefore my reproductive system are not.
Trust me when I say to not go googling pregnancy chances and 39 year olds on the internet. This was one cold hard lesson in the reality that is the internet upon my psyche.
 Apparently according to the internet (which we all know to be correct because it is on the internet) being a 39 year old woman is near death, I mean, on a good month I may have a whopping 15% chance or lower of getting knocked up. However, of course in all of the disclaimers, this percentage pertains to the 30's in general and as the late thirties approach this number could in fact be much much lower.


Fucking wonderful..
You thought you were good to go....


But wait...There's more..


If you are over weight, that decreases your chances,
Well, last time I checked I wasn't all that freaking thin the last time I got knocked up.


You drink coffee? That decreases your chances.
You don't want me to NOT drink coffee! There will be no hope in hell of me ever seeing the nakedness of the man I married if I am not sustained by coffee. He won't want to be in the same room as me! 


Do you consume alcoholic beverages? That decreases your chances.
Ummm.....This one I may beg to differ on, I really think that should read, INCREASE.


Do you smoke? Well that decreases your chances.
Guilty, guilty and every time I light one up guilty..


So let's see, another 4 decreases on a slightly decreased scale, I figure by these calculations that I have at best an 11% chance..but I've never been all that great at math so I am sure that number is much closer to 5%.
Oh but there is more!!
According to the old and wise internet, the likelihood of having Twins increases as you age, because, your eggs are more likely to travel in pairs. Apparently they don't like to travel alone when they are older, maybe those fallopian tubes are spooky, who am I to judge.


So, let me get this straight, if by some miracle of miracles I do manage to time/stand/lay/sacrifice something small/ get myself impregnated, the upside is a real possibility of having twins!
What the hell?


This month there is no fear of twins and I am off to contemplate/ruminate/cry/beat myself up/ hormone out for the next week.


Maybe next month.

The man I married and I are currently experiencing buyers remorse. In our defense it seemed like a good idea at the time.
You see we bought a shed. We don't have a garage, and are really rather tired of hauling up the Cub's bicycle from the basement rec room on a daily basis. Never mind all of the things we pay to heat that are in our basement that could easily be outside in a SHED!
We have a small shed outside, but it gets so stuffed full, that we can barely close the door. Trust me when I say that not much else fits in that shed other than the lawn mower!
So we've been looking for another much larger shed that didn't cost upwards of several thousands of dollars. For months we watched flyers, kijii , etc and a couple months ago VOILA! Brand new shed, on sale at Home Depot (I used to like them). So off we went, it seemed odd at the time, buying a shed while there was still snow on the ground, but we had plans! We were so excited, it was a smoking good deal, the world was full of promise!
Really the price should have been the first tip off.
The second tip off should have been when they brought it out to us on a trolley and we attempted to lift the 200 pound thing onto the back of the truck.
Well we rationalized that it was a metal shed and that shit isn't light, so we would wrap it up in a tarp and put it on our deck until we could set it up in the backyard.
For over two months it sat there until the snow had melted and we had the time to set it up.
The long weekend approached, we made plans, the new shed would be built! We were prepared!
Then we opened the box to have a peek, and get the instructions.
The husband fished out a sack of hardware and plopped himself down with the instructions Friday night.
Now to be fair to the shed, we did know that we would have to find a level place to put it, and our yard is far from anything resembling level, so we knew there would be some ground preparation involved.
Once the Husband hit Step 11 he let out a "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!" Loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear.
Apparently, at Step 11, you must completed the next 2200 steps until the shed is completely done, or risk damaging your newly purchased 200 pound baby.
OK, I said, what's the big deal? That should be fine? Really what, that should take us, what max 3 hours?
 ( It is at this point that I must admit that I am notorious for underestimating the time involved when starting a project. In my defense, the man I married, is notorious for over estimating the time involved, so really either way we're screwed, or his way is better because then you would be pleasantly surprised that it only took you 3 hours instead of the 9 you thought it would..but I digress)
So right in the instructions is states that you should allow yourself around 9 hours for assembly past this point.
WTH?? Well how long for the first 22 steps? Approximately 3 hours.
It was at this point that I lifted the lid of the box to look at all of the million and a half pieces that one is lead to believe will morph into a shed! Really, shed people? Could you not take a page out of Ikea and at least give me an allen key and bigger pieces??
Still, somewhat trepidatious, the man I married and I revamped our "Shed Plan"! Saturday we would level the ground (after digging it up) and build the base for the shed. Then Sunday we would have the whole day to build the shed and Monday we would do family fun stuff with the boy.
Saturday am we got up all prepped to go, we started to mark out where the shed was going to go when each of us tried to dig out some grass at that spot. For two hours we tried! But apparently the grass had other ideas. So we made an executive decision and went and rented a tiller. While we were renting the tiller, we also decided that now would be a good time to dig up the grass at the end of our existing deck, in preparation for the deck extension we wanted to make. I mean, why rent the thing twice!
With a fairly large chunk of our yard now in dirt form, we realized that we best get some rock for the leveling phase for both places (and to minimize any and all mud tracking into the house)
So we had to go get rocks, lots and lots of rocks.
By the time we unloaded the first of two loads of rocks it was damn near dinner time. So much for planning! (Veridict is still out on who was right about this time estimate)
After drinks, I mean dinner, we had an executive meeting. We were already a day behind, so this shed project would need to take up the next two days of our weekend. This would mean no fun family time, unless you consider copious amounts of sweat and swearing a roaring good time for a seven year old boy!
It was at this point in the evening, that my love for my husband became overly apparent.
"Babe, I really don't want to build this fucking thing this weekend. To be honest I would rather build the deck extension we want."
And that is how our "Shed"  morphed into build a deck in the rain instead.
As some of you may know, the long weekend was , um, er, several weekends ago.
Yes the opened shed and it's million and one pieces are still wrapped up on my deck.
Yes we are still trucking the Cub's bike out of the basement every night.
Yes, I have seriously thought about how to return the blasted thing. But the box is open and I still NEED a shed!
Yes we have started having conversations like this;
"Well, if we had a shed. We could put that in there."
"I hear we're going to have a shed."
"You know, we could really use another shed! Oh wait!! HAAAHAHAHAHA!"
Yes, we may need to get out of the house more often!
So it is with high hopes that this weekend as I sit on my new deck and watch my Cub play in the backyard, that the Shed, will play nice and just assemble itself.
Baring that, I may just start stuffing things on top of the shed box under the tarp and call it a day!


Smooches,