Bee Cake!!

Delicious Bee Cake! Thanks Rene for the magazine. Yummy.

Ritual Competition

Tonight is the divisional competition for the 1st degree ritual. My lodge has already won the district competition (by default, the other lodges didn't want to compete). Now we face all the district champs from OC, San Diego, San Bernardino, etc. This is my first time participating in one of these competitions. Fortunately, as the Junior Deacon, my part is limited.

IVF Meds

When you decide to do IVF, you are in for a whole bevy of medications to trick your body into doing what the doctors want, not what nature wants.

I started with birth control pills, then after 14 days I went in for a blood test. Then we added a shot of Lupron twice a day. I had more tests and a trial transfer. Then come the Follistim shots twice a day and Prednisolone. After nine days of the stimulating hormone, my follicles should be ready.

After follicle retrieval I have to take Medrol four times a day for five days , Doxycycline twice a day for six days. I also start once daily Progesterone shots. After the blastocycts are transferred I continue with the Progesterone shots and add Vivelle patches which are Estrodil. The Progesterone and Estrodil are to support a pregnancy if the blastocysts actually take.

The Garden Grows

The garden is in full growth now. After the cold winter months the warmer, bright spring days have brought me back to the garden. This year we are growing corn, blackberries, amaranth, tomatoes, daises & dahlias. I left the dahlias in the ground to overwinter. They seem to have made it and have already sprung back to life. The Gerbera Daises are supposed to be an annual in most pasrts of the world but our winter was mild enough that they survived. The balckberries are now in thier second year and thus will produce fruit for the first time! Very exciting. I can wait to try them. I'm only growing one tomato plant this year. Last year more than half went to rot. We just could not keep up with them.






The corn is already up. It is "Bodacious", an SE type corn. These are more sweet than old sweet corn but not overly sweet like the "SuperSweet" varieties that you get in the supermarket. If you remember sweet, creamy corn from your childhood, this is that kind of corn. It's not really grown commercially anymore because it is only ripe for a couple of days and is difficult to get to the store in good condition.