A not-so-quick thank you

Wanted to thank everyone for their comments. They make me realize how lucky I am to have such caring and compassionate people in my life. I want to stess that I wrote Losing Reid as part of my healing, not because I am in a lot of pain over it. At this point I am actually doing very well, except for the mannequins in the basement that I mutilate at night when the kids are in bed. Just kidding. But honestly, I am very much back to normal now and everything is okay 'down there' (Lorrie, et al, will know what I mean), largely because of the support I recieved from you people, my family and friends. I want to stress the words my family, as my husbands family only added insult to injury by thier gross insensitivity (for more on this check out the up and coming post 'why my inlaws are outlawed'.)
Anyways, I have submitted Losing Reid to a few different magazines. I'm not going to get my hopes up over it, though, because first of all I'm sure that it won't be published. I'm accustomed to getting rejection letters-- my fiction work 'Blood Relations' received several. But thats OK. My nursing gig will keep the bills paid and the kids clothed. Such is the life of a wannebe writer. Secondly, even if they do publish it I think they pay like fifty bucks for articles, so I won't exactly be able to quit my day job. But it will be worth it nonetheless because I think its an important story to tell. Miscarriage, in my experience, is poorly understood in our society. I think it boils down to deeply entrenched gender issues. By its very nature, miscarriage is solely a womens issue. But trust me, if it were a mens issue, it would be out there. Everyone would know about the pain and the injustice of it. But we women endure it in silence, because we sense that that is precisely what it is expected of us in this male dominated society.
Well, perhaps its just the 'women and gender studies 101' coming out of me now, but I think that it rings true. So I want to try to break the silence and put the issue out there a little more. After all, 15% of pregnancies end in miscarriage, yet I don't often hear it spoken of. Anyways, we will just wait and see what happens.
On to other issues. Since people have been inquiring (well, mostly my mom has been inquiring) but I'm sure its on everyone's mind, I will let you know that my period is due on January 20th. That will be my second cycle after the miscarriage, and after that point we will likely get the OK to start actively trying to get pregnant again. I see my doc on January 18th and I'm sure thats what she will say. So we have about two weeks to go, although at the present moment we are not actively trying not to get pregnant, either.
On a completely unrelated matter, I had to get my muffler repaired today. I had been putting it off for quite some time but today I noticed it actually dragging on the ground, so I had to break down and get it fixed. It cost $277, which was hard to part with, especially at this time of year, but now my van works like new again. It seems as though my pockets have big, gaping holes in the bottom as my money trickles out as quickly as I put it in. But "what can you do when you live in a shoe?" (from Plato, The Republic).
Well that is it for now. Thank you for staying tuned. Oh, and I will have hopefully be able to post pictures soon, but for now my memory card seems lost. At first I thought it was simply misplaced, but I have now upgraded that to hopelessly lost. Its a very small card you see, and given the fact that every corner of my house is crammed full of stuff, it seems unlikely to turn up. Until I buy a new one. Rest assured, the second I go out and spend $60 on a new memory card my old one will miraculously turn up. Murphy's law. Well, enjoy your weekend!