Since we don’t have color changes in Southwest Florida and our temperatures don’t drop until later in the year, I’m left to rely on other indicators of Fall’s arrival–namely the cinnamon broom’s first appearance at local grocery stores. What’s a cinnamon broom, you ask? It’s nothing more than a bundle of sticks tied together in the shape of a broom and soaked in something I presume is not real cinnamon, but still–I’m a sucker for this sort of seasonal tchotchke. As all good classical conditioning goes, rewards follow the broom’s debut. Rewards start small with simple rituals like baking pumpkin bread or dog-earring catalogues for kid Christmas gifts, but they build exponentially–cider, costumes, hay bales, apple pie, company, Christmas mailers…

With that said, I walked into Fresh Market Saturday morning, completely forgetting that September was only hours away, and BAM. There it was–the cinnamon broom, it’s spicy scent overtaking the entire store and instantly hypnotizing me into a state of fall drunkenness, so much that I forgot my original intention for walking into Fresh Market and instead walked out holding only one thing–the broom.

Excitedly I took the broom home, leaving a trail of broken twigs that broke off from it along the way, and hung it in our laundry room. I forgot that cinnamon brooms shed, but all good things in life come with some sort of sacrifice. Brett, however, does not share my celebration for the cinnamon broom. In fact, when he saw the trail of broken twigs, he rolled his eyes and mumbled some tsk-tsk. I think I heard, “Oh God, not that thing again.” And today, it’s missing. The broom is GONE. I smell The Boot War of 2011 all over again.

So it has begun. Even if it’s initiated by nothing more than a manufactured cinnamon-soaked broom. The light seems warmer, and the quiet invitation to make and sit and dream and read and decorate and sip and gather grows clearer.

We spent the last few days accordingly–with friends and good food, babies slung on hips, a dreamy pink beach sunset one night and a warm gold field one the next.

Snippets from home, beach and Koreshan State Park this past week:

She’s talking on the phone while she stirs. Multi-tasker.

Good stuff. September holds pure potential for the year’s last quarter. I dream of cozy, warm, delcious, crisp, creative, homey things. Now if I can just get my kids out of the pool.

And find my cinnamon broom.

Every few weeks, I receive an e-mail from a reader telling a hopeful story of waiting for a baby.  Many of you who read here are mothers, but there is also a great number of women who come and read and take part in this community who are not.  Maybe some choose not to have children–and that’s quite alright–but the ones who wait and hope and try and wait some more–well, it’s an emotional journey, one that needs a lot of love and support.

In my own circle of friends and family, I know many that faced years of infertility struggles.  Many of these women became moms in different ways, and some chose to pursue other dreams without children.  Either way, this challenging journey so many women face is made a little easier when there is a community of support.  When we are well-informed and understanding and stand together.

According to Resolve, the National Infertility Association, currently 1 in 8 American couples of childbearing age suffer infertility issues.  Each has a story to tell.  Among these stories is that of Lindsay Riddell, our guest blogger today.

Lindsay, thank you for bringing your vulnerability, your beautiful words and your strong voice to this space.  I’m so honored to have your story here.  You can follow Lindsay on Twitter @LoisLaneSF or on her new Tumblr: Gross Stuff No One Likes.

Photo Credit: Paige Green Photography

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You Must be This Pregnant to Ride:
Our Journey Aboard the Infertility Roller Coaster
by Lindsay Riddell

My husband asked me if I wanted kids a month after we started dating.
I was all: “Hey buddy, slow down, what’s with the baby questions?”
He was all: “I’m 39. I want kids, and I don’t want to waste my time.”

I’ve joked with him about his bold approach, but fact is, I liked that he was upfront about it. Not only did I know he wanted kids, but I also knew he was already considering having them with me. We picked the names right then and there, Friday June, after “Girl Friday”, the name given to the first female reporters, and June, after his mother. Jack Danger was an easy choice, because, ‘No. Danger is my middle name’ will always be funny. Our relationship, from then on, was serious.

There were other important things that influenced our courtship: Though he’s eight years older than me, we love to do the same activities; biking, running, generally being outside; We prefer the same beers and the same movies and the same TV shows at least 80 percent of the time. And because he’s color blind, he can’t criticize my decorating decisions.

When I hold up my iPhone and say “pretend we’re on a roller coaster,” he always does it, no matter where we are. We have a series of these roller coaster photos: On the beach in Hawaii; at a super nice restaurant in Austin, Texas; on an airplane — arms raised, eyes wide, terror-stricken. This might be my favorite thing.

When he travels for work (which is often), we’ll FaceTime before we go to bed. If I’ve had a bad day, he’ll pretend he’s in a canoe, rowing back and forth across my screen until I start laughing. He totally looks like he’s in a canoe! It works every time.

While he’s logical and I’m creative, we’re a good balance, the right amount of yin to yang; color-seeing to non-color-seeing.

He proposed on our two-year anniversary when he was 40 years old and I was 32. After a July wedding at City Hall in San Francisco, we started trying to make some babies in February of 2011.

It did not work.

For months we were really chill about the entire thing. We relished our ‘Whatever happens happens’ attitude. But one by one our friends started to announce their pregnancies and I started to get frustrated.

First, my best friend and her husband got pregnant literally the first time they tried. Blammo. Just like that. This is so easy!
Then a member of my book club who is a local farmer, got pregnant the first month she started trying – you know, to time the delivery for Winter when things would be slow on the farm. How convenient!

Next up was my neighbor, who had been on birth control for 18 years, and who got pregnant.. wait for it… on her first shot. First shot! These stories were all so hilarious!

My husband was convinced we just needed to be patient. That eventually it would all work the way it was supposed to.

After we’d been trying for more than a year, I went to a baby shower where, I swear, I was the only non-parent, not-pregnant person in attendance. A friend I didn’t even know was pregnant waddled up to me rubbing her adorable pregnant belly with some encouraging words: “It took us five months,” she said. “It’s your turn next.”

But it wasn’t my turn. Two of my cousins got pregnant, one with her third kid, a girl, just like she planned. The other cousin got pregnant with her third – “an accident” (Whoops! Right?).

A longtime friend who bought us our first ovulation kit and had it sent to my house after a year of fruitless, non-strategic trying, flew to town, and held my hands across a dinner table. She was pregnant again. We both cried. But her empathy to my situation was real and touching. We could be happy for her together and sad for me together. And we were.

In October of 2012, my husband and I visited the infertility specialist and I got my eggs tested. I have plenty. I’m a spring chicken, eggs-wise. This is not that helpful as it turns out. My husband got his junk tested and guess what? Levels are normal. Despite the fact that he’s an ironman who spends lots of hours on his bike crushing his sensitive parts to numbness, he has lots of swimmers and they swim.

The doctor explained our options: Clomid – a drug that stimulates eggs to drop; artificial insemination; and In vitro fertilization. We had already ruled out IVF – which can be a really great choice for some people, including a friend of ours who just this week delivered a perfect little baby after just one cycle of IVF. It doesn’t feel good to me, however, and it isn’t how I wanted to produce a baby. I knew that before the appointment and my husband supported that.

And even though the infertility doctor drew us a stark graph that gave us a 2 percent chance of getting pregnant on our own given how long we’ve been trying, we were not quite convinced. We thought “We can do this.”

In November, a bunch of my cousins came to visit. One of my cousins, one of my best friends in the world, had some news. Telling me was hard. For her. For me. For everyone visiting.

My response: “God dammit.” I said it out loud. And I cried. Not because I wasn’t happy for her. She knows I am. Only because it sucked for her to have to tell me. It sucked, and it’s the kind of news that shouldn’t suck. When I woke up the next morning with all of my cousins at a fancy San Francisco hotel, I discovered I had started my period a week early. Insult. To. Injury.

In December I felt weird. Bloated. Ornery. I had sore boobs for two weeks. My back hurt. I looked at WebMD every day analyzing my symptoms, waiting to get within the window that I could take a pregnancy test and finally show my husband those two freaking lines. I tried to tamp down any hope, swallow it before it escalated and took over. But hope is a powerful thing. It is highly resistant to being swallowed or tamped. And it crept up anyway, bursting through that two year build up of dark infertile clouds casting a shadow over my future.

I started my period 8 days early, three days after Christmas.

In January we took a sexcation to Hawaii, to recover and to relax and to… you know. It was not fruitful despite our valiant efforts.

I turned 35 at the end of January and when I woke up on my birthday, I told my husband that this was the year we would have a baby – or at least confirmation that a baby was on its way. We were going to have to accept the fact that despite how much we wanted it, and despite how hard we tried, and despite how many trips we took on the proverbial roller coaster, we might not be able to make a baby.

Yesterday we took matters into our own hands. We made an appointment for our first adoption orientation. We are nervous and excited and so anxious. We don’t know if we’ll get pregnant, but we’ve decided to adopt even if we do.

My husband asked me if I wanted kids one month after we started dating. And today, six years later, and for the first time in a long time, our arms are raised, our eyes are wide, we are terror-stricken. But we are hopeful.

— Lindsay is a San Francisco-based writer. You can follow her on Twitter @LoisLaneSF or on her new Tumblr: Gross Stuff No One Likes.

So, new neighbors moved in across the street this weekend after a dear elderly couple sold their house. We haven’t had any new neighbors within a 4-house radius for years now, so this sort of thing gets our street excited, beginning within seconds of the erection of a sold sign. We’re sort of like obnoxious children on a long drive, Brett and I, except instead of “Are we there yet?” we repeatedly ask surrounding neighbors, “Have you met them yet? Have you met them yet? Have you met them yet?”—them, of course, referring to the incoming residents who hold our curiosity.

We have a nice thing going on our street—a cluster of neighbors who’ve become like family and all fulfilling an important neighborly role. The Second Set of Parents neighbors. The Always Have Anything You Need to Borrow neighbors. The Owns a Generator and Will Let You Plug In During a Hurricane neighbor. The Show Up at Our House Any Friday Night and You’re Guaranteed a Good Time neighbors, who also happen to double as the Our Son Will Do Crafts with Your Daughter for Hours neighbors, a total bonus. But we’re still secretly always on the lookout for more kids. Fun couples would be great. Grandmotherly types who’ll bond with my kids and maybe invite us over for cookie-baking Sundays. Just please no crotchety grouches who scorn when we wave and smile or growl at my kids when balls roll on their property.

Once word was out that new neighbors were on their way, Brett set out on a Nancy Drew clue search, scouting their property for the evidence of kids. Like he checks windows for family stick figure decals on any cars that might happen to be in the driveway. Honor Roll bumper stickers. Special license plates that support children’s funds.

Friday night, he ran in from the driveway, practically out of breath. “They’re over there,” he pants. “The new neighbors. Dude. Two kids. A boy and a girl. Girl, maybe 7. She’s doing handstands in the front yard. I talked to them.”

“Nice?” I ask.

“Very,” he proceeds.

This is like neighbor jackpot.

“Go over and say hi,” Brett suggests.

I get all fidgety and sweaty all of a sudden, fixing my hair in the hallway mirror and practicing my “Welcome to the Neighborhood” in my head as I walk across the street. Listen, we weren’t the cool kids in school. Okay, I was homeschooled, so moot point. Regardless, I have hopes for a relationship with our cool new neighbors, and first impressions mean a lot—especially when our yard currently says “We don’t really care about anything.”

These people are really nice. Firm handshakes, warm smiles, jewelry with cross charms which never hurt. The kids are polite and friendly, and Lainey thinks Gymnastics Girl is the bomb. I’m feeling some really good vibes here.

End of Ramble #1.

Beginning of Ramble #2.  Our weekend outside of stalking new neighbors. 

Adventure days are sometimes planned around here but far more often just thrown together as we go.  Like Saturday when we loaded up the diaper bag, buckled in the kids and drove north, with only the hope of hitting one of the better antique shops in town.  On the way there, we passed a putt putt adventure golf center, its enticing water falls and caves completely drowning out the itty bitty quiet voice of reason we failed to acknowledge–the one that said “it’s far too hot to golf today.”

But there’s a sign that says “Feed Baby Alligators” and did I mention waterfalls?!  Caves!  So we listen to the sirens and we golf.

Two holes in, we find the hole that’s shaded by a cave and camp out there for a while, watching Nella chuck the ball against the cave walls and listening to Lainey repeat “No throwing, Nella!” over and over. Other golfers soon need to use the cave hole, so we’re forced to move out into Death Valley again, our only relief coming from the few breezes that sent a waterfall mist our way.

We lasted a total of six holes before we turned in our clubs (they offered us a rain check) and called it a day. Nella’s victory dance:

The rest of the day was spent in the historic district of Fort Myers, an area I’ve never really explored extensively.

Pigeons loiter on corners of brick streets, palm trees frame café entrances, and there’s an old and mysterious boarded-up shop for every five or so charming new ones–enough to make these few blocks seem both up-and-coming and full of stories from the past. I made note of several restaurants worth looking into, and can check off Ford’s Garage and the outside terrace area between the Mexican restaurants as definite “Come Back Again.”

The girls chased each other, oblivious to the heat, for a good twenty minutes.

And I found a thrifting urban legend at the antique mall, the Holy Grail of 80’s Totes…
…the cotton canvas Esprit bag.
I know.

Post Thrifting Smiles:

The last ramble (Ramble #3, if you’re into labels) is really more of a word-free exhibit of Things That Made Me Smile This Weekend.

Chompers!!

Clean Slates. Possibility. Happy Monday.

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Over at All Parenting sharing a list of ways we like to turn ordinary moments into really special ones in our home.