Yellow underwear at midnight

Happy New Year everyone... well in about 3 hours my time anyway.  Which means I am probably a bit late in posting this for all who want to celebrate the Colombian way but...  To celebrate the New Year in Colombia you must:

1. Buy a NEW pair of yellow underwear to change into at the stroke of midnight.  It is supposed to bring good luck in the new year.  I have yet to find anyone to tell me why yellow and why underwear but there you go.  Find some fancy yellow knickers and be on your merry way!

2. Also at midnight, I'm assuming AFTER you've put on the yellow undies, you grab a suitcase and walk around the block.  This is supposed to bring you a really great vacation in the new year.  (At this point in the conversation with my spanish instructor I was really beginning to question the sanity of Colombians!)

3. Again at midnight, a very busy time for Colombians, you give a gift of a stalk of wheat or a little sack of wheat to your loved ones.  This is a wish for plenty of food in the new year.

4.  You eat a meal of ajiaco at midnight.  We did this only at dinner time not at midnight.  I'm thinking at the age of 6, the munchkins, midnight is a bit late for dinner.  Ah hell who am I kidding I would gnaw off my own arm by then!  For those who aren't in the know about Colombian cuisine ajiaco is a soup made of 3 different kinds of potatoes.  One of the potatoes, criolla, melts in the soup - literally.  I LOVE those potatoes!  The stock is chicken and you throw shredded chicken in the soup too.  Also included in the soup is a cob of corn.  Yes I said cob.  They cook it with an herb called guasca that I don't believe they sell in the U.S. but gives a really distinctive flavor to the soup.  Traditionally Colombians top the soup with avocado, crema de leche (kinda of like whipping cream) and capers.  So simple but SO yummy!

5.  Finally everyone eats 12 grapes.  Twelve, I believe, because there are 12 months in a year.  With each grape you make a wish for the coming year.  We did this with the kids.  Again - we didn't wait until midnight but it's traditional to do this after eating the ajiaco.  I think we may carry this little tradition with us.  I like the idea.  And my kids were so darn cute!  They made wishes not just for themselves but for me and The Diplomat too.  Now they are 6 so they weren't sophisticated wishes but I like the fact that my kids aren't so self centered that all their wishes involved toys or things for just them. 

Filter

I almost shut down this blog, almost.  And before it even got started.  Frankly it made me sad.  You see I left it open when distracted by the munchkins one day and The Diplomat found it and read it.  It's not that I have, or would, say anything he can't read.  I just didn't want to filter.  I spend ALL my time filtering for everyone.  I am a middle child you see and that's what we do.  I can't freely write if I think someone I care about will read it and have a... reaction.  What does that mean?  Really I don't know but I DO know that I don't want to have to worry about it.  The Diplomat promises he won't read it again now that he knows he's not supposed to.  I believe him.  He is a trustworthy guy.  I know I would want to sneak a peak, and very well may have if the roles were reversed, and then feel guilty.  But him, no way.  He is a man of honor.  I am lucky.  So after careful consideration I'm gonna keep going.  We'll see if I can write without restraint knowing it's possible The Dip will read my thoughts.  Luckily I married the greatest man on earth so I should be able to get over it and carry on.

Hope everyone had a merry christmas, happy holiday and soon... a happy new year!

Invincible

Everyone knows that teenagers, or tweens as the case may be, are INVINCIBLE.  Or at least we like to think so.  I fancied myself as invincible at the age of 13.  I mean really, who gets seriously injured, much less dies, at the age of 13?  Sure it happens but not to ME. 

I think my infertility started when I was fifteen years old.  Or perhaps a few years before that.  I was around 13 when I was on a sleepover.  Did you all play those silly games like "Light as a feather, stiff as a board" and levetate your friends with your finger tips?  I may be dating myself!  This was exceptionally popular when I was a kid, living on the east coast.  Anyway I had my head bent down.  You know concentrating on my powers of levetation ;o)  Being 13 years old when I bent my head and noted I couldn't breath well I simply thought, "hmm, guess I shouldn't put my head down quite so far".  Perhaps if I wasn't quite so laid back I may have mentioned said issue to my mother and taken care of the whole mess earlier and with less consequences.  But I didn't because I was 13.  And we all know that 13 year olds are INVINCABLE.  So I went about my life.

Flash forward TWO YEARS.  Yup that's right.  Two years later, and still unable to breath if I turn my head a certain direction, I put my hair in a pony tail and went in the living room to watch t.v.  My mom JUMPED, and I do mean jumped, out of her chair and said, "What is THAT?!"  To whcih I calmly respond, ok I may have responded with a bit of attitude I was fifteen afterall, "What is what?"  Trying in vain to escape her grasp on my arm.  "Your neck, what is that on your neck"?

Believe it or not I had NO CLUE what she was talking about.  You would think it being my neck and all I would have noticed the LARGE lump protruding from the right side of my neck. 

"Huh, I dunno" was my only reply.  Still not worried mind you... I am invincible remember.

"How long has that been there?"

"What part of 'I don't know' wasn't clear".  Smart ass, I know.

My mom proceeds to point out the large lump on my neck.  I reply with an "Oooooh, maybe THAT'S why I can't breath when I turn my head"!

I think my mom about had a heart attack right there on the spot.  That or she wanted to strangle me - I'm not sure which.

"How long have you been 'unable to breathe'" she calmly asks.  And yes, she was calm.  My mom has always been good in a crisis.

Anyway, not to bore you with the details but I had an 8x6x4.5 tumor in my neck.  WHOA.  The doc removes it, tells me it's cancer and I say "So what ya gonna do about it".   Cool as a cucumber just like my mom.  Well that and I'm 15 and like I said, 15 year olds are invincible!

The Diplomat

'Tis the season for parties, parties, parties!  Which is fun when it's with friends but not so much when they are work, work, work.  The reason I gave the hubby the nickname The Diplomat is because that's what he is!  We are living in South America on a diplomatic mission.  Which was fun at first but now it really is w.o.r.k.  My friends say I have the life of a princess.  We are ALWAYS at an event for an Embassy.  The Israeli Indepence Day, Cinco de Mayo for Mexico, an Orchestral Performance at the Spanish Embassy,  Christmas Party at the British Embassy.  You name it, we're there.  Then there is just the dinner party invitations, the military graduations etc.  On top of that we have entertaining responsibilities in our home; at least twice a month.  In any event... I would really love to blog everyday and share with all of you (ha ha SIF I think you're it so far!) but my "duties" as a Dip Wife are getting in the way.  The boss had a party last night, we were at the Ambassador's house this morning, another event this evening and we are hosting one tomorrow.  Really I'm tired just writing it all down.  It was the same last weekend too.  Not to mention the events we had during the week and oh, I work.  Yup I am a therapist and apparently VERY in demand in this country.  Which is nice to have the work to turn away but WOW am I busy.  I have a draft in the works explaining a bit more background.  Maybe before this year is over I can get it finished!  Happy holidays all!

Infertility

I have two children so you would think the problem of infertility was solved for me.  I wish it was.  It's actually quite a long story but, to catch you up before I write out the saga, I will start by saying I have had one beautiful boy, adopted a beautiful little girl, and had 8 miscarriages.  You think I would be grateful for the two I have right?  Wrong.  Ok so that's not true I am grateful but still frustrated.  I think it is the long, excrutiatingly slow process that has brought me here.  Not to mention all the doctors saying I am still "within the normal range" in regards to my miscarriages.  That is until the last one.  Who would think you'd need to lose EIGHT babies before someone agreed that there is indeed a problem.  And the problem... well who knows.  I have my theories but the docs seem to differ in opinion or they just listen and nod but don't comment.  So I've done my own research, read books, scoured the internet and now... now I think I'm going for ONE MORE TRY.  Am I crazy?  Probably. 

The Beginning

Hi my name is "Mikaela".  Okay, well, not really :o)  I have had blogs in the past but they were not anonymous and therefore subject to ALOT of editing of what I really wanted to say.  You see my husband, we'll call him The Diplomat, is a CLOSED BOOK.  And I am very much an open book.  Part the purpose of a blog, IMO, is to share your life story but that is SERIOUSLY hard to do when your hubby wants to keep everything private.  So I created a very surface blog with photos of the munchkins and stories of everyday life but - I never got to say what I REALLY wanted to say.  So this is it.  The true story of Mikaela, The Diplomat, and the munchkins (we'll call them Leo and Miss Texas).   I have no clue if anyone will ever read this but it will be cathartic for me.