Legal matters

We met with the lawyer this morning. Michele Zavos. Peace of mind for just $1,575. It's a lot of money but I think it's worth it. She knows her stuff. We have that big tax return coming thanks to a year of home ownership, so we can afford it. We set it up so that our friend L will be the legal guardian of our kids if we both die. We wanted our kids to go to a glbt person so that they wouldn't lose the queer connection, and we think L would to a great job. But he lives in FL and as a gay man he would never be able to legally adopt our kids - only serve as legal guardian. We always tell him he should leave FL. Hopefully he will soon. We need to pick our second legal guardian in case L dies. How depressing that would be - for the two of us and L to all be dead?

We also set up who will care for our dog. Michele said it wasn't important but K thought it was really important. She said "Oh, my poor baby!" C & D will get the dog.

We decided that if we both die, and we don't have any kids (or the kids die), we will just give our estate to HRC. Previously we listed our parents, but they don't need the money and HRC does. Not that we have much money...

Michele's assistant, also maybe a lawyer so assistant maybe is not the right word, is also trying to conceive with her partner. They've been through three tries. We'll probably be in a lesbian insemination support group with her soon. Everybody we know is trying. Interestingly, the assistant/lawyer lives in VA. Michele Zavos has a repeated mantra - whatever you do, don't live in VA if you are GLBT. Yet this assistant/lawyer that works for her lives in VA and is trying to have a baby with her partner. Does she not listen to her boss? We don't even travel through VA unless we can't avoid it.

Money matters

We met with our financial planner last night. I think this is our 3rd or 4th year with him. We told him that we wanted to start trying to have kids, which means we will begin spending the money we had set aside for the kids. He was surprised because he had in our records that we were planning to wait until 2012. Really, that far away? In 2012 I will be 33. I know we pushed up our timeline - we weren't even going to think about kids until after I turned 30, and I remember telling lots of people that we were waiting until 32, so I guess he wasn't that off-base. K got scared that my eggs are getting old and I won't be able to get pregnant. And what if we want more than one? I'm not getting any younger - better start now!

So we haven't saved as much as we planned, but we've saved a good amount. That along with our impressive - first year of home ownership - tax rebate will allow us to try for over a year before we start to run out of money. Let's just hope it doesn't take that long.

Happy Anniversary to us!

Sunday was our eighth anniversary. Sometimes I think eight years - wow, that's a long time. I'm only 29. Sometimes I think - only eight years? I feel like I've known K my whole life.

We had an active anniversary. We went to church and announced during Joys and Sorrows that it was our anniversary. Every one clapped and later said congrats. Our friend C said 'Wow, you guys are getting old!'. C, I think you're older than we are...

The organizer for the church women's retreat came to beg us to attend. We told her we couldn't spend the $150 each because we have to buy sperm. We didn't really want to go, but money is always a nice excuse.

After church I went to our church's LGBTQA Task Force meeting while K went to Safeway and bought an Ovulation Predictor Kit. She cheaped out with the store brand - $23 for 7 sticks to pee on. That's officially the first expense of our baby making experience. We will be using these in March.

We came home for lunch and then took our dog to Petsmart to get her nails clipped. Doesn't this sound like the most romantic anniversary ever? It does get better.

After Petsmart, we went for a walk in the park. Then rushed home to get gussied up for a nice dinner at a swanky vegetarian restaurant in DC. This is our go-to place for nice dinners. It feels fancy, but it's not actually that expensive - maybe $15 for an entree. We've only been a few times - to celebrate my birthday, to celebrate K passing her professional exam. We love it there, so we try to keep it special. We had a very tasty dinner and I really enjoyed just talking to K. We get so caught up in the day to day, we don't get to just talk to each other some times.

Back at home we stopped into the Oscar party in our condo for a few minutes - long enough to see the monologue and a few awards. Saying we had to go to bed, we left early. Feeling happy and in love, we came home to poop on our floor that had to be cleaned up.

That's parenting, right? We used to have these big romantic nights out. Now we have to clean poop off of the floor on our anniversary. And I'm okay with that.

Restaurant: Vegetate

Tax Refund

A asked what we would do with our two $600 rebates. I said that $1200 would cover 2-3 vials of sperm. At least we're stimulating the sperm bank business.