We are out of the closet!

I decided to put our pic on the blog so you can see our silly faces. We were very happy after many Marc-O-Rita's at our friends Lori & Andy's house on New Year's Eve. I love this picture because we are happy and I love to see my Sweetie's beautiful smile.

Note to Self

Taking a spin class in the morning and having sex with the husband that night is probably not a good idea. Walking funny today (but wearing a huge smile). Sorry if you feel that was TMI but it's my blog and I can brag if I wanna! Still waiting to hear back on the home study. I don't know if she is waiting for the few final documents from us or not. I just dropped her an email today so I'm sure I'll hear back soon.

~sigh~ It's Monday

And I'm already wishing for the weekend. I love my company. Instead of the usual "call 400 customers and sell a million dollars worth of product" my company recognizes that most of us will be in vacation mode and sent out an email stating "the office will close at 2pm on Friday, have a great holiday!" We have planned to have no plans this weekend. We'll see how that works out. I still have to do another layer of paint in the baby's closet because the wall just sucked up the first coat (I know, I know, we should have primed it). Then Marc (who told me that we should prime the wall first and I didn't listen to him) is going to build the closet organizer. While he's doing that, I'm going to be painting our master bathroom the prettiest shade of periwinkle blue. More paperwork being done. Joelle's referral got lost in the mail and she has to redo it. She's such a sweetie. We saw her perform yesterday at my old Synagogue. OMG this little girl has a super big voice. She was having such a good time performing we couldn't help but have a great time listening to her. Well, back to the grind. Oh, and please check my last post and donate, if you can, to the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Heather is doing all the work, all you have to do is donate some money.

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Program, To Bring You This VERY Important Message

from my friend Heather...... I am writing this letter to invite you to help people with cancer and their families, LIVE STRONG! Last year I decided that I needed to join the fight against cancer. Cancer has affected me throughout my life as I am sure it has affected most of you in some way or another. I made this decision because my mother is a two-year survivor of breast cancer and I had a brother who died of cancer called neuroblastoma. For me, finding out my mom had breast cancer was very frightening. I was with her during the visits to the doctor, her surgery, and her radiation treatments. Thankfully, we are able to celebrate the fact that the doctor removed all the cancer and that she is going to be fine. It has been two year and she is still cancer free. As for my brother, I have no memory of what my family went though. I was born the year after he died. He had a rare childhood cancer called neuroblastoma that has recently received national coverage thanks to Alexandra Scott and Alex's Lemonade Stand. Alex and my brother Scott had the same type of cancer. Scott unfortunately did not live as long as Alex, Scott was 23 months when he died Alex was 10 years old. While I never knew him, he has always been a part of my life. I have come to know the challenges that my parents and sister went through during his illness and the people that they met and supported them. In October 2004, I met a new challenge: I rode in the Bristol Myers Squibb Tour of Hope, which benefits the Lance Armstrong Foundation. This is a ride between Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. I joined the Tour on the last leg into Washington. It was very emotional for me to ride up to the point where we met the national riders and see people from all over the country unite for one cause to help raise money for cancer. As we started that last leg, we were greeted by a large number of people holding signs thanking us for our efforts in fighting cancer. It made me realize that I was making a difference in many of these people's lives. We rode as one massive group to help fight cancer, to help fund cancer education and to support people with cancer. I am asking you to help me raise money this year because I am riding in the Ride for the Roses, part of the Lance Armstrong Foundation's Peloton Project in Austin, TX in October. The Peloton Project is the Lance Armstrong Foundation's major grassroots fundraising initiative that brings together a diverse group of volunteers' dedicated to helping people living with cancer live strong. My goal for 2005 is to raise $10,000 for the foundation. I will pay all my expenses to and from Austin. All money I collect will go to the Lance Armstrong Foundation. I ask that you sponsor me by contributing to the Lance Armstrong Foundation. You can send your contribution to me (made payable to the Lance Armstrong Foundation) at 300 S. Lenola Road, Maple Shade, NJ 08052 or visit that Foundation web site at http://tinyurl.com/d7g6u to put your contribution on your credit card. Thank you for your help in supporting the efforts of the Lance Armstrong Foundation to help people with cancer, and their families, LIVE STRONG! Heather Garnick P.S. Please forward this email on to all those people you know that are affected by cancer, everyone can help LIVE STRONG!

Fighting my inner demons

We all have them. For some people it's drugs, for other people it's alcohol, for me it's my weight loss. After going through fertility treatments I have gained about 12lbs (which, in the fertility treatment world, that's pretty low). I noticed that even though I am doing Weight Watchers and I'm in the gym 6 days a week, I haven't lost. So I go to the doctors because I'm convinced that those evil drugs fucked up my thyroid. My doctor explains that it could take up to 6 months to get those nasty drugs out of my system but she checks my thyroid just to be sure. Nope, not my thyroid. Then, this past weekend, I get a fitness assessment done and I'm told that my cardio range is on the poor side. In response to this information I take, keep up and complete a spin class on Monday (fuck you trainer guy). Yesterday, I get to the gym and get onto the elliptical machine. I'm peddling along and I hear my brain say "Hey, you are taking yoga tonight, you really don't have to kill yourself here". Other side of the brain responds "Um, yes you do - your cardio sucks remember?" Then, the one man I can't argue with, Will Smith, pops up with his new video "Switch" and it's all over. Will looks at me as the video is starting and says "get that ass going girl". So away the feet go (with the hill climb program on the elliptical) and I'm just jamming away. The next few videos rocked as well and just kept pushing. The whole time my brain was fighting. When I finished I realized that my heart rate was up higher than it's been in ages. Last night I took a yoga class. They keep the class pretty warm (not as warm as bikram but close). I was sweating my ass off. My brain was fighting again (and if you two don't cut it out I will be forced to separate you!) but the good side kept winning and I kept pushing. I got on the scale this morning and half way through the week, I'm already down 2 pounds. I guess it's time to come clean.... I haven't been pushing myself hard enough. Just showing up at the gym isn't enough. I have to push myself beyond my comfort zone. I have to get super sweaty and gross and not be able to talk because I am working so hard. Maybe if I keep this up, I will actually get to goal by the end of the year (20lbs away).

Still learning the blogging process..

I wrote something, decided I didn't want it posted and deleted it and then I had this huge hole on my blog so I just thought I'd ramble a bit to fill up the space. Sawry!

Nothing new to report so....

I was just wondering. What are your favorite blogs (besides mine of course). I read about 28 blogs right now and want to read more. Doesn't have to be infertility or adoption. Give me your best url's! _______ Please check out all of the new fabulous blogs I've added to my list. I've been very lax lately about adding them (sorry fellow bloggers!).

Attention Bible Thumpers...

Don't bother posting your comments here - they will only be deleted. I have no respect for you or what you have to say.

Wholly Smokes! What was I thinking!

Over the weekend I did a fitness assessment. The trainer who did my assessment said that my strength is in the "excellent" range but my cardio was the pits. So what do I do?? I took a spin class this morning. OH MY POOR COOTER! Now I know why I didn't take any spin classes while going through fertility treatments. That would definitely have sent me right over the edge. For anyone who doesn't know what spinning is, it's an intense cardio workout on a stationary bike in a dark room with thumping music blasting and black lights. I have decided to do 2 classes a week. 2 classes a week should definitely get my cardio range up. Now, what I don't understand is, most people with a poor/fair cardio range should not be able to keep up in that class. I kept up quite well. The only reason I had to slow down at the end was not because I was out of breath or too tired, it's because my cooter was screaming at me to stop. So, to the trainer who told me that my cardio sucked - fuck you (said nicely since he's generally a good guy). ----------------------------------------- We worked on the baby's room this weekend. Marc took out the shelf and the pole in the closet and ripped the stuff off the wall. I spackled and painted the woodwork. Some point between now and next weekend we will sand down the spackled areas, paint the closet and build the organizer (ok, Marc will build the organizer). ----------------------------------------- Congrats to Cecily on getting her dream home. May it be filled with love and laugher.

Spoke with the doctor (and update on the paperwork)

I spoke with my gynocologist about her nurse. Turns out, it's a nurse that I (normally) think very highly of. She doesn't know why the nurse would have said that to me and will discuss it with her today. So, I got the medical report back in the mail from my new physician and I also got a lovely letter from our VP of Finance confirming that I am employee "in good standing". Moving right along :)

FUCK YOU GOD!

It is 8 pm on Wed night. I just got off the phone w/the imaging center. They are squeezing me in tomorrow a.m. You see, they found two "nodes" in my left breast and just have to be sure it's nothing. "It's probably only a cyst". That's what they said. By the time you read this, I will have answers. I can't post this on my blog before I have answers. I don't know if my Mom reads my blog or not but this is not the way to find out that my first mamogram was also my first breast cancer scare. I needed to write because I'm so fucking scared. I feel so alone. I just walked with 45,000 women who have, in some way, been touched by breast cancer yet I feel like the only person in the world to have an abnormal mamogram. I KNOW I'M OVERREACTING. I know it's probably just a cyst. I'm just terrified of the other possibilities. Did you know that if I have breast cancer it completely fucks up our chances of adopting??? If that happens I'm going to be a crazy cat lady. Marc brought me flowers to try to cheer me up. He's coming with me tomorrow and it means more than I can say. How this wonderful healthy man got mixed up with fucked up me I'll never know but he must have pissed someone off in a previous life. He made me a wonderful dinner with a beautiful salad so I will stop feeling sorry for myself, eat some dinner, drink myself into oblivion and deal with this tomorrow. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's tomorrow and they have squeezed my tits to about an inch, poured goo on them and rubbed it around with a big wand and I'm fine. It was probably just a cyst. I left a message for my doctor. Lady who answers the phone asked what the call was in reference to and I told her that I am one pissed off patient and I want a call back. You see, what started all of this loveliness was one of her staff members. On the way home yesterday, my cell starts to ring so I answer it. I hear "Hi Julie, this is stupid cunt from Dr. R's office, I thought I should give you call because I'm a breast cancer survivor myself". WHAT THE FUCK????? I kept saying "excuse me?". I couldn't hear her telling me that it was probably nothing, probably just a cyst because I had "I'm a cancer survivor myself" ringing in my head. I'm also pissed that, if there was a problem, she should have called me herself, not had that idiot call me.

Oh, for crying out loud!

Last night I go and get my very first mamogram. Ladies, if you have been putting if off, cut that shit out. It doesn't hurt, it's uncomfortable and they put these really cool stickers on your nipples. Ok, so I get my tits squashed the least my gyno can do is read the fucking report! I called this afternoon and was told that the results weren't in, then I called the imaging center, they faxed them at 8am. Called the gyno's office was told they never received them, called the imaging center and asked them to refax. Call the gyno's office, gyno is gone for the day, never reviewed them, will be seeing patients all day tomorrow so probably won't have a chance to read them tomorrow either so I'm looking at a Friday phone call. Ok, bitching done. Things to be thankful for... 1. Home Equity Loan has come through for the adoption. 2. I had my very first (and probably only) HIV test and it was, of course, negative. 3. My hepatitis B came back with no antibodies which is good because it means I've never had it but it's bad because it means I'm at risk to get it but unless I'm working in healthcare or childcare it's not a concern. 4. My cholesterol is fucking amazing. Only 156 (88 good 68 bad). The doctor said that even though I haven't been losing weight, it's obvious that my working out has paid off.

WWWWWHHHHHHEEEEEEEE

We had our home study on Saturday. Is it wrong that I adore the social worker who is doing our home study? She is so kind and so funny. I really get the feeling of "I want to give you a baby as much as to you want one... I just have to make sure that you are not psycho killers first". We had to agree not to use corporal punishment. No problemo! Marc was kidding around with her and asked her if duct tape was ok. She laughed. I told Marc that duct tape is out these days, masking tape is the way to go. Again, she laughed. She liked the house and approved of our plans for the nursery. Agreed that my Mom's idea to do a closet organizer and curtains over the closet instead of doors works well in the room. She said that it takes about a week or so to write up the report. She has to run it by a few people and then she will send it up to INS for our I600-A. Oh, and the best news.... we don't' have to write the autobiography. She has enough information about the two of us that she doesn't feel it's necessary and most people don't do them anyway. Went today for my physical. You meet the greatest people in the craziest of places. I couldn't stand my old primary doctor. Half the time you saw her nurse practitioner and that was after waiting 2 hours or more. I got a recommendation from my gynecologist. My new doctor is Puerto Rican and her husband..... IS GUATEMALAN! How fucking cool is that? She was very excited for us and gave me some interesting recommendations that I don't think I would have gotten from anyone else. She suggested that we get immunization against hepatitis A because it's very prevalent in Guatemala. Also did a TB test on me so that in case anything does happen when we are down there, we will know for sure that I was negative before the trip. Marc is making his appointment for a physical today. Moving right along :)

Back On Track

Whew. I spoke with Officer Rayma. She was just lovely. Apparently our birth & marriage certificates were not with the application so she just needs some more copies. No biggie, Marc is throwing the in the mail today. She said that once she gets the home study she'll set up our appointments for fingerprints. Moving right along do do do do do do foot loose and fancy free... getting there is half the fun come share it with me.

Our little coaster hit a bump...

And the car comes to a halt because of a little bump on the tracks. We got a letter from the Department of National Security (or some crazy shit like that) that says that we didn't include the birth & marriage certificate (we included a copy - guess the rules have changed and we need an original). So Marc will be mailing out the certified birth & marriage certificates today. Why is it a bump, well, on the letter they sent us they said that it's taking 10 weeks to clear people through this part of the process. 10 WEEKS! That's like more than 3 fucking months people. Repeating to myself "sometimes life doesn't happen on your schedule, sometimes life happens on other people's schedule and there really isn't anything we can do about it so we have to try not to stress out too much". Maybe if I keep saying this enough (my version of the Serenity Prayer) I will really believe it and be able to relax a bit. On to something happy then... I had a date last night :) Marc and I finished up a lot of the house for the home study so we were able to go out and play a little last night. We went to get his Comics (Wednesday is new comic day) and then walked down the street to eat dinner. Had a very yummy watermelon margarita and a Cuban sandwich. MMMMMMMM There goes my weight watcher points right out the window.

A correction and some silliness

First, the correction... Yesterday's post about our lovely bloger over at Inward Musing was a bit premature. Her clearance is to go visit her son. Unfortunately, she's not quite at the point where she can bring him home but she will be able to go and hold him in her arms for the first time. Have a wonderful trip my friend :) Now, the silliness. Last night my darling husband made me a wonderful dinner of turkey chili, oven baked fries and a lovely salad. After we had eaten dinner and cleared the table we relaxed for a bit. Now, I was ready for dessert. Luckily for me... so was Marc. I asked him what we had and he rattled off the list of various light ice creams that we had in the freezer. He asked me which one I'd want and I told him to surprise me. He says ok and walks into the kitchen. Now, I'm just sitting on the sofa, watching TV when he comes running (full force) back into the room and screams "SURPRISE" at the top of his lungs. I just about 30 feet and looked at him like he was insane and he said.... "You told me to surprise you". I almost pee'd myself I was laughing so hard. Yes, I Love That Man Of Mine!

Woo Hoo! Say a little prayer

For my friend over at Inward Musings http://stilhoping12.blogspot.com/. DNA has been approved and she is leaving shortly to bring home her beautiful little son. I cried when I read her post. Her son is coming home. She's going to be a fantastic mother and her husband will be a great Dad. Good luck to you and G-d speed!

So very nice...

I spoke with our Adoption Coordinator's assistant yesterday. The Lovely Connie. Just clarifying a few questions I had. What is this I-797C form (it comes autmatically from the Government after the I600-A gets taken care of)? Is the background check mentioned on the checklist the same one as done by the home study people (yes)? Are the three personal references the same as the ones for the home study (yes)? Whew!

A Story That Everyone Should Read

A special Thank You to Princess M (my sister) for forwarding this beautiful story to me. -------- REMEMBER THE HOLOCAUST - IT HAPPENED!Now a touching story in memory of the holocaust.....The Schindler no one knewIrena Sendler rescued 2,500 children from the Nazi death camps. Her story, writes Marti Attoun in Ladies' Home Journal, was rescued by three Kansas teens.Irena Sendler keeps a photo of "her Kansas girls" on the bedside table in her nursing-home room in Warsaw, Poland. She rests easier now that her story is in good hands. And her story is astounding, as awe-inspiring as that of Oskar Schindler, whose courageous acts of Nazi resistance became a book and an Academy Award-winning film. But unlike Schindler, who received international acclaim, Sendler had been a footnote in history for nearly 60 years.That all changed in September 1999, when three teenagers in a smalltown in Kansas were looking for a topic for a history project andstumbled upon a short mention of Sendler in an article in a 5-year-oldnewsmagazine. As a Catholic social worker, the article said, Sendler had organized the rescue of 2,500 Jewish babies and children from the Nazi-controlled Warsaw ghetto in 1942 and 1943. "We thought it was a typo," recalls Elizabeth Cambers, now 18 and a college freshman. "We thought it was supposed to say she rescued 250 children, not 2,500." In September 1939, when the Nazis invaded Poland, Sendler was a 29-year-old social worker employed by Warsaw's social-welfare department. An only child, she had been just 7 when her father, a Catholic doctor, contracted typhus and died after treating Jews during a 1917 typhus outbreak. But she never forgot his sacrifice. "I was taught that if a man is drowning, it is irrelevant what is his religion or nationality," Sendler has said. "One must help him. It is a need of the heart." In the fall of 1940, Sendler watched as the Nazis forced 350,000 Jews inside the Warsaw ghetto, a 16-square-block area that was walled off and guarded. With each passing month of the war, the torment of the people locked inside intensified. They were dying of starvation and disease while unknowingly waiting for the Nazis to herd them into freight cars that would ultimately take them to their deaths in the gas chambers. Sendler joined Zegota, the code name for the Council for Aid to Jews in Occupied Poland, an underground network founded in December 1942 by psychologist Adolf Berman and six other prominent scholars, religious leaders, and social activists. The secret organization, which forged thousands of birth certificates and other documents to give Jews safe Aryan identities, asked Sendler to head up their operation to smuggle Jewish children out of the Warsaw ghetto. But first she had to get inside. Because the Nazis were on guard against the spread of infections, they allowed the delivery of medicine inside the Ghetto. A Zegota member working inside the Polish disease department forged a permit that allowed Sendler to work undercover as a nurse inside the ghetto. Her code name was Jolanta. With the help of 10 "messenger friends," as Sendler called her colleagues, and dozens of volunteers, she organized the effort to sneak the children to orphanages, convents, and private homes in the Warsaw region. Children who were old enough to talk were taught to rattle off Christian prayers and mimic other religious behavior (such as how to make the sign of the cross) so they could live safely without arousing suspicion of their Jewish heritage. Sendler and Zegota devised several routes for smuggling children out of the ghetto. Kids escaped on foot or in the arms of volunteers through sewer pipes or basements with underground passageways. Many also escaped through the courthouse, which had entrances on both the ghetto side and Aryan side. Other methods were more inventive. For instance, a trolley driver and Zegota member, when crossing from the ghetto to the Aryan side, hid little ones in trunks, suitcases, or sacks under his back-seat, where the Nazi guards could not see. Another supporter, an ambulance driver, kept his dog beside him in the front seat and trained him to bark to camouflage any cries or noises from the babies hidden under stretchers in back. Sendler also arranged for babies and children to be sedated and smuggled out with merchants in potato sacks, under their loads of goods. Sometimes, she even sneaked sedated children out in body bags, telling the guards that they were dead. Day after day, for about 16 months, Sendler persuaded parents and grandparents to hand over their babies and children, to give them a if chance to live. "There were terrible scenes," Sendler says. "One mother I wanted a child to leave the ghetto while the father did not. The grandma wanted, the husband did not. They asked what was the guarantee? What kind of guarantee could I give them?" She couldn't even guarantee that she could get past the guards. On slips of tissue paper, Sendler recorded the identity of every child she rescued. Whenever possible, she wrote down the child's Jewish name as well as the child's new Christian name and new address. Sendler buried these names in jars under an apple tree in a friend's garden. After the war, Sendler hoped, the children would be located and their Jewish identities revealed to them. On Oct. 20, 1943, the Gestapo arrested Sendler. They had long suspected she was running a smuggling operation, and one of hermessengers had been caught and tortured until she gave up Sendler's name and home address. The Gestapo interrogated Sendler, demanding information about the identities of the other rescuers and the children in hiding. But she refused to talk, even when she was beaten until her legs and feet were broken. "I was quiet as a mouse," Sendler has said. "I would have rather died than disclose anything about our operations." She was then taken to Pawiak prison, where she was sentenced to be executed. At the last minute, however, the woman who had rescued so many others was herself rescued. On the day she was to be executed, Zegota paid a hefty bribe to a guard, who allowed Sendler to escape. The guard subsequently posted Sendler's name on public bulletin boards as one of the executed, essentially rendering her invisible to the Nazis. She then went into hiding in Poland, just like the children she'd saved. When Poland was liberated a year and three months later, in January 1945, Sendler returned to the friend's garden and dug up the jars. She turned over the rescued children's names to Zegota's Berman, and he and other members of the group tried to locate the children's foster families. Sadly, most of the children had no parents or grandparents to be found. Less than 1 percent of the Jews inside the ghetto survived the war, most having perished at the Treblinka death camp in northeast Poland. After the war, Sendler married, raised two children of her own, and continued her career as a social worker in Warsaw. The beatings she had suffered at the hands of the Gestapo left her permanently disabled, and she has had trouble walking ever since. But she never talked openly about her rescue work. Poland was under a communist regime, and the postwar climate wasn't safe. For almost 60 years, her story was essentially lost to history. Then, in March 2000, she received a letter from Elizabeth Cambers and two of her classmates at Uniontown High School in Uniontown, Kan. Encouraged by their social studies teacher, the girls had selected Sendler as the subject of their National History Day project, and though information about her was scarce, they had been able to write a 10-minute play, titled Life in a Jar, that had already won first place at the state level of the national contest."We explained who we were and what we were doing," says Sabrina Coons, now 20 and a student at Kansas State University. "We told her that we found her story amazing." Sendler's response, handwritten in Polish, arrived in Kansas three weeks later. "I am very eager to receive and read your play," Sendler wrote. In a series of letters, Sendler answered the students' questions, and slowly the details of her remarkable story unfolded; an international friendship was forged. After an emotional performance of Life in a Jar at Uniontown High, the students were invited to perform the play for church groups, nursing homes, and civic organizations throughout southeast Kansas. Through their correspondence with Sendler, the teens learned that she lived quite meagerly. So at each performance, they set out a donation jar. Their first gift to Sendler was $3, which they told her to use for postage. "We found out later that she gave the $3 away to a children's home," says Coons. "That's just how she is." Although the girls didn't win any awards when they traveled toMaryland in June 2000 to compete in the national contest, their play gained national and international attention, and the students have since given more than 100 performances of the play in eight different states.As a result, Sendler has received numerous awards for her courageous work. After learning she was to be given a $10,000 humanitarian award from the American Center of Polish Culture in Washington, she wrote to her girls: "My emotion is being shadowed by the fact that no one from the circle of my faithful co\workers, who constantly risked their lives, could live long enough to enjoy all the honors that now are falling upon me.... I can't find the words to thank you, my dear girls.... Before the day you have written the play Life in a Jar -- nobody in my own country and in the whole world cared about my person and my work during the war ..." One member of a Kansas City audience was so profoundly moved by Sendler's story that he raised money to send the play's three authors to Poland to meet Sendler in May 2001. "It wasn't real until I actually met Irena," says Megan Stewart. "We all ran up and hugged her. She wanted to just hold our hands and hear about our lives." Cambers told Sendler, "I love you. You are my hero." Sendler, a 4-foot-11-inch woman who now uses a wheelchair, deflected the girls' praise. "A hero is someone doing extraordinary things," she told them. "What I did was not extraordinary. It was a normal thing to do." From "The Woman Who Loved Children," Ladies' Home Journal

And we are rounding a bend

I got a very sweet email today. It read... Just wanted to introduce myself. I know you all are close to finishing up your homestudy with Cherry Hill, and that you have filed your I600A (I think). I am the person at the agency you will talk to the most once you begin your process in Guatemala, so I thought I would say hello. Give me a call when you get a chance so we can touch base. Thanks, Lisa Wow, what a nice lady! I spoke with her, at length, on the phone and she answered a ton of my questions. She said that after we get our referral it would be, approximately, 6 months to get the baby. She said that the quickest she did was 4 1/2 months and the longest was 11 months (had some issues on that one). She has never had someone not bring home a baby (let's not give us a kenohura please). She emailed me the dossier requirements and all I can say is... Yikes! Well, I know what we'll be working on this weekend. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Have I mentioned that Marc made a smoked turkey breast for us to have for lunch during Passover? It's so easy I thought I'd share. Now, you don't need a smoker. You can either use your gas bbq grill or you can throw together a flower pot smoker (see Alton Brown's "Q" episode on Good Eats on the Food Network on 5/25 at 10:30 a.m. and 5/26 at 2:00 p.m. - tivo it people). If you have a gas grill with at least 3 burners - just take the grill off of one side. Flip the cover on the burner over and put a smoker box (you can get them at Home Depot) and fill with either mesquite or Hickory wood chips (again, Home Depot). If you google smoked turkey you can get a couple of different brines or just put some spices on the outside and you are good to go. A turkey breast took Marc about 2 hrs and 15 minutes. Just check the wood every 1/2 hr or so. If you use the mesquite wood the flavor is just incredible. We've also done brisket & ribs this way although they take much longer to cook.