09/05

Today was Liam's birthday, so I taped balloons and crepe paper across his door so when he'd open it the balloons would fall on him and he'd have to burst through the crepe papers. He opened the door so slowly though, the balloons just fell to the floor and Alana was the one to run through the paper. 

Reason 713487961 to love Seattle. I have fresh wild blackberries....FROM MY FRONT YARD. This is about 1/8th of what I've harvested. I now have two gallons of frozen berries in my freezer to get me through the winter. Yum.

Today I:

Ran 3 loads of laundry

Finished my book

Helped my brother with origami for something cool

09/04

Today I:

Took Liam to speech therapy
Dropped by the post office to pick up a box
Picked up milk and spices at the grocery store
Disassembled the table in the garage with Justin's help, moved the table from the garage to the dining room with Justin's help, and then stood useless while Justin reassembled the table for me. I now have a table that's looking very lonely without chairs.

Bumbershoot

So my brother had an extra ticket to the gig that he was doing at Bumbershoot tonight, so I got to tag along. Bumbershoot is a huge arts, music and comedy festival that happens at the Seattle Center (where the Space Needle is). He hosted a trivia contest after which he and Mindy (my sister-in-law) went to see the band Vaseline at one of the outdoor theaters. I'm not a huge concert person and so I wandered off and bought some veggie spring rolls at one of the food stalls and walked around. There some very cool artist stands that I looked at (though not $35 a shirt cool) and I got to listen to the bands from farther away so it didn't hurt my  ears.

Source This fountain is HUGE. This photo was obviously not taken tonight.

Afterwards I settled by the fountain and just sat. You know the last time I was able to just sit down? It's been MONTHS. It was quite relaxing know that a kid wasn't going to run up and start whining or demanding something. Despite being surrounded by people, I felt very calm and alone mostly because it's been a while since I didn't have anywhere to go or was responsible for another person. Bumbershoot was awesome and something that I totally would not do normally because of the noise and crowds, but I did okay because I had mints that I could suck on when I was feeling stressed. Sucking on something makes me not chew on the inside of my mouth and turn it into a cankerous mess. People in high school always knew I was a good source for tic tacs because I had to always have them to stay calm. But you had to take two. ALWAYS TWO.

Today I:

Took Alana to speech therapy and then Joann fabric to get stuff for her Halloween costume.

Made it through the smoke, noise and chaos of Bumbershoot.

Saturday is a special day

It's the day that we try not to ram other drivers on the road.

Today I:
Put 2 coats of polyurethane on the table
Went to two grocery stores (?!?), Target, and the Korean store
Took Liam's feather duvet to the laundromat and finished my book. The two are not unrelated. Laundromats are depressing places.

So we're lucky to live in an area that's simultaneously quiet and close to everything. Literally two streets over is a major highway that runs through Seattle and almost half the county north of us. We're also lucky that we live within walking distance of two grocery stores, couple of drug stores, an auto supply store, a DI (seriously, how did me move from Utah and end up across the street from a DI?) and a smattering of restaurants. I rarely driver more than 5 miles from our house. One of the grocery stores has an AWESOME selection of non alcoholic drinks. I can get apple beer, one of the things I was prepared miss from Utah, but turns out you can get it here too, so SUCK IT UTAH. Anyway, they have about a million types root beer, sarsaparilla beer, and birch beer. We're slowly making our way through them.

Mmmmm, contains yucca extractives

More awesome is the plethora of Korean stores around here. My favourite one is this one:

but there is LITERALLY another Korean store across the street. In the same strip mall as Boo Han is a Korean dry cleaner, a Korean optometrist, a Korean book-ish store, a Korean bakery, a Korean pharmacist, a sushi restaurant where the owners speak Korean, a Korean deli, and what I can only assume was a huge mistake on the part of the location scout for Verizon, a Verizon store. Maybe the staff only speaks Korean? Anyway, Boo Han is big. It has a small restaurant inside that you can get a quick lunch, a counter where you can get kim pop (a sort of Korean sushi without the fish), a small produce section, live abalone and flatfish in a tank, and lots and lots of narrow aisles packed with Korea items.

Half of this aisle was soy sauces. The other half was sesame oil.

It's like Costco for Korean pot noodles.

Bet you can't guess what's in this aisle. That's right, noodles!

This was an example of stuff you can buy from the butcher...

As well is this. $3.99/lb of squid is a GOOD DEAL.

Straight ahead is the restaurant (behind the baked goods) and kim pop counter.  Notice the  prominence of Korean vs. English.

Everyone speaks Korean here. I usually mutter stuff to the cashier, hoping they don't notice I'm not really speaking the same language. I'm usually able to say "thank you" and remember the right form for "goodbye", but I have to pick out the rest from cues. Like if the cashier says, "혹시, box를 원하세요?", I obviously can figure out if she's asking if I want a box. Don't ask me why she didn't say box in Korean, that one still is puzzling me. But until I can improve my language skills, I can fill my tummy with kim chi and soba noodles.

08/31

Today I:

Went to the bank, grocery store, city building, and Home Depot
Put the last coat of stain on the table
most importantly didn't ram the annoying Prius in front of me at Costco gas that wouldn't pull forward even though cars were backing up into the street. Major win.

Miss Saigon

In July my best friend moved to Vietnam. (See her adventures here). She's posted about the food they've tried and I realized that I haven't ever really had Vietnamese food. I've had a sandwich once that was was pretty good. So tonight we took the kids to a restaurant called Tic-Tac-Pho (get it? Tic-tac-toe? Except pho doesn't rhyme with toe, so I don't get it either) and I figured I should try pho. Meh. I didn't hate it. I realized that I don't really like Vietnamese food because I hate cilantro. Apparently, it might be genetic. And cilantro is very plentiful. But I had some of the kids's teriyaki chicken that was yummy.

Today I:

Did two coats of stain on the table
Two loads of laundry
Took Alana to speech therapy and then Home Depot and library

What a panic attack feels like

Source

Disclaimer: Panic attacks vary from person to person. Also varies from time to time. Also differs from which voice in your head is the loudest at the moment.

The night I met the Bloggess I had a panic attack. Panic attacks are not rare for me but this was worse than normal. It was triggered because of the perfect storm of crap. I'd had a bad week with the kids's camp being awful and disappointing, and trying to over-exercise about three hours a day. It started before we'd even left for Costco when I was trying to solve a Rubik's cube (mistake #1, those things are evil) and I felt a baby migraine coming on. I took some Excedrin Migraine (mistake #2) hoping that could catch it before it grew up into an adult migraine complete with voting rights and therapy issues. I did okay at Costco despite it being a crowded place and eating a greasy deli dinner (mistakes #3&4) and we got home and put the kids to bed. Then the caffeine clobbered me over the head and I felt hot and sweaty due to upper 80 degree weather-not extremely hot but hotter than it's been most of the summer. I felt simultaneously jittery and like I couldn't move my arms and legs. I was surfing the internet when I saw Megan Reardon's (of Not Martha fame) instagram photo of the line for the Bloggess signing (mistake #5). With yours truly, front and center, and looking FAT. Something snapped. I wanted to cry, knowing that it was stupid because I AM exercising and trying to lose weight but knowing that I should cry because no matter how much I try to exercise I'll probably never lose the weight and I shouldn't even try, etc, etc. Stupid I know, but logic and emotional control usually aren't available when panic attacks come to visit. My heart rate was racing, my vision was spotty, I couldn't feel my feet, I was nauseated and wanted to scream, but I wasn't sure what about.

I spent the rest of the night wandering the house aimlessly. I tried going to sleep in my bedroom with the fan on high. After dozing and jerking myself awake about a dozen times, I tried sleeping on the small couch next to a window in the living room. I later moved to the big couch because I was freezing but felt like I was suffocating with blankets. After feeling like I was sticking to the big couch, I tried the floor between the couches thinking maybe the cooler air on the floor would help (again, logic not a big player). I eventually made my way downstairs where it was probably at least 15 degrees cooler. The kid's playroom was a mess which didn't help my state of mind. I find I have less panic attacks when I feel organized, possibly because I feel like I'm more in control, but when I start falling into depression I stop cleaning and then the house gets messy thereby making panic attacks more likely. It's a vicious cycle. Don't ask about my dysphoric episodes when I throw away everything. I played about three hours of Bejeweled before falling asleep sometime around 4 AM.

The next day I wasn't panicky but the world takes on a surreal quality. I spent the day cleaning, trying to control my environment. I was still so shaky I couldn't leave the house and I made Justin go grocery shopping, convinced I'd drive the car off the road. I even still don't feel quite myself even though it's almost two weeks later. I haven't gone back to the gym or my ballet class though I really need to. I don't leave my house unless I absolutely HAVE to. I want to sleep all day and have very little patience with the kids. Sometimes the aftermath is worse because it lasts so much longer. Panic attack are a bitch.

Today I:

Did 7 loads of laundry
Sanded some more
Vacuumed kid's rooms
Finished reading my book