Self pity

I was totally going to be productive this weekend. I was going to clean the kids's playroom (a room I don't think that I've stepped into for a couple of weeks, instead just closing the door so I didn't have to look at the mess), I was going to get laundry done, I was going to get shopping and cooking done, I was going to go to my dance class, damn it. Instead, I mostly laid in bed if I didn't have to move and napped a lot.

A few months ago, I got cornered at a baby shower by the RS secretary (literally) and started to ask me what crafts I did because I mentioned that I sewed. I started listing off random crafts, babbling nervously, mostly because I couldn't remember this woman's name or even who the heck she was and if I kept talking maybe she wouldn't notice. When I mentioned origami, she brightened and asked me if I'd be willing to do a demonstration/lesson for the RS. Ummmm, why not, random lady I'm not sure that I've ever met before, I'll get right on that. I figured that this was was one of those polite conversation things that would probably be forgotten, and in a desperate attempt to get extricate myself from this lady, I said sure. Fast forward to last month, when lo, and behold, she sends me an email telling me that not only has she not forgotten about it, can I please do it for Super Saturday? If you don't know what Super Saturday is, it's a Saturday morning in which the ladies of the RS come together and learn to do a bunch of insipid Christmas crafts that they can't probably actually use in their real lives.

So yeah, I know I have a bad attitude about this whole thing, but truth be told, I feel like I've been commandeered into this situation. Not only that, I have no idea about the who, what, or when about this whole thing. Okay. So I buy enough paper at Joann for what I estimate the population of the RS (I actually have no idea how many people I'm supposed to be teaching but I guessed maybe about 30?), and start searching the internet for Christmas themed origami. If you don't know anything about origami, it's a SHINTO WEDDING TRADITION. Not really a whole lot of Christmas potential there. I finally decide to just teach them paper cranes because 1) it looks cool, 2) they can be "ornaments", and 3) it's really easy.

Fast forward to Friday night when I'm panicking quite badly because I'm faced with a huge unknown and my printer is out of toner to print the instructions. I also dig through my Christmas stuff trying to find the fabric cranes I made a few years ago (which I never did find), get out a table cloth and see if I can find anything that would make a suitable centerpiece (because you can't ever do a RS thing without a centerpiece-that would be MADNESS.) Justin and I take the kids to Costco to get toner, throw some hot dogs at them, and rush over to Home Depot to see if they have any of those $5 table top trees that I could use. Nope. Seriously, Home Depot? I was there two days before and they had them then. Run over to Dollar Tree. Nope. Run over to the church, throw the table cloth on a table, lay out the paper, display the 8 paper cranes I'd made before hand, decide it looks absolutely pathetic, run back over to Home Depot to buy one of their 3 ft Christmas trees (that fortunately I'd been thinking of buying for the kids anyway), and then home where I spent the next hour manufacturing paper cranes with a raging migraine.

Saturday morning, I go over to the church a little early where mercifully I'd been scheduled to be one of the first classes so I didn't have to participate or be social any more than I had to be. I set up the tree, put some lights on it, and started to shove paper cranes on the light bulbs. Then I noticed a complete lack of table clothes, centerpieces, or really, any decorations on the other tables. Seriously. Ummmm, I felt a little foolish. I got through teaching the class (an hour with really only about 15 minutes of material), took everything down and shoved it into my car, noticed it was too late for me to get to my ballet class, drove to the Korean store and bought some kimchi, and got Justin's tire pressure checked. And then home where I napped for the rest of the day. I even made Justin go to the grocery store so I didn't have to leave the house again.

Part of the reason I've been kind of in a funk lately is that despite the prednisone and all its fun side effects, as soon as I started to wean off it, I'd notice a pain in my left breast again. That won't go away. And the lump from the previous granuloma that had all but disappeared completely seemed to be getting bigger again. So chances are the steroids didn't work and that I'm probably going to have to try the methotraxiate. And because it's not going away, it may to be an autoimmune disorder. So when I said it's not lupus? Totally could be. But not really. I don't think lupus causes granuloma mastitis. But there is a good chance that this is a sign of something much worse that will probably affect the rest of my life. Crap.

The weekly recap of crap I did this week from Wednesday onward:

Got the gym Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
Panicked myself into a frenzy about Super Saturday on Friday night resulting in 2 trips to Home Depot and 1 to Costco
Did some laundry
Made some banana muffins because Liam was begging for them
Cleaned my kitchen too many times to count (nor did it make a difference apparently)
Taught about 10 women (yup, that was it) to make paper cranes
Successfully restrained myself from killing anyone this weekend (yes, this is an accomplishment.)

Dragging

So I was going to post a political post today, but I'm not really in the mood. But go Obama!

I've been dragging for the past couple of days, which I think is just leftover from the sleep deprivation. I think I'm getting every side effect from the prednisone, but just one at a time. First I had the nausea, then I tried to eat everything in sight, then the insomnia/crazies set in, and now I have crazy acne. I didn't even have acne as a teenager (humble brag) so this is a little disconcerting when I'm closer to 30 than my teens.

So yesterday I went back to my original doctor to see what my endocrinology panel said. It's been confirmed that I have poly-cystic ovarian syndrome. Mostly this is not a big deal. She wants to keep me on the metformin to see if it helps regulate my cycle out. It also will help cut my chances of developing diabetes, something that is higher now because of the PCOS and also the high blood sugar I had when pregnant with Liam. Oh and apparently, this might have been a problem for a long time and the reason that it was so hard for me to get pregnant in the first place. Hooray for long term health problems. Fortunately as far as diseases go, this is definitely not a bad one to have. I will have to get yearly hemoglobin A1Cs for the diabetes, and if the metformin doesn't work, then I will have to get an IUD to stave off endometriosis. Yay?

I'm a little bored and unmotivated right now. Maybe I need a project. Or I should get a job. Or go back to school. Or something. Maybe this is why Mormon women have so many kids. At least something keeps you busy when kids hit school age.

Yesterday I:

Went to a doctor (didn't freak out this time)
Cleaned my kitchen

Today I:

Went to the gym (yay!)
Laundry
Napped

Sleep

So on the last couple of days of last week and over the week end, I guess the only 3 hours of sleep I was getting at nights caught up with me and I crashed. Friday I laid in bed when I didn't have to move and just dozed. Oh well, the mania was fun while it lasted and I actually got some stuff done.

However, this was Alana after we got done with Home Depot today (you can hear me sniggering in the background):

And from about a month ago at the grocery store. I couldn't figure out why everyone going the other direction was laughing at us until I saw this:

Over the weekend I:

Started to steam clean my downstairs hallway when the belt on my steamer snapped.
Went to target to pick up nighttime diapers and see if they had a belt for my steamer. They didn't, so I ordered it online. So the 3' x 4' patch of carpet I managed to clean looks good, but the rest will have to wait.
Went to ballet (yay!)
Grocery stores
Home Depot
Weather stripped the door between the garage and house. I feel like an idiot because we didn't do this last year and had HUGE energy bills
Laundry
Cleaned out a bunch of boxes in the garage and discovered we have MICE. Ugh. Fortunately it didn't look they had gotten into any of the boxes, and I quickly packed things into plastic boxes so they should be safe.
Separated out a bunch of baby stuff to donate


Today I:

Kids's speech therapy
Dropped off baby stuff at D.I.
Back to Home Depot for more weathering supplies
Grocery store
Put weather stripping and door sweeps on the front door
Folded the laundry from over the weekend
Put pictures in the frames that came today

I survived Halloween

I'll get a picture of the kids up. It's on the camera and I'm too tired/lazy to get them off right now.

So I was determined that this year the kids would have an easier time trick or treating. Last year, most of the people on our street either didn't have candy (seriously?), were gone, or in one case, a very confused new immigrant who graciously gave the kids some granola bars. I heard that Edmonds, the city north of us and where my parents are actually from originally, hosts some big bash downtown with all the stores. I looked into driving, but we actually hadn't gone up there since we've moved here and I realized it's been 20 years since I've been in that area. I decided that since I didn't know the parking situation, maybe this was a good time to try out the bus system. We packed the kids into the car, drove to Costco where the major bus transfer station is, and walked up the street to the bus station. I started to have a panic attack because 1) I didn't know if the bus was going to be on time, plus it was apparently on a different schedule and route because of this Halloween festival, 2) if we were at the right bus stop or if we were supposed to be at the transfer station, 3) it was POURING, and 4) Liam LICKED the bus stop bench. But the bus arrived on time, and we got off at the stop we were supposed to and realized we should have gotten off at the previous one, walked back and finally found a burger joint to have dinner. This place looked like a dive, but it had the BEST BURGERS (yes, I had a burger; I don't do pescetarian all the time). They were messy and delicious and I'm so going back and trying the salmon sandwich. We then walked back to the downtown area were it was starting to get a little crowded.

I was totally impressed by this Halloween bash though. The police actually set up barriers so there were no cars and all the merchants for about 5 city blocks really got into it. Nearly every single store was handing out candy. Last year apparently there were over 5000 people there, but it wasn't until after about an hour that it started to even really feel like it was getting crowded. It was well lit, people were mostly polite (though there were a couple of teenagers that I wanted to smack because they kept getting in front of the kids, and this was obviously meant for younger children), music was playing and it was very, very easy. My favourite was two guys at a real estate agency with Obama and Romney masks handing out candy together. However when we passed on the way back, only Obama remained, making me feel like it might have been cosmic foreshadowing. We're definitely going back next year but I think I'll forego the bus (which still worked out really well) and just drive since there was plenty of parking if you get there early enough and are willing to walk a little bit.

Today I was decided to get some housekeeping stuff done. Mostly because our landlord finally decided that the flooding the water heater was causing was bad and got around to replacing it. So I kind of alternated between watching Sherlock episodes and poking around my house doing little things. I feel like I actually accomplished some stuff even if it doesn't really look like it. Oh well.

Yesterday I:

Dropped off treats at the kids's classes and then went to the bank
Cleaned the kitchen (becoming a bit obsessive about this)
Tried to donate blood but was rejected because my pulse was too high. I'll try again next week.
Did some mechanical turks because I was bored (mechanical turks though amazon is a great way to earn a couple of extra bucks every month if you need to. I made $250 last summer)
Survived Halloween

Today I:

Paid bills
Grocery store
Cleaned out the kid's extra shoes and vacuumed the inside of the shoe cabinet and cleaned the foyer
Repacked the kid's clothes into a plastic container, getting rid of 4 cardboard boxes and freeing up a lot of space on my garage shelves, rearraigned the shelves and put stuff in the shed. I expect the extra space to last about 2 seconds.
Climbed up on my car to put new light bulbs in the garage door opener
Got out the portraits we had done 18 months ago and ordered picture frames
I've dumped the laundry on my bed so before I can go to sleep I HAVE to fold it, which I am now off to do with a couple of loads of laundry washing.

Damn You Pinterest Halloween edition

Justin has now informed me that I've become "that mother that the other mothers hate." Oops. Anyway, here are the pins that I did for the kids's school treats:

The Pin: "Jell-O flavoured popcorn balls."

The Verdict: This totally worked! I however wrapped my popcorn balls around pretzels instead of tootsie rolls for the stems and decided to forego the leaf, something I regret because you can't really see the pretzel very well (should have used pretzel rods instead of sticks) and it makes it just that much more cute. But it tastes.....overworked. By the time the popcorn has cooled, it's nasty anyway, then you add a liquid and microwave it some more and form it into balls. When you're finished, the popcorn has been through the wringer and tastes exactly like Jell-O flavoured popcorn. But they're very cute.

The Pin: "Cute Idea- Always looking for party ideas that don't involve candy! Draw jack-o-lantern faces on mandarin oranges for a school party."

The Verdict: Okay, so there really wasn't anyway this one wasn't going to work out. It took me a xl QI episode (about 45 minutes) to do two Costco bags of oranges. The only problem that I had was that the oil from the peel kept making my pen not work until I cleaned it off onto paper, so I went through about 2 sharpies. But once they dried, there was no smearing. It did look like I was being stalked by a horde of oranges when I got done: 

The Pin: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookie, a chocolate chip cookie flavoured with pumpkin spice pudding mix. Nicely soft and chewy.

The Verdict: The baking of this went okay. It was a remarkably forgiving cookie. I had to bake it for 12 minutes instead of 8 since I stuck my dough back into the fridge because it was too soft. Even with the extra baking time, they stayed soft and chewy. However, they aren't earth shattering taste wise. There's a little bit of a cinnamon taste but not much more. Maybe doubling the pudding amount? Still pretty good.

So this is what I ended up with:

The orange thing on the left is a juice box wrapped in a napkin. So it's a pumpkin full of pumpkin stuff. Aaaaaaand now you can hate me.

So Justin woke me up AGAIN when he went to bed. It was 2 am this time. Around four I gave up trying to go back to sleep and went into the kitchen to start cleaning. At 6 am, Justin found me on the stairs steam cleaning the carpet. I finally took a nap when Liam went off to school in the afternoon, but I woke up about 2 hours later. I'm running out of things to clean because of my nervous energy. Despite all this mania though, I still haven't folded the damn laundry.

Today:

Made popcorn balls and pumpkin pudding cookies

Drew faces on 20 juice boxes, 20 paper bags, and 12 lbs worth of oranges

Cleaned my kitchen (twice) and steamed the floor

Steam cleaned the carpet stairs

Vacuumed the upstairs

Repaired my purse. I love this bag. It's one of the last thing I bought in Singapore. I want to be buried with this bag.

Cleaned and organized Alana's room

Grocery store

Curry

Lorelai: "What about Paris? Does she ever sleep?"
Rory: "I think she periodically makes a whirring noise and then just shuts down." 

-Gilmore Girls, "The Bracebridge Dinner" 

I think that I'm about ready to make that whirring noise. Last night, Justin woke me up when he went to bed at 2:30 (!!!!) and I didn't go back to sleep until 6:30. But I woke up at the usual time feeling fine. Today I took the kids to Alana's speech therapy, then to the post office, and then got to Costco with the intent of picking up more pills and oranges. But when I got there, I figured I'd look at the phones since we needed to upgrade them. I noticed that they not only had the phones we wanted, but at a cheaper price, no activation fee and they gave you a free bundle of "stuff". As if I didn't love Costco enough before. I called Justin to get his butt over there as fast as possible, did the rest of our shopping, and then we bought some phones (seriously, easiest thing in the world). Then we fed the kids a costco deli lunch, and then Justin went home for a phone call and I took the kids back to the therapist for Liam's appointment. Then I went home and thought about raking leaves, ignored them, moved a shelf from my garage into the back shed, thought about moving stuff from the garage onto the new shelf, ignored it, ignore the boxes of clothes I keep meaning to repack into plastic containers and then went inside to make curry and rotis.

So my productive day ended up being not so productive and I didn't get to the gym or ballet class, which was really my goal today. Oh well. Anyway, here is my recipe for yellow chicken curry and roti (a fried Indian bread):

Taken with my new phone, but still doesn't change the fact I'm a crappy photographer.

Yellow Chicken Curry (adapted from this recipe), makes 6 servings

Ingredients

Yellow curry paste:

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp coriander seeds (crushed with a pestle)

2 tbsp hot madras curry powder (regular curry works too, but hot madras really adds to the flavour. If using regular curry powder, use 3 tbsp)

2 tsp crushed red pepper

2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1 small onion, peeled and quartered

4 large garlic cloves (or minced equivalent)

Put all  ingredients into a blender. Add 1-2 Tbsp of water to help the ingredients mix better. Process until smooth, scraping down the sides with a spatula as necessary. Set aside.

Curry:

2 Tbsp neutral vegetable oil

4 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into 1" chunks

1 small onion, chopped

1 recipe yellow curry paste (see above)

1 can of coconut milk (14 oz / 400 mL)

6 golden potatoes (yes it really makes a difference to have yellow potatoes), cut into 1" chunks

2-4 carrots, cut on the 1/2" bias

1 red bell pepper (optional because I hate bell peppers), seeded and chopped into 1/2" chunks

1/2 tsp sugar

Instructions

In a large skillet, heat the oil over high heat until it shimmers. Add the chicken and chopped onion, sprinkle liberally with salt, and saute just until the point no pink remains. Transfer the chicken pieces into a bowl and set aside.

Reduce the heat to medium. Scrape in the curry sauce from the blender jar (be careful - it may splatter if the pan is too hot). Stirring constantly, cook until the liquid evaporates and only a fragrant, golden brown paste remains, 3-4 minutes.

Carefully pour in half a can of coconut milk and stir until the curry paste is dissolved.

Add the potatoes and carrots, the rest of the coconut milk, and the sugar. Heat until the coconut milk begins to bubble.

Reduce the heat to medium-low. Simmer until the potatoes and carrots are tender, 10-15 minutes.

Add the chicken, any accumulated juices in the bowl, and the red pepper. Stir to coat with curry sauce, and simmer 5 minutes, or until the chicken is just done.

Serve with jasmine or basmati rice.

Roti (from this recipe), makes 8-10 rotis


Ingredients

1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. Baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp melted butter
1/4-1/2 cup water
vegetable oil

Instructions
1. Mix wheat flour, all purpose flour, baking powder, and salt, and sieve them together.
2. Pour melted butter in the flour and add water bit by bit and make a smooth & elastic dough and set aside covered with moist muslin cloth for 1/2 an hour.
3. Cut off small balls of dough, slightly bigger than a golf ball, and roll out thinly into circles of about 10" diameter, dusting with AP flour.
4. Heat an oil in a frying pan or electric skillet until hot. Place the roti carefully over it and cook for about 1 minute. The bottom will puff out a little bit and the edges will start to bubble a little. Flip and cook about 1 minute on the other side. Removed from oil onto a plate.

A variation of this is to beat a couple of eggs with water and dip the rotis into the egg before frying. The egg cooks on the outside of the roti, giving it more flavour.

Mania and why I hate Halloween

So that past couple of days I've woken up (before my alarm went off) feeling like I could take on the world. Is this how normal people feel? For the past year, I've been dragging myself out of bed, obsessed when the next time I could take a nap was, and feeling like everything I did, I did moving through waist deep mud. I'm thinking that I AM going through a manic period that I occasionally get, but it's just a euphoric mania instead of a dysphoric one. Dysphoric mania usually ends up with me fighting with everyone and trying to rip up the furniture with the bread knife.

The rare times I get manias (maybe once a year) usually are marked by me spending a lot of money and starting a bunch of projects, convinced that I can do everything. Sometimes I sign up to be costume director of a play. Or a color guard instructor. Or painting half my kitchen and then forgetting about the rest of it for a year and a half. You know, the usual stuff. I also get really jittery, have a tendency to lose weight really easily because I forget to eat, and get really impatient people because they are too slow. Basically, I turn into Paris Gellar from Gilmore Girls.

I'm going to still list my accomplishments because this has become an interesting exercise in what I actually get done in my day, but you can expect my lists to get very sporratic and probably to stop making sense (why sure, I totally thought that the roof needed to be scrubbed down with a toothbrush).

I also hate Halloween. I think this holiday embodies everything that is wrong with our society. I hate the slutty costumes, the stupid scary movies, the idiot teenagers that show up on my doorstep at 10 at night with no costumes expecting candy. I told off a teenager at the trunk or treat tonight because he tried to get candy from my multiple times and he wasn't even wearing a costume. Seriously?

Yesterday I:

Scrubbed out my fridge
Sewed- 2 skirts, 1 dress, one bow for Minnie Mouse ears, one pillow cover, a tabard, and got halfway through a doublet.

Today:

Went to my ballet class
Finished the doublet
Took the kids to a trunk or treat