He totally gets me

Driving into the city yesterday:

Me: "I hate the orange on the Space Needle."

Justin: "Why?"

Me: "It's ugly. No one knows thinks of the Space Needle being orange. No one had heard of "Galaxy Gold" anyway."

Justin: Exactly. "Ugly, original, no one had heard of it. It's a biggest hipster in Seattle."

Faking it

The first thing Justin said when he looked out the window was "Apparently we've moved to London." It was very foggy and wet this morning, and more than anything I wanted to just crawl back into bed. But I got Alana ready for school and attempted to eat breakfast to go to my dance class this morning. Unfortunately, I ate some cold cereal and my body decided to revolt at because of the milk, and by the time I stopped feeling like I was going to throw up, it was too late to leave for my class. So as a punishment I paid medical bills (I have never been so grateful for insurance after this whole granuloma thing), registered Justin's car, dropped off snacks at the kids's school, and got the car oil changed. Then I wasted the entire day poking around my house, ignoring the laundry and the tutu I'm supposed to be working on, and filling and emptying my shopping cart on amazon. I've bought a lot of things this week: curtains for the living and kids rooms, garage door openers, and paying medical bills. But this is Christmas shopping, and usually I'm done by now. ARGH.

I also remembered that we needed that stuff called food, so I went to the grocery store. Unfortunately, right in the middle of trying to find a turkey, I had a panic attack and had to call Justin to come help me get out of the store. What is it with grocery stores? I have more panic attacks there than nearly any other place. Church is a close second. And then I got home and remembered three more things I forgot at the store so I have to go back. ARGH.

So right now I'm trying to fake being a normal human being right now. I don't think it's working. ARGH.

It's all relative

So yesterday I decided what I needed more than anything was a day that I could stay home. So I did. I ran tons of laundry and ironed my sheets and worked on a baby blanket that I started 6 months ago for a baby that was born two months ago (sorry Brooke!) while watching lots and lots of bad tv.

It was so fun I decided to do the same today. Until I realized that I was almost out of my pills, so when Justin got home, I forced him to go to Costco with us to get string cheese and pills. Yummmm, string cheese and pills.

So my days have been less than productive. I miss the mania. Never thought I would say that.

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.