It’s okay for me to post this now, ten days late, because my decorations are still up!
Aside from EVERYTHING else, one of the worst feelings I had when they diagnosed me with the blood clots was the idea that I might miss Christmas. I had no doubt in my mind that we would still celebrate but I was very unclear as to what capacity I would be able to participate.
Thankfully, after a week or so of intensive treatment, my condition improved and we slowly got into the Christmas spirit. And I couldn’t have been more grateful that on Christmas morning, I was healthy enough to go to my parents house and eat delicious food, exchange gifts and watch movies with my family.
The thing with being as sick is that I was forced to reorganize my priorities. In years past, I’ve stressed myself out to the point where I couldn’t even enjoy the holidays because there was baking to be done, cards to be completed and mailed, presents to buy, travel plans to fulfill and just general chaos surrounding what was supposed to be a joyous and heartwarming time. But this year – this year I had an amazing holiday! I had to step back and pick only the most important things because my body wouldn’t let me push myself to that breaking point. It was already there.
I pretty much spent today in bed and I don’t feel bad about it at all.
I’ve been fighting a pretty nasty cough the past few days and have been just generally feeling run down and exhausted. On Saturday, the house needed to be cleaned up because there were still remnants from the party laying around (all I can say is that I’m glad we stuck with laminate as there were random spills EVERYWHERE!). So I fought hard to get things straightened up and even manager to go through ninety percent of the cabinets and refrigerator in the kitchen and got rid of tons of expired and unused crap. The problem was I had no energy and my entire right side was sore from coughing.
Steve and I both ended up in bed by 10:30 last night (god, we are so old!) because I don’t know about him but I just couldn’t keep my eyes open. About 1am though, I woke right up out of a dead sleep to a stabbing pain that started just under my right boob, if you will, and stretch all the way into the back of my shoulder and down my arm. When I tried to breath it, it hurt so bad. I couldn’t even take a deep enough breath to sustain me. I started panicking then just closed my mouth and took short deep breaths through my nose. They worked enough to allow me to calm down but the pain was still there. If I laid on my back or right side, it just killed, like things were pinching me up and down my right side.
I started to wonder what the hell was wrong – was I having a heart attack? Was something jabbing in my lung? Overkill, I know, but it was 1am, I was still coming out of being asleep and it was taking well over thirty minutes for me to see any improvement.
I finally whimpered enough to rouse Steve who asked me if I was ok. I muttered something incoherent and kind of rolled out of bed and jumped into a steaming hot shower and stood under that for a few minutes. Both the heat and the standing up helped and I realized later if I sat down and leaned over it helped as well. Also, if I laid on my left side only, which is pretty much what I had to do all night (and if any of you know, you’ll know that was a pain for me NOT to be able to flop around). I thought of taking some ibuprofen but in my sleep haze, I couldn’t asses if it would be good for me if something was majorly wrong.
I drug the heating pad into pad and alternated between dozing and coughing and yelping because it hurt so bad. But eventually it started to subside and I was able to breathe evenly enough for it not to hurt. It took over an hour to go away.
Needles to say, this morning I was a bit tired and still not feeling well. Steve forced some cough syrup down my throat and I drug myself into the living room for about two hours or so. When his friend came over and I realized that I was going to have either sit in the same spot on the couch for hours on end while they played video games or put some pants on, I opted for the pantless option and drug myself back into the bedroom, where I proceeded to work on a new layout for the site, surf mindlessly and tune out endless hours of MTV’s True Life (of which I was highly disappointed that they did NOT show the Jersey Shore Tommy Cheeseballs episode).
I drug myself back out into the living room long enough to eat the pancakes Steve cooked for dinner and watch Get Smart. And while I don’t necessarily feel flu-like sick, I’m afraid it’s coming. Because the exhausted and rundown feeling I have wouldn’t be so bad, if it weren’t for this damn cough and the constant pain my right side is in from said cough.
Beyond that, we did nothing this weekend and that was perfectly fine. I know Steve may get frustrated because there are weekends where I don’t want to go anywhere at all. But when it comes right down to it, I’m a homebody and I work so much during the week that all I want to do on the weekends is clean my house and then relax in it.
I have Tuesday off so I just have to make it through one day and then I can spend all day on Tuesday sleeping. God knows I need it! I really think my body is in need of some repair. I feel like I’ve been running and running for months on end and now I’m just running on empty.
And unfortunately it’s only going to get worse as the holidays get close! Maybe I’ll just run away for the holiday so I don’t have to fulfill any obligations to anybody.
Then again, who I am kidding? They are the next big vacation I’m going to have!
I think part of my problem is I don’t make time to write. And then, when I finally do, I don’t know how to make the mundane sound interesting. Or how to make a month or two’s worth of information readable without it being a laundry list of this and that.
I always say, “I’m going to do it this month. I’m going to write about something, anything, every day”. Then I spend all day at work on the computer and little tasks at home get in the way and before I know it, the day is over and I can’t even remember half of the little things that sparked even the short thought of, “Maybe I could write about this”.
Sometimes, briefly, I thought about giving up this site but then my stubbornness kicks in. I’ve had this blog for eight years. At this site. And yes, interest has probably waned both on my part and my readers part but at the same time, I don’t like to think of life without it. Partly because I’m resistant to change and partly because this at least is my outlet, even if I only use it sporadically.
So I don’t think I’m going anywhere anytime soon. I just need to give myself a swift kick in the pants to actually START being interesting again.
(Maybe that’s my problem – I’ve done grown up and bought a house and got a real job and just don’t FEEL interesting anymore! Somebody, validate me, please! LOL)
September and October have been rough though I couldn’t specifically tell you why. I feel like these weeks just blew by and thinking back, there are very few moments from them that stand out enough. I’m still working seventy hour weeks or so and have actually been really, really busy during my time at the office. I think that’s part of it all. Work kicks my ass lately and despite the fact that I never wanted to be that person, sometimes, it’s the only thing I’m thinking about, even when I’m not there. Because I want to do a good job. Because I need to be awesome, at everything I do! (All joking aside, I’m kind of serious – I want to rock at my job because it makes me feel like I’m not wasting my life away in a career I hate.)
Early in October, I got this brilliant idea to have a Halloween “gathering”. By deeming it a “gathering”, I figured I could get away with inviting people to my house, feeding them some candy, having them bring their own booze and letting them hang out and play my XBox. Well, I got kind of carried away and now that “gathering” has turned into a “party” of almost twenty-five confirmed guests. And since I seem to think I’m Superwoman or Martha Stewart (or just plain awesome!), I’ve already sailed away on that ship called Overboard and am a little bit knee-deep in a lot of work that I only hope will produce a fabulous celebration.
I made custom spooky wine bottle labels, ya’ll!
It’s a lot of work and I really don’t mind because I was going to put out that kind of effort to decorate our front yard (we like to be that scary house on the block) but the pain is in the details and my perfectionist person just has to learn to let some of the stuff go. Like putting caution tape over the doors in the hallway? Great idea – can’t find my caution tape – DO NOT NEED to go running back to Wal-Mart to get some more. (I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been to Wal-Mart this month!)
Regardless, I’m sure it will go over well and since it’s in like two days, I can at least start to feel excited about it, instead of stressed about the fact that nothing’s done (trust me, there’s still a lot to do, but I have a LIST! A list always save the day!).
And yes, my floors were finally fixed which is why I’m ok with having the party. Three months later, the living room is back to normal. Now I just have to pay the guys and get MORE money from the insurance money (something about depreciation costs – God, being a grownup homeowner sucks! I would so get my mom to call for me if she could). They also finally fixed the couch, after two service calls. It still doesn’t feel right to me but I don’t think it ever will unless they replace it completely, which they seem adament about NOT doing. So for now, we’ll just delegate that one to company use only (though, come to think of it, it would make sense to use it every day since neither one of us ever sit in the middle – hmmmm, I guess I do get bright ideas when I finally sit down to write!).
I was finally able to get Sammy’s haircut (hey, you talk about your children, I talk about my dog – just put me in the doggyblogger category). I figured it was probably time when he jumped up and ended up scratching my face with his claws. I could have also gauged it around the fact that he was scooting in circles around the rug in my living room but he does that all the time, especially when company comes over, so perhaps not (“Hey Mom, Sammy learned a new trick!”). Poor thing had to go through the stress of the haircut then the very next day had to deal with the workers sawing and hammering the new floors. I’m sure he needed a Valium or something because Steve said he was so nervous he threw up like five times the day the workers were there. I swear, only we would get the dog that is terrified of loud noises but will bite the shit out of you if you look at him wrong!
The big accomplishment with Sammy though has been that I was able to teach him “Paw!” and “Roll Over!” in the past month. Those were the last two he needed to learn and they were difficult because both required him to do something he didn’t want to do, i.e. submit to us and let us touch his paws. But a good bribe, persistence and praise will make them do anything! Granted, when he gives paw now, even without a treat, he kind of claws at our hands like he’s trying to pull them close to get a treat, but hey, before he growled whenever we even held our hand out. So it’s a step in the right direction!
We really need to take him out of the backyard more. A few weeks ago, we took him to dog park and he seemed to enjoy it. He’s definitely intimidated by dogs bigger than him and I don’t think he understands the “play” signals that the little dogs give off, particularly the ones with high energy. He’s definitely a loner and would prefer to just wander in and out of groups and sniff the grass.
I’ll tell you, we love him to death, but sometimes we just shake our heads and wish we had gotten a normal, overly-friendly goofy dog that we can do almost anything with.
We’ve tossed around the idea of getting another one. To be honest, if we had the room and unlimited funds, I’d adopt every animal I could. I would love to have a few cats and wouldn’t mind taking one of them on because they’re much easier than dogs. Losing Scamper this month was especially hard on me but Steve is really allergic to them and it’s definitely not fair to bring an animal into the house that’s going to make him miserable.
Even Sammy gets to be too much for him sometimes!
So we’re still grooving along! Tonight, my parents are coming over to carve pumpkins and tomorrow we have Tyler’s football game then Friday is the party. So I hope to be back this weekend with some pictures to share because you better believe I’m documenting all this hard party work with photos so I can remember how awesome I really am!
How do you take a picture of humble? Because I should probably do that to!
Have a Happy Halloween everyone and if you’re in the area, feel free to stop by! What’s one more person, right?
So it’s Autumn and I guess that officially means Summer is over.
Ninety-percent of me wants to jump and shout but there’s that other ten that’s always sad that the carefree days and lazy nights are gone.
But with Autumn comes crisp evenings (yes, we’ve actually had these in Charleston the past few days! See the grin from ear to ear?), football, Halloween, sweatshirts, fuzzy socks, and things like this (that’s not a paid endorsement – that’s me telling you to go buy the Leaves stuff now!).
Some days I look at the date and am still amazed at how quickly the days pass. It is already the end of September. That means Halloween is right around the corner and pretty soon it’ll be Thanksgiving then Christmas.
I’m excited for Halloween this year. Since I moved out of my parents house, I’ve always lived in apartments, where the demographic didn’t involve small people who would be knocking on my door for candy. This year though, we are in a house, in a NEIGHBORHOOD! With a driveway and a porch and an entire yard that I can do up for the trick-or-treating event. Last year, I went to my parents, and we cajoled the little beggars up the yard to where my brother would jump out of a coffin and scare the daylights out of them. It was always in good fun as the older ones would come back grinning and exhilarated. We refrained from scaring the younger ones because that would just be in bad taste. But it’s a fun night, when the streets are filled with laughter and mysterious faces of people who you see everyday but are hidden behind the mask of whatever creature they have cloaked themselves with that evening.
We have slowly been trying to get back into the swing of a life that doesn’t involve visitors and it’s kind of working. I had a tendency to shun daily tasks this summer because hanging out with our friends and family and showing them the sights was more important (and infinitely more fun) than going through my closets or weeding my garden. But now that the weekends stretch ahead of us, I can accomplish things, like weeding that garden because lord, that thing was sorely, soreley neglected. We were THAT house for awhile. All we needed was some discarded broken toys and a car on cinderblocks and you could slap a big ol’ WT on our front door.
And you’re probably thinking, wow, that’s awfully boring of you to look forward to weeding your garden on a weekend. And it is, because that’s one of the tasks I hate. But at the same time, the sense of accomplishment I get when I can stand in the street (that’s how I roll) and gaze upon my lovely garden and manicured lawn IS something to look forward to. And I don’t feel as guilty when we finally do go out and do something because I’m shirking responsibility for fun.
Overall, I’m just a freak who gets a weird satisfication from crossing things off our to-do list.
Our floors are STILL not fixed. I guess this is just the pain of dealing with homeowner’s insurance companies. We are going on two months of an exposed conrete slab right in the middle of the main room because nobody could completely get their shit together and just cut one damn check within a week of the guys coming out for estimates. Nooo! We had to wait for the adjuster’s estimate to come in and he had to wait for the contractor’s estimate and then we had to wait for the contractor to get his actual estimate to the insurnace company since the adjuster left out some things the contractor had included resulting in us getting a check for half of what it was going to cost to fix it. And now we’ve just been waiting and waiting and waiting for the second check. And I’m going a little crazy because there is a huge chunk of floor missing in my house and damn it, the place is supposed to NOT look like a construction site.
Seriously, god forbid we ever remodel!
Aside from that, the contractor has had our supplies ordered for over month. Sammy desperately needs to be groomed and have his nails clipped but I’ve been putting that off so I can just send him off to the groomer the day that they’re replacing everything (otherwise, I have to pay for another day for him to be in daycare – whatever, yes, my dog goes to daycare if need be!). And I would like to have a Halloween party but don’t want to if the place still looks like crap.
And then the couch broke. The other original couch that had not broken yet. And that was one more thing to add to MY list, despite trying to push it off on the Baron, who just never did it, after me asking him numerous times if he could do that ONE THING, PLEASE, I’M TIRED OF CALLING ALL THESE PEOPLE! So now I have to be at home for someone to come out and say, “Yep, it’s broken, we’ll send you a new one, be at home for that too”.
Then there’s the trash pickup, or lack thereof. Come to find out, we apparently have to pay a trash bill. The old owner tended to pay his in full because he was always traveling and I guess it’s come due. I would have never known had the neighbor not informed me. I just assumed that trash was part of the property taxes you pay. Guess I was clearly wrong.
I think overall, the point I’m getting at, is that I’m tired of shit breaking or messing up because then I have to go about fixing it. And fixing things these days are getting harder and harder. I cannot stand having to make constant phone calls because someone who supposed to provide me with a service or information does not bother to call me back or keep me updated. I can’t stand have to make numerous phone calls because someone on another end messed something up. It just feels like a constant circle that just never stops and sometimes, I really feel like I need to be a lot meaner than I am. Because this catching flies with honey thing just isn’t working.
But I guess, in the overall scheme of things, it could be worse.
Steve and I are getting along well and actually trying to make a point to go out somewhere, anywhere, on weekends so we don’t sit around like sloths and then wonder where the days off went as Sunday night approaches. Sammy is grooving – now that the weather is cooler, he prefers to just plop down on his little booty in the backyard and hang out, sniffing the breeze and watching the birds and squirrels zoom by. He has become rather affectionate the past few weeks, particularly with me, and I don’t know if that’s him just warming up to us more or craving attention. Steve has dubbed him the “cockblocker” because when I crawl in bed at night, he scoots right up underneath my left arm, directly between Steve and I. It’s amusing but awful at the same time.
Work is still there. We’re going to have a rough season because there are tons of projects that need to be completed before year-end. We just went through a live Disaster Recovery test during Tropical Storm Hanna (what better time to test, right?) and are doing some extensive upgrades. So we’re always, always busy. And they’re working on automating the nightly process that I’ve been running three nights a week for almost two years which is dual-edge sword. On one side, I loose extensive overtime that I’ve come to live off of. On the other, I get my Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights free to go wherever and do whatever instead of being tied to some place with a constant Internet connection, usually home.
And family is hanging in there. My little brother, Tyler, who is in middle school, made the high school B (freshman) team and we’re all really proud of him for that. We’ve been going to the games on Thursdays and I’ll tell you, they are much more entertaining than watching the rec football he was playing last year. Hopefully, he will stick with it all the way to varsity because those Friday night high school games are some serious business here. Regardless, we’re really proud of him for doing this! (Love you kiddo!)
Sad news is that our cat, Scamper, who we’ve had since I was like twelve, isn’t doing to well. She is very old and blind and the vet said she is renal failure. I guess her system is just shutting down and they’re giving her weeks, if that. It’s a sad, sad thing for me because she has been around since I was a kid and I’ve never lost a pet before. And truthfully, I don’t remember life without her being underfoot or just coming out to see us when we visit my mom. We had a dog, Baby, that we had got a bit before Scamper but she went when I was still in Pennsylvania and my parents were here – so by the time I got down to visit, it wasn’t as fresh of a memory. But with Scamper, she’ll be there and the next day be gone.
My parents are going back and forth on what to do. She’s going in for treatments for the vet and when she comes back, she is her normal self, albeit a bit slower. And mom doesn’t know what’s best – does she put her down despite her seeming normal and fairly happy? Or does she wait until it gets worse and worse and take the possibility of her having a heart attack or stroke and going in pain or alone, while they’re out, or both? It is a very tough decision and when it’s finally made, it’s going to be rough on all of us.
But enough of that depressing stuff. Life goes on, right? As soon as one thing is done or finished or decided, another steps up. I long for downtime and for quiet but I think, as an adult, you truly never get it because there are always things to be done, phone calls to be made, bills to be paid, etc.
I want to go back and slap my teenage self for all she took for granted and for wanting to grow up now, right now.
It was so much easier when people did stuff for me!
Life is sort of back to normal, I guess.
They say life is a rollercoaster – you have your ups and your downs. I always try to remember that when life is good. Not necessarily to bring myself down but more to ground myself and realize that I need to relish in the good times because there will be bad times. And the only thing that’s going to get me through the rough times is to remember that life will be good again.
It’s just the waiting for the good times that kills me.
The floors are still messed up. We are waiting for the insurance company to send us the check. We don’t want to start any work until we have the money in our hand. We have met with a guy from the flooring company and gone through samples but haven’t decided on anything yet. From there, they assure me that it can be a quick day job. Until then, the concrete slab is still exposed and my house cleaning routine is all out of whack. And we’re going to have move all the furniture out of the rooms that are getting fixed – including the seventy-five gallon aquarium that houses the lizard! (Just thought of that – that’s going to be a pain on my back)
The trip to Pennsylvania was long and tiring! While I always love going back and spending time with friends and family (which we actually got to do a lot of), I hated doing it under these circumstances. We got in early Saturday morning and were able to relax with Steve’s family by the pool for the weekend. But then Monday rolled around and we had the service and the burial. I guess there’s something about death that makes you kind of face your own mortality. I couldn’t stand seeing the people I loved crying and upset and it really made me think about losing people who were close to me. And no one ever wants to think about that.
Aside from that, not much else has been going on. When we got back, we went back to work. I was exhausted – mentally, physically and emotionally. And it wasn’t until about Thursday that I started feeling a little bit better. Now I’ve got to find the motivation to do the tons of laundry that is piled in my bedroom and clean the rest of the house to prepare for the visitors we’re having this weekend (my dad, sister and grandma).
Last night, we went to the Cinebarre with some friends to see Step Brothers. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but they took an old Regal movie theater, removed every other row in each theater, and added tables in front of the seat. And they serve real meals – burgers, pizzas, desserts, etc. As well as alcohol – wine, beer, cocktails. It is truly an awesome experience! So we had some yummy food and I had some wine then we went to Marble Slab (think generic Cold Stone) where I had some delicious peanut butter ice cream. So overall, it was a very good night.
Today, we didn’t really do anything except grill out and play Halo all day. Like, six hours straight. Awful waste of time but I was kicking ass and taking names today. It was so hard to quit when I was doing so well. But I had to do something else so I didn’t feel like I wasted the whole day. And I did – I worked for about two hours, catching up on some stuff and making up some extra hours.
I also got some good news on Friday. My little brother, who is 13 and going into the eighth grade, tried out for JV/B team football at the local high school. And he made the first cut! Once he goes back on Monday, they’ll cut maybe a few more kids but then start dividing them into either JV or B (freshman) players. I am so proud of him! I don’t know if I mentioned it, but my brother is pretty big for a kid his age. He’s over six feet tall and he’s built really solid. So a lot of times, they choose him on size alone. But this time, he actually had to try out and show a good attitude and get in there and work and he did! So hopefully, we’ll be going to football games at the high school instead of the rec center this fall.
Overall, I think things are getting better. It’s just the ebb and flow of life. We’re still a bit in the trenches trying to get over the floors and more visitors and other small things that have happened, but we’re working our way out.
I really don’t know how much more I can take.
