I Take It Back

Did I say a few tears were a good thing?   I realized today I’ve been sobbing all week.  I cried on Monday because my mouth hurt so much.  I cried on Tuesday because the universe was all in my face about not having kids and how everyone else can (I know that’s not right, but that’s what the universe was telling me). I bawled this morning because I was having very painful back spasms. I sobbed this afternoon while I was reading Elsie Dinsmore! Sheesh!!!!  And I cried tonight while I was watching Glee. Mercedes, I love you. You’re my hero.

Maybe the doctor does need to up my dosage of that one medicine.  I realized I’m always one brief push away from a torrent of tears, crying as much as Elsie Dinsmore cries. And that’s a sad, scary thing. Bipolar sucks, in case you were wondering. It really farking sucks.

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F&@k the Kaiser!

When I was in my first year of high school, I briefly–VERY briefly–“went steady” with a bad boy. I had a thing for bad boys, and this particular bad boy was very fond of flipping the bird to the universe and bellowing F&@k the Kaiser!  I had no idea what he meant by that, but I thought he was cool, and so that was cool, until I decided he was a little too bad for me and we mutually dumped each other.

So last night I woke up around 12:30 from a dream about babies. In the dream, I’d made a list of things that had to happen before Joe and I could find a surrogate mother who would carry a child for us. Each of those things happened in rapid succession (I mean as in minutes), and we were about to find a surrogate mother when I woke up.  I did a brief facebook post about it, because even though most of the time I’m pretty calm about my childless state, I have days when it’s very difficult. Thinking that was the end of it, I went back to sleep and had more dreams about babies and surrogates.

I woke up feeling stressed and heart-sore. And here I have to explain something–I get e-mails from a particular publishing group about books that are available for review copies. This morning I got such an e-mail for a book explaining IVF to children who were thus conceived. I shot an e-mail to some close friends whining and complaining about it.

Then I got another e-mail; I also get e-mails with the LDS Nugget, an inspirational quotation. And wouldn’t you just know that today’s quotation was about motherhood.

And then I found out that my stepbrother and his wife are ready for another child, and are in search of a surrogate.

I feel like the universe is flipping me the bird today. I’ve been dripping tears all morning. So I’m going to emulate my 9th-grade boyfriend. F&@k the Kaiser!

UPDATED: The universe still mocks me.  I got an e-mail from Us Weekly proclaiming their exclusive: Matt Damon’s wife pregnant again!

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Tears

Before mid-January of this year, it had been a long time since I’d had a good cry.  The bipolar medications prevented that, and I certainly didn’t miss being up and down and all over the place mentally and emotionally, so I wasn’t going to mess with it.

But after my surgery, my blood pressure rocketed skyward. My primary care doc put me on blood pressure medicine, and my psych doc adjusted the dosage of one of my bipolar meds. The combination has given my tears back. Not the crazy crying all the time at the drop of at hat tears, but tears when I know I’m sad, or when I’m moved by something.

I can’t tell you how much that means to me. Previously I could know intellectually that I was sad about something, but I was numb. I couldn’t feel it. One of my favourites of Joe’s aunts passed away, and I couldn’t cry.

Now I cry when I’m moved by a story. I was rereading Rose in Bloom for the billionth time Friday, and I cried at the same place I’ve cried a billion times. I watched a romcom this morning, and I cried. And tonight I’m thinking about Scout. Joe left for a business trip, and Scout has spent the whole afternoon lying on the love seat, his face pointed eagerly toward the front door. I know that he won’t leave the love seat, except perhaps for a trip or two outside for personal business, until he gives up and accepts the fact that Joe’s not coming home tonight. Then he’ll come get in bed with me and curl up against my back, and I’ll shed a few tears on behalf of a sad little dog.

It’s funny. When I first brought Scout home, he was my baby. He followed me everywhere. If I were so audacious as to take a bath, he would sit outside in the hall and howl until I came out of the bathroom. I’m not sure when he switched his loyalties to Joe, but it didn’t seem to take very long.  If Joe’s at home, Scout’s wherever Joe is. He loves him so much. Sometimes I feel a little hurt when Scout won’t come snuggle with me, but I get him while Joe’s away. Maybe if Joe were home more often, Scout would be more comfortable spending a half hour here and there with me. But I think that Scout just wants to take advantage of every moment he has with Joe. And that makes me cry. The love that little dog has for Joe is so overwhelming.

Tears can be a good thing.

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Ch-ch-ch-changes

Joe and I have been talking for a while about my starting Nutrisystem, to try to get some weight off, and learning that we could purchase a gift card at Costco that would let me get the food for a whole lot less money kind of started everything off. We bought the giftcard, and I ordered my first five-week supply of food, last Saturday. It arrived yesterday evening.

Joe brought the box, too heavy to lift, into the house, and I opened it up. Neat little packages of colour-coordinated food filled the box. 35 breakfast items, 35 lunch items, 35 dinner items, and 35 snack/dessert items. All a little surreal. I read the planner and guides that came with the food, and learned what to add to the little dry-pack entrees to make a full meal.

Last night I dreamed that I was an anorexic with multiple personality disorder. One of my personalities was anorexic, and refused to eat anything larger than a small morsel of food at any given time. The other personality was desperately trying to save my anorexic self, and was also, for some odd reason, trying to find fondant to make a dachshund-shaped cake. The two personalities ended up merging in the end, and all was well.

When I dragged my lazy fanny out of bed this morning, I got up and ate breakfast: a blueberry muffin, some blackberries, and some rice milk with protein powder. Joe insists I take the protein powder every day. 

Anyway, the food was good, I’m satisfied, and really optimistic that this will work.

It doesn’t exactly follow the plans I’d made for the next few months, but I have to admit that the convenience of just grabbing a colour-coded package and having it along with some fruit and veggies will make it more likely that I’ll actually stick to this for a while.

Now I’m off to the grocery store, and then to do a litle cleaning. Very little cleaning. Because housework makes me ugly. 🙂

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Enough is enough is enough is enough

I can’t take it no more!

Okay. I can. But only because I have a great dentist. 

All day yesterday I was having really bad pain in one of my teeth. Having had one filling fall out not too long ago, I thought that I was losing another filling. I called the dentist’s office and left them a message that I needed an emergency appointment.

Last night I was dreaming that I had exquisite pain radiating from that tooth every time I bit down or swallowed or coughed or anything. I don’t know how long the dream actually lasted, but it felt like hours. And then I woke up at 3 a.m., and I had exquisite pain radiating from that tooth every time I bit down or swallowed or coughed or anything. I was up for about an hour and a half, and drifted off again (with the help of some pain medicine) about 4:30.

I called my boss at 7 to let her know I’d be in after my dentist appointment, and would stay late to make up any time missed. And my dentist’s office called me at 7:25 to say he could see me at 10:15. I managed to sleep for another hour or so before Joe started playing piano—and can I just say that while I’m thrilled he’s enjoying the piano so much, I wish he would use more discretion as to when he decides to play—although he was excited because he saw one of his idols, Todd Rundgren last night, and was playing one of Todd Rundgren’s old songs–and then I decided I may as well get up.

For some reason, whenever I attempt to take a shower in the morning, I can’t get hot water. Lukewarm sometimes, occasionally warmish, but never hot. So my shower was hella fast.

I got to the dentist’s office and got paper toweled up, and he took a look at the tooth. It’s not losing the filling. There’s an abscess forming, and I have to have a root canal.  I remember him telling me when he filled that one that there was a chance he would have to do a root canal, so it didn’t come as a complete shock. Fortunately, it’s swollen enough right now that he didn’t attempt it today. I’ll be on antibiotics for a while; if the pain lets up, my root canal is scheduled for Monday. If the pain doesn’t let up, it’ll happen on Friday.

I made it to work by 11:30, so I have to stay until 8 p.m.  Elaine said that I could just stay till 7 and make up the other hour tomorrow, but I’d rather get it done in one fell swoop. Besides, tomorrow Lolo and I are going to go look at her wedding dress and bridesmaids’ dresses, and she’s going to register at Target. So I don’t want to stay late tomorrow.

So far this year I’ve had two batches of fillings; one emergency filling replacement and another filling; now a root canal. I also had the whole knee surgery thing. I’m kinda tired of hurty type stuff. I want some non-hurty stuff to happen.

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Somebody’s got a case of the Mondays!

And that somebody would be I.  I’m super tired. Around lunch time my knee hurt, my back hurt, my head hurt, and I wanted to cry.

I’ve been home for about an hour and a half. Joe, bless him, has been making music nonstop.  For a while he had a movie blasting on the living room tv/stereo while he simultaneously played piano. Then he plugged in and started playing guitar, movie still blasting. I think he’s turned off the movie, finally, but since he turned up his amp, I can’t be quite sure of that.

It’s all good. I’d rather have him playing now than later.  And tomorrow is Tuesday.

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Things I’m Going To Tell You About

I’ll get my movies watched in 2010 and books read in 2010 pages updated. I’ve seen a lot more movies and definitely read a lot more books than are currently listed.  It will involve my looking at my library history and going through a stack of books in the bedroom and another stack of books in the bathroom and yet another stack of books in the spare room. And going through my Netflix history. ‘Cause I’m crazy that way.

I’m going to tell you about my much less cool Julie & Julia adventure that I’m planning to start on. I’m not assigning a time limit to it, because I won’t keep it, but I’m excited about meandering my way through this particular cookbook.

I’m going to tell you about getting back to work. Well, that I can actually tell you right now. Today was the second day; I left early for physical therapy and some sleep therapy (grin), and it was better. My knee didn’t swell as much today as it did yesterday, and it seems like I’m moving a little better. I’m still completely pooped, and only have to stay awake 2 hours and 35 minutes longer so I can harvest my crop and plant new ones because I’m doing a coop farming project in Farmville.

Yeah, you heard me: Farmville. I know I swore I wasn’t going to get sucked into it, but I had good reasons to start playing, and it’s actually kind of fun. I know Vanessa asked last year why anyone would play Farmville instead of getting outside and, oh, planting a garden or something. And I’ve been thinking about that. I’m really not in physical shape right now to do gardening, so I’ll keep doing it virtually for now.

I’m not going to tell you about the book I’m writing, except to tell you that I’m writing it. I kind of decided it was time to stop thinking of all the reasons I can’t do it yet, and just do it. It’s scary, because it’s a research-intensive project involving my literary idol, Geoffrey Chaucer. I’ve been idly researching ideas for the last five years or so, but haven’t dared do anything because I think that I can’t. But I can. I definitely can. (I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, I think I can) and thank you, Annie, for saying you know I can. I love you.

Despite being tired and sleepy and worn out, I feel good. And that’s a good way to feel.

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Indigo Spa Giveaway – UPDATED – We have a winner!

I have a friend–well, actually I have a lot of friends, but stay with me here–Lisa, who has a spa in her home.  Yep, you heard  me right. So you don’t have to deal with other people milling around in a waiting room, or getting a massage in the center court of the mall, as I frequently do. You can go to her home and enjoy luscious spa treatments in a comfortable, relaxing setting.

You can visit her webpage, Indigo Spa, and get a little more information.

And one lucky reader is going to win a detox body wrap with Set N’ Me Free Gel, valued at $65!!!

If you want to be that lucky reader, leave a comment telling me why you’re stressed and need this wonderful gift.  I’ll draw the winner using a random number generator on April 30th.  Note that Indigo Spa is located in Lewisville, Texas, so if you live in, say, Baltimore, it won’t do you much good unless you feel like hopping a plane to DFW, hint hint.

Good luck! 

Disclaimer: This is NOT a sponsored post, and I am not getting any remuneration. This is something I’m excited to share with my blog friends, and a gift that Lisa is generously donating. 🙂  And if you want to see new posts, please scroll down. This sticky will remain on the front page until after the winner is announced.

UPDATED:

The random number generator selected comment #4 to win the body wrap. And who would that be? None other than the awesome Clover Autrey. All of you deserve it, and I really wish I could give it to each one of you. Clover is a very busy lady. She has 5 kids, one of whom has cystic fibrosis, and she’s a great mother to each of her children. She’s also a very good writer; her second book was released last week. (You can find it and her first novel here. –and again, this is not a sponsored blurb, and I am not getting any remuneration. I’m recommending her books to my blog friends because they’re good, and I like o help my friends whenever I can.) I have ordered my copy, and am eagerly waiting for it to arrive in the mail.  She’s also an amazing friend. I’ve written about her before in this blog, and you can be sure you’ll hear more about her in the future. She’s just that kind of a person.   So Clover, congratulations!

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Checkin’ In

I’m still here, still alive, still my usual ornery self.   This week hasn’t been overly pleasant; I managed to throw out my back on Tuesday, and it’s been hurting rather badly.  But on the positive side, I saw my surgeon again this morning, and he’s cleared me to go back to work on Monday.

In preparation, I bought some really nice things from Coldwater Creek, and I’m getting my hair done tomorrow. Woohoo!

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Happy Easter

“Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments: And as they were afraid, and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto them, Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen…”

Luke 24:1-6

Sure, the bunnies and chocolate and Easter egg hunts are fun. I enjoy them–trust me!!–as much as anyone. But I truly appreciate the real reason for this holiday, this holy day. Wishing you all the best.

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