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Thursday, July 27, 2006

Vegas Baby!

So we're heading off to Vegas for 4 days on Saturday. I've been once before, summer of 2004. It wasn't pretty. I was gianormous pregnant and it was 114°. I cried, twice. Once outside the Venetian, once inside the MGM Grand (where I also proclaimed loudly "I HATE this place").

I'm hoping for a better time this time. BIL and SIL are going to renew their wedding vows (this was suppose to be their wedding). This is the couple that had to do the quicky, lunchtime wedding . It should be nice.

We're staying at the Luxor. Hoping to spend most of our time site seeing and at the pool (if anything, I'm a penny slot kindof gal, as in 1 penny at a time....So not a big roller!).

Not knowing a whole bunch about Vegas, I'm looking to you all to point me the direction of some great free/low cost sites and activities!!

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

"Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop."

I did just that. In 2003, I ramped up my D care in preparation for my pregnancy with A. I started testing close to 20x a day. Alarms going off every hour or 2 reminding me to test. Meticulous carb counting, complex excel charts, weekly endo emails. No winging it, no guesstimates. I was going to be between 80 and 120 if it killed me. It was intense to say the least and it lasted for almost 18 months (9 months pre-pregnancy, 9 months pregnant). And then I came to the end (the second end - don't even ask about the 1st end - failed induction, OB sending me home from the hospital, telling me we'll try again in a week. "Try again....IN A WEEK!!!!" GOING BACK TO WORK AFTER STARTING MY MATERNITY LEAVE - no I'm not bitter.....)

Anyway, so I came to the end. A was born by scehduled C-section on Nov 2 and I stopped. I stopped testing, I stopped carb counting, I started guestimated EVERYTHING, and it showed. A1c went from 5's where I had been through most of my preg to over 8.

I'm back at the beginning again. Alarms have all been reprogrammed. Fingers look like little minefields. I've got a new, shiney excel sheet (thank you Kevin!) and I'm falling back into my regime, almost as if I had never left.

I spent Friday emailing my endo and we've laid out a plan.

Everything's falling into place. I just hope that when I come the the end this time, I don't stop.


Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Unwanted Guests

We have unwanted, invisible, guests at our house. I sure didn't invite them in. I checked with DH and he sure as hell didn't invite them in, either. That leaves 1.) the cats, who with the recent heat, don't have the strength or motivation to move, never mind invite guests over or 2.) A, our full-fledged "terrible two-er". We're leaning towards A.

A LOVES our new guests, Mrs. "No" and Mr. "Go Away", infact she calls for them MULTIPLE times a day, far surpassing all other names she knows. Mrs. "No" is a near and dear friend and apparently she has gone missing. A calls for Mrs. "No" at least a squabillion times a day, maybe even squabillion +1. There is no other explanation, as my sweet, loving, COMPLIANT daughter could not possibly be sayng "no" to me.

Mr. "Go Away", now he must know the secret location of Mrs. "No", as A talks to him much less. Usually he just gets squeezed between her plaintive cries for Mrs. "No".

DH and I have reserved plane tickets for Mrs. "Yes" and Mr. "Right away, oh loving parents". Such a nice couple. We're hopeful that A will take a liking to them, too.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Spring Cleaning

Better late then never, right??

Our house is a mess. More then a mess, its a disaster, a bio-hazard zone. Seriously if I ever walked into someone's house that looked like ours, I'd gag. And I LIVE IN THIS EVERYDAY!

I had grand hopes for my vacation. I was going to scrub the house from top to bottom. The place was going to sparkle like the Hope diamond. What really happened...I started with the windows. They needed to be introduced to Windex. I'm not sure if they had ever previously met or not, I'm guessing no. Things were going well. I had a small army of dirty papertowels littering the kitchen floor, beautiful sunshine actually dancing in my kitchen...Then I.Broke.A.Freakin.Window!!! End of cleaning, thank's folks, show's all done, might as well go home cause the curtains are closing. I tipped the window in to clean the outside and the whole thing fell out. I tried shoving it back in, but somehow the tracks it rides on got all squirrely. One was a good 3 or 4 inches higher then the other. Some swearing and jamming on my part and the window was back in, albeiet functionless. Wouldn't move up, wouldn't move down, perpectually stuck 2 inches open. Dad had to come fix it.

What does this have to do with anything....

Well, I've realized a few things:

1). The state of the house is having a DIRECT effect on my depression, as in its directing my mood right down the crapper (which by the way, surprisingly is probably the only clean thing in the house).

2) Its also having a direct effect on our finances. We eat out WAY too much. Why do we eat out? Because the kitchen is such a cluttered mess that I get too depressed to even think about cooking in there. I see it and instantly give up. Why cook? I'd have to clean before I even started, then just have to clean again afterwards.

3). Its affecting my relationship with DH and A. I'm depressed and moody and I don't like being depressed and moody. When I am, I just want to withdraw from everyone, have them all leave me alone. Doesn't put me in a nice nuturing place.

So I've made myself a plan. 4 bursts of 15minutes. One before work, one before I start supper, after supper and before bed. 15 minutes and only 15 minutes. I can do 15 minutes. I'm starting with a trash bag and a "fling it" attitude. I'm good at flinging things, maybe too good, but it needs to happen. We've got too much shit and the shit is KILLING me.

I've been reading up on decluttering (I'll admit, I'm a lost fly-baby) and this caught my attention: (Copied from Ariane Benefit, Neat Living

Here are 10 ways excessive clutter can affect you and your life:

1. Family

* Clutter causes irritability, resentment and stress that leads to temper tantrums, outbursts, and overall disharmony (especially, if people are having to deal with "other people's clutter". You may start to feel like you aren't a good parent or aren't a good example for your kids
* Excessive clutter can cause depression, acting out, bad behavior in children due to their inability to focus caused by the clutter

2. Relationships

* Causes conflicts often due to chronic lateness
* Can keep you from socializing because you don't have the energy or can't find clothes to go out. Keeps you from getting close to people because you don't entertain or want to have people visit you in your home

3. Loss of Self-Esteem

* Causes you to feel like you aren't capable or are missing some basic skill that everyone else "seems" to have so you feel bad about yourself - the truth is you are not alone, many people have issues dealing with clutter

4. Emotionally

* Excessive clutter often cause feelings of shame, guilt, anger and embarrassment that holds you back.
* Clutter drains your energy - and you don't realize it till it's gone. Every item in your home has an energy to it. When items go a long time unused, unloved and uncared for, they become stuck, stagnant energy that actually physically drains you of your energy.

5. Physical Health & Stress

* The stress caused by clutter is enormous. Every time you can't find something, or an argument flares up with a loved one, or you can't relax because you worry about all the things you need to do, but can't till you get the clutter cleared, your stress levels increase. Stress in turn, lowers your immunity and resistance and so you may have frequent, persistent colds.
* Clutter can make it more difficult to eat healthy, cause headaches, fatigue, sinus problems and allergies and more.

6. Mental Health

* Clutter decreases your ability to enjoy life. It causes stress, confusion, inability to focus, and often leads to depression. Sometimes clutter is initially caused by depression, but clutter also makes it nearly impossible to recover from depression. In my experience, once people start releasing their clutter, their energy comes back and the depression gets better, sometimes it goes away for good. Some people are extremely sensitive to their environments and just never realized what a difference it could make.
* Even in people who don't have ADD, clutter causes ADD like symptoms.

7. Safety & Hygiene

* In extreme clutter, people have a hard time walking without tripping or bumping into things. Often there are things hidden in the clutter that are very unsafe for children. I've seen some cases where a young child is pretty much confined to a playpen all the time because it just isn't safe to be out of the playpen.
* Inability to clean cluttered areas can lead to extreme dust and even mold and mildew that exacerbates and even causes health problems in yourself and your children

8. Time

* Simply having too much stuff eats up your time like crazy. Every thing you own requires some amount of care and organization. If you have too much stuff, it's much more difficult, time consuming, and expensive to get organized.
* Having too much stuff often leads to procrastination and lateness which wastes your and other people's time and causes a whole host of other problems.
* Not being able to find things is a huge time cost of clutter. For some people it wastes several hours every day.

9. Your Future

* Holding on to clutter often grounds you in the past at the cost of your present life and your future.
* Clutter distracts you from being able to think about your goals, projects, hobbies and get things done

10. Financial

* Things have to have homes. Whether the home you provide for things is an extra room, a piece of furniture, or a container, you continue to pay for things long after you initially acquire them. Clutter directly costs money in the following ways:
o Late fees for bills paid late
o Credit card debt - often for unused stuff
o Duplicates purchased because you can't find things
o Some people move to larger home to accomodate the stuff
o Renting storage facilities


* Clutter drains your energy - and you don't realize it till it's gone. Every item in your home has an energy to it. When items go a long time unused, unloved and uncared for, they become stuck, stagnant energy that actually physically drains you of your energy. This one speaks to me the most. I think it will be my mantra for now.

Wish me luck, dear friends, cause I'm going in and I'm not coming out till its done!

--
Posted by floreksa to floreksa_general at 7/17/2006 11:48:04 AM

Friday, July 14, 2006

I must be insane

I've decided that I'm ready for #2. Yup, just this morning, no input from DH (oh, hey, if you're reading honey, "I'm ready for #2"!).

So you say (as long as your not my DH, who's probably saying something more along the lines of "huh?, who?, what? HUH?")..."Hey Sarah, that's great!, So your bgs must be running great, you've gotten back down to your old pre-preg weight?" and there-in lies the problem...That would be big, fat, honkin NO and NO.

This presents a problem, cause I'm talking, I'm ready NOW, not 6 months from now, but now, as in N-O-W, NOW!

I had wanted A and mystery child #2 to be about 18 months apart. That plan was blown out of the water by a nasty little thing known as PPD. I'm better now, though and either high on life, or brain-damaged enough to want to risk going through that again.

That and colic. There's a part of my brain that remembers colic, remembers it being horrible, wanting to run, screaming from the house each night as the clock struck 5pm. There's the rest of my brain, though, that looks at all the little clothes, the baby shows, the way newborns look like turkeys with their legs perpetually tucked under them and I AM SO READY FOR A TURKEY again!

Sunday, July 09, 2006

BTDT lesson of the day.....

Don't take a 20 month old to the Drive-In. Its not pretty.


It actually wasn't that bad, although DH would probably differ with me on that one. We took her, because 1) We wouldn't be getting home until probably around 1am, 2) we couldn't get anyone to watch her till 1am and 3) We figured she'd sleep the entire time.

So we were very, very wrong on #3. Got into Northfield about 7:30pm - A's bedtime(1st movie Cars was suppose to start at 8:35 pm) and promptly stopped in the longest line of cars I've ever seen. I was concerned before we left that we wouldn't be able to get in, but when I saw that line, hopes GONE. 4 trips into the backseat to retrieve a lost pacifier (finally found in.her.lap) and 1 hour, 25 minutes later we find ourselves 6 cars from the entrance...That's when the cop showed up, pulled in, pulled out, drove a few cars past us and proceeded to loud-speaker to the traffic jam that the Drive-In was at capacity. Thankfully, we were lucky enough to get in, along with about 5 or 10 cars behind us. Got a wonderful backrow parking space with a very odd angle, but could see the screen so all wasn't lost.

Unfortunately, plan A of our trip was already out the window, A was WIDE AWAKE!! Out of her car seat and into the front with me. That's when I noticed it was 9pm and the 1st movie STILL hadn't started. I started appeasing my 20 month old with Doritos and Crystal Light (hey, its a special occasion, right?). I'm getting worried though. Cars - approx 2 hours, Pirates of the Carribean - approx 2 hours....9:15pm plus 2 hours, plus 2 hours, plus at least another hour home = WAAAYY past my bedtime. It was also at this point, that A decided she wanted some of my lemonade and grabs it while I was drinking. I'm now DRENCHED in sticky lemonade and the movie hasn't even started. Wonder-f'in-tastic!

Cars starts, A is completely oblivious to it, although is finding great amusment in playing with the volume control in the car. Fine, whatever, she's quiet. 10pm rolls around. She.Needs.To.Go.To.Sleep, but yes, we've lost the pacifier again, and sleep does not happen without it. Another 30 minute search of the car, at least not in traffic, but now in the dark....FOUND IT! In the dorito bag, of course. Strap her in her seat, plug her, hand her every imaginable blanket and she's finally out like a light. Finish watching cars, everything is great.

Onto movie #2 Pirates....A wakes up approx 2 seconds into it. Replug her, tell her its "Nite-nites" and she's falls back asleep. Awake again 10 minutes later, replug, back asleep (repeat 3 or 4 times). She finally wakes, tosses her pacifier and cries. Another 15 minute search of the car, in the dark (how can 1 stupid little thing disappear so quickly, and note to self STASH 100 pacifiers in the car!). Repluging doesn't help, we've missed so much of the movie we're completely lost, and the movie itself really doesn't seem that good, not as light-hearted, much, much darker.

It's 1am, the movie is only 1/2 over, and we're still an hour from home. We throw in the towel. Get home at 2am. We'll catch the rest, on video, in our house, where A's crib is, and the world's largest supply of pacifiers.

Friday, July 07, 2006

20 Months Old

20 months!! 20 Months!!! Where has the time gone? That's ALL of your fingers AND your toes. You can't be 20 months...Mommy's not ready.

Ally Swimming

And horror of all horrors, on the day you turned 20 months no less, you learned the dreaded word. The word mommy and daddy prayed you wouldn't learn (well at least until you turned 35 and started dating). You said "No"! And "No!" with flair. You mastered the toddler fleeing in anger, "NoOOOOoooooooOOOOOoooooOOOo!" trailing in the wind. You said it 4 times that day.

You also say "buy u", which took me until yesterday to realize that you were saying "Love you!" (as you can hear).

Mommy's on vacation with you this week and IS NOT HAPPY that she's gotta go back to work. Wonder if I can win the lottery without actually playing the lottery. You're just too cute to leave.

I'm all wet

You're stringing 2 words together right now, and let me tell you, Daddy LOVED it when you said "bye dada" last night. You also said "ankin uh-oh" yesterday after Franklin said it on TV. Mommy takes back her hatred of Franklin too. He's growing on me, and you apparently LOVE him. Just please don't decide to fall in love with Oobie. I will have to destroy Daddy's tv if that happens.

I watched your birthday video this morning and cried my eyes out. I can't believe its been almost 2 years now. You've changed sooo much, yet so many of your faces have remained the same since birth.

Fun in the sun

I love you sooooo much!!