Christmas is a crazy season for me. As the designated Santa of the household, all I feel like I do is spend 2-3 months per year figuring out what to get who and how to afford things. And this year, affording things has been pretty brutal. We told the kids that Christmas was going to be smaller because we were traveling this year, but Russell also knows it's because we're pretty broke.

For the grandparents, I've got kids making ornaments. Genny selected a beading kit that she's apparently decided is a pain in the ass and isn't so sure she wants to do now. Russell selected a craft that's just hard for him to do because it requires fine motor skills he doesn't really have. I suspect that tomorrow night, I'll be sitting at the table with Mike finishing the stupid ornaments. Next year, I'm making wreaths out of handprints on backed felt. It'd be faster and if I'm going to end up doing it anyhow, then I might as well go easy.

And yeah, I could have just bought something, but we're broke and this was cheaper and more meaningful. I'm all over cheap and meaningful, I tell you what!

Yesterday, I set up LaDawn's books for her daycare in excel and started the data entry. I did a sheet for each family and then connected the sheets, so that she can print out a sheet for her accountant. She was stunned that "you can do that?" LaDawn is a typist of the the two-fingered hunt-and-peck variety, so while she said she'd do some, she's smoking crack. I can get done in two hours, what would take her weeks, so I'm going back to finish up today.

And last night, I fell asleep at 1030 and while normal people would sleep at this hour, I'm wide awake because I've had my 6 hours of sleep. Sick, isn't it? Judging from the yawning though, I'm going right back down for a couple more hours, shortly.

Mel and I have talked and have gotten stuff sorted out and providing that the 10-day forecast on the weather channel website isn't a big fat sorry lie, we leave on-time and everything for a couple weeks.

Mike and I started talking the other night about his job. One of the things that came out is that he's getting bone bored. He's a super smart man, so boredom is a bad thing. We're talking to friends about maybe finding him work out near Mel and her family just because we'd be near Mel and her family and because the friend had worked on stuff for ILM of Star Wars fame. Of course, my mother-in-law pointed out that we'd only be a day's ride from them, too. (I'm sure the kids would appreciate that, but I definitely had the "oh shit" thing going on.)

The thing about living near Mel and family is that the housing is decidedly cheaper there. At $500 a month for 6-9 months a year in heating costs for heating oil, we're also looking at a cheaper way to do winters. We like winters, but here the heating oil ranges on $3 a gallon at 100 gallons a month and the heater runs us $200 to burn it. It's expensive. And housing is expensive -- damned near California-expensive. When we refinanced to pull money out of the house while I was sick, it put us in a rather bad place, as well. Three years of crappy raises at Mike's job has kind of fucked us. The past 2 years, he got maybe $2k in raises because they company was in lean years. This year, he got a decent raise, but nothing to make up for the past two years of jack shit.

I've gotten my substitute license and am in the process of getting applications filled out for each district, but we'll have to see how my knee tolerates it on a day-to-day basis, too. On the good news front, a month of doing leg raises and crunches each and every night has trimmed my body considerably and put my sugars into excellent shape. My blood pressure on a med that often raises it, had actually dropped, a little, 110/70.

After a bowl of popcorn the other night, my sugars were 114, so that's good, too.

Ok, now, I'm getting sleepy again, so I'm crawling into my bed again.

I realized when I saw a CNN fluff story on the basics of survival in winter that it was likely that James Kim didn't survive after his departure from his wife and young children, so I looked it up and confirmed my fears.

I have spent a long time reading about herbs and plants identifying plants in the wild and I know a lot of stuff about survival. I also overpack my car.

I often overpack the kitchen -- it's kind of a panic thing. I can't remember half of what I have at home, so I buy it just in case, because you can't ever have too much pasta or spaghetti sauce, you know? My mom did that, too. She is particularly bad with clothing. I always had way too many clothes and I still do, as do my kids. My son makes fun of me for always making sure he has extra clothes. Genny grows so fast that it's not uncommon for her not to get to wear some clothes because she grows out of them before she gets to wear them. I'm getting better. If it doesn't fit, I get rid of it and move on. I used to keep all of my many sizes and now, I keep the size that fits and donate most everything else. I still have stuff I forget about...I pack away summer stuff and forget I did it and then find it mid-winter, cursing all the while.

And I often think about the phrase,"live simply so that others may simply live" and I think about ways to reduce, clean up, etc. And I've gotten a lot better. I could certainly improve even more, and I struggle with my OCD-ness and my missing brain, but I have taken to writing things down. Organizing my life makes more sense and is less wasteful and that's a good thing.

On the good news front, though, (in light of this news story) I always overpack the car on trips. I always have an extra jug of water. I always pack food. I always pack blankets or towels. In winter, I always think of packing for an emergency. I don't know why I do that either, but when we had to drive over the passes on the trip home from Florida, 2 years ago, even though it was on a main drag, I bought a case of water bottles, 2 gallons of water, sandwich stuff, fruits, snacks, and juice. I bring lighters.

And as I read the part of the news story, when the mother was nursing the two kids to get them through, I was thinking about what I would have done. And when I read that they had brought some baby food jars, a jar of jam and some water, I realized that I would have brought more with me because I'm crazy and obsessive and I think about that kind of thing. And I would have been sucking on pine needles for vitamin C and poking around under the snow for any plants I could have located because I know that kind of stuff and I know what to look for.

And it's not a critique of their family at all. Most normal people wouldn't be so freakishly obsessive-compulsive to pack all that kind of crap on a main drag (which is where they started) nor would they have this vast repository of essentially useless information about wild plant identification and usage floating around in their heads (unless they were a freaking lumberjack or a boy scount).

It was just that I was thinking about what would I do? How would I react? And I realized that I would have been better prepared because while my husband bitches about how much I pack into a car, he never questions my logic when I do it.

I had a shivering realization -- even though I drive myself and others up a tree with my ocd behaviors at times, that I'm thankful that I am who I am -- spazz worrywart that I am. Ironically, I then wished that the Kims had been half as crazy as I am because they might have been better prepared, so that they had all survived.

The Mom alert has been put on hold. She and my dad have been sick. Then my dad was going to help my brother re-roof his house because otherwise he couldn't afford to do it. They're coming out in January.

In January, prepare to see Ruby on tranquilizers, as a result.

__

So, I'm working on putting together necessary materials for my substitute license. I'm excited about that. I would love the ability to actually get paid for working with kids. I know subbing can blow, but most of the schools here are pretty mean about being nice to subs. If you aren't nice to a sub at the schools here, you can get suspended.

Also, I've seen kids in the classroom with subs, especially in the 6th grade classroom and basically, the bossy girls take the sub under their wing and show them where everything is. It's very sweet.

I don't know that I'd get that lucky in junior high situations, but I can dream. I'm scared to death in some ways to go to the high schoolers because my own kids aren't there, so I don't feel like I'm fully prepared for the myriad of possibilities that are teenagers, but I don't feel totally unprepared, either.

__

My danged head hurts. I have no idea why. It just does. It makes me nervous because I haven't gotten my flu shot, yet.

My mom is due out this week. It's kind of horrifying because there's so much wrong with my house and I feel more than a little nettled that she and dad seem to notice all that is wrong and little that is right.

Genny's kind of a twerp when her meds wear out. I think we need to do something to extend her meds past the 10 hours they seem to work, but I would rather deal with her being a pain in the ass than give her more meds. I love her energy and her kind heart, whether or not her meds work. The problem is that her bounciness drives Russell up a tree (that which we hate about ourselves...) and he in turn, bitches and so forth, which in turn makes me pin his ears back, which all kind of blows.

This weekend got away from us. Mike and I have been so tired and the kids are happy not to have to deal with us interrupting their computer and TV time, so we overslept both days, despite an alarm.

Today, we got out this afternoon. I made a run at the bread store and the mall. I got Mike's hair cut. When it's long enough for him to be considering the Prince Valiant hair style, it's time for a trim. Though, holy crap, I like him with that hair style. It makes me want to smooch on him and stuff. I walked in and kind of ticked off the stylist...made her cut it much shorter than he was going to do it. He's just unsure and when he got all done, he was happy.

I got the kids a few things for winter. I got both kids warm robes. I got Genny some jammies, a Christmas outfit, and a nice nightgown. I got both kids a couple of Halloween shirts. I got Mike some jeans on sale and I got a sweater poncho and a pretty blouse and bustier tank top thing. The blouse is supposed to go over the bustier thing, so you see the pretties, without being grossed out too much skin.

Russell was initially refusing to wear a robe and I finally just said that he had to. I said he shouldn't be wandering around in his underwear, that he'd be cold, and that if he had a problem with Genny doing that, that ultimately, it was problematic that he was doing it. He then brought up that Mike frequently puts on a robe and nothing else and isn't careful about what he flashes. He had a good point, so I brought it up to Mike with the kids present and said that both kids had mentioned his lack of underwear and pants under his robe and that he needed to knock it off. I said I'd be glad to purchase or sew him jammie bottoms. He was kind of embarrssed, but the kids were sitting in the back on the verge of cheering when he agreed he needed to knock it off.

I guess he doesn't think about it because he's a guy, who grew up with guys, but thank God, he's willing to address it. I think it's hard for him to comprehend that our kids aren't little any more and that seeing us naked at their ages is something that they're going to remember. I think all that whiteness is bad for their eyes anyhow. Mike could use a little modesty. I learned modesty a few years back, but he's really selectively modest. He locks the door to the bathroom to poop, but he chooses not to shut the door when I'm trying to dress, even if I ask him 20 times. Gah.

The wee hours are upon me. I'm going to sleep before I fall asleep in a pool of drool on my keyboard.

Ok, I'll grant you, I'm fully hormonal about to bleed my panties any second, but I've got a bone to pick.

The school district has taken to a "healthy eating policy" this year I think it's great, way past due, and of course, far too short of healthy.

However, I'm not thrilled with the implementation. LaDawn sent her one of her sons with a bag of chips for lunch one day as a treat. The school informed him that he could not eat it. What the hell is this, the freaking cafeteria police?

What really pisses me off, after reading all of this stuff (see page 8 of the document) is that for their stupid fundraiser, they're having kids sell frozen cookie dough. The only apparent redeeming quality of any of this (no whole grains or low sugar options) is that they have zero trans fat. What the hell? I don't think we could send these cookies baked to school with our kids as snacks, but we're supposed to buy the white flour, high sugar, but zero trans fat by the $14 three-pound vat!

God forfend that they'd actually have whole grain flour, sugar alternatives/reduced sugar, low-fat foods in the cafeteria, either. I bet you they use spaghetti sauce with sweetners added, and they don't bother to grind vegetables into it and serve it on whole wheat pasta! I can about guarantee you that they don't use whole grain tortillas for taco/burrito day and that the beans are loaded with fat. I bet they don't use splenda/sugar blends in pastries, either. I also bet they don't use ground turkey in lieu of high fat poor quality hamburger in their "casseroles" either.

I'm willing to bet any amount of money that the menu my children eat at home would make most nutritionists jump for joy compared to what schools serve and that my children are less likely to develop diabetes, heart disease, and other nutritionally controlled diseases on the food I serve them. I'm a diabetic with 145 cholesterol and well-balanced high and low cholesterol. Even my triglycerides are off normal by only 1 point. I cook one meal for everyone in my house, so my kids eat what I eat. They also love diet soda as a treat.

What ever happened to expensive, thick and beautiful gift wrap, some kind of healthy alternative, or the freaking PTA fundraiser we just pitched buttloads of money to? O having the PTA hold a Christmas craft fair thing for the kids to shop for their families?

I know Genny really really wants to get a "prize" for selling cookies, but I am of a mind to just send a damned check and take her to a few friends and neighbors to sell a vat or two to someone else.

I hate hypocrisy at schools. I know it's rampant, but it's still fucked up.

I love antibiotics when they work well.

I can breathe. I can think. I feel relatively human

Hey, I cooked tonight. I made homemade pesto from fresh basil in the pots out front, roasted pine nuts, parmesan cheese, olive oil, a little black pepper, and garlic. I think that's the surest sign I'm feeling better. I'm cooking and planning meals.

Tomorrow, I think I'd like to make barbecued chicken fajitas. I'll have to change up some of the veggies -- but it'll be tasty.

I am still blanketing. I had a few things to fix on Genny's purple sparkly butterfly blanky. The very expensive lace I special ordered is pretty crappy. There are several places where the lace didn't get sewn into the hem like it should have by the manufacturer, so I'm having to go back and repair those spots and it really ticks me off. And invariably those are the spots that made the lace curl, so that I ended up sewing those parts into the hem. Then I have to spend time with my glasses perched on my face and seeing if my arms can get longer, trying to find those itty bitty stitches to rip out.

It's all pinned and ready to roll.

And Mike and I were talking about my apparent weight loss. There's just less of my body protruding from the spots I loathe, and it's really awesome. It's just plain odd to be this excited about the prospect of going to the doctor's and getting weighed.

And my sugars have come down with the weight loss, which is the most awesome thing of all. I've been sitting on a weight cusp, where my sugars haven't been reacting as I expected. I realized tonight, that things are getting normal again. I don't want to slump into a nap after each meal, for starters.

Yay! Now, if I can just do something with the aquatard. ;p

Despite the fact that I have a cold to beat the band, that just happens to coincide with the blooming of sagebrush, my sugars have been a whole lot better. I'm thinking I may have to go on prednisone and I've already started antibiotics because there's an infection trying to burn into my chest.

So about a month ago, I got back all my labs and they were as expected. Though I'd been eating tighter than a parking space at Costco on a Saturday, my hba1c was creeping up...6.2 to be exact. We are chalking that up to lack of exercise. My meds were increased and it's been better. I've also continued to eat really carefully. I have sugar free everything and if I have a fit for something I shouldn't have, I take insulin beforehand and eat a small portion. I'm losing weight regardless, which is welcome news, of course. I'm not losing it brutally fast as I would, if I were exercising, but I've gotten into the $5 pair of jeans I bought at Walmart in August that I couldn't wear then. I'll take it!

My knee continues to be a sore arthritic pain in the leg. Last time I got a hair up my butt to clean the house like a fiend, I spent 2 days recovering from pain and exhaustion. That would have been a week ago when Russell entertained several friends for his birthday party. I spent the weekend crashed and trashed. I actually spent most of Saturday, napping with Mike. We were both exhausted and just cuddled on the bed and woke up at 5 kind of horrified and startled. With the house, clean the kids just played games and ignored us.

We are so tight financially. I'm maintaining the budget for a change and while I did have one stupid mistake, basically, we're in good stead at the moment. I called and played the pity card with bill collectors because I have the most god awful case of laryngitis ever and sound like I'm barfing up a cat coughing up a furball whenever I go to speak. Basically, I accidentally overpaid one of my medical bills and that threw our entire budget into chaos. I projected the budget until January and it's then, that things start to get dicy. I know that my parents will send us a pretty good-sized check at Christmas, so I'm going to use that and pay for my substitute license and fingerprinting. My hope is that I'll work at least a couple days in January and be able to make up that budget shortfall and even get us ahead.

Frankly, a lot of our budget depends on Mike's raise and on the profit sharing bonus due in November.

In the interim, there's a craft show in a few weeks that I will be sewing for. I'm going to make a mess of blankets and see what I can sell. Mike asked if it would be worth it. I told him, if I sold 2 blankets that it would be worth it. One would pay for my table and the other would give me cash in my pocket. I figure that I've already paid for the fabric and that as a result anything I got back on it at this point would be gravy. I figure I have little to lose by doing this, so I'm going to try it. I'm going to try throwing together a few baby baskets and see if those go, too.

I already made one baby blanket -- Classic Pooh for a PTA auction. I put it in a basket with a bottle of baby soap, some baby food jars, a pacifier and shirt clip(it was the only thing with Pooh that I could find that didn't cost a lot), a box of wipes, a cheap fleece receiving blanket, a bottle, and a set of inexpensive board books.

Just checking in. :)

So, kind of like Mary Chapin Carpenter's song, I feel lucky today.

I got back my pap results and for the first time in 2 years, they were clear. I was so dumbfounded, I asked the nurse,"Are you sure?" and when she reaffirmed it, I asked her,"Really?"

Then I got off the phone and called and emailed everyone I could think of. I have to go back in 6 months and if that pap smear is clear, I just go in for an annual like all the normal women in the world.

Normal. How fucking weird is that?

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Next on the list of fixing the things that are wrong with me is, getting my sugars normal. I've started exercising, so hopefully, that will help a lot. Mike got me the 'tard and I used it on Tuesday, and while it rubs a little on the inside my upper arm, I'm willing to put up with it. It was really comfortable and it was kind of cool having everything held together -- not like a girdle, but more like a body hug kind of thing.

It was nice not to have my jelly belly and my chest flopping in the wind, in particular. It was nice not to have to adjust the tank on my tankini from doing strenuous stuff constantly and it was nice to feel like I looked pretty.

My sugars have been a new kind of porked. I very carefully got myself a regular sleeping hours night and went at the buttcrack of dawn to the lab to get a blood pull. Just from seeing my sugars more recently, I know my hba1c is going to reflect my diabetic decline into Lousy Sugar Land.

I've been eating really carefully for about the past month and a half, when I realized just how bad off I was. Unfortately, lately it's not weird to have sugars well into the 175 range, which is way beyond what is normal for me. I usually have managed to keep my sugars well-controlled -- just within normal, but not since the surgery, I'm guessing because I had so much trouble healing.

Now, I'm keeping watch on my sugars like a security guard in a candy store next to an elementary school. The problem is that I'm always tired and it's always worse after meals. I've got a little bit of neuropathy going down my heel cords from it and the slightest elevation in blood sugars means that walking is more excrutiating than usual.

I'm feeling really desperate about it.

I actually drank an Atkins shake today for breakfast. Choking down that thing should make me a prime candidate for one of those truth or dare TV shows like,"Fear Factor." If I hadn't been hungry, I doubt that thing would have stayed down. It was supposed to be mocha flavored, but I think they confused dog feces with coffee and chocolate.

I was trying to imagine what the strawberry flavor might taste like when my stomach flipped over in complaint at me for the mere contemplation of that. Overall, I had the sense that if the manufacturers poured about 10 lbs of cocoa at it, it might stay down better, but it still wouldn't actually taste "good."

The drag was that I kept tasting that thing until lunch time.*shudder*

--

I also decided I had to get out of the house, so I'm volunteering with Russell's 6th grade teacher. She's what I would consider a master teacher and she has a master's in special ed and she's completely and totally awesome.

She has me working with two special ed kids in her classroom, which I just loved. One kid is really severely limited -- not from being retarded or something, but he seems to have severe processing problems. He apparently is also having motivation problems, but he reads worse than Genny. I kept repeating the same information to him over and over again and he never said,"Oh, yeah, I remember." or made any indication that he remembered hearing it previously.

The other kid just is behind in his reading level. I forgot to do any pre reading work with him, but I'm rusty, too.

I'm applying for my substitute license anyhow.

I have been sleeping badly.

At first, I couldn't begin to figure out why. I just had this vague sense of being bothered by something but being too tired and too busy to figure out what.

Essentially, I'm worrying.

Last time, I had the bad cervical stuff, I had kind of a bruised sore thing going on inside that I could feel in my belly. I feel like that now.

I have to wait the two weeks until the pap results come back, and that will be this week.

I know I had a bladder infection, so I have been treating that, and maybe everthing is just plain sore from that and once the antibiotics have finished wreaking havoc with my gastrointestinal system, my malaise will clear. I've been eating a cup of yogurt daily to try to restore intestinal flora and I smeared plain yogurt on tacos at dinner for good measure.

I guess I'm just contending with a general sense of personal unease. I've been thinking a lot about death lately. Not like, how I can plan my own demise or anything, but rather, how much I'd miss my children and my husband because I don't feel right for lack of a better word. I've been thinking about what things I could teach my family before I die, so they'll be ok, if I'm not here. And then I tell myself I'm being overly dramatic and to knock it off. Then, worry about the test results some more.

Yeah, my birthday is coming and I've been thinking how this year I really feel 43 going on 73. I was playing an online game and someone said something about riding a man like a pony. My first thought was,"I wonder if I'll ever be able to do that again?" And I cried.

Today, I got my family to clean the yard, as a birthday gift to me. Then I showed Mike the little patio for stargazing that I had been trying to explain to him months. I set up all the chair, the bench, and the tables. I invited him to watch stars with me. The dog and cat both sat in Mike's lap politely ignoring each other and relishing being the most loved feline/canine on his lap. We identified Orion and said how it'd be nice if the moon wasn't so full.

I explained where I wanted to expand the patio and how I thought we could construct it better. Mike actually understood what I meant and we talked about how much we thought we could do tomorrow.

Now, it's 5am. I'm still fretting, but I'm hanging on to that promise of tomorrow. Somehow, the stargazing patio, with bushes that will grow around it in a few years, made me realize how much I'm hoping that God will let me be here.

I woke Mike up and told him I loved him and he pet the tears away.

I had an appointment to see the gynecologist today.

God, I dreaded it. I'm still dreading it. I've got 2 weeks to find out if I'm getting a hysterectomy this time or not. So the spectre of cancer is hanging out again with me.

I hate that ghost bastard.

Pauline said I should have just gotten a hysterectomy the first time. In retrospect, I suppose she's right. I guess I feel like my body parts are at a premium and that I want to keep as many of them with me as I can because somehow if that that's what God gave me, I'm supposed to have a use for them.

It took me 8 months to make that appointment. Apparently, the steel is in my knee not my nerves.

When Dr. R asked me how I was doing, I cried. I'm depressed I told her. She said I should get counseling. That alone drugs or counseling help 50% of the time, but together they help 90% of the time. I just don't know if paying someone $150 to cry my heart out and feel sorry for myself is a good idea.

I also feel shifty around counselors as if I need to prove somehow that I don't need them and that I'm just fine, dammit. Only, I've been not fine for a long time and there's lots in my life to prove that -- my big ass not withstanding.

I've thought about going to an Overeaters Anonymous meeting, but I haven't been binging or purging. I'm eating pretty well and the painful neuropathy I was having in my legs is getting tons better. I'm also doing exercises in bed, so overall, I'm losing weight again.

I am massaging the adhesions in my knee as often as I can remember. Some of not remembering is avoidance -- I feel absolutely nauseous from toxins every time I do it. I have to do yoga breathing to avoid projective barfing, though the swelling is finally going down.

Mike got me an aquatard for my birthday. It's basically a thing I could bike in, but it's for swimming and it's so my big body feels contained in the water. I had gotten a nice 2 piece suit from Lands End that covered everything, but the skirt took forever to dry and was super heavy, even in the water. I had gotten some bike short bottoms and those lost some elasticity and were bunching on me and with the two pieces, the top wasn't giving me much support for floudering about in the water.

I wanted body coverage. I guess I like the sense of not showing people unwanted amounts of large white flesh if they don't want to see it. I've wanted a one piece, but the bottoms and top never fit right. I wanted boobage stability. I think the 'tard will help with that. And hell, it looks comfortable. As soon as that arrives, I'm going to start swimming again.

As for the depression, I guess I need to fess up and get a counselor.

I'm writing in a personal journal. Kind of exploring who my writer's voice is. I hardly know it. I feel any more that I hardly know myself, so I'm going back to what I'm good at -- writing. I'm looking to find a writing group. I'm going to start blamming away at this.

I feel like I'm fulfilling a fantasy, as well as a card reading I had done a long time ago.

I'm supposed to be coming into my power and my future is me writing and giving talks. My past will give me the fuel for it, but my future will be big and me coming into my own.

I can't do that if I'm not writing so it blows people's minds, so I'm working on my skills.


Journal snippets...

purple -- a color of passion, sex, exoticisms is the color of my pen. Deep purple of morning glories is sexual -- as plants, they follow a cycle and cling to fences to grow and open and close with the light of day. They make me think of the cycle of seasons and the clinging of them to fencing and lattices which makes me think of the dark purple hue of a penis as it begins to deflate and a small drop of sperm clings to the skin after it's ejaculated.

Pale purple as in lilac blossoms relegated to a blow of water, where they work like soap to clean your hands and you show the children. You feel the intimacies of love and family in that simple act of showing kids how to eat the ends of lilac flowers and mash them into soap for your hands.

And then my favorite...stolen lavendar blossoms stuffed into my jean pocket and forgotten until every time I reach for some pocket treasure and my hands smell suspiciously like something an old English woman might find deep pleasure in the inhalation of.

It seems like a book with a cover of multi-colored hearts requires I need an odd-colored pen -- all pretty and foofy to start journaling by hand again.

A purple pen to go with my purple bookmark and all of those hearts.

Purple -- a color of passion, sex and exoticisms. It seems like a good pallette to dabble in, at first. Deep purple of morning glories is sexual -- following a cycle of seasons, clinging to a lattice of metal or wood -- it's clinging is sexual the way a drop of sperm clins to a penis as it begins to deflate after ejaculation.

Pale lavendar -- is the prissy color of new babies and the slick of afterbirth left behind cows in spring fields waiting for the claws of raptors feeding their young. It's the color of lilac blossoms and the way you teach little children to use them as soap in giggles and bubbles.

Dark violet with spots of sage green and light purple are the colors of crushed lavendar blossoms and my fingers. I always pull a couple off bushes as I walk and forget to empty my pockets and my fingers would make some stuffy old English lady happy.

Things are in transition, so if you wanna know what's going on, then email me. I'll post eventually...just gonna concentrate on real life for a bit.

Well, we've got a leach field.

I've also got a job.

God forfend.

The rotten thing is that a good chunk of my pay will be for Genny's daycare. *sigh*

I've got to get Russell set up with the boys and girls club locally, so he can do fun stuff and meet folks, at least a few days a week or so.

Other than that, I'm super tired and my knee is huge.

No, nothing too new. :)

We finally got the drain rock today for the leach field. Little things can mean so much! Unfortunately, our driveway is pretty well covered and there's no way the work is getting complete before the inlaws get here. Gah.

I was thinking it would be fun to invite them here, but I think 2 gaping pits, one of which smells like ass, is just bound to make a bad impression.

Mike got a belated birthday card from his oldest brother, Chris. He read it blithely and said,"So, does Chris have a girlfriend or something?" I said,"Yeah, why?" Mike replies,"Because he sent me this sparkly-assed card." I said,"So, henceforth, we will refer to this as the 'ass' card?" Mike snickers and says,"Yep,I guess so."

The card had the number on it of the date of Mike's birthday (18) and confetti in the card. If you know anything about Chris, he's about the least likely to put confetti into anything.

Thus, the ass card is born.

It's been a long time since I've had the quiet of being able to listen to rain -- usually, it's just some pain in the ass thing to drive in. Of course, it's this particular weather which is making the digging of my septic a pain, but I know the septic will go in at some point, so I'm done worrying.

I fell asleep at about 9pm, so woke up about 3am, opened the window and played computer games because I couldn't fall back asleep.

Then, the rain started to fall lightly, as indicated by the patter on sand outside my window. Now, the eaves are starting to shed water, so there's that drip, too, and it sounds like a bubbly brook outside my window, warbling the tales of water from round the world.

I forgot how lovely rain can smell -- like a newborn baby's breath. I forgot how peaceful I feel when I can actually stop to listen to it.

My shoulders have stopped hurting and my hips aren't so sore.

I can sleep now.

I swear, I had all kinds of good intentions, but Thursday was Mike's birthday. He's 30, finally! Yesterday, I ran around a lot and then just came home and fell asleep on the couch for the evening.

The In-Laws are coming next weekend. And good intentions aside, I have to clean my house spotlessly.

Don't be mad. I'll be back. You can always email me. :)

Is it some level or heretofore undocumented domestic bliss when your husband asks, nay begs you for a waffle iron for his birthday?

The standard rule as far as I know is do not do tools or appliances for gifts. I guess the generic alteration to that applies...unless they ask for 'em.

I got Mike a waffle iron, a couple t-shirts, a Beavis and Butthead video set, and a set of headphones with a microphone.

He's such a geek!

But thankfully, he is no longer in his 20's -- he's officially 30 tomorrow. When I met him, it was two weeks shy of him turning 21. My baby has grown up. What the hell happened to me, we will never know, because I seem like I'll be immature forever or at least 29. :)

Russell has had asthma stuff for a couple weeks, but tonight, it got worse, so we rushed him to urgent care and he's got an ear infection and bronchitis. Nonetheless, he's staying home from school and moaning a lot. I also have the thrill of an ear infection. I asked the urgent care doctor and apparently the stuff I'm taking for my infected toe won't solve it, so I need to call my doctor tomorrow and get some levaquin.

I'd rather crawl into bed and die. I'm tired, I hurt, and the tummy bug crud has not left my body, or has been leaving my body in increasing amounts. Gah.

Big fun at our house. Genny had the coughing crud last week. Mike has a cold. i've got stomach flu and an ear infection and Russell has coughing crud and an ear infection. If there's any virus of the moment you'd like to contract, we can probably arrange it here. Just call us and make an appointment for the virus of the moment. For a nominal sneeze, it can be yours.

You know how in college, if you were the designated driver, your biggest fear was that your friends would get so sauced that they'd puke in your car? And that your karmic award for driving their sorry drunken butts around would be that you'd be stuck hosing out your car in the morning?

I nearly had to hose out my car for myself today.

As I'm driving down the freeway, I suddenly felt ill with little to warn me about it. I popped a piece of mint gum and the intense taste made it worse, so I, thanking my lucky stars for a filthy car, find a macho size plastic cup from Del Taco. (Thank the lord, I like my diet coke by the liter!) I rip off the straw and lid, pull the car to the side of the road, and proceed to be quite ill.

Fortunately, I manage not to hit anything inside my car except the cup and a little bit on my clothes. (Score one for a momma brain, because I knew damned well who'd have to clean out the car, if I got sick, and who'd have to smell the reek for a week.)

I then drove home, brushed my teeth, cancelled my appointments, and crawled into bed and slept for hours. I've been experiencing the other "end" of the spectrum in stomach flu this evening,which in conjunction with cramps has made me feel like a miserable piece of shi-shi.

Every time I lay down, I feel like something vile is occurring with my digestive system, so I'm sort of teetering while sitting up, which is a whole new experience in nausea.

Illnesses like this make me yearn for morning sickness. And then I think to myself, what woman in her right mind, would wish for morning sickness? Then I remember the macho cup and I recall...it's me, dammit. Me.

Well, after my trip to the orthopedist, I'm still losing weight. I don't think I've lost much total, but I've lost some. I know in the hospital, I lost quite a bit and I've lost 9lbs since March 28, which was 10 days after that, so I think overall, I've lost about 15-20lbs.

The doctor says that I'm making great progress. He says I'm not the only one to be frustrated -- that many of his patients say that, but that he really understood how hard it was as young as I am and with kids and house responsibilities. He also mentioned how frustrating the constant pain could be. I told him, I'd just like to be able to work and I'd like to be able to be up and around without my knee exploding into a whole new size. I told him the only way I could stop my knee from swelling like a balloon was to do little for 2 days. He said,"Well, i don't want you to do that." I said, "Me either!"

He nodded in sympathy then asked how my pain management was going. I told him that I try not to take anything during the day and generally, take a bit of something at night.

The physical pain has been so constant for so long that in an odd way I'm accustomed to it. It's the emotional pain that I am not used to. It makes me sad and angry to have to fight to do day-to-day stuff. I feel frustrated -- like punch the snot out of one of those stupid Bozo the clown bop dolls. I feel like stomping about and screaming and rending clothes frustrated. And I'm always always trying to control that and balance it against how much I love my family and kids.

For the most part, I'm pretty good about giving them fair warning. Like,"Do that again and you mom is going to lose her mind." My kids have seen me lose my shit and have decided it's not pretty and they do not want to be on the receiving end of it, so usually back off. Hubby is less well-trained, thinking he's funny to make smartass remarks designed to push me over the edge.

Ultimately, though the new antidepressant is keeping me organized, it's not keeping me from dissolving into a puddle at every happy or sad thing that enters my radar. I cry myself through TV shows, driving home, writing emails to my son's special ed teacher, and I don't know why. I keep thinking it will get better, but it has not and I feel like my heart is broken for no apparent reason.

I feel like I'm in a constant state of breakup with myself and all I want to do is cry and cry and cry some more.

And while I'm going through all this stuff, I've got a friend who I've come to think is just plain mentally ill.

I've done a lot to include her -- invited her to holidays and meals, but she accused me of stealing the dog and then accused me of violating her confidence because she thought I'd called the church where she is getting confirmed and asked when she was getting confirmed. And I guess, even if I had done that, how is it a violation of confidence to call a church and say,"Hey, you holding confirmations this weekend?" So she flipped out, called it "our" disagreement and then never apologized for being a total asshole, when she discovered how far off base she'd been.

Suffice it to say, I have little interest in such a person sucking my energy away from me and am just planning on putting as much distance between me and her as possible without sending her over the edge because at this point, I'm not clear about her mental stability. I don't want to deal with another flip out of this nature and I don't think I need to.

I promised that if I couldn't get up and do everything I want to do immediately, I'd at least post here.

I'm bummed out. I'm doing a lot of what I should and need to, in order to move forward, but my progress is so frickin' slow. It's depressing and frustrating to me.

I did get a brain henna tattooed on my knee this weekend while wandering about a festival, where I impulsively purchased a lot of tie dyes, neat earrings and other stuff. The kids played with a giant earth ball and listened through a seminar on the importance of using red worms in your garden.

I poked around booths. I found the Quail Ridge land conservancy. He's been doing it for as long as I can remember. I've given him dribs and drabs of money, too, over the years, too.

I got my aura read...Apparently, my crown aura was bright pink with a gold streak through it. Of course, I am currently a blond and was wearing a huge cotton comfortable dress, so I laughed about that one. I had really wanted a card reading. Those have been so dead on before, so I guess I felt like I needed a sense of my future because it's so unclear to me. I usually always have a sense of my own direction and right now, aside from the physicality of feeling like a floundering whale, I have the emotional feeling of that, too.

My spirit seems strong and quiet right now, as if it's waiting for something.

So Sandy is still here. His scabs are healing. I forgot to mention those here...he had scabs on him from itching from all the icky stuff on him. We put neosporin on them and he stopped scratching quite so much, though he still gives himself a scritch in those two spots every so often. More often than not, he's hurled himself at someone's feet feet up, looking for belly rubs. His favorite thing is to sit on Mike's lap and get loved up. We bought him chew treats and dog jerky and organic dog food. (I couldn't help my hippie self with the organic dog food.)

My allergies are hard around him, but I still pet the snot out of him and just go wash my hands. I'm vacuuming every other day and it seems to be going ok.

The only thing that was annoying is that he found the old squirrel hole out back and dug out the planter pretty well trying to get to that squirrel. If the squirrel plans on returning, I think Sandy will kill his furry rodent butt.

You may ask, Why would I think that of such a sweet little furry critter? I have my reasons.

Yesterday, he played soccer with the kids outside and some of the chickens that got out earlier in the day were scratching around near the corral where they were playing.

Yeah. He chased the chickens. However, not only did he chase them, but he also managed to scare one into the sheep fencing. (Sheep fencing for the farming-impaired is fencing with big squares in it about 4 inches by 4 inches.) The kids come in hollering that "there's a chicken stuck in the fence." Stupid me, I say,"How the heck did that happen?" "Sandy chased it!"

I go out and find a chicken stuck three squares up into the fencing, so it had had a little air behind it, only my stomach decides that at that instant I should go demonstrate my recent inability to retain digestive health and I realize that I should hobble as fast as I can to the nearest bathroom because if I bend over to help a chicken, it'd get ugly.

And clearly, because it was on the far end of the property, the dog was in his yard, and the chicken wasn't going anywhere (hadn't moved out of its predicament for a good 5-10 minutes), I had time to run in and beg Mike to save the chicken, whilest I released blessings upon the porcelain goddess.

The neighbors heard the noise and came out to see the spectacle of the chicken stuck in the fence, as Mike rescued it. Apparently, one wing had got caught on the wrong side and it had to be fed back through, in order to free the hen. She ran for the safety of the coop looking a little ragged and cranky.

How do I know Ms. Henny Penny was cranky? How'd I gain such insight into the psyche of chickens? She fluffed up her feathers and I swear, she huffed and clucked a bit pissily, and then trotted over near the coop. The most tell-tale sign? She herded easily into the coop. And lemme tell you...when it's nice weather, you can't get a chicken easily into the coop because they have lots of ground to scratch and peck at.

I can't believe that I've got a BA and half a master's degree and I'm an expert on chicken psychology.

--

How's the knee?

I've just cried all week about it -- I'm just way depressed. It's frustrating and with the weather heating up, I've been getting my ass kicked every time I try to get anything done. That and I just hate that I'm always so freaking tired and that getting a job would mean nights of excrutiating pain and even a little walking, still means so much pain and swelling. I swear if one more person tells me I should take it easy, I'll punch them in the nose and stomp off.

And add that to the fact that my knee has a brain.

When I am very very swollen, I have cro-mag knee. When I am less swollen, my knee is more of a serious tool user, with less ridge -- a homo habilis knee. I look forward to the day when my knee becomes a modern day sapiens knee, which I am told is a good 4-5 months off yet. (I also got the impression from my therapist that it's possible it'll stay like this, though she knew I was teary and didn't say it outright.)

I was talking with Mike and we were talking about how I could get a picture of a brain tattooed on my knee. I figure when the swelling goes down, I can let Genny draw on the maze. And should I ever pursue a career in neurology, I could use it midway through brain surgery to make sure I wasn't lost. In the interim, I figure it answers a question my dad used to ask me when I was a kid, if I did something stupid that thinking through would have solved,"Why don't you use your head?"

Because I can use my knee, Dad!

Oh, dear. If I only had a brain....

On the weekend, a neighbor stopped by as a dog ran into LaDawn's yard and the neighbor said,"Oh, he's yours?" LaDawn said that no, it wasn't, but she'd keep track of him and put signs up at the grain store and 7-11 in town, which she did on Saturday. In a town as small as this, those are the places you go to look for lost and found items.

On Tuesday, her husband told her to either find the dog a home or put it at the shelter by Wednesday because he did not get along with her 4 dogs at all. I met the dog and fell madly in love with him. He kind of looked like the shag dog in Beauty and the Beast. Only this dog, while friendly as heck, wonderful with kids, with an unstoppable licker, was dirty with heavily matted fur, that no one had bothered to take the time or money to care for.

Ladawn and I took him to get groomed (read: heavily shaved to remove the matting that was down to his skin). He looked like a different dog and I swear he was wiggling all over like a giddy puppy, though everyone estimates his true age is around 2. The groomer felt so bad for him that she tossed in a free medicated bath for the animal to remove any mites or fleas and at the end tied a little bandana around his neck.

He was three shades lighter, though we still call him Sandy because he responds to the "ee" sound. He's a beautiful buff colored terrier mix and he's the best foot warmer I've ever had. He loves jumping in the van and going with me. When Genny's not in the car, he jumps in her car seat and looks out the window.

So, here we are 6 days later -- and LaDawn receives a phone call from some guy claiming that the dog is his. And she gives him my number, but not before telling him that she doubts I'll give the dog up because I've already spent a fortune getting it groomed, dipped, and am getting it its shots, and that clearly, no one had done that before for the animal. He's got a small scab on his side where he scratched at this enormous mat til he bled.

I fully expect that I'm going to get another call on the other line, as I'm talking to her, from someone asking about the dog because he's a sweetheart animal. Only, I don't. I check caller ID later, and no one ever did call regarding him.

It makes me sad to think that such a sweet animal is so disposable and so easily dismissed. I'm glad we found each other and I hope I never get the call because I would have a hard time biting my tongue about how neglected the poor animal looked.

For the dog to be so sweet, someone had to have loved him. But they didn't miss him and they didn't track him down right away and they didn't brush him or walk him because he doesn't know how to walk with a lead and matting like that doesn't just show up.

Ladawns says she doubts I'll ever hear anything.

I sure hope she's right. Sandy is one sweet pooch.

So I haven't posted much. I guess you all have noticed that,

I've just been busy dealing with that we have to redig our leach field, but it's going to be a pain in the ass and we're broke. We also have taxes due, which we didn't know that our previous escrow account on didn't pay all of.

And the bills. Geez, Louise, the bills.

And I can't work. My knee is pretty limiting. I can't do a lot of up and down. I can't be on my feet a bunch, so I'm pursuing vocational rehabilitation to take that into account in my career choice. I also contacted my university advisor and asked for advice. And while some day, my knee might get lots better, especially if I keep losing weight, I have a long way to go to lose all the weight I should.

I'm working hard in physical therapy and I'm swimming at least one day a week and I'm losing weight. I'm getting yard work done. I pruned trees that I've been wanting to prune forever, all by myself like a big girl. :) I'm starting to be able to do laundry, though I can only usually tolerate doing a load or two and then climbing up and down the cement steps just hurts too much.

I'm starting to get back to cooking meals. I know that sounds bizarre, but it's really pretty cool.

My biggest progress of late has been that I can bicycle all the way around on a stationary bike with just hiking up my hip a little each time. I still can't fully straighten my leg. The other day, after stretching it, my therapist put her hand under my knee and said, "Ok, push your knee down as hard as you can." I said through gritted teeth,"I am!"

Little bits of progress. It's not easy for an impatient person like me, but it is progress.

Things suddenly are improving. Today, I went without pain pills all day. Then we had to go shopping tonight and despite that I was in a wheelie cart, I really felt pretty wracked when I got home. I took two pills. Then, woke up and took another one. I'm sitting here now at this hour, because I'm still hurting and just can't sleep because it hurts like hell and my calf is spasming.

I didn't sleep well last night either. I slept a long time, but no dreams -- so no REM and no real rest. My cpap needs adjustment bad. I've got an appointment with the pulmonologist for about 7 hours from now, but that's just to get permission to get a sleep study. If I can tolerate sleeping on my side instead of my back, I do better with the machine, but right now, my sore knee makes that difficult at times. I can do it for 1-2 hour spits, but then I need to get on my back and stick a pillow under my knee, and then my mask leaks and I tend to snore through it because I'm on my back and I need more pressure for the cpap. *sigh*

I spoke to LaDawn today about keeping Genny home with me a few mornings a week. I really enjoyed having her so much last week, that I want to do that again. We're also broke. I like kids at this age and I really like her. She's a sweet kind person and I like that we can hang out. I like that we can read together. I'd like to buy her a kiddie sewing machine and teach her to sew. I wouldn't even mind doing something like making shorts together -- they'd be simple and she'd see the result quickly and she could basically put together clothes for herself for summer. And my dear buttless child, could actually have stuff that didn't present plumber butt, when she bends over.

I think that third percocet finally kicked in a bit. I'm going to try sleeping again.

I'm starting to feel housebound. I keep trying to invent reasons I should leave the house with the family, but they're on to me.

Dammit.

They know that if I leave the house my knee will swell up like a balloon and then I'll be set back a few days. I really need to get the fuck out of the house. Today, Leann drove me to drop Genny at Kindergarten and I was so freaking excited!

I'm such a sad excuse for a human being. Not to mention...so freaking sick of sewing, which is about my only creative outlet except here. For writing, I am tired enough and hepped up enough on painkillers to not be terribly creative in my writing, not to mention how little life I feel like I am living -- thus, a little low on material, though I'm an excellent whiner! I don't really whine to anyone, just kind of too myself.

I feel like I'm waiting for my future. I feel like I'm waiting for my knee to stop being swollen, for my ability to straighten to my leg. I was really disheartened today when the physical therapist said that my knee may never be able to fully extend. It was hard not to break down into tears in front of him. I've been working so hard and then to hear that somehow broke my heart into little pieces.

I do my PT 2x per day. Some of the exercises are excrutiatingly painful. I have to spend 1-2 hours in my torture machine. Sometimes, my thighs are spasming afterwards making midnight bathroom trips difficult at best. Last night, I had to actually increase the amount of leeway I gave myself for straightening my leg rather than decreasing it, but I seem to be able to bend my leg better and better. The goal is 90 and I am at 80 currently. My straightening is another matter -- I remain circling around 8.

People ask how I'm doing and I want to burst into tears. Practically, I'm doing ok, but my patience with myself is definitely lacking.

I mostly slept today. I got up for 3 hours and I slept some more. Then I got up and cut up food for stew for tomorrow night. Then Mikey and I didn't want to cook and thinking we could just sneak to a really closeby restaurant, we tried to head out.

Genny started on this coughing jag that turned into a high tight asthma cough, so no dice. We hunted for specific meds through Walmart to slow her down -- very freaking exhausting for both of us.

On the drive home, I sat in the back with her and she and I both snoozed. When we got home, I tried to find all the pieces to my asthma machine to no avail. We tried a treatment, which really didn't work because we were missing one of the significant pieces. I'm going to have to get this stuff tomorrow for her and if she's this bad off, then she can't go to school and we'll have to take her to urgent care. Only, I'm not really in any shape to take her anywhere, which means it will be Mike's problem and he just got handed a pile of crap to do at work that's all due in a week, of course.

I'm so stressed out and upset. I have no idea what we're going to do tomorrow. I haven't even begun to address it with Mike because I just think he's going to yell and take out his frustration on me and I'm so tired, I'd cry.

To top this off, I'm really frustrated with Russell. None of his work is getting done at school, but I hear about how the girl he likes gives him the kind of hugs he prefers. *groan* His resource teacher is sending us stuff, but Mike doesn't seem to know how to keep up with it and the boy is purposely being evasive, not showing us stuff, fighting with us about whether or not we should correct it or not, etc. I'm ready to brain him with a large blunt instrument. He's very frustrating to be around at the moment.

I'm plain exhausted. There is no rest for the wicked, ever.

I'm ok.

I had surgery -- ended up with a spinal anesthesia and the sleepytime IV and it was long and much more stuff than was anticipated was wrong with my knee. The orthopedist said he had to make a couple cuts on my tibia to clean it up and that it was a very good thing that we'd done the surgery when we had because not only was there extensive damage to my tibia, but I had lots of bone spurs. I'm assuming that this is why it hurt so much beforehand and why so much of my recovery has been "slower than expected."

Most people apparently are walking the first day. I was not among them. I was able to stand. I was able to do small versions of the physical therapy exercises and I did them a lot. Apparently, the physical therapist in the orthopedic ward was a bit of a psycho bitch and when I did not meet her expectations she patronized me, talked to me like I was a moron, who didn't have the slightest clue about my pain threshhold, and generally, was a complete bitch. I politely held my ground and said that I was doing the best I could and that I would continue to.

The next day was more of the same and I asked her to please leave because I did not like the way she treated me, nor the way she spoke to me, nor her presumption that I was an idiot about my own body. She began to become argumentative and unpleasant. I asked her to please leave again, saying that I would not work with her. She continued to be obnoxious at which point I said,"Look, today, I've had a good night's sleep and I'm not above ripping you a new asshole. Please leave. I will not work with you." She said that I had threatened her with violence. I said,"No, I merely have the wherewithall today to tell you to go to hell and have no problem doing so. Please leave."

Finally, she left. I worked hard with nurses and was able to walk more and get more flexibility out of my knee. That night, however, they put me on a machine (Continuous Passive Motion or CPM) that is used for helping with range of motion and the settings were quite wrong. I cried through the first session because it was pure agony. The second session, Mike pet my hair, while I cried through it. In between things, I was told I had been admitted to rehab upstairs and I cried through the third session.

The next day, I was moved to rehab. The thing that was cool through this all was that the kenalog shot for my right knee -- a steroid shot, which in the past had sent my sugars reeling to new heights held pretty steady, which I attribute to byetta. My sugars were absolutely perfect -- flawless -- throughout my hospital stay. In fact, so much so, that the day I accidentally dropped a 20lb. box of laundry soap on the suture line of my wrecked knee causing it to bleed profusely down my knee that my rehab doctor and my endocrinologist were blithely watching me bleed and discussing just how fantastic my sugars had been.

I told the new physical therapist about the problems I'd had downstairs. I told her I would work as hard as I could but that I apparently wasn't at the recovery level that most people would be and that my pain had not been well managed to that point. I said I'm not a bitch, typically, but that I hate being patronized and that I definitely know my body's limits. She said she wasn't about putting me through agony. We discussed the CPM. She measured me in my first session and informed me that I was only able to do 20 extension on the machine and 40 flexion and that the machine had been set at 0 and 60 -- way beyond my capabilities. She showed me how to reset the machine. Now, I am at 9 extension and 58 flexion. The goals are 0 and 90, respectively.

Friday night, at my new home in the rehab unit, Mike brought the kids to visit. I had been hugged and smooched by both kids, and Genny had spent some time cuddling with me. Later, as we played games together, I heard Genny coughing up a lung. I asked Mike, scared shitless,"Is Genny sick?" He said, "Yeah, but I gave her triaminic." I said, "Yeah, but she's contagious and I'm in a weakened state! Please get her a mask!"

The next morning, after PT, I said to the PT guy,"Please get me something to throw up in." He handed me an emesis basin and I said hurriedly,"Bigger!" He handed me a liner to a water pitcher in time for me to fill that, fill the emesis basin, barf down my night gown, and then barf partially into another pitcher liner. I drink an enormous amount of water because of the dry-mouth side effect of percocet, so it wasn't that I had a huge breakfast.

I got into the shower while the poor staff cleaned everything else. I came back and called Mike. Turns out -- Genny had barfed all night, too. Serves him right. ;P

At first, I suggested they not come because Genny and I didn't feel well. Mike cried.

In the face of that, I told him to come anyhow. I told him I'd probably sleep, but that he was welcome to cuddle up with me and we could put on cartoons with the kids. I don't remember much of that day other than Mike cuddled against me for part of the afternoon.

I worked hard during rehab and they released me on St. Patrick's Day -- 10 days later.

Now, I'm in wake up, sleep, wake up sleep mode.

During wake up mode, I do my physical therapy, take my own shower, and sort laundry.

During sleep mode, I sleep like the dead and sometimes with my CPM machine on to advance my flexibility.

Overall, I'm doing really well. Don't worry. :)

I'm really fucking scared. I'm always like this before big surgery.

I have the nervous laughter thing going on. And I'm just trying to get everything done and everyone handled before I go. It's been a very stressful day.

This morning started with me taking Bear to his psychiatrist. We're changing his meds back to his old meds. I send Russ in with the sheet signed by the doctor and myself detailing what pills at what time.

I go to Long's to fill the script. They tell me half an hour, so I tool around the parking lot for half an hour waiting. I go back and they tell me 15 more minutes. I come back. They tell me 15 more minutes. At this point, it's been an hour, I say screw it and head home. I call Mike to direct him with how many pills to the school and how many come home. I call the school to be told by the clinical aide that the school nurse must approve all medications and that she's at Marvin Piccolo all damned week. I say, but it's been ordered and both his doctor and I signed off on it, what the hell? I'm told he may not get his meds tomorrow. It's a class fucking 2 drug...he shouldn't really be self-administering it at school. Period. I'm ripshit.

I get home and run some laundry. I call the elementary school nurse from last year because I know the clinical aide and I tell her I need the nursing supervisor's number. I call the nursing supervisor and I leave a message saying that I expect a phone call by day's end telling me how this has been resolved -- a call I got about 430 with ten apologies and how this will never be a problem again and they're so sorry. Buttfuckingheads. I run out to the mailbox and find a fucking bill from the cell phone we just disconnected -- I thought it had been paid. We still owe them for all that time we didn't ever use. Fuckers. I talk them into giving me back the day's worth of bill that wasn't covered so that I don't have to deal with it next month. I get all the flexible spending account reimbursement requests finished and faxed. Realize I really should have gotten a damn check by now on one, so I call and ask...they have no record of it. I refax it.

Mike comes home early after doing the meds drop off. I show him the books. I resolve the faxing of crap to the fsa people. In the middle of this, he goes to cook lunch and as I'm getting off the line with the FSA people, I get a beep on the other line. I answer it.

It's the insurance company telling me that they've approved 3 days at the hospital. I start flipping out because the doctor had said a good 4 - 5 days. But the nurse somehow thinks everything's just spiffy because when and if the hospital can convince *her* of the medical necessity of me staying longer than 3 days that I'll be just fine. I explain, I'm diabetic and getting a steroid shot and that my sugars are going to be bouncing off the walls, so my healing is going to suck ass. She blows me off and reiterates that 3 days...nothing to worry about. I start panicking my fucking ass off. All I can think is that somehow I'm going to have to jump insurance hoops at the hospital and I can't even begin to imagine how I'm going to do that. I'm freaking out. She says she can't understand what I'm worried about. I say I'm worried that what you say and what my doctor say are two entirely different things and that you are a nurse, not a doctor who knows me making decisions about my health. She gets snippy, I start to panic more and cry. I ask, "So why are you calling?" She gets snippier. I am bawling and I tell her that I am very upset and getting off the phone now and I hang up on her overly officious bitch ass.

I call my doctor bawling asking if this bitch has any sway or what? Joe the nurse calls back and says no, and if they try to go against the doctor's orders that I should plan to sue the pants off them. :) We discuss the fact that the kenalog shot is going to fork my sugars He says he hadn't thought of that and he discusses it with doctor and calls me back and say that my endocrinologist will be monitoring my sugars. He says that they're going to want to finger stick me with their horrible hospital sticks, which sucks because my fingers callous up really bad with finger sticks and I tend to use my arm. We agree that I'll need to discuss it with the hospital and see if they'll stick my arm instead.

LaDawn calls to say that Nate woke her up and threw up in the tub and crapped on the floor in the middle of the night and that she's going to pick up the kids after a class tonight. I'm trying not to freak out about the prospect of the kids contracting stomach flu and Mike getting stuck with that mess and that they won't be able to visit. I would die. I'm trying not to worry that they won't get much sleep.

So it's 1am and I should be in bed, but I'm fretting.

It's been a fuck awful day. A day with a lot of fucks in it.

Fuck it. I'm going to fucking bed.

Today we got our septic tank pumped out. I kind of feel like I've hit some plateau of homeowner meets redneck to get my septic tank pumped. I don't know why -- it's a necessary evil and all, but damn.

My knee is awful. It's unadulterated agony, but I am doing lots of stuff as my last hurrah because I know in 3 days, I'll be starting something new and wonderful. So I'm icing the crap out of it, using the wheelchair to go out, and actually going out to do laundry and stuff because I know I'm nearing the end and I just don't give a shit.

I think after a year, that I am somewhat accustomed to the pain. Mike was massaging the back of my calf and hamstrings today and I was just weeping. I don't even know why particularly -- he wasn't hurting me in a bad way, it was just as if there was so much pain stored up in my body and he was releasing it by touching me. My calf below my knee is tight and hard like a rock -- it's had to be the bone in my leg, and without a working knee, it can't do it's job of controlling my foot fall and keeping my knee from hyper extending, it's simply had to hold my leg still, so I don't feel the familiar pain and crunching of bone on bone as I walk.

There was a chicken pox scare -- my son's dearest friend's sister had it, despite an immunization and at the same time, the friend had a bad flu. I was terrified that somehow I was going to get exposed to that before I went to the hospital because Russell hangs out with this kid all the time. I've been pounding vitamins and iron in an effort to fend off any bugs and to bring my iron levels up before a 2 hour surgery that sometimes requires blood transfusions.

I'm taking bariatric vitamins, so I absorb it better.

I'm tired, but happy. I saw Pink Panther with the kids today. There's nothing so wonderful as a 5 or a 12 year old busting up at Steve Martin's slapstick comedy. Nothing. It was like beautiful music heard for the first time. I feel like I'm savoring these kinds of things in advance of not being able to for a while.

We printed Genny a calendar, so she could remember when my surgery was. I highlighted the time I will be in the hospital on her calendar. She keeps asking when my surgery is and we've told her 20 times, but she's obviously worrying about it. I don't want her to worry, so the calendar makes it real for her. Russell is cuddling with me -- something he never does, so I know he's worrying, too. I feel sad that I can't put them at ease any more than I have. We've reassured them and made a big stink to that end, but Russell, in particular, is so close to me and he knows my every mood and feeling. There's no hiding my fear from him and he forces Genny to behave because he knows I'm scared and it's his way of letting me know they'll be ok. But Genny knows what it means, too, so she frets and cuddles, too.

I know that them leaving me at the hospital will put me into tears and that them arriving will be slaking an unending thirst. I'm eating them up in delicious little bites this weekend and savoring the flavor of them, so that it might carry me through the week and weeks ahead.

They are so beautiful.

I'm preparing for surgery!

I baked 7 pans of food over the weekend, which will amount to two weeks of stuff with leftovers.

The house is pretty clean. The family plan is to work on it all week and clean it up, so we can play all weekend, as the last hurrah before I go in.

Mike arranged the fridge and microwave in here for me. I think when i saw that, I realized...wow...6 more days....

However, I think I had some honey do list power because the husband did a Stupid Man trick. Stupid Man tricks are considerably different than Stupid Pet tricks because the latter are actually funny. Stupid Man tricks are not.

We had to drive to the small city and drop off a payment. So we told the kids that we'd get ice cream while we were there.

So we're in the line at Baskin Robbins. And we spied the one person I am sure broke his damn funny bone. He never smiles, never smirks, never says please or thank you. He's like the Antichrist of Customer Service aka the No Humor Man. I say,"Oh, look, it's the No Humor Man."

Stupid Man says,"And the chick who always wears the short skirt isn't here tonight. I always enjoy watching her bend over to get the ice cream."

Stupid Man becomes Dead Man.

First, Dead Man tries to justify it by saying something about that I had said something about Olympian speedskaters having coconut cracking thighs, which honestly, wasn't a drool comment, but more of a holy cow look at the size of the thighs on those people. Then he brings up how Sarah and I drool over Elvis. Justification is a Stupid Man secondary trick.

Very tricksy. Very Stupid. Very Dead Man.

Dead Man apologizes, while Wife cries bitterly because wife is feeling horribly insecure from recent weight gain from all the health problems and for having to demand so much from Dead Man, previously known as Stupid Man, previously known as Beloved Husband.

However Dead Man walking does have the common sense to work on that honey do list, when Wife wiping tears off face, says,"Would you please bring in the microwave from the back of the car?" He completely rearranged the bedroom, dusting and cleaning and putting away things...wait for it.....wait for it....without being prompted. The. World. May. End.

Dead Man walking thinks he should squeeze Wife's shoulder. Wife says,"Please don't touch me right now. I love you, but I am angry and while I'll be done being angry eventually, right now, I need you to leave me the fuck alone."

Eventually Dead Man reverts to Beloved Husband, and while Wife still feels hurt, her comment to Beloved Husband aka Stupid Man aka Dead Man was,"Looking ain't free, if you're wife is present." Beloved Husband says,"Point taken."

Wife adds,"Me admiring Elvis doesn't count, by the way, because the man is dead!" Beloved Husband agrees and smiles, which is what he should have done in the first place.

The epilogue of any good Stupid Man trick, however, is that Wife gets to take her pound of flesh by asking him to knock off a few more things from that honey do list.

The bottomline? It still hurts. I'll process it and it'll get better, but that was painful on a number of levels. Mike's done what he should to end the trick -- he said he was sorry, he showed he was sorry. Now, I just have to finish processing it.

I'm feeling intermittently rather vicious about the whole thing, which I am managing by giving him flak for admiring underage flesh, which just feels good.

Revenge isn't nice, but it helps.

I should be over it in a day or two.

In a fit of worrying about the preop apointment, I had to read aboutI was freaking out completely when I read about full knee replacements and then I found out about the kind I am having -- a compartmentalized knee replacement and I was
thanking my lucky stars.

The thing that bothers me is that they did ask me to donate my own blood, which I really can't do because I'm always a bit anemic. So I think Mike is a universal donor and we were thinking about it and then we found out that it's $275 out of pocket and we blanched a bit about paying that much for blood I may not need.

After reading the information, I think it's highly unlikely that I would need it, but I'm going to ask the doctor later his morning.

I need to get up soon...so I will report back after the appointment.

I'm not dead...just kind of still recovering.

I've got knee replacement surgery on March 7. The reason it's that late basically involved a series of miscommunications from doctors' offices, which only serves to aggravate me endlessly, so I am not going to reiterate it here.

There's a good shot after 5 days in the hospital, I'll be in a rehab facility. Mike and I are redoing the bedroom, so we can put in a mini-fridge and a small microwave, so I can store and make food without having to travel up and down steps through the whole darn house to get to the kitchen with a walker.

I'm scared about the surgery. That's all I can fathom to say. I have such horrible pain in my knee as it is. My other knee is hurting from the limping, so I'm in constant pain. I think of this surgery in the same way as a woman considers childbirth -- it's going to hurt like hell, but there's a goal in sight.

I'm hanging in there to have no more pain, to be able to exercise, and to essentially, have my life back in my control and not be at the whim of whoever is pushing my wheelchair, victim to whether or not there's an elevator close by, or unable to keep up with my children's needs.

I think being unavailable to my children has been excrutiatingly painful. To not be able to get up when one of them takes a tumble to comfort them, but to have to tell them to come to me has been so mortifying. And they've been so kind and patient and helpful. My house is really clean -- and mostly by them! I would really like to be able to spend more time with Genny before she gets to first grade, but my inability to get around, makes that impossible, so she's continuing to go to LaDawn's.

I miss the life I use to have. I can't wait to get it back.

I'm feeling better overall. I'm still having some trouble normalizing my schedule, but things are better.

Because I'm a lazy so and so with little life, as I recover from stuff...I'm doing a lazy entry.

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I've had a hard time recovering.

I had a lot of pain...enough to make me think I might have an infection. Thankfully, I was wrong.

Last week, I got frustrated with the utter filth and my husband's refusal to do anything about it and I tried to do laundry. That landed me a trip in the emergency room because I partially popped a suture and was bleeding a little from it.

I've still been in pain, but mostly, just really tired. I'm having a hard time sleeping at night. I tend to stay up all night until I just can't stay awake any more and then I sleep all day. That has not been a good thing. I think it's that I'm in pain, so last night, I took a vicodan and one tylenol PM and fell asleep about 3, which is the earliest I've fallen asleep in weeks. It was rather nice.

I've had very little life lately -- it's too much sometimes to get my clothing put away in drawers, so seeing a movie or figuring out the dvd player sometimes is more than I can manage. Grocery shopping has been an event, where I'm accompanied by my family. We've been eating out way too much because cooking is hard for me.

I'm mostly just plain waxed -- probably from being anemic. Being anemic has made me shorter tempered and frustrated and all the things that stink.

It hasn't helped that Genny has taken after me, finally, in something. She's officially been diagnosed with ADD, too. We're not doing meds, yet, but we may have to yet.

They got everything and it had not hit the margins, so no cancer!!!! It was definitely on the brink of cancer, so I am so thankful I get my annuals!



(graphic part begins)

What the doc did say is that I am to take it easy for the next couple weeks because they cut deeply and into the canal to make sure they got everything because my paps were so bad, so I lost a lot of blood and I've got a lot of sutures, so I have to be very careful. This translates to heavy duty iron supplements and no laundry!!!

Also, no jumping for joy because I don't want to rip anything.

(graphic part over)


Today, the headache from the anesthesia is gone, but the numbing stuff the surgeon put in is long gone, so I'm cramping pretty badly.

The dysplasia can come back, but for now, it's gone. The other thing, as my doctor said is if it does come back, we know what's next -- the hysterectomy, which would solve it forever.

I've been sleeping and sleeping and sleeping.

We got the news yesterday, so went out to celebrate. I, in my wheelchair and big comfy dress, and the family in smiles.

We kept asking the waiter,"Did we tell you? Did you know? I don't have cancer!" He kept asking to be reminded, "Why are you celebrating?"

Then I raised holy hell and demanded laudry get washed and that my husband buy me underwear in the interim. Then I peeled the enamel off the tile in the bathroom at the mall for 20 minutes. I think the post-surgical anesthesia thing kind of caught up at a very inopportune time. Nothing says love like your husband and two kids waiting outside the restroom for you while you wish for death.

And yeah, today is better.

So this is it.

6 hours from now I'm going under the knife to determine if I have cancer or not.

I'm going to try to sleep a little.

Apparently, very little.

So much to tell...

Over Christmas break, it's become really wildly apparent that my daughter is just like I was, which means she has a variant of ADD/ADHD. It wasn't just that she painted her carpet, which she knew not to do. It wasn't just that she thrashed her bins with markers and paints, which she knew not to do. I think the topper was when she clipped off the end of her finger with a pair of dressmaking shears and could offer no reason why as she stood bleeding profusely in front of me, while I tried to wrest from her what really happened.

I needed to know whether she needed stitches or not, which finally got her to admit what she'd done. When Mike retrieved my shears, we found a neatly snipped piece of her skin on them.

I'm so sad. I have no desire to have two children on medications. She's a brilliant and vivacious person. Russell certainly is, too, but the medications bring their own issues. Russell is having pretty serious gastric reflux, which could very well be a function of his meds added to his heredity. On the plus side, we might be able to have somewhat normal lives, if both kids are on meds.

I'm just tired. I've known I'd need an IEP for this child because she's so totally brilliant. She's not out of Kindergarten and she's reading to herself. Sometimes, she needs help, but mostly not. She's also at that place in spelling and writing where kids nail the consonant sounds -- beginning, middle and end, but still are working on that whole vowel thing, thus, bottom is spelled "btm." She can add and subtract numbers in her head, as well as on paper. I just was hoping she'd be able to bypass some of her heredity and not be the impulsive bouncy mess her mom can be. I want her to have a normal life, despite her brilliance -- make them keep her in the age appropriate grade, but with work that challenges her at the same school Russell went to. It's going to suck.

I'm tired of being incapacitated -- unable to do little more than gimp from place to place in the house, ask for help from strangers to push my stupid wheelchair through narrow doors, wait for people to pick dropped items up for me or pull items on high shelves down for me, sit in a chair to do aerobic exercise, and be unable to adequately check on my children and make sure that they are ok.

Today, a second opinion from another orthopedist changed that. I'm getting a compartmentalized knee replacement. It's where they replace the part of the knee that's messed up. The orthopedist said that there was no reason to wait until my 50's considering my pain and discomfort and being that I'm going forward with the gastric bypass surgery, that that was simply icing on the cake. He said that my weight wouldn't be an issue. He also seemed to think that with the physical therapy, I'd be three shades of much better on all fronts. The surgery will be happening in the next month.

I feel like I've been given my life back with that prospect looming.

However, next week, I have a cone biopsy, in which they determine whether or not I get a hysterectomy. I'm not looking forward to the results either way. Essentially, it means cervical cancer with lesser or greater degrees and while it's the most easily treatable type of cancer, it's still cancer with a big "c" and makes me feel small and scared as if I'm a cartoon character dwarfed by this enormous C on Sesame Street or something. The letter of the day is "C" as in careless sex in my 20's, cervical dysplasia, and cancer.