Angel's blog

Things have been going pretty well lately. I know I haven't been doing my daily blogging, but I just got to a point where it felt more like a chore than it was helping. This blog helps me reflect and notice when I have been having a lot of bad (or good) days in a row. I look at what I did and see if that would have an impact.

I have been going to the YMCA as much as possible lately; exercise helps with my mood. I go to pilates classes mostly, but also do some with yoga and then strength and cardio. I walk a lot, do some weight lifting and then biking as well. I would like to swim, but there are always other people in the lanes and I don't feel comfortable sharing due to my slowness.

The girl has been very moody, whiny and defiant lately. I don't know if it is just the age or if something deeper is going on. Almost every day she is sent to her room (the highest level of punishment) with her crying and carrying on so loudly we can hear her from downstairs, and over the tv. She also yells at me and refuses to do even simple things.

The boy turned 2 years old this week, and is in general a very well-behaved child. It's hard for me to say “child” he is still my lil baby, and that is how I refer to him quite often. He has his moments and throws tantrums, but not very often, mostly he sits and plays with his trucks and trains. He is always trying to reach things, and if he does, he will bring it right to me if I ask.

I am trying to lower my dose of Seroquel, my mood stabilizer. I am having some ongoing side effects to show that the high dose that I am at is too much, effecting other parts of my system. I think this started when I switched my anti-anxiety pill to Perphenezine (they will work together to raise this particular hormone level). I have been feeling more depressed lately, but that may be contributed to by missing my second dose of one of my anti-depressant each day. I am supposed to take it in the afternoon/early evening to help out that harder part of my day.

I am starting to tire of volunteering every weekend at the humane society. Some days I just have to force myself to go, and/or sit there wishing it were time to go just as soon as I start my shift. I used to enjoy it, and to be out of the house, every weekend, away from the crazy kids is always good. Perhaps I should drop down to every other weekend, I think I am just burned out. I have been doing my current schedule for about 1 ½ years.

I have been thinking about starting a video blog, or at least add it to this blog as an extracurricular activity. I don't know what it will be about in general, but have had some silly ideas.

Readers, do you have any ideas?

This week is just dragging along. It is only Wednesday, but even yesterday felt like Thursday. I have started to go back to working out at the YMCA almost every day. The boy is getting better about being dropped off at their child care, he doesn't scream and cry, he walks right through the gate and stands by the workers there. He must be starting to make a connection with entering the building with having fun with coloring and in the mini gym, and the many other things they have for them to do.

My moods are better on the days I exercise, and this is why I try to go every day. I have been doing a lot of classes, like mat pilates and walking the treadmill or riding a bike. I am also getting back to do the weight lifting. I think it may be the yoga and pilates, but I am definitely getting some definition in my upper arms, when I flex, the muscle actually moves and becomes firmer.

The weather here has been pretty bad, very low temperatures and over the last couple days, we have quite a bit of snowfall. This hinders my desire to leave the house, and so I missed Monday. Before that, I had been every day between Wednesday and Sunday.

For Christmas, my MIL asked for table runners for each season/occasion, and I have bought some material to make them. I finished a Valentines Day and two identical Christmas runners two weeks ago with my mom. I really like both, and am tempted to keep them. On Christmas, she did receive some for winter, Christmas and Thanksgiving. Since I had already bought the material, I went ahead and made them. I will still give her one of the Christmas ones since she has a side table that could use one as well. I don't know who I will give the other to, I already have two and don't need any more, but of course I could replace the one that I don't care for as much. MIL's birthday is coming up in the beginning of March so I have some time to make a few more. I would like to get photos up on my websites, just haven't gotten around to doing it.

I had only a so-so birthday. I had wanted to go to a dueling piano bar on their birthday night (a Tuesday) but not many people were able to make it. I really wanted my sister to come, but she can't do things like that during the week. I told everyone that I would reschedule to later in January, but I don't think I will. I am also thinking of going to that adult arcade and bowling club, but I can't remember the name of it. I guess I am a little disappointed, and that will keep me from planning anything else. Besides that, my sister probably won't go to the piano bar even if she is available and has a sitter, she has been before and didn't care for it.

On January 31st, I will be doing a Polar Bear Plunge as a fundraiser for Special Olympics. I will be jumping into White Bear Lake along with a bunch of friends from the “Hip Chicks” meetup group. We almost have the largest team, for which we would win an award. Costumes are encouraged, and we have decided to wear prom/bridesmaid dresses with big hair and bright blue eyeshadow. My hair is too short to make “big” but I will definitely be doing the eyeshadow.

I made a goal for myself for $200. Some family, a Plurk friend, and a Twitter friend made this possible!  I actually made $205! Everyone thinks I am crazy, Husband thinks I will get sick, so instead of donating, we will save the money for co-pays for the doctor visits. LOL It is a bit crazy, but it is a once in a lifetime experience and besides, it's for charity. If anyone else would like to donate some money to the cause, my personal Special Olympics website is here.  I of course will have someone taking photos and making a video of our group making the jump, and will upload it to YouTube so all can see the craziness!

We are having a fundraiser as well. For every margarita sold between 7:00 and 9:00, the bar will donate $3.00 to this cause. Everyone is welcome, and we are trying to fill up the bar as jammed packed as possible to earn some serious cash.

It will be held on Wednesday Jan 21st at Bar Abilene. The address is 1300 Lagoon Ave in Minneapolis. The phone number there is 612-825-2525.

The plunge is on Saturday January 31st, from 12-3:00 near the White Bear Lake VFW, 4496 Lake Ave. S. It is just off of Hwy 61.

We hope you can make it!

Tuesday was a good day for the most part. It started early with Christmas shopping with my mom and grandma. I finished my last minute thing, a gift for Husband. He is the hardest person to shop for, so I went easy and got my usual gifts for him. Every holiday I get him a new pair of boxer shorts, there are few that I have missed in the last 5 years or so. I ended up at Casual Male XL, and got him a pair of boxers with “Xbox” logo and controllers on them, and then Batman lounging pants. He also needed a pair of fingerless gloves to replace the ones he lost since last year. I spent about $40 on him when our limit was $10. Oops. Since they were boring gifts, I don't feel too badly that he truly has only gotten me $15 worth of stuff. I am labeling the gloves from Daughter and Monster.

We finished out the morning of shopping with lunch at Divannis; it's one of my favorite lunch spots. We just happened to need to pass it while on our way home.

When Monster and I got home, we went straight to bed and had an 1.5 hour nap. I spent the next 4-5 hours on my feet making cookies. I made some sugar cookie cutouts with mini cutters, none are larger than a dollar coin, and they are adorable. I spent almost as long decorating as I did making the batter and cutting out the pieces.

I went to bed late, really late, couldn't/didn't want to go to sleep. I think I was starting to feel stress just from knowing I will be spending the entire afternoon and evening in a house with about 25-30 people, all of which are very, very loud talkers. I want to go to spend time with them, but don't feel like I need to bet there 8 hours or more.

I finished almost all the cookies I wanted to get done, I just need to realize that there are four family functions, and I will have time between some of them to get some baking done, so there is plenty for everyone. I am guessing I will see about 125 people by Sunday!

Saturday was a     day
I am going to try getting back to a daily blog about my happenings and emotions. I will try not to miss any days, but with the holidays coming up, who knows what will happen.

Anyways, I had two shifts at the Humane Society. It was my week for front desk duty, 9-11:00 plus I switched a shift with the girl that does opposite Saturdays from me for surrender. I went home at 11, and then went home for a quick nap and then back by 2:00. The weather was horrible and the roads were pretty bad, but I made it easily with minimal slipping. I didn't take much more than 5 minutes longer to get there and back for the morning, and about 10 minutes for my afternoon shift.

My day was super boring. Because of the weather, I didn't have any surrenders but one. During the last ten minutes of my shift someone came in with a pair of rats, so I stood and twiddled my thumbs for 2 hours and 50 minutes. I checked my Plurk, Twitter, Facebook and email a few times here and there, which passed a little time. The time seemed to slow down and sometimes stop. I hardly help with laundry at home, why would I want to do laundry there? There was a load already dry and one in the washer and were ready to be switched. I reluctantly folded and skipped putting the next load into the washer.

This Saturday's surrender shift was probably the worst I have had to date and just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. Since the weather was so bad I considered several time to tell them all I was leaving before it got any worse, but refrained. I have an obligation there, and who knows, they may need me for somthing important.

My daughter left Saturday morning to go spend some time at the inlaw's house. She will be gone until Wednesday, Christmas Eve when they come back to town for my FIL's usual Christmas Eve celebration. This means she will be gone four nights, five days, and I worry about her homesickness. She has a hard time being away from home for that amount of time, sometimes less. I expect a phone call every day, and maybe I will have to go pick her up early, which I wouldn't mind.

Husband and I had another conversation about Chris, my ex-boyfriend. Apparently, the last discussion Husband told me to stop all communication with him, but I didn't get it. I told him I would stop calling him at that time, but thought e-mail was ok. I have been emailing every day and have been watching the subject and tone. We have been talking about his divorce, so obviously he has other things on him mind than trying to flirt and cause issues. I seriously, honestly thought this was ok. Out of no where, Husband asked me what was going on with this, and I told him, this turned into an argument immediately. There is now a blanket-rule that ex-boyfriends are not ok, nothing to do with any of them for any reason. I wrote an email to Chris telling him that everything had to stop and I would not be calling or emailing him again, and wished the same of him. Husband was in such a state he almost asked me to cc: him on the email.

Things are still ok in our relationship, there is some wavering in the trust area, but things will work itself out with time.

I was anxious or depressed most of the day. So depressed that I am starting to think about quitting the Humane Society all together, and then nervous and anxious about the thoughts going through Husband's mind about the Chris situation and how and when things would smooth out.

Before discussion #1 occurred, I had looked up Chris' phone number and called him to chat. I took me three days to actually get the nerve to call him. My stomach was full of butterflies and I just didn't know if it was a good idea for us to actually talk. When I did call, I continued with the butterflies through the whole thing, and somehow, we filled up a whole hour of getting to know each other again. As of today, I have probably talked to him five times. The butterflies have mostly gone, but now it feels like I am sneaking around to talk to him because of the discussion with Husband, he has not banned phoning him, he just wants me to be honest with him about it.

It has come to my attention that when I talk to him, I talk extra quiet, and this scares Husband. He wants to know why I whisper, but I don't have an explanation to give him. Last night, before the second big discussion, I talked to Chris on the phone, and that “whispering”, as Husband calls it, started the whole thing. I used the wrong words, and it turned into a fit of jealousy. Again, Husband walked away a bit, and this time he grabbed my phone to look at the call history. Again, I felt violated and nervous as I had to explain that I hadn't talked to him that many times, he was not at home for the six times I called over the last three days.

This also irritates Husband because Chris has my phone number now. On top of things, Husband is ripping him to shreds, he is playing the “alas, poor me, I'm getting a divorce” ticket, he is manipulating me and trying to question my marriage. Trying to make me to relive these feelings and bring them back so he can steal him away from Husband.

I get asked the questions “What would you do if you were in my shoes?” and “Is it worth it”. Husband won't tell me what to do, but he does want honesty and for me to have better judgment. I deleted Chris' phone number out of my phone and will not call him again. This is too bad because I have been enjoying talking to him, and none of it would be something Husband would disapprove of.

I spent the evening watching the kids while Husband worked upstairs. He is trying to finish putting together a presentation that he will be giving on Wednesday. I watched Sponge Bob with the kids mostly, and then when Husband was done for the night, he played his video games while I sat on the internet and partially watched the kids.When kids were in bed, we had a"discussion".

This “discussion” that Husband and I had has to deal with my contact with an old boyfriend. He was more than just a boyfriend, he was my high school sweetheart, we lived together for a while and were even engaged. There was some things I did not make clear when we started talking, and it has snowballed into a huge stress. Husband keeps asking “is this relationship worth this”, meaning the contact with old boyfriend, Chris. It is making Husband jealous and insecure, and me anxious and scared and guilty. It isn't worth it, but if I were clear in the very beginning, things might have been ok. He has come right out and asked me if I were cheating on him, which I did not. There is no risk of this, not just because he lives 4 hours away, but because I wouldn't do that to Husband.

Another old boyfriend contacted me about two weeks before this one, it was a silly little puppy love thing when I was 15. We weren't together long, and now, it really doesn't matter at all to me. We emailed a few times, and it stopped at that. While we were talking, Chris took this other boyfriend's place as an email buddy. The two questions that Husband asked when he saw I was talking to Old Boyfriend #1 were “Was it serious?” and “Did you sleep with him”. Both questions were a “no” and Husband treated the emails as nothing to worry about. Chris on the other hand did mean something to me, a lot, and we had slept together.

During the first arguments, it was brought out in the open that I had not been emailing who he thought I had been. Behind my back, and during a break in a “discussion” we were having, he stepped out of the room briefly and he logged into my email to read the messages between us. I felt so violated, and he felt jealous and angry about the number of emails there were. There were a lot, during the first couple days we talked, there were about 80. Most were one line, almost like a chat session, but there were some very deep conversations as well. This is where Husband found out about the nature of our relationship, from email and not me, making me seem like a liar. I haven't lied, I may have left out some things, but never answered a questions untruthfully. Perhaps deceptive is a better word, and I don't know why I never told him in the first place. Probably because I really wanted to talk to him to catch up on high school friends, and him, but knew that if Husband found out that he was a “yes” to his two questions, he might not allow it.

There is more to talk about, but will continue in another post so that this one isn't so long.

Well, it has been too long since my last post, and I feel guilty about it. There are things that I should talk about. I will split it up a bit, so, here is the first part. Warning- some icky body things described below. Not for the easily grossed out.

I have been sick, and I mean really sick. I was having abdominal pain, and my OB thought it was gynecological, and I had an infection somewhere inside. I was on two different antibiotics but it wasn't helping. I was admitted to the hospital for IV antibiotics and observation, and even had a laproscopy done for my girly parts. They found nothing. The next possibility was digestive, which it did turn out to be. Unfortunately, the doctors at the hospital didn't think that it was that, and had no other explanation, so they sent me home. When I saw my GP the next day, she found the problem and her advise cleared things up within two days. Unfortunately things started back two days later, so I went to a specialist and he ordered a test to check for a blockage and other basic issues. I am still waiting for results, four days later.

Other than this, the entire family got the stomach flu. The boy was the source of the bug (we think because of the contact in the childcare at the YMCA), and he started symptoms Friday after Thanksgiving. Saturday, the other three of us got symptoms, all at once, within an hour of each other. So, everyone was vomiting, taking turns in the bathroom. We put ourself into quarantine and tried to make it through it. Being sick and puke-y trying to care for the little ones was a very difficult challenge. I just wanted to rest and sip chicken broth, but instead I was cleaning up messes and listening to the crying. The girl and I were done with it by Sunday night, but husband carried out the less attractive parts for about 10 days. The boy lasted longer and couldn't take any milk. It was hard because he would just cry and cry for it. He drank the juice, but asked for milk between sips.

For the girl's birthday this year, we decided to do a party with her classmates instead of a big family one. After noting we did not want 20 five and six year olds running crazy in our house, we chose to go to “The Blast”. It is an indoor playground, kind of like McDonalds, but about four times the size. We invited about ten, to make the pricing manageable, and no one seemed to care that the other students weren't there. They provided a cake and use of a party room. I thought this seemed like a great option, better than Chuck E. Cheese, which can get expensive with all the tokens.

The only thing was that there were two other parties going on at the same time, and others that just walked in. It was an absolute zoo, but the kids had an extremely fun time.

The girl got many, many nice new toys, most of which came lots of small pieces, unsuitable for the boy to play with. I can just imaging him eating some Barbie shoe like her cousin did about a year ago, and think nothing about it. I packed away some of her toys while she wasn't looking, and will save them for another holiday, and she will hopefully see them as new. I will give one to her for Christmas, and then for Easter and any other reason to be proud of her, like when the next report card comes.

We did end up having a celebration with the family, but it was just immediate family. We went directly after we left The Blast (where clean up was a breeze, since there we didn't have to do a thing) we went to our favorite pizza place, the Ole Piper Inn. My parents, my MIL, and SIL were there, FIL was out of town with family hunting. My sister had a very tired girl to deal with; she just went home when the party was over.

Daughter got some more presents at the restaurant, and MIL brought a very chocolately cookies-n-cream cake. She mostly got clothes, and she was very excited about them, especially because she got a fancy new “party dress” and a shirt with Hello Kitty on it.

Over all, it was a crazy, busy day and the girl was extremely satisfied with it, which I guess is the biggest reason we did all this.

I have been very sick lately, even had an inpatient stay at the hospital and a minor surgery. This doesn't really account for the lack of posts on my blog, but it sounds good. I have been off my schedule since then, sleeping late and taking as long of naps of possible. I even skipped my volunteer shifts for three or four weeks in a row because of not feeling well and just needing that extra sleep.

Now that things have calmed down, I am feeling better and able to get back to working out, it is time to get back on my normal schedule. This includes getting up about 7am to do my light therapy before the kids get up, then waking the girl. Husband gets up on his own and walks her to the bus stop, and hopefully, the baby sleeps through all this. He is almost always up by 8:30, so I really don't have a lot of time after 8:00 to myself.

The preferred schedule from there is to feed the baby and after a little while, head off to the YMCA. We try to get out of there by 12 so I can go home, feed the baby and put him down immediately for his nap. I nap at that time too, until 3:00 when the girl comes home. Having the two of them together is almost always complete chaos with jumping on furniture, arguing over toys, laughing and screaming and so on. It is a struggle every day to keep them in check until Husband gets home at about 5:45. By then I am so frazzled that I have taken my anxiety med and have to get away from everyone by going upstairs.

Schedules are very helpful to me, it keeps me in check and have a sense of control about what is going to happen at various times of the day. I just thrive on it.

It is time to get back to this now, it will be hard getting up for a while, but I really need to make this happen.