Angel's blog

Tuesday was a "THREE Star Day"

Anxiety Range: 1-3
Depression Range: 1-3
Impulses: 3
Activity Level: 3
Light Time: 1 hr

Waking up Tuesday morning, I had the urge to get out and go to the gym (WOW!). I didn't have to wait long before the monster woke up, but it still took us 1 ½ hours to get ourselves fed and clothed and decided what we were going to do for the day. Instead of the gym, we went to the mall (Mall of America) to start looking around for Christmas gift ideas. I did three whole laps, one on each level, and I think I reached my goal of 5,000 steps doing this. I wore my basic, normal pedometer to get an idea of how far I went (which seems to be a little inaccurate, counting less than it should), it read 2.5 miles, which is about how far I estimated it takes to reach 5,000, so hopefully I passed this with room to spare.

I bought a few things for Christmas, for my one of my sister-in-laws and my nephew. For SIL, I bought a really nice, personalized ornament. Since she will be pregnant over the holidays, I got one that depicts a pregnant woman with space to write across the big belly (a name or something) and she is holding a small purse that will state the due date. Since she has not gotten a definite due date, and we haven't decided what to write on the belly, so I had them leave the entire thing. SIL is big on collecting memorable ornaments, so I think this one will go over well. For my baby nephew, I got some of those heavy duty wooden puzzles and an ornament as well. This one is for baby's first Christmas, there is a baby carriage with room on the side for his name. There is a little baby bunny in the carriage holding balloons which I had the year written. I think the cutest part is that the little wheels turn.

I am tired of my hair color, and decided to dye it using that wildfire red that I bought last Friday. It did not turn out the way I wanted. The roots that have grown in did not color at all, just the leftover from my last dye job, however, the color is about where I want it. I have a kit to remove the color from my hair, which I was going to use Tuesday night, but the directions looked scary, and will wait for my MIL to help me with it, since she used to be a hair stylists, she has the know-how to get things done right. We will see her this weekend while a lot of family will be visiting, but I don't know if she will have time for it.

The kitchen was in a pretty bad state when I woke up, but decided to do absolutely nothing to help the situation. Besides, after a long walk at the mall and nap time, there really wasn't time to do anything about it. Usually this is a trigger for anxiety, but it didn't really bother me much, I just avoided the kitchen the best I could. Being out of the house and then napping, there wasn't much time for anxiety or depression either. Things stayed low, especially since there was little time for Monster to run around crazy-like and stress me out.

Daughter started complaining about pain in her side. By the end of the night, I determined that it was her hip joint that was hurting her, and as it got later in the night, the worse the pain, she was barely walking by bedtime. Fast forward note: Husband took her to urgent care this morning (Wednesday). They are still gone, so I have no idea what, or if they found anything yet.

On on upbeat note, Monster, all of the sudden started going up the stairs walking upright, no more crawling for him. I would have thought his little legs were still too short considering the difficulty he has coming down. I could tell by about 2/3 the way up he was getting tired, he started slowing down and almost went into a crawl again but I was there to help.

Monday was a      day
Anxiety Range: 1-3
Depression Range: 1-3
Impulses: 4
Activity Level: 4
Light Time: 1 hr

MOMS Club arranged to go to the local nursing home so that our kids could trick-or-treat from the various residents. It is a big deal to them, and the kids have fun, so it's a win-win situation. I dressed Monster in his little scrubs, grabbed the play doctor kit and headed out the door. Of course when we first got there Monster started his whiny/shy/scared fit. He didn't want to be out of my arms, but warmed up when it was time to make the rounds. He listened as well as a 1yr old can, and charmed all the nurses and residents. Everyone had a smile on their face when they saw the little doctor coming their way. We even got some extra candy because he was so cute.

I stopped home to change and the two of us went to the “Y” for a little workout. As of now I will not get any free child care because of my membership. It's a free/severely discounted account which doesn't include a lot of services, I even can't use all of the YMCA locations. I rode the bike to warm up, did my weight circuit and then walked ½ mile. I don't know that I got in enough steps to make my goal, but I wasn't done right then. After dinner, I went to that Salsa dancing class again, which is a workout in itself.

Monster and I napped for about two hours that afternoon until Husband got home. After pilates on Sunday, my workout Monday morning and then Salsa, my muscles were aching. Ya know how usually you start to feel the aches the next morning, I didn't get that, I was instantly sore which made me concerned as to how sore I would be the next day.

Monday I had a problem with eating, putting all sorts of cookies and candy into my mouth. I am not going to loose any weight if I keep doing this; I replace all those calories burned, plus some each day. It would probably help if Husband would stop buying all these tempting foods.

Looking at myself in the mirrors at dance class made me feel sick again. I need a more serious and strict exercise and diet program if I truly want to loose this weight. I have 35 pounds to go before I reach my pre-Monster pregnancy weight, and then probably another 40 to get back to pre-Daughter weight. Right now my focus is just on those first 35. You have to take it in steps, right?

My anxiety and depression levels were very manageable, I kept too busy for anything to kick in. Except for that glimpse of myself in the mirror, my self-esteem was also doing well.

Sunday was a       day
Anxiety Range: 1-4
Depression Range: 1-3
Impulses: 2
Activity Level: 4
Light TIme: 1 hr

Soon after waking up, the anxiety started and climbed and climbed; I was depressed at the same time too. Husband suggested I go to the “Y” since I hadn't been in a few days, and he seems to notice that I feel better when I do make it there. I agreed to try it, but prepared for the workout to be restricted to two hours, the limit I can leave the kids in the daycare center. Husband decided to let me go without the kids, but we made a trade, I would have to stop at Target on the way home to do some grocery shopping.

I had a pretty good workout, I rode the bike for 15 minutes or so, completing almost 2 ½ miles after realizing there was a pilates class I would like to try 45 minutes or so from then. To fill up the time without tiring myself too badly, I got on the tread mill for ½ hour, walking a little over a mile. I walked into the pilates class knowing absolutely nothing about it, and just copied everyone else as they were getting set up. The entire class was done sitting, kneeling or laying on a mat, and we used a ring to help hold out our limbs uniformly and to add resistance while doing it so it would engage more muscles. I guess there are many different tools you can use with pilates, but I am a complete n00b when it comes to this. My yoga experience helped a bit with being able to remember how to hold certain poses that are also used with pilates. Unfortunately, there were few yoga poses used, leaving me in the dark the rest of the class.

While in class, it started snowing! Snowing, on October 26th! The wind had been blowing hard all day, and this just made the snow blow harder and harder and sometimes even sideways. I called Husband when I was leaving to ask if I could get out of going to Target on my trip home. I wasn't even wearing proper pants, just some knit capri exercise pants, and froze just walking to my car. I didn't want to think about standing in the wind and cold trying to load groceries into the car.

The exercise did help my mood and made for a better afternoon. The whole day I felt like it was much later than it was. Maybe because I got up and started being active so early in the day, or because the weather was extra dreary. After the workout, my depression and anxiety were minimal until about 8:00pm. I was tired, the kids were still awake and noisy; I just wanted to go to bed. Instead, Husband just about forced me into watching some tv and I was awake until almost 11:00 when I would have been happy to get into bed at 9:15.

Saturday was a      day

Anxiety Range: 1-4
Depression Range: 1-3
Impulses: 3
Activity Level: 1
Light Time: 0

I changed my humane society shift to 9-11 instead of starting at 8:00 so I could get a little more sleep and besides, the phone hardly rings before 9:00. I skipped my light time (which I found out that missing one or two days in a row does not really affect things) and headed out the door with my coffee. I got to the humane society at 8:30 and set up my laptop. The phones were busier that usual, and near the end I found it very difficult to work; I was doing my blog entries for Thursday and Friday.

On the way home, I got a call from my mom reminding me that we would be getting together this weekend at my house to switch around clothes. We would be sorting the kids' clothes into summer or winter things, and taking out the things that are too small. She was actually on her way, and the house was pretty messy. I got home and cleaned up the kitchen and dining room table where we would be eating lunch, and got all the clothes together so we could just start working right away. Doing the kids clothes led to folding the clean laundry pile in my room and cleaning the room as best we could. She was determined to get my life organized even though I didn't want her touching all my things.

I took a short nap and then started getting ready for a Halloween party. I was going with my sister since Husband is anti-social and never has fun at these sort of things. Sister dressed as the tooth fairy and I put on Husband's Coast Guard uniform, hat and all. We were gone until like 11:00, and that was early considering all the new people coming in. We were the first to leave, and the party was just getting started.

While getting ready for the party, Daughter was upset that she didn't get to go, and once she figured out that it was a costume party, she was even more upset. To make up for it, she got out her dress up stuff and danced and danced for us, switching dresses every five minutes. It was cute.

Overall anxiety for the day came and went and didn't get too high, depression hit only for a little amount of time. The highest anxiety was while getting ready for the party. I didn't know what I wanted to dress as, or if I just wasn't going to dress at all. I thought and thought, and looked for ideas while looking through my closet, and I just didn't have anything that I felt was good enough.

Friday was a      day
Even though the sun is rising later, I am still waking early, earlier than my alarm most mornings. I am usually unable to get back to sleep, and if I do, it is only for about 10-15 minutes. Daughter is still climbing into bed with us in the middle of the night, it isn't every night, but it is becoming common.

I wasn't feeling well, starting Thursday night. Driving home from my mom's after picking up Daughter's Halloween costume was very difficult. My vision became shaky, I was dizzy and feeling sleepy, very suddenly, and I have no idea why. I also had some abdominal pains that kept me from working out. My plan was to go straight from moms to the “Y”. I was feeling some pains before I left, but they tripled and covered a larger area of my lower abdomen, so I canceled that. Friday morning, I still had some pains, but they were much less, I was still extremely fatigued and felt dizzy. I sent Monster to a drop-in daycare for the day while I slept and went to the therapist.

The only thing I had planned for Friday was my appointment with my therapist. It was another lazy day with only a small amount of steps going towards my goal. I truly want to get going with this exercise thing to loose a bunch of weight I gained from the pregnancies. After Monster, I lost as much weight as I had put on, 35 pounds over  a course of about 8 months. Since that weight loss, and mostly over the last 6-10 months, I gained it all back. I am sick of looking this way, when I see pictures myself in a group photo, I look larger than everyone else, and it hurts. In my mind, I don't feel that much larger, but photos don't lie.

Every time I go to the “Y”, I am hoping to be able to swim, but over the last month or so, it just hasn't been possible. Either there is a class going on, leaving one lane for lap, and it is taken, or there are three open, but then all are taken then too; sometimes there are even multiple people in the lanes. I choose not to swim with other people in my lane because of how slow I am. Most likely people will get annoyed with my constant stopping and change of strokes making my pace unpredictable. I don't know exactly when the busy times are, and sometimes when there are classes the entire lap pool is taken. I dress for walking every time, and that's good since I just can't seem to get into the pool.

The appointment with my therapist went well. I have not been doing the homework she gave me, so we used the situation of the decision to either stay home alone or go along to the in-laws for the weekend with the rest of the family. The homework was to identify the feelings and thoughts about the situation and rate them as to how intense they were, then note the flaws in my thinking, and finally describe some better thoughts and feelings I could use to react to the situation.

Since the appointment was shorter than usual, I went over to Sally Beauty Supply to get some hair dye. It is red, and not like a auburn or burgundy like I usually do, but a true red. It is called “wild fire” and is not quite fire engine red, but a brownish brick red. I can't wait to do my hair. Family will freak out and tell me that they don't like it but I don't care. It's my hair, and this is what I choose to do with it.

Other than feeling weird and being extremely tired (I even took two naps) things were ok. We had spaghetti for dinner, one of my favorites, and watched some more “Chuck” from first season.

Thursday was a        day
I didn't have anything planned for Thursday, so I just sat around the house with Monster. It wasn't a particularly bad day, but I still had some anxiety episodes. Husband was at a conference and could not be disturbed, and knowing that may have triggered the episodes.

I joined the social networking site Mom Bloggers Club (you can find me with the username somberangel). There are many mini-groups to subscribe to so that you can connect with others in your area or just with the same interests. I joined a few including Twitter moms, Plurk moms, crafty moms and Midwest moms. This will keep me busy for quite a while, trying to go through and choose which moms I would like to befriend on my other sites, or just start follow their blogs.

I didn't get many steps in for my daily goal, again probably only 100 or so. I keep meaning to go to the “Y”, but scheduling with naps and needing to be home for Daughter at 3:00 makes it tough. I could go first thing in the morning, but I usually don't feel up to it at that time. I prefer a 4-6:00 exercise, but that is right when Husband gets home and we start dinner. After dinner, I don't like to exercise because it gets those endorphines going and I have a hard time settling down and getting to sleep at a reasonable hour, and I just plain don't want to be out that late at night.

I am trying to come up with a more detailed rating system to describe my day.  I will include the highest and lowest levels of anxiety and depression, eating, shopping and other impulses, and then my overall activity level and amount of time spent under my SAD light.

Wednesday was a       day
It was raining, but I was trying to ignore it. It has become a pattern: almost every single time, if it is raining, I end up emotional and have a high anxiety level. Thing went pretty good until almost lunch time. Husband was working from home, but that doesn't mean he can help me out.

He is giving a presentation today (Thursday) at a team building conference, and had to complete that and then test it on me to see how long it would take. I had an appointment to get the oil changed on Husband's car at 1:00, when Monster is usually asleep, either just going down or half way through. Wednesday, he took a very early nap, and it was quite short, a big bummer. This means that I most likely not get a nap in. Husband watched Monster while I went for the oil change, hoping that he would be content eating and watching tv downstairs. Our agreement was that if Husband had to go and care for him while I was gone, I would give him that amount of time that evening completely free of kids. I took the chance, and everything turned out perfect. The boy just snacked on all the food Husband gave to him, which kept his mouth busy and unable to scream and ask to be let down.

I got very few steps Wednesday, I doubt I had more than 100-200 total out of my daily goal of 5,000. I wanted to get to the gym, but it would have had to have been after dinner since we ate early, but I never am able to make the journey at that time.

Overall, my day was kinda blah, I wasn't doing particularly well, but it stay in somewhat of a manageable level.

Tuesday was a      day
I was still feeling pretty good after have such an upbeat Monday. It wasn't quite as high, but it was still a good day. MOMS Club had planned to go to the MOA for “Toddler Tuesday”, but when I checked that morning, no one had RSVPd. I was feeling excited about my new Actiped (which I will describe in another post, it's basically a super-duper pedometer), and went to the MOA by myself to get in some walking. I walked all three levels, and when I had finished, I realized that Monster had dropped his little tractor somewhere along the way. I wanted to get even more steps in, so I back-tracked the first and second laps I walked. I didn't find it, and guest services did not have any toys turned in, so I gave up. It was a nice little tractor that winds up when you pull it back and traveled pretty well. It was one of Monster's favorite “cars” but now I'm sure some other little boy has it. Grrr.

After more than 6200 steps, I went home to take a nap, but realized that I had a 1:00 appointment with my psychiatrist, which completely ruined those plans. I tried to lay Monster down for that 1 ½ hours that were left before having to leave, but he had none of that. We sat around until it was time to go, and then we both napped when we got home.

At the psychiatrist, things went fine. My meds are going to stay where they are for now, even though I am having those severe mood swings. There really isn't much to do medication-wise to help any more than it already is, besides, almost all my meds are maxed out (it is unsafe to increase any of their dosages).

I only got in about ½ hour of sleep before Daughter got home from school, so I let her inside, and immediately went back to bed. I set out a snack and juice, turned on the tv, and she turned into an undisturbable (is that a word) tv zombie like she usually does, making it unnecessary to supervise her.

I got depressed that evening, and went into this mode that I have been experiencing for the last two months. It is always hard to explain my feelings, but I will try again. I am antsy while being depressed and anxious at the same time. I feel the need to do something, but I just can not find the energy or desire enough to make that effort and actually do it.

Monday was a       day
Monday was actually a pretty good day.  The kids had just gotten back from Wisconsin the evening before, and that morning was the first I had to actually deal with them alone. As I was waking up Daughter, and got her dressed, I recalled she didn't have school that day. Oops. I still had her get up, not wanting her to get too far off her sleeping schedule. She has so many problems getting to sleep at night as it is.

I felt in a good mood and like I could handle all that was going on. It's been a long time since I have had those feelings.

We played it quiet, and only left the house to go to the “Y” so I could workout. It seems that all this time that I have been sending the kids to the daycare there, they have finally noticed a year later that my membership does not include the kids care. It will now cost me money, $4/child each time I bring them in. Those in charge of these areas (the childcare and the specific type of account I have) are going to talk and see what they can do to get the childcare for free, for me.

I checked out the Salsa dancing meetup group Monday night. Basically, it is a meetup group that takes structured, professional classes together and then goes to clubs here and there. I had a good time, and would like to continue, but Husband is worried about me being gone too often, leaving him with the kids at night.

I am torn on the issue, I need to get out of the house and have some adult, social interaction besides Husband, but there is a fuzzy line as to how much is enough or excessive according to him. He complains that he doesn't get to go out and do things in the evenings, but he has also never brought up any ideas he has. I probably wouldn't want him to go since I would be just getting off a full day with Monster and looking towards the rest of their waking time alone, but again, he hasn't asked. I wouldn't flat out say no, but I would definitely voice my concerns

Again, the second day in a row, I didn't realize until about 9:30pm that I had forgotten to write my blog entry. By now, my memory of yesterday is very fuzzy, and don't remember much more than this. My general feelings are that it was a good day, not outstanding or overly happy or anything, but still a good day.

Sunday was a     day
The kids and Husband were due to be home about 4 or 5:00, so I pretty much had another full day without the noise and chaos. I went to brunch with a meetup group I joined last week, it is called “Twin Cities Bloody Marys & Breakfast Club”. We went to a bar near downtown Minneapolis called “The Joint”, where if you ordered a breakfast, you got either a free screwdriver or bloody mary. I went for the blueberry pancakes and a bloody mary. The food was good, but not outstanding, I wouldn't prefer to go there over another place except for maybe the free bloody mary.

I got really sleepy on the way home, a mix of the alcohol and a warm car, so I went straight to sleep when I got back. The idea of doing some pumpkin painting was out, there just wasn't enough time to make enough progress and get things put away again before Daughter saw what I was doing and want to help. Last year, Daughter took one of my mini white pumpkins, which I really didn't want to give up. She painted the pumpkin orange and yellow, UGH, what a waste of a white pumpkin.

I finished up laundry before they all got home, and cleaned a little bit, knowing that it was in vain; as soon as the kids got home, they would be throwing toys all over.

There was some stress felt knowing the kids would be home with me all the next day, and I had gotten out of the groove with them being gone for so long and started to doubt myself that I could do it. When Husband asked me about my feelings toward the next day, I answered firmly that things would be ok, even though my tummy wasn't so sure.