Personal

I'm not sure what happened, but I have been feeling pretty well lately. The depression hasn't been really bad, and I am having very few anxiety attacks. I talked with my psychaitrist about this yesterday. Perhaps the increased sunlight, my meds' levels have been untouched and finally working the way they should, or maybe it is a fluke. I haven't been seeing my therapist, I forgot about making new appointments. I think I missed the last one accidentally, so I wasn't in the office to make more. Perhaps not dwelling on my life and needing to talk about everything that has been bad and good is helping with my moods too. All I know is that I am happy with the way things are going. It has been a very, very long time since I was able to say that.

Well, it may not seem like a lot to you, but I have had about 1300 visitors to my website since it all started, 15 months ago. I never expected to get daily visitors, and don't really know why since I am not blogging every day any more. For some reason today I opened up my stats and saw that number and felt proud of myself. When I was blogging every day, some times it helped and others it made my day worse, dwelling on what was wrong. I need to get back to doing this, I think.

I have been spending my days on the computer, mostly just goofing off with Plurk!, Twitter and FaceBook. Since I put the little monster into daycare, my horrible days where I needed my husband to come home early from work have decreased dramatically. I am starting back to school in less than three weeks now! It grows closer and closer, and I hope that I am ready. I don't know what I can do to prepare except get the financial stuff taken care of, buy some notebooks and put them into a backpack.

The big news coming from my corner is that a puppy has joined our household. She is MY dog, I am the one to care for her, clean up her poop and train her. We got her almost two weeks ago, and she is now almost 9 weeks old. The housebreaking is going well, if I were to pay more attention; she wouldn't have any accidents at all. We are going to puppy school, which is fun, she gets to run and play with other puppies, and all the proud parents get to laugh and enjoy the antics. She seems to be a pretty good  student, I have been using a clicker, which I think is more effective than using a marker word like “yes”. I think it would be difficult for a little one to hear that word over other distractions and can change with emotion and inflection. A clicker is louder and you would have a hard time finding something with similar noise in a normal situations.

Oh yeah, her name is Molly, and she is a pretty girl. She is ½ hound, which most likely is Coon Hound, the other half, her mom, was Lab/Chow. She is such a crazy addition to the house. The mouthing and  nipping will stop soon, I hope, it gets bad and I have to keep her away from Monster. The girl gets upset and tries to run away, but that only makes Molly want to chase; it turns into a game. I put her in timeout some days when she gets too rough. I have crate trained her, and it really didn't take too long. She uses it as a napping place, going in there all on her own, and eats her meals in there, then sleeps there at night. Overnights, she can go up to 7 hours in the crate without an accident. The first few nights she either cried and cried or had an accident. I'm glad that stage is over, Husband is too, he was the one to get up with her, or sleep with her downstairs on the couch so she wouldn't cry. With my medications I sleep so heavily it hard to wake me, but I did set my alarm one night at 3am so that I could let her out. Turns out it was a bad thing to wake her up; she wouldn't settle back down and cried off and on until 7am when I usually get up. The next night we waited for her to wake us up, and she didn't. She hasn't since then either. Pretty good for a 7 week old puppy to wait 6 hours to go outside!!

Having a dog at home will be good for me. I (eventually) will feel more secure in the house during the day and those nights Husband is away. She will keep me busy trying to train her and care for her, and Molly will be like a therapy dog for me. I hope to cuddle and do breathing exercises with her during panicky times. With the training I am going to do, I hope to have her get the “Canine Good Citizen” award from the AKC and become an “Animal Ambassador” with the humane society I currently volunteer with. She will go to schools and nursing homes for education and lots of lots of love. I have been doing a lot of research on-line, with books and watching videos; I am excited to get to the point where we can start the really fun stuff!

It's been a month since my last post, and I truly want to do more but I am lazy or gone to the gym (which makes my schedule back to back things until Husband gets home, and then I am sometimes back to the gym). I have a few updates which I will try to cover, the biggest two are my returning to school in less than two months and my scary almost accident/almost died incident.

I have lost 15 pounds since the end of February, and I am feeling good about it. I am feeling better but not when Husband walks over and says he has lost 35 pounds in the same amount of time. Grrrr. I am at the gym every day, and sometimes twice. Since my almost accident and being sick, I have not done much, but also haven't put the weight back on.

I put Monster into daycare, I drop him off by 10 and pick him up at 5 every day. This is giving me time to get things down in preparation for school, go to doctor and therapist appointments on my own and get to the gym when I want, for as long as I want. When I bring Monster, I am limited to two hours. This just isn't enough time for me to do cardio and a full weights circuit, and then soak in the hot tub and shower. Taking care of him was getting very difficult and giving my panic attacks every day and causing Husband to come home early at least once a week. 

I am heading back to Dakota County Technical College (where I had to drop out while pregnant with Monster). I am going to get my A.A.S. in "Multimedia/Web Page Design", and very excited about it. I think I have all my important paperwork done, and I am just waiting for the confirmation for the the classes I registered for.

My near accident scared me a lot. I was in shock (I think) for a while, but when it hit me, it was hard. I ran a stop sign, crossing a county highway. A semi almost broadsided me, and most definitely would have killed me and Monster. For about four days I couldn't leave the house without feelings of panic. When I did venture out to the gym, I had a panic attack there and couldn't exercise. I just waited around for Husband to finish his workout, pacing and watching the clock.

Two and a half weeks later I am still scared driving in certain areas and similar intersections. Along with this, I got strong urges to crash my car or drive off the road in an effort to seriously hurt of kill myself. These feelings aren't new, but they are as intense and more as when I was in my first two years of bipolar life (I was in a very, very bad state).

After this started to clear, I got sick. I am still sick, but not too much where I can't workout (as of today, Sunday). I am taking the kids to my mom's to dye Easter eggs with my sister and niece and have lunch. Hopefully I will have time to work out this evening, but I doubt it. I will get back to my workout regime starting Monday for sure!

It has been eight days since I have been tracking exactly what exercises I do and how many calories they burn along with what I eat and the nutritional facts. In the last eight days, I have lost about eight pounds! I am becoming fixated on burning more calories than I eat. Considering how many calories it takes for me to just exist and what I eat, then subtracting the amount I burn comes to a number I struggle to keep low. Last night Husband tried to convince me that I need to eat more, and even commented that he didn't want me to become anorexic. 

Husband started this new regimine with me and has lost even more weight than I have. He is even working on buiding muscles, so in fact he is loosing quite a bit more since he is adding weight from his new muscles. 

Mostly, I am walking on the treadmill, but have used the bike a few times. I also have a weight circuit set up with the system at the YMCA that will track my exercises. This system remembers which machines, which settings I need to use (like seat height) and the amount of weight I have been using. Through the system (Fitlinxx) I earn points for each exercise, including my cardio and classes I take. When I get to certain numbers, I earn prizes from the YMCA. I am less than 1,000 points from a t-shirt. I should get there by the end of next week with the amount I have been going lately. 

I also have a "workout" using my exercise ball, which I can do at the YMCA or at home, which is great. This way I can just tack on the extra exertion whenever I feel like it. I do crunches and back lifts then pushups and "diamond" pushups with my feet on the ball. This lessens the amount of weight for the pushups and allows me to do more. I will slowly build up to being able to just do them on my own, but I think it will be quite a while. 

The "Gyminee" site I am using is way cool. I track everything listed above very easily, and can even do it through my iPhone while at the gym. That way I don't forget the numbers by the time I get home. 

I am currently in first place in Husband's and my little challenge, and he is barely within that 80% mark. If I can keep up this rate, I will win for sure, and possibly take the entire $300. For those of you that don't know what I am talking about, look at the previous post. 

I am having fun exercising!

Husband and I are on a health kick right now. We are trying to exercise every day and eat as healthy as possible. We have come up with our own contest, and the winner gets $200! We calculate how many minutes we spend doing a cardio-vascular exercise, mainly walking and biking. Whoever logs the most gets the prize and the runner up gets $100, but only if they are within 80% of the winner's total. If they don't make it, the full $300 goes to the winner. 

I have already lost about 7 pounds!

I firmly belive that I will be the winner since I have free time during the day to go to the gym, every day. Husband only gets a chance to exercise in the evenings after work, and it is easy for something to interfere. I plan to buy a desk especially for my art and craft supplies. It is a modular system, and looks like it would help clear out some of the "junk" as Husband calls it, and keep my work space confined to one area, while fitting my exact needs. If I don't need the upright file folder slots, I wll get another drawer or something.

I will keep everyone posted on our numbers!

This is one of those stupid, stupid things being passed around. I am being pressured into doing one, so here it is:

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you. Even if I didn't tag you, I want to know more about you.

1. I have been tagged at least 16 times to do this, and now am finally getting around to doing it.
2. I hate these things and have never done one before. I refuse to tag anyone, because I hate getting them, I don't want to spread the annoyance.
3. I have had my body pierced 11 times (but don't have all of them open anymore)
4. I met my husband on the internet (it was across the room, but we first talked there)
5. I have seen Breakfast Club many, many times, but never the uncut version (not edited for tv)
6. My mom is my best friend
7. My husband and I have been on a "real" vacation only twice in the 12 years we have known each other
8. I love foot rubs and pedicures but don't ask me to touch your feet
9. I can't stand silverware scraping on plates or teeth
10. I am not afraid of heights, but get vertigo very easily
11. I was on time (or early) 99% of the time before I had kids
12. I have moved at least 23 times (I'm sure I am forgetting some)
13. I have only gotten two speeding tickets, and both within 6 months of each other
14. I have only been stung by a bee twice, within a week of each other
15. The only bugs I can not stand are centipedes and millipedes
16. I have only read the same book twice, once
17. I drink way too much soda
18. My best subject in Trivia Pursuit is "Science and Nature"
19. I have done a polar bear plunge
20. The last real concert I have been to was in 1996
21. I secretly love the tween show "iCarly"
22. I have lived in Florida, California, Texas and Minnesota
23. I have had 11 surgeries or serious procedures.
24. I do not have an appendix or gall bladder
25. My favorite animals are both black and white (a cow and tapir)

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!