Books 2012, continued

Books 1-3

Book 4

5.The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

6. Chasing Fire by Suzanne Collins

7. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

8. Make the Bread, Buy the Butter by Jennifer Reese

9. House of Dark Shadows by Robert Liparulo

10. Watcher in the Woods by Robert Liparulo

Still alive after all

At some point last week, umm…Tuesday, I guess it was, I had one of those Big Giant Weird Episodes.  Kids were home, blood pressure machine was brought to me in the moment, and I discovered to my utter horror that my blood pressure was way above normal and into the “Oh Wow, I Might Die From This” level of blood pressure.  I say “discovered” as if it happened right them, but in the moment numbers meant absolutely nothing to me, I just saw big ones and went “lightbulb!” and moved on with my day, as it was both a piano lesson day and the day that we metaphorically toured the junior high with my eldest son.  There will be another post with pictures and meanderings about that subject another day, perhaps later in the week when I’m not tremendously busy with the 12 billion things the school scheduled this week (why do they do it like that?!?!?!).

 

In any case, I called around and tried to report this info to various doctors the next morning.  My primary care doctor was the only one that responded in a timely manner and provided a quick fix, too, so he gets Extra Bonus Awesome points.  I followed the program provided, having been following it diligently the last week, and am happy to report that my blood pressure is back in the Land of the Living range.  I’ve stopped being tremendously dizzy all the time.  I am not nauseated all the time.  My Headache of Doom gradually went down to the level of Rather Annoying Daily Occurrence instead of OH MY GOD, MY HEAD.  Best of all I’m able to read again.

 

So I spent three days doing practically nothing besides luxuriating in reading (well, some laundry and dishes) and marveling on the fact that I waited so long to read The Hunger Games trilogy.  Greg had pink eye, so he wasn’t feeling up to much either.

 

To sum up: I am not dead.  I am terribly busy.  Some day in the future there will be actual updates with pictures again, if I ever find my camera.  Woo hoo.

Back in the saddle

Sorry about last week, y’all.  Didn’t mean to scare/worry anyone.  I was having some problems with the meds I was on and apparently it wasn’t just the head-poundingness that was a side effect, but the depression as well.  I got a call from the neurologists office, apologizing for having not called me back sooner (my message went astray and the doctor was off at a conference).  The told me to stop the new meds immediately and they’d call me back this week with info about NEW new meds, et al.  So I stopped the old new meds, felt a bit better Saturday, but had to stay home for the weekend to attend a sick boyo.  Yesterday I was doing all right, but today I feel weird again.  Not so weird as last week weird, just different.  So I’m taking things one day at a time and trying to be easier on myself when stuff doesn’t get done on the schedule I set for myself.  And now I’m going to go wander off and do something that requires less concentration because talking/typing seems not to be my strong suit today.  *waves at the internet*

Giving myself a break

I’ve been writing this post in my head all day.  The long and short of it is this: it’s February, I’m depressed, there’s nothing anyone can do about it, and instead of fighting it I’m going to go with the flow and just let it be this week.  I’m tired of not knowing what’s wrong with me, tired of pulling over the car to cry every time I’ve dropped the children off somewhere and I’m finally alone, tired of being so freaking tired, tired of the headaches, the buzzing and pounding in my head, worrying, and everything else in the universe.  And since there’s not anything to be done about it, I’m going to hole up in my house with some good books, some hot tea, some snuggly children, and ignore everything for a while.  See you around when my head is back in a better place.  xoxo, me.

Don’t Just Talk About It, Round Up

Yesterday was the last day of my personal challenge.  I will admit that I was a little sad that no one joined me on it.  Oh well,  moving on.

 

Here’s a round up of areas that I worked on that I somehow managed not to post photos of earlier in the process.  Some were places I didn’t have finished on time and others were places I didn’t have on the list but did anyway.

The hallway bathroom I didn’t take any before photos of. It didn’t look a whole lot different. Here it is with its new Reveille:

Here are the handsome new towels my mom got the boys:

And here are the tags for the boys. David is the crocodile, Ben is the love animals, and Greg is the cat.

 

The desk area hasn’t changed a lot since the middle of things, but it’s still a work in progress, here it is mid process:

The desk area now:

(the main change: I sent away the paper file box and brought back in the plastic box because it’s sturdier in the long run, then piled up the stuff over there while I’m working on sorting through it all.  The sorting is taking forever because I haven’t had enough time to dedicate to it yet.)

 

The shelving units in my room before: super crowded.

The shelving units after:

(I have actually only gotten rid of a small pile of papers and four books.  The rest just got re-sorted back to the places they were meant to be living in the first place.)

 

David’s room, mid process.  Ah, it looked so clean.  Too bad you couldn’t see all the stuff on his bed.

 

David’s room now:  His aunt April donated an old computer for his use.  It doesn’t have wireless access to the internet, so unless a parent gives him the super-long ethernet cable, there’s no internet in his bedroom.  But still, he can write papers, play a certain subset of his computer games, use iTunes, and draw lots and lots of weird stuff with the mouse.  Plus there’s an awesome outer space screen saver. The other half of his desk is covered in his current Lego battle.

Ben & Greg’s room mid-process:

Greg and Ben’s room now: The matching chairs came FREE from the garage, much to my happiness.  Greg decided he was finally tired of the Moon Sand mess, so out that went.  One of the teachers at school, who is mom to 2 ladies that have taught Ben & Greg, overheard of my yearning for a second computer for the house for boy use, and showed up one day during my volunteer hours up there with a computer very, very similar to the one April had given us for the big boy. (I know this sounds confusing “second computer.” When I had been talking about it, April hadn’t given us the one in D’s room yet.  And then once she did he rejected it because of the lack of internet issue.  BUT, once the little kids got and enthusiastically embraced their new-to-them computer, he was all “whatever happened to that other one?” and so now both rooms have one.  Little kids room has one that’s more disabled for little kid use, chock full of educational games.  Big kids room has a regular one that we’ll put big kid stuff on.)

 

The top of the dryer wasn’t on the list, but it should have been. Before: mess, mess, mess.

The top of the dryer, now: nice! (sorry for the angle change there!)

The other side of the laundry room has new labels for things (soap & different recycling bins), printed for free from my computer on regular computer paper and laminated with clear contact paper I had on hand as well.

 

The piano area before: mess, mess, mess.

The piano area after: I showed you where the books ended up, but not how the piano area looks now.  I just added a stack off boxes from elsewhere, the snow dragon, and a strand of music garland from my first Homecoming mum (what, don’t look at me like that.  Yes, it’s 22 years old.  It’s plastic.  Whee!)

And that’s all folks.  I am done!  Well, not really, as there’s always more to do, but I am done having a project a day all week long.  It’ll be nice to just take things slowly again.