Crabby

I'm ornary today. I know it's because I'm tired, got to bed too late last night and the kid woke me up too early today.

I really want to go to a concert coming up, but can't find anyone to come with me.

I'm feeling like a loser with no friends.

Just checked my work email and my boss won't let me go to a 3 day conference coming up in September because she can't afford to have me out of the office for 3 days. Whatever. All my expenses would be paid for. Maybe I can convince her if I work the next 3 Fridays.

I'm hungry and already sick of fruits and salads. I don't like the food I have to eat today for lunch and supper.

We're going to Eagle River this weekend. It sounds crazy but I've spent almost every night this week getting organized and packing for it. I'm trying to pack light, but we're basically camping in Kristin and Tom's cabin, so we have to bring our own sheets, pillows, towels, eating utensils, food, etc. Plus I had to sit down and look at my Jenny Craig meal plan and list out the foods I have to bring along with my yogurt, fruits, veggies, salad, milk, cottage cheese, etc. There is no way all of our stuff is going to fit in one cooler. I've been wondering why are we going to all of this trouble for one weekend, but it's better than sitting around here driving each other crazy. Plus I've been trying to do laundry all week so we don't have a huge shitpile waiting when we get home, plus keep the house semi clean. ARGH!

ETA: More reasons I'm crabby. Paige's bus was 5 minutes early, so we missed it. I feel like we will always have medical bills. I'm close to paying off my HSG and other crap I had done at Aurora last year, and we have about $150 left on Mike's chiropractor bill from last summer (about $500 total). Well we found out Mike's ER visit from last November goes towards his deductible so that's another $535. His entire ER visit for 3 stitches in one finger, and 5 in the other cost around $700. $200 for the "facility" charge, the hospital and supplies, and $500 for the physician's assistant to put in 8 stitches. His infertility workup at Aurora is another $450 and we're responsible for that too since it was this year and goes towards our deductible. UGH. Everytime I think we're getting ahead....WHAM something else happens. I still can't believe we have to cough up $700 for an ER visit because Mike was cutting deer with some machete weilding Rambo-wannabe who had no idea what he was doing.

I can't believe how much I have to do this afternoon: vacuum, finish packing, make a casserole, clean out the litter box, water all my shrubs and flowers, shower (well wash my hair, then take a bath), shave my legs, pack the cooler, pack a supper for Paige, etc. All I want to do is take a nap.

Day 1

So my Jenny Craig food was waiting for me when I got home. Luckily the neighbor girl was home and free to play so I shipped the kid there so I could unpack everything. Holy crap those meals are small. It took me a while to make room in my freezer and pantry, but I was able to fit it all in there. I ended up having to go to the Pig (Piggly Wiggly) to stock up on fruits, veggies and assorted other healthy items. Healthy food is EXPENSIVE and hard to find at a small town grocery store. I can't believe how many fruits and veggies I eat, I will probably turn into a strawberry at some point. Everything is all laid out for me and I follow a meal plan. Today for example, at breakfast I had a "bowl" of their cereal, Cranberry Almond Crunch and it was delish. I told Mike it was good, but I wasn't going to share a bite since there was only like 5 in there. Then I had a 1/2 cup of cottage cheese (half and half of low fat and regular, I can't make the switch to low fat cottage cheese just yet) and a 1/2 cup of mandarin oranges. My morning snack is a cup of fruit and one of their bars, but I didn't see this particular bar in my shipment of food, so I bought some Kashi bars last night. Lunch is their Turkey Burger, with a salad I provide, their dressing, and one piece of string cheese. My afternoon snack is 2 cups of fruit, then supper is their spaghetti and meatballs, soup, and my veggies (2 CUPS!!!!!) and my evening snack is a cookie and 1 cup of milk. Pretty much all veggies are "free foods" so I can eat them in addition to all of this stuff.

Last night I spent a lot of time cutting up fruit, measuring out my portions for breakfast and lunch today and reading over some of the materials they gave me. This is definitely going to take some time to adjust, but I'm sure I will get comfortable with this in a week or two.

I am going to stick with walking and strength training for exercise right now. I definitely want to get at least one 15 minute walk in at work every day and I really should walk the dog more often too. My main focus in these first two weeks is the food.

I have a phone consultation with one of their people tonight, and that will be once a week.

I want to lose 90 pounds and that will get me to a weight I was at 10 years ago in the summer. I was interning at SC Johnson, working out a lot and I have to admit, I looked pretty good.

I WILL DO IT!!!!

Houston We Have a Problem

My mission if I choose to accept it (which I kind of have to) is to turn this into a comfortable sleeping space for MIL and step FIL who are coming over in 2 weekends and spending the night:

This would be our infamous "back bedroom" aka "How to Control Clutter in a Small House." If you are looking for something and can't find it, it's usually in the "back bedroom." It's our catch all room for after we go shopping, as illistrated in the above picture, and we don't feel like putting the crap away. I have to admit I've never let the room get quite this bad.

The big blue and brown blob in the middle of the room is the new comforter I bought months ago and we just haven't bought paint yet for the bedroom. In the picture directly above, you will also notice a big bowl with epsom salts that I used to soak my toe, Paige's Easter basket, Paige's outgrown fall and winter clothes, and a bin filled with household stuff I got at Target this week.

The middle picture contains clothes I'm selling on ebay, and a couple of baskets of random crap that I have to go through to donate to Paige's school rummage sale. Yes that's a measuring tape, someone wanted the measurements of the clothes I'm selling. I'm selling that ride on toy of Paige's if anyone is interested. $25. I'm slowly starting to put her outgrown toys in there too in hopes that she doesn't notice they are gone and then I can sell them. I've already hid that toy and the Leap Frog alphabet thing from the fridge and she hasn't noticed. I'm quite surprised as she usually doesn't miss a thing.

There are actually 2 twin beds in that room that each have clean sheets that just haven't yet been put back on. The closet in that room is pretty well full too, but somewhat organized. If we do have another kid, we are so screwed.

Oh yeah, that top picture has my wedding flowers. Aren't they pretty? So rather than actually going to clean it out while Paige is at the neighbor kid's, I'm just sitting here blogging about it. I'm being somewhat productive though, I have a load of wash in right now and am going to hang it up when it's done. '

I think I have to put out tonight. I knocked my rearview mirror off my car and scraped the side of it pretty bad when backing out of the garage this morning. I left Mike a very apologetic phone message and he never called back today. When he didn't call back I knew he was pissed. He usually calls every day just to chat for a few minutes. So I offered to put out tonight as soon as he walked in, but he didn't seem to enthused. I bet I can change his mind.

A New Start

I'm done being this heavy. I've finally reached the point where I'm ready to do something. I've tried Weight Watchers, but I don't have enough willpower to stick with something so flexible. I've gained even more weight in the past month or so, and have gone up a size. Nothing in my closet fits. I have a double chin and don't want to be in any pictures. I'm done.

I've decided to do Jenny Craig. I need something extremely structured and laid out. I've ordered 4 weeks of food and I get a daily breakfast, lunch, dinner, 1 dessert and 1 snack. I can supplement the food with my own fruits and vegetables, but the food will come with a detailed menu plan so I'll know exactly how much I can eat. I want to lose 90 pounds. Once I lose 45 pounds, I'll get $50 off my next food order, and once I reach my goal weight and keep it off for a year, I get half of my membership fee back. I have a once a week phone consultation with a Jenny Craig person.

Mike is 100% supportive. He knows I'll be a huge crabby bitch at first and that him and Paige are pretty much on their own for supper. We might cook a few things on the weekend, freeze them and he can heat up during the week.

My goal is to lose 15 pounds before my high school reunion in 2 months. Wish me luck, I'm going to need it!

Do I Really Have a Five Year Old?

How has it been 5 years since my life changed on May 12, 2004? Seriously, how did this kid go from this:

to this:

It's just not possible. To quote my friend Melissa, I guess I blinked and she turned into this:

I then I must have daydreamed for a little bit because all of a sudden she was potty trained and sitting on Santa's lap:

And then I guess I blinked again because she was 4 and having a Princess Birthday Party:

Then like a day after her party, she started school!


And now I have a 5 year old who is old enough to feed her cousin:


My sweet Paige, I love you so much. I don't think you'll know how much I love you until you have a child of your own. Thanks for making me your mama.

Doctor's Appointments

This morning was my repeat HSG. First I had to go to Women's Speciality Care to pee in a cup and have them confirm that I really am not pregnant. The worst part of that was when the receptionist goes "oh this is exciting!" when I told her i was there for a pregnancy test. Ouch. Stick the knife right in my heart. Then over to Bellin for the HSG. I had moment of panic when they told me that a different doctor who've I heard is not very nice at WSC signed the order for my HSG so they weren't sure of that not nice doctor was coming or Dr. O'toole. THANK GOD Dr. O'Toole walked in. I was expecting the worst part to be showing my crotch to yet another man I barely know, but YOWCHA. This one for whatever reason was way more painful than the first one. I was doing Lamaze breathing. The AWESOME news is that IVF is not our only option. YEAH! The dye spilled through both my tubes, but for whatever reason one of my tubes is really, really big. It's not blocked, but it's big, meaning that the little hairs that are inside your tubes (I didn't know they existed) aren't reaching the egg to sweep it down. So after my repeat ultrasound in about a month, I'm going to start Clomid with IUI. My insurance pays for that!!!! YAHOO!!!! Please pray for us that this works. I still can't believe how much that HSG hurt, I'm still feeling crampy.

Bellin has valet parking, which I've never done before. It was pretty cool. Then I had about 3 hours to kill before my appointment with Dr. Van Beek, the best podiatrist ever. So I spent over an hour and $200 @ Target, then hit the mall to make a few returns. Dr. Van Beek cleaned out the dried blood, put a ton of antibacterial stuff on, then re-bandaged it, the toe only. No more surgical shoe, YEHAW!! Still can't get it wet though.

Then home to dig up my dead shrubs, off to pick up the kid, then True Value to return my dead shrubs that didn't come back this year, home for a quick supper and then to Paige's first t-ball practice. She was so cute! She was one of very few girls, I think there's only 3 girls total on her team and I think there were 12 boys. I was so proud of her, she hit the ball better and ran the bases better than a few of the boys! She really seemed to have fun which was the most important thing and so fun to watch. Her first game is next week and she has games every Monday until about the middle of July.

It's about 10pm right now. 5 years ago today at this time, I was asking for the anesthesiologist and in the throes of intense labor. I'd already thrown up and wondering how long this hell would last. I went from 4cm to delivered in 4 hours, but it was a very intense 4 hours. I can't say this enough, I still can't believe my baby is 5! More to come on that tomorrow on her actual 5th birthday. I love you Paige!

Dear People In the Pew In Front of Us at Church,

Church is not a party, it's a mass. It's sacred. We receive a sacrament, Jesus's body and blood. Therefore, after Communion, please refrain from speaking so loudly that I can't hear the singing, take the disgusted looks off your face when the 1st Communion kids did the May Crowning after Communion, and also refrain from impatiently gathering your things and being shift and ancey during the last song. I realize you must have had brunch reservations to get to and those were obviously your priority and the May Crowning added an extra 5 minutes to church, but seriously, some of us go to church and pray, so chill out. I'm sure Mass is long forgotten in your minds while you are stuffing your faces at an overpriced brunch. I've never seen you at Mass and I'm sure I never will again.

On that note, has Mother's Day turned into a Christmas/Easter holiday where it's one of only few times that people go to church? Church was PACKED. I realize that some people were visitors, but they had to put out extra chairs, I can't imagine we had that many visitors to our little town. If you don't go to church every week, don't go on Mother's Day.

I know I sound really judgemental, but I feel very strongly about this.

Paige experienced getting hurt by friends for the first time yesterday. She was playing with her friend Jen, across the street who is 10. There's a couple of other girls who play together with Paige and Jen and I think they are around 8 years old. You may think it's weird that we let Paige play with a 10 year old, but Jen has been at Sandi's since Paige first started and has always been like a big sister to Paige. She's a very nice girl and her parents have said several times that Paige is welcome there anytime. Paige played there almost every night last week and even ate supper there a couple of nights. Yesterday she was there for most of the morning and afternoon. Around 3pm she came back home all upset. Apparently Jen told Paige it was time to go home and then asked another girl if she could sleep over. I really can't blame Jen for not wanting to play with a 5 year old anymore, but it broke my heart to see my baby heartbroken. Paige is so sensitive like me and I have a feeling she will get her feelings hurt many, many times. Do you know how hard it was for me to keep it together and not break down crying too? I will need strength to get through the many years of school, that is for sure!

Mike is attempting to keep Paige out of my hair today as my Mother's Day present but it has not been successful. She is extra annoying and pesty right now and will not get out of my ass. I think she can tell that Mike is trying to keep her out of my hair and she's doing everything in her power to stay in my hair. My Mother's Day present to myself is lots of coffee, donut holes and the Sunday paper. Aaahh....

Drained

OK so I'm really not drained right now, but had I written this Friday night I really was drained. Last week was, shall we say, oh a nightmare at work. Maybe nightmare is a little strong but it was absolutely insane. All I did was swine flu. I put in an extra 10 hours. Not fun. And I was pretty much working in hyper overdrive mode all week.

Paige's daycare situation did not help matters. Copied and pasted from an email because I'm time efficient so here goes: A couple of weeks ago, the new county certification lady visited Sandi and told her that she had too many kids and had until April 30th to correct the situation (i.e. get rid of some kids). So Sandi decided to get state licensed so she can have 8 kids under the age of 7. Well that takes a while. She applied right away and got her paperwork turned in ASAP, she’s just waiting for a state person to do a home visit. So she asked those who can to have family, friends, etc. watch the kids until she gets state licensed. Well, we obviously have no one close by. So after thinking about it, we decided to send her to Building Blocks (BB, the only daycare center in town) for at least until the time Sandi got state licensed. Then as we looked at our schedules more, it made sense to just keep Paige at BB. Well finally on Friday I had to tell Sandi and I had a knot in my stomach all day. So when I told Sandi Friday, she started crying, which got me going. As I was watching Paige play with the other girls, (after Sandi and I got it together) I just knew in my heart of hearts, it wasn’t the right decision to pull her from Sandi’s. It’s so hard to explain but I think other moms will get it. Sandi’s is her 2nd home. And she knew that Paige was one of the kids that didn’t have family in the area to watch her while she waited for her state license, so she expected to have Paige there. Then on the way home Paige tells me that Makayla, a 4k kid in her class who also goes to BB, told Paige and everyone else that Paige was going to BB. That’s how she found out. Paige started bawling on the way home and said she didn’t want to go to BB, she wanted to stay at Sandi’s. So Paige and I both walk into the house crying, Mike was like WTF?!?!?! So after Paige went to bed, Mike and I talked and figured we could live with her schedule because it’s worth it to us to have Paige stay at Sandi’s. I know other people may not think it’s the right decision, but it works for us. Like I said, Sandi’s is truly Paige’s 2nd home and she is so comfortable there and I know Sandi truly loves her. So Mike went over to Sandi's on Friday night and told her we're keeping her there and they talked for a while about her schedule. She said as long as I call ahead if I'm going to be late and just let her know when Mike needs to pick up because of my car seat appointments, conferences, etc. she's totally fine. Before Mike left, Sandi goes "THANK YOU Mike" with so much happiness in her voice. It works for us and that's all that matters.

I really have not seen much of Paige lately. As soon as she gets home from school, she quick changes and then runs across the street to play with the neighbor kids. I try to keep her here to talk and hang out, but it's not worth it, she really doesn't want anything to do with me. She's been there since we got home a little after 4pm today.

I had my ingrown toenail removed on Monday. THAT was fun. They gave me some pills to "take the edge off". Well it made me "sleep all day." The two things that really suck is this ugly uncomfortable surgical shoe and not letting the bandage get wet. I attempted to shower yesterday with a plastic bag tied around my foot and that didn't work. Today I washed my hair under the running faucet in the tub, and then bathed with my right foot propped up, more info than you wanted to know I'm sure. So then I swing my right foot out of the tub, start to roll out and grab the towel bar to lift me up. Well the towel bar doesn't hold me up. So that option is out. Before you laugh, try giving yourself a bath with your right foot propped up and then getting out with just one foot down and your arms. I'm going to have to have Mike lift me out like a fat cripple.

In even more medical news, I had an ultrasound yesterday to check for endometriosis. Dr. O'Toole saw "something" on my left ovary and wants me to come back in 4-6 weeks for a repeat u/s. Next week Monday I'm having a repeat HSG and I honestly don't have high hopes for it. I really think I have blocked tubes and that is the cause of my infertility, not the endo. But I found out Women's Speciality Care is one of the sites that I can have the monitoring done with that one program that covers 6 IVF cycles. Carmen said they deal with a lot of IVF clients who are in that program and have the egg retrieval and transfer done in IL or MN. so I'll probably go there for the monitoring (blood work and ultrasounds).

OK my kid and hubby are back so off to enjoy some family time before the kid goes to bed.

Friday Fill Ins

OK so Friday is almost over, but I'm still playing this fun game. The stuff highlighted in red is what I filled in.
1. The first rule of working in an office and getting along is mind your own business.

2. I don't eat clams.

3. When I think of carnivals I think of weird looking carnies.

4. Tulips are my favorite spring flower.

5. Things on my desk include pictures, post it notes, unorganized papers, phone, computer, hand sanitzer.

6. The fact that people are wearing masks at Walmart makes me wanna lose my mind.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to chilling out, tomorrow my plans include meeting Kristin and Dylan for some rummage saleing then taking Paige to YMCA Healthy Kids Day and Sunday, I am meeting high school friends for lunch in Appleton.