I got hired as a "floater" today at Mother's Morning Out in Champaign. I'm pretty excited about it. Every Tuesday and Friday morning, I'll report to the director who will assign me to a classroom to either fill in for an absent teacher OR assist the current ones. Today, I was in the nursery, which was so much fun. My favorite age groups are infants through 2 1/2. Once they start the potty training period and the name calling, I figure I'm still getting enough of that at home. :-) And honestly, I'm hoping that maybe next fall I'll be able to make it a Monday through Friday gig when X-man goes to kindergarten.
That's right freaking kindergarten.
On Monday, we're hopefully touring two schools. I've got a quick pelvic ultrasound at 8:30 a.m. to make sure I don't have any uterine fibroids that are randomly bleeding and causing my low iron, low protein and now low platelet issues. And then zoom - off we go to the first tour. Since MacTroll will likely not be around for the February 7th tours, we're hitting our soon-to-be neighborhood school first, Carrie Busey.
Then on the same day, we plan on checking out Robeson. I've already been to Barkstall, Southside and Westview. So I think on the second day of tours I'll look at Stratton and Washington. And then since we'll be in Paris the week of the evening open house, I'll have to arrange a time to visit the other schools like Kenwood, Garden Hills and Doc Howard.
Today, we also took Nyssa back for round two of the blood work on her thyroid. She's borderline low, so they sent the second vial out to do some more intensive tests, and we'll know if we have to start her on thyroid meds by tomorrow afternoon sometime.
Tomorrow, I'm going to work in the morning. Then I'll have time for a quick lunch, grocery shopping, a 90-minute workout at the gym before getting ready for our weekend guest. :-) I have a college friend coming to spend a couple nights with us, which is very fun. I don't think she's been down to visit since 2004.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
A Week of Fatigue
When people ask me what I do for a living, I never know what to say. I'm always on the run. Mostly with my child or our pets, but sometimes it's just me. And sometimes it's with my spouse.
I've had a lot to do this week. I'm still trying to get to the bottom of my low iron and low protein levels. New bloodwork showed that with my diet efforts and iron supplements I've raised my levels 8 points... The healthy range is between 50-150... I'm at a 41. But I guess that's better than a 33.
It also shows my protein level staying just under normal, regardless of my efforts to eat more (almost double the recommended protein amounts). This probably means that my small intestine isn't absorbing nutrients right OR I'm losing blood somewhere. On Monday, I head in to radiology for a pelvic ultrasound. I also get to go back to the lab next week and get tested for a gluten intolerance/celiac disease.
Similarly to the protein issue, my platelet levels are just below normal. This can sometimes go hand in hand with the borderline anemia. I've had low iron off and on through my lifetime, usually fixed with supplements. That didn't happen this time.
All I know is that throughout this week, I've been feeling very fatigued between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. I'm making it through the day. But on my most terrible days I'm taking 20-40 minute cat naps in the middle of the afternoon just to make it through dinner.
My life requires energy. What happens when I'm tapped out?
I've had a lot to do this week. I'm still trying to get to the bottom of my low iron and low protein levels. New bloodwork showed that with my diet efforts and iron supplements I've raised my levels 8 points... The healthy range is between 50-150... I'm at a 41. But I guess that's better than a 33.
It also shows my protein level staying just under normal, regardless of my efforts to eat more (almost double the recommended protein amounts). This probably means that my small intestine isn't absorbing nutrients right OR I'm losing blood somewhere. On Monday, I head in to radiology for a pelvic ultrasound. I also get to go back to the lab next week and get tested for a gluten intolerance/celiac disease.
Similarly to the protein issue, my platelet levels are just below normal. This can sometimes go hand in hand with the borderline anemia. I've had low iron off and on through my lifetime, usually fixed with supplements. That didn't happen this time.
All I know is that throughout this week, I've been feeling very fatigued between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. I'm making it through the day. But on my most terrible days I'm taking 20-40 minute cat naps in the middle of the afternoon just to make it through dinner.
My life requires energy. What happens when I'm tapped out?
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Let the Battle Begin
We ordered a new couch and chair for the living room just after Thanksgiving. It should be here in the next two weeks. In addition, X-man managed to mark his territory on Riley's chair several weeks ago, which was uncleanable through the normal bissell methods, and the chair wasn't worth getting professionally cleaned. Sooo -- we went hunting for a new Riley chair to use either in the office or in the living room (to try and keep him off the couch, so I'll have less vacuuming, since it's a fabric couch).
No dice. Everything was either really just too ugly to look at, smelly or was ripped or stained beyond repair. And then there was the issue of, if we get a fabric chair will X-man get too tired while playing games one day and pee all over that chair rather than going to the potty--again? (I'm guessing this is why gaming addicts wear diapers? Notice the "Frequently Bought Together" pitch from Amazon pairs the diaper with Call of Duty 4. Yeah, I can't make that up.)
Anyway, we found one at Meijer.com that wasn't sold in either of the local stores and ordered it to replace the chair in the office. Then I invested in a large Petmate Durabed to put in the living room. I can leave it in the sunshine for him. But I wanted to put it out there to get him used to seeing it and encouraging him to use it before the couch arrives.
I had a moment of hoorah when he stayed in it for 15 whole minutes this morning -- and then he went back to his spot on the couch, once one of the cats moved out of his place.
Yeah, this is going to be a challenge. But he does look ever so cute. Something wants me to go find some safety plugs for the outlet and put them in there... Not like he has fingers or anything. I think it's just the early education warning light going off in my head. (Small cot next to open outlet = bad and scary.)
No dice. Everything was either really just too ugly to look at, smelly or was ripped or stained beyond repair. And then there was the issue of, if we get a fabric chair will X-man get too tired while playing games one day and pee all over that chair rather than going to the potty--again? (I'm guessing this is why gaming addicts wear diapers? Notice the "Frequently Bought Together" pitch from Amazon pairs the diaper with Call of Duty 4. Yeah, I can't make that up.)
Anyway, we found one at Meijer.com that wasn't sold in either of the local stores and ordered it to replace the chair in the office. Then I invested in a large Petmate Durabed to put in the living room. I can leave it in the sunshine for him. But I wanted to put it out there to get him used to seeing it and encouraging him to use it before the couch arrives.
I had a moment of hoorah when he stayed in it for 15 whole minutes this morning -- and then he went back to his spot on the couch, once one of the cats moved out of his place.
Yeah, this is going to be a challenge. But he does look ever so cute. Something wants me to go find some safety plugs for the outlet and put them in there... Not like he has fingers or anything. I think it's just the early education warning light going off in my head. (Small cot next to open outlet = bad and scary.)
Monday, January 3, 2011
Reality Bites
I totally got schooled today in Weight Management. If I haven't gushed about her before, I totally love my health educator, Amy. She is an awesome combination of support and ass kicking. And today, collectively, she did a wonderfully motivating segment on getting your shit together.
It was awesome, and all of us needed to hear it. Well -- those of us that were brave enough to show up and weigh in post holiday-massacre. For that, we all got gold stars. We were all there to suck it up.
We left on a mission, which is my most favorite way to attack any ho hum issue in my life. You know how much I love feeling like I'm in control of my destiny.
For some reason when I think of the word destiny, all I think of is George McFly.
Mmm, does that make Amy my Marty or my Biff? Either way, I'll make like a tree and get outta here. :-P
It was awesome, and all of us needed to hear it. Well -- those of us that were brave enough to show up and weigh in post holiday-massacre. For that, we all got gold stars. We were all there to suck it up.
We left on a mission, which is my most favorite way to attack any ho hum issue in my life. You know how much I love feeling like I'm in control of my destiny.
For some reason when I think of the word destiny, all I think of is George McFly.
Mmm, does that make Amy my Marty or my Biff? Either way, I'll make like a tree and get outta here. :-P
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Problem Solving through Nesting
It's been a busy around the house weekend this weekend. I spent 5 hours on Saturday cleaning and organizing the storage room. Now that we haven't seen a mouse in our house since Mousehunter Jim was here, I went down there with my vacuum, Clorox and a couple garbage bags to clean out the areas. Mice climb and can fit through any area that is smaller than a quarter of an inch. So, I did some mouse hunting myself -- only it was to make sure there wasn't a piece of mouse poop or the sight of mouse pee anywhere. This gets difficult, as the storage room is also home to MacTroll's network. Lots of cables to wipe down.
Most of our items in the basement were already in plastic containers. Plastic containers will keep lazy mice out. They can chew through the plastic if they really want what's on the inside. Metal is the best, but it's expensive. I purchased some containers of varying sizes and rearranged what was down in the basement. Now everything, except one box of cords is put away. I also realized that since we moved all the holiday stuff from the garage to the basement, we were going to need another set of metal shelves from Target. So I ran out and picked those up today.
I have an annoyance in my house. There was currently no good place to put shoes. We have hooks in the laundry room where we hang our most frequently used coats and our snowpants in the winter. But shoes end up on the floor of the utility closet in a big mess. And I have to admit that at one point, a cat peed on my shoes there, so I'm paranoid about leaving them on the floor. MacTroll, on the other hand, can't seem to remember to take his shoes off, and then always seemed bewildered that the floors got so dirty or the walkway from the kitchen to his office that used to have carpeting (and was high traffic anyway) was a different color than the rest of the carpet. I kept explaining it to him, but he refuses to believe he's that dirty. Sigh.
Anyway, while I was at Target picking up the metal racks, I found that they had a tall set of shelves that could be used as a shoe rack that would fit in the space in the utility closet and still leave plenty of space to store our vacuum. I was excited because it was also on clearance for like $20. I bought it and X-man helped me put it together tonight. He put all the plastic covers on the screw heads and then I started the nails into the cheap particle board backing and he got his toolbox hammer and finished nailing them in. Then he helped push the shelf support brackets into the right holes and collected all the shoes to put in the right places once I got it set up in the closet.
MacTroll poo pooed me for my organization. But if I prevent cat peeing and get rid of the heap of shoes, I kind of feel better about our house. It feels more home-like. So how can that be a bad thing? I mean, homey-ness for $20?
In other news, I replaced one of the cats' litterboxes this week. But before I put it down, I picked them all up off the floor, vacuumed the laundry room area where the boxes reside, and then got down on my hands and knees with a sponge, warm water and some Method floor cleaner and wiped up the whole laundry room. When it was dry, I put the clean/scooped boxes down with fresh litter in them and felt good about that, too.
I also broke down this week and ordered a carpet and a light box table for my Loosey room in the basement. I wanted a furry shaggy rug that was soft to sit or lie on. Something that makes your feet happy. Most of them in a 5'x8' were really expensive. I found one for half of what the others were costing online and decided I'd take a chance with it. Plus, it came in a platinum gray versus others that were either natural or beige or white, which kid of scare me for different reasons. It's on back order until April, however. The light box was on sale at Pottery Barn Teen, which is my Pottery Barn catalog of choice. Now I just need CB2 to put some of their yellow tables on sale, and I'll be in business... well, that is if I can settle on what I want to sit on in my room besides a fuzzy carpet. I found a couch at Carter's, but I kind of want something that can double as a guest bed. We're headed to Ikea in a few weeks, so I printed a wish list to check out what they have.
I just tucked my child into bed with his Tag reader at 9 p.m. He's been reading and playing games with that pretty much 4 nights a week at bed time since Christmas. He's excited because I found the Ben 10 book in a post Christmas sale. He didn't get out of his pajamas all day today.
Tomorrow, I get to start back in my Body Bar class (it was on break over the holidays). I've got a list of fitness/nutrition books I'd like to get from the library, but three of the five aren't even available throughout the entire Lincoln Trails Library System. They appear to have two of them in Palatine, so we'll see if the Tolono library can set me up to get their copies.
I hope everyone has a happy new year.
Most of our items in the basement were already in plastic containers. Plastic containers will keep lazy mice out. They can chew through the plastic if they really want what's on the inside. Metal is the best, but it's expensive. I purchased some containers of varying sizes and rearranged what was down in the basement. Now everything, except one box of cords is put away. I also realized that since we moved all the holiday stuff from the garage to the basement, we were going to need another set of metal shelves from Target. So I ran out and picked those up today.
I have an annoyance in my house. There was currently no good place to put shoes. We have hooks in the laundry room where we hang our most frequently used coats and our snowpants in the winter. But shoes end up on the floor of the utility closet in a big mess. And I have to admit that at one point, a cat peed on my shoes there, so I'm paranoid about leaving them on the floor. MacTroll, on the other hand, can't seem to remember to take his shoes off, and then always seemed bewildered that the floors got so dirty or the walkway from the kitchen to his office that used to have carpeting (and was high traffic anyway) was a different color than the rest of the carpet. I kept explaining it to him, but he refuses to believe he's that dirty. Sigh.
Anyway, while I was at Target picking up the metal racks, I found that they had a tall set of shelves that could be used as a shoe rack that would fit in the space in the utility closet and still leave plenty of space to store our vacuum. I was excited because it was also on clearance for like $20. I bought it and X-man helped me put it together tonight. He put all the plastic covers on the screw heads and then I started the nails into the cheap particle board backing and he got his toolbox hammer and finished nailing them in. Then he helped push the shelf support brackets into the right holes and collected all the shoes to put in the right places once I got it set up in the closet.
MacTroll poo pooed me for my organization. But if I prevent cat peeing and get rid of the heap of shoes, I kind of feel better about our house. It feels more home-like. So how can that be a bad thing? I mean, homey-ness for $20?
In other news, I replaced one of the cats' litterboxes this week. But before I put it down, I picked them all up off the floor, vacuumed the laundry room area where the boxes reside, and then got down on my hands and knees with a sponge, warm water and some Method floor cleaner and wiped up the whole laundry room. When it was dry, I put the clean/scooped boxes down with fresh litter in them and felt good about that, too.
I also broke down this week and ordered a carpet and a light box table for my Loosey room in the basement. I wanted a furry shaggy rug that was soft to sit or lie on. Something that makes your feet happy. Most of them in a 5'x8' were really expensive. I found one for half of what the others were costing online and decided I'd take a chance with it. Plus, it came in a platinum gray versus others that were either natural or beige or white, which kid of scare me for different reasons. It's on back order until April, however. The light box was on sale at Pottery Barn Teen, which is my Pottery Barn catalog of choice. Now I just need CB2 to put some of their yellow tables on sale, and I'll be in business... well, that is if I can settle on what I want to sit on in my room besides a fuzzy carpet. I found a couch at Carter's, but I kind of want something that can double as a guest bed. We're headed to Ikea in a few weeks, so I printed a wish list to check out what they have.
I just tucked my child into bed with his Tag reader at 9 p.m. He's been reading and playing games with that pretty much 4 nights a week at bed time since Christmas. He's excited because I found the Ben 10 book in a post Christmas sale. He didn't get out of his pajamas all day today.
Tomorrow, I get to start back in my Body Bar class (it was on break over the holidays). I've got a list of fitness/nutrition books I'd like to get from the library, but three of the five aren't even available throughout the entire Lincoln Trails Library System. They appear to have two of them in Palatine, so we'll see if the Tolono library can set me up to get their copies.
I hope everyone has a happy new year.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
The Hangover -- Savoy Style
So, 10 minutes ago, my son made me laugh so hard I had to kiss him, once the tears stopped coming from my eyes.
Last week, MacTroll got tired of watching How It's Made, Mythbusters and Dirty Jobs with X-man and thought he'd venture into something a little more cooking-related. So he chose Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations. He started on his trip to Paris, where he scores some absinthe and the family sits through some lame hallucination video. X-man was kind of in and out playing with his toys and going back and forth to a computer game.
I'm giving the child some leftover New Year's party food and he asks why Daddy doesn't feel well. I told him that sometimes adults can drink too much adult drink which feels good at the time, but upsets your system if you have too much. He brought up the Yo Gabba Gabba candy episode. I say yes, it's like that.
10 minutes and two mini pepperoni rolls later he says. "Mommy, is Daddy sick like that guy on the food show that he likes?"
It took me a minute or two to figure out what the hell he was referring to. If you forward to 5:43, you'll see what he was remembering.
Happily, he's currently watching the Gummi Bears -- again.
I remember this
I had two cocktails and two shots last night. There were two sips of champagne, and the drinking lead to a lot of social eating.
Today, I woke up with the feeling that I had socks on my teeth. I stumbled into the shower. Now I know I'm clean, but I still feel slightly hung over. MacTroll managed to get himself up, put X-man in front of Nickjr.com to play games, get himself some water and come back to bed.
I don't think we'll see the bartender much today.
And I'm hoping our friends who came over last night are recovering okay from the debauchery. :-)
The holidays are over... next stop -- Paris -- in seven weeks.
Today, I woke up with the feeling that I had socks on my teeth. I stumbled into the shower. Now I know I'm clean, but I still feel slightly hung over. MacTroll managed to get himself up, put X-man in front of Nickjr.com to play games, get himself some water and come back to bed.
I don't think we'll see the bartender much today.
And I'm hoping our friends who came over last night are recovering okay from the debauchery. :-)
The holidays are over... next stop -- Paris -- in seven weeks.
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