Bi And Large

I'm around, nothing is wrong, I'm just feeling so.... tired and blah. I think I am coming down of a couple month's of mania into depression and I can't seem to focus or put the effort into doing anything. My life seems really grey right now. Not bad, just... boring! I can't get enthused about much and I could sleep 22 hours a day if I was able to. I'm so, SO tired.

Pete changed jobs. This is a VERY good thing, as his old / current job was getting to the point where he wanted to set the place on fire and piss on it. Two people just kept continually throwing him under the bus for everything that went wrong, even stuff he had no influence on. It was bad enough other people were commenting. It was time to go. That job was a good fit for us for the past few years, but recently it has been a LOT of crazy stress, a lot of hours, a lot to manage; with few resources and no recognition. Time to move on.

He's taken a really cool job working for a non-profit that handles the retirement / pensions for old Lutheran pastors. It should be SO low key compared to where he is now in marketing. Set hours, no more work coming home all night long. Little stress. Amazing, truly amazing benefits - like free health care. Free. No employee contribution. And free 10% into his 401K annually, no matching required. Plus they really, really want him and treat him like God's gift, which is nice. And it pays about $8K more than his old position. It's a really great opportunity we think!

What else. Hmmm. The garden as such is growing well. I never got around to planting my or Amy's veggie gardens this year, and not even any annuals out front. Too little energy. But I planted my blueberries which was a HUGE ordeal, and now the one bush I let flower is producing and we get about 10 ripe berries a day :) Such a cute little thing. I go out with the girls and we share them. Next year all 5 bushes will produce instead of just one and we should have a fair amount of blueberries. And in 2 - 3 years, supposedly each of the 5 bushes will produce 3 - 5lbs of berries over the summer. I can't wait! My chamomile is doing well this year too, finally. I am picking great handfuls of it every day and you would not believe the scent. Fresh blossoms that smell like hay and apples, it's gorgeous! I should have plenty to make as much tea as I need.

The dog is fantastic but we need to figure out a way of confining her when we're not home. She gets anxious and then she destroys things. Like entire quilts. Or eating the cloth diapers (ew!) Or books, she eats books. All kinds of gross stuff, and it's wearing me out. We can't find a crate big enough to fit her, so we need to block off a room somehow. We will see if this can be accomplished.

Anyway tomorrow should be a break in the 90-degree heat we've been having, and hopefully the girls and dog and I can walk to the park. It will be good to get them out! Yesterday I took the girls swimming at the community center and they swam for 4 straight hours - they need the exercise! Luckily we do have a great community center. It's the one with the incredible indoor playground. They also have four pools. A big outdoor one with water jets, climbing structures and slides, rope swings, and lily pad things you have to hop across. A big indoor one that is graded into the water on two sides, like a beach, so you can be as shallow as you need. That pool also has fountains and kid slides, and only goes to 2 feet deep, about Iris' shoulder height. It's perfect for them. There's a lap pool, and a larger free swim pool, and 2 giant several turn waterslides - all inside. This is very good for our long winters! Both the girls just love the water so it's a nice excursion for them. Maybe when Heather's out here she and Eric would like to play in the shallow pool with us one day???

OK, I need to sleep, since it's almost 2am. I hate this inbetween stage with my moods. All the negative feelings of depression with all the energy and agitation / irritability of hypomania. I did see my psych this week and he is starting me on Topamax, the migraine medication, to see if it helps with impulse control. I've run up 2 credit cards to the max in the past month with the mania. Oops. It's so weird to feel this way, because I was *never* like this before Iris was born. Depressed yes. But not bipolar. And now it seems like every week I fit that diagnosis a little more and have more and more severe symptoms. It's icky.

Goodnight, on that cheery note!

I'm so sorry if I worried you! I didn't mean to leave you hanging.

I'm fine, I didn't even feel any pain from the car accident after the 2nd day. Liberty Mututal, God love them, not only were more than helpful but had a check for the damage in our hand less than 5 days later, before I'd even started filling out the paperwork. They're even reimbursing me mileage for driving to the doctor to get checked out! I would HIGHLY recommend them to anyone as an insurance company.

A few weeks ago when we had a windstorm / tornado in our area they called our house within a couple hours to check on everything and see if we needed anything or someone to come look at damage or anything. Even though the storm missed us by a mile or two. VERY impressed!

Um, I'm coming down off 2 months or so of mania into depression and it bites, and I sleep ALL THE TIME. I sleep at night, nap during Iris' naptime during the day, usually fall asleep during dinner and sleep another couple hours then, and crash out by 11 for bed. And when I'm awake, I can't really function I'm so tired. So that's making things like keeping up with blogging difficult.

Pete is changing jobs. He has been considering it for a few weeks and was deifnitely pushed in that direction recently. He's been interviewing and any day we should be able to make the jump. It's all good, but stressful, and things are really up in the air.

And that's about all! W'ere fine - just in a place where it feels like we're struggling to keep our heads above water. I'm sorry that's made me so quiet!

This weekend we spent 5 days in Utah at my brother's wedding. It was wonderful, honestly! Very pretty. Just for Heather, because I know you love this stuff, there are pictures of the venue at http://www.millcreekinn.com/pages/slideshow.htm We had a good time and successfully kept the girls away from dangerous relatives and it was nice. More details on that later. In the meantime I put up a bunch of pictures in the Other Stuff album, and new pictures of our puppy too. And just for Megan, I included a picture of Sammy and his wife. I don't seem to have taken any pictures of Zack, which is weird; and about 7393736920 pictures of my dad, but whatever.

This morning I left the house early with the girls to go to the park before it got too hot to be outside. A few miles from our house we were in a car crash :( Nothing TOO serious, I mean we were able to drive away. But smashed up two cars pretty good and I am headed to the doctor tomorrow because I can't move my shoulders and have this huge bruise across my chest. Thankfully the girls seem alright - let's hear it for properly installed and used carseats! My head hurts and my back hurts and I just generally am upset by the whole thing. While we were gone this weekend our neighbors just down the street were in a bad smash on the same highway. They were rearended and pushed into oncoming traffic and their little boy Connor was killed :( It just makes me thankful we're all OK but terrified to think of the possibilities at the same time. I have only been in 2 car accidents before this and only one that involved another car. It's really scary!

Anyway time to try and sleep. When I'm feeling more coherent I'll tell you all the details about the wedding trip.

Thank you everyone for the good thoughts! I'm glad the infection was something so easily treated. I guess that's the difference between being a diabetic and not being one. It's still VERY sore where my incision is and pretty inflamed (and gross while it's draining, ewwww) but the doctor said the antibiotics should get it feeling better in a couple days. So fingers crossed!

Given that this is the kind of thing that progressed twice to sepsis with my mom, once leaving her in organ failure and a coma, it's nothing to fool around with. I'm glad I sucked it up and went to the doctor and got it treated now - who knows how it would have turned out if we had left it!

Greg, in the future babe, you are SO up for swapping dog care with us. I'm holding you to that. The reason we're kenneling her this time is that being a puppy, and being new to our family and home, and being through 4 homes so far in as many months; she's a little... erm... destructive when left alone. She likes to chew things into little pieces and then spread them into a blanket of garbage all over the house to let you know she gets anxious when she's alone. So until she settles down a little, we figure better the kennel than our couch. In the future though, you're so on!

 BTW Wanna go to the dog park with us someday soon? Oh, and we have your chocolate by the way. Come get it sometime. This weekend if you're up to it.

For the first time this morning we let Charlotte off leash in the unfenced yard and she did great! We also discovered that she recognizes a tennis ball as a fetch toy (she ignores anything else you throw) and played a couple great games before she got too hot and tired. Being a St Bernard she is made for snow and can't handle the heat. When she's inside she finds the coldest spot in the house - the tile floor on the basement bathroom, next to the AC vent - and flops there. She's getting really good at following commands and learning her leash manners. Our next thing to really discipline her on is getting on her hind legs and licking everything that's not nailed down off the kitchen counter or table. The girls sometimes leave cups on the table and she has learned that if she knocks them over, sometimes there's milk in them, and she gets a treat to lap up. Ick.

Hey at least my impossible kitchen floor is cleaner!

I haven't been feeling great for about 2 days now. Kind of foggy and out of it and lethargic. Yesterday I went to therapy and couldn't even form a coherent sentence and by the time I came home, around lunchtime, I had a fever of 104F / 40C. I didn't feel sick really, just feverish. I crawled into bed and Pete came home from work and I was pretty much out of it the rest of the day. I don't even really remember any of it. I took a bunch of Tylenol / aceteminophen but it didn't do anything, just brought my fever down to like 103. So that's the history.

My fever broke at about midnight last night but all the same I spent a good part of the day today at urgent care I have a tiny abscess on my abdomen, and I guess the infection just got out of hand. Basically the same thing as my mom had a few weeks ago! Anyway it was pretty rotten, so they had to remove a pretty big chunk of my tummy (well, not THAT big, it would be kind of cool if they had just taken the whole thing off and done a panniculectomy while they were at it) and drain the rest. I'm home now with lots of bandages and heavy duty antibiotics. I'm tired and thirsty and my head hurts!

Pete stayed home from work today and has been great. I him and how he always lets me be the bitch in charge - until I'm sick. And then he roars to life in super duper protective mode. It's very nice!

This evening: We just spent an hour with Charlotte getting her checked out and up to date at the vet. I LOVE our vet. She is healthy and, at 5 months just a baby really, weighs 70lbs / 32kg! She was very good and loved everyone there. It's where we'll board her next weekend while we're at the wedding and they have SUCH a nice boarding place, so it was good to check that out and know that the staff knows her and her personality and needs. They play games and cuddle with the dogs and take nature walks every day, plus have "skin hydrating soaks" and aromatherapy available (talk about treating your dog like a person!) They have a BIG yard to run and play in and the kennels have heated floors, comfy mattresses to sleep on, animal planet on the tv in each kennel, and live webcams so we can check in on her while we're away. I think she'll have a great time. I just worry that after being through 4 homes in as many months, she'll think we've abandoned her too. I hope it's a good experience for her. I am glad she's healthy and glad we're getting her all up to date on her vaccinations and medications like flea / tick and heartworm.

And now I am wiped out from attempting a trip to the vet, so I am going to go crash!