Monday, May 31, 2010

I can't decide what to do with my day.

I haven't even been on my new medicine/supplements for a week yet and I'm already feeling so much better.  I wonder how much of it is a placebo effect and how much is the meds.  But I do feel a difference.  Instead of wanting to sit here on the computer all day long I actually want to accomplish several different projects.  I need to go to the grocery store, so that will be first on the list.  But I also feel like cleaning up the living room/dining room, shampooing the carpets (which will have to wait since David is sleeping), clean out the garage, clean out the old nursery (there are still baby things in there!), organize my business stuff, design some business stuff, finish decorating the new entertainment center (it has lots of cubbies that need things to fill it), clean out the closet under the stairs, do laundry, hang photos on my walls, order new photos to go on my walls, etc etc etc!  I just have all this energy that I haven't had in SO LONG and I actually feel like doing things.  It's pretty dang awesome!

So I guess I'd better stop writing this and get going if I'm going to get anything accomplished.  Whenever I'm in a mood like this I remember when David and I first got married we rented a trailer down the street from my parents' house.  We got a REALLY good deal on the rent since our neighbor owned it, but it came with a few issues.  The one that bothered me the most wasn't the iron shaped burn in the carpet in the living room or the awful 80's trailer wallpaper...  it was the fact that the kitchen counters were not even.  Every time I'd put an egg down on the counter it'd roll away!  Drove me insane!  But anyhow...  when we first moved in the yard was in need of a LOT of work.  I cut the grass (drove dad's riding mower down the street to do so, lol) and started working on all the stuff I couldn't get to with the lawn mower.  I was serious.  My dad was worried about me doing too much in the heat (really he was probably just ready to go home himself - he didn't want to leave me alone with his yard tools!) and reminded me, "They didn't build Rome in a day."  I didn't miss a beat and responded, "That's because I wasn't there!"  And that's how I am when it comes to getting a project done.  Once I get started, I won't want to stop until I'm done.

I also do ridiculous projects at the most inconvenient times.  When we were still in college, David and I were living with my parents.  The night before a really big chemistry exam we were studying when I decided it was time to clean the shower curtain.  It had grown that nasty orange mildew on it and had been bugging me for a while.  So in the middle of studying I declare I'm going to go clean the shower curtain.  David is scratching his head and wondering why I've chosen THEN to do it.  It had needed to be done for a while.  I guess it was a form of procrastination.  But since then my wacky projects at inconvenient times have been referred to as "shower curtain" events.

I've managed to kill a good 15 minutes of my time writing this blog, so I'd better get up and have some lunch (so I don't go grocery shopping hungry!) and head to Publix.

Also, I have this song on repeat in my iTunes.  You should check it out.  I've been in love with it since Jodie of Fresh Art Photography used it for a video from their last wedding.  I've been hoping that if I play it enough times I'll get sick of it and it will leave my head, but no such luck so far.  I'm still in love with it.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Bailey has a serious bark.

David gets off work in about 30 minutes and will be off work until Monday night!  He only gets every other weekend off, and I love those weekends!  Since he works nights (* see footnote) I don't feel like we get to spend much real time together any other time.  A weekday when he works goes something like this...  I get off work at 5:00 and am home by 5:10 at the latest - unless court went long for some reason.  He's usually in the shower when I get home.  I let the dogs out and start dinner.  He comes downstairs and feeds the dogs.  Dinner is always something pretty quick - I don't like to spend more than 30 minutes total on it when he has to work.  That includes the time it takes to thaw out any meat.  Anyhow, once dinner is done we usually watch a show off the DVR while we eat and by the time that's over he has to finish getting ready and leave by 6:30.

Thanks to the marvels of modern technology we can usually chat online once he gets to work.  But that means I'm sitting at home on the computer.  And he's answering 911 calls, so he can't exactly give me his full (or prompt) attention.  So it's not what I consider "real" conversation.  Don't get me wrong, I'm glad for that communication!  But if I were able to choose, I'd always prefer to have him actually here with me.

So I love every other weekend when he's off.  He switches his sleeping schedule over to days and he's all mine!  Most of the time our weekends together are crammed with activities and engagements because that's the only time we have to plan things.  But other times we somehow manage to just spend the weekend home together.  I like a mix of both types of weekends.

As much as I love these weekends, I've been thinking this evening that it's time to dig out my earplugs.  I haven't used them in two weeks, so I'm not sure where they are, and David snores.  And we're going to be fighting over the covers.  And it just feels different when he's in the bed at the same time as me.  And he won't be awake in the morning to make me wake up and get ready for work, so I have to somehow set my mind to make sure I don't hit snooze too many times.  (By the way - when I first wake up snooze looks like a very funny word.  Anyone else have that problem?)  I realized that I've actually managed to fall into a routine of him being on nights and when he's home, even though I love it, it messes with my routine!

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* Footnote: Yes, I just told the internet my husband works nights.  Now let me also mention our german shepherd, Bailey.  She has her normal bark and she also has a serious bark.  And she knows when to use each.  And while I've never actually seen what she would do if someone tried to break into our house, I have seen her become VERY concerned when I was upset and crying about something.  There was no actual danger, but she picked up on it.  She's pretty in tune to both of us.  So no, I'm not worried about telling the internet that my husband works nights when I have her to protect me.  She's a working dog through and through, and we are her herd.  I love her for that.

Monday, May 24, 2010

I'm all out of whack!

This morning I had a follow-up appointment with my new OB-GYN after we did a saliva test to check my hormone levels.  She suspected that I was imbalanced and whoa buddy was she right!  This post might border on sharing too much information with the blogosphere, but I'm actually so excited to have some answers that I don't really care!  And despite the mention of the girly-doctor, there's nothing gross in this post.

For starters...  my Cortisol is WAY low in the mornings.  She described that as what gives you get-up-and-go.  I have none, as indicated by this graph on my results:


The light green area shows what is ideal (dotted line in the middle) and what's acceptable (top and bottom dotted lines).  She said for my age, I should be at least at the middle dotted line but ideally higher.  This is why I hit snooze on my alarm at least three times before I get out of bed in the mornings.  This is why I have to have two alarms set (I've been known to sleep through one or dismiss it without actually getting up).  This is why David practically has to yell at me to get up and get ready for work in the mornings!  And as soon as he wakes up this evening I'm going to be right there to show him THIS IS WHY!  I'm not just being lazy.  I'm not just being difficult.  I have a bona fide reason for not wanting to get out of bed in the morning.  And that's sort of a relief to know because I have seriously tried to kick my butt into gear before without any results.  It also shows why I have no energy to get things done and just want to crash when I get home from work in the evenings.

The other major issue we discovered is that my estrogen and progestin levels are not in sync.  The ratio should be between 100 and 500...  mine is 8.  (Third line down)



She said that's barely registering!  So that explains the difficulties I've had with my menstrual cycle as well as why estrogen-based birth control pills give me migraines.  Why hasn't a doctor bothered to test this stuff before?  I've been having problems since I hit puberty and all they ever offered me was birth control pills or shots that essentially induce menopause and can cause birth defects if you get pregnant within a certain amount of time after having had the injections. I declined the shots and I had finally been put on a progestin-only birth control pill, but I was still having issues with that. 

So...  what does this all mean?  Well, I was excited when I read that the coritsol deficiency can be helped by, among other things, NAPS!  Heh.  Wonder if I can get a prescription for a mid-day nap at work?  ;) (Come to think of it, this probably also explains why when I nap during the day I nap HARD!)  Anyhow.  I'm discontinuing the birth control pills (keep your fingers cross that doesn't backfire on us...) and will be starting new supplements. 


They're bio-identical hormones.  That is, they're not synthetic.  They are derived from plants and in the case of the Adrenplus an animal.  (I told her she really didn't need to tell me that part...)  I rub the cream on my wrists, neck, etc, twice a day, and I take the pills in the morning and at lunch.  It's going to take some getting used to.  It's not covered by my insurance and I also have to go to a compounding pharmacy in Pace to get it!  But they were super nice today, so I think that will be doable.  Especially if it helps. 

She said that this isn't a miracle cure.  I won't see the results right away.  But I go back in three months for us to check my progress and she said that I should be feeling better by then.  I'm looking forward to what this will hopefully mean for my health and my energy levels.  

Sunday, May 23, 2010

This is my new blog!

It's so funny that I'm designing a personal blog because I resisted starting a photography blog for so long!  I really didn't think I'd have much of anything to say and I worried that it would lay dormant on the interwebs with no interesting content.  And now I think of things all the time that I'd like to blog about but that just don't seem to really belong on the photography blog.  Like the fact that one of my cats spent Thursday afternoon and all of Friday at the vet's office.  I found myself writing about it in the description of a picture of him on flickr...  which also doesn't seem entirely appropriate.

So this blog is going to be about my life.  A big part of my life is photography, so I'm sure that will come up from time to time...  but I don't feel the pressure to make everything so perfect here.  Like I'm trying to sell myself to a potential client.  Because that's actually sort of exhausting!  Here I'll be able to just be me.  And if that means I want to share a picture of my really creepy eye since I have pink eye right now, I'll do just that!

allergic conjunctivitis

It hurts, guys!  But I also think that's a really awesome picture.  I mean...  look at those blood vessels!  I actually took that with my three-cameras-ago Canon S5IS on super macro mode.  My eyes water every time I look at it but I sort of can't stop looking at it.  What kind of sense does that make?!  I do wish I had a real macro lens for my dSLR, though.  (Santa, are you listening?)

I can also share the sweet picture my sister sent me this morning of my nephew with his splint... because he broke his arm yesterday!!  My poor little buddy BROKE. HIS. ARM.


He's in a splint for now and they will follow up with Nemours tomorrow.  :'(  I don't think it's slowing him down too much, though.  He's still a one-year-old with the energy of a one-year-old, after all!

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