When we brought the pumpkins in to carve last night, Harry got so excited and was running around them, grouped there together on the floor, shouting Pumpkoo Patch! Pumpkoo Patch!
I don't know if it's the time change or stress or what but I keep waking up really early. Today at 4.30, with absolutely no chance of going back to sleep meaning that I'm going to be exhausted later on.
It's Halloween. Dylan gets to wear his costume to school today, and then later on we're taking them to Microsoft where they'll go Trick or Treating around the offices and collect enormous amounts of sweets. Then after that we'll go to the town center where all the kids parade up and down and the shops give them sweets..... should be fun (and exhausting, given how tired I am likely to be!)
Last night G & D carved two pumpkins which will sit on our porch...... they're very cute. I must attempt to take photo's despite having no decent camera to do so with as the D70 has gone in for repair!
Overnight frost last night and it's only warmed up to 2c this morning by noon. We also had the first snow up in the mountains last night.
My bedroom has been really chilly of late and I finally realised it's because G left the hatch to the loft (located inside the closet) open so all the heat was escaping.
Harry ran up to me earlier terribly excited, and in a mixture of words and gibberish shouted me to look!look!come!raingoo!raingoo!...... wasn't sure what he meant and as he raced back to my bedroom I followed him, where he pointed out rain pouring from the roof, extremely excited by it!
G put the lights up in the kitchen yesterday and they look fantastic! It's very close now to being finished...... some more lighting needs to go in over the prep table, and a bit of trim work to get finished, then the tiles, and then it's done!
We found a super tile shop yesterday when we were driving to the DIY shop in desperation for something affordable, having settled on some rather uninteresting tiles that we found on their website. We happened across this store that had opened only yesterday, European (yay) Tile Design.... and they had some absolutely stunning tiles. We ended up choosing these handmade glass mosaics which are costing about double what we paid from the shoddy internet company, but they're really gorgeous. Hopefully they'll arrive next week and we can get them up next weekend.
Meanwhile, in other news, Dylan now has this cold. All we need now is for G to get it and have to stay in bed because it's so much worse than everyone else ;-)
Now I feel like crap, temperature and sneezing constantly :(
Poor H seems to be coming down with a bug. He had the sniffles a few days ago but it went away, yet today the green trail of snot is back with a vengeance and he's very miserable with it. All he wants to do is watch Dora The Explorer, and I'm letting him - it's a long time since he had a quiet day at home. Dylan has no school today and has a friend over to play so he's happy.
Waking up prior to 7am when you DONT HAVE TO, is the worst thing EVER.
If you're dumb enough to buy tiles on the Internet like I am, avoid going to MosaicTileSupplies.com because you'll not only be very disappointed in the product, but you'll be out of pocket also.
I ordered these tiles a week or so ago. They're for the kitchen backsplash. It cost me some $35 bucks in postage but were still the only thing I could find online that I liked, that met what I was looking for.
When they arrived, however, they look absoultely NOTHING like the picture. I had looked at them online on several different monitors before buying, to make sure that colour variations in the settings were not significant and would affect what I thought I was getting. I didn't order samples first because I had to pay to do that, and I didn't want to waste more money.....also I felt confident that I'd get what I wanted after looking closely at these for a few weeks on different PCs!
Anyway - needless to say I was extremely disappointed by the results. They're hideous. They look absolutely nothing like the picture online, they are revolting, cheap looking, with gaudy colours. I phoned up about returning them and was told that I'd lose 15% of the money I'd paid in 'restocking fee'. Outrageous. I told him that this was unacceptable, that he had misrepresented the product in the photo online and he got really nasty.
I was told that because I hadn't ordered samples that it was my "own fault", that he "thought they were ugly too", that my quadruple checking of the goods on 4 different monitor screens to be sure that monitor settings / quality were not affecting what I saw (as they note on their website) was "not relevant" and that that I was "cutting corners" and "buying something cheap", that I "should have spent extra on more expensive tiles", and that it was my "own fault".
I've opened a dispute with PayPal, hopefully I'll get a full refund, but ARGH, how awful. And what a nasty man!!
Not sure which of the changes I've made to my diet have got rid of this IBS but something has. It could be the Acai powder, the peppermint oil, or it could be cutting out the decaf coffee, the dairy, the red meat, who knows. I'm not complaining though, it's amazing to finally be without the horrible symptoms that come with this wretched complaint.
Meanwhile the weight loss has inexplicably stopped considering the sheer lack of food that I'm currently eating. I'm eating well and I'm eating healthily, I've cut out sugar and desert and most snacks other than fruit, and my diet is consisting mostly of low fat foods..... but after the initial 7lb there's nothing happened for the last week. Annoying!
My Nikon D70 has experienced the BGLOD (Blinking Green Light of Death) and is dead as a Dodo. I need to send it off to them to get it fixed. Meanwhile I've missed loads of lovely photo opportunities... today in particularly I wished I had it while the boys drove around in the ride on Jeep up the street.... so cute watching Dylan drive and Harry grin manically in the passenger seat!
Harry's certainly not afraid to eat anything, and one of his favourite things to eat is what he had for lunch today... Chicken Caesar Salad with some bread which he dipped into Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar.... the more tart the better.
I feel bad. Dylan had some photographs taken as part of the Football season he's doing at the moment. The pro's take one of every boy on the team and you buy whatever selection of these that you want. They're pretty expensive but kind of cool, with a photo of him as a football star on the cover of a fake magazine and cheesy but fun shots like that. I ordered also some fridge magnets with him in his football pose on as I we had some last year and they were cute.
The coach handed me our pictures tonight and said 'Sorry but the packet burst open and the magnets fell on the ground - you might want to dry them' (it was raining heavily). Upon further inspection I discovered that the magnets were ruined. 2 were scratched and the rain had ruined the other two. I didn't really know whether the scratches happened during this fall but obviously the rain damaged the others...... but anyway I filled out a thing on the photogs website which said they arrived like it and they are sending me some new ones.
I am a thief! I feel awful, I should have just bought the damn things again.... although they obviously made an enormous profit on them in the first place, but I don't know if they all got ruined by the Coach or the two that were scratched were done previously...... anyway, I am a bad person!!
Without wishing to blog too much about poo, I have been suffering for a while now from what I think is IBS (without having it confirmed by the doc). I am constantly bloated, uncomfortable and gassy...... and occasionally have to urgently 'go', and when I do things are not quite as they should be, shall we say.
Figuring that it is IBS and having also changed my diet due to the cholesterol, I've been watching to see what the triggers seem to be and have cut out many of the obvious ones. I've also started taking extra fiber in the form of Acai powder scooped into a glass of orange juice twice a day. I've discovered that it's not as bad as it was, it tends to be worse after my evening meal, and the urgency thing hasn't stopped as yet. I don't know how long I'm supposed to wait before I notice a difference.
Saw a friend yesterday who says I should get checked for Celiac Disease. She has it and it's apparently very common (1 in 34!). Symptoms are similar to IBS but obviously as long as you're still eating gluten they don't stop. It also has other symptoms which I do have some signs of (generally being run down, joint pain, inability to lose weight). I might ask the Doc to do a blood test when I next go. I definitely don't fancy cutting gluten from the diet though, very restrictive!
The house isn't overheated for the first time in months! Love being able to snuggle into big sweaters and socks... fab. Bah humbug to the Summer. It's actually only around 60F but cloudy today, so not that cold, but nice and not hot..... know what I mean?
The kitchen is still improving..... we got the new fridge in finally and the old one away in the garage rather than taking up half the dining room. Makes a big difference! Just ordered the tiles for the backsplash and with a bit of luck they'll be here before the weekend but most likely next week for next weekend.
Whatever time of the day I took the Lexapro it didn't stop me from feeling utterly exhausted 24 x 7. I regularly napped in the afternoon when Harry did, and at night I'd fall into bed as early as I could, falling into a deep sleep very quickly, and not wanting to get up in the morning at all.
The change in my energy levels since coming off them is quite staggering. I don't feel tired during the day really. A little (when you run around after a 2 yr old all day you can't help but feel a tad exhausted), but nothing like I was. I'm tired at bed time as per usual, but it's a little harder (and somehow more normal) to get to sleep. I sleep well, and for the last few days I have been waking fairly early feeling full of energy and not wanting to drag the duvet back over my head.
I found out this week that I have high cholesterol. Gutted. Trying to make some diet adjustments that will help it. I have to cut out the sweet fatty food that I like so much :-( I reckon it'd be 100 times worse too if I didn't work out which, thankfully, I do 3 times per week.
I've started eating oatmeal for breakfast. Not hugely fond of it but apparently it helps. I've switched from butter to olive oil margerine. I like the latter I'd just been lazy of late enjoying the taste of proper butter. I've tried to increase my fruit and veg intake. I've started taking a garlic supplement which allegedly helps to lower it (and has an added benefit of helping with blood flow which with my PSD is no bad thing). I've also started taking an Omega 3 supplement and because I also have been suffering of late of IBS (nasty!) I'm drinking an Acai powder supplement too which should help with both problems & have cut out the morning decaf which should help with the second. Oh and I'm cooking from the diabetic cookbook again which generally means what I eat is is low in fat and is good for G too.
Ill get it tested again after Christmas and see how I've done with improving it. Thing is, having been restricting myself this last week (No sugar. argh) I've also lost 5lb and obviously will continue to lose weight and be healthier BUT knowing me within a short period of time I'll get anxious and start obsessing over what I cannot eat and will be back to square one within no time. Wish me willpower vibes please.
Since I got Sirius Satellite Radio in my car, I have listened to nothing but BBC Radio 1, something I haven't done since I was alot younger. My cousin tried to tell me that Radio 2 was the new Radio 1 but she was sooooooooo wrong (:-P Jo), Radio 1 is the way forward. Chris Moyles on the breakfast show and Scott Mills at drivetime are absolutely bloody hysterical.
Radio on this side of the Atlantic is desperately poor. I've not found, in 5 years, a single station that I can listen to without being driven mad by inane commentary, unfunny jokes, rubbish news, or tediously repetitive play lists. Radio 1 is on a completely different level with excellent music, entertainment and news & there's nothing here that even remotely compares to it.
And the podcasts are excellent too - I always dl Moyles and Mills and listen to them at the gym. Today I managed to drop a weight on me as while listening to Mills on the iPod I embarassingly cracked up laughing in the middle of the fitness room. If you don't do anything else today, go and download those podcasts and listen, they're excellent.
Having tapered off these things far far more gradually than ever before (2 weeks on half dose, nearly 2 weeks on quarter dose), the withdrawal side effects (touch wood) seem to be already on the wane and not nearly as nasty as previous experiences. Don't feel 100%, feel a bit fuzzy and still have the odd dizzy moment but on the whole it seems to be improving after only 4 days of symptoms.
Pwinkles? Pwinkles? PWINKLES!!!!!!!!
(Harry asking for, and receiving, colourful sprinkles on his yoghurt)
Somehow, during the night, Harry managed to take off his pajama bottoms and his nappy.
I'll spare you the gory details.
So after ending up back on Anti Depressants shortly after the last big upheaval / move across country, I'm feeling that the time is right to stop taking them again.
It's a horrible beast, depression. It creeps up on you and before you know it you feel utterly wretched, sad, miserable, lethargic, unable to deal with anyone or anything. Taking the anti depressant medication helps you with all of that and enables you to get your life back. At the time, the last thing you care about are potential side-effects to it, and infact in my case don't really notice any... just the relief to start feeling human again.
The downside of them........every (well, it's 3) time I've had this medication (always sparked by something major and horribly stressful change in my life), after a few months of feeling better and a few months of feeling 'fine thank you', I've started to realise that I am not fine, but a little bit removed from life. As if I'm a bystander watching while things happen around me. Unable to completely interact with people and events. It's only a very tiny step outside of the here and now, but once you notice it you realise that you're a bit of a space cadet and that you and the people around you deserve better.
It's a sense of ... well, I am not going to laugh hysterically or cry hysterically, I am going to grin or grimace.... a slight delay in reaction to things which should have an instant reaction... and a general feeling of slight removal from everyone.
When realising this, each time, I've decided to stop taking the meds. Thankfully it's been major issues that've sparked depression in my case so I'm hoping that with none of those imminent I should do fine without. I am of course, though, going through the hellish side-effects that come hand in hand with stopping these things.
I don't know why they say they're not physically addictive, these things. It's bullshit. They totally are. This time I've been taking Lexapro.. and the side effects from stopping are no better than any of the others I've tried. I tried to taper off gently, cutting the dose down to half.. then a quarter.. then stopping. I was fine but for the last 3 days have had the hellish dizziness that I've experienced before, the 'brain zaps' where suddenly the axis in my head seems to alter, and a permanent feeling of strangeness and exhaustion.
Other side effects to this delightful drug have been the inability to lose weight.... despite regular and rigorous exercise my weight has remained constant / creeping up and it's been getting me down. I eat relatively healthily. I do have a sweet tooth but it's not too bad these days (it's been worse!), and I work out 3 x per week minimum, hard. I hope that stopping will mean the pounds come off, I think this wretched drug has slowed my metabolism down to nothing!
Wish me luck for the next few days getting off this stuff
Another weekend of DIY. Yesterday G prepared the kitchen for the installation of the stainless steel chimney hood thing we've bought.... he had to cut holes in the wall and fix brackets and all sorts of complicated things. Then he had to rewire most of this floor of the house. Today the chimney is going in... theoretically (it's now 3.20 and it's still not in).... and involving lots of being in the loft, cutting holes in the ceiling, banging things, and generally making an enormous mess. Oh and he stood on the new lovely Bosch hob and broke the grate. Brilliant.
Last night we went out for a friends birthday dinner to an Indian restaurant in Bellevue. Nice, actually, considering what passes for Indian food this side of the Atlantic is usually fairly poor. We followed that up with a trip to a new 'English Pub' called the 3 Lions here in Redmond..... which totally failed in it's attempts to become an English pub. Office style hung ceilings, far too many lights, far too many TV's, no smoke, table service, and generally rather poor beer + food!
I was telling a friend of mine, who has a daughter in Dylans class at school, that he had been asking about where babies come from. She told me that her daughter had been asking too and that she'd told her (arghghgh).
He seems far too young to need to know this stuff but I began to worry that by the time we got around to explaining it, all his friends would already know ... or that one of them would explain it to him badly, so I decided to buy him a book. A book that would explain all the details to him. A book that he could take to his room and read without embarassment and come and ask questions if he had any. This book.
Anyway, he disappeared off to his room & read it. A while later he came out saying that he'd read it, quite matter of factly, without embarassment. I said 'Oh good, so you understand now about the eggs and the seeds'?
'They're not seeds Mum, they're SPERMS!!'
(priceless)
'Coosie! Coosie!' - I want a cookie
'Run, Run!'
'Shnack?' (I'm hungry, give me food)
'Molk' - (give me a bottle of milk)
'Dora! Iego'! - I want to watch Dora or Diego in the car
Both boys have been very verbal this week. One more so than ever before, one with funny / not so funny sayings that warrant repeating!
Baby... has increased his vocabularly about a million percent in the last week. He just ran up to me saying 'Mummy, wassamatter?'... and today also said 'swim' and 'mountain' and 'friends'... none of which he'd never shown any signs of knowing before! Basically he's beginning to verbalise everything.. 'toys!!' is a new demand, 'floor' (he dropped something on the floor), Gareth started doing some work on the kitchen earlier wearing a work-belt and he said 'ooh Builder!' (or rather , 'biwer', his way of pronouncing it). Flies (butterflies), 'side' (outside), 'fwag' (flag), 'bock' (box), 'meal bock' (mailbox), belk (belt) and tons and tons more... all seemingly having happened overnight.
Big..... at football yesterday. 'Mum, I've got a stiff in my neck!'. Last week he asked me where babies came from (errkkkk) and in my fluster I got as far as 'well the mummy has eggs' and he started to crack up laughing shouting that I was being ridiculous and girls do NOT have eggs (he was obviously envisioning large brown eggs) !! I was laughing too by this point and managed to splutter 'and the daddy has seeds' and this totally wiped him out with the giggles and thankfully we have not revisted that subject since! I need to buy him a book, the thought of explaining this to him is somewhat horrific and he absolutely refused to take my advice and 'ask your dad' ! Lastly, and also rather naughty (but also one couldn't help giggle) yesterday as he was getting frustrated with something he shouted 'oh for fucks sake!!!'. I turned around absolutely floored and he clasped his hand to his mouth in horror and G and I attempted to tell him off but without managing to forgo a large snigger. Rest assured he knows this was wrong!