Friday, June 27, 2008

On Being Mellow

Most of you who know me know that "mellow" isn't a word often used to describe me. Or perhaps never would be more accurate.

Today my wonderful cousin called me and left me a voice mail with a clip from ONJ's "Have You Never Been Mellow" and told me that is the way I am supposed to start each day, or that it was my new ritual. It made me smile. A lot.

Growing up R and I were inseparable up at our cabin in Jasper and whenever our families got together, which was fairly often for a while. As far as cousins go we were pretty tight. We were the babies (well, I am the baby, but he was close enough - sorry R, just had to add that in) of the whole family and whatever we did, we did it together. Including almost crashing a golf cart at Galagher's Canyon. Might I add that my loving cousin jumped out of the cart HE was driving and left his baby cousin to fend for herself as the out-of-control cart zipped through the wet grass towards a tree. My short life passed before my eyes as I, too, bailed out of the cart. Sufficed to say I think I walked back to the clubhouse. I think R apologised once or maybe a hundred times, but I was still mad. I did forgive him shortly afterwards, he was hard to stay mad at.

Anyway, back in the day I loved Olivia Newton John. After I saw Grease, I loved her more. You may laugh and scoff, but let me tell you I wanted to be her when I grew up. To be so beautiful and talented. Sigh.

So here she is, singing "Have You never Been Mellow"... (the sync is off, but it's still cool)



R is hoping this form of therapy will help to lower my blood pressure. He might be right! :-D

Thursday, June 19, 2008

The Good News and The Bad News

The good news is I lost 5 pounds without even trying. The bad news is that it's likely because my body is fucked up.

Yep, I said a bad word. And I'm not going to take it back. I apologise to anyone who I may offend with it, but that's the only way to describe what's happening.

After a lovely morning laughing with a friend, I was feeling very tired. I've been very tired a lot lately, but you know we moved, I've not been sleeping well, we have a jam packed schedule, and we're just overall crazy. Still, I was feeling absolutely exhausted. So, after I put Josh down for his nap I lay down on the couch with Mckenna. Now that may not seem weird to some of you, but I am not a napper. I don't nap. Not really even when I was pregnant. I just have too much to do. But I did today, even though every five minutes Mckenna woke me up to "ask" me something, or tell me I was snoring. Ha. Whatever. I'm tired and stuffed up from allergies. What can I say?

Anyway, after I picked Aidan up from school I took my blood glucose reading. Oh yes, I've been doing that for about a week because I'm considered pre-diabetic and they wanted to monitor me. I'm eating the right things (mostly, yes, I do slip occassionaly), so I was thinking "piece of cake - they've got nothing on me". The first reading last week was 4.6 or something low. Excellent. But then over the past week it's been rising, until it hit 11.9 the other day. I started taking the test twice a day, one a fasting in the morning and one about 2-3 hours after lunch. Just wanting to make sure. The fasting ones were fairly high, but I was trying not to be worried. After all when I have them in the lab, I'm still borderline.

So I take the test after I pick up Aidan and it was higher than 11 again. 3 hours after lunch. It should less than 8 if you aren't diabetic, less than 10 if you are. Ahem. Add to that I felt like complete crap. My chest was tight and I felt very lightheaded. I called Steve to see where he was because I had an appointment at 4:30 for chiro and thought maybe I could zip in to the clinic and see someone first. Luckily he was in Maple Ridge and almost home (that never happens, normally he's stuck in traffic and running late) and thankfully there was no wait in the clinic.

The doctor was not a happy camper. My blood pressure was 180 over 120. Not good. Very bad. Maybe that's why I've been feeling like my body, head and eyes are going to explode lately. I am now on blood pressure medicine and medicine for diabetes control.

But hey - I lost 5 pounds!

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Grown Up Home?

Or getting there, anyway.

Here are some photos of my living room:
(ignore the tv show in the background, that's probably not very grown up! LOL)

And our bedroom:This was day two here so we still had stuff everywhere, but I hurriedly made the bed (as you can see by that one sad looking pillow) to take a photo. Chocolate brown and Ice Blue. Those colours will eventually carry on through the ensuite too.

To me, this is my grown-up stuff. I've been living on my own since I was 17 and usually had hand me down furniture or very inexpensive stuff. The couches are the first that we have bought as a couple, and are more my style than anything I or we have ever had. We've gone back to a queen size bed for a number of reasons: it was cheaper than buying a new king (our old one was having issues and the mattress looked like a wave) and you can always find more linens for a queen. Plus, our kids are older (ok, my youngest is 2, but it's old enough) and we no longer want/need little ones in bed with us (a convenience for sure when I was nursing).

This weekend I get a new bookshelf (new to me, but very nice purchase from a friend). I've been using a bookshelf that my dh built me out of scrap. It is very utilitarian looking, but served it's purpose. Now I want something that looks nicer and goes with my stuff.

I have plenty of ideas for this place, but first we have the basement to finish so my oldest can have his own room. He's being a trooper about sleeping on the floor of his sister's room, but I know he is excited to have his own space.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

To Be or Not To Be

I'm trying to decide whether or not to delete this blog. Lots of reasons, none of which I really care to get in to.

However, I've had a few people ask me if maybe they could be added, so I guess there are still people wandering by. That's nice and I appreciate it a lot. Now, if I could only think of something witty and fabulous to say.

See that's the problem, I'm not so witty and fabulous lately. I'm mostly just tired and cranky and trying to make all happy and funny. Because I am so blessed by so much and I know I should be grateful. And I am. But I'm really, really tired and sometimes I'm lonely. Silly, I know. To be surrounded by people, yet still lonely.

For 25+ years I had a good girl friend that I talked to daily, laughed over nonsensical stuff, could say nothing to and still get it, etc. and now we are just in different places in our lives and it doesn't work as well any more. I'm ok with that, to everything there is a season, but I miss it. Yes, my dh is my best friend and I can and do tell him everything, but it's just different with another woman. Those fit of giggles that you get and can't really explain and guys just look at you like you're nuts. I miss that. I miss wandering around and shopping, even though I'm not really a shopper (I'm more the get in and get out type of person), every once in a while I like to wander around and look at stuff with a friend and make funny comments. I went on a trip with a couple of friends a while back and it was like that and I realised how much I miss it.

On a daily basis it is me and my kids and then my dh in the evening. He works hard all day, I work in between carpooling the kids everywhere, we have the various kids activities and church activities and every once in a while we try to squeeze our friends in there. Because our friends are so important to us and we care about them a lot. It's important for us to have social time. Just adult time. It's important as couples and as individuals. And I need some one on one girl time to laugh and gigle and talk and not talk and you know...

So there you go, this is why I haven't been posting, because it sounds like one big whine. And my life deserves more than that and I know the people in it do. But when I write I want to say how I feel. And this is how I feel. And because I'm an emotional person that's what comes out. It's very odd to be both logical and emotional. My head tells me to suck it up and my heart just keeps feeling. What's up with that?