Domestic Geek

*sigh* I wish this weekend had been as productive as last weekend. There is just not enough time away from work.

Marcus and I finished up the Thanksgiving shopping this evening. We picked up the natural free-range turkey that we ordered earlier from Sunflower Market. Can't wait to see how that turns out. I spent the earlier part of the day at a knitting gathering at my friend's house down in Castle Rock. I got the body of the amigurumi turkey I'm making finished, as well as several rows of a holiday bag I'm knitting. I brought one of my cheesecakes to share and I was quite happy with how it turned out. I'll post pics tomorrow after I get them off of my camera.

Marcus and I actually relaxed this evening and finally watched Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. He downloaded that from iTunes a couple of weeks ago and we hadn't had a chance to watch it. I'll admit that I missed Orlando Bloom's character just a little.

The olive leaf extract that I wrote about yesterday seems to be doing the trick. I felt so much better today. Still coughing up a little crud out of my lungs, but at least I didn't feel like sleeping all danged day.

OK, I'm off to dig through my stash to find orange yarn for my turkey and then I'm off to bed.

I read somewhere that Olive Leaf Extract was antibacterial and antiviral. I picked up a bottle of the Nature's Way brand today. As I am really sick and tired of being sick and tired, I figured it couldn't hurt. I'll let you all know how it works.

I was at Target today with Dad picking up the Thanksgiving feast and the egg case was totally empty. Hanging from a shelf was a sign that Target had severed ties with its supplier, Sparboe Farms, and they apologized for any inconvenience. People were so upset - you would think that eggs weren't sold any place else. When I got home I searched the news and found a story that both Target and McDonald's had dropped Sparboe Farms after an activist turned over undercover video about the conditions there. While I wished something like this would open people's eyes and change the way food is mass-produced in this country, people will quickly forget. Since Marcus and I have vowed to avoid food produced by the big commercial companies and stick to local and organic when possible, we've found that many people actually feel threatened by our choice. They prefer to not know where there food comes from or how it's produced, as long as it is cheap and easy.

I hate that people feel the need to diagnose illnesses in others, especially over the internet. A woman in a forum I'm on told me I should have gotten a flu shot (how does she know if I did or didn't) and I shouldn't be going to work. Um, I don't have the flu. I've had it and I know what it feels like. I have one of a myriad of other viruses that float around this time of year - the kind where when you go to the doctor, they give you cough syrup and a decongestant and tell you to ride it out. I also have no vacation days left and unless you're going to pay my bills, mind your own damn business.

I pulled my blog feed from that site, but now I'm thinking I need to figure out how many online places I really need to belong. I'll keep Facebook, Twitter and Ravelry, but I really can't think of anything else above that I need to waste my time with. I've been disgusted with how much time I waste on the Internet anyway. My inboxes are flooded with notices from all of these places and it is so overwhelming, I never read them. I also miss important emails from friends because I just quickly skim through them all.

I joined a lot of places back when I was unemployed and bored. Since that's been over five years now, it's time to dump them.

That said...getting off the Internet for a while. I've got stuff that needs to get done today and there is a Bronco game on the tube.

I picked up a bug the first week of October during my New Mexico trip. Last week I thought I was finally kicking it and....WHAM! I picked up something nastier. Actually, I think I got this current bug from Marcus. He's been really sick, as well. Makes it really hard to be romantic when you're both coughing up lungs and such.

I've actually been a little achy and my throat is sore. I've been sleeping...a lot. I guess it is good that my body is resting, but I'm not getting a darned thing done. I've also been sucking on candy at work to keep from coughing, but it is making me gain weight because I'm so danged lethargic. Stupid germs.

I've been enjoying playing with Siri on my new phone. The only sucky thing is since I'm sick and prone to losing my voice or having it crack, she has a hard time deciphering my sick voice. I can't wait until it gets integrated into other apps (like hopefully my Grocery IQ one).

I'm hoping to have some crafty things to show tomorrow. On that note, I'm off to bed with some hot tea and NyQuil.

I went to New Mexico early last month. I wanted to go to the Taos Wool Festival and figured I might as well swing over and see my old college pal while I was in the state, as well. Good thing I had Angie to visit because the wool festival and Taos kind of sucked. I'm glad I didn't waste the money to actually stay overnight in Taos.

I had originally intended to go down Saturday and get a room with friends, but an online friend of Marcus' and mine from Texas came to Colorado to visit, so I pushed it a day to drive down Sunday instead.

I actually managed to get on the road by 5:30 am. It was a beautiful drive down - the fall colors were spectacular. I was having a lovely day until I got to Taos. The part of town where the festival was held is kind of a dump. I wandered through the exhibitor booths for about an hour and didn't find a danged thing I wanted to buy. I found the couple of yarn shops that I had found online and didn't find anything cool, either. I figured certainly I'd find something at the quilt store, but struck out there as well. Discouraged, I tracked down a shot glass for my collection and got the hell out of town. I didn't even bother getting any lunch. I just relied on the snacks I had packed and got back on the road.

The roads between Taos and Farmington are a nice drive, though. The canyon was especially pretty. There were some gorgeous purple colored rocks in the canyon walls. I got into Farmington about 2 hours earlier than I expected, but I had an awesome visit with Angie, her husband Doug and their daughter Haley (and their two dogs, Shamus and Mac). I love visiting there. I feel so comfortable. Ang took me to see the Aztec ruins. I was going to go back the next day and sketch them, but it rained all day. I ended up going to a lovely quilt shop instead.

The only sucky thing is I picked up a bug down there. I started feeling sick the last night I was there and steadily deteriorated on the way home. The cough and crap in my chest has been lingering ever since. As I was reading though some posts from a year ago, I was sick this same exact time last year. This is becoming a tradition I hope to not repeat next year.

I've been having a hard time sleeping lately. I know a good portion of that is my mind swirling with everything that needs to get done if this move actually happens. The major reason is that I'm still hating my job and need to find something else to do with my life. I'm also thinking it may be due to my increased intake of sugar and caffeine (to stay awake) lately. Danged vicious cycle, I tell you, since the sugar and caffeine also keep me from sleeping.

I've been self-medicating the anger and irritation with chocolate, candy and sunflower seeds (cracking seeds is therapeutic when deep down you want to crack open stupid heads). I've been adding chocolate milk powder and sugar to my morning coffee. I've been drinking a cold Via (again with chocolate milk powder to make it drinkable) when I get home from mid-day shopping on the weekends. I've had way too many chai frappucinos to count in the last couple of months. The almost solid week of traveling last week with bottled, sweetened teas to drink was not good for my system, either.

I've decided I really should cut out caffeine completely, but I turn into a raging beyatch when I try to go cold turkey, so baby steps will have to do. This week I'm starting by cutting out the morning coffee and just sticking with cold, unsweetened iced tea. I'll gradually start drinking more plain water instead of the tea. I'm hoping to wean myself off my caffeine by the end of the month and see where I'm at then. I know I haven't been drinking enough fluids (especially plain water) lately. I've been getting headaches and retaining fluid like crazy.

Well, we'll see how it goes.

WARNING! FEMALE RELATED CONTENT! QUIT READING NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TMI. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!


Yesterday, I had an appointment to have the Essure procedure done. If you don't want to click through the link, it's a permanent form of female sterilization. I've been wanting those nickle coils in my fallopian tubes ever since my gynecologist told me about them at my last annual exam. She reminded me that, being over 40, the risk of developing blood clots and strokes increase when being on birth control pills.

So, I called to set up the appointment in early December and have been looking forward to yesterday like it was Christmas or something. I needed a driver, so Marcus put in to take Monday off from work. I had the pre-op appointment last Wednesday where the doc went over the procedure details and prescribed the meds I was to take. I was good to go.

I'll be honest, the day before I started getting really nervous. This was surgery, after all. Things can go wrong. The night before, I put the pill up my vagina that was to soften the cervix and would cause cramping. Boy, did it. Worse than any menstrual cramp I've ever had. By 3 am, I couldn't even sleep any more. I got up and turned on the computer. Turns out that pill is also used to induce labor...great. No wonder I was in so much pain. I endured, because I was supposed to take 4 Ibuprofen tablets 2 hours before my procedure. I got Marcus up at 5:30. I thought that would be the hard part of the day, but he was as nervous as I was and was already awake. I took the Ibuprofen and the cramping pain lessened. We had to leave earlier than we'd planned (6:30am) because of the snow that fell and my doctor's office where she does the procedure is down in Parker. I took the pain pills just before we left the house (as instructed) and I could tell I was getting loopy on the way. We only got to the appointment 5 minutes late (not bad with morning traffic and snow), Marcus dropped me off and left his phone # because he was going to wait at the Starbucks a couple of blocks down the street. I was injected with something (local anesthesia, I think) and was really out of it. By the time I was in the room, I thought I was home free.

No such luck. Apparently, if you've never had children, it's really hard to get your cervix to soften and dilate (I wasn't told that). They had to abort the procedure because they couldn't get into my uterus and if they forced it they might puncture my uterus. I tried really hard not to cry, but I couldn't stop the tears. I was (and still am) so frustrated that I went through all that pain and money for absolutely nothing. Poor Marcus had to get me home in that drug-induced state. He's a saint for dealing with me. Apparently, we stopped at Starbucks because I wanted to (don't remember asking) and I told everyone there that my cervix wouldn't cooperate. We stopped by my Dad's house to fix a problem with his Wii (I don't remember being there at all). I do remember being at a traffic light and telling Marcus we were going the wrong way to get to Dad's house and he told me we had already been there. I also remember walking from the car, getting into the house and bawling as I got into bed to sleep everything off. I woke up around 4:30 or so and the cramps were bad again, so I started crying again. It was all just so unfair.

I'm waiting for my insurance company to deny the claim now since the procedure wasn't successful. I'm supposed to get a call from someone today to discuss what we can do next. I'm not really sure I'm ready to talk to anybody there and I'm pretty sure I don't want to go the laproscopic route to tie my tubes. I'm starting to think giving up sex would be the easier way to go. I'm just so fed up this all this crap I go through to make sure I don't get pregnant.

It's so weird when you're coming out of a depression period. You know you were depressed, but you didn't realize how bad until you look back at things that happened during that time. I think I've been in a serious, deep one for about 2 and a half years (it started when they put on on these damned 12-13 hour shifts at work).

It amazes me how long I have been in this funk. The evidence is popping up all over. I wrote on Twitter the other day that I was finding receipts on my desk that were over a year old. I was putting up Christmas lights outside yesterday and the big wreath for the side of the house was still behind the rocking chair in the living room where I left it after taking it down last year. I hadn't cleaned the tub/shower in the back bathroom in about as long. It had horrible soap scum/mildew built up. I was starting to smell it while I was watching television.

I don't think I've actually finished a knitting project in quite a while. It's really odd for me to not want to do anything creative. I think I actually got more joy out of continually ripping knitting back than actually progressing.

I know I haven't been particularly pleasant to be around, either. I've had a serious defeatist attitude. The slightest thing set me off to make me angry, especially when it was things of which I had no control. It's really hard for me to see any good around me when I get like that.

I don't know what has brought me out this time. Maybe a combination of things. I've been eating only real, natural food for a while. I tried eating one of my previous prepacked faves, Stouffers Mac and Cheese, the other day and it actually made me physically ill. I drove to New Mexico at the end of October to visit with my old college pal. It felt so good to see her — I missed her so much. I have hope that I will actually find a new job in the new year. Companies are starting to hire creative professionals again. I decided it was time to stop putting off the things I've always wanted to do and those acts have contributed to my mental health. I also decided to stop trying to fight what I can't change. The situation at work will never change, so I have to find other work. I'm tired of having to work holidays and never spend quality time with Marcus (other than on vacation). I don't want us to grow apart because we never, ever see each other.

So, now the hard part begins...cleaning up the messes I've made for myself. Not just housecleaning messes (man, but there are plenty of those), but others messes, too. Financial messes, physical messes, emotional messes. It'll take time and work, but they can be cleaned up and I will be better at the end because of them.

I'm feeling really positive about where my life is going in 2011 and beyond. Maybe I'll even have a desire to focus on this poor, neglected blog again.