. . . All My Chaosity . . .

Okay I'm a little jazzed about it :D. Woke up this morning, and it actually said 3.5 lbs LESS THAN EVER BEFORE. When I tried it again for AceBall, it was only 2 less. But 2 is better than nothing, and my surgeon's scale generally reads 4-5 lbs lighter than mine! (I have my official 3-month follow-up this coming Monday). To celebrate we went to Golden Corral for breakfast. Not really to celebrate, we were going to go anyway. AceBall called ahead of time and they offered to let me get my food in a to-go box and weigh it at $4.19/lb. Sounded like the least expensive way to go since I don't eat very much. I ended up with slightly over half a pound of food for about $2.50. I had eggs, bacon, and a tiny bit of hashbrown potatoes- my favorite. UgH! I forgot to put ketchup on them- I just remembered that. It's all good though, I was more than full and had a great time. Now I'm going to get a little more ready and see what Mel & kids are up to. Then AB is pro...

I was really- I dunno, optimistic or something at the beginning of the week. It wasn't exactly bad, I suppose. But I'm pretty exhausted. I don't much remember Monday, but Tuesday I had bloodwork done. I called in a refill to my pharmacy and they told me Dr. Alex had called in something last week. I knew nothing about it, and only found out about it (finally) today. Apparently Dr. had messaged me, but it never got "sent". So the receptionist sent it a few minutes ago, and it reads: HI Angie. I want to get lab on you as soon as possible. I suspect your lytes are low (Potassium, Calcium, etc). And I'm sure you are iron deficient. We'll check everything. Please call your OB-GYN back and tell him how heavy your periods are. As soon as your blood is drawn, please start Chromagen 200 mg daily with dinner. I'm faxing a script over. Insurance almost always cover that one. And, take Docusate 300 mg twice daily. Once we get everything replaced, you'll f...

a great week so far! This morning Bro. & Sis. Bensing came over to help Ace (B the 1st) in the backyard. Our backyard is looking a lot better- we are thankful for friends and our ward family! I washed 4 loads of laundry, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, and then Ace helped me (he did most of the work- so I guess technically I helped him) in the playroom. We had a huge bag of "trash", and it's really starting to shape up back there. After we picked up DBall from school Ace worked on installing the ceiling fan in the master bath. It's been partially installed for a while, but we had to call the manufacturer and get additional parts. After that we walked to the and around the park (DBall rode his scooter). We made dinner together when we got home (breakfast!) and now I come to my actual point: I've identified another habit I need to break. I know I can only eat a certain amount. So I had 4 pieces of turkey bacon, and 2 silver dollar (slighty larger) ...

And I feel really great! Friday I finally heard back from my endocrinologist's office. They have me scheduled to have blood work done on Tuesday of this week. I'm sort of hoping my thyroid meds just need to be increased, or in the very least that it's something they can detect from the blood work they're doing. I managed to exercise 5 days last week plus stick to the cleaning schedule and menu pretty well. I didn't have all the ingredients for the particular kind of chicken that was on the menu for Friday night, so I just switched it to Queen Ang (King Ranch) and it was SO FABULOUS I was kinda glad I had to make the switch. It's really a relief to have it all planned out, and to buy the food 1-2 weeks at a time so I only have to run to the store every once in a while for extras or milk usually. Saturday D-Ball attended a Birthday Party for a friend in our ward. He seemed to really have a good time. He really enjoy arts & crafts, and they finger painted ...

WooHoo- got 5 days of exercise in this week! I got maybe 4 hours sleep last night, so B & I didn't walk this morning. It was pretty warm today though, so after school DBall & I walked to the library and park. Well DBall rode his scooter there and back. I managed to shop at Sams & Target today, so we have enough food through the end of next week I believe. Yesterday when I was talking to Celeste about homeschooling she suggested I pull DBall out before the end of this school year, so that he won't really miss much if he/we decides he doesn't like it. Then we could just put him back in at the beginning of third grade with everyone else. It actually sounds like a good idea to me, so he will stay where he is until Spring Break. That''s at the 9 week mark so it will work out. We're excited! Now I have to get to bed. I cautined DBall (early riser that he is) not to wake me up saying "I'm hungry" in the morning. Everything is set up s...

We did take measurements but we neglected to take pictures. Still. But I've lost over 14" altogether since January 17. I finally broke down and bought an electric blanket yesterday. I think last night is the first time I've actually been warm since surgery. And I am so grateful for it. I am having bloodwork done probably on Monday. She's going to check: potassium, calcium, magnesium, thyroid, iron and progesterone. I'm thinking I might need more thyroid, and possibly iron could be low due to malabsorption. Either of those could be making me cold. And my lower front thighs, and upper outside hamstrings (lower glutes?) have started cramping about 20 mintues into my regular 45 minute walk. I don't know what that's about, but I'd like to fix it if we could. So I did get my walks in yesterday and today. Tomorrow is supposed to be colder all day, and I suppose we'll have to walk at the mall or somewhere indoors. Okay really I'm tired now. ...

So I'm in the middle of laundry- including all the sheets and towels (I say that like there's loads of them or something, but it does *sound* better in my head when I read it back ;) ) . I've made the trail mix; which is really actually only dried apricots, blueberries, cranberries, cherries, strawberries and sunflower seeds. I'm not actually going to eat it myself, concentrated fructose is definitely not on my "diet" (forever more). But I think B. will enjoy it, and I put it in my clear glass cookie jar. I'mm hopeful it will encourage more healthful eating. I've also decided to buy more graham crackers instead of chips for boy's lunches. I will still buy (probably baked) tortilla chips for taco salad and such, but that's not very often. I put in 20 minutes on the gazelle. I went just under a mile. I so wanted to do the whole 40-45 minutes (about 2 miles, I figure); but that machine makes my hips, knees and feet hurt. I don't mind...

This week isn't looking so optimistic, but I'll try to ignore that for now. Maybe I just have some kind of issue with Mondays in general. The weekend went pretty well. There was no school on Friday(I really can't figure it out- the kids have school on President's Day - NOT on MLK Day, btw- but the Friday before President's Day they are off?) so we went to a home school Valentine party with Celeste & Co. It was pretty fun actually, and the kids seemed to enjoy it. Then we dropped D and his Guitar Hero off with Celeste and family later that afternoon and Bryson and I went out. We ate at Cancun, which is not really Mexican, it's more like Tex Mex. The chicken was from a can (and salty) but the food wasn't bad- we had no complaints. There was decent space between tables and that was really refreshing for a Mexican restaurant. Then we went to see "New in Town" and I think we both enjoyed it. Saturday we planned to use our 2-for-1 certificates...

Tuesday the 17th will be my 3 mo surgery anniversary. I *should* be able to start on a regular diet, but my 3-mo follow-up isn't until the first week of March. I do eat a fairly regular diet now, I'm just not supposed to be eating fiber, pasta/rice/peanut butter, etc. Certainly no whole grains, which is driving me crazy.

So far I've found the McGuffey's Readers, some unit studies on Egypt, George Washington, General U.S. Grant.... and Mom says I have Saxon math somewhere around here. Still looking...

I got a new pedometer! We took our walk (to and around the park near our home) and I recorded 4006 steps and went 1.89 miles. :) I didn't feel like it- the last 5 days or so I haven't felt like much of anything. But I'm *SO* excited I went and now I know I'm walking almost 2 miles just for exercise. Our goal is to go 5 days a week, but sometimes I only make it 4. Now that we've taken up walking at the mall in bad weather I should be able to make it 5 days a week. I can't wait to see how many steps/miles I've logged by the end of the day. WoooHooo!!! Jumped on the scale before my shower, and lost TWO MORE POUNDS!!! Makes the walking when I don't wanna WORTH IT!!!

In a hurry, but ECSTATIC because when I weighed yesterday morning I was down 3 lbs. But I ran to the bathroom with a full bladder more than 10 times yesterday, so I thought maybe I'd check again after my walk this morning. 3 lbs less than yesterday!!! HALLELUJAH!!! So that's 6 lbs for the week- I'm overjoyed!!!

We mall-walked for the second day in a row. This time for at least 50 minutes. I drank 32 oz of water while we were walking, which is unusual for me. And I've been running to potty since we got home. I've been 5 times (w/a fairly full bladder) in the last 2 hours. I've drank another 16 oz water in that same time, but I'm still thirsty. I'm not entirely certain if it's from the zyrtec, sudafed, head-cold, or all three? In addition to the water/urination issue I'm doing the laundry (as scheduled) and I'm exhausted. Not sure if being tired is related to the illness, meds, all of the above or what. Due to the fairly widespread damage done by last week's ice storm we have a street full of tree cutting and debris company trucks. In our driveway alone there are three: a King-cab pick-up, a bucket truck and a front-end loader. And they're not even doing anything for me or my yard! They are loud and blocking my driveway. I'm thinking this ...

With the ice and lack of electricity last week I think I missed exercising every single day. And of course the menu was out the window, obviously. One bright spot is that I had just changed the sheets (on laundry day Monday) so they were still clean this week when the lights finally came back on :D. While I cannot think of an even mildly acceptable excuse for not exercising Monday or Tuesday of this week, I'm going to go ahead and let it slide. :) . I can't really undo it now anyway. Today we became mall walkers. I had totally forgotten you could even do that until someone (Celeste? I don't recall now) mentioned it a week or two ago. I dropped D-ball at school and came home, and B wasn't home from work yet. So I started my breakfast; unloaded, reloaded and started the dishwasher; and changed clothes. When Bryson was home and we had both eaten we drove down there. We went twice around the whole mall, which only took us about 35 minutes. Bryson suggested we go a...

Our lights finally came on around 1:15pm this afternoon. We had gone for lunch, and apparently about 5 minutes before we returned they lit up. Hallelujah! Obviously we had to spend last night again at the Wheelers. The Superbowl was on, and the boys played games with us and watched the game some (I think). Mostly Donnie enjoyed the Superbowl. This morning we packed everything up and got D-ball off to school. We went ahead and took all of our stuff with us, to get it out of Celeste's hair so she could get on with her day. We stopped at Sonic for breakfast (okay,*I* stopped for breakfast, but B ended up eating half my breakfast burrito plus the tots). I had the drink all day- and never did manage to drink it all. We were hoping the hair school would be open so B could get his hair cut, but it wasn't and he didn't want to pay $10 at the walmarts. :( We came hope and visited with the dogs, actually we drove India around with us for a while. Gizmo refused to come in ...

when the light hits it:

I am becoming increasingly disgruntled. I realize it's completely irrational, and the folks working on the power lines likely are not intentionally leaving me without power. The first 5 nights I think I handled it well enough. They told me last night at midnight I would have electricity. Then they moved it back to noon today. Now it's purportedly midnight tonight. For some reason I want to scream, but I know it wouldn't help. D-ball has school tomorrow, and I hate that. We're enjoying the Hotel de Wheeler for the 6th night in a row (aren't you glad you aren't them?) and I really just want to sleep in my own bed. Tonight. For real. I went ahead and put D-Balls clothes and lunch together for tomorrow, and it probably will be best for him to get back to his routine. I'm thinking of ending that particular routine though and possibly homeschooling him next year. Mostly I'm concerned that he's not doing as well as he could be because he's be...