Starting from scratch

Things have been at a complete stand still in the Soup household the last few weeks.  We moved R.Soup over to her own room because she kept waking up at 3:30 in the morning to hang out with her mama.  No thank you my dear sweet baby love.

She hasn't been having a hard time going to bed.  Some nights she even sleeps all the way through to morning.  But then there are other nights where she wakes up multiple times throughout the night and I'm the only one that she wants to see.

I've spent the last few weeks trying to recoup from the the previous weeks when I was being allotted approximately 3 hours of sleep during the night.  

We've been making a point to go to sleep as soon as the girls are asleep, so that I'm not dying the next day.  Mess has been piling and piling and piling, and I haven't even thought about the projects going on in the basement.  On nights that we don't go to bed, we sit on the couch and watch some TV and hold our breath (well at least I do) waiting to hear crying coming through the monitor.

I finally broke down last week and invited people over to the house for a Sunday get together.  Which forced us to frantically clean the main level of the house in prep for them coming over.  I wouldn't care if it was a normal level of mess.  But this was hoarder style disgusting mess and was starting to affect my daily outlook.

So now the main level of the house looks... better.  Like 1000 times better but still not what I think it should look like.  But as long as we can keep up with this level of clean, we can work towards my dream clean.  Minus toys.  Nothing ever looks clean when its covered in a rainbow of baby toys.  Honestly I'm not (always) bothered by them.  Its the inch fine coating of sand under them that bothers me.

Upstairs on the other hand.  Disaster area.  Our old mattress is still standing up in the hallway outside our bedroom.  The cats have claimed it as their new climbing tree since its the highest place they can be.  I'm afraid at this point they might revolt when we move it out.  There's boxes of hand-me-down baby related things (mostly clothes... MORE clothes) that need to be washed and sorted.  I have a ton of things lying around currently that I want to put into the bathroom, but haven't had any time to actually WORK on the bathroom.

In addition to THAT - because that's not enough and I want you to truly understand the state I've allowed our house to get to - there's four... FOUR loads of clean baby laundry.  We also have one or two loads of our laundry.  We only have 4 laundry baskets. That means one of the "baskets" is dumped on the floor somewhere.  And the dirty clothes hampers are starting to fill up again.  It never ends.

Okay.  But enough about clothes mess.

Sometime in the last month, the light in our ceiling fan stopped working.  So the majority of the time that we spend in our bedroom we have to use our phones as flashlights and have the hall and bathroom lights on so we can actually see things.

D.Soup bought a kit to fix it the other day, but accidentally bought the ceiling fan kit instead of the light kit.  So now we are back at square one.

I think I'm finally finding a groove (and the energy) where - if R.Soup stays asleep - I can get things done.  I did what felt like a million things on Wednesday night when I got back downstairs.  I'm hoping I can keep that pace up.

Also, I need to be starting back over on an exercise regimen. Once I stopped sleeping, I stopped caring about my 30 day challenge.  Which is unfortunate because I had made it to day 14.  I'm going to start that back up here soon, and hopefully stick it out for the entire 30 days.  I'd also like to pick up with some "running" sometime in the near future.

Here's hoping I can get back on some kind of schedule soon.

Milestones

R.Soup has hit a few milestones in the last few weeks.  She's scooting backwards all over the floor.  She's so close to sitting up on her own.  She had her first taste of real food a few days ago.

And then, just Monday night... This:

That's my baby.  All alone.  In the CRIB!  Gah.

I almost couldn't lay her down because I was so sad.  It couldn't be time for this already!  But then I remembered the night before.  Her waking up quite a few times just to hang out.  With me.  Her father wasn't cutting it.

So I plunked her down in the crib and ran.  And then stared at the monitor for the rest of the night.

She did great!  Slept from 9ish until 3:30.  It took until about 5 to get her back to sleep.  And again she only wanted me (...yay).  But when she went back to sleep again she stayed asleep until 8.

Last night was not as great, but I think it was more my fault than hers.  I honestly am not completely sure, but it took 2 hours to get her to sleep finally.  Then she woke up around 3 and again around 5:30.  That second time I had D.Soup go get her because I just couldn't convince myself to get out of the bed.

We have been soooo late to work this week.

Mattress in a box

We moved out of our old house right when RoomStore was going out of business.  It was perfect timing for us because we were in desperate need of a new bed, since we had trashed ours when we moved out of our old house and had spent the first few months sleeping on a deflated air mattress on the floor.  It was almost like camping.  Sort of.  Not really.

We ended up with a king size pillow top mattress that at the beginning felt like magic.  It was so soft, and comfortable.  And then a few months went by, and you could only sleep in two places on the bed because any time you moved anywhere else you rolled right back into the hole.  It was annoying, but we dealt with it because its ridiculous to buy a new bed after less than 2 years.

Like I said before, D.Soup was gone for work all last week.  While he was gone someone recommended the Sleep Innovations 10 inch mattress from Amazon.  They personally had purchased multiple forms of this bed and were very pleased with it.  That was enough to get D.Soup debating on making the purchase.  Once he got home and slept on our bed again - waking up in the morning with a sore back and knees after a week pain free - the deal was done.  That night he placed an order and Monday afternoon our bed was waiting for us when we got home.

What is that, you say?  That doesn't look like a bed?  Well don't be fooled....

That right there is a genuine king size foam mattress.

I wish I would have gotten video of this sucker opening up when we cut the vacuum seal open.  It was hilarious.  It reminded me of those little shapes you would get as a child and when you put them under water they turned into wash clothes. 

I don't know these people, and this is not my video.  But this is the mattress we ended up with, and they took the step that I didn't think of and recorded opening the mattress.  This is exactly how ours went too.

We a few nights in to sleeping on the bed.  More like "sleeping" for me, but D.Soup seems happy with it so far.  I got a better nights sleep the last few nights and I'm feeling pretty good today, so I'm happy with his purchase.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with the king size mattress in my hallway.

Where Mz.Soup gets to make (most of) Dinner

I don't get to make dinner often anymore.  A baby with hunger cries you could set a watch to and a toddler that wants to "help" me do everything puts a damper on that whole leisurely making dinner thing.  Even if I start making dinner I usually have to pass the torch over to D.Soup in the middle so I can give my attention somewhere else.  

We had some chicken in the refrigerator, and I had some fresh tomatoes and green beans from Pappy's garden.  So I headed to Skinnytaste for some recommendations and ended up landing on these two recipes:

Roasted Parmesan Green Beans

Grilled Chicken Bruschetta

Both recipes only took about 15 minutes each once the vegetables were prepped.  It was a perfect quick meal that allowed D.Soup to grill the chicken and me to deal with the vegetable portion while passing R.Soup back and forth.  Luckily, L.Soup didn't take a nap yesterday so she had passed out in the car on the way home.  She slept on the couch through the entire dinner making process.

Not so luckily, she was not very friendly for the rest of the evening.  

On fancy dinnerware.

L.Soup attitude issues aside.  This was by far one of the best dinners we have had in a long time.  Definitely both options will be added into our dinner menu mix frequently from here on out.

Why do kids fight napping so much?

I would nap every day if someone let me.

And I wouldn't get fired.

Not quite sleeping

The last few nights, R.Soup has not exactly been sleeping.  I'm pretty sure she's in the middle of a growth spurt because the only way to comfort her when she wakes up is to feed her.  I know this is a fact, because I had D.Soup take her for a little while at 3 am on Monday night, and she just stared in my direction and screamed the entire 15 minutes until I gave in and took her back.  The little angel.

The last two nights were poorly placed (for me) since I'm still trying to recover from last weeks 5:30 every day wake up call culminating with Friday's no-sleepathon.

Let me start over.

D.Soup went away for work last week.  So while he was gone, instead of trying to get the girls and the dog into the car every morning on my own and still make it to work before 10 am, I stayed on my parents couch.  Each day I got up at 5:30 and snuck out before anyone was awake. 

(Side note, is snuck not a word?  I'm getting yelled at by spell check)

The problem with this is that I would still stay up until 11 or later each night, so I wasn't getting much sleep to begin with.  Then the last day we were there, L.Soup decided she didn't want to go to bed, and laid in her bed singing the ABCs until about 11:15.  I waited a little while, and went to bed around 11:45.

At midnight I heard R.Soup.  Of course.  And OF COURSE, every time I tried to put her back down, she would wake up and cry again.  So she and I ended up snuggling the rest of the night morning.  When I went to tell my mom I was leaving, I noticed L.Soup wasn't in her bed.  I had a moment of panic, before I found her snuggled down in between my parents in THEIR bed.

So it wasn't a good sleeping night for anyone.  

I got a little reprieve Friday and Saturday nights, and some extra time in bed both mornings while D.Soup handled the girls downstairs and made breakfast.  But I was finally coming back out of my haze when Sunday night hit and she woke up every 2 hours on the dot.  And then Monday night was basically the same.  I was in the middle of staining a crate in the basement when I heard her.  I had D.Soup go try to rock her back to sleep, and it worked for a while.  Just long enough in fact for me to get the stain off my hands (more on that later).

I pretty much spent the whole night sitting up in our brand new bed.  Until that 3 am situation, and I just couldn't muster the energy to sit up anymore.  So then I woke up to this:

I sleep great when I'm right next to mom.

And when its time to get up for the day.

Last night I didn't have the energy to even think about anything but sleeping by the time the girls were in bed.  I managed to make my way back downstairs, only to trudge right back upstairs and pass out.

At least she's cute.

I need a system

The biggest thing I forgot about having an infant is how much time you have to dedicate to just being with them.  Between feedings, diaper changes, playing, and just holding them in between activities, there's no time for me to get anything done until she's in bed.  I love playing and spending time with her so I'm not really complaining, there's just a ton of things that I need to get done around the house. 

The few times I'm not holding her during the day, I don't really want to work on cleaning up the house.  I either want to relax for a few minutes, or more often, play with L.Soup. 

Needless to say, any amount of housework either gets done by D.Soup, by me one-handedly (always entertaining) or in minimal amounts after the girls are asleep. 

I've tried to make a daily to do list of things to accomplish on the cleaning front each day, but I always end up behind.  Or distracted.

I did a little googling, and I found Todoist.  This site allows me to build to do lists, set due dates and even recurring due dates so I can set up a cleaning schedule for myself each week.  There's even an app so I can look at and check off action items on my phone as I'm doing them. 

I've transferred my regular document full of things to do over, and I'm going to test it out for the next few weeks to see if it actually helps me stay on track.  Its nice to be able to assign specific dates to everything, so I only have to focus on what's up that day when I look at the list in "calendar" format.

I've also scheduled in those "once in a while" tasks, like adding a cleaning tab into the water tank of the toilets and running a cleaning cycle in the washing machine once a month.  Those are things that I always think about doing at the absolute inopportune time.  So hopefully this will help me to be better about actually keeping up with them.

D.Soup is coming home today from a work trip.  So I'm going to really start keeping up with it tomorrow.  I've been trying to do some stuff here and there this week, but we'll see how it actually works out starting tomorrow.

In addition to a cleaning list, I've created a "Projects" list.  I've listed out all the steps I need to complete for all the different crafting projects I've got planned out currently.  I'm hoping this will force me to actually finish (or start) the projects I currently have going before I decided to start working on something else.

For example, I currently have 31 steps listed out in the Projects list.  

 Reel yourself in MzSoup, just stop.

Back?

So I maintained basic radio silence for the last few months.  I figured:

1. It was too early to tell anyone at the onset that I was growing a person...
2. All I really had to talk about was how horrible I was feeling. I'm one of those lucky women that apparently experiences constant morning sickness throughout the first trimester.  Yay.
3. How many people really want to hear about how I feel like I'm going to pass out or barf every day? 
4. Because of said morning sickness I generally did nothing all day.  I would stare at my computer and forced myself to complete tasks at work.  Once I got home from work all bets were off.  Other than attempting to mildly amuse L.Soup I was useless to everyone around me.  I tried to be useless to her too, but she wasn't having it.
5. This included any projects that I had been working on before I found out about the little person.

Well, it seems that I'm starting to come out of the haze.  Still a little tired, but generally excited about starting back up on some projects.  I'm currently working on some signs for my youngest nephew's 2nd birthday party this weekend.  Because I'm on a little bit of a time crunch, my mom is going to be super awesome and help with some of the gluing.  She's totally amazing because that is the.worst.part. I think, at least.

I'll try to remember to take some pictures of them at the party.  Here's some of the samples:

Obviously, it's Finding Nemo themed...

Cupcake Toppers

Banner

Also, thanks to my little mini vacation last week (aka, the furlough) I got everything set up and D.Soup to help me start taping the wall so I can FINALLY finish the foyer.  It's been killing me that it's not done, so hopefully SOON.

We also put up some Halloween decorations outside, and I took some terrible pictures.  Once I get some better ones, I'll try to post them here too.  I have every intention of doing some more Halloween related crafts, but it may very well end up just being L.Soup's costume.

I'm keeping my expectations of myself low so I don't get too disappointed.

Side Note: A look into my shambles of a life

I am not a morning person, even on my best day... and we know that currently NO day over the past month is anywhere close to being considered "my best day."

This morning I got up at 5:30 am (WHAT) and took a shower.

D.Soup also got up, to take Calli out because she was huffing and puffing in her crate.

As I am struggling to keep my eyes open in the shower, I almost fall over and have to prop myself up on the wall. I am actually impressed that I actually managed to get myself clean, shampooed and conditioned... I think I might have even got a little shave action in at the underarms. But I can't remember.

I come back into the bedroom to find Calli back in her crate and D.Soup back in bed.

What are you doing?

Waiting for you to get out of the shower.

Why are you in bed?

Because I wanted to cuddle you.

Well, what time are we getting up?

I guess now.

...And I immediately burst into tears.

I don't remember exactly what I said, because most of it was gibberish. But I do remember something along the lines of "All I want is to lay back down and you get to lay down and now you want to get back up and I always get up before you and......"

So we climbed back in bed and slept until about 7:15.

I still didn't want to get up then.



Whenever I do end up having kids, I just know they are going to end up being "morning people." They are going to wake up at 5 am all happy and bubbly and make me bitter towards them for a little while because we're both awake and they are completely okay with that fact.

Because someone, somewhere, hates me.

I have a Short Fuse

I am a happy person.

I smile and laugh and have a bounce in my step. I do not shoot death glares at anyone that moves in a way I don't think they should be.

Normally.

This week has been an exception.

I thought it was maybe just the experiences that I've been having this week.

But I started thinking about it today, and decided it might be part of the symptoms of my potential hypothyroidism.

(Which, by the way, I'm still waiting to hear back on -- Manuel, whoever you are... I know you don't read my blog but CALL ME BACK NOW. kthxbi.)

I have dubbed myself the Hulk.

So I googled, because that's what I do when I need the answer to something. Google knows everything.

Turns out, I could be right. Its most likely a mixture of the hypothyroidism and my complete and utter exhaustion, which are basically the same thing... but whatever.

This whole theory is going to be completely ruined,
if they tell me that my test results came back normal.

More of the Same

Here we are, another day, and I again have nothing really exciting to write about...

I need to come up with some really good stuff to talk about. I'm just not creative at the moment.

Calli has a vet appointment today. She gets her last shots, and then she'll be allowed to start puppy training school. She can also be scheduled for her surgery. She has an umbilical hernia, and usually they get removed when they are spayed, but the rescue we got her from didn't have it done when they sent her to the vet to get neutered. I've been anxiously waiting to be able to schedule it, because I'm nervous she's going to do something and hurt it. So I'm pretty excited for both of those things to happen. We've been working with her at home for some things, and she's gotten really good at "come", "stay" and "sit"... most of the time, and sometimes lay down but . So hopefully she'll do well in puppy school.

I'm anxiously awaiting the results from my second blood test. I have a feeling its going to come back the same as the other, because I'm still tired all the time. I didn't get to take a nap yesterday, and I walked around the grocery store like a zombie. I also couldn't find my keys, which were in my purse the whole time. Then I went home and made dinner, and told D.Soup (who had just finished playing an entire game of soccer - 1.5 hours ish... without a sub) that I was "hurting" because I hadn't got a nap in.

He laughed at me.

Good news though, we made a bunch of awesome food this weekend: Chicken Enchiladas, Taco Dip, Chicken Parmesan. Now I don't know if I used too much of something, but if you are not so much a heat fan, be careful with the Chicken Enchiladas... they were very spicy.

My friend at work introduced me to the Glee station on AOL Radio.... I have been listening to it for 3 weeks straight now. I am a giant Gleek, have been since the show started. I've been dying for it to start back up again. The fact that Glee Radio started playing the songs from the new episode makes me so unbelievably excited that said new episode airs TONIGHT!

All I can say is: It's about time.

I need a profile picture.

Walk Like an Egyptian

D.Soup is going to game two of the Capitals playoffs tonight... That's hockey playoffs, if anyone -miraculously- ends up reading this who is not our friend and doesn't know our love of the sport. I often ask him why he doesn't take ME to the games that he ends up going to... and he never really gives me an answer (hurumph)... Lucky for HIM, these tickets were some that someone ELSE had, and invited HIM...

What this means though, is I have some time to myself. This also means I'm going to try to avoid having a panic attack every time I hear a noise in my house until he gets home...

I'm going to give the freezer paper stencils a try tonight. I picked out my first visual... Three ballerina images across the bottom side and front, with pointe shoes hanging down the back. I'm not describing it very well, but I have a good picture of it in my head. I pulled these images from the interwebs:
I was a ballerina for almost 15 years, so pictures like this always make me happy. I actually had a really hard time picking out just a few... but since the first three images all look at least similar I figured they would make for a good combination. I thought it would be a good first attempt.

I'm pretty excited to see how it actually works out. I drew the stencils last night, but forgot to take a picture of them when they were finished. I have to stop at the store today and pick up an Xacto knife.

In other news, went back the the doctor yesterday... and gave more blood. Ugh. Apparently the blood tests came back with information that needed retesting. The other test I had on Monday came back normal. Double Ugh.

The doctor said that I might, MIGHT have hypothyroidism. Which was on my list of options from before... but they like to retest to be sure, because sometimes it comes back "off" one time and then the next time comes back normal. So if this next test comes back low, then she's going to put me on a low dose thyroid and see if it levels me back out again. The test they did was called TSH, and shows how much thyroid stimulating hormone is in my blood. She said the normal amount for TSH is anywhere between 0.4 and 4. Mine was 5.6, since it's high that means I might have an under-active thyroid. She said it isn't terribly high, so she's not sure if it would be causing me to be this tired... but we'll see. Considering I have more than half of the other symptoms, I'm just going to stick with the idea that is actually what's wrong with me. We shall see.

Hopefully that wasn't terribly confusing. Apparently I looked COMPLETELY confused yesterday when the doctor was trying to explain everything to me. She asked me about 15 times if I understood what she was saying.

---

Are you sure you followed all of that?

Yes, YES I understand. I read all about this a week ago when I was deciding to make this appointment.

*uncertain look*

---

...I almost wish that I could have seen my face, because apparently - to her - it was the epitome of "durrrrrrrrr"... I'm imagining it to look sort of like this...
I think that might be my listening face... which means I look confused almost half of the day. Awesome.

The title of this post has nothing to do with anything inside it.

And I'm done.

Happy (Rainy) Hump Day!

It's Wednesday.

That's about the extent of my insight.

I sat and stared at my blog yesterday for about 4 hours, trying to think of something interesting to write about. Obviously I never came up with anything, since there was no post. I finally decided that nothing happened Monday that was worthy of talking about. Other than my doctor's appointment. I figured it was better if I DIDN'T talk you through that, as it was a mildly traumatic experience for me and I didn't want to put anyone else through that without being face to face with them. The story involves a lot of whispering and face making, and is much better and less terrifying in person. I should find out today if anything came from the tests.

It WAS decided yesterday that I am trading the "my husband" for D.Soup. I guess that makes me A.Soup... or Mz.Soup. That makes me happy.

One of my friends at work sent out a link to a post at The Oatmeal this morning. She then turned around and informed me that THIS:

reminds her of me. Which is completely accurate. That's actually the exact list of terrifying things that goes through my brain if I have somehow managed to end up at home, alone, when its dark out. So thanks to The Oatmeal for portraying my terror so accurately.

On a different note... Calli had a playdate yesterday. With a half grown Bull Mastiff. Which means he's about 8 times her size and that his back came up to my waist. It was a little overwhelming, for all of us. I took a few pictures of them when they finally calmed down and were distracted by chew toys with D.Soup's phone. But since I fail at this whole "I'm going to upload pictures to my computer" concept, we'll see how long it takes for them to get here.

The girls in my office have been doing Weight Watchers. It's really been working for them. They talk about it all the time and have me looking at websites with Weight Watcher friendly recipes. So I talked to one of my friends about it and we've decided to start "Fake Watchers." Most of the information that you need from the real Weight Watchers meetings is available online, for free. The other part of WW that is really helpful for most people is the weekly weigh-in and support group. We are going to be each others support and record weekly weigh-ins where we both can see the results. We just started yesterday, so we'll see how it goes. I think this will be good for me, because I obviously don't have energy to work out after work and all I want to do is sleep all the time, so I'm gaining weight even though I'm not eating any more than before.

I picked up my loom to work on the infinity scarf a little more last night. Got about 10 lines in, then curled up in a ball on the couch and went to sleep. It was 9 pm. Doug woke me up about an hour later so that we could go to bed.

I think I've squeezed everything possible out of my brain.

Monday You Could Fall Apart

This weekend was busy.

Friday I went to my doctor's appointment. And then immediately left after the nurse at the desk told me that the wrong test had been scheduled (my fault) and that the prep was different for what I actually needed. Meaning that those 6 hours I starved myself were, in fact, unnecessary. I am going back today, and just need to drink 32 ounces of water an hour before. Hopefully they figure something out soon because I'm over feeling like I've got a knife sticking out of my abdomen.

Saturday I went to the movies with some friends. We saw Lincoln Lawyer (which was awesome) and HOP (which was good, but not what I had expected). I then went to Michael's and bought some of the craft stuff that I needed for the weekend. I then went home and took a nap because I was so tired. I actually remember at one point waking up to Calli barking at me/my husband, and actually starting to cry because "all I want to do is sleep and you keep waking me up." I obviously reverted to about 6 years old. This is what my exhaustion has forced me to become.

Sunday I got up, without any pain (victory!). I then had to wait for my husband to get up so I didn't have to leave Calli alone. She gets lonely. So finally I set off to the grocery store, and spent $50 on juice, cake mix and half of the ingredients for dinner that night. I think there was more in there, but that's all it felt like I had when I got to the register.

So I spent all day slaving over Cake Pops. Which are super cute and DELICIOUS. But quiet tedious to make. Not difficult, tedious. I took pictures of the process... but I think I forgot to take pictures of the finished product, so I fail. But I only made about half of them, so I have more to make soon! I'll be sure to do a better job with the finished product pictures next time. I'll hopefully get a chance to post them tonight, I was too lazy last night.

UPDATE... Here's the pictures, finally:

Started off with WAAYYYY too much cake

Rolled into ballsFinished Product

We also made an awesome dinner, which I took pictures of too. It was Salmon and Pasta with Asparagus and it was AMAZING. It was so amazing that we even sat at the dinner table instead of sitting on the couch with TV trays. That's saying something.

Action picture of my husband helping with dinner.

Hello lovelyClose up of the awesomeness

I also finished my newest pair of fingerless gloves, which I'm going to post on Etsy (tonight hopefully). So that will force me to transfer all the other pictures from yesterday to my computer. I was wayyyy too lazy to do it last night. I'll make sure to link the pictures of the new gloves also. I want to start working on a matching infinity scarf tonight also. It will be my first try, so we'll see how that goes.

Alas, I woke up this morning and got ready for work. When I got in my car, my abdomen started hurting all over again, and it hasn't stopped all day. I'm starting to think it's work related. Hah.

I need to come up with a better name for my husband.
I'm tired of typing "my husband."
I tried Hubby, and it just doesn't feel right.

Randomness

I was going to write this big long post of random junk this morning. And I was very excited about it. But then I had a meeting at 10, and then stuff to do out of that meeting (boo!). So I got distracted and never got to start...

Let's see if I can remember everything.

Numero Uno:
I went to the doctor yesterday. They took SIX VIALS of my blood. It's the first time I ever thought I was going to pass out while having blood drawn. The girl did an awesome job thought, and she was very worried about me the whole time (I get panicky around needles). I don't even have a bruise! That's unheard of for me!

So basically the doctor had about 1,290,584,376,904,819,327 things that could possibly be wrong with me, since now I have two problems - the exhaustion (mentioned before) and a new pain that started on Wednesday in my lower right abdomen. My body is falling apart for some reason, awesome.

Some of the things that I had already discovered MIGHT be the cause were on the list of things for the lab to check in my blood, so that was kind of neat. I also have to go today to get an ultrasound for them to check my (overshare) ovaries for cysts. I haven't been allowed to eat anything since 10:30 am... luckily I'm not starving today.


Numero Dos:
The government is still working on their decision-making. If they don't figure something out today/this weekend, I won't be working on Monday. I'm torn between being fairly stoked about this, to being nervous. I would really love a few days off to get my house back in order and to KNIT and to just generally get my life back together. But at the same time I don't want to not work. I also don't want to get excited about having some time off and then wake up Monday and have to come in... that would make me sad.


Numero Tres:
I'm thinking about making these this weekend, they look so delicious:

Numero Quatro:
Reading through other peoples blogs makes me want to be a more crafty person. I think I am going to go out this weekend and buy this book SouleMama:

Numero Cinco:
I also want to give freezer paper stencils a try and make some t-shirts. Maybe I can post a few of them on my Etsy site if they come out cute. That would be an awesome summer addition to the knitting stuff. I've been trying to think of something to make for the summer. I'm kind of excited.

But.. look at how cool this is! I really want to try it.

I need more time to be crafty.
And a bigger house to store my crafts.

I'm exhausted...

ALL THE TIME anymore. It's really starting to get annoying. For example, it is currently 10:30 am, and I could lay my head down on my desk at work RIGHT NOW and go to sleep, no problem.

I thought I had fixed the problem, when I discovered that my "Active Metabolism" vitamin that I was taking every day had the same amount of caffeine in each pill as if I was chugging 4 cans of Coke every morning. I thought, "no WONDER I'm so exhausted at 4 pm every single day, I'm crashing out of my caffeine high." So I stopped taking them, and said "I'll give myself a few days to get them out of my system and I'll be back to normal" NOPE.

I thought maybe I wasn't getting enough sleep. But I've been sleeping the same amount of time for years now, and usually do pretty well once I've had an hour or so to get adjusted to being awake again. So it could be this, and the fact that I'm getting older is just not allowing me to soldier through the way I could when I was in college. OPTION 1.

I also thought about sleep apnea, because I wake up in the middle of the night ALL THE DAMN TIME. But I don't really snore, so I don't know if that's really an option. I guess I should still label it. OPTION 2.

So of course, now I'm doing research. I'm not a hypochondriac, I don't automatically assume since I've got some of the symptoms of these illnesses that it HAS to be what's wrong with me. I just like to know my options -- because there could actually be something "wrong", instead of me just randomly being tired all the time.

UPDATE: It's now 11:15 am, and I no longer feel that I have to fight to keep my head upright and my eyes open.

Anemia symptoms - Dizziness or light-headedness (especially when standing up or with exertion), FATIGUE or lack of energy, Headaches, Problems concentrating, Shortness of breath (especially during exercise), Problems thinking, Tingling. Now I'm not exactly 100% on the "Tingling," but I know I've experienced all the other things listed off. Although I must admit that the dizziness and shortness of breath during exercise is MOST LIKELY because I haven't been exercising and I'm overweight. OPTION 3.

Hypothyroidism symptoms - Feeling TIRED, WEAK, or depressed, Dry skin and brittle nails, Not being able to stand the cold, Memory problems or having trouble thinking clearly. OPTION 4.

It could also be the aforementioned overweightness... Which I have plans of dealing with, if I can ever make it home without almost falling asleep in the car because I'm SO TIRED. We were actually supposed to start P90 last night, but it was 8:30 by the time we got home and had dinner and I said NO. OPTION 5.

I'm also going to post this as an option, even though I know it's most likely not the case: I could be pregnant. I know it's not really an option because my body has been making me think I'm pregnant for about 4 months now, and every time I start to believe it and then POOF (overshare...) there's my period. So I'm going to list it, but I'm not really considering it. OPTION 6.

So this is my current dilemma. I'm trying to figure out how to deal with it. I've been trying to let it work itself out of my system for about a month now, I think I've given it just about enough time. If I can't get it figured out on my own, I'm going to be "that person" and go to the doctor because I'm tired. I'd rather not do that.

Also, my husband is not helping. He's starting to get "irritated" at me because I never want to do ANYTHING anymore. No exercising, no housework, nothing... I just can't motivate. I also can't figure out how to explain to him and actually have him understand that I don't know why I'm so tired all the time, and that I can't help that I lay down on the couch every afternoon and sleep. I said to him this morning that we have a bunch of stuff that needs to get done around the house and he goes "I know, I've been trying to do stuff but you are always sleeping." So now I feel frustrated at myself for being tired, frustrated at him for not understanding, and guilty all at the same time.

And now I'm going to stop because this has almost crossed the line from "rant/research" to "sob story."

Moral of the story:
Being this tired all the time is abnormal for me.
I do not approve.