I’m currently [...]]]>

What do you do when you know that your week will be off and that there will be little resemblance of a schedule?  Do you push yourself to maintain some normalcy where you can or do you simply throw your hands up in the area and let it all go?

I’m currently stuck in limbo.  As you all know, striving to find a schedule again has been a big aim of mine over the past few days.  I went to the gym three mornings last week and I started eating fairly normal again.  Then the weekend hit with the massive storm and I was completely thrown off any resemblance of normalcy.  No big deal.

Yet, sitting here Monday morning, I do not know when or how I will get into a rhythm or flow for this week.  Today, most places are closed.  The roads are still pretty bad around here and they are saying do not drive unless you have to. And the best part is that we are supposed to get 6-10 more inches of snow starting tomorrow through Wednesday. While I still have to work, I can’t seem to motivate myself to do the simple things around the house that need to be done, like laundry or taking a shower.

So my week is filled with a bunch of question marks:

*Will I have tutoring today????

*Will I have tutoring on Wednesday???

*Will the dry cleaners ever be open again so I can pick up our stuff?

*Kids around here may not go to school all week (Friday is looking like their best chance) and they only went two days last week.  Will these kids have enough material to tutor?

*Which days will I be able to make it to the gym in the morning?

*Justin is on travel most of the week, so will I be able to do all the shoveling alone (I think so!)?

*Is it even worth going to the grocery store this week?  Seeing it’ll only be me, can I get by with just digging into the cupboard/freezer?

I feel like I am chocking this week up to a lost week.  I’ll write and hopefully I’ll be able to tutor.  Everything else, including the gym and grocery store is going to be a day time decision.  I have to say, I’m ready for a nice warm, sunny, spring day where I can work outside on my front porch.

To Smile.

This post probably will be the closest to a love letter or sentimental as I get, even around Valentine’s day. Anyway….

My entire life I have aimed to be self sufficient.  By age 2 or 3, I already was making my bed daily.  What toddler makes their bed?  Quickly other habits [...]]]>

Image by firemedic58 via Flickr

This post probably will be the closest to a love letter or sentimental as I get, even around Valentine’s day. Anyway….

My entire life I have aimed to be self sufficient.  By age 2 or 3, I already was making my bed daily.  What toddler makes their bed?  Quickly other habits followed suit.  I think I behaved this way because I wanted to prove I could do everything the big kids could do.  I am the youngest of six children so I guess I wanted to show that I could do everything on my own.  This concept has been a fairly major personality trait for me, with varying levels of successes and failures.  Simply put, I want to be able to do everything on my own and never want to ask for help.

By high school, this notion had morphed into a fiscal self sufficiency.  I knew that I wanted to be in a position where I could earn money and that I wouldn’t be reliant on someone else.  Sure, people can definitely argue the earning potential of a political science degree but the belief that I would always be employable was a huge motivating factor for getting my master’s degree.

With every relationship I ever had, I always had a contingency plan in place.  If all goes wrong, I will do X, Y, or Z.  This plan did come into play once, in 2003, and I can proudly admit that the plan worked like a dream.  Even while dating Justin, possibly even at the beginning of our marriage, I still carried this mindset.  Sure, having a husband was nice to lift heavy objects, unscrew particularly tight pasta jar lids and the dual income didn’t hurt but I wouldn’t be crippled if something happened.

But I have to admit that something has happened and it terrifies me, more than anything else on the face of the earth.

I have realized that at one point, over the last three years of marriage, my being became more important and secure as a half of a whole than it ever has been or will be on its own. My own death does not scare me nearly as much as that of my husband.  I simply cannot fathom life without him anymore.  There is no contingency plan, just a low level fear and anxiety of the “what-if” variety.

Sure, I plan, hope and pray to grow old with Justin and then miraculously die together in the middle of the night at a ripe old age when we’ve decided we’ve seen it all and had enough.  Then, I remember the family I come from.  I come from a family of female widows.  My grandmother has outlived my grandfather already by a few years, but I view this as fairly normal.  My mother became a widow at age 59.  Not normal and definitely early.  My oldest sister became a widow at age 39.  Shocking.

I have come to realize that I rely and need my husband more than I ever thought I did or would need another human being and we don’t even have children yet.  When did this happen? I have no idea.  I am happy and pleased to have another person in my life that means so much, but I have to say the aspect of vulnerability that this creates is a bit troublesome.

Simply put, apparently I love and need my husband more than I would have ever believed.  Now here’s to a long and healthy life together.

To Smile.

As much as I keep trying to get back on a schedule, something new throws me off!  This morning, it was the 5 inches of snow that we have outside.  I was not about to get up and head to the gym, so the alarm got delayed until 7:30AM.  At least I [...]]]>

Image via Wikipedia

As much as I keep trying to get back on a schedule, something new throws me off!  This morning, it was the 5 inches of snow that we have outside.  I was not about to get up and head to the gym, so the alarm got delayed until 7:30AM.  At least I got up and hit the gym yesterday morning, right?  Justin and I did bundle up and start shoveling almost immediately, so I can count that for a small cardio workout.

I am feeling better though.  Quite a bit better to be accurate.  I would say I’m at about 80% now.  That makes me very happy.  I have had a productive week so far, with lots of good writing assignments and tutoring everyday. I am some how reacquiring a sense of schedule and life.

Recently, I signed up to be a Loudoun County Caregiver.  Essentially, the caregivers provide transportation to doctors offices, grocery store, etc to the mainly the elderly.  This afternoon I’m driving a woman to the dialysis.  Hopefully the roads will be clear by then.  It really does make me feel good about myself knowing that I am taking my time to help someone in need, especially with a medical procedure that doesn’t care if it is snowing or not.  While my time is important and I see time as money, taking an hour or so out of my day to help someone else means more than the $15-$20 that I’ll miss out on.

Boring post, I know.  I’m trying to get back into the rhythm of blogging.  It is shocking how unentertaining and interesting my writing can become when I take a break.  I think it is because I do not think about interesting topics to write about during the day, instead I just sat down and decided to wing it.  Winging it doesn’t really produce quality, does it?  Better things to come, I promise!

Today’s aims:

* Write 4-5 articles that are due

*Medical Transport

*Tutoring (school was cancelled here so not sure if this is happening)

*Gym

That shouldn’t be too tough!  And I am off!

To Smile.

When you go through the past few days that I have been through, a main goal is to avoid ever doing this to myself again.  I completely had lost all quality of life, just staying in bed all day, not eating or really drinking anything.  Nothing stayed down.  Simply trying to kill time and hoping [...]]]>

When you go through the past few days that I have been through, a main goal is to avoid ever doing this to myself again.  I completely had lost all quality of life, just staying in bed all day, not eating or really drinking anything.  Nothing stayed down.  Simply trying to kill time and hoping to feel better.  I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t improving.  When I was this sick, I could careless about my writing, my work, my happiness, or even taking a shower.  Being an intelligent person, I figured that I need to take a moment and look back to figure out how I could have avoided this situation.

And the #1 reason I can come up with is:

Stop being so stubborn.

I was positive that I could avoid going to the doctor.  That I could self medicate myself with a liquid/low residue diet.  My stomach had started bothering me around Christmas and then got much worse right after New Year’s.  I spent nearly a month attempting to ignore that I have this disease (Crohn’s) and act like I could shake this off.  I really wanted to avoid going on Prednisone and I thought it would be a waste of money going to the doctor.  I figured all he was going to do was to put me on Prednisone and that be that.

Maybe if I had gone to the doctor that week after New Year’s, all he would have had to do was put me on some Prednisone, which I have since determined is definitely not the end of the world.

Instead, I waited for three weeks and I managed to get myself into some scarier medical complications.  Basically, I got lucky and have a caring doctor who was willing to try some other steps before admitting me or doing surgery. Otherwise, I could easily be in the hospital right now, hooked up to IV’s to help rehydrate myself and a nice little medical procedure to help my stomach. Instead, after I begged to avoid surgery and he agreed to let me try some drugs at home to see if they would help. The medications that he has put me on now definitely is much worse than Prednisone (and which I am also on ).  Now I truly have a hard time getting out of bed and doing anything because I am so sick.  But in this case, I have to be sicker before I can get better.  I believe that I’ll be on the road to recovery by tomorrow.

Anyway….if I had just gone to the stupid doctor weeks ago, I wouldn’t be stuck in bed for what feels like the seventh day in the row.  I would be able to go to the gym and workout, something I haven’t done in nearly a week.  I would be able to eat the same food as my husband, something I haven’t done in three weeks,  and I would be able to enjoy a vegetable, which I haven’t consumed in over a week, maybe two.  I wouldn’t be drinking my body weight in ginger ale and pedialyte and I would have some resemblance of quality of life.

I’m a smart, grown woman.  I need to learn when to say when and that going to the doctor isn’t a sign of weakness.  I need to recognize that they are medical professionals for a reason and that they are there to help me. And also, despite having this disease for what feels like my entire life, this does not necessary mean I know what is the best way to treat it.

I truly hope my happy, upbeat post are back soon!

To Smile.

So, I went to the doctor today due to a flare up connected with my Crohn’s disease.  [...]]]> I know my health isn’t really the topic or point here.  But in the search for happiness, one does need to have their healthy.  When something is negatively affecting your daily activities and life, it definitely affects your happiness.

So, I went to the doctor today due to a flare up connected with my Crohn’s disease.  It didn’t go as well as I would have liked, I expected some steroids and that be that.  It wasn’t, unfortunately.  But I won’t get into the details.

All I can say is that I am on a liquid diet for the time being until I get some results back from some test.  While this probably isn’t highly recommended by my gastroenterologist, I determined that beer definitely falls into the liquid only category.

And due to feeling awful, I have no desire to leaving my house this Friday night.

So…..liquid diet + stuck at home=Guitar Hero.

I’m totally rocking it.

To Smile.