The Doctor - part 2

Next time I have a doctor's appointment, I should schedule it for first thing in the morning. For one thing, you weigh less in the morning. Secondly, I won't have all day to fret about it.

All in all, it went well. The doctor had a new nurse today, and it threw me for a loop because I really liked the other one, but mostly because this nurse was male. I have nothing against male nurses and doctors, but I pick female doctors for a reason; I'm simply much more comfortable talking to them.
I didn't like having him weigh me, or having to tell him why I was there and what my concerns were. It made me so flustered, but I know it's dumb. There's no reason why I couldn't talk to a male nurse the same way as a female nurse, but it made me flustered nonetheless.

My doctor is really great though, and had no concerns about me tapering off the medication. She was quite open to prescribing me Xanax I can take when I need it. I'm nervous about coming off the citalopram, and how it will make me feel. She said I should know in about a month (tapering = about 3 weeks) how I'm doing without it.
I suppose if the daily headaches, dizziness, and pounding heart come back then I'll know I came off too soon.
I'm pretty hopeful about the Xanax during bad weather, although I'm desperately hoping I don't have to try it out too soon.

The Doctor

I am ridiculously nervous about my follow up doctor appointment tomorrow. I've been on citalopram for anxiety for 6 months now, and I think it's helped me a lot, but I want to stop taking it now. I've noticed my daily anxiety seems to be much more in-hand, and is usually only a problem during bad weather now. It seems like I no longer need to take daily medicine for a non-daily problem.
A little voice in the back of my head is asking me, "What if it's just that the meds are WORKING and NOT that you're doing better?!" and I guess that voice could be right.
However, I'm sick of my hair falling out -- for the first time in my life, I won't need it thinned for summer -- and I've also noticed that my skin is very sensitive to the sun, and maybe that wouldn't be such a big problem if I lived in the North Pole, but I live in Alabama! Spring is already here and I have 4 children who I must kick outside need to play outside on a regular basis.

I feel like the medication has gotten me over the hump of anxiety ruling my life, and I've also learned a few other things to deal with it. I think it peaked because of April 27th last year and, although my family and I were perfectly fine, I feel like it caused PTSD in me and a lot of other people.
The sound of thunder still gets a strong emotional and physical reaction from me.
We just watched Bambi and the lightning ON TV. IN A CARTOON. made my stomach hurt. *sigh*
Clearly, I still have issues with weather related anxiety.

I plan to ask my doctor if there is anything she can prescribe that I can take during bad weather when I'm feeling particularly anxious. I need to still be able to function, drive if necessary, and be alert... so hopefully that's not asking too much. (Too bad they don't make thundershirts for people.)
Thunderstorms and tornadoes where we live are a fact of life, and I need to find a way to deal with that. The weather here can be dangerous, so I don't want to be knocked out, but I need to be able to breathe, function, and not hide in our storm shelter all day either. (Aside: having the storm shelter helps, but if any of the kids are at school I'm a disaster.)
I'm also planning to ask her about talk therapy, although it makes me cringe to think about how to fit that in to our schedules. Still, something has to change and although medication can/has/will/does help me, I would like to get to the point where I don't need it.

I don't know why I'm so nervous about this appointment; I should be excited to try something new to help myself. However, anything where the focus is solely on me always makes me uncomfortable. Here's to hoping I don't cry again!

bathroom storage

We have two full baths, but we also have a half bath. I try to keep the kids out of it as much as possible, to keep it clean for guests. However, it has absolutely NO storage or countertops so it's not super useful for overnight guests. I decided to remedy that. Here's the bathroom before:

I bought and put together (all on my own!) a storage cabinet. The basket is filled with small soaps, lotion, essential oil spray and hand sanitizer.

I added some storage on the wall with a towel rack, s hooks and metal baskets. I also added a rug to warm it up. I'm hoping these small changes will make the bathroom a lot more useful! It looks better too. :)

(toilet paper for showing size)

It's incredibly hard to take pictures in that teeny bathroom, so this is about as good as I could do! Hopefully I'll have a post showing you new floors in the next couple of weeks. I swear I'm going to get back to posting regular stuff too, I'm just lacking the creative writing juices lately...

grump

It's not even 10 AM and it's already one of those days. I woke up very congested, and with a headache. I wanted to stay in bed, but there were 4 little people that prevented that. D couldn't stay home from work because he's in charge of the blood drive today.

There's an issue at d's school that needs addressing, but I need to work up the courage to do it and also figure out the best way. It's not something I can just ignore.

d is in charge of taking his own coat and/or back pack to the car, but he forgot both today. I grabbed his back pack but he didn't get his coat and of course he was upset when I wouldn't go back and get it and then he didn't want to get out of the car and I hate making him go when he's upset. After forcing him out dropping him off I got the other 3 ready to go so the boys could go to preschool and I could get much needed groceries. O waited until everyone was nearly ready to tell me that his head and tummy hurt. He looked unwell once I actually noticed and he NEVER says he didn't want to go to school so when he said he didn't, I let him stay home. Then C didn't want to go either, and frankly at this point I decided I might as well keep them both home since I couldn't do my errands with a whiny sick child anyway. (I do not venture to the store when someone's tummy hurts. That seems like asking for trouble.)
Now everyone is sort of cranky and out of sorts and that includes me. 

I was planning to use a Starbucks gift card to get a yummy coffee, but I had to make my own instead and for some reason it just tastes terrible. Bitterness, perhaps?

Guilty Pleasures

*Fiber One Brownies with almonds pressed in the top.
*Extra creamer in my coffee.
*A new book on my Kindle.
*Lately, Downton Abbey. I'm on my last episode of season 2 now. WOE!
*Pinterest.
*Turning up the radio very loudly, and dancing around and singing at the top of my lungs.
*Browsing one of any number of websites and adding things to my wish list on Amazon.
*Wine.
*Trashy TV. Namely, reality shows.
*Purses. And shoes. (lots of looking, lots of dreaming, less buying)

Dear,

Dear Disney,
I think you must be employing some marketing geniuses to have come up with this "In The Vault" idea, but I HATE IT. If I want to buy my 2 year old Cinderella I don't want to have to scour Amazon and Ebay and then find that I can get it used for $30 just because you put it in the damn "vault." I just bought my kids Lady and The Tramp because I know I won't be able to get it when it goes back "in the vault," but I resented every penny I paid for it. How else can you charge full price for 20+ year old movies?!
You evil geniuses.
Signed,
Bitter

Dear Girl Scout Cookies,
You are also evil.
Love,
No Self Control

Dear YMCA,
I'm about to make our meetings much more frequent. See above re: Girl Scout Cookies.
Signed,
Running Shoes

Dear Telephone Scammer,
I'm pretty sure you don't magically know that my computer is having error messages and needs to be fixed. (Especially since it's fine.) No, I'm not giving you my information.
Signed,
Nice Try

Dear Grandma,
Don't believe everything you read in your email or on the Internet and for goodness sake don't wire any money to anybody!
Love,
All Your Family

Dear Politicians & such,
Your robocalls at bath and dinner time may be enough for me to swear NEVER TO VOTE FOR YOU. EVER.
Signed,
You've Been Warned.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope you get to spend it with the ones you love!

Highs and Lows of the week

Lows:

• Several days of feeling crappy, including never ending headaches. 
• A little girl who seems to be potty trained for 5 days a week and pees everywhere the other 2, random, days. Weird. 
• Boys who will NOT listen. To the point that I may have hurt my throat when I lost my temper. *sigh*
• A husband who has not been home for dinner since Sunday.
• A situation between friends that has nothing to do with me, but weighs heavily on my mind anyway. 
• Finding out Chik Fil A's lemonade has 240 calories. Oh dear. 

Highs:

• A  month long streak of spending at or less than my grocery budget per week! 
• Preschool.
• A lovely lunch and play date with 2 rambunctious two year olds and the greatest friend a girl could ask for. 
• Losing 1 pound.
• Scoring cheap birthday presents at an unexpected sale!

It's been a pretty typical week, and it's finally Friday! I've had writer's block lately, and I'm having a very hard time coming up with blog posts. (which is why there have been so few!)
I'm hoping inspiration will strike me soon!

new rooms

I promised a post about Penny's new bed and Miss L's "new" room, so here it is! Beware! There are a lot of pictures. (links open in a new window)

First, Penny's new bed. I wanted to build this from Pinterest. We had all the materials, but I needed some help with the saw and some specifics, but D was adamant he didn't want a gigantic dog bed in the middle of the floor. We went round and round for a few days, but eventually I conceeded  because I saw this idea on Pinterest and decided it would be a nice compromise for all of us.

We have a large kitchen and one cabinet in particular is usually almost empty. I used it only for wine bottles to be recycled and extra school supplies. This is actually the cabinet on the right, and we used the one on the left, but you get the idea.

 I took off the doors and took the shelf out and cleaned it up. Then I found this old couch in the garage that was terribly stained and headed for the $1 pile at our next garage sale. I decided to re-use it instead!

 I took all the foam out and lined the cabinet with it. (I ended up not using that corner piece.)

 I covered it with her existing bed, which is a twin size comforter. "Real" dog beds are ridiculously overpriced and this one is super easy to wash.

Miss L's room:

Here is Miss L's room before. That post is when I put up the owl decor in her room, but it had changed a bit since then. For one thing I made a "tent" with some curtains and a hula hoop. I thought I had pictures of it somewhere, but this is the best I could do:

I decided to take down the tent and make it a canopy over her bed instead. It was quite simple and cost me nothing to change.

 I simply removed the white shelf off her wall and nailed the curtains up under it, then replaced the shelf!

Her room is quite small- the smallest in the house - and she has no dresser to speak of. Her changing table has a drawer and a cabinet and 2 shelves, so I decided to use that as her dresser, along with a cubby that used to be in the play room for toy storage.  I had to buy the baskets, but it's still cheaper than buying a dresser!

 Old changing table with new baskets for storage and changing pad GONE!

Old toy storage is now clothes storage!

The bookshelf relocated from her room to the play room, there simply wasn't much room in her room for it. Instead she has a reading corner next to her bed. You can see the purple bean bag and small basket of books.

The ugly white plastic shelf that was used for clothes before has been relegated to the closet for shoes, sheets and her dirty clothes hamper. 

More owls: