Posts Tagged ‘i love my husband’

Random babblings

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

Wow — time has been going by really quickly lately.  How is it already April 20th?

Justin and I went for a bike ride this evening.  We rode all the way to the end of our road, ordered a pizza, ate it at a table outside, and rode home.  It was fantastic!  It took up most of our evening, but I can’t think of a better way to have spent the time.  Over an hour and a half of dedicated time to spend with Justin?  WIN!

Plus I love riding my bike, but I don’t do it nearly often enough.  My backside, unfortunately, is reminding me why that is the case.  So much pain!

I took 9 pills just now as I’m getting ready to go to sleep:  3 calcium, 2 fish oil, 1 multivitamin, 1 for RLS, and 2 Advil.  I remember being so excited when I got off all my asthma medications.  For the first time in a very long time, I wasn’t medicated!  But I’m pretty sure I’m more healthy now, taking all these pills, than I was then.

I had a difficult brain day on Sunday.  Do you know what I’m talking about?  Where you spent most of the day feeling like you need to cry, but no idea why?  I cried because I didn’t know why I felt like crying.  I cried because Justin’s office was messy.  I nearly cried at church when friends mentioned maybe having people over for dinner.  I nearly cried in the middle of my massage.

Ooooooh.  Massage.  My massage was wonderful.  I hadn’t had one in such a long time and my muscles are so tense.  She was able to rub a lot of that out, but I know that most of it will need more work than that to get them loosened up.  My shoulder-blades are still tender from the work she did on them.  But it was totally worth it!

And then I went home and listened to laundry washing and thought that I should be doing something other than laying on the bed feeling like crying.

I cried on Saturday, too.  We stopped at Lowe’s so we could pick up a few things and I put my foot into knee-high mud boot.  The kind like we used to have as kids, remember?  Except this one was white and cute and I wanted to see if it would fit.

No.  It didn’t fit.  I got my calf most of the way into it and then it suctioned onto my leg.  My calf formed a seal with the plastic material of the boot and created suction.  I couldn’t get it off.  Justin was nearby and I called out to him:  “I have a problem.”  “You sure do,” he said and came over to help me.  And the guy at the key cutting counter just laughed at us because we couldn’t pull the boot off.

I found a rolling stair-step ladder to sit on so I could try to pry the boot off, and then the panic started to set in.  I couldn’t get it off!  My foot was trapped!  The air was going to push out from the boot and my foot was going to turn black and fall off!  (Did you know I’m a tiny bit claustrophobic?)  Justin assures me that we would have cut the boot off my leg before that would have happened, but I still sat there on the step *freaking out* about the boot stuck on my foot.

And eventually we were able to get it off just by pulling at it and loosening the top away from my leg and just plain persistence.  And I sat there with tears running down my face because I had been so worried about it.  A woman came down the aisle and turned to look at us and gave a really worried look before backing away.  “We’re okay,” I said, but I’m not sure she heard me.

No more trying on boots for a while.

But we’re doing good today!  I wore my engagement ring for the first time in a very long time.  It finally fits without cutting off circulation!  The wedding band is still slightly too small, but I got to wear my sapphire today!  It makes me really happy that I can wear that again.

And that’s a rough idea of what it’s like in my brain lately.  Now, I’m going to sleep.

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Today is much better

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

I’m doing much better today than I was yesterday.  I went to my chiropractor appointment after work and bemoaned the pain in my leg to my doctor there and she told me to go home and have Justin massage my leg.  Which he’d already offered to do.

So I went home and asked Justin to rub my leg.  And he did and it was wonderful.  It hurt, but it felt better.  And then he covered me in blankets and let me sleep until about 9:30, when he offered me food left over from our anniversary dinner (baby back ribs, mashed potatoes, and cheese biscuits).  I ate delicious food, poked at my computer a few minutes (gotta log my food so I can get my massage), and curled back up for sleep again.

When Justin came to bed, I asked him to massage my leg again, and he’s a wonderful man because he rubbed my leg again.  And then I was out for the night.

When my alarm rang this morning at 6:00, I wouldn’t have minded sleeping for a few more hours, but I have multiple projects on the table right now, so I had to get moving.  And when I got out of bed and stood on my leg, it didn’t hurt at all.  AT ALL!  It’s completely better.  I have some bruising, but that’s probably related to all the scratches on my legs from the yard work over the weekend.

I’m hearing again and again that what I should do the next time I get a cramp is to stand on the leg or pull my toes up toward my knees.  Both options sound terrible, but apparently they’re wonderful once the pain stops, and that the pain will stop more quickly and result in less residual pain.  So I guess if it happens again, I’ll either have Justin push on my toes or I’ll have to figure out how to get myself out of bed so I can stand up.  But I’m telling you right now I hope it never happens again.  Ever.

To that end, I’m trying to figure out why it happened at all.  There are so many options, but the primary reasons apparently are dehydration or a lack of potassium, magnesium, or calcium.  I thought I had calcium supplements in my multivitamin but turns out that I don’t.  So I have to either increase my dairy intake or start with a supplement.  And I might just do the supplement anyway because this girl doesn’t want osteoporosis.  And I have to figure out what all has potassium in it other than bananas.  And keep on drinking my 64 oz plus of water.

Anyway, since my leg is feeling so much better and since I got a lot of sleep last night and I’m much more rested, I’m having a much better day than yesterday.  I’m actually getting work accomplished and catching up on projects, and with any luck, I won’t have to work on Friday afternoon again.  It depends on how this document goes this afternoon, though.  I was supposed to finish it today, not start it . . . .

But we’re keeping positive!  And I’m going to go step outside for a little while and see what the weather is like.  It’s supposed to be lovely.  The only thing that could make today better would be if I could take the afternoon off and go finish my yard work.

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Ow.

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010

I’m having a difficult day today, physically.  Yesterday afternoon, I smashed the side of my foot into a large, metal, immovable object.  Oddly, I didn’t feel how much it hurt until I got home after Zumba and took off my socks.  I spent a good amount of time with an ice pack on my foot to take the pain out.

While setting up the table for our dinner last night (while Justin ran to the restaurant to pick it up), I scratched the back of my hand on some unidentifiable sharp object, leaving a two-inch long mark on the back of my hand.  I also stepped on the metal mechanism for the folding stairs that lead into the attic and scratched the side of my un-bruised foot.

And all of that would be fine.  They match the scratches that cover the lower part of my legs from yard work we did over the weekend.  (Pictures of the yard work coming soon-ish.)  Scratches and bruises are familiar; I get those all the time.

What caught me by surprise was the 3 AM leg cramp.  This is my second leg cramp in less than a week, and my second ever that I can remember in my adult life.  I don’t get leg cramps.  Justin gets them every now and then, though, and they looked really painful.

THEY ARE.

The first one I got was early Wednesday morning.  I’ve been trying to remember which leg it was in.  While I wrote down that I got one, I didn’t think to write down which leg it was in.  Last night, I thought my first cramp was in my left leg, but now I’m more and more convinced it was in my right leg.

Either way, the first one wasn’t too terrible.  I mean, it hurt.  It woke me up and I said “Ow.” and I put my foot up in the air to try to stretch it out so it would stop hurting.  And then it hurt for several hours.  It wasn’t pleasant.  But it wasn’t so bad that I woke up Justin and once the muscle relaxed, I went back to sleep.

Last night, I woke up shouting in pain.  My right leg calf muscle was spasming and I couldn’t get it to straighten out.  Justin woke up when I shouted and asked what was wrong and how he could help.  I asked him to go get me some ice, and he ran downstairs to get some, and then came back upstairs, gently lifted my leg onto his lap and massaged it.  That helped, but the muscle kept cramping.  It would relax for a while, and then tighten up, I would cry out in pain, Justin would massage the muscles in my leg, and it would relax again.

I don’t know how long it went on, but it felt like forever.  I think I can handle a lot of pain, but I lay there crying as my muscle clenched up.  When it finally finished, I was terrified to move my leg because of the fear that moving the muscles would make it start all over again.  Justin helped me get situated and put the ice pack under my leg and we both went back to sleep.

Needless to say, my leg still hurts this morning.  I couldn’t get it to extend all the way when I got up.  It warms up after a while and I’m able to almost walk normally on it, but if I sit still for any length of time, or have to keep my foot flexed to drive my car, it tightens up again and I have to work it loose.  I’ve got a heat pack on it and I’ll be reheating that again and again today to help ease the pain there.  I’ve got my leg propped up on my trash can so the leg can relax.  I’ll be taking off my shoe here in a little bit so the bruise on my foot isn’t so aggravated.

I feel like I’m just falling apart here!

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I haven’t been bored

Monday, March 29th, 2010

While driving into town yesterday afternoon, Justin mentioned that I hadn’t written anything here for a while.  I told him that I just didn’t feel like I had much to say lately.  Things are going pretty well and it’s been nice and quiet around the house and I’ve been enjoying the well-going nice and quiet.

I have been up to things though.  I’ve been working on switching things around for spring.  Saturday afternoon I reorganized the porch closet so I could get to the gardening tools and the grill.   I reorganized the dining room closet to move the scarves and mittens into storage and the picnic supplies and bicycle helmets up front.  I reorganized the hamper drawer at the bottom of the steps, packing away the ice scraper and getting the sun screen, bug spray, and umbrellas up and accessible.  And while I was at it, I reorganized under the kitchen sink because it was just a mess and I wanted to be able to grab Windex without crawling all the way to the back of the cabinet.

Yesterday I organized 3 months of receipts, checking them against the categories they were marked as in my budgeting and finding out how many I’m still missing (about 5, for the whole 3 months).  It’s a long task, but rewarding in the end, when I’ve got envelope after envelope of receipts all organized and in rows.  It makes it really easy, come tax time.  I’ve got everything marked down in my finance program on my computer, so I can search for whatever I need, and then I can go to the envelope for that month and look for the physical receipt and read that.  If I need a receipt, I can find it in under 5 minutes.  It’s a system that requires constant maintenance, but one that can really pay off in the end.

I finished my book for March, but I’m not sure yet what I’d like to read for April.  I’ve got to go look through my bookshelf and see what I haven’t read yet, see if anything sparks any interest.  The last book wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as good as some of his others.  Maybe I should do a book review for each book I read?  It would be good for my LibraryThing account.  And my GoodReads account, too.  And if I decide to get rid of the book, it’d be good for my BookMooch account, too.

I have a lot of online book-related accounts . . . .

I lost 2 more pounds last week, bringing my current total weight loss to 16 pounds.  I’m very excited about that.

I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XIII for the last couple weeks, off and on.  It’s a BEAUTIFUL game and I’m having a really wonderful time playing it.  It is, so far, the only game we have for our PS3, but that’s because we bought it to play BluRay discs on, and not for playing video games.  But let me tell you, this game is AMAZINGLY beautiful.  I could sit there just looking at the pretty pictures for hours and be perfectly content.  But there’s also game play and that makes it even better!

I worked a full day again on Friday because they switched up the schedule on me and now I’m behind on a couple of projects.  It’s frustrating.  I keep hoping that I’ll finally catch up to everything, and then they go and move things on me.  I’m getting really frustrated with working more than 40 hours a week.

My allergies are starting to pick up. It’s about the same time as last year, so I’m not terribly surprised.  My eyes itch.  I sneeze a lot.  I’m tired.  I think the grass is out to get me.

And these are just a glimpse of the things that I’m ready to talk about.  There are other things, like improvements to our bedroom and the yard and my photo collection, that I’m not ready to talk about yet because I want to have everything finished before I talk about it.  But we’re making good progress on those things and I hope to have more news on those soon.

Until then, I just have this one last thing for today:

Two years ago today, I stood on shaking knees and pinched toes with sweat dripping down the middle of my back, between friends and family on one side and a gazebo on the other, with candles that kept being blown out by the wind, across from the most wonderful man I’ve ever met, who promised to support and protect me, and who slid a ring as far as it could go onto my stress-swollen finger.  We danced our first dance to music I can’t remember, and his grandfather cut in before the end of the song.  We celebrated and smiled and danced and ate and had a wonderful time with our most precious friends and family.  And then we cleaned up and went home before the rain started.

Since then, we’ve gone through sicknesses and job troubles, celebrations and parties, days when communication failed and days when we worked together in prefect synchronization, days when there wasn’t enough money and days when there was more money than we expected, days when the world in my head didn’t make sense, but he stuck beside me anyway, days when we didn’t have the strength to get out of bed, but we pulled and pushed each other up and stood on our feet and helped each other make it through the day.

People keep making comments about us being newlyweds and honeymooning and that the glow will eventually fade, but we believe that the honeymoon is the rest of the marriage and that we’re the ones actually doing it right.  He brings me flowers when he goes to the grocery store.  I wake him up in the morning with cuddles and kisses.  We call each other at noon and again when we leave work, and sometimes more than that just to hear each other talk.

I love you, Justin Barnett, and I am so happy to be your wife!  Let’s keep it going for another 80 years or so!

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It’s been a long week.

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

I had a dream last night that I opened up this site and there were 5 comments on a post.  FIVE!  All in one day and none of them were me!  It was exciting.

I’m having a terrible day.  It started out okay – I got up and showered and ready to go to work.  I got into my car, pulled out of the driveway, and the front of my car scraped along the driveway in a way entirely unlike it’s supposed to.  So I got out, went back inside for a flashlight, and came back out to my car to look at my tires.  And, as luck would have it, my front passenger tire is completely flat.  Not just sort of flat.  It’s COMPLETELY flat.

So I got back into my car, backed up, and drove back into my driveway.  And ran the side of my car into the mailbox, leaving a long white stripe of paint along its path.  I pulled back out, adjusted, parked again, and went back inside.  Justin heard me come back into the house, so he was waiting for me upstairs when I came in and said, “I’m having a really awful morning.”

He came out to look at the damage and sent me off to work in his car.  He’s working from home today.  I had to stop for gas and I vowed, on my way to the gas station, that if the car ran out of gas before I got to the pump, I was going to STAY HOME.

I made it to the gas station, and I made it all the way to work, and I got to my desk 20 minutes later than I was supposed to get there.  Fortunately, because I was at work for and hour and a half longer yesterday than normal because I was supporting a delivery, no one was at all upset about it.

At lunch, I was supposed to go to an event so I could write about it for a newsletter.  It’s at another building here, and I had to drive around to get to it, but when I got there, my badge won’t let me into the building.  And no one was answering their phones so they could help me get in.  So I missed my event.  And I had to go buy lunch because I was supposed to get lunch at the event and didn’t bring one with me.

Now, on the up-side of things, Justin was able to stay home and I was able to take his car.  He said that a lot of the paint came off and I’ll probably be able to get more of it off with some more work.  (I think that’s what he said.  I was so distracted by the thought that it might come off that I lost the rest of it.)  When I got to work late, I found a parking spot right in front of the gate so I had less of a walk.  It is a really beautiful day out today, so it was nice weather to be standing outside of a gate trying to figure out how to get to my meeting.  I had a yummy and not too calorie-heavy grilled chicken wrap from Sonic for lunch (with apple slices for snack later).

I finished a project as far as I can for the moment and have another one standing by to complete entirely.  I have music practice tonight and we’re learning a new version of a hymn that I’ve been listening to several times today and it’s helping me stay positive (“It is well”).  And because I’ve worked two and a half hours of overtime already this week, I’m taking an hour and a half of vacation tomorrow morning and staying home from work.  Because I had seven hours of overtime last week and I don’t really care for the extra money this week.  Because working an 11 hour day on a Friday should be rewarded by sleeping in on the following Friday.  And because I’m just having a heck of a week.

Did I tell you I dropped my mug?  I don’t think I did.  It was on Tuesday; I was washing the mug I use for making my oatmeal every morning and for soup and other microwaving needs at the office.  It was a white mug I got when we went to Life in Salt Lake City (was it in 1998 or 2000?) and said “Alliance Youth” on the side of it in lovely blue writing.  It was a great mug, perfect for microwaving my oatmeal, very slick looking, and I liked it.  But it slipped from my hand while I was washing it at work and it broke into a bunch of pieces on the floor.  And I stood there looking at the pieces and cried.  Over a stupid mug.  A mug I liked, granted, but it was just a mug.  It didn’t particularly matter that I’d gotten it at Life or that I’d had it for about 10 years; I liked it because it was pretty and the perfect size.  And I was sad that I’d broken it.

Monday I was at work at 6:30 to work on a project that no one asked for until today.  Tuesday I broke my mug.  Wednesday I was at work until 6:30, finishing up a project for a guy who was out of the office all day because his kids were off school for St. Patrick’s Day.  Today, well, has been today.  I think I need a day off.

So that’s the plan.

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