12 on the 12th--September Edition

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1. I woke up at 8 and read in bed for a couple hours, I'm at the end of this fantastic mystery.
2. After showering, I spent my cool-down time reading the Book of Mormon.
3. I got a pedicure this week so my toes are making me happy.
4. Randy and I headed out for some shopping.
5. We finally sucked it up and went mattress shopping and signed our life away for a fabulous, adjustable Tempurpedic mattress...we can't wait to get it!
6. Our celebratory lunch at Pei Wei.
7. We decided Randy's fortune meant buying the bed was a good choice.
8. We finally went to see Mission Impossible 5--two thumbs up!
9. Lori joined us for a wedding reception and dinner at Art City Trolley.
10. Poor Junie is no match for Whitney's smothering ways.
11. We watched the fabulous BYU/Boise State football game.
12. Landon finally made an appearance at 11:45pm...we hardly see him these days.

Spring Break Hangover

 

Is it wrong that when I get a break from work I immediately forget my hard-fought sleep schedule and adopt a slovenly schedule of late to bed late to rise with some reading/napping thrown in to the mix? I kind of think it is. At first I let myself revel in the luxury of it all and give myself full permission to lounge as needed. But after the first couple days of that a pattern emerges and lethargy ensues. It seems that sleep begets more sleep yet I never feel rested. Oh cruel irony. By the end of Spring Break I was officially sick of myself and slacker ways, though I was delighted that I finished a 500 page book. Then it was General Conference weekend, which I love, except that it meant 8 hours of TV watching in very close proximity to my family, who frankly I was sick of by that point. I was actually feeling ready to go back to work today except that I couldn't fall asleep last night (due to an afternoon nap) and then had anxiety-filled sleep/wakefulness for the last 2 hours of the night. Hence I woke up with a headache and felt exhausted all day. I'll have to pack it in early tonight in order to get back into my early to bed early to rise mode...when will I ever learn?

An Update

Michelle and I are having Creative Friday today (Saturday) so I'm taking the opportunity to use her computer to do a quick post and to check my email (both of these things are now luxuries). I've been doing okay and was able to work the rest of the week. The result of my blood work is that I have insanely low Iron...who knew? I hadn't been feeling run down or weird before the night of torture, so I think it's strange that this is the result. I don't have the paper with Iron and Ferritin totals on it here with me, but they were disturbingly low so the doctor has ordered I.V. treatments once a week for 4 weeks, then we'll retest things and go from there. The bummer is that I don't go in until next Tuesday after work, so I get to keep feeling this way. Things have been better the last few days, but I'm definitely NOT myself, still need the Ambien to stay asleep and often feel flushed with adrenaline. It's grim for sure and not something I would like to have to live with long term. Good times.

**Have you experienced this?**

Our Christmas

Oh how I love the look of the Christmas tree and presents before the frenzy of present opening begins!


Holy tamole, Santa shocked everyone by bringing the kids 2 hamsters and all the gear that goes with them!


Luckily, I had gotten up in the night so I knew that Santa had brought the hamsters (blatantly defying my "nothing that poops" policy), and I was excited for the kids to see them. But their reaction was so underwhelming and calm that it was downright disappointing. They have since shown evidence of true giddiness, so I can only assume they were speechless at the time.

I suppose this is an expression of giddiness.

Their pre-present opening, bed head look.

They actually woke us up at 6:05am, but I didn't have my wits about me until 6:20. Landon actually woke up at 5:15 and painfully watched the clock until the "authorized" hour of 6:00am. He said, "The most painful minute was 5:59!"


This is Landon's reaction upon opening a charger for his DS. He lost his charger awhile ago and hasn't been able to play with his DS, so this actually made it onto his Christmas list.


Landon is such a sweet guy, he gave Randy $10 and had him get me a gift certificate for JCW's. I know I didn't part with my money as freely when I was a kid!


When Randy and I were out shopping one evening last week, I pointed out that I'd like some new Velcro rollers. The ones I've been using have lost their Velcro-properties (they're 18 years old) so it was time.


Whitney thought it was funny that we gave her a Costco-pack of tape, but she does a whole lot of taping with her many projects so it just made good sense.


The kids received a couple DVDs and this was their reaction after opening "Despicable Me".

Randy gave me 2 pedicure gift certificates, woohoo.

Whitney sewed this tiny pillow at my mom's house awhile ago and turned it into a Christmas present for me.


Whitney has been asking for the dolphin Pillow Pet for months now so her reaction to it was quite appropriate.


After the gift opening, Randy and I went back to bed for a few hours, but I had a hard time recovering from the weird sleep schedule. Landon spent a good part of the day watching basketball and eating candy from his stocking.


This is Landon's stash of Christmas gifts all laid out on the futon so my mom could see what he got.


I was surprised the hamster set up could fit on their dresser without some serious reconfiguring, but it fits right into the mess that's already there.


The hamsters are seriously cute. They're both girl (sisters we think) and after several name changes have been officially named "Magic" and "Trixxy".


Whitney spent a long time playing with her new veterinary clinic, new squishy sting ray and new dinosaurs. She left the plastic price tag bands around their necks so she could pretend they were tracking collars.


My parents, Andrew, Lori and Robyn came over later to see the kids' loot and to hang out. We set Andrew up with a movie in the kids' room and he kicked back with a can of Caffeine free diet Coke and a bowl of popcorn.


The rest of us hung out eating some leftovers from the night before and talking.

**How was your Christmas?
Do you use Velcro rollers?
What time did you get up that morning?
Have you ever had hamsters?**

Comment Window Tidbit: I went to the dermatologist today and had my first experience with the crazy magnifying glasses and the liquid fear of having something removed. I think my proximity to having a giggling fit from the glasses helped take the edge off the terror of the needle and scraping!

Effort

When I'm this tired, everything takes too much effort. It reminds of the child-birthing class Randy and I took when I was pregnant with Landon. Our instructor talked about how when you're transitioning into the last phase of labor things get serious and you lose your sense of humor. That's how I feel when I'm really tired...I lose my sense of humor and just do what I have to do. It makes me feel rather weak, but it is what it is.


Whitney has been playing at her friend Madison's house today and called to have me bring over her swim stuff because they've been invited to swim at a neighbor's house. Picture, if you will, this scene...I pulled up in front of Madison's house to find Whitney, Madison, another girl, Madison's brother and his friend, along with various scooters and bikes strewn around the lawn. Whitney, Madison and the other girl swarmed the car as I handed Whitney her bag of stuff, all of them talking loudly about different aspects of this activity.

I was trying to get the important information of who, what, where, how and so on, while they competed to tell me about the cute chihuahua these people have, Madison's new kitten, the sad tale of the two kittens that died, the rude neighbor girl Sarah and so on. At one point I actually said, "I don't care, I just want to know who is going to be there." These minutes were some of the longest, most exhausting I've ever had. Clearly, I've lost my sense of humor and ability to be amused, I just wanted to go home.

**Do you lose your sense of humor when you're tired?
Do you have trouble sleeping?**

P.S. I'm always afraid to do Google Image Searches, because no matter how innocent the words I type in are there is always something disturbing included in the search...and this is with a Strict Safe Search Mode setting.

Comment Window Tidbit: I'm sick of myself today.

#$@!

I'm not sleeping.
Not for lack of trying.
Of all the things in life,
is this really one I have to be bad at?
Good Hell.

Miscellaneous Monday

I feel like I'm all over the place today (in a good way) and don't have anything specific to write about (unless I returned to my Year in Review posts which have been shelved due to not being able to remember anything that happened past October...this is why I blog daily people), so I give you miscellany.


During primary yesterday the chorister had various kids come up to draw pictures from the song we were singing (Picture A Christmas) and the result was so touching and cute. Look at the chicken-legged angel and the very tiny Mary, I love it!


Gifford came over last night to borrow a suitcase, do a load of laundry and have dinner and Family Home Evening with us. Whitney gave a highly amusing lesson about honesty complete with 6 pages of illustrated dialogue to tell her story. I think Gifford learned a very important lesson, ha.

After having a couple months of successful sleeping, I seem to be back to fighting insomnia and the jimmy body (sometimes it's just my leg, sometimes it's my left forearm). I spent 6 of 7 night's last week on the couch and was awake until 3:00am last night watching Grey Gardens and Mamma Mia while trying to fall asleep. Not good.

{This photo is actually from last Christmas' insomnia!}

I was so tired this morning that I seriously considered going back to bed after the kids' left for school. But decided to fight it and be productive instead (sometimes that's not an option). Surprisingly I ended up doing 2 loads of laundry, vacuuming the house, made chicken salad and a pot roast, showered and got dressed (in lounge clothes but still), made 3 visiting teaching appointments, wrote 10 cards, watched 3 episodes of Seinfeld, went to the grocery store, picked the kids up from school, ordered my mom's Christmas cards and picked them up, took Lucas home, picked up my prescription and bought a bag of ice...not too shabby eh?


Landon and Lucas (who refuses to be photographed) were finally able to get together after 3 months of separation. They rebuilt the fort (aka Huge Mess) in the kids' room and played for 4.5 hours but still didn't want it to end; they're cute.

This girl is so herself it's amazing (and a little bit exhausting).

This is what our sky looked like this afternoon around 4:30, I love it when the clouds look pink like this.

**What was your day's miscellany?
Do you ever get the jimmy body?
Have you done your Christmas cards yet?**

Comment Window Tidbit: Randy and I are totally hooked on "The Closer" thanks to Michelle and Marc converting me while in Paris. It's a highly addictive show, and thanks to Netflix it's very easy to maintain our habit. Hee.

Vulnerable

I've managed to sleep through the night several nights in a row this week and thought I'd conquered my insomnia once and for all. Yet last night ended up being the worst night I've had in a long time, and it took me totally unawares. I went to bed at 11:00pm because I was so tired (that's responsible right?) and slept peacefully until 3:00am. What the?


After that I was wide awake and had the Jimmy arm (left arm always) something fierce. I got up and blogged for a bit, though bleary-eyed blogging is not my favorite, then finally set up camp on the couch and watched my latest Friday Night Lights disc. That took the edge off my not sleeping since I love that show so much. I was surprised that I didn't end up getting sleepy or dozing off for the 3 episodes on the disc.

In fact, I stayed up watching infomercials for another hour and half after that! (Yep, your math is correct, I was awake from 3-7am...#$@!).


I watched some of the infomercial for this vacuum and found myself wanting it, though I did not appreciate the sassy woman in the commercial who was so sure the vacuum could not clean up her messes. She stole the show.

Saw the infomercial for this printer and wanted it too! It was kind of rough seeing Al from Home Improvement selling this printer. He was super enthusiastic, but I just didn't buy the crowd of people who all just happened to be using the printer at the same time...I wasn't born yesterday.

Then finished things off with part of this weight loss hypnosis infomercial and wanted that too. Has anyone tried hypnosis before?

I felt vulnerable and very open to suggestion, but my decision-making skills were still in tact so I didn't order any of these things.

**Do you watch infomercials when you can't sleep?
Have you ever bought anything from an infomercial?
Have you seen any of these?**