driving in a city

I went to the Dr today!! Of course when I got there I checked in and they said I was all set up and to go have a seat and wait, which I did.

After a few minutes they called me back up to the check-in. They told me my doctor was "stuck at the hospital" and wouldn't make it so I'd need to reschedule.

Well I was in a very good mood so I said "sure!" I went to the rescheduling station and rescheduled my appointment for next week sometime.

I left.

I decided that since I was already in town and since the night before I had used up every last remaining drop of my inhaler and since all those lovely farmers are busy kicking up everything growing in their fields up into the air and it keeps getting my lungs all clogged up that I'd hop on over to my CVS and get a refill.

So I went.

I got there and waited in line for a while and then they tell me they can't refill my perscription because it expired in May. (It's September) I told them I really didn't think I could wait a week to use my inhaler. Lately I have been having attacks around once a day. Once I was in the bathtub and had an attack.

So I had to go back to the doctor's office. They did what they could but all they could do is leave a message with my doctor and hopefully she'd get the message sometime in the next FIVE HOURS and send a call-in to my CVS.

So I had nothing to do for a while in the city. I thought I'd drive around for a bit and promptly got lost. When I finally figured out where I was I was ravenous so I went to McDs and got a chicken sandwich and a strawberry banana smoothie. Then I went to Target and got those Halloween Salt & Pepper shakers I wanted (they're pumpkins!) I also perused the dollar section (LOVE THE DOLLAR SECTION!!) and got my kids a few things, including "grow your own carrots" and a couple little Halloween-themed bags. I also saw some music on sale and grabbed a couple CDs even though there is less than 9 GB left on my computer so I can't put them on it. Then I went to Best Buy and bought another flashdrive to help get some space on my computer to go through and get rid of all these pictures, videos and documents that I don't NEED on here (for over two years). Then I went to Barnes & Nobels where I had a lovely maple and walnut scone and got my little scientists a book and myself a book on Yoga (and Duma Key but you can blame facebook for that one - everyone says it's GREAT!..of course they also liked "It" and I HATED "It"....).

After all that I crossed my fingers and went back to CVS and HOORAY!!! They had my RX!! So I bought it plus this kid's card game set, 4 games superlarge cards. They must have ran out of bags because they got this paper lunch bag and put my stuff in it. It looked like I was buying porn!!

FINALLY I'm home again! I gotta stop buying stuff or we won't need Christmas!! LOL It's all good now, I have EVERYTHING I need!! Except salt. I forgot to pick some up. Thank Goodness for the dollar store!

rant linked to stress

I have about F'n had it! I am about F'n ready to slit my wrists with my van key. I am VERY close to punching our school "nurse" in the face. I will never again use the McDonald's in Northern Danville. & I swear if that guy I married says ONE THING about it being "impossible" for someone like me who has no "job" to have a "bad day" then HE might get punched.

Seriously SERIOUSLY considering moving.

The only way this day could get ANY worse is if my house F'n burnt down or one of my kids died. That's it.

Typanophobia and labwork 2

So I got a call today saying something "went wrong" with one of the vials of my blood. They want me to come back and get stuck again!! I said "I haven't been fasting!!" indeed I had just finished my second cinnamon roll for the morning. They said No Worries!! Come in anyway!!

So I went back. I found out that it's MUCH easier to face having a piece of metal shoved into my arm when I've eaten. I still felt sick to my stomach but I wasn't shaking (very much) and the nurse didn't look at me like I was psychotic. She just stuck me (it hurt a lot worse but nothing I couldn't handle) and sent me on my way.

I stopped on a bridge on my way home and walked towards the edge. I got that same sick-to-my-stomach feeling. My "phobias" are weird. Or maybe just I am, I don't know.

In any case I'm not such a psycho when I've had food in my system!!

Typanophobia and labwork

Apparently low blood sugar drastically affects my phobias! I was required to fast for 14 hours before I went to have my blood drawn. This I did. I won't go into how torturous it was to fix a pot roast for dinner and get it started not having eaten anything for 12 hours and not being able to eat anything for who knows how much longer....

I was feeling pretty good on the way up to the lab. I had myself convinced I wasn't even worried and it was high time I got over this silly "fear" and I was feeling so good about the whole thing that I told myself I'd even watch the needle go in!! I was very proud of myself and my ability to rise above this childish fear of a needle peircing my skin.

I was good. I walked into the office and headed towards the lab. This is about when my arms started hurting from the elbows down. I kept going. Right before I gave the receptionist my name I realized I wasn't breathing. At all.

No biggie - I often unconsciouly hold my breath when I'm (terrified) nervous about going to the dentist's office, it's a simple solution to do some meditation-like breathing while talking to myself inside my head ("breath iiiiiiiiiin, ..........., breath ouuuuuuuuuut").

So I was good. They called my name and I walked, somewhat stiffly, back to where I was to sit in the high-chair-like contraption they make you sit in. I was all smiles for the nurse, but she was eyeballing me warily...like I was gonna hit her or something. This is about the time I realize my entire body is shaking like I'm having some minor seizure.

I took off my jacket and sat down, hoping that for once I wouldn't have to explain my weird reaction to something I'm not technically "afraid" of. She began making her preparations and asked me which arm I wanted her to take blood from. I said "Left, please!" (I blantantly protect my right side, screw the left LOL)

She kept on looking at me funny and said "My god, you're TERRIFIED aren't you?"

Sigh. So then I had to sit and explain to her, as I've explained to hundreds of nurses and doctors and quite a few dentists that I don't understand WHY I act like this - I'm not AFRAID of the needle...there's just something about the needle piercing my skin and entering a blood vessel that my body just uncontrollably finds horrifying. I promised I wouldn't get up and run away, I promised I wouldn't punch her or flail about widly. I told her I might cry, but she should just ignore me and go about her business.

I realized I would NOT be able to look at it, as bravely as I boasted to myself on the drive over. I had to do the usual biting of my finger and looking anywhere but where she was drawing blood and tapped both my feet but as I promised the arm she was taking blood out of remained perfectly still.

Maybe TOO still. The blood stopped coming out. I admitted in my endeavors to not eat anything I may have forgotten to up the amount of water I'm supposed to drink. She said she really hated to do it but she was going to have to stick my other arm.

I cheerfully agreed but she kept looking at me funny again. I'm guessing I either turned green or at least paled considerably. Still she stuck the other side, got PLENTY of blood out of that side and told me I'm going to have to suggest to people in the future that they take from the right side.

Once it was over I was good again. Once again mortified at how I react. I don't understand it. I understand everything rationally and I don't have a problem going by myself, holding still or having it done. If all that's fine WHY do I start shaking so badly? It's ridiculous.

I was supposed to stay for 10 - 15 minutes to make sure I didn't pass out since I had blood removed from my body and I hadn't eaten in almost a full day but I did not care. When my skin is pierced a hormone is released (oxytocin, I think) that makes me all happy and cheery and bright. I imagine it's the same hormone that makes people keeping picking their scabs off or keep on getting tattoos. I know it's the hormone that makes cutters feel good. In any case, I wasn't lightheaded or anything so I left.

I wanted to go straight to some fast food joint and get some sustenance, but I had to go to Walmart and get my stepson some more school supplies (he needed white-out....I didn't even know they still MADE white-out. What, is he using a TYPEWRITER??)

Then on my way out of town I went to Target because the last time I went to Target I made the mistake of looking at all their Halloween decorations. I should say up front that NORMALLY (and anyone who's seen my halloween decoration collection can verify) I DO NOT like anything CUTE for Halloween. I have a cute witch here or there, but mostly it's live-looking snakes, live-looking spiders, NON-cute ghosts, and a multitude of real-looking bones and skulls and skeletons.

This year Target has cutsie adorable cutie decorations. At first I thought they were ridiculous (the sparkly pastel skeletons in particular made me want to retch) but then I saw this candy jar . I am ALL ABOUT the cutesy Frankensteins they have at Target this year!!!! They are SOOO CUTE!! I blatantly don't like Frankenstein because of the whole "Science over God" thing but I am ALL ABOUT this adorable guy at Target!! Of course at the time I had already spent way too much money on my kids at Target so I refused to buy anything else other than the punch bowl with ladle and the tablecloth because last year I looked and looked and LOOKED for those two items and NEVER found them! Also I usually don't buy Hday stuff until AFTER it's over to hit those FREAKING AWESOME after holiday sales!

So I left it and went home. But ever since then I could not stop thinking about that candy jar. It's SOOO cute! C'mon LOOK at it!! HOW CUTE IS THIS?? HOW COULD ANYONE SAY NO? So I went back and bought it. It was the only thing I bought out of the entire Target so I was proud of myself. Besides, it's so cute there's no gaurantee that it would still be around after the holiday is over. AND after the experience we had where we tried to buy a pool in JUNE and they couldn't because they were getting ready for CHRISTMAS (walmart) I didn't want to chance not getting this fabulous candy dish. So I bought it. And I love it.

I still want this...whatever it is. It is about two feet tall and I assume it's a giant candy dish or something for outside but it was a little too costly for me. So I'm sticking with the frankenstien candy dish for this year.

There are sooooooooo many things at Target that I want want WANT but I don't have all that much money period. We are supposed to limit our decoration shopping to ONE item PER holiday PER year...and the candy dish is IT for this year!

Anyway after that I went to McDonalds and now I'm so full I could about barf. I shouldn't have stuffed myself but it had been so long since I had eaten I felt I deserved it LOL!

Money vs Hoarding

I've been dealing with a "pack-rat" syndrome most of the time I've been living in Illinois. It became a particular problem after I got married. Even worse after I quit my job. When I started staying home even though we were saving hundreds of dollars by not having to pay for daycare we suddenly lost over half our income. Neither my husband nor myself knew how to handle money when that much was taken away. It made us go through some pretty hard times in our marraige and it also made my pack-rat tendancies very pronounced.

If I found a piece of....lets say a flashlight. I'd say to myself "we need flashlights...I'll keep this peice in hopes that I eventually find the rest of it and hopefully it will work once we get batteries." and this would happen with several things over the coarse of a few years and soon I had so many pieces of things to keep up with that it would all just be a horrible mess!!

A few years and a few pay raises later and we are much more sensible with money and have a little more to boot. So now I find a piece of flashlight and I say to myself "another piece of junk. In the garbage it goes!! If we need another flashlight we'll just go to target and buy one."

This has made cleaning and going through the stuff I've accumulated while going through the pack-rat phase much easier! Less stress is good, right? And things are a lot cleaner. This is especially good because I am STILL going through stuff I've squirrelled away from our old house. And I'm so happy it's so much easier for me to throw things away. Now my hoarding seems strictly confined to books and nail polish. I'm getting over the nail-polish hoarding thing (I recently threw away the dried-up remains of the nail polish I used for my best friends wedding....12 years ago LOL). The book thing I can't control. In fact, after the recent discovery of an UNHEARD OF Stephen King in the dollar store I bought half the books in there, tee-hee.

I'm also on the hunt for anything classical....Dickens, Austin, a whole bunch of other books. Anyway, I've been being good about not buying any more books until I've read everything in my house. Right now I'm trying to keep my book reading down to one book at a time. Well, two - cuz there's a book that stays in the bathroom and only gets read in there. It might take me four years to finish it but eventually it will get finished LOL. I have found I get through books much quicker if I read them one at a time. I finished "Missing Pieces" in a couple weeks and "Lady Sarah's Son" I got through in five days even though it wasn't that interesting LOL

In any case having a little more money and a little more sense with the money we do have has made the whole "pack-rat thing" MUCH easier to get through. Once I have the pack-rat neurosis completely worked through I'll have to work on the weight thing. I now weigh 160 pounds. If you want to know, that's FIVE POUNDS HEAVIER than I was when I was TEN MONTHS PREGNANT with child number five (fourth pregnancy). Not. Good. At. All.