A Breakdown And A Sandwich

This past weekend I ran out of Risperdal, which is the medicine that makes me nice instead of totally bitchy. I had put the empty bottle on the bathroom counter so I would see it and remember to go to the pharmacy, but every day I just totally spaced it.  I was feeling sick all day Monday, but I was stuck at work, and everything seemed to be annoying me, and I came home and just went to sleep. I woke up when Scott got home and he took me to the pharmacy. We got my medicine and I immediately popped one plus some Klonapin for good measure, and spent the rest of the evening just chilling out. Here is a picture of the amazingly awesome sandwich Scott made for me:

He always knows how to make me feel better.

I'm feeling much better now that I have my brain chemicals all balanced again.

I realize every now and again how incredibly lucky (blessed, even) I am to have Scott. He understands why I have mood swings and knows how to deal with them, and he knows that it isn't my fault and I don't mean anything when I snap at him or stomp around in a horrible mood. I think most men would have run away by now. Scott is just amazing.

International Kwiddens Day

Dear Kwiddens,

It's your birthday! You're 22! I can't believe it! Well, I can, but it's still cool!

I hereby designate today "International Kwiddens Day". Everyone can celebrate your existence!

Kwiddens, you are very special to me (not the "stop eating paste" special) and I am lucky to have you in my life.

Remember that time when you threw a dead spider at me, but I didn't know it was dead and I freaked out and punched you and we both got in trouble?

Remember when we drove to school and there was a really old, leathery looking woman in a parka, and we couldn't stop laughing all the way to school because we thought she was an Eskimo?

Remember when the missionaries came over for dinner and you burst out laughing in the middle of dinner and it made me start laughing and we couldn't stop so we got sent to our room?

Remember when we used to run around the backyard with a jump rope, pretending you were a horse and I was a cowgirl, because a jump rope was all we had?

Remember when we used to ride our bikes to Falls Park every day and have a picnic for lunch and climb around on the rocks and pretend we were mountain goats?

I have so many awesome memories with you, and we keep making more.

You are beautiful, inside and out. You are smart, kind, witty, generous, and a wonderful mother with a beautiful baby (and how could she not be beautiful, since she's made of you?).

You understand what's going on in my head and I'm never embarrassed to tell you whatever is on my mind. You're full of good advice and free with your hugs, and you're one of my closest confidantes.

You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be treated like a queen. You deserve ice cream, because I said so.

I'll see you tomorrow when the whole family meets for your birthday dinner. We'll eat rolls and honey butter and the calories won't matter because we're celebrating your life (plus I'll go to the gym for a few hours to work it off...).

Keep getting older. It's kinda fun. Plus we all like having you around.

Love you Kwiddens!

-Your Sister, Nanners

Silly, Foggy Scott

I'm tired, so today you just get a few amusing videos. If you're going to buy an industrial strength fog machine, you should definitely get to play with it.

It Looked SO AWESOME!

I don't think I need words to introduce this:



It would have been totally epic if we had had more than 15 trick or treaters...stupid Halloween on a Sunday.

Halloween: Buster And Nyah

Here's a picture of our little Nyah in her costume:

Best little Jack O Lantern EVER.

And, because animal cruelty is always funny*:

Buster as a hot dog. Oh yes, we did.

*Animal cruelty is never funny. And this isn't cruel. Well, not very cruel.

Pour Some Sugar On Me

(Gotta love Def Leppard. Other contenders were "Sugar Sugar" by The Archies, "Lollipop" by The Chordettes, and "I Want Candy" by Bow Wow Wow)

I had a dream last night that I went to Maverik in the morning before work and was choosing something to grab for breakfast. I swear the dream was like an hour long, and the entire time I was walking around the store, picking up something, then changing my mind and putting it back, choosing something else, etc. I ended up with a huge soda (not diet) and a ton of candy and donuts, and when I got to the cash register I looked at it all and said, "Scott would be ashamed of me!" and I put it all back. Then I woke up.

It was awesome.

I've been having an awful time with cravings lately. I think my body is like, "It's cold, therefore I need more fat to keep warm, therefore I must eat CANDY."

I've been a lot better about eating Halloween candy before Halloween this year than last year. A LOT. Still, I've had a bit here and there. I feel a little bit bad, since I've not been able to get to the gym much lately (but I went yesterday and my ankle didn't hurt much at all!), but I think I'll just have a few pieces over the next few days and then on Halloween I'll go ahead and indulge, and then Monday I'll bring in any leftover candy to work and make my coworkers eat it.

I was thinking about why I'm craving bad foods so much, since it's usually connected to how I'm feeling emotionally, and I find that figuring out what's making me sad/mad/whatever helps me not eat crap, even if it doesn't make the cravings go away. I'm 99% positive it has everything to do with not getting enough exercise over the last month and not having happy endorphins all over the place. I'm constantly amazed at the HUGE impact exercise has on my depression. I mean, the meds keep me at a pretty good baseline, but getting a good workout in at least three or four times a week really pushes my moods up into HAPPY HAPPY LAND (it's a really nice place, in case you were wondering).

Halloween is where it all starts. From there it just goes downhill. Halloween (candy), then Thanksgiving (pie), then Christmas (traditional Christmas Eve cheeseburgers, then traditional sugary cereal on Christmas, and all the candy), then New Year's (just another excuse to have yummies), and by the time it's January I'm usually heavier. BUT NOT THIS YEAR. I'm going to be reasonable. Treats, yes, but smaller portions, less often, and, above all, I'm going to keep exercising!

Now excuse me while I go eat one of the Halloween cookies my boss brought in today.

Don't worry. I'll burn it off later at the gym.

Chocolates, hCG, and Fog Machines, Oh My!

My favorite kind of chocolates are Queen Anne cherry cordials. Every year for Christmas someone in my family gets me a box, with the "e" scribbled out and replaced with an "a", which makes me the queen. I eat all of them in one day and it's delicious and amazing, but after I eat a whole box of them I'm sick of them and I don't want any more until next year.

I hate when people argue on Facebook. I got caught in the middle of an argument yesterday and it was mostly my fault...oops. This one involved someone ragging on the hCG diet, saying it doesn't work in the long run and it'll just make you unhealthy, etc. Well, let me tell you, I've kept 30 pounds off, my blood pressure and cholesterol went down, and now I can keep up with Scott while we're walking through a store. I can see how the weight would come back if you didn't change your eating and exercise habits, but I did and it's amazing. The end.

I ordered an industrial strength fog machine from Best Buy, and I chose (and paid for) the faster shipping. the website said it would be here by...YESTERDAY. They were supposed to send me an e-mail and charge my credit card when they shipped it, and I got neither an e-mail nor a charge. So last night I called customer service and tried to find out what was going on. I feel sorry for customer service people, because all they do all day is handle people's problems, and most of them aren't as polite as I am. Anyway. Even though it said nothing about it on the webpage, this item was special order through Best Buy from another company. The other company hadn't told Best Buy if they'd gotten the order or anything, so they were still in the dark. I'm mad. If, on the website, it says I will get my item by a specific day if I pay this much for shipping, I better get it then. As it stands, we may not get it at all before Halloween, which would totally suck.

THIS JUST IN:

I'm talking to Scott on messenger right now and he said Jon just told him a large package just arrived from Best Buy. I forgive them.

Work has been really slow lately. There are way fewer samples coming in from outside labs, so it's just our own every day, and it's not enough. I find myself killing time so I can get enough hours.

Me: Afternoon is the worst part of the day for me because everything is all done except I just have to wait for the machines to finish. And wait. And wait.
Kwiddens: Oh darn, you get paid to sit.
Me: I know, but I don't like waiting.
Kwiddens: Silly.

HOLY HELL I just got hit by a craving for Chinese food. I've had really intense cravings lately, and I don't know why.

The women at my new crochet group all do a different kind of crochet called Tunisian. It's almost a hybrid of knitting and crochet. I'm going to attempt to teach myself before we meet tonight.

Antibiotics Are Useless

So I joined a gym, right?

Right.

I was going all the time and feeling awesome for about two weeks. Then, everything just kinda...well, stopped.

First, Li came to visit. I did go to the gym (and brought her with me) on a Saturday morning, but the other several days I just wanted to hang with my best friend and get some well-needed rest.

As soon as she was gone I was planning on going back. Unfortunately, I got sick. I had some kind of cold or maybe a mild flu. I was tired and dizzy and stuffy and generally miserable, so exercising was just out of the question.

After I got better I started going back, until my ankle exploded. Fun times. The doctor told me to stay off of it for two to three weeks, so I did two weeks (I was itching to get back onto that treadmill) and took it a bit easier for about a week.

THEN.

Maybe this is TMI, but THEN I developed a raging UTI. Have you ever had one of those? Did it make you want to walk on the treadmill? Or walk at all? Nope.

So I went back to the doctor and got antibiotics and went on my merry way. At this point, we had been spending a ton of time working on the kitchen, getting it ready for cabinets, so there just wasn't much time to go work out, even when my symptoms had subsided.

Unfortunately, that relief was short-lived. Ugh. My symptoms came BACK, like BAM, so suddenly...awesome. So I went BACK to the doctor and they tested me again and apparently Macrobid does absolutely nothing (at least in me, I'm a medical mystery) and it had gotten worse, even though the symptoms had gone way for a while. The doctor prescribed a different antibiotic, in a larger dose for a longer duration, and I went on my merry way.

Cipro has a few warnings. One is to avoid eating dairy and taking the meds at the same time (which wasn't a problem, really) and the other is NOT TO EXERCISE. Especially if you have tendonitis in your Achilles tendon OH LOOK THAT'S ME. Because apparently Cipro makes it worse and you could actually end up badly damaging your tendons. Super. It's also been making me extremely nauseated and bloaty (TMI again, I know) so that doesn't make me want to exercise, anyway. I totally threw up at work. Gross.

I just took my last dose! Yay!

So tomorrow...it's back to the gym. And I'm going to get skinny if it kills me.

At Least It's Progress

So we have, for a few weeks, been working on our Halloween prep. As you know, Halloween is our favorite holiday and really, the only one we do much for (at Christmas I do put up a tree and some icicle lights over the garage, but that's about it).

Last year we had a few tombstones in our front yard and a fog machine blowing fog over them. Unfortunately, it was just one of those cheap 400 watt fog machines (only about 1500 cubic feet per minute or cfu), and the tiniest breeze would come along and it would all just blow away. Boring.

So this year we decided to try something more. When the fog comes out of the machine it is pretty warm so it floats upward automatically. If you want it to creep along the ground, it needs to be cooled. There are fog machines with built-in coolers, but they're way more expensive, so we decided to go to Home Depot (surprise, surprise) and make one ourselves. First up we got a bin (black so it wouldn't show well at night) and some dryer ducting, and coiled the ducting up inside the bin.

Then we cut a hole on the left side and the front side (look at the picture below) and attached the ducting with duct tape. Then the fogger went into one end and the fog came out the other side.

Then, we took an irrigation tube and attached that to the "out" end of the ducting.

When the fogger was hooked up, the fog came out all the little holes in the irrigation tube and, theoretically, would spread out all over the graveyard and not just in one direction.

We took it outside to give it a little test run. Into the bin we put ice (about four bags, I think):

We made sure all the ducting was completely covered:

Then we got everything assembled and let it cool for a while before we turned it on:

We turned it on and we were so excited to see it work...and it barely seeped out over the grass. There just wasn't enough fog coming out of the holes in the irrigation tube. I took a picture but Blogger just deleted it and I'm at work so I don't have a copy. Sad. Anyway, let's just say it wasn't exactly awe-inspiring.

We tried to rectify the situation by widening the holes, and that actually helped quite a bit, but it still wasn't that much fog, so we had to brainstorm. The nice thing was that the chilling mechanism was actually working great; the fog was staying low to the ground.

So we decided to buy a more powerful fogger. Two, actually: one for each end of our brilliant apparatus (the other end of the irrigation tube was easy to open up) (we had capped it). So I went around town and looked for a 700 watt machine, which is the next step up. Last year Target had them, but this year they didn't. I went to Wal-Mart, Shopko, K-Mart, and even the Halloween Spirit store in the mall, but no luck. So I got online and started looking. I found several sites that had them for about $40, but the shipping was RIDICULOUS. Like, as expensive as the machines themselves kind of ridiculous. So, I was just going to give up when my dear Scott convinced me that since Halloween was our favorite holiday, and we keep good care of our stuff, and it would last for years and years, we should just buy one really freaking awesome fog machine and use it. So I got online, and Best Buy had a fogger that is 1200 watts (!), and the output was 7000 cfm (four times as much as our little baby foggers) and it was $150 with free shipping (but only $6 if we wanted it rushed) (and of course we did) (it'll be here by tomorrow at the latest).

Tune in next time (or maybe the time after that; I have other things to post about) for a story about how we built a coffin in our front yard!



Why Pay More?

There are a few things I am willing to pay more for to get the name brand. In some cases the quality is actually higher, so I make up for the higher cost by being able to use certain products for longer.

Of course, there are other things, like food, that are exactly the same, no matter what brand they are. I'll gladly pay half price for Great Value macaroni and cheese that tastes exactly like Kraft.

I generally don't understand why people insist on paying a higher price for something that is EXACTLY THE SAME.

That's why I don't understand why people want brand name medications, either over the counter or prescription.

Let me tell you a little story.

Once upon a time I worked at a giant pharmaceutical company (Cephalon). In the particular location where I worked they made a product called Actiq, which is fentanyl (a narcotic 80 times more powerful than morphine) (you would not believe the amount of paperwork required for ANYTHING involving a Schedule II controlled substance...). In the factory they made brand name Actiq...AND generic fentanyl. Exact same formula. Exact same production process. And, most importantly, EXACT SAME QUALITY CONTROL TESTING PROTOCOLS. Very strict ones, in fact.

For one dose of Actiq, Cephalon charges somewhere around $50, depending on the dosage.

Guess how much they charge for a dose of generic fentanyl?

$17. Yep. Almost three times as much, for the exact same thing.

People, it doesn't matter what company makes the medication. The FDA monitors very carefully the production and testing of every single drug available in the US. There are inspections ALL THE TIME, and they are very strict. If there are any violations, the companies get fined heavily, so to avoid this, the companies are very very careful to do everything properly and safely.

On a related note, I hate when people are wary of something that's made in a lab versus the same thing found in nature. Keywords being the same thing. And, chances are, they can get the substance more pure if they make it in a lab, and many times for a much smaller cost.

So now you know.

Go forth and buy generic!