Resolutions

So, how are yours going? Mine suck, as usual. You know the "eat healthier, exercise more, and this year I will finally be thinner" stuff? Yeah thats not working out so well. Oh I had good intentions, as usual. I went to the gym every day for a week. I cut down on my soda for 2 weeks. I started to drink more water. That I am trying really hard to stick with.
But then I had this problem. Someone with a handful of nails reached into my guts, grabbed and twisted. I thought I was going to die. It went on for hours, then finally it dwindled but didn't go away. The next night it gradually started to get worse again so I went to the E.R. Big fat lot of good that did. They did an ultra sound because I thought it might be cyst. Since I have PCOS I thought it likely and thats where the pain was. But no -- no cysts. Well thats great but whats the problem? The ER guy tries to tell me its a UTI. Yeah right. I have zero symptoms! None! And I have had plenty so I should know. But do they listen? Of course not. How could I possibly know my own body? SO they send me home with an antibiotic. Great. So I take the stupid pills as directed and drink my gallons and gallons of water as directed just so when I tell them they are full of crap they can't say I'm wrong because I didn't do what I was supposed to.
So then I go to my own doctor who told me to take the pills and if I don't feel better call him. So I call him and say -- I took the pills, I still hurt. It went down after the ER but has never gone away. And its still pretty bad. Bearable with drugs but still....thats not the point. They re-look at the ER tests and say wow... you are right, it wasn't a UTI. Gee...really? He does his own exam and says no its too high. It's not gynecological. Fine I will see a GI guy. But do lots of blood tests too. Enough to feed a family of vampires. Meanwhile symptons get worse and now I cant stop puking and am puking up blood. Joy.
Now we go see the GI guy and do an upper endoscopy. You know -- the scope down your throat thing. And we find some pretty bleeding ulcers, lots of them in my throat and a hiatial hernia. Not that I know how to spell that. This I already knew from daily acid reflux. Got meds for that -- thats good, that needed doing anyway but explains nothing about pelvic pain. So I go back 2 weeks later for the colonoscopy. You know the scope up the other end. Joy. And they biopsy my intestines and colon and all that. Apparently thats all in good shape. And my blood tests come back. She says everything looks great, thyroid, blood sugar, metabolics, etc. She says I am remarkably healthy. Well thats great but ----- what the H*** is wrong with me?
I really, really hate that feeling like they don't realy believe you and are just going through the motions to make you happy. I wanted to scream. I am not a hypochondriac, I dont limp around the house in tears of agony because I stubbed my toe. I have a pretty high pain tolerance level and it drives me nuts to tell them that this really f**ing hurts and have those condescending smiles and the "poor dear" pat. Pisses me off. I dont want more pills I want it fixed so I dont need more pills!!!! Anyway, I asked my doctor (who I really do like its just his nurse who blows me off that I want to strangle) to do an exploratory laparoscopy. Just go in and look. And if you dont find anything I will punch you in the nose and say you didnt look hard enough! Because something is wrong.
And joy of joys they looked, they found, and they fixed!!!!! It turns out I have endometriosis. 2 months and lots of money later we finally find it. Part of me just wants to say ha! Told you something was wrong. The other part is feeling just a bit irritated that I end up having both Endometriosis and PCOS. Like God really doesn't want me to have another baby. But I cant really complain. It's not cancer, and they did find it and cut it out. So yay!
So now -- maybe I can get back those resolutions. And while I probably wont be skinny by Christmas -- hopefully I can at least be skinnier than I am now.

Kids

Kids are fun. This is what I decided the other day. Oh, they have their days when you just want to smother them or sell them to the gypsies but overall they are fun. Last weekend it was just me and Josh at home. Aaron was working on his mom's basement and Curtis was at his dad's. So Josh decides he is bored. (Not that this is a hard state for him to be in.) So he gets out this puppet theatre I got him for Christmas with all these little hand and finger puppets. I wish I had a picture. And he proceeds to put on a show. In this particular one he has an alligator and a duck puppet. They are friends and laugh and play and tell stories to each other. Then one day the alligator gets hungry and decides to eat the duck. The Possum puppet pops up and tells him how naughty that was. He was a bad alligator because they are not supposed to eat their friends. So the alligator feels bad and throws up the duck. And they are friends again. I wasn't quite sure how to react to that one so I just said good job buddy. After all there was a moral right?? Not like the next one where the possum is a vampire and preys on all the little finger puppets because after all -- even vampires need to eat. What? Again I just said good job buddy. Maybe I have been reading him too many bunnicula books?? Kids are fun, give you all kinds of new ways to look at stuff and think. :)

Perspective

So I get grouchy a lot. It sounds bad but I do. Then I bite it off and try to be nice anyway. Otherwise I feel like a big fat hypocrite. See, I have no patience with self-pity, poor me whining. I feel like you either fix it or shut up. And this can get me in trouble as being insensitive. And I'm not really, you should be allowed to be upset when something is wrong or something bad happens. But wallowing in "I'm a bad person, nothing will ever go right, I'm a loser" etc. etc. etc. because you had a bad day just irritates me. Sorry you had a bad day but that doesn't mean your whole life sucks.
Then I have a bad day. You know those days where you are irritable and moody and you know it's irrational but you can't help it. So you have to try and suck it and be nice anyway or else you are just like the people you complain about. I got these pictures from my mother .. and they help me put all my own personal irritations into perspective. I used to get mad at people who said think of the big picture. Isn't my little one enough to deal with? It's like when Josh was born with all of his problems and people would come up to you and say -- it could be worse. I don't care if it could be worse. Just because it wasn't worse didn't mean it wasn't bad enough. People in general I think have a hard time moving perspective off of ourselves. After all isn't it OUR life we are living? So isn't it natural that we are focused on us? To think that life is bigger than we are - to think that we are a small bit of this universe seems to people to say that we don't matter. And I understand that but I think one of my favorite lines is from Contact when she says that the universe she saw showed her how "small and insignificant and rare and precious" we all are. So thinking of it that way, my problems in the scheme of tings are pretty tiny. But that doesn't mean I dont matter. Because in all of this ..
there is only one of me. I may be small, but I am also rare and precious. And I can make it through whatever I have to -- and not just make it but smile and make it the best that I can as I go. Does any of this make any sense? I don't know, but it works for me. I love my children, I love my husband, and I am blessed. The rest is all just a distraction to make me forget that.

Random Rants

So, what is a blog? Should it be a family update -- sort of a newsletter of myself? Or just a collection of random rants? Well I have to admit that I like my random rants even though a lot of times they don't make much sense and are often dark. For that I apologise. However, I will also make this a newsletter thing like the rest my very cool family who are much more creative than I am. And yes I did mean that and not sarcastically either. I have a very cool family. Weird, silly, strange, and fun. We all like each other and even get together for dinner once a month. Now - this is an old picture. I think it was taken in January of 2006. We have since added 2 new babies. One of them will be 1 this month and the other is currently being born today!! Yeah for babies! Those are nephews though -- not mine. Two of those little monsters are mine. Curtis and Joshua. They are 12 and 8. And yes I have better pictures of them I just think this one is cute. They fell asleep at Grandma's on the couch while the rest of the family was at a concert. We went to go see Peter Mayer. We love him. He is an independent singer/songwriter from Minnesota. He comes to Salt Lake every January and we go see him as part of our Christmas present from my parents. He sings Christian, Folk, and Silly stuff. Generally all around good guy.This is all of us (family, cousins, and friends) mobbing him for a picture. It's a little dark but it was lots of fun. We drag more people into it every year. Anyway -- here I am rambling again. So- bits about us: We are weird. That goes without saying. I am 30, obsessed with dragons and books. I'm married to a great, silly, strange man obsessed with animals, lizards and snakes and turtles in particular. We have been married for a little over 3 years. I have 2 silly strange but overall good hearted boys. They get in their fair share of trouble, Curtis for not thinking and Josh because some part of his scheme went awry. I worry about that one becoming the frat house con man and everyone will know about it but no one will care because he is such a charmer. I told my husband he gets to deal with the angry father's. Anyway - I love to read, the kids love to play video games, my husband likesto anything as long as he isn't required to sit still for more than 5 minutes because I think that might kill him. We are campers and fisher's. (Is fisher's a word?) The kids play sports of all kinds and we struggle and manage our way through life trying to teach and do the best we can. This is turning into a wierd journal/rant. I promise to get better at this though. :)

There are no phone booths in Antarctica

If Superman really did exist -- where would he change? Are full phone booths still out there? Or would he just have to find more of those spinning doors? Do any of us really care? See - I think that if Superman did exist it would be more like the Incredibles. Some people would be grateful -- others would just be peeved because he didn't save them too. How could you possibly save everyone or be everywhere? So how do you decide who to help? And who fixes all the stuff you break trying to save the world? Wouldn't you get just a bit sick of the ungrateful people who just want more and more and more of you? This is why Superman can't exist, not in a world of cynics and greedy bloodsuckers. Or at least thats why he can't admit he does. So instead of a Superhero who we would wear down we just get stuck with the SuperVillians who we (in our weird twisted people way) cry out about but can't seem to get enough of. People are strange. This is why SuperHeroes live in Anarctica, even though there are no phone booths there.