A Work at Home Mom’s Blog

Christmas Creep is a condition I seem to suffer from every year. I start thinking about Christmas fairly early, and I figure everything will fall into place in plenty of time. And then Christmas gets closer, and closer, and closer… and I’m broke and haven’t even come close to getting all of my shopping done.

I know it’s not even December yet, but I already know that I won’t have much money coming in between now and Christmas. So instead of an iPod for Pumpkin and some nice TSW rims for Hubby, it’s going to be more like some warm clothes for Pumpkin and a pocket knife for Hubby. And I’ll be lucky to scrape up enough for that.

As is so often the case in recent years, I’ll be glad when the holidays are over. It’s all way too stressful.

Rapper Heavy D was found dead outside his home yesterday. I’m not a huge fan of rap these days, but he was one of my faves when I was younger, and it’s tragic that he passed at such a young age. His music was fun and positive, and songs like the one in the video above still put a smile on my face.

Heavy, I’m wishing you a peaceful journey.

There’s a store in town that I keep meaning to go to, but I never seem to have any money to spend there when I think about it. It’s a tobacco outlet, but I don’t smoke and I’m not looking to buy anyone any Garcia Vega cigars. I want to buy some candles.

Yes, that’s right, candles. Tobacco and candles are a rather odd combination for a store to sell, but that’s what they specialize in. And they’ve got some really awesome candles in dozens of heavenly scents and every size you can imagine. Unlike those cheap discount store candles, they burn very evenly and throw out plenty of scent until they’re gone. They’re not cheap, but they’re worth every penny they cost.

I need to get some pillar candles for this set of large vintage candleholders my mom gave me. I’ve had them for a while, and I had some cheapo candles in them, but after burning them a few times they looked horrid. So they just sat there collecting dust, and removing dust from crappy candles is next to impossible. I ended up throwing those out, and my pretty candleholders look so lonely sitting there empty.

The next time I have some cash to spare, I’m going in and picking up a couple of nice scented pillars. And maybe a few votives while I’m at it. I firmly believe that you can never have too many candles.

Pumpkin made a list of stuff she’d like to have for her birthday. It was a loooooong list, and it included several expensive items. She got two of them, a microscope and a telescope, because I found a ridiculously awesome deal on them. But now all I’ve been hearing about is how much she’d like to have one of the other expensive items on that list for Christmas: an iPod Touch.

She has a PSP, and it does just about everything an iPod Touch can do, except it doesn’t have a touch screen. I know you can’t put apps on it, but I don’t think she really gives a flip about anything but the game apps. And games are what a PSP does best.

I’ve explained this to her, but she just thinks the whole touch screen thing is so cool. So I’m trying to come up with a less expensive compromise. I haven’t really found a viable alternative to an iPod Touch, but I’ve run across some killer deals on tablet PCs. Hmm…

I’m thinking about getting her one. She’s mentioned in passing that she’d like to have an iPad, and an Android tablet is very similar as far as what it can do, but much less expensive. The biggest difference between a tablet and an iPod as I understand it (other than the OS) is that the tablet is larger. And she’d probably like having a larger screen.

If anybody knows more about this stuff than I do (yes, I’m hopelessly behind the times on these technological wonders), please fill me in!

I’ve been thinking a lot about Christmas shopping lately. I’m not sure why it’s on my mind this early. Maybe because I’m afraid that I won’t have any money to buy gifts. If I can get enough work done maybe that won’t be a problem. But I’m working on contingency plans just in case.

I’ve been busting my butt to accumulate as many Amazon gift certificates as I can. And I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled for Gap or Old Navy or Abercrombie or Urban Outfitters coupons in hopes of getting some killer deals on clothes for Pumpkin and maybe Hubby. I also have some credit available if worse comes to worst, but I’m hoping I won’t have to use it much or at all.

Am I the only goofball who’s thinking this far ahead? Let me know in the comments!

The past month has really, really sucked. I spent the majority of it laying around feeling like crap. It was like my digestive system just totally turned against me, leaving me in terrible pain and not functioning properly. I would go into more detail, but you probably wouldn’t want to read it so I’ll just leave it at that.

I did go to the doctor, but I had to see the new NP, and she isn’t worth a hoot. I tried to give her a chance, I really did, but she just doesn’t listen. I told her about some other strange symptoms that I was having, and she just looked rather perplexed and gave me something to help with the stomach problems. It helped a little, but not that much. Luckily it resolved somewhat on its own a week or so after I finished the medication. But I’m still not at all back to normal, and I think there’s something underlying that’s causing it all.

Anyway, because I was feeling so horribly, I didn’t get much work done all month. Once I started feeling better physically, the depression that always sets in when I can’t get any work done kept me from getting much work done for a couple more weeks. Today is the first day I’ve been fairly motivated and clearheaded, and wouldn’t you know it, Pumpkin got out of school early and is having a three day weekend.

I feel like a car that’s been sitting on the side of the road, waiting for the breakdown service people to get there. And once I get towed and repaired, something else tears up right after I leave the shop. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I’m trying to keep up hope that things will get better. But when they’ve been like this to some degree for the past few years, it gets rather difficult.

For a couple of weeks, I was doing a much better job than usual of staying motivated. I thought maybe things were finally looking up. But as usual, my hopes have been dashed to shreds.

I started having stomach problems a couple of weeks ago. It didn’t seem like a big deal at first, but it didn’t resolve itself. I took some medication that I’d taken before, and it didn’t help. Then I tried something stronger, and it helped somewhat. But when I don’t take the medicine, I go back to square one.

It has really worn me down this week. I’m beginning to wonder if the stomach issue is a sign of a bigger problem, because I’ve had some other strange symptoms. And I’ve been very tired – I wake up each morning feeling like I’ve been beaten with an industrial rubber hose all night instead of sleeping.

All this has led to a major decrease in productivity. I had high hopes for this week even though I didn’t have any looming deadlines, but as it turned out I’ve gotten very little done. As much as I hate to, I guess I’ll be making a trip to the doctor next week.

I’ve never really been much of a coffee person until recently. But when I decided to make myself start getting up earlier and going to bed earlier, it sort of became a necessity. I don’t drink it every day, because if I do it makes certain health problems flare up. But I do drink a couple of cups on mornings when I need to resist the urge to go back to bed after Pumpkin leaves for school.

But I’m beginning to realize that coffee doesn’t like me any more than I like it. It hurts my stomach if I don’t eat something before I drink it, and today it’s given me a terrible case of the runs. It’s kind of like I took half a bottle of the diet pills that rush stuff through your system before it can turn into fat. (Sorry if that’s too much information!)

Anyway, I’ve come to the conclusion that I need an alternative to coffee. I’ve tried 5-hour energy, and it does absolutely nothing for me. I can’t drink energy drinks because they are loaded with caffeine as well, plus I’d probably break out from the artificial colors and flavorings. And I’m not supposed to drink soda at all because of the artificial stuff in it.

So what’s a girl to do to get a boost in the morning? Hook herself up to a set of jumper cables? I’m going to have to figure something out.

Pumpkin’s birthday is a little over a month away. And I have no earthly idea what to get her this year.

She’s getting too old for toys, but she’s not quite old enough to really appreciate gifts you’d buy for teenagers. I guess that’s part of the reason they call them the tween years, huh?

I was looking at some Casio cameras digital (not film like the one her aunt got her a couple of years ago and she’s never used). She has a super-cheap digital camera that works with those password journals, but she has said she wants one with a screen. It’s been a while since she talked about it, though, so I’m not sure if she’s still interested or not.

The only thing I’ve been able to come up with is clothes. And maybe a good pair of earrings if I can find some that are affordable. The Simply Whispers ones I got her last year are starting to bother her ears, so I guess I need to go with 14 karat gold.

I’m hoping I can think of something to get her from Amazon. I’ve been earning as many points as possible from Swagbucks and ordering Amazon gift cards with them. So far I’ve racked up $15 worth in the past week, plus I’ve already got a $20 balance in my account. If I keep going maybe I can get her something nice.

If you have any other tween gift ideas, I’d love to hear them!

I’m on medication for anxiety. I don’t take it every day, just as needed. Lately I haven’t needed it very much, which is good, because it makes me feel run down and/or sleepy. But there was a time when I had to take it frequently. I was anxious a goodly portion of the time, and I was having panic attacks.

If you’ve never had one, panic attacks suck. People experience them in different ways, but for me they were signified by trouble breathing, my heart pounding and sometimes nearly passing out. Not fun.

Thankfully I haven’t had one of those in a long time. But just today I came to the realization that Hubby has probably been having them for years.

Back when he was working at the tire shop, he came home one day and declared that he was going to quit smoking. I asked what led him to that decision, and he said that he had lit a cigarette when he was at work and had a pain in his chest that took his breath. I said that it sounded like quitting would be a good idea, and he did.

But a few evenings later, he had a similar pain in his chest. It was bad enough that he decided to go to the emergency room, because he thought it could be his heart. They ran tests – drew blood, did an ECG, the whole nine yards – and everything came back normal. Since it didn’t appear to be any other sort of emergency, they sent him home.

He kept having pains, and he eventually found out he needed to have his gall bladder removed. He did, and things were better in a lot of ways. He didn’t have any of those types of pains for a long time. But eventually he did again.

Since they were less frequent, and the symptoms didn’t last too long at a time, he didn’t talk to the doctor about it any more. But today he came home from a friend’s house and said he had had such an episode again. I asked him what happened, and he said he had to help put out a fire that would have burned the house down if he and some other guys hadn’t acted quickly. He was still pretty shaken up about it.

And that’s when it hit me. Many of the other times when he’s had those pains, it has been when he suddenly got upset about something. Since his muscles are pretty much constantly pulled due to his back problems, I’m guessing that his anxiety causes them to tighten up suddenly, causing intense pain.

Sounds like a panic attack in my (nonprofessional) opinion. Maybe I’ll be able to talk him into discussing it with the doctor next time he goes in.