In his grumpiness last night, Hubby told me that if I was late getting to bed, to sleep on the couch. Not one to tread where I’m not wanted, that’s exactly what I did. I removed the tiny blanket that came from a set of crib bedding that Pumpkin snuggles up with, got a nice, warm quilt, and stretched out around 1:30 this morning.
All was well for a while, but I woke up around 3:00 with my ear hurting terribly. I’m not sure what was up with that, because our couch pillows are nice and soft. But it was so painful that I had to turn around and lay on the other end of the couch. But I went back to sleep pretty quickly.
When I woke up to the sounds of Hubby starting a fire this morning, I was in misery. My back hurt (as it often does when I sleep on the couch), and my arms were all broke out. I’ll bet that was because of the dog being on the couch with Pumpkin and me in the evenings. I don’t break out from being around her, petting her or grooming her, but I guess laying where she had lay for several hours was too much for my sensitive skin. Itchy-itchy-owie.
Hubby had the nerve to ask me why I slept on the couch. Um, hello? Because he told me to. When I mentioned that, he said, “I figured you would come on to bed anyway.” Men.
One thing about winter: It sure isn’t cheap. At least our heating costs won’t be so bad this year since we’ve got wood heat and can get most of our wood for free. If I can learn to build a fire, that is.
Add to that the holidays, and it’s bad enough. But all of my family’s birthdays fall in the autumn and winter, so that’s yet another added expense. If we get each other anything, that is. I’ve been able to talk Hubby into us not buying gifts for each other for the most part, so that helps.
I’m going to try to get him a little something this year, even if it’s for his birthday and Christmas combined. I don’t think I’ll be buying him a Rolex or a set of Cobra golf clubs, but maybe something he can use. He really needs a new wallet, so if he can hold off on that until his birthday maybe that’s what he’ll get.
Pumpkin also needs some new clothes. Especially a winter coat. I would make that part of her Christmas gifts, but there’s no way we can wait that long. It gets cold around here long before Christmas. Heck, it was cold enough for a heavy coat for several days a couple of weeks ago.
That’s why I’m really hoping that my medicine will start working better. The past couple of days it has seemed to do somewhat better, so maybe it will. If not, I’ll just have to keep after the doc to get me on the right dose or try something else. That combined with my efforts to be more organized will hopefully result in me getting more work done, and that will result in being able to pay the bills (and maybe, just maybe, having a buck or two left over).
Today is a new day. I’m still not in the best of moods, but much improved. Gotta forge ahead.
I have a ton of stuff to do today. I’ve got to finish up on the scholarship research I’m doing for SuperCollege. I need to get my Foreman Grill review done. And I need to get something done around the house.
I had planned to use Pumpkin’s MP3 player to record some audio for the video review of the grill. But it appears that she has lost it. Wonderful. I’ve been trying to come up with a Plan B, but so far haven’t figured anything out. I don’t have a microphone that will work with my computer, so using Sound Recorder is out of the question. I guess I’ll be going through the house with a fine-toothed comb trying to find that MP3 player.
I also need to find some pens. Every time I’ve needed to write something down for the past few days, I’ve had to hunt high and low for one. Most of the time I end up using a Sharpie, which I hate to do because they’re not cheap. Maybe next time I go to town I’ll stop by the bank and grab a handful of their promotional pens that they keep on the counter. Then I’ll bring them home and hide them from everybody else.
But despite all that I have to do, I’m going to try my best not to make any actual plans. I’m really a go-with-the-flow kind of person anyway, but it’s hard to get anything accomplished that way. So I’ve been trying to be a little more structured. But in this house, structure is absolutely impossible. I might as well learn to accept that.
I started out having a pretty decent day today. I was current on all my work, and progressing nicely on the things that were lined up but not due yet. I had grand plans of getting my work done and trying to get some stuff done around the house that desperately needs to be done. One of these days I’m going to learn that nothing ever works out as planned.
I attempted to start working on the house shortly before Pumpkin was due home, but it just wasn’t meant to be. A monster headache hit me all at once. I figured I’d take something and rest until she got home, help her with her homework, and by then feel well enough to get something accomplished. Wrong.
All I got was a bunch of static over the homework. I tried to keep my voice down and be reasonable, but that didn’t help matters. I finally blew my top, yelled at her, and grounded her. And that didn’t even help much. It certainly didn’t help my head.
Then Hubby got home, and he had a serious attitude problem too. I’m not sure where it came from, but it caused things to be tense between us all evening. Then Pumpkin got up after I put her to bed, saying that she had forgotten that she had more homework. Not just a little thing, but 15 sentences to write (which usually takes her about 45 minutes to an hour). How’s that for icing on the cake?
I made her go back to bed and told her I would try to help her in the morning. That child is going to have to learn the meaning of responsibility. Then I tried to talk to Hubby before he called it a night, but that didn’t make things any better. So here I am, sitting in front of my computer (which is acting up and getting on my nerves too) in a mood so foul it should be illegal. I’m not sure if a brand spanking new pair of Dansko shoes could cheer me up right now. Couldn’t hurt, I suppose, if anyone cares to send me a pair.
Last week when we got a little skiff of snow, I was thinking forward to winter. I was trying to think of places for Pumpkin (okay, and me too) to sleigh ride. I realized that the hill behind our house would be perfect, if only it were cleared off.
I hope I can talk Hubby into bushhogging most of it off next spring. It’s way overgrown with briars and useless little bushes. There are a bunch of blackberry bushes at the top of the hill, but they didn’t do well at all this past summer. So I may just do away with them too.
I’d like to plant some nice mulberry trees up there once we do get it cleared off. Those little berries are absolutely heavenly! But I’ll probably hold off on planting anything for a while. Besides the blackberry bushes, nothing else has grown very well around here either. Both the miniature roses and the little purple and white flowers that I loved so much mysteriously withered away shortly after reaching the peak of beauty. I’m wondering if it could be some sort of pests causing it. Maybe I’ll have it looked into when we have the money.
Anyway, back to the sleigh riding idea. I mentioned it to Hubby, and he said we could come down the four-wheeler paths. I don’t think so, though. Both of them go straight toward the road, and even if traffic wasn’t a concern, there’s a big drop-off on the other side. Now I wish I hadn’t mentioned it, because he will probably decide that he and Pumpkin should try that. And when he gets something like that in his head, it’s very hard to talk him out of it. So I guess I opened up a can of worms there.
I’ve been dying to post about this since Friday, but I’ve spent the weekend working my butt off trying to get my writing work caught up. I finally got the last thing that was overdue done a couple of hours ago, so now I can do some blogging.
So my doctor called and apologized for taking so long to get back to me on the results of my ADD test. She said she was waiting on the results of my sleep study so she could get the whole picture before she decided how to proceed. It turns out that they found no kind of sleep disorder whatsoever. No apnea, nothing. You know what that means: No dreaded CPAP machine! Yay!
She then told me that the tests I had taken indicated that I had moderate ADD. To some people that would have been bad news. Heck, it would have been bad news to me a few months ago. But I was actually glad to hear it. Not so much glad I had it, but glad to finally get diagnosed so I could be treated.
She put me on Concerta SE, an extended release medicine used to treat ADD/ADHD. Truthfully, I haven’t been able to tell much difference. But I’m going to give it a little longer, and if I think it’s necessary I’ll give her a call and see if she can up my dosage or try something else. I’d love to see immediate results, but I’ll take what I can get. Due to the nature of the drugs used to treat ADD, I can totally understand taking a conservative approach. At least my foot is in the door to getting my life back on track.
She never has told me anything about why I’m staying so tired. From the research I’ve done, I think it’s chronic fatigue syndrome. And I’m thinking that maybe that’s what she’s thinking too. I say that because I don’t fit all the criteria for it, so she may be hesitant to make an official diagnosis, but the medicine she put me on is often used to treat CFS as well. Look at me, second-guessing my doctor. Us writer/researcher types are nothing but trouble, huh? 
Anyway, I’m hopeful that things will start getting better. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
I haven’t yet, but I plan to before the day is out. We have early voting here in North Carolina, but I wanted to take all the time I could to make up my mind. I’ve been leaning toward the same candidate pretty much since campaigning began, but I feel like I’m choosing between the lesser of two evils. I’ve felt like that during every presidential election I’ve ever voted in (which has been all of them since I was 18).
I’m not a big fan of politics. I think the two-party system is a bunch of hooey, and I would gladly vote for someone outside those two parties if it wouldn’t just take votes away from the least evil of the big party candidates. Things are set up to push either a Democrat or Republican to the top. I hope that changes within the next few years, because they’re not the only ones qualified to do the job.
If you haven’t voted and are registered, I encourage you to do so. It seems that turnouts are going to be good this year, going by how many people have already voted and how intense things have been during the campaigns. But every vote counts. Well, sort of. The electoral college system has screwed that up, but that’s a story for another day.
There have been reports of some machines messing with the votes, so keep your eyes peeled. Here are a couple of articles you might want to read before you head to the polls:
