Coming Out of the Freeze

The sky is clear & blue today & it feels like the temperatures are over freezing, or at least, not as close to zero as they have been. It's been so cold here since the week before Christmas, with a lot of snow, ice & wind. The forecast looks like we're supposed to be clear & sunny for a few days, thankfully. I can only handle so much cold, grayness before I start to go nuts.

Troy & Erin spent the morning playing Rock Band, and I've been working & tying up lose ends before the next week starts. We're just kind of hanging out & relaxing right now, thinking about going to get a soda & trying to decide what we want to do until it's time to game. I know we need to do the dishes, if nothing else, since we have no flatware & very little of anything else to eat on, to say we've been slacking off would be an understatement at this point.

I'm also thinking I probably ought to eat something, since i haven't been managing more than one meal a day the past few days. I just haven't been all that hungry, I guess. I know that a lot of my problems with eating are that my throat often hurts too much to think about it, but now that I'm getting a grip on the thrush, it's getting easier.

When we get our Christmas money from Troy's mom, I want to go to the store & look at notebook memory for his laptop. He doesn't use it very often, but I know that he needs a bit of an upgrade as far as memory goes, if nothing else.

People are Strange

I think every group of friends has one of those guys, you know the type. He's the one who falls for every MLM scam out there, has dreams of making the fast buck no matter what he does & only gets involved in something if he believes he'll be rich within 2 or 3 months. I used to have a friend like that, then he screwed other people over in his quest for wealth & started talking crap about me & I stopped being his friend. He seems to be constantly on the look out for a buck, but he doesn't actually have the attention span to see anything through to a point where he could actually start to make money with it.

I've always thought he ought to look into a few small business opportunities, decide which one would really fit him & his lifestyle & take the time to make it work for him, but I know he isn't ever going to do that. He'll keep chasing the pipe dreams that he comes up with every few months & never get anywhere with any of them. It's sad to see people waste their lives doing nothing.

Cramped

I think I need to get the room Erin has been using straightened out so that he can keep his stuff in there & be able to keep track of it. It's all starting to build up in the living room & quite frankly, this room isn't all that big to begin with. Between all of the humans & animals we have in here you can barely turn around sometimes. I guess it's probably a good idea that we decided against getting the new TV right now, because even though getting new tv furniture and getting rid of the entertainment center would give us more room, I'm not sure we have the space to move anything around to make it work for us, not right now, anyway.

Things are just cramped & crowded right now, I imagine it won't feel like this when the weather gets nice again, but for now, this house feels about half of it's actual size. I think it probably has in the past, I'm just really bothered by my lack of space & privacy anymore, I think. I know I'm more than ready for it to be just me & Troy again, we got spoiled during those months when it was. Rhi plans to move out fairly soon, and Erin is trying to get some legal stuff cleared up & taken care of so that he can start getting some job training & get on with his life. I'm pretty excited, it means we can get on with our lives, too!

Back to the Grind

I'm desperately trying to get back to the grind of everyday life after the holidays, but I don't really think I'm succeeding very well. All I seem to want to do is hang out with my friends & Troy & play all day, you know? We ended up getting together yesterday afternoon/evening, getting KFC together & then playing Rock Band until almost midnight. I usually sing with Dawn & Vicki, but since I had almost no voice yesterday, I just watched the rest of them play. I'd really like it if we could get a system that we could play it on, so I could learn to use the instruments here at home (I'm shy when I'm learning to play a game). At least that way, I could play even if my voice wasn't cooperating that day, I'm just not sure I want to lay out that kind of money right now.

I spent some time this morning (while I was lying in bed, trying to decide whether I wanted to get up) thinking about engagement rings, since I've had a few myself. I'm not a hugely sentimental person, and I have to admit that I love the ring Troy bought me last year to replace my original engagement ring much more than I liked the first one. The one I currently wear is a sterling silver claddagh with a heart shaped sapphire. The original was 14k gold, with a blue topaz & a couple of tiny diamond chips to either side. I'm not a fan of gold or diamonds, honestly, so that's probably part of the reason I love the second one better.

I discovered at some point this week that my next nice little bug/illness is thrush. I was in a lot of pain on Christmas, by the time we went to bed I was pretty sure of what it was & looked it up on Dr. Google the next morning. I've been hitting the Listerine since then & I'm starting to hurt a lot less now, thankfully. I'll really be happy when I start to feel good again, I'm really getting worn down from being sick all the time. I'd love to feel good enough to get up & clean my house again, I miss it being clean to my standars, you know?

Another One Gone

Christmas was good for us. It was very low-key, but that was really what we were looking for this year. The kids were happy with their gifts, Troy loved his iPod Nano, I was thrilled with my perfumes (from BPAL) and my new Samsung digital camera. Christmas Eve was pretty mellow for us. Erin worked most of the day, Rhi was in & out. Her boyfriend & two of her other friends got together & got her a 6 month old American Pit Bull for Christmas, so she was out with them quite a lot. That evening, we watched some Christmas movies, ate dinner & opened our new pajamas & went to bed.

Christmas morning, Erin came & woke us up at about 7:30 or so, we came out & everyone got into their stockings & such, we all worked on waking up & then we got the gifts passed out & took turns opening them. Erin & Troy immediately started loading mp3 players with music, Rhi wandered back off to bed & I got on my computer & played until it was time to go to my folks' house. We had a good time over there & a lot of good food to eat, too. Everyone seemed to enjoy their gifts & we had a good time visiting. Of course, my niece was asking Rhi about everything from drawing anime, acne treatments & boys, but I think that's probably the great thing about having an older cousin to hang out with. I never really did & am happy to see their friendship grow as they both get older.

We left there right as the storm was starting to get bad, came back here & dropped the kids off to pursue what ever they had planned for the night, went & picked up Dawn & Jason & headed off to the party we were having with our friends. We had a bunch of good snacks to eat & tons of good things to drink. We all exchanged gifts & played Rock Band & had a great time. I think Troy & i got home at around 2am or so. Well, I gotta go, have to run to the store & then over to Dawn's.

I Think We're Ready

We decided to brave the grocery store and the liquor store today, we figured that it would be twice as bad tomorrow. We're going to a party on Christmas night, thus the need to run by the liquor store. I think there were more people in there today than I've ever seen at one time. There was some woman that was taking up the entire driveway while we were trying to get in.. she had her phone jammed in her ear & looked like she had a bad attitude, too. Troy called her "Dortha" and I looked at him & said, "I don't know, I think her name is something like Latrina or Rimowa or something." While we were in there, another woman walked up & asked us what went well in eggnog, I told her a spiced rum would be good, we chatted for a couple of seconds & then we went back to picking stuff out. I swear I don't look like I spend a lot of time drinking or anything, I have no idea why she asked us & I don't ever actually add anything to our eggnog, so I hope that was a good suggestion.

We headed to the grocery store after that to pick up mixers & realized that neither of us had eaten anything since breakfast, so we went to the deli first. I grabbed a sandwich, Troy got baked chicken & then we got mixers & left. I still need to wrap a few gifts & get stuff ready for the stockings, but other than that, I'm finished & ready for Thursday. Tomorrow I just want to stay in, do my laundry & relax. We plan to watch Christmas movies throughout the afternoon & evening & probably go to bed somewhat early, so we can be well-rested for Christma, which will be a busy & tiring day.

Wow.

I can't believe that Christmas is in two days, it seems like it was a month away just a few days ago, honestly. It's not like I'm not ready, I am, it just seems like the last month went by insanely quick. We had another snow storm yesterday, it started right after Troy & I decided to drive down to St. George & spend a little bit of his end of year bonus. Rhi got hired to work as a laborer on a local farm, so we dropped her off on our way & had to drive through everything from snow to rain in 50 miles.

We're trying to decide whether we should spend almost the entire bonus & get an LCD TV, which we've been wanting for awhile, or to split it between ourselves & get other stuff. Part of the problem we have is if we get a new, larger TV, we have to totally reaarange our living room & I don't think either of us is truly up to that yet. Another issue is that we'll have to get something to put it on, because all we have is an extremely outdated entertainment center & that will never hold a larger TV. I'm thinking we'll just wait & save up to get one & a new stand, too.

That means I need to decide what I do want to buy.. oh my, so many choices!

Winter Wonderland

We got quite a lot of snow last night, probably between 6-8" of it. This is really unusual for us in December, we almost never have snow that sticks before Christmas. We got our first big storm last year on December 26, so at least it was close enough to Christmas to kind of be able to say we had a white one. I don't know how long this one will stay on the ground, but it sure is pretty today!

I saw an ad today offering to sell a Las Vegas strip map & I kind of had to laugh. I'm not sure how many of you have ever been to Las Vegas, but I've been a few times & almost all of my friends have, too. It's really pretty easy to navigate , especially in the "strip" area. The streets are all pretty much named for one of the casinos that sit on the corners, so to find Tropicana Avenue (and thus McCarran Airport) you look for the Tropicana casino. The best way to get the full Las Vegas strip experience is to decide what you want to see & either take the monorail to get as close to the location as possible, or walk if it's close enough. Driving on the strip is pretty much a nightmare as soon as the sun goes down & as far as I can tell, stays that way all night long. There are also taxis & shuttles all over the place that are pretty affordable. I mean, if it makes you feel more secure to know exactly where everything is, go ahead & buy a map, it can't hurt anything, but I honestly don't think they're necessary.

Anyway, it's time for me to go get dressed & ready to go. Dawn, Vicki & I are having a girls' day & the guys are hanging out at Vicki's and playing video games. We've all been super excited about it & I can't wait to go!

Contemplation

I've spent a lot of time lost in thought since Troy got home from the hospital, and I know you're all probably tired of hearing about it, but it's what I feel like talking about, so I guess you can read it or ignore it. I've spent time worrying about what I'll do if he dies before I do, you know, how I'll pay the bills, buy groceries & pretty much just survive. I don't see how I would, so I guess I need a plan or something. He has life insurance through his job, but it's pretty much a year's wages & then it's done, so I could theoretically live off of that while I tried to find a job or get job training or something. I know that with my disabilities, I'd qualify for vocational rehab, which would pay for school.

We don't have home owner insurance, because we rent, but should I have renters insurance? Would it benefit me at all? I don't think it really does anything for me unless someone breaks in or something is lost or damaged, right? I know it seems strange for me to be worrying about all of this at 42, but I've almost lost him 3 times, now & when you're a stay at home wife & really don't have a lot of marketable skills, you do worry. It's not like my kids can or will take care of me, they can barely take care of themselves at this point.

I'm just stressed out, most likely over nothing & I know I need to calm down, take a deep breath & move on. I'm trying and I will, it's just going to take me a little while I think.

Changes

Troy & I have spent a lot of time this past week trying to get used to our new, healthier lifestyle. We've pretty much completely reworked our menu and cut out most of the stuff we used to eat & enjoy, because really, nothing is going to taste good to either of us if the other one dies young.

This hospital trip was a real eye-opener for us, and there are times when I'm still very emotional about it & sad, like this morning, when Troy tried to talk to me about what I would have done if he hadn't made it through. I started crying & pretty much refused to talk about it, really.

So, anyway, we've been doing a lot more healthy grilling, eating more chicken & almost no beef, adding more vegetables to our meals and having healthier snacks. Troy's been a great sport about it, and has even started eating vegetables that he had never agreed to eat at all before. We're both losing weight, sleeping better & feeling better, too.