Scratchy

My throat, that is. I was up at 5:30 this morning, because it wouldn't stop itching & I knew I'd never be able to get back to sleep. So, I got up, took my cold medicine & got on the laptop to wait for it to kick in. In the meantime, I fixed a cup of coffee (I have a single cup brewer) and drank about half of it. I couldn't finish it because it was making me nauseous. I knew I was hungry & that was probably what was wrong, so I had some yogurt, fed the animals & waited for Troy to get home, so he could go out to the freezer & get me some waffles. I didn't have my shoes on yet & couldn't bear the thought of going out into the snow at that point.

I'm doing okay, just not feeling great is all. I'll survive & as long as I don't run out of cold medicine, I'll feel fine, at least for about 3:15 at a time. Anyway, time for lunch & TV, have a great afternoon!

Concerns

I'm dreading Troy's next checkup, just because we always seem to find out the worst things about his health at them. He can be feeling great and doing well & all of the sudden, the doctor says his A1C is too high, or his blood sugar is out of control, or his cholesterol sucks or it's his blood pressure. Right now, I'm concerned by the cholesterol, because he can't take stantin drugs, and that's just about all they give people to lower it. I'm thinking of going to www.cholesteroltreatments.com to see if they have any good tips for him, that don't involve medications.

I never worry about my own health, I know if I feel well or not & usually, if I don't, I know what's causing it. When I'm scared, I go to the doctor, but it's been a rare occasion for me. I worry about him all the time, and he never seems to know when something is wrong with him. Come on, his gall bladder was gangrenous & he never knew he was even having problems with it, so I can't trust that he'll know when there are other things going wrong.

Let's just say I'm not looking forward to it & leave it at that.

Health & Weight

I just realized that my previous post about Garrett probably sounded a little uncaring or harsh or whatever, but it wasn't intended to. He has a good life, he's got a great wife, a good job & a lot of friends & he's very happy. He has been fighting a battle with his weight for most of his life, and there are times when it just wears him down. He was born with club foot (like me) and has bad knees & ankles as a result of it. The extra weight really aggravates those conditions, to the point where there are already certain types of jobs he can't do. If he could find a weight loss plan that he could live with or diet pills that work for him, he could probably do it on his own, but he hasn't had a lot of luck with that so far.

I just want him to find the self-confidence & peace that my weight loss journey has led me to, and the joy of knowing that he made his life better by taking control of food & not letting it control him. I love my son, no matter what weight he is. I just want him to have a long, healthy life is all.

Ants

I cannot believe how many of those tiny ants are in my house right now. I have traps set up in two different room and still there are ants all over the place. Dawn's having the same problem right now, too & is using traps for it with no luck. I actually watched an ant run into a trap yesterday & then back out again a few seconds later. WTF? Seriously? I can't stand them & just want them out of my house!

Garrett didn't get his call from The Biggest Loser, so that was incredibly disappointing for him (and all of us). I'm not sure what he plans to do now, but I hope he continues on his path to try to gain better health. He has so much life in front of him, and it would be so much better for him to take it on at a healthier weight.

Erin called me from Phoenix a few days ago, he was on his way to Flagstaff to try to catch an eastbound train. He's trying to get to Tennessee before the Rainbow Gathering, so he can help out with set up and all of that. I can't believe it's been almost a year since he left home & started this lifestyle of his. I never thought we'd make it through those first few months of worry.

Rhi is still looking for work, although my parents have hired her for odd jobs around their place & she's been going out there to get stuff done. It'll be nice for her to be able to have a little money of her own for a change & she's really looking forward to it.

Troy & I are doing fine,although we still aren't getting enough sleep. I imagine that will keep happening until we get that bedroom door put up & can keep the cats out. I think I'm going to see if we can get that done this afternoon sometime.

Tired

I feel like we have a newborn in the house these days. Tiny wakes us up between 3:30 & 5am, to get on the bed. She won't jump up unless we tell her she can, but before that, she'll sit by the side of the bed & stare at you until you wake up. If you still ignore her, she'll start licking your hands. We let her up & generally can sleep until 6 or so, then she needs out. As soon as we let her back in, the cats start their little starvation dance, which involves scratching on my sewing chair, then jumping on the dresser & on to the radio, getting yelled at, jumping on the bed & starting over again until someone gets up. I could probably sleep through the cats, but Tiny hears them & gets worried that it's her fault their being bad & starts trying to distract us from them.

I was so tired this morning & so whiney, that I almost considered trying to find some natural sleeping pills at the store today, just so I could sleep through all of it tomorrow morning. I'm still tempted to go & see what I can find, but a lot of times any of that stuff gives me a headache in the morning & I have enough of those already that it's not really worth the risk to me. Hopefully the animals will adjust to the new house eventually & stop doing this every morning, if not, we'll have to put a door up to keep the cats out.

Excitement

We had a really great weekend with our friends, especially on Saturday. Troy & I went & picked up our share from the co-op & then visited with mom & dad awhile when they came to get theirs, but after that, we all met up at Dawn's & headed for Baker Reservoir for the day. We brought food for lunch & dinner and all of the kids brought clothes to play in the lake in. It was a beautiful area & the weather was warm & wonderful. Everyone had such a fantastic time that no one really wanted to go home that night. We were all exhausted, but not willing to give up the feeling of camaraderie & fellowship.

Troy & Ryan got together the next morning to empty out our storage unit & I went shopping with my mom. After that, Troy, Ryan & I sat around and watched the Deadliest Warrior marathon until Dawn answered my text & we all went over there to hang out & have dinner together. Dawn & I made kabobs, Jason grilled them & we ate at around 9:30, but it was worth wait & we all enjoyed spending a little more time together.

I really love our friends & the time we have together, we are so fortunate to have them in our lives, especially considering how long we've waited & everything we went through to get where we are with friends in this place.

We are all starting to get very excited about the new baby & can't wait to find out the gender so we can start buying things for it. I plan to start looking for baby shower invitations, so that I can at least help out with that part of the shower, even if I'm not great about giving stuff like that. I never feel creative enough to make them successful events, even though people seem to have a good time. Vicki is much better at planning & hosting those type of things & I'm hoping she'll want to, since it is her niece or nephew being born & all. I know, at the very least, she'll play a pretty big role in the festivities, which will help out a lot.

Anyway, it's getting late & the day starts early tomorrow, so I think I'm going to head to bed.

New Phone

So, while we were at the courthouse, down in St. George today, I had to go to the bathroom. My cell fell out of my pocket & the hinge on the door broke & wouldn't stay shut. That keeps the screensaver from activating & the light from going out, because it's always being triggered to turn back on, thus draining the battery pretty damned quick. I knew I had no choice but to get a new phone, so I went & told Troy & on our way back home, we stopped in & told them that I broke my phone & needed to get a new one. I actually just asked Cassie what phones were good, since she knows I like the QWERTY keyboard & texting is more important to me than calling. She recommended the LG Rumor, and I really liked it, since it has a slot for a microSD card & I can play music (and use it for ringtones), I can also shoot video with it & it has a pretty nice camera, too. I picked out the metallic green & black & just have to wait until next week to get it, because they were out in our office & needed to have one sent up to me. I'm using a loaner Krazor (or however you spell it) right now, which is okay, but hard to get used to a numeric keyboard again.

While we were in there, we upgraded our plan to unlimited text, data & MMS, and that didn't really cost us that much more, so none of us has to go out on a sales job search to try to earn enough money to pay for it. All in all, it was a pretty good day, since Rhi ended up with a new phone, too & is pretty happy about it.

Right now, I'm relaxing & watching Weeds season 2 on streaming video (we signed up for Netflix, too). I really think that it was a great deal for what we get out of it, I may even downgrade my cable package because of it. Anyway, I'm going to get back to watching!

Finally Done

We went to our meeting of the Creditors today & none of ours showed up to dispute anything, thankfully. Our lawyer did say they hadn't heard from Dell yet & that they may want us to reaffirm the debt in order to keep our computers & TV, which is fine with us. If the don't then the debt is discharged & we keep them anyway, so either way, we have them. We'll know about that within 45 days & between then & now, I'm not going to worry about it, honestly.

It wasn't bad really, we were the first to go in our group & were done in about 5 minutes, then we just had to wait for our lawyer to finish up (she had a bunch of clients there) so we could collect our paperwork & such & then we weer finished, so about an hour all told, not counting the drive both ways, of course. I'm just thankful it's finished & we can take a deep breath & move on with our life now. No more credit card & being financially irresponsible, i'm done with the stress!

Almost Done

It's been a few days since we've heard from our major creditors, they must have gotten the hint that we've filed for bankruptcy. It actually took more than a hint for a few of them, who kept calling Troy at work, long after we filed. We had to have our lawyer call them & set them straight. I really hate when they don't follow the rules, it just makes things harder for everyone. We even got "punished" by our electric company, too. They charged us a $165 "deposit" because we filed bankruptcy. We have to have it paid by the 15th, or they'll shut off our power. What if we couldn't pay it? Doesn't filing chapter 7 in the first place mean that you're having problems with bills? Why does it make sense to charge us more when we have never skipped paying that bill or ever even late?

Whatever. It's all over but the meeting with the creditors anyway. We've turned in our financial statements, records of earnings and credit reports, we've shown that we'd have to pay out more than we earn if we keep all of our debt & I have no doubt that it'll all be discharged on the 16th & we'll be free to start over again. All we have left to do is our financial management class & to get a copy of our March bank statement. I'm just so ready to stop worrying about money all the time honestly. I've lost so much sleep over the past couple of years, and it's all been due to financial worry. I just want to start saving money & get a chance to live again, instead of just barely surviving.

I Thought it was Spring?

Apparently The Lady is playing a trick on us today, since we got about a foot of snow between 11:30pm last night & about 10am today. It was fairly heavy snow, which is what we usually get this time of year. I was really hoping we wouldn't get very much, which I know makes me delusional, but doesn't mean I wanted it any less. I'm so ready for flip flops, grilling, capris & cold drinks you wouldn't even believe it.

I hate winter more & more every year. It used to never really bother me, I even looked forward to the snow, but then I started getting older & everything started hurting when it was cold. Now, I freeze all the time & just want to bask in the sun for awhile & forget about how cold I was in the winter. I want to work in my yard & play in my yard, I want to get my garden planted & ready to go. Camping. Swimming. Walking. All of those fantastic things we love to do when it's warm, hurry up summer!!