A Little Late Not Paying Attention

The last post was written quite a while ago, but I must have no thought to hit publish, so when I went to write an entry, I realized it was missing lol.

I finished my second rug hooking project.  The first was a dog, this one a cat.  There were other kits at Michaels I liked a lot more, but was not willing to pay the money for them.  It’s also impossible to find rug hook canvas around here!  You have to get the whole kit if you want to do one.  Zeus was constantly laying on this one even trying to get on it while I was working on it!

This week went well.  My poor Personal Support Worker Lilian, got a cut in her hand, then went swimming at a hotel pool, and it got badly infected and ballooned twice the size.  So she couldn’t make it out this week.  Next week I’ll have Pat who usually takes over the off shift Lilian misses.  I really like her.  She’ll be done literally as I’m running out the door for my Crohn’s Disease tests in Kingston.  My mom was bugging me last night about being cranky like her when I’m hungry.  So this should be interesting with no food or water! Blah!

I have started the baby blanket.  I put on over 100 stitches last night, then realized I didn’t have the right amount for the pattern, so I had to rip it all out… then I did it again, this time with too many stitches for the pattern… third time’s a charm, and I finally got the damn thing going now! Lol.  I think it’ll look cute, if I can ever finish it!

August sleeping on the back of the chair with her little bum in the air!

Was out cleaning up garbage out of the yard this evening (my garbage got torn apart weeks ago during that big snow storm, and I’ve been going out and collecting more and more of it as the snow melts)  and I noticed my Snow in the Summer is still going strong, the Astra is starting to pop its leaves, and some of the bulbs I planted in the Fall are starting to sprout up.  I also saw a ton of areas where the damn squirrels were digging them up too!  *shakes fist*  That was with a ton of garlic too.

I’m really happy with how ALL of my outdoor garden areas look.  Except for adding some more red wood chips, there is not a thing I would change!  Nicole, my bud, is giving me some clippings to put under the stairs to fill that little space up (yay )  So now I want to work on my indoor garden.  I have four great windows for planting, also Zeus loving too, so I technically only have two that he doesn’t go in and dump the plants off to make room for his dieting body lol.  So looking at Nicole’s pic.s, I love her window garden, with the different shelves in the window so there’s tons of space to put more flowers to grow!  Which would be great over the winter time as well.  Right now, I’m stuck doing my veggies first, then beginning in sections, the flowers for my pallet project.  So Nicole, expect lots of questions on how you did that! hehe.

Zeus is still exercising!

I am reading the book that was shown on Dr. Oz, Salt Sugar Fat.  It basically is a history book for the food market, and how food/drink companies use different methods to make us the consumers, become addicted to their product of food, and how unhealthy these foods truly are.  It’s really interesting, but very text book like, so it’s taking me longer than usual to read it.

I’m also started on a new show.  Lost… obviously it’s done and over with, so not new, except to me.  My aunt has always loved it, and then my sister and Nick too fell in love with the show, so I finally decided to give it a shot.  So far I’m liking it a lot!

I had an awesome visit with Amy, my Social Service Worker’s prior student, who came to help me work on my Portfolio class.  I know feel like I can confidentially for forward, and have some ideas on what to add a personal touch with, and what exactly they’re looking for course wise.  When I get paid next, I have some supplies to get for it, and then I can get on with putting it all together   All my major papers for the class are finished.  Now I have to add the rest to it, which is mostly personal details.

Started to watch the mini series The Bible on the History Channel.  I am not a religious person, and to be honest, would fall asleep… literally every time I tried to read the bible.  It was too confusing to me, and made me lose interest too quickly.  So what I like about this show, it is going in sequence and showing in literal terms what the stories in the bible display.  It’s interesting and making a lot of sense out of stories I had heard bits and pieces of before.

Tomorrow I am heading over to check out the washer dryer sets finally, since I was too sick from over doing the exercising when I was supposed to go last time, and then go to mom’s for dinner, and possibly a swim.

Take Care!

Ash,

End of February

This week has been good!  I got to see a friend Theone and her beautiful, four month old, Aria.  She’s such a happy, friendly baby.  I made sure Nick got lots of cuddles too and took pictures   Theone is looking amazing, and Aria has her pretty blue eyes.

I made a patchwork like blanket for Zeus, since the old one was getting tattered, and his claws stick to it like crazy.  This one is a lot sturdier and thicker, so he can lay down on it and enjoy it in his bed!

I went up to mom’s on Family Day with Amanda and Nick.  We had yummy cold salads and homemade chocolate pie, and butterscotch pie.  I love to bake, but hate making pies.  Too much watching needed in the process lol.

Got all my mini tomatoes, and green and red pepper plants started on the windowsill, and am now working on a rug  hooking kit I got at Michaels a few months or more ago.  I need to go out on a search for buttons that look like eyes to finish my friend Nicole’s fox scarf.

This morning Zeus woke me climbing up on me to snuggle, and I realized my stomach was really bothering me.  Not the crazy pain I’ve been getting though, thankfully!  It’s that feeling you get in your stomach when you drink coffee on an empty stomach.  I call it gut rot lol.  I finally had to get up around 4:30am to take my stomach med.s from the GI and waited a bit for them to work before I made some toast.  It’s much better than it was, but I’m still in a lot of pain.

I’m supposed to be going with mom sometime today to look at Habitat for Humanity type stores, to see what type of deals we can get for her working on her townhouse.  Then we are to go back to her place, and I am going to help paint the doors a fresh white.  Hopefully with this pain, I will be able to, bc I really want to help!

Hope you’re all doing well!

Ash,

Anyone Care for Some Snow?

I had a plan this time dammit!  It was supposed to snow up to a foot over night, and then get around two feet of snow over today.  I was going to get up early, shovel last nights mess, and then do two rounds of shoveling throughout the day today.  Then I wouldn’t be over doing it by shoveling feets and feets of snow, or being stuck with all that snow and not being well enough to go through what I did last time to get rid of it.  That didn’t happen… I slept in and now it’s absolutely insane out and I can barely get my door open!  Now it’s giving me issues shutting too bc of all the snow accumulating in the way and warping the wood!

So to start way back to last week end… I went with Amanda and Nick over to their neighbor Carrie’s house.  We had a chocolate fondu party with yummy candy, which I didn’t eat much of bc of the stomach problems, and tons of yummy fruit like kiwi and strawberries.  Mmmm.  I also got to meet and snuggle lots with her three cats Baby, Maxwell, and Merl, and her dog …. shit I forget her name lol.   She’s really cute though.

We all decided to play the dance party game on the Wii which I had never done, and just about killed myself doing.  It was so much fun though!  I was laughing so hard, but they all did really well.  I did two songs.. Nellie Furtado … brain fart on the song, and the Time Warp which was fun as hell to do!

Scarf I’m working on to sell

Then later in the week I went to the dentist for a cleaning.  I had been having more sensitivity than usual in a couple teeth, but no cavities thankfully!  And crazy enough, I was able to go through the whole thing without ANY pain!  It was insane!  Even the hygienist who is too sweet thought it was crazy how fast my pain did a turn around, and how well my teeth were doing besides my health issues, medications, etc.  She gave me a free bottle of Sensodyne tooth paste just to put on the two new sensitive spots at night to help with that and sent me on my way!  I’ve never been to the dentist for a cleaning, and not heard about a bunch of cavities, or root exposure, or something bad that required more work that needed to be done.  AWESOME!

my fav. comics

My mom is going to be selling her home soon, and she got herself a smaller, new table set from JYSK.  Since they were having crazy sales on their kitchen furniture, she wanted to get it then, but she pulled a muscle in her back again, so she couldn’t lift the table into the house in the box.  I thought it would be dumb to pay almost another $100 on the set just to have them deliver it, when it was doable for me to pick up, so I came up and brought it in with her and my Grams just bringing in the chairs.  I always love putting together furniture.  Yes I’ll swear, and get mad if I have to redo something, and be stubborn about help lol, but I do enjoy doing it!  Nick came over yesterday after school, and helped me put together the one chair.  He was pretty good for figuring out what screws had to go where, and lining the pieces up straight to fit them all in.  I was impressed!  Overall by dinner last night… literally finished just before, mom got to eat at her new table set which was far more comfortable for her to lean against with her pulled back muscle.  It looks really nice, and she picked out good colors for the chairs.

I finally got all caught up on the Vampire Diaries, and now since Netflix sucks for being up to date on tv shows, I am going to now catch up on the season that’s going on right now of Sons of Anarchy, and the Walking Dead.

Dad’s finally back from his trip too!  I was complaining all day yesterday wondering when he was coming home bc I missed not being able to call him whenever I wanted, but it was today they flew into Toronto, but sadly they came from Arizona to THIS crap weather!

Ash,

Mix Mashy

Zeus watching Anderson

I had a pretty good week.  Last night, Amanda, Carrie and I went to the movies and saw, Mama.  The effects for it were done really well, and the story idea was really cool, but it wasn’t scary, not anything like it makes you think it’s going to be by the trailer.  I’m glad I went though.  Haven’t laughed that hard in so long.  By the end of the movie, everyone in the theater was laughing.

Been going crazy catching up on The Vampire Diaries since finishing Arrested Development.  It’s taking so long though!  Damn hour shows lol.  And I’ve been back into knitting more again.  I needed a little break bc I’ve been doing it non stop for almost two years straight, so now I’m back at it, and working on a fox scarf for my bud Nicole.  Then, I have two other scarves, and a baby blanket to do.  It’s all stuff I really want to do though, and excited to see how they all turn out.  My sis has been on me about making more random pieces to actually try selling, but I have more fun making stuff for people I know lol.  I think I would get very lazy with my knitting, if it didn’t actually have a purpose behind it, like a present, etc.  So that’s what the next two scarves are going to be.  Sellers.. maybe lol.

Got a call from my landlord today about me getting the washer and dryer.  He had his friend who’s an electrician to come check and make sure there was enough room for a 220 Volt plug to be put in, and there isn’t!  Only enough room for a regular 110 Volt.  Which means… back to the shopping around!  I mean, it’s a good thing in the sense that there won’t need to be more installing, etc. in here, but now I have to go out looking again too, when I thought I had found a good one to begin with.  It will all work out eventually!

I talked to some people in a Crohn’s group on facebook about the pain I’ve been having, and everyone who answered my post said they had the same thing from hernias.  Weird!  I’m not banking on that being what it is, since a lot of them got their hernias from surgeries, but I figure if nothing comes up in the tests in March, then I will be asking… yes asking, for another stomach scope to see if they can find anything that way.  EEK!

Got all my grocery shopping done yesterday.  Now, I have to only get my cat food and drop off my medicine coverage card to the pharmacist, and get my garbage tags for the month.

I am now officially sick with my fourth cold this season.  I’m not impressed!  At least this time, I was given a month or two break between the last one!  So far it’s not gotten into my chest, so hopefully it stays that way, and I’ll be better before I know it.  I just don’t know how I caught it, when it started to show up on Wed. morning, and I hadn’t gone anywhere, but to my mom’s, where neither her nor my Grams were sick.  Oh wells, it’ll be all good and gone soon enough!

I went to Shoppers Drug Mart yesterday too, and was given this great moisturizer for the eczema.  One use, and it was already keeping the dry skin at bay.  My face is still very red, mostly bc I got wind burnt yesterday being out lol, but it looks and feels so much better!

Have a great weekend!

Ash,

Sunday Snuggles

Jenna, my friend Nicole’s gorgeous dog, as Ms. Sept. in Paulmac’s calendar she sent me

Had a long week.  Went with my mom and Grams to Kingston to the GI clinic.  Normally when you go in, you can wait three or more hours before you get in the room, but this time, I got in right away and only waited about 45 min.s in the room.

I had Dr. Beyak.  He doesn’t believe the pain is from Crohn’s Disease, but possibly Pancreatitis from my crohn’s med.s, or possibly gallstones.  He’s getting blood work, a cat scan, and a stomach ultrasound done on me to see.  He gave me a medicine for my stomach again, but he gave me a wrong prescription that isn’t covered by OHIP, so I am calling tomorrow to ask for another one.

Saturday morning I was woken up from the pain that last around 4 hours.  I was ready to go to the ER, and was just waiting for my family to wake up to take me, when it finally calmed down enough for me to sleep.  I spent Saturday at my mom’s laying down a lot.  Nick came over and was a huge cuddle bug the entire time.  He hates when anyone gets sick.

I finished a cowl I was making to match the toque I knitted, and started a painting of Barney, the dog we grew up with.  He was a German Shepard, Collie and Lab mix.  AMAZING dog

This week, it will be getting my new med.s, and going to my family doctor on Friday.  Other than that, I think I’ll be resting lots.

Take Care.

Ash,

New Years and Neuro

My New Years was nice and relaxing!  I did nothing lol.  I sat on my sofa watching movies and reading, with Zeus snuggled beside me sleeping until I became close to midnight, and I turned on one of the TV stations for the last bit of it.

Zeus is now 11.  I got him just after I turned 19.  A lot has happened in the past 11 years, and even though I was at the end of my teens when I got him, I feel like I basically grew up with him, since that’s when my life seemed to finally start!

I went with my counselor Susan to the Neurologist on Friday for check up to see how I’ve been doing.  He had me do the poor man’s tilt table test, by laying on the bed for 5 min.s, checking vitals, then standing for 5-10min.s and doing the same.  Even though I felt like complete trash standing, my blood pressure and heart rate never changed once!

So now he says I am not even considered a POTS patient anymore.  With the help of my heart medicine of course.  Unfortunately though, my nervous system is still making me feel all the same symptoms, bc it doesn’t know any better, than to freak out when I change body positions, etc.  So it just goes with what it knows, and makes me feel terrible.  The goal now, is to slowly, slowly, way too slowly, build myself back up, and convince my nervous system that it’s okay for me to do normal daily things.  So far I’ve been pushing it too much and having it freak out at me bc it’s not used to me doing things like… taking four days to shovel a driveway, etc. LOL.  I need to learn to slow down.  Hard though, when even when I am pushing myself too much, I’m still no where near doing things like a normal non Potsy does.  How to know your limits?

This is great news, but this will also take years to come by probably.  The next thing the Neuro wants to do, is put me on nervous system friendly med.s  Like my depression pills, etc.  My Crohn’s pills can’t really be changed too much, bc there’s not a whole lot of options out there, but try to find ways for the med.s I do need to be on long term, to not be ones that cause POTS like symptoms, etc.

One wonderful thing happened this week as well.  My friend Steve, learned about the Spoon Theory (link to the right of the page) from a friend, and went out a bought me a really cool, pretty spoon necklace with the awareness colors for Crohn’s Disease and POTS.  I teared up when I got it!  And I don’t get mushy over presents or things like that, but this meant so much to me bc it showed a good friend who actually tried to understand what I have to deal with, and wanted to in their own way, give me something that shows they care.  An extra spoon is ALWAYS needed

I also finished knitting my first pair of wrist warmers.  I am going to be making a pair for Amanda too, and she came by yesterday to pick out her wool for a new scarf I am going to try to knit.  Just a pretty, lacy looking scarf that’s still warm.  I am going to ATTEMPT my first toque afterward too and see if I can do it.  I just need the right circular needles for it.  I am also working on a present for my oldest niece Jessica’s baby.  The baby isn’t born yet, so I still have some time there!

I was really bummed out today, bc I wanted to be all feel good independent woman (roar) and take the bus to get the new Batman and Avenger movies, and then I ended up stuck in bed until almost 4pm too dizzy to even get out of bed.  My mom offered to take me there soon since my Grams has to return some stuff there.  Very sweet of them.  I’m happy to get the movies, just bummed I wasn’t well enough to do it myself.

Hope so far this New Year is doing you all well, and will reply to comments from before tomorrow, since obviously today has not been going as planned!

Ash,

Oh Geeze

I can’t believe it’s been since before Halloween since I wrote!!!!

my Christmas tree

I am going to a Neurologist at the end of this month… why I don’t know actually lol.  I figure it’s for my POTS, bc I never got the appointment I was supposed to have with my Cardiologist, I got this appointment instead!  My SSW is going to be taking me, which is sweet, and she kicks people’s asses into gear too lol.

I am also going to my family doctor next week bc of something to do with my test results when I had my physical.  Could be many simple things, but I’m still interested as to why she called to have me come in!

My grandpa passed away just before Christmas.  It was really sad, but for the best bc he wasn’t eating, or even waking up in the end.  My sister did a really sweet thing for all of us, and got one of our favorite photos of him before he got sick blown up and framed in black and white.  I have it hanging in my hallway   I love it.

Christmas was great.  We went to my dad’s Christmas Eve, and I got to see all my brothers and nieces and nephews, and a lot of family friends I adore like family.  Dinner was good too YUM! hehe.

Then Christmas morning, I went up to my mom’s and had a dinner with them, and ANOTHER ONE on Boxing Day when my aunt Kelly came down to celebrate with us.

I was able to get a recumbent bike finally, and am doing 15 minutes on it a day, on the days I’m not shoveling snow!  Yes I am shoveling too and damn it’s not easy!!! I had a bit of a flu last week and it just about killed me to shovel, but thankfully the weather has not been typical, so there hasn’t been as much snow as usual.

Besides that, I just finished knitting myself a scarf… yes knitting lol.  I love it   This is the first thing I’ve ever knitted for myself!  I just have to do the fringe at the ends and I’m done

I am now hooked on Dexter.  My sister got me into it, but I have to watch it on Netflix bc I don’t get HBO.  It gives me an excuse to exercise and knit while I’m watching it.

I am also reading the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo which isn’t at all what I thought it was going to be.  I am also reading 44 Scotland Street, which is awesome so far   Just the lives of a bunch of people who live at 44 Scotland Street, lol but it’s good

New Years, I fell asleep at 9pm LOL.  Wasn’t my intention, and could have went out, but I went to my mom’s, and fell asleep bc I wasn’t feeling the greatest.

Hope you are all well

Ash,