Stuff you need vs. stuff you don't need

My kitchen and my life are slowly looking like normal again.

Last night, I moved my jars of sugar, flour, and brown sugar to the kitchen counter top. They had been sitting on a chair in my dining room for the past week.

The curtains were actually hung in the kitchen, instead of sitting on my couch.

The cabinet doors are not on yet. It turns out, paint doesn't dry particularly fast on days when it's 50 degrees out, 80 percent humidity and rainy.

That means that for the next few days, I will be able to see every single thing in my cabinets. My silverware, wooden spoons and other utensils are sitting in a cardboard box in the middle of my kitchen.

But let's talk about the glass jars that I've collected over the past year.

I knew I had a glass jar hoarding problem, but I didn't realize how bad it was until this week.

I had two large grocery bags full of glass jars, only I didn't have them stored in one spot. They were in a cabinet here, a cabinet there, and underneath the sink. Some were in the bathroom.

I thought of using them as center pieces. For what exactly, I'm not sure. But they were pretty! They were interesting shapes! And, I was going to re-use them and change the planet by not throwing them away!

I thought I'd get on Pinterest and find a use for them.

I'm happy to report that I did find a use for them. Yesterday, I took them to the recycling center.

I do not need two grocery bags full of empty glass jars. What I do need is more kitchen storage space and less junk.

That space will probably be used for something more practical, like storing canning jars that I can actually use.

Tomorrow night's low is 33. I've got tomatoes to pick, freeze, and can eventually.

Having however many empty glass jars from store bought products will not help me can. What will help me is watching an episode of Hoarders and realizing that I have to get my life together.

(Ps, all is well and normal in the stomach/colon/intestines front. I downed pizza last night for dinner. I might have even had a piece for breakfast this morning. I love food. Not being able to eat solid food is not a problem I want to ever have in my life again.)

I do need to go through my kitchen and find more items to donate...like the cat butt keyring holder I took off my kitchen cabinets.

It didn't make the cut.

Googling shit

In Googling my medicine, it seems as though my antibiotic also treats anthrax and the plague.

I guess I'm covered, you know, just in case.

Being mad at myself for eating food is not a solution to my problem.

I have a special talent for finding flaws in the health care industry.

I realized that this week. More than once, I gave up, climbed into bed and cried.

Maybe the word 'cried' is an understatement. I sobbed. I wailed. I acted like a toddler who was given a blue plate when she wanted a pink plate (true story).

I have a really long blog post detailing my latest health ordeal, but I think I'm going to sit on it a while before I publish it. It takes time to get over health stuff.

It takes time to heal.

The short story is that there is no appointment with a specialist. I fired doctor No. 2, went back to doctor No. 1, explained the situation to her, and she worked her ass off to find a same-day solution for me.

I don't want to scream success just yet. I did finally get the medicine I need, and for that I'm thankful.

That medicine has some wicked side effects, and I'm still figuring out how to take it without feeling like poop afterward.

Am I being too vague?

Maybe I'll start from the beginning. Well, it's more like the middle.

(I want to stick my tongue out too, The Raven)
-----

The most frustrating thing in the world is knowing that you have something wrong with your body, and knowing that the person you're talking to about it doesn't really care.

This has happened to me more than once this year.

My latest health ordeal ended up being a severe case of IBS, plus maybe some colitis thrown in there just for the fun of it.

The solution was an antibiotic, a steroid, and a really freaking expensive bottle of medicine that I ended up getting for free.

The symptoms worsened two weeks ago. Last week, I just gave up eating.

Earlier this week, I had a banana and two grapes. That was what I had to eat the whole day.

I felt guilty for eating that because it wrecked havoc on my stomach. I knew it wouldn't agree with me, and I knew I would have a bad day because of it.

I should have known better, I thought.

Okay...I'm criticizing myself for eating a banana. This problem needs to be solved. Being mad at myself for eating food is not a solution to my problem.

I went to the doctor a lot this week. At each appointment, I saw my weight drop more, and more, and more, until finally I just sat in a doctor's office and refused to move until I got an answer.

When she did finally give me a solution, I hugged her. For once this week, I cried because I was happy.

-----

The thing that I don't think doctors understand is that they have the ability to change someone's life. Whether they care enough to do it is another story.

I went to a lot of appointments this week.

In the end, one doctor and one pharmacist listened to me and took me seriously. The other people collected my money, told me to see someone else about the problem, and sent me out the door.

The health care system is broken.

-----

If I was in charge of the world, I would make one law. I would make it against the law for a doctor's office to deny an appointment to someone in pain.

This has happened to me three times this year. I don't mean to sound like a brat, but each time it happened to me I was right -- there was something wrong with my body that only a doctor could fix.

It baffles my mind that someone with a high school diploma (receptionist) has the ability to control whether a person in pain is seen or not.

I tried to explain that to one doctor's office this year. Hint: It didn't work out so well. It turns out that you can't fix stupid.

That experience made me have a new policy in my life.  If I call a doctor's office wanting to make an appointment, and the call ends and I don't have an appointment, I fire that office immediately.

Take my advice, guys. It's a waste of time to try and fix stupid. Just find someone else to go to. Don't try to fix the system.

It's not fixable.

-----

I started this blog post off with the intent to write something precise and on point.

Now I'm not entirely sure what my point is, except that I'm tired of being sick and tired.

I'm thankful that my problem really just ended up being irritating. It's not serious, and it's not life threatening.

I'm thankful that I got ahold of this medicine, and I'm thankful for the people who helped me get it.

I'm thankful that the pharmacist I talked to in my pjs while I was crying actually listened to my problem instead of shoving me out the door like everyone else did.

I'm thankful for my doctor (nurse practitioner technically, but she did more for me than any doctor did, so I officially give her the title of doctor on thishereblogpost).

I wish every doctor wanted to change every patient's life for the better at every single appointment.

I wish.

-----

I'm thankful, but I'm also mad.

I'm mad that I wasted time and money on people who didn't help me.

I'm mad that the specialist appointment that was to take a "couple of days" never materialized.

I'm mad that the first pharmacy I went to didn't try to help me.

I'm mad that I was denied an appointment when I needed it.

What makes me livid, though, is that this has happened to me multiple times this year.

-----

I have a tradition of quoting The Bloggess in my health posts.

That tradition continues with this amazing post she made in 2013, called Where I am Right Now. Her words have gotten me through some tough nights.

And more upsetting is the fact that I still feel exactly as exhausted as I did before we started the treatment, so God knows if this will even work or if it’ll just be another bullet-point in my list-of-shit-that’s-wrong-with-me. 

I should be happy that things weren’t worse, and relieved that I have the resources to diagnose and maybe fix the problems, but today I’m just sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I can’t find a way to end this paragraph.

Grandma did a bad, bad thing.

The twins slept over at my house on Saturday.

When they woke up Sunday morning, it was kind of chaotic in my house. The twins were in bed, looking at each other and giggling.

My blind dog told me they were awake. Said blind dog is sensitive to sounds, and I guess two little giggling girls sounds like trouble to her.

I got the blind dog and the dumb dog outside. The smart dog stayed inside and refused to move an inch towards the back door.

Fine, smart dog. You can stay inside for a while. You don't have to go outside to potty right away.

The twins got up. I fed them breakfast, and then we listened to some music.

The girls went in my bathroom at some point, and didn't close the door. I went in to check on things, and I noticed the bathroom was a little stinky.

I didn't think much of it, and I shut the door. A little while later, I went in the bathroom to investigate. I found a Pug poop kind of, sort of hidden in a corner of the bathroom. The Pug that was inside is a fan of finding 'hidden' spots in my house to poop.

Penny Pug saw a door open that isn't usually open, and the opportunity to poop in a new place was practically handed to her on a silver platter.

The girls told me something about the bathroom, but I didn't really understand what they were saying.

I asked them who pooped on my bathroom floor.

They both had the same exact response: "Gamma."

"Gamma" means "Grandma" in toddler speak. I asked them again. Girls, who pooped on my bathroom floor?

"Gamma."

You're telling me that Grandma broke into my house overnight, walked through the bedroom you guys were sleeping in without waking you up, pooped on my bathroom floor, then left without being seen?

The girls: "Yes."

That Grandma. She's pretty sneaky!

:)

I know 100 percent that it was a Penny Pug poop. I love the fact that the girls aren't exactly the most reliable witnesses, haha.

Tacos and soup

I have two stories to share today.

I watched the twins at my house last night. I'm pretty sure I've written about this previously, but I can't sleep when they're at my house.

They slept good last night. According to my FitBit, I slept one hour and one minute.

I don't know if I'll ever be able to sleep when they're at my house.

Anyway, because I didn't sleep last night, I spent most of the day today catching up. I had a dream this afternoon that I had to make 400 tacos by tomorrow. If you care, half were ground beef and half were to be chicken.

I was stressed out about it, because that's a shitload of tacos to make.

Here's the real problem, though. Why am I dreaming about tacos?

-----

Putting the twins to bed last night was a fairly easy process. It was also funny.

We took baths, did nails, watched Doo Doo (Scooby Doo) and then read some stories. We said our prayers, then I tucked them in and kissed them goodnight.

And then the requests came.

I want a drink.

I have to potty.

Where Daddy at?

I have to potty.

Where Mommy at?

I have to potty.

Another story (book).

Where Gamma at?

I'm thirsty.

Where Papa at?

I have to potty.

There was a straw that eventually broke the camel's back and made me leave the room for good, laughing on the way out.

The request came from my curly-haired niece.

I want mader soup.

Maders are tomatoes. My smart, brilliant, funny 2.5-year-old niece asked me for tomato soup at 11 p.m. to put off going to bed.

Well played, kid. Well played. The answer is no, though, but you do get some brownie points for the effort you put into prolonging bedtime.

Night night!

Forever

Appropriate caption for this photo: I will protect you from clowns, ghosts, monsters, and whatever else scares you in life.

Forever.

Not a political post

I am not discussing politics this year.

On Facebook, one of my friends pointed out that both Donald Trump and Bill Clinton have cheated on their wife/wives more than once.

Someone replied with a comment: "I don't really like a spouse being blamed for infidelity."

I agree.