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I am really struggling.
I've only ever been this consistently exhausted, before, last fall-February (i.e., before I changed my diet to more anti-inflammatory stuff, which it still is primarily made up of) and in early pregnancy (that is not a possibility).
I just went and got blood drawn today for a new SED rate, and am going back to my rheumatologist Monday. I don't even know what I expect, though - my pain levels/mobility troubles are not bad enough for me to embark on the sort of drugs arthritis patients are offered (steroids and immunosuppresants, for the most part)... they're "just" really annoying. I suppose I'd like some validation.
And additional documentation, for my professors, would be nice. *sigh*
Today was actually a pretty ok day, overall. I went to a rehearsal that my group, from our theater class, had scheduled. That was actually really fun, we laughed a lot. Then I talked on the phone with Robby, catching up, on my way to get my blood work done - and they were very fast and efficient at Quest, and only needed one vial. All of that was finished very early.
I did a lot of scolding and reprimanding here at home, which I hate, but I'm trying to orchestrate a really massive whole-house deep cleaning because, 1. we're having a LOT of Thankgsiving guests, and 2. we're actually moving sometime in the coming months. All week has been a lot of guiding, cajoling, threatening, time-outing, praising, and so on... Ananda and Elise actually have their room spotless, including things like their closets and drawers, and Isaac is close, but Aaron and Jake are being ridiculous about it. Normal everyday chores are a battle now because we're doing so much OTHER cleaning that they can't believe I still expect those to get done, too. The other day Jake actually said to me, with the hot water running behind me and a sponge in my hand, "Why don't YOU have chores?!" He'd just been in the next room in plain sight as I cleared and scrubbed the bar and counters, and then swept the floor, before I started on the dishes. Aside from the whole "stfu I'm your mother" factor. I gave him a toned-down version of all that and he was like, "But nobody bugs you about it!" I was like, "Right, because I DO THESE THINGS without being 'bugged'! If you woke up in the morning and did your chores right away without being told, I assure you I would never mention them again, except perhaps to say, 'Jake, you deserve an allowance!'"
That kid can really scowl.
Aaron also did more of his ridiculous, oblivious, maddening Aaron sort of crap this evening. He had solo rehearsal tonight, and I'd been reminding him of that in a countdown way all day long. He needed his knee pads for this. He never found the knee pads, and for whatever reason right after I said, "We're leaving in 7 minutes" he decided to get in the shower. I realized this 10 minutes later, when I'd been yelling for 3 minutes for him to get out here and come on, and he wasn't coming.
The weather, driving him, was lovely though - and I took the other four kids to BJ's after we dropped him off, and was happy to see they've added more really surprising items I won't have to go elsewhere for anymore. There have been a lot of these kinds of additions in recent months - I can get gluten free cookies and crackers there, and really good bulk grape seed oil. They've expanded their organic apples to a bunch of different varieties now (Grant is some kind of bizarre apple connoisseur - I don't even like apples at all). This time they actually had organic virgin coconut oil and gluten free pasta.
Prior to today, I've had a lot of the inverse - the kids being the only good thing, and/or thing I'm doing well at. Grant just got back from a week out of town for work and the whole time he was gone I was doing what they needed aaaaaand...that was pretty much it. Also pondering how I really don't give myself credit for "just" mothering, anymore - I feel as though I've done absolutely nothing if I was a great mom all day, cooking for them, reading to them, teaching them and driving them places, settling the petty squabbles and soothing the minor injuries...if there is still a backlog of undone assignments, of my own, and a mess all over the place, I feel like I've just done NOTHING. Which is clearly not true, but...I dunno.
Some highlights from the week:
-Finishing the Prisoner of Azkaban, and starting Goblet of Fire, with Isaac. Sheesh it's fun reading to him, now. He was soooo caught up in the tension and drama of the Shrieking Shack scenes, and laughing so hard at all the cool happy last chapter moments. Then, starting the new one, I was watching him figure it all out and just...it's great. Really great, to where I have to make myself stop where we should and march out of his room (because his bedtime is important since he goes to school, and since I have other people waiting on me to read to them).
-Making Elise bed-curtains. She has a bottom bunk, below Annie's, and saw some Pinterest style picture of a little girl with drawn curtains over her bed-area in an attic and just fell in love. I was like, YOU KNOW, it would be reeeeally easy to do that to your bed! So we went over to Opa's (Grant Sr's) house, and got the unused curtains I bought fabric for and sewed years ago, that were just sitting around, and came home and used camping rope and strung them up. Now - she is so. happy. She has a little table Grant made her in there, and I let her take the lamp from the tv room. She talks about it nonstop.
-Everything, ever, with Annie. But especially - last night, cooking dinner together and talking, while she made brownies and sat on the counter. And reading, all the time. And snuggling like we've done a lot of, in my bed and in the "round spinny chair" (we've really never thought of anything better to call it...)
-Aaron is playing Sail, by Awolnation, on the piano all the time. He's camera shy so I can't share the video *stomping my foot*
-We went and did PATH's "Scientifically Speaking" event: the four homeschooled kids each dressed up as a scientist, and presented as though they were that person ("I'm _____, I was born in _____ and....") Elise was Mary Treat, Jake Albert Einstein, Aaron Carl Sagan, and Ananda Hank Green. Jakey froze up a bit but saved it in the end. Elise's little spiel was intentionally very short, but she did well with it. Aaron is actually a performer and spoke with a voice and gestures designed to mimic. Annie had the most real information. I was super happy with the stuff I managed to find at Goodwill and in the clearance/Halloween section of Party City for them, for this.
I am, as I am every night, FREEZING shivery cold in my 70+ degree house, with goosebumps and a fever and all. Gah. It's a good thing I've been making some real counseling strides, or just the recurring fever would be giving me panic attacks (it's normally a definitive sign I look for, to mean "Yes, I may have a strangulating hernia making me septic again," partially because it's unusual and the lack of it keeps me from misinterpreting stupid minor things like indigestion for a reason to worry).
The good news is my husband is actually waiting for me in our bed again, all furnace-warm as he tends to be and sweet enough to reach out and pull me in, in his sleep :)
I've only ever been this consistently exhausted, before, last fall-February (i.e., before I changed my diet to more anti-inflammatory stuff, which it still is primarily made up of) and in early pregnancy (that is not a possibility).
I just went and got blood drawn today for a new SED rate, and am going back to my rheumatologist Monday. I don't even know what I expect, though - my pain levels/mobility troubles are not bad enough for me to embark on the sort of drugs arthritis patients are offered (steroids and immunosuppresants, for the most part)... they're "just" really annoying. I suppose I'd like some validation.
And additional documentation, for my professors, would be nice. *sigh*
Today was actually a pretty ok day, overall. I went to a rehearsal that my group, from our theater class, had scheduled. That was actually really fun, we laughed a lot. Then I talked on the phone with Robby, catching up, on my way to get my blood work done - and they were very fast and efficient at Quest, and only needed one vial. All of that was finished very early.
I did a lot of scolding and reprimanding here at home, which I hate, but I'm trying to orchestrate a really massive whole-house deep cleaning because, 1. we're having a LOT of Thankgsiving guests, and 2. we're actually moving sometime in the coming months. All week has been a lot of guiding, cajoling, threatening, time-outing, praising, and so on... Ananda and Elise actually have their room spotless, including things like their closets and drawers, and Isaac is close, but Aaron and Jake are being ridiculous about it. Normal everyday chores are a battle now because we're doing so much OTHER cleaning that they can't believe I still expect those to get done, too. The other day Jake actually said to me, with the hot water running behind me and a sponge in my hand, "Why don't YOU have chores?!" He'd just been in the next room in plain sight as I cleared and scrubbed the bar and counters, and then swept the floor, before I started on the dishes. Aside from the whole "stfu I'm your mother" factor. I gave him a toned-down version of all that and he was like, "But nobody bugs you about it!" I was like, "Right, because I DO THESE THINGS without being 'bugged'! If you woke up in the morning and did your chores right away without being told, I assure you I would never mention them again, except perhaps to say, 'Jake, you deserve an allowance!'"
That kid can really scowl.
Aaron also did more of his ridiculous, oblivious, maddening Aaron sort of crap this evening. He had solo rehearsal tonight, and I'd been reminding him of that in a countdown way all day long. He needed his knee pads for this. He never found the knee pads, and for whatever reason right after I said, "We're leaving in 7 minutes" he decided to get in the shower. I realized this 10 minutes later, when I'd been yelling for 3 minutes for him to get out here and come on, and he wasn't coming.
The weather, driving him, was lovely though - and I took the other four kids to BJ's after we dropped him off, and was happy to see they've added more really surprising items I won't have to go elsewhere for anymore. There have been a lot of these kinds of additions in recent months - I can get gluten free cookies and crackers there, and really good bulk grape seed oil. They've expanded their organic apples to a bunch of different varieties now (Grant is some kind of bizarre apple connoisseur - I don't even like apples at all). This time they actually had organic virgin coconut oil and gluten free pasta.
Prior to today, I've had a lot of the inverse - the kids being the only good thing, and/or thing I'm doing well at. Grant just got back from a week out of town for work and the whole time he was gone I was doing what they needed aaaaaand...that was pretty much it. Also pondering how I really don't give myself credit for "just" mothering, anymore - I feel as though I've done absolutely nothing if I was a great mom all day, cooking for them, reading to them, teaching them and driving them places, settling the petty squabbles and soothing the minor injuries...if there is still a backlog of undone assignments, of my own, and a mess all over the place, I feel like I've just done NOTHING. Which is clearly not true, but...I dunno.
Some highlights from the week:
-Finishing the Prisoner of Azkaban, and starting Goblet of Fire, with Isaac. Sheesh it's fun reading to him, now. He was soooo caught up in the tension and drama of the Shrieking Shack scenes, and laughing so hard at all the cool happy last chapter moments. Then, starting the new one, I was watching him figure it all out and just...it's great. Really great, to where I have to make myself stop where we should and march out of his room (because his bedtime is important since he goes to school, and since I have other people waiting on me to read to them).
-Making Elise bed-curtains. She has a bottom bunk, below Annie's, and saw some Pinterest style picture of a little girl with drawn curtains over her bed-area in an attic and just fell in love. I was like, YOU KNOW, it would be reeeeally easy to do that to your bed! So we went over to Opa's (Grant Sr's) house, and got the unused curtains I bought fabric for and sewed years ago, that were just sitting around, and came home and used camping rope and strung them up. Now - she is so. happy. She has a little table Grant made her in there, and I let her take the lamp from the tv room. She talks about it nonstop.
-Everything, ever, with Annie. But especially - last night, cooking dinner together and talking, while she made brownies and sat on the counter. And reading, all the time. And snuggling like we've done a lot of, in my bed and in the "round spinny chair" (we've really never thought of anything better to call it...)
-Aaron is playing Sail, by Awolnation, on the piano all the time. He's camera shy so I can't share the video *stomping my foot*
-We went and did PATH's "Scientifically Speaking" event: the four homeschooled kids each dressed up as a scientist, and presented as though they were that person ("I'm _____, I was born in _____ and....") Elise was Mary Treat, Jake Albert Einstein, Aaron Carl Sagan, and Ananda Hank Green. Jakey froze up a bit but saved it in the end. Elise's little spiel was intentionally very short, but she did well with it. Aaron is actually a performer and spoke with a voice and gestures designed to mimic. Annie had the most real information. I was super happy with the stuff I managed to find at Goodwill and in the clearance/Halloween section of Party City for them, for this.
I am, as I am every night, FREEZING shivery cold in my 70+ degree house, with goosebumps and a fever and all. Gah. It's a good thing I've been making some real counseling strides, or just the recurring fever would be giving me panic attacks (it's normally a definitive sign I look for, to mean "Yes, I may have a strangulating hernia making me septic again," partially because it's unusual and the lack of it keeps me from misinterpreting stupid minor things like indigestion for a reason to worry).
The good news is my husband is actually waiting for me in our bed again, all furnace-warm as he tends to be and sweet enough to reach out and pull me in, in his sleep :)
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