The Ultimate F Word

Well, it is nearly here. My Fiftieth birthday is tomorrow.

The bad parts about turning 50 are as follows:

1) I now have crows' feet! I was genetically fortunate to inherit young-looking skin but the wrinkles are here. I guess I will embrace them.
2) My eyes! I need readers all.the.time now. A few years ago the eye doctor told me that my eyes were good "for your age". She no longer says that. And I have multiple pairs of cheap Costco readers all over the house and in the car.
3) My teeth! I broke a tooth a week ago Friday and last Monday I had to have it repaired (the tooth broke and the filling fell out). I had a bad reaction to the new type of freezing and then my gums got infected. I was using a rinse and now today they put me on antibiotics. Broken teeth make me feel old. How long until I have to get dentures?

Fifty sounds pretty old but I still feel so young. I guess everyone does, right? 

Some good things about turning 50:
1) I reached my goal of doing 50 classes at the gym before I turned 50 (starting in January). I am strong and I feel good.
2) I feel confident enough to call people out on their bad behavior. I do not need to be part of it and sometimes people just need to know they are being ridiculous (or mean or whatever).
3) I don't ever need to go camping again. Just kidding (maybe).

Upwards and onwards!

I have been to a nutritionist three times in the past few weeks to try to get a handle on my food issues. The first meeting was covered under the "Total Body Transformation" program that I am doing at the gym and the other two meetings I have had to pay for (well, I guess I did pay for the first one but it was covered under the cost of the program). Anyway, I am down 8 pounds total from when I started and for only the second time in the past 20 years I have dropped into the "normal weight" range based on my BMI (by the way, the first time I dropped this low was just last summer and then I promptly gained weight again).

Let's be clear though, I am at the very, very top of the "normal" range and I still have a lot of extra weight on me, especially around my abdomen. I also realized yesterday that I will never be slim and even my weight goal (9 more pounds off) seems unattainable. I just cannot imagine myself as a thin person. And maybe I am not destined to be one?

I am healthy though. I have made it a priority in the past year to become strong. My heart is healthy (I guess it always was but it is stronger), and I am more active. I can actually do a few pushups (not many but I can do several from the knees!). But I realize too that being healthy is more than just working out. I want to eat "clean" (Gah! I hate it when people talk that way - but it's true!). I am not a child and I need to stop eating candy. Yes, sugar is my weakness. Especially the sugar that comes with fat in the form of chocolate! And I need to eat less fat, more veggies and more lean protein. I am working on that now. And I need to stop eating my emotions. I am very, very good at that!

Hassled and Harried

1) My tabs on my car expire tomorrow. Found out tonight that dh put the renewed tab on HIS car (because I have no idea why - all he had to do was read the ****ing piece of paper in which the tabs were attached to see where is says TOYOTA and not INFINITI). So now I have to go to the DOT with a signed affidavit and pay $9.95 to get new ones reissued to me. And he is acting all pissy as though it is my fault that he did this.

2) Trying to register Jax for the SAT test except that the college board has decided at some point to put a space in the middle of his compound first name and just before we hit SEND to register and pay a big WARNING comes up that the ID must match his registered name EXACTLY. Since we are not allowed to actually change his profile name, we stopped the registration and sent a letter to the college board to find out what to do. I am feeling so stressed out about this because his SAT prep classes start on Saturday and I feel so behind. I think most kids take the test in MAY but since we are late he is taking it in JUNE.
3) Cars is doing horribly in school and missing a week has not helped matters. I have sent a note to the counselor asking for help in helping him.

4) Pollen has been really bad (and so early) this year. Three times I have found myself struggling to breathe (twice while exercising and once at the orthodontist's office when they had a smelly candle, an oil infuser and a Glade plug-in and the air in the office was oppressive and I had to leave!). So I had to call the allergist (30 mins on hold!). They told me she had no openings until June but I asked to check the Seattle office schedule and I was able to get one for tomorrow but the office is 45 minutes away (with no traffic). So I have to drive into Seattle with horrible traffic to get to her office. The good news is that I will hopefully leave with a Rx for an inhaler.

5) I spoke to my aunt today and asked about when I *really* should come home to see my mom. I was thinking the end of April but then had an idea that maybe I should go in mid-May for her 80th birthday. My aunt said "can you come both times?" I just might have to. My mom is so frail and has problems thinking. I almost cannot even think about it much because I get so choked up.

Pneumonia

Cars has missed 5 days of school in a row now because he has been sick with pneumonia. I am not certain that he had it the first two days he was home sick with a fever, but on Friday when his fever spiked to 103.8F I figured it was time to go to the doctor.

She listened to his lungs and said she thought he had pneumonia but wanted an x-ray to confirm and sure enough he had it in his left lung.

So we left with a Rx for Augmentin (generic) and he started taking it around noon. A second dose at bedtime and I figured he would be feeling much better in the morning - although I knew he would not be well enough to play hockey. He was still very sick on Saturday and on Sunday he seemed like he had a bit more energy but was drained by dinner time. At 4:43AM Monday morning he sent me a text telling me he needed water. I checked his temp and it was still 102.4! Too high after being on antibiotics for 3 days.

Back to the doctor we went and this one (we saw two diff doctors at the clinic and neither was the 'regular' doctor whom my kids see) prescribed Ceftin because it comes in a liquid form. Cars cannot swallow pills and he has a terrible gag reflex. The drug tastes bad, she warned Cars but he was ok with that because it was a liquid.

I went to the pharmacy and it was $396!!!!!!!!!!! O.M.F.G. I accepted it because he needed it (and brought us that much closer to our deductible). I brought it home and it is so very thick and tastes so very bad. He got the first dose down very slowly but the second dose DH gave to him while I was at the gym. Cars had a hard time swallowing it and it went in his mouth, hit the back of his throat and it came out, along with his dinner.

So, I tried to get him to take another dose but he was so certain that he was going to throw up that he just stared at it and cried for 40 minutes before I gave up. I then gave him another dose of augmentin, thinking even if it weren't working well, it might be working a bit.

This morning, another dose of augmentin and I went to the pharmacy for ideas. She said I could dilute it in juice or apple sauce or yogurt.  We will see how it goes tonight. Keeping a bucket handy, just in case.

Thank You For Being A Friend

So a couple of months ago I had a falling out with a friend. It stemmed from a fight with another friend and while I did not want to take sides, the friend with whom I've had the falling out was, in my opinion, less than honest about her intentions on one particular thing. I felt that if she could have just admitted that she was being a bitch or mean or whatever (because, who ISN'T like that sometimes? I know I am!) and she kept saying that I must not know her very well if I felt that she did it on purpose. Which I did but as I said, if she had just said "yeah, I was wrong and was being a bitch because I was hurt" or whatever I could look past it. We haven't really chatted at all since and I do miss her. But feel strongly that I need to hear that from her.
Friendships are funny, aren't they? I mean you can totally overlook someone's faults because you love them and value their friendship. And they do the same to you. And it is funny how some people are friends when they are complete opposites. Or how one can stay friends with a childhood friend, even if, 40 years on, you have nothing really in common.

And I find it interesting if we are friends with someone, we often defend them to others - almost to the death! Another friend is feeling that our group of friends are either for her or against her and I have been trying to tell her it is not a black or white situation and that we can disagree and still be friends. In the meanwhile, another friend in the same group complained about said friend and I felt affronted and felt that I needed to justify her behavior and defend her. I guess I was just trying to explain her reasoning or feeling and felt strongly that others should know and agree with me.

I have a lifelong friend who lives very far away and I consider her my BFF. If you looked at our lives, it would seem that we have nothing in common. I have kids, she does not, She has a successful career and I do not. She is pursuing a graduate degree and working fulltime and I am so in awe of her. I am a mousy little housewife in comparison. Yet, I know she and I will be close friends forever.

Anyway, I think I am just feeling nostalgic. Lots of reminiscing about my life in the past few months with my milestone birthday approaching and my mom coming undone.

Such is life.

Today is Friday. It should be the best day of the week, right? Right?!

Woke up to find Cars on day #3 of fever but now it was not just a measly 101.5F fever but 103.4F! So for the third day in a row he crawled under a blanket on the couch with plans to doze on and off.

At 6:45am, just as Dex and Jax were getting ready for school, and DH was getting ready for work, our power went out. I checked outside but could not tell if any of our neighbours were without power so I texted my next door neighbor who said that yes, hers was off too. So I called the power company and they reported that 2900 customers were without power and they did not know the reason why. Since dawn was breaking and it was relatively mild out, we decided not to set up the generator and everyone left for work/school.

Made an appointment for Cars at the pediatrician's office and of course the time conflicted with my (pre-paid) class at the gym. Then I noticed a funky smell in the house. It was worse by the front door so I bent down to take whiff at the heating vent and almost fell over! OMG! Something was dead and rotting in my crawlspace. I put on my rubber boots and went next door to my other neighbour's house and told her I needed some support while I crawl under my deck to access my crawlspace. She is awesome and came with me and I struggled to get under the deck and get that door off. I saw nothing in the crawlspace but beautiful (dry - I did think for a min that our septic tank might have backed up) crawlspace. However, there was no way that I was actually going to crawl INTO it. I had her come take a whiff (see, didn't I tell you she was an awesome neighbor?) by my front door and she said yes, it was definitely a dead, rotting animal smell.

Just great.

I called a company that specializes in making your crawlspaces clean. We had hired them about 5 years ago to replace the vapour barrier in our crawlspace and to add more insulation and wrap the pipes and vents in insulation. They said they'd send someone out at noon.

I jumped into the shower and threw on some clothes and took Cars to the doctor for his appointment. The nurse took his temperature and it was now 103.8F! Yikes!! She left to go get the doctor and Cars asked me if he might have Ebola. I asked him when he was in West Africa and he realized he was being silly (although he was dead serious when he asked). The doc came in and after listening to his lungs she said he probably had pneumonia and an X-ray would confirm. She left to get the nurse to set up the X-ray and Cars shot me a look that could kill and said that I had told him that her probably did NOT have it. It is true, I figured he might just have a virus but with the high temperature, I wanted to be sure it was nothing else. Anyway, the X-ray confirmed pneumonia. Rx for Augmentin and home we went.

The crawlspace guy arrived and took one whiff and said there was something dead. We walked around the house outside and inspected to make sure all of the crawlspace screens were intact (they were) and then he crawled under the deck and into the crawlspace. He emerged a while later with lots of photos of rat droppings near the front of the house (which is why I could not see anything because the back of the house is still immaculate) and said he could not readily see any dead bodies but there is rat poop that is green which indicates that it ate poisoned bait and then probably died in the crawlspace.

So...what's next?  Total removal of all insulation in the crawlspace,  the vapour barrier, sanitize and deodorize and reinstall all new stuff at a lovely co$t. OMG! He thinks the rats were getting in under the insulation at the front of the house (probably a broken screen) but they won't know for sure until they remove it all. Fortunately they can do it tomorrow. I cannot wait any later because of the stench in my house!
I need a do-over today.