Confessions of a Starbucks addict

It's been an interesting year. The kids all went to public school in September. We moved everyone from the room they were in to a different room in the house. Chris started his senior year and enrolled in college. Troy's company told us they wanted us to move to NH, then they told us that they may be closing the NH office. Except for a couple of colds, PJ has been extremely healthy. Kaycee became an allergy sufferer. Tani started a new high school. Shayna entered kindergarten. We looked at possibly selling our house and moving closer to family. We decided against it because of the repairs needed.

It's been a busy year. I'm obviously not listing everything...I'm not the "long, dragging on, Christmas letter" type. I'll just say, "It's been interesting!"

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year!

So I have a friend who has been going through breast cancer treatment. She is one of the strongest people I know, puts up with more shit than a lot of people, and still has a stellar attitude. E, you rock! :-D Anyhow, I get this email from her on one of my lists:

"So, I will admit that I didn't feel much like taking part in Breast Cancer Awareness Month last October. I did notice that this year was more heavily marketed. I saw vacuum cleaners in pink.. paper towels... cereal.. It was the plethora of pink boxes in aisle nine of the grocery store that made my daughter look at me and ask if I was going to die or what my odds were.

When I first heard of the "Think before you pink" movement, I shrugged it off as a bunch of crab-asses who want to poo-poo a worthy cause. I have taken sometime think about it and I am afraid that Breast Cancer Barbie pushed me over the edge. I realize that it is now December but perhaps you can keep this in mind next year as you make your shopping selection. If you really want to help in breast cancer research and awareness, write a tax deductable check next year.

Mattell's Breast Cancer Barbie is over the top. Susan G Komen's foundation must have completely been off their rocker to partner up with them. I am lucky. I get to keep my breast. Many women do not have that choice and to have perfect body Barbie sold at a premium (This Breast Cancer Barbie is a premium 25 dollar Barbie.. not one of the 15 dollar Barbies...) They are donating a whopping 2.50 for each Breast Cancer Barbie sold. Yep. This means that they get a nice profit for "supporting Breast Cancer Research". They are guaranteeing 25000. A whole 25K which is tax deductable from Mattel. If they wanted to support a worthy cause, then why not just write a check? Why buy a big titted perfect body doll? The only thing she has in common with women with mastectomies is that they both don't have nipples. See here for how some view Breast Cancer Barbie:
http://www.feministpeacenetwork.org/2007/10/04/breast-cancer-barbie-benign-girl-and-prostate-cancer-ken/

To show how silly this is... they want to know why Prostrate Ken isn't out?

For more on why you should think before you pink:
http://www.assertivepatient.com/2006/10/gag_me_with_a_p.html

:-)

I am not crabby.. really... but these companies are trying to increase
profits before they are really trying to raise money. Think on it for next October. :-)"

"I already don't buy anything when it is sold as "part of our profits go to so-and-so". Why should a huge company get a huge tax deduction off of my already-been-taxed money?

I hate it when companies do that... This morning I was yelling at the local news channel (Q13/FOX) because of their annual Children's Holiday Campaign. I'm for most things "children" related, but why should I donate money that they'll match up to 50% when they'll then turn around and get the entire 150% written off? That's not fair. Can we say easy way to make money off of other people's kindness?

I realize how cynical I've gotten. I don't buy Girl Scout Cookies because the troop gets all of 40 cents from the $4 box. In fact, we've completely dropped Girl Scouts in this household, even though I'm a lifetime member. I'd rather write a check to my local troop and not get a tax break from it than to make the girls stand outside in an electrical storm again, or the snowstorms either (much less freeze my considerable ass off because I'm the only parent who will supervise the girls).

I noticed the other day that a car dealer here is advertising that if you buy a new car from them they'll take your $3000 rebate and donate it to the local food bank. No thanks, I'd rather have my rebate...! Not that I begrudge the people who need the food, but seriously I'd rather take my $3000 and donate it myself, to my favorite charity...does Starbucks count?

I guess not. :("

Normally I've got a stomach that can handle any amount of bodily fluid that comes out of my kids. I guess I should warn you that this is a post that may be a touch of TMI...

So first goes PJ. She scared herself. It was sad but funny at the same time. It's around 9pm and she doesn't look well. She didn't make it to the potty, poor thing. Troy gets her cleaned up and she lies down in bed with me. We get her a bowl, in case she can't make it to the bathroom again. Unfortunately, the bowl was on the floor and she was on the bed...the freshly laundered sheets got to be freshly laundered again. PJ doesn't like puking. I agree with her, I don't like it either.

Two hours later, Kaycee shows up in our room. She puked on the ladder to her bunkbed. Whoops. Troy gets up to help her, I go in to clean up the puke...apparently my stomach can't handle the smell of puke anymore. I had to leave and make Troy clean it up. Poor guy. What I didn't know at that time was that Troy was about to spew too...

Bed's stripped down, Kaycee and PJ are now lying in my bed. Troy's been relegated to the couch, since PJ's earlier bowl miss was on his side... I'm tossing and turning because every little move the girls make I think it's them getting ready to puke again. At some point overnight, Chris wakes up and is sick as well.

The theory was that PJ, Troy and I had Taco Bell for lunch. Until Chris got sick, we figured it was something in PJ's burrito since Kaycee and Shayna had bites of it after school. I wasn't sick though and Troy was doing a good job of holding it off... When Chris got it, we were worried that something in our house was bad, maybe the milk or butter or something...we didn't know.

I then realized that I was the only one that got a flu shot this year. Tani had the FluMist stuff at school...Chris decided against it. Shayna didn't get a flu shot but she's got a pretty strong immune system. During this 36 hours of hell, Tani, Shayna and I were the only ones not puking. I did get a touch of it, but I never puked. I was just extremely cold and tired, as I did sleep almost all day yesterday and slept well last night.

We seem to be all over it now. Kaycee and Chris stayed home from school since mom always said to keep the kids home a day longer because they tend to get reinfected going out too quickly. Tomorrow starts their 2 week Christmas break. I guess they get to party early. :)

I'm now almost two days behind on my "get the house ready for visitors" task list. I don't know if I'll be able to make up the time.

Okay, so I just noticed something. Take a look at my weatherunderground sticker on the side over there...

Notice when the sun rises. Notice when the moon rises. Now, notice when the sun sets...and when the moon sets.

There's something seriously wrong with this picture. Just in case you're reading this sometime other than today, I'm going to put it in this blog entry...

Do you see what I mean? The moon is rising 2 hours after the sun... and the moon sets all of ~30 minutes after the sun. Um, what?!?

Isn't the moon supposed to come out after the sun has set? Is the world flat? What in the heck happened here?

I'm too tired to figure it out now. Suffice it to say that something is just not right here... What's up with that?

I want to decorate for Christmas. My house is a disaster area, but getting better. I can't decorate until the house is clean.

We finally got Tania moved up to her new room this weekend. I'm still doing laundry, since all last week I took a break and didn't do any (since I'd already done close to 30 loads the previous week, I figured everyone had enough clothing to last them a week), now I've got all I had to do plus another week's worth. Oh why did I think that was a good idea?!?

Troy's got computers coming out of every corner of the house. This is not a complaint (because he reads this, I don't want him to think I'm complaining!) Actually I find it quite funny. I mean some people collect dolls, some collect trading cards, some collect miniatures, etc. He collects computers, and their parts. He doesn't mean to, and it's really okay. You know how you upgrade something in your computer? What do you do with the parts that you have upgraded? Do you hold onto them? Do you throw them away? Do you try and sell them on craigslist? Nobody really wants your old computer parts, and in our town you're not allowed to throw them away... So, he collects them. A kid needs a computer, I'll betcha that he could throw one (or ten) together with the old parts he has laying around.

I'm not one to talk. I collect stuff too. I collect crap that's useless to the normal population. I mean, how many glucometers does one person need? You want any given model from the last 5 years and I've probably got one. Don't need any of those? Well, I collect mail. Apparently I have a real problem with throwing out all those stupid ads that come in the mail. I let it pile up wherever I read it. I've got piles of paper in places no one needs to have paper in. I'm working on that one. So far, it's not working too well. I think I either need to read the mail right when it comes in the door and toss everything into the recycle bin, or I just need recycle bins in every room of the house. I'm leaning towards the latter, since I'm lazy and don't want to go downstairs when Kaycee brings me the mail and I happen to be upstairs. Since I've been using my laptop, I don't really use my desk anymore. My desk is nice and clean since I'm not at it anymore... Heh.

Can we now talk about kitchen appliances? I collect those too. Why? I have no idea. I don't use half of the ones that I have. It's ridiculous. I just bought a counter-top microwave. Our "above the range" one just blew. We tried living two weeks without it. That was painful. Gourmets we are not. The new microwave came with a free toaster. Cool, eh? Except that I already have a toaster. Well, technically I don't. I have a toaster oven. Now I have a toaster oven and a counter-top toaster. The toaster oven is mounted under a cabinet. The toaster is under the toaster oven. Strange. I know. I can't help it.

Today I will be cleaning out the garden window in the kitchen. I hate that window. It's above the sink. Since people don't know how to keep water and various foods/liquids from splashing out of the sink when depositing the dirty dishes into said sink, the garden window gets sloppy with crumbs, said food/liquid items. It's really disgusting. I want to clean it so that I can dress it for Christmas. I need to contort myself around the sink to actually clean that window...it usually involves almost doing the splits over the sink so that my knees lie on either side of the sink, on the counter. Actually if you put a Twister mat under me while I'm cleaning the sink and wrap it around to the ceiling, well you get the idea of how much of a contortionist one has to be to clean that window.

Troy says that his job for after work today is going to be moving the living room into the front room so that he can then set up the living room as his office. I wouldn't blame him if it doesn't get done though, since I've already made a mess in the living room with all the mail I've been reading. I could be nice and pick it up, since it is my mess. :)

Once the living room and office have been done, then it's on to moving our bedroom downstairs. That's a scary thought. I haven't thought about how much crap there is in my room. I think that Tani's window overlooks the garbage can. I think I'll work with that window open. :) First though, I think I'm going to steam clean the carpet that's in the room we're moving to. Our little dog seems to think that's the perfect place to leave us presents. Damn dog! Hope I can get that smell out...

If all goes according to plan, I should be able to decorate before my mom gets here, after Christmas...

I've been bad. I haven't been testing my bgs lately like I'm supposed to. I've been lucky to test my morning number and maybe one pre-meal bg. Bad, bad, bad me.

Around this time of year, pretty much every year, I get into all of the fun and delicious treats that the season brings forth... Lots of hot cocoa, cookies, brownies, warm toast and jelly.

Because I have an insulin pump, I should be testing more often than someone on MDI (multiple daily injections). Normally I test up to 15 times a day. More likely it's just around 10 times a day. This keeps my A1c in a good range (they say below 7% is good, I say between 5% and 6% is best for me), and it keeps me from feeling like I'm suffering from narcolepsy.

That narcoleptic feeling has started to creep in. Maybe it's just the season (rainy and overcast daily), maybe it's that my house is a mess and the thought of cleaning overwhelms me... more likely it's that my bgs are high and I haven't been good about keeping after myself. I'm the hypo queen. I go low looking at something with no carbs in it. I haven't had a hypo since the day I had my cath done. I have realized that it's because of that cath that I haven't been good keeping at my numbers.

This doesn't mean I haven't been bolusing for my foods. It just means I haven't been checking. I haven't done any corrections, I haven't matched my insulin completely to my foods, I'm sure. I am so totally screwed when I go in to see my doc this Thursday and ask for an A1c. It'll smack me back into reality, I'm sure...

And once again, I will get better with my checking. I will tell myself I'll never again falter during the holiday season.

Yeah, right.