If It Isn't One Thing...

I keep getting things messed up in my head. Twice, recently, I've been wrong about days of the week and appointments. Luckily, I figured it out ahead of time before I actually showed up to these places without an appointment. One of those appointments was for the doctor which was today.

I would say that I have moderate "White Coat Syndrome". It's not so bad that I can't make myself go to the doctor, but it's bad enough that I put it off until I absolutely can't anymore and I'm a freaking mess while I'm there. My blood pressure today was the highest it's been since I was pregnant. My chest was flushed completely red. And my hands were shaking. I'm lucky that they didn't commit me.

I have finally found a really nice doctor and the nurses are fabulous too. I had to have blood drawn and the nurse was so good that I barely felt it. I'm an easy draw anyway, but she was really excellent. I also had to pee in a cup. If peeing in a cup isn't the epitome of fun, I don't know what is. And you know a man designed the cups for that.

I was told that I have to stop taking Excedrin and Advil for my headaches. I also have to cut back on caffeine and spicy food. Turns out that I'm a walking time bomb for stomach ulcers. I also have to get my stress under control. I'm working on that. I had something like 4 of the 6 indicators for ulcers. Or 6 of the 8. I can't remember. I know for sure that I had all but two.

I have a referral for physical therapy for my shoulder. I've been having some pretty good pain in my left shoulder for a few weeks now. I have a pocket of fluid in my shoulder which is causing my pain. I've never had physical therapy before so this should be interesting.

I also have a referral to a dermatologist because I have two cysts that I'm tired of living with.

I'm a mess. It's embarrassing. Which is why I feel like sharing publicly I guess. ;) Ultimately, I need to get my stress under control. Everything that's wrong with me, with the exception of my shoulder and the cysts, is caused by stress. I have headaches about five out of seven days a week (I have one right now which would make four days in a row so far.). I have heartburn or acid reflux several days a week. When I have a headache, I take Advil or Excedrin which can cause heartburn or make it worse. It's a nasty cycle but hopefully I'm on the road to getting everything under control.

Info on the New House

We went and toured the new house on Saturday so the kids could see it. I didn’t take any pictures because I thought it would be intrusive to take pictures of someone’s house while all their stuff is still in it to post to the Internet, lol.

It’s really nice and I'm totally excited to move now. The Mister and I had been to visit them before but I didn’t remember the layout. The living room opens up into the eat-in kitchen. It has a gas fireplace which they said that they use as a primary source of heat in the winter and it only costs $70 to fill up the tank. Nice! Above the fireplace is a nook that is wired for TV’s. Our new TV will fit into the space but we’re not sure if we’re going to put our TV in there or not. They have vaulted ceilings in the main living area (living room and kitchen) so I am NOT painting. I did that in Vermont and it's such a pain. I like their color scheme anyway. It goes with my furniture.

The kitchen is real nice. The only thing missing is a pantry but I can live without that. It has a side by side refrigerator with water filter and ice maker. The fridge actually works and keeps food fresh. The stove is one of those ceramic cook top deals. I can live with that. AND!!! It has a garbage disposal! I haven't had one of those since 2003 and holy cow! do I miss it.

It has a split floor plan where the master bedroom is on the opposite side of the house from the kids' bedrooms.

The master bedroom has a big walk-in closet and bath with his and her sinks. Lovely!

The kids' bedrooms are nice-sized with generous closets.

Overall, the new house has at least twice the closet and storage space of our current house. And it has a nice sized privacy fenced in backyard. I just hope that we can figure out a way to keep Hannah from digging. Any suggestions?

We also went over the lease while we were there. They were so funny about it. This is the first house that they've rented out so they were nervous that the lease would offend us, lol. There were a couple things that I had never heard of but that I wish I had put in the lease for our house in Vermont so I wasn't offended in the least. I actually told them that they were being too nice about it. It should be a business deal, ya know? They're having the carpets cleaned, touching up the paint on all the walls and leaving us several gallons for our own touch ups, buying us a bottle of cleaner for the stove, and having the house tented for termites before they leave. The termite thing is preventative. See? They're being way nice, not that we don't appreciate it.

They said that they hope we're still friends at the end of this, lol. Us too but I don't see us having any problems. We're good renters. The Mister and I have been renting since 1996 and we've never once been late on our rent. The one time I even requested to pay our rent late was last year when my brother-in-law was killed and we had to go to Ohio unexpectedly. I forgot my checkbook at home. My landlord said it was okay but I went to the post office and paid him with a money order on time anyway. I just can't not pay my rent on time.

Bad news. Apparently the Mister was wrong about the school districts. Neither one of the kids will be in the same school district. The oldest child can be carpooled to her original junior high which will be a pain for me but I don't want her to have to change at this age. We knew that the youngest wasn't going to be in the same school district but we're still not sure what we're going to do about her. Our friends said that the elementary school in their district has been excellent with their son who also has learning disabilities so we're thinking of going ahead and switching schools. I just don't know yet.

More bad news is that they have an HOA. She (the owner) had actually been on the board but got kicked off, lmao. I guess the HOA is filled of retired Marines and their wives who have nothing better to do than to enforce every little regulation. What's more is that they have a website where they bicker and gossip about each other on it. How high school is that?? Are all HOA's like that? They told us a story about a guy who had been in a car accident. He parked his banged up car in his driveway which leaked oil. The HOA told him he had 5 business days to move the car and clean up the mess. When he didn't, they sued him and put a lean on his house!! Holy cow! So, I already hate the HOA. This could prove to be an interesting experience. I told the Mister that this would get us ready to live in base housing again in California, lmao.

Anyway, their movers will have their stuff packed and out of the house on the 20th. Our friends are going to clean the house and then leave themselves on the 25th which is when we can take possession even though they're not making us pay rent until Sept 1. We're paid up in the current house until the 31st so I'm going to take the 25th to the 29th to paint bedrooms and move the small stuff over a little bit every day. The 30th and 31st we'll move the big stuff I couldn't get on my own with a moving truck.

Insomnia and stress headaches are once again my constant companions but I'll be better in October or November when things get back to normal. At least the fall semester doesn't start until Sept 8th. One less thing to worry about.

Rolling Around Friday

Guess what it's doing at my house right now. If you guessed raining, you'd be correct.

I forgot to mention that I got some news the other day that made me a little sad. I found out that they are tearing down my high school. I haven't been back since graduation day, but I'm still sad that it's not going to be there anymore. It was built in 1922 so it is a really old and outdated building . I wish that I had the opportunity to go back to Ohio and see it one more time before it's gone but that isn't going to happen. Hmm.

I have another product review, heheh. I already blogged about my recent bout of insomnia. Well, yesterday I had a migraine to go with it and we were all out of my Excedrin Migraine. I sent the Mister to the store, because by this time I was in so much pain I was a bit nauseated, and he came home with two different types of Excedrin: Excedrin PM and Excedrin Migraine. I was torn. With Excedrin Migraine, you can only take one dose in 24 hours so if I took those, I wouldn't be able to take the PM stuff. But what if the PM pills weren't enough for my headache? I decided to try the PM stuff because I figured if they didn't take away the headache, maybe they'd make me sleep through the pain, heheh. The results: I took the PM pills at 9 so that hopefully, I'd be more than ready for sleep at 11. They made me sleepy without the annoying side affects that I usually get with meds that make me drowsy like dizziness and just a generally feeling of weirdness. Still, I didn't fall asleep until about midnight and I didn't stay asleep either. I tossed and turned all night. As for my headache, they reduced it to a dull roar and I still have a nagging headache this morning. Bottom line: I don't really know. I liked that the PM pills didn't make me feel all weird, but they didn't really help me sleep all that much and they also weren't strong enough to make my headache go completely away but I didn't really expect them to. Who knows?

Oh! The shrimp burgers were really good. It's the first time that we've ever had them. We weren't really sure how to top them. Ketchup, mustard, cocktail sauce? Turns out that they're good with some A-1 and Parmesan cheese just in case you were wondering.

Happy Friday everyone.