A Spoon Full Of Sugar...

I've been doing TONS of stuff lately. I've been a busy busy girl. Great for me, not so great for my blog. By the time I actually sit I'm generally way too tired to do much of anything. I've actually been sleeping lately too. Crazy, I know!

But, I've been committed to getting this baby caught up! So at the very least I'm pumping out some little blogs before I fall-out, rather than a long catch up. If anything, I am adaptive!

I'm currently armed with coffee and a can-do attitude! I've had a really scattered morning. I got allergy testing yesterday which was terrible. I had to get the scratch test and injections, because my control didn't work on the scratch test, and then I wound up reacting to everything and my immune system freaked out. I'm allergic to pretty much everything but mold. It's pretty bad, and I'm not quite sure how it's even possible considering all the steroids and immunosuppresants I'm on. I'm going to try allergy shots since my insurance is willing to cover it in full, and there's a chance they could help calm my psycho immune system down.

It was all riled up last night from the testing and I felt super shitty all night. I hid in bed and slept. I'm still not at 100% today. I've been all over the place trying to find something that I feel well enough to do. I worked on my magnet board for a bit, but ran out of magnets. Started taking a walk, but by lap two decided I really wasn't up for that yet, and it seems I decided just in time as it's pouring now. I did my chores around the house, but that didn't take long. So now here I am working on this!

I finally got my garden going! It looks great. It started out looking like this:

But, after a ton of hard work it looks like this:

It's something I've been wanting to do for a long time, and I'm incredibly proud of it. I never would have been able to accomplish this last year.

I have even more pepper and tomato plants in my Pop's garden out back. I ran out of room.

I saw a quote that I think really encompassed some of my feelings about gardening.

Gardening is a huge investment, and sort of ties you down to the area you're in. I think there's a sense of home attached to it, as well as future. It's a long term commitment for reward.

We have a ton of interesting plants along the woods-line of our property. I know what some of them are, but not all. I went out the other day and took pictures of a bunch of interesting ones. I want to try to identify some of them, and some I just took pictures because they're pretty. I'll put a blog up full of them in the future. I need to finish editing them.
I've been nursing a wicked sun burn. I set up a yard sale outside the other day, and it was cloudy out so I didn't bother with sunscreen. Yeah, terrible idea. I learned my lesson on that one. My skin is so sensitive from all of my medicine too which doesn't help. I had nausea and chills from it. Not my idea of a good time. I've been seeing a lot about the woman with MS who got over-heated outside a few days ago and wound up dying. Scary shit, and a brutal reminder that even though I'm feeling better I can't under estimate the heat and what it does to my diseases.

It's supposed to be cooler out the next few days which I'm looking forward to.

Our hummingbird feeder is becoming a busy place! I see a hummingbird there about once an hour now. It's pretty cool. Tuxington enjoys watching them. And by enjoys, I mean he wants to eat them.

Anyways, time to get busy again. I shall leave you all with this educational food for thought on sugar intake. I quit drinking soda awhile ago, and that alone has made a huge difference in my calorie intake. It's ridiculous how much sugar is in it!

Mail Timeeee!

What a day! I should have taken Ambien last night again. I didn't sleep for shit. I was up most of the night. I gave up earlier than usual and got up and got started on my chores for the day awhile. Around 9am I ran out with my grandmother to the post office and the pharmacy.

The post office was exciting! I had tons of coupons in the mail, my FitBit, and my HDMI splitter came already! I also got a giant pack of paper work to fill out for the digestive diseases doctor. Not looking forward to getting that done. Not doing it today. I'm too tired to focus. My appointment isn't until August, but I need to get it done awhile because they have me on their cancellation list and it's not anything that can get done last minute.

When I got home I cut up and sorted the new coupons, and went through and tossed some expired ones I had in my bag. 

Bloomin' Bullshit

Yesterday turned into a busy day.

My Pop's been socializing with the construction crew that rebuilt our local bridge pretty much since day one. He watches them work and bullshits with them. They've been working on black topping the past few days, and yesterday he was talking to them about how he wants to get stone for our drive way because it's getting such bad dips and holes. Didn't they bring their equipment over and fill in and tamp down all of the problem areas for free. It was really nice of them.

May Flowers My Ass!

According to a local newspaper it's rained 16 of the past 22 days in our area. I like the rain, but c'mon! It makes gardening tricky, shopping annoying, and yard sales damn near impossible.

And I need to have some damn yard sales. Shit, I'm still finding more stuff to sell as I keep organizing.

Chris and I went out around 1:30 to do errands today and didn't get home until around 5. The sad part is that we're home because we're broke, not because I got everything done. This has been a running trend the past few weeks fueled by spending 100$ on dry food alone for the animals. It lasts forever, but it's a bitch when we have to get it. You can get a smaller bag for less of an immediate investment, but you wind up paying over 50$ extra long-term. Plus we were totally out of litter, treats, and wet food on top of it. Daisy and Tux soon need their yearly exam and boosters too. Having pets and properly caring for them is not cheap. And yes, sometimes we go without so they can have what they need. This has been one of those times. We'll be caught up eventually. My list has grown shorter at least.

I did manage to get some supplies to work on a really cool organizing project for my make-up and beauty supplies. I'm making a magnet board! Painting some aluminum dark purple to contrast our bedroom wall, and then using magnets and what not I'm going to hang my make-up. If it's half as cool as I think it's going to be I'll be happy. And it'll open up another drawer for organizing clothes. I feel like I'm never going to be finished organizing this house.

Also, we got a hummingbird feeder! I've been wanting one for a long time and they had one really nice glass one on super-cheap clearance at the pet store. I couldn't resist. We need to find something to hang it from though. I'd really like to put it in our front yard. My Pop likes to chill on our front porch, and we sit out there too. And Tuxington likes to watch the birds out the screen door. I've seen hummingbirds buzz past out front before. I guess we need to find something like a pole for hanging flower baskets from? We don't have a tree there to hang it from. 

Frozen Yogurt

Chris took me out last night to Sheetz so I could meet Kristen and get a sundae. I was super excited.

There's a billion different flavor options. I taste tested a few and decided to go with the peanut butter cookie dough frozen yogurt. The grape ape ice cream flavor was really good too. I smothered mine in toppings and got to chat with Kristen for a little bit. I shared it with Chris on the way home. I had a bit of a derp moment mid-conversation with Kristen, but thankfully she was patient. I've been losing track of my conversations really bad lately. I'll be mid sentence or thought, and all of the sudden -- Poof! It's super frustrating, especially if someone doesn't understand. Chris is good at usually getting me back on track.

Email Palpation?

Flip-flopping through a lot of insurance policies right now. My Geisinger policy ends tomorrow, and I start a policy through Blue Cross on the 1st. In February I'm switching to a policy through Cigna.

A key benefit I've noticed for the new year is long-distance doctoring. For my Cigna policy my co-pays have jumped to $30 to see my PCP, and $50 for a specialist. Considering the number of appointments I have in a week sometimes this adds up quick.

'Seeing' a doctor by telephone, video conference, or even email though is free.

Yeah, go ahead, read that again.

Monkey Business

Chicken noodle soup last night got really good.

Got up this morning and did a few things around the house. I felt like crap. Being sick is kicking my butt. Shortly after I got up I headed off to my Tysabri infusion with Chris. I took some of my homemade candy with for the staff.

There's a new girl during my infusion time slot. She's pretty cool. Has a lot of stories. She works two jobs still, one full time and one part time. Her MS isn't very advanced yet. She's been doing Avonex, but started to have some cognitive decline and switched to Tysabri to nip it in the butt. Plus Avonex came with weekly flu symptoms. She has eight dogs, they're small, but still! She also has two mini-pigs. I don't know how mini a sixty pound pig is, but they're cute. She used to do exotic wildlife rehabilitation and had mini-deer, various types of monkeys, etc. She's full of stories, so it'll be pretty fun to have infusions with her. She's actually one person that I could see myself getting along with. Most of the others I don't have much in common with besides MS.

Disregard

Busy busy day. I got my entire list of phone calls done already thankfully. I have some chores to do yet, but I'm pretty proud of how focused and efficient I was this morning.

Called my insurance company and the girl was all 'Ohh I don't know whyyy they sent you that. Just disregard it!' And I was all yeah, disregard it until they cancel my policy and my shit's fucked up all month. And she's all 'Ohh but they shouldn't your policy is paid for. I don't understand what the problem is.' And I'm all just because they shouldn't doesn't mean they're not going toooo. And she's all 'Noo, it must have crossed in the mail. Oh wait, you paid early, hmm, I don't know. It will be fine.' And I was all ........

Twenty bucks says my policy gets cancelled anyways now, and I'm going to be pissed.

Scheduled and rescheduled a bunch of appointments. Cancelled our Sands reservation because of finances.

I'm most definitely getting sick. I'm rocking a wicked earache and some stuffiness today. Started antibiotics yesterday because I've been rocking a fever off and on so I knew it was coming. Luckily I have some time yet before the wedding to kick it. I hate fevers because I get cold, and then I bury myself in warm things and suddenly the fever relaxes and my MS is ready to have a melt down between the fever and the eight thousand layers of heat I've buried myself in. It's good times.

Not sure what I'm cooking today. Most likely leftovers for lunch. Dull day, but considering all the hectic days ahead some quiet time isn't a bad thing.

Turtle Power!

We've only been awake for about four hours so far and today has already been crazy. We stayed up pretty late last night, and I actually slept really good for a change which was nice. We got up at about one, Chris helped me do some chores around the house, and then we had to scurry off to my rheumatology appointment.

I love having Chris with at my appointments. He remembers things that I forget about. Also I have a bad habit of downgrading my symptoms and pain for some reason. While I might tell the doctor that I've been okay, Chris is quick to jump in and say that I've been struggling to wash dishes all week because my hands hurt.

The doctor was actually running pretty on time. He's usually running extremely late, but we never mind because he's one of the few doctors that runs late because he actually spends time with his patients. They really should schedule his appointments differently though, but oh well.

Anne was his nurse today and I haven't seen her in ages. He usually has Ashley, she must be on vacation or something. Anne was excited to hear about the wedding. She checked my vitals, my BP was great, 110/70. My temperature on the other hand was 101 for some reason. Not sure why because I feel fine. Well, no worse than usually that is. Haha.

Griffin came in and we talked about Jefferson and how I was feeling. He agrees with their erythromelalgia and fibromyalgia diagnosis. We played the 'does this hurt?' game. He's keeping me on the Xeljanz, upped my Rasuvo dose to 25mgs. I told him how the longer I was down to 10mgs of steroids the worse I was starting to feel instead of getting better with time. He says I've been on steroids for years so as the dose starts to get lower it's going to be harder and harder. He said I should wait until after the wedding and start doing 15mgs two days in a row, and then 10mgs, and then 15mgs two days in a row, so on and so forth. Then starting the new year start doing every other day switch between 15mgs and 10mgs. I'm determined to get off of this crap, and I'm glad he's supportive of it. Chris brought up what a jerk Kolva was about us getting married, Griffin was like well that's not very nice. He was like I think that just shows just how meant to be you guys are. He gave me some scripts for the next two months so I don't have to worry about stopping in until my next appointment. And some samples to hold me over until he gets some things put through and changed with the specialty pharmacies.

Griffin was amused by my Ninja Turtle Band-Aids I had on.

I love wearing fun Band-Aids. People can be way too serious. Why not make something sucky (a booboo) more positive?

Well, It Doesn't Say Keep Off the Grass?

Today was an exciting day! Engagement picture day!

Yes. We really did get our engagement pictures done less than a month from our wedding, haha.

But no really, we don't procrastinate that bad. It's just we weren't planning on getting engagement pictures, but they came with the package from our wedding photographer.

We decided to get our pictures taken at Schell's Mini Golf.

We enjoy golfing together, and their mini-golf course is really pretty. Plus I thought it would be sort of unique.

I had to get up at 6am in order to get ready because I had an 8am hair appointment and had to meet Tania (our photographer) at ten.