Fawn

I saw this this morning and I can totally relate to it:

Chris says that's giving my grace too much credit, dick.

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. 

Split Combo

It's been a quiet week as expected. I've mainly just been doing a ton of cleaning and organizing projects. Tackled the entertainment center again last night which had me ridiculously frustrated. I hate wires, a lot. I need to get an HDMI splitter at Best Buy this weekend so I can have all the devices plugged into the TV. Finally set up Chris' PS2. Once everything is all plugged in I want to tidy up the wires. I still need to find a VHS player too. Maybe I'll see if Best Buy has one cheap. The internet is making it look like you can only get combo players, and I need another DVD player like I need a hole in the head. Plus they're way over-priced. I was expecting to find a simple VHS player somewhere for like twenty bucks, bah.

Getting a FitBit is very much on my to-do list as well, it would really help me track things for my doctors. I need to have another yard sale. It's so hard to try to pick a weekend to do it. It's so much to drag down from the attic if the weather's going to suck. We've had non-stop rain here lately.

My Mom's down for work for the weekend as usual. Scotty is here too. He looks very handsome with his haircut. My Mom sent me this pic a few days ago, but it doesn't do it justice.

He's really growing. I may have to kidnap him. He has a really adorable personality.

You Too Can Lick Your Cat!

This morning was my great-grandmother's funeral. Chris went with me, and it was nice weather outside for her burial. Death is so sad. It feels so strange to leave someone you love alone in the ground.

When we got home Chris took a nap before work and I worked on making lunch. He did my methotrexate injection before he left. It bled pretty much this time for some reason and it's really sore. Not too sure what that's all about, meh. After he left I got caught up on all the chores around the house I didn't get done in the morning. I may have snuck a nap in there somewhere too.

I've been brushing the animals more since it's getting warm. They are really shedding. I could probably make a pet-hair pillow. Tuxington is an obsessive groomer, so when he's shedding if I don't brush him regularly he gets super hair balls. I don't have much experience in cats and hair balls, but brushing seems to help.

I really think I should get this, and let Chris and Tux have some bonding time while I brush Daisy:



Friday the 13th!

Chris' birthday kicked my ass. I'm not particularly certain why. It's not like our plans were extremely physical or anything. I've been paying the price regardless though. I've been fighting major fatigue all week, and pep talking myself into doing anything beyond basic chores.

Yesterday I spent some time working on one of my closets. I have some bags of stuff in it that Chris brought with when he moved in that I still haven't found a home for. One of them was all paperwork; which I spent yesterday sorting between our important papers tub and keepsake box. The other is all electronics and cords. It's been my looming project of the day today, which I've only slightly dented. I've been working really hard on getting our entire home organized and free of unnecessary clutter.

Last night I made grilled chipolte chicken and swiss cheese sandwiches for dinner and we watched The 5th Wave. It was actually a really good movie. We stayed up way too late watching it. It's one of those movies that makes you think.

Happy Mother's Day!

Chris and I stayed up until almost 5am this morning. We got up around lunch time and ran up to Hamburg to take care of some errands. Our first stop was the pet store whereupon entering I was greeted immediately by swarms of squirmy puppies up for adoption. I wanted to herd them all into our car. I resisted though.

My Uncle Keith stopped by with a birthday card for Chris. It was really cute and funny. Drop a guess in the comments as to what the inside says!

Chris changed the oil in the car with my Pop when we got home, and I struggled to stay awake. I've been ridiculously tired all day. I'm fighting sleep just trying to write this blog. I'm trying not to give in and nap in hopes that I'll be able to sleep decently tonight. We'll see.

You Never Know Who's Watching...

I haven't blogged in quite some time.

I've been busy living life and adjusting to my new normal.

Even though I'm not quite sure what that is yet.

I started a new chemotherapy in March that has worked wonders for my ability to function day to day, yet my inflammation markers continue to climb up and up.

Today's actually the crappiest I've felt in quite some time, but I'm hoping its just a result of over doing it. I do that a lot, still. Learning new limits is hard.

I got a long awaited tattoo.

Did some fishing with my husband.

Static

Things are really rough for me right now. My doctors have me tapering down off of steroids so they can see what symptoms all flare up exactly. They're hoping to figure out if I possibly have systemic vasculitis, and how to treat me well enough that I don't need steroids to function. While they're great for calming down a messed up immune system; steroids are really bad for you and come with a myriad of side effects such as thinning bones, muscle wasting, organ damage, and weight gain.

I dropped to 10mgs, my lowest tolerance on Monday, and by Wednesday I could feel everything start to flare up. My entire existence hurts. I emailed my doctor and let her know that things were flaring up already and she messaged me back that she put in a standing lab order to evaluate my inflammation markers that she'd like me to get done weekly before our Monday follow-ups on my taper. I got it done today in hopes that she'd have it in time for our appointment Monday morning. Within a few hours she emailed me, lab results were back already. My inflammation markers almost doubled within a few days. Higher than they've tested in months. I expressed that not only was I not kidding about feeling like shit already, but that I was quite serious about not being able to get under 10mgs of Prednisone. While she said she didn't doubt me (she yells at me for under exaggerating), having the frequent labs to track the process for Jefferson makes it even better.

Schwoopieeeeee

I'm a giant child from time to time. Being able to have fun and laugh is important. We were at the dollar store the other day to pick up animal cookies and crackers. They've been my go to snack as of lately. They're cheap and not all that bad for you. A coin machine thinger caught my eye that had 'rocket balloons' with 'schwoopie sound effects'.

After nudging Chris and insisting he look at it, he bought me one.

He blew it up for me, and the results were hilarious. It takes a ton of lung power to blow it up for a few seconds of laughs, but it was totally worth it. Especially since I wasn't the one blowing it up, hah. The animals were freaking out about it. It eventually broke and I was pretty sad, but it was the best fifty cents we spent in awhile.

You can watch some funny videos I took of it below!

Schwoopie Balloon!

Posted by Trisha Amanda Archeval on Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Schwoopie Balloon!

Posted by Trisha Amanda Archeval on Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Schwoopie Balloon!

Posted by Trisha Amanda Archeval on Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Schwoopie Balloon!

Posted by Trisha Amanda Archeval on Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Snowmageddon!

The past few days have been crazy, and I've been slacking on writing a blog. Friday night started Blizzard 2016, otherwise known as Snowmageddon.

Chris and Daisy kept an eye on the progress outside Friday night.

Tux experienced his first snow, and snow ball. He was not amused. He wanted to murder it.

Daisy and him kept an eye on the snow from our TV room window.

Piggy Tails

I am struggling hard to find energy today. There's so much I want to do. So many projects I could be taking on right now, and all I want to do is cuddle up in my blankies and take a damn nap. I don't even need Netflix or anything. Hell, writing this blog right now is taking up too much energy even. I tried coffee too.

Chris got home from work around two last night, and we stayed up until about five. I was up and down most of the morning from 7am on. At 11 I surrendered and stayed up. You'd think for as tired as I am I could get some damn sleep, but that's the kicker. If I give in and go take a nap I really won't sleep tonight, but probably even without a nap when it comes time for sleep I won't be able to. Stupid brain. At least it's not as bad as what it was pre-Tysabri. I would be sleep deprived to near the point of insanity. Hallucination inducing sleep deprived. It's not fun.

It's a Good Day for a Nap...

Chris is off to work already today. He had less than eight hours between his shifts. He didn't get much sleep, and I got even less sleep.

There's a serious nap in my future.

Started off the day straightening up around the house. I lost my balance picking up laundry and tipped over onto my ass. Chris heard the thud and asked if I was okay. The only thing really hurt being my pride I told him I was, but that he needed to get up and get ready for work. I'm pretty sure he wound up being a few minutes late, but in all fairness no one should really be scheduled like that.

Daisy and Tuxington are already settled in on the couch napping together. Daisy's snoring away. They're so stinking cute. But it just makes me want to settle in for a nap all the more.

A Fork in the ...Toe?

Oi have I been busy. My body's been going crazy for some reason. Getting sick probably riled up my immune system good. Rheumatoid and fibro have everything hurting. MS has my fine motor skills all screwed up, shocking nerve pain, tremors, balance issues, and some serious verbal vocabulary problems.

The insomnia isn't helping much either. When I do sleep I've been having such vivid nightmares that my screaming wakes Chris up, and he in turn wakes me up.

 

It's frustrating, but I'm doing the best I can to manage despite it. I've settled in to 10-15mgs of Prednisone a day again. That's been helping a great deal with symptom management, but I've been constantly starving in result.

I really need to go get lab work done sometime very soon. My JC virus testing is way past due. I haven't gotten my regular labs done for my rheumatologist in awhile, and my PCP has wanted some labs from me for awhile now.

Chris was off on Monday; it was also his pay day. I didn't really press to run errands though because I knew he's been feeling a bit run down since he's been sick. We didn't really have anything of urgent need either. We filled the gas tank, hit up the bank, grabbed some lunch and went home. Spent the day together playing video games and what not.

I've been super busy. Undecorating from Christmas, working on some little projects around the house, and a ton of fun stuff from the wedding is showing up. We got videos from my Uncle, pictures from the photographer, and a lot of memory keeping to do! The pictures are gorgeous. It's hard to decide what to put where.

Twas the Night Before Christmas....

Wow! I know the holiday season is busy, but this has by far been my busiest. It didn't help that Chris got paid only three days before Christmas, and my family grew exponentially. I have many more people to spoil and share the holiday with now.

Hell, we're still not done. Both Daisy and Tuxington are insisting on laying on me while I blog. It's making things interesting. Chris is working on setting up the WiiU my Mom got us for Christmas while I blog. It seems really cool so far. I'm excited to play some of the games she got us. I'm not a huge fan of open world games, or many of the newer games in general. I like the old fashioned side scroller games, Mario, Donkey Kong, etc. I looooove me some Yoshi. Chris is the bigger nerd of the two of us though, and I have some serious blogging to catch up on so he's earned the privilege of playing around with it first. We have to get more controllers for it.

This year for Christmas instead of my usual cookie assortment I made variations of chocolate crack and chocolate peppermint fudge. Both got really good. I found tons of coupons for the ingredients I needed which was helpful, and I made it at my Gran and Pop's house because they had more table/counter space and a bigger freezer. It took over ten hours to get it all done, but I made a ton. Over three-hundred pieces of fudge and who knows how much chocolate crack. I made up a tray of fudge for Chris to take to work, kept a tray for us, and gift bagged and tinned the rest up for family, etc. We did the shopping for ingredients on Monday after he got off work, and I got all of it made on Tuesday while he was at work.

Ceiling of Hell

I made breakfast for dinner last night. It was really good. Bacon, corned beef hash, fried potatoes, dippy eggs, and toast. Neither of us could eat it all. I saw a recipe floating around for tater tot waffles I want to give a try next time I do it.

Yanno, every time I've ever had a legit fire in my apartment my smoke alarm didn't go off. But my cooking, it acts like it's on the ceiling of hell. It's so annoying. I like my bacon crispy smoke detector, geez! I'm not burning the house down.

No clue whatsoever what I want to make for dinner tonight. Today's pay day for Chris. This is the only place I've ever heard of giving paychecks on a Monday, but whatever.

We have some serious shopping to get done before Christmas. He's none to thrilled about it. He hates shopping; he hates it even more when he's worked all day. I'm expecting him to whine the entire time. It's a neccesary evil though. I'm going to try to just get a bit of it done tonight and do the rest tomorrow with whomever will take me out while he's at work.

Tania's almost got her blog of our wedding day ready to share. I'm so excited to see it and the pictures. She shared this gem with me last night:

How freaking adorable are we?

I love my husband.

Not entirely sure what I'm going to do today. Got a bit of stuff done around the house. Should make some phone calls to various places, but I'm not much in the mood for it. I have to meet Chris at five at his job to go deposit his check and commence shopping.

I want to attempt to paint my grandmother's nails for Christmas, but I doubt she'll let me. We shall see.

Tux was busy last night. He put nonsense in my shoes and slippers, moved their water bowl into the middle of the kitchen. Now he's cuddling with Daisy sleeping.

It's chilly in here this morning. I may crawl back under the covers for a bit until it warms up.

I'm Back!

Finally back to blog-land. I've been a busy girl. We've been redecorating our apartment thanks to some starter surprise help from our family while we were on our honeymoon. They painted our bedroom 'bridal flower' (light lavender) for us. It was a major project on my 'to do' list, so it was a nice surprise. Our wedding ceremony was fantastic! I'll share some details and pics as time goes on, so stay tuned!

Chris starts his new job today which we've both been eagerly awaiting. He's been unemployed since my near-death/blood clot experience. The time with him has been a valuable gift, but finances have become uncomfortable. Weddings aren't cheap and what not. And my disability claim is a hope, a prayer, and light years away from being approved yet. Bah. Blows my mind that it's so difficult considering MS is on the governments list of qualifying disabilities. A little less than ten hours still until Chris is back home and I've already finished all my basic chores for the day except taking the recycling out when it's light. Good thing I have a long project list and Netflix queue. 

I've yelled "Tuxington!!!!" about twelve times today already, starting with when I went out to set the GPS in the car for Chris. He's not good with the GPS and he has to go over an hour away to a different store to get hired in. Thank goodness he doesn't have to work at that one daily. Anyways, I went to put my shoe on and he put a PIN in my shoe from my jewelry case. He has this obsession with putting sparkly shit in my shoes. Ow. He's like a spoiled toddler when Daddy's not home. You know what they say.."when the cat's away..." wait...that's not right. You get the drift though.

I slept for shit last night. My brain doesn't adjust well to scheduled sleeping. It's more of a 'let's stay up until we pass out' fan. Now that I'm back on Tysabri I at least can sleep again, but depending I still don't sleep all that well. I've debated going back to bed for awhile, but I'm worried that will just set me up for failure when it comes time to sleep with Chris again later.

So, instead here I am! Debating what is next. I'd love to brew a coffee to up my current motivation level, but much to my dismay my Keurig took a crap. I monkeyed around with it for a bit, but considering I've had the thing for about five or six years I'm pretty sure it surrendered. Apparently Bed Bath & Beyond gives you credit on a trade in of your old/broken one towards a new one. Valuable information that was. So I think I'll box it up until the time comes we can afford a new one and keep an eye out for coupons. I have some powdered cappuccino nonsense in my cabinet I may boil some milk for and try. Desperate times and what not.

The growing readership of this blog is pretty exciting. It's cool to see my Adsense income jump from pennies to dollars. Being able to contribute to the home in even a small way is nice. Especially by doing something I enjoy.

I believe I shall finish tackling my kitchen organization today. I started it with Chris the other day. Pulled a ton of things out for yard sale. I mean, it's just the two of us and we easily had fifty cups. Granted they were varying types of cups, but still excessive. I have this new found giant collection of tupperware I needed to find a home for as well. My upper cabinets are impeccably organized now, but I still need to do my lower cabinets and pantry. That'll kill some serious time. The upper cabinets were pretty much an all day project, and that was with help.

I trimmed Daisy's toenails the other night, and surprisingly enough Tux let me trim his last night. He's a good cat. I used to be convinced they were murderous beasts, but he's definitely changed my opinion. He's still a bastard though. Time to take on the day!

Extra Virgin

I was so tired last night. I was a bit worried I'd read the blog I wrote last night and what I thought was an account of my day would read more like 'purple unicorns glitter gasodjoiwi pizza woijiodfjso cheesecake'. Thankfully that was not the case. We went to bed and Chris put on Scream because he's in Halloween mode and I've never seen it. I'm a child when it comes to horror movies. I'm always paranoid I'm going to have nightmares and what not.

White Flag

Tux is extremely talkative today.

He's usually only this talkative when he wants something, but he has all the basics so I'm not sure what he's up to.

He was laying on top of Daisy earlier giving her a bath. It was adorable, and in his defense she really does need one.

I woke up this morning feeling awful. I've been down to 10mgs of steroids for a little over a week now and I assumed it would get better with time. Instead though it's getting worse.

My joints were all ridiculously stiff and painful this morning, and it's not letting up. I don't want to feel like crap for our wedding and honeymoon so I surrendered and went back to 15mgs.

Honestly, feeling like this makes me worry how I'm ever going to tolerate totally getting off of them. Which sucks, because I really want to.

The way I'm feeling today not much is going to get accomplished.

Snowball Fight!

Steroid withdrawal is kicking my butt today. My joints and back are hurting something fierce. There's so much I want to get done but my body is just not agreeing.

Finally made myself something to eat. I made corned beef hash and dippy eggs with toast. I somehow managed to burn the bottom of my eggs, but I was hungry so it didn't really matter.

I have two baskets of laundry to put away and I'd really like to finish the bathroom closet at the very least, plus I have forty more wedding programs to do. I just don't see it all happening.

Just took a pain pill an hour early, which I rarely do. Hoping that will maybe catch up with my pain level enough that I can get motivated to get some stuff done.

In my organizing yesterday I moved my bedroom touch lamp from the top of the one bureau onto my nightstand. Last night Tux turned it on not once, but twice. And not on the soft light setting either. He committed and turned it all the way up to prison escape neon bright.

Have I mentioned lately that he's an exceptional bastard?

Anywho, it seems Chris is finally done playing football so I'm going to procrastinate my day some more and play Frozen Freefall Snowball Fight!

Moon Face

Chris and I worked on our wedding programs tonight. I somehow only got enough card stock to make eighty, so I'm going to have to get another pack and do some more tomorrow.

I was glad when we were done with this batch. Even with Chris' help it was time consuming, monotonous, and tiring. I did a couple on my own while he downloaded a free Frozen game on the Xbox One for me. It's something like Bejeweled. It's pretty cool. Then he started putting them together and I lined up the pages and stapled. They still need to be cut down to size.

Daisy kept climbing onto Chris' shoulder like a parrot while we were trying to work. Then her and Tux kept making themselves comfy on our page piles.

It wasn't exactly helpful.

It's 11pm and we have yet to make a meal today. We snacked on some chips earlier, but that's been it. The days are going by too fast lately. Way too much to get done.

I've been tapering down on steroids too which I think has been playing with my appetite. A little over a month ago I was up to 60mgs, and I'm down to 10mgs. My joints aren't very thrilled, but I'm determined to get off of it this time. Probably not going to drop below ten until after the wedding though. I don't want to risk feeling crappy for the wedding.

I've learned from all of the times I tried and failed at getting off Prednisone that you must do it slowly.

While Prednisone does a great job at covering up some of the symptoms from my diseases, the Cushing's Syndrome side effects got to go.

My vision's been pretty bad off and on the past few days. Worried my MS is misbehaving with the lower dose of steroids. Hopefully it will calm down. The Xeljanz seems to be working surprisingly well for my joints this time around. Soon time for another dose of Tysabri already.

It's amazing how understanding Chris is with all of it.

I suppose I better figure out something for us to eat before I fall asleep! Haha. Tomorrow shouldn't be super busy, but Thursday we have a lot going on.