I Should Be Folding Laundry

Sorry, Sammy

I had no idea so many of you felt so strongly about Wal-Mart, I mean, I knew she did, but sometimes I think she's a little crazy, so I thought it was just her, but maybe she's not so crazy after all?  (no, this not mean I'll go to an election rally with you, sister.  At least not anytime soon.)

I feel empowered to leave the Wal-Marts behind, I'm excited to walk into the bright, clean store with FRESH FRUIT and HEALTHY MEAT and good customer service, all thanks to you.

And Designher Momma also mentioned a movie about Wal-Mart and then my sister told me about it and now I am dying to see it.  With Brian, so that way he can support my breaking up with the Wal-Marts.

Because he and I just spoke on the phone moments ago and he is going out with friends after work and he was like "do you want me to stop at Wal-Mart on the way home?" and I was like "yeah, that would be great."  And then I planned to send him a list of bananas and apples and grapes, bread and car seats.  But a few minutes after getting off of the phone I was like "oh...wait.  The break-up.  Right."

But I still haven't called him to cancel the trip because it's soooooooooo hhhaaaaarrrrrddddddddddddd.

Oh and while I was on the phone with my sister, she also told me how annoying I am that I haven't posted pictures of my house on my blog, yet, and she's my sister and has seen my house in real life.  So, I guess I better post pictures .  Tonight.

or tomorrow.  I'm not annoying, am I?

Here's the thing

I haven't written about this yet, but recently I could feel that my thyroid levels were off.  The weekend of the 20th, I started to feel the sensation I had last year where it feels like someone is choking me, plus I keep gaining weight like it's my job, I'm so tired, very depressed, etc. etc.  My doctor faxed an order to my lab to draw blood last Monday and on Tuesday the 22nd, the doctor's office called and said my levels were "wacky" and that the doctor wanted to see me.  I was quite pleased because there is nothing better than feeling like crap and then figuring out that it's not my fault.  Unfortunately, they could not get me in to see the doctor until yesterday.

After my post about Prozac and expressing the feelings of feeling very flat, I realized I probably should have mentioned that my thyroid was off in that post.  I did talk to my doctor about backing up the dose a little bit and he advised against doing that and thought that by increasing the thyroid right now it may help my feelings of ambivalence, but that we would revisit the Prozac levels in six weeks.  My hope is to stop taking anti-depressants all together, sometime during the fall.

So, my doctor increased my thyroid medication which makes me hopeful and happy.  Two things I like feeling, but one thing I don't like feeling is fat.  I hope this helps me stop gaining weight faster than a freight train and allows me to lose the weight through joining Weight Watchers or some other crap like that. 

While I was at the doctor I told him about this foot problem I was having where when I walk barefoot it feels like I have fluid in the ball of my foot, it's very uncomfortable and then when I wear my running shoes my toes fall asleep.  Did you know I can't clean without my running shoes on?  I can't do anything productive without them on, you should try it sometime.  Anyway, the foot issue is very annoying and honestly, it's painful.  He blamed my thyroid. 

That thyroid is nothing but a trouble maker, you know, when it's not working properly, it controls everything from weight gain, to feeling psychotic to my toes falling asleep.  I can't wait to get this back under control...again.

My soul sister is making me call my endocrinologist in Chicago today, she's very bossy and very tiny, even at 35 weeks pregnant, so I figure I better listen to her otherwise she'll call me every single day to tell me why I need to call this doctor and she'll probably yell obscenities, too.  All of these things are reasons why I love this person so so so much and reasons why I'll call my endocrinologist in Chicago.

So, there you have it, the inside scoop, probably the real reason why I haven't felt like blogging all that much or doing anything for that matter, but I see a light at the end of the tunnel, it's very little, but it's there and I just know that the sunlight will soon be shining on me.

And I can't wait.

Somewhere Else

Hey everyone, I blogged over here...about Wal-Mart.  Not that I'm saying my post over there is boring or anything, but uhhhh......if anyone has any suggestions as to what I could blog about, well, I'm all ears.  just sayin'.

I'm almost out of excuses

I know what you must be thinking when you come to my blog...

"will she ever show us pictures of her new house?"

"will she ever add mulch to her garden so she can show us pictures?"

"will she ever tell us about the jerk that sold her the trees?"

I finally have answers...yes. yes. and ooooooooooh yeah.  (At least I think I'm going to go into detail about the jerk at the landscape place, I haven't totally decided, yet.)

But not right now.

The mulch was delivered, thanks to my friend and blog reader, Angie, who called me this morning and I had the mulch delivered this afternoon!!!  (thank you, Angie!!) which means we are mulching right now, as we speak.

Well, Brian is, right now I'm blogging and he's dumping the mulch and I'm spreading it when I get done blogging, obviously I have my priorities straight. 

Then tomorrow night I am hosting my Mommies group here and do you know what that means?!?!  I have to clean my house and don't think for a second that I will not be taking tons of pictures after cleaning my house because I do not intend to clean again for a VERY, VERY LONG TIME and I need to capture it, while it lasts.  (which will be about 30 minutes, since I'll wait until the very last minute to clean and everyone will arrive just moments after I have finished cleaning.  Procrastinate much?)  And the pictures will come in handy for when a neighbor drops by and sees the squalor we live in and I can be all like "yeah, but, see these pictures? it USED to be clean."

What does all this mean?  I'm busy!  Can't blog!  But will soon!  With pictures!

And just to hold you over, I'm going to share some pictures for you that I took this weekend, while my sister-in-law and her family were visiting.  The beautiful girl in the shots is my niece and she's very, very cute with a tiny, little girl voice.  oh and there's other shots of crap thrown in, just for good measure.  Enjoy!

And here's one of Ariel, before I leave (if you look closely, you can see where she cut her own bangs way back in June - sadly, she loves the way it turned out.)

Oh dear, I think Brian just flipped me off, I better get to work.

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Desolate Travels

I have a heavy duty case of the blahs and I have had them all week long.  I'm neither overly sad nor overly happy, I'm just.....

BLAH.

I hate blah.  I don't want to do anything, clean, shop, dance, cry.  Maybe just eat, sometimes shower, talk to my kids, look at my husband blankly.

Sometimes I blame the anti-depressants I am on.  After I had Racecar, my OB put me on an anti-depressant (am I supposed to hyphen that or am I wasting pinky energy?) and I can recall feeling this way after awhile.  I was never happy and I was totally incapable of crying.  I hated it.  (although right now I am NOT incapable of crying, I just feel...dead, most of the time.  When I feel sad, I FEEL sad, sometimes it feels good to feel something, even if it's sadness.)

Before I even delivered James and Jake, one of my OB's prescribed Prozac to me, without telling me.  I found out when a nurse came in and said "here's your prozac."  and I was like "pro, who?"  The doctor had never talked to me about this prescription and it upset me.  I told her "no, thank you" and sent her on her merry way, explaining that I wasn't ready and that I hadn't even talked to the doctor about it.  The nurse left.

The next day, another nurse came in with prozac.  The situation was the same as the day before, the doctor still hadn't talked to me about it and I was being blinded sided by all of the  prozac flying around.  I began to refer to these people as The Prozac Posse.  (I think it's important for me to say that the doctor PUSHING THE PROZAC was not the FAVORITE, AWESOME, LOVING, CARING, GREATEST DOCTOR TO WALK THIS EARTH doctor.) 

It was the other one.  (I'm very affectionate towards her, as you can probably see.)

And believe it or not, before leaving the hospital, after saying I would just like a prescription for Prozac, that I would have it filled when I was ready in a few days or weeks, the Prozac Posse brought me another one.  I began to wonder if they were given a dollar per pill per patient from Prozac.  (that's a whole lot of P's!)  Of course, I did not really think that, but it was still hard for me to believe that they were totally ignoring my requests, making me feel like a chart without a voice rather than a person with an opinion.

They did explain to me that Prozac takes many weeks for it to take effect, and I understood that, but I just wanted to feel, without help, what I am supposed to feel.  Even if it meant feeling intense sorrow and sadness, I wanted to feel that, for James and Jake.

The day after the memorial service, I grabbed the prescription from the fridge, brought it to Brian and said "PLEASE GO TO WALGREENS, AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE, AND FILL THIS FREAKIN' PRESCRIPTION BECAUSE I CAN'T FEEL THIS INTENSELY SAD AND BROKEN AND DEAD FOR MUCH LONGER."

He leaped from his chair and ran to Walgreens and I proceeded to have one of the biggest, yet, most necessary, breakdowns I had ever had in my life up to that point, there with my two sisters and my Mom.  It's was meant to happen that way, they were supposed to see me show the honest depths of my pain, and I was supposed to learn that showing real emotions, in front of others, was a sign of strength, not weakness.

Something I am still struggling to learn.

So, this past week, when I think back on that moment, I almost envy that girl, sitting on the couch surrounded by her family, crying, unable to stop.  I envy that it was expected of her to cry that way, at any given moment, I envy her ability to physically cry.

Because right now, when I'm surrounded by others and I think about how sad I am at that very moment, I think about how inappropriate it would be for me to just break down and cry, right there, while sitting on my couch.

And you can tell me it's okay to cry during those moments, but it's not. 

So, I don't, I hold it in and this road called grief, becomes lonelier and lonelier with each mile I tread, each milestone I pass.  I am thankful for others who express their grief and their feelings, openly, like me.  My heart may be broken, but when others openly share their feelings of grief, this road doesn't feel so desolate.

As each day passes, I realize how incredibly numb I have become, and it just seems to be getting worse.  At what point can I stop popping the prozac?  It seems like never will be a good time.  Sometimes I wonder if I can truly dealing with my feelings of sadness when I am taking prozac, does taking prozac mask something?  If I weren't taking prozac would I be able to get out of bed each morning?

Time does not heal all wounds, you just learn how to deal with them, on your own. 

I wish I could punch the person who made that shit up.

Hello. Goodbye.

I blogged over here.  I think you'll notice that I had my photo updated, which is good except that it's not because OMG my head looks huge and I apparently need to learn how to apply eyeliner, because where did my eyes go?  So, hey, maybe don't go there at all?  But if you do, cover your eyes.  k?

and if you haven't entered for a chance to win a fabulous blog design, get creative and go enter here!  This organization needs your fabulous ideas - yes, YOURS!  Hurry, the contest ends tomorrow!

Just like Darth Vader but without the helmet, cool voice and light saber.

We are starting to fall into a routine here at our new home.  Brian returned to work yesterday, after being home for five days after his most recent business trip, two business trips, really.

I am still trying to figure out how to keep the house clean, maintain the steady stream of laundry, try to work and build our business, try to be a Mom and sometimes, make more than macaroni for dinner...I'm also the landscaper who is trying to grow grass ALL DAY LONG OF EVERY SINGLE DAY.

I wanted to show you pictures of the trees we purchased for James and Jake.  They are called Lollipop Crabapples and I adore them. (side note: I do intend to tell you the story about the "person" who sold the trees to me, I just have to be a in really good mood and have a lot of time.)  They grow so wonderful and dense and in the spring they have beautiful white blossoms and in the winter they have tiny little crabapples that feed the birds.  It's the perfect tree.  In my opinion, of course.  (side note: this is one of the trees from the front yard, there is a second one straight back from this one, in the backyard.  side note #2:  I do intend to give you a full garden tour, but it will have to wait until I buy mulch, have it delivered and actually add it to the flower beds, which could be 2011.)

This morning, while outside watering my tomato plant sitting on my deck, I looked over at one of the trees and I could see from far away that japanese beetles were eating my tree.  I could see the little black, copper and green bastards and the damage they had already done to my precious tree.  I knew that if they were doing this to one tree, they were doing it to the other. 

I felt overly protective of my trees, like they were messing with my children.

It was time to kick some beetle ass.

I went into the garage and grabbed my ammunition, attached it to the hose and doused each tree for waaaaay too long, but I wanted to make sure I got every leaf, every twig wet.  I did this with both trees, I felt like I was doing kung fu with the little bastards, in my mind I was Danny Larusso, (sidenote: did you know Ralph Macchio is forty-seven?) karate chopping them and kicking them in the gut, "hi-ya!" "Take that, you bitchass beetle." I was screaming profanities in my mind.   

Or maybe out loud.  I'm not really sure.  While spraying the tree I was also battling the beetles that were flying towards me, dodging their stealth like flights.  I think they were aiming for my eyes, trying to take me out so I would leave their new lunch room alone. But, within minutes they began to fall to the ground like drops of rain falling from a tree after a rainstorm. 

It was beautiful.

I then started to think about what I must have looked like to my neighbors, attacking my trees like some sort of lunatic tree fighter, some may not have seen me and some may think I'm crazy, and some may understand.

One thing is for sure, if they didn't think I was crazy while fighting the beetles, they certainly thought I was crazy after my kids played outside with bike helmets on.

For hours.

At least for three weeks they thought we were normal.  Longer than the last house we were in.

Days are different

I'm not in a very good place right now, mentally and emotionally.

Tonight, we had our new swing set delivered, the kids were so excited to finally have something to do outside, they swung and played and laughed and the weather was beautiful, almost chilly.

Everything was so good.  But as I watched our children play so freely and happily, I felt sadness knowing that James and Jake should be sharing that swing set with them in a few years.  Can you imagine the fun?  Having these beautiful, identical twin boys, swinging in their safety swings, laughing and us laughing, I would for sure be taking pictures. 

It just made me so sad that we won't have that.

But it also made me sad that THEY won't have that.  That they don't get to feel the sun and the wind on their face while swinging on the swings.  They can't laugh at a field of lightning bugs, they can't feel the chill of a snowball in their hands, they won't feel the hugs we have to offer, they won't know the joy of playing "this little piggy" over and over again, or know the pride of learning to ride a bike.

I know many of you will tell me that they are in heaven doing those things, but that doesn't make me feel better, because for one...we don't KNOW that.  And two...I want them to do these things on earth, with us.

I can't seem to understand why our boys were taken from us.  I can't understand why this happened to us when there are thousands of abortions each year, I can't understand why Brad and Angelina have twins right now.  Not that I think they shouldn't have twins, but why do they and we don't?

My pregnancy with James and Jake was the best pregnancy I had ever had, although we had so many scares and I had some health issues, my weight was good, my mentality was good and I had never been happier.

Why was that ripped away from us?   

On the other hand, just this morning I could barely contain the happiness and love I was feeling.  I was listening to The Beatles "I have to admit it's getting better, all the time."  You know that song, right?  Well, that's what I was thinking - "I have to admit it's getting better."  And it is, my life, as a whole, is better because I now realize all that I have, I can see that now and I saw it before, but not quite this clearly.

But it's almost as if my grief is hiding around the corner somewhere just waiting to jump out at me, waiting to make me sad again, sometimes when I least expect it, it arrives, boldly, in my heart. 

I can remember, just hours after learning that James and Jake had died, I was sitting in my hospital bed, talking with Brian and my parents and I said "this makes me realize what miracles Ariel and Racecar truly are.  Life is so precious and so fragile and so incredibly detailed, from the moment of conception everything has to go just perfectly in order for a child to be born."   And there I sat, in my hospital bed, with those boys still inside my belly, me not feeling the reality of our very sad and heart wrenching situation, waiting to deliver my sons who were no longer alive, realizing and appreciating the gifts in our lives.

Although things are getting better, that doesn't mean we do not feel sadness and emptiness, because we are still sad and empty, we are constantly aware of what is missing from our lives.

We are also constantly aware of what we have and that is what will get us through this.

Slowly, but surely.

But sometimes, like tonight, the reality of all that we have been through, just hurts so much and it's so difficult to accept.  No matter how good we have it, sometimes the pain is so big and so intense, it cripples me and makes me wonder how I'll ever get through my life, feeling the pain that I do.

Touching base with you

I wanted to write a quick note to tell you all that I did, in fact, purchase the trees.  And while the trees are incredible, the experience I had purchasing the trees, was not.  In fact, in the end, I wished that I did not buy the trees from where I bought them, at all.  Even though it seemed as though they were meant to be.

The story is so long and detailed that I wonder if I would even be able to properly write about the entire experience, but I will try, although not right now.   The experience made me very sad and not just because I was purchasing trees trying to honor our sons who are not with us, but because the person I dealt with was, well, not a nice person.

In the end, the trees are planted, my mom and I worked on the landscaping all day long and everything looks wonderful.  Our day yesterday was good, memorable, significant.  Your e-mails, comments, the cards, the flowers and other amazing things that people in our lives did for us yesterday were beautiful and meant so much. Although yesterday was a day of such sadness, the sun rays were beautiful and plentiful.  And they felt so, so good.