Advents Corner

I know I am behind the times on this one but I just bought the Promise of Summer album by Jack O Pierce. I really like these guys. My husband introduced me to their music years and years ago. In fact that is where I got my nickname, Advent, from one of their songs. My husband started calling me that when we were just friends and look what that lead too. My favorite track on this CD is Texas. It just makes you feel so good. I am originally from Louisiana which most of you know and I am always thinking about “home”. This song just makes me miss it even more. It is classic Jack O Pierce. They also put March on it as well. Again one of my favorite songs by them. I also like Late Shift….who am I kidding I do not think there is one song of theirs I do not like.

Woman as Salvation, Anderson’s Luck, Vineyard, Please Come to Boston, and let’s not forget Advent. I could go on forever it seems. Just give this one a listen and I am sure you will like it. They are coming to LA next month and I am going to try so hard to see them. I have always wanted to see them but I have never had the opportunity but now that I am in LA I was very surprised to see they were coming. I have got to find a way to go or I will regret it.

I really need to get back on the saddle with this blog.  Life has been a little crazy because of surgery, the move to California and the start of a new job but I am hopeful I can get this thing rolling again.

We have moved to the “the valley”, San Fernando Valley that is.  This place is full of Mom and Pop stores and I love it.  You really do not see big chain stores here.  It took me a week to find a Wal-Mart.  I know you don’t believe me but it is true.  The big store over here is Target, which is fine with me.  I try to do searches on shops and services in the valley but come up short most of the time.  I don’t know if that has happened to any of you but I thought this is my blog and I can put on it what I want, right?

So, I thought that I could start posted about the experiences I have had with shops around the valley to hopefully help someone else out.  We will see how this goes.  Thanks for hanging in there with me and hopefully we will all find some good in this blog.

So this completes my first week in California.  I arrived on Monday night and so far so good.  I have only been here once about 3 weeks ago to look for a place to live so everything in completely new to me.  I am still living out of boxes waiting for our apartment to be ready.  Hopefully it will be ready this coming week around Wednesday.  I will be ready to get all of the boxes unpacked and things put where they belong.  I hate living out of boxes and I have done it for the past month.  We have settled in Woodland Hills and the area seems to be nice.  Lani starts school the beginning of July so I will have more to say about that later.  Dad is here from Hawaii to help with the move and Lani and we are so happy he is here.  Lani has been a little terror lately with all of the moving.  It has made her uncomfortable to say the least.  I put up all of the things in her room hoping that would help her understand this is our new house instead of just another hotel but come Wednesday I have to pack it all up again to take over to the new apartment.  Oh the joys of life.

Want to get something for your hubby or boyfriend or your lady for V-Day but not sure what to get? How about one of those digital picture frames, I love mine or a camera or a blue tooth headset but not sure which one? Check out this electronics blog and they might have the answer for you. If it is electric, new and awesome they are probably talking about it. Find the info you need about the latest gadgets.

I love MP3 players I think they are one of the best inventions. I still can not get over how you can put so much music on this little bitty device.  I figured out that I can load music on it and slip it in my pocket and walk all around the office and I don’t have to stop listening to my music.  I think our middle child is on her 5th player.  Now days you can get them for so cheap, I think that is why we get these kinds of things for our kids at younger and younger ages because they are easy to obtain and they do not break the back so we figure why not.  It would have been so awesome to have half of the things our kids have when we were young.

My Matty is so sweet.  He called me at work yesterday and told me he got me surprise.  When I asked why he said it was “because I love you day”!  He got me a membership to massage envy.  I think you know what I am talking about because from what I understand they are all over the country.  I am so excited.  I am not a doctor, I only know what works for me.  I know getting massages help me manage my depression.  When we were in Asia over the summer and the difference in the time I sort of lost track of my medication while I was there.  Just about every other day we were getting a massage and I felt so much better.  I have read articles here and there that studies are starting to show getting massages help with the management of  depression.

I am so excited, I can get a massage a month and if I miss my massage for the month it rolls over to the next so I never lose a massage and that is very important.  If sometimes I feel I need more than one in a month I get them at a discount.  My first one is in the morning and I am so excited.  Now I have them programmed into my phone. 

It is now 1 week 2 days and I am still having a cycle.  My doctor called in a prescription to stop my cycle but at this point that has not even worked.  So I am on the 8th day and I am still having pain and I am still waiting for some type of relief.  They also gave me pain medication but am I just suppose to keep taking those?  One of them I can not take when Matt is not here because it really knocks me out and I am afraid I will not hear Lani at night if she needs me.  The other is fine, no negative affects but I can not take that every night.  You know those things can be addicitve and that is something I do not need to add to my list of things right now.  Matt leaves on Sunday so hopefully this will resolve very soon.  I will keep you posted.

If anyone else had or is having the same thing happening to them could you please let me know so I can figure out what to expect at this point.

No change since yesterday.  I can say this though, unlike the Nuva Ring I can not feel the Mirena at all, I am mean absolutely nothing.  I love that aspect of it.

Today I am cramping a little more.  I was told that as long as I am bleeding I will hurt because of the endometriosis.  Hopefully it will be better in a couple of days.

BTW, I am going to stop the counting of days and I will just highlight milestones, like the number of months or something and we will call this Living with Mirena.  That sounds good.

One of the concerns I am having is the fact that some people have issues with depression while on this or so I have read.  Just for the record, I already have problems with depression and I am on a daily medication.  I have suffered with depression since the age of 11 so I have quite a few coping techniques that I know work for me so I am able to manage a good part of the time but I never stop taking my meds no matter how good I feel.

Well I wish I could say today was as great as yesterday.  I woke up with severe cramping at 1:30 am.  I could no stay in the bed because I was afraid I was going to keep Matt awake.  I got up and took some Alieve.  The pain is coming in waves through by stomach and I am having a lot of pelvic pressure.  I am not bleeding any more than I was before so that is good.

One hour later I took Tylenol because it did not seem like the Alieve was working.

One hour later I decide to go and try to lay down because with it being the last day of the month I have to go to work.  I am the lead processor and it would not look good if I called in on the last day of the month.

I was able to get a little sleep in between cramps but I don’t know how much rest I got.  I got up to go to work and the bleeding has picked up since yesterday.

I get to work and at 8 am I call my doctor’s office and leave a message and tell them what is going on.  I am popping Alieve and Tylenol but nothing is happening and at this point I am finding it uncomfortable to walk around and speak to my processors.

At 12 pm I call the doctor’s again because I have not heard anything and I was told they were finishing with the last patient and the doctor wanted to call me back and speak to me herself but they left that I was going ot have to come into the office.  By 1 pm I could not handle it anymore and I sent out an email that I was going to have to leave for the day.  As soon as I pulled into my driveway my doctor called and told me to come in right away to do an ultrasound because she was afraid it might have moved.

I head over to the doctor’s office and I get there about 2 pm.  They take me back and do a 2D ultrasound and from that view it looks like the IUD is right where it is suppose to be but she wanted another doctor to do a 3D to just make sure and this doctor has been doing ultrasounds for 30 years and they want her to look at me.

At 3 pm they put me back in the waiting room and say it will be 30 minutes and they would come and get me to have the next ultrasound.  Well, 4 pm, 5 pm, 6 pm and then finally they bring me to the back to sit in a different chair to wait.  I get to see the other doctor at about 6:30 pm.  She took a history and we chatted about the fact that her husband had done the 4D ultrasound for my daughter back in July 2006.

She was very careful and asked a lot of questions and she concluded the IUD was in a perfect spot but that was not my problem.  I was having so many problems because I have endometriosis on my left ovary.  She seems to thing that it probably happened in July 2006 when they tied by tubes because that was when all of my problems started.

She stated they needed to stop my periods all together and she is afraid the IUD is not going to do that.  She wants me to come back in March and have another ultrasound and if I am continuing to have cycles she will then decide to put me on hormones to stop them or have the endometriosis burned off.

Slight cramping and the blood flow is almost completely gone.   I have to say that as much as it hurt to have it inserted I did not think I would feel this good the next day.  I have been taking Alieve just to help with the little cramping but I am at work today with no issues.

After much thought and saving I had the Mirena inserted today.  My insurance did not pay for any of the cost.  My doctor even wrote them a letter stating it was medically necessary because I had my tubes tied in July 2006 after the birth of my third daughter.  I had terrible periods after one year of having the tubal and they just got worst.  To the point that by the time summer of 2008 came along I was anemic from the blood loss.

My doctor suggested the Mirena but because I did not have the $586 at the moment to pay for it I started on the Nuva Ring.  I hated that thing.  Not to mention the fact that I was still having to go to the pharmacy every month for birth control.  I finally was able to call the pharmaceutical company and order the Mirena.

I wish someone would have told me a little more about the insertion process.  Of course my doctor gave me a local anathestic but that did not help.  My doctor said my uterus was set to the side and pointing down so it was a little more difficult to put in there.  I can not describe the pain and let me just say I have a high threshold for pain but this was very unexpected to say the least.  Basically what they do it take a thin plastic rod and push it through the opening of the uterus.  When you are not dilated there is no opening so they have to make their own and it fells like they are pushing their arm through you.

Anyway enough of that.  The pain is gone except for on the left side.  I was told that I would have some bleeding for 2 days and cramping for 3.  The flow is already slowing down but the cramping is still there.

I got my brother the funniest shirt for Christmas.  He was famous for sometimes wearing inappropriate funny t shirts if you know what I mean.  This year for Christmas I thought I would get him a funny shirt like he used to wear but a little more on the tame side than he wore before.  It is:

Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo

Yankee Oscar Uniform

It took him a second but once he got I thought he was going to die laughing.  He however was a little disappointed when he put it on the next day and went out and about and he did not get one second look.  I told him he needed to shop with more intelligent people and they would get it.

We all get to a time in our lives where we think we are doing well and things are falling into place.  You like your job, your spouse loves his job and then all of a sudden the rug is pulled out from under both of you.  What would you do it the job you love is relocating across country and they are making it very easy to pick up and follow them but your spouse is not to excited about it?  What would you do?

I really like to cook and one of the things I wish I had done was gone to one of those culinary arts schools. I would love to be able to go to school and learn all of the neat things you can do with food. Matt tells me I should just do it but I don’t know. I have been looking around at them and found that no matter where you leave you can find a school close to you.

Maybe when we move out to California and I am looking for a career change I can try my hand at culinary arts school. I really like to cook and I love to try new recipes so think I would be great to broaden my knowledge. I don’t know if I would want to work in a restaurant or not but I think I would be awesome to be able to have the chance to. I always tell Matt that if we get rich one day and I do not have to worry about money I would like to work in a soup kitchen or something just volunteering. I guess I should just do what I want with what I have and not wait for the perfect conditions to come along because we all know if you wait for the perfect moment you will be waiting forever. Sometimes you just have to jump in and do it.

We took Lani to Great Explorations this weekend, which is a children’s hands on museum in St. Pete.  I would not call it is museum, I would say it was more like a hands on activity place.  She loved it and so did we.  Her favorite thing to do was slide down the fireman’s pole.  It was really neat.  They had different rooms with different “jobs”.  You could be a fireman, a tv personality, a musician, a vet and many other things.  She loved the fact that she could just run around without Mom and Dad telling her to come here.  It is really set up as kid friendly and they are able to just be a kid.  Also, great tree house for them to climb in.

One of the girls I work with is bringing in some wholesale fashion jewelry so I do believe I am going to start my Christmas shopping. I can not believe Christmas is just right around the corner. The scary thing is Matt gets paid once a month so that means that we only have 2 paydays before Christmas. I need to get busy shopping because at this point I have not purchased one present. We are going to my Mom’s for Thanksgiving and I want to have all of their presents bought before I go so I can just bring them with me instead of having to mail them. Keep your fingers crossed.

I am very excited Matt did a memory upgrade on my big laptop and it is so much faster now. You know I have written about my eee but I have a full sized laptop too that I keep on the kitchen table. I use the big one when I do work from home or when Lani is asleep and I use the eee when I am on the sofa watching TV with Lani because she likes it when we watch Dora together.

Today we took Lani to Sunken Gardens in St. Pete.  The first thing that came to mind was we understand why they are having financial difficulties.  Don’t get me wrong it is pretty neat that you are in a lake 15 feet below street level walking around but the flowers and plants really were not that exciting.  I am sure that when it first opened it was amazing and I think it is wonderful that a man could spend 50 years of his life building and working on something for his own pleasure but it was just not my cup of tea.  We did get to sit on the rock of tranquillity so that was very exciting.  Lani did like seeing the Macaws, she even made a couple of noises to them.  I am sure in her “Macaw language” we knew exactly what they were saying.  At least now we can say that we have been to Sunken Gardens.