Happy Mardi Gras!

Before I begin, even though she doesn't read this (because I know she'd be horrified at some of the things I write in here if she did), I want to say...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!! I love you!

I can't believe the season of Lent is upon us. Ugh! I've given it a lot of thought and decided my Lenten discipline is going to be exercise - 5 days a week for at least 30 minutes per workout. My gym keeps sending postcards saying, "We miss you!" and the owner calls me from time to time to be sure I'm not dead. That and good old Catholic guilt should keep me motivated!

I hate, I repeat, I HATE the CPAP machine. Argh! Still am not getting any more than an hour of sleep per night with it. The nurse called again tonight to see how I've been doing and if I've noticed any differences. Told her I hate it but am willing to keep at it. The only thing I've noticed so far is a week or so ago when I got only about 4 hours of sleep. One of those hours was with the machine. Typically when I get that little sleep, when I wake up the next morning I feel like I've been hit by a truck and I ache all day. This time, there was no ache. I was incredibly tired, but amazingly didn't ache at all. It's still going to be a long haul with this thing though. Right now, when I wake up, if I don't fall back to sleep within 15 minutes it comes off. And if I don't put it on before I go to sleep, The Man always asks, "Aren't you going to wear the mask tonight?" I always grumble when he asks, but he knows as well as I do that eventually it's going to help. A lot. Maybe my new exercise regiment will help move things along. Hmmm...

The Man's birthday is tomorrow. I got him "THE BOOK! Holy Cow!" and Confessions of a Street Addict. Buster and Babs got him Republic Commando. He wants to go to the Olive Garden for dinner, and I really hope they have vegetable lasagna otherwise I won't be able to eat much! He also wants a cheesecake from our favorite pastry store which I need to pick up tomorrow morning.

Speaking of tomorrow morning, I have a consultation with an orthodontist at 9 o'clock. I have a missing tooth that has finally started wreaking havoc in my mouth. My dentist has been after me for two years to get braces to fix everything before it gets worse. Crossing my fingers that I can afford it. Insurance won't cover it. Grrr. If certain areas weren't painful I wouldn't even worry about it, but I have one tooth that's twisted 45 degrees already (that's the one that hurts the most), and several others that are seriously out of whack, so I'd like to get this done before the twists and changes get worse and more painful, and before it starts affecting all the teeth that people can actually see when I smile.

So I'm going to be late for work tomorrow, and I still have to take my lunch break anyway to go to Ash Wednesday Mass. Good thing about that is my boss is probably going to Mass with me!

Over President's Day weekend The Man and I went to The Museum of Science and visited the Star Wars exhibit again. At one point we were near a family with a couple of kids who were completely hamming it up for pictures. One of them stood in front of the Wookies with a completely petrified look on his face. And the youngest boy's pose in front of Darth Vader prompted me to do the same (after asking his Mom's permission to copy his pose!)...



Not very convincing, but silly and fun nonetheless!

Babs' appointment has been re-scheduled yet again! Her appointment is now next weekend. She's still doing great. In fact she's been helping me with this entry. And by helping me, I mean she's holding down my left arm so that a majority of this has been typed with just my right hand. And my right hand is pretty darn tired, so I think I'm going to stop typing now.

Have a great evening!

A month and a half?

Holy smokes! Can't believe I haven't been here since the very beginning of the year. Suffice it to say, life's been busy. We've been busier than usual at work, what with the opening of a new branch and all. I've been utterly exhausted by the time I get home and haven't had much ambition to do much of anything once I walk through the door. Getting dinner together is a feat in itself these days! That's why it's so nice to have today off. 3-day weekends are always welcome relief.

So... what's been going on... umm... I have the CPAP machine now. It hasn't been easy or fun getting used to it. The first few weeks I battled severe anxiety issues. I was having nightmares about regular people turning into breath sucking demons. Oh sure, it sounds funny now, but it sure as heck wasn't when I was going through it. Am still having a little anxiety with it, but on the whole am much better. The most amount of sleep I've gotten while wearing the mask is 2 hours. A nurse called me a couple of weeks ago to see how I was doing. I was completely honest with her - told her about the anxiety, that I wasn't sleeping well with it, etc. She encouraged me to use it consistently for 3 weeks, even if it's for only 15 minutes a night. She said she would call again in 3 weeks to see how I'm doing and then we'd take things from there. So I've got about another week to go until she calls again. It'll be interesting to see if anything changes between now and then. I'd like to be sleeping an average of 3-4 hours per night with it on.

Let's see... the people across the hall are still flaming assholes.

I'm enjoying the Winter Olympics. LOVE to watch the curling matches. When I was in 5th grade my math teacher told us he played a game called Curling and we all thought he was pulling our leg. The Man and I have been talking and are going to see if there's anywhere around here where we can try our hand at it.

Really digging Volkswagen's Fast commercials.

Babs is doing great. Her follow-up appointment is next Saturday afternoon. She's having an echocardiogram done. They'll probably have to sedate her for it. My poor Sweet Pea. :-( With any luck we'll be able to get her off the blood pressure meds.

Must be off. Buster's treat supply has been depleted and we still haven't heard the end of it from him. Surprised he didn't stomp on our heads all night long.

TTFN!