2011 in Review

This "Year in Review" idea is from Boston Globe columnist Beverly Beckham, and she usually publishes it in the paper.  She said she has her family fill in the blanks about the year that just ended.  2010 was Year of the Thyroid Cancer, so 2011 was Year of the Aftermath of the Thyroid Cancer.  My answers are in red....

In 2010, I gained a little bit of inner peace.  Just a little.  It helps trying to figure all this cancer stuff out.  

I lost a little bit of weight!  

I stopped being so resistant to the idea of exercising and found that I actually liked and needed it.  

I started to read again--novels!  

I was hugely satisfied by the word "UNDETECTABLE".  

And frustrated by the fact that the damn thing could become detectable at any time.  Dr. N says I probably shouldn't worry about it, but I do.  I'm a Virgo.  I worry about everything.  

I am so embarrassed that I dropped the ball on keeping up with holidays, people, sending birthday cards, that sort of stuff.  

Once again, I persevered and plowed through. It's a family trait I inherited. Thanks Mom. 

Once again, I did not get pregnant.  Sigh. But menopause is taking care of that, so I guess I can stop thinking about it actually happening.  Kind of hard to happen when your body isn't cooperating at all.  

The biggest physical difference between me last December and this December is I can wear size 12 jeans!  Last year I was inching dangerously close to buying size 16.  

I loved spending time with Mr. Wonderful and Sis.  

Why did I spend even two minutes trying to think that I could change other people?

I should have spent more time not thinking about those people. They are disappointing, they suck and they always will suck.  

I regret buying nothing....it was probably on sale anyway.

I will never regret buying stuff to celebrate things, like Sis-in-law's weekend in NYC, or the upcoming 40th birthday trip for Sis--destination is a secret!  

I overanalyze and worry  way too much.

I didn’t socialize enough.  

My inability to remember things drove me crazy. 

Was school crazier than ever last year? Or was it me? Feels crazier this year actually. Hard to believe that is possible. 

The most relaxing place I went was  Great Stirrup Cay.  

I feel so happy  when I write that down. "I got my toes in the water, ass in the sand, not a worry in the world, a cold beer in my hand, life is good today...." 

Why did I go to Starbucks so much?  They're expensive!  But, it's near school and I guess I can justify it as an end of the day treat to me.  And their hazelnut is pretty good.  I'm more of a Dunkin' Donuts girl.  

The best thing I did for someone else was send stuff that was supposed to help make cancer a little easier to deal with, I hope.  

The best thing I did for myself was give myself permission to say "no".  

The best thing someone did for me was give me hugs when I was upset and tell me I'd be fine.  

The one thing I’d like to do again, but do it better, is remember stuff!   

***************************************************************************
Looking back on the goals that I wrote down for last year--How did I do?

Goals for 2011?  

1.  I will make time to exercise.  Even though I hate it and the thoughts of it make me depressed. YES!  I have done this!!  Ok, I've fallen off the wagon a little since I took a grad class this fall, but I'm getting back on the bike.  Today.  I'm still doing the stairs instead of the elevator, and I usually park far away from where I'm going so I have to walk more.  
2.  I will drag Mr. Wonderful to some kind of concert/play/performance/movie once a month. Hmm...I don't think we made the "once a month" goal, but I can't remember (no surprise there).  We did go see "Sister Act" in NYC, the Dublin City Ramblers at the Bull Run....I'll have to go find my date book and see.  More work needed on this area.  
3.  I will take my daily vitamins.  Daily. Still not so consistent on this one.  
4.  I will not, not, not stay at school every night til 6pm. Sigh.  With my new job as lead teacher, I've actually been there some nights til 7 pm.  Still needs work. 
5.  I will clean my house more often. Have to put this for 2012 as well. 
6.  I will travel somewhere relaxing.  Preferably with a beach. Ha--did a cruise to the Bahamas!  And I sat on the dock for long days in NH--does that count? 
7.  I will not freak out about my thyca bloodwork.  It's part of the routine of life, so deal with it. No, still freaking out a bit before and while waiting for the phone call with results.  
8.  I will get a mammogram and get all my other medical stuff back on track. Done!  And no issues!  And Dr. N agreed to be my primary care doc, so I'm mostly back on track.  
9.  I will continue to chat with St. Peregrine. Chatting occasionally, but I really need to get myself back to mass.  
10. I will make time to read, do cross stitch and scrapbook. And maybe sing.   Not enough creative outlets in 2010. Been reading a ton since I can now focus long enough to read a novel.  Not much cross-stitching done at all, and no singing.  I think the time I spend on the computer takes away from this stuff!   


Now I have to think about my goal list for 2012....after I have some coffee.  

Today is brought to you by the number 12!

I AM BACK IN A SIZE 12 BABY!!!!
Ok, so maybe some of you are snickering at the size 12, but I'm not!  I went shopping for jeans today, and it was actually quite a lovely experience!  No angst, no anxiety, no dark thoughts about my thighs, no fear of yet another dressing room mirror. 
I was able to pull my size 14 jeans off without unzipping them or unbuttoning them, so that tells you something about my current size. 
Thank you to the person who figured out how to make the material more stretchy too--that helps someone like me out a ton! 
And they look and feel so nice....
I think it's probably after effects of the stomach flu, but I'm going to run with it (or bike with it on my stationary bike).  I found three different styles that fit--one from the Loft, one from Coldwater Creek and one from DKNY at Marshall's.  I found a pair of Lucky Brand as well, but I think I might take them back--they're on the short side, and the others are longer.  Mr. Wonderful couldn't figure out why I'd buy them to take them back, and he was perplexed when I told him I had to bring them home to look at them again before I made my final decision.  He shook his head and walked away muttering to himself.  I told him it's a female thing that he wouldn't understand. 

I haven't really been a size 12 since I finished the infertility drugs in 2008 or so.  I'm currently 10-15 pounds off my wedding day weight.  I was flirting with a size 16 last year.  I'm still mostly an XL on top, but they fit better, and I can get back into some of my size L sweaters comfortably.  Even my underwear feels too big! 
Now where did I stash the smaller sized stuff for exactly this moment?  I think I gave it away to the Salvation Army out of frustration. 
I know I shouldn't let a number get the best of me, but I'm loving the 12. 
I'll pack up my 14s for now just in case the hormones go all kerfluffy again, and I'll keep wearing most of the 14s for work since I think I can get away with some of them for now. Hopefully I can get thru the rest of winter with what I have and stay in 12land...

On another note, the president of Argentina, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, has papillary thyroid cancer and will have her thyroid removed after the new year.  Bienvenida al club senora presidenta! News reports say that it hasn't metastisized to her lymph nodes or anywhere else.  I'll have to keep my eye on the news for her progress and to learn more thyroid cancer related vocab in Spanish. 

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner

How to survive the holidays--why didn't I try this before??

I almost forgot I had this bloggy thingy.
I discovered Twitter and have probably lost a few more hours of my life to that lately.  It's actually a really cool way to get teaching ideas from other teachers!  I'm such a geek, but a "quirky" one according to one of my students.  Using Twitter is like professional development meetings, only way more practical and fun. Now if they would only let us use our two hours of PD once a month to play on Twitter and look for ideas instead of...instead of what?  I'm the one running the meetings this year and I can't even really say what it is we're doing! It's really cool to see what's trending in Madrid....

Can you tell it's time for vacation?

Anyway, this is a thyroid related post, and I have to say it is pretty amazing.  I was sooooo hyper over the last couple of days that I felt like Superwoman on a mission.  Holidays here I come!  Sleep?  Nah, don't need it right now! 
See, I got slammed last weekend with an incredibly nasty stomach bug, and I mean nasty.  I haven't been that sick for ages.  I spent Saturday basically running from my bed to the bathroom, and then couldn't function Sunday, Monday or Tuesday.  I even stayed home from school!  I couldn't keep ginger ale down.  How did I know that this was a legit thing?  Boston EMS tweeted that there was a gastrointestinal thingy making the rounds! (No, I don't follow Boston EMS, it was a RT)  Mr. Wonderful had been hit with this the previous weekend while we were at his work Christmas dinner--his was so bad that he disappeared from the restaurant and took refuge in the car.  He was sick for about three days, and he never ever gets sick.  Since I didn't pick it up right away, I thought I was home-free.  Hahahaha.

Back to the thyroid part.

Because I was knocked out for so long, it put a serious damper on my holiday shopping and preparations.  On Wednesday, I went back to school and tried to have some coffee and frosted pop tarts since I felt ok, but my stomach wasn't buying it.  That was all I ate.  All day.  Prior to that, only saltines, Gatorade and an attempt at chicken soup.  I was determined to run errands Wednesday after school, and around 3pm it was like I was zapped with an amazing burst of energy--I hit 7 different stores and got everything on my list!  I got home around 8pm, and then kept going by writing Christmas cards for school, putting up the tree and organizing the presents.  I also wrote some letters to put in the Christmas cards, and by midnight decided that maybe, just maybe, I should try to go to bed.  Nope.  I plugged into the iPod and tried to fall asleep, but I don't think I dozed off until 2am. Alarm went off Thursday at 5:30 and bing!  I'm awake.  Not even dragging.  I managed to get into school by 7:10, just in time to stuff mailboxes of my department with candy and cards...the rest of the day felt zingy and I managed to stamp, number and organize 120 Chinese textbooks so they'll be ready when we get back. 
I finally crashed last night and was in bed at 8:30, slept straight thru until 7 this morning.  And I woke right up, zing!  No dragging. 

While I'm not happy living in the hyper zone because of the damage it does to other parts of my body, I can definitely live with these energy bursts.  After so many years of living in the hypo zone and being lethargic, this is a welcome change.  Besides, hyper keeps the cancer supressed, and that has to trump everything else. 

I think my lack of eating has sent my hyperness into even more hyperness....what a rush!   I know this isn't a good thing either, to be feeling so hyper, but I'm not about to do anything.  I figure I've lost about 6 pounds from this stomach flu, and it's playing with my med intake.  (Highlight of my day:  fitting into my smaller jeans!!!!!!! I haven't been able to wear these in ages. Does that make me happy?  Hell yes.) 
I'm still not eating much besides toast, rice and saltines.  My stomach protests for a few hours after each meal.  Not enough to get sick, but enough to be uncomfortable. 

So, I'm still feeling hyper today.  I hit the supermarket before 9am, and it was absolutely packed.  Now I'm off to clean, organize the house and decorate the tree.  I'm hoping the stomach thing gets better in time for Christmas dinner so I can eat something more substantial, or at least drink some wine.  One of my stops on Wednesday was to Trader Joe's, and I stocked up on my favorite reds from Toro, Spain....

Still slightly drowning here

I seem to have slipped back under again.  Sigh. 
Feeling slightly overwhelmed at times and pretty damn busy all the time, but that's what I get for taking a grad class during a really busy fall.  I'm behind on my college rec letters, grading and keeping my office space/cave area tidy. 
As for the grad class, I have two papers and one more class left, then I'm done.  It's actually been much more useful than I thought it would be, and I feel like it's given me some solid strategies for this lead teacher position I'm in.  Herding cats has gotten a little easier.  Plus my last department meeting went really well in my opinion--amazing what a little candy and a goofy icebreaker can do to adults.  I don't have another one to run until January, so I can breathe a little bit while I run around looking for book orders that still haven't arrived (hey, it's only November. Why would we need books?)  Long days though trying to keep up. 
Mr. Wonderful got major points this evening--I got home from class around 7:45, starving, figuring I'd eat a can of soup (he genuinely can't cook).  Wonder of wonders, there was a bag from Kelly's Roast Beef on the counter with sandwiches and french fries!!  Perfectly delicious and I ate every bit.  See how he gets his name? 
We also had our wonderful surprise birthday trip to NY for my Sis-in-Law's birthday.  It worked out beautifully, she was surprised and "Sister Act" was hysterical.  I had a great time, and I think my mother-in-law was happy to have all her kids under one roof even if it was only for 48 hours.  NYC was amazing, and I told Mr. Wonderful we should go more often.  He kind of agreed! 
Last weekend we ran away to the Vineyard for a few days and relaxed.  Sort of--Mr. W had a nasty cold and slept for a few hours on Friday and Saturday.  I napped as well, but got hit with his cold this week, so I plan on sleeping more this weekend.  The island was beautiful and we had great weather.  Stayed in Edgartown and explored. 
I also met up with a friend from Salmanca for tapas and sangria at Tasca the other night and had a great time.  Makes me want to jump on a plane. 
The good thing about the weekend in NY and the tapas was that I had my picture taken a couple of times, and I have to say that for the first time in a looooooong time, I actually think I look pretty good!  My face doesn't look puffy and marshmellowy, I don't look like a blimpier version of myself (either that or I stood at the perfect angle), my skin doesn't look gray, and I don't have dark circles under my eyes.  I think I'm leveled out a bit with the hormones (I hope I didn't just jinx myself too much) at the moment.  I still feel pretty damn tired, but I'm not sure what's causing that.  I haven't been exercising as regularly since I started this grad class, but my weight isn't going up either.  So while I don't feel perfect, I feel pretty good if that makes sense.
Off to bed to collapse and looking forward to sleeping in a bit this weekend. 

Bloodwork back....

Got my bloodwork results last night from a voicemail from Dr. N.

On a positive note, I'm apparently undetectable since she said everything looked fine and she didn't mention my thryoglobulin--so yay?!  Vitamin levels, TSH level and insulin all were "fine".  Even my overall cholesterol came down from 228 to 197, and my triglycerides dropped significantly as well.  My HDL and LDL are still just on the north side of the border and seem to be stuck there despite my working out and watching my diet.  Should all be good, right?

No, something called a cardiac reactive protein, or C-reactive protein, is elevated.  I don't know how much since she didn't give me the number, but she was a little worried from the tone of her voice.  It seems that if this protein is elevated, it can indicate future problems with cardiovascular disease.  She wants to put me on a statin drug to see if it will lower the levels of inflammation;  she said it wasn't common practice, but that there is study out there showing some positive results in women.

Sigh.

I've read somewhere about higher levels of inflammation after radiation and cancer treatment, but I don't know anything about how to reduce the inflammation.  I have some research to do. Sis said she read somewhere that drinking aloe vera juice is recommended for cancer patients, but that just sounds gross to me.  Of course I've never tried it, so I shouldn't jump to conclusions here.  I'm not crazy about adding another drug to my routine==so far, I take levoxyl for my missing thyroid, something that begins with an L for high blood pressure, estrogen/progesterin to combat menopause symptoms, a daily vitamin, fish oil capsules and calcium chews.  I think that's plenty for someone my age. Is this part of the RAI aftermath?

I guess all my exercising is helping, but just knowing that there is something lurking in my heart that I can't control yet is a little freaky to me.  This just proves that I really do come from a lousy gene pool.
Off to do some research so I can ask Dr. N questions.

I am happy about the undetectable though....

Brain fog, forgot to post!

Just sitting and waiting...

Had my bloodwork done Sunday morning since it's the best time to hit the hospital lab with minimum wait time and since I hadn't eaten from the night before.  I had to fast since Dr. N wants to redo all my hormone and lipid levels.  It amazes me how "swimmy headed" I get as soon as the blood-letting begins when I have to fast--such a creepy feeling!  I don't mind the needle, so it's not that.  I sucked down a bottle of cranberry juice and a cheese stick once I was done giving away 7 vials of the red stuff, but felt kind of tired the rest of the day.  Mr. Wonderful came with me and we went to a busy diner down the street for breakfast afterwards.

From before the weekend of the 22nd...
Now, I have to wait  for the results.  Praying for undetectable and a positive change in the hormones and lipids stuff, although I probably should have done more prior to the lab visit, because now it's done, right?

I'm kind of beat tonight and plan to try to get to bed early...I have to get in a little earlier in the morning so I can photocopy some stuff I need for tomorrow.  It doesn't help that my ovaries and reproductive system have woken up and I have a period for the first time in 13 months.  WTF????  I did not miss this, and since the whole system is pretty much inoperational, it can shut down again for all I care.  I actually had to go buy pads yesterday--did the prices go way up or is it me?  That's probably contributing to my feeling tired.

Highlight yesterday was buying a gorgeous pair of black patent leather pumps for a wedding I have to go to this weekend--a bit of a splurge, but I like them.

The gene pool is overchlorinated?

Good news from my physical!  Well, if I don't count the impending bloodletting that has to happen...
I had my first physical in years with Dr. N, my new primary care/old endocrinologist this past Thursday.  Some highlights:

• She was very impressed with my exercise routine and my ability to keep it up (walked for 35 blistering minutes today to merengue music while in NH).
• She was also very impressed with my blood pressure numbers--luckily I've been checking it sporadically since she put me on BP meds this summer, and the numbers were consistently good.  She said she may even be able to get me off the meds if I keep up the exercise.  How's that for goal-setting? 
• She laughed at most of my menopause stories and helped brainstorm some solutions to some of my lingering symptoms that will most likely never go away.  How to adjust to a new normal rears its ugly head once again.
• She told me to stop worrying about a recurrence of thyca.  I should be more worried about the shitty gene pool that produced me and the potential risk factors from my forebears that could haunt me into an early grave. 

Some lowlights:

• After all my really conscientious efforts at controlling my weight since July 13th, the scale only budged 2 pounds.  TWO. DOS, DUE.  DEUX. WTF??? I was so not happy at that.  However, it was afternoon, and I can truly feel a difference in my clothes and leg muscles.  So I've gained muscle weight, right?
• My gene pool is a curse. Thanks Mom, Dad and assorted grandparents. 
• My throat was red.  Damn, cold season is upon us. My nose has been running all weekend, and kids are starting to come in sick to school. 
• Menopuase really and truly sucks.  Why don't men have an equivalent?  Oh, because that would be end of the human race once we all killed each other off out of sheer frustration. 

All in all, not bad.  I don't feel too horrible either.  I have to have some fasting bloodwork done in the next couple of weeks to see if any of my levels have improved, and she'll check the thyca tumor marker as well.  I'm hoping the exercise will pay dividends here.  I also have to have a bone density scan done so we can get a baseline because of the early menopause.  My mom ended up with osteoporosis, but she hated milk and probably didn't down calcium supplements like I do, and I love to drink milk.  Dr. N didn't seem too worried, just wanted to see where I"m at.

Whew. 

School is busy busy busy, but I think I'm keeping up.  Department meeting to run on Tuesday, so fingers are crossed that it will go well.  Highlight of my year so far is learning how to copy and burn DVDs. 

I'm in NH for the long weekend and using Sis's computer to update, so no pics.  We spent yesterday literally soaking up the sun on the beach since it was such a beautiful day--deep blue skies, hot sun, beautiful lake.  Today we went apple picking and outlet shopping, and then had a wonderful evening and dinner with old friends and a few bottles of wine.  Mr. Wonderful spent his day today playing in the Pirsch on a trip to a truck show in western MA.  So far it's been a great weekend and a bonus to have such amazing weather so late in the season.  I'm sure we'll pay for it somewhere else with a nor'easter blizzard in a few weeks. 

Off to bed soon.  Have to eat some apples...

Oops, slipped back under again.

Glug glug glug as I slip beneath the surface again.

It's October.  Where the hell did September go??  I can't believe next weekend is Columbus Day already!  And this week is midterm for us, so I have to get progress reports out.  This year is flying....

Hmm.  What to report about lately?  Not much in terms of thyca....I have a physical on Thursday with Dr. N, and I'm actually looking forward to it.  I'll probably have bloodwork done after the appointment, but hopefully she'll give me a thorough going over so I can re-align all my medical stuff.  I feel pretty good at the moment, but kind of don't want to admit it so I don't jinx myself.  I'm probably really hyper and that's how I'm functioning day to day--flying on thyroid hormones.  God only knows what other damage is being done.   I don't think I'll need a med adjustment right now, but maybe once winter settles in.  I'm still getting in my 30+ minutes of some kind of exercise almost every day, but I can't really tell where my weight is.  The scale isn't moving much, so maybe I'm gaining muscle poundage?  My blood pressure seems to be steady, and my menopause craziness seems to have settled down a bit.  Again, don't want to jinx myself.

I do have one nagging fear of thyca coming back though.  I can touch my neck again, so every now and then I feel around looking for lumps and bumps.  What if it's lurking in my lymph nodes, just waiting to make an appearance?  Maybe it's because I keep seeing posts on Facebook in my multiple thyca groups of incidents of recurrence (there are three I check regularly--they help me keep things in perspective most of the time).  I didn't have a whole body scan at one year, and I don't know if I should have insisted on it.  Dr. N seems to think I'm in good shape and that they got all of it.  I don't know why this is bugging me now....it's like a little black cloud in the back of my head.

That, and the weird cognitive blip that is still there when I type--I keep reversing letters.  So weird.

Off to collapse for now...here's hoping for a good report on Thursday!

Gaaaahhhh!

That's the sound of me coming up, gasping for air.

I'm a little exhausted and haven't made it home before 6pm since school opened.  Classes seem to be off to a good start, and I'm up to my eyeballs in wading thru file cabinets and book rooms of books, papers, documents, files, old technologies, trying to figure it all out.  Some of the papers I've found date to the early 80s, and some of the books go back to 1953.  I haven't found any bodies in the book room yet, but maybe I haven't looked thoroughly enough.  

It took me two hours to go thru all the DVDs in the department, sort them out and catalog them.  I haven't even touched the substantial VHS collection.  It has also taken me a ton of time to figure out exactly who is using what books at each level in each language.  Chasing that info wasn't easy, but I think I've got it sorted out.  It's been, um, interesting.  My days teaching 5 classes had a certain rhythm to them, and I haven't figured out this new schedule's rhythm yet.  It will fall into place eventually, so I'm not worried.  I'm just really tired, so tired sometimes that it physically hurts.  

Even though I'm getting home really late, I'm still managing to get in my 30 minutes of exercise most days.  I've been noshing on frosted blueberry pop tarts (they have tons of vitamin A!) in the morning, so I have to work it off somehow.  I think the stress level at school leaves me constantly hungry, and it's been a real battle to watch the calorie count--much easier in the summer.  At least the change in my job is making me move around the building, so I'm often running from the basement to the second floor a few times a day, and then of course trying to get from one end of the building to the complete opposite end to make lunch duty in time.  I have an elevator key to move my cart around, but I'm using the stairs the rest of the time.  I figure every little bit helps.  I have a healthy stash of snacks in my office, but the calories add up.  

Highlight of my day:  cleaned out a file cabinet and got permission to clear out the book room.  That might take me until June.... 

I'm doing ok dealing with my thyroidless brainlessness too--I have a clipboard with my daily to-do list.  It really is a feeling of accomplishment to cross stuff off as the day goes on!  It's helped a ton and I feel like I'm getting things done.  I haven't lost the clipboard yet.  I'm thinking that since I basically have my classroom stacked on a cart, it's harder for me to misplace stuff?  I'm loving the Husky tool bag too.  

However, I don't know if this is related or not, but I've noticed that I'm reversing letters a lot more than usual whey I type.  I'm a pretty decent typist and know the keyboard, so I'm baffled at this latest cognitive blip.  I figure it will pass like every other blip I've had?  Maybe my tingly left pinky and ring finger are adding to it? I'm used to making some mistakes, but this is getting ridiculous. 

Off to crash.  The weekend should be fun since Sis is coming home so we can go to a surprise retirement party for a family friend--we were told that we had to go since my parents aren't able to be here.  It promises to be a good time. 

Oh--and, Ireland rugby beat Australia! Woo hoo! 

Happy New Year!

Crazy crazy crazy few days here!

Happy New Year!  The 2011-12 school year is off to a roaring start, and I'm barely able to keep up.  I'm logging 10-12 hour days so far and keeping a large to-do list on a clipboard that I'm trying very hard no to misplace during my zipping all over the building throughout the day.  I have a cart to roll my stuff around on thru the halls and so far have not mowed down any sixies (7th graders, the little guys, running bewildered all around the building with me) as I move from my kind of cool basement office to the classrooms on other floors that I have to invade twice a day.

Great Husky tool bag I bought at Home Depot to organize all my desk stuff!  

I can carry everything with me and keep it on my cart at the same time...anything to keep me organized...

Whew!  My classes seem fine, but I haven't shell-shocked them yet with all Spanish, all the time.  That's coming soon.  I have larger blocks of time when I'm not teaching to do other stuff, like read about using data to inform your teaching practice,  and brushing up on exactly what the state standards say, and looking for ideas for the new teachers that I'm supposed to mentor once a rotation.  The larger blocks of time tend to fly, and before I know it I have to pack the cart to get moving again.  And I have lunch duty.  It is amazing to watch 800 kids come streaming into the dining hall, line up, inhale their lunches and be on their way again 22 minutes later.  Sustained controlled chaos for 22 minutes, and then it's over.  I haven't figured out a rhythm to my day yet, and it's keeping me slightly off-kilter.  It will get better I hope.

So, not much blogging lately, but I'll try to work it in occasionally.  Energy level crashed a little last week, but picked up again off and on.  So damn frustrating that it won't stay stable.  This week I'm so tired at times that it physically hurts.  Off to dreamland now...what should I wear tomorrow?

I forgot to mention that I turned 43 on 9/11--Happy Birthday to me!  It was a nice weekend with Sis and Mr. Wonderful, but the 10th anniversary brought me right back to the actual 9/11 events, and made me not really want to celebrate much.  It was low key, but full of great food--BBQ at Redbones, a full Irish breakfast and pint at the Kinsale, and two cakes from Patsy's!  I'll have to pedal for hours to work that off!

Happy Thyroid Cancer Awareness Month!

Or Happy *&;^%$ September, summer is almost over.

It is also thyroid cancer awareness month (why September?).  Gena Lee Nolin is doing a great job on Facebook, constantly posting info via her Thyroid Sexy page/link/thingy.  She isn't focused on thyca, but she does have tons of info out there on Hashimoto's, diet, meds, and other things related to life with/without a thyroid.

It's officially Labor Day Weekend, and I can hear the 2011-2012 school year breathing down my neck, rapidly approaching to turn my world upside down again.

But I will squeeze as much as I can out of the next 72 hours or so!  I'm in NH hanging out with Sis after a few days roaming around northern NH and ME with Mr. Wonderful.  We went up the Mount Washington Auto Road--never done that before!  I think I really do have an irrational fear of heights sometimes, but the drive and views were breathtaking.  I  had a death grip on anything I could hold on to--it was a little unnerving with no guard rails.  We were even up higher than a helicopter flying over the valley below.  We couldn't see much at the top since we were in the clouds, but it was so cool to finally go up there.  Don't know why I haven't done it until now.... we also scoped out used book stores, outlets and remote roads thru tiny towns.  Saw lots of flood damage from Irene too.  So quality time with Mr. W, and a couple of days with Sis at the lake...pretty good way to end Summer 2011.

Energy level dipped again after a couple of great weeks, but it's manageable.  I'm still getting in my almost daily workouts, and my blood pressure is hovering in the 110/teens over 60s--is that too low now?  Maybe that's contributing to why I'm tired.  But the exercising has now turned into something I miss if I don't do it for a few days.  During our rambles through Maine, we stayed at a Comfort Inn.  Last night I had baked stuffed sole for dinner, not a bad option until I saw it was swimming (drowning actually) in Hollandaise sauce. Tasted great, but not exactly as healthy as I thought.   This morning, I actually woke up before Mr. W, and with the image in my mind of the stick of butter that was probably in the sauce, I got up and went to the little fitness center in the hotel, got my ass on the treadmill and walked for 35 minutes.  I WAS ON A FREAKING TREADMILL BEFORE I ATE BREAKFAST, BEFORE 8am.  So not me!  But it felt really good....and I'm a little proud of myself.  When Sis saw me after a few weeks of not seeing me, she noticed right off that my face had thinned out.  Both she and Mr. W told me that I had been looking "puffy".  When I look at pictures from the end of the school year, ugh.  Yes, puffy is a really good word to describe it.  I just wish someone had told me when I had crossed into the puffy zone. At least I can feel some of my clothes getting looser.  I'll walk tomorrow too.  I have a playlist on my iPod for walking, and if I keep up with the music for the whole time, I can work up quite a sweat.  The hills around here will make it harder but will burn more calories so I can indulge in some Phu Jee's Chinese food and ice cream, though not necessarily together.

I haven't been writing much either since I spent most of August fixing up my condo for rental, and I am now happily relieved to say I have a friend renting it, and all of our stuff is out of there, with the exception of a piano.  I have to figure out how to get rid of a piano.  I also spent a week in RI with Mr. Wonderful's family (or almost a week) and had great time at a beautiful house on the water.   I went in to school to work some more on my office too, and have done some prep work at home to get ready for my classes. I have the first 6 weeks or so mapped out, and have a pretty good idea how the rest of the year will go.  At least I think I do--it will probably come undone by day 3!

Off to bed.  Happy Labor Day Weekend, and don't forget to check your neck and thyca.org!

Energy, welcome back!

Hola!
The song "Just Stand Up" is blaring in the background as I consider this post.  Gotta love my magically realistic iPod--wonder what Garcia Marquez or Allende would make of my communicating iPod?

This week has been great--I'm like the freakin' Energizer Bunny.  And damn it feels sooooo good.  Don't know what's going on in my endocrine system, but it can stay.  I actually feel like I have energy and that I can function physically.  I'm still doing some form of physical exercise just about every day (just did 5.80 miles on my bike in 35 minutes), and I'm finally figuring out the calorie counter thingie so that I get more vitamins and less sodium in my diet.  Sleep has been pretty good too, except for one night where I stayed up til 2am doing more geneaology research.  More on that later...

Somewhere I read about a woman (of course I can't remember where) who kept track of her miles on a treadmill, and figured out how many miles it would take her to walk to places in the US that she wanted to see, and it kept her motivated to keep going to reach her "destinations".  Maybe I should try that and see how long it would take me to bike to, oh, the Grand Canyon.  At only 5 miles a whack, it might be discouraging!  Still, it's a cool idea...where should I go first? 

And I'm now down about 6 pounds or so.  (Insert smiley face here.) It's work, but it's happening.  I was afraid that in my thyroidless state, my metabolism would be completely dormant and the weight would stay.  At least I've proven to myself that it's possible....again, when I look at Sofia Vergara's figure, of course it's possible.  I just don't have the Hollywood luxury of hours of working out with a trainer, or a great gene pool with said figure already in place.

Whatever--if nothing else, maybe I can pull the bag of smaller sized clothing down from the closet by the middle of the fall.

The other side benefit to my time on the bike is reading--I'm doing tons of reading.  One goal for this summer is to finally read "House of the Spirits" (in English first) by Isabel Allende to its end.  Strange that I have taught a fragment of the book in Spanish 4 for the past 4 years, but have never been able to get into the book myself even though my students come back later to tell me how much they love the book (it's either on the summer reading list or taught senior year).  I'm finally past the first 30 pages and am actually enjoying it.

My reflexes and cognitive stuff are still off--the dropsies and lack of balance are  horrendous, and I almost forgot to put my car in park in the Target parking lot after pulling into a space.  I feel like I have to write everything down or have constant conversations with myself to get through the day.  Those conversations can get tiring!

My big challenge is coming up this week--a few days with Mr. Wonderful's family at a seaside house to celebrate Mom-in-Law's upcoming 88th birthday.  The whole thing is a surprise planned by Sis-in-Law, and Mr. W's two brothers are coming  from out of state as a surprise.  The house looks great, and the weather is supposed to be perfect.  The challenge comes from their love (obsession?) with all types of fried seafood, along with temptations of munchies and gallons of wine that will surely be consumed.  If I can get out and walk every day, I should be ok and not derail myself too much.  It should be fun--crazy, but fun.

Mookie is lying on the couch next to me, on his back, all four paws in the air, out cold.  So cute.

If you have a connection to St. Peregrine, send up a few prayers for my friend who underwent a double mastectomy yesterday in her continuing battle against breast cancer.  I haven't heard anything about how the surgery went, so I guess no new is just no news.  She sounded upbeat on the phone the night before. She's facing radiation next once she heals from this surgery....again, makes thyca look like a walk in the park.

As for the family research, I finally found some juicy info on my mom's family.  She would have died--her grandfather and his brother spent 3 months in a house of correction after a second charge in one year of illegally selling liquor from their pharmacies in 1916!  I stumbled across articles in the newspapers on line about it--the grandfather apparently fainted upon hearing his sentence. I've never heard anyone talk about it, so they managed to keep it well hidden.  I'll have to search out the court trial records.   It's funny--they apparently had lots of half-pint bottles of whisky in their stores that they said they bought themselves for making embalming fluid.  Ok, if you say so, but the courts didn't buy it.  That gave me quite a chuckle, and now explains why his daughter, my grandmother, was probably not fond of alcohol and constantly worried about "what will the neighbors think".

So, I finally found a jailbird in the family.  I think the rumbling I heard last night wasn't thunder, but rather a few family members rolling over in their graves. Hee hee.

Let's hope this energy thing stays for a while--I almost feel like a normal human being except for when I can't process a conversation or drop a bottle of delicious red wine from Spain's Ribera del Duero that I was looking forward to all over the garage....I can almost deal with those inconveniences if I can do it on the go and not sacked out on the couch.  Have to be thankful for the little things, right?

*&^%$# August.

It's August.  Sigh.  July disappeared in a haze of brain fog, and now, it's August.  I think I go back to school exactly one month from yesterday (Tuesday after Labor Day). 

We're still in condo chaos mode--I get rid of one pile of boxes and another pile comes in.  There's not much left at our old place, but it has to find space here somewhere, and it has to find it soon.  I spent today consolidating stuff, and every time I planned to bring stuff out to the car, the heavens opened.  Thunderstorms most of the day and torential downpours the rest.  Back tomorrow for more.

Weekend was fun--we went to upstate NY to visit my college roommate Jules.  We split up the weekend--Mr. Wonderful brought his fire truck to a convention in Syracuse, and Jules and I spent Saturday scrapbooking.  The fire truck made it out and back with no problems, and I took my car "just in case" the truck broke down.  Glad I did--when I got to Jules' house a half hour after Mr. W, he was sitting on the bumper looking like he was in some serious pain.  He said the noise, heat and rattling got to him after about the first hour.  On Friday Jules and her husband both had to work, so we drove around, hitting bookstores, ice cream and farm stands along the way.  The area was beautiful--it was hard to believe that we were only 20-30 miles or so from the state capital, and in the middle of ruralness.  Is that even a word?  I had a massage on Friday (aaaaaaahhhhhhh) at a place that Jules goes to, and she went on Saturday morning while I played games with her 6 year old son.  I am not happy to say that he beat me at Uno, Sorry and Concentration.  I had no chance of winning the concentration game given my current level of cognitive functioning!  It was great to hang out, eat good food and catch up.  And, I think I finally finished scrapbooking my actual wedding.  5 years later.  I'm in the middle of the honeymoon pages now...

I even snuck in a 45 minute walk on Friday.  I missed doing exercise on Saturday and Sunday, but I got right back on my bike this morning and pedaled away for 32 minutes.  I finished "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" and am now reading "Senior Year" by Globe reporter Dan Shaughnessy.  It's pretty interesting because he's from the same home town as Mr. Wonderful, and his high school basketball coach is a family friend, and the book is dedicated to him.  The descriptions are wonderful, and the inside glimpse of a star high school athlete being recruited to play baseball is fascinating. 

Also, Gena Lee Nolin has a group on Facebook called "Sexy Thyroid" or something like that--if you type in her name it will come up.  She is working on a new book with Mary Shomon--that would be a good read.  Mary Shomon's stuff has been incredibly helpful over the years. 

There was a rather large outcry on the Good Housekeeping website over the thyroid disease article.  I finally read it, and disappointing doesn't begin to cover how it felt while reading.  The author needs some help and should have interviewed  a few more people, or at least seen a few more doctors before putting pen to paper (or fingertips to keyboard).  She seemed willing to go along with the doctor's claim that she was testing in the normal range, so she was ok.  Her answer was to drink more coffee, take a spinning class and I forget the third thing.  In the meantime, she's only going to get worse.  What bothered me and few other people was that this article was very misleading, and if some poor person picked it up looking for answers, the information was outdated and in some areas just plain wrong. 
Shame on GH--they should have retracted the whole thing. 

And, I've been eating my Irish Flahavan's Progress Oatlets again with slivered almonds, dried cranberries, brown sugar, cinnamon and flax seed.  Talk about filling--I'm not hungry again until late afternoon.  Today I felt like the Energizer Bunny--I definitely feel like I have more energy lately, a nice change from the beginning of the summer. 

Off to bed for more tomorrow....I'm seeing all sorts of boxes in my sleep! 

Baywatch babe battles bellicose butterfly

I've discovered a new place to go for the latest celebrity pics and articles, and found this one last night about "Baywatch" actress Gina Lee  Nolin.  Turns out she has been battling thyroid disease since her teen years.

Pamela Anderson, Yasmine Bleeth Gina Lee Nolin

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2020557/Baywatch-actress-Gena-Lee-Nolin-tells-diagnosis-took-years-I-battled-thyroid-illness-Baywatch-bathing-suit.html

I was never a fan of "Baywatch", and I don't think I ever watched one episode.  However, I did see pics of the skimpy red bathing suits over the years, and I now think this woman should be given a gigantic medal of honor.  She was battling an underactive thyroid and Hashimoto's,  and had to get into that bathing suit every day, and go on film??  How she did not have a massive mental breakdown is beyond me.  Just the thoughts of putting on a bathing suit invokes a PTSD response in me at the start of every summer or winter vacation that involves heat and sun.  (See February posts before we went on our cruise.)  And I have figured out which brands, in my mind, seem to hide a multitude of sins, bulges and rolls.  That "Baywatch" suit doesn't hide much of anything.  I don't know why she's coming out with the story now, but I'm glad she did.  Seeing someone like her and actress Sofia Vergara give me a little hope that it might just be possible to keep the weight issues under control.  Some of the details that Nolin gives seem strange to me, like she felt better three days after starting thyroid hormone replacement meds--no, it takes 4-6 weeks for that.  And that she was able to get pregnant and carry to term with an underactive thyroid.  Still, I could relate to her description of symptoms and responses from doctors.

And I'm making progress!  I have done some form of exercise EVERY DAY (except for one) out of the last 18 days.  Every day!!  I've walked, ridden the stationary bike, used my little weights...and I've been using caloriecount.about.com to keep me fairly honest about food intake.  That has made a difference.  But even better is that I am starting to feel a difference in some of my clothes, and that is huge.  I think my bathing suit that I bought in February was a little gappy in places.  Even if it is in my mind, it feels a hell of a lot better than before.

Also, Good Housekeeping apparently published an article about a woman with thyroid difficulties, and all of the thyroid support websites are up in arms that the article was full of misinformation and a  "blame the patient" viewpoint.  I haven't read the actual article yet because I don't buy Good Housekeeping (why?  I'm an excellent housekeeper, better than good.  Ha. ) and I couldn't find it on their website.  The DearThyroid site had some info and responses to it on their site.

I'm back home to tackle the two condos after a nice break with Sis in NH.  We went to the beach, ate lots of farm food and hung out.  It was really nice to spend time with her in her corner of NH paradise.  She says her garden isn't doing as well as last year, but it looks pretty good to me.  She planted all kinds of red flowers, so there were hummingbirds all over the place.  I didn't see any bears, but I did see a fox running through the backyard with a chipmunk dangling from his mouth.

Can't believe today is the last day of July.  Mr. Wonderful is off playing with his fire truck for the day, so I'm on my own to clean out more stuff.  Have to go pedal for a half hour first.  Busy reading "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz--loving it!  

Lake girl

Back in the 603 for a few days to hang out with Sis....I came up on Monday in the rain.  The heat wave has finally broken, so things are much more bearable.  Today I'm headed for the beach for most of the day  with the goal of getting rid of some of my pasty glowing white pale Irish skin.  Which means I will be lobster red by the end of the day even if I use sunblock.  Not my fault that my ancestors came from a cold, dank rainy climate.  But I am neon white and apparently looking a little on the unhealthy side, so...I've already had cancer, right?  Sis is really tanned.  Mom would be proud of her.

Yesterday was my first swim in the lake of the season--I forget from summer to summer how much I love that feeling of the first dive under.  The water was beautiful.  I even dove off the diving board and raft.  Somehow I don't feel like I'm 42 once I get in the water--I'll feel it afterwards when all my unused muscles start screaming.  I really would love to work swimming into my routine, like either lap swimming or water aerobics, but I can never seem to find something that fits with my schedule.  Plus it's not nearly as pleasant in January when it's 10 below and the air has turned artic.  Anyway, it didn't last long since some nasty thunderstorms moved in and we had to go back indoors.  But, I'll go back today.

The other highlight of last week was watching a childhood friend take over command of the USS Constitution for the next two years.  Sis, Mr. Wonderful and I were invited to the change of command ceremony--it was so neat to be part of it!  Unfortunately it was about 105 degrees on the deck of the ship, so we basically baked in the hot sun for about 90 minutes.  The crew had it much worse--the commanders and officers had to wear uniforms from 1813, made of wool. And the uniforms were multilayered complete with large hats.  I don't know how they managed to make it through the day.  We went to a reception afterwards with neighbors from the NH community, and then later that night went to another party in town.  It was a good day, and and so cool to watch someone you know step into a position like that.  Here's to two years of clear sailing!

My calorie-counting/exercise obsession continues...I've only missed one day of some kind of exercise in the last 16!  I've been walking since I got to NH, and the swimming will be like an extra bonus.  Last night Sis gave me back a shirt I gave her last month because it was too small for me, and when I tried it on, it fit!  Woo hoo!  When I say it didn't fit before, I meant that I could barely get it on and off.  No problem last night.  Still a little snug, so I wouldn't wear it out in public, but I could put it on and not feel like a squeezed sausage.  How's that for a motivating factor?  Amazing how that portion control combined with exercise really works (typed sarcastically with a snicker)!  My jeans felt a little looser too, but that could have been my imagination.

Off to the beach for a bit.

Goals for 2011? Update....

I decided to look back on the goals I set for this year and see how I've done....results are mixed, but I still have four and a half months to meet some of them.  Here they are, updates in red.

I need to set out some goals for 2011...
1.  I will make time to exercise.  Even though I hate it and the thoughts of it make me depressed. Making some serious progress in this department.  Ok, so it's only been in the past 6 days, but I'm managing 30-60 minutes a day using the stationary bike, weights, salsa music, walking and 6 flights of stairs.  If nothing else, I will try to keep walking when I can. 
2.  I will drag Mr. Wonderful to some kind of concert/play/performance/movie once a month. Not good on this one, unless you count a couple of car shows and a fire truck muster. 
3.  I will take my daily vitamins.  Daily. I'd say I'm consistent 75% of the time?  Adding fish oil capsules has thrown me off again.   
4.  I will not, not, not stay at school every night til 6pm. I didn't stay every night, but probably 3 out of 5...sigh. 
5.  I will clean my house more often. Ha ha ha.  Good one. 
6.  I will travel somewhere relaxing.  Preferably with a beach.  February cruise to the Bahamas!  
7.  I will not freak out about my thyca bloodwork.  It's part of the routine of life, so deal with it. Getting better, especially after Dr. N told me that she wasn't worried about the cancer since my hormones were such a mess.  Now I stress out about them....
8.  I will get a mammogram and get all my other medical stuff back on track. Mammogram done yesterday!  Ouch.  And Dr. N is now my primary care doc, and I have a physical scheduled for October. 
9.  I will continue to chat with St. Peregrine. Sporadic, need to do better at keeping in touch. 
10. I will make time to read, do cross stitch and scrapbook. And maybe sing.   Not enough creative outlets in 2010. Definitely reading more.  Just finished "The Known World" (wow, makes you feel wicked uncomfortable and blows you away at the same time), am now working on "Reading Lolita in Tehran".  No singing except for in my own company, not much cross stitching and only one scrapbooking weekend with Jules in January.  Still need to do some more artsy stuff. 

Keep on moving (again)

Progress is progress, right? 

I've been dutifully logging my food intake and activity output for the past 5 days, and it's been pretty revealing.  It's motivating me to actually do some exercise every day, such as 30 minutes on the stationary bike--got up to 5.25 miles today--, walking, weights (so what if they are only 5 lbs. on each arm--I'm sore!), and using the stairs to go to and from my condo on the 5th floor. 

The thing that has caught my attention is the amount of sodium in my daily consumption!  And I don't add salt to anything...hard to avoid it in anything processed, but this just seems ridiculous.

Go to countcalories.about.com if you want to check it out.  Not sure if I like this method or counting Weight Watcher points better.  Whatever works at this point.  The problem will be once I go to NH and change my routine...or get back to school in the fall and start losing hours to correcting, planning and tyring to keep up with it all.  I don't have a scale, so I don't know just how much progress I'm making.  It's probably too soon to tell since my body is most likely in shock from being made to actually do exercise instead of just thinking about it. 

Highlight of today:  emptying more boxes!  Mr. Wonderful is more of a packrat than I am, and today I piled his magazines on the bookshelves and in thingies to hide them and yet organize them at the same time--brilliant, thank you Ikea.  The categories were interesting and reminded me of an afternoon with Sis-in-law and brother-in-law of Mr. Wonderful a few years ago when he was cleaning out his place to move to mine and so we could redo his place for his mom to move in.  Siblings are hysterical, and his show no mercy.  We were divvying up the magazine stash then, and came up with three main catetgories of interest:  fire, trucks and military.  Things were going fine until bro-in-law came across a periodical titled, "Military Trucks"--that ruined our whole system and had the three of us on the floor with tears rolling down our faces because we were laughing so hard...Mr. W was not amused, but we had a good run with it.  So, if you want to know anything about naval history, sea history, classic cars, military surplus trucks, vintage trucks, double clutch trucks and of course, all sorts of fire trucks, you can come see me.  And, if you have any interest at all in World War II or aircraft, this would be the place to visit.  I think Mr. W was a soldier in a previous life....

KASSETT from Ikea

Tomorrow I actually have to go back to Ikea for more magazine organizer thingies, because I don't want to leave it half done with a mishmash of designs, and I can't order them online.  Time for Swedish meatballs?

I can see clearly now....

I feel like I'm coming out of a fog.  A dense, heavy, pea-soup-like fog.  Damn I hate the end of the school year and start of the summer.

I posted about it last year.  I think I've finally scraped myself up off the pavement that I splatted on after I slammed head-first into the end-of-the-year brick wall.  Sigh.

I actually met with the physician's assistant at my endo's office for a blood pressure check, and it was my first time meeting her.  Now that Dr. N has agreed to take me on as a primary care patient instead of just endo stuff, I get to meet the PA.  And it was as if I had known her for years.  I really liked her.  We talked about my suitcase of issues, and she pointed me to a website where I can keep track of what I eat along with exercise...so far I'm loving it and amazed at my diet.  Not as healthy as I previously thought.  Parts of it are, but not all of it.  Plus it has given me the oomph needed to get off my ass and get moving.  I have to admit--it feels good.   It helped a ton too when I got on the scale and was 5 pounds lighter than I was in May.  (insert smiley face here) She also told me how lucky I was that Dr. N agreed to move me into a primary care slot since her patient panel is closed.  Woo hoo!  My blood pressure was ok at 120/82, so no changes for now.

That was a big boost since I had a meltdown the night before over the chaos that is our condo.  It's getting better, but something set me flying and off I ranted and raved.  I was a Bitch with a capital B and eventually came back to sanity after sitting by myself on the balcony staring at the full moon.  I was better in the morning. &^%$## hormones.

Sis was here and we spent a couple of days shopping for stuff she can't get out in the boonies--we spent hours at Trader Joe's, Target, and she even went to TJ Maxx.  We hit our favorite breakfast place (so she could get banana chocolate chip pancakes), had bimbimbop from Trader Joe's and hung out for a couple of days.  She came down for her TB test for the fall.  Happy to say that she was negative.

I ran into a former student from about 7 years ago who works at Trader Joe's, and last year she told me that she was going to spend a semester in Spain.  She did, she's graduated, and now she's going back to Spain to teach English in Galicia for a year!  I love it when I hear stories like those.  I'm so excited for her.  Makes me want to get on  a plane....

So today I went to Ikea and had fun buying stuff to go with our new bookcases--boxes and magazine files for Mr. W's gigantic periodical collection that he insists he has to keep in case he has to "refer" to them in the future.  Um, can you say "internet"?  I would love to pitch them, but at least I think I found a way to organize them neatly.  And I bought a file cabinet.  It will be great to empty out the last of the boxes piled in the corner.

Progress I guess.

Duh.

Forgetful Jones and Luis from Sesame Street.  I could be Forgetful Jones lately....

If I had a brain that fully functioned, I'd be sooooo dangerous.  Like, world-domination-potential dangerous....ok, maybe not that brilliant or even smart, but a girl can dream, can't she?  I mean, it would be such an improvement over my current state.  Today was a processing nightmare, and I can't really remember what I had for breakfast.

But, I have a partial answer to why things haven't been firing on all cylinders lately.
One:  no structure since school is out!  And I have no desire to really structure things at this point, but it would probably help.  The few days spent doing the family research were great since I stayed in pjs till late afternoon.
Two: due to the lack of structure mentioned above, my meds schedule has been seriously derailed.  I'm supposed to take the levoxyl early am and wait an hour before eating.  No problem during the school year, and I take it when I hit the shower around 6:15; but now that I'm on my summer schedule I'm taking it when I get up, as in a few hours later than the schedule I've been on.  As a result, my ass is dragging lately and Sis, who is visiting the city for a couple of days, told me I looked pretty tired and crappy.  Sigh.  I just thought it was my overgrown mushroom head that is finally getting colored and cut on Wednesday that was making me look frightful.
Three:  I struggle to remember to take my vitamins daily.  Stupid I know, but I keep forgetting them.  I can't take them within 4 hours of the levoxyl.

I guess that is more than a partial answer.

I've been walking the past few days, and once I get started again it always feels good.  Tonight we went to Castle Island and walked around for about an hour.  I was surprised we managed to find a parking place.  It was nice....

So, I will now put the levoxyl bottle next to my bed and take it when Mr. Wonderful gets up.  And take the vitamins with dinner.  You'd think that I'd be able to figure this out on my own, but Mr. W pointed out the schedule change to me tonight.  Duh.

Summer schedule is kicking in.

It's 11:30pm, and I'm still up.  I will probably stay up for a couple more hours and then sleep in until 9am or 10am with no problem.  I think this is my body's natural clock if I let it set itself--bed by 2am, up by 10am.  Works for me!  Mr. Wonderful schlepped off to bed before 9, looked at me like light dawns on Marblehead and said, 'Your summer schedule is kicking in now, right?", meaning he can doze off on his own without me poking him for snoring--by the time I get there, he'll be out cold. 

So, my night-owl-ness is officially up and running.  For the past two days I have been glued to the computer despite beautiful summer weather--yesterday was the annual College Board crashfest while I sat most of the day hitting the refresh button trying to get my kids' AP scores.  This happened last year too.  You'd think that they would have used the past year to improve the system, but noooo.  I finally got my scores around 2am, and I was pretty happy with my lot.  34 out of 50 kids passed with a 3, 4 or 5, and 22 of them were 4s and 5s.  I could have predicted most of the 2s and 1s, but there were a couple of surprises in there--either they didn't read things closely enough to complete the tasks, or they psyched themselves out and panicked.  And then there were a few who still didn't "get it" by May, but I did what I could...at some point, it falls back on the student too to do the work and learn the material.  I can lead them to water, but I can't force them to drink no matter how long I hold their heads under....

While I was waiting, I decided to pull out the family history binders and see what needed to be updated.  It's been a couple of years since I've looked at the stuff, and now I can't remember what threads I was chasing down on all the little scraps of papers stuffed inside the inner binder pocket!  The Sullivan line is still driving me crazy after all these years--I've managed to link different branches, but still not enough to get me back to a defininitive area in Ireland.  I did some more work on the Kelleys, and got a ton of new info.  The Mormons have a website, familysearch.org, that used to have the US, Canadian and British census records for 1880, and not much else.  I haven't checked in a few years, but went back to it and wow--sooooo much stuff!  All the US census records, MA state census records, MA births, deaths and marriages....score!  Some of the records have the original documents that you can see and print, and they did a great job cross-indexing names with spouses and parents.  Makes it much easier to hunt down names like Sullivan, Murphy and Kelley.  And I was looking for combinations of all three.  Why oh why couldn't they have easier names to trace? 

I sat here all day today as well, trying to organize the scraps with the new info. 

Apparently my great great grandfather Jeremiah Sullivan did come from County Limerick.  Now I just have to figure out a way to trace him back there. 

As I'm typing now, Mookie is lying on the desk in front of the keyboard. 

The 4th was fun and low key--we had food and fireworks at our place since we have a great view from the balcony.  This year the wind moved in the right direction so we could see it all, and the show was fantastic.  Sis-in-law and mom-in-law came along with a childhood friend and his wife.  He's taking over command of the USS Constitution in a couple of weeks, and they were in town for the turnaround.  We are going to the change of command--it will be so cool to watch him take over on the ship that I used to play on when I was younger, and just because I've known him as a NH summer friend my whole life. 

What else?  I'm still in wind-down mode from the end of the school year.  Now that the AP scores are in, I can zone out until the end of August.

And try to get my act together because I can't remember for the life of me to take my damn fish oil supplements and multivitamins and calcium supplements.  Grrr. 

Found this cartoon and thought it was appropos...
On a happy note (at least it sounds happy), one of my best friends from high school emailed to say that she has officially finished 16 rounds of chemo!!  Woo hoo!  She's battling what sounds like a really nasty aggressive breast cancer, and it's been a long haul for her as she's had to do two different rounds of chemo.  Surgery is up next, then radiation.  We've had lots of lengthy chats on the phone, laughing and railing about cancer.  Her sense of humor and overall attitude  is astounding, and I keep telling her she should write.  We've all been telling her that for years.  Frustrating thing for me is that she lives in California, and I wish I could just drop by to see her.  Maybe in the fall?  I'll keep sending positive vibes westward and talking to St. Peregrine.  Makes my bout with thyroid cancer look like a walk in the park.  She's amazing, and I'm in awe. 

So that's all from here at the moment.  Not feeling too crappy, still forgetting stuff and dropping stuff all the time.  Just wishing that I felt a little bit more normal so I would have the motivation to get out and do more stuff....I have polished off a couple of novels in the past week, so that's a huge improvement over last summer.  I couldn't concentrate to save my life last summer and basically stuck to magazines and newspapers, which was depressing because there's nothing like curling up or lying out in the sun with a book you can't put down.  Just finished  "The Namesake".  Not sure what's on tap next. 

Closing in on midnight, so I might actually go to bed instead of staying up longer.  Besides, my back and arms are sore from sitting in the same position all day, and Mookie wants to go sleep on a soft bed.  Hasta luego...

Summer!

And I'm officially done!

I was in school from about 10:30 til almost 5pm.  I managed to get all my stuff into the new office--not all unpacked, but most of it and the rest in rubber totes.  Would you believe that someone stole two books that I left (stupidly) on top of some boxes in the hallway?  They were samples and not used much, but I didn't leave til 3:30.  Curious...

The office was pretty grimy and gross, but I bleached the hell out of the desk and phone and wiped down all the other surfaces.  I wonder how long this will be home?  I have to bring in some stuff to put on the walls.

Now I've been sucked in to "The Brothers Bulger" by Howie Carr and am up to 1980.  So profoundly disturbing.  I prefer to think that people are essentially good, but this tale has me thinking otherwise.

Let the relaxation and vegetation begin....