Life By Lindsey Rae

Today was our third anniversary! Good for us!
Jerrod took the day off and went and ran some errands during the afternoon. He took my car and brought it back all cleaned out and had the windows tinted. He said it wasn't necessarily an anniversary present, because he had been planning to do it anyway, but, it was nice to have it today. I didn't really get Jerrod anything...which I felt bad about. But, the thing is, he said he couldn't think of anything I could get him and that we should just plan to get a present together (we are going to get some rocking chairs for our front porch once we find some we like). But then, he gave me a basket full of chocolates and also did my car stuff for me. I did make him a nice card that I put a lot of time, thought and effort into...but then I always make him cards that I put a lot of time, thought and effort into...so maybe that's not so great...I always like to do fun things for him and so in all my perfectionism, I will probably feel bad for the rest of my life that I could not think of some great, original and wonderful idea for him today. I said that if I came across something good in the near future, I was going to get it....but it will be a little late, won't it?
Anyway, as part of my contribution, I've decided to take it upon myself to find some good rocking chairs for us.

We went to the Melting Pot tonight. I think we have gone there every anniversary so far. It's a fondue restaurant we like to go to for special occasions. We are so full right now though. Its a 4 course meal and so there is so much food. But, it's so good...and so expensive...that you feel like you have to eat every last bit that you can. After we got home tonight, I found that I had gained 6 pounds since I weighed myself this morning. It's a good thing I'm fairly skinny.

Every Sunday when I get home from church I am just so tired. My calling is exhausting. I feel like all I do is chase kids around all morning. (Part of the problem is that it is in the morning....I don't do well with mornings.)
Usually after church you want dinner, but I don't even eat most times. I just have to come home and take a nap.

I just realized that the thing that makes it so hard is not that they are 3...but that they are 3 and that I have to attempt to keep them at least somewhat reverent for such an extended period of time. If we were just playing around it might not be so difficult, but we go to the 3rd hour of classes with the senior primary and I have to admit that if I were 3-years-old, I would probably not have any clue or interest in what is going on in there most of the time either.
And as difficult as it is for the class to sit through it....well, let's just say I guarantee it's at least as hard, if not more so for their teacher who must sit with them in all their difficulty.

I like to say that generally, when you have adult ADD, primary is a good place to be...I enjoy that it keeps my mind active and that I don't have an opportunity to fall asleep like I might if I were in an adult class. (This is especially good for me having excessive daytime sleepiness problems.)
But, hanging out with a bunch of 3-year-olds will wear a person out. (And cause additional excessive daytime sleepiness.)

I know I am way behind on posting something here. I had a really, really busy couple of weeks prior to this; working on some music stuff and stuff for the CD and all that. So now, I need to get caught up on writing about some things. I have a few things I wanted to post about, so I may have some late stories, but maybe late is better than never.

Anyway, hopefully I will get to it later tonight...or in the next couple of days. As usual, I'm playing catch up.

It was really hot today. According to my car, 96 degrees (which is about 36 degrees for the Canadians). It's supposed to be in the 90's all week. I have to give my trees extra water.
We've been watering them everyday because one of our trees (we have 2), in particular, has special needs. We had one planted in the back initially and then they recently came along and planted one in the front of everyone's house. But, as the ground is pretty much solid rock, they didn't want to put a whole lot of effort into digging a hole and so they pretty much just planted it on top of the ground and then covered it in mulch...which is good for about the first week. So, the tree is a little more unstable, being not completely in the ground. It needs extra help for awhile.
We put a rubber mulch mat on top of both of them, which was a little expensive, compared to regular mulch, but it is doing a good job of protecting the exposed roots and it really keeps the water from evaporating when it gets hot. Our trees are looking pretty much better than anyones now. We feel proud of them.

We also have a (volunteer) job of watering my neighbors tree. (Also planted on top of the ground). He has a house here, but he only lives in it 2-3 days per month. He lives in California most of the time. So, he asked us to take care of his trees for him. We had to give his tree a rubber mulch mat too, because when I watered, all the mulch just came off and the roots became exposed. We figured it would not do too well like that. I'd hate to be blamed for the death of his tree.

I have a lot more things that I want to write about, but I have had so much going on recently, I don't have as much time. This week in particular I have something to worry about almost everyday.

I feel like it's really stuffy in here right now and it's driving me crazy. It's become suddenly more humid this week. It's like the intense summer humidity just started and it just dropped in and doubled overnight. I usually like humidity, but tonight it's bugging me. I'm stuffed up and feel like I can't breathe. Maybe it's some allergies that are bothering me, but the humidity is making it feel worse to my sinuses.

It's around 11:30pm and it's still like, 80 degrees outside. That's pretty nice. I much prefer the warmer weather....except for the fact that warm weather means more bugs.

There are too many bugs, and I'm afraid of them.
I really hate it.
Actually, we got some pest control from Steven this week. I don't know if I mentioned it here, but my cousin, Steven, is down in Nashville right now selling pest control as a summer job. So, we got some from him...in hopes that I would live in fear less and it would improve my quality of life if I see less bugs.

Steven and his roommates have come over about 3 times now and hung out with us at our house; had dinner and stuff. It's been fun. It was fun to have Canadians over because at one time there were four of us Canadians in the house and only American (Jerrod). I felt good about that, because Jerrod likes to tease me and make Canadian jokes, but with four Canadians against one American, it was fun to be able to gang up on him for once. haha. That's the most Canadians that have ever been in our house....suddenly I have also really noticed that they (we....I....) talk a little different and they have a little different sense of humor. It's weird that I never noticed it before, but I think this is nearly one of the longest times since I have been back to Canada, so maybe that's why I notice it more suddenly.

Still haven't got sleep study results back yet. It was supposed to have taken 3 days, but it's now been 2 and a half weeks. After talking to them on the phone numerous times and getting no results, I finally went into the sleep center on Tuesday to find out what was going on and spoke with the lead sleep technician (who did my study). She said that they were going to have it done that night and she would personally bring it to me the next day....which never happened. Apparently they had some problems merging the two different studies, because they usually don't have to do that, and it took them longer. I can understand that, but, they need to stop saying they have them and they will give them to me by the next day if they are not going to do that. I mean, this has happened at least 10 times that I have talked to them and they have given me that story.
And, they have already billed my insurance and so that bugs me that they are getting paid for a job they haven't finished.
Mostly, my concern is that I need these results before I can re-order my medicine. I get my medication through mail order through my insurance and so it will take about 2 weeks to get it. Plus, I may still need time to make an appointment to see my doctor.
I'm not going to spend a bunch of money ordering 3 months worth of medication that I may not be taking after I get those results back and talk to my doctor.
I'm running out of my medicine, so I really need to get this taken care of. I've explained this. But, still no results.
So, now Jerrod is going to have a chat with them. Somehow when Jerrod chats with people they always seem to listen. He's good at these things.

I think I'm supposed to be in bed right now, 'cause I have to "help" in the yard tomorrow.

We have to do lots of work tomorrow....We have been digging a trench through our back yard to put in a pipe to carry rain water that is causing some drainage problems. Only problem being that the only thing we can dig through is rock as top soil appears to be non-existent. We're digging about a foot down and 8 inches across. You should see some of the big rocks we pulled out in only a few feet of digging. We're probably going to need at least 60 ft more...It's pretty crazy.
I don't mind my job too much yet...I just scoop the dirt/rocks out with the shovel, but I don't dig to have to break rock...that's J's job.
Before we started, I told J he was too ambitious about this digging stuff and for once he finally agrees with me, Only took about 2 feet of trench digging for him to actually admit I was right.

So, we have to do something with the walls in our kitchen, because, they are painted with flat paint and it's the same problem as in the bathrooms where the high moisture areas don't do well with it.
I was wanting to do a tile back splash because I think that the kitchen walls can get stuff on them so easily, even if they are painted with a glossier paint, having tile will keep it cleaner looking...and be easier to clean up. I mean, it almost seems necessary to have something on the wall: you just get one single small splash of something greasy up there and it's done for. If it's too oily, you have to re-primer before you re-paint.

I told Jerrod I thought it would be a good idea, but he didn't seem to care either way. Then suddenly last week he became convinced he wanted one. So, we did some looking around....I have done quite a bit of looking around, because I know exactly what I want (surprisingly for once!) and I'm trying to find something decent priced. I want a mosaic with a glass and stone blend. I need to have glass, because I do mosaic art and I am a bit of a glass freak. But, in the case of this kitchen, I think some stone it will look good too. The blended look is really nice. We actually found something, but it's more expensive than I had hoped. Now I have to do a lot of research to find a better price!

I was able to snag a sample today from a tile-shop downtown and it looks pretty good in in the kitchen. The above picture is the sample. More browns in it than I would have thought I'd want, but it seems to work.

No sleep test results yet. They said I should have them by Monday....and being it's Tuesday, I do not. I called and they said at least by Thursday.

I find it really frustrating. I mean, that's fine if it's going to take a week (or over a week as seems to be the case) but just say that! Don't keep tell me 3 days, if you can't deliver. Then I just worry about getting them and feel like I have to keep calling about it, which I really don't like to do, because it makes me feel like I am being obnoxious. This is the 2nd time they've done this to me, so I'm getting pretty irritated. I expressed this concern and was told that the first time it was just some "miscommunication" in the office that caused it. Well....what is it this time?

So, I have had a pretty bad week...and have done basically nothing, literally, because I have been so tired, it's painful.

I actually had to have a second sleep test scheduled so they can try to figure out why I am so tired during the day. As of the first study, they were leaning towards the possibility that I may have Narcolepsy or Hypersomnia. The second test is a daytime test, so in order to prepare for this test, I had to completely go off one of my medications and as a result, I have been so tired, I'm half dead. I really didn't even have energy to type anything. I was a whole week without my medicine and it was a painful experience.

Today I finished my second study. When I finally got to take my medicine after it was done today, I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude to be living in a time where we have modern medicine to help us. Since I'm reading and thinking about history a lot, the thought came to me: "What if I had lived in Elizabethan times, or something like that, and had this condition?! How would I survive?" It made me sad to think of how terrible it would be to live like that...I guess even though I am usually pretty tired, I have now been made painfully aware of how tired I naturally am without any medication to help me.

I won't know all the results of my study until probably at least Monday.