bi-polar crafting?

sometimes i feel like i can't make up my mind about my hobbies... the issue i'm battling with right now is stamping... i was hot & heavy into stampin' up! products for a couple of years, and then scaled back big-time. for 6 or 7 months i hardly touched my stamps - except to sell off what i knew i was no longer wild about. then the new catalog came out in july, and all of that mania came rushing back to me. while my wishlist is far more modest than it has been in years past, i still wonder if it's just a phase.

we don't have a ton of extra money for launching my photography business, so i'm trying to be frugal in my acquiring the tools i need. i see my stamp collection as something of a gold mine - especially the retired stamps. after all - do i really need them? will i really use them?

and then there's the 'pending order'. i have a wishlist made up of the items i want to order all at once, totalling the minimum for hostess benefits, which would give me about $25-$30 in free product (a hostess stamp set and a set of my choice). it makes sense, if i'm going to order at all, to order in one lump sum, to get these extra benefits. and yet, i look at that sum of money and immediately think of the items i could use in my business - how much that would cross off my list.

do i really need more 'stuff'? in a culture that is consumed by it's 'need' for material things, do i really need to give into that temptation to accumulate stuff? i have a craft room full of hobby items, despite my hardy attempts to purge with some regularity, and quite honestly, i don't spend that much money on it anymore. where the heck does it come from?? so do i need to add to it with relatively more expensive investments?

see my dilemma??

eek.

i gained 2.5 lbs.

that's not good. so much for "not letting myself go completely".

ok, ok. i won't beat myself up. back on the ol' wagon. eek.

oh, a funny to share...

ok, two bits of back-story to start:

1. matt is famous for talking in his sleep. he has woken *me* up in the middle of the night to ramble such nonsense as "where'd they go?" and "when did they leave?" in fact, i don't even bother responding anymore - i just tell him to go back to sleep. on top of that, i certainly can't wake him up from a nap to tell him i'm going to run an errand, because even if he's perfectly coherent and says he understands, he'll still call me thirty minutes later and say "where are you!?!?!?!"

2. when he was in the hospital, we had cable. oooh, how i love me some cable. we don't have cable at home, so when given the opportunity, we take serious advantage. we spent lots of time watching the food channel (a truely cruel pastime when otherwise restricted to hospital fare) because i can't ever get enough of it.

so, yesterday, he stirs in the middle of a nap on the couch and says - i kid you not - "were you rolling me up and down like a pie tart?"

...

what???

(and of course, when i mentioned it later, he had no recollection whatsoever!)

craving normal...

that's how i'm feeling lately - i'm craving normal. life has been such a whirlwind in the last week and a half - i'm ready for things to return to the same ol' regularity.

we had a little visit to the ER friday afternoon when matt wasn't able to keep food or water down, and was having a sharp, nagging pain near his kidney. he was diagnosed with a kidney disease when he was about 14, so the doctors don't screw around with that kind of stuff. the heat compounded the issue, and fear of dehydration lead us to the visit.

after several hours in a room with three beds, accompanied by an array of other patients much worse off than matt (i had to focus really hard on my gameboy games to keep my own lunch down), they had juiced him full of fluids and antinausea meds, and run another CT scan looking for kidney stones. they didn't find anything of concern, so they sent him home with anti-nausea meds, a few vicodin, and strict orders that if he found himself chewing through the vicodin to deal with the pain, he should come back in right away.

he seems to be doing better, but spending lots of time on the couch still made us both a little stir crazy over the weekend. saturday evening, we went to the mall for ice cream (heals all ailments) and a new bra (down a size - yay!). sunday, church really wore him out, so he followed it with a long nap while i went to visit my mom. to get out of the house and cool off a little, we went for a swim at the local pool last night. i miss being able to swim in the lake (it's free, and i can still enjoy the sunshine), but he's under doctor's orders to avoid untreated water for a while.

he's back at work today, though i really only expect him to work a half day and i'm concerned that he'll wear himself out. i'm back for my first full day in over a week - that feels strange in itself... and i'm back on my weightloss plan. i stopped tracking my intake while he was in the hospital because i didn't want to waste time trying to estimate the nutritional value of hospital food when i could be cleaning the house or keeping him company, but i made the conscious decision to not let myself go completely, and to get back on track when i went back to work fulltime. so here i am! i'll weigh in tomorrow to see how much damage i did. ;)

happy today...

aside from being super tired, i'm really very happy today. relieved, definitely. blessed, most assuredly. i'm just glad life is soon to return to normal. and thankful. yeah, i'm so very thankful.

so let's talk about something other than hospitals and sickness, ok? :) i've got crafting on the brain today. got matt home and settled yesterday, did a few chores, and was preparing to do some stamping when some friends of ours arrived with pizza for dinner. it was great to visit with them, and i was thrilled to not have to cook, but by the time they left, i was firmly planted in front of the television and not interested in moving.

today, i plan to go home at noon, make lunch for us, and then i'm going to have some quality me-time. i think a trip to my lss and joanns, maybe even michael's is required. i need some more of the lovely scenic route line for my design team entry, and i have had a few things on my "general craft needs" list for a while that i'd like to cross off. yep, me-time. looking forward to it. :)

home at last...

matt was discharged early this afternoon, the doctors mostly appeased by the healing. his leg still hurts, shows a little rash, and is swollen, but they're sure the oral antibiotics will clear up the rest.

i'm glad he's home. i'm working 1/2 days the rest of the week so that he's not alone all day, and it's given me time to keep the house clean and running smoothly as well. still don't know when he'll be able to return to work.

the most concerning factor in all of this - once we knew surgery was not necessary - has been cost. i'm used to health insurance covering 80% of the bill, but with a five-night stay in a hospital, including a medical-technology-cocktail of testing, adding up to a bill that would rival most four-star resorts, i was pretty sure paying even 20% would break us. so, i sought the advice of the financial counselors at the hospital. they quickly informed me that we made far too much money to qualify for charitable assistance (which seems crazy to me - because we're hardly rolling in it!). i returned discouraged to matt's "hotel" room, where his mother suggested i call his health insurance company. i did so, and i'll be darned: they cover 100% of in-patient procedures, right down to the $50 copay for the ER visit. relief. matt decided then and there that he was going to get their money's worth - he rode the mechanical bed up and down, as far as it would go.

through out this entire ordeal, i've felt God's providence illustrated so clearly. not only in the fact that matt was spared from life-threatening infection (the first prognosis), and that he didn't even have to have surgery, but in the little things - for instance, in all of the back-and-forth driving i did in the last 5 days, i used barely a quarter tank of gasoline. if you're not a believer, you'll scoff at that: but it's rare for a quarter tank to last us more than two days, and i know i was driving more than usual. i see the health insurance coverage as a blessing too - i don't think that 100% coverage is normal, even for in-patient care. and the fact that our church and family rallied around us. i spent so much time on the phone updating people that i wanted to toss my phone out the window - but that all pointed to one thing: there are a lot of people that really love matt. we had multiple visitors every day; vacationing friends, distant and overseas family calling and texting me to check on him; two of our pastors at church came to visit; my mom was there the first three days to see him and his mom the last two; our moms both paid for a few of my meals so that we wouldn't have to; my dad sent money to help with parking; everyday i came home to phonecalls and emails from church members and family; he received flowers and a lovely goody basket full of treats; and saturday, when i was at my wit's end, my mom showed up at my house - unbeknownst to me - to clean my kitchen, etc. it made me feel good to know that God has placed us in such a loving, caring church family, but we are doubly blessed because our real family is here too.

oh, and my online friends, who will drop everything in a moment's notice to pray for my husband. that feels so good. thanks for your prayers too. i know prayer works.

the cutting edge of disease...

(and no, i don't mean surgery.)

matt's still healing, but more slowly than the doctors would like to see. they've just heard about a hip, new, cool kind of infection (my words, not theirs) called 'mersa' (i think), and they're going to test him for that. leave it to my husband to be on the cutting edge of disease... he couldn't be just normal and boring, he has to be hip and with it.

so, we're looking at tomorrow at the earliest, and maybe longer if today's test come back weird or he doesn't get better.

parking is expensive there. so's the food.

still no word on when matt will be able to come home, but he is getting a little better every day. they've switched him back to his home insulin routine, but his blood sugar is still higher than normal - i suspect, as a result of them not properly accounting for meals, only handling his actual blood sugar level. the fever still indicates infection, but it's much, much lower and his white blood cell count is down, which indicates that the antibiotics are working and the body is through fighting the worst of it.

he told me last night that he's reached his limit for hospital stays. i can't blame him - it's hard on me, but at least i can go home at night. home is lonely though. i miss him. i can tell that most of my emotions (especially with the crying) is the result of exhaustion because i wake up in the morning feeling mostly ok. (unless i talk about it too much - like now...) but hopefully, it's not much longer now...

thank you for your prayers.

i got home from the hospital tonight to find that my mom not only brought me the cat litter i asked her to pick up, but changed the cat pan, took out the garbage, and completely cleaned my kitchen. she and bob have been an enormous wealth of strength and support in the last few days. as they always are.

coming home to an empty house, sorely missing my partner, and longing for some human companionship. i gave up being at the hospital because while he sleeps, there's nothing for me to do but read or watch tv. at least when he's awake, i can busy myself by getting him what he needs, making him comfortable and talking with him.

he is doing better. he fell asleep early this evening, clearly exhausted. i tried to wake him up to tell him i was going home, but no luck - he's just too tired to retain anything. that might be the loneliest part of all. i just miss him.

matt woke with a fever of 103.5 at 3am yesterday morning. he called in sick to work, took a fistful of ibuprofen, and went back to bed. at 8am, i fed him more ibuprofen, and though the fever hadn't yet changed, it did come down a few hours later. but just a few hours later, it was back up - and higher. at 3:45, he called to say it was 104.4. i called the nearest doctor and arranged to take him in immediately. as i finished up at work, he called back, but was crying so hard he couldn't communicate. i called 911.

mom took me to the hospital, where we beat the ambulance by nearly 20 minutes. the emt's had noticed a bright rash on his right leg, and felt it was important to have checked. along with the fever, his blood sugar was out of control.

we were in emergency for a few hours. the surgeons drew around the outer edges and marked the interesting areas of his rash. he resembled my 3rd grade cartography project, so much so that i briefly considered labeling the "countries" on his shin with appropriate territory names. by 9pm, we had a room on the 17th floor, with - believe it or not - a gorgeous view of the city, lake union, gasworks park, and the freeway (which has a nearly-hypnotic quality when you're panicking about life situations). initial reviews of the rash lead the doctors to two prognoses: cellulitis - an infection in the fat layers - or necrotizing fascitis (sound familiar, grey's anatomy fans??) i cried - i had just seen a documentary on grey's anatomy and similar shows about how the cases they use are based on real - but rare - situations. i kept thinking that the stuff on tv isn't supposed to be real.

he went through an ultrasound, an xray, a ct scan at 3:30am, and then was moved to the critical care unit so that they could monitor his still-out-of-control blood sugar with an insulin drip, and have a better patient-to-nurse ratio. needless to say, i didn't sleep much.

in the ccu, we settled in and drifted off to sleep. within 20 minutes, they were there to move him out for an MRI. i've never seen so many medical procedures done on one patient in such a short period - not even on grey's.

i slept for the two hours he was in the MRI - drifting off between the beeps of the nearby monitors and awaking to the spinning wheels of heavy carts coming down the hall - in anticipation of his return.

despite having not hardly slept, i'm amazed at how awake i am and how quickly time does seem to pass. at 8:45, i left to save my illegally-parked car from a parking ticket, and returned to find three doctors, an intern and a nurse hovering around matt, discussing the situation.

praise the Lord - it is not nec. fasc. thank God. i just can't say it enough. i'm so thankful. before she went to bed last night, my mother warned me "in the dark, at night, when he's asleep and no one's around - do NOT let your mind go to 'that' place. just shut your eyes, and let yourself rest." but i couldn't help it - i was scared to death. so to hear from the doctors that they will not be operating and do not expect him to be in the hospital more than a few more days was a relief. i smiled real smiles - not the forced, polite, sad smiles i'd only been able to muster. we laughed and even joked. matt can eat now, and drink water, which he's been begging for since they cut him off at 10:30 last night, in preparation for the possibility of surgery. i'm still stressed out today, though resigned to not freaking out about the little things that are going to come up (uh, like the finances). i'm very tired, i need a shower, and good grief, i need out of these shoes.

so that's where i am today. where we are. if you're around and reading this, your prayers would be appreciated... maybe prayers for quick healing and strength to get through. i'm tired.

i *really* don't mean to be silent, i just have nothing to say!! sad, huh? let's see - what have i been thinking about today...

had planned to take photos of my neice on saturday, except that last night she took a bad fall and slashed her cheek open on the coffee table - 8 stitches. poor thing...

but rescheduling will give me the opportunity to make a tu-tu, which i've been dying to use on someone. like her. :D

the scale says i've lost 29 lbs. great feeling. i'm really looking forward to the 30 lb mark (really, just because it sounds good!) but my official "half-way goal" is 40 lbs.

have you seen the new Stampin' Up! catalog? holy cow. my previous obsession, which had tapered off quite a bit, is now back and raging. i need it all. well, ok, not all of it. but quite a bit. ;)

and the best thing i've been thinking about all day... matt and i have decided to plan a trip to europe... it's still a few years out - we want to pay off our debt first, and then save up for it so that we don't incur more debt. but we're thinking it will be a week in ireland - to visit the towns of my ancestors - and a week in germany - to visit the towns of his. i'm super excited... i'm trying to convince him to go for a week in turkey as well - my aunt will be teaching in ankara, and i'm all about free lodging. sadly, he's not really interested in turkey. oh well. :)

one more...

to make up for my lack of posting over the last few weeks... let's call it 'redeeming myself'.

so, we spent saturday & sunday at my dad & step-mom's last weekend. on our way home, we got a call from matt's mom mentioning that both of his sisters, and their families, would be at her house, and could we come visit... normally, we'd be too tired from travelling, but since we didn't have to get up the next morning for work (yay for four-day weekends!), we decided to head straight down.

it was really nice visiting with the family for a while... we picked raspberries, bbq'd, played with the kids, etc. i pulled out my camera while my niece, kassidy, was being particularly cute. after a while, she spotted my lens cap, and headed for it... apparently, she thought it was time for me to put the camera away:

july 4th...

we spent july 4th relatively quietly... a bbq with the young marrieds group from church, followed by the fireworks show in lynnwood. not quite as spectacular as the lake union show we usually see, but still pretty fun. i've been looking forward to having my camera out for fireworks, and i rather like a handful of the photos that i caught:

technically, the first one is terribly "overexposed" (for fireworks, anyway), but i love how that overexposure brought out the sky and the clouds.

the picnic was fun - food was great, company even better. i love this group of people, and i love that every time we get together, i meet someone new. that's awesome. now, if only i didn't have to wait a year to work with my camera and fireworks again...

do you have days like these?

i think that's the feline equivalent of ostrich syndrome (stick your head in the sand and hope the world goes away). i'm having one today. i'm just ready for it to be over. already.

happy friday. i'll share some 4th of July pictures later...

wallowing in my coolness.

(and making you sick?)

i'm down two sizes. yep - you heard me. two whole sizes. and that, my friends, feels great.

and it's motivation to keep going. (hear that self?? motivation.)

in the past, i had a tendency to give up after seeing some results. i'm not really sure why: perhaps it was because by the time i was seeing results, i was already cheating a little and fell into the mindset that "well, if this is working, i don't have to be so strict". but that's clearly never really worked for me in the past, so i'm not going there this time. i can still see the trouble-spots in my current day-to-day, and i'm working on them. and every day - i suppose - gets a little better. and as long as i'm steadily working, and things are consistently changing, i'm happy.