our carpet is cursed

I swear, since the flooding, this carpet has attracted more crap in the past few weeks than it had in the [almost] year it has covered the garage floor. The last four days have been full of cat puke. Everywhere. At least a dozen piles of it. Plus a few hairballs. (We're working on controlling the culprit's, who turned out to be Jasmine, diet in hopes of solving the issue without an expensive visit to the vet. The only thing I can think is that maybe she ate a bad bug or a spider? But she doesn't puke when she is in the kennel so we're feeding her small amounts in the morning and the evening before bed and putting her in the kennel overnight. This seems to stave off the puke-a-rama.)

But back to the carpet.

This evening The Monkey was sitting down watching a bit of the tube when my six year old nephew walked up to the screen door, promptly dropped his drawers, and began emptying his full bladder onto our carpet through the screen door. The Monkey was like "Dude! Wake up!" but you know boys... once they start, they can't stop. So we spent the last 20 minutes cleaning up pee (my sister helped, of course) and cracking up because, hey, it was pretty freaking hilarious. This is the second time he's done this and all we can deduce is that he's just really tired when it happens and gets lost/confused in his walking coma-like state. The last time he did it he peed on my sister's bed. But that was a couple of years ago, easy. So it's not a common occurance or anything.

Any more freakish fluids on this carpet and I'm going to have to rent a Rug Doctor. Actually, that doesn't sound like a half bad idea at all. :-/

my less than exciting life

I've started a few entries over the last two weeks and I just haven't had the energy or motivation to finish them. Not to mention I'm just having trouble finding a way to put things into words. I feel totally inadequate as a writer these days.

I really have nothing to report. Unless you want to hear about the last four days of my constant cleaning of cat puke. Probably not, though.

The new meds seem to be doing just fine. The only problem I've had thus far was a really bad headache yesterday. But I was over it by 1:00-ish. I also had some pretty wacky and intense hallucinations a few nights back. I'll be sure to keep an eye on that. Also having strange waking nightmart type things where I wake up in the middle of the night and completely panic because I don't know where I am. I'm not sure if that's the meds or not. I guess we'll see.

Life is boring. I feel like everything is on pause. Or rather I'm on pause and the rest of the world is moving in fast forward around me. The Monkey changed job positions and is adjusting well. If they'd only hire him on as a permanent employee I'd be thrilled. He's changing shifts next week from 9:00 to 6:00 to 7:00 to 4:00. Also he'll be working once every third weekend. His schedule should go from being horribly erratic to stable once the changes take effect.

It's a nice day out and I'm seriously considering getting outside in the sunshine and washing/waxing my car. I haven't done it in... uh... probably a year. Well, not a serious wash, anyway. I've been to the car wash a few times and rinsed it a few times but I haven't detailed the poor thing in forever.

Mostly my life is boring.

nuh uh!

I totally don't believe in alternate dimensions that appear in vortexes on the ceiling when I wake up in the middle of the night. Nor do I believe that someone is moving doors and switching things around while I'm sleeping. And I DO know where I live and where I fall asleep and therefore where I am when wake up. And I also know who I am.

thanksverymuch

how I know

I know this is depression because I have plenty of things that I need to write about, plenty of things I want to say, but I just can't find the words (or the energy) to type them all out.

the box office boogie

I think I like going to the Drive-In better than a regular theater. It's loads cheaper for starters. We spent less than $30 to get in, get popcorn and drinks; we cheated and bough candy at Walmart, though, but that is included in the under $30 quote. Not to mention they run double features so we got to see two movies for a $1.00 less a head that it costs to get in the theater. Both movies were pretty good. Fast & Furious turned out to be a prequel to The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift which neither of us knew. That didn't take away from the movie, though. What The Monkey and I didn't like was the fact that this particular adaptation of the series was not at all like the others. It simply wasn't all about the cars and the street racing. Which was a bit of a let down because that's the reason we both like those movies. Fast cars and crazy driving make us foam at the mouth. :P The second movie, The Last House on the Left was okay, I guess. Worth sitting through just because we could. I wouldn't have paid extra to see it, though. It was fun cheering on the good guys because they completely got revenge on the bad guys. Wes Craven and Co. lose MAJOR kudos, however, for a ridiculously long and obscene rape scene, though. I mean, really. The implication that the girl was going to be raped was plenty for the story line. Did we actually have to see the rest of the brutality. It truly disgusted me and I was glad when the girl's father exacted a nice brutal revenge on her attacker.

Next up on the box office MUST SEE list for The Monkey and me: Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen both coming out in July. Despite it being such a better deal to see movies at the Drive-In we will most likely see both of these movies in the actual theater. Because Transformers (the first one) was so freaking kick ass in Dolby Digital Surround Sound and we'll likely drag the kiddos with us to see Harry Potter. I did promise them after all. :)

Now I'm going to go join The Monkey on the couch and listen to him quote The Matrix (which happens to be on TNT right this very moment) and hopefully fall asleep rather quickly. After tonight's indulgence I will definitely need to get out and walk on Monday. I haven't gained more than a few pounds in the two weeks I haven't walked but I certainly haven't lost any either. I'm falling behind schedule! Simply intolerable.

celebrating five years (a few days late...)

Tonight The Monkey and I are going to head to the local Drive-In to see Fast & Furious and The House on the Left. Mostly we're interested in Fast & Furious, the second movie is just a bonus. (Gotta love double features!) The movies start at approximately 7:45 so I'm guessing we'll head out somewhere for dinner around four. I guess that means I should head upstairs and get showered! We slept until 12:00 today. We were up until 2:00 watching The Fast & The Furious because I hadn't seen all of it. It's second only to The Matrix as The Monkey's favorite movie.

Also, I got my ring yesterday! It's SOOOO pretty! I tried to get a decent pic of it but my camera SUCKS at the macro function. The inscriptions were smaller than I expected (the website photo makes them look huge!) but the stones are just gorgeous. Sapphire and Blue Topaz really do sit well together. ;)

So far Lamictal has caused me NO grief. I keep checking myself for any hint/signs of a rash and I have none. Also, NO HEADACHES to date. Hoorah! I was pretty energetic yesterday. I got up early to watch the kiddos while my sister went to D-Town to pick up her hubby from the hospital. (He just had back surgery again.) When I put Madison down for a nap I started putting away all the [clean] laundry that had piled up since we flooded. I also did all of the dirty laundry so I had a mountain of clean clothes to fold and put away. I despise laundry! But I got it all done and then spent the rest of my afternoon reorganizing drawers. The Monkey has his own chest of drawers and all of my stuff is taking up the dresser and the [larger] chest of drawers. Yikes! Me thinks it's time to downsize. Our hanging clothes rack is packed full as well. I would like to go through those clothes and pull down all of my work clothes and put them in a bin and take them to storage. That would free up a LOT of space. But we'll see. It was a nice productive day and I was thrilled to have enough energy to buckle down and do it. I haven't had focused energy like that in a while. I was all Wow the Lamictal is working already! until I started doing other things that were more indicative of being hypomanic more than anything. Oh wells. At least it's not giving me any side effects.

Ok, time to go shower! I need to get primped and prettied for dinner and the movies. Which will involve makeup (of course) and flat ironing my hair!

all aboard the SS Lamotrigine

Lamictal is a fun medication. It can cause all sorts of freaky side effects the most notable of which is a potentially deadly rash (aka Stevens-Johnson Syndrome). Thankfully the rash can be cured by discontinuing the medication and it tends to hit slow and kill even slower. So like I could walk around with a rash for weeks without dying. [whew]

It also has a notable side effect of headaches. I'm going to try to ignore this tidbit of information. The only person in my family that rivals me in headache suffrage is my oldest sister. We've both been on Topamax for said headaches -- she longer than I. She has NO complaints about Lamictal and says it really has helped her a lot. I'm not sure if she knew it can cause headaches or not. If it did cause headaches for her, they weren't bothersome enough to merit concern. [double whew]

Back to The Rash. So apparently the best way to avoid The Rash (if it can be avoided; some people simply can't tolerate Lamictal) is to titrate the dose v-e-r-y s--l--o--w--l--y. I knew this before I even had a vested interest in taking it because I frequent crazymeds.us though I was never particularly observant of the recommended titration schedule. I just knew that starting slowly was key.

So when I went to get my scrip filled this afternoon (thank goodness for being on the medication assistance program!) I read the prescription bottle. "Take 1/2 [100mg] tablet twice a day." 50mg twice a day. I knew that was WAY too high a starting dosage without even doing any further research. Thankfully not only is my sister on this medication, so are a few of my [online] friends. My friend SK was vehement that the starting dosage was WAAAAAAY to high and recommended taking 25mg a day for a week or two to start, increase to 50mg for a week or two, then 100mg for a week, then 200mg for a week. Then I found the recommended titration schedule where else but the manufaturer's website. It too said 25mgs for the first two weeks, 50mg weeks three and four, 100mg for week five, and 200mg thereafter. WTF is my pdoc trying to kill me?!? Or is she really that big of a Lithium pusher that she wanted me to develop The Rash of Death so I couldn't take Lamictal?? Mostly I think she's probably fabulously unobservant. Or something.

So I took my first 25ish mg dose tonight. I say 25ish because I had to quarter a 100mg tablet. And the tablets are shield shaped and only perfectly semetrical ONE way; the top half being wider than the bottom half of the pill. Why the geniuses at the pharmacy didn't just give me 25mg tablets I don't know. (GSK doesn't make a 50mg tablet oddly enough.)

At any rate, keep your fingers crossed that I don't develop any horrible, intolerable side effects, especially The Rash. AND that this is my "miracle" drug.

That is pretty much all. Tomorrow will be an awesomesauce Friday. My anniversary present will be here! Super excited! Plus, it's Friday and The Monkey has off all weekend. And I'm feeling pretty optimistic about things for the moment. Let's hope it holds up!