I won’t say vegan because I will still eat honey and I will eat fish about once a week (fish on the safe list and that is wild caught). What happened this week  happened to me back in 2005.  It wasn’t as painful but it sucked all the same.  I went on this diet for about a year and it helped tremendously. I’m sad because I really do enjoy meat (sorry veggies out there!) but I think it will help me and I’m up for anything at this point.  I will have to make Shaun (my meat LOVING husband) and Lucy meat most nights, but that’s okay.

I still don’t feel 100% but I do feel 100% better than I’ve felt in a week.  I am not mad at my body anymore and I’m ready to tackle this thing!!!

This morning Lucy and I went with Lissa and Tessa to the Farmer’s Market and I went a little crazy.  It felt so good to be out but I went veggie overboard.  We’re leaving for PA in a few days and I definitely didn’t need to buy so much.  I threw most of it in a pot and I’m making veggie soup that I can enjoy until we leave and I can freeze for when we get back. Win! Win!

I’ve been horrible about taking pictures lately.  I will remedy that!  Thank you ALL for the support.  I can’t tell you how much it means to me.

I got the results of the CT Scan back.  No stones and no abscess so NO SURGERY!  YAY!

Apparently, the meds they gave me for the UTI didn’t agree with my body and my entire digestive track has shut down.  It’s incredibly painful but I have both my traditional doctor and my naturopathic doctor helping to make things right.

To be honest, I’m really mad at my body and feel like a failure. I know these feelings are stupid but this issue comes up for me over and over again.  I seriously don’t know a person who eats better than I do-SERIOUSLY (and I read all the blogs that y’all read) and yet I still have all these digestive tract issues and I’m fat.  It’s really not fair. Life isn’t fair.

So, I’m trying to be really nice to my body and me (which isn’t going so well as evidenced by the paragraph above). But I’m trying.

Thanks for all the well wishes and I hope I get better soon.

I had a 12 hour stretch on Tuesday of feeling MUCH better.  That all ended on Wednesday morning. The pain is too much to handle unless I’m taking the Norco and once I’m on Norco, I can’t really function-it makes me really sleepy and loopy. I also am extremely nauseous and HAVE to take the Zofran to keep anything down which also makes me sleepy and loopy (and other things).

Right now, it’s a pretty constant pain on my right side that will turn into stabbing awful pains about once an hour that last for about 10 minutes.  I have to use labor breathing to get through them.  I literally bend over in pain. 

I’m seeing my doctor at 8:45.  It cannot come soon enough!

I feel like I’ve been in labor for 5 days and I don’t even get a cute cuddly baby at the end 🙁

I think most of you know that I gave birth to Lucy with no pain medicine.  I did have pitocin to speed up delivery but other than that, I had a natural childbirth.  It was the most painful but awesome thing I had ever experienced. Unfortunately on Friday night I found something that is more painful than childbirth and has NONE of the rewards.

A UTI that spread to my right kidney-causing a kidney infection. The first symptom was at 11 PM and by 2 AM, I was in so much pain that I was in tears. Every time I went to the bathroom (which was every 2 minutes) it felt like Lucy crowning (the VERY worst part of labor which only happens once). Plus I was starting to get pain in my back and was feeling dizzy. I called my doctor’s after hours clinic and the nurse listened to my symptoms and advised me to get to the Emergency Room immediately.  She told me that if I did pass out that Shaun was to call 911-way to scare me!

When I got to the ER, they took a sample and my urine looked like this:

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(That’s not really my urine-that’s a glass of cranberry juice).  They couldn’t believe it. I was given 2 different pain meds and an antibiotic and sent on my merry way. The doctor told me that if I felt worse to come back in to the ER.

I didn’t feel worse over the weekend but I definitely didn’t feel any better. This weekend was just awful.

I woke up this morning and was very nauseas and vomiting.  I got right into my doctor.  He took one look at me and hooked me up to an IV.  I got 2 bags of fluids and a different kind of antibiotic. Apparently, the antibiotic that they gave me in the ER wasn’t working.  I’m on a different one, plus Zofran for anti-nausea, and the 2 different pain meds, plus strict orders that if I feel worse to call my doctor immediately.

He still thinks I have a kidney infection but I could possible have a kidney stone or renal lacerations. If, on Wednesday, I’m still feeling awful, I’ll get an MRI to see if that’s the case.

I seriously wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.

Ugh.  The last 2 weeks have been brutal for me.  I made a mistake at work (which I try very hard not to do) and my client was PISSED at me (which has NEVER happened before) and it sent me into a hole.  It started with me berating myself for how stupid and incompetent I was and it quickly spiraled to me berating myself for how fat I was.  It wasn’t pretty.

With all the work I’ve been doing, I KNOW what it feels like to feel good about myself and it felt like this “fall” was so much harder because on top of berating myself for the way I look, I was berating myself for berating myself.  It was really ugly.

The good news?  I have some tools and I know how to use them.  I started writing positive affirmations and started really talking positively to myself but I was still finding myself slipping back into that hole.  I tried taking a bath.  We all know how that turned out. I tried yoga. I tried running.  I tried talking about it with Shaun, friends, and my sister.  The hole was not quite as deep, but I was still in that hole. Finally, I pulled out the big guns and scheduled a meeting with my Life Coach (I still feel so dumb saying that-but really, she is a Life Coach, she’s not a therapist-she talks A LOT about 5x as much as a therapist would).

We met yesterday over the phone and I found myself taking notes.  I took 3 pages of notes.  I took the most salient points and wrote them on post-its and stuck them on the wall.

Merry Christmas!

I seem to have 2 very strong voices in my head.  On is negative and insecure the other is positive and happy.  I need to acknowledge both of them and then make the choice.  I choose happy! (Happy is actually a hard choice for me because it’s comfortable to be negative and insecure-it’s what I know and what I have known for almost 30 years.  I’m trying to re-wire my brain to choose the other, happier voice).

Everything is going to be okay and all the work I’ve done-is not lost.

Pretty self explanatory.

Whatever the situation, we CAN make the choice to make us feel good.  I know what will make me feel good in any situation and I need to DO THAT.

There are all sorts of different “frequency sets”-depressed and down is one of them.  It’s one I know well. I need to visualize what it feels like to feel good.  It will come.

It’s all up to me.  I’m in control.

Well this sure does-good friends and LUCY!:

I’m working on this one.  I know running and biking do.  Competing does…

And my favorite:

The hole feels like a little divot.  I can easily get out.

 [source]

I guess there’s a series happening at the blog.  I much prefer my Cleaning with Vinegar post to this one but last week I had to clean with bleach.

I think I’ve mentioned before that the new house has a jacuzzi tub.  I have been VERY excited about this.  Last week we finally had a night cool enough that I could enjoy it.  I drew a bath, got in, and then stood up and turned on the jets.  Gobs and gobs of black stuff came SHOOTING out at me.  I screamed and jumped out (thank goodness I had the foresight to stand up!).  Shaun came running in to see the black algae swimming around in the tub and his wife freaking out.  We drained the tub, with a rag over the drain-to catch the algae.  Because of the rag, it drained REALLY slowly and I had to go to bed.  The next day I used Clorox wipes, Scrubbing Bubbles, and then I filled the tub up and poured about 2 cups of bleach in there and ran the jets.  It bubbled up!

It is now clean and I have since done some research.  This is actually quite common!  It is suggested that you add 1/4 cup powdered dishwasher detergent to a full tub and run it for about 10 minutes.  I will be doing that and SOON!

I’ve been training for a half marathon on October 10th.  I’ve been running 3 times a week but I’ve been slow.  My pre-Lucy slow pace was a 10 min/mile.  I don’t even think my fast pace could be that now.  I’ve been averaging over a 14 minute mile on my runs which has been quite a blow to my ego.  I have to remind myself that I haven’t run regularly in almost 3 years and that I have to build up.  I know from past experiences that one day your body just seems to adjust and you get faster (or at least I do).  Today was that day! 

I jumped down to a 11:44 min/mile pace.  I’m super excited and proud of myself.  Yippee!!!!

I expect perfection from myself.  I’m pretty positive that the majority of you out there reading this feel the exact.same.way.  When I don’t do something up to “my standards” and I am less than perfect I belittle, berate, and basically, I am downright mean to myself.  The funny thing is that I don’t expect perfection out of ANYONE else in my life and give most people a TON of leeway before I even get annoyed. I would never even dream of talking to someone else the way that I talk to me.

I’ve been working on this. HARD.  I have gotten better but I’ve definitely slipped into some of my old habits and I feel and hear a lot of those negative voices getting loud again.  I’m trying my hardest to quiet them and make the confident NICE voices much louder. What can I say? I’m a work in progress.

I will say that overall, I have gotten much better with myself and that I am growing.  HOWEVER, I made a mistake at work last week.  That’s something that I rarely do and WOW it sent me into a major tailspin that I’m just recovering from.  It’s taken me A WEEK to get over making one mistake at work. Huh? Wha? Come again? One mistake that my boss wasn’t even upset about.  That needs to change, right?

My Mom always used to say that she didn’t need to punish me because I would punish myself enough.  Old habits die hard.

I get asked a lot how I get it all done.  One of my secret weapons when I lived in California was that I could afford a cleaning lady.  Shaun and I kept the house neat and cleaned the kitchen, but, twice a month we had people in that cleaned our floors, toilets, mirrors, dusted, etc.  It was so nice to come home on the “cleaning lady” days to a sparkling, fresh smelling home.

With our new lifestyle, a cleaning lady is decidedly NOT in the budget.  After five years of not cleaning toilets, it was a rude awakening to have to clean them.  ICK.

Since I had to start cleaning again, I had to get new cleaning supplies.  Guess what I’m using for almost everything? (Well, if you read the title, then you already know).

That’s right, vinegar!

[source]

My friend, Stephanie, mentioned it on Facebook and I decided to give it a try.  I got 2 spray bottles (one for upstairs and one for down) and I filled them with a solution of equal parts vinegar and water.  I’ve been using the solution in the kitchen, in the bathroom-everywhere!

For a deeper clean, I’m planning on mixing baking soda and vinegar.  I haven’t tried it yet, but I will be.  I just ran out of my old toilet bowl cleaner, so the next time I clean the toilet, I’ll be breaking out the baking soda.

So far, I am REALLY happy with the vinegar solution-it’s cheap too!!!

What do you use to clean with, that you can’t live without?

One downside of being a WFHM is that I never get a break anymore.  When I was working I could take a break and write in the blog.  Yeah, not so much anymore.  I’m working so hard trying to get everything done by the time Lu is up from her nap that I don’t take any breaks.  Then, once Lu is up, I’m doing stuff with her.  Once she goes to bed, I have to clean up from the day and I’m exhausted.  It makes me sad though, I love writing and I miss it.  I’m going to try and carve out 20-30 minutes to write a day.  I think it will be good for me.

Since we last talked, I had a fun dinner party with my Aunt, Uncle, SIL, BIL, and Tessa.    

We also went on a magnificent hike the next day.  Only 30 minutes away and we were in the middle of pine trees and wild flowers.  It was gorgeous!

Fields of lupin:

Views:

Lu and Auntie Lala:

Doesn’t Lucy have a hard life?

Lissa and Tessa:

Awesome tree:

We had a blast with my Aunt and Uncle in town.  I hope they come to visit again SOON!!!!