Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Shameless promotion for the PastaQueen

One of my favorite bloggers is the PastaQueen, otherwise known as Jennette Fulda.  If you haven't read the PastaQueen blog (www.pastaqueen.com), I order you to do so right away.  Funny writer, great posts, and she designs web sites, too.  If I ever get more than 3 people to admit that they follow my blog, I'm going to hire her to design a site for me.

Jennette's second book came out today, but let me start with her first book titled Half-Assed: A Weight Loss Memoir.  The woman lost close to 200 pounds, half her weight.  Her memoir about accomplishing this feat is heartwarming, laugh-out-loud funny, and sometimes just sadly real.  She can truly weave a story and her story is nothing short of amazing.

Her second book is Chocolate & Vicodin: My Quest for Relief from the Headache that Wouldn't Go Away.  My copy is on its way from Amazon.com, so I can't really tell you how good it is (although I know it's going to be good because her first book was so good).  But if you look at Amazon's product description for this book on their website, it says:

"Jennette Fulda went to bed on February 17, 2008, with a headache, and more than three years later, it still hasn’t gone away. Yes, she’s tried everything: intravenous drugs, chiropractic adjustments, acupuncture, subliminal messaging, marijuana (for medical purposes only), heavy drinking (which just made it hurt more), and lots and lots of chocolate. A pint of ice cream makes her feel better, but her insurance doesn’t cover mint chocolate chip.

In this painfully honest, smart, and funny memoir, the popular PastaQueen.com blogger who chronicled her nearly two hundred pound weight loss in Half-Assed shares her incredible journey to find relief from a chronic headache. As she visits countless doctors, indulges all manner of unsolicited advice from the Internet, and investigates every possible cause, from a brain tumor to a dead twin living in her brain, Jennette considers what it means to suffer, how to live with pain, and why the best treatment might be the simplest: laughter."

Like I said, I ordered my copy from Amazon.  The price was terrific, even with paying the shipping cost.  But wherever you prefer to shop, do yourself a favor and treat yourself to both of Jennette's books.  You won't be disappointed.  And if you want to thank me after reading them, chocolate and vicodin sounds good to me!

Ramblings and random thoughts.....

This is how I looked when I saw the light layer of snow on the roof of our house this morning.


My friends say, "It's just snowflakes!"  My brother Steve says, "It's February.  Snow is not out of the question."  Fortunately, since he's family, I can slap the snot out of him the next time I see him.  I can't help it.  I have finally reached that age where I can't deal with the snow, cold, and ice anymore.  I want the sun to shine every day and temps in the low 70's.  If friends and family haven't reached this point yet, it's not my fault that they're behind in their development. :-)

I do my best thinking in the bathroom.  I never eat in the bathroom.  I once worked with a woman who would take fruit and a book with her into the stall in the ladies' room.  That just creeped me out.  The book is fine.  If you know you're going to be a while and need something to do besides making dolls out of the toilet paper, a book is a good thing to have.  But food?  You've got to draw the line somewhere.  That just ain't right.  Anyway, where was I?  Oh yeah.  I do my best thinking in the bathroom.  Whether taking a shower or parked on the throne, I have some of my deepest and clearest thoughts in the john.

So last Thursday, I was settled all comfy-cozy in the stall in the ladies' restroom at work.  I was just sitting there, minding my own business, bouncing on the seat, immersed in thought----now wait a minute.  Don't go telling me you all have never done the seat bounce.  I know better.  And I can tell you from experience that if you have IBS, you're for sure bouncing a lot more than you're admitting.  Sooooo, someone comes in, takes a perch, does her business, and heads over to the sink counter to wash her hands.  I'm already giving her 5 points for flushing (you'd be surprised how many women don't remember to flush) and about to award her with 10 more points for washing her germy hands.....when she did it.  Instead of getting those fingerlets soaped up and clean right away, she grabs the paper towel container handle first and unloads a long sheet of paper towel.  I don't care how much paper towel she uses.  My brain is screaming because she slimed her potty germies all over the paper towel machine handle BEFORE she washed her hands.  YUCK!  I immediately bounced a few more times out of frustration and then took away every point I had given her.

As I said, I do my best thinking in the bathroom.  And what I realized last Thursday, just after I pictured myself disinfecting the paper towel machine with a flamethrower, is that I just don't care.  All right, I do care about getting a diagnosis sometime during my lifetime.  But using the BiPAP machine, losing weight, exercising, eating right----I don't give a flying rat's whiskers.  "BT" ("Before Therapy"), I would have not cared because I believed that I wasn't worth the caring about.  That was before "BT".  I know better these days.  But now, after "MHH" ("My Heart Hurts"), I truly don't care.  I watched as my sister died and then my mom died just 10 months later, and now I think, what's the point?  It doesn't matter, all this stuff.  Lose the weight, exercise, eat right, get your sleep, take your vitamins, eat those Omega-3's------it just doesn't matter.  We're still going to die.  I know.  Someone is thinking, don't you have anything to live for?  Don't you want to be at your little nieces' and nephew's college graduations?  If I can do that, it would be great.  But if I die before it happens, I won't know anyway.  I'll be dead.  I won't know what I'm missing.  I know it sounds silly and I'm not expressing it well.  I have more thinking to do.  But for right now, I really don't care.  Folks will probably get on my case about it all.  I have only one thing to say about that.  DON'T.  Some things you just have to work through on your own.

I don't know why I don't weigh less than I do.  I really don't eat gobs and gobs of food.  I don't exercise much, I know, but between the butt bouncing, leg jiggling, teeth grinding, lip chewing (that takes more muscles than you realize), keeping time with the music, and all the body tics I've got going all day long, you'd think I'd be a lot thinner.  Which brings me to Dr. Evil.  I see her on Thursday morning, at which time she will note that I have obviously not lost any weight like she told me to start doing six months ago.  In the meantime, she has been dieting and I'm betting that she is down to my size now and probably less.  I'm pretty sure that I'm going to need 3 hash browns and a cinnamon melt from McDonald's after my appointment to comfort me after she gets through with me.  Of course, I'll wash all that down with a Diet Coke!

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

So I got my test results......

…..and they are Negative and Negative. I don’t have Celiac Disease. There are no tumors on my parotid glands. I’m a mix of being grateful that nothing bad was found and being upset because we still don’t have a diagnosis after almost 10 months of testing. The afternoon I got the results, I took the rest of the day to be verklempt and grumpy and feel sorry for myself. The next morning, I sucked it up and started being strong again. But I must admit, this is really wearing on me.

As long as I’m admitting things, I haven’t used my Bi-PAP mask and machine for at least 2 months, maybe longer. I just can’t stand the thought of having that thing on my face. It’s too confining and I’m a little too claustrophobic. Not that I need to explain it. The picture says it all.


I’m just not dealing well with it. Unfortunately, I need to because sleep apnea can kill you. So, once again, I’m going to have to suck it up and be strong.

I’m tired of being strong.  And now I'm whiney, too!  I think I need to just get over my fine self and put a big smile on my face right now!

There, that's better!

Is anyone else hearing tree limbs cracking off and dropping onto their roofs?  It's happened 3 times here in the past 15 minutes.  We had the lovely ice coating everything except our driveway this morning, so I had to show up at work.  I'm grateful to have a job, really.  It just would have been nice to work from home in my jammies today.  But I've been going outside to check the roof and our driveway is now coated with a shiny sheet of ice.  And tomorrow I want to go to work because it's Skyline day.  I can't miss lunch at Skyline!

Well, obviously, I have nothing interesting to write about, so I'll just sign off like the guys on my favorite show "Wipeout" and hope that the next blog will be much more entertaining.

Good night.....and big balls!