Marginally better.
I had to over-hydrate myself this morning for a blood draw (6 tubes - whoa), and found my eyes didn't burn so much. Of course, it's cloudy and cool today, and the pollen count has fallen from its insane peak, so that's probably helping, too. It's not as if my eyes aren't dry, they're just not completely parched and painful.
My RA was only bad in waves today, or maybe because I was busy I was just able to ignore it better. I do hate it when my hands throb.
My hip: meh. My left piriformis is killing me, in spite of fairly scrupulous efforts to never, ever twist my hips. I catch myself crossing my legs occasionally, and immediately uncross them. The muscle (and it's only the one) hurts worse than the joint, most of the time. I still have very limited range of motion. This is the first time I've had something happen where it really is affecting my quality of life other than just overlaying everything with a haze of pain. I really miss being able to sit cross-legged! There's no way I could do that now with the hip the way it is. Still haven't found a good way to stretch the piriformis with my limited mobility. BioFreeze.
Sinus pain/pressure: much better today -- yesterday I thought it would about kill me, it was a throbbing 7 most of the day, but that's because I didn't get nearly enough sleep the night before. I got a good 7 hours last night and I'm sure that helped a lot. Today, only mild pressure and short-lived pain reaching only a 3 or a 4. I'm tired now, and I can feel it more. I discussed it with DH, and we've both decided it's not brain metastases (heh), but it could be cluster headaches. Hope it's not, but I do have a history of migraines.
Energy level was OK today, I didn't have to work so hard to push through the fatigue. Mentally I feel quite sharp even though I feel physically exhausted, which is OK -- I hate it when the brain fog sets in, at least now I can still think.
I have to look at the calendar and figure out when everything started so I know what to say when I see Dr. C, the TMJ/headache specialist on Wednesday. This has certainly been going on long enough.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Thursday, April 15, 2010
even the tiny green ones are fuzzy
Hope springs eternal.
barely an inch long
No, not olives!
If they survive the heat of the summer and we get enough of a cold snap in the fall, we might just have a little peach crop this year.
If they survive the heat of the summer and we get enough of a cold snap in the fall, we might just have a little peach crop this year.
quite a spell
I've been taking Arthrotec since Saturday, and haven't really noticed much improvement. Sometimes my hands are better, but they still bother me throughout the day. Although they don't appear as swollen, they still hurt. Some days (yesterday, for example), my eyes are fine; this morning, I could barely open them, they were so dry. That's what I get for neglecting to put drops in before I went to sleep. As far as I can tell, that problem is unrelated to how well hydrated I am, the pollen count, or cosmetics.
The hip is a problem. Tuesday's modified workout (no bike, no running) seemed to help everything else and not aggravate the hip. I worked out somewhat less carefully yesterday, hoping for more improvement, only to be rewarded with an excruciatingly painful hip. Tylenol, ice, and Lidocaine patches are barely taking the edge off. Sitting, standing, and lying down are equally painful. At the same time, the muscle problems that usually accompany my bad hip are not bad at all -- I think the Arthrotec is helping there.
In other news, the hip x-ray was normal. I don't think bursitis shows up on x-rays. I'm relieved that there's no bone damage or bone metastases, although it would be weird if there were, considering how suddenly this all came on.
My theory is that I just overdid it in my preparations for Easter, when I was very active and on my feet for two very long days. My symptoms didn't kick in right away -- Easter was a great day, it was really not until Tuesday that I started feeling miserable -- but that's the only "event" I can point to that might have triggered the flare. OTOH, I have vacuumed the entire house before without these horrible effects, so maybe that's not it.
The Arthrotec is definitely helping my neck, although I've a muscle in my left shoulder that feels rock-like most of the time, no matter how much I stretch and massage it. It also seems to be helping my stomach, at least on the gastroparesis front, although it does make me feel pukey for a couple of hours after I take it, even taking it with food. That side effect is supposed to diminish after a week -- here's hoping.
The blocked/congested left sinus situation persists; the Arthrotec is taking the edge off that, too. I'm wearing my speaking splint on the theory that it's TMJ-related, but so far it hasn't made any difference at all.
The purpose of this is not to whine, the purpose is to keep track of my various symptoms during this active treatment phase so I can see what, if anything, is working. Here's the whining part: I'm not sleeping well (no surprise), and I still haven't heard about either my practicum placement or my job application.
On the positive side, RE classes are swiftly drawing to a close, and DS2 will receive his sacraments April 24. I made the most awesome "donut muffins", cinnamon butter puffs from my beloved The Breakfast Book. And I've backed up my entire website in preparation for porting this blog to another platform. I've been taking naps in the morning to make up my sleep deficit, and I feel very lucky that I'm able to do that. I have only 2 lessons left in one of my courses, and 4 in the other (of course there's also that practicum to get out of the way.) School will be out before we know it. I'm really looking forward to summer.
The hip is a problem. Tuesday's modified workout (no bike, no running) seemed to help everything else and not aggravate the hip. I worked out somewhat less carefully yesterday, hoping for more improvement, only to be rewarded with an excruciatingly painful hip. Tylenol, ice, and Lidocaine patches are barely taking the edge off. Sitting, standing, and lying down are equally painful. At the same time, the muscle problems that usually accompany my bad hip are not bad at all -- I think the Arthrotec is helping there.
In other news, the hip x-ray was normal. I don't think bursitis shows up on x-rays. I'm relieved that there's no bone damage or bone metastases, although it would be weird if there were, considering how suddenly this all came on.
My theory is that I just overdid it in my preparations for Easter, when I was very active and on my feet for two very long days. My symptoms didn't kick in right away -- Easter was a great day, it was really not until Tuesday that I started feeling miserable -- but that's the only "event" I can point to that might have triggered the flare. OTOH, I have vacuumed the entire house before without these horrible effects, so maybe that's not it.
The Arthrotec is definitely helping my neck, although I've a muscle in my left shoulder that feels rock-like most of the time, no matter how much I stretch and massage it. It also seems to be helping my stomach, at least on the gastroparesis front, although it does make me feel pukey for a couple of hours after I take it, even taking it with food. That side effect is supposed to diminish after a week -- here's hoping.
The blocked/congested left sinus situation persists; the Arthrotec is taking the edge off that, too. I'm wearing my speaking splint on the theory that it's TMJ-related, but so far it hasn't made any difference at all.
The purpose of this is not to whine, the purpose is to keep track of my various symptoms during this active treatment phase so I can see what, if anything, is working. Here's the whining part: I'm not sleeping well (no surprise), and I still haven't heard about either my practicum placement or my job application.
On the positive side, RE classes are swiftly drawing to a close, and DS2 will receive his sacraments April 24. I made the most awesome "donut muffins", cinnamon butter puffs from my beloved The Breakfast Book. And I've backed up my entire website in preparation for porting this blog to another platform. I've been taking naps in the morning to make up my sleep deficit, and I feel very lucky that I'm able to do that. I have only 2 lessons left in one of my courses, and 4 in the other (of course there's also that practicum to get out of the way.) School will be out before we know it. I'm really looking forward to summer.
Thursday, April 08, 2010
staying on top of things
The shooting pains in my hip this morning convinced me to call my rheumatologist. I had perfect timing in calling, because they just had a cancellation so I'm getting to see her tomorrow afternoon. That's practically a miracle. It has been quite a while since I've been in (12/08), so they've sent me a new patient information packet to fill out -- I'm not looking forward to doing the pain inventory right now, mostly because it's pretty bad. I was trying to scale the hip pain and decided on a 6 (1-10 pain scale), which for me, means that it was so bad that I couldn't sit still, I kept moving trying to find a position that would relieve it. Nothing worked, although it did calm down a bit (the ibuprofen takes the edge off), so now it's about a 4, constantly calling attention to itself.
My hands are bothering me, too, to the point I haven't even been putting my rings on at all, although I have them on now -- but I can feel them, they feel heavy around my finger, and the hands themselves are at least a 4, too. Sheesh.
At least today my neck is not too bad... it occurred to me that the pain in my sinus might be TMJ-related, although I have absolutely no TMJ-related symptoms, my jaw feels fine, no clicking or anything like that. Plus I am religious about posture these days, especially the set of my shoulders, because my neck injury has been flaring up a bit.
Anyway: Day 4 of the Z-pack and while the sinus pain is somewhat reduced, at times it hurts just as much as ever, regardless of the ibuprofen status. I'm not holding out much hope for that Z-pack, but I am considering calling Dr. C and getting an opinion from him. I need to go dig out my speaking splint and start wearing it, and see if it makes any difference, and I'll continue with my neck/shoulder exercises too -- not that they are helping, but they're certainly not hurting.
My stomach is 'eh' these days. Easter was ridiculous, how much I ate -- and drank (mimosas!) -- but I didn't feel sick at all. I've been good since then, although not totally low carb (6 jellybeans last night, a couple of tiny lemon squares in the afternoon) -- but not crazy eating, either. I'm not paying any attention to my weight since my hands are so swollen, I have no way to evaluate how accurate it is, but it is nearly as high as it was when I started my "diet". Some days I feel normal, like I can eat anything I want and be fine, other days I feel as if nothing's working properly and I should stick with a liquid diet. (On that note, the Gold Standard vanilla ice cream flavor whey + cocoa + DaVinci sf dark cherry syrup = insane deliciousness.) I actually bought gum today, in the hope that chewing some would help my stomach wake up while I was out doing errands today.
I applied for my dream job on 3/31, still haven't heard anything. Still haven't heard about my practicum placement, either. I don't like waiting.
My hands are bothering me, too, to the point I haven't even been putting my rings on at all, although I have them on now -- but I can feel them, they feel heavy around my finger, and the hands themselves are at least a 4, too. Sheesh.
At least today my neck is not too bad... it occurred to me that the pain in my sinus might be TMJ-related, although I have absolutely no TMJ-related symptoms, my jaw feels fine, no clicking or anything like that. Plus I am religious about posture these days, especially the set of my shoulders, because my neck injury has been flaring up a bit.
Anyway: Day 4 of the Z-pack and while the sinus pain is somewhat reduced, at times it hurts just as much as ever, regardless of the ibuprofen status. I'm not holding out much hope for that Z-pack, but I am considering calling Dr. C and getting an opinion from him. I need to go dig out my speaking splint and start wearing it, and see if it makes any difference, and I'll continue with my neck/shoulder exercises too -- not that they are helping, but they're certainly not hurting.
My stomach is 'eh' these days. Easter was ridiculous, how much I ate -- and drank (mimosas!) -- but I didn't feel sick at all. I've been good since then, although not totally low carb (6 jellybeans last night, a couple of tiny lemon squares in the afternoon) -- but not crazy eating, either. I'm not paying any attention to my weight since my hands are so swollen, I have no way to evaluate how accurate it is, but it is nearly as high as it was when I started my "diet". Some days I feel normal, like I can eat anything I want and be fine, other days I feel as if nothing's working properly and I should stick with a liquid diet. (On that note, the Gold Standard vanilla ice cream flavor whey + cocoa + DaVinci sf dark cherry syrup = insane deliciousness.) I actually bought gum today, in the hope that chewing some would help my stomach wake up while I was out doing errands today.
I applied for my dream job on 3/31, still haven't heard anything. Still haven't heard about my practicum placement, either. I don't like waiting.
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
latest ows
A couple of things I need to keep track of...
I have an eye/sinus thing that's well into its third week. I let it go for a while but then it became painful -- I thought it was just a temporarily blocked tear duct, but then it moved into my face and is not fun. I broke down and went to the doctor last week, he started me on anti-biotic eye drops on the theory that whatever it is started in the eye. Instructions were to give a good 5 days, and if it wasn't better, to start the Z-pack. I started the Z-pack yesterday. No appreciable relief yet. My eyes are very dry and gritty -- I'm using the Refresh tears more often than I ever have before, but the eyes still burn all the time.
Coincidentally I had a follow-up with my ENT today, who anesthetized my nose and then scoped it (very cool gadget, that) and didn't see a thing indicating any kind of infection. No swelling, inflammation, discharge, nothing. He did say there could be a sub-clinical infection in the sinus which he wouldn't be able to see with the scope, so we should give the Z-pack a good 10 days to work -- and if it's not better by than, he'll send me for a CT scan.
I don't want a CT scan, for many reasons. First of all, whenever I hear the word "scan" my brain automatically goes directly to "metastases", which is absurd, but I've been living with cancer for five and a half years now, and that's just the way my brain works. Second, CTs are expensive, and third, it probably won't show anything. The ENT mentioned the possibility that it could be a nerve problem. On a certain level I'm pretty happy that everything looks OK up inside my head (at least the parts the doctor could see - nasal passages, ears, throat, heck even my eyes look fine), while at the same time I'm wishing this was just a simple, treatable sinus infection. It's not, and I know it's not, because I've had plenty of sinus infections in my day, and I can't recall a single one feeling like this and not responding at all to Sudafed, mucinex, sinus rinses and ibuprofen. All that OTC stuff gets a handle on congestion, drainage, and inflammation, and helps clear out the sinuses so they can heal -- and none of it has helped a bit this time.
So I'll just wait and see. Perhaps whatever this is related to this:
I'm in a wicked flare the past couple of days. It may have started before Easter but I was too busy to pay it much attention, but I'm hurting everywhere now, even on a steady diet of ibuprofen. I'm just keeping my rings off because my hands are swollen and I don't want them to get stuck. My left hip is particularly bad -- it has been bothering me for a few weeks now with limited range of motion, but nothing too horrible. I figured I'd pulled it working out and it would get better, but it hasn't. Pain in the joint has been increasing, which sucks, and now all the muscles in my butt/hip on the left side are all seized up. Which came first, the muscles seizing up or the joint pain? They are definitely related. I'm doing my best not to torque my hips around, which means sleeping with a pillow between my knees, never crossing my legs, and not curling up in a chair or on the couch or anywhere -- I can't tuck my feet under me or sit cross-legged and man, is that annoying and tiring and worst of all, it's not helping.
Stretching: the ones I can do aren't helping, and the ones I want to do I can't do because of that range-of-motion problem I mentioned. Copious amounts of Biofreeze gel help. I spoke to the 24-hour on call nurse at Blue Cross and she recommended I see the rheumatologist, but I kind of want to see the sinus thing through first. (Now I sound like my mother, who doesn't want to multi-task health issues.) Perhaps I'll call tomorrow.
Sleeping OK. Feeling a bit pukey from the antibiotics (I think, it feels different from the gastroparesis pukiness. No actual puking, though, as has been true for the last ~20 years.) Ate way too many sweets (too much in general) over Easter -- which may have contributed to the flare -- and am now back to eating sensibly. Was hoping that would have a more immediate impact on my general condition, but so far, no such luck.
I have an eye/sinus thing that's well into its third week. I let it go for a while but then it became painful -- I thought it was just a temporarily blocked tear duct, but then it moved into my face and is not fun. I broke down and went to the doctor last week, he started me on anti-biotic eye drops on the theory that whatever it is started in the eye. Instructions were to give a good 5 days, and if it wasn't better, to start the Z-pack. I started the Z-pack yesterday. No appreciable relief yet. My eyes are very dry and gritty -- I'm using the Refresh tears more often than I ever have before, but the eyes still burn all the time.
Coincidentally I had a follow-up with my ENT today, who anesthetized my nose and then scoped it (very cool gadget, that) and didn't see a thing indicating any kind of infection. No swelling, inflammation, discharge, nothing. He did say there could be a sub-clinical infection in the sinus which he wouldn't be able to see with the scope, so we should give the Z-pack a good 10 days to work -- and if it's not better by than, he'll send me for a CT scan.
I don't want a CT scan, for many reasons. First of all, whenever I hear the word "scan" my brain automatically goes directly to "metastases", which is absurd, but I've been living with cancer for five and a half years now, and that's just the way my brain works. Second, CTs are expensive, and third, it probably won't show anything. The ENT mentioned the possibility that it could be a nerve problem. On a certain level I'm pretty happy that everything looks OK up inside my head (at least the parts the doctor could see - nasal passages, ears, throat, heck even my eyes look fine), while at the same time I'm wishing this was just a simple, treatable sinus infection. It's not, and I know it's not, because I've had plenty of sinus infections in my day, and I can't recall a single one feeling like this and not responding at all to Sudafed, mucinex, sinus rinses and ibuprofen. All that OTC stuff gets a handle on congestion, drainage, and inflammation, and helps clear out the sinuses so they can heal -- and none of it has helped a bit this time.
So I'll just wait and see. Perhaps whatever this is related to this:
I'm in a wicked flare the past couple of days. It may have started before Easter but I was too busy to pay it much attention, but I'm hurting everywhere now, even on a steady diet of ibuprofen. I'm just keeping my rings off because my hands are swollen and I don't want them to get stuck. My left hip is particularly bad -- it has been bothering me for a few weeks now with limited range of motion, but nothing too horrible. I figured I'd pulled it working out and it would get better, but it hasn't. Pain in the joint has been increasing, which sucks, and now all the muscles in my butt/hip on the left side are all seized up. Which came first, the muscles seizing up or the joint pain? They are definitely related. I'm doing my best not to torque my hips around, which means sleeping with a pillow between my knees, never crossing my legs, and not curling up in a chair or on the couch or anywhere -- I can't tuck my feet under me or sit cross-legged and man, is that annoying and tiring and worst of all, it's not helping.
Stretching: the ones I can do aren't helping, and the ones I want to do I can't do because of that range-of-motion problem I mentioned. Copious amounts of Biofreeze gel help. I spoke to the 24-hour on call nurse at Blue Cross and she recommended I see the rheumatologist, but I kind of want to see the sinus thing through first. (Now I sound like my mother, who doesn't want to multi-task health issues.) Perhaps I'll call tomorrow.
Sleeping OK. Feeling a bit pukey from the antibiotics (I think, it feels different from the gastroparesis pukiness. No actual puking, though, as has been true for the last ~20 years.) Ate way too many sweets (too much in general) over Easter -- which may have contributed to the flare -- and am now back to eating sensibly. Was hoping that would have a more immediate impact on my general condition, but so far, no such luck.
Monday, March 29, 2010
diet, gastroparesis, etc
March 16th: cooked a bunch of new stuff, ate way too much, felt sick all night.
March 17th: diet!
Wait, how could I start a diet on St. Patrick's Day?
Honestly, it wasn't a problem. I didn't want to eat anything on St. Patrick's Day. I felt so miserable I was compelled to do something. A huge internet search led me to a new gastroparesis blog with some good suggestions.
Since the 17th, I've had protein shakes for breakfast and lunch, and then whatever we're having for dinner, although I've been watching portions, especially carbs. I decided to do this for two reasons: first, because I felt so very sick on the night of the 16th. It really upset me that just eating what for many people would be a normal dinner would make me so sick. Second, on the morning of the 17th, I stepped on the scale and looked at a number I hadn't seen since my pregnancy days. Clearly I had to do something to get things under control. I wasn't paying attention to what, when, or how much I was eating, and in spite of occasional bouts of misery, I had been gaining weight. A pound here or there every three or four months doesn't seem like much, but they were creeping up.
My gastroparesis seems to be responding well to this regimen. Not having to digest solid food for most of the day seems to make handling dinner not as much of a problem, although I am nibbling Trader Joe's candied ginger or Ginger Chews nearly every evening. The ginger was a piece of advice I picked up from Crystal's Living with Gastroparesis blog (linked above), and it has really helped.
So my stomach's doing better and I'm back to the weight on my driver's license, down 9 pounds since the 17th. It has been quite a while since that was true. (I'm not sure it was true on the day I got the license.) I'd like to lose a little more for bathing suit season (here's hoping we have some beach weather this summer), but mostly I'm happy I don't feel like puking all the time. Now that I'm back down to what is technically my "normal" weight, I'm curious to see what happens. Since I've cut back my carbs my appetite is pretty much gone -- but at the same time, I don't get that horrid nausea I used to get first thing in the morning when my stomach was empty.
Interestingly, I seem to have the worst gastroparesis symptoms when I eat more starches. I'm still taking digestive enzymes and omeprazole (Prilosec acid-reducer) twice a day. I tried peppermint oil but that seemed to make my reflux worse (a noted side effect), and I experimented with Betain to see if my problem was insufficient acid as opposed to too much, and that was definitely not the case. I've ordered some Iberogast after reading what Crystal had to say about it, it will be interesting to see if it helps when it arrives.
You'd think after nearly two weeks I'd be sick of the shakes, but I try to vary them. I'm also like them because they are fast and easy, and they don't make me sick. That last is a huge plus, and explains a lot of my fondness for them. Also, the Gold Standard Whey is a very good tasting whey protein shake mix, with a pleasant mouth feel (some leave the inside of your mouth feeling like it's coated with plastic.) Some shake recipes:
- coffee instead of water, sprinkle with cinnamon
- coffee, add a scoop of cocoa powder for a mocha
- add a scoop of cocoa powder and a tablespoon or so of peanut butter
- add a scoop of cocoa powder and some sugar free black cherry syrup (I have been corrupted by Starbuck's new Black Cherry Mocha. It's insanely delicious, I just wish they had a no-sugar option.)
- orange Powerade Zero instead of water to make a creamsicle shake
If you use cocoa powder or peanut butter, you have to leave it on the blender for a while. I usually throw in a couple of ice cubes and let it blend while I'm puttering around in the kitchen -- a good 3 or 4 minutes, at least. It gets nice and frothy, which makes it easier for me to drink. I'm thinking of trying cream cheese to see if I can get a cheesecake flavor.
March 17th: diet!
Wait, how could I start a diet on St. Patrick's Day?
Honestly, it wasn't a problem. I didn't want to eat anything on St. Patrick's Day. I felt so miserable I was compelled to do something. A huge internet search led me to a new gastroparesis blog with some good suggestions.
Since the 17th, I've had protein shakes for breakfast and lunch, and then whatever we're having for dinner, although I've been watching portions, especially carbs. I decided to do this for two reasons: first, because I felt so very sick on the night of the 16th. It really upset me that just eating what for many people would be a normal dinner would make me so sick. Second, on the morning of the 17th, I stepped on the scale and looked at a number I hadn't seen since my pregnancy days. Clearly I had to do something to get things under control. I wasn't paying attention to what, when, or how much I was eating, and in spite of occasional bouts of misery, I had been gaining weight. A pound here or there every three or four months doesn't seem like much, but they were creeping up.
My gastroparesis seems to be responding well to this regimen. Not having to digest solid food for most of the day seems to make handling dinner not as much of a problem, although I am nibbling Trader Joe's candied ginger or Ginger Chews nearly every evening. The ginger was a piece of advice I picked up from Crystal's Living with Gastroparesis blog (linked above), and it has really helped.
So my stomach's doing better and I'm back to the weight on my driver's license, down 9 pounds since the 17th. It has been quite a while since that was true. (I'm not sure it was true on the day I got the license.) I'd like to lose a little more for bathing suit season (here's hoping we have some beach weather this summer), but mostly I'm happy I don't feel like puking all the time. Now that I'm back down to what is technically my "normal" weight, I'm curious to see what happens. Since I've cut back my carbs my appetite is pretty much gone -- but at the same time, I don't get that horrid nausea I used to get first thing in the morning when my stomach was empty.
Interestingly, I seem to have the worst gastroparesis symptoms when I eat more starches. I'm still taking digestive enzymes and omeprazole (Prilosec acid-reducer) twice a day. I tried peppermint oil but that seemed to make my reflux worse (a noted side effect), and I experimented with Betain to see if my problem was insufficient acid as opposed to too much, and that was definitely not the case. I've ordered some Iberogast after reading what Crystal had to say about it, it will be interesting to see if it helps when it arrives.
You'd think after nearly two weeks I'd be sick of the shakes, but I try to vary them. I'm also like them because they are fast and easy, and they don't make me sick. That last is a huge plus, and explains a lot of my fondness for them. Also, the Gold Standard Whey is a very good tasting whey protein shake mix, with a pleasant mouth feel (some leave the inside of your mouth feeling like it's coated with plastic.) Some shake recipes:
- coffee instead of water, sprinkle with cinnamon
- coffee, add a scoop of cocoa powder for a mocha
- add a scoop of cocoa powder and a tablespoon or so of peanut butter
- add a scoop of cocoa powder and some sugar free black cherry syrup (I have been corrupted by Starbuck's new Black Cherry Mocha. It's insanely delicious, I just wish they had a no-sugar option.)
- orange Powerade Zero instead of water to make a creamsicle shake
If you use cocoa powder or peanut butter, you have to leave it on the blender for a while. I usually throw in a couple of ice cubes and let it blend while I'm puttering around in the kitchen -- a good 3 or 4 minutes, at least. It gets nice and frothy, which makes it easier for me to drink. I'm thinking of trying cream cheese to see if I can get a cheesecake flavor.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
signs of Spring
The neighborhood turtle comes out to bask in the warm afternoon sun.
And (finally!) blossoms appear on my peach tree.
new cure for hiccups
DS2 (9yo) gets the hiccups all the time. If he laughs for more than 10 seconds, he gets the hiccups. Sometimes he'll just get the hiccups for no reason. He used to get very frustrated because often it would take a while for them to go away -- the usual tricks of drinking water and holding his breath were useless.
Both boys had their well visits with the pediatrician last week, and the only issue that I had on my list to ask about was DS2's hiccups. Surprisingly, the doctor had some practical information and advice.
Information: frequent hiccup sufferers like DS2 are often shallow breathers. Hiccups are spasms of the diaphragm, the thin sheet of muscle below your lungs that we use to fill them with air. If your breathing is shallow, your diaphragm isn't getting a good workout, and it's much more likely to spasm.
Advice (the cure): Fill your lungs. This is the important part: being careful not to let any air escape, draw even more air in, so your lungs feel over-full. This has the effect of pushing down on your diaphragm. Hold for a moment, then release the air slowly. Repeat the process for best results.
DS2 reports great success with this technique. Not all hiccups are caused by shallow breathing, but it certainly won't hurt to try this technique next time you get them.
Both boys had their well visits with the pediatrician last week, and the only issue that I had on my list to ask about was DS2's hiccups. Surprisingly, the doctor had some practical information and advice.
Information: frequent hiccup sufferers like DS2 are often shallow breathers. Hiccups are spasms of the diaphragm, the thin sheet of muscle below your lungs that we use to fill them with air. If your breathing is shallow, your diaphragm isn't getting a good workout, and it's much more likely to spasm.
Advice (the cure): Fill your lungs. This is the important part: being careful not to let any air escape, draw even more air in, so your lungs feel over-full. This has the effect of pushing down on your diaphragm. Hold for a moment, then release the air slowly. Repeat the process for best results.
DS2 reports great success with this technique. Not all hiccups are caused by shallow breathing, but it certainly won't hurt to try this technique next time you get them.
Friday, March 05, 2010
the LeapForce experience
About six months ago, I got a contract with LeapForce to work at home as a search engine evaluator. I've written about this before, and consequently I've received a handful of emails from people asking me how it worked out. I don't mind answering LeapForce-related questions because I had a lot of questions before going ahead with the contract, and I found other people's comments to be very helpful. At this point I thought it would be better to update the blog with my experience rather than having to keep sending individual emails to curious folks. This post is substantially copied from emails I have sent.
In short: I have found LeapForce to be 100% legit and on the level. I will risk breaching my confidentiality agreement to say that for a 6 month contract negotiated in October 2009, they paid me $13.50 per hour. Note that does NOT include taxes or Social Security, and LeapForce does not withhold anything. You will receive a 1099 statement of your earnings. It is up to you to keep track of your earnings and make sure you put enough aside to cover the taxes and other fees normally withheld.
I did run into a couple of issues. Occasionally there are no "tasks", that is, there isn't any work to do. Saturday and Monday mornings were the worst for this, but at most other times of day, including late at night, there was usually plenty to do.
You do have to keep very careful track of your time worked, to the minute. It is generally easy to do because you're doing everything on your computer, and most computers display the time in the lower right corner. So just make a note of when you start and when you finish, because each entry on your invoice must be to the minute. LeapForce's AtHome website has an invoice application that helps you to keep track of your hours. I recommend entering your time(s) at least once a day.
Keep in mind that this work is self-selecting. If you take the test and it makes you think your head is going to explode, this is not a good job for you. Initially I thought it was fun, but it can be repetitive, and you have to make a LOT of decisions rather quickly. LeapForce has "task per minute" (TPM) expectations of productivity which I think are reasonable, but some people commented that they disagreed. Your TPM is displayed in a little indicator on your LeapForce toolbar, and if it's not green you know you're being too slow. It seems odd to think that an innocuous little indicator going from green to yellow to red could cause your stress levels to rise, but it can. Somedays I dealt with it, other days it really got on my nerves.
For my first six weeks working, I didn't have too much trouble with making the tasks per minute targets, and I didn't have any problems getting my invoices approved. Subsequently I did have a problem getting my invoice approved when I included time I worked on "experimental" tasks. These tasks were supposed to take around 20 minutes, but I could not get them approved on my invoices no matter what explanatory notes I attached (as directed) and I ended up just dropping them. Overall I'd say that I wasted about 3 hours of my time on them, and since those particular tasks were holding up the rest of my invoice, I just deleted them and decided never to do "experimental" tasks with big warnings about how long they were going to take, again. (Other experimental tasks were shorter and I had no problem getting the time for them approved.)
About adult content: when you apply, you tell them up front whether or not you're willing to deal with it. I said I did not want to see that kind of thing, and generally I didn't. However, in some lists of results, a pørn site would occasionally show up. You can never be sure whether or not you're going to run into something like that, just like in a web search you're doing yourself at home. Very infrequently, a query would show up in a task that was clearly looking for pørn, and then you're kind of stuck: if you release the task (drop it), you don't get paid for any of the work you've done on it. So if you've invested 20 minutes in a task and hit a pørn query, you have to decide whether you want to kiss that 20 minutes' pay goodbye, or just evaluate the pørn query anyway. This did not happen often, but it did happen at least once or twice over the few months I was working for LeapForce. It is entirely possible that I've misinterpreted this policy, but I seem to recall getting a warning about not being able to bill any of that task's time if I were to drop it. It didn't happen often enough to me for me to pursue this for clarification.
I will say, the few times I sent email correspondence with a question, I received helpful replies with good turn-around time. They also sent checks right away after the invoices are approved.
Finally, pay attention to the small print: you have to work at least 200 tasks per pay period (month) to keep your contract current. Around Halloween and the beginning of November, I was very busy and didn't put in many hours, and they suspended my contract. They said I could re-qualify if took the test again, but I decided not to. I had to wait until December 1st to submit my invoice, which was annoying since I was no longer working; this further delayed my last paycheck.
Having my account suspended for not working the task minimum annoyed me, and I never really got over that. The experimental task issue and the TPM-pressure added to my negative impression. Neither of these was that big a deal, I just didn't want to deal with it anymore for the relatively tiny sum I was netting after taxes. I think this could be a great job for many people, but it's not one I would do with kids around to see the computer.
In short: I have found LeapForce to be 100% legit and on the level. I will risk breaching my confidentiality agreement to say that for a 6 month contract negotiated in October 2009, they paid me $13.50 per hour. Note that does NOT include taxes or Social Security, and LeapForce does not withhold anything. You will receive a 1099 statement of your earnings. It is up to you to keep track of your earnings and make sure you put enough aside to cover the taxes and other fees normally withheld.
I did run into a couple of issues. Occasionally there are no "tasks", that is, there isn't any work to do. Saturday and Monday mornings were the worst for this, but at most other times of day, including late at night, there was usually plenty to do.
You do have to keep very careful track of your time worked, to the minute. It is generally easy to do because you're doing everything on your computer, and most computers display the time in the lower right corner. So just make a note of when you start and when you finish, because each entry on your invoice must be to the minute. LeapForce's AtHome website has an invoice application that helps you to keep track of your hours. I recommend entering your time(s) at least once a day.
Keep in mind that this work is self-selecting. If you take the test and it makes you think your head is going to explode, this is not a good job for you. Initially I thought it was fun, but it can be repetitive, and you have to make a LOT of decisions rather quickly. LeapForce has "task per minute" (TPM) expectations of productivity which I think are reasonable, but some people commented that they disagreed. Your TPM is displayed in a little indicator on your LeapForce toolbar, and if it's not green you know you're being too slow. It seems odd to think that an innocuous little indicator going from green to yellow to red could cause your stress levels to rise, but it can. Somedays I dealt with it, other days it really got on my nerves.
For my first six weeks working, I didn't have too much trouble with making the tasks per minute targets, and I didn't have any problems getting my invoices approved. Subsequently I did have a problem getting my invoice approved when I included time I worked on "experimental" tasks. These tasks were supposed to take around 20 minutes, but I could not get them approved on my invoices no matter what explanatory notes I attached (as directed) and I ended up just dropping them. Overall I'd say that I wasted about 3 hours of my time on them, and since those particular tasks were holding up the rest of my invoice, I just deleted them and decided never to do "experimental" tasks with big warnings about how long they were going to take, again. (Other experimental tasks were shorter and I had no problem getting the time for them approved.)
About adult content: when you apply, you tell them up front whether or not you're willing to deal with it. I said I did not want to see that kind of thing, and generally I didn't. However, in some lists of results, a pørn site would occasionally show up. You can never be sure whether or not you're going to run into something like that, just like in a web search you're doing yourself at home. Very infrequently, a query would show up in a task that was clearly looking for pørn, and then you're kind of stuck: if you release the task (drop it), you don't get paid for any of the work you've done on it. So if you've invested 20 minutes in a task and hit a pørn query, you have to decide whether you want to kiss that 20 minutes' pay goodbye, or just evaluate the pørn query anyway. This did not happen often, but it did happen at least once or twice over the few months I was working for LeapForce. It is entirely possible that I've misinterpreted this policy, but I seem to recall getting a warning about not being able to bill any of that task's time if I were to drop it. It didn't happen often enough to me for me to pursue this for clarification.
I will say, the few times I sent email correspondence with a question, I received helpful replies with good turn-around time. They also sent checks right away after the invoices are approved.
Finally, pay attention to the small print: you have to work at least 200 tasks per pay period (month) to keep your contract current. Around Halloween and the beginning of November, I was very busy and didn't put in many hours, and they suspended my contract. They said I could re-qualify if took the test again, but I decided not to. I had to wait until December 1st to submit my invoice, which was annoying since I was no longer working; this further delayed my last paycheck.
Having my account suspended for not working the task minimum annoyed me, and I never really got over that. The experimental task issue and the TPM-pressure added to my negative impression. Neither of these was that big a deal, I just didn't want to deal with it anymore for the relatively tiny sum I was netting after taxes. I think this could be a great job for many people, but it's not one I would do with kids around to see the computer.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
whither the blog?
Recently I checked my gMail inbox to find a message from Google: they will no longer be supporting FTP-published blogs. Originally the day of execution was set at March 26, but apparently there were enough screams from the FTP-publishing crowd that they pushed it back to May 1.
You may not know or care about blog publishing, FTP-based or otherwise, but I did when I set up this blog, and I still do. The biggest change under the new Blogger regime is that all blogs must be hosted at Blogger. That means all the content you place on your blog will reside on Google's servers somewhere, servers that you have no access to, other than through the Blogger software that Google makes available to you.
Now, Blogger is (so far) a free service provided by Google, but this looks like a power grab to me. Why do they want to host all blog content? Their explanations for what they're doing have to do with the percentage of FTP-published blogs (they say 0.5%) versus the amount of resources they devote to maintaining the FTP-publishing platform, which is many times that -- but let's face it, if it were 2% of their resources, that would be 4 times 0.5, and they could justifiably say that four is "many".
We all know there are millions of blogs out there where some goof published a single post and then never looked at it again. On the other hand, most FTP-published blogs are owned and operated, and updated frequently, by people who actively manage their web content, and for whom a blog is only part of what they're doing with their domain. I like having that level of control, and I especially like having my blog files on a host that I can access -- and back up -- whenever I feel like it, using simple tools like FireFTP.
I'm still trying to decide what to do with this blog. When I first started it, my children were very young and I was consequently stuck at home a lot, and it was a good outlet. Then when I was diagnosed with cancer, it was an invaluable tool, allowing me to document my diagnosis, treatment, and recovery. I still check my own archives for dates of procedures and specifics of treatment. Over the past few years, it has devolved into a sort-of diary, and I update most about vacations and special events that I'd like to remember. Even that usage has fallen off, as I use Facebook to update family and friends now.
Another consideration that weighs heavily on me is that I'll soon be looking to re-enter the workforce as a teacher. Anything I post on this blog is available to everyone to read, and it would be foolish for me to use this blog as a place to vent, as I have some times in the past. I'm trying to decide whether or not it makes sense to port this blog to a new platform, or to just leave it for now, hoping that Blogger won't someday discontinue their support for already-published, no longer updated, FTP blogs.
I don't trust Google to keep the read-only functionality in place, and I don't want them hosting my blog. I'll have to investigate what it will take to move to WordPress or TypePad or one of the other blogging platforms. I'm not holding out much hope that they'll back off from this decision (even though the release of their porting tool just hit a snag) -- since we've never paid for this service, we FTP-publishers have zero leverage.
You may not know or care about blog publishing, FTP-based or otherwise, but I did when I set up this blog, and I still do. The biggest change under the new Blogger regime is that all blogs must be hosted at Blogger. That means all the content you place on your blog will reside on Google's servers somewhere, servers that you have no access to, other than through the Blogger software that Google makes available to you.
Now, Blogger is (so far) a free service provided by Google, but this looks like a power grab to me. Why do they want to host all blog content? Their explanations for what they're doing have to do with the percentage of FTP-published blogs (they say 0.5%) versus the amount of resources they devote to maintaining the FTP-publishing platform, which is many times that -- but let's face it, if it were 2% of their resources, that would be 4 times 0.5, and they could justifiably say that four is "many".
We all know there are millions of blogs out there where some goof published a single post and then never looked at it again. On the other hand, most FTP-published blogs are owned and operated, and updated frequently, by people who actively manage their web content, and for whom a blog is only part of what they're doing with their domain. I like having that level of control, and I especially like having my blog files on a host that I can access -- and back up -- whenever I feel like it, using simple tools like FireFTP.
I'm still trying to decide what to do with this blog. When I first started it, my children were very young and I was consequently stuck at home a lot, and it was a good outlet. Then when I was diagnosed with cancer, it was an invaluable tool, allowing me to document my diagnosis, treatment, and recovery. I still check my own archives for dates of procedures and specifics of treatment. Over the past few years, it has devolved into a sort-of diary, and I update most about vacations and special events that I'd like to remember. Even that usage has fallen off, as I use Facebook to update family and friends now.
Another consideration that weighs heavily on me is that I'll soon be looking to re-enter the workforce as a teacher. Anything I post on this blog is available to everyone to read, and it would be foolish for me to use this blog as a place to vent, as I have some times in the past. I'm trying to decide whether or not it makes sense to port this blog to a new platform, or to just leave it for now, hoping that Blogger won't someday discontinue their support for already-published, no longer updated, FTP blogs.
I don't trust Google to keep the read-only functionality in place, and I don't want them hosting my blog. I'll have to investigate what it will take to move to WordPress or TypePad or one of the other blogging platforms. I'm not holding out much hope that they'll back off from this decision (even though the release of their porting tool just hit a snag) -- since we've never paid for this service, we FTP-publishers have zero leverage.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Top 10 things '24' has done to piss me off (so far)
(Spoilers, in case you didn't know it)
10. Continued abuse of the "events occur in real time" conceit. Apparently, everything in New York City occurs within five or ten minutes of everything else. This is less egregious than it was when CTU was in L.A., but it's still laughable.
9. Letting CTU be redesigned by rejects from Top Design. Glass walls everywhere, again? Orange? Humongous room-sized displays so that every analyst, janitor, and visitor in the room can see the classified data you're working on? Please.
8. Amping up the Hispanicity of Freddie Prinze's character, Ortiz, by having him pronounce Hispanic last names as if he were speaking Spanish. I realize that Prinze may actually be Hispanic, but that's not the point. He played Fred in the Scooby Doo movies, and I don't think it gets much more Anglo than that. And over-pronouncing "Torres" is silly.
7. Arlo using security drones to spy on sunbathing women. We're not supposed to like Arlo, but every time he's on screen he says or does something obnoxious, and using the drones to play Peeping Tom is too much to ask me to accept. This is the kind of guy who downloads porn and asks co-workers if they want to watch. And he's working at CTU? Don't these people vet their employees? Oh, wait.
6.a. Miscasting Katee Sackhoff: the character as written should be, well, more girly. It's difficult if not impossible for any viewer of BSG to forget Starbuck, and so it's just weird to see Sackhoff batting her eyelashes, cringing, and getting flustered when some two-bit creep starts hassling her. When we heard that Sackhoff was going to appear this season, it's safe to say we assumed she'd be a field agent, a role which suits Sackhoff's physical presence more than the mousy data analyst role does. Does anyone believe that a woman with that face and body would have such a milksap personality?
6.b. Writing Sackhoff's character with such an impossible-to-believe backstory. She has a not-so-buried secret past? Don't these people vet their employees? Oh, wait.
5. Farhad walking away from the accident scene even though CTU and the police had set up a cordon to catch the would-be assassin. What, they couldn't look for 2 different guys? He was wearing a white suit! It's not like he was going to be able to blend in.
4. Agent Freckles has a deep cover with the Russian Mafia? No. The Irish Mob, sure, with her coloring she could pull that off. But there's no way Russian hoods would hang out with her.
3. Jack's completely fine after getting pounded on by the burly NYPD moron. He should have broken bones in his face after that.
2. The new head of CTU is written as more interested in covering his own ass than in realistically assessing and neutralizing any threats. Who put this guy in charge? He's ridiculously blinkered. Prime example: he knows the reporterette, Meredith, is lying about something. But when she finally breaks down and admits her affair with Omar, does he check to see whether the biometric data indicates she's lying? No, he does not. He thinks she's just blowing smoke, but he doesn't even bother to check his own data. Also, I get that he's a really tall guy, but in the fourth hour he started doing this hunching thing that's annoying. Stand up straight, Hastings. You look obsequious to your superiors and condescending to your employees.
1. Writing a NYC cop into a terrorist situation and having him go along with the terrorist's demands. Davros pulls the gun on the cop and his wife and all of sudden starts speaking in a (what we now know to be Russian) accent. At that point, the cop knows he and his wife are dead, so why did he go along with Davros? No way, no how would one of NYPD's finest give in so easily, even if his wife got shot in the leg. She's already dead, she just doesn't know it yet. If he goes along with the terrorist, not only will he and his wife be dead, but the terrorist's targets will be, too. The only chance he has to save either himself or his wife is to fight back. If he gets himself killed in the process, at least he hasn't helped the terrorist advance his plans.
Yeah, I'm still planning to watch the rest of the season. There's enough good (or at least OK) stuff for me to hang in there, but I'm not sure I'll be in for the long haul if they don't clean up some of these messes.
10. Continued abuse of the "events occur in real time" conceit. Apparently, everything in New York City occurs within five or ten minutes of everything else. This is less egregious than it was when CTU was in L.A., but it's still laughable.
9. Letting CTU be redesigned by rejects from Top Design. Glass walls everywhere, again? Orange? Humongous room-sized displays so that every analyst, janitor, and visitor in the room can see the classified data you're working on? Please.
8. Amping up the Hispanicity of Freddie Prinze's character, Ortiz, by having him pronounce Hispanic last names as if he were speaking Spanish. I realize that Prinze may actually be Hispanic, but that's not the point. He played Fred in the Scooby Doo movies, and I don't think it gets much more Anglo than that. And over-pronouncing "Torres" is silly.
7. Arlo using security drones to spy on sunbathing women. We're not supposed to like Arlo, but every time he's on screen he says or does something obnoxious, and using the drones to play Peeping Tom is too much to ask me to accept. This is the kind of guy who downloads porn and asks co-workers if they want to watch. And he's working at CTU? Don't these people vet their employees? Oh, wait.
6.a. Miscasting Katee Sackhoff: the character as written should be, well, more girly. It's difficult if not impossible for any viewer of BSG to forget Starbuck, and so it's just weird to see Sackhoff batting her eyelashes, cringing, and getting flustered when some two-bit creep starts hassling her. When we heard that Sackhoff was going to appear this season, it's safe to say we assumed she'd be a field agent, a role which suits Sackhoff's physical presence more than the mousy data analyst role does. Does anyone believe that a woman with that face and body would have such a milksap personality?
6.b. Writing Sackhoff's character with such an impossible-to-believe backstory. She has a not-so-buried secret past? Don't these people vet their employees? Oh, wait.
5. Farhad walking away from the accident scene even though CTU and the police had set up a cordon to catch the would-be assassin. What, they couldn't look for 2 different guys? He was wearing a white suit! It's not like he was going to be able to blend in.
4. Agent Freckles has a deep cover with the Russian Mafia? No. The Irish Mob, sure, with her coloring she could pull that off. But there's no way Russian hoods would hang out with her.
3. Jack's completely fine after getting pounded on by the burly NYPD moron. He should have broken bones in his face after that.
2. The new head of CTU is written as more interested in covering his own ass than in realistically assessing and neutralizing any threats. Who put this guy in charge? He's ridiculously blinkered. Prime example: he knows the reporterette, Meredith, is lying about something. But when she finally breaks down and admits her affair with Omar, does he check to see whether the biometric data indicates she's lying? No, he does not. He thinks she's just blowing smoke, but he doesn't even bother to check his own data. Also, I get that he's a really tall guy, but in the fourth hour he started doing this hunching thing that's annoying. Stand up straight, Hastings. You look obsequious to your superiors and condescending to your employees.
1. Writing a NYC cop into a terrorist situation and having him go along with the terrorist's demands. Davros pulls the gun on the cop and his wife and all of sudden starts speaking in a (what we now know to be Russian) accent. At that point, the cop knows he and his wife are dead, so why did he go along with Davros? No way, no how would one of NYPD's finest give in so easily, even if his wife got shot in the leg. She's already dead, she just doesn't know it yet. If he goes along with the terrorist, not only will he and his wife be dead, but the terrorist's targets will be, too. The only chance he has to save either himself or his wife is to fight back. If he gets himself killed in the process, at least he hasn't helped the terrorist advance his plans.
Yeah, I'm still planning to watch the rest of the season. There's enough good (or at least OK) stuff for me to hang in there, but I'm not sure I'll be in for the long haul if they don't clean up some of these messes.
where did that month go?
Lots of stuff going on, mostly good, some minor irritations. Top of the list: Sonora Quest did not send my blood work out to CA for testing after my Thyrogen trial, so I don't have my results yet. Oh, they ran the test themselves and everything came back negative, but their tests aren't as sensitive and are not comparable to my previous results. And the order specifically asked for it to be sent out, so they really have no excuse. My endo said she wants to get them to pay for another Thyrogen trial, which would be OK with me (I guess) but I doubt they'll do it any time soon.
I hope to do a series of catch-up posts in tribute to a really nice Christmas season, but I'm not particularly motivated so it will probably be a while. There are a couple of situations (like the thyroid cancer tests) that are still up in the air that are a source of stress, but mostly I'm just cruising along working on my two classes, and hoping to wrap them up in the next week. I have a sense of making slight progress, so I'm not quite treading water these days, but yeah, that's pretty close to where I am.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Thyrogen trial, 2009
I managed to schedule my Thyrogen administration just before Christmas -- having already met my health insurance deductible this year, it was rather important to do it now rather than in January.
First shot (right arm) was on Thursday, second shot (left arm) was on Friday. Fortunately this time I have only a tiny bit of soreness around the injection site. The preliminary bloodwork drawn on Thursday was taken from my hand, and that hurts a lot worse than where they stuck me with the shots. The problem I had a before, with a numb, painful arm, are nowhere in evidence.
I go for my second blood draw tomorrow, and that's the important one, the one that will tell what my stimulated Thyroglobulin (Tg) production is. They'll be sending it out to Carole Spencer's lab, so it will take a while for the results to come in.
That's a source of frustration, sure, but there's no reason to expect much of an uptick. Last time it went up to 1.1, I think, scarcely worth mentioning. Here's hoping for the same or lower. I've rather gotten into the habit, these last few years, of being relatively healthy. I'd like to stay that way.
First shot (right arm) was on Thursday, second shot (left arm) was on Friday. Fortunately this time I have only a tiny bit of soreness around the injection site. The preliminary bloodwork drawn on Thursday was taken from my hand, and that hurts a lot worse than where they stuck me with the shots. The problem I had a before, with a numb, painful arm, are nowhere in evidence.
I go for my second blood draw tomorrow, and that's the important one, the one that will tell what my stimulated Thyroglobulin (Tg) production is. They'll be sending it out to Carole Spencer's lab, so it will take a while for the results to come in.
That's a source of frustration, sure, but there's no reason to expect much of an uptick. Last time it went up to 1.1, I think, scarcely worth mentioning. Here's hoping for the same or lower. I've rather gotten into the habit, these last few years, of being relatively healthy. I'd like to stay that way.
brief moment of clarity
I have a problem with staying up too late when I know the next day won't be too demanding, and that describes most of my days lately. I fall asleep in front of the tv (or computer) and then wake up and stay up, instead of hauling myself off to bed.
How late? Late enough to not want to admit how late, because it's embarrassing.
Even more embarrassing is why I stay up late. If I were doing something productive, it would be one thing. But lately, I'm watching either Food Network (not that embarrassing) or Nick at Nite, and there's something about watching The Nanny at 2:30AM that so pathetic I finally realized how stupid it is to stay up so late.
Yes, I'm up late today but that's because (see, I have a real reason) I was posting a video of the kids' piano recital over on my Facebook page, and that took a while, and now that's done and so am I.
I hope this lasts -- if I'm going to be up, I damn well better be doing something useful.
How late? Late enough to not want to admit how late, because it's embarrassing.
Even more embarrassing is why I stay up late. If I were doing something productive, it would be one thing. But lately, I'm watching either Food Network (not that embarrassing) or Nick at Nite, and there's something about watching The Nanny at 2:30AM that so pathetic I finally realized how stupid it is to stay up so late.
Yes, I'm up late today but that's because (see, I have a real reason) I was posting a video of the kids' piano recital over on my Facebook page, and that took a while, and now that's done and so am I.
I hope this lasts -- if I'm going to be up, I damn well better be doing something useful.
Monday, December 07, 2009
Nobody cries at a TSO concert
We saw the Trans Siberian Orchestra with the kids this afternoon. The first part of the concert was an extended song/story, interspersed with Christmas classics and original pieces, that told the story of an angel, a lonely man, and his daughter far from home on Christmas Eve. Through the intervention of the angel and the kindness of strangers, she's able to go home on Christmas Day.
TSO is really an orchestra, but it's an orchestra with rock-and-roll trappings, including smoke, flames, lasers, and lots of head-banging from the two lead violinists. They play classical pieces with hard rock beats and arrangements, and they shamelessly rewrote or supplied lyrics to a good half-dozen of the carols they played in nicely chosen mash-ups. ("The Holly and the Ivy" was particularly well done. Here's Christmas Eve/Sarajevo, a reworking of "Carol of the Bells" that is probably their most well-recognized piece.)
I liked the long set, with its prog-rock pretentious narration, even though the strutting and posing made me want to laugh, and parts of it were just exhausting. But the end of the sequence -- the payoff of the daughter coming home -- killed me. I wondered if the tightness in my throat would let up before I broke down sobbing. I thought about going to get a drink to help me compose myself.
The kids weren't paying attention to me, though, and eventually I got a grip. I wondered why I had such a strong reaction. Yes, I am a sap for Christmas music, but this was more than that. It took me a while to realize what it was.
As much as I love Advent and the coming of Christmas, I always have trouble around this day.
TSO is really an orchestra, but it's an orchestra with rock-and-roll trappings, including smoke, flames, lasers, and lots of head-banging from the two lead violinists. They play classical pieces with hard rock beats and arrangements, and they shamelessly rewrote or supplied lyrics to a good half-dozen of the carols they played in nicely chosen mash-ups. ("The Holly and the Ivy" was particularly well done. Here's Christmas Eve/Sarajevo, a reworking of "Carol of the Bells" that is probably their most well-recognized piece.)
I liked the long set, with its prog-rock pretentious narration, even though the strutting and posing made me want to laugh, and parts of it were just exhausting. But the end of the sequence -- the payoff of the daughter coming home -- killed me. I wondered if the tightness in my throat would let up before I broke down sobbing. I thought about going to get a drink to help me compose myself.
The kids weren't paying attention to me, though, and eventually I got a grip. I wondered why I had such a strong reaction. Yes, I am a sap for Christmas music, but this was more than that. It took me a while to realize what it was.
As much as I love Advent and the coming of Christmas, I always have trouble around this day.
perfect
Thanksgiving was perfect, except I made too many pies.
Since then, we have been inordinately busy. It is much easier for me to be in school when the children are not, and trying to put in even a couple of hours of day at my job proved difficult to impossible for most of November.
I have to go fold laundry or else no one will have socks for tomorrow, but I did want to put up a post to remind me to go into the details later. Thanksgiving really was extraordinary, and it would be nice to be able to be as successful in the future.
This weekend, I spent great swaths of time working with DD on her homework project, and did none of my own. Saturday I spent great swaths of time cooking something I've never made before, lamb shanks. Delicious, but an unexpected time sink. So, we still don't have our Christmas tree up, or our Christmas cards ordered. I have a dozen things pending this week and somehow will manage it all, but I'm not exactly sure how.
First, that laundry --
Since then, we have been inordinately busy. It is much easier for me to be in school when the children are not, and trying to put in even a couple of hours of day at my job proved difficult to impossible for most of November.
I have to go fold laundry or else no one will have socks for tomorrow, but I did want to put up a post to remind me to go into the details later. Thanksgiving really was extraordinary, and it would be nice to be able to be as successful in the future.
This weekend, I spent great swaths of time working with DD on her homework project, and did none of my own. Saturday I spent great swaths of time cooking something I've never made before, lamb shanks. Delicious, but an unexpected time sink. So, we still don't have our Christmas tree up, or our Christmas cards ordered. I have a dozen things pending this week and somehow will manage it all, but I'm not exactly sure how.
First, that laundry --
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
blocked
School work and paying work have been sadly neglected this month. It's not that nothing is getting done, it's just that all sorts of things -- more interesting things -- keep interrupting, like dates with my husband and outings with the kids. And moving DS2 into his own room, which necessitated cleaning out the playroom and purging 5 years worth of toys the children never even look at.
It's delightful, but still I have assignments pending and it's making me antsy. Yet here I am posting on the blog. Like I'm going to be meaningfully productive at this hour? Ha!
Shopping for Thanksgiving is finished, at least I accomplished that today.
The other stuff? Maybe tomorrow.
It's delightful, but still I have assignments pending and it's making me antsy. Yet here I am posting on the blog. Like I'm going to be meaningfully productive at this hour? Ha!
Shopping for Thanksgiving is finished, at least I accomplished that today.
The other stuff? Maybe tomorrow.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
bday + weekend recap
DD turned eleven last week, and it feels as if we've been celebrating her birthday for a month now. It started with the purchase of the netbook last Sunday at the Microsoft store, and it continued on her actual birthday straight through to the weekend.
The bday itself was full of all kinds of hectic, as the kids all had a half-day of school so I rescheduled their piano lessons for earlier in the day. We just had time for a quick lunch, then it was off to their lessons. Then home, when I frosted and "decorated" the cake -- I should remember to snip very, very small holes in the corners of the ziploc bags I'm using as impromptu pastry tubes, especially since glaze is much more runny than decorator frosting.
Then to the Y for our class, then home for her favorite dinner: tortellini and sausage, with red sauce. After dinner DS1 played "Happy Birthday" on the piano while we sang, so we actually sounded pretty good for once. DD was pleased with her day.
Friday, five of her friends (from both old and new schools) came over for a sleepover. I don't believe they slept at all. It necessitated me cleaning pretty much the whole house, with special attention paid to the playroom where the girls camped out. They had pizza and ice cream cake from Baskin-Robbins (chocolate chip cookie dough with white cake):
They drank about a gallon of lemonade, ate lots of pizza, and made a small dent in DD's Halloween candy. In the morning, they had pancakes and bacon and were all gone promptly at 9:30AM so DD wouldn't miss her karate.
The boys stayed up as late as the girls (well, till 12:30 at least) and so all three kids were somewhat cranky and exhausted on Saturday.
Sunday we went to the zoo to see the komodo dragons. They're huge! The viewing area is very well designed.
The animals were rather accomodating; both the lion and the tiger were napping where we could see them easily. Most fun is a toss-up between the otters, who were adorable but of some concern because some nimrod was letting his kid feed them kettle corn, and the monkeys in the monkey village, because they were playing very close to the path.
From the zoo we went to Borders where I read a few more chapters of the next Ember book. It's a young adult post-apocalyptic tale but nowhere near as good as Lois Lowry's trilogy.
I haven't worked in days, and now schoolwork is waiting, too. I keep saying I've been busy (there has been other stuff going on, too, I couldn't possibly blog it all) but I still find time to dawdle on the computer and before I know it, entire days are gone. I continually fail to live up to my own expectations, but since no one else seems to care, I'm starting to wonder if I should, either?
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
adventures in technology
Sunday we all trooped up to Scottsdale Fashion Center to go to the first ever anywhere Microsoft Store. We wanted to talk to them about Windows 7 and see what they were offering.
We ended up buying DD's birthday-Christmas computer, an Asus Eee. It's pink! And it came with Windows 7 Starter as its OS. Win7 Starter doesn't let you customize the desktop or change colors, but that wasn't important for DD. We chose this Asus because for $30 more it has a substantially better battery (6- vs 3-cell, giving 8.5 hours vs 3.5), and it has a bigger hard drive.
Our main concern with getting a Windows 7 netbook was that Win7 doesn't have web browser parental controls included. That functionality is included in Windows Live, which is free and seemed well-integrated, so we decided to go for it.
Oy. I was up until 1AM last night trying to install the parental controls from Windows Live Family Safety. Whenever I tried to add the account in Family Safety, it kept telling me "an error has occurred," and then some nonsense about logging into the account again and trying again, which of course never worked.
I did some websearching and found various forum postings indicating that this may have been caused by a corrupt installation of Windows Live, so I removed it, downloaded it again, and re-installed it. Still no dice.
Then I found another post somewhere that hinted that the accounts created with the bad version of Windows Live around were also corrupted somehow, so I had to delete those accounts (including the administrator account, which involved creating another admin account to delete the first one --) and then recreate them.
Once I did that, it all worked fine. I did have to jump through some unfortunate hoops because I had (foolishly) named the new admin account "Admin," and Family Safety does not like that. After at least 3 hours of creating and removing accounts and trying to set the restrictions, I finally got it to work.
Here, I think, are the actual steps to success:
1. Remove Windows Live immediately.
2. Download Windows Live and re-install it. Reboot.
3. Now create your Administrator account.
4. Important: use the Family Safety Filter (from the Start menu, choose All Programs, then Choose Windows Live, then choose Family Safety) to create the new (kid's) user account. If you use Control Panel Account functionality, it won't work.
5. Now add Windows Live Family Safety Parental Controls to the new account.
And now you can go in and customize the new user account via the Control Panel, also. I'm pretty sure this is correct. I was going around in circles for a while, but I still tried to keep track of what was working and what wasn't. This should work.
About the Microsoft Store: there were a ton of staff people there who were all uniformly friendly, but I had the feeling I knew more than many of them about OSs and all the issues with parental controls. It focuses on computers and software, although they do have an XBox section towards the back. It's not like the Apple Store which devotes as much real estate to the iPod family as any of the computers (at least that's my impression, I haven't spent too much time in one); they have dozens of computers all around the store perimeter with gorgeous screens, some showing live TV (on Sunday: NFL), and others showing videos or just available for surfing on. It has a very minimal, clean design that gets out of the way of the technology they're showing off. I was amused by the staff "uniform": long-sleeved t-shirts in one of the four "Windows" colors: red, green, blue, or yellow. Those colors were bright.
If I had thought about this beforehand, I would have brought my camera.
The netbook? Fantastic. DD loves it, she's doing her homework on it already. Windows 7 is quite zippy. It's funny how the tiniest computer in the house has the best performance (for now).
We ended up buying DD's birthday-Christmas computer, an Asus Eee. It's pink! And it came with Windows 7 Starter as its OS. Win7 Starter doesn't let you customize the desktop or change colors, but that wasn't important for DD. We chose this Asus because for $30 more it has a substantially better battery (6- vs 3-cell, giving 8.5 hours vs 3.5), and it has a bigger hard drive.
Our main concern with getting a Windows 7 netbook was that Win7 doesn't have web browser parental controls included. That functionality is included in Windows Live, which is free and seemed well-integrated, so we decided to go for it.
Oy. I was up until 1AM last night trying to install the parental controls from Windows Live Family Safety. Whenever I tried to add the account in Family Safety, it kept telling me "an error has occurred," and then some nonsense about logging into the account again and trying again, which of course never worked.
I did some websearching and found various forum postings indicating that this may have been caused by a corrupt installation of Windows Live, so I removed it, downloaded it again, and re-installed it. Still no dice.
Then I found another post somewhere that hinted that the accounts created with the bad version of Windows Live around were also corrupted somehow, so I had to delete those accounts (including the administrator account, which involved creating another admin account to delete the first one --) and then recreate them.
Once I did that, it all worked fine. I did have to jump through some unfortunate hoops because I had (foolishly) named the new admin account "Admin," and Family Safety does not like that. After at least 3 hours of creating and removing accounts and trying to set the restrictions, I finally got it to work.
Here, I think, are the actual steps to success:
1. Remove Windows Live immediately.
2. Download Windows Live and re-install it. Reboot.
3. Now create your Administrator account.
4. Important: use the Family Safety Filter (from the Start menu, choose All Programs, then Choose Windows Live, then choose Family Safety) to create the new (kid's) user account. If you use Control Panel Account functionality, it won't work.
5. Now add Windows Live Family Safety Parental Controls to the new account.
And now you can go in and customize the new user account via the Control Panel, also. I'm pretty sure this is correct. I was going around in circles for a while, but I still tried to keep track of what was working and what wasn't. This should work.
About the Microsoft Store: there were a ton of staff people there who were all uniformly friendly, but I had the feeling I knew more than many of them about OSs and all the issues with parental controls. It focuses on computers and software, although they do have an XBox section towards the back. It's not like the Apple Store which devotes as much real estate to the iPod family as any of the computers (at least that's my impression, I haven't spent too much time in one); they have dozens of computers all around the store perimeter with gorgeous screens, some showing live TV (on Sunday: NFL), and others showing videos or just available for surfing on. It has a very minimal, clean design that gets out of the way of the technology they're showing off. I was amused by the staff "uniform": long-sleeved t-shirts in one of the four "Windows" colors: red, green, blue, or yellow. Those colors were bright.
If I had thought about this beforehand, I would have brought my camera.
The netbook? Fantastic. DD loves it, she's doing her homework on it already. Windows 7 is quite zippy. It's funny how the tiniest computer in the house has the best performance (for now).
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