Fun and Frolic With Long-Term Love

I am thinking about buying the Stylebook App. I get compliments on my outfits and clothing pieces all the time, but I feel like I am not utilizing everything I own. I need a good closet management system. That said, I am not a fashionista, at all. I just want to track better how often I wear things and let's be honest, I try on like 10 things before I settle on what I'd like to wear, most days. So it would be nice to be able to figure that out on a screen rather than on my body! Anyone use Stylebook or another closet app?

I don't have any real plans today, other than dinner with DarkKnight and our weekly D&D group. I have spent the morning on Pinterest, saving low carb recipes. I am excited because for the first time, DarkKnight has said he wants to try low carb with me - which means that menus will be better streamlined. PunkRock will pretty much eat anything put in front of him, so having our household all eating better together will be amazeballs. I am psyched up about starting to plan and cook meals - DarkKnight has been doing this for years and it will be fun for me to take this chore back.

The drylock is finished on the bottom section of the walls/floor edges in the basement. I will be paying out $500 next week as a deposit on the flooring. Stormy is back downstairs and the other cats are happy about being able to come into DarkKnight's bedroom again.

Oh! We did get a letter from PunkRock's work about his time off from work. His first surgery is scheduled for this coming Monday. FMLA leave has been approved for a month. We have to continue to pay for his part of his medical insurance, but the way that will work is that they will send us an invoice and we have 30 days to pay it. It's a pain that they don't just cover it, but I am happy they give us some time to get a payment to them. I was worried we'd be hit with an unexpected amount with no time to get it into the budget. Apparently PunkRock did call the company that covers his short term disability insurance, and they said that his paperwork is all there and ready to go - they will contact his doctor the day after the surgery to make sure it was actually completed. Then they will process the claim entirely, and he will get a check around June 26th. They couldn't tell him how much it will be for though - so I am still unsure if it's a percentage of his previous check or his entire check. I don't have any of it budgeted though, so any amount will be a bonus.
 
I think short term disability is usually 2/3rds of your regular rate of pay. At least it's been that with every company my husband or I worked at that offered it. I haven't actually ever used it. I was on a leave of absence with workman's comp last year and the way the health insurance premium worked was that it took 2 or 3 weeks to get the billing set up through the company that processed it and then I had 30 days from that date to make the first few payments (I get paid weekly, so the first 2 or 3 weeks all had the same pay date). I know it's not exactly the same situation PunkRock has, but hopefully knowing how it went for me gives you at least a better vague idea of what to expect. :D
 
Thanks for the info Hannah!

I am up and out this morning - currently writing from the waiting room of the neurologist. Hopefully this will be a quick visit - I am assuming we will be making more appointments and setting up tests. Bleh.

I spent some time last night picking out some good-sounding low carb recipes. Later today I need to make a grocery list and get to ordering. I am excited about starting that diet back up. Last night both DarkKnight and PunkRock went to dinner with me at Mango Grill, our favorite Indian place. Mmmmmmmm. I also did some shopping with DarkKnight, and his Jayne Cobb costume for AwesomeCon is now complete. He was looking super cute! He's going to actually shave his beard to help with the cosplay. That should be fun!

When I get home in a bit I need to make a macaroni salad, and I told PunkRock I would help him find some boxes of Infinity terrain that are currently stacked someplace in the game room. Yikes!
 
Bluebird, you were in my dream last night! And I was calling you Bluebird because I didn't know your name. Funny! :p
 
Haha that's awesome. Lots of people know my name, so feel free to PM me. :)

I hope it was a good dream and not a nightmare!
 
Yesterday was kinda fun - I spent the morning with DarkKnight running errands and we went to Fairgrounds Park to hit up the yard sale event there. I bought some odds and ends, and some brand new baby outfits for my nephew who is being born next month. I actually got a phone call in the evening from a stranger, inviting me to my brother's girlfriend's baby shower on Sunday! I had to tell the caller that I live in Maryland! I was still hoping I could make it, but the schedule isn't cooperating. Next Friday-Sunday, my daughter and DarkKnight have pre-paid their entire weekend at AwesomeCon, so it isn't feasible that PunkRock and I drive to New York during that time frame. Not with 6 cats at home! Plus, I really don't have a spare $500 for gas and hotel rooms. I WANT to go, but the priority this month is paying for our new basement floor. So, instead, I will be mailing out a package of baby things on Tuesday or Wednesday.

PunkRock and I discussed maybe taking a day trip to DC on Saturday, so that will be much cheaper and fun, too. Going to NY is often stressful since everyone wants to see me and inevitably, someone feels left out or not important. I am thinking about what attraction I haven't been to see yet, and the Air and Space Museum is still at the top of my list! Or maybe the National Zoo. We will see, I suppose. I am hoping PunkRock's first surgery goes well tomorrow. It is scheduled for 4:30 in the evening, and he is not happy about not eating all day.

My son is here today to do his laundry, and I also need to do laundry, so that is sort of annoying. DarkKnight is working all day til 6 pm, and my daughter is also at work. She will be home tonight though - her last day at Dunkin' Donuts was yesterday and from now forward she is only working at the grocery store. So no more night shifts, so that's a good thing for her! PunkRock works tonight from 3 pm til midnight, as a wrapup to 2 weeks of overnight inventory. This means some overtime money, at least. I really need to do some budgeting but my heart isn't in it today.
 
PunkRock's surgery went okay. I was mildly stressed about it, but he was in good spirits beforehand, so that helped. I tried to be super supportive and I drove him to and from the procedure. Apparently the anesthesiologist had a few issues, and he came to talk to us afterward. He said that PunkRock's blood pressure was very high, and it had spiked a couple of times. Also, that he very obviously has sleep apnea and so he was glad to hear he already had a CPAP. He said he wanted us to know that a lifestyle change NEEDED to happen, that it wasn't a matter of he should, but a matter of necessity at this point. Which didn't come as a huge surprise to me, since I have been worried about PunkRock's health since the life insurance refused him a term policy. I mean, they don't do that if they think you're a paragon of fitness.

PunkRock told me he would be willing to eat the low carb diet that DarkKnight and I will be doing together, but that he still is going to eat mashed potatoes when we go out. I was like, you're kinda missing the point here, dude! One of my bulletpoints today is to pay bills and do a large grocery order to get things started.

One thing that happened yesterday - my fucking dental implant is loose again. I have an appointment already tomorrow, but that's to put the Invisalign attachments back on. I am just...numb to this anymore. I don't even feel like calling because it seems hopeless. Of course I will call, but I can't focus on this anymore.

I have decided not to go to NY this coming weekend. I really have too much going on, and the expense just doesn't make sense. I need to send out a box of gifts to my brother's girlfriend though. I am sad I will miss the baby shower, but I will see them all at the beginning of August.

This week I started watching a couple of episodes of the TV show Naked and Afraid. I was a hardcore Survivor watcher back when it first came on the air, so it is interesting to see people put themselves through hell for no reason at all.
 
Thanks!

Update: I contacted the dental office and they are doubling my Valium prescription and they want me to take it tonight and tomorrow morning. Not that doubling it means a whole lot since the amount is low to begin with. That said, I 100% need it because I am weepy already.

The plan is to now remove the implant crown and abutment for the time I will be in the new Invisaign aligners. They are going to make a false tooth to go into both aligner until the time is over for the corrections they are doing.

I'm just...this is too much to be dealing with right now. The lady on the phone told me that, you know, at least I am not in any pain. I wanted to scream at her.

Now that I will be getting medication, I won't be able to drive. So now my daughter will have to drive me and PunkRock, since he can't drive with one hand. Gah! Things have to be difficult...
 
I'm so sorry you're dealing with all these dental issues. My heart goes out to you over how stressful this is.

I found an excellent LCHF cookbook that you might want to explore: https://www.amazon.com/Journey-Health-Taking-Cooking-Kristie/dp/1540682226/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497362799&sr=8-1&keywords=a+journey+worth+taking+cooking+keto+with+kristie

She has a lot of YouTube videos, too: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFGt_87bzlJXHxzvsU8leOQ

And a Facebook group that is fantastic. Low Carb Journey (Cooking Keto with Kristie). It's a closed group, so if you'd like to join it send me a PM with your name and I'll send you an invite. (Same offer for anyone reading this that would like to join.)

Good luck with PunkRock's shift to LCHF. If potatoes are a big deal for him, make him some cooked/baked/fried radishes. They are surprisingly delicious.
 
Thanks for the links - I will check them out later today. I don't really think PunkRock is a potato fiend, he was just being a smartass. If anything, I think cutting out soda will be the hardest for him. He drinks a 2-liter a day. He is ok with unsweetened iced tea, so I am hoping he will be ok! He eats a lot of cookies and cakes and I totally enable that. He is going to have a rough first month here at home before he returns to work!
 
Kristie has lots of recipes for sweets, and fat bombs. I was also a soda drinker, but thankfully once I committed to eating keto and knocked the carbs and sugars extremely low it was easy to quit because the cravings went away.
 
Sugar detox/withdrawal sucks. The flu like symptoms are hell. I am at the tail end of processed sugar detox. I really need to stick with my modified paleo diet due to my food allergies. I should avoid all nightshade family foods since I test positive to them all not just the few I react badly to.

By try avoiding white potatoes they put potatoes in every thing from milk to shreaded chesse to baking powder. Plus they don't have to label for them since they are not a top 8 allergen.
 
Those flu-like symptoms can be mitigated by drinking pickle juice. The results are quick acting, so relief is within minutes. You can also increase your salt intake.
 
Can't alergic to cucumbers.
 
Ack, definitely not then. Salt is the key thing to helping get past the flu-like symptoms. It can be added to water and foods.
 
Dagferi said:
Sugar detox/withdrawal sucks. The flu like symptoms are hell. I am at the tail end of processed sugar detox. I really need to stick with my modified paleo diet due to my food allergies. I should avoid all nightshade family foods since I test positive to them all not just the few I react badly to.

By try avoiding white potatoes they put potatoes in every thing from milk to shreaded chesse to baking powder. Plus they don't have to label for them since they are not a top 8 allergen.
Click to expand...

A magnesium supplement helped me immensely when I was doing a high protein, low carb diet last month. The aches and pains were greatly reduced.
 
Soooo the dental appointment went well in that I was high AF and didn't really care what happened. A couple of times I almost fell asleep while there was stuff going on in my mouth. I have definitey found the dose that works. That said, it was about 7 hours later that I suddenly was dizzy and anxious, and I felt like I was suddenly dumped on by all of the emotions I would have felt in the morning if I hadn't taken Valium. It was a weird experience! The feelings lasted about 45 minutes and then things were ok. Without a doubt, I will do this again, if needed.

I wrote a timeline on Facebook the other day - here's a direct copy/paste:


Check it - a rundown of my dental nightmare over the last THREE years.

At this point I would 100% recommend Invisalign braces - I did have significant gum recession under one bottom tooth due to one jagged edge rubbing, but initially there was just some minor sensitivity there. The problems arose with the implant, which was placed next to this area.

If I could go back in time, I would have just done the Invisalign and had them set things up initially to move everything to hide the fact that I had been missing a tooth since birth. I never knew I was missing one because everything was crooked and crowded; I doubt it would have looked bad when straightened. Instead, I had figured they could make a space and I could have a tooth implanted, because hey, if I am spending thousands to fix things, I should get it close to perfect, right?

Apparently not.

1. The new 2-part implant didn't work for me - where the post is in my mouth there's not enough space to keep it from popping out. The very first day, it came out of my mouth twice.
2. After a few days of this, the oral surgeon filled under the gum line with cement hoping it would help the post fuse with the jawbone. It did.
2. However, he put the wrong size crown on.
3. Oral surgeon went on sabbatical for a year. So when I started presenting with the oversize crown tearing my Invisalign retainer, he wasn't around to fix it.
4. Regular ortho tried to fix things herself and she screwed things up more because she wasn't an expert on the new type of implant. Orthodontist thought that maybe it was the right size crown, just not pushed far enough down onto the post. She first tried to remove the crown, and it took a while because of all the extra cement. As a result, she abraded my gumline WAY too far down. The post and abutment are visible through the gum tissue now.
5. She eventually realized that the crown didn't need to be pushed down further, and that in fact it couldn't be pushed down further. So she cemented it back.
6. Because the size was incorrect, my retainer wouldn't fit and my bottom teeth all shifted.
7. Oral surgeon returned and put a different crown on, bonded it to both adjoining teeth to keep it in place, then immediately left on sabbatical again.
8. New crown wasn't smoothed down enough and it tore my new in-house made retainer.
9. New Invisalign ordered, but there was over a month wait to my appointment.
10. Lack of fitted retainer shifted the teeth enough that the bond to between the implant and one adjacent tooth loosened and allowed the implant wiggle room, which had it popping out again slightly.
11. Today, the implant was once again bonded to the adjacent teeth, and my new Invisalign braces are now in use. I have to do 7 weeks of refinements to fix the shifting created by all of the above.

All of these appointments were painful, and took hours.

The new crown is not an exact color match, so I was given some free zoom whitening products. I haven't used them because after all of this, I am still not convinced this will be the last crown in my mouth, and I don't want to agitate anything with the bleach until this process is complete.

I always rather enjoyed going to the dentist, because I did not receive proper dental care as a child. So now that I can afford it, it has been a treat for me, even when things were painful. After the first implant screwup though, I now have EXTREME anxiety and PTSD symptoms whenever I think about the dentist, or someone mentions teeth. I usually can't sleep leading up to an appointment for even just a simple cleaning now. Y'all know I can be overly emotional about some things, but it's my worst x2. I can no longer drive myself to appointments because I start hyperventilating.

I haven't paid for dental care in almost 2 years, because none of this has been my fault.


So yeah, there it all is. Some of those steps are multiple appointments. Sigh. I go back in 6 weeks to see how my new aligners are working.

Today I am starting my low carb diet back up. DarkKnight is fully on board but PunkRock is so far not seeming very motivated or excited. That is a huge red flag to me. I am not going to stress, though I am worried. His blood pressure is super high and something has to be done. I find myself reviewing our end of life plans, life insurance and medical power of attorney stuff, so that doesn't help. He needs to get healthy. I love him so much!

I had a good night at D&D yesterday, and tomorrow the three of us are supposed to go to D.C. DarkKnight has the first day of AwesomeCon and we are dropping him off, and PunkRock and I are planning on the Air & Space Museum. I hope the weather isn't too terrible.
 
PunkRock and I went together to see the Wonder Woman movie on Thursday night - DarkKnight had play practice, and my daughter had given PunkRock a gift card to the theater for Father's Day. Yesterday DarkKnight, PunkRock and I headed out around 10 am to DC. Everything went smoothly and DarkKnight made it to AwesomeCon. PunkRock and I spent the entire day at the Air & Space Museum downtown. Here are some pictures:

On the Metro

91EE8270-25B3-4569-9833-5E93FDC55447_zpse6bazlga.jpg


My favorite thing at the museum, surprisingly enough, were the murals. This one was painted in 1976, when the museum opened.

D2502CAA-2CAB-4772-A13C-035AC59B9B4B_zpsyknbctgn.jpg


Flying Fortress mural.

1B0BD1C5-B0F3-46BA-8D6D-FAF279CB7E4F_zpstoyb6k1k.jpg


My second favorite thing was a temporary exhibit that showed art from WWI - drawings of the soldiers, paintings of their equipment, carvings they made. I didn't know that it would be there, but it was really good art!

Actual airplane stuff, I guess is kind of cool to look at, but I honestly am not a history buff when it comes to transportation. I think people who can identify models and types and specific ones would enjoy this museum more! PunkRock is that sort of person. :) I was more interested in the space side of things. Hey look, it's PunkRock with a moon lander!

A9F2FDFA-5364-40F3-AC41-915C7C652433_zpsseqyqloj.jpg


Unfortunately, as much as I loved looking at the rockets and things, the actual exhibits were very basic Astronomy. I didn't learn anything new with those. I did like this model.

E378631C-D2F5-4A92-A338-1033B307A545_zps8mac5jni.jpg


We paid to see Dark Universe, an IMAX movie narrated by Neil DeGrasse Tyson. We stood in line, were seated dead center and then when the movie started, we watched Beautiful Planet 3D narrated by Jennifer Lawrence. When we realized we were in the wrong place, it was too late! We were bummed, but it was a good show. We just didn't pay attention, and the ticket taker didn't either. Also, you know, Dark Universe wasn't 3D but that didn't register with us at all. We were not smart. Lolol

One thing that kinda struck me as we were going through the museum was that PunkRock didn't ask for a single photo of me. I never noticed before, but I don't think in our entire relationship he has ever asked me to pose someplace for him. This had me feeling a little dejected at the end of the day, and I shared that with him. He was surprised, I think. He told me that he figured I always asked for photos together, so he didn't feel he needed to get pictures of me alone. I dropped it because god knows DarkKnight takes enough photos of me. Lol But it did make me a little sad.

I am looking forward to going to the other Air & Soace Museum location and seeing the space shuttle Discovery up close. I think maybe we will plan that for later this summer.

My daughter joined DarkKnight in DC last night, and they are going to spend the next two days at AwesomeCon. PunkRock are holding down the fort here at home. We got stuff prepped for dinner later tonight (day 3 low carbing it!) and now we are getting ready to go shop some yard sales.
 
Wow! We spent a lot of time at yard sales today. I bought a bunch of quality brand name baby clothes, as my brother's baby mama is giving birth next month to a baby boy. They are naming him Dawson, which I think is fucking terrible. Not my baby though, so they don't need my opinion. I gave my brother shit for it at first but whatever.

We paid the $500 deposit for the basement floor today. The contractor just got back from vacation so I will message him on Tuesday to get on his schedule to have the new floor put in later this month. An additional $1000 to be paid then. Sigh.

PunkRock took a nap this afternoon and I woke him up with nakedness. We had amazing sex, which was the first since the day of his surgery. So many good feels!
 
Ugh. Woke up with my period today. I had a headache and was slightly sweaty. All along I was thinking, well, that's prolly because of sugar withdrawal. Haha. Could be both, I guess. I've been crampy, but again, I was attributing that to the diet change. I feel dehydrated at the moment, but Tylenol took care of the headache. I want to go back to sleep, but PunkRock has a friend coming over at 11 am to play Infinity, and I need to sweep and Swiffer the kitchen floor.

Waaaaaah. Geez, it's almost 9 am. I gotta feed the cats - they will prolly be pissed off by now since they are used to breakfast at 6 am. So I need to feed them and then wait a while for them to truly be finished because I need to clean the floor. No point in doing that in a different order because they are messy AF when eating. Maybe I will feed them and then watch an episode of Naked and Afraid. I think I have two more to finish before I finish Season 3. These people - I swear, if you put me naked in my front yard for 21 days I would die. Don't even need snakes and crocodiles.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top