I am a magnificent mess!

Today my Aunt Rachel came to visit and we went to the Immanuel Bible Foundation Women's Christmas Celebration. The guest speaker was Julie Barnhill, and she was excellent. She is a Christian speaker and delivers her message with a quirky style and humorous take on life. Today she spoke of women. We are all a mess. In fact we are all a magnificent mess (as that is the way that God intentionally made us). We are all or nothing and bring it upon ourselves. One of the best things to resolve this is to realize that we don't have it together and we don't have to. So, I want to try to remember that "I am a magnificent mess and it's okay not to have it all together."

Julie's presentation today was taped and will air a few times on tv later this month. I want to tape it and watch it again. She also has a few books (7 in fact) and I think I may try to read a few of them. Some of them deal with motherhood and those may be helpful for me in the future when we do have children. One of the interesting ones in "One Tough Mother." It says even tough mothers deal with depression, communication, stress, and anger. I also want to read the book Val recommended called "Parenting: from surviving to thriving." I need to make a note to buy those......

Hands of Hope

Life ends when you stop dreaming, hope ends when you stop believing, and love ends when you stop caring. So dream, hope, and love make life beautiful.

Photo found from: "All That I Can Say" by David Crowder

No more mouse turds?

So I think I made the decision today to be done with the acupuncture and Chinese herbs. It has become time consuming and expensive. At $60 a visit, I have spent more than $1,000 for sure going since September and each visit I don't seem to be making any progress according to the small Chinese man. I had scheduled more appointments in January and February at my last visit but I think I am going to cancel them and stop taking the small bb shaped mouse turd pills. I have an appointment today so I will see what my current diagnosis is and go from there. Just want to make the "right" decision and I'm not sure there is one in cases like this. It's a land of gray and maybe. Maybe it helps and maybe it doesn't.

Elevated

My basal body thermometer and I have become attached. I won't call us friends cause its kind of a pain in the arse to do every single morning, but I will say attached as it travelled to and from Omaha with me this weekend. Well yesterday when I took my temperature (half asleep like normal and wanting nothing more to go back to sleep and stay in bed all morning) it was elevated. Generally my temp is around 97.15-97.40ish at 6am. However yesterday it was 97.8 something. That is "elevated" in my book. I think it said if its elevated more than .3 or .4 and remains consistently high then that MAY be a sign of ovulation. Today my temp was 97.7 something (I have trouble remembering the digit in the hundredths place). I would say that is still a bit elevated. But I am on day 30 and 31 since my Provera cycle, so who knows if it really means anything at all. I did look back and I was a bit elevated around day 13 and 14 too so maybe its just a fluke.

How do you explain?

Today I stopped by Mel's house to drop off my key and some other things. (She is taking care of kitty over Thanksgiving while we are in Omaha.) I sat in the kitchen and talked with Iree (her almost 4 year old) and her. Iree asked "Kim B, why is your face red?" I turned to Mel to see if it was red from a recent scratch or if he was asking about my acne. He was asking about the acne. How do you explain acne to a 4 year old? I was stumped. I can't tell him that its cause my hormones are all jacked. I couldn't even lie and give those things you think when you are younger like "she doesn't keep her skin clean or she eats too much chocolate..." So I just said it was from some medicine that I take and my skin was "itchy" and that makes it red like it is. He asked a few more questions but thanks to mom's help we were able to satisfy his curiosity and we moved to the next topic of discussion. Such is the mind of a 4 year old I guess... taking in all the information in that it can and moving on with the next thought.
On a side note I do think my skin is actually getting a little better. I'll keep taking my meds and keep hoping it will clear as things level off.

Mind over matter my ass! (and more)

Okay so I had an acupuncture appointment yesterday. And Dr. G always asks, "How are you today?" and then he monitors my pulse. Yesterday I felt pretty good. I had been super tired on Wed night and gone to bed at like 830, but I was in good spirits for a Thursday afternoon, so I said "I'm doing good!" Well, he didn't believe me. He again said my body was weak and tired. So as I laid there in the quiet dark I got to thinking about the saying "Mind over matter."
Mentally I feel okay. I tend to be an optimistic person. I've been called "Suzie Sunshine, Pollyanna, and Little Miss Sunshine." I try to stay upbeat. It makes the day better, but to lay there after being told my body was weak and tired....well no shit! It's medicated and trying to regulate itself and losing the non-stop battle to stabilize.
So "Mind over matter" is the belief that the mind is more powerful than the body. (Specifically, mind over matter refers to controlling pain that you may or may not be experiencing, but I will think of it more in a broader sense of the mind controlling the body and its functions.....which just made me think of tantric sex but that is a whole different thought.) Well if this is true and mentally I "think" I am okay then why won't my body co-operate and start working? Can you mentally fix a physical problem? What about prayer? Is that a mental process given its a faith and a mental belief in an almighty power above?
I did manage to let the thoughts drift away yesterday on the table with the needles in and I almost fell asleep. I say almost because I'm never quite sure if I'm asleep or not but I'm groggy and yesterday I think I snorted myself awake. I had this funny pig snort of a breath and it startled me back to reality.
I went ahead and made a few more appointments into January for acupuncture so we shall see. I asked him if I was making any progress and he said "a little" which translates to "none" in my book but oh well.
I did also have another first at my appointment yesterday. I knocked out a needle like not even 2 minutes after he left the room. I wanted to see how many I had yesterday cause it felt like he just kept putting more and more needles in. I went to look and laid my hand on my chest/stomach right under the girls to pull up the gown a bit more and hit the top needle. It came right on out. So then I didnt know what to do with it. I called out a few times for the Dr, but didn't want to yell. I sure as hell couldn't get up and walk out into the hallway and ask him to stick it back in. I wasn't going to try to stick it in myself, so I laid it in the middle of the three remaining needles (that form the diamond on my stomach) and drifted off in my thoughts. Guess I have to lay still next time.
I should post a picture of myself lying on the table with all those needles in me. It really is a scene.