Ole' Swampy

I thought I should put a happy post up. Lately my blog has been a sounding board for my many problems and I thought something fun would be great.

I bought a book called "Hello cupcake!" a couple of years ago. I love it. It has adorable cupcakes decorated in ways that anyone can do. They use candy and simple frosting techniques and it's so fun. I don't pull it out often because I am often very busy. But, we are having a get together with one of my friends today and so it was the perfect excuse to make something out of the book. I also made my "surprise pupcakes" with it. They are chocolate cupcakes with a surprise baked into the middle. Cream cheese and chocolate chips! yum! So, it should be fun tonight, I love excuses to make fun things for my family.

A Bit of a personal question-updated

I want to ask some advice from some of you but it's a bit of a personal question. I think I am having ovarian cysts. Has anyone ever dealt with this? I would swear I'm pregant, I have all the symptoms, nausea, tired, soreness, all that. But, I know I'm not. I haven't missed a period, in fact they seem to drag out a little longer than normal. I've been sore and tender on my right side, so much so that I had to take 800 mg of ibuprofen to make it through the day on wednesday. It's just a constant dull, painful ache, in the same place. The pain seems to be worse the week after my period ends. I've looked it up, cysts fit the symptoms. Sigh. I'll probably head to the Dr's here soon. I called Sushi's insurance and asked them to send us some cards and info on our plan. The fact I had to call them is a post for another day. So, any experience? Words of wisdom? Anything to help?


Updated- just back from the Dr's. sigh. No answers and just lots of not good guesses. I've never been so strongly urged to go on birth control and so strongly challenged on whether or not I should have more kids. Too bad we want to add to our family. I'm a puzzle. I don't fit into any diagnosis. They are guessing, either Endometriosis or PCOS again. Because delving into endometriosis is such a costly affair we are going after the PCOS thing. They have put me on metformin again. It was nice to hear that no, I'm not crazy. I work out an hour and a half a day five days a week and I eat healthy but I can't lose weight. She agreed that with as much as I'm doing I should just be able to shed weight right and left. sigh. We'll see how the metformin goes. The good news is it doesn't look at all like cysts. I'm a little sad and a little defeated. A day to think and ponder will do me some good.

Happy Valentines day!

I suppose I should say it. Although, to be honest with you I kind of feel like Valentines Day is the over rated holiday. Don't get me wrong. I love any excuse for chocolate and flowers but I want them to come to me spontaneously, not because my husband is afraid he'll be in the doghouse if he doesn't bring them to me. The things I value have to do with time. Quality time. Time he spent really thinking about me, and what he can do FOR me. One of my favorite gifts he's given me (repeatedly because I like it so much) is a playlist on my ipod. I love that he took the time to find music I like or music he likes that he thinks I will like and put it together for me. It's simply something I don't have time and patience for. I listen to them over and over and over. It also makes me feel like we're in high school or Junior High and he just made me a mixed tape. The feeling makes me giggle! I also love a heartfelt card. But it always means more when he just surprises me and gives these things to me for no reason at all other than that he loves me. We do celebrate Valentines Day, but we NEVER go out on Valentines day and I never expect flowers ON Valentines Day. Often those things are done a week before or a week after. What we usually do? I make a fun dinner for us on Valentines Day and we exchange cards with truly heartfelt words. Tonight we are having heart shaped BBQ chicken pizzas because that is what the kids requested. :) What do you think, am I too practical and not romantic enough? What are your Valentines traditions?

And the drama continues but I do believe it's coming to an end.

I hope. I hope the drama of the washer has come to an end. At least for a little while. It's dead, it's gone. $120 worth of knowledge later, it's dead. sigh. I got 13 years of use out of it. It got moved 6 times, lived through roomates, and it did 10-12 loads of laundry a week near the end of it's life. I guess I got my $300 out of it. That's how much I paid for it 13 years ago. Now? For the one I want? $1000. eeps! That is certainly not in the budget for now. Our manna from heaven? The free washer our good friend is giving to us for free. It'll last for a little while and once it dies we'll either be able to buy the new one I want or we'll get a refurbished one for a couple hundred dollars. Sigh, I am slightly ticked about the $120 we spent to "fix" the old washer, however, I gained so much knowledge! More than I ever wanted to know about washers. The good news? I now know how to fix a washer early on.

Today is insanity. I have to go to the laundromat early this morning, then I have visiting teaching at one, a dr's appointment at 1:45 and I need to close a show and make treats for team meeting tomorrow, read/plan my part for team meeting tomorrow, clean my car because I'm carpooling and my car is a freaking pig pen, and print/mail receipts for another host. I think I'll combine my studying for visting teaching and team meeting into the laundromat stuff. I'll just be sitting there for a couple of hours. I may as well accomplish something.

A DATE!!!!

It's a very rare occurance here at the sushi boy household. But, because sushiboy was so awesome at his company christmas party we won some gift certificates. I'm so excited I can't stand it. We're going to go see "The Foreigner" here at a local play house and then we're going to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. Now I just need to get the house picked up so that sushi's sister and brother in law who graciously agreed to babysit don't think we're total slobs. :P Oh, and I need to make myself look pretty, that takes some time. I'm not what you call a natural beauty. It takes a little work here! :) I'll update later about how it was!

Update: What a night! We went and saw "The Foreigner", it was hilarious! We laughed to hard! After that we were planning on going to Texas Roadhouse but when we got there at 5:30 there was an HOUR AND A HALF wait. We were hungry, Peanuts just weren't going to tide us over. :) So, I had brought our other gift cards we had gotten and we decided to go try La Jolla Groves. We called over there and there was NO WAIT. It was awesome. Our friend put it this way "I forgot it was winter for a minute!" I did too. The ambiance was wonderful. They had these fake lemon trees covering the ceiling everywhere so it felt like we were eating in a lemon grove. The food! Oh! The food! They pride themselves on using local produce and only vine ripened tomatoes. I don't know how they did it but they were fabulous. It made me wish it was July and I could go eat tomatoes out of my garden. My mouth literally starts watering when I think about it. They served these fantastic rolls- some were a honey white, honey wheat, pesto and sundried tomatoe. Our table literally ate three bowls of them. They were awesome. We got a caprese salad that was so so so good for an appetizer and then Sushi got a fantastic steak sandwich ( I even had a bite and it was good, that's saying something, I don't care for beef. It had a fabulous balsalmic vinegar flavor to it) and I got some awesome chicken marsala. I have a major weakness for chicken marsala. This was fantastic. It was served on a slice of potatoes au-gratin but these are NOT your mother's au-gratin potatoes. I think they had marsapone cheese. They were so good. There was also some fantastic pan fried butternut squash. On our way out we decided to visit the little sweet shop they had in the restaurant. They sell those fabulous rolls and everything in the dessert display was 50% off so we got two slices of turtle cheesecake to share with my sister in law and brother in law. So fun, it was a very long, well needed date. Sushi and I replied we felt so relaxed and it was so fun!

And in answer to Leslie- you are too kind. I often look at those pictures of stars without makeup and think "hey! That's what I look like without makeup!" It's alright, I just know that to look my best I have to work a little at it. It cracks me up how surprised people are who usually see me without makeup when they see me made up. They literally say "wow! you look so pretty!" To which I reply "It's amazing what a little mascara will do for a girl, huh?!" ;)

Enjoy the moment

I'm trying. . . . I really am. . . . but right now when all the children are insisting on being within a 2 foot circle of where I am at all times I'm struggling to enjoy the moment. Mom needs some personal space!!!!!