Suddenly Sandy

So I had my appointment with my  new doctor today...I love him! He took his time, answered all my questions. I'm used to my old doctor being in a rush. This doctor actually settled in and let me get comfortable enough to ask my questions. Then he answered them really well and made sure I wasn't getting lost. I think I just found my new OB/GYN!

Okay, onto the appointment. Options. I have two. I can go on birth control pills to help handle the pain, but the estrogen in the pills may cause my nodule to grow. Option 2 is surgery. I'm going with option 2. He's not concerned about all-over endometriosis at this point, the nodule is in my abdominal wall and caused by my c-section, very common it sounds like. Depending on how well rooted it is, I could be in and out of the hospital in the same day. OR I could be staying overnight and recovery will be like a c-section, not just a week of taking it easy. Either way, I'll be happy to just get the darn thing removed and hopefully feel better!

Next step? I need to call tomorrow morning and talk to his nurse, let them know we've decided on surgery instead of the birth control and start the process of scheduling. And finding out how much this is going to cost...I'm not looking forward to hearing that number!

Alright, I swear I haven't been drinking...I'm just feeling creative with post titles I guess. Anyhoo, mommy dearest. Does everyone remember my dear old mom and the stories I have to say about her? Remember my brand new (now 3 months!) niece? Did I or did I not predict that Grandma would pretty much forget Scotty once baby was here? I was right. I hate that I was right on this. I hate that I've driven 20 minutes into town to MY Grandma's (aka Ama) to meetup with my mom so Scotty could see her...and she never showed up at the agreed upon time. That I've extended the olive branch numerous times to meetup so he could see her and vice versa. I really don't want to see her myself, but I know it's important that Scotty know his grandma. So I'm trying. Unfortunately, nothing is happening on her side other than the dangling of his Christmas present. I didn't want her to get him one. She keeps ending e-mails "I still have Scotty's present!" I've tried to coordinate meeting in town, at my sister's when my mom is watching baby...she drives me nuts.

On the bright side, Scotty has a ton of other people in the grandparent role. I suppose you could just call them grandparents. I have a hard time thinking of my husband's biological mother as family, we rarely see her and we're not close. I adore my husband's biological dad's side of the family. They are so much like Scott it's not even funny. Then there's his real family, the adopted one. So let's count here...2 great grandma's that he sees, 4 great aunts, 5 aunts, 6 uncles, 2 grandpa's, 3 grandma's (or girlfriends of grandpa's) and a bunch of cousins. I don't think he's going to miss 1 drunk grandma, do you? He doesn't even ask about her anymore. I just hate that he's being replaced...I think it brings back memories of when my little sister was born or something.

What would you do? Keep trying? Back off? Wait and let her make the next move? I just don't know what else to do at this point. I'm still standing firm on my decision that he is not allowed at her house. In all honesty, I wouldn't trust her alone with him at this point. I've heard her try to make him feel bad because her husband's grandkids were at her house playing with his toys. I called her on it and got a nice long drunken rant in response. Needless to say I skipped the Mother's Day celebration last year and will most likely be doing so this year as well.

Guess what I'm doing today? I get to drive about 45 minutes to pickup my husband's biological mother. Yay! <heavy on the sarcasm> What are these carrot things for anyway? <><> Seriously, someone tell me. I know I'm not using them correctly...I hate it when I look stupid.

So, I get to go pickup my mother in law because she's over here from New Mexico visiting. She's staying with her daughter, who we don't really care for. Reason behind this? She's come to my husband numerous times for help with mortgage related issues, taken up quite a bit of his time...then went and bought a house without using him. And she's just overall rude. One of those "my poo doesn't stink" people. Back on topic, I get to drive to pick up Susie. I'm not excited about this. I hate driving on the freeway. I much prefer back roads. Unfortunately, I have to take the freeway to get there. Here's to hoping no snow! If it snows, I'm totally bailing.

Susie is actually quite a bit of fun. Scotty warms up to her really fast, she's giggling all the time. I like her, I just have a hard time with her sometimes. She's one of those people that needs to be right (yes, I know, I'm the same way...but it's different). I remember her telling me I was wrong about a health issue my husband had at one point. Apparently living in NM and only talking to him 3 or 4 times a year means she knows more than his wife. Whatever. Anyway, I'm not looking forward to this visit for two reasons. 1) it was planned on Saturday...with no warning (okay, a few days since it wasn't happening until today, but still) and 2) I'm a little stressed out with this whole endometriosis thing and the surgery that I still don't know when/if it's happening. I don't really want to deal with putting on my happy face...for 6 hours. That's right, 6 hours. I have to pick her up at 11 am because she's been here 3 months but she doesn't drive. Fortunately, her daughters husband is picking her up around 5. By 5? I'm guessing probably closer to 6 or 7. We'll see what happens.

Up until Saturday, Susie knew nothing of my health issues. Until SOMEONE (hubby) told her. He said he didn't know I didn't want her to know. I don't know why, but I really didn't want that side of the family to know. It's almost like I'm ashamed that there is something wrong with me. Weird, right? I'm still trying to wrap my head around it myself. I just don't want people to know...you know, unless it's people reading my blog or FB I don't know, I kept my mouth shut on FB for quite a while. I let it slip last week only because I was so frustrated that my appointment needed to be rescheduled. Stupid babies. Don't they know they need to wait their turn? I had an appointment and was all ready to go! The benefit of c-section? Scheduled. AND I know that it's an appointment and I'm not pulling the doctor away from some other poor woman who has an important health concern...like SURGERY. Just sayin'.

Alright, I have no idea where I was going with this...just wish me luck on keeping my happy face on while Susie is here. Scotty will have a blast...I might make up a "previously scheduled hair appointment" and run to my sisters and leave the boys. Hey, it could be true...my little sis DID promise to cut my hair since I stayed with the baby for HOURS last week while she screamed so little sis could go to doctors appointments! BTW, Scotty and I think we might need to cancel the whole "let's have one more baby" plan. I forgot how much fun a screaming baby is. You could hear Scotty from two houses away...I think Ila is at least from 1 house away. My ears are still ringing.

This is the rice milk recipe I use. I think it tastes pretty gross by itself, but I use it for my bread (see this post for recipe). I have no idea how long it stores, I leave mine for quite a while and it seems fine. I'm not dead yet, at least.

To make the rice milk you'll need:

1 c uncooked rice, washed well (I just use regular white rice)

8 c water

1 tsp salt

more water at end of recipe for diluting

Blender

mason jars or other container to store

1. Boil 8 cups water on high
2. Add your 1 c rice (make sure you remember to rinse it well!)
3. Lower heat to simmer and cover for 3 hours
4. You'll end up with a thick rice concoction. Add the salt (I always forget this until I already have it in the jars!)
5. In your blender, fill halfway with rice and halfway with water. Blend until smooth and pour into mason jar.
6. Continue until you are out of rice.

*Note: the original recipe says to strain through a fine mesh strainer twice before pouring into mason jars...I skip this step and it's fine. It'll be pretty thick when you're done. My bread recipe calls for 2 c rice milk, I fill my measuring cup to 1 c and fill the rest of the way with water. It works out fine. To find the original recipe unedited, go here (probably not a bad idea since I just typed this up from what I could remember doing today!)

It's amazing what happens when I give myself permission to take a break. From out of nowhere there is a fire lit under my bum and I'm on a roll. And I'm feeling a little more cheery. Don't get me wrong, I can always find something to whine about. For now though, I'm trying to not. I've gotten a lot accomplished the last few days. 4 loaves of bread yesterday, 8 today PLUS a batch (4 mason jars) of rice milk. My arms are killing me from kneading the bread, but I feel much better knowing I have 12 loaves in the freezer now.

On top of that? I rearranged TWO rooms in the house today. Three if you count moving a bookshelf and chair in Scotty's room. Scott made the mistake of saying "I bet in the next few days you'll move the front room around". He LOVED the setup in the front room. Note the past tense? Yep, I rearranged everything today. I kinda like it. I don't love it, but I like it. It's different. Then I had to fix our bedroom. I ended up with an extra chair, so that went into Scotty's room to be the reading chair. I had to move a bookshelf to make room. Day before yesterday? Scotty and I danced quite a bit to my Glee station on Pandora. It was awesome. I'm feeling a lot less sucky the past few days. Still a little cranky and emotional, but I'm motivated to get up and do things. It's nice Now if I could just remember to grab my camera and take pictures...I don't have any 2011 pics yet and very few from the holidays! It's hard to get pictures when you're running around doing everything AND chasing after a 3 year old!

Alright, I've rearranged two (three if you count Scotty's bedroom with the whole adding a chair thing) rooms today. I now feel the need to change my blog layout/design, whatever you want to call it. I don't know what I'd do though. I also need to update to the newest wordpress thingy...that message has been there for a while!

What do you think? Change the blog or leave it alone and go fold the darn laundry?

I SWORE I was going to watch what I ate this year during the holidays. I figured it wouldn't be TOO hard since I'm not eating dairy, right? Well, I cheated. A lot. And then I went to throw out the leftover pie so I wouldn't eat it...and proceeded to inhale a few bites while holding the pie plate over the garbage can. I'm not proud. I've been having a little bit of difficulty with the diet (and by diet I mean my eating habits, I'm definitely not on a diet). I eat when I'm bored. I eat when I'm stressed. I eat when I walk by the pantry and see chocolate. So I've been eating all the Christmas chocolate. It's delicious. Unfortunately, I also own a scale. So when I eat all this chocolate, then stand on the scale...I get mad. *sigh* It's a vicious cycle. I get mad at the scale, so I cave and eat some chocolate because I'm mad/upset.

I tell you all this because something happened today...As you know, I'm dairy free (for the most part, when I'm not sneaking in things I shouldn't). My husband and son are not dairy free. They eat the same bread I do (I made 4 loaves yesterday and 8 today, yay me!) I skip the cheese when they have anything with cheese. Hubby has been awesome at helping me find ways to tweak our favorite recipes. Then we realized "Scotty isn't wanting to poo..." and I started googling suggestions on what to do when your 3 year old holds in his poo. He swears he doesn't need to go, then has a minor accident. He says it's scary, it hurts, his poo wants to stay in him, etc. Well, I'm seeing this is normal. You know what else I'm seeing? It could have something to do with dairy allergies/intolerance. And if his mama has it? Chances are so does he.

You were wondering how dairy and poo were going to connect, huh? Well, guess who has a dairy-free buddy now? Starting tomorrow he gets no regular cows milk. He LOVES his Nesquik, so this'll be interesting. I'm excited...I can stop being lazy about cooking. Now that I'm not the only one, I'm going to find some new recipes and get creative. If we're cutting out things like milk, cheese, etc. I can stretch the budget a little more and get more fruits and veggies. It's sad I'm this excited. I just hope this is the reason the little bugger won't poo. If it's a control thing, I don't know if we'll survive. I am so tired of cleaning poo out of undies...and off the quilt because I told him no undies until he poo's in the potty. I'm mean, I know.

I've been doom and gloom lately, so I thought I'd post something on a happier note...that being a recipe I got a little worn out over the holidays with all my baking AND we unplugged our extra freezer, so I didn't really need to bake a bunch of bread since I had no place to store it. Well, we go through one of these loaves about every 2 days or so. I plugged our extra freezer back in so I can start stocking it with bread again! This recipe is super simple and delicious. I love having my toast every morning. The loaves are a little small for sandwiches, but we all prefer this over store bought now. I buy the big bag of flour and sugar at Costco, I ordered a big bag of yeast on Amazon because it's much cheaper than getting it at the store. This is what I'll be doing today...to the tune of at least 6 loaves!

(recipe was found HERE)

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 cups warm almond milk or other dairy-free milk substitute
• ¼ cup white sugar
• 1 ½ T. active dry yeast
• 6 cups white bread flour
• 1 ½ t. salt
• ¼ cup oil

Preparation:

Okay, I DO...but there is a specific one I don't like. The one that is on it's way right now...My new OB just called to let me know he might not be able to see me today because one of his other patients just went into labor. SO my option was to wait and call closer to my appointment time OR reschedule. So I rescheduled until next Wednesday at noon. Stupid baby.

I slept very little last night...I have my appointment at 1:30 this afternoon (I think). I never got a reminder call, so now I keep thinking maybe I wrote it down wrong. I didn't, but I'll call and check this morning anyway. My sister is going with me...she knows all the questions that need to be asked and I have a feeling I'll probably stop taking in information at some point! Hopefully it goes well and we get the go ahead to schedule surgery and just get this over with! I spent 4 days straight on the couch in my PJ's last week. It was a little ridiculous. I'm still sore, but I can at least pull my pants up all the way now without needing to cry!

Wish me luck today! Will update as soon as I know more...and hopefully when this is taken care of? I'll be a little better about blogging! Too much going on and on my mind lately for me to focus. I had to make an emergency trip to the store yesterday to restock our fridge and pantry...this NEVER happens to me, I'm a planner!