So my hair started falling out last Friday. :-( I cried and then I got tired of it clogging the tub, so Pat and trimmed it all short until it's like an inch all over. It actually looks kinda cute, but there's bald spots, so I've been wearing a scarf for the most part. Wigs are okay, but kind of itchy and they just don't look like me.

Today was my second chemo. It went well - I was happy to be done. I either have two more or four more to go, and I'll have an ultrasound on the 16th to see how it's working. I can feel the tumor shrinking and it's awesome. I can't wait until I'm done with chemo and can have surgery and then my hair will grow back!!

I have felt so good the past two days, it is such a weird feeling! The beginning of the week I felt awful, no energy, achy, tired, nauseous, and then Wednesday I was just bleh and stayed home from work. Thursday I had a doctor's appointment and I had a fever, so they gave me Tylenol and before I had my Herceptin infusion they gave me a bag of saline, and I don't know if it was the Tylenol or the saline, but I felt ten thousand times better, and I've been good ever since. If this keeps up, I may exercise. Shocking!

So things are good - I can feel the tumor in my breast shrinking, which is awesome, and other than the first week after chemo of feeling kind of not-good, I feel pretty good. I do have a rash on the backs of my hands which the nurse said is eczema, and which I now read is stress-related, so that's not really a surprise. I still wish it would go away.

Yesterday Pat and I watched "The Hurt Locker", which was good in a gritty realistic "this is war and it is not pretty" kind of way. I laughed so hard at the one part - the main characters are helping some English people and they were like "We have a flat tire, but we used up our wrench."

Main character: How do you use up a wrench?
English guy: Well, he threw it at someone.
Main character: You know, we have guns now, you don't have to go throwing wrenches at people.

Lol.

Lola-kitty is fitting in well - she is so funny and vocal. She doesn't meow though, she trills. Right now she and Posie are crowding me off the couch. Pat is in the other room yelling at either the tv or the person he is talking to through his headset or both. I broke my cardinal rule of not griping about his gaming and lost my temper yesterday. /bad Alex. It's really the only thing he is super passionate about and loves, and I think I was just worked up because people at work were talking about how their husbands spend so much time gaming, etc. Who knows. We worked it out though, and hopefully we will go today and get a couch to put in the game room so I can sit in the same room with him, even if we don't talk. Lol.

So I have not posted in forever! I really want to get back in the habit of using this thing - I think it's a good outlet for my feelings, but I just haven't taken the time to write since we got the internet and now that I'm on, I don't have anything deep to say. Rambling will have to suffice!

I'm watching the introduction episode of the Girls Next Door while Pat is napping... I wasn't sure if I liked the new girls, but maybe I do. I don't know. Crystal seems nice. She goes "I'm not the new Holly, Holly is the new me." Lol. Okay. Oh Holly is on now! Yay Holly - she's still my favorite.

I'm totally addicted to bad celebrity-reality tv shows... Keeping up with the Kardashians, Leave it to Lamas - speaking of which, that sets a new bar in terms of badness, when did that come on? I move away for two months, and I come back to Leave it to Lamas. Holy cows.

Lol, Carrot Top is on now.

So things in the new house are good - it's a mess because Pat and I are both lazy and haven't finished putting stuff away, but it's so nice to have a place of our own. The cats like it too! :-) Work is good - I had my yearly evaluation and that went well.

I'm obsessed with the new Chanel commercial with Audrey Tautou in it. It is so pretty. It's two minutes and twenty seconds of gorgeousness. I have one of the scenes as my laptop background. Audrey is in a new movie about Chanel, so they're tying it in with the commercial.

Well, I think that's it for now. Off to make dinner! :-)

Mma. Ramotswe from The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. Second would be Miss Marple, from Agatha Christie's books. But Mma. Ramotswe has a special place in my reading heart. :-) Oh, and Julia Grey, but she didn't set out to be a detective.

So Pat and I and the kitties will be moving soon - we got the dreaded letter of "We know you have a cat, cease and desist this cat-having, or you'll be out on your ear." We weren't looking to move so soon, but we have gotten so attached to the cats that not having them is just not an option. We have another place we are looking at tomorrow that I really like (from the outside anyway, and Pat built some of the apartment units and says they are nice on the inside), so hopefully it won't be too much of a change.

Someone (who knows that my father recently died) actually asked me today if I had a nice weekend. I guess I can't really fault them for that since Father's Day wasn't the whole weekend, but no, I did not have a nice weekend. Yesterday was the worst, though. We went to visit his grave and I cried. I came home and sat on the stairs and cried. My mom had given me a gift card I gave him for Borders that he never got to use, so I took it to Borders to pick out of book kind of in honor of him, because he loved to read so much and I think he would want me to use it, but still, it said For Dad on it, and it had the little birthday greeting I wrote him, and by the time I got out of the store I sat in my car and cried. Then I spent time scanning some pictures of him into the computer and reliving all out moments together and my heart started to hurt more and more so that when I quit and when down to the basement to put the laundry in the dryer, I pretty much burst into hysterics and couldn't calm down for quite some time. *sigh*

I think yesterday was not a good day for the photo-scanning, although maybe I would have cried anyway just looking at pictures of him. I miss my dad so much. So so much.

Anyway. Today I feel puffy and tired, but not horrible emotional-wise, so that is good. And I love Pat and the kitties and they make things not so hard. ♥ I just wish things could be different. I wish he was still here.

I don't know whether to be proud of myself or ashamed of myself today. I was a half-hour late to work and ate rather unhealthy McDonald's food for lunch (albeit in small quantities), but I did take a shorter lunch to make up for being late, and I got a lot accomplished today. I think we will consider it a wash.

Things have been hectic lately and I am tired.

Pat is semi-jobless, as he has no paying work at the moment. He's remodeling his mom's house, so there's that, but his boss is in the middle of filing for divorce, and all the side jobs seem to have disappeared. He is stressed by this, and is dealing with it by redoing his game room to gain some semblance of control. Unfortunately, he has appeared to have quit that project half-way through and is now playing video games in the midst of posters, collectible figurines, and clothes that have to be washed. I remain silent.

He is super-psyched about the new Final Fantasy mmo that has been announced, and it looks pretty cool (for what little information they have let out). It's funny - he watches the trailer for that over and over, and I watch the one for New Moon. Lulz.

Since it is now summer (yay!), my summer shows are back on, which makes for much happiness.

( Army Wives )

( True Blood )

That's about all I got today. My shoulders are killing me from stress, I will be glad when the day is done.

Michael Sheen is in New Moon? As Aro?! OMG! How did I not know this?!

*so excited*

I really have nothing other than that to post. Lol.

I put a new theme on my journal and it's too dark. I like the header, but it's hard to read the rest.

I'm glad today is a short day. :-)

EDIT: Yeah, really can't take the layout. This will have to do until I find another one. :-)

I swear, I have spent so much time in the past day going through my lj communities and weeding out the ones I'm not interested in. Why did I join so many communities? Lindsay Lohan? Jennifer Lopez? No idea why I joined those. Lol. At least with the Stargate Atlantis and Battlestar blogs I had some justification in that I originally started watching them and then quit.

I went to the therapist yesterday for the first time. I didn't cry until I started talking about my dad. It was a deluge of tears. Luckily, there were tissues! :-/ I ended up crying later in the evening too. Pat says I am not remembering the good times I had with my dad, but right now, everything about remembering him hurts, even remembering the good times. Ah, I'm getting teary again.

I rewatched Donnie Darko the other day (in preparation for watching the straight-to-dvd, sure to be fantastic, sequel, S. Darko) and Donnie says at one point that his head is broken and that really stuck with me. I think my heart is broken as well. :-/

Anyway, the other day Pat let me order pizza (my favorite food group) and we watched Full Metal Jacket. It was so good! It was very, to use a word I keep hearing lately, cerebral. I also love R. Lee Ermey. Then yesterday we watched Stand By Me, which was also really good! I never really knew what it was about. Pat is thrilled that he has gotten me to watch two movies that did not come from Japan/France/Sweden and are actually well-made. I do have a penchant for foreign films. I can't help it. It's like watching a puzzle.

Other than that, things are pretty much the same. I had sushi today and it was fantastic. I also had jasmine tea, and then remembered that that was the tea they served everywhere in China that I grew to hate while I was there. I saw it and was like "Jasmine tea! I love jasmine tea!" I don't love jasmine tea. I love oolong tea. I don't know where my head is sometimes.

Work gave me a tote bag with their logo on it. It is so cool, and it has all these pockets! Pockets for everything! I was so impressed. I have been carrying it everywhere.

I have 53 minutes left of work. *taps toes impatiently* I hope it goes quickly...

I have one hour and 11 minutes left of work. And I'm totally bored. Arg. :-( I think it's just my mood - I couldn't fall asleep last night, so I took a Tylenol PM, and wham! I have pretty much been 30% awake all day.

So things are good. Well. They're okay. Sometimes they're good. My mom's been having a hard time with my dad's death lately and I can't say that it's gotten any easier for me either. I miss him everyday. Anyway, she broke down in tears last week to me and really just poured out her heart about things - how things were in her first marriage, and how much my dad meant to her. It was so hard, both to hear about the awful times in her life, and to try to comfort her now that her main shoulder to lean on is gone. I feel so helpless.

So all that has kind of spilled over into the rest of my life. I have an appointment with a counselor on Thursday. I think it will be good for me to talk to someone.

Pat and I had a big fight yesterday because I took a nap after work, and he called me a bunch of times and I didn't hear the phone. Which ended with me in tears. *sigh* I was just so tired, and Catherine invited me to Bible study, so I knew I'd be up late. I think he thought I was deliberately avoiding him.

Sometimes I feel like throwing things.

Anyway, brighter things! Focus on the positive, Alex. Lol. Bible study was really good, and I was so glad that I went. It made me feel 100% better. On Sunday I took myself to the movies and saw Drag Me to Hell. ( Spoilers herein )

Speaking of Posie, she and Minnie are doing well. Posie has developed into quite an "expressive" cat. As in, she likes to meow if she doesn't get what she wants. Lol. And considering she doesn't speak english, that can be hard to decipher. Pat and I have taken to calling her Miss Crankypants. :-) She's still adorable though. I love my furry babies.

P.S. - I am totally psyched about the New Moon movie. I saw the trailer, and I'm 99% sure I'm going to be there on opening night, probably dressed like Bella, amongst my nerdy peers. :-)

I debated about calling in sick today because my head kinda hurts and I was really tired, but I kept thinking "No, you are an adult and they contracted you to work five days a week, go to work and save your sick days for when you are really sick." So off to work I went, and I now I feel like I could have used about three more hours of sleep. So tired! And the coffee is not doing its job. *stares pointedly at the coffee* Maybe I will take a nap tonight.

So things are going good - I've been feeling not so depressed about my dad lately and getting things done around the house. The job is still going well and Pat is doing well and the kittens are adorable. Minka has healed completely from the spaying, but now she has these lumps on her back legs and the doctors are suren't what they are. When we took her in, the lumps had spread from one leg to the other, and her lymph nodes were swollen and she had a fever. They said it could be an infection, inflammation, or cancer. :-( So in an effort to rule out the first two, she's been on antibiotics and anti-inflammatory medication. If they don't work, we'll have to get a biopsy done. I'm trying not to think about it.

Posie is going in to be spayed on Friday, poor baby. She's such a cutie! I think we've settled in to me being Posie's favorite human and Pat being Minka's. Posie will come and curl up with me at night and just purr away. And Minka will just follow Pat around like nobody's business. They are so sweet.

In other news, congratulations to the newly married Mr. and Mrs. Weindorf! I have pictures on my camera to post, and haven't done so, and now they are back from their honeymoon. *facepalm* At any rate, their wedding was gorgeous and they seemed deliriously happy - it was a really beautiful day. :-)

Pat finally found himself a new(er) truck and it is really nice. It is not a Ford, which caused endless debates and ribbing amongst his family (his mom pretty much demanded he take it back immediately), but it is still really nice, lol. (I like that the face of the radio (depending on what station you're on) tells you what song you're listening to! It doesn't take much to impress me, lol.)

I dragged Pat to the Erie cat show last weekend and it was so awesome! I saw so many different types of cats! And cat merchandise! Pat was laughing at me because I was like in seventh heaven. I can't help it. I love my cats. I think if I had a lot of money I would open a cat merchandise store. *dreams*

Yesterday I showed Pat my facebook page:

Pat: So this is facebook. Are these comments to you, or in general?
Me: In general, just about their own lives.
Pat: I wondered, because this guy is, like, eating a beef potpie.
Me: That's our wedding DJ.
Pat: *stares* You just went looking for everyone you knew, didn't you?

Lol. In my defense, he was on my brother's friends list, so it wasn't completely like I had actually searched for our wedding DJ. (Although I wouldn't put it past me. I'm always looking up random people. I had to do a deposition report for work, and the attorney called the person being deposed "unattractive" so of course I had to see if she was on facebook. She was. Score one for me!)

So, anyway, that's things. I hope everyone out there in LJ-land is doing pretty well. :-)

This week has been really tiring. Minka has been in and out of the vet's office three times since Monday first because she was still sneezing, then to be spayed, then she somehow got out of her little cone hat yesterday and tore her stitches out. *shakes head* Poor baby. Now she has staples. She was okay when I left this morning, just sleeping on the bed, but I'm still anxious to go check on her at lunch.

It was so sad when we brought her home - because of the anesthesia, she and Posie didn't recognize each other and Posie was hissing and growling at her. :-( Pat ended up sleeping that night with Minka in the game room, and I slept with Posie in the bedroom, which was an experience in itself. She was like "Mama, it's play time! I'm hungry!" allllllll night. Oy. Luckily, they were back to being friends in the morning.

Poe nearly caught her tail on fire yesterday. *facepalm* There will be no more lit candles in the Laughlin household.

I typed for five hours straight yesterday. It was not pleasant.

On the brighter side of things, Pat turned 26 yesterday, and his mom made us dinner, which was sweet of her. (Happy birthday to Jacquie too!) I was so tired, I nearly fell asleep in my beefy stroganoff. I am very happy it's Friday.

I buckled to my desire for shiny new things and bought the Twilight special edition DVD. Yes. It was also on sale, but really I just wanted it. So I watched it when I was making dinner the other night, and wow. It is still so bad. So bad. I thought maybe upon rewatching it, I would find some redeeming factors. No. So sad. The book was so good! I also bought Serenity because that is definitely one of my favorite movies. :-)

symon introduced me to goodreads.com, where you can list all the books you've read and what you're reading now and see what other people are reading. It's awesome! I have so many books I've read, I can't remember them all. rarabecca uses Shelfari, which is similar, so I signed up for that one too. I'm not sure which one I like better yet. Right now I'm reading "Silent on the Moor", which is the third mystery in a series that I can't put down and "The Host" by Stepehenie Meyer (who wrote Twilight), which I'm not as interested in, but mean to finish. And I have a slew of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency novels to read and "Let the Right One In" that I never got to, so I am stocked in reading material. It's a good feeling - I do love to read!

Right now though, I could use a good sleep. :-)

Today is the three month anniversary of my father's death. In a lot of ways, I feel more lost now than I felt when I first found out. It's hard to explain. I've tried so hard to make sure my mom is okay, and to not dwell, and think about the good times. But there is this huge hole in my life.

For most of the time I've been alive, my family has consisted of my mom, my dad, and me. There were the siblings that came and went, and the aunts and uncles I saw here and there, but the three of us were our own little unit. And my dad was the one I loved the most. Not that I didn't (or don't) love my mom - I do, but it's a different kind of love. My mom is headstrong and stubborn, and not easy to love sometimes. We clash. My dad was gentle and kind. He knew so much about books and art and history, and could answer almost any question I had. He loved to take pictures and go to museums and zoos. He was easy to be around and he loved me like nobody's business.

(After reading what I wrote behind the cut, it's maybe a little gruesome. I needed to get it out, but don't feel compelled to read.)

( That day. )

Far less cranky today. :-) Yay for it being Friday!

In other news, my eyes are all itchy and scratchy and watery and whatnot. I'm like "I'm wearing my glasses! You're getting air!" And my eyes are all "What is this oxygen and stuff flowing into us? This is crazy! Let's freak out! This is not The Environment We Are Used To."

Lulz.

I rip the little edge off and it completely does not open! And now it is pretty much hermeticaly sealed! I have to go get scissors! So much for a relaxing cup of tea!

Oh my gosh, who is vaccuuming?! It is 10:03 in the morning and this is an office! What is there to be vaccuumed?!

I think I'm a little on edge. Yesterday I discovered that Pat had used my towel because all the other towels in the house were in the laundry, and he had pretty much just played video games the night before, and I had like, a meltdown of apocalyptic proportions.

In other news, I'm not hungry (surprise!) because I ate an oreo truffle for breakfast. I also got new glasses on Monday and I really like them.

Tonight is a viewing for my sister-in-law's grandma who died. :-( She was 85. (It's wierd, but now I always notice what age people are when they die as compared to my dad. I feel jealous if they were older than he was when he died.)

I love my cats. People must be so tired of hearing that. I can't help it. I tell Posie I love her about twenty times a day. (I tell Minnie too, but a little less, because she's off doing her own thing more, lol.) I tell people sometimes how Posie wakes me up at 6 and nuzzles me and then we have breakfast and I watch them eat, and they look at me like I have two noses. I told Pat's sister the other day "They have special food with no wheat or corn, and I give them half a can in the morning and half a can in the evening, and they get some special dry food in between." She was like "I put some dry food in my cat's dish in the morning and the next day it's gone, so then I put some more in."

Lol.

Last week Pat saw some blood in one of their stools, so we took them to the vet on Saturday. Even though I love them to pieces, I thought he was overreacting because they were eating fine and playing and everything. (And vets are not cheap. Oy.) It turns out that Minka has feline lungworm! Poor baby. So they both had to have medicine and they get the last dose tonight. Pat was like "Haha! I get to be overprotective." I was like "Yes, yes you do." :-)

Other than that, this weekend we went to Pat's grandpa's birthday party, and his one cousin was toasted and was quoting Johnny Depp from Pirates of the Caribbean and then said next time we saw him to watch out because he might have a hook for a hand.

I watched "Rachel Getting Married" which I actually really liked, although the concensus seems to be that it is lacking in one or several areas. I can agree, but I liked it anyway. It was pretty and flashy and emotional and angry and dark and loving all at the same time.

Tonight I am going to hang out with the babies and Pat and make chili for dinner. And make a mix cd. And maybe go to bed early. Maybe. :-)

I do not have much new to report. Things are good, sometimes they are sad (my mom had a hard day the other day), sometimes (as in the case of Catherine's lingerie shower) they are very very fun, lol, and sometimes (as in the case of long dictations concerning people who have lost an appendage) they are boring (and a little gross, ew).

( Read more... )

I really like my job. It's usually very interesting and right up my alley and not at all stressful. However.

I'm totally bored this afternoon, and want to get up and do something and not sit at the computer.

I feel guilty for saying that because gah! This is a dream job compared to my last one! It must just be the day. I was half asleep all morning, and now I'm all awake and like, looking for reasons to get up and go somewhere. "I'll take that upstairs!" "Some tea sounds good."

Lol.

Today Pat went to the dentist and the doctor (yay for insurance!), and he has two cavities and has to have bloodwork done, but other than that, he's healthy and all is well. :-) I have to go to the eye doctor on Monday, which is good, because somehow I lost my glasses, and I really hate having to have my contacts in all the time to see anything!

About my last entry, I totally intended to go home and put up a huge fight with Pat over getting Minka spayed, ASAP, and then the whole evening, she acted completely normal, and has not acted like she is in heat since. Color me confused. So as long as she stays as she is, I'm just going to wait until the end of March and have her spayed then.

She and Posie are just tearing up the place. I noticed yesterday that one of them (I'm looking at you, Posie) has chewed up the ends of the miniblinds in the living room. Lol. I don't even care - I'm like the parent that finds everything their child does adorable. Pat finds this very amusing. Words cannot express how much I love those cats. I spent, like, two hours yesterday reading cat forums to see what kind of cat food would be best for them. Yes. I am the crazy cat lady. I even have a mug that says "I'm just here to open cans." Totally true.

I have not been watching much tv lately, although I did watch the first two episodes of Dollhouse, and it's okay so far. Nothing to write home about, but I think it will pick up as it goes along. I watched "Into the Wild" the other day and it was awfully depressing. It was a good movie, but I wasn't sure how to feel at the end. I knew I didn't want to live in an abandoned bus in Alaska! I missed the Oscars for the first time in years and oddly enough, I don't feel like I missed anything.

I started and nearly finished "The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" the other day, and it's really good. I also picked up the book version of "Let the Right One In" and it is huge! I'm looking forward to it. :-)

Tonight's mission is healthy grocery shopping. Wish me luck, folks. :-P

...is in heat! Gah! She's only supposed to be four months old! I guess this can happen as early as four months, but it's still not great. I called the vet and they said they don't like to spay them when they're in heat, which is fine, but they also really wanted to wait until she's six months, which means one or two more heat cycles, which is definitely not fine. Oy.

Pat thinks this is okay, but I'm going to try to talk him into either asking the vet again or trying another vet. I don't want Minka to be uncomfortable and yowling all the time, and I especially don't want her to start marking the walls or anything. So far she's just warbling a lot and sticking her butt in the air whenever anyone comes near, but I guess they'll do pretty much anything to get outside and find a man(cat).

*facepalm*

(I call her Princess Minka because she won't eat her food in the mornings unless I carry her over and set her next to it. She's so cute.)

This morning went by so fast, and this afternoon has just dragged on... Oy. I think I'm tired.

So, not much is new - work is good (when it's not incredibly slow), and Pat is all excited about putting in new skylights at his mom's house, and the kitties are all full of beans all the time and it's adorable. I love them so much. I am a little biased, but they are the cutest kittens ever.

My mom is doing good, although I have been worrying for the past few days because she is worrying about money. When my dad was alive, they both got social security and they got three pension payments, and they had a nest egg, so they had more than enough to get by. Now that he's gone, my mom gets my dad's social security and half of one pension payment definitely, but she's not sure about the other two, and the funeral was expensive, and the value of the nest egg has gone down quite a bit with the stock market being down, so now she's worried that she's going to have to sell the house. :-( I went home yesterday and cried on Pat's knee because I miss my dad and I wish things weren't so hard, and I want to take care of my mom, but I don't make a ton of money either.

Today I feel a bit more optimistic. Maybe I just needed a good cry, I don't know.

In other news, my brother and sister-in-law are in Cancun. Mexico! Ah, I'm so jealous. While they are gone, my mom is watching their cat Shadow, who I had met a number of times before. So I go to church on Sunday and my mom says "Shadow is huge! He has a huge face and he butts his head into my nose!" I'm like yeah, yeah, big cat. I had met him, and he didn't seem that big. Maybe he got fat. She has obviously forgotten about Prancer, Pat's cat at his mom's, who weighs twice as much as he should. How big could he be?

Oh. My. Goodness.

Shadow is, like, the size of a medium dog. I have no idea when he grew that much, but he is seriously the biggest cat I have ever seen. And not fat - just big boned, big everywhere! I couldn't stop staring at him! I guess he is a Maine Coon cat, and they tend to be big. I had no idea. *shakes head*

Today I decided to join Facebook to see what all the fuss is about. It seems pretty neat. :-) I have to go home and add a picture though - I keep trying to here, and it brings up our document management system, which is no help at all, lol.

Well, I think I am almost over my cold. Now I'm just kind of stuffed up and constantly clearing my throat, which sucks (and I'm sure my office mates don't appreciate it)!

Minka and Poe are much much better, and I was reading back over when we first got them and I posted that Minka was mellow? Lulz. Since they have gotten over their colds, those catlets are bundles of energy! They are always crouched, either on opposite sides of the room, or one upstairs and one downstairs, just looking at each other, waiting to attack. And then one will attack, and they'll go racing around the room.

I was making lunch today and I look over, and there is Poe, who has jumped and grabbed on to my kitchen apron that hangs in the kitchen, and is swinging her little legs to and fro. *facepalm* They're just so adorable.

There isn't much else new with me. I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to finish "Sunshine" by Robin McKinley for the past two weeks - it's got vampires and I like the author's other works, but some of the writing in this one seems thrown in, like they needed filler. I've been watching Angel every morning when I get up, and that's been entertaining. I never got into the Buffyverse much when I was younger.

On one of my sick days last week I watched "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", which was my father's favorite movie, and I never watched it when he was alive. It was nice to watch it now and think of what he must have liked about it. I wish I had made time for it before, but it was one of those things that I always thought I'd get to, and never did. Maybe he saw me watching it from heaven.