grin and bear it

Sometimes in life you go through phases of 'grin and bear it'. I am kind of rolling through one of those now. Not that things are particularly bad because they certainly aren't, but with the perpetual unpacking, assembling, painting, and cleaning at the new house along with the training for the 5K and biking to work along with a relatively busy time in the clinic with the usual absentee level of assistance, I am just dragging. My body aches in general with my hamstrings taking the worst of the abuse and some days are certainly worse than others. I have been having a lot of headaches as well, probably related to the overwhelming amount of stuff swirling about.

All I can think of, and might need to soon pursue, is taking a LONG weekend. I am technically going to have one this weekend, but I am discounting it because: 1. I will not be allowed any antihistamines after Friday AM...............which is a sure recipe for a horrible weekend most of the time (fingers crossed it is a 'mild' one and I don't spend the weekend surrounded by an ever increasing mound of tissues and various sprays and drops) and 2. Monday, my extra 'day off' will involve 2 hours of allergy testing likely followed by a large dose of Benadryl (and then likely followed by an extended blackout-like nap). On the plus side, this will hopefully be the start of shots that will make at least a minor dent in my symptoms.........although they historically have not. Either way, it is worth a second shot with a new doctor and new set of ideas on treatment. Plus, this time we are taking other steps like having no carpeted surfaces upstairs, no pets in the bedroom, air purifiers, and a large plastic hamster bubble that I roll around in (and heck, its just plain fun for the whole family!). We shall see, and I shall post on it.

As for the house, it is starting to more or less resemble a place someone might live and less like a place that you might see on an episode of Hoarders. Gone are most of the boxes, totes, and assorted trash that we will start piecemealing into our weekly trash pick up like the main character from Shawshank Redemption, Andy Dufresne, taking pieces of his prison wall out to the yard in the rolled up bottoms of his jeans. Or just break down and pay the extra fees for the extra bags of trash. Tough call really. Thank god for garages!

Speaking of garages, getting power to ours will evidently not be as easy, nor as cheap, as we had hoped. So, it will also not be happening nearly as quickly. Maybe by the fall. Maybe. Shocking mostly because the garage is less than 2 yards from the house. But, as we found out when they came to hook up our DSL internet and found ZERO phone lines in the house with which to do so, its the little things that stymie. Of course, the phone situation was an easy fix, for $99 that is.

Not much other news to tell of other than we are (the royal 'we' as it is mostly Tia) now fostering a momma cat and her six 4-week old kittens. They are truly as adorable as they are smelly. People always ask 'how can you give them back?' The answer is generally pretty easily. Kittens are cute, but they aren't formed personalities..........so you kind of get what you get so to speak when they grow up. In between, you get a whole lot of torn up furniture, curtains, and the like. So, yes they are adorable, but no it isn't hard to hand em all back over and start with a new group.