birthday boy

Last year when we got Yoshi, we were told he was a day short of being 7 weeks old. I counted backwards and put his birthday on my phone's calendar. I can't believe that day is already here!!

Happy first birthday to our little guy!

Leaving his mama for the first time!

We kept him in a bedroom until he was big enough to be able to explore on his own. And until his big sister got used to him being around. She was Not Thrilled for a long time, but there was never any bloodshed!

So little!

Having a kitten was a new experience! It had been so long since his older sister was little that we'd forgotten how quickly kittens get into things and how much they love to play.

 

He loved playing in his "house" and soon destroyed it with his needle-like claws.

 

We soon learned that he could fall asleep anywhere, in any position....

But he absolutely loved being held. He's so cute that we never minded!

As you can see, he sometimes likes to get rightupclosetoyourface when he sleeps. He especially likes to rub his cheeks on his daddy's prickly chin.

He is curious about e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g. Sometimes it gets him into trouble...

He shares his sister's love of bags and boxes of any kind.

Speaking of his sister, they get along exist together. He has reached the point that I call "typical pre-teen boy." He likes to annoy his sister just because he can, then manages to look completely innocent when he gets into trouble for it. Just this morning, we had the "I'm not touching you!" scenario.

He likes to surf the internet with his dad. Or he could be keeping an eye on the mouse....

He even prays with us.

Dear Lord, bless that bite of chicken I'm about to attack...

All in all, life would be very quiet and boring without him around!

spontaneous trip

Hi guys.

Long time no bloggy. I've been around. Just. . . around. Nothing much new going on.

Well. There's always new going on, but this is nothing-new-that-I-want-to-blog-about-because-I'm-still-in-the-whiny-stage-and-no-one-wants-to-hear-that.

So here's some happy pics from our recent trip.

The hubs and I decided to take some time off together since we both had it available. We thought we'd just hang out at home, go into Atlanta, maybe finally go see the aquarium, etc. Nothing big.

So a week before our time off was to start, we came home from church, sat down to eat lunch, and he said, "You know, maybe we should go to the beach."

Of course, I didn't need much convincing. We had just been at the beach in October (-ish because the one day we made it to the beach it was cloudy and really windy and we just couldn't enjoy it as much as we wanted to--although we can say it was a good experience and we've been there, done that) but I'm always up for a beach trip.

I jumped online, found a pretty good rate at a beachside hotel on Tybee and the next week, we packed up and headed out!

I love spontaneous trips.

 

The day we arrived, it was overcast. We parked at the lighthouse and couldn't wait to get our feet in the sand!

 

The water was pretty cold too!
That night it poured rain (hence the start of our Downton Abbey addiction!) and was supposed to rain all the next day too, so we made plans to head into Savannah and take in the sights on River Street. It was fun checking out all the shops, even though they all pretty much carried the same tourist-y souvenirs and stuff.

Everywhere you go, you have to pay to park. In Savannah, it was only about $1 an hour. That's Jeremy in the picture, paying at the little station.

There are several restaurants on Tybee and I was set on trying the best ones. I had only eaten at one place on Tybee before, in all my time here, so I was excited. I think my favorite was this place on the marsh. NOT because there were kitties all around, waiting for a nice, seafood-y hand out . . .

Finally, on our last day, the rain moved out and the sun shone bright. First we rented some bicycles and rode up and down the beach for a bit. That was fun. Er. Kinda. Then we went back to the room, changed and grabbed our beach gear and made it down to the water about 11 a.m. Hardly anyone else was out there then.

It was so nice to just be able to relax! I had brought an old sheet to lay on instead of using our towels. My pod was on my stomach so all I had to do was dig a little hole in the sand through the sheet and line up my body accordingly. Haha!

I could probably have spent the remainder of the week there, just like that, but we had to leave the next morning. That evening we took a final walk on the pier as the sun set.

The south end of the island where the pier is located is not my favorite part, but during the week it's fairly quiet. Most of the restaurants and several shops are located at this end too. We watched some people fishing off the pier. No one seemed to be catching anything though.

On our way home the next day, we first stopped by to see my favorite customer (hi Sheila!) and then we stopped at a large Bass Pro Shop. Why? I don't know. Neither of us are particularly sporty or outdoorsy. But it was entertainment. Then we stopped at the outlets and picked up some kitchen gizmos--I definitely could have spent more time around there, but didn't really need to.

Home again, home again!
First the kids acted like they didn't even realize we had been gone. Until later that evening when they started going crazy. What can I say? Cats are strange.

Yoshi will be a year old next week and is pretty much just as big as Sophie. His paws are finally proportional to the rest of him! He's in a pretty jumpy stage--meaning he jumps at the slightest movement if he's not expecting it. He's also I.N.S.A.N.E. for the laser pointer. More on that next week!

i'm still here

I thought, huh, I haven't posted a blog in a couple weeks....

Um....it's been a month!! So....sorry bout that.

There hasn't been much new in our lives here. I've been getting used to my Dexcom mostly, so I thought I'd post a mini-review.

Likes:

• The receiver is small! It fits/hides more places.
• Range--I can usually leave the receiver on my coffee table and do things around the house that I need to do without losing the signal.
• The transmitter is not small, necessarily, but it is smaller than my pods. So for me, I like.
• The alarms are plenty loud enough. I keep it on the "Normal" setting, but I usually hear it vibrate, especially in the middle of the night.
• The sensors can go more places than my pod. Yes!
• No batteries! I charge it every couple of days and its good to go.
• Their customer service is pretty good.
• There's a LOT of information that you didn't have before.

Dislikes:

• There's a little TOO much information. It can be overwhelming at first. I'm very glad my doctor didn't want me to start on a pump and a cgm around the same time.
• It has a similar look to an iPod. I'm not an iFan.
• The little tiny ledge of plastic that holds the slider that covers the charging port has broken off already. It's not a deal breaker for me as long as I don't have trouble charging it when I need to.
• I had an issue last week with the transmitter not wanting to send the signal more than a few inches. After I talked to tech support (on a Saturday), they promised to overnight a new transmitter to me on Monday. Well, they didn't overnight it, so I had to put up with no range until Thursday, literally wearing my sensor/transmitter AND the receiver. Kind of annoying and the reason I didn't rate their customer service as excellent above.

Other than that, things look good!

I had my first doctor appointment today since starting with the Dexcom and she cautioned me to wait two hours after treating a high blood sugar reading before treating again. Two hours is too long for me. No? This is 2013! We can't create insulin that works any faster than that?? Oy.

We also talked about my thyroid and are going to be trying a couple new (to me) meds to see if they make any difference in how I feel. My numbers are all perfect, but I just don't feel any different. Who cares what numbers look like if you still feel UGH on a day to day basis, you know? It is NOT something I should have to "just deal with." I have a different brand to try for a couple weeks, and then I'll be trying an all-natural med. Hopefully this will help with some weight loss too.

Finally, I had some blood drawn for them to do lab work. As usual, my veins are shy and were hiding. Unusually, the lab tech decided not to try my other arm, no...She went for the top of my hand. OW.

war wound

diaversary & cure v. cause

This month is my diaversary. Fourteen years.

Whoop-dee-freakin'-do.

Can you tell I'm excited? I really am.

Not.

Lately here it seems like diabetes wants to take me on a different trek every. single. day. Same breakfast? Different numbers. Same activity level? Bah, let's throw some lows in there to trip her out.

I may be experiencing the burn-out that I hear so many people talk about. Because I'm tired and sick of this and stressed but trying not to be stressed because that makes my numbers worse but that just stresses me out more and just don't feel like handling it anymore, so can you please just go away now stupid-abetes?

I will say that just about the only good thing in having this stupid-abetes is the great community of people online who, between all hundreds of thousands of them out there, have gone through just about every situation imaginable. So thank you to all of you. You probably don't know me, but I know you and I appreciate you.

Now, onto this "cure" that's been in the news lately. A great big PHOOEY on you all.

PHOOEY for getting peoples hopes up.

PHOOEY for telling them "another 5-10 years."

PHOOEY for telling them to just give more money for research. (As if we don't give enough? If you corporate big-wigs believe in this so much, YOU take a paycut and YOU give moremoremore money to research. We're tapped out from buying YOUR drugs and trying to keep our heads above water for just another day.)

PHOOEY for telling them about all the hurdles you still have to overcome--like, HUGE ones! Meaning, you haven't gotten it figured out at all.

PHOOEY on all of you. I refuse to get my hopes up. I don't believe in a "cure." I believe in a CAUSE.

What is causing this increase in children and adolescents and adults and even senior adults being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes?

Let's think about that. Because I promise you, it's not just random.

THEN let's think about changing the cause and PREVENTING babies and children and people from getting this stupid-abetes in the first place.

urgh

I try not to rant-post so that could be why you haven't heard a lot from me lately. As much as I like to whine, I have to remind myself that no one likes to hear it and to keep it in my head.

You know how when one small thing goes wrong, it seems to just be the last straw and suddenly a bunch of other little wrong things seem so HUGE and it just all adds up and you're tired and cranky and don't want to deal with any of it but you want to vent because you want someone--ANYONE--to understand and help but no one really can help because it's completely out of anyone's control?

So there's that.

AND THEN people just HAVE to keep asking you the dumbest stuff when the answers are quite obvious and you've already told them several times and when they don't get the answer they want, they call someone else and try to go around you and they get the answer they want but there is absolutely no path from here to there and they can't understand that even though you've told them THREE times and the stupidity keeps piling up and piling up and you're really REALLY tempted to just tell them to go away but you know the second you do you'll be the one in trouble for it.

So there's that too.