Archive for October, 2013

2013
29
Oct
21:00

what gave it away?

   Posted by: arcanai    in Nuthin' Special

hubby just noticed today that I had quit carmex.  30 days later.  *shaking head*  I guess it was the skinless, bloody stumps where my lips used to be that gave it away.

2013
26
Oct
13:38

my name is arcanai and i am an addict

   Posted by: arcanai    in Nuthin' Special

it’s been twenty-seven days since my last chapstick application.  it all started when I was a kid and my mom would slather the waxy, cherry-flavored goodness all over me every time I was within her reach.  she then started buying me my own tubes to carry with me.  before I was out of elementary school, I found myself unable to go anywhere without chapstick in my pocket.  it wasn’t until high school that I really started experimenting, leaving the childish chapstick behind and using various types of soft lips and blistex instead.  when I started college, I was introduced to the hard stuff.  that’s right… carmex!  after I discovered that mentholated tube of lip-crack, there was no going back.  nothing else could compare.

in adulthood, I have often been teased and ridiculed for my addiction.  I ran out once while traveling a few years ago and my husband challenged me to take the opportunity to quit.  I went twenty-seven grueling hours without carmex before hubby made the mistake of searching for chapstick addiction on the interwebs and reading me the horror stories of withdrawal.  I immediately decided that my habit wasn’t hurting anyone and giving it up was NOT worthwhile.  I didn’t want to go through the pain and humiliation of having my lips fall off.

so… nearly four weeks ago, I found myself in that same predicament of running out while traveling.  I went to the store and bought a three-pack of carmex… and never opened the package.  I don’t know why.  there was no real thought process or reasoning behind it… I just decided to quit.  it didn’t even seem that big a deal.  the first week was practically a non-event; I just didn’t think about my lips.  the second week, I had a small split in my lower lip that bugged me for a couple days and made me more aware of my lips but I never felt the need to bust out the carmex.  the third week has been… hell.  my lips are suddenly so dry that they are all I can think about.  I can’t smile without licking my lips first because they are so dry and tight.  I have had countless occasions this week where I have nearly fallen off the wagon.  I want carmex. I NEED carmex.   my lips hurt;  they are making me extremely self-conscious.  today, they are cracking and peeling and I am back to feeling that this is not a worthwhile endeavor.  but… I will stick with it because I am no quitter and I have already sacrificed nearly four weeks.  here’s hoping that week four is the light at the end of this tunnel.

2013
24
Oct
13:39

checking things out

   Posted by: arcanai    in the turkey

it’s finally time to find out if there’s a problem.  I went to the dr today to talk about starting to test for infertility.  I stopped and grabbed a copy of hubby’s results so the dr could see that there are no problems on his end.  indeed, he seemed to be highly impressed with the 110 million sperm count and declared him highly virile.  gee, thanks.  so we scheduled several appointments in the upcoming weeks.  first, i’ll go back next week to have an ultrasound done during ovulation.  I guess that will check the viability of my egg?  the following week, they’ll do bloodwork for a 21-day progesterone reading to see if I have enough progesterone to support implantation.  i’ll then have to email them on the first day of my next cycle (which will be while i’m in Jamaica) to schedule an hsg test to check for tube blockages.  I am praying hard about all of this.  I am hopeful that I can have a baby but if there is a problem with my fertility, I just want to know for sure.  it’s the not knowing whether there’s cause for hope that kills me.

2013
10
Oct
18:10

paid off

   Posted by: arcanai    in Nuthin' Special

a year after returning from Europe, we received a traffic ticket in the mail from Italy.  lovely souvenir.  hopefully, that was the final payment on our fabulous Holy Land vacation.  and just a friendly PSA:  don’t let your gps take you to the leaning tower of pisa.  if you get anywhere near it in your car, they will hunt you down and make you pay 🙂

2013
9
Oct
8:12

falling

   Posted by: arcanai    in Nuthin' Special

open-window weather is finally starting to show it’s lovely face around here.  Monday, i was able to open the windows from mid-morning until mid-afternoon.  Monday night and last night, i was able to sleep with the windows open.  this morning, it’s downright cool in here 😀  i have to close up the windows and curtains when the sun starts blistering the living room in the afternoon but i just know that fall is sneaking in.  i have the urge to roast some marshmallows around a nice fire pit!

2013
7
Oct
20:41

trying time and definitely me

   Posted by: arcanai    in the turkey

hubby had his appointment today to make sure that there weren’t any fertility problems on his end.  dr said he’s working perfectly.  i was really hoping… not for a problem… but maybe that all the extreme exercise of ironman training was causing a slowdown or something.  nope, it’s all back on me.  *sigh*

meantime, my dr said that they won’t pursue any infertility tests on me until i could show six months of tracking ovulation and trying.  I’ve been tracking this on an app on my phone and had finally gotten to the sixth month but when the phone died yesterday, it wiped out my app too.  fortunately, i had done a backup of that data a month and a half ago so it’s not a complete loss but now i’ll need to track another month and a half in order to have the “proof” that the dr wants.  do you have any idea how long a month and a half is in “trying” time????

2013
7
Oct
20:13

technology woes and the pleasing husband

   Posted by: arcanai    in love my husband

thursday was my first bible study group meeting.  being an anti-social person, I was already anxious about it so I made sure to test out the online platform ahead of time to make sure that I wasn’t going to have any problems.  best laid plans and all that jazz.  for the first half of the meeting, I couldn’t hear them.  I finally got to where I could hear them and they couldn’t hear me.  and the video was up and down.  naturally, I felt like a moron who can’t work a computer.  my pc has been getting slower and slower for a while now and apparently it just doesn’t have the juice to handle a video conferencing gig.  I was very upset and ready to just give up on the bible study because of it.  in an effort to lift my spirits and keep me from giving up on my spiritual growth, hubby went out and bought a webcam to put on his pc.  tonight i finally got around to testing it out and was able to have a lovely face-to-face with my daddy.  stinks that i have to use hubby’s pc but at least i should be able to stay in the group now.

still not completely recovered from that scarring technological experience, my phone started acting up yesterday.  I heart my phone.  I’ve bragged so much about it and my service plan.  this morning, it was shutting itself off constantly even though it had a nearly full battery.  I finally got it to come up and stay up for a little bit and was texting with my sissy when it spontaneously shut off again.  when I finally got it to start up again, I noticed that it had wiped out all my stuff.  fantastic.  so I played with it some more and tried, unsuccessfully, to get some data off of it and it just kept running slower and slower… even though there was really nothing on it anymore.  I decided to go ahead and try a factory restore…  now, it is a complete brick.  it just loops through a boot/error cycle and won’t stop until I take out the battery.  i freely admit that it was my fault last year when i killed our phones.  this time, i did nothing to harm it.  and, of course, it’s about six weeks past warranty.  ugh!  i am just so ticked off and depressed about this.  hubby and i both spent all day reading the interwebs trying to find a fix for it.  we both made calls to support and got nowhere.  it is beyond fixing.  again, hubby to the rescue.  he took me tonight to get a new phone and then complained loud enough to the company to get them to give me a free month.

moral of the story:  technology sucks but husbands are fabulous!

2013
7
Oct
11:13

one week

   Posted by: arcanai    in Nuthin' Special

chapstick free.  just because.  it really hasn’t even been that bad until i smiled too big and cracked my dry lower lip last night and so today i have been all too aware of my un-balmed lips.