Inconclusive

The doctor's office called last week (or was it the week before? Anyway) and said that my mono tests were inconclusive. I show that I have either had it in the past, without knowing it, or I am at the beginning stages of it. I think I am at the beginning stages, or was at the time she called, because I am so tired all the time. Now I think I am right in the middle of it because it seems no matter how much I sleep I always feel light headed and tired. That would by why I haven't replied to comments or written much lately.

So, if any of you have any mono stories you'd like to share or helpful information, this is the hot mono spot for the day!

Gluby's going to hate me, but...

Happy Birthday, sweetie!!

Comments

I haven't forgotten about all of you wonderful people who have commented on my last few posts (thank you!). I will reply to you all very soon!

That's Ant-tastic!

It all started 2 years ago when a beautiful maiden with golden hair was delicately partaking of her dainty breakfast.

Ok, so I haven't been a maid in over 7 years and my hair is more brown than golden, but you all get the idea. I was 7 months pregnant and had poured myself some cereal with milk. I talked with S while I was getting my spoon and sitting down to eat, so I paid no attention to my bowl. I took a bite and my mouth was immediately overcome by an acrid, moldy decomposing-earthy taste in my mouth. My face distorted immediately and I ran to spit out the horrid, poisonous monster from my mouth. I wondered what the cereal company had put in the cereal and if there had been a recall I hadn't heard about. As I peered into my cereal bowl the answer floated serenely in my milk. Ants.

This ended up happening two more times before M was born, but not with cereal. Once with chocolate chips and another time with a PB&J sandwich I had left on the counter while dealing with nap time dilemmas with S. Now I can smell them and they smell as bad as they taste.

Gluby once brought me an unpeeled orange that had ants crawl on. I started to peel it and recoiled in horror as I smelled the smell. When I sweep the floor I smell the ones who have been crushed in the dust-pan process as that horrible torrent of ant-scent once again wafts over my face. Or when I clean the counter and catch a few of them on the rag.

So, this morning I was making the boys toast and picked up the butter knife. I turned it over to cut the butter and saw an ant on it. What?! Ants don't like butter! Or so I thought. Anyway, I disposed of the body and wiped the knife off with a paper towel, but it still reeked of the ant chemical smell, so I dropped it in the sink (is it bad that I would have used the knife after only wiping it off with a paper towel?) and pulled out a new one, irritated that I have to wash one more knife because of those stupid things.

The weird thing is that we don't have tons of ants crawling all over our kitchen. I catch sight every once in awhile but there aren't that many. I have started to think it's a conspiracy. The ants are out to get me.

*No ants were killed in the writing of this post.

Very quick update

This must be very quick because I am supposed to be resting in bed (I am exhausted).

A very good friend came over last night and I asked him to look over the letter to let me know what he thought. He gave me some great insights and I changed a couple of things in the letter. The best advice he gave, though, was to not give them the letter until I have gone 24 hours without wanting to make any big changes in the letter. The last thing I need here is to try and keep a deadline and then have something in the letter that I wish I had not hastily added. And, since the reason for telling them on the day tax season ended is no longer there, my younger sister being the only one knowing and not being able to get support from family members, I decided to give it a couple of days.

Part of me is just getting really tired of talking about it and not doing it, (and you all are probably saying, "Just do it already!" :) ) and the other part is glad to have waited until I feel less hurried. I really did start to feel like I was rushing myself, though most of it is done, because there were a few things I just wasn't sure about.

So, now that I have posted about it, again, and not done it, again, I, Lemon Blossom, promise not to mention "the letter" again until I have sent it! And, I promise to write sentences with lots of commas in them for all of you comma lovers out there. :)

Free at last?

Well, tonight is probably the night. I have been working on "the letter" and I swear I have never edited and a paper so much in my life. Granted, none of the other papers I wrote were quite so life changing, but still. Poor Gluby has submitted to at least 5 readings with changes here and there over the last 24 hours, plus at least 3 readings before my sister visited this last weekend. Two other very close friends have also been subjected to this torture and are still among the living, so I guess it's passable. I haven't decided yet if I will post it on my blog or not. I read the email passages FTA wrote and found them to be very helpful - who knows, maybe mine might help someone else. If I do not post it and anyone would like to read it to help them out in writing their letter, please feel free to email me and I will send it to you.

The time with my sister went fairly well. I thought for sure that she would have noticed immediately that I wasn't wearing my garments, no matter what kind of clothes I had on, or seen some sort of "lack" which would have set off her 'apostate' alarms. Fortunately that did not happen. I followed her lead on the subject and, in the end, decided to wait the extra 3 days and tell her with my family so she wouldn't have to suffer alone or somehow bring things out in the open before tax season was over.

We went out to dinner, minus Gluby (why on earth did he not want to go out with four boys under the age of 5?!), and that is when/where she decided to bring the subject up. She said that she knew my older sister had talked with me and they both wanted to make sure that I wasn't offended. I assured her that I wasn't and she asked me something about what was going on. I can't remember exactly what she had asked, but it would have opened up "the subject." The boys once again 'saved' me. All four must have been whacked out restaurant fries and ice cream because they were all bouncing off of the walls. I said, "Maybe now isn't the time to talk about it." and motioned toward the four very loud children sitting with us. She agreed and we talked about other topics and went back to my house. I thought she might bring it up again, but she didn't (maybe because Gluby was in the house with us and she didn't know whether or not she could/should talk about it around him). She left Saturday morning and made it home safely that night. All's well that ends well, right?

Boys will be boys

Gluby is in changing M's diaper while I am in the office paying bills. I hear Gluby making martial arts sound effect noises and M is laughing like crazy, encouraging him to make more. These are the moments I live for.

Happy Birthday to me (yesterday)

Yesterday was really nice and really sucky. We'll start off with sucky and go to nice.

I got home from class and listened to our phone messages (I really have to stop doing that). My younger sister left her brother-in-law's house yesterday and was hoping to head down here today. After I heard the message I was kind of hoping someone in the house would throw up or something. Although another part of me is really starting to feel ready to move on as well. But I really, really don't want to do this. And, as far as I know, she is driving here as I write.

We decided to go out to dinner last night and Gluby ordered a dark beer (similar to Guinness) and I had my first cocktail, a cherry blossom. That went well. I liked my cocktail and even didn't mind the beer after the first few sips. And then my really nice former visiting teachers (we moved out of the ward last october) stopped by to give me a birthday plant (this was nice but a little nerve racking). I was sure they could smell alcohol on me, but it was almost 3 hours after we ate, so maybe not. I hope.

And I have had swollen glands in my neck that come and go ever since I had strep in February. Last night my right ear and my glands hurt so much that I could not sleep because every time I swallowed the pain woke me up. I went to the doctor's office this morning to find out that I do not have an ear infection. Sigh. I was hoping to get something to fix it. They did take blood for a mono test and a CBC, though, because this has been going on for so long.

Now, to the really nice part. Gluby bought me some oil pastel crayon type things and some nice colored pencils that can also be used as water colors or something (I know, this sentence reveals just how little I know about drawing, but I hope to put them to good use anyway - even if it does look like my son drew it), and two nice notebooks to draw in, and a huge chocolate cake (no, there wasn't a party, just us four.) It will take us weeks to eat this thing because it's so rich. Anyone want some cake?

Happy 31st Birthday to me!

Just Breathe

Take a deep breath. I am starting (again) to have anxiety episodes a lot because of the impending letters I will be writing and sending this week. I know that some people would not recommend me telling my family of my disaffection in a letter, that in person or even on the phone is better, but I feel it is better for everyone involved if I don't. I decided early on that I would send them letters so they could have whatever freak-out session they wanted without having to worry about how their ranting and raving would affect what little testimony they hope I might have. And I will be able to thoughtfully write out what I want to say and not stumble over my words and just cry for 20 minutes before I say, "I no longer believe the church to be True."

My older sister called last week and mentioned how everyone was asking about me at my Grandma's Birthday dinner and that she told everyone she thinks I'm doing ok, but she hasn't talked to me much (I admit I have been avoiding them for the precise reason I am about to share). *She asked me if I have a calling at church, if things with Gluby are uncomfortable when we get home from church, if the boys like church, if I have been much lately. She noticed I was reticent to answer her questions and asked me if it was difficult to talk about because Gluby was nearby or if it was uncomfortable for me to talk about it right now. I said yes. And then she said that everyone is concerned for me because I don't talk about my church callings, or church at all, or my spiritual experiences anymore (we would talk about these things in 90% of our conversations, really) and they are worried about me. You know, "if you aren't progressing and striving to move forward than you are sliding backward" and "we are just worried that you aren't progressing. We want our sister to be in the mansions of heaven with us someday."

M picked that time to start screaming because S was doing something he didn't like. I set the phone down after helping the boys, walked into the office and started crying on Gluby.

And a few days before this took place I was talking to my younger sister on the phone when this pleasant conversation occurred.

*"J (her 3 1/2 yr old son) was telling me how S (my oldest ) is in his primary class and I told him that S is not in his class because he lives in another state. So J asks me if S would be in his primary class if he lived here and I said no because he is older. So then he asks me what primary class S is in and I said, 'I don't know.' Do you know which class S is in?"

"Uh, no, I can't remember. The 4-5 year old class."

At this point S asked me about something and when I went back to the phone conversation we started talking about something else, but we both knew we were still thinking about what had just happened. My heart was beating fast until we got off the phone a few minutes later.

All I need now is for my parents to call and say something. So, I am now at the point where I think I feel ready to tell them. It is harder on everyone that the truth is hidden and it will be easier for us to move forward if it comes out. I am waiting for tax season to end so I don't give my parents a heart attack after adding so much emotional distress to their lives. Oy vey.

* these conversations with my sisters are very rare. They normally consist of, "how are you" "what are your kids/spouse up to" "how's the weather" sort of conversations. They are just now getting the nerve to talk to me about these things because (I'm guessing here) they are really starting to worry and figure that I'm just struggling as a single-mother church attender and don't want to talk about my husband's leaving and that they are helping by asking me questions.

Two conversations not to have with your 4 1/2 yr old before talking with your TBM mother

I was running around on Saturday doing some errands and thought it would be a good time to talk with S about Easter. I told him that some people believe in a God and think of him as kind of like a papa that they can't see. They believe that this God had a son named Jesus and that Jesus was killed. Three days later he was resurrected. We talk a moment about what resurrection means and all that. Then I talked about how Gluby doesn't believe there is a God and that I am not sure if I believe that there is a God or not. So some people believe there is, and some believe there isn't, and some aren't sure.

And then I talk about the Easter Bunny and that he is like Santa Claus. Not real, but it's kinda fun to hunt for easter eggs and get candy. That was the best part of the conversation for him. Yum!

So, later that night we are dying easter eggs and, out of nowhere, he asks, "Mama, how do you and Papa mate?" I try not to drop the egg I am painting onto the counter.

"How do we mate? Well, basically we get naked and then Papa inserts his penis into my vagina." (I know, I am leaving out all the good parts.)

"Oh. Is it hard?"

At this point I was trying really, really hard not to smile or laugh or send him to Gluby because I know he will get a kick out of his question. But instead I say, "No. It's usually pretty easy."

And then he asks if it's harder when Papa is on the bottom (what?!!? Oh, yah, he's been watching nature movies. Take a deep breath) Again, I am tempted to send him to Gluby to ask this because I know he'll get a kick out of it, but I don't give in to the temptation. "Um, well, I don't think so." And we eventually move on to another subject.

Ten minutes later my mother calls and I talk to her for a bit. Then M, our 21-month old wants to say hi. So I give him the phone. Then S wants to say hi. Panic sets in. Is he going to talk about how we are dying easter eggs and that some people believe easter is about Jesus' resurrection, but that his Mama doesn't believe in God? Or is he going to say that it's not hard for his Mama and Papa to mate? So, when I hand him the phone I ever so deftly say, "S, tell Grandma all about the egg you are painting!" And then I pray, to whom I have no idea, but I pray anyway, that he does not mention anything about God or mating.

Fortunately for everyone involved he only talked about the purple egg he was coloring with green glow-in-the-dark paint.

I know some (many? most?) people will not agree with how I handled either conversation. How would you all have told your kids about other people's belief in God, your dis/belief in God, and/or sex

Whoa

I am flabbergasted. I was tooling around today and found a post by Life in the Fast Lane (March 8, 2007) that mentions me. Me! I cannot tell you how quickly my jaw hit the floor when I read "An excellent post by Lemon Blossom really made me think about the roots of religion and why people feel such a need for it." I wrote an excellent post?! I made someone think?! Seriously, I feel like my blog is all fluff and complaining about how hard things are right now, so to see that at least once I have made someone think makes me want to write about something else that might be thought provoking. So, here goes...

*Silence*

Um, ok, hold on. This is embarrassing.

*Silence*

Well, folks, I guess that confirms it. This blog will only have one thought provoking post in it, so if you want to think you can go visit Equality, Gluby, or Mormon Stories. If you want fluff and someone to complain with, come visit me!

Good and Bad News

The good news is my sister is not coming this weekend like we had planned, so that gives me a couple of weeks to work on things some more. The bad news is she isn't coming because she had a nervous breakdown. Her husband has been out of town on business for the last 4-6 weeks. She is pregnant with their third child, she has a 3 1/2 yr old, a 2 yr old, and she just moved them 2 weeks ago. It's no wonder she broke down as he was leaving his brother's house to head back to work. (She went out to spend a couple of days with her husband and they all went to his brother's house for a visit. She was planning on stopping through here on her way home.)

Now I am really glad that she didn't come. She would not have handled the news well at all, poor girl. She said she would like to stop by on her way back home, though, so she'll come and visit when she is feeling better. I am glad that she is able to stay with friends/family who also have kids and who can help her with her boys.

Oh, and Happy Bunny Day tomorrow!

My worst case scenario....

would be to have family come over to visit before I am ready to tell them about my disaffection.

It looks like my worst case scenario just might happen this weekend. I got a call from my younger sister a couple of days ago saying she's only about 4 1/2 hours away and was wondering if she and her two boys can come by and visit. Sure! The sad thing is, she has no idea what she's in for. Neither do I, for that matter.