I'd settle for an afternoon and a few chapters

I know I'm a big liar about the damn glass blog and I'm trying to get there but good grief I feel like I'm all over the place. I'm having a rough time managing everything and it feels like lately my life is just get through the week, go see a couple friends, rush to prep for the week, then start over. I hate this feeling, I hate hating Sundays, and writing about this- all rushed as I'm trying to get to bed- is boring.

I ate this carefully crafted dinner tonight because I have a fasting lab tomorrow, and now I'm crashing, of course, because that happens every damn time I try to plan to not crash. Like today for tennis. Do you know how hard it is to crash, suck down a couple juice boxes and try to recover fast enough to play without crashing again? If you manage to do it right (which I did, though it took 80 grams of carbs, 10 minutes of rest, then 20 minutes of half-assed tennis before I could start really running around again), it makes you REALLY tired, which is not what you need. And if your answer is you just need to prepare better, remember that EVERYTHING affects your blood sugar, and all the preparation on earth won't always prevent this crap from happening, though you've been trying to figure tennis out for almost a year now.

See what I mean, Mom? I am in a very cranky, frustrated, bad place at the moment, and I need a quiet, introverted day with a book. Urgghh. So there's that, and it's time for bed now. Gotta go get some rest so I can be less of an asshole tomorrow.

ONE chocolate chip cookie, ah ah ah

What is one to do when one wants a cookie?

Bake some- but what if one does not want 3 dozen?

Buy some- but what if one does not need an entire box?

Buy one- but they are always enormous and one never anticipates wanting a cookie and therefore did not bring a ziploc bag to store the other half, hence that half gets eaten or folded back in the bag to become a purse cookie- or, more accurately, purse cookie crumbs punctuated by the occasional warm, smushy chocolate chip that globs itself onto some corner of your wallet or phone.

These are not acceptable solutions. Now, some people like to tell me that I can't eat desserts, but I like to direct them to my dietitian who is also a certified diabetes educator, who will very sweetly inform them otherwise. I can have a cookie. I have to think about that cookie, I have to plan for it, I have to measure it, and I have to time it right, but I can have a cookie. I can even have a few. I should not have 3 dozen.

I was super excited to find this bag of frozen cookie dough in the grocery store tonight. I'm sure I could have done this myself: avoided all chemicals, made the dough, portioned them out, frozen the bag, and let it sit there for 8 months like every other mysterious ziploc bag that's buried in my freezer, but instead I bought a bag of almost made cookies that's ready for me to bake one when I have a hankering for a warm cookie. It's inconvenient enough that I'll really have to want it and be willing to wait for it, but it's a nice option for single diabetic people.

Hurts so good

In the most ridiculous version of The Saddest News Ever, our glass creations were not ready to be picked up today. My guess is that the cooling down oven needed to be fired back up for someone else's stuff, but we're on for tomorrow. That means instead of telling you about a fun appointment, I can tell you about a not fun appointment.

I have been going to the dentist so regularly that we discuss love lives and good sushi restaurants.

So far they've removed my wisdom teeth, done a deep cleaning, a regular cleaning, and a whole mess of cavities. Today was supposed to be a regular cleaning and whitening trays, but apparently the bone loss in all those years of being too broke to go to the dentist is working against me. Add to that the crashes in the middle of the night when I'm sucking down juice and straight sugar, then immediately falling back asleep, and we've already got a recipe for disaster. The dentist and I had a hefty conversation about the fact that I already need another deep cleaning, despite the good job he swears he can see I'm doing. He had some good advice on the dental aspects of crashing blood sugar, and then I went to the counter to receive my options.

I stood there hearing register sounds as the treatment plan got a lot longer, and was having an old familiar moment of despair when I suddenly realized that I have been making these kinds of aggressive payments towards my debt... I can swing this. The insurance won't cover another deep cleaning for two years, so this is the cash price. I want to go review my budget first, but I'm so happy to be at this point. I'm mad to be derailed from my debt plan, but it doesn't derail me much. These are no longer crippling numbers. I can absolutely do this.

The cosmetic stuff will have to wait, and even though my gums are sore and my teeth are sensitive from the fillings and I feel like I live at the dentist's office, I am still thrilled to be able to go. I got the best dental insurance offered, and that still won't cover everything I need, and I've got to buy a better electric toothbrush too, but look at me, paying for the dentist. Today was not a fun day, but it was a proud day. Now where's the Tylenol?

You should feel that heat, though.

Five years after Book Arts at UNR, Lena and I finally went to do another art class together.

I'll write more about it when I have the pieces to show you, but we each made two. We made paperweights, which is what I'm holding in the second picture before our Finnish instructor (He introduced himself, then said "Good luck pronouncing that.") removed it from the pole, which I will describe poorly tomorrow.

We also made flowers. Well, Lena made a flower. I told him I'd much rather make some sort of swirly mess. He was happy to indulge my clueless yet intrepid venture, and helped me layer it. He liked what I made, and said it's going to look rad. The colors look all different when it's hot, apparently, so I won't really see what they look like until tomorrow.

I AM SO EXCITED.

This was a ridiculous amount of interesting fun, and I left there exhausted. We want to go back for the next level, which is actual glass blowing. He gave us a demonstration of that, and all we could do was ogle.

At home, I had a brief moment of Sunday evening blues before I had to scold myself. My weekends are certainly not always this full, but I have no right to get whiny after this one. I found neat thrift store items, did yoga, played tennis, had a date, went shopping with a friend, went to a movie with other friends, went out to breakfast, did some reorganization, made two glass pieces and talked about art for about five hours.

That was a good time, and I cannot wait to see them tomorrow.

If only there was a two hour delay tomorrow...

It's already past 9:00! I don't think I'm going to do any editing today, mostly because I want to be asleep soon. I keep getting lots of praise and encouragement from my reviewer, so I am trying to take confidence from that and not be a perfectionist about it. What's hard is learning as I go- so I see things or change my mind regarding how something should be written, and I have no idea which questions I have already published a different way. But those things can be fixed later.

I realized today that each time I have take the DiSC assessment, I get a different secondary trait. My primary is always a D, which is dominance, but I'm all over the place on the secondary, which I giggle at because that's kind of totally me. I'll drive, but I have no idea where we're going.

I had my tennis drill tonight and it felt very good to be back out there. We're getting the Joint Commission visit at work, and today we caught wind that they were coming to our site, so that lit a fire under our asses. We all felt we were good, but kept finding things to fix. These are things like: no cardboard boxes are allowed on the floor. This is a cardboard-gets-wet-and-things-start-living-in-it kind of problem, not a we're-just-creating-things-to-hassle-you-about problem.

I used that motivation to get my desk under control and now it looks all pretty. That felt pretty good. I also found out that I already did one of those big awful euuurrgghhh things on my work to do list and handed it to the next person involved and found out today that it's well on its way! I was about to start it again because I had almost no memory of doing it. Sheesh.

So that felt good, and tennis felt good. My blood sugar was at 98 about halfway through, so I ate some straight sugar and made it through the intense part fine. It's hard to get enough straight sugar in in the first place, and then you need to wait before eating any complex carbs or protein to let your sugar come up while you're doing an intense activity. I ate dinner right afterwards, but crashed again at the tail end of grocery shopping. Apparently, exercise changes how much insulin you need, which means you could be a calculus wizard, and still be soundly defeated by diabetes math. HA! Now, THAT'S a college level math class!

I wore my new exercise capris with the pocket today. I may have purchased one size too large. I am not thrilled about trying other ones and outlining the contours even more, but nobody pointed and laughed, so there's that.

Mini is staring wide-eyed at my shirt, which makes me paranoid that something's crawling on me or she's just wigging out and is about to attack me anyway.

I dragged in all my groceries in one trip while still recuperating from the low, and with bags falling out of my grip. It was ridiculous. I am ridiculous.

Now I need to go get Riley out and answer these boys back about scheduling time to meet them this weekend. My hopes aren't super high, but they all seem genuine, and the plans are things I enjoy anyway, so it'll be good regardless.

Super busy, super tired, super happy.

But at least I made dinner

Have I mentioned how much I hate sharing one washer and dryer with... ten people?

Arrrrghhhhhh... but ok, it doesn't create problems TOO often. Someday my Whirlpool will come.

Actually, I just met with a financial adviser last week and got some confirmation, some good ideas, and yet another suggestion to get a second job. He makes a solid point, but I am away too much as is. I'm pushing for the alternate schedule, but now I have to write a justification. If I could just push the more pressing issues aside...

Yes, send the waahmbulance. I'm still feeling sick and tomorrow I have the next quarter of fillings to go, which will make that side ridiculously sensitive too and then I don't know how I'll eat. I've already taken the water pitcher out of the fridge, because nerve pain first thing in the morning is more than I can bear. I will interrogate the dentist tomorrow, but I'm sure the answer is "Yep!"

I'm almost finished with the 1500 piece puzzle and over 300 editing questions, and it's probably not the best time for reflection. I always feel pulled back to do more editing, not because it's fun- it's really not- but because I constantly feel obligated. I want the things that can come from this, so I'm trying to put in some time every day, and that gives me the sense of what it must be like to work from home.

I hope I sound as whiny as I feel.

So now I have to draw on some wise words and calm myself down, because cigarettes are off limits, and Nyquil and beer don't mix.

1) Stop looking at everything. Keep your head down, toil away, and know you're moving, even if it doesn't feel like it.

2) Acknowledge what's good. Paid off the small student loan, found cheaper and better insurance, about to consolidate the big student loan. You've done well, and the financial adviser could only suggest cutting out Netflix!

3) If you made the mess, you can clean it up. I'll give that one a grudging nod.

I was just telling Tracy earlier about how I keep using my wishes to get better, and just realized that what that means is opportunities to get better, and isn't that horrifying?

I got Sarah some colored pencils, Mom. You were right. That's why I called you. :)

I'm halfway through the Lord of the Rings trilogy on audiobook, and you know I cannot leave a puzzle alone until it's finished, so that's where I spent the weekend. Oh, that's probably at least half of it- I felt way too awful to do anything except nap and work on the puzzle for most of the weekend. Will I ever be able to enjoy doing a puzzle without feeling like I should be doing something else? Or does that make it enjoyable? No, I will probably always feel like I could be accomplishing something else, and that's very true, but I really like doing puzzles, so fuck that.

I also learned this weekend that I can be pretty bitchy when I'm sick. I had a couple moments where I had to excuse myself from responding because it wasn't going to be nice.

Alright, so I will try to do some laundry tomorrow. Tonight, editing. Pet the dog. Listen to a good story. Get some more rest, because I clearly need it.

Maybe I just need a day off

Just tried another weird Zumba class. The instructor was new, so there weren't too many people in the class- four of us, plus a kid from the previous dance class. None of that was bad. What was bad was that it was the most cluttered dance studio I've ever seen, and the matriarch of the studio sat in the corner in a recliner the whole time. That's the instructor's grandmother who owns the studio, and she apparently sits in the corner for all the classes. Sarah and I want to do Zumba, but I think we're going to find another place. Can't wait to hear what Tracy says about this. Fucking weird to say the least.

I definitely need new shoes and some workout shirts or pants with a pocket in the back, because this velcro belt just flops around and gets in my way. The shoes are just old - probably five years at least?

The class I'm teaching is going really well. I am starting to really love some of the people in that class.

Last night I got a wild hair and started rearranging furniture in my apartment. I thought I might wait until the weekend - you know, clean up and organize first - but instead I just started dragging couches around. My neighbor must adore me. I brought the little couch into my room, and I like how that looks a lot. It's not done, of course, and I have a 800 things I need to do, but it's starting to feel like mine again.

Now I need to decide how I'm going to spend the last hour of my evening and try to be productive. I have a lot of plans coming up that I need to prepare for, but I must be getting old because it's 8 o'clock and I'm ready for bed. Of course, if I do things the way I want, I'll be playing tennis twice a week, and adding Zumba and some sort of brawling class. Exercise is supposed to give you more energy, right?

So since I can't do everything, I think I'm going to parcel at my time and make progress on many different projects in 15 minute increments. That seems like the most effective way to get nothing done.