… it freaking better be. This is quite the chore corralling and getting ready 6 (six) children/teens to hop on a plane first thing in the morning and go live it up at Disneyland.

The laundry… is almost done.
The packing… is almost done.
Rolling up the change we’ve been saving and getting it to the bank… done. (We saved $85 in change, not bad!)
Getting the small odds & ends packed… almost done.
We used the web to check in at the airport and print our boarding passes… so that’s done.
$208 later, we have a shuttle from the airport to the hotel. You read right.. that’s two hundred and eight damn dollars for a SHUTTLE for 8 of us. (Kayla is meeting us at the airport and is paying her own way.) Fortunately it’s actually a huge luxury bus decorated in Disney stuff. Using the passenger van shuttle service (supershuttle), renting a van and driving ourselves, or using the taxi service actually would have cost us more. Go figure.

I’m already exhausted and it’s only 4PM. Fortunately all this work means tomorrow we can just wake up and go. It’s taking two vans and the help of some friends to get this crew and our luggage to the airport, lol.

I wonder how many dirty looks we’re going to get when Jack and I pile 6 children on to the plane? It’s been a while since we’ve had them *all* out and about for an outing.. and this is an ‘outing’ of epic proportions!

For most of them this is their first time on an airplane. They are almost as excited to get to ride on a plane as they are to go to Disneyland!

I just realized I forgot to eat lunch. No wonder I am getting cranky. Off to go get food before this turns into a full on low that I don’t have time nor the will to deal with today!

Just a quick bullet-style update as we’re insanely busy getting all of us ready to go to Disneyland!

• Weather madness - in the last five days we went from days of 97 to over 100 degree weather to thunderstorms and rain and now a storm rolling in that may bring snow into the high elevations. SNOW. In August. Crazy.
• “Is this water sanitary? It looks questionable to me.” That is a Disney’s Tarzan quote we use all the time. Sunday we took the kids to Klineline Pond and I just had a hard time with the disgusting-looking water and the billions of children in diapers in it. Pond/River/Lake water never used to bother me, but for some reason it heebs me out now. We still had fun and I still swam, until the thunder and lightning came and they closed the water.
• Speaking of water - remember our neat new pool and all the hassle to get it installed? Yesterday morning it sprung a leak. And not just an easy patchable leak… but a tear in the seam. And not just on ONE seam, but where a bottom seam and a side seam met and it kept growing. So it was structurally unsound and had to be removed. I was kinda ticked about this. But I’m glad to have my yard back, even if there is a big ugly circle of mud in the center of it.
• Family - my brother is back to living with us again and hoping to put his life back together. Please keep him in your thoughts as he doesn’t have an easy battle ahead of him.
• More family - my sister moved to the coast. I’m bummed about that (since she’s no longer a quick drive away) but happy they are doing what they have always wanted to do.
• More family again - my mom has been stressed out lately due to her mom being very sick. I would call her my grandmother but she disowned me when I was a teenager so she’s just my mom’s mom. I feel bad for my mom, though and she could use some positive vibes.
• Walking - Jack and I were starting to take walks every night. We were doing great till it turned 100 degrees. We’ll be walking a LOT in California so I’m not too worried about that.
• Awkward - I saw an old friend I haven’t seen in years due to too many differences of opinion (primarily about how friends treat each other) at our garage sale last week. That was quite a surprise. And awkward. I rambled a lot. I do that when I’m nervous.
• Money - 0h yeah we had a garage sale and our garage is clean almost cleaned out. I’m happy about that.
• Health - things are about the same. I still need to call my doctor and ask him WTF though. ‘Cause seriously, even though it’s been over two weeks I’m still going WTF!?!

So. Yeah. There’s my crazy life in a nutshell the last couple weeks. I plan to post updates from Disneyland and hopefully pictures too!

Got the results of my lab work… and a note from my doctor that “for some reason the lab didn’t do my hba1c so we’ll check that again in two months”. WTF.

Despite all my efforts at naturally lowering my cholesterol, it went up anyway. WTF.

Despite the increased exercise habits, my good cholesterol only went up a little and is still well below the normal range. WTF.

My doctor is asking me to try another ’statin’ medication that “should be more tolerable”. WTF.

There’s a bunch of fancy medical terms for other tests that were done that I don’t understand at all. WTF.

Three of the tests results were for “lymphocytes, absolute neutrophil count, and neutrophils all that fell just outside the normal ranges. I have no idea what these mean.. something to do with white blood cell counts I guess from a google search? WTF.

I knew I wasn’t completely healthy. I mean.. duh. But I didn’t think all my efforts meant squat. WTF.

My “big” doctor appointment went well yesterday all things considered. I had Jack go with me and that relieved a lot of my anxiety.

Yesterday’s appointment was a full physical … and I giggled through the whole thing like a total idiot. For example, my doctor asked if I drank alcohol. I giggled little a guilty little kid as I said no. He looked at me skeptically and asked, “not even occasionally?”. Oops. I admitted that I did drink occasionally then confessed I had one Mike’s Light Hard Lemonade (Raspberry Flavored) the night before. Then I had to elaborate and explain that my kids drank all the diet pop we had in the house and it was the only thing left.

He asked me, “what’s wrong with water?”

I giggled again as I felt a bit defensive explaining I drink water ALL THE TIME. What choice to I have? I even whined about how restaurants only have water or diet cola as the beverage choices for a diabetic… Not that any sort of alcohol is good for a diabetic.. but you know.. He caught me and I was rationalizing and acting like a goofy teenager or something. I also admitted to having a few drinks on the Fourth of July. He just gave me a disapproving look to which I giggled at of course.

The giggling did stop during the ‘female’ part of the exam. Imagine that?

Jack brought up basically everything I’ve been concerned about and that embarrassed me a bit. It was like being a hypochondriac by proxy. There were some things I wasn’t going to bring up. He meant well and I’m sure it’s all stuff I should have brought up anyway.

What was weird is my doctor’s attitude was completely that of a concerned doctor who wanted to hear everything I (Jack) had to say. Such a different experience than I’ve had in the past and not what I expected. Maybe because Jack brought some of it up instead of me? (Figures.. a man would listen to another man better… er. I didn’t say that.)

Now I just await the results of the blood work and most importantly, the results of the HbA1c. If it’s good, then life will continue as normal and I just need to get to back on focus for the weight loss. (Btw, I’ve lost 5 lbs since the last time I whined about gaining some back). If it’s not.. well, I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. So far everything looks OK now and my fears were mostly put aside. For now.

I’ve managed to drag myself to the doctor, and have another appointment this week, and a follow up after that. Could be more depending on the results of all this. Especially if I decide to fire my doctor. (How does one go about doing that? Is it in poor taste to ask him to recommend someone else? hehe)

I’m not going to go much into it. I know this blog is about living with my diabetes and all that, but there are some things I just don’t want to share with you, dear Internet, as much as I love you and all. Maybe when I get things back under control I will. But for now, I’m once again taking baby steps to get this thing under control. And there may be changes ahead for me. We shall see.

The fridge repair guy survived my zoo. I left the cats to roam as normal, and only put the big dogs outside. Cassie didn’t budge from her comfy spot on the couch for 90% of the time he was here. She didn’t even sniff in his direction when I let him into the house. She did go into the kitchen when he was finishing up, gave him a quick sniff, then went back to her morning ritual of sniffing for crumbs on the floor. (Not that she’d ever find any. Oh no.)

The fridge had a bad ‘computer board’. Took 10 min to fix and no charge! I didn’t even have to pay the $80 service call fee because apparently for a few months the model of my fridge was being manufactured, they used crappy boards. He left the faulty board here. Looks like a laptop motherboard. I should have asked for a RAM upgrade too.

Our fridge isn’t working right. It’s got a digital display and it only seems to want to work when it feels like it. Everything is still cold but since the only temperature gauge we have is the digital display, I don’t know what temperature it is or if it’s even working right on the days it wants to work. Also, my kids broke one of the door latches. It still closes, just not as tightly as it should. So I called GE and asked them to come take a look. For $80.00 they’ll be here tomorrow between 8 AM and oh… Thursday. (Not including parts and extended labor.)

What peeves me about this is the extended warranty I bought. The major parts such as the refrigeration parts and such are still covered under the 5 year warranty that came with it. But we opted to go ahead and buy the extended service warranty. I swear to flippin’ gawd every time we buy an ‘extended warranty’ our stuff breaks… AFTER the extended warranty period is over. If we don’t buy an extended warranty our stuff works forever. I swear it’s true. I’ll never buy an extended warranty again.

So tonight I get an automated phone call to confirm I can keep the 8AM - THURSDAY appointment tomorrow, and I went through the menu.. pushing 1 to confirm, etc. Then the little robot voice asked if we had pets including dogs and cats. Before you can answer it said,

“If you have any pets, including dogs and cats, in order to ensure the safety of our technicians and to prevent the technician from an extended service call please ensure your pets, including dogs and cats, are properly put away.”

I boggled at this. My first thought was,

“Right. I’ll ensure they are put up on the shelf where they belong. Duh”.

Seriously, what does it mean to “properly put your pets, including cats and dogs, away? It’s the ‘properly’ part that got me. My pets, including my cats, co-exist with us. I have 3 cats. Two live outside exclusively. They are often found lying around in the grass in the front yard, or lounging on the porch. Sometimes they hang out on top of or under our vehicles in the driveway. They have never harmed a single person who’s ever come to our house and I can’t imagine where I’d “properly put them away”. The third cat comes and goes in and out of the house as he pleases. I have no idea where I’d ‘properly’ put him away.

I have three dogs. The two golden retrievers can be left in the backyard… but is that the ‘proper’ way to “put them away?” Ratdog (aka Cassie) could be locked up in a kennel or our bedroom I suppose. But that really doesn’t seem ‘proper’ to me. Especially since the most she’d do is lick the technician to death, or charm his/her socks off, which may result in extending the service call a few minutes. OH NO!