Carleen and Mike » 2008 » April

My 3 Goals

Mike Huxley — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 01:01:02 +0000

Over at The New Me, Chrissy is blogging her 3 goals for the week, she asked if anyone else wanted to join her and I told her I was game, so here goes (plus it’s a great way for me to get to use the ol tag - yaaaay!):

Finish the molding in the bathroom. This bathroom should have been done weeks ago. My continuing struggle with this tiny, tiny room is frustrating, so instead of saying (as was my original intention here) “I’m finishing the bathroom this weekend”, which has been uttered more times than I can count, I will simply break this nearly-finished task into bite-sized chunks. Ten bucks says this “bite-sized chunk” takes me 3 more weeks.
Fold all the laundry. This is so prevalent it could become a permanent fixture to this little project. I’m great at doing the laundry, I do it all the time, but I never seem to actually get around to folding it, until our bed becomes a mountain (the qualifications for the label “mountain” are much easier to achieve in Oklahoma) - Liam can sled nearly all year round thanks to my laundry habits.
No snacking during Lost. Lost has been my arch-nemesis these past weeks. We’re into season 3 and I’ve gained 10 lbs. True, not all of that can be attributed to Lost, and it’s not like I’m eating nachos and hamburgers or anything, in all honesty, I think I eat very well, but I have two problems: portion control, and activity level. Does fruit count as snacking? Cause Mike likes him some apples and would be glad to chomp on that during Lost as long as apples don’t count as snacks.

That’s it for now, I guess I’ll come back next week with the results and we can see how I did. Good luck to us all!

How do you listen?

Mike Huxley — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:21:26 +0000

Thought of a question - figured I’d post it to the ‘tubes. How do you listen to music? Is it background noise? Do you actively listen, doing nothing else? Do you listen to one album at a time, or do you randomize it?

Me? I mix it up, baby - randomized all the time, unless I’ve just bought a new album. And mostly music is background noise while I work on the house, though certain songs require my full attention. A few songs that fit that bill of recent, are Jethro Tull’s Aqualung, Cross-Eyed Mary and Locomotive Breath. I LOVE the flute solo’s (course, why else listen to J.T.?). Tell me about your listening habits.

Liam at Woolaroc

Mike Huxley — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 00:55:53 +0000

We took Liam to Woolaroc today. It was a good day.

And yeah, I was there too:

Bathroom Au Groutin’

Mike Huxley — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 22:16:43 +0000

Eeew, sorry for the bad title-pun. I think, however, that I’m allowed some bad humor given that I am on the home stretch in our master bathroom. The tile looks great, and I haven’t even cleaned off the grout haze yet. Grouting the tile took a bit of getting used to, not to mention a few blisters, but I got the hang of it after a while and I’m pretty pleased with the results. I’m completely in love with the tile we chose, and in retrospect, for a little better water protection, maybe I should have made the grout lines a bit narrower, I like the look. In the pics below, the grout is still wet and so it looks darker than it actually is. Dry, it is only slightly darker than the tile itself.

I really can’t stand that all these pictures are blurry, goofy camera….

Remicade? Remid’oh!

Mike Huxley — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:54:56 +0000

I’ve been on a steroid called Prednisone since, oh, about Thanksgiving to help cool off my Crohn’s disease which has been wildly out of control since a month or two before that. This is pretty standard stuff for people with Crohn’s. While I’m on it I’m doing ok and it does help keep me under control, problem is, it’s not really a good idea to be on steroids for a long period of time. Let’s not even talk about the side effects (”You’re making me angry; you don’t want to see me when I’m angry…Grrr, Mike Smash!” - kind of hard to imagine me 8 feet tall, green and wearing torn purple shorts, but that’d give you an idea of what it’s like on Prednisone).

Recently, it became time for me to slowly step off Pred, dropping from 40mg to 20mg. The day after I dropped down all my symptoms returned. So at a recent doctors visit, I was given the option of trying another, higher dosage of Prednisone, or stepping up to the big guns - Remicade. I chose to try Remicade. These some powerful drugs. It’s given slowly, via IV over a period of about 2-3 hours (bring a book or two, yo’) and there can be some serious, but rare, side effects. It’s an immunosuppressant, so you sneezers and coughers stay the hell away from me. I have to take one treatment next week, another in 2 weeks and another 6 weeks from now, then after that it’s every 8 weeks. The biggest problem? $8000 PER treatment. I talked to my insurance company to find out how much is covered, basically, after my deductible is met, I’m responsible for $1500 per treatment. Still, that’s harsh. For $8000 THEY should supply ME with reading material. I’ve still got to talk to my doctor to find out how long I need to be on it for, but I gather at least a year. So, you know, if anyone knows a rich, divorced/widowed woman who’s looking to pay for sex, could you send her my way? I’d prefer that to “working the corner”, but dammit, I’ll do what it takes. I just don’t know how good I look in heels…