Sleep Sex

I was browsing some blogs I found recently and got hooked on this one called "Thystle Says", going down through some of her blog entries, I come across this one:

Thystle Says: What the? (Click it, it's a link, just doesn't look like one!)

Talking about Ambien and the side effects, and I quote:

"Ambien has warnings like "may result in amnesia". No shit. Among reported side effects are "sleep eating" (not awesome) "sleep driving" (kind of awesome) "sleep sex" (awesome for the spouse) and so on. Basically, if you were doing it, or even thinking very hard about it when you fall asleep, you run the risk of doing it while you sleep.

And not remembering it."

And I posted a comment:

"Sleep sex... I can do that without Ambien! That's how my husband and I had sex the first time LOL! No seriously, now I may have to go blog that story... right now..." (Quoting myself, that's great!)

So here I am, blogging the story..

I won't go into all the details of what happened BEFORE the first weekend we spent together, but let's leave it at, we had never had sex (It's TRUE!)

So we made plans to spend the weekend together at my house (it was a long distance relationship, which probably contributed to the lack of adult activities), and the first night we had dinner (or he did anyway, I was still anxious about eating in front of him so I starved), watched a movie, listened to some music, and then it was bedtime.

He was all ready to sleep on the couch, but let's be honest here, my couch was REALLY old and had about 2 inch thick padding with PLYWOOD underneath (second hand of course, and smelled like the storage unit it had been in too), so I said "No, don't be silly, I have a KING SIZE bed, you can sleep in the bed with me, I'm not gonna make you sleep on THAT."

So we went to bed.

And we went to sleep.

Sure, there was some cuddling, but that's it!

About 4am the next morning, I wake-up, and we are TOTALLY going at it!

Apparently he had the same wake-up call I did.

Since then, we have mastered Sleep Sex, and let me say once again:

THANK GOD FOR VASECTOMIES!

Swagbucks Just Provided Us With FREE Birthday Presents!

I have been using this awesome search engine called Swagbucks for a few months now.... Before summer started I was able to use some of the Amazon.com gift cards I had gotten by redeeming the Swagbucks I earned to buy the kids these things called Bakugans. Something along the lines of Yu-Gi-Oh, or Pokemon, a trading card game with a cartoon and toys, etc. I never really did get the whole gist of it, but the kids really got into the whole thing... for about a week.

I am still randomly stepping on those damn Bakugan balls in the middle of the night!

BUT, back to the whole point of my story, this Site is AWESOME. I have set them as the default search engine in my browser, and also as my homepage, so when I want to visit a new site, I just type the name of the site into the search bar and go. Find the site in the search results and occasionally get myself some swag bucks in the process. After you have earned enough Swagbucks you can go to the Swag Store and redeem them for all kinds of cool things like gift cards or even actual items from all kinds of different categories. It's great stuff!

I usually redeem my swagbucks for Amazon.com gift cards and then use them to buy things we need or just plain want, that aren't in the regular household budget. We haven't needed anything lately so my gift cards have just been stacking up waiting to be used.

Things are tight lately and we have birthdays coming up over the next few months, as well as Christmas, so I just thought "Hey, why not use my Gift Cards and Swagbucks to get some gifts!" I was able to fill in the gaps to cover all the birthdays we have coming up that we hadn't purchased for yet, and at the rate things are going, I should be able to cover a good number of Christmas gifts using my Swagbucks and gift cards as well!

Childhood Bipolar, Anxiety, Depression and ADHD

A little background: #1 has had behavioral and mental health issues for a number of years, they really started to become prominent right around his 5th birthday, by the time he was 5 1/2 I had had him evaluated for ADHD because he was acting hyperactive and talking about hearing voices. The evaluation went well and he was diagnosed with an Anxiety disorder and they said they saw no signs of ADHD. Well that was alright I suppose, but how do you deal with Anxiety in a 5 year old, especially when you're dealing with your own anxiety and depression issues and your whole family is going through major changes and you feel like you're completely up in the air, unsure where you will land?

3 years later, he is 8 years old, we have struggled the last few years with lots more turmoil, though a lot more stability and structure as well. We have had case management who have helped us get multiple therapists for him (individual as well as family therapy), a behavioral health professional, etc. It got to the point where he had a total melt down and was hospitalized because his actions were putting himself and other family members in danger.

It was probably the hardest thing I have ever had to go through as a mother.

He was there for nearly 2 weeks, and they put him on Prozac for the Anxiety and Depression he had been diagnosed with previously that their psychiatrist confirmed from what he could see.

There is a strong family history of Bipolar and I had been concerned about that for a few months previous because of some of his actions, I mentioned this to his last therapist and she basically told me that bipolar is a made up condition used as a diagnosis when there's no clear explanation for someone's behavior. FRUSTRATING!

I brought this up to the staff when he was hospitalized and they kept note of it, and I also spoke to their psychiatrist about it, though he only met with my son once or twice.

Since being released the Prozac stopped working, and the psychiatrist my son is seeing now said that that, along with the way I have described his behaviors over the past few weeks (similar melt downs to before he was on meds at all), makes her believe he may have a mood disorder. She said he is too young to be diagnosed Bipolar, but they can put him on Medication to help stabilize his moods and gave me some samples of Abilify (the same medication my step sibling was on for bipolar at age 13).

She also brought up the possibility of ADHD, even though I have had him diagnosed in the past, she said it wouldn't hurt to consider a re-evaluation, or to try him on ADHD meds down the road to see what happens, as it typically goes along with mood disorders.

I didn't think it was even possible that he might have ADHD until yesterday I completely by accident came across this entry on Mommy Needs Therapy... Or A Glass Of Wine - a blog I follow on Blogger - and she talked about a new behavior program... well I will quote her:

"We are implementing a new behavior program with Noah and I'm going to be blogging about it on a new site I'm setting up. Stay tuned for more information! This a big deal for our family and I'm very excited to be working with Debra Sale Wendler the Respect Effect Mom. I met her on Twitter as @adhdparenting. So far I'm very impressed with the program even though it is a lot of work and at times it scares the hell out of me because it's making ME change a lot about myself and how I parent. So seriously, stay tuned!"

I clicked the link to Respect Effect Mom and the FIRST entry on her blog talked about "unofficial red flag ADHD alerts you rarely hear mentioned" and as I started reading through this list I was like OMG THAT'S MY KID!

So I signed up on her site http://www.adhdparentingtips.com/ and Here's hoping for success!

Amish Macaroni Salad

This weekend was SO hot and muggy! We decided to take the kids to the beach, It was MUCH cooler there, and not nearly as sunny because of the heavy Sea Fog that stayed close to the ground.

We had made the decision in the morning to go to the beach that evening after I closed the store, so the husband made a LARGE lunch to hold us over until our late dinner that night after we got home from the beach.

Lunch consisted of Chicken Nuggets, Amish Macaroni Salad (a first time thing for us, it was premade from the store and given to us by a friend), and Deep Fried Potato Cakes (Fried in Canola Oil).

I opted for no potato cakes as I recently figured out that Canola Oil causes my Gallbladder attacks, and after tasting the Amish Macaroni Salad and deciding it tasted ok, but I would prefer my homemade macaroni salad that I had leftover in the fridge from the day before. So Hubby, Kids #1 & #3 had the Amish Macaroni Salad with their potato cakes and chicken nuggets, I had Chicken nuggets and my macaroni salad and#2 had Chicken nuggets and potato cakes because he didn't like the Amish macaroni salad.

I know, it seems like I'm rambling.

On the way to the beach, we took the long way, I like to explore different routes to different places in the area, as I have only lived here for 2 years and want to know the area as well as my husband does.

Along the way hubby starts talking about how he thinks he should have stayed inside after lunch and that he thinks being outside in the heat after such a large meal has made him sick to his stomach.

About 20 minutes into our trip #1 starts complaining that he feels sick. No big surprise, he is prone to motion sickness when in vehicles for long periods of time, so I pulled over and he does his thing beside the road. We backtrack some to the store we had just passed and picked up drinks for everyone. He seems fine after this.

We get to the beach, have a great time, the kids are awesome, and we vow to DEFINITELY return to this beach again in the future as it is Sandy, near home, and NOT crowded!

When we get home from the beach, half the kids are sleeping, hubby takes the baby out, the boys wake up and get out, and I get in the van to get #3 out of her carseat. She is asleep, so I wake her up and get her out and she's fussy, which is typical of a toddler who has just been woken up, and shes wet cause she had an accident, plus her sandals are full of sand from the beach, so I'm trying to get her into the house and she stops in the middle of the driveway and throws up... OH BOY... I yell to hubby and he doesn't hear me. After she's done, I try to get her to walk some more to get her into the house, and as we come around the van she stops and bends over and throws up again.... FUN STUFF.

I FINALLY get her in the house, and it dawns on me... Hubby wasn't feeling well, #1 threw up on the way to the beach, and #3 is throwing up now, and if I remember seeing remnants of Macaroni in the driveway after she was done.

It clicks that they all had the Amish Macaroni Salad.... the rest of us... who AREN'T sick... Didn't.

I mention to hubby that maybe it went bad in the fridge, we've been having some trouble with it not staying cold enough, it needs a new part, something we are saving up for. He agrees its a possibility. I take it out of the fridge to smell it and see if it SMELLS bad... it smells fine to me, and when I close the cover I notice the expiration date... August 16, 2009.... This all was happening on August 22, 2009....

Guess that explains it.

Most Embarrassing Email You Ever Sent?

So I participated in a radio show this morning, people were calling in about the most embarrassing email they ever sent. There were a lot of them, about sending nude photos to the boss, venting about the boss and accidentally sending it to the boss instead of coworkers, etc.

Mine on the other hand wasn't an email but an instant message, a few years ago when I was trying out the online dating thing... I was talking to 2 different guys at the same time and was having a hard time deciding which way to go, but hey, I was pretty newly single and wasn't in any rush to decide...

I was chatting with both guys one night and a friend of mine as well, Guy #1 and I were having a really nice conversation and Guy #2 was flirting and being his normal pervy self. I went and copied the conversation Guy #1 and I were having, and went to my task bar at the bottom of the screen to open the messenger box to my best friend, Clicked her name, and without hesitating pasted and sent the conversation. About 5 seconds later I realized that instead of HER message box popping up, it had brought up the message box of Guy #2.

Needless to say, Guy #2 wasn't in the picture much longer, and Guy #1 is now my husband :)

What Do I Do?

So I'm having a rough day, my oldest son is being very defiant, and even took off today on his bike, saying he was running away (I knew he wouldn't so wasn't too worried, and wasn't surprised when about 15 minutes later he called from my sister in law's house crying wanting to come home).

I don't think his meds are working for him, he is on 10mg of Prozac every morning, and it was working really well for awhile, he was like a whole new kid, calm, accepting, and generally, well, normal. But over time the meds seem to be losing their potency and he is going back to his old ways.

I know I have never posted about his old ways, but let's just say, you don't want to know a kid like that. There have been days when I was sure he was either going to kill himself or someone else, and I just don't know how to deal with him when he gets like this!

I have had one counselor tell me she thinks hes got some Cognitive Delays, but he has had evaluations, both psychological and developmental and no one noticed any signs of that. I have researched it on my own and I think she's full of shit and just can't stand to be wrong.

Days like today I feel like a complete failure as a mother, I wasn't able to protect my child from whatever it was that happened to him, whatever has caused this anxiety, depression and general behavior problems. My child talks about killing himself, when he is being punished, He tells me that the reason he can't go play outside is because I am afraid he's going to kill someone... HOW do you process something like that? HOW do you DEAL with something like that? WHAT IN THE WORLD am I supposed to do?

I have spent the better part of today crying, and wishing there was someone else that could deal with him because I just can't do it anymore. I love all four of my kids, but I feel as though I have done everything I CAN do, there is nothing else LEFT for me to do! I just don't know what to do

About The Author

I figured since I have been blogging for awhile, you might want to know a little more about me since I haven't really said too much... So let's proceed to the 4 letter words!

Love: I have a wonderful husband who is supportive in everything that I do, in all the years we have been together, we have never once had a fight, he is the picture of a perfect husband and father. He works 40 hours a week outside of the home, comes home in the evening, helps with dinner and housework, spends time with me and plays with the kids, and never makes me feel less than worthy even when I'm having a hard time keeping up, he just takes up the slack and helps me get back to normal.

Kids: I have Four, two daughters and two sons, the perfect balance that I always dreamed of. They are all spaced 2-3 years apart, so you can imagine the extreme variety in what we are dealing with! From Diapers to the Tooth Fairy, Coloring Books to Homework.

Diet: I have struggled with depression and anxiety for most of my life, the result of which is a bit of a weight problem associated with eating for comfort, as well as only eating convenience foods. Since my husband and I have been together he has introduced me to a much healthier diet, that almost completely eliminates High Fructose Corn Syrup (because lets face it, that stuff just ain't good for ya!) and lots of other nasty stuff. All of our meat is purchased at a local grocery where the owner is very careful about not selling meat that has been injected with dyes, saline solutions, or raised on artificial growth hormones. We eat many more vegetables than I ever had growing up and even grow our own when possible. As for convenience foods, you really won't find any in our house, almost everything we eat is home made, we even bake our own breads whenever possible!

Work: Ahh, yes, we knew this was coming, because really, you'll be hard pressed to find a blog out there on the world wide web that doesn't mention some money making scheme, LOL! Ok, seriously, I really do work. I am self employed, I run a store that is located right next to my house, I literally walk about 10 steps to work every day! I won't say what I sell because that's a whole other blog, and it IS out there, if you can find it LOL! There are SOME things I do online to make money as well, such as Yuwie, Clixsense and Swagbucks. I will post more about those later, but I will give you a brief bit now... between the three of them I have made well over $150 and yes, I have been paid... Yuwie pays via Paypal or Check, Clixsense pays via check and Swagbucks you redeem for Gift Cards (I always get Amazon.com cards)

13 Things That Have Pissed Me Off Today:

1. It's Hot
2. It's Muggy
3. The kids wont listen
4. The phone wont stop ringing
5. My bank account is overdrawn
6. One of my customers can't pay for her order
7. There's practically no food in the house
8. It's raining
9. My shop is a disaster
10. Kids wont stay out of stuff
11. Kids wont get along
12. No matter how much I clean, my house is a mess
13. I know when my husband gets home from work, he's gonna be in a pissy mood too.
    

Tweet, Tweet, TWEET!

So I've been hearing about Twitter and Tweeting and all of that good stuff for awhile now, and finally decided to check it out... You can see my tweets Here

Creating a Budget

This has been a LONG ongoing process for our family over the past few years, Originally we did just fine just paying bills whenever they came in and spending money on things we needed, when we needed it. We had that inflated sense of "we may not be rich but we can afford to live fairly comfortably".

Then, about 2 years ago, some things happened. I won't go into details what, but the husband was out of work for about a month. He was able to use his Vacation time to cover the loss of paychecks during that month, but vacation time doesn't take into consideration the amount of overtime he was receiving for all the hours he was usually working, so we started getting behind on bills, our regular bills as well as a few temporary extras we had incurred.

I took over paying the bills because although the husband always paid them, he rarely paid them on time, so there were overdue fees that began to stack up, not to mention not paying close attention to how much money was in the bank, plus some other details, causing overdraft fees (it took us about a year before we realized that at Key Bank, they don't process transactions in the order they happen... They take the ENTIRE days worth of Deductions, calculate those against your beginning balance, appoint any overdraft fees, and THEN they credit you any deposits... So even if you know you have say $5 and want to make a $10 purchase, and transfer the money from another account BEFORE making the purchase, you're still gonna get an overdraft fee for that purchase because the BEGINNING balance was still less than that deduction....) Oh how much money we lost because of them...

Anyway the budget I came up with worked out well for awhile, but then for a number of different reasons it stopped working for us, and we have been struggling for more than a year to try and figure something out that would.

Recently my mother suggested Sending out Weekly payments for the bills, she said that's what she's been doing and it seems a LOT more manageable and makes those LARGE numbers seem SO much smaller...

It has taken me some time to be able to get this started, but you know, I'm getting tired of getting those disconnect notices because I have a bit of an overdue balance and then am late sending the most recent payment out... So I got to work on it, I figure there are SOME bills I cant SEND weekly, like the Mortgage and the Kirby (yes, we have one of those SUPER expensive and really awesome, totally worth the $1200 vacuums LOL), and then there's the car insurance and the Netflix. All of those except for the Mortgage are automatically deducted from our account.

I figured out that for the month, our Bills come to approximately $1,329.69 (all of those are rounded up except the mortgage which is exactly $475 and Netflix is $14.69). Which divided by 4 weeks, is $332.42, which is a bit less than the husbands weekly paycheck... TOTALLY doable... I have a bit of income myself that we can use for Groceries and Gas, so this could work!

I created a list in my notebook that has all of our monthly bills, how much they are each month (all estimated and rounded up to make things easier and to help us get ahead), and made a column for how much they each will cost each week. Then I started out by scheduling 2 bills, one is for just $5 a week and the other is for $100 a week (the $100 is temporary as we have a past due balance, and I will be readjusting the amount to between $25 and $50 in a few months). After I scheduled those 2 weekly payments, I figured out which bills are already deducted from our bank account automatically, such as the Kirby and Car Insurance and Netflix. I ran the figures again and scheduled another small weekly payment ($10 a week) and now I am waiting to see how things go. We have a disconnect notice on one bill that I haven't scheduled yet, I have another week before the disconnection and after the husbands paycheck goes into the bank today and the scheduled payments go out tomorrow I will figure what we have available, make the necessary payment to get rid of the threat of disconnection, and then schedule the weekly payments of $25 to begin next week. Then there are just 2 more payments that need to be scheduled, Mortgage and Credit Card, and I will be waiting to make sure that everything goes smoothly with the already scheduled payments before I schedule those.

IF this works out the way I think it should, this will give us approximately $450 a month for Groceries and Gas, sometimes more, which is completely reasonable using coupons and Gas Rewards from Shaw's!

You Have GOT To Be Kidding Me...

11 Hours Of Home Improvements

Yesterday was a VERY busy day in our household, Sunday's are my ONE day off from my job, I know, my boss is such a bitch making me work 6 whole days a week, for 6, sometimes more hours a day - What a Slave Driver!

Instead of taking the "day off" like you would expect, my husband and I decided that we needed to put forth some brute force to clean and de-clutter our house. #1 is currently away from home, #'s 2&3 were able to help some, and well #4 was nice enough to not scream and want to eat all day, so between nursings I was able to help hubby clean.

Things we managed to do:

• Dishes
• 4 or 5 Loads of Laundry
• Cleaned #2's Bedroom (Complete with sorting his clothes, refolding and organizing his dresser and weeding out clothes that no longer fit - note to self, he needs more pants, hes down to 2 pairs)
• Cleaned #1's Bedroom completely out, so that we could cover the walls and floor with white primer (to prepare for actual painting, and finally completing the project started nearly a year ago of building him his own room)
• Cleaned the room shared by #'s 3&4 - Washing bedding, washing down #3's mattress (shes potty training), sorting clothes, and organizing dressers, weeding out clothes that no longer fit (#3's hand me downs were put into a tote for #4 to grow into and #3's hand me downs were put into a bag to give to my cousin as I absolutely need NO girls clothes for store inventory at this point in time!)
• 2 Trips to the transfer station (Recycling center/Dump) With about 4 more bags prepared for a trip next weekend plus whatever we will come up with through-out the week
• Cleaned OUR room & our TINY little closet that seems to wind up storing EVERYTHING except our clothing (Trying to figure that one out still!)
• Cleaned the Hallway (that had been storing bags and boxes up the Wah-Zoo of who knows what for months

After sorting through all of these places and things and going to the transfer station we managed to organize things somewhat. Got some of the Christmas & Halloween decorations that had been in storage totes in the hall way up into the closet on the 3rd floor that HAD been housing some of the husband's tools for work. We went through all the blankets in the Mini Closet the two of us are expected to share, got some ready for Freecycle (Note To Self: Post those on Freecycle after posting blog), weeded those down to one spare blanket for each bed in the house with an extra blanket and pillow for company, plus special blankets like the ones my mother made and the Quilt my Great-Grandmother made for me, put those all into a large tote in the third floor closet with the Holiday decorations. I finally went through my Trunk and 3 boxes of BOOKS, I even found some I HAVEN'T READ YET (Hallelujah, there are BOOKS to be read!) I loaded up the trunk with books to put in the store (things I've already read and have no desire to save or things I have no desire to read) and saved out one large overflowing box full of books that I must NEVER part with (Ahhh, Love me some Stephen King, James Patterson and V.C. Andrews!), after I read those unread ones that caught my eye I will decide if they are to become Inventory or Collection.

2 Bags included in our trip to the Transfer Station were FULL of clothes from the donation I received to the store last week... I love free stuff, especially when I can make money off it, but there were about 4 boxes of clothes, that all smell musty and old... A few very old dresses, like from the 60's and 70's maybe that I will be donating to the local theater for costumes, but 90% of the clothes that came in are so old and outdated that I doubt I'd ever be able to sell them, and these people probably knew that which is why they were planning to just take them to Goodwill and happened to think of my store first, which is great, but seriously, now I get stuck with the job of disposing of their trash LOL! At least I got some cool knick-nacks and stuff that I'm pretty sure I'll be able to sell at some point, and some nice stuff I'm keeping for the family as well!

Now, off to make phone calls to doctors to schedule checkups.