Up and Down .. and Back Up Again

After yesterday and today, I decided to go ahead and get the last refill of my double-dose ADs. I really thought that the shit wouldn't hit the fan until much closer to Christmas, at which point I had planned to be much more used to the single dose schedule. Best laid plans, eh? Well, shit. I hope this is a whole lot better by the end of December. I really don't want to have to admit to Jimmy that I've done this and worse, that I might need another month or so of higher dose crap. I keep thinking, though, that not only do I need to make sure that I am sane and apparently normal for my own children, but also for Charlotte and Owen ... everyone else (almost) can take a flying leap. All four kids have been through the wringer these last several months (O and C more than anyone) , and they need as normal a Christmas as we can give them. So if it takes pharmaceutical help for me to achieve that this year, so fucking be it.
Had a TMI conversation with my dear FIL today ... took the giant box pieces that Joanne and I will hopefully transform into a fun playhouse for the kids over to his house, and he helped me tuck them into the garage. I asked if he was going south this afternoon, and he got a shy, sheepish look on his face and said, "well, I was thinking about it..." I told him to have a nice trip, and he said, "that's better than BettyAnn telling me to be careful!" and I said, "I don't want to think about whatever Betty's telling you to be careful about!" His response was "Well, the Lexapro pretty much takes care of that so nobody needs to worry." Then we talked a little about the meds -- how I was going to go back to the double dose for a month and then go back down after the holidays, and he said he had tried going off it last week and he decided that was a bad idea, side effects and all. I just hope that this works out for him. Leaving him today I was so very sad, but it was weird -- it wasn't an I'm sad for him kind of thing, it was more an "I'm sad that things are going to be different and I don't know what all this means". Part of me wants to tell him this, but I don't want to burden him, and I don't want him to think I disapprove -- because I definitely don't. That man put in a lifetime's worth of effort and emotion into the last ten or fifteen years, and he deserves every break and wonderful thing there is in life at this point.
Damn, but I need to get my hair done. I haven't been to the salon since July, and my hair looks like absolute shit on a shingle. There's my selfish moment for the week.

The First Thanksgiving

I have officially survived the first Thanksgiving. It's been a first on several levels -- most importantly, it's the first major holiday since my mother-in-law died in late August. I had this bizarre fear of having to sit in her chair at the end of the table. It was also the first Thanksgiving with Mike there alone. Joanne took the kids to Boston to be with her family, and they will be there a couple days. And finally, it was the first holiday since Mal told us last week that he was seeing a woman whom he had met in Atlantic City. She didn't come up (he had said that that would be too much, and he was right). He had gone down to NJ the night before, and didn't make it back until early afternoon. I called Steve to ask him to bring a few more things over and he actually asked me if his father came back alone -- he was worried about that. I had made the rolls the day before and set them to rise in the fridge overnight, along with cinnamon rolls. Mike and I took care of getting things ready and doing the cooking at the house, while Steve took care of the turkey at our house (fried, of course). Sadie came with me and took a nap there, and Jake came with Steve later. Linda and Steve came with Linda's friend, and U.J. showed up looking like he was headed for the cheap side of Vegas. We had plenty of food, and the kids behaved themselves, so that was good.
Mal is going to St. Maarten to visit Karen, his new lady friend, for 6 days starting on the 3rd or 4th. I told him he wasn't allowed to leave the country until I had the phone number where he would be! He called her to get the number for me, so that was good. He doesn't understand why I was so insistent, and I couldn't talk to him about that yesterday. It's the whole thing with Mom and Dad when he had his heart attack on their trip through Texas, and she didn't call anyone for two days and no one knew where they were until they got transferred to the hospital in Dallas. They scared the crap out of me. I can't deal with people I love traveling and not being able to reach them, or know where they are.
Mike and Mal and I are going Christmas shopping for the kids this next Wed. after work. Maybe if we can get Wayne to come stay with the kids, Steve will come too... he would probably like that. Mike and I talked about Christmas, and we both agreed that whatever happens with the grownups, we need to focus on just making it as normal as possible for the kids ... first Christmas without Mimi, and that was HER holiday. It's going to be rough, especially if we have everyone there, but if they can just behave for 24 hours we'll be fine -- Christmas Eve through Christmas Night. I was hoping Kathy could come up, especially since Jerome will still be away, but she doesn't have any more time off for this year, so that's not going to happen.
Joanne and I talked about making the dressup closet the present for the kids this year. I am going to go check out the Salvation army store in Port Chester and see what kinds of fun dressup clothes they have. I brought home a giant heavy-duty cardboard box from work (we got a big cart for the new laptops) and we are going to paint a playhouse for the kids too. This way we can do some fun things together (for not a lot of cash) and do two big presents to all of the kids.

murphy's lawyer

The Murphy of the title would be my sister-in-law, who is working on getting a lawyer and ridding herself of my husband's brother. She's been to one, and will be seeing another one hopefully this week. He's moved out, and moved in with my father-in-law. The plan (for what it is at the moment) is for them to both have lawyers and have the lawyers help them find an acceptable mediator, so they don't have to litigate everything. They tried one mediator, who wasn't acceptable to either of them, and they are going to try another one as soon as she finds a lawyer she can work with. The problem is that all their funds are tied up in the house -- which they will have to sell in all likelihood. He seems relaxed about all this, while she is upset and tied up in knots most of the time, and the kids are sometimes a mess. She and I took the three older kids to see Flushed Away on Thurs, and when we left the theater Jake and Owen were walking ahead of us. When I got Jake into the car he said "When are you and Daddy going to get separated?" Trying to explain separation and divorce to a five year old is NOT fun. How do you explain that it happens to some people and not others? How do I assure him that we're not going to do that -- that we are staying together? Eeeuuuwww.
Started a little Christmas shopping this weekend and dropped a bag of games for the kids over at Mal's. It was my excuse to come in and get the Christmas stuff organized and put in the spare room closet. I also took the last couple things that I wanted to put on ebay and get rid of (they're listed, hope they sell so I can be done with it). The one thing I thought I would sell and had second thoughts about was the little Coach bag. I put that away in the closet ... it's not really my style, but maybe Sadie will like it someday.
Looks like Mike will be with us for Thanksgiving. Christmas could possibly include everyone, but we'll see how messy things get between now and then. I'm having more trouble with feeling depressed again ... could be because I cut my dose of AD. I'm waiting to see if this evens out.
I took Thursday off as my first comp day (since they couldn't pay me for the time I put in over the summer working on the library). It was a good day in that I got a lot of things done, like take care of several things at the bank, got my glasses fixed (the solder joint in front is going to self-destruct in a couple months, so I went ahead and ordered another pair), went to get my blood drawn to finish off my bloodwork for my physical, and went to Avrick's in Norwalk where they are having a going out of business sale. I got Sadie a beautiful twin bed, two file cabinets for Jake (so he can have the desktop Pop made me), two end tables for the living room, and two hutch pieces, one for Jake's desk and one for on top of Grandma's buffet so I can display some of our china. All that's getting delivered Tuesday. Hopefully Mal will agree to take care of Sadie's bed and maybe Jake's desk pieces for Christmas. If not, that's okay -- I like what I got.
Talked to my favorite dr this weekend. Apparently my bloodwork came back all reasonably normal except for my cholesterol, which is pretty much through the roof at 235. He wants me to work on my diet for a couple months and come back to see how the numbers are, so I'm in for February. I called Mom because I remembered her cholesterol got out of hand at one point, and it turns out hers was over 400, but that was after her hysterectomy. She didn't know if it was high before, but she suspects it was. Her mother's was always very high also. Great. Dad's is also not good (it's better now that he's on meds for it), and Grandmona's was apparently always high also. On first glance it would seem that genetics are against me, but considering that both my grandmothers lived past 90 (Grandmona almost made it to 100), maybe there are other things at play here also. Can't depend on that though, so if the numbers are still bad in February I'm going to tell Jimmy to just go ahead and give me the lipitor or whatever he recommends.