Lazy Tuesday Morning

I'm sitting here drinking my coffee (which, I have no idea why on earth I waited until 10 to start drinking coffee!) , Hunter's watching Wall-E (which we raced out this morning to get after we dropped Will off at school - He's been saving a duplicate birthday present to exchange for the DVD when it came out and has been patiently waiting for a month now), Olivia is taking her morning nape, and I just am not feeling well. I know I said that I think of all these grand things to blog about and how to word them perfectly, but it seems every time I sit down at the computer, my mind goes blank. Or, the news is just so horrible, I'm not at liberty to share it with the world wide web. Sigh.

My count dropped last week to 12,000, which meant another round of steroids. I haven't had to treat in over 4 months and I know I should be thankful for that. And I am. But I think, in a way, that not taking the steroids has made it harder to deal with the side-effects when I DO have to take them. It's been a long week. I started taking Zoloft for anxiety, when I was taking steroids regularly and it was awesome. It totally helped and even though I hated being on one more drug, it made life tolerable. As life calmed down, and I was taking the steroids less and less, I started feeling just 'medicated' and had my Dr. switch me to Lexapro which is not nearly as strong, and has fewer side-effects. I'm noticing, though, that while Lexapro is great for day to day (I don't think I really even need it on a daily basis) it is not effective at ALL while I'm on the steroid. I struggled with so much chemically induced anxiety this week, that the battle has honestly worn me out. Steroids suck. I noticed this week too, (I guess sometimes you need a break from it all to really see how your body is reacting) that I feel tired and weak when my blood is at war with itself. That part really gets me discouraged. I could deal with a blood disorder on a semi-regular basis (though, I'd clearly rather not) if it didn't have such drastic physical side-effects that affect my ability to keep up with my 'work'.
Another frustrating thing is that all the things I think "I want to start doing this when I feel better..." keep getting pushed back further and further.

So, now, with all this in mind, I'm going to finish my coffee and fold some laundry before we have to leave to get Will from Kindergarten. I'll put up some new pictures when my laptop gets back today or tomorrow!

Random (Hopefully) Useful Information

I know I suck at blogging. Bottom line. I have great thoughts while I'm away from the house on topics I'd like to blog about, think about how to put the thoughts together eloquently and come home with excitement and great intentions. But, then I get home and my 3 children and piles of housework and laundry suddenly come to the forefront of my schedule, and blogging gets pushed back.

Anyway, I have a minute while the oven pre-heats so I wanted to share my thoughts about my new favorite thing!

I was watching Oprah a few weeks ago and this lady was talking about how she can save up to 70% on her grocery bill. I was schocked and amazed and realized that even though I had no way to save 70% right off the bat, I could for sure start clipping coupons and planning my meals around the sales, and not making a meal list then buying everything full price. I also decided shopping in bulk would be a great idea as things go on sale (her idea, not really mine) but meat is especially hard for me because of freezer burn. Enter "Ziplock Vaccum Freezer System". For $11 I got the pump that sucks the air out and some quart sized bags. Love it. I figure I can write "Chicken" on the bag and reuse it over and over by writing the date in tiny print on one side and crossing it out each time the meat is replaced.

Also, my platelets dropped from 93k to 43k in 2 weeks. Still okay though, and no treatment necessary!