Ah, now where were we?

The reason I didn’t update earlier in the week that our pipe burst was because I was waiting for my blood test results to come in to do a post. I was pretty nervous that Monday I went to have my blood work done. My stomach was kind of in knots and I was just plain nervous. Again, I practiced prayer, and asked God to help me through it. I got to my appointment 15 minutes early and told the nurse I was a little nervous. She had me lay down and took my blood and it was over before I knew it. I was a little nervous during it but the nurse just kept chatting and keeping my mind focused on things. (She was asking about my vacations and it made me have to think and recall things).

When I left that day I found out that I could sign up on the LabCorp website and I’d get an email when my blood test results were in. I signed up. Mistake. I stalked the website for the next 3 days compulsively wanting to see what my results were. Thursday around 11am they came in. Keep in perspective that Thursday was the morning after our pipe had burst at 11:30. I wasn’t in the best shape mentally.

I logged on to the LabCorp website. I pulled up my results. I stalked and had a mental breakdown. I saw some numbers in bold. Were those the only bad results? I don’t really know how to read this. Oh God what does it mean. I think this is telling me I’m super vitamin deficient, well being the starting range for low. And Oh my word, is that my cholesterol. What does that even mean? Frantic Googling ensues. Oh my gosh my bad cholesterol is as high as my total cholesterol should be.

I called my doctors office and tried to play it cool and ask if my results had come in. They had and they wanted to schedule a follow up. They wouldn’t tell me anything. My heart started to palpitate. Was there a result worse than high cholesterol and low vitamins on there? Did I have cancer? Was I dying? Did they find something dangerous? (These are genuinely the thoughts running through my head).

Well, Monday came and one week after my blood work I was back at the doctor. She informed my that my LDL was 192, my total cholesterol was 292. My HDL was 90 (well that’s good!), and my triglycerides were 50 (phew! another good score). She told me that we had some options for the cholesterol. Even though I had a family history, she was a little uncomfortable with how high it was for a 24 year old. She said I could take Statins but not if we were trying for kids. She said I could take another type of medicine that is safe for when you’re trying to start a family, but is much more pill heavy. She told me I could try and add supplements like fish oil. She told me I could try diet and exercise.

In the end we settled with I would take fish oil and try and modify my diet and add more exercise (hence why I’m a bit bummed that I haven’t worked out in 3 weeks). I’ll be honest. It’s not easy. I thought I ate somewhat okay (sans for the sweets and the cheeses) before my cholesterol test. But it turns out when it comes to healthy eating there are so many different ways you can eat healthy. So I am working on it. Any advice anyone has would greately appreciated. I know that loosing 10lbs and consistently getting exercise would go along way. For now I am just trying to add more fiber, whole grains, fruits, and veggies to my diet.

The other issue was I had incredibly low vitamin D. I was put on a supplement of 50,000 units (I forget what the unit is) once a week. I’m not that upset about that. She said some people just need more, but when I saw the result online it genuinely freaked me out. Mine was pretty deficient though and she said after a week or two I’d probably notice I was less tired and even might have a better mood. We’ll see.

Anyway, that’s where that saga left off. 🙂 If you have any advice on better eating for lowering LDL please feel free to leave it!

 

The Best Laid Plans…

I’m sure if you were a reader of this blog you were wondering where I have gone. After all, I was doing pretty good for the first part of January of keeping this thing up to date. On January 22nd my husband woke me up at about 11:30 pm and said, “So, just FYI we have about 3 inches of water downstairs, do you know how to turn off the water?” Apparently, courtesy of the polar vortex (aka, it being super cold) we had a pipe freeze and burst. Thank God we were home, that’s all I can say. And Thank God for our dogs who started barking to let us know.

The damage was pretty bad. It wasn’t jaw dropped but we had to cut out part of our ceiling. Our entire living room floor is being replaced. We had to repaint all the walls in our living room. We had water coming in through light fixtures, so those needed to be replaced as well. The builder had done a pretty crumby job at insulating our house so Thank God (sense a theme) my Dad knows a good contractor who added in extra insulation to keep (at least that area) from freezing over again.

I’m not going to lie. This was probably the most stressed I’ve been since we were in the process of buying this house. Our whole downstairs was practically use less. We had giant fans in dehumidifiers in here for 10 days (not an exaggeration) because we couldn’t get the company to come back and get them. It snowed twice during this time making it impossible to not track dirt in everywhere. We’ve had people in our house almost every day for the last two weeks who don’t live here. We’ve been thrown out of our routine. It’s been less thank great. But honestly I couldn’t have gotten through it without God, my amazingly calm husband, and my super supportive family.

Pretty much everything is back to normal now except for a few things. We still need to get our lighting fixtures replaced out. (The electrician is coming Saturday). We still need to replace the carpet with a laminate flooring (hopefully being purchased this weekend), and we need to have this place cleaned. I normally don’t mind cleaning myself but this house has been such a construction zone and out of sorts nightmare the last 3 weeks that I feel like it needs a professional.

In the course of all this chaos I have completely lost track of my happiness project. It’s February 4th and I have no theme for this month. I am trying to get better at everything I do constantly but the last few weeks have been a struggle on me. (For more reasons that I’ll go into in a spate blog). I need to start getting back on track. I think that’s going to start with exercise. I am most disappointed that I haven’t worked out in 3.5 weeks so I want to add that back. But beyond that, I just feel a little stuck. I felt like I was making such great strides towards getting my life organized and practicing happier habits and then BOOM God throws this at me like, “Haha, don’t think that I’m ever not the one in charge of your future.” Don’t get me wrong, I don’t thing it was a punishment, rather, get yourself in perspective little human.

Anyway, so that’s where I’ve been. I’m actually about to type a 2nd update post but for the sake of organization and shorter posts I wanted to keep it separate.

Vacation

Taken from the Duck boardwalk on the sound.

I apologize for no new posts this week- I’m in the Outer Banks of North Carolina pretending to relax. (: I read a fantastic book while I was down here, and will hopefully have that review up as soon as we get home. Please leave any post requests in the comments!

20 Something Rut

I have no idea what to do with myself. I am emotionally, physically, and mentally restless. In 2011 I graduated from college. I finished in four years, with 151 credits. You could say I didn’t exactly “live it up” during my undergraduate years. I started my full time job, where I spend three months of the year working 55+ hour weeks, 2 weeks later.

I passed my state licensing exam (which normally takes people about 18 months to two years) in 11 months, 3 of which I spent working 55+ hours.

I got married to the love of my life two months later.

Approximately 10 days after standing next to me and watching me say I do, I lost my best friend forever. She isn’t physically gone, but some incredibly outlandish events transpired- and now there is no way we could ever really go back to the way things were before.

Here I am today, at the age of 24, with no idea what I want from life. The only friends I actively have are people who I work with. And while I cherish those friendships, most of those people are a few years ahead of me, with families of their own. And there’s always that unspoken filter with friends you work with.

I see girls my age with adorable little infants. I envy them. Before my husband and I can have kids we should go to genetic counseling since I have a genetic condition. A big part of me wants to just heave faith and pray I’ll have a healthy baby. The other part of me is a rule follower to the core and knows I can’t. That added step of having to be tested is making me wait. I know raising a family is hard work, and mentally and emotionally demanding. But I’m also not sure at 24 if I’m ready to hear, there’s a 90% chance my child could inherit my condition.

The cliche advice would be to travel, see the world. Take on wonderful hobbies. Learn who you are. The problem with that advice is I am tired when I finish all my responsibilities of the day. Working, taking the dogs on walks, preparing dinner, and exercising. At the end of the day there are only about 2 hours left to take as my own.

And I’m lonely. I miss having a friend for everything. A friend who could share in my journeys in life. Someone to text or call on the spur of the minute to go to Target. Yes, I do have a husband- but sometimes you just need a girlfriend.

What about you? Are any of you in the 20something rut? Anyone else tired of these lives jam-packed with the things you should be doing? What did you do to get past it.

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Facebook: My Love Affair with the Beast

By the time I was 11 I had my first web-page. For the life of me I can’t remember the host of the website, but I wasn’t alone. The most tech savvy of my friends also had them. They all had the same format, a brief about yourself paragraph touting all your wonderful 11 year old qualities followed by lines of shout-outs to your “girls” and “boys”. 

As I progressed into middle school websites like Xanga and Live-Journal came about. Although slightly different in format the idea was the same: brag about yourself, shout out your friends and how wonderful they are. 

By the time I was into high school, MySpace was “it”. Compared to the previous websites where you could create a place for yourself on the internet, MySpace was revolutionary. MySpace let you post things for all your friends to see, your friends could write things on your wall, you could show off who your “besties” were on your “Top 8”, and it even had a blog function. As I think back to high school, I try to ask myself if there was any “drama” surrounding MySpace. I’m sure there was, but honestly all I remember was that it mostly served as a way to show how quirky you were, how cute you looked in that mirror picture, and how many friends you did or didn’t have.

Come the fall of 2005, most of my friends had gone off to college and discovered the new world of Facebook. I remember my best friend telling me how cool it was and that I had to get one. I got one- and I swore I’d never use it.  When I first joined Facebook the things people posted were trivial “Brittany Smith is SOOO putting off this psychology paper she has to write!!” (Remember, back when facebook started all your status updates for you?) You could find out who was dating who, what someone was dressing up as for Halloween, and read the wall-posts between your friends who were trying to make plans for the next weekend. In 2006, Facebook was still a growing beast. No one really thought too much about what they put on it.

In the 18 months that followed Facebook grew from what felt like a relatively exclusive population to an absolute necessity. By the Spring of 2007 quite literally everyone and their Mom was on Facebook. The term “Facebook Stalking” was said without so much of a blink. I was a freshman in college and absolutely everyone  was on Facebook. I remember almost every Sunday afternoon by room-mate would upload all the party pictures from the previous three nights up onto Facebook, and the tagging would begin. No one thought too much about it. Sure they were barely dressed and had drinks in their hands, but so what, everyone was doing it. 

It was about that point that Facebook snowball’ed. People started to put more and more things on it. There wasn’t a thought about who could see it (As long as it wasn’t mom!). People were checking things all the time, posting new ‘content’ all the time. The “filter” just disappeared. Did you come home to find your dog pooped on the rug? Better do a status update about that. Five weeks pregnant, not even been to the doctor yet? Better do a status update about that. Just get engaged, haven’t even told Mom & Dad yet? better do a status update about that. It just grew bigger and bigger. People at this point have become, what I consider, literally addicted, to Facebook. 

Hello, my name is TheCoffeeDarling, and I am addicted to Facebook. Two years ago for no particular reason- I decided I’d try to go a month without Facebook. I made a big status about it, letting people know that they should text or call me if they needed me. I lasted 36 hours. 

I’ve reached a point where I almost feel as if the things I do in my daily life do not count unless I share them on facebook. Yesterday for example, I ran three miles and then decided to take my dogs on a two mile walk. At some point my MapMyRun app had a glitch and it showed that I’d only done a mile dog walk. I’d been planning on posting that to Facebook. I actually felt genuine sadness that I couldn’t anymore- after all, a one mile dog walk isn’t nearly as impressive. 

I would definitely call myself a Facebook Addict. I know that might sound extreme, but it’s genuinely how I feel. Facebook is bad for me but I continue to use and love it anyway.

Facebook makes me feel like I have to keep up with the Jones’. I feel like I need to be doing the types of things other people are doing. Facebook makes me feel alone. It makes me aware that 99% of my “friends” aren’t people I could call on. Instead of being focused on the people I do have in my life, I’m reminded constantly, that I don’t really know these people. If I got a flat tire- I could never call them. Facebook is a crutch.  It makes me feel like I don’t need to go out and see the people I care about, because I can just read about it, or see pictures of them from my own home. 

I hate Facebook, but I don’t know if I will ever be able to leave it behind until our society as a whole moves away from this trend of “over-sharing.” The way Facebook has affected me makes me worry about the kids 10 years younger than me, who will have been aware and users of social media since they were in diapers. How will their lives be different from mine because of this? 

I find myself hoping that in the next couple years society reaches it’s breaking point and begins to move away from internet based lives, and back to the lives we had before Facebook. What do you think? Are you a Facebook addict? Are you an oversharer? Are you a lurker? Have you ever Facebook stalked? 

Note: This post is in response to the Weekly Writing Challenge. 

 

The Great Tootsie Pop Mystery

On the 4th of July hubby and I decided to go out to the store to get some more soda because we were running low. The parking lot was deserted and I made a comment along the lines of, “We should totally just do our grocery shopping right now.” Hubby agreed. I hate grocery shopping, with a passion, and if we can get it out of the way and I stay somewhat happy during it, it’s a win.

Since our wedding last fall I’ve developed some less than ideal eating habits. so when we got to the candy aisle I decided to pick out a snack, that would last a while, and not be too bad for me. I grabbed tootsie roll pops.

When I brought them to the cart I told Hubby, “You know it drives me crazy, raspberry is my favorite and I swear they put half as many raspberries as any other flavor in the bag.” Hubby completely agreed and started telling me how his Dad used to buy him and his brother the little 7 packs of Tootsie Roll Pops that they packaged almost like a bunch of balloons. He said they each got one of each flavor (cherry, chocolate, and grape) and then there was always the one raspberry that was fought over. (If I was his Dad, I would have just taken that one for myself!)

Yesterday afternoon I found myself craving something sweet so I padded into the kitchen to grab my first tootsie roll pop in years, naturally the raspberry. Curiosity got the best of me, and I then turned to google to try and figure out why there were less raspberry than any other flavor.

Well, let me tell you what I didn’t find, the answer. I found pages and pages of legitimate scientific research on how many licks it takes to get to the center of the tootsie pop. Which, if you’re wondering, seems to quite honestly vary from 250-3,000.  Trying different search terms I found entire forums of people discussing their favorite flavor, and I was honestly probably four pages in before anyone mentioned raspberry! Let that sink in, four pages in.

Last night when my hubby got home I relayed my findings to him. I was shocked. I had genuinely been expecting to find that raspberry’s flavor was the result of mixing the leftover grape/cherry flavors (or something in that vain). I had expected to find out that the dyes in the raspberry flavor cost more. Nothing, nada, zilch; not a word as to why they don’t manufacturer the same volume of raspberry pops.

Being the clever fox my hubby is, he said, “Well maybe the fact that it took you four pages to find anyone else that considers it their favorite is your answer. No one else likes it.” Exasperated, and a bit hurt, I whined, “Then why even bother  making it at all!” Hubby just shrugged and said, “Who knows, maybe it was the original owner’s favorite too.”

In the words of that mean, candy stealing owl, who used to grace the tootsie pop commercial with his presence, “The world may never know.” I just wanted to let those other lovers of the raspberry tootsie pop out there know that they are not alone. You aren’t the first to question the unfairness of flavor distribution. You’re not the only one who loves raspberry. I hope this post will bring you comfort on those long nights of wondering.

Mornings

For most of the winter months I am forced to surrender most of my morning time to work. My job is somewhat seasonal (although it’s full time year round), and those winter months demand extra face time in the office. Every spring, when the work load finally lessens, and the sun starts to rise early again, I am reminded what a glorious gift the time between 7am-8am is every day.

As a goal, most mornings I try to be ready to walk out the door at 7am. Once 7am comes around, I kick off my shoes, turn on the coffee maker, and set out to picking out my breakfast. My darling husband has been a bad influence, and over the two years we’ve been living together I’ve gone from fat-free yogurts to small packages of donuts. On the surface that sounds awful, but I do have a rule. The little packs of donuts can be no more calorie heavy than a healthy breakfast (about 250 calories) and if I get hungry mid-morning, that’s my fault for choosing that breakfast, no morning snacks. And honestly it works.

In many ways I feel like my morning routine is an exercise in ‘the little things’. I don’t need this extra hour that I take to myself every morning. I know for  a fact that I can get through the days just fine without it. But treating my self to drinking coffee in my own home, normally reading a few chapters from a book with my dogs snoozing near by, that might be my favorite 45 minutes of the day.

What time of the day is your favorite? Do you have a morning routine? Do you have a coffee mug that you drink from because you swear it makes your mood better? Please let me know! And thank you to the followers I already have. More blog posts to come in the next few days! Please feel free to leave other blog suggestions in the comments to this post!

 

— The Coffee Darling

The Coffee Darling

This is the beginning of a blog about a twenty something girl who is stuck in the middle. Stuck in the middle of that time between college graduation and feeling like an actual adult. Stuck in the middle of that time between marriage and babies. Stuck in the middle of who I am, and who I actually want to be. This blog will be about the things I enjoy (books, candles, all things pink), the relationships I have, and that time in between that everyone keeps promising is the best of my life. I hope you will stay tuned.

– The Coffee Darling