What We've Been Up To:

• Health:  thyroid med got upped again.  Going to endocrinologist on July 2, way across town.  INR has been in range for a while, so woohoo!  Thinking about switching from Fluoxetine to Cymbalta for anxiety b/c Cymbalta is also prescribed for fibromyalgia and decreases appetite...might as well see if it makes any difference.  Although it increases sweating and since gaining this weight I already feel like a big fat sweat monster.  Oh well. 
• Embry:  Sassy as ever, but can also be oh so sweet.  I am leaning away from homeschooling cuz that kid can drive me up a wall when she wants to.  I've learned to pick my battles with her because fighting with her all day long is just not something I want to do.  She has her second summer camp day at church on Tuesday, it's a water day.  Hopefully she'll have fun, I'm sure she will.  She's a social butterfly after all. She got a rash a few weeks ago which turned out to be really dry skin and it's been better since we've been moisturizing it extra.  She also got hives about a week before that and we think it might have been from honeydew melon, but we're still not sure.  She had one piece yesterday and no hives, so who knows what they were from.  
• Nola:  This kid a roller coaster of emotions and such a drama queen.  She can be laughing one minute and crying the next for what would appear to be no reason at all.  It will be so nice once she can actually tell me what is wrong instead me just trying to guess what she wants (or doesn't) until finally something makes her happy...or I just give up and walk away.  For the most part she's over her whole 'I hate the pool' thing.  Although last week she threw a huge fit in there when I hosted a playdate for MOPS and didn't stop screaming until I put her outside the fence on a towel with a popsicle, then she was happy as a clam.  Like I said, it'll be a lot easier when she can express her emotions with words!  
• House:  Oy!  Here's the whole long saga...our homeowners insurance cancelled us because we had 2 claims since we bought the house in 2008 (one when the hot water heater broke and one when the air conditioner broke).  The agent said it was no big deal because they could get a bunch of other insurance companies to underwrite our policy.  Well, then I talked to the other agency they sent me to and the agent there said that no insurance companies are allowed to insure a home for water damage if it has polybutelene pipes, which ours does.  So we could either pay 3x as much and get an insurance policy that does not cover against water damage or we could redo all our plumbing and switch it to aquapex pipes.  I asked around (since almost all the homes in Rita Ranch have/had polybutelene pipes) to see what companies other people have used/liked and I got a quote from the most recommended one...$7k.  I'm going to call another company that claims they can do it cheaper with a similar warranty tomorrow and see what they say.  Obviously, we don't just have 7k lying around so this means that we'll have to put it on credit and hopefully not have to pay any interest for 15 months so we can either pay it all off or a big chunk of it before the 15 months is up.  Problem is, whatever we do we need to do before July 14 because that is the date our mortgage company gave us until to get new homeowners insurance coverage or they will assign us some expensive/not good coverage.  

I'll leave you with some pictures of our fun summer activities instead of a long rant about the house!

Furthermore

To continue the rant on my dr, I gave her a jury duty medical excuse form and I get it back 2 days later to find that not only has she not written down any of my med probs but instead she wrote down issues that I don't even have! She put down that I can't be a juror because I have 'severe depression' (really, interesting that I was unaware I am depressed) and I am 'unable to focus reliably'. How interesting! I'm learning all sorts of new things about myself!

My dr is a Quack

So still haven't lost weight after working out for roughly 4 days a week at the gym for 6 weeks. Plus my hips started to hurt again and my period went funky, so of course I make a dr appt and go my own online research (I mean who wouldn't after the dr of death experience?!). So I go in armed with all my info and she's soooo slow...which could be a good sign, but then when after a half hour of me mostly waiting for her to type up stuff in her laptop I say, 'you ready for the next issue?'. And she says, 'you're killing me, fine, but I only have time for one more.'. I felt like telling her that she was the one that wasted all my time and maybe since she's so slow, next time I'll make 2 back to back appts do we can actually cover everything. I refrained.

Basically I tell her that I'm not losing weight and I think my thyroid might be messed up again. Then I lead into, do you think my pituitary gland could have been damaged when I had all the blood clots from lack of blood flow and it sent my hormones out of whack? She goes, 'well I don't really see the connection, blah blah blah, but I guess maybe I could try to send you to an endocrine dr....pause...thinking thinking...yeh I guess we could try that.'. Then I go, 'GREAT! Let's do that! Fantastic!'.

By this time I'm ready to scream or cry, I can't decide which, so we move onto the she doesn't have time for me thing and I tell her that between my spine and right shoulder blade has been tingling a LOT. She checks my range of motion and says, 'looks good, I guess I'd just monitor that, let me know if it keeps up.'. Then tells me to let it swing loose ever once in a while stretch out the tendon. Thanks doc, you're a real help.