So it’s Monday.  Again.  The bright side is that it’s the last day of August.  Don’t let the door hit you in the rear on your way out, August.  I’m onto to bigger and better (and cooler) things.

Still, as happy as I am to see August end, I wouldn’t have minded another day or two of weekend.  It was a busy one around here and busy weekends always seem to be over way too soon.

Kile got paid on Friday night and since he gets paid once a month (the joys of being a state employee), we do the bulk of our shopping for the month when he gets paid.  Unfortunately, this stresses Kile out since he doesn’t like to spend money, no matter how necessary, and when he gets stressed he gets crabby.  And when he gets crabby, it rubs off on me.   Still, I did a pretty good job of deflecting his crabbiness all weekend.  And if I had remembered to take my thyroid pills yesterday, I probably would have been able to deflect it yesterday as well.

Alas, I did not take my pill and alas, I did not deflect.  By the end of the day, I was tired and I just absorbed it.  And when I absorb a bad mood off of someone… well it ain’t pretty.  And it’s not fun.  But the upshot is that I took my pill FIRST THING this morning.  I wasn’t interested in having another down day today.  It’s a Monday and I need all the help I can get!

ANYHOW… Saturday was our monthly B.O.O.S.T. (Big Ol’ Obnoxious Shopping Trip) at Walmart.  We actually went to Kohl’s first to look for shoes for Harry.  That child’s feet are growing at alarming rates.  He’s almost out of kid sizes!  We weren’t able to find anything though and as Kile was crabby, we decided it was best to just move on.  We had lunch at Chili’s before heading over to Walmart and that was nice.  We don’t eat out at sit down restaurants that much anymore.

The grocery shopping went pretty well and I think we remembered almost everything on our list.  Which is impressive because we had a LOT of stuff on our list.  We chinzed on our shopping last month because of the trip to Florida, so we were pretty much out of pretty much everything.  It was not a small trip and it was not cheap.  But at least now we have everything we need for the month, for the most part.  Perhaps maybe now lunchtime won’t be a source of stress around here!  It’s hard to find food to give the little ones when you have just graham crackers and granola bars.  Even moreso when one of your wee ones is as picky as Liam is.

Believe it or not, this all took up the better part of the day on Saturday.  We were wiped out come Saturday night!

Sunday brought more shopping through.  We headed over to Legends to do some more shopping for shoes.  On the way, Kile stopped at In n’ Out and we grabbed some burgers and fries to go.  We ate at one of the picnic tables at Legends which was really a fabulous idea.   Or it would have been fabulous if it hadn’t been so windy.  Until Subway opens up over there, there just aren’t a lot of options for quick, cheap dining.  That would be my only complaint about it.   Otherwise, Legends is awesome.

We finally found Harry some shoes at the Sketchers store there.  We also got the little ones some croc-style shoes that were on a fantastic sale.  After that we checked out the Carter’s outlet store.  We were hoping to find some clothes for Liam since we never seem to have enough clothes for the poor kid these days.  But we did get him and Evie their Christmas jammies.  So one present down, many to go!

But our shopping was not done there!  We headed over to Michael’s where I had some specific things to look for: a container for my cloth diaper laundry detergent, some knitting notions, and a scrapbook for our Disney vacation memorabilia.  Sam’s Club was next and we had some very specific things to get there.  Including chips and snacks for Harry’s lunches, frozen stuff for the deep freeze, etc and so forth.  Luckily, we thought ahead and had a cooler in the back of the van.  We packed the frozen stuff in there before heading over to Whole Foods.

Yep, we weren’t done yet.  We ALWAYS have to go to Whole Foods!   We got some fruit, some cheese, some laundry stuff for me… and we got a pizza for dinner!  Which meant:  it was time to go home.  At last.

The pizza was awesome.  But of course it was!  And it was the perfect dinner because were all beyond tired.

Like I said, last night was kind of hard emotionally for me and I entirely blame the lack of thyroid medication yesterday.  I really do need to stay on top of taking those pills.  At the very least.

And now I feel like I need another weekend to recover from my weekend.  OY.

So what did you do this weekend? Did you spend as much money as we did?  Because I’m starting to see why Kile was so crabby about it.  UGH.

Sorry about that bit of unpleasantness yesterday.  I had a VERY hard day.  I’m not sure what made that day so much more difficult than any other but sometimes that’s just the way it happens.  You never know when depression (and I’m all but convinced that that is what it is) will rear it’s head and how.  You all are just so lucky that I drag you along for the ride!

*cough*

I slept much better last night, less jaw clenching.  I also dreamed of Disney World.  Coincidence?  I think not.  I think this just proves that I need to go back.  Don’t you think?

***

In other news, it’s Thursday.  One day closer to Friday.  Not that there’s anything particularly fabulous happening this Friday.  But the mere fact that it will be FRIDAY and that we can finally go grocery shopping on Saturday and we’ll have a few days to just hole up and recover… that makes it awesome.  Yay, Thursday!  I feel as though I might actually make it now.

***

When will Noggin change their morning lineup.  WHEN?? I cannot stand it as it is now.  At least from the Pacific Time Zone point of view.  Oswald?  Franklin?  Maggie and the Ferocious Beast?  Miss SPIDER??  COME ON, NOGGIN!  It’s hard enough to make it through the morning without me falling asleep in my knitting.

The afternoon schedule is just fine.  Evie absolutely loses her mind when WonderPets comes on, even if it does make my eyes roll.  Liam has a warm fuzzy place in his heart for Wow, Wow Wubzy.   I’ll even (barely) tolerate Dora and Diego because at least it’s not OSWALD.

Let’s switch up the morning schedule!  Put some more Jack’s Big Music Show in there!  Some Blue’s Clues!  I’m begging you!  I’m tired of watching PBS in the mornings.  Their lineup is far preferable but I miss Moose and Zee.

***

Speaking of such things, what happened to Playhouse Disney?  Harry used to watch that all the time when he was little.  Back in the golden days of Bear in the Big Blue House, Stanley, Rollie Pollie Ollie, The Book of Pooh and this show where they built this clubhouse out of cardboard and did all sorts of make believe but now I can’t remember the name of it.  Nowadays it’s Handy Manny.  I don’t like Handy Manny.  I think it’s stupid.  Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (or whatever it’s called) isn’t so bad.  But they need mooooore.  What the heck, Disney?

***

I refuse to watch Nick Jr. cuz it’s has commercials.  I know, I’m already poisoning my childrens minds by letting them watch TV, what harm is a few commercials here and there?   I don’t have to explain my reasons to you.   I vow to remain commercial free.  So no Nick Jr.

Besides, if we watched Nick Jr, I might have to watch the Fresh Beat Band.  And I don’t care that Evie dances every time Noggin shows one of their “music videos”, I have my limits, people.

***

It’s a sad state of affairs when I don’t have anything to talk about on a Thursday morning besides childrens programming.  I think this speaks volumes about the monotony of my life.

***

Except, of course, to bring to you attention a FABULOUS contest that going on RIGHT NOW on my review blog.  Oh yes.  A contest!  With a PRIZE.  What prize, do you ask?  A $100 Visa gift card.  Now tell me that you can’t use that.  You can’t.  Because we could ALL use a $100 Visa gift card.

So what are you waiting for?  Why are you hanging out HERE, listening to me prattle on about kiddie shows?  Get over to the review blog and enter that contest (and read about a super handy program from AT&T Wireless while you’re at it).

The contest is going through 9/20, so I’ll be reminding you periodically to get over there and enter it.  But it doesn’t hurt to go do it NOW before you forget.  Or before you get sucked into the latest episode of “Word World”.

So it’s pretty much common knowledge around here that I’m just a mess.  There is ALWAYS something wrong with me.  Even if it’s just a touch of depression.  But there’s the thyroid that pretty much rages out of control because I forget to take pills (and don’t even care that I forget because… meh).  There’s the frequent headaches that morph into monstrous migraines if I give them half the chance.  There’s a hundred and one small and not terribly bothersome ailments that plague me daily.

And now, there’s my teeth.

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been having more and more trouble with them.   I’m pretty sure there’s a cavity on one of the molars on the left side of my mouth.  It’s gotten bad enough that I don’t chew food on that side of my mouth anymore.

There’s a permanent retainer behind my lower front teeth that the orthodontist assured me would fall out on it’s own some day.  That was 15 years ago.  The retainer isn’t showing any signs of going anywhere.  It’s in there GOOD.  The problem is that the teeth in my mouth are shifting and there’s pressure on these front teeth now.  And since the retainer is there, there’s pretty much constant pain on the sides of those teeth down into my jaw.

I also clench my jaw when I sleep.  I don’t do this on purpose, obviously. Kile doesn’t understand how I do this.  To him, you fall asleep and your body relaxes until you wake up.  He doesn’t see how your body can unconsciously tense up.  I’ve woken up with my fists clenched before, so I’m familiar with this.  And now, I wake up with my whole mouth hurting, my jaw sore from the effort of clenching it shut all night.  Why?  Stress, pressure, angst, who knows? There are nights that I have a hard time sleeping from the pain it causes.  I’ll wake up and try to force my jaw to relax, only to clench again as soon as I drift off to sleep.

I know I should see a dentist.  But the mere thought of going to see one makes my blood run cold.  And it’s not just the pain of dental work that frightens me.  Because at this point, that pain couldn’t be much worse than the pain I’m having.  But I worry about being yelled at for a) not coming to a dentist sooner (it’s been 11 years) and b) not taking better care of my teeth.  I live in fear of people yelling at me.  It’s the people pleaser in me.  I will sit and suffer with a hurt mouth if it means that someone won’t yell at me.   I also worry about the cost.  We have preventative dentist care covered under our insurance.  But once work needs done (and I’m pretty sure work needs done in my case), it starts getting spendy.  And coming into the Christmas season… we just can’t afford it.  And I don’t want us to have to, either.

So call me a coward.  I know I am.  And yet, I also know that I don’t know how much more of this constant pain I can take.  I’m getting more and more headaches, which I’m sure the mouth pain isn’t helping.  I’m tired.  I’m worn out.  Plainly put, I’m miserable.  Being a coward isn’t getting anything accomplished but I’m quite literally unsure of what else I can do at this point.

Calgon, take me away!

You know how you feel after Christmas and New Year’s is over?  Kind of sad, depressed, let down and empty?  (Or is that just me?)  Coming home from a vacation like the one we were on is just like that.  BUT WORSE.

I keep joking that Kile and I are ruined for other vacations now.  That our expectations of just how awesome a trip can be has made our usual vacations to visit family in San Jose and Elko that much more… well… lame.  It’s not that visiting family is lame.  But we now know what a vacation can feel like.  And visiting family, as nice as it is, is not a vacation.  It’s not activities piled on food piled on adventure.  Good, yes.  Absolutely fabulous?  Not so much.

The bad news is: that’s the sort of vacation we take.  We’re not the sort of family that can just take these fabulous family vacations once a year (or even once every five years).  It just doesn’t HAPPEN. So I just worry that we’re going to feel depressed when it comes to vacation time now.  Because, you know, driving over Donner isn’t the Disney Cruise.  Shopping at Walmart in Elko isn’t the Magic Kingdom.

SIGH.

Our longing has been so bad that Kile has been madly researching future vacations that we might (theoretically) take.  Right now leading the pack is an Alaskan cruise.  It’s fun to play “what if” but I don’t know how realistic going on one of those would be.  But, oh boy, would it be awesome.

So life here in Reno has been rather disappointing since we returned.  In large part because August sucks.

Remember the venom I used to spew forth in regards to March?  Oh, how March was loathed here.  But then Evie was born in March.  And now it’s a “good” month (I’m still keeping my eye on it though).   With the focus off of March, August has stepped into the limelight.

My dislike for August isn’t exactly new.  Just like my dislike for March wasn’t a new thing when Jackson died.  It just is.  And why?

The big reason is Kile’s work schedule.  August is a mondo month at the University.  And a mondo month for the housing department.  It means long hours, working weekends, stress and no days off.  It was a REALLY big deal that Kile was able to go on our Disney Extravaganza considering such time off in August is not usual.  It makes him crabby.  And when Kile gets crabby, I get crabby.  And when I get crabby, the kids hide.

Seriously though, it does have an impact on the household.  And I count the days until September and things can return to quasi-normal.

Also: August is the month that I had the D&E back in 2005.  I had found out that my pregnancy was kaput and was sent on a hellish roller coaster that resulted in our nightly alcohol drinking for the duration of the month, just to get through. (Though come to think of it, I think every August should have nightly alcohol drinking because that wasn’t half bad.)   It was bad, that August.

Then there was that August a couple years ago that I was on an emotional roller coaster, unsure of where the ground was.  I eventually discovered I was pregnant and that was GOOD, but the emotional fallout from that month continues to haunt me to this day.  It was bad.  Bad enough that it has changed me in some not so good ways and I’m not sure I can ever be the same person I was before.

Finally, there’s the obvious: the heat.  Not a big fan of heat in general, by the time August rolls around I HAVE HAD IT.   The days and days and days of hot, hot weather have taken their toll and I’m just plain SICK of it.  It makes me crabby to have yet another day of mid to high 90 degree temperatures.  On top of everything else, the heat causes extra stress, extra pain and extra orneriness.   For instance, right now I’m so ready for fall and fall temperatures that when we had a downright COOL day on Sunday, I almost cried with relief.

We were married in August, which is GOOD.  In my opinion, a month like this NEEDS some good stuff.  But the anniversary is in the beginning of the month and August doesn’t really start to really suck the big one until the middle to the end of the month.

So yes, our Disney trip was AWESOME this month.  And you would think that would be enough to redeem the entire month, at least for this year.  But as I see it, the Disney trip was a respite from a shitty month.  And even the trip would have been that much more awesome had it taken place in almost any other month.  And the coming home from the Disney trip has only served to ADD to the suck that is August.

Basically, I’m a rather disgruntled person and if August knew what was good for it, it’d just hurry up the next seven days and get me the heck to September already.

I’m losing y’all, aren’t I? You’re beyond tired of hearing about this trip, aren’t you? I apologize. But I want to get it written down before I forget a lot of the details, mostly so that I can look back and remember it better. Having this record of our trip is so important to me. I assure you though, that after today, there will be no more “daily trip reports” and there will be only ONE more post about the Disney Extravaganza. So just hold onto your panties and be patient. We’re almost done!

Wednesday, August 12

Today was a day at sea and the only day that we didn’t wake up in port somewhere.  Outside our porthole was sea, sea and more sea.  And there was a lot of sea to see. (*snort*)

And yes… it really WAS that blue.  As Kile remarked, it was the sort of blue that you see in people’s water fountains where they dye the water to make it look blue.  But this water was naturally that blue.  Just amazing.

We slept a little longer than we had wanted.  We were wanting to try a breakfast at Triton’s on our last day and they stopped serving at nine (I think… see, I’m already starting to forget!).  We threw clothes on ourselves and the kids and headed down.  It was a table service breakfast so I ordered eggs benedict.  We got our orders in just before they closed the galley for the morning.  Whew!

After breakfast I took the opportunity to take a few pictures of the beautiful atrium.  I hadn’t had a chance yet.

That last picture there shows the line at Guest Services.  People wanting to settle their accounts, pay their tips, arrange for on-board airline check in, etc.  We didn’t have all our information with us, but Kile would return later.  They made a special exception for us and got online to get our Southwest boarding group for us.  Whew!

We put Harry in the Oceaneer’s Lab again today, though he seemed a little less than thrilled.  We promised him we would get him before we went to the pool later on.

In the meantime, we wanted to take the little kids to the splash zone up on Deck 9.  Kids that aren’t potty trained could play in the splash zone and they both really enjoyed it.  Especially Evie.  She had a BLAST.

We had lunch up on Deck 9 as well, grabbing sandwiches and burgers and such things at Goofy’s Galley and the other similar counter service places up there.  We sat by the pool (in the shade, of course) and munched and just enjoyed the atmosphere.   After lunch, Evie was feeling drowsy so I took her down to the room to nurse her and put her down for a nap.  Kile and Liam followed shortly thereafter.

We had arranged to put the littles ones in the nursery for a couple hours in the afternoon so we could enjoy time in the pools without having to worry about them.  We got Harry from the Lab and headed up to the pools yet again.  The boys tried the Goofy Pool which was SUPER crowded (and rather small, frankly) while I squeezed into a hot tub (that wasn’t terribly hot but that was FINE by me… the bubbles felt awesome).  I considered trying the adult pool but for some reason, felt a little intimidated.  Kile and Harry went over to the Mickey Pool so Harry would try out the slide at long, long last.  I’m not entirely sure what I did at this point as I’ve already forgotten.  But I think I went down to the room to chill out for a few.  The boys returned after a while, bringing the little ones with them.

Dinner that night was at Parrot Cay, but it was table service instead of buffet.  Everything was very colorful and felt very laid back.   I felt very resistant about it being our last night.  I wasn’t ready for the cruise to be over.

As you can see, Evie had quite the appetite.   She loved eating on that cruise.  She also turned into a total fruit bat and now will do anything for a slice of watermelon.  She also loved sitting on the end of the table and watching everything that happened.  This cruise was developing in her a deep love of the performing arts.

I also took the opportunity to take a couple of artsy-esque pictures.

I took a quick picture of Harry as we left Parrot Cay because I wanted to get a good one of him and I wanted to get a picture in one of the oversized portholes.  I had to use flash though… a real quality DSLR would have been awesome on this trip!

After dinner, we had an hour or so until the show (Disney “Dreams”, tonight), so we headed to our room to pack.  Yep.  Pack.  We had to have our bags outside the room by 11pm.  And we didn’t want to have to do all of it after the show so we wanted to get a good head start on it.  The good news was we had most of it done by the time we left for the show. Oh and I didn’t neglect taking a picture of our towel animal tonight: a swan!

And the show was AWESOME.  I think it was my favorite of all three stage shows.  There were a lot of really neato elements, such as sparkling lights, fireworks, bubbles… They really made it special for the audience.  And Evie just adored it.  Again, she sat very still for the show, as did Liam.

After the show, we had to get the kids to bed and we had to finish packing.  We had it done pretty quickly and were able to sit back, enjoy some more room service cheese and crackers and reminisce on our wonderful trip.  Neither of us wanted it to be over.

Alas, all good things must come to an end.  And the next morning dawned early for us.  While the trip home was something of a nightmare, we would have done it all again just to be able to do this trip again.  It was AMAZING.  And I’m so beyond grateful to my parents for taking everyone on it.

And thank YOU for reading along, if you have managed not to be bored to death so far.  It’s like looking at someone elses’s vacation slide-show, isn’t it?  But I had to share just how much this trip meant to us.  So thanks for humoring me and tagging along.