I Have Friends In High Places And I'm Upgraded Daily All My Wires Without Traces Hooked Into Machine

For the last 2 weeks I have slept with a breathing machine strapped to my face as part of the sleep study / respiratory therapy I'm involved in to try to sort out my sleep disorder. The breathing machine is a full-face mask that straps around my forehead and neck and has a long tube coming out the front that connects to a pump. Air is continuously pumped through my nose to prevent my upper-respiratory system from collapsing (the theory being that the structure of my upper-respiratory system collapses, I stop breathing, my blood loses oxygen, I have a seizure, I wake up, I start breathing again.)

For the last 2 weeks I have strapped myself in at bedtime and tried to lay as still as possible to not disturb the mask (if the mask shifts the seal breaks and the pressure drops, so the pump thinks that I've stopped breathing and starts pumping harder which increases the pressure in the mask and I feel like my face is going to explode. It is not pleasant.) I cannot roll over for a snuggle with my husband. Random midnight kisses are no longer a possibility. I lie as still as possible because I'm scared that if I move, I'll break the machine (it costs $3,000 and my insurance won't even look at my claim until I'm actually diagnosed so the machine is on loan to me to see if it helps me sleep better - ha!) Bedtime has become very clinical and very stressful (and frustrating as I've used the machine every night for the last two weeks and have still had two seizures, THANKS BREATHING MACHINE! YOU'VE BEEN VERY HELPFUL!)

So I'm not surprised that I've been sad and blue is what I'm saying. My unshakable funk is understandable. The good thing is that I'm halfway finished with my 30-day test. In two weeks I will be done and I will (hopefully) be able to return the (unbroken - fingers crossed!) breathing machine and life will return to normal. If my normal includes seizures when I sleep, well that's just something I will have to accept. Two weeks cannot come soon enough (just ask Shawn - poor guy has been sleeping next to Darth Vader for the last two weeks.)

Whatever This Is Oh Baby I've Had Enough

My attempt at a productive weekend was derailed by the giant bowl (I don't own a pitcher) of sangria I made Friday night. I'd not made sangria before; as it turns out, I make very yummy (very strong) sangria.

Sangria holds a special place in my family's history after one particular summer evening with a large amount of sangria-soaked fruit and my afraid-of-water mother and a midnight swimming experience. I should know better than to drink sangria during a weekend of Getting Things Accomplished is what I'm saying.

Friday night quickly morphed from earnest discussions with Shawn about the things we would get done and how to maximize our time, to earnest discussions about which cheese we should melt on top of the garlic bread we were having for dinner (not as a side dish, no. Garlic bread was the main, and only, course.)

And then it was Saturday morning and my head felt funny and my breath was stinky and my list had disappeared.

Without my list it was very easy to pretend that items like "scrub the little circle of rust off the bathroom tile" had actually been "make a giant batch of chocolate chip cookies" and "reduce the number of condiments on the fridge door by at least 50%" had been "eat an inappropriate number of chocolate chip cookies."

It was all fine until Sunday afternoon when I realized that, oh shit, I actually did have deadlines to meet and promises to fulfil. So I whipped out my textbook in an attempt to cross "finish Chapter 7 reading, lazyass!" off my list.

But Wolfgang's inability to see an empty lap without needing to fill it meant that my study time quickly became puppy nap time.

My weekend of epic productivity was more like a weekend of epic avoidance and denial (and chocolate chips.) I've got a 4-day weekend coming up (whoo Canada Day!) so hopefully the extra days will make my redo more successful.

So Walk Away And Act Tough When I Say Something To Make You Blush

It's been a tough week, lovelies. Life is getting a bit overwhelming and my coping skills are lacking at best. I'm going to run away for a little bit to try to get my priorities in order and hopefully find a little balance. Last night I hit the magic "mark all as read" button in my reader and the relief that followed was well worth the twinge of guilt I initially felt. Today I am a list-making machine. A get-my-life-in-order list-making machine. I am so excited to start checking items off my list.

To celebrate (or self-medicate?) I am treating myself to a weekend of bbq and summer cocktails. What is your favourite summer cocktail? No tequila, please. This weekend is about sorting myself out, not about taking my clothes off in inappropriate places.

Did You Ever Know That You're My Hero And Everything I Would Like To Be? I Can Fly Higher Than An Eagle

I am not a fan of chicken wings.

I do not like to nibble meat off the bone. I do not eat chicken skin. I cannot tolerate blue cheese. (No really, the taste of blue cheese makes me retch; the smell of blue cheese makes me shudder; the sight of blue cheese with all its spindly veiny veins makes me gag. Blue cheese gives cheese a bad name.) The only thing I like about chicken wings is the hot sauce.

So when Jennie mentioned buffalo chicken pizza last week, I didn't exactly salivate. I did think that Shawn would really like a buffalo chicken pizza though, so after a particularly trying work week for him, I surprised him with buffalo chicken pizza and beer. It was ... just alright. It's my fault - I didn't have time to make my usual pizza crust so I tried a new recipe and it turned out bland and cardboardy and I thought that substituting goat cheese for the blue cheese would be adequate but it was ... lacking. It was a pizza coated in hot sauce and yet it needed more taste.

However. I ended up defrosting way too much chicken so we had leftover hot sauce-coated chicken bits and no motivation to make another pizza. I made salad (baby spinach, pink grapefruit, cherry tomatoes, strawberries, cucumber, orange pepper, dried cranberries, sunflowers seeds, and goat cheese) for dinner last night and threw the leftover chicken on top and it was heavenly. Sure it felt a bit counterintuitive to top a salad of lovely fresh veggies with aggressively orange-coloured chicken but the gorgeous flavour helped us get over the weirdness. If loving aggressively orange-coloured chicken is wrong, I don't want to be right.

In Your Secret Garden There Is No One Who Gets The Key To Your Heart

My weekend started with a power outage that had me stuck on the train for an extra half hour, followed by a seizure that wiped out my plans of having a productive Saturday by leaving me with a day-long headache. It was a grim start to what turned out to be an excellent weekend of

drooling over my rockstar husband:
spreading the mooooooosetash love:


and chasing naughty pups out of my mom's raspberry patch:

Being bad is exhausting, yo.

It had its rough patches, sure, but I'm still calling this weekend a win. I mean, after Shawn's show we went for poutine. That alone makes my weekend awesome.

Give Me Little Bits Of More Than I Can Take

Someone came home from band practice very late last night and someone else thought it was an intruder coming into the bedroom very late last night and let's just say that I am not so much a fan of Shawn and Wolfgang today.

So! Random sleepy thoughts it is.

* * * * *

I need new running shoes. My running shoe purchases have always been determined by which running shoes were on sale. I have made it my summer goal to get back into running but first I need new shoes (my current running shoes are about three years old and are puppy-chewed around the edges.) Which running shoes should I buy? I overpronate like a motherfucker and have narrow-ish feet. Also, I am unwilling to spend more than $200 on running shoes.

* * * * *

Shawn is playing a show this Saturday at the Shark Club. If you're in Vancouver you should come and say hi. I will be the drunk one. Shawn will be the one who looks like this:

yummy

* * * * *

When I lived in England, two very lovely ladies went out of their way to befriend me and make England feel like home. We don't see each other often enough (May 2007 was the last time I saw them) but I love them to bits. One was due with her second child last Saturday and the other is due with her second child this Saturday and I am pretty much busting with excitement and joy. I hope (fingers crossed, knock on wood, and all that jazz) to be able to munch on their wee babies' cheeks sometime next year.

(Speaking of babies, sweet Nilsa has some happy baby news!)

* * * * *

I recently purchased the Camera+ app for my iPhone. I'm in love. If you take photos with your iPhone, you need this app. I often miss the pups being cute because by the time I get my camera they've morphed back into little monsters. My iPhone lets me capture the cuteness and Camera+ helps me edit the pictures. Love it.

love her

him? not so much

* * * * *

After being bounced from doctor to neurologist to sleep specialist, I am seeing a respiratory therapist tomorrow to try to figure out my seizure thing. I'd like to say that I'm optimistic but the truth is that I've been grumbly and blue all week. I've decided that I am going to reward myself for going to the appointment (like a grownup *sigh*) with a new cookbook. I don't know which cookbook, though, so I need some suggestions. Do you have a cookbook that rocks your world with its awesomeness?

And There's My Girlfriend Arm In Arm With The Captain Of The Other Team

I have awesome friends. Hilarious, brilliant friends who can look at a stinky old van and not instantly think "hmm ... bad things have happened in there," but instead think "hey, we can make that look like the A-Team van." And then do it.

Last night I went to see the A-Team movie. We drove to the theatre in the A-Team van. I cannot even tell you how bad it smells inside that van but the olfactory assault was worth all the giggles it provided.