Below are the 7 most recent journal entries recorded in msmoby's LiveJournal:

Thursday, June 22nd, 2006
2:41 pm	FYI Just FYI: my blog is actually located at http://nichtszusagen.blogspot.com/. I just have this one so I can comment on other LiveJournals. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 13th, 2006
3:38 pm	Thirteen Things about Darla Thirteen Places I've Lived Not including dormitories and barracks. Michigan, a one-story, three-bedroom ranch house way out in the country built by my parents. Or, probably more accurately, my dad and uncles. It was full of built-in stuff. Take cupboards in the hall, for example. One side had drawers partitioned for pencils, paperclips, stuff like that. And the bookcase/divider between the living room and dining room. And the basement, with its darkroom and the storage cupboards running the length of the house. The closest neighbors were my grandparents, 100 yards away. The next closest neighbors were over half a mile away. Michigan, a one-story, three-bedroom house where my mom and I lived with a friend of hers after the divorce. I stayed on the sofa bed in the living room, with a small bookshelf in the hall closet for my things. It only lasted a year, but it seemed like forever, particularly to a teenager. Michigan, a 14 X 70 house trailer, but it had three bedrooms and two baths, and my mom was at one end and I was at the other, so it was a marvel of privacy for me at this point. Michigan, a 2nd-floor two-bedroom furnished apartment. Not really sure whether I should include this one or my boyfriend's nearly identical one where I mostly lived. Michigan, the back half of a duplex. Two bedrooms. I had a bed, a piano, a rocking chair, a pair of nightstands, a wooden crate for my record albums, a card table, and two folding chairs. I lived there by myself until I started running out of money, then I got a roommate whose boyfriend moved in, too, who didn't pay rent, and who stole a bunch of my record albums when she left. Colorado. A third-floor, 3-bedroom apartment, where I lived with friends after I got married, a couple who got married while I was living with them. They didn't think it was appropriate for me to stay in the barracks after I got married. Germany. A damp basement 2-bedroom apartment, where we lived for 5 years. Re-wallpapered the whole thing. What a PIA. The landlords lived upstairs, and their teenage daughter would come downstairs and babysit for us, thus saving our sanity. Texas. A second-floor 3-bedroom, 2-bath apartment. The bugs were horrible, and the main reason why I dragged my feet about returning to Texas later. But I was pregnant, and the apartment complex had two pools, and I could go swimming every day from March on. Michigan. Two-story, three-bedroom, two-bath townhouse. Clever arrangement with a courtyard that would have been nice, except nobody used it. It had a laundry chute! Granted, the clothes always got stuck in it, unlike house #1 where my brother and I used the laundry chute as a quick way to get to the basement. Holed up in the basement during a tornado once, that was exciting. Had a nice play area and workout area in the basement, too. Germany. Ditto. Thin carpeting over cement floors that nearly crippled me until I learned to wear shoes in the house. Teensy tiny yard. Cool basement, though--partitioned into rooms. The largest was a playroom until baby # 3 came along, then it became our daughter's bedroom. Germany. Another townhouse, this one with 3 stories, and no basement. Got bunkbeds for the boys and put them in a room together. Nice neighborhood with two playgrounds, and a soccer field that got flooded and turned into an ice skating rink in the winter. Texas. Our very first house. Finally. Four bedrooms, 2.5 baths, BIG closets, lotsa trees. Yes, it's in the burbs, but I've done country living enough for one life, thanks. Currently housing a handful of 20-year-olds and a rock band. God only knows what they've done to my furniture. Germany. Four bedrooms, if you're being kind. Kitchen smaller than the one in home # 3 (the house trailer). No closets. Well, of course, none of the houses in Germany had them. But no rolladen, either. Whoever heard of a German house without rolladen? Nice little town, though, and a great backyard that opens onto a meadow that's occasionally inhabited by a herd of sheep. Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. Doug Get the Thursday Thirteen code here! The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted! View More Thursday Thirteen Participants (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 9th, 2006
1:02 pm	Wikipedia Meme Okay, this is fun. Yeah, yeah, I know I don't do it on the right day, but 1) it's been a hella busy and sucky month already, 2) I never get these things until the next day because of the time difference, and 3) I'm not all that serious about this anyway. From Doug: Go to Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/). Type in your birth date (but not year). List three events that happened on your birthday. List two important birthdays and one interesting death. Post this in your journal. Of course, Doug didn't use his real birthday, but WTF, mine's out there already in several places. Events 1522 - Suleiman the Magnificent accepts the surrender of the surviving Knights of Rhodes, who are allowed to evacuate. They eventually re-settle on Malta and become known as the Knights of Malta. 1803 - Louisiana Purchase completed at a ceremony in New Orleans. 1951 - Nuclear power first harvested when EBR-1 powers four light bulbs. Birthdays 1927 - Kim Young-sam, President of South Korea 1946 - Uri Geller, Israeli psychic Death 1996 - Carl Sagan, American astronomer and writer (Comment on this)
Thursday, March 30th, 2006
3:36 pm	Manliness Test What the heck. If I'm going to use this blog, I might as well post stuff here, right? So I took this test at OKCupid. No, I don't know why. The smart-jock You are 60 Manly and 52 Nerdy! With your moderate computer knowlege, super manly body, and overall good stamina, you have been branded with the horrible moniker "smart-jock". You are, of course, an awesome person, there's just no other way to describe you. Go have a huge breakfast, chop down a forest, then go home and check your e-mail. My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 80% on Manliness You scored higher than 80% on Nerdiness Link: The Manliness (for everybody) Test written by mulletmandan on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test (Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 29th, 2006
9:25 pm	Medical stories Doug asked for medical stories. The problem is picking just one. So I won't. 1) In which I receive foreshadowing that perhaps a medical career isn't for me. Summer of my sophomore year of college. Summer jobs were very hard to find, even if your summer started in May, as mine did. So I used my connections and got a spot in a program for future health professionals at the hospital where my mom was an ER nurse. A two-week training program, then they set us loose as nurse's aides, rotating through all shifts, and most wards. Before we could get started, though, there was a physical, including lab tests. The lab was located across the hall from the ICU where my aunt worked. I went in, got my blood drawn, then came out and started talking to my aunt and a couple of her colleagues. The next thing I knew, they were yelling about orange juice, and for some reason, I was lying on the floor. Yes, I'd passed out from having my blood drawn. 1a) Fate smacks me in the head because I didn't listen the first time. I'm working on the general medical floor, and a patient is having blood gases drawn. Those of us in the program get called to observe cool and unusual things, and to help when appropriate. So I'm gowned and masked and gloved, and I'm watching them stick a needle into an artery, and then they ask me to hold pressure on it when it's done. I mentioned it was summer, right? And this was Michigan, meaning no a/c. Remember that little problem I had with needles? Fortunately, I was on the side of the bed with the call light, and I got someone to take over for me and nearly got out of the room before finding myself on the floor. That one landed me in the ER and also, interestingly, marked the first time docs were very interested in the innards of my eyes. 2) In which I learn that by becoming a military spouse, I've apparently lost a couple dozen IQ points and turned into a slut. When Carl and I got married, he was in NM and I was in CO. Immediately after the wedding, I went to Germany for a month, then two weeks after I got back, he moved to TX, and I'd flown down there once, a month later. Before Thanksgiving, I suspected I was pregnant. The home test was positive, so I made an appointment. A little background: we'd been trying to conceive--well, not exactly trying, but we knew we wanted kids eventually, and if I got pregnant, it would solve a bunch of problems. So I'd taken a home test that came up negative before visiting TX. So it was pretty obvious when I'd conceived. So I try to tell the doc this. He asks, when was your last menstrual period? I try to explain that yes, it's been 3 months, but I've always been irregular, this is nothing new, and that, furthermore, I've only been with my husband on this and this weekend, and had a negative test in between. You can see where this is going, can't you? Yes, he told me I was 3 months pregnant, that it wasn't necessarily my husband who was the father, and that the baby was abnormally small, and I needed an ultrasound to find out why it had stopped growing. 2a) You'd think I'd be used to it by now. Pregnancy # 2. Poor timing. We were just about ready to move. I went to the clinic, got the test, went to make the initial appointment, and was told I couldn't make an appointment until I'd had the OB clinic orientation class. Said class was only offered once a month, the current month was full, and I'd have to wait until the next month.... after the move. So we move, and by the time we spent a few weeks at my mom's, found a place to live, got into the stupid class at the new clinic, and finally got to the initial appointment, I was 4, almost 5 months along. One of the stations in the initial appointment gauntlet was the community health nurse. Who was quite incensed with me for waiting so long, and told me "we can't guarantee you'll have a healthy baby since you didn't come in sooner." 3) A short one, headed: Hah! Scene: the appointment window in the OB clinic, my first pregnancy. I'm leaning on the ledge, waiting to make my next appointment. The woman behind me says "just wait, you won't be able to do that much longer." I had the baby the next week. 4) Another short & sweet baby story. Labor room, 1st baby. Between the pitocin and the demerol and the mag sulfate (and whatever else there was--I know there was at least something with the demerol), I was pretty much out of it, except during contractions and a couple of seconds to suck ice chips before passing out again. But I was alert enough to hear one of the nurses tell me she'd never seen a couple work together better in labor. 5) In which I feel like a child abuser. Move before last. Child # 3 is 2 years old. It's the day before our flight. We're in a hotel, where we're stranded until someone comes to pick us up to drive us to the airport, Carl's just gone to return our borrowed car. Children 1 & 2 are 12 & 7 and are amusing themselves looking out the window. Child # 3 wants to look too, so climbs up on his umbrella stroller, which promptly rolls out from under him, and he falls on his arm. I do have ice, which I use, and children's Tylenol, and he cries a bit, but then falls asleep. He favors his arm a bit when he wakes up, but he uses his fingers, so we, distracted, think he's okay. Fly to Detroit, go to my mom's, and his arm's still swollen. He's using it, but favoring it. More ice, more Tylenol. The next day, mom calls an orthopod she knows, asks if he can take a look at it. X-ray shows one of the bones of his forearm is broken, the other is... bent. Curved. So he fixes it. With his hands. Slow, steady pressure straightening out the bone. Child # 3 doesn't say a word, doesn't even whimper. He gets a nice fiberglass cast, which he calls his robot arm. We get a big ol' heaping portion of parental guilt. 6) In which I possibly look like a child abuser, but I have nothing to do with it. OR In which it's determined that child # 1 does take after me a little bit. A couple of days before child # 1's first day of 11th grade. She's tired of her glasses and wants to get contacts, so we take her in for the exam. Touching her eyeball makes her feel "really weird." She gets up, passes out, falls and hits her head on a table, and starts the 11th grade with a black eye. 7) In which I'm a very happy guinea pig. Baby # 3. Actually saw the same doctor for all 9 months. He was taking part in a study, and was a good salesman for it, so I said, what the heck, sign me up. Intrathecal pain relief in labor. Instead of anesthetic, they inject a pain reliever into the spinal fluid. I got morphine. Doc (who, btw, was on leave and just got back from France, but came in for the delivery anyway) said he could tell when it started working, because I was smiling. It was fabulous. No numbness; I could get up and walk around. It felt like the contractions of early labor--I could feel them, but they didn't hurt that much. Doc was kind of disappointed that I had the side-effects. Nausea, and mild itching. I, however, thought it was definitely worth it. The demerol I'd had with 1 & 2 made me much more nauseated. And the itching wasn't that severe. If I'd had that for the other deliveries, my kids probably wouldn't all be 5 years apart. 8) The power of the caduceus. My husband wears a caduceus on his collar. He's not a doctor or a nurse. He's an engineer. He's in the medical service corps, hence the caduceus. But he gets away with all sorts of things because of it. Like when he lost a fight between a tree, a chainsaw, and a ladder, they gave him a kit and let him remove his own stitches. And when the kids were little & got pinworms, they took his word for it and didn't make us do the thing with the scotch tape. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, March 24th, 2006
12:11 pm	*sigh* *sigh* Yesterday was a complete blow-off day. I'm trying to convince myself that I need to just chill out for a day once in a while, but the guilt keeps creeping back in. No housework, no exercising, just reading & computer stuff. Mostly reading. It's all Dorothy Dunnett's fault. OMG, Pawn in Frankincense.... There's a reason why I have to space these books out. I'd never get anything done. Two more Lymond books to go, and then Antje assures me the 8 books in the Niccolo series are just as good. I don't know if I can stand it. :) Anyway, I'm trying very hard to focus on my CFS recovery program. The regimented schedule, trying to eat in a marginally healthy manner, graduated exercise. Today is 4 minutes, 30 seconds. Oooooh. The truly sucky thing about that is that it'll actually wipe me out the way you'd expect 40 minutes of high-impact aerobics to. Weight loss is a big... heh... weight on my mind, too, but I'm trying not to worry about that and just pay attention to the CFS, and the weight loss should follow. I'm avoiding snacking and trying to pay attention to when I'm actually hungry, at least. And sticking to the schedule should keep me from getting too extremely tired out, which my body always idiotically translates to meaning "I NEED FUEL. NOW." So, *sigh*. (Comment on this)
Monday, March 20th, 2006
11:40 am	Ooooh, a time sink! Excellent. I don't have enough ways to waste time. Particularly since I'm way behind on my lists and kinda behind on the boards and I really could be reading Doug's book so I can give him the feedback I promised, but, well, I'm working very hard on the damn CFS recovery thing, which means strict routines, which makes me bored, so I have to find ways to mix things up while still sticking to the routine. This is one. Went to Carl's mom's yesterday, and despite Carl's assurance that, no, we weren't going to hike all over hell and back, we... hiked all over hell and back. No, just all around Erbach. So I spent most of the afternoon with mild chest pain and a headache from too much activity, yawning continuously, and apparently so pale that my MIL noticed and kept asking if I was okay. What to say? No, I really need to lie down NOW? In the middle of town a mile or so from the car? I did at least veto the suggestion that we climb the steps to another section of town, and Carl vetoed the suggestion of an hour-long tour through the Schloss, so that was good. And sitting down for ice cream (Italian, a chocolate/chocolate sundae--chocolate gelato, chocolate syrup, whipped cream, and little chocolate flakes... YUM--it's that time of month, can you tell?) did help, though probably not with weight loss. So last night Carl & I had a nice chat, mostly about how I've really got to work hard these two weeks if I'm going to be able to handle going to his aunt's weekend after next. At the end of it, we promised each other that he'd trust me to be honest with him about how I'm feeling and I'd trust him not to either flake out about it or to try to push me to do things I'm not up to. Interesting, the psychological effect of this disease. Before CFS, I wouldn't have thought twice about saying I didn't feel well to get out of something like going to Tante Brigitte's for the weekend. Now, I feel compelled to be honest about it, and even to pretend I feel better than I do. Weird. Guess it's because I'm just so tired of getting left behind. (Comment on this)