The List

That pic is pretty much how my week has gone. Ha.

I seem to be sick now. With like a cold or something.

I have a lot to say. At least three blog posts planned out in my head.

But it's not going to come out.

So, a list.

1.Mental impairment from anesthesia leads to...shopping. I don't know if anyone remembers my 'I'm so miserable, let's buy things for a short retail high' tendency.  Anesthesia makes it worse. This time around I bought:

--Books for my kiddo because...public schools do not challenge my kid academically. There's some social benefit and being asked to write and draw help with her fine motor stuff, but that's it.  She's reading at a 2nd grade level and there's no differentiation for her, which is a shame because my kiddo is not the most motivated reader I've met. She needs an external push, but won't accept it from her parents.

On the flip side, I don't want to do stuff at home that pushes her even further ahead of the curriculum. I don't want to completely erode any ability for her to find school interesting/challenging. So I've been focusing on science and cultural fiction, things that broaden or expose rather than instruct. Some biographies of people like Thomas Edison that will lead up to a family field trip and books that can tie into art projects. (Her art teacher kind of sucks and she only gets art once a week.)

So we recently read The Dead Family Diaz which is a Day of the Dead book (beautiful illustrations, okay storyline). Today, we made multimedia sugar skulls to tie-in to the book. My kiddo adored this project. I would share pics but the jpgs won't rotate on this pc for some reason. Maybe some other time.

Not a bad use of money. We'll keep what we made and use them as Halloween decorations every year. However, we'll get to the amount I spent on craft supplies in a minute.

--Then I bought Christmas presents. A useful expenditure, if a little early. Things were on sale and I was high on anesthesia. I think I bought this stuff the day after the ERCP. Or maybe the books were first. I can't remember.

--After that I went to the craft store and this is where my lack of mental organization becomes apparent. All the other shopping was online. Actually going to a store had me wandering in circles just throwing stuff in my cart. I had a really tough time structuring what I was going to do.

Suffice it to say, I spent a lot of money on stickers, feathers, googly eyes and jewels. I believe we now have life time supply of these things. We own ALL the stickers! None for you! Sucka!

Someone please remind me to give my husband my wallet the next time I have anesthesia. I will forget.

2. As a result of my complaint to the patient ombudsman, I did hear from the doctor. It was all kind of moot and after the fact. And the doc has a strong bias in my opinion. My sense is the only pain they believe in is gas pain. There is no other pain in the world and gas pain is not a problem. I have more to say about it. It was a weird conversation. I am more confused than ever.

3.I ate food yesterday. Not so much today. I tried to sleep on my right side and I hurt myself. Things have flared up.

4. I found this pic in my computer. It's from...last year? Two years ago? Oh, I see it now in the file name, 2011. I thought I was hideously fat then, which is why I never shared the pic. Ha. The old me should see the new me!  I'll always be a big girl. I'm not tiny, but I was in good shape then and I wasn't satisfied. It seems I can only see myself in hindsight.

5. In the midst of the ERCP, I recklessly set up a last minute mult-author promotion dealio. It went amazingly well. Books were selling like hotcakes. It was very successful. Finally. Amazon glitched my last book to death, so it was nice to have a win. Especially in a week when so much other stuff sucked.

Those other authors I mentioned a while back did end up hitting the USA and NY Times lists. I came up with the idea, worked on the initial logistics and handed it off to them because I didn't have any books that fit the concept. No one thanked me. Not one author felt I had done anything material.

I've been doing a lot of re-evaluation as a result...of who is a 'friend' and who is a 'user.' Sadly, it has become apparent that I'm surrounded by users. In general, I'm a one-for-all, all-for-one kind of person and it seems I'm the only one.

Also people are lazy. OMG. LAZY. With no attention to detail. This created a lot of extra work for me. If the promo I ran had not benefited me, I would not have done it. Like herding ungrateful cats on crack.