Day 20

Favorite spot for date night in your town

Downtown is definitely the hot spot for dating in our town. Main Street is lined with quaint buildings and lush trees decorated with tiny white lights. It’s almost as if you’re in another century, except for the occasional pizza place or taco joint. Most of the buildings are old and have been renovated, and it's very pedestrian-friendly. We even have horse-drawn carriage rides, and I've heard rumors of indoor mini golf, too.

All the high-end restaurants are downtown, there's a gorgeous park with a waterfall and lots of places to bike and walk. Basically, you can find just about anything you want to do there, except for watching a movie. We even have a baseball team downtown. On any given weekend night, the downtown area is packed. If I felt like it, I'd take an entire day and walk around, just exploring.

We rarely go downtown, except for our big date a couple of months ago. We just rarely have date nights, even though our parents would be glad to keep Audrey. I guess we just like to spend our time together as a family, especially when David's in school and not seeing Audrey as much. I know we need to prioritize our dates, though, since it's so important to have time alone. We just hate leaving our little baby girl!

Day 19

Worst job I ever had

I feel disloyal even writing this, but I have to say that my worst job was at my uncle's peach shed. No, I didn't have to pick peaches, thank goodness, but I was only one step above that.

I worked there in the summers from the time I was thirteen through my freshman year of college, except for one rogue year. I think I worked at a dry cleaner's that year.

Basically, we sold peaches, which sounds like a piece of cake. But it was an open-air building, and it was so incredibly hot. Summers here can be torturous, and we had to work out in it, no fans, nothing like that.

The place was unbelievably busy; it's practically legendary around here. It's been open since my uncle's dad started it, and my uncle's now in his late 60s, so you get the idea.

We had to haul around heavy baskets of peaches, and when the customers bought some, we had to transfer them to paper bags (unless they wanted to buy the baskets, too). The peach fuzz would get on my arms and legs and it would itch like the devil.

It wasn't totally awful, though. When my uncle wasn't around and we were bored, we'd throw peaches in the road and watch cars run over them. And we had all the peaches we could eat! Plus, I worked with most of my friends, so they were partners in my misery.

I felt an obligation to work there because it was family, and even though I had part-time jobs during the year from the time I could drive, I always came back to the peach shed in the summers. That job was the most physically taxing one I ever had.

Do I eat peaches now? I really don't, but it's not because I'm on strike. I always loved them just the way they came, fuzz and all. That's how my uncle taught me. When I see them in the grocery store, I think, I can't buy these. It's not loyal. Even though my uncle's sold his peach fields, I still think that. Plus, no one's peaches were better than his. I'd be perfectly happy to eat them in a dish, like peach cobbler, for example. Hmmmm. I wish I hadn't starting writing about this, since the motivation for my detox diet has been running low today.

I guess I'll go eat some cherries:(

And the time has come

Audrey climbed out of her crib on Tuesday. The same day that David went back to work. Coincidence? I think not.

Tuesday was a rough day all-around. She cried off and on all day, constantly asking where her daddy was. That afternoon, she told me she was a "tired baby" and so I laid her down for a nap. She'd already had one earlier, so I wasn't sure about it, but the child told me she was tired!

I lay down on the couch to watch a DVR'd episode of White Collar. I was also listening to her babble and cry on the monitor. All of a sudden, it got quiet. That should have been my first clue. Then the babbling started again, and it seemed to be getting louder. I looked toward her room, and what did I see? Audrey opening the door.

I just looked at her in disbelief. My mind was spinning. Did I forget to put her in the crib? I mean, I know I have fibrofog, but did I really miss such an important step?

Nope. She climbed out with the aid, I believe, of her bumpers (not breathable). We never used them when she was an infant, but they came as part of a bedding set. We recently put them on the crib, however, because she kept getting her legs and knees stuck in the slats.

David took out the bumpers when he got home. Now, we have cushions from our big chair in the living room laid out around her crib, for fear that she climbs out again. I can't believe she did it without hurting herself the first time.

But we NEED those cushions, because the seating in our den is quite limited. Plus, I guess the time has come to transition her crib into a toddler bed, although my heart just sank as I wrote that. She hasn't climbed out since, but she can easily take her leg and put it over the top crib railing. What else are we to do?

Oh, Audrey. Seriously, you're growing up too fast.

Day 18

Today I am wearing...

a Clemson football t-shirt and my holey jeans. This is part of the front



and this is the same leg in the back



For some reason, the right leg has fared better than the left. Unfortunately, I can no longer wear them in public because my underwear shows through.

I love my jeans. They're Tommy Hilfiger, and they've been washed so many times that they're as soft as a baby's bum bum (that's what we call it in our house).

I would fight someone over these jeans. For realz.

Who loves cherries?

I do! I do!

Day 17

Funny travel story

I think it was the year we got married, in 2007. David's parents had been going out of town for Christmas for a while, and they decided they were going to Curacao. Never heard of it? Nor had I. It's not a very well-known place, except maybe to divers (David's parents and brother all dive). If you'll look at the bottom left of this map, to the right of Aruba, there's Curacao.



Hard to see, I know. I think the width of the island was 21 miles, and we were staying on the west end, at a place called Habitat.

I didn't want to be away from my family for Christmas. But David and I had just gotten married, and I figured we'd be doing every other Christmas away, since his parents liked to travel over the holidays.

It was the worst vacation of my life, for many reasons, ones I don't have the energy to write about now. And hey, this is supposed to be a funny travel story!

We landed at the airport, and it was very hot. I decided to get an oversize bottle of water and down it in just a few minutes. Bad idea.

Why? Because we got lost. David's dad had rented a car, and even though that island was tiny, we couldn't find the place to save our lives. It didn't help that there weren't even any road signs. I kid you not!

Well, that water hit my bladder and things got very uncomfortable, especially since we were on some unpaved, rocky roads. I whispered to David that I needed to go to the bathroom. He was sympathetic, but what could he do? It's not like there were gas stations and fast food restaurants on every corner, or even on ANY corner.

We did stop at one place, a single-wide trailer that seemed to be Curacao's version of a convenience store. I walked inside and immediately walked back out. The place was filthy, and there were no bathrooms to be seen.

After riding for a few more minutes, I made my condition known to all in the car. They couldn't do much about it, either. Finally, things got desperate; I was very close to urinating all over myself. Classy. So, David and I got out of the car (with him being my "shield" of sorts) and I went behind the bushes. Which were very sparse, by the way.

I was humiliated. It wouldn't be such a big deal now, but it was our first trip with his parents as a married couple. I shouldn't have had to pee in some scrub brush on a godforsaken island. That's not how most people picture the Caribbean, am I right?

After we climbed back in the car, David's dad found Habitat in less than ten minutes. Yes, you read that correctly. My advice? If you're going to Curacao, keep the lack of bathroom facilities in mind. Actually, if you're going to Curacao, I would suggest you cancel those plans. Like yesterday.

Detox

Three weeks ago, I decided to go to a doctor about my fibro. Of course, I've been to many doctors, but this one is not an MD. I'm so very sick of the doctors who "treat" my fibro. My current one walks in, pushes my pressure points, says, "You're really hurting, huh?" Then she writes a prescription.



But Dr. P is different; she has a doctorate in microbiology. She's extremely expensive and isn't covered by insurance, but I'm desperate here.

She's a holistic doctor, and she tries to get to the cause of your illness, not just treat the symptoms. So, I'm in the middle of a detox phase, which will last a couple of months.

Dr. P checked my food sensitivities, and I'm now on a restricted diet. I can't have chocolate, coffee, sugar, and wheat. But I am so determined to get better that I'd probably do anything at this point.

She found candida albicans and fungus in my blood. We looked at my blood, and she showed me my red blood cells. They're supposed to be dancing around, but mine were all clumped up and barely moving. I could even see how the fungus was killing my white blood cells (not a pretty sight). I'm anemic, dehydrated, and I have plaque building in my arteries. My blood vessels are thinning, which scared me, since my dad had several brain aneurysms, and my grandmother had several strokes.

There were also things that looked like shards of glass. I can't remember what she said they were (it was a three-hour appointment, and my brain was spinning with all the information). Anyway, Dr. P said those shards of glass are digging into my muscles, which is what causes my pain.

It was very interesting to see what's going on in my blood. And now I'm taking tons of pills every day, like digestive enzymes, and I'm drinking "cocktails" of homeopathic liquids. It requires a lot of discipline. But dare I say it...I'm feeling better. I don't want to jinx it, but there it is.

After this initial phase of detox, Dr. P will work on building my immune system back up, which will mean more pills, and more money. But hey, I might get some of my food back!

Another interesting tidbit is that my neurological functioning is only at 60%, while the average person is performing at 80%. Maybe that explains my fibrofog. Who knows? I'm definitely feeling more clear-headed.

I'm hesitantly hopeful and very glad I finally went to see her. I'm in Stage 3 fibro, which is one step above Stage 4, which basically means you're bedridden. And that CANNOT happen to me.