Last week was a
good mix of fun and productivity and I’m recapping it all on the blog today… only
a few days late. ;o)
Monday, July 14
Monday morning, I was up at 7:45, I got showered and ready for the day,
and then I had breakfast and unloaded the dishwasher – the usual. I worked on a blog post for Wednesday for a
few minutes afterward, and then it was time to head to my appointment with the
upper cervical chiropractor.
Olivia had a pre-pointe dance intensive all week that was smack in the
middle of the day, and we knew we likely wouldn’t make it home in time to get
her there, so my parents were kind enough to watch the kids, so they didn’t
have to go to my appointment and risk getting back late for dance.
Brian and I dropped them off mid-morning, and then we hit the road. At my appointment, the doc did a new set of
x-rays since I was done with my initial treatment plan, and he confirmed that
my atlas is level. It is still not where
it needs to be laterally, but it’s getting there! My C curve hasn’t changed at all, though… it
is still straight, so he told me to go ahead and purchase a special device to
lay on each evening. I have to start on
level one for 5-10 minutes per night and then work my way up to 15 minutes per
night. As long as there’s no pain, I can
keep increasing levels until I’m on the highest level for 15 minutes every
night, and he said that will slowly restore the curve to my neck.
I actually already had a device similar to the one he wanted me to get,
but mine was a cheap plastic one with no head cradle, and it was
non-adjustable, so he told me to toss that one.
I had purchased it years ago for my neck tension thinking that it would
help, but it didn’t, and the reason why was because my atlas and axis were so
out of whack. We had to get those back
in place first, and now I can use the device.
I guess I was on the right track, though, thinking that my neck had lost
its natural curve!
After the x-rays, he did the computer tests again – the Joint Position
Error test, a range of motion test (which he didn’t do the last time), and the
Butterfly Test. I scored an 86 on the
Butterfly test this time, and my heat sensor test (the wavy lines test, as I
like to call it), looked pretty good.
Based on all of that, he told me that he thought that meant that my
adjustments were holding, and after doing a quick leg check, he did indeed,
confirm that it was holding.
He told me he wanted to see me back on Friday, so he could go over my new
x-rays and come up with a new schedule.
I ordered my neck pillow on the way home only to find that the fastest it
would get here was Sunday (boooo) and I was disappointed that I’d have to wait
a whole week to get started.
Brian drove us both home, I made myself a green protein smoothie, and
then I headed to Momma and Daddy’s to pick up Jacob. Olivia had already been dropped off at dance
camp with a very fancy hairdo, compliments of my Momma, and Jacob and I hung
out over there for a bit until it was time to get Olivia.
When Olivia got home, she was exhausted and her legs were shaky (they
don’t call it dance intensive for nothing!), so after she tidied her room, she
melted onto the couch to have some screen time.
Jacob worked on summer homework, and I tidied the living room and
kitchen that had gotten a little out of control.
After that was done, I worked some more on my blog post for Wednesday,
and then I lay down to finish my book.
Just as I finished, Brian was finishing up with work, so we made
breakfast for dinner. I got pretty dizzy
while I was cooking, so that wasn’t fun, but the dizziness has decreased
dramatically overall since the start of seeing this new doctor, and I’m so
grateful for that.
After dinner, Brian finished mowing the lawn and I helped Jacob hang all of his new Mega sets that he'd put together before going for a walk. I was pretty dang dizzy the whole time and I
was veering off to the right again, but at least I made it through and got it
done.
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When I got home, I got showered, and then we all watched Lego Masters. After the kids went to bed, Brian and I
previewed a bunch of shows that he and I had on our respective lists, but we
never settled on what to watch next, so we went to bed early.
Tuesday, July 15
Tuesday morning, I got up at 7:45, and the kids both woke up right after
I went downstairs. We had breakfast, and
I unloaded the dishwasher and watered the outdoor plants. The kids worked on rainbow loom animals…
Olivia has been making some really intricate things and it’s just been awesome
to see her creativity flow this summer.
Once she was done with that, she also tidied her room because it had
gotten a little out of control, and Jacob finished summer homework for one of
his math classes.
I worked on my blog post for Wednesday, I cleaned out the whole dining
room (not much to it since there’s just one big cabinet and a wine rack in
there), and then I got showered and ready for the day. I did get rid of a couple of serving trays
and a big metal cup holder, so that freed up a lot of space, and my serving
dishes aren’t so cramped in there now.
After lunch, Jacob and I dropped Olivia at dance, and he and I ran to
Men’s Wearhouse to price suits for my niece’s wedding. We had some time to kill after that, so we
swung by Barnes and Noble per his request to check out the Pokemon sets they
had… spoiler alert, they were completely sold out. It’s so wild to me how nobody can keep those
sets in stock! They are just so popular.
We picked up Olivia after that and then headed to Walmart and Publix to
pick up groceries for the week ahead, and then it was back home to unload
everything.
I spent the afternoon finishing my blog post for Wednesday while the kids
played video games. Brian came home from
work a little early because he had plans to take the kids to see the new
Superman movie with his dad. They also
grabbed dinner at Chick-Fil-A first and then watched the movie in 3D – hence
the reason I didn’t go – I just can’t do 3D movies.
Right after they left, a massive storm blew through, knocking out the
internet, almost knocking out the power, and causing a tree to fall out on the
main road where our neighborhood sits.
Thankfully the power never fully went out… it just flickered a few
times. And thankfully, the storm moved
through quickly because I had dinner with my girls to get to!
We had all been having a conversation about Texas Roadhouse rolls and
butter at our last dinner, so we all decided to eat there for our July get
together. We always eat somewhere local for
our girls dinners, but we made an exception for those Texas Roadhouse
rolls. Lol.
I hadn’t been there in AGES, and I had forgotten how good it was. Their 6 oz. sirloin is SUCH a good steak, and
it’s so affordable compared to any other restaurant. Six of the seven of us were able to make it,
so that was nice, too! We almost had the
whole group!
When we got home, I was feeling great, so I went for a four-mile jog, and
then I showered and got ready for bed.
Brian and the kids still weren’t home, so I spent some time in my office
reading until they got home. The
internet was still down, so Brian had to work on getting that back up, and then
we got the kids in bed. They all loved
the movie, too, by the way! They said
that the dog stole the show!
I was so tired after we got the kids in the bed that Brian and I just got
in bed and I read for a while before calling it a night earlier than
usual. We’ve gotten in a bad habit of
staying up until 11:30-ish on the weeknights and 12:30-ish on the weekends, so
I’m going to be in a world of hurt when my alarm starts going off at 5:30 AM in
just over a week. Waaaahhhh. I don’t even want to think about it.
Wednesday, July 16
Wednesday morning, I was up at 7:45 again, and I did my usual –
breakfast, unload the dishwasher, water the outdoor plants.
I spent some time reading blogs after that and I worked on my blog post
for Friday. I also spent some time
browsing suits for Jacob since the ones at Men’s Wearhouse are so pricey.
After that, I got showered and ready for the day, and after lunch, I
dropped Olivia off at dance while Jacob stayed home to work on summer homework
and his paperwork for Confirmation. I
swung by the library while she was at dance to grab a book, and then I read in
the parking lot until she was done.
When we got home, the kids played video games. I tidied my office, got some old things put
away, unpacked some packages that had arrived, filled out some of Jacob’s
Confirmation paperwork, got a load of laundry done, finished my blog post for
Friday, and I converted some old paperwork to digital format AKA I typed it up
in my List Master app. It was a very
productive afternoon and a great way to spend it since it was drizzly all
afternoon.
For dinner, I cooked beef and parmesan pasta, and I had a glass of wine
and listened to one of my records while I cooked.
After dinner, the whole family got out for a 1.5 mile walk, and then I
did one more mile by myself. Just as I
was heading home by myself, I nearly put my foot down on a four-foot long
snake. I swear, I must have jumped six
feet backwards and I also yelped, so I’m sure some of our neighbors got a funny
show. Lol.
It was just a rat snake, but boy was it disgusting. So weird that it was just hanging out on the
main road, too. And yes, I know that we
have snakes here, but I do not want to see them. I just wish that they would stay in the woods
where they belong. Hahahaha.
When I got home, I showered, we watched AGT, and then Brian and I started season 3 of The Summer I Turned Pretty!!
EEEEK!
Thursday, July 17
Thursday morning, I was up at 7:45, I showered, had breakfast, unloaded
the dishwasher, watered the outdoor plants, and then I did a couple of blog
housekeeping things before we hit the road.
Thursday was errands day, and it started with an orthodontist checkup for
me. At this appointment, the
orthodontist shaved between my front bottom teeth as promised the last time,
with the goal of bringing my bottom teeth closer together so they can nestle
under my top teeth better.
Once that was done, they put a chain on my bottom teeth for the first
time ever. I’ve been wearing a chain on
my top teeth for the past year or so, and I had forgotten how bad it hurt to
have it put on for the first time. I
swear, my bottom teeth moved so much just from them putting the chain on that
by the time I left the orthodontist, my bottom teeth were already fitting under
my top teeth so much better.
My bottom teeth hurt like HECK for the rest of the day, though, and for
several days after. It was not fun. I still don’t have a date to get them off…
the ortho just told me that we’d take a look in eight weeks when I go back in
September and go from there. Sigh.
The next morning, though, I woke up with my top teeth overlapping my
bottom teeth as if I had been wearing rubber bands for six months. Apparently I just needed to shaping for my
bottom teeth to finally make my mouth sit in the position it should.
After my appointment, the kids and I all went to Walmart to get school
supplies for Jacob. Our school offers
pre-packaged school supplies boxes through a third party company for PK-3 – 8th
grade, and we have always bought those because a) it saves money, b) it’s so
dang easy and saves us a ton of time, c) the school receives a portion of the
proceeds, and d) the school supplies are literally sitting on the child’s desk
on the first day of school so we don’t have to carry them all there. It’s a win-win-win-win.
This means that our kids have never once gone shopping for school
supplies. Since Jacob is starting high
school this year, the school supplies boxes are no longer available, so I took
them school supply shopping for the first time in their entire lives. Haha.
Jacob needed a bunch of binders and paper + a few other things, and
Olivia just needed a locker organizer and some bougie locker décor + a planner,
so it wasn’t too bad. We were able to
get everything we needed except for a planner… Walmart had a ton of options,
but none of them were good enough for my girl.
She had a very specific vision, and none of those options suited her
needs.
After that, I treated the kids to a trip to the new French bakery here in
town. We’d been wanting to try it, so I
thought we’d give it a whirl since we were already in the area. They had so many delicious things, and the
kids each ended up picking out some macarons, and we got a strawberry croissant
for Brian. Fun fact, our kids will
choose macarons over pretty much any other dessert. They LOVE them.
After we were done there, we headed home to eat a quick lunch (and eat
our treats! – I got a macaron, too!) and then we had to turn around and leave
again to get Olivia to dance. I was
going to run an errand while she was there, but I ended up sitting in the
parking lot and reading my book, and I was glad I did, because it ended up
pouring.
When we got home, I had an email from the school saying that the kids’
schedules for the new schoolyear were available, so they both checked to see if
they’d gotten all that they’d wanted (they both did), and they both started
texting (and emailing – Olivia) their friends to see what classes they had in
common.
I spent a few short minutes in my office, and then we had to leave yet
again to go to music lessons.
When we got home from those, I spent a few more minutes in my office, and
then I had to eat a quick, very early dinner alone because I had to be at the
new family ice cream social at the school at 5:45. Every year, our school hosts an ice cream
social for all of the new families joining the school, and we have a Home and
School Association table there, so we can talk to new families about volunteer
opportunities. I spent the next couple
of hours sitting with two of the other parents, and we ended up having a good
turnout for signups. We really needed
someone to chair the hospitality portion of Home and School this year, and we
had two people volunteer to chair or co-chair and several others who were
willing to help, which means… it’s off my plate. Whew.
Haha. I have never chaired
hospitality before, and I wasn’t looking to take on anything new, but I knew it
was likely going to be handed over to me if we couldn’t find anyone, so I made
it my mission to find someone Thursday.
Haha.
I got home around 7:45, and I was relieved because I didn’t feel
terrible. Usually, one of my biggest
triggers for my neck tension, dizziness, and vertigo is having long
conversations with people or having to talk for a long time, and typically
after doing so, it takes my body a while to recover. Well, I didn’t have any issues at all, so I’m
praying that means that my neck adjustments are working!
When I got home, we finished America’s Got Talent, we watched a
little more of the fourth Harry Potter movie, and then we got the kids in the
bed.
Brian made Manhattans for us, and then we watched the second episode of The
Summer I Turned Pretty.
Friday, July 18
Friday morning, I woke at 7:45, got showered, had breakfast, and unloaded
the dishwasher, and then I read blogs for a few minutes before we had to leave
for another upper cervical chiropractor appointment.
Brian drove and the kids came along this time and everything went
well. My neck temperature test showed a
bit of a wave at the top of the middle line, so the doc said he thought I might
be slightly out of adjustment, and sure enough, the leg check showed that my
legs were off by about an eighth of an inch.
When he lay me down on my stomach, he could tell that the middle of my
back was slightly out of adjustment, too, and I was happy he had noticed on his
own, because if he hadn’t, I was going to tell him. I could tell it was not in the right position
anymore because my spine was protruding again in a specific spot that he’d
fixed, and I hadn’t been able to sit straight in the hard pew at church the
previous week.
He did a couple of taps to the middle of my spine and then he did four
taps behind my right ear to adjust my atlas, and then we were on our way. He told me I could wait a whole week before
going back the next time, and that if my adjustment holds, I might start going
every other week after that. Woo hoooo!
Just as we walked back into the waiting room to check out, a sweet blog
reader was standing out there. She had
recognized me at Disney World during our last trip, and we got to chat for a
while, and it turned out that she lives in Georgia, too. When I started thinking about seeing an upper
cervical chiropractor and mentioning it on my blog, she reached out to me to
let me know that she was seeing a specific one who she highly recommended, and
it just so happened that it was the very same one who I had researched and was
thinking about seeing. Her emails to
tell me about that were another Godwink for me on this journey, so I ended up
seeing the doctor she recommended, and I love that our paths crossed while we
were there. So, if you’re reading,
Lynne, hiiii!!!! And thank you so
much! I’m so grateful for this blog and
you readers, because if it wasn’t for any of it, I may still be suffering with
no answers. What a blessing this blog
has been.
Anyway, after we chatted with Lynne and her husband for a few minutes, we
headed back home so Brian could get back to work. Lynne had told us about a huge Lego store in
the area near my doctor's office, so we’re actually taking them today (the day
this post goes live) after my appointment and they are so excited!
When we got home, we had lunch, and then Jacob sat down to work on some
more summer homework for math. While he
did that, I put away the dishes and watered all of indoor and outdoor plants,
and then I sat down to do some work, but just couldn’t do it.
These adjustments seriously take it all out of me every single time,
y’all. After every adjustment I am
always EXHAUSTED, and I also get winded very easily. I ended up laying down to relax for a bit,
and of course, I fell asleep. After my
hour and 15 minute power nap, I felt worlds better, so I finally sat down at my
desk to get some things done while it stormed.
I ordered Jacob’s birthday cake for Sunday dinner, I ordered his suit and
shoes for my niece’s wedding, and then I spent some time reading while Brian
went out to pick up pizza from our local pizza place for dinner.
I whipped up some Moscow Mules while he was gone, and then after dinner,
I was really feeling like I wanted to do something active, so I went for a
walk. My pace was SO slow – I literally
couldn’t have gone faster if I tried – and I was exhausted by the time I was
done, but I did it! And I had no
dizziness or unsteadiness after that adjustment, so I’m hoping that means we’re
making progress! So many glimmers of
hope so far throughout this process!
While I was gone, the kids got showered and ready for bed, and then I
showered and got in my PJs when I got home, and then we watched some more of
the fourth Harry Potter movie. We have
been watching it in segments like a show, and it’s stillll boring, y’all. Hahahaha.
Jacob has actually stopped watching all together, and instead, he played
the piano while we watched.
After the kids got in bed, Brian and I started the show Paradise
on Hulu, and y’all, it is SO good. We’d
never even heard of it, but the cast is awesome, the trailer is interesting,
and then there is a twist at the end of the first episode that totally takes
the whole show somewhere we had no idea it was going to go. So good!
Saturday, July 19
Saturday morning, we slept in, I made homemade waffles, and then Brian
headed outside to do some yardwork and clean some of the brush that’s grown up
around our privacy fence.
Meanwhile, I caught up on my blog reading and blog comments, I caught up
on emails, I caught up my medical and health spreadsheet, and I finally cleaned
out the entire closet under the stairs.
It was a HUGE job – one that I have been putting off for a few years –
so it felt great to get it done. I clean
out our whole house every year, but for the last couple of years, I have
avoided that closet, and it was long overdue.
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While I did all of that, the kids did their laundry and Olivia made more
Rainbow Loom creatures, Jacob played the piano, and then we all had lunch
together.
Olivia has owed us a small amount of money for a few weeks because there
was something she wanted to buy and didn’t quite have enough money for it, and
she’s been wanting to pay off her debt, so I told her we’d clear her debt if
she’d vacuum the whole house. That’s not
one of the kids’ normal chores, so we gave her the opportunity to make that
money back that she owed us to have a clean slate, and it was helpful for me
because I’m not really supposed to be doing anything like that right now with
my neck adjustments. My upper body is so
weak since the doc told me to cease working out for a bit, so any little thing
like vacuuming or sweeping or picking anything up that even has a little bit of
weight to it irritates my neck, so I’ve been avoiding as much as I can.
After she was done vacuuming, she finished her “peas in a pod” that she
was making with the Rainbow Loom and are they not the cutest things you’ve ever
seen?!
Brian spent the afternoon getting his new electric lawn mower put away
and hanging our massive cooler out in the garage – FINALLY. We’ve been in need of a new mower, and Brian
decided to go electric for the first time ever and he loves it! And I love that the massive cooler is no
longer sitting in our dining room or on the back porch or in the storage
closet. It has been in the way constantly
since we got it last fall to hold all of our food after a long power outage
during a hurricane, so it’s nice to have it safely stored.
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I then spent the rest of my afternoon photographing and listing things to
sell on a local Facebook page. I sold
multiple items right away, so I got them bagged and ready to roll, and then a
random old Poshmark item sold, so I got it packaged and ready to put in the
mail. It was a verrrryyyy productive day
from start to finish, and I felt very accomplished when the time came to get
ready for church. Oh, and I also stopped to test out my new bougie pink keyboard and mouse that I'd gotten in the Prime Day sale.
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After 5:30 Mass, we went to our favorite local Mexican restaurant with my
parents, Mama Cass, and two of my sets of aunts and uncles, and when we got
home, I still had enough daylight to go for a walk. And I also tested out my new neck pillow that had arrived!
We finished the fourth Harry Potter movie, sent the kids to bed, and
Brian and I ended the evening with another episode of Paradise.
Sunday, July 20
Sunday morning, we slept in, had cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and then I
threw in a load of towels to wash while I watched my sermon, did yoga, and got
my planner ready for the week ahead. I
also made a to-do list for the day because the school year is starting to creep
up on us, and the list is starting to build.
Boooo.
Sundays are the best days to list items to sell in that Facebook group,
so I listed several more things there, and several more of them sold and were
paid for within minutes of me posting.
Woo hoo! I was so sad to say goodbye to these gorgeous prints that Olivia had on her wall for so long, though. She informed me earlier this year that she was going into middle school and that she no longer wanted princesses on her wall. *tear*
Jacob and I sat down to do his birthday interview, and then we all had
lunch together.
The afternoon was spent folding towels, sorting all of the other dirty
clothes, talking to my Momma on the phone for a bit, and getting ready for the
day. And the kids finally sorted the
shells we’d gotten on a beach trip like three or four years ago. For whatever reason, there was one year that
we forgot to go through the shells when we got home. They have been sitting on a shelf in our garage
for literal years – LOL – so we finally checked that off the list this weekend.
Brian got out the old Nintendo Wii so Jacob could check it out – it’s
vintage now LOL – and I listed more items to sell and messaged with buyers to
arrange pickup.
For the last hour, I transferred pictures off of my phone and worked on
my blog post for Monday, but I didn’t have time to organize my pictures because
I had gotten too behind and ran out of time.
We had to stop at Walmart to pick up Jacob’s birthday cake that I’d
ordered earlier in the week, so while we were out, we swung by Bath and Body
Works to grab some hand soaps because they were on super sale, and they had
their Halloween selection out.
When we got to Walmart, the bakery was closed, and nobody was around to
help. Someone finally came along, and
she went to the fridge to get our custom cake only to inform me that it wasn’t there. I showed her my receipt from my online order
and I doublechecked the date and time and location to make sure I hadn’t made a
mistake, and nope, it wasn’t on me!
The girl went back to the refrigerator, came back and told me that there
was a cake for someone named Ashley (not helpful) and then she told me that the
baker left at 1 PM and there was nothing she could do for me. I told her we were literally on the way to
Jacob’s party right then and we needed our cake, and she basically ignored me
and walked off. At first, I thought she
might be going to get someone else for me to speak with, but nope, I saw her a couple
of minutes later stocking baked goods on one of the shelves. She had literally just ignored me and walked
off. Sigh.
I ended up going to customer service to talk to them about it and the
lady there told me there was nothing she could do, so I told her I wanted a
refund, and she told me that she couldn’t refund my money even though I had the
transaction right there in my Walmart app AND an email receipt from them. At that point, I thought I was going to lose
it. I said, “So you’re telling me that I’m
literally on the way to my child’s party with no cake, and you’re telling me
that you will not refund me for said cake even though it was your store’s fault
for not making it?!”
And she said, “Well I can go get my manager for you…”
So I told her, “Yes, please get the manager.” And then she said, “Well, she’s just going to
tell you the same thing that I’m telling you.”
Y’all, when I say I was LIVID, I am not exaggerating.
The lady ended up telling me that I had to call Walmart’s 1-800 number to
get my refund and that I was not getting my cake, so I left immediately and
went straight to Publix where we were greeted with a smile and the baker
offered the kids free cookies. I told
her my predicament, and she let us select a cake that they’d premade (which
wasn’t ideal since Jacob had wanted a Pokemon cake), but we were already late
and couldn’t wait for someone to make a custom cake.
Walmart made me SO MAD last summer with the whole beer incident, and now
this – I am done. We haven’t purchased alcohol
from Walmart since the incident, and now I won’t be purchasing a cake from
there ever again either. (We never buy
cakes from there anyway… we always get them from a local bakery or Publix, but
Walmart was the only one that had the size we needed in the style Jacob
wanted.)
I told Brian I’m going on strike from shopping at Walmart for everything again
after the way they handled things. They
have the worst customer service everrrr.
We finally made it to Momma and Daddy’s (late) and we had spaghetti for
dinner per Jacob’s request. He also
always asks for rice for his birthday dinner because my mom’s rice is his
favorite. Lol.
We celebrated his birthday over there with his generic cake, and the cake
ended up being delicious despite the fact that it wasn’t the Pokemon themed
cake he’d asked for. He took it in
stride, though, and he didn’t seem too disappointed. I was more upset than he was. And I told him we could do the Pokemon cake
for his birthday party with his friends the following weekend… and that we
would get it from Publix even though the only sizes they have there are too
large.
When we got home, I had time to go for a quick walk and shower, and Brian
and Olivia started the fifth Harry Potter movie while I was doing that. The kids got into bed around 10, and then
Brian and I watched another episode of Paradise before calling it a
night!
Happy Friday, y’all!
