Posts Tagged ‘Health’

Life gets in the way…

Wednesday, October 29th, 2014

I’ve been trying to sit down and write for a while now but being overly bombarded with deadlines is taking it’s toll on me.  I’ve had a few major sites that I’ve been keeping tabs on, and pulling 16+ hour days on to keep on top of things. Most recently was disappointed after an 18 hour run to only find that the deadline was missed.  I was so ticked off, you have no idea.

On the Tooth front, with the use of antibiotics it’s fine for now. I do still need to see a dentist to have things taken care of, but the unfortunate waiting list to see anyone down here is starting to turn into the “Story of my life.”  I took 10 days worth of antibiotics, and haven’t really had any aspirin since the excessive use of it damn near killed my stomach.  I’m not someone who goes looking for prescriptions, if it can’t be solved with aspirin there’s something seriously wrong.  So when I mistakenly took more than 10 in a day (because the pain was so intense my brain was literally not functioning) I wound up with some abdominal pains and that was that.  At least those pains took the focus off the tooth for a little while.

This past week was pretty nice though, I’ve officially hit 30 and now it’s just downhill from here.  It’s weird stepping into a new age bracket. My father and sister came to visit. She’s never been to Delaware before and we took some time to hit up as many stores as possible so she could enjoy Tax Free shopping.  She’s the kind of person who has to frequently do laundry because she’s down to her last few pairs of pants.  So, that was the main focus during our shopping trips, I think she got about 10 new pairs of pants in total so hopefully that means she isn’t doing laundry as frequently.  I know she picked up shoes and shirts as well.

I didn’t really go that crazy on clothing, as much as I really do need certain items. I work from home, though. It’s really unjustified for me to pick up nice looking clothes when I literally have no place to wear them. So I did get a few decent looking T-shirts so I could continue my shirt rotation, and even invested in a few jersey knit type of long sleeve shirts because it has been getting a little chilly lately but all of my longer sleeve items were either heavy sweat shirts or just didn’t fit right anymore, so I’ll probably throw the older stuff into the rotation as well.

“Rotation?” – Yes, I wear my clothes to death to the point that they’re repurposed.  Once every few years I stock up on nice looking shirts, mostly tshirts. I wear them to death to the point that they’re no longer acceptable to wear out of the house and then push them to the bedshirts pile. Then I go through the bedshirts, if they don’t make the grade I shred them to use as dust rags, cause that’s really all they’re worth.  I would donate, don’t get me wrong, but feel it would be cruel to donate clothing that is literally holding on by a thread.  This is just my version of recycling.  I think at this point I could do some kind of patch work throw pillow with the remnants of fabric that I have to go through… that requires a sewing machine though – something I don’t currently have. That’ll probably change though, I’ll hopefully be hitting up thrift shops in the future.

So while they were here I decided that since we weren’t going to all be together for the holidays I’d have them come early. I went ahead and did a big thanksgiving dinner in October. Technically speaking I celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving but even that was 3 days late.  My dad is coming back between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I don’t believe my sister was going to be with him, so I wanted to at least get that out of the way.  As far as actual Thanksgiving is concerned… I doubt we’re doing anything, honestly. We’ll figure it out as we get closer.  I might spend the day setting up for Christmas but that’s because I’m itching to find an excuse for rearranging the living room to put the tree up.  The Den won’t really have any decorations in it though. I may be able to pick up some stuff from thrift shops, but I’m not really going out of my way to over decorate the house when factoring in that at this point in time it’s just Sean and I until we decide we’re ready for children.

So yea, it was nice spending time with my family, nice getting some shopping done, and nice having a few days off from work while they were here so I could relax.  Since they left on Saturday, though, I’ve just been non-stop working which has opened a whole new can of worms.

My sleep schedule is BEYOND messed up.  I woke up on Saturday about 10am after a few hours of sleep because I wanted to be awake to say goodbye to my family.  I then wound up crashing on the couch at a certain point of the night after getting some work done. From there I went to sleep around 10am on Sunday, I woke up at 5pm and then was awake and working until 12pm Monday afternoon.  I got some sleep and woke up around 9pm then solidly worked until 2pm the next afternoon, fell asleep, woke up at 9pm and worked until 6am, went back to sleep and woke up today at 4pm.  Needless to say, my schedule is completely screwed up.  Now, waking up around 4pm isn’t that abnormal for me as I’m accustomed to going to sleep around 7am, but having the freakishly long days kind of threw me for a loop. There really isn’t enough coffee in the day to keep me going anymore AND at the moment it’s taken me a few looks on the taskbar to realize what day it is.

In any event, I have a WooCommerce site to get started on, and lord only knows how many edits for other sites cause I’ve been afraid to look into any business emails tonight.  I just had a cup of coffee and I’m patiently waiting for it to kick in so I can get my second wind.

Down with Del Monte!

Saturday, August 3rd, 2013

I’m going to warn all readers in advance, this is a very graphic post and if you can not handle canine bodily fluids – this is not the post for you to read.

I’ve been flustered for so much of the past week that I honestly didn’t even notice it was Saturday until I looked at my phone this afternoon. I’ve been stuck in the world of “WOW, What the hell am I going to do now?”.

Last Saturday (7/27) I noticed Bella had a little hint if diarrhea after vomiting. Since this only happened in a small amount, and it’s not uncommon for her to have the occasional diarrhea, I honestly didn’t think anything of it. Within a few hours she appeared to be feeling just fine and was jumping and playing all over the house.  She was playing and enjoying life on Sunday and even Monday too. You can imagine my surprise when on Tuesday she went downhill, and fast.  The poor thing was dealing with excessive vomiting, and by excessive I mean she was throwing up every 10 to 15 minutes for a solid 3 hours before I could actually get her into the vets office.  By then, she was so weak that she didn’t even care where she was.  Normally, at the vet she’s very quick to want to jump off of the exam table and run out the door.  She couldn’t even hold her little body up to do that.

After telling the tech what had been going on, and providing her with a list of everything she eaten in the past 72 hours they brought her into the back room to run blood work.  After that, the vet came back in and asked if anything like this had every happened to her before, I confirmed that it hadn’t because, for the most part, she’s a healthy dog.  She requested that we do an X-Ray on her to be sure that she doesn’t have anything stuck in her system that could be causing this. I did note that the first instance of vomiting included a non-digested piece of a new treat that we were trying out. She noted that the food consumed over the past 72 hours wasn’t really cause for concern, but then noted that the addition of new treats (MILO’S KITCHEN – GRILLED STEAK) to her diet have her worried.  She wound up having to do a third X-Ray on Bella as her blood work came back and something just didn’t seem right.

She came back into the room, said that they see no blockage but Bella would need to stay overnight based on what they found with blood work and X-Rays. Her liver was three times larger than it was supposed to be. Size wise it was the equivalent of what they would see on a 250-pound Mastiff, not a 20-pound Lhasa Apso.  Her blood work showed that her Enzyme levels were dangerously high as well. She believed this to be due to the excessive vomiting.  She also noticed that her intestines were two times larger than they were supposed to be. There was a lot of liquid in her intestines with gas pockets. It was not a healthy-looking situation.

I told them to do whatever they needed to do to keep her alive, and I shit you not I was 100% convinced I would never be seeing my dog again based on how horribly ill she was at that point. She’d thrown up a few times during the exam, and the final ‘vomit’ smelled like Bile. It wasn’t the stomach-acid type of throw up, it literally seemed as though she was pooping out of her mouth.  She was rushed into the back room so she could be placed on an IV, she was dehydrating fast and they wanted to make sure there were enough fluids in her for the chance that she could make it through the night.

The doctor came back in the room and noted that she’d seen something like this recently. When we’d mentioned “Milo’s Kitchen” to her, she knew things would need to be rushed moving forward. She’d had a dog in that past weekend who was unfortunately in full renal failure and did not survive the night. The only thing that stuck out in the very healthy dogs diet was the “Milo’s Kitchen”.  The vet knew of a previous recall on the Chicken Jerky, but this dog consumed one of the “Sausage” treats that actually lead to the death of the animal.

Since there was nothing that I could physically do, I left Bella in their hands.  I called the office around 11pm, they’re a 24-hour facility so I knew someone would be there, and I – at that point – was a complete and total worry wort. This is my baby after-all.  The overnight vet noted that she is now dealing with excessive amounts of diarrhea and they’ve increased the fluids to keep her hydrated.  She was also given quite a few ‘butt baths’ so she wasn’t sitting in her own fecal matter.  She messed the cage a few times, and was taken outside quite a few times as well. The vet repeated, that this is a very, very sick dog.

I had a lot of trouble falling asleep, all I wanted to do was rush over there and hold her but based on how ill she was I knew that wasn’t a possibility.  I wanted her to just get better, she separation anxiety would have to be on hold for another day. The office called around 12:30PM, they noted that she’s doing much better and said that if I could bring in some light food for her, that I could bring her home so she had the ability to heal the rest of the way.  I wasn’t comfortable with this statement, not after the day before.

I did head over to the office a little later that afternoon with boiled chicken and rice in a bowl for her to try to get her to eat. Prior to going in there I did speak with the vet, she noted that that mornings X-Ray showed that her intestines had gone down to normal size, and that her liver had also gone down in size as well. We weren’t in the clear, her liver was still very enlarged.  The doctor and I agreed that she was to have a cat-scan prior to my even attempting to bring her home just to confirm that there were no stones or anything blocking her digestive track that could have been causing this. We were both 100% on the fact that it was related to “Milo’s Kitchen” but wanted to make sure either way.

I went into the back room, she was super excited to see me and crying excessively.  She was on her second IV bag of the day to keep her hydrated and she had absolutely no interest in any of the food I was trying to give her, she wanted out more than anything. After trying for about 10 minutes the vet said that the two bites of food should be enough for us to know if something is going to come back up and from there they whisked her away to the cat-scan. That scan confirmed there was nothing blocking any of her digestive track that could have caused this, it also confirmed that the treats were 100% of the cause being as her normal-diet could NOT have had this effect on her.

I agreed to take her home based on their findings, and was also provided with more medications than I had ever seen before in my life. Hell, when Karen was on Chemo she didn’t need this many pills. Anti-Diarrheal, Anti-Nausea, Anti-Biotic, Pain Killer and ear drops. The drops are there because, on top of everything, Bella also now had an ear infection.

As soon as we got home she peed like she hadn’t gone in months and went right to sleep. She was still woozy from all of the medications she’d received that day, and had absolutely no interest in eating ANYTHING. Her diet now consists of boiled chicken and ground beef. I can use either rice or potatoes to pair up with it.

I began reading through the ingredients on the packaging for her treats.  I don’t keep a ‘stock’ of them, she goes through one bag at a time. Usually she’s on Beggin’ Strips, but since she’s shown no interest in them I figured it was time to change it up – this is why she was switched to “Milo’s Kitchen” because it looked semi-natural and claimed it was made in America.  I picked up the Grilled Steak and the Sausage w/ Rice treats for her from the supermarket. These are the “items” that were in her system prior to it almost completely shutting down.

I’m 100% taking Bella off of any store-bought pet foot (wet & dry) as well as treats.  She’ll be eating only homemade dog food AND treats for the rest of her life. Why? Because every single dog treat on the shelves contains one (or both) of these ingredients.

#1 – Propylene Glycol – Commonly found on the ingredients list as a way to preserve moisture content in dog foods (hard and soft) as well as treats. It’s actual use? It’s the key component in newer automotive ANTIFREEZE.

#2 – Glycerin – Commonly found in dry food, wet food and dog treats. Until recently it was a byproduct of soap making. Today, however, it’s a byproduct of biofuels.

These two ingredients were found in her system on the blood test, to further confirm that it was the treats that did it for her.  The food she was eating prior to any of this starting was (for the most part) people food. If I can’t pronounce what’s on the packaging, why would I feed it to her? This dog has survived the past 9 years on pasta, chicken, beef, rice, potatoes and veggies. If all of these ingredients are supposedly IN her dog food, why shouldn’t I give her exactly what the packaging claims it will be?

The chemical mark-up for dog treats is disgusting, point blank.  These items are not found in cat treats/food because the FDA smartened up and regulated it after so many cats had passed away after consuming it.  At this point, however, no regulation is being made on the dog food. With this, Bella will never be eating dog food OR treats again. Anything by the parent company of “Del Monte” is the first thing to go. There have been so many recalls for every single one of their brands (including “Milo’s Kitchen”) that I wish I would have known something about it sooner.

So how do I fix this? Well, being as her time at the vet completely wiped out my checking account for over $1,200 it’s a little hard to bring money together right now to make proper dog food for her but I am utilizing what I have in my freezer to insure that she’s only eating food that humans eat. Why? Because if I’m not getting sick off of it – I know she won’t either.  When I get paid on Monday, however, I’ll be taking some money and purchasing a food dehydrator. From now on I’ll be making my own dog treats and there will be absolutely no way in hell that she will ever be touching one of the ‘fancy’ ones that you see in the supermarkets.

How should you fix this? Avoid the same things that I am, this should insure that your dog is living a much happier life.

Avoid anything manufactured by “Del Monte” foods. They clearly do not care about the health of your animal, why continue to fill their pockets with money?

Avoid anything treats that were made in China, Brazil, Chile, South-America in general. This includes Raw Hide!

If you’re keen on raw-hide, make sure you’re also avoiding that “Made in China” label. It’s posted on 100% of the bones you find in your local super market. As long as you see that notice, it’s time to put down the treat and walk away.

The company I’m 100% supporting right now is Wholesome Hide, they’re made in a America, they actually look like a proper raw-hide, and they do not contain the bits of random animal shavings in the middle. It’s a solid roll of hide and 100% natural. There’s no funky food coloring, there’s no rope-like material holding it together. Wholesome Hide is a company you know that you can trust, there have also been 0 (yes ZERO) recalls on their products.  What does that tell you about how much they care about your animal? Lord knows Del Monte doesn’t, look at their track record!

Del Monte Foods –  These are a list of what to completely avoid.

  • Kibbles & Bits
  • Milkbone
  • Pup-Peroni
  • Meaty Bone
  • Milo’s Kitchen
  • Gravy Train
  • Canine Carry Outs
  • Jerky Treats
  • Snausages
  • Nature’s Recipe

And, by default of course, I will no longer be eating ANYTHING they make. Not that their ‘human’ food was any better, but I’m officially boycotting the entire fucking company.

So yea, that’s been my week.

All I can say to sum it up, make sure you’re reading every single label for your dog the same way that you do for yourself. If you can not pronounce the chemical in the food, you’re better off not allowing them to have any access to it either. It’s better for their health in the long run. Yes, there may be brands out there that are 100% safe for your dog to consume (food wise), but make sure you’ve done your research too. Even Beneful, a “trusted brand” for pet-health has had numerous recalls and pet-deaths attached to their names.

Be careful.

Blogging while Driving…

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2013

OK, so I’m not actually the one driving but today was one of those days where I had no choice but to boot up my slowly dying laptop and bring it with me.  This morning we woke up to find out that Karen wasn’t going to her Chemo treatment today because of super high blood pressure and the lack of ability to breath.  We wound up going to the cancer center so she could have the IV removed from her arm (they leave it in cause she goes three days in a row and its a pain to have to redo the IV every time).  We both went home for a little while to get some food in our systems and now all three of us (Karen, Sean and myself) are heading up to Christiana Hospital up in Newark for a kind of “rushed” visit to her cardiologist.  She’s to a point where she’s no longer going to be doing the Chemo (based on her choice) due to the uncomfortable and concerning side effects.  She’s done 3.5 of 4 treatments, and that’s where things are going to end I guess.  She’s a grown woman who can make her own choices, and she has.

So why am I even online?  Welp, I’m trying to complete a site by the Wednesday AM deadline but still have about 8 hours work to complete, knowing that we’re going to be out of the house for at least another six hours, I had no choice in the matter.  Thankfully my cellphone gives me the ability to “hotspot” myself so it’s been pretty easy to keep the pace of coding and uploading without worrying about anything. Thank god for 4G.

Still kickin’….

Monday, August 27th, 2012

I’ve wanted to sit down and blog for quite some time now, but things have been so hectic I just haven’t been able to get around to it. I remember there was a time when I’d be logged into WordPress all day just to post whatever popped into my head, this is probably why I was able to reach my max of over 150 posts in one month. Times have definetly changed, real live has trumped internet ‘life’ ten fold.

We’re still in Delaware. It’s been confirmed that Karen does have lung cancer, and it’s a very rare type of cancer that isn’t smoking based. She’s been back and forth to Baltimore (John’s Hopkins) to discuss every aspect of treatment. She was told, before all tests were final, that she’d need a lower lobectabmy in order to remove the tumor. She was hoping to be able to have a wedge taken out so that there was no major surgery involved, but she was informed today that she’s going to need the full lower lobectamy which means that a little more than a quarter of her lung will actually be removed. The way they’re going to do it is with a “VATS” type of surgery, instead of having to open up her chest and bend/cut her ribs they’ll go in through three small incisions on her side and slice the lower lobe, corterize the bleed and after deflating the lung they can bring it out through the holes. This means it’s invasive, but not as invasive as the alternative PLUS there will be less of a recovery time on her part as well. They claim she’ll only be in the hospital for 3 days and from there they want her up and moving around right after to begin rebuilding her lung function. So it’s going to be a long road ahead, but essentially the tumor should be completely removed and she will need no further treatments with Kemo or Radiation so that’s the upside.

As far as Work is concerned, things have been absolutely crazy. I don’t like having to constantly complain about it, but there hasn’t really been a day where I can say that there wasn’t a stack of things to complete. Right now I’m working on a major family farm/orchard located on Long Island, and I’ve unfortunately had to put a few clients on the backburner – which is nothing I enjoy doing because I hate to prolong things for longer than they need to. There’s some unhappy people and I’m stretched so thin I can’t even cater to it. Absolutely horrible in the business sense, let me tell you.

On top of everything else going on, my back is still completely shot. I’ve had a few days where it was OK, but from there things have just been a downward spiral. Every morning I’m waking up with more pain than the day before, and no matter what I do to try to ease the pain, things just get worse. I’ve found that the only way to maintain any ounce of comfort is to lay down for 15 minute intervals throughout the course of the day, some days its more frequently than others. Right now I’m fighting through the pain just to get this entry written, the sheer act of sitting in an upright position is putting so much pressure onto my sciatic nerve that I don’t even know how I’m not crying in pain. Sean just ran out to pick up dinner so I’m going to continue fighting through it until I can shift to the bedroom with the laptop and hopefully be able to get things done before the 10am deadline.

My sleep schedule is still completely fucked up. There have been some days when I’ve been up and going around 9am, and other days where I’m unconcious until 6pm. The biggest issue is the fact that I can’t get a restful sleep, I’m constantly moving and having random instances of a shooting pain going down my leg that feels as though I’m being struck by lightening. I know it has to do with the sciatic nerve, but would really like to know why the nerve is acting up so much to begin with.

I’m assuming, to a degree, that the bed we’re sleeping in has something to do with it. It was given to Karen by a friend who was redoing their home and it’s obviously just a guest bed but we’ve turned it into ‘our bed’ based soley on how long we’ve been here (2 months as of 8/29). We are heading home at some point in the next week to pick up some warmer clothes, the computers and Bella. I think we’re staying for a few days just to get everything in order, but then we’re back down here for the surgery, and from there we’re not sure as to how long we’re staying. The biggest point is to just be prepared.

It hasn’t been ‘work work work’ the entire time… Sean and I have taken a liking to heading down to Cape Henlopen Park at night to go fishing. We’ve gone just about once a week, got our licenses for down here so we can pretty much go whenever we please. We bought some poles and have a little tackle box and we just head down there with our chairs and if we catch something – great – if not oh well. We’re there for the ability to just clear our heads for a little while, and there are so many stars in the sky you can’t help but relax. No major ambient lights messing with the view, everything is peaceful and calm.

In any event, Sean just walked in the door. I’m starving, and in more pain than I really need to be. I think I’m going to eat some food and head to the bedroom so I can get some work done.

Gonna be a long night.

Malware and Masses BE GONE!!

Saturday, July 14th, 2012

I received a couple of emails informing me of Malware on the site, unfortunately with everything going on I wasn’t able to actually login to work on things more than just upgrading WordPress via my phone. Turns out the Malware was no where near as bad as some of the sites that I’ve been working on. One of the Malware hits was so severe I had to completely recode the website because every template file was infected and beyond repair. “Why not just upload your copy of the theme?” simple – I’m in Delaware – not New York and don’t have access to the original files. Redoing the entire site from scratch was the only way to go.

In reference to the attack here, however, the only effected file was index.php which is two lines of code pulling the blog header file from the WordPress directory. Once I went through all of the template files to confirm there was nothing else to worry about and did a fresh reinstall of the current WP version I now no longer need to worry about anything. I submitted my site through the Webmaster tools with Google so it stopped kicking the error back to me and hopefully there won’t be any problems moving forward. I don’t understand how it happens, but at this point all I can say is “Whatever, it’s gone now” and move along.

So, as I noted, we’re in Delaware. Typically it would be our usual work during the day and head down to the beach at night, being as that’s what we always did when we actually lived down here during the summer months. However, it’s been much different this time around and now instead of “Go to Beach” it’s “Catch the hell up!”.

Unfortunately Sean’s mom has been having medical issues and instead of going to any of the doctors down here (since they suck balls) we made the trip up to Baltimore to spend some time floating around the numerous departments in Johns Hopkins main hospital so she could actually get proper care. After having some chest pain, shortness of breath and elevated heart rate the choice to walk right into the E.R. was pretty much manditory. From there, she was admitted and wound up in the hospital for about 5 days (in total). We went up on a Friday, wound up waiting until very early Saturday morning before she actually made it into a room. I attempted to get some sleep in the car but it was during the middle of the heat wave and we were in a parking garage so that just didn’t happen. Sean wound up crashing in his mothers room a little after 7am and got a few hours of sleep while everyone was trying to make heads or tails of things.

After he woke up we decided to head back to Rehoboth because on top of needing to take a shower and get some proper sleep – we also needed to do some light laundry and get everything together for Sean’s mom due to the fact that none of us had any idea that she would be admitted to the hospital and had absolutely no clothes or any kind of ‘overnight’ supplies with us. We wound up driving two cars back up, which was not fun AT ALL being as we got stuck in the middle of a monsoon on Sunday night. It wound up turning the 2 1/2 hour trip into a 3 hour trip just because we had no choice but to pull over. If I can’t even see the tail lights of the car in front of me there’s absolutely no way in hell I’m going to keep moving. My choice for stopping was warrented, and confirmed when we got back on the road after things had let up and saw a pretty major accident on the south bound lane that was more than likely due to the lack of visability.

So Sean and I stayed at the Tremonth Plaza in Baltimore for a few nights. The hotel in its own right was really nice, the people were friendly and having the car locked away in a parking garage made me feel very safe knowing that nothing was going to randomly disappear. They offer a shuttle service to the Hopkins hospitals so that you don’t have to worry about navigating your way around Baltimore AND paying additional money for parking.  They offered parking for free at their facility, so that cut down on expenses quite a bit.  It also helped that they offer their rooms at a discounted rate if you’re family of someone who’s currently admitted.

After two nights in the hotel, and countless hours floating around the hospital she was released and we’ve been back down here ever since. Unfortunately it’s taken me forever to catch up on everything when considering I was on some pretty serious deadlines that I had to post-pone for clients. It also didn’t help that my backs been bothering me from all of the excessive walking with horrible unsupportive sneakers.

We’ve been down here for a few weeks, it’s not like we just showed up and instantly went up to the hospital. I just know that his Mom wasn’t feeling too hot the night we came down and things have just kind of spiraled from there. Thankfully everything appears under control now, there are still more appointments to get through but I think after this coming Monday things should be OK. We’re heading back up to Baltimore so she can have the mass on her lung looked into. There are also issues with her heart that need to be looked after, but I highly doubt we’ll be able to get into any offices for that while we’re up there.

Needless to say, this one-two week trip has turned into a longer than anticipated stay. It’s just my hope that everything begins to work itself out, and I’m able to get through the weeks worth of work that I’m backed up with. I’m seriously considering hiring other hands but haven’t seen anyone floating around that can really be trusted with “hush-hush” type of clients. Everyone wants to put something into their portfolio and don’t seem to understand what NDA actually means. It drives me crazy, but that’s the caliber of people floating around these days I guess. I think I’m better off just pushing through exhaustion and trying to get as much done as humanly possible over the course of the next few days.

I just know that I some how need to force myself to sleep by 10pm on Sunday so I can be ready to leave the house by 6:30 on Monday morning. Not looking forward to dealing with Baltimore traffic on a Monday so we’ll see how well this goes. :crosses fingers:

Whoopsie!

Thursday, June 28th, 2012

My back is finally starting to feel better.  I’m able to get around a bit more, and standing up isn’t as much of a chore as it’s been for the past few weeks.  There are still a few instances of where I step wrong and feel a twinge but I’m able to breath through it and keep moving.  So that gets one issue out of my way.  I figure it’s going to take a few more days before I’m 100%, but I’m on definitely on track!

As far as work is concerned, things have been completely off the fucking wall.  Emails coming in and out all day long – which is typical – but the rise in clients means I need to stay on top of things that much more.  On top of working for my own clients, I still have a standing contract with a design firm in Manhattan that’s been bringing in a lot of work for Sean and I over the course of the past few months.  I feel that this month has blown up to the point that my head is spinning.  I think I’ve worked on 4 major wordpress sites in the past week and all of them, somehow, got done.  There’s one left that I need to PSD->HTML and then wait on client approval, after that it’s going into WooCommerce, which is one if the biggest pains in the ass I’ve ever had to code for.  There aren’t enough tutorials to get me through but I do have a copy of one of their premium themes for the script that a client provided to me to edit to their liking and I’m referring back to it so I can figure out what template files handle what – this way everything runs seamlessly with their main theme.

I was completely surprised this past week when I received a notification from Sponsored Reviews saying that there was a pending advertiser looking for a post on krissy.nu, I almost instantly accepted and saw that I had a few days to complete the write-up so I pushed it aside to finish up more pressing matters and then completely forgot about it, like a moron I lost out on a $200 post ($400 sponsor – I get 50%).  So I’ll cut my losses there, and hope that something else comes through.  I did want to get back into sponsored posts because there was a time when I was earning over $3500 a month through all of the different sources – but those sources have since expired (minus a few) and it doesn’t really seem to be worth it anymore.  Unless I can get myself a position as a content writer somewhere, I’ll worry about it some other time.

So it’s creeping up on Independance Day and thankfully Sean and I will be down in Delaware for a much needed vacation.  I’m looking forward to seeing the fireworks, and need to figure out if we’re going via Trolly or driving down earlier in the day in hopes to get a parking space.  After that we’re hoping to hit up the beach, and spend a day in Maryland (both Ocean City AND Salisbury), maybe even head over to Assateague Beach to take a look at the wild horses everyones always raving about.  Basically the stuff we never really did while we actually LIVED in DE, heh.  I know we’re heading up to Dover for a day to get in some light shopping at Best Buy (gotta love tax free!) and then hopefully hitting up Dover Downs cause I’m itching to get into a Casino.  I do know that on the 9th we’re possibly heading to Baltimore with Sean’s mom cause she has things to take care of there and I’ve never been to Baltimore before so I’m looking forward to that too.

Before heading down there’s a lot to take care of.  I still have one site to completely code, and a PSD to start. I also need to pack and go through our toiletries bag to double check for what we do and don’t have prior to heading down. PLUS it’s the 29th so that means it’s my sisters birthday. I promised I’d take her out to do some shopping because I know how much she needs clothes but with the way my back has been feeling I haven’t been able to get up and round to do it. Plus with the overload of work that hasn’t really helped my productivity out of the house either – proof is on the bare shelves of the kitchen.   So at some point tomorrow (well… today after i wake up), I’ll be heading out to do some minor shopping for basically everything so there’s food in the house for while we’re gone, a bag of treats for my sister, two weeks (at least) worth of Dog Food so Bella doesn’t starve to death and whatever else I need to get us down to DE with no problems.  On top of that I believe Muir is coming over with her hubby so he can get the new fixtures up in our main bathroom so the shower is usable and we can stop using my dads. I’m not 100% on that though, I’m sure I’ll wake up to a text message telling me yay or nay heh.

We’re hoping to leave early on Saturday morning in hopes to beat the excessive traffic heading down to the beaches but we’ll have to see how that goes.  We’re planning on taking the parkway down to Cape May so we can take the ferry into Lewes and cut down on an hour and a half of driving time but we’ll have to see how that goes, we don’t even know when we’re leaving.  I wanted to leave about 3am tomorrow night (saturday morning) but now I think we’re waiting until early Sunday morning.  The actual day is up in the air but we know for sure that we’re leaving this weekend.

I just can’t wait to get out of here.

The LONG Weekly Breakdown

Friday, April 18th, 2008

It’s been quite a week, if I had the energy I probably would have updated sooner but when daily life gets in the way – a blog really isn’t a priority. I’ll break it down into categories so you can skip the areas you probably won’t care about. I also had to throw a break in it because I’m certain it’s going to be a 2500 word entry. Sue me, it’s been a week.

Health & Wellness – Back Problems SUCK!
I threw out my back last weekend, it took me a few days to nurse myself back to health but me being the stubborn person that I am – I still insisted on cleaning whenever I could and getting some shopping done. I had trouble lifting the heavier items (soda, and even a gallon of milk for that matter) but we needed it and I know that Sean has been really busy working on a few different sites. He’s chugging along getting the social networking site up for one client, Jackie and her father have taken him under their wings with some programming work and he was approved to write plug-ins and hacks for Social Engine, the only out-of-the-box social networking site on the market right now. So it’s safe to say that while I’m not feeling well, he’s still very busy with other things. He did really help me out though, as far as the heavy lifting and laundry is concerned. I had to spend Sunday in bed, which is something I absolutely hated, because I don’t like being unproductive but when you can’t stand up it’s very difficult to accomplish just about anything.
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