Crystal G

In list format:

• I got a letter from my USAA military insurance, that due to having such a great year, they are giving me a $47 credit on my auto policy, which means that’s an extra $47 for me when my policy comes up for renewal in February. Considering I save up my renewal in advance with $50 extra for leeway already, I’ll have $100 extra to put towards debt. I love this company, it has to be one of my favorite companies.
• Work is changing their payment schedule next month by a few days. Being as OCD as I am about my finances, this is going to throw me off a little while I re-adjust everything to the new schedule. I don’t think any of my bills due dates will be affected, since I -mostly- pay everything early.
• I got the rest of my freelance money in and already put it on the last interest debt that I am paying off. I am still trying to look for another freelance project or two to help get this paid off ASAP. I’ve been looking on guru.com, but don’t see many projects in my skill-set there. I catch a few now and then, but winning the bid for the project is a whole other story.
• Dad went out and got a log splitter on credit, which I am not all too happy about, but it was something he needed for his health, so there it is. I am not taking on anymore of his debt right now because I have some things I need to take care of on my own first.
• I have to say though, dad has done a lot better with his monthly budget lately. He hasn’t had any overdrafts, and while he does still spend a good chunk on my credit card, we did talk about ways we could reduce that and I’m hoping to see that change taking place in this months report.
• I did give my dad a $200 budget for holiday shopping. I told him he didn’t need to spend it all on me, but I have no doubt that’s what he intends to do. I know it seems silly to give him a holiday budget (especially when it’s just spent on me anyway), but that is something that is special to him (opening gifts Christmas morning), so it’s really worth the expense.
• While going to the doctors yesterday and the radiologist today, my total expenses so far has only been the $20 co-pay to the doctor. And even that is paid out of my HSA, not out of my pocket. I’ll see what other charges I may need to pay for in a month or so, whenever the insurance company decides to bill me. But considering I have a couple thousand in my HSA for medical expenses, I am not worried.
• I discovered that Microsoft Money has a “Tax Report” section that will actually display every tax related expense and income I’ve had in the last year. Technically I could just print that report out, and so long as I have categorized everything correctly throughout the year, it will show all my charitable contributions, my gross wages that have yet to be taxed, all my interest, etc. How cool is that? I am auto-prepared for tax season.
• I am doing as much work from home as possible while I’m laid up cause of this knee injury. I get paid time off, but the less of it I use the better. Not that I really use my time off for anything…I guess camping and festivals are about it. My goal is to make it into work Thursday or Friday, even if I’m using a cane or something

So I woke up Sunday morning with a hefty pain in my left knee. I took a bad fall on the ice on this knee in February but it has been fairly fine since. Basically I can’t straighten my knee or walk on it, but when it’s bent i feels mostly fine.

The pain didn’t get really bad until Sunday evening, and then I could no longer walk. I also have a cold that I got from a co-worker on top of this but I think that is finally fading.

Yesterday I had to take off of work. I can’t even walk to the bathroom without resulting in tears at this point, so getting into work and going up the stairs is out of the question. I got a doctors appointment in the afternoon and he thinks I have a bruised patellar tendonitis, but says we can do x-rays to be sure. He says to keep ice on it and take advil, which I have been doing but this morning it feels just as bad as it did yesterday. I can’t imagine just a BRUISE feeling this bad. It’s quite literally the worst pain I’ve ever felt.

I have to call the advanced radiology today and see if I can get an appointment for the x-rays, but I’m starting to consider just going to the hospital. It’s a painful chore just to make it to the bathroom, and it’s not worth it to try and get something to eat. I hate relying on other people for anything and to have to just sit on my butt all day and not clean or do something is eating me up and putting me in a very emotional state.

I just want it fixed so I can move on. I don’t like missing work, I don’t like not being able to clean my house, I have big plans this weekend that I don’t want to miss, and I certainly don’t want to be like this over the whole freaking holiday.

As posted on Twitter and such, I had my first surgery today to have all 3 of my wisdom teeth removed (I was only born with 3). I opted out of anesthesia and instead had the laughing gas, because I wanted to be able to go to work if I was up for it. I wasn’t, but did work from home today instead (actually until about 5 minutes ago).

I have to say this was one of the weirdest experiences in my life, not a bad one, but not one I want to repeat anytime soon since I don’t like surgeries in general. I will say though, that this doctor (Dr Pitts in Frederick, MD for anyone interested) was absolutely amazing. The office is insanely gorgeous, the doctor was kind and detailed, and his customer care is beyond anything I’ve seen. I can’t say I’ve ever been satisfied with a doctor or dentist in the past, but this one is certainly the first and will always be highly recommended by me. I plan to send a letter of appreciation and write a review on google.

The surgery only lasted about 30 minutes, and then I was up and able to drive home. When they put the gas on me, it felt -really- weird. I could feel my entire body going numb, and then felt like I was being totally disconnected from it, which I guess I kinda was. I had my eyes closed trying to allow myself to cope with that but also attempt to keep track of what was going on.

I remember while feeling myself pulling away, hearing the doctor and his assistant talking about Obama’s speech. I remember him patting me on the shoulder and saying I was doing a great job. When he was on the last tooth, he started putting me back on oxygen to wake me out of the laughing gas, and I remember opening my eyes and starting to become more alert. Only problem is I don’t remember them ever starting, so I was a bit confused as to how I missed it.

Then I started hearing the exact same conversation again, but this time alert and cognant. I mean the -exact- same conversation, and the exact same pat on the shoulder. I’m still confused how I heard the conversation the first time, if the second time I was awake and alert. It still doesn’t make any sense to me, and probably what weirded me out the most.

So I watched in his spectacles reflection as they yanked the last tooth out, and then waited a few more minutes for my dizzyness to wear off. They gave me some goodies to take with me, like a teabag to bite down on to help stop the bleeding with the tannic acid, some lip balm, etc.

Surprisingly I got emotional as I was walking out of the office. I really don’t understand why even now, but I had a few tears I think mainly out of confusion. Dad was a little worried, but I pulled it together and drove home.

I really haven’t been in much pain or swelling at all today, just mostly spitting blood. The only bad thing is the pain medication makes me really dizzy, so I’m going to avoid taking it as much as possible. Especially since I plan to go to work tomorrow and don’t need that. They did have to cut one of my gums and stitch it in order to get my bottom tooth out.

I did ask to keep my teeth, at my cousin’s suggestion. No clue why, and no clue if I’ll keep em still. But there they are.

Now I’m just trying to do everything right to avoid complications and to heal so I can eat steamed crabs on the 20th without complaint. I’m so going to gorge myself on steamed crabs…

Right now I’m sorta living off of pudding, yogurt, and my own veggie juice I juiced. I told dad I wanted mashed potatoes tomorrow cause this stuff leaves me starving.

Well I recently found out.

Dad had outpatient surgery on Tuesday where they just put a skin graph on the ulcer on his leg to see if it’ll help heal it. Before they’ve used pig skin for this, but apparently they also save the skin from circumsized babies to use as skin graphs. So now my dad has baby penis skin on his leg. That takes not being “wasteful” to a whole new level folks.

I can see the jokes now…… “….waking up with a stiff leg.”

He has to rest and not bump it for a week or two, so I’ve had to take over some of his chores as well. Fortunately I have a three day weekend coming up where I can get a lot of things done around here.

I updated my pictures from yesterday with updated deck pictures from last night, as well.

Dad’s doctors can be awesome sometimes, despite the insurance companies sucking. They got together and had a meeting regarding my dad (the doctors that is), and found a loophole to get him into the hyperbaric chamber. He starts today, and hopefully we’ll start to see some real progress on the healing of these skin ulcers. I expect to see him healed in 2 months. Here’s hoping! And here’s hoping he stays healed.

He also had a lymes disease test to see if that was the cause of his constant soreness, but it came back negative. So while that is a good thing, I still wish we could find a solution to his general aches and pains.

I’ll be glad when these Wound Care Center visits are over, because even with medicare they are pricey and it would be another bill we can get rid of.

I’ve conducted a small mini-experiment for the last week or so, while working on my resolution for 2009 to slowly migrate to a macrobiotic diet. It wasn’t really a planned experiment, but once I took notice I decided to try it out.

When I got my juicer, I really went full-force into trying different combinations of fruits and vegetables (ESPECIALLY vegetables since I have a hard time eating them), and to really find ways to put more vegetables into my diet. I hate those V8 Fusion drinks because they carry so much sugar and other crap, I decided I could do better on my own.

So I started making mixes of cucumbers and celery and apples and ginger, another mix with carrots and apples and ginger, even some of just fruit like apples and blueberries and ginger (soooo good). I started to notice that one of these big juices was actually enough to make me not hungry. I didn’t feel full, which was a bit of a struggle because usually people eat to feel full, and it takes a lot of work to re-program your brain to understand that you should eat to not feel stuffed. I am still working on that.

Anyway, so I started getting all of these vegetables and fruits into my system, and I was really feeling great. My body was reacting very positively, and I was energized and inspired to keep going. I still ate something bad now and then, but nowhere near the capacity before.

Then when I had my parties with the taco dips and cheeses and sodas. I noticed after allowing my body to detox so much with the veggie and fruit juices, that when I started eating these other things, I could actually feel my body getting weaker, more tired, and actually feeling pain in the stomach area. Sometimes it was very noticeable, distracting pain. My body was reacting in bad ways. Not surprising, I expected it.

So I alternated my food intake for a few days, just to really understand the transitions my body was going through when eating good food versus bad food, and it started to become really clear.

What I find the most confusing, however, is even knowing that my body reacts in such bad and painful ways while eating this bad stuff, I found it difficult to mentally detach myself from those foods. I was still craving them, sometimes absently, to the point that I wouldn’t notice until after I had already eaten them.

It’s not that I wasn’t enjoying the fruit and veggies, in fact I was enjoying them very much. But for some reason my mind was telling me that I wanted these other things instead.

So how do you mentally detach from these food cravings that hurt you, and then reattach yourself mentally to these new foods that help you? I have already been doing a fairly decent job at this for the last several years. I stopped drinking sodas for the most part (maybe 1 a month), I don’t go out for fast food at all anymore, my craving for red meat dwindled to almost nothing, etc.

I think part of the process will be educating myself more on what some of these good foods are, and experimenting with various recipes. A lot of them are so new to me, that I’ve never heard of them. Others seem like they would be difficult to find because they are not considered an everyday staple.

Another process is cost. It takes a lot of money to restock your kitchen with new, healthy ingredients as opposed to the old staples we’re used to. Because this is a cost issue, it has to be done gradually….a few new items each grocery trip. And I don’t like wasting stuff we already have, so I have to gradually phase them out as well.

The biggest hurdle for me personally though, is trying to get my father on board with new eating habits. No matter how many times I tell him not to buy me chips or icecream, occasionally he does anyway thinking it’s a good “treat” for me. It’s really not. He knows I get mad at him everytime he does this, but I think it’s finally starting to sink in. However he’ll still buy things for himself, so that will affect our cost expenditure as well.

I guess this will just be a slow, but very well worth it effort. It will also be a mental struggle, but I think the rewards for this change will cleanse all of the old cravings in the end.

I went to the dentist this morning to find out why my gums are extremely sore after my sickness a week ago. I figured my wisdom teeth might be the culprit so I decided to have an appointment to see what was up.

I’m actually sorta disappointed in the dentist. A 2 minute exam after a full jaw x-ray and he tells me my wisdom teeth need to come out (I figured they did). And apparently I only have 3, which is cool with me. But I didn’t go there to find out whether my wisdom teeth needed to come out, I went there to find out why overnight my gums are sore enough to prevent me from eating. I should have been more vocal at the appointment, maybe.

Anyway, I can’t get them pulled until the 17th of January, so I have to deal with the pain until then. Maybe the pain will subside by then, maybe it won’t. He also wants to schedule a cleaning, which is scheduled for sometime in February. Maybe I’ll call and see if he can elaborate a bit more on how this sudden gum sensitivity came about.

At least I didn’t have to pay anything for the appointment. Not even from my HSA because they are submitting directly to insurance. I also have a credit on my account because they overcharged me during my last visit.

Have I mentioned how much I love HSA’s? To be able to use pre-tax money for medical expenses? To earn -interest- on this tax free money? To have work help out by helping us reach our deductible amount by putting money into the account? To actually have a program that forces people to actually prepare and financially think about putting money away for medical emergencies and be responsible? I love everything about them.

CNN posted an article today about how droughts are going to be more prevalent in the coming years. And not necessarily because of Global Warming.

“At least 36 states expect to face water shortages within the next five years, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. According to the National Drought Mitigation Center, several regions in particular have been hit hard: the Southeast, Southwest and the West. Texas, Georgia and South Carolina have suffered the worst droughts this year, the agency said….”

“…The droughts are caused by rapid population growth and unwise agricultural choices.”

I hate how these articles make this seem like some big new development. This has been an ongoing issue for years. Heck I posted about the documentary “A Diet for a new America by John Robbins back in January of ‘07. He touched on a lot of scientific points that made a lot of sense to me, especially about the amount of water we use irrigating crops to feed cattle. One of the men in his video did a comparison to elementary school children about how much use they could get out of a gallon of water. Which equals 12lbs of grain, or 1lb of meat.

Watch, it’s pretty interesting. I love it, even if it is dated. The fact that he supposedly refused his fathers Baskin Robbin’s fortune because he wanted to support a more ethical foundation and healthier means of living.

To be honest, my desire for red meat has dwindled so much this year. I’m a happy carnivore, and I do love a good steak. But I really can’t stand eating a lot of red meat anymore. I like white meats, and even with white meats I want to try and learn to eat more beans instead and try to focus on eating white meat that I raise myself. And I do really think that eating less meat, or at least attempting to lessen the demand for commercialized meat that it would help the water supply as well.

Not only that, but my sweetheart knows someone who works in a steel building that makes steel or does something with steel, I don’t know what exactly. But they use water to filter through their walls to keep the building from literally melting. I think their water bill is like a million dollars a month or some other absurdly high number. I’ve no doubt that there are many businesses that use insufficient methods for using their water like this.

It’s really a big mixing bowl of problems, and it’s going to take a lot of work to fix it. We just need the support to do it.

When we move into the new house and get settled, I am switching to a macrobiotic diet. I am still going to eat chicken (in moderation) and fish as allowed. I will probably sneak a piece of chocolate and maybe even cheese now and then (lets be realistic). But on the whole, I want to try my hand at eating whole unprocessed foods. Brown rice, fruits and veggies, nuts and grains, tuna, etc. Nothing from a can or in a pre-packaged box.

It’s more or less an experiment, but it’s something I want to try. I don’t plan to be 100% macrobiotic because I do think some other foods are essential as well for certain vitamins I’ll need, like calcium.

I’m actually happy with how much I’ve changed my diet over the last 7 years already. When I moved back in with my father in 2001 I stopped drinking soda almost completely (I’ve snuck MAYBE a dozen in the last 7 years), I stopped eating white bread entirely, stopped adding any salt to anything. Stopped eating processed sugar (for a long time I used Splenda and now am using Stevia or Honey, though Honey is frowned on in a macrobiotic diet because it’s overstimulating), and almost completely stopped eating sugar entirely except for what I’d eat on my own. We stopped carrying sugar in the house when dad was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes.

But I’ve been paying attention lately to how my body reacts to certain foods. It may be beneficial for me to even start keeping a food journal just to see how things change over time.

I think a lot of it comes from the fact that I watch the type of food that my Aunt keeps in the house here, and am left wanting the food that I used to eat before we were evicted. I mean I’m not complaining about being fed, and we do donate $200/month to the grocery bill, but there’s just so much bad food here.

They eat a lot of weight watchers food, and they keep a snack drawer filled with sickly sweet “100 calorie snacks”. When my Aunt cooks dinner, she cooks a main dish and at least 3 side dishes. So much food is left to rot in the fridge, and when it’s not it’s just being thrown away. They seem to sacrifice “flavor” for “fat free but still bad for you” chips and butter and sour cream. Instead I’d rather eat full fat sour cream, and just not eat it as often or as much. Or I’d make my own chips out of sweet potatoes and oil and herbs if you want a semi-healthy alternative.

I can feel the affects it’s having on me and I’m very anxious to get back into my regular routine, and slowly adjust to a more healthy diet.

At home I’d make a lot of dishes with brown rice, we’d eat a lot of fruit, I’d cook ONE dish and we were used to eating smaller portions. I’d make green and nettle tea (not all this diet aspartame infused poison that’s here), and our fridge was often-times empty because we’d always eat everything in it and never overload it with food. We wouldn’t eat completely healthy, dad would still eat his cheez-its and goldfish, he’d still buy sugar-free icecream and fix sausage and eggs for breakfast. But we ate a lot healthier than we do here.

Maybe that’s why I am so tired lately.