Breathe or Blog?

Because the month of August has been unusually hectic, my poor blog has been neglected. I've barely had time to breathe, let alone blog. OK, that isn't really true, I've found time to read other blogs. Reading doesn't require the energy that writing does. Reading the words of others helps me relax, writing makes me think to much.
Three of the four Things started school this month. Original Thing and Girl Thing started on the 1st. They started a new school that I am pretty happy with. Thing 2 started his second year of preschool on the 13th. Thing 1 will start preschool later this week or next Tuesday. They will both be in Special Needs Preschool for speech therapy. They were evaluated last year and Thing 2's speech delay was much more pronounced than Thing 1. I asked the school district to reevaluate Thing 1 a few weeks ago and they determined that he barely qualified but that he could benefit from preschool as well. So now they will both be in school but in separate classes. Thing 1 will go in the mornings and Thing 2 in the afternoons.
The day after Thing 2 started school, we moved. We've been looking for a bigger place for a while now but of course I didn't start packing until everything fell into place. We found a house that is just a mile from where we used to live. It's much bigger and will cost us a lot less monthly. We found it 10 days before we moved so everything was last minute. We are adjusting to being in a new place and trying to find time to clean out/up our old house.
The new house is almost perfect. The only problem is the people who lived here before us must have had a cat. My house smells like cat pee! The carpet was cleaned right before we moved in but the smell was still there. I tried this, this, and this but the last two only seemed to make the house smell worse. I even bought several Method Aroma Pills (mmm, the cut grass fragrance is nice, and was on clearance at Target). I think the carpet just needs to be replaced. My mother in law bought me a black light so that I can find the source of the nasty smell. Now all I have to do is find something to get rid of it, something that actually works.
In between the move and the children starting school, I have been attending more than my usual amount of births and going on interviews like crazy. I am a 1 (2 at the most) birth a month kind of doula. I had 2 August clients and 2 September clients. So far 1 of my August clients gave birth (my first twin mama!) , both of my September clients had their babies (one was 5 weeks early) and my last August client's due date was last Wednesday.
Hopefully I will make the time to blog about these births. I have lots of thoughts about them. I have learned so much from these women and their experiences.
Girl Thing was also in a pageant this past weekend. Yes, one of those. Sigh, I feel a bit of shame every time I tell someone about it. That whole experience is definitely a blog post waiting to happen.
Wow, I feel like I'm talking to a friend I haven't seen in a long time. I've got so much to talk about. I'm looking forward to finding my inner writer again and keeping my readers (if I have any left) updated.

It was a gallbladder attack!

That's why I was so sick the night of the Twilight Zone episode. That whole "gas pain" thing had happened to me before. Even though it had kept me from sleeping many nights, I always thought it was just really bad gas. The attacks were so infrequent that I never figured out what might have been causing it. TZ night was so bad that I finally decided to get it checked out. I went to the doctor and was scheduled for an ultrasound yesterday morning. Unfortunately I had another attack in the middle of the night so Hubby took me to the hospital. I cried all the way there. I remember saying "I need a doula!" I almost called a couple of my doula sisters but Hubby reminded me that it was 3:30 in the morning. By the time I was finally seen, the pain had subsided and I was starting to feel a little bit silly for being in the ER. The doctor and nurse said that what I was experiencing was actually very common for gall bladder issues. The fact that the pain had gone away pretty much confirmed that it was my gall bladder. They ran a bunch of tests and I had an ultrasound. Sure enough, I have gallstones.
Now I have to figure out how I want to treat this. My conventional doctor said "Get thee to a surgeon so your gallbladder can be removed!" I really don't like the idea of removing an organ, even one that is causing this much pain. I'm waiting to hear back from my naturopathic doctor to see if he has a better solution.
Either way, I really want to figure out how I can avoid hurting as much as I have the last couple of nights.

I promise!

I have so many ideas for posts running through my head. If I just had a laptop I would write more frequently. I hate sitting at my makeshift computer desk. It is not conducive to creative writing.
I have 4 births to write about as well as my many other "deep" thoughts.
I know that I'm on the verge of some serious power blogging. Just bear with me, please.

By the way, Thing 1 and Thing 2 recently turned 4. I can't believe my youngest children have grown up so quickly!

O.T. (Original Thing) taught Thing 1 to call people Fart Gas. It's not a nice name but it's not the worst thing you could call someone, unless you do not speak clearly and it come out sounding like F*ck @ss (try it yourself, just take the "rt" out of the phrase). I'm not sure I want to stop him from saying it because it just sounds so wrong but cute at the same time. Bad Mommy!

A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That...

It's been way too long since I've updated my blog. My dear friend Jenny's bad habits are rubbing off on me.
Now that I'm actually sitting down to write I have so much to talk about but not enough time or energy to creatively put it in written form. A good friend of mine (one of my cool writer friends) suggested bullet points. I think that is a great idea. I will write about all of them more detail as the urge to write comes to me.

• My trip to the Midwest for my sister's birth went well. I got there in plenty of time. The birth was beautiful. My niece is beautiful. I got to come home a few days early, and my family survived.

• I attended another amazing birth just a few days after I got home. I actually had a lot of fun at this birth even though I was up two nights in a row. I was one of three doulas there and the other two are a couple of my favorite friends. We had a blast. It was a VBAC and the mama ROCKED!
  

• I decided last night that I am seriously in LOVE with John Mayer. So much so that I will overlook the fact that he is rumored to be dating Jessica Simpson.

• I have two clients that think they will be having their babies within the next 48 hours. This should be an interesting week. Two more births to write about. Fun!
  

• Thanks to Jane, the song Game of Love by Santana (featuring Michelle Branch) , is stuck in my head. This one will require lots of thought (and maybe some soul searching) before I write.

• I need to know more about North Carolina, lots more.

Ok, I thing that is a good start. Hopefully this will inspire me to update my blog more frequently.