Parenthetically speaking

[cleolinda]

So my stepfather's family is having a 75th family reunion or something, I don't even know--they are very big on the reunions--and we're now hosting a dinner (more of a grill-out, really) the first week of August as part of the festivities. Originally about ten or twelve people were going to come, but now we're looking at thirty-one, and my mother is PANICKED. My parents are having to do a lot of stuff to the house, partly because our house is just a money pit like that,* but mostly because the dogs wrought hell on it the year they were puppies. So we're having to replace the den carpet (the dogs chewed it up), the kitchen wallpaper (the dogs chewed it up), the slatted door into the foyer (third verse, same as the first), and the ferns the squirrels ate (variety!). Also, we've already resodded the little backyard (again: dogs) and replaced the gardenia and camellia bushes they wrecked (the dogs used to run run run run runnnn around them in tight little circles, and then, when they were done, pass out and nap against them) with azaleas (MY PRETTY SCENTED FLOWERS NOOOOOOOOOOO). And, of course, the Angry Jasmine, which has been buzzcut twice and only come back wrathier, and the yellowjacket nest within that had to be zapped. Oh, and the countertop in the kitchen has a huge crack in it for some reason, and one of the burners on the stove died, so we're replacing both of those (hence the helpful delivery guy with the dishwasher advice). My stepfather's out back sanding out the claw scratches on that slatted door and repainting it, and my mother and I just got back from buying incidentals at Wal-mart--extra pans for the banana pudding, foil pans to keep fifty hamburgers warm in the oven, a few wooden folding table-trays, new towels for the hall bathroom...

* Did I ever tell you that we recently found wadded up newspaper instead of insulation in the house walls? Yeah. I remember when this street was being developed and the houses were being built--my best friend at the time moved here--and apparently our neighbor's ex-husband cut all damn kinds of corners. There's a reason he's her ex now, let's put it that way. God bless this house, I love it to death, but we've had to redo it by brick and stick over the last eight years.

And then... we went to Hobby Lobby. Mom needed to replace some of the raggedy silk flowers by the front door. My God. That is one of the most dangerous, terrifying places I have ever been. We wanted to buy everything. I wanted to start doing crafts I had previously not even known existed. All I needed was craft-safe sealant/varnish and some cheap paintbrushes to improve the sparkle* of a certain vampirus scintilla minimus; I was very good and only splurged additionally on some Glue Dots, but I had to be forcibly removed from the doll furniture aisle if we were ever going to get home. In theory, my mother only needed silk flowers and artificial moss for the artificial tree** (guess who tore up the old moss). That... is not what she left with. All I know is, I hope my stepfather likes $10 Murano glass giraffes, because we've got some now.

* As a point of ever-so-little interest, here's what the previous Secret Life installment looked like before our sparkle got rained out (I never actually tried to take the pictures described). Honestly, I think the version posted turned out better, but there's a nice mental image that got left behind.

** Every single time I pass the fake tree, I make sure to greet it à la Wahlberg. "Hey, tree... you're looking good. You been working out? Say hi to your mother for me."

Meanwhile, I tried the new full 200 mg Lamictal dose on Wednesday. Mid-afternoon, I suddenly felt like crying. Not a good sign. Sounds like it's time to start cutting the pills to get some approximation of a 175 mg compromise--which I hate, because you lose some of the dose what with the crumbling and all. Maybe I'll just cut a bit of the end off (it's a diamond-shaped pill) and call it a day. Right now, though, I've gone back to my normal 150, because I've got something that has to be finished ASAP and I don't have time for this crying shit. On the other hand, I've been feeling a bit manic, which can't be good either. Maybe it's just the panicked OMG REFURBISH energy in the house right now, I don't know.

Comments

[soleta-nf.livejournal.com]

Good luck with the party preparations. That is ... intense.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Yeah, pretty much. Most of the major replacing (carpet, counter, stovetop) will be this week, so my mother's running around in circles at the moment.

[mamapduck.livejournal.com]

When we bought this house in October it had a sprinkler system. It still has most of one, but the wires connecting the control box to the system at large are gone. (The dog chewed it up.) Family room carpet, bathroom door, several dozen rolls of toilet paper... I totally understand the cheerful path of destruction they amble down.

[deza.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to replace the hallway carpet before my knee surgery thanks to my pup.

[sunbrae.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'll just cut a bit of the end off (it's a diamond-shaped pill) and call it a day.

My Lamictal is shaped like a shield with a scored line down the middle, which makes breaking it in half very easy. Does Lamictal come in 50 mg so you can break them in half? I don't know, because I take 400 mg daily, so I just pop two 200s. I hate the wonkiness that comes when you adjust your meds. I feel so off-kilter and hyper-emotional. However, and I realize this is crazy talk, I sometimes think dropping the meds for a day or two so I can bring about a manic phase (and, therefore, have the energy and motivation to accomplish some projects) is a good idea. I haven't actually done it, but it's convenient when the mania comes, because you have so much energy. Anyway. I hope things even out, because the hypomanic shifts really suck.

[deza.livejournal.com]

My mother has a tendency to downplay the pain I'm in from my arthritis. Yesterday I let her see what happens when I don't take the narcotics. That should buy me about two weeks before she starts in with the "all in your head" nonsense again.

Jasmine and hobby lobby

[amaya-kumiko.livejournal.com]

I heard on NPR one day that if you want to trim something down a lot, you need to trim it a little bit every week. Otherwise the plant thinks that it has been ravaged by animals and needs to replace what has been eaten. I think he said like 3 inches a week for a a couple months. So tell step-papa to try that. I know you don't want anything done to it, but the small trimming might calm it down.

Hobby lobby is the devil in craft's pajamas... or something like that. I always need to force myself to leave before i come out with 80 needlepoint kits that i won't ever finish, 30 paint by numbers, and the beginnings of a train set.

[evilsimon.livejournal.com]

What I do for 175 mg is one 150 mg and one 25 mg. Unfortunately, that way leads to two copays.

Edit: Of Lamictal, I mean.

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Heh. "Take two jasmine and call me in the morning."

[farasha.livejournal.com]

Oh my Lord, your house sounds like our house. I swear to Christ that the last person to own our house watched far too much MacGuiver.

I think the crowning jewel was what he did to the formal living room. He had decided to cover up the wallpaper (not that I blame him - red and green plaid on the bottom, floral chair rail, pink and green floral on top) with two different shades of off-white paint - only he didn't seal the wallpaper first, so the seams began to buckle. And when the seams buckled, he just slapped joint compound on the seams and painted over it again. So when we redid the room we had to strip it all the way down to the sheetrock and float the wall again.

Nightmare. Augh.

[mokeyhokey.livejournal.com]

Did your dogs ruin the grass from running/digging or was it burnt from pee?

[funniefriend.livejournal.com]

My dog did both. He was on this tether until we put in the invisible fence, so there's this stripe running down the middle of our yard that is dirt. The rest of it is grass, until you get to where the ivy used to be. That got all peed on and is now ripped to shreds. So we've been doing a shitload of work, what with replanting the grass and putting in hostas where the ivy used to be.

[raberbagirl.livejournal.com]

The draft was good, but the final is definitely better. The "in"convenient rain made me laugh my head off, and I was also wondering if you'd waited for a rainy day to take the picture, or had someone pointing a hose at the window or something. The fact that the moment was genuinely spontaneous makes me admire it all the more! :)

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Heh, thanks. I was actually sitting around waiting for a sunny day after a week of rain and was just like, "To hell with this, we're falling way too far behind if we're ever going to get to [Plot Development]."

[ailaes.livejournal.com]

Hobby Lobby is evil I tell you. EEEVIIIL! I have to be careful I don't get lost, because you will never, never be able to drag me out.

I liked the first draft, but prefer the posted entry. Somehow it makes more sense.

[carolinajoy.livejournal.com]

What I came away with from your post is...

Banana pudding! Extra banana pudding!

[ahirutwin.livejournal.com]

I feel your pain, believe me. D': You think your house had corners cut? Ohhhhhh, I have a story for you. XD

Remember when Hurricane Ike hit last year and the winds got carried all the hell over the country? Yeah. They hit especially bad in my area and caused massive damage. We're talking chimneys being blow off, trees being uprooted, HOUSES LEANING OVER strength winds here. They were so powerful, they literally ripped the siding off my house. And guess what we found?

Nothing. Zip. Zero. Gueeeeeess who didn't even have newspaper? So there was a gaping hole in our house directly to our attic (which thankfully is relatively empty and is only used for storage).

All I have to say is thank God for the insurance company because they saved our asses.

Anyway, good luck with your home improvement. Once it gets started in full swing, it'll become more bearable. :D

Lamictal

[emerybored.livejournal.com]

Have you been on the generic (diamond-shaped) lamotigrine long? Because I always found the transition between brand and generic tough. You may already know this, but while the active medication is exactly the same, the way the original manufacturer makes the pill is different from the way the generic manufacturer does. This sometimes leads to very slight differences in absorption of the medication. I find this particularly true for hormones and psych meds. If you're just switching from brand to generic, give it a little while to settle out.

Also, you didn't mention your previous dose, but if you're going from 150 to 200mg, have your doctor prescribe some 25mg tabs. That way you can titrate up the dose to 200. A jump of 50mg for Lamictal is a lot at once.

I share because I care, and have had my own major experiences with Lamictal. Good luck.

[meredith-mae.livejournal.com]

My parents decided they needed the downstairs lavatory redone (which had last been redone in 1967) a few weeks before hosting the annual Christmas party for my dad's family. It turned out awesome, with custom closet doors and cabinets, new floor, all that jazz. But the guy was still there the morning of the party, finishing up. It was nerve racking.

[kalliopeia.livejournal.com]

And then... we went to Hobby Lobby. Mom needed to replace some of the raggedy silk flowers by the front door. My God. That is one of the most dangerous, terrifying places I have ever been. We wanted to buy everything.

I just got back from there. I went to buy one ball of yarn that costs $2.79. My total before I got out? $40.10.

[fiveforsilver]

Yeah, that happened to me at Michael's yesterday (Hobby Lobby doesn't exist around here, sadly). I went in for one $3 item and ended up spending $35. Oops...

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

Oh man, craft stores are ev0l. Knitting! Crochet! Woodburning! I can't actually do any of that, but I want the supplies!

[edda.livejournal.com]

My life would be so incredibly boring without your LJ posts sometimes, I swear. I don't know if that helps or not, but it's true.

Also I feel in my bones that the giraffes will generate jealousy among the sparklepires.

I'm a Lamictal taker too

[arachnejericho.livejournal.com]

I take Lamictal for a bipolar disorder (well, it used to be a variant of bipolar, and now it's something else, thank you DSM-V). I got both the mania and the depression, sometimes rapidly alternating, before I started taking it. It's very strong stuff, and the limit for just about anybody is 600mg; I currently take 500mg. At 600mg I got a lot of the interesting side effects listed on those medication information websites, and fainted.

Anyways, I remember the randomly crying bit (not at 500mg, at 150mg), so that's "normal"-ish. It happened when I changed a dose in another medication I took (started birth control pills) but I don't know if it was a cause-effect relationship. Perhaps it just took a while to settle in me, but my psychiatrist increased the dose by 50mg, and that seemed to take care of it.

Psych drugs are a pain, but when they work, they are so necessary.

Good luck, and much sympathy from a fellow sufferer (even if we don't exactly suffer from the same thing).

[amaz0n-princess.livejournal.com]

OMG, Hobby Lobby is a VERY dangerous store. VERY. Michael's too.

[cupcakery.livejournal.com]

Ugh, cutting pills. It's really the most annoying part because the needed dose is always between two pills. I've had 45mg of paroxetine as my dosage of that med for about two years now, and I just gave up on cutting them in half and just bite them now.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm a mere piker here, I take 75 mgs of lamictal (actually lamotrigine) a few years ago my doc told me she thought I should increase my dosage by another 25 mgs. I had the crying thing, and started having problems with mania so I told her I wasn't going to do it. I'm the other bi-polar, I get the depression but seldom the mania, and I think I want to stop taking the meds. But then I cut back and go on crying jags. Damned if I do, damned if I don't.

My new ones are round, and I take the 25 mg ones.

Good luck to you. It's hard enough to be crazy without having to live in a crazy making house.

[shesnotallthere.livejournal.com]

Is it possible that you might adjust to the new 200 mg dose if you gave it a couple of weeks? Or is that something you've tried to do in the past and it hasn't helped?

[lady-moriel.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I'm like that with craft stores too--I'm honestly terrible at crafting, because I never get around to stuff, but it's like...so many pretty beads/jewelry fittings! Shiny fabric! Fake flowers! PRETTY...THINGS, I DON'T EVEN KNOW. Of course my current sort-of project, on indefinite hold thanks to the Thesis of Doom, is a Steampunk Barbie, so...that's a little more open to interpretation and therefore easy to go overboard on.

You might want to try a pill splitter on the Lamictal--for a while I was taking 2250 mg of magnesium (for IBS, actually...) which meant cutting one of the pills in half, and that was a huge pain to do with a knife. The pill splitter was like five bucks at Sam's Club, I think, and while it's easiest to use if you're trying to cut a pill in half, it would probably still work to cut some off the end. You get much less crumbling and a much cleaner cut, aside from it being easier to do.

[corbyjane.livejournal.com]

I've seen pill splitters at Wal-Mart, too (not sure of the price, though) and they're really easy to use... my personal dosage has always been straight forward, but a cat I babysat for a week needed the pills cut in half every day, and it was a lifesaver, to be sure.

And... kind of fun to use... in a guillotine-y sort of way... :-)

[la-petite-singe.livejournal.com]

Every single time I pass the fake tree, I make sure to greet it à la Wahlberg. "Hey, tree... you're looking good. You been working out? Say hi to your mother for me."

*dies* "...Plastic. I'm talking to a plastic plant. ...I'm still doing it." Oh, Marky-Mark.

And good luck with everything! That sounds quite stressful.

[tsl-aggie.livejournal.com]

we just recently found termites under our back door, so we pulled out the door and found that the previous owner repaired a similar problem by putting newspaper and foam in place of the wood that the termites ate. it cost us more than double to fix it than what we were quoted.

[roseredhoofbeat.livejournal.com]

Oh man, Hobby Lobby is INSANE. It's an experiment in self-control, I'll tell you that much.