Today was game day and we spent 3 hours at the gym, with packed lunches. As usual, Rose's team lost the first game, but it was much better, it was 28 to 24. I really thought we were going to win the second game and I'm not a hundred percent certain we didn't win, because the person manning the scoreboard kept "forgetting" to put our points up when we made a basket but the other team's went up right away and never seemed to get forgotten. People had to keep going over to tell her to put the score up five times during that game. I wish they had someone impartial
running that thing and not one of the parents. Hire a high school student or something.

Anyway, the other team's last basket was made after the last buzzer sounded. It didn't even leave the girl's hand until the last buzzer had started but they counted it anyway. Sometimes we have good refs and sometimes we don't. They weren't calling much traveling or double dribbling in any of the games on any of the teams. Just fouls when they happened, usually. And the refs judged the basket good so the other team won by one point, final score 19-18, though there was a lot of disagreement from the coach and the parents. If we'd had instant replay, I think it would have been different. This is the only team we had already beaten once this system and they just weren't that good. I have no illusion about Rose's team, I know they are less skilled than most of the other ones that are more evenly divided between 5th and 6th graders but it was just a very fishy thing all around.
Regardless it was a good game even if a huge case of ditsiness seemed to overcome both teams at times. It was exciting and fun to watch and that's all I really care about as long as Rose is having a good time.

They had their team photo taken today so hopefully that turns out well. I forgot to ask DH how much it cost as he's the one that filled it out and handed it in. Probably $10 as that is usually how much these things cost. DH took me home after the game and then took the kids off to his mother's house to do laundry and visit, while I rest. Doc said to rest for the next 48 hours, which puts me pretty much to noon tomorrow. We still haven't gotten the dryer fixed or replaced. We probably will when the tax refund comes. Now that we are catching up on clothes, I can do a load a day and hang it on the drying racks.

Oh, I forgot to post yesterday that I went to the doctor. I have a problem with getting chronic kidney infections, its a side effect of the whole medical mess that tried to kill me a few years ago. We have to stay on top of it and I have to go in at first sign of symptoms to prevent further kidney damage. I came close to losing my right kidney at the time, so I'm very careful about this.

So I'm on medication, 2 RX's at $10 each, and these are different ones from the ones I was on last time. I insisted on that as the ones I had last time made me gain 15 pounds of water weight in 2 weeks time. Not fun. It went away after I went off them, but really didn't want to go through that again. It was really uncomfortable.

As for other things medically related, I have been kind of ignoring my exercise program lately, pretty much since before Christmas, so starting on Monday the doctor said I could do stuff again but to pace myself and watch for kidney pain, I am going to get back to it. I will start walking on the treadmill 20 minutes a day and hopefully get back up to an hour by month's end.

I keep wavering on whether I should cancel my Curves membership or not, but if I can just get back in the swing again I know I'll really start using it. Then again, with the treadmill and the weight bench and weights, it also seems like a waste of money sometimes. I don't know. It's kind of my last hold out between financial necessity and what I need to do for my health. We'll see.

I think I'll update my spending journal tomorrow seeing as it is almost midnight.

I don't know about you but spending my morning upside down in a chair while a nice lady pokes my gums with sharp sticks is not my idea of a fun time. I'm not afraid of the dentist or anything, I just find clinging to the arms of the chair for dear life so you don't slide headfirst onto the floor to be sort of uncomfortable. And I'm not a great fan of the suction thingy either. That goes back to when I was little and you used to spit the flouride into a suction device that grabbed onto my chin one time and left it a big purple bruise. Now they use a little vacuum tube, but still I get tense when I hear the noise.

DH went to the big library to poke around while I was at the dentist. Afterwards we took the long way home so we could stop by a farm in Lynden that sells fresh brown organic eggs. We got 2 dozen jumbo eggs for $3.60. Some of them are huge double yolkers, I'm sure. I usually eat 2 eggs for breakfast but with some of these babies I'll be having just one.

We are spending the afternoon cleaning in T's room, excpet Rose, who has algebra homework. I don't think I care for algebra and geometry to be taught in the 5th grade. The basics sure, but this is getting complicated for a ten-year-old.

Aside from the eggs we spent no money today, so it is a low spend day.

I am mass producing lasagnas today, it is a long and exhausting process making these babies from scratch, but I'd rather do several in a day than one at a time anyway, since it pretty much involves getting every pot and pan in the house dirty, not to mention the food processor and the salad shooter, a couple cutting boards and a chef's knife.

But it is coming along and it is sauce time so the house is about to smell very, very good. In the midst of thawing and cooking hamburger, boiling whole wheat noodles, shredding cheese, chopping onions and garlic, digging around in the cupboard to find the big bulk containers of basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, marjoram, sea salt and green, white, and black peppercorns, draining diced tomatoes, making sure there is enough butter to grease all the pans with (hey, this is not low-fat lasagna, after all, even if I am using leanest hamburger and skim mozzarella), I also had to make peanutbutter cookies for Santa Claus.

I did make the peanutbutter cookies a little healthier by using extra virgin olive oil instead of vegetable oil, whole wheat flour instead of white flour, and an omega-3 organic egg. At least they are higher in protein than most cookies. I had one with my balanced dinner and they taste much better than regular peanutbutter cookies so I'm happy. I probably won't eat anymore of them, though.

Well, my break is over. DH has processed more onions for the second batch of sauce. He is crying. Literally, from the onions, so I best go help him out.

By the way my blood pressure is down to 120/80 and I am feeling a lot better today.

Today was a really long day. The good news is that we have completed all of our Christmas shopping and I only have maybe 20 rows left to knit on my Dad's second hat. We did not use credit at all, it is an entirely cash only Christmas.

The bad news is that I have been feeling kind of generally bleh this week, even though the sinus infection is starting to clear up with the antibiotics. This morning (12-22-06) I woke up and my hands and feet were horribly swollen and my face was all puffed up. I immediately went to take my blood pressure and it was 145/95, yikes. Called the doctor and he sent home some samples of a different BP med with a diuretic in it with my mother who just happened to be in the office when I called (happy coincidence, especially as they closed at 12:30 today and I couldn't get him on the phone until noon). And called in a potassium prescription to my pharmacy.

I'm to monitor my BP, which is already down after one dose and if it gets too high, I'm to go to the urgent care clinic. I think this will solve it but it was a little scary for awhile. Most of the time I don't even think about the fact that I have high BP, I just take a pill and eat right and I go along with my life. This sort of thing really throws me for a loop when it happens. Makes me remember that yes, I am still dealing with a disease that causes high BP and with a family history of high BP. Just because the disease is under control 99% of the time does not mean it is not there.

DH and I did manage to pick out a new door knob and deadbolt set several hours later when I felt more normal again. It is really pretty. We were going to go for brushed chrome but when we saw this gorgeous brown brushed copper we got it instead. It matches the brown trim on our house almost perfectly. DH installed it tonight and we now have a front door that opens and shuts again. So much more convenient. We spent almost $60 on it.

DH and I argued about that for a bit. I just wanted to replace the door knobs as the deadbolt was perfectly fine, but HIS opinion was that having a door knob and a deadbolt with two different keys would drive ME crazy. Not him, me. And he didn't want to be changing them out again in a month when it happened. So I eventually agreed with him that it probably would bug me and so we got the full set. For twice the price. Sigh.

I think our EF is going to take a major hit. It isn't going to be as easy to absorb the cost of the new generator as I thought it would. $867 is a huge purchase to just take in without a blip. We'll see. I'm going to try really hard to not touch the EF but I think in the end I may have to sink it down to $700 or so. Sigh, again.

Other spending today included $10 for the potassium prescription.