I didn't think I missed them so much...

I'm really happy to be back again - I don't know if its the fact that I'm earning a paycheck again, or that I see some output from productivity. Tomorrow will be my first work at home day, then there's the nice three day weekend :)

Things seem to be improving in many ways; my husband and I have been having some great conversations and we've been planning more things.

The girl is rolling from side to side, though she can get really mad when she's on her tummy. She's five months old now, I can barely believe it! The boy is playing on his computer now that he's out of school.

Employed again....

My ex boss is writing up an offer letter for me, and I have to fax in the authorization form for a background check. This is a little amusing, since, though HR is letting me keep my original hire date, employee ID, etc (which helps for long term benefits), they can't use my original background check - just in case I've gone out and committed a few felonies while I've been away. I'm happy in lots of ways - this is a part time job and I can work all of 12-16 hours of it from home (20 hr part time job), go in on weekends if I have to do extra, and yet still be an at home mother, home business owner, and yet have a little social interaction with other adults and keep a foot in the door.

Is anyone aware of sites like Beliefnet that have quizzes that can assist in recognizing faiths that work for you?

Oooh! Gila monster to the rescue!

I was fascinated when I saw a news slot about a new drug on the TV. Not only does it help control blood sugars, but it can also help with weight reduction (many diabetes controlling medicines ironically aid in weight gain).

Go Gila, Go Gila!

I'm a what?

My endocrinologist was kind enough to send copies of my lab work/her history of me, etc, on to me so that I can take it when I go to find a GP. She'll send me copies of this usually after an appointment, since she knows I like to keep track.

She thought I was a nurse. This surprised me. She called yesterday to report test results and I told her I was far from RN status. Apparently my medical knowledge (of myself, at least) coupled with the night shift I was working when I first saw her completely obliterated 'computer work'.

The good news:
proteinuria had gone done from 6g to .5g since the end of my pregnancy; prior to pregnancy I'd had a .33g test; we'll retest in six months, and if there's been no additional decrease, she'll put me on an ARB. I'm already on an ACE inhibitor.

My HbA1C was not half as bad as I expected it to be at 7.8%, considering the 210-260 am blood sugars I was getting (I miss the pump), and since I saw her, I've been using lantus, and seen a significant change. We're both hoping that when Avandamet is back in stock, I can drop the lantus and glucophage routine (avandia just costs too much on its own to worry about).

My HDL and triglycerides are normal, and though my LDL was 178 when I saw my doctor in March (good grief, what eggs can do), it'd dropped to 143 by the test (egg whites, baby!). I'm also going to be a participant in a study for a cholesterol drug manufacturer.

Oh, and did I mention how 'morbid obesity' on your medical chart just seems...morbid? :)

Tangent: Schools

Last night I remembered I had an account on Friends Reunited. I'm not a paid member, so I can't send messages to people, but I can view profiles, etc. I spent loads of time looking at the profiles of people who'd included them. A lot of people have changed jobs, own horses, and have even moved elsewhere in Europe. Eddie McNamee even moved to Canada. I read messages people wrote about teachers. A lot of it is bittersweet; there's the wonderful teachers, the strange ones, but then there was all that I didn't like about school; the teasing, the meanness, the dissatisfaction of it all.

I probably won't ever be really happy; but can it be blamed when, during break in primary, we'd all run up into the ferns behind school and play kiss, cuddle, or torture and all the boys would choose torture?! It still lives with me, this pain! ;)

Two Movies

As spouse is sick, we watched multiple movies today; The Village and National Treasure(though we actually saw this in the theater).

Much as I love M. Night Shyamalan's movies, I managed to figure out The Sixth Sense and this movie's secret pretty early on. It certainly didn't detract for me, and still had me hiding behind my fingers.

National Treasure is loads of fun; its like a modern day Indiana Jones movie.

I now have some leads for gourmet grocery stores here. I will be following up.

Pelote à épingles

But this translated back into English is "Winds into a ball with pins".

I had to start of the day with fasting. Certainly not hard if you time it right. I managed to get to the first place for lab work at 7:40am with my filled up container of piddle and the needle portion was pretty quick. However, I'd decided that since I also had to provide fasting blood work for my doctor's clinic (for a drug trial) I'd wait until husband and the boy were out of the house, then I'd take the girl and go up to the hospital and get that done. Easy enough, except I ended up getting pricked four more times; twice more in the earlier spot since it hadn't bruised. I'm so happy I don't live in fear of needle; otherwise, between the lancets, the syringes, and all the blood work, I'd be done. But, I'm sure, there are few diabetics who manage to retain a fear of needles very long.

Also today I have to deliver one of our product to a hospital, in the rain, with the girl in tow. This should be fun! I'm going to wait until this afternoon to see if the rain might stop. Weather.com isn't helping my qualms. Again, let me emphasize the fun: bouquet of candy in a box, rain, baby in a car-seat carrier.

He's going Cruise

I have my IMDB days; these are days when I find myself following a movie that's interesting me, or an actor/actress who I'm interested in looking up a little of. I've found interesting things; I'm sure we all could. The other day I found myself reading about Tom Cruise.

Last night I was finally able to watch a recorded episode of the O'Reilly Factor(what can I say, I'm married to a Republican) which had been advertised as questioning Scientology. Now, years back, I worked for the old ISP Netcom (then Mindspring, then Earthlink) which ended up in a lawsuit with Scientology - I'd like to think old Netcom employees have a special place in their heart for this cult, so news about their ways sometimes perks my ears.

This morning I had a chance to read more on Mr. Cruise's lambasting of Ms. Shields. I was rather surprised to learn that there's absolutely no science behind anti-depression medication. Fascinating.

Movie finished: House of Sand and Fog

House of Sand and Fog was a slow movie; intense at times. I cried a couple of times; the desperation of Kathy's situation, the soul-grinding determination of Colonel Behrani's familial improvement mixed with despondent nationalism, and the tragedies that ensue from bureaucratic foobar, spousal abandonment, and loss of love.

Jennifer Connelly does well in these broody roles, she plays intensity well and yet carries off the detachment from life that someone in bone crushing day-to-day depression would exhibit (or how I perceive it would). Ben Kingsley is adaptable to so many roles that its not surprising he would have done well as Behrani. It was a nice surprise to see Shohreh Aghdashloo again (fourth season 24 was where I'd initially seen her) - she has a lovely natural sultriness in colouring, accent, and bearing that I also see in Monica Belluci. She's also an amazing actress.

I had a hard time with the believability of the Lester character after he enters the Behrani household. Much as humanity is insane, the actions of this otherwise quiet and calm policeman don't seem to be as solid or ring true as Kathy's or Behrani's behaviour.

It was a slow movie, like the fix-up of county messes or legal trouble. It was enjoyable yet incredibly depressing.

Input please....

I'm probably doing this all wrong - I was thinking that my sidebar info could include the status of current projects, such as what I am reading, what movies I'm watching/have recently watched, and so forth. If anyone has suggestions for how I could lay this out better, that would be just lovely :)

Meanwhile, do you know how hard/long it is to work on a blog/entry when your 4 month old is singing and whining? Not easy, I say, not easy.

Inspiration

Someone's blog that was picked up by cruel.com made me think about blogging again. I've been keeping some track of journalling, etc., through livejournal, but I'm not interesting enough to post often enough there, so I thought that maybe I'd try here instead (though journalling is certainly not a way of becoming interesting). Reviewing the ease of which text and links can be done here, livejournal seems cludgy now. I feel ancient though; I had a web page when ftp was as common for http for web pages and writing a web page by hand was the way to do it.

My ex-boss for WF had also called asking if I was interested in a part-time position with them. I'd explained that I would be if there was some work-from-home capability and indeed, she's pushing for that. Included in her newly amended job details that she's using to push the work-from-home-let's-hire-Kerry she's included 'keeping the technical services web page updated' as an item, which means that I should get back into some sort of web-publishing mode, even if its less of the verbose and more of the linking.

I'm trying to lose weight (again). Prior to my parents coming, I'd returned to pre-pregnancy weight, but between their experimental-festive US eating and my love of chinese, it'd creeped back up a few pounds. I'd stopped going to weight-watchers, but I still use the online tools on my palm; I've started logging my food again and in the past five days I'm back to where I was before my parents visit. Now... to lose about 70 more pounds (at least).