All of my doctors are through my hospital, so they all write notes in the same computer system, which means they all can access all of my records. I find it incredibly helpful, and I do think it has made coordination of care MUCH easier, which I really needed--especially when all of this started six years ago.

This is just SO sensible, and I wish it were more widely practiced. Among other things, it's got to be a big help in avoiding drug interactions among patients being treated for a variety of conditions.

ION, when I went to the doctor on Friday my pulse was down about 20 bpm from what it's been the past couple years--66 instead of 85-90--and my bp is down too, though not as dramatically. It's 130/80 now when it had been running 140/90 or even 140/100. I haven't yet made all those lifestyle choices I promised my doctor at my last physical, the things that were supposed to give me a chance to fix the issue on my own rather than put me on bp meds several years before I turn 40.

Anyway, I'm trying to decide where to place the credit. At first I thought that at the physical I was still new enough to my current job that all the stress from the old one hadn't worn off yet, because it's made a HUGE difference for me. I mean, the new place isn't perfect, but I don't dread each new day when the alarm goes off anymore, you know? But then I wondered if it's being on iron supplements, because it was the bloodwork from my physical that revealed I need them. Like, maybe part of the problem with my bp and pulse before was my heart was having to work too hard because my blood wasn't as oxygenated as it should be?

Anyway, I'm feeling newly motivated to get on that whole exercise and eat better thing. If I can just get 10 more points off each of my bp numbers, they'll be pretty good.

Good for you, Susan, whatever the reason for the improvement!

Today's my mom's birthday. Happy birthday, Mama!

Mom is putting together furniture for me (a new cabinet thingy I bought to help organize all my craft stuff), and she moved my baker's rack into the kitchen from the dining room to rearrange the dining room as more of a crafty nook. I swear, I might not recognize this place when she's done.

Timelies, Bitches.

Can your mom come down here, vw?

Dear ikea:

In Sweden, apparently you have elves with little tiny fingers who put together shelves. We don't have them here.

Frustratedly yours, Me

You guys are gonna be so glad when I’m better and back to just bitching about school and tutoring and too much on my plate!

Yep.

Hey, guess what?! This morning (what, it's before noon) I got up and came out to the living room and looked out my window, and sitting on the edge of the garage across the street was the biggest raven. It was HUGE. Then it turned its head, and it wasn't a raven at all. It was a juvenile eagle sitting on the garage across the street, just looking around without a care in the world. The more I looked, the more I could seen the brown and gold mottling, which was just beautiful. Alas, I'm pretty sure that if I took a picture, it would have looked like a black blob on top of a black surface, so the word picture will haveto be enough.

Sometimes, I really love living here.

Persey was wonderful at the vet today! Everybody loves her and the sneezing should subside within a week.

Annabel threw our laptop off the couch on purpose. Because she wanted to sit on that cushion.

This happened while I was running errands. DH gave her a long time out and took away her TV privileges for the day, but...you know, this is the first time I think I've been truly angry at her, as opposed to just frustrated and/or stressed because she won't go to sleep or is acting up at daycare or whatever.

I know she's been given her punishment and understands that what she did was wrong, but I'm having trouble not lecturing her over and over on how she has to know this is bad because computers aren't toys to Mommy and Daddy; we both use them to work, and until the laptop is fixed we won't be able to work at the same time, and if we're wrong about the terms of the maintenance plan we're pretty sure we bought, we might have to pay a lot of money to fix it, and we don't HAVE a lot of money and so on.

Anyway. DH just left to take the laptop to Best Buy. I'm not as upset as I could be because I'm so obsessive-compulsive that I back up my manuscript to gmail every day that I work on it. And I can always write longhand if I have to until we have two working computers in action. But still. My daughter dropped a computer ON PURPOSE.

The good news: The maintenance plan will cover the repairs, so no charge to us.

The bad news: We're without a laptop for a week or so.

Since Wednesday, we've had a broken car, a broken heater, and a broken laptop. We only had to pay to fix the car, but still...things need to stop breaking around here.