My iMood today is hungover. For two reasons.

1. Yesterday I had our mock PRT. The PRT is the Physical Readiness Test, given every 6 months. I have neglected working out in the worst way…I have a laundry list of reasons as to why I don’t work out but ultimately, there is no excuse and I need to be working out at leastthree times a week. My weight is horrible, I am always tired, I feel awful, and yet I can never seem to work out. So when I DO have this stupid PRT, I inevitably feel like I’ve been hit by a Mack truck…and a train…and landed on by a 747…and then steamrolled for good measure. The result of yesterday’s PRT was no exception. Beside failing my run miserably (which was really frustrating because I did not stop one time to walk and yet I failed it by 2 MINUTES!), I barely skimmed by (though I did pass) on the situps and pushups. And the worst part is the post-workout.

The second - literally, a second - after I stopped running, I felt an intense pressure in my head and I KNEW it was going to lead to a migraine. It was like the top of my head needed to be cracked open so it could release some of the pressure. I walked about a quarter mile cool-down and took it easy, took a shower, got ready slowly, but it was still there. The ride back (an hour and 10 minute drive) didn’t help anything as I felt mildly nauseous from riding as a passenger. When I finally got home, I thought it was subsiding, but that only lasted about 10 minutes…when the pressure finally lessened, that was when the migraine set in. And that leads to my second reason of why I feel hungover today.

2. A migraine I wouldn’t even wish onto a republican. (this is followed by a wink to all my republican family). It set in quickly when the pressure subsided; we had just finished eating dinner and I started a bath for the kids. While they were in the bath, I was trying to finish up some paperwork for Isak’s PTA fundraiser and could not write. I laid there for a few minutes trying to block out all the light and must have fallen asleep because when I stood up, I felt a little better. I got the kids out of the bath, got them ready for bed early and let them read books with the light on and asked B to turn the light off at 8. At 7:44 I took my last Cafergot and went to my bed and laid down.

At 8:30, I was crying.

At 9, B came in thinking I was asleep and tried to turn on the TV, not knowing that I was not sleeping and not slept at all yet.

At 9:30, I was throwing up.

At 10, I was contemplating calling an ambulance because I had no more medication to take and I could not deal with it anymore.

At 10:30, I was throwing up again.

At 11, I looked at the clock again for I believe the last time before finally falling asleep.

I slept soundly (I am usually up a couple of times each night) and woke up at 5:30, just before my alarm went off and thank god, it was gone. I still have the hangover I get from bad ones, where I can’t do stuff like shake my head or jump up and down, and I still feel “off”, but at least I can function. I still want to lay down and take a nap because I don’t feel right yet, but at least it’s nowhere close to what it was last night.

Lately I’ve been thinking about why I haven’t gotten this all fixed yet. If you read regularly, you’ll know that I am doing more now to get help than I have in the past, but I’m still hesitant to go to the doctor. Earlier this week, I realized exactly why that is.

In probably about 2000, I went to my doctor for my migraines. He prescribed me Midrin. Midrin made me sleep and not be able to wake up for hours. When I woke up, my migraine would be gone, but I couldn’t be out for hours at a time. So I went back to my doctor and told him this, and his response was that since I have these migraines and the Midrin didn’t help, maybe I should get a medical board and be out of the Navy?

That was not at all what I wanted, and his response made me wary to talk to anyone again about it.

So now, 5 years later, I’m going to my doctor who says that he doesn’t think I have migraines because there’s just no documentation of them.

I’ve been twice now and was prescribed Cafergot (which only works if I sleep when I take them, which isn’t ideal since I do have a job and a family), and then Effexor as a migraine prevention medicine (which made me horribly nauseous and have no appetite whatsoever, not to mention IT DIDN’T STOP THEM). I’m afraid to go in again and have the same reaction as I did in 2000, but I can’t keep dealing with these.

I’ll post again if/when anything changes.

Right, so I posted a while back that I was entering a digital photography exhibition at the Mukilteo Lighthouse Festival.

The pictures I ended up entering were these:

and

There were probably 40 photographs entered altogether and there were cash prizes for the top three photographs, with 3 honorable mentions given as well. While my efforts did not earn me a cash prize, I was ecstatic to see that I had been awarded an honorable mention!

The exhibit was juried by only one judge, which I don’t think gives much of a “juried” result, but in a way it made it even more an honor to receive any acknowledgement at all. Because there was only one person’s opinion, the final result is based on that one person’s opinion of what is and is not appealing. I didn’t particularly care for the top finisher, nor the 2nd place, but that was OK with me. Art is subjective.

Aside from that, I was disappointed with the running of the contest: The prospectus clearly said that all photographs MUST be matted with a plain white mat, framed with a thin metal or wooden black frame, and that each artist could submit no more than three pieces. So why was it that the winning piece was matted with a black mat? and that there was one person who submitted no less than a dozen pieces?

At any rate, it was a very exciting experience for me, and was one more item to cross off my list of 101 things to do in 1,001 days (#7: Have a photography exhibit somewhere).

We finally got our orders to Spain (as I posted the other day). Since we are going overseas, we all need to be cleared both by medical and dental to go.

We hardly take our kids to the doctor at all. We’ve been very fortunate to have two extremely healthy little kids - last year, Isak only missed one day of school and that was to catch their plane for Christmas. I can’t think of the last time either of them has been sick with more than a low fever for a day or two. We went to the doctor after the car accident but other than that, they haven’t really been to a doctor since 2002. I was interested to see how they did on their medical exams.

First they got measured and weighed - Isak was 3′10″ and 52lbs, Anja was just shy of 3′8″ and 48lbs. The kids are 22 months apart and are very close in size - when they charted their height/weight, I was shocked! Isak measured in at about the 70th percentile for weight and about the 40th percentile for height, which was not at all surprising to me as he seems very average in his class. What shocked me was ANJA! I hadn’t really thought about it, but dang, she seems very average for Isak’s first grade class too! She is off the charts, people! She was at about the 90th percentile for weight and way off the chart for height - about 125%! Funny thing, I was 125th for height as a child, too. Will she be tall like me when she gets older? Will Isak be of the same stature as B when he gets older? I can’t wait to find out.

I wish I had my camera when the nurse took their blood pressure and temperatures. I have never seen Isak’s eyes so wide as when he was getting his temperature taken! He just stared up at the nurse with Precious Moments eyes with the thermometer sticking out of his mouth. I was surprised Anja kept her mouth shut long enough for the 3 second thermometer to take her temp.

Our doctor came in, appearing to be a cross between a hippie and a doctor. I liked him immediately. He says to Anja, “Hey, man, how’s it hangin’? How ya doin’? I’m Dr. So-and-so,” and grabbed her hand and shook it (to which Anja replied in her cute little Anja voice, “It’s nice to meet you.”) He did a general look-over and proclaimed they are both healthy little kids - something every parent loves to hear.

He talked to both kids about strangers which I appreciated. I talk to them pretty often about it, but it’s nice to have a authoritative figure (because we all know that when you’re 4 or 6 years old, your parents aren’t much of an authoritative figure, LOL) tell them this stuff.

They both got shots - Anja flexed to show the corpsman her tough-girl muscles in between shots, and Isak tried his very hardest to not let it bother him - and we left with bandaids, stickers, and smiles. All in all, a great visit!

The following day they had their first ever visit to the dentist who said they are doing a great job taking care of their teeth. That is always a relief to hear. Hopefully they’ll have my luck with dental issues and not have any cavities growing up! Too bad that’s not still the case…

One step closer to Spain!

B took Isak to a birthday party and my cousin and his girlfriend who are in town visiting decided to go down to the Market, so *I* decided to make more Christmas cards (funnn!) It’s just Anja and me together, and she is playing and in and out of the living room watching a movie; I have the Food Network off to the side on to watch - or rather listen to - the cooking challenge (chowder, yum).

Anja made one of her in-and-out visits to the living room. She started doing a little dance, and then turned off the television, pulled up her shirt so she could see her belly button, and really started dancing, in front of the turned-off television.

I asked her: “Anja, what are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m just wondering, whatcha doing?”

“I’m just showing off my coolness.”

> S N O R T <

I finally got around to putting up the pictures of Isak’s black eye in combination with his missing tooth. His cheekbone still hurts a bit - that is such a sensitive and painful spot to get hurt! He’s a trooper, though - he never complains.

The bruise made its way up to the inside corner of his eye and it’s now turning this greenish yellow color so I’m guessing it’s on its way off.

Black eye, missing tooth, freckled face cutie:

Niki came over last night and we had a lovely sleepover. We started the night at Lasting Memories buying fun new stuff and then we came home and swapped lots of little embellishments. By the time we were done doing just that, it was very late and we decided to go to sleep.

This morning I woke up and felt off, and I knew I was going to get a migraine. Since I didn’t have a definite one right away, I decided to pull back out my scrapbooking stuff and start on a few Christmas cards. I got a couple done and my migraine set in. Niki took Anja to Cruisin’ Coffee and I snuck in a quick-ish nap while the boys played a new Playstation game. I woke up feeling much better, and I was in the mood to create!

Niki and I made cards (well, I made cards - Niki made just one, the card to end all cards) from when we started at 1 until we stopped at 6ish. I am very excited; I came up with about 10 different designs which means I could duplicate a couple of each cand have more than enough to send out for the holidays - and I’m already over halfway done with the cards for my holiday card list!

The best part is that I LOVE what I’m coming up with. I usually come up with only one card and make multiple copies of it; this year I decided to make multiple versions and make only a couple of cards of each. I am finding that doing it this way is causing me to have a much simpler style which I absolutely love.

I’m not posting anything high-res since most people who read my blog are already on my card list, but here’s a little preview of the general look of this year’s cards…let’s just hope they make it in the mail early enough to get there for the holidays!

I also made a tag tonight for a gift for a birthday party Isak is invited to tomorrow. I had a gift bag already and wanted to come up with a tag that complemented the colors and the style, and I am so excited about what I came up with!

I’m so excited to be creating again. I can’t wait to make more STUFF!

I have a whole long post that was nearly completed about Isak and Anja’s well child checks yesterday. With only a few more minutes of typing to go, I had to save it and close it so I could attend mandatory training.

Anyone who has been in or is currently in the military recently knows all about mandatory training. One word: Yawn. The same safety briefs over and over again. The content is usually good and to be valued, but the presentation usually leaves something to be desired…and it’s usually repeated annually.

Today’s training was on family violence. It was mandatory, in a way that mandatory usually isn’t pushed (this was for all commands on base, not just the Naval Station, and was videotaped for anyone who was on duty and unable to attend.) I wasn’t entirely too enthusiastic about it because I had other things to do (you know, like finish my blog post about Isak and Anja ;)), and we had to stand around and wait in a humongous crowd in a small area and it just put me in a bad mood.

We sat and the speaker was introduced. He was the first man at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst to earn a minor in women’s studies and he travels the country lecturing on men’s violence, most often in colleges and universities. Of course, when they said he has appeared on Oprah, my ears were peeled. His name is Jackson Katz, and he founded a program called “MVP Strategies”, which is the acronym for Mentors in Violence Prevention.

His lecture was one of the best I’ve ever attended. He made it clear that not all men are abusive, and that not all abusers are men. He also said that while not all men are abusive, the vast majority of physical and sexual perpetrators are men, and that is what his lecture was going to discuss.

He talked about how we, as a society, tend to turn a blind eye to men who commit sexual and physical abuse. And, as he pointed out, if we do not do something to STOP a behavior, we are thus enabling it. The example he pointed out was racism: If you see a person treating someone of a different color differently based on their skin, but you choose not to speak up about it, you are basically an accomplice.

We were given a believable, hypothetical situation: You’re at a party and see a man putting the moves on a very obviously drunk woman. It’s clear that she does not appreciate his advances - what do you do?

So many people believe in “it’s none of my business”. But is that the right way to think? What obligation do we have to the intoxicated woman? What obligation do we have to the man? My thought after sitting through his lecture is that we have an obligation not to the individual man and woman, but to society as a whole: If we turn a blind eye to a situation that we know has the tendency to turn ugly (perhaps behind closed doors), what message are we sending? Similarly, if we have the courage to stand up in the situation and let it be known that it is unacceptable to take advantage of someone, no matter what their situation, what kind of message does that send?

Another really powerful point he made was that we refer to domestic violence as “women’s issues”. We teach women and girls how to defend themselves. We teach women and girls what they should do to prevent these sorts of things from happening to them. But what are we doing to prevent these behaviors from men and boys?! Why are these women’s issues? It made me think - I can recall plenty of times being taught in school and in the military how to defend myself, but I have never in my life seen anything teaching men not only not to hurt women but also to not accept other men hurting women. And yes, it is a family’s responsibility to teach a child their morals and to teach them that this type of behavior is unacceptable, but if a family fails to teach their children, should we merely accept that “that’s just the way it is”??

The final part of his presentation was from a brief clip from a production he’s involved in that discusses how the idea of what is manly and what is womanly has changed since the last generation or two. I’ve tried to find as similar pictures as I could to show his point.

Intimidating
ca. 1941 : ca. 2003

“Tough”
ca. 1960s/70s
ca. 2000s

“Sexy” women
ca. 1955

ca. 2000s

Action figures (the caption and picture explains it all)

With a comparison of how the toy sizes compare to the sizes of a real man:

**ETA: It is important to add the significance in this observation. The size of the “ideal man” based on media portrayal of what is “masculine” with the increasing stature of these toy man-figures and celebrity figures has become proportionate to the decreasing stature of the woman by the portrayal of what is “feminine” by the media’s standards.

So men get bigger and women get smaller. Men’s appearances become more threatening and powerful and women’s appearances become more vulnerable and waif-like.

Interesting observation.

All in all, an extremely fascinating and very, very much-needed lecture on “women’s” issues, from a man’s perspective.