Sherri Cornelius

This meme has been going around Facebook, so I finally succumbed to the pressure of multiple tags. I thought I’d copy it here on my hub blog. (Darcknyt, my response to your award is next in the queue!)

On with the meme:
1. I’m old enough to have to count back to remember my age. (In case you young people are wondering, that started around age 34.)

2. I had my cancerous thyroid removed in 2003. I miss it and secretly hope it grows back. I also worry about the end of civilization because where would I get my replacement hormone? I can make soap from ash and lard, skin a rabbit, and build a shelter, but I can’t make those little pills that keep me alive.

3. I’m insecure in professional situations, because I say things like “Wow, I just had deja vu” with no warning.

4. I feel WAY skinnier than I am.

5. I love watching decorating shows, but my walls are off-white, I have literally 3 pictures through the entire house, and my furniture came from garage sales and Salvation Army.

6. I hate marijuana. I hate the smell, sight, thought of it. (Haven’t seen it in a long while, but I smelled it last week, and every week, at the grocery store.) It makes me sick to my stomach. I’d rather watch somebody shoot heroin than smoke a doobie. My reaction to pot borders on PTSD. That said, I am for legalization. It makes logic sense to me, if I can set my emotional sense aside. I just threw up a little in my mouth, saying that.

7. I walk on the treadmill in shorts and a sports bra. My kids love it because they have 45 minutes of free access to my belly fat.

8. Most days, my biggest excitement is having a successful BM. Woo!

9. Some days, though, I get mail, and that is pretty exciting.

10. A small number of days involves correspondence with my agent, which is like a shot in the arm.

11. My 16yo step-daughter thinks it’s funny how I know the words to every song that comes on the radio, especially when it’s a “young” group.

12. Yesterday I came down from my office to find a horse tied to a tree in my yard. I patted it on the nose, went inside, and it was gone a couple of hours later. Never saw the owner.

13. I believe you can do anything you want, but not all at once, and not all successfully.

14. Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy adequate healthcare and good food and a nice place to live and a reliable vehicle.

15. As I was typing the above, this Twitter notification appeared on my screen from the Dalai Lama @OHHDL: ‘Quote of the day: “Happiness is not something ready-made, it comes from your own actions.” ~His Holiness, the Dalai Lama’

16. I hate school fundraisers with a passion. They reward children who have large networks and/or plenty of money, and the poor kids are penalized AGAIN.

17. I’m excited at the possibility of thunderstorms this afternoon.

18. I love to watch Spongebob Squarepants over and over.

19. When I’m around outsiders I often feel/seem stupid and slow because of my reaction to common household fragrances.

20. I think a lot of “mystery illnesses” like fibromyalgia, autism, and depression are caused by chemicals in our environment and food.

21. I need to shave my legs.

22. I knew 25 things was too many.

23. One of these days I hope to be “off the grid,” i.e. completely self-reliant for power, water, food.

24. I have a hard time reconciling my love for technology and the horrible things we’ve allowed to happen to the environment in our pursuit of it. I could say the same thing about money.

25. I have probably 400-500 books in my house and in storage, and I still have nothing to read.

I hope you all are still awake! I’m sure I’ve forgotten things that might have been more interesting, but I’m hitting publish anyway. Not tagging anybody because I think all my friends have already done this one!

Things I’m thinking about today:

• American Idol. I love, love, love Kara dioGuardia (the new judge). A lot of my favorite contestants got kicked off last night- Rose, Osmond, Girl w/Pink Hair-and a bunch I didn’t like are gone as well-Bikini Girl is the only one I can remember right now. Good ones who stayed are Norman Gentle, Guy w/Cool Sideswept Black Hair. Bad ones who stayed: Tatiana “Obnoxious Girl”.
• Busy life. I’ve become a lot busier lately. Been going to the doctor, getting car repairs done, picking up kids from school functions, writing more. I’m glad. I was bored.
• Dumping people. In my last post I was talking about letting the toxic people go, either by chance or by design, but I realized this morning that calling them “toxic” was dismissive and not entirely true. The word implies that there was something wrong with each person, or that I hated them, or that they’d done some injury to me. Really, those weren’t the criteria for letting these people go. I had to assess my own reactions to each person’s involvement, ask myself, “Do I feel off-balance when interacting with this person? Do interactions with this person cause me to act in a way that is out of line with what I want? Am I getting as much as I’m giving? Have I been honest with myself in previous assessments of this relationship?” You see it really had nothing to do with the people themselves, but with my needs at the moment. I realize that sounds really selfish, but as a person who automatically neglects her own needs, even for complete strangers, you might forgive me. They aren’t bad people, and I miss them. FWIW, since I made the decision to assess my relationships with brutal honesty, I’ve felt more stable, more comfortable, more in touch with myself.
• My doctor visit. Going in for a follow-up on the sinus thing. Got a better dose of thyroid hormone a few days ago, and I already feel better in that regard. I <3 thyroid hormone. You do too, you just don’t know it.
• 5 Essential FireFox Plug-ins (oops, broke my rule about linking while walking.)

And that’s it. Sorry I rambled. These “Thoughts from the Treadmill” posts always make me nervous, because I never edit. What if I said something that will make someone scream at me? *cowers, trembles, hits publish*

PMS is a huge part of my life. I’ve refrained from speaking of it too much for a couple of reasons. First, I know it makes some people uncomfortable to talk about bodily functions. You’ll notice I also don’t tell fart jokes here, even though I tell plenty in real life. Second, to dwell on it would feel like wallowing in self-pity, which I try not to do.

Over five years ago I had my huge-ass thyroid gland removed because of a few little cancer cells. Once the thyroid is gone, of course, one has to take replacement hormone every day. Forever and ever. Amen. Which means I’m chained to a doctor for regular testing.

It helps to have a doctor who actually listens to me because an imbalance in hormone can be a subtle problem, immeasurable by an outside source. Oh, sure, they have the “normal” range of values in a blood test to go by, but the range is relatively large, and the tweaking is all about how the patient feels. My old doctor wasn’t good with symptoms like shortness of breath, hair falling out, feeling crazy. His best work was done when I was able to point to a lump or a rash or a sprain.

(I hate you, old doctor. Hate your pompous, self-important, making-me-suffer-for-five-years ass. I told you. I told you, mother frakker. GAH!

Better.)

Thank the gods I finally have a doctor who actually listens to me.

I think this kind of “yes, dear,” head-pat doctoring happens to women a LOT. I know how I feel, doc. Just because you can’t find the cause doesn’t mean I’m a hypochondriac. Just because I have monthly hormone fluctuations doesn’t mean it’s all in my head. So I’m in the “normal” range, so what? I feel like crap, doesn’t that count for anything?

(My husband did it to me just last night. I’ve been working on my eating habits, and I mentioned that I was giving myself a little leeway since that time of the month was nigh. I said I always get hungrier, and maybe my body needed a few extra calories to get through. He said, “Sounds like an excuse to me.” I replied, “A reason is not an excuse,” and then I punched him in the face. Just kidding.)

After five years of being made to feel like a hypochondriac, I finally have vindication. My new doc lowered my prescription a lot, and I feel better than I have in years. I don’t feel neurotic (or as Dwight so diplomatically put it, “focused”), my hair and skin are not as dry, my appetite is under control.

And the biggest deal of all hit me yesterday when I “started” with only a hint of PMS. Every month, growing worse as the years go on, my period has been telegraphed two weeks before by anger and craziness; a week before by incredible bloating; and a couple of days before by stomach problems, cramping and such. This month, I figured it must be time, but I didn’t feel crazy at all. My appetite had increased a couple of days ago, I’d gained a single pound, I was sort of tired. I just figured I would be slammed soon enough with the full cocktail of my usual symptoms.

Surprise! That was it. The extent of my PMS, and I’m so relieved and happy and joyous. My love for my new doc burns with the intensity of a thousand suns. Maybe you folks don’t quite understand the root of my joy, but that’s okay. I feel it.