I have 12 minutes until I have to leave for the dentist. Today I’m getting fixed what the other dentist screwed up. Even though I know this dentist is wonderful & has worked on every one of my immediate in laws I still feel the old familiar anxiety creeping in. (now 11 minutes). I feel as though the last dentist undid all the progress I had made on this particular phobia. I know it’s going to be fine, but man, (10 minutes). Hopefully it won’t take that long, hopefully this time I won’t feel it, hopefully I won’t cry O_O.  (9 minutes).

If I can finally get over this phobia that means that I really only have 1 left. Sharks. I want to go snorkeling in Australia before I die, but I’m scared to death of sharks. When did this happen? I would like to say when I visited my best friend (8 minutes) while she was stationed in Virginia, but I remember when I went to Mexico with my mom when I was about 6 and REFUSED to get off the boat and get into the water a bit off shore because I was too afraid of the fish.

My mom will laugh (7 minutes) and tell you that it was because when I was in kindergardn we went to the beach & a sunfish came up & pulled a scab off my knee. All because (6 minutes) I was “attacked” but a sunfish at 5 I now fear sharks. Nice huh? Yeah, I agree, it’s messed up.

Well time to face one phobia. We will work on the sharks later.

What are you irrationally afraid of? (5 minutes)

Watching National Geographic like I usually do on Saturday nights (yeah I’m a dork with no life but it works for me) I saw a commercial for the Geonography Project. Seriously cool science. I ordered my kit and am actually really interested in seeing where they track my DNA to.  It’s kinda spendy, but I am using birthday credits. You should definitely check it out, this kind of project on this kind of scale is majorly cool.

Good lord I’m pooped today. To bad after work I still have to go and finish cleaning & hole patching at the new house. It’s worth it because tomorrow we are painting & then we are almost ready to move in, but man. I’m pooped.

So pooped that I have not taken pictures of the last 3 things that I have finished knitting. There hasn’t been much knitting content lately huh? Yeah, sorry about that. I will fix that this weekend with an uber fiber filled post. Promise.

I need some help though. I’m at the end of most of my WIP’s and another maybe 2 days of knitting with leave me with only 1 thing on the needles. My constant 2 row at a time lace ribbon scarf (Though I just checked & I’m 1/2 way done!!!!).

I want to knit 3 sweaters, and don’t know which one first. I need you knitters help!  Actually, I dug and found non-ravelry links for people who don’t know what the sweaters look like from the name alone. Please give me your opinion. I want all three of these before we hit the grand canyon in september.

1. Forecast in beaverslide worsted in red. (And I mean screaming red)
2. Central Park Hoodie (With no hood as I’m not a hood kinda gal) in Lambs Pride in a lovely olive green
3. Oblique in beaverslide worsted in purple (Seriously purple)

I will also be casting on for the Gentleman’s Half Hose soon.

Have you ever run, and I mean run out of a dentist office horrified? I did today. I heard my mother’s voice come out of my mouth when I stated “Just patch it back up because I’ve had enough, I’m leaving!”

First, after telling 3 people specifically that I’m a high anxiety patient with a phobia of people ripping out my teeth and that I needed the gas BEFORE the novocain the dentist still came at me with a 3 inch long needed with no prior gas. Fully alert & freaking out I almost successfully launched myself from the chair. (I tell you, those little asian women are strong!)

She got the gas and left the room with her hygenist and her receptionist to yell at them, all with in ear shot. Hi! Thanks for adding to the tention! I’m freaking out!

Coming back she numbed me up. Two shots, like I asked for. Funny how she had to prepare another one after her little talk with her minions. Gassed & calming down, forcing myself to act like a rational calm adult I told her “lets go, this is about as calm as I get.”So she takes me off the gas, then proceeds to make molds of my teeth (this could have been prior to gas, prior to numbing, I’m not afraid of silly putty thank you very much!) and then wander around the fucking office.

All the while, the nice stupor I was enjoying from the gas is lifting, and I am more & more aware of the situation.

Finally she comes back. Hi, gas has worn off, I’m not calm because you didn’t start while I was. I can remain calm if they start when I’m not a nervous crazy lady. Once they start, I’m good. I haven’t cried at the dentist in over a year! Now I was literally balling.

She starts the drill. Um, hi, Yeah, I FEEL that. What’s with the water? This HURTS! I litterally had to push her off me. WHAT THE FUCK?!

Third shot of novocain. People, you could hit me with a mac truck & still not calm me down. I’ve never needed this much novocain before my nose is literally drooping. Do you know how disconcerning it is to see your nose drooping?!

She tried again to drill & I called it quits. I can still feel it, I’m done. She couldn’t understand. I’m fucking balling my eyes out & you can’t understand. Nice.

Balling all the way home in the car I called Dr Razi (who I should have gone to originally but couldn’t get on the phone as they were closed that day) and made an appointment. June 6th I will probably be having a root canal, but at least by someone who can deal with anxiety/ and numb resistant patients.

I wrote out a complaint to 1800 Dentist and I am warning you all here & now. 1800 Dentist is the same as the yellow pages.  At least with Yellow Pages you can see how much money a dental office has by the size of their add.

Lotus Dental Services of Ventura is terrible for communication and terrible for high anxiety patients.  Way to se a phobia back a year.

The cleaners decided that after they quoted me a certain amount which I thought was quite reasonable, they were going to try to tripple it, so I told them to litterally take a hike.

Tomorrow & friday I am cleaning. Joy. The scandinavian in me just wouldn’t allow someone to clean my house for 3 times my car payment. Well, a little dirt never hurt anyone. That’s why they make rubber gloves and bleach right?

Tons of knitting is happening, but I’ve been too lazy to photograph, this weekend, I promise.

Score one for 1800 Dentist. I always scoffed at the commercials because, seriously, I had a major phobia of the dentist.  When I was about 14 my dentist hired a new hygienist. Now we all know a good hygienist or nurse are worth at least a billion times their weight in gold. Doctors & the actual denists are iffy, it matters, but not so much as they would like to think. The nurses are the ones that give you the shots, draw your blood, and make sure you have every prescription slip you need. Hygienists clean your teeth, take x-rays, make sure you get enough gas (as a fearful patient) that you can relax & let them do their job, and basically everything that the actual dentist get’s credit for.  Generally, people’s fear does not come from a bad dentist (because they barely talk to you) it comes from unfriendly dental hygienists.

I had a bad one.  I have a condition where I loose the enamel on my teeth far quicker than normal wear & tear.  It’s not because I don’t brush or floss or mouth wash (which I do religiously) it’s just something I have.  Now you should note that I have never had a dental fear before this, but miss new hygienist decided that she knew more than I did (or my chart) and began trying to scrape away “the tarter” on my teeth. What she was trying to scrap away was the diffrent layers of enamel, with out any sedative.  My mouth hurt for a week and my dentist had to actually fill in places in my teeth where she had worn down past the enamel.

Nice huh? This is also the same lady that told my mother that if she didn’t quit loosing her crowns they would have to rip out all her teeth & give her dentures. My mother was a union carpenter in Minnesota for 30 years. The first woman union carpenter. If you have never been on a job site you may not know what you breath in. You may not have experienced blowing your nose & having it come out black. I have, and your mouth becomes gritty. Dirt & sand particles get in there & wear the hell out of dental work. Every guy I worked with dealt with this. It’s not like she was going in at night & trying to rip out her damn crowns. I still hope that woman was fired.

Thankfully while living in Ohio a coworker refereed me to her dentist and it changed everything. This man would sit me in his chair, slap the gas on me & leave for about 5 minutes. After 5 minutes of laughing gas you don’t CARE what they do. Then he would shoot me up with 2 shots of Novocain to make sure I didn’t feel anything at all & was done in an hour. I saw him about 3 times before we moved & am basically over my fear.

Last night I cracked a tooth. *Damn you curly fry! Why do you thwart me?!* and desided that I had to be adult enough to get this taken care of right away. Trying to call my inlaws dentist all morning resulted in 5 calls to an answering machine. Screw you. So I called 1800 dentist. Crazy. They found me a dentist that is close to my house, is open saturday (SATURDAYS!) and is skilled with high anxiety patients (which means they use gas ).  This makes me incredibly happy.

I get the same satisfaction out of a completed dentist appointment as I do getting new tires for my car. I feel strangly and proudly adult.  Car mantinence in any form makes me feel this way but if you met my stepdad you would totally understand.

Why do I write this? Because I know I’m not the only one who has issues with the dentist. One of my co-workers has been schedualing & canceling dental appointments constantly in the 3 years that I’ve worked with her.  Sometimes it just takes one great person to get the ball rolling and a fear to subside. I thankfully had a great dentist in Ohio and I’m thinking this one in Ventura is going to be good too.

Today I did something that I have thought about a couple of times, but never followed through on. I always felt it was a little bourgeois and I’m young enough to do this myself, but today, I hired a maid service.

Matt and I took a first look at the house we are moving into with out all the previous occupants crap. Well, that’s what we thought we were going to look at, but the previous occupant hadn’t finished moving out her treasures (by treasures I mean crap). The movers are finishing it today and I’m going over after work to assess the situation. Again. 

My attitude going into this is that anything not moved by the movers is trash, and I’ve filed my paperwork, and have secured a flight plan for this crapola to be airborn for exactly 5 seconds before it hits the massive dumpster outside.

So the cleaners are coming tomorrow. 3 people, 3 hours. I fear they will be there longer. Not for money concerns but for the dirt. People, this place is dirty. Like crack house dirty.

“But the house is great! The yard is huge! 3 bedrooms! 2 Baths! A Fireplace! Loads of closet space! A weird little atrium that the Mr can turn into a cigar patio!” These are the things I scream in my head when I see the dirt.  I’m not posting you the 150 pictures I took of the house. I may do a before & after, maybe, but I know I will get comments like “WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING?!!!!”

Maybe it’s because both the Mr and I are handy. That we can tell the big jobs from the HUGE jobs and we know how to handle them.  Maybe it’s because the Mr and I both have art back grounds and can imagine how it will be better than most. Either way, we are probably crazy, but people, this is going to be a great house in a year. Seriously, a great house.

So yeah, the cleaners are coming tomorrow, and I should be getting a quote to lay down the travertine tile (it came with the house) today. I’d rather do the tile work now instead of cleaning the carpets (which man, need a miracle of modern science) but you know, money issues, it all depends.  It would be easier to get it done before we move in the furniture, but I’m not holding my breath.

Painting this weekend. We are going in & painting everything the same color, then when we are moved in & can finally relax I can add my colors back.  I tell you, I miss my orange rooms from Ohio (though I will never paint orange again! it’s so fucking hard!) and I miss my perfectly brown walls of my living room, and my bright cheery blue guest room (which I don’t seem to have a picture of) and my slate grey master bedroom (though it was probably a little too dark in retrospect).

  
I loved my Home Depot Orange!               Dark, but pretty

And I will re-create this room in the new house. I love this color of brown more than anything & it makes the couch & Matt’s paintings look fantastic! We do need new lamps & a better coffee table though. (God I miss this house *sob*)
What color goes with poop brown? We have poop brown tile counter tops in the kitchen & well, they are poop brown. How do I make them look less like poop in the mean time?

PS A huge thanks to Miss Becky who has some of the best connections of anyone I know The Mr was majorly impressed about the contractors last night. Now I just have to wait for them to call  

I’m not much of a haggler. If there is a price, and it’s too much, I walk away. I don’t like to haggle. Some people do, and they thrive on it, I don’t.  This last week I haggled, not because I thought I had to, but because it just seemed to happen.

That haggling saved me 500 dollars a month in rent. Score one for the home team! So June 1rst we should be moving.

9 months ago our family run company was sold to a major United States Bank.  9 months ago, our former company gave us 2 weeks (can you imagine, 2 full weeks, oh the generosity!) to pack our 3000Sqft house in Ohio and get our butts to California with our jobs intact, but not our minds.  Those 2 weeks broke me.  I was happy in Ohio, happy with living close to my cousin (who has become one of my best friends) and my friends I had made. HAPPY. And in 2 weeks it was suddenly all taken away.

I’m not sure exactly when the sun peaked through.  I know that I had the emotional equivalent of drowning for quite a while.  Life has never hurt that much, and looking back it still brings tears to my eyes, though not because I’m sad, but because, god, life really hurt.  I didn’t know you could feel that way.  But you can, obviously, and left untreated it does end many good lives.  I’m not sure when I decided that “enough is enough” and I was not going to live that way.  I know the pain didn’t last that long in the grand scheme of things, maybe a month? Maybe 2? but it felt like forever. 

Then slowly, like the tide, the hurt started to recede. Slowly the ocean pulled back and I was finally able to breath.  My true self emerged once again, changed maybe, but still me, and pulling myself up by my boot straps, dusting myself off, I resumed my life how I wanted it to be. Life has definitely started getting better and now, I can honestly say I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

I could never have made it through all of this with out the love and support of my family.  I come from a family that, while we love each other as all families fundamentally do, it wasn’t the way in which my husband’s family loves.  My mother in law in particular has a way of reaching deep into the very depths of you and wrapping your heart in love.   My father in law props you up, dusts you off, and pushes you forward.  He asks the hard questions, and forces you to move with the tides, all the while he is there to catch you if you should trip. 

My husband, he’s my savior. my rock, my best friend, my heart and soul.  With out these people especially, (There were others no doubt!)  I wouldn’t have been able to make it. I wouldn’t have been able to find the surface.  I will eternally be grateful that I was allowed to have these amazing people in my life in an absolute time of need.

Last night talking with my mother in law about family and how they are different (even if they don’t think so, I mean come on people, they really love you, unconditionally, no matter what, under any circumstances) and how we are finally all un-circling the wagons. It took us all about 9 months, first it was me & Matt basically getting kicked out of our jobs and our house, then Ally’s had to build an ark just to make it out her front door with her child and husband in tow and finally, we are getting back to normal life.  It really makes you see that family is what really matters. No matter what, they are going to be there.  I’ve also learned that when this family accepts you into their flock they do so completely.  What a new feeling.

A randomly racing heart and strange sharp abdominal pains that don’t seem to be going away, no matter how I ignore them.  I guess it’s probably best that I see a doctor. Sometime, maybe, if I get around to it.  It might also just go away. 

Seems like the tide is going out. Those that know me know that I may be a grump for a while, but I will come back out of my shell. Sometimes you just need to pull back from certain things to regroup. 

All in all, life is fine.  Still kickin it in sock wars.