It snowed! Like, once. What a weird Utah winter this year. I'm glad we got enough snow, even if just this once, to test out the snow tires we thought we'd need living up by the foothills (they work great), and to test out the dirt pit next door to see if it's sleddable. Great news: it is! Basically we live next to a big water retention bowl that isn't grassed. Luckily, if we get enough snow it is still a blast for sledding, and at least this year, we had it all to ourselves. I hope we can get one more big snow this year so we can invite the cousins over for a sledding day. The hill closest to our house is the perfect size for little ones, and then the hill on the other side of the pit is 3 times taller and steeper--a blast for the big kids. I love having the ability to immediately run back inside the second the cold became too much for Alice and warm up with some cocoa. I also loved that the next morning, Jack could run outside and sled the morning away while I stayed warm in my house and could easily peek on him from the kitchen window. It's a winter dream come true. The Pit is one of my favorite things about our house.
We also got to introduce the kids to ice skating at Jared's work party this week. His employer invited everyone to come to the Olympic ice oval in Kearns for dinner, a magic show, and ice skating. They also had curling lessons, but we ran out of time for that before we really needed to get the kids home for bed. For me, ice skating is an activity that I always think is going to be fun . . . but then it kind of isn't haha. Don't get me wrong, I loved the experiencing of watching my kids experience ice skating for the first time, but it took half an hour to go one lap around and everyone was in pain by the end--Jared's back from hunching over Alice to hold her up, and my ankles because I have terrible skating form. Jack and I hovered on the edge, at first unable to really stand up at all, but by the end of the first lap we were a little faster and no longer hanging onto the wall. The kids loved trying something new and are begging to go skating again soon. I do think it would be fun to get Alice in a lesson but doubt it will happen this year.
And now for some pictures:
It has been a busy, no-breaks Presidents Day and I am exhausted, so we'll do the brief version of blogging today. Jared still has to work on Presidents Day, but the kids were home from school. Thank goodness for living near so much family and so many cousins now--it would have been a miserable day without that support system. We spent the morning playing on the beach of Utah Lake. It was a bit chilly, but with coats it was fine for playing and skipping rocks and collecting seashells. We even found some steel wool and driftwood and lit a fire in a fire ring. Afterward, we brought one of my nephews home with us, and he played with Jack all afternoon in The Pit by our house while Alice took a truncated and then woke up absolutely miserable and livid.
Alice is officially phasing out her nap and went 4 days in a row last week with no naps. My free time is withering away. I do demand a quiet time in place of the nap, but it only lasts half as long. Her short nap today wasn't quite enough to make up for the sleep deficit. I was hoping to be able to accomplish some cleaning and maybe buy Jack's birthday presents on holiday sales this afternoon, but not a chance. Luckily, more siblings/cousins for the children came back for dinner and Alice perked right back up again for another few hours of play time. Bless. This was heaven sent since Jared didn't get home from work until 7:00 p.m. It's a good thing I got used to him being gone for every weekend, holiday, and special event during the entirety of his 7 years of medical training. Working 12 hours when everyone else gets the day off isn't my favorite, but we're still fresh enough out of training for me to know it could be much, much, much worse. I've seen some things, man.
Other than that, it's been an exhausting but gratifying week. Jared and I attended the Thanksgiving Point Valentine's Dinner Dance again, which is a highlight of our whole year. I also convinced my brothers to save me and help get our powder bathroom trim and sink installed before Jared's parents come to stay with us soon. I feel like a burden has lifted from my shoulders now that I don't have to look at our unfinished main level bathroom every day.
Ok, let's get to some pictures:
We have really enjoyed the warmer weather this past week. We have gotten out to parks and even spent a lot of time playing in the dirt pit by our house. Exciting stuff.
Jared got home early one day and was able to come with me to my blood draw. My results came back in and everything from my blood draw looks normal besides slightly low Vitamin D levels. My tilt test results came back in as well and are consistent with POTS. So at this point I wait for my followup appointment with my cardiologist next month and figure out where we go from here. Unfortunately, this unseasonably warm weather has meant unseasonably early seasonal allergies for me, which in turn seems to amplify my POTS symptoms. Something to talk about with my doctor I suppose. But basically . . . I just feel so mentally foggy all the time compared to how I used to feel before we moved back to Utah. I don't know if my spike in symptoms was triggered by the new environment, or by the immense stress surrounding our first move and then rolling into our second move. Either way, I'm hoping to start being able to regain some mental clarity soon. There is a lot on my plate right now and I don't really have the mental wherewithal to keep up with everything I want to, so I end up feeling overwhelmed a majority of the time.
That said, life if good. We had family dinner at my uncle's family to watch the Super Bowl this afternoon. I treasure these big dinners with extended family. Every time I'm able to add a piece of art or some window treatments to our house I feel a little boost, a little more settled. The warm weather is bringing out the best in our home's location too. I love being able to send Jack outside with a friend or cousin and say, "Have fun, just stay within sight of the house," and know that provides an ample range of hills and trees and dirt pits for him to explore. I love where we landed. I don't love our powder bathroom sitting stagnantly, waiting for trim and sink installation and then more painting. HATE. It was supposed to be an easy project, finished the week we moved in. And now it's a headache, but I'll figure it out. And then I'm going back to design jail for a while and banning all home projects...besides, you know, installing the entirety of our yard by this summer. Ugh, I feel tired just typing that out. Who am I kidding, I feel tired alwaysðŸ«
But now, some pictures from our week:
It has been a week of doctor appointments, hospital tests, and a missed/rescheduled appointment for Jack. Oops. Hate all of that for me. Monday started out with a cardiologist appointment to try and get to the bottom of my POTS diagnosis. Unfortunately that appointment was just layer two of what is turning out to be a many-layered medical onion. Let's do a quick POTS recap of what it even is (this is for me too--I can never remember what it stands for):
- Definition: "Postural" (position), "Orthostatic" (upright), "Tachycardia" (fast heart rate), "Syndrome" (group of symptoms).
- Mechanism: The autonomic nervous system does not properly regulate blood flow, causing blood to pool in the lower body and the heart to race to compensate.
- Symptoms: In addition to dizziness and tachycardia, patients may experience brain fog, fatigue, palpitations, nausea, and trembling.
- Management: While there is no cure, it is managed through increased fluid and salt intake, compression garments, exercise, and sometimes medication.
My cardiologist recommended a lofty hydration goal, a lofty sodium/electrolytes goal, and introducing creatine and co-q10 to my daily regimen. He also wanted me to take an official, expensive, hospital-grade tilt test to be ultra sure POTS is the main culprit of my intense brain fog/fatigue/dizziness over the last year (really it's been on-and-off over the last two decades, but at a crippling level this last year). Then I'll need to get a bunch of bloodwork to rule out anything else. I know both these things are important in getting a precise diagnosis, but I hate them. I'm grateful (also grumbling) that they were able to squeeze me in for the tilt test this week while Alice was at preschool, so there was no need to figure out babysitting.
A tilt test is where they admit you to a hospital, strap you to a table, stick a bunch of probes on you to measure heart rate, blood pressure, and oxygen, then tilt you upright to see if you pass out. If you don't have an autonomic nervous system disorder, you will probably just stand there bored for half an hour. Maybe a slight bump in heart rate at first, but then basically just boredom until they lower you back down. If you do have an autonomic nervous condition...pretty much it's a "let's see how fast you can pass out" situation. I think I lasted 3 minutes. It was very bad. I DID NOT LIKE IT. I was pretty nervous in the days leading up to the appointment, because there's something that feels sinister about passing out while strapped upright to a table. I don't know, seems like a torture thing. I wish Jared would have been able to come to this one.
The real test went, unfortunately, worse than I had been imagining. I had to admit myself to the hospital, they told me I couldn't eat anything for the 8 hours leading up to the test (that felt like overkill--I would have passed out just fine without the fasting), and then during the test they're like, "You can/should talk to us and tell us how terrible you're feeling, but we aren't allowed to respond or say anything to you. Ok have fun, don't pass out, actually do!!!" Then they tilted me up slowly. Again, nothing crazy. Anyone without POTS would be bored. Within a minute I was lightheaded and could feel my heart racing. By the second minute my hands were cold and my vision going blotchy. By the third minute I was like, "My arms are numb. Everything's going dark. I can't do it, I can't do it, can we stop??!" Hyperventilating, fidgeting in my straps to try not to pass out, and then I don't know if I fully passed out, but I also don't really remember the next few seconds. They lowered me down and stopped the test, which they said they would only do if I passed out, so I guess it counted.
After being lowered down, I was shaky, freezing, and my arms remained numb for probably 5 minutes. It took me back to my hospital stays after giving birth. I was fully bedridden during the entirety of those stays and could not stand up at any point without passing out. I had to be wheeled out of the hospital with my babies 2 days after giving birth, each time, to not pass out. It makes me so sad for past Laura to know now that there could have been help for me. At the time I just assumed not being able to stand up without passing out was a typical postpartum experience. You really don't know what you don't know.
After my tilt test, eventually they helped me ease off the table and get out of there, and then I went and cried in the car for a while before driving home. For lack of a better word, it was just a really physically and emotionally cold experience. At home I cranked our thermostat up to 78 and it took me hours to warm up. I felt dizzy for the rest of the day and pretty much laid down and watched a bunch of movies, which is strange for me.
My biggest fear is that I didn't last long enough for them to record the numbers needed for an official diagnosis. I don't think I could go back and do another tilt test again. For my stand tests in the past, my heart rate was observed over the course of 10 minutes after going from laying to standing. I did have to hurry and lay down to avoid passing out halfway into one of those. Without lasting a full 10 minutes, there may not be enough data for them to look at. They are looking for a heart rate spike of 30+ bpm over 10 minutes when going from laying to standing, with blood pressure remaining pretty stable. I have another appointment with my cardiologist for next month after I get my bloodwork done. We'll see what he has to say then I guess. In the meantime, lots going on to keep me distracted! Let's leave my medical saga behind and get to some pictures:
^^Alice wore one of Jack's old white button-ups on Sunday and looked like a fashion girl.
We have window coverings in our double-story family room! This is the point in the move when I do a big exhale that I didn't realize I was holding in. Window coverings make a big difference for me in how I feel in my home. There is a walking path behind our house that looks right into our main living areas. It feels nice to be able to close that out, especially when it gets dark outside and I don't know who might be looking in on us. Probably no one, but I still like the cozy feeling of closing the curtains in the evening.
Getting the curtains up was an UNDERTAKING with a capital every-letter-in-that-word. Definitely the most dangerous home project we've done so far. We should have rented scaffolding or hired someone to install the curtain rod, but that's a hindsight thing. In the moment, 3 ladders, 2 brothers and 2 sisters-in-law, and my parents felt like overkill "just" to install some curtains.
We have always used copper pipes as curtain rods in our homes. In our first home in Wyoming this was a budget decision since copper was pretty cheap at the time. We really came to love the color, sturdiness, and ability to cut them down to an exact size so we don't have to deal with curtains getting snagged on extendable rods. So. This was a really tall room and would be holding 18 feet worth of curtains. I knew we would need a long, thick piece of copper. I'm grateful to my brother Peter in the plumbing industry who was able to help me secure this 20-foot-long, 1.25" thick pipe and have it delivered to our house. The curtains were the first thing I purchased for this home, just after our offer on the house was accepted three months ago. So once we had the pipe and hardware, we just needed the manpower. I bribed my family over with pizza and put them to work. It seemed like a good idea to put the curtains on the rod first and lift the whole thing into place, but that ended up being too heavy. But they did it anyway somehow. I am shocked no one ended up at the hospital. But wow, now we all have some memories and sweat equity in our home and we LOVE the drapes more than we even thought we would. They make our house feel fully like a home, and it's nice to have this warm linen tone against all our white walls to warm up the space.
And now for the pictures!
It's been a good week! Jared took the kids to visit his cousin in St. George over the weekend while I spent a good chunk of time putting some desperately needed organizational systems in place and a few pictures on the walls. When the kids are home, it's pretty much survival mode 100% of the time, so it was very appreciated to be able to make some house progress. I will say, even if I unpack and organize 10 boxes (which is about what I did, since most of them were miscellaneous boxes, yikes), it feels discouraging to look around and still see a sea of boxes. It's going to take a few months before it feels like we're really winding down on the unpacking, and that's ok. Last time around it took a full 6 months (it's a task that is TOUGH with kids). Jared and the kids had a great time in St. George too. Jared's cousin has a 6 year old son whose energy matches Jack's impeccably. They played and played and played.
We are also making headway on our backyard plans. This is the year of exciting things that are giving me a logistical headache. Feels like each backyard decision holds a lot of weight when it's our forever house. It's also tricky because the whole backyard is on a steep slope, so leveling and retaining walls will be involved, and expensive. This year we're hoping to level and add retaining walls, plus a patio and a bit of grass. We'll see if there's room for a fence in the budget after that. If not, we will be adding the fence next year.
I ran out of cloud storage for my pictures, so today we get Jared's camera roll until I get to that!
We've had some cold days this week. Jack is going to be able to tell his kids he had to walk home from school in freezing hail, uphill both ways. Really it's just uphill on the way home and not too far, but it's a pretty steep hill. We're building character.
Sometimes it feels like we've got a really long ways to go until we're unpacked and settled, but Tim and Abby came over to help us bring in more boxes and unpack one evening this week, and just that one evening has me feeling way further along. I love living near family. Our kids all played great together during the witching hour, so it was a win-win-win for everyone.
Speaking of family, my brother Peter got us a plumber discount on a 20-foot copper pipe to use as our curtain rod in our great room. Now we just need the bell hangers to arrive and we'll have window coverings on all the crucial windows.
Most of my "free" time this week was spent (a) hyperventilating because I am surrounded by a thousand little projects I'm dying to get to but can't because kids. Specifically, kids in the peak of the toddler stage. And (b) becoming a landscape designer. Jared is starting to get bids to have our backyard done this summer. I figure if we're starting from scratch, now is going to be the most cost effective time to get it right. We will have to do the backyard in chunks over the next several years because it is sloped and therefore expensive, but knowing what we want it to look like down the road will influence what we need to do this first year. It's fun work to dream it all up, but it's taken several late nights to pour into several landscape design books and figure out the logistics. Hoping to get the ground leveled/terraced, some grass and patio put in, and fence up this year. Fingers crossed. And now for some pictures from our week:
Another week come and gone, and I suppose another year come and gone too. This has been one of our busiest holiday seasons yet, between the move and family activities. We have had a wonderful time, and it feels good to be starting fresh in a new year--one that will not have a big move crammed into it. Last year I set several resolutions about unpacking and other such things. This year I'm going to try not to put too much pressure on settling in, and just accept that it will take time. Instead of resolutions I'm trying the thing where you choose a word for the year. My word is "unwind." We'll see how I do. I have become quite wound up after many, many years of big life events one after the other. This year I am taking several deep breaths, maybe unpacking here and there, hopefully getting the first bits of a backyard put in, and then taking some more deep breaths. Maybe I'll take up weaving again. Wild stuff.
Jordan and Amanda's family came to visit this last week. The kids were in heaven. It's always sad but sweet when we drive away after saying our goodbyes at the end of the week, and hearing Jack fall into tears in the back seat. This is extra sweet since he's our tough guy and doesn't do a lot of crying usually, but the bond he has with his cousin Asher is special. He always cries after an Asher goodbye.
I was grateful to have family over to our house for a playdate this week. We had initially planned to host New Years Eve, but frankly I chickened out because our house feels pretty chaotic to me at the moment, and my parents hosted instead. But lots of family came over the next day, and helped us put away our giant tree and get our bigger furniture pieces put into place, and Amanda helped me pack the Christmas decor away and shared some organizing tips while our kids got absolutely filthy in the muddy backyard. It feels like a weight has been lifted going fresh into the New Year this way. We still have a long way to go settling into our house, but I'm taking a *deep breath.* One step at a time. And now for some pictures from our week:
