Day 20, I didn't inhale (not even when the devil was rising)

Ok, ok, I had coffee today, but I didn't inhale! By that I mean I got a small cup of plain ol' store coffee (not yummy home made Costa Rican) with some fake creamer. I didn't enjoy it I swear! But I had it because I was really yawny and I couldn't go work in a court room like that.

Loren is right, our lifestyle really requires caffeine because we hardly ever get enough sleep. While I will try to stay off caffeine after Easter I will also try to be more of a grown up about going to bed at a decent hour.

Alright, on to today's menu, I had my smoothie in the morning. My smoothie is like my rock. The rest of the day could go to h*#$ in a hand basket but my smoothie gets me started on the right foot and I know I can count on it to get me through at least 1PM.

For a late lunch I had two, count them!, TWO side salads from Wendy's (I was in between appointments and had forgotten to pack a lunch, but they are nice!, no meat, fresh ingredients, with Marzetti dressing and croutons, which I gave to L1), and I was good about reminding myself to drink water (I don't get thirsty during the day anymore, but then I get really thirsty at night). For late afternoon snack I had a few pieces of dried apples. For dinner I had a generous serving of my Asian Slaw and a glass of orange juice with cranberry juice (about a 7/1 ratio). For dessert I had a few pieces of dried apricots. I must confess that I added a bit of raw Ramen noodles to my slaw, because the original recipe calls for it. I knew it wasn't good but I tried to fool myself with "well, it's raw!". BIG mistake! I had less than 1/4 of the package and I am pretty bloated, ugh. As we used to say in Montana "that oughtta learn me!".

And did I mention I EXERCISED today!!!? I did a short walking DVD (30 minutes) but it uses weights so I get a decent little work out and it helps my back and arms a lot when I do it regularly.

It's been a good day. L2 did not have a fever when she woke up today :) and it has only gone up about a degree. She's had weird stomach pains on and off, so we won't send her to school yet, and we are going to do a few more blood tests, but things seem to be looking up.

Well, this is turning out to be quite the mundane and boring post isn't it?

I've been saving a story just for this occasion! I had a very trippy dream the other morning (right before the start of Day 16, which was crazy enough in itself).

I had been up several times to check on L2 and sit with her to guide her through breathing slowly and deeply, which helped her with the pain and allowed her to sleep for a bit. At one point she fell asleep so I returned to my bed only to wake HER up with my trippy-dream-induced groaning.

First I have to explain that when I have nightmares I try to end them by invoking the name of Jesus (Pilippians 2:10) but if I am not sleeping very soundly then my body tries to actually speak the words and, for some frustrating reason, I can't just say it in my dream. But I am not really a sleep talker, in fact, my mouth refuses to move past falling slightly open, and I end up moaning like a depressed, drunk Wookiee.

Needless to say, L2 was very scared but had the guts to come into my room and say "Mom are you OK?" which, thankfully, woke me up. My husband, in the mean time, instead of waking me up as he's been instructed, would shush me in his sleep with a rapid succession of short and really loud "sh's" (he was still doing it when I woke up).

So here is the dream that prompted all that, if you have ANY CLUE whatsoever as to what it means, please tell me!!:

We were looking at a condo with a female Realtor, she always walked ahead of us. The condo looked like an old house, nothing but fancy dark wood trim everywhere; it was small and the hallways were narrow. As we progressed the place got darker and darker, the Realtor and Loren didn't seem to even notice. I kept thinking, "this is a house, why do they call this a condo? I should look at the outside to see if it IS a condo, because this looks like a house". We went down a hallway and took a sharp turn to the right into a stairwell, on the landing were three tall rectangular windows that made the wall round, and Loren and I said "oh, well, there you go, that's why it is a condo!" (right, see why I need help analyzing this?)

As we started climbing the stairs, first the Realtor, then Loren, then me, it was so dark we couldn't see, so I reached back to the end of the banister to feel around for the light switch. I felt a weird switch and moved it, immediately, at the top of the stairs a fire was lit in what I knew was a large but shallow rectangular "pool" in the middle of the round room. The switch started the fire like you start a fire in an electric fireplace, I knew it was contained and was not worried about it burning anything else. What worried me about it is that the devil (yes, THE devil) was rising up out of the fire, I could see his huge hand with long nails, his skin was periwinkle (I know!!).

I quickly turned the switch again to turn it off, but, for some reason I don't remember (maybe because Loren and the Realtor had continued up the stairs in the dark?) I turned it back on and again the devil started rising. By now I knew there was a satanic ritual going on in the top floor and I was probably already starting my drugged-out Wookiee impersonation. Without climbing the steps I found myself in the room; Loren and the Realtor were looking around at the architecture, as if they couldn't see the devil rising from the fiery pool and the couples that were lying down around him having a Martha Graham-esque orgy while wearing white and yellow unitards (one person in each couple would be wearing white, the other yellow, I knew it was supposed to be an orgy because one woman had an arm and a boob out of hers). They were writhing on each other in very lascivious ways and --right when L2 woke me up-- I was trying to say:

"This looks like a bad 70's movie!"

So there's my dream! I tried to make sense of it but couldn't. I even tried to look at it with the idea that you are everyone your dreams; I just got more confused. Some of the things make a little bit of sense (we are talking about buying a condo instead of renting, I like wood, I like Martha Graham, I don't like the devil or those fake electric fireplaces) and I had just had a Tarot reading the night before from my friend the Undercover Goddess in which she told me to start paying more attention to my dreams, but wow, I am still laughing and wondering.

So, analyze away! and stay away from processed food!