Housework, Hearts and Graduation

Though I have yet to redeem myself in the health department, I have gotten a lot of housework done. It looks like a lot more than it is though. Sometimes it's the small efforts that make the big difference. And sometimes, small efforts are just small. Fortunately, today was one of the former. Fifteen minutes spent in the bedroom unearthed the cedar chest and cleared up some other areas a bit too. Five minutes in the living room, cleaned off the coffee table and part of the dining room table too. I've done truckloads of laundry, and both the kids completed their chore lists, so their rooms look decent too. It's much nicer to live in a clean space. Well� cleaner space. I don't know that I would yet qualify it as clean.

Now I'm tired again. It seems ridiculous that I would be so tired from such little effort, or maybe I'm not giving myself enough credit. Or maybe it's the cookies and itty bit of lunch I ate. Or maybe that heart stuff does more to me than I think. All I do know is I want to rest for something like an hour. I'm pooped.

I got a call last week from the doctor's office saying all my tests came back normal, including the thyroid, electrolytes and echocardiogram. Then as an aside, the nurse said my Holter monitor looked normal too. Now today I get another call saying the results from the Holter monitor were read and looked "effectively normal." Then the nurse went on to say how there were some abnormalities or "episodes" as they like to call them, but because I didn't list anything in my diary, not to worry about it. Seems OK with me, but when I called John to tell him, he seemed concerned. I suppose I could have written a couple times when I thought I felt my heart doing some of its whacky aching stuff, but I seemed to have that more often than not while I was wearing the monitor, so I didn't want to be writing stuff down every two seconds. And let's face it, who wants to be the one writing stuff in that diary and have the doctor laugh at you because your heart is pumping along like a champ. Stupid, I know, but still. I really would have been writing stuff down every five minutes or so. Seemed a bit much when it was just a little ache. I'm really not worried about it.

I won't be telling my mom that the report came back with anything less than stellar results. She worries too much, and even though I waited until after I had the tests to tell her anything at all happened, she still worried. She asked me constantly if I heard back about the results and was quite relieved when I told her everything looked normal. She's had enough worries this year with her grandchild, my niece, coming so close to death and with my brother falling off a roof. She will just have to be blissfully ignorant about my "episodes."

I just emailed to her this weekend to let her know I got a decent rate on a flight to Denver for my sister's graduation. Since we will be on vacation in North Carolina the week before that Saturday, I was able to find a good rate for a flight out of Norfolk, Virginia to Denver then back to Pittsburgh. I thought a 3-leg flight would be outrageously expensive, but it turned out to be only $40 more than a round trip out of Pittsburgh. This will give me one more day on the beach, since I won't have to leave until Friday morning. It's going to be a whirlwind tour, because I arrive in Denver Friday evening and go home Sunday morning, but at least I get to celebrate my sister's special day. She'll only graduate from high school once. Plus, it saves me an all day car ride back to Pittsburgh that Saturday. John will be going it alone with the two kids, poor guy. I've done it many times though, so I know he'll survive.

I'm not too keen on him taking Booie into the men's restrooms, so I hope he does the caravan thing with his mom or brother and family. He never listens to me though, so he'll probably be exposing our 6-year old girl to penises and urinals. I think I might have to push this point, maybe even tell his mom to insist. He still listens to mommy.

But back to the graduation� it's hard to believe my sister is graduating. There is quite a gap between us, and she will forever be etched into my mind as that sweet little 5 to 6-year old girl. Of course, she is quite offended by this, being eighteen this year, but it doesn't mean I treat her like a child. Sometimes the brain just seems to take snapshots in life, and hers is from the time when I moved away from home. I wasn't in the house as she grew up, and she's lived in Colorado for so long that she's more a cousin or a niece to me than a traditional sister. I'm closer to her than a cousin or niece, but I'm not close to her like people generally envision sisters to be. There are fourteen years between us. People used to ask me or just assume that she was my daughter when I took her places with me. That's not the makings of a sisterly bond. Still, I love her immensely, and I do wish we weren't so far apart in miles, even if we are far apart in years. I'll be interested to see where life takes her from here.

Sitting here reflecting on my sibling relationship has not made me any less tired. I'm afraid it might be an early night for me. I hope tomorrow will bring me a little more energy and a lot less sugar. I guess the sugar part is up to me. If the change in weather from gloom to warm and sunny is any indication, maybe the weather will cooperate with my plan to get back on my diet and exercise program. Until then, I need to lie down for a while.