Sheep Guarding Llama

Sleeping without my CPAP makes me a much lighter sleeper than I have probably ever been.  I am so used to the noise of the compressor running right beside my head that now anything that I hear causes me to wake up immediately.  It is a bit of a problem.  Last night it was legitimate.  I heard Liesl wake up and start crying so I was in her room in minutes, before she was really even awake.  She had had an accident and her diaper didn’t hold up so her bed was wet.  So I cleaned her and changed her and brought her in to sleep with us.  That was three thirty in the morning.  Only about three and a half hours of sleep for me.

I ended up being unable to get back to sleep.  I lay awake in bed until nearly five hoping that I would fall back asleep but it never happened.  So finally I got up and just went into my office so that I could at least get some work done since I was already awake.

Today was a crazy busy work day for me.  So much to do.  I was incredibly productive though.  So that worked out, in a way.

I worked the entire day and really got no time to hang out at all.  A bit exhausting.

This afternoon I stayed home with the girls and Dominica took Oreo to his vet appointment.  His vet is more worried about him that she has been previously.  His mange is back really bad, not that it ever went away to any degree.  She has him on new, gentler medicine, more anti-biotics and has us feeding him as much as he will eat without getting sick.  We had felt that he was getting too thin and were slowly upping his food intact as it was.  But now we are giving him much, much more.

It’s Friday.  I have my calendar blocked off because I have so much work going on that I am unable to get my head above water and no way to catch up at all.

I got up early this morning, around seven, so that I could get back to work.  That was just four hours of sleep.  Not horrible but not as much as I would like.  Dominica said that I snored just a little bit as I was falling asleep but did not snore during the night.  So that is good, I just need to keep up the weight loss and hopefully I will never have need of the CPAP again.  We will be monitoring that closely for the next two weeks leading up to our trip.

I worked for about two hours before going into the office.  I am already over halfway through reading “In Tuscany” and will likely be done with it tonight.

I came home at lunch and worked on projects like crazy.  I got a ton of work done and feel good about my lunch time progress.

This afternoon at the office was busy, as to be expected as it is Friday.  I ended up having to work until around six thirty.  Except for Nicki, I was the last one in the office.  She is traveling to New York this weekend and isn’t coming back from there until three days after Dominica and I head up there. So I will not likely be seeing her again now until July.

On the way home I ran over to Brookhaven and picked up Friday night dinner.  That is becoming our accepted ritual.  Friday night take out from the club.  This evening it was soy glazed tilapia.  Dominica is always happy whenever they have tilapia.

After Luciana went to bed I made a run to Centennial to pick up some Tres Leche for tonight and then ran over to the yogurt shop and got Dominica, Liesl and I some frozen yogurt.  I came home and we all watched the movie Morning Glory which Dominica has been trying to get me to watch with her for months.  I had some time since the two big jobs that I needed to do were still running and were not ready for me.  One is a database load that has been running all day and the other is a file transfer that has also been running all day.  I check on them periodically but after a full day of running they aren’t likely to be wrapping up “any minute.”

We were in bed around eleven thirty.  When I put Liesl to bed tonight we tried something new.  I read her one of Hans Christian Andersen’s faery tales, a short story like she normally gets, but then instead of ready a few short stories I started reading to her from the book “Rabbit Hill” which I read in my childhood.  We didn’t make it very far before I noticed that she was asleep in my lap.

I did end up finishing “In Tuscany” tonight and since I finished both sequels I went back and started reading the actual book “Under the Tuscan Sun”.   I had skipped it as I have seen the movie but now that I am reading it I realize that the movie is really not even loosely based on the book.

My latest article on Datamation was published this morning: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love BYOD.  My article is the main headliner this morning and my article from January is still on the front page of Datamation as well.  This is my first time with two articles running at one time.

Dominica is starting to panic a bit about how much luggage space we are going to need to be able to carry everything while in Europe.  Things are taking up more space than she had planned.  She is working on a “packing light” article for our new travel blog Kidding Around Europe today.  She also ordered new stickers that have our Kidding Around Europe logo on them (the one that my cousin Sara made for us) for Liesl to hand out while we are overseas.

So last night we were talking about the packing and luggage situation and trying to figure out what could be done.  That’s when it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, I had lost enough weight that I no longer need the CPAP in order to sleep.  I’ve been wearing the CPAP for over seven years now and have logged more than 17,000 hours on my CPAPs.  It is like a part of me.  I almost hate to see it not be used, it is a part of who I am.  I’ve had it for most of the time that I have been writing SGL.  For almost all of our marriage.  My kids have never known me to not need it.  Even Oreo never knew me without it.  I moved to New Jersey with it.  Back to New York and on to Texas.  It is a part of who I am now.  I’m not even sure how to fall asleep without the ritual of putting it on or having the white noise that it produces being right beside my head all night.  But carrying a CPAP through Europe would be awful.  We get to bring so little and it is both large and fragile.

So last night I went to bed sans CPAP for the first time intentionally in forever.  Dominica monitored me as best as she could to make sure that I was not snoring.  It was a restless night, mostly because I am not used to sleeping without the CPAP so the lack of the noise and the lack of the head gear was odd.  And Oreo seemed to be extra restless (we fed him a larger than usual dinner) and that probably contributed.

So I got up this morning feeling fine and the assessment from Dominica is that she did not hear me snore once the entire night.  So far, so good.  That is only one night but that is extremely encouraging.  It would be so awesome to be away from the CPAP for many reasons.  For one major reason, it is just annoying to have to deal with it all of the time and to keep it on the bedside table and to carry it in the car at all times “just in case”.  But also because by needing a CPAP I am automatically disqualified from getting personal health insurance in the United States.  It is a black and white issue, according to the insurance companies that I have spoken to, having sleep apnea simply means no insurance, period, end of story.

But in regards to our upcoming European adventure the CPAP was going to be even more of a burden.  CPAPs in the airports are time consuming as they have to go through special scanners and take extra time and management since you have to remove them from the case, wait for them to be swabbed, pack them back up, etc.  It is more effort than a laptop, for example, because the CPAP does air filtering and processing it tends to pick up a lot of things that trigger sensors.

Not having the CPAP simply means one fewer bag to carry and as we will be completely on foot carrying everything all of the time that is a really big deal.  On its own the CPAP is not large but when it is a part of the overall luggage scheme it is burdensome to the extreme – mostly because of the form factor.

The CPAP was also a concern on the night trains, of which we will be taking several, as there is unreliable power there and we were unsure that a CPAP would function.  Setting up and packing up a CPAP in the hotel room every night was going to be awful too.  I hate traveling with the CPAP, it requires tons of effort – especially if in a hotel that does not consider the needs of a CPAP and does not have power outlets near the head of the bed within reach of a bedside table.  It can be quite problematic.

This means that I will be able to nap on planes and trains too!  Something that I have not been able to do in as long as I can remember (well, seven years.)  I think that it is hard to actually account for all of the ways that not having a CPAP could improve our lives for the next few months.  This is really huge.

I had a lunch meeting today out at Canyon Creek Country Club.  I had to meet Jenn out there at half past twelve.  Dominica and I have driven past Canyon Creek before but we have never stopped in so this was my first chance to try out one of the other country clubs.  I always enjoy doing that.

We had a nice lunch.  The weather was awesome today so we sat outside.  Surprisingly the grill was busy but outside was just one table of ladies who had been out playing tennis and Jenn and I at another table.  Such a nice day and no one taking advantage of it.

I finished reading “Bella Tuscany” this morning and today started reading, and made good progress through, “In Tuscany”, the second sequel memoir to “Under the Tuscan Sun.”  I’ve not read the first book in the series, even though I own it, because I have seen the movie and wanted to be sure that I would have time to read the second two before we travel over to Europe.  I assume that I will have a bit of time to read while we are over there as well but I wanted some stuff to be read before we go.

This evening was a very heavy work evening for me.  I worked pretty much from the time that I got home until three in the morning.  That was exhausting.  I played with Liesl and Luciana a little and they both came into my office to hang out with me from time to time but I didn’t watch any television, play any games or get to hang out with the family really tonight.  No relaxing for me.  I got tons of work done, though, at least.

Dominica stayed up with me, longer than me, actually, while I worked.  She did some work and some travel planning.  We have all of our flights and all of our major trains booked now.  Major progress.  Our credit cards are also suffering as all of our travel expenses are on there already.  Boy is that hurting.

I am home from work today.  The weather is awesome and we still have all of the windows open.  I love all of the fresh air that we are able to get in Texas.  We learn to withstand the house being incredibly warm in exchange for warm air.  It was eighty seven degrees in the house today and we were mostly pretty comfortable.  I only switched to shorts today when I needed to work in the garage and my home office doesn’t even have any windows.

Dominica had to run out to do some shopping (mostly returns, actually) today so I was home alone with the girls for a while.  We loaded up the Acadia today with tons of stuff that is heading off to Goodwill as soon as we can get there.  We had to clean in the garage today because the exterminators are coming today.  They normally come quarterly but we had to move up our quarterly inspection because we are going to be out of town when it normally happens.  But as we have seen rat(s) in the garage we need something done right away.

So in the early afternoon we did some cleaning in the garage.  Not a lot but enough so that the exterminator could get around.  Our garage is a total disaster.  Mostly painting stuff and kids toys.

The exterminator came around three.  He looked around and there is definitely evidence of a rat but he feels like it might just be a single rat and not a pack of them.  He and I went up into the attic and found scarce evidence there with the only really obvious thing being Dominica’s Vera Bradley luggage’s castors being completely destroyed from the rat chewing on them to keep its teeth from growing too long.  There was a large pile of caster rubber bits under the luggage.  Very weird to find.

It looks like the rat(s) mostly just hang out in the garage.  So the exterminator put down blocks and hopefully that will be that.  We really like our exterminators, they do a great job and are very inexpensive and friendly.  Anyone needing an exterminator in the DFW, let us know.

I had my class at RIT this evening.  So I was in the office for a while watching that.  Then, later on this evening, Chris, who is going to be house sitting for us while we are away, stopped by to hang out.  He lives around the corner, well within our walking area and we have walked by his house on a few occasions and we see him jogging in our area from time to time, but has not been to our house before.

Luciana went to bed shortly after Chris went to work (he teaches dancing in the evenings.)  Luciana is talking more and more.   She still has very few words but she is making the sounds of sentences so it sounds like she is reacting to things around her in a foreign language.  It is such a cute age.

Dominica sent me out to pick up some dinner.  So I ran to Redneck Heaven and picked up salads and shrimp for dinner and brought them back home.  We ate dinner and watched the latest episodes of  “Hot in Cleveland” and “Happily Divorced.”  Liesl was in a snuggle mood and sat with me on the arm chair as she likes to do, under a blanket.  She is the snuggliest toddler ever.

We finally got our schedule today and we now know exactly when we are leaving for New York.  Instead of leaving the weekend before we need to be up there we are actually leaving at the last possible second, the Wednesday evening before the Friday wedding, and driving like crazy and, if all goes well, arriving at dad’s house 24 hours before the wedding itself.  We will get there, probably stay up for about two hours as we will be unable to sleep at that point, crash and sleep a really long time, then get up and head to the wedding.  It is going to be one packed weekend.

From the wedding we will go back to dad’s, sleep, get up and head immediately to the airport to catch our flight from Rochester to JFK and then catch our flight from JFK to Heathrow.  Then immediately hop a train from London to Nottingham.  What a week that is going to be.  We are going to be seriously exhausted by the time that we get to Nottingham.  We will have nothing left at that point.

Weather was great today.  I was up early this morning and got some work done at home before going into the office.  I had to come home a bit longer than usual today so that I could watch the kids while Dominica was out running some errands.

After work I drove down to Grand Prairie to pick up Stacey Rodgers who was able to get away to join us for dinner at Brookhaven tonight.  She has not had a chance to meet Dominica and the girls yet.  Traffic was horrendous.  It took me an hour and a half to make the normally fifteen minute journey down to Grand Prairie to pick her up at the Hampton Inn.  It worked out “well” because she had missed her first shuttle and the second one was stuck in traffic.  She had just enough time to run in, change and run back out as I pulled in.  So the timing ended up not being too bad.

Traffic was fine going the other direction up to Brookhaven.  We were there in fifteen minutes, I would guess.  Dominica and the girls had been there waiting for a bit but just sat in the car waiting for us to arrive.

The weather was so gorgeous tonight, and Stacey is about to have to head back to cold Rochester and the snow, so we sat outside at Brookhaven.  It was great and it is really nice for the kids to be outside because they can make more noise, walk around and whatever without it really being a problem at all.  Dominica and I had the kitchen make us fish tacos tonight – we were just in the mood.

After dinner we sat around one of the fire pits for a while.  Liesl went and played in the bounce house for a bit and made a new friend.  She was horribly upset (see yesterday’s post) when her new friend had to leave because she thought that she would never get to see her, ever again.  We are pretty sure that they will see each other again as kids’ night at the country club is all about running into the same people over and over again.  Liesl was so happy, though, to come and tell us about how she made a new friend.  It was darling.  She is growing up so fast.

Luciana spent much of the evening tricking us by acting like she wanted to walk and then suddenly dropping and crawling away.

We hung out until it was quite dark.  Then Dominica took the kids home and I took Stacey back down to Grand Prairie.  It is funny that in three weeks we will be closer to Stacey in New York than we are to her here.  Stacey and I hung out until twenty till eleven which I knew was the very last moment so that I could still make it to the YogurtZone on MacArthur in Las Colinas to pick up frozen yogurt for Dominica and I.  So we said goodbye and I ran up to Las Colinas.

I came home at a quarter after eleven with frozen yogurt.  Both girls were already asleep.  Liesl had actually fallen asleep in the car on the way home.  Dominica and I ate our yogurt and watched some more House Hunters International.