Haecceity.nu

Last night, despite changing my pump set in the morning, my blood sugar sky rocketed to over 500 mg/dL. I felt horrid, so I took a ton of insulin and laid down in bed. My boyfriend helped wake me up at periodic times during the night to recheck my glucose and take more insulin, but the insulin seems to not be doing very much. I woke up in the 300s, which was obviously better than 500+ but also not very ideal. So I took more insulin. I went to work, I bolused for a bagel for breakfast. I checked again at lunch, now in the 400s. Probably shouldn’t have eaten that bagel, but oh well. So I took more insulin (including what I needed to cover what I was eating).

It’s now almost 4 pm and I’m still in the 400s. My blood sugar seems to have not budged AT ALL. It’s very frustrating, as I’ve been at work with a headache and slightly blurry vision. (It’s been really hard to concentrate on the computer screen for long periods of time. Thankfully I didn’t have much work to worry about today.) So I decided I should just take a shot and did. I took 5 units via injection in my arm and did a normal correction via my pump. We’ll see how this works, I hope it does it’s job and gets me back to normal. I haaaaate feeling like this and especially when no matter what I try nothing changes.

Maybe it’s finally time for me to rotate my pump sets to another area, I fear (based on today) that I’m actually starting to have absorption problems in my legs (where I always put my sets). Thing is I’m not really comfortable putting the sets anywhere else. :/

Anyone have any ideas for me?

From Roots & Rings, following Allison’s lead.

1. Do you decorate for Valentine’s day?
No, that seems kinda silly. I do, however, plan to bake cupcakes.

2. Does your desktop have a picture or computer graphic? Is it organized?
My desktop uses a “wallpaper,” I don’t know why but I never liked the term “computer graphic.” It is organized because it has nothing on it but mounted disks!

3. Do you use a paper planner, electric planner or no planner at all?
I use my iPhone and I have a little notebook that I carry around in my purse for miscellaneous notations.

4. Do you change purses or bags often or stick with a good thing?
For normal days I use the same bag every day, and every so often (maybe every 6 months to a year) I get a new bag to replace it with. If I’m going out or doing something specific I may change bags for the occasion.

5. What’s your favorite YouTube Video?
Uhhh… hard choice!

6. Do you use Turbo Tax or a real person to pay your taxes?
I’ve never used Turbo Tax, my mom always brought my tax papers to her tax-guy. I may try it this year, though, since I’m living in across the country now!

7. How many states have you set foot (or tire) in? Which ones?
Let’s see… New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Washington DC, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, California.

So that’s 18, not sure if I missed any. I’ve also been through the airports in Texas & Arizona.

8. How many countries have you been in? Which ones?
I have been to Greece, Turkey, Italy, France, & England. So 6 if you include the US. I’ve also been through the airport in Germany.

9. How many pillows are in your house (sleeping or decorative)?
Two on the couch that are decorative, two on the bed, and two extras for when guests visit. So 8.

10. How cold is too cold for flip flops?
Anything below 70 degrees I think is too cold for flip flops. I only really wear flip flops when it’s up around 80.

Before I moved to San Francisco, I didn’t drink coffee at all. The few times I tried it, it was regular coffee with some milk and sugar and I didn’t like it… even with a TON of milk and sugar. So I would just order hot chocolate or tea whenever I went to a coffee shop.

However, since moving to San Francisco, I was one day coerced by Jess to try a latte/mocha over lunch one day, so I did… and it’s been downhill from there. I have a latte or a mocha about once a weekday now (so ~5x a week) and I love them. And I’ve tried a bunch of different things at different coffee places

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So it’s almost halfway through January and I’m doing okay on my resolutions so far.

Design more things for fun and/or for myself is my current focus. I’ve been posting small screenshots to Dribbble of my portfolio site’s redesign and I’m really excited about it. I expect the process to be very fulfilling—I’m learning and taking advantage of newer coding technologies (HTML5, CSS3, LESS, WordPress 3.0) and even designing/developing my own grid system that I intend to use on all my future designs for web. If I find it works out successfully for me, I will consider releasing it to the public! (It’s based off existing grid systems like 960gs and Less Framework.)

Take more photos and learn how to use a camera properly is my current secondary focus, and I talked with Jess a little bit about it today. One of her resolutions is also to take more photos, so she’s doing the Photo-a-Day 365 project. We talked about lenses, and she recommended a family-owned photography/camera store here in SF that I could go to peruse and see about a lens cap replacement for my new camera (Louie lost the one that came with it during our Xmas trip to Disneyland). I think my next lens purchase will be a zoom lens, and then after that I’ll see how I feel about getting a macro lens. So far I haven’t bought either. Instead, I purchased some Cellphone Lenses which I’m excited to play around with (and I got Jess a pair for Xmas, too) and a Glif so I can mount my iPhone on a tripod. I’m just waiting now for both items to get to me, they shipped out today. (I’m also considering this super cute camera strap. Thoughts?)

Next resolutions I’m going to tackle are:
Take belly dance or other type of dance lessons weekly—I just have to sign up for classes. I’ve already found a studio, Fat Chance Belly Dance that has really good reviews from Yelp and one of my coworker’s recommended it to me because his wife used to go there.
Be in better control of my Diabetes—Gotta start calling doctors this week for appointments! *cringe* I hate finding new doctors.

In other news, it looks like I’ll be going to Disneyland again next month for 2 days over President’s Day weekend. My mom will be in town, and she’s covering the rental car and hotel room so all we have to worry about are the park tickets! We seriously couldn’t turn that down. ;)

Speaking of Disneyland, I’m still in the process of editing the photos from our Xmas trip (we took SO many!) but rest assured that I will post them when I’m done. (They’ll be up on my Flickr account, too.)

So far, the new year hasn’t been good to me. I’ve been sick with the flu, so I’ve been stuck at home with a fever and cough and all sorts of other terrible symptoms—not fun. I’m hoping this isn’t a bad sign, though. I have a lot of things I’d like to do in the new year, and what better way to remember than to type them down into this blog that I rarely update?

So, here they are (in no particular order):

Design more things for fun and/or for myself.
The only design work I’ve done in the past year or so has been for clients, an internship, or my job. Thus, even the very act of opening an Adobe application feels like work to me. I’d like to put a stop to that, I want my creative process to be fun again and, well, more creative.

Take more photos and learn how to use a camera properly.
I’ve always been thoroughly intrigued with photography and I love taking photos. However, I have no idea what the ISO setting is for or what it does and I’ve only just recently learned what “HDR” stands for (it’s High Dynamic Range). I’d love to find a place to take a class in old school film photography to get my feet wet, but that may be expensive and/or hard to find, I’m not sure. (It might also be too time-consuming for me, who knows.) Either way, if I can’t do that, I’d like to either get a book on digital photography (I prefer this over googling for stuff the internet, don’t ask me why. I just like books.) or take a class. Or something.

Take belly dance or other type of dance lessons weekly.
I took belly dance classes for a little while while I was interning in Chicago, and I enjoyed it. Besides that I haven’t taken dance classes (I used to take tap, jazz, AND ballet!) since I was about 18 and I miss it profusely. I also feel horribly out of shape.

Be in better control of my Diabetes.
I make this resolution every year but to be honest I am horrible at keeping it. My A1C has been hovering around 9 for a while (normal is like 6 or 7, sometimes as low as 5) and I’d like to start getting that down to a better level. I want to take better care of myself because I’m sick of always feeling sick, you know? I’m hoping this bought of the flu is enough motivation for me to finally seek out the doctors I need (still need both a PCP and an Endocrinologist), get a new insulin pump (possibly, I think I’m due for a new one), and get back on track. To start I need a new log book that I can actually write things in, the one I have now is not only old but the boxes are too small to fit any handwriting into, so I’ll have to look into that.

Keep my apartment cleaner.
Everything seems to pile up around us, and it’s starting to get annoying. For instance, we have a pile of cardboard sitting next to the trash can right now that we still haven’t taken out to the recycling bin. Louie’s got a dirty clothes pile next to his bed. I have a pile of mail on my desk. Our suitcases still aren’t unpacked despite being home for almost a week after our vacation. Our entire apartment needs severe dusting and vacuuming of cat hair. Which, I suppose, means we actually have to get a vacuum. But you get the idea.

Go out more, with friends.
I spend all day at work without anyone to really talk to or hang out with. There’s no one at work I’m really friends with. Then I go home and Louie and I watch episodes of Mad Men or play World of Warcraft. Or we work. We don’t do much talking, we’re not very active. So, therefore, I feel kind of like I’m stuck at home all the time (despite the fact that we’re always going out to eat because we hardly ever cook at home). When I lived in NY, I’d go out with my friends almost daily. I love being with people, talking and sharing stories and just forming close bonds. I’ve felt really detached from my friends back in NY since I’ve moved here, I hardly ever talk to them and it’s hard to find a time to because of the time difference, especially with one of them going to school in England right now. I actually feel quite lonely and I definitely don’t want to feel that way anymore.

Explore more.
So, I don’t live in NY anymore. I don’t know this city like the back of my hand, but I’d like to. San Francisco is my new home, so I feel I should. I want to go exploring all the parts of the city I never get to see because I walk 4 blocks to my job and haven’t been much more west than Japantown (excepting a single visit to the Zoo once and Presidio one other time).

Sell my letterpress goods.
I’ve always wanted to have my own Etsy or private online shop dedicated to selling my letterpress creations (postcards, posters, greeting cards, etc). I hope to at least start that sometime this year.

and, finally…

Write more.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be blogging here, but that would be a start. I have a World of Warcraft healing blog I haven’t been keeping up with, too, and I still intend to start a design blog on my portfolio website sometime this year as well. I’d also, ideally, like to get back into writing poetry. My favorite form was always the haiku, which are nice and short and to the point, so writing those should be a good start to get back into it.

I realize that’s quite a bit to want to do in the new year, but I think I can handle it. Maybe. Most of it, at least.