Closet construction

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Katie

This is a project that I imagine happening far, far in the future, but it’s one that has me all kinds of excited.

I remember the first time I saw the interior of the house I thought the small door to the left of our closet contained the water heater or something.

This is actually our first time sharing a closet! On move-in day, I immediately hung my clothes in the closet from the car. (I don’t fold clothes and put them in boxes when we move. It just makes more sense to leave everything on their hangers so I don’t have to take them off the hangers to box them up then put them back on the hangers later.) David took one look at the closet and said, “This isn’t going to work.”

In our first apartment, we had two closets the size of the bifold door closet in our current bedroom, and in the rental house, I used the small hall closet while David used the larger bedroom closet.

In our current closet (not including the shelving closet on the left), everything to the left of the shoe rack is mine, and everything to the right of the shoe rack is David’s.

As you can see clearly in the photo above, these spaces are connected. Right now, the shelving to the left is our linen closet, but it also contains all of my project supplies that are kind of in the works. It also holds random things like kitty litter, our luggage, and a dehumidifier.

Now allow me to share my badass Paint Brush skills with you to illustrate what I’d like to do to our closets…

Awesome, right?

Basically, I want to remove the wall separating the closet doors and replace the current doors with sliders. I really despise the wood trim used to border the bifold doors, especially since it was extended out to the bedroom door frame for whatever reason. (Fingers crossed it wasn’t done to hide wall damage!)

The rest of the door molding and baseboards in the house are nice looking, so this trim sticks out like a sore thumb. It looks like a plain ol’ plank of wood! If we decided to frame the new closet, I’d use something similar to what’s already in the house.

Because we have so much free space on the top shelf of the closet, I don’t think we need the shelves we have now. By eliminating those shelves, we’d have more space for hanging clothes. Best part of this plan? I’ll finally know what it’s like to use a sledgehammer! #BeenWaitingForThisDayAllMyLife

What’s your closet situation like? When I was a younger woman, I wanted a gigantic walk-in closet with its own light. It’s funny how things change.

Drying the well

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Katie

I want to share some good news. It’s been two weeks since I’ve cried! Since it was a daily, even hourly occurrence pre-Effexor (the anti-depressant I’m taking for the depression and the migraines), I feel pretty splendid about going a whole 16 days without shedding a tear.

I briefly considered doing a separate post about my one therapy appointment, but it’s really not enough material for a post of its own. I saw the therapist on Monday, May 13, the day after I began taking the anti-depressant. I was so nervous I couldn’t even explain my condition properly. I stuttered and avoided eye contact to the point that the therapist looked at her bookcase to see what I was talking to. Embarrassment!

A friend suggested maybe she wasn’t the right fit for me, and that could be the case. But I realized during the appointment that, though there were small things here and there, my life pre-AVM/migraines was pretty fantastic. The migraines have hijacked my life and my emotions.

When I feel well physically, I’m at my lowest mentally because I don’t have pain to distract me. When I’m at my lowest mentally, every little problem is The End of the World. Small arguments with David led me to suicidal thoughts, and those thoughts never stopped because, long after the fight was done, I’d replay every word over and over, mentally lashing myself for all of my imperfections as I went. I wasn’t thinking rationally, to grossly simplify it.

Assuming that I see the therapist on days when I feel worst mentally (which we can’t guarantee because the pain varies from day to day), how will she know that the things I’m saying are irrational?

It made me think of the times I’ve called Mom crying because of some small argument between David and me. Because Mom knows both of us and knew us together long before the AVM, she’s able to say, “Maybe David is just letting the pressure get to him right now. He’s been extremely patient with you up to this point. I really don’t think it’s as bad as you think it is right now.” But this stranger who is only seeing David through the eyes of a mentally disturbed ill person, how is she to know which David is real and which is a figment of my imagination?

[Brief aside: I don't mean to make it sound as though David is the cause of my depression or the reason I may need therapy. He's simply the person I interact with the most on a daily basis, and so, he was hit with most of the emotional wreckage. I've similarly spent hours crying in bed because a grandmother who hasn't spoken to me since my diagnosis claimed she was coming to see me and then couldn't even be bothered to do so 9 months after my diagnosis.]

On the way home from the appointment, Mom pointed out that some depressed people don’t need therapy while others need therapy but not medication. I had already begun taking the medication (and because they were prescribed to help with migraines, I wanted to keep taking them), so I decided to clear the waters by trying the medication first and adding therapy later if I need it.

And I feel really good. The migraines over the last couple of weeks have been heinous, but I increased my medication dosage today and noticed a difference. I still feel stabbing, shooting pains when I move a lot and especially if I bend over or look over my shoulder, but it is a vast improvement to where I was this time last week.

Although I am really excited that I haven’t cried in 16 days, I feel like I’m emotionless, which is awkward. As an example, I found out today that the AVM has not shrunk in size since the surgery, which is devastating news since I don’t want to wait more than a year to have my next treatment. My neurosurgeon said best case scenario for my AVM is two rounds of gamma knife followed up by a craniotomy. It bums me out to imagine turning 30 before I’m done with the AVM, so the idea of still dealing with it in my 30s sucks. (I found out after doing some research tonight that the average time between first and second gamma knife treatments is 40.9 months.)

After getting this news, even Healthy Katie would have shed a tear and smothered herself in a pint of Moose Tracks ice cream, but nothing happened. I knew the emotion I should be feeling was sadness. I knew that I was sad, intellectually I knew that. But I was sad in the way that I’m sad when I hear about something less-than-stellar happening to someone I don’t know. Like oh-this-person-I’ve-never-heard-of-was-turned-down-for-a-job-he-applied-for sad.

I’m really not looking forward to saying goodbye to my youngest brother because not crying for that goodbye is going to make me look heartless. (He’s moving to Orlando to live with his girlfriend.) I can just imagine hugging him, looking at our tear-soaked mother’s face, looking back at Matt, and exclaiming I’m sad! I really am! I’m just on medication! So you can’t tell that I’m sad, but I am!

David says to “just go with it for a while.” He’s been looking forward to Calm Katie for years since I previously had a strong opinion and matching emotion about every topic under the sun.

So even though the no-emotion thing is a little weird, it’s been nice to feel like I’m seeing clearly for the first time in months.

Have you ever taken medication to treat depression? What was your experience?

Bedroom blahs

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Katie

The title of this post says it all. Our bedroom is driving me crazy.

Usually, I’m the last person to complain about a space being “too empty.” Heck, I get giddy over having an empty drawer in my nightstand.

But while giving my sister-in-law a tour of the house for the first time, we walked into the bedroom, and I felt letdown somehow. Like the last three minutes had been spent in some awesome rooms that look completely different from how they looked in December, while the bedroom is just kinda blah.

The things I am smitten with in the bedroom are the window treatments. I love that we decided to hang the curtains higher than the window frames after finding an illustration online that convincingly demonstrated how hanging curtains higher than the window frame makes a room appear taller than it is. (With 10 feet ceilings in this house, we really don’t need that help, but it looks dramatic, in my opinion.)

Since moving in, I’ve had the longterm vision of hanging some whimsical pieces of art in our bedroom. Art hanging is so new to us since we never did it in the rentals, and though I fall in love with all kinds of things in stores, I have a really difficult time imagining art in our space.

I’ve seen a lot of bedroom photos with mirrors behind nightstands, but I don’t like the idea of going super symmetrical. Also, I’m not totally crazy about mirrors as decoration. I like them for their function more than their aesthetic appeal.

I’m pretty sure our bed could benefit from accent pillows, but I do not want to go back there. If we ever become the type of people who make our bed every morning (the horror!), I’ll reevaluate, but having accent pillows that only make it on the bed for company or blog pictures just seems silly.

Even though something about the room feels less exciting than the rest of the house, I don’t want to add one piece of furniture. We have empty drawers and plenty of closet space, so there’s no need for extra storage. Filler furniture isn’t really our thing.

I have a post coming up soon with more details about the closet situation. Do you have any suggestions? I’ve found plenty of pieces of art that I like, but I can’t decide where things should hang. Maybe in addition to a couple of pieces of art, we could hang wall sconces or something similar?

Source List
Bedding: West Elm
Headboard: Target
Wishbone lamps: Bed Bath & Beyond
Nightstands and dresser: Rooms To Go
Curtains: Overstock.com
Fan: Walmart
Paint colors: Sherwin Williams Moody Blue 6221 (accent wall) and Celery 6421

DIY Art: Fabric swatches

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Katie

Sorry things have been so quiet around here for the last week and a half. I’ve spent most of that time in bed cursing my neurologist for taking me off pain meds, but some of the time was spent spiffing up the house.

This is a DIY art project that anyone can tackle. I originally was inspired by some Crate & Barrel prints used in a Young House Love design dilemma. I couldn’t find the prints or anything similar on Crate & Barrel’s website, but I knew I could get a similar look using fabric.

The only problem is that fabric isn’t exactly cheap if you buy it by the yard, and I wouldn’t need eight yards of fabric for this small project. The solution? Websites like Joann and Fabric.com sell fabric swatches at a deep discount (and with free shipping!). Both stores had a great selection, but I went with Fabric.com because it was cheaper. ($1.75 per swatch versus $3 per swatch at Joann.)

Next, I did my (anal retentive) thing by saving each fabric swatch I liked to my laptop, loading them all into Picasa, and placing them in a grid of 8 to see how they’d look side by side. I already had a gray runner in the living room, a red blanket, and turquoise pillows, so I knew sticking to those colors (but adding yellow for some pop) would work.

I found the frames for $6.99 each at Walmart. Unfortunately, they were only available in black, so I used some leftover trim paint to paint them white.

Hanging the frames in a grid wasn’t quite as complicated as I thought it would be, though you’d have to ask Mom to get the real story. I played more of a supervisory role during the hanging. Here are the steps we took:

1) Measure the piece of furniture over which your frame grid will hang. We wanted the frames centered above the couch, so we measured the length of the couch.

2) Decide how much space you want between each frame and measure the length of your frame grid from end to end. First we chose 2 inches, but a measuring snafu turned it into more like two and a half inches. Personally, I think keeping the frames closer together (less than 3 inches apart) keeps the grid looking more like a cohesive art installation instead of looking like a bunch of individual frames hanging on the wall.

After we measured four frames side by side and added the two and a half inches between each frame, we marked the spot on the wall where the upper right frame would hang.

3) Measure the distance between the hooks of your frames. If your frames are square and you hang them in a grid like ours (where the distance between each frame in a column was the same as the distance between each frame in the row), your measurement should be the same both vertically and horizontally. Our hooks were 13 inches apart, so Mom placed a pencil mark where the upper right frame hook would hang and then marked 7 additional spots 13 inches apart for the remaining frames.

4) Drill your holes and hang your frames!

Cost:

Fabric swatches: $14
Frames: $69.66 (including tax and shipping)
Paint: free! (Leftover from house painting)
Total: $83.66

I also love that the patterns I chose work with the geometric patterned runner in the room.

And, of course, Reese’s approval matters most. Here she is contemplating the new art work right after we hung the last frame.

Update: I’m not one to visit craft stores often. (Okay, I’m not one to visit anywhere outside of our home often these days.) But I’ve recently read about craft paper at Michael’s that you can pick up on sale sometimes. So, there’s that cheaper alternative to the fabric swatches if anyone is interested.

Appointment post mortem

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Katie

I had my first appointment with a local neurologist yesterday. If you live in the Knoxville area, I highly recommend Knoxville Neurology Clinic. They seem to be one of few neurology groups in town.

It was very comforting finally to speak with someone who knew a little about migraines. Up to this point, I’ve spoken with a PCP who took a cautious approach and a neurosurgeon who told me to see a neurologist.

It’s now been a little over eight months since the migraines became a more frequent, more intense daily ritual.

I was really nervous about telling someone outside of this blog, David, or Mom about the depression. I used to be a person who liked to talk things through because talking meant I could release it, but with the depression, talking about it always makes me feel worse about myself. Talking about it just means the thoughts that are going through my head all day are out there for someone else to hear and confirm. My medication of choice has been a funny movie or a home improvement blog. But the doctor didn’t require me to go into detail. She did recommend, however, that I see a professional to talk about what I’m going through.

Over the next week, I’m supposed to go off the pain medication I’ve been taking. The doctor said there are layers to my migraines/headaches. A migraine should only last 72 hours at the most, so the doctor believes there’s a muscle component that’s giving me headaches (I’ve felt stiffness in my neck and back for a while now but chalked it up to pain from living such a sedentary lifestyle.), the AVM, and rebound headaches from taking the pain medication on a daily basis.

From WebMD about rebound headaches:

“When the pain medication wears off, you may experience a withdrawal reaction, prompting you to take more medication, which only leads to another headache and the desire to take more medication. And so the cycle continues until you start to suffer from chronic daily headaches with more severe headache pain and more frequent headaches.”

She said it will take 7 days for the medication to leave my system. In that time, I’ll regularly take a muscle relaxant to help with the musculature component. After 7 days, I’ll only take the muscle relaxant as needed.

Our first step is trying an anti-depressant, which will hopefully do double duty by preventing the migraines and treating the depression. I should see results two weeks after taking the medication.

If it doesn’t work for the migraines, she has two other medications (blood pressure medications or anti-seizure drugs) that she’ll try. If the anti-depressant works for the depression but not the migraines, I can stay on it in conjunction with a new medication. (Some anti-depressants [like Cymbalta] cannot be taken with migraine medication.)

The good news is that the doctor is confident she can reduce my migraines to once a month or less. This would obviously change my life in ways I can’t even fathom right now.

She also went ahead and scheduled my follow-up MRI, which I’ll send to my doctors in Arizona. If they like the progress they see on the scan, we’ll begin discussing my next gamma knife surgery.

Before the appointment was over, the psychologist she recommended had called and left a voicemail. I have an appointment for Monday. I’m terrified. I don’t want to pay $50 to sit in a room with a stranger and cry, but I don’t know what else to do to make this better. So I’ll try this.

I predict the next two weeks – before the new medication has time to do its thing – will be hellacious. The insurance company (United Health Care) is already giving us flack about my prescriptions. They don’t want to fill the amount the doctor is requesting, and one of my medications is supposed to be taken at the onset of my headache. But I only get 12 in a month, and I’m supposed to take two at the onset and one an hour later if the headache persists. That means I took 3 of my 12 pills Thursday. I’m in a lot of pain as I type this, but I don’t want to take more of the headache pills because they’ll be gone in just a few days if I do.

Thanks, United Health Care, for showing just how much you care about your customers’ health or should I say how much you care about money in your pocket. UHC also wouldn’t authorize the preventive medication. We wasted a day I could have taken it because the insurance company didn’t let anyone know they wanted “prior authorization” (uh, the doctor writing the prescription isn’t enough?). By the time we found out (from the pharmacist who first “didn’t receive the prescription” even though it was sent with two other prescriptions that she did fill), the doctor’s office was closed for the day.

Hopefully we’ll get this sorted Friday, and I can begin taking the preventive medication. But with UHC’s track record, I won’t hold my breath.