A Family Fourth of July

I hope everyone had a wonderful Fourth of July holiday yesterday. I'm excited to post that we had a very nice, family day yesterday.

I think part of what helped it be such a nice day is that I went back to a full dose of Citalopram on Tuesday night. In my blog post in response to begin tagged by Sarah I indicated that one of my goals was to be completely off anti-depressant medication in the next 4 years. After seeing my doctor on June 6th, she told me to start decreasing my dosage from 20 mg to 10 mg and wrote me a script for 10 mg. I thought this was the right thing to do and I am the one who initiated the discussion about gradually getting off the medication. Thank God for my husband Jon who stood up and told me that the medication decrease has had a negative effect. When I got home from class on Tuesday night, I took a full pill (20 mg) instead of cutting it in half. Let's just say it's amazing what a difference 10 mg seems to make. I am trying to alternate between 20 mg and 10 mg dosages by day to see what effect this has. It could be that when I have my follow-up in January that I have to admit that I am not ready to stop the medication.

A second part of what helped the day is that we were able to sleep in! I cannot remember the last time we did not have to get up without a noise box. Jonnie has been having some weird ghost dreams and has ended up in our room a lot recently. He came in around 3 AM yesterday morning and I shuttled him down to the spare room so Jon could sleep in our bed. He hasn't been feeling well so I thought he could use a good sleep. I'm not sure what it is about the spare room but I've been waking up with headaches when I sleep down there. I told Jon yesterday that it's either the pillows on the bed or his Dad's aura has penetrated that room during his visits and his aura is giving me a tension headache while I sleep!

The third thing was a blessing in disguise and completely unplanned. The three of us were going to be in the local parade. I was going to drive my car to the St. Joe's PAC where Jonnie and I would get on the float. Jon was going to be at the Der Dutchman meeting other 4th Degree Knights so they could march with the float carrying the Colors and wearing regalia. I bought a bag of candy to throw off the float so I was prepared. You know how I mentioned earlier that seem to get a headache sleeping in the spare room? I still had the headache in the afternoon and it got worse after easing up for a while. I laid down on the couch and Dr. Jonnie covered me with stuffed animals to make me feel better. Jon came down and asked if we were ready to go. You mean now, I said from underneath a pile of stuffed animals? Jonnie said he didn't like parades so I said we'd stay home. Jonnie uncovered me with animals a little while later because he wanted a refill on apple juice. I walked into the kitchen to see it had started to rain. I got Jonnie his juice and decided to go online to get an apple pie recipe. I found one for "Fireman's Apple Pie" which did not involve making a pie crust; just combine all ingredients and place in a pie dish and it makes it own crust. I started making the pie when Jon called to tell me that he went over to the PAC and got the scoop on the parade and told our friend Ed that if no other 4th degree show up to march that Jon was going to go home. Well, no one else showed up. Jon came home, changed clothes, and even went back to the Der to check to make sure no one else showed.

The rain ended up blessing us with a more relaxing afternoon that we had planned. The pie needed an hour so I went down the basement and helped Jon install another bi-fold door. We had worked on one before lunch so now both doors were installed, sliding, and closing. Woohoo! The pie (actually more like a cake but still quite tasty) came out of the oven so Jon and I took a break and had some pie & ice cream. Jon had some drywall pieces to install. Since Jonnie was engrossed in movies, I figured I'd go back downstairs and we could talk while he put in drywall. Jonnie came down for a bit and went back upstairs. I brought a magazine and brought up things for discussion. It was a good time except that either when Jon asked me a question or when I wanted to make a comment, the air compressor would kick on for a couple of minutes.

We had a late dinner of homemade pizza around 7 PM. Jonnie got a bath and we just kinda putted around the house making lunches and stuff. Since Jonnie and I were in our PJs, we planned to watch the fireworks show from the front room. Unfortunately, Jon missed most of the fireworks because he was on the phone. Jonnie was disappointed because he had to look at the fireworks through the trees and kept turning on the overhead lights which hampered my view.

All in and all, we had a great day yesterday. It was back to work and school today. Speaking of work, I'd better get back to it because I have a meeting with my boss in a few minutes.

Blessings for a wonderful rest of the week and weekend!