on hiatis...

as you all know we are on tour so this blog is not being updated during that time....

so check out our tour blog here:

www.facebook.com/josiahwolfjetlag

they are posted on our wall, as well as under the notes tab!

see you all soon....

the best dog on the internet

it's not max i can tell you that right now. his name is buster. i just found him. he has the best dog blog award. he has had a blog since '09 and he's only a year and a half. he is so cute. he has lots of dog friends and lots of family and his "parents" have their own blogs and they all live in NY and i am a little jealous. the pictures are so great and even though the entries are short mostly they are so good! lots of pictures in each one!

http://ewix2.blogspot.com/

there are so many dog blogs!! it's great. i want to read them all. oooh... it would seem that max has something to say:

dear human dog friends,

i don't know about these other dog blogs. i haven't read them and i can't vouch for anything i haven't personally seen. i could bet that these dogs are pretty awesome but i can't vouch for it.

i am not a big complainer like some dogs. but if my human dog ever leaves me in a room all day with the heater on at 85 degrees...

i think i might bite her. no no i am a good dog. good dog good dog! i would never. i had a great time it was like a sauna in there. i think i lost a few winter pounds and did some pretty strenuous bikram yoga in the afternoon so i feel pretty limber. i have to say i do feel limber. limber limber limber. like a litttle yogi doggie. yes. yogi. doggie. good dog good dog!

right.

firstly it should be known that i didn't leave the heater on to 85. i set it to 67 which should have been what the peak was. i don't know what the hell happened. i can only assume that max decided to mess around with the buttons because he was bored and then went crazy because he got too hot. bikram yoga?? who is he trying to fool??

anyway. i have also just discovered the greatest cat blog!! it actually far surpasses buster's blog in poetic and humorous content. i am in love with this family! we three, ginger cat tales is the name and they live on some amazingly beautiful farm in wales. yes please!!

http://wethreecats.blogspot.com/


bed bed bed.

new information has come to light

i have suffered from chronic migraines since i was 12 or so. at least that's when i can first remember getting them. it may have started earlier than that but i don't know for sure. it was several years into them that i tried any kind of medication. imitrex. that seems to be the one drug for migraines. over 2/3rds of my life i have had this problem. and no matter what i stop doing (e.g. no alcohol, chocolate or excessive stress), they still happen.

the migraine runs in my family. my mother and my father get them. my aunt gets them. my cousins get them. everyone has a few similar symptoms. like certain smells and too much of anything at all bring them on. some last for days. but i am the only one who throws up. and when i say throws up. i don't mean once and then i'm good. i mean i throw up every few minutes for an entire day. no food. no water or any liquid whatsoever can pass my lips without coming up. and definitely no medication of any kind. agony in a nutshell. and nasty on the body let me tell you. there's nothing good about vomiting every type of stomach and possibly liver contents (to the point of seeing blood traces in it).

over the years i have had a little help here and there from people wanting to see me find the cure, without really helping me find a cure. there is no cure so that's probably why it hasn't been found. more than anything people say "drink more water - #1 cause of a headache is dehydration!". more often than not however i have had little or no help let alone sympathy from people. they can't see anything wrong, so i must be making it up to get attention (yup, had that one thrown at me a few times). just take an aspirin. no. can't do that. makes me throw up. sorry. i will refrain from taking any more time to retell the countless times people (boyfriends included) have denied me help because they didn't think it was serious. meanwhile i am vomiting my ass off and ready to die any moment. nothing serious about that. true.

OK! here's where we get to the interesting bits of new information that are on the one hand very helpful and on the other hand making me question the ability for anyone in my family to properly care for themselves and for me.

firstly, the most shocking thing i just discovered is that migraines are a disease. i have a disease. that is kind of mind blowing. that kind of makes me feel like i am right when i say - there is no cure for this. sure there is really expensive medication i could be on. which i really probably should be. i am probably very stupid not to be on imitrex. i'm sorry. i just realized i have a disease. i don't mean to harp on about it. it's all making sense now. i'm not crazy. i have a disease.

secondly, and maybe actually more important than the first bit, is that even though the majority of my family suffers from this disease - no one has gotten a diagnosis, no one takes the proper medication, and no one even knows what kind of migraine they have. and that includes getting me diagnosed! i have been vomiting my face off since as long as i can remember and my mother never figured out why?? what the hell is wrong with this family? i kind of can't stand these people at the moment.

this leads me to my third (in two parts) and most awesome discovery. as i have now mentioned several times, i profusely vomit every time i get a severe migraine. not only have i discovered what that is but i now know that i have more than one kind of migraine. self diagnosed, yes, but what can one do with no insurance?

part one: i have cyclic vomiting syndrome. it is exactly as it sounds. over and over and over for the entire day. consistent in it's length each episode. no ability to consume during that period. my diaphram bruises from this usually. they say the esophagus bruises and sometimes tears but for me it's the diaphram. it doesn't have to come with migraine, for some people it just happens on it's own.

part two: the vomiting is making me think that i have "abdominal migraines" which cause severe stomach problems (when i don't throw up i have OTHER problems that shall remain nameless). i also think i have "migraine with aura" which means senses are hypersensitive mostly to light and sound. i have to cover my eyes and put cold compress over them to keep from feeling like my face is going to explode and is too hot.

there is another type of migraine i get. i recently started getting them again after years of not getting them. i now know they are called "ice pick migraines". that pretty much sums it up. imagine an ice pick stabbing you in the head for several seconds while you are enjoying a nice conversation with your boyfriend and causing you to freak out, grab your skull and run to the bed. it pretty much feels like i am having a stroke or what i assume that feels like. these are more terrifying than the other migraines because they come from nowhere and then leave before you even know what the hell happened. and there's no medication for something that only lasts seconds. even though it repeats a few times before buggering off.

another interesting albeit confusing bit of information is that a migraine is not a headache. a headache is a symptom of a migraine but not the same thing. abdominal migraines and silent migraines don't have head pain. um. i'm still studying so perhaps someday i will understand all of this.

all in all my migraines have greatly distressed me. i have missed so much school and work in my life because of them. and i can't tell you how many times i was convinced everyone thought i was lying when i had to call in sick the morning of my shift. so much shame. if only i had known it was a disease i could have said that. instead i didn't tell bosses for years because i was afraid they wouldn't hire me. new jobs would scare me because i would be waiting for them to fire me for missing work more than other people and "this time they aren't going to believe me" ran through my head many times.

what disturbs me the most is that my mother, a self proclaimed healer and knower-of-all-things-medical AND who suffers from this as well AND who held my hair when i threw up AND who nursed me back to health growing up, never told me why i threw up like that. it's really fucking dangerous actually. no one should be vomiting bile. and not regularly especially. it's sickens me to think about how i could have had more help earlier on but i didn't. and of course i am the world's biggest procrastinator. i hate doctors and i hate being probed and having to tell my life story and then just get handed a packet of samples for medication. no thanks.

if your child was that sick wouldn't you get it figured out? when i started getting the ice pick migraines in high school i still lived at home and things were terrible then, but shouldn't my mom have tried to get me checked out? even with no money she should have been able to do something. i vaguely remember talking about a cat scan and then never getting one.

i am finally lucky to have a love in my life who takes as good care of me as can be done when i am sick. even though one time he was very mean and wouldn't help me - but that was a few years ago and i say he rather makes up for it now. when he is away i get a little sorry for myself because it reminds me of all the years before that of being alone and not being able to take care of myself. i am still nervous about them and i don't know when that will go away. i guess as long as i don't have proper medical care.

who wants to bet i wake up with one tomorrow because i sat in bed too long to type this manuscript with the computer screen glaring into my eyes?

i hope i don't.

bindi bindi baby!

who knew our little maxie was such a handsome indian lady! i found this little dog dancing around the living room in one of my scarves and with a bindi on his little furry head!

you can see what things are coming to around here without our beloved Man Of The House. crazed and deprived after 6 weeks (or is it more than that??) with one more long week to go before we see him, we have got to do things as we see fit. and that includes dressing up and being silly.

perhaps this is a good way to cope with insanity and isolation. better than the alternative certainly. no darkness here at the Charlie Brown Estate. no sir. just weird and eccentric behavior since there's no one here to tell us otherwise. it's like leaving two children to run the house.

well with one week left, and the inspiration of max's idea to don a costume for the hell of it, you may find the next several entries full of costume drama. yes. that's a great idea.

thanks max!

joi de vivre

oh happy little friends that make me nothing short of giddy! i have neither owned nor made either of these crafts (my birthday is in july *ahem*), however the very idea of them is almost more than i can bare. first we have the felted animal. OH! how i love them so. what could be more perfect than a baby hedghog and its mama??? not much in this world i can assure you.



then we come to the beloved japanese craft of amigurumi! these are dolls crocheted into the cutest little things! like animals and cupcakes and other cute things that no one can live without!

the hardest part of this post was picking the photos. there are so many many millions of amazingly cute and perfect little dolls that it was so hard to pick the ones that i liked more than others! it's almost not possible, but these are pretty good representations. and these crafts are something i should be aspiring to make.

I LOVE THEM SO MUCH I WANT TO CRY!!!

i am a country girl it would seem

this week i have busied myself with the old fashioned craft of making my own dresses! i made four in tote though three are really good. i will have to redo the first one because it's rather boring and not at all how i imagined it. but i improved greatly with each dress! and each one is hand sewn. it took me one day for the first and one and a half days for the each of the other two.

the first dress here is the simplest. it is a nice little shift dress made from a floral flannel with an a-symmetrical bib in the front and a little curve bib in the back. this dress is modeled after a dress my aunt gave me that i love.



dress number two is a model of my marc jacobs dress that is a favorite of mine. this one is a step up in complexity. three fabrics this time. a brown stretchy wool as the main body with navy blue sweatshirt fabric as the top shoulder and bodice piece. and a stripey cotton as the bib and hem trim. the front and back also have different shape. straight across in the front and in triangles in the back (think baseball tee shirt).



the third dress is the most complex. it involved a lot of ruche about the sleeves and the front/back of the waist. this dress is also modeled after a favorite dress i wear alot. this is made of cotton fabrics and a leather braided lace with little beads at the end! the first attempt to make grommets for the lace was futile. they fell off right away. so sad. BUT. i was ready to make my way through thick and thin. so i took my navy blue darning thread and stitched around the holes to make my own even better looking "grommets". this little dress is my favorite.



and that's not all. i made 8 little acoustic guitar pins for our tour. no picture though. yeah for hand made goods!

the house of hard labor

it is good to start the blog with a nice semi-family portrait. the back door with all it's new paint and happiness!


but the front porch is by far the best part of the whole project. i painted the window trim white and the concrete floor a nice rose. the doors are orange with blue trim though i don't actually like the orange. it's the same orange on the concrete steps. too orange! i wanted something more muted and burnt looking. ah well.

some good friends came over to paint with me on the day of april 10th. i am eternally grateful to the ones who came and really worked their asses off for our little house to become a nice place to look at! thank you thank you! we got a 3rd of the walls painted that day. the next week i painted on my own. i finished the last wall including the parts we thought too dangerous to paint around the electrical lines. i somehow did not become electrocuted and die.

it took me alone an entire week of painting to cover all three doors, screen doors, door trimmings, porch ceiling and flooring. i still even have a little bit of detail work to repaint. and the house will need a second coat! they assured me this paint goes on one coat guaranteed. ha! no way jose.



before i could paint the back/side doors i of course had to tear down the horrid awnings that covered them. they each came down fairly easily in one piece. horrid horrid things they are. now the walls are painted however they do need to be caulked in the huge holes that are left where the bolts lived. i don't even want to mention how much insect life/death was living in the awning crevices. DEE-sgusting.

one of the sad reasons it took me so long to finish the exterior work... is that there was a bee. an enormous furry bee. it was the strangest thing. if i was outside it was zooming around my head and chasing me around the yard. not much work can get done in this manner. it is very sad. i am not even kidding. this bee had such a vendetta for me that i couldn't even go outside during certain hours of sunshine and beautiful weather because if i stepped outside the bee would suddenly be there to terrify the hell out of me. i have no idea why it wanted to be around me and me alone. and it wouldn't be there by the door when i was merely standing inside the door looking around to see if was there... it would suddenly appear at my head shortly after i emerged. i tried to kill it with wasp spray just to get some work done in peace. it wouldn't die! it was so much faster than the wasps it never could be hit long enough.

but i got him in the end. only once i had finished painting and he sneaked into the front porch did i get to spray the living daylights out of him. i should have taken a picture. it's cruel perhaps but i am so convinced this bee had it out for me. it was HUGE. as big as my thumb. crazy scary hateful creature.



i would like to state for the record that max hasn't lifted a finger to help me.



even though i built him a little fenced in area. which he hates.