creating myself

Tags

anxiety, bipolar disorder, divorce, family, friends, health, hypomania, kids, life, love, mental illness, moods, normal, sleep, stress

I’m not going to lie and say that this process I’m going through has been entirely easy. There’s been one hell of a lot of hard work getting the traces of him out of here so that I could start building my nest. It’s been a little difficult for me to get used to being able to make my own decisions again. But I haven’t had a single doubt that I did, and am doing, the right thing.

I chose the day I did because I knew that he would have a long weekend to try to start finding a place to stay, get some things, arrange transportation. That same span of time allowed me and Mom to do the overhaul in my living space. And now I have my week off work to get my sleep schedule back under control.

The first night I have no clue how I slept, other than like shit. Since then I’ve been having my Fitbit track my sleep. The second and third nights weren’t great either, and I was starting to get worried. Too many nights with no sleep can spell utter disaster for someone with Bipolar. Lack of sleep isn’t always a symptom of mania, it can also be a trigger. And I fucking HATE being manic.

But, praise the Almighty Ceiling Cat, I slept for 7 hours and 20 minutes last night.

So I think I’m going to be really alright. I’m finishing one of the last little projects I wanted to get done this morning. Yesterday Mom and I took my nieces to a natural history museum and hung out with some dinosaur bones, which they thought was super cool. And today we’re doing crafts. So yeah, I’m doing better. Loads better. Thanks for all the support kids, y’all rock.

a glimpse of friday

Tags

anxiety, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, cat watching television, cleaning is a coping skill, Elsa riding a T-rex, family, kids, life, love, mental health, mental illness, moods, motivation, nothing like nieces, stress

I took yesterday off work (mostly) so that I could get a few things done before the kid comes this weekend and so that I could spend the afternoon with my nieces. Thursday night I was kind of strung out from all the medical shit going on so I fell back on one of my favorite coping skills – cleaning. Between Thursday late evening and this morning I’ve managed to get all of this shit done.

• All 3 bathrooms cleaned (in all fairness only 1 is a full bath)
• I brewed my coffee for iced coffees next week
• Cleaned out and organized both fridges
• Did 2 loads of laundry
• Changed the sheets and made the bed
• Watered the plants
• Refilled my pill trays, all 3 of them (those are just mine, Josh has 3 of his own)
• Emptied the cat box, 2x
• Finished putting together my binders of printed patterns – I had started that project Thursday night
• Shredded some paper crap that came out of the file drawer – weeded the drawer out Thursday night as well
• Revised/updated a budget I started ages ago and printed it so that Josh and I can go over it this weekend
• Ran to the one grocery store with Mom

Aunt Erin and E, my 7 year old niece, playing dolls

at some point a T-rex got involved

at the end of a long day it’s nice to relax with a little TV

The most exciting news yesterday is that, somehow, I lost 3.5lbs. I’m quite pleased with that and I’m going to credit eating that bowl of mushy seeds and then damn near shitting myself to death with my success. So yay.

This morning Mom and I will be running to the farmer’s market and one other store, and then I believe we’re going to try to finish getting the house stuff taken care of. There’s truly no rest for the wicked.

flowers!

Tags

family, getting creative, kids, projects, random shit that falls out of my brain

It’s been rather ridiculously busy around here lately. The weekend was spent running errands, having the garage re-insulated, and doing a bit of gardening. Today I spent hanging out with my nieces. The elder niece had a day off school and my mom had to take the younger one to a concert. Enter Aunt Erin. We had a great time. E is a natural born shopper, just like her auntie. But otherwise, I don’t have much to share, and less time to share it. So here are some photos of flowers I’ve been taking lately.

small piece of the big flower bed in the backyard

Some of these are from our yard and some from my sister’s yard. I’m thinking I’ll upload at least a few to Redbubble, and possibly one of them will become a new banner for the blog.

let’s never ever do that again

Tags

bipolar disorder, family, kids, knitting, life, limits, mental health, mental illness, school, stress, work

Holy fucking hell, are we done yet? Hey Universe, answer me already, are we done yet? You know, DONE????

Back to the beginning I guess…

On Friday at work I had non-stop stuff. If I remember right I got one pee break. ONE. I got home and thought I’d get some time to start doing house stuff before the weekend really started and the kid got here. Yeah, then the basement flooded. Again. Fortunately it wasn’t as bad this time, but still, not what I had anticipated. So we went out to the hardware store and got a set of shelves to put my craft bins on so that they won’t get soaked again if this happens again. We also hit the craft store for Easter bits for the kid and then the grocery store for some last minute (or so I thought) supplies.

Yesterday morning we got up and Mom called the plumber to come clear out the pipes. In order for that to happen I had to pretty well demolish the closet. Fortunately he was here by about 9 and it didn’t take that long. Josh and I got the mess cleaned up while Mom went and got my grandma. We also got the shelves put up, my jewelry armoire moved, and shit moved around in general. It actually looks pretty good AND now all of my craft supplies are next to the fridge where I’ll see them more often.

Anyway, we finished everything up and flew out to my sister’s house to dye eggs with the girls. We came home, stopped at the nursery so I could get another violet, hit another grocery store for the truly last minute bits, had dinner, and pretty well crashed.

Today was pleasant, though a bit loud. We went to Josh’s dad’s house since we had the kid and there is always way more noise there than I’m used to. But I did take a washcloth with to work on and actually got about halfway done, so that was good. I’ve been helping Josh try to get some of his homework done while working on my portfolio. If I’m not mistaken I smell Totino’s frozen pizza in the oven. Nothing like a gourmet dinner after a long weekend.

I’m going to try to post a little more often, but no promises. And I seriously need to catch up on reading. If I can just get through the next 4 weeks I’ll be golden.

I’m back, sort of

Tags

family, getting creative, kids, knitting, life, love, moods, motivation, projects, random shit that falls out of my brain

Holy flying squirrels wearing trench coats…

I managed to get the chunk of homework that absolutely had to be emailed by Friday afternoon done. I also got most of the laundry done, ran to the pet store, the grocery store/pharmacy, and the warehouse store to get crap for Josh. When Mom got home she and I ran to the nursery and picked out a beautiful African violet for me. I want to show you a picture but I didn’t think to do it while there was natural light and it still too dark here. Her name is Guinevere. Then we all went out to my fav Mexican place for dinner and margaritas. And then to Target to finish getting gifts for the kid. (her birthday was last weekend)

Saturday morning, my actual birthday, I got up and went with Mom to drop off her car for some maintenance at the dealership and then she and I went for breakfast. From there it was off to get pedicures, back to the nursery to look for some other plants we want for around the yard. It’s looking like we’ll be doing most things in containers this year so I wanted to get Lily of the Valley bulbs for a small bed we have in front of the house (had to put our name on the list as they haven’t come in yet), we got some Hen & Chicks for in the planter around the mailbox, and we found out that the terra cotta strawberry pots won’t be arriving for another 2 weeks. At least now we know. The Hen & Chicks are hanging out in their little plastic pots in the sunroom until it’s warm enough to plant them outside.

We had lunch at Red Robin, which for those of you who don’t have those they are a slightly upscale burger place that has amazing onion rings.

That ridiculously purple drink is a prickly pear lemonade and it was to die for. Plus, free refills. AWW YEAH.

When we got home we spent some time trying to play in the back flower bed. Mom is wanting to have it redone so that we can get the deck redone and have more room to sit and maybe eat out there. But that end of the bed is full of bulbs. The iris were easy to move as they sit close to the surface but when we tried to move some of the tulips we couldn’t get down far enough to actually get the bulbs. So we’re holding off on that for right now. The guy who is supposed to be reworking the bed hasn’t come yet anyway.

Our next project was to put the garage back together. Josh had done some projects out there, Mom had had trouble finding some things, and we decided that we needed to make a few changes. So we sorted through and discarded the crap, moved a few bits to new homes, and put the snowblower under the deck. Hopefully we don’t regret that, but I did have Josh leave the big shovel out. I also used my snazzy little label maker to put labels on all the drawers of the tool chests and the top of the workbench and the potting bench are almost entirely cleared off. The workbench now has two nice sized baskets for holding potatoes and onions (the garage is insulated so it stays pretty cool out there year-round) and all that’s sitting out on the potting bench are two small extra pots and some yard waste bags.

yes, we’re still talking about Saturday…

We finally all got cleaned up and went out to dinner to celebrate the birthdays.

I like this pic of Josh and I but I need to remove the woman sitting at the booth behind us. When you look at this full size, if you do, you’ll see what I mean. But dinner was lovely. Josh cleans up nicely.

Yesterday Mom and I got the housework done and I came down with a cold (I think). And I had a little time to sit on my ass and knit. I’m still working on the shrug and yesterday I got this sneaking suspicion that I’d gotten to the half-way point. I had Mom measure my back and then help me measure what I’d knit so far and it was spot on. So I joined for the sleeve. It shouldn’t be too much longer before the first half is done. Yay!

My sister called yesterday morning and invited us over for dinner. She was cooking lasagna and A had insisted that they get a birthday cake for me. According to her you just cannot have a birthday without a cake and candles.

One of them is 7 and the other is 5 so now Aunt Erin is 75. Nice, right? We had a good time and got to meet their new puppy. It was a very pleasant evening.

Josh left before we did and when I got home I found these waiting for me. I haven’t gotten flowers in ages. I really do feel pretty damn spoiled.

Today I have an appointment with shrinky-poo, then I’ll come home and work frantically on homework and then at 3pm Josh has an appointment with his psych doc that he’s asked me to go with for. And then of course tomorrow I have to go back to work, which is kind of the suck.

I’m still not caught up on reading everyone elses posts yet, but I’m working on it. I think I’m caught up on comments, at least I hope I am.

much to do

Tags

bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, building a life worth living, family, getting creative, goals, kids, life, love, mental health, mental illness, money, moods, motivation, projects, school, sleep, stress, work

It’s been a long day already and it’s not over yet. My work day, shorter on Fridays, is about over but I still have much to do when I get home. I want to try to get as much of the housework done this afternoon/evening as possible since the kid is coming this weekend. Since my back is still tender (no available appointments with the chiropractor until Monday morning) I’ll be having to pass off some of the chores to Josh. I don’t think he’ll mind too much.

I also have my homework to do and the continued 28 day challenge tasks. Fortunately I’m a bit ahead of schedule with the challenge so I feel good about that. And while I was enjoying the “official” snow day on Wednesday I found and printed many more articles to use for my school project. The big push now is to get 6 chapters read in the text and then take an online quiz before class on Tuesday.

It’s been a very productive week, all in all. Because of the two days away from work I’ve gotten more of my personal things done than I thought I would. I’ve done exceptionally well with my Life Worth Living Goals. I even started reading the new book I got a few weeks ago last night and made excellent progress. I’ll do my full report on Sunday probably, but I’m quite happy with how things have gone.

Next week is going to be super busy. I’ll see the chiro cutie Monday morning, shrinky-poo in the afternoon, big meeting at work in the middle of the day, class on Tuesday, two meetings on Wednesday, doc appointment and hair cut Thursday night, and then Friday Mom and I are on vacation together. Whew! I need to try to stay on top of all of this.

this has nothing to do with anything, I just think it’s cool

happy places

Tags

family, friends, happy places, kids, life, love

Juls, aka The Indecisive Eejit, did a post about Happy Places and I’ve been wanting to do my own. Since I have this glorious snow day, and I’m making excellent progress, I feel compelled to do it. So here goes…

• The house I currently live in is the house I grew up in. We moved in here in December 1979. Some of my fondest memories have taken place here. It is unbelievably comforting to still be here in so many ways.
• Romeo’s – this is a local Mexican restaurant that I think has the best margaritas. It’s a happy place for me because when I was growing up and my dad’s brother or sister would come to town that’s where we’d go for dinner. The grown ups always got pitchers of margaritas, Grandma always ordered pizza (they do a little of everything), and it was just one of those special things we did. Now that my nieces are a little older Romeo’s is their favorite place to go when they get to hang out with Aunt Erin.
• My training room. I love being in front of a classroom teaching people. I was born to do that shit.
• Anywhere Mom is. She’s my best friend and I refuse to even contemplate a world without her.
• This blog, being surrounded virtually by all my pals. Y’all make a huge difference in my life, you don’t even know it. I love you all.

now let’s take a brief pause to hear from our sponsors

Tags

bipolar disorder, building a life worth living, getting creative, goals, kids, life, mental health, mental illness, money, moods, motivation, projects, random shit that falls out of my brain, sleep, stress, the world is full of fucking idiots

I think I mentioned earlier in the week that I’ve been having a wee bit of trouble with sleeping again. I don’t have too much trouble getting to sleep, but I wake up REALLY FUCKING EARLY. Sorry about that, but it happened again this morning. And since Josh goes to class on Thursday nights right now, I don’t get to sleep properly then and so to not fall asleep until close to 23:00 and then wake full up at 3:30 is just rather more than I can deal with right now.

So I got up and started fucking about with my drawings. I realized that since they start on paper and get scanned, they all have white backgrounds. Totally fine for cards and bags and posters and what not, but not so fine for a shirt in any color other than white. Slowly but surely I’m going through and removing the backgrounds from the digital images.

But before I embarked on that exciting journey I took care of one of my goals for the week by paying my bills. I’m being just a tiny bit devious this month. Josh got his student loan disbursement last week which means he’s actually flush right now, so I’m making him pay his own fucking medical bills this time. I paid all of my bills, plus the household bills that I take care of, plus the cat licenses, plus renewed my driver’s license, put $100 into savings, made a $500 payment on the not-car loan and a $250 payment on my one and only credit card, already mentally subtracted the two bills that will be automatically withdrawn later this month, spent my February allowance (pay it forward kids!), and paid Mom. The best part is that if I continue to be responsible with my money like this, I’ll be out of debt (except to Mom and the student loan vampires but including having the Honda paid off!) before the end of the year. That makes me so incredibly fucking happy, you just can’t imagine.

Anyway, I’m hoping that today stays this productive. I’ve got a lot I really want to get done and even more that absolutely must get done. Not having the kid this weekend will help. Oh, an update on that – Josh’s ex says the kid doesn’t have any new bites and the exterminator they called out wasn’t able to find any evidence that they really had an infestation. I’m glad, but I’m also kind of pissed that she scared the hell out of all of us for no damn reason.

we’re gonna need a LOT more tequila

Tags

kids, life, limits, mental health, mental illness, more chlorine in the gene pool, not interested in taking care of your bug-ridden child, sick, stress, the world is full of fucking idiots, this shit sucks, you did what you stupid cunt?

There are those who will tell you that god never gives you more than you can handle. Given the current state of things at Chez Mama I am left to make one of two conclusions…

1. This god fellow thinks I am much more of a badass than I think I am, OR
2. The bastard has gone on vacation

The household chores, with the exception of dusting, were done as of about 17:30. The kid is here this weekend and Josh got paid so we took a small trip to the bookstore. I really just should not be allowed to go anywhere but the grocery store apparently. I got 2 books and 2 CDs. But I digress.

When we got home Josh finished getting dinner together and we sat down to eat. He got a text message about halfway through, which is not terribly uncommon though frowned upon. (I just think it’s rude.) But he looked at the message, hit the screen so it would stay lit, and slid it over so I could read it – very unusual.

We found bedbugs in [the kid’s] mattress and bedding. You need to wash all of the clothes she has with her in really hot water. Oh, and everything cloth of yours that she’s touched.

Um, say again?

There’s very little love lost between me and this woman. We are friendly enough but I well and truly think she is the epitome of the phrase “fucking idiot.” The kid has bites all over her arms and face, but was told that she’s allergic to Asian Beetles and that’s what had been biting her.

So, she’s been sitting on my bed most of the afternoon and she rode in my jeep – with the cloth seats. Fortunately the bed has been made so I think all I’ll have to do is completely rewash all of the bedding. No clue about the jeep.

I still need to work on my project for school and help Mom with some stuff tomorrow. The good thing is that Josh has to have her over to her mom for another basketball game by 11:45, so they’ll have to leave by 11.

We all have our breaking points and I honestly think I’m hitting mine. This is just too much fucking stress and I’m going to snap.

homework and housework and anything else unpleasant I can think of that starts with an H

Tags

alcohol, family, getting creative, kids, life, motivation, normal, projects, random shit that falls out of my brain, school, stress, work

Mom decided to have our kitchen and dining room/sun room painted, which was a really great idea in my mind. We picked two complimentary shades of a bluish green, one darker and one lighter. But both rooms were torn apart for over a week while we took things off the walls, the one guy patched holes in the walls and sanded them, and then the other guys actually painted. Yesterday we were finally able to put it all back together. But we hadn’t really been able to do much cleaning while that stuff was going on so yesterday we had a launch a Full Attack. I am pleased to report that this joint is back up to our very exacting standards and looks phenomenal. If it wasn’t still o-dark-thirty I’d take some pics to show you.

We also ran errands yesterday which included getting ever so slightly lost trying to find “our” post office because the woman who was married to my grandfather, V, had shipped the old man’s ashes up to my mom so that he can finally be buried next to my grandmother. Well, some of him anyway. Evidently she had his ashes split so that some are here (in the back of my jeep right now) and some of them will be buried with her. I find this a little odd myself, but I guess it’s better than the previous arrangement which was her keeping his urn on the floor next to her side of the bed.

The more interesting errand was running to the grocery store and mostly that was only more interesting because I got Mom to go into the attached liquor store area. She and Josh had a bottle of margaritas at home that they like but I find too tart, and I knew with the day we’d be having that beverages would be consumed so I wanted something that I could enjoy. What I found was Jose Cuervo Light White Peach Margaritas.

Definitely a chick drink, but quite tasty. I had two normal-ish sized drinks, though larger than the 4 oz they say is a serving size. Honest to jezuz, who the fuck drinks a 4 oz margarita? The Mexican restaurant we really like to go to serves them in fish bowls with stems for fuck sake. Anyway, quite tasty and a nice way to relax at the end of a hard day.

So, homework. Y’all probably recall that I’m in the last class for the first of the grad certificates I’ve decided to work on. That meant I could take my elective course, and there weren’t a whole hell of a lot to pick from. But, one of them is a class that focuses on training techniques, which is totally perfect for me. And it meets mostly during the day, Tuesdays from 2:30 – 5:10, so I’m home in time to have dinner with Mom and Josh and still get to bed at a decent time.

The books are interesting (though a little expensive), my classmates seem like really interesting people, and the prof is enthusiastic about the subject and really seems to know her stuff. I’ve worked with her before in a professional capacity so I kind of figured she’d be really good and it looks like I was right. And the projects we’re doing are so practical and applicable to what I do at work, I just love that.

I was able to talk to my boss for a bit last week about whether or not to pursue the full Master’s degree and she agrees with me that it’s almost certainly not worth it. The university won’t give me any more pay just because of it, there isn’t really a way to promote me for it, and the stress from having to deal with comps and the woman who runs all of the stuff I’ve been involved in just isn’t worth it for me. So I’ll get the two certificates I had planned on and then call it good for that. I’m sure I’ll find something else interesting to get into when I’m done.

The other project I need to get my ass in gear for is a presentation for the system-wide symposium thing in May. Some of you may remember having a world class freak out about doing a presentation there last year and then having it turn out pretty damn decent. With that positive experience under my belt I’ve decided to submit a proposal to present again this year on a topic that will blend something from school with something we do at work and turn into something super useful for both realms. I need to get started on the research to make sure that it really is as feasible as I think, but when I bounced the idea off Miss K she thought it was a good thing to pursue as well. So yay.

I have a three day weekend because of MLK Day on Monday, which is rather nice. It sucks ass that our next official holiday isn’t until Memorial Day, but I’ll be taking some bits of time off before then. I’ve already been approved to have Feb 13 off since the kids are out of school and my brother in law is taking them on a weekend trip, which means Mom and I will have an entire day for big girl stuff. I’m also contemplating taking some time off in March which is when our spring break will be. I have an embarrassing amount of vacation time available because I never go anywhere so I figure I might as well use it.

Anyway, Monday the girls will also be off school so I’m going to go to the dentist and then head to my sister’s house so that we can all go to lunch together and do some craft projects before they have to go to their dance class. It should be a lot of fun.

Anyone else off work tomorrow? Any big plans?