Coming Up For Air

 

I never blogged about it (let's face it: I haven't blogged about much of anything for a long time) but on Christmas day, 2012 I came down with the flu. I felt pretty awful for a couple of weeks, actually, and it started a downward mental and emotional spiral that I feel like I am just now beginning to recover from. It has been a period of darkness, despair, and grief, with a little bit of plain old-fashioned craziness sprinkled over the top for decoration. I recognized the craziness for what it is. Which is good. And also bad.

Anyway, I am beginning to feel better. I wish I knew that it was a permanent movement in the right direction but I am afraid that it's only a temporary reprieve. My body is now revolting in a lot of ways (vomiting and other gastrointestinal issues, muscle cramps and spasms, headaches, fatigue, sporadic moments of intense pain in different places, etc.) and I think it is due to stress and anxiety but I can't pinpoint where the stress and anxiety is coming from. Nothing is wrong, really, but I feel tense and keyed up and at the same time a great inertia. I read an article about stress which stated that unfinished tasks are a cause of great stress. There is something for me to think about.

Inertia, when used figuratively to describe a person, has as its synonyms idleness, slothfulness, and laziness. Which all sound like very bad qualities to have. And I am trying to ignore and silence the voice in my head that uses very negative and hateful talk against me to keep me down in the pit of my own making into which I have descended. See, I did learn something in therapy!

So I am struggling with some very old, very familiar demons, and they have essentially kicked my big ol' bum for the last two months. (I wonder if it was precipitated by the high fever/delirium of the flu? I don't know, but that's when it started.) These things have spilled out of the arena of my mind and heart, and are manifesting themselves physically at this point. Which is just so great, ya know?

Anyway, I've said more than I wanted to, and my desire on my blog is not to showcase my troubles.

It is still cool and somewhat chilly here, which feels awesome and also a little weird. It makes me want to plant a garden. But I expect summer will arrive with great fanfare and high temps very soon.

• I am still fighting the good fight against food waste.
• I am still trying to practice frugal living.
• I am baking bread once or twice every week
• I am heating up leftovers and eating them for lunch instead of grabbing fast-food a few times a week. It helps that I am cooking food that I actually want to eat.
• I am keeping the house mostly presentable if not entirely perfect. Dishes, laundry, picking-up & vacuuming (at least downstairs), and emptying the trash are happening on a regular basis.

The menu for this week is:

• Sunday-cheesy ham & potato casserole with green salad
• Monday-leftovers (I had leftover lentil soup with a cheese sandwich and Mr. Dub had a ham & cheese sandwich)
• Tuesday-beef stew
• Wednesday-bacon/spinach/feta quiche with fresh strawberries
• Thursday-leftovers
• Friday-dinner out?
• Saturday - taco soup with corn chips and toppings

I have tried a new thing - "homemade" foaming hand soap. Did you know that it is the dispenser that makes the soap into foam and not the soap? In the picture up there is some that I made using Softsoap Citrus Berry Blast hand soap. In my downstairs guest powder room I have some that I made using Bath & Body Works Aromatherapy Eucalyptus Spearmint hand soap, which is to die for.  Here's how you do it:

1. Get a bottle of foaming hand soap from the store.
2. Use it all.
3. Fill the empty bottle a bit less than 2/3 full with hot water.
4. Add any kind/scent of regular clear liquid hand soap up to a bit less than full. (You don't want to fill it completely full or it will spill out when you put the pump lid back on the bottle. "Eureka!" and all that stuff, you know.)
5. Put the lid back on.
6. Swirl it around for a bit until the water and soap are mixed together.
7. Voila!

That is 2 parts hot water to 1 part liquid hand soap. Swirl gently to combine. I have heard not to use opaque hand soap, like the "milk and honey" type, but just the regular transparent liquid hand soap. I'm not sure why - maybe it gums up the pump mechanism? But I might try it sometime because there is a type of hand soap that I get at Kroger that I really like that isn't transparent. I will let you know if it works.

This way of doing it makes a bottle of hand soap into three bottles of foaming hand soap. It lasts three times as long. And it's a lot more fun!

I am reading Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. I tried reading a couple years ago for book club but couldn't get into it then. I am in a better mood for it now and am enjoying it quite a bit.

All hail the public library!!!

doing my civic duty

I had a summons for jury duty yesterday. And it's okay if you immediately look away or click the red "X" at this point to spare yourself some drivel on a boring topic on a Tuesday morning. It won't hurt my feelings.

I've been summoned before but I was always exempt. I had a bunch of little kids, but now that they have grown up to the point where they don't require my presence at every single moment, I can no longer claim the exemption. I don't know why Harris County wanted me for jury duty. I'm mean and cranky. I didn't want to go - not because I don't want to do my duty as a citizen but because it was all the way downtown. At 8 o'clock in the morning. There's the parking to deal with, or deciding if I should ride the bus. And then the whole downtown nightmare with its one-way streets and its Famous Last Names From Texas History street names and its down-on-their-luck men peeing in corners. (If you can help it at all, never step in a puddle downtown.)

The bus seemed like a good option because

1. I got a free ride by showing them my jury summons. (They gave me a free pass for the ride home.)
2. I wouldn't have to worry about parking my car in the right lot or dealing with rush hour traffic.

But then again I also wouldn't have any control at all over what time I got there or what time I might get home, or truth be told, if I ever would get home again. I also don't know how to ride the bus beyond climbing aboard. Did you know that the bus is dark inside? And that they have white stripes painted across the front aisle that make you think there is a step there when there really isn't? The stripe is there just to make sure first time bus riders try to take a step up on a flat surface. So that you'll look like an idiot in front of all the people who know what they're doing.

I just love it when that happens.

I also don't know how to make the bus stop when I want to get off short of hollering down the aisle at the bus driver. Which if you have ever ridden the bus you may have noticed that nobody else does.

So maybe I should drive my car down there? But then I still don't know if I'll get there on time (there's a particularly meaningful warning in the summons stating that they lock that doors shortly after the start time and if you aren't there you might get to pay a fine or go to jail for contempt but for sure you will have to come back another day, which is the most urgent incentive there is to show up on time.) and now I really have to worry about the one-way streets and finding my way out of there to try to get back on the freeway.

And so naturally I was feeling a lot of anxiety about the whole thing. I didn't want to go because I'm not a morning person and it was downtown. I wasn't sure I could get there on time or maybe even at all and I was nervous about the consequences that would certainly befall me if I didn't. And then what if I got selected to be on a jury and had to go back again the next day or maybe even more days than that, and hear all about some awful, terrible, sad, tragic story that started with somebody minding their own business and ended when some other dude took it upon himself to mess it up in some way for everybody, and "everybody" was now including me. It all seemed like a special kind of hell and I wanted nothing to do with it.

In the end nothing happened. I sat there chatting with the woman sitting next to me for 3 hours. (This is where I'll say that of course it was raining for the first time in months and I had to walk blocks and blocks from the bus stop to the Jury Assembly Building in the wind and pouring rain and show up to jury duty soaking, sopping wet.) My number never got called so I got released from jury duty and went home. On the bus. In my freezing cold, squishy wet shoes.

Insomnia

With my good Mr. Dub out of town for the last week I have been spending my nights laying in bed listening to the burglars rattling around downstairs. And waiting for them to come upstairs. You know, so that it (the battle) can finally start. The suspense is killing me.

One night this week it was super windy and the house was creaking and whistling and there was one super loud creak that woke me up from dozing, and was followed swiftly by a ringing "bong" that sounded like the plumbing coming apart. So I realized while I was laying with my heart pounding that what had happened was that one side of the house had settled/sunk down as much as 8 inches, thereby popping the outside faucet off the main water line that leads into the house. I was pretty sure bricks were falling off the front and side of the house.

My imagination sometimes gets away from me when Mr. Dub is away at night. Sometimes I am okay during his trips, and other times, I'm not. I think it might be related to where I am in my cycle. There is a sort of hysteria/mayhem/headache/fatigue/insomnia thing which comes along as part of that, and then when I add in some anxiety about fighting off the bad guys by myself and my normal routine being out of whack because I don't have him here leaving and coming home at the usual times, and I'm left to lay awake at night and imagine things.

Last night I finally just got out of bed and cleaned out my closet. I ended up with a bag to donate, a bag of trash, stray craft supplies that were relocated, some Christmas decorations that had escaped from their bins were put out with the rest of the decorations, and other decorative items were rearranged and re-purposed into new pretties for my bathroom - two apothecary jars filled with natural and tumbled rocks.

I like pretty or interesting rocks. Some of them I've picked up or purchased in places we've visited, and many of them my children, knowing that I like rocks, have collected for me.

Today I've gone into my closet a few times just to enjoy the new peace and spaciousness. It's a good feeling.

A closer look

A cross-section, so to speak, of my brain.

There are a few things rattling around in here and I want to get them out.

I had a bit of vertigo for about an hour last night. I sat/laid/sprawled out in front of the toilet (in case of the unholy puking that comes with vertigo) until I passed out from exhaustion. Somehow during the 5 or 30 minutes I was asleep I hurt my toe. It feels better today, but I feel sort of washed out and hazy. I sent a lot of ESP messages to my good Mr. Dub that I was upstairs dying on the bathroom floor but he didn't hear them. Probably because the football game was on SO LOUD.

A handful of spinach leaves got thrown away today. There are also about 1 1/2 cups of red seedless grapes that are going out with the trash tomorrow. I feel bad about this. The good news is that I made the most delicious pizza ever tonight wherein I used the homemade tomato sauce that saved the tomatoes last week. I have also been using up any stale bread in French toast for breakfast in the mornings. (Tomorrow morning we will have a bit of bacon too, before that goes bad.) I have been baking bread for the last couple of weeks and I think I'm getting into a groove with it, but that is where all the stale bread is coming from. I have some chopped onions, some corn tortillas, and some "nacho/taco" shredded cheese that all need to be used up. Sounds like enchiladas on the menu tomorrow night. Sort of like these, but with chicken and green enchilada sauce. Tomorrow afternoon I am making pie dough, and an apple pie for my good Mr. Dub to use up some apples that have been in the crisper bin for...well...for a while now. I have thrown a rapidly degrading banana in the freezer but I don't have high hopes for it. It may just be delaying the inevitable, but maybe I'll make banana bread with it and some of its overripe brothers that are sure to come along?

My granddaughter was especially adorable today. Maybe because I wasn't feeling well? She says things to me like, "I sure love you, Grammy" and "Wait for me, Grammy!". She is such a love.

I finally got around today to taking care of some school nurse paperwork/cafeteria business that had to be done for Jake at his school. It is so nice to have it out of the way. I'm not sure why I hadn't done it before today, and when I try to analyze it what I feel like is overwhelmed and that nobody ever helps me - I always help everybody else. Which is stupid because of course other people help me. But that's my initial reaction to guilty feelings of inadequacy and procrastination. Is that lame and immature?

While Avery napped today I read a book. Pictures of Hollis Woods, by Patricia Reilly Giff. It's a Newberry Award winning book that I've had for awhile but never picked out of the bookcase until today. So sad, but the most satisfying ending! I found out today that it has been made into a TVmovie so maybe someday I'll get to watch it.

I am not ready for my scrapbooking adventure this weekend and I am running out of time to prepare for it. I might end up "getting ready for it" while I'm there. Which will not be the end of the world. It will just mean that I won't get as many pages done and I will have to take all of my scrapbooking supplies with me, instead of the more manageable amount of stuff I would only have to take had I been more diligent over the last few weeks. Is it okay that I've outgrown scrapbooking? Probably. I only have a few more pictures that were taken with film to scrapbook before I run into having to choose from digital pics on SD cards. I don't know if I'll continue with it at that point.

Because of some things I have seen and heard I have had a look at some of the stuff inside my head and heart the last week or so that I'm still trying to come to terms with. I have had an opportunity to wonder if I am a ultra-sensitive person who takes things in very deeply and feels them all. Because of things that have happened in my life I have always felt like I had to have a stiff upper lip, a thick skin, a rock solid shell. That I have to let things just roll off my back, never thinking about them too much or feeling them too intimately because I can sense that incurable heartbreak and insanity wait for me down that road, and, well, I have things to do that require a clear head and some sensibility. It's not fun or easy or lighthearted to be broken and crazy and I don't want to be there. It's a miracle to me that I was raised to stay away from drugs and alcohol because if I hadn't I would surely be a drunken, addicted, sorry, hopeless piece of humanity. I feel great sorrow for the people who have been through the things I have experienced and have turned to chemicals to escape their pain. I can see that it has only made their problems worse. I'm glad that I don't have to personally live through some things to learn from them.

That's enough.

Some days are like that...

It's been a hard day. I feel like I've been judged and then put in the cosmic naughty corner. I'm trying to do that whole "Keep Calm and Carry On" thing but some days it's tough to do. For me, anyway. I saw this scripture online today, and it made me feel better. More hopeful, more accepted, more loved: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Matthew 11:28-30.

I need a Savior who isn't meting out condemnation and judgment. I need a Savior who loves me regardless of my mistakes, who tries to understand what I'm going through and will stand by me, and who offers peace and rest in a tumultuous world.

Gone but not forgotten

Last night I got to the point where I had typed a really whole lot on a new post, but I was still writing it and not ready to publish it, and somehow I typed on the wrong button and my computer froze up. Somehow I had copied and pasted my monitor's wallpaper as part of my post which pushed Blogger over the edge. When I was able to get it back, the whole post except for the pic and one letter of the title were gone.

I still remember what I was talking about though, so you still get to read it. At some point, but not today.

First I'm going to whine a little bit. Here's what's wrong with me (and has been wrong with me all month!):

• It seems like everything lately has been hard.
• I can't think of anything that's gone smoothly.
• Hiccups and trouble at every turn.
• Small things that have bugged me for a while have all of a sudden turned into big things the moment I touch them.
• Like when I cleared the kids' oh-so-slow-draining bathtub drain of a big and very nasty clump of hair and lint then all of a sudden the tub stopped draining at all. It was then completely stopped up. There are 5 people who use that bathtub every day. It required a trip to the store very late at night to get some drain opener. You know Drano and Liquid Plumber don't really work, right? "Foaming Pipe Snake" sounds awesome, and on TV it looks like it scrubs out all the muck and gunk in the pipes and sends it and all the murky, dirty, disgusting water rushing down the pipes. But it doesn't. How do they get away with that?
  
• While I was in there in the kids' bathroom I noticed that the caulk around the kids' bathtub is mildewy again. So I got some Clorox spray that I had that is made especially for that and sprayed it all over. It did absolutely nothing about bleaching out the mildew. So I assumed I hadn't shaken the bottle sufficiently, shook it up some more, and sprayed it again. Waited awhile before going back to check. Nothing.
  
• How do these companies get away with charging $4 or 5 or 6 dollars for a bottle of something that doesn't do at all what you specifically buy it for?
  
• I've been working hard trying to get some improvements done in our home. They are slowly coming along which is nice. But then three "specialty" light bulbs have burned out in various light fixtures here this week. Each of which required a trip to the store on top of the other trips to get the one thing I didn't have to finish each particular project. I'm still probably at least two trips to Home Depot away from finishing my laundry closet. I'm spending more time driving back and forth to the store than I am actually working on the house.
• I trip over the pile of supplies and tools in the upstairs hallway at least 10 times a day.
• In order to put those things away properly I'm going to have to clean out the garage. Which I just dread doing, and haven't had time this week to do anyway.
  
• There have many small things like these make me wonder why I even bother trying.

I wonder why these things are bothering me so much. I know that I have much to be thankful for, and that small but aggravating things happen to everybody in life.

Maybe my lucky stars are out of whack or something. Maybe they'll get back in line and I'll have a month where things go smoothly and easily.

Hey! Wouldn't it be awesome if that month started today!