Sunday, September 29, 2019

Pause the Music

Credit to Nick Gibson for today's title inspiration.
I have a lot of thoughts in my head and would you believe that they're all good and I'm smiling? Weird, huh? I'm not complaining though.

I saw my doctor on Friday and I'm happy to report that we're both doing well. She had a workout accident a while back but is healing nicely. Me? My blood pressure tracking pleased her and seeing me happy and thriving put a huge smile on her face.

I don't think I realized that I'd stopped thriving, but was merely surviving. Heck, just surviving was a nice feeling. Actually thriving (thank you god for those who created this medication that I'm on now) has me over the moon and insanely productive. My sleep schedule has shifted to more match that of those around me. I'm asleep by 11 and up by 6:30-7:30 am. I'm getting up, getting dressed, eating, and knocking out project after project. It's spectacular.

I don't know if I wrote last week about being back in my bedroom, but that's been a wonderful change too. After a week or so of that, I'm finally adjusting to sleeping in there. The cats have laid claim to their sleeping spots and none of us are crunched up, unless they choose to be (Mac likes to sleep up against my legs). My room isn't completely dehoarded, but I would say that it's at least halfway there and I'm thinking that maybe within a week, it will be totally done. Then, I need to convince the youngest to come home from college for a few hours to help me get the dresser inside and upstairs to my room. I can't move it by myself and my doctor told me to not even try.

Normally, all of these changes would freak me out, but instead, I'm celebrating them and I'm celebrating me for getting them done. Thanks to my editing work, I've been able to make some payments on outstanding bills and I'm hoping that by the end of the year, those will be taken care of which will put me in a better financial place for the upcoming year.

I've found myself stopping more...Pausing the music in my head...to enjoy other things. I'm slowly reading more. I'm playing games. I'm taking pictures of raindrops on spider webs. I'm doing more of the things that I love that slipped by the wayside. Mostly? I'm enjoying being me. It's pretty awesome.

That's it for this week. I'm off to Life With Katie to write my weekly writing prompt post. If you like recipes, reviews, writing, please pop over and check it out. I have a giveaway starting there tomorrow.


Until next week....take care of yourselves, my little chickadees!

Sunday, September 22, 2019

Dipping and Birthdays

Okay, it isn't my birthday. Not until tomorrow. However, it's really affecting me today. You see, I guess at some point, I stopped feeling loved or cared about and my birthday was a solid reflection of that. After my divorce, nobody paid any attention to it really. Well, that's not true. I had one friend who did. I guess I started seeing my birthday as some kind of indicator of whether or not I deserved to remain on this planet.  I can't believe I'm writing about this. I don't think I've ever fully told anyone why my birthday matters so much to me...

Anyway, some years were bad...for my 30th, I was raped by someone I trusted. For my 35th, someone threw a birthday party for me that nobody showed up to. Others were pretty good...one year, I got three or four cards and half a dozen presents. That was a really good year. I felt so loved. This year? Well, my birthday is tomorrow and there have been no cards or gifts that have arrived.

In years past, this would have been an issue for me starting a week to two weeks before my birthday. I'd have been checking the mail box every day, even checking my Amazon wish list to see if anything had been bought. This year, I made it to two days ago for the mail box and today for the depression. That's progress, but it's still hard. Part of me screams...I just want to be loved. Why can't you show me that you care? A card would cost as little as $1.50 to buy and send, aren't I worth your time? Blah.

Social media hurts in these situations. People post about their birthdays...the dinners, the cakes, the cards, the presents...and it hurts. People also post to my wall and feel like that's enough. It's nice, especially if we aren't close, but it's not the same as knowing that someone took the time to make a real effort. Ugh. I just flipped to Facebook to answer a message and what do I see? Someone's birthday with dinner out, balloons, cake, and presents. See? That's just what I mean. I'm happy for the person, but it's like a stab in the heart to me.

I know, deep down, that I shouldn't take one day and use it as a determining factor of my worth. I know that I shouldn't, but still, there's that piece of me...that really mean voice...that tells me that nobody loves me, they love what I can do for them, for how I can make them feel, but that they don't love me. I hate that voice. She's a bitch. She's just plain mean.

So, today, I'm sad. I'm next to in tears sad and it's not really anybody's fault. It's this whole birthday thing. I wish I could hate birthdays but I don't. I love them. I love celebrating the days that my favorite people joined the world on this planet. Somehow, I even love mine. That makes zero sense, but it's true. Maybe it's the part of me that's happy to be alive. I'm not really sure. I'm not really sure that this post makes any amount of sense, but here it is...Love to all who are struggling...

Sunday, September 15, 2019

Life Update

This needs to be my reminder to myself this week. Kat Scratch Press editing has taken off to the point where I have four separate projects on my desk. I'm always so worried about letting people down that I'll work myself to exhaustion trying to make sure that they're happy. Part of the reason that I've moved these posts to Sundays is to make sure that my Monday are open for me to just sit and work if need be. Fingers crossed that I can hold myself in check this coming week.

As for everything else, things are going pretty well. When Ben was here last week, we cleaned the kitchen, sorted through his clothes, and then created a 3" wide (give or take, I suck at estimating distance) path from my bedroom door to my bed. Then, since I could now access my dresser, I purged that and all of the clothes that have been stacking up on my bed. In the end, I donated three bags of clothes to Goodwill and I'm nowhere near done with that room yet! It's crazy, but the big news is...I can now sleep in my bed for the first time in five years! That's a victory right there. The bed is made up with clean sheets and I've spent the past three nights sleeping up there. I'm not sleeping 100% yet but I'm adjusting to having an entire bed to sleep in. I guess you can say that I kicked that having the tv on habit because there isn't a tv in the bedroom. I still have the light on, but that'll go at some point. I'm just not quite ready.

Ben is coming back over this evening for a couple of days and I suspect we'll be tackling the living room in between bouts of me working on client work. I'm so looking forward to the point where this house is a place where I wouldn't mind my son's girlfriend coming into instead of waiting in the car while he runs in to get something. I'm really hopeful that by the time colleges let out for Christmas break, the house will be good enough for all of the kids to be here. That would mean a lot to me.

In other news, I finally received a blood pressure cuff and I've been using it for the past couple of days. My results so far? 123/78, 133/87, and 131/80. So, two of those were a little high but still below the mild hypertension range which is good. If it continues this way for the remainder of the thirty days, I don't think we'll need to adjust my medication. Perhaps if I lose some weight, that will help bring it back down.

I haven't been able to start the walking or the pool time yet. I've been so busy with everything else that I just haven't had the energy. I know that it's something that I need to do, but I just haven't gotten there yet.

I'm feeling a little stressed but overall, I think I'm handling things okay. I just have to keep going and making changes when I can. The bed thing is a huge one and I'm looking forward to clearing more of that room out so I can get more things put where they belong. One day and one step at a time. Ever Onward.


Sunday, September 8, 2019

Balance

Balance
Two weeks in a row, who would have thought? This is going to be a short post because it's been a very busy day and tomorrow...no, this entire week is going to be crazy. My oldest is visiting until Wednesday night and we have plans to attempt some serious deep cleaning around here. Of course, my plan to have no editing work for this week completely bombed. I have 4 more files for a friend of mine and each file takes me at least a couple of hours. I just seem incredibly slow at it. I'm hoping that he'll be patient and give me a few more days to get them done. I'll message him first thing in the morning and see what kind of timeline he can work with.

Other than that, things are going fairly well. I still don't have a blood pressure monitor, but someone from my past popped up and said he'd like to give me the money to buy one. Since we haven't spoken in about 25 years or more, I have my hesitations but if he comes through, that would be amazing.

I'm still really tired which concerns me. I don't know what's causing it. I did okay today though, but it's the first day that I have. I'm hoping though that it means I've turned a corner with that. It's so hard to balance life when you're spending half of it asleep or feeling out of it with exhaustion.

Balance is obviously a concern. My little editing business seems to be taking off which is incredibly exciting, but I need to figure out how to balance client work with house work and writing. I don't want to stop writing and right now the only writing that I'm doing is a weekly prompt over on Life With Katie that I've managed to do two weeks in a row. Hopefully I can start to find that balance so that I can do all of the things that I need to. Yep, I need to write. It's part of who I am...

For now though, it's nearing midnight and I need to take my medicine and see about getting ready for bed. Tomorrow is talking with my client, working on one of his files, and then Ben and I are going to try to get the kitchen cleaned up. A tidy space helps me keep a tidy mind. Thank goodness for awesome kids who are willing to help out.


Monday, September 2, 2019

What? A Weekly Update?!?


It's only been a week and I'm back! Can you believe it? I almost can't except that I've been working on setting up a new Monday schedule which includes writing a post here and writing one over on Life With Katie.

So, how are things? Let me tell you. I'm still struggling with being really tired during the day. I wake up around 7:30 and stay awake until maybe 9 am and then I fall back to sleep until 10:30 or later. It's far from ideal. I'm hoping that it's still the medication and not a blood pressure issue.

Speaking of blood pressure issues, I still don't have a cuff for me to monitor things at home. Why, you ask? Because insurance sucks. The first place I went doesn't take my insurance. The second place does, but the insurance requires submission of my appointment notes showing medical necessity. Then, once the place submits those, it can take 2-3 weeks for them to approve (or not) it so I can get one. It's really frustrating and a little bit scary. I've looked on Amazon and for $50, I could have a really high rated one and not have to go through this, but every penny that comes in, goes right back out to one bill or another. You would think that they'd find preventative care worthy of investing in. I don't think I'm at serious risk for a heart attack or anything, but if I were to have one, the medical expenses would be a lot higher than the cost of an at home blood pressure cuff.

Let's see, other than that, it's really all about adjusting to not having the kids here. Roger and Dylan seem to be settling in well at college. I saw them on Friday and Dylan was chatting quite a bit about a girl that he's met. Maybe he'll have a girlfriend soon. Roger is busy with classes and rehearsing. It makes me smile to see him taking things so seriously. His roommate is talking about starting a D&D group for Friday nights and he's interested. I may need to dig out my dice for him soon.

My editing business is trickling along with makes me smile. I made enough in August to keep DHS off my back for another month. Right now, September is looking promising, thank god. Even with the new medication, I panic at the thought of having to work outside of the house. So, I keep pushing with my little business. It's something that I truly love doing and it's flexible so if I need to go do something else, I can go do it. I think I need that flexibility.

I guess that's it for now! Life is all about adjustments right now. Tonight I start in with making sure I'm in bed by midnight. I've also slept with the tv on and the light on for years now so I'm going to start working on turning down the tv a little bit each night. Baby steps, right? Now...I'm going to baby step over to the other site and work on a Wordsmith Wednesday post!


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