I'm melting.

 The apartment is 73 deg F. and I am sweating like crazy. Earlier I was freezing. The temperature wasn't different. I haven't gone outside yet today. It's about 80 deg. F right now. The neighbor's kids are running around and having fun. Every so often I hear screaming, and out of reflex, I look to see if somebody's bleeding. Working at a daycare burns some things into your brain, I think that's one of them.

So, June saw me hypomanic for most of the month. July came along and I was in a mixed episode for most of that month. Now my seasonal affective disorder is knocking on the door even though we haven't lost a lot of sunlight yet from the changing of seasons. I just seem to be more sensitive to changed in light levels. Also, a couple of trauma anniversaries rolled over me and knocked the wind out of my sails.

My ability to focus has been problematic. It made my attempting Camp NaNoWriMo in July a joke. As some of you may know, I can complete at least one novel length manuscript in a month when my brain is working properly and I'm motivated it can be two manuscripts. July's final word count was 15k, not the 50k goal. I am really hoping November goes better.

I confess, focus has been a problem for me in remembering to take all of my medications. I lose track of what day it is and then I have to adjust my dosage schedule for some of my medications. It throws off my biochemistry and I have more problems with hot flashes, aches and pains, and brain fog. Hormone replacement therapy actually does help, but you have to take the medication for it to work. 

Failing to remember if I have taken my medication is less of a problem with pills because I have a pill sorter. It's when I deviate from using the pill sorter that problems happen. I have two medications that can't be fit into the pill sorter. One is the Estrodiol patches (one twice a week) and the other is my Trulicity injection (once a week). Those are the two that I have problems keeping on schedule. I haven't gone so far as to writing them on the calendar, but the calendar doesn't have space for notes like that, it's barely got room for appointments.

You'd figure that my all important day-planner would be my go to on this. If I didn't have goldfish brain, I would be set. But I keep forgetting to use it. I look at it and think, I should check what I need to do today. Then I look away and it goes right out of my head. Perimenopause makes me feel stupid.

Monday Menu

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Snack	Dinner
Mon	yogurt, granola coffee	salad water	nut bar	burgers water
Tues	yogurt, granola coffee	veggie plate water	nut bar	tacos water
Wed	yogurt, granola coffee	salad water	nut bar	pulled chicken sand. water
Thurs	yogurt, granola coffee	veggie plate water	nut bar	pasta salad meatballs water
Fri	yogurt, granola coffee	salad water	nut bar	hot dogs water
Sat	yogurt, granola coffee	salad water	nut bar	takeout
Sun	yogurt, granola coffee	bagel cream cheese coffee	nut bar	sand. salad water

Hypomaina sucks.

 I have not slept well this week. Last night I didn't sleep at all. As a result, I am hypomanic. I don't trust this 'good' feeling. I do dumb things when I am in this state and feel like I am fantastic as I do them. Example, one of my hypomanic episodes included a cleaning binge in the project room. I put all of my magazines into one file box and attempted to set it on the floor. While it was a somewhat controlled descent, it basically fell because the box was somewhere around 50 lbs. This stupid act is why I have a hernia and can't lift anything heavier than two gallons of milk. All the positive endorphins running around in my system buffered my senses from the initial pain of the hernia and I felt 'a little sore'. 

By the time I realized something was wrong, it was a few days later when I was no longer hypomanic and I couldn't figure out why when I moved a certain way a lump would stick out of my abdomen. Like an idiot, I poked at it, pushed it, and prodded it into creating another, larger, hernia. As this opened up, I felt a burning sensation. Being ignorant about how to manage what I had done to myself, I let this sit until my next diabetes follow up (months later). As a result, the second hernia was bigger and wider by the time I saw my doctor. Apparently this is a good thing because it's the small ones that get trapped and need surgical intervention.

But, hypomania and ignorance is why my sex life is dead, I can't do my back therapy exercises, bend over, or pick crap up off the floor with out squatting down (and even that is a bit risky). Beloved, bless that man, isn't angry with me for the long term impact of this on our relationship. Hell, the timing was pretty close to when the vaginal symptoms of perimenopause hit. Fortunately, we have a long time that we were working around problems like this due to trauma instead of physical injury. So, we know how to keep the fire in our marriage even if we can't get it on.

A part of my brain says I should info dump about how we coped early on in our relationship with my sexual difficulties. Another part of my brain says I should info dump about how perimenopause is treating me. And then there's the third part that is insisting I should go to the library and return a book. As is there the urge to start cleaning all the things, clip all the dead leaves off my plants, and throw this restless energy into meal prep for next week. Generally, do everything all at once and throw a few more items on the pile just for laughs.

No hard feelings or depression right now. I'm somewhere around bubbly and silly, but I have some control over it. In case you can't tell, I am very verbal at the moment and thoughts are racing. I can't type as fast as the ideas hit me. It is exasperating. My attention span isn't too great. I'm currently disorganized as hell. But my brain is feeling more wound up than it was last night. Thoughts are racing faster. I'm practically vibrating with energy. And all I have been drinking is water.

All Hail Air Conditioning!

 It is hot and humid outside. We just closed the windows and turned on the AC unit. It's buzzing loudly but it is making a distinct difference in the comfort level of the room immediately. The AC is drying out the air and that makes it feel cooler in here. The temperature before we turned on the thing was 77 deg F in here. The AC is set to 75 deg F, as to avoid making it work too hard. It is an older unit, but still functional.

I figure if I want to listen to my music, I have headphones I can use. It is buzzing loud enough that listening to music off the television is not really an option unless I turn the television up obscenely high. I'm not going to do that because I don't want to blow the speakers. Maybe this weekend, Beloved will help me set up my new(ish) radio that's been sitting in the box for the last year and a half.

Took Cuddle Bear out for a driving lesson and to take care of our recycling run. He did pretty good. I completely empathized with him when he started swearing at the other drivers for cutting him off as he was turning. There's a corner in the next town over that has to be one of the worst in the whole town. It is another 5 point intersection, just like at the end of our street. To make matters worse, it's at the apex of a hill, so in one direction, you really can't see people coming up the hill until they're right on top of you. And everybody wants to speed through the intersection. I'm surprised the town hasn't put a light there yet.

In that next town over, they have gathered at one of the busiest intersections to protest the current administration. Each protest is more organized and bigger than the one before. This impresses me given how Republican dominated our county is. More people are getting ticked off with the government's bullshit and making themselves known. My son and I briefly talked about stopping to hang out with them and lend support. But we have a lot to do today so that didn't happen. One of these days, however, we're going to make a point of participating in one of these No Kings protests.

Garbage plates and stuff.

Beloved has a health screening today. He is found to be healthy. In preparation for the screening, he was on a liquid diet for most of the week. He was insisting he had to have a garbage plate after his screening. So, I drove him up to the city to his favorite hole in the wall to get one. Because he had been raving about how good their garbage plate was, I had to try one. End result, I have a new homefries addiction and I'll be getting this again. Obviously, it was greasy, carb laden and not healthy in the least. But their homefries were perfect and I found myself reminded of the diners that I spent hanging out in during college with my friends.

The weather has been beastly this week. The humidity has been awful and driving up the heat index into the 90s several days in a row. Beloved put in the air conditioner last night. I was surprised there wasn't a spider living in it. Snuggle Bug didn't move at all as his father moved the couch around to fit the unit in the window. He didn't even look up from his chromebook. At almost seventeen, I figured he would at least offer to move something out of the way for his father. Nope, just kept clicking and clacking away on the keyboard playing his game.

The kids were disappointed that they couldn't go over to Letchworth and watch Union Pacific's train Big Boy 4014 go over the bridge. They tried to talk me into heading down to Hornell (a few hours south of us) so they could see it at the next stop on the line. I knew that there was no way we could make there in time for the train's stop, even if I floored it. The appointment in the morning just ate up too much time. They were in luck, however, because someone had a live stream on Youtube of Big Boy rolling into Hornell. Sure enough, about fifteen minutes after they asked to go to Hornell, the train showed up on the live feed. That was yesterday.

Today, Beloved had his appointment in the morning and we had lunch in the city. Now I'm trying to prioritize what I have to do for the rest of the day and resisting the urge to nap. Because all those carbs in that garbage plate were tasty.