So, where HAVE I been?

 Essentially, for the last year I have been stuck in a major depressive episode. I could barely function. Typically my mental state is mildly depressed. You live through enough garbage and, I have to admit, it haunts you. Thankfully, I did not hit the point where I was hallucinating or actively suicidal. But it was really hard. 

Now that I've hit the other end of that tunnel and discovered the light is an exit instead of an oncoming train, I'm trying to get back to how things were before it began. It did leave wreckage behind. I have friendships that I need to reestablish and rebuild because I went radio silent for so long. I have business connections to reestablish and hopefully move forward with the projects I had going with them. My home is a disaster because depressed Deb is a shitty housekeeper and the kids do the bare minimum to help. (That's mighty vexing on it's own.)

I have come to the conclusion that I need to find a counselor again. It is going to be hard because I have so much trauma and baggage to work through. It is painful but I can't keep doing this work on my own. I've done it on my own (with the pharmaceutical side handled by an excellent and compassionate doctor). It's been almost seven years since I have seen a therapist. I am a little gun shy about the prospect with how 2011 went. (To say it was a fucking disaster is like saying the sun is kinda warm.)

Heh, shufflemancy strikes again: Natural Blues just started playing on my rando playlist. I get quiet and withdraw because I was taught when I was younger that showing pain or any socially unpleasant response to anything was dangerous. It carried forward with other life experiences reinforcing this mind-control bullshit lesson from my parents. (Have I mentioned that I may be crazy but they're nuts?)

My tarot reading business on Keen went to hell in a handbasket because the new owners got greedy. When the overhead of running a business is over 50% of your net income and you still have to pay taxes on the gross income, you are not going to last very long. I'm still pissed about that. I enjoyed the platform. I enjoyed most of the people I came into contact with. But I am one of the readers that was basically forced out of it because they've been recruting new readers (and charging them $200.00 to join, it was free to join back in 2007) and actively engaging in shenanigans that put the onus on the long term readers to pay for the platform upgrades (which we didn't get any tech support for) and similar bullshit. Thus, I permanently am leaving the organization and feeling bad that I am disabled. Because Keen was a way that I brought a little income into the household and felt useful. (Yes, this is due to more mindfuckery from my parents, who told me that I was only valuable for what I could do and how much money I made. I had zero value as a person in that household.)

Monday Menu

 The first week of the kids being on break was harsh. A few fights. Some tears. Enough teen angst to fill an Olympic sized swimming pool. The high heat had everyone on edge. My blood sugar bounced around in the upper numbers which made me feel like garbage and incapeable of getting all of my chores done. Here's hoping this week is smoother.

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sun	yogurt with granola coffee	ham sand. baby carrots iced tea	hotdogs & hamburgers salad diet soda
Mon	yogurt coffee granola	julienne salad water	hamburgers almond milk
Tues	yogurt coffee granola	turkey sand. baby carrots water	tacos/ taco salad diet soda
Wed	yogurt coffee Eng. muffin w/ egg	gazpacho sand. thin egg water	pulled pork cheesy potatoes iced tea
Thurs	yogurt granola coffee	egg salad sand. baby carrots iced tea	sandwich night water
Fri	yogurt coffee granola	chopped salad w/ tuna water	chicken nuggets/ fish salad water
Sat	yogurt granola coffee	turkey sand. chips iced tea	take out diet soda

Monday Menus are Back.

 I've been having difficulty keeping my A1C below 7 points. So, I'm going back to making menus for myself. Some items are for the whole family (typically dinner). My doctor is having me cut back on caffeine to resolve my night time heart burn problems before I develop an ulcer. I have switched to half-caff coffee and I am having 3 cups a day instead of 5. I have also done my best to not go bananas over iced tea (one of my favorites) and cut back on the diet soda. It's been a challenging three weeks. On my first day, I tried to go cold turkey and have no caffeine. That resulted in a migraine. Hence the fact that coffee is still in the menu. I have also been pushing more water. I have a 24 oz tumbler that I drink four full tumblers through the day. It works well for me to hit my target for water consumption.

Enough rambling, here's the menu:

 

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sun	yogurt coffee bagel thin w/ cream cheese	peanut butter and jelly sand. chips almond milk	pizza diet soda
Mon	yogurt coffee granola	ham sand. chips iced tea	hamburgers almond milk
Tues	yogurt coffee granola	turkey sand. baby carrots water	tacos/ taco salad diet soda
Wed	yogurt coffee Eng. muffin w/ egg	gazpacho sand. thin egg water	pulled pork cheesy potatoes iced tea
Thurs	yogurt granola coffee	egg salad sand. baby carrots iced tea	sandwich night water
Fri	yogurt coffee granola	chopped salad w/ tuna water	chicken nuggets/ fish salad water
Sat	yogurt coffee cheese omlette bagel thin w/ cream cheese	turkey sand. chips iced tea	take out diet soda

Happy Pride Month, Keep Fighting.

 Dear Reader,

I have found one method of wrapping my hair that agrees with my scalp. Wearing a cotton kerchief beneath the scarves works out pretty well. Then I wrap it rather securely, because I have a small head.

You may have noticed a theme in the colors. They're the colors for the bisexual flag. I'm not as tired as I look in this pic. I'm just exasperated with the computer's shenanigans before I was actually get it to take the pic.

The colors in the bisexual flag are purple, pink, blue, and black. I think it's fantastic. The way I wrapped this is in a double braided crown. Then I used a hair taping technique to bind the two braids together with my blue ribbon. I'm wearing my heart earrings because LOVE! The chipped stone necklaces are rose quartz, amythest, and sodalite. The pendant that you can't see on the silver chain is my Greenman pendant for Freyr. I see him as a god who approves of Pride and works behind the scenes to help the movement be successful. Another goddess (aside from Freyja who is all about this business) that I associate with Pride is Lofn, the Nordic and Germanic goddess of forbidden relationships, the one who shelters lovers that others try to pull apart and encourages them to have hope in their relationship's strength.

Lately, Beloved and I have been watching with horror the push back against Pride and the LGBTQ+ community. We've been doing what little we can. He has a pink hat with the Progress flag on it. I have a jacket with all kinds of Pride stuff on it and something for people who are in domestic abuse situations (i.e. that queer kid getting abused by there parents can talk to me and I can point them in the direction of resources that will help them).We're planning to do more activisim in a less passive way. Because if our boys tell us that they're part of the LGBTQ+ spectrum, we want to make sure it's safe for them.

My week sucks, how about yours?

 Dear Reader,

Sunday was actually a decent day. Monday happened with Memorial Day parade and ceremony at the fire department up the road. The jingoism and the knee jerk cheer for the kid who stood up and gave a 'special statement' made me disgusted. It read like something from the Hitler Youth, literally ending with an exhortation for us to be good Americans.

I wept openly as they played the national anthem for what this country has become. I also wept when they played taps. The others aren't necromancers, they couldn't see the rank and file of the military dead of the town standing at attention, having been summoned by the ceremony. I acted as the designated mourner for them. Meanwhile the people in front of me were babbling about the fire trucks looking like they had a new paint job and what they were going to have at their cook out. It made me sick.

Monday also sucked because in the evening was when the migraine hit. It lasted until this morning. I was useless for anything, doing my best to keep down food, and remembering not to cry out when light randomly hit me directly in the eyes with out my sunglasses on in the apartment.

Today I am post migraine which is almost as bad. I didn't get anything done today either because I spent most of my day sleeping off the migraine 'hangover'. I absolutely hate these things. So, that's where I'm at. How are you? Doing better I hope.