Feeling down.

I've caught my son's head cold. It's made me feel pretty awful of late. My sinuses are just gunky and gross which is making me cough a lot. Oddly enough, the allergy spray that I take every morning helped clear some of it out this morning so I could sort of breathe through my nose earlier. I'm half tempted to use it again, but I know that is not a solution. So, I'm probably going to be stopping at the store tomorrow and picking up some saline nasal spray to get me through this cold. It wouldn't be so awful if it weren't for the fact that due to the diabetes I can't use any of the over the counter medications for this. I get to use Tylenol or Aleve, that's pretty much it. And sugar free cough drops.

My mood hasn't been the best. Seasonal affective disorder is really getting to me right now. Which is perversely ironic as we're beginning to get more sunlight. I have been attempting to keep working on my manuscripts and staying on top of housework despite feeling moderately depressed. It's exhausting. I'm trying not to let the accompanying anxiety run the show but when I try to sleep it's been a lot of nightmare about random stuff.

My work on serious spring cleaning seems to be going awry. This is because I have a couple of young men who haven't figured out how to pick things up. And the perpetual battle with dishes and laundry is hard to win on a day when you've got a cold making you miserable. I do, however, have several boxes of things to go off to Goodwill and be donated. Maybe I can get that done this weekend.

TL:DR - I'm feeling like I could sleep for a week or just lie in bed and stare at the ceiling for a week. And I'm congested. This kinda sucks and was not what I had planned.

Menu for the week of 3/4/19

I've been struggling with putting together menus because I have issues revolving around food. Precooking for the week is helping with some of the issues. At the same time, it sucks up just about a whole day. I'm slowly making progress towards menus that are friendly for everyone in the household. The kids actually will eat pulled pork if I don't put bbq sauce on it. And it's a good thing if I don't cook it with bbq sauce because that makes it lower carb and better for me.

The recommendation of the South Beach Diet Cookbook has been really helpful. I've been making some of the recipes and finding things similar online. I've started making my own sauces based off of the South Beach Diet's version of things like bbq sauce. Because I'm so carb sensitive, I have been really careful not to use sugar in anything. It's frustrating but I think I'm making progress.

Now I just have to figure out why over the last few weeks my fasting numbers have been high. I'm tweaking things like what I am eating for a snack and when I eat snack. I just can't figure it out.

Date	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sun	Pop tarts	sandwiches / leftovers	Pizza
Mon	kids: school me: oatmeal & slice of crustless quiche, coffee	Kids: school Hubby: pizza & hard boiled eggs Me: cobb salad	hamburgers & cheese burger salad
Tues	kids: school me: oatmeal, egg, coffee	Kids: school Hubby: ham salad sandwiches & eggs Me: salad	Pulled pork tacos / taco salad
Wed	kids: school me: oatmeal, slice of quiche & coffee	Kids: school Hubby: quiche, pulled pork sandwich Me: leftovers	pizza meat pie salad bread sticks
Thurs	kids: school me: quiche, coffee oatmeal & berries	Kids: school Hubby: leftovers Me: leftovers	teriyaki meatballs rice
Fri	kids: school me: veggie omelet & toast & coffee	Kids: school Hubby: leftovers Me: leftovers	Bombay style chicken breasts 'rice' & naan
Sat	eggs, bacon & fruit	leftovers / sandwiches	pizza

I'm starting to make art again, yay?

So, in the effort to improve my mental health, I've started making art again. Like, I'm busting out the sketch pad and my art supplies and doing stuff like what's to the right. That's an abstract self portrait. The blues and purples reflect what I'm feeling right now. I'm not at 100% at the moment but I'm trying my best.

I'm still kinda depressed but it seems to be improving. I feel like I've got some pieces to my puzzle missing, hence the blank spaces. My memory issues have been bothering the hell out of me. I've been trying to figure out where I put something important for the last two weeks and I haven't found it yet. I know I didn't throw it away, but I have no idea where it could be.

Hopefully in the process of my deep spring cleaning, I will find that box of trinkets. I kinda need it for some therapy work that I've been doing. I'm going to be using some of the contents in my art journal but I have to find the box with the stuff in it first. I think I put it away when I was in a hypomanic state. I'm kinda frustrated.

Journal work is a slow going process, but I think I'm beginning to sort some stuff out. I'm realizing that my imposter syndrome has some pretty deep roots and is intimately tied to my social phobia. I'm trying to work around that so that I can get going promoting my art and my writing.

Felling a little less direly depressed.

I am finding my mood is improving some. I'm feeling a little less depressed. There's still some pretty hard swings going on, but I'm beginning to get a feel for how to cope with them. Now, if only the alternating feels of being too hot and freezing would go away, that'd be perfect. At least I'm not sick.

I'm making progress on my deep cleaning the apartment. The kitchen is done except for the floor. But I'm waiting until we have the floors all picked up so I can just run the vacuum cleaner over the whole apartment in one shot. My next room to tackle is the bathroom. I may have a little bit of a harder time there.

It's all real.

The funny thing about gas-lighting is that if you're subjected to it long enough, it becomes part of your mental backdrop to everything. You start to second guess everything you do and your memories of things. I started keeping a bullet journal/planner in part to help me combat the long term effects of gas-lighting. Today is not a great mental health day. Part of it is because I'm hormonal and suffering from seasonal affective disorder. Part of it is because all of the gas-lighting from when I was a kid is rearing its head right now.

My parents didn't believe mental illness happened to our family. It was treated as if you were some how mentally defective and that through force of will and correct thinking you would be cured. My parents didn't believe me when I complained of pain in my knees as a child. Cue 30 years later and I was diagnosed with arthritis with my doctor horrified that no one listened to me as a kid. My parents told everyone that I was a compulsive liar and a hypochondriac from as soon as I could start talking. My parents used gas-lighting to do their best to keep my siblings and I compliant with their will.

The years that was most active, my brothers and my father don't remember. I have spotty memory that is coming back in bits and pieces. The memories coming back are pretty horrible. I don't talk about them with the rest of that side of the family because as far as the narrative goes, we all had a normal childhood and I was the weird one with issues. But, I remember things like my parents having screaming arguments over money late at night. I remember my mother throwing cast iron pots at my father as she screamed at him for some reason or another. I remember that stuff and worse.

I don't sleep well at night. Some days, I have this crisis and I question my memories harshly. I can't tell for a moment what is real. Is what I remember accurate or is what I was told about myself true? Each segment of my life where I have spotty memory recall due to trauma, I have this crisis. All because of gas-lighting's long term effects. It is like imposter syndrome all the damn time.

But, when the people around you confirm some of those memories that you don't talk about, you realize that all of your memories are real.

Menu for the week of 2/18/2019

Date	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sun	Donuts	sandwiches / leftovers	meatloaf roasted potatoes/ mashed cauliflower green beans
Mon	kids: scrambled eggs & toast me: oatmeal, coffee	Kids: sandwiches Hubby: pizza & hard boiled eggs Me: cobb salad	hamburgers & cheese burger salad
Tues	kids: cereal me: oatmeal, egg, coffee	Kids: ez mac Hubby: noodle bowl w/ meatballs Me: salad	crock pot chicken fajitas
Wed	kids: pancakes me: oatmeal, nuts, turkey & coffee	Kids: sandwiches Hubby: sandwiches w/ chips & eggs Me: leftovers	spaghetti & sauce (spaghetti squash)
Thurs	kids: eggs & bacon me: zucchini hash w/ eggs & toast & coffee	Kids: sandwiches Hubby: leftovers Me: leftovers	pork tenderloin couscous cucumber salad
Fri	kids: pancakes me: veggie omelet & toast & coffee	Kids: ez mac Hubby: leftovers Me: leftovers	Bombay style chicken breasts 'rice' & naan
Sat	eggs, bacon & fruit	leftovers / sandwiches	pork chops apple salad couscous

Return to your roots.

So many signs point me back at my roots. At the same time, there are places I can not go now. There are people I can not talk to now. I question where my roots are and just how much of it is a fabric of lies. Perhaps this is why I am getting this message so many times from so many places. Spiritually, I am on the verge of a month of discipline and preparation for spring. I am facing the beginning of a week where the kids are on break from school. I'm not feeling very well. I'm not sleeping very well.

And yet, I feel this deep pull to go back to my roots. Not just here, but on my other blogs. In my other writing. I feel almost compelled to exhume my old work from high school to just review it. I kept my writing journals and my personal journals. They're among my prized possessions. They're my memories when my brain is not functioning correctly. I've added to them my daily journal in the planner format.

I don't know why it is so important for me to return to my roots. But, I find myself wishing I could walk the hills of my youth and hear my grandparents' voices again. I find myself wishing that I could have one more cup of tea with my late aunt and let her know that I actually wanted her at my wedding but my parents pressured me into not inviting her and her wife. I find myself not missing my childhood but reliving parts of it by way of dreams and being confused.

My memories are a patchwork of trauma and blank spaces from that period of my life with shining moments of joy interspersed. There are more blank spaces then happy memories. And intermixed with it all is the narrative that I was told about my childhood from my parents, which runs so very contrary to what my memories tell me.

Go back to my roots. How do I find the roots of it all if I can't remember the way? I suppose the gods and my ancestors will show me the way. They always have.

Phyllis & The Visitor

Phyllis sipped her tea and listened to the children arguing behind her. It had been a long day. She simply had run out of energy and just let the boys argue. As she turned on her soothing New Age music, the 35 year old mother tried to refocus her mind on the soaring aria that was being sung over a cloudy mashup of sythesizer and cello. Phyllis looked at her book and tried for the fifth time to read the beginning line of the page. Shrill shrieks replaced the bickering.

With a sigh, Phyllis, she put the book down and turned to face her boys. Aaron, age five, was wrapped around a toy fire truck as Edgar, age seven, tried to pry the truck out of his brother's arms. Phyllis got up out of her chair and walked over to the fighting boys. She leaned down and firmly took Edgar by the arm. She lead him away as Aaron stopped shrieking. "Edgar," Phyllis said for what felt to be the millionth time that afternoon, "You need to share with your brother." Edgar glared down at his feet.

"It's not fair," Edgar muttered, "I wish I didn't have a brother. I hate him." Phyllis sighed. This had been Edgar's refrain for the past week. She suspected that it had something to do with his brother starting school and riding the bus with him. Phyllis knelt down beside Edgar to look him in the eye.

"Now, Eddie," she said gently, "You don't mean that. You love your little brother...."

Edgar's head whipped up. He put his hands on his hips in a gesture that mimiced the one Phyllis took when she caught them in the midst of trouble. Edgar narrowed his eyes. "Don't call me Eddie," he snapped, "And I do mean it. I hate him. I wish he never was born." Before Phyllis could do anything, Edgar turned on his heel and bolted from the room. As he pounded up the stairs, Phyllis looked over at Aaron. Aaron looked at her with a deeply wounded look.

"Aaron," she said with the same gentle tone of earlier, "Eddie didn't mean that. He was just angry." Aaron's lower lip quivered as his eyes brightened with tears. Phyllis inwardly growled with frustration and caught herself starting to grind her teeth as she walked over to her son. "Aaron," she continued in her best soothing voice, "Don't let what Eddie said bother you. He just gets mad and says things he doesn't mean."

"Why are you lying to the boy?" a deep male voice said from the doorway to the hall. Phyllis's head whipped over and there before her, she saw a tall, red haired man dressed in a dark grey pinstriped suit. His green eyes seemed to be alight with some emotion that Phyllis couldn't define, though his facial expression was solemn. He stepped into the living room and walked towards Aaron, who was caught somewhere between tears and shock at this strange man appearing in his living room.

The man crouched down beside Aaron and pushed the forgotten firetruck towards the lad. As the siren wailed and the lights flashed, Aaron looked down at it. Phyllis felt a cold tingle of fear run down her spine. The firetruck had the batteries taken out of it last week. "I don't know who you are, but you should get out of here," she said with more conviction then she felt.

The red haired man smirked at Phyllis. She could see scars over and on his lips. Phyllis wondered if they were from some sort of drug use. She seized upon the idea and straightened up. "I will not have a drug dealer in my home," she declared, pointing out to the hallway and the front door at the end of it, "You will leave or I will call the police." At her vigorous statement, the red haired man stood up, chuckling.

"I do not deal in drugs. That is beneath me, Phyllis," he said, sounding as though he was on the verge of full throated laughter at the concept. "I am here because you asked me here," he explained, gesturing towards the door and then towards Phyllis.

"I have no idea who you are," she spat venemously.

Her strange guest smiled and pulled out a pristine white business card. He held it out to her as he gave a small bow. "Allow me to introduce myself," he said as he did so, "I am Loptr Naalson." Phyllis hesitantly took the card and looked at it. Embossed in elegant script was the name that her strange guest gave and nothing more. "As you were making your tea, you asked for help," Loptr said, smiling, "I was in the neighborhood and decided I would do so."

Phyllis looked at the card and struggled to figure out what Loptr was speaking of. Then her eyes widened. "I said god help me," she replied, "You are obviously not a god. You're standing right here infront of me." Loptr laughed. "Get out," she insisted, "Get out right now, or I will call the cops."

Loptr straightened and walked towards the stairs that Edgar and fled up. "I presume that the problem is Edgar," he said, "I will deal with him straight away and then go on my way." Phyllis darted between the lean man and the stairs. Loptr arched an eyebrow. "Do you want help or not, woman? The boy is on an evil path. The fights and the cat is proof of it," Loptr said with no trace of humor, "Your insistance upon scripture readings and corporal discipline has done nothing for the child. I can show him what road he is treading and give him the chance to choose the correct one."

Phyllis shivered with fear. This strange man knew, somehow, about the fights that Edgar got in and the cat he almost lit on fire. It was a secret she did her best to keep from the community, and yet this man knew. "How do I know you're not the devil?" she whispered as Loptr mounted the first step. He looked over his shoulder at the fearful woman and smiled, "How do you know that I am?" Phyllis stared as Loptr climbed the stairs. Soon, Loptr came to a narrow hallway that lead off to his left. The door at the top of the stairs was closed and he could hear something being thrown at the wall. Loptr gave a rueful smile and shook his head. He walked into the room and caught the lacross ball as it came flying at his head. Edgar stared at the interloper in dumbfounded amazement. "You and I need to have a chat, son," the tall man in the suit said as he shut the door behind him, "You're mother is going to pieces over you."

"She's always blowing up over something. It doesn't make a difference if I do something right or not," Edgar muttered as he sat down on his bed. He crossed his arms and glared at the man who tossed the ball between his hands. "Why're you here? Are you some minister to pray over me?" the boy asked suspiciously. Loptr laughed.

"Oh no," he assured Edgar, "I'm much worse."

"You're not a cop, are you?" the boy said, "You can't take me to jail. I'm too young." Loptr grinned and Edgar couldn't help feeling a little disgusted at how the scars on his lips twisted. Loptr shook his head. "If you're not a cop and not a minister, what are you?" Edgar demanded, refusing to be cowed by this stranger.

Loptr held the ball tightly in his hands. "Who I am is not important," Loptr said, crouching beside Edgar, who leaned away from him. Loptr brought his hands up, with the ball covered by his long fingers. "What is important is what I'm going to show you. After that, you decide."

"What," Edgar sneered sarcastically, "A ball?"

"More then that," Loptr retorted, and he opened his hands. Where a scuffed, white rubber ball had been, there was now a crystal ball. Edgar's eyes went wide with amazement. "Look in there," Loptr said, "That's how this works. You look into the ball and then you make up your mind." Edgar leaned forward to peer at the ball and then gasped in shock to see a miniature version of himself sitting on his bed with the suited man beside him. Edgar waved his right arm and in the image he saw the same thing. "Cool," he said in a whisper. Loptr passed his left hand over the ball and Edgar saw an older version of himself. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit in a small room. "What's that?" Edgar asked. "Keep looking and it will be revealed," Loptr said. Just as the red haired man had said, the image shifted, the minature, older version of Edgar had his hands cuffed by a policeman. He walked out of the small room and into a much larger room. Edgar, who had seen enough court dramas on television, recognized the location as a court room.

"But I'm going to go free," Edgar said, "I..." Loptr shook his head.

"No, son," he said solemnly, "You're not there for breaking somebody's window. You murdered your little brother." Young Edgar's face blanched. "You can change this," Loptr said, "Not many people get the chance to change things like this. Tolerate your brother and channel your desire to break things into more... appropriate directions." As Loptr spoke, the image in the ball grew cloudy and then showed adult Edgar on a construction site. The image of Edgar was at the controls of a crane with a wrecking ball. "This can be your future," Loptr said quietly, "All you need to do is choose."

"But what about Aaron," Edgar said petulantly, "He's always in the way. He's always getting into my stuff and bugging me." Loptr gave Edgar a wry smile.

"What does your mother say about that?" he asked, his tone rich with amusement.

"That he'll grow out of it. That I should treat him how I want to be treated," Edgar replied glumly.

"A few years isn't that long to put up with him being annoying," Loptr said, "It's better then not having him for the rest of your life. As much as he irritates you, you'd miss him. And on that path, he would never forgive you or come to see you. You would lose him just as surely as you lose your mother."

Edgar sighed. "I just want him to leave me alone," he said.

Loptr patted him on the shoulder. "I feel that way about my brother sometimes," he said, "There will be times where you will want him around too."

Edgar looked at the crystal ball with an expression of disappointment. "You don't need to act on the impuses to break things," Loptr said, "Just wait until it is the right time and the right thing. It will come. I promise you." Edgar looked over at Loptr's solemn face.

"How will I know?" Edgar asked. Loptr smiled.

"You'll just know," he answered and set the ball into Edgar's hand. As soon as the ball touched the boy's fingertips it turned into his lacross ball. Edgar's eyes went wide with wonder. He looked up at Loptr as he stood.

"How did you do that?" Edgar asked. Loptr smiled wider.

"Magic, of course," he answered, "now come down stairs so that your mother doesn't think I've eaten you or something." Edgar dropped the ball onto his bed and walked down the stairs ahead of Loptr. When he got to the bottom step, his mother flung her arms around him. She looked up the steps to see if the strange man was going to come down.

After a long moment, Phyllis went upstairs. She looked in Edgar's room and found nothing but a falcon feather sitting on the bed. She searched the rest of the upstairs and found she was the only one there. Again, Phyllis shivered with dread. As she walked back into Edgar's room, she picked up the feather. "Perhaps he was an angel," she whispered.

Making no sense.

I have been struggling to write lately. The words just refuse to form. It's like having an idea that something is a color but you can't tell someone the color directly. Charades doesn't translate well to paper. It's also a crappy party game.

Imposter syndrome has been hitting me pretty hard. I've been having some anxiety over it all going wrong and I just can't stay health enough to have a career or even a hobby writing. Or at least, that's what my anxiety tells me. Because every month, I spend around half of it depressed, on average. But, that's an average.

Thus, the last three weeks was a depressive episode, but I didn't rate it as 'that bad' until last week. Now I'm feeling better but tired. Why am I tired, you ask. Well, I've some kind of stomach bug that's been making me feel rotten for the last few days. I didn't sleep so great last night because of it. On top of that, I am starting to have some disruption to my sleep. With my mood coming up out of depressed and my sleep starting to get erratic, I think I have a hypomanic episode coming up. Those last a few days to a week. Then I crash into a depressive episode.

Somewhere along the way, I have about a week of stable mood. It's really frustrating. Because until my depression gets severe, I think I'm just having a bad day. And in the hypomanic state I ... well, I am buzzing around doing ALL THE THINGS. When it has passed, I don't remember what I did. It makes finding things in the pantry a challenge. It is all very organized when I'm done, but gods help me if I can make sense of the organization.

Once, I had a therapist tell me that part of my memory issues was because my memory problems are mood dependent. Thus, when I'm depressed, I am only remembering bad things and when I'm in a good mood I'm only remembering the good things. I don't think that's accurate but I do think there's something to the argument. I know that when I'm depressed, I have a lot more flashbacks and I'm less resilient to the disappointments of life. When I'm manic, I am more resilient but I'm also very driven to do things. And my thought processes might click along faster, but they're going in more erratic directions.

It's hard to come to grips with all of this. It makes me realize that even with medication, I am not stable enough to re-enter the workforce. It makes me realize that I am going to have to play the long game when it comes to a writing career and that freelance work may not be a thing for me. That makes me feel kinda bad. I thought that maybe I was stable enough to possibly start writing to deadlines and stuff. Writing comes pretty easily to me, except for when I am depressed. Then everything gets hard. And I highly doubt someone is going to accept "I'm sorry this is late, but I was too depressed to figure out how to write a decent paragraph." as a reason for an item being past due.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do here. I'll figure something out. I always do. Usually when I'm in that hypomanic state.

Menu for the week of 2/11/2019

Date	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sun	Donuts	sandwiches / leftovers	pizza
Mon	kids: school me: oatmeal, coffee	Kids: school Hubby: pizza & hard boiled eggs Me: cobb salad	hamburgers & salad
Tues	kids: school me: oatmeal, turkey coffee	Kids: school Hubby: noodle bowl w/ meatballs Me: salad	pulled steak tacos
Wed	kids: school me: oatmeal, nuts, turkey & coffee	Kids: school Hubby: leftovers Me: leftovers	spaghetti & sauce (spaghetti squash)
Thurs	kids: school me: zucchini hash w/ eggs & toast & coffee	Kids: school Hubby: leftovers Me: leftovers	pork tenderloin couscous cucumber salad
Fri	kids: school me: mason jar omlette & toast & coffee	Kids: school Hubby: sandwiches & chips Me: leftovers	meatloaf w/ roasted potatoes salad
Sat	eggs, bacon & fruit	leftovers / sandwiches	pizza

Vintage patterns are a pain.

I respect the hell out of people who can just pick up any ol' patterns and whip it off like nobody's business. My late grandmother could do that. I didn't realize the extent of her knowledge until I started trying to make things from vintage patterns. And when I say vintage, I'm not talking about 1990s. I'm talking about patterns from the 1940s, '50s, and 60s. There is a distinct lack of standardized sizes for yarn or crochet hooks for a good lot of this.

I sat down with a hat pattern and attempted to work it up with a size 'E' hook, as per the pattern. I wound up with something that was toddler sized. It was supposed to be an adult sized hat. I was extremely annoyed. It isn't the first time something like this has happened with vintage crochet patterns. It gets even harder when you start looking at crochet patterns from before then because hook size is a thing that barely gets any mention. And good luck guessing what weight yarn you are going to be working with if you go by the pattern directions.

Reverse engineering some of these patterns after the abysmal failure of creating things as per the pattern is an interesting challenge. It is almost enough to satisfy the nerdy side of my brain. I confess, however, sometimes it is a lot of work for something that just isn't going to get used.

Ugh. Diabetes can die in a fire.

I hate diabetes. If I eat later in the day than 6pm my morning blood sugar runs high. If I eat earlier than 6pm, I feel like I am starving for the rest of the evening. I find myself in this position where I am stuck with a schedule I don't like dictated by circumstance and hunger. I am finding that if I am not up by 6 am every morning, I get things mixed up and I forget to take my medications. That screws up my blood sugar numbers for the rest of the day and part of the next. And I feel like hell because my blood sugar numbers are screwed up and I didn't get my anxiety meds at the right time.

If I eat breakfast at 6am, I have to eat a snack by 10 am. If I don't, I feel terrible and get hangry. If I eat lunch at noon, I have to have a snack by 4pm or the same happens. But this makes me have less of an appetite at dinner time. And I have to eat dinner by 6pm this way my blood sugar numbers are not too high when 9:30pm hits and I am having my bedtime snack.

Now, you'd figure with the regular snacks and meals I wouldn't be hungry all the damn time. But I am. And I can't eat the food that I know would satisfy that feeling of hunger because my blood sugar runs high when it happens. Because carbs and I don't get along well now.

I'm getting exasperated with all of this. And, since the diabetes diagnosis my night vision (which wasn't that awesome to begin with) has gotten worse. To the point that I am avoiding driving at night because I get blinded by headlights. The bitter irony that I, the kid who wanted to be an astronomer, can't see worth crap in the dark is not lost on me. I'm going to be scheduling an appointment with my optometrist when I know the insurance will cover it. Because the insurance only covers one eye test per year unless it is medically necessary. And I don't think my bad night vision requires I get a new pair of glasses because my distance and close up vision haven't changed.

On a clear night, I look up and I can see the stars. As long as there isn't any street lights or car headlights around. But, I live in town. So, I can't really do any stargazing now. I have a telescope that I can't use because of my vision issues. It makes me feel awful. Because I can't even stay up to do much stargazing anyhow. My night time medications knock me out in about 30 minutes. And if I don't get to bed by 10, I am not going to be functional at 6 am.

This was not how I envisioned my life happening.

Mild depression vs I WILL DO THE THING!

I'm really glad that I've got this medication working for me on the depression front. I derped pretty hard last night and had banana bread as my bedtime snack. That made my blood sugar spike and I was all tired and stuff this morning from it. It didn't go super high, but enough that I had that "I ate too much, time to take a nap.' feeling after breakfast. I still shoveled the front steps (cardio, anyone?) and did about 20 minutes of walking while we were waiting for the bus.

I still have the seasonal affective disorder kicking me in the ass right now. It's going 'stay inside, hibernate, and give up on getting stuff done because it doesn't matter right now.' I have been replying, "Shut up, you annoying hack. I've got plans to make happen. I haven't got time for your ninny nonsense." I recognize this is not the kindest way to treat myself, but I am getting really annoyed with it and frustrated when it gets in my way.

If it were a cat, I'd put it in its own separate room for a while so I could get some work done, but that isn't exactly possible. So it weaves its way around my metaphorical feet trying to assassinate me. I didn't let it stop me from submitting to a magazine yesterday, however. Writer's Digest has a monthly competition. If you win, your story gets published in the next issue. I think you get a copy of it too. So, I submitted something untitled and now I wait to see what the reaction is. It wasn't my best work but it wasn't my worst either. It was a fictionalized account of something I've experienced.

I'm considering writing more about that experience. I'm going to make that decision when I get the feedback from Writer's Digest on my submission. If it doesn't make the cut, I may just sit down and type up the long form version of the story and submit it elsewhere. I know there are places looking for interesting slice of life narratives. I've got plenty of those.

Menu for the week of Jan. 28, 2019

Date	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sun	Donuts	sandwiches / leftovers	pizza
Mon	kids: Donuts me: oatmeal, coffee	Kids: school Hubby: leftovers & ramen Me: salad	hamburgers
Tues	kids: school me: oatmeal, turkey coffee	Kids: school Hubby: noodle bowl w/ meatballs Me: salad	tacos, mexican rice, salad
Wed	kids: school me: oatmeal, nuts, turkey & coffee	Kids: school Hubby: burrito bowl Me: leftovers	chicken paprikash w/ noodles (spaghetti squash)
Thurs	kids: school me: zucchini hash w/ eggs & toast & coffee	Kids: school Hubby: leftovers Me: leftovers	meatloaf w/ roasted potatoes salad
Fri	kids: school me: mason jar omlette & toast & coffee	Kids: school Hubby: sandwiches & chips Me: leftovers	teriyaki meatballs w/ cauliflower rice
Sat	eggs, bacon & fruit	leftovers / sandwiches	pot roast w/ salad & mashed cauliflower

Maybe it's not migraines.

For the last month now, I've been averaging around four migraine level headaches a week. I brought this up when I saw the doctor Friday who suggested that this could be my allergies acting up. I have started on a prescription nasal spray for allergies (fortunately it doesn't contraindicate with anything else I am on). I haven't had a bad headache today, but today is my second day on it. This stuff takes two weeks to start to really take effect.

I know that some of the headaches I had were definitely migraines because I had problems with visual halos around things and stuff before and after. The doctor suggested that if the allergy medication doesn't help, there may be something I can take to prevent migraines. As I am approaching the beginnings of second puberty (aka menopause), I know that my body is going to do weird things. I'm currently on birth control because of the fact that my body does weird things and it may be part of the reason why I have been having these headaches.

Either way, spending half of my day out of commission due to splitting headaches where the evil day star is too loud is really cutting into how much I get done during the week. It's really frustrating and I hope that this allergy stuff takes care of it. I know that I have had a few migraines this month because of the weather. Really wild swings in the weather triggers migraines for me. The running joke at my house is that I'm the human barometer between my arthritis and migraines.

The doctor's appointment Friday was to discuss how I'm doing with my diabetes and such. The doctor is pleased with the progress I have made. My A1C is at 6.5 which is half of what it was last year. (I started at 12.7.) My good cholesterol is a little low but the doctor attributes that to the fact that the bitter weather has made it difficult for me to get my daily walking in. I was going to talk to the care coordinator about my diet but she was out of the office. I still feel pretty confused and intimidated by the diet angle of all this.

The hardest part of the diet angle is figuring out what 'good' foods are. I've been reading and looking things up on the internet. I see a lot of fad diets that claim to cure diabetes. I don't think that's going to work for me. I see a lot of just plain bad advice (like drink okra infused water) and it disappoints me. The frustrating part of this research phase is that I feel like it is never ending. Also, a ton of people say 'eat salmon' and I have a very mild salmon allergy. I'm trying not to make that worse. I've been avoiding fatty foods because they give me an upset stomach more than the fact that they're pretty much all breaded and fried (though I confess I kinda miss mozzarella sticks and deep fried pickles).

I'm looking into making baked alternatives. I'll post something about the recipes I bash together. I've started a notebook for recipes that are diabetic friendly. I'm trying to approach this like it's science and have fun with it. I enjoyed doing lab work in college. It's just hard to find that fun feeling when there's never a break.

I have a new favorite yarn.

It's called My Favorite Stripe from Red Heart. The color saturation on this is fantastic. The striping works up great for scarves. I crochet one and then I knit one. Now I'm knitting another. It's just a lot of fun to have the yarn to the heavy lifting for the pattern. Right now, I'm just making another sampler scarf like I did in December. I'm not posting it as a Knit-A-Long because I honestly have no idea what I'm doing and I have misplaced my notebook.

I have another ball of this yarn. I'm going to use it to knit up a project that was last year's Knit-A-Long for spinning guild: That Nice Stitch scarf/cowl. It's a free pattern (last I checked) up on Ravelry. My plan is to donate the scarves I've been making and I don't need or find to be quite right for people on my gift list. I'm debating making hats to go with the scarves. I've been thinking about making scarves with pockets for hands too. But I feel good about making the decision to create stuff for charity again. I believe that most of the scarves are going to be fairly simple that I can knit with out concentrating too much. That way I can churn out more than one scarf in a month.

I have picked up the spindle again. I haven't loaded my fiber up on my distaff because it is a pretty small braid of it. So, I've been using my bracelet as a distaff for small sections. I'm using the Ashford Student Spindle to spin cobweb weight thread out of a grey-dark grey colorway from Winterhaven Fiber Farm. The fiber is a blend of merino(50), bamboo(35), and silk(25). I have 4 oz of fiber. I started spinning it with my turkish spindle. After I had two balls to ply, yule came. Then I made the mistake of putting the turkish spindle in a safe place. I still have the two balls of cobweb weight thread to ply. I'm not sure if I'm going to use a drop spindle for it or my kick wheel. I may go so far as to use my navajo spindle.

Menu for the week of Jan 21, 2019

So some of this is subject to change because I may actually get out and go shopping. I don't know. It really depends on the weather. Winter storm Harper is due to arrive Saturday, the day I usually go out shopping. And it is supposed to storm through Monday (the date this is scheduled to post, I'm writing it Friday afternoon), who knows if my shopping list changes.

Date	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sun	scrambled eggs	sandwiches / leftovers	pizza
Mon	kids: cereal me: oatmeal, coffee	Kids: sandwiches Hubby: leftovers & ramen Me: salad	hamburgers
Tues	kids: school me: oatmeal, turkey coffee	Kids: school Hubby: noodle bowl w/ meatballs Me: salad	tacos, mexican rice, salad
Wed	kids: school me: oatmeal, nuts, turkey & coffee	Kids: school Hubby: burrito bowl Me: leftovers	beef pot roast w/ roasted potatoes & salad
Thurs	kids: school me: zucchini hash w/ eggs & toast & coffee	Kids: school Hubby: leftovers Me: leftovers	gen. tso chicken w/ riced cauliflower
Fri	kids: school me: mason jar omlette & toast & coffee	Kids: school Hubby: sandwiches & chips Me: leftovers	pork korma cauliflower rice naan kids: ez mac
Sat	eggs, bacon & fruit	leftovers / sandwiches	roast chicken w/ green beans & mashed cauliflower

Garlic and herb riced cauliflower

This is a pretty simple recipe. I love my food processor because it makes cooking stuff like this a lot easier. I have decent knife skills but the simplicity of being able to just blitz it up in the food processor is hard to beat.

Ingredients

1 medium head of cauliflower

2 tablespoons minced garlic

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

Step one: Cut your head of cauliflower into bits. I use my food processor and chop it into rice sized bits in batches because my food processor is on the small side.

Step two: In a non-stick skillet, saute your cauliflower with your garlic and seasoning with a small amount of butter or oil. When your cauliflower is tender and your spices are fragrant, you're done.

If you want to be a bit luxurious, toss this with some grated parmesan cheese. Serve it warm. This makes enough to serve five people, with some extras left over.

3 steps to making yourself miserable.

Step one: have a migraine that lasts two days.

Step two: feel guilty for having said migraine.

Step three: try to do ALL THE THINGS because of said guilt.


To say the least, I am working hard on not doing step three. The pain from the migraine is somewhat improved between the coffee, the aleve, and the tylenol but my vision is still a little funny. Which is annoying because I had stuff to do today that I had to reschedule. I am somewhere between craving sweets, which is a thing that happens when I have a migraine, and utterly disgusted by the thought of anything like solid food.

And I'm tired, because migraines exhaust me. With winter storm Harper marching steadily towards us, I know that my migraine was triggered by the weather and my joints are beginning to join the chorus of suck. Stupid arthritis. I feel like I am trapped in an old woman's body with how the arthritis gets to me and the way I get cold in a draft. I've always been like this. It's really exasperating.

But, I'm doing my best to practice self care, because that is one of my goals for this year. I sort of gave myself a partial pedicure on Monday after I took a warm bath. I'm not good at those things, that's probably the second or third I've actually done. But my socks didn't try to shred themselves when I put them on. So I guess I did something right. My feet were really dry and stuff.

Veiled Witch # 18 - Be Kind to Yourself

Dogged persistence serves us well until you run out. You run out of time; you run out of energy; you run out of clean laundry? No matter what it is, you run out of some vital resource that powered your persistence. It is part of the reason why New Year's Resolutions get abandoned at about this time of year.

You may find yourself at a place where you just can't do the thing. The trick here is to be mindful and kind to yourself. Remember, you are not a machine someone can set off running and not worry about. You need time to rest and recover. You need time to take care of your needs and time to relax. View setbacks as an opportunity to regroup, rest, and prepare your next move.

ETA: Whoopsies. I posted this to the wrong blog. But it is still pretty good to keep in mind, so it stays.

Oh, THERE'S WINTER!

I was planning on going to the spinning guild meeting this month. And then the weather report started turning uglier and uglier. Now we're talking about a serious winter storm starting Saturday and going through to Sunday evening. Usually, this would not be a huge concern, except for one small thing. Spinning guild meets up in an area that also gets lake effect snow off of one of the Great Lakes.

We've had just a minor dusting of snow on the ground off and on since Thanksgiving. Now with this winter storm projected to blow through, we can possibly get over a foot of snow depending on how far north it is going to track. That's before you move out of the Finger Lakes region (where I live) and up into the snow belts off of the Great Lakes. North of us and west of us are the snow belts off of lake Erie and Lake Ontario. They're getting projections of over 20 inches of snow in some places based off of possible storm track placement.

Because winter is finally here. Good thing my son loves his snow shovel and the idea of digging people out of the snow. He might just get paid by the neighbors to help shovel out their cars on a snow day.

Behold the power of reassurance.

So, I did as Beloved suggested and called the care coordinator at my doctor's office. We discussed my numbers and eating habits. Apparently 6.5 is a good number. Considering that I started at 12.5 (or something like that), it is a very good number. She said that a number below 7 is good.

I feel calmer about this stuff. She's going to meet with me at my doctor's appointment and we're going to discuss things a little more. I am fumbling in the dark with this stuff. I have done a lot of reading but it is all still really confusing.

It makes theoretical physics and linear algebra look easy. And I didn't make it through the physics program and linear algebra is just hellish. I'm no dummy, but I am not a registered dietician. I'm coming to understand that fad diets are bad. I'm realizing that carbs and I have a very complicated relationship now.

I'd go vegetarian with my diet but even that has problems to it. Because, I've learned that most vegetarian diets rely heavily on carbs for energy. What is problematic for me? Carbs. So, I'm going to talk to the care coordinator, who knows a lot more about this stuff, bring along my food journal, and try to figure out what foods are good for me.

I am getting bored eating eggs and oatmeal for breakfast. It probably isn't helping my cholesterol either. But, maybe she has some suggestions for me on menus or some books she can recommend. At least I know now that 6.5 is not a bad number. I was just misunderstanding what I was looking at when I was looking at my test results.

Body, why do you do this?

Image from Pexels.com

Look at that picture. All of those glorious carbs topped with yet more glorious carbs. And such a nice person offering them with such an inviting smile. It's pure torture right now. The only thing worse would be if it were chocolate at the moment.

I have type 2 diabetes. It's stupid. I hate it and I wish it would just magically go away like it magically showed up one day. Unfortunately, diabetes doesn't work like that at all. (I had been borderline diabetic for years but no one told me. Then last year, it hit me like a freight train.)

Now, normal non-diabetic people don't feel hungry when their blood sugar is high. I don't know how it works for other people with type 2 diabetes. I don't know if this is normal or if this is just that my body is weird in yet more ways. But, my blood sugar goes over 200 mg/dl and I get ravenously hungry. I've been told by some well-wishers that I should eat when I'm hungry and that will cure my diabetes. As if I am a person who will eat because they are bored or something.

I can't trust feeling hungry. If my blood sugar is high, I feel like I'm starving. If my blood sugar is low, I feel like I'm starving. There's a sweet spot in the middle where I'm pretty meh about food in general. The worst part about all of this is realizing that I can't have any of my comfort foods because they're all too high in carbs. I'm not talking about having a liter of Mt. Dew as comfort food but a small bowl of macaroni and cheese. A single serving of pasta has too many carbs for me to eat with out my blood sugar spiking.

I've had to give up normal bread. I know the reason why my blood sugar is spiking right now (I don't even have to test it I just know it's high because I ate two hours ago) is because I had my hamburger on bread. It wasn't some fancy dense artisian bread. It was actually a relatively low carb whole wheat bread that clocks in at 13 carbs per slice instead of 15 like white bread. (Potato bread, one of my loves clocks in at almost 20 carbs per slice. I've had to give it up completely.) So, I usually eat diet bread that is 9 carbs per slice. My blood sugar still goes up but not quite as much because it is half the amount of carbs in a normal slice of bread, approximately.

I can't eat rice. Cauliflower has become my life now. Riced cauliflower is not half as satisfying as fried rice. It doesn't cook up as well in fried rice either, to be honest. I just throw more veggies at it to make it look a little closer to fried rice when I make it. Beloved fortunately is willing to eat it. The kids, not so much.

I am getting frustrated with all of this. I started out with this whole diabetes stuff and I said I'm going to eat 30 carbs per meal and 10 - 15 carbs as a snack. Between that and my medication, my A1C dropped from around 13 down to 6.3. I lost a lot of weight. I thought, ok, I'm at a weight that I feel pretty comfortable with. I'm still exercising. I should start eating more carbs. The care coordinator who helped me figure out diet stuff told me I could eat up to 45 carbs per meal. So I started eating 40 carbs per meal.

Guess whose A1C has started creeping back up. I see my doctor in about two weeks. I know that a rise of two tenths of a point is not a big deal for most people. I'm trying to keep my A1C low and I'm trying to get my daily numbers within the ADA guidelines. I can't quite seem to manage it on my own. Because if I'm not vigilant about monitoring when and how I eat, I can eat too many carbs because I feel hungry when my carbs are high.

I was told that was going to go away. I was told the hunger pains that I was dealing with at 30 carbs per meal was going to go away.

It's not going away. I'm kinda mad about that. And we won't get into the psychological effects of the lower carb diet. I'll just say that they weren't pretty. Not because I was hangry all the time but I have a lot of PTSD stuff surrounding food.

I tell myself lies all the time.

Let's be honest. I tell myself lies all the time. I'm going to do yoga every morning. (That's a lie, I've been lucky if I manage it twice a week right now.) I'm going to make super healthy meals for everyone and pack lunches for everybody. (That's a lie. I make reasonably healthy meals and forget to pack lunches half the time with the leftovers.) I'm going to fold all the laundry today. (That's a lie, it's just going to sit in the bag unfolded until tomorrow.)

I'm trying to break that habit. Because there are other, bigger, nastier lies that I tell myself. Lies like "I'm stupid." or "I'm worthless." Those are the more polite versions of how they manifest in my head when I am not well. There's a laundry list of others that are just as awful, if not more so. I'm not going to share them, but let it be enough to say that I've been in and out of therapy trying to deal with it for most of my adult life.

It dawned on me today, if I stopped telling myself little lies (like that laundry one) then perhaps I can stop telling myself the bigger and nastier lies (like my value lies in how much I can get done). So, I'm attempting to stop lying to myself.

It's really hard. But, I made it through today with out lying to myself and actually making an effort to do some stuff that is hard for me. (Like the promoting my books thing and being social on social media.) My goal is to accomplish a week of this. If I can get through one week with out lying to myself about little things, I'm going to get myself some kind of reward. It can't be ice cream, because diabetes. (Honestly, I can't stop thinking about chocolate ice cream right now. Thank's high blood sugar. Rant on that in the next post.) Maybe I'll get myself some stickers or something.

I write books. It's a thing I do.

I announced it on Facebook and Twitter. The first trilogy of the Umbrel Chronicles is out on the market now in three formats. There's more details about where you can get them on my book writing blog. I write in a variety of genres. That blog is focused on my heart's delight, fantasy. I write dark fantasy as a way to process the traumas I've experienced in life. You'll find a lot of myself in the various characters and themes that the books explore.

I think it's true for any author. Whatever you write, it comes from somewhere inside you. The exception is if you're writing a research paper or a book that's equivalent to that. But, even then, you will still find your way into your work. You have your own unique voice and it shows up in pretty much every genre you write. I'm working on rediscovering my voice after having about two years of back to back depressive episodes (with brief relief and equally brief hypomanic episodes) making it really hard to write.

While I haven't been really coming up with a lot of new material or blogging very much, I have been editing old material. I have been combing through my notebooks for work to put together for future books. So, I'm going to be rolling out a few new books over the next few months. They're ones that got written before the waves of depression and edited over the last few years. Book four of the series will be out in the spring. Book five will be out in autumn.

My goal is to finish book seven by this summer and have it ready to go next spring. And to write book eight during NaNoWriMo. I also have another book that I have to completely rework and I think it may split into three books. It's in a different genre. But it is good to be getting back to writing again and feeling more like myself.

Sense of timing sucks.

So, I have really bad timing. I think the only times when it wasn't horrible was when music was involved because then I could follow the beat. I could always manage to march in step with the band even when music wasn't being played. I was also the person who started calling out "Your left, left, left, right, left!" at full volume at the back of the entire group after I got exasperated with everyone around me shuffling their feet. I learned to march as a kid. Convoluted story there, has nothing to do with this, so I'm not going to get into it. (I did it at the daycare I worked at when a cadre of about eight boys decided they were an army. So I became their 'commanding officer' and taught them how to march much to the amusement of parents and coworkers. I had one parent say he felt like he was back at Ft. Bragg and asked me if there was any military in my family. I answered army and marines.)

But, telling jokes, I'm hopeless at it. I can kill you with dry sarcasm and snark. I can't tell a joke, however. I tried to be cute and get my husband to laugh at various times. I wasn't very successful. I keep trying, because I am convinced telling a joke is a skill I can learn. I haven't learned it yet, though it's been 30 something years that I've been trying.

My sense of timing is equally bad for judging how long I've been doing something. I was doing yoga this afternoon and was convinced I had held a pose for a full minute. I glanced at the clock, it was only 30 seconds. Yoga hates me as much as I dislike it. I honestly think I'm doing something wrong because in some poses, I have my right arm go numb. I don't know if it is because I did more damage than just fracturing a rib on that side last year or because I'm just that out of shape. It didn't used to happen, but it does now.

I am frustrated with my sense of timing for when to announce things and keep up with trends. Either I start something waaay before it becomes a trend and I never benefit from it becoming trendy or I start joining something about when it is waning. It leaves me wondering what I'm going to do when it comes to marketing my books and stuff. You need good timing and strong set of social skills to market things. I don't have much of either. I'm the person who tends to mumble and be awkward when they're put on the spot.

It's a combination of bad timing and social phobia. The only time I don't have that going on is when I was playing a character or performing somehow. I could put on this persona of confidence and I managed to interact with people with out awkwardness. Indeed, I had a character I played that intimidated people based on force of personality. I can't quite manage that in person. I am shy and stumbling. And anxious. But, give me a pen and I'm a bit bolder.

Who knows, maybe I'll figure out how to write jokes.

Arguing with my subconscious sucks.

As I posted on Twitter:

land of birds, reminder: scumbag brain is lying to you when it says that your value is based on what you produce, how much you make, or the sum total of your possessions. as much a reminder for myself as for you.

I find myself arguing with my subconscious again. Because I have a lot of toxic baggage surrounding this time of year. That post was an external counter argument to what scumbag brain is harping on.

Additionally, if people base their relationship around what is convenient only for them and fail to take your needs or situation into consideration, there isn't really a relationship there. Those require people to have mutual give and take, what you've got in that situation is somebody using you for something.

When contact is one way only, they don't really want to have contact with you. They just want the idea of it.

When you're always made out to be the 'bad guy' for situations you had literally no involvement in, you need to walk away from those people.

If you are in a situation where help comes at a price from people who claim that they support you unconditionally, that support isn't unconditional and you should regard them with suspicion because they lied to your face. Their deeds show who they really are.

I could keep going, but this is what's rattling around in my head right now. I can't stop thinking about the past. Yay PTSD and anniversary dates.

Thunderstorm in January?

I supposed it would make sense if we were living somewhere like Florida or southern California where they usually get rain in the winter but this is confusion. It is pouring pretty hard outside right now. The skies are dark and gloomy with an occasional crack of thunder. My ribs don't ache right now, which I am thankful for. But later this week, the temperature is supposed to drop back to seasonable levels and I honestly wonder if we're going to get a severe storm when it happens.

I know that January usually has a thaw and things warm up for a bit. But winter weather started late this year. If this is our January thaw, it is early. It all has me concerned if we're going to be facing drought conditions this coming growing season because the water table isn't being replenished by sufficient snow melt later. It would make gardening difficult for me but it would be a major problem for the farmers in the region.

The funny thing is I was going to go for a walk earlier and I got laid low by a migraine out of nowhere. I now know why I had that migraine this morning. Because of the on coming storm. What a weird week for weather. Just yesterday, we had a very mild ice storm that left a very fine glaze of ice over everything. Today it's a thunderstorm. And tomorrow we are projected to quite possibly get snow in the evening. It's like we're experiencing all of the seasons in one week. Please, don't let it happen that we have a sudden day of summer weather. That would completely freak me out.

Low Carb Chicken and 'Rice'

The trick to getting this recipe to work out well is not to expect it to cook like traditional chicken and rice because you are using riced cauliflower in place of regular rice. The riced cauliflower is not going to absorb much liquid. This is a recipe that you can make in the oven or in a skillet on the stovetop. Honestly, the skillet may be the best bet because the oven version is kinda soupy.

I used boneless, skinless chicken thighs for this dish. You can use chicken breasts also. It depends on how many you plan on feeding. First step is to brown your chicken lightly in a skillet so that it releases some of its juices and grease. In an aluminum foil lined 1 quart casserole, add 1 medium package of riced cauliflower. Stir in a tablespoon of rotisserie seasoning for chicken. Then place your browned chicken on top and sprinkle a generous amount of seasoning over your chicken. Cover your casserole and bake at 350 degrees until your chicken is finished cooking. In my oven, that is around 45 minutes.

If you are starting out with frozen chicken then you can toss everything into the casserole and cook at 350 degrees for 30 minutes per pound of chicken.

Now, the skillet preparation is a little different. Rather than just browning the chicken, you cook it fully and then transfer to a plate. Next, you add your riced cauliflower and cook it according to package directions until it is warmed through. If you want your chicken seasoned, you will need to season it before adding it to the pan. I like using a nonstick skillet for this dish because clean up is a lot easier. The skillet version of this recipe allows for the excess liquid to evaporate off with out your chicken turning into nuggets of rubber. It is also a bit faster.

Menu for the week of 1/7/2019

Date	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sun	scrambled eggs	sandwiches / leftovers	pizza
Mon	kids: school me: oatmeal, coffee	Kids: school Hubby: leftovers & ramen Me: salad	hamburgers
Tues	kids: school me: oatmeal, turkey coffee	Kids: school Hubby: out Me: salad	tacos, mexican rice, salad
Wed	kids: school me: oatmeal, nuts, turkey & coffee	Kids: school Hubby: out Me: leftovers	pork chops w/ roasted potatoes & salad
Thurs	kids: school me: zucchini hash w/ eggs & toast & coffee	Kids: school Hubby: leftovers Me: leftovers	pepper steak w/ riced cauliflower
Fri	kids: school me: mason jar omlette & toast & coffee	Kids: school Hubby: sandwiches & chips Me: leftovers	pork korma cauliflower rice naan kids: ez mac
Sat	eggs, bacon & fruit	leftovers / sandwiches	beef stew and biscuits

How many planners are too many?

It's January and I am trying to get my life organized. Again.

Being sick and depressed last year completely threw me off my game. I didn't get a lot of the stuff I wanted to do done. My goal for this year is to actually accomplish last year's goals and get a few others done too.

As a result, I have my Control Journal, ala FLYLady. In the Control Journal is the year's calendar in monthly format with appointments and major events written down in it. I check that every month and update it on a weekly basis. I have my wall calendar that has the month's events written down on it and along the bottom monthly portion I have highlighted the days the kids have off from school for the rest of the year and circled the half days. I carried that system of highlighting the day and circling the day to the Control Journal.

I also have a weekly planner where I write down all of my appointments and the kids' appointments and such. I reconcile that against the monthly calendar every Thursday when I set up my daily planner for the up coming week. And then in my daily planner, I spend fifteen minutes every evening updating the next day (or two days if necessary) with tasks that need to be done and calls that need to be made. My daily planner and my weekly planner have the notation system that was developed by the guy who came up with the Bullet Journal system.

All of this, I am going to coordinate with the calendar in my phone to have reminders for appointments and stuff.

Then, on top of all of that, I have a bullet journal for the tarot reading business that I'm attempting again this year. I really didn't have a shot at making it work last year because of the depression. I am also keeping a bullet journal for my writing. In both of those, there is a section for planning too. All of this being weekly planning that is checked against my weekly planner.

I might have gone a little too far.

Annoyed for 10000 reasons.

A partial list of reasons why I am annoyed:

1. This stupid cold won't go away.

2. My kids won't stop watching whoopie cushion videos or siren videos on the tv.

3. My slippers are wearing out.

4. My fuchsia plant is withering despite my tlc.

5. My rose bush is looking unhealthy despite my tlc.

6. Dishes will not wash themselves despite how much I glare at them.

7. My skinny jeans are becoming too big for me. I ♥ those jeans but they have to go because they won't stay on.

8. My favorite t-shirt is beginning to rip out along the seam.

9. I'm lactose in tolerant and diabetic, but I am craving ice cream right now.

10. The damn fruit flies won't go away and they keep killing themselves by drowning in my coffee cup.

Can I blame Mars being in Aries for this or some other planet being retrograde?

WTF?

Today has been a very long day. I had two migraines today. I still have this stupid cold. And I haven't gotten anything aside from grocery shopping and making dinner done today. I know I need to take some time to take a break but, c'mon Universe, I have stuff I need to do.

I've been drawing again!

I did this up in pencils. It's a plant from my fictional world called Deadman's Tails. It's kinda a riff off of Cattails. If I had a scanner, I'd have better pictures of my sketches for y'all but hey, I'm drawing again.

If I were a Super Hero for a Day.

From my writing prompt box: What would you do if you were a super hero for one day?

Honestly, I'd use my super powers to find a way to fix the environmental crisis the planet is facing. We've only got one planet. I'd kinda like to stay here as long as possible because I know it is habitable. Colony on Mars or the Moon sounds really cool. But you have limited supplies and air there. Here, air is free and plentiful. I don't like the idea of having to pay credits for air so that I can breathe.

Maybe I'll write a sci-fi short about that dystopian idea. An asthmatic who has to pay for air. Could make for some interesting horror. *shrugs* Who knows, I'm just spitballing here.

Doing things the hard way.

I have this bad habit. When I get to choose between two possible ways to do something, I almost always choose the hard way. I suppose I am just foolish like that. Or stubborn, I don't know. Here I am trying to make sense of the chaos in my head. I looked at things and said to myself, "Ok, I don't have a therapist. Why don't I just journal ALL THE THINGS until it makes sense?"

And of course I am doing this by hand. Because it's the hard way. Because I'm more familiar with journal writing in a notebook than typing it up. So, I am sitting here with a blister on my thumb and writer's cramp from spending all morning journal writing. I have learned a few valuable things in this process.

1. When I am stressed out I hold my writing implement really tightly. (Hence the blister on my thumb.)

2. When I am stressed out, I tend to break pencil leads. I may be switching to mechanical pencils for this journal work.

3. I can write just shy of 2k words by hand in about 2 hours. I guess if I really focused, I actually could write a novel by hand in a month. It may not be completely legible to anybody else, but I can get the word vomit part done.

4. I have no idea what in hell I'm doing despite having done the therapy thing off and on for most of my adult life. I just feel like I'm on a hamster wheel writing the same stuff over and over again. Which is, amusingly, how the therapy sessions felt most of the time too.

5. You can find tons of journal prompts on line for self-help. Not all of them make sense with out the prompt that comes before it. PRO TIP: Use the prompts in order from the list they're posted in, not at random.

Gluten free homemade taco seasoning.

My kids prefer this stuff to mix that you get in a packet. It is low in sodium. There's no gluten in it. And it keeps forever.

1 tbsp chili powder
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp oregano
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste

Random fact about Deb: Feelings on House Plants

I love house plants. I have had them every place I have lived. Or at least attempted to. There was a while there that I couldn't keep the things alive. Then my grandmother gifted me with an unkillable plant. It's called white inch plant. That thing has not only survived extended drought periods (aka I forgot to water it for a while) but it has been slowly conquering the world. I've given cuttings of it away to pretty much everybody who will take one.

I currently have a large hanging basket with a thriving one in it. I also have one in a pot on a book shelf, one in a jar of water on a filing cabinet, and another in a pot on a window ledge in the bathroom. White inch plant is probably one of my favorite indoor house plants. My other favorite is spider plants. I have one that's been with me for twenty years now. I'm honestly not sure how it has lasted so long but it has.

My other indoor houseplant love is African violets. These are fussy little buggers and I haven't mastered the art of keeping them alive AND blooming. I keep trying, though, because they look so pretty when they're in full bloom. And it amuses me to dust my plants. My favorite African violets are the pink ones with the purple edges.

Chickpea casserole

Ingredients:
2 15 oz cans of chickpeas
1 lb bulk pork sausage
4 slices of bacon, fried crisp and crumbled
1/2 cup diced ham
1 tbsp garlic, minced
1 tsp thyme
2 tsp red pepper flakes

Step one: In a dutch oven, brown the sausage with the garlic.

Step two: Add bacon, ham, and chickpeas. Add remaining spices. Cook on medium heat, covered, for 30 minutes, stirring often.

Step three: Reduce heat to a simmer and uncover. Stir frequently.

Serve hot. This serves six people. One serving is approximately a cup and has, approximately 30 carbs.

Shoveling snow in a blizzard.

The title of this post encapsulated how I felt today. I know I got a lot of stuff done. Put together the budget for next month, got my planner ready for next year (mostly), and took care of a heap of other things. At the same time, the kitchen sink is full of dishes and I still have more stuff to do before I really get going in January.

Yesterday was a rough day for Snuggle Bug and today hasn't been much better because the little guy got over the flu just in time to get an ear infection. Thank goodness for the urgent care people being open yesterday. They were able to see him and we've got him on some antibiotics to take care of it. His ear is bothering him a bit more this evening. I'd take him back over to urgent care but they're not open right now. Since he's on antibiotics, I don't think there's much more they can do for him right now anyways. If he's not feeling better tomorrow, I will probably be taking him to see the family doctor on Wednesday just to make sure everything is ok.

Cuddle Bear has a busy Wednesday ahead of him. I'm picking him up early from school to go see Dr. C., his orthodontist. Add to this the fact that Wednesday is the first day of school after a long break, I suspect that there is going to be a lot happening there. If I can swing it, I'm going to do my best to get him back to school in time to finish out the school day. I'm not sure, though, because his school day ends an hour earlier than it did before because he's in middle school now. That makes scheduling dentist and other appointments tricky.

I am pleased to say that Beloved and both kids are over the flu. I, however, have a cold now and sound like a frog. It is exceedingly frustrating because I was going to try to do stuff but I spent a good chunk of my day Saturday in bed feeling exhausted, yesterday was almost as bad, and today I have a hellish sore throat. It was trying this morning to keep the kids from being super loud. You may have seen the commercial of the mother with a kitchen full of kids who could barely whisper and trying to get the kids ready for school.

Almond butter cookies (no sugar)

Ingredients:

2 cups no sugar added almond butter (I used chunky style.)
1 cup almond flour
1/2 cup granulated stevia for baking
2 large eggs

Mix together until uniform. Shape into walnut sized balls, place on parchment lined pan, and flatten with a fork dipped in water. (this keeps your batter from sticking to the fork.) Bake at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes.

Thinky thoughts.

Today I have learned a few things. 

First, leaving a pizza peel sitting on the stove top is a bad idea. (It only got a little scorched from sitting too close to a burner. No fire or smoke. Still OOPSIES!) 

Second, hot glue guns are superior to fabric or craft glue for making sock puppets. This time, the eyeballs are actually staying on the puppets.

Third, my biggest bump in readership over the last few months have been when I have posted something about my attempts to make low carb food and when I have posted about crafting projects.

While this blog's goal is not to get big readership numbers, it has me thinking that I should post more about the random crap that I make on a daily basis because people seem to be interested in this. And that I should do more than just note in my notebook the recipes that I have been trying out in an attempt to make low carb desserts and other foods to help me adjust to my new normal.

I need to figure out how to get pictures off of the camera so that I can post photos of the stuff I am making. Some things I can take pictures of while I'm just sitting in front of the camera on the laptop. Others, well, they don't lend themselves well to that process. According to theory, I can get them off of the camera as .jpeg images with a usb cable. I'm going to experiment with that this weekend. Because I really want to get more use out of this digital camera.

Easy morning egg cups. (Low carb.)

This has become a breakfast staple for me since developing diabetes. I love my silicone cupcake pan for making these. Because of two things: getting them out of the pan is easy as pie and clean up is a breeze. I have a few varieties that I make these in.

Version one: Sunny side up.

Break one egg into each compartment of a greased muffin tin (or of an ungreased silicone muffin pan). With a fork prick the yolk sack twice. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 30 minutes.

Version two: Scrambled

Crack six eggs into a bowl. Whisk together until well blended. Pour some into each compartment of a muffin tin prepared as per version one. Your compartment should be 2/3 full. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 30 minutes.

Version three: Fruited.

Prepare as per scrambled version. Add one or two berries to each compartment. Bake as for scrambled.

Version four: With Meat.

I've been using precooked bacon for this. Dice up the bacon fine. Then add it to the eggs prepared as per the scrambled version. Bake as for scrambled. If you want, you can do this with cooked breakfast sausage.

Version five: With Kale/Spinach

Again, prepare your eggs as per the scrambled version. Cut your veggies up fine. Sprinkle them in to your egg mixture and then bake as for scrambled.

The fruited and the vegetable versions add a minimal amount of carbs per egg cup. If you use black berries or blueberries, it is something like three carbs per egg cup when you put up to four berries in there.

Now, there is some genius out there who have made mini quiche with ham slices as the crust in this process. I've yet to try out that recipe. When I do, I'll post my thoughts on it and what I did to it. Because I can never leave a recipe that I enjoy alone, I just have to experiment with it.

Low carb meatloaf recipe

I know, the idea of meatloaf having lots of carbs sounds contradictory. However, when you look at the recipes and almost all of them call for bread crumbs or oatmeal, you find that it is going to have more carbs than you wanted in it. This is a pretty basic meatloaf recipe. I cut down the carbs even more by skipping the sauce on top of the meatloaf. Honestly, I can't see the appeal of meatloaf drowning in sauce.

Ingredients
1 lb ground beef
1/2 cup ground almonds
1 egg
1/4 cup tomato sauce (You can use ketchup here but it will have more carbs than plain tomato sauce.)
1/4 cup mustard

Mix all ingredients until uniform. Turn into a loaf pan and pat into shape. Cook in the oven at 350 degrees F. for 45 minutes to an hour. Insert a meat thermometer into your loaf to make sure it tests as well done for beef.

The ground almonds don't add a nutty flavor to the meatloaf. They do, however, help the meatloaf retain moisture. I'm not sure how, but it works. And my picky eaters can't tell the difference between this and the version with breadcrumbs.

Spinning myth or reality? I don't know.

There's an old tale that says if you don't get your spinning done by Mother's Night (or Yule, depending on who is telling the story), Dame Hulda (or is it Frigga, it depends on who is telling the story) will tangle up your yarn. I tried to get all my spinning done by Mother's Night. That's the solstice evening.

I had some yarn that I hadn't plied sitting in a bowl. Wound into two neat little balls. They looked almost cute sitting in that bowl. As I was watching my eldest shovel a quarter inch of snow off of the side walk (this was before he caught the flu) out the living room window, I decided I was going to ply those two cute little balls of yarn into one cute little skein of yarn.

I had a devil of a time plying that. Corkscrews and pigtails in the yarn as I was plying it. Balls bouncing out of the bowl and rolling across the floor. It was a mess. I normally wouldn't have had this much difficulty. Still, I was there, the day after Mother's Night with a tangled skein. I suppose I should have listened to the old tales and finished that skein the day before.

Gratitude challenge!

So, I see that I have some new readers. Hi! If you blog as well, I have a challenge for you.

I challenge you to post ten things you are grateful for from this year. They don't have to be in order. They just have to be ten things that you are thankful for. Here's my ten.

1. My husband and children.
2. Our family and friends (who are basically family by love)
3. My betta fish Aros
4. A clean living room at the end of a long day
5. Cuddle Bear making honor roll
6. Snuggle Bug's inventive stories
7. My writerly friends and their support
8. My readers and their support
9. Recipes I can have that are diabetic friendly
10. Zoodles

What's on your ten things to be thankful for this year?

Things I learned holiday baking this year.

I was attempting to adapt old family recipes to my new life with low carbs. I learned several things in this process.

First: You can not completely swap granulated stevia for baking 1:1 for sugar in your recipe. THE PACKAGES LIE! You have to swap out half your sugar if you're going to be using granulated stevia or your cookies will not bake properly.

Second: You can sub in a good portion of almond flour into Mom's peanut butter cookie recipe and get a better result. These things stayed moist and delightful for longer than a day. Original recipe they kinda dried out pretty fast.

Third: You can replace the oatmeal in Grandma's peanut butter no-bake cookies with coconut.

Fourth: It's not a great idea to swap the sugar for stevia 1:1 in Grandma's peanut butter no-bake cookies. They don't set up properly unless you refrigerate them. At room temperature they basically turn into piles of soft, coconut filled peanut butter fudge. Still delicious, Beloved helped me take care of the evidence.

Finally, I learned that your sense of taste is 100000% improved by getting over the flu. The first batch of peanut butter cookies was made while I still had the flu. I was sure that I had messed them up horribly because they tasted utterly tasteless. I said to myself something was wrong because they had to at least taste like peanut butter. (I didn't let the family try any of those cookies because I was so sure I had messed them up.) Then I tried the recipe again after I was over the flu and I didn't feel like I was eating cardboard with nuts in it. It had actual flavor.

Holiday cheer?

So, I have to start my story off with a bit of a preface. I had the flu recently. I just got over it in time to be ready for Yule. Well, Yule came along and the guys got a gift I did not intend to give - the flu. Christmas eve, we were lucky and the family doctor was able to see my youngest (who was living up to his nickname on here, Snuggle Bug). We thought he was the only one sick with it and started making plans to do family gathering in such a manner that he could rest and his brother could go spend time with the extended family. Then Christmas day happened. Beloved and Cuddle Bear both came down with the flu.

It was Christmas day, we knew that the family doctor wasn't going to be in office. We were pretty sure that after hours care over at the next town over wasn't going to be in office either. So, the guys toughed it out until today. Now, I called the family doctor explained the situation and he made his decision whilst on the phone with me to put them on the same stuff as Snuggle Bug. It makes sense, they've all got the flu.

Christmas eve, I went into Walmart to pick up Snuggle Bug's medicine before the pharmacy closed and the place was a zoo. I expected that and planned around things being super busy. I even managed to have enough mental fortitude to handle the crowds despite my social phobia. I expected going into Walmart on Christmas eve, there's going to be a crowd of last minute shoppers and people buying goods for holiday dinner.

It was going in to Walmart today to pick up the medicine and a few things for dinner that caught me off guard. First off, about half of the Christmas stuff was already on clearance and off the shelves. I was surprised there wasn't just a heap of stuff in a big wire bin marked down to a dollar. What was left on the shelves, I watched people getting into actual shoving matches over who got the last stupid gigantic mug with bad hot cocoa mix. I saw someone mindlessly push another person aside to get to a large bin full of chocolates and half dive into the bin to start digging around for something.

These were not children doing this. This was grown adults. I was astounded. I'm not sure what was more mind boggling. The people behaving like this or the fact that half of the stuff for Valentine's day was up already. They were still playing canned Christmas music. It made the scene more surreal. If it was all in a minor chord, I would have thought I was an extra in some badly made horror movie. Holiday cheer?

Deb's December KAL scarf

It's been really busy over the last few days but I did get some knitting in after putting the kids on the bus to school. First I worked the triangles that I did last in reverse. So, take the steps from the last KAL post and do them backwards.

Then I knit twelve rows. One for each day of yule that we'll be celebrating at my house. It would have been thirteen but I ran out of yarn.

Color change was off of a small ball of red yarn, but if you have something else 'holiday' colored, go for it. I did the classic K2P2 rib for six rows until that ball of yarn ran out.

Next color change was to black for the night sky. I knit four rows and then got bored.

So then came another color change. I knit a big triangle similar to what I did before, except I had the stockinette section in the middle and two reverse stockinette sections on either side. I worked this by starting with a purl on either end of my row and then proceeded in the usual fashion, increasing my side triangles until they met in the middle. Then I knit three rows. And that ball of yarn ran out.

I took up some yellow yarn and just knit four rows. I tried it on and found it was a length to my liking and decided I was done.

Crochet apron.

Nothing fancy here. Just make a granny square roughly wide enough to go across your lap. To make it up, turn it on a corner and sew down top corner. Thread a ribbon through to tie around your neck. Then thread small lengths of ribbon through the two corners that are at your waist. Tie them in back and viola! I'd post a picture but mine is kinda funky looking because it is nothing but scrap yarn. I started out thinking I was going to make a granny square blanket and realized I didn't have enough scrap yarn to make a full sized blanket. That's when the apron idea hit me.

All that acrylic and open mesh makes it a poor choice to wear for cooking but it's just fine to wear while your cleaning and want to keep some of the dust off your clothes.

Menu Week of Dec. 17

Date	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sun	scrambled eggs	sandwiches / leftovers	pizza
Mon	kids: school me: oatmeal, coffee	Kids: school Hubby: leftovers & ramen Me: salad	hamburgers
Tues	kids: school me: oatmeal, turkey coffee	Kids: school Hubby: out Me: salad	tacos, mexican rice, salad
Wed	kids: school me: oatmeal, nuts, turkey & coffee	Kids: school Hubby: out Me: leftovers	spaghetti & meatballs
Thurs	kids: school me: zucchini hash w/ eggs & toast & coffee	Kids: school Hubby: leftovers Me: leftovers	gen. tso chicken cauliflower rice veggie sticks & dip
Fri	kids: school me: mason jar omlette & toast & coffee	Kids: school Hubby: sandwiches & chips Me: leftovers	chicken korma cauliflower rice naan kids: ez mac
Sat	eggs, bacon & fruit	leftovers / sandwiches	roast chicken & leftovers