Nablopomo post no. 10 - Not again!

 The bursitis in my right shoulder is healed up. I can move it easily and comfortably. I can even sleep on that side. But now my left shoulder is cramped up like nobody's business. I've been applying heat and cold to it in the hopes that it would loosen up. It's not really doing much and my range of motion is a bit limited. I know, however, this is all muscular because it hurts in the muscles, not the joint.

I tend to carry my stress in my shoulders. I have a lot of things health wise to be stressed about. I'm starting a new diabetes medication tomorrow morning. It's called Trulicity and it is supposed to help keep my appetite in check and help me lower my A1C. I simply can't push through this on will power alone. It's bringing up terrible memories from when I was a child and my parents were starving me because the worst thing I could be was fat. It's bringing up very old habits that are not good for me. 

Sneak eating and binging followed by fasting is pretty much what I did as a kid. I didn't have the hallmark symptoms of anorexia but I had the behaviors. I wasn't afraid I was fat. I didn't think I was fat when I looked in the mirror. I was terrified that my access to food would be revoked because it was treated as a privilege that I had to earn. There's a lot more horror to this particular story but I'm not going to put it down here because I don't want to trigger anyone else who is recovered or struggling with an eating disorder.

I have been psychologically struggling for several months now. It's been particularly brutal when I realized I was falling back into sneak eating. No one was going to beat me for having a healthy meal. No one was going to slap food out of my hand and call me a thief. I have times where I dissociate and stare at our pantry with deep despair. So, my butt is starting therapy again. I have to process this abuse and somehow make my peace with it.

Nablopomo post no. 9 - Planner Pages!

 

What I am holding in my hand is the heart of how I organize things in my life. When I forget to do this, everything turns into disarray and I have the one-two punch of more anxiety and more depression. October was a hard month, as was September, because I was sick and I kept forgetting to keep up with my planner. Let me tell you, before I started using this, I was a mess. I was overwhelmed by everything and panicky a lot. Prior to the templates that you see here, I was drawing out boxes in a notebook and getting pretty intense hand cramps by the time I was done setting up one month of pages. Then Beloved said, "Let's make a template, that'll make the planner easier to use." Trust an engineer to find the solution that streamlines an arduous process. They're good at that stuff.

At the top of the forward facing page is space for me to note the date in a liturgical calendar I follow (part of the whole Filianism thing I have going on), space for me to note the date in the Julian calendar that everybody else uses, and a space to note the day of the week. The column on the right side of the page starts with a reminder/record of how much water I need to drink on a given day. Below it is a reminder/record as to if I had taken all of my daily pills. 

There isn't a checkbox for each pill because I take 12+ medications and it changes on occasion. Following the monitor of medicine compliance, I rate my mood for the day and then I rate my anxiety level for the day on a scale of 1 - 10. A one is horrid and a ten is horrid in it's own way. My goal is to be around a five on the mood scale. On the anxiety scale, I try to be around a five also, because one is apathy and ten is I'm so anxious I am vibrating through space and time as well as seeing sound.

After this comes what is probably the most important thing to track in here, my fasting blood glucose reading. I'm kinda lucky that I just have to check this in the morning. The problem here is forgetfulness will have me go a week either forgetting entirely to take the readings or forgetting to write them down, because my brain just doesn't work quite like it did before and I have memory problems.

The check boxes and lines on the left side of the page are for tasks, errands, appointments, etc. I use it in a fashion that is really similar to Ryder Carrol's Bullet Journal method. I reserve the last line for writing down what we're going to eat for dinner that day. The lined back of the page is for recording notes and a bit of micro-journaling.

Nablopomo post no. 8 - What does this thing do again?

 I had a sleep study done back in September. During the study, I had 11 events per hour. Translation: I stopped breathing 11 times every hour. According to the doctors, when you do that, you briefly wake up to full consciousness to breathe and then fall back to sleep, not even remembering it because it was that fast. The sleep specialist prescribed me a CPAP machine. I wasn't sure if they were big and bulky still, like the ones advertised in the 90s. I wasn't sure about pretty much anything except for the fact that if I was having problems breathing then I need to do something about it.

I picked it up today. I was surprised that the health insurance didn't make a stink about the fact I was getting some medical equipment. The way they get over my prescription medication, I figured this was going to functionally cost an arm and a leg. It was a pleasant surprise that the cost of everything could fit into my budget because of how much the insurance covered.

CPAP is an acronym that stands for continuous positive airway pressure. Basically, I put on a mask (no, I didn't come out looking like Darth Vader) and the machine continually blows air into my airway. This prevents things like my tongue blocking my airway. I look rather silly with the whole get up on but it was shockingly comfortable. I was given a brief lesson on how to service it and what to use to clean it. There are parts I clean everyday and parts that I clean every two weeks. It was all rather interesting. The sales person basically disassembled the entire machine and named all the parts, told me how they work, and how to take care of them.

There wasn't any pressure (ha, stupid pun is stupid!) to purchase anything. If I had gotten up and walked out with out the equipment, there'd be no hard feelings. Confusion, yes, but there wasn't the typical sales attitude that you encounter in so many other specialty shops. That right there convinced me that if I am in need of other specialized medical equipment at some point, I'm going to work with these people. The emphasis of the whole experience was explaining how the equipment worked, what to expect out of using it, and things to take into consideration during use. I was expecting things to work differently and not be so ... pleasant.

Nablopomo post no. 7: Halp!

 I have six other blogs to update. O.O

This is what I get for being an overachiever.

Nablopomo post no. 6 - I hate menu planning.

 I seriously have come to hate over the last six years of having diabetes menu planning. And yet, here we are attempting to plan Thanksgiving dinner for three diabetics and a host of non-diabetics. This started out as Beloved attempting to plan everything so that his mom didn't have to cook. Not a bad idea when she's been struggling with balance issues for a few months now. (Her doctors are mystified, she's just accepted it as part of growing older.)

Unaware that the other relatives were planning things as well, we almost had a complete menu put together for his mom to approve. It has now turned into we're making the sides and desserts for us diabetics (and a special pie for his mom). I have been scouring my cookbooks and getting rather vexed. Portions are tiny. Much of it is not very appetizing. I just want to yeet the books out the window and call it done. Looking on the internet is even worse. I'm sorry but corn syrup is not a diabetic friendly sugar sub. It's liquid sugar!

Then there are the misfiled recipes that are for people with heart disease rather than diabetes. I suppose they could be useful. If they hit both the categories, it'd be perfect. Because there are more people at the table with heart disease than diabetes. But those recipes seem to be impossible to find. *headdesk*

Nablopomo post no. 5? Election day! My birthday! My migraine!

 So, it's election day and I would have gone to vote but this insane weather we're having triggered another (somewhat less severe) migraine. If this is how autumn is going to go, it's going to be awful. My birthday just feels like another Tuesday because of the migraine and all the work I have to get done. It's ok, though, because Beloved and I did something special on Sunday. With how well that went, I'm starting to think that maybe we can do a date night once a month.

The kids just were fantastic about following the rules. They were particularly happy that they got to have extra tablet time while we were out. And, of course, they enjoyed the pizza from their favorite place. Now we have another challenge with the kids and today kinda encapsulates it.

We have been trying to get them to do work around the house (helping out with dishes, folding towels, picking up the floor of the living room so that someone can vacuum it etc.). They just won't do it. This is not a new development. I've been fighting with them on this since they were toddlers. At first they did help out and the novelty wore of in about a month. Since, they just don't help. I've tried making it part of the schedule. I've tried doing group chores on a given day of the weekend. I've tried bribing them with money and food. Nothing works. 

Beloved is going to sit down and have a conversation about how they have to contribute. I've tried having that conversation and it goes in one ear and out the other. Maybe he can reach them. I am really hoping he can. At 14 and 16, they really should be doing some of the chores around here. It's exceedingly vexing. I have a migraine and the kids expect me to carry all the load so they can spend their time playing. It just can't work that way.

Nablopomo Post No. 4 - The Weekend Sucked.

 Both Saturday and Sunday, I woke up stupid early (i.e. 0230) and couldn't fall back to sleep. I wound up knitting for an hour Saturday in the small hours of the morning, hoping it would bore me to sleep. On Sunday, I was doing crochet for an hour. Neither settled my mind and relaxed me enough so I could go to sleep. I resigned myself to being awake for the day at 0330, approximately. Well, Sunday it was again 0230. Either way I was highly annoyed.

The kids behaved well. I felt physically weird and couldn't figure out why. The bursitis in my right shoulder had cleared up, thankfully. But I just didn't feel right and was extra hungry for no apparent reason. Sunday morning that reason became clear - I had a wicked migraine. This shot down Beloved's plans to hang out with his mom and learn how to make a pie crust. He had been looking forward to this for about two weeks.

I spent half of Sunday curled up in a dark room with a blindfold on just to make sure no light was going to stab me in the face. This was one of the rare moments that I was glad the bedroom has no windows. I guess it was around 1600 when I woke up and the Imitrex had worked it's magic. I was so brain fried, however, I just wandered around the apartment.

There was a bright side to the weekend. Beloved took me out to dinner and gave me two presents for my birthday. One was a book about fairytales, folktales, and myths. The other was the accompanying deck of tarot cards. The spot where the old Greek restaurant was is the new location for the Mexican restaurant that we really enjoy.

We happened to sit by chance in our old booth. Things were a little slow because they were busy, but we managed to make it a bit of a romantic moment reminiscing about the early years of our romance. And, for bonus points, the kids did well hanging out at home with a pizza. So, maybe we'll do this again. As long as I don't have a migraine kick my feet out from under me.

NaBloPoMo Post No. 3 - Election day is my birthday?

Yep, you read that right. My mother resented (probably still does) the fact that she didn't get to go vote in her first election because she was in the hospital with me. When I missed election day because I was out of state, she called me to crow about it. I rolled my eyes and hung up, saying I had to study for a test. There was no test the next day.

That said, as a favor to me, please consider the following next week.

 

NaNoBloPoMo Post No. 2 - Why am I exhausted?

 You know how when most people lose a few nights of sleep, they get bags under their eyes? Well, I have a full set of luggage and it isn't quite complete enough to look like I got in a fight. This August marks three years of awful sleep for various known and unknown reasons. We've gone through several neighbors in that next door apartment. Each of them has been loud, with a tendency to fight at full volume at all hours of the night, and had a large dog that howled for them when they weren't home. The noise enough screws with my sleep. It doesn't help with my cptsd. 

I struggle to get back to sleep whilst having flashbacks to my parents fighting over money from when I was a small child. Between their fighting, telling me that I was the reason they were poor, and a lot of other ugly stuff that was said, I guess I was around eight thinking that I'd be more valuable being sold as body parts on the black market and the money funneled to them. Pretty screwed up, eh? So, here I am about two score years later, with those thoughts running around in my head and fear that my parents are going to catch on that I heard them and they're going to beat me for it.

Now, putting that horror aside, I'm in perimenopause. The hormones screw up your sleep cycle there too. It seems like my body is looking for more ways to hate me because I just got a diagnosis of sleep apnea. I get the CPAP machine next week and I'm hoping it helps with that. And that heavy blanket that helps me feel safer at night, it's a weighted one that weighs almost as much as a toddler, seems to be making the sleep apnea worse. So, I may have to give that up. I don't know what a good alternate solution for my night time anxiety will be. 

My psychologist has been a champion through all of this. He's been carefully tailoring my psychiatric medications to try to help with out interfering with my other medications. He's a bit at wits end on this matter to. So, when I got prescribed a sleep consult with the clinic up in the city, he immediately began telling me what to expect (because I was anxious) and about his experience. He also was so kind as to explain what a CPAP machine does and how it has helped him. I came away from that discussion reassured and ready for the video conference with the sleep doctor's PA. 

In that video conference, I got my diagnosis and a very through explanation of everything from what is sleep apnea to how a CPAP machine works. With the discussion of sleep apnea, there was an explanation why I could sleep a whole night through and wake up exhausted. I'm hoping the CPAP machine is the silver bullet on this one.

NaBloPoMo Post No. 1 - Just rambling about bursitis. It sucks.

 I'm not entirely sure what to write in here today. Yesterday was a rotten day. The weather was cold and rainy. We had appointments at opposite ends of the county that I barely got us to on time. I had slept awful the night before because of a persistent ache in my shoulder that started that night. I figured I had shoulder checked a door frame and popped my shoulder out of place again as they day went on and the pain grew worse.

So, after we picked up Beloved from work, the kids were allowed to hang out at home as long as they behaved. (They did, but they completely forgot their bed time routine with the novelty of having the run of the apartment for an hour and a half.) Beloved brought me over to the Urgent Care clinic in the next town over. After some gentle poking and prodding, it was determined that I have bursitis in my right shoulder. This makes things challenging.

My right arm is my dominant arm. While I have this bursitis business going on, I am limited in my range of motion, but I can't wear a sling or I'll wind up with a frozen shoulder. I am finding out the hard way that I can't do things like pick up a full jug of milk. And reaching to the top shelf in the kitchen cabinets is painful. And getting out my cast iron to make dinner ... that's a tactical NOPE there, Ghostrider.

The most frustrating part of this is the fact that I can't do much more than write in my journal or type on here. My kitchen is a straight up disaster from the fact I was sick for two and a half months. I've got a ton of laundry that needs put away. And it doesn't count the other tasks that I have to get done. I tried washing some dishes. I did light stuff, like plastic and silverware. Now my shoulder is registering a formal complaint at full volume. Capslock is my body's native language. Ugh.

Yule project list 2023

 Well, I have two seasons that I do work in. The spinning and fiber prep for spinning happens during the light half of the year where I can see better what I'm doing and can actually take a walk while spinning. (My preferred method of spinning is medieval style with a distaff and drop spindle. One of these days I will acquire a medieval stick spindle and some whorls. Then it'll be glorious to confuse the neighbors as I draw out thread and make it look like the spindle is levitating.) The dark half of the year, I make things like gifts for Yule and such.

Here is my project list so far:

Cuddle Bear's very late sweater (I'm finally past the halfway mark on this project and may actually get it done in time.)

Snuggle Bug's yellow bear stuffie patterned after a FNAF character

K. 's tea service set (I'm testing the pattern now to make sure if there's any errors I can fix them. This is a crochet set.)

T. 's fabric dice to go in his restored Pontiac Chieftain wagon

K. & R.'s Diabetic Recipe book (This will be written out by hand in an A5 notebook. Some of the recipes are my own and others I've collected off the internet, which will be cited in endnotes.)

T.'s tea service set (Based off of the pattern I'm testing, it looks like it can be done not just in single crochet but also in Tunisian crochet.)

More preemie hats to be donated by December. (I am hoping a solid deadline means I can get that box filled up.)

More things will be added to the list as I go on and finish projects in the works.

Some rambling thoughts on parenting teenagers.

 Hi, All!

So, my eldest son keeps insisting that his one desire when he finishes high school is to leave the country. He's been saying that a lot over the last few months. Every time he says it, my heart breaks a little bit. I sit there and say to myself is this because I walked away from my side of the family (with the exception of a few people).  Is this how he thinks things are supposed to work? You grow up and just walk away.

We've done our best to explain to him how a large number of people on my side of the family are toxic if not dangerous for them to be around. He launches into rants about how this country is turning into a facist state. (This is what we get for making sure he was well educated about WWII and the consequences of such types of governments.) He talks about how much he hates this country on the basis of all the past injustices against everyone you can think of and the ongoing bigotry and policy making based in hate. I don't blame him or begrudge his feelings. He just wants to leave before the country collapses. I don't know if it is going to collapse, but he's insisting it will and it will be like Nazi Germany when it happens.

This kid is no dummy. His arguments are well thought out and fairly sound. He gets ticked off with counter arguments that tell him that staying in the country is a better option than risking being off in another country with no idea what it's like there or how to speak the language.

Still, he's breaking my heart.

My youngest son keeps insisting his one desire is to be a roboticist. He understands that means college. He wants to get there as fast as possible so he can start building animatronic robots. He's been fascinated with them for years. His response to his brother's desire to flee the country is "You'll come back and see us, right?" He gets upset at the idea of his big brother just disappearing out of his life. They're real close. They think a lot a like, which means there's a fair amount of bickering. (Thank you Beloved for the noise cancelling headphones.) But my youngest son at 14 years old has a huge heart and worries for his brother. And I can't console him.

This is the rough part of being a parent.

Prompts No. 1

 Because I have so much difficulty writing of late, I have turned to my prompt box and I'm going to try to write daily posts on the basis of prompts. I can't promise success, but I am going to try.

Today's prompt: How much of yourself do you keep hidden?

Well, this one is a gut punch. I keep a large amount of myself hidden. I have lots of emotional scars, my personality is fracture (to put it lightly), and a great many things that I'm terrified of that I force my way through just because it needs to be done. I have this attitude that I must push through whatever hardship I am dealing with (like walking pneumonia right now) and make things happen. It was instilled into me by parents who didn't believe me when I was sick and repeatedly accused me of being lazy when I was trying to rest and get over being sick. I remember very clearly them telling our family doctor that I was a hypochondriac before I could even begin describing my symptoms. Cue a different doctor thirty years later saying I have textbook arthritis in my knees and have had it all my life.

I hide my pain with sardonic comments, redirecting things to other people and their needs, and excessive cheerfulness when it's really bad. When I had appendicitis, I was cracking jokes with tears in my eyes from the pain. The nursing staff was disturbed by this, partly because those jokes were really dark. Then I got the morphine (which I am now allergic to the whole family of pain medications, yay!) and the jokes got darker and twisted. Why, because I could make myself shut up. It was an experience and a half.

I also hide things that are precious and deserving to be shared with the world because of how scarred my metaphorical heart is from years of harassment and bullying. I'm scared to share my paintings because of how often people told me they were garbage. Once, a painting that I was really proud of that I gave my parents as an anniversary present, they gave back to me with a comment 'I believe this is yours.' also known as 'Take it or we're going to get rid of it.' It hurt. That painting now hangs in my kitchen. It's a view of the prettiest place on the family farm during autumn, up by the pond looking out over the valley.

I try to hide my pride and do my best to remain humble and genial. But when I get insulted, I have a rush of adrenalin and I'm ready to fight. Honestly, that's the hard one to keep under my hat. For too long have I born insults and snide comments over the last 44 years from people around me, often in the form of backhanded jokes or 'constructive criticism.' I try to just let it pass over me like water around a stone. It's really hard, though.

Now that I've word vomited my way through this post and overshared too many things, I am going to attempt to write something else on another blog. Fortunately, my prompt box covers a really wide range of topics. 

I feel like garbage but I'm getting stuff done.

I have conceded defeat on the hair front. I had always hoped that I was going to have the long, snow white, gorgeous hair that my great-grandmother Hazel had. Female pattern baldness is setting in and my hair is thinning and starting to come out in great chunks. My hair dresser said to me that stress can do it. She's been watching my hair go white real time over the last few months. I wanted to believe her and that if my stress levels went down, I could have my long hair again. Then I took a shower and noticed how much of my scalp I could see. I almost sat down and cried. I am not a vain person but my hair was a trait I took pride in. My philosophy was always I could do what ever I want with it and it would grow back. Now that's not so sure. So, this past weekend, Beloved helped me to shave my head. 

My argument was if Sinead O'Connor could pull it off, I could too. Here's the before picture, if you haven't seen it on FB or Instagram. If you look carefully you can see where one of the thin spots in the front is. And the lack of balance between the hair on both sides, because the other thin spot that shed enough hair to make a small mouse in the span of two days is across from the cowlick holding straight up on the left side.

I was a little nervous about this picture. I was disappointed I couldn't keep rocking the faux hawk that I loved to do over the last few years. It was fun confusing my father-in-law with it. The look was very agender and with how I carry myself, it tended toward a masc feeling. He blue screened the first time he saw it. I had someone mistakenly call me 'sir' and I laughed, at which point they blushed beautifully and stumbled over an apology.

It makes me wonder what the new look is going to get response wise. As of the moment, I am getting back into my scarves and figuring out how to work this with out a quarter mile of hair to twist into a bun to hold the looks into place. I will

probably be purchasing a few items to help me with my scarves. Wrapunzel has a velvet shaper, I may be lucky and find one that is small enough for my head and at a reasonable price.

The new look came with a new accessory. I confess, I love wearing a collar. The edgier the better. It's in stark contrast with what people who have known me most of my life expect and lets me play around with looks that I've always admired. I found this collar with the hearts and spikey studs on it as Spirit Halloween of all places for $12. It has nickel in the hearts, so I had to paint them with nail polish to protect my skin from it.

But it's totally worth it. Now I just have to figure out how to move forward on some other clothing transformations for my look. I have enough flexability that I can do Mom Goth to Laundry Day Goth. (The latter being when my outfit matches my colorful, floral print combat style boots.)

I'd be more excited about all of this if I wasn't sick and way behind on chores. As of the moment, I am blogging when I really should be watering plants and washing dishes. I spent my whole morning on getting the mass of papers on the desk sorted out. I found correspondence dating back to 2017. I should have done this a long time ago. Tomorrow I will be filing everything, including the huge pile of papers on the baker's rack in the kitchen. I would get some work done, sit down to rest and fall asleep for a half hour. Stupid pneumonia just is kicking my butt. At least I look kinda cool.

Exhausted but upright anyways.

 I am working with a sleep clinic that posts their results in a file that I and my care team can read together. I am not expert on sleep apnea but I suspect that the doctor who runs the clinic is going to have some things to say that I don't want to hear. Like that I have some form of sleep apnea and that one night of the two night test, I did stop breathing. I'm trying to steel myself for this potential but it is as vague and intangible as the air itself. I can not grasp a handful of the wind and put it in my chest.

Looking at the reports surrounding the pneumonia stuff, I really hope that this damn business starts to clear up. Otherwise, I might have a real problem on my hands. I am frustrated and tired. I can't sleep well. I can't breathe well. I am having difficulty coughing up the gunk in my chest because I can't breathe well. I don't know what the medical solution is but around the end of next month I get another chest x-ray and find out if my general practitioner sees that nothing's changed. 

If there is scarring in my lungs I don't have any idea where it could have come from. I was born a preemie and I had breathing difficulties when I was itty-bitty. I had asthma but my lovely parents couldn't be bothered to make sure it got treated and regularly had me doing things that triggered what I now know to be asthma attacks. Bonus points here, because they smoked like chimneys and the white walls of their house were a tacky yellow by the time I was old enough to tell colors. 

Yes, I argued with my parents that the walls were not white like the paper in my books. That went over like a lead balloon. It wasn't too long after that I was getting exposed to asthma triggers and being left gasping for breath as my parents told me to toughen up as I hurt while breathing.

The sleep thing is awful. I have nightmares every night of something horrible. Either it's a flashback thrown into a blender with Salvadore Dali's art style or classic staircase wit where I have screaming arguments with my parents for accusing me of being a drug addict. They started that at ten. I didn't have access to drugs. We lived in the middle of nowhere and the closest thing to a drug dealer in our neighborhood was dairy cows. Because we all know the intoxicating effects of whole milk, right? 

This is not going as planned.

 My chest x-ray showed haziness in my left lower lung. This is no difference from the last one, except for the region is a bit bigger now. I woke up this morning with cold symptoms and a very sore throat. So, at my appointment to discuss the x-ray, my doctor and I agreed that a covid test to rule it out as a complication was a wise decision. If I have covid again, I am going to be highly irritated. Last time, I was 3 weeks flat on my back, coughing and hacking. I did ask if the haziness the x-ray showed could possibly be scarring in my lungs. The doctor shrugged and said it was possible but given my other symptoms, pneumonia was more likely.

For all these people saying the covid tests administered by doctor offices are awful, it wasn't a terrible experience for me. Irritating, yes, but nothing like when I had my sinuses scoped about twenty years ago. For one thing, it was a lot faster. Secondly, the doctor wasn't wiggling the thing around in my nose. On the whole, the 'real' covid test wasn't any worse than the at home one. Heck, it was kinda easier because I didn't have to do anything but sit there and don't sneeze.

I have my diabetes follow up appointment with the doctor in a month. He wants me to get another chest x-ray a few days before hand to see if the antibiotics that have been prescribed this time will clear up that haziness in the last two exams. I hope it will. This whole time, I've been tired and feeling like garbage with my chest aching a lot. 

When they weighed me at the beginning of the visit, I saw that I gained about three pounds. Now, I know the weather's getting colder but I wasn't wearing my boots and heavy weather gear. This has been stress eating due to a number of things going on right now. I'm trying to stop doing it but it's proving really hard. I'm trying to get back to food logging and that is really hard. Which is stupid because all it is, really, is writing down a quick note when I eat. But between the stress eating and the food logging stuff, I am finding myself struggling with the urge to cut down how much I eat in a big way.

I don't really know how to describe my relationship with food beyond saying it's very complicated and hurtful. Between the diabetes and my history of anorexia (instilled in me by my insane mom who insisted whenever she caught me eating as a child that I was eating too much and my brothers were going to starve because of me, I was 5 when I started skipping meals) my emotional response is mixed. I love to cook for people. But that's been dialed way back by anxiety that I can't eat what is 'normal' food. It's a mess, folks.

I've got the next month to try to get my eating habits back to what they were last summer and lose those three pounds. Three pounds doesn't sound like a big deal, but it kinda is because when my weight goes up so does my A1C numbers. I am scared right now. I hate being sick and I hate how it reminds me of being sick as a kid where things were ugly. 

I now have a working computer, huzzah!

 Around the time of my last post (no joke), my computer died. I went to my old Win 8 box and discovered it was well and truly dead. And filled with  moth larvae corpses. It wasn't pretty. So, I looked around and found a place that fixes computers and pretty much all tech equipment. (They also have a good sense of humor.) 

Approximately the same time as I got my computers into the tech shop, I got aspirational pneumonia. I have been having sleep problems for over a year now. I woke up one night choking on phlegm, acid reflux, and saliva. To say the least it was unpleasant. I coughed and hacked for an hour. Somewhere in that time period, I inhaled the mixture. Next day, I called the doctor at one of the other offices for the family practice we go to because it was the day that the office of our doctor was closed. I spoked with the doctor at the other office and explained the situation. They put me on an antibiotic and told me to get a chest x-ray. 

This x-ray showed a couple of spots of pneumonia in my chest on the lower left lobe of my lungs. I was put on a stronger antibiotic and told to follow up with my primary care doctor. So, I go and do that. And the unexpected happens. 

He asks me if I have a fever and goes to check me with a temporal thermometer. I answer that I don't and my normal body temperature is 96.8, roughly two degrees lower than normal. Well, the doctor was shocked when I said that. He said that everyone's core temperature is 98.6 in a most offended tone and insisted that my thermometer is calibrated wrong. I was so surprised by his response that I didn't say that every thermometer ever used on me read that when I was healthy since I was a small child and that I believed the lack of subcutaneous fat (that's the one that insulates your body just under your skin) was the reason why. Normally, our interactions are much calmer and generally genial and pleasant, no matter how rotten I feel.

Still, after this moment of awkwardness, we got back on topic and he prescribed a stronger antibiotic and told me to get a second x-ray in two weeks. That was last Saturday and the results are not in the computer system yet for me to view. I am hopeful that Dr. E. has them and can tell me if the pneumonia is getting better or worse. I feel awful. Initially, I didn't feel that bad. Now I am at the point where my left side hurts. All through this I had no urge to cough (which I suspect is a very bad thing) and my peak flow meter for my lungs is in the middle of my yellow range, tending lower as time goes on. I hate albuterol but I use it when I feel wheezy and like I can't breathe.

I got my computers back last week. The old Win 8 machine is now a Win 10 box because there was no way to salvage it and I was lucky that it still worked. I don't entirely know what I'm going to do with two computers. I'm considering dedicating the older computer to just messing around and doing stuff like playing games. This one, however, I am going to focus on using it for work like stuff. Fortunately, I backed everything up on these machines before they went kaput on me.

On the health front, I'm still dealing with pneumonia. I have a follow up appointment with Dr. E. tomorrow to talk about the chest x-ray. Last week, I did a sleep study and I'll be talking to Dr. M. about the results in a month. Apparently that was the earliest that they could book me to see the sleep doctor. There are other doctors on his team that he has me booked to see, like a sleep psychologist to discuss my nightmare problem. And I still have to get my blood work done to see how I am doing with my diabetes. So, I am a little nervous about my health. My last test had an A1C of 7.5 which isn't gods awful but it's not good. It was a steep jump from where I was at before (6.1). 

I'm trying to control my eating habits but it's really hard. I've also been somewhat depressed about things for various reasons and self soothing by way of food. Sounds weird that a former anorexic will do that, but there you go. I have been getting a little more exercise and then I got the damn pneumonia which makes doing more than crossing the room at a brisk stride tiring. As this wears on, I just feel worse and have no urge to cough. It's scary.

No Menu, but there is more malarky

 Cuddle Bear did not only claim the jacket for himself, he asked for a fedora to go with it. I was searching all over for the compass he asked for as a birthday present and couldn't find one. I'm going to keep looking. But between the had, the sunglasses and the rest of his look, I was half expecting him to quote Blues Brothers (We're on a mission from God.) or ask me when I am going to be giving my weekly protection payment to the Don. 

His small birthday party was yesterday. We had pizza and cupcakes. Well, the guys had pizza and cupcakes. I had a salad. It was another 'oh damn diabetes" moment. Let me tell you, those chocolate cupcakes looked delicious. We didn't have any guests over because we weren't sure how to get a hold of his friends.

Originally the plan was to have the party at his grandparent's house, but they are feeling under the weather. Instead of delaying the party, they told us to go ahead and hold it at home. They'll let us know when things are favorable for visiting.

Snuggle Bug has been all about his skateboard where as Cuddle Bear is a bit gun-shy about the whole affair. Balancing on it while standing is proving very challenging for both the guys. Snuggle Bug figured out how to sit on it and make it move with a stick. Not only that, he figured out how to use the stick as a brake. It was interesting and amusing to watch. 

As soon as Cuddle Bear got the hat to go with his jacket and sunglasses look, we started talking about suits for formal occasions. I don't know if he wants to go to homecoming. He isn't into school spirit stuff. But he does want to go to prom when it comes up. We talked about it and I convinced him that a tux for prom wasn't necessary. At some point, we're going to find him a pinstriped suit like his hat and a nice tie. This way he's got himself a suit he can wear to special occasions. And that he can wear on a job interview. Plan it a size big and it'll last him a while. Of course, I could see Beloved insisting he wear one of his wacky, garish ties in his collection to prom. We'll burn that bridge when we get to it.

I can't believe the kids are 16 and 14. Time flies, folks.

Needlework!

 

Above are my latest embroidery projects. The fan with the butterflies that was started by my late Grandmother K. is finished and framed. I altered the pattern some because the extra bits they wanted done would have hidden the stitch definition. The top right is my project of the day with a favorite quote on it. I put up a vote for how the flowers should look. The internet answered lavender petals and blue centers. The project on the left is stalled because black 12 point Aida cloth is a real headache to work on. It is a sampler. I'm going to finish it this year. I am going to continue the black and white theme. All the stitches on there are crossed stitches. If I can manage it, I'll only be using crossed stitches for this project. It looks cool, but it's painful to work on.

How do you get rid of moths?

 Hi, folks!

My week has been challenging and just kinda crappy. I'm not going to go on about it. It's enough to say that hormones are not fun for teenagers or middle aged women. I'd say next lifetime, I'm going to be masc but with my luck I would incarnate as a masculine seahorse or something similar. Anyways, I've got a moth in the apartment. It's been fluttering about and driving all of us mad. Once the kids realized that it would eat my spinning fiber, they have been trying to catch it. One wants to squish it (Cuddle Bear) and one wants to release it outside (Snuggle Bug). Their debates on how to catch it and what to do with it have been entertaining because of how voraciously they argue their points.

They both like 'cute' things, but they argue weather or not the cuteness factor is enough to let the moth live. At one point a suggestion was put forth to keep the moth as a pet and feed it wee bits of fiber. I put the kybash on that idea. One moth leads to forty-two in quick order. I'm just hoping it gets caught in a spider web and the spider handles it all. I tried to catch it this morning and I missed the thing by a quarter of an inch. So, I've left it to the spiders' domain.

The ironic thing about this, in a stupid way, is I am wearing my socks with butterflies on them. Butterflies the more colorful and socially acceptable cousins of the moth. I just don't want it eating my plants or my fiber. I can't throw mothballs at it and make it go away. But I have all my wool and other fiber packed up except for my current project. And it has already taken a few nibbles at that. Ugh.

My kid now owns the jacket.

 I bought this awesome jacket at the thrift store. It was worn in just the right ways. I had fallen in love with it's asymmetrical look. When I tried it on at home it was a bit tight in the shoulders, but I could work with that. I was going to punk it out. Then I discovered that it didn't agree with my waistline. On a whim, I handed it to Cuddle Bear to try on. By Jove, that boy looked amazing in it. So, now he owns my jacket.

Cuddle Bear looking serious.
Super Serious.

It has been an eventful few days.

 Last Saturday was Snuggle Bug's 14th birthday. His class at school made a boat shaped like a manatee with googly eyes because of how the painted beach balls bounced on the waves. At first, the Regatta was scheduled for Saturday. We went over to the park early and then I got a text message that it was postponed to Sunday on account of incoming inclement weather. So, the kids got to play at the park for a bit and then we went home.

They got their skateboards. It was early for Cuddle Bear to get that gift but we wanted him to have time to play around with it. He got frustrated with trying to balance on the thing and said 'Nope, I can't do it.' before walking into the house and putting it away. His brother, on the other hand, figured out how to use it sitting down and crouching on it. Beloved has a feeling that where Cuddle Bear taught Snuggle Bug how to use his bike, Snuggle Bug may be teaching Cuddle Bear how to use his skateboard.

It has been a few days and Cuddle Bear's skateboard remains where he put it. Who knows what will come of this. Neither Beloved or I know how to use a skateboard but we thought the principle of it was simple enough that both of the boys would pick it up pretty fast. *shrugs* You can never guess what's going to happen around here.

Last Sunday was the Regatta. Snuggle Bug actually got on board of the 'Majestic Manatee' and was the unofficial captain. He sat in the middle of their googly eyed boat as others rowed. Last year, there was some boats that sank. It was a close thing with the Manatee a few moments. But they stayed upright in the water and made it back to the dock. They won an award for the slowest trip around the course, because none of the boats sank, not even the recycled cardboard boat. (The recycled cardboard boat turned out to be the fastest. It started coming apart when it was taken out of the water.) The award for most spectacular sinking got repurposed for their award. They also won family favorite for design. I am pretty sure it was the googly eyes that did it.

While Snuggle Bug was on his ship, Cuddle Bear started jogging laps around the park. By the end of Snuggle Bug's course around the buoys that marked the race perimeter, Cuddle Bear was warm and looking for a drink. So, I bought the boys some refreshments and let them have their run of the park for a little while before we went home. Because our plans for an actual party for Snuggle Bug's birthday fell through, we just casually celebrated through out the day. He got his gifts and he was delighted to have another bit of Poppy Playtime merchandise. (This kid is collecting merchandise from his favorite two horror games and rewriting the backstory of the characters. It's been interesting.)

Dinner was pizza from our local delivery place. For some reason my typical order of a salad with extra meat got an excited response from one of the staff. Apparently they thought this was really cool. *shrugs* I don't understand other people. Snuggle Bug had ice cream for dessert. We bought Cuddle Bear a brownie because he doesn't like hard ice cream. Turns out that they changed their brownie recipe and drowned it in chocolate sauce. Cuddle Bear gave it a try and told me that the chocolate sauce was a weird feeling in his mouth and the brownie soaked with chocolate sauce felt all wrong. He said the taste was ok, but he couldn't stand the textures. Such is life with people with food sensitivities.

Beloved was kind enough to eat the evidence later. I felt a bit off through the weekend and then Monday this bug hit me like a hammer. I was feeling so rotten in such an odd way, I tested myself for Covid. The test was negative, thankfully. Beloved suggested that I might have picked up a stomach bug from him because he hadn't been feeling too great over the last several days. I slept through most of the day and went to bed exhausted. For a little bit, it looked like I only had Gas-X to handle my stomach symptoms.

This morning, I still felt off but I had errands to do. Thus I called the pharmacist to ask if good ol' Pepto was going to conflict with my laundry list of medications. I was relieved to hear that it wouldn't. So when I picked up the various things we needed at the store and our prescriptions, I got a box of tablets. My first dose and I felt so much better. I had forgotten how effective it is at settling upset stomachs. For the last four years, I thought I couldn't take it. So, I suffered through various stomach bugs for no reason but my ignorance.

I am now working with a sleep specialist to figure out why in hell I can't get to sleep and stay asleep for the last two years. They are suggesting a preliminary possibility of sleep apnea and a need to have behavioral therapy to fix my sleep habits. In September, I have the in-home sleep study. In October, I have the follow up to discuss my results. And in February of next year, I see their sleep psychologist for an initial intake appointment. 

I kinda feel like I've bit off more than I can chew. But, if I can get back to getting a decent night's sleep, that'd be wonderful.

No menu, just malarky.

 Hey folks!

I'd have made a menu yesterday and posted it today but ... well, the kids happened. They've been extra silly over the last several days and I'm having a hard time keeping up with it. Blanket fort shenanigans, jump scares around corners, making monster noises at each other, and the occasional bickering has my head spinning. I thought that this kinda stuff was stuff they grew out of. Apparently if they get sufficiently bored, my boys will start up with this. I must admit, it was funny to see Cuddle Bear in the blanket fort with most of his body sticking out because he didn't fit. I snapped a picture of it and sent it to Beloved. He cracked up.

When they started to get bored with surprising each other by randomly poking their hands out, Cuddle Bear grabbed his big bag of clean blankets to make his own blanket fort in his bed. If only I could get them to pick up the laundry. Maybe later, after they get some of this goofiness out of their system.

I don't have a menu, but summer feels like it's turning into a Nine Inch Nails song: Everyday is the Same. I've been tutoring Cuddle Bear in Algebra for the last several weeks. We've hit a point where my scrambled brain is trying to do calculus and linear algebra on his work. It made today very frustrating for both of us. Add into this mix the fact that his new scientific calculator is not operating on the decimal system, it's been rather vexing. We tried to find the instruction booklet but it is missing in action. We'll probably find it in September.

Snuggle Bug is doing pretty well with summer school. I don't know if his class is going to be making something for the "Anything that Floats" regatta happening at the end of the month. Last year they won Family Favorite. We've talked about going to it again. Both boys are hoping to see their friends at it. And, to be honest, I hope they get to. They've been a bit miserable and grumpy because they haven't seen any of their friends since the end of school. Snuggle Bug has made a few new friends but mostly he is pretty lonely even at school.

Monday Menu

 Sunday is the day we go over to the in-laws' house and have dinner twice a month. I know that Beloved is planning a big batch of deviled eggs and I have no idea what else he has in mind. To say the least, it is going to be an adventure. It could be anything from lamb curry to hamburgers. I'm really proud of how his cooking skills are improving and he is getting joy out of it. Also, if you come between me and his lamb chili I will gnaw your arm off, just a warning.

Here's this week's menu:

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sun	yogurt with granola coffee	salad w/ leftover pulled pork	tbd
Mon	yogurt coffee granola	chicken sand. chips	hamburgers almond milk
Tues	yogurt coffee granola	leftovers	tacos/ taco salad diet soda
Wed	yogurt coffee Eng. muffin w/ egg	egg salad sandwich chips	pulled pork cheesy potatoes iced tea
Thurs	yogurt granola coffee	leftovers salad	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

Some ramblings about life and potholes.

 Hey y'all. 

My street got 'fixed' by the WSA (Water and Sewer Authority) and has so many potholes that I feel like I'm playing Frogger when I'm driving and trying to avoid them. The last time they fixed something, stuff broke and we didn't have water for the day. I'm pretty sure these guys are a menace to society, not because they're bad people but because they put gravel into potholes instead of actually repairing them. I'm half tempted to get some driveway sealant from the hardware store up the road and fill in the gap around the pothole and the sewer lid.

Now, this fuckery is not entirely the WSA's fault. The highway department paved over all the manholes two years ago and screwed up the road so that it has issues on top of issues. And yet, for all of this work, the railroad tracks are a nightmare. The tracks are ok, but the crossing is just about nothing but gravel and two car eating potholes. The railroad is working on that this week. Here's hoping they're better than WSA or the highway department.

I have seen people loose mufflers off of their cars because of these potholes at the tracks. Fools and people who are not from around here will go over those tracks at full speed and damage their vehicle. It's been a hazard for a while and I'm glad it is getting worked on, I just hope that it improves the drivability of the street. Our speed limit is 35 mph but sometimes you have to go 15 because the road is just that bad. Oh, one more detail I forgot to mention. This part is sheer stupidity and someone is probably going to get hurt because of it. There's a small rise and at the top of the rise it says lane closed. You pop over it and the eastbound lane is closed for the space of about a car length. But it's a double solid and a blind rise. Murder on the eyes in the morning and you hope that nobody's derping in the road on that rise because of the sun burning your corneas to a crisp. Yeah, that's been interesting. Nothing like playing chicken because the WSA couldn't fix something properly.

I've been struggling to stay on top of everything, but I am slowing getting back into my groove. Tutoring Cuddle Bear has been eye opening. This young man is going into be a high school junior this fall. He's bright, he's charming (when he feels like it), and is really focused on learning as much as he can. Things we already know. It was realizing that through middle school they short changed him on mathematics. He and I have been working through a Spectrum Math workbook focused on algebra. We finished the pre-algebra chapter this week and it became clear that they were having him working on elementary school material, not grade appropriate work.

I understand a special education classroom is a juggling act when you have students at multiple grade levels in there and it gets even more difficult when you are dealing with  learning disorders and stuff like people who need communication aids. I did this work before I had kids. It's hard and at the end of the day you are exhausted. It doesn't change the fact that you have to meet the kids at their level. My boys are smart enough to pick up algebra and geometry. How do I know that? By how they whip through some damn complicated concepts (who here remembers the identity property of zero?). 

Now I am investigating things like how was he taught English, what Science classes did he get skipped over on, what are they refusing to teach my sons because they have autism. I'm mad as hell. In his IEP reports, his teachers were saying that he was struggling with algebra because he came into the class unprepared for it. He should have been prepared. That's why we're working on it now. Because I think he's going to get shuffled into a remedial geometry class or some similar grand bullshit.

He wasn't given a choice last year about going into BOCES exploration program. And it wasn't a thing that his entire class had to do. They were trying to pidgeon hole him into a shop class, because it was easier for them to throw him at the BOCES environment than to take the damn time to educate him. Cuddle Bear hated BOCES because it was a chaotic learning environment and he had no interest in what they were teaching him. We're watching the school like a hawk to see if they're going to try to put him back into BOCES or if they're going to honor what he said in the IEP meeting.

Right now, I know that one son is approximately 4 grades behind in mathematics and possibly in other subjects as well. I have suspicions that the other son is in a similar boat. As I get this figured out, I'm trying to decide what action to take. I can't do the chain flail thing, they're unreliable as hell. But a proverbial baseball bat of information dropped on the desk of the department chair and a demand for an explanation may start moving things in the right direction.

I'm sick of people telling me what a good mom I am. I'm a fucking educator by way of my education. I get that everyone has a different learning style and I adapt my teaching styles to be responsive to them. This is not a mere 'mom' thing. I'm dragging out material from college to teach them informally about the history of the country, math skills, and language arts. Language arts is challenging because they have difficulty with inferencing. I think, however, as we work in the mathematics area, they will find that they can apply some of the skills for breaking down problems into workable bits useful for interpreting inferred content.

I'm mad. I shouldn't be doing the school's job for them. I  have my good days and I can focus to get them through their work. I have my bad days where I struggle to figure out words. All of this is weaponized bullshit of the highest order. When my kids say they want to be home schooled instead of dealing with the uncertainty of what the next school year brings, I get angry. They shouldn't be anxious that they're going to get screwed academically because of their autism.

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.

Perseveration sucks.

 Perseveration is the act of thinking about one topic for an extended period at the exclusion of other topics. This is different from concentration or being focused. It can go on for hours or, even, days. It's part of a collection of symptoms I have from  my mental illnesses. I pretty much hate it because I perseverate on horrible things from the past that I don't have 'resolved'. Honestly, I don't think you can resolve the breech of trust that comes from when your parents throw you out of the house when you're extremely ill in the middle of winter. I had pennies to my name and they were going to leave me with just the clothes on my back out in the street. My Grandparents intervened and that's how I wound up living in east Jesus for a year before I got married.

 I grew up on a farm about 5 miles from civilization in any direction. There was literally nowhere for me to go. I've been thinking about this for weeks. I had to deal with threats of being thrown out from the age of 12 through my early 20s. When they did it, they claimed it was because I wasn't pulling my weight as a member of the household. Meanwhile, one brother chain smoked, played video games, and was unemployed for years by that point, with a child. The other brother was in the military but wasted his money on alcohol instead of supporting his wife and children, leaving the rest of the family to do that. And when he was on leave, he would play video games and fuck off to bars in the area to get his drink on instead of going to be with his family. Neither brother cleaned anything, they wouldn't cook, or do their own laundry.

It was my childhood all over again during the time from graduation from college to when they threw me out. I was basically the household serf who had to perform perfectly and be silent. There is a lot of unresolved trauma around all of that. I think that's why I can't get it out of my head. It's part of a long list of things that I am certain I can never 'resolve' only learn to live with.

A special embroidery project completed.

 The fan pictured to the right is a project that was stuffed into a bag of yarn I inherited from my late paternal Grandmother. She only had the handle of the fan done before it got put into a bag of yarn and forgotten. (Not that I've done that before, wink.)

It has taken me months to work on it because it was an emotionally grueling task. Finding a strand of her hair tangled up with some of the wool for this pattern, I got teary eyed and twisted the wool a little tighter so that silver thread of memory was in it. Looking at the finished product you can't tell where it is, I felt that was appropriate.

I still have to mount this and frame it. It is going to go beside the white fan with flowers on it and a Monarch butterfly beside it. That was the one she completed. It is sitting on the bookcase. This will likely go beside it. I miss my paternal Grandparents terribly and I haven't fully mourned their deaths. Family politics and circumstances kept me from their internment. At the viewing I was wandering around comforting relatives. I got a brief glimpse of my Grandfather in the box at his viewing and not a single glance at my Grandmother's viewing.

Some day, Beloved and I are going to go down to the family plot and lay some flowers down. It won't be easy, but it will be healthier for me than thinking they're still puttering around at the farm.

One post a month is progress, right?

 I feel guilty that the blogs are all in want of attention. I feel like I'm just making up excuses about why I haven't been writing at the rate I had been in the past. At the same time, I am anxious about meeting the sleep specialist. I worry about how therapy is going for my kids. I worry about Beloved's health and all the damn stress he's under. 

My home is a mess. But I cleared out a few feet worth of space in the project room. I have been organizing piles of goods and making decisions on how to approach them. It feels like a lame distraction from how much of a mess my kitchen is. I'm forcing myself to stay awake to post this. And yet I can't manage to get these damn dishes done.

Beloved would gently remind me right now that I am still having problems sleeping which is messing with my energy levels. He would tell me that if I'm practically falling asleep at the keyboard, I should take a short nap. He would remind me that it isn't laziness that has me avoiding the dishes but the trauma from how I was taught to wash them. And then give me a stern look asking if I was going to take that short nap I needed.

And he'd be right. On all points.

Hey! I'm losing my marbles.

I don't know if I've posted any recent pics of myself. I want to say that I haven't in a while because I just
haven't been blogging. Please forgive the terrible lighting, but here's a pic that I took just today. For the record, my hair used to be approximately hip length three years ago. Two years ago, it was shoulder length and breaking, coming out, and splitting. So, I walked into a salon with a picture of what I wanted. The people running the salon had me literally sit in the corner and think if I was sure I wanted such a dramatically different cut.

Looking back on that, I chuckle. I've wanted a haircut like this since I was a teen. When I was a teen, I would have been thrown out of the house for it. For you folks who can't tell with the messed up lighting, I have a buzzed undercut and a short pixie cut on top. I've mussed it up and spiked it up for this pic. It's how I usually wear it. I don't typically put product into my hair, but I did today just to make sure that this look held long enough for me to take this pic. 

The people at the salon were declaring me brave for cutting my hair. I looked at them like they had lost their minds. I said bluntly, "It's hair. If I don't like the cut, it'll grow back. What am I going to do, get mad at you because I was dumb? That's just foolish." There was a collective gasp and then a sigh of relief. When the haircut was done, the stylist said to me that she had never seen someone so determined to get their hair cut before. I shrugged and replied that I knew the only way to keep my hair from falling out faster was to go short. Next thing I know, I'm being regaled with horror stories from the stylists in the salon of others who were losing their hair and went long to super long and how badly it ended up for them.

They still don't believe I had hip length hair before. I think I'm going to have to bring my wedding picture in to show them how long my hair used to be. I still don't understand people who flip out on their stylist when their hair doesn't come out like how the envisioned it in their minds or like the person in the photo. Everyone's head is different. I knew my pixie cut portion wasn't going to lay flat because I have something like five cowlicks on the top of my head. (Super annoying with a regular pixie cut but kinda awesome with this.) Maybe other people are not as self aware when it comes to their hair. I don't know. I still think it's foolish to scream over your hair being your hair and behaving in its own unique way. 

If you hate your hair that much, wouldn't it be easier to just get a wig instead of constant disappointment or anger with your stylist?

Edited to add a better pic:

Fiber Fluff Check In.

 Hi everybody!

I haven't made much progress on spinning right now. I've come to realize that I spin more and do so more consistently when the weather is fair and warm. The weather mocks me by being fair and bitterly cold. I want to go out and walk with my spindle and distaff. But, I have to wait about a month for that warm weather.  I pace a bit in my apartment but it isn't quite the same. My kick wheel is put away until I'm ready to ply the singles that I'm working on. I had two balls of grey alpaca pencil roving. One of them got spun up into a twisted and pigtailing single. Things look the same for the second ball of roving. I'm then going to ply it with hand spun acrylic roving. I found it at the craft store for a few bucks because it was on clearance. I have no idea what the staple length is. I'm really hoping it isn't 35 yards. If it is, I'll have to bust out a ruler and a good pair of scissors to cut it down to a uniform staple length. The thing about the acrylic roving that threw me for a loop (aside from finding it to begin with) is the fact that it feels like silk. 

If the roving feels like silk, how on Earth do they mangle it into the scratchy monstrosity that we're all familiar with? My plan is to ply the three together to make a yarn that is a bit more sturdy than my usual three ply laceweight yarn. If the acrylic experiment works out well, I may try spinning it with other materials. It's the same grey as the alpaca but it has a silver sheen. I know it will play well with the other singles as soon as I get them done.

I haven't done any embroidery in the last few months. I just haven't been feeling well and the frustration of getting my glasses adjusted properly made things harder. But, now I have new glasses and I'm going to pick up the needle and thread again as soon as I'm done cleaning everything for Moura.* Right now, I realized that I was measuring the progress I was making on Cuddle Bear's sweater wrong. I have another ten inches to knit before dealing with the shoulders and then the back of this sweater. I'm frustrated but I'm not giving up. Cuddle Bear is being gracious and patient, which is pretty hard for a 15 yo. 

Aside from what feels like an endless knitting project that I'm doing all wrong, I am working on the final batch of preemie hats. I have eight in the box, one on the hook, and about 24 more to make to hit my goal of 99 hats for the hospital. Apparently the big preemie hat program that I was contributing to was only giving donations to the big city hospitals. That made me a bit mad. I'm debating how to continue the project on my own and the logistics of getting them out to the smaller hospitals in the rural counties like the one where I live.

Aside from that, once I get hat 99 done, I'm going to start making scarves. I have to talk to the school social worker about how many she thinks they need. I figure I'll start with my kids' school district and branch out from there.

*Moura is the name of Filianism's season/month of purification and preparation for the Daughter's sacrifice. I've been spending most of it with a migraine thanks to these stupid winter storms. When I am not dealing with a migraine or its fallout, I've been cleaning like a madwoman. This deep cleaning got complicated when the bathroom sink started leaking. But that's a post for another day (and a bit more of a rant).

I hate this weather.

 Hello all, it's me again.

I'd have posted more over the last little while but I have been dealing with recurring migraines as these cursed winter storms roll through the area. One of them was four days long with the prescription medication from the doctor. I'm currently on day two of a migraine. Yesterday, I took a brand name off the shelf migraine medication. It wore off and I felt horrid. I've been nervous about taking the prescription medication too many times in a month. That's why when the four day migraine hit, I only took it on the first day and then the other stuff on the following days.

Today, I said I'm not going to be so damn cautious and I just too the prescription medication, despite the fact that I had it twice earlier in the week. These winter storms and the wild swings in the temperature are just wrecking havoc. When I was a kid, I used to love winter and how pretty it all looked. Now, I scorn it because it has been causing me immense pain.

One of my doctors said that I was going to quite likely be more prone to migraines as I go through perimenopause. I wasn't thrilled with the news. Honestly, I wasn't thrilled to be told that I  have entered perimenopause. But it explains why my hair went grey so fast and started falling out. As such, I have had to abandon the long hair that most of you know me for. I have a super short pixie cut on top and an undercut to go with it. It's confused some people. I look more masculine with this haircut to some people. I think it's a pretty androgynous look, to be honest. 

When I changed my hairstyle to one that I had wanted since I was a teen but never got because I knew my parents would have likely thrown me out of the house for it, I changed my clothing style. Due to coincidence, I've dropped a fair amount of weight over the last few years. Clothes that were sort of loose started falling off me. I had to give up my favorite sweater because it was falling off me. I was a 3x for a while now I am a 1x. I'm almost back to the size I wore before I had kids. I figure it'll probably be by the end of the year that I am down to that. It goes every 3 mo to 6 mo, my clothing size goes down for the last two years. I suspect it's due to the diabetes. 

But instead of the Boho style that I was sort of doing before, I have gone to Goth with splashes of added color. I call it Rainbow Goth. My in-laws are a bit confused and mildly perturbed by it. I know they'll get used to it. Or not, I'm not going to worry about it much. I've always loved the Goth aesthetic and wanted to wear that style. I'm not  yet where I want to be style wise but I'm working towards it. Most of my wardrobe is black and I've got my colorful scarves. I have a small selection of colorful stuff, but I'm sorting it out because I don't know what fits anymore.

Sleep Hates Me.

 Hi folks,

It's been a while since I posted and I apologize. Everything seems to be going haywire. No great tragedies (knocks wood) just many basic things going sideways at the least helpful time.

If you've been following my intermittent posts about health stuff, you may recall there was a suspicion that I have long Covid at one point. My general practitioner hit me with a battery of questions and ruled out long Covid. He did however suggest sleep apnea. He's ordered a test for it and I'm a bit nervous.

Beloved rested with me a few nights ago as I got into deep sleep. In the space of two hours, I was choking for breath twelve times. I think I woke up one or two of those times, but, yeah, that's a thing. The doctor I have been referred to hasn't contact me yet, so I'll be calling their office to try to schedule this thing. It all makes me as nervous as a cat in a rocking chair factory.

My exhaustion during the day is proving to be a significant problem. I lose half a day to it on average every day. Some days it's worse. I didn't have this problem before. It may have begun way back in August of 2021. I don't know. All I really do know is that this is slowly getting worse. I tried looking up information about sleep apnea. Don't do it folks, get your information from the doctors because everything else will tell you that you're dying. (Usually my research gets decent information, this time I was unsuccessful.)

I just want to go to bed, sleep peacefully (aka with out nightmares just about every night), and wake up functional. I feel like it's too much to ask. We'll see how things go with this test and what the sleep specialist has to say. It may be that I can come off of my medications to help me stay asleep from my psychiatrist. He's of the opinion that if you need the medicine take it, if you turn out to be negatively impacted by it or it doesn't help, you find another route to your goal. He's a pretty awesome doctor, to be honest.