Garbage plates and stuff.

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

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

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

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

Too many cookies

 I have been having trouble over the last couple days getting my web browser to work properly. After a bit of poking around at it, I discovered that I had several thousand cookies. So, I deleted the cookies and ta-dah, it started working right again. I am annoyed with the fact that I had to do that but that is the state of the internet right now. It's like the 1990s returned to gift us with popup ads and bullshit. Unfortunately, the funny memes haven't come back into fashion.

Life around here has been challenging since I last posted. Hence the long silence. My mother-in-law was in treatment for cancer. She's successfully completed that and is working on getting back to what passes for normal. Now we wait a year and see if it comes back. If it doesn't she'll be declared cured. 

Work continues to drive Beloved batty. His boss has a bad case of undiagnosed ADHD, we're absolutely convinced of it. The man is in squirrel mode 95% of the time. His dog just about runs the office, when Dan doesn't put his foot down and get the dog to back down. She's a beautiful rescue dog that is very mouthy and anxious. And seems to have a bladder the size of a walnut. Between these two facts of his boss's lack of ability to stay on task and the dog has needs, Beloved is frustrated and trying to keep work grinding forward. It's been an on going problem for a while that is just slowly getting worse and more insane.

Cuddle Bear had oral surgery yesterday to extract a baby tooth and make room for the adult tooth erupting behind it. He's still feeling the effects of the anesthesia and is kinda grumpy and tired. He is doing ok with his driving lessons. Cuddle Bear is real cautious about four way stops now because he witnessed an accident a few days ago where someone tried to get through the stop before another person. There was a t-bone collision. Cuddle Bear was pretty rattled by the whole business. Apparently one of the vehicles involved was a police cruiser. Police showed up in enough numbers they were directing their own traffic. The drivers of both vehicles were taken to the hospital by ambulance, but fortunately alive and relatively whole. The fire department had their rescue truck out. It was a whole thing.

Snuggle Bug is very irritated with school. For anyone who has been keeping score, he started the year in the BOCES program for computer programming. This went sideways in a big way. He was failing all of his classes at BOCES, suffering from severe depression, and getting bullied a lot. We intervened at that point. He was pulled from BOCES and returned to his home school district. They gave us a line about how they didn't have room in any classes for him aside from his three morning classes before he went to BOCES. After some friction and frustration, he now is at school for a half day and comes home after his lunch period. Snuggle Bug isn't pleased but he is doing his best to stay positive. Bullying is still a problem, but less of a severe one. Now, however, he is getting super anxious over final exams later this month. I'm going to bring up his concerns with his guidance counselor to see if there's something we can do to help him be more successful.

Both the kids are not pleased about the talk around town about making changes to the park around the corner from us. From what they have heard, the playground is going to be ripped out and completely replaced. Snuggle Bug has been making noises about protesting the changes. Cuddle Bear has been making noises about never going back to the park after the changes are made because they are "ruining my childhood". To say the least, they have Opinions on what's happening. Nobody knows what is being built on the formerly empty lot between the old real estate office and the office park where our doctor's office is located. Whatever is being built, they're moving quick to get it done. It's been about 3 weeks since they started and they've got cement slabs poured and walls starting to go up on the exterior.

That's pretty much everything that's been going on in our neck of the woods. I am going to try to write more soon. Life has been challenging on top of daily irritations and the adventure of perimenopause. Hormone therapy helps even out the mood swings and make the hot flashes less frequent, but I still am off kilter. My doctor says that I'm about 2/3 of the way through it. I'm being optimistic and taking that number as a solid benchmark. But I'll go on about that on another post.

Monday Menu

day	breakfast	lunch	dinner
M	yogurt granola coffee	veggie tray h2o	hamburgers cheese h2o
Tu	yogurt granola coffee	chicken salad sandwich h2o	tacos roasted chickpeas h20
W	yogurt granola coffee	salad cheese h20	meatloaf mashed potatoes h2o
Th	yogurt granola coffee	veggie tray h20	hotdogs deviled eggs h2o
F	yogurt granola coffee	salad cheese h2o	pasta w/ meatballs h2o
Sa	yogurt granola coffee	chicken salad sandwich h2o	take out h2o
Su	yogurt granola coffee	leftovers h20	TBD

NaBloPoMo: Some whining.

I have stacks and stacks of old mail that I can't file and I can't throw out in the trash. My filing cabinets are full more old receipts, paid bills, and random official paperwork. Ninety nine percent of it is just junk. I feel like I need a paper shredder.

I get twitchy when the apartment is like this. It brings up bad memories and anxiety. Fortunately, I have that magic give zero fucks pill that my psychiatrist prescribed me. I took it a few minutes ago but it'll take a little bit to kick in. The time I spend being anxious and twitchy is not as long as it was before I started taking something for the anxiety.  But the anxiety is a persistent problem, even with medication.

All pervasive dread that something awful is going to happen to myself or my family is nothing fun to live with. Fear that leaving the apartment means someone is going to arbitrarily decide that I'm a danger to myself and others because I have mental illness and I'll be locked away in a dark hole with out any opportunity to see my family again keeps bubbling up. It doesn't help how this administration is running things.

So much of their bluster echoes what I was raised with and the threats that went with it. It makes minor panic attacks pop up like clouds on a sunny day, at a frequent rate and randomly. I have essentially stopped reading the news but it's all inescapable.  It's all over social media. It's the thing that all the neighbors talk about. I try to focus on what I can do and what I can change. But the anxiety and my personal history hit me like a freight train and I just sit and numb out for long periods of time.

NaBloPoMo: What Would Loki Do?

A couple months back, Cuddle Bear got scammed out of all of his savings. (He had a good start on saving for a car.) Then the scammer harassed him for more money and started making threats. I didn't realize how bad things were until yesterday. I sat back and asked myself what would Loki do in this situation? Obviously get even, but how? Then it hit me, troll the scammer until they're back in the stone age.

A few gentle nudges and suggestions and Cuddle Bear was having a grand ol' time messing with the scammer. He was sending messages that were long and nothing but gibberish. By the end of the day, he was snickering and plotting what to do today. The scammer foolishly messaged him first thing in the morning. Maybe they were hoping to get 'normal' responses if they caught him earlier in the day. The fool.

Cuddle Bear was back at the blocks of gibberish messages. By lunchtime, the scammer went silent. Cuddle Bear asked them if they were angry. He told them to hold on to their hats because he was just getting warmed up. The scammer replied 'oh no.' The deluge of insanity resumed with the scammer begging him to stop. He finally said, "I'll stop if you send me my money back." Cuddle Bear got no response to that. He decided it was time to eat and proof read the job application he filled out in between sending blocks of random characters to the scammer.

Right now, Cuddle Bear is dropping off the job application. Somewhere downstate there is a scammer who is trying to decide what to do about Cuddle Bear's shenanigans. We're pretty sure that the scammer's already spent my son's money. Cuddle Bear's decided if he's having a bad day he's going to cheer himself up by messing with scammers.

NaBloPoMo: Exhausted.

Seasonal Affective Disorder is bullshit. The weather's gloomy and cold. My brain says that everything is awful and I should sleep until spring. I confess hearing Bing Crosby caterwauling doesn't help my mood any. I hear Bing Crosby and I want to throw things, like the radio, out the window and destroy it with a baseball bat. The 'traditional' christmas songs all irritate me. If I have to hear 'White Christmas' one more time, I might scream. And we haven't even hit Thanksgiving yet.

I didn't sleep great the last few nights, which is aggravating the SAD mood effects. My hormones are swinging back and forth, which was part of my problem sleeping. I thought PMS was bad, perimenopause is PMS on steroids. I'm pretty sure that my fatigue today is hormonally based too. Ugh.

NaBloPoMo: First Snow Fall (and a little ice)

 Yesterday, we went to visit my Mother-In-Law. The weather all day was gloomy and cold. Somewhere between sundown and when we went to the car, it started to ice. It didn't make the drive home problematic but we did have to be careful on the steps into the building. I figured it was going to continue to ice through the night. I was partially correct in my assessment. Some time in the night, it started to snow. 

When Snuggle Bug was heading out the door for school, I told him to be very careful because underneath that puffy, quarter inch of snow was a glaze of ice over everything. A little later, I went out and threw some salt down on the ice and warned neighbors on their way to their car about how slick it was out there. A light dusting of snow and a very thin glaze of ice made things look kinda pretty. I was glad we didn't get more of either because lots of trees still have leaves on them right now.

We're just to the east of one of the snow belts off of Lake Erie and just south of one of the snow belts off of Lake Ontario. The hills do a pretty good job of sheltering us from the worst of the winter storms that blow through the area. I suspect, however, that the hills are not going to be as successful as they were in past years when the next big storm comes through. It's cold enough that my joints ache and I've been wearing a shawl over my sweater.

My body does not approve of this weather. Fortunately, however, I didn't have a migraine this weekend as the system was moving in to the area. We'll see what happens when it moves out. I can say this for certain that the growing season is done now.

NaBloPoMo: Is it too late to winterize?

Beloved and I were talking about preparing for winter earlier this week. I think it was Tuesday. He was talking about getting the car's tires replaced and possibly the windshield wipers. I was talking about putting up plastic over the windows to block the drafts that blow in around them when the wind comes hard out of the west. Come to this morning and I smelled snow on the wind as I was getting to the car to go run errands. It's currently too warm to drop snow on us right now. But if you look at the clouds, they're snow clouds up there.

I now find myself wondering if we're going to get walloped by a big storm in the immediate future and temps will just stay bitter cold. I'm probably worrying over nothing. But, if we can get the apartment a bit more sealed up, it'll lower our heating bill and keep us more comfortable. Of course, the landlord will bitch about the tape holding the plastic on the windows but he doesn't live here. The only evidence he'll have of us putting up plastic will be less dust in those spots.

Anyways, our security deposit went missing sometime between when our first landlord died and the property got inherited by his wife. We suspect she used it to cover burial funds.

NaBloPoMo: Decaf Coffee < Regular Coffee < Espresso

My morning habit is to drink coffee as I do some writing. About this time last year, I had to switch to decaf everything because my heart rate was too high. (It wasn't the coffee causing it but it didn't help.) I see advertisements for different types of coffee and I find myself missing regular coffee. A special treat from time to time was a demitasse of espresso. An extra special treat was chocolate covered espresso beans.

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find ground coffee that is decaf? It's damn near impossible. For the first few months, I suffered through a few different varieties of instant decaf. Some of them were really unpalatable. Then, on a whim, I stopped at the local Tops Market. Lo and behold, I found ground coffee beans that were decaf. To compound this minor miracle, it was the store brand which made it less expensive than the only other ground coffee that was decaf. To say the least, I was delighted.

I also found an instant decaf coffee that actually tastes like coffee. It is quite a bit like the coffee my paternal grandmother drank by the pot on a daily basis in flavor. It may actually be the coffee she was drinking as her tolerance for caffeine decreased. That one is a national brand. It's from Nescafe.

The awesome thing was when Beloved found coffee flavoring syrups that were sugar free at Walmart. The only one that I've had disagree with me so far was the Pumpkin Spice. The French Vanilla is my go to. So, I get up in the morning, fix myself some coffee with a splash of that and half and half, and start my daily writing. More than once, I have gotten into the coffee experience so much that I finished the pot before I started my journal entries. LOL

NaBloPoMo meme edition with cats!

 Judgemental cat is judgemental.

Monday Menu

It's going to be a long week. Appointments and halloween this week. oh boy.

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sun	yogurt with granola coffee	pb&j tea	chicken nuggets w/ mashed potatoes water
Mon	yogurt coffee granola	quesadillas flavored water	hamburgers quick salad water
Tues	yogurt coffee granola	leftovers flavored water	tacos water
Wed	yogurt coffee granola	taco salad water	spaghetti & meatballs water
Thurs	yogurt granola coffee	leftovers water	split pea soup & sandwiches water
Fri	yogurt coffee granola	leftovers tea	chicken patty sand. water
Sat	yogurt granola coffee	ham sand. water	take out water

Monday Menu

 Second verse, same as the first. Last week's menu went over so well with the guys that I'm doing it again. I think these guys would eat mashed potatoes everyday for the rest of their lives given the opportunity.

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sun	yogurt with granola coffee	pb&j tea	meatloaf mashed potatoes water
Mon	yogurt coffee granola	quesadillas flavored water	hamburgers quick salad water
Tues	yogurt coffee granola	leftovers flavored water	tacos water
Wed	yogurt coffee granola	taco salad water	spaghetti & meatballs water
Thurs	yogurt granola coffee	leftovers water	split pea soup & sandwiches water
Fri	yogurt coffee granola	leftovers tea	chicken patty sand. water
Sat	yogurt granola coffee	ham sand. water	take out water

Monday Menu

The last week and a half has been crazy with little details tripping me up and getting in the way of making progress on anything. It has been absolutely maddening. That said, it is looking like this week is going to let me actually get things done despite Columbus day. My new eye glasses are ready for pick up, so that will be happening on Wednesday. Tomorrow, there's two appointments in the morning back to back. And Cuddle Bear is talking about wanting to stop by the DMV to get his application for a learner's permit. Things are happening at a slow but steady rate.

 

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sun	yogurt with granola coffee	pb&j tea	meatloaf mashed potatoes water
Mon	yogurt coffee granola	quesadillas flavored water	hamburgers quick salad water
Tues	yogurt coffee granola	leftovers flavored water	tacos water
Wed	yogurt coffee granola	taco salad water	spaghetti & meatballs water
Thurs	yogurt granola coffee	leftovers water	split pea soup & sandwiches water
Fri	yogurt coffee granola	leftovers tea	chicken patty sand. water
Sat	yogurt granola coffee	ham sand. water	take out water

Fear, no. Rage, yes.

 Hey y'all. I've been pretty quiet. I give my standard apology for that. (And feel kinda bad that I've got a standard apology for it, but hey, it is what it is.) Part of my problem has been a lot of stuff going on in my life and my anxiety being through the roof. More of my problem is fear that I am going to have my blogs shut down because I am not  peddling the christ-facist crap that is flying through the airwaves right now. Once I realized my problem was fear, I got spitting mad. So angry that I was ready to throw things and then I instantly calmed down realizing that there was something I could do about that.

I can write and actively resist the bullshit going on through my blogs. I can point out the facist bullshit for what it is. I am no longer a kid stuck in a household where my parents espouse crap that sounds like this while calling themselves atheists and good americans. The memories of that part of my life have been roaring back but I am doing my best to function and using my anger to push forward.

I am the same person who was ready to punch out my little brother for espousing Nazi ideology in high school. I just have a better way of expressing myself than my right fist. Though the urge to punch people is rising.

I am displeased.

 I have been diagnosed with the beginnings of glaucoma. It doesn't help that my optic nerve is already thin. Like significantly so because I was on oxygen as an infant. Being born preemie didn't do me any favors. So, I now have eye drops to lower my eye pressure. Put the effects of the eye drops together with the effects of the antibiotic I'm on for a uti and I am dizzy and unable to operate heavy machinery. Fortunately, I take the eye drops at night. I am exceedingly frustrated. I figured it was just a matter of time but I thought I had more time than this.

Hormones are making me miserable. They're messing with my sleep and my appetite. Now, you'd figure with the cocktail of medications that I am on to help me sleep and the CPAP making sure that I'm breathing properly through the night, I'd be sleeping like a rock. The problem is the night sweats. And the hot flashes during the day. I have heard rumors that this symptom of perimenopause can last months or it can last years. All I know is that it's really irritating waking up in a pool of your own sweat.

The other thing my hormones are messing with is my mental state. I am irritable, to put it lightly. I am more forgetful than usual (which is seriously not a good thing). And my mood goes from ok to moderately depressed like some hyperactive toddler who has discovered light switches. I don't have rapid cycling bipolar, but my hormones didn't get the memo. I am this tired, irritable, fog of misery trying really hard to resemble a sane human because my teenagers are going through puberty and deserve a sane mother.

Did I mention that my anxiety is up? I'm twitching because of it. And I'm anxious over everything. I can't take my anxiety pill as often as I probably should because I fall asleep when I take it. So, my anxiety being high makes my irritability hair trigger. My focus is garbage because my anxiety clouds my mind. I try to meditate. It turns into a running monologue of what I'm worrying about. And I can't focus on my crafts to quiet my mind because of that running monologue.

Second puberty < Second breakfast

I got irritated with my thin hair and bald spot. The gal at the salon who does my hair was a little surprised when I said hack it all off. I explained that my hair was irritating me and looked like a picket fence with gaps in it because of how it was thinning, she tried not to giggle at my description. 

She wasn't comfortable shaving it all the way down at first. She took it down super low. It just made the thinning spots even more obvious. So I had her cut all of it off.

I'll be saving money on shampoo now.

I am looking forward to school. Truly.

 If only there was a sarcasm font. Just two more years to go and then Snuggle Bug will be done with school and I'll be done with the headaches of paperwork that accompany it. The only good thing about the prospect of school is the idea that I will have more motivation to be up in the mornings and get back to my routines. Last year I fell out of a number of good habits and adjusting to Cuddle Bear being out of school has made it hard to get back to those habits. The structure of the school schedule will help me out some on that front.

Snuggle Bug is looking forward to next school year. He will be in a BOCES class where he does stuff like computer programming (which he is really interested in). I'm hoping desperately that BOCES will agree with him better than it did with his brother. I truly believe that if he can make this class work for him, he will have a solid foundation to work from to build his future. Heck, who knows, he might go on to work with his father if he is so inclined. Snuggle Bug's interest in robotics and programming has only gotten stronger over the past year. If BOCES can give him the skill set to be a good entry level worker in that field, I know he'd enjoy it. If anything, because the supplies he gets to work with are better quality than the kits he's been getting and criticizing as he puts them together and such.

Cuddle Bear's plans to start a business this summer fell through. His plans to learn to drive have also fallen through. But he's starting to feel internal pressure to go find work and get his own transportation. Since the bus drivers gave him a mountain bike last June as a graduation present, he's been biking around town. Fortunately, he's only gotten lost on his bike rides once. He now has a phone, which puts my heart at ease because now he doesn't have to depend on the kindness of strangers to get help if he's in trouble. 

His birthday was last Friday, so he is now officially an adult. No change in behavior or attitude since the day passed. He was a little disappointed that his present wasn't here by then but the mail takes time. I didn't expect him to magically meet milestones right on that day, but I had to admit it was a little annoying that I had to drag him out of bed to get up for the day at noon. I know he has the ability to get himself up and moving, but he's unemployed and has no motivation to do so right now. As such, he's basically been in vacation mode since graduating. I'm doing my best not to let my anxiety get me worrying over his future on the basis of the past few months. It's been a struggle. Stupid anxiety is stupid.

Contrary to the desires of some people, I am still alive and annoying.

First, I can't believe I haven't written here since March. I feel kinda guilty about that. I am irritated that I missed Camp NaNoWriMo. It's the middle of the Tour de Fleece and I haven't worked on a single spinning project. It is also the middle of July for Loki and I haven't produced any poetry, art, or writings for him. It's been really hard to get myself moving on anything, to be honest.

I'm not depressed, though I am disappointed. If anything, I am cranky and mildly ill tempered because my back hurts since I slept on it funny last night and frustrated that I can't have food I'm craving because of my diabetes and medications. I suppose I should summarize what the last several months have been like.

In a word, exhausting. April was just a challenge to get things done because I was trying so hard to help the kids with school stuff. May saw my doctor's check in for the diabetes resulting in mixed news. My A1C is down to 6.2 from 6.5 but my heart rate jumped up to 130. I am now on a beta-blocker and feeling exhausted, spaced out, and struggling to focus on anything for an extended period of time. Some time in May, I got my denial of disability from Social Security. I am now working with LawNY to challenge that denial. 

That came with a pile of paperwork that ratcheted up my anxiety. As did the piles of paperwork that I am still slogging through for the kids to get Medicaid so they can work with OPWDD. Fortunately, everyone involved in this process has been very patient and helpful.

June brought Cuddle Bear's graduation and a heap of anxiety over that just for fun. It also brought news that my heart rate is back in a much more tolerable range. The kids had physicals and for the most part they're doing well. Snuggle Bug has lost weight again, so now we're adding protein powder to his milk at dinner time. We'll see how it goes.

July, thus far, has been my struggling to get paperwork done for the kids. Snuggle Bug is doing extended school year and will be retaking exams in August. The classes that he bombed, he was being bullied in. I am pretty sure that contributed to him failing them. I've been prodding Cuddle Bear to act on his desire to get his learner's permit and his desire to get his working papers. No progress yet on that front. I suspect that August will roll around and the working papers will no longer be necessary.

Here's a picture of Cuddle Bear from his graduation. (Yes, all that curl is real. My hair used to be that curly when I was a small child.)

Monday Menu

 The cost of everything seems to be high. I'm not pleased but I can't do much about it in the short term. My shelves that serve as a mini-pantry are getting empty. That means it is time to restock. I am a bit frayed and not entirely thinking clearly in the face of the government's bullshit. It's making it hard to think when you're realizing that your country is quite possibly on the brink of war with two separate nations (at least) that were formerly allies.

Here's the menu. I don't have the heart for posting more in the face of the oncoming train wreck.

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sun	yogurt with granola coffee	pb&j tea	breakfast for dinner coffee
Mon	yogurt coffee granola	quesadillas flavored water	hamburgers quick salad water
Tues	yogurt coffee granola	leftovers flavored water	tacos water
Wed	yogurt coffee granola	taco salad water	spaghetti & meatballs water
Thurs	yogurt granola coffee	leftovers water	split pea soup & sandwiches water
Fri	yogurt coffee granola	leftovers tea	chicken patty sand. water
Sat	yogurt granola coffee	ham sand. water	take out water

Monday Menu

We've been going as low cost as we can with our meal budget in the light of the egg and beef shortage happening right now. That said, I really want to have that $15 brisket to make corned beef and then rubens with the leftovers. It's something I've been craving for a while. It is going to have to wait for the price to drop down, though. The small local grocery store in the next town over has been having some pretty good deals on meat. I may stop over there to pick up our beef for the week. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky and there'll be brisket for less than $15. (I'm not counting on it, but I live in hope.)

I have started restocking our storm supplies. Last week, I cleaned out canned goods that were from 2013. I know that they're not good. Risking botulism is a bad idea. It can kill you in hours. If I had the energy for it and the means, I'd probably keep chickens. As far as live stock goes, they're fairly low maintenance. I know the landlord would flip his lid over that. He grouses about the wild birds that we feed out front. I think the guy is a curmudgeon underneath his affable affect. This is the same person who mowed down a patch of daylilies because he thought it made the lawn look messy. A square, tidy and well contained patch of daylilies. 

Ah well, enough rambling about that. Here's the menu for this week. 

Day	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sun	yogurt with granola coffee	pb&j tea	Beloved's pick
Mon	yogurt coffee granola	quesadillas flavored water	hamburgers quick salad water
Tues	yogurt coffee granola	leftovers flavored water	chicken patties & salad w/ water
Wed	yogurt coffee granola	salmon salad sandwiches water	spaghetti & meatballs water
Thurs	yogurt granola coffee	leftovers water	split pea soup & sandwiches water
Fri	yogurt coffee granola	pb&j tea	tacos water
Sat	yogurt granola coffee	ham sand. water	take out water

What a week!

 The calendar assures me it is Friday but it sure feels like Monday. I have been busy with housework. I have been fielding phone calls about putting services into place to support the kids going forward. I had an IEP meeting for Snuggle Bug that went surprisingly well, though it ran a bit long. And I've been attempting to write. It's been a busy week but progress is happening.

I haven't just been spinning my wheels, though it feels like it. Back in November of 2024, I submitted an application for Social Security Insurance. I got denied last month. I have started the process of appealing that denial. I am not hanging my hat on any hopes here. It would be helpful to have the extra income but if I'm unable to get it it won't be the end of the world. It is just really frustrating because last year, if I was working, I'd have lost my job due to the fact that I was so depressed I wasn't leaving the house and I was sleeping all the time. I don't have an expansive work history in part because of my parents resisting my having any independence until I was an adult and in part because of complications from mental illness.

I want to work. I try to approach my writing like it's a job. It isn't going that great, to be honest. There's not really any income coming in from that direction. I just can't sell things to save my life. I don't know how to market things either. When I was doing tarot readings, that was going ok. Then the company that was handling connection with clients and advertising hiked up their rates to the point that they were taking 51 cents off of every dollar I made. And I'd still have to pay taxes on that dollar. To say the least, I stopped working with them.