Beautiful Day

So it’s another lovely day outside in Mississippi.  My youngest never threw up yesterday, so I sent her to school this morning and hope she does okay.  I’m going out to lunch with Bob and then to the grocery store, so hopefully if she has any problems, they will go ahead and manifest before that.

Not much is  going on today.  Tomorrow is one of the local dance competitions.  That will take all morning.  Then I’m not sure what we’re going to do for the rest of the day.  Maybe rest.

I talked to my friend Betsy about her recumbent bikes, and turns out all hers are two-wheeled.  But she thinks she knows a guy with a three-wheeled one he’s trying to sell, so we shall see about that    She is supposed to get in touch with him for me and see if he still has it.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

 

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Sick Again

Now the youngest is down with something again. I’m taking her to the doctor in case it’s strep throat.   Which she shouldn’t be getting any more since her tonsils and adenoids are out.  But she’s hot to the touch and her stomach feels icky, and that’s how all my kids manifest strep. So we have an appointment in about an hour.

Finished up all the schoolwork last night by writing my final workshop critique,  I have a piece being workshopped next week so we will see how that goes.  WE’re getting so close to the end of the semester.  I need to work on my final essay and get it in shape, but I’m still a little frozen up about approaching it.  I may just wait until the last minute and do it so I can’t over think it.  But we will see.  I’ve got a month still to work on it.

Talked to several people and asked for prayer about the mental health panel I’m going to be on in April.  Talked to my friend Betsy at church last night, my church counselor   Michelle, and my pastor about it.  Asked them to pray that I will be positive and not negative about the topic and say whatever needs to be said.

So everyone have a good weekend!

 

Diversity Day Information

So I got to talk to the doctor organizing Diversity Day at University Medical Center and the panel I will be speaking on.  We had a very good conversation about the objective of the panel and who all would be involved with the conference.  It’s for psychology interns who deal with the mentally ill as well as for anyone who wants to minister to the mentally ill.  He asked for my resume so I sent it along and then sent a message with some personal information, including my diagnoses,  etc.  I feel really good about being involved in this event and hope I can make a positive impact on the audience and the panel members.

I hope my recovery holds together through then because I so want to make a good impression for the sake of the people I will be representing.  I want people’s preconceived notions of the mentally ill to be upended by me and to show how a Christian handles mental illness.  So we will see what happens.

 

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I Don’t Know. . .

what to write today.  I don’t really have any news to report–I got up and saw Candy and Christy this morning and went to lunch with Mary Jane at Cazuela in Jackson.   We had a good talk about what all is going on in our lives and what all we’re doing.   I wrote up my essay response this morning so I haven’t been a complete slug today.  I need to do my workshop stuff though and that’s going to be difficult since one is about a brutal murder in the author’s family.  Hard stuff to read and to comment on.

I am proud in that we had a bad, bad storm out last night and I didn’t freak out like usual.  Maybe I’m just getting better and better all the time.  I hope that’s a good sign. It was just a lot of rain and wind, but it didn’t upset me like they used to do.  Maybe I’m finally getting over all of that.  It’s taken long enough.

I can’t believe March has flown by so fast.  A few days still to the end of March, but it hasn’t taken long at all to pass.   I wonder if it’s because I’m finally filling my days with living instead of sleeping it away like I used to.

Hope everyone’s week started off well.

 

 

 

 

Upcoming Week

So we went to the dance competition and the girls did well.   They won a bunch of trophies and plaques and pins so their teachers were happy.  I did go backstage to help Rachel with her hair to change it for the next dance and the dance teacher watched me for a minute and then said, “Just let me do it.”  SO I’m not going backstage again.  I know when I’m not wanted.

Today I have advising with my program director about this summer and next semester.  I’m going to sign up for the long residency this summer and the Forms in Fiction II class this fall.  So that is my plan unless my professor objects to it for some reason.  And I c an’t imagine why he would.

THen I go out to lunch with Bob today and MJ tomorrow.  Rachel was selected for a special trip next summer through the school for going to Washington DC and New York, and we have an informational meeting Tuesday night.  SO I will likely go to that.  Then church on Wednesday and I’m not sure we have anything else planned for the rest of the week.  We will see.

I was really proud that I handled the weekend okay.  I didn’t take Xanax and I didn’t fly off the handle at anybody, even the dance teacher.  I’m learning how to cope better with stress, I suppose. I’m certainly trying to.  Prayer is effective in this as well.  Keeps me from getting too anxious.

Hope everyone has a good week this week.

 

Experiment Success

So I cooked a Blue Apron meal last night.  I had my middle one help me out with some of the cutting and slicing, but it really all went well.  We had a pork roast with black beans and roasted red onions.  Took less then an hour to get it all together so that was nice.  ALl the ingredients came premeasured and it really was all very easy.

Today we head out for Mobile to the dance competition. I need to finish packing and pick up a batch of medicine before I do.

I have started having a heavy heart for the next generation.  It started when my pastor was preaching Wednesday night when he talked about how young people today will say they’re not concerned that their boyfriend or girlfriend is a Christian or not.  Then the whole spiel with my friend the other night about the young bipolar girl, and finally I found out on facebook that one of my news colleagues now has a  transgendered child.  She was born a girl but passes now for a boy at sixteen.  I just wish it wasn’t so hard to be young nowadays.

Hope every one has a good weekend;  see you back Monday!

Being a Friend

I talked last night to a lifelong friend of mine about her daughter’s friend who was recently diagnosed as bipolar.  The daughter is listening to her bipolar friend talk about things that are distressing.   She doesn’t know how much longer she can be a friend and watch this girl spiral into self-destructive behaviors.

I do not know what advice to give the girl about being friends with someone who is diagnosed bipolar but is resisting treatment.  None of my friends knew how to handle the news of my diagnosis either.  I remember being on the phone with a friend the first time I tried to run away from home and him trying to talk me out of killing myself.  He managed to convince me to go home and tell my husband what was going on. But that is not something I should have made him responsible for doing.  He has his own problems up the same line.

My husband has borne the brunt of my illness more so than my friends.  He has shown more patience that I ever thought possible and he says it’s because he loves me and he took a vow to do so in sickness and in health.  I think it helps that I have been compliant with treatment and have shown that I want to be better, to do better.  There is only so much you can do to help your bipolar friend if they won’t move to help themselves.

I prayed a long time last night for the bipolar girl and her friend.  Sometimes that is all we can do.

 

Change of Plans

Well, my experiment came too late for supper last night so we will eat on it the rest of the week so I don’t have anything to report on it yet.  I did read up the recipes and they sound fairly easy and step-by-step.  So hopefully I can pull these meals off. We will see how it goes.

I am so sleepy today.  I think I will run out and pick me up a Coke for lunch.  I need to do laundry today so I will get to work on that soon.

Had a good talk with my therapist yesterday.     We talked about dance and how much I hate it and tried to work out if there were new ways to cope with the stress.  I don’t know how much we accomplished but it was good to talk about it.   I told her about the panel I’m going to serve on as NAMI representative so we talked a bit about that.  I’m really looking forward to it.  It’s about a month away so I have plenty of time to figure it out and what all I need to say.

It’s really turned springy here now–I sat outside yesterday and read a book on my back patio and got a bit of a sunburn–I was only out for a little while but it was enough to turn me red.

Hope everyone has a good rest of the week.  Keep those visits coming!

 

Experiment

So I start the experiment with Blue Apron today.  It’s a food delivery service that brings fresh food to your house and directions on how to cook it.  Hopefully it will come in time for me to cook it for dinner tonight.  Bob started making noise about wanting new recipes so we are experimenting with this service.

So I go to my therapist today–we will see how it goes.  I am awake and stayed awake this morning but don’t have much motivation to do anything before I go.  I’ve checked everything on the computer and finished all my work for class so that is no longer a burden.  I’m waiting for a lot of acceptances/rejections still–I have about 20 open submissions that I won’t hear from for a while still.  I’m just impatient, I guess.

I need to run get ready for my appointment so I will leave this post as is.  Not having anything exciting to tell can make for slow reading, but I feel like bipolar has given me enough excitement for a life time.  I’m ready for some slow days.

 

 

 

First Day of Spring

So today looks like it will be a slow day.  I slept in until 10 and am just now getting started on what all I have to do.  I love that the sun is back out and that the temperature is warm again for the first day of spring.  I love that I feel so right and not in any danger of relapsing. Yes, I slept in. But that’s okay if I need to.

Start right back in with classes.  I’ve read the workshop pieces  but not the anthology essays yet.  I’ll get to them after lunch.  One is by Amy Tan, who is not my favorite author.  I don’t know anything about the other author. SO we will see.

All I have scheduled today is laundry and schoolwork. Tomorrow I go see my therapist.  Not sure what were going to talk about.  I’m doing so well.  Probably about ways to cope with the upcoming trip to Atlanta.  That’s in a couple of weeks, and I am not really looking forward to it.  I’m trying to.  But it’s not working.

Hopefully everyone can get back into the swing of things after being out this last week.  We will see how we do here. Hope everyone has a great week back.