New Year’s Eve

Bob is off and we all slept late today.  SO I think we are going to goof off most of the day again unless I can get motivated to clean up for our company coming tomorrow.  Both of the girls are sick with upper respiratory infections and Bob is not doing well with his allergies, either.  SO we just might not get as much done as we wanted to.

I’m going to send in my tuition day after tomorrow so that will be paid for.   Double what I usually pay since I am taking two classes instead of one.  But I am comfortable in what I have saved for it so I’m not worried.

We had a good weekend–we didn’t do a lot but we enjoyed each other’s company- we’ve watched a lot of TV together and I did a lot of reading.  So I think we’ve spent the time well. We’re going to eat barbecue for lunch and Blue Apron for dinner, then tomorrow we have lunch with our very oldest couple friends and hopefully will enjoy that.  We’ve been hanging out together since college and always have a good time.

My ood is holding up well to all the togetherness. I am generally enjoying it.  I still need moments like this alone to think my way through what all is coming up.  Another week or so and I start classes.  We will see how it goes.

Wednesday we all have appointments.  I go to see about this ear that seems to have stopped up-the youngest goes to the dentist, and the middle one goes to the eye doctor,  So we will be ready for the new year in that way at least 🙂  Hope everyone has a good transition in to the new year and has high hopes for the year to come.

 

 

 

 

 

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Hanging Out

So I am just doing nothing for a little while.  My middle one has gone to get her hair cut, and the small one is still coughing and whatnot, so I am holding off on shopping until my older one gets back home.  I’m taking my Belk card and seeing what I can find to get myself for Chirstmas.

SO now we know what is going on with Bob’s parents–his mom is having a lump removed from her leg and she is scared that it is her breast cancer metastasizing.  So that is what they told Bob that he couldn’t tell me.  So she told me yesterday herself and I see why she is worried about it.  So hopefully it will turn out to be nothing at all.

I finished Joanna Gaines’s book. I enjoyed it but I don’t think I like her design aesthetic any more than I already didn’t.  I grew up with farmhouse decor that was utilitarian and not for looks only and have no desire to reproduce that on a large scale in my house.  I am ready to be able to turn the downstairs bedrooms into a library and an office and have been debating paint colors for  a while.

I think I am going to repaint the library pink and the office blue.  Then get bookshelves for one and move our desks into the other one and buy either a sleeper sofa or sleeper chairs for both so the girls can visit if they want to.  Paint the bathroom inbetween them blue and paint my youngest’s room the bubblegum pink that she likes.

Then at some point remodel the bathroom to fix the shower, get a plain tub, replace the toilet, and redo the mirrors,  I am not really looking forward to that but we’ll have to do it anyway.

I hope Bob is in a better mood today–he is still grumpy about being so sick over Christmas and trying ot get over it.   I am just about the healthiest one in the house–I’m the only one that doesn’t have sniffles and a cough.  Hopefully I will stay healthy and this right ear trouble wil just be a simple infection or something.  Hope everyone has a good weekend,

 

Running Around

In the rain today.  I went to see Tillie and am about to leave to take my youngest to the doctor for her cough.  We will see what comes of that.

Started de-decorating this morning.  Always a hard process but my middle one is being a big help, doing it whlie I am out running around.  We will work on te other two tomorrow I think and I will take a break (if the weather holds) to go shopping at Belk’s with my gift card.  We will see how that turns out.

Wrote my blog post for http://www.defyingshadows.com for January.  I wrote it on what depression has taught me.  It was kind of a difficult topic but I got out 500 words on it so that was good,  I will post it sometime in the next week.  We will see how it turns out.

Started reading again yesterday in earnest trying to prepare for reading in class.  I started Joanna Gaines’ book because it had big print and all that so it was nice to read. I will get going on my reading list probably before the new year starts.  I hope to have everything read before school starts but that is simply a goal I will try to achieve.

The house is a wreck but it’s not just as bad as it has been some years.  I am looking forward to having all the décor down,  I need to run take the youngest to her appointment so hopefully everyone is enjoying this day,

 

Post-Christmas

Well, we’ve done our annual post-Christmas shopping run–we got lots of Hallmark ornaments and I spent my B&N gift card on some books–Joanna Gaines’ “Homebody” and Kiese Laymon’s “Heavy”.   That was one that I not so much wanted as need for my annotated bibliography for my thesis.  So I started it in the bookstore waiting for my children to pick out books.  I may be surprised by it–I’ll have to read more to see.

WEll, my mom is good and mad now along with Bob.  Bob doesn’t want my youngest to go up there anytime soon because Daddy was not nice to Bob this year and Bob has finally gotten tired of it.  I told him that it would be Mom’s feelings that would be hurt, not Daddy’s.  But he’s sticking to it. Hopefully once the stress of the holidays is over everyone can rethink their strategy and behave for a while.

I can feel my anxiety kicking up–I dont’ want to go to the grocery store at all.  But we need to so that is that.  Once I finish this post we will head out.  See what we can find to eat the next few nights.  I am thinking  pork chops with Captain Rodney sauce that Bob likes.  And I’m not sure about Thursday night–maybe tacos the make the youngest one happy.  We will see. So I’m going to take a Klonopin to settle my nerves then go to the grocery store.  I go see Tillie tomorrow so that is the way that will go.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and are heading into a happy new year.

 

 

 

Christmas Day

So we have had a wonderful Christmas Day–no tears or arguments or anything else unhappy.  We woke up to watch the girls with their Santa presents then opened our family presents and my girls gave me some wonderful surprises–my oldest crocheted me a Kermit the Frog blanket for curling up in a chair with, and my middle one managed to find a copy of the Fantasia 2000 movie soundtrack. Bob surprised me with matching 25th anniversary X-Files Barbie dolls–Mulder and Scully.  And we had gotten things that made them happy as well so a good time was had by all.

We sent pictures and films to my oldest early this morning and she saw them when she was getting up and ready for work.  She called us and wished us a Marry Christmas at home and at my in-laws so she managed to be a part of the celebration just the same.

Then we went to Bob’s parents house and enjoyed presents and lunch over there.  Everyone was on really good behavior and all the presents were well received.  I got some clothes, some hot cocoa mix, a Snoopy winter cookie jar, and a bookstore gift card–I’m going to use it to get one of the books off my list I didn’t get this year.  My mom and my sister split my gift list this year yet managed to buy me both the same books.  But that was okay.

Things went okay at my mom’s Christmas Eve until she lit a potholder on fire in the oven and it sent smoke through the house.  Daddy and my brother-in-law  put it out, but the smoke got to Bob and he coughed badly the rest of the day through today,  So he does not feel well at all.

We are planning to go out tomorrow morning and shop for Christmas ornaments and I may go shopping with my gift cards.  I haven’t yet decided on that part.  Probably will depend on how everyone feels after getting the Christmas ornaments.  We will see.

Welcome to the new people who are reading–I hope this post finds you well and all things are well with you this Christmas.

Christmas Eve

So we are getting ready to ship out to my parents on Christmas Eve.  Both girls are saying it doesn’t feel like Christmas yet–I don’t know what else I can do to give them the Christmas spirit other than somehow bring their sister home, but that is out. I was slightly sad last Christmas knowing it might be the oldest one’s last one for a good while.  But I think we are all missing her in our own ways–her wit, her high spirits, and her cooking.  🙂

WE open family presents at my mom’s and will enjoy a good meal as well.  Then we come back and get ready for Santa with cookies and such.  Go to sleep and see how the kids react to tomorrow.  We have our music picked out for the trip and are looking forward to listening to our favorites on the way up and back, no matter how the trip turns out.

The others watched the movie White Christmas after dinner last night–I’m movied out already.  We wet to see Ralph Breaks The Internet Sunday after church and enjoyed that.  SO I did not watch with them–just listened occasionally while I wrote a bit.  We had a wonderful church service this morning with prayers for people suffering loss, sorrow, or needing physical healing. My family prayed for me and bipolar.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas time however you celebrate.

 

One Step Backwards

So I’ve been all positive and chipper on here the past few days (weeks?) and then I get a rejection from a piece I had sent out in September that I was really hoping would come through for me.  It was a contest for new writers and the people who run the journal (which is closing in a few months)  are so lovely.  But they rejected me for like the fifth time I’ve sent in.

It may as well have been the 130th. It sent my mood into a bit of a tailspin, which led me to a little thoughtcrime I’d been resisting for a full three weeks (Google is my only confidante) and so on. Then last night I had dreams from past obsessions and woke up feeling crummy.

Just a reminder that I’m not immune to temptation and every other thing if I am not careful to keep my mind on the main thing with my writing, which is helping people.  So I will pick up my tattered self-esteem, repent, and move on.

I know I normally don’t post on weekends, but I felt that if I didn’t write about this kind of thing that I wouldn’t be being honest with you who read.   Am I embarrassed?  A little bit.  Some people who read this may be wondering what on earth I’m even talking about.  I mostly feel bad for myself, who is the only person I seem to consistently hurt.  But I know if I let these kinds of slips go on and grow, I can hurt more people.

But I’ll be all right. I will get over it.  It is Christmas after all and then New Years, a time of new beginnings. Every day can be a time of new beginnings.  It’s important for me to remember and realize that.

 

Sleeping In

SO I think I slept twelve hours last night.  And I still didn’t want to get out of bed.  Frustrating.  But I’ve had my Dr. Pepper and I feel much more awake..

WE’re delivering half a ham this morning to a family in need that we heard about through the school–one of our Sunday School class members is bringing other food that the class paid for.  So that is going to be interesting.

My youngest still seems to be asleep.  She’s not stirring around any.  We have a couple of errands to run today other than that above so I am going to wake her up soon.

I wish the sun could come out for a while.  It’s not actively raining, just looks like it could any second.  Very dreary day so far.

Sorry I don’t know anything much to post today.  Too early to think very profound thoughts.  Waiting on my other daughter to come in tomorrow.  I am ready for presents and togetherness once Christmas comes.  I can’t wait for the kids to open their presents this year–I think we did exceptionally well picking them out.

Guess I will post and get on with my day.  Hope everyone has a good weekend and a Merry Christmas!

 

Looking Back Two

Posts looking back over my year.  Our greatest success story is transitioning our oldest daughter from school to a good job at Disney World over the course of the year.  We found out I believe in January that she was going there for the internship starting in June, and she is now settled in happily cooking there at one of the resorts.  That was a very intense journey for me, coming to the end of a daily role in her life to one more distantly supportive, but we have all done supremely well in making the adjustment that began when she went to college four years ago.

Another transition was my middle one from school to a co-op program where she went to Georgia at eighteen to work in a lab attached to a factory. That was a little more difficult in that we had to quickly transition her starting late last year.  She worked there January to May and then again August to this weekend with a semester in Oxford, England and time at Starkville in the rest of the summer.  Everyone was questioning us about her going so young, but she has handled herself very well and we are proud of the young lady she is becoming.

(I sound like a Christmas newsletter here.  I’m sorry)

As I wrote in my last post, I am glad of the progress I’ve made in managing my mental health this year. I’ve avoided some land mines in my way that I haven’t talked very much about, mostly because I did avoid them blowing up in my face and so they haven’t occasioned a post.  My blog has grown somewhat–I’m averaging between 200-300 visitors a month where it used to be 150-200 a month so that has been good as well.  I did a bit of an awareness drive late in the year that has drawn a lot of traffic from my Facebook page so that has been a plus.

Next year I am taking on the challenge of teaching a research-based Comp II class at MC and taking two classes at one time in my MFA program.  I’m hoping to do well at that and keep up my mental health gains as well so I can successfully do both of those challenges to the best of my ability.  I am so proud of myself coming so far mentally after some really intense therapy and discovering things about myself through that therapy that has unlocked long-held patterns of behavior.

My youngest has a half-day of school today so I need to get moving doing some things before she gets home for vacation.  Hope everyone has a happy Thursday.

 

 

Looking Back

I’m looking back on the year a little early–I just feel kind of introspective today.  I feel really good about the journey I’ve made in my mental health this year.  I went from vaguely suicidal over spring break to in a very strong place at this point after inpatient therapy, partial hospitalization, and intensive outpatient therapy over the past nine months.  Finding Trileptal to control my obsessions feels like a miracle after having been bedeviled by them for so long.

Understanding what had happened to me as a child with this constant cycle of wanting to be rescued from myself was a serious game-changer for my thinking and understanding of why I had the obsessions I did about men and has helped me enormously to deflect them where men’s actions no longer set me up for such a situation in my mind.  That may sound weird, but knowing I am prone to this kind of thinking has enabled me to think differently about myself and what kind of effect I have on people as well.

I’ve experimented with different styles of writing and trying to get them published and have pretty much hit an impasse on getting fiction published. I’ve submitted fiction lots of places and just have not had luck placing it except for my novella Looking for Home, which came out in Running Wild Press in October.  I’ve had some publicity relating to that, so that has been good.  And I wrote a good play that started as a short story for my playwriting class in another experiment with a form I’ve had some success with.  But I don’t know as I’ll try and do anything with it.

I think God is telling me to concentrate on my nonfiction and my possible ministry to people through my memoir, and next year I will go back to working with that material in the lit class on memoirs. and taking nonfiction workshop and forms the next academic year  And the academic year after that I’ll write my thesis and defend it and graduate.  It’s hard to beleive I’m really that close to finishing up my MFA.  2021 seemed really far away back in 2015.

I have finally adjusted to life without the older two around–it is much quieter and different but still good in so many ways.  My youngest is shaping into a normal teenager in that Mom and Dad are just not that cool anymore, but she seems to not have a rebellious streak in her like my oldest and middle ones did.  I’m looking forward to developing our relationship even more as she hits high school next year.

I think I’m going to break this post up over several days.  Hope everyone has a good Wednesday and countdown to Christmas next week.