Happy Father’s Day!

We just got back from seeing my dad for Father’s Day. Mom decided we would meet at a buffet place halfway between us and them–it turned out it was close to where my niece plays ball so they all went straight to the ball game and we went home. It was good food but of course my sister was half-an-hour late. We gave Daddy a vanity plate that said “Buy American” on it for him to hang on his car so that tickled him. Then we drove back with our youngest and we gave Bob his gift–a Batarang pocketknife where the handle is a Batarang and you pop out blades on each side of the handle. So that made Bob happy.

I am so sleepy still from getting up and going to church early. I think when I finish this I will go back and take a nap and work on my BPHope blog post after dinner. My chest wall is still hurting–I think it’s holding tension again from me worrying about the kids. I hope we hear from them today. I’d like to talk to them again. I just want to know they are all right. I feel so beaten down right now, and there’s no reason for worry. God is in control, not me, and me worrying isn’t going to do anything to help them. Anyway. This is why I take Trileptal; so I don’t obsess. All I can do is keep praying.

SO I will go take my nap. Hope all the fathers and grandfathers have good Father’s Day celebrations.

Tropical Storm Saturday

We are hunkered down waiting on the rain from Tropical Storm Claudette to get up to here this afternoon or tonight. It is already clouding up here with the wind picking up. All we’re supposed to get is a ton of rain–but we will see. I hope it won’t be too bad on us.

We are just hanging out for today. We went out and ate; Bob had to come home early yesterday from work with his allergies so now he is trying to catch up on what he left undone last night. I did do some reading last night, but purely for fun–my middle one had given me a book on the “adventures” of public librarians and I polished it off quickly; it was short. Not sure what I’m going to do this afternoon–I feel a little sleepy so I may just nap some more. I also have edits to make on my blog post about medication management for BPHope. So I have choices.

I bought the Harry Connick Jr. tickets and need to get up with my friend when they come in. I am so looking forward to this; I wanted to do something special to mark getting my diploma and now I have it. Very very happy.

I am in a very good mood today. I slept in until about ten and pretty soon after that we went to run our errands. We ate at the new milkshake/sundae bar in Dogwood and split a quarter pounder meal afterwards–he ate the burger and I ate the fries. We were hoping the sundaes would fill us up, but we got through and knew they wouldn’t last all afternoon. So we went to McDonald’s too. 🙂

I guess I need to figure out what I’m doing this afternoon. The clouds are making me sleepy, so I just might turn in for the afternoon. We will see.

Good News Friday

I was starting to think I had really screwed up by accidently deleting a message from BPHope–I had followed up, but got no reply. So today she replied! I was so relieved. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing for them next, but I’m glad to know they hadn’t forgotten about me. I think I’ll write about the MFA and how to responsibly take on projects long-term and follow them to completion through mania and depression.

Waiting on the furniture store to deliver the bed for my youngest. I hope she has kept her room with a clear path to where the bed goes. You never know with my kids. My middle one has always been neat and organized, but my oldest had to learn in culinary school in college about cleaning as you go while cooking, and now she can’t stand disorder either. My youngest generally likes organizing things, but seems to really hate laundry.

I think I’m going to start reading on all the books I bought the past few years that I’ve been too tired to read. I have almost a whole shelf of them in my office, so I’m going to start working my way through them at night while I soak in the bathtub. The first two are going to be some writing books recommended to me so I may can apply the lessons to my memoir. Then I’ll read a lot more that are just regular books.

Not sure what all we’re going to do tomorrow with my youngest gone. Maybe we can go to Barnes and Noble tomorrow and goof off as long as we want to. Bob says it depends on what the weather is. So we will see. I need to look up a new burger restaurant I saw on Facebook that just opened up, so I am going to try to check tha out this weekend.

Hope everyone has a good weekend. Love to all.

Freed Finally

Know how I said I didn’t feel any relief when I told my editor I had to pull back from writing for them? Well, it came gradually over the rest of the day. I actually opened my book document and got work done on it yesterday without feeling guilt, actually feeling excited about working on it. It was a wonderful feeling. I feel like I have my life back. My freedom. I want to continue to revise on it until the end of July, then send out queries starting in August as well as start the next manuscript, A Year Without Writing. It feels good for the fear and constraints to be gone.

Finally heard from the furniture people—my youngest’s bed will be delivered tomorrow between two and five. I know she will be excited to have it when she comes back from my parents’ house. She has gone to spend the rest of the week and the weekend with them, and Bob and I will go up and celebrate Father’s Day with my dad on Sunday and bring her back.

I’m not sleeping away the days anymore. Which of course is a blessing and a curse. I might be doing better, or I might be going manic. Won’t know until it hits which one it is. I am going to keep an eye on myself because of the history, but I am NOT going to live straitjacketed by fear. I am going to enjoy the feeling as long as I can. I cannot live waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s not worth the stress. Pray for me to feel more free and secure in my journey.

Well, I need to go take my lunch medicine and finish some laundry left over from the trip. Hope for everybody to have a good rest of the week. Godspeed.

Giving Up For The Meantime

I just had one of the hardest conversations I’ve ever had. I told MCIR I was going to have to take a leave from writing for them because I just couldn’t keep doing it anymore. I was scared to call people and investigate this story. I couldn’t find a way into it. and I just slap didn’t want to try. Officially I’m on leave through the summer.

I know what has caused this. My dissociation is extending further into my life, trying to protect me from hard emotions. Things are looking up with my kids’ situations but they are far from settled. Bob’s medical situation is far from settled. I’ve been through so much trauma since the pandemic started. I’m glad my meds are working to keep me out of the hospital. My prior authorization went through for my Latuda and I am so very grateful for that.

But I couldn’t find any kind of motivation to write–not money, not ambition, not recognition, not change, not helping. The only thing that gives me hope is that I am still writing here and doing well with it. I feel like to write for publication while in this state would be harmful–but I know not writing at all could be deadly. I feel so conflicted giving up–there’s no feeling of relief. I was hoping there would be. Just a sinking feeling. Bob when I told him said he was sorry for me having to go through this and he understood how bad I felt. SO that was a surprise.

I will keep writing here and hopefully other places like BPHope. That won’t end. And I hope I can someday go back to them. So many stories still need to be told. So much work still needs to be done. I want to help, but obviously not enough want-to is there.

Sleep Study

Bob and I go to the hospital today to get equipment for him to do a sleep study tonight here at home. They’re looking for sleep apnea, narcolepsy, etc. to explain maybe why he passed out at the wheel. I hope they find something, either from his heart monitor or from his sleep study. I had a hard time relaxing while driving this trip–I kept looking at the navigation to see where we were and anticipating what I would try to do if he fell out again on the interstate. But nothing happened so all that worry for nothing.

I need to do more laundry today. Candy and Christy took their vacation this week so I won’t see them today. I’m sad for that but hope they have a good time with their time off. My youngest will leave tomorrow to go stay with my parents for a few days and we wil go get her on Father’s Day and deliver all these presents that have been in my house since March. Everybody gets a present!

Harry Connick Jr. is coming to Brandon for a concert and I have finally found how I’m going to celebrate my getting my diploma. A friend of mine from high school and I are going to go see him. I think when I finish this entry, I will go and buy the tickets so we get good seats but don’t get ripped off. I am really looking forward to this in August. I missed him when he came to Jackson last year as it was right when the pandemic started. SO I am going to make it this time.

Well, I need to check in to that. Hope everyone has a wonderful week and that everything is going well. Godspeed!

Day After

I forgot to tell the most interesting experience we had–we were leaving Sunday morning to come home and we saw a BEAR poking its head out of the line of cars in our hotel parking lot! Very scary to see right there in the middle of civilization. We watched him cross the street to go to another hotel parking lot. I was like, “Do we call 911 or what?” Bob said, “I’m ready to go home. We don’t have time for that.” So we just let him go. That was a bit unnerving.

I’m going to mail off my thesis signature pages and hope everything turns out for the best in getting it done. I’m still feeling really lackadaisical this morning–I haven’t quite woken up all the way. I’m going to have to drive out in a bit and get some teas for lunch and see how that makes me feel. I drank mostly water on the trip–I was constantly thirsty. I don’t know if it was my meds or just all the walking I was doing making me sweat it out.

I plan to WORK this afternoon and get this insurance story done. I hope it turns out all right. I don’t know what I will do after that except rewrite my thesis. Maybe they will have another story lined up for me, maybe not. We will see.

Well, I’m about to start working on some lunch. Hopefully I will feel more energetic once I get some more food in me. Hope everyone is doing well here at the first of the week. People in Mississippi, we’re behind in our vaccine numbers–get your shot. I had no trouble at all with mine. Godspeed.

Back From Vacay

We had a good time in Gatlinburg, TN. Our most pressing problem was that I broke a strap on my sandal the first day and had to buy some flip-flops at Walgreen’s. Otherwise I found out I’m even more out of shape than usual–I hurt after every day of walking. When I remembered I hadn’t done any walking of note since March 2020 when we went to Graceland, I didn’t beat up on myself so bad. But I did really ache.

We wandered around Gatlinburg the first day, then then we went to Dollywood the next day. I didn’t ride any rides because my side ache from the wreck was acting up again, so I sat with everyone else’s cell phones and purses. Bob finally realized he couldn’t ride rollercoasters with his heart monitor on about halfway to Dollywood from our hotel.. But we saw a good gospel music show and ate a lot of good food. We ate yesterday at the Old Mill Restaurant, which survived the fire and the pandemic just fine, it looked like. A lot of other places we remembered were still there–Hillbilly Mini-Golf, the old mall, etc. We just had a good time. I let all my stresses go.

So we will see if I wake up with a better attitude tomorrow than I have had. I hope so. i know I feel better now that I did. So that gives me some hope. We’re trying to see what to eat for supper, whether we’ll go back out or just eat cereal for dinner tonight. Glad some of you still stopped in to visit while I was gone. Thank you for that. Hope everyone else had a good weekend and look forward to a good work week.

Vacay Morning

My youngest .one’s travel buddy same and spent the night last night so we could get an early start this morning–I just woke them both up so they could get dressed while my husband showers I have all of my medicine and clothes and such packed–I’m not making a production out of myself because we’re going to spend one day at Dollywood so I’ll get all wet with the splash rides. If they’ve actually opened back up–I just realized I never asked Bob if he called ahead to see.

I aim to relax so you won’t be hearing from me for a couple of days. I think I need the total mental break, then I can do this MCIR story and then start revising on my thesis. Revise until August and try to start querying in September when I can officially say I have the MFA. We will see how this goes.

Hope everyone else has a good rest of the week and weekend. We’re about to go off and get breakfast and gas. Godspeed.

Day Before Vacation

So we pack today and get ready to leave for vacation. I will not be updating the blog the two days we are at Gatlinburg so feel free to wander in out archives. I have a link that might amuse you–my public reading after my thesis defense was recorded and is on Facebook. I’m the last reader of the night. (3) Facebook I’m reading from my memoir I did for thesis called “Not Quite Right”.

I need to finish my laundry and get together what I’m going to wear. I need to run an errand or two before we leave–gassing up my car and going to get a sturdy envelope for my thesis signature pages to go to the printer. I picked the monastery printer out of our list–it’s a group of Trappist monks in Oregon who print and bind books. It cost a mint but I ordered four copies–two for the W, one for me, and one for whom I am dedicating it to. So that made a nice order for them.

I watched the video. I didn’t look as fat as I thought I might–the lectern helped. I did a lot of hesitation sounds in my Q&A, so I need to brush up on my presentation skills some more. But overall I feel good about my performance, my defense, and all of that.

I slept late but don’t feel any desire to go back to sleep. So that is good.

Talked to Tillie yesterday about my dissociation symptoms and she said it was an anxiety manifestation, but to think about this as well–it could be that my medicine was working to keep me from feeling so overloaded and out of control. I think that is a better way to think about this, especially that some of the emotion is coming back but not overwhelming and devastating. So that helps.

I guess I will run my errands before Bob gets home so I can have the envelope ready to ship off my thesis signature pages when he gets back to the office after lunch. Hope everyone is doing well moving into the downswing of the week. I may be able to post a farewell post tomorrow, depends on timing. Godspeed all.