Category: My Own Personal Weirdness

My Own Personal Weirdness

50 New Things About Me

50 (yes fifty!!)
Things You’ve Never Been Asked.

1. What is the color of your toothbrush?
Blue and white

2. Name someone who made you smile today?
Christie Craig

3. What were you doing at 8am today?
Driving to a writers conference

4. What were you doing 45 minutes ago?
Singing a song from A Chorus Line

5. What is your favorite candy bar?
Snickers

6. Have you ever been to a strip club?
nope

7. What is the last thing you said out loud?
Meep

8. What is your favorite ice cream?
Umm… coffee heath bar crunch maybe?

9. What was the last thing you had to drink?
Long Range Pils by Revolver Brewing

10. Do you like your wallet?
Yes, so much!

11. What was the last thing you ate?
A Taco Bueno bean burrito with Taco Bell Hot Sauce

12. Have you bought any new clothes this weekend?
not for me, but for twin boybies

13. The last sporting event you watched?
DCI marching contest

14. What is your favorite flavor of popcorn?
Chicago style

15. Who is the last person you sent a text message to?
Katherine Smith

16. Ever go camping?
Yes

17. Do you take vitamins daily?
yes

18. Do you go to church every Sunday?
Nope

19. Do you have a tan?
Not since high school

20. Do you prefer Chinese food over pizza?
NON

21. Do you drink your soda with a straw?
Sometimes

22. What did your last text message say?
AWWWWW

23. What are you doing tomorrow?
Church, laundry, dishes, reading about writing

25. Look to your left, what do you see?
cat tree

26. What color is your watch?
I do not wear a watch

27. What do you think of when you hear “Australia”?
“In a Sunburned Country” by Bill Bryson

29. Do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive thru?
Drive thru, usually

30. What is your favorite number?
17 or 14, depending on mood

31. Who’s the last person you talked to on the phone?
My spouse

32. Any plans today?
Rewatch more of season one of ST:TNG and laugh at how derpy Riker is in retrospect

33. How many states have you lived in?
4

34. Biggest annoyance right now?
Headache from too much wind and heat from driving husbands non-air-conditioned car this afternoon for an hour.

35. Last song you listened to?
‘For Once in My Life’ sung by the cast of Glee

36. Can you say the alphabet backwards?
Sometimes. Prolly not right now.

37. Do you have a maid service clean your house ?
I am the maid service. 🤣

38. Favorite pair of shoes you wear all the time?
Black massage sole flip flops

39. Are you jealous of anyone?
Not really. Maybe people not currently having a headache, if anything.

40. Is anyone jealous of you?
???

41. Do you love anyone?
So many people! Also cats!

42. Do any of your friends have children?
That is such a weird question.

43. What do you usually do during the day?
Chauffeur my mini-me’s, write novels and short stories, go to the gym, work with PTA’s, clean the house, talk to my friends, snuggle people, pet the cats, eat, breathe, meditate, do homework for writing classes

44. Do you hate anyone that you know right now?
Not people I know. Politicians, yes.

45. Do you use the word ‘hello’ daily?
I probably say it more than a dozen times a day, usually to my poor spouse when I’m half asleep.

46. What color is your car/truck ?
Red/maroon, depending on who you ask (I did not choose it)

48. Are you thinking about someone right now?
Yeah. But when am I not?

49. Have you ever been to Six Flags?
Yes

50. How did you get your worst scar?
I have so many. Ummm…. prolly the one on my right knee?

That’s All Folks ♥️

My Own Personal Weirdness, Writing

Writing Prompt Weirdness

This is basically how I feel every time I get a prompt in writer’s class every week: Everyone else sees the normal bird and writes about it flitting around doing bird things and I see some crazy-assed alien in a shirred off universe and write about that and the whole class goes “what?”

(Update: You’ll have to imagine the comic about the state quarter turned sideways and the image on it looks like a crazy sideways alien-man instead of a bird. It was awesome, but the link died and now I cannot find it.)

health, My Own Personal Weirdness

The Definition of Rheumatoid Disease Has Changed

Tonight I learned about how the definition of Rheumatoid Disease has changed in the last 15 years since I was diagnosed from just “joint pain and inflammation” to include all of my vast symptoms over the last five years (including, but not limited to, cardiovascular system issues such as high blood pressure, cerebral ischemia, heart palpitations, and stroke; autonomic system issues such as muscle weakness, muscle spasms, bladder dysfunction, spinal cord dysfunction, and sexual dysfunction; neuropsychological issues such as depression, anxiety, memory loss, brain fog, and lack of focus; demyelation of nerves, including numbness, tingling, spinal cord degeneration, and things that otherwise mimic multiple sclerosis (including brain lesions), swallowing, voice box, and throat swelling issues. Chest pain that is lung related, not cardiovascular in nature and bursitis, both of which is really where I started all those years ago in high school. ).

I read study after study, all from prestigious medical journals, with associated good, data-driven citations. I skipped the small studies with 20 people or less studied because they seemed silly.

I am super angry because I have never once in the last 15 years had a doctor explain any of this to me. Some have said “Oh, you can look it up yourself.” Or “We could print out something about this if you wanted to come back for it.” (Which I did have printed and came back for and it was just a three fold flier with information a decade old on it.)

I am struggling. I have been struggling for a lot of years now. I was diagnosed when my kids were 3-years-old and just under a year old. (There are three kids now, 18, 15, and 12). People treat you differently when you have a chronic illness from people who have something immediate like a heart attack, a surgery, or cancer. If you have something like that, people bring meals, help with child care or transportation, and housework. I have helped many people with that over the years, always to the detriment of my own family, because it was expected because I was a stay-at-home mom “with all the time in the world.” But no one has time for the chronically ill. We are expected to just suck it up and move on with life because our illness goes on and on. People expect us to get used to it, somehow. No one seems to care that we have pain and other issues that make it hard to function. No one wants to help with our meals, children, or housework. We are viewed as lazy and malingering. People and organizations constantly ask us do to things for them because they think we have a ton of unfettered, pain-free time to ourselves.

I am both angry and tired. It doesn’t actually get easier, despite the time I have had to get used to my situation. People are always assuming I have the time and energy to do everything I need to for my own family, plus whatever they don’t have time for because they work full time. I wish I could work full time. I wish I had the luxury of a healthy life. I envy people who can work full time and still take care of their kids and make dinner and run errands (and some of you even work a side hustle. How energetic!). You get these amazing, full lives. I stay home a lot. I have to sleep and rest just to be able to do the bare minimum. I don’t even shower as often as I’d like because it wears me out. It is frequently (read daily) boring and painful and I don’t wish it on anyone, not even people I’m angry with or who have hurt me immeasurably. I like to be positive and to share the good parts of my life with y’all.

I’m not looking for help or pity or anything else really at this point. If you were going to do something for my family, you’ve either done it already or chosen not to. Mostly I just wanted people to see through my eyes for a minute. If you couldn’t help us, at least you could see the kinds of things the chronically ill go through, and maybe consider helping the next chronically ill person you meet. Make the world a little easier for someone else. Because I spend a lot of my time pondering how I can help the next person I meet and I’d like to think that if I can’t help them myself maybe I can help someone else decide to help them. Thanks for reading this long, rambly post. Love you, humans.

My Own Personal Weirdness, The Past Comes Back to Haunt Me, Writing

Transcriptions

In this week’s Fun Things I Do In The Car While Waiting For My Kids: transcribing writing from old notebooks into the computer using Google Voice. You might think autocorrect is the height of frustration, but it pales in comparison to Google Voice’s misunderstanding of my not-quite-Southern-not-quite-MidWestern drawl.

I Really Do Cook, My Own Personal Weirdness, Parenting

Protein Enriched Muffins of Joy

You know me and my muffin experiments. Today I was trying to make healthier ones that tasted good and were a bit more fiber and protein filled (no one ate veggies yesterday because we were away from home and the food choices were not ours and today is a LONG day). The kids ate these super fast and raved about them.

Preheat oven to 400F.

Dry:
1 1/2 cup generic white flour
1/2 cup chocolate flavored protein powder
1 serving scoop orange flavored fiber powder
1 TBL ground flaxseed
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1 TBL aluminum free baking powder
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Wet:
1/2 tsp orange flavoring
1 cup 2% milk
1 large egg
2 TBL expellier pressed canola oil

Mix the dry and wet separately, then combine, scoop into greased muffin tins, and bake for 12 minutes or until nicely browned on top. These get pretty brown and slightly shiny, unlike my regular muffins.

Family Time, Friend Time, My Own Personal Weirdness

Labor Day Weekend

Our Labor Day weekend started with my hand filling with blood and ended with watermelon everywhere. Forgot to take pictures with Owen & Steph. Watched all the Harry Potter movies. A good weekend for the most part.

Music, My Own Personal Weirdness, The Past Comes Back to Haunt Me

Fun Day!

99ADE325-EB2A-4AF6-8FF9-CE5CC0EF40F2We’re a little loopy after March-a-thon, so we’re singing new verses of “What Shall We Do With A Drunken Sailor,” and Ree is all “Your PTA ladies are going to be soooooo confused because it isn’t even the “Day of the Irish!” WHAT?! ‘Umm, “4 Leaf Clover Day?” “Pot of Gold Day?” “Leprechaun Day?” “GREEN DAY?!” I laughed so hard that I snorted and choked and fell off my chair. “Mom. Mom. Stop laughing! What is it called?”

Update: I went Painting With a Twist (the twist is you bring your own alcohol) later with the PTA Ladies and they were very amused, but not at all confused with this conversation. We had so much fun!

15DE2DB4-F2ED-43EF-BDFA-1B147E0E4D4A

Around the House, Books, Lifelong learning, My Own Personal Weirdness, Writing

This week has gone well

Since I cut back on social media and kids have gone back to school, I have read two books (one of them my nearly complete novel), made notes on what needs to be finished in said novel, started and nearly finished this weeks work on a mystery cross stitching project that involves new kinds of stitches and blends, and gone shopping three times for more school supplies and floss. Oh, and attended a brunch, started using a new-to-me online writing group app, and not gone hyperactive with my blood pressure like I have the last several years this time of year. Wahoo me! 🙂 (Also I have drank A LOT of tea. A LOT.)

Lifelong learning, My Own Personal Weirdness, What I Love, Writing

Changing Priorities

Having that moment/series of ongoing moments where I realize that my interests/priorities have shifted in the last year. Pondering changes that will be needed to support things that are floating to the surface and how to gently extricate myself from things that used to be higher on the list. #thismessagebroughttoyoubytherapy #changeisgrowth #closingdoorsopeningwindows

My Own Personal Weirdness

Sadness

I have just had such a weird summer. I have been so sad about so many things, but like my kids growing up should be a good thing and if my brain was normal it would be fine, but it’s not and so I get sad instead of just a little bittersweet about these sorts of things. Greg is getting taller like every day now. Ree is so tall I can’t see the top of his hair anymore. Then there is the usual back to school sadness of kids being in new classes and new experiences. I don’t know why it makes me sad when they have new teachers, but I miss the old ones so much sometimes. Plus I’ve been bonus sad because I was gone for nearly all of my kids free time this summer visiting places I had very little interest being (China) and then when I got home they were all off at camp or trips with their grandparents. I feel like we had no good summer time all together. Plus for bonus sadness, I have a kid starting college soon, but not moving out so I have that not-here-nor-there feeling while watching everyone else’s kids move into dorms and starting life away from home. Plus the sadness of my mom not being here to see it all. So yeah, I’ve been crying a lot today.