Category: My Own Personal Weirdness

My Own Personal Weirdness, Writing

Hello, hello.

I know, you’ve forgotten I exist, or I’ve forgotten I exist, or something like that.

Last time I wrote here (a year and a half ago. Yipes!), I was starting Novel in 90. It went really well, I nearly finished that novel, I started outlining for the next, life was going well. Then school ended, several financially horrifying things happened in real life, and we spent a LOT of time trying to repair that situation. I did spend quite a bit of last fall writing and then dropped off in the new year again. I took a lot of time off to crochet and cross stitch and then end of the year PTA stuff took over. The summer was busy, filled with trips to Nashville and Wisconsin and summer camps and family reunions and prepping kids for new schools and one for his senior year of high school.

Last week hit hard with a new medical diagnosis (which I will write more on later); it was that kind of thing where you look at your life and go “WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE!? I HAVE ALL THESE THINGS I WANT TO ACCOMPLISH AND I NEED TO STOP WASTING TIME AND START NOW!!” The biggest thing: WRITING.

So this week I am starting back to basics with writing. Yesterday I spent my “writing time” listening to podcasts about writing prep work, reading articles about getting your writing mojo back, and generally just dipping my toes in the water. This morning I installed Scrivener on the new computer (another one died last year) and am working my way through the tutorial for a refresher course and this afternoon I am doing a NANOWRIMO Prep Write-In.

health, My Own Personal Weirdness, Writing

Last Day of Effexor, Last Day of Therapy

So today is two big lasts: my last day being on Effexor and my last day of going to mental health therapy. It was completely random that they coincided like this.

 

So far, the drug transition has gone pretty well. I’m on week two of three. I see my regular doctor on Thursday about everything, but I think it’s gone pretty well. I had a few bad days and a few really good ones and several in between.

 

The therapy went really well, too. I’ve learned a lot more about myself and what I want and how to get there from here. My therapist was really great to work with and asked a lot of good questions that honestly if I’d been self-help-booking it I would have just glossed over and not answered. It’s important for me to have someone there looking at me waiting for an answer before my brain will provide me with one.

 

I have spent the last two weeks mostly avoiding the world, though. I haven’t done any writing at all (though plenty of daydreaming), or paying much attention to the calendar (sorry I missed a few things), and am at the whoa-nuke-my-email-inbox-and-start-over stage of emailing. Thankfully nearly all important things are texted or FB messaged these days. So if you’ve been waiting for an email response from me…well, try again through another method because I have totally just been deleting everything these days.

What else? This afternoon I start writing actual words again. Tonight I’ll work on a therapist-suggested daily schedule for writing/housework/hobbies. I’m also outlining a new chores/consequences schedule for the kids, since they have not been motivated by rewards (also therapist-suggested). Tomorrow I’ll put all that into motion.

I think that’s it. Whee! On to the writing….

health, My Own Personal Weirdness

Health updates

Yesterday I said I’d get some chronic-girl health updates done, but got bogged down in running kids here, there, and everywhere.

Rheumatoid Arthritis: I’ve had a few little flare-ups here and there, one bad enough to go on prednisone again for a taper. That seemed to do it for me, though, and although I’ve had ongoing knee pain, most everything else has been fairly okay.

Fibromyalgia: Stressed Lisa = tense muscles = twitching. It’s been bad, y’all. My left eye is the worst, then my upper right arm, then my left thigh. I have a sample of Lyrica that the doctor gave me, a month’s supply, but I’m just worried about the side-effects, so I haven’t taken it.

Migraines: Just one in the last couple months, which is quite lovely. I killed it with sleep.

Anxiety/Depression: Yesterday was an up and down kind of day. Sometimes I felt manic and anxiety-free and then I’d just spiral back down into sadness at the drop of a hat.

Day Four of Effexor/Trinellix transitioning: Today the vertigo and tummy troubles hit. Not so pleasant.

health, My Own Personal Weirdness

Transitioning from Effexor to Trintellix

As most of you know, I deal with both depression and anxiety disorder in my daily life. I’ve been on and off meds for them since I was about 16. The drug that worked the best and for the longest has been, up until recently, Effexor. It has reached the failure point, though. I keep going up on dosage and nothing happens.

So my doctors decided it was time to get me off the Effexor. I’ve gone off it once before, years and years ago, before they knew quite what an ordeal it was. I went off it basically cold-turkey then and spent several weeks thinking I was going crazy and writing poems about pain and darkness. It was delightful, really.

Now that the drug is not new, there’s a protocol for going off it and I am following that protocol. I started this week going down a notch on it and started taking the starting dose of my new medicine Trintellix alongside it.

Day One: Euphoria. It was like I was Harry Potter and I’d just taken the Felix Felicis potion. I could do no wrong. Everything felt right and good. I did a couple doctor visits, all the laundry, and the dishes. Got it all done quick and easily with energy to spare.

Day Two: The Utter Blackness of Despair. It started even before I’d properly woken up, that feeling of doubt so deep that even moving my foot to start getting out of the bed felt like I was making the worst decision of my life. My brain was telling me all the bad things that could go wrong every second of the whole day and reminding me of every mistake I have ever made. In addition to that loveliness, I felt like my blood had all been taken out and replaced with Listerine or Icy Hot. I was literally writhing in discomfort all day. I mostly wallowed around feeling awful, but did manage to get a few necessary things done, like calling and cancelling all those things we never use, like my gym membership, magazine subscriptions, etc.

Day Three: Seems to be a little bit of a combination of day one and two. I’m back to feeling a bit euphoric, like it might be a really good idea to drive to Frisco and shop at IKEA this afternoon before driving back home and picking up kids, but tempered by the brain whispers telling me that I need to have money in the bank to shop and that IKEA takes way longer than 90 minutes. So since I seem to have motivation again, I am spending the day writing and getting some random housework done before getting started on a cross-stitching project of the Star Wars logo.

 

Exercise, health, Lifelong learning, My Own Personal Weirdness

I joined a gym

To enjoy the glow of good health, you must exercise.
-Gene Tunney

After a month of pros & cons lists, visiting local gyms either via online tours or in person, and asking lots of people lots of questions about their exercising and health efforts, I have finally joined a gym. (I see you out there looking shocked. You may close your mouths now. 😉 )

I know it’s taken me some time, but I’m finally ready to get back on the health bandwagon. Some may be amused that I’m starting so near to the Feast of Tabernacles, but I am all about starting now that I’m ready, rather than waiting until some nebulous “perfect time” that never will come.

Fitness plans (this week and next)

  1. I’m already taking a daily walk with the dog. Started that just this week. It calms us both down and makes us happy. Win!
  2. I joined the gym. I learned the machines this morning, but there will be someone there every day, every hour they are open to answer my silly questions. This was a big deal to me. I forget how to do a lot of things (like brushing my teeth. how can you forget that? My mind is a seriously weird place.).
  3. Tomorrow I will be resting from this week’s craziness. Resting is a goodness.
  4. Sunday, I will find my FLEX, charge it, and then I might go to the gym. I forgot to ask their hours. Oh wait, they may be in the stack of papers the trainer handed me. I dumped them in my inbox and forgot about them. Hmm.
  5. Monday, I will go back to the gym and try out the circuit. It will be good because I tried the machines today and only one made me want to cry. The trainer said that was the machine everyone hates the most. Well, yay for that machine. That night I will look at my stats on the computer because they should be available by then.
  6. Tuesday I am trying out Zumba for the first time. They promised not to laugh at me. I am glad about that. I am not terribly coordinated when it comes to watching someone do something and then doing it myself. I hope I don’t hurt anyone.
  7. Wednesday, I am taking a break. My trainer said I should have a couple in there during the week to let my muscles rest.  Woo hoo! (Also, I have Bible Study Fellowship on Wednesday mornings.)
  8. Thursday, I am either doing more Zumba or the circuit again. It depends on whether I broke myself and/or others doing Zumba on Tuesday.
  9. Friday, I will go do the circuit again. I will check my stats again and I will be happy that I finished out the week. 🙂

 

Cross-posted at The Thousand Teeth
My Own Personal Weirdness, Parenting

End of School Fun!

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It is the last day of the hardest school year we’ve ever gone through. Harder than when I had a newborn and a toddler and a kindergartner, and yes, harder even than that year the tree fell on the house and we had to move out for four months. You have no idea. I am so relieved and happy that this school year is over!! To celebrate, we let all the kids duck out of school early. Ben and Greg got to go to a book signing by  a guy that Ben had seen a movie about at his GT program and David got to go to a movie with his friend Ben. Afterwards we all met at home for a Cream Soda Tasting party. 🙂

My Own Personal Weirdness, What I Love

Almost done with PTA!

My End-of-Year Summary letter for PTA is coming off the printer now and we only have individual class parties and the Fifth Grade Graduation left of the school year.

For that matter, the class parties are mostly being planned by the teachers, so I only have to show up and help out at my two kids parties (plus the school was super nice this year and assigned the class parties separate times from each other so parents don’t have to run back and forth and back and forth across one little half hour for all their kids). The only thing PTA needs to do for Fifth Grade Graduation is to bake some cookies and deliver them to the school.

I’m looking around the house and realizing that, wow, I have a lot of PTA stuff to take back up to the school or pass off to next years board. You don’t realize how much of it comes home with you and lingers in corners and closets until you start gathering it up to give back.

In case anyone’s interested, here’s a copy of the letter I sent out for our end-of-the-year summary:End of the year letter.

Around the House, I Really Do Cook, Lifelong learning, My Own Personal Weirdness

The Muffins of Substitution!

So it’s four days until payday, I promised the kids muffins, and I’m out of everything I need. Items subbed: brown rice flour for regular white wheat (made them crumblier), yogurt for milk (made them tangier), baking soda+cream of tartar+corn starch for baking powder (I didn’t notice any difference), butter for oil (yum), and mini loaf pan for muffin pan (fun!). They practically aren’t muffins at all! But they’re yummy anyways. 🙂 BTW, I went here for help with the substitutions. Love that site!

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Everywhere But Home, health, My Own Personal Weirdness

Apology

Dear Scout Pack 369,

I’m sorry I brought my 101 degree fever to your banquet. I didn’t know I had one after I baked the brownies and fed them all to you and rubbed my germy hands all over your scouts little fuzzy heads. So sorry. :*(

Love,
Me

My Own Personal Weirdness, Parenting

Four Things Make A Post

1. Wondering when Dry Shampoo became Not A Thing Anymore. It used to be everywhere when I didn’t want it and now that I do, I can’t find it.
2. Greg hates school. Nothing in particular, just going. How do I fix that?!?!?!
3. David called me because I was 7 minutes later coming home from dropping off younger kids than usual. He was worried I forgot to take him to school. It was pretty funny. (Where was I? Looking for Dry Shampoo.)
4. Last minute kid projects are less than fun. I’m just saying.