Happy Monday morning!

Made it around the block of a week once again.

I wish there was something more exciting about my weekend than the four hour nap I took, but there really isn’t.

I’ve been fighting it off, but it’s pretty inevitable now that I’m about to head into a fairly heavy depression.  The symptoms are picking up fairly quickly.  My anxiety level is at a high for the year.  We’ll see what happens.  Luckily, I’ve been working with a therapist and doctor again, so I’ve got the support system in place.

Happy New Year!

I’m not usually one to make New Year resolutions.  I just hate the idea of trying to choose to only make life changing decisions on one day of the year. This year though I have decided to set some goals.  Not resolutions, but specific and trackable goals.  More specifically things that I have some control over.

On to my list:

GOALS FOR 2009!

• Take a class through Minneapolis Community Education.

Hopefully I’ll take more than one class, but one would be enough for me to start.  I’m not sure yet what kind of class I am going to take, but I’ve considered photography, wood working, writing, or something else creative.  The catalog comes out in a few days, so I’ll get to decide then.

• Walk in the Breast Cancer 3-Day

I’ve been intending to walk the 3-Day for about five years now.  I got as far as raising half the money necessary to participate in the walk.  Unfortunately, at that point, my fundraising hit a wall and I wasn’t able to walk.  This year I am determined to do it.

• Pay off one debt

I have no credit cards, but I have student loan debt and, because of my own stupidity last year, I owe the IRS a small amount.  I’m going to work my ass off at getting atleast one of those debts cleared up in the next year.

• Learn to make lefse at Ingebretsen’s

If there were one thing in my life that I could change, it is that I would have learned to make lefse from my grandmother before she got sick. It breaks my heart that I didn’t.  My uncle fell into a crazy period a few years back where he got pissed at the entire family and took anything he thought was of any valuable, financially or emotionally, from the house.  He took grandma’s lefse griddle, potato ricer, rolling pin….the entire lefse set up.  So, I’m going to need to purchase an entire new set, but it will be worth it.  And I’m going to learn to do it with a photo of my grandma at my side the entire time.

• Read one book a week

This one shouldn’t be all that hard.  I do this anyway.  But there are times when I let myself slack off for a week or two.  This year, I want to really make an effort at it.  I’m also going to keep track of the titles.  Don’t expect anything profound.  I generally just read whatever is available to me at that moment, so it could be anything from Clay Aiken’s autobiography to the latest piece of chick lit.

• Knit one item a month

I’ve been knitting for three years now.  And I still SUCK.  I’m getting better, but definitely not at the level of someone who has been knitting this long.  I’m going to start working through atleast one challenging project a month.  You can follow along at the link above, or you can always check me out on Ravelry.

• Bake one item a week

I’ve recently rediscovered my love of cooking and baking.  And with the delivery of my KitchenAid mixer for Christmas, I have a great excuse to do some baking!

• Vacation

There are already plans in the work for a cruise in December of next year.  I’ll actually have to get a passport!  The only time I have ever been out of this country was to go over the border into Mexico near Brownsville, Texas.  We were on a mission with my great-uncle to get his same day dentures made for less then $300.  We were successful, but I definitely don’t want that to be my only opporutnity to leave the country.

• Work my way through my list of things I want to experience in my lovely city of Minneapolis this year

I stole this idea from someone else.  But it was such a great idea, and I’m constantly trying to figure out “something to do”.  Now I have a list.

• Live frugally and simply, Recycle/Reduce/Reuse, coupons, budget

This one is rather self-explanatory.  I’ve been overwhelmed by material stuff in the last few years and I want to really focus on simplifying.

• Renew my commitment to my physical and mental health.

Also self-explanatory.  I’m not going to make any specific goals on this one yet, but they’re coming.

• Collect and collate my recipe collection

I have too many recipes spread all over the place.  Between websites, print outs, cook books, and random recipe cards, I most likley have nearly 100 different dishes floating around.

I think my plan is going to be to try and give a brief monthy blog update on my progress, since holding myself accountable requires constant reflection.  So, you’ll be hearing more about my goals in a few weeks.  Until then:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  May your 2009 bring everything you need into your world!

So Sunday evening.  W is at work for a couple hours so I’m trying to get a blog post written and a little work done so that when she gets home we can have dinner and watch some trashy television together or something equally domestic.

I received a very cut and dry, scripted email from the customer service folks at Microcenter.  Basically it just reiterated the same thing again.  They were sorry.  They would look into it.  They had spoken with the local manager and would get back to me when they figured out what was going on.  I’m starting to feel as though not much is going to come of the “excellent customer service” that I was so excited to see.  Call me jaded, but we’ll see what happens.

We’re in the hardcore phases of apartment/duplex/house searching.  Friday night we were supposed to view a great little house with a perfect fenced yard, and the damn landlord didn’t show up for our appointment.  Probably for the best as we discovered while standing in the front yard of the house waiting for the idiot landlord that there was a domestic happening in the house on one side and the house on the other side had music playing loud enough that it was shaking the windows.  We wouldn’t have liked the neighbors one bit.  We’re a pretty quite family.

Yesterday was downright disasterous.  I lost my driver’s license.  The Boy™ and I got into a gigantic argument.  And the cherry on top was a letter from my mental health clinic.  I missed an appointment on Monday.  It was my own damn fault and I fully acknowledge that.  But I guess I went over my limit of missed appointments, and now I cannot be seen at the clinic any longer.  I’m devistated about it to say the least.  It drove me into a damn deep and heavy panic yesterday and I struggled through most of the evening with it.  I was in a total panic.   It’s pretty common knowledge that our area, and most other parts of the country from my understanding, are experiencing a shortage of available appointments for services.  There are waiting lists at most clinics.  Some clinics will not even make a medication management appointment for you until you have been seeing a therapist regularly with their clinic for three to six months.  Without medication, I am not well.  I generally end up hospitalized within a couple of weeks of discontinuation.  It is an absolute disaster for me and for my family.  The letter I received had a list of clinics that I could attempt to make appointments with.  I’m going to start the process of making phone calls tomorrow.

Oops.  Slip up number one.  Since I didn’t write last night, I guess I’ll have to write twice today.

My sleep schedule has been incredibly screwy for the last week or so.  So last night when I actually felt sleepy at midnight, I figured it would be best if I just let myself crash instead of staying up to type a blog post.  Daylight savings time is really messing with me.  So, as of tomorrow morning, I’m giving up soda for awhile.  I can’t get myself to give up coffee.  Coffee is one of the few things that I actually look forward to every single day.  It’s a ritual for me and I’m not yet ready to give that up.  But the soda?  Soda can go.  It’s a treat that I take too far.  A little bubbly yumminess that goes from one can to four in two hours flat.  It’s just too easy.  And the caffeine really just does not work well with this chronic insomniacs sleep rhythms.

Lonely Days and Sleepless Nights….

I remember now why I do not take Ambien anymore. If I don’t lie down immediately upon taking it and force myself to keep my eyes closed until I fall asleep, I become a zombie. Not quite literally, because there is no craving for brain matter and my skin stays a nice shade of pink, but I just cannot sleep, but I also cannot think nor function. And to top it all off, I tend to feel very constructive, like I should be doing something!

So here I sit at 1:10 AM playing video games and trying to type my nearly forgotten NaBloPoMo post. (I think this one still counts for today, since I haven’t been to sleep yet!)

Here comes the sun!

Exciting business happened today in our little neck of the woods.

But I think that perhaps a little bit of back story is desperately necessary to fully convey just how thrilling today’s happenings were…. I’ve been meaning to touch base on this subject for some time on my blog, but always manage to come up with some excuse not to.

If you glance up at the right hand corner of my blog, right there under the words “This Woman” you will see the self descriptor of “militant defender and outspoken advocate for mental illness”. I failed to mention in that little mini-bio that not only am I an ally for those who deal with mental illness, but I have spent the last ten years of my life struggling pretty heavily with my own very deep, very personal demons. I have been hospitalized on two separate occasions, as well as participated in a partial hospitalization program and a multiple day treatment programs.

I had to pause here, because I’m feeling a bit scared about writing this.  Judgment has always been a huge fear for me when it comes to my “crazy”, so putting it all out there really drives the anxiety through the roof! But hey, if I want to be an outspoken and militant advocate and defender, then I have to get real about it all. So here’s the skinny, in dot form:

• I’ve been sick for 10 years
• Currently, my primary diagnosis, “severe and recurrent depression” and “generalized anxiety with obsessive compulsive traits” is still causing some difficulties.
• Most of my secondary diagnosis are in remission.
• I have fought long and hard to get to the place I am now.
• There are real emotional and biological reasons that my brain functions the way that it does.
• I follow every recommendation that my doctor and therapist provide, including daily medications and therapies.
• Because of my “illness”, I have been unable to work for over four years and became eligible for and started receiving Social Security Disability two years ago and Medicare as of about three months ago.

That is where the exciting thing comes in. Introducing the item that I am hoping is going to become my best friend through this winter:

That is a Day-Light Bright Light Therapy Unit. There is tons of research out there that shows that a half an hour, or so, of sitting directly in front of a light therapy box each morning as soon as you wake up relieves the symptoms of depression significantly. My psychiatrist has been fighting with my insurance company for well over three years to get them to pay for this unit, and finally with Medicare picking up the remaining costs, they came through!

My lovely light box was delivered and set up for me today. I get to start treatments in the morning. I should know within a few weeks if it will be effective for me. Keep your fingers crossed. Any suggestions for a name for the lovely light?

After a bit of soul searching and talking with W and The Absent Minded Professor, as well as various health professionals, the decision has been made for me to reinstate my leave of absence immediately and indefinitely.  Work was draining on my health resources and I found it was getting worse and worse as the first quarter moved on.

The only problem with not working though is finding some sort of structure in life so that my ass doesn’t form a permenant dent in the sofa.  I’m trying to put together a schedule of sorts for my week, including some out of the house time.  It’s really easy to just settle into the sofa with my yarn, a book, and the remote every morning, but that is certainly not the life I want to live.   You’d be surprised how quickly structure falls out the window when you don’t have a job to go to every day.   It’s easy to sit in your pjs and do absolutely nothing.  Boring as hell but pretty easy to get into that horrid habit.

So that’s my goal this week.  Figuring out how to not become a complete and total failure in life while I continue to work on my health!

Day 11: 5:52 a.m.

It’s 5:52 in the morning and I’m awake.  I’m certainly not wide awake and chipper, but I’m up.  I orignally had W set the alarm for 6:45, but seeing as I was laying in bed tossing and turning since around 3, I decided I might as well just get up.  Let’s just hope this coffee does something wonderful for me today and makes life a bit easier to handle.

I have to be at the administrative offices by 8 to begin my orientation.  It’s this part of starting any job that I just hate.  I want to be able to just jump in and get going.  Instead I’ll spend four hours today being told about the history of the organization, filling out tax paperwork, and generally having to be social with the other newly-hired teachers.  Exhausting!  Give me a room full of challenging three and four year olds over a group of nervous, socially awkward adults any day!

Day 8: Sheer Laziness

I’m having one of those days.  A day when I roll out of bed and instead of changing out of the boxers and beater that I have slept in, I slipped a pair of track pants on over the boxers and put a bra on and that is it.  I pulled my hair back off my face with a folded bandanna, but didn’t even bother to get it wet, put any product in it, or run a brush through it.  There are tufts of hair sticking up from behind the edge of the bandanna and I don’t care.  I laid down on the couch around 11, intended to watch an episode of Shear Genius, and ended up falling asleep until some time after 1.  Now I’m about to do the same thing again.

We’re off to a Viking’s game tonight with the tickets that W’s friend gave us.  I’m not much of a football person, but it will be fun none the less.  Kind of sad because W and I will be sitting in seats in front of each other instead of side-by-side, but it will be fine and you can’t really gripe when you’ve gotten free tickets!

The rest of the weekend is rather unscheduled.  Tomorrow, I’d really like to make it over to see Flogging Molly at Irish Fest and we’ve talked about hitting a thrift store at some point to find a coffee pot with an auto programmer on it and so that I can do some “teacherly clothes” shopping.  We’ll see though.  Maybe I can convince W to just spend the entire weekend in bed with me.  Taking naps, of course.  Nothing dirty, of course.  *wink*

Day 4

Today was crazy cleaning at the apartment. I scrubbed the kitchen floor, finished up the dishes, put away a shit load of laundry, vacuumed. The only thing left to do is dust the living room, which I plan on doing as soon as I find the damn duster. I must say that cleaning really helps me get my mind focused on things in my life, but today it just wasn’t working.

I’ve been really trying to figure out alot of different things in the last week or so. Nothing life or death, but things that I’d like to work through. So today I was thinking through my monthly budget and trying to figure out what the hell I’m going to do financially. I definitely have to figure it out, but it’s not going to come overnight. I’m trying to find some sort of software or a website or something that will help me develop and stick to a budget. Any suggestions?

I celebrated my one month of being a non-smoker on Sunday. I’m already noticing the benefits. My stamina is improving. My sense of smell is improving. My lung capacity is improving. I’ve stopped sounding like Janis Joplin after a fifth of whiskey and two packs of cigarettes every morning, so my voice is definitely improving. Which leads me to the next dilemma….

For the past few years, I have looked at the website for the Twin Cities Women’s Choir every season. I’ve thought about joining and even had it on my calendar a few years. I have recently met Swirlspice and her lovely girl M_tm. They are both members of the choir and I think having them there would make it less intimidating for me. It would really fulfill a few long time goals of mine. It would give me the opportunity to get some damn music back in my life, which really fell to the way side 12 years ago when I got pregnant and dropped out of the UTA music department. It would also give me a chance to meet some women and start finding the possibility of friends. And I’d have a hobby outside of the house, which is always a good thing.

The dilemma comes in with the dates. The choir rehearses on Wednesday nights. Unfortunately, as of right now, I am scheduled to begin an eight week support group on the exact same nights. The support group was my initial plan to start transitioning myself from being so isolated into trying to find some friendships. Truly the choir provides the same thing. The only difference is that I would have to find other outlets for “support”. I think I have made the decision, but who knows if I’ll chicken out at the last minute.