Bat Fit 2017 Update pt 1 and Falling in to place

I thought it was time to update my progress with Bat Fit this year. While not all areas have some progress, some do and I think they are important enough to note.

1. Health aspect: 

Living/ house wise

Somethings in our house are finally starting to fall into place. After both of us being sick for a month and really having a slow recovery, I managed to pick up a cold. I'm on the upswing of it, I think, but poor Amanda is beginning to come down with it. However, we have managed to get some cleaning done- cleaning that really fell to the wayside while we were sick. Amanda did a huge majority of it, like moving the things that I can't move and helping me out with the dishes. I cut my finger pretty bad a few days ago right where it bends, so every time I bend my finger, the cut keeps getting a little bigger. It doesn't need a stitch, just some time to heal. I've got it wrapped in two band aids to keep it kind of stiff and straight. 

Weight wise

We haven't managed to start the hypnotherapy or start yoga just yet. However, I noticed on the community bulletin board, when I went to check the mail, that the health advocate in our area is doing a "Walk with your neighbors" sort of thing for an hour every morning. I thought I might try it, at least until my friend Chris can join me for the Yoga we want to do together. I probably won't be able to go far or fast at first, but that is okay. I asked my friend Tsuki if she would like to join too but she looked at me like I had grown a second head. Her choice.

We've been experimenting with food. We tried a black bean spaghetti. It was over 5 dollars a box and while it tasted fine, it was like chewing rubber. I'm never getting it again. 

We made crepes with  mixed berry sauce.

Yes, crepes have sugar in every part of them, but I am going to tinker with the recipe to cut some of that down. Also, they are surprisingly filling and I can eat two and feel full.

When I was shopping in Winco a month ago, I stumbled upon Gyro meat while in the deli/ meat and cheese section. They sounded so good and it had been awhile since I have had one. So, I planned to get the stuff to make them this shopping trip. I make a meal plan every two weeks to fit a 150.00 dollar budget (that includes laundry soap, toiletries, cat food and litter, and so on). So, I had to wait. Anyway, while I like the sauce I bought at the store, I want to make my own. Amanda doesn't really like the cucumbers so I told her that I could make her chicken gyros with mayo like a fast food chain back in Wichita does. She seemed to be okay with that. Also, a gyro and a very small salad or a an apple seem to be quite filling for lunch as well. 

Back to this two week's shopping trip, I went to three stores. Wal-mart for laundry soap and toilet paper, Winco for the bulk of our shopping, but we went to Yoke's Fresh Market for their Fresh Friday sale. I bought the majority of our fruit and veggies there but the primary mission was the 93% lean hamburger meat. It was on sale and I bought two three ponders to section off smaller and freeze. I also found a roast that should feed us for three, if not four meals, and I can make various things with it. 

Beauty health. 

I was inspired a little by a friend's post about her hair and skin care regimen. Mine is no where near as natural as hers. There are things she does that I know are better and healthier that I just can't seem to make myself do. Point of fact, while I know they would be better, healthier even, I can't handle the texture of some of it. So in lieu of that, here is what I do use. 

I have really sensitive skin that has often been subject of chemical burns by certain products, so I generally test stuff before use. I also have a skin fungus (that sounds so gross, I know) where I develop brown spots under my boobs, neck, and pretty much anywhere I sweat a lot. It doesn't hurt or itch or anything like that. So I use Dial anti-bacterial body wash most of the time and when the spots decide to develop- which is not very often thankfully- I have to use a ketokonozole shampoo. But sometimes I get to use body wash from Bath and Body Works. I tend to use their perfumes and lotion too because they don't bother my skin. Plus, B&BW stuff is kind of a treat to myself.

Winter scent

Spring and Summer

Fall scent

For my face, I've been using baby wipes to clean off make up. I bet there are some people who will scream, but they do the job nicely and are more cost effective. The same things that are in the make up remover wipes I used to buy for double- almost triple the price, are i the baby wipes I use. After that, I use a homemade toner made with rose water and witch hazel. I follow that up with moisturizer. I pretty much have to, not because I have removed some oils from my face, but because I have stupid combination skin that's really dry in some areas and stupidly oily in others. 

Okay, I know this has gone kind of long, so the rest will be in part two!

Ice, ick, and furniture.

I took Amanda to work this morning at 5 am. She volunteered for overtime and while that is fantastic and I am glad she could get some, we just had a big ice storm move in on top of all the ice and snow that has yet to melt. Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining about cold and lovely winter weather, on the contrary, I love it. I don't even mind driving in it, what bothers me are the other people driving it in. 4 wheel drive doesn't mean 4 wheel stop. Spokane is shit at plowing their roads, especially if they are residential, and this morning, I had to pull over because a Semi-truck was far to close for me to be comfortable and it was spraying a wave of dirty slush-ice at me. Then, as I tried to get back on the road, some jack ass coming up from behind didn't want to slow down and flashed me with his high beams. Really? No, seriously, because I can't tell that it's taking me extra time to get back on the road because my car is caught on a little patch of ice and you might actually have to be inconvenienced for all of 30 seconds by having to slow down. You never should have been driving that fast on icy roads to begin with, moron!

Now that that rant is out of my system... I am sick again. This time it feels like a head cold that's trying become a sinus infection or it's just a straight up sinus infection. Not totally sure, just know I'm not sleeping very well, my face and head feel awful, coughing, snot ick and drainage, and my teeth hurt a bit... so yeah, probably sinus infection. I've been self medicating with lemon ginger tea, a ginger tincture a friend made, a homemade chicken enchilada soup, coco, and water.

Behold! I finally got a hutch!

Okay, ignore the mess on my kitchen table  and bag of bags. A hutch has been on my semi-secret wish list for many years. As someone who has grown up with a hutch in my parents house for a time, and two in my Grandmother's house, hutches have always been nostalgic and make, for me anyway, a house feel more like a home. 

This one popped up on Craig'slist last Thursday for 50 dollars. It came with a matching table and 4 chairs. We don't really need another table or 4 chairs, but we agreed to both because the seller needed money to fix their broken car and they had an infant in the house. It looked like they were selling pretty much everything to get the car fixed. We decided to give the table and chairs to a friend and her boyfriend for their soon-to-be-new- apartment. This hutch came at the best time for us. I had  reached my limit with our apartment and its lack of storage. Sure we have been sick and the holidays did us in as well, but it just seemed like we couldn't make anything fit without it being messy or me getting overwhelmed.  So, below are the bigger appliances that don't really fit in the cabinets, dish towels and tea towels are in the drawers, my tea and a couple of my tea pots are in the display cabinet along with a bag of kitty treats. On the shelves we have most of our coffee cups, my tea making supplies and some herbs, and the bottom shelf is a nice little altar because I wanted something pretty. 

Just having this has made so much of a difference in my kitchen cabinets and made my kitchen feel more like home to me. I am not sure I like having so much white and had thought to paint the cabinet a light blue or green, but my Dad thought that might make it look more Swedish or Swiss (?) can't remember. Which of course is nice, but not really what I am going for in the kitchen. I thought about redoing everything Gothic fantasy like the living to tie the two rooms together, but you know what, I really like my greens and blues and I can still have the gothic fantasy charm in the kitchen without changing too much. So for now, anyway, the hutch will remain white. I also cut out some of the mermaid coloring pictures I've done and might put them on the backs of the shelves to break up some of the white... maybe, we will see. 

Lastly, I was holding Thorin an hour or so ago and my phone rang. He reached for it as my friend Fiona, who is up for a visit, handed it to me. Amanda was on the line to tell me she is staying a couple of house late for more overtime, but before she could tell me that Thorin pressed his paw to the my phone screen and hung up on her. I had Amanda on speaker and when I tried to call her back he tried to hang up again. I had to move the phone out of his reach and thankfully, the little shit was too lazy to move to chase after my hands for once.

Things I want to say in the morning, breakfast, yesterday, and EVEOnline

This is my EVEOnline Character, Meili. She's in the Federal Navy Academy and about to go on a big mission. Well, she will go when I decide to play again. So far, I am frustrated with EVEOnline. There is so much to learn and remember and I'm not even out of the tutorials yet. Honestly, I am little worried of the day that happens. This game is very complex and you can basically do anything you want in it. No really, you can even kill people. You'll get into trouble with Concord and other people, but yeah... I am impressed, overwhelmed, and curious to see what I end up doing with this character. I'm thinking of going career military, but who knows, I might change my mind. It is also nice to play a game with my Dad, even if he has to walk me through a lot. He had to describe what I was looking for last night and it had to be obnoxious. But he said, that it wasn't just me, because he's had some of the same problems. 

Yesterday was not exactly a good day. I had two long running mild panic attacks. Basically the first one began and I managed to get myself out of it and then ten minutes later I had another one. So I put myself to bed, hoping that if I just laid down for a few minutes, I could ground a little better and kind of reset. Well, reset I did, and while I wasn't feeling the best, it was truly helpful. However, I do not want to start relying on going to bed, napping for a bit, to get back to functional. I have some thing my therapist wants me to try and I'm going to employ some of those.

This morning, it is really cold outside. I didn't have time to truly warm the car up before I took Amanda to the park and ride. Prior to that, we were lucky my body woke me to go to the bathroom, else we might have overslept. But as I got back into bed and Amanda told me that we could have ten more minutes but then we would have to get up, I didn't say "Fuck you up the Goat Ass" or "It's too fucking cold for your work bullshit" or even "If you don't shut up and go back to sleep, I'm going to strangle you". And I didn't hiss at the fact that it is a bright sun-shiny day either. Instead, I quietly rest my alarm, turned up the space heater to warm my back and hopefully help soothe the raging beast who hates morning, and rested for a ten more minutes.

After I got home, and of course that's when the car was finally starting to get warm, I wasn't sure what I wanted for breakfast. I thought perhaps a fruit smoothie. But it's cold, I am cold, and adding more cold didn't seem appealing. So I opened the fridge and saw the English Muffins. Score! I cooked up a little sausage while I melted butter on one muffin and melted swiss cheese and mushrooms on another. On the muffin with butter, when I pulled it from the oven, I added my Downton Abbey preserves that I got for Christmas/ Yule. Oh my is it ever delicious!

I turned around a little bit ago and found Thorin curled up on my dish towels. Sorry for the mess, the house is still a disaster and I have no drive to fix it. Well, I do, but lack the energy really.

Thorin also likes to walk across my computer, sit on it, and generally make mischief while I am trying to do anything on it. He just wants my attention, I know. But he also wants to be held. My solution, while he is still small, is to stick him in my hoodie. He seems to like it. He gets held, is warm, and I get to type. He and Narcisa aren't so different after all, I had to do much the same for her when she was little.

DIY Canopy!

Amanda and I decided that we wanted a canopied bed again. We had one years ago. I had bought us a metal hell-beast of a four poster canopy from a furniture store that is no longer in business. I wonder why? Consider that when they sold us the bed, they gave us a shit frame that didn't fit properly and if you wiggled on the bed too much, the bed would fall through at one of the corners. We had to use 1x4s and lots of wire to keep it together. Finally, after enough falling, we tossed the frame. We kept the curtains we'd bought for it.

I found this tutorial on Pinterest not too long ago and showed it to Amanda.  Several months later and a two hour trip to Lowes for some PVC Pipe, elbow joints, and some ceiling hooks, and we have a canopy.

Tutorial here

The materials we used were as follows: (Since I wasn't involved in the making, I don't have the step by step process)

3 10ft half inch PVC pipes which we had cut at Lowes.

2 elbow joints and 2 end caps.

7 5inch ceiling hooks. 

6 black sheer curtains

Two strands of Christmas lights.

We do not have the bar where the head of the bed is. We skipped that piece.

These photos are pre-Christmas lights and when this Spring or Summer rolls around, we will take the pipes down and outside and paint them black. I'm planning to make something pretty for the corners so we don't have the ugly elbow joints sticking out. To that effect, I have some die cut spider web garland I want to paint and hang as well as some bat garland. I'm not sure which will make it to the bed, but one of those will.

We sort of have a mishmash of decor in the bedroom. Some of it is Goth, some is Anime, some is Asian, complete with the family made quilts and few stuffed animals. Eventually, I will get some things better organized- Amanda wants to get me a proper vanity/ dressing table because I apparently need drawers- I will get some pictures of the overall room. Honestly, at the moment it is the cleanest room of the house... for now....

And now for a post that makes sense, Bat Fit 2017, mouse fails.

We have a bit more snow than this...quite a bit more. In fact, I was taking a friend to her doctor's appointment today and Amanda's Kia Optima got temporarily in the snow, going up a hill. It was exciting- apart from the old man yelling at me. A note on that, it is more effective to calmly give me instructions than to scream them at me.

Okay, because I am unsure how much I got into my last post about Narcisa and all my attempts to read said post have been unsuccessful, I'm going to update her situation now. Amanda and I took our furry princess to the vet because her voice sounded awful and we had suspicions that she was sick. There was also a fear that she was really sick due to her penchant for eating whole pawfuls of fireplace ash. Seriously, we were fighting her to stop, moving the ash bucket, covering the ash bucket. As it turns out the Vet thinks Narcisa is a freak for eating the ash, has never had a cat who has done that, and considering her love of eating random things, she has pica. Further, he thinks that she may have caught the little cold that Throin brought home with him when we adopted him and it was wearing off. But because she growled and hissed so much on top of eating ash, her throat is basically just aggravated and if she doesn't get better in a week or so, we are to take her back in. She is getting better though.

Bat Fit 2017 Link

Bat fit is something that I have been interested in for the last couple of years. Some of my blogger friends have participated in that time and it just seemed like something kind of out of my reach, per se.  Well this year, I am going to take a stab at it with a sharp stick and see what happens. So to revisit my list from a previous blog addressing something similar to this, I'm going to go into more detail about what those things mean and a little of my action plans on how to work on them. These are not really resolutions, they aren't even really goals, they are just things I want to work on so as not to set myself up for failure. The idea is to have positive experiences, not stress myself out and tear myself down trying to achieve things outside my limits. 

1. Health

While my overall health appears to be good- at least according to my blood work, minus anemia, I am over weight. In fact, if I were to use the clinical term "Morbidly obese". I have been struggling with my weight for over the last decade, clear back to the end of high school. From depression to fucked up period patterns and horrible heavy bleeding, and medication, none of this has been easy. Thrown in fibromyaliga and a herniated disk plus an affinity for sedentary activities (reading, writing, movie watching, sewing, and other various crafts), I've been fighting an up hill battle. Actually, I fight it even when I've gone to the gym and swam every day or done an mile on the elliptical every day.  Do I want to lose weight? Yes, of course, there are far too many lovely Goth fashions I want to wear. Plus making and buying clothes would be cheaper too. But I am not going to make myself miserable trying to lose weight. I could run myself ragged and never get anywhere.  

Instead, Amanda and I are going to start the weightloss hypnotherapy disks left over from a few years ago. It had been working a little bit but then we lost control of what food we ate when we lost our food stamps and her mother was buying and cooking our meals. I kind of just said fuck it and threw in the towel. So, back to that and eating smaller portions. We don't typically eat too terribly anyway. I try to maintain a high protein diet with veggies and fruit. We are also going to start a yoga regimen with a friend of ours. I will do that until I have my hysterectomy, take some time off for that, and then once healed, go back to doing it. 

2. Writing

Writing is hard for me. I've had really negative thoughts about it. The joy of it has been sucked clean from it and it became more of a chore than anything else. There are several reasons why, most of which stem from crippling lack of self esteem, self loathing, self doubt, and outside factors beyond my control. When that went, one of the foundations for my personal "joy" was snuffed out. I've been trying for the last year to get it back and that in and of itself has been an internal fight. I've thought many times that maybe I'm just not supposed to be a writer anymore, that that ship had sailed, and that I am desperately holding onto something that was never meant to be. Those thoughts hurt me in ways I can't describe. So, maybe there is hope yet. 

I would like to begin a writing group. I'm also going to write at least 6 hours a week as prescribed by Brandon Sanderson (author of the Mistborn series) from his college writing course. It is on Youtube and the link is here  . 

3. Wedding

We don't have a lot of money for this venture in our lives, but we we want to make it as nice as possible. I'm going to start a Gofundme page to help get my parents up for the wedding just as soon as I get over my hang up of begging other people for money to make something good happen in my life. Because that is what this feels like.  Secondly, I want it to be as easy and smooth as possible. We've enlisted one friend to help with some projects and will probably be enlisting a couple of others.  As for one of our big stumbling blocks, dresses, If I can't find what I like on Torrid come prom season, I have patterns to make what I want and have informed Amanda as such. She said okay. 

4. Crafts

In general, I'm going to work on various craft projects in various mediums, as the year progresses. From sewing, paper crafts, painting, and crochet, I want to get a couple of big projects finished by next Yule. 

5. Heathen and Witch Study and practices

There are books I have been meaning to read that I feel I am ready for. There is a lot I wish to learn and I do have some ideas of what I want to explore where I feel drawn to go spiritually. Frankly there are also somethings that I have always wanted to do- like learn to read Tarot and Runes and so forth. I also want to explore Seidr. 

6. Reading my usual 20 books a year and hopefully more

Ever since high school I have had a goal to read 20 books a year. I don't always achieve that goal, some years I only get 5 read and some years I manage 42. Reading expands knowledge and helps to hone writing and vocab, shows style and so on. Plus it is really fun. 

7. Quiet time for myself as well as Amanda and I, together.

I need self care time that I don't beat myself up about. I am terrible with that. In fact, I often feel guilt for taking time to myself when I should be doing this or that. It only keeps the self hatred cycle going. So, I am going to try and do some things for myself whether coloring a picture, taking time to do crafts or read, watch a show or movie, or just sit and listen to music. I also want to get back to doing things that make me feel pretty, like putting on make up and doing my hair every day. Painting my finger nails, plucking my eyebrows and so on. 

I also want to have time just for Amanda and I. We need time to watch movies together, to talk, to go out and do things even if it is just to go for a drive. So much of our lives is surrounded by other people and while we love our friends, sometimes, we just need time to be together. 

Anyway, those are things I'm working on for Bat Fit 2017. If they all happen or they all go anywhere good, I will be pleased, but I'm not going to beat myself up about not getting everything done. 

Lastly, I bought a new gaming mouse so I could play Eveonline a little easier. It seems that this mouse and I are not getting along very well at the moment. I am going to do some trouble shooting and if it doesn't work like it is supposed to, I can hopefully send it back.

For now, I need to work on making fruit sushi and chicken teriyaki sushi for dinner. Amanda was supposed to do it but she's fallen asleep... again. 

Blur, planner stuff, shit not together, kitty and the vet.

For Yule/Christmas, Amanda bought me sticker paper I can run through the printer. Yesterday morning, after I took her to work, I put the new ink cartridges in our printer and set out to print several affirmations that I really liked and had been saving. The above picture is just one of them. Affirmations, I'm finding out, only work if you say them regularly and actually try to believe them. When you don't feel up to much of anything, you fall short and they have lackluster meaning. 

Prior to Yule/ Christmas my Grandparents had sent some money as part of their gift to us and I used a little to purchase some planner sticker files from various sellers on Etsy. These are not all that I bought, just a few. I did pick up a couple of Halloween themed sets, a cat set in the color green, a winter set, and a mermaid set. What can I say, I'm an eclectic mess. 

pixielandfarm

TinyRelics

PrettyPlanningCo

ilove2print

I feel the urgency of this affirmation surging throughout, but the for life of me, I cannot seem to make myself do anything. Lethargy has taken hold. The last couple of days have been a down right blur between sleep and wakefulness. I've taken Narcisa to the vet (she is okay), Amanda to work, gone to the doctor, to therapy, to the store, run errands, and tried and failed to at least get my kitchen clean. Point of fact, ever since Halloween, we haven't been able to keep the house as clean as I would like. I can't seem to find things, or even stay motivated. I go through periods like this more often than naught and I'm afriad it's only going to get worse. My gynecologist prescribed me progesterone to hopefully shut my period off for a a few days and when I stop taking it I will have a "revenge" period as Amanda called it. After which time, he needs to go in and do a pap to make sure I don't have cancerous cells. We're moving toward a hysterectomy, thank the Gods! My blood work screams anemia and as soon as my uterus is out, that will begin to fix itself. I almost can't wait to have more energy again. 

Speaking of blood work, my previous primary care physician was absolutely sure- just by looking at me- that I am diabetic. You know because I am fat. She also wanted to sell me supplements that I couldn't afford- because she could make money- claiming they were non GMO and 100% organic. Well, my blood work would have been a huge disappointment to her. In fact, when I got my lab results back and saw my A1C, I had Amanda call her parents, who are both diabetic, and check to see what is good and what is considered diabetic. I'm not, not even close! But like I said before, I am very anemic. My new primary care physician prescribed a multivitamin with iron in it. 

Aside from that I have been sleeping a lot. Slept most of yesterday and all of last night. It doesn't help that I have a cute little orange kitten who likes to curl up on my chest. He is warm and soft. Thorin is curled up next to my feet at the moment, under the blanket. I'm starting to fade again, so I will end here and take my nap. I've stopped fighting against the sleep monster and hopefully soon, I won't have to, at least not for these reasons.   

2017 beginning with no illusions.

2016 is over and we are 3 days into 2017. I can honestly say that I have no expectations for this year to be any better or any worse than the last. I have hopes that it will be better; Amanda and I are getting married this October. But then again the wedding, at this point in time, is a source of heart break for me. When I think about what should be one of the happiest days of my life, I'm filled with dread and feel the urge to vomit. It's not pre-wedding jitters or even the ceremony or dresses or normal things, its that my parents aren't planning to be there. This isn't because they don't want to be. It isn't because they are morally opposed to my religious/ spiritual choices or even that they are opposed to be marrying a woman. In fact, my parents want me to get married and be happy. No, it's that they don't have the money to come up and I'm not sure Amanda and I will have the money to help them get up. Friends have helped me search for alternative modes of transportation and my Dad even suggested we Skype the damned ceremony. I could do that, I could spend all my time worrying about whether or not cell reception is working, if the connection will hold, if my Parents can see and hear it. But I wanted my Mom to fuss over my hair and I want my Dad to walk me down the isle. But like Great Grandma Ireland always said, "It doesn't hurt you to want". Except in this case, it really does. So, fuck it all. I'm taking a friend's suggestion and I am going to start a "Go Fund Me" page dedicated toward air fair or gas to get my parents from Kansas to Washington. 

Narcisa has been sick lately. We thought it was just a cold that would clear up on its own, but her voice sounds awful. I made her an appointment today with the vet and will be taking her Thursday. Hopefully we can figure out what's wrong with her and help her feel better. She and Thorin are getting along. She even let him cuddle her last night. It was quite cute. 

On to the picture above. I think I mentioned that I was beginning to play EVEOnline- the free version of course- and if I didn't, well, now you know. There is a lot to this game, no really, there is. You can basically do anything in it and its really neat. So far, for a hour or so that I have played, I like the graphics, the music, and while there's a lot to learn, I think I will get the hang of it. 

Back to the new year. I did not make resolutions and haven't really since middle school. So instead I made a list of things I want to work on. They don't have to be complete, since any are on going works, have been, and will be for many years to come. I made a list of seven, just because I thought that was a reasonable and feesable number, and I like odd numbers.

1. Health

2. Writing

3. Wedding

4. Crafts- sewing to painting and so on

5. Heathen and Witch study and practices

6. Reading my usual 20 books a year and hopefully more

7. Quiet time for myself as well as time for just Amanda and I. 

Lastly, Amanda and I went to the Garland Theatre here in town to see Princess Mononoke on the big screen. I really love this theatre because they show old movies and Anime and they aren't horribly expensive. In fact, we only paid 5.00 dollars to get in tonight. We might go to the Labyrinth next week.