Posting on 3 hours of sleep and absent my glasses...

Yes, as the title states, I am posting on merely 3 hours of sleep and I've left my glasses downstairs thinking that I was only getting up to see where my girlfriend and cats went. I ended up playing on my computer and grabbing a couple of crackers to munch on. If there are any terrible errors, just remember that I can't see the text clearly and no, I am not going to go fetch my glasses so I can.

Anyway, thankfully, the migraine induced by my homework went away thanks to the help of some medication and sleep. I have two more sessions of this class and hopefully I will be finished with it.

Learned something new last night/ 3:30 am, when I finally finished with my homework. I have not been keeping up with some political blogs that I try to keep up with and come to find out, Vice President Biden has decided that anyone in the Tea Party is a "terrorist" and when confronted with it by a Tea Party member, President Obama pretty much agreed without confirming or denying. It's nice to know that people who want to return to the ways of smaller government and the ideals and principals that this country was founded on are now known as "terrorists". And of course the gov, officials won't just stop at naming Tea Party members and activists, they'll move on to plain old Libertarians and anyone else who doesn't think like them. Nice to know my country is run by a bunch of spoiled children who piss on you when they don't get their way and piss on you again just for the hell of it. Really, it's enough to make anyone question their sanity.

Speaking of sanity, I think I am very quickly losing mine. Yesterday I got into a fight with my girlfriend. She decided that picking a fight with me about my very mild case of road rage was a good idea and then progressed onto other issues. When I got home my mom demanded to know what was wrong with me and I finally told her after several minutes of her nagging me. That of course turned into a fight when she accused me of being inconvenienced the night before last by having to stay the night at Grandma's. Let me make this clear, I am never inconvenienced or put out by having to stay the night at Grandma's. I love staying the night over there. The cause for this impromptu stay was that Grandma was sick and needed some help. I was glad to stay but my mom always likes to think the worst of me. *sigh* Mom and I will probably have issues until the day one of us dies.

To end on a much lighter and safer note, I was in my parent's bedroom last night gathering up some laundry and saw a tidbit of a SciFi show called Eureka. Two of the cast members from The Guild were guest starting on the episode, Felicia Day and Will Wheaton. I didn't stay to watch the episode, I had homework to do and laundry, but it was really nice to see them on TV.

Into the exciting life of... You're kidding me right?

So! I've completely and utterly been procrastinating on my homework. You'd think, one class, no big deal, just sit down and tackle that beast... of three chapters and a group project. Right? No. The truth is, I tried to do my homework yesterday evening and upon not being able to answer the first question of my homework assignment, I slammed the textbook shut and neatly and very orderly put everything away and picked up my computer to watch episodes of The Guild on Netflix.

*sigh*

I know, I know, I'm horrible. There's only a few weeks left to go in this stupid class. I should just do it and get it over with. But I have this annoying mental block that's driving me crazy. Half of me wants it done and over with, all homework and labs turned in, group project (my part of it) finished, and just sit back and study for the final. The other half of me wants to just throw in the towel and deal with it later. Can't do that. It's just so weird! All my homework is a B+, I just got caught up and turned in most of my labs so that should bring that portion of my grade up, and my first big test in the class got a C+. I should have a pretty good grade but I don't and it's really beginning to drive me crazy! I really just want to get this over with so I can get on to more exciting things. Things that actually pertain to my degree.

Back to The Guild. I've really enjoyed the show. I definitely want to see more. Sorry, no spoilers for those who haven't seen it. I'm not a total kill joy. Needless to say, it's invoked the inner nerd in me and now I want to play Guild Wars tonight... I'm waiting until my Dad is finished watching The A Team with my mom so we can get some of our outstanding quests taken care of. I haven't played in over a month. This of course just facilitates my procrastination but I really don't care. I want to kill monsters and have my lacking sense of accomplishment rectified in game since I seem to fail at it in life.

Oh, but I did start the drawing on the mock up design for the kitchen. I have to do everything on a sketch pad since I don't have a drawing tablet and nifty software like all my friends. Working on that. Anyway, that's kind of satisfying the inner interior designer in me and the artsy part of me that longs to come out. Now if only I could find my paint... And for that matter my brushes.

That reminds me, I need to pose my idea for thank you cards to our Service Men and Women to my DAR Regent and have some mock ups ready for when DAR gets started again. It's an idea that spawned from my own social phobia and not being able to walk up to a Service Man in the air port a couple of weeks ago.

Well, off to try and post for my other blog. See ya later.

A new endeavor and struggling

The dust is starting to settle… somewhat. There is finally a hint of routine in daily life as I know it. All our visitors have come and gone, this quarter is almost over, and I’m am more than ready for Fall to come so I can close the door on this rather stressful summer.

I’ve just about had it with my lower back problems and in turn, I’m tired of listening to both my Grandparents hound me about my weight every time I see them. While I love them both very much and more than appreciate their concern, I would like a different topic of conversation when I visit them. So, I’ve decided that I’m ready to really do something about it.

I started walking this week, outside, in the sunlight, as much as I dislike being out in the heat. Now I haven’t done it every day this week, yesterday I wasn’t feeling very well, but it’s a start. I’ve also cut down on meal portions and instead of eating full meals; I’m eating small snacks throughout the day. I’m not depriving myself from things I like to eat that way I have less of a chance of giving up, just eating things I like that are better for me. I get my chocolate fix in the morning with a Clif bar for breakfast, have yogurt twice a day, eat just a sandwich or something small in the middle of the day, make something for dinner but only eat a little of it, and for a snack a couple of hours before bed, I eat a little cheese and crackers. And, most importantly, I’ve dropped drinking real soda unless Quetzal and I go out, which isn’t that often, for water.

I haven’t set a goal of how much weight to lose because I always get discouraged. So, I am merely doing this and taking it as it goes. It’s not easy, I’ve been cranky and depressed, but I’m pushing along and hopefully, with time and effort, I’ll be a thinner.

That aside, living with my parents is beginning to become stressful again, which I suppose is kind of a blessing since it’s encouraging me to be out of the house more. Since Quetzal and I don’t have a lot of money, it means that we go more places, do a lot of window shopping, and more importantly, walking.

Trying to stay positive while chaos spits on my picnic hasn’t been the easiest of tasks and sometimes I wonder where my head is. That and I am a running Queen of looking at life at a glass half empty. I thought living back at home would make things a little easier but my Mom and I are already butting heads. She still wants me to be a little girl and she definitely wants a maid but most of all she wants control. She hasn’t been particularly nice either. I’ve set up some boundaries while respecting hers and while I’ve been doing my best to let things said roll off my shoulders… We’ve had a few arguments. I try to remember what one of my instructors told me “If someone is being mean or hurtful, they are probably in a lot of pain themselves”, and I know my Mom is in a lot of pain, I’ve helped take care of her when she’s knocked off her feet with it. It isn’t something new; she’s been dealing with chronic pain for years now. But sometimes I wish she would funnel her frustration into something she enjoys instead of attacking me or trying to pick fights with me.

Finally, to end on a good note, I am taking a little more time for myself. I haven’t really worked on any stories just yet, but I’ve got a couple of projects lined up that will engage some of the areas of personal interest I’ve left on the back burner. One being, to do general design mock ups for the new place (when we get it). Another is to work on some scrap booking and card making projects. There are several books I want to read, non-text book in nature.

Weird headspace

Tonight is peaceful but I feel upset and lonely. My girlfriend is at work and won't be home until after 1:30 am. My parents are about to go to bed, my cousin is at her house, and while this would be an opportune time to get this weeks homework done, I just don't want to. I'm a little tired and could take a nap but then I know I would be up really late and most likely sleep in. I need to be up early to run an errand for my Mom.

Recently we had a friend from Idaho come and stay for almost two weeks. It was really fun having her here. We went out a lot, out to eat, out to see things, and when we weren't out we watched movies and I did homework. We didn't want her to leave but she had to. Also we had to make a trip to the hospital due to my girlfriend having an ovarian cyst rupture.

Now that everything has returned to normal, I am finding myself having little bursts of depression and anxiety. I don't feel like doing anything and quite often feel like giving up on all the things I used to fight for that made me well me. I don't write nearly as much as I would like. Becoming a published author seems to be a never ending pipe dream and leaves me feeling so very lost. I'm in school but have the 'what's the point' feeling all over again. I'm trying to wrap my head around my Networking class and do find with the homework and got almost completely caught up on the labs. But before that all gets graded I still have an F in the class due to all the absences because of my back. I'm sure my grade will have raised next week when I go to class, but I'm still really stressed out, don't understand a lot of the material, and worse, we have a group project and I have no idea what the hell I'm doing or how to do it. I kind of want to throw the towel in but then again I don't want to have to repeat the class next quarter or let my group down.

Worse than that, I have restless feelings and I need to find a job. Something with less than 20 hours so work doesn't cut into school and study time. But I'm scared about looking for jobs because with my recent back troubles, I cannot stand for more than 10 minutes without it bothering me and standing for an hour makes it hurt, more than that and I end up needing a pain pill and muscle relaxer. Most sit down jobs I am qualified for are call centers and quite frankly, I would rather shoot myself than have a job like that ever again.

So woe is me. I might just have to go lay down for a little bit.

It's official!

So I don't have any interesting pics to post this time around... But it's official, we've completely moved out of our apartment and back in with my parents! Yay!!! Most people would be wondering how that's a cause for celebration since that seems like a step backward in the progression of life. However, for us it is a step backward to move forward. We moved back in to save some money so we could buy into the same townhouses my parents live in. We have to save up half the down payment + first month's rent and some utility money to get into these townhouses. Doesn't seem like much fun since we had our own place before. However, with these townhouses we can really make it a home. We can paint, if the basement's not finished we can finish it, and we can pretty much do anything we want with the place (once we get one) aside from knocking down walls. Plus when we move out we'll get our down payment back and charge for any remodeling we've done. So in the end it's an investment.

Also with moving back in with my parents, we won't have to worry about slap happy maintenance with the air conditioner and heater. It seemed every time the season changed there was something wrong with our heater or our air conditioner. And we don't have to worry about the water being shut off without notice and my favorite thing of all, no more brown recluse infestation!

Since I had limited time in packing and moving and while we had lots of help, it took awhile to get out of our old place due to the heat. It's been in the triple digits (Fahrenheit) here in the Midwest and according to the weather guys, it's not looking like it will cool down anytime soon. In fact, yesterday while we were trying to finish up moving out and cleaning the old place, we had to leave early because I got heat sick. I had to come back to my parents, drink lots of water, take a cool shower, and rest. It was pretty scary and worse I heard one news cast report that 30 people had already died this summer from heat stroke.

But all is well. The cats are settling in nicely, we're getting ready to get up and work on my mom's pantry. We have to get rid of some things of mom's to make room for the food we brought from our house. Don't worry, anything we don't need or will use, will be shipped to a food pantry.

Last night Dad, my girlfriend and I sat and talked about the couple of years when my family was vegetarian and all the interesting food we made from various cookbooks. We have a friend who is vegetarian coming for a visit. And of course we talked about other food we'd like to make for after she leaves. Looks like I will be expanding my recipe box again and finally, I'll get to have cauliflower cheese pie again. Num!

Well, gotta get up and get moving...

An early morning farewell, a door opens, and some tid bits.

Aside from this piece of art being one of my favorites, I thought it was an appropriate image for how I feel at the moment. If one were to turn the Knight into the apartment my girlfriend and I are vacating, the Lady would be myself saying a soft and sweet farewell. Yet somehow I feel as if I could be the Knight riding off to said apartment to battle the task of moving out. However, for us we will not be returning to the happy and relieved arms of our apartment when all is said and done.

For the last week I have been scrambling and packing with a firm, unrelenting and dreaded deadline in fast approach. My back is still giving me much grief, my knees have decided to join the pain parade, and due to the extreme heat here in the mid-west, this moving experience has not been a pleasant one. In fact, I have been so frustrated and so stressed from lack of boxes, lack of time, or this or that, that I have quite literally tossed any sense of organization out the window and am just packing things as I go along in plastic sacks, trash bags, luggage ect... But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We have very little left to pack and just have a little cleaning to do and come Friday afternoon, we'll turn in our keys and say "So long and thanks for all the fish".

My one class this quarter isn't going as well as I had hoped. I just got an update on my grade for the class and nearly cried. After all the work I put into making sure I had my book work done, I have a big, whopping F for the class and that's due to me not being caught up on the labs (which I am still in the process of doing). On top of that we just had a test with a study guide of over 100 questions and I studied and I looked over the study guide before the test and when I got the damned test it was only 15 questions long. Then my instructor went over the test after everyone had it handed in. I am pretty sure I only got 3 questions right. So, since my back was really giving me trouble and I was depressed, I left school during the second break.

However, despite all the negative, harrowing, and depressing things going on in my life right now, I had my first therapy session yesterday. I decided that I was going to see if I could get a therapist through social services program just so I could talk to someone outside my network of people and see if I couldn't get some other ideas on how to cope with stuff yada yada yada. Anyway, her diagnosis of me was that I have severe depression (I already knew that) and I have some social phobias. The session went well, I really like her, and she had some interesting things to say. I go back in two weeks and she said that she would have some things outlined for me to help me better deal with some of the problems I am dealing with. Leaving her office felt like a door opening to something really good. I really felt better.

Fun tidbits, my Dad helped me get the Dragon mask for this year's Dragon festival in Guild Wars. It;s pretty cool and eventually I'll log on and get a screen shot of it. My Mom and I are going to play with some of the gemstones she's been collecting and make some jewelry together and she's excited to show me some new TV series she's been watching. In a week or two we will have a friend from Idaho coming down to visit us, which will be awesome since we haven't seen her in almost two years! We really want to see her sister too, but they don't have anyone to take care of their animals so she's staying behind and will come later this year.

And lastly, I started watching this anime on Hulu while waiting for my Girlfriend to get off work one night last week. So far so good. I've only seen 4 episodes but it's interesting and when I get some more time I am really looking forward to seeing the rest of it.

Down is never a pleasant way to be.

For the last couple of weeks my forced perch has been at the end of my sofa by day and sleeping on the sofa by night. One afternoon I was in Gander Mountain with my girlfriend and her parents who were visiting from out of town and somehow or someway, I managed to throw my back out of sync. For the last couple of years I have had back issues and once even had to have it realigned. Normally I simply have a day or two where it hurts and I rest a little and then I am back to my usual self. However this time it wasn't so simple.

So, I took a trip to the doctor. I was put on pain pills and muscle relaxers but they only help a little. In fact this time the pain has been so debilitating that I couldn't walk, take a shower without assistance much less go to the bathroom alone. Needless to say to be 27 years old and so dependent on others when you take pride in making meals, having a clean house, and helping to take care of others has left me feeling guilty, useless, and such a burden.

Also, because of my back, I have had to drop out of two of my classes at ITT and the Chair of my Department is doing what he can to help me have some success this quarter by keeping me in one class. I have about half of my homework for that class finished but I will need to use all the time I have to finish catching up so that I may be caught up enough (at least book work wise) with the rest of the class. The labs I will have to schedule another time to go in and complete.

This physical hindrance has also had more than a few minor emotional repercussions. I have been worried about school, worried about others (family, friends, my cats), to be frank, I've had some pretty awful panic attacks. Since I haven't been able to do much, I've felt like I have lost a sense of purpose and meaning. I find myself constantly saying 'I'm sorry' and feeling so guilty and even clingy and yet withdrawn. I know a lot of that playing into the fact that I have depression and anxiety. However, when it takes you an hour to clean a small kitchen having to stop every ten minutes because your back is screaming agony, it makes it difficult to be A-okay. I've kind of been an emotional mess.

But there is a little more good news, per se. My girlfriend and I will be moving back in with my parents by July 15 and we will be saving up the money to get a really nice place of our own. One we can paint and really play with designing. It's a town house but one we can paint and make home improvements to.