Day 9

Today I am thankful for my laptop.

Without my current laptop, even as inadequate as it is, I wouldn't be able to get online. I wouldn't be able to read blogs, play WoW, or write posts for NaBloPoMo. Without my computer, I'd be frustrated with little to do to entertain myself between the time Ace's goes to bed and the time I go to bed.

I may want a new laptop, I may have needed one for a while now, but I do appreciate the one I currently have. It's much better than nothing.

Day 8

Today, I am thankful for Midol.

Cramps suck! Midol helps.

Note: Midol is not paying me in either money or Midol to say their product works. In fact, I have to pay to use their product. This also sucks, except for the fact that their product does work and I stop hurting, so I'm not too upset about it. I just though I'd make it clear that Midol isn't paying me anything.

Day 7

Today, I am thankful for Ace.

He helps take care of me when I feel bad (right now, my sinuses aren't fully sure they want to allow oxygen in through my nose seemingly because it's cold). He makes me soup and hot chocolate and is all caring about making sure I'm doing well and starting to feel better.

He makes me laugh, even when I feel like crying (even when he's the one who made me feel like crying). He brightens my day. He talks in silly accents randomly, just to make me laugh. He works good paying jobs so I can be a housewife.

He listens to me when I need to talk and even normally listens when I start babbling. He teases, but will back off quickly when he can see it's not getting the desired response of a smile. He puts up with my quirks well most of the time, and encourages me to be a better person.

He's perfect for me and I wouldn't trade him for anyone else. He's my other half. He understands me better than anyone else, I'm fairly sure. He's seen me looking my worst and still finds me extremely attractive. He's the kind of spouse I know I should be more often, and the kind of man who will be a wonderful father.

I love you, Ace. Thanks for being MY husband.

Day 6

Today, I am thankful for God.

I originally intended to wait until day 7 for saying that I am thankful for God, but it seems somewhat appropriate to appreciate God on the Sabbath, even if I'm not Jewish.

God has been the one completely stable thing in my life. He has been with me from the beginning and will be with me. He helped me live through all the crap my mother said and all her insanity that I put up with for years. He brought me Ace at a time I desperately needed something good to start happening in my life. Since I've met Ace, I've had two stable influences.

God gave me strength when I started realizing that I probably needed to cut my mom out of my life. He gave me strength enough to actually cut her out about a year and a half later, when it was obvious that my mother could never give me her love and approval in any sort of recognizable way. He helped me patch my broken soul back together afterward when part of me wondered what was wrong with me that my own mother couldn't love me.

Since I've decided to leave the topic of my mother alone (seriously, I've poked at that tender area enough to realize that there was nothing healthy to be obtained by continuing to poke at it), God has been able to heal me even more. I can talk, briefly, about her without hurting. My mourning for the relationship I didn't have has passed and I'm just wondering why I held on to the relationship I did have for so long.

Through it all, the good times and the bad, God has been there for me. Even when I wasn't looking for him because I was too busy just trying to survive mentally intact. I can look back and see God's blessing on my life. I can look ahead and see what God's Word has promised me for my future.

I'm done looking back on my own life. There's nothing new to learn there. I'm looking ahead to God's promises and I'm moving toward them. And I know that God will be with me every step of my way. And for that, I am truly thankful.

Day 5

Today I am thankful for time with Ace.

Since Ace is working regularly now, I'm having to adjust to not having him around as much. It's been a few months since we've regularly had time apart like this. This change, while odd, is a good one to adjust to.

The time we now have apart makes our time together seem even more special, since there is less of it. It makes me appreciate him more when he is here, paying attention to me. It gives me an opportunity to miss him when he's gone. It helps keep me thinking of all his wonderful attributes. It makes it easier to overlook his shortcomings.

And when he gets extra time off, time neither of us was expecting him to have, it makes the day feel extra-special.

Day 4

Today I am thankful for sleep.

I will admit, this is not just something I am thankful for. After I mentioned my plan to be thankful for something unique each and every day for November, Ace suggested I be thankful for sleep.

He's right though. I am thankful for sleep. Even on those nights where I'm noticing insomnia, the nights that signal some emotional struggle coming on my horizon, I still appreciate getting to sleep. It's even more precious when I've been missing sleep for any of a variety of reasons.

Speaking of sleep, I should get some soon. See you tomorrow.

Day 3

Today, I am thankful for pleasant surprises in the mail.

Yesterday, Ace and I went to get our mail. This undertaking was made more difficult because of all the construction happening around Tulsa (How many different projects are they working on here?).

After Ace got our mail out of our box, he asked me if I had been expecting anything since I had suggested we go get our mail. I hadn't really, although my grandmother is supposed to be sending me a birthday card (or so I've been told).

It turns out I got a surprise piece of mail that made me smile.

Day 2

Today, the thing that I am thankful for is libraries.

I love to read. If I could, I'd happily spend all day reading/wandering around/shopping in a bookstore. I could find a book in almost every section of a store that I "need", and several in the humor and fiction sections. Since I'm not currently financial able to splurge on that kind of shopping spree (except in my dreams), I have to find ways to fulfill my reading habit for free. While the internet is great, as my many hours a day habit surfing it can attest, there is nothing quite like holding a book in my hands and reading it.

Tulsa's library system allows me to not only check out an extremely ridiculous amount of books at once (as I found out a few months ago, when I ended up with at least 8 books checked out all at once and I was trying to read them as quickly as possible), but they allow me to request a book be sent to my local library from anyone in the system for free. Apparently, for a very reasonable $1 a book fee, I can check out books from outside the Tulsa City-County library system too, although I'm not currently interested in finding any specific book enough to request that.

I currently have 3 books out of the library. Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams (a biography of Milton S. Hershey of chocolate fame), The Men Who Stare at Goats (yep, a book on the same topic as the George Clooney movie that's based on a real government program), and The Picture of Dorian Gray (Do I need to tell you what this one is about? Google it, if you don't know!).

When I checked them out, I was sure I'd enjoy The Men Who Stare at Goats and The Picture of Dorian Gray, but I wasn't sure about Hershey. So far, Hershey is the only one I've read on (since I checked them out yesterday), but I'm greatly enjoying it. The author is mixing in a lot of history of the U.S./the world in with the biography so that it's easier to understand what events were surrounding Mr. Hershey's life and decisions. It's fascinating and I'm extremely glad I checked the book out.

I'm thankful for libraries. What are you thankful for?

Day 1

Today, I embark on a tradition that I have done 2 years before this. Today, I start posting everyday for a month.

If I was saner, I'd do this in February, when there are only 28 or 29 days (not much savings of time). Instead, I'm doing this in November, because while I have at least one novel to write, I'm not going to try to write it in just 30 days. I'm not that crazy.

In addition to making a determination to post every day in November, I've just decided to push myself into posting something different I'm thankful for each day, hopefully with an explanation added to why I'm thankful for each thing (but that's not going to be a guarantee, because I have a feeling there will be at least one day I'm thankful that I'll be moving soon).

For day one, I'm thankful for an idea to tie this whole month together. Normally my posts are random from day to day, so it'll be nice to focus on something here for more than a day or two. It'll also be nice to focus on the good things in my life for a while.

See you later.

Who Says I'm Fully Sane?

I'm doing NaBloPoMo again. It's crazy, because I've been ignoring this blog way more than I should this past year.

But I'm going to post everyday in November.

What am I thinking?

It Only Takes One

I went to turn the light on, but nothing happened. Well, there was a flash as the bulb turned on, but it went off just as quickly. The light bulb was burnt out.

I head to the pantry to find a new bulb, since there were light bulbs in the pantry the last time I looked for one. After a careful search, there were no light bulbs there any more.

I move back to the bedroom, to try moving some wires to see if that will magically fix the light bulb. It doesn't. Convinced that I must have just missed seeing them, I head back to the pantry to search once more. There were still no light bulbs to be found.

Just as I'm about to give up on finding light bulbs and will have to wait until Ace gets home to have an overhead light in my room, I decide to check the garage (I've pulled the old bulb out of the socket to throw away, but for some reason I am carrying it around). I don't really remember there being light bulbs there before, but one never knows where they might find a bulb.

I look around the garage. At first, I don't notice the light bulbs, but they soon catch my eye. Triumphantly, I grab the package and tear the plastic wrap surrounding them and pull out a bulb. I walk back into the house, carefully keeping the new bulb separated from the old bulb so I can tell them apart. I return to the socket, put in the bulb, pull the cord, and I have light!

So Far, 30 Rocks

I know, I've only been 30 for a day, but it has been so cool. Last night, my in-laws took me out to a nice dinner (I got to choose a restaurant). Dinner was nice, it was really relaxed. We all enjoyed our food. Then, we had cake (that my father-in-law baked and my mother-in-law iced) after my in-laws got home from church.

Tonight, Ace and I are going on a date (something I'm hoping gets to be a more regular thing from now). We're going out to another nice restaurant (that I've gotten to choose). We're spending the night in a hotel, so we can have some alone time. We're planning on getting me birthday cheesecake slices to celebrate my birthday.

Then, on Sunday, we're taking a day trip to visit my dad & step-mom. So, my birthday celebration seems to just be growing some.

And now I need to go, because I've got a hotel to go check into.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today is my 30th birthday.

Instead of focusing on the past, as I've done far too often, I'm going to focus on the future.

In the next few months, I expect that Ace and I will be living on our own again, and will stay that way. We've found apartments we like, they are reasonably priced, and they come with a washer and drier in the apartment (something that seems rare for apartments).

In the next year, I expect that Ace and I will get a second car and will fix our current car's electric and heater problems.

In the next year, I expect that Ace and I will probably be getting ready for a baby (because I am an optimist).

In the next year, I expect Ace and I will start paying off our debts. Even if we aren't fully out of debt in a year, we'll be in a much better position than we are now.

In the next few months, I expect a new laptop and a new one for Ace too. We've needed them for at least the last year.

So, there you go. Those are my expectations for the next year.

Flowing with the Waves

I'm starting to feel a little ridiculous. People are talking pregnancy and babies, which is great. I'm not feeling jealous, I'm just feeling happy for them.

And then the crash of sadness hits me because I'm just finishing up my period. And I'm turning 30 in less than a week. And I still don't have a baby in my arms. And, and, and...

It's frustrating on one hand because I still have plenty of years in which to have kids and I know this. On the other hand, I've got my biological clock ticking LOUDLY in my head and it doesn't seem to want to SHUT UP!

So, I'm trying to find a middle ground between joy for others and sadness for myself (something that isn't helpful). I'm letting those waves of emotions wash over me and letting them go. I am being patient, again, still.

I'm discovering how many things bring up a random, confusing swell of emotions. I'm letting the emotions flow like waves. I'm learning how to focus more on my goals and plans than on my current circumstances.

Strained

Dinner, which I have finished eating, but no one else has, has been strained tonight. Ace is frustrated because he cooked the main dish, but his mother didn't trust him enough to make sides to go with it. Ace is also frustrated because cooking dinner was sprang on him this afternoon with no time to mentally prep for it. Plus, his mother wasn't exactly tactful on how she started fixing side dishes.

My mother-in-law is upset because she assumes that Ace was only planning on putting some green beans as a side dish for steak and her blood sugar would dip too low throughout the night if that's the case (she's diabetic, so this is a concern, but she's not going to bed for several hours so she would have plenty of time to eat more food). Also, her blood sugar was low before we started eating (but didn't think about having some of the orange juice she's got in the fridge for these occasions).

I ate quickly and am now hiding in the bedroom to avoid the stress of any arguing going on out there. I'm also trying not to take it personally that the only person I see on a daily basis who seems to remember that my birthday is coming up is Ace. After all, it's only the same day as my in-laws only grandchild.

I don't think there is enough chocolate in this house to make this evening seem better right now. If only there were someone else we could be temporarily living with.

News Bites

Hey, everyone. I'm still alive over here, I've just been distracted with things lately (like trying to figure out how the next few months are going to go). Things are still up in the air a bit. So, in lieu of a normal post, I'm going to give you news bites.

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The count of dead mice found in various parts of this house is up to 3. I'm so ready to be out of here.

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Today, Ace and I went to the Tulsa State Fair. I find the name ironic, since Tulsa isn't a state. It was fun.

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Ace and I looked at an apartment complex this week. We really liked the apartments we saw and are thinking of moving in there after the new year. Unfortunately, that's farther out than I'd like it to be.

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Ace and I now have a TV sitting in our room. It's on the desk, between our monitors. I'm happy about this, but it's going to take some getting used to. The whole TV thing was my mother-in-law's idea, which was really nice of her.

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I've been playing lots of World of Warcraft lately, which is part of the reason I've been busy and not posting here.

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So, yeah. That's where things stand. Sorry the first thing on my news bites was so gross.

How Much Do You Share?

I'm thinking about what things to share with my future kids about my past. I'm wondering how much I should tell them about why I don't talk to my mother (if I'm still not talking to her). How much do I talk about depression and it's various appearances in my life? Do I try to describe how I feel when everything feels so hard to do, even making a sandwich? And how do you describe something like that?

Do I tell them of my weak moment a few years ago, where I considered doing something stupid and dangerous because it seemed better than just talking to my husband and admitting that I wasn't up for what he was asking me to do? Do I let them know that it's okay to find that idea scary, because I still find it scary today when I'm in a much better frame of mind?

Where do I draw the lines? Do I talk about why I've been reluctant to ask for professional help? Do I admit that a big problem is that society paints needing professional help as being weak or wrong and their mother doesn't want anyone to see her as weak? How do I let them know that this is a human failing, as is the avoidance of getting help?

I know they need to know that depression does run in my family, that if I suffer from it, even occasionally, that they could suffer from it too. I know they need to know that it's a good thing to get help, to get diagnosed, to not just suffer. I know that I need to be a good example by doing the same. I know that talking with someone would probably help my anxiety and stress levels too, especially since they are all likely related.

I know all this, but what I don't know is how much of my past am I supposed to share. How much do I say before I'm placing a burden on them instead of sharing information that they need to help their world make more sense? Where are the lines? Unfortunately, I don't think there is anyone who can tell me that. I'll have to figure it out as I go along.

But if you have some ideas as to where to start drawing some of those lines, won't you help me out?

Somedays Are a Struggle

I'm finding myself struggling lately to do basic things for myself (like eating lunch when Ace isn't here to help me find & fix something). I'm not quite sure why I'm struggling so much, but almost everything seems so big and hard that it's hard to convince myself to do much besides surf the internet all day.

And it's silly, because I know that we are getting so close to being back on our own. Ace has an interview this afternoon for a job selling houses for the builders. I'm not sure what all the job would require him to do (other than work weekends), but it's something he would enjoy and should pay enough for us to be on our own.

Even knowing this, it still seems so difficult to not spend time either at my laptop or curled up in bed with a book and an opportunity to nap. I'm not sure I want to talk to a psychiatrist, because I'd rather not have to be put on drugs. But a part of me is wondering if I might need them, because I know things aren't supposed to be this hard and I'm not supposed to be this tired all the time. I'm feeling grouchier lately too, finding it easy to get upset by Ace making innocent comments. I don't like what I'm seeing in myself and I want it to change, while at the same time wanting to shut the world out because it feels like that would be easier.

Somehow, I have a feeling easier would actually be worse for me in both the long run and the short term than just getting over myself and getting some help. I'm less than thrilled to say that any professional help will have to wait for a while, until other more urgent matters are taken care of first. Which does not mean that I plan on allowing myself to wallow in laziness, it just means I need somebody to push me to do what I know needs to be done.

Control and the Lack Thereof

I know I've been gone for 10 days (What have I been doing? Um, not much really. Fighting off depression some, playing lots of World of Warcraft, taking a day-trip to OKC, and realizing I should never watch any shows called Hoarders because they depress and overwhelm me), but I've not really had anything to say. Sometimes, there just isn't anything blog worthy going on in my life.

Ace and I talk, a lot. Yesterday, we talked about control, a subject that is somewhat hard to talk about, but is important none the less.

I had to admit that sometimes I feel bits of my fighting themselves. There's the control freak, who gets frustrated by the idea of giving up what little control I feel I have sometimes. A big part of my brain screams at me that it's wrong to let that control go and relax, because what if x or y or z happens? What will I do then?

On the other hand, I've got that part of me that feels like telling everyone and everything to go bother someone else about all this stuff. I'm not in charge, nor do I want to be. I want to relax and be stress-free for a while. And that's all well and good until the inner control freak starts freaking out that I'm giving up control.

I think we've come to the conclusion that I need to start giving up control of some things in a controlled environment (reading that sounds like I'm doing things backwards, but it's probably the best way to relax more). The situation is more about trusting that I can relax and give away some control and things will still be okay. It's hard to explain, without getting into details that I'd rather keep private, but it's important that I learn to let go.

If I can start letting go in one area, I can start letting go in another. Then I can reduce my stress levels significantly, and when I sleep at night I'll feel rested. I can't keep doing what I've done in the past and expect different results, so I need to change something.

Things I'm Grateful For

1. A husband who loves me enough to stop playing his game and cuddle with me.

2. An iPod full of good preaching.

3. Solving my mouse problem without spending more money.

4. Having access to a hot tub when I'm sore and hurting (or just wanting to get in a hot tub).

5. Knowing that God has a plan for me.

6. That my in-laws did get Ace and I shirts while they were on vacation.

7. Finding someone else who doesn't like watermelon (there are at least two of us now, and I'm not quite as weird as I once was).

8. Getting a chance to realize that my father-in-law is pretty decent in general, he's just frustrated with his wife most of the time (I think).

9. My father, step-mother, brother, and sister all love me.

10. Going to church again, even if it is just on Wednesdays for now (girl's got to have some alone time with her hubby). Especially when I hear a message I need to hear, even if my metaphorical toes are a little squished afterward.

11. Getting reminded that I need to see myself with God's eyes instead of my own (or my mother's).

12. Praise and worship.

13. That God rocks, even if my socks stay on.

14. That being grateful for one thing leads me to being grateful for something else, until I have a nice long list.

15. That I've gotten to do some amazing things in my life, including helping build 4 different church buildings, go on a cruise, and get married to an amazing man.

16. Inside jokes. (jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj) (No, I'm not explaining that joke today, that's why it's an inside joke.)

17. Having a husband that can make me laugh, even when I'm feeling like crying.

18. Having a husband who will hold me close when I'm crying.

19. Stories about kids that make me laugh and daydream about the day I'll have those same kind of stories.

20. Having a place to sort out my thoughts and share them with the world.