See, I knew I’d get over it. I always do. When something upsets me, the best course of action is to go ahead and be upset for a while and get it out of my system. Trying to not be upset is a direct route to a bad headache and a rash. And probably way too much alcohol consumption. So, at the risk of upsetting everyone else in the household (O NO! Mom is mad! What did I do wrong!?), last night I had to go right ahead and be pissy. and yes, the response was as expected (O NO!), but by 5am this morning I was fine, able to smile a genuine smile and face the day with a bit of optimism.
The grass is cut. I took that energy generated by Bad Attitude and used a push mower to cut the front 40 meadow. Well ok maybe it’s not that big, maybe it’s less than 1/4 acre, but this Precious Precious Creampuff Princess is averse to sweating, and yet in the interest of burning off some rage, the grass was cut. However, it was tall and requires raking. However, I have 2 bad shoulders, arthritis and a torn rotator cuff that refuses to return to normal, and raking is…well, I can do it for a bit, but then spend the next 2 days incapacitated and unable to lift or carry anything heavier than a cat. So deciding To Rake or Not To Rake…that is the question.
Still no vacation, naturally. However, the prospect of a day at the beach is cheering. Likewise a couple of days with a friend…that will require some discussion with Terry, but I am sure he’ll be ok with it given the circumstances.
25th anniversary coming up. CJ’s 20th birthday on the same day. And it’s all on a Tuesday. Who planned that one? Who has a 25th anniversary on a Tuesday? That’s more of a Friday or Saturday kind of event, don’t you think? I would like to plan a nice dinner for that night, but can’t really because of Terry’s work. He might have to work late. Traditionally I fix the boys anything they want for their birthday dinner. CJ has requested oysters,even raw,but isn’t there some rule about only eating oysters in the months that have ‘r’ in them? There’s no ‘r’ in July and I would hate for my son to die of oyster poisoning, that would ruin things. Plus I totally DON’T cook oysters. I can make oyster stew with those ones from a can…but that’s the extent of my culinary oyster skills. Thus, I plan to take him to Savannah to some place with more experience in fixing them. We’ll do it on Friday or Saturday, because he gets off at 2 and we could go and be back in time for him to have some fun with his friends.
But I still don’t know what to do for our anniversary.
Filed under: Uncategorized
because I don’t really have the attention span right now to pick a topic and stay with it, but there is an internally produced obligation to WRITE SOMETHING.
*Still no vacation. Work is Too Important right now. Bitter much, Peggy? Yah you betcha. But I’ll get over it, because it’s what I do. I may take myself to the beach for a day, pack a cooler with a jug of iced tea and a sandwich, throw it, a towel and that low folding beach chair in the back of my car, and go to the beach. I’ll call it a Mental Health Day. Right now I am kind of needing one of those.
*The lawnmower isn’t working and I am considering having my front yard reclassified as a D.O.T. Meadowland. If I threw some wildlfower seeds in there for color, it could pass. However, it’s not really the look that golf course communities prefer. I suppose I could get out there with a pair of scissors and cut it. I supose I could aysomeone to do it, but the idea of paying someone to do something I should be able to do myself does not make me happy.
*Everyone currently living in the house is employed. Except me, I *do* have a job, just not a paying one. I’ve thought about looking for work somewhere, but unemployment is running about 20% around here, and since I don’t NEED a job, the idea that I would be keeping someone who really needs one from getting one is disturbing.
*What I really want to do is write a bunch of tersely worded letters to various people who are pissing me off. I won’t, but that doesn’t stop me from composing them mentally. What I really REALLY want to do is get in the car and drive away for a few days, see some mountains, eat some food, sleep a different place every night for a week.
I am not happy right now. Circumstances beyone either of our control took away something I was looking forward to far more than I realized. It has me back to that old way of thinking, that says it’s better to not look forward to anything, to say that eager anticipation is the finest and most direct route to disappointment. It’s better to expect nothing, because that’s what you’ll get.
I have a miniature orange tree on my patio. It’s in a large pot and I use it to (ineffectually) hide the heat pump, which the peron who built this house chose to put on the patio, instead of around the side where it wouldn’t be seen or heard by the people attempting to use the patio. It’s a nice patio, with brick pavers that heave up crooked from the pine tree roots, and crumbling mortar (I’ve learned that you aren’t supposed to mortar patio bricks due to the way pine tree roots can heave them, but it was made in 1967 and I was only 2 then, so did not have a say in it’s construction), and a lovely brick latticework wall that is coming apart, due to pine tree roots heaving up it’s foundation. I am attempting to cover the cracks with wisteria, which growls grows like Godzilla on steroids around here.
Ok, so there’s this orange tree. Mom grew it from a seed off of the orange tree she has. She sprouted the seed when I got pregnant with Will, and when he was born, she gave it to us in a little pot, and here 23 years later I have this lovely tree in a big pot.
Orange tree and poorly disguised heat pump
The tree is also right outside the kitchen window,and the other day I noticed a bit of activity in it. I watched a pair of mockingbirds come and go, then upon closer inspection noticed that they were building a nest in it! Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean anything special, as mockingbirds will build several nests in a yard, and let the lady bird choose the one she likes. “Here, baby, I’ve got a house on the east side, another one in mountains and a big boat in Key West, see, I’m a good catch!”
Look, baby! beautiful nest, just for you.
Well, I kind of figured, since the patio is fairly active with constant comings and goings of people and dogs (but not cats anymore, because a month ago I decided the owls in the neighborhood made me nervous and am keeping the cats in the house, much to their disgust) that the lady mockingbird would veto the patio nest in favor of something more secluded. This morning as I was watering all the potted plants on the patio, and turned my attention to the orange tree, I felt the prickle of a venomous hairy eyeball on the top of my my head. Looking up a little, I noticed the lady mockingbird on the nest! Glaring at me! She said nary a word (uncommon for this vociferous creature), just glared with the hatred of a thousand disturbed mothers. I responded with an apology and the quiet cessation of watering, then I got the camera.
Can you feel it? The Hairy Eyeball of Doom?
Eggs! 2 of them!
Filed under: Uncategorized
Yes, it’s been interesting around here. Terry’s work, my tooky brain, relationship stuff too delicate to go into. Normally when I am stressed it spills over into my dreams and I have bad ones, scary ones that are all about loss. Sometimes I lose people, sometimes I am the one who’s lost.
Last night I got a reprieve, and had a dream about gain of the relationship type. Oh yes! I dreamed about people coming into my life in a direct and intimate way!
Specifically, I dreamed about my in-laws moving in with us. And among other things, they brought with them an enormous 7 foot long high backed winged avocado green fake alligator hide sofa. A huge vinyl sofa. That took up the entire living room and was so awesome in it’s hideousness that upon seeing it I packed a suitcase, kissed Terry on the cheek, and told him I was going to visit my parents and I would return when the sofa was gone.
This was my dream last night. I can still see the sofa. I am now so fond of it that I want to find one like it to put in the boys game room, because it’s that flamin’ awesome.
Like this, kind of. Only Alligator hide vinyl.
Filed under: *whinge*, Dewicate feewings, God Stuff, Sometimes she thinks too much
Blaaaaahhhh!
What I need is Time Away. Away from the house and all the myriad THINGS yelling at me to be done.
Time away from my own brain, thinking constantly, evaluating and revisiting, gnawing on past issues, mentally regurgitating like a damn cow chewing on her cud the same old same old anxiety inducing STUFF. how come I can’t just LET GO?
One of the things I like about myself (and there isn’t much, so when I find something I like to enjoy it) is that I can, eventually, understand most anything. I may have to think about it for a long time before grasping the concept, but eventually I’ll get there.
That is, however, sometimes onerous. There are times I wish I could just plod along like a beetle in the pine straw, not having to understand things, but simply living, looking for the next thing to eat, not even having enough brain mass to worry about being eaten by a bird, just relying on evolutionary progress to make me hard to see.
Have you ever felt like that, like you wish you didn’t think so much? I wonder how much anxiety we visit upon ourselves because of overthinking things. I know my essentially pessimistic philosophy of “Expect the worst, so when it happens you’re prepared and if it doesn’t, you’re pleasantly surprised” is purely overthinking, and to be honest, so far the worst has *never* happened. Some close friends think that philosophy is awful. Ungodly, even. I’m not trusting God to know what’s best for me, good or bad, when I think like that. And the fact is, no one has ever pulled out a gun and shot me between the eyes, nor am I dying a slow and painful death from a horrible disease (the 2 worst things I can think of), no one near to me has died, and I’ve never been hungry or lived in a cardboard box. Technically there’s no real reason for my pessimism, no past history that says “see, it’s happened before, it will happen again.”
Palo Dura Canyon
So, I’m wishing i could turn off my mind for a while, go somewhere lovely and huge…like the mountains or the ocean. Huge places, my all time favorite being the Palo Duro Canyon remind me that I am small, that my life with the inflated issues of my mind, are not significant in the grand scheme of things. Huge places remind of of God, the biggest thing there is, implacable and unchangeable, and yet with that, He loves *me*, tiny Peggy, a speck on the backside of the universe, and that is a great comfort. To be reminded that I am nothing much, yet loved completely.
When I spent too much time right here in my own home environment, I forget that, and start thinking that *this* is the world, this half acre of property and house, these 5 people that live here, with Bulloch County and church and grocery stores like rings around Saturn. I need to get away for a while, and remind myself that there’s more out there than this.
This is me, and about this big, too.
Filed under: Anger management, Dewicate feewings, Disease and infirmity, Doctors!, He'p meh He'p meh Oh Lawzy He'p meh, Sometimes she thinks too much, TMI, Uncategorized
image from Firetown.com
I’ve written before about being bipolar, and the FUN and EXCITEMENT! that comes with it. You read about Charlie Sheen and his tiger blood, and how it’s classic mania. Catherine Zeta-Jones quietly announces she’s going into a hospital for a bit, because she’s bipolar. Anthony Michael Hall, Macy Gray, and so on. Intelligent and creative people…The Arts attract bipolar people, because we’re creative and dramatic. Mania does that, there’s so much energy in it, and intelligence, and the arts, whether it’s music or acting or anything creative, are a perfect fit for someone who’s full of energy and creative expression.
But for every up there is a down. so called “neurotypical” people, those blessed folks who’s emotional sine wave has a fairly low amplitude, sometimes have trouble understanding why we “non-neurotypicals” can’t just control ourselves. Why can’t we just see how unreasonable we’re being? What the hell is Tiger’s Blood anyway? I had a conversation sort of like this with my son a couple of days ago. He said he didn’t believe in mental illness, that we should recognize when we’re being unreasonable and make ourselves stop.
Normal people, we all have mood swings....
I tried that once, I saw that I was being irrational, and tried to make myself stop feeling the stuff I was feeling, and wound up with a migraine headache, vomiting and hallucinations for my efforts. Visits to the doctor, powerful medications, therapy…all because I couldn’t just make myself stop. I remember the relief I felt when The Good Dr. H announced that I was textbook perfect Bipolar 2, and would be on medication for the rest of my life. IT WAS REAL! I wasn’t just a crazy cat woman in the making!
It's still a roller coaster, but....a bit more extreme
All that Charlie Sheen business..the only difference between him and me with a lot of that was the size of his ego and access to national media. He is famous, I am not. (thankfully). I have no doubt in a while, maybe a year or two, maybe less, he’s going to wake up one morning and wonder “what the HELL was I thinking?!” and feel deep embarassment for his behavior. Oh, he may hide it behind some bluff or bluster, but it will be there. Then depression will take over. That’s how it goes.
When you’re bipolar, not only do you have the mood swings, you have the *consequences* of the mood swings. You get to, in your depression, evaluate over and over again the things you did when you were manic. You get to have people in your life say to you “what were you THINKING?!” All of that builds on itself, along with the depression, until it becomes this thick, brittle cage around your psyche that takes months (or even years) to chip through, and during that time, there’s more mood swings, more mania, more behaviors, that are like mortar slapped on top of the old stuff, making the walls of your cage thicker.
I have tried, through this 20 years of diagnosis and treatment, to always accept the consequences of my actions. I try to never lay blame on a disorder, to never say “I couldn’t help it, I’m bipolar.” The truth is, no matter *why* I do or say something, the consequences are real. And the disorder is part of me. It’s not this seperate entity, some sort of demonic possession “the Devil made me do it” excuse. It is as much a part of me as my love of cooking or delight in my marriage.
Sometimes I wish it were something Else, that I could point to and say “that wasn’t ME!”, but that would become so convenient, wouldn’t it. I could run someone down in the parking lot at Walmart, and when I was arrested, I could say “I didn’t do it, it was me disorder that made me!” But that person would be just as dead. Their family would be just as upset. They wouldn’t say “Oh she couldn’t help it, bless her heart, she’s mentally ill.” and then not press charges.
I’m mood swingy right now. Can you tell? One of the symptoms is that I start thinking too much. In an effort to keep from laying blame on some third person disorder (The Devil made me do it!) I start internalizing everything, and accepting blame for all of it, from the weeds in my garden (because I water too much) to the stress on the rest of my family (they wouldn’t be stressed if I were a Better Person), to…I don’t know…allof it. I am pretty sure if I tried hard enough I could find blame for the Saudi women not being able to drive, or the war between Croatians and Serbians. It’s easier to accept blame than it is to fight with excuses. Which totally winds up sounding like a big fat pity party.
Filed under: Uncategorized
We have a 1967 Vintage Ethan Allen sofa. Over the years we have looked at other sofas, pondered getting one that was Newer and more stylish, pondered buying this one and then decided that Terry was perfectly capable of making that one, and we could use the very nice leather cushions off the old one and save a solid $6000 by doing that. So we are currently (and slowly) in the process of aquiring the quarter-sawn oak lumber necessary to make the lovely Mission style sofa we want. In the mean time, we have this sofa, which is spectacularly comfortable and large enough for 3 of us *and* dogs to sit on to watch a movie.
We never got another sofa because we always had boychildren, who are rough on furniture, and we didn’t want to invest in a nice piece of something to have it fall apart from ill treatment and daily floppage. Also? That sofa is big enough for someone to sleep on in the event of company needing #4′s bed, or a spousal spat, or insomnia requiring a boring movie.
And so, due to tension of the work-type, I indulged in one of my All Time Favorite Things: Painting the furniture. It’s easier than painting the walls, cheaper too, and while you can’t really get away with painting the walls some violent color, the furniture accepts it happily. This sofa has been a dark brown it’s entire life. Lately, (the past 8 years or so) due to the number of teens males in the house, it was looking a bit scuffed. The temporary addition of a large dog who chewed on everything added to the scuffulous appearance, but we were thankful that we had not invested the nearly $7000 that couch linked to upstairs would have cost, because I would have a yellow-dog hide rug if she’d chewed *that* up.
So, in the interest of personal sanity and mood-elevation without alcohol or drugs, I painted our couch a non-Martha Stewart Approved color. The picture doesn’t do it real justice, its actually kind of a bricky-tomato-y red, and the cushions are chestnut brown. I initially painted it blue. The lid on the can said it was a denimish stone blue, but once it was on the couch it was more of a royal blue, and entirely too bright to look right with the reddish brown cushions. So upon the advice of people I’d never met (love the internet!) I bought the red paint and gave it another coat. And I like it.
well, I like it.
Filed under: Uncategorized
No trip to Kentucky after all. Work has been, shall we say, VERY IN-TER-ESS-TINK for Terry.
Yes, I am disappointed, but I’ll get over it. Instead of a vacation, I’m going to paint my sofa red.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I have a friend, Beth, who has a beautiful house. A GORGEOUS house. I saw it the first time several days ago when she called one afternoon and invited Terry and me over for a spontaneous BBQ that evening with some friends. It was great fun! I marveled at her ability to decide at 2pm to have people over at 6pm THE SAME DAY. I have to decide 2 weeks in advance to have people over, then spend that 2 weeks frantically making the house look nice enough that I am not nervous about having people over.
Well, that evening with her and friends made me think. I don’t like being nervous about the condition of my house, and what other people would think about it. Mind you, I am not wishing I had *her* house, beautiful as it is. And it is stunning, right out of Southern Living Magazine. We don’t have that kind of money, but it *is* possible to take what we have and make it welcoming. I think of my friend R’s house. Not Southern Living either, but always tidy,comfortable and welcoming.
So it got me on a roll. Now, the past couple of weeks have seen even my less-that-ideal housecleaning schedule slide. Our air conditioner died, and it wasn’t until yesterday that it was fixed replaced. Terry had worked on it as muchas he could- replacing all the electrical stuff, but then he determined that it was compressor. that was replaced and now whe have all new everything. However, 2 weeks with no A/C and it’s Deepest South Georgia with our 100 degree heat and 80% humidity translated as “Peggy doesn’t really feel like cleaning much.”
And add to that my irritation with the rest of the household at their INCONSIDERATE behavior of leaving things laying around instead of taking 5 seconds to put them back where they belong on top of (what my doctor believes) perimenopause sliding into the real thing so I’m moody as a cat with a snakebit tail, then seeing Beth’s beautiful house and knowing full well mine could be just as welcoming (tho not as posh)but ISN’T…
Well,I had a violent and dramatic meltdown that lasted an entire day. Several phone calls from Terry,who was having a rough day at work and needed to talk resulted in him listening to me bawl on about how underappreciated I was and no one ever considered that I had to live here in this house and everyone just expected me to clean up after them and how come I am so disrespected…ad nauseum. Poor David was here and hear the whole thing, and commenced to doing what he could,fixing this and putting that away and doing anything he could if only he could MAKE IT STOP.
The next day I was able to channel that meltdown energy into something productive, so I have been cleaning the house, one room at a time. Packing things up that aren’t needed. Hanging things,covering things, cleaning things,making it all nice. So far the whole downstairs is done, from the gameroom (the biggest job, it took 4 solid hours) to the office, and even CJ’s bedroom (which I charged him $30 to clean). You know what’s nice? Cleaning your 20 yr old’s bedroom from top to bottom and not finding anything disturbing. Naturally, what I consider ‘not disturbing’ might be very disturbing to someone else. I have a very high ‘disturbing’ threshold. Let’s just say there were no horrifying surprises.
Anyway, that’s half the house. We have a utility room, where all that stuff is stored. Household tools, the lightbulbs, dogfood, all that. I want to completely empty it, then reload it. That is the only thing left in the downstairs. The upstairs is bedrooms and my studio. (a grand name for a 10×10 room with one small window, but it is mine). David has offered me $20 to clean his room. It’s not nearly as bad as CJ’s was, so that’s fair. #4 is gone for the summer, so I’ll dohis room with the comfort of knowing it will stay that way for a while. Our bedroom is not bad, it never is, but the bathroomstillneeds some cosmetic work. The mirrors need hanging over the vanity, the door returned to the cabinet, and Terry is going to build a small cabinet to go over the toilet, to store TP and Personal Lady Stuff.
And then the patio…it’s brick. Pine tree roots are heaving the bricks up in places and I am not sure what to do there. Do we take up those bricks, dig down and cut to roots, then replace them? There’s several cosmetic issues on the patio. To it’s credit, however, the wisteria is doing a lovely job on the brick wall along the back of the patio, and I am pleased with it. Beth has one of those enormous industrial fans she set up on her backporch, blowing out on their patio, and that was kind of perfect- it wasn’t too noisy, but generated enough wind that the bugs didn’t bother us and it was comfortable. Terry and I are pondering the aquisition of one of those. It would enable us to use our patio more in the Summer, which would be lovely.
Anyway, the upshot of it all is that my friend has spurred me into action regarding the house. No, I am not interested in a million $ house like hers. It wouldn’t suit us at all. I can,howver, clean up what I have and make it welcoming for anyone who wants to come over. I would like to have people over without feeling the need to spend 2 weeks cleaning up first.
I picked up #4 from 4-H camp about an hour ago. The first thing he did was to lean into my shoulder and mumble “finally. Intelligent conversation. Mom, all they did in my cabin was tell yo’mama jokes.” He added later that there was a girl in his rotation that was as annoyed with her cabin mates as he was with his, and they wound up spending time together, due to conversational and philosophical similarities.
After feeding him with Doritos and Orange Fanta (c’mon, he ate Good Food for a week, and will be spending the next month with his grandparents who don’t believe in Doritoes and orange Fanta. Don’t judge me.) He is sunburned and hoarse, and still has his glasses *whew*. I was honestly concerned that he’d lose them in the lake, and the warranty only covers them if you have the broken pieces.
So, this being 4-H camp, it’s all about Lake Ecology and Astronomy and Leeches and stuff. He was going to Learn Important Things. I asked him “what did you learn?” expecting something about algae and horsefly larvae and moss. What I got was “I know how to pop someone with a wet towel hard enough to leave a welt” and what happens to a leech when you put salt on it. Apparently it’s not good for the leech, but being mindless bloodsuckers it’s ok.
Oh! And he was in the same tribe I was in 35 years ago! AND, they sang the same song! I warned him that, in 35 years, that song would pop inot his head at inopportune moments, and he should resist the urge to sing “stop look and listen we are the mighty Muskogee” during his wedding or an important presentation to the president of the company.
His experience as the youngest of 4 boys came in handy. Apparently some kid twice his size tried to bully him, but he is quite adept at handling people twice his size, and simply faceplanted the kid everytime he tried to harass him. “I never hit him, Mom, just whenever he would try to get physical with me I’d do that thing CJ taught me and twist around until I was on top, then mash his head into the ground. He only tried it twice then he left me alone.”
I missed him, and I am glad he’s home. He’s not a little boy any more, and it’s hard to wrap my mind around that sometimes.
