Trying to get better

I'd gotten pretty lazy about posting, I suspect, mostly because I was too tired to do anything by the time I got home from work. Now that I'm back out on the jobhunt again, perhaps I will get better about keeping up with my thoughts and ideas for posts. I've decided to break my Fibro posts off to a separate blog, more to consolidate them and keep them a little more organized for me, than anything else.
A lot has been going on, and this may wind up being a much more rambling post than originally planned, but hey, I've got a good bit to put into words, and it's my blog, so I can do that…
Scarborough:
For the past 8 years or so (admittedly only the past 3 of them full runs), Scarby has been a place of magic and joy for me. It's been an escape. Home. Family. Comfort. Love. Acceptance. Magic and Music. I knew going in that this year would be different, several acts that I enjoy are missing, either entirely or present only in limited runs. There has been some drama that affected me indirectly. My funds have been limited. Opening weekend there was an almost eerie silence in Pecan Grove. My schedule is all messed up. Oh, that's right, I don't have a schedule this year, because my favorite performing friends aren't on shire. I have never been at Scarby without full time bagpipe shows. Sure there's a piper in parade every day, but since I am not about to put myself into the Death March, I get about 5 minutes of bagpipes as the Scottish Regiment goes by. Even if I was willing to do the Death March, walking a mile over the course of almost ½ hour, hearing the same bit of tune on endless loop would likely put me off the pipes for a bit! I've adjusted over the past 4 weekends to the lack of pipes, and that's not nearly as annoying as it was the first weekend, but overall, the energy of the festival is just off somehow. I can't put my finger on it, but it's there. Vendors have moved, or been removed. Some of the new additions have been umm, questionable. I've elected to forego even walking into one of my favorite shoppes as a result of behavior exhibited by one of the owners at another festival. The last 2 seasons, I've not missed a single day. This year, I'm only going to make 1 full weekend of the remaining 4, the rest I will miss one of the days, in an effort to conserve $, gas, and make sure I can make my #1 boy's HS graduation over Memorial Day weekend. Surprisingly, it's not as heart wrenching as I thought it would be to begin with… perhaps on some level, without the usual magic, it just doesn't seem as if I'm giving up as much as I would have, say last season…
Work:
When I started the job in February, I was excited about the possibilities and opportunities I believed were opening to me. The early mornings and long days were hard to adjust to, getting up at 5 a.m. so I could leave by 6 and be at work by 7, and not getting home until 6:30, IF I didn't have any stops to make, but worth it in the end since I had 3 day weekends every week. I adjusted, and I thought things were going along just fine. A couple of weeks ago, I was assigned to go out into the field with an inspector, to give me a better understanding of that side of the work the company does. Monday and Tuesday were fine… not terribly warm, poles we had to check were not difficult to access. Wednesday, we had to go to a site that had 3 poles in a river bottom sort of area. I made it down to and up from the first one, huffing and puffing. The grade to get to the 2^nd & 3^rd was just more than I have the balance or stamina for, so I didn't even try. The inspector told me not to worry about it, it's not like I was going to be out in the field anyway. Monday after that (April 26^th), I was called into my manager's office and terminated. I was under a 90-day probationary period, which had not yet passed, so I don't know that I will get approved for unemployment, but we'll see. In the meantime, I am going back to Ebaying, and hunting for a job, and trying to get blogging better. I am also going to look at perhaps making pins or something that I could sell online…
Other stuff:
Last weekend was hard, physically and emotionally. I suspect it was a combination of the stress of the wedding, losing my job, and general blah-ness that made it hard on me. Sometimes I HATEHATEHATE being the strong one. It's been a long time since I was part of a couple. I truly thought I'd gotten past the heartbreak of last fall, when I decided that I would stop beating my head up against a wall that was not ever going to come down. I was wrong. It just annoys the hell out of me that everyone wants to hang with and make sure that the ones who have someone else taking care of them are taken care of… Sometimes I just want to smack them and say "HEY, WHAT ABOUT ME?" I don't know what it is about my personality that makes me try to hide my frustration about the situation, but I recognize that I do need to work on being more honest about what's really going on in my head or heart when someone asks me what's wrong, instead of just saying "meh, I'm tired"

Giving Thanks

Another holiday season has officially arrived. Today's attire included this year's first wearing of the festive holiday attire. I left the headwear at home, but the earrings came out, as did the festive holiday socks. I went over for dinner with some fellow MacGiggles and had some fried turkey and tasty sides, plus chocolate cherry cake, a wee slice of pumpkin cake, and a bit of chocolate chip pie. Of course there was a good bit of giggling and some interesting stories told.
By the time I got home, my cats were unhappy, the dog & pig were more than ready to come back into the house, and the upstairs cats were STARVING! I got everybody fed and settled in for the night, and I am POOPED! (Ok, I THOUGHT they were settled, but it sounds as if Bob, Mollie & Blondie are having a conga line or something upstairs!

On my racing trip back to the old house in the hopes that my camera was still over there, I also located one of the 3 iPod cords that I'd torn up my space looking for last night, so I was also able to re-sync the Christmas playlist back onto it, because, well, it's time to listen to and sing Christmas songs! While I am of the firm opinion that Christmas carols should not be played publicly until Thanksgiving, starting on Thanksgiving Day, I'm blasting them as much as possible, and singing along, usually out of key, loving them! Christmas is generally my favorite time of year, I suspect partially because of the amount of joy that seems to be in the air.

Tomorrow's a busy day with finding a storage building, finishing the unpacking of what is already here, and posting the Christmas stash onto Ebay in hopes of clearing more of the stuff that I've been carrying around out. I absolutely want to have my room put together before I head to Galveston for Dickens next week! Since that's the case, I'm thinkin' it's time for me to head for bed, with Too Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar as my bedtime viewing/listening!

Saturday musings

T-minus 4 days to the sale. UGH, yeah, tomorrow is going to be a mad combination of loading stuff up to get it out of one room in the house, and then trying to get some of the stuff that’s piled up in the dining room and bedroom into that room for the sale. Said stuff was supposed to be picked up last weekend, but the helper with the truck backed out at the last minute. Then it was supposed to happen today, but other circumstances prevented that. Frankly, I am quite tired of my stress levels being increased by other people’s failure to follow through on what they said they would do! In the end, I am probably going to have to spend 2-3 hours tomorrow, and another 5 or 6 on Monday just arranging and getting stuff put out. I’m betting we’ll need to go over on Wednesday sometime to get the few things out of the shed that need to come out before Thursday morning. I am so ready for it to be Saturday, let’s say around 6:30 pm, so I’ll be on my way home, hopefully with minimal stuff that will have to go into the next garage sale, or on Ebay.

When E&T got home this evening, they had in tow a TINYPUPPY. Yeah, she’s 8-10 weeks old, and cute as all get out. Probably a terrier mix. If anybody needs a tiny puppy, who will likely stay pretty small, email me! She’s really sweet. Well, unless you ask Mei Ling, the sharpei/lab mix who is the alpha dog and has bigger feet than tiny puppy actually is. TP does NOT like Mei Ling one bit! We need a tinypuppy like we need a hole in the head. Our menagerie is plenty thankssomuch.

 

 

 

 

And if you've got a spare moment, add my friend Mary E. to your prayer and positive energies list.  She's a week post-surgery for a radical mastectomy on her right side. The good news is that only a couple of the lymph nodes are involved, and the tumor is only Stage 2, so with proper treatment and care, it sounds very treatable, possibly curable.  This isn't her first go-round with the big C, which, I'm sure makes it even scarier, not just for her, but also for her children.  The next few weekends her husband is out of town at TRF working their shoppe http://www.estelril.com/. Hopefully she'll be able to join him perhaps for closing weekend, at least, so they'll be able to celebrate Thanksgiving together.

 

Oh, and another note, on Wednesday my sister is leaving for San Diego to walk in the Komen 3 Day event with some of her friends.  Her page info is here http://www.the3day.org/site/TR/Walk/SanDiegoEvent2009?px=2715758&pg=personal&fr_id=1298

 

And now I think it’s off to bed with me, another long day tomorrow.

Polonaise & other auctions

A couple of weeks ago I put up my first Ebay auctions.  I put up 2 items, and both sold, however one bidder never paid, and 3 days after the auction closed their account, so I've gotten a credit on the final value fee, and it was a free listing to begin with, so I'm not out any money for their idiocy, but it IS kind of annoying.  My other item went in the mail today, all safely wrapped against breakage.
A couple of days ago I posted a bunch more stuff http://tinyurl.com/my1stebays including 11 of the Polonaise 12 Days of Christmas series of glass ornaments.  My mother started the series years ago, a set for her (ultimately me, since I am her only heir), and a set for my sister.  I am not in love with them, and frankly, I think the last time I was even home for Christmas (before last year, when surgery kept me home) was maybe 2000? For the last oh, 6 or 7 years, I have been gone for Thanksgiving, then I'm home for a couple of weekends, then I head back out of town for Christmas, using my vacation days around the holidays, to maximize days off, while minimizing the # of vacation days I have to actually use, and I've been gone for 10-14 days, returning home either new year's eve, or right after New Year's.  The last 2 years, I've also been out of town the weekend after Thanksgiving. There just doesn't seem to be a point to putting up all the decorations when I'm not going to be home to enjoy them. A couple of years ago, my sister had an incident at a party at her house that cost 3 or 4 of her ornaments in the series, and one of those she was never able to locate a replacement for, so I just gave her mine, since I was planning to sell them anyway.
I've also got a small Wedgewood box, dematisse cup & saucer made in Occupied Japan, a Troy Aikman Bobble head doll, a carnival glass bowl, and an English pewter coffee service. Hopefully they will all go well, and I'll have a little more $ in my account soon.  I am going to have to work on my stories for the auctions that I'm going to post in the coming days and weeks, to drum up more interest, etc.

I think I've had all I can stand for the day, so it's about time to hit the bed before my brain goes all 'splodey cuz my head has hurt all day long!

Busybusybusy

This has been a busy week, thus far, yet somehow I just don't feel like I've accomplished much to speak of, and that's annoying and frustrating. I've fallen into a vicious cycle of not sleeping properly at night, which leaves me very sleepy during the day, and then I fall asleep in the afternoon, which then keeps me from sleeping well that night and I'm stuck in that mess. Part of the problem, I'm sure, is that I don't do enough up and moving about throughout the day, and I'm working on that. I've also taken a couple of Candida overload kinds of tests which indicate that I am probably suffering from a proliferation of candida in my system, and likely have been for a VERY long time. The following is a list of issues associated with it:

• A bloated abdomen and/or abdominal pain
• **A slow and foggy mind
• A white coating on your tongue or inside your mouth
• Anal itching
• Chronic sinus problems
• **Constant fatigue
• **Feeling old and worn out
• Food cravings (especially for sugar) and **food sensitivities
• Hair loss
• **Headaches
• Heartburn, indigestion, and/or gas
• Herpes
• Intimate yeast infections and/or itchy skin rashes
• Mood swings, **memory or concentration difficulties
• Premenstrual symptoms
• Red, itching eyes
• **Sensitivity to molds, dampness, environmental pollution, cigarettes, and certain smells
• Skin fungus infections – recurrent ringworm, athlete's foot, tinea cruris (jock itch), or nail problems
• **Sore muscles and joints
• Urinary tract infections
• **Waking up tired
• Weight loss or gain
• Worried and depressed about always feeling lousy

Now, the **-ed items I've always attributed to my fibromyalgia, but I wonder now whether the fibro may be a symptom of the candida overload? I'm working on adding more raw foods into my diet, because I know I feel better when I have more of them, and I'm working on some research to see how to adapt my diet without totally depriving myself, which is always my downfall when I try to change my habits… I feel deprived, so I cheat, and then I give up. Giving up the Dr Pepper will be one of the hardest things for me. Candida feeds on sugar, so I have to get off the sodas, because I HATE diet sodas (unless they are properly spiked with Captain Morgan), and I am not sure that something in the formulation of them doesn't trigger (at least in me) a physiological (or psychosomatic) hunger or feeling of dissatisfaction and need to eat more to be sated. There are all sorts of Candida Cleanses out there, but virtually all of them involve becoming nearly vegan, and I loves me some MEAT! I have also read several articles that state that 70% of the diet should be raw food. I'm not sure I can convince myself to eat that much raw stuff…. I love salad, but eventually I get tired of chewing it! I'm going to aim for 50% by this time next week, and be more careful with what the other 50% is.

Other news in my world, the unemployment world is still sucky, and today it got a little worse, because I got notice that I owe the State of Texas all of the unemployment I've already collected, because they've reversed the decision to pay me, based on the phone hearing that was held a couple of weeks ago. I am NOT happy about this, because I feel that the company did not provide me with notice that there was an ongoing problem, and they misrepresented themselves in the hearing. I've appealed the decision to the Commission, but that's a written appeal, and they will review the previous hearing. I've not heard back yet whether or not they are going to listen to it or not. When you add up the wages I've lost and the money the state wants back, I am down 32% of my annual salary in just 10 weeks! My frustration mounts every day that passes and I don't hear back from the hundred (literally) or so contacts that I've made thus far. I did finally get a response from the interview I had in June, and another candidate was selected. I am not surprised, as the interviewer indicated to me that she was looking for someone with more contract analysis experience, whereas what I have is essentially review. I have also found that one that I applied for I am not being considered, and frankly, that doesn't come as a huge surprise, as it is a company with whom my former employer has done significant business, and I suspect that they picked up the phone and called someone over there who dislikes me. The lesson from that little bit is: focus on contractors that don't have long history with the former employer. There are a couple of others that show they are still in review, so maybe something will pan out there soon. I do have an appointment, FINALLY with a staffing agency over in Ft. Worth that did send me on a couple of interviews before I got the last job, but they were all 40+miles from where I lived in Arlington. Those same areas are closer to 15-20 from where I live now, so perhaps it will be a productive agency for me.

This weekend will begin the big EBAY selloff of stuff. I've got garb that I bought on impulse and shouldn't have because I won't wear it, I've got miscellaneous antique and old stuff, Christmas ornaments, a pretty good variety of stuff. I won't get rich, but hopefully I'll keep a roof over my head until I have something more steadily coming in.

Off to bed, another long day tomorrow starting with a trip to see a friend in the hospital.