Stress

GRRRR . . .

 I did make it to the gym, and Oh My Gods!!! It did as I needed; I had a great day full of energy. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it back again this week – grr spent lots of time dealing with bureaucrats trying to get things done for the big move.

 I am trying to complete the ‘to do’ list for the Army, clean out and organize the closets and shelves, get to the gym 3x or more a week, get myself career ready, keep kids inline, have a hobby (reading, and embroidery), and do regular wife work and for me this ends in A LOT of stress. I am left wondering if regular people get freaked out trying to ‘do’ life or I am special – and not in a good or acceptable way. AND let the whining begin – am I disorganized, or under motivated? Some days I crank through work and feel great and other days I am trapped in a cycle of crazy. Let’s be clear here, the crazy can be of my own creation, one of those days where I go into one room to put an item away and get distracted by a pile of items to put away, or end up involved in another project. This leads to many projects started but few finished – I think of it as the shiny effect, you know- “oh, look something shiny . . .”. Other days the crazy is from outside sources, endless time on hold or some additional project that wasn’t on my to do list.

That is my usual method of staying on track – the beloved to do list. On a bad day I will back fill the list with items like shower, eat lunch, and check email just so I have items to cross off. Of course I also end up transferring the jobs I don’t like – filing and bill paying might be on the list for a week. Spouse was making fun of me the other day when I was getting stressed and I said, “I need to empty my brain, and make a to do list, to relieve some stress.” Well he thought that was hilarious! I got to hear about it all day – but it really does keep me focused and on track, and prevents jobs from falling through the cracks. I guess that is my answer for stress control – make a list, and for happiness put go to gym at the top.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Depression is so sneaky

Depression is so sneaky

I have had a relationship with depression for most of my life, it took me to the age of 35 to realize it was real, and not my fault. I spent the early years thinking it was something I could power through – and to some extent I still feel this way. I spent some years on medications, like so many people these days, for just over 2 years I have been off medications.  It is hard to have a flaw you can’t control you can only mitigate its effect on your life, but I have found ways to work through the dark days.

So let’s look at what depression looks like for me this week; my mother died suddenly 6 months ago and I worry a lot about my dad, his elderly dog passed away a few days ago, and we are getting sent overseas to Korea with the military for 2 years - -lots of big things to deal with not to mention the little things of everyday life with teens.  I find myself battling that tired achy feeling, I have learned over the years this isn’t a bug or germ manifesting in me there is no reason to go to bed and wait to get better. In the past that was what I did, but that can take months and no real sickness arrives just more lethargy. Inactivity feeds on itself and you can end up in bed for a long time, that is how depression sneaks back into your life. What would help is going to the gym, get feel good hormones flowing and get sweaty – but I am not there yet. For the last 2 days I have pushed on through the fog and exhausted feelings to get stuff done and so far I still have my head above water, my face is sometimes covered in tears but I am pressing on.

I have gone out to my volunteer job this week, and took the kids to an art exhibit. Today laundry is getting done and dinner is in the works. The final push really is that trip to the gym, it makes all the difference for my mood – even when I cry while I work out, hey it happens!! When I was young it seemed I could just cry it all out then move on, but I have found that in this decade tears lead to more tears. Let’s hope I get to the gym, and turn the corner. 

Hemorrhaging Money

How many things can break???

You need a time line to appreciate how much these last 2 months sucked for me and the ride is still going. At the end of February, so a mere 8 weeks ago all the items in my house with a plug started to revolt. The Vacuum was dying – so for my birthday I figured I was getting a new one (my birthday is the end of February) NOT my choice but such is adulthood we don’t always get what we want. Before we could get the Dyson I wanted because of course I need a $400+ vacuum, one of the computers broke, and the light bulb for the large TV went out. The bulb and computer parts both cost over $200. AND I had a rafting trip, on the Rio Grande planned for the first week of March, our spring break. All the breakage so far was stuff we didn’t need to replace immediately so spouse and I decided to wait until after the rafting trip to spend the money, leaving a cash buffer for our traveling. 

Trying to keep up with the fur from our lab and cat became a small challenge, and the large TV on the floor to the side of the entertainment center which now had a TV 1/3 the size, added interesting ambience to the décor in our house.  We live in Army quarters, which means it looks like really nice section 8 housing – in NC we bought a house which I loved and we couldn’t sell when we moved so it is rented, for less than the mortgage of course because it is how my life works! Anywhoo, the quarters are small but work fine and it has encouraged us to thin out our stuff – it also means I kinda have a landlord. This came in handy when on the Thursday night of our Military Formal our refrigerator, died the one they had come out to repair 2x already. We called, no one called back that night so 7 am after our formal we called again – when the guy came I was insisting on a new unit since we were leaving town on Sunday. They came through but I had to throw out all the food from the fridge and freezer and file the claim with the property manager – while I am packing a family for a rafting/camping trip and scheduling pet sitters and getting grandpa from the airport to join us.

Trip was great, I will tell more about it later.

After 3 days unplugged I return to a message on my phone that the heat pump on the rented house in NC broke. UGH, I know this will cost thousands!! I told them to get a quote and called a few other places for additional quotes – the phone tag is still going on 8 weeks later but it looks like this will cost $4000 hmmm guess I am sweeping the floor and the little tv is here to stay.

Two weeks later the washer, which is 3 yrs old starts making noise – I call the guy who fixed our freezer which the movers broke in August. He came out it was $100 for parts and labor. Then spouse’s smart phone, a Samsung only 2 yrs old starts acting up even with tech support they can’t get it fixed so off to the ATT store. It was cheaper to buy the phone and get the lower rate plan than to get the “free” phone. Ok, at this point I am hemorrhaging money the savings is gone and we are getting tight – PLUS since we know we move in July so I can’t really go get a job.

Five days after we get the phone, we get orders for Korea. I was shell shocked for about 24 hours trying to process what this means and what our options are . . .we decide to all stay together so the kids, pets and I are going to Korea we have about 100 days to complete all the things needed to satisfy the Army, the US government, and the Korean government to allow us to follow our soldier to Korea.  By The WAY the phones won’t work there, and none of the large appliances will go. I spend a few hours each day trying to get the correct people on the phone for appointments and paper work. Pets get shots and blood work on Friday – they call me that afternoon, one of the 4 shots they gave the poor cat was out of date so in 3 weeks he needs to go in for that again. NO ONE answers the phone at the passport office to tell me what the rules are and what we need – I have verified that to travel outside of Korea we have to buy our own passports the Army will only give us paperwork to get in country – and seriously travel is why you go overseas. The passports are $135 each we need 4.

That brings me to this weekend and Saturday with laundry sorted and piled in the laundry room, the dryer stopped heating. It is good to live in the desert even jeans only took 5 hours to dry outside. So I called Jorge to come out to look at the dryer – he was amazed!! I gotta say I am not sure what Karma I am reaping here but I am hoping it will run out soon!!!  More on Rafting the Rio Grande next time . . .