I am that 1%

I thought I'd start with this...

Just thought I'd let that be known.
Anyway, now to move on to something more serious. I know, I know...

I try really hard to keep my posts fairly entertaining... sometimes.
I try to keep them politically dry... sometimes.
I try not to write if I can't make it "happy," and "light..." sometimes.
If I know I can't possibly do any of these things, then I usually won't post, or I'll borrow someone else's posts for what I like to call "guided writing..." sometimes.

This time is different, and I apologize for that. Wait, no... you know what?!?! I don't apologize because I don't want to. If people don't like it, then they can bite me! Hmphhh...
No, not really...  I apologize for that.

So, I decided yesterday, that my turtle and I have a lot in common. Yes, that's right... Florence and I seem to be on the same path lately.

Saturday night, the wife and I had a party for the girls on her tennis team, and of course the coach. Before the party, the wife was in the utility room, where poor Florence lives. It's actually not a bad spot for her since it has a fluorescent light, and that's supposed to be good for reptiles. Florence is a reptile... in case you didn't know. That's why I had her in my kindergarten classroom. We were learning about such things, and it was nice to have a living example that the kids could hold, and take care of. Anyway, the wife said Florence wasn't feeling well... how would you know a turtle isn't feeling well, you might ask. When you can reach in, and pet her little turtle head, and she doesn't duck into her shell, you know you've got an issue. The wife put lettuce in her tank, gave her fresh water, and we made sure to leave the fluorescent light on, because more often than not, we turn it off, and poor Florence is left in the dark.

Here's the deal with Florence... she's depressed. She didn't care whether we touched her head or not. Nothing is exciting. She lives in her tank, looking at the same four walls, listening to the dogs bark, very little human contact, and nothing to do, leaving nothing to think about, and nothing to talk about when she does have human contact, watching life pass her by, with nothing to show for it, and nothing to be excited about. Oh wait... that's me... those last few parts.

Yesterday, I took Florence out for a turtle walk. It was warm with sunshine, as I placed her in the middle of the back yard, and then sat on the steps and waited. Soon, she poked her head out, looked around and started her trek through the grass... amazingly fast for a turtle. They can run, by the way. She made it to the rock wall, then I moved her and let her do it again. She was happy, and free, and challenged. I felt guilty when it came time for her to go back in her tank.

My promise to Florence is that I will try to get her out more... giver her a challenge... give her some excitement... be there for her. Yes Florence, for you my little turtle, the easiest pet I have, I will be there for you. Just as I need to be there for myself. Get myself out, challenge myself, take care of myself...it's just so much easier to focus on Florence right now.

Mental Illness and Sunsets

I went back and forth on whether or not I should write a post tonight. I mean, I'm so busy doing other things. Okay, not really. In reality, it's not even 9:00 and I'm sitting here in bed... NOT tired at all (the girl is at a leadership retreat, and the boy is already in bed, exhausted from his). As a matter of fact, I haven't been tired all day. I've been crazy... doing things around this house, that really didn't need doing. I cleaned out my closet... this actually really needed to be done though. I had clothes in there I hadn't worn for years. My thinking was I may eventually need them, or possibly fit into them. For sure a hoarder's mentality. Seriously, I do still have two pair of size 5 jeans... absolutely adorable, expensive jeans, but who am I fooling. I'd look skeletal if I were to try to fit into those again.

I look back now, at pictures from about 2004, and I'm shocked. I was way too thin, between sizes 1-3, yet I remember thinking then, that I was "fat." Now I'm between a size 8 and 10 and I struggle like crazy. It's not really about "fat" so much as it is that my body is changing SO much as I age. The bad thing about my own negative self-evalutation is that people may think I look at anyone my size, or bigger, and think they're big. I don't. Not at all... I don't see in others, the negative things I see in myself.

Enough about that... I want to talk about something else.
I want to talk about mental illness. Someone posted a question yesterday, "For those who are mentally ill, what will happen if you decide to stop taking your medicine?" I still remember that question, mainly because of how it was phrased. I guess I have a very skewed idea of what mental illness looks like.

In my little ADD/ADHD/OCD head, mental illness is my mother. A paranoid schizophrenic who thinks everyone is after her, talking about her, plotting against her. Her eyes have that "look." Her movements aren't smooth. She can't go anywhere, or do anything in public without causing some sort of scene, and she can't possibly hold a job. She's been this way since I was a kid, and I have no sympathy, empathy, or gratitude. Had she actually raised me, or allowed one single household/person to raise me, I would be able to look back on my childhood, and know she did her best, but I just can't do that. This topic, by the way, is going to be a whole blog on it's own, one day... BUT, for now, she is my definition of true mental illness.

I don't look at depression, bi-polar, or anxiety disorder as mental illnesses. SO many people suffer from one or more of the above named, that I'm beginning to think that you have a disorder if you don't suffer from any of these things.

I question whether or not I suffer from depression. I mean, I'm the kind of person who falls into a major funk, then I start to have little panic attacks over nothing, and I know it's nothing, but knowing doesn't help. This is why I avoid sad, overly-stressful forms of entertainment. Right now, everyone is SO excited about The Hunger Games. I just don't think I can handle that right now, and that makes me feel  stupid!! BUT, but, you can pop in a good old fashioned action adventure movie like Lethal Weapon, or I can read books by Sue Grafton or Janet Evanovich, and be just fine. I like silliness... it helps me.

In my moments of depressed panic, I am non-stop cleaning, organizing, go, go, go. My way of feeling in control is to clean. These past few weeks, the house has never looked better. I at least want Xanax to help when I feel like this, but the wife doesn't want me on anything. I'm meeting a friend for lunch next week, and she's going to give me some books and cd's for the car to help me relax through a panic attack, since the car is usually where they hit. Probably because I'm sitting still for a period of time, without at least three distractions (computer, phone, television). My friend said her husband finally relented on the meds because she isn't nearly as grumpy when she has them. Maybe, after my all-day house cleaning spree, and fitful mood, the wife will relent? Probably not... the house has never looked better, and there hasn't been a thing in the laundry hamper in days. Yep... it's all real here folks. Real crazy...

On that note, I'm leaving you with some pictures of tonight's sky...

Blogging from bed...

It's true... I'm sitting in bed, with phone, iPad, my new magazine, heater, watching Roseanne, and throwing toys for crazy Cam. I should feel incredibly guilty for being so lazy. Well, okay, I do feel guilty, but I'm going to work past it. I don't think the self-imporvement book I'm reading, is helping much. Seriously, read yesterday's post labeled "Yesterday," ha! Hey, I was productive before I did that post... got a ton of stuff done, before noon!!

This is the Roseanne episode in which Nancy tells Jackie and Roseanne that she's dating a woman. It's pretty funny... Jackie is afraid Nancy will start checking her out, and she and Roseanne are discussing how it works with two women, you know, "Who gets to be the selfish man... I mean, do they take turns or what?" I love the stereo-types they're throwing out too... cracks me up, because you know this is how a LOT of people think.

SO, if you did read my last post, you'll know why this blurry picture was taken...

YES, I know. I caved in. I couldn't help it. I bought the chocolate Valentine cakes. I convinced myself it would be fine. Only 6 grams of fat (3 saturated) if I eat one a night, rather than the two pack, and the 39 (oooh, I forgot you get to divide that number too!!) grams of carbs are just about equal to the fruit I eat. ::ahem:: Don't even try to tell me it's not the same. I knowwwwww.... ::sigh:: I'll also hide them from the wife, so she won't be tempted. Yes, she reads my posts, but by the time she gets around to this one, the cakes will be long gone.

Then, as I made my way to the register, I saw this and bought it...

I wonder if the mind/food formula includes those snack cakes. Probably not, but what is one to do. You're supposed to eat what you crave because your body needs it... ha! It's kind of silly really, this
self-image of mine. I mean, I can look in the mirror and see thin, but I don't FEEL it.

Maybe I'm depressed. Maybe that's why I feel like I need Xanax... maybe that's why I've been looking forward to my wine as soon as I wake up. Although, I look forward to my coffee as I'm going to bed, so maybe that's just how I roll. Maybe the wife will be really p*ssed if she reads this before I tell her, but seriously... here's the deal:

I feel like I have no purpose. My volunteer stuff doesn't start until April. That's a long wait! My brain may no longer work!!!

When we were working on getting the business up and running (my business idea), I had purpose. I set up a blog, updated the FB page daily, did tons of research, worked on presentations, gave presentations, searched every day for locations (which was eventually our undoing). I was excited... I had a passion for something that would have been a tremendous resource to others. Now I'm totally scattered. My ADD is bad, my OCD is worse...

I think we all have a little bit of OCD in us, right? Like, if you're upset over a break-up, or mad at your spouse, you may eat a jug of ice cream, or scrub the house down until the walls are so thin, they crack if you touch them. It's shifting the focus from something you can't control, to something you can control. Kind of like the government!

Oh, speaking of Government, we received this in the mail...

It belongs to the girl. Clearly this child was not born from my body. I know I said I support Romney over the others, but I'm so politically torn right now, I'm having a hard time committing to any one person or party. This is unusual for me. I'm usually hard-headed about all of this, and very involved in the proceedings... you know, standing at the polls, going door to door. Maybe she is mine, but she is more than half of the wife's too, which was proven when this came in the mail.

OCD moment of the week: The wife and I need to pick a date to "make it official." Official in our eyes anyway... so I've been scouring over the calendar trying to find the perfect date, and I found it!! June 9th, 2012. This is why it's perfect: 6-9-12... count by three. AND 3+3,  3+3+3, and, 3+3+3+3... sequential order because you have two 3's, three 3's, then four 3's! One plus sign, two plus signs, then three plus signs!! See??? Now YOU tell me... do I need to find purpose?

Some of you may say, then go out and do something (waiting on my volunteering to start). The problem is that the presentations gave me a taste for having something that was mine... my own business, in which I made the rules, and I loved it. This makes the thought of teaching again, of walking into a classroom every day, dealing with the politics, and parents (not the kids, loved them) very scary. Panic attack scary. I don't do well with the politics. In case you haven't noticed in my blogs, I'm too outspoken. Most people don't really like that.

The wife feels the same way as far as wanting purpose, and is wanting to "invest" in other business ideas (things we can do together), but this is really very frustrating to me.

 In my head, I know my business idea is at a standstill due to the money a space would cost. The other business ideas she has been presented with, require no space, and she's knowledgable with the concepts because of the business she sold. 

In my heart, I want her to take what ever money she is wanting to invest and put it into my business... she may not be as knowledgable, but I am, and she would love it. 

Since this was not supposed to be a whiney post, I'm going to relieve you all, and be done for now!! I really think that elliptical is calling my name. I can hear it... in the distance... "Get off your a**, grab a snack, and come do this!!" Pfffft!!