The Trifecta of Happiness.

Boy oh boy, the things you can learn on the interwebs, I tell you what.  Just now, for instance, in the space of about 0.59 seconds (give or take), I learned that the Trifecta of Happiness is:

• Oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin; and/or
• Good friendships, a lover, and work; and/or
• The body, mind, and soul.

Technical alert: I didn't actually learn all of that in 0.59 seconds.  I wish I could learn that quickly! I should've said that I was able to pull up that information via my favorite search engine in 0.59 seconds.  

It's a curious phenomenon, this idea that things always need to happen in threes.  I tend to roll my eyes when people say things like, "You know things always happen in threes!" because I tend to think that things only happen in threes when people go looking for things to happen in threes.  I have nothing against the number three; it's one of my favorite numbers.  It's an odd number, and it looks like a backward capital E or a sideways M or W; what's not to love?!  I suppose the fact that I was born on the 3rd of the month that is 3 squared has something to do with that, too.  (Alas, I was born in an even year.  BUT, if you add up the numbers in the year I was born until you get a single digit, that single digit will be...wait for it...3! Whoa. I just figured that one out right now.)

And haven't you ever noticed that when giving examples of something, or asked to describe someone or something, people tend to list three things? 

...No? You don't notice this?  It's just me, and it usually sticks out to me due to incorrect or inconsistent comma usage?  Alright then.  Point taken.

Seriously!  Notice it sometime.  Just humor me.

😆😆😆

Alright.  My point being that the house hunt continues, and at times it's frustrating due to the inability to find what I have decided to call the Trifecta of Happiness.  This was before I knew that term was already used for other things, so I thought I was being creative and witty.  Damn internet, stealing the wind out of my sails.  But, I digress, and only have about ten minutes left of my lunch break, so without further ado, I present: The Trifecta of Happiness in House-Hunting:

• The House. Pretty obvious, right? Although I use the term "house-hunting" for lack of a better term -- another technicality call here, because we're not just looking for a house. But that's the rest of the list.  In our search, we are looking for a house that we don't want to tear down and rebuild.  One that is pretty much the way we want it.  Turn-key.  
• The Land.  At least 5 acres, preferably 10 or more, and some of it must be suitable for horses.  Guess we could add "The Location" in here as well, because we don't want to be in town (you'd think that goes without saying, but we found a place that was 10 acres in town...) and we also want to be within driving distance of our jobs and church and families.  And "The Outbuildings" because we'd like some of those, too.  An attached garage would be nice.  A detached garage would be nice, too.  ("As well as", not "instead of".  We have a lot of vehicles.)  We also need, at the very least, a lean-to for the horses and a hay barn.  As always, more is better, but a 12-stall horse barn might be too much.
• The Price.  The amount that the bank is willing to loan us and the amount we are willing to borrow from the bank are two very different numbers, the greater figure being in the bank's favor.  In other words, I'll take it back to one of my favorite sayings: "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."  

So far, we are able to find 2 out of the 3 on a pretty consistent basis.  Which is encouraging, but also frustrating.  There are some great houses in great locations out there that are just a tad out of our price range...or acreage close-by that is affordable but with terrible houses on them...le sigh.  I just gotta keep having faith that we will find our next castle.  :)  It would be nice to take that last bulleted item out of the equation...

C'est la vie.

True story: I'm the funniest person I know.  Are you kidding me? I'm freaking hilarious!  I crack myself up all, the, time.  I'm one of those people who reads my own texts, and laughs out loud.  Literally.  If I didn't have such stage fright, I'd seriously consider trying out as a stand-up comic.  

Alright, alright; maybe I'm not THE funniest person I know.  But I am pretty funny.  Good thing looks don't count for everything!

See? I can't turn it off.  😅

(And I don't really think I could cut it as a stand-up comic.  I couldn't take the rejection and the heckling.)

My joke for this week is: if you have a house for sale and aren't getting any offers on it, let me know!  My hubby and I will show interest in it, and I guarantee that someone else will show up and make an offer on it.  I mean, it's happened three times to us in the last few months now, so, I think it's more than coincidence at this point.

It's kind of funny.  We get a little bit closer every time.  The first time was at the very beginning of when we were trying to decide if we should look at other places or not.  We finally decided to take that leap and look at a place that we liked, and the day we contacted someone to see if we could look at it, we were told an offer had been accepted on it that day.  This place had been on the market (according to the info on the internet) for a good month or so, I don't remember exactly, but it's not like it had just gone up for sale that week or anything.  We laughed at our timing, chalked it up to "it wasn't meant to be," and moved on.

The second time, we actually made it to the showing, and we liked the place, but weren't struck with the "oh my gosh we HAVE to make an offer right now!" bug that day.  There were things we both liked, there were things he liked that I didn't, and things I liked that he didn't, and things we wanted to change, and we went back and forth about it for a good week or so before we agreed we should make an offer on it.  Then, guess what?  That horrible word, "Pending," showed up on the online listing.  At first I was like -- Oh, good.  Someone is getting a really nice home.  And then I went through a stage of, I really hope it falls through because I WANT THAT HOUSE!!  And now I'm back to, Oh, good. Someone is getting a really nice home, but it's not for us.  

This most recent time, I really thought was going to be It.  This is a place that, actually my friend sent the listing to me a few months ago, but it was out of our price range at that time.  Which was unfortunate because it sounded like an awesome place, and I might just be saying that because it was totally set up for horses 😍.  Nevertheless, it stayed on my radar, and recently the price dropped down enough so that it was actually in our price range.  Then, suddenly, the hubby was interested in it.  (OK, I know he might read this, so I will point out that I'm being slightly overdramatic. I mean, he is the realist in our relationship, so naturally it wouldn't have been on his radar until it met all (or most) of the criteria.)  We looked at it, and naturally The Realist was less impressed than The Horsey Girl was.  In his defense, he knows 59,000x's more about what makes a house a "good" house than I do, and apparently also cares more about layout than I do, which is totally fine.  I don't disagree with the points he makes about how a house is laid out or what makes one better than another at all.  There's a reason he's a construction guru and I'm a nurse.  ANYWAY, given a little time and conversation, we both agreed that it was a nice place, though; on paper, it had what we both wanted in a home, and it was a lot more acreage than what we have now, and we were ready to make that jump.  We just wanted one more in-depth showing to check out things we hadn't looked at the first time, and then assuming that all went well we were going to write up an offer.  We had/have a contingent plan for selling the place where we live now.  It just seemed like it was going to happen.  And then?  About three hours before the scheduled showing, our realtor messaged us that the showing was cancelled because the property had been sold.

Talk about a roller coaster of emotions!!  When I read that, I literally said, "Noooo!" out loud.  Luckily, I was in my office at work and I wasn't that loud, and no one really noticed.  Then, I felt a little heartbroken, even though I promised myself I wouldn't feel heartbroken if it fell through at any point. Then, I felt really guilty for feeling heartbroken -- like I was betraying our current home, or something.  I do like our current home.  The house itself needs some work, that's true.  But I love our land and all of our trees.  I was going to be sad to move to a place with hardly any trees and was already trying to figure out where to start planting more trees and when, if we moved to that other place.  

So, that's the way the cookie crumbles. I'm not saying that we're definitely not going to move now.  We're still looking.  Things change from week to week as far as what's available.  The last few weeks have been a whirlwind because it seemed like there were so many great places available that we had a hard time choosing.  This week, I feel like we've learned a lot, maybe raised our standards a bit, and there aren't as many choices.  But that's okay.  It's always changing.  Maybe we'll find a place, maybe we'll end up staying here.  We'll have this place paid off in a few more years, maybe the cost of building materials will be down by then and we can afford to build the house we really want.  You never know what God has in store for us.

On that note, I should get back to work.  TTFN!

Truth be told

 

I love this song! I first heard it the last time I was... well, I'm not sure how to best word this; I wanted to say "in a depressive funk" but that doesn't sound quite right.  "Having a flare-up of my depression" is clinically more accurate, I suppose, and also helps support the fact that depression is an actual disease and not just a state of mind.  "Crashing and burning" would be another accurate description, but that's just me trying to make light of what was a very NOT enlightened period of time.  

You get the point. It was not too many months ago, either.  I heard this song and I wanted to cry. I couldn't, because I was emotionally numb, but I wanted to.  It spoke to me.  

I say I'm fine, yeah I'm fine, oh I'm fine, yes I'm fine,

But I'm not; I'm broken.

And when it's out of control, I say it's under control,

But it's not; and you know it.

I don't know why it's so hard to admit it.

Being honest is the only way to fix it.

There's no failure, no fall, there's no sin you don't already know,

So let the truth be told.

Because, I know, right?!?  That's it, right there. That's how I feel when I'm crashing and burning having a flare-up of my depression.  Why is it so hard to admit that things aren't fine? Why do I feel like my worries and fears aren't worth mentioning?  I would never, ever, ever tell anyone that their concerns weren't valid, so why do I try not to make a big deal out of what lies on my own heart?

Lie number one: you're supposed to have it all together.

I know. I'm an adult now.  I've been one for a while.  I've been married forever (over half my life), I've got an adult child, life is supposed to be my bitch right now.  Right?  

Why'd it get so quiet??

Here, watch a video.

Really, and I do mean this sincerely, I am fine right now.  I've been wanting to share this song for a while.  Mental-health-wise, things are going great!  What a difference medication compliance makes!  Do as I say and not as I do, kids.  😷  Although, the other morning I had a random near-panic-attack and I'm still not sure why.  

I've always had stage fright. Ever since as long as I can remember, even way back in kindergarten, I've been super nervous being up on stage in front of an audience.  Or in front of a class, alone or in a small group.  I would be literally sick and kind of zone out when I had to give reports in school.  Just hearing the words "oral report" would make my stomach drop to the ground.  I don't know how I ever managed to sing duets at choir concerts in high school, or even sing in the choir at all for that matter.  It didn't get much better when I got older and supposedly more confident in myself, either.  When I was barely 18-19ish (or maybe even 17ish, I don't remember anymore), part of my job was training new cashiers at Wards.  I would have classes of like a dozen people and I have to talk to them alllllll night. I don't know how I did that.  

Anyway, in an effort to break out of my comfort zone and get over my stage fright, I decided to start volunteering to lector at church.  I was nervous at first, and was feeling all the usual anxiety and zoning out and everything, but I was also learning how to get over that, and making myself calm down and it was getting easier and I was feeling much more at ease and not afraid of reading in front of groups of people again, when the pandemic hit and we stopped doing in-person church services for a while.  

Well, we started doing in-person church services again recently.  (In the meantime, we'd been doing drive-up church, but that's a different topic!)  And a few weeks ago, started taking volunteers for lectoring again, so I signed up right away.  Last week was my turn again.  It wasn't even my first time this summer doing it.  I don't know what it was exactly, but once I got up there, I suddenly couldn't catch my breath.  There weren't any difficult words in the Scripture I was reading, it wasn't even a long passage, but I felt like I couldn't catch my breath and it was all I could do to keep standing upright and I was sure everyone could hear my voice wavering and cracking.  As soon as I was done, I sat back down and broke out into a sweat. I looked at my pulse on my FitBit and it was about 120.  Which is waaaaay too high!  It was weird.  

Anyway. Welcome to my life.  I better get back to work now.  TTYL!

Be vewy, vewy quiet! I'm hunting...

 

Betcha thought I was gonna say "wabbits", eh?  😊

For one thing -- ew.  My issue with hunting wabbits is dealing with the dead animal afterward.  I don't like dealing with dead animals.  It took me years to be able to handle raw chicken from the grocery store, and it still makes me queasy (sometime I'll tell you about our adventures in raising and butchering our own chickens...).  It's not that I couldn't shoot it -- I'm a crack shot and although I do consider myself an animal lover, I don't find wabbits (or rabbits) particulary endearing. I don't hate them and want them all to die, but out here, they're just kind of...idk...there.  I don't think they're that cute.  If I had a garden, they'd be in it, trying to destroy it, which would annoy me.  My cats like to catch and eat rabbits, and will leave parts of them around for me every now and then (thanks, guys).  We used to have a dog that loved finding rabbit nests, and then playing with the baby bunnies.  And by "playing" I don't mean the cute little Disneyesque image of happy little animals frolicking together in furry woodland creature harmony, I mean Magnum would stick his snout into those nests and flush out the baby bunnies, and then pick them up in the air and toss them around like toys.  Did you know baby bunnies can scream?  I didn't, until Magnum found his first nest of baby bunnies.   Man oh man.

But that's not where I wanted to go with this post.  I've been hunting, alright.  Not wabbits, and not hunting high and low (ha! or should I say, a-ha!).  We have been somewhat half-heartedly house hunting.

How difficult is it to hunt a house? They can't hide very well, they're easy to sneak up on, and they're easy to hit.  Haven't you ever heard the saying about not being able to hit the broad side of a barn? I guess that's a little different, but the concept is similar. 

It's odd, though, because for the first time in our lives, we're in the very odd position of looking at houses when we don't need to move.  Truth be told, I have wanted to write about this for a while, to figure some of these thoughts out, but just haven't felt up to it yet.  (Because the main reason I write is not for your entertainment, believe it or not, but for my own sanity! In which case, I've got a LOT of catching up to do, ba-ha-ha-haaaa).  I suppose one could argue that we technically have never "needed" to move, but one would just be stalling for time by doing so at this point.  Like one is now, by rambling on and picking nits and using all sorts of extraneous filler words and such like that.

The thing is, we do like where we live now. We like the area, we're pretty content with the location of our little plot of land, the way it's set up, our commute times to places like work and church and places of convenience and entertainment, and of course family and friends, and the overall feeling of relative privacy and seclusion we have (except that we live on a 2-lane highway).  The house needs updating, which we knew when we bought it 17 years ago. We had always planned on either fixing up/adding on to the existing house, or building a new house here.  We just keep putting it off and putting it off for various reasons I don't need to list here.  

Well, I don't know if you've noticed, but in the last year or so, the cost of building materials has skyrocketed.  It's insane.  We basically came to the conclusion that it would cost about the same amount of money to buy a new place as it would to build a new house.  So we half-heartedly started looking to see what was out there -- you know, for shits and giggles.  Of course, it's a seller's market right now, which is not the greatest time to be looking to buy a house, but on the flip side, it's a great time to be trying to sell a house.  The ol' conundrum of, if we could get xyz for our house, we'd have xyz more to put toward an even better house!  

I've always enjoyed house hunting.  Which is strange, because I'm not a fan of shopping in general.  Maybe it's because I lived in the same house for 19 years when I was growing up and always craved moving to a different place.  Maybe it's the whole idea of "packing up and starting over" at a certain point.  Whatever the appeal, I don't mind keeping on top of sales ads, hoping to find that perfect deal.  

Which...we have not found yet.  It's been a very interesting search, though.  Every other time we've been looking to buy a house, we've looked for fixer-uppers.  It's hard for me to get out of that mindset, because this time, that's not what we want.  This time, we want a place that's already fixed up.  We want to save ourselves all that time and work, if possible.  I'm not considering things like painting the walls as "fixing up" because that's decorating; I mean things like building the fricking walls.  (And yes, we have looked at places that needed walls built. In the bathroom.  You could've at least shown that picture in the ad...)  

I'm getting a lot better at deciphering real estate ads.  Allow me to share some things I've learned recently, that anyone who is looking for a home OR marketing one for sale might want to keep in mind:

• You have to look for what is NOT pictured.  If the ad says it's a 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom house, make sure all of those are accounted for in the photos.  
• And if there are no photos of the inside of the house whatsoever, be wary.  
• If the description in the ad talks more about how nice the land and the outbuildings are, be wary.  
• It probably goes without saying that staged pictures make a place look much, much better than un-staged pictures do.  (Yes, we all know that homes are lived-in, but we don't really want to see your pile of mail and miscellaneous papers on the table when looking at pictures of places we're considering spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on!)  
• Oh, another thing, the photos should focus more on the house's features and less on the cute decorations inside.  I don't care if you got wine from Vino in the Valley and set it up on a cute little bistro table on the back deck with a pair of wine glasses on a cute white tablecloth, I want to see how big that back deck really is in that photo!  
• Have at least one other person look at the photos. They will catch things you miss.  (Like carpeted walls...true story. I sent an ad to my hubby just this morning, of a place I've looked at online at least six times, and his reaction was "is that a carpeted wall?".  I totally missed it. Six times.)
• There is no such thing as smell-o-vision, but if you think you can smell a photo, you probably can.

That's all I've got for now.  All that being said, I do want to reiterate what I said above about the fact that we do like where we live and would love to stay in this area.  And as we keep reminding each other, when one or the other of us gets our hopes up about the potential of a certain property and then we go tour it and it turns out to not have lived up to our expectations, "There's absolutely nothing wrong with staying right here!"  Moving is a pain in the ass, especially when you have not just a house worth of stuff to move, but also two horses and no horse trailer, several cars (most of which are running and driveable), and two barns worth of stuff, too.  Moving would be as much work as building a damn new house.  But I want central air. LOLOLOL

Later, gators.

Journaling is good for your health. Who knew?!

 

According to this article that I just read, journaling is good for your health, if you're a nurse.  According to this article that I sort of skimmed over, journaling is good for your health, if you have depression and anxiety.  And just for the sake of inclusion, I even found an article that says journaling is good for everyone.  Because on the internet, you can find articles that say just about anything you want, whether you like it or not.  

So in my last entry, you learned that I used to draw. I suppose I still can draw, I just haven't tried for a while. I made the progression from line drawings of horses all facing the same direction to line drawings of cars when I got a little older and my interests changed. Come to think of it, I probably had the tendency to draw the cars facing left, as well.  I mean, that's what you see when you're going to the driver's door, right correct?  Who cares what the passenger side looks like! I can't say for sure, though. My point being, the last time I tried drawing something was probably 5-10 years ago. I was back to horses then, and some dogs, and a few cats.  Facing all sorts of directions ;)  I like to think I got better but who knows?  It's fun, but I find I have the same issue with drawing as I do with coloring: I don't always have the patience to sit there and carefully make thousands of tiny lines that have to be just perfect.  And they DO have to be just perfect.  That's why I've only tried to draw people maybe three times in my life?  If you get one little proportion off, forget about it.  I don't want to be responsible for creating monsters.  Maybe that's why I only have one child (ha! ha! ha!).

Oddly enough, I've never been one to draw in my journals.  I've seen examples of other journals where people make them all cute and scrapbook-like and such, but that's never been my style.  My style has always been freeflow, write whatever is on my mind at that moment and be done, or sort out my thoughts kind of thing.  When I started journaling waaaaaaay back when, I never intended for anyone ever to see anything I ever wrote.  Then again, I was, like, 12 years old or something and I would have oh my gawd just like totally died if I'd have known then that one day I'd be, like, writing a journal and posting it online for, like, everyone to read, or something.

Anyway...working from home today.  I suppose, lunch break is now over and I should get back to work.  TTFN!

It's a cruel, cruel summer...

Not really, I'm just going with the first song that comes to mind, otherwise I'll just sit here wasting precious time trying to think of a title. My lunch break is only so long, you know. (BTW, that's a reference to the Bananarama song.  I didn't think I needed to point that out until I went to find an image and Googled "cruel summer" and learned that it's apparently a show or something?  Hi. I live in a cave where I don't stay on top of what's popular in entertainment.)

And today's photo cred goes to ME, thank you very much.  I purposely put the sun in the corner because when I was little, that's how I drew pictures.  The sun was always in the corner. It was generally more in the corner than this one is, but give me a break, I was literally looking directly at the sun to get this shot.  I risked blindness just to get this shot, so I could make this joke about how I used to draw pictures.  Yellow sun in the corner (usually with a smiley face, and fancy sunbeams, depending on what else was in the pictures), blue sky, and green grass.  This is the foundation of most of my childhood illustrations, in reality, right here.  Too bad there wasn't a square house with a door and a window on the first floor and two windows on the second floor, with a triangle roof and a chimney that always had smoke coming out of it, two REALLY TALL flowers next to it (one tulip and one rose -- or if I was feeling fancy, maybe a daisy too), a dog house, and maybe a car and some people.  

My illustrations improved, eventually.  Once I learned how to draw horses.  Although 99% of the horses I drew were facing left.  (Their right, my left.)  I don't really know why, but that's how it was.  That's the near side, you know.  That's probably why they all faced that way.  When I was little, I read everything I could get my hands on about horses, and since everything I read said the near side was the side horses were supposed to be lead from, I guess it only made sense that I drew them from that perspective.

Crazy. I sat down here having no idea what I was going to ramble about, and now I find myself analyzing drawing habits I developed as an, I don't know, 6-7- 8-year-old? You just never know how my mind will roam.

You know what I've never been good at, though? Coloring.  I just don't have the patience.  I remember one time in kindergarten, we had to color a circle and I had to re-do it because it was too messy.  On one hand, I was horrified because an authority figure was dissatisfied with me; but mostly I was annoyed because I didn't see the point of coloring a circle, and it took so much fricking time to sit and carefully stay inside the lines, and dammit I had better things to do. If they wanted a blue circle, why didn't they just draw it on blue paper and cut it out, instead of drawing it on white paper and coloring it?!  

As a kid, we had coloring books.  Of course we did, everyone did.  I'd find a picture I liked, and start coloring it, and then get bored real quick and go do something else.  I might go back and finish it later, I might not.  I probably didn't.  My Mom probably ended up throwing away lots of coloring books with partially finished pictures on my account.

So I was as surprised as anyone when the "adult" coloring craze hit a few years ago, and I ended up with a few books along the way.  I guess I forgot that I don't have the patience for coloring.  I guess I thought maybe it'd be something to just poke along at, bit by bit, or something to work on when I was on the night shift.  (Yeah, because I had LOTS of patience then!)  I don't know.  I've tried it a few times.  I still don't have the patience or interest to sit down and color a whole picture at once, but I can do a little bit now and then.  I'm more of a doodler.  You should see the pad of paper I keep by my phone.  I can hardly talk on the phone without scribbling on paper.  Usually it's pertinent notes, but if the conversation turns to things I don't need to write down, I'll just doodle.  

Oh, well.  Speaking of taking notes and talking on the phone, I should get back to work.  TTFN!

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Why can't Christmas be in the summer?  

Let me rephrase that: why couldn't I have been born and raised where Christmas is in the summer?!  I mean, this is perfect weather for it! I think I would have a lot more so-called "Christmas spirit" if Christmas was during this time of year, when it's warmer outside, and the world around us is full of life and green plants growing outside and energy and warmth, and we can have our windows open to let in the warm summer breezes, and people are less likely to be sick, and traveling is generally a lot easier because the weather is a lot less likely to interfere with road conditions, and it's warmer and there are more things to do outside so when people come over, everyone doesn't have to be crammed inside like sardines, and it's warmer outside, and I'm just all-around happier in general.

Or maybe that's just the meds.  Either way, it's 99*F outside right now (with a "real feel" which I believe is the same as a heat index) of 105*F, and I'm sitting in the house with the curtains drawn and the lights off and the fans on and some of the windows open, sipping a diet Coke and enjoying the quiet.  I just finished tidying up the house and I'm in a pretty damn good mood.  My ever-faithful canine companion is resting on the couch on the other side of the room.  My hubby and son are out helping some good friends of ours move.  If not for the fact that my house was way overdue for some attention, I would have gone with.  But I'm not much good for lifting heavy things. Especially in the heat.

I had the house in pretty good shape, which is another good sign that my meds are kicking in again.  When I first started working from home, it was "fun" to spend my breaks cleaning the house, but now when I work from home I spend my breaks working so I can be done sooner, just like I do at work.  (Only I never seem to get done sooner. ha, ha.)  

Today, for the first time ever, I took the dog outside without his leash or collar on. It's funny because when we first moved out here, we had Portia.  Portia was an awesome dog!  She was about 6 when we moved out here, and had lived in the city all her life up until then, but we let her run around off the leash all the time and she always listened to us and never ran into the road.  (We live on a 2-lane highway where the speed limit is 55mph.)  We never worried about her running away, but we were always outside with her when she was outside.  I don't remember if we had a tie-out for her to just go out and use the bathroom or not, once we moved out here.  I know we did in the city, because she could jump fences like no one's business.  She did that twice after we got her, and ran away those two times, too. But came back on her own.  Oh, Portia...what a nut.  

Then we got Magnum. He was about 4 months old when we got him. He was, like, the most easily trainable dog we have EVER had (I blame that on the lab in him, since every other dog we've has been a Boxer and he was half Boxer, half Lab).  We kept him on a tie-out at first until we did some training with him. He did run out into the road once. I remember it clear as day.  We were out in the yard and the hubby got into his car and drove away, and goofball dummy Magnum started running after him.  Right down the driveway and onto the road.  He didn't go far before he turned around and came back like, What?!?  Numbnuts!  Thank God nothing happened (other than me losing my voice from yelling at the dumb dog, I'm sure.)  I think that was the only time.  He was such a people-pleaser.  Never worried about him running away, either.  

And then, we got Luger.  Luger is the reason we have a dog yard with a chain-link fence.  We were told Luger was obedience-trained and that Luger got along with cats.  Those were lies!  Luger had a very strong prey drive and never met a cat he didn't want to kill.  We've pretty much always had cats, too, although we haven't had any indoor cats since we got Luger.  (He killed one of them. I don't want to talk about it.)  I never did trust Luger off-leash.  The only times he was off-leash were when he broke his collar, broke the tie-out, or ran out of the door before we could stop him.  As I said, he had a VERY strong prey drive, and even when he got older and even though he was also a people-pleaser, nothing would get in his way when he saw a cat.  

I take that back -- he was off-leash once when I was on my way home from nursing school clinicals about an hour away, and the boy had come home from school and was letting the dogs out, and absent-mindedly hooked Magnum up to the tie-out instead of Luger and opened the door to let the other dog out (can't blame him...they were both brindle, mistakes happen) and Luger took off like the young, energetic pup he was while Magnum, as I was told, sat there politely and obediently looking at the boy like, "I'm a good dog, right? Right? Right?"  Poor kid.  I remember he called me, sobbing, saying he put the wrong dog on the tie-out and Luger had run away across the road and he couldn't find him.  He felt so bad! I think that was the worst part for me, was how bad the boy felt.  He was just in like 5th grade or so at the time.  Long story short, I found Luger shortly after I got home...in the corn field across the road from our house.  And he had apparently found something long dead and had rolled in it.  And so I picked him up in my beautiful pride and joy, my 2007 Chevy Monte Carlo, and brought him and his rancid-smelling self home, and all was well.  Dogs can be bathed, car interiors can be cleaned, and life goes on.

Here's the thing, though - tie-outs are nice, but they break.  And they get cold, and freeze.  And people like us start to feel bad when the dog can't ever be off the tie-out because that's just not fair. So, one fine day, my awesome hubby and the boy got some chain-link fence and made a dog yard, so all we have to do now to let the dogs out is open the patio door, and bam! They can go outside and have room to run around.

Anyway, since we had that set-up when we got Max, we just never tried him off-leash in the yard.  He doesn't have the prey drive that Luger had (honestly, I've never seen a dog with the prey drive Luger had) and he's also more obedient than Luger was, so I always kinda thought he'd be ok off-leash, but never wanted to try it when Luger was around, because that's not fair.  Yes, I'm one of THOSE dog people, ha ha.  But seriously.  I've testing Max out a few times earlier, we take him out for walks around the yard all the time and I'll drop the leash and see what he does, and he's been fine.  He's good around the cats, he acts like he's going to chase them but when he's close to them he doesn't actually do anything, he just sniffs them.  So earlier this afternoon, I was taking something to the barn, and when I had the door open, Maxwell was standing there looking at me.  And I was like -- what the heck? Let's see what happens.  It's too hot for him to want to stay out there too long, anyway.  

Wanna know what happened? Nothing!  He's such a good boy.  He followed me out to the barn.  (I was actually taking my old desk chair out there, because I got a new one a few weeks ago and there's no room for the old one in here, so I thought I'd put the old one in the barn so I have a place to sit and pet the cats when I'm out there.  It makes sense in my head.)  He sniffered things and followed me when I called him, and stayed away from the road, and then I took him out in the field behind the old barn and tried to get him to run around and play a little bit, but it's hot out so I didn't try too hard.  Then we came back to the house, and now he's zonked out on the couch.  Sound asleep.  He's had a busy morning/early afternoon trying to keep track of everyone.  

I almost think I'm ready to get another dog. Almost.  When I was tidying up earlier today, I came across a box of Luger's leftover medication, that I couldn't bear to get rid of last fall.  Even though I thought it was stupid to keep a box of medication that someone else could make use of, just because the thought of getting rid of it felt like I was ripping my heart out of my chest with my bare hands and handing it off to some random stranger, which made absolutely no sense at all.  I just couldn't do it, though.  But today, I got rid of it.  Of course, the medication is now expired so I threw it away, but it didn't really hurt to do so.  It didn't make me feel like I was ripping out a vital organ or anything.  It just made me a little sad (not even a lot sad, just a little) thinking about how I used to have to give those pills to Luger every day.  

Alright, I think that's about enough writing from me for now.  The hubby got a new pressure washer yesterday and I am dying to try it out!! (Not kidding, either!)  I also want to get some yard work done.  And I need to get some laundry done.  And it's still hot and humid out.  Ugh! IDK where to start. I'll figure something out. TTYL!

Move it!

I read recently (in a meme on FB, so, you know...no credibility whatsoever) that the average person moves 8 times in their lifetime. At least that's what I think it said.  I don't remember.

Off to Google I go!

The consensus is actually 11, not 8.  Good thing I fact-checked myself there.  

I've moved 9 times.  I don't think being brought home from the hospital after birth counts as "moving".  I lived in the same house from birth (actually, I didn't "move in" until I was 2.5 weeks old, if you want to get technical, but like I said above -- I don't count going from the hospital where I was born to my first home as moving. One could argue that after 2.5 weeks I may have accumulated more "stuff" at the hospital than the average newborn, but I doubt it, since this was back in 1974 and hospitals weren't as hospitable (ha, ha) about things like that.  But this is all speculation; I don't remember how much stuff I brought home with me, and I've never asked my parents.

Where was I? Oh, yeah.  From birth to age 19, I lived in the same house.  My parents still live there.  That's what has inspired tonight's post.  I really wish they would move.  Earlier tonight, I saw (on FB) that their intersection was mentioned on one of the "crime pages" yet again.  (To clarify, I follow several pages on FB that track or report the crime in St. Paul, primarily for this reason. I'll just call them the "crime pages".)  It was a rather lengthy report, saying there were "numerous callers" reporting "shots fired" and a "male. . . running . . . in the alley . . . said to be shooting at a black SUV and someone in the vehicle was shooting back."  Nice.  But wait, there's more!  "A bullet hole in the wall was found at 7** Edmund..." and insert Tash going ballistic (lame pun intended) here.  

One thing to mention -- it's the practice of this crime page not to mention the exact address.  I get it -- it's one of the scanner pages, meaning people are basically transcribing what is coming across the scanner as it's coming across, so they want to give a semblance of security by not publishing the addresses.  Even though everyone who is actually listening on the scanner will get to hear the actual address.  But, I digress; I was not listening to the actual scanner, so all the info I got was "7** Edmund" which, at that intersection, had a 25% chance of being my parents' house.  The one I lived in from ages 2.5 weeks to 19 years (and some-odd months, weeks, and days, I'm sure).  

So, of course I called my parents right away, not knowing what to expect, fearing the worst.  

Of course, my Mom answered, calmly, with a hint of confusion about why I was calling.  At an odd time.  "Are you guys okay?" I asked.

". . . yes, why?" she replied.

"Well, I read on Facebook that there was shooting going on by your house again," I blurted out.  I tried to keep my cool, I really did, but I just can't sometimes.

"Oh, so that's what was going on," my Mom remarked, much too casually for my comfort. Like, far too casually.  As if she'd been half-heartedly searching for her favorite pen and just happened to spy it on the dining room table in her periphery while passing by to answer the phone and was going to go back and get it later, when she had time: "Oh . . . there it is."  

This is an ongoing struggle for me.  Apparently only for me, though.  Apparently, my parents see nothing wrong with living in a neighborhood where gunfights are becoming the norm.  Alright, I'm going to stop right here, because this is tangent I could go off on for quite a while.  As I said, it's an ongoing struggle for me.  I've been trying to convince my parents to move out of the city for a long time.  I used to think it was because I'm selfish and I wanted them living closer to me because it would make life easier for me.  Now I know it's because I'm selfish and I want them living closer to me because I will be able to take better care of them and not fear for my life when going to visit them and not fear for their lives when I'm not able to be with them.

And I'm not even kidding.

*deep cleansing breath in...*

That's what's on my mind tonight.  How can I convince my parents to move?  I've showed them what houses in their neighborhood are selling for -- which always surprises them. You have to remember, they bought their house in like 1970-something for around $25k.  So I try to entice them by showing them what they could get for their house, and then what they get another place for.  A place in the country like they always talked about for their retirement home.  I've offered to pack for them.  I've offered to hire movers for them.  I've offered to build them a house on our property.  I literally do not know what else I can do to get them to move.  There is no question at all where I inherited my stubbornness . . . 

On that note, I'm gonna sign off.  The hubby is in bed already because he wasn't feeling good when he got home.  The boy is upstairs already, playing on his computer.  The dog is even upstairs already, because he wanted to go to bed.  This makes me miss Luger.  Luger was MY dog.  He wouldn't go to bed until I went to bed.  He might've gone upstairs before I did, but he would lay on the floor until I got up there.  Not Maxwell; Maxell will lay on my frickin' pillow if I don't get up there first, and then look at me with sad, sad eyes when I try to get him to move.  I'm such a sucker for sad, sad dog eyes.

Alright, thanks for reading my gibberish tonight.  As you were.

Why do today what can be put off until tomorrow?

This morning, I woke up at, IDK, 5am or so.  Which isn't unusual, because once the hubby's alarm goes off at 4am or so, I tend not to sleep very soundly.  (Notice I said "I woke up", not "I got up".  BIG difference.)

But instead of going back to sleep, I played on my phone.  Again, that's not so unusual, either.  Although it was a bit unusual for today; typically on days when I have to go to the office, I'll play on my phone from 0500-0530 or whenever I can drag my tired self out of bed.  On days when I'm working from home, if I wake up at 0500, I'll turn off the alarm and go back to sleep.

Today I'm working from home.

So I played on the phone for a bit, until I was bored with that, then looked at the time.  It was 0515.

I honestly contemplated getting out of bed.  THAT would have been highly unusual.  I still kind of wish I would've done it, anyway.

So I tried to go back to sleep. HA!  That didn't happen.  What happened was this weird conglomeration of my imagination and the news, which actually happens pretty frequently and is quite amusing.  This morning there was a piece on the news about how part of Paul Bunyan's arm fell off, or something, and they had to put it in a sling until it can be fixed.  That's all I remember.  I'm guessing the story was referring to (hold on, let me fire up Google so I don't mess this up) the Paul Bunyan statue in Bemidji, because of course it was.  It didn't fall off, it's broken.  Anyway, in my dream state, the news story showed his arm on someone's lawn, under 10 feet of water.  Oh, I remember thinking, it's flooding in Brrr-midji.  (No, I didn't spell that wrong; I pronounce it "Brrr-midji" to be funny, because it's cold up there.  And because other people like to put the "r" sound in places it doesn't belong, like "warsh," so why not?)  Also in my dream state, I heard the nice news anchorman say they propped his arm up with a swing so he can still be on display until his arm can be fixed, and I thought, Well that's dumb, kids are going to want to swing on that and get hurt. Can't they come up with a better fix than a swingset?  

In my defense...in case you didn't read my last entry, I have an ear infection and can't hear so well right now.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Anyhoo...I was relieved to hear later that it's a SLING and not a swing, and that Brrr-midji isn't flooded, after all.  

My point was that I held off as long as I could but I was out of bed and downstairs cleaning the house by 0700.  I didn't intend to clean that early; I intended to start work.  But before I came downstairs, I started some laundry and decided to bring down the load of kitchen rugs and towels that's been up there forever (since I mopped the kitchen floors yesterday) and while I was putting the rugs down I decided to clean the stove top, and the door of the oven, and while doing so I got the rug in front of the oven dirty so I went outside to shake it off and came back inside and had to sweep the floor again, too, and before I knew it I was tidying up and I just couldn't stop.  

Yes, the word "manic" crosses my mind sometimes.

But...my house...it gets so nice and tidied and cleaned and organized when I'm like this.  Seriously.  There were three empty cardboard boxes next to my desk. I don't know why.  OK, I do know why -- I was saving them because I was going to maybe use them to ship things.  What kind of things?  Well, I'm making some shawls for people, I could maybe use them for that.  At least, that's what I thought a few months ago when I put the boxes there.  Today I looked at them and said, Nope.  To Recycling!!  For one thing, they're all beat up.  For another, it's not as though it's difficult to find shipping containers when needed.  And that one little bit of uncluttering makes me feel So! Much! Better!!  

So I've been spending my breaks today whipping things back into shape.  Watering plants, moving things around, decluttering, reorganizing.  Claiming my home back again.  Making it the nice, organized, sanctuary where I like to spend my time instead of the overwhelming collection of crap that I genuinely want to sort through but don't know where to start.

I love having the energy and focus to take care of things.  To be able to look at something, like a stack of empty fricking boxes, and say No, I don't need those. They must leave my house.  I'm not saying I buy into the whole "sparking joy" thing, but there's a sliver of something there.  I can definitely attest that the state of my house correlates with the state of my mind/mental health.  And both are quickly improving and becoming something I'm almost proud to call my own again.

Gotta get back to work!  TTYL

Over my dead body!

Take THAT, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), if that's even your real name.

I don't have you, nyah-nyah!  :P 

Not that I thought I did.  Until yesterday when I went to the doctor for my annual check-up.  As my luck would have it, Sunday afternoon my ear started hurting like h-e-double hockey sticks, especially when I yawned or opened my mouth.  And then Monday when I woke up, I couldn't hear out of that ear. It didn't hurt anymore, but it felt like it was jammed full of . . . well, cotton, I suppose.  Sound-proof cotton.  Sure, that's a thing.

So off I went to my already-scheduled appointment, feeling like crap but hey! What a coincidence.  I just had to fight the urge to get through all the other mumbo-jumbo (you know, vitals and labs and this and that and the other) and beg the nice doctor to please look in my ear because I know something is wrong [it's probably a huge tumor about to explode ha ha just kidding I know it's just a little fluid but it's driving me crazy]. I don't want to talk about my food journal, I want to talk about my ear.  I don't want to talk about depression (but I do want to talk about depression, that's another part of the reason I'm here) but I really want to talk about my ear first please.

So we get to talking about my ear.  And she asks if I've been sick at all, which I knew she would because it's the same line of questioning I would've run through.  It's been baffling me, as well.  No, I've been fine.  Great, actually.  We had been out of town all weekend, celebrating our belated Valentine's celebration in Duluth, no I haven't been coughing, no I haven't had a runny nose, no I haven't --OH MY GOSH WAIT A SECOND!!  Last week, out of the blue, one day after work I suddenly came down with a 24-hour bug.  I felt just like I did after I got my COVID vaccine -- achy, low-grade fever, just all-over blecch.  I even called in to work the next day.  It never went farther than that, but it was weird.  Once I mentioned that to the doctor (damn me and my thinking out loud!) you could see the light bulb over her head flicker on.  I wanted to yell, No! IT'S NOT COVID!!  But it was too late.  The COVID screening questions began.  No, to my knowledge I haven't been around anyone with COVID.  No symptoms other than Tuesday and now this ear infection.  Yes, I had my vaccine. Yes, I know the J&J vaccine "only" gives me a 60-70% chance of not catching the 'rona.  . . . WTF.  Sure.  I'll get tested.  

Long story short, their rapid testing machine wasn't working.  I got two "invalid" results in a row.  She wrote me a work note saying I should stay home until my symptoms resolved and told me I should go get tested somewhere else.  Oh, and gave me antibiotics for my ear infection.  And quickly escorted me out the side door because she didn't want me going through the waiting room -- I'd be exposed to too many other people that way.

I went out to my car like, WTF just happened?! I don't have the 'rona.  I can't have the 'rona!  That would be awfully inconvenient.  I can't go home, I have an online patient in 30 minutes (which I found out about while I was sitting in the exam room waiting for my first inconclusive test to come back) and I'm supposed to work on-site today anyway.  My options were to drive the 10 minutes to work and hole up in my office all day, or drive the 45 minutes home and be a major inconvenience by asking someone else to cover the patient I hadn't even prepped for.  Against my better judgement (but not really because I was 98% sure I didn't have the 'rona), I went to work.  It's actually pretty easy to hole up in my office all day and not interact with other people, lol.  

So, that's why I had a COVID test this morning.  By the time I got back home, I had the email saying it was negative.  I had a date scheduled with my tattoo artist today, which I cancelled yesterday because I didn't know.  I cancelled dinner with my parents last night because I didn't know.  Actually, yesterday I was feeling pretty crappy -- after all, I do still have the ear infection.  But that's how even a 'rona scare can mess up your plans.  I've had this tattoo date made for a while. I even took PTO.  But I didn't want to chance it, and I didn't know I'd have the results back this fast, and I didn't know how I'd feel today, and I didn't know for sure that it'd be negative. Better safe than sorry.

But the good news is, I also talked to my doctor yesterday about my depression medication regimen.  Because it hasn't been doing it's job lately.  Because in January I stopped taking the one medication. Because I ran out and because it increases my blood pressure and I wanted to keep my blood pressure down and I figured, I'm on three medications, surely I can get by with just two of them!  HA HA HA HA.  Surely, as it turns out, I cannot.  This one medication is a mild stimulant and to get it refilled, I have to have lab work and/or actually make an appointment to see my doctor every six months which I don't always do, which is another reason I didn't get it refilled.  Because nurses are horrible patients.  And people with mental illnesses are horrible patients.  

It's a predictable circle.  When I go off of that medication, I start spiraling downward.  I can see it happening, but I feel like I can't do anything about it.  By the time those around me start saying something about it, I already know I'm at rock bottom but don't want to talk about it because I'm ashamed that I let it happen again.  I mean, seriously; how fricking hard is it to refill a stupid medication and take another stupid pill every fricking day!?!

But by the time I'm at that point, another stupid thing happens. I start getting even more depressed and mad that I have to take stupid pills just to be "normal". Why can't people just accept me for who I am? Why do I have to drug myself to fit in?  Why can't I be the crazy cat lady?  Why does this one stupid little white pill (actually, only half a pill) make such a profound difference in who I am????  It's just stupid. Everything is stupid.  Medication is stupid.  People are stupid.  Life is stupid.  The world is stupid. Society is stupid.  I just want to be me.  Everybody else gets to be themselves, why can't I just be me?  So what if I'm crazy?  Maybe I need shock therapy.  No one understands mental illness.  I hate mental illness.  I hate it!  I can be doing just fine and then BAM!  Up out of nowhere. It's not fair.  It's so not fair.  People who say this isn't a chronic illness can kiss my ass.  This disease is going to kill me.  It's going to drive everyone I love away from me and I'm going to die of loneliness, because no one can stand to be around me unless I'm medicated.  I'm a monster.  Why did I ever start taking these things?  

Just a sample for ya there.  You'd think with my mind running like that, I'd be, like, manic or something, but no.  Just the opposite.  My house right now is a mess.  There's two inches of dust on everything.  I've had no motivation to do anything.  There are dust bunnies behind my chair bigger than my dog.  I know that if I could get my house clean, it would help. But I can't get the gumption to get off my ass and clean the house.

So in case you were wondering, depression sucks.  

BUT!  I got my wonderful stupid little white pills again now, and should be feeling normal again soon.  And the antibiotics I'm taking for my ear infection should be starting to kick in soon as well.  And I still have the day off, even though I'm not getting tattooed, and I have the house all to myself for a few more hours.  So I think I'm going to sign off and get the house tidied up.  Time to kick the depression dragon to the curb and take back my life.  And if I need the help of [half of] a little white pill to do that, then so be it.  

See ya later, frens.