Tag: Stress

Exhausted, Trying to De-Stress, and Self-Care

On By BackporchwriterIn Psyche, Relationships, Self-Help3 Comments
Little Bit, hanging out with me this weekend.

I am typing almost with a blank mind. The coffee is going down and not doing it’s job yet. As I sit and type I am thinking of thoughts like how I just need to be locked in the house for a week to find rest, escape, and peace from the world and it’s busy, crazy, “gotta be done now” mentality. Life is spinning about me so fast and I. Just. Need. Rest. I am truly exhausted, mentally, physically, and about to be emotionally. So much yells out for my time and attention constantly. So if I write in bullet points this morning, just know I’m doing the best I can.

*Christmas – I have not really had time to work on it anymore. George threw a few ornaments up out of desperation I think on the fly. lol.

*I was so stressed out yesterday after the work day I had that after ironing and doing a few things on my to do list, I decided to claim my “hour of the day” for something fun (since I don’t get the my me time anymore on Tuesday mornings) and worked on the video some before dinner. I think you will like the upcoming one when I grab a few more minutes to finish it.

* The dishwasher install is next Tuesday – payroll day which limits me. I suppose I could change my early day to another day ::sigh:: but one of us needs to go get Mom that morning and bring her over. Nothing is ever easy. If George gets her it’ll be really early. If I get her it’ll still be early but I won’t get to have my early start to closing payroll – if I’m at work by 7:30 or 8 it’ll be ok though. She’s offered to spend the night but for Mom to do that we have to change so much and she has to bring so much – meds, dog food, clothes. And bed’s have already been rearranged. I don’t want to have to redo sheets and all that. It’s just easier and more efficient to go get her before work.

*My TMJ is still going on and it’s a little sore on that side. Yesterday I had shooting pains up in my temple but I think that was from how I slept as it was coming from my neck. I got up and that hit yesterday and I’m like “no way we are not dealing with that today, took a Tylenol and it took the edge off”.

*I think George is tired too. He’s been snappish or frustrated or patronizing with me over nearly everything lately. We are on different planes for sure.

*I have learned I can’t win nor please anyone ever these days so I just have to ignore it and go on. I mean if someone needs something from me ask for it. Or wants me not to do something, ask me not to do it. I might comply or do what you need if I know what it is and it’s a decent request and not selfishly motivated. If one can’t communicate, I surely can’t fix whatever is wrong. I don’t have time to play games or analyze. At this point if it is not face value from someone that has an issue with me then it won’t be faced. Period. Tribe spoke. Yes it did. While I have never been able to read minds, I used to try to guess. Ain’t nobody got time for ‘dat these days. My days of trying to read into things are mostly done, I’d say. It’s either real or forget it. Any passive aggressive manipulation style of behaviors from anyone in my life is quite simply just going to be shoved under the rug along with itself as I tread on about my business. This goes for all relationships – personal or professional. Either spit it out or get over it.

*I keep thinking about what Dad used to say – a person can “get glad the same way they got mad” and “I don’t mind taking my bat and ball and heading home”. As if to say -not my problem, or I can just not play this game, lol. I don’t have time to take on other’s feelings. I can only deal with my own, if that makes sense. There’s no more room at the inn. I’m not easily maneuvered or manipulated any more. And had to stop and do some “learning” on manipulation tactics and gaslighting- not long ago – and narcissist behavior information and all that. It was quite eye opening as to some of the things that I’d allowed to be used on me at various times in my life by various people. I knew kinda what they were doing but wasn’t really sure how to handle it. I think those courses are toughening me up. Because I do matter too! My feelings are just as important as the next guys. They are real and they are worthy. I am worthy. Even if only God thinks so. So letting everything go. I think sometimes people don’t even know they do these things, they have just learned to do them. I probably have too as a way to protect my own self and get what I want. So we each have to be protective of our selves and our feelings so we are not run over by others and allowed to be the people we want to be and thrive in it. I’m not saying be selfish or not do for others, but just not be sucked in to living the life others want you to live, never giving your own life consideration.

*We will be on our trip soon. I will try to blog when I can. We are trying to find someone to feed the cat. Our regular said no as she doesn’t have time. So the little guy is an outside cat and he can hunt but he’s used to us giving him some dry food twice a day and treats. So hopefully we can try to get another neighbor. He won’t starve. We won’t be gone long but yes, one more thing to try to work out. Everything in life is so difficult. Of course anything else I’m asked to do in life right now would be difficult. I’m already filled to overload in life’s plate.

While we eat dinner, we’ve been watching this show. It’s very interesting. Catchy from the very beginning and I like the characters for the most part. I’m missing my Svalbard show though. I will have to catch it on the fly I guess somehow.

Saw this on Instagram and did a screen shot from the Power of Positivity folks. Thank you for that. Love that. I think that describes me often. When you don’t get to be you, and do the things that make you different, and you just are on robotic terms with the world in your functioning, you lose yourself. And that makes one sad and tired. Our uniqueness fades. And so do we and our light and fire burns out. Mine needs rekindling.

Ok I’ll be gone with all the deep stuff today. Gotta go pick Mom up in Lebanon, go to Mount Juliet and do the mammograms, take Mom back to Lebanon, and then me go to work in Nashville.

Only two more days til trip time. Will something spoil it? I’m so afraid to even think about having fun. It seems like we have not deserved to have fun as it’s certainly been kept from us for two years now. I will believe it when I see it. We will see the mountains and even get to eat at a French Restaurant for the first time.

Slow down, my life. Slow down. Let me have an enjoyable day where I’m not having to think of all the things I’ve not yet done or is half done or is waiting for me to do it. ::sigh::

I’ll be ok eventually. I will. Maybe not today. I’m just exhausted. And often the body feels the stresses of situations when it is at the end or almost the end of being over. So I’m going for more coffee and about to hit the road.

See ya, whenever I can get back here.

Quarter End Crunch, Mom’s Ailments, and Electronic Goods

On By BackporchwriterIn Life, Shopping3 Comments
Photo by Daria Obymaha on Pexels.com

The world is at our fingertips this morning! Or is it? Maybe the world has us by our toenails. I guess it’s a matter of perspective. It’s mid-week. Big things are looming.

Quarter end – is going very slowly this time. System program failures causing things not to balance. And I’m behind on it now, having lost precious hours seeking what needed to be found, waiting on data, leaving for appointments and all. Even though the doc appt time has been made up already across the month twice over at other times. But I’m looking at some very long days for Thursday and Friday to finish the crunch week out. I have a hair appointment today which I’ve had on the books for about 8 weeks or so- maybe 12. I’m not cancelling as it’s needed and it gives me a mid-week break. But the rest of the week I’ll be trying not to work on Saturday. If I have to work on Saturday, I will be in a wretched mood next week for not having been able to do what we needed to do over the weekend. So for the sake of all of us, let there be some rest and rejuvy time. I think since the end of the month falls on a weekend, the due dates are Nov 1, but I’m only working 1/2 day Monday as the closing walk through is that date. I have to get to work by 12:30 and will only get to work on time sheets and payroll related activities before the Tuesday payroll. I am not fond of the last week of quarter end.

I realize now why diverticulitis has usually tried to occur during this time. It’s hard to drink water. I’m purposely focused on trying to get through with things and I forget to drink. I only know this as I’d been tracking it. I see what these last two weeks do to me now. I also get the crunchy munchies. I stopped and fixed popcorn one day. Crackers help. Nuts aren’t enough. I’m also craving something and can’t figure out what it is. I want to stress eat terribly. I have to figure this out – how to handle these stress inducer times so that I don’t totally forget my goals and end up eating as a reward. Awareness is half the battle of anything they say.

Photo by James Wheeler on Pexels.com

Mom

So, I get home and everything seems normal. Then Mom tries to get up and she just flat can’t walk! She winces with every step and acts like she is going to topple over. I’m thinking Is this really happening? Just days away from seeing her new house where a walk-thru is scheduled and she can’t even walk to be able to walk through it? There is something wrong with this picture. A little over a week to close and the house is hers and I’m thinking, Should she even be buying this house? It’s not like I’ve not already wondered this, but with her being able to shower herself, fix a meal, get up and down out of her chair and bed, and get about – we can sustain her in that house. If she cannot walk, we can’t sustain her there.

At the table as we ate she began shivering miserably. Horrible shaking. I wondered if she was going into shock or having a stroke or something. I got a blanket and put around her while she ate and it calmed down. She says she thinks it’s gout and has begun consuming apple cider vinegar. She says that the extra dieretic the doc put her on is likely doing it to her. I knew as did she, from the moment he prescribed these, based on what she was saying, they weren’t going to work and she wasn’t going to be able to take them. Other than being out of breath and it being a misery to move more than a few feet at the time, she was doing pretty good. Anyways, during the night we ended up having to go to the girls room at the same time. So as we passed in the hall she said her foot was doing better. If it’s gout, it can get better. This is just crazy. Everything is crazy. I guess we will see what transpires in the coming days. None of us is really in control. We are only at life’s mercies. And I guess God will make it what he is going to make it, which is pretty much a mystery most of the time. lol

Photo by energepic.com on Pexels.com

I know that God’s not going to give me any more than I can’t handle. We know we are biting an elephant one bite at a time. We know we adjust the sails when the wind blows from a different direction. But it’s these worn out days of life where I feel very much like a robot. Wake up, pour coffee down, go do anyone’s agenda, try sneak in my own in the five minutes left, sleep and doing it all over again.

I’ll be back Friday for an update but I appreciate any prayer you can give to us right now for final pushes through this week’s and next week’s hurdles.

China.

Well George sent an email yesterday that if I needed anything electronic – might not be able to get it soon and if you can – it’ll be expensive – to go ahead and order it. I considered ordering my lighting kit I’ve had on my list (it’s a light with white umbrella diffuser) but was waiting til Mom left as it can take up some room. And I’ve chosen to just put that on hold and I hope I can get it next year. I may reconsider. I think it’s either $59 or $69. I have been using sunlight and floor lamps and a ring light. It’s worked. But as you know I want to get better and better. And want to look better on screen. But I guess this can wait. I don’t want to spend a lot of money on me right now.

But I went ahead and ordered my Rode microphone and dead cat (wind muff) for my camera. This seemed a bit more urgent because I have others that have used this particular one that I know will fit my camera shoe and works well with vlogging. I also don’t know how much longer my particular camera will be a thing ya know? So I went ahead and bought that on Amazon yesterday for $59. George was happy to have another Christmas gift.

I teasingly told him lots of clothes come from China that I might need to stock up! lol. Our country is going to have to gear back up to supply ourselves or be able to get in supplies from elsewhere. Our global supply issue is in a crisis right now and with China’s issues – not only in another virus crisis but with their economy and policies shifting – things are going to be changing it seems. You can read about it in the news articles. Or is this just a ploy to get us to spend more money sooner. Who the heck knows.

Christmas.

We are in full mode Christmas prep already. Not having much time to be able to do a lot of shopping over the months to come, and worried over the economy and supply and demand, it seemed the right thing to do. We are not finished by any means. And life is pretty expensive right now. I just try to remember we’ve not done much in the last two years but we are spending a lot right now across the board. Plane tickets, hotels reservations, two trips, Christmas, blog upgrade coming up. And our Christmas gifts are not cheap – new iPhone, electronic recording things for George, new upgrade to Final Cut Pro for videos (that’s my birthday). So yeah, the spending is on overdrive right now.

And I need to head on out of here and turn my day over to someone else for a while.

I hope you all are doing well. And I’ll be back on Friday. Lord willing. I may have to go in to work early and if I don’t get back Friday I’ll get back when I can. Prayers please for all at hand. Anything you need prayers for? We can pray for each other.

Meanwhile in Texas.

I’ve not posted in a while about Little Roo. He is crawling fast! And pulling up. He’s likely to walk early. He is chasing the family dog and he and the dog both love it. He’s playing peek a boo – learning to hide himself and hear his Mom say Peek a Boo. And he laughs. He’s learning so much about his world and how it works. I’ve ordered some Christmas and Birthday things from Carter. I hope we don’t all end up getting him the same things, lol.

I’ll get to see him soon. Still haven’t heard about Christmas but waiting. We’ll know soon.

The Irony of Eating, Big Bad Wolf BBQ, and George’s Birthday

On By BackporchwriterIn Food, Restaurants, Uncategorized11 Comments

Oatmeal and Chocolate – Fighting the Stress

There’s such irony in our eating decisions. Mine especially. I go to great ends to find oatmeal that has no sugar content, only to throw chocolate in my cart as well. What can we do with ourselves? We just have to keep trying and recognize we WILL have inconsistency and splurges and urges, especially prompted by stress. Lets just call it a “delta variant” purchase and also blame it on George’s birthday week????

It’s so hard to find just plain oatmeal to take to work without it having loads of sugar in it or various “bad” ingredients. The regular oatmeal I guess I could put it a baggie, and take but it doesn’t do as well as the instant does. I’ve NOT tried this yet, but was happy to find it at the DOLLAR STORE amidst their bare shelves. I usually try to find the Organic Oatmeal by Quaker, but it’s hard to find. And I end up paying a lot for Bob’s Red Mill on Amazon. Have to order an entire box of it but it’ll last a long time as I don’t really eat it but about once a week. I like a variety of things for breakfast.

So I add my wellness programs stress formula which if in hot water by itself tastes like hot apple cider (to me anyway). Often I just have that. But I’ve found it quite pleasing to add to oatmeal and it gives it a sweet taste. But it has adaptogens in it and other things that calm me down. The stress formula is called “Ionix”. I no longer use the name of the wellness company on my blog b/c they had asked me to remove their name when I typed a paragraph with the “illness” that has been going around. As you know there has been an attack on our free speech lately. It made me mad so I vowed no more free advertisement for them. If they want it out of a paragraph, it comes out of the blog entirely. I spent hours removing their name from my blog of several years. I still love the products and I know they were being pressured by those in society that throw their weight around, but still. Stand your ground or lose it. They lost their grounding on my blog by letting fear get to them. But yeah, I still love the products and although pricey – it is pricey anywhere to get your hands on true nutrition. I get enough to alter whatever has gone on with my body from a auto-immune situation. (Always tired, random pains, random low grade fever). And now with pre-diabetes and high blood pressure it has been wonderful to offset those with good quality supplements and nutritional food types). I’ve just worn it out during the years on the snacks, shakes and breakfast bars but I still use the supplements and in a big way and the shakes occasionally.

All that to say…..I found some oatmeal for on the go! 😉 I’m a wordy sort, ya know? Gotta tell you EVERYTHING I know about a subject and then some. Which is usually not much but I can dredge it out. lol

And also all that said…..there is this side of me when stressed:

Mom and I went to the Dollar Store again as she needed some things. The first time I went by myself and passed over the candy. The 2nd time I was not as strong. I love a bit of something sweet after lunch – or around 3 p.m. but I really don’t need it. And those M&M’s are tricky. there are 120 calories on the bag but there are about 3 servings in that bag alone right there. And I almost ate the whole bag yesterday. I just cannot quit eating them. Then I had to drink butt loads of water so I didn’t have some kind of sugar attack. And then at dinner time I was not very hungry. Don’t worry. I was able to eat. lol Now I feel bad for eating that many this morning and vowing to have my “greens” for breakfast.

Don’t overlook that chocolate wafter in the right corner. I LOVE THOSE! I allowed myself to get them. I had that for breakfast yesterday. Yesterday was a bad sweet tooth day. Now I have to detox myself. lol Someone HELP!

George’s Birthday Week, Day 1, The Actual Birthday

We were so excited to get to go to The Big Bad Wolf yesterday for George’s Birthday meal. We have tried off and on for years to get here, usually with friends. And they are only open at night on certain occasions. They do a BIG catering business. So usually when we are wanting to eat out they are closed. And sometimes they don’t even follow their hours very well. If they get a big catering event, they will close the restaurant. So it’s spotty. But it’s so good.

It was great. I got the ribs. And I kinda wish I had known they had salad. I didn’t see it on the menu but Mom’s salad looked good. I got beans and potato salad as that seemed to go with ribs but I realized later – more starches that turn to sugar. I had a really bad day yesterday and I need to do better than this. Let’s chalk it off to George’s birthday. I’ve blamed his birthday before, lol. But seriously need to do better. I really need to try and detox today and have my greens and get this sugar out of my body.

We posted this yesterday on social media. It was very popular, lol.

On the way home we saw two Bambi’s in our neighborhood. We had about 5 deer in our yard. They just come and hang out and stroll through. Sometimes we have days where we don’t see them, but I think that is just a timing thing. But they are all around us every day. We love seeing them.

So tomorrow, I’m hoping to give you a list of all the Sailing folks that I follow on YouTube. I don’t want to include it on this blog entry. I want it to be its own entry, for the most part. This is my plan anyway. If today contains a lot of blogworthy content that needs blogging tomorrow morning I will delay the Sailing entry.

Today I get off early as I take Mom for her eye injection. We have a busy weekend ahead also it’s George’s “birthday weekend” and we are heading out with Kevin and Susan. We are also eating burritos tonight at a new place in town with just Mom, George and me. And then Sunday George wants to have an excursion out to a brewery. So we’ll have a lot of pics and then Monday I’ll be complaining that I need more time off b/c I won’t have been able to get my weekend things done. lol. But what is life if you don’t have fun and celebrate birthdays. We just celebrate several days in a row.

So this is what George wanted from me for his birthday. I also gave him some random extra things like flair pens that he likes, expensive beer that he won’t buy himself, and some gourmet food items. But this is “The Who” box set. lol lol

This photo pretty funny as Mom’s feet is in the upper left corner and my messy hearth in the background (top).

Random Thoughts Over Coffee

Well, I suppose I’ll head out soon. Need to get another cup of hot coffee which seems so good right now. But at least it’s Friday. I’m so glad to at least have a day to sleep in – in the morning. We still have church on Sunday. So as of right now it looks like it’ll be very hard to get anything done this weekend but maybe I’ll get some time at home to do *something* at least. I’ll just do the most important things first. And I’m hoping to at least have the morning tomorrow.

It’s kind of been a stressful week in some ways. I’m trying to shake a few things off as “not my own” worries – especially on the work scenario. So far so good.

George got his 1st shot yesterday and I’m proud of him for finally doing that. And he did it on his birthday! His 2nd one is Sept 9th. Mom was telling him to stay away from her because now he has germs in his system. She is anti-V I guess you’d call it. She is afraid of it. It’s a personal decision but she still went on the birthday outing and we can’t oust him out of the house, lol. (She has a way of making a person feel so special sometimes with her honest assessment. lol lol. I guess its her way of letting him know she is not happy with his decision to get the shot.) But it wasn’t her choice to make. None the less she made it very clear she is worried she’ll get the “illness” from him getting the shot. Some have said that has happened. Don’t know for sure what is fact of fiction. But we are doing the best we can and it appears we are soon going to have to show proof to be able to do things so…..

Meanwhile in Texas

Little Roo’s day care teacher is out with “the illness” – yes THE variant illness. And so my Texas family has been exposed. I also have been exposed where I have been. So there’s that. Also Katy went for a root canal yesterday and had to be stopped because it wouldn’t stop bleeding. I’m confused as I don’t know why that happened. Is that normal sometimes? She hadn’t taken an aspirin. Or did the dentist do something wrong? So she has to go back in a month after it heals. Has anyone heard of that before?

Anyway, I need to get out of here and get more coffee.

More tomorrow, Lord Willing!