what a difference four and a half years makes.

today is day four of my four day weekend.

four day weekend, you ask?

yes. i had the typical saturday/sunday weekend, monday for memorial day, and awesome husband @_antgas and i took off today for a very good reason.

i graduate today!

that's right, the strange journey that started back in august of 2010 with a mini nervous breakdown and a fateful trip to a psychiatrist is ending. i originally started my undergrad to get an associates just so i could put it on my resume. now i'm graduating with a bachelors in community health and human services.... and planning to go onto graduate school.

a lot of ridiculous, awesome, and horrifying things have happened since i decided to return to school. my mother was suddenly taken ill and died peacefully.

we rescued another hysterical kitten (who has turned into a maniac). we moved back to new york. i became a body piercer for a while. i decided to continue my education and realized a lot about life in the process.

taylor crossed the rainbow bridge. i fought with my gallbladder and lost and later willingly barbecued my uterus. we moved even further out in the 'burbs.

i was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and failed every medication i tried. i landed an internship. piglet was diagnosed with kidney failure and then had to have her canines removed. i also was hired as a paid counselor at my internship. and soon thereafter, i sat for my CASAC exam and was hired on as a full time counselor. i stopped taking any medications for RA and am surviving as best i can.

my little brother got married. and then we got a puppy and i started a new medication for my mental health issues.

and today, i graduate. and i've been accepted to three graduate programs and have pretty much decided on one. i will be going for my MSW and hope to complete in about three, three and a half years. it's been a ridiculous journey; sometimes it feels like yesterday and sometimes i can't remember what it was like before i was a counselor.

thankfully, my therapist is working today since the office was closed yesterday. i am a jumbled mass of conflicting emotions and ideas. but i am really excited to be graduating and opening a new chapter in my life. well, at the end of august when grad school starts.

i have a commitment issue.

i can't blog regularly.

i just don't know what my problem is.  i have so much to say, but i just don't write it out.

work has been amazing.  getting paid to help people kick substance abuse is rewarding and frustrating and terrifying and fulfilling.  i don't love watching people pee in cups, i hate being lied to, and i'm learning to identify the master manipulators sooner rather than later.  my background in customer service/admin and having owned my own business mean i'm a pro at the paperwork side of it, even though much of it is on the computer.  actually, that might be why i'm so good at it.  i find it pretty easy to figure out how to do everything on the computer.  much of the stuff is intuitive for me; it makes sense.

i'm only working 19 hours a week and am desperate for more hours.  as it is, i've been working a lot for free.  i work 4 days a week and never take my 30 minute lunch: that's 2 hours of free work a week.  on mondays, i had gotten into the habit of staying up to 2 hours late for free.  during the week it's not uncommon for me to stay at least 30 minutes late.  and on fridays, well anywhere from 1-2 hours late has been the norm.

have you kept up with that?  that's 7-8 hours of FREE WORK every week.

three or four hours of my time every week is expected to go to supervision or training, leaving me around 15 hours to see 7 or 8 clients (an hour a pop), run two groups (at least 3 hours total), and complete at least two intake assessments (about 5 hours).  if you add it up, it just about works.

if that was all i did.  that doesn't take into account the urine testing i have to do for my clients and other clients.  it doesn't account for extra paperwork, like treatment planning or admission/discharge crap.  it doesn't include time for calling probation officers and waiting for call backs and touching base with other counselors or faxing child protection.... on and on and on.

so, yeah.  i do about 26-27 hours of work a week.  and i know there's a 28 hour position in other locations... we just don't have the budget for it at our location.  damn it.  damn it all.

i've decided i can't get burned out.  i can't be continually taken advantage of.  so i've decided i have to leave closer to my scheduled time.  this week, i actually put my 30 minute lunch on my computer scheduler every day.  i try to stop working; today i managed to take almost 20 minutes looking away from my computer and doing not much work-related crap; i messed around on my phone.  i left 40 minutes late yesterday and about 25 minutes late today.  i took some time to really consider my schedule and see how i can move appointments around to better suit leaving on time.

my thought is that if i ONLY work the 19 (okay, maybe 21) hours a week, i won't be able to tackle any additional 'stuff'; hell, i may barely be able to tackle my stuff.  then they'll see that i either need a smaller caseload (booooo) or more hours (yaaaaaay).

it's strange, sort of.  having a job i love so much that i don't mind working for free.   because that's not it - i don't really mind working for free.  it's just i'd rather they pay me for it.  and if i keep doing it for free, they'll never realize they need to pay me for it.

i've thought about taking another part time job.  i'm not sure that will work very well, but i'd like the extra money.  it would be nice to have a bucketful of money to take to florida next fall.

my first week of being a paid counselor!

it was good.  i had four days as a paid counselor and one day as an intern.  i supervised about 8 urine tests (awesome, right?) and lead a few groups.  i did some more decorating in my office.  i have two posi vinyl clings on my walls and moved around my desk and rehabbed that $15 craigslist bookcase for my office.  it came out pretty good and i plan on doing a separate post about that.  with photos.  of course.

awesome husband @_antgas had to travel for work this past week, so it feels like i haven't seen him since last weekend.  he came home on thursday night, we worked on friday, and now today we're thinking of doing some shopping.  it's supposed to be a rainy, icky day for much of the day so we thought being in the mall would be okay.  and maybe we'll spend some time at home just relaxing.  ultimately i have to clean the apartment and do laundry, too, but i have tomorrow as well.

that farm we like to go to is having what they call chick-a-palooza this weekend.  lots of chickens and some vendors and bee keeping talks and stuff like that.  we went last year and are planning on going tomorrow for a couple of hours.

of course, nothing goes as smoothly as we want it to.  up the chain somewhere at work, someone is convinced that i can't do work that we bill medicaid for.  i work for a non-profit where the majority of clients are on medicaid.  like, probably 90% of clients are on medicaid.  so i don't know why someone gave the okay to hire me if i can't do anything billable.  i keep going on all the state websites to find proof from the state that i can do billable work and submitting it to people who should care and they keep not caring.  they're paying me to be an intern at this point.  it's pretty hysterical.

but my supervisor decided to give me two clients yesterday during case conference.  she said that if they still get bitchy about me doing billable work, she'll take them.  but what will probably really happen is that i'll be their 'counselor' and she'll pop in at the end of the sessions so we can bill.  it's just, ugh.  nothing can be easy.

i almost had a breakdown last tuesday because i called my therapist so that i could switch my appointment time from fridays at 10am, since i'll be working, and i was told he had no other availability.  it really threw me because it's hard to find a therapist that i don't hate.  and we've already started working together well; it's been a couple of months.  thankfully one of the other office assistants called me and asked for my availability, juggled some other clients around, and got me tuesdays at 3pm.  i was ridiculously happy.  like you have no idea.  and it's been two weeks since i've seen my therapist and i'm like ugh.  i can't wait until tuesday.

insert witty blog title here

i want to write, but i'm not coming up with anything good to title this random blog of crap.  so tough titties.  apparently i'm not going to be witty today.

piglet seems to be doing better.  she's active, and eating, and stepping on me with her pointy feet, and following me around relentlessly until i tell her to stay put and leave me alone.  so, back to normal.  i'm going pet food shopping today to switch up their food again.  i love love love the grain-free ingredient list of what i'm currently feeding, but the calorie count is really low.  i think i can find something close to as good with minimal grains and more calories.  and she's ready to go back on kibble starting today - which is excellent.  because we've been feeding her nighttime snack wet food on our bedroom floor.  and i don't know if it's a cat-eating-on-carpet thing or a new piglet-has-no-canines thing but she's a messy wet food eater now.  very messy.  i'm hoping to put all three cats on wet food breakfast and midday feeding, then kibbles for nighttime snack before bed.

i'm sad that i haven't been cross stitching recently but i've been doing other things.  i've picked up a few books about recovery and psychology and shit, so i've been reading.  one is about healing your inner child.  it's already very powerful and i think it will be useful, not just for me but in my counseling.  i also got a cute little book of daily affirmation things for recovery.  i'll use that in groups i think.  and i finished my positivity jar the other day!

positivity jar for work.  full of POSITIVITY!

i first collected five pages of positive affirmations.  some are for recovery, some are for self-worth and self-love, all are positive and applicable to anyone.  then i formatted them to be roughly the same size, like a largish return address label.  then i cut pretty scrapbook paper to 8.5x12" and reset the margins, then printed the affirmations one page at a time.  i used that cutting pad and a rotary cutter to cut each affirmation, folded each in half, and tossed them in the jar.  i used one of the scrapbook papers to cover the top part of the mason jar so it's pretty.  i'm considering seeing if any of my crafty friends have a cricut and could be commissioned into making a nice vinyl cling to put on the jar.  i plan on keeping this on my desk and when someone is having a particularly shitty day, they can get some positivity.  another idea is to bring it into group and pass it around, having everyone choose one and discuss it.  

i also bought another mason jar that i'm going to paint black on the inside (maybe with some glitter, who knows?) for negative thoughts.  i found a notepad with neon colored pages about 3"x5" that i'm going to have people write negative crap on, fold it up, and put it in that jar.  when i was in high school, we had a woman who ran the bookstore that we called 'mom'.  she was amazing and empathetic and loving and caring.  she truly cared about each of us, everyone in that school.  some of us gravitated toward her and spent a lot of time with her.  one day mom emptied out the bottom drawer of her desk and started having us write stupid shit that we needed to let go on her cube pad of neon paper.  we'd even draw little pictures sometimes.  then we'd fold it up and dump it in that drawer.  once it was in that drawer, that was it - we had to leave it there and let it go.  we went through that drawer when we were graduating high school, and it was ridiculous the types of shit we were going to hold on to.  i'm hoping to recreate that with this jar.  in recovery, we talk about recognizing what we can and cannot control, and letting go of what we can't control.  this is a tangible exercise in that.  i think.  

awesome husband @_antgas and i went to a local organic farm last weekend to meet baby animals.  i was kind of bummed that there were only a few baby animals - chicks and a lamb - but there were also alpaca.  which were neat.  but distracted.

@_antgas and the alpaca.  who was watching other things.

i pet a lamb! it was completely unconcerned with us and had a one track mind for nibbling.

then we stopped at another farm famous for it's pies.  @_antgas got a peach pie and we got some cookies.  i don't like peach pie, but he enjoyed it.  (not all of it, we shared with his parents and grandma.)

and then a couple of weeks ago i broke down and cooked meat.  i mentioned 'pot roast' once to awesome husband @_antgas and he couldn't get it out of his mind apparently.  i bought a huge pot roast, enough for dinner and lunch for him for the entire week.  i made it and it was fucking delicious and i felt horrible touching and cooking meat.  but it was worth it.  i'm still sticking to my roughly 90% vegetarian lifestyle (i don't like labels and i like freedom to eat whatever the fuck i want) but i haven't had my mom's pot roast in a very, very long time.  the gravy wasn't as thick as i'd have liked, but it's been years since i've tried to make gravy so i was pretty pleased with it all around.

um, yum.

and then i picked up a bookcase from craigslist.  it was $15 and it's not real wood but it was $15.  i'm going to prime it and paint it and use it in my office.  i'm thinking of trying to take the back off and wrap it in fabric or line it with scrapbook paper.  or i might paint the insides one color and the outside another.  or something else i find on pinterest that ruins life for me.

so, life has been good.  i'm going to be a paid counselor as of monday.  the cats are doing well.  i'm feeing okay emotionally.  still in a lot of pain rheumatoid disease wise.  the humira doesn't seem to be helping at all.  yet.  it's only been about 3 weeks, so we'll see.  hopefully it starts to work.  and hopefully it works well and i won't have a lot of pain and i'll be comfortable again.

ahh, wednesday.

i'm finally not really that sick any longer.  it's been two weeks since i started feeling ill and i'm still a little snotty and coughing a bit.  i can't fucking wait until it's all cleared up.  it better be soon.  ugh.

my birthday was last week.  and i was sick.  so, you know.  awesome husband @_antgas and i went to benihana (if you have a local location, join their chef's club and you'll get a $30 certificate for your birthday!) and ate A LOT.  then on my birthday we went over our friends' house and had nathan's for dinner.  it was very nice and nostalgic: when we were younger, my mom would pick up nathan's hot dogs and french fries for a special dinner on our birthdays.  she'd also get this lemony cake for dessert.  i don't know how many years we did it, but i remember it being a thing.  the next night we had greek food and ice cream with my bestie for forever.

my dad's birthday is the week before mine, so we've often done joint birthday things.  on sunday, we went to our favorite steak house with dad, my brother, his fiancee sisterfromanothermister, and my twin half sisters.  it was lots of food and lots of fun.  i had a meat-ful weekend.

so much meat.  so much.

i'm not eating meat until saturday again.  @_antgas' mom is having st. patrick's day.  we didn't do anything for st. paddy's day because i won't cook meat and we don't drink... so, kind of pointless.  but for saturday i'm planning on making scratch irish soda bread - one without raisins because i hate raisins - and i might make my family's cole slaw.

i've been off my meds forever, it feels like.  my joints are screaming.  and the fatigue is coming back. it's like just existing in this much pain causes fatigue.  i'm kind of over it.

i'm getting some tattoo work done on thursday, not too much but a bit.  my rheumy said i should stop taking my meds for a week before and a week after if i want to get tattooed.  i've been off for over two weeks, almost three.  but then i have to wait for another week before i can start humira.  which is the next biologic drug we're trying.  enbrel didn't do shit.  i only hope humira does something.

piglet seems to be.... well, piglet.  her tooth is definitely getting worse, but she's still drinking and eating and peeing and pooping.  of course, every cat vomited everywhere last night.  damn it.  we'll bring piglet back in about two weeks to have another round of blood work and see if anything's changed.  i guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it....

ups and downs

it's been an interesting few weeks.

my rheumatoid disease activity has been up.  pain levels are increasing.  drugs are not helping.  about two weeks ago i was trying not to hate my life.  i've started being more creative - cross stitching and cooking as much as i can.  or as much as i feel like.  it keeps snowing.  and it's cold.

ah, february.  it's been a month of ups and downs.

next week i go the the rheumatologist again.  she's probably going to discontinue my enbrel and start the process to get me on humira.  it's the same kind of fucking ridiculous drug with a disgusting laundry list of possible side effects: serious infections, nervous system problems, blood problems, heart failure, immune system reactions, liver problems.  oh, and of course a heightened risk of cancer, including a rare kind of lymphoma.

maybe this one will help.

i finally went through all the hoops to get a temporary handicapped parking permit.  i hate that i have it, but it really helps with the walking.  if i go to the mall or try to go shopping, 30 minutes is my limit.  it makes it hard to go shopping other than food shopping.  and at school it will help a lot - the student parking lot is faaaar from the buildings.  i also bought a cane that i still won't use.  it's leopard print, obvs.

still, everything hurts.  my elbows still seem to be the only main joints not involved.  my very low spine hurts.  my hips.  my shoulders.  my knees.  and of course, my wrists, fingers, ankles, and toes.  my toes have been horrible this week.  my left heel is a problem as well.

interning is going so well.  i have three of my own groups - one is every other week and is a health & nutrition group.  i have an orientation group once a week for new clients and an opioid recovery group once a week.  and i'm still co-leading the women's group once a week.  that's my favorite - i'm really learning a lot by leading it with a more seasoned counselor.

and i did my first mostly solo assessment.  i took the lead with the entire thing and wrote up all the notes and filled out all the online stuff about it to be reviewed by the counselor who sat with me.  she didn't interject much at all but gave me good guidance.

then today my supervisor/mentor spent a solid ten minutes gushing over how great i am.  she kept talking about how big of a help i've been with her workload, and how much she wants me to be able to have my own caseload.  she told me they're pushing her to hire a part time counselor who is fully credentialed, which i won't be for at least another two years - i'll have a trainee certification in june and will have to do 2000+ hours of work that is reviewed by other qualified health professionals.  but she's keeping me in the loop on that so i can prepare to present myself as an integral part of the team when my internship is over and hopefully get some kind of job there.  i want to stay where i am.  i love the other counselors, i love the clients, the location isn't horrible - not too far - i mean, come on.  and i learned here - i know how to do everything the way THEY want people to do things.  i'm hopeful and confident, but i don't want to be cocky about it.

and piglet has a tooth injury.  i don't know how much i went into it already - if at all - but she'll most likely have to have one of her canines removed this friday.  she's almost 10 but she still feels too young for this to happen to.  i'm just hoping it's not one of the tooth things that cats get that will end up affecting like all of her teeth.  we'll see.

so february ends and we enter march.  we still have snow, my birthday is coming up, and spring will hopefully spring sooner rather than later.  the clocks go ahead this weekend so it will be lighter later at night.  hopefully i'll keep practicing positivity and be a happy camper too!

surprise! i'm not dead yet.

wow.  if you're reading this, i must really give you props.  instead of seeing my crap pop up in your blogroll and saying, 'that lame bitch?  she hasn't said anything to anyone in four months, and then she comes back and wants us to pay attention to her?  fuck that!' and scrolling on, you clicked.

hi.  i'm a lame bitch who hasn't said anything to anyone in four months, and now i expect you to pay attention to me.

so in our last meeting, we discussed how crazy busy my life was: work full time.  school full time.  no time for sleep, cat cuddling, or anything really.  i mean, i had time for things.  just not as much as i wanted.  i like taking time for, you know.  nothing.  video games.  watching a movie by myself because awesome husband @_antgas won't watch 'twilight' movies with me.

since early march (when i last posted) i've had another birthday, finished my monday night class as well as another semester at school, purged a bunch of my mother's stuff that i was holding onto for some reason.... oh, i also moved and quit my job.

wait, what?  i know.

that full time job with the paycheck and the awesome benefits?  yeah, i quit.  i accepted a position with a social program at a behavioral rehab center.  about 15 hours a week and nowhere near what i was making per hour.  it's three evenings a week, and i help make juice and iced tea and dinner for a group of people who are in recovery or live in group homes or whatever.  then i help clean up from dinner and drive a bunch of them home.  there are addicts in recovery, schizophrenics, some guy that i have NO idea what is wrong with him but i've been told never to shake his hand and to wash my hands immediately if i ever do, and people who live in group homes for different reasons.  one woman has a doll that i've seen her spoon feed and talk to.  which i thought was weird at first, but the woman is actually really nice and pretty normal otherwise.

not EXACTLY in the vein of work that i'm training for, but it's in the broad field of 'helping'.  so it counts as 'in my field'.  it's the first job i've ever had that's in 'the field' of social work.  of course, i'm the only person there who's working in the field and not just a client.  but it's definitely eye-opening, as well as good hours and much less stressful.

i'm also helping out my dad one day a week at his place in queens.  it's a family owned business and his secretary administrative assistant up and quit a couple of months ago.  dad's been buried in work since then, so i offered myself up one day a week (for much better pay per hour) to help dig him out.  it's a 3 hour commute round trip, but it's nice to be able to help him out and make a few extra bucks.

and we moved.  if you didn't know, awesome husband and i lived communally in a house with my brother and his fiancee; we shared the kitchen and laundry room.  it was working out well and saving everyone a bit of money, but awesome husband @_antgas and i decided we needed to be on our own.  we were having some issues.

marriage is hard work, y'all.

we decided we needed to be on our own for so many reasons.  but when i started thinking about it, in our eight and a half years of marriage, we've lived alone for 17 months.  when we were first married, we lived with my mom and brother for a couple of years.  it was a mutually beneficial plan because my mom needed our help with crap around the house, and we couldn't afford a decent place to live on our own.  when we moved to florida, my mom was laid off and sold her house, so she came to florida and lived communally with us.  and then when my mom died, we moved back to new york and moved in communally with my brother.  so this is kind of like the first place that's ours.  we're renting a two bedroom apartment in a nice little town on the south shore of long island - not too far south.  not too close to the water - not going through that again.

we spent a few weeks moving and paying double rent.  between painting the new place, moving our crap, and cleaning the old place, it felt like MONTHS between the old and new places.  but i dropped off the old keys on monday and now we just have to see what we get back for our deposit.  we had some carpet damage that i'd like to think is in line with 'normal wear and tear' after living there for two years and being great tenants who never paid late or caused problems.

perhaps one of the most amazing things that happened during the course of the move is that i decided i was not going to cart all of mom's stuff around any more.   we realized that we wouldn't have room for some of our stuff, like my huge china closet... so we wouldn't have room for the mikasa stemware or china that we never use.  i made a list of my stuff that we were going to have to sell or donate, and realized that i had boxes upon boxes upon boxes of my mom's stuff that i didn't even know about.  when she died and we packed up the house in florida, awesome husband @_antgas took some time off work and packed for me while i worked and ignored all of my mom's stuff.  it was just too new for me. so we brought basically all of her stuff up to new york with us without going through it.  we only went through her clothes really because i wasn't about to cart around all of a dead woman's clothes.

we went through everything.  i found three boxes of quimper china that i sold for $100 to a woman who collected it (and i may have contributed to her hoarding.... ergh.)  i found a box of nancy drew books that i decided to hang onto and see what they're worth.  i found a tote full of pots and tupperware.  yes.  i found a box of candelwick that we decided to donate.  we went through it all.  and we pared it down to maybe three boxes of her things that i can't or won't get rid of.  and now i can box them back up and hide them again until i'm ready.

but it was very cathartic.  i got the feeling that it was time to purge and make changes.  and awesome husband @_antgas and i have purged a lot of crap and made a lot of changes.  and it feels pretty good.

now we're in a new apartment, in a new town.  the cats are settling in, we're down to just a couple of boxes of crap to unpack, and it feels like we're setting off on a new adventure, a new chapter of our life together.  it feels pretty good.

frustration

i waited so long to get to the position i am in with my work at home thingy.  i was thrilled to be asked to rejoin the client i had left a year prior.  but things change.

and not always for the better.

now i'm frustrated and unfulfilled at the job.  the extra work-for-free hours are annoying the hell out of me.  and it's eating into my life.  ultimately, i'm going to grown up school (quite probably in the fall).  i won't be able to go to brick and mortar college full time, work 20 paid/5-7 unpaid hours a week at home, and then whatever i end up doing at the shop.  i have work, work, and school.  and one thing has to go.

when i said 'i'll just quit school after i get my associates' awesome husband looked like he wanted to punch me.  so school isn't going (and i'm glad about it).

one job has to go.

working at home is pretty neat.  i work at home.  i love the people i work with.  i love helping people.  i'm good at my job... just not good enough.  it's one of those jobs where we're constantly told to do better and, often times, our progress is glossed over.  it's always 'yes, you did better - but we can keep improving'.  and i get that - there's always room for improvement, no one is perfect.  but it would be nice to have a week go by where we could just be awesome and not have a 'but' in there.

and it *used* to be flexible.  yes, there are a handful of meetings we need to attend every week - most of which i'm able to attend.  but it's not like i just do my time and leave.  they constantly need someone to step up for one thing or another.  if i'm online and something needs to be done, no one considers whether i'm online for work or not - they just ask me to do stuff.  it was crazy busy one night earlier this week and an 'all hands on deck' call went out.  i can't do stuff like that.  i was at my other job when that call went out.  when i worked with another client, it was up to me - i picked my hours, i showed up, i did my time.  if i wanted to take a monday off, i took a monday off.  not now.

working at the shop is really cool.  i love the people i work with and i like meeting new people.  as much as i still hate most people, i'm great with them (customer service runs in my blood).  i have a good bedside manner, so i'm told.  i like sticking needles into people.  i'm terrified of surface piercings and am excited to learn how to do them properly.  it's not as flexible because i have to be there when the shop's open and the other piercer isn't there, but i get two full days off a week.  even though i work both weekend days, if i needed a saturday night off, i ask and someone covers for me.

the money is comparable.  but work at home job is less hours.  work at home job is 20 hours a week - but then an additional 5-7 UNPAID.  which just pisses me off like you wouldn't believe.  piercing is like 35ish hours a week so it's at least 8 hours more a week for the same amount of money but i have fun (and get some homework done while i'm there.  so, you know.  multitasking).

awesome husband's first instinct was to quit piercing.  but i enjoy it so much.  my office is next to my bedroom.  i'm writing this in my bed, and my work computer is sitting on a desk that is literally on the other side of the wall my head is against.  and i don't want to get out of bed to walk into that office and do that job.  but i want to go piercing.

i like doing things i excel at.  and i just don't seem to be excelling at working at home.

and the strangest thing has happened while i'm trying to hash all of this out.  i realized that i'm alive.

i mean, obvs i've been 'alive' this entire time.  but i've been working from home for four years now.  we only had one car.  i never went anywhere alone.

we have a second car now.  i leave the house when i want to.  i get a pedi or go to the spa.  i can go foodshopping by myself.  and fuck, if i want a damn latte i can go to sbux on my own and get one.  it's like i'm a real, productive member of society again.

and i hate saying that - productive member of society.  it makes everyone else who doesn't work outside of the home sound like an asshole.  but when i was really sick, in the dregs of my depression, i wanted to be normal.  and i don't mean the really low lows where you just CANNOT function.  i mean those 300+ days a year where you're just fucking depressed and feeling worthless and shit like that.  the days when you'd give anything to be able to get dressed, leave the house, and do normal-person things like data entry jobs or food shopping or whatever.

i longed for that.  i wanted to be able to leave the house without worrying that people were staring at me.  i wanted to go outside and not think that someone was watching me.  i wanted to have that self-worth and feel good about myself.

and don't get me wrong - working from home was a huge boost for me, financially and emotionally.  i was able to contribute to my household and do something - very well.  i was NOT worthless.

i sent my direct 'superior' an email explaining all of this.  here's some of it...

Since my mother's death just over a year ago, I've worked on living.  I want to have fun and excel at whatever I choose to do.  I have had fun working with Client and would love to be able to work with Arise and Client in a capacity that I excel at.  However, I've also worked on balancing my life since my mother died.  Flexibility is incredibly important to me and I'm lucky that I've enjoyed that in the past with Arise.  But between school and the demands of my position with Client, I don't have that flexibility any longer.

 i know piercing means working saturdays and sundays.  i know it means missing some family stuff and it means not always being around.  but it means having fun and excelling at something.  it means being out there and LIVING my life.

it's terrifying striking out on other things.  and it's sad to me that my business venture may be coming to an end now.  but it's exciting too.  awesome husband and i have always made things work in the past.  there's no reason to believe we can't make it work going forward.

terrifying and exciting.  correct me if i'm wrong, but that sounds like living.

hi there

hi.

how've you been?

me? okay, i guess.  not really busy.

just, you know.  tired.  and sad.  so lots of napping has gone on.

i have a whole blog post ready to go, i just need to add a couple of after pictures.

but, you know.  tired.  and sad.

so i really haven't been doing much of anything.  except eating cookies and tarzipan.

and rum.

lots of rum.

bucketfuls actually.

it's a picture from last weekend.  but still relevant.  however, i have retired the bucket and now only use it for it's delicious printed recipe.

so.

i mean, my cat was in one of those collars for a while.  but we took it off when he got shit on it.  did i show that to you guys?

i can't stop biting my butt.  well, my rump.  you know how it is.  right?  do you?

and now he's biting his butt again.  not as much, though, because i keep spraying it with nasty tasting shit.

and i got a new tattoo.  but it's all peely right now so i'm not posting photos of it yet.  i actually got two, one small one on my hand and a big one on my arm.  i love tattoos.

so, what else... what else...

nothing, really.  nothing good at least.

but i always have my family and friends.  and cats.  they all love me and keep me semi-sane.

we get by.

one door opens, another slams shut in my fucking face

okay so good news/bad news sitch.  awesome husband has left me all alone (with four cats and two hermit crabs.... so not terribly alone) and gone to new york to find a house/job.

and what did he do?  he joined a fucking gym.  seriously.  i have two weight benches and a set of those fancy adjustable dumbbells that were like $300 ON SALE and p90x and the over the door thingy to do pull ups.  and he goes to new york and joins a damn gym.

yeah, that's not lasting.  if he's joining a gym, he's selling all that shit.  plus the gym is like a half hour drive from where we are probably going to live.  so it will take him an hour round trip to drive to the place where he'll work out for an hour.

men reading this, i bet you think this makes perfect sense.

women, i don't need to say anything more.


BUT we did find the PERFECT place to live!  it's actually two blocks from where we lived with my mom in new york and across the canal from where my brother lives now (doesn't that sound fancy?)  it's a high ranch so the lower floor has like two bedrooms and a bathroom and a laundry room and the upper levels have living room, dining room, kitchen, three bedrooms, and another bath.

so the lower level is basically a kitchen-less apartment.  perfect for my brother and sisterfromanothermister.  and there's room for an office.

and a workout room.  fucking awesome husband.  not like he's reading this.  DICK.

it's a little more than we were hoping to spend and has oil heat (sobbing) but we can make it work.

IF awesome husband finds a job this morning.  we don't really anticipate a problem because good mechanics are not a dime a dozen.  and awesome husband has had literally THOUSANDS of dollars of chrysler-specific training and chrysler dealers LOVE that shit.

so we're applying with the property management company today.  the realtor that showed the house doesn't think we'll have a problem.  i'm hoping she's right because IT IS PERFECT.

the door closing is the buyers for our house in florida.  the inspection came back and the inspector is like 'there are some loose shingles, a couple of missing shingles, and some puckering shingles on the roof.  so fix it and do some routine maintenance'.  the buyer's agent interpreted that to 'we want you to replace the roof'.  which is so not happening.  we're less than two weeks from closing.  so we are trying to get a roofer in here to see how much the repair/maintenance will cost and we'll offer to do that and see if they are okay with that.

legally, they have to be.  in florida once an offer is accepted the buyer only has like three times to back out of the sale without losing the escrow.  one is inspection, one is appraisal, and the other one i forget but it already passed.  now they SKIPPED the inspection and went right to the appraisal because they thought it would appraise for less than the offer/asking price and wanted us to let them have it for that price.

yeah.  not happening.

but they WAIVED their inspection contingency so they cannot use it as an excuse to back out of the purchase without penalty.

technically, my realtor tells me there are ways they can have their loan denied which would void the purchase without any penalty.  and we are motivated.  so we are going to try and work with it.  but it's just another headache that i didn't want.

so i'm eating lots of tarzipan and playing the sims medieval until awesome husband comes home tomorrow.  at the very least, until i get word that we have that house and awesome husband has a job.

that will make me happy in the pants.

a break from our reguarly scheduled melancholy

i was getting ready to write/post part three, which will probably be the most depressing thing yet.  sorry.  but it will be. 

instead, you're getting a treat. 

if you've read my blog for any amount of time, you might be familiar with the fact that i don't want kids.  and neither does awesome husband.  since my mother's death, i think some of us (pointed look towards awesome husband) have thought maybe they'd want to change their mind.  some of us may have been feeling like they need to share some extra love.  some of us might have been feeling like they wanted something of their own to love.

so awesome husband and i were running some errands today.  he wanted to pick up s dumbbell set, i wanted to get chipotle before i start my new stupid fucking diet lifestyle tomorrow.  there's a petco near chipotle, and we needed cat food so i was like 'let's stop there and buy some fucking cat food'.

like most weekends, they had a local rescue operation set up there adopting cats out.  we always stop and look, cooing at the teensy kittens and trying to coax the untrusting adults out of the corners of cages.  we argue about getting an orange cat, or a special needs cat, or a polydactyl cat.  and we walk away to complete our shopping. 

like most weekends, we stopped and looked at the beautiful long haired siblings who were white with black splotches and white with grey splotches.  we poked at the little long haired tabby who was hiding under her mat.  we called to the teenaged orange cat who steadfastly ignored us.

then awesome husband got to the last cage.  he called me over.  there were two tiny tabbys in this cage, one with lighter tan markings and one that almost looked like he was wearing a mask. we looked at them.  we spoke to the foster mom.  awesome husband wanted to hold one.  i liked the lighter colored one, but awesome husband pointed to the one with the mask-like markings.  they put him in my arms and he melted onto my chest.

oh.

then i handed the kitten to awesome husband.  now, he has always loved animals but never had cats growing up.  i tried to turn him into a cat person with my kittehs.  he always said he didn't want another cat, three was enough, hell TWO was enough for him.  but as i handed this kitten to awesome husband, and he looked down at this cat, well...

suddenly, he thought three cats was NOT enough.

our new tiny babeh kitteh



that's awesome husband's hand on the kitteh.  he weighs like four pounds.


i think i may have finally turned him into a cat person.