User talk:TheEileen/Sep 2009
September 2009
01 Sep 2009
Updated list and wiki today. 5 projects moved from waiting to F2 available. 3 projects moved from available to post-processing. 2 projects posted. I did manage to foof some more in F2. But not much else.
Work and life continue crazy busy and I had more car issues. Turns out I needed new tires because one was about to separate. And I needed a new wheel. So I had to arrange for all that, take off work, get it done, etc. etc. I'm trying to get back on my routine, and doing some better. I made my soup and muffins this weekend. But too much of my life is looking like too much of the rest of my life. If I sit and zone with a book instead of DP it is because I feel pressured everywhere. Most of that is me projecting and some of it is hormonal (thank you perimenopause) which doesn't make any difference to how I feel about it. It is sort of hard to discuss with my therapist as she doesn't quite "get" the appeal of on-line anything or DP and whenever I complain about things her advice is to "stop doing it". I'm trying to get to "not let it overwhelm me" NOT "give it up!" geez. Grin.
Weather has gotten cooler and finally some rain. I didn't do a thing with my garden this year, really didn't do anything. What lived lived without any help from me. So, here is what I learned. Yes, my periwinkle is hardy, but it will die back every winter and not grow as fast as I would like. Alyssum needs no water. I mean NO WATER. I didn't water that patch all summer and it never died out and it's blooming like mad. The one thing it is NOT doing is getting HUGE like it has in previous years so that I've had to cut it back several time. It has gotten just about 18 inches high and then sort of stopped. Perfect. I see many bees in my garden, even a bumble bee or two! I'm tired all the time but can't sleep. I know I'm in a depressive cycle but in an odd way because I am not actually depressed. I'm more frustrated and annoyed and a little angry (sort of how men typically experience depression). It's weird to be depressed but not feel sad or melancholy in any way. Just scattered and unfocused, sleep pattern messed up, irritable, etc. etc. Working on it.
Ha, I just read below. I finally finished ALL my paperwork on the dining room table. All sorted and up and new files in place. I am not so happy with my exercise regime. I had to stop doing yoga as it was stressing my shoulder out. I'm still hoping to get back into it. My neck and shoulder are much better but I went three weeks with no yoga and no weights, felt a ton better, did minimal weights and had neck pain for a week. Did without, did weights differently and had no neck pain, so did yoga, had neck pain. It's a tricky balancing act. I need to walk more, which of course, cuts into DP time. Sigh. Still, I'm trying.
09 Sep 2009
Updated list and wiki today. 1 project moved from waiting to available. 4 projects moved to post-processing. None posted. Some foofing done these last few days but not a lot. Hard to concentrate as I am sick again. I had such high hopes for Ibsen on this, my week of vacation. Instead I got a cold and find it hard to think or breath or anything but sit like a bump on a log and be all frustrated at the slightest thing that doesn't go exactly perfectly.
Work hit just enough of a "slow" period - that is where I had no readily discernible major deadlines - that I was able to catch up a little on some of the other items I've been needing and wanting to work on. I still haven't gotten within two weeks of my mail (meaning on Monday the 31st of August, for instance, I was reading my mail from August 10th. One friend wanted to know why I was going on vacation when this would put me even further behind. I needed the break of course, but then I have gotten sick. This makes the third cold this year (although I sincerely hope I'll manage to be all immune to the really bad outbreaks that are coming). When I get sick anytime I take time off - I know I'm stressed.
This is partly just work and life and part of it is the lack of yoga. The few times in the last month that I have tried, it immediately makes my neck pain flare up. I am coming darned close to saying to heck with it and just doing the yoga and dealing with the pain. Conversely, what a blooming pleasure it has been this last week when I felt ill to be able to roll over onto my left side (I know!) and sleep. If my head hurts on one side, I can actually go to the other now. I don't want to lose that but at the same time, I need my yoga to balance. I've been trying to walk more and just not getting it in the way I could yoga.
Did I mention that now I'm starved when I come home and that is also making it hard to go straight to my workout, which is what I used to do? My doc and I discussed this and she believes that it is due to my lower calorie intake which is part of how I am maintaining my healthy weight. We think that even when I try to have good / healthy snacks in the mid-afternoon (and my heavens that is hard to do), my metabolism is desperate for fuel by the time I get home. I am telling myself, you can have a handful of peanuts and some cheese and then workout but I don't seem to listen to myself in this (ha!). Meaning, I'll say it in the car on the drive home and then still just put food in the stove and be cooking and then get mad at myself for going on auto-pilot.
I had to get new tires for the car as well as a new wheel. That was another lot of $$. Also, I am feeling tired and pressured and I had a mini-epiphany yesterday. Part of what I need to be able to deal with is the Board and I have no one I can talk to about it. Because it is the board, I can't talk to anyone at DP. It wouldn't be ethical and it would place them in a bad position. But no one else I know is into this in any way. I have about 90% of my friends who have no interest in this and even if they were willing to be interested enough just to listen to me vent, they know so little of the whole thing that the two times I tried (with two different people), we got completely sidetracked into me just explaining the site and the concept and every time I'd try to get onto what I needed to talk about, they'd have a general question and after 20 minutes they felt like they'd given me enough time on this subject and I'd gotten nowhere near what I needed to talk about.
I often clarify things for myself by describing them to other people. The other 10% of my friends who know enough generally about both DP and Boards to just listen without 30 minutes of background and who wouldn't derail me with questions anyway ... are also too busy and pressured themselves to give me the time. I'd go to them precisely because they'd understand, and they'd understand because they have no time to spend with me due to their pressured lives. Sigh.
So I'm sort of caught in a trap here. It's not a happy place. My general life is full of a number of small, minor annoyances that are building into this general fiasco of a life at the moment. My therapist and I agree that I'm in a depressed downcycle now. It is weird to be depressed but not sad. I've always had this "doom gloom and despair" when I was in a down phase before, now it's frustration, anger, and more frustration. We've tried to see if I'm masking or displacing sadness, but it appears I am not. I'm down but not sad or melancholy. It really is very strange.
I did at least get a few more things done around the house. Again, trying to do just one thing a week to get my list done, to feel like I'm back on my track/routine, that I have control of my life. Overall, it is working. It is just all the things over which I have no control seem to be out to get me. ha!
Oh, and I'm having computer troubles too. I know I need to take it into the shop (which is always a hassle just by itself). But before I do that, I really want to make a backup of my data. But before I do that, I want to clean up/out my data. That alone is about a four step process. When I was making this comment to a friend the other day and then restating the troubles, he responded "why don't you take it into the shop". "It is so nice to know you are listening to me," I said with commendably little sarcasm. "Do you remember what I started this sentence with?" "no" "I said I need to take my computer into the shop" "Why don't you?" Me: "I already told you and I'm not repeating myself"
He really has begun to get worse and worse about the whole "I demand you pay attention to me and listen to me but I can't be bothered to return the favor." I am getting progressively more annoyed with him as well and do not know why I bother to talk to him or spend time with him most of the time now. It was about 20 minutes after this conversation above that he asked if I wanted to drive 2 hours to watch him get his car fixed. (That would literally be a two hour drive there, an unknown amount of time at the garage and then a two hour drive back). I said, "No, I have no interest in that." (which is exactly the wording he has used on me when I've invited him to things). He seemed a touch surprised but dropped me off at my place and I had a nice afternoon not having to put up with him talking about himself, his car, and his problems without any reciprocity.
15 Sep 2009
Updated list and wiki today. 1 project moved to F2 available and 1 posted. Some foofing this week. The cold lasted 10 days. It seemed over on day 7 and then came somewhat roaring back on day 8 & 9.
Didn't do a lot of anything, too hard to think or breath or sleep (since I couldn't breath and since I cannot apparently sleep with my mouth open except by my thinking "keep your mouth open", as soon as I started to fall asleep, my mouth would close, my air would be cut off, and gasp, I'd waken again. By day four, none of the meds in the house worked, so I just had to wait it out. My voice is back and that's good. Back to work tomorrow. I probably could have gone in but I decided that a) I needed some actual vacation time I could appreciate and b) I keep going in too early and then getting worse. This time, I wait until I really do have my energy back.
Weather going sunny and warm (to a little too hot by 3pm) but cool at night and lovely. I really like it right now. I managed to do a few of my chores and got my faucet fixed, the hardware for some shelves and even some ordering done. My broken chair I still can't find arms for. I was very excited Beatles Rock Band came out and bummed that I couldn't play for long or sing really due to the cold, but I tried. I managed, very quietly, to sing with Beverly and that was fun. I mostly sat and watched and since they have little Beatles animated videos going on it was great fun to just sit and watch. Much VEN Board business done. The DP board is turning out ... "interesting". I have to compose something tomorrow that I hope will come across as I wish, which is kindly meant as advice but I'm thinking likely to sound like a criticism. Oh well, it needs saying. At least, I have to try even if it doesn't get the result I want. It's the best I can do.
22 Sep 2009
Updated list and wiki today. 1 project moved to F2 available and 1 posted. Some foofing this week - in fact, I found myself enjoying some American Missionary and Spaldings very much. My cold is gone! My foot is now my problem.
If it isn't one thing with me, it is another. Walking into work on Monday, in regular shoes I have worn many times, I started to get this pain. By the time I got to my office I couldn't really walk on my left foot. It was like I was stepping on glass with my left foot. Turns out that somehow my metatarsils are all bruised or inflammed or something for not one darn good reason I can see. I had done my yoga the night before and been pleased that my plantar fascitis had not bothered me, so apparently the original foot problem of my metatarsils (where the toes hit the ball of the foot) decided it missed me. MY goodness - OW! I limped through the rest of the day. The annoying thing was I was going to wear my pretty shoes with this outfit. My three inch heels. That was right out. RIGHT OUT. I had to wear my "exercise at the gym" shoes. Not pretty.
Today, I tried on several pairs of my shoes before finding a pair that didn't cause me pain. The ortho people (oh the joys of working at a hospital, you wander over on break and find someone willing to check you out for five mintues) are like, yeah, ice it and "keep off it" (so not happening in my job or real life) and "maybe it will resolve". Sigh. It was wearing inserts in my shoes to help this pain that CAUSED my frelling plantar fascitis - is this a one or the other situation? Because, annoyingly, the plantar stuff is easier to walk on. It hurts but not quite in the same "you are stepping on a sharp piece of glass" way. That's a "there's a rock in your shoe". Annoying but not stabbingly painful. Darn.
Weather turning cooler. By 4pm it's 80 but in the shade, lovely. And cool breezes at night and early morning. I've been sleeping badly. Don't know if it is menopausal or hormonal or just plain annoying but it's just plain annoying! Otherwise, I'm fine. (haha). I got about 70% of my computer problems fixed. Now, I really DO NOT want to have to wipe and reload my OS. Really I don't but I have a very sinking feeling I'm going to have to eventually. Let's see how long I can put it off. Oh darn it - the laundry. Okay, bye.
29 Sep 2009
Updated list and wiki today. Only one project moved around. Got lots of foofing done this last week. Got back into AmMiss, got into Spaldings, did some of the F2 quals, did some feedback. Felt great!
I was planning on going to the CakeWrecks (check out the webpage) book signing in Seattle on Saturday; I was very much looking forward to gorging myself on cake. But I got sick. Girl sick - girl menopause-y sick. urk. Boys may skip this part if any read this page ... why oh why must it go from next to nothing, with little to no side effects for two or three months, getting my hopes all up, then suddenly descend upon me in a cloud of doom and gloom? Translation, manual dexterity gone, I can't hold a glass in one hand, it drops; migraine headaches (and I don't get them any more except ...); major league nausea (to go with the migraine); sensitivity to everything; sore all over and suddenly fibro like spasms of sharp nerve pain throughout the body? Why? and why on a day when I can eat lots of free cake???? So, I didn't go. and it was a terrible night, my head hurt so much I could not sleep. Worse headache I've had in months if not years. And every thing annoyed me and wouldn't work right. I really dislike it when the world goes all cross-grained on me. Stupid girly parts.
Boys may unavert their eyes. The weather is getting cooler and I'm loving it. Leather jacket was taken out and oiled and cleaned. Pretty! I can wear my tweed jacket and my blue wool jacket over my dresses now. Spiffy! Still too much to do in my life and not enough energy or time (for example, I am doing this while looking with disinterest upon a pile of paperwork I've been meaning to put up for four days)(clearly I have the time, but I have NO interest in it. Ugh. Go away, file yourself, will ya?)
Still, I had a lovely lunch with a friend and we talked and talked. The best part was that he talked and talked. So I could just listen and nod and eat. He was funny and interesting and kept involving me in the conversation (he's a really nice guy and so sweet) - why can't all my friends be like this! Understand that I do NOT actually want to talk all the time or be the entertainment or be their therapist. Grin.
And now back to Eileen's Talk