We all have those times in our work, social, and home lives when we need to vent.  I think that we literally have to do it for the sake of our mental and physical health.  It isn’t healthy to keep things that are bothering us all pent up inside because they will begin to manifest themselves in harmful ways both mentally and physically.  We might become short-tempered toward people that don’t deserve it.  It can disrupt our sleep and other healthy habits like eating right.  I am an emotional eater and when I get angry or frustrated, I crave sweets.  I’m a Type 1 diabetic so that’s definitely not good.  It can affect our home, social, and work relationships.  It will affect our work, creative endeavors, and our leisure time if we don’t deal with it.  When I have too much going on inside my head and I haven’t dealt with it, my OCD and ADHD go into hyperdrive.  And other side effects, for me, are utter and complete bitchiness and total frustration.  Venting has gotten a bad rap but, as I said, I really do think it’s something we need to do occasionally.  The trick is finding the right time and place and vent and, most importantly, the right person to whom you can vent.  Maybe work something out with a friend so that each of you can take care of venting.  If you’re only venting to your spouse, for example, they’ll probably get tired of it after a while.  Same goes for friends or other relatives.  But, if you find someone or even a couple of someones, to share venting time with it will be beneficial for everyone.  Maybe have dinner and/or drinks once a month or go to a spa together or even take a road trip.  Vent and have a good time…win-win.  Get some friends together and talk about…see if they’re interested.  It could be beneficial in so many ways.  And, seriously, what have you got to lose?

Still under the weather but I think that the worst is past.  Or maybe it’s just the sunshine and slightly warmer temperatures that we have today.  Right now, however, I’d just like to crawl into bed and under the covers and sleep a couple of days.  I haven’t been warm since I got sick with this cold.  I used to be very warm natured but over the last few years, my internal thermostat got flipped.  If it gets below 75°, I begin to shiver.  One of my coworkers and I have thermostat wars every day, all year long.  She is determined to keep the temperature below 70°.  And, on top of that, my office is the coldest one here.  So, even when it’s 105° outside, I’m dressed for winter.  And, rather than dress cooler or maybe even layer her clothing, my coworker dresses in single layer warm outfits.  Oh, and we aren’t allowed to have space heaters in our offices.  Well, screw that!  I have a tiny one that is easy to hide just in case the corporate safety director happens to show up unexpectedly.  You have to take care of things yourself sometimes…even if it means breaking the rules.  Plus, I’m the branch safety coordinator so I know all about safety.  It’s my job.  My little heater is specially made so that it will not trip a breaker because it has its own tiny fuse that will blow first and it’s plugged into a surge protector.  So, I have it covered.  Well, that was a bit of a tangent.  Sorry, but not feeling well has brought out my petty side.  So I think I’ll close for now and go do that crawl into bed and under the covers thing.     

Well, it’s Monday and my workday is almost over.  The sun finally came out so it’s very cold and clear outside. Tonight will be brutal.  I’m feeling better than I had been but not back to 100% yet.  Mainly, I’m just really tired because I was up until almost 3:00am coughing.  I think that if I get a good night’s sleep tonight, I’ll feel much better tomorrow.  Fingers crossed anyway.  I joined a Barbara Sher online book club about a week and a half ago and read the first assignment and was supposed to have the second assignment done at the end of last week but I haven’t felt like doing it or participating online so I’m at least going to read the assignment tonight but I don’t know if I’ll get the exercises done or not.  I just want to be able to participate because I love Barbara Sher.  It was from 1 of her books that I learned that I was a scanner, not just a ditz that couldn’t settle one thing that I wanted to do in life.  She’s an awesome person and writer. 

Well, I’m tired, I’m getting all stopped up again and I just want to go home, take care of my outdoor critters, try to read the assignment and then go to bed and actually sleep.  And hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day.  And maybe a little warmer.

  

I still have my cold but I am getting a tiny bit better every day.  Sometimes you just need to rest and let your body do its thing.  It knows what to do…you just have to slow down and let it.  I’m just making sure that my body is well hydrated and fed so that it has something to work with.  I spend so much time in doctor’s offices that it was inevitable that I would eventually catch a cold.  I’m just glad that it wasn’t the flu.  Even though I had the flu shot last year, I still caught the flu.  And it was really bad.  I didn’t feel all that well Monday but I was still being poisoned by the Methotrexate and hadn’t well in months.  I went to work and as the day went on, I felt worse and worse.  By the time I got home that evening, I felt like I was going to die.  Rick made me take my temperature and it was just a little over 102°.  I passed out shortly after that and slept fitfully off and on all night.  Rick woke me up the next morning and told me that I had a 2:00 appointment with our doctor’s nurse practitioner.  I told him that I’d never make it but he made me go and thank God he did.  They gave me Tamiflu and sent me home because, as we all know, there is no cure for the flu.  That was an absolutely miserable week.  During that time, I had 2 thoughts…either the Tamiflu wasn’t doing anything or I was dying.  I had only been that sick once before and I pray that I am never that sick again.  The problem now is that I’m on immunosuppressants for my RA now so I’m even more vulnerable but I’ve had my flu and pneumonia shots so hopefully they will do their jobs.  Maybe it’s a sign but after days upon days of dreary weather, the sun has finally come out and it is glorious.  Of course, that means tonight it will be even colder…in the low 20’s.  I worry about my ferals and strays that I feed.  I know that I can’t rescue every single animal that needs rescuing but I feel like I’m letting them down.  But, at least they have food and water every day which is more than they would have otherwise.  I’ve tried putting boxes out with towels but they don’t seem to want to stay in them so I just do what I can for them and pray for the best.  I will be glad when it gets warmer.  I won’t worry about them quite as much.  Well, it’s time to fuel up…Rick made homemade cheese and onion enchiladas so I’m going to go heat up a plate of those.  Yum!  Then I might take a nap.  I have absolutely no choice about going to work tomorrow.  I have things that have to be notarized for a city bid.  But that doesn’t mean that I have to stay all day if I don’t feel like it.  I have to take care of myself…that’s my priority.  So, stay warm, take naps, read trashy magazines and stay well.        

Nothing like having a cold on a cold, dreary winter’s day.  I’m just taking it easy as well as taking every kind of cold medicine I can get my hands on.  I don’t feel too horribly bad right now but what usually happens is as it gets later, I begin to feel worse and my temperature climbs.  But, for now, I’m not doing too badly so I feel pretty lucky in that respect.  It could definitely be worse.  So a little guilt-free self-care is just what I need.  It’s actually what we all need.  We constantly ignore all the signs our bodies and minds send on a daily basis regarding our wellbeing.  We work too hard and play too little.  We don’t sleep as much as we should.  We don’t spend enough quality time with ourselves, our families or our friends.  We don’t laugh enough.  We don’t allow ourselves to relax because we’re always in motion.  And when we do slow down a little, we waste our time online or watching TV.  We don’t have enough serious conversations in which we are completely engaged.  We live too much of our lives superficially.  We don’t spend time outdoors.  We eat too much junk food.  We push our emotions down rather than express them.  We aren’t comfortable with silence so we have background noise going all day.  We never just”let go” and enjoy the freedom of doing so.  Basically, we don’t do enough good things for ourselves and we do too many things that are bad for us.  And we don’t understand why we get sick or have low energy.  We need to do more for ourselves to feed our soul.  Create, eat healthier, sleep better, play more often, watch less TV, limit time spent online, go outside, have deep, meaningful conversations, connect with others, do more things that feel good, read more, laugh, and just be happy.  Don’t neglect your physical and mental health.  Rest.  Do more self-care.  Love yourself.  You can’t pour from an empty vessel so fill your vessel often.  We deserve it.  We need it.  So do it!     

They suck! That’s the nicest thing I can say about them. My head cold has turned into a full blown cold. I made it through most of the day today but finally left at 4:00. I came home and crashed for 3 hours. It’s taken me about thirty minutes to feel human again after waking up. I just wanted to stop by and say hi and tell you that if you start feeling a cold coming on, go back to bed! Take care of yourself. I didn’t and here I am. I know that you have to let a cold run its course but you can at least rest, eat a butt load of chicken and noodle soup, and drink lots of OJ. So, take care.

There are some days when you really wish you’d stayed in bed.  Today was close to being one of those days.  First, I woke up with a head cold.  I don’t feel awful but I’ve spent the day sneezing and blowing my nose.  I have gone through a lot of Kleenex.  Second, we were awarded a bid by one of the cities and I got all of the paperwork printed, signed by my boss, and I notarized it all.  I scanned and emailed it all to the purchasing agent at the city and about 3 hours later, I dropped off the FedEx with the wet ink copies…which is what they call the originals.  10 minutes after I dropped it off, the purchasing agent calls and one of the forms had the wrong bid number on it so I have to get the correct copy filled out, signed, and then notarize it.  Then I’ll scan it to the city and send another FedEx for a single piece of paper.  He had three hours to call me but waited until after I’d sent the FedEx.  Okay, I can deal with that but I don’t really want to right now.  I’m trying to get one more signature for my safety meeting sign-in sheet and he’s playing hard to get.  I have to have it sent in before I leave and I have to be out of here in about forty minutes.  I have someone’s approved expense report to scan to the corporate office.  I also have a printer issue that I need to get handled and another stack of safety forms to send to the transportation department before I leave.  And then I need to rush home, feed and water my feral and stray critters, take my medications, eat dinner, and be on a SARK call at 7:30.  So, I’m going to say good-bye for now so I can rush around and get all of this accomplished.  Oh, and my husband has made homemade cheese and onion enchiladas so there is a bright light at the end of this tunnel!      

We all have things in and about our lives that we wish we could change and some of those things we can change while others we can’t.  But is that really true or are we just lacking the “tools” that could help us make those changes?  Or do we give up too easily when the path leading to our goal gets too steep and we have to try harder than we would really like?  I would love to be a physicist but I am lacking the mathematical knowledge to become one and, quite honestly, I don’t seem to have the aptitude for math that one needs to pursue that particular career.  I’m not saying that I’m not capable of doing the math…I just prefer to take the path of least resistance and my brain resists higher level math.  So that’s one thing that I could probably change but choose not to because it would require more work than I want to put forth.  And, honestly, as I think about the things I’d like to change, I see a pattern emerging.  I could beat myself up over it or I could just do a bit of analysis.  Take my physics aspirations…the way that I see it, the ROI isn’t good enough for me to expend the effort.  I’d probably need at least a year or more of math before I could attempt to take actual physics classes.  Then when I felt my math was strong enough to take those classes, I’d need to get a doctorate to be taken seriously so by the time I was finished, I’d be getting close to seventy.  My return on investment would be pretty much zero.  Getting fit is one of those things that I really need to do and the ROI would be excellent but I’ve been resisting it for about as long as I’ve been alive.  So I could make the needed changes and I’d reap the benefits but I haven’t done it up to this point for no other reason that it wouldn’t be easy.  Not much of a reason, is it?  So, we don’t make these changes for a lot of different reasons…some legitimate and some not.  We are the only ones that can decide to make the changes and we don’t have to answer to anyone but ourselves if we choose not to make them.  We just need to try to make sure that we make the changes that will make us happy and enrich our lives.  That’s all we can do.               

I know that I can write. I know that I would much rather make a living as a published author than remain at my current job…it’s not a bad job but to go to work every single day to a job that does not in any way feed your soul just sucks the life out of you. I know that if they didn’t have pretty decent insurance and/or I didn’t have so many health issues which require a lot of medications I would have left quite a while back. That’s not what should keep you at your job. I know that I’ve already had my non-writing dream job at a company called BigFatWow! where I was passionate about my work and I was told regularly just how much they appreciated me. They were awesome to work for but startups are volatile in that they can implode in a heartbeat if your investor pulls out or another company acquires it. BFW! had both happen. I was 1 of the few people that the new company kept. I had worked for 8.Communications for about a year when I was in a horrific head-on collision that should have actually killed me. I had a fractured pelvis, broken clavicle and broken ribs and considered myself fortunate. I was in the hospital for 2+ weeks, in a wheelchair for almost 3 months, in physical therapy for 2 months and was finally released to drive almost 4 months after the accident. I went back to work only to find them cleaning out our offices because our investor pulled out. I began my current job about 3 months later. It will be 16 years ago next month…just a few days before my birthday.  I know that I was being watched over on that March evening. I know that a lot of people stopped to try to help me and to give the police their statements about how the man in the pickup truck that hit me was speeding (the police said he was going 65 in a 45mph zone) and that he was passing illegally and when moved to the far right lane, he followed me over. I know he walked away from the accident. I know that a complete stranger named Mohammed talked to me through my side window that would only roll down a inch or so and he kept me calm. He also called my husband for me and told him about the accident. I know that I wish that I could find him and thank him face to face rather than from the inside of a wrecked car that I was trapped in. I know that to this day, I don’t remember anything between the time I saw the truck heading toward me and when I looked up after the impact. I know that the sound of the door being pulled off was one of the loudest things I’ve ever heard. I know the firemen and paramedics were amazed that I was alive, hadn’t hit my head, and was conscious. I know what a siren sounds like from inside the ambulance. I know what being stuck in a wheelchair feels like. I know that I never want to feel like an invalid again. I know that I don’t like having to depend upon others for way too much from personal hygiene to transportation to having to have a baby monitor in the bathroom just in case I didn’t transfer successfully from the wheelchair in and out of the shower or on/off the commode. I know what it’s like to be told by my brother that hair looked like it belonged on a calico cat because I couldn’t dye it so I had varying shades of auburn growing out with a little brown and, to top it off, white roots. I know what it’s like going through and being confirmed during Easter Vigil while in my wheelchair with calico cat hair. I know what freedom felt like on the day I was released from the wheelchair. I know so many things but those are the ones that came to mind tonight. That’s probably because I was free associating and that’s where it took me. The photos are of my car at the impound lot. Something like that changes your life and I was never quite the same after it happened. But one positive thing was me knowing that I was blessed otherwise I wouldn’t have survived. Thanks for taking this stroll down memory lane with me tonight.

I have found that my creative life revolves more around planning to write, preparing to write, and finding reasons that I just can’t write than actually writing.  The first two steps are necessary…the third one is not.  At least not all of the time.  I think that my hesitation to actually sit down to write needs to be psychoanalyzed.  Is it a fear of failure or a fear of success?  Is it a lack of motivation or do I need to have a deadline imposed by another person with real penalties involved?  Do I just not have what it takes to be a writer…if so, what’s missing?  I can write and people like what I write, so where is the missing piece?  Yes, as I recently proclaimed, I am a world class procrastinator.  So, is that the issue?  It probably is part of it but not the only missing piece.  I wonder if anyone out there has a book about writing and writers that is from the viewpoint of an analyst/therapist/psychologist/psychiatrist?  Something that addresses this kind of situation.  I know I’m not the only creative person that has this issue…I see it in my creativity and writing groups on a regular basis.  Maybe we need to form a group that specifically addresses this…people that have the talent to create but don’t.  I have tried everything from setting timers to getting up earlier to staying up later (the previous 2 are not really viable options because of the sleep disorders I have and the 3 medications I take for them), to committing to another person that I will write for a certain period of time and so many more things.  So, I guess I’ll continue trying to figure out where the problem lies.  And, if I come up with any kind of solution, I will definitely share it with you.