Another month over

March was another one of those long months. Uffda. At least I wasn't sick for most of it, just overwhelmed emotionally instead.

I'm proud to say, though, that I'm taking steps to get better. I'm talking out some of my issues, not only with MS (when I can without bawling) but with someone else as well. It's a big step for me, one that I know K has wanted for me for years. Despite the anxiety I feel before we meet I do feel better that I'm doing this. I was never going to be "ready" for it, I just had to do it.

I'm excited for this next month. April is usually a good time. My OOB is coming home this weekend for Easter and I have to say I am super excited for that. MS and I are also hosting our first Easter with our respective moms, OOB and a turkey we've had since Thanksgiving. It'll be great, right? :)

My family is also having Easter on Saturday at YOB's. He and his new girlfriend are hosting, so I'm bringing baskets for the kids - with limited candy. It should be fun.

But now, I'm exhausted and going to go to bed. Tomorrow starts a new day, a new month and a new beginning.

Vacation!!

I took a mini break this weekend to catch up on some theatre and see a couple friends. So I headed to the Cities. The Guthrie had two awesome shows playing this weekend: Macbeth and Brief Encounter. The first was amazing. Macbeth is such a great play anyway, but this rendition was intense. I wanted to give a standing "O" but I couldn't stand up I was so overwhelmed. Brief Encounter was put on by 9 actors from England who were amazing. Between the singing, the comic relief and the great acting of Noel Coward's writing it was a perfect end to a great weekend.

Saturday I got to spend some time with Edith and her adorable little girl. Edith does amazing artwork of Luther's Small Catechism (the orange version) which I have been giving to K&E since Nika was born as gifts - partly for Nika as my Godmom duties, but also because they are just so beautiful and they seem to fit so well in their house. I'm really excited for Edith's next works to come out - she's going to be doing the Morning and Evening Prayers. I can't wait! I love the latter and I can't wait to get one of those not only for Nika, but also for me.

Sunday I went to church at Central. I needed that. Pastor Rick is wonderful at keeping things in the present. What I mean by that is, while I love my pastor at home, Big O tends to keep things pretty stoic and serious during church. Pastor Rick, on the other hand, keeps things real and in the moment. At one point while the kids were up front to sing he said something about how it was "kung-fu palm branches" up there. :) Cantorei sang too, so I was able to hear some great music again and got to see Aaron and his partner David, Jane, Dave, and of course Debbie.

Debbie and I went out for lunch which turned into over 4 hours at Chili's. We caught up, talked a lot, and had a good time. It was great to meet up with her again...the last time I saw her it was at the marathon in October.

Today I'm going to maybe hit Ikea ("I-kea, that's comfortable."), Chipotle and then head home. Maybe. The damn alarm clock in the room next door went off at 6am and no one answered at the front desk to turn it off until 7. Ugh. So I now have a mild headache and I'm thinking I might just head home earlier than I had thought. I have an appointment later this afternoon, so it might not be bad for me to get home earlier so I can get some other things done too.

This was a much needed weekend though. I always feel bad when I come up and I don't see all my friends, but I also don't want to be spending my entire weekend going from appointment to appointment trying to meet up with everyone and then not get any relaxation. These are my vacations and I need to rest too.

Okay...I need to clean up and either head out or head out. :)

Eggcellent

Holy Eggs, Batman!



Yesterday, my brother Kevin and his kids and his GF and her little girl met me at Color Me Mine for an Easter Egg painting extravaganza. We had a lot of fun and I got to paint again! YAY! Truly, I could have spend the entire afternoon there painting eggs, and I may have to do that next year, but in the end I painted two - one for MS and one for me. The rest were done by everyone else.

I like the opportunities, like I have had this weekend, where I get to spend time with my nieces and nephews. They are such great kids and that was one of my deciding factors for applying for and accepting the job I have here now. I'm closer to them and can watch them grow up a bit more. My other 3 nephews and 1 niece all live so far away and it's just difficult to get out there to see them. I do need to make more of an effort for that, but I think I say that every year and life seems to keep getting in the way.

Anyway, the eggs were great and we pick them up next week. :) YAY! Final pics to follow.

Weird morning

I should have been cleaning. I should have been going through clothes to donate and clothes to keep. I should have been doing laundry. I should have finished dishes. I should have made more cookies. I should have gone to church. I should have...

I'm sure I have more. But the fact is, this morning, I got up late, farted around for awhile and then did X-Stretch. I was going to make cookies but I realized I was out of icing. I was going to do laundry but I decided to wait until tomorrow. I should have been cleaning but instead I opted to go through my Blog Bookmarks and see who's still writing and who isn't. I deleted a few off my bookmark list who have gone out of service. I toyed with deleting others that haven't updated in a long time, but I think I'll wait and maybe do it later.

I painted my toenails and am watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory because Emmy and I were talking about it yesterday. I'm killing time until I have to leave to go paint with my brother and his gang. And I'm still thinking about my future.

There's a possible move for me in the future - one I can do or one I can turn down. It's a big change to my life if I say yes; but still a change if I say no because I'm not sure what would stay the same and what would change. I have an appointment on Tuesday to talk to an outside source on this (K). MS is coming along to it so we can talk it out too, because it would affect him as well.

I go back and forth on the good and bad of it all. But if I'm going to move I really should be starting to clean and pack now. If I'm not, then I just need to clean.

Emmy Day

So Emmy and I had a Aunt/Niece day yesterday. We did a lot (most of which I forgot to document - so alas...I'm going to do this with words instead).

We started the day making cookies...surprise, surprise. I had her roll out the sugar cookies and she did great! They were the right thickness and we baked them perfectly so of course they were delicious! We had a lot of fun decorating them. These were mine. I was really proud of my ducky and carrots. I'll have to make some more, but I'm out of icing.

Then we headed to Color Me Mine to paint. I love painting pottery and Bethany Actually has really inspired me with some things. It's just too bad that I'm not very artistic. I ended up just painting a little funky box that I think I'll use for all my hair ties. Emmy painted a mug. I should have pictures of those next week sometime.

Then we were going to go to lunch, but restaurants at 12:30 on a Saturday are awful in this town, so we ended up at the mall, signed her in for a hair-trim, and went to Culvers for something simple. If nothing else, that 90 minutes reminded me once again why I refuse to go to the mall on weekends and why I hate shopping in general.

We ran my car through the car wash to take off a layer of caked on dirt and then headed to music museum. That was awesome. My niece had been their before, I found out later, but we had a good time nonetheless. We played a game on the way there where we had to come up with a word based on the last letter of the previous word. So...she said elevator, I said, radio, she said octopus, I said, shelf...etc. We had fun but we did discover a lot of words end in "e" which is tough to start a word. Oh well.

It was a really good day. Today I'm painting again; this time with my other niece and nephew - Jake and Ava. It's egg day! I can't wait!

MIA

I feel like I've been missing lately. I haven't really been on facebook. I haven't really been on my blog this month. I feel like when I do get here I'm trying to catch up so much that I can't really appreciate and enjoy the time I'm here. I don't like that.

It's been busy the last few days. I took today off and MS and I went to the nearest tax location (that works for him - long story) to get our taxes done. I had already completed mine through a website at work that sets it up for free, but I went along to see if they got the same amount as I did. They did, so I let them e-File for me.

It was a long day but good. I'm glad I'm home. MS is at a work meeting tonight so I'm here trying to play catch up. My apartment is a mess and I really need to clean. I also want to make sugar cookies so I can decorate them before my Thursday night meeting...but I'm thinking I might wait until tomorrow night. It's Wednesday tomorrow which means nothing is really on tv, so it might work better.

I'm going to go clean now and see if I can find my kitchen counter. someday I'll catch up.

Irishman, Family and Pi

Yesterday I ran the Irishman races here in town. It's a progressive race, as K called it, where you run the 5 miler at 9am, the 5K at 11:30am, and then a 1 mile race at 2pm before the St. Patty's parade.

Karen ran it with me and I think we were both a little skeptical on how we would do. Neither of us has ran much in the last few weeks. I have been doing P90X so I had some strength training to go on, but Karen had been sick so it was touch and go.

But mostly it was go! We only walked twice during the 5miler for about 20 ft each; the 5K was a little rougher with a couple extra walks; and the 1 miler went great. The only bad part was the course - there were a few spots where the trail was completely covered with deep water, so trying to go around it through the bushes or over rocks made it feel a bit like a trail run. There was one section of all ice and we saw a guy who (I'm guessing) had biffed it there with a really bad head wound - at least it looked that way, but head wounds always bleed more. He was upright and walking back and I'm praying he was okay.

After the races I showered quick, grabbed a full-fledged Whopper (unusual for me) and drove two hours to the Family Program Conference for work. I was receiving an award for Worker of the Year (better title in real life) so I had to be there. It was a great time, except they had no Guinness to complete my Irish day. I did get ice cream though (full-fat ice cream, no less) so that kind of made up for it.

This morning we finished the conference with Rick Nielsen, founder of Blueprint for Life, Inc. He spoke about how what we say really makes a difference. He's done a lot of work in prisons, meeting and speaking with some of the most notorious (including Charles Manson). He spoke of how at one prison the captain of the death-row cell block gave those men hope. They would go to each cell and the captain had so much to say about them - this one is great with art, this one writes poems, this one can sing. It was really amazing. The sad thing is, at one death row place Rick went, he was told that he was the only visitor this one inmate had had in 8 years of the 10 he had been there.

He spoke of how he would ask them about their tattoos and their former life. Overwhelmingly the inmates would say how in school (at a young age, no less) they would be told they were a loser or if they kept up whatever it was, they would end up in prison. They were constantly put down. His message was that we need to speak positively and reinforce the good in people - maybe we wouldn't have all these problems we have today.

It reminded me of a book I had gotten in seminary called "How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work" by Kegan and Lahey. I haven't read it but it's been sitting on my table for about a month. I'm going to read it now. It's so crucial. I think back to my college years and how I wasn't "quite" good enough to have the lead role in plays because "I didn't look the part". It wasn't that I wasn't skilled, but I didn't look right. I know that has effected (affected?) the way I continue to look at myself today. It's a struggle to get past that.

Anyway...that's a heavy load for today, but uplifting at the same time. And with that, I leave you with: Happy Pi Day! :)

My ass twitches

It’s funny how life comes around to bite you in the ass. For years when my friends have had struggles I’ve always asked them if they’ve talked with someone – professionally, that is. My statement was always, “There’s no shame in therapy. In fact, in New York people are considered odd if they don’t have a therapist. We should all be going to a therapist!”

But when it comes to me, I somehow have felt I haven’t needed one. “I can deal with the issue(s).” “DLE was just a dumbass.” “It was Dad’s time to go.” “ They’re just petty – it’s nothing vital that needs to be talked to a professional about, especially for oodles of money/hour.” “It’s just stupid stuff and a good run will get me through.” And the kicker, “I don’t need a therapist.” Plus I think I have felt because my thoughts have always seemed petty and lame after getting through my crying jag that it’s just pathetic to even go and a) waste the money or b) waste someone else’s precious time (or even mine for that matter).

All that said (and most of the time I still think like that), I find I’m at a point that I probably can’t just run anymore. For one, trying to run through the problems are affecting my actual runs – I get distracted and I can’t focus on my breathing or my stride which screws up my pace. For two, it’s just not helping. Things are just getting to be too much lately. There are so many issues going on in my head that I find myself crying at random moments for what seems to be no reason. MS, God bless him, is concerned about what’s wrong (so he can help) and I don’t know what to tell him. It’s not one thing; it’s multiple. And the one time we tried to talk through things he was very good about not trying to fix it, but just consoling me and listening. Of course at the end he asked, “Who do you usually talk to about this stuff? SBK? KC?” uh, no. They’re wonderful but they don’t understand and truly we’re not that close. K&E are usually the ones I talk to but though no fault of their own they live two states away and phone conversations are difficult. I just don’t have close friends nearby, especially ones I feel comfortable bearing my soul to.

So it’s probably time I go to a therapist and actually bawl talk out the issues at hand. There are many and I’m not sure where to start. My company has a program where you can get 12 sessions for free (per issue, per counselor) so I could take care of one problem with one counselor, then reapply and talk through another problem with another counselor, etc., but I’m not sure how helpful that would be. A friend of mine who is a pastor in town recommended a lady I could go to, but she seems pretty popular so that might be tough. And MS has even suggested we go together to his therapist, which might not be bad either (though I have a lot of my issues I need to work through without him).

I’ll admit I’m scared because I don’t really know what to expect. I’ll admit I’m scared because I’m not sure I’m ready to reveal my soul and all the crap that goes on in my head. I’ll admit I’m scared because I’m such a good German-Scandinavian-Midwestern woman (a lethal combo) that I don’t talk about my feelings very well so opening up is very difficult.

I’m just unsure, scared, uncertain, afraid, nervous, anxious, embarrassed, worried, sad…I could go on. And I’m not sure how to start.