Annabelle Speaks

I'm not kidding about the FART shirts

Hey look, pictures!  Pay no attention to the spectacular lack of text and the non-spectacular iPhone quality of the photos.  I'm working on a tight time budget between family reunion weekend and family graduation party weekend.

This past weekend was the 24th annual family reunion for my Dad's side of the family.  Because the family is so huge (there were 11 kids in his family, all of whom had kids and many of whom now have grandkids) we rent a chunk of a campground in Wisconsin for our little shindig.

To make sure other campers know to leave us alone we make sure to decorate our campsites in the classiest way possible.  As if the large group of tall people wearing colorful top-hats and blue shirts that say FART on them isn't frightening enough.  (Yes, really.  No, you shouldn't ask.)

I spent much of the weekend playing with my cousins' kids, since I don't yet have my own children to torture.  I spent most of Friday carrying this one around, flipping her upside down, and throwing her up in the air.  She is possibly the cutest baby our family has ever had (and we have a lot of cute babies).  No one could say know to her sweet little "up-phease", except for her parents who have to hear it 9,345 times per day.

Saturday I spent in the lake, letting this dear one test my ability to tread water.  With her lifejacket on she could swim waaaaaay out into the lake (as long as I was with her), and wow are my arms getting tired just remembering that much swimming.  At least it finally got the mud off of her from the mud adventure pictured above.

And in case anyone was wondering where all my anal retentive OCD-ness comes from, take a look at my Dad's awesomely symmetrical breakfast and you'll understand.

You Say Tomato, and I Say...Maple Syrup

And now I present an entry with no continuity or transitions what-so-ever, because SOMEONE thought it would be a good idea to have a full-time job, 10 hours of doctor visits, 7 hours of night class, and who-knows-how-many hours of homework per week in the middle of summer when every weekend involves travel.  I don't know who could be dumb enough to think all of that could fit in a week.  Oh right: ME.

First I present you with a picture of the winter-wonderland outside my front door.  We are so covered in cottonwood seeds on parts of our street that it really does look like snow.  Blessedly we live on the third floor and our screens are too high to catch the cottonwood seeds.  I clearly do not have time to add "vacuuming screens" to my to-do list.

 

In other news, a friend sent flowers to me last week as a thank-you for hosting a party for her.  This, in itself, is lovely.  And the flowers are beautiful.  They have, however, sparked a debate in my household regarding what they smell like.  I smell maple syrup when I walk into the bedroom, and T smells...celery.  Clearly she is wrong (WRONG!), or else her I need to start buying celery wherever she has been getting it from, because if I can find maple syrup sugar taste with celery calories/health benefits, then I am so going to hire Billy Mays to sell it for me in infomercials.  Can't you just see him holding up a stalk of celery, exclaiming over the POWER of the MAPLE SUGAR FLAVOR.  (I love Billy Mays.)

 

Lastly, I have to share the lovely case of OMGPLZSTOPTALKING I had while I was in therapy today.  Thank goodness I pay Therapist to put up with me.  I had been talking about a change I knew I needed to make, but I didn't want to because it will be haaaaaard, and coming in every week and whining about it is eaaaaaaasier, blah blah blah.  Therapist (nicely) asked what I wanted out of therapy, knowing that "a place to whine" was not my answer.  What actually came out of my mouth, however, was: "An hour in my day that isn't stressful enough to kill me?  Wait, that makes it sound like this is a really expensive coffee break.  I mean, I value this and you a lot more than a coffee break.  I want to make changes and grow and be less crazy.  I don't want to just waste your time here.  I mean, I hope I'm not wasting your time here.  I don't think I am.  Am I?  Plus, I don't actually drink coffee, so an expensive coffee break would do me no good.  I need to stop talking about this now and take a breath, don't I?"

 

Bless her, she didn't even throw anything at me.

 

And because I have no good way to end this most random of entries, I shall leave you with a picture of what happens in my kitchen every time I so much as think of picking up the can opener.  I have no idea why all cats seem to come with can opener = TREAT genes, as our cats eat only dry food and get tuna fish water maybe twice a year, but there is no convincing them that they don't actually want the green beans I just opened.

Feels Just Like I'm Falling For The 9,725th Time

Last night T and I were killing time before So You Think You Can Dance (more on that later) by watching a Mythbusters rerun.  I do love me some Mythbusters (Grant!  Call me!).  The Mythbusters were testing Superhero Gadget myths, and Jamie and Adam were trying to build rope-deployment systems to shoot hooks up over walls and then climb the ropes to safety/to save the girl/to get the bad guy/whatever.  I was relatively unconcerned about the building of the shooty-part (yes, that is the technical term), but their rope climbing skills brought out my less-than-rational-side.  I argued with the television about rope-climbing techniques and was busy ranting about how everyone knows how to climb a rope, OMG, did they never go to gym class when T told me she never had to rope climb in gym class.  Apparently being blind gets you out of all sorts of things, who knew?  But that got me wondering, do they do that in gym classes anymore?  It never struck me as a very safe idea, climbing a vertical rope straight up to the ceiling with only an inch-thick tumbling mat to cushion you if you fell, and I would think that someone somewhere has probably sued this practice out of existence by now.  Probably for the best.  If rope-climbing skills are hereditary, my kids would be doomed to fail gym class over and over.  Though I still maintain I could climb a rope better than Jamie and Adam did in Mythbusters!

 

Speaking of a grand lack of physical coordination, T and I have been watching So You Think You Can Dance this season, with the unfortunate side effect that now we both think we can dance.  And really...not so much.  I'm just hoping we manage to watch the rest of the season (and hear the rest of Mary's SCREAMING) without injuring ourselves imitating dance-moves in the kitchen.  Though our wood floors do enable some awesome Risky Business dance moves, so I make no promises.  At least if I'm in traction I can still watch television.

This Too Shall Pass

For me the cruelest thing about depression is how I feel like I can't trust myself.  I learned early on in treatment that the thing I most want to do at any given point in time generally the last thing in the world I should be doing.  I'm constantly distrusting my own motives in everything I do.  When I want to take a day to relax at home or go to bed early, I worry I'm being avoident.  When I want to stay up late or go out, I worry I'm too "up".  When I want to eat, I question if I'm hungry or if I'm just trying to fill a void.  When I don't feel like eating I force myself to eat on a schedule so I make sure to get food in my system.  It's like being trapped in a body being run by the spirit of a particularly strong-willed child who always does the opposite of what needs doing.  It's frustrating as hell.

This weekend alone I had to force myself to get out of the house and go to a party when all I wanted to do was stay home and play on the computer.  I had to force myself to make a cake and work on an art project and clean instead of letting myself sit in front of the television.  I had to force myself to eat, and then force myself to stop eating when I was beyond over-full.  I had to use my sleep medication for the first time in almost two months to make myself get some sleep, then two days later I had to fight to not sleep all day.  Yesterday I made the unwise choice of taking the same medication during the day when I could feel myself flying up, up, and away and friends were commenting that I was talking too fast and seemed really wired.  That caused such a fabulous crash that I spent the rest of the day at the hospital instead of going into work.

Right now I don't feel like I recognize myself at all.  I feel like I'm watching my life and the world around me on a movie screen, and I'm not really a part of it.  My stand-in is filling in for me while I just hang out in the background, sort of not caring if I get my part back or not.

I know it will pass.  Likely it will pass very soon, as it often does.  But the same way I know it will pass, I also know it will come back.  And that?  Really fucking sucks.

I know this sounds hopeless and morose right now.  If I were to write about this same subject tomorrow morning or next week or next month it could have an entirely different feel.  Maybe I'd be making sarcastic jokes about the checklists I keep in my phone to motivate myself to do basic life things like flossing and doing chores.  Maybe I'd be laughing at how I whine at myself inside my head, throwing spectacular temper tantrums over the littlest things.  But today it appears morose is the only thing on the menu.

But at least I still remember that this too, shall pass.