Fall is here!

The long, super hot summer has ended and the chilly weather of autumn is here. Halloween has passed, so I’m a little late but I can’t miss a post about the change of the season.

Usually about this time the seasonal affective disorder is starting to kick in. I’m doing great so far this year though. I can’t remember the last time the thought of winter coming didn’t fill me with dread. Don’t get me wrong I still hate winter but this year doesn’t feel like its going to be complete misery. I’m excited!

Halloween was rainy so after a lot of confusion in my area we went trick-or-treating the night before. There wasn’t a ton of candy to be had but we went trick-or-treating at the campground we stayed at the weekend before. It was a good Halloween even with the rain.

I’m trying to teach myself hand lettering. I’ve always had super messy handwriting so it’s very slow going but I can do some basic things.

I’ve started crocheting again. I don’t often have the motivation to in the summer. The heat and the yarn laying all over me doesn’t mix. I am happy to be back to it again though.

This past weekend I finished The Cappuccino Triangle Shawl. I used a variegated yarn from Caron. Caron Cakes are so pretty and easy to work with. The color I used has been discontinued so now the shawl is limited edition. What do you think?

I’ve only ever made one shawl before and it wasn’t very practical. This one can also be worn as a scarf. That’s probably how I’ll use it.

Now I’m working on a Long Hooded Cape. I’ve got most of the body done. It’s actually working up pretty quickly, when I put my phone down. I’ve had the pattern for a while but I attempted it once and got so confused. My skills are a little better now, so even though I’ve done a lot of frogging I’m getting it done.

I’m going to start on some Christmas presents when I’m finished. I’ve got one planned, the others I still have to find.

How about you? How is your fall going? Do you have a hobby that you just can’t stop talking about once you start? I want to hear about it!

Interruptions

Internet people, I need your advice. Maybe not advice, maybe just other points of view.

Why is it okay to interrupt me, no matter what I’m doing, but it’s not okay for me to get upset when I’m interrupted every 2 minutes to pay attention to what someone else is doing? Sometimes I just want to read what I’m reading. I just want to see the posts on my timelines, I just want to watch the videos I choose. Between my kids, fiance, and friends, I’m interrupted almost any time I try to pay attention to anything.

It’s more important to pay attention to what others are showing me than what I’m doing.

I don’t want to look at something you think is funny. Email or text it to me, I’ll look when I’m done doing what I am currently doing. Don’t constantly stop me and then get upset when I make it clear that I don’t want to repeatedly stop what I’m doing for your obviously more important thing!

Yikes. I needed to vent that out. People act like I’m in a bad mood or acting wrong because I don’t want to be interrupted continually. It’s rude!

I don’t interrupt people when they’re doing something. I wait until it looks like they’re finished and then I say something. Why is it so much to ask for the same respect?

Moving sucks

We’ve lived here for almost a month and I still don’t have everything straightened out. It’s such a mess. The girls insurance on our old state doesn’t end until October 1st so I have to take them back there to see the doctor (and therapist) and to get their prescriptions.

I’ve been without one of my medications since Friday (it’s Tuesday) because it took that long to find a doctor and get in for an appointment. Now I won’t get it until Thursday because the pharmacy I chose didn’t have it. I’m fairly certain that means I have to work my way up to my old dose which is a hassle in itself. I haven’t been to see my regular doctor because I can’t figure out who they assigned me to. I can’t find a primary care office of that affiliation in the location they told me it was. So, yeah. I’m all screwed up.

Katie isn’t doing well. She needs new medication and a better therapist. Hopefully she’ll get the better therapist when I switch her over to here. I don’t know about the medication. She sees her old psychiatrist next week but I doubt she’ll make any big changes with her leaving the practice after the 1st.

My little girl kitty Tippy almost died on us. She was extremely anemic (we thought she just wasn’t adapting to the move too well because she showed absolutely no symptoms at the apartment. Turns out she has feline leukemia. It was really scary. She’s doing much better now but she’s still wobbly and a little slow to act on things. Sometimes you have to give her a little nudge. My poor little wobbles. We have to keep her separated from the other cats, and it’s hard. We let them around each other when we can keep an eye on them and prevent touching but keeping them away from each other’s food/water/litter is a little tough.

I’m up to my eyeballs in stress and I don’t see any way out. I’m a mess. The girls are doing well in school, at least. If there’s one silver lining it’s that they don’t hate their new schools.

You gotta take what you can get, ya know?

Two become one

One of my favorite people is coming today. The cable guy to hook up the internet, yay! I should have had them install it yesterday but we actually were doing a lot of grocery shopping and getting things we need so we wouldn’t have been home for him to come in. We’ll have internet by the time everyone gets home from work/school today though.

Grocery shopping was way better than usual because we got to get what we wanted instead of what would fit in the fridge/freezer. We have a fridge out in the garage now too so we were able to get a lot of the stuff we like but usually don’t have room for.

So far, only the kitchen is completely unpacked. I think K may have her room unpacked but I know S doesn’t, I don’t, and P doesn’t. Of course all the stairs we went up and down (I lived in a second floor apartment, the girls’ rooms are upstairs) have made my calves really sore. Yesterday they were just annoying but today I’m penguin walking to get from room to room.

Look at what my Fitbit says for the day we moved. (BTW if any of you use a fitbit add me! My email is aimlessly84@gmail.com.)

That means I need to start walking/running again. It also means the walk to S’s bus stop today is going to be rough.

I have so many phone calls to make today. Josh said to just rest so I don’t make my legs worse and tackle my list of calls so that’s what I’ll do. Wash the sheets for our bed too. His are prettier than mine. A lot of his stuff is actually. Most of my stuff was picked here and there with no theme to them except necessity.

Trying to combine two households is interesting, I guess you could say. We’re choosing his stuff over mine most of them time. We did bring some of my furniture to use. Bed, dresser, actually that’s about it. There is still some stuff at my apartment but not anything major. He’s still got a few things in his storage unit. We mostly need to clean my apartment out, bring little things like the rest of my makeup, my dishes that we’re not using, the kitchen table (also not using. There’s no dining area and the kitchen isn’t big enough) and the entertainment center. Not sure what we’re doing with that but we decided to bring it.

After all of this I’m hoping beyond hoping that the landlord decides to turn our 6 month lease into a year lease. I don’t want to have to do this again in 6 months. Also this house is pretty much perfect for us alconsidering what we can afford. It would be hard to find another like it.

It’s 4:50am and I should be sleeping so I’ll quit my rambling about moving for now.

Moving Day!

Today was so stressful, hot, backbreaking, and just all around a rough day. Josh did all the heavy work and I still feel like someone beat me. We have a few more loads of stuff to bring but we got all the big stuff in the truck we rented today.

I think the cats like it here. The kids too. Having their own rooms is like heaven to them. They’ve been sharing a room for over 5 years. They get to decorate how they want, and arrange them how they want. I can’t wait to start decorating the house (especially for Halloween!)

This was just a short update post. It’s 4am and I’ve been up since 7:30 so I’m going to try that sleep thing everyone talks about.

On the move.

It’s almost moving day. Sort of. We move on Monday. It’s late Thursday night. Guess how many of us have things packed?

Just K (15). She’s got some of her bookshelf packed. We’re going to slowly take little boxes next week as I’m driving the girls to their new schools every morning. I’ll be staying in the house until time to pick them up. So I will be taking a load of things with me in the mornings when we go. Hopefully we’ll be able to get quite a bit out there that way, then we’ll just have the large furniture and TVs to move. We should be getting the keys Sunday or Monday night.

The Little Details

I’ve got none of the medical stuff transferred. K and I have one appointment each next week, then I’m going to transfer all of the girls’ medical stuff over there. Going to need lots of good vibes on that one.

I called in and have tried to transfer my SSI stuff over there. I told them my move in date would be August 20th, so hopefully it’ll be all transferred over when I get there. My insurance is through them. It’s really important that it get transferred and I don’t have a gap in coverage. Same for K. Our psychiatric meds are very important for us to have. Just one of mine, even in generic form, is over $70 a month.

Engaged

I don’t know if I mentioned in my last post that I’m engaged now. Josh is a wonderful, kind, considerate, intelligent, and sexy man. I love him all of the parts of my heart that my kids don’t hog. Basically, I love him with all of my not-mommy heart. 😂 He’s been so good to my girls and me, even sometimes when I definitely don’t deserve it. His son is a year younger than my S (9) and he’s a goofy little boy with a big heart. We don’t see him as often as we’d like since he lives about an hour away in another city, but he’s definitely made himself a part of the family.

Self Care

I’ve been working on this thing where I take better care of my hair and skin. I’m trying to wash, tone, and moisturize my face every night and in the morning, at least run a rag over my face or do a simple wash with water. Some mornings I do the whole routine.

Tonight, I washed my face with a new Murad AHA & BHA Exolfiating Cleanser that I got a sample of in this month’s Ipsy Glam Bag. I followed it with Sunday Riley LUNA Retinol Sleeping night oil from my July Allure Beauty Box. My toner is waaaay over on my dresser but it’s a rosewater toner I bought from WalMart. It comes in a cucumber version also.

I’m trying to start with the anti-aging stuff. Mainly retinol. I’m definitely no expert so I’m sort of guessing my way along, with help from my beauty boxes. Which I have become addicted to. My favorite is BoxyCharm and BoxyLuxe. It’s $21 a month for BoxyCharm, about $50 every 3 months for BoxyLuxe. In the regular monthly box, you get 5-6 full size items. BoxyLuxe will have 11(!!). It’s new so everyone is excited. I cancelled two beauty boxes I was getting for the BoxyLuxe! (Sorry, I rambled! Back on topic.)

Saying Goodbye

S is having to say a lot of goodbyes because of this move. She loves her new school, even wearing uniforms, but will miss her Girl Scout troop for sure. Hopefully she’ll love her new troop just as much as she does her current one. I’m not super fond of some of the moms at her current one, so I’m hoping the new one will have some people I can relate to. The new troop leader is K’s AP Environmental Science teacher and Josh went to high school with her. I’m crossing my fingers.

Sleepy Time

It’s time for me to get myself some sleep. We get up at 6-6:30am to make sure we make it to school on time. That’ll change in about two weeks. For now we’re making some sacrifices so the girls could start their new schools on the first day of that county’s year.

Is there anything anyone would like to know, talk about, or are interested in? I love having conversation with anyone who happens to read my posts. Even a simple Hi! can really make my day.

In the meantime, sleep well guys and don’t forget to make time for self care!

Hi, yes, hello, it’s me.

It’s been a long time since I posted. I always say I’m going to dedicate myself to a blog but then I never do. I’m not sure if it’s because I feel like I have nothing to say or because I think no one wants to hear about my boring life.

I imagine it’s a little bit of both.

Now for some updates.

I got engaged. I love, love, love him. We’ve been together a little over a year now and everything is still the same as day one. We’re looking for somewhere to move that we can all live together. It’s harder than it sounds. There aren’t a lot of decent places in our price range that have enough rooms. We applied for a house we really like today. I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much but I do really want it.

I got a new car today. A car no one can take from me or guilt me out of. There will be no screwing me out of a car this time, family of mine. Oh, and no free rides little sister!

The freedom that exists now is awesome. I don’t have to worry about 3 other people’s schedules determining when I have a car to drive. It’s great.

It’s about time for school to start back up again. I have a 4th grader and a 10th grader. Big time WHOA. It’s funny how they’re 5 years apart but one is in elementary school and one in high school.

K didn’t want to start school over here this year then move but our backup plan fell through (not my fault this time) so she has to. Hopefully it’s not too hard on her.

S had a great summer. Basketball camp (2 local high school and a former college ball player’s), Girl Scout camp (2, same camp different months and themes), a trip to Florida with her uncle, aunt, and cousins, and a couple camping trips with my fiance’s family. Both of those ended kind of dramatically but they were fun most of the time.

K’s summer was very low-key. She spent a week at her dad’s for her birthday, and went to the library a lot. We think we may have found a medicine combination that works for her (fingers crossed) so we’re cautiously optimistic.

Aside from my anxiety over moving, being over the moon about getting a car, and worrying about K, I’m doing well. I’ve mostly been stable the past couple of months except that I can’t seem to sleep at night but I can sleep all day. I’m still dealing with a lot of pain from the fibromyalgia but I have managed to get my headaches under control. I had a bad week last week due to a medication mixup, so I missed physical therapy and regular therapy, but I got out today and felt more normal than I have in a while so hopefully that will continue into the coming week.

I haven’t had a real cigarette in months, only my e-cigarette. I have not started running again :(. The motivation just isn’t there. I’m tired at least 80% of time and exhausted the other 20%. I wish I had a running buddy who would come over and drag me out of bed.

My uncle passed away. We weren’t close, we actually hadn’t talked in a couple of years despite his wife living in the building next to mine and me being at my aunt’s when he came over a couple of times. I didn’t go to his funeral. I don’t feel bad about it. His wife doesn’t like me and since we didn’t really have a relationship I didn’t see a reason for me to be there. If he was somewhere watching down I doubt he even noticed I wasn’t there.

I can’t think of anything else. I do live quite a boring life. I like it, it just doesn’t offer up a lot of things to write about. I’m going to set a reminder in my phone to see if maybe I can write more than once or twice a year 😀

C25k = ouch.

I’ve been trying to be a runner for a couple of years now. Something always happens to make me stop. Usually it’s summer break for the kids. We get so lazy and by the time I wake up it’s 90 plus degrees outside. 

This year I fell off really badly. My last run was in May. If I remember correctly it was a rough run. A short one, but a rough one. 

Tuesday I ran week one day one of the C25K program. In case you don’t know what that is it means Couch to 5k. Basically you can get up off the couch and in 9 weeks be running 5k without stopping. 

I’ve never made it past week 8. It does work though, in week 8 I was running more than 20 minutes without stopping. It’s a pretty simple program. You start by walking 5 minutes every time. The first week you run a minute then you walk a minute and a half. It repeats for 8 runs and then you walk for 5 minutes to cool down. I usually try to run a little extra because I go out a mile then turn around but it’s too far to run with just the program. 

Every week the amount of time you run goes up and the time you walk adjusts with it but it’s less than you run, not more. At first it’s super simple, then somewhere around week 4 or 5 you go from running 8 minutes to running 20 minutes! No one ever believes they can do it. Then you get out there and you’re running and before you know it, it’s over. 

So back to Tuesday. I ran the first day and then instead of taking a break (you run every other day) I decided to run Wednesday too. Bad idea. I made it about half a mile before I had to turn around. Today, my legs are so sore it’s hard to walk, so I’m putting today’s run off until tomorrow. (It’s also cold and rainy outside today.)

My goal is to finish the program this time then move on to C210K. Someday I want to run the Tinkerbell half marathon at Disney Land. That’s a long ways away but I can dream, right?

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

We had a freezing rain/snow storm today. It started sometime in the early morning (after 1:30) and went until 11 or so. I think there’s a couple of inches out there. There’s a whole lot of ice though. School was cancelled last night in anticipation of it. 

Check it out:

Look how icy the tree out back is. The whole thing is covered. I’m not a fan of snow myself, it’s only nice on Christmas, but it is pretty. I try not to go out in it but we needed groceries today so I ventured out. 

SO went out with a friend of his tonight. He asked me if I wanted to go but 14 was home and I’m not going out in the cold to drink beer. I have wine in the fridge if I want a buzz. I’m a homebody under non-snowy circumstances.

I can’t sleep tonight. My body hurts all over and not even a shower helped it this time. So I’m working on knitting a sock and trying to get to the point where I’m so tired I just can’t stay awake. I can often go all night, heaven help me. 

I finished knitting my first sock today. I’m so proud of it even if it is crazy looking because of the yarn I used. Look 😊

It looks huge but it’s really not. It fits my size 9 foot perfectly. I like the way the yarn sort of self stripes. I think it’s so big because I used worsted weight yarn (not sure what size or color. I had to take all of the labels off when I dried my yarn because of the bedbugs). My next sock is just a matching sock so I don’t have one lonely sock. 

I’m still working on my 10 stitch blanket. Slowly. I’ll get there. 

Time to knit a sock! 

We have a new kitty.

Sometime in late August/early September my cat, Tucker, had to be put to sleep. He was very sick and the vet said she didn’t think he’d do well long term so I had to make a decision. It was hard and it hurt so, so badly. 

9 took it particularly hard. She is so sensitive about people and pets dying. When our cat Doofus passed away in 2015 she was also very upset. She hates the word “died”. 

We were all hurting over poor Tucker. With him gone it felt kind of empty around here. So my SO had an idea. He decided to find us a kitten. Not one to replace Tucker but to fill the hole in our hearts. 

After lots of time scouring the internet he found the perfect little girl on Facebook. Her name is Tippy (14 says her name is Gratuity and Tippy is her nickname 😅.) 

So everyone, meet Tippy. She’s a beautiful Torty with lots of personality and energy. She loves chasing feathers and the monster under the blanket. She enjoys attacking my yarn while I knit/crochet. She’s super cuddly and so, so sweet. She’s made her place in our home and she earned it. Maisy, my other girl cat, never liked Tucker. They fought constantly and Maisy hissed at him every time he came close. She did that at first with Tippy too but Tippy was determined. She wore Maisy down and now they’re buddies. 

Here’s some pictures of Miss Tippy.

Isn’t she beautiful? When we first got her she was very scraggly looking. Her black fur was linger than her orange and white fur. She was a mess. She grew into her fur though and now she’s a super soft, super pretty kitten. She’s about 5 months old now so it’s almost time to get her fixed. I hope she doesn’t get fat and lazy like my other two. 🤞

So, I just wanted to introduce my new baby. Hopefully soon I’ll have a human baby to introduce. Cross your fingers, send baby vibes, and pray for us. 

❤