Pressure #2 What are you currently feeling pressure to do that you don't particularly enjoy?

Can I confess something? I am thirty-three years old, and I have absolutely no idea what I want to be when I grow up.

No, that's not true.

I want to be a LOT of things when I grow up. The problem is that I do NOT want to be an office manager (anymore) or a teacher (of elementary or secondary students), and sometimes it feels like those are the only things I am physically able to do that I can study for.

I've been told over and over again to "learn a trade," and I agree in THEORY. But I have two major problems here. First, I am a nerdy nerd, an academic, a great big giant dork. I love to study. I do research for fun, and I can do it without even really thinking about it. I love the challenge, and I get bored without it. When I am bored or unhappy with something, I don't really tend to stick it out. It's not for lack of trying. It's not that I don't think I SHOULD stick it out. It's that, well, I can recognize a pattern, and I know what I've always done.

And then there are the physical limitations. Most of the "trades" that interest me require long hours standing, bending, lifting, walking, and generally being in fluorescent lighting all day. That's not going to work. I've dropped out of beauty school, music school, and nursing school over health issues.

But I want to run a business. I've got this dream of this great little tea room.......... And a whole lot of naysayers. Myself included.

But I am going back to school for business, and we'll see where we go from there.

___________________________________________________________

Oh Blogosphere, oh blogosphere..........

I loved that comic. And I haven't really seen much daylight today. You see, I've been TRYING to revamp THIS BLOG. It's not going well, frankly. It's all manner of frustrating. I thought I'd make a clever drop-down navigation menu. All my links disappeared, and you can't hover to expand it. It's driving me crazy. Also, the header image is just not cooperating.

So, friends, that's what I've spent ten hours on today. I had plans, sure. But I worked on the blog instead, and it's still not actually set up right! 

I'll get there though. Really. 

But not right now. Right now, I am going to do something useful. I am going to do some cleaning. I've washed my sheets, and now I am going to put them back on and make the bed. 

But I leave you with this video from one of my favorite Youtube channels. Melissa Maker of Clean My Space on How to Make Your Bed (and lead a happier life):

Keeping House With Kate - New Year's Day Edition

I need a cool picture for these posts. Anybody want to hook me up? I am USELESS at that sort of thing. A cool picture and a cute li'l badge would be so neat. I'd feel like a real, live BLOGGER! Ah, well. For now, you get to look at me in the kitchen. Isn't that a pretty kitchen? Yeah... It's not mine.

Happy New Year.

NaBloPoMo Pressure #1 - Do You Work Well Under Pressure?

In answer to this question, I wrote a stunningly brilliant post. It was cool and witty, and was a lot of fun to write. I hope it would have been a lot of fun to read, too, but we'll never find out. Alas, in the middle of trying to edit the NaBloPoMo badge at the bottom of the post, it was somehow utterly lost, converted entirely to the content of another scheduled post, never to be seen again. I am rather frustrated by this, because, really, it was cool. THERE WERE POP CULTURE REFERENCES, PEOPLE! POP CULTURE!

But, since I can't get it back, I guess now we test how well I work under pressure, right? Or at least how well I work while extremely frustrated and on the verge of cussing out the ENTIRE internet.

In a half-baked attempt to recreate what I had arduously written, having worked out what I wanted to say whilst soaking my sore muscles in a glorious mineral salt and tea-tree bath (good for the muscles, stress, and that pesky lupus rash that continues to plague me. Maybe I need another?), I will note that I made reference to different types of pressure that come to mind.

When I think of "pressure," the first thing that comes to mind, other than the awesome synthesizer action of Billy Joel and the Queen/Bowie combo, is the pressure canner I've been dreaming of owning for over a year now. Then there's the pressure of hands on muscles in a nice massage. You know the pressure? First it almost hurts, then EVERYTHING FEELS WONDERFUL. And last but not least, is the big warning! Contents under pressure! This is your captain speaking. We may experience some slight turbulence and explode.

So, my well-formed and thought-out answer to the question "do you work well under pressure?" is a firm, solid, and resounding "uhhhhhhhhh............ that depends.............."

In the past, I would have said that I THRIVED under pressure, that I worked best under pressure. In the past, that was probably true. But I am older now, and mostly, I want to be able to do things on MY terms. I am not sure that's really my desire, but you follow, right? My life has more demands, more stress, more issues, more concerns, and a lot more pressure now than it did when I "thrived under pressure." Right now, pressure is a state of being. Sometimes I think that I had better come out of all of this a diamond instead of just a lump of coal.

Understand that what I mean here is that, when I was younger, I had only myself to worry about, and I barely did THAT. I LOVED deadlines and heavy workloads. I lived for a good challenge. Now? I am older, I am sicker, and I have a lot of responsibilities that are more "pressure" than you can imagine til it's too late. I wouldn't trade it though, except for maybe the "sicker" part. That I would trade. But I can't, and so....

But really, it does depend on the type of pressure and how I am feeling that day.

Like a pressure canner, with the right amount of the right kind of pressure, I am sure I can be preserved to last for a long time (and be pretty darned tasty, too, if my amish jarred beef recipe is to be believed). But with the wrong kind of pressure, it's not pretty. I just sort of break. I can't function. I can't cope. I just want to hide.

Deadlines scare me a little bit now. Not a lot, and not always, but they do give me more anxiety than they used to for sure. And the wrong KIND of pressure to do something, even something I actually want to do, will just about guarantee that it will NOT get done. I don't know why that is, either, but I may have to delve into that part of myself later.

But the other pressure? The hands-of-massage pressure? I've got some friends that help me out with that. I've got a friend who "pressures" me lightheartedly to, for example, clean my carpets when I really want to do that, but am tempted to just watch old episodes of Supernanny instead. She's not REALLY pressuring me. She certainly won't judge me or give me a "bad grade" if I DON'T steam clean the carpets. But I want to do it, and I want to show HER that I can do it, because it's fun to sort of work together on the project, even though we're four hours away from each other. That pressure is a pressure under which I STILL thrive. And yes, it hurts at first, and then it feels wonderful. The task is complete (in record time!), and I've bonded with a friend. I have a sense of accomplishment AND of camaraderie.

__________________________________________________________________________

Happy New Year.

It's 2014. Or I think it is. There are fireworks EVERYWHERE. My dogs are not pleased. All three are crated, and the older two are nice and sedated, but still panicking a wee bit.

I've been asked to do some more blogging, and I apologize for the length of my absences. I've had a lot of stress and anxiety, and I guess something about the transparency of blogging scares me just a bit. I am working on that. But it's a new year, and I guess, a new "start" so to speak for my inner blogger.

So, let's start the year off like everybody else, okay? The dreaded New Year's Resolution post. Year after year, I've said that I don't make New Year's Resolutions. They don't work. People don't stick them out. But what I WILL do is accept some challenges and make some goals.

Challenge 1: 52 Week Money Challenge
Looks simple, sounds hard. Starting this week, you save a dollar. Then each week, you save one dollar more than the previous week. At the end of the year, you should have $1378 in savings. Since I am broke as a joke and have no actual bank account, I have an American Express Bluebird for this project. For all other things, I use my PayPal card or my AccountNow card.

Challenge 2: 52 Weeks to an Organized Home
I love how simple this is. It's brilliant! I think it spends two full months just on the kitchen, but you don't do the whole room in a day. I can handle that. Even my OCD can handle that.

Challenge 3: Attack of the Flylady
So, this one I am sharing with another friend who has specifically asked me to blog about it as I go. So, I've mentioned before that I fail at the flylady thing with my OCD, right? So, after further investigation in 2013, I've realized that I just can't with flylady. The control journal makes me crazy, and the daily routine lists leave me obsessing for weeks, and I just CAN'T. It's absolutely not a failing of her system. It's a failing of my therapy, or lack thereof, and my complete lack of coping skills. It's cool. I have my own way of coping. See? I have a routine for the most part, and it's not that far from OR that close to Marla's. I can't get dressed to lace-up shoes every morning. It hurts. Plus, I'd like to keep my orthotics intact as long as possible, because those things COST! So, Flylady, I can't do the whole program without working myself into a complete neurotic breakdown. What I CAN do, though, is focus on the daily missions (linked above), and work on the HOM (Habit of the Month). And I can keep up with my own system of checking off the daily chart and moderately-deep-cleaning a room a day, but super-cleaning a zone at a time the flylady way sounds like a great way to keep it manageable. My dear Natacha wants me to blog these challenges as I go, daily for a while. I will tag them "keeping house with Kate."

Challenge 4: NaBloPoYEAR
Because I have utterly abandoned my blog within three days of starting any other NaBloPoMo endeavor. Yep. I'm going to try it every month this year. I am actually going to use the writing prompts, which means, no themed NaBloPoMo posts on weekends.

Challenge 5: Read the Orthodox Study Bible in a Year
Because I always abandon this idea pretty quick too. Not this time. Y'all keep me on top of it, okay??

So, that's it. My OCD is begging me to find a fitness challenge (there are a million of them out there), but I JUST got health coverage again for the first time in two years, and I want to get the doctor's opinion before I start anything major. Also, with my healthcare plan I can get a free membership at Gold's Gym, and I REALLY like that idea. The local one has a women's only facility. No hot tub though. I may have to see if I can find a local gym with a hot tub that my plan will cover. The big goal with this though, well, really, covers both the fitness thing AND the I-finally-have-health-coverage-and-can-see-a-doctor-after-33-straight-days-with-the-same-migraine thing: getting my health in order as much as I can and regaining some of the quality of life that I have been desperately missing recently.

Alright, Flylady, I shined my sink. NOW what??

It's that time of year. The season has officially changed. The summer clothes need to packed away for next year, and the lovely sweaters get laundered and brought back out. That always throws me into a cleaning spree. Is fall cleaning a thing? If not, it bloody well should be! It CERTAINLY is a thing here. And this year, happy birthday to me, I am getting my dad's sleeper sofa, which I love. I ALSO inherited two FABULOUS dog crates.

Have I mentioned that my house is tiny? That I have OCD? Yeah......... And now, EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF FURNITURE I OWN HAS TO BE MOVED (except Roo's bed, which is a Goliath beast of a thing and will not move unless and until we are moving out of this house. It took three people four days to get it where it is now!) Also, the laundry/storage room was a big heap of cluttered chaos. I haven't been able to find anything in there since a few weeks after the last time I pulled EVERYTHING out and reorganized it. So I pulled everything out again. But good news! We think we found Hoffa behind the paint cans left behind by some previous inhabitant....

In the last week, I have thrown away two over-full big trash bins (you know, the small dumpster thing the sanitation folks send out?) of junk, my paper recycle bin has been filled to overflowing twice (it's more than overflowing now, and I DON'T think they pick up recycling this week. Oops!!). I've donated TWELVE bags of clothes and shoes, SIX boxes of food-that-isn't-gluten-free, and I am currently looking for the right family to give FIVE bins of toys and games for preschoolers, a play vanity, and a tricycle (Merry Christmas!). I even finally talked myself into throwing away the patio bench that I loved so much that has been broken since May and cannot be fixed.

I've rearranged both bedrooms, the living room, the storage room, and the carport. On Thursday, the lawn will get mowed and edged, and the garden spots will be adorned, and, in theory, my coveted sleeper sofa will be arriving in my living room.

And I am asking myself, again, how do I keep my house and my brain in shape once I have completed my own personal Extreme Home Makeover: Crap You Already Own Edition. I am also asking myself exactly WHERE I am going to store my extra towels now that I've moved the dresser they were stored in into my bedroom and my tall-boy into the storage room to hold art, craft, and school supplies so I can actually FIND them. But that's not what this post is about. Much.

I've tried "organizing," "housekeeping" and other such systems in the past, including letting my OCD and my ADD wage war and wreak havoc in my head - and my kitchen. And ALWAYS, ALWAYS, I overthink things WAY too much, and I let my OCD get the better of me (as it will do, whether you "allow" it to or not!), and I give up, and three months later, I spend ten days trying to sort through boxes of what-the-heck-is-this?! and I-forgot-I-owned-this! Seriously. I went through a box of stuff tongight. I didn't know the box existed, much less the really cool vases and the WEATHER RADIO it contained. I have no idea how long I've had it. Probably all summer. And I've been LOOKING for a weather radio. To PURCHASE. So glad I never got around to that!!

So, I am working my way through the laundry and the storage room at this point, and then, a thorough cleaning of the floors, and I am finished. I am determined that the contents of my storage room shall henceforth remain static. If something goes in, something comes out, and it will only contain (other than the laundry supplies. DUH!) art supplies, craft supplies, school supplies, a spare AC, ceramic space heaters, camping supplies, and seasonal decorations. And I may need to scale those back.

I need to maintain, and keep organizing regularly. But how?

So, I thought I'd give Flylady another go, but this time, I am determined not to try to get ahead of myself. She says to make shining your sink a habit, right? But the "baby steps" are theoretically a month's worth of things. Not me. Not this time. So, here's my plan.

Flylady has "zone missions," right? Each week, they focus on a different area of the house, and each day, there's a short "mission" for that area. I should do that.

I like the ideas at Organizing Made Fun's 31-day challenge. It was for October. Nobody says I can't do it now. It's like a daily mission. I should do that, too. That's two short tasks a day. Morning and afternoon, right?

And I am not doing Flylady's steps in 31 days. I don't shine my sink. It's not even close to a habit. I am just going to work on THAT step and the mission-things until I'm doing it without flipping out on myself or complaining, or stressing. THAT's a better plan for me, I think. I should TOTALLY do that.

I am hoping that maybe this time I can maintain without the crazy anxiety attacks I get. Because, honestly, as mildly as I've got it, OCD is a BEAST. I was talking to a friend tonight while I was working on the patio trying to get stuff done, and I said the following, almost ver batim:

"This is stupid. I am seriously about to have an anxiety attack because I don't have the right bin for my lumber, and I don't know where the lumber goes. And I want it in an opaque bin with no lid. If I am going to use a CLEAR bin, I want my garden stuff in that. Okay, transferring garden stuff to clear bin. That's a bit better. I still don't know where the heck to put it without making it look JUNKY. You know what I need? I need some pallets and some canvas and a sheet of plywood so I can build a little mini-shed-thing to store my garden stuff in, because then it wouldn't look junky. And another one (or two) for my lumber, because that makes SENSE, darn it. And I feel COMPLETELY insane right now, because I can acknowledge that I am about to have an anxiety attack. I can tell you exactly WHAT is triggering my anxiety attack. But I can't do a THING to prevent it, because if I go inside and get away from the trigger, the anxiety is only going to get WORSE. I feel stupid. A stupid, insane, neurotic mess. OMG. Where do these bins go?"

I've got a bunch of laundry to put away. I haven't vacuumed the floor yet. So I can't put the laundry away. I know that's ridiculous. But it's true. And that's neurosis. And it's OCD. And it's my daily self. So. I am going to go put away dishes, wash a couple, because my sink isn't shining right now, and go back to work on the carport and the laundry.

And when I am finished, I have this plan to thoroughly clean my vacuum cleaner. That gives me a bit of anxiety too, because it has to dry for 24-48 hours, and I vacuum about every six hours. Not the whole house, mind, but SOMETHING.

But after THAT, I am going to just see how I do doing the flylady system, basic daily cleaning, and some organizing challenges. Because my life is crisis cleaning, and I can't live like this. Especially not if I am going back to school full-time (starting up again tomorrow! YAY!) and trying to get a "real job"

But where the heck am I going to keep my rag towels?!

I keep trying to just breathe and remember:
Íosa Críost é buadhach (Isous Christos NIKA) (Jesus Christ is Victorious)

Stay tuned for the reason we started learning this phrase! Bullying and Boy Scouts.

With love as always

Halloween, food allergies, a rant, and a reply

I posted this as a reply on a post over at BlogHer, but I thought it warranted it's own space here.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

We also prefer give out stickers, halloween-themed pencils, and silly-band type treats. I take my boy trick or treating, but then I have to go through everything and make sure it's safe. He's been a trooper about it, but it does kind of bum me out to have to toss out 75% of his "candy haul." On the upside, it's fewer days of being relentlessly bugged every twenty seconds for a piece of candy even though the answer was "no, and don't ask again til after lunch" about a minute ago, and it's only 8:00 in the morning!

What has really driven me bats this year is the SCHOOL! It's our first time in public school, and it's ridiculous. When I went in to register him, I took his medical documentation to prove his allergy (gluten), and was told that we could fill out x-form and y-page and jump through a hoop or two and that the school would accommodate his needs. Well, they don't. They do NOT make accommodations for gluten allergies here. They also do NOT have any sort of list of ingredients on school foods that they will make available to me. So, my son qualifies for free lunch, but it costs me four or five times as much as it would cost me to feed him at home. And he's constantly being given "treats" for different things at school. Not ONCE has one of them been a safe food. Not ONE SINGLE TIME.

His birthday is this Friday. I was asked if I was sending cupcakes. I am not. I wish I could. But the school says they must be CUPCAKES (not cookies. That's not okay for some reason. What the heck??), store-bought, in the original packaging with the ingredients listed and peanut-free. That's doable in theory. Except there is not a single local store that carries any such thing WITHOUT GLUTEN. I'd have to drive an hour to spend something in the neighborhood of $50 to make that happen locally! So, not only does he not get to bring cupcakes in on HIS birthday, but if somebody ELSE brings in birthday cupcakes, he can't eat them, AND the teacher can't tell me in advance if there's going to be a birthday so that I can send my own child something safe.

I don't understand. If we can accommodate any allergies, shouldn't we accommodate all of them and/or just ban food from classroom parties?

NABLOPOMO - National Blog Post Month?

Right. So I signed up for this, and I committed to posting once a day in November. It's only the 3rd, and I've already failed!

OOPS!

But I am looking at the Blog Prompts, and they're not including weekends, so maybe it's not a total wash?

How's your weekend been?

Me? Thanks for asking. I've been absolutely plagued by the CUTEST PUPPY EVER. He showed up at my house Friday night, and by Sunday afternoon, he had decided to worm his way into my heart, defer and be all submissive with my dogs, and beg my son for belly rubs. So, of course, now it's just a few hours til it's time to decide once and for all whether he stays here or goes to the shelter in the hopes that his people come and claim him. And I REALLY can't decide. My heart is telling me to keep the little guy. My head is telling me not to. The boy is begging me to do it.

Seriously, I've worked with this pup TWICE, and he remembers "sit," "down," "wait," "give hug," "off," "leave it," "go to bed," and "come to me." That makes him about two commands shy of Mandy and about a billion more than Joey, who took six months to realize that he's ACTUALLY supposed to sit on command. And he's CUTE. And so sweet. And affectionate. Ugh. It's really not helping my decision-making process that he's so darned adorable. And obedient. At least, he is so far. He's only been here two days, and it can take a couple of weeks for their temperament to really show up. But, he's just tugging at my heart strings so hard!! It's a nightmare, I tell you!! A NIGHTMARE!! A cute, fluffy, whimpering, adorable, happy little nightmare.

See? Do you see??  Do you see my dilemma here???? How can you say no to these faces????????

I've also been working pretty much nonstop around the house this weekend, but more on that later, when I can come back with some pictures and the story! 

I hope you all enjoyed your extra hour of sleep last night. I know I did!  I'll be back some time on Monday with a less-insane update.

Love always,

Here I am.

So, hard decisions in life. You may know by now how strongly I feel about homeschooling and taking a very active role in educating my son. I also feel very strongly about staying in our (inexpensive) house, and maintaining stability. Several weeks ago, it became very apparent that things were just not working, and I needed to start searching for a "real" job. ANY job. Even part time at minimum wage. I don't have friends and family nearby who can watch my boy and/or help with his schooling while I look for a job, and then while I am working. I have spent months searching for something I could do that would have the right hours and days to let me keep homeschooling. It wasn't happening. So we decided that public school was an inevitability this year, and that it was better to make the choice to put him into a public school and try to get a job so we can stay in our home than it is to lose everything and be forced to use the public school system.

So my son has been in public school for four weeks now. Except this week. God bless him. He's been home sick all week.

So, that's where we are right now. I am still looking for the job, but I can at least have my days right now to go to interviews and things like that. I am at the mercy of his dad on a car though. I've been driving his car since July, and this week he decided he needed it back. So I am now a public school mom with no car to get to work once I can find a job.

I am frustrated beyond words, and I really, desperately need your prayers. Roo is struggling hard at school. He keeps getting into trouble, because he always HAS to be right, have the last word, be the boss, etc. He's trying so hard to adjust, and he really wants to want to be there. I want him to have a really positive experience there. I want this to be something GOOD for him. I want it to be good for our family. I want us to come through this stronger, wiser, and better off. But it's hard for a jumpy little kangaroo to adjust to a new environment when he's supposed to do as he's told and be quiet about it. It's been miserable that he's been sick this week, but I have to confess that I've really missed having him at home during the day. Alas, next Monday morning he'll be back on that bus, off to a world where I can't help him.

I am struggling with this decision a month in. Please, please pray for us.

In other news, we've had our Joey dog a year today! He's my pumpkin puppy. He came to us last Halloween a broken, starved, heartworm-positive dog with some "questionable" lung and stomach problems. But we saw our vet last week, and Joey is officially a well-adjusted, well-fed, PERFECTLY HEALTHY HEARTWORM NEGATIVE DOG!!!!!!!!!!!!! Glory to God! My puppy is all better. So, I have been saying, now that he's perfectly healthy, we know he really IS lazy and useless. Good for him! He can be pampered and lounge about all day.

Roo turns seven next Friday. That just amazes me. How did my tiny baby get so big? It's incredible. For his birthday, he asked for a cool chair and a reading nook in his bedroom, a model of the solar system, a rug, and a sweater made from Plymouth Galway yarn in this cool electric blue color. My dad is giving me his AWESOME sleeper sofa, so I put made over Roo's room with his favorite recliner. There's nowhere to FIT a model of the solar system, but we found an AMAZING rug that answers that question. And it's not too expensive. I have all but one skein of the Galway yarn and the pattern for his sweater. I told him it won't be done on his birthday, but I'm working on it, and that's good enough for him. He's really a great kid.

I am currently working on reconfiguring pretty much the entire house to make a space for that sleeper sofa. I will update on that shortly, as progress is made. I won't be a stranger anymore. Really. I've just been struggling a lot, and trying to figure out how to post about the public school issue that broke my heart.

As always, I deeply appreciate your prayers and your comments.

With love,

New Chapter

It seems we're entering a new chapter. I will explore it later in some detail, but right now, I am just asking for your prayers as we enter into the public school system and back into the work force.

posted from Bloggeroid