Fear

I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship.

-- Louisa May Alcott

I had this idea that I was going to try and be more positive in my blog (in all 8 posts so far?). But, today has been a hard day.

I have fairly intense anxiety that hits in for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, like today, for no reason at all. Today was not a particularly stressful day at work -- in fact it was an unusually unstressful day.

I came home from work around five. Jack and Zoe were already home, and I sat down to check my e-mail before making dinner, doing the dishes, reading to Zoe, the every day evening stuff. Zoe was watching a movie; Jack was looking at facebook.

It hit in really suddenly. I was fine one moment, and the next I couldn't move from fear. I wish I had the words to describe what this is like.

When I was little, I used to go on sleep-overs at my friend Michelle's house. We would sleep in the basement, which had the advantages of a lot of room and a tv. There were three of us -- I'm sure that other girls slept over as well, but it was always at least the three of us -- Khanh, Michelle and me.

We would spread our sleeping bags out, squabble over if we were going to make a giant bed or if we were going to sleep separately, get out our stuffed animals (mine was named Deersfur), and settle in to watch a movie. After the movie, we would go to a really, really dark corner of her basement and read scary stories. Generally from the book "Scary Stories to Read in the Dark." This book, which featured a skeleton on the front, was one of the most terrifying books I had ever come across in my young life. There were black and white pictures of ghosts and skeletons that were even creepier than the stories themselves.

The worst stories were the ones in which the reader would slooowww down at the end, and get quieter and quieter until all of us were leaning in, the tops of our head practically touching, clutching our stuffed animals to our chests, and then SCREAM at the top of their lungs, causing us to all scream and scatter as fast as we could to the safety of our sleeping bags, where we would sit and giggle nervously until Michelle's parents would come down and tell us to please stop screaming because it was 1 in the morning.

There was this moment, right before we scurried to our sleeping bags, right when the person who was telling the story would yell, that I was frozen in sheer, primal terror. I knew I was safe, that it was only a story, that we would all giggle it away, that there was nothing out there in the dark, beyond the dark windows. But, for a moment I couldn't even move, scream, respond because of terror.

That is what my anxiety feels like at its worst moments. I can't even move. Today, that is what happened. Jack was sitting right there, and he knows me so well. He looked over at me and immediately came over and gave me a hug, stood me up and brought me to the bedroom until I could calm down enough to move, breath, talk. Then, he drew me a bath and ordered us a pizza. I've been holed up in our bedroom with the computer ever since I got out of the bath.

It's getting so much better -- it's not every day, all the time a dull pit of anxiety in my stomach. Now, it only happens once every couple of weeks.

I will beat this. I am learning to sail my ship. I am not afraid until the storm breaks, and afterwards I know that I am still safe.

Out of the House!

In a desperate attempt to break out of my self imposed year + long isolation (I'm coming out of this really long depression/anxiety cycle), I went and hung out with friends! Out of the house! Without Jack and Z-bean! Just friends, and me! It was amazing.

I hung out with L. and Rebex. They are both friends with this dude, C (who I am becoming friends with as well -- he's awesome, a foodie with a 130$ bottle of balsamic vinegar -- who would turn down that friendship??), who works at a swwwaaaannnnky restaurant in a swwwaaaannnky hotel here. He's a politically progressive, foodie, really kind, just all around good guy.

He invited us down, so we went. He let us sit in this private room full of gangster style booths -- brown leather, huge, almost circular, with little round tables in the middle. Then he gave us the menu and said, "Order anything!" So, we did! Mmm... we had phillo covered Bree; a salmon plate with smoked salmon, with dill mustard, hard boiled egg, olives, onions, and capers; and an artichoke dip with a crusty bread. Then he brought us desserts -- home made vanilla ice cream (made with real vanilla beans!) over grilled pineapple; ice cream over a chocolate bunt cake filled with a chocolate liquor; and ice cream over a peach dish covered in home made, organic oatmeal. We decided that is where we needed to go to make our plans to overthrow the Patriarchy.

We hung out, talked, helped Luci with her math homework, and finally stumbled out with a food hangover, just a bit to late at night. Wonderful!

I got home and Jack has made a lot of progress painting the walls! They are going to be really nice when they are done. I'm super excited to have color in our house again. The things I really do miss about the condo are the nice floors and my beautiful ceiling. Hopefully we will be able to get the floors redone in this place -- but probably not for a year or so. I think we need to prove to the land-lady that we're not going to just paint the place and take off! The living room is going to be a reddish on two walls and a yellowish on two walls (trust me, this does not actually look like ketchup and mustard -- we were super careful about that!), the kitchen is going to be a sunny yellow color, Zoe's room is going to be light blue, and our room is going to be a pretty greenish. I will post photos when we are done!

Went to bed, talked with Jack for a long time and finally crashed out.
Now, off to work after swigging my coffee.

Sunday, Snowy Sunday

So, this updating once every few months thing needs to end. Not that I'm expecting anyone to actually read this, but it would be nice if anyone did that they would have something to actually read.
I get all flustered because I feel like I need a picture or something with every post. I think that I am going to take that expectation off myself b/c most of the time I can't even find my camera!

Yesterday the roommate and I cleaned up the back yard. Our landlady got a notice from the city that if she didn't clean it up, they would and they would charge her 75 buckaroos. She called me, several times while I was at work, and told me she would pay us to do it! Hello 35 much needed dollars!

This yard has not been raked or cleaned up in years. We raked up nine or ten fairly large piles of leaves, broke down PILES of sticks into one large manageable one (we're going to have bonfires!), and discovered a sidewalk running along the back of the house, and the fact that we have NO grass -- just dirt.

We bagged up most of the leaves, but left three large piles for today. And, today I woke up to snow. sigh. The joys of the mid-west. So, instead, I am going to do my Sunday is Cleaning Day. First (and I know this is just scintillating reading) I am going to start a load of laundry and send Z-Bean to clean her room. Then do the dishes. The nice thing is that Jack and I have been focusing on washing the dishes in the evening -- which occasionally works, but ultimately means that I don't have to clean every single dish we own, a project that takes at least an hour.

Change the load of laundry and tackle the rest of the kitchen (I may even clean off the stove). Then, take on the dining room table, the tables in the living room, and the floors. Finally, I will sweep, but not mop because our mop head sucks.

Indeed. Fun will be had by all.
Actually, between weekend radio (on MPR 'cause I'm a massive dork like that), and watching tv shows that I love while I do the dishes/fold laundry, I don't mind cleaning day.

What do you do to make cleaning more enjoyable?

Crafty

So, I have this crafty side to me. I hesitantly admit that I enjoy scrapbooking. Hesitantly, mostly, because over all I don't feel like I'm That Kind of Mom (unlike my kiddo's bio-dad's mom), but I like to think that I am able, for the most part, to break out of that box a bit and make it more my own.
I also knit. I knit a lot. So, sometimes I'll post things I've knit, sometimes things I've crafted, sometimes things I've scrapbooked.

This is from a mini art-journal that I'm doing:
First week -- hopes for 2009







Week two -- what do you find powerful?

So much cuteness for so much frustration!!
I woke Z-bean up at seven thirty, naively thinking that we could be out the door by 8:15. Now, it's 8:35, and she's STILL putting her clothes on. I should know better than to assume that Z-bean can get herself dressed in any kind of rush.

J. and I went out last night for the first time in so, so long. C., who is a good friend/exboyfriend who lives in our basement, hung out upstairs while Zoe slept and we were able leave the house without a small child. It was amazing.

I will go into more details later, the Z-meister has finally put her boots on and I think that I may be able to harness the forward moving energy into getting her coat on.