By the way

YKWIA found this today. It is absolutely brilliant, and so wrong, as well. I love the original The Wicker Man. I love the Muppets. But who ever really expects the Wicker Pig?

Had a bit of a Monday on a Friday today

Where things were annoying that were really trivial, and I kept feeling like I was outside myself listening to what I was saying and wondered why the hell I was saying anything I did, but without actually shutting up. All became clear after I'd finished work, taken a friend to an appointment, got gas (I was on my gas light), and then when he bought me dinner at Captain D's and I went to take my afternoon meds, I realised that while I'd taken my Byetta and insulin this morning at breakfast, I somehow overlooked my oral meds (which explains how I worked from 8:45 am to 2 pm without taking one pee break, as I'm usually on a diuretic and a diabetic medicine that conspire against my bladder. Anyway, I took the meds this afternoon, and I feel much better, both physically and mentally. YKWIA and I spent some time visiting, and then I came on home just before dark. I've got Loreena McKennitt playing on Pandora and I think I'll do some reading, most likely from the self-help books on hoarding I have on my Kindle and out from the library, but I'm tempted to go straight to the books I found by Randall Garrett that YKWIA had been talking about earlier. They are the Lord Darcy series, an alternative-history fantasy series. Turns out I have the first three (I think he gave them to me, actually, but I've never read them). Tomorrow is a very busy day, but I may read some from the first book, taking it with me--it's very small, actually, and will fit nicely in my bag.

For tomorrow (not necessarily in order):

• Go to a friend's house at 9 am.
• Take the friend to the vet for a special type of cat food.
• Take said friend to the pharmacy to correct a mistake.
• Take friend to an appointment.
• Go to Eastside branch of the public library for an interlibrary loan for a friend.
• Go to the Central library for two holds for a friend.
• Come home and work on the house.
• Go pick up friends.
• Take them to their respective homes.
• Give friend books from the library.
• Return home.
• Read.
• Work on the house.
• Work on the notes (we're not playing on Sunday due to Brenda being at a Society for Creative Anachronism event, but hey, it would be good to have them done for next week.

Okay, time to listen to relaxing Celtic music and do some enjoyable reading. Good night.

Five hours later, and I'm just getting back home

The house, and all the anxiety it produces, will have to wait. I just got in. I have cleaned the litter there, taken out the trash and receptacles, helped cook, and cleaned up. Oh, and I went to the store because an ingredient was missing. I am now pooped. But we had a good time, and I lingered as a result, so I was avoiding the house, too. We sang 'Cows with Guns' and such. I don't think everyone would get the humour in that song at all.

Okay, I'm going to eat a little ice cream, cool off, and get ready for bed. Tomorrow, as they say, is another day (which is already planned out, as is Saturday.) Sigh.

Breathe

So I've hit a snag already. I watered the plants with no problem. I came up against a wall of anxiety looking at the house, though. I feel overwhelmed. YKWIA just called and I'm going over there briefly, which is just as well, although he said he wouldn't keep me long. Maybe I should read some more about hoarding rather than jumping into this tonight. I don't know. I did take my anti-anxiety medicine (it was time), so maybe that will kick in and when I get back, it'll be better. But for right now, I think the best thing I can do is breathe in and out and work at keeping the anxiety from growing from the small panic it is to a greater one. I know that if I can start getting rid of things or putting things into place, it will get better, but it usually gets worse before it gets better.

I am uncharacteristically

home and ready to tackle a few things. I'm going to keep it pretty simple; I need to do the following--

1. Water the plants inside and out.
2. Work on the living room.
3. Work on the kitchen.

That's it. I'm not saying I'll get the living room and kitchen excavated, but it's more reasonable to think I can work on them without pushing for that goal, so I don't fail. The plants are pretty straightforward, of course. At the moment I can't really sit down at the computer or watch TV comfortably, because there's stuff strewn everywhere. Nor can I do much in the kitchen.

You probably figured it out, a long time ago, that I am a hoarder. I go through bouts when things are in place and neat, but inevitably they slide back into disarray. And it's not just messiness; I have trouble letting go of things that 'might be useful', I 'might read', and there's the need to acquire things, not so much by going out for retail therapy; it's often taking home things I feel are unwanted by others. Yeah, there's no emotional red flag on that, is there?

Anyway, lately things have been bad again, enough that I can't have my friends over (although when things are clean, I'm still anxious about having people in my house). And it's driving me crazy, because for all my clutter, I prefer things to be in their place. At work, my desk is almost always neat and nearly spotless. I hoard at work, true, but it's all in closets or the attic, for the most part, something I'm going to have to let go in the coming months, although it's not nearly as bad as the house. People say their houses are a wreck; I have a lot of stuff crammed into 750 square foot of space, and it comes to at least twelve full-size bookshelves plus an entertainment centre just for the books alone--and acquiring the 'newer' collapsable shelves actually helped. Before that, things were piled everywhere. But my clothes, clean and dirty, are in piles on the bedroom floor; there's stuff on the loveseat, on the dining room table, etc. It's time to tackle things again.

But I need help. I can clean, I can conquer the overwhelmed feeling I have right now, after the tipping balance is reached and I let things slide, but no matter how decent I get everything it's going to stay like that for a few months at the most and start over again. YKWIA and I were talking the other day and he said that in the time he'd known me (29 years or so), it had always had the same pattern. If I want to really do something about my life--and the house is really just a symptom--I need to break the pattern. I'm reading some books on treating hoarding, doing some research, and I also checked out therapists in the area. There is one person who does handle obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders, including hoarding, and while he is a social worker (I haven't had a lot of luck with them, as they usually just do talk therapy, which is nearly useless for me), he does cognitive behaviour therapy, which is the only real thing that's particularly effective so far in hoarding therapy. I haven't done CBT, but I have done dialectical behaviour therapy, which is a subset of it, and it was much better for me. I need the 'homework', the practical work. He's also got over 30 years of experience and has undergone special training in dealing with anxiety disorders. His office is near my house, and he takes my insurance. I'm going to call tomorrow to see if I can get in. In the meantime, tonight I'm going to try to get things a little more livable in those two rooms. I'm tired of camping out on my bed (I've done all my computer stuff of late there, which isn't great for my back, and have been sleeping with the laptop and my book bag, and books, in the bed.)

Okay, it's time to get started. I have my wireless headphones on with peppy music playing, so I can go from room to room with no trouble. Wish me luck.

I'm feeling a little better today than I have in awhile

One of the challenges I took on through Habitica was to rate my emotions at least three times a day and then graph them every week, and at first I didn't take it very seriously, but I've been a little labile and more anxious of late, and when you have a mood disorder it really helps to pay attention to what's going on emotionally and what might be triggering it. I downloaded an application onto my phone called Daylio that allows you to pick from a scale of faces and what you were doing at the time (more than one, which is handy), and then it graphs the trends. It's free. I think it's helping.

I also, on a totally unrelated note, downloaded an application called Simple Metronome, not for any musical use, actually, but to read by. WHenever I read out loud in front of YKWIA, he says it sounds rushed and I trip over the words, because it's like my brain is moving quicker than my mouth. It's almost push of speech for reading. That's how I read in my head, for that matter, and I sometimes miss things because of that, as it's almost a skimming. When tested, I can focus and get the reading comprehension I need to, but if I'm not being tested, if I'm reading for pleasure, etc., then I just rush ahead. He pointed out that being a quick reader is not something to be particularly proud of; being a careful reader is better. This is an aspect of my attention-deficit disorder, we think. He suggested reading to a rhythm. I couldn't read and hit the beats at the same time, so he did the latter and I read out loud, and did much better. So he suggested I get a metronome to read by. So I got a nice simple one that allows you to change the rhythm and has a few different sounds, and it is helping.

In addition to work today, I went over to the University of Kentucky's Medical Library and took an hour-and-a-half webinar on Statistics for Librarians, sponsored by the Medical Library Association. I did well on the exercises and caught a few mistakes in the presentation (typos, mispeaking), and I really enjoyed it. It was very basic stuff, but I am terribly rusty, having just had two statistics classes in my life, years ago. The first was business and oeconomics statistics, which I hated, because the book was huge, I'm not good at oeconomics, and the teaching assistant's English was minimal, and it was a difficult class that needed some clarity of language. The whole book was word problems, which you would think I would do well in, as I'm very verbal, but actually I always did better with pure math equations and had trouble setting up world problems. I took this class because it fit my schedule better, which was a mistake--I think I wound up with a C. Later I took statistics for the humanities for my sociology degree, and that was better and more relevant, and so I understood and did better. But that, as I said, was years ago. I really enjoyed doing a class. I'm really thinking of taking a class on Coursera or watching some TED talks regularly. I feel I'm stagnating and just not mentally stimulated enough anymore.

It took 45 minutes to get back to work, with the walk to parking and then rush-hour traffic, but I came back and did my data entry so I wouldn't be behind because I said I would. I stayed till 5:30 pm, which gave me an extra half-hour, which is good, as I left a little early yesterday to take care of some things, when clinic was much slower. I also shelved a bunch of bound and unbound journals that were in the library today, and started pulling the book collection over two shelves over so I can integrate the newer books into the collection. I did stop after one shelving unit today because I was perspiring pretty heavily and didn't want to go to the class all stinky. Tomorrow I'll wear something not quite as dressy and cooler that I can really work in. I'd worn full-length pants and a button-up shirt today, with my Mary Janes and socks rather than sandals, mainly to look more professional for an academic setting--I am, after all, likely to apply for a job there if one comes up, so presentation can be important, even when you're not being interviewed. I'm lucky that my employer lets us wear Capris and sandals, so long as we're not working directly with patients or in a hazardous position, but I recognise that other institutions are more conservative. For example, I know the Lexington Public Library requires closed shoes, which makes sense, really. On the days I push around the book carts I tend to, so I don't hurt myself if I run over my foot with one. But I don't do that every day, just when I'm filling up the kids' books in the clinic, shelving, or adding books to the collection. Actually, Friday might be best to do the main shelf-moving, as I can wear jeans on Fridays. :)

I found out yesterday that one of my bosses is retiring soon, which made me sad, but I'm glad she's doing what's right for her. I don't know who my boss will be for the last three or four months, therefore.

Okay. I've eaten some burritos, listened to a Rob Thomas station on Pandora, blogged, spent some time with friends after work, and now I think I'm going to go do some reading. I'm trying to find some strategies to work on some issues, and so I've gotten some Kindle books and then also checked out a couple of physical books on the subject. That only really helps if you actually read the material, though. :)

I'm awake and having trouble sleeping

I've spent the last four hours tossing, turning, dreaming right at the edge of sleep, that sort of thing. I finally got up, took my medicine (I'd fallen asleep without it), and ate a little something, since I had tomatoes for dinner. I increased a medication today, and that can have insomnia and odd dreams as a side-effect. Maybe I need to dial it down a bit--I increased only 15 mg today, over three doses, but it may have been enough to disturb my sleep. I'm also hurting, so I took some arthritis acetaminophen to help with that. I have some Loreena McKennitt playing on Pandora through the TV. I'm going to try to go back to bed in a few minutes. I want to get up early and do some things, but at the rate I'm going, I'm not sure that's going to work.

I went by the library today and checked out some books on a subject that could help me in my struggle with a particularly difficult aspect of my life. I also found a couple of Kindle books at Amazon that looked useful, one of which was recommended on a website. I may read a little before going back to bed.

Okay, we're going to try this again. Good night.

So, Pandora has this new thing called

Thumbprint, which is a station consisting of music one has liked on the various other stations one has set up, so it's a nice mix and you're pretty assured you'll like what it plays. It's also very good at the end of a day when you're not feeling particularly great and need something cheery. Right now I'm listening to Pet Shop Boys' 'West End Girls', which originally popped up on my Depeche Mode station. :) Okay, I'm about to put some pierogis in the oven. Guess I'll wrap up for now. Sorry I didn't write much this week. I'm not sure I've had more than a two-hour block of time to myself while awake this entire week, which may be part of the reason I imploded emotionally earlier. That and hormones, and generally needing to make some changes in my life to be truly happy. Good night.

Not my best

Had a difficult, hormonal, feeling-like-I'm-going-to-fail kind of day, and I pretty much accomplished nothing I intended because I was too wound up. So I'm turning to the Internet for kitty videos and quizzes. Between that and some TLC from my closest friend, I feel better, I must admit.

My little car has reached a milestone

I went to get a friend from work tonight and my odometer rolled over past 60,000 miles.  Considering the car is a 2001 Ford Taurus SES,  it's doing pretty well.  It was my grandmother's car and then my mom drove it,  and I think when I got it over three and a half years ago,  it had about 35,000 miles on it.  I drive around town a lot,  but that's still less than the average from an insurance point of view,  so I get a break in my rates.  When I first bought the car,  a mechanic said the best thing I could do beyond the flushing and the like that I had done was drive it,  rather than let it sit.  So I've broken it in nicely,  15-16 years after it was made. Here's to another 15, with any luck.  My last Taurus had over 280,000 miles on it before it died.  I'm in the take-care-of-it-and-drive-till-it-collapses school of thought with cars,  obviously.