Or it could be a midlife crisis....

Characteristics

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Sports cars as a form of conspicuous consumption.

Individuals experiencing a midlife crisis have some of these feelings:

• search of an undefined dream or goal
• a deep sense of remorse for goals not accomplished
• desire to achieve a feeling of youthfulness
• need to spend more time alone or with certain peers

They exhibit some of these behaviors:

• abuse of alcohol
• acquisition of unusual or expensive items such as motorbikes, boats, clothing, sports cars, jewelry, gadgets, tattoos, piercings, etc.
• depression
• blaming themselves for their failures
• paying special attention to physical appearance such as covering baldness, wearing "younger" designer clothes etc.
• entering relationships with younger people (either/or sexual, professional, parental, etc.)
• placing overimportance (and possibly a psychologically damaging amount) on their children to excel in areas such as sports, arts or academics

Depressed

I think I'm depressed....according to wikipedia:
Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity. Depressed persons may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable or restless. They may lose interest in activities that once were pleasurable, experience loss of appetite or overeating, or problems concentrating, remembering details or making decisions; and may contemplate or attempt suicide. Insomnia, waking early, excessive sleeping, fatigue, loss of energy, or aches, pains or digestive problems that are resistant to treatment may be present.^[1]


I can't seem to do my work....there are some things that have been waiting for weeks for me to finish...and I don't really care....after 11 years there just doesn't seem to be any joy left.  But it's good money and I get away with doing nothing for weeks, sooooo......


I haven't been sleeping well....either I'm tired all the time, or I can't sleep, or both!


I feel sad, a bit hopeless, certainly guilty and everyone is fucking irritating!


Food doesn't even excite me right now....Jillian has taken to making the menu, shopping list and even doing a bunch of the cooking.


I wish I could walk away from all the drama that is building over the Imps...the change is emotional and difficult and I just don't seem to have the energy to want to deal with it.

I worry about my Mom and hope she is adjusting to her new life in the hospital....but can't bring myself to be more involved right now.

I'm surprisingly sad about my sister moving to Chicago....seems we were just starting to get along.

Why won't the sun come out in Eureka?!!

And the baby roller coaster is certainly getting to me...we started trying in January, have had 4 unsuccessful attempts.....I can't help but feel like it just wasn't meant for me to be a Mom and have a child....fuck, fuck , fuck!


I want to go away for a few weeks where there is no one but me, Jillian and the pets and the great outdoors....maybe I can figure out what I want to do with my life....I do have vacation time coming...but money has been too tight to plan anything....hoping we can afford a fire look out at the end of September, it's only $35 a night if it's still available.

I worry that my mood is a drain on my relationship with Jillian.  Although, truthfully, I feel so much love for her and from her I don't fear for us too much....she really is amazing and seems to be handling my current state of mind pretty good.

I do not feel suicidal.....not even close.

I want to work in the garden, maybe even have a little hobby farm/homestead, and do family research....is there a way to make a good life with that in mind?  I am being proactive in the gardening realm.... growing what I can in our yard (the weather this year is not helping!!), looking at what more I can do here at my house.....and I'm looking into participating in the Gardener Training Program at Deep Seeded Community Farm next year.  I'm already spending 'too much' time on Ancestry.com....and am annoyed when I have to pull myself away to do 'real work'.

Yard Flowers

I know the California Poppies, Chamomile, fuchsia and the mint...have not idea what the rest are...but they're in my yard.

Sunshine, Gardens and Babies

Seems to be all I can think about - sunshine, garden and babies....I'm having a very difficult time keeping my mind on work.  I don't know if it's the lack of any sales/marketing training and management at my work, but my desire for work is about nill.  If I weren't getting paid as well as I am, I'm sure I would have figured out something more exciting to do with my life.  I need a manager who is going to be a little more interactive with me.  I mean, sure, it's great to help local businesses and being on commission means that I can give myself a raise (and I certainly don't mean to downplay how awesome that really is)....but I need encouragement and little pats on the head when I've done well....I need someone to ask me what my goals are and then follow up with me about those....I need gold stars.

So much of my job is an uphill battle trying to let people know that I do want to help them, I want their marketing and advertising to work for them as an investment not just take their money...but at this point I've pretty much lost my patience and I just think business owners are too scared and don't want to really want to know about advertising or how it works.  They obviously went into business, not to think about marketing, but to do whatever it is that they 'love'.....I try to show them that owning a business and not advertising is like throwing a party and not sending out invitations...can't really be surprised by either when no one shows up.

The pressure of creating a successful advertising campaign is great....we have no real way in radio to prove that it is working.  Radio tends to be a slow builder...it's a great way for businesses to get info to people before they need them, but unless the offer is fantastic, it's not that great at immediate results.

I've been doing this for almost 11 1/2 years....I'm unsatisfied.  But who am I to bitch....I have a job, a good paying one...it affords me my newish car, my house payments, I get to go to music concerts and festivals and eat good food, I feed the animals and pay my bills...and I have time for the Imps and other extra activities....just no drive for work.

Peek-a-Boo

We adopted a cat named Boo.  We brought him home a few days ago and it's been a difficult adjustment.  The first day he hung out in the bedroom, behind closed doors, safe from the dogs.  He's an old man, 13 or there abouts we've been told, so I wanted to give him a safe place to adjust.  I forgot how much I hate the feel of cat litter on my feet, yuck, yuck, gag!  But at least he's using the cat box....can't wait to shift him to outdoor pottying.

One of the reasons we adopted Boo is because where he was, he was not getting the human attention that he desired by being an outdoor kitty.  So the first night when he was fairly vocal and active, I just chalked it up to getting to know new people and place.  Boy was he vocal, it was difficult to sleep cuz he kept waking me up, walking on my head, crying in my face.  The next day we decided to open the bedroom door and let him explore the rest of the house.  There was a scuffle between he and the dogs pretty much right away, Indigo came out of the experience with a little bead of blood forming on the bridge of his nose...and the cat ran right back under the bed.  Later in the evening Boo adventured out to the top of the bed, Becca, his previous mom, dropped off one of his scratching pads and he was quite happy to go to work clawing it up.  I left the door open in hopes of encouraging him to explore the rest of the house....no such luck...he just sat on the bed crying.

Last night when we went to bed, the alarm was set for 6:00 a.m....we have an Imps retreat to attend today and needed an early start...which meant I needed a good nights sleep so I can function all day today.  The cat wouldn't shut the fuck up!!!  I tried petting it, and then I tried putting the cat outside our room into the main part of the house.  Bacon was in her crate and I was pretty sure that Indigo wan't going to mess with Boo after the earlier encounter.  The cat just sat outside the bedroom door howling and wailing and scratching....it was driving me insane and I really really wanted to sleep.  Finally, at some point in the early early morning, I opened the back door and showed the cat.

Ahhhh.....silence, drifting...drifting back to....ALARM!!!  Fuck, 6:00 a.m. already, crap, oh well!

Boo, no where to be found, fuck!  Now I've spent time calling the cat, opening cans of cat food, shaking bowl of dry food, calling, calling...no Boo.  We have to leave the the Imps retreat in about 30-45 minutes....I'll keep trying.  I feel pretty bad.

Muddy Buddies

I've never, before Friday, had Muddy Buddies.  I am now addicted to the chocolaty treats we are renaming Devil Candy, they are so good!  Good thing we made only half a recipe...before we made the other half.

We had lots of plans for the weekend, pretty much didn't do any of it.  We did get the house kinda clean and I did a bit of yard work.  I love the feeling of getting work done around the house and yard, almost as much as I love how it looks when it's all done.  But after I did all that work I just couldn't bring myself to leave the house, other than to deal with storage on Sunday...I sure hope my honored friend knows how proud of her I am, and I know the new house got plenty warm without us, as for the new mama-to-be, the borange is strong, I wish you and yours the best!

Annie and Kora got here Saturday afternoon, it's been great hanging out with them.  Kora is getting so big, talking whole sentences....and is starting to use the potty!  They are asleep on the couch together right now - so precious!

Mom Update

I cried myself to sleep the other night....it just breaks my heart to think of her alone, with all that chaos and newness, confused and scared, sleeping truly alone in a bed for the first time in at least 40 years.  It must be awful for her.  I have a hard time not thinking about it, especially in the evenings.

Jillian is great....she is supporting me, letting me cry, even encouraging it, holding me, kissing me gently, rubbing my head.  I'm a very lucky lady.

I spoke with Aunt Bonnie last night.  She went to visit Mom both Tuesday and Wednesday.  They have moved her over one room, the monitor they put on her kept going off because her other room was so close to the front door.  Apparently she woke up the first night and didn't know where she was, duh, and started to wander around, looking for the bathroom, I'd guess.  Anyway now they have an alarm on her so they can make sure she doesn't get lost.

Bonnie got called into the office when she was there on Wednesday, one of the office folks was filling out paperwork and had not been able to get all the answers from Mom.  She didn't know where she had come from, or where she was for that matter.  She also didn't know she had children.  Does that mean I'm off the hook?

Humboldt County Fair

The fair is next week....I'm really looking forward to going, I always do.  But this year there is more intent to learn.  We want to figure out what it will take to buy a cow or a pig from one of the 4-H'ers and have it butchered.  We're going to try to make it to the Youth Livestock Auction at 1 p.m. on Sunday the 22.

At the auction we hope to learn a few things.  First, how the dang thing works.  Things like how to bid and that kind of thing.  Second, how much money we're going to have to gather/save over the next year so we can actually pay for meat we're bidding on. Third, what to do with the dang animal after we win.  From what I've been told by my friend down at the Ferndale Meat Market, the 4-H'er will pay for the actual killing of the animal, but that I, as the new owner would pay for the butchering of the meat.  There's an additional fee for smoking some pieces, like bacon and ham for pork or jerky for beef.

I'm thinking we may need to go in with a few folks on the whole thing to cover all the cost...auction, butchering, smoking, storage in the meat market freezer.  I'm pretty sure over the year we'll be saving money though....I'll have to do the math after we go to the auction and see if I can figure that out.  But I'm super excited about both supporting local youth, our future local farmers, and eating local meat!

The other thing I'm interested in learning more about are dairy goats.  With Cypress Grove Chevre in our back yards and Greg Foster, goat man, as a previous manager, the subject of milk goats has come up over the years with increased frequency.  Not sure I want a goat farm, but maybe a couple of goats on the Homestead would be nice.  They can help with the brush and we can benefit with goat cheese...mmm!  I'm also going to check out chickens for future considerations, and I'd check out ducks too, but I don't think they have ducks at the fair.

I could say more, but I probably shouldn't.

Full Circle

My sister came to visit on her way to our family get together at Whiskeytown Lake.  We had a get together, potluck, at our place and invite a group of Imps.  It was a really nice night with great conversations and yummy food with loved ones.  As the evening was wrapping up I pulled out a box of pictures that I found among Mom's stuff...pictures from my Mom's childhood as well as my sisters.  It was sweet to see that some brought tears to her eyes...it was all very touching.

My Sister has commented on her experience, both at my place and with the family on the lake in her blog Random Rim Jobs.  It was great to see her, the older we get the closer we seem to get...of course she's moving to Chicago now.

We visited our Mother while my sister was here.  The Alzheimer's is getting worse.  They said it would with each move.  I'm having a hard time with the guilt of moving her so many times....if only I could have taken care of her, if only I wanted to take care of her...but I don't.  There are reasons, we never really bonded, she and Dad split when I was 5.  I went with my Dad as my one-year-old sister stayed with my Mom.  There was lots of anger and hurt, feelings of abandonment and confusion...on both our parts and what time my mom and I did spend together often ended in physical violence.  All that has changed with Alzheimer's.  Now my Mom is a scared confused old lady...it's heart wrenching.

I drove Mom to a long term care facility in Redding yesterday.  Sadly she was not able to take her little dog Dani with her.  I'm so upset at the Public Guardian, they just came and took the dog away when my Mom wasn't looking, not giving her a chance to say good-bye.  Once Mom realized it, and it was about 30 minutes or so, she was very sad and cried.  All I could do is tell her that Dani had a great new home with people who love her...all a big fat lie, I have no idea what will happen to Dani.  I think she's gone to Miranda's Rescue.  The thing is, about half way to Redding, my Mom was talking about how much she missed her cat...not her dog.  I think she knew she was missing something, but couldn't remember what.  What I'm most afraid of, is how she will feel at night, when she is used to having Dani next to her (and many, many dogs before Dani, for most of her life).

My Aunt Bonnie, cousin Tianna, step second-cousin Darrin, Uncle Bucky and cousin Jackson all met us at the hospital.  The look on Mom's face once she realized she was going to be staying there almost killed me.  But she pulled it together and just accepted the situation.  We checked in with the nurses and unpacked what we could of Mom's in the small space provided.  She's sharing a room with two other ladies....she's going to hate it.  All the commotion and noise upsets her...it upsets me.

Aunt Bonnie said she's going to visit with Mom today and tomorrow, and maybe even Uncle Bucky and apparently Uncle Boyd too once he gets back to town.  I really hope their visits help Mom adjust, I think someone will go by at least once a week.  I don't know when I will be able to visit again.  I cried myself to sleep last night think about how she must feel.

When Jillian and I came home from Whiskeytown Lake Sunday night to pick up Mom, Jillian realized that her cervical mucus was clear and stretchy....she had entered another fertile cycle.  So she called Baby Daddy and headed over to his place for a "deposit".  Another friend of ours, pregnant with her second child right now, gave us her secret to getting pregnant - using a Diva Cup after intercourse....so we got one and are going to use it this time around.  She got another visit into Baby Daddy tonight after we got home...what a trooper!  I love her so!  And maybe, just maybe, there is a new baby on the way.