Mental Health Day

Do you ever have days where you don't want to get out of bed?  How about days where, after getting out of bed, you mentally check through the entire day to see when you can crawl back in it again?  What about having a to do list that is very short, and do-able look like mount Everest, so you just curl up on the couch and watch Toy Story with your toddler? 
I spend an inordinate amount of time and energy, both physical and mental, trying to combat those feelings every single day.  Here's the thing about that.  I've always been like this.  In school, when I worked, and as a stay at home mom.  From the time I get up in the morning, all I can do is think about the next time I can lay back down.  I thought it was normal, that everyone did this.  Until probably a year ago, I honestly thought it was normal.  You just trudge through your day until you can go to bed again.  That's the point, right?  It was always the people who didn't take naps, the people who actually worked when their babies slept and things like that who were abnormal.  Not people like me, who took every opportunity to lay down that was ever given.
Let me qualify something here.  Just because I long to sleep doesn't mean I am unhappy in my work.  I love my job.  I love what I do.  I love my children, and my family.  My only lament is not having enough time to do things that I'd like to do every day.  That lament turns into frustration, more often than not, because at the end of the day I still didn't get things accomplished like I thought I might at the beginning of the day. 
So about a year ago, I went to this therapist and she asked me when the last time was that I woke up in the morning and was excited about the day and ready to go.  I had to think about it.  It's literally been years.  She was the one who told me that that's not normal.  I was blindsided by this news.  Since then, I've been trying all kinds of techniques and whatnot to try and get myself motivated to get 'up and at 'em' so to speak.  My psychiatrist has been trying to help via various drugs.  *sigh*  I haven't even tried the latest drug yet. 
It feels like I've got two different people in my person.  I've got the slug, who wants to do nothing but stay in bed and sleep all the time.  And I've got the inspired and motivated go-get-er who has great ideas and wants to do things and be productive from the first minute my feet hit the floor.  My productive side is constantly engaged in battle with my slug side, and there goes all my energy.   Because of this constant battle, and the resulting unproductiveness, I am almost always frustrated with myself, and dismayed in general.  UGH!  The slug part of my brain needs to be scooped out with a spoon.  I totally get why psychiatric medicine used to take pieces of loony brains out.  It makes sense to just get rid of the offending piece of cerebral tissue, rather than try to live with it.  (I'm not saying I'm signing myself up for a frontal lobotomy, if one were offered, I'm just saying I can see why they used to do that.)
My psychiatrist has decided, based on what I've stated up there, that I have adult ADD.  Her theory is that I'm not really tired, and that the slug really isn't a slug, just deep boredom.  In other words, I'm way too smart to be a stay at home mom.  Filling my days with house cleaning, laundry, meal prep, toddler training, and various household running, and child rearing activities makes part of my brain say, "Um no thanks, wake me up when this is over and we get to do something exciting."  Meanwhile, the rest of my brain is screaming, "COME ON!!!  LETS GET THIS DONE!!!"  And all those partially finished projects and things I've got going on around here are from when my inspired and productive part actually beats the slug down, and I start to get something done.  Start to get something done.  The slug regenerates way too quickly if you ask me. 
Adderal is the latest drug in my slug slaying arsenal.  I haven't started it yet.  I have to turn in the script this afternoon, so I'll start it tomorrow.  I sure do hope this does what it's supposed to do, and gives me the upper hand on that slug. 
As for today, it's a wash.  It's after noon and I'm sitting here in my pajamas.  I've gotten two sets of sheets from the dryer and folded and put them away. I've gotten Nathan up, and fed him breakfast and lunch.  I got Annalise up and helped her get ready for school.  That's all.  The floors remain unvacuumed.  My desk remains a pit of despair.  The kitchen remains uncleaned.  I remain unshowered.  The good news is, it's nearly nap time.  Each time I lay down, my hope is that when I get back up I will be motivated and ready to go!  That's my hope right now more than ever. 

Fishbone Braid

I'm sure you have seen girls/women around with their hair like this:

(That picture up there is not Annalise.)
I have always thought this looked really cool, but I had no idea how they did it.  Plus, I'm extremely uncoordinated, so I didn't think I could do whatever elaborate hair trickery you have to do to get hair to look like this.  Last week, one of my facebook friends had this tutorial posted on her page, and I watched it.

http://cutiepiehaircreations.blogspot.com/2009/10/fishbone-braid-tutorial.html

My first thought after watching this was, "So that's what that's called."  And my second thought was, "That's easy!  Even I could do that!"

This morning I tried it on Annalise.  The top would not stay tight and looks terrible, but it's not bad for my first attempt.  I wanted to take it out and try it again, but she wouldn't let me, so she went to school looking like this:

I'm going to keep trying it.  I really like the way it looks, when it's done right.

Long Time, No Type

There are times in my life when I am on top of things and know exactly what is going on at all moments.  There are other times when I get knocked down, and burried up to my hairline in chaos and disarray, and can't see what is actually going on around me.  I got knocked down a little more than a month ago, and I couldn't get up until about a week ago.  In the past week, I've been slowly digging myself out of whatever it is that crashes over me and knocks me down, and digging out of all the mess that's accumulated while I was down.  It's not pretty around here!  It's getting better though.  Slowly.

As you know, even when you are knocked down, and can't get up, life goes on.  In the time I was down, we had a few noteworthy events.  Spring Break happened while I was down, but I pushed and managed to blog and get the pictures of our time in Panama City Beach up.  I'm glad I did that!  I completely checked out of blogging after that. 
Just befor Spring Break, I suffered a huge blow to my life.  You know how much I love Krav Maga?  About a week and a half before Spring Break, our instructor had something he had to deal with at home, and resigned.  The gym, First Coast Full Contact, decided NOT to replace him.  They decided to just drop the class from their offerings.  I was devistated.  Here's the thing, before I found that class at First Coast Full Contact, I found that the only Krav Maga classes in this area were offered by a chain called Karate America http://www.karateamerica.info/
Karate America is what we call a 'belt factory', which means that they try to advance students rapidly and train them for compititions/tournaments.  Krav Maga is NOT something that should be advanced through quickly, and since Krav Maga is self defense, there should not be compititions/tournaments.  Therefore, their teaching style is extremely stressful, since their only reason for teaching a student is to get them ready to compete.  I'm not into competeing.  I'm not in Krav Maga to compete.  I'm not in it to advance as quickly as I can.  I'm in it to learn to defend myself if need be.  I'm in it to feel empowered, knowing I can take care of myself in an situation.  Karate America is not the place for me, or for Gabriel.  Karate America treats Krav Maga like another martial art, and it's not.  So when our class at FCFC was canceled, Gabriel and I were devistated because we knew our only other choice was Karate America.  Now, there is one other place in the Jacksonville area that teaches Krav Maga,  that is not Karate America, that is taught the way Krav Maga is supposed to be taught, the way we were being taught at FCFC, but it's a little more than an hour away from us.  We just can't do that.  I wish the people who run http://www.force3training.com/index.html  Force3 Training would establish a satelite facility over here closer to us.  I asked them about that in an email, but they never responded.  Maybe I should go over there and meet with them and ask them.  In the meantime, I'm taking a really boring boot camp class at FCFC to keep me from loosing all the strength I accumulated in the six months I was in Krav.  It kicks my booty, and makes me very sore, but it's not fun, or empowering like Krav.  I WILL find another good Krav Maga class!!

After Spring Break, we worked on getting the pool open for the year.  The water was cold, way too cold for me, way too cold for Nathan, but he and Leesie got in it anyway. 

A couple of weeks after we opened the pool, we were at Lowe's and nearly ran over this little guy in the parking lot:

 It's not every day that you run into a crawfish crawling across a parking lot.  I nearly ran him over!  We had to save him from being roadkill.  The kids wanted to bring him home and keep him as a pet, of course.
Instead, we released him in Black Creek, which runs right next to our neighborhood.  After we released him, Gabriel said, "The next time we find a crawfish in a parkinglot, I'm keeping it as a pet!"  I said, "Ok."  I was thinking it would probably never happen again, but watch that come back and bite me in the rear end one of these days! 

He looks much happier here than in the Lowe's parking lot.  We won't think about him becoming aligator fodder.














When Easter rolled round, there was a yucky tummy bug plauging the boys of our house.  (Steve wasn't here.  He'd been on a trip for work since the end of February, and got home the day after Easter, so he was spared the tummy bug.)  Nathan woke up around 3am on Holy Thursday throwing up, and he continued to throw up for three straight hours.  After that, he was better and wanted to eat.  He and I slept all day Thursday.  Thank God the kids had the day off school!  I washed and sprayed and wiped down everything in the whole house, and prayed fervently that the rest of us would not get whatever it was that Nathan had.  On Good Friday all of us were completely fine, but I still prayed fervently that we would stay that way.  Around 6am on Saturday morning, Gabriel woke up throwing up.  UGH!!!  More washing, more spraying, more wiping, more praying.  His bout only lasted three hours too, and he spent the rest of the day sleeping.  Easter Sunday was another day where everyone was fine, but I didn't trust it.  I wasn't going to be happy until Leesie and I made it through Monday!  And we did!!  YAY US!!! 
Since Gabie was sick on Saturday, we didn't do anything Easter-ish on Saturday, like color eggs.  And since I was exhausted, and Steve wasn't here, I didn't get the eggs for the Easter egg hunt, or the kids' Easter baskets put together.  On Sunday afternoon I took some time and put the eggs and baskets together, and we colored eggs.  Before dinner Sunday evening, the kids got their baskets, and we had an egg hunt.  It was a little untraditional, but we made the best of the situation.  Being without daddy on a holiday is a bummer, and having people be sick on a holiday is a double bummer. 

Nathan was still too little to do anything fun last Easter, so this year was pretty fun to watch him color eggs, and do the egg hunt.