Officially in Burnout

Date Started: March 19, 2026
Date Finished: March 29, 2026
Date Posted: April 4, 2026

My therapist called it in March 17th's session, but honestly I have been teetering on the verge of it for so long I don't remember what not burnout feels like. So confirmation basically and a call to action that my self-care to stave it off/cure it was not enough and I need to do more.

And by doing more I mean doing different and less.

There's a question after finding the above gif: what is the difference between a nervous breakdown and burnout?

Quick Google Search Later

Okay, a nervous breakdown renders an individual temporarily unable to function in daily life. A burnout is typically related to one's professional life and cumulative workplace stress. Probably because they measured professional caregivers but I didn't research that deep.

I'm still figuring out what I'm dropping or pushing back. My therapist suggested dropping down to three boulders or projects. Namely, I need to tweak Trello to figure that out. I did start rereading my notes on Laziness Does Not Exist and pulled out my copies of Dear Writer, Are You in Burnout? by Becca Syme and Burnout: the Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski, PhD and Amelia Nagoski DMA. They also have a workbook that I should get.

The Nagoskis' definition of burnout:

1. emotional exhaustion - the fatigue that comes from caring too much, for too long;
2. depersonalization - the depletion of empathy, caring, and compassion; and
3. decreased sense of accomplishment - an unconquerable sense of futility: feeling that nothing you do makes any difference

(page xi Burnout)

And they found those components from Herbert Freudenberger from 1975. It's older than I am. But they make the connection between burnout to all women because we have been indoctrinated with Human Giver Syndrome by the patriarchy. I learned about the Nagoskis' work through podcasts and ended up listening to their podcast The Feminist Survival Project, bought Burnout, and have continued listening to the Feminists Survival Project 2025, which expands on their work in the years since and under Trump 2.0.

So I'm not in a nervous breakdown because I can still function (get out of bed, get dressed, feed myself, go to work) but I am feeling those three components for sure.

Becca Syme I learned about from the author/writing podcasts. She's been on the Creative Penn Podcast twice (Dealing With Change And How To Build Resilience As An Author With Becca Syme and Loki Is In Charge. How Authors Can Thrive In A Time Of Transition With Becca Syme). Rachael Herron of Ink In Your Veins podcast raved about the results she had gotten from taking the CliftonStrengths test and the coaching Becca Syme offers. So I bought most of the books in her Dear Writer, series, took the CliftonStengths test, and followed Becca's Quitcast on YouTube.

I've read these previously back when I thought Trump 1.0 alone was the source of everything I was feeling or not feeling, not realizing what role family dynamics and trends picked up by society (If You Were Born Between 1976–1985, This Video Will Finally Make Sense of You) played on my self.

Tuesday, March 17: is when I had my meltdown while commuting and therapy session.

Wednesday, March 18: telling people about the burnout diagnosis and processing what I needed to do and change. I prioritized inserting meditation breaks into my work flow at the paying job on my therapist's recommendation. Trello also made some changes that I had to chip away at making while trying to figure out what my boulders are for March and April. My coworker with the broken leg came for a paperwork visit and will be out until May. Yeah, it was March and it got extended because of her health and that happened after my therapy appointment. My therapist flagged that I had probably hit one too many changes to cope with that contributed to pushing me over the burnout edge.

Ended the day shopping for Dad at Sam's Club.

Thursday, March 19: finished reformatting Trello and typing up this blog post. Told my supervisor about the burnout and what time changes I think I need (back to a 4/10s schedule). Supervisor took it to the deputy commissioner, so he has to make a decision about it now, but I will probably need to accept that I'm on 5/8's until May.

Friday, March 20: typed more of this blog post and worked on reorganizing my digital files, which was the first chance I had to work on them since the burnout reveal. Shopped at Sprouts, Walmart, Ross, and PetSmart for my shopping list with the goal of not leaving my house over the weekend.

Saturday, March 21: I listed out everything I had to do and everything I want to do. I have previously recognized that I only have eight hours of energy to give to the chores list that I use a timer method with and I try to keep the list in that range, but the list of everything filled up the entire page of a pad. And then I had to pivot to only doing chores and food prep to keep all the food I had bought and reset the kitchen. All of that on my plate so Sunday could be only what had to be done to stay alive and reading for my long-ass rest.

And I still said yes to taking Dad out to eat for supper, which I highly resented by the time that rolled around.

Sunday, March 22: I got distracted by Pinterest leading me to Uncommon Goods, so it took a while to settle back in the bed with the books. And I started writing more on this blog post.

My therapist wants me to narrow my projects. I need to make energy pennies to run myself and get out of burnout. My brain wants all the projects and already completed because of the Laziness Lie. I already know that's not possible but rereading those notes to jog that brain weasel's memory.

I color-coded my graph for the 24/7 Worksheet from Burnout. I do have 8 hours of sleep opportunity Monday - Friday as long as I go to bed at 8 p.m. It becomes 10 hours on Saturday and Sunday by extending my waking up to 6 a.m. I have to put 30 minutes of yoga every day on the schedule but will be stretching only to combat my tech neck and be a meditation session. I have two 90-minute blocks daily for chores, including grooming. Saturday is currently all chore time with yoga at the studio carved out, leaving Sunday full of active rest or just plain rest when not doing anything chore-like.

Dad's needs are not represented, which isn't accurate, but I can't cope with him if I don't put more rest into my schedule.

I did discover how necessary the meditation sessions are and how I have to guard against falling into my bad work habits. Tuesday, March 24, I had the whole day off from the paying job to deal with Dad's stuff and I used my free time to work on projects I haven't been working on for weeks and only had one meditation session and didn't take a nap. That was a mistake I will try not to repeat.

Also no eureka about how to shrink my projects yet. What are my projects? How do I shrink that list?

So trying to figure that out took the next week. Why did it take so long? Brain suffering with burnout doesn't run at full capacity. Not only do I have second shift after work with my chores, apparantly attentional residue (you never let go of a task because part of your brain is still managing it), and some fun third shift of anticipating what everyone around me needs before they need it and running mental simulations of how stuff may go. (YouTube: Psychology Of Xennials: Why You BURNED Out Before Anyone Noticed. My Trello board became a dumping ground of tasks on cards and how the hell to sort that?

I had to brain dump a couple of times, shuffle the cards on Trello, and kept looking for some advice on how to shrink the project list. Most of it was to focus on asking what serves the burnout sufferer's values and that's what the sufferer should prioritize.

Doing less is possible, majority of what I do aligns with my values, and that question doesn't help me decide what goes first. Because my poor foggy burned out brain says everything is equally important and I should have already finished it and moved onto the next thing on the treadmill. Oh, hello, Laziness Lie. You're not getting me to not rest. Rest is what I need.

What finally worked was realizing some things had external deadlines and I should prioritize based on the calendar and don't go above 7 items on the Big Rocks list. Seven has been that limit since last year, but I need to work in weekly check in so I actually see the number of Big Rocks go down each week.

Another thing that helped was realizing EVERYTHING I have to do can be categorized with:

• Constants = what has to be done to be functional human being.
• Deadlines = external due date that I need to remember
• No Deadline so just Nice-To-Do = most of what I'd rather be doing, hobby stuff, writing stuff, digital projects that will make my life easier but no external deadlines set by someone else or law

Constants need to be off the Big Rocks list. These are things like daily and weekly chores so my house doesn't become a sty, my health needs, and some of Dad's care-giving needs. Deadlines turned out to be the source of my OMG WHAT AM I FORGETTING THERE ARE THINGS I AM FORGETTING alarm that was not helping the burned-out brain recover.

Yeah, that's the one. So far, I have income taxes (April 15th) and refinancing my mortgage so I can remodel my house (May 31st). Both projects are big and scary enough to set off the alarm, and while the alarm wasn't helping me feel good, it was right that I needed to get cracking on them.

Nice-To-Do is a more cheerful way to identify the little and bigger projects that will be nice to have done, but don't impede my life at this point. Like finishing the rollout pantry. I can use it without the putty and painting it and buying the putty and primer has to wait on free money in the paycheck, so it goes here. Sadly, writing fic goes here too. And I have been focusing on this burnout research and consolidating it into this post when I have had writing time. I'm hoping now that it's done I can work on fic again.

Saturday, April 4: I finally got free time to post this post. So this is how March went.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Summary of What I Didn't Blog About

So it's been a while, huh? Thing is, I didn't really notice since I was posting at least two days a week at Discipline Under Fire. So I dug into those posts to figure what I've been doing in the meantime that wasn't writing.

• April 14: I accomplished it yesterday actually, but I finally sprayed down my house for termites and carpenter ants and bees.
• April 21: Saw Captain America 2 after watching the "spoiler" episode of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I thought the movie was excellent and Bucky needs so many hugs (as soon as you stop being a homicidal maniac, dear.) I am still adoring the Marvel Cinematic Universe tying everything together and I'm crossing everything I can cross that we will get a Black Widow and Captain Marvel (especially before Katee Sackhoff is too old to play Carol Danvers).
• May 5: I signed up for Reversing Diabetes World Summit 2014. It's an online free starting today and running for twelve days. Lots of info and luckily, it's been a quiet day to let me listen. This lasted for two weeks and gave me lots of things to consider about my health, but that's an upcoming post.
• May 12: Shopping for medicine and food. Found out my insurance company wants to go crazy over the copay for my glucose testing strips. Confused the deli counter lady because I needed a slab of turkey to cut into cubes.
• May 13: Last episode of Agents of SHIELD season one. *SNIFF*
• Saw Godzilla in May didn't take note of when. It opened May 16th. Can't wait to get in on BluRay. "Oh no, there goes Tokoyo. Go go Godzilla!"
• May 26: Since I had the day off thanks to Memorial Day, I cleaned house and got a lot done on other computer projects. Sadly, I have found a bug with XMarks that is eating links I need for this story. So there's a new computer project that I wasn't anticipating. What I'm looking forward to: Laptop purchase on the third paycheck this month. What I'm not looking forward to: Paying bills with third check that may not let me buy laptop. GRRRR. Once I get XMarks saved bookmarks correct I have to have a massive save page as party and completely change how I archive my research for everything now because I can't trust the paying job computer not to screw with it somehow.
• May 28: Bloodwork and thyroid ultrasound successfully completed. Made it to the paying job despite the weather. The rain finally stopped for a while.
• May 29: I bandaged Mustard. And he's grounded. A couple of weeks ago, he got some lacerations on his neck that didn't look like the results of a regular cat fight. I doctored them, and they scabbed over well. I let him go outside and thought the rain drove him back in. Hours later, one of the scabs is gone along with a chunk of skin. Luckily, my parents had some cohesive gauze because all I have is human-won't-scratch-off-the-bandage variety in my first aid kit. So now I have to leave orders that he doesn't get to go outside while I'm gone the whole weekend.
• May 30: Did not get to buy a laptop with my third paycheck like I had been hoping for since February. I also took Mom to IP for the weekend and we saw Joan Rivers show. I know I'm typing this up after she has died but I really didn't like her routine. Every F-bomb her television shows prevented her from saying, she saved for the stage show. I admired her energy considering her age. I hope I move that well when I reach my 80s
• June 1: I came home from the casino with just about the same amount of money that I brought.
  
• June 9: Bought some food, but didn't get the stuff to clean the moldy leather. And I didn't start my sewing project either. I forget when I found that the lack of AC in the back bedroom let mold grow all over my leather garb I had stored back there, but it took me a while to finally buy tack cleaning soap and conditioner and deal with it.
• June 10: Whelp, I thought I'd at least buying the corset busk online today, even if I didn't get to sew when I get home. What the back of the pattern envelope asks for: one corset busk. What the online shop offers: this simple type ranging from 7 inches to 14 inches long, spoon busks in two different sizes, heavy duty busks for curvy people 12 inches to 14 inches long.
  
  What I'm looking forward to: Laptop purchase that I don't know when I'll get to make now. :( The bills ate up the money I thought I would have for it. Maybe next month if I'm good with the money. A bonus to my paycheck this week! *Checks paystub* That's enough to buy my laptop—I'm ordering the laptop!
  
• June 17: Mom's cleaning out the shed project: my items in the shed are too cumbersome for her to deal with and I forgot about it last weekend. So I got my great-grandmother's bedframe and my extra door (I knocked out the wall it was in years ago) to the front porch. Next up the heaters that were replaced by a modern one and I don't want to get rid of them for sentimental reasons. Tugged the one on the shed floor towards the door and lots of paper debris (the rodents chewed up a whole Monopoly game that had been stored out there) came out as it moved. I tilted it to lift it up and the mice living in it ran for their lives, circling around the heater and me as they crossed my path to get back to the safety of the still covered with stuff wall. I know I saw at least two, heads were mousy not rat-like, but of the two one was as big as a rat so it may have been three or more all moving as one while shrieked and jumped out of the shed.
  
  Okay, I'm a country girl and I accept wildlife outnumbers me at my home. But what flashed in my head while I reenacted every cartoon mouse encounter I have ever watched was the episode of Medical Investigations with Hantavirus and OMG how fast those soldiers DIED! After my brain rebooted, I realized Mom would be dead from it last week if those rodents were carriers, but I was done for the night. What I'm looking forward to: Laptop purchase that I don't know when I'll get to make now. :( The bills ate up the money I thought I would have for it. Maybe next month if I'm good with the money. A bonus to my paycheck this week! *Checks paystub* That's enough to buy my laptop—I'm ordering the laptop! I'm not going to talk about how the laptop purchase didn't happen AGAIN. I've paid shit off, I'm not supposed to be broke every paycheck any more.
  
  Weekend plans still look good, and my baby sister is coming down next week. What I'm not looking forward to: New issue: I have to get those heaters out before I leave on Friday for the weekend. So I'm going to see if Mustard will actually hunt in there before I move anything. I'm hoping for something like this, I think.
  
• June 18: Got my stuff from the shed to my porches. I didn't have to throw Mustard in because Mom wrestled with the rodents while I was at the paying job. I got about 80% of stuff I needed to do before the weekend finished.
• June 23: Well, I tested our new time keeping system for the paying job, by taking Tuesday and Wednesday off and putting in while at home. My baby sister came home and I got roped into taking her and Mom to IP Biloxi for nice break for Krista, she hasn't had a vacation in years. Now I REALLY need the laptop.
• June 27: It's assessment season at the paying job, so I'm pleased I got as many words done as I did. Oh and I got the library errand out of the way. What I'm looking forward to: I am actually going to sew this weekend no matter what happens.
• June 28: Laundry, saved my leather bodice from the evil mildew, have the first pattern traced and nearly ready to pin to fabric, and found way more things I need to buy after I pay the bills. What I'm looking forward to: I am sewing and starting to inventory the material stash. That needs to happen because we found more fabric when we cleaned out the shed.
• June 30: Paying job assessments are done to be mailed out tomorrow. I meant to type yesterday, but got caught in alternating sewing with bill paying and other budget chores. I also need to sit down during my breaks so my feet don't ache so much I can't fall asleep.
• July 4: Sewing! I'm determined to finish my Victorian underwear this weekend. And catch up on my rough draft. And inventory the fabric stash. And clean house. I finally settled on 45/15s. Sew for 45 minutes, inventory fabric stash for 15. Write rough draft sitting down for 45 minutes, edit the One Rule which became type Chapter Twenty for 15 when I finished the first task.
• July 5: Patterns traced out. New chemise cut out. I have no idea if I have enough material for the drawers. Nothing is actually wearable yet.
• July 7: My chemise is up to the last stage of hand sewing and hemming, and I just could not face it today. So when I wasn't typing and writing on the rough draft, I worked on inventorying the fabric stash. I'm down to eleven fabric pieces to put into the notebook, but I'm running out of stuff to store the fabrics on (wooden hangers and cardboard pieces to wrap bolts around (I found out that cutting a cardboard presentation board is perfect for this and gives me four pieces)).
• July 9: I'm researching corsets. I think the pattern I have is pretty decent for my figure and I just need to get the sizing right and buy supplies. But my sewing friend may need a different style based on her shape.
• July 14: I'm a bit surprised I managed to get over the personal daily goal with the amount of mail we had to get through at the paying job. Assessment season has kicked into gear now. What I'm looking forward to: Getting the two books I want out of the State Library. I went Friday, but they are closed now. Today had to work overtime and they were closed by the time I left paying job. Hopefully tomorrow.
• July 15: Library and only came home with three books!
• July 16: I am done shopping for sewing supplies. But I didn't get a chance to clean the living room at all.
• July 21: Almost finished the hand sewing part on the chemise while in the waiting room with my uncle's appointment. Didn't get the cleaning done that I wanted to, but finished the worst area in the kitchen over the weekend. Everything that's left is more spot-checking cleaning. What I'm looking forward to: New mattress, July 30th I hope. I had to use my mother's credit to order it online after Sam's Club did not have the size my bed is. But this way they will deliver it to my house.
• July 22: My corset supplies came in today! I really wasn't expecting to see them until August. What I'm looking forward to: New mattress, July 30th I hope. What I'm not looking forward to: Rearranged the sewing disarrayed living room so the new mattress can get inside my house.
• August 3: My weekend writing time has been eaten up by sewing and I still haven't figured out how to accomplish both at the same time.
• August 6: Budgeted the paycheck before I got it! Really hate the numbers I came up with because they leave out the tires. I really need tires. What I'm looking forward to: Everybody getting off my back about how's the new mattress? It's new, I sleep on it, my Chiroflow pillow needs some adjustments so I'm not pinching the nerve that makes my hand go numb. Second thing: seeing Guardians of the Galaxy this week when I get paid.
• August 8: Bought my movie ticket and fretted over the sticker shock. But it was worth it. Guardians of the Galaxy was such a fun ride from "pelvic sorcery" to "We ARE Groot."
• August 11: Tires for Rizzo are on order. And I was typing up a storm when the news broke about Robin Williams. "O Captain! My Captain!"
• August 12: I had hoped to do more typing when I got home, but the computer decided to be petulant and update needy. So no typing, but I did get a book I'm not done with renewed from the library.
• August 13: I just realized I forgot to pack another pack on loose-leaf in my black bag. I'm in no danger of running out today, but I should have replaced it already.
• August 16: Finally bought new tires using Dad's credit card so I can have four at the same time instead of two.
• August 19: What I Accomplished in the Narrative Today: I'm still writing Chapter Twenty-Five's rough draft and now I've started typing it. Never again will I publish a WIP. NEVER. Fave line: That simple declaration brought Bruce onto his feet with the fewest repetitions of push-ups that Alfred had ever witnessed him perform. – It is sad how much I like the obsessive amount of push-ups. What Else I Accomplished Today: I didn't finish the rough draft so blah. What I'm looking forward to: Payday! What I'm not looking forward to: Take the bras back to the store that didn't fit. I'm not crazy about underwires. I have a petite torso and they constantly poke me in the arms. But I am of the boob size where the only bras you can get are underwire. These that I'm taking back gave me under-boob. I didn't think that was possible with underwire bras but hey, time to prove me wrong about that too.
• August 20: I lost thirty minutes coming into work (Stupid traffic made me 15 minutes late and we have to take time in 30-minute intervals). Then I ended up staying late for thirty minutes. But I got the bras returned! What I'm not looking forward to:
  
  Remember the whole XMarks situation I’ve been not dealing with waiting for the eventually I’ll do it? Yeah, more fun on the paying job computer and I synced to not lose my open tabs and discovered XMarks ate all the bookmarks saved on the server.
  
  I didn't lose my data; I've been backing up my bookmarks at home so I could do a flush and clean install. But since reading over reviews for this year and talking with a coworker, I'm leaning towards using Dropbox to keep things in sync instead. The only con I can see is it is not cross-platform like XMarks, but I never used that feature of XMarks. So yes, all that has to happen this week. Probably Friday or Saturday since I have a doctor's appointment Thursday after work.
  
• August 21: Doctor visit: I'm dehydrated and need to wean myself off aspartame like ASAP. Food-wise: shift the diet to gluten and dairy free for a while. I'll be covering this more in a future post. What I'm not looking forward to: First thing: Don't plan on going anywhere because I need to up my water intake to where it should be. BUT I have to finish grocery shopping on Saturday.
  
  Second thing: XMarks freaked out when I got home and freaked out again at work. Good news: everything matches up to the home computer's saved set now. Bad news: I don't trust XMarks to keep the safe, especially the stuff I reference for story writing.
  
  So my weekend plans, such as they are and scheduled to change everything permitting:
  • Drink more water and pee every five seconds (probably).
  • Grocery shopping.
  • Scour the computer for stuff I'm not using, delete what I don't need, archive what I want to save, and backup.
  • Clean out the mass of bookmarks.
  • Set up Dropbox account to sync bookmarks.
  • Sew my corset.
  • Write Chapter Twenty-Six.
  • Regularly schedule chores.
  Hopefully the weekend won't turn into this:
  
• August 22: Shopping, too much shopping, so I didn't have as much shopping on Saturday.
• August 25: Visited parents who made it in from their trip to Hot Springs, Arkansas. Over-scheduled the weekend as usual, so I've got to spread things out throughout the week. Decided to start cleaning my hard drive with the game demos from Big Fish Games since I have the bad habit of not deleting something I'm sure I won't buy. I reached the M's. XMarks did not go cuckoo today. What I'm looking forward to: Three-day weekend! What I'm not looking forward to: My weekend week plans:
  • Drink more water and pee every five seconds (probably). I think I've got this under control now and I am feeling better.
  • Add in new 15 minute yoga routine.
  • Scour the computer for stuff I'm not using, delete what I don't need, archive what I want to save, and backup.
  • Clean out the mass of bookmarks.
  • Set up Dropbox account to sync bookmarks.
  • Sew my corset.
  • Regularly schedule chores.
  Made it through Monday, bring on the rest of the week.
  
• August 26: Everyone decided to call me while I was trying to do the yoga routine, so the fifteen minute program took thirty. :p
• August 27: XMarks did not go cuckoo today. I shifted my chiropractic appointment to today instead of Thursday, so I have lots of spare time in Baton Rouge today. Unfortunately I need the time at home to get ready for weekend trip. :p
• September 8: XMarks did not go cuckoo today. At the paying job, I’ve been switched over to a virtual machine. So far the only difference I’ve noticed is how much room there is for my feet without the desktop tower under my desk. What I'm looking forward to: Finish copying the patterns so I can take the book back to the library.
• September 9: XMarks did not go cuckoo today. Paying job moved everyone in my office to the virtual desktops. It went as well as anything concerning technology does. I also finally finished all the scanning. I have no idea if I will ever make any of those outfits, but now I have source material if I move to a new time period. What I'm looking forward to: Finding a dairy-free eggplant recipe.
• September 10: Library book returned and no new ones checked out. Tried out a new recipe.
  
• September 11: The bitching from my coworkers over switching to a new system has commenced. Today has been a headphone with music playing day.
• September 12: Covered already.
• September 13: XMarks did not go cuckoo today. Mom asked me to test her old washing machine that has been sitting next to mine on my back porch for months. So I hooked it up only for my outlet to spark when I plugged it in. Turns out my outlet broke. By the time we got a new outlet inside the box, it was four hours after I had gone out to start laundry.
• September 14: I'm still working on laundry and cooking meals for the week, which got interrupted by eating out with the parents. At this point, I don't know if I'll get any sewing done at all. And I didn't, the whole weekend was a bust on the sewing front. But I did managed to working in twenty minutes on Tuesday night!

Up next, I probably over share on health news, but hey it's good news.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

New computer desk

I spent last week in Texas, visiting the family over there and leaving my mother behind to man that fort when my sister has to go back to Dallas for more training on her new job. But it reinforced something writers with kids have probably already learned: it's nigh impossible to write smut with pre-teens running around. So no writing it while they're up and about and needing a referee (really my nephew's sport balls collection has no idea how lucky it was that I left my sword at home). No writing after they went to bed because I was exhausted and went to bed thirty minutes later. No writing in the morning because Mom had a list of things to do that I had to drive her to get done. I was counting on writing two chapters and I barely managed two paragraphs.

Luckily, since I drove home alone, I was able to finish the smutty portions of the scene when I stopped for meal breaks. And that's all I want to talk about that twelve-hour drive. No, Austin isn't that far away from home and I don't know what happened to my progress between Houston and Lafayette. I do know what happened between Lafayette and Baton Rouge, and why can't we have a dedicated radio station for traffic like other states manage to have?

Really not talking about it now. On to good stuff. I paid my car off with last paycheck in February.

Alas, Rizzo is not Lola and I don't work for the un-secret spy organization. As a treat, I planned an Ikea shopping trip on my first paycheck in March and bought a new dresser and a new computer desk.

I don't have any pictures of it assembled in my house because I just finished putting it and the computer back together last night and I still don't know what to do with the rest of the office. I had two short bookcases making a wall and supporting the old desk and I'm liking how the room flows without the half-wall. But the shelves and the books have to go somewhere.

And because this is me and I can find a complaint about anything, why design the desk that you have to screw the shelves to brackets upside down? I decided against putting on the SIGNUM cable trunking attachment because it meant more screwing upside-down. And also because I discovered I still haven't bought a replacement battery for the computer and will have to rearrange all the wires again. Next issue is my computer system. To save money, I reused my monitor and discovered that the data cord gives the screen a lovely green tint. All I had to do to fix it was shift the cord on my old set-up. Now the cord is stretched so tight, no shifting is available. So buy a new backup battery and a new monitor cord to finish off the computer shuffle.

So far, all the computer equipment fits on the new desk including the LaserJet printer. That gives me full table space to use as my writing desk. I would have tried it out last night, but Mustard hurt his foot and claimed my office chair as his bed and I couldn't be mean to my sick cat.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

So About April

This is the time of the year when my goals get derailed and I never recover. This year I'm declaring April a skip month and looking ahead at May. In fact, I think we should skip it next year as well. Let's consider the good and bad columns.

Good Things About April

• My sister's handfasting ceremony went off without any problems day of.
• My adopted nephew's first birthday is on the 28th

Bad Things About April

• Mom (with my assistance) sewed two wedding dressed that ended up too small. The saga of the dress has been one stealer of spoons that made me neglect writing blog posts for this month. Luckily, a dress was found Thursday before the wedding last Saturday.
• I found out my credit score is not good enough yet to refinance the house and consequently restructure my debt load.
• Boston Marathon bombings.
• West, Texas fertilizer plant explosion.
• I ignored Strix: Forget the Sun for a whole month.
• My division at the paying job is merging with another division. Not losing my job, but not sure what all the ramifications will be either.
• My six-month check-in with my endocrinologist and my A1C came back with 9. Everything above 7 is diabetes.
  
  I am officially a diabetic now.

Yeah, April has added up to that kind of month. Please, let's just skip it next year.

Fun stuff before the serious stuff. My baby sister picked out Hodges Gardens and we all found a new place to gather for family visit. Not too far even for the Texas bunch and the cabins are fully furnished (central AC and heat, full bathrooms, full kitchens, sheets and towels too!). I don't have any pictures of the ceremony yet, but here's the best shots of what I do have.

Me and Atticus all dressed up.

Both families together at the site of the hand-fasting ceremony.

My parents.

Close-up of the wedding dress finally found on Thursday by the bride and groom. For those who care about that sort of thing, it's a Vera Wang.

I've had two days to absorb the shock of the officially a diabetic news. The first day was spent pounding the stop button on my GDTape that kept trying to play "you're a worthless, pathetic, lazy, idiot for not taking better care of yourself." Mom and Dad didn't have the hysterics that I thought they would, and the elliptical machine is now in my living room. The Coates stubborn gene is also coming out. I'll be damned if I'll throw myself on an insulin injection. The weight is coming off and will stay off. My neck and shoulders have been tied up in knots two mornings in a row, so I'll leave it to the readers to see how well I'm listening to myself.

Ideas to deal with diabetes.

• Go on the SHRED diet again with Primal choices. I've got no judgment when it comes to portion control, but I was doing better on it.
• Daily exercise. I don't get enough aerobic activity, so I want to work that in with the borrowed elliptical machine.
• Check finances and see if I can afford a yoga class. If I can't, buy a new yoga DVD.
• Weekly weigh ins and measurements recorded on FitDay.com.
• Figure out a treat for six weeks of good behavior. A weekend trip sounds great, but I decided on the beach instead of Hodges Gardens. Six weeks from now falls on June 5th.
• Follow doctor's orders better: take my medicine and monitor my blood sugar.

So, I might as well consider May an adjusting month as well. This is a bunch of new habits to absorb.

May Boulders

• 20 days of writing on Strix: Forget the Sun
• 31 days of exercise
• Adjust my budget after paying off a loan and make room for a yoga class
• Test blood sugar before breakfast and before supper.
• Take medicine in morning and before supper.
• Research a yoga class for after work.
• Use my checklists daily.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Leaving Town Again

Nothing better than starting the day off with an early wake-up from a mild nightmare. Nightmare because it woke me up thirty minutes before the alarm went off. Mild because once I outline it, most people will probably say "what's so scary about that?". I was driving with someone wearing a coworker's face (not someone I deal with on a regular basis, but I ran into him at the elevators the other day) and we found a little brick house for sale so we stopped and looked at it. (There is an empty brick house down the road that will probably be put up for sale soonish, the house in my dream resembled it slightly.) I decided to buy it. (I just had the meeting with the CCFairy on refinancing my house yesterday.) Then the dream shifted to me meeting with Dad and my sister who lives in Texas discussing my desire to purchase this brick house, which shifted in location to between my current house and my parents'. This meeting was taking place in my current living room. Then my father's younger brother knocked on my door to speak to my father and he was moving into the brick house with his children and step-children (all who are old-enough to have their own places to live). And I knew my father had hijacked my buying this house by telling his brother before I had a chance to even make an offer. I spluttered something at my sister, who never answered me and wouldn't look me in the eye either. I turned to my father with his brother right there and spluttered again. "How can you let THESE PEOPLE have what I wanted?" My father's brother sneered, "She's just like her mother." Then I was watching them move in and Dad backed a car that they don't own up to my window and told me to get in "Mustard is at the Monroe house." And that's when I woke up.

These people are just some of the ones I call the white trash I'm genetically tied to. Them moving next door to us again (yes, the trailer I kept wanting to fire a cannon at was one of the children) would be a nightmare for everyone. No, I don't think there is anything in the wind that this could happen. But I really didn't need a dream about family dysfunction when I have to take my mother to my sister who lives in Shreveport for wedding dress stuff.

And Mustard was out all night and ran in after I stumbled to the door after this dream. "Monroe house" doesn't mean anything to me, but it does resemble how my parents refer to houses in the neighborhood by who lived in them when they were children or who built them, and not by how they look to help me identify the location.

Other news, based on recommendations, I've been trying out Feedly to replace the Google Reader. The interface is better after the changes they made yesterday, but I'm finding it hard to get my feeds down. I accidentally got logged into Google+ when I couldn't convince Google that my account name did not need to be the same on my YouTube account. *headdesk* Bye Internet anonymity, I'll miss you. I still don't know what to do with Google+, which is the same way I feel about Facebook.

Can't think of anything else to deal with. I have to run out and buy cat food before we leave so toodles.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

I Need More Self-Correcting Clocks

Oh good, I don't have to be my mother's entertainment this weekend; Dad is coming too. *Sigh* I don't gamble, so what I get out of these trips is peace and quiet without my usual distractions to write. However, when I took Mom the last trip, I discovered that even when I gave her the television, had all my papers covering the table at the hotel window (best light), and was hunched over them with pen in hand, she still had to talk and talk and talk and TALK because I was THERE! She was supposed to be napping; she came back to the room to nap!

I love her, but Dad's ears will be there for her to yak to and I will be using the mp3 player and earphones to enforce my writing time. Hopefully, I'll avoid the papers-absorbing-cigarette-smoke this time.

This is one of those free association posts, but it will sound like I'm bashing the 'rents. I'm not, but… okay, here's the story. Dad came to me with a request earlier this week: to look up my grandfather's insurance policies and see what is what with them. To which, he didn't even have to finish the request because I was already giving the answer that we all have to give the public who is confused about what the Department of Insurance actually does. "We don't track what policies the citizens of Louisiana have bought; we regulate the companies and agents who sell the insurance." The spiel can get longer, but that's essentially what many people want and we can't it give them. So Dad's just as confused as many other citizens; no big deal.

Except… except, I've been working there twelve years come May. And you guys have never asked me about details so you know what I do and who I work for? I don't feel hurt, but rather a pull between two voices in my head once I had that realization. Voice One: *Shrug* Maybe the DOI should address how confused people are about what we do. Voice Two: Let it go. You know you're not the kid they give a shit about, so why are you even surprised? They don't know anything important to you and it's safer that way.

I know this is a situation to listen to Voice One. But Voice Two is inside me, and I'm more puzzled that I have this need to hide what's important to me and protect it from everyone.

Okay, enough serious shit this early in the morning. I have to go put my hours in on the paying job. I'm not looking forward to Daylight Savings Time this weekend either. I also need to review things I have read AND answer people's birthday wishes. Pete's sake, why is that making me freeze up?

Read Free!
The BookWorm

First Thing I've Wrote All Week

It has been a week I don't want to repeat. We had the funeral on Wednesday, and everyone in our dysfunctional family behaved. My comment has been "We didn't have to take anyone out and beat them with a stick; it was a great service!" Here is the tribute page the funeral home put up for my grandmother with the obituary. We had 83 signatures in the guest book, so at least that many people came to a Wednesday afternoon funeral. She started thinking that no one would come toward the end.

UfYH helped me get on the ball as far as housework goes for this past week. The only things out in the kitchen are the water bottles I need to refill and put back in the fridge. Make-up that I put on for the funeral is still out and I need to put that away. And paperwork covers the writing desk in my home office. That's it. Given how I have (especially under circumstances like this where other people need more of my energy than I do) let everything go to the point where a marathon cleaning session is a must, this development feels HUGE.

I took Mom out for a spa day to help her relax and got my hair cut. My hair has an interesting characteristic when the weight of the length is taken off. It flips out like Mary Tyler Moore's. The student and hairstylist instructor didn't believe me until they kept using the hair dryer and brush to make it curl under and the hair would come off the brush the wrong way. A flat iron finally got it flat so I could leave the beauty school.

This morning when I woke up, half my head is still flat. The other half flipped out. :p

This is the first thing I have been able to write in a week. Just when I thought I'd have breathing time to write (just to keep my flow going, not expecting to produce anything useful), the phone would inevitably ring with Mom needing something. And I'm not trying to sound like a selfish bitch, but I need my coping strategy too! Object lesson for this week: write first before housework when the normal routine has been thrown out the window.

Weekend plans: grocery shopping and new cell phone shopping. Last Friday, the damn thing did not ring when Dad called and I didn't have it on silent. Then I plugged it in when I got home and the next morning it was dead. I think it was a battery issue because I got it to charge after checking it, but overall, I'm not in love with this phone so I should find one I like better. Also on the agenda: finishing the thank you cards and any other paperwork Mom needs help with.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

My grandmother just died

3:45pm Neller Ree Vampran drew her last breath. My mother was with her. I wish I had more pertinent details of her life to share. I did this biographical interview thing back in high school, but where the hell is it now?

It's not a big shock, she's been declining for over a decade, and it's been especially bad for the past three months.

Best way I can help my mother is by helping with logistics and cleaning their house. I don't think my mother has seen me on a cleaning frenzy before, and certainly not one aimed at her stuff.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Daily Chores and Me Take Two

Last I checked in with Mom, Mama Ree was responding well to the treatment and was due to move out of ICU for another room in the hospital. It's been a few days so I don't know if that has happened yet or not.

I spent the weekend, Lundi Gras, and Mardi Gras dealing with a nasty head cold. I'm still coughing, but I can breathe through my nose even if my voice still lives in another register (or maybe it's just my hearing). The achies are gone, which goes the longest way to making me feel functional again.

So all the chore changes I wanted to implement last Friday fall on this Friday instead. Which is all good, because I found Unfuck Your Habitat this week. Despite my Jerkbrain's insistence, my house is not a disaster area. I'm fairly good at putting things back where they go. My fall downs are dishes—that spills over into the rest of the kitchen—vacuuming, and dusting. So why do I keep having freak-outs over not following my checklists and staying on top of the chores? Third-generation packrat who knows just how nasty it can get if I let my ass fall into the inertia of laziness.

The second part of this issue is I have time scheduled for the chores in the morning before I leave for work, but I haven't been waking up on time so everything has fallen off schedule. I know the biggest issue with that is going to bed on time, which hasn't happened in a while, but last night it didn't happen because I was finding my kitchen again. Yeah, definitely time to have every chore on maintenance level, so I can use the free time to exercise and write and relax.

What I like about UfYH's tactics (besides the sighs of relief with the before and after pictures "I'm not that bad yet") is her insistence on breaks. You either work for 20 minutes and take a 10 minute break or work for 45 minutes for 15 minutes. It may have took four 20/10s to find my sink under all the dirty dishes last night, but giving myself permission to sit at the computer for ten minutes in between sessions was liberating. And I didn't cheat and stay on the computer longer after the timer went off.

So the goal for this shake-up is to keep all the chores at maintenance level (where a few minutes everyday equals done) and to move it back to the morning unless that's completely impossible. Currently, my chores are broken down into what must be done daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly.

Daily Chores

• Make bed
• Empty sink of all dishes
• Spend 15 min. on budget subtasks
• Worked on Writing Project #1
• Worked on Writing Project #2
• Worked on Writing Project #3
• Set out stuff for tomorrow
• Exercise for the day
• 30 min. on website maintenance
• Weekly chore for the day

This works—except for the minor fact of actually DOING them—so the only tweak I'm making is to change the time limits to 20/10s.

The goad attached to weekly chores that if you miss doing them, you aren't supposed to do them again until the days rolls around next week. That way two weeks' worth of ick factors into making you do it. Your mileage with this tip will vary; since I don't remember the last time I vacuumed, it's probably not working as intended.

Weekly Chores

• Monday – take garbage out to main can
• Tuesday – Update Fiction Tracker
• Wednesday – Vacuum whole house
• Thursday – Change litter and clean bathroom
• Friday – Pick up whole house and Post to blog
• Saturday – Laundry and Cook meals for the week
• Sunday – Weekly Review, take body measurements, add measurements to FitDay.com, and write Hot Bod post

This would be the stuff that's not being done in a timely manner.

Doesn't matter what weekday I put vacuuming on, it doesn't happen. And when it does, I'm cramming it into my weekend. So first thing is to officially move it to the weekend, Sunday in fact. What was on Sunday for diet and exercise tracking is moved to Thursday. Updating the Fiction Tracker works better on Fridays when I'm writing other blog posts, so that leaves Tuesday free to pick up the whole house.

Updated Weekly Chores

• Monday – take garbage out to main can
• Tuesday – pick up whole house
• Wednesday – change litter and clean bathroom
• Thursday – Take body measurements and add measurements to FitDay.com
• Friday – Write blog post, update Fiction Tracker, and write Hot Bod post
• Saturday – Laundry and cook meals for the week
• Sunday –Weekly review and vacuum whole house

The Kanban Flow looks a thousand times better with those streamlines. The only thing I have left to do is add in the Writing Projects #2 and #3.

Weekend plans: As much as I would love to see Bruce Willis blow up Moscow, I'm broke when it comes to movies. So I'll stay home and work on my taxes and see if I will be unbroken in the near future.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Derailing the Plans

I feel like crap, coming down with the post-nasal drip cough. I dragged my butt to work, dragged my butt home, and the plans I had was to tweak when I do what chores and blog about it followed by curling into bed and not getting up until Monday.

Mom calls me when I get home needing a ride to the hospital after dark. Mama Ree is back in and she has pneumonia. I wasn't planning on celebrating Mardi Gras but I can't believe she's back in on a major holiday again.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

How did I manage to do that?

So CVS had an awesome sale on Coke products (4 twelve pack cases for $10) along with a spend $30 on specially marked items and you'll get $10 CVS Cash to spend in the store. Mom leveraged this deal into a lot of Coke products. I saw that many things on my shopping list were some of their specially marked items, especially make-up, so I made it my first stop on my shopping trip yesterday.

Why did make-up end up on the list since I don't subscribe to the must wear it every day or there is something wrong with you beauty culture? I do managed to put away my insecurities about how I'm turning myself into a clown with it for special occasions and sometimes those special occasions are just so my mother doesn't bitch about it. I wore make-up to the dinner theater event with Sha-Na-Na last weekend at IP Casino and the lipstick wasn't working right. It finally slid on after generous use of Chap Stick. "How old is it?" Mom asked. Turns out, I bought it when I moved back home from Natchitoches in 2000. So yeah, time for a new tube of lipstick.

Where my title comes from is going into CVS, picking up stuff that was on my shopping list (so I really can't blame it on impulse buys), and surprise at the register: $107! "How did I do that?" Needless to say, I earned the $10 CVS Cash and spent it on more Diet Dr. Pepper and Sprite Zeros (wiping out the store of both and the store was already out of regular Cokes when I got there). So my grocery spending next month will have to reigned in, but if I ration right—which I should do so I won't miss out on sleep—I shouldn't have to buy soft drinks until April.

We made it to IP Casino just in time for the show, which was awesome! The only bad thing was feeling so rushed because there was no buffer in the schedule. The next Friday night show we go to, I'll be sure not to schedule a meeting after work the same day. The only bad thing about the trip was my papers picking up second-hand smoke.

Money matters: The meeting was good, so there was no reason for me to be so nervous about the outcome. My homework assignment this month is to find a contractor to give me a pro bono quote on how much the house renovation may run and to apply any tax refunds to my debts. The hold up: my family doesn't know any contractors.

The online calculator I found made the whole thing sound so out of reach, and I'm not even planning anything massive.

This is what I've come up with this go around. The wall between the kitchen and office that also separates the bedroom and bathroom is the end of the original house. This plan means tearing off the addition that contains my now kitchen and back bedroom and building on a larger kitchen, a master bedroom with en suite bathroom and a closet, a laundry/mudroom with a walk-in pantry, and extending the roof to cover where I park my car. My living room and office remain the same with a few minor tweaks. I want to a built-in desk in my office and I'm leaning toward re-purposing the old kitchen cabinets for that. The bedroom I sleep in now (top right corner) will become a guest bedroom. The current bathroom's plumbing will be fixed to code (real bathtub faucet, real shower installed, NO MORE HOSE FAUCETS) even though I'm planning on reusing most of the fixtures. The toilet is only a few years old and the bathtub is enamel-covered cast iron. I'd rather keep using it than tear an outer wall down to get it out. The roof needs to be replaced and Dad pointed out from this image the roof profile will probably need to be changed all together. Since I know the house will have to be recovered in new siding and I'd love to have more insulation along with central AC and heat, the idea of changing the roof didn't faze me. Considering how well I usually handle the idea of change and how I have waffled about what to do to my house to make it better, Dad was probably expecting this:

Instead, I was like this:

Totally not the end of the world.

Off to my friends this weekend, and a one-shot D&D game is in the plans. I'm thinking of actually not playing a ranger. :D

Read Free!
The BookWorm

So About This Week

So I made a new item for the checklist; Friday is blog post day. And today is the first day I have been able to fulfill it. *Sigh* The goal is to be more communicative than last year. Beating forty-nine posts isn't that hard, but I'm already off to a less than stellar start.

No guilt. Okay, so what's been going on in the past two weeks?

My grandmother was discharged from the hospital on Jan. 3rd, and is in therapy at the nursing home because she had been flat on her back for two months at the hospital and they expected her to get right back in her wheel chair and go to dialysis. Mom reports that she's back to moaning and complaining about everything, so our opinion is she must be feeling better.

The sixteen straight days of rain and gloom and cold finally broke yesterday with real actual sunshine! It's still cold, but sunshine! We've missed you! So why was today this first morning I had to deal with ice on my windshield?

And I accidentally gave my parents a kitten two nights ago. I was ready for bed and shutting down the computer when I heard mewling and not in Mustard's voice. I even went so far as to look at him when I heard it again. Nope, my cat wasn't making the noise. I put my coat on over my nightgown and headed outside and called out. A lanky cat just out of kitten-hood but not fully adult sped out from under my house and immediately twined around my legs. Practically skin and bones when I picked him up and it head butts my chin and being that night was predicted to be one of the colder nights of the year, I brought it inside.

Mustard went into grumpy old man mode with bouts of crazy dervish. The kitten, white with splotches of orange stripes, didn't do anything to antagonize Mustard, but rather "hi, big cat" and found the food bowl and inhaled what was left in it. So my theory veered to lost or dumped; the kitten was too used to people and other cats.

So I called Mom to see if she heard of anyone losing their cat or wanted one. She heard Mustard's growling in the background and offered to take the kitten to her house. Mustard finally stopped chasing his own tail and growling when I threatened to lock him in his cat carrier and put it in the bathroom so I could get some sleep. The kitten's still at my parents and doesn't belong to anyone in the neighborhood. My mother's not a cat person. She tolerated the ones we had when we were kids because a) they lived outside and b) we loved them to pieces. She has no idea what to do with this kitten that just wants to rub your legs all day long.

Haven's last two episodes finally aired last night. My reaction:

combined with "Thank the Powers That Be we are getting another season!" If we hadn't, I would have to go find the writers/producers and demand answers from them.

Diary of a Gold Digger requested that we loyal readers pass out a shout out to her blog, so it will eventually lead to a book deal. I enjoy train wrecks of family relationships (remember I call those others that have a genetic tie to my nuclear family the "Extendeds" for many good reasons), so you guys might like it too.

I ran across this article: Identity-Based Habits: How to Actually Stick to Your Goals This Year, and feels like it makes sense. Much of my habit changing habits never get a chance to stick, but the inner chorus/monkey mind (that is a great term the Buddhists use, must remember to use it more often) starts in on the "how I'm such an awful failure of a person to even try" tape until I give up or just avoid whatever made them hit play. This belief needs to die a horribly fiery death, and be replaced with something else.

Changing your beliefs isn’t nearly as hard as you might think. There are two steps.

1. Decide the type of person you want to be.
2. Prove it to yourself with small wins.

Based on my goals for 2013,

• I am a person who exercises every day and avoids process foods about 80% of the time.
• I am a person who manages money well to maintain a lovely home that is welcoming to friends and family.
• I am an indie-published author.

Now it's time to start scoring small wins, so I can feel like this:

Weekend plans: Mom hasn't had a break since we got back from Texas for Thanksgiving, so we're going for a girls' weekend at the IP Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi tonight. Vicki Lawrence is doing her stage act there tonight and Mom had free tickets. Now, I'm too young to have watched the Carol Burnett Show (but she will always be Miss Hannigan to me) regularly, but me and my sisters loved Mama's Family. They were Southern and just as dysfunctional as our own; what's not to love? That's what I'm looking forward to while Mom gambles responsibly.

The only wrinkle is I have to meet with my CCFairy after work and find out if I have any hope of remodeling the house or if I will just get to pay off bills. Yeah, I'm a little nervous about this step and trying not to think too hard about it.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Read Free!
The BookWorm

2012 Reflections and 2013 Goals

Thanks everyone for the well wishes for my family. My grandmother is hanging on a bit better, though her doctor suspects a fractured bone in her leg that is the reason why it remains swollen. She's been on bed rest for almost a month and it shouldn't look that bad with as much fluid as they pull off of her.

Uncle Scott coaxed some more life out of the washing machine, so I've taken that appliance off the shopping list for now. Mom got hit with a nasty virus at Christmas, then Uncle Scott, and Friday I thought I was getting it. Turned out all I got was mucus-production overdrive in the sinuses. Just enough to make you feel like drilling a hole in your head will help, but no fever or actual impairment. At the same time, it sucks all desire to actually do anything.

So instead of going through my 2012 Goals and pointing out how I failed the big fat failure for another year while I'm hydrating my body, I'm letting Least I Could Do sum up the year for me:

(Apparently, sinus pressure and going slightly dehydrated makes me crankier on myself.)

There, done, clean slate time and be realistic about what you can accomplish.

Rewards for the daily chores I loathe utterly does work, but I need to schedule in time to spend the rewards. Yearly goals fall apart at some point in the summer. And I don't track or put off tracking.

I declare 2013 the year I give myself LESS to do. But the less are doozies, so who knows if this will make me less crazy. The yearly goals:

• Lose weight
• Remodel house
• Self-publish an e-book

And that's it. Thank goodness I have all year, right?

I thought about breaking it down to quarterly goals, but I think monthly will be easier to concentrate on. Then all I have to do is to remember to set those up every month.

January Boulders

• Exercise 30 days in a row
• Cut out grains as much as possible
• CCFairy's homework is due Jan. 18th
• Finish all alien languages for Stellar Gift of Death
• Write 20 days on Forget the Sun

Yeah, I'm building in some slack time, because I will take it and then get on the guilt train for doing it. Enough of that crap. This year I will not be taking that train, at least not as long as I have before.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Family situation

I haven't talked much about it because there really isn't anything anyone can do with a waiting game. My maternal grandmother was in the hospital for two and half weeks with an intestinal blockage and having some mental reactions to her medication withdrawal. She remembered I was me (instead of becoming someone else) but I was told to get the horse back down the street where it goes. She was in the ICU but thought she was in the nursing home. Mosquitoes are constantly eating her up. Fun stuff like that.

She got better when they started her meds again, and the hospital sent her back to the nursing home Thursday. Friday, while being transported to her dialysis treatment, she was thrown out of her wheelchair in the van. Her legs were scraped up bad enough to be mistaken for puncture wounds. She's on Plavix, which makes it so easy for her to hemorrhage. Luckily, it wasn't punctures and luckily it wasn't an artery that was damaged. She's back in the hospital again, looking so much worse now.

I didn't go today; Mom went alone. And Mama tells her that a man stayed with her all night, her best friend because he finally got rid of all the mosquitoes and roaches, but she never saw his face. Mom got the conversation off the mosquitoes because she's been going on about them for a month at least, and Mama was sharp enough to follow the Saints game. But then she pointed to another chair in the hospital room. "Oh he's back."

Nobody Mom could see was in the chair.

My cousin Savannah was visited by deceased family members that she could only see before she died. Mom saw her Uncle Dot the day he died. All my paranormal research points to more visitations than not.

Mama's body is shot to hell. A pacemaker and dialysis is what life support she has now. She's not listed in critical care by the hospital as far as we know. But she's eighty-years-old, you touch her and it hurts her, and now this. I don't know when her end is, but it is looking pretty damn close.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

Hiatus Over

Thanksgiving is over. And the break between it and Christmas is probably the worst time to reestablish my groove, but I need to find balance again so my brain stops feeling like it must bounce around like a kangaroo on speed.

I'm prickly and grumpy and attempting not to take it out on anyone, which only fuels the itch to go find a punching bag and hit it. Violence, my default setting. That I'm pushing forward with changes is the true culprit and what the inner Beast wants to shred. Maybe I gave it too many changes today.

• Monday yoga routine
• New bra that I thought fit but it pokes me in the arm just like all the rest
• New purse that is a Christmas present but is fraying my last nerve because I can't keep it on my shoulder
• And I'm still annoyed that I left $20 worth of books I bought for me at my sister's in Texas!

*Inhale* Okay, admitting that has eased off the desire to claw at something. But it sucks that my first post in so long is bitchy and whiny.

• Despite not exercising, eating too much, and not measuring, I only gained three pounds since the last time I weight back in August.
• I finally found a website that explains why underwire bras stab me in the arm: I have a petite torso.
• I spent quality time with my family, especially my nephew.
• My coworkers told me how to fix my purse issue, so I can continue to use it without aggravation.
• My shoulder pain is finally clearing up enough to work out again.
• I worked out!

So why the hiatus? When I last posted I was attempting therapy with the Inner Committee on the whole fear of success issue. The therapy fell apart followed by the daily scheduled. Enough chores were avoided to cause a cascade effect on my life, which led to kangaroo brain on speed. Basically while I scrambled to keep up, I didn't want to blog about what a worthless failure I am. And the Inner Committee got off the hook and successfully avoided therapy for over a month.

I need to start it again because I had to be closing in on something uncomfortable for such an extreme reaction. Some time soon.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

I'm Auditioning For Super-F******-Girl

Gustav blew through here the beginning of September 2008, I took a picture of the house and the debris filled yard, and there is no Incredible Hulk Shelving Unit at that point. So Mom must have closed the shop at some point in 2009. So it has waited for three years to get off my porch. Three years of the particleboard soaking up Louisiana humidity and rain, because my porch doesn't have walls, that is now over thanks to this weekend and me proving I'm a masochist yet again.

It was an ambitious makeover plan, especially since the only worker was me.

• Put everything that belongs to Mom in the parents' garage since Uncle Scott made room
• Throw away decrepit bench
• Nail up cable wire so it's not wrapped around my furniture
• Screw table legs to desk and make a real table out of it
• Price bistro chairs for new desk
• Sand rocking chairs and polyurethane for protection
• Turn cedar log into a side table for rocking chairs

I just set myself up with a Flickr account to better display pictures on my website, but I'm using it in the blogs too. Front Porch Makeover with all my commentary is already set up. You see a hint of what I took in this post, but I don't like how it goes off under the sidebar.

My father finally noticed what was going on when I was getting the base, the one on wheels into the garage. We still call it the garage, but my parents boxed it into a huge room a decade ago now and shrank the doors down to people-sized. I had the shelf on its side, the all-thread screws that I was calling rebar bent to get in the door, and I was pulling it in. Dad came out the front door and surprised me. "What are you doing?"

"I'm auditioning for Super Fucking Girl, what does it look like I'm doing! And I can bend rebar."

"That's not rebar."

"Shut up, I'm not burning this goddamned shelving unit because it belongs to Mom even though it's ruined." I don't know if it was my extra-growly voice that did it, but the base of the shelving unit finally went inside then, and I found my cheerfulness again.

Saturday's results:

• Put everything that belongs to Mom in the parents' garage since Uncle Scott made room
• Throw away decrepit bench
• Nail up cable wire so it's not wrapped around my furniture
• Screw table legs to desk and make a real table out of it
• Price bistro chairs for new desk
• Sand rocking chairs and polyurethane for protection
• Turn cedar log into a side table for rocking chairs
• Buy a bistro table and chairs set. Must have a top I can write on.

Sunday, I moved onto project number two and learned a valuable lesson. Lesson: schedule a damn day to rest over the weekend! Project number two was framing the hatch to the attic and cutting a door to properly fit the hatch. Sounds so simple, but it ate up so much of my time and energy that nothing else got done, including picking up my power tools from the back porch. If my circular saw has been stolen when I get home, I'll be pissed to say the least.

New attic door Flickr set. Please read the commentary, you don't get the full measure of how insane I got without it.

The good news is none of my power tools were stolen by the time I got home and I managed to do very little with cleaning up the tools. Today is my running around day. I have paperwork to take to my credit union, computer parts to drop off at the recyclers (which I tried to do yesterday and got lost), and table legs to return to Lowe's. Then back to organizing the back porch and the rest of my house work. I can't let it wait until the weekend because I'm scheduled to go to my baby sister's and help her with bride things. And that's a funny story for another post. Remember to put the massage mat that can go into a car on the seat by Friday.

Weekend Plans Got Changed

Uncle Scott got energetic on me last night. Portable AC unit is now in my bedroom, and I need to tweak my bedroom furniture placement to fit it best. And the attic is now mostly sealed, but it turned out what I was saving as the attic door (and I think both me and Mom agreed was the attic door) was the wrong dimensions to be the attic door. What the hell was it a door to? It is made of a thick piece of plywood, so the old kitchen cabinets are out of contention.

Regardless, now I have to go to Lowe's armed with measurements for a new door and get wood cut to fit into the hole. And since Uncle Scott made room in my parents' garage room for the hulk of a shelving unit that has been on my porch ever since Mom closed her shop (how many years has that been now?), I can move that off my porch! I've been inspired to finish my porch furniture and embrace the space, just in time for the hottest part of the year.

I never claimed to have great timing.

My porch furniture: three rocking chairs built by Hephaistos knows and painted green, the extended tabletop from my computer desk that needs legs, a twig/stick table built by Hephaistos knows, a log from the cedar tree that was cut down at some point in 2009 (here's reason 1 and reason 2 for why it had to come down) that I just had a brilliant idea to turn it into a side table, and that's all I can remember here at work. The plan so far is to clean the green paint off the rockers and polyurethane the natural wood look. The table top will get legs and come off my sawhorses. And turn the log into a side table. So I'll be spending a lot of time and money at Lowe's this weekend.

Rizzo needs an oil change, grocery shopping, and paying bills rounds out the rest of the weekend goals. I also need to take pictures of the progress.

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The BookWorm

Closing Open Tabs

What Anonymous Doctor says hearted a million times:

I do not feel that it is reactionary or even inaccurate to describe an unwanted, non-indicated transvaginal ultrasound as “rape”. If I insert ANY object into ANY orifice without informed consent, it is rape. And coercion of any kind negates consent, informed or otherwise.

In all of the discussion and all of the outrage and all of the Doonesbury comics, I find it interesting that we physicians are relatively silent.

After all, it’s our hands that will supposedly be used to insert medical equipment (tools of HEALING, for the sake of all that is good and holy) into the vaginas of coerced women.

Fellow physicians, once again we are being used as tools to screw people over. This time, it’s the politicians who want to use us to implement their morally reprehensible legislation. They want to use our ultrasound machines to invade women’s bodies, and they want our hands to be at the controls. Coerced and invaded women, you have a problem with that? Blame us evil doctors. We are such deliciously silent scapegoats.

Where Is the Physician Outrage? Written by An Anonymous Doctor and originally published on Whatever (http://whatever.scalzi.com).

The Doonesbury strips referenced in "Where Is the Physician Outrage?"

Michael Bay vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles controversy: I ran across one theory that Michael Bay said he's making the Turtles aliens to deliberately rile the fandom up. Because what came up after that infamous remark was a comment that the ooze is alien. But you know what, the damage has been done. The awful stuff in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen insulted me (a white, non-Transformer fan woman), so I don't want Michael Bay anywhere near my green teens. Then to use my worry about a universe I adore and have accepted many mutations of by various license holders to stir up publicity? Oh hell no, you ain't get any of my money.

Because of all that and that I am a rabid fan of both franchises, this Gutters page made me giggle a lot.

Project Rooftop highlighted a redesign of the Turtles cast that kicks some shell!

Bully will be released un-rated, since the MPAA is being dicks about language used by actual teens. But male bums and full-frontal female nudity are fine for PG-13 movies. *Rolls eyes* From the trailer, I feel this is a movie that all of America needs to watch.



In full disclosure, I was alienated and had no school friends until I changed school districts for my sixth grade year. My online handle is my reclaiming the word that was constantly thrown in my face as an insult. And now what kids face is so much more worse and physical.

And my baby sister is engaged! We're all very excited and happy, even though the wedding itself is over a year away. Now that my neck is back to normal, I need to get back into exercising so I can shed the extra weight I'm carrying.

Okay, that's everything, I hope. Now I have to get back to outlining Forget the Sun and what the paying job actually pays me for. :p

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The BookWorm

Least I Could Do Moment of Truth

LICD is their annual Valentine's Date contest, and the winner this year is Tyler, a SCA member. Today's episode nearly made me snort diet soda out my nose.

Today's my last day of work. Tonight I'll be driving to Austin. Saturday Sherwood Forest Faire! SQUEE! I'll be back home Monday and back to the normal routine Tuesday.

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The BookWorm

Happy Turkey Day!

My baby sister is hosting this year, so after today, I'll probably be offline until Sunday. Have a great holiday everybody!

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The BookWorm