Saturday, March 17, 2012

Spring Break

      Hi y'all!  I got rid of that yellow and gray background because it was just depressing to me and I can be depressed easily enough on my own. :) 
      After having the major panic attack over trying to volunteer at the library I have spent the past two weeks trying to recover.  It is sort of like give anxiety an inch and it takes a mile.  Headaches, anxiety, worry, stress, jitters, depression, feeling like I am having a heart attack all during the past 2 weeks. I am sorry I opened the Pandora's Box to free these anxiety/panic/heart attack feelings again.  I am really, really sorry.  I know some people think I made a mistake in not forcing myself to go ahead and go volunteer at least once but I know I made the best decision.  My body can not take this kind of stress anymore.  I have to get it under control and I have to do only things that bring me joy, peace, calm, whatever is the opposite of stress.  I'm trying.  I have to get the lid shut on this Pandora's Box of horrible feelings.  I have to recover.
      Feeling all those things above just exhausts me and then I sleep.  I have slept like a bear in hibernation.  When I have not been asleep I have been with my grandkids.  It is spring break and the weather has just been awesome...in the 80's.  Could not have been more perfect.  My grandchildren are my saving grace.  They keep me laughing, bring me joy, happiness, unconditional love.  They are precious.  We played games.  My grandsons still let me read chapter books out loud to them.  We watched Mr. Popper's Penguins.  It was great.  I really enjoyed it (and I never expected to even like it). It is not the book of course, but a good family movie.  My youngest grandson had his birthday party at a bowling alley.  I didn't get to go ... there is no way on earth my nerves could have taken little boys and bowling alley noise!  I would have been bawling by the third frame.  I started trying to potty train my granddaughter.  She accomplished the task several times so it is a start.  My daughter-in-law and I talked about it might be too early, Taylor is 15 months old, but she seems to be indicating that she is ready so we thought we would give it a try but not push it if she can't control those muscles.  She obviously has the desire so we will see.  Her mom took her to a park this week that had baby swings.  She said Taylor belly laughed the entire time she was swinging.  If the weather is nice next week Casey and I will take her to that park.  Taylor spent this weekend with her other grandma in another town while her parents went to Dallas.  On my last day with her I cut her fingernails and toenails and polished them with pale pink polish.  She thought that was something! She would be playing with something and then come over and show me her nails.  Personally, I think the Lord should have put some kind of system in place that did not allow finger and toe nails to grow the first 3 years or so....or maybe ever!  I haven't met a toddler yet who was patient when someone was cutting their nails! 
      Today I made tuna salad for sandwiches.  I use to cook all the time. Big meals. Desserts. Snacks.  I just can't cook any more.  Making tuna salad was an accomplishment this week.  The "I am REALLY having a heart attack" has struck so many times over the past two weeks it has just been miserable.  My daughters and grandsons were coming for lunch today so I decided to make tuna salad.  Usually I boil an egg and chop up in there but today that was too much, too overwhelming so we did without egg.  I did chop up pickles.  It doesn't sound like much but when the tiniest things are overwhelming I take the steps I can take. And yes, I know how incredibly stupid that sounds. It is too overwhelming to put an egg in a pan of water and boil it, yet I can tackle the job of cutting nails on 20 wiggly, 15 month old toes and fingers?  I can't explain it any more than I can explain the tics my kids live with constantly, or any more than I can explain why my eyes don't see 20/20 or why the weather makes my daughter's fibromyalgia flare up.  It just is the way it is.  Some ... lots ...of very simple things are just overwhelming to me and feel exactly like someone telling me to push a 2 ton boulder up a mountain, in ten minutes or something horrible will happen.   I bought things to make strawberry shortcake since my grandsons really like that, but that too was too much for me to get done so my grandsons baked cookies from a "break apart the dough and place on a cookie sheet" package. 
      I read some good books over the past couple of weeks (you can see the titles up there on the right...books I have read in 2012).  I started a new series and I really liked the first book in the series.... Mama Does Time by Deborah Sharp.  I have just started the second out of 4 titles and I hope it is as good as the first.  This is how the author describes the series ... "They're traditional, with a Southern-fried edge: Think Agatha Christie, if she had a couple of cousins named Bubba."
      I LOVE Pioneer Woman.  If you didn't read her post Has That Ever Happened To You? under confessions then please read it if you like humor.... she is just so funny.  I love people who can laugh at themselves! www.thepioneerwoman.com
Birthday boy being goofy
10th birthday
Mason is 11
Taylor's kissy face
       

2 comments:

Sparrow said...

Gorgeous kiddies! ^^ I do not think anyone would suggest you push yourself on this, would they? You know yourself, your strengths and weaknesses. I am in full 100% agreement with your decision. I hope you aren't beating yourself up over the shoulda, coulda, woulda back there. Let it go and get back to loving and enjoying your life. That is one of the things about my illness, in order to find happiness, I had to grieve my old self and then leave her memory behind. I get depressed when I remember her, her life, and what she was able to do. Her life is not my life now and I will never be her ever again. That's okay, because who I am now has some really good points that the old me lacked. {{{Hugs}}} It has been two years... time to put the mourning behind you, find the strengths and talents of the you that you are now, and love yourself.

Carol said...

thank you, Tish. Meeting you and hearing your wisdom has been one of the best things about the last year!