Losing Time + Courage Boost

 I'm sitting here just watching the clock tick the minutes away... and really wishing I could just stop time completely.  I feel like that's what I need in order to get everything done.  Literally watching that time slip away right before my eyes just makes me think about all that stuff that I've either been too lazy to do, or just haven't had the time to even start.  It would help if I could win the lottery or suddenly find myself swimming in money so that I wouldn't have to work at all!  Let's face it, that in itself is a major time-killer. 😅  Usually feels like it's all for nothing also.  Just the same old shit, different days.  I'm really not meaning to sound so bitter though.  Lol.

So I'm working from home today because my office building will be testing out security alarms all day... I really miss the times when we did this for at least 50-75% of the month.  I felt like I could get so much more stuff done around the house, along with updating this blog as well.

I do feel like I've been more productive when it comes to reading though.  I don't have the specific amount of books that I've read this year, but I think it's been more than my previous attempts.  Have you ever been... scared to read a book?  Scared isn't the right word... maybe "apprehensive" describes the feeling better.  See, there's this brilliant TV show called The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart that I saw in 2023... and it just absolutely resonated with me on a deeply personal level - in both good and 'bad' ways (some particular scenes are VERY difficult for me to watch).  I found out that it was a book... and had it on my radar to read for awhile afterwards (because you know how much detail they have to omit for television/film adaptations), but I guess I had to build up the courage to actually buy it (which sounds ridiculous, I know).  And now that I have, it is slightly scary to me, because of how much I know it's going to bring up some old memories that I would rather leave buried in the past.  I'm still working up that same courage to start reading it...

[Not So] Great Expectations

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 So that didn't last long.  I hate starting out my post like this but it's the truth.  I have ended up finishing at least one writing prompt though, and reading one book for the month of January.  I failed on the exercise though.  It's just difficult to be motivated, especially on the weeks that I'm actually leaving the house to work at the office, instead of at home.  (one week out of a three-week rotation)  I'm up between 4-4:30am to start getting ready, drive 35-40 mins to the office, work for [usually a stressful & busy] 8 hours, then a 45 minute drive home.  And it just makes me want to crawl into my house and nap.  

Anyway...

I'm going to start writing a 'history' of my life.  I've realized that there are some specific years that are just hazy and hard to remember, blurring together in my mind... and that bothers me.  Of course, there is a valid reason that I have blocked out these years.  Luckily I have kept up with a journal since I was 13 years old (and I still have them all intact).  Without that, I fear I would not remember anything.  But hopefully, this will be a good way for me to unlock some of those missing memories.  Though I can't guarantee a good outcome of doing so, but at least I'll feel better about it all.

Another Birthday!

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So it's safe to say that March is a pretty important month in our family, and today is another special day, as it is my dad's birthday!  Although he's probably not having the best time at the moment, seeing as he just recently had knee replacement surgery and is still in recovery.  But I still made sure to send him a 'happy birthday' text early this morning, since he is supposed to be resting and I didn't want to possibly wake him up if he was sleeping.  (He's 3 hours ahead of me, so it wouldn't have been too early to contact him.)

So anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY Dad! 🎂🎈🎉

Here are some photos from his early years, along with my favorites from my wedding last year. 💙💜

I love him so much and I would not be the person I am today without him in my life.  I hope he manages to have the best day he can possibly have, in his current condition.

A Futile Impasse

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Have you ever watched a TV show that you've invested a fair amount of time into, only to have it end up hitting far too close to home?  That's what's happening to me right now with a show on Netflix: Party of Five.  I feel like I've reached this impossible quandary where I don't know if I can continue, because it brings up these horrible memories that I've spent years attempting to forget.  Though no matter how much time goes by, I still remember every moment as if it happened yesterday.  How is it that only the terrible stuff sticks around? -sigh-

I'm about halfway into the 5th season when this storyline involving Julia (Neve Campbell) has started to develop and there are only 6 seasons in the whole series, so I feel like I'm too close to the end to just quit, but it's seriously taking an effort to watch what feels like a remake of my life from over ten years ago.  Ugh.  I initially started watching the show because ¹⁾ I'd never seen it before, even though it came out in the late 90's and ²⁾ it is based in San Francisco, which I thought would be cool to watch, since now I have actually been out there multiple times and somewhat know the area.  I've been annoyed with every one of the members of the Salinger family at least once so far, most specifically Charlie (Matthew Fox) because he's just a pompous asshole that only cares about himself.  I suppose I will just wait it out and see how the writers chose to deal with this situation that Julia's getting herself mixed up in.

You may think I'm just making too big a deal of this, but you can't really judge unless you have been in the same situation.  Trust me on that. 😉

Anyway... that's what has been on my mind today.  Until tomorrow!

Finding a Fix [Hopefully]

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So, let's start with the good about today.  I went ahead and registered for another month on Nexus.  Mainly because I realized that I could get my 11th year 'wisdom gown,' which is a sort of incentive for playing the game and sticking around.  You get a different exclusive outfit for every year that you've had an account.  So since I created my character back in March of 2007, I was able to claim my 11th year gown.  And while I didn't like it at first, I made it work, via finding the perfect color palette, or dye.  I actually like to make a cumulative graphic with every dye available in the game, which I call my dye charts.  They help for knowing what an outfit will look like, before spending money on the dye at a future date.  So, after spending a good chunk of my morning on a big event quest, I took quite a few screenshots of this new gown in some of the different dyes.  And that's the 2D version of me that you see in the top left [Apey].  Well, not exactly, but pretty close!  I only wish I had that badass dragon staff to carry around with me. 😜

And now on to the crappy, near-anxiety-attack-filled portion of my day.  After dealing with this neck pain off and on for the past 3 weeks, I finally went in to the urgent care clinic today, to see if I could get it checked out, since I do not have a primary doctor picked out.  After waiting about an hour after checking in, I finally got called back to a room, only for the nurse practitioner to appear a bit confused at my symptoms... although she did say that I would probably need a higher level of care, then she ordered a bunch of x-rays of my neck.  So I was led to the room where they do that, completely nervous and scared because I've never had anything like that done before... but thankfully, the guy that took the pictures was really nice and understanding of me being such a baby about it all.

I will say, waiting for the results was just about the hardest 25 minutes that I've had to face in a very long time.  Especially waiting by myself... going over all of the worst-case scenarios and trying to prevent myself from just breaking down crying right there in that empty room that seemed like it was closing in on me, minute by minute.  Ugh.  I hated it.  In the end, it turned out that my bones were fine, nothing was wrong, but there was a small something in the muscle area, which led her to prescribe a muscle-relaxant medication, as well as ibuprofen.  So hopefully this will fix my problem, because otherwise, I will have to go in for an MRI and I don't know how I'd handle that monster....

Hospital Horrors

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Today has been difficult.  I did get to sleep in this morning until around 8am, which is 3 hours more sleep than I usually get on a weekday.  That was because the hubby stayed home today, because his brother had a stroke last night and was admitted into the hospital, so we took the day off to go visit him.  He's doing okay-ish right now, for the few minutes that he's able to actually stay awake and alert.  His sarcasm is still intact though, and the hubby did get two fist-bumps, so that's a good sign.  He's had a rough time health-wise, so that makes this whole ordeal even scarier.  The hubby says what really worries him is that he also has pneumonia, but he just started the antibiotics so hopefully those start working quickly.

Being up there at the hospital only reminded me of my stint in the ER back at the beginning of September last year, and how terrified I am of the place in general.  And also got me thinking of how if the hubby hadn't gotten home from work when he did, I could be dead right now, what with the 106.1 fever that I was suffering from that night.  I hadn't really realized that until he said something about it recently, after we'd seen a random commercial that reminded him of the incident.  I was so scared and nervous, they thought I was having a heart attack because my heart rate was through the roof.

Anyway... that's about all I have for today.  Still got the same damn headache that will not go away.  And I've noticed that it's making my heart rate jump up higher than normal, via checking it on my Fitbit.  I'll have to keep an eye on that. 😶

Happy, But a Little Lost...

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I started out my day with The Scorch Trials playing in the background while I worked, in preparation for tonight's "date night" in going to see the final movie of the Maze Runner trilogy that comes out today, The Death Cure.  We saw the first movie back when it came out in 2014, without having read the books, or even hearing of the series.  And I was hooked, because it's an intriguing storyline that kept me interested enough to want to see what the maze was all about and why they were stuck there.  I plan to read the books also, maybe making it part of my reading challenge, once I've gotten through the Odd Thomas series.

One of my current favorite songs came on the radio earlier when I had to run a small errand.  It was Sir Sly's &Run.  It's one of those songs where the instant I hear it, I can't help but move, in an attempt at dancing, although I know I probably look ridiculous because I can't dance, but when that song's on, I just don't care! 😝 The only other songs that really get me feeling like that have been Finger Eleven's Paralyzer and Walk the Moon's Shut Up and Dance.  There's a more sentimental reason behind Paralyzer, but I won't go into that now.  Back to &Run... I love the lyrics.  Specifically: "Happy, but a little lost..." because that is sometimes exactly how I feel about my life.  Word for word.  And "sometimes the world feels loud."  Which needs no explanation, really... I like the world quiet, and I can't quite deal with it being too loud.

A Day at the Outlets... & a Scary Surprise

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So today could have been a really bad day for us.  See... we spent the day out at the outlet mall about 45 minutes southwest of where we live.  We left at around 10:30am.  We did not get home until around 5:00pm.  What do we find out when we pull into our driveway?  We left the damn garage door wide open for the past 6½ hours!!  And the door into our house from the garage was unlocked.  I am so thankful that we live in a nice neighborhood, because everything was still exactly as we'd left it.  We would have known if anyone had come inside the house though, because the alarm was on and we would have been alerted via text message and a phone call if it hadn't been disarmed in time.  But still, that is a scary surprise to come home to... I am just so relieved that nothing happened.

Temporary Setback

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So I finished my first book of 2018 this morning!  Ironically, it is the self-help style book that has no relevance to my life (haha) but it was an informative & amusing read that left a smile on my face after every reading session.  (More detailed review listed on the 2018 Reading Challenge tab up there at the top)

Anyway, Jacques will be here all this week doing at-home training classes for work, which will give me a small taste of what it would be like if he worked from home.  Definitely a plus in the gas department, as he wouldn't have to drive those 90 miles every day.  Since I'm slightly 'kicked out' of the office until he finishes at 1PM, I was planning to start up my 4-mile-daily-walk again... but of course, I woke up to find that it's raining heavily outside, with no plans for it to stop anytime soon, not to mention my stomach attempting to kill me. (Nothing to worry about, there's a reason.)  Ugh.