aimless forest

My life is filled with potential and real stress. Some stresses only loom on the horizon, others take place entirely in my head. Others are very real. Decisions about how to spend my time, what to focus on. Decisions about priorities at work and my personal life.

But if I am going to stay healthy, I need to control the stress associated with these things. When I am faced with decisions I have changed some of the measure, or the method I use to sort it out.

I am a cup. A cup that my children drink from. A cup that pours itself out over them. A cup that gets dried up by work politics. Pours itself out over my relationship, like a garden, waiting for it to grow. A cup that pours itself into friendships.

A cup that is filled by some of the same things that empty it.

Last year when the cup was broken, my children couldn’t drink. They were very thirsty. People who loved me kept filling the cup, but it was cracked, and the water fell right through, pouring out, unused on to the ground.

If there is only so much water to pour out in a day, then there must be some left at the end for my children to drink. If I am empty when I bring them home after work then they face the desert of my short temper.

Things that fill the cup: Sleeping, eating, drinking, loving, Good times, God, Work that is fulfilling, Music that I love and ten minutes alone before I pick up my children. Laughing with my children.

If I pour out all the water before I come to them, where will they drink? I am a cup for my children to drink from.

That doesn’t mean that I have to devote 24x7 to my children. Remember, the cup has to be filled up. Sometimes that means leaving them behind and doing things for me. If the cup dries up and cracks again, the water will fall right through, pouring out, unused out to the ground.

And then where will my children drink from?

After Andrew had that seizure, I was left with a burning question: Is there any history of epilepsy or seizure disorders in Deadbeat Dad’s family?

So I emailed him the following simple email, the first contact I have initiated with him in 3 years:

subject: Medical History Question

I need to know if there is any history of epilepsy or other seizure disorders in your family. Andrew had a seizure yesterday afternoon and this information will help with diagnosis

Simple right? Wrong!

Response from DD, email #1:

subject re: Medical History Question

If you want to know anything then you have my details.

I said hey what the hell does that mean?

Hence, response from DD, email #2:

subject re: Medical History Question

If that’s unclear, then call me.

What a freakin’ nutcase! So after breathing in a bag, I managed to politely respond:

subject: re: Medical History Question

Of course it’s unclear, you didn’t tell me anything at all.

Please answer the question for me. It is a grave matter that this has occurred. I need the information as soon as possible to assist with diagnosis. Is there any history of seizures in the family?

If there is a valid reason for not writing it down in an email, then you may please call me at your convenience and leave me a voice mail if necessary.

Ok, I know it’s not eloquent but it was better than cussing him out, which is actually what he deserves.

And you know what? He didn’t answer me soon enough. So I called his family in the deep south of the South, in Alabama no less. And that complete richardcranium had not even told his mom & dad that they were grandparents. So I got to spring the good news. My ‘baby’ is 2 years and 9 months old. They didn’t even know.

However his mom was kind and gave the information I needed: No, there’s no history of seizure disorders or epilepsy in the family.

That’s all he had to say, 3 keystrokes: N-O-[SEND]

What a jerk.

Then a day or two later I get this answer, keep in mind that he owes me thousands of dollars and I’m trying to sell my bassoon to make ends meet:

response from DD, email #3

subject: re: Medical History Question

Since I’m broke and I don’t think you are, you can call me at your convenience.

Asshole. Just wait until you call home.

My little boy will have an EEG tomorrow, if they can successfully get the lines attached to his head. He had a seizure about two weeks ago - supposedly he was tossing his head back and forth, not focused and appearing very disoriented. Then he had a series of jerky arm movements, then his whole body went stiff for about 30 seconds, after that he was just limp. And crying. They called me from the childcare right away. I went to have him checked out, and there was no apparent reason (like medications or fever) for the seizure to have occurred.

Well it’s all been a little scary, but hopefully it won’t happen again. Gotta remember too, that when it happened, I had no idea if Deadbeat Dad’s family has a history of seizure disorders. Wait till you hear about that one!

I take prednisone for my muscular disease - it is the first line of defense for myositis diseases like polymyositis. I’ve posted many times about the side effects of taking it: moonface, weight gain, sodium hypertension, obsessive/combative behaviors, calcium deficiency, facial hair, the list goes on. However even with all of this it was better to take it than to end up in a wheelchair, unable to lift my own arms over my head.

Reducing the prednisone, now that I have stabilized my muscle degeneration, is very tricky. I went down in dosage 5mg/day every other week from 60 to 15 with no problems. But 15 was hard, and when I got to 10, I was in the bed and couldn’t get out. So sick, sore, angry & weird. So I went back up to 20 and slowed the taper down to 1mg/wk, which has really worked pretty good. This week I got kind of cocky though, and having gotten all the way down to 9mg/day with no significant issues, I went to 8 and it seemed fine. I remembered my neurologist telling me that once you get down under 10 that it should be a piece of cake.

So, why not 5 I said.

What a BAD idea! I was cranky and joint-achy for 2 days, but then the 3rd day happened. Oh dear. It’s like a little man lives in my head, constantly swearing. Phrases like ‘blow me’ and ‘f — you’ were going to pop out any second. So I didn’t go in to work, saving my peers from looking at me with my head spinning ’round with expletives pouring out.

Then I took a nap and when I woke up, I was just weeping. For no reason. At least I have enough sense to know why.

So I went back up to 10 for the day, I’ll do 9 tomorrow and probably about 5 more days.

Someday I’ll get off of this stuff, but I guess it’s going to take a while. At least most of my beard is gone!

It is going to be close to 100 degrees here in the Puget Sound region. B and I are off to a local hotel to sit in their air conditioning and pool. High summer here is usually in the 80’s, so we sure aren’t equipped to handle this!

B and I had a treat for dinner Saturday night. She sprang for beef filets that you could cut with a spoon, and some dungeness crab.

I made my steak (pictured above) rare of course. B likes hers medium well, I just can’t bring myself to do that.

We put garlic on the steaks before cooking. Grilling is best but I don’t have one, so we just sprayed a pan and seared - darn near set off my smoke alarm!

Once the steak is done, put the steak in the center of the plate, pile some dungeness crab on it, and sauce on top. Now with bernaise sauce this is called steak oscar, but we made this sauce up so I don’t know what to call it… Amy’s Steak with Crab? who knows!

The Sauce (basically a white sauce with some add-ins, makes about 1 cup)

2 tbl butter or margarine
1 tbl minced garlic
2 tbl mustard, the kind with actual mustard seeds in it. We used a German mustard with horseradish.
2 tbl worcestshire sauce
1 1/2 tbl flour
1 cup milk
1 egg yolk
salt & pepper

In a small saucepan, melt the butter, immediately add garlic, mustard and worcestshire. Heat over medium to medium-high heat till bubbling. Add flour stirring constantly. Reduce heat to medium. Slowly add milk a little at a time, making sure to continuously mix well. You need to temper the egg yolk before adding to pan: in measuring cup have your egg yolk, and then take some of the hot milk mixture - just a couple of tablespoons - and beat into the egg. I did this till I had about 1/4 cup of the mixture back into the measuring cup, then I poured that whole mess back into the saucepan. Increase heat to medium-high, stirring frequently and cook till bubbly. After about a minute of bubbling, sauce will be thickened. Remove from heat.

I ended up with sauce a little too thick, and had to add a little milk. However I wasn’t actually measuring anything here except for the milk, so who really knows how much flour I had in there. It is easier to thin out a sauce than it is to thicken it up, at least for me, so I tend to err on that side of the equation.

Microsoft has been awarded a patent for a ‘method and apparatus for transmitting power and data using the human body.’

Makes you wonder.

via The Presurfer

Today in the Seattle area it was in the 80s (at least!) and therefore too hot for me. I used to live in Las Vegas, but if I remember correctly in the summer I only came out at night.

I took the boys to get haircuts, ice cream, and squirt guns. We got super soakers, one of them the kind with the spinner on the end that spreads the stream of water. We were running, squealing, shrieking, pumping them up, refilling, again and again.

Did you catch that? Running.

Running.

The second time out we had Grace with us in the yard. When she saw me running (RUNNING) you should have seen her face. It was worth the humpty dumpty prednisone body, the sodium hypertension, all of it.

She told me later she couldn’t believe it when she saw me, she didn’t know whether to shoot or not in case it would make me fall down. So of course I took advantage of her hesitation and just got as much water on her as I could.

The kids had a good time too. It’s strange though, Frank didn’t really notice me running. He just accepts it, doesn’t really notice it. That’s a blessing for him.

Running. Unbelievable.

A far cry from this

This left me with a feeling of angst, but at least helped define that unease and anxiety I feel lately.

UPDATE
This got me thinking about a conversation I had with B today. She and I absorb media so differently - I generally have my head in the sand and it takes a lot of media to shake me up. I don’t ride the latest media wave or craze very easily, while her head is invariably turned on to the latest media ride. Take for example the focus on Clinton’s book - I really don’t care what he was thinking or why he did anything, but the book is much anticipated. Why do we care so much? Are we comforted, seeing someone of such importance being human? Are we laughing with them or crying with them? I have enough of my own to worry about, let alone wonder why others do what they do.

Since I am almost hyper-empathetic, I also find it painful to watch suspenseful drama on TV, or even the regular news.

find your geek decade at spacefem.com

found via The Cheese Stands Alone

My friend Grace who I met when hiring someone to help me out in my home has very serious financial issues and is currently unemployed except for the pay I provide and her unemployment checks, and she has no health insurance. Recently she was having issues with asthma and went to the doctor, and the scripts she was supposed to get were around $165. She did not have the money.

In the meantime, I have an outstanding financial support issue with my youngest child’s father, who owes me just a ton of money at this point, and I am working through the Division of Child Support to pursue him. I was checking my bank accounts online and lo and behold, here’s a deposit from DCS of $163 and change in my savings account.

That same day was the day Grace had gone to the doctor. As she was telling me about the doctor visit I asked her how much the scripts were going to cost, and when she told me, my jaw just dropped. I don’t have a lot of extra money right now to help her out like I have in the past, and I couldn’t believe the timing. I told her about the deposit being made and the amount, and really she just about started to cry. She said she’d been praying that some $$ would come to me from him for a while. It kind of made a full circle. I said well, this $ must be for you :) She said that God must know she hasn’t got a clue how to handle her money and so he must be giving it to me to manage for her… this is not the first time that I received unplanned-for money on a just-in-time basis for some money crisis she was having.

So she got her scripts. I contacted my support officer later in the week to try to find out the status, you know, is this weekly or monthly now, or what is the deal? And he said no, it was a one-shot. They do periodic scans for bank accounts or other financial holdings of delinquent parents and this turned up so they grabbed the entire contents of the account.

Too coincidental for me.

I just wanted to share that with you. Again, I don’t understand at all how God works but I know when to give credit where I believe credit is due.

Got my dang images to work.

On Memorial Day weekend, I once again hauled B and my two boys to Camp Colman. We went last year and I got this beautiful sunset photo…

For me, it was great to go because right after the Camp Colman weekend last year, I really started to be ill with the polymyositis. It was triumphant in a way to be back there, only one year after getting the disease. In retrospect, I know now that the reason I was so tired at camp last year was because I was already sick. But enough about that!

My older son made a new friend, and had contact again with other kids that have gone year after year just like him. It is cool to have found a healthy tradition to have with my family. I think it is especially challenging for single parent families to do this, but it is so important. I am fortunate that I can afford to do these kinds of activities, I know many single parent families that cannot.

Click any thumbnail for a larger image

A view of the bay at low tide

Andrew and another small child explore the beach. They were finding lots of tiny crabs, and really fun - geoducks!

This is a view of the main lodge from the road between the lagoon and the sound.

The trail by the lagoon

This pink starfish was in the marine tank - huge!

I got the results of my bloodwork this week and I am technically in remission now! Hurray!

One of my hobbies that I periodically work on is my family’s genealogy. I’ve collected some great stories and facts in the last two years. One of the best was getting my hands on a handwritten document that traces the Smith branch of my family back to the mid-1700’s. This is terrific considering the difficulty in weeding through Smiths, being so prevalent. One of the weird things about this is that Smiths married Smiths but were unrelated, I’m certain that I must be related to an enormous number of people through this. Maybe even you!

Well I transcribed the document we’d gotten as best I could, and posted it here and also at RootsWeb.

After tinkering for hours I still cannot load an image from within WordPress. I think I’m going to have to load via cpanel and build my links manually for now.

But not tonight! Enough tinkering already!!

The error references line 177 of my upload.php file, saying that no such directory exists. So I’m off to support forums to find an answer.

I have been not posting but learning about how my webserver works, as well as trying to understand my index template all over again. Some things are working and some not, but I am having a blast. I am trying to get a little plugin for photos to work so that I can put some new pictures up (easily). Wish me luck!

My boss has still not returned to work and is now threatening to return on 6/21. When he returns I am definitely going to take a nap. I went from being able to manage my workflow once I went back to work, to my current condition which found me this morning with a phone hanging on my ear, an interoffice IM blinking at me, an email reply in progress, and 2 people waiting to speak to me near my desk.

To try to combat the problem I posted the following sign at my desk which I know is not original but at least lightened some folks up:

Answers Price List

Answers $1.00
Answers, requiring thought $1.50
Answers, correct $3.00

Dumb Looks Still Free

The absence of my boss is causing me to do his job and not my own, and while that is good for my career growth, it hasn’t been a good way for me to return to work full time. I’m a bit stretched out right now, looking for a little stress relief.

I was talking with an acquaintance yesterday about life changes. She’s going through a few, and I remarked about how much my life had changed in the last 2 years. So much so that I have put my foot down about unnecessary change. Especially change that will impact any smooth working of the schedule of my household, or impact my children’s familiarity with their world as it is.

I said that I felt like I was drunk with the spins, clutching the sheets with two fists and one foot on the floor.