I thot i'd only missed a month of blogging. Then i looked at my last blog and realized it's been almost 3 months!!!
And when i started this post, i realized that my chicken soup broth should be drained from the bones so I can put it in the fridge. And my laundry needs to be taken out of the washer and put into the dryer but I can't do that until i empty the dryer of the last load, but i can't do that until i empty the laundry basket out. And after that i'll be to tired to blog...again.
So tonight i'll put blogging ahead of my chores. I'd like to say i was on vacation but i haven't been. Except that it IS school vacation so i have a 6 yr old bored child around the house. I've finally put her on facebook so she can play her dragon game with me as a friend (why do these games need you invite all your 'friends' to play in order for the game to continue working? ) That way she could get some levels or dragons or whatever it is she needed.
We tried going swimming. That was going to be my weight loss program for the summer,exercise- wise. That worked for 2 or 3 days. She even made a friend at the lake. And I chit-chatted with her mother. Then one friday morning we both ended up looking like we had chicken pox . After spending 2 1/2 hrs at the clinic, it was confirmed that we had swimmer's itch. Itch being the operative word here! A couple of benedryl pills/ spoonfuls later it got better. But Katrina didn't like the taste of the benedryl so now i have real expensive medicine at home that she did NOT use much of. Result: she won't go swimming in the lake anymore and i'm not spending the money at the YMCA every day and sothere went my entertainment for the afternoons. Unfortunately we are out in the country; she doesn't have lots of next-door playmates to work off her energy with.
Katrina also has this little 'quirk'. She does not eat veggies or fruit. Hasn't since she was a toddler. Big bummer for me, since i like fruit and fruit is a healthy snack. It didn't matter so much when i was in the throws of ocd as i wasn't cooking much. Bruce would have to do that when he got home from work cause i was afraid of the kitchen- it didn't get cleaned before we moved into the semi. And then when we moved from the semi to this house we didn't have a kitchen (karin literally pitched it out the door because she found mouse crap in the drawers and had a fit) so we ate a lot of tv dinners. OCD had my life; what kd didn't want to eat was way down at the bottom of the list of things to worry about. After all toddlers/ preschoolers LIKE to eat the same foods for weeks on end, right? Unfortunately she hasn't outgrown this problem. In fact, it's gotten worse. She now will not even touch a fruit/ veggie! At first i thot it was just apple cores she didn't want to be near. Nope, it's the whole idea of a fruit/ veggie near her that bugs her. She's even gone so far as to NOT eat her lunch because someone beside her is eating veggies/ fruit! So I've been explaining this concern to various health care/ social workers. One Kid's Place has occupational therapists who deal with 'picky' eaters. They will be getting back to me this week as to strategies to improve her eating. The pediatrician says she's still within normal weight/ height ranges so except suggesting a protein drink for her, we don't have to go back there. Problem: she won't drink the protein drink as she doesn't like the taste. If i buy another kind, and she won't drink THAT, then i've got more stuff in my cupboards that are a waste of money. She has gone so far that she will insist i wash my hands if i've touched an apple before i touch her computer (never mind herself) Does this sound like anything else we know???? Like OCD maybe??? Who ever heard of a kid afraid of an apple. That's right. I don't have to scare her using tales of monsters and boogie men. I just put an apple in front of her and she goes into fright mode!
About a month after we got Mieka, we acquired another dog. A 7 yr old well-trained golden retriever. So now we have 2 dogs. And they are best friends, right? Wrong. The dog fights have been getting less, tho, and they are playing together more. Each is trying for 'top dog' status. Or rather Mieka is, and Zoe, being older and just as big, isn't playing along. Now they HAVE been teaching each other their own bad habits! Mieka likes to chew up stuff- wood, cardboard, plastic. Zoe now also chews stuff up. Just not as much. So every day or so i get to sweep up a room full of trash: ripped up kleenex boxes, kleenexes, toys that didn't get put away and so on. And they DO have a bunch of doggie chew toys, ropes, puppets ( stuffed animals were ripped open and de-stuffed). They just prefer wood and cardboard.
Zoey likes to bark. Mieka is not a barker. Zoe barks at every car going by. This gets Mieka all riled up and she runs to the window to see what is going on. Funny tho. If Zoe sees a car while she is OUTSIDE, she doesn't bark!!
They are fun to watch and play with and brush and if we take them for a walk in the morning, they will sleep well for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Obedience classes start in a couple of weeks. Mieka really needs them. She's ok at sit and down but heel and come have a long way to go. So does the potty training.
So that is the chaotic state of my house this summer! Kd won't do the lessons the speech therapist mailed us, neither is she interested in me reading to her during the day. She loves that i do it before she goes to bed but during the day she 'hates' books.
I still need a LOT of sleep every night- 10 - 12 hrs, so that cuts down my day time activities. If i get up early i feel groggy and tired all day. I talked to the pharmasist and she says the clomipramine pills STILL do that to me. I am now taking them around 4 in the afternoon, and i'm not sleeping til noon every day anymore. I'm going to keep back-tracking the pills until i'm taking them at lunch. Then hopefully they will be wearing off by the next day around 8 instead of 10 am.
Ontario put in this new energy saving program where electricity is cheaper at night. So now instead of doing my laundry etc. during the day, i get to wait til 7pm and do it at night. Fortunately i have a huge washer, so this doesn't happen EVERY night. The alternating nights, i get to do the dishes! Lucky me! Laundry still has an ocd ritual attached to it but it's only a 10 min. thing so for now i'm leaving it. Then when my washer konks out (which will be in 20 years because i want it to go next week!) i can get one that loads on top instead of the side. That's what i origonally intended to buy but OCD saw the sanitizer button on the front loader and wanted it. So what could i do?? I bought that machine instead but have NEVER used the sanitizer button- and never intend to. Can't imagine what that will lead to if i ever do that once!!
Oh, my computer busted last week. Well, it started smelling like it was burning and the guy at the store said it would cost $500 bucks to fix it, and i should buy a new one instead. Now i HATE switching all my stuff from one computer to another and I bought one 2 yrs ago, hoping it will work well and last a looong time- and unlike my washer, it busts. Of course, it's actually working now that i have a new one. But supposedly it could go dead at any time and i'd lose all my stuff. That is not on my list of 'things i'd like to experience', so i spent $500 on a computer and another $500 on the extended warranties/ load up stuff. Not that I have that kind of cash laying around. Just add that to my bill and I can worry about how to pay it off.
I got my first give-away book from goodreads a couple of weeks ago. It's called Y. About an adopted child who goes looking for her real parents. Was neither sappy-mushy nor girl-out-to-destroy-herself-because-she-was-adopted. Review got posted on goodreads.com.
As for the OCD/ therapy weekly sessions, that was going well. We got into how to find out our core beliefs and how to change them. Then sessions stopped for the summer. But in order to keep up our healty gains, we had to write down the things we needed to do to keep on a positive note and then check the ones we did each night.
My list:
Healthy eating. The idea of it on my chart is that healthy eating is supposed to make me feel good/ upbeat. I'm working on more of a vegan diet with less or no meat but it's not going perfectly well. Salads got old and boring fast! I like the fruit eating, and snacking on carrots or nuts or apples is no problem. But meat keeps sneaking in there somehow. Not a lot, but every once in a while it ends up in the grocery cart. And with Kd's no fruit, no veggie strike, she needs to eat meat- i think??
Today i saw chicken on sale, so bot 2, cooked them and put some away for kd's meals that i can just defrost later and some away for a camp meal next week and of course ate some tonight. I did also buy fresh beans tho, and am eating them out of the bag. Have also been making fruit and veggie drinks in the blender. And then I slacked off on the veggie drinks because they aren't as tasty as the fruit drinks.
Play. Play helps to relax us and decreases stress. Also not something I'm good at. Even tho Ihave a 6 yr old. I just am not interested in playing 'little pet shop' or 'my little pony'. Playing with the dogs also counts.
Chores. Keeping up to date with household chores by doing a little every day rather than waiting til the house looks like a bomb has hit it. Me, i'm the bomb- waiter, esp. as I got OCD and didn't want to touch the cleaners. I'm over that now, but still would rather read or sleep than clean up the kitchen or do laundry, or tidy the living room (again!) OTOH, I can't stand living in a slobby room. I just get more and more irritable until i finally tidy/ clean it up again. So this is a biggie for me. Not that I don't do it, but it is SO important that I keep up with my housework I stuck it on my list anyway. (And besides that, it is easier for me to DO the housework, knowing I get to put a checkmark beside it at the end of the day.)
Do something to attack OCD or do NOT give in to an OCD desire. That one comes from the OCD book that says to always be vigilant and pro-active with OCD, so that it doesn't sneek in to my life thru the back door a little at a time. Knowing I get to check off if I don't give in to an OCD wish helps me to stay strong.
Laugh: A good belly laugh is great for staying upbeat. True. I like to laugh but wasn't sure how often I did it so I put that one on the list.
Socialize. Something I'm kind of bad at. I CAN socialize. I just often don't see the need or would rather just stay to myself than make the effort to talk to strangers. It was a step to trusting people/ making friends. So I thot I better keep that one to remind me to do it!
Other things people could choose from included: taking meds daily, pet an animal, work on a hobby, write a gratitude journal daily... These are all things I don't have a problem doing, so I didn't feel the need to keep track of them on a daily basis. My hobby is reading, and not reading daily means my life was just too crazy or I'm not breathing. I guess I should have added in blogging/ journaling because obviously I'm not doing too well at that, either. Every so often I DID look at other bloggers posts and respond to them. Just didn't feel like writing my own. And the longer I didn't do it, the more I didn't want to or there was some chore that needed to get done. Until tonight when I decided it NEEDED to be done. And I think I will add it onto my list. It's that important.
