I decided to organize some of the emails I had been collecting and randomly clicked on one. Turned out it was an email from my dad (who died from pancreatic cancer 5 years ago). The email was about my grandfather who had a stroke and was about to die (9 years ago). My father talked about the last time he had worked with my grandpa in his workshop not too long before, an activity he loved to do with his dad. It was heartbreaking to read the sorrow that my father was going through, mostly because it's the same sorrow I went through when he died. I hate the thought of my children going through that same grief when my husband and I go.

The part that really tore me up was that he went on about how my grandfather and my dad had a conversation about me, in which my grandfather said he was planning on coming to my wedding and was very proud that I was in college and had chosen a career that would help people. For some reason, I don't remember reading that part before, although I know I must have, so it was like reading it for the first time. And then that immediately brought back the memory of dancing with my dad at my wedding and how during that dance he told me how proud he was of me for everything I was doing in my life. That was one of the happiest moments of my life. Funny how no matter what we do, we're always trying to get the approval of our parents somehow.

I wonder if they knew how much I admired them, how much they inspired me, and how proud I am of them.

So my morning of trying to be productive and getting things in order physically has just turned into a morning of trying to get things in order emotionally. That always happens when I least expect it.

Labels: Inspiring People I Admire, My Life

I've always loved technology. When I was a kid, I used to take apart stereos, phones, and appliances to fix them or use their parts to build new devices. I started playing with computers and writing my own programs when I was in 5th grade, designing multimedia websites when I was 19, and building computers when I was in my early 20's. Now, my husband and I are the computer and electronics experts in our neighborhood and among all of our relatives. It's fun. I've always believed that I could fix anything if I just put my mind to it, and most of the time I'm right, but there is one piece of technology that has always intimidated me: the automobile.

My dad would work on the car and I would stand right next to him, watching him change the oil and replace carburetor. I loved it, and I wanted to learn it, but it just seemed so tricky. Maybe it was all the grease and dirt that really bothered me. In high school I read books about auto repair, and it all made perfect sense on paper, but the moment I opened the hood, I just stared blankly at the dirt covered tangle of metal, tubes, and wires. My sister's Buick Century gave me my first lesson in engines. We had to start the thing by removing the air filter and shoving a stick into the choke valve to hold it open before turning the key. (Not a very good way to fix a problem, but it worked.) Then there was my grandpa's Dodge Charger (which I drove and received lots of compliments on; I couldn't figure out why so many people complimented me on it since I thought the thing was a old hunka-junk; it wasn't until I told my husband that I used to drive a Charger that I learned it's apparently a cool vehicle, and he was rather annoyed that I got rid of it). Nothing seemed to work on that thing. Not the wipers. Not the gas gauge. It leaked oil like mad and gave off giant plumes of blue smoke. But it taught me how to rig cars for temporary fixes. Then I had a Toyota Corolla. I paid $400 for it, and honestly that was overpriced. It was by far the crappiest car I've ever owned. The head gasket leaked. The thermostat didn't work. The clutch disc was warped. And it overheated all the time. But owning it and having a dad who knew about cars taught me the basics of engines and transmissions.

After that, I bought cars with warranties, and didn't bother with thinking about engines or break pads or anything else other than how safe is it, and what's the fuel efficiency? It had a warranty. Let the service center fix it.

I decided that I didn't care about cars anymore. Gone were the days of being a teenager dreaming about all of the sexy cars I would own when I was older: a big black 4x4 truck (we've got one now), a cute Jeep Wrangler (not impressed with it anymore), a powerful sports car (it's so unpractical). Gone were the days when I drove 90+ mph everywhere, actually cared about 0 to 60 stats, and thought it was more fun than frighting to max out the speedometer on long stretches of desert road. Gone were the days of off-roading with total strangers on anything that could fly over unmaintained dirt trails. I've traded those dreams for fantasies of going on comfortable road trips with kids who don't complained. I'll even admit that I've looked at a Dodge Caravan, yes a mini-van, and shamefully considered buying it (but I got a Volkswagen Passat station wagon instead... phew!). "I don't need a stylish or fancy car," I'd say. "I just need something practical."

And then my husband began watching Top Gear. The comedy amused me. The competitions sucked me in. And before I knew it, I was once again drooling over cars the way I did when I was a teenager. I've recently caught myself looking at nice cars with envy and wondering just how sinful is it to buy something that isn't the safest, most fuel-efficient vehicle on the market, but does look like lots of fun. I've asked questions like, "Could a child's booster seat fit in the backseat of that sports car?" and "The kids are old enough to go off-roading, aren't they? We'll go slowly, of course."

So that got me thinking about my old intimidating tech fear: working on cars. I still want to learn how. It can't be that much harder than working on appliances and computers, can it? So I'm doing it. My dad is gone now, but I'm sure that if there's an afterlife, and if they have the Internet in the after life, he'd be happy to read this, happy to know that the little girl who sat for hours watching him work on cars is finally going to get her hands greasy.

Labels: Cars Computers and Technology, My Life

I put off all of my professional desires to be a mom.

Back when I was planning my life, studies showed that, with regards to the health of the baby and mother, the best age for a woman to get pregnant and give birth is before she's 35, so I didn't want to wait until I was in my 40's or 50's to start a family.

I also didn't want to get started with a career and devote myself to it for a few years only to have to stop, put everything on hold, and try to pick up where I left off, so I went directly from college to marriage to motherhood by the age of 25. Yes, it was all very planned, but plans change.

I was going to put the kids in daycare and become a career minded working mom, but it wasn't long after I had my kids that I realized I just couldn't do it. I couldn't leave them for 9+ hours per day. They grow up so quickly, and before you know it, you've missed your chance to be with them when they're kids. But a career will always be there; you'll always have a chance to start a new line of work. Graduate schools aren't going to disappear any time soon either. I can always go back to school after the kids get older. I can always devote my days to a full-time career after they've grown up.

But I've been thinking about that next career after my career in motherhood. I used to want to be a teacher. I studied and trained for it, but now I don't want to do that so much. I keep thinking about becoming a mental health counselor or a marriage and family therapist. I've considered getting my doctorate in psychology. (I definitely have the personal experience in the mental health field.) I've dabbled with the idea of going into more physical fields of health care because I love learning about it, but honestly the bodily fluids thing bothers me too much (not blood, just everything else). Right now I'm a writer and document designer. It's fun, but I still want something more.

I admit that income is a factor in my decision. I used to say that income wasn't important to me, but it is. I grew up poor. I don't want to be poor again. I'm not wealthy now, but I'm happy where I am. I don't have a million dollar home, hobbies that cost thousands of dollars, or memberships in high end country clubs. I don't actually want those things. They wouldn't make me happy anyhow. But I do want enough money to maintain my current lifestyle, fix up my house (maybe add a 2nd floor), travel more, enjoy a few luxuries, and have enough left over to help some worthy non-profits.

Psychologists earn more money than counselors (the little entrepreneur in my head can do math) and get to work with more seriously ill patients, which is what I'd like to do, and the Dr. Kristen Beck title would be a nice bonus (I'll admit my ego's desires), so that's my ultimate career goal, and the ambitious "let's just do the big stuff now" part of me wants to jump right in, but it's easier to get an M.A. or M.S. degree first and then get into a Psy D. program.

So that's my career plan: a masters degree in counseling, work as a counselor for awhile, apply for entrance into a counseling or clinical psychology program (advanced standing), become Dr. Kristen, open my own private practice, and help people while earning a good income.

Now I just have to wait until my kids grow up. Oh well, that'll give me about ten years to study for my exams.

Labels: My Life

So I've been debating quite a bit about whether or not I should have my breasts lifted and augmented. Pregnancy made them grow, breastfeeding made them huge, and then they deflated. I truly feel deformed in the chest area, and the padded ultra-support bras just aren't cutting it; they're not designed for deflated breasts.

I've always said that I would consider the to boost or not to boost the bust arguments after I reached my goal weight of 130 lbs. It always seemed like something I would do someday in the future but not necessarily anytime soon. Well, I'm feeling pretty confident that I'll be reaching that goal in the foreseeable future, especially if I keep losing at the rate that I am, so I really have to start thinking about it. I've been reading up and talking to people, and...

I'm going to do it.

I'm in my 30's, so I have potentially another 70 years ahead of me. I don't want to spend all those years crossing my arms over my chest, especially whenever I'm wearing a bathing suit or happen to answer the door in my pajamas.

OK, for those of you who've had it, anyone got any tips or suggestions? I need to start collecting them now. Email me (or comment), please.

Labels: Health, My Life

I often find myself cringing at the criticism of the nagging voice in my head that asks me, "And what did you accomplish today?"

Usually, I feel like I haven't accomplished anything. I get things partially done. I move two-steps-forward-one-step-back on projects. I switch from task to task and multitask in hopes of keeping on top of everything. It's exhausting, but it doesn't feel significant.

So today I decided to make a list of the things I've accomplished before lunch.

• Woke up (that's always a good thing)
• Weighed myself...172.0 (I was 171.6 yesterday morning, darn salty Mexican food)
• Did the morning rounds of turning off alarms, opening doors and windows, checking on kids, etc.
  
• Trash day (hauled bins and such to the curb)
  
• Ate breakfast and drank coffee (had another night of insomnia and needed the boost)
• While eating breakfast, flipping channels, and waiting for the coffee to kick in, I found myself sucked in by Forces of Nature (a movie I hadn't seen before and really liked)
• Helped kids with a variety of "Mommy can you help me..." tasks (it's all a blur)
• Split my huge Outlook file into more managable, smaller files that are faster to backup
  
• Repaired a network problem on my home network that needed to get fixed
• Discovered an Internet problem that would make it impossible for me to work on my site, and called my husband to find out if he could connect to my site using another ISP to determine if the problem was my computer, my network, my ISP, or my site server... fun
  
• Repaired that darn Internet connection problem
  
• Repaired a synchronization problem between my phone and laptop
  
• Calibrated all of the computer monitors (nothing like looking at neon on one screen and nearly grayscale on another; it makes it hard to do design and image work, both of which were on my to-do list)
• Discovered that my kids were destroying the house like little tornadoes while my back was turned and calmed myself down enough to handle the issue in a civilized manner
• Convinced my kids that cleaning up after yourself is important because if you can take care of yourself, you'll be a happier, more confident person, you'll be a better pet owner (we're trying to get a dog) and a better parent, you can enjoy your space more, you can have more friends over, you won't get hurt by tripping over things, and people will notice your awesome creations instead of your overwhelming messes (after which they actually decided to clean the house themselves... yay!)
• Answered a phone call from my husband to hear about his day at work (just another mundane morning of working with multimillion dollar machines and laser beams)
  
• Checked my email (no emergencies, urgent matters, or bad news... good day)
  
• Downloaded a new alarm program for my phone so my husband doesn't have to listen to the obnoxious alarm, which he hates (instead of waking up to BEEP BEEP BEEEEEEEP, I'll now wake up to "Don't Worry, Be Happy," a much more cheerful way to start the day I think)
• Made a smoothie for lunch (strawberries, blueberries, soy yogurt, and vanilla soy milk)
  
• Drank my smoothie while watching my neighbor wash his car (he loves washing his car) and watching my kids clean the dining room and kitchen and fold a load of laundry (that 30 minute lecture was so worth it!)
• Looked over my task list (I so have to get my recordings for the Personal Defense Podcast done and sent off... Sorry Alex)
  
• Realized that I haven't done my morning core strength training workout yet today, haven't changed out of my pajamas, and haven't done any of the other things I had planned on doing before noon; NOTHING has been checked off of my checklist (grumble grumble)
  
• Wrote all of this down (in this post) to make myself feel better (while repeatedly being interrupted by kids who suddenly want to know the answers to all the questions in the universe, and each answer takes 5 to 10 minutes to explain)
  

Now I just need to figure out how to get my kids to stop running around the house and farting and burping at each other (it's like tag, but way grosser).

Labels: I Actually Accomplished Something, My Life

I'm a very techno-geeky person. I love gadgets. I love software. I love networks.

So I started putting all of my appointments, events, schedules, etc. on MS Outlook (so I can send invites to other people using MS Outlook), synced with my Incite phone (so I know my schedule when I'm not at my laptop), and synced with Google Calendar (in case I lose my laptop and my phone in a tragic fire started by a freak tornado spawned by global warming).

Has it made my more organized? More aware of my schedule? More punctual? Nope. In fact, I honestly don't know what I'm doing for more than a couple days ahead of time because I don't have it nicely posted on my refrigerator or laid out in my household notebook. I can only see one week at a time on my computer, and one day at a time on my phone, so that's all I know.

I had to visit my doctor again, this time for a UTI. Not fun :-( And my doctor asked a very simple question that any person might have asked, "What are you doing this weekend?" I had no freakin' idea what I was going to do even though the weekend was only a couple days away. I wasn't even sure if I was camping or not or lighting fireworks or not. It wasn't one of my most "I'm an organized, intellectual person" moments. Why? Because I never saw it on paper.

I'm a very visual person, but my brain only seems to remember things as they fit within larger things. I remember directions if see them on a map, not a little map, a big map. I remember lectures if I see the notes, not just about the single lecture but the whole course thus far. And I remember my calendar if I see the whole calendar, not just a day or a week at a time. (I can access electronic organizers for scheduling things, setting up appointments, shuffling things around, etc. I did it all the time when I was working in offices and answering phones, but I can't remember it after the electronic organizer is turned off.) Maybe my brain just is old fashioned that way, like the grandparent who can't set the clock on their VCR or DVD player.

I may not need to remember everything. I may not need to remember appointment schedules for clients, directions to a place I will only visit one time in my life, or formulas for calculating astrophysics (even though I've had to do all of those things before). But I do need to remember my calendars and schedule for my personal life, family life, business life, vacation time, etc.

So I went back to my good ol' paper calendars. I'm still using Outlook (so I can send event info to other people), my phone (so I can look up schedules on the go, such as for making appointments on the spot rather than having to go home and call back to make it), and Google Calendar (as a backup). But I have to plan things out with my paper calendars, post the current ones on a bulletin board, file away past or future ones in my household notebook, etc.

I thought that if I just printed out my electronic calendar, I'd be fine. But it doesn't print out in a way that works well. Words get chopped off. Everything looks the same. You can't control formats. Blah blah blah. I have to use one of the calendars I've designed myself.

It's really not that big of a deal. I'm using my paper calendar as my primary calendar. The electronic organizers are just a convenience. It only takes a few seconds to copy one to the other.

Problem Solved

Labels: Goals, My Life, Problem Solved

I'm watching Obsessed right now on A&E. It's a show about people with anxiety, phobias, OCD, etc. I have to say, I'm so happy that there is a show about this, so maybe other people can understand what it's like to have these problems.

One of the nicest feelings is that when I watch this show I feel so free. I know what those people are going through, but that's not me anymore. I don't have any of those terrifying thoughts now. I don't have the urge to do things 3 times. I don't collect unnecessary things. I don't need to do repetitive tasks to keep my brain busy to avoid those intrusive thoughts. I don't need to pack the insane amount of stuff with me when I leave the house. I'm not afraid of dying anymore. I'm not afraid of losing my loved ones anymore. I'm not afraid of contamination like I used to be (I'm at a much more reasonable level now). I don't have panic attacks. And I'm not clinging to all those underlying emotional problems. Yes, I still get stressed out, and when that happens some of those old symptoms start to appear again, but I can make them go away now. Such a nice feeling.

I watch this show, and I just want to give everyone a big hug and tell them that it can get better, but it takes work. It's not easy work, but it's worth it.

Labels: Health, My Life, The Quest for Happiness

I made the mistake of drinking regular coffee today. I have no tolerance for caffeine anymore, so I've been in bed for the last 3 hours staring at my blue LED night light (I hate when it's just too dark, gotta have a night light) all because my adenosine receptors in my brain are blocked by those tiny caffeine molecules. (All hyped up and no biochemistry final to study for.)

So I started having those strange random thoughts that happen when you're staring at a blue LED for 3 hours, like "I wonder if my kindergarten teacher is still alive" and "I wonder what all those kids from kindergarten are doing these days. Maybe I'll look them up." (Maybe it's the gossiper in me, but I frequently find myself in the middle of the night looking up people from my past to see what they're up to. I have issues.) But I couldn't really remember anybody's name from back then. Well, almost anybody. I did recall a couple -- my first boyfriend and his brother. (Odd how the memories from my past almost always involve my having a crush on some boy.)

I was 5 years old and lived in California. I don't remember a lot about him. His name was Matthew. He had a brother named Mark. He lived down the street from my house. I forced him to play with Barbies and make believe that we were grown up and living in a house together. His favorite game to play was doctor. (Oh the irony.) I vividly recall a day when his sister brought him over to my house. He had a bunch of purple flowers in one hand and a candy necklace in the other, all for me. How sweet. I was instantly smitten. We played as we normally did, then he said something like "Hey, let's hide back here," pulling me toward the bushes that lined the back wall of my backyard. We went behind the bushes. I sat down, and he sat next to me with his knees pulled up to his chest. I remember that he was wearing shorts, so his legs were naked, and, even at the age of 5, I liked that (I was definitely born heterosexual). He asked me to kiss him, and I bashfully said no. Then he kissed me on the cheek and asked me to kiss him back. I was still to bashful to comply, so he asked again. (Stubborn kid.) I didn't want to hurt his feelings, so I thought I probably should kiss him, but I also didn't want to make God mad at me and send me to hell for kissing a boy (it's one of the things we learned in Sunday school; God hates it when little girls kiss boys because the devil makes you want to do it), so I decided to compromise. I wouldn't kiss him on the cheek as he wanted. Instead, I'd kiss a safe place, some place God wouldn't be the least bit upset about. I bashfully kissed Matthew's bare knee. Poor boy, such a let down for a first kiss.

So I'm sitting here with insomnia and decided to look him up online just to satisfy my "whatever happened to" curiosity. (And might I just take a moment to note that I'm a very happily married woman who is in no way looking for old flames to hook up with but does have a strange overwhelming interest in what old friends, classmates, crushes, etc. are up to. I'm quite a nosey person really. Just wanted to make that clear.) I searched for my old kindergarten on some of those "say hi to your old classmates" sites to see if perhaps Matthew was on there. He wasn't, but I did find my sister, so I said hi to her instead. (I was also hoping I'd find some names or faces that looked familiar, but there were none that I recognized.)

I Googled his name and his brother's name together along with California to see if I could narrow things down a bit and give myself something more reasonable to search through. Do you have any idea how many people name their sons Matthew and Mark? Darn popularity of the New Testament.

And then I remembered that Matthew and Mark were idential twins, so I Googled their names with the word identical twins. Still too many. Then I added things like ages and potential years of birth. Results: Matthew Hughes, a mixed martial arts champ who honestly looks kinds like a grown-up version of my first boyfriend and is about the same age. Could it be? No. He was born and raised in Illinois, not California, so he's disqualified. (Oh well, it would have been funny at the next family reunion.)

There were others in the search results: artistis, musicians, and so forth, but there wasn't enough information about any of them to lead to anything worth looking at further (they all need better websites and a stronger desire to make their biographies public).

Oh well, the gossiping girl in me will just have to find something else to think about as I lay in bed looking at that blue LED night light. Hmmm, maybe I can count sheep in French. Un, deux, trois...

Labels: My Life

I'm tired. I've just finished a week in the Newberry National Volcanic Monument.

Whenever I go camping, I eat. I stress eat. And eat. And eat. Then I eat high calorie foods and drink high calorie drinks. I almost always come back from traveling, camping, etc. a couple pounds heavier. I was determined that this time I would come back weighing the same or less. I haven't weighed myself yet, but I'm very proud of my eating habits.

I was worried that I wouldn't get enough exercise. No problem there. We hiked through the lava tubes. Hiked over the Big Obsidian Flow. Gazed at waterfalls. Hiked along rivers. And then we biked through Sun River. The wonderful part was that the last time I did any of that stuff, I was so out of shape that I struggled through it. This time, it was all easy, so easy that I wanted to do more but my kids couldn't keep up. Oh the irony.

I also conquered one of my biggest fears on the way home: driving the truck with the RV trailer from start to end, parked it and all (none of that "just during the easy parts" stuff). My children made a "Driving the Trailer" badge/emblem for me to mark my accomplishment. The badge had a big K on it. Why? My kids said that it was because I graduated the kindergarten level of RV driving. To graduate higher levels I need to be able to do it "without Daddy's help." I'll work on that.

I got home and turned on the TV. Michael Jackson and Farah Fawcette are dead. I'm not surprised about Farah. So sad that she had to die of cancer. I hate cancer. Cancer has killed or threatened the lives of so many people I love. It's horrible to watch somebody die of it. I want to do whatever I can to keep myself, my husband, and my children from falling victim to it. Michael Jackson's death surprised me, but we all die, and I'm OK with that, so I'm not too shocked. I was never really a fan anyhow. Liked a few of his songs. Liked Weird Al's versions of his music better. At least he got to die rather quickly, not with all that suffering the comes from cancer. I wonder how long it will be before people start saying, "He's still alive! I saw him at 7-11 with Elvis."

Labels: Current Events, Health, My Life, The Quest for Happiness

It's so nice we didn't have to kill anyone. Current mood: weird So we decided to go to sleep last night, my husband and I, and several minutes after getting into bed... We heard a noise outside our bedroom window. Damn racoons again...they're always climbing all over our patio furniture, which we shove up against the house to keep the wind from blowing it all off the deck. Then there was a bigger noise and a bigger one and then banging and scratching on the window and the sudden confusion of "how the hell does a racoon make noises that big?" Dan went to the window to scare the little buggers away. He got the flashlight and looked out the blinds. "Is it the racoon?" I asked. "No," he said in a confused tone. Then loudly, to make it obvious he said, "It's a man! Call 911." I picked up the phone, called 911, told them what was going on, and gave our address. "He's just standing there," my husband said. The guy must have been trying to "think invisible" hoping my husband wouldn't see him. He tried to aim the flashlight at the guys face, so he could get a good look at him, but he suddenly took off. My husband rushed to the girls room to protect them (fortunately, they never woke up until everything was over with). After we gave all the info. to the 911 operator, she said the police were on their way. We started calling the neighbors to let them know to be aware of anything suspicious. The police showed up and said they had just had a similar call and were looking for the guy from that situation. They went searching for the guy and found him, due to my husband's description. He was some drunk guy named Mark-something who says he was trying to get into his ex-wife's house and apparently thought our house was the ex-wife's house. The good part is that nobody got hurt, all the neighbors stuck together to help each other out, the guy was caught, and he never managed to get into our house, which means we didn't have to kill him. :-) Ahhhh, now I just have to remember how to relax.

Labels: My Life

Wanton violence in my home Current mood: cheerful My husband has been teaching my 4-year-old and 2-year-old daughers the joys of World of Warcraft. They're already addicted to fishing and pointing out "bad guys" to Daddy. My 4-year-old has already become an expert and enjoys telling Daddy that he should change his attack and movement strategies. I guess it's better than Barney, and it does teach them the usefulness of carrying around large weapons. I have a feeling that with the three of them playing WOW all day, I'm going to have a lot more time for myself. I think I'll take up sculpting or something.

Labels: Funny Families Kids and Parenthood, My Life

Nerdy Homeowners Current mood: exhausted In school, they tell you that you need to take physics for college prep. They should have boasted how much money it can save you if you become a homeowner. It turns out that if you have a little physics know-how, you can move a building with some pvc pipes, 2x4s, wooden wedges, a couple of shovels, just two very worn-out parents, and some laughing children. Plus, you don't even need to spend your hard earned cash paying for a crew of sweaty workers to do it for you.

Labels: My Life

I conquered two fears at the same time So anyone who knows me knows that #1 I'm afraid of heights, and #2 I'm afraid of scary movies. This weekend, we went camping at Trillium Lake on Mt. Hood (an annual tradition to break in the RV at the beginning of the camping/travel season) and decided to check out Timberline Lodge. Timberline has always freaked me out for two reasons. #1 It's way the hell up on the mountain, 6000 ft elevation. (There's always snow up there. You can even go skiing/snowboarding in the summer.) Everywhere you look, you're looking down over the edge of some steep slope or drop. I had vertigo by just sitting in the restaurant. I don't think the reduced oxygen helped much. #2 It's where they filmed The Shining. I always thought the horror film thing would give me the heebie jeebies, but it didn't. Maybe horror movies don't scare me anymore. (I don't know. I haven't seen one in such a long time that I haven't tested this theory.) It was a very nice place, though. I think we'll have to stay up there for a weekend just for fun.

Labels: My Life

Death Sucks! My Grandma (also my very dear friend and mentor) died this week. She was one of my favorite people. Every time we spoke, we talked for hours. I can't even begin to list all the things I've learned from her. As soon as I found out, I wanted to call her to ask her if she was OK. Weird how our habits don't get the message right away. I took me almost a year to stop doing that with my dad, to stop wanting to call him to tell him about our family camping trips or adventures. I wonder if it'll take a year for me to stop picking up the phone to call Grandma. Death sucks, but I keep focusing on the bright side. Death is just a part of life. We all do it eventually. Better to know somebody for a little while than never to have known them at all. Don't focus on losing them; focus on everything you gained by having them in your life. Honor them by living the best life you can, not wasting your life by wallowing in grief. That's what they would want you to do; that's what I would want everyone else to do when I die. Live life to the fullest and help others do the same.

Labels: My Life

This was an old post from another blog that I'm trying to phase out. I'm just copying anything that I'd like to remember, and I'm re-posting it here.

Just say no to door-to-door salesmen So these two people came to my door, saying they were selling magazines to get points, and xyz points = xyz dollars for them to use toward college. I was having one of my charitable days and decided to go ahead and buy a subscription, but I don't like magazines cluttering up my house, so they said they would have the subscription sent to the local women's shelter. Sounded good. I chit-chatted with them about how I also grew up poor, have strived to better myself, and tried to donate money to good causes whenever I could. Then I went on about how happy I was to hear that they were trying to better their lives and told them how college made a huge difference for me and lots of other people I know. But I kept getting that little twinge of "something's wrong." When they tried to casually tell me that one (1) magaine subscription would be $60 and the minimum order was 6 subscriptions. A rather hefty markup for magazines, but fundraisers are often like that. I said in my most compassionate tone, "I love helping people, but if I did that, my children wouldn't eat that week." They said they would allow me to order just one subscription, the cheapest one they had, for $30. As I was writing the check, those gut feelings that something wasn't right, just kept growing. And then they asked me not to write anything in the memo area of my check. (Giant flashing warning sign!) So instead of having a big confrontation with them (I've dealt with that before), I said thank you, gave them the check, and locked my door. Then I researched their organization online, and found out that they were frauds. No big deal. I canceled the check through the bank, faxed over a cancellation of my order, and figured I would just keep an eye open for anything suspicious on our bank account. At worst, I got suckered. Then today I'm reading the local news... Turns out one of the guys with the magazine selling group sold a couple of magazines to a woman who let the man in her house. He strangled her until she went unconscious and then robbed her house. Another guy in the group had sexually assulted a woman in my area. I'm officially declaring myself lucky. From now on, the only people on my doorstep I'll talk to more then 30 seconds will be kids and people I know.

Labels: My Life

Week 1: Everyone in our family had a cold. My daughter got strep throat. We took my daughter to the doctor to get antibiotics. While at the doctor's office, I picked up the flu (even though I tried to sanitize myself and everyone else with gel, wipes, disinfectant spray, and a good old soap and water).

Weekend 1: My husband came home from a business trip. Soon after he got home, my fever started and went from 103 to 104 to 105.

Week 2: My kids both got the flu. My poor kids are having some nasty fevers too. Nobody went to school My husband got the flu. My poor husband. He had to miss a bunch of work but did manage to work from home.

Weekend 2: Our house sounds like a bizarre symphony of coughs. Everything in our home has been washed and disinfected multiple times. Whine and groan. Whine and groan. I feel icky.

Week 3: Dear flu, please go away. Sincerely, Uhhhhggggghhhh cough cough.

Labels: My Life, Things that Annoy Me

I repeatedly hear people complain about how they went to college to get a degree, graduated, and are still making the same money that they would have made without the degree. I hear people complain about how college is a waste of time. And, of course, there are those people who comment to me that I went to college to become a teacher, but it has been years since I've taught a class (a gentle way of saying, "You wasted all that time and money!").

But I didn't. Nothing was wasted.

I first got an A.A. in Liberal Studies, a general education major for students planning to transfer to a B.A. program. I focused my A.A. program on psychology, computers, and language arts. The psychology classes taught me that I wasn't a screw-up (saving me lots of money on therapy), introduced me to how the brain works when students are trying to learn (important for teaching and creating curriculum), and gave me deep insight into how to be a good parent (which made everything worth it right there). The computer classes taught me to build websites and research like a pro (which is the primary source of my income). The language arts classes taught me how to speak to a crowd (always useful), write content that the average person can read and follow (another source of income for me), analyze literature in ways that I just didn't quite grasp in high school (which improved my fiction writing passion), understand art and music in ways I didn't understand before (enriching the creative side of my life), and improve my foreign language skills (which has certainly served me well in many situations). Meanwhile, going to college gave me self confidence, connected me to a variety of people who taught me about life, and resulted in my meeting my now husband.

Then I completed a program for freelance writing. This was back before there was an abundance of writing information on the Internet, so it was the only way I could truly learn about the writing industry (again, a source of my income).

I then got a B.A. in Natural Science, a science based major for becoming a multiple subject teacher. Understanding how the world works via the perspectives of scientists was life changing. It turned me into a hard-core environmentalist, a health nut, and an avid nature tourist (all of which have made my life better as well as improved my husband and children's lives in so many ways). I also took more psychology and education theory classes. Knowing how other people think changed the way I interacted with others and taught me how to help others understand what I was trying to tell them. It has improved my parenting abilities, my teaching abilities, and my relationship abilities as well as my own ability to learn and adapt in my everyday life. Then I took philosophy classes, and that just changed everything about how I saw the world. I decided to let go of a religion that was holding me back from having deep joy and instead form my own beliefs about spirituality. Meanwhile, performing arts classes, like drama and music, gave me the courage to let go of my fear of the spotlight and taught me to be silly and have fun again, a skill we all have as children but sometimes lose through the turmoils of growing up.

I probably spent about $15,000 in higher education costs (e.g. tuition, books, fieldtrips, fees, etc.).

Today, I think about what I would do if somebody today told me that I could become a happier person and a better wife and parent for the price of a small car. I wouldn't be guaranteed to have a job that pays more than $100k per year. I might end up making just minimum wagefor the rest of my life, but at least I'd be happy (something even millionaires would give up everything to be). Would I do it? Certainly.

We initially go to school to get a better job, and we assume that any other benefits are just a bonus. But after going through all my schooling, I have realized that we should go to school to become better, happier people by following things we are passionate about (whether it be psychology, techology, history, etc.), and if we happen to get a good job because of it, then that is the bonus.

Besides, what is the use of having a high paying job if you're miserable? What is the use of saving time and money if it leaves you lacking the skills necessary to be a good parent? As many of the homeless people who lived around my university taught me during our daily conversations, there is more to life than money and posessions. It's easier to be happy when you're rich if you already know how to be happy when you're poor. And if you don't know how to be happy even when you're pennyless, then you'll never be happy, no matter how much money you have.

Labels: My Life

Between Thanksgiving and today I've gained 10 lbs. I'm 184 lbs. this morning (which means I've gained back a total of 16 lbs. of the weight I had lost). Oh well, better to gain 10 lbs. in one month because there were so many delicious desserts and cheeses in my hands than to lose 10 lbs. in one month because we couldn't afford food.

Am I to say, "Woe is me because I ate cookies and candy by the handfuls" while other people are looking for scraps in trash cans? And then there are people in remote desolate places of the world who only wish they had trash cans they could search through. Am I to say, "Woe is me because I didn't have to spend 12 hours a day laboring in a physically demanding job" while other people are digging in mines and lifting heavy rocks and timbers? So I will not be complaining about my weight. How lucky I am to be able to gain it while others die in skinny, bony bodies from lack of nutrition.

But I will not be naive either. To much of anything, even a good thing, is simply too much. (It's a lesson I've been trying to teach my children, but I'm afraid I'm rarely a good role model since I tend to vacillate between extremes in much of what I do.) Too much of the good life with lots of good food and little need to struggle in physical work has left me in an unhealthy state.

It's odd since health is so important to me. I avoid carcinogens as if they were infected with the plague and would kill us all immediately. I refuse to consume hydrogenated oils, artificial anything, or large quantities of corn syrup. I do as much as I can to avoid becoming contaminated by germs outside of my home. I focus on safety first in everything I do because I fear that harm will come if I don't. I do it all to prolong my life and the lives of the people I love and to make our lives more pleasurable and fulfilling. But when it comes to my excess weight and sedentary lifestyle, I am my greatest health risk.

So again, I start a New Year with the resolution to get to a healthier weight (130 lbs. is always the goal but I'd be better off with any improvement). My goal is not to fit into the latest fashions or turn heads. I simply want to be healthy, energetic, and agile. I want to set a good example of health for my kids. And I want to enjoy the process. I don't want to do exercises that I dread; life is too short to do things we hate. I'm determined to find something active that I enjoy doing. And I certainly won't be participating in any fad diets. Moderation is always the panacea.

But above all I will avoid complaining about how blessed I am to have the opportunities to be fat while so many others are starving and physically overtaxed. It's like complaining about having too much money and not having to work for it. I refuse to be so spoiled.

Labels: Goals, My Life

Things I Never Want to Do Again

I don't want to sell junk, more stuff for people to shove into drawers and pile onto shelves then throw out into the landfill. I don't want to convince people to buy things they don't need. I don't want to add clutter to the world.

I don't want to sell things that kill people, or at least make them very sick. I don't want to give cookies and convenience foods filled with hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup to children, sickly adults, and people who are obviously obese already. I don't want to sell tobacco or diet aids to anyone.

I don't want to do anything that hurts animals, like sell meat, or sell dairy or eggs from animals that are treated inhumanely and are ultimately going to be slaughtered.

I don't want to do a job that can easily be done by a robot or a computer, especially if the reason why I'm doing it is that I cost less than the computer.

I don't want to make things more complicated than they need to be.

I don't want to be around people who seem to hate their lives and want me to suffer with them.

Things I Enjoyed Doing

I love working with kids.

I love teaching people new things.

I love helping people through difficult times in their lives.

I love helping people to help themselves.

I love making people smile or laugh, even if I have to make a fool of myself to do it.

I love doing something that other people find inspiring.

I love being around people who love life and have a passion for what they're doing.

I like doing jobs that earn lots of money (as long as I don't feel guilty about what I have to do to get it).

I love doing things that help the environment and, thus, all humanity, animals, and other forms of life.

Labels: My Life

I have migraines. I hate it.

A couple times a month I see shadows and lights in my peripheral vision. (In my naive days, I thought they were ghosts. I know better now.) Sometimes looking at bright lights will cause a sensation in my head like an electric jolt. Then my face and the left side of my body starts to go numb then tingles for several minutes to hours. (And that's when I always freak out and wonder if I'm having a stroke.) Within hours the pain will start on the right side of my head. At first, it's a stabbing pain, impossible to ignore, and then it goes away. Later, it comes back as a throbbing pain that starts small and over a period of hours or days intensifies. Then it disappears.

For now, the pain is tolerable as long as I take some over-the-counter medicine. I'm debating trying a prescription for migraines. I'm against taking narcotics because I hate feeling out of control, I fear developing an addiction, and they only result in rebound pain anyhow for things like head and body aches. I just hate taking medication. It always comes with side-effects, and you can't forget about the way it trickles money from the family budget.

Argh....

Labels: My Life

I've been copying my old VHS home movies to DVD (to preserve the original recording) and DV (to edit on my computer). It amazes me how much old memories, from decades ago, are still fresh in my mind even though I haven't thought about those memories in many, many years. I see a small clip and I can remember entire scenarios surrounding those clips, people, voices, background noises, events, smells, physical sensations, emotions, ... everything. The same thing happens when I look at pictures, smell familiar smells (like the combination of coffee, cigarettes, and dirty ash trays or cigarette breath and beer or Irish Spring soap), hear familiar noises (like the "boing" of a spring doorstop or the hums and clanks of garbage trucks), or see familiar images (like snail and slug trails or acorns). I can even vividly recall things from my toddler and pre-school days.

I often hear parents and "experts" say that children won't remember things when they get older. They say it about bad experiences: "Don't worry. He'll forget about it in a few days." They say it about good experiences: "I don't want to pay to take my kids on trips because they won't remember the trip anyhow." They even say it about everyday activities: "You couldn't possibly remember doing that. You were too young." But I was a kid, and I remember it.

I remember traveling before I was even school-age, and I remember the trips we took during summer school breaks. I remember traveling to the Grand Canyon and looking down at people and mules who seemed no larger than sugar ants. I remember driving to Las Vegas, laughing at the giant cowboy in neon lights, and checking out of a motel room filled with roaches. I remember driving over the Golden Gate Bridge and listening to my dad tell us how there were sharks in the bay and pointing out the San Quintin prison. I remember things grown-ups said, and I remember how confused I was about why grown-ups acted the way that they did. I remember how scared and happy I could be at the same time. I remember it all.

For some reason I feel compelled to tell people about those stories. I've turned into one of those old ladies who tell stories to children, and most of those stories start with "When I was a kid...." Strange.

It has changed the way that I interact with my own children (and other people's children), though. I don't for a second believe that "they'll forget this in a few days." The average, healthy, human brain remembers.

Even if it doesn't access those memories for years, the brain will store them. They will sit in a dusty cardboard box made of neurons, tucked away in a shelf in a closet made of brain tissue, waiting for a trigger, something to open the closet door, so the box can come tumbling down off the shelf and spill onto the floor, revealing the memory movies inside. And the older I get, the more I find myself opening that closet door.

Labels: My Life

Several months ago I started writing an article for Kristen's Guide. The article was about the importance of prioritizing your values, doing the most important things first, and living life the way you truly want to live it.

While writing the article, I realized that I had lots of priorities that had been neglected. Quite frankly, finishing the article and writing an update every week for Kristen's Guide wasn't on that list of "if I died tomorrow" priorities, so I set such tasks aside and focused on the big stuff.

I've been playing more with my kids.

I've been making time to exercise nearly every day.

I've been having more fun with my husband and laughing more. (We were starting to become a bit too serious, a bit too "gotta check this and that off the to-do list.")

I painted a pink and purple castle on the wall of my daughters' bedroom. (The room is covered by an every-growing mural, which, I must say, also acts as a record of the improvements I've made when it comes to painting artistically.)

I started transfering all of my old VHS home movies to DVD (the VHS are deteriorating) and have even been working on making a fancy-schmancy compilation, with all the boring bits edited out.

I started reading fiction and poetry again. I've been so focused on non-fiction during the last decade that I almost forgot how important fiction is.

I started writing fiction and poetry again.

I started spending more time working on Corla Kids, a website I'm putting together for my kids. (It has a long way to go, but all good things are built up a little at a time.)

I started standing up for myself, putting my foot down, saying "no," and being honest about how I feel. (The responses that the people I've said "no" to hasn't always been wonderful in this area, but I don't really care anymore, a very nice feeling indeed.)

I've been traveling. (Crater Lake is beautiful.)

I've started volunteering again and am continuing to support causes that are important to me.

And, of course, I've been spending time figuring out what else is really important to me.

So Kristen's Guide has been a bit neglected. But then again, I started Kristen's Guide because I wanted a handy guide to a better life (for me and for anyone else who happened to read it, but mostly for me). And it so far has worked. Kristen's Guide has improved my life so much that I don't have as much time for the website as I used to. Oh the irony.

Labels: Blogging and Websites, My Life

I've been trying to deal with this anxiety, OCD, depression thing for years. Therapy helps. Medication can help (but it comes with nasty side effects). Improving your diet and eating lots of good fats, vitamins, etc. help. But what helps me most of all is cardio exercise.

I was reading about all the various benefits there are to cardio exercise, and it turns out that cardio exercise is like medicine for the brain.

All week long I've been walking or doing indoor cardio in the morning. Since doing that, my brain has certainly been functioning much better. It's a huge difference. I'm more creative, more productive, more optimistic, more logical, and better able to solve problems and remember things.

Here I thought I was getting worse with my mental issues because I was gaining weight, feeling overwhelmed, couldn't control my thoughts, and dealing with the typical stresses of life. It turns out I was just lacking cardio exercise. Now whenever I feel like binge eating because I'm stressed or crying because I'm depressed or beating myself up because I'm not controlling my anxiety well enough, I'm going to grab my jump rope and do 100 jumps or get out my stepbench and march up and down it for 10 minutes, or put on my shoes and head out for a walk.

Strength training is great for building muscles, bones, connective tissues, and metabolism, but cardio is exercise for the brain.

I'll definitely be writing a Kristen's Guide article about this.

Labels: My Life

I used to hope that "one day" I'd be free of anxiety disorders, free of OCD, and just plain ol' normal. Today though, I (with the help of my therapist) realized that I will probably always have anxiety disorders, more than the average population does. I have to think of it as a chronic lifelong disorder. I've had it since I was a little kid, and I will probably always have it. It has manifested itself in dozens of ways and it has led to depression, phobias, compulsions, and some bad decisions (like binge eating or shopping) to comfort myself. Worst of all, it can sometimes leave me incapacitated and keeps me from being the mother and wife I want to be.

I've read book after book about how to "cure your anxiety" or "stop anxiety," but those books are wrong. It isn't something that I can cure, something that will stop one day. It will always be there. For me, it's a chronic, longterm disorder. I will always have to manage it. I will always have to carefully manage my stress levels, physical health, and cognitive habits, similar to the way that a type 1 diabetic will always have to carefully manage their sugar levels, diet, and lifestyle. I can't take a day off from management without seriously screwing up my brain. I have to do it every day, forever.

It's really not such a bad thing. There are worse things in the world to deal with, so why should I complain? It's just the idea that bothers me, the idea that I can't let go like other people can. It's like my asthma. I grew up with asthma, so I couldn't do things that other kids did. I couldn't do sports. PE teachers hated me. And my sedentary lifestyle led to being overweight. I always envied the athletic kids. Eventually I learned to just accept it, to manage it.

And now it's the same thing with my stress levels. I can't be spontaneous. I have to plan as much as I can. I have to stay on a routine. And at the same time, I can't obsess about it or try to be perfect with my management efforts because that would also cause problems. I need to avoid things that might create stressful situations. That means that there are many things that I wanted to do but I can't do without risking screwing up my brain.

Oh well, it will be OK. Things always work out. Good comes from everything. And I'm sure it will be much easier than it seems.

Labels: My Life

I've been quite stressed out lately. Half of it is hormonal. Part of it is health related. Some of it is frustration with my weight and my ever growing to-do list. But there's also a huge part of it that is due to frustration with other people.

Lately, I've been dealing with people who try to push their responsibilities on me because they're so incredibly selfish, self-centered, and disrespectful toward everyone else. I swear such people gravitate to me, mistaking an occasional helping hand as volunteering for full-time servitude. I don't mind helping people who are in a bind (I love to help people), but I certainly am not going to be treated like an unpaid assistant, nanny, chef, or counselor.

I just say "no" to such people and go on with my life. "No, I will not wake up at 6 am to babysit your child so you can have an affair. And no, I won't do it at any other time of day either." "No, I will not put my life on hold and take over the work on your projects, your household duties, and your parenting responsibilities during the next two weeks so you can go on vacation at a moment's notice." "No, I will not give you money so you can buy drugs, and I certainly don't believe that the money is to pay for your kids whom aren't even living with you."

It's easy to say "no" to people who ask for a favor. I'm fully aware of my boundaries, and I enforce them diligently. But I'm finding that some of these people are avoiding the "no" by simply not asking at all. What do you do when they leave their hungry kids on your front porch and drive away? What do you do when they walk in your house without your knowledge of it and do who-knows-what? What do you do when they volunteer you for projects that essential to the functioning of an organization that helps people? What do you do when they open accounts in your name?

In many cases, I could easily file a police report and press charges. But in some cases, pressing charges would actually make things worse for children and other people in need.

For now, the best thing I can do is assert myself, tell them that I will not stand for their behavior, and, if necessary, cut them out of my life. I hate cutting people off, but sometimes it's the healthiest thing to do for everyone.

Labels: My Life

During the last several weeks, I cut my hand and had to have stitches, broke the kitchen faucet (a $200 oops) and wasted a day trying to fix it, adopted a new cat, worked on training the new cat, invested in a super soaker to squirt my cats whenever they start fighting, watched my daughter graduate from kindergarten, had an OCD breakdown, started a new OCD therapy session, took a "break" from my weight loss efforts (back to focusing on maintenance) and beat myself up every day for it, cared for sick kids, got sick myself, got better, tried out a new fancy-schmancy restaurant, bought a new bike (yay, it's bike season again), watched my husband teach my daughter to ride a two-wheeler, went camping, took the family to see a bunch of cannons fired (Memorial Day) at a WWII fort, took the kids to buy Father's Day gifts, cleaned the house, watched the house get messed up again within moments of the cleaning (repeat, repeat, repeat, debate letting my kids grow up in a messy house), took on some new website design customers, signed up for a new volunteer position, and contemplated the meaning of life... again

I'm pooped!

As soon as I recharge from dealing with the real world, I'll start being more cyber-productive again, I'm sure.

Labels: My Life

One of our beloved cats died a couple of years ago, and since then his brother has been rather lonely whenever we leave the house. We have cat sitters and house sitters who hang out with him every day when we're on vacation or overnight trips, but he still certainly seems to miss snuggling up with his dear old brother. So we decided that we would get another cat to keep him company when we're not home.

Yesterday we adopted a 6-year-old kitty, an indoor big guy from the county animal shelter, and brought him home. He's one of the most mellow cats I've ever met. At the shelter, other cats would hiss, and he would just walk on by as if they weren't even there. He immediately sat on our laps and began to snuggle with us. And he didn't even hesitate to come out of his pet carrier and march around our bedroom as if he owned the place. This guy seems very comfortable in the face of change (I'm sure I could learn something from him).

The problem, though, is that our new kitty is quite eager to march around the rest of the house, too. He can't, of course, because our resident kitty is not interested in sharing his house yet (it can take weeks or even months for cats to accept each other and get friendly, argh). So last night, he sat meowing at the bedroom door, begging to get out. This lasted pretty much the entire night. I barely had any sleep, and when I did manage to drift off into dreamland, I kept having nightmares about fighting cats.

I hate fighting. Anger and aggression are two things I prefer to avoid at all costs, even when it comes to cats. So I'm now exhausted and stressed out by OCD thoughts of my cats fighting with each other, and I'm quickly recognizing that I'm subconsciously searching for a compulsion to turn off the intrusive thoughts. (I'm really getting tired of OCD.)

I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that our feline companions will learn to like each other. I know it will take time, but I'm so impatient. At least I can rest a bit easier knowing that we've helped save another pet from homelessness.

(Go find your own pet to save at http://www.petfinder.com)

Labels: My Life

I've been procrastinating excessively lately because when I think about doing something, I tend to think about all the unwanted things that could happen if I do it. The worrying is exhausting, but it's also ruining my life.

Why I Procrastinate Instead of Doing Exercise:

If I exercise by myself, I won't be spending enough time with my kids, and somebody might attack me if I go out, and coyotes might attack me if I go hiking in the woods, so I need to make sure I have my protective gear first, but it takes so long to assemble it, so I'll do it later when I have more time.

If I exercise with my kids, I'll have to try to protect them too, and they'll likely whine and fuss as kids tend to do, and I'll just be too frustrated and stressed out to enjoy it, so I'll have to bring along drinks and snacks and plan out potty breaks, and I'm too tired to do all of that right now, so I'll rest up first and do it later.

If I don't study the proper way to exercise, I'll injure myself, so I have to study up first, and I'm too tired to study right now, so I'll do it later.

Why I Procrastinate Instead of Working on Kristen's Guide:

If I start working on an article or printable, I'll need to sit down and focus on it, and I'm too tired to focus, so I'll rest up first.

If I start working on an article or printable, my family will interrupt me, and I'll get frustrated, and that will put me in a grumpy mood, and I'll snap at one of my family members, and then I'll feel guilty and they'll feel hurt, so I'll just wait until I have time to really sit down and work on it.

If I start working on an article or printable, I'll be sitting instead of exercising, and I'll probably end up sitting all day and not exercising at all, so I'll get fatter, so I'll do it after I exercise. (But then I procrastinate instead of exercising.)

If I start working on my site, other things that need to get done wont' get done, like cleaning, projects around the house, gardening, stuff on my to-do list, etc. So I'll do all of that stuff first, then I'll work on my site.

Why I Procrastinate Instead of Working on Corla Kids:

I have to practice my cartooning, so I can make sure that I have up my best work.

I have to learn how to use all of the Adobe products like a pro before I start any projects on them.

I have to make sure I plan the site perfectly, so I won't have to keep changing it, so it will be perfect from the start.

Why I Procrastinate Instead of Working on My House or Yard:

It's going to be a huge, exhausting project, and I'm too tired. I need to rest first.

I'm going to clean things up, get them organized, be very proud of myself for finishing the task, and then, when I finally think I can relax, I'll turn around and discover that somebody has made a huge mess again, and I'll just feel like crying to see that I've wasted all that time doing something that was undone, and I'll get angry, and there will be an argument, and other people will feel hurt, and I'll feel guilty. I don't want to go down that road, so I'll wait until I feel more up to the task of convincing everyone to keep things clean and organized.

I need to exercise first, and I need to work on my sites first.

While I'm Procrastinating:

Let me just sit down for awhile, drink another cup of tea, read a book, watch TV, look something up on the Internet, and maybe get a bite to eat. Then I'll feel refreshed. And then I can plan out what I'm going to do and be ready to tackle the world.

But I never feel refreshed. I never do feel ready to tackle the world.

I do plan, and plan, and plan again, but when it's time to start step-one, I start to think about how my plan isn't perfect enough, so I start all over again.

My to-do list just keeps growing, and I feel more and more overwhelmed, and more and more guilty for not getting enough done, and more and more angry at myself and anyone else who dares to want anything from me. And every noise makes me cringe with over-stimulation, but if I try to get away from noise, away from demands, away from the planning, I feel guilty for being lazy.

The Result:

I dread doing what I need to do, and I feel guilty for not doing it, and I just end up angry at myself for not being productive enough.

I do fine with the kids. I get them to school and back again. I watch the kids in the neighborhood. I volunteer at the school. I organize groups. I make sure that we get to all of the play dates and parties. Kids are my #1 priority.

But I feel that I need to be doing more, being more balance, living a healthier lifestyle, earning more money, tending to my marriage more, being more productive, being more organized, and I just don't feel like I'm doing any of that. One of the things I do to earn money is help people take control of their lives, yet, I don't feel that I have control of myself right now, so I feel like a fraud, like a doctor who smokes and eats junk food, like an athletic trainer who never exercises, like a home builder who lives in a broken-down shack, like a police officer who engages in illegal activity. I know what I need to do. I know how the process works. But I just can't seem to bring myself to do any of it.

I'm just stuck between dread and guilt.

The Cure:

I keep looking for escape, for avoidance, but I don't need a vacation. I don't need more time avoiding my to-do list. I don't need more time to plan. I just need to face it all, one thing at a time, get it all done, move forward.

I need to end all this procrastination. I just need start doing something right now.

Labels: My Life

My cold turned into a flu. The flu turned into a middle ear infection. My middle ear infection turned into a ruptured ear drum (ouch, ouch, ouch!) and an inner ear infection.

So now, I'm deaf in my left ear, except for an annoyingly loud case of tinnitus. I can hear perfectly fine with my right ear, but the ringing in my left ear is so loud that I can barely hear anything from my right. It's like trying to talk to someone while at a noisy concert. Even if they're screaming, you can barely hear them. It has significantly diminished my social life since I can barely carry on a conversation.

My kids also have fluid in their ears, so none of us can talk to each other without gestures, lip reading, and very loud sentences that start with "I said...!" Since we all know a bit of sign language, we've been using that to communicate.

I'm also insanely dizzy. There are lots of definitions for faith. For me, it believing that something is true, even when there is evidence to the contrary, simply because you are certain that it's true. I've discovered that I have immense faith in my eyes because I can't trust my sense of balance. I have to just keep trusting my eyes to tell me that I'm walking in a straight line, not going up or downhill, not falling, and not swaying from side to side. Every movement feels very dreamlike. Unfortunately, I can't drive, and I can barely walk anywhere. I wouldn't even dare to ride a bike. Fortunately, I've learned to tolerate the motion sickness quite well.

Hey, on the bright side, if I ever need to perform surgery while on a ship during a storm, I will have the superior balance skills to do it.

Labels: My Life

I hate being sick. It must be the flu, part 2.

I've had hardly any sleep on top of it because my kids are sick too. They seem to get worse at night, so I've been lucky to get 3 hours of sleep per night.

We're all coughing, sneezing, sniffling, managing fevers (100 - 104.8 F), soothing sore throats, slathering our noses with Vicks Baby Rub (hey, I like it better than the traditional Vapor Rub), drinking gallons of hot tea and cold juice, taking hot baths to relax sore muscles, staring off into space, and groaning.

I honestly don't even have the mental ability right now to write anything for Kristen's Guide. I wanted to do a big to-do for Earth Day, but I'm having a hard enough time just trying to write this entry. It has taken 15 minutes just to get this far. (And thank you for inventing spell check.) An entire KG article would take all day, and then it would probably still sound incoherent.

Hey, at least being sick, tired, and mentally useless has let me catch up on my neighborhood cat watching. There's a new gray and black one with a cut off tail. Poor thing.

On another note...

A couple days ago, a woman came to my door asking for help. She was trying to get away from her angry, physically aggressive boyfriend. He's the kind of guy who is already living with a woman whom he has a two-year-old daughter with while dating this other girl on the side. I wouldn't be surprised if there were even other girls in the scene, and they're all probably getting physically pushed around and abused as well. Nice guy.

So we took her in, locked the doors, and called 911. Meanwhile in my brain, I ran through multiple scenarios of what I would do if he showed up at the door, if he tried to get in the house, if he tried to hurt anyone, etc. I decided that I could use colored pencils to poke his eyes out if I had to. Fortunately the guy never did come to my house. The kids thought it was cool to have uniformed police officers in our living room. And on the TV, Oprah was asking the question, what would you do if you saw a woman getting abused by her boyfriend? (I already knew the answer.) The police thanked me for helping the woman out. They said that most people don't want to get involved. (I patted myself on the back as well.) She managed to find somebody to come pick her up, and then she went home.

I hope she stopped seeing that quality guy. She seemed like the pretty and smart type who has no self confidence or self esteem. She could easily find somebody better if she just stopped settling for less. It's a typical story.

Standards, women! Standards! Deciding to stick to a set list of standards was the best thing I ever did for my life. It convinced me to say good-bye to guy after guy until I met my husband. My husband is the best man in the world, at least to me, because he has exceeded every standard on my list.

Labels: My Life

I'm tired of having horrible movies playing in my head constantly. I'm having a hard time making them stop lately. I'm starting a new wave of therapy.

On the positive side, there's nothing to make you appreciate life like watching your loved ones die several dozen times per day within unwanted mental movies.

The stress of it all is exhausting. I can't sleep. When I do sleep I have nightmares. When I'm awake, I have intrusive thoughts. I just constantly feel tense and nervous. Every noise or unexpected movement makes me jump. I'm trying everything I can to relax, but the more I relax, the more I seem to have those horrible thoughts. It's better to just keep my mind busy all the time, so I've been spending lots of time learning stuff and solving problems, the more complex the better.

And, of course, there's the compulsions. I've been working on those lately with CBT. The CBT isn't as effective for the intrusive thoughts though.

I refuse to go back on medication. I'm convinced I can manage it with psychological counseling, diet, and exercise. I just wish I could relax, just for an hour or two. I'm so tired.

Labels: My Life

15 Minutes a Day
I've decided to use my birthday (a couple weeks ago) as a "New Year's" resolution day. After all, it's a new year of my life. I've realized that the easiest way to work on goals and projects is to break them down into small pieces. Then, every day, work on completing those pieces a little at a time. For me, 15 minutes is the optimal time for working on a task. It's enough time to get something done, to make progress, but it isn't overwhelming.

Journaling
Journaling is a part of therapy for me. It has been the primary way I figure out my problems, come up with my solutions, and plan my life.

I promise myself to journal 15 minutes per day.

Yoga
I'm doing yoga again. I'm focusing on power yoga because it simultaneously increases the heart rate, strengthens the muscles, and stretches. I always stand taller after doing yoga, and if I do it in the morning, it gives me more energy to do other things throughout the day.

I promise myself to do yoga 15 minutes per day.

Strength Training
Strength training is amazing. It build muscle, and muscle burns fat. It builds bone, fighting off osteoporosis. It increases strength, which is useful in emergencies and self defense. It makes your look fit and sexy, not skinny and sickly (once you lose the fat, that is. It decreases the risk of injuries caused by weakness.

I promise myself to do 15 minutes of strength training per day.

Cardio Training
I often catch myself complaining how I can't get a 1 hour cardio workout into my day, but I can get in 15 minutes.

I promise myself to do 15 minutes of cardio training every day.

Getting Glamorous
I'm fully aware of how putting on some nice clothes and makeup and doing something with my hair can give me a big boost of energy, confidence, and motivation. It's easy to get into the mom-frumps (sweats and a ponytail), but it doesn't take much to get out of it either.

I promise myself to spend 15 minutes every morning giving myself the gift of glamor by wearing makeup, put-together hairstyles, jewelry, and comfy-fashionable clothes.

Playing with My Kids
My kids and I have a very playful relationship, but I don't think I do enough sit-down-and-play-with-me interaction. I love playing with my kids, but some days, time gets away from me, and before I know it, it's bedtime.

I promise myself to spend at least 15 minutes every day actively playing games, make-believe, etc. with my kids.

Cuddle with My Husband
Work, chores, and parenting tend to occupy most of our time, so we don't get enough time alone together most days. Our marriage is definitely strong and happy, even though we don't get lots of time together, but I'm sure it would be even better if we were able to devote a little more time to each other.

I promise myself to spend at least 15 minutes every day paying attention to my husband.

Home Improvement
I have quite a few unfinished home improvement projects that have lingered on the to-do list for far too long. I'm going to start getting them done.

I promise myself to spend 15 minutes per day doing something to improve my home.

Scrapbooking
My poor scrapbooks have been left unfinished for far too long. I'm going to take scrapbooking off of my someday list and start incorporating it into my daily schedule.

I promise myself to work on my scrapbooks for 15 minutes per day.

Music
I started playing piano again. It has been a long time since I really sat down and worked on playing a song. I usually just sit and play random stuff, but now I'm dusting off the sheet music.

I promise myself to practice piano for 15 minutes per day.

Visual Art
I started drawing and painting again. I've been slowly collecting art supplies, art books, and art videos for inspiration. My husband bought me a bunch of supplies for my birthday (nice stuff too). I especially love drawing and painting pictures for my kids. For me, praise from children is far more gratifying than praise from adults, so I think that's where I'll focus my artistic energy.

I promise myself to draw or paint for 15 minutes per day.

Creative Writing
I love writing fiction and poetry, but it seems like I rarely have as much time as I would like to do it.

I promise myself to indulge in creative writing for 15 minutes per day.

Labels: My Life

The other week I was at the bookstore (my favorite place to hang out), and I kept following this guy. I didn't really know why I was following him. I just kept ending up in the same aisle with him and looking at the same sections. It just felt really nice to be standing near him. It just gave me that warm, comforted feeling.

And then I realized why I was doing it.

He was wearing the same cologne that my dad wore when he was alive. (He died a few years ago.) Funny how our primal sense of smell can influence our actions so strongly.

As soon as I realized what was happening, I started crying. I had to go hide in the corner of the travel section for about ten minutes, so I wouldn't disturb everyone with my sniffles. (Nobody's ever in the travel section of the bookstore for some reason. I guess all the travelers are out there traveling instead of reading about traveling.)

Then I realized that my dad liked to look at travel magazines, so then I immediately had to get out of the travel section to avoid making myself cry even more.

I quickly headed for the children's book section. That's the section that always cheers me up. But then I started looking a Dr. Seuss books that my dad read to me when I was a kid, and felt even worse.

So I gave up, paid for my art book, and left.

I miss my dad.

Labels: My Life

It's odd how so many people from my past aren't what I thought they were. Most of the people I wanted to impress when I was growing up turned out to be unworthy of my efforts. And the people I took for granted turned out to be the people I needed most.

The truly sad part is that you can't go back in time and set things right. You can't stop yourself from hurting the people you truly cared about or hurting yourself to impress the unworthy ones. You can learn from your mistakes; I definitely have, but the consequences of those mistakes never go away.

Now I do whatever I can to avoid making those mistakes. I give people the benefit of the doubt. I'm polite even to people who are terribly rude (maybe they just had a bad day). I take time to figure out who is truly important to me, and I make an effort to let them know I care while doing my best to keep from smothering them. At the same time, I'm very cautious. I've learned that if somebody says "trust me," you generally shouldn't. I've learned that if somebody says they care about you, pay attention to their actions, not their words.

I still catch myself wishing I could press the do-over button, though. Imagine how much easier life could be with one of those.

Labels: My Life

I've said it before, and I'll say it again...

Medication is not a cure for depression; it's a tool to help you climb out of depression.

At least once per week, somebody tells me how they've been on medication for months or years to combat depression (or anxiety, but mostly depression). They try drug X for awhile, up the dosage, switch to drug Y for awhile, up the dosage, and then combine drug X and drug Y for awhile.

Then they come to me and say, "Which drug did you use to get out of your depression?" (I had been battling depression and anxiety for nearly 30 years when I finally got it under control.)

That's like asking, "What kind of hammer built your house?" Well, yes, I used a hammer to build my house, and the quality of the hammer does make a difference, but the hammer didn't do the work for me. I'm the one who had to build it. The hammer just made banging the nails in much easier.

Likewise, medication is a tool. It can help you stabilize yourself enough to get into therapy, but when you get to therapy, you need to do the work.

If you're just taking medication and not doing therapy, then you're also probably waiting for your fancy hammer to build your house for you, or for your wrench to fix your car for you, or for your computer to do your taxes for you, and you get the idea. (And you're going to be waiting a long time.)

Yes, I took medication for awhile, but it was the psychotherapy that brought me to the light, and it was the daily changes to my lifestyle that improved my daily life. Here's a huge long list of what I did to get out of depression.

Labels: My Life

I hate being sick. It's a beautiful weekend, nearly spring, and I'm in zombie mode, trying not to laugh because laughing make me cough. (I miss laughing.)

I'd do a shaman, witch-doctor, voodoo healing dance if I could, but I'm too freakin' tired, and I can't remember all the moves anyhow (I recall something about flapping your arms like a chicken, but after that it's all fuzzy).

Labels: My Life

The other day, I was at my kids' school. I was acting ultra silly, being far noisier than the school staff preferred, and entertaining the kids (who were very bored while waiting in line). The kids in line were laughing and enjoying the show, kids walking off to music class or lunch were giggling, and the occasional adult would stare or smile.

Then one of the other parents pointed out that I should probably stop because I was attracting too much attention.

"That's OK," I said, and I continued acting like a clown.

"Well, everybody's looking at you," they said.

I looked up. They were right. Everybody was looking at me. EVERYBODY. Even a dozen parents, teachers, and staff who were flashing less-than-happy looks. I'm assuming it was because my one-woman show was getting the kids excited. (Lots of people seem to get annoyed when kids aren't quiet and obedient. That drives me nuts at a schools. School should be fun.)

"I don't care," I replied. And I really didn't.

That's when I had one of those moments when you step outside of yourself, your body and brain just continue the behavior on auto-pilot, and you see yourself from a new perspective.

"Well, well, Ms. Kristen," I said to myself. "You certainly have lost your social anxieties."

This small moment was actually a big deal for me. I had spent so many years of my life being afraid to act myself or draw attention because I was convinced that when you stand out, you open yourself up to criticism. And I was deathly afraid of criticism. And rejection was the worst thing that I could think of. I was quite the introvert while growing up because of this. And it made me miserable. I had always looked at people who shined in the spotlight and wondered why they were allowed to do it, but I couldn't. Why were they so comfortable with themselves, but I had to try to conform to how everybody else wanted me to act?

But that was a long time ago, and I'm certainly not shy anymore. It's easy to be the center of attention when people respond well to your actions, but even with those dozen peers openly showing their irritation about my behavior, I didn't mind the spotlight. I just didn't care what they thought.

My goal was to entertain a bunch of bored kids, to make their lives a bit happier, to give them something to laugh at rather than let them stare at the floor. And I succeeded.

My target audience was pleased with my performance. Who cares what everybody else thinks.

Labels: My Life

As part of my daily life, I try to hide my faults. I try to dress in a way that covers my bulges of fat. I put foundation on my face to cover up my acne, rosacea, and brown spots of sun damage. I diligently clean the front room of my house, so unexpected guests won't see that I can't always keep up with the household chores.

Two years ago, I took a photo of myself in just my underwear, making no attempt to cover up my flaws. It was part of my attempt to motivate myself to lose weight. It worked. I would look at that photo and cringe. Then I would tell myself, "The only way to change that photo is to exercise, and stop eating desserts all day."

Today I decided to expand that idea.

I went around my house and took photos of all the messes I typically try to hide: mountains of laundry, dirty sinks, unmade beds, piles of stuff, overflowing shelves, etc. And I'm telling myself, "The only way those embarrassing messes will disappear is if I stop procrastinating and clean them."

I took photos of my face without any attempt to put makeup over my facial flaws. "The only way my face will change is if I put on sunscreen every day, lose weight, get laser and IPL treatments, and stick with a healthy diet."

But in the process of documenting my flaws, I realized that they're not so ugly and embarrassing. They are symbols of choice, the remnants of trade-offs.

My home is messy because I have decided to spend more time playing my kids and following my passions than tending to chores.

My face is sun-damaged because I've spent so much time enjoying the outdoors. It is fat because I've been blessed with an abundance of good food, which I have enjoyed as well. The fat is also due to another blessing, the ability to survive without having to engage in hard labor. It is red because instead of spending thousands of dollars to fix it, I paid off credit cards, donated to charities, and bought my children Christmas gifts.

I think I'll spend less time looking at those photos and criticizing myself and more time looking at those photos and congratulating myself for making smart choices.

Labels: My Life

I spend a lot of time analyzing things, judging what's the best quality, what makes life the easiest, etc. Even the majority of my therapy for anxiety is based on cognitive awareness of my own thought processes. In all of my logical reasoning, I had forgotten that sometimes you just need to let go and be creative.

It started with a poem, a bunch of words that kept playing again and again in my head. So I decided to write them down. (Mind you, I hadn't written a line of poetry in years.) I read them the next day and did one of those "wow, that's pretty good; did that come out of me?" moments. So I started writing more poetry. (The forced stuff isn't nearly as good as the stuff that randomly pops up in my head.)

Then I started humming little tunes without even realizing it. It was much like those songs that end up stuck in your head. I realized that the tunes weren't actually anything I had heard before, but they did nicely fit the poems I had been writing. So I played around with turning them into songs. I'm not so sure the songs are very good, but they made me feel better.

In this creative process I began to wonder if other forms of art would help me feel better. I took up knitting again. I got out my sketch book and started doodling. And then I whipped out the paints and brushes and started some painting sessions (which I hadn't done since high school). I doubt any of my visual art our crafts would qualify as respectable art, but that doesn't matter because it seemed to open up parts of my brain that had been locked up. Plus, seeing the works that I had finished brought a smile to my face.

Eventually, I found myself feeling more opened up, more relaxed, and even just happier, all because I tapped into my creative side.

So for all of you who think that arts, crafts, music, and literature are a waste of time just because you don't expect to ever get famous or make money by doing them, think of it as cheap therapy instead. It's amazing what a little art can do to bring a smile to your face.

Labels: My Life

"Quit being such a show-off!" my mother said to me. She said it at least once a week.

So I sent my life waiting for people to notice that I'm good enough to brag about. After all, I'm smart, I have talents, I work hard, and I'm a very nice person. But in the end, most people forgot about me the moment I left the room. Brag-worthy, I was not.

Meanwhile, all the people who were blatant self-promoting exhibitionists were getting all the attention, even when their work was only of marginal quality and their attitude was less than gracious.

Then, I decided that I would stop waiting for somebody to brag about me and start boasting about myself. After all, if you don't believe in yourself, why should anyone else? I stood up and said, "Hey! Everybody, look at me. Look what I can do. I'm pretty damn impressive."

And that has made all the difference.

Labels: My Life

1. Stay centered / be my authentic self / have integrity
   
   
2. Play more with my kids
   
   
3. Spend more romance time with my husband (instead of just being in mom and dad mode all the time)
   
   
4. Write / rewrite one article, list, printable, etc. every week for my visitors of Kristen's Guide http://www.kristensguide.com
   
   
5. Do 30 minutes of cardio exercise, one strength training workout, balance exercises, agility exercises, and stretches every day
   
   
6. Keep my emotional eating under control
   
   
7. Send birthday cards and December holiday cards on time
   
   
8. Get all my scrapbooks up-to-date
   
   
9. Back-up all of my digital photos to Mozy, so I won't lose them if my house burns down (big fear of mine ... losing my sentimental stuff)
   
   
10. Organize the giant growing collection of my kids' artwork
    
    

Labels: My Life

When I look back over my life, my greatest times of growth have been immediately after my greatest times of suffering.

1. Life is good
2. Uh oh, suddenly life isn't good.
3. Will life ever by good again?
4. I'm going to make it good again.
5. Grow... grow... grow...
6. Life is good.
7. And the cycle continues...
   

I'm currently in a growth phase.

2007 was a hard year, but I must pat myself on the back for handling it so well. It was the first year that I had to fully test my new skills as a person with healthy boundaries and self-respect. (You never know if you really are able to handle anything until you are actually required to handle things you never imagined you'd need to handle.) I think I've done well considering the circumstances. (It helps that I have a supportive husband and a therapist.)

I still had anxiety and depression to deal with, but I dealt with it better than I ever have before. I didn't start binge eating. I didn't do anything to hurt myself. I didn't take my pain out on other people. I didn't sit around wondering, "why me?" I didn't blame others for how I felt. Right away, I knew that I had to get to the root of the problem, and I tackled it head on. I said "here's what's wrong," "this is how I feel about it," "this is my healthy boundary," and "this is what I will do if you cross that healthy boundary." I cried when I felt like I needed to cry. I wrote angry letters and journal entries when I needed to get the anger out. I was honest about my feelings. I was honest about what caused those feelings without seeking revenge or trying to cause pain. And I didn't just pretend that there wasn't a problem. I accepted that there are things that I can't control, and that sometimes I have to wait for somebody else to do their part themselves (I can't do it for them). I've grieved over lost dreams and accepted reality. Meanwhile, I made an effort to not neglect the blessings in my life right now: my children, my husband, my pet, my home, my privileges, and my own abilities to heal myself.

So now I'm looking at what's next. I don't want to get stuck in the stage of "just getting over the suffering." I've already done that part, and now I need to start moving forward and tweaking the plan as I go.

Things are getting better. Things always get better.

Labels: My Life

So I've been working through my therapy sessions, and I'm doing much better.

My anxiety has disappeared for now. That's the way it goes. It comes and goes, but as I deal with it, learn skills to manage it, and get to the root of my problems, the anxiety sessions get shorter and shorter. No more anxiety and depression that lingers on for months on end. Now it just comes for a few weeks, and then disappears for several months until a new major source of stress ignites it. Then I just deal with that too.

I've been feeling a little depressed, but I think it's mostly because I've been sick this last week. (Everyone in the neighborhood and half of the school is sick too.)

My OCD has been doing better since the overall anxiety has gotten better. It's just a minor annoying side effect.

Labels: My Life

My husband has been gently letting me know that I'm not acting like my normal self lately.

Intellectually, I realize that I can handle whatever life throws at me. I know that I'm surrounded by supportive people who love me. I know I'm smart. And I'm aware of all the accomplishments I've done. Nevertheless, I constantly have this feeling of stress and anxiety. It's exhausting.

I have insomnia that keeps me from getting more than 4 hours of sleep. I lay in bed replaying events from my past, like hurtful things that happened to me and hurtful things that I did to others or myself. It wears on me and makes me feel like I'm destined to be unworthy of anything good and incapable of succeeding at anything. I have a tremendous amount of anger, sadness, and guilt.

When I do fall asleep, I have nightmares. Most of them are either about somebody doing something cruel to me for no reason. Some of them are about some huge failure on my part causing something horrible to happen.

I had a panic attack the other day, but as soon as I figured out what it was, it stopped.

My OCD is getting extremely frustrating. I'm so tired of having to check things and clean things and check things again and put everything in the right place. Sometimes I just say, "I'm not going to do it," and I try to do something else instead, but I can't really focus on anything else. I have to wait for the anxiety to pass or until I'm sure that everything is OK. I'm trying very hard to not let things get worse.

My emotions have been extremely close to the surface, that I have a hard time holding them back. I saw a little girl crying the other day because she was scared to go to gymnastics class, and her dad was telling here that she was making a big deal out of nothing, and that made me break down right there.

The OCD and panic attacks get worse when there are issues that I'm not dealing with, usually issues that involve anger, guilt, and doubting my own abilities to do things right. So now I'm trying to deal with those issues.

It's just so exhausting.

See kids, even therapists, life coaches, counselors, teachers, doctors, and other "here's how to improve your life" gurus have issues. (The ones who don't are just pretending they don't.)

Labels: My Life

I have several emotional modes:

• "Relax, everything's going to be OK."
• "Hey, let's do something so fun and silly that everyone else think we're idiots."
• "I'm going to tell you my opinion because I like to think I know what I'm talking about."
• "I'm off to do something everyone says I can't do, and I'll quit (not fail) if it starts to disinterest me."
• "I think I'll stock up on canned goods and get prepared for nuclear winter."
• "It's snuggle time. Kisses and hugs for everyone."
• "Let's learn how to create our own universe and a wicker chair. Turn on some educational television, fire up the Internet, and get your coat on because we're heading to the nerd section of the book store."
• "I'm a failure; I should be ashamed of myself; and everyone hates me."

It's the last one that has been troubling me lately. It troubled me every day when I was growing up, but with lots of therapy, self-help books, and setting and achieving goal after goal, I've learned to pull myself out of the "I'm not worthy" mindset. It only comes back once in awhile, usually when there are stressful situations to deal with. And right now it's back. I know why it's there, and I'm working on fixing the events that invited it back into my life, but in the meantime, it has some nasty side-effects.

The stress builds up until I start feeling constant anxiety. Then that either turns into OCD flare-ups or panic attacks. My OCD has been driving me nuts lately.

I checked the door lock three times in a row before I left the house today.

Last night, I had to check that the burglar alarm was set correctly three times in a row, right after my husband already set it, and he's very capable of setting the alarm.

Yesterday afternoon, I took my kids to a playgroup, and the thoughts about germs everywhere were giving me chest pains and making me dizzy. Then my kids started playing on this giant climbing play structure, and all that kept going through my head was visions of my children falling off of the thing and breaking their necks. So I couldn't exactly enjoy chit-chatting with the other moms.

The day before that, I tried to go for a walk in the woods, but I was so freaked out by the idea of stepping on any slugs or worms that I had to try to avoid stepping on leaves (which is impossible during autumn in the woods). I gave up and went home.

So to reduce my stress, I decided to confine myself to my computer. My computer relaxes me. Everything on it is organized the way I want it, and I can just keep reorganizing everything until it's all just perfect. Not to mention, the kids can't get sick or hurt from it, and I won't accidentally kill anything with it. Plus, I can make a couple of dollars with it, so it makes me feel productive.

But there's still a problem. I can't just sit around on my computer all day because it's a safe happy place. I've got stuff to do, writing projects to finish, a family to interact with, and a house to manage, etc.

So it's time for me to try to go back to normal life, back to cooking dinner, cleaning up, finishing paperwork, and scribbling down some outlines for some writing projects.

Labels: My Life

I decided to start writing about things that make me happy rather than things that I'm upset about. I'll still writing about problem solving and vent here and there, but I'm going to focus on writing at least 10 happy thoughts per day, 10 things that happened during the day that made me happy.

July 11, 2007

1. Woke up
2. Cleaned my beloved house
3. Told stories with my beloved children
4. Made some money from my website
5. Made a list of new places I'd like to visit with my family
6. Had dinner with my family
7. Went to bed surrounded by my husband and children
8. Went for a walk
9. Learned a bit about sociology and social psychology
10. Decided to keep a log of happy things
    

Labels: My Life

A friend of mine is turning thirty and dreading it, but thirty is my favorite age, so far.

Thirty is the age when you look back at your twenties and realize that you had absolutely no idea what you were doing. You were going with the flow, making plans, changing plans, realizing that plans don't always work out the way you want them to, trying to act like an adult only to realize that you weren't very good at it, wishing you could do something amazing to prove to yourself and the world that you can be a somebody, testing your "I'm an adult and I can do whatever the hell I want" status, finding out that "doing whatever the hell you want" doesn't actually mean that "whatever the hell you want" is a good idea, and swearing you won't turn into your parents.

Thirty is the age when you realize that you don't need to rebel against your parents anymore because you truly are doing your own thing. Thirty is when you forgive yourself for all the stupid stuff you did back when you were young and stupid and stop beating yourself up about it. Thirty is when you stop wanting to be somebody and just start being somebody. Thirty is when you think, "hey, cosmetic surgery isn't such a bad idea" and you stop making fun of people for having it. Thirty is when you are able to understand why people do what they do (if you take the time to try to figure it out) rather than just labeling them as jerks, so you can forgive errors more easily, and reduces lots of stress. Thirty is when you start realizing that there's more to life than making money, but you still appreciate how nice it is to have money. Thirty is when you stop feeling like you need to party every night because it's much more fun to cuddle with your loved ones (if you're not single, that is).

Oh, and at thirty, you still have enough youthful energy to get yourself as healthy as possible before you hit 40 and start falling apart. :-)

Labels: My Life

See how much you learn if you just take time to pay attention to the world...

• Looking eccentric doesn't make you interesting.
  
• Looking extravagant doesn't make you wealthy.
• Acting annoyed doesn't make you important; it just makes you annoying.
• Quoting literature, movies, television, or music doesn't make you intelligent or witty.
• Speaking loudly doesn't mean people should like to listen to you or that you are saying anything interesting or important.
  
• Drug dealers think they're smooth, but they're not.
• Drug addicts seem very pissed off when their dealer is late.
• The head chef will treat you extra well if you loudly compliment his cooking, and he'll even give you extra food to take home.
• No child can resist jumping in a puddle.
• Good dogs roaming the streets by themselves can obey leash laws by holding their leash handles in their mouths.
• If all I had to eat for the rest of my life was good bread, I'd be all right with that.
• Good olive oil makes anything taste mediteranean.
• People who hide in bushes don't look suspicious at all. Really, I mean that; it seems so natural to see a grown man hunched down behind a large potted shrub while looking around to see if anybody notices him.
  
• I have no need for a fast car and don't want one, but it's very hard to resist drooling over a Lamborghini at a stop light.
• Senior citizens who wear funky hats, mp3 players, and tshirts with liberal activist slogans are cool.
• Foreigners who try to speak English are cute.
• Children who speak foreign languages are cute and seem way smarter than I.
• Everything tastes better with cheese. (Hmmmm, double fudge sunday with cheese? strawberry banana smoothie with cheese? Cheerios with cheese? I'm sure they must be delicious.)
• A city filled with fog at night is beautiful.
• Anytime you see a bunch of police cars with flashing lights on a bridge and a bunch of cops looking over the side of the bridge, you probably don't want to be hanging out under that bridge.

Labels: My Life

Here's my list:

1. Mom
   best job in the world
   
   
2. Writer
   children's, fiction, non-fiction, educational, organizational, self-help, health
   
   
3. Teacher
   elementary school, middle school, high school, adult remedial education
   
   
4. Personal Trainer / Weight Loss Coach
   I would love to help other people like me conquer their obesity
   
   
5. Counselor / Psychologist
   I do it all the time already; would be nice to get paid for it
   
   
6. Talk Show Host (radio or tv)
   it just looks like fun, and you can increase public awareness of important issues; it's like being a teacher in a much bigger classroom
   
   
7. Humanitarian Aid Director
   UNICEF would be nice
   
   
8. Owner of an Animal Friendly Dairy and Egg Farm
   animals don't get slaughtered; they just change jobs; I don't actually want to work on a farm; I just want to own it
   
   
9. Owner of a Eco-Friendly Products Sales Company
   create and sell products that don't destroy the environment
   
   
10. Owner of a Vegetarian Cafe
    cafes with themes; I don't want to work there; I just want to own it
    

Labels: My Life

One of the most important things you can do to take control of your life is to make a list of your priorities, to know what's really important to you. Here's mine:

1. My kids (More important than life)
   Help them grow happy, healthy, and balanced, and let them know they're loved and important
   
   
2. My happiness and sanity
   Without it, I can't enjoy anything on this list
   
   
3. My husband
   Strengthen our friendship and intimate bond and help him feel appreciated, important, and loved
   
   
4. My learnin'-stuff passion
   I love learning new things. I love taking classes, watching documentaries, and reading how-to books.
   
   
5. My health
   Avoid illness, strengthen immunity, improve fitness
   
   
6. Financial stability
   Be able to pay for essential items: a satisfactory (or better) home, food, utilities, clothing, etc.
   
   
7. My writing passion
   Practice, improve, publish, and earn an income
   
   
8. My helping-people passion
   Volunteering, donating to charity, teaching people to help themselves and make the world a better place
   
   
9. My having-new-fun-experiences passion
   I'll try almost anything once (as long as it doesn't significantly endanger my life or health)
   
   
10. My love of the arts
    I want to surround myself with creativity and beauty
    
    
11. My travel passion
    I love being a tourist
    
    
12. Recording our family history
    To honor our ancestors and guide our descendants
    

Labels: My Life