shistavanenjedi

I went to bed around 1 last night, and actually fell asleep. Then I woke up because I was having a nightmare. I went immediately back to sleep just to have the same nightmare again. I woke up at 3am and decided I'd get up and see if Sarah was awake and try talking to her for half an hour before I tried to go to sleep again. That worked, and when I woke up again (at 1:30pm), I no longer remembered what the nightmares were about other than waking up with tons of baby rats.

I woke up covered in cat. Aggie was on my side and Aaron between my knees. So I stayed still as long as my bladder could handle and enjoyed the kitty love. Then I got up and Jack came to see me, and the cats ran off. Not sure why the cats only love me when I'm asleep, but that seems to be the case.

I got up and read the internets, and then read from 2 of my books. Then it was time to go to my mother's house. Mom said it was President's Day, so she thought traffic would be light if we wanted to drive farther today, so I convinced her to go to Outback. On the way, Kevin called me and just said "Petsmart" so mom asked who I had such a short conversation with and why, and when I told her she said "let's stop at this petsmart. I need dog food anyway." So we stopped at the Petsmart which is in the same parking lot as the Outback. I picked up some Nature's Miracle, and mom picked up dog food and a toy for her dog. Mom ended up paying for my spray stuff, too, I think because she didn't want to wait for me to check out and pay.

We went to Outback. I ordered my steak with garlic butter on it, but apparently there's a new garlic butter shrimp topping that they thought I wanted so my steak came out with shrimp. I had to send it back, and then I sat and watched my mom eat. She was done eating by the time my steak came out so she had to sit there and watch me eat. And because we had to sit there while they recooked my entire steak, we were there for over an hour.

As we were leaving, someone in front of us exclaimed, "Jan! and is this Danielle?" It was someone who used to live across the street from us while I was growing up. We ended up standing in the doorway blocking it and chattering for about 10 minutes while I prayed that he would not ask what I was doing with my life (They didn't. He asked what my sister was doing, and then where I lived, but not what I did for money. What a relief!) We left and my mom looked at me as soon as we were in the car and said "I can't believe she had plastic surgery! She doesn't even look like herself. I wouldn't have recognized her if it weren't for her husband." I felt less bad about not recognizing them. I remember their kids, who used to babysit for me when I was really young. But not the parents. I guess that makes sense. I was little when they moved away.

We drove home, and mom was right about the traffic. There was much less of it than usual. I got back in the car and drove home. I keep thinking I'm coming to an ending in The Great Alone but apparently I still have 15 minutes left of it. Maybe they'll have a marriage. That seems like the only thing that could be waiting at the end of this book. My mom said she finished the book in June and doesn't remember anything about it anymore. She remembers enjoying it, but it wasn't very memorable. It's not sticking with me like some books do where I dream about them, but I think I'll remember the story.

I picked back up with my reading, although it was already 8pm. My hip hurt, so I decided against any exercising, and just to rest today. I finished my reading around 9:45 and got ready for bed, and then started on this entry.

Saturday the chances of rain have dropped from 50% to 25%, meaning we may get our outdoor tournament afterall. So that would be good. Friday has gone from 50% to 75% chance so hopefully they have an indoor site for that first tournament.

SCA-Patrick mentioned that it was 10 years ago that he joined the Coast Guard. Which led to me calculating, and holy shit y'all, I joined the army 15 years ago. It doesn't seem like that long ago that I was in college? I mean even admitting that I went to college and grad school for a lot of years after the army, Colorado College doesn't seem like it was that long ago. Even grad school - I got my Masters degree with the Class of 2009 - 10 years ago! Geeze. Somehow or other I'm getting old without accomplishing anything. If I had some kind of accomplishment, even just within the SCA, I wouldn't feel so bad about it. But... *sighs*

Tomorrow I absolutely have to get to read with Jafar. Not only did I miss last week accidentally when I slept through my alarm, but there's a 100% chance of rain, so we won't fight unless Brendan can open the warehouse, which isn't likely. I really can't afford another day in my house by myself. So I'll have to read to Jafar.

Shayna and I wanted to go to New Orleans this winter, but the only property on my timeshare exchange with more than one room had no openings. I'm afraid that a one room would have a king bed instead of two twin beds. We ended up deciding to go to Hilton Head in December. Mom said she's gone in December before, and it was nicer than the time she went in April, but the beach was too cool and windy to sit and read - but not too cool to walk briskly, or ride a bike, although I'm not sure Shayna can ride a bike, being blind. Hopefully even if it's cool and windy actually on the beach, it won't be too cool to sit by the pool and read. Mostly Shayna and I just like to read on vacation lol.

Speaking of reading I have 4 chapters left of Golden Child which I may try to finish tonight or tomorrow instead of 4 days from now, so that I can start on Early Riser.

It's funny. I remember going to bed at midnight last night, but my garmin claims I wasn't in bed until 1:30. Then it says I woke up at 10:30 - which I did, but then I went back to sleep and stayed there until 12:45. I might have slept more than 12 hours last night. *groan*

Anyway, I didn't do much today. I read the internet, and then read my books. I didn't even do about half of my exercises because I couldn't be bothered. My back hurt and I didn't want to stand there and hold up a hammer or shield, which are both heavy. But I did read all my books, and then cook dinner (chicken pot pie). Kevin slept from about 4-7 again, but he woke up to eat. I was debating whether I was going to wake him up to eat or not, but it turned out to be a moot point. The timer went off for the oven, which caused the dog to bark, which caused Kevin to yell "shut the hell up!" so I yelled "dinner!" at him and he got up. Golden Child is starting to get really good. I'm enjoying it more than I was. The Illegal is starting to show why it's set in a made up country. It's taking republican positions to an extreme rather than look at any real country's immigration policy. I still can't decide what I think of this book.

I fed the dogs. This is only remarkable because Kevin was sitting 2 feet from the dog food when the dogs started barking for dinner. He made me get up from the other room and come feed the dogs because he was too damned lazy.

I asked Rick to come over and help me set up my tent and waterproof the seams next Monday if it doesn't rain, as it's not supposed to rain. Hopefully the weather holds, as it's supposed to rain all of next week without stopping. Not much of it is supposed to be hard rain, but we should still get a couple inches, which may flood my bathrooms.

The weather channel is predicting Georgia to have a warm spring but Mississippi to have a cool spring. This is the opposite of what I want. I want a cool spring for myself, but warm for Gulf Wars. Unfortunately, no one asked me, nor the rest of the SCA. But with the borderline between warm and cool being right there, maybe we'll get not-too-cold temperatures at Gulf. On average, the daytime highs are 68 but the overnight lows are 47. 47 might be cold to sleep. Even 10 degrees warmer than that is cold to sleep. Well, I have 3 comforters, and a sleeping bag. I should be fine, right? (if not I have 4 cans of fuel for a space heater but I can't afford 4 more so I'll have to look at what the coldest or wettest nights are going to be and use it sparingly. In an emergency I may be able to go to Walmart and get more propane).

Have I mentioned that all of my garb did a disappearing act? I literally know where one t-tunic is right now. The rest of it theoretically is in my closet, but I can't find any of it. Some day next week while Kevin is at work I will have to turn over my closet and search for it. But some things just disappear, like no matter how much I searched I never found my Falcon's sweatshirt. I may have to buy new garb at Gulf Wars. Linen Garb may not be there as the person who runs it is currently queen. But I'm sure there will be garb merchants. She may hire someone to run her store for her, anyway, because I'm sure Gulf Wars makes up a pretty sizable chunk of the money she earns every year.

My book club is on Sunday. I'm hopeful that we'll pick a good book this time, although honestly, we don't have a very good track record. I suggested Unorthodox which I have already read, but if they choose that one I'll probably pick another memoir of a woman who left Hasidism. There's one I want to read by Leah Lax available on kindle for $6. I can handle reading one more chapter a day. Really. And I'll have to do it 7 days a week to get done in 6 weeks, since that's a little faster than I usually read a book. I'll also have to make sure to read it at Gulf Wars.

I learned today why the seal of the United States has an eagle with 13 arrows in his claw. Apparently Hiawatha formed a confederacy of Native Americans, and made the point that he could snap one arrow, but if each of the leaders gave him an arrow, together they couldn't be broken. Our founding fathers studied them (and took some of our founding principles from them), and took the imagery and thus put one arrow for each of the colonies together in an eagle's talon symbolizing that together we are stronger. History is fun. This is what I get from listening to my husband's youtube channels he watches while I'm trying to ignore them.

Shayna and I discussed going to New Orleans in December. Then when I tried to reserve the room it told me I couldn't because they had no email address on file for me. I quickly changed the email address on file, and tried again, just to get the same response. I will have to call them tomorrow and find out what is up. I have 138k points left to use this year and the most expensive vacation I've seen is 80k for the Hilton Head place we like to go. So we need to plan some vacations and get out more. Probably Shayna and me rather than Kevin and me, because Kevin somehow manages to spend so much money on vacations and I don't know how he does it. Shayna and I spend much more reasonable amounts of money, somehow. I think it's because Shayna and I don't order appetizers and desserts, and will buy a bag of salad and some chicken for lunch rather than the whole ordeal of breakfast and lunch Kevin gets. Also Shayna and I will cook 4 nights while with Kevin the 3 of us will only cook 3 nights.

I went to bed around 11:45 last night and woke up around noon. The only thing I really needed to do today was go get prescription sunglasses because I complained that the transition lenses don't work in the car and that's the only time I needed them to work. The eye doctor offered me the cost of the transition to go towards sunglasses so I could drive. I accepted that and had to go pick some sun glasses and pay the difference. Well for some reason I remembered that the doctor closes from 12-1, so I waited until 1 and then went. When I got there, it turned out that they were open from 12-1 but closed from 1-2. I went across the street to Dunkin Donuts and bought a couple donuts and played words with friends.

At 2 I went across the street and picked out some sunglasses, and paid and left. Then I went home. On the way home the MC from The Great Alone started behaving like a complete idiot and confessing 7 year old crimes to the police as though they're not going to arrest her, so I'm afraid the next hour of the book is going to be Leni being arrested, and we're going to have a terrible ending to the book. I really don't like bad endings to books. Why is it so hard to find a book where things wrap up well and main characters don't die? I'm really getting fed up with reading all together.

I came home and took the dogs on a walk, but we only walked to Wind Way Drive, instead of Gwinn. Jack was barking at everyone and everything, which made it unpleasant. Honestly, I wasn't feeling much like taking a walk, and almost turned around at the end of my cul d sac, but I had just eaten those donuts so I felt the need to do a little more work than that.

When I got home I started on my reading until Rick called. We talked for half an hour about the fact that he doesn't think I make efforts to integrate myself in the SCA, that I'm more of a tourist than a participant. I'm not sure how to make myself more of a participant. He said that because I said I didn't usually go to court unless it's in my own barony so I know the people getting awards. Also because I wouldn't drive to Pensacola for a day of fencing. Most people do not drive to Pensacola events.

I continued reading until Kevin called to say he was on his way home. He didn't have anything to say. He hung up and I read from a further 3 books. Then he got home and we decided to eat Cuban food because everything on ubereats was about a $20 delivery charge, but grubhub was a $2 delivery charge, and that's the only thing we really like on grubhub. We discussed what movie we wanted to see. The one I wanted doesn't come out until the 25th so I lost that discussion and we decided to watch Bohemian Rhapsody, but then after dinner, Kevin didn't want to walk into the living room, and didn't want to turn the movie on, and told me I should just go out with my friends. It was too late for that, so I just started reading from Catch-22 in the hopes that I can finish that book before the next Reading Wednesday comes up. I should finish it by Monday if I just read one chapter a day from now on, but I'm somewhat hopeful that I can finish it tonight or tomorrow.

Anyway, Valentines Day seems to have mostly passed without an argument, but also without celebrating Valentine's Day. If I'd known we weren't going to celebrate I would have gone to meet Cat at Panera, but Kevin said he wanted to celebrate. Go figure.

Saturday looks to be the only day of the next 10 where there is not a 75% chance of rain. I will have to remember to go out and spin some pokestops on Saturday (assuming the 25% chance of rain doesn't manifest), because I'll be stuck inside for the next 10 days. Ugh. February was awful last year, too. Next Friday and Saturday both have 50% chance of rain during the times that we're supposed to be having outdoor tournaments for MCA. I'm not sure what happens, then. Friday is just the seeding tournament for one of the Saturday tournaments, so I guess if that doesn't happen, the tournament just isn't seeded, but there's supposed to be an outdoor tournament before we can get into the gym on Saturday, and I'm guessing that will not happen now. Maybe it will consolidate later in the day when we have the gym. It's still pretty far out to try to guess about the weather next weekend.

I did manage to fall asleep around 3 last night, on my first attempt at sleep. Lucky me. My alarm went off at 12:15, and I got up and felt fine. Except I forgot to take either my thyroid medicine or food. One day I'll master this waking up thing? Anyway, I went to meet my new therapist, who is a social worker, and introduced himself as Tom (or Todd? I'm so terrible at names). I hoped, when he did that that, that I could convince him to call me Danielle, but he continued to call me Mrs Skoog. Ugh. Maybe next time I'll correct him and ask him to use my first name? Is that rude?

He asked me what I wanted to work on, and I told him I'd recently been diagnosed with diabetes, and wanted to be healthier. I also wanted coping techniques for hallucinations. He asked which of the three was most pressing (two of the three were different kinds of hallucinations - I'm not sure I classify them as different things but he did). I told him getting healthy was the priority over the hallucinations. He asked me to think of things I could do that would make me healthier, and then when I had a list of 5-6 he asked me which one I think would help the most. I said I thought walking more and more frequently would be the biggest help, so he asked me to keep a journal of how often I walk and how far and how I feel about the walk. I think I can do this in my journal that I already use to track trips outside of the house.

All this to say, I like this guy a lot more than I liked the last woman, who told me what I should work on and tried to dictate how I would change my life. Also, he showed up, which is a major improvement over her.

I came home, and read lj and dw until Kevin called and said he was on his way home. He didn't have anything to say, so I hung up. Then I decided to take the dogs for a walk. We walked out to Gwinn, and passed Kevin on his way into the neighborhood. The walk was uneventful and the dogs didn't even bark at Kevin or at the two dogs in their yard who barked at us. I hatched 3 eggs in PoGo, and realized I've finally run out of gifts to send back to my friends. I'm not sure what to do about this since the park we fight at in the winter isn't a pokestop, and I don't go to Starbucks much anymore. I guess I will have to go somewhere and spin some pokestops. It seems like it should be warm this week if it's not raining, so maybe I can do that someday soon.

I came home and read the two books I'm supposed to read on Wednesday, but then had a really hard time motivating to do any exercises. I eventually got my act together and did them, but it was like pulling teeth. I had about 10 minutes between finishing them and having to leave for the SCA meeting.

At the SCA meeting, I got there and there were about 15 people there. Juliane taught a couple people about buying fabrics online, and showed us some samples she had of how different things feel and look from different online stores. Then we mostly just talked for 2 hours. Then we went out to dinner at the icky Chinese place. While we were there Celaigh was asking if people saw ghosts and saying she always sees them and talks to them and interacts with them. She didn't seem to believe us that none of the rest of us did. Eventually, I told her she might want to get checked for schizophrenia and she said "they don't tell me to kill myself." As if that means anything? I told her the voices were my friends, and didn't tell me to kill myself either.

Dinner was expensive - more than the $12 I had budgeted for it. So I had to pay cash, which annoys me because now I have less cash for times I may really need it.

On my way home, a main character started dying in my book, and now I'm annoyed. I really hate main character death, unless it's really deserved like the wife beater in this book.

I got home and Kevin already wanted to go to bed. I finished my dailies, and am now holed up in my office with a dog and a cat cuddling with me. I forgot to get water before Kevin went to bed and now I'm cranky about it.

I couldn't sleep last night. I tried several times, but I just wouldn't drift off. I finally got to bed around 5am and slept through my 10:50 alarm until 3pm. Even when I got up I couldn't quite wake up, and wound up napping from 3:30 - 4, although without being able to actually fall asleep. Kevin called at 4:15 to say he was on his way home. At that time we still thought we might have fighter practice since it was saying the rain would leave by 7:15, but as it got closer to 7, the chances of rain from 7-8 increased to 80%, so we cancelled fighting. I called Kevin to discuss dinner.

We decided that we'd cook Italian Onederpot tonight since we had the ingredients. We'll have to order out on Friday, when I was supposed to make this, but we'll be in a better place to afford it after we get paid on Thursday. We currently have $52 for tomorrow. I can't trust Kevin to leave enough of that for me to go to dinner, so I moved $12 into my own account that I'll use to pay for dinner tomorrow.

I read LJ and DW while waiting for Kevin to get home. He came home and started assigning tasks and yelling about minor things within seconds. Then he decided he'd brown the meat and I'd cook the rest of the meal. I guess this is his method of apology? Except it didn't last long and he was yelling again as soon as dinner was done. He cooked the meat while I waited, and then I cooked dinner while he waited.

After dinner I read from 3 of my books while he broke the box spring just by sitting on it, because he's so fat. Then he needed my help to remove the mattress, turn the box spring around, and put the mattress back. I also did a few of my exercises while I waited for him to stop breathing so hard from the small amount of exertion this required. Since it's a Tuesday, I didn't have to do much. It's sort of my weekend, when I go out late and spend time with my friends, Tuesday and Wednesday. Not that I did that today, but there wasn't really time to get all my usual reading done anyway just because Kevin kept assigning tasks and because I didn't wake up until too late.

I should finish Catch 22 by a week from next Sunday. Then I can start Watership Down which I'm looking forward to as I remember liking it when I was in high school, and it's one of the few books I actually did read for English class. I have a really nice copy - a collector's edition - that someone anonymously gifted me for Christmas. I'm excited to see the illustrations and such that have been added to this book. As such I'm reading a few extra chapters of Catch 22 to see if I can get done with it more quickly than 2 weeks.

Tomorrow is a 1:00 appointment with the new shrink. That means I have to wake up 3 hours earlier than I did today. Here goes nothing, I guess. At least I am tired, so hopefully I can get to sleep around 3 instead of around 5. Going to bed around 3 would give me 9 hours of sleep, which isn't enough to make me not exhausted all day, but is enough to safely drive a car etc.

They're still calling for rain all Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, and then a 25% chance all Thursday. If it doesn't rain next Tuesday it'll be perfect for fighting - 60F and cloudy. I guess I will just have to look forward to that, and if nothing else MCA is a week from Friday, and there will be indoor fighting, I believe.

After dinner, my head started feeling like I was swimming, and I couldn't concentrate on anything, and the back of my head hurt (as opposed to a migraine when the back of my eye hurts), and I felt awful. I took my bedtime diabetes meds early, and that seems to have fixed the problem, so apparently my blood sugar was high. That's odd. I didn't eat or drink anything particularly weird tonight. I mean, yes, I had pasta, but I regularly have pasta without feeling badly.