Thursday 9/26/25 Happy Belated Birthday to Me

 Yesterday was my birthday. I am now 46 years old - officially closer to 50 than to 40. Which is kind of weird. Because I feel like I'm maybe in my early 30's (and my sense of humor would suggest that I'm a 13 year old boy). But, no, I'm 46. Anyway, I spent the day painting bookmarks and being otherwise lazy. We got Chic Fil A for dinner and then went out for ice cream. It was a nice, relaxed day. 

Today I haven't really done anything. Showered . . . um, that's it. I'm meeting up with a friend this afternoon and we're going to face time our other friend who moved out of state to "celebrate" my birthday. It should be good. I get to open presents. And Lesley - our friend who moved - always gives me the most ridiculous shit. I have two packages from her that I haven't been allowed to open until we face time today. 

Tomorrow I work and Saturday we're heading up to the mountains to see the fall colors - the aspens are changing!

We bought Ayden his own car - a 2006 Scion TC (Scion is made by Toyota). He loves it! And is actually driving now (which was our goal). And he's doing well with driving. I'm actually pretty relaxed in the car with him (I wasn't relaxed when he was driving the 4Runner). So this is good. We got him a dash cam and he put some stickers on the back window and showed it off to his friends. He seems motivated now. Hooray! Although it is a reminder of how grown up he is. Oy. 

That's all for now. Bye!

Monday 7/8/24 Rough

 Feeling rough again. Down. Melancholy. Irritable. All of those things. And, really, I have been for several days in a row now. This is very frustrating for me. I've had such a long streak of doing well and now, well, I'm not. I'm not depressed. I wouldn't say that, not yet. But I appear to be heading in that direction. This is so. Fucking. Annoying. I don't want to have another ketamine infusion. Those are expensive. And I'm already expensive because I'm on the semaglutide. I want to be back to how I was - content. Unbothered. Happier. Not how I am now.

It started out feeling down at times at work. If I wasn't doing something I'd get this mild existential dread. And it would pass, or I would get busy and forget about it. But it started happening more frequently. And now I'm feeling it at home. Yesterday I just wanted to be asleep. I was questioning what the point of being awake was. If I'm going to feel like crap I'd rather sleep through it. But alas, I cannot. No, I have to be a functional adult and do things. Which is dumb. Like work. I work tomorrow. And my friend/coworker is having her baby tomorrow and I'm going to have to be happy and whatnot and I'm just not feeling it. Maybe tomorrow will be different. And if not, hopefully I can put on a good show. 

I keep thinking, maybe if I could have a good cry I'd feel better. But I can't seem to get to that point - I can't cry. I can feel like I'm going to, even tear up a little, but I can't seem to do it. So I just feel down and angry. The irritability is a bitch, too. I feel so cranky over everything. I'm not snapping at Jeremy or Ayden or anything. I feel it most when I'm driving or I'm at work. I hate it. 

Anyway, not much of anything else is going on. I want to draw and paint but I have no motivation. I need to make my mom's birthday card (her birthday was yesterday - we're going out to dinner on Wednesday), but I'm lacking ideas. I'll come up with something, I'm sure, but probably not today. *sigh*

Friday 3/8/24 Charge Nurse

 Hi all! Two posts in one week, weird!

Just stopping by to say that I am officially the new relief charge nurse on my unit! Yep, I got the position (so the interview must have gone well!). I'll start my training in a week or two. 

Also, Ayden is 17 today! Happy birthday bud! He's at school (bummer) and heading to a friend's house after to spend the night with several friends. We're supplying pizza. 

That's it! Toodle loo!

Monday 3/4/24

 Been a minute again since I last wrote. I haven't been doing all that much. At least anything exciting. I've been reading and enjoying the mild weather here, working, and doing yoga. I have my interview for the charge nurse position this Wednesday. I'm a little nervous, but this afternoon I'm going to "practice" answering questions to prepare myself. I'm sure I'll do fine. Everyone else seems to think I will. 

The only other big news is that my son is turning 17 on Friday. Holy crap!! Seventeen! Where does the time go? He's spending the night at a friend's house on Friday, I don't know what else he wants to do. His girlfriend was supposed to be down this weekend to see him (she lives in Montrose - about 4 hours from us) but I guess she's coming the following week instead. So we'll have to come up with something to do for him. 

I've hit a dry spell art wise, haven't really drawn anything for the past couple of weeks except for a tattoo concept that I want to get on the side of my left forearm. It's a unalome with a lotus flower.

 I need to work a couple overtime shifts to earn some extra money so I can convince hubby to let me get another tattoo. We'll see when that happens. But yeah - that's the only thing I've drawn for quite a while. I was hoping inspiration would hit me today but so far I got nothing. Boooooo. Guess I'll scroll Pinterest looking for ideas. 

Anyway, that's it for now. Wish me luck on my interview!

Tuesday 9/26/23 Birthday

 Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 45. I'm not one of those people who are upset about aging, but man - I'm getting close to 50! Holy cow! I spent the day at work. And, not surprisingly, it was a shit show. Again. I'm so sick of it always being this way. Even did compressions on a baby for 3.5 minutes. Happy birthday to me. But what was nice was I came home from work to find that Jer had decorated a little bit for my birthday, gotten me a card and a cake and my favorite candy bar and gotten my a cute little succulent. That was nice. I was glad for that - it helped.

This morning I talked with a gal from Post University about their PMHNP program (psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner). And I just ordered my transcripts from UCCS (where I got my BSN from). This is terrifying y'all. I'm doing it. I'm going to go back to school. I'm going to become a nurse practitioner. In mental health. Oh MAN this is scary. But I can do it. I know I can. I just need to convince myself of that. And that's hard. So hard. I have low self esteem. I never think I'm good enough. I have imposter syndrome. So convincing myself that I can go back to school, to get my NP, is tough. But I'm determined. I've talked with some people at work about it and they all think I should do it and that I would be good at being a mental health practitioner. This gives me hope. Other people believe I can do it, maybe I can believe that myself. I have a lot of work to do - both before I enroll and after (obviously after - I'll be in school!). I could start as early as October 16th. Wow. Maybe that's too soon. Maybe November would be better. I don't know. I just know that I'm scared and excited. Schooling will require 16-20 hours a week. Which is a lot. Especially on top of working full time. All of my free time is going to be spent studying. Wow. Courses are 8 weeks, one course at a time. Which feels more doable. Sort of. A regular semester is 16 weeks, so it's still like I'm taking 2 classes a semester, they're just not concurrent. Two years and 10 months to complete. Wow. I mean, the time is going to pass no matter what, I might as well be doing something with it, right? This is crazy.

I'm going to stop now. I have a headache and things to do. And I'm a ball of anxiety. Mild anxiety, but anxiety none the less.  

Wednesday 9/22/21 Birthday . . .

 My birthday is coming up. It's Saturday. I'll be 43. Craziness. I know I'm going out to dinner with my step mom, but other than that, I don't know. Probably not much of anything. Which is okay - I don't really need or want to do anything. Just eat and have a mojito or two. 

I work the next two days and I don't want to. Like, I really don't want to. Mainly because we've been floating nurses this week to other floors. Which, let's be honest, I hate. We all do. I feel worthless on other units. I'm not supposed to enter Covid rooms (which over half the rooms are Covid patients), not supposed to pass meds, just supposed to be helping hands or a sitter. So I can do vitals, pass trays, make beds . . . or sit in a room with a patient and chart what they're doing every 15 minutes. Joy. It fucking sucks. I think I'm safe Friday because I'm nursery that day, but tomorrow I'm scheduled for mom/baby. So if we're not busy I could be floated. It just makes for a wretched day. I know I should have a more positive attitude about it - that would go a long way in helping - but it's just hard to. I'm already burnt out, and working on another unit just compounds that. 

It also doesn't help that I'm in a piss poor mood today. Cranky, bitter, down, annoyed with everything . . . I don't think I'm very pleasant to be around today. I got stuff done - laundry, sewing, drawing, organized my studio quite a bit. I even took a short nap. But all of that hasn't helped my mood. I don't want to start a downward spiral because of my poor attitude. It truly can easily happen. I know part of it is thinking about work tomorrow. Part of it is my sewing machine snagging several times and poking myself with a needle. Part of it is because I woke up like this. And part of it is because for the last 3 weeks I've felt like I'm coming down with a cold. I don't ever get sick - I just have the ever-so-slightest feeling of malaise. A barely there headache. My neck is perpetually sore. I don't know what it is. Maybe I have the world's most mild case of Covid. Who knows. But it certainly puts a damper on my mood. Makes me want to nap. Not be productive. And annoys the hell out of me. 

Man this blog post is whiney. I hate when I'm like this. I don't want to cook tonight either. I want Burger King. Junk. I don't care right now. 

Anyway, happy birthday (early) to me. 

Friday 9/17/21

 Well, another week has gone by and there's nothing really exciting going on. Like, nothing exciting. Work and work and more work. And some time drawing and painting and sewing. There's a toy con in December that I'm thinking about getting a booth at so I need to have product for that, right? So that means I've got to stay busy on my days off drawing and painting and sewing. I really could have used a nap today but I didn't. I did 5 paintings and sewed two little owls instead. Which makes 7 owls I've made. Although I sold 2 of them so now I only have 5. They're cute little things. But anyway . . .

I still feel burnt out at work. It's just so stupidly busy. I already need another break. I have around 240 PTO hours so I can certainly afford to take one. But I neglected to do so on the next schedule so I'm shit out of luck for awhile. The holidays are coming up and everyone has requested time off so I'll be hard pressed to get something. Maybe I'll do what I did in August and take a day off here and there so I have a longer span of time off. We'll see. I need to though. 

My birthday is next Saturday. I want to get another tattoo for it (if you saw last week's post you know what I'm leaning towards). I just have to convince hubby to let me get it sooner rather than later. 

Ugh. That's it I guess. Nothing else going on.

Tuesday 6/1/21 I Got Nothing

 It's hard to believe it's June already. It certainly doesn't feel like it - 1. because May went by so quickly, and, 2. the weather has been chilly and rainy most of May so it doesn't feel like summer. But here it is, June 1st. Hubby turns 44 in two days. Haha! He's old! But then, so am I. 

It's also kind of weird that I have nothing much to talk about. There isn't much going on. We had a garage sale this past Saturday which - surprise - got rained out. We're selling all of our Halloween decorations. All of them. There's a lot. We've sold a decent percentage but there's still more to go. Quite a bit more to go. Ugh. Eventually we'll sell them all. 

As of Saturday I've lost 19 pounds. Go me! This is a huge accomplishment for me. And all of this is just from changing my eating habits - I haven't been to the gym in about a month and a half. Crazy. I'm changing that this week. I'm going to get my butt moving again. In fact, I downloaded a yoga app on my phone and I'm going to start using it. And lifting weights. And doing cardio. I'll probably have to start slow, but that's okay. As long as I'm moving. 

I've almost got hubby convinced to let me get my tattoo . . . I got an extra $200 from work for picking up extra days (as a thank you from my boss), so I need about $400 more, to be on the safe side. I told him it could be an early birthday gift for me :D So we'll see. Hopefully I'll be able to get it this summer. 

In other news, I was called off today from work which is very nice. I have lots of PTO to kill - I have as much as I can have and I can't accrue more until I use some. I like getting paid to sit at home. Though I am a little bored . . . oh well. Go to the gym this afternoon and maybe get on the spin bike. 

That's about it. There's nothing new or exciting going on.

The End.

Saturday 9//26/20 Birthday Fun

 So. Nothing much has been going on since my last post. Life is rather . . . boring. Which I guess is a good thing. Because I'm stable and doing well. But it's also boring. Ugh. What to do, what to do.

My birthday was yesterday. I turned 42. It's kind of hard to think of myself as being 42 since I still feel like I'm in my late 20's/early 30's. That's probably good. Better than feeling old. Hubby and I went up to Estes Park yesterday (small mountain town that I love) and hung out, walked the shops and around the lake, had lunch, and some delicious iced chai pumpkin lattes. It was a lovely day. And we topped it off with Chic-Fil-A, which I do love. 

I've still been having anger days. Those haven't seemed to go away at all. Once or twice a week. It's not crazy anger, thank goodness, but it's there, and it's annoying. But I'm dealing with it just fine, so that's good. Or at least I think I'm dealing with it fine. Hubs might beg to differ. 

Next week I'm going to start scanning my artwork into the computer. I'm not looking forward to this. At all. It's a boring, tedious process that takes forever. But it must be done! And having my artwork in the computer means I can share it here! For all of the 2-3 people who read my blog to see! Haha! Yes!

So yeah. Life is pretty boring right now. But I have no depression so that's good. 

The End. 

For today at least.  

9/25/18

It's my birthday today. Can you sense the excitement? Don't worry if you can't - it's not there. And it's not because "oh no I'm a year older"! Honestly that doesn't phase me at all. No, it's because I'm still feeling depressed.

You know, depressed isn't really the right word. When I think of me being depressed, I think of sobbing and wanting to die and cutting myself and utter, bleak hopelessness. I'm not there yet. I'm, I don't know, more mild depression I guess. I feel down and flat and withdrawn and lost and yes, a little hopeless. I don't feel sad. I feel anhedonic. I really feel flat. I'm just kind of emotionless except for anger and annoyance.

I feel tired. Exhausted really. Keeping my mental health in check is hard work. Not to mention that I only average around 5 hours of sleep a night (thank you brain and bladder). The exhaustion isn't just physical though - it's mostly mental and emotional, which sleep doesn't fix (although you best believe I try to fix it with sleep - I nap all the fucking time).

So today is my 9th day of feeling like crap again. After almost 3 months of being stable. Which leads me to believe that I'm heading into another episode. I'm trying not to believe that. Hubby is trying to get me not to believe that. My coworkers and friends are trying to get me not to believe that. But secretly? I believe that.

I'm trying to stay positive and counter and crush all of my negative thoughts. I'm trying to remind myself that I was stable and happy before, I can be that way again. I'm trying to stay busy and do things that I usually enjoy doing. I'm reading my positive affirmations. And you know what?

It's not working.

I'm just sort of . . . stuck. I don't know what to do other than ride this out and hope it doesn't last or get worse. What more can I do?

Anyway, happy birthday to me.