NO INTERNET!!

So, all I have to say is, "AAAAaaaaRRRRGGGHHHHUUUGGGHHH!!!" (FYI: That's me throwing my hands up, screaming in frustration)

I have been without internet at our new house for two weeks.  TWO WEEKS! When you make money by selling jewelry and other items online, TWO WEEKS without the internet is like two years. Even as I write this, we still do not have the internet, but I am fortunate to be able to use the internet at Scott's mom's (Gran) house when I drive over.

The Comcast guy came today to install our cable and internet, and I was so impatient awaiting his arrival (from excitement). Unfortunately, about thirty seconds into his visit, he said that he was pretty sure we are unable to hook up hi-speed internet or cable, because of how far out we live. He measured the yard with this little wheel counter thing, made a quick call, and said his technician would have to come back tomorrow and do his own measuring or something along those lines. Ultimately, the only thing I heard was that he would not be connecting my internet today. I think I could have cried.

I don't know why, but lately I have been lacking in the motivation department. Motivation to finish unpacking, motivation to paint, motivation to make jewelry... pretty much no motivation to do anything at all. I think it has to do with the medication I'm taking to keep me awake, because it is not strong enough to really do that effectively. Fortunately, tomorrow my new prescription will be arriving in the mail, and it will be for a brand new drug to try to keep me awake. I'm praying wholeheartedly that it helps bring me back to normal! I'm ready to be awake again, and motivated to be CREATIVE and PRODUCTIVE!

New news!!  I'm going to be having a tiny little surgery in a few weeks.  Nothing major, just a laproscopy through my belly button to snoop around in my belly and I'm having my bladder stretched to try to limit the pain from my Interstitial Cystitis, a painful bladder syndrome. The good news is I've had this surgery before, in 2004. I've actually had my bladder stretched in 2004, 2006, 2009, and now in 2012, and it only takes a day or so to get over the effects of surgery. The bad news is I'm having the laproscopy again, and this keeps me down for a few more days after surgery, but at least I'll be at home! 

Most people have anxiety about surgery. Me, I actually look forward to it (or I have so far...).  There's this moment when they have you hooked up to the IV and they say something to the effect os, "Now you're going to go to sleep, and we'll see you when you wake up." and every time I try my hardest to stay awake, but you just can't beat that feeling with you literally feel like you are sinking off to sleep. Then, "BAM!" this strange nurse is standing over you, trying to wake you up, as she tells you that surgery is over and everything is fine. And that's the point where I always lose all control and start talking out of my head from the medication. We're not even going to get into what all I've said during this part!

So, nothing major, just a minor surgery. And I think that's about it. We're moved. Still unpacking. Not quite organized, but I'm on the road there. Living in a tiny home with a lazy chihuahua and a feisty cat. Trying to figure out what to do next. Talk to you next time!

Moving Mayhem & Clutter Chaos

As I've written in past posts, we are moving about an hour and a half to two hours away from where we live now. We will be out of our current house by January 31, so we're steadily packing boxes, driving furniture to the new place, unpacking and organizing there, and starting back over at our current house. And each time we come back to our house we're currently living in, I would be willing to swear that somehow our stuff still to pack somehow grew while we were gone. And by stuff, yes, I mean junk. Clutter. Stuff I should-a thrown out a few years ago.

I'm a good packer. I'm an efficient packer, careful to wrap breakable items and label the boxes according to items inside and rooms it should go in. I'm organized with that.

What I'm not organized with is all of the junk I have managed to accumulate over the past few years since I moved out of my parents house. I even found a box that I never unpacked from when we moved to where I live now! I had just stuck it in the top of a spare closet. When I found it, there I went, distracted down memory lane of old Wal-Mart Receipts and half full Sticky Note tablets. If I haven't needed anything out of that box in all of this time, don't you think the obvious thing to do would be to chunk it right away without going through the contents? Yes. Was I able to do that? No.

I am a packrat, not a hoarder, but a keeper of tiny things that cost me more money and time to keep them unorganized than it would be to throw them out and buy it again if I needed it. What kind of items am I talking about?

Hm... here's one: Bobby Pins. I'm going through a box, and there's a lone bobby pin in the bottom of the box.

Now there are 48 brand new ones under the bathroom counter, but instead of tossing it in the trash, I'm the person who wastes 5 minutes to pick up the bobby pin and carry it to the bathroom, find the others that I already have, put the found one in with them, and then I'm SUPPOSED to go back to going through the original box right?

Well, there's my other problem....

As I'm placing the lonely found bobby pin in with the others, because I just couldn't throw out a $0.01 BOBBY PIN ( Gasp!), I notice an ink pen in the bottom of the hair bin. Which I just HAVE to take to put in the box with all of the other pens. And there I notice one single sock. And it goes on and on and on.  Now remember that ALL of this time, I have neither packed one single box nor have I finished cleaning out the original box I was going through.

By this time, I have a half empty box I didn't finish going through, the hair supply box pulled out from underneath the bathroom cabinet (still sitting in the floor), and the box of ink pens and pencils out on the table. Let me do this for a few days, and you can imagine how far I'm getting with this packing ordeal. And it ALL could be avoided if I would just think long and hard enough to THROW THE BOBBY PIN AWAY IN THE FIRST PLACE!

What items are my main issues?

Panties... I don't want to get rid of any, even though I probably couldn't even fit my butt in them anymore... they're cute! But, I reluctantly have purged the stash...

Markers, Pens, Pencils, Crayons... Art supplies, you name it! We have SO many pens and pencils, I don't know what to do with them all!

Junk... Just JUNK (PERFECT picture I found in the internet)... a marker, a screwdriver, a million rubber bands, old gift cards, tiny paper to open... just random junk. I have a LOT.

I'm a note-taker, a list maker, a writer-downer of just whatever comes to mind.  And there you have it.  And now what I have is a million sheets of paper with random things on them that I've written since I've been home from work, and I've had time to actually find and jot down whatever I find that I may want to remember in the future.

And you know what my main "Inhibitor of Packing" is? BOREDOM. I can't watch T.V. because I have to focus on what I'm doing, so tv and the internet are out of the question if I'm actually going to be productive. The radio gets annoying after an hour or so, and I can't talk on the phone, hold it to my ear, and pack boxes... It's just a boring process that wasn't meant to be fun. And it's not. Fun. 

Not a Very Nice Chelsea...

Lately, I have been hearing random comments about my blogging habits. Something like, "If I am so sick, how can I blog and write so much?"  I have heard this over and over, and it is really starting aggravate me. Right now, I have 8 half written blog entries saved to my post list. Tomorrow, I may add a paragraph or two to an entry, IF it is a good day, I may add three paragraphs. By writing like this, at any given time I may have anywhere from 7-10 blogs entries half finished in my drafts. Sometimes I can't sleep so I write at 3 a.m., sometimes noon, sometimes 7 p.m., usually just whenever I can think clearly enough to make sense.

Then, when I finish with an entry, I schedule it to be submitted and posted at a time when when there is usually a lot of people on the computer or facebook. Then, when I send out the blog notification, I will only have to type it a few times rather than many times. I hardly ever post an entry  when I actually write it.  In other words, if my blog says that I wrote it at 3:45 p.m., and at 3:30 p.m. I had just told you that I was sick, there's a 99% chance that blog entry was written earlier in the day or even a few days before or the night before, and I had already scheduled it to be submitted at a later date. That does not mean that I lied about being sick or that I am avoiding anyone or faking anything...

This is just another one of those times where there really is more to the story than what is on the surface, and I do what I have to do to make sure that I can keep writing, even if it is at 3 a.m.

And, if anyone tries to call me and I don't answer, please send me a text or an e-mail, because I will most likely see those attempts first.  There are days where I don't speak well or the background noise is confusing, and I have gotten to the point where it is very difficult to talk on the phone quite often. If you do call and I don't answer and you don't want to text, the only thing I can tell you is call about 10 times. I do not answer my phone most of the time, and I know most of you do not understand that.

But if it was hard for you to speak and pronounce your words or if ANY background noise during phone calls, even a plastic bag rustling, left you in a fog for the rest of the day, you would truly get it. Click these links on Sensory Processing Disorder, and you can read all about it.

http://www.sensory-processing-disorder.com/adult-SPD-checklist.html

http://www.sensory-processing-disorder.com/sensory-processing-disorders.html


When we hang up the phone, you go back on with your normal day. For me, something just shuts down, and I can't explain why the phone does that to me. And it doesn't matter if it is a 30 second call or a 30 minute call. As a result, most of the time lately I have no idea where my phone even is. The sound of any ring used to bother my head, so I turned the ringer down to vibrate. Now, the sound of the vibration of the phone makes me feel like I am going to crawl right out of my skin, so I turn my phone on silent.

I don't want anyone to read this and think I'm speaking to you specifically, because I'm not. Lately, there just has been so many friends and relatives that complain constantly that I don't answer my phone but then I am well enough to blog. I hear it all the time from tons of people. Truth is, when I do have that time when my migraine isn't hurting too bad to think straight, I spend that little bit of time on myself. And what I mean is, I'm usually sitting in total silence, because I can tell you that the pain never lets my brain be silent for too long. When I'm not hurting for even an hour, that is the only time I can think totally straight.  I may write a blog, I may sit on the porch, I may lay down and enjoy the silence... I enjoy that rare time, but after spending all the hours before that in pain, I am selfishly not ready to give up that hour yet.

I finally have the house organized & clean for the most part, so any of you are more than welcome to visit during the day. Hey, you don't even have to call first... haha. (I'm joking about the call, but I do with you would e-mail or text, because I'd rather not be naked.)  I don't leave the house much, because everything in my house is comfortable. I would love to just have a presence in the house sometimes, even if we don't talk the whole time. But, it doesn't matter how mad anyone gets at me or how many people think I could do this different...  I promise, unless you have walked in these shoes, MY shoes, not someone else that has MS, not someone else with a similar disease, and NOT your shoes, but unless you have walked in MY shoes, you really don't understand.

Bottom line, I wake up in the pain. I walk in the pain. I hear the pain and I have such a keen sense of hearing that the sound of the hands moving on the clock in the hallway drives me crazy, so I took the battery out. Or the hands in my watch on the nightstand moving. I can't stand the windshield wipers being on. I can't stand the sound of the air on in the car. And the list goes on...

Anyone can waste their time being mad or upset or whatever but I promise, there is no one in this world that is more tired, sore, angry, exhausted, disappointed, aggravated, hurt, inconvenienced, and most of all impacted the most by this disease than YOURS TRULY. And to have to deal with all of the side effects of zillions of meds, physical pains, phantom pains, emotional distress, and chronic fatigue is absolutely draining. But I will tell you bluntly: You sure do give me that final kick I need to be flat on the floor when you add all of the snide comments and remarks about me not answering the phone. I know you care, but I'm finally at a point in my life where I can't kill myself trying to make everyone else happy all the time. I struggle with my own happiness often enough. I'm not telling anyone NOT to call, for I really love knowing that I have friends and family that care. I love all of you, and I wish I could see you more often, but I can't drive very far anymore. I miss you all, and yes I miss your voices too! All I'm asking is that you NOT to get angry with me about not answering the phone every single time. I do answer then I can, I promise! I just really don't think everyone truly grasps the severity of this disease, and honestly, I pray that you never will, even if you all always get angry with me about this stupid phone.

How about this: Open your skull and pour millions of fire ants on top of your brain and sew your skull back together and sit there while they sting and bite you millions and millions of times every day, all day long..

Then, with those fire ants setting your head on fire, go water skiing for three days straight, and add the FLU on top of that. Picture how that would feel every single day.......... Wait...I think your phone is ringing.                                                     Welcome to my wonderful world...