Friday, May 13, 2016

A Little Ranty Thing

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words are: pollen, allergies, last day, help, boxed wine, school. They were submitted by: http://notthatsarahmichelle.blogspot.com
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It’s the season for pollen and allergies and apparently crippling sinus infections. For a little over a week now, I have had a raging fever and the type of pressure in my face that makes me feel like a balloon filled to nearly bursting. It’s been a snotty week, and it’s the end of the school year for Evan, so we have been a bit slack on things. I can’t exactly say that’s a great development as we edge closer and closer to the last day of the year because Evan is already a bit antsy like a caged animal when it comes to doing his schoolwork.

I know exactly why I chose to homeschool him. There are reasons stacked upon reasons, and for the last year and a half it has mostly been a decision that I don’t question, but there are times like the last few weeks that I wonder exactly what kind of nut I must be.

Is that the key factor in good parenting? Wondering about your sanity?

Evan has ADHD, but I have chosen at this point not to put him on medication. Exercise before he works on schoolwork, frequent breaks for more exercise, tips and tricks, and some extra supplements have been the choice treatment so far, and most days that seems to work. Most. Certainly not all. There are days when he spaces out every lecture, hands in worksheets he never touched, can’t answer a single question about what the work involved that day, or finds a way to do anything and everything else besides what he has been assigned. I won’t lie; those days are fucking trying, and with both of us alternating being sick and it being the end of the year, they have happened a bit more frequently.

The fact that I have an ugly and severe case of generalized anxiety disorder doesn’t really help things either. The tough days are the days I question every little thing I do. If I am ruining him, if he will be fine and be able to still make something of himself, if I expect too much, push him too hard, make him feel loved… My head fills with worry and stress and questions and freaks and bends and shakes and I feel like everything I try to do crumbles in front of me.

Then I pull through it, recognize what’s going on for what it is, and I flip anxiety a double bird. Anxiety can eat a bag of dicks. Really. It’s enough to make a girl want to sit around in her pajamas watching shitty tv and drinking boxed wine.

There’s such a stigma with asking for help, with admitting you have a problem and need to lean on someone for awhile, so mostly I have kept this to myself trying to deal with it all, trying to find my own way.

Anxiety is a little like being obsessed with Justin Bieber. It’s a big deal for you and it affects your daily life in innumerable ways, but it’s absolutely horrible having to tell anyone about it unless you find someone else that’s obsessed with that little twatwaffle too.

By the way, I am absolutely not obsessed with Justin Bieber. Even my guilty pleasures would probably turn their noses up at that. But, if I were a closeted Bieleber, I’m fairly certain admitting so in public would be as painful as asking for help with the anxiety that often leaves me crippled by my own thoughts, unable to sleep, and wondering just what the fuck I am going to do with myself.

So here I am nearing the end of another week still with a fever having explained adding decimals for like the 60.45th time and hoping that maybe my pulse rate will drop below 90 some time before the a.m. so I can get in bed at a decent hour.

If it doesn’t I may just opt for whiskey instead of wine.

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Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:

Baking In A Tornado http://www.bakinginatornado.com/2016/05/use-your-words-change-is-chocolate-cake.html

Southern Belle Charm http://www.southernbellecharm.com

Not That Sarah Michelle http://notthatsarahmichelle.blogspot.com

Spatulas on Parade http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/2016/05/pig-on-pig-take-2-bacon-wrapped-pork.html

The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver http://www.thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/blog.html

Dinosaur Superhero Mommy http://dinoheromommy.com/2016/05/13/saving-money-with-freezer-meals/

My Brain on Kids http://mybrainonkids.net

The Bergham Chronicles http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com

Never Ever Give Up Hope http://batteredhope.blogspot.com

Climaxed http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com

Confessions of a part time working mom http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2016/05/use-your-words-jump-rope.html

The Angrivated Mom http://www.angrivatedmom.wordpress.com/

Friday, May 6, 2016

Page After Page

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 13 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

My “Secret Subject” is:

If you ever had an imaginary friend, tell us about them. If not, make one up right now and tell us what they'd be like.

It was submitted by: http://www.angrivatedmom.wordpress.com/

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I never had an imaginary friend in the truest sense though having a Drop Dead Fred in my life wouldn’t have been all that bad all things considered. Childhood wasn’t exactly an easy time, and I found myself living in books, escaping the world I lived in with its darkness and chaos and taking up residence in the creative constructs of others rebuilt in my own mind with any tweaks I saw fit.

The characters from Louis Sachar’s Wayside School series were regular guests along with the kitties from Snot Stew (Bill Wallace). Ramona Quimby made me want to be a little sassier with all the times she made me laugh. Amelia Bedelia first made me wonder what it might be like to have a maid working for me that made me think about my words more carefully, but I stopped having to wonder so much when I had silly conversations with her in my own world spun so carefully out of pieces of others’ imaginations.

I had adventures with Milo from The Phantom Tollbooth wondering through the Doldrums because that’s a place I was most familiar with and I wanted someone to be there with me. I never cared much for spiders in real life, but Charlotte’s Web ensured I had an immortal one that crawled onto my shoulder whenever I needed a friend of the most understanding variety.

I made up mysteries to solve with Nancy Drew and turned my parents shed into a boxcar with The Boxcar Children and shrunk myself to just a couple inches tall to hang out with The Borrowers.

The older I got the fewer real friends I had and the more I lived in books, in the imaginary worlds I constructed and demolished and changed. The more alone I felt the darker my tastes became. I picked up Dean Koontz (who I never really liked) and Stephen King. Characters like the little kid from Firestarter and Carrie started showing up which sounds morbid, and it absolutely is. But, these were dark times in my life. An abusive addict of a parent, my parents divorcing, death threats from my dad against my mom, mom’s new boyfriend beating the absolute shit out of my dad, sexual assault… I mean, it’s a bit more than a 13/14 year old can handle. Not to mention I started drinking and smoking pot which, at that age, probably didn’t help the depths of my gloom.

Even as an adult, I can’t give up on those characters. Some have remained through time, and I have added more with every character I connected with in a major way. Rob Gordon from High Fidelity was, for the better part of 2 decades, the love of my life, though more and more these days I see glimpses of him when I look in the mirror more than anything. The narrating voices of Chuck Palahnuik, Minty Fresh from one of Christopher Moore’s series, so many of Tom Robbins’ characters, Hunter Thompson’s inner voice (sans his love for guns and every illicit substance known to man) all influence who I am the same way an intimate friendship changes you in some way.

In no way do the books I read really replace human intimacy, to real connection, like any imaginary friendship would be, but I honestly wouldn’t be the woman I am today without those friends and those loves.

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And that, my friends, is my swap. Hope you will check out the rest of the submissions. 




Baking In A Tornado http://www.bakinginatornado.com/2016/05/secret-subject-swap-i-take-village.html
Southern Belle Charm http://www.southernbellecharm.com

Not That Sarah Michelle http://notthatsarahmichelle.blogspot.com

Spatulas on Parade http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com

The Bergham Chronicles http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com/

The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver http://www.thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/

Dinosaur Superhero Mommy http://dinoheromommy.com/2016/05/06/read-if-you-dare/

My Brain on Kids http://mybrainonkids.net

The Lieber Family Blog http://thelieberfamily.com

Never Ever Give Up Hope http://batteredhope.blogspot.com

Climaxed http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com

Confessions of a part time working mom http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.com/2016/04/april-secret-subject-swap-exchange.html

The Angrivated Mom http://www.angrivatedmom.wordpress.com/