Category Archives: adult-only

Published in the adult-only category

In vapid news (and less vapid news)

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My neighbor is making their set up fancier and nicer so they are off loading some of their mediocre gardening stuff. This means I just inherited a pretty dang decent giant poly tunnel. This is wonderful for me. Free is the best price. Now I can grow tomatoes. I bet if I got some bags of compost and put seeds in them it wouldn’t really count as planting things…

Also: I got to take a bath for the first time since surgery. That was December, y’all.

We have found some folks we are hanging out with about once a week. I always worry that we are overwhelming them but they keep coming back… There’s another (pagan) family we see about once a month. We have Ostara plans together and I’m looking forward to that. The average outside temperature at that point is 9C. (That’s 48F for the rest of you.) It won’t resemble the Easter parties we used to host basically at all. At least we have a giant house now? A bigger house and fewer friends. It’s kind of ironic.

I am at the heaviest (non-pregnant) weight I have seen since I was 21. I am having a lot of mixed feelings about that. I am looking forward to less ice on the road. I am looking forward to being 100% healed so I can start full on doing chores again. I really want to wear that skirt again this spring. I think I’m a solid 40-50 lbs away from being able to do so. Fuck. I’m sure as shit not going on a diet. (I’m literally eating a candy bar right now.) I want to get back to exercising. I want to get to the point where I can do a half or full marathon again. I want exercise to feel easy again. I’m not there yet. Fuck healing. Fuck getting old.

I have been spending a lot of time lately thinking about why I like to pick relationships with people who put me down. Why am I so completely drawn to people who only want me as a convenience. Why do I pick people who want me as long as I serve them? Why do I love people who speak so negatively about me? If my child had a friend who talked to them that way I would say “That person doesn’t actually love you.” But I have built a lot of my self-esteem around being “loved” by people who put me down or who say fairly terrible things to me. That’s utterly consistent.

It’s pretty clear to me that I don’t hate myself like I used to. That’s progress. I am no longer interested in putting myself in situations where I feel bad at the end of them. That’s good.

Time to go for a walk in the sunshine.

Strike a match and watch it burn

See what the light lets you learn

Are you loved or are you reviled

Are you talked to like a stupid child

Strike a match and watch it burn

Is the destruction really your concern

What if everything you worked for was a big mistake

Maybe destruction is the chance you must take

Strike a match and watch it burn 

Is there anything left to learn

From people who treat you with great contempt

And all of your self confidence they try to preempt

Strike a match and watch it burn

Maybe this bridge wasn’t meant to endure

Is that a flaw in the basic design

Or is it merely the wearing of time

Strike a match and watch it burn 

When will it be your turn

You get to think you are ok

Even if that’s something they won’t say

Strike a match and watch it burn

Sometimes fire is needed for the turn

From hatred to growth and life

It doesn’t have to be about spite

Strike a match and watch it burn

Even though it makes your stomach churn

Don’t let them put you on the funeral pyre

Even if they do it with a smile

Strike a match

And

Watch

It

Burn

Cross posted unit plan

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Well, we tried school for three months. My kids got hit a lot. The head teacher was more upset that my kids fought back than they were that kids hit them. We decided that home education is the way forward for our family for the foreseeable future.

I am trying to adapt my language. We have moved to the UK and here the preferred terminology is “home education” as opposed to “home schooling” for all kinds of reasons. However, I have been home schooling in the US for many years so I’m sure I will slip up at times. I’m trying.

Like many people who do not send their kids to brick and mortar school I find that our approach changes year by year. There isn’t “the way we home educate”. Things change because the developmental levels and abilities of my children change. Things have to shift as life circumstances shift. I know that in the past some people in our lives have deeply resented the fact that we have a more fluid life than they prefer and I need to not let it slow me down.

Up until the age of 7 I do full on unschooling. I don’t do any focused, formal, sit-down work with my children. I believe that the best way for very young children to learn is to be exposed to as many situations as possible and be encouraged to play hard. My family lives in a word-rich environment. We don’t have a television and we read constantly as a family. We read a fairly staggering range of books and we talk all day long. There is very seldom a quiet moment and we like it this way.

My children are currently 11, 9, and 2. It’s going to be a new adventure to buckle down a bit more while giving my 2 year old the freedom she needs. I love having three children and this feels like the most fabulous family configuration I can imagine for us. It wouldn’t work for everyone and that’s ok. We are all very high intensity and we don’t have an extended family network to share that with. We have friends and connections in the community but we are all a lot. We like that within our little family pod we aren’t too much for one another.

We have done years where we work on individual skills and years where we work on major projects in a more college-oriented fashion. Then we traveled the world and were much more unschool focused for a while. I have spent a lot of the last couple of years pushing my kids too hard because I had a lot of personal anxiety around them “not being at grade level” if they had to go to school.

Ha. Hahahahahahahaha. Ok. Well, now that they have attended school that anxiety is over. Sure, their handwriting is super not awesome but their actual subject knowledge is well over grade level in every way. My 11 year old cannot be tested by local age-appropriate schools because she is so far off their charts. We have some local buddies who are in their senior year of university and they have commented that her writing is easily on the level of most of their peers.

Right. We are doing fine. I need to relax more.

But I am not a permanent unschooler at heart. I was a classroom teacher for a long time and we have a house full of ADHD and I am autistic and my children thrive best with a loose structure. We are at our best when we have patterns and flow but not rigid demands.

So. Lesson planning. For the first part of this school year we were deep in survival mode. We didn’t do a lot of formal academics at all because we were traveling then adjusting to moving permanently to a new country. That was a lot. Then the kids went to school for a while. Now they have been out of school for over a month and we have spent the last few weeks doing a slow drift out of the school mode back into a more eclectic style. But I don’t feel that our current methodology is going to result in a lot of long-term progress. I care about them making progress towards their future, not grade level skills per se.

Thus we are talking about moving more in the direction of unit studies for a while. Right now they are selecting whatever they feel like learning out of a larger umbrella topic day by day and there isn’t a ton of building on previous growth. I want to see growth.

I gave a loose summary of what a unit could potentially look like using shopping as a sample topic. After talking about it for ten minutes they are super enthusiastic and they want that to definitely be our first topic. Oh, ok. I hadn’t actually intended to just go that way but why not.

So here is my initial for-myself brainstorm on this idea. I am literally thinking this up as I type and it may change as we go forward. But I really like to talk/type to myself as I work out my thoughts and I felt like this was a good place to put this. With no further ado…

Shopping Unit

To begin with we will do some research on local salary levels and how much of a percentage of average salaries people tend to spend on food. I intend to ask them to each pick three different cities in three different countries and get an average idea of how things vary across the globe. (This will allow us to build on this general idea as we go further with other budgeting type conversations over the years.)

Once we have a solid idea about the variance among the six different places we don’t live in we will look together at the average for our city and then we will place that next to our actual family budget over the past few months. I keep records so this won’t be complicated. We will talk about why our family budget is or is not close to local standards.

Both of the older kids will get to pick whether they want to make up a budget for a single person or a family (they can pick the size) and we will sit down and talk about a nutritionally balanced meal plan. They can use a variety of recipe books and online websites to figure out what kinds of meals would allow them to eat in the healthiest way possible for their needs. (One child is mostly vegetarian and the other child really prefers to eat more meat and fewer meals.)

Once we have our proposed meal plans we will head off to local stores to see what they can buy with their budgets. This will involve many trips to stores as they are not all in one area and the store trips will double as PE because we will have to walk/ride our bikes for many miles just to get this data. I will also be saving the store ads I get in the meantime. I will suggest they look into alternative ways of getting food (delivered veg boxes, restaurants, or big online delivery places like Amazon) and compare how they can do on value for money.

While we are in the stores collecting the data on prices we will also track where the various food items come from. On many separate days at home the kids will use the information about where the food comes from to do geographical research. I want them to see where in the world the food must be grown, which countries could it come from. What are the labor practices in the various countries like? What is the GDP of the different countries involved and what is quality of life like for the citizens (particularly the farmers)? How are global warming and pollution impacting the food production in those countries? I want the kids to be able to draw maps of where these countries are in relationship to their continents; they don’t have to be perfect. Where does the water come from for this food growth?

Now go back and look at your proposed meal plans and budget. How are your choices impacting people in more vulnerable positions? Do you feel like you are making ethical choices? How could you adapt your choices to be more respectful of the totality of the needs of the planet? This will have to involve some longer pieces of writing (hand writing!) as we will also go through and cover ethics as a sub topic here. We have several books on ethics that we will read and consider in an abstract way in the process of being able to apply them to this topic in particular.

We will make more progress on gardening efforts and we will talk about soil nutrition and balanced growing efforts. We will look at whether the various countries that are producing our foods focus on monocrops or if crop diversity is implemented. We will talk about the differences between doing a little bit of gardening versus having to do large scale farming for a living. We will visit local farms to talk to actual farmers about how their lives are structured.

We will research how building houses impacts farm land and we will look into how farms impact wildlife and biodiversity.

Through the course of this unit I want to make notes for myself so that we can have a unit test at the end. The test will cover any and all of the research we do together. I hope to find 20–50ish questions (probably slightly different questions for the two kids because they are not at the same developmental level) to check how well they are retaining this information and whether they can apply it at a later point.

They will be doing a fair bit of short writing efforts throughout the unit because they will have to do a lot of note taking and maths work. I think we will have a weekly short response writing effort summarizing what they feel they have learned that week so they can refresh their own learning.

I think we will need multiple longer writing efforts. It would be nice if they each wrote a fairly detailed graphic story that shows various parts of the food production process and why it works the way it does (they really like doing this; in the past my oldest did a fabulous comic on immigration to California as part of history). This will be both art as well as working on neat handwriting.

As the final project I will help them assemble a long report on food production, how they will utilize the money they have for their budget, where they want to try to buy food from and where they want to avoid food from as they explain the ethics of food buying, and talk about the global conditions that are likely to impact the food chain as they grow into adulthood. I will be involved to help them in this process and I will guide them on formatting and I will help with editing but the writing will be theirs. The final report will go through at least three versions: rough draft, second draft with all of the spelling/grammar/major logical issues addressed, and if the second draft is really good enough a typed third draft. If the second draft gets a big fat raised eyebrow they won’t type until the fourth draft. The final written draft must be written to be legible and neat. But they need the typing practice as well.

I don’t know for sure how long this will take us. As a rough guess at a minimum we will spend six weeks on this but it might take a fair bit longer. We tend to fall into research holes and we love our tangents.

I know this will need refinement as we go and I will ask the kids for their feedback but this feels like a starting place.

Things I’m proud of

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When my kids come home from a sleepover they say “The next meal has to be entirely vegetables because holy moly that was quite a night. Meat. Starch. Sugar. I need veggies really bad.” I was not able to feel that kind of thing in my body when I was a kid. My children can.

We don’t talk about food in terms of calories at all. They are about as ignorant of calories and weight control as a 21st century person is capable of being. I’ve worked really hard on that. We talk about fiber. We talk about slow burning energy and quick release energy. We talk about what you need in order to poop. We talk about how different organs in your body need different nutrients and that’s why we eat a rainbow. We talk about how sugar is an inflammatory and it makes it harder to deal with your emotions and have patience and feel good. Sugar increases pain in your body.

They can tell when they have done things to make their bodies feel icki. I taught them that. I feel really good about that.

My children can cook. They know about balancing food groups and timing things so they finish at the same time and they are getting better at cleaning as they go so they aren’t left with a huge mess at the end. They can do a bunch of work to convert recipes including multiplying and dividing fractions. It’s beautiful. We covered a whiteboard with math equations for our last cake.

Their handwriting has improved in the last couple of weeks again. I think that would have happened in school too–they are just ready.

They are taking a bunch of initiative with their learning process because they are so happy that they aren’t being controlled by an outside force anymore.

They are kids and they fuck up and they break rules and they make mistakes and when they do they are fairly good at being able to learn from the mistake and figure out what they want to do next time. I know adults who can’t do that.

They are self reflective. They actively work on growing and doing better. That doesn’t mean they never backslide–of course they do. Growth involves regression. But they try so hard. They are open to becoming something new.

I love that we are back to devouring books at a furious rate instead of barely having time to read because school takes up so much time. I love that we have time to do our chores when we aren’t tired so it doesn’t take as long and we can have more relaxation time at the end of the day.

I love that my children aren’t in a race to grow up and leave behind “baby” activities. The big kids are back to a ton of intense fantasy play and I am so glad. They have no inhibitions about what kinds of toys are “for their age”. I truly admire how fearless they are about trying art techniques. They are better than me at a wide variety of techniques and I’m super thrilled to watch them shine.

I love that my children cannot imagine living more than a mile away from me. By their ages I was already planning how to get away from my family. They like me.

I like that when I want them to behave I can say, “If you feel yourself wanting to bicker or start a fight I suggest that you think “Four hours of yard work per day until mom is no longer cranky.” I hope that will help you hold it together” then they are polite and they work out their differences in a reasonable way.

I love that they feel safe enough to share the really hard stuff.

I love that this baby will say things like “Not ok a be rough! Be gentle! Don’t push!” and “No kisses a baby, just snuggles.” (she uses “a” for “to”/”for” at this point; that’s ok) I like that she is so fierce about defending herself and asserting boundaries. You just keep that right up. She apologizes when she hurts someone on accident without being prompted.

I love that my children feel free to sass me until I give them the look then they back right the fork off. There is a line of respect and I’ll let you know when you cross it. I don’t disrespect you and you don’t get to disrespect me.

I like that we still say “yes ma’am” to each other.

I like that they think really hard about the balance of ethically made/materials used/cost of items. I like that they think really hard about what it means to be in a world with a lot of other people and how can we be polite to as many people as possible?

I like that they are making their own friends here despite complications and speed bumps. It is taking time and we are learning how to be ok with that. It’s healthy.

I really like my kids.

Shades of gray

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I was in therapy for such a long time. I feel like part of what the point of a lot of it was to help me mature into the idea that not everything in life is black or white. I spent a lot of time and money trying to get to the point where I could wrap my brain around complexity and see that not everything fell into good/bad dichotomies. Occasionally I run smack into someone who still has such a view of the world and it surprises me. I feel like it was drilled into me because I was trying to get to the point of being like everyone else. But maybe not.

The only way to live a black or white life is to limit what you actually do. Once you get into the nitty gritty… people get complex. Good people do bad things. Bad people do good things. People are redeemable. People are worth effort even when they fail to be perfect.

People don’t improve or get better in a black or white dynamic; there is no reason to keep trying. There is no reason to bother trying to do better if you are forever damned by the worst thing you have done in life. It’s important to remember that people only improve or get better if they want to. You can inspire people to change; it rarely works out to force people to change. Forced change is rarely for the better. Forced change often makes people feel dead inside.

Recently I was arguing with someone on the internet about a specific of parenting (for the record, THEY WERE WRONG) and we were debating how to handle a misdeed on the part of a very young child. In her mind she has to force the child to not have that behavior. I said I am utterly incapable of forcing my children to be a way. I can inspire them to be a way. I can coax them towards having the behaviors I want them to have. I can model the behaviors I want them to have. I cannot force them to have or not have behaviors. People are not clay.

Probably the single biggest thing I have learned from parenting (and I bless the fact that I have been able to do this basically 24/7 for over 11 years now) is that if I want my children to behave a way I have to figure out how to model it. I can’t tell them to do something and expect them to do it. I really can’t expect them to be better or have more self control than me. (Which is utterly infuriating sometimes.) They have had a child’s limited set of life experiences and if I want them to have a set of perceptions I need to live in a way that shows it.

In home schooling, if your child doesn’t know something it is all your fault. It’s a lot sometimes.

My children struggle. My children have hardships in their lives even if I kind of wish that they didn’t because I have given up a lot to make the ease that they have. Life is struggle. Life is suffering. I cannot save them from that; not even with home schooling.

Something that is both exciting and terrifying is watching my children go through things that I had to go through. They are not me. They have a different set of expectations and experiences than I had but they also have half of my genetic experience and many similar tendencies. Parenting is an opportunity to give someone else what I wish I would have gotten.

Sometimes they trigger the shit out of me; I am fully back in a moment of extreme trauma and it is very difficult to react to the moment I am in. Other times they upset me or behave in a way that leads to me feeling a lot of rage. I get to decide what I do with those feelings. They frustrate me on the regular.

I get to show them what it means to be a grown up and have to deal with hard feelings. They are going to have to grow up and handle hard feelings too–how do I want them to do it? How do I want them to feel about themselves as a result of having these big feelings?

There are a bunch of things I want to write about in specifics right now but I can’t. My children are not little amoebas anymore. They are fully people and people deserve privacy even if I want to write about myself because they influence me. People don’t like to be talked about. I learned that from Sarah. Even if people tell you that they like being talked about they are lying. People lie so much. And if I decided to talk about my children because I didn’t care about their privacy it would lead to other people judging them harshly in ways that aren’t balanced or fair. People judge the shit out of each other.

People perceive others in black or white. You are good or bad. Broken or whole. Defective or normal. Inappropriate or appropriate. Shitty or excellent.

People are all of those things; it just depends on which minute of their life you look at.

Sometimes I wish I could mold people like clay. I want to give them feedback “If you did x more like y things then you would get closer to the result you want.” But help that is not wanted isn’t help it is interference. I mean, I think it is important to give feedback that a specific thing is not a good choice sometimes… but that doesn’t mean you can correct the behavior and tell someone what to do. It’s a balancing act. “It is not ok for you to _______. There are many other things you could do instead. If you want help brainstorming a list I’d be happy to help you figure out what your options are so that next time you are in a similar situation you can find a different path through it.”

Getting better is a choice. It is a choice you can make. But you have to decide for yourself. Nobody can force you. If you get to being old and you have never decided to improve or look at why your behavior causes the problems you have… well… I have some judgmental words for that. When does the cut off line start though?

If you have a shitty coping method before you are 10, that doesn’t make you an asshole, right? What about if you still have that coping method at 20? 30? 40? 50? 60? 70? 80? I believe people can always change if they choose to, but what does it take to motivate change at different stages of your life?

As a diagnosed autistic person I don’t get to be shitty and say “Well I’m autistic so you have to put up with it.” It may be harder for me to learn what I need to learn to change but I don’t have an excuse for not trying.

These are not rhetorical questions for me. I have some shitty coping methods. I’m almost 40. Am I damned because I have not fixed everything already? I have fixed a lot of my shittiness but I have not been able to get everything fixed already. Am I damned because I didn’t have a different priority list?

If I hadn’t worked on a lot of my shittiness I wouldn’t be where I am to complain about the shittiness that remains. Maybe I didn’t have your priority list for dealing with my flaws but I have been on a grueling path of unrelenting self improvement. That’s a literal fact. I can trace my history through massive changes in personality and behavior.

Some people like to sit back and not do much with their own life and judge the shit out of other people for failing at things. At least we tried.

Drifting

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If I didn’t feel so afraid I would have a lot to document. Life is being quite eventful but I feel like talking about it will cause problems that greatly outweigh how stressful it is. This is the least therapized my life has been… I don’t know, ever? I’ve been pulling back from my US friends. Not because I love them less but because I am utterly exhausted and weary and pursuing them takes enormous energy. I’m not able to put much into creating new friendships here in Scotland. I’m trying, but it feels like swimming uphill through a river of molasses.

My body feels so desperately tired. I’m sleeping a ton–that’s not like me. I’m sleeping 8, 9, 10 hours a night. Historically it is difficult for me to get more than 7 hours of sleep. After these longer stretches I am so weary getting up from a chair feels like a struggle. Is this a deeper manifestation of depression than I am used to? Is this the result of still healing from surgery? Is this trying to actually unwind from the years of anxiety in California/traveling? I don’t know but I feel existentially exhausted. I feel empty.

I don’t know how to fill my bucket. I want to feel more whole. I want to feel like I am thriving instead of treading water to survive.

It’s hard that I am not cleared to go work with plants yet. It’s hard that I feel like I’m not allowed to do much. I’m still in the “spending money to get established” stage (we don’t have enough bed-sized blankets… we have a ton of baby blankets though…). We found some teeny bugs in the food storage area, so protective containers must be acquired or we risk food spoilage. Not stuff we can just not buy. I mean… we could burn more oil keeping the house hotter. That’s penny wise and pound foolish.

There’s a lot I wish I could document for my own sake. But pieces of it aren’t my story to tell and I am deeply afraid of the consequences for other parts.

So I don’t talk much about how I’m feeling with my voice and I write about it even less with my hands.

Is this bone deep discomfort how other people feel? Finding a therapist isn’t really an option for a variety of reasons. Living here may mean that I am permanently out of therapy for a variety of reasons. Well, unless I pursue a degree and it becomes a mandatory part of my job. Wouldn’t that be a funny reason to become a therapist? It’s a way to make sure I have to be in therapy too?

I think a lot about the massive waiting lists in this country for mental health support. I think about what it meant when I was a kid that I had help even though some of it wasn’t the best. It was a lot better than nothing.

Comparing one’s life to other people’s lives is such a complicated and tricky thing. Sure, other people may have X, Y, and Z that you don’t have… but they also have A, B, and C that you don’t have and would you really prefer that balance? This isn’t a fence with one side or the other. It’s a grid with many many many different squares and balances and problems.

I like that often every ends up in my room a bit before bed time to curl up together and read. MC has decided to read Tamora Pierce books. They are a bit above her reading level, but if she sits close to me and asks for occasional help with words she is making her way through. She absolutely loves them. She is stunned that even in a magical temple school there is still bullying. Yeah honey… people jockeying for dominance is absolutely universal. That’s just life.

Today we have our first health visitor experience to check on YC’s growth. I have two doctor appointments next week: a pap smear and a trip to my GP to go over genetic testing results and talk about next steps for EDS assessment. I get the impression that beyond the genetic testing (that’s super fucking expensive to run) Scotland wants to rerun all assessments because they are not interested in foreign medical records. That’s going to be interesting. At least I have the results of 35 years of forcing my way through the US system like a determined train to use as a guide.

My hands hurt really badly. I am trying various handicrafts because I’m bored as fuck. Arthritis is going to be my forever nightmare.

I feel like a fucking whiner. I am definitely in the “but you don’t look sick” camp but my body is degrading really fast. It’s hard feeling like if I don’t talk about how poorly I’m doing I just look like a lazy lump but if I do talk about it I’m a whiner. I’m not lazy; I’m in pain.

I’ve gained weight again. Ha. Good thing I bought my trousers so large.

It’s time for a day.

Anxiety management

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Yesterday I was told that I have three months ahead of me where I am on restriction for arm exercises. That means no yard work until May or June. That means when the bookshelves finally get built I shouldn’t put books on them. That means I really shouldn’t be doing so many house chores.

It’s time to hire a house cleaner and I feel really upset about it. I hit that level of disabled and I can’t expect my family to carry my weight of chores on top of their own for so long. Not in a house this size.

I did a big batch of cooking a week ago and my hand is still swollen. I have to buy and get into the habit of using a food processor. My arthritis is that bad.

I am not feeling good about my body, my self worth, or my general competence. I feel pathetic. I feel like I am seeing my usefulness as a tool slip away.

I was cleared for riding a bike and for going out and doing walks. The doctor was quite firm that I must not pick up my nearly-two year old at all and pushing a pram is… not really wise. I can’t swim but I could supervise my older children swimming.

But I can pull her in the bike trailer and attaching the trailer to the bike is dead simple and no real strain. So that’s something.

I feel absolutely horrid about myself. All of the things that make me like myself are falling away and I am left with the bits I despise.

And that means I want to get into stupid arguments on the internet over paper plates. I didn’t. I walked away. I know it is a stupid control issue. I am anxious as fuck. I want to be stupidly defensive of my choices and there is really no point. It doesn’t matter if this stranger agrees with me or not. I did what I did and… there is no value to arguing. I am not going to live how they live and I don’t need to argue about it.

I feel stupid and useless and I want to not feel so bad about myself. I won’t get that from stupid arguments about consumer choices.

I’m not sure I am going to feel better about myself from anything this morning.

Cabin fever is setting in

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I feel like I am going crazy. I am such a bad patient. I’d like to be doing about 9,482 things. Every couple of days I go crazy and I do something like chopping vegetables and then I spend the next day feeling like shit sitting in a chair. Yesterday while sitting in a chair I spent some time carving holes in a chunk of wood (I am not finding a candle holder that I like) and my stupid watch was yelling at me because my heart rate was too high while sitting still. Fucking body.

Apparently the hole is a bit wider (I’m pulling stitches because I can’t seem to stop moving my shoulders) but it’s not that deep anymore… this is progress. At this point the surgeon just wants it to heal from the inside out. It’s happening. The red swollen bits around the wound look much better. The skin is peeling and ugly, but it looks like healing.

I’m bored. Only boring people get bored. Thus, I am now boring. I want to stop being a boring person. I am not allowed to until I heal. waaaaaaaaaa

Night before last it snowed and the snow lasted all day; we live in a beautiful winter wonderland. (It was just a light dusting; I’m not sure it was a whole inch.) Today it will be 3/4 degrees and raining. Tomorrow is climbing back up to 9. Might snow again on Sunday! It’s not going to be in double digits again for quite some time. I’d love to be going out and hiking the Roman road in the frost and chill–it sounds peaceful and romantic. But I know me. I would be wanting to pick things up and bend and do things like wear my toddler. So… that’s out.

I’ve read a few books. It’s not keeping my brain occupied. I want to do more. Healing sucks.

Fud

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I suspect I am thinking about food so much because I am bored. I am not really enjoying sitting around waiting to heal. I am doing ridiculously bad at it. I just want to go work, damnit.

I used to date this guy who wanted to play with my genitals for a few hours without me ever getting to the exciting part. After twenty or so minutes of this I would dissociate and I couldn’t even feel what he was doing anymore. It was really boring. Thinking about what I want to do in the garden is starting to feel like that. It’s not feeling like the fantasy bathroom I didn’t really think I would ever get to do. (But I did it.)

So today I made a big raw spread for lunch. Then I made cock-a-leekie soup and I started the stock for potato leek soup. I made a French toast casserole for the morning. For lunch tomorrow we will have the potato leek soup and steak (if the steak isn’t bad because we missed the use-by date; damnit). Then dinner is cock-a-leekie soup (we didn’t eat it tonight….) and haggis and neeps and tatties because it is Burns Night. We will be reading poetry and being silly with it.

This week we are doing a big spring cleaning for Imbolc. We also want to make a cake and a feast to go along with the holiday on next Sunday. The cake will be made ahead.

I have unpacked that which I can unpack until the bookshelves are made. This is… not feeling like enough. I want to be done. I want to be fucking moved in. I loathe cardboard boxes. I mean, I will keep some around to play with because they are dead useful but having my belongings in boxes feels like an affront to my spirit. Either get fucking rid of it because obviously you don’t love it enough to take it out of the box or UNBOX YOUR STUFF. Moving has been such an intense thing in my life. I’m not saying that no one else should be allowed to own stuff in boxes; this is a me-thing.

I’m ready to take down the winter twinkle lights. As of my wee one’s birthday in a couple of weeks we will be down to a measly 10.5 hours of night. That’s how much time my house should probably be dark anyway. Ok, so it isn’t quite there yet… but it’s spring cleaning time! Get the house tidied!

Whyyyyyyyyy?

Because I always do a spring cleaning and it makes me feel like a hard worker and I take pride in that. For each thing there is a season and at the end of the season I take it down and put it away so that it feels special again next year. This is my one dust a year, dangit.

I have my bike trailer now. And my back is still open and strained and unhappy and I can’t go anywhere with it. My impatience knows no bounds.

I should be in bed. It’s bleeping 11. But tomorrow I will get to take care of YC for 4.5-5 hours alone while Noah and the big kids go off to the theatre class. Noah will get to have some down time while the big kids play. Ah well. I will play with my lovely little girl. She’s frustrated I am not taking her out but I can’t. Not until I heal.

Fuck healing! Hurry up! This is ridiculous! What, has this wound been healing for 14-24 days depending on how you look at it?! Isn’t that long enough?!?!?!

Bodies are annoying. I FEEL LIKE THE CASTLE IN THIS COMIC. But three years from now… watch out! I will do things!

Ghosts and Gaelic

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I have started studying Scots Gaelic on Duolingo. So far I can pick out grammar a little bit and I can recognize words in writing. I’m pretty sure my pronunciation is shit and any person who actually speaks it would be annoyed at hearing my butchery. But I’m trying.

It’s a little odd unpacking our stuff. I have a really strong sense of “stuff” being tied to people. When I touch an item I am flooded with memories of the people I have seen use something, how I got it, why it is connected to someone I have loved. We pretty much only mailed stuff that had sentimental attachment. That’s… complicated.

I have a lot of the books that Sarah loved during childhood. She didn’t come and get them after the breakup and I couldn’t handle getting rid of them in a way that felt disrespectful. So I shipped them across an ocean. You know how I had tons of Wonderland stuff? Sarah was the one who was into Alice. All of the tea stuff I shipped… reminds me of her. There is a bunch of art stuff she made with the kids. And still we use backpacks and bags from her. My jewelry box was hers.

Taylor made my absolute favorite blanket.

My mother and Jenny’s mother made the baby blankets we shipped.

I have a photograph that Michael Blue took and I can’t get rid of it and I can’t display it.

I have hair stuff from Kira. I remember her voice reading a lot of the board books we own.

I have baby dresses and a mink stole from my mother/great grandmother.

I have a toddler tank top from Mikey and Katie’s wedding.

I have a vase from Francesca.

I have books from Lee.

I have a Ganesha from Mollena.

I have pictures of people who have been important to me. Thousands of pictures. Ethan and Kevin and Joey and Talia and Michelle and Ian-before-he was Ian. I have pictures of my friends with my children. I have pictures of my friends laughing and having fun. I have pictures of hobbies and activities I will never do again. Many of my friends were lovely and they gave me pictures of them from their childhoods.

The snow globe I was given as a thank you for marrying Michael and Erin.

Presents from Noah’s family. The wedding present his college ex-girlfriend made and gave to us. All of the dishes that were hand made by his aunt (a nice lady; we always make sure we stop in to see her when we come to Texas).

Love does not die with the dissolution of a relationship. Connections do not end even when you attempt to sever them. I am made up of fragments of a thousand different people.

The necklace from Stephan when he thought I was to be his wife.

The bracelets and ring from Tom when he wanted me to feel like his possession.

The things that my children and Noah have given me.

I don’t feel like a person made individual. I feel like an amalgam. I feel like the final result of a group project. I feel like I am so much more than just one thing.

The lip balm handmade by Jami. I’m not quite done with it all yet.

The warm things that Jenny made and gave to my family to help us adjust to the climate. (It’s been a warm winter so far! We’ve barely worn it!)

Items purchased at Saturday market with Ali. Or the other Saturday market that I first showed to Lee.

So so so much purchased with my children. I remember their consultation, “Yes that’s the right one for us.”

Despite the rancor and sadness and bitterness that have been part of some of these partings, I choose to take with me the love. I have been so loved. Bailey told me that people come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. Even when the season or the reason has passed for many of these relationships that doesn’t stop the love or the lessons I can choose to learn from them. I can be more because of all these little fragments of love.

The hole in my back is feeling a lot better. It is on the road to healing. The depression and anxiety I have felt all of my life is healing. It’s not that I will always be happy or always feel good–that’s not realistic. It’s time to settle in and start building things and making things in this place. It’s time to make manifest what is in my soul.

I am beautiful. Is it bad that I know this because of the reflections I see in all of these tiny little mirrors? You love me. You love me. You love me. You love me. You love me. You love me. I am a Velveteen rabbit. I am real, I am beautiful, I am whole because you loved me.

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I used to put myself to sleep dreaming about the bathroom I wanted to build one day. Now I’ve done that. So now I put myself to sleep thinking about shorter term goals because that process was hell-ish. (I also suspect I’m avoiding nightmares about my sister, but that’s another story.)

breakfast: steel cut oats with cherries

snack: oranges

lunch: a variety of cheeses; cut up bell pepper, carrots, celery, and cucumber; hummus; green and black olives; some other kind of spread–artichoke?; olive bread; balsamic vinegar and olive oil

dinner: roasted and mashed sweet potato mixed with lots of creme fraiche (I want to pipe this around the bottom of the bird) topped with chives and parsley, roasted Brussels sprouts, roasted carrots, and roasted game bird cooked with a lemon, thyme, and rosemary

dessert: lemon cake

I don’t even know why I want this so bad. But someday soon… I’m doing it. The whole shebang.

I am a lot happier with my cooking these days.

Adventures in the NHS

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On Friday when I noticed that the wound popped open again I left a message on the voicemail of the surgeon who did the procedure. I wasn’t surprised that I didn’t hear back over the weekend. We watched the wound and it improved a lot in appearance over the weekend. Today I got a call to come in and let the surgeon see what is going on.

I went in and sat in the waiting room for well over an hour. Given that I was being slipped in during a fully scheduled day this didn’t bother me a bit. My children are well behaved and polite so it wasn’t a problem for anyone. We sang very quietly to YC and read books and MC wiggled a little in her chair listening to music on headphones. No trouble. When I finally got called in I sent the kids off to the cafeteria with some money for a snack.

The nurse who was examining me was chatty and social and she had a bunch of tangentially related questions to the wound. Generally speaking she just seemed to be trying to develop a bit of a relationship. Given how small this town is, I’m not surprised. She took the dressing off and asked for specifics about the timeline of how healing is going. She asked who has been changing my dressing for me as the one we used seemed small. I told her that we are doing it and we ran out of the bigger ones and haven’t made a trip to the pharmacy yet. She was pretty shocked I am not having a community nurse do all of it–she asked how we were managing. I laughed and said we both have a lot of experience with wound care so it’s not really a hardship for us. She asked what I meant by that and I gave a run down of medical procedures either Noah or I have had to care for and her eyes just about bugged out of her head. She could not believe that people would be sent home with such major injuries to just figure out care on their own. I laughed and said, “It’s really nice to be living in a civilized country now.” She startled. She said that she guesses you don’t really appreciate what you have.

The surgeon came in (I’m having a bit of a hard time with the fact that surgeons are Mr/Ms not Dr) and started off with an abject apology for blowing me off when I brought up the EDS during the surgery. I got the distinct impression he spent part of the morning doing a cram session on what the fork it is and why it matters. He and I were quoting very similar details back and forth to one another about the condition. He is absolutely adamant that I need to get in to see a rheumatologist ASAP because my notes are bare and this condition is a big deal. He apologized again that there isn’t an EDS specialist in all of Scotland. He spent our entire interaction apologizing over and over again. I don’t think I have seen a medical person quite so deeply in “Oh shit I fucked up” mode.

He was clearly very grateful that I wasn’t angry. I told him we are learning together and things will happen along that path. Not everything will go smoothly and as long as I don’t die… we’ll improve in the future. His eyes kind of bugged a bit.

He is now quite concerned about the EDS. He stressed that it cannot be cured it can only be managed. I told him I am fairly chill about it because I’ve had all these problems for my whole life and I’ve been managing and now I have a name for it.

He said that since my wound has popped open twice and the second opening happened several days ago that it can’t be closed again and now I need to just keep it covered and wait for it to heal from the inside out. It does look like it is making progress healing and he does not want to remove the current stitches anytime soon. It doesn’t look like there is any sign of an infection and antibiotics were not mentioned. The occasional twinges of pain I feel are well within the expected level for the depth of cutting he had to do.

In the US the feeling when interacting with a doctor is often “How can I get this person out of my office” because the likelihood that you will really be a specific doctor’s problem in the long run is fairly small. There aren’t many surgeons in this region and I have a complicated medical reality and I’m not that old. The likelihood that I will end up under this surgeon’s knife again are really quite high. When I mentioned the name of the GP I am developing a relationship with he said, “Oh she’s quite nice! Good I’m glad she is getting to know you.”

This is a small town.

The generally expected rate of EDS says that there should be something like 10-12 people in a city this size. That means that information about the disorder is pretty rare and I can understand why people who provide medical care react like they are getting hit with electricity when they realize they really must learn more to care adequately for those specific people. He flinched when I said my daughter has it.

But not in a way that made me feel bad? He seemed like “Ok, I need to step up to this situation” and he was recognizing that the step rise was a few inches higher than he first assumed. That’s not insulting to me at all.

Our breakfast conversation at the house was about how you have to make mistakes in order to learn. I feel like this surgeon wants to get more information so he will never make a mistake like this again. He will handle my post operative care differently next time. That’s nice.

Two pieces of good news in one day

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Yesterday we went to the school for a meeting with the head and the two classroom teachers. Everyone was super kind and upbeat. They extended offers of further assistance should we desire any in the future, we discussed the return of money, and they wished us well. The kids turned in the school equipment they had and… we are officially back to home education. (I will need to start saying home ed because that is the local lingo and folks here hate the Americanism of home schooling. I suspect I could get away with a bit of it due to… being American but I’m going to try to adjust.)

Also, we finally got an email scheduling our delivery. Sometime next Wednesday. Six more days until our stuff arrives. When it arrives it will have taken five months and a day from door to door. 22 weeks and a day. The estimate was 4-12 weeks. This is going to get the 1-starriest of 1 star reviews. And we need to open all the boxes quickly to check for damage. Woo. I have been told that I should expect a lot of mold damage. Fudge and suckerfish and whiiiiiiiiine. That will be super fun. And that means poor Noah is going to need to do most of the work for checking because I sincerely doubt I will be up for doing any of the lifting.

My wound had noticeable bleeding when we were in Edinburgh. That was 15 days out from the original surgery and 5 days out from the second stitching. That’s not so good. On the upside, I don’t know of a reason I have to leave the house until I have a doctors appointment on the 31st of this month. I am going to decline offers of suture removal before that. That’s a dermatologist appointment. The wound is very uncomfortable to the point that I would still say it hurts. The other upside is we might actually get the money for selling DVC soon. It’s a bit over a full year of run money so that sounds nice.

Wait, I do know a reason I have to leave the house. In the next two days I need to go pick up my library card. I signed up before the original surgery and I thought I would be better by now. It’s not a long walk away.

I’m really excited. I feel like I have my kids back. We already have the schedule agreed to and written on the white board in the kitchen. The kids know that chores and academics need to be done by noon if they want to game with the local home ed kids in the afternoons (they were invited to a Minecraft realm and they’ve been really enjoying that). On days they don’t get their stuff done they will probably spend the afternoons playing or reading books. I’m sure we will have some slack days in the semi-collapse post school rigor.

We have exchanged contact information with a number of parents from the school and I hope several of those friendships continue. One family in particular I am quite certain it will, others are TBD. We have tentative plans for a weekend hangout at the park with one of the girls from MCs class.

We won’t be able to jump into the home ed community until my back heals so I’m sort of extra motivated to sit in a chair so I can heal faster. I think this is going to be fun. And soon I have my stuff! This is great! SIX MORE DAYS

Reevaluate everything

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I don’t really know what I’m doing as a parent. I read things, lots of things. There are so many opposing opinions on literally everything. So I try shit out and then I talk to my kids about how it is going. In the long run their opinion of my parenting is the only metric I care about.

I asked them last night if they think getting paid for chores is motivating them or taking away motivation. EC eloquently said, “Well, on weeks when I don’t need any money I don’t see any reason to do chores.” So that’s not super helpful. I asked if they think paying for their own stuff is helping them feel like they are more responsible with how they use up products. They said that part is working well.

We also renegotiated their pay for babysitting because that’s different from sweeping and tidying. They did some practice on how to state how they have increased their responsibility (closer to babysitting rather than just being a good playmate who distracts YC while I have to do all the ‘work’ stuff) but they still aren’t ready to be fully independent about it. We talked about what adults/older teens get paid and what sorts of qualifications those people have that my kids lack. I did this same sort of process with their former babysitter. How do you negotiate for pay increases, how do you talk about your increasing level of responsibility?

It was interesting listening to how they have no real interest in renegotiating what they get paid for chores because that has an opposite effect on their motivation to do the work, but babysitting is different. If I were to guess about why these things are different (I don’t know for a fact I can only use conjecture) chores are things they are doing in preparation for being an adult and it’s part of being a citizen of the household. Babysitting is different from just playing with their sister and being part of a family. It’s exhausting in a different way and they are doing this training partially so that when they get older they know how to advertise their services to other people. Neither of them anticipate a career in janitorial services, those are skills they are learning for themselves.

That’s my guess. But I could be wrong.

So we are going back to a flat allowance for most chores with the exception of babysitting. The first five hours/week of babysitting is payment for their cats since they don’t want me to feel like I own the cats. They get paid over that threshold. So technically their pay can still be variable, but frankly most weeks I doubt they will do more babysitting time than the basic hours.

It means that each big kid will do a couple of hours on a weekend day with their sister and then an hour most week days. I will get to rest more.

I’ve tried creating this with adults for pay. I signed back up with Care.com and the like here in Scotland. I have ads. I’m looking for support! I’ve sent messages! No bites. I’m not sure what it is about how I advertise that makes people have so little interest in working with us. Ah well.

I might get to actually date my husband again one of these years. Woo.

MC’s “babysitting” is still at the level where I have to be available to provide food and nappy changing services but she’s getting really good at playing with YC for a while if I have chores I want to do. I think EC is at the point where Noah and I could disappear down to the apartment for a few hours. I still wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving them alone in the house as a regular thing.

EC did take care of things when my wound popped open. Getting a taxi for 5 is… hit or miss. Sometimes they send an adequate vehicle and sometimes we have to send back a smaller car and wait for a bigger one. So she stayed here for two hours with YC while I got stitched up. I am grateful that we now have that level of assistance, but I don’t really think EC feels ready to take on that level of babysitting on a regular basis.

Babysitting usually means Noah and I get to be in our bedrooms with the door shut for a little while. So we have half an ear out for stuff we need to mediate, but we get to do something without toddler “help” for an hour or so. It’s a work in progress.

We are all just works in progress.

I do these kinds of negotiations with my kids partially to model for them that relationships are not static. You try something and if it isn’t working you can change it. Just because you agree to try something that doesn’t mean you are stuck doing it forever. You are allowed to grow and change. You really should change over time. And it’s hard to figure out what should change when things aren’t working; sometimes you need to throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks.

We are talking a lot about what we want from home schooling going forward. I’m doing more research because that’s my place of comfort. I’m looking into what the exams are like in secondary school. When do they happen, what do they mean? How do we prepare for them in a home schooling environment?

Well, me screaming about them not working hard enough… that needs to not be part of it. MC is just to the age where I started sitting on EC really hard to force her to “catch up” in a few subjects. Turns out I didn’t make her catch up to grade level I made her get way above grade level but I did it at the cost of both of us being miserable for a long time. I need to learn from that mistake.

Why is it that people who beat the “handwriting is important” drum think they are being the voice of dissent and advocating for The Most Important Life Skill? You aren’t the voice of dissent. You are literally parroting The Man and being as fucking basic as possible.

But the exams here all handwritten. So my kids need to practice for that. I get it. Just, ugh. Don’t act like handwriting is the measure of the anything other than the ability to jump through an arbitrary stupid hoop. It is not the measure of intelligence or knowledge or wisdom.

My mother’s handwriting is exquisite. That hasn’t helped the woman get a good job, ever. My handwriting is shit and the only thing it ever cost me was a masters degree. I still got the pay raise associated with the masters degree in my career of choice. I still have never had difficulty applying for any work I’ve ever wanted to do. I didn’t want the career that a masters would enable. I wanted the knowledge so I could be better at the career I was in without having it at all.

Just… ugh. Why in the fuck do handwriting advocates think they are so… revolutionary? “I’m going to be the voice of dissent that happens to agree with every bureaucrat in existence.”

Like, really? Voice of dissent here? Come on now.

Oh… you were just trying to say that if there are disability related reasons that handwriting is a problem I should not seek out accommodations because who gives a fuck about those disabled kids. Right. How very ableist of you. One of the fucking diagnostic tools for EDS is difficulty/pain in holding a pencil. Our god damn joints don’t stay in place to hold the pencil the way it works for other bodies and we can end up with permanent fucking pain.

That’s not the “voice of dissent”. People have been telling folks with disabilities to suck it up since forever. But sure. Keep feeling superior over there. What was that you said? You don’t have a job and you need to go back for extensive training to get another one because your qualifications lapsed? I guess all that fucking handwriting you did wasn’t enough to save your ass?

Sure. Keep telling me about how handwriting is The Way, The Truth, and The Light.

I’m clearly frustrated with someone. But yes, I know my kids have to work on handwriting. Even if it wrecks ECs hands she has to do it anyway.

THE FUCKING VOICE OF DISSENT HAS SPOKEN.

“It is no sign of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” – Krishnamurti

Sigh.

If you look up recommended accommodations for children with EDS, “eliminate handwriting grade and substitute grades for content and effort” is on the list.

Sigh.

We’ll figure it out. I’m just frustrated. People are challenging.

Uncomfortably not-numb

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I am trying to sit still and heal. I really suck at this part. I slept well last night but I feel groggy and stupid. My back still burns and aches.

I feel frustrated with myself for not doing more research on EDS before the surgery. I have a history of complications and no one is going to track them or advocate for me; I have to do it. I told EC this morning that I am glad that she is learning these lessons before she is even a teenager because someday something is going to go wrong with her body and she will know enough to advocate for herself early and hard. EDS means difficulty in healing: our collagen is different. I already knew that I had issues with local anesthesia. This is the first time a wound has popped open like this, but I’m getting older and it’s going to be a bigger concern as time goes by.

I’ve been talking to a buddy who has EDS and a bunch of similar issues. She’s trying to help me figure out how to present this information to the doctors here. She’s upset because the surgeon told me that EDS wouldn’t have any impact on this kind of surgery. That’s not a great sign for the folks around here knowing how to handle my condition and it’s a small pool of doctors here. I am going to have to educate them all.

Festive.

But if I frame it as “There is a small pool of doctors here so these are the same people who will treat EC when she has issues” then it feels a lot more worth the hassle.

I’m tired and I hurt but I’m bored too. I want to be working on something. I want to be moving forward on something.

My last contact with the shipping company says that the next company that will touch my stuff is just waiting until they next have a delivery scheduled to come to the Highlands. It could take a while. Our stuff has sat in warehouses for more than three months. That was supposed to be the maximum amount of time for shipping it. So the transit time is within the estimated time… but people just don’t feel like doing the transit part very quickly. Still no sign of them wanting to do this soon. Fuck everything.

Oh crumbs. I just remembered that we are going back to Edinburgh on Tuesday. That’s going to be fun right now. That means I get three days of “rest” before getting to travel/walk/take care of business for 16 hours. Fun.

I put rest in scare quotes because I was alone with the baby for five hours yesterday.

Shit.

I feel like absolute shit. I’m past the point where I’m holding my right arm to my torso to prevent any muscle movement. Yay? This is all massively confounded by the fact that I feel really guilty about “Noah’s month off” turning into “Noah doing everything for Krissy for a month”. I feel so overwhelmed and guilty.

I’m in the narrow window of the month when I’m more likely to be interested in sex but hahahaha no.

I feel really bad about myself right now. I feel useless and lazy. I feel like somehow I did something wrong because I should have known that I needed to do a bunch of research before the surgery and come in with documentation of my fucking special needs. I should have known that it was too soon to take the sutures out. I…

I should have done everyone else’s job for them or it is my fault things went wrong. Because I didn’t do more than my share now Noah is getting stuck with my share and that feels really unfair.

I’m tired and sad and worn out. I’m sick of resting.

But, I emailed the professor who has been on my mind for over a month. I did a bunch of research into the education system in Scotland. I know more about what I’m going to need to learn over the next few years.

Even being idle doesn’t have to be idle.

Sidebar: I WANT MY FUCKING STUFF.

Complications

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I had the stitches out yesterday from the surgery I had on the 31st. Then the wound popped open and I had to go see another doctor to have the giant gaping wound restitched. Apparently that’s called suture dehiscence and it’s common for folks with EDS. I’ve been doing research this morning. Apparently EDS means I should have had my sutures left in for twice the normal healing time. I am going to figure out how to get a bunch of research on EDS to my medical team. I mentioned on the operating table that I have it and the surgeon said it wouldn’t matter.

My kids were understandably pretty freaked out. MC told me she had an unhappy tummy when she thinks about the wound.

I said that being afraid of the wound is like being afraid of riding your bike. I am going to die someday–that’s the end result of being alive. You are going to fall off your bike sometimes and the only thing you get if you are afraid of it is that you can’t enjoy the time you are on the seat. I am going to die some day and my body has a lot of complications that I’m trying to manage so that I can stay alive as long as possible. My body has more complications than average and that means I have to do a lot of research and I have to advocate for myself because keeping me alive isn’t the same process as it is for other people. If we waste a lot of time being afraid of my eventual death we won’t get to enjoy the time I am alive.

This research is extra important because EC has the same condition and the more I find out about myself the more I can save her from suffering through similar issues. She can advocate for herself earlier and harder.

Now I need to figure out how to get this research to my medical team. It’s entirely from highly reputable/peer researched locations. I’m not researching on blogs (Even though blogs are often pretty fucking accurate) so I hope this is taken seriously.

I need to assume this will take twice as long to heal as “normal”. I need to have the stitches stay in longer than expected and I need to say that to the doctors involved in my case. I need to be proactive because I am the only person who suffers from these fuck ups. My back hurts a lot again today. There was partially healed skin there that ripped open. It doesn’t hurt as much as it did the day of the surgery but it probably hurts as much as it did on day two or three post surgery.

I almost certainly tried to bounce back faster than I should have. I feel so much shame for “being lazy” when I don’t help and do chores around the house. But here I am with more complications post-surgery because I didn’t let my body have the time it needed. It’s like what happened after the septoplasty when I probably had three or four times as long of a recovery because I didn’t take the twice as long I should have taken.

Ugh.

I should probably sit in this chair for ten days or more this time. That’s hard for me. I must work to feel worthy. But if I don’t rest I will be less able to work in the long run. It’s complicated.

And it begins

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Trying to make new friends is a process. It’s hard. It takes effort and time, but we are getting started. Yesterday was a banner day on that front. I talked to two parents from the school about playdates outside of school. They both want to maintain a relationship after we leave the school. We exchanged numbers and arranged to meet up outside school.

Then the young gentleman I’m talking to came over with his partner for dinner. We talked until midnight. It was fun. When I graduated from high school they were 1. *sob*

I am utterly worn out today though. And we have two doctor appointments and a cake for a cutie pie to drop off. It’s going to be a long day. These young whipper snappers have more ability to stay up late than me. Ugh.