Gratitude week 108

/ Outrunning my demons / 3 Comments
  1. A big shout out to Paul for breaking up with our pastor before we left on our trip. Paul decided to tell him in person that we are leaving the church.
  2. The vet who came out to put our dog down made a donation to the humane society in our dog’s name and sent us a handwritten card expressing her sympathy. I liked the special touch.
  3. My brother Mark and his wife Carla also sent us a sympathy card for our dog. It meant a lot since Carla can be a difficult person. It was nice to know they care and are thinking of us.
  4. Paul and I had a nice little getaway in Las Vegas with our friends. I did warm up to gambling more than I thought I would. We had some nice meals.
  5. Paul and I got a couple’s massage in Las Vegas. It helped me have a more relaxing time.
  6. We had a safe trip back home. The flights were pretty uneventful, so I’m grateful for that.
  7. We are planning on getting together with some old friends tonight for cards and to watch the Packer game.
  8. I’m grateful that our trip was drama free and there weren’t any problems at home.
  9. I’m grateful to be able to get back into the swing of things again a little more refreshed.
  10. Clean sheets and to sleep in my own bed.

Gratitude week 107

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

I’m not going to lie, it’s been a shitty week. I started the week out with COVID and ended the week by putting my dog to sleep. So…I think I’m good on my share of problems for awhile. Oh, if I could bet against my luck I would be most fortunate indeed. Anyway…

  1. About the only good thing about having COVID is now I don’t have to worry about getting COVID.
  2. I’m glad my kids were all able to say their final good-byes to our dog. They all gathered around our dog when the vet came out to put him down.
  3. I’m grateful all my children are in good relationships and their significant others really helped them through the process.
  4. The vet who came out to our house was kind and compassionate. She did everything she could to be gentle to ease our dog’s suffering and our own.
  5. I’m grateful for the 14 years we got to spend loving our dog. I feel at such a loss, my kids lost their childhood pet and their childhood is over. It’s a strange feeling, the regret of not being able to go back. It’s over. It’s final. But it was good.
  6. I’m grateful that Arabella’s boyfriend is going to be taking her pet frogs home to his house today. I have been taking care of them since she moved out and it will be nice to give them back to her.
  7. I have an appointment to get my haircut today and just got my nails done for the trip.
  8. I am getting excited to get away for a couple of days. I seriously think betting against myself would be a wise plan in Vegas. But I’m not much of a gambler.
  9. I was FINALLY able to get a good night’s sleep last night.
  10. It will be nice having high temps in the mid-60’s for a few days. Right now the wind chills are below zero.
You will be missed, my puppy!

Gratitude week 106

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment
  1. Having a mild case of COVID.
  2. My husband’s homemade soup.
  3. Having an electric blanket when I was feeling sick and during a wind chill advisory.
  4. Having a girl’s night with Angel and Alex’s girlfriend Lexi. We went thrifting and out to eat for Indian food. This is the first time we hung out with Alex’s girlfriend without him. (I also named her on this blog). I try to treat all of my kid’s significant others as if they might be a part of the family some day.
  5. I found a pretty light blue sweater at the thrift store that had the original price tag of $89 on it. I also found an album for my record player by Anne Murray.
  6. My brother Matt had a scan done on his liver and everything is stable. (Several years ago his liver numbers were not good and he was taken off his anti-psychotic med because it is hard on his liver. He started hearing voices again to kill my niece Eva. He was put back on his medication and will need to be on it for the rest of his life at the price of his liver. So we are grateful that as of right now his liver is good).
  7. I had a good appointment with my doctor yesterday. I told her again how much my joints were bothering me and she gave me a referral to see a rheumatoid doctor. Unfortunately, they are booked up until the middle of May. But I am hoping they can give me some answers about the joint pain I have been having.
  8. I don’t know how it happened, but I lost 12 lbs. being sick. Maybe I will be able to fit into some of my old clothes?
  9. We decided not to scrap our whole vacation altogether when we decided to cancel our trip to Puerto Rico.
  10. We got a great deal to go to Las Vegas and will be staying at the Venetian. Our friends and I have already checked Nevada off our bucket lists, but my husband has never been there.

Update 1/11/22

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

Sorry if it seems I dropped off the side of the planet the last couple of days. I think COVID finally caught me. Or maybe I caught it? Besides having a fever for a day and severe body aches, my symptoms have been relatively minor. No sore throat, a slight cough, mild congestion, no problems breathing. It started out like the flu and is ending like a mild cold.

Practically everyone I know is sick or has been sick in the last couple of weeks with the exception of my husband. It’s crazy, but my husband in the last 26 years I’ve known him has only been sick once that I can remember with strep. I hope he stays healthy.

We decided to cancel our trip to Puerto Rico next week. They are at a COVID level 3 right now. Basically non-essential travel is not recommended. The government would track us while we were there. We had some friends who got stuck there an extra week because their flight got cancelled. For the money we were spending it sounded a lot more stressful than fun. I booked the trip on Expedia. The hotel is giving us a total refund, the airlines are giving us a credit for around half the cost of the flight. The real kicker is that I bought travel insurance and they said a COVID outbreak is not a valid reason to cancel the trip so we will not be getting a full refund. I am so pissed. What a waste of money that was.

Instead, we decided we are going to go to Las Vegas next week for half the cost of a trip to Puerto Rico. I am hopeful we will be able to go.

I am hoping to do my gratitude list within the next couple of days for the week. I just haven’t been up to much. Not only that, but we are in the process of having to make a difficult decision about our dog. He is 14 years old and is on 5 different medications just to keep him alive. His quality of life has been poor over the last several months and is declining. The last couple of days he has been having accidents in the house.

Today we called a couple of vets that do at home euthanasia. My husband had one call on speaker and I pretty much sobbed the whole time. Why do I feel a tremendous amount of guilt at the thought of putting him down when his quality of life is so poor?? Saying good-bye is always the hardest part of having a pet. I think it’s time, but it’s so hard to let go.

That being said, I’m not sure how much I will be blogging in the next couple of weeks. I will try to do the gratitude for this week and last. Other than that, we’ll see how things go. I just wanted to let everyone know I might be posting erratically.

Fortune cookie wisdom #42

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

Stop searching forever. Happiness is just next to you.

Ah, the elusive happiness. To tell you the truth, I think happiness is overrated. I just want you to be happy. I don’t care what my kids do as long as they are happy. If you’re not happy with _______, find another ______. We hear it all the time, don’t we? The pressure to be happy all the time is making us all quite miserable.

Recently I was thinking about the happiest days of my life. Big spoiler, my happiest days were not in high school. I find it seriously pathetic when people who are close to 50 years old say the best years of their lives were in high school. Haven’t you done anything with your life since then?? Maybe I’m just jealous because my high school years sucked.

Back in the day I was voted most likely to be a supermodel on the cover of Vogue by my high school senior class. Better than most likely to be barefoot and pregnant (won by a girl with 12 siblings who only had 1 kid) or most likely to never leave this small (sucky) town (won by my best friend who still lives there as far as I know). True story.

At 17, when I was in my prime for looks, my classmates thought I was the most beautiful girl in the class. That should’ve made me happy, right? At 17, I was going through a really hard time at home. I was really struggling with depression and coming to terms with the trauma I was experiencing. Some people seemed annoyed with me for not being happy. I was shamed for it. There were girls who got mad at me if their boyfriends checked me out. I was blamed for it. Don’t get me wrong, in a lot of ways it was wonderful but it didn’t make me happy. If you really saw what I was going through on the inside, you wouldn’t want to be me on the outside.

This past summer an acquaintance told me she thinks I have the perfect life, the perfect family. (She obviously doesn’t read this blog). I do portray myself as having the dream life because like most of us I am really good at hiding. My husband started a company he built from nothing. After 20 years (10 years of me working with him) we sold the company to private equity. Now I live in my dream house complete with 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, an indoor pool and hot tub, 3 fireplaces, and an indoor grill. My detached garage is twice the size of my old house complete with two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchenette. I probably never have to work again if I don’t want to.

I should be happy. I should have everything I’ve ever wanted in my life. But with everything that happened with my dad and my daughter’s serious mental health issues, I again fell into a deep depression that has been hanging on for the past two years. Not to mention COVID. There were many a days I sat in my mansion dreaming of ending it all. How messed up is that?? None of the things that were supposed to bring happiness to my life did.

The happiest years of my life were when my kids were young. I was happiest when they were sitting on my lap and I was reading them a good book, Toad and Frog. Story times at the library. I was happy when we danced around in the living room to silly songs. The early childhood years when I stayed at home with the kids. When I drove a 10 year old minivan and lived in a small house. Back when we didn’t have any money, the poorest I’ve ever been in my life living on one income with 3 kids right after my husband started a business. Back when I had the extra baby weight to lose. After the sleepless nights of having little babies and before the sleepless nights of having teenagers. Those were the best years of my life so far and I didn’t even know it.

I feel like I am finally starting to pull myself out of this depression. Maybe the best years are ahead, maybe not. Regardless, looking back to the time of my life when I was the happiest made me recognize something very important. I wasn’t the happiest when I had the most money, was young, looked my best, achieved the most, or really had anything the world deemed as highly valuable. Quite the opposite in fact.

It’s a trap if you are searching for happiness in the wrong things. I will be happy when I lose some weight or have more money. I will be happier when I have what my neighbor has. I will be happy when I have a thousand more followers. I will be happy when I get that promotion or go on that vacation. I will be happy when I earn the diploma or get that medal.

I don’t have all the answers, but I know what happiness is not.

Fortune cookie wisdom #41

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

As a cure for worry, work is better than whiskey.

As someone who is a worrier warrior, I can say that work is a better cure than whiskey. It also leaves you with money in your pocket. Plus you have to admit being a workaholic is a lot more admirable than being an alcoholic.

Back before we sold our business, I really threw myself into work. Honestly, looking back I don’t know how I did it. How did I work full-time, raise a family, train for marathons, and keep a clean house?

I was happy at work when it was busy. Slow days left me with too much time to think. Super busy days added to my list of worries.

I love to keep busy. I love having tasks to complete. Is that so bad? Every day I have a plan. Every week I have a rough plan for the following week. I live my life through routine, structure, and planning. Spontaneity drives me absolutely bonkers. You might think my rigidity sounds a tad bit boring, but I can assure you it is not. Although I am a structure freak, I am also totally neurotic which makes me fun. As proof, no one has ever called me boring. I’m not really sure why.

Now I no longer work full-time, train for marathons, or raise kids. You might wonder if I miss it. No, not really. Now I’ve got whiskey. Okay, okay I am just kidding. It’s been an adjustment, but change is not always a bad thing. I’ve had to learn to cope with my anxiety without being a workaholic. I’ve had to learn to slow down and take better care of me. I can’t always outrun my demons.

There still never seems to be a shortage of things to do. Maybe now I’ve become the project, a work in progress.

Gratitude week 105

/ Outrunning my demons / Leave a comment
  1. The year 2021 is finally over!!! Although at this point I’m not feeling too certain 2022 is going to be better. The year started out kind of rough. Right now I’m thinking we might have to cancel our trip to Puerto Rico we were planning for this month because of COVID. Yippee!
  2. Seriously, nobody died so far this year. My best friend got over COVID. Although Dan has it right now, he doesn’t seem to be too sick. The rest of his family didn’t get it. The drunk stranger in my driveway found her way home before freezing to death in my yard. So…
  3. Angel took me out to try bubble tea. Basically it’s this tea with small bubbles of tapioca in it. She also took me to see her new house from the outside.
  4. The holidays are over. Don’t get me wrong, I love the holidays but I don’t enjoy all the extra stress that comes with it.
  5. Arabella and I are finally getting along better. That being said, I received 5 missed calls from her in the middle of the night last night. My husband, daughter, and mother missed calls from her too. She didn’t leave a message with any of us. When I tried calling her back, she didn’t answer. Last night she left with Will to drive to Colorado for a road trip. It turns out the heat quit working in his car. It’s a long trip without heat, so they turned around and came back home. Thankfully everything is alright. Nothing I hate more than missed calls in the middle of the night and worrying what is going on.
  6. I was able to fix my WP site after finding out I had nothing but a blank page on my site with no working widgets. I was also able to fix some problems I was having with my personal email without asking for help. I feel proud like a little kid being able to tie their shoes without having to ask a big person.
  7. Finally the boiler is fixed for our hot tub and pool. We have been having problems with it for months. That and having problems with our furnace, I got to know our heating and cooling guy really well. He probably regrets giving me his personal cell number for as much as I called him.
  8. Before it got bitterly cold out, my mom and I were able to go snowshoeing together.
  9. I took down the Christmas decorations and spent some time redecorating my house. I enjoyed planning what I wanted to do.
  10. Today I cleaned the kitchen. I cleaned out the refrigerator which was disgusting. I cleaned the microwave, sink, descaled the Keurig, and wiped down the cupboards. I absolutely hate deep cleaning the kitchen so I’m grateful to be done with that job for awhile.
  11. Since my daughter will be moving out in a couple weeks, I decided I want to really declutter my house. I am planning to go through a lot of my clothes and get rid of things that no longer fit me. I have no problem getting rid of things I don’t wear, but there are clothes I absolutely love that no longer fit I have a hard time getting rid of. Then I can buy some new clothes that fit better.