Health

Diversion

/ Outrunning my demons / 4 Comments

My daughter was offered a diversion program that would dismiss her criminal charges if she complies with the program. She was charged with 3 misdemeanors. Compliance with the program includes 6 months of absolute sobriety, random drug tests, 20 hours of community service, staying out of trouble, meeting with the program director, and following all doctor’s orders regarding mental health treatment. If there is a positive drug test, she would have to go to an AODA treatment program.

Today my daughter decided to opt out of the program even though we told her multiple times it would be in her best interest to take it. She wants to get a public defender and face her charges. What she doesn’t seem to understand is that if she faces her charges and is convicted, she will have a criminal record where she will have a hard time in the future finding employment and housing. If found guilty, she will most likely face a hefty fine. She may go back to jail. If on probation, she will probably face years of absolute sobriety. If she doesn’t comply, it will most likely be jail time versus a treatment program. My daughter is addicted to weed and says it stops her from self-harming. In all of our neighboring states, she probably could get a prescription for it but not ours. Six months seems like a short time compared to all of that.

Arabella still wants to sue the police and bring down the whole police department for how they treated her in jail. They restrained her in a chair. Before her arrest she was self-harming, physically assaulted her boyfriend, and was making suicidal threats. The police put her on suicide watch and bruised her arms while trying to restrain her. So far no lawyer has wanted to take on her case. I’m not surprised, nor am I paying for a lawyer for something she has no chance of winning. She says she has PTSD and needs treatment because she was never treated worse in her whole entire life. I personally didn’t think it was the worst thing to happen because I want her to be afraid to go back to jail. It’s not a nice place. The only complaint I have is that they wouldn’t allow her to take her medication and that all got messed up while in jail which probably didn’t help.

Arabella also admitted on a recorded line to me that she beat up her boyfriend. I sure as hell hope I don’t have to testify against my own daughter. Her boyfriend wasn’t innocent in this either and is facing a felony and misdemeanor. But he opted to take the diversion program.

My daughter has been spiraling since her and her boyfriend broke up. One night she showed up late wanting to move some stuff back home. My husband and daughter got into a fight about her moving back home since my husband does not agree with some of her destructive life choices. I’m not going to get into that right now. Let’s just say there have been a lot of sleepless nights as of late and it is running me down physically. I’ve been on antibiotics the last couple days and I’m still not feeling good. It’s hard to think right now so I hope this isn’t just one big jumbled up mess.

We don’t want our daughter to move back home. I’m afraid of what is going to happen to me, to us. It was so hard to go through the first time. But we weren’t expecting it then. We feel like we have to at least try to help her.

One week after the police came over from the bogus call someone made on my son’s roommate, I got a call repeatedly from an unknown number. After a couple calls, I decided to answer it. The police were calling. A call from the police is not a good sign. Once again my daughter was on suicide watch and wanted a ride to her friend’s house. Paul and I were disagreeing about what to do. Paul wanted to bring her home and I wanted her to go to her friend’s house. I was almost ready for bed and I wasn’t going to be staying up with her all night but her friend would because they all tend to stay up all night and sleep all day. My husband picked her up and took her to her friend’s so she wasn’t alone for the next 24 hours. This all happened during a snowstorm with really bad road conditions. Because, why not?? At least it gave Paul and Arabella a chance to talk about their fight.

I am very sad my daughter decided not to take the diversion program despite all the advice to the contrary. I don’t know what is going to happen to her now. I don’t foresee this ending well. It is incredibly stressful and I don’t have any control over what she does because she is an adult. I just have a front show seat to a show I don’t really want to go to. I don’t ever see it changing either. It’s been really hard to handle. I don’t know what to do. I didn’t sign up for this. I’m fearful with every phone call and ring of the doorbell. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.

Gratitude week 167

/ Outrunning my demons / 7 Comments
  1. My mom and I were able to go snowshoeing this past week. We are having another snowstorm, so I see more snowshoeing and cross-country skiing in the near future. It’s been a very snowy late winter.
  2. My daughter and her husband got a new kitten this past week. I’m grateful she is adding joy to their lives.
  3. Volunteer time; it was good to go back after taking a couple weeks off.
  4. I had an eye exam this past week and will be getting new glasses. I’ve been having some minor problems with my eyes, mainly sensitive, irritated eyes with blurry vision caused by a blocked tear gland. I can’t even cry right anymore. Seriously, at this point I’m not sure if I should laugh or cry. I’m grateful to find out what is going on and that it will be a long time before I have to go back again.
  5. I signed up for a motorcycle class at the local Harley Davidson. I’ve been thinking about it for years but have been nervous about signing up, so now I did.
  6. I saw my first robin this past week. Even though there is tons of snow on the ground and more coming…spring will be here soon…right??
  7. We had a volunteer night at the sailing club to put our summer sailing brochures in envelopes. Previously our friends Harv and Kate were doing it themselves and it took them 6 hours. With a large group, we got the job done in a half an hour.
  8. It was nice to see Harv and Kate again. They are somewhere around 90 years old and Harv has been in poor health. I’m grateful to have some wonderful older friends to look up to. They have been married for 62 years and are a great example of what marriage can be.
  9. As a Christmas gift, we had our pastor and his family over to grill out and swim. It was a lot of fun to see the little kids having fun in the pool.
  10. We also had our friends over for trip planning last night. Next month we are taking a road trip to Traverse City, Michigan. We had a good visit.
  11. While our friends were here last night, we saw a red fox walk right by the window. That’s not something we see very often.
Angel and Dan’s new kitty.

Gratitude week 162

/ Outrunning my demons / 5 Comments
  1. A spa day with my mom. We went out to eat before and the food was really good. (I had a veggie burger, and if that was very good!!!). I decided to take the extra survey for a chance to win a $250 gift card. I didn’t seem to win it yet though…Wouldn’t that be something?
  2. The longest and hardest month of the year, January, is finally over.
  3. I’m starting to work on my book again.
  4. Although we didn’t make it to the yurt, we found a car for Arabella.
  5. I’m grateful to be getting my car back. I let Arabella and Will borrow my car quite often.
  6. I’m glad the cold snap seems to be over. We are going to have a few days above freezing. The sun is shining too.
  7. I’m glad Angel has an appointment with the wellness clinic I went to a couple years back. I think she will be able to address some health concerns she is having. I was able to visit with her quite a bit this past week and will be seeing her a couple days in the week ahead.
  8. I’m grateful Dan helped in the process of finding Arabella a reliable car. We looked at a listing by a private owner and when we got there someone else was looking at it. I thought we were out of luck. I’m hoping the car will last a long time. It’s a 2008 Sonata with less than 100,000 miles on it in the exact price range. It was meant to be! What a deal!
  9. My favorite comedian is coming to the area next month…so guess who bought tickets??
  10. Fires in the fireplace on cold winter nights.
  11. Our friends still went to the yurt. It took them 4 hours to hike in with all their gear. They found it to be very challenging. They are younger than we are, almost 10 years younger than my husband. As hard as it is to admit we can’t do everything we want to do anymore, I think we made the right call about not going without a working snowmobile. It’s amazing the difference a couple years can make at our age. Funny story, I couldn’t open a jar yesterday so I asked my husband to help me. He pulled a muscle getting it open. That was confirmation. If we can’t handle opening a jar, how were we going to hike 5 miles through the snow with all our gear??

Yurt not trusting me

/ Outrunning my demons / 6 Comments

This weekend we had plans with friends to stay at a yurt. It seemed like a great idea after a few drinks while talking with Tom and Lisa at our daughter’s wedding. It still seemed like a good idea when Lisa booked the trip in February the next day.

The yurt is located in the middle of nowhere in some state park in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It was going to take a couple hours to drive there. Apparently it does not have electricity nor does it have running water. Winter camping at its finest with a vault toilet nearby. The only amenities are a couple bunk beds, a table, and a wood stove with wood to keep a fire going so nobody freezes to death.

Freezing to death…it’s been a cold week here in Wisconsin. I’ve heard of several reports of people freezing to death within this past week. Will, without a car, was still planning on riding his bike to work. Not only is it cold, it is icy because salt doesn’t melt ice well when it’s 20 below. I don’t think I could live with myself if I saw a picture of him dead on the morning news. So I let my daughter borrow my car so he would have a way to work.

I gave my friend Lisa a call this week to plan the trip to the yurt. Lisa said their snowmobile wasn’t working. They ordered parts they thought might fix it which were supposed to show up on Tuesday but didn’t arrive until Wednesday. To get to the yurt, we would need to hike almost 5 miles on a snow covered path or breeze in on a snowmobile.

I reminded myself of the not so fond memory of the last time I ‘ran’ 5 miles over a year ago. It was the last race I ever did. I almost didn’t finish. Not too long before that, I finished my first 50k. Yes, a 50k! It was at that point I knew something was wrong. I ran about half the race then I had this horrible pain in my ankle where I could barely walk. I found out later that under exertion I have a bone spur which hits a nerve. At times I can barely walk and the next minute it’s fine. I also had a terrible backache.

Back in the day, Lisa and I used to run together. That was before her daughter died, before she moved away. Those days were some of the best times in my life. We trained together. She was a better runner than me but she kept me on my toes. Between the two of us, we could place in almost every small town race. I typically placed in the top 10% of my age group in 10k’s and half-marathons. I was finally able to achieve at a sport after always being picked last as a kid for teams in gym class. I even had to do extra credit in middle school to pass gym class. Turns out I was better at writing book reports than doing any kind of sport. But running I guess you could say I ran with it.

Now my daughter Angel is training for her first half-marathon. At times I see her hard on herself if she has a bad run. I too was very hard on myself on bad running days. Recently I told her that even a bad run, she is still able to run. What I wouldn’t give now for a bad run. These are things you can say once it’s gone. But it is truly not gone because I am able to enjoy the process through her.

The part for the snowmobile came in and it didn’t fix the problem. Today Tom bought a new battery and it still didn’t work. Now they are thinking the starter on the snowmobile needs fixing and they will need to take it in somewhere to be fixed.

Today I made the decision to not go to the yurt if the snowmobile wasn’t working. The high for tomorrow is 3 with lows below zero. Maybe I would’ve gone if I didn’t have to walk 5 miles through the snow in subzero temperatures with all our gear and try to get there before dark. A couple years ago nothing would’ve stopped me. But now I can’t even trust myself anymore. With spotty phone coverage, who knows? I might end up on the news and not in a good way. Although I’m a planner, I haven’t given too much thought to my funeral yet.

I feel bad for wimping out. But I also know my limitations. All the self-discipline in the world won’t change a thing when my body doesn’t listen to my mind anymore. Looks like I’ll have some time to take Arabella car shopping after all.

Gratitude week 160

/ Outrunning my demons / 4 Comments
  1. Arabella went through with the wisdom teeth extraction even though she couldn’t be sedated. (Although now she has dry socket, so…hopefully next week’s gratitude will be that she is feeling better).
  2. My son’s girlfriend bought cookie cutters and sprinkles on clearance and came over to make Christmas cookies with me. We talked about making cookies at Christmastime. I didn’t think it would happen, but it did.
  3. Clean sheets.
  4. My son’s car ended up being totaled after someone ran a red light on Christmas Eve and hit him. Thankfully my new son-in-law knows a lot about cars and is helping my husband and son in the restoration process.
  5. It’s been a rough week. I just haven’t been feeling good lately and feel exhausted. I’ve been struggling a lot with depression too, but here I am.
  6. I’m looking forward to doing some large scale planning this week.
  7. Volunteering.
  8. Time spent with family.
  9. Angel had a large mole removed this week and everything went well. We are just waiting to hear back with the test results.

Gratitude week 158

/ Outrunning my demons / 1 Comment
  1. I’m grateful this past week is over, it was a rough week.
  2. I had my dentist appointment with no problem areas.
  3. I went thrifting afterwards to treat myself. Although I didn’t find much it was nice to take some time to do something I wanted to do.
  4. One of my favorite cousins from out of state will be visiting and spending the night here in a couple days.
  5. Last night my husband and I went out with a group for my best friend’s birthday. We ate at a new to me Mexican restaurant which had the best Mexican food and went to a comedy show.
  6. It felt good to laugh. I haven’t done a lot of that this past week.
  7. I think there is a lot of potential that we will become friends with the other couple we went out with for my friend’s birthday. Possible new friend group??
  8. Today I went out to eat at the Indian restaurant with my daughter Angel and her husband. Afterwards Angel and I sorted donations at the place my husband and I volunteer at. I’m always grateful for the time visiting my daughter.

Gratitude week 157

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments
  1. A new year feels like a fresh start.
  2. We had a successful New Year’s bash.
  3. The police didn’t show up at my son’s party this year so that is a win. LOL! His party seemed pretty lame this year so that is good. No one freaked out and got disorderly. (Last year a girlfriend of a friend’s cousin got drunk and had a domestic dispute).
  4. I was able to get out and go snowshoeing.
  5. We figured out the problem we were having with the garage/apartment pipes. Apparently the garage/apartment has a totally separate septic tank from our house we didn’t know about which was full. Thankfully the pipes did not freeze over the cold snap we had. We’ve been living in our house for over 4 years and we are still learning new things. LOL
  6. Arabella was sick at Christmas then Angel got sick. Thankfully they were both feeling mostly better for New Year’s.
  7. I had my mammogram today which came back normal.
  8. We took down our trees and Christmas decorations yesterday. I hate to take everything down but it is nice not to sneeze and feel stuffed up from my tree allergies.
  9. I’m grateful to have a husband who is a hard worker and likes to complete projects.
  10. It’s now puzzle season. I probably got 6 puzzles from my mom alone for Christmas.

2022 recap

/ Outrunning my demons / 2 Comments

It’s hard to believe in a couple days we will be kissing 2022 good-bye. It’s been an interesting year with a lot of changes. I’ll highlight the highs and lows of the year.

Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first. In January of this year, we had to put down our 14 year old Beagle. We had him since he was a puppy. It was hard to let him go, but I feel good we were able to provide him with a loving home the time he was with us.

This year I was diagnosed with arthritis. This was the first year in over a decade that I didn’t log any running miles or do any races. This has been a huge change for me and at times hard for me to accept.

This year I travelled within the United States. Here is the list of areas I visited:

  1. Nevada
  2. Michigan
  3. Illinois
  4. Idaho
  5. Montana
  6. Wyoming
  7. Washington D.C.
  8. Maryland
  9. Delaware

I crossed 4 out of 9 off my bucket list.

My husband and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary in Yellowstone by Old Faithful. It’s hard to believe we have been married 25 years already and I’ve known my husband half of his life. It’s something worth celebrating.

Our daughter got married this year to a wonderful guy. They bought their first house, have great jobs, and are 100% independent. What a blessing they have been to each other and us.

We tackled some big remodeling projects.

We joined a new church.

This is the first full year ALL of our children are adults and are living their own lives which has many ups and downs. I’ve had to learn to let go of a lot of things and no one is ever totally ready for that.

That’s about all I can think of right now.

What are my plans for 2023? I don’t do resolutions. I want to think I try to be the best person I can be every day. I don’t have any big goals. I want to continue to help others. I want to continue to work on my issues for a stronger marriage and a healthier me. I want to continue travelling and plan on crossing South America off my bucket list in February. Other than that, the rest is just life which I will be writing about as it unfolds.

Happy New Year!!

The little things…

/ Outrunning my demons / 7 Comments

Sometimes the little things add up and just snowball. The last several days my anxiety and depression has been quite high and that has been making me crabby.

I think it started on Christmas Eve when my son Alex and his girlfriend were in a car accident after someone blew a red light. I am very grateful no one was hurt in the accident. But I am worried that his car may be totaled. He’s only had the car for a month. Finally he has a reliable vehicle to drive to work and then this happens. It’s just so frustrating. The collision center is closed this week…so we have to wait another week until we find anything out.

Meanwhile, we are getting antsy to get Alex’s old car out of our driveway. It has not been up and running since this summer. It’s not worth fixing but my son’s friend wants to buy it from us. I will be seeing him tonight and am going to try to set up a time for him to get it out of here. I’m not even sure it’s possible.

Arabella and Will still don’t have a car. I’m thinking of letting my daughter borrow my car over the holiday weekend so she can make some money doing deliveries to pay her rent. Between Arabella and Will, they totaled three cars since May. I’m a little worried about them borrowing my car, but it has full coverage if they total it. It’s been hard to find a reliable affordable car anywhere.

Christmas day all my kids came home for Christmas. Arabella came home sick with a fever and now Angel is sick. I can’t remember a time when everyone with the exception of my husband has been so sick. It’s been almost a constant thing for my friend and family circle over the last two months.

The day after Christmas my mom came over to do some volunteer work with Angel and I. It was very tense because my mom attacked my daughter via text. She said my brother Luke and I texted her merry Christmas and my brother Mark called. But Arabella was the only grandchild who called her on Christmas day. None of her other grandchildren care about her. When I texted my mom or anyone to wish them a happy holiday, that counts for my whole family. Part of the reason she feels this way is her own fault. None of her five grandchildren besides Arabella even go visit her at her house because of my dad and she chose to stay with him.

My mom likes to play the victim. When she started to play the victim with me, I called her out on it. I told her the phone works both ways. She said she didn’t want to bother anyone since she knew all of her grandchildren were celebrating on Christmas day with other family. I also said that my children and their significant others spent two weekend celebrating with her taking off work and getting gifts. Doesn’t that count? The time together was tense.

When my mom was here we stopped for lunch at Qdoba. My mom asked for a small amount of rice on her burrito. She told the guy he put too much rice on it and had to put some back. Then she also gave too much money to pay for the meal by a dollar. I think the guy thought she was giving him a tip but she asked for the money back. Sometimes my mom is rude to service people and I find it embarrassing. I’m not sure why she is acting the way she is and I find it to be stressful. I hate confronting my mom, but I’m not going to allow her to attack my kids.

Then yesterday my son said he was having problems with the bathroom in the garage apartment next door. With all the cold temperatures the water pipes froze and water from the toilet and shower are backing up from the drain on the floor. My husband has been trying to pour some warm water down the drain and it seems to trickle through. The problems with a large old house seem to be endless.

Last night the nightmares started up again and I was on an endless loop. If I left the house I was trapped in, I would be murdered. Everyone on the outside thought I was fine which made it impossible to leave because no one could see I needed help so I was stuck.

Nothing major is happening. It’s all these little things starting to snowball. It also seems I get triggered more during the holiday season. I’m not sure what to do about it. My parents and daughter Arabella are toxic people, and I just can’t seem to cut them out of my life. Sometimes their negative energy rubs off on me.

I’ve also been struggling more with aging. I don’t feel young, attractive, or energetic anymore. Yesterday I went snowshoeing and couldn’t get the clasps open on the snowshoes or tighten the poles. I struggled to get them on. My range of motion has diminished considerably. Afterwards I felt stiff and sore doing something I did easily before. I have problems opening jars and now I even struggle opening the child resistant medicine cap for my pills. My husband has been trying to talk me into a gym membership again. But I’ve been responding negatively to the idea. I don’t want to go to the gym and watch other people run when that is all I want to be able to do again. No thank you. I don’t even want to exercise anymore. It’s painful emotionally and physically.

I even got scammed by an ad on Facebook. I bought a jumbo sized mystery box that was supposed to be full of electronics. I was excited because the items in the box were going to be extra Christmas gifts for my family. I ended up getting a small box with a massage gun in it. Nothing says old like falling for scams.

Tomorrow I will try to be less crabby. #goals

A season of suffering

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I woke up in the middle of the night when I heard my son leaving for work. I was having a nightmare that I had a baby who was kidnapped. When I fell back asleep, the nightmare continued. I searched and searched for the baby on a continuous loop all night. I woke up exhausted.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had nightmares. For awhile, I remembered even having some good dreams which is rare because it seemed if I dreamed at all they were bad dreams. Yesterday was a stressful day. I spent the day with my mom and my evening with Arabella doing deliveries. I think it was too much for one day because my mom and Arabella are known to stress me out. I wish it wasn’t that way, I really do.

Everything went pretty well with my mom. When she comes to visit, she likes to go out to eat for lunch. Yesterday we went out to eat at a restaurant we ate at dozens of times. When it was time to leave, she was very confused at how to get out of the restaurant. She went the wrong way and headed towards the kitchen which was opposite of the way we came in. She should have known that. I had to call out to her that she was going the wrong way. She just seemed so confused. I’ve noticed for awhile now that she is starting to slip mentally. She has been acting bizarrely like sending my daughter a photo of her ex on her wedding day. There are many times she acts childlike. I’m not sure if it is a normal part of aging or if something else like dementia is starting. Frequently I feel very annoyed by her behavior. Then I feel guilty because my mom is not really herself anymore.

Then I spent the evening driving Arabella around to do deliveries. I want to help her out but we don’t really get along very well. She wants everything her way and is very bossy towards me. I have to decide what is worth tolerating and what is worth fighting. I don’t want a relationship like that, but I want to help her out. Now her boyfriend and her both don’t have a car. Rent is due soon. They were late this month and got a notice to pay or vacate. They both have fines to pay. He now has thousand of dollars worth of medical bills. I’m motivated to help her out because I don’t want them living on the streets. Hell, they don’t even have a car to live in and I don’t think it would be good to have her live at home again for me. This has been weighing heavily on me. Last night I helped her work a couple hours. I used up a quarter tank of gas just for her to make $30. Doesn’t seem worth it to me.

While I was waiting for her to pick up food, I found out that our vet’s office is closing permanently next week. We go to a small town clinic. We’ve been taking our animals there for the last fifteen years. The vet was diagnosed with cancer and is closing shop. That’s his retirement. It’s so sad because he just lost his wife who worked with him to cancer a few years back. It’s so terribly sad. I’ve been going there for so long the staff and I know each other on a first name basis. That personal touch is so rare nowadays. Now they will be all losing their jobs as well right around Christmastime. One of the ladies is the mom of my son’s friend. She is a single parent. It just sucks.

There have been so many illnesses and deaths the last couple months. I just feel so overwhelmingly sad for the suffering of others. Our employee from our previous business just lost her sister who was a best friend to her last month. I got to know her a little. She died unexpectedly and she was only in her upper 30’s. Last week her husband committed suicide. He couldn’t live without his wife. That’s two suicides in the last two months, my blogging friend and the brother-in-law of a previous employee. Even though I didn’t know them personally, I feel so incredibly sad for the grief of their families this holiday season.

I’m sick of bad news and hearing about the suffering of others. Where is the peace? Where is the joy? Sorry to be so negative right before Christmas. The expectation on us is that we should be happy right now, but many are not. I guess I am just in a funk right now. The cold dark days are upon us. I wish I could see the light, just a little glimpse of the good days to come.