Shades of Sunshine

As the year ends I have been reflecting upon the past year and what I have done and what I have been through.  I have decided that I must accept my past, accept my mistakes and look forward to the future.  I chose to attempt suicide in order to escape the pain that I was feeling, the pain of not being able to accept my short comings, and not being able to accept my bipolar condition and what it caused me to do and not do.  My poor husband put up with so much, it's no wonder he didn't leave me.  I truly have a gem of a husband.  He is so truly amazing it is hard to believe that he is mine forever.  He has put up with so much, yet has stuck by my side and continues to do so.  I wouldn't be any where near where I am in my recovery if it wasn't for him.  He has made sure I have all the tools necessary to heal, to move on and to take care of myself.  I love him to pieces and am forever grateful. Also as we look to the new year, I want to get b...

Today we ripped off   a blogger named  Sally Swift   from the blog Stories From A Life.  She does not state where she found the meme .  But, it was probably stolen there as well. So, of course, that will be as far as we go. Tracing back our theft's thieves might take some time.  Take the time to comment on other player's posts. It's a great way to make new friends!  Link back to us at  Sunday Stealing!    Sunday Stealing: The Triple Threat Meme Three names you go by, other than your given name :  Heath, Sweetheart, Princess Three screen names you've had : cprcheetah, crazycatlady, cprcheetahtoo Three things you like about yourself :  My smile, my curves, my empathy Three things you don't like about yourself : My weight, my bipolar depression, my skin   Three parts of your heritage : Swedish, English (not sure really)   Three things you are wearing right now :  Sweatshirt, sweatpants and ...

Yesterday I was 'off', not sure why but was super anxious and my hubby said it was like I was stoned in evening I just wasn't myself.  I don't know what my deal was I was just not myself, I felt like crying but couldn't.  I have noticed that I am not as emotional as I was when I wasn't on pills, which is a good thing I guess....just seems like I have a hard time crying even when it's 'worth' crying over. Things in the house are moving along, we have the front room pretty much set up, we need to do some cleaning of the fireplace but we are making progress.  It feels good to have a 'home' that we can call our own, and weird in a way.  We painted the front/sitting/living room a brownish/beige it looks awesome.  Slowly but surely we are getting things in order.  It feels like we will never get our boxes all unpacked, but we will....one day I am sure of it. I got a nice surprise today my paycheck was a lot more than I had anticipated which i...

It’s time for Q . Not James Bond’s famous gadget maker, but the letter of the alphabet: it’s inspiring this week’s set of random questions. 1. Q is for QUACK: What’s the worst medical advice you ever received?   I would wake up with my arm numb, my DR told me to wear a wrist brace at night and it wouldn't happen...lo and behold it still happened. 2. Q is for QUEEN: What do you think you’d most enjoy about living the life of royalty?   Being able to have enough money to do the things I would like to do. 3. Q is for QUICK: What household chores are you lease likely to procrastinate about doing?   Laundry 4. Q is for QUIET: Where do you go when you feel like you need quiet time alone with no distractions?   Usually my bedroom 5. Q is for QUIT: What would you most like to quit doing in 2013?  Being addicted to Diet Coke 6. Q is for QUIZ: What subject in school did you most dread a pop quiz in?   Science

More Saturday 9.......easy and fun way to get to know me better. Saturday 9: Same Old Lang Syne 1) This week's song is the tale of an accidental holiday encounter between former lovers. ( Hear it here .) They sit in her car and spend hours catching up, then she gives him a chaste kiss and they never see one another again. Is there a past love who still has a special spot in your heart, despite the years or the miles since your relationship?  The only past love who has a special place in my heart is my husband whom I am still currently married to.  He is the most amazing man in the world.  He treats me like a Princess even when I am not behaving princess worthy.  He is amazing. 2) This week's song includes a play on the traditional Scottish song, "Auld Lang Syne." Have you ever visited Scotland? I have never visited Scotland. 3) Mother Winters has long told Sam that if she has a glass of water for every glass of champagne she drinks on New Year...

What a year this has been, with me going postal on my bipolar and not taking my meds, and then attempting suicide in August, it has been one adventure after another.  In a strange way I am grateful for my suicide attempt as it has gotten me on the path to recovery with my bipolar.  Instead of avoiding taking my pills as much as I can, I now have missed very few doses in the last 4 months which is really good.  I have regular visits with my counselor and psychiatrist to learn new methods and new coping skills on how to deal with being the bipolar girl I am. Without my experience in August that would have never happened.  It was the scary wake up call that I needed.  I am grateful for my family and especially for my husband who has been by my side through it all, he has been there through the dark and hard times, and is there through the happy and bright times.  He truly is a gem.  I love him so much and wouldn't be where I am today without him.

Here I said I would be better about writing every day and I've missed 4 days. I will just catch up.  Christmas Eve we had my parents and my sister over for dinner, we had quite the feast, we had a smoked turkey that was way delicious, potato salad, shrimp/pasta salad, cheesy potatoes, cucumbers in vinegar (one of my favorite things), spinach dip, 4 different kinds of cheese balls and clam chowder.  It was really good and a lot of food.  Then we watched Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer, which is my husband and I's tradition.  It was great.  Christmas we went to my parent house for Finn & Hatti, which is basically fish and sausage.  It is always the best :-)  Then we opened presents.  Then we came home and spent some time together, then my mom, dad and sister Jen went and saw Les Miserables.  It was epic, it was so good!  Jen and I want to go see it again next week :-P  I am doing good mood wise, sometimes I feel like I am emotionle...

Today was a hard day for me, about 10am my hubby called me and was in a panic, DeeJay apparently fell out of his arms didn't land on her feet and injured herself, she was screaming and so he wanted my dad (who is a Veterinarian) to come down and take a look at her. Well DeeJay isn't the best of patients so she had to go home with grandpa so he could sedate her to see if it was broken.  He didn't find any fractures but a bad sprain.  She wasn't walking on it for quite a while, so that had me worried.  But I was stuck at work all this time while my sweet baby was injured and my poor hubby was frantic about it, he feels so bad, like it is his fault, when it really isn't DeeJay just happened to be squirming and she fell, accidents happen.  I am pleased to say that she is now walking on her leg, and is able to get on and off our bed in our bedroom.  I also had him check her urine as she's been drinking a lot lately, she has a bladder infection, joyous.....remember ...

Can you spot the kitty?  For whatever reason I am feeling very 'clingy' today.  I am sitting here waiting for my honey to come home from work, and I looked over under the tree and saw my beautiful little Cedes just snoozing away. She has been very snuggly today .  I didn't have to go into work today except to feed the dogs, which doesn't take that long, so I went and got my christmas shopping done for my sweetheart.  I never know what to get him, well he always tells me he wants a helicopter about 1 week before christmas......if you want it for christmas you better let me know a little further ahead than that.  He loves the remote controlled helicopters. I went and saw my psychiatrist, I am concerned about my Zyprexa as it is making me crave carbohydrates like crazy, it's like if I don't get them I'll starve.  Also am having a massive acne outbreak which could be stress, but usually my outbreaks aren't this bad and last this long, even using medicate...

With the shooting in CT my mind has been on my beliefs a lot lately.  For those who don't know, I am LDS aka Mormon ( www.mormon.org ).  We have a belief in the afterlife, that there is life after death, that our savior Jesus Christ was born, and died and resurrected so that we can have life eternal.  We believe that if for some reason you lose a child in this life, that you will be given the opportunity to raise that child in the hereafter.  That is what is comforting me amidst this devastating event.  Knowing that those who lost precious children will be given the chance to raise them up in the hereafter.  I can't even imagine what the parents have/are feeling during this event.  I'm not a parent (other than to furkids) but I can't even imagine what they are experiencing, the tragedy.  I have read several accounts of forgiveness and sympathy for the shooter and his family, how incredibly brave.  Recently I have been becoming more active in ...

As I am on the road to recovery, this is something that I have to remember, it is a daily process, it isn't something that is going to happen overnight.      Every day I am using coping tools, and learning to let go of things that when I was "Bipolar Bitchy Heather" I would have not let them go.  I am using Cognitive Behavior Therapy to try and 're-train' my thought processes to more positive helpful ones instead of the negativity I am prone too. My animals make for great therapy.  Right now DeeJay my old lady kitty sitting in my lap.    They seem to know when I need extra loves, or just need to hear them purr, or get crazy Zoey (my chihuahua) kisses. On a positive note,  I have been doing a lot better anxiety wise since we have 'finalized' our move, and dealt with our previous landlord.  I haven't been near as anxious as I was, which is a good thing.

Sometimes I really worry about the thoughts that cross my mind, they can be really twisted.  Glad that I choose not to act on them.  The past few days have been really busy at work which tires me out.  I groomed 9 dogs yesterday and 7 dogs today.  Then tomorrow I only have 3 dogs, at least now I'm not wasting so much gas when I just have a couple of dogs as my work is only 7 minutes away instead of 40 minutes away. Today when I got home my dad was here putting in a 'new' used dishwasher for us.  I love my dad he is such an amazing man.  I see so many qualities that my dad has in my husband.  I'm glad I have such handy men in my life who can do things like install dishwashers, Rob fixed the christmas tree yesterday, we have this cute little kitty who thought the lights were yummy to munch on last year so she knocked out a couple of reams of lights, good thing she's so darn cute, we always say her cuteness makes up for her naughtiness.  She gets...

Today I met with my counselor, she did something I thought was very interesting.  She got some playing cards out and had me identify several positive attributes that I have so I could learn how to 'own' them.  Just as this is a winning hand in poker, I can help my confidence levels by 'owning' my traits or characteristics.  I had a hard time defining attributes that I have as I'm just not a confident person.  Here's what we came up with that are my strongest attributes when I am stressed, what she did was write each attribute on the playing card so I can remember my own winning hand Ace:  Dependable (I do what I say I am going to do) King: Resourceful (if I don't know the answer I research it until I do) Queen:  Stick to it (generally I see things through the end) Jack: Compassion (I have strong compassion for both people and animals) 10: Knowledgeable (I know a lot about animals and other subjects) Then I had to go through and 'own' each on ...

Sorry I have been MIA lately.  Just a lot going on with the move, previous landlord etc.  Things have been stressful to say the least but we came up with an arrangement that made him happy.  He is claiming by law we had to give him 30 days notice, well that wasn't in the contract and we gave him at least 2 weeks notice.  So just the whole drama of that has had me on edge.  I am so exhausted emotionally, and physically, took a 3 hour nap today and could probably sleep longer. We did go to church today, which feels pretty good,   As we haven't been super active in our church for the past 4 years, feels great to get a 'fresh start'.  Tomorrow I have a day off....my last day off was spent packing and cleaning at our previous house, excited to have a day for me, and a day to work on unpacking, can't wait to find everything again. One thing that I have been doing really good at is staying on top of the dishes, they are washed every night, if not then f...

Me thinks my seroquel helps more than just sleep......have been out of it, (waiting for mail order pharmacy) for about a week and have been feeling down in the dumps and just blah the past few days.  Today I broke down because I left all our lids to all crockpots, pots, pans etc at our old house and the landlord wont let us back in to get them.....GRRRRRR.  Seriously started in on the negative self talk "How could you be so stupid, I can't believe you did such a dumb thing, etc etc etc".  Man I really need to focus on my Cognitive Behavior Therapy exercises, and work on not being so negative towards my self.  It was a simple honest to God mistake, we stored them in the drawer under the stove.  My hubby was very nice about it, taking it in stride and not getting upset.  He was like so we'll just buy new lids and/or new crockpots etc.   So yeah, feeling super emotional, maybe just everything from the past week is catching up to me, but I really think t...

I know I have used this picture before but it is very fitting for how this weekend goes.  We got the movers on saturday and it took them 9 hours to move us....which IMO is ridiculous.  My dad and I made 2 trips with his Dodge truck full to the brim in 5 hours.....and that includes the travel time twice from our old house (40 minutes).  Then we found out that they didn't grab all our stuff, if it didn't have a lid or wasn't closed they left it there.  They didn't even grab our tents......GRRRRRR  We paid an arm and a leg for the movers so that made us a little upset.  Oh well, life goes on right? Then in our new house my hubby has been awesomely fixing things up and we have a stove that works (before it would only be on hot or off), a fridge that works (hasn't worked for 2 years) and all that was wrong with it was the coils in the back of the freezer were completely iced up.  Most of the drains are draining better, however our basement has flooded 3...

Definitely feeling this this week as we are packing and moving.  If I would have been a better house cleaner it wouldn't be so hard to move, we wouldn't have had to make 5 dumpster runs and still need more, we would be struggling to get everything packed and semi-clean for the moving crew.   So definitely learned the lesson to keep a clean house.  Now we have to go to the new house and clean and there is lots to do there to make the house nice, but we are prepared and excited to do what we can. Have been packing up the kitchen,  holy cow I feel like we have so much stuff.  I am grateful to my sister lara for giving us her extra boxes she didn't use.  I have almost used all of them in packing this afternoon.  We are taking the cats to the new house tonight, they are not amused with all the commotion and noise and boxes.  I think they will do okay in the new house.  We are spending the day tomorrow 1st of getting our cars licensed th...

I made both my sisters cry today.  My oldest sister Lara because she feels bad about not being able to getting everything done on her house (we are moving to) before she leaves tomorrow morning.  I told her no worries, we understand that because we are 'pushing the envelope' so to speak by wanting to move in before we have to pay rent for December at our current location. My sister Jen, because she felt bad for a misunderstanding we had....got everything squared away, and I am glad to say I have my sponsor back :-)  She is going to call me every day again, it helps so much to talk about my day.  It is something I look  forward to each day.  We usually talk for 20 to 30 minutes. As far as the move goes....we are making progress.  My scrapbook room is packed up....man I have a ton of stuff that I haven't used in the past 3 or 4 years because of the depression I have been in.  I am so excited to get things out and actually use things.  I ca...

Going through stuff as we pack/move and I just found a journal entry from 1992 where I talked about suicide.  I was mad because my brothers got away with murder and I was always in trouble for things that they did, like teasing me etc What a petty reason to think of suicide....so glad that I never acted on it back then.   I was not officially diagnosed with bipolar until the year 1996.  But WOW what a wake up call.  Kind of sad as I was only in Jr High at the time I wrote it.  Makes me realize that I have had issues longer than I remember. We are moving and packing and going through lots of junk, we have thrown away a lot of stuff (am embarrassed to say 4 truck-fulls so far....just one layer deep but wow we just have accumulated and saved stuff that we aren't going to do anything with or haven't used in 4 years.  I am super excited that we will have garbage cans right outside our front door, so we won't have to let the garbage stack up.  And no the...

Link back to us at   Sunday Stealing ! 1. Where was your profile picture taken?  In my bathroom :-) 2. Name someone who made you laugh today.  My husband Rob 3. Do you believe exes can be friends?  Yes and no, depends on the ex 4. How do you feel about Dr Pepper?  I will drink it, it's not my favorite though 5. Who was the last person you took a picture of? My hubby 6. Are you upset about anything?  We are moving in 1 week, and I don't feel like we are prepared as we should be. 7. Do you think relationships are ever really worth it?  Yes if you work on them.  I have a wonderful relationship with my husband 8. Are you a bad influence?  No 9. Night out or night in?  Night in, nothing I love more than snuggling on the couch with my hubby. 10. Has anyone ever called you perfect before?  A friend did when she was upset with me 11. What song is stuck in your head?  Bang Bang Maxwell, Silver Spoon off of Sergea...

 Saturday 9: Cold Turkey 1) Are you still feasting on cold turkey, or any other leftovers, from your Thanksgiving meal?   Yes, cold turkey, cornbread stuffing (gluten free) and shrimp salad. 2) AAA says Thanksgiving is a big travel weekend. Did you venture far from home for your holiday dinner?   No we stayed close and ate at my brother in laws house 3) Is this weekend the official start of the Christmas season for you?   Yes and no....we are getting ready to move next weekend, we have been listening to christmas music while we pack and move. 4) Which couple would you rather hang out with -- Fred and Wilma Flintstone or George and Jane Jetson?   Fred and Wilma Flinstone.   5) Have you/would you ever get your teeth whitened?   Tried the teeth whitening strips once but that's it. 6) Do you still have your high school class ring?   Never had one 7) Here's $50. You must spend it all in one place. What are you going to do ...

I don't have a lot of time to post as we have a lot to do still before our move next week.  But just wanted to say Hey, and I am doing better than I thought I would be with the move but am still really anxious about it.  It doesn't help that my 'sponsor' has abandoned me because she got her feathers in a ruff about having to move her stuff out of the garage where we are moving.....um hello if my sister was going to be renting it out to people other than family, it would have to go anyways.  Oh well, bygones be bygones, just hurts a lot because we have spent a lot of time lately building our relationship back up from when it was damaged because of a controlling guy she was dating. On the move front we borrowed my sister-in-laws truck this weekend and have made 2 dumpster runs (we are throwing out a lot of just crap), and 1 trip to the new house.  We are hoping for another dumpster run or two and maybe one more double load out to the new house.  We shall see.

Today I am feeling very grateful and thankful.  My husband was diagnosed with being gluten intolerant 2 years ago now.  It makes holidays a challenge.  As we can't eat wheat/flour etc.  My husband being the genius that he is has found alternate flours etc that don't make him sick.  We made a shrimp pasta salad, cornbread stuffing, and cranberry sauce out of real cranberries.  All items are gluten free and sugar free.  I am so grateful that my hubby was/has been able to find alternate recipes, IMHO are better than anything with wheat/gluten/sugar.  He is amazing.  I am also grateful for family, both Rob and our extended family.  His brother Jim invited us over for Turkey Day, and we are about to head out there in a few minutes.  I am grateful/thankful that I am still here and that I have been able to find counselor who 'gets' me and has helped me so much on my journey to recovery.  For those who are newer readers, in August I ...

Hey there.  I am probably not going to have a lot of time to post in the next few weeks as we are moving on December 1st, we have LOTS and LOTS of packing and cleaning to do.  I am excited and a tad bit anxious, but have been doing the anxiety tapping and that has helped out a ton. As for my quote today....I had a wee bit of a misunderstanding with my older sister Jen, and now she won't answer my calls or texts. Everything is squared away with the misunderstanding.  My dad was supposed to tell her something but he didn't. Bless his heart, my poor dad gets the blame for a lot of stuff that technically isn't his fault or responsibility. I made myself physically ill stressing out about it last night :-(  Hopefully she will forgive me for the stress I caused her with the misunderstanding. She is after all my sponsor and I'd hate to lose that. We have talked pretty much every day since my partial hospitalization.  It really does help and I'd miss it immensely if ...

Today I met with my counselor.  We talked about the impending move and how I can use Cognitive Behavior Therapy to make it less stressful.  Talked about how anxiety tapping has helped me and talked about how I tend to internalize things instead of talking about them.  I do tend to do that, I make everything 'my fault' or negative self talking that I love to do so much.  Such as with this move, I keep telling myself we'll never get things done (2 weeks) as the house is a mess because I haven't cleaned it yet, instead of focusing on the awesomeness that we have already gotten accomplished.  We have been working in the basement and pretty much have one side of it done packed and garbage separated.....yes the other side is a lot bigger with all the stacks of everything but we have made loads of progress.  Today I emptied out a couple of tubs, packed up the closet and am working on the kitchen.  Things are going well and there is no need for me to feel an...

Today has been an awesome day. I went to church with my sister for the first time in a long long long time.  It felt good to be there.  We are moving to her house so this will be my ward/congregation that we will go to.  I felt very welcome and very 'at ease' in her ward/congregation.  Church is normally 3 hours but I only stayed for one, but I am going to go to the whole thing next week.  Then I came home and we worked on packing up the basement some more, and the cook books in the kitchen.  We need tons more boxes if we are going to move :-)  So that's my task for tomorrow to find boxes.  Hopefully the local grocery stores will have some. I am quite proud of us we have been throwing a lot of junk away, stuff that we haven't used in the 4 years we have lived here.  It feels good to downsize, but still have quite a bit to go.  Things are going well.  Rob has a 4 day weekend this week so he will be able to do some packing.  ...

Sunday Stealing : Have You’s and What If’s! 1. Have you anything to confess today?   Not Really 2. have you ever broken a law? If so, what was it? Apparently I break one on a daily basis....it is illegal to store your prescriptions in anything other than there original container, I use the daily pill minders. 3. have you ever committed an act of betrayal against a friend or family member? explain.   The only thing I can think of is I told on my brother when he called the cops on me for texting him the day I tried to commit suicide.......he got into loads of trouble for a choice he made that day while I could have been dying in the hospital, but probably wouldn't have gotten the cops called on him had he NOT called the cops on me first.  It could possibly be a life changing event for him. 4. Has someone else done something that, to this day, makes you cringe when you think about them committing the act? . Someone I know is into nasty porn.....having been with my...

<----- This was a quote that we discussed in length during my partial hospitalization.  How you respond to certain situations is key.  For example, yesterday I got bit at work by 2 different dogs, one I worked with and was able to finish, the other one was so aggressive/mean/onery that there was no way that I could safely finish the dog.  I called his owners and informed them that he was having an extremely bad day and wasn't going to let me finish.  Now the owner could have gotten upset as she'd brought her dog to me 2x before and I had been able to finish him, however she was super nice about it, offered to pay me for at least his bath and rebooked in a few weeks to see if he would be having a better day.  Some dogs when they get super old just get super onery about the whole grooming process.  There have been a couple that I've had to tell them that there is no way that I can finish their dog safely and suggested that they take their dogs to a place...

Saturday 9: Live and Let Die 1) "Live and Let Die" was nominated for an Oscar as best song. Do you have a favorite movie song?  Anything from the Mama Mia musical movie.  But love Honey Honey the most 2) The latest Bond movie, Skyfall , is crazy successful. Have you seen it/do you want to see it?  I have not seen it yet but do want to. 3) What do you think makes Bond movies so enduringly popular?  The mystery of them, the action adventure, and just good looking spies :) 4) Do you have a favorite among the actors who have played "Bond, James Bond?"  The current one 5) Bond orders martinis -- "shaken, not stirred." What's your regular drink order? Diet Coke (I don't drink alcohol) 6) Moving from the bar to breakfast -- do you have a favorite cereal?   Corn Pops 7) Let's daydream about warm weather. Would you rather swim in a lake, the ocean, or an outdoor pool?  Outdoor Pool 8) Did you get 8 hours' sleep last nig...

I have always been a doubter of myself, doubter of my skills, doubter that I can keep a clean house etc etc etc, this list could go on and on.....but I have/am learning how to love myself for who I am and how to not doubt myself or my abilities.  Slowly but surely I am seeing that I can work on getting my house clean, and that I am a good groomer (comments from clients really helps too).  My counselor and I are working on techniques to boost my confidence levels as well. Rob and I had a quickie date night tonight.....we went to 5 Guys Burgers & Fries....so yummy, then we went to Maverick gas station and had some soft serve and icecream.  That was so nice and an unexpected surprise.  We are slowly climbing out of the money pit we fell into.  Which feels awesome.  Came home and are just snuggling and watching some old Dr Who (Well the newer Dr's) episodes.  It's one of my favorite shows.  Rob mentioned that he's had some movie tickets in his...

I am always trying to prove myself, but this quote struck a note in me....instead of trying to prove myself why not work on IMPROVING myself?  I am using the FLY Lady's methods of getting my house over CHAOS (Can't have anyone over syndrome), lots of work to be done, but am taking things slow and in baby steps.  So far so good and it's been over a week.  Just implementing one new 'routine' each day as part of the baby steps and it's helping. Today was a very stressful, high anxiety day for me at work, had 4 dogs who were really naughty, naughty dogs just drain me.  By naughty I mean they were wanting to lay down, they were pulling their legs away, trying to bite etc. It's exhausting when I have dogs who are so naughty.  I had to take an anxiety pill.  I don't know why but my anxiety lately is way up.  Gotta start remembering my 'tapping' and breathing exercises for my anxiety.  I have the tools I just have to use them.

I just wanted to follow up with how changing your thoughts can change your world.  If you have a positive attitude you can accomplish anything.  Case in point, yesterday was my day off, and I made the decision that I was going to crisis clean (15 minutes in 3 rooms then 15 min break) for as long as I could, and I basically did from 8am to 4pm, it feels great that I got so much accomplished.  I could have just done my 'norm' ad said "It's too overwhelming, it's too hard" but instead I just went for it.  I accomplished a lot got some dishes done, some laundry done, cleaned up some more in the kitchen, fully cleaned my main level bathroom, took out the garbage (which again was huge as I have anxiety about my neighbors seeing me with so much garbage), and worked on my living room. I'm reminded constantly of someone who was in the hospital at the same time as I was, we both suffered from depression and suicide attempts, however she chose to think bad though...

One of the hardest things for me is to accept and love myself for who I am.  I look in the mirror and see a fat blob.  Rob is really trying to get me to see past that, and has me telling myself I am beautiful almost every day.  I think it's helping, because even though I didn't put the whole repertoire of makeup on this morning I feel pretty.  Still fat but I feel pretty.  I am really trying I hate feeling like I do about myself.  I know I am a good person (my counselor wants me to eliminate the words Good/Bad from my vocabulary.  It's harder than I thought it would be. Today is my day off and I am actually dressed and working on the house.  Taking little breaks here and there.  I'm doing what is called 'crisis' cleaning according to Fly Lady.  The gist of it is you spend 15 minutes in 3 different rooms, then take a 15 minute break, and repeat the process.  I am amazed at how much I can accomplish in 15 minutes in each room....

I have noticed this is true.  I have changed one thing this week....I have shined my sink for 5 days in a row now, and it's becoming a habit to make sure the counters (the 3 that are cleaned off) remain cleaned off.  I am quite proud of myself, housework has never been easy for me.  But I want to make it a habit, want to continue following FlyLady  and her techniques.  Hopefully I will be able to get my house under control once more.   I am quite proud of the fact that I have been doing this.  Also working on Mt Washmore in my basement....trying to do 1 load per day.  Slowly but surely I'll get there. Looking back on the last 3 months, I've had my ups, I've had my downs, the important part is that I am still here, that I am still wanting to recover that I am still plugging along day by day, working to become a better me.  I see my therapist every other week, she really truly 'gets' me and I am grateful for that as she always seems to know...

The past few days my anxiety has been a little high, not sure why, I can't pinpoint it exactly but it has been.  Today we are making pizza for dinner, so I make the crust all up and get it cooking, then Rob was like "Did you cook the hamburger".....WHOOPS, so instead of letting it just go....I get upset at my stupid self for not making it happen.  It even moved me to tears :-(  DARN Anxiety. I love my sweetheart to pieces, he is so supportive, immediately told me "Don't" when I started beating myself up over a simple mistake.  I just love my baby so much.  He truly completes me and is there for me no matter what. Riding a bit of a roller coaster today....ready to cry for stupid reasons.  Good thing Rob is feeling awful lovey dovey today, he keeps hugging me and holding me and making it all better. As for my thought of the day, I have been saying Rob and I have been talking about moving for a while now, and it just feels like everything is fallin...

Sunday stealing  Who Are you? Part 7 – It is Over!  Part 7: Self Image 84. Describe the routine of a normal day for you:   I wake up at 6:00am, take a shower, get ready for the day, then I go downstairs and feed the critters, and make breakfast for hubby and I.  We usually leave the house by about 7:30ish and I drop my husband off at work.  Then I work (I'm a Pet Groomer) until about 3:30 or 4:00ish then I leave for home and go get my hubby from work.  Then I come home and make dinner, feed the critters, work on cleaning the house a little and we usually head to bed about 8:30ish or 9:00. 85. What is your greatest strength as a person?   I am a very compassionate and have a big heart 86. What is your greatest weakness?   Interrupting people when they are talking 87. Are you going to run for President in 2016?   Nope, I don't care about politics all that much 88. Are you generally self-contained? No, I do like to talk, except t...

Trying another new thing called Saturday 9, it can be found here:  http://samanthasaturday9.blogspot.com 1) Do you come up with your brightest ideas early in the morning or late at night?   I would say that I am most creative later in the evenings 2) Are you more likely to feel romantic at night or in the morning?  Depends on the day :-), but usually at night 3) Do you shower in the morning, after work or before bed?   I shower in the mornings, it helps wake me up 4) Billie Holiday was just 44 when she died. Is there an artist whose early demise surprised and saddened you?   Not an artist but Heath Ledger's death really shocked me and took me by surprise.  He is one of my all time favorite actors. 5) Billie was known as "Lady Day." Do you have a cool nickname? (If not, feel free to give yourself one right now.)   No cool nicknames, as a kid I was "Woodie or Fruitcake".....don't ask LOL 6) When was the last time you had the blues?   ...

Just what I needed to hear today.  I had a lot of wiggly naughty dogs today.  To the point I had to take an anxiety pill at work I was so on edge.  Things are really tight (financially wise) and if it wasn't for the coins that my sister Lara gave me for grooming her dogs yesterday, I wouldn't have enough gas to get to work tomorrow.  Between her coins and mine I cashed $34 :-)  WOOT WOOT!  Was able to pick up my Zyprexa, so I don't have to start all over, the walmart just south of us had it in stock, otherwise I would have had to wait until Tuesday. I think a lot of my life right now is getting broken down into stepping stones.  I know that like my cleaning etc, and my recovery, What seemed like a Mountain (my depression), is now seeming more like a hill, I am climbing to the top and want to stay on top, I love feeling this good, I love not crying on a daily basis, I love that my husband and I's relationship is getting stronger and stronger each ne...