Blackberries

The one things that's gone reasonably right in the last few weeks.

Our feeble excuse for a front hedge has several berry canes in it, and starting last year we had some thorny things growing by the steps to the side porch.  The canes in the front had berries, but about the time they turned red they disappeared; presumably some birds liked them. This year we have more canes and a lot more berries and I thought to put bird netting over them.  Whatever the reason we currently have a lot of red berries and, at least the ones by the porch, are turning a lovely dark blackish purple.  So I guess they are actually blackberries, and the birds just liked them when they weren't quite ripe.  I'm not complaining.  They are very tasty.

The girls are getting sorted out.  Younger will be doing some summer school stuff, and while she will be repeating the year, she won't have to repeat 9th grade English and World History, which she found insanely boring the first time round, so a second would have been torture.  Elder has some stuff to do over the summer and I'm hoping that the carrots we've jointly picked for her to get after each 20 online units are done enough to submit will get her to actually work on them.

Me?  I'm just tired all the time, and then, when I get to bed, I mostly can't get to sleep, or at least not at a decent hour.  Friday I turned the light out at about 1:30, and was still awake at nearly 4.  It takes very little to get me winded, and something as simple as sitting still and eating or drinking something can get the heart arrhythmia going.  I did get some stuff done around the house and yard last Sunday, but I'd had two days off at that point, having had to take Friday off to keep an eye on elder child as she had had some anesthesia for an impacted tooth removal, and needed a responsible adult to keep an eye on her.  However, I don't get two days off between every day when stuff needs to get done, so almost nothing is getting done.  I am scheduled to have stress tests, regular and nuclear, done on the 8th, and I almost hope they do find something, because then we might be able to do something about it.  Or at least we'd know *why* I feel so useless.

And someone stole our lawnmower last week.  I admit that the shed doesn't lock, but the door does shut, and for heaven's sake, it's a 15 year old Craftsman 21".  If they've sold it I doubt they could get more than $50 for it, and probably less.  But that means all we've got is a slightly rusty hand mower, and I need to sharpen the blades.  It doesn't do well with grass longer than 4 inches either, and some of our stuff is worse than that.

I need a goat.

Over-reacting and Chocolate

Yesterday I saw this:

It actually makes me feel a little bit better.  Because if you think about it, there really is an abnormal amount of bullshit going around out there if you follow the news.

So when I add all the family issues (two kids with education/psych issues) to all the stuff that's going on out in the world, as well as the fact that I truly hate my job, yes, I'm tired all the time, and eating way too much chocolate and ice cream.

Because:

Handbaskets

As in "The world is going to Hell in".

And I'm reaching a point where I don't care.

That's not quite right; I'm just too damn tired and depressed to care.

Which is how I imagine folks on the wrong side of the old Iron Curtain must have felt a lot of the time.

Our local SCA group had it's monthly meeting in our neck of the woods on Monday, and there was lots of talk of the events we'll be holding over the next 18 months.  And it all sounded really interesting. If I cared.

This is something that I've always greatly enjoyed, but we didn't have the time or the money for years after we moved back up to CT, and then we were also dealing with elementary age kids - too old to just haul places, but too young for them to enjoy themselves.  But now they are both in high school, they both think the group sounds interesting, and if I wanted to I could come up with some basic garb for the lot of us, as well as the funds for membership and attending a few events a year.

I realized Monday that I'm too tired.  Everything seems like it's going to be too much effort, and all I'm up for is curling up around the computer in the evening, playing logic puzzles on one side of the screen while watching old TV shows (currently working my way through Magnum, P.I.) on the other side.  And for that matter some evenings, I don't even have the energy for that.  At the same time, I can't fall asleep.  I didn't get the light out last night until nearly 1am, because I knew I wasn't going to be able to fall asleep, and when I did get the light out, I was still awake until nearly 3am. Except for a few peanut butter cups I had had no caffeine after about noon, so I can't blame it on that.  I'm scheduled for a stress test and nuclear stress test on July 7th, which will most likely come out completely normal.  So will the echo.  We'll be left with stress, anxiety, and maybe some good old depression to explain the heart arrhythmia, exhaustion, insomnia, shortness of breath, and nearly constant light headedness.

My attitude towards life right now could be because of my health, but then my health could very easily be being affected by reactions to the political and economic disasters that are going on around us and the financial worries that any one with half a brain is facing right now.

So I just keep going to the doctor so we can figure out what the problem is, maybe what's causing it, and hopefully how to treat it, while continuing to buy my weekly lottery tickets.  I figure I've got a better chance of winning the state lottery than I do of ever being in a financial position to retire based solely on work and savings.

And if that isn't a damning indictment of the current economy, nothing is.

It's my blog and I'll whine if I want to...

The title should be fair warning.

I'm tired.  I'm lightheaded. I'm short of breath.  My chest hurts. I have trouble sleeping, what with the overall sense of impending doom and existential angst.  I have no real appetite, but I'm eating a lot of chocolate and caffeine to try to stay awake. Therefore I'm putting on some more weight.

It's most likely anxiety, nothing that getting the girls' issues a little more settled, getting myself a new job or a winning lottery ticket, and some xanax wont take care of.

However, I did go to see the doctor this morning.  My EKG is fine, we'll see what the blood work says (probably anemic).  I also have a  cardiology consult, just in case.  I suspect at the end of everything they'll tell me I have anxiety, take some xanax, and did you know you're fat?  Duh.  I hate the new EMRs where even when the doctor doesn't talk to you about your weight, because he/she knows you aren't stupid, the little visit summary printout tells you to consult the "Healthy weight and you" handout.     Every. Damn. Visit.

Like that's going to help the anxiety.