So, I actually had a pretty good day today. I sat around in my chair a lot, read trashy romance novels, and only worried about life a little bit. I am down in cash a bit, but not in a terrible way. I took my kids to Target, which usually costs me a big penny at this time of year, but due to Covid-19, I am not really spending a great deal on school supplies because they will be at home for a lot of the time, according to the latest news sent out by our school system. Funny how they no longer need supplies!! So later on this afternoon, I needed to go grocery shopping as I will be working three 12-hour shifts in a row this weekend and will need to provide food for the three voracious teenagers at home as well as meals for me at work. I took one of my voracious teenagers and off we
Uncategorized
Deep Breathing for Anxiety
I took a holistic nursing class recently, and discovered a relaxation technique called “deep breathing”. Basically, this technique focuses on slow, deep breathing using the diaphragm muscle to calm and relax a person’s respiratory rate, with the additional relaxation of the neck, shoulder and upper chest muscles to help improve oxygenation and soothe the mind and body. Driving back to the mainland of North Carolina from Hatteras Island is not for the faint of heart if you are manning an older vehicle with over 220,000 miles on it. See this bridge in the photo above? This is the Marc Basnight bridge that spans the Oregon Inlet in the Outer Banks. It had my heart pounding; I could feel it throbbing in my throat as it flipped over and over (in reality, those were just stress-induced premature ventricular contractions). My knuckles were clenched to the steering wheel in anticipation of whatever vehicular decimation my old mini-van was going to attempt as
Anxiety is ruining my life: the single mom saga
I need a better way to be. Jesus promised us his peace, why can I not allow it to flood my existence? Has He not gotten me through the last 5 years of being a single parent? It is the constant fear of the unknown. Every surprise bill that hits my mailbox (remember when we were kids and would LOVE to get the mail?), every piece of this house that crumbles without any monetary support to repair, every struggle, illness, every dream that dies…isn’t it all to the glory of God? Why can I not allow that to just BE? I was on vacation this week and the very first day I was there, my car broke down. It was easily repaired, but after that I kept EXPECTING it to break again and no longer enjoyed my trip. I quickly realized that the only thing that can prevent this from happening again is a FAT bank account. An anxiety free
Thoughts on jury duty #2
Please hurry up. Please don’t put pungent, odorous evidence next to the jury box. Yes, I’m laughing at you. This is ridiculous! Do you really think scanty evidence/witness/testimony is worth all the time and money this is taking? Again, please hurry. For the love of everything that is pure and clean, please place hand sanitizer canisters in the hallways!
Thoughts on jury duty
It is sooooo obvious when you act like you just can’t tell the truth for the sake of the law. You are lying to get out of jury duty and that’s that. Unfortunately, it always works, because no one wants the wild card. So kudos to you for having the guts to be a Corporal Klinger. Playing the dumb card also works, but I despise you more because it TAKES MORE TIME for the dang selection process. I loathe you. If I can do jury duty as a single mom with three children, one of which has special needs, then so can you. We don’t want to hear how your mother’s cousin Dellie is sick with the gout and no one can take care of her. You had an entire month to plan, just like I did. Don’t waste time. Please bathe. Ladies, if you hover over the public toilet, even though seat protectors are provided, please wipe up all
I guess this is getting old?
I am settling more and more into learning about local nature, native plants and animal species, and sustainability. Always been interested in the outdoors around me – but now, now it seems imperative that I DO something about this love. Is this what 48 looks like? I like it. I have lived in this neighborhood for 20 years, and see many of my neighbors that moved here the same time – meaning they are probably my age – still indulging in fast cars, loud parties, blaring music…I wonder if they are still caught up in trying to stay 21? I wonder what personal fulfillment means for other people. This neighborhood is one of those “starter” neighborhoods. An old trailer park was sold, dissembled, and turned into a new neighborhood. We were newlyweds searching for our new home. We had our children here. Some of the families moved on to other places. But most of us are still here. In the
I bought a car yesterday
I am TERRIFIED of it. I started out looking at used cars on local sites like NextDoor, Craigslist, etc. Then I went looking at certified pre-owned. Then end of the season 2019 models. After 4 weeks of this madness. I drove over to a Kia dealership, found the PERFECT car for me. It is a model that works for my family, exact color I wanted, all the extra little bells and whistles that make a new car nice. It is the first NEW new car I have ever owned. Here is the list of cars I have owned: Cadillac Cimarron (lemon), Chevrolet Celebrity, Dodge Colt (lawsy, I HATED that one), Mazda B2200 pickup truck, Chevrolet Lumina, and my last beloved car – 2004 Honda Odyssey. It is so scary to own this new car. Why can’t I just enjoy my first new car? Because so many things can go wrong! I can wreck it. Some other idiot can run into
Discovery!
I am reading about “Health Promotion Model” in one of my RN-BSN classes. Idly, after reading this quote: “Research indicates that often the best predictor of behavior is the frequency of the same or a similar behavior in the past.”, I started co-relating it to my own habits. It made me think. I used to run 5K, 3x a week. What do I do now? Absolutely nothing. How long have I been out of the running? <—–yes, pun intended. About 4 years. 4 years. That is how long I have been a single mom. And the realization that I have gone from healthy, cardiovascular training to sitting on my butt in a leather recliner just hit me like the roll of belly fat I have been whining about for a year now. I have given up part of what I used to thoroughly enjoy as my “thing” in order to become both mom and dad for my children in this
Don’t wanna go to work tomorrow
I guess most of us are wishing we could stay home and write – or stay home and goof off. It’s 2240 and I’m binge watching The Office. My dog is lying here in front of the fire. I took a test tonight and passed with 95%. I would like to sit here in complete relaxation for at least two more hours…but the alarm clock will go off at 0540. The biggest yuck factor is that I work the next 3 days. For those that work 5 days a week that sounds so…. nice, right? Nah, I work 12 hour shifts at a hospital that is a 30 minute drive from the house. I am gone from 0600 to 2000, and usually spend at least one day off after a 3-in-a-row shift block sleeping. I know very few nurses that do not do the same. Bah. I need more money somehow. Let me go stick another 500 words onto my
Recipe bloggers
In 2006, when Ree Drummond started her Pioneer Woman blog, I was all gaga over the pics of every step, with comments and little stories thrown in. It was enchanting, and it worked well for her. She’s a bazillionaire now. For the rest of you, please stop. It is a new decade and there are a million copy-cat blogs – quite frankly, I now find it tedious looking for the recipe I am searching for. I want one recipe and one pic. I don’t want to scroll through pic after pic, and read story after story of why the brown sugar didn’t work but the toasted coconut sugar did. Stop. Just stop. The next time I google “star anise, green peas, rice”, I better get a dang recipe and not a soliloquy about your latest trip to India and a recipe down at the bottom of the page that doesn’t match what I want. Thank you. But that makes me
