boring

I know that things have been pretty boring around here since my appendectomy.  I’ve thought several times about blogging about how I don’t have the energy to blog, but I figured you would get the point if I just didn’t blog, which was what I felt like doing anyway.  Heh.

I feel ok.  Every once in a while I have a twinge in the former-appendix area.  Mostly I’m just sleepy.  My new theory is that my body is just taking a while after being on anesthesia.  I have reason to believe that my body processes pain meds, etc. pretty slowly, so I’m assuming it may be the same for the anesthesia.

Anyway.  This post is boring even me.  Just wanted you to know I’m alive.  I do think about things that would be really good posts, but my foggy brain can’t get much past a thesis sentence.  Alas.

Am trying to keep up on my reading/commenting for my regular bloggy peeps.  I’m having better luck with the reading, frankly.  ICLW was a bit of a joke for me.

OK, I think that’s enough whining for one post.

happy July iclw

I remembered that ICLW is this week, and so that’s an improvement over last month.

But I’m really tired and have no creative juices to help me write a post worth reading.  Therefore, I am going to cut and paste last month’s post and adjust it for this month.  Here goes:

So, um, here’s my deal:  Divorce finalized in December, thus officially ending my verbally/emotionally abusive marriage.  Mr. X got remarried last month, and I’m feeling more and more free as time goes by.  While married, I experienced the “joy” that is infertility, which is how I got hooked into the ALI community.

Oh, yeah.  I had an appendectomy two weeks ago, and just returned to work on Monday, which may be part of why I have no creative juices right now.  I’m feeling fine, though, thanks.

I will also show you a picture of Miss Famous, who at this moment is very tired after a raucous evening playing with my friends’ dog, Gertie.  The dogs were banished to the back yard, until Miss Famous escaped, as she is a bit of an artist in that regard.

While I was recovering, Miss Famous and I did a lot of lying around the house together, which looked something like this:

or this:

But sometimes she would get up and look out the window:

That’s all I’ve got.  Happy ICLW!

about the dogs…

I went to work today and didn’t have to crawl home after less than two hours because I was exhausted.  In fact, I lasted almost the whole day.

This is progress.

In other news, having appendicitis got me out of dog-sitting Gertie.  She and Miss Famous met (again) on Friday, however, and I think that it was a successful meeting, all in all.  My friends (Gertie’s owners) and I decided that part of their previous issues might have been that they are both so much alike.  The main triggers for conflict we noticed this time were 1) Miss Famous is opposed to an overly enthusiastic “background check” and Gerts is a bit slow on the uptake and 2) Gertie is very protective of “her” baby.  It is fine with my friends if Miss Famous licks that baby all over her face, as she did the first time they came to visit (without the Gertster).  It is not, however, fine with Gertie, and she let this be known.  It was awfully nice to throw them in the backyard when they first arrived and see Miss Famous go nuts running laps around the yard (she’s been a bit under-exercised since I’ve been recovering).

I had a more active day today than I’ve had in almost two weeks, so I am going to sign off now, and go to bed.

Wild times around here, let me tell you.

the voices in my head

So, I tried to go to work on Tuesday.  That didn’t really work out.  I think I left after an hour an a half, exhausted.  Like, exhausted to the point I could barely think straight.  That evening my amazing friends, who just got back from a couple of years abroad, came over.  It was very chill, just sitting on the couch for an hour or two, chatting.  Apparently, however, that put me over the edge on the tiredness scale.  I woke up Wednesday morning and felt just awful.

The thing is, I generally don’t really feel bad, just tired.  And, usually when I’m tired, I can convince myself to power on through.  Not this time, though.

I’ve been fighting a lot with my mind, or with the voices in my mind, rather.  They tell me I should be up, doing something.  They tell me I’m going to get in trouble if I don’t get back to work.  They tell me I’m weak, that I’m a wuss, that I need to just suck it up and stop sitting around the house like a lazy bum.

They’re lying, but it’s not always easy to see that.

For someone who struggles with self-care even in the good times, this has been a challenge for me.  What I need to do is just chill out, let my body continue to heal, and not stress.  This does not come naturally to me.

And really, there’s not much to worry about, work-wise.  Nothing is burning, as my crazy supervisor says (who, btw, has her faults, but is 100% supportive of time off when we’re ill).  July is typically the slowest month anyway, and many people in the agency have the whole month off (not me, unfortunately, though I can’t really complain about the amount of time off I get).  I had about 7 sick days going into this thing, plus 2 weeks of vacation time I have to take by the middle of August, so…I’m just taking part of it earlier than I expected.

It all sounds very rational, doesn’t it?  Sounds a lot better than telling myself I’m a lazy, weak wuss, huh?  The thing is, when I feel bad, or tired, it can be hard to tell the difference between the crazy voices, and the truth.  The truth is, I’m not in trouble, if anything crazy happens with my clients, my co-workers or supervisor can help with it, as they already have.  The best thing I can do for myself is to take care of myself and rest right now, which is what I would tell anybody else.  The problem is believing that, remembering that.

And today I felt like blogging and had the energy to actually do it, which is an improvement, huh?  Now on to the task of not guilting myself out over blogging but not working.  Sigh.  It’s an endless merry-go-round, this crazy brain of mine.

sleepy, but healing

I appear to be doing well in the healing area, as the pain is less every day.  The sleepiness, however, continues.  I stopped the prescription pain meds yesterday (or was it the day before?) because I hate how they make me feel (other than taking the pain away, that is), and I am doing okay without them.

I’m just really tired.

Thank you for all the well-wishes.  They are much appreciated.

one less organ than yesterday

I had an emergency appendectomy last night (is there any other kind?).  All seems to have gone well.  Mom is here.  I was released from the hospital this morning, in record time, it seems.

Must rest now.  More later.

catching up

I seem to have fallen out of the blogging habit in the last few days.  Partly, I have not been able to communicate well what has been going on, which is mostly internal.  There are a few externals that I’ll catch you up on, and hopefully this will end the blogging drought.

• I have started lessons in the Alexander Technique.  A woman in my group (actually one of the volunteer facilitators) is a teacher of the technique, and she has been kind enough to give me a reduced rate.  I have had two lessons so far and have been becoming more and more aware of how much I tense my muscles (shoulders, neck, and jaw particularly) and how unaware of my body I am most of the time.  I had been talking with my therapist about finding a way to learn to be more present in my body and then I learned about this technique and that D teaches it.  I will try to write more about it later.  It’s been a really fascinating experience, so far.

• I have decided to stop sticking my head in the sand about my finances.  I think I had a pendulum-swing reaction to not being under X’s controlling thumb in money matters, and haven’t been paying nearly enough attention to how I spend my money.

• My sister is still on a downward spiral.  Not much to say about that—actually, there’s a LOT to say about that, but not much that can be said succinctly.  I hope to write more about that later, as well.

• In happy news, two of the greatest people in the world (and their 8 month old daughter AND their rambunctious Labradoodle) are moving back to the US from the Netherlands this week.  And they’re moving to my city!  In my insanity, I have offered to dog-sit while they are schlepping their belongings from the various locations across the state where they have been stored.  Miss Famous and the Labradoodle do know each other, and Miss Famous was, well, not the best hostess the last time they were together.  I will keep you up-to-date on these two dogs’ shenanigans.  Here’s a couple of pics of Miss Famous’ once and future house-guest:
  

  Gertie, with her laser-eye beam look

  

  she's a lot bigger than Miss Famous

  There are no pics of Gertie and Miss Famous together, because, well, yeah.  Hopefully things will be calmer this time around and I can share photographic evidence of their friendship with you.