-Mobile continuation from Xanga blog PinkyGuerrero, this blog is PinkyGuerrero, ongoing continuation at blogs Pinky & Janika & Basically Clueless & PinkFeldspar, in that order.
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-Personal blog for Janika Banks.
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Saturday, December 31, 2016

New Year's Eve 2016

click for film source

*Wo*
, got hit from the Bermuda Triangle yesterday.

I've had so many hits from searches for Rick Lagina again lately from so many weird places that I am sworn to get all caught up again on Curse of Oak Island first thing after everyone else gets back into routine after New Year's. Concern about both his sex life and especially his demise have quintipled again, and I wanna see why. Apparently, someone in the Mayberry made for TV movie set area has concern about it as well.

Yesterday was day 2 on Bunny's tonsillectomy, so the suckage suckededed really bad. But I think she's about past that part now and will probably be up well into 2021 tonight.

Also yesterday I finally got the last of the kitchen flipping done. My mobile office of 4 1/2 years is no longer a campsite. The long term planning and execution around this took about 2 months, but it's a solid idea. I'll skip details (aspienado wants to include lengthy details, Pinky says no) and just say I wish I'd thought of this way sooner. Genius in slo-mo, as it were.

The only drawback is that @bonenado and I can now see each other across the house into other rooms as we are both on the internet, so I'm already tossing jokes out about making cubicles. It's weirding us out that we've lost our only privacy. This house has no hallways. To be able to sit somewhere in this house without looking up and seeing someone looking at you involves careful angle planning.

I've already lost my first resolution pound. GO ME!!! Yeah, not sure how, I ate ice cream last night. This year's motto is GO BIG OR FACEPLANT, so I'm shooting for the legendary 50 pounds thing. I did it in 2011 in only 4 months. What the hell, right? I've had 20 creep back on since then, and Pinky is putting a foot down and saying ohHELLno, so I guess we'll be seeing who's really the boss of me. We haven't really test driven this new emotionally healthy integrated Pinky personality into the wilds of menu planning yet, so this might get interesting.

My other big resolution (I made only two real ones) is to stop the f*@#G whining and get published, because several friends have been publishing all around me banging my head against the minecraft wall, and another year of that will have me self destructing onto a comedy stage or something.

I just told @bonenado not to throw a protective phone bag away because he's ruined me being the big recycler that holds stuff back in case we wanna sell it. I'm like are you crazy, have you looked up phone carry bags? I actually bought one the year we flew to Houston. It was ridiculously expensive. So he asked about starting an Amazon shop, I said I have no advice, just go do it because I either don't have the time or I'll own it and be the boss and you'll cry. He walked off muttering he wouldn't *cry*, he'd just hate me. I called out across our lengthy office space that if he's successful, I'll toss lots of stuff at him to sell. He said he'll be setting up a cubicle.

So we were out yesterday running around the state and stopped in at Osceola Cheese (picked up an aged swiss, mmmm), and it about knocked me over hearing a young hipster dad asking his 7 year old daughter if she preferred the apple wood smoked aged gruyere or the hickory smoked goat gouda. There's hope for Missouri yet. And she picked the gruyere, correctly enunciating the entire phrase back to her dad. *wow* I expect great things from that kid.

Seriously, they had just about everything except buffalo and donkey cheeses.

Hm. Just discovered I don't have enough eggs to whip up a yummy coconut cream pie for @bonenado. Deep regret reigns over us, for now we must venture forth again. Today is a big cooking day so I won't hafta cook again the rest of the long weekend. Queued in fridge is vension burger for meatloaf and chicken for BBQ, plus we've got chips for cheese and salsa dips and decided to blow the year out with ice cream before we really get serial about the last big challenge on the carb cutting thingy. Ice cream is our kryptonite.

Not sure if I'll be staying up for any kind of ball drop, but I had my party yesterday, and I'm good to go for 2017. Egads, I look like I have no hair at all... It's halfway down to my shoulder blades again and wildly staticky, so I tied it up and stuck a sock in its mouth like a big bad boss. I look like aspienado on drugs. Definitely not demure.



This is me shooting into 2017 like.



theme, focus, execution playlist

Thursday, December 29, 2016

Day 30- last of 2016 30 day challenge


Srsly, that's the last of using the same title every single day all month. What a drag. I'll never do that again. So glad I made it 30 instead of 31.

Ok, this week's suckage in a quick power point.
  • Tonsil day. The worst part was surgery being moved twice out of the blue around holidays. Bunny's mama had it so perfectly set up on the 15th and everyone in place for backup help, that got moved last minute to the 28th, so everything was rearranged and tightly squeezed into place, and then 2 days before surgery they called back and it had been moved to 6 hours later, so all new plans had to be put into place for keeping a hyper 3 year old from going into super cranky calorie deficit through the day, which involved parents losing lots of sleep keeping her up, and this on top of one having developed a severe sinus infection over holidays and another an abscessed tooth and not being able to get off work, and you know what kind of fun it is getting appointments into anything around holidays. Four adults, one child, a tonsillectomy that went super fantastic, and we all feel like we've run a marathon.
  • Sleep study. While I'm thrilled that the follow up got bumped up to a great weather week instead of being at the end of January with possible driving in very inclement weather in the dark, it came hot on the heels out of the blue right after Bunny's tonsillectomy. Right. After. That very night. Extra trips into town blahblahblah. I can't begin to describe the headache I've walked around with all day. But hey, I slept great.
IF the world will stop moving abruptly out from under my feet, I'm hoping to get something special DONE by the time the ball drops.

Tomorrow we are driving halfway across the state for an epic meetup and I'm very excited. That is all you get. Because of that, I'm posting this a few hours early, like handing in my homework ahead of time. I'll be too excited to focus, and I'll need to get ready and then be on the road for awhile.



Unrelated end of year stat report- Pinky blog averages 8 page loads per visitor session. I very sincerely say THANK YOU.

Day 29- last of 2016 30 day challenge

A better title might be- App Management: Time loss has never been more efficient


Part of my 30 day challenge is Indian wrestling my tech for dominance. Pinterest is my bestest friend right now while I move over 1K pix to mostly private family boards. I've heard so many horror stories about losing ALL THE PICTURES bcuz phone death, and since I kinda went there last year 🙄I dare not make such a fumble again.

This whole digital thing was supposed to make us a paperless, and therefore a trashless, society. Well, I have more trash than ever I'm digging out from under, not the least being virtual. There are pros and cons to what kind of trash preferences we might have.

Bills- I'm finally harnessing digital EVERYTHING.

Emails- It takes time to 'opt out' of every single little bitty thing, but I'M DOING IT. The digital spam has been ridiculous.

Notifications- Getting a facebook notification in triplicate across all devices and browsers really has to stop. Facebook dares to try owning me, and hell if Cortana will let that happen. I am soooo all over stomping Facebook flat till it *shuts* *up*. I've almost memorized all the settings in all the out of the way weird places I can possibly find them.

I'm not even touching Instagram, omg that is a wide road to time wasting hell.

Actual trash- @bonenado is a compulsive recycler. I must save this marriage.

Recycle bin- Where do I even begin? There are so many copies of every little thing I interface online or do on my tech surviving in temp files, caches, multiple folders... But begin I have begun, and I will reclaim my Jawn and woo him back to my loving touch.

I showed @bonenado how to clear temp files on his phone... He still had app pages open from last year. That's a real thing, guys. Fantasy football loads way faster when you clear out caches.

Anyway, part of my 30 day challenge is sludging my way back out of the Swamp of Sadness, the Pit of Despair, the Bog of Eternal Stench. (Did I miss anything?) The Fire Swamp is cool, it can stay. The Oubliette can stay, too. #aspienado needs an oubliette to stay sane.

Me irl fixing #allthethings.

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Day 28- last of 2016 30 day challenge

I normally post this kind of stuff over to spaz, so I'm putting a copy there, too. I'm also keeping it here on Pinky blog because it's part of my 30 day challenge.

I've been wellness planning since 2008. I had reached what felt like a point of no return and felt desperate to find a way to claw my way back to life or die. I came up with an initial survival plan with 2 fall back plans. If you need context, I was in my 40s and already dependent on assistance with self care, thanks to several illnesses crossing paths and converging on me.

Plan A- clean off all my meds (except thyroid and blood pressure pills), get proper nutrition, hydration, and sleep, work on core strength, and regular exercise to regain mobility and function and reduce pain. This took several years of strict diet changes, devotion to physical therapies, and committing to healthier sleep patterns. I was med free (NSAIDS, narcotics, benzodiazines, muscle relaxers, and mood stabilizers) for two years, which is phenomenal after 2 decades of intractable crippling pain.

Plan B- get back on meds as needed when the pain gets too rough (knowing that once I'm back on them, I probably won't be getting back off any more) to help maintain mobility, function, and pain control through good health habits. I hit Plan B this year with gabapentin to control Lhermitte's pain shocks and low dose xanax to control euphoric episodes, both of which were interrupting my maintenance plan.

Plan C- when pain meds fail to help control pain and chronic problems progress beyond maintaining and I start losing ground again on mobility and function, then I'll start pain shots and surgeries, knowing that once these things start rolling, there is no going back to presurg conditions, and that I risk not only losing more mobility and function, but infection as well. Obviously, I want to put off the most drastic measures as long as possible, since these measures will basically be about interrupting nerve signals by damaging them as a method for pain control and will require extensive recovery therapies and assistance.

I was told today for the first time in 4 years that I didn't improve after the latest round of physical therapy. Medicare doesn't pay for physical therapy if there is no improvement, and I'm certainly not rich enough to pick up that tab, so I won't be able to use physical therapy to maintain this level of function, mobility, and strength.

For example, my grip in both hands has come up to 45, which is awesome considering left hand was in the 30s last year, but I'm not improving beyond 45 now. On this particular device, normal is 65. I assume that is calculated for sex and age (most grip devices are assigned their own number range based on average weak, normal, and strong grips for males and females across a range of ages). What we've been working on this last year is nerve recovery. My muscle tone is great, thanks to fibromyalgia keeping up isometric tension in my muscles, but nerves are what tell muscles how to move, right? You can have the strongest muscles in the world, but they're useless without healthy nerve conduction.

My nerve recovery at this point seems to have stalled. I know this can be deceptive, since nerve healing is some of the slowest cellular level healing in the body and can take years, especially if you have diabetes. However, I must consistently show that I'm gaining recovery, not just maintaining a new level that I've reached, even if that is the most important part. Without maintenance therapy, I might start losing ground again, and even though the therapists know this, their hands are tied by my ability to pay for services.

So, down to the real nitty gritty now. It's up to me to keep up this level of maintenance. I've got 4 years of training and tools to help me do this, and I MUST self motivate if I want to keep this amount of mobility, function, and strength that I've gained back over the last 4 years.

My therapy plan for 2017 is to assess back into physical therapy via doctor referral sometime around mid or late spring, see exactly where medicare rates me, see what medigap picks up, and then set up a payment plan. IF that is how it winds up going, I may have to stop and just take my chances. I know exactly what I'm facing because I saw my mom go down like this, losing both her arms, her balance, and eventually becoming side-deficit and needing round the clock care. My goal is to retain my ability to self care as long as possible. I was unable to self care for nearly 2 years of my life, so I already know what it's like to not be able to get my own shower, put my own clothes on, drive a car, or even walk through a store. To get this all back has been thrilling. I love that I can easily get around again, go buy my own food, tie shoes by myself, get up and down steps without a rail. Write a paragraph.

I've brought this stuff up before, but I don't like talking about it. It's important though, isn't it? It's important that I'm willing to work for what I can keep doing and be who I can while I have the time. It's very important that I'm not curling up in a ball letting the world crush me.

"If I cannot move heaven, I will raise hell." -Virgil, The Aeneid

Part of my 30 day challenge has been about assessing where I am right now cognitively, physically, and emotionally so I can project where I want to be this summer, or by this time next year. None of my improvement just happened, none of it magically came to pass. Every bit of it was thought out, planned, and executed. Some of it was fail or semi fail because I dropped the ball here and there, but I used those times to remember that I don't want to slide back into full time face plant. Lately, though, things have gotten harder, and if I'm being honest, I have to admit I dropped a pretty big ball staying on target with my goals this year, even if I did stay mostly on track with my health. I can blame depression, or I can own it. It's my choice. There is a difference, as subtle as that may feel sometimes. Examples might be caving to a chocolate binge but realizing I'm doing that and cutting down the portion, or caving to going back to bed but remembering I wanted to get a load of clothes folded out of the dryer and allowing myself to come back to bed after I get back up and get that done.

Small steps. A few little things add up to some very big things over time. What we do might seem mundane and repetitive, but it's also cumulative. You know how I clean house? I play a game. I have to move 5 things on a counter to new locations, and I can't cheat by just setting them someplace else. ONLY 5 things. I make myself stop. But I can come back later and move 5 more. If I don't feel like doing it and stop at 3 or 4, I can always say "but just one more and you can quit", and I do it. Over time, a whole lot of things get moved. In between the perpetual hamster wheels of doing dishes and laundry and cleaning bathrooms, real things do get done. And once in awhile I reach a place where suddenly doing 5 very big things is really easy because all the rest is done enough to make way.

I've had years where not much of anything got done. I know dearly what living with depression is like. Everything stops. Will power isn't even a concept, time is a dream I had once, and dots don't connect. It's like being lost and not being awake enough to want to find a way around. But even like that, I can still play a game. I can move 5 things. ONLY 5...

Over several years I have completely changed my life.

And that doesn't mean anything or make it any easier unless I do a 30 day challenge and think about where I am cognitively, physically, and emotionally right now, see what kind of progress I've made, and decide where I want to be this summer, or maybe by this time next year.

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Day 27- last of 2016 30 day challenge


This 30-day challenge has actually been challenging. Part of the challenge is to discipline myself back to writing every day, because I kind of lost sight of that discipline over this last year, and then I just plain got lazy. Getting back on track isn't the easiest thing in the world, and it starts with small steps.

Another part of the challenge is to rethink my goals for 2017 while I discipline back to more consistent writing. When I first showed back up in 2012, I had mapped out quarterly and yearly goals and then watched my plan get blown up over and over when my main blog server shut down for awhile and moved (and then recovering my material from what basically looked like a war zone of rubble) and both my daughters getting pregnant at the same time. I managed to keep writing, even though I didn't stay on the main track and finally had to let go of focus on the main goal just to reign in the emotional splat my life was morphing into.


My original Plan wasn't "I want to write a book", not by a long shot. My original plan was to survive soul wrenching depression, a life crash that could unmake me without something I really want to hang onto. The writing is my lifeline between inside my head and the outer world I'm managing to survive in. Without the writing, I will be swallowed up and consumed with rabbit hole distractions and feeling insane, a tiny nut fallen off the machinery that keeps upheaving my life. Basically, I am part of a much bigger support system, and if I want to continue to be useful and good for other very real people, I need to find a way to be useful and good for myself. I don't know any other way to survive this continual onslaught of social pressures, intractable chronic pain, and severe depression.

So I'm starting over. Make it simple. Write something every day. Just do it. Just write. Once I'm back in the habit, I can start turning it toward other blogs again, stuff I've already set up for content that will one day, hopefully, become product- hard copy, kindle, whatever. Dare I hope film...


Several writers of really cool things have openly admitted severe depression and other challenges, my absolute fave icon being J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5).

Everyone bleeds. 100+ Sci-Fi/Fantasy Authors reach out to fans on suicide, depression, mental illness for #HoldOnToTheLight

#IfIDieToday 67 of 100+ Sci-Fi/Fantasy Authors share on depression, PTSD, anxiety, suicide for #HoldOnToTheLight

So, basically, this is my mission statement. I'm turning this back into my job. My job is to survive, create positive things that help me do this, and be good for other people while I'm doing this.


Moving forward is about figuring ourselves out. Anyone can start taking steps, but it's better when you get your bearing and know the direction you want to go, then pack a lunch, put stuff in your backpack for in cases or might needs, maybe get a hat or sweater, golden ring or something...

Monday, December 26, 2016

Day 26- last of 2016 30 day challenge

Got this bad boy for Christmas from a 3 year old who loves to count coins and say 'poopbutt' over and over because apparently it gets on people's nerves. Yes, evil villain child in the making. That's right, it's a poop bank. We will put all our money in poop, get all our money back out of poop, and generally say 'poop' a lot while we count coins. We will have fond memories in years to come. This clicks to a shopping link if it compulsively calls to you, too. Good luck, I see they are out of stock. Every 3 year old in the nation must have gotten one for someone they love.


Twitter exploded in multiple directions last night, like a giant glitter bomb, and now the countdown is on to the first person to utter curses on 2017 for the first 2017 celeb death. Y'all realize this is never going to stop, right? The only cure is to stop all entertainment right now. NO MORE CELEBRITIES. Just outlaw them altogether before they get to Benedict. I can't help wondering how much pressure is on William Shatner now. I remember, long before twitter, when anti-fans used to say he needed to die already. Make up your minds, people, and dang it, Shat is the coolest raspberry at death ever, so I hope he's around a good long time just to be irritating. It's like Groovy Bruce says-


All y'alls in return lines today, ever consider donating those clothes and other useful items to homeless shelters and drop off bins? Just a thought.

I think I have a few free hours to recover a little from post Christmas shock, so I'm going to hit the couch a few times in between little chores. The holiday slide isn't over yet...


lyrics

There was a time when we travelled all alone
Through the depths of infinity as dust
Eventually our molecules formed a stone
As we gratified our restless wanderlust

We're floating in our memory
Through time and space untethered
Time travellers in disguise
May we trip forever
In silence - we drift with endeavour
In silence - we're in this together

We fought to find a place to feel as one
To fill the vacuum with more than emptiness
With many more of us we built a glowing sun
To light our path into the endlessness

We're floating in our memory
Through time and space untethered
Time travellers in disguise

May we trip forever
In silence - we drift with endeavour
In silence - we're in this together

We formed so many shapes in a million years
Yet we are the lost
No lighthouse in the spheres

We're floating in our memory
Through time and space untethered
Time travellers in disguise
May we trip forever
In silence - we drift with endeavour
In silence - we're in this together

In silence - we're in this together

Sunday, December 25, 2016

Day 25- last of 2016 30 day challenge

Is it over yet?


I'm kidding, lol. Well...

This was the only picture I got yesterday. Papa is zoned out watching the Vikes. He had already canceled Red Zone.


But I did get this video, huzzah!


Unless it gets rescheduled again, Bunny gets her tonsils out in a few days. Merry Christmas!

Coffee isn't doing a thing for me this morning. I should take advantage of the quiet and hit the couch until @bonenado gets up and finds out I totally dropped the ball getting him anything. For realz. Well, he's still got some pie left, that counts for something, right? Yes, I feel guilty. The one year I finally get Christmas all done early and it's not all scrambled up in my head, I forget my favorite guy in the whole world, and he gives me the moon.

🎄🎅 He doesn't know I have a package of coconut, though... His fave pie is coconut cream.

I have no idea what this guy is saying, but I hope it's really about pie, lol.


Saturday, December 24, 2016

"What really brings you here today?"


That was in one of tens upon tens of thousands of #CarrieFisher tweets that I've been lurking through ever since it happened.

I can't help the question popping up- but if she does survive this, what then? Will anyone walking the edge get real help if she does? One tweet mentioned just chucking the rest of the year into the bottle if she dies, which is pretty much how one goes about dying early... Good lord, people, do you not realize what she spent her life doing??? She actually gained certification for professional counseling, and she helped loads of people through all kinds of stuff, and then, because the media can be so brutal, she embraced it all by taking on wonderfully cute mock ups of her gains in things like this ad from earlier this year- Watch Carrie Fisher Lead a Robot Support Group In A New IBM Ad. I loved her for that.

This is one of those rare Christmases where something is NOT going terribly wrong in my family. Wrong, yes, and some are still exhausted, but let's see what a pro and con power point reveals.


  • My brother's oldest all have hand-foot-mouth over Christmas, but I am thanking God they are all still with us. The baby had a fairly risky surgery early on, and we all feel very thankful he's doing so well. By the way, they are huge Star Wars fans and named him Rogue before this movie title was ever announced, so that's a fluke. On his first birthday, he literally was Rogue One... lol.

  • My youngest sister's kids have *both* flu and strep and have been passing spikey fevers back and forth, but I'm thanking God they are all still with us. This sister was with me in that nasty car wreck I talk about sometimes, only 9 I think.

  • My other sister's daughter, who 1- lost her own sister another year, 2- was violently hit and thrown in a crosswalk just before Christmas another year, 3- is going through a divorce now with a toddler, and (get ready for it) 4- just lost her little doggy, who got her through some pretty tough depression, to a cruel mauling by a neighbor's much bigger dog just days before this Christmas, but I'm thanking God her little boy is healthy and safe.

  • I nearly lost my mom on Christmas day when she was airlifted to hospital, and my boss refused to get someone in for me to go take care of everything (I was dpoa and the only employee on work property), and I'll remember that the rest of my life, but I thank God we didn't lose her on a holiday.

  • My dad is coming out to see me tomorrow, and I don't know if this will be the last time I ever see him since he's 87, but I'm thanking God I get to see him again.

  • We nearly lost my step daughter ten years ago over Christmas after a botched surgery and an across the state emergency transport, and I'm thanking God she's still here.

  • My step daughter's boyfriend lost his dad (who actually did Santa gigs) only 4 days before Christmas 3 years ago, and I'm thanking God we'll be having a pretty normal Christmas with them and the kids tomorrow night.


So you can see, we don't have normal Christmases in my family. It's always something big and scary. This is one of the first Christmases I've made it through in a long time where I actually turned on Christmas music, and then the news ripped around the world about Carrie Fisher. I normally don't blink at celebrity deaths. I feel sad, yes, but it's not personal. Well, apparently Carrie is because it's messing me up, and I can't stop obsessively checking to see if she's still here.

I was in high school when Princess Leia showed up. She has been part of my life since I was a teenager, and I saw the original Star Wars at least 100 times. I counted. There are only a handful of movies, probably 5 that I can say I saw over 50 times.

I don't talk about the stuff I really care about. I talk about all kinds of movies and TV shows, right? But I don't care. I like the writing or filming or set designs or costuming, but it's really rare that something blows me away so much that I *don't* talk about it. Because that's what aspies do. We keep what we love very close inside, and no one gets in and sees it. Why? Because no one can mess it up that way. What we love is never tainted or marred with someone else laughing or opinionating or filthy joking or whatever to us. A long time ago my mom made a remark about her, and I ever since never spoke of her again, but she's been a major icon for my own journey through embracing all my own head stuff. I even started a guidance and counseling degree, but realized early on I'm not that kind of strong like she is, and switched to resource planning.

I'm dreading waking up to bad news, and I'm especially dreading days and days of feeds full of eulogy posts and articles. I can't go there. I very rarely contribute to or read celebrity afterthoughts, not because I'm awful, but because I cannot keep triggering over and over when I'm already dealing with so much real life. My plate is way too full, and I'm already sad. I don't want to spend the next 10 years on social media watching my entire generation of icons fade out, so I'm already practicing not being part of the big retweet, reshare, reblog grinder that keeps everyone upset and addicted, which I'm pretty sure is certainly not something Carrie would think is cool, either. It's one thing to share our feels, it's another to keep triggering into tweeting about staying drunk the rest of the year. If you truly love Carrie and want to honor her in some way, get thyself into counseling. NOW.

This is my fave Carrie cameo. She was such a good sport doing this.

Day 24- last of 2016 30 day challenge

how I imagine a more realistic Santa
It's still Friday the 23rd, but I'm watching @bonenado get ready for a bow hunt today. It's been one of those dumb weeks where he wanted a tree down between the house and propane tank, couldn't get his new chainsaw going because it flooded so quickly, already had the tree braced for fall direction, was going to tie that to the back of his truck to drag free, wound up taking the chainsaw back to the hardware store to get Paul Bunyun himself to get that first crank sputtered up, finally got that tree down with his old saw, and since I don't ask a lot of questions, that's pretty much all I know.

So when he got me later more toward sunset to peek out our bedroom window at a couple of deer in the yard, I couldn't help pointing out that totally proves my theory- Deer do not care about his scent when he goes out hunting. There he was, out there smelling like a sweaty old guy, gas fumes, chainsaw exhaust fumes, car fumes, whatever else he was doing, did the deer care? Nope. They smell this stuff every day, this is normal around here for them, and it didn't stop the deer from coming right into our back yard. All these fancy scent free soaps and fox and doe pee is pretty expensive, and the more he tries, the lower the results.

Maybe some of that sank in. He's skipping his special shower this morning, eating a normal breakfast with spicy sausage (he usually gets after me for giving him breath that the deer will smell), just casually watching the weather channel and eating in his camo bathrobe before he gets all camo'd up to go walk Mirkwood with a bow. That's his braincation time, leave the ratrace behind and enjoy a commune with nature. It's as close to a real break as he ever gets from real life hammering away, and it doesn't last very long.

I'm going to make that boy an apple pie while he's out. He's been good giving up ice cream, and bite for bite he'll get much less sweet (I can control the sugar) and more nutrition out of apple pie. He's agreed to let me help train him down on the carbs until he gets his fasting glucose down.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I would hand out nap coupons for Christmas if I could
Now it's Christmas Eve! We get a Bunny today while mama finishes up a long list of to-dos. I like being the stand-by meemaw that helps #allthethings go smoother.

I have very little else floating around my head. I still don't have that new area rug down yet. Plans have changed in the blurs around us so many times that I've decided to wait till Christmas is officially over. I've reached a level in life where cleaning a house both before and after an event is ridiculously challenging and taxing, so as long as I'm caught up on regular household chores, great. I just can't handle a brand new area rug being walked all over on a wet week by a bunch of people who probably won't take their shoes off, no matter how jolly the weekend is.

It's just now hitting 5:30 and @bonenado has already started his chipmunk-squirrel-hamster type bustling around, so it's time to get on the ball and put on my Mrs. Claus mask.

Plz to note the people in the above memes have so far still made it through 2016, and they are frickin' old. Not all hope is lost, guys.

You never hear this on a Christmas music station...


Friday, December 23, 2016

Day 23- last of 2016 30 day challenge

How often does Christmas Eve Eve fall on a Friday? I looked it up. The only other time in the last 10 years that December 23rd fell on a Friday was 2011, and has happened only 17 times since 1900.


1988 was probably one of those big mistakes. I'm still working on the scattered pieces of that blur... If it's the night I think it might have been, I was very lucky to get home in one piece that night. I was playing pool at a bar at least 60 miles from home, trying to sober up with coffee, not realizing one of my friends kept spiking it and I was getting more wasted. When the other friend started giggling, I figured it out, got upset and left, and yes, drove all the way home on snow and ice wasted out of my mind. About 15 miles from my house in the inky black oneish in the morning kind of solitude way out on the windiest road through hills and hollows you ever saw (that all my friends drove drunk I don't know how many times), I missed hitting a stray heifer standing just off the highway, surprised us both, and I remember thinking "I hope the guy back there (I could see other headlights) doesn't hit her." Made it home, crashed into bed, still pissed. Next day heard there was a guy driving home from work who hit a heifer full on in the middle of the night, totaled his pickup, broken collar bone, shattered arm, really messed up, and it wasn't because he'd been drinking. It was because my car spooked the heifer, and then she lunged into his pickup. That happened near a drop off that could've easily killed either one of us if we'd rolled our vehicles.

I've often wondered about the way events might've rolled out for him if I hadn't been through that stretch first, since my being there was on a drunken whim. Our drunk driving may not actually kill anyone, but we don't see the wave of consequences we stir up in the universe around us, do we? I definitely altered the course of that man's life and history just being a fluky blip on his experiential radar that night.

New Year's Eve Eve is also on a Friday this year. That's like having an extra Friday two weekends in a row. Please be careful and get home without breaking yourselves. I don't even know how I'm still here sometimes.

Thursday, December 22, 2016

Day 22- last of 2016 30 day challenge


I usually write about Festivus, but you can click that and see the old stuff if you want. Some people rerun archives this time of year, but I'm still blogging live and asking if you've got your poles set up for tomorrow's Feats of Strength. By the way, if you are ironically winding tinsel rope around your pole, I'm just as ironically torn between #thumbsup and you're doing it wrong.

Naturally, I dreamed about my dad debating (he likes to call it 'arguing' and relishes it like a sport) with me last night until I finally got sick enough of it to just walk into my bedroom and get into to bed, and the second I fell asleep there, I woke up here and discovered I had slept in 2 hours past my usual time, ~*~awesome~*~, so I extra long dreamed about religious and political debate (my childhood feats of strength, as it were) and then abruptly woke up when I thought I was finally escaping it. I don't feel refreshed...

I don't have anything else, except yesterday's pain reverb from therapy turned into a super focused woodland mansion search mission since the latest minecraft update. Srsly, my luck, mine generated next to a lava bed, and I have that on video, so here's this huge roofed forest fire blazing up just a few blocks from the mansion... But that story goes on the minecraft blog. Eventually.

Holding my breath with the Sherlock fandom, first ep to air since last Christmas will be on New Year's Day, and if you're not a Sherlock fan, the one crucial thing you need to know about the most worldwide rabid fandom I've ever been a part of is that there have only been 3 seasons (with 3 eps each for grand total of 9 eps) airing every other year and then one special- in 6 years. Is there any other TV show on earth that could have not only survived like that, but gone viral around the world? And by that I mean even in Japan and China. I'm pretty sure Moffat cleared a little path for Benedict to world trot intro'ing Doctor Strange in one of the biggest world sync releases in history. I think fans in the United States who still aren't aware we saw it premier last need to get a grip on how important world sync is and what that really means for us. I won't go into the political power structure building around the movement of big money in fandoms, but we are definitely going there.

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Day 21- last of 2016 30 day challenge


One of the things I haven't been talking about is what it feels like.

You know that springy sparkle all through your spine and out your nerves that you get when all your hairs go up? Like when something is really creepy, spooky, weird...

Over the last week I have felt that probably 60 times, and it's getting really old. Oh, nothing, just sitting around watching tv or playing minecraft and there we go, over and over like someone's flipping on a light switch to the Griswold house. How's it now? Switch flipped back off. Oops, back on again. Anything? Back off again.

I've been through this before, just not on such a large scale. Nerve healing feels like an electrical crew working on lines and fuses, testing links and current flow, shutting off to work some more, flipping it all on to testtesttest running diagnostics, ok off again... And lately it's my entire body doing that spooky hair thing, starting at the base of my neck and traveling down my spine, arms, and legs to every inch of skin on my body. It doesn't hurt at all at first, but after several of those full blown on-off diagnostics back to back in a row, it actually does start hurting and really wears me out. Then it all stops for awhile until the crew is ready to test the lines again, and then I get a few minutes of that all over again. Several days of that now.

Part of the physical therapy is on my main nerve trunk from base of skull to about mid back. Starting out before these last couple of rounds, I was not aware that parts of the right side of my back are numb, and that the maddening itchy parts in the middle and left side of my back were from nerves sputtering from the agony of years of being pinched off. As we've very slowly been working up and down my spine in between processes, trading back and forth between parasympathetic pressure point and ASTYM week by week, some of the pressure is being relieved and whole nerve branches are lighting back up like strings of Christmas tree lights. I can feel my fingertips now. I can feel the ulnar nerve from my neck down my entire left arm now. I can feel all kinds of muscles around my ribs now. The maddening nonstop itching is letting up and moving further down as the nerve trunk works on healing.

I've about reached my tolerance limit, though. It's time to stop and rest again. Today was my last big parasympathetic therapy. I can tell it's working. Over several weeks I've been able to reduce my pain med from every other day to every third day, and I'm able to use my arms more again. I'm also sleeping better than ever when I do actually sleep, which is more often than not now.


Not sure how, but I seem to be ahead on my $$ sync this month by about $2. Between possible math errors, a new autopay and billing recode, another autopay I forgot about, closing another autopay out, and shutting my eyes to run a debit charge, for awhile it kinda looked like I'd be about $100 in the hole. Something inside my brain still knows how to do math. It's just not sharing it consciously with me.

The sweet roller coaster ride that is the glitchy brain life. It's reminding me of Imaginearum. <<-- post I wrote about watching the movie. "A dark dream. A dying memory. A hidden regret. One last ride."

I am inside a semi-broken brain. Every day I get around obstacles and figure out mazes. I know I'm not alone because I've been contacted so many times through the years by others living with some kind of glitch, be it from schizophrenia, PTSD, concussion injury, MS, strokes, a range of depressions and spectrums. Watching our families around us through the fissures and cracks and glitches...

We know it's hard for you guys. We're frustrated that we make it hard for you, whether we can see it or not, understand it or not.

Say stuff while you can. Write while you can still spell, talk while you can speak, love while you can still remember. Never put off for later what you might lose any moment in an accident or medical injury.

Holidays are hard. Not all of us can pick up phones and call hotlines, but some of us can still reach out and hold a hand, maybe nod. The more lost you get in the glitch, the more meaningful every word and movement becomes reaching through.

Keep reaching through. Reach out, reach in, reach toward.

And get that movie.



Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Day Twenty- last of 2016 30 day challenge


I've been using this month to slowly turn my ship around under a new star chart, locking down a new heading kind of thing. One of my biggies I've been talking about with my immediate family lately is transparency. I've been so accustomed to hiding challenges and navigating around flaws for so many years that, since I've been opening up and really being more honest, I feel I need to stop dancing around some real things.

First of all, and this really is a big deal and affects nearly everyone I meet in real life, let's just get the whole dog allergy thing dealt with. It's usually not a big deal because I keep to myself, but it's holidays and all the people are pinching each other's little cheeks and saying howdy in person, so I need to be forthright and asplain all the awkward stuff as easily as I can, which in Pinky terms mean ripping the ol' bandaid right off.

I have never told anyone this until now- after hugging several different pet owners over a few years as visits ended (with no pet even being present), my face immediately rashed out and swelled because of indirect exposure, and I had to start slugging benadryl and watch it for an hour in case I had to run in for phenergan and possibly even prednisone. Yes, it affects my health that much. If you own a pet, you are wearing your pet everywhere you go. I didn't say anything because I didn't want anyone to feel bad. Well, that's a lie then, isn't it? I need to tell the truth.

From Dog Allergies on WebMD- "Some people with dog allergies also have skin reactions. For instance, their skin might break out where a dog licks them. Others with more severe allergies might develop hives on their face or chest. People with asthma as well as pet allergies can have especially serious symptoms." Serious means breathing emergency. I usually skip the hives part and go straight to airway with just about every allergic reaction I have, so I am ready for no warning emergency response 24/7. I live this way.

My favorite part about debunking pet allergy myths is scientists finding molecular pet evidence even in homes with no pets (that's a link, click it), because our society is so overrun with dogs and cats everywhere we go, so there you go, just avoiding a dog in its own house isn't enough. I'm also terrified of walking into a home saturated with something else that could cause anaphylaxis, and this includes everything from dogs (medically documented with an allergist) to party balloons, toys, and sports equipment (latex) to everything nuts and peanuts to citrus (which includes cleaners, aromatherapy, and beauty products, especially aerosolized), you get the picture, so it's not something personal against dogs. I would be an idiot to walk into a place where I even remotely think emergency response might become the highlight of our visit, and I know it would make my hosts feel terrible. I know a lot of people still don't get this yet, but if I could get an airline flight shut down over a peanut allergy, I can sure as hell kill your party vibe over a really scary hour of croup and face swelling, which can easily turn into 6 hours in an ER.

I don't expect people to go to this much work, because it's truly exhausting, and it's really not detailed enough to prevent a serious problem. It doesn't address issues like small children spreading contact allergens, what to do when your pet pukes during a visit, stuff like that. Are Your Holiday Guests Allergic to Pets? Here Are 5 Ways to Make Them More Comfortable

I grew up with dogs. I love dogs. I'm not against anyone owning dogs, eating peanut butter, decorating with balloons, and wearing perfume. Instead of you guys trying to make room for one person who necessarily shuts that all down and kills the whole party, just scrape all that off and meet that person halfway in a convenient place for a bit and then jovially say goodbye, no pressures, no hugs, just glad to see someone. And if it really is inconvenient, I am the first person who understands all the holiday pressures and the last person to pile on any guilt over it. I'm a bubble person in a very mobile world, so I mostly live vicariously on the webs. I'm good with that.


My second transparency thing has been playing around with tracking and thinking about making stats public, which involved tests on IP masking and code reinstalls and turned into a bigger headache than it looked starting out. I kept tweaking stuff, like turning off reports on crawlers and bots, wiping out all the IP blocking (I had that so screwed up anyway, all I could mostly see was myself instead of the other way around), generally just making visitor data more accessible. I installed a second statcounter tracker with different settings to see how they compare, and I was fine with the whole visible thing until I zoomed down on the map and actually got a real location, thanks to GPS on mobile, so there is no way I'm making all the stats visible. You guys can see a graph now, that's basically it. No maps.

Even when humans know how to mask their IPs, if they switch to mobile that has GPS locator turned on and ping my tracker without using data masking, I can sometimes see actual locations on a map. (It's rare, but it still happens.) I feel like I would be sloppy to allow all of that to be publicly available. I mean, some people I know check in all over the place on apps, you can see exactly where they are through the day and anyone following on social media can see that (but you can't see all their operating system data like you can on a tracker map), but other people might not want the world to know the actual building they're sitting in. The problem with making stats completely public is that, even with IP masking, a few people can still be zoomed into actual street and building on the map, and I know that because I could see someone in a named daycare parking lot (thank you, Google super zoom) with a timestamp on it. THAT is what I mean by protecting my lurkers by not publishing my stats. There are several of you I can see coming in from named work places, or I can tell how far you drive to work and back home, and it's not because you're careless or because I'm a stalker, it's just stats and I'm so used to seeing mine. (In the old Lexx days, I knew exactly where my 3 biggest 'enemies' logged in from, and one of them pinged from both a work computer and home computer so regularly that I could tell what her work hours were and when she went shopping or out on a weekend.) Most of you are getting really good at the IP masking, which is awesome, but unless you've got GPS locator turned off (I keep mine turned off out of habit), I can still see where you actually are if you are using certain mobile devices and browsers. Not trying to scare anyone, just saying that's why I'm NOT going full transparency and opening access to the awesome map. I wish I could, but I'm not a jerk. Otherwise it would be cute and fun to see all the pings coming in from cities and countries and stuff.

When you visit other sites, if you see a tracker, always check it out. If you can click on it and go to a data site, see if you can see yourself in the stats. If you can see everything about your operating system, IP, and location, so can the entire world, and once someone who for real deep stalks you figures out your patterns on public trackers, they can see with a few clicks what you're reading and when, and sometimes even where from. (Seriously, when you hang out with a group of writers who code their own sites, it can get that intense.) I honestly would never have thought of this stuff if I hadn't had people fighting over something in the past, and it really did boil down to watching public stats. This is why I love lurkers, and I will always protect lurkers. Some day everything everyone does on internet will be completely transparent just because one day it will legally all boil down to that, but for now, we can still be anons, free to glide through the ether.

Ok, I'm worn out. That was way too much thinking for one post. But you get the gist, no more dancing around stuff. 2017 is about 1- getting back to work, and 2- ripping off bandaids.

Time to be real.



Monday, December 19, 2016

Day Nineteen- last of 2016 30 day challenge

click for utterly cool wallpapers
Taking a break in between stuff. Got my rotating wallpapers... rotating.

Here you go, in case you're already sick of snow and counting down to Valentine's and spring.


It's really cold here, hit -14 wind chill around my area yesterday. We also had deadly ice glaze that screwed traffic across part of the state last few days as Decima has made its claims and lingers to mock.


Back to wallpapers.


We don't know where my head is right now. Busy, perhaps.

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Day Eighteen- last of 2016 30 day challenge

What #amwriting means on a blog, with an example of how you can benefit from this


One of my biggest writing flaws from the old days is over explaining. I've learned to cut lots of things down or out, condense thoughts, etc. But maybe this is a good day to test drive a little more 'in depth', see if I can steer clear of the deeper abysses and keep the thought moving along. Heads up, some of this is autie-spoonie stuff, which quails even licensed professionals.

So the question comes up sometimes- Why do you write everything you do on a blog?

My first thought is to ask questions back:
  • Do you talk out loud to people? I don't.
  • Do you talk on the phone to friends? I don't.
  • Do you splat your emotions onto facebook and twitter? I don't.
  • Do you keep your hands busy with hobbies? I don't.
  • Do you browse and shop and sit in salons? I don't.
I talk to my husband and two children, but I go very long stretches in between actually talking out loud to other people. I don't last very long chatting without either getting someone upset at me or feeling upset myself, mostly because of Asperger's. I don't say howdy to my neighbors when I see them, rarely get into convos around town, and even struggle talking to nurses in my doctors' offices. I can fake it, but I come across pretty dorky amazingly fast.

Talking out loud to people is painful for me. I'm kinda notorious for talking prolifically when I get rolling, or taking over convos, but that doesn't mean I have a clue what's really going on or that I'm enjoying actually talking. I have forced myself over many years to learn the little chitchat stuff that makes us feel emotionally heard and linked with my own husband and kids. I wasn't very good at this AT ALL while my kids were still here in high school, but I think I'm starting to get the hang of this now that they're in their own houses and I miss them.

I tried to express some frustrations over the years in letters, emails, and phone calls to other family members and who I thought were good friends, but got absolutely no "you're doing a good job" back from anyone, and in fact was told I was horrible and mean a few times, which I found utterly perplexing (and extremely hurtful) since I didn't see myself doing and saying the horrible and mean things I saw other mothers around me doing to husbands and kids. It took me awhile to realize that my dump sessions were very misleading, and yes, I sounded horrible and mean. At any rate, I gave up trying to talk to anyone about my problems. I was too deficit with social etiquette and way too aspienado to understand why that was a problem. After asking myself why they get to dump and I don't (even using identical verbiage), I arrived to a realization that my hostility sounds way too convincing. I think most people get when other people are just dumping. I take it to a whole other level because I lack social awareness. I genuinely scare people, like I might be one of those hatchet killers or something.

Between being super aspie (verbal autie, not that terribly high functioning if you really look at the dx on my disability papers) and whatever the heck hit my brain in 2004 (virus???), I have a hard time being in the here and now with other people. In my early blogging, I diverted loads of personal frustration to private blogging so I wouldn't unload so much of that onto my family, and it actually helped. Over time I also realized it is a great way to store memories, and started writing down even more, which I'm very grateful to have now. Living with a very glitchy brain since 2004 has taught me loads of tricks for surviving, faking, and even developing healthy psychological skillz. I may suck at being human, but I can fake through pretty good most of the time nowadays.

Faking doesn't mean I'm in any way cured of either Asperger's or this incessant brain fog, and it also does a disservice. I'm living in two worlds. People who read my world are in my head. You guys are only seeing from my POV looking outward. People irl who don't read my blogs don't have a clue what's in here and only see me bumbling around, and believe me, I do NOT look smart. It's always funny when the purportedly smart one in the room makes the stupidest mistakes, and I've learned to roll with that weird skew, at least on the outside. No one sees my weeping and gnashing of teeth on the inside. My dissonance from what's really going on is fairly severe, so much so that under extreme stress I can't tell what is 'real' because I feel so disconnected between 'inside' and 'outside'.

I insisted on being psychologically assessed in my 20s because I've felt 'crazy' since high school. I've been assured several times by several professionals through the decades that I'm definitely NOT crazy, and actually quite emotionally healthy for someone with all the stuff I handle on a daily basis. While that sort of reassures me, I still feel crazy, and I'll be the first in any situation to say out loud I need help with understanding or doing something, even if I actually happen to own the highest IQ in whatever group I'm in and probably even understand the crux of whatever it is. I like group problem solving. It's about the only social interaction I truly enjoy, which I think is misunderstood as me enjoying being a problem causer when I point things out. Even if I don't create the problems, pointing them out kind of looks like that's what I'm doing in a social context. From there, it's easy to see why some people might avoid talking to me.

I blog to survive. It's not a joke. I have lived through soul withering pain and depression, like many people do, and blogging is my main survival tool in the arsenal I wear dealing with daily life. My social safety net is fairly dismal, full of holes during long days when I'm on my own, so 'talking to myself' has become my go-to for sorting all my things out.

I've also come clean with my family. I blog 'out loud' now so people can see how I'm doing. I no longer hide when I'm struggling. Phones are awesome for crisis, but lower level anxiousness wears people out, especially when they're dealing with their own challenges. When I can't keep my mind occupied otherwise, word flow is a good way for me to let the pressure out of the balloon before it pops, as it were.

If you've been thinking about starting a blog (like a new year resolution kind of thing), or keep starting and stopping, it helps to make a statement defining why you're blogging. I find that daily blogging is good discipline for lining up thoughts, sorting out feelings, sharing neat stuff, containing a dump zone, whatever you need. Do it for YOU. Get to know your own head. Learn to step back and see yourself. Stop using feelings and problems to bait for attention- get your own attention. Pay attention to who you really are.

It's weird to think that maybe the most important feedback we might need would be our own. Critical thinking about myself objectively has helped me through several emotional logjams, and watching my head unfold like origami has been like doing a psychological autopsy. I can see what's really bugging me underneath the top layer of what I *think* is bugging me. The upper crust of emotions covers up what we don't like looking at in ourselves. Peeling a few flakes off here and there over time helped make seeing my self less scary. It's excruciatingly hard to be honest with ourselves sometimes, and we wrap ourselves in all kinds of excuses and outward judgmentalism to stave off seeing the dark parts of our own souls.

It's kind of faddish to talk about embracing our darker selves nowadays, and we see it in entertainment and shopping all around us, but there really are places ye dare not go. Blogging has a way of going there, whether you mean to or not. Sooner or later, you start to vomit out that poison you try not to let everyone see. And then you're covered in your own puke and either panic and hit the delete button, or just walk away and stop blogging. I've seen so many people do that.

Owning our own pain is the toughest thing we go through on this earth. Letting go of blame and guilt and self pity is about the toughest marathon anyone faces, and through the centuries writers have compared it to climbing mountains, falling into abysses, being swept away in raging waters, even falling off the earth itself into a yawning void of hopelessness and despair. Until you own your despair, you will always be its slave. It may lurk and mock while you desperately ignore it, but coming out and owning it absolutely turns all the hard stuff into gold. And this is the secret of the spindle- you must prick your finger and bleed out the words in order to spin the straw into gold.

It's not a law that you have to do this. You can mommy blog or movie blog or pet blog or garden blog or hobby blog or shopping blog or rant blog- whatever your thing is. Blogging is like painting and sculpting ideas out of thoughts, and the medium is usually words and/or graphics. If you blog, you are as much an artist as a musician or painter, as much an athlete as a sports player, as much a thinker as any philosopher. You are one of all of us. Sharing your own point of view is very human, and very natural. Whatever you do with blogging, to thine own self be true, and you will succeed and feel very satisfied with it.

Blogging is work, yes. Even a short sentence on a simple theme styled blog is actual work. It won't spring to life without YOU. It won't magically appear and write itself until you pour a little soul into it. A blog is your creation, your work, your blaze of "I was here".

I blog because I AM HERE.

Saturday, December 17, 2016

Day Seventeen- last of 2016 30 day challenge

Was looking through wallpapers for snow, pink snow, pink rose snow, blue pink rose snow, and suddenly this pops up. It's no longer available, but since it's cached in a search engine, I've linked it to the nonexistent original page so you can see the artist/vendor name in the URL.


I was deep in a beautiful snow to rose evolution thing, so of course that caught me by surprise, but I love the gothic sugar skull pink and blue smashup, so that threw me into a whole different trajectory. Click this next one to see more really beautiful artwork, and some even glows in the dark.


Crazy change of subject. I'm always stuck with the Andy Griffith show when I go to a certain doctor's office with a tv on in the waiting room, and I've wondered for a long time why in the world Aunt Bee wore her hair in a bun on top of her head, because it looks so dumb. (omg, you guys, she was so amazingly beautiful, her other pix in there are stunning) Well, as I've ungracefully aged and become so terribly intolerant of product, I'm rather prehistoric nowadays, and the only way I can live with all the winter STATIC without shaving my head is to very firmly just keep it all tied down on top of my head, even when I'm sleeping, so now I get the whole weird hair thing from the old days. I'm kinda glad the man bun came along, though, because I look pretty dorky walking around like this. At least I'm not alone now.


Another screeching subject change.


I don't venture into my own insecurities very often (lolz), but this comment I left on a really good autie blog discussing IQ feelings kinda screams I grew up feeling unforgiven. I think this comment condenses all the sadness I felt growing up 'inadequate' into the emotional coping mechanisms I developed as an adult. IQ is important for those of us who never measured up in other ways, and even though this intimidates the hell out of some people (mine is pretty high) and others aren't at all hesitant to mock or knock me back down over anything intellectual (or simply flat ignore me, quite used to the silent treatment), it's still a solid form of validation. My brain reflection in the form of an IQ number isn't any different from someone looking into the mirror and rating appearance. It's just something to hang onto that's meaningful in my personal existence.


In all other ways and respects, I faceplant a bit more often than 'normals', which totes makes the IQ thing look cheesy, so whatevs, right? We all need to feel like we own a special quality, even if it doesn't always look special. But sometimes my special thing gets in the way...

I love the poem this comes from
I'm starting to get angry again. It's creeping back up on me, and I'm thinking about getting a grip on it and using it to self motivate. I'm actually quite pissed, but I keep kicking that beast out a side door and slamming it shut. Well, that can go on only so long. It seems to have evolved and found other ways in. I can let it consume me and go through a beautiful monochromatic rainbow hue of emotional blacks and grays, or I can own it, twist it back under my thumb, and ride that pony into a really cool sunset.

If you're new to Pinky blog, I've been making super slo-mo progress back from major brain glitch, biggest challenges being time and place orientation, math function fail, and some dyslexia. Over this last year I've managed to train myself to weekly calendar sync all my appointments and bills across 3 calendars around my house and a pocket planner in my purse. The sheer redundancy has not only kept me on track, but actually saved me from wrong or missed appointments and the occasional missed payment, a big improvement over years past. In fact, I've become so reliable with this habit that I'll be trimming back this next year to one calendar and one pocket planner, yay.


So, when I bring up a problem here and there about filling out forms, yes, I have committed some extreme errors not properly following instructions over something so simple as filling out my name, address, and a few medical appointment dates or the amount of money I have in a bank account, which I know seems ludicrous since I'm obviously capable of blogging (I detail how difficult even this has been in I like it dark and blinking in the light- I've come a long way). Since these are govt audit forms that my payee has legal responsibility over, I've facepalmed a few times. You can see why the whole IQ thing kinda looks like a joke in this light. But I am still recovering and seeing progress, so more yay. I'm still angry, though, that something as simplistic as forms seems to be what is holding up the publishing I want to get done when I was the one acing college exams. Brain fail sucketh, yo.

2017 is the year I tackle form filling outing. Oh, and WINNING. I really need to win so I won't slide into a pool of despair and bubble away from sight. At the moment I have no idea how, but dang it #IWILLFINDOUTHOW. I will slam this IQ at forms until the rest of my autie brain legit backs down and calls me the boss of my own destiny.

Or I will facepalm myself into oblivion and become a nonentity. It's that simple.

Friday, December 16, 2016

Day Sixteen- last of 2016 30 day challenge


Laughing my head off, @bonenado fell to 2nd place just before our matchup. He usually spreads out over several fantasty teams, but this year it's just the SnarkAlecs League, so all his emotional investment is in one place. That means our matchup will be even funnier if he loses this week. I'll get to watch him pace, and giggle back as I walk by.


Yeah, notice how my percentage went up since last night, lol. Every little number will bother him tremendously. He knows my team as well as he knows his own, every little update and report, the weather predictions, wouldn't be surprised if he knows what they eat.

Speaking of eating, you guys know I hafta really crank down on my carbs for glucose control because I no can haz meds, right? And I'm really good at it. Well, that doesn't make my SO really good at it. He's defied my gained knowledge behind my back for so many years that I have finally just stopped even bothering him. I watched my mom die from diabetes, if my husband thinks he's some kind of atypical superman who can will his glucose around, fine. I've tried everything, including going out of my way to make healthier nibblies that even I can't eat because allergies and carbs, and he still buys more junk behind my back. So it's his choice and I just don't think about it.

He's really sweating it this morning, though. After years of managing to toe that 126 line, his doctor finally put him on metformin, and now we get to see how that's working out. Well, thinking a med will do the grunt work so he can freely enjoy more junk has turned into an even higher A1C and fasting glucose... He was healthier without the med because he was afraid of having to go on the med, but now that he's on the med, all caution to the wind, as it were, and now he's more diabetic than ever.

Mkay.

So he's cognitively flailing about his fantasy team AND his doctor follow up today. Merry Christmas. I'm just laughing. He's such a cartoony dork. Well, if he wants to be around in good shape for Bunny growing up, he needs to straighten up. Every ten years is exponentially more iffy for older people.



Playing with google translate. It doesn't quite translate back the way I wrote it, but it's close enough.

Je n'ai jamais rêvé de la revoir. Même la réunion la plus brève vaut la peine d'attendre près de dix ans. Elle a tout vu dans le chemin et a vu le vrai moi bien avant que je puisse me voir. Et elle m'aimait.

Je n'oublierai jamais cela aussi longtemps que je vis.

Je pourrais la voir dans deux semaines, sauf ce que le cosmos nous lance. Je flotterai tout au long de Noël à y penser et à toutes les choses que j'aimerais avoir dit et peut-être toutes les choses que nous allons parler du reste de nos vies.



I never dreamed I'd ever see her again. Even the briefest meetup is worth waiting nearly ten years. She saw through everything in the way and saw the real me long before I could see myself. And she loved me.

I'll never forget that as long as I live.

I might get to see her in two weeks, barring whatever the cosmos throws at us. I will float through Christmas thinking about it and all the things I wish I had said and maybe all the things we will talk about the rest of our lives.

-Aspienado


Thursday, December 15, 2016

Day Fifteen- last of 2016 30 day challenge

NEW PLAN!

First of all, I get 2 more 'days off', which is technically today and Monday. Can I just get a big ol' thumbs up on that, thanx.


Second, Bunny's surgery was, indeed, rescheduled to after Christmas, which means the recovery time we previously set aside at my house will be freed up, and even though @bonenado will be on xmas vaca by then, my house won't be getting pulled apart before Christmas, which leaves that time free to finish getting some other things done. Pinky needs a cheering section.


My doctor wants to pull me from physical therapy and fast track me back to my neurologist, so that's how this month is going for me. PT usually helps really well, but I guess I've  hit another limit and it's irritating more than helping at the moment. I'll spend the next two sessions in a more 'defining a rest plan' (activities? work outs?) and some kind of next step thoughts for if/when I go back in a couple of months, and then assess out for the winter. I was intending to touch base with neurologist after assessing out anyway, but doctor today said noooo, *now*. Seems I'm having some interesting nerve flares in new places and that's not cool. My blood work came back great (humongous relief, no sign of auto-flare) except my chloride is a tad low. That's never happened before and also jaunts us off into new directions of keeping eyes on other things. Nothing immediately serious, but might asplain a few things.

At the moment, I can feel my entire spine (*it hurts*) and a few outlying serfdoms are complaining about their houses not being overlorded well, and I'm threatening to go all Ramsay Bolton on an arm and leg if they don't shut up.

Apologies. I usually don't discuss delicate matters while entertaining in my castle. Let's get back to cheering something. This is a real thing.


Apparently their website is being hit so hard it keeps crashing, but you can like them on Facebook and shop from there.

I cannot believe I actually never thought of this before. In all the years I've been on the webs, I have always used a legit registered business or pen name and not my birth name (my real name really is Jan) because there are a million jillion of me and it just doesn't stand out. It occurred to me this morning that if I want to go anonymous, all I have to do is use my real name and quietly disappear into a whole cloud of me. I've never done that before. I've never even really looked up my own name before because 1- it galls me, and 2- it's so factory redundant that I take no delight in seeing who else has it. But I did today. And I could see how easily y'all could never find me again if I did that. Holding that thought in case I manage to actually sell something and wanna lurk a little without being jumped on.

So, Today. I've gained a day back, I am so gonna get all over stuff. Dishes and laundry are behind, menu planning needs to happen, wanna finish an excavation project- kinda redoing my kitchen in slo-mo. That big area rug isn't down yet. It could be before Christmas. Also, I've got graph paper out. I'm doing cool fun stuff on Kai's realm and I'll be taping together 6 pages of graph paper to help me create a framed sculpt. When I get it done I'll post pix on my minecraft blog. I've got several updates for that blog I could be working on, too.

Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Day Fourteen- last of 2016 30 day challenge

click for fun blogging memes
Ah, a funny new condundrum. Blogger shortens titles automatically, and the last several titles have been nearly identical except for the ending word, which got auto-lopped off of the title URL yesterday for some reason.


http://pinkyguerrero.blogspot.com/2016/12/last-of-2016-30-day-challenge-day-eleven.html
http://pinkyguerrero.blogspot.com/2016/12/last-of-2016-30-day-challenge-day-twelve.html
http://pinkyguerrero.blogspot.com/2016/12/last-of-2016-30-day-challenge-day.html


And this caused a problem for me yesterday, the link wasn't loading at all until I edited the title, which didn't change the link but the update gave blogger something to hang onto again for that link. Or something. I dunno.

So I'm switching it up a little, stick the number in the front kind of thing now. Surely that'll keep it from glitching again.


Pinky Press Review is now gone. My account is still there in case I want to use it again in future.

So if someone on twitter who has your passed away mom's name suddenly out of the blue likes and retweets a couple of things relating to your childhood, is that a sign? And then I go to the blog link in their bio, and the last thing they wrote was something borrowed from someone else (my mom used to do that, too, instead of writing her own words) from a year and a half ago that ended with this-

"Why do I continue to blog? Because I’ve made real and lasting connections with people thanks to blogging. I’ve met so many people in the blogosphere. I wouldn’t trade these friendships for the world.

That’s why I blog. Not for book sales or stats. Not for Twitter followers.

I’m not a brand. I’m a person. I don’t follow brands. I follow people. Real life human beings with thoughts and opinions and stories to tell. If I stop writing books tomorrow, I won’t stop blogging. Blogging is more than a means to an end. Blogging is about learning and connecting and discovering new ideas. It’s about people."

And what's even weirder was dreaming about my twitter friends being part of irl, corporeal to my senses (except Steffan was named Bob for some reason), before I woke up and ran into that first thing this morning.

Yes, you were in my dream, and you, and you...

click for fun sardonic memes
Had a hive yesterday just below my clavicle. I'm going to stop using Johnson's baby lotion for a week and then do it again and see if I get another hive there. That is my last lotion. If I ever break out from lanolin, I will have no more emollients for physical therapy. Yes, cranked up the benadryl again.

Follow up with main doctor today. I'm going to ask for a full blood work up and then some, make sure I'm not in autoimmune flare, make sure everything else is healthy. I ran into this article yesterday about autie kids misinterpreting pain signals via endorphin buildup, and I think that has a lot to do with how I survived such difficult pain challenges for so many years. However, gabapentin is a game changer, and although I like it busting through the worst of the nerve shocks, it seems to be my kryptonite for handling all the rest. I'm no longer superhuman handling pain, and it's starting to show. Nothing like a big holiday to really spotlight all the little flaws I can usually tuck in between other stuff and never have to deal with people noticing. Well, it's time to notice.


Anything else? Oh, yeah, Bunny has turned the whole tonsillectomy thing (scheduled for tomorrow) into a Schrodinger's cat exercise with a preemptive 103 fever. She's done that before, fever at night, morning she's fine and goes to daycare without a problem, so crossing my fingers we can get this done while it's all set up. I'll find out later today.

Me and @bonenado when #allthethings blow up and we're juggling eggs and chainsaws. Praying this month doesn't get any crazier.