NaBloPoMo: Planning difficulties.

Hi everybody.

I wanted so much to get back to daily posting on this and my other blogs. My problem is planning topics. I strive for original and novel content in what I post. I am not a big fan of recycling old blog posts for more clicks. This blog is a very niche blog with content that doesn't appeal to a broad audience. Most of the posts I write are my brain drabblings on the general topic themes of the day. Sometimes I actually get organized enough to plan a series of posts along themes that fit the day. Often, I get side tracked by life and I stop in the middle of that series of posts and leave loose ends all over the place.

The problem with this is I lose track of which thread I was last working on. I try to pick them up and resume work on them but there's so many that I've lost count. And I haven't made any real organization of this stuff, which makes tracking down old content that got left hanging hard. I tried on paper to organize some of this and that was a nightmare. If  you wanted a murder wall, that's basically what I had going on the kitchen table in three notebooks and my planner.

I have to get this disaster under control before it eats my brain. I think, however, I hear knives sharpening in the not so far distance.

NaBloPoMo: Sometimes your child's laughter isn't a good sign...

My eldest son got scammed out of his savings and the scammer continued to harass him for a couple months. Then I introduced him to the concept of trolling on the internet. He's been giggling like Beloved when Beloved's up to mischief for the last 20 minutes. The scammer has begged him to stop sending them gibberish texts. My son's goal is to get the scammer to block him. I think he might accomplish it today. Revenge is best served random, silly, and vulgar.

NaBloPoMo: Bippity-Boppity-Busted.

 I don't know about your region, but mine has taken to the legalization of marijuana with great fervor. Stores that were just selling generic herbs and smoke supplies have started including it in their line up. Hell, the bait and tackle shop just across the bridge has been styling themselves as a dispensary with out the paperwork to back it up. Throw on top of that the fact that they're not age checking who is coming in and buying product, they've landed themselves in hot water. They haven't been shut down yet, but I give it a few weeks. From what I hear, their customer service is awful.

I know that marijuana is a helpful medication for self-medicating for a variety of conditions. My psychologist said that if my bipolar didn't feature psychosis in deep depression, I'd be a fine candidate for using it to treat my cptsd. His concern is that the marijuana would cause psychosis and the way my psychosis goes it's pretty terrifying. But I know people that it is helping them live a healthy and productive life.

With this yammering at the national level about enacting prohibition against marijuana again, I am highly annoyed. Let the people have their weed and focus on solving real problems. Like food insecurity in this nation or the number of people who are functionally homeless because they didn't get government assistance in rebuilding their homes after natural disasters. Don't get me started on the policies about homelessness and sending the national guard into cities to bring them into line. I have a lot of anger on that one.

I have a bad feeling about all of this.

NaBloPoMo: Spinning my wheels.

You know that loading icon? The perpetually spinning circle? That is my brain right now. Several familial challenges have popped up over the last two weeks. I'm thinking hard but not getting anywhere remotely close to a solution. I've got some bad feelings about one of the situations. A member of the extended family is having some health difficulties and it is deeply concerning. I'm just plumb out of ideas on how we can help. And then there's my youngest son's challenges with the school where I'm in a holding pattern waiting for them to come back to me with proposed solutions. To be honest, my anxiety meter is pegged at high and I think it's going to stay there for a little while.

I am finding that the more anxious I get, the worse my writer's block gets. I am highly annoyed with this. I know that I could be creating better content and more engaging material. But my brain is not cooperating. I am frantically looking at the situation trying to find a solution and not finding one. Gods help me, this is going to suck. And my seasonal affective disorder is acting up. Ugh.

NaBloPoMo: I have disappointed the cat and squirrel of judgement.

 I woke up at 0630 and thought my day was going to be full of writing goodness. I didn't get to any blogging until 2030 because my brain was still loading. I got some chores done, but creative work was nothing. Hopefully this block will clear up and I'll be working again soon.

NaBloPoMo: What in the nine worlds am I doing?

 Hello everyone. It's been quite a while and I do apologize. Depression got the better of me and then I kinda hit rock bottom for a bit. I wasn't writing anywhere. I wasn't crafting things. I think the only positive out that entire experience is the fact that through the many medication adjustments and such, I got to be at home instead of in a hospital. I felt safer and worried less about my family through that stretch of time. It was rough.

I just gave up on everything at some point. Choked down my medication, forced myself to eat when I was hungry, and numbly did my best to make the household run smoothly. I prayed the entire time for it to end. I didn't want to be dead, but if the gods deemed that was how it was going to end then it would have been by their hand. To say the least, Loki and Freyr were both most concerned. Somewhere along the way, my psychiatrist found a SSNRI that actually works on me, two actually. Those got added to the cocktail along with a switch in the atypical antipsychotic that I take off label for my bipolar. 

The medications helped, a lot. Then I realized how much damage my two and a half years of depression did. I am still struggling to pick up the pieces. Half of my houseplants died for want of care. Those remaining are still looking unwell but I am confident that I can get them back to good health with some watering, repotting, and extra tender love and care. 

I felt horrible about the plants. I was convinced that Freyr was disappointed with me at best, at worst he was angered. When I talked to him about it, he said that I wasn't in control of myself during that period. My illness was in control of me and I was too unwell to manage that burden. I still look at the empty planters and kick myself, but I am working to nurse these other green babies back to health so I do my best to focus on that.

I can't find that divination deck I was working on. Loki's told me it is in a 'safe place' and that I will get it back when I'm ready to work on it. If Loki's safe place is anything like my safe places for things, it'll be another two years before one of the cards shows up. He smirked when he said it'll motivate me to take better care of myself. I wanted to argue with him, but I couldn't fault his logic.

When I started thinking about NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo, both Loki and Freyr insisted I should work on it. This was back in March. Camp Nano came up but there was too much family stuff going. I was also still adjusting to the medications. I made a few forays into blogging, as you can see in my past posts. I just was struggling with so much stuff and still on the mend from the depression that writing in my blogs felt impossible.

Déa felt distant. I didn't despair, though. I knew that every relationship, especially with deities and spirits, have their fallow periods. To keep myself centered, I picked up the pen and resumed writing in my prayer journals. It wasn't anything grand. It wasn't eloquent. Honestly, a lot of the prayers over the last while have been pretty desperate sounding. 

My mental illness and its attendant problems aside, this year has been rather rough. My ailing father-in-law died in February. His funeral mass was in May (lots of complicated things lead to that happening how it did). My sons had a hard year with school. When Cuddle Bear graduated in June, it felt like a victory over the school system. You know it's rough when dealing with the school looks like an adversarial relationship instead of a partnership. 

Summer was busy for Snuggle Bug, which meant it was busy for me. His brother sort of looked for work but spent most of his time playing games on his computer. I didn't realize how maddening that was going to be until I was in the middle of it. Cuddle Bear (who is 100000% done with this nickname) turned 18 in August. We were so busy helping out with Beloved's mother that there wasn't much of a party. 

My mother-in-law is having difficulty adjusting to being a widow. Considering that they were married 50+ years, it makes sense. She's also having health issues and mobility issues that functionally keep her housebound. My brother-in-law has been staying with her to help out. Beloved is over three times a week to help keep his brother sane. Every time there's been a chance to help, Cuddle Bear has stepped up. He's done a lot of yard work and is currently working on cleaning up storm damaged trees. He's talking about selling the wood. We keep reminding him he has to finish cutting it before he can sell it.

And Snuggle Bug is having a rough time of it with school this year. He's depressed and struggling with some classes. We're doing what we can to help him and to get some supports from the school. Next year, Snuggle Bug will be a Senior and hopefully things will go better for him.

Back to the title question: what in the nine worlds am I doing? Hanging in there like a cat on a window screen, all claws deployed and yowling for someone to help.

NaBloPoMo meme edition with cats!

 I have been blocked on writing. The migraine that I've had for the last 4 days hasn't helped any.