What I've learned about myself while driving

The last couple of weeks, I've spent about 4 hours a day on the road, driving to and from a site where I've been providing onsite post-upgrade support. The onsite time has been intense. The drives have proven to be both exhillarating and interesting.

There are those in my circle who have expressed concern about all the driving I've been doing, but really it's been quite a joy. I've been learning all sorts of things about myself and I've had some time to talk to friends and get to know the I-75 corridor.

There are lots little conversations that I've had with myself...eerrrrr...the cars around me. Speeding, little car, single-serving friends. Oddities that I've seen.

Pretty much, it's all come to one conclusion - I need to find a word. This word would plainly describe the sense of discrimination that I apparently harbor against stupid cars. More often than not, these cars are from stupid states with strange accents (maybe I've super-imposed the accents into the conversations that I have silently with the cars around me). Also, of note, the stupid cars are generally older - though not always. Sometimes, what makes a car stupid is that there's more likely than not, some sort of q-tip driving it (see - Buick, Impala or Town Car). I feel that it's important to identify what sort of specific discrimination I harbor as a sort of punishment for being so judgemental.

I would like the record to reflect, that through the process of identifying my own personal short-coming, I actually am rather amused by myself and do not intend to cease my behavior. It's just me and my car. It's my entertainment during the long driving hours. It's actually what makes it so much fun for me.

It's too quiet here...

What the heck is up with that?!

Do you think crazy might be trying to run away with my sanity?

Survey Says??

Pretty dang close to correct - 100

A little self reveal

This is the post where I tell you about the crazy places I live in.

These places are all in my mind (thus the URL).

I really do live on a tenuous string of sanity. I manage pretty well from day to day with the ever present help of my chemical romance, Zoloft. I joke heartily of the need for meds each day, but the reality is that I require medication to function. This reality breaks me sometimes. I absolutely hate the meds. HATE...HATE. HATE!

The saneness you think you see in me, where you think I'm as normal as you, is 100% due to my medication.

My need for medication really pisses me off.

I've been consulted by people about the whole "should I take meds" thing and my response is always the same. "Taking medication to affect change in the chemical imbalances in the brain that cause functional changes is the same thing as a diabetic person who takes insulin. It's nothing to fight. It's just a necessary thing!"

Funny, that when the rubber met the road for me recently, I found myself complaining about how AWFUL it is that I have to take STUPID medication just so I can get up in the morning and even then barely think straight to someone. I confided my hatred for my meds with a new friend of mine. This friend has type I diabetes and has been on insulin since the age of 12. I was quickly informed by this friend that I was talking to the wrong person about not liking the reality that I require a chemical to sustain normalcy. The reality that I can even take meds, when someone like my Middle Mann has no choice but to endure life as it rolls toward him, should comfort me more than piss me off.

Lately, I'm not convinced that Zoloft will be my life long friend. Or least not the at dosage that I'm curently on.

My world has been rocked recently. The rocking action that knocked me down from my string of sanity is really just a little thing. Just a simple email, probably sent with the best of intentions, but an email that rocked me nonetheless.

I try to learn from everything. A situation. A circumstance. A relationship. A song. Right now, I'm learning not to hate the meds, and I'm learning how to better prepare for the unforeseen mental side swipe that can strike from nowhere.

It's been that kind of weekend

All weekend, I've spent time quietly in my own head and it's been kinda fun.

I've been thinking about conversations I've had, decisions I've made, things I've done. The fabulous internet has left me with little sanity as I try to uncover more content and the truth inside all that is available.

Meanwhile, I've also thought of many, many things to post about and as I sit here contemplative of what the heck those things were, I am left empty headed.

I freaking hate it when that happens!

MOTY

I think you should know by now that I live in hope of receiving the actual 'Mother of the Year' award. Today, I think I might have sealed the deal for this year. Here's the story.

The morning routine responsibilities are split up between Softie and I. He certainly bears a heavier load each day with making the three lunches, finding the boys clothes, and taking two of the three kids to school. My job each morning is basically to make sure that Middle Mann gets on the bus with his backpack - lunch inside.

This morning, I found the backpack, grabbed the sack lunch off the counter, put it inside the backpack and sent him on his way. Whew! That was no harder than any other day.

until.....

I received an IM from Softie this afternoon.

S: You forgot to pack his lunch today
Me: Um, no.
S: Yep
Me: I'd swear I put his lunch in his backpack this morning.
S: Nope. The sack you packed had ROCKS in it.
Me: NO WAY! That oughta teach someone to put ROCKS in brown paper bags.

Yes, for real. Basically? I rock like that!

It seems that there could be something wrong with this picture...

It's the same temperature here as there right now. The future looks to improve over time, but the fact that if I were there, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between here and there.

You may be thinking that I'm not making much sense. You should be in my head trying to sort stuff out and make sense of all that is there! :+)

Traveling

So my cool new job...can I tell you something?

Traveling is my favorite part!

It's kinda strange how the mundane everyday life stuff can get almost unbearable, but then you get on an airplane and you end up in a different place. A place that's clean. To a client who is going to end up with more when you leave then they have when you get there. A place that lets you...hmm...be. The pressure is completely work related and the living that happens outside of the work stuff is just what you make it.

I remembered this week while I was in St Louis how much fun my heart likes to have. It reminded me of this amidst a very upset stomach and a raging panic attack in the middle of training on Wednesday, but a felt completely alive in a whole new way. A way that wasn't actually all that new.

Softie is worried that I'm going to dive into the deep end of crazy, but honestly...it's been so long since I've felt this alive and this happy inside. Really. Really. Happy inside.

so of course, because I don't know exactly how to be happy? I feel completely crazy! Out of My MIND CRAZY!!!!

And that is your free bit of information about me today. You're welcome.

many many things

I've been quiet. Not just here. Except that in real life I actually have to keep talking and living. On the blog, I can just sort of cop out with an occasional picture or video and call it good.

I've had lots of things going on lately. Lots and lots of crazy pounding around inside of me. Some of it showing. I think I'll write a little bit about it, but I also think I might just drop some little antidotes about my life and stuff.

I sort of feel like I've kinda been having a little bit of a blog identity crisis. My heart has had a hard time being all transparent. I guess I sort of figure that if I don't write I won't be able to look back and see where I've come from in a few years or maybe even in a few days. Sometimes, it might only take a couple of hours.

sometimes, a new perspective is all that I need.

Brought to you by UrbanDictionary.com

Beth

1. beth
gem like, shim-shimmering like a precious stone, awe-inspiring and captivating.
adjec; to bling, or razzle dazzle.
"the escalade was completely beth'd out on 22" spin-teks"

Today was a most amazing day.

It's somewhat difficult to explain, but all in all, it was a great day. It started just after midnight. I realized I've paid off the oldest of my credit cards and then I got a few text messages from my most awesome friend. Then, I went to sleep until I woke up on my own. (Nothing is better than that!)

We all got up this morning and the kids and I headed off to church. We've been going to this church for quite a while. Sweetie's been getting kind of involved in the youth group and has even brought her friend with her a couple of times.

The worship was amazing. Something else, sort of nerdy was cool about it too. The drummer was having a hard time hearing the lead vocal and was trying to express that back to the sound booth who obviously wasn't responding to the poor guy. So, nerdy me just couldn't let that keep going on, so I hopped out of my row and jumped to the back of the room to let the sound guy know that his drummer couldn't hear the lead vocal. That actually felt pretty good. I haven't spent a whole lot of effort paying much attention to the little things like that during a service. It wasn't distracting or burdensome for me to notice it. I just felt pretty sympathetic to the poor drummer. I guess there's a special place in my heart for drummers. Plus, this particular drummer and I have the same haircut, so I just couldn't resist. He needed help and he wasn't getting it, and then he did. I think helping out that way made me feel kind of a part of things in a way that I haven't in a lot of weeks. Like since August....

The sermon was good, and the drama team came out and did the drama that I posted a couple of weeks ago and Sweetie actually posted the real live video from our drama team today!

Then, there was an alter call.

I don't tend to think these opportunities generally apply to people like me. The type of person who has been a follower of Christ for most of her life. The type of person who most people around her would generally say has a strong faith that seems to direct her footsteps.

I must say though, that this girl who fits the above description has pretty much been phoning it in with God lately, and today, during church, I really felt like it was time to be done with that auto-pilot relationship with God.

I'm not sure where God wants me to go from here. I'm pretty sure it'll involve some real prayer and not the throw it up and hope it gets through the roof of my house. I haven't said much of a prayer that would probably get through the stratosphere lately. And I'm pretty sure God is higher than that.

I'm sure I'll drop the ball again, but I'd like to be able to get it back on the bounce instead of after I'm standing around wondering where the ball went only to find it right behind me. Again.

Does it own the crazy or share the crazy?

I've wondered recently a little bit about my online 'name'.

Everyone's Crazy

That's me. But what does that really mean?

It all boils down to the apostrophe. Where is the ownership?

I tend to think that I am everyone's crazy friend. I also believe that everyone is a little crazy. When things are boiled down to the barest of who we all are, I think we're all a little crazy. Somewhere, deep down inside of the places we all try to hide, there is crazy.

Embrace it! Own it! Don't let it own you!

those crazy Bible characters

I've been thinking in the silly quiet parts of my head about the Bible. I've been wondering about some of the heros from the Old and New Testaments and the kinds of people that God chose to use for His kingdom. I've been thinking about this is relation to my own retrospective look at myself.

Don't get me wrong here. I don't think I'm like one of the people in the Bible. Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, the 12 disciples, or Paul. What I think is an interesting thought process to consider is how they felt inside themselves comparatively to how I feel inside about myself.

As best as I can tell, they were averageish people. Just going along through their lives. Livin'. When all of a sudden. Seemingly from nowhere, this great big God took ahold of their lives and made them into what He wanted them to be. All that He did in their lives was ultimately to bring glory to Himself.

We are shown a series of snapshots of their lives. We don't know the details about the parts of their lives that aren't written. What they thought about in their alone times. What kinds of parents they were. How marriages of that day compare to today and what kind of real life partners they were. Certainly, there is no shortage of downfalls among the greats of the Bible, but all in all, what does that do to the story except bring even more glory to God?

For me, the humanness of the heros of the Bible gives me hope. It also makes me wonder what my life would look like all written down. I suppose that the story would certainly depend on who was writing it. I wonder what God would write about me.

NaBloPoMo - Part II

During the last year, I've learned a lot about myself. Today, I will try and pull out some specifics. I don't think I have enough energy left right now to link like I did yesterday. Which leads me to my first discovery of myself.

I sleep a lot! I love napping.

Softie seems to have nailed down why I sleep. He thinks it's mostly because of stress. When my craziness starts to take over, I nap. When I've had a hard day at work, I nap. When someone dies, I nap. When I get a day off work, I nap. More days than not, over the last year, I've napped at least once.

I've also learned that I do have feelings and can be thoughtful. Maybe not thoughtful in the ways the other women are thoughtful~like with remembering birthdays and other special events, buying gifts or calling just to check in, but in the ways that make friendships deep. In the listening and in the real impact I allow people to make in my life. That's news to me. I really don't tend to think of myself as considerate or thoughtful. Maybe I'm not considerate, but thoughtful - at least in my own heart I am thoughtful - mostly full of thought when I forget to share all that goes on inside my heart.

I've been able to more publicly embrace the parts of me that completely suck! To point out, out loud, that I'm not alone in seeking nominations for Mother-of-the-Year for dropping balls on my kiddos. I don't believe I've literally dropped any balls on my kids. I might have thrown a couple at them, but they were soft. What?!

Tomorrow, I'll talk about the people I've gotten to know over the last year. Each person is different and though most I've not met in real life, I feel a special connection to each of them through blogging.

Did you ever wish?

We live in Gainesville now, as I've previously mentioned. There's lots of nature around here. New to us nature. I tend to avoid things I don't know about, so if you can imagine, I don't even want to accidentally walk through the grass if I accidentally park too close to the yard. Yes, I back out and try again so that the nature touching doesn't happen.

There's all kinds of different bugs and plants and lizards and frogs. I'm used to slugs in the rain, but there was a moth in my garage the other day that looked oddly like a bat. I'm still not convinced that it wasn't. Eugh!

Okay, so here's what I wish. I wish I had one of those really cool computer identifier thingys they use on CSI where they put in the partial fingerprint and it scans through the whole database of the world and finds the bad guy. I would take pictures of all of the nature around here and run it for processing. Then I would know if I should be knocking over the mushrooms or cooking them up for dinner. Whether I should make friends with the nice moths or call pest control for the bats.

By the way, the mushrooms here are big enough for me to believe in Smurfs. They spring up almost overnight and go through a crazy lot of changes before they get kicked over by my brave husband.

Watching football

I am just sitting here with Softie, watching TV the way we do when he's driving the remote. We watch everything. Sports. Car Dealership infomercials. Sports. Commerc...nope...movie on HBO. This is a fun way to watch TV, though I must admit that it did take some real getting used to.

When we first got together, watching TV with him would drive me crazy. He'd flip to this show and that show and ask me what was going on. Like I knew anymore than he did. We just turned on the show! Remember? You're driving the remote?

It's not like that anymore. I don't have the attention span I used to, so flipping around between 3-10 different shows works for me.

In the midst of it all, I have all these short term exposures to the oddities that are resident in this human race of ours. In life, I tend to try to relate just about everything to something else. Something that I have personal experience with. So with that knowledge in hand...a snippet of tonight's TV experience from my perspective.

I've noticed that when football players get a touchdown, it's fun to watch the guys around the actual play maker. Usually, the main guy is gettin' down with his bad self and someone will run up and be all hip to the step. They slam into each other with coolness dripping from their jerseys. They are the two that the shot is intended for.

But, I find it interesting that there's usually another player or two around this exposure of coolness whose complete dorkiness is revealed on camera for the world to see. He tries to get in on the action of the celebration, but he really ends up looking very much like a big oaf. Jumping up after the other two. Trying to make it back down in time to throw his arm up and high five the play maker's....umm....head. It's really funny.

Next time you're watching the news and the sports come on, don't watch the play maker...watch the poor sap behind him, trying to be cool like his teammates.

New toys

I love being the first to find a new Internet toy (as demonstrated below). Thanks, Lis, for usually being the one to introduce me to new things. I hope you enjoy the video and the new online toy for casting all of your friends in new videos.

Share them all!! Here!

Oh, and most importantly, don't warn them that it's coming. :-)

Have I mentioned the mental illness??

Yes, that crazy little friend of mine that lives in my head is back at it again.

Maybe it's the busy-ness of leaving a great job and a home where I've been for 15 years and moving across the country for a new job and tons of unknowns. Maybe it's the fact that I missed too many doses of my favorite little happy pill. Maybe it's all these anonymous comments I've been getting. Maybe it's that my bestest friend in the whole wide world keeps going on vacation and I'm moving away in a couple of weeks and I miss her. Maybe it's because Softie is now the one grieving the loss of his father who passed away yesterday evening. Maybe it's that my mom fell and is broken, but more than that. Maybe it's because we don't know why she fell in the first place. Maybe it's because something miraculous happened in our bank account and I don't have to worry about the big transitional stuff anymore.

I don't know. It could really be any of that. Or all of that. Or just one of them. Or maybe it's some crazy combination of some of that! Or all of it!

The Polyphonic Spree

The concert I mentioned in my last post? Who? Where?

It was a really cool venue. Smallish for a concert. Gigantic for a bar. Kind of an intimate mixture. There was some food and drink. It was good stuff. The company was funny and very excited to share her appreciation for a band that I didn't really know anything about.

I had seen them on Las Vegas and heard they were on Scrubs, but that's all the more I knew of The Polyphonic Spree. We were sitting at a table in the area behind and below the VIP's and just before the show started, the lead singer of the band came up and talked to us. He was looking for the VIP table and apparently our smiling faces were more welcoming than the big white signs posted on every chair at the table in the closed inish area that was raised about 6" from the level we were at. It was cool. I could totally tell he was a rock star, even though I had no idea it was the lead singer of the main act. I knew it was a big band, so he could have been any one of the 23 people that were planning to grace the stage.

It was a great show. The opener was a little weak, but the main event was actually amazing. There was sooooo much to look at and try and find (I love sounds!) There really were 23 people up there. The lead singer was more than that. He was the director of a small orchestra/concert band/rock band. It was amazing. Did I mention that?

Their words were clear and I found myself singing along with the rest of the crowd while I was very entertained by the show.

There were times when I was a little weirded out by how much it seemed similar to worship with the singability and the way the music would just hang out and swell and diminish at the direction of the leader's hands. I am so glad that when I worship, it is an almighty God who is the one and only Creator of the Heavens and the Earth and all that was and will ever be. Worship of Him is much more rewarding than worshipping a band. I was moved, challenged. Not to join in with the crowd and offer a praise to TPS. Certainly, I was a gracious attendee. I clapped at the ends of songs and during songs I participated with the crowd. It was just so interesting to watch a crowd of people seemingly fall in love in front of and in honor of the band.

I was challenged to remember that the Almighty God whom I worship provides me with more than a few instruments and entertaining singers. He has provided everything for me. Not only my daily bread, but also the intricate involuntary muscle cells that cause me to continue breathing without even trying. Certainly, there's more than enough ammunition in His bag of blessings to praise Him in all and for all of the moments of every day of my whole entire life.

Ahh!! It's Friday...

What a week! It's been quite a ride for me this week. Work went from being easy to very difficult and back again to mellow. My silly heart was going in the opposite direction with each change, from crazy crazy to mellow to crazy crazy crazy~

But right now, I'm trying not to think about all that. I'm trying to chill out a little bit. Inside.

So, let's talk about the nasty little thing I refer to as my parkinson's. People! Seriously! I shake. I jerk. It's uncontrollable! And it's funny to me. and frustrating. But not so much that I will go to the doctor for it. He'd probably tell me that I'm all crazy inside, but I don't have parkinson's.

Really, it's probably just some rare yet-undiagnosed condition from which I will neither die from or experience relief from anytime soon.

Or it's panic disorder.

Whatever!

In case you can't tell, I'm shaking like this right now and I'm frustrated and laughing all at the same time while I try to type with fingers that are second guessing their master! Dang shaking!!!

I found my old house.

It's strange.

I saw an old neighbor on Wednesday and she mentioned that our old house is on the market. It was kind of exhilarating as I considered what it would be like to be able to buy that house back.

It's a pipe dream, really. Especially since they're planning on making $70,000 since they bought it, two and a half years ago.

That place was so awesome. It was ours. The yard was ours. The carpet ~ gross as it became ~ was all ours. It was brand new when we bought it so all of the dings and stains were ours. We celebrated our wedding there. We endured the onset of mental illness there. We made new friends. We all learned a lot about each other and being a family.

The paint in the kids' rooms was only there because of my strength and sweat. I was pregnant with the Little Mann when I painted those rooms. I have no idea if they still bear the color I chose for them or if the carpet has been replaced. I know that not much has been done with the lawn.

And I can't help but wonder if the new owners (now sellers) filled the holes in the ceiling downstairs. The holes we drilled to put up a wall for Michelle's "bedroom". I wonder if they could feel the love we left there. The love that was so strong at that time. I wonder if they wondered about us.

It's probably a little silly to spend too much time thinking about it, but that house was a really big part of my life. There are clear marks in my heart from when that house was purchased and then later, when we had to sell. Those marks are deep, though they don't bleed too much anymore.