Monthly Archive: August 2012

Clearing Debris

It turns out I was right. It was scary for a minute or a week or something… That last breakthrough was a breakthrough. Sweetheart and I are moving forward. Apparently the crash caused by the breakthrough scared honey and there was some pullback, but we’re moving forward again, in better shape than before. I’m going to give her a few days to get used to feeling good about Us before making some changes on the financial side. 

We have been living together for six months now. That should be enough time to work out the problems we’ve had. Well, it has been, but we have still been sore (mentally) from the working out. This morning (last night, yesterday, continuing) we decided to ignore the pain and look at the progress, and make some more.

Maybe now we can both relax, and things will be what we hope and expect them to be.

 

At work, my boss is back in town after a week off. Tina and I did great, and we hope SQ agrees when she sees the shape the place is in. Today is Check Day, everyone gets paid early whether they are on SSI or SSDI. Could be a madhouse, but I can handle it.

 

Hugs,

Me

Crash

I was horrible yesterday. I think the shock of my honey getting her disability denial letter finally hit me. All of a sudden, I’m all, I want I want I want, I’m making all the money here I should at least have a better car, blah blah blah.  We are having a huge financial issue with gasoline, but we just have to weather it. If anyone out there has an old Geo Metro, 5-speed manual transmission, 1.0 L 3-cylinder engine in good driving condition they want to sell us, that would help a lot.

To my sweetie’s credit, she didn’t leave. Well, no farther than the front porch, and even that for not very long. I don’t blame her a bit for not being able to stand my selfish, whiny ass. But she stayed here, and when I finally calmed down…

Well, she made a little mistake that slowed down my recovery a bit, but despite my protests at the time, that wasn’t her fault either. And we took care of things later.  I’m afraid the backlash won’t hit my honey until today, and she has nothing on her schedule.

Have TV again for the first time in a year. Decided I couldn’t stand to be without my football games. And now we have most of our weekends planned, which means, LOL, not much football.  For instance, Saturday is my honey’s teacher’s wedding and we’ll be there. The next weekend is SerpentStone Harvest Festival. And so on.

Glad I can recover from these things. This one was a bitch though. All the energy and prayers available should be sent mostly to Sunshine though, this is going to be a rougher day for her than me.

Work has been going well. Tina and I feel we’re really getting work done, and I’m getting much better at diverting phone calls. Suzanne should be back Friday.

Guess that’s enough for today.

 

Hugs,

Me

Grrrr

I’ve been struggling with a lot of things. Among them has been my honey’s Disability case. As my readers know, I have taken a job to help support my honey, which contains some risk of losing my own Disability benefits but also has some up-side… well, a fair bit of up-side, but some down-side too. My honey has been resistant to me working, because she really needs nearly full-time care and attention, but there was just no way to balance our needs for funds with her need for attention. I really feel that if she were not with me, she would likely find herself in a group home. She would be the most-loved, most-appreciated person in the group home, if the home were a good place for her, but it would still be a group home. She really has gotten a lot better in the past 3 months, but usually doesn’t see that and is still resentful of my working when she cannot bring in any income.

Well, some set of jerks in Nashville have decided that she’s Not Disabled Enough and her claim was rejected. So now we have to go through the whole lawyer thing and stress out for two years or so, trying to stay above water. This is not going to be easy. That was an understatement.

I’m really rough this morning. I feel like crying, I feel like doing harm to people in Nashville (don’t have it in me, it’s just a feeling), I feel like staying home from work — which is NOT possible, as my boss is attending family death stuff in Wisconsin and there is no way I would leave my only co-worker (and friend) to hold down the office by herself.

I’ve started a pot of my world-famous Guts, Grease, and Rice (chicken gizzards & hearts, rice, & cream cheese). Have to cook the chicken guts down to be as soft as possible, the cut them up. This is the long part, so I put them in a slow cooker to cook all day with seasonings. When I get home I’ll cut them up and add the rice.

I needs some prayers, candles, whatever. This could be a hard day to get through.

 

Hugs,

Me

 

PS Edit: My honey read the above and thought that I *WANTED* to send her to a group home. NONONONONONO!!!!!!! I just believe that, in her current condition (although she’s getting better), that is where she would end up if she were not with me. I understand the nature of her disability and, I believe, the extent of it; I was mad at the Disability Specialist in Nashville for NOT understanding that. I LOVE MY HONEY!!!!!!!

Meanwhile, back at the job…

I’m doing a lot more work at work these days, which means I’m feeling more like I’m useful even though in my non-useful phase I was doing a lot more than they were paying me for… but I felt bad knowing my boss and friend/co-worker were working like fiends.  I didn’t have much free time yesterday, even though it was not a busy day on the phones and front desk. So I’m fitting in better.

Which is a good thing. The boss has to go to Wisconsin for a week, starting today, to sort out the effects of a passed family member, and she has to know that my friend and I can hold down the fort. I think she is reasonably confident of that now. I hope to survive the week, LOL, and still have her confidence. I’ve already informed her that if the place burns down, it’s Tina’s fault.

I don’t know whether my sweetie and I are afraid that the relationship won’t work or that it will work… but fear, not hope, seems to be driving both of us recently. I hope we can turn that around. Maybe we’re so close to fixing everything that it scares us, maybe we don’t think we deserve to be happy, maybe maybe maybe. Fuck that, I want to be happy and I want my honey to love me (and vice versa). Gotta kick down some barricades now and then instead of waiting for them to be moved or removed.

 

Hugs,

Me

Running scared

I’ve been improving my interactions with my sweetie for months now, and just when I think I’m getting close…

She has sent me off to work 3 of the last 4 workdays with me in tears. This morning I got up to leave and wanted my goodbye hug and kiss, and she got up to hug me and said in my ear, “I don’t think you love me anymore.” Funny, I thought I loved her more.

Truth is, she was going today to a hearing specialist. Her self-esteem has never been very high, and she was afraid I could not love her if she was deaf. The combination of not loving herself and believing herself to be even more disabled caused her to project those fears onto me.

She did apologize. She has been out all day and will not be home until later. We’ll see what I can do to make her feel better when she gets home.

I don’t think I would have taken all this time to get advice and help and support if I just wanted to drop her. I don’t even want to think of what she would do, with her current thinking, if I did, but that’s way down the list. First on the list is, I really love this woman. (Second is, I’m trying really hard to show her that, and third is I’m trying just as hard to keep myself stable so she has someone to love and support her.)

She went to the specialist, and they basically told her there is nothing wrong and that they would send the test results to her health care PCP. I know they could not have gotten those results; maybe they wanted the PCP to break the news to her. I wish I knew when the health care office will call her with the real results. Her NP already told her she tested her at less than 50% hearing in both ears.

I hope I can ease her fears, and get her to stop projecting them onto me. I love you, Sunshine.

Hugs,

Me

still moving…

Things are still up and down at home. We have good hours and bad hours. We really love each other but there are a lot of fears and triggers. We can move through them but it doesn’t seem we can get rid of them, at least not yet.

Work is being amazing and stressful. My boss still hasn’t figured out how to improve her initial responses to requests for help, but it’s more obvious that she thinks I’m “getting it” and can be trusted. One of her family members died last month and she couldn’t attend the funeral (in Wisconsin). Now the lawyer stuff is starting and she has to go up there for a week. So she is, and appears to feel confident that Tina and I can handle it. (I’ve already told her that if the place burns down, it’s Tina’s fault.)  It really helps that I’ve been friends with Tina for so long through the Knit & Crochet Meetups, and that Tina makes mistakes, and the boss makes mistakes, and they know how to handle human error, but I’m just not comfortable making mistakes. You know how “mental illness” is, you feel you need to be perfect for others to even see you as okay. But the Board was shown my website work and were waaaayyy impressed (besides, where can you get an HTML guy for $7.25/hour and no bennies?). I thought the boss would want the Board to approve them before I put them on the website, but no, she wanted them up there.

Anyhow, I gotta keep moving. Have to start leaving for work sooner, I spend a few minutes with a squeegee every morning getting the dew off my car and that’s not in my current timetable… will be worse when it’s frost…

I seem to have lost TWO friends. Amethyst has removed herself as my friend AND Sunshine’s, apparently over what her hubby thought was a cruel statement to another friend (who, as you’ve been reading here, didn’t see any cruelty). I hate losing friends. But that’s life. LBR, I love reading your posts but they are SOOOOOO long and I just don’t have time right now. Keep the faith.

 

Hugs,

Me

Good day overall

Had a rocky start, then got out of the house. I did get the rat’s cage cleaned this morning and fed him. I got a couple other things done, like making ground beast and eggs for breakfast. We went to visit Angus and Angie in Pigeon Forge, and I got to play music, and things got better, and we went to the baseball game. Honey got hungry at the end of the game and had a blood sugar crash making her grumpy, but we got her a salad at Arby’s and me a couple baked potatoes and everything’s fine. I cuddled a bit before getting up, mowing the beard-lawn, and entering our spending stuff, need to finish up on the Net and go take a shower, hopefully get to read to my honey tonight.

Oh, and the Smokies came back from an early 3-0 deficit, took a 6-3 lead in the 6th, and held on for a 6-5 victory over Chattanooga, with 3 errors on each side.

 

Hugs,

Me

Other Stuff

I note I have not been mentioning my spirituality lately. That is a comfort zone for me, got new things going on but nothing to talk about. I hope someday my relationship with Sunshine is in that space.

Anyhow, I am signed up for Harvest Festival. Nobody has asked me to do anything yet, might not. Now that some people heard me perform at Splendor Hollow Music Festival, I might get more requests to play music, which would be good.

I also am trying to sign up for a project of Pagan Prison Ministries, where we will be having a Samhain Festival inside a State Prison in North Carolina. We are sadly lacking volunteers for this, and I don’t know whether it will actually come off because of that. But on October 31st, I intend to be in Morganton. I’ll probably have to take a day or two off from work to do that.

And I have started worshipping with Dragon Palm Coven/Grove/Family. I have quite a few friends in this, and have had an open invitation for some time. I made sure I had heard that right, and sweetie and I went to their last Circle.

 

In more mundane matters, I’ve already got time approved for the Second Annual Tennessee State Peer Specialists Convention. We don’t have a registration form yet, the organizers are still organizing, and will need a hotel room.  We also have bought our memberships for GAFilk in January, will need to come up with a day of hotel expense and are still thinking about buying banquet tickets ($35 each — Blind Lemming Chiffon got me one last year for free and it was almost worth $35).

 

OK, that’s enough for now. I am doing my best to take care of my needs, physical, mental, and spiritual. Some things are still in “under construction” stages but that’s all the hope I need for now.

 

Hugs,

Me

Here’s the long version.

Started out horribly. I got up and honey started getting ready to go swimming — she was supposed to wait here for the cable guy. Had quite a startle and a bit of a fight. Honey went off to pick truck up from body shop. leaving me here alone before work. Was so shook up I forgot to make sandwich and was still here long after I should have left for work. Finally went to work, leaving a text message for Tina that I was running about 15 minutes late. Just missed getting hit coming out of the driveway by a truck that wanted to enter the driveway, had a rabbit jump in front of me and run for 100 yards or more in front of me instead of leaving the road, had a truck just barely miss hitting me on Zachary Rd., and then had a car back onto the road just in front of me just after I turned onto Emory Rd.  I called Comcast to see when the cable guy was going to get there, about 9:30 (was supposed to be 8-10), and found they had scheduled me NOT for today, as I was told when I scheduled it, but Tuesday. So I told honey, and she said, can I leave now? I thought she wanted to go swimming, then she told me, no, she had missed swimming already, she wanted to bring me a sandwich. I was still shook up and was afraid we would have a fight at work, which would not be good. I told her no, and she thought I was telling her she could not leave the house at all; I just didn’t want problems at work, and was not ordering her to stay home, just didn’t want her there.

Learned some new things at work today. Honey came with sandwich, and I had calmed down, good thing. It was a very good sandwich, and honey also picked up a rat for Ariadne (pet Royal Python), who really appreciated it. I got calmed down enough to answer phones. There were some shakeups there as well, as we learned someone who had just stopped being a client was found dead on Wednesday. He had fought for the right to be his own payee and won, and that was less than two months ago; we had just finished turning his file over to him through SocSec. After that the day went smoother. Suzanne was out all day at visits of new clients in Newport and Morristown. We got everything done, I got the trash out and wiped things down, leaving the vacuuming for Tina.  Got to leave for home about 15 minutes early.

 
Talked to Sky on the phone — she hasn’t answered the phone in months, but she gets that way. The phone call dropped a few times. My phone also has been shutting itself off rather often, usually when I open it — I think it may be a switch in the hinge, which feels loose from time to time.
 
Got home and hugged honey. Lay down for a little while. Got up and drove to Smoky Mountain Wings for dinner, yummy. Got home. Honey’s ears were killing her — she had gone to the doctor earlier in the day, something I had prodded her to do and I’m proud of her for going. They will be referring her to a specialist ENT, they couldn’t see any blockages but confirmed she was apparently partially deaf, more in one ear than the other.  When we got home, her ears were hurting badly, as they had been throughout the day and probably for some time, so I looked up where I could buy ear candles locally. We drove to downtown Knoxville and picked some up, really nice co-op type store.  Came home and took a nap, I was too tired to keep going.  After a couple hours I woke up and prepared to candle her ears. We had slight success on one side, good success on the other, in terms of junk coming out of her ears into the candles. We have two more candles to try, need a break and maybe will wait until tomorrow.
 
I probably left a couple things out still, and I know this is just from my viewpoint. Honey has already typed up some of it from hers. I respect her views. She thinks a lot of the problem is her hearing is messing with not just her comprehension, but also her memory. Poor sweetie, I love her so much.
 
Oh, something I forgot. I’ve been encouraging my honey to get therapy, and she has been working with my old therapist, whom I have not been able to see since I got the job. I decided I was leaning on honey too much and not taking care of myself, so I called Cherokee and have started the wheels turning to get my own therapist at another facility, about 8 miles from work, which also frees my old therapist from worrying about a conflict of interest. It should take two weeks to get me set up. My therapist called me after I was home, and we discussed it with honey listening in. He was all for it, as I knew he would be.
 
Devastating early morning, OK mid-morning, rest of day was mostly pretty good.  I hope tomorrow is better.

One Step…

Thursday was a wonderful day. Everything worked, everything worked out, we visited friends in Sevierville in the evening. Arranged for cable installation, the guy gave us an appointment for 8/17 at 8 to 10 am… you might notice that is today… the guy never showed up. Honey had entirely forgotten the part where she was supposed to be there, and that led to a major startle for both of us. But the guy never showed up. I called Comcast about 9:30 to see when he was coming, and the machine told me we are scheduled for TUESDAY. I called back and talked to a human, they apologized but still it’s Tuesday, after sweetie missed her water aerobics for this and had to deal with my upset. She still made me a sandwich and brought it to me, with me telling her not to because I needed to recover and was at work, did not want an upset at work. So I confused her more. She thought I was telling her she could not leave the house at all, I thought she was telling me she had to get to the pool at the Y, and we were both wrong. The outcome is that I had a nice sandwich for lunch, I love my honey, and my snake even got some Purina Snake Chow (although how they brand that red-and-white checkerboard on the rats, I’ll never guess). I wish I were a little less excitable… but that’s why I get that nice check from the government every month.

 

Hugs,

Me