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About this blog

This is Bree's journal talking about how life changes, and how you grow with them (probably with the occasional freakout, I'm good at panic mode too!).  Life has been hard since day one, and not doing it alone is the key!

Entries in this blog

Reflective Bree

The first time I realized that being a girl was different than the boys was when I was in fourth grade.  If I remember right, that made me around 10?  11?  Growing up, I had a big group of mixed friends.  I liked the games, toys, and kids in both sides of the fence pretty equally, and never really thought much about any differences other than for whatever reason the other girls and I weren't allowed to run around topless in the summer like the boys, even though we all looked the same there, and
Briannah

Briannah

2

So. Much. Change.

There are huge, sweeping changes we have to make to our day to day lives.  Me exiting the working force changes our financial bad habits, and getting those under control is never easy.  All the prep work I have to do to exit the job for the person after me.  Supporting Nikki's depression recovery required a lot more changes.  Meeting his desire to change his poor social habits still more.  Figuring out how to fit girl time into all this crazy.  Trying to overcome the dysmorphia and bad health ha
Briannah

Briannah

2

Laugh, Cry, or just kill the neighbors.

Seriously, some days I don't even know.  Nikki has gotten a diagnoses, so that's good, however, he's been on a roller coaster of moods because next she wants to talk about the childhood abuse.  So from moment to moment I have very little idea what is going on in his head right now  and keep 'stepping in it' as it where.  I wish I was better with the random, he needs support not clumsy right now.  The dog comes in last night, and apparently found something that died horribly and instead of avoid
Briannah

Briannah

2

Being the parrtner sucks.

Nikki is going through some serious painful topics in therapy, nothing I can do.  Not a thing.  He has to sort all of it out, and it will be good for him, but I'm not stupid, he's hurting and nothing I can say or do can take that away until he works through it all.  I'm here, ready with the comfort and the hugs and the reinforcement, but that only goes so far.  I suspicion everyone here knows that.  The sheer helplessness sucks.  I WANT to be able to help him, to make it all better, and make all
Briannah

Briannah

2

Turned in my story.

Writing that was hard.  I tried to be overly articulate, and it was crap. I tried to write it like a report, and that was crap.  Finally I just freeform wrote it, fixed typos, and e-mailed it without reading it over and over and judging myself.  Writing it reminded me how scary a trip this all was, and also made me see how much progress I'd made.  I"m not angry anymore.  I'm still working on that full trust, but that takes time.  Admitting to my fears and problems with the things people have sai
Briannah

Briannah

2

So...everything is formalized.

As of August 31st I'll be going back to being a house turtle for Nikki.  Just knowing there is an end has lifted a lot of the stress of it all.  On top of my add issues and everyone thinking I'm stupid, there is a lot of bias because they're all Christians and I'm an atheist (something I did NOT introduce into any conversations, but my supervisor who is also my aunt did), I'm a liberal in a conservative group (same deal, I had no need to discuss things at work, but she apparently felt the need t
Briannah

Briannah

2

Autumn Sad

Sometimes cliches exist for a reason, and as excited as I get when the pool goes up, as happy as I am in it all summer, I never really hit the full depth of how much that pool means to me as when I am facing the oncoming autumn and knowing it's about to go away for a long, cold winter.  So I'm frantically swimming as many days at the sky will let me, and trying to store away every moment of pool joy to mull over in my winter blankets.  And I'm reminded it's not just a pool.  It was a lifelong dr
Briannah

Briannah

2

Making an effort.

So since Nikki's depression has been seriously lifted due to the combined efforts of therapy and his medication and the life chagnes, I'm making an effort on the holidays this year.  I have severely mixed feelings about holidays, so much unpleasantness to others hidden in that cheer, but what the #*&&.  Nikki's having a good time and can use some festivity in the middle of winter.  And me, being the extremely clumsy thing I am, managed to injure myself several times already trying to get
Briannah

Briannah

2

Why I reject the growing anti-label movement.

I keep seeing in group after group a demand to reject labels.  And I can't support it.  History has made me really wary of this idea.  In Europe, most people couldn't read.  It wasn't just the expense of books, it was a choice by their leaders that they should not.  And the spread of literacy across Europe did indeed change everything, and directly influenced the various revolutions.  In America, very few slaves were allowed to learn to read and write, only those that their masters deemed requir
Briannah

Briannah

2

This week is kicking my butt.

Seriously, I'm getting next to nothing done.  *headdesk*  I need a cleaning buddy or something.  I just have zero motivation this week, even showering was a massive endeaver.  And, of course, I had a clumsy moment and forgot the dimensions of the shower when I dropped the soap and cracked my head but good on the wall.  The lovely headache I had for half the day so DID not help.  I honestly think I'm having some kind of episode, anxiety maybe?  I just have this...constant feeling of vulnerability
Briannah

Briannah

2

Well...that didn't work out the way I meant it to.

So it's crazy busy season at Nikki's job and he hasn't had a day off in weeks.  He MIGHT get one day next weekend, but it's also equally possible he'll work five weeks strait with no days off until the Christmas shutdown for the eve and day.  And while he's upbeat about it, all the overtime is paying for our next cruise this spring for his birthday and his dad and stepmom are going (I love his dad, his dad is awesome.  His stepmother stresses me out, shes a nice person overall, but she gets rand
Briannah

Briannah

2

Slowly Freezing

It's SEVEN degrees outside.  Seven.  Seven is a TINY number when talking about degrees.  It's so cold in our back computer room that I think I could use it as an extra food freezer while waiting for the space heater to warm up the room.  (the kind that is like a little radiator with heated oil inside, not the kind you can accidentally poison yourself with in an enclosed space, that's important!).  I'm torn between massive cleaning to keep my body moving to try to generate heat or a warm fuzzy bl
Briannah

Briannah

2

Reassurance in the funniest places.

So we went up to Toledo to do some shopping for xmas, much more selection up there than our town, and our favorite calzone place is on the way, so awesome lunch.  And while we're shopping, someone calls out to Nikki, and it took me a moment to place him, but it was our former roommate.  Sweet guy, and it was lovely to catch up.  I said he and his family should come down and I'll cook a dinner, and we could make the details on Facebook.  He said he thought I'd quit using it, it got dark on my wal
Briannah

Briannah

2

Let's talk biology vs. modern life.

So.  It took me 12 years of alarm clocks, schedules, and struggles with insomnia and exhaustion to get my body to a roughly midnight to 8 am sleep schedule.  Where I still needed the alarm clock, but most days I woke up without it or just before it went off.  But there was that knowledge that it wasn't fully reliable and I had better have that thing set so I didn't get fired.  And it's taken roughly...four weeks to end up back on my native 4 am to noon sleep habit.  And now I get tired around th
Briannah

Briannah

2

Scary wind.

It's shaking the house, and the fence was just at a really odd angle to the ground.  ti's a six foot wooden privacy fence, not a little flimsy decorative fence I mean.  I'm glad we had the roof finished last year from the windstorm that tore it up and made it look like someone ran a giant sander over it, because I think chunks would be gone tonight and smacking the neighbors house.  Don't like the neighbors, but I still don't want their home to get hit by my roof chunks.   One year I got hit in
Briannah

Briannah

2

Unexpected and Unwelcome News.

Nikki's therapist, his younger than me, super healthy therapist, had a heart attack and passed away this weekend.  I can't wrap my mind around it.  She has been so helpful working everything out, and such a huge part of our lives (Nikkii's directly, mine through the effect she has on our life) that i just am floored.  So far Nikki is okay, but I don't know how this works for a patient.  If my former therapist had just died, it would have really messed me up, I can't even imagine.  And she was so
Briannah

Briannah

2

WIsh me luck - Youtube Hair Idiocy. :)

So I watched about a billion youtube videos about doing the fairly simply, layered haircut I favor yourself.  And it is actually fairly idiot proof, you basically let your head do the work for you.  Ponytail it all at your forehead instead of your crown, cut teh ponytail at the desired length, and take the band out.  Voila.  The natural spaces on your head arrange the hair at different lengths as it takes further from the nap to your forehead than mid-head and crown, etc. etc.  It's faster, no a
Briannah

Briannah

2

Living on hope of vacation.

So Nikki's back has been out for a while now, so I dragged him strait to the doctor Friday, based on the pain response from limb manipulation test, they think at this point it's an inflammation problem rather than an injury from all the physical labor we've been doing.  (I'm sore as anything too, but I still have full flexibility and only sore-pain not crazy pain like after the surgery I had or what he's feeling so I'm sure I'm just tired) and they gave us anti-inflammatory pills that are helpin
Briannah

Briannah

2

New Neighbor story. Short, but this is my weird life.

So.  The neighbors.  Again.  Yes.  One of the many reasons I'm not sad that Nikki pushed the moving idea.  I have a trick for large item trash to avoid paying fees.  I put the times out the day AFTER trash pick up, so they have roughly a week until the next one.  And only once has it failed me and the item did not 'just wander off on it's own!".  So we found out that Yuriko had been peeing behind the filing cabinet I had for years to organize.  She died of brain cancer, but no one knew she had
Briannah

Briannah

2

There be hope here!

So realtor lady after breaking the news gently that we'd missed the pricing bubble and our house was worth less than we hoped, said that we would know if she'd set the right price point, should have at least one showing a week.  So we set it, and our first week is now over (went up Monday). We've had three.  No ​offers yet, but I think I would be really surprised if my house sold in five days or less.  But I really want it to sell asap.  But that's good news, people are taking the time to go loo
Briannah

Briannah

2

I wish our bodies came with manuals.

Every time I think I'm figuring out the changes in my body with age, most of which no one ever talked about in my family, something else goes weird.  I'm not talking the "falling apart, unable to live" state like my mom, but the constant parade of guessing how food is going to affect me, sleeping patterns, how easily I injure/bruise myself, changes in the rhythms of my asthma making it harder to predict after I'd had it down to a science, acid reflux crazy, little things that add up to both a me
Briannah

Briannah

2

Help, I"m not sure what to say in a job interview.

So...you're never supposed to say anything negative about former employers in interviews, it doesn't come across well.  But what do I do with the question of why I'm going to be taking a major paycut (most of the positions similar to mine pay much less) to work somewhere else?  The real reason is they've put me in a position where I have to break a variety of laws to do the job as they require of me, and I deeply don't like this.  At first I thought they didn't know and were going to get me the
Briannah

Briannah

2

Bad week.

Having a crap week, and am going offline for a bit to sort it all out.  ​ Last week I was feeling...odd.  Especially late at night.  Saturday night I felt really odd, and checked my fitbit, and had a crazy high pulse rate for laying down.  40 bpm above my usual resting rate doing nothing.  So after goofling symptoms off the er I want, were I spent the next five ours waiting to find out if I was having a heart attack, pneumonia, viral infection, acid reflux onset, or a mineral deficiency (and tho
Briannah

Briannah

1

First post - Today, just rambling thoughts.

EmmaSweet suggested I start a blog, and I think she has a point.  And never ask people for advice if you're not willing to try it!  So here I am, sorting out a lot of changes in my life.  So today, it's time to tackle a joint issue we both share.  Hoarding.  We're not going to show up on a tv show or anything, it's not the dramatically bad.  However, it runs in my family on both sides.  My mother is a hoarder, and getting worse as she ages.  And my father's mother was nearly tv show ready except
Briannah

Briannah

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