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Learning to grow

A blog by Briannah in General

  • Entries

    140

  • Comments

    285

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    50,948

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

And so the attempt to get organized early begins.

Nikki's passport has wandered off somewhere, again.  And I"m only 60 percent sure mine is still where I remember it being.  I honestly think these things are alive, aware they are at the end of their lifespan, and Really Angry about that.  (I have to renew them next year, and I never renewed them before, and I'm disproportionately freaked out by official things I've never done before).  And I still have to organize excursions (we like to have them ordered and paid before we go, the less we spend

In which Bree faces power tool ignorance.

So.  Nikki and I talked it over, and are going to start working on the actual renovations after the cruise, so around April.  (Vacation!  I can't wait!) Prime issue #1 - asthma.  Most of the things we want to do involve a lot of particulate dust matter, I can NOT be in the house with that all closed up in the winter, so it has to be in the spring when it's warmed up enough to open the house for at least 20 minutes (the amount of time I'm told it takes to recirculate the air on the average house)

Perspective on change from the rain.

It's been raining since New Year's eve.  And our life experience SO color our emotional reactions to things.  We always assume that humans think rationally, but rational thought really goes to problem solving, while life experience and subconscious go to the deeper choice and reaction issues.  I always liked rain.  However, since 2007, if it rains more than one day I'm deeply uncomfortable and want to start moving everything I own upstairs.   Our town flooded that year.  It took somewhere betwee

Resolutions because there are actually things I want to do this year.

I confess, I'm being a bit cheesy here.    I always kinda snubby my nose at the resolution thing, because people make them and then forget them January second in my cultural experience.  But there are things I want to do so here goes. 1) My kitchen makeover.  Aside from the fact that I found actual educational tutorials on how to do something about it all affordably, Nikki was actually excited about my ideas and has the skills I lack in the excecution.  And a thanks here to my Grandpa again for

Pinterest is not ony for fun and games.

So was trying to start sleeping a bit earlier so I'm up during the day, Nikki missing me chatting with him on twitter at work, but my body wants to sleep 4 am to noon.  And I went to bed at 1 last night, and failed spectacularly to sleep until 3.  LOL  So while I was failing I had my ipad and was browsing Pinterest, and found the home decor section.  Now if you all knew me and my lazy home decorating skills, you'd be laughing right now.  Hard.  But there were interesting things there, and...proj

Misadventures in Romance

So. Monday was gorgeous all day.  SIXTY degrees outside.  We hadn't done the Toledo Zoo Lights yet this year, so I called Nikki at work to find out if he wanted to go, it was a work night but it's not terribly late.  Thought it would be fun not freezing to death for once.  So we get in the car to go, and it starts misting a bit.  Then it starts pouring.  It was the soggiest zoo lights ever!  We bought a great big red and white umbrella and were congratulating ourselves on dealing with the rain w

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

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

Still being me. :)

So between the cats and a very clumsy Bree trying to get the house ready for the holidays, I look like I tried to go ten rounds with a thorn hedge and a few with a hammer, but I'm making progress with everything.  A little triple antibiotic ointment does wonders for cat scratches by the way.  Ocean swimming does better, but I live a couple states away from that option now.  Oh, the days when I was only an hour away and could go all the time and soak up that wonderful water.  I don't know why it

You never know a person until the crazy shows, I guess.

I've had a friend for about a year.  Nikki and I met him online, and we all hit it off and became good friends.  Through the internet, they live several states away.  But still.  Ten years of chatting is a long time, and real friendships form.  So...several years ago he had a full on psych meltdown and vanished, and his wife reached out to me (thinking I was having an affair with him and he'd come to the other woman, unaware I was part of a couple and it wasn't like that) and she and I struck up

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

The things they don't tell you about marriage are legendary.

There is a seriously flawed cultural understanding of marriage in American society.  There is this collective assumption that every marriage functions the same, and our media reinforces that.  A giant wash of anything that doesn't look the same.  For a country of freedom we do that a lot, alienation of people who look different, behave different, culturally different, etc.  So much of this country really practices the 'freedom to be just like me' rather than 'freedom to be who you are in peace'.

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

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

Oh Pinterest...what have you gotten me into?

I need a suit of armor.  Nikki and I have been working on increasing our outdoor holiday lighting display.  I suspect mainly because I really really love sparkly lights and Nikki likes to indulge me.  But as you know I've stopped working, so our budget are smaller, but no worries!  PInterest to save the day!    And I found a great project to add to our lighting display, only it requires working chicken wire.  Chicken wire is plain evil.  But it would be a lovely inexpensive base for lighting in

Had a really good week, now I'm pretty much on my own for a while.

Crazy times.  Things have been better inside my head since cutting my dad and his toxicity out.  It's been two months since anyone called me or my son stupid, loser, and waste of life.  That's a plus!   I had a total panic meltdown a couple weeks ago, I woke up around ten, (I still have that ongoing insomnia, and sleep very late at ngiht to late morning) and went down the stairs, and something wasn't right.  The air felt...wrong.  A little damp, a little too cool.  And then I noticed a light pat

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

Obligatory Bree is gonna talk about politics - aka my fear of Turmp isn't just about Trump.

I had a REALLY uncomfortable conversation with a friend of mine today who was worried that a third friend had offended me with a sort of inappropriate outburst of hate against Clinton in the middle of game raid night.  And I admitted it had made me really uncomfortable, but...not on the political front.  And then the conversation got way personal, and I realized that what scares me most isn't Trump himself and his crazy, dangerous things that he spouts. There is always that one person yelling cr

Instinct vs. Medical advice.

So my back is killing me today, I slept wrong the night before last or something.  You know, when you just wake up and your back says "#$&& no!".  My natural instinct is really to find a comfortable position that doesn't hurt, and stay there.  Until it heals up.  But what the doctor told Nikki last time he did this was that the fastest way to realign the back and heal the problems is walking.  And it's taking all my willpower to ignore my instincts and listen to her.  But every hour I'm

So apparently I do have more need for external validation than I thought.

I was just watching a video on YouTube posted by Phil DeFranco's wife (he's a funny youtuber with a take on the news I often enjoy and watch sometimes) and she is describing a break in that had happened to them, and talking about it made her cry.  After we had the break in, I couldn't talk about it without falling to pieces either, and I wasn't entirely sure why, as we were not injured and yes we lost a lot of things, but we were okay and it was over.  Watching someone else struggle with the sam

Putting my hair in Nikki's hands.

Waiting for my hair to dry out, and then I'm putting the one thing about my physical form I feel good about into...Nikki's hands.  He's going to first bleach it, then dye it deep emerald green.  I'm finally going to have my dream hair, my favorite color, green.  I've been trying to do my part to help find the balance between Nikki's two sides, and have invited him as far into the girl world as I go, which isn't far really, when someone online is judging me purely on behaviors and interests they

Haha! Turned tables!

Since we have decided sharing closets works for us, I have made my self at home in his comfy black knit cargo shorts.  I LOVE these shorts.  Next spring I am planning to buy several more, as these are fantastic shorts that don't ride up indelicately on me like my shorts.  I like the longer length and bigger pockets than on the female version I have.  Nikki complains a lot that I absconded with his shorts.  But they are COMFY.  Oh my god comfy.  And he absconded with my sparkly butterfly shirt, s

Wow Newegg, that was fast. And marital ramblings after that.

So...making Nikki's computer dream a reality, which is the project I've been on since January pretty single-mindedly, has finally come to fruition today.  And those parts got here FAST.  Like laser fast.  So I cleaned out the dining room table so he has a work space (on the weekends that area is set up for gaming as there is a Friday night and a Sunday evening game), and he's like a little kind in a candy store right now.  It was worth every moment of locking myself in the bathroom at work to ha

Tried Virtual Reality yesterday. Mind blown.

So printer died a horrible death, moment of silence for my little desk friend.    Moment over.  IT was a fast moment, it wasn't that nice a desk friend.  Nikki and I can't be without a printer, we use it constantly.  So I ordered a new one, and we went to Best Buy to pick it up.  Now, Nikki just got to order the components to put his new computer together, the same one we built for me around Christmas, only he gets it $100 cheaper because prices go down with time.  LOL  So he was browsing around

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