Briannah

It's after midnight, that makes it my birthday! LOL And even better, NIKKI HAS AN INTERVIEW! And while I fully comprehend the difference between an interview and a job offer, it's still good to see him get a nibble less than two days after he applied. It's done wonders for his confidence, and I'm proud of my Nikki. It was amazing news. And if it does work out, both GREAT and OH MY TURTLES IT"S GONNA GET CRAZY. LOL

I think I grew up a bit more somewhere along the way. I'm at the post-stressout phase and tired, but Nikki's wish to leave isn't as scary as it first was. I still have a lot of fears, but I think they're valid fears. What if he can't get a job, the unemployment rate in Ohio is still bad, what if we can't sell the house, what will my mom do since my son is moving out of state next week and then we're leaving too (I know, on the one hand she's pretty much made her bed with me, but on the other hand it wouldn't make Grandma happy for me to just not care if she were still alive, so mixed feels). Now I'm actually kinda getting worried that this new life is really starting to sound GOOD and something will happen and I can't have it. Grar. I"m so silly sometimes, huh? Two days ago freaking out that this was a thing, now freaking out if it can't be? LOL At least I'll have Siri to help me find my home without the embarrassing call to anyone having to admit I don't know how to find my new home, please give me directions! And someone who knows the town well willing to show me around and share the local info. I did a lot of work, my house is starting to look kinda naked and weird. Even if we can't go, the overhaul of the house will still occur and that will be massively easier without all the clutter. So it's not wasted. Well, I'm off to work some more. Working hard at night so I can spend afternoons with Nikki.

So more talking occurred, and it seems that making moving the focus is pretty much the desired outcome. Which will mean a lot of job hunting on Nikki's part, and packing/cleaning/repair work on mine. And a discussion that I'm not overreacting if Nikki wants this to happen. Now is the time we have to do all the preparation work, so that if things do fall into place we are ready and not having a financial crisis making this happen. So Nikki got on board with my 'we prep now, since either way it will work out whether we go/stay" and we started today. The cons: Having to sell a house. My paralytic terror that no one will buy this hosue and how to we afford two. I know I could rent it out, but that is scary too. LOLPotentially having to separate for a while, I live up here he lives there during the week. Having to stay with my mom most likely, I hate being alone in the house at night. Like possibly phobic level hate, still trying to work out what my issue here is. Living in a strange place. Even though I moved here from New Jersey, I spent summers here with my grandparents, so was already very familiar with the town. This will be the first time in my life I move to a place I'm unfamiliar with.So much work to prep this place for sale and move.Won't be able to hop up to the Toledo zoo every time I get a whim.The Pros - One of my closest friends lives there. Getting to hang out with her irl more instead of phone/virtual will rock.Distance between me and the last of my relatives in the town. Lower mortgage payment, they got hit hard by the housing bubble bursting and didn't recover as well, so we have quite a few options that lower our overall expenses and open up more fun things.Nikki possibly getting a job with normal hours and not having to get up at o'dark of the morning.A larger city increases the likelihood of meeting people with common interests. And if I'm remembering properly there was a trans group down there for Nikki. I have to look that back up, I may be confusing it with the city an hour further down the highway.Shaves two hours off our annual summer drive to join the friends, and two hours off the biannual cruise drive. Could possibly restore cruising to annual despite my not working. Bigger population area means more pokemon in pokemon go. (I know, I'm a goofy nerdgirl). It's 45 minute drive to another group of our friends, instead of an hour and a half. If it's still available after we sell this house they had a great house for a really good price.So obviously doing whatever we need to do to secure a new job for Nikki there and moving is in our best interests. I just wish you could push a button and just be settled and done with it. So many things can go wrong with this 'new life' idea. He may not get a job, the house may not sell forever, trump may blow us all up, another back to the stone age storm could blow through the state. Wish us luck I guess.

SO....Nikki turns to me today and tells me that he's seriously job hunting in Dayton, has done research in the cost of living and it's lower and the salaries are the same as here so we can live better. And he has a pocket ace in the hole, he's looking to move to the town that one of my closest friends lives in. And apparently the child knew before me. *headdesk* After a lot of talk the current consensus is this is something Nikki is fairly serious about and we should actively work towards. He did say check back in a month after his Zoloft takes effect again (the holidays are the worlds crappiest time to have to find a new doctor, that took FOREVER.) But both his and my meds are now refilled. And I have a new inhaler while I'm pocking at ancient carpet padding. On the plus side, I did see a $50k house that is near my friend, cute, and has an acceptable yard. That is less than our current house, but a little bigger, adn lower mortgage. So this could be a really good thing financially as well as letting him find a job that he doesn't have to get up a o'dark of the morning. There is more to do in Dayton. It's a city vs. a large town. And I'm completely freaking out. Moving is the seventh circle of hell. And I have a paralytic fear of real estate business. I wanted to have a meltdown, but I kept my Bree calm and started researching what is involved in all of this. Said close friend was called to explain to me how taxes work when you sell a home. Because I have ZERO clue how that all works and it's something I should vaguely understand if we are potentially selling our house. She's good though, she immediately new that while that was key information I was looking for, it was a cry to be saved again by my dear friend. And she gave me some links for Nikki to find a room to rent until I/we finish this place and sell it off, we think just a single room rental from someone is probably cheaper and more realistic financially until we sell this house. So renovations have not turned into potential sale prep. I had a limited information talk with my mother, and arranged to start storing things in her basement. Whether we go or stay, I need to pack all non-essential things up so that we can work without tripping over things. (Yes, this might have been prompted by me getting hit in the head with something that I knocked over while sorting books for the C-bus trip next week). I just left out the possible fleeing town to start a new life elsewhere. I feel VERY unsettled and will until a decision is made to move or stay. I can't just not worry about it, it's a Big Thing that is going to be on in my brain all the time until decisions are made and completed. I feel both the possibilities for improvement and cringe at the sheer amount of logistics of making it actually happen. This all came outta left field, but just writing it out feels better. Here's hoping for new things I guess.

So much for best laid plans. Thanks to a sick cat spewing over the ENTIRE staircase top to bottom, Nikki and I had a quick meeting to figure out how best to deal with this mess, and the staircase IS on the renovation list...so... RENOVATIONS HAVE BEGUN! I repeat, they have begun! This is not a drill! Grab your emergency breathing masks! *laughing* At this point it's easier to just start early and toss the carpet than to clean that up, poor cat really didn't have a good night last night. The vet thinks it's lingering damage from his starvation period, he's never been quite 'right', and while all cats are puke machines to some extent or another, this one apparently aspires to be an Olympic specialist in the sport. So...we did not get a pleasant surprise under the carpet, I admit I had a silly hope maybe it was nice under it, it wouldn't be the first time a homeowner removed carpet to find something pleasant underneath. But it wasn't a horror show either, it is just a set of aging painted stairs in need of cleaning from sitting under slowly disintegrating padding. Then probably it wouldn't hurt to trowel on some wood putty to smooth out all the nicks and tack holes from the carpet, and we can paint them so they don't look quite so bad. The good news is that they do seem to be in decent condition, and the website I saved on how to redo them doesn't look like it will be necessary at this time, unless, of course, Nikki drives that hammer through them into the basement or something.

And you are seeing the world while you do it! So many people never go beyond a 50 mile radius of their home, even for vacation, it's kinda sad. Especially since the modern era gives us the physical ability to see it all like never before, an 8 hour plane jaunt to Britain vs. months on a ship. So many people just...don't. Explore your insides through exploring your world my Emma!

Hugs! I'm so glad you're starting to love on our adventure! When you get home you have got to find a time we can chat and tell me about all the things you saw and did! Are you going to hit up the Grand Canyon while you're exploring the great south west? I've never been myself, but I hear it's amazing!

So, in my ongoing quest to improve the new budget and live better on what we have now, and my growing fear that Trump is going to throw us back into 2009 or worse when all the jobs vanished, I have been working on one of the biggest expenses that IS mutable, unlike the mortgage, internet, etc. And that is...food. Most advice seems to always stem around don't eat out, cook yourself, but groceries are stupidly expensive, and the whole process of fitting cooking into a busy life isn't that intuitive. Add in a rage issue with planning like I talked about earlier (I know, I'm nuts sometimes) and not eating out doesn't REALLY fix the issue. SO....I have found two solutions that work for me, and want to share them with the other potential cooks who want to get a handle on their food expenses, especially with the prices of food going up all over the place now. The first is going to sound dumb, but pinterest.com is your friend. It brings you to a HUGE amount of cooking blogs and food sites that you might not find just googling, and offers pictures of foods you might not have been exposed to before but could be interested in trying, and an easy place to 'pin' things to look at later. MOST of all, it's free and no need to spend money on a cookbook, make one in your computer. Then, start a free account at http://www.foodplannerapp.com This site has a pro paid version, but most of the features are available in the free version, there are just ads you'll have to ignore. Or there's another one that is $5 a month, I forget the name but I could find it again if any one wants it. I prefer free because my goal is both organization and spending reduction, but if someone is just organization, I think the other site looked a little spiffier. The free one seems a bit more awkward to use than the paid one, but it's not overly difficult once you poke at it a bit and figure it out. So how this site is affecting my goals - It allows me to import recipes from websites, and enter my own. So I'm bulding up a catalog of everything I actively cook now and want to try. Sounds like just a cookbook, I know. But then it has a meal planner option where I can easily create a two week plan by going to the recipes, clicking 'add plan' and it asks me for the date and breakfast, lunch, dinner, or snack. And then I can also add it to a grocery list that I can then print out or put on my phone and take with me. It considerably cuts into how LONG it takes to meal plan, and those advice sites are right, I am reducing the amount of money I'm spending on food by planning everything and living on a 'schedule'. Yes, I have some internal resentment of the time it takes to plan things and losing my rights to whimsy, but I am slowly countering that with the fun of having money to save for the big things we need and to spend on entertainment because the food budget is shrinking. I'm wasting less, spending less money, and spending less time trying to figure out what to do for meals or what my 'mood' is. I'm not entirely sure now that my issues with giving up the 'freedom' to do whatever I like whenever I like isn't some form of my add or self-destructive part of the dismorphia disorders trying to control my behaviors, or if it's a normal emotional reaction. I really can't tell. And I'm sharing this because I have picked up on that there are people here also struggling with money like I do, and maybe this can help someone else like it helped me. Maybe not. But I have a perspective that the legion of every day things I wasn't taught growing up which did NOT magically morph into this mythical 'well this is just common sense, you should have figured this out the minute you became a grownup!' Some people do figure things out they weren't taught and their brains have no reason to conceive of, I don't dispute this. But just as many are like me and these basic living skills don't magically pop up in our minds and we need to be exposed to them to learn to utilize the strategies to improve our lives and counter the others we were taught.

First times can be scary, there doesn't need to be a reason beyond the brain being in a situation it's not prepared for and freaking out about it. I nearly had a meltdown the first time I ever had to ride a bus (not a school bus, the kind with schedules and exact change) by myself. I did at least end up where I meant to be, there's that. But it FELT completely alien and scary to be there alone, especially being born in 72 and growing up with the constant reinforcement as a child every adult I didn't know wanted to cut me into pieces and as a teen that every dude would throw me in an alley and have at it. Although those dangers were fare more present than quicksand, which tv of the time had us all believing was lurking in wait all over and it was rather surprising to realize it's not. I think the only 'first times' that don't scare me are things I'm already somewhat proficient in. For example, the first time snorkeling. There was tension about the mask, the feel was really strange, and breathing through the 'giant straw', but I've been swimming since I was around three, and unlike scuba could simple lift my head out of the water and right whatever had gone wrong, so it was mildly frustrating until I got the hang of mask and snorkel seals, but not scary. Very very salty though, I drank a lotta seawater that first time. Saw a turtle too, so it all balances out. I think it's easy to forget that we rationally think about the world in modern terms, but our brains do not. Our unconscious and subconscious minds are still doing what they did thousands of years ago, they don't care about computers and safety drills and 911, they are still working out continued survival and utilizing the emotional responses to force our behavior in response to the world around us. It's what they do. A good example is the adrenaline rush when my avatar is in a video game and I fall off something (often, I'm always falling). The visual abrupt downward motion triggers a reflex even though my body is sitting safely in a chair, because my brain perceives the motion and doesn't care the cognitive part is yelling "WE ARE IN A CHAIR". And the best way to overcome that instinct response is to study it, examine it, and learn to recognize the difference between cognition and reaction (so not as simple as it sounds) so that we can choose vs. react. Don't fall outta the chair by jumping in the above example, and then having to explain to Nikki why I'm on the floor. Again. As much as we can, there are hard limits to certain things such as imminent death that the brain is going to do what it wants to do. It's all rather fascinating. And wrinkly. Brains are very very wrinkly, or something has gone horribly wrong. And phobias. Phobias are also scientifcally interesting, research supports the idea that they are hardwired survival instincts gone wrong. It's why there are certain common phobias that we hear about a lot. Once upon a time they were useful. My personal phobia is one of the Big Five of ancient survival, snakes. The other four being fire, water, heights, and bugs. Those killed a lot of our ancestors. I'm done rambling now, I have to go save Nikki from behind the dryer. He trapped himself fixing it. *amused*

​Thank you! One of my personal beliefs in life is that you HAVE to go outside your comfort zone, it's the only way to expand it. I grew up coastal in New Jersey, and clearly my decor convo here gives it away. Nikki is less comfortable with the ocean, he grew up lakeside and far inland in western NY, but he takes me to an ocean once a year anyway either cruising, camping, or visiting my friends back in Jersey. I will master this! He even went to the stingray encounter with me, even though they freaked him out the first time. That commercial for Carnival I think it was where the guy is saying how they are sorta like giant portabello mushrooms? That's not inaccurate, they do have that look and structural feel, but it leaves out the sheer smooth softness of them to touch. And if you follow the rules you can interact safely with them. Let THEM do the touching. In the Caribbean they have been fed by humans (their natural food, the people down there did it smart and didn't alter their food source to create any sort of dependency) in certain areas so long they will come to you and rub against you hoping you'll give them a shrimp tidbit. They're amazing. One of the females (you can tell by size, females of the common brown stingray species there are six to eight feet across, males are one to two) draped herself across my back like a cloak and just hung out there, it was an incredible moment. So since moving back to the beach is financially improbably at this time, I'm going to bring the beach to me me as much as I can in my home. And the overlarge collection of turtles I have will look right in place!

No one here will be surprised when I mention my need for information to make ANY life choices, small or large, and vacation is not an exception. I really don't understand my head here. Researching the options = fun and entertainment to my brain, but actual specific planning sends me into a tailspin of resentment for my time and energy being sucked into the process. So I'm always reading new things about everything I'm into, including cruising, and I like to read those 'things I wish I knew" and 'get the most of f your cruise' type articles, and I did learn a few new things, like despite neither of us like fish Nikki and I are going to try a bit of sushi for the first time ever, we never knew that the Tamarind (one of those you pay extra to eat at places) has no extra charge at lunch, only at dinner. So we agreed to try it, if only to put a stop to all the 'how can you know you don't like it, you never treid it! Best place to try suspicous new things is on a cruise, where they will bend over backwards to find you something you like if you don't like the new thing. It doesn't always work out great, on the Royal Princess i tried the cheese mousse. It sounded okay on the menu...but on the plate in front of my I nearly lost my nerve. It smelled like rotten feet, and it visually looked like baby poop. Other people all around were me eating this thing though, so okay...but no, it tasted like my nose tells me baby poop would too. I can't believe I ate that. *Shudders* So this article is all about getting the most for your money, and has 10 tips, and 9 of them I already knew and vetted, but the one I hadn't tried said that booking through your cruise will cost you up to twice as much, and you get less. The author then mentioned three third party tour services that guarantee on time return to your ship (because that is one of the big things, a ship will NOT leave you if you are booked on a tour THEY sold you, but if you are on your own they will leave you on time because every minute over costs them thousands in fees at a port). So I googled the websites, and started looking around, and that author must live in Colorado and have taken a break when they wrote this one point on the list to smoke somethine, because not only was there not more variety (Really, shoudln't there be more OPTIONS at least if these company specialize only in tours where a crusie just vets enough to keep its' passengers happy?) they ALL cost more. Not one would have saved us any money, and it had LESS options, the rain forest we are going to tour through the ship cruise in Puerto Rico (El Yunque) didn't appear in anything at all. If I'm being kind I'm going to assume the author has possibly out of date information, and the cost trends have shifted, entirely possible if a service gets big enough with enough loyal customers they stop undercutting the competition to get started after all and start looking to increase profit. At worst that author was going to sell us all out. Follow up on that information, this world really is out to get us all.

Maybe! It's our shift to guard the group right now! *winks* I'm always sorta obsessed with figuring out how I (and others) work, and I pick up the weirdest bits of information. Nikki's in the same schedule, But Nikki seems more soft-set, it's a natural preference, but he can adjust fairly easily as opposed to my ridiculous insomnia and I actually get ill when I travel more than an hour or so out of my time zone. Nikki was all we should do Hawaii someday, and I"m all SERIOUSLY? Alaska at four hours nearly killed me (and my son, we were so sick, and neither of us is prone to seasickness, and we were ill for three to four weeks after coming back, which is why the doctor explained all this to me)! Hawaii is six! And not having been there, I can't say for fully certain, but I'm fairly sure that they would prefer i NOT invade their space to spend a week or two praying to the porcelain god instead of Pele. Sometimes Nikki knows me really well, sometimes I have to ask if my spouse has ever in fact actually met me. LOL Hawaii. Nikki can go and bring me back pictures and some of that white ginger perfume my aunt brings me back, that stuff smells good. But only the good perfumes, the cheap white ginger smells weird. May favorite perfume (and I think it was a knock off maybe of something else ) was called Muesli or something like htat. It was close to the breakfast food but spelled slightly different, and it smelled exactly of lily of the valley flowers. My aunt was constantly on me that it was an old ladies perfume, but my childhood is drenched in the smell of honeysuckle and lily of the valley, so I didn't care. Let people think I smell old, I was wearing my childhood dang it! I need to find some of that stuff, I'd forgotten about it. Sorry, add. I ramble in a path that doesn't even always make sense to me.

Thank you, but definitely not anytime soon, our next few cruises are all planned with other people where it would be awkward. Nikki still wants to chill out in the closet, but I will bookmark that for future use just in case. Edited cuz I hit the wrong button and sent too soon. I'm not surprised that everyone was pretty respectful, cruises have their own sort of culture where everyone is super happy, super distracted by all the sights, sounds, tastes, and activities, and it's almost like everyone is your new best friend. This will be our 8th time, and only twice did I meet people I would actively prefer not to have. One was the drunk guy who fell on me in the elevater and was just going to stay there until teh guys from Oklahoma hauled him off me and rescued me (this guy was beyond three sheets to the wind, I'm surprised he wasn't dead from alcohol poisoning, I kept running into him all week and he was drinking ALL THE TIME, early morning to latenight) and the weird couple who pretended we weren't at the table with them at dinner one evening, which was weirdly awkward because it was a table for four and despite the fact that they chose not to be involved, it still FELT weird to try to carry on a conversation with each other that didn't include the two people across from us. Most awkward cruise meal ever, and that includes the time my cousin K winged someone in the had with a flying escargot.

I just get so unreasonably mad at the time I have to spend PLANNING a thing, ya know? Whether it's a grocery meal plan or a complicated mmo raid. There is this niggling 'why can't i just do it and figure it out as I go?' thought in the back of my mind. One of the best thing Nikki ever gave me was my smartphone, the day I discovered the gps and realized I would never have to sit with a bunch of maps trying to figure out a route again was amazing(auto-correct less so, for a tool that is supposed to be helpful it sure has resulted in a LOT of embarrassment over the years! And a quick aid when I get lost driving around my town. Yeah, I do that. Sometimes. And you can even use it for walking directions, which was really helpful when we were in Central Park in NYC and had no idea how the paths work to get from museum to train. I don't know why my brain gets so mad about planning, it's obviously effective and I'm slowly learning skills for it. But I guess as long as I learn that the behavior is useful, and it's okay to be mad about it while I'm working on a project and do it anyway, I'll have won some kinda prize, right? Maybe I should tell Nikki to buy me a rubber duckie or something as my prize. They're cute. I wish I understood WHY I feel like that, where the emotional connections even come from, it's so randomly irrational. As for Nikki, tried explaining the intention vs. reception, and he tells me he hears and understands, then does it again that very day. I think I may just have to bite the bullet on this one, its not going anywhere good and Ill just have to learn to not hear anything at all instead of 'I just don't want to be bothered with you" when he says that I guess. Not sure how healthy that is, but it's can't be worse than the current dynamic right? We're arguing right now about presents actually, he wants to know what i want for my birthday. And really, the only things I want in general right now is to have this vacation settled and for my neighbors to stop being crazy, neither of which Nikki can put in a box and wrap. And I think Nikki has already purchased just about EVERY turtle available in town for me over the years. Hm...maybe I'll ask him to make one of the pinterest projects I liked. Not the big three piece painting I linked earlier, that one is in multiple layers requiring a lot of space to do an drying time, but the smaller plank beach one. That's doable in the time allotted, and I"ve seen Nikki's work, definitely has the skill for it.

So usually my add and natural personality has us living very by ear. Planning is SO not my thing, and it has been an herculean effort to start developing that skill. But the staycation and vacations after peak season are important to Nikki, downtime after that crazy work schedule, so I'm trying to be more organized about it to further reduce the stress on Nikki. Easier said than done, but I'm definitely making headway. I have a menu list for staycation, no more arguments about what to eat. We have this weird dynamic there, where Nikki apparently believes I won't eat ANY food so he's not going to choose anything and that responsibility is fully upon me (complete with complaining when I do pick) and I have an inherent emotional pushback against "whatever you want" that stems from a sense that relationships should be about both, and I emotionally hear "whatever you want" as "I don't really care, pick something and shut up so I can go back to forgetting about you for a while". I've tried communicating this to Nikki, but no change in our patterns from that side yet, so I'm trying harder on mine to be different. Avoid the entire context then and pretend it doesn't happen I suppose. As for vacation, I have already done the budget, booked the cruise, booked the excursions, booked the hotels (except hotel B, I want his input on it since there are options half the price of our preferred hotel brand in the area and it is just one night) on a planned we are driving from home to destination a day one, and destination a hotel to hotel b that is right by the marina day 2, and then from 2 to the parking which I have already prebooked. And booked the hotel we always use on the way home. Two stays on the way there because we arrive in Florida at night, one becuase it's fine to arrive home at night. So this will remove the everyone is tired, cranky, and really wants out of the car fighting over finding a place to stay that usually occurs trying to find an open reasonably priced room Florida. Nikki often doesn't want to prebook everything because he likes the flexibility of driving and stopping at will, but it's really not working out so well. We're going to try organized. And under budget. Black Friday got us a good deal on the room, so did prebooking the hotels, and the parking area we use always includes on free day if you pay in advance instead of at the lot(and I signed up for their parking rewards card, every 10 days you earn a free one, and the credits supposedly never expire). And then I put all the paperwork into one of the old travel clutches they used to give you when you went on cruises (now everyone is just supposed to print their documents, I know it's cheaper and all, but I really miss the little thrill of getting that clutch in the mail with the formal tickets, luggage tags, and welcome aboard brochures to leaf through!). Fortunatly I had saved one, it's a great way to keep the pass ports, all travel papers, and such all in one place and make it easier on the trip. I've even improved my packing skills. We pack a small seperate duffel bag entirely for the hotels so we don't have to mess with the big luggage. Just grab our litle hotel bag and carry on for the ship (becuase this usually has our electronics and toothbrushes), quick and easy. We started doing that last two cruises, and it worked wonderfully. So I'm apparently teaching my brain the value of organization little by little. The big successful vacation improvement emotional behavior reward is starting to spill over into other things, planning meals and shopping off a list instead of just getting food in general I"m familiar with and trying to wing it. There is some internal emotional blowback of course, I can't quite overcome the resentment of all the time it takes to plan everything out. I know rationally that I'm actually saving time, and stress, but emotions don't come from rational thinking. If they did, this would be a much easier place to live in. But it's easier to deal with those resentful feelings knowing that I'm getting something out of the work. And the lesson I learned today, if it's this hard to push myself to improving my behavior and actions on a thing that isn't hugely emotionally invested, I need to have more patience with the world no matter how much I hate bullying and segregation and oppression, because how much harder is it to change the feelings that create that.

So..had those amazing flourless chocolate cakes before. They are awesome, I love them. Something that awesome had to be complicated...but...you can make a version with three ingredients and it's awesome. Basically it's like a really chocolately dense souffle, made from eggs, chocolate and butter. That blows my mind. I have a tendency to overcomplicate a lot of things, and simple things blow me away. Now if you'll excuse me, I require some chocolate chips to make a cake apparently.

I hope you have a great deal, and good luck finding that balance! IT's the most simple and most complex thing in the world, learning to balance ourselves within and with the outside world in my personal opinion! As for 2017, I have no idea. I learned a hard lesson in 2011, which was the year I thought it was all going to be fixed. Nikki had just gotten the job back after a 2 year layoff of job hunting, take jobs with those 90 days before hirein where they know they are going to lay people off after 89, and scrabbling around to make ends meet. So when he got his regular job with the good pay and the benefits back at the end of 2010, we thought 2011 was going to be the year we put it all back together. Then maternal grandma announced lung cancer. Paternal grandma had an accident in the care home, and we had to decide if we were going to use lifesaving measures or not (I was on the side of letting nature take it's course, her alzhiemers was so advanced she didn't know who she or anyone else was anymore or what was going on most of the day, she wouldnt' have understood post surgical care). Then the aunt called after she passed, da stopped the burial and required an autopsy, which was inconclusive if she had been the victim of a legitimate accident or abuse. Then a college friend of Nikki's died out of the blue, 34 years old I think he was at the time. Then I fell down the stairs and broke my knee. Then we got robbed. Finally 2011 gave us a break we thought, and maternal grandma beat the lung cancer! Yay! Only to find out two months later it had mestatized to her liver and kidneys and she passed a week before the big surprise birthday we'd planned for her that turned into her memorial. Ever since, I have decided the year will be whatever it's going to be, and I don't pin any hopes on it. LOL

I'm not sleeping with Nikki tonight, last night I had such an awful time trying to sleep waking up from the coughing, which is dramatically lessened by sitting up, that I think i"m hitting up ye olde recliner soon with my cozy microfiber snuggle blankets. And probably the dog, I don't feel like dragging my lazy butt upstairs to crate her, look at my bed, and slink back down. And he's geting up for work in a half hour. LOL The wind has finally died down and I didn't hear any really worrisome noises other than my cat jumping headfirst into the wall for some inexplicable reason known only to him, and possibly the wall. Honest Bree, I do NOT have the laser pointer in my hand, I"m not even sure what I did with it and did not encourage that moment of feline misadventure. I'll check the roof tomorrow to make sure though, my aunt assures me that is what you do in Ohio after every storm, gotta check that roof! My native sleep pattern is working out nicely though, most of the time I'm still up to say hi to him when he gets up, then I sleep during the day while he's at work, and am awake and happy to do whatever during the hometime, then the boring houseework while Nikki sleeps. It's a good system. At least I'm coherent and not on that weird Nyquil thing like last night, that's a plus.

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 the head with a flying green plastic turtle shell, you know the little tykes turtle shaped sandboxes? We were coming home from class and in the couryard of the apartments and the wind just lifted the shell top right off it and winged me. At the time it sorta hurt, but in restrospect now it's sorta funny when I think about it. Nikki called that sandbox Angry Gamera the rest of the time we lived there. And the big tree in the back field had cracked, and it was a sort of nearly spherical shape after it broke off the trunk, and I remember another day watching it roll around on the ice like the worlds biggest tumbleweed. And what had to be a really inexperienced plow driver was trying to plow UP the angle of the small lane back there instead of down from bigger road to the next bigger road, and got royally stuck because of all the ice and the angle, and the tumbleweed hit his plow truck. It was a weird night. Its funny that moments you haven't thought about ever get called back without warning with the right stimuli. Thank goodness neighbors on the other side landlord was finally forced to fix the chimney, or I'd be really worried right now.

Watching Unusual Suspects while waiting to get sleepy(Deadly Women auto qeued this) and I think the cold medicine is making me wonky, but the murder victim's name is Brianna, and despite it being a pen name, it's really creepy to keep hearing "And he murdered Brianna..." Mr. Plus Turtle says he'll defend me though. I'm not sure I like cold medicine anymore. I couldn't take anything for years, most of it contains pseudoephidrine, and you can't mix that with the daily powdered asthma control inhaler I was on for years, so I just got used to colds and dealing. Aspirin if my throat was really unhappy cuz I'm kinda wimpy. But I don't have to take Advair anymore for like three years now, so I took the NyQuil pills Nikki offered me, and I just feel loopy. I don't think I feel better, I think I just care slightly less that I don't feel good from the medication.

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 the same time every night. I am asleep within a half hour generally of hitting the pillow, I still get the occasional insomnia I can't sleep for a few hours, but it's been twice in the last three months, not four times a week like before. I don't need sleeping pills four outta seven nights a week anymore. I sleep solidly around 8 hours. I no longer have this exhausted desperate need for a nap in the middle of the day anymore. I occasionally do enjoy a nap, but it's not the same I need one every day or I fall apart in the evenings. Why am I talking about this? Because many people kept telling me that sleep schedules are easily adjusted, and completely overlook the physical effects side of changing it. Evolution has NOT caught up with our modern lives. We evolved multiple internal sleep clocks as a survival tool, someone in the group was always awake to alert the others to dangers. But a tool that worked for us for thousands of years didn't just vanish. I'm not saying it won't evolve out. Our brains a whole still are, the shapes of cars in the last couple of decades has been added to the 'instant recognition of a basic shape that is not a threat moving around us' reflex. That was a fascinating article, about how we subconsciously identify threat vs. harmless by overall silhouette shape, and what has been introduced to that catalog in our brains. Even for children and people who don't drive, because they are such a common thing in our world now. But people in places where they are not have not added the shape. Sorry, got off on a tangent. Night owls unite. We just are what we are. And if you're like me and just can't adjust to the day shift world, do try to find a night shift somehwere, you're body will be happier for it.

I think it's way to easy to forget that those label's are the start of a conversation, not the end. They're a way to indicate a common ground, I'm a nerd, I'm an animal lover, I'm a mother, but then the individuality needs to be explored after. Examples of what I mean: I'm a nerd, as in I like a lot of the nerdy entertainments and science, but I can't hack or program a computer. I'm an animal lover, but I like to eat meat and believe in the cycles of life, including death(for the record I am againts eating endangered species though, they need to be preserved until they have a healthy enough population again, other animals are eating them they don't need to feed us too until a healthy balance can happen). I'm a mother, but I don't fit in with a lot of of the other mothers who want to shield the children from everything, I believe just talk about topics to the kids and adjust them to the real world they'll have to enter when they are grown anyway in small steps as you encounter it. Everyone has labels, mass mass plural. No one has just one label. Reven in ALL of them my friend!

There are some broad tendency (probably from social upbringing) differences between men and women. And one of those differences is staring at me from catching up on Deadly women (and other forensic shows, I have some weird obsession with forensics, I don't even know why). This is in regard to premeditated murder, not heat of the moment kind where everyone male or female has just lost their minds for a minute. When a guy is going to kill you, most of the time he just does it, and fairly quickly upon deciding it has to be done. When a woman is going to kill you, it reaches some insane levels of crazy detail planning and some really long term patience. And we tend to like poisons in general. Sometimes accidents, but we seem to have picked that up from the guys who often try to use accidents to cover it up and in a general sweep (or at least what cases they decided to feature) we really like poison. Not suprising I guess, we know a lot about them in our day to day role as keepers of the house. Very few women don''t know the dangers of the household chemicals and pest controls we use. Why do they still get caught? Because male and female murderers share a similar thought processes again; most of them don't think or plan beyond the actual murder to what to do with the body and evidence. I'll just not kill anyone and make my life easier both without all the time and mental effort required to plan and then physical effort to carry out and clean up and the jail part. Still cold ridden, but Nikki fed me chicken soup, I have my plush turtle, my favorite Halloween microfiber blanket, this cushy recliner, my Ipad, and more episodes of Deadly Women to entertain me while my head feels like it weights a few extra tons. I think I'll make it. Tangent - this is why that commercial for the flu shot is so stupid. They keep showing this commercial showing people missing out on life moments because they are sick, and they imply that if they had their flue shot it wouldn't have happened. So while hopefully they got the flu strains in the shot right this year and I won't get the flu (because I got the real influenza a couple of years ago, not the stomach 'flu' or heavy cold 'flu' people associate with the word and I heartily respect flu now, and now understand why it can kill people) it doesn't save you from other ailments. Colds, strep throat, GI infections, etc. In other words, flu shot taken, but plush Mr. Turtle has job security anyway. Don't show us a birthday party with a woman who looks like she has a cold, advertise how many people actually died of it last year (because they did). I totally respect death statistics when considering if I should get a immunization. Get your immunizations folks, let's all live!

I have Nikki germs. Decided to share the cold germs with me, ah the joys of marriage. MEH! I'm going to go whine at my favorite stuffed turtle for a while.

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 on the trip the less we risk whatever they call that when the numbers get big and you start spending like crazy because it seems a little unreal. There' sa name for the psychological effect but I cant' remember it. Reason number two we're postponing Assateague til next year when we're not planning to cruise. I'm super excited to share all my memories physically with Nikki though of that island. I'm really excited that there are beaches in my future. I really miss living on a coastal state. I lived in the center of the state, nearly the real center weirdly both north/south and east/west so I wasn't right on the coast, but depending on the winds some days when it was warm the sea winds were strong and blowing in ward you could get whiffs of the sea even as far inland as we were. And of course, an half to full hours ride depending on which beach was desired and a coupla bucks of parkway money (and I'm so odd, I know, but I loved throwing money at the little funnels and going, it always struck me as hilarious!) and some really frustrating circling trying to find a parking spot later and you could be on the beach. I would love to be coastal again. Even though I have recently learned there is actually a sand crisis on pretty much every beach on the world, and everyone is angry at Africa for not sharing their sand, i guess from teh Sahara? Crazy right? Heck, I have this silly wish to go home, and live in New Jersey again. Surprisingly a lot of the people from my childhood and early adulthood are still there and in touch. But it's crazy expensive, and impractical. But that's what dreams are for right? I'm such a cliche, I spent all my time in Piscataway wanting out, and now i just want back in. Go figure. It's one of the two places I dream of living when I'm not focused on making where I actually live more pleasant, the other being with the palm trees and lizards in Florida. I wouldn't be sad to have warmish winters. Speaking of winter, we're in full swing yo you mode here. It's rained or snowed ever day for roughtly 9 days or so now. The sky is angry, and it's mostly been cold, with a few abrupt swings to the 60's. WEATHER GONE WILD! Oh, and I have to share this so you ladies can all be weirded out with me. We're out driving, and definitely in town proper, when suddenly...PIG! A real live, sorta goofy looking, black pig in someone's lawn. I can only assume it's their pet, but it was outside in an unfenced lawn unattended. So I guess it's a well behaved pig? I'm going to guess a female Vietnamese potbelly pig on the basis that it was vaguely shaped like one of those and had no tusks, but I have zero pig knowledge so feel free to laugh at my identification attempts. It was just so bizarre and unexpected. And this is from a someone who lives here, where there used to be a guy who kept a bear in a dog kennel by the river. Ya know, the more I talk about it with you guys, the more I realize my life is sorta weird. Even by my standards. Pull up a hot chocolate (or beverage of your choice) and enjoy the weird with me. Share your weird. It's fun!