Putting Dishes Away.

"Why do we have all these jars?" - husband
"I drink out of them." - me
"We have a bunch of glasses that we don't use. What's with you and jars, they have lids that go everywhere." - husband
"Like where?" - me
He points to the dish rack and as he puts a dish away 3 more fall from the shelf. "It's better than the tupperware... it wasn't even tupperware, it was just containers that once contained food. Sour cream, cottage cheese." -husband
I leave the room because I am crying laughing and I need a break.
"Okay, I have a jar problem" - me
"More like a jar addiction" - husband



So the history of this is that I get bursts of creativity from time to time and want to create candles, drink smoothies, drink juice - from jars! But if you ever want to make something for someone - I usually go overboard because I don't want to leave anyone out and because I like to reuse over recycle but then I tend to just accumulate....jars! Time to recycle :)

My sister reminded me that we usually joke that we played in the tub when we were little with margarine tubs and other recyclables! Something we learned from our grandmother <3

Reconnecting with Family

I had an amazing visit with my second cousin Chelsea. We share a last name. We haven't seen each other in 12 YEARS, the last at a family reunion. We had so much in common, from attitudes and animals and animals and attitudes! *politics and 'smolitics and 'smolitics and politics...

it feels a shame to be living parallel for so long. It's amazing to share the history and comfort of being with family and gushing over recent family struggles so openly and empathetic.

* My sister wanted to rehash this thing we did but couldn't remember when we were all kids. We only remember politics and smolitics and it involved you sitting on someone laying on the ground being the legs under a blanket. I was completely comfortable gushing about our recent family struggles but didn't want to sit on anyone. As an adult in her 30s reconnecting with someone for the first time in 12 years.
I started an ancestry.com membership after a great weekend reconnecting with family. As I was going to open the Sims to relax for the night it felt a little weird given the choice to do that or ancestry.com. Virtual life or history of life....hmmm....

My week.

Friday I came home from gym to find someone. Parked. In my spot. Okay, no biggie, my best friend was coming over. My husband moved it the next morning while I was sleeping in but then I awoke to our french press shattering. Then I break a water bottle I was using to take down wallpaper. We clean it up together with bread (absorbent!). Then I find a wine glass broken on the ground. The cats must've done it! Clean up more glass. Then I go to work, and while trying to carry too much I drop and shatter my peanut butter and avacado pudding i brought for lunch. Again, my husband kindly brings me lunch and we laugh it off together, (also thank you to my friend for the peanut butter cup and my sister for the stainless steel lunchbox!! You are so thoughtfully sweet!) Another day on my way to work my car battery is dead. My husband waits for me and we learn I have inconveniently short jumper cables. And then in yoga today I attempted crow and went head first into the cement floor.

Is this groundhog day? Am I in a cycle of bad luck? Or did that car parking in my spot completely throw me off?

My husband is pretty great.

post-its

After implementing post-its to keep track of my at home tasks: Helping friends out with their websites, how many careers I want to accomplish in the Sims, what shows I want to watch, measurements from various house projects and materials for all of them and upcoming vacations to plan for ...

I am so overwhelmed by all of it that I realize, somethings are best not to be on a post-it. I made the things I find fun into a chore.

Bernie!

Not even a week after the 2016 election...

We were at the airport to see my brother in law off. We were a little early so we were just talking to kill time and my mother-in-law and I had a long conversation about politics. About how I hope this motivates people, how Bernie inspired us to care about politics and that - who knows, maybe I'll run someday! Then we go to walk my brother-in-law to the start of security - I just walked to where they stopped and my mother-in-law whispered, "BERNIE. BERNIEEE!!" I was confused thinking we were continuing our conversation and I am thinking, what about Bernie? And she says, "no - turn around! BERNIE!" as she was pointing behind us to Bernie getting his identification checked by security. I turn around, my eyes widen, my jaw drops. My mother-in-law says, "don't stare". Rafae says "hi Bernie!". He looks up from putting away his ID and smiles at us. I go - "eeeeeee!" And he walks past the glass. A few people came up behind us to go tap on the glass to give him a wave or a big smile. We are still watching my brother in law go through with only a person between them. I see some of the TSAs shake his hand as he was going through. His wife adoringly smile at him. It was so awesome to watch this moment of adoring love and respect.

World of Warcraft. Love.

Tomorrow the release of the 6th expansion for World of Warcraft, Legion. My husband and I took the week off to play. We did this when the last expansion came out two years ago, Warlords of Draenor. This came as a surprise to some people that I play - so I felt like I needed to go into just how much.

For those who don't know anything about World of Warcraft...

First you choose a faction: Alliance or Horde
Next a race: You have 6 choices that are determined by your faction choice
Class: Essentially, these are your talents and how you play the game there are some differences [healer, tank, damage] [close combat - melee, and distant combat - range] and there are 12 to choose from.
Specialization: You then have 3 choices in your class to specialize in.

If you are new to this, I may've lost you already but out of all of those choices - my husband, before we met - had the same race, class and specialization as my main and first character, a Gnome Affliction Warlock.

It was meant to be.

Counting down to our wedding, I had a 3D replica made of his character, Substrictus, Latin for "short". I was excited to immortalize his character but also because I have a special attachment to the Voidheart crown - a helm from the first expansion, B.C. he is wearing in the photo below.

Okay, now to a little bit of rambling / bragging.

My favorite characters in order with their race / class / spec on the Alliance (all maxed out):

1. Anthraxia - 100 Draenei Holy Paladin - my healer and my first named character. I wanted a name that sounded deadly but feminine.
   
2. Flooze - 100 Gnome Affliction Warlock - my first love but has recently jumped to number 2 (because I don't want to compete with Substrictus). This name was same theme as the first, a deadly influenza, but sounds like a ho.
   
3. Rockstarz - 100 Worgen Fury Warrior

Rationalizing Depression

I have depression. I've had it as long as I can remember. I used to be a cutter - I've stopped years ago - but occasionally I still want to. I have had a really hard time articulating my depression because I can never really understand it when I am out of it. It happens less frequently the past few years. Medication helps.

The other night, I fell into a really deep depression. I was getting irritable and started to be snippy to my (new!) husband. He rightfully called me out on it. This triggered me to storm out. Not because I was mad at him but because I wanted to be alone. I curled up in a bed in our guest room for 15 minutes and just got into my head which made it got worse. Ultimately, I wanted to cut but didn't want to do that to him. I don't want him to worry or feel guilty so I went back into the room and he apologized. I tried to just roll over and pretend to sleep but I was still upset, not with him - but about everything. He asked me to talk about it, and I felt so overwhelmed.

"I did terrible in softball today. I feel a lot of pressure at work. I don't feel good enough. Everyone who came to our wedding loves us and they live far away and I didn't spend enough time with them. Everyone made me feel so special at the wedding, but what if people were just acting that way because I was the bride. Maybe now that we are married, no one else but you cares about me. How is Donald Trump a serious political candidate to run our country? And the fucking DNC! Why is the world so corrupt and we have no control over anything."
My husband says, "it sounds like you are trying to rationalize your feelings. You can be upset. I am here." Extremely sweet and comforting. 

I instantly switched to trying to diagnose myself.
This is a defensive tactic to rationalize why I am upset and it only makes matters worse because I keep thinking of everything that could make me upset. It reminded me of this children's story Tear Water Tea from Owl at Home because it's just thinking of everything that makes you upset so you can be sad. For me, I am trying so hard to figure out why I am feeling an emotion that I actually am overcome by it.

Describing it to him and understanding it for myself relieved me from the spiral I was in. Usually the release is from cutting - because cutting completely changes the subject from everything to something. One thing. That I immediately have to deal with and only react to - not to think about.

Insightful. I hope that I can always recognize that.