An Obstacle, Or So He Says

I had the most interesting conversation about myself with Dave last night. In case anyone is unaware, I am a history major and I plan on getting my Ph.D. I am very passionate about history. I love it dearly and I have a tendency to get choked up when I talk about really significant historical events. I also get choked up watching movies or reading about them. It can be kind of embarrassing for me and it happens pretty much any time I really get into a conversation about history.

So last night we were talking about the Holocaust and I was talking about a trip I took to the Holocaust museum and then we moved into a conversation about Operation Valkyrie and then it moved into Anne Frank. Now, the Holocaust can choke anyone up. But me being me, I was really emotional. I was trying to talk with tears streaming down my face.

Once we got to the point that I was done talking, I was really embarrassed because I was so emotional. I said, "Good God. I have no idea how I am ever going to teach or lecture about history. No one will take me seriously because I will be sobbing like a baby the whole time." Dave just smiled at me and said, "Well babe. That is just one more obstacle that you will have to overcome."

I found it really amusing that he said that because I had never thought of it like that before. I know that I get worked up because it is something that I truly care about and feel passionate about. I also think it is great that I am so passionate about the thing I plan to dedicate my life to. I guess I had always just thought of it as something I did.

Facing it down as a challenge will be very interesting. I hope that someday I am able to give powerful, moving lectures and speeches about the past. I really hope that I am able to pass my love of history on to at least one person. Hopefully I can do that without turning on the waterworks!

Two Wonderful Years of Dave...Sort Of

I only say sort of because we have been together for more than two years. Today is the second anniversary of the day that we were married. I know that many people say that their husband is amazing and that they are deeply in love. For many people it is true, but I also know that some say it because it is the right thing to say. For me, it is true.

Dave gets on my nerves. Some days and some moments I just want to punch him right in the nose. He sleepwalks, talks in his sleep, does really weird stuff in his sleep, he procrastinates, has to be nagged incessantly to get anything done, can be more ditzy than the blondes in jokes, is overly passive, sweats a lot, and does many other things that annoy me. He also loves me, copes with me, is patient with me, is a wonderful father, is a wonderful provider, is kind to everyone he meets, makes me laugh incessantly, gives the best hugs, is loyal, is faithful, is a lot of fun to be around, and has many other qualities that contribute to my loving him so much.

One of the key elements of our relationship is laughter. Dave and I genuinely have a great time together. We can pick on each other and laugh. We can pinch each other and smile. Dave is genuinely the most hopelessly goofy person that I have ever met. Some days I wonder if he even knows where he is. But we have a darn good time.

I am still just as amused by Dave as I was the first time that I ever really talked to him. He has been there for me through so very much and he has put up with so much of my crap that it sometimes amazes me that there is still as much laughter in our relationship as there is.

I don't wish to ramble about my relationship. I present to you:

Our Life in Pictures

Note to Reader: Only ONE of these costume pictures was taken on Halloween. That should give you a picture of what kind of man I married =)

Progress is Progress, However Small it May Be

I have been doing better the last couple of days, although I am still sleeping more than I would like. I have been getting things done around the house and not just sitting on my butt when I am awake. Yesterday I had a friend over for a dinner play date and tomorrow I have another friend coming over to hang out. That always helps so much. I am not tired or feel lonely or anything when I have company.

I still really need to get out of the house more, as opposed to just having people come to me. Maybe next week I will make getting out twice my goal. I think a good goal would be to have people over twice and get out twice but I am not sure if that will work. I think I need to take baby steps and that would actually be quite a lot for me. I actually missed a dentist appointment and a doctor appointment this week. I need to reschedule them and take it seriously. My health is important and I also have a tendency to feel better when I get out and accomplish those things. So I am going to shoot for doing those next week.

Thursday is my 2 year wedding anniversary and I plan on really spoiling Dave on that day. He does so much for me. He deals with everything when I sleep all day. At one point, things were so bad with me that he was cooking, cleaning, doing all the laundry, and all the child care. I just woke up and sat here when he was at work. I plan on letting him sleep in and doing all the cooking on Thursday and on Friday in order to celebrate. Since he has to work Thursday, I am doing it both days so that it will be extra special.

I know that lately I have been better about doing all the cleaning and all of the laundry and I am definitely awake more than I was but he is still picking up a lot of slack as far as my sleeping more than I should. My ultimate goal is to be doing most of the cooking (because he does enjoy cooking) and letting him sleep in every morning. I hope it doesn't take me too long to get there. But we'll see, I think that the steps that I am taking are pretty good.

So, I guess I have a couple of set in stone, long term goals that I should state:
1. Get out of the house twice a week.
2. Wake up first every morning and not make Dave do it.
3. Make it to all Dr. appointments and get health issues resolved.
4. Cook at least 4 times per week.

Here are my goals for today:
1. Clean the bathrooms
2. Workout
3. Read
4. Vacuum
5. Clean Kitchen
6. Dust

I already accomplished three of these goals, so I am halfway there for today. I know that I can get it all done. I just need to keep on truckin'.

A New Week

I won't sugar coat things, I have not had a good couple of weeks. That being said, I am determined to make this one a better week. I am determined to work out every day, keep the house clean, not nap, and generally be more functional than I have lately. I've been really sleeping a lot lately and haven't gotten a whole lot done. There are some things that I really need to take care of, and I intend to get it done.

Thursday is my two year wedding anniversary and we will be celebrating on Friday. We are super broke so we don't have any big plans, but I intend on making it awesome and doing it with a $0 budget. I am planning on a small hike during the day and a bottle of wine and a delicious home cooked meal in the evening. Hopefully my darling husband can will himself to actually stay awake through a movie, considering it's a special occasion.

This week will be all about me getting back to basics. I need to get back on the track that I was on a couple of weeks ago. I don't like being miserable the way that I have been for the last couple of weeks. The whole point of this blog is my journey away from misery, and I know in my heart that I took a few steps back this last couple of weeks. That being said, I am determined to get my butt back in gear.

Here is my rundown of things I need to do today:
1. Thorough cleaning
2. Workout
3. Start Laundry
4. Read (I have a book that is taking me entirely too long to finish)

Here is a rundown of other things I need to get done this week:
1. Dentist
2. Doctor
3. Therapy
4. Stop by school at some point
5. Give Dave a day to sleep in
6. Buy Stamps

I Feel...

...like every time I start taking steps forward, I take 3 steps back in return. It's such a horrible feeling. I just feel like I can't get ahead. I've been sleeping a lot again lately and in turn missing out on a lot and putting a lot of responsibility on Dave. I feel like my headaches play a big part in it and luckily that will be remedied soon. However, I feel like the depression mixed with the headaches makes my problem 1,000 times worse. I just have these days where I can't get myself out of bed. The worst part is at the end of the day, when I hear bath time and bedtime starting, I feel so left out. I know, at that moment, that I have missed out on a whole, wonderful day with my family and it breaks my heart. But it doesn't change things. I still can't get out of bed. I think about it. I try. But I always end up back there. I am hoping that next week, when I up my dosage of antidepressant, I will see some real improvement. The fact is that right now I am having one bad day for every good day that I have.

I just cannot go on like this. I feel like a bad wife, a bad mom, and a bad friend. Not to mention I feel like a bad person. I want to be up and out and happy. I want to be doing things, getting things done and having some fun. But it just isn't happening and it makes me wonder if I will ever get to the point where I am "better." At this point in my life, I would actually be more than happy with "OK." I start school next month and I am terrified that the bad days will start to outweigh the good and I will get bad grades. I just don't even know what to do or where to turn anymore. I feel like things are never going to start looking up.

Yesterday and Today

I didn't get a chance to post yesterday because I managed to keep myself too busy and then to be exhausted from being so busy. I started off the day by going to my doctor appointment at 9 a.m. I really liked the new doctor and found her to be interested and helpful. She started me off on a low dose of Celexa (really low, 5 mg) and had me get blood drawn to check my thyroid. I am set to return in two weeks to see how the meds are working and to get the results of my blood work and discuss my weight issue. I was not too impressed with the facility that she worked in, but I think a good doctor outweighs a bad facility.

I came home and spent the rest of the day doing things around home. I managed to complete all but one thing off of my list for yesterday, which was one thing that I decided yesterday was too early to do. We had a pretty good day yesterday and Dave even got home pretty early last night, which was really nice because he has been really tired.

Today I have to go to the dentist, which I am really looking forward to doing. I have TMJ and have needed to begin the process to treat it for quite some time. The headaches and back and neck aches are almost unbearable. They are a big contributor to my ability to sleep all day long. It's very easy to be lazy when your body hurts. I am hoping the dentist will be able to fit me for a splint to bite on. My mom has one, because she has TMJ too, and it has done her wonders.

Since I didn't post yesterday, here is my to-do list for today:
1. Dentist
2. Vacuum Downstairs
3. Put Away Laundry
4. Play outside

Not very much to do, but it's still important that I get it done.

Last night, I realized something about myself that kind of sucks. I realized that I have a tendency to alienate people. In part, my depression is to blame because I can be extremely moody. I tend to get grumpy and then just kind of be mean. Sometimes it's not even mean, it's bitchy and rude. Other times I get sulky which causes me to act in a way that I don't really intend upon behaving. In all honesty, when I wonder why I don't have a lot of friends I don't really get tremendously sad about it. I am not a super social person and I am actually fine with only having one or two good friends. But it occurred to me that sometimes even the friendships that I consider good ones fail, and I think that a lot of the time my unpredictable and difficult to understand mood swings could be responsible.

Thinking about this made me wonder if I am well suited to be a friend to anyone right now. I am still not sure. I know that I am in a place where I need a lot of support. But I also know that as a friend, I need to be supportive. It's difficult for me to do that at this time because I am so focused on bettering myself and simply getting out of bed in the morning. I need to learn to balance focusing on me and lending support if I want to succeed in establishing meaningful friendships with the women here. I have friends back home, it's here that I am lacking. I just have a tough time getting past my own crap.

I still hold to what I said about having friends that I need to weed out of my life. But that's all back home. People with drama and craziness, some of whom have been my friends forever but we have changed too much and it isn't working. Here, I don't even hardly have any friends. And the ones I do have don't seem to like me very much anymore. They seem to have given up on me, or they don't really understand me, or maybe they just figured out that they never liked me. Either way, I am lonely.

And above all else, I feel like I am failing as a mom for not providing socialization. I cried for over an hour last night at the thought of dragging my family down with me because of my own social problems. It's really hard for me because I just don't do well with people. Even the ones I initially do well with, I blow it and it isn't just me that suffers. Sometimes we all do and it isn't fair. I need to work on being a better friend and an easier person to be around. It's something I am really committed to changing during this process. So everyone, wish me luck.

It Can't All Be Perfect

I am totally bummed out and disheartened right now. I had such a good week last week and now today and yesterday were officially bad days. I didn't write on Friday or Saturday because they were both awesome and fulfilling days.

Friday started out normally enough being that it was Dave's day off. But then we found out that our friends from Colorado, a married couple were about 20 minutes away from our home. We knew that they were up here hiking and doing the outdoor adventure thing, but we never expected them to come so close to our place. We seized the opportunity and invited them to dinner. It was very exciting for us because this was the first time that we were able to have friends from back home in our place. Everyone always says that they will visit, but no one ever does. It was wonderful to cook them dinner and have them see where we live. They stayed and visited with us for a while and it truly was a wonderful beginning to a wonderful weekend.

On Saturday we woke up to some pretty horrible news from our family back home. It was really horrible and it makes it even more difficult that we are so far away and can't really do anything but worry. Shortly after getting that news, we got up and going and drove to Seattle to spend the day sightseeing with our friends from out of town. They are in way better shape and way more athletic than we are so we spent the entire day just walking around and seeing as much of Seattle as we possibly could. It was pretty awesome because we are super broke and we managed to have an awesome day in the city without spending all of our money. We did eat lunch and ride the ferry but that is moderate compared to what we usually spend.

It is unbelievable how much more fun things are when you do them with friends. Dave and I have been to Seattle several times and we have seen a lot of the city. Both of us have enjoyed it very much. But none of those excursions has been as much fun as Saturday. It was just more enjoyable to share it with people that we care about. I wish that our other friends would come and see Seattle and let us show them around. It would be so much fun. But either way, I am very glad that we got to do it at least once.

I don't know what happened yesterday. Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe I was bummed out over the bad news. Maybe I was sad that our friends had to leave. But for some reason, I slept til noon. Then I got up and proceeded to do nothing all day. I didn't clean up, workout, or even shower. I was ready for bed by 7 pm and I didn't accomplish a thing. Then this morning, I slept til noon as well. When I finally woke up, I felt terrible. I just wanted to go back to sleep. I forced myself to get up and take a shower. I then cleaned the kitchen and the bathrooms. I am now sitting here writing this. I still need to dust and vacuum the living room and workout. I need to force myself to do these things. All day yesterday I just felt like I wanted to curl up in bed and die. I can't let myself slip into feeling that way again. I felt that I had come so far last week. I don't want to backtrack. I want to move forward.

So for today, I need to:
1. Dust Livingroom
2. Vacuum Livingroom
3. Workout

It doesn't seem like much but the way I am feeling, I am really going to have to convince myself to get those three little things done. I will do them though. I don't want to lose out on all of the progress that I have made recently. Here is my list for tomorrow:

1. Dr. appt.
2. Workout
3. Clean up living room
4. Clean up bedrooms
5. Get started on laundry
6. Make menu for next 2 weeks