My kid helped the archaeology club dig a hole. She said they were going to then use the hole for a fire pit to cook food. 

We are on our way home from Victoria, Texas where we did inventory of several truck stop/gift shops. I am exhausted. The motel we checked into last night had a booger on the wall of the bath/shower. Kevin said he didn’t see it, but he took a shower and I took a bath. They also didn’t clean out the fridge from the last guest. I wondered if it was the same person that ordered that food that blew snot in the shower. 

I’m ready for my only day off, tomorrow. 

 

Fun Inventory

 Well, not that much fun. Because, on my payday trip to Walmart I purchased Pilates bands for arm workouts. It came with an exercise guide, and three bands- easy, medium and hard. I gave my daughter the hard one, because she does Pilates regularly. However, only 25 morning reps and 25 evening reps with the easy band threw my back out in one single strip down the left of my back. I do so well with leg, core, and aerobic exercises, but arm workouts kill my back. And even though I’m 47, I still don’t have bingo wings- I could work my arms to a good level if I could just get over the pain afterwards. 

The store chain we’re doing inventory at this week is very fun. I don’t let on to Kevin how much I love this chain, because he calls them “Buccees wannabes”. I mean in a way they are. They sell great gift items. I just received about $220 from the Merchandiser app from the toilet paper and paper towels aisles pictures. I plan on walking out today with some Christmas presents for Anna. They had weighted stuffed animals. She has a couple of weighted stuffed animals, but could probably use one more. She uses my weighted blanket for anxiety, as I personally have a love/hate relationship with it. It does help when you’re trying to fall asleep, but then when you wake up out of a deep sleep to turn over, it almost feels like you’re stuck. 

We are working very long days which makes up for the fact that we didn’t work much last week (which is why I had time to do stuff for the merchandiser app).  I’ve completely fallen off the creativity bandwagon for both writing and sewing. Maybe during thanksgiving I can get back on that. 

I feel extremely accomplished for “getting” a therapist to tell me I have PTSD. Not sure why this feels so satisfying. I do wonder what it would say if my mom was somehow involved in the therapy. If I was a minor or a very young adult, and she was the one paying for the sessions, I’m not sure the therapist would give me a diagnosis that is as respected as PTSD. I do have two cousins with BPD, or “borderline personality disorder” which actually sounds insulting to me. I believe that I was spared from a BPD diagnosis in the past 5-10 years or so, because I made it clear that while being with a man was what I preferred, that I could still be happy with myself single. One of my cousins who got a BPD diagnosis years ago pretty much always made sure she was with a man. Recently, she went to another provider who dropped the BPD diagnosis and diagnosed her on the autism spectrum. She has an autistic grandchild now. So it checks out with the genetics. With my current therapist, I also made it abundantly clear that even though I m happily married, I would still be happy single if I suddenly become single again. I think maybe “always needing a partner” contributes to that. I have another cousin who I know has a diagnosis of bipolar, but whenever she’s manic, she’s extremely productive. She’s an artist and fashion designer as well as working a main job, and she’s created entire lines in her manic phases that have sold very well. I also told my therapist that I read Holy Disruptor and how it helped. 

Feeling Like Theo Huxtable

 Well I had therapy this afternoon, and beforehand, I looked on my billing document. I was surprised to see two diagnoses. The first was GAD, or generalized anxiety disorder. That was a given. The next one was chronic PTSD. I had heard before that I had “complex” PTSD, but when I asked for a clarification, she explained that complex PTSD isn’t an official diagnosis in the DSM 5.  I asked, if it becomes an official diagnosis in the DSM 6, will I get the diagnosis?  She said yes, barring any weird wording that only restricts it to a certain age group or . She then said, she doesn’t know what they’ll do with the DSM 6.  I thought to myself (but didn’t say this out loud) that as long as they don’t rewrite autism to make it look like Trump cured it, I’m good. 

Having PTSD in writing for me feels so validating that I feel like Theo Huxtable When he announced to his parents that he had dyslexia and they burst out cheering. Who would have thought that someone whose parents stayed married could still have their traumatic experiences so validated like that?  

Anyway, time for another work busy spurt. 

This is so scary to me

It’s terrifying to me that a woman in her 40’s can be confirmed alive and well by law enforcement, have her missing person case closed by law enforcement, but still have her immediate family members insist she’s a missing person because she doesn’t want anything to do with them. If it was a male romantic partner she was trying to get away from, the world would have her back. Anyone can claim that anyone else has “mental health issues” as a tool to control them. Mental health issues cannot be physically proven or disproven with any sort of bloodwork or imaging. And if any of us has ever been on any antidepressants, we also “have mental health issues.”  Does that mean we have to be forced contact with toxic family members?  This can happen to any of us. If she’s as crazy as her mom claims, then she will be arrested soon anyway and her mom would have nothing to worry about. What a nightmare for Kimberly. 

 

Book cover

These are AI images I had made to incorporate into my book cover. Please keep in mind that I’m not doing an AI generated book cover. I have a couple of friends that are artists that I can pay to take these suggestions and make some sort of dual image. I think AI makes the main character look Navajo. My hair used to actually be that long. I only braided it when I worked at the child crisis center. While testifying in court as a CASA volunteer, I didn’t. I ended up cutting it all off right after 9/11 due to contracting lice from the kids. The only time I ever testified on a stand like that was in my first case, which was in Arizona. Once I moved to Texas, I just stood off to the side with a microphone while different attorneys asked me questions. Hence the Arizona flag in the back. 

In some of the writings groups I’m in, they’re using AI covers, and it’s painfully obvious. 

 

Kid Home for Weekend

Anna drove herself from San Marcos to my house for the weekend. After greeting us and the cats, she crapped out in her room for a long nap. It’s blurry, but here’s Mitchell wondering who’s in that room with the door closed. 

I got an enormous paycheck today with a lot of overtime. I did something I’ve never been able to do, which is make a $500 payment towards student loans. I also sent Anna money on cash app, shopped, and paid the phone bill. And contributed to my retirement account. Whew!!

 

Book Review: Holy Disruptor

 Yesterday and this morning, I have been traveling around making money per location taking pictures of toilet paper and paper towel aisles for the Merchandiser app. It’s my side hustle. Over the last couple of weeks, pay on the merchandiser app has been abysmal. It recently skyrocketed for this particular assignment, (they must be sorry they tried to pay so low) so I went all over rural areas, enjoying the lovely weather and scenery, and quickly submitted pictures of those aisles. 

While driving, I listened to the audiobook version of Holy Disruptor by Amy Duggar King. If you remember the reality show “19 Kids and Counting”, you might remember Amy. She was the first cousin of the 19 siblings. Her mom was Jim Bob Duggar’s only sibling. 

I have also mentioned here before that I was in a live stream of Amy’s not too long ago and mentioned that I want to write a book called The Child Advocate. She picked my comment out of many and raved about how I should, and how much she loved that title. I then not only felt an obligation to buy her book, but I wanted to. 

Amy and I have a lot of similarities. We are both “an only child who only had one child”. And we both grew up with 19 cousins. It’s ironic. My 19 cousins aren’t all siblings, though. They are the children of my dad’s two brothers and my mom’s six much older sisters. My 20th first cousin (not chronologically) was an adoptee born in the 1950’s that we discovered when a handful of us did ancestry DNA tests. However, I grew up knowing 19. 

So many similarities with the numbers, but I could also relate to the complexities of being an only child in an extended family that large and trying to understand the difficulties of abuse and generational trauma. Like Amy, I struggled to witness my cousins endure horrific things that we all had to sweep under the rug, and I witnessed different individuals among the 19 deal with the abuse in so many different ways. I really appreciated witnessing that enigma in someone else. 

Amy did in her book what I seek to do in mine: She told a story and educated at the same time.  I seek to obey the “show don’t tell” rule of writing more than Amy did, but by the time I really got into the story, the amount of telling versus showing no longer mattered.  I didn’t think it was possible to make Jim Bob Duggar look like more of an ass than he already does, but she did.

I also admire that Amy did this despite some of the negativity she gets online. One of my fears about writing The Child Advocate is that I’ll get some negativity.  It’s actually pretty much bound to happen if you are published, in the public eye, and/or have any sort of following.  She handles this with grace.  It’s addressed in the book, and she simply responds with how Jesus was persecuted too!  I’m not “as” Christian as she is, but I can respond this way if I ever get religious critics.  Non religious critics wouldn’t be phased by this response, so I’d have to think of something else for them.  I would give Holy Disruptor 4.875 stars.  I know that’s terribly specific, but the .125 dock comes from the fact that she could have “shown” and not “told” a teeny bit more.  Of course, she had a ghostwriter, so it may be a moot point.

Before the last couple days of toilet paper aisle picture jobs at rural stores, I have been remembering certain memories in which it seems obvious that my mother was trying to bring me down and even set me up to fail.  More on that later, but she knows that Kevin and I have a four day weekend currently from our main job, the inventory service.  I told her at least twice.  So when I told her that I was out doing the side jobs, I said, “The pay went way down lately, but it increased a lot now so I’m out doing them.”  She then proceeded to ask me if I had gotten a pay decrease at my main job, the inventory service, and then a raise.  I said no…. Why would they do that?  My main job is W-2 and paid hourly.  1099 side hustles are different, and she knows the difference.  She then responded, “Oh I thought you must have really screwed up some inventory so they docked your pay.”  She laughed at herself.  I didn’t find it funny and told her I had to go. Have not called her this morning, but she texted me so I know she’s still around.  There have been so many instances over my 47 years that she’s wanted to see me as a failure for her amusement. Speaking of generational curses, now that I am a mother to a young lady, I just can not imagine feeling that way at all. Ever.