Mitchell vs. Thread

I’ve never succeeded at uploading a video on blogger. So I’m trying it on safari instead of chrome to see if that works. 

Yesterday Mitchell knocked the spool of thread off of my sewing machine while I was napping. Kevin came home to him playing with it, and shot this adorable video. 

Alex did this when he was a baby while I was at work and my daughter was at school. It was a much bigger mess back then when he did it!  The thread was wound around furniture legs and everything. Anna was in first grade at the time and helped me cut it all away with her kiddie blunt edge scissors. 

 

Movie

 We watched a movie last night. It was the 2006 movie about Marie Antoinette starring Kirsten Dunst.  

Spoiler alerts aren’t necessary- we all knew she was be-headed. The ending doesn’t show this, however, it only shows her and her husband in a carriage escaping France. 

I know I learned about Marie Antoinette and her husband in school, and their role in the American revolution, but of course I was ADHD as hell and never paid attention. 

Later on, I watched a documentary. The revolutionaries who overthrew their monarchy also kidnapped their little boy in fear that he would grow up and re-establish the monarchy. They imprisoned and abused him, and he died of torture and abuse at age 10.

I doubt they mentioned that part when I was a kid in history class. It’s easy to say, “They never taught us this in school!” when you never paid attention and just got passed through by the system. Nowadays I just “wonder” if it was taught, instead of assuming. I do remember being about ten years old myself, seeing a picture of Marie Antoinette in a textbook and thinking “jeez” when I saw her hair. Kirsten Dunst was perfect for the part. 

My New Avatar

 

I changed my profile picture from my wedding picture (which was taken 6 months ago tomorrow) to the phoenix rising. This is because things are looking up for me. With my 6 month anniversary being tomorrow, I feel like no longer a newlywed. 

Some good things have happened. First of all, I finally figured out Grammarly!  I love it so much that I used it to work a little more on my book. 

Secondly, I found an app that REALLLLYYYY helps one know what to eat/not eat with NAFLD or non alcoholic fatty liver disease. My gastroenterologist called my case “promising” and said my stage was “zero” then corrected himself to say “Well, between zero and one.”  Obviously, a total stage zero would mean I don’t have the condition at all. Stage four would be cirrhosis.  I believe that I can change my diet and reverse this. The app I found is called “Food as Med for fatty liver”, cost $3.99, and looks like this:

There were some surprises for sure!  I went to the store and stocked up on the most “helpful” foods and some “ok/neutral” ones. 

I left the facebook group called “quit sugar”. The information was all over the place with that group, and it was full of people who “can’t” for whatever reason. I stepped on the scale last week and had gained four pounds. I attributed it to that group so I just left. The last time I stuck religiously to an eating plan specifically for NAFLD, I dropped weight quickly and then plateaued once I was not so strict anymore. 

Yesterday afternoon, I also went to the gynecologist because I have some things that I am not so sure are related to perimenopause.  There’s not only a lot of misinformation about sugar on the internet, there’s a lot of misinformation about perimenopause as well. I just wanted to get it sorted out. My gynecologist is a man, and he’s a very good doctor- probably because no one wants to see a male gynecologist, so he tries harder. When he walked into the room, I realized he’s extremely tall. I didn’t notice that about him last time which was April. He decided to give me a progesterone patch to help with menopausal symptoms. Honestly it sounds just like birth control, and I wonder if I’m just being made to go on birth control because I don’t really use any due to my and my husband’s ages. My weight at the doctor yesterday was 190.1. That was so frustrating!  Of course I was dressed, but if I wasn’t, then I would have been below 190. He also scheduled me for a mammogram on 10/2. 

With fall approaching, it will be easier to go for walks in the park with my husband who goes daily. I literally can’t go in the summer. My step counts daily are between 2000-6000.  Hopefully if we get a cool front that sticks, I can get to 10,000. Maybe on January1, 2027, I will weigh 145 🫶🏼

Tiring Sunday

Today I went to San Marcos to spend some time with Anna. I started the day extremely early in the morning so I could do side jobs in San Antonio. I left at 3:00 am just so I could get to San Antonio as stores were opening at 6:00. As I walked into the first store (the jobs I worked on were to capture pictures of HBC endcap), there was an Asian woman following me in the dark parking lot. She  stayed about 5-6 feet behind me. She had her phone out but didn’t have earbuds and was listening to something that was very obviously from North Korea (the communist part). A couple years ago, I got hooked on YouTube documentaries about North Korea, and I learned that when they talk, they speak extremely dramatically and fake. South Koreans speak the same language but have a wider vocabulary and a normal tone. This definitely sounded like something from North Korea. I actively tried to avoid her twice, both times giving her dirty looks. She kept following me. Finally I went into the family restroom, and when I came out she was gone. I didn’t see her in the store anymore. This was in San Antonio, so it was weird. I don’t understand Korean, but the way North Koreans talk made an impression on me that I never forgot, and this was definitely it. 

I did five side jobs before Anna texted me to pick her up and by that point I was only 30 minutes from Texas state. We went to lunch, and I took her shopping and on other errands. She really likes it there but is homesick!  I miss having a little kid, but I’m proud of who she’s become. One thing that’s getting to her is that she wants to work. I got paid yesterday and sent her some more money on PayPal. I brought my own student loan balance to $16,100. Plus I shopped, paid the phone and car insurance, and I have to get my registration sticker. 

Vivid Dream

 I have been having vivid dreams lately. The one last night felt like a premonition of sorts. In the dream, my husband Kevin was deceased and so was my cat Alex. I was living in this house by myself with his cat Mitchell, who at this point is a very old cat. Then in the dream, my daughter who is now 18 years old, walks in the door holding large boxes. She is in her 30’s in the dream and I think that the boxes mean she’s moving in with me. She puts one on the table and says, “Look, Mom, I got all of these from your garden. Look how prolific it is this year!”  She started pulling out every kind of vegetable there is. I don’t know whether to be happy about my garden or disappointed that she’s not moving in. Then she tries to pick up Mitchell, but he hisses at her. She starts crying and telling me that I need to euthanize Mitchell and I get really upset saying he’s all I have left of Kevin. Anna said, “That’s not true, you have this house.”  So I agreed through tears and we both put Mitchell in the carrier for his final ride to the vet. 

I woke up with a sore throat and phlegm. I must have been sleeping with my mouth open. Kevin wasn’t in the bed and he wasn’t at the table. He was asleep in Anna’s room (she lives in the dorms at Texas state). I woke him up and he said I was sprawled diagonally across the bed so he couldn’t get in it. I wonder why I slept so rough last night. 

Wreaths

I made this fall wreath yesterday. Absolutely no thought went into it beforehand. I do not sit out and plan wreaths. I just sit at the table with all the stuff spread out and as I’m making it, I decide what will go on next. This is because I’m not trying to be professional with it right now. I’m only trying to make one for each season for my own home. With this one, I feel like I might could trim the leaves, but nah.  It’s fine. It looks good in the wreath spot next to the door. 

This is the one I had up all summer. I was going to stick small white daisies in between the sunflowers, and maybe some more leaves, but then I decided I liked it with just the sunflowers. I have enough sunflowers to do another one with sunflowers, white daisies, and leaves. 

If anyone has ideas or expertise, lemme know in the comments. 

 

My fruitful Saturday

I have been out and about today doing a lot of things. First, I did some side jobs (retail audit apps that pay by location) at HEB. I browsed the Halloween section and saw these basic wreaths for $39!

These look pretty easy and inexpensive to make. Seeing these kind of lights a fire under my ass to start making more wreaths. I could make good money selling them. 

Then I went to another store where the pharmacy had a prescription ready for me. They asked me if I wanted a flu shot, and I agreed. I didn’t get it last year, and I got sick twice. There was a sign advertising shingles shots. I asked the pharmacist how old you have to be to get it. She said 50. It used to be 60. I explained to her that I’ve been trying to get the shot earlier in life ever since my dad passed. I explained that he had shingles in the eyes that became meningitis, and he died from that. I then said that I am turning 50 in three years. She looked a little dismayed at my dad’s story and said, “I think that’s a good enough reason!”  So she ran my insurance.  They covered a shingles shot for me, so I got it!!

 I do have to go back for a second round in 2-6 months. But this is a huge relief!  I had a lot of older cousins who went and got it after my dad passed. In 2020, the age to get it was 60, and now it’s 50. I’m not sure why it changed. 

I also bought this frame and put all of Anna’s graduation and senior moment pics in it. The bottom center will be her dorm picture. I ordered it from the FreePrints app, but it hasn’t arrived yet. 

Then I went to Costco and got a membership!!  I’ve been meaning to do this for a long time since my side job apps have a lot of jobs at Costco locations. You need a membership to get in. So I got one for $65. I went to three Costco locations today and made a total of $38 there. So a little over half compensated for the membership already. 

Then I got a 24 pack of white monster (Kevin’s favorite) for $30.99 and a 24 pack of sugar free Red Bull for $38.99. My total going out was $75.75, which is about $1.50 per can. What a steal!  Something I didn’t buy that I want to come back for was that they have $100 restaurant gift cards for $80. I heard they sometimes have subway, but they didn’t today. We eat a lot at subway, so I would definitely get those. None of the restaurants they offered gift cards to seemed appealing, and we have a lot of food at home. 

I spoke to Anna, and she’s doing well!  Her roommate is cool, and she seems to have a lot of new friends already. It was a great day and now I’m heading home

Short Week

 It was a short week, and we are off tomorrow. The next two weeks of work will be easier than this one. Tomorrow is payday, and I still had enough money in my account to do three things I was going to do with tomorrow’s check: I sent my daughter some money on PayPal, brought my student loan balance to $16,333.33, and did a quick Walmart run. I got a case of bottled water, scissors, a prescription, and a new toothbrush. I don’t have to pay car insurance until September 30th, but I just might pay the whole policy off through December tomorrow, since my check will be relatively nice. The phone bill hasn't cycled yet. I’m a little ahead on the health premium. I’ll put some in my retirement account and some in the 100 envelope challenge.

We plan to go together to my mom’s house tomorrow to mow her lawn and do other chores.  She’s a lot better now.  I have also decided on a haircut.  Kevin and I are going together before we go to my mom’s house.  After that I kind of want to go on my own and do my own thing such as errands and side jobs on the apps.  I need to get back into sewing again, too.  I’m just so glad it’s the weekend. 

“2000’s Themed”

 Anna texted me this morning and said she went to a “2000’s themed party.” I kind of scoffed. They’re acting like the 2000’s were so long ago. What did she wear to the 2000’s themed party?  Just her regular clothing? Because in my mind, it’s still the 2000’s now. 

Total Exhaustion

This week wasn’t hard or terrible at work. We worked Monday through Friday, and it was local every day except for Tuesday when we did a day trip to Rockport. Tuesday was about a 12 hour day, but all the other days this week were 4-6 hours. So no overtime this week, but I did get some last week. The stores we did locally this week are easy except that we have to use their scanners, and those scanners tend to get sticky keys. So I have to review constantly and make sure something doesn’t say 88 when I meant 8, and so on. I would say this takes a lot of mental energy, but for fuck sake I used to work with children and the elderly for far less pay. I really shouldn’t be complaining. There aren’t constant moral dilemmas in inventory. That’s why I like it. 

But I’m all around exhausted. Between checking on my mom, worrying about my daughter, and discovering some unsettling information about a cousin of mine that I wrote about in the post below, I fell asleep as soon as I got home and just now woke up. And it’s 10:00 pm!

I’m also “kind of” happy to announce that I restarted therapy, and have two sessions already with a therapist that seems really easygoing. I had a really hellish time trying to find someone. They make you do “free 15 minute consultations” that feel like job interviews, and the first handful of them that I had were massive setbacks for me. You can’t really explain everything in 15 minutes, and what these therapists were doing were nitpicking little things and using them to say I wouldn’t be a good fit, or they would use the terminology “not their specialty”. And the few things they all nitpicked were not related to each other at all, so it wasn’t like I could learn what not to say to the next one. With this therapist, I just inquired over email and was pretty distant at first and pretty straightforward but vague. She still insisted on having a free 15 minute consultation. It might be a requirement now. But with her, the 15 minute consultation was very quick and she called it a “formality”. In the last two sessions, I just started at the beginning of my life and gave her an autobiography. I highly recommend doing it that way for about 3-5 sessions or so, because if you just start talking about what you’re going through now then they’re going to kvetch that they don’t know your history. 

Therapy is going about 90% good, but it’s still draining. I’m tired. 

My daughter is having a blast in San Marcos. The first couple days, she was texting back immediately, and I was worried that it meant she was homesick. But she seems to have gotten over that hump and is now calling or texting just once in the evening on a daily basis. I’m in a facebook group called “Parents of the class of 2025” and omg are some of those people (and their kids) unhinged. Some kids are calling their parents wanting to go home already, some aren’t calling at all and the mothers are like “They don’t need me anymore! 😭 “ 

Makes me grateful for my once daily contact. Nice healthy balance. 

My mom is doing better. I went over there once this week to do her trash and some shopping for her. With my daughter coming of age, I’m getting a very good eye opening on how much she really set me up for failure in life. It’s not just that she didn’t prepare me for success. It’s like she actively raised me to purposefully fail. That’s how it feels to me now as the mother of a young adult. All the warnings about “just wait till you have kids and then you’ll understand” have 100% backfired. I understand too much. It makes me only want to do the bare minimum for my mother. I can’t wait until she goes back to church and starts up with her own thing again. 

I think I just want to be in bed all weekend. I needed that insanely long nap. 

Cousin I Haven’t Heard Fron

 I have a cousin who turns 55 in October, and my mom and I were talking recently and mentioned we have not heard from her. This was a couple weeks ago. My mom called me to tell me that she asked around about how this cousin was, and one piece of shocking news was that her husband died in August of 2023. The even more shocking news was that this cousin of mine, who is now widowed, is living in a group home. 

I couldn’t even believe what I was hearing. Nothing is wrong with her that she needs to live in a group home. She is both a talented artist and a smart businesswoman, and has had a lot of successful endeavors in her life. Many of those endeavors have been charitable.  So when I heard “group home”, my first thought was that she opened it and was running it herself. But no, it was clarified. She isn’t running a group home, she lives in one. 

She’s originally from east St. Louis, Illinois but the group home is in the Texas panhandle near Amarillo. She has a sister that lives elsewhere in north Texas, and this sister of hers is absolutely a terrible person. Their parents are deceased and neither one of them ever had children. My mom said “Well she just went nuts after her husband died, and apparently can’t take care of herself.”  

My mom sounded flippant when she told me. I am still extremely uneasy about this. She’s always been able to take care of herself. To me it sounds like she did have a pretty strong grief reaction when he died two years ago, and her terrible sister used it to manipulate her into this situation. It also sounds like maybe her sister wanted access to her money. Her sister would absolutely, 100% pull some garbage like that  

I didn’t tell my mom my suspicions. Of course it is possible that she really did lose her mind. But grieving your spouse is actually number one on the adverse experiences list. I have a strong feeling she should have gotten way more support than she did. I would really like to find out where she is so that I can go visit her myself. When we were kids, she babysat for me a lot. She was a fun person to be around. The thought of being manipulated into losing your basic freedoms is terrifying. I really hope I can go see her someday, but I’m not sure if it would be a HIPAA Violation for someone to let me know where exactly this place is. 

College and Dorm Thoughts

 I had a revelation when I went to San Marcos to see my daughter in her dorm. It was that dorm life is designed to actually prepare young people to be on their own. That’s the point of it. It serves a purpose. 

When I graduated from high school in 1996, I was not able to go to a university that offered dorm life, because I was a straight C student. At age 43, I was finally diagnosed with ADHD. But if anyone had told me or my parents back then that I had it, that would be extremely controversial. I’ve often shared here that my upbringing felt like an absolute war zone. My parents didn’t have any conflict resolution skills besides yelling and screaming. Periodically throughout my K-12 years, I know my teachers suggested many ways for my parents to help me, but my parents got extremely angry at them and me each time. In first grade, they wanted me to repeat. In fourth grade, my seemingly 100 year old teacher called my parents to suggest some sort of evaluation for learning disabilities, and my dad yelled at her on the phone. I was absolutely mortified. In 7th grade and my senior year of high school, teachers approached my parents about sending me to counseling and it only made things worse for me at home. There were three years that I know of (5th, 7th and 10th grades) that summer school was suggested, and again, it only got me in deep trouble at home with Armageddon yelling and screaming.  

I remember always wanting to learn, always wanting to do better, and always trying as hard as I could. I have several memories of looking ahead to future chapters in my textbooks and thinking that the topics were so interesting and I couldn’t wait to get there. Then we’d get there, and I’d lose train of thought almost immediately. Sometimes I get frustrated, because I find myself thinking, “They should teach this in school!”  Then catch myself and realize that there is a good chance they did, and I was just ADD as hell and missed it. 

So by the time my graduation rolled around in 1996, going to any university where I had a chance at living in a dorm was dead. I was told to enroll at a community college and maybe I could transfer to a university in my third year. I went to the local community college in August of 1996 and took their placement tests. I scored great in reading and writing, but my math and science were at a 7th or 8th grade level. It was as if I had never been to a high school math or science class. I had to take two years of remedial math at the community college. I remember one of them being a night class with 30-40 year old homeless people attending. 

I can sit here and wonder what happened all I want, but chances are what happened was that the schools didn’t want to and probably couldn’t deal with my parents. In the 80’s and 90’s, you were also really only considered a “troubled kid” deserving of intervention if your parents were divorced. If you came from parents who stayed married and were not “poor” then any problems you had were your own fault. I know this because after the counseling attempt when I was 17 and my high school teachers tried to intervene, my mom did pay for me to go to counseling a couple times. This counselor just sat there and told me how good I had it compared to kids in the inner city with one parent, and how I better shape up. (Thanks, I’m cured.) 

Everyone knows that the no child left behind act was passed in 2000, and to this day I’m still not entirely sure what that law did, what it prevented, what the purpose was, and why all the teachers are mad about it. I cannot find any simple explanation, so if anyone has one please lmk in the comments. Sometimes when I try to make sense of what happened to me and what allowed me to fall through the cracks so badly, NCLB lingo gets thrown around- and it didn’t exist when I was in school. 

Thinking back on the last 18 years with my daughter, I know I wasn’t a perfect mom but I did do about a hundred times better than my own parents. I never made fun of my daughter to her face, she never witnessed rage full yelling unless it was coming from her grandparents, if she struggled with anything, I helped, and she was allowed to do things I could have never dreamed of. She was allowed therapy, tutoring once, summer school once, and even got an evaluation that granted her some 504 plan accommodations in her sophomore year. 

Another thing that seemed to happen a lot in 1996 with me was that my parents, aunts and uncles, older cousins etc, would shame me for wanting to be on my own. I was guilted for it like crazy. I was also guilted for wanting to go to college, ironically. They successfully managed to demean me for wanting to go while simultaneously inventing future scenarios in which I would be nobody in life if I didn’t go. If I said anything out loud about someday any prospects of my own apartments or perhaps moving in with roommates, you’d think I was asking them to kill puppies. 

One time, my aunt started getting on my case about wishing I could go to a university and live in a dorm. She said, “What do you think you’re going to do when the dorms close for Christmas and summertime, huh?!?!?”  I quietly assumed that meant I would go back home to my parents. (It did mean that).  But my aunt was so extremely pissed that I just told her I didn’t know what I was goi g to do. “Yeah that’s right!  You don’t know!  You’d have to come back to mom and dad!”  

29 years later now, and I’m like wow. lol, I got yelled at for that. And the truth is yeah, that’s the point. I’m realizing now that dorm life is actually designed to teach young people age 18-20 how to live on their own. Going home for the holidays is a part of that teaching you, because in an ideal world, you still want to come home sometimes for the first couple of years. You actually don’t want to just leave and abandon your parents and never come back again. 

Needless to say, I am so happy for Anna and so proud of her. Despite the handful of setbacks above that I mentioned, she did receive a scholarship based on testing scores, and her father actually put the rest of the money in her account. (She told me he did that for this semester, but the scholarship is applied over 8 semesters).  I am super happy about that too, because some people (not my ex tho!) have actually forced their kids to take out loans.  That’s a discussion for another day. “Things we talk about on Reddit: 18-22 year olds tend to not question their parents when the parents say sign here.” 

This is all why it’s bitter sweet. I’m happy she’s getting the start in life that she deserves. And I’m sad that I didn’t. The good news for me now though, is that I’ve found my way to a wonderful place in life. 

90 Years Old

The youngest of my aunts on my mom’s side turned 90 today. Aunt Gloria was born August of 1935. This is a picture of her at age 11 with my mother at age 1. Yes that looks just like the baby pictures of my daughter!  

My mother complains about Gloria constantly, and the stuff she complains about is literally stuff she also does. I got on her about calling her for her birthday. My aunt didn’t even realize it was her 90th birthday. 

Speaking of my mother, she has made me power of attorney, but will not tell me any of her personal business!  That’s fun!  There’s a home health agency calling me to find out who her primary care physician is. I have no idea!  They wanted other basic information that I don’t know. I had to explain to my mom that I can’t be power of attorney if you won’t tell me any of your business. She proceeded to call the home health agency and actually chew them out saying, “Don’t call my daughter!  Call me!”  She even called them “you people”. I was mortified. I told her, it was unnecessary to chew them out like that because she gave them my number and made me power of attorney. She did that herself. She told me, “I only wanted them to call you if I die!”  I said, “That’s not what happened.”  She must have signed a bunch of papers and listed my information on all of them. 

I’m frustrated and came back home. I loaded her fridge with water bottles and folded and put away all her laundry. I made sure I got a nice bath at her house for all of my pain and suffering, because my house with Kevin only has a shower stall. She is walking way better. I just want to be here, in Hempstead with Kevin and my cats. 

I’m having a lot of bittersweet feelings about my kid being away at college. Don’t get me wrong, I am so happy and proud of her. She’s in contact with me a lot more than usual. If I text her, she responds immediately. Usually it takes her an hour or two to respond. I hope this isn’t because she’s sad and homesick. I want her there, I just miss her too. More on that later. 

Back to work tomorrow. It’s all local this week except for Tuesday, we go to Rockport- which is on the way to Corpus but not quite. 
 

Dorm Life

Anna is all moved into her dorm room at Texas State University. This picture was taken before her roommate arrived (you can see her roommate’s empty bed on the other side of the room).  

 Her roommate showed up later to move in. I drove out there yesterday to spend time with her there. I stopped at Walmart in Sealy and got some of her favorite snacks, a container of Clorox wipes, and a large gift bag to throw it all in. My last stop was at a truck stop in Schulenberg, Texas called The Texan. We do inventory every now and then at The Texan. They have a lot of cool jewelry, which I always have to scan when we go there. One entire fixture is of these bracelets, which are made from plastics cleaned out of oceans. Proceeds from the bracelets help oceanic wildlife. I picked Anna’s favorite color and put it in the gift bag with all the snacks and Clorox wipes. 

Finally, I got to San Marcos, and Anna wanted to try an Italian place. After our meal, I drove her around San Marcos to see what was around. She doesn’t have her car with her. Her father wanted to work on it.  Luckily, San Marcos is a very walkable city. Besides, the streets there are so insane that it’s actually better to walk. Think Lombard Street in San Francisco. I haven’t been there in 35 years, but San Marcos is almost on that level of insanity. I then gave her $50 in cash as she got out of my car to go back into the dorm. I didn’t go in, mostly because there was no legal parking. 

When I got back to my mom’s house, Anna texted me and said she and her roommate went to HEB with my gift card. I asked what they got, and she said, “ Tomatoes, apples, lettuce, bread, mustard, cheese, lunch meat, a cutting board, whipped cream, Arizona tea.” 

Hospital Stay

 Kevin and I just got home from Corpus Christi. We did ten stores’ inventories in five days, and I got some overtime. 

Every morning, my mother texts me “Kalimera” which is Greek for good morning. On Tuesday, I didn’t receive a Kalimera message. She has also been having phone problems. She “accidentally blocked” me on both her cell phone and house phone. I can text her but not call her. She claims to not be able to call me, but occasionally she does. I don’t understand. I tried telling my daughter I would pay her to go look at my mother’s phone, but my daughter was like “Nah”. 

So Tuesday evening, I contacted some of her church friends and one of them called her and then texted me back that she was in the hospital with a hematoma on her butt cheek. She was admitted from the ER. 

I talked to her the following day, and asked if she fell.  She insisted she didn’t. She sounded good- maybe just a little stoned.  As the days went on, she insisted and insisted that she didn’t fall, because every doctor and nurse was asking her as well. Then they said that if this happened without a fall, then it suggested a possible blood disease. Then my mom said, “Actually I may have fallen”. 🤦🏻‍♀️ 

She got discharged yesterday afternoon just as I got home from Corpus Christi. I then packed an overnight bag and headed to her house, but by then it was rush hour and I got stuck in some pretty bad traffic. We didn’t get back to her house until about 8:00 pm. I spent the night, and while I slept well, I would rather not be here. It’s stressful talking to my mom, because I have to be super upbeat and cheery. If I veer from that persona while conversing, she gets mad and tells me to cheer up. This morning I woke up and she wanted me to go to the Dunkin’s drive up for a cake donut and a medium coffee. I did that and filled my tank. Now I’m doing a little bit of her laundry and mine, but Kevin is doing all the laundry from the trip back at home. 

I still plan on heading out to San Marcos today to visit my daughter after her first night in the dorm at Texas State. Her dad and stepmom moved her in yesterday. I have two gift cards for her- one to Walmart and one to HEB. My mother also has an HEB gift card for her. These should last her a while, especially since she’s on a two meal plan at the university. I’m also going to a truck stop on the way out there and get all her favorite snacks and drinks. I’m so proud of her. 

Quit Sugar Group

 I recently joined a facebook group called “Quit Sugar”. A few weeks/couple months ago when I realized how well I’ve done with weight loss, I started to eat crappy foods a little bit again. But now I’m back on the bandwagon. I have been ever since we got to Corpus Christi on Monday. I joined this group, but I have not posted or commented. I’m just reading. 

There was a post about the sugar found in fruit and the carbs in whole grains. Basically, the post claimed that it’s harder/not as possible as you may think to give up sugar because it’s in fruit and even whole grains will “become sugar” once they enter your blood. 

A woman commented ready to throw hands. She insisted that this post was wrong. More people commented, and an all out debate ensued. It was basically 50/50. Half of the people claimed that the sugar found in sweets and soda was the poison and that fruit and whole wheat was fine. Half of them believed the original post. 

I was always raised to believe that it didn’t matter what you did, everything was unhealthy. So you might as well eat as much crap as you want. My dad was diabetic, and I was still taught this. My dad lived to 77 years old, and it wasn’t even diabetes that took him out- he had shingles in the eyes that became meningitis, and that is what killed him. But it wasn’t just my parents and extended family that had these attitudes about food, I learned them in school as well. It’s also the case that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve had to massively deconstruct many things I was raised to believe- not just about religion, but about education, jobs and career, self perception, relationships, food, politics, and the larger world around me. I believe that people hyped the idea that fruit/whole grains are just as bad as the sugar found in cookies and candy because they either want to sabotage the health of the people they are teaching or because they don’t know how to stop self sabotaging. Or both. 

I believe that the lady in the comments ready to throw hands was right. Those things are healthy and not “the same” as candy once they hit your blood. I remember talking about the smoothies I make at home with someone who is very overweight. I make the smoothies with frozen or fresh bananas, wild blueberries, Greek yogurt, almond butter, and the milk I use is either skim milk from cow or some non dairy milk like almond or oat milk. Sometimes I have frozen raspberries and other things in there too.  The person said that there was so much sugar in what I was putting in there that I might as well get a pint of blue bell. They were wrong. I’ve been enjoying these smoothies for over a year in lieu of ice cream, and have lost some 30 pounds. This just goes to show that that attitude is very pervasive out there. 

In this facebook group, they’re trying to calm the debate by saying everyone’s quitting sugar journey is their own. And if someone wants to make cookies by using maple syrup instead of sugar in order to avoid sugar, then that’s their journey. People were encouraged to test their own glucose levels with a monitor. I was thinking of doing the same. I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes two years ago, when my A1C was about 6 point something. Last time I had bloodwork, it came down to 5.8, which is the lowest decimal point to be considered prediabetes. So I lowered it, but still pre diabetic, “Technically”. I have never pricked my own finger to test my glucose levels, but I might start. The first step would be, after I’ve quit sugar successfully for a while, to pay the pharmacy to check my A1C again. The only problem with that is the level of anxiety right before the prick. It’s the only way to see “what’s true for me” as opposed to just believing people when they say my smoothies are the same as a pint of bluebell. 

Wolf Sanctuary Day 🐺🫶🏼

Kevin, Anna, and I really enjoyed taking a tour of the St. Francis wolf sanctuary in Navasota, Texas. This was our last outing before Anna leaves for Texas State University. She just left on a road trip with her friends, and Kevin and I just left for a work trip to Corpus Christi. Her dad and stepmom are moving her in this Friday, and I’m driving out there this Saturday. 

Anna’s major is going to be wildlife biology, and ever since she started showing interest in that, I’ve had my eye on animal sanctuaries that offer cheap educational tours. About a year ago, I took her to Texas Gaushala here in Waller that allows you to cuddle with Brahman cows. In February of 2023, I took her to an alligator sanctuary in Beaumont. But this was the one I personally looked forward to the most.  I’m not the biggest fan of gators, wasn’t interested in cuddling cows, but I do like wolves. 

This tour started with some basic education about wolves and wolf dogs. There were 11 animals in residence at this sanctuary, and all of them came from people who ended up with them as pets and could no longer care for them. Now, I always have said that I feel like I’m Scientifically illiterate. However, even I know that there’s a difference between a wolf and a dog, and that you shouldn’t have a pet wolf. 

We shopping the gift shop before the tour, and got a few things including a Christmas ornament and a t shirt. 

Anna was in her element. The tour guide (pictured here) briefly described some phenotype differences between wolves and wolf dogs, and as we passed by each resident he had us answer if we thought which it was. Anna got it right every time. When she was about 9-10 years old, she went through a phase where she drew her own fantasy wolf and dog characters, and she even made elaborate family trees for them. I still have some of her drawings, and it wasn’t surprising that she could get it right with just having been briefed on the differences. 

Someone asked our tour guide if he was a volunteer or paid. He said he was retired from the oil and gas industry, and was going to be paid staff, but it wouldn’t have worked out with how many hours they wanted and his retirement income. So he’s a volunteer. As we walked out, Anna proudly exclaimed that she’s going to do something like that someday. I told her, “I know you are, that’s why I brought you here.”  I have more to expand on that, but I will later. For now here’s some pictures. 

 

Old Memories and Fixed Car 🔋 🦙 🚗

 

I spent yesterday with debilitating anxiety and took three gabapentins. It caused me to have a nice mid afternoon nap, but then I couldn’t sleep at night. When the clock hit midnight, I realized it was what would have been my first boyfriend’s 47th birthday and also the six month anniversary of his death. It made me think of this day back in 1997.  My father was worried that I was 18 years old and dating someone who was in his mind not 18 yet. He thought I would “go to prison”, but actually, I was 19. (And Matt was turning 19, not 18). I remember feeling a little disappointed that my dad didn’t know how old I was. Now that I look back on it, I’m even more disappointed that he thought you could actually go to prison for dating someone who was younger than you by three weeks. I can understand missing your own kid’s age by a year!  The other thing should have been common sense. 

I got my car back. It runs amazing!  I love it!  The mechanic seemed like he was impressed with my car. He actually seemed like he wanted a hybrid himself, but was more of a pick up truck kind of guy. He reminded me a little bit of a real live version of the animated main character on King of the Hill. He said his Toyota truck has 375K miles on it. 

I’m kind of hoping that Kevin will decide to take my car to Corpus Christi on Monday. His runs great, but with the new battery on mine, it basically runs like new. He said it’s possible, but he’s driving so it’s ultimately up to him. 

My daughter is on her way here now in her little Prelude- tomorrow we are going to the wolf sanctuary in Navasota. Then she’s doing a road trip to Brenham with her friends as a last outing before school starts. They’re going to visit an alpaca farm and the blue bell ice cream factory. When she moves into the dorms next weekend, I’m going out there the day after. 

That’s Ironic!

 I’m a huge fan of the old Unsolved Mysteries from the 90’s, with Robert Stack. I was recently reminded of this segment that I very vaguely remembered. A woman who weighed about 300 pounds was hired as a bookkeeper for a department store and ran off with thousands of dollars. It also turns out she was assuming a stolen identity. The segment was brought up because of all of the extreme shade thrown.  The point was how ruthless they were in the 80’s and 90’s just talking shit. 

I did some research on if she was ever caught or not. It turns out she was. Her real name was Doramae Peterman, and she passed away at age 74 in 2019. 

BUT, five years before her passing in 2014, and before she was found out, she was featured in this article which talks about fraud in home caregiving companies, one of which she was a client of.

“Doramae Peterman, a former Diversity client, said she’s not surprised that the agency ran afoul of the state. “Hardly anyone there knew what was going on,” she said.”

How ironic!!!!  I posted this in my favorite true crime facebook group, as they are mostly all fans of Robert Stack’s Unsolved Mysteries in there, but no comments yet. And yes that really is her. The same woman that did the department store heist in 1986 is the same woman pictured and quoted in that article. 

The One Day Week

 We had a four day weekend. Then we worked today. Now we have another four day weekend. Then Monday, we work all next week in Corpus Christi. The following Saturday will be my daughter’s first day in the dorms and I’m going to San Marcos to bring her dorm warming presents. 

The store we worked at today was in Fairfield, Texas. It wasn’t a gift shop, but it had gifts. They had little stones with encouraging words on them and I got one for my daughter’s dorm room that says “Joy”. It’s because Joy is her middle name. 

I’m not sure why I was so tired and drained today. It was literally a one day week. But we got overtime last week, the week before, and will probably get it next week. 

When we got home, I had a package delivered.  It was a gallon of 99% alcohol isopropyl that I ordered on amazon the day I got my big paycheck. During the pandemic, my ex boyfriend used to give me those gallons for free. I attribute not getting Covid to spraying that around everything including my hands. My hands didn’t even get dry.  That is, I didn’t get Covid until I started collecting cans in 2022. Going from store to store to store to store in nine states during the height of lockdown didn’t give me Covid but collecting cans did. 

Here’s Alex welcoming us home from our one day week. 

Alex and Mitchell also wish all the kids happy back to school. 

Thoughts on Life

 I have been a little fascinated with This story. This couple just had a baby that was a frozen embryo that had been frozen over 30 years. Births resulting from frozen embryos fascinate me. I always think that the person will spend their life thinking that they “should have been” X amount of years older than they are. I followed a mommy blogger who had a baby that was an embryo frozen for 7 years. When he was born, I thought this exact thing. I said to myself, when he’s in 5th grade, he’s going to think he should be graduating from high school, and so on with every other age. 

30 years is like wow. It brings new meaning to the saying, “I was born in the wrong generation.”  The embryo was frozen in November of 1994.  If it had been done in the natural way, 9 months after November of 1994 would have been August of 1995. So he should be celebrating his 30th birthday this month, but he’s a newborn.  

It’s almost like Limbo on Earth.  What if they get to the end of life, say about 90 years old, and think, “I would be 120 now so I wouldn’t even be here right this moment if I hadn’t been frozen.”  It’s daunting.  

However, if I could. I really would “adopt” one.  I regret not having more kids.  I don’t think my husband is fertile.  But I’m too old to be pregnant.  I know some women have done it successfully, but I’m not sure I could handle it at this age.  Ten years of panic attacks did a lot of damage to my body, and I don’t think I could carry a baby to term.  It would be amazing though, to have another child.  I would retire the same year they graduate from high school.  And my husband would be nearly 80.

When I was in high school, I had a classmate whose father was 80.  We were in our junior year, and he was 80 years old and having a lot of health problems and most likely put on hospice.  Her father was a Mormon polygamist and had five wives and 25 children. My classmate was the youngest of 25 children.  I remember his health problems as a result of aging were really stressing her out.  No one knew what to tell her though, because no one else at the age of 16 had 80 year old parents.  She had two half sisters that were older than her mom.  I remember asking her how many nieces and nephews she had total, but she didn’t know.  She knew how many she had from her mom’s kids, but not the others- except she did know that one of the half sisters older than her mom had 15 kids.  Stories like that fascinate me.  Her father must have spent considerable time with her despite having so much responsibility.  I know he must have had a decent relationship with her because of how distressed she was with his normal aging process.  I wouldn’t want a kid to go through that.  My mom is 80 now- it wouldn’t be good for a teenager to deal with that.  

I am still panged with regret over not having more kids.  My one daughter is amazing, and I know if she had younger siblings from my side, they’d be just as awesome.  But, I have to accept that it happened for a reason.  Depression runs in my family. Perhaps my hypothetical second or third children would have struggled their whole lives more than I could imagine.  I don’t know.  I did know a woman once whose son took his own life. She said if someone had told her he would struggle so much, she would have had an abortion.  That’s not a nice story, but it really happened  The Bible says this in Ecclesiastes:

"So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.And I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive.But better than both is the one who has never been born, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun" 

It’s worth considering. I like to imagine that if I had more kids, they’d all be as happy and amazing as Anna, but that also may not have been the case and the universe or God knew what they were doing. 

What do you think about frozen embryos?  Is that ethical?  Do they have souls?  If they grow up, will they ponder what age they would have been?  Do you know any children who were frozen embryos? Would you adopt one if you could handle a pregnancy?  

The time has come! (Refurbished hybrid battery)

I’ve been anticipating replacing my hybrid battery for the last 60K miles.  Well finally the time has come. Yesterday when I was driving down highway 290, the “check hybrid system” warning started flashing on my dashboard and several other dashboard lights lit up. That’s always a real oh shit moment. It lit up like a Christmas tree.  There also seemed to be a buzzing sound. So I put my hazard lights on and got onto the shoulder. I did 30 mph until I was off the freeway and in a convenience store parking lot. I hung out there while I waited on a tow truck and my husband. My husband and I followed them to a shop and dropped the key off and went home 

This morning, the mechanic called and said yes it’s the battery. He gave us three options with quotes. And I’m getting a refurbished battery. 

I’m so relieved. I can’t wait, because my car is going to run like butter now. 

Car repairs have always been a source of anxiety for me. When I was 19, my car broke down and I remember being at the mechanic when my dad showed up. The mechanic asked my dad, “This car has never had an oil change, has it?”  I was standing right there and said, “What’s an oil change?”  So I guess he got his answer. My father was PISSED. I used to think he was pissed that I didn’t know what an oil change but now that I’m older, I realize that he was actually humiliated. He should have been teaching me what an oil change was, and probably looked like a bad father when I said that right in front of the mechanic. 

My parents and several of my aunts and even older cousins would always kind of threaten me “What are you going to do if your car breaks down?” But never taught me facts of what could actually happen and how much it would cost. I was always presented with scenarios of catastrophic break downs that I couldn’t afford and then would have no way to get to work so I would have to quit and then have no way to pay my rent so I would have to move back in with my parents. It was said by people in my family who were pissed that I wanted independence. My ex husband was a mechanic when I married him in 2004, and that was the start of slowly learning the basics. When Google became a staple, I started googling everything, and when I bought my hybrid I started googling things specific to hybrids. I started small sinking funds just for the inevitable. Sinking funds were also something I was never taught about when I was my daughter’s age and older. It means you’re saving money for a specific inevitable thing, like a car repair or a root canal (or whatever). They can also be for some kind of expense you have annually that you can’t do on a monthly basis for whatever reason. It’s possible. I was just never taught these things. Just yelled at and questioned like they were the cops about what I would do in certain situations and then being threatened with the worst scenario imaginable. 

I’m so glad that now, 25-30 years later, I can go through the inevitable snafus with knowledge and ability to take care of it without it being catastrophic. I’ve been through a lot in this car. It’s taken me all over 9 states for work. (Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois and Tennessee)- but not all over Tennessee, just Memphis. I slept in it a lot, too!  I just can’t give it up yet. Plus I just paid it off so 

My Productive Day

 This morning, I got an enormous paycheck. I’ve gotten paychecks this size before, but they were before I paid the car off, so I would use them to make a car payment, or two, or even three.  This time, I paid my health insurance premium, which was due yesterday but I had forgotten about it. I paid a car insurance payment, even though I didn’t have to until August 30th.  I paid enough into my student loans to bring the balance down by $100.  (This means I brought the balance down to $100 less than I brought the balance down to last time I logged in and made a payment).  Then I just got in the car and headed to Walmart. I dropped my car off in automotive for an oil change and then went to the hair salon up front and got a cut and color. My hair looks almost black now, which I prefer. My grays are gone, and I picked the darkest brown they had. After she blow dried my hair, she got out one of those heated round brushes and did a bunch of curvy strokes. My hair ended up looking perfectly wavy in the back. It looked so nice that I didn’t even put it up. 

I went back to automotive because my car was ready and moved it to the parking lot and then just did a ton of shopping. I just threw things in the cart that I needed and wanted.  That was nice!  Tomorrow I’m taking Anna to the Chinese buffet next to my favorite thrift store and then we are going thrifting. I have to work Wednesday, so I can’t go to 25 cent day. Sunday is either $1 day or $1.50 day. Still a steal!  In fact Wednesday is the next time we work. We have a four day weekend. It’s a nice break, as I got overtime this week too- just not as much as last week in Louisiana. 

“Thigh Bongos” 🪘

 My mother and I have always been big fans of any type of ethnic dance from anywhere in the world. Occasionally, I’ll send her YouTube links to ethnic dance performances just to lift her spirits. Tonight, I sent her this. If you don’t open the link, what it is is a Hawaiian Mele with chanting, and the whole thing is done seated on the ground. All the ladies walk on stage and begin by strapping small drums to their thighs. Hitting the drums on their thighs becomes part of the choreography. 

My mother responded, “That was sweet!  Thanks!  Now I want to go out and get myself some thigh bongos!” 

I burst out laughing. Kevin did too. Then he watched that number with me. I love when YouTube suggests videos from the Merri Monarch festival. 

Cheddar Bay Biscuit Mix

Update edit with better baked batch. Must have gotten butter on my lens. 

 

The store chain in Louisiana that we take inventory at every three months has an amazing selection. Especially of baking mixes. They have baking mixes for everything. One of these days, I’m going to go out there and just start baking random stuff. It will have to be when it’s cooler outside though, because no one likes to run the oven in July in Texas. 

But Kevin and I wanted to pick up a few things on the way out of the last store in Mauriceville, so I decided one baking mix was ok. I got the red lobster cheddar bay biscuit mix. It required cheese and butter, and we didn’t want to drive all the way home from there with cold items. I bought the mix anyway. Then Kevin announced on the way home that he wanted to stop at our local grocery store for beer, and that we could get cheddar and butter there. Then when we got home, he started hinting that he wanted me to make the biscuits today. So here they are. The first batch is a little underbaked but still good. The second batch is in now, will bake longer. They’re amazing. 

Finally Going Home 🏠

 On the way home from Louisiana. Although last night, we moved hotels and stayed in Orange, Texas. This is because the last store was in a nearby town called Mauriceville. Orange and Mauriceville are right on the state line with Louisiana. I was absolutely exhausted and starving by the time we got back to the motel. For this reason, we decided to order food on Uber Eats. I entered the motel we stayed in and the room number. When you order on uber eats, and someone picks up your order, you see a picture of that person. The woman picking up our food had all the facial features of someone who’s done meth. If you’ve ever seen the shocking “before and after” pictures of meth users, you know what I’m talking about. Orange, Texas is kind of known for this. I shrugged it off and thought well maybe she’s trying to put her life back together. Then she marked it as delivered, and there was no food. I was so pissed. I should have known the tweaker would steal my food. Uber eats only gives you the option to call the driver so I did. She sounded strung out and said “Well I left it by the door of room 218.” I told her, “Well it’s not here.”  There was nothing to be done. I didn’t get too angry with her on the phone, because people who do meth can be violent, and now she knew where I was staying. So I submitted all kinds of complaints on the app and eventually got all the money back including the tip. But then Kevin and I had to get dressed again and frickin go back out for food, and we were exhausted. 😩 

Kevin said, “Let’s not order delivery anymore.”  

I responded, “Well let’s do it once more because now I have a credit.”  

1 and a half more days

 Today is the last day of the trip to Louisiana where we have to do two grocery stores in one day. Tomorrow, we only do one store and then drive home. We have Tuesday off and then small local stuff the rest of the week. I’ve been suffering from achy muscles the whole trip, but I believe that the more I do physically, the better that will get over time. When my mother was my age, she had a desk job and weighed about 60 pounds more than I do now.  If I start to get tired and miserable, I just remember that.  

Kevin and I went to a local Walmart Supercenter yesterday evening and got me two pairs of black pants in the next size down. He also got a new pair of work pants, and we got frozen meals for the room. The new pants were on clearance for only $9. They fit great! 

My daughter is coming by Tuesday while we are off. She said she misses me. I miss her too. I think she’s getting nervous about going to college. Honestly, I’m looking forward to her going. She has spent the entire summer just hanging out with friends.  She was working, but her last day was July 1. I have a lot of anxiety about her just gallivanting around with her friends, and when she goes to the dorm, it will be a more secure environment. Luckily, her friends are all good kids and so is she. I don’t have to worry about them purposely getting in trouble. But there’s still anxiety. I couldn’t wait for her to be a legal adult, but now that she is, I totally get the anxiety that empty nesters feel. 

Hibachi Night

 Yesterday was a much easier day- the Austin crew was a huge help. We got off about 3 hours earlier than we did other days here, and Kevin took me out for hibachi. There’s place was really nice. We need to go there every time we come here now. 

Yesterday, Kevin and I were helping each other on an aisle of baking supplies and spices. I lifted up a 25 pound bag of sugar to scan it, and I realized that I’ve lost at least that much weight since January of 2024. I’ve actually lost closer to 30 pounds. But that bag of sugar was enormous and heavy and I was like jeez-  I’ve lost at least this much, most likely more. That’s daunting. No wonder I feel better these days. 

Speaking of that, I need smaller size work pants. They aren’t just “a little” too big anymore- I’m almost in danger of mooning people. I mean not really- we wear the scanners around our waist, so I just adjust the belt on that and use it to hold my pants up. No I don’t have a belt, I don’t like them. Kevin offered to take me to Walmart here in Louisiana for new pants, but I didn’t feel like it. I still have one clean pair. So maybe tonight we can go to Walmart. 

There’s an orange cat wandering around our motel. I told Kevin, “She looks like she wants a home with two brothers.”  He isn’t convinced. I miss my old orange cat and really have been itching for another orange cat, but Kevin has been in situations before where he had too many cats. He says, “Two is a respectable number.”  

I’m only semi looking forward to going home. I mean I’m stuck here until Monday so I might as well make the best of it. I’m not sick of that store chain yet. By Monday I might be. 

Louisiana Snafus

 We are short staffed on this trip, and I’m annoyed about it. I have a lot of muscle stiffness, TMJ, and sciatica that’s making me miserable. But yesterday I took 600 mg of ibuprofen with an entire Red Bull and felt a lot better. Plus, the grocery store chain that we do here has an amazing selection, so it makes it more fun to “pretend shop” while I do inventory. It’s only Friday morning, and I believe I’ll be in overtime after only a few hours. Both today and tomorrow are likely to be 10 hour days, so that’s approximately 16-18 hours of overtime. I haven’t been keeping track though, and I’m not sure if my guess is guessing high or guessing low. 

One of my coworkers on the Dallas crew came back from medical leave after having cancer, and she has announced that she’s cancer free. This was good news. When she showed up to work the first day of the trip, she had one of these. It’s a kneeling pad on wheels from Temu. I was instantly jealous. I actually think I might get one. I have a kneeling pad, but it doesn’t have wheels. Kevin wears knee pads, but I hate wearing them for sensory reasons. As I was counting the school supplies section, I wondered to myself, did anyone come across that item on Temu and think, who would buy this?  Under what circumstances would one need to roll around on their knees?  But we do!  It comes in handy if you do inventory in stores! 

My company gives meal allowance money for out of town trips.  Most of the time, the boss gives us a cash envelope on the first day of the trip, but sometimes he doesn’t and it’s just added to the next check. I asked the boss if we would get it in cash this time, and he said “he had to ask” but it seemed promising, and then I think he just didn’t feel like going to the bank for it. Or he didn’t want to ask. Because of this, I took all the cash out of my 100 envelope challenge and brought it with me. That’s a set back. But since my next paycheck will be enormous, I can start over with that. Plus, I’m able to bum off of my husband. 

Today is likely to be an easier day, because our Austin crew has arrived. We’ll have a lot more people today. We might get back to the motel earlier, and I may do some coin laundry since this is such a long trip. 

Perspective

 This evening, I had a nice thought. 

When I look back on all of my memories from my entire life, it totals approximately 40 years. Now that I’m middle aged, I get to do approximately that same amount of time, 40 years, all over again. But this time, with wisdom. 

Tidbits

I have been watching all the latest documentaries about the Idaho murders. There have been quite a few of them now that the killer took a plea deal. It’s interesting to me how differently all four of the families tend to feel about the case. It seems like one family wants him to have the death penalty, one doesn’t, one doesn’t care as long as he’s away from society, and one isn’t really interviewed much. I could be wrong. I disagree that he purposely committed “femicide” obviously, because one of the victims is male. Some people might say something like, it’s still femicide because the male victim was the boyfriend of one of them, but I am just not buying it. He’s a serial killer, plain and simple. He has probably killed before. 

One of the moms (the one that I said isn’t interviewed much) was actually interviewed briefly, and she said she forgives the killer because she found Jesus. 20 years ago, that may have been inspirational, but now that I’m older I realize that even Jesus requires repentance. Brian Kohberger hasn’t repented. He only pled guilty to save himself. Now I just think that mom should not have been interviewed. 

Right after the murders happened and before he was caught, I wondered out loud, in front of my mother, “I wonder if it was a criminology student trying to get away with murder as part of their thesis.”  I didn’t realize how right on I was in my prediction. My mom often brings that up now, and I wish I hadn’t said it in front of her. She calls it a joke. (“Remember the joke you made about how it’s probably a criminology student?” she’ll say). I tried to explain that it was more of an intrusive thought than a joke and she started scoffing at me for being aware of mental health terminology. 

At work, for the time being, we are still a crew of five. Me, my husband, the boss, his wife, and their nephew. The boss’s wife ranted to me today about the fact that her nephew isn’t going to Louisiana with us and how pissed people are about this. He said he was “going on vacation” but she told me that actually his wife isn’t letting him go and doesn’t believe it’s really a work trip. She told me that his wife is really jealous. I said, “maybe he cheated on her before.”  She said, “No he didn’t!  Her first husband did and she hasn’t gotten over it!” 

She proceeded to tell me that his wife is jealous of ME and the women on the crews in the other cities. I said, “ME?!?!  Tell her she has nothing to worry about.”  

Bosses wife said, “Yup, you’re married.” 

I said, “Even if I wasn’t. Trust me she has nothing to worry about.”  

Then I asked, “Is she jealous of you?” 

She replied, “Well no because I’m his aunt.” 

Oh yeah, I guess that makes sense. I said it again. “He must have cheated in the past.” And she insisted, no no, not her nephew, that woman is just paranoid!  

Siiiigh. I told Kevin about it all the way home, and we had good laughs. 

We are going to get a lot of hours and most likely overtime in Louisiana this week and next week.  I still sometimes can’t believe that I have been married to Kevin for four months, started dating him two years ago, and that I’m still working at the company where I met him. I also cannot believe that no one is demanding I give them my back up plan for in case “he leaves you and you get fired all at once”. I was raised to constantly think this way. Does no one ask me this because I’m older now or because they already know I’m just going to take off and do the merchandising apps until I figure something else out?  Or maybe it’s because I know from experience that the advice they’d give anyway is generally bad advice and I didn’t know that when I was younger?  Or maybe it’s because the majority of all my old abusive and domineering family members are senile and locked away in nursing homes. Perhaps some of them died and I wasn’t told. I don’t know, but it’s sure nice to be married and not have all these women over my head saying “What are you going to do if he dies or leaves you?”  That gets old. 

Weekend Highlights

 When we got paid on Saturday, I brought my student loan balance to $17K even. The balance was $17,222.46, and I made a payment of $222.46. When the pandemic happened and interest rates were frozen for almost three years, it was at $20K even. I started making payments to decrease the balance when interest resumed 22 months ago. I only cared to make enough payments so that the balance would decrease. Now that my car is paid off, I want to do more. I’m extremely lucky. I still browse the subreddits for student loans, and it seems like so many people are completely screwed over for life. They make significant payments each month, and the balances increase. 

I’m also saving money into a retirement account on Robinhood and doing the 100 envelope challenge. I have been on Robinhood for years, but now can add more to it. The envelope challenge booklet was sitting empty in my car (tucked into the back passenger seat pocket) but now has some smaller amounts filled. 

I made plans to take my husband and daughter to the St. Francis Wolf Sanctuary next month. My daughter moves into the dorm on 8/15, and this will be our last major outing before she goes. I’m looking forward to seeing the wolves. You can also camp there, but my husband isn’t a camping fan. 

We are about to leave for Louisiana for about 8 days. We were off today, and I finished making everything from the last fabric shopping hauls into squares. I also finished laundry and packed. We didn’t want to go shopping due to being out of town next week, so we just went out to eat. 

Funny News

The latest viral sensation- the couple who ducked and hid their faces after being exposed on the big screen at a Coldplay concert- is hilarious to me. If you aren’t familiar with it, here it is.  I’ve been to some televised things before, and I’ve seen a camera person walking around getting audience footage. I saw one person put their hands up as if to say “no” and the camera man respected it and didn’t take their picture. This cameraman person, however, was like: 

No one would have noticed if they didn’t make it so super obvious. Also no one would care if he wasn’t a billionaire. 

Two years ago, I may have acted similarly to being caught in a romantic embrace on a camera like that. Not because I was being unfaithful to anyone, but because I had spend my entire life with a lot of people who always had a problem with the idea of me in any relationship. HOWEVER I would not have acted THAT ashamed. I probably would have just pulled away and that’s it. I would not have done all the humiliation ducking and face covering. That made it extra obvious that they were in an affair. If it had just been me and someone, two years ago, before I really came to realize that I’d reached the age where no one really wants to tell me what to do anymore, I probably would have pulled away, turned red. And applaud embarrassingly. 

Then the guy issued a statement where he blamed the band! 

 

My Birthday!!

About a week ago, Kevin was talking about how I “saved him from his townhouse”. 

If you don’t know the story, to make a long story short, he had inherited a townhouse from his grandmother. It was the second from the right in a row or five in a complex full of townhomes. The building had a bad foundation, and Kevin was dealing with a bad HOA as well. 

In 2023, I took a real estate class for fun. Almost as soon as Kevin allowed me to see the damage in his house, I asked him why he didn’t call an investor. He said “Because obviously they wouldn’t want this place.”  

Feeling unsure of that, I called an investor and described the situation without giving the actual address.   Once this investor convinced me to get Kevin to call him, I told Kevin what I did, fully expecting him to be mad at me for “overstepping.”  (I mean, I was overstepping, but I only called for my own curiosity and wasn’t going to tell Kevin until this dude convinced he wanted the townhouse and could deal with the HOA.) 

At the end of that week, Kevin met the investor, and the investor paid him for the townhouse about the same amount Kevin would have paid someone to take it off his hands. Since then, Kevin has said that “I saved him.” We had just become “official” about 2-3 month before. We then moved into the guest house on his parent’s property, where we still are to this day. 

I got this awful feeling that if god forbid something happened to Kevin and I was in severe grief talking about how “he always said I saved him” that others might just think that’s BS. Or, they might think that I just wish a man had said that about me. So I asked Kevin to write it all down, in his own handwriting, and sign his name. I said “don’t type it out, because that’s not proof.”  

I don’t know why I had that intrusive thought about some hypothetical future scenario in which I’m grieving my husband and no one around me believes what I’m saying he always told me. That was 1-2 weeks ago, and we forgot about it. Then I woke up on my birthday, and this note was with my card. I also got a $100 gift card, and we took my daughter to eat after work. 

Today I turn 47. Every year since I turned 36, I’ve googled on my birthday what celebrities died at the age I’m turning. This is the first time in 11 years that I didn’t do that. I knew offhand that Judy Garland did. I wasn’t interested in the rest. Maybe that anxiety is going away.