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.