Exercise is Amazing

I’ve been pushing myself more than usual to exercise. This is mainly because the weight loss pill I was prescribed gives me a burst of energy lasting about 6-7 hours every morning. Unfortunately, a crash of tiredness then follows, but a caffeinated drink reverses that. The burst of energy feels nice, and the point is to use it to exercise. 

I’ve also usually described my anxiety as a certain feeling in my arms, legs, upper chest, and upper back. The feeling itself is not anxiety, but causes anxiety, I think. The feeling makes it super difficult to initiate movement. I have to really force myself to get out of a chair or out of the car, and so on. It makes me feel suspended, like my arms and legs are being held back. I think this has contributed to weight gain for me. This happened after I finished college. This muscle feeling happened, and the extreme difficulty in initiating movement caused gradual weight gain. Also when you have anxiety, everything is an emergency, and I personally kind of eat like it’s an emergency. If that makes me sound “fat phobic,” then please try to understand about anxiety and the fight, flight or freeze responses. 

Ever since I started taking phentermine, I have not had this constant emergency feeling surrounding food. I can eat just enough and be good for several hours, not even feeling hungry or anticipating what I should eat next.

Before the phentermine, I was only walking about 1,000-3,000 steps daily, even though my goal is 10,000. Last week, I hit my goal of 10,000 five out of the seven days. This week, I hit it all three days in a row now. 

Trust me, I am SORE AS HELL.  But the creepy Crawley muscle feeling that I've had since finishing college actually is cured by that soreness. It's hard to explain. The soreness is preferable. 

This morning, I went to the gym at 5:00 am and did 5500 steps on the treadmill. Then I went to the park at 7:00 am and did about 3,000 more as well as got on this machine. You push those with your arms, and it works your upper arms and upper abdomen. I completed my 10,000 steps goal by doing some side jobs (taking pictures in stores) and parking far away from the doors. I think this is a great way to heal the stuff I've been through the last 12 years. I definitely have “the high”  And the sore. 

 

10 Unfinished Projects

 I feel like the poster child for late diagnosed ADHD right now, because I feel like I’ve started ten things and haven’t finished any of them. 

The book I’m writing called The Child Advocate. I did write out a few scenes in the spiral notebook I talked about earlier. That thing is too heavy to work on every day. Every day would be ideal, though. 

All the reading and research on anti-ABA online, which now includes  This culmination

The two books I’m reading on the same subject.  The book by the author “Julie Roberts” who I can’t find info on because of her similar name to Julia Roberts is all full of scientific studies. I simply can’t remember much of what I learned in methods in research class at University of Houston.  I’d need a brief refresher, probably something on YouTube.  I texted my daughter asking her when she takes it at TXST.  She doesn’t know.  Probably in her junior year, as it’s a 300 level class. 

Working as a caregiver and trying to set at least some boundaries with musical schedule boss (gift card boss).  She does sort of a professional version of love bombing.  It’s not real love bombing, it’s work appropriate.  She says I’m amazing, I’m a rockstar, I’m this and that  and maybe I am 🤷🏻‍♀️.  I’m also fundamentally exhausted, and musical schedules affects my mental health.  

I am trying to do more side jobs on the merchandiser and field agent apps, and now my husband wants to try them.  We are planning to go do some together, but haven’t gotten a chance.  This weekend, the field agent app had a lot of freebies.  I got two free subway sandwiches plus $3 each, free chipotle (I got vegetarian tacos) plus I think $3 or $5, and another free stick of deodorant plus $5.  We will never run out of deodorant at this rate.

Writing my own recipe cards based on stuff I find in cookbooks that I like and want to try. 

I bought an old art history textbook from half price books and am trying to cut out pictures of art and make collages with decoupage.  I worked a little on a Byzantine inspired one for my mom for Mother’s Day.

Reading the handful of books I have on writing. 

Purpose nigh to walk 10,000 steps daily  

The fun I’m having with ChatGPT helping me come up with elements to the other book in my head- the one with the couple based on me and my first love, Matthew. I’m actually creating story lines for all seven kids based on the kids of some influencers I semi-follow. 

Thinking of Matt brought a memory to mind. When we first started dating, we worked together at a supermarket. He used to say he wanted to work his way up with that and eventually become a store manager. This was very much discouraged. He was basically yelled at that there was no working his way up in the supermarket business and that it was a dead end job to even be a store manager. He was pressured to go to college and get a degree instead.  We all were. Well, about a year ago, my inventory coworker, who used to be a grocery store manager told me that she was making $120-$130,000 a year. I was floored. She was making that in the past, not just now days. When I expressed my disbelief, her husband told me that store managers actually do make that much. What?  I literally said, “Why then, when you are a kid working in a store, they tell you that working your way up there is a dead end?  They both said, “I don’t know.” And “It’s not a dead end.” 

One more thing to add to the list of “things they were wrong about.”  RIP Matt

AI Family Portraits

It dawned on me today that there would be no way possible to get my three cats posing together in a nice grassy meadow for a family portrait. So I had ChatGPT do it. It came out perfect, except for the fact that Alex has less white on his paws. He wears ankle socks, not crews. 

Then I thought- you know what else would be impossible?  Getting my family together to pose for a family portrait. It’s not just because we all live in different cities and states, it’s also because many of us/them don’t even speak to each other. I tried to get ChatGPT to do one family portrait of me with my paternal first cousins, and one with me and my maternal first cousins. 

This one is what came up when I entered pictures of me and my cousins on my father’s side. That’s supposed to be me on the far left. My only female cousin on that side has aged significantly since looking like this, and she looks exactly like our mutual grandmother now.  The four men all look spot on. 

My mother’s side was a little more complicated, because there were 16 of us.  I’m supposed to be the one in the black shirt in the front row. It looks nothing like me. This was way more complicated to make, because I didn’t have pictures of everyone. For the ones I didn’t have pictures of, I gave ChatGPT pictures of their siblings that they resembled most. That’s why there are a couple in here that look like twins. In my opinion, only half of the people here look like the actual people, but this one was just hard to do. Maybe when I have the mental energy and headspace to do so, I’ll submit more changes to ChatGPT to get a more realistic family portrait. 

I didn’t like being an only child, and I gravitated to my 19 cousins as much as possible. Yes there are 20 total, but one was an adoptee that we didn’t find out about until about 2017.  Two have passed away, two have gone no contact with everyone (it’s not known if these two are alive or dead but I presume them alive), and there are three that won’t speak to me and are among my biggest haters now. But that’s ok. Haters are gonna hate!  

I’m not sure if the children of one’s first cousins are considered your second cousins or your first cousins once removed, but in total, I have 29 of those now. Most of those 29 are adults with their own families, and I do not have a count on how many grandchildren of my first cousins there are. (Great grandchildren of my parents siblings). On my father’s side, it’s 8.  On my mom’s side, who knows. It’s 24-25 that I know of. 

When I’m old, with grandkids and great grandkids, I hope we can take family portraits like this in real time, instead of having AI do it because we are all so distant in so many ways. In the 1980’s in Chicago, my holidays looked like this. 

If my grandparents saw these fake images with everyone hugging and smiling, they’d be proud if they thought it would be real. Realistically, they couldn’t possibly proud at the sheer number of generational curses that have been perpetrated. I’m confident that third generation, the one I don’t have a count for, will “break those curses” and do way better than we did. In fact, I believe the young people in general are already doing way better than we ever did, in most families. 

The kids are alright. 

I’m the Proudest Mom

Today my daughter Anna volunteered again with the animal sciences club at Texas State U. Then, she went to a No Kings protest and posed with a drag queen. 

I’m so proud of my kid. I never tried to live vicariously through her, and I never pushed things on her that would make her “have things I didn’t have”.  But here she is, living her best life at 18. 

Tuesday Tidbits

Thanks for the advice you two, but I kind of despise getting out my laptop. I have no idea why!  I was able to upload photos by simply opening safari on my phone instead of chrome. Here’s my friend DP showing how her broom stood up on the spring equinox. I also heard that eggs stand upright on the two equinoxes. I didn’t know these things had any sort of validity. 

I’m getting a lot better at going to the park intentionally to get my steps in while speed walking  while there, I saw this interesting flower.  It’s too big to be a dandelion. 

While walking, I’m listening to an audiobook that was a free download (with membership) on Audible called Writing with Impact: Crafting Compelling Arguments by Barrett Williams. It’s read by an AI voice, but the voice is tolerable and doesn’t sound too robotic. 

Last but not least, we have a nest outside, and here’s a short clip of our baby Jordan really thinking he can get those birdies. He’s really a joy.  He gets along better with Mitchell. Alex is old and just ignores the two of them. If they bother him, he hisses as if to say “Get off my lawn!”
 

Tweakers at Dollar General

 One of my friends used to say she believed they must hold job fairs for Dollar General managers at meth recovery centers, because to her, they all look like they’ve done meth. She said it was a joke, and I do know that not all dollar general managers are current/former meth users.  Just to get the “not all” out of the way!  But the one I saw today when I attempted the cigarette merchandising job fit the description. She was supposed to have the signage at the store, and as soon as I read that I kind of knew they weren’t going to have it. I hate it when they say DG will have supplies at the store. More often than not, they don’t. This lady looked everywhere and said she didn’t have it. She then said she had posterboard and markers if I wanted to make signage, but the instructions reiterated like three times not to do that. The job would be rejected if I did that. I explained it to her, and she immediately got irate and said, “Well I was just trying to give you an alternative!”  Oh!  “That’s fine,” I said in a calm voice in an attempt to calm her down. “But I’m just not allowed to do that.” I told her I was stepping outside to message the person in charge. That person never responded, so I just documented what happened and submitted the job and left. Another person from merchandiser messaged me and asked what time I would be completing the DG cigarette jobs. I messaged him the whole story and said I had another experience last week where the customer service desk employee didn’t accept the LOA from the vendor. (This is true, they didn’t, and this was at an HEB). I said I no longer felt comfortable doing assignments from that vendor. 

Now, it’s a huge deal for me to say that. I was raised that if you do anything like that , you’ll get fired immediately and they’ll get extremely mad at you and you’ll never work again, because no one will hire you, because they’ll badmouth you all over the place. I should know by now that it’s not like this, but that freak out crept in. The merchandiser dude just messaged me back, and said “No problem.  (That vendor jobs) are removed from your list. Thank you.”  

I finished the day out by doing the rest of what was on my list- two more Costco jobs that I did five of last Wednesday, and one with electrolyte straws at Target. They were easy, and the staff was knowing!  

Tomorrow, I plan to do another one that just posted today where, like the Costco ones, you don’t have to talk to management unless there’s an issue. I plan to do them all the way to my mom’s house, take a bath and take her trash out, and do them on another route back. 

Then gift card boss texted everyone saying there was a call out for the client I worked with yesterday morning. She needed someone with her from 6-8 pm tonight, and aside from getting paid (two hour shifts also have a differential for being short), she was offering a $75 gift card!  Oh?  Are gift card incentives back?  I entered the client’s address into my navigation, and it would have taken an hour and a half with traffic. Then she texted that someone took it. Eh. At least gift cards are back. 

The Anti-ABA Rabbit Hole 🕳️

Recently, this Wall Street Journal article was posted to social media trying to expose Medicaid fraud by ABA facilities. It doesn’t surprise me. The centers seem to have a ton of money, and there are a ton of them too. Every time I log into indeed to just browse, another ABA center “behavioral technician” job pops up on my suggestions. I always click the thumbs down for “this is a bad match.”  Indeed doesn’t get the hint. 

Here is a list of books I’m in the middle of reading about this issue: 

The Autism Industrial Complex by Dr. Alicia Broderick. Dr. Broderick also talks about this issue on a couple podcast episodes here, and here

A book I have but haven’t looked at yet is The Gold Standard Fallacy of ABA by Julie Roberts. She’s hard to find any more info on without coming upon tons of links to Julia Roberts. 

TikTok content creators I like: 

Songbird Speech (an adult with autism and a speech language pathologist)

Jean (autistic adult, educator with a doctorate in education)

They both do a lot of talking about how communication isn’t behavioral. This is one of the things “wrong” that I couldn’t put my finger on when I attempted to train to be an RBT.  Communication is innate, and it’s not true communication when it’s treated as a behavior. Maybe once I learn more, I’ll get into it more. 

YouTube links:

Paige Layale’s video on her own childhood ABA experience. Some people on Reddit say that about half of what she says is spot on and half is her projecting, but to me, if she’s been in therapy her whole life, then she should know when she’s projecting and not do it in a YouTube video. 🤷🏻‍♀️ Because of that, I give her the benefit of the doubt. 

How to advocate against ABA without losing your mind.  They do a very good job explaining a lot of things, as well as understanding many aspects of “the other side of it.”  

I think that’s all for now.  More later.   I re-watched and re-listened to all of that and most of the TikTok’s before linking. You can also fall down the rabbit hole on Reddit by searching for ABA SLP. One might ask, well what would the alternative be?  The alternative would be speech and occupational therapy, along with pouring some of the billions from that Medicaid fraud into special education and parent education. 🫶🏼

Five Costcos

I did side jobs today at five Costco locations. On the Merchandiser app, I did one job that paid $15 each with a $15 bonus for completing all 5. Then I opened the field agent app and did a handful more at a couple of them and made another $27. I also bought a few things I needed at each one.  So I earned $117 and spent $276. I ate a $1.99 slice of pizza for lunch. It was a good day! Lots of walking. I need to be physically active. 

 

Apologies and Depression

 Just a random funny I found on social media ⬆️. 

Gift card boss told me that the client from yesterday apologized and said she figured out that her credit card was maxed out and that was why it was declined.  She also thanked me for helping her set up DoorDash because she doesn’t like to leave the house. 🙄 

I was like “that’s fine”. But I’m not scheduled to go back with her. Today was kind of a mental break down day because of the false accusation yesterday, the triggering events regarding my aunt, and that the fact that gift card boss changes schedules constantly. I think a lot of clients are complaining about other caregivers, caregivers are also complaining about certain clients, and she’s trying to make everyone happy. I pulled over today into a Kroger parking lot and had a good cry. I took out a piece of paper and wrote down my last two employers’ names, full addresses and phone numbers so that I can eventually apply at all of these merchandiser companies, if in fact I’m “allowed” to. (Yes I know technically I’m “allowed” but it goes deeper than that.). 

I also accepted an offer on the merchandiser app that will require me to go to five Costco’s tomorrow. They are all relatively nearby. I’m also going to shop a little at each one and keep tract of how much I’m making and how much I’m spending on the deals. It will definitely be worth it. It’s mostly a mystery shop, but if a certain problem arises, I have to alert management and tell them I’m there on “behalf” of so and so and whatever is wrong, etc. But I’ve done these before and it mostly never happens. I have to dress decently just in case I do have to talk to a manager. Black jeans and plain polo. 

After that, gift card boss has me working approximately 40 hours from Thursday through Sunday. Well, 34 hours to be precise. That is, unless something changes again. Last weekend, I gave up two shifts with the couple because “another caregiver wanted more hours”. I plan to say no to that if she asks again if I want to give it up for this caregiver, but who knows, I might be fundamentally exhausted on Friday again and be like “Sure”.  

Writing Prompts and Drama

I was cleaning out my photos and found these writing prompts. I want to do these eventually, but today isn’t the day. 

I’m having an even harder time in life today than yesterday. My 93 year old aunt was kicked out of an assisted living facility for assaulting another resident. My aunt is my mom’s sister, and they are 13 years apart. My aunt is extremely abusive and has always gotten away with it. I have a very large family on my mom’s side, and most of them all have stories of abuse from this aunt. I’m not sure exactly what happened with the other resident of the assisted living, but it sounds like she tried to hold her head under water. I think the other lady is ok, but even my own mom is now saying that my aunt held her head under water when she was 10. So my aunt would have been 23 at the time. Old age and dementia isn’t an excuse if you’ve been doing it for 70 years. She never did this to me, but she did other abusive things to me. She has never ever been held accountable. I was hoping she would go to jail, but instead, she is in a psychiatric ward with a geriatric wing. That’s the next best thing to jail. No one would ever hold her accountable enough to put her in real jail. I honestly hope she gets put into solitary.  And maybe she’ll die there. I’m not sorry for saying that. 

I went yesterday to the four hour shift for the client whose care plan made her look like a difficult person. I basically spent three and a half hours walking her through how to order DoorDash. It was difficult, but I didn’t mind, because that’s what she asked me to do. She had to download the app first, and reset her Apple password. Then set up the DoorDash account. Then finally ordered fajitas. Once the fajitas were ordered, she saw that Kroger was also on DoorDash, so I guided her step by step how to search for all the items she said she needed. Then when she tried to check out, her card was declined. Her card went through for the fajitas though. They arrived. I explained to her that she needed to call the bank and she got very irate. She started accusing me of doing something fraudulent with her card.  I never even touched her credit card, she entered it in herself with a lot of prompting from me. Kevin said “Maybe she entered a number wrong”. I said no, because if she did then the fajitas would have also been declined. I think the fajitas put her card over the limit, but didn’t tell her I suspected that. I had to text gift card boss the entire story, and she reassured me “not to let it bother me” and that she’s having several financial problems right now. 

I thought to myself, well then how is she paying for a home caregiver?  This is only the second week that she’s had care at all, and I was the fourth person to go see her. 

To tell you the truth, this was pretty shitty. It took me a LONG time to show her that, and I had a TON of patience. Then she “thanks” me by the false accusation. 

I hope she actually pays gift card boss. I kind of think that her card is going to be declined there too, especially if it was declined for $100 in groceries. 

 

Choices

 A while back, I posted on here that all of the years I spent working with children and the elderly were essentially the result of a gaggle of people around me when I was younger who were mad that I wanted to be a mom. “Why bring a child into the world?” They all demanded. “Why not do something meaningful for a child who already exists?!?!”  I didn’t realize it at the time, but they essentially didn’t care about people already existing, they just wanted to be mad at me. At the time, I said “ok!” And dove in, didn’t look back, leaned in, got my hands dirty, and developed a ton of vicarious trauma. I am not saying that to complain, though, I think it’s all been mostly good. I feel like I had fun, learned extremely valuable lessons, and made a difference. I do not regret it for the most part. Some, if not most of it, I would do again. 

Vicarious trauma absolutely sucks, though. My last therapist, who dumped me based on “scheduling” diagnosed me with chronic PTSD (complex PTSD isn’t in the DSM-5, so if you see someone saying they were diagnosed with it, it’s not entirely true). In the USA, the diagnoses for insurance companies have to align with the DSM-5. Complex-PTSD is however, in the ICD-11.  When the DSM-6 publishes, and they change their minds about this stuff again, then you will see more people with actual diagnoses of complex-PTSD

More than two decades ago, I worked for about 3 years doing the inventory service that I recently worked at for another three years (which is where I met my husband).  At the time, I liked it a lot, and I thought it was easy money. But as a young person at the time, I was absolutely not allowed to say that I was content doing that. I had older people all the time, literally in my face with their finger, telling me that I BETTER go back to school and do something else. It’s ironic that I went back to that job so many years later in order to clean up the mess that listening to that advice caused, but that’s a post for another day. I also did the side jobs on the apps, which were mostly display compliance and mystery shops. I went all over nine states with that endeavor and made a killing during the pandemic. You can’t make a killing with it anymore (I guess unless another pandemic happens).  That REALLY helped me recover from college. 

One thing the apps introduced me to is merchandising using planograms. Talking about these apps with others online led me to discover that there are several companies who hire people to do this full time. 

About a week ago, I had that epiphany- the one where I realized that all of the helping jobs I’ve ever had didn’t really come from an innate “calling”, and that it was just from people being mad at me for wanting to have kids someday. Even though I do not have a lot of regrets directly, I do kind of feel like all of my trauma symptoms didn’t have to happen. The more I write about working with children and the elderly, the more I realize that I have DEALT WITH A TON. And for extremely low pay. I think it’s fair to ask why me?  

I started to think, what if I just spent the rest of my days doing advocacy through writing and working as a full time merchandiser?  

The merchandiser app has been sending me a lot of route offers lately with good travel bonuses and “just because” bonuses. I always cringe when I hit no thanks. I could really just dive into that and do better not just financially but with my mental health. The thing is, I feel like I do not have a choice. Technically I do. There is a lot of pressure to not want to “do retail the rest of your life”. The people that say that sure do like to shop though. I know “according to the law” it’s my choice. But just because you aren’t trying to make something illegal for someone to choose doesn’t mean that person isn’t phased by pressure and expectations. 

As far as today, I have to work with this lovely woman whose care plan makes her out to be an absolute tool. I’m actually curious what she’s like. Luckily, the shift is only four hours. I’m going to text gift card boss after work to tell her how it went. I can tell gift card boss is uptight about this client. I’m fundamentally exhausted. 

Stuff I’m working on

 I’m currently reading a book called Save the Cat Writes a Young Adult Novel by Jessica Brody. She has a method of writing called the save the cat method, and wow. For every little aspect of the save the cat method that she talks about, I can pinpoint exactly where in my book applies. That’s a good sign for me! 

Tomorrow I’m working for a caregiving client that I think several other people have worked with and refuse to go back to. Gift card boss didn’t say precisely that, but it was implied. Her care plan makes her sound extremely difficult. It’s actually comical, but I didn’t laugh. Well just have to see how it goes. I might be the one person that she likes. That’s happened to me before. 

Also with today being International Women’s Day, I just have one question:

How is it “all about choice” if we always have to explain our choices and are always grilled about “whether we made the choices for patriarchal reasons” or not?  Food for thought, and something I struggle with even though I know better than to talk about it in detail. 

New Writing Method

I designated a spiral notebook to do the following with the book I want to write: I am handwriting the events in the book one by one, in order, not trying to sound good, and skipping 5-6 lines between each one. That way, if I think of another “event” or thing to put in between two events/things I already listed, then I can jot it between them in the five lines. If I think of even more things to put between two events/things, then I have sticky notes in the shape of a finger pointing. This is a chartreuse colored notebook that I got for $1.49 back when school was starting. 

Gift card boss has laid off of the gift cards.  Maybe they told her to, idk.  This weekend I have to relieve the caregiver that was saving them for a she-shed.  She and I appear to be relieving each other every 12 hours a couple times.  

I’m going to join the insecure writers’ support group, but I want to make sure I’m fully able to respond to comments first. I did for a while, now I’m not. 

 First of all yes I did delete all posts on this blog and am starting over. I’ve done that every couple years since 2005. I admire people who can keep up with it for decades. As for me, when my life changes, I delete blogs and posts. I feel like there has been so much shift in my life that I can start over with my daily notes. 

Tuesday I drove to San Marcos and took Anna to dinner and shopping. She wanted to try a Greek place that is unfortunately what happens when rednecks try to open a Greek restaurant. I never thought I would turn into one of those old Greek ladies that criticizes non Greeks making Greek food, but here I am. Above is an appetizer called whipped feta with hot honey drizzle. It looks like olive oil, but it’s honey. Then to make matters worse, they added banana peppers.  My daughter wanted to try it, but she’s been dipping feta into ketchup since she was a toddler. 

I’m working a lot more on my writing. I do realize that I do not always use proper grammar and punctuation on my blogs, but that’s because I’m word vomiting here. Any real writing project, of course I would edit. 

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was 7 years old. It’s been the most controversial thing about me for four decades. I just don’t care anymore, because it’s what I want to do. Any suggestions for classes, groups, workshops, software etc appreciated.