I can’t even count the amount of times I’ve started to write this in the past five months or so. Every time I start, I get frustrated or too insecure and I delete it all again. Who knows? It may even happen this time, I’m only three sentences in.

I desperately don’t want to be one of the many people on social media who over share the things that are going on in their lives, so I promise to try to stay away from that area.

I haven’t really made it a secret on here that I have Obsessive Compulsive disorder. I’ve mentioned it a few times, usually in a light hearted manner. But today there’s been a significantly more amount of suck rather than not suck and I’m finding myself exhausted and run down, and I think it’s time to finally talk about it.

Now, before you get too skeptical and tell me that I’m self-diagnosing, I can assure you that I’ve been diagnosed by a professional.

So here we go:

“OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder): Obsessive-compulsive disorder is characterized by unreasonable thoughts and fears (obsessions) that lead you to do repetitive behaviors (compulsions). It’s also possible to have only obsessions or only compulsions and still have OCD.

With OCD, you may or may not realize that your obsessions aren’t reasonable, and you may try to ignore them or stop them. But that only increases your distress and anxiety. Ultimately, you feel driven to perform compulsive acts in an effort to ease your stressful feelings.”

That right there, that’s me.

I can’t tell you the exact day that I realized I had OCD, but over time, it was an accumulation of little things – actions, and thoughts, that made me realize that something wasn’t right. I was worried about things that no one else was worried about. I felt the need to go back and double check things that no one else felt the need to do.

At first it was small things…thinking that I could physically feel germs on my hands, making sure that the flat iron in our bathroom was unplugged at least five times in a row before heading out the door to school or church, holding my breath around people when they sneezed in front of me in fear of breathing in their germs. But little by little it escalated, morphed and changed. It snowballed, picking up more and more worries and adding them to the pool of anxiety swimming in the back of my head. I began to feel the need to wear slippers every time I went downstairs, in spite of the fact that we vacuum and mop our tile floors once…sometimes even twice a week. I felt like dirt was seeping through my socks and getting onto my feet, so I needed to wear slippers to protect them, I grew anxiety over making sure that the stove and gas fireplace was completely turned off, and I began to need to check that our alarm was set multiple times a night, even if I had set it myself.

Those are just a few of the things that grew inside my head over the years. The list is actually a few pages longs written out on paper…but like I said, I’m not trying to over share. For years, in the back of my mind I knew that I had OCD, but there was never anything major. Yes, it was getting worse and I knew that, but I felt like as long as I only let it control me in little ways, that I would still have it under control…I was wrong.

I didn’t know that triggers existed in OCD until one of them knocked me on my butt and kept me there for almost an entire year, and continues to drag me down into fear and anxiety on an inconsistent yet frequent basis.

In August of 2012, besides the stress, anxiety, and worries from my normal “stuff,” I felt fine…then out of nowhere at two O’clock in the morning I woke up terrified. Fear like I’ve never felt before racked my body and mind. I was paralyzed and the only thing I could think to do was read my bible and pray that the night would end sooner. For the first time in my college career, my eight o’clock class could not come soon enough.

For a few hours I thought that maybe I was just having some abnormal freak out session, that maybe I was just experiencing a random anxiety attack for the first time in my life, but when it didn’t go away, I knew it was stuck there. It was in my snowball.  I texted my parents in the morning, telling them what happened and that it had to be my OCD, that I wouldn’t be this freaked out, that these things wouldn’t be stuck, circling my brain and consuming my thoughts if I didn’t have it. I don’t really know how they did it, but for that entire first week, they somehow kept me on my feet…kept me from crumbling into a mental wreck.

That week turned into months though, and eventually the fear dulled. But there were and still are days where I can be feeling totally normal, or as normal as I can feel, and suddenly it will pop into my head and my chest is constricting and fear is pounding my lungs and brain with no power to stop it. Since that trigger, I’ve encountered several more, though nothing as severe as the first.

Around seven months ago, I finally broke through my pride and started going to therapy. I stuck with it for a long time, but ultimately nothing has changed and I’m not sure that anything other than medication will help at this point…and I’m not sure that I even want medication at all.

I wish I could say that the daily fear and anxiety that fills my mind, that makes me restless and stressed, that makes me grumpy and a total basket case, that makes it hard for me to go out and do anything or go anywhere, is the worst part of all this, but it isn’t.

The worst part is that it sucks my life away. Little by little, my brain is shutting down to the good things and becoming more and more consumed by this disorder inside of me, completely against my will. Sure people make it clear that anxiety is a part of OCD, but no one really tells you that you may or may not lose the ability to “feel.”

More often than not, I find myself crying at the end of the day, mentally exhausted and yet…I don’t know why I’m crying.  I don’t feel sad, there’s nothing bad in my life, there’s nothing to be overwhelmed about…there’s just an empty void of no…feelings.  Don’t get me wrong, I laugh, I have fun, I enjoy time with my friends, but most of the time it’s all overshadowed by everything else going on in my head that just sucks that happiness and light hearted joy away. I want to feel things. I want to feel light and not weighed down by everything else.

My problem with OCD is really minor compared to others who struggle with this, compared to the people who might make their hands bleed and bleed on a daily basis because they physically cannot stop scrubbing them. I can joke about it with my siblings and friends. But sometimes there’s just those days, days like today where letting the tears drip down my face as I drive home from work feels so much easier than smiling. I don’t want to be depressing, and I don’t want people to feel bad for me. I’m tough and I muscle through this every day with the strength of my Lord and Savior and my amazing, encouraging, parents who try their best to understand what I’m dealing with, along with another woman in my life who I very much respect and who happens to know exactly what it is that I go through. I have an army, and I’m so, so grateful for them.

I’m not hopeless about all of this and I really hope it doesn’t seem that way, I guess tonight I just needed to write, to release my thoughts. Now, if you’ll excuse me…I need to go calm my eyelids down. They’re about to mutiny.

Love, probably the sleepiest.

Massive amounts of weekend mail

Yellow running shorts

 

M­­aybe I accidentally gave myself a paper cut on my lip

One direction blasting through my head phones

Need to clean my car like…now.  Or yesterday.  Or last week

Dropping a FULL unopened bottle of salad dressing on the kitchen floor

Allergies making me feel like I have 1,000 pounds of jet lag just floating around in my head

Yes, I did in fact burn a piece of toast to the point of almost catching the toaster on fire

How was your Monday?

Love,

Ready for the weekend

Oh, I mean no big deal or anything but I kind of just died from my love of this song.  I know it’s not new…but still.  I die. He also might, maybe, possibly, have perfect hair.

I did the splits thirty minutes ago.  If you weren’t aware that I could do the spits, don’t feel bad…cause I didn’t know either.  Apparently our bathroom floor is slippery.  And apparently when uh…someone is wearing socks and is walking quickly into said bathroom…her feet go sliding everywhere and she ends up doing the splits.  It could have been a really graceful and beautiful thing, but um, it wasn’t.

I’ve been drooling more than usual lately.

In an unrelated matter, I’ve been trying to read before I go to sleep lately.

In an unrelated matter, my Kindle has been falling on my face a lot lately.

I’ve decided to start a new trend.  It’s going to be called the “I don’t care” nails.  Just wait, this is so genius.  It’s painting your fingernails to where they already look chipped.  It will be the most popular trend ever…for me.

I’m probably the number one fan of drinking water with mint extract in it. Can this be a thing?  Can I win at this?

I’ve finally gotten around to burning the winter candles I was so excited about.  Congratulations…to me.  Cause Spring is only like half a day away.

Since I’ve started typing this, I’ve opened my jar of tiger balm and sniffed it no less than five times.  Nothing smells better.

My car is dirty.  This of course is a whole new experience to me because in the past it’s been nothing but spotless.

And I’m out.

 

Can I be honest for two seconds?  Or maybe five minutes…or maybe 15 if you’re a really slower reader.

I mean, maybe I’m weird.  But I’ve never been too crazy on the whole Prince Charming idea.  Number one…because what’s so special about a guy who carries a sword and shield and rides a horse that magically never poops?  Number two…because the idea of prince charming seems too easy.  The dude just pops out of the womb a prince and never has to work for anything his whole life.  He’s got nothing to worry about other than finding the perfect princess with big eyes, long hair, and full lips.

Nah man, Prince charming is overrated and annoying.  I mean, trust me.  I love Disney movies and Thumbelina and stuff but I guess I just don’t like the idea that translates over into the real world.

I feel like from the time we’re little, girls get this starry eyed, light headed dream of finding the perfect guy later in life.  He’ll come in riding on a white horse wearing tall boots and the equivalent of tights…and just swoop us up.  Carrying us away from all our troubles, everything that was holding us down and back in life, and take us into a fairy tale, where from then on nothing will ever be bad because his perfectness will make everything alright.  From the time we find him, we’ll never have to be the damsel in distress again.  We’ll get our happily ever after…………Yes..SO realistic.

I have problems with this way of dreaming for two reasons:

1.  The perfect guy doesn’t, and will never exist.
2. I think, girls need to lace up their own boots, get on their own horse and go get what they want rather than waiting around in a forest or tower or castle or…ocean, hoping that someday their prince will come.

Do I sound depressing yet?  Pessimistic?  Like a downer?  Well chill for two more seconds cause I’m not done. OK??

Instead of dreaming for a prince who isn’t really out there, girls need to start dreaming and searching for the Superheroes in the world.

Yes.  You read that correctly.  MUCH more realistic…no but really, it is.  Hang on.

Here is why every girl should want a Superhero in her life:

Because they aren’t born with everything handed to them.  Nope, most of them were born normal.  MOST of them were bullied and grew up the outcast because they were different.  They grow up struggling and unsure about things.  And all…yeah, all of them have some kind of life changing moment that brings them into the person they were finally meant to be.

But…they are still so, so far from perfect.  They get cocky and arrogant, prideful, they have drinking problems, they have anger issues, they struggle with their identities…with who they want to be, they’re afraid of bats, they have hard relationships with their dads, they experience the loss of loved ones, and they’re broken.  But they overcome it and through all that, they still end up being a leader, a strong and confident person that in the rise of a crisis, people look to them for wisdom and guidance.  They become the kind of person that others hope to be friends with.

However…That guy, that damaged, hard working, leader of a man isn’t gonna notice those other people…because he’s going to catch a glimpse of a girl he likes one day, he’s going to see you.  And instead of pulling on his tights and running around trying to find a horse to impress you with, he’ll use his real charm, his personality and under stated confidence to win you over.

Here’s where it gets good though…you..that girl, are going to impress him EQUALLY as much as he charms you.   Wanna know why?  Because you aren’t that lame princess waiting around for him to show up, always playing the role of the damsel in distress.

No, you’re the Lois Lane of the story, the Jane Foster, the Pepper Pots, the Gwen Stacy.  You’re smart, and witty, and quick to defend yourself and others.  You’re successful and know how to make a name for yourself.  You’re the kind of girl who goes after what she wants with a vengeance, and of course…of course you’re going to get in over your head and get in trouble because at some point, even though you can stand on your own two feet, you are going to end up the damsel in distress.  It’s just what girls go.  You’re gonna need to let your Superhero rescue you, to sweep you up into his strong arms and carry you away from the things that are hurting you.

But the best part about this…the crazy part…is that there isn’t a happily ever after.  There never will be.  Because life is always hard and villains are around every corner.  You’re going to do life together though.  With his leadership and strength, he’ll guide you through the city full of upside down cars and fallen buildings.  And sometimes, when he gets hurt or broken, when he doubts himself or just ends up weakened by kryptonite, he’ll have YOU.

YOU’LL have to talk him through it.  Let him know that he’s a hero and you and others believe in him.  You’ll have to cheer him on, pushing him to be better, to believe in himself.  Pushing him to move, even if it’s slow, even if it’s painful, away from the kryptonite threatening to keep him from taking you both forward.  It’s a partnership…but I mean, not a totally equal one because…let’s face it…you’ll most likely never be as muscly and you’ll most likely never have a butt chin like him…but it’s a story of mutual dependence where you both come out stronger and TOGETHER on the other side of a non-happily ever after.

Now, which one sounds better?  I think I’m partial to the superhero thing.  I actually like to think that I’ve found mine already.  My older sister has found hers, but I wish MORE girls would look for this.  I want my younger sister, my future daughters, my nieces, my granddaughters even…to dream of Superheroes instead of Prince Charming.

And um…That’s all.

Talking.  I mean, have you met me?  I’m not a conversationalist.  I’m more of a watcher.  And don’t even get me started about talking in front of a group.  One on One is hard enough.  In front of a group….I die.  And sweat profusely.  And shake.  Ask anyone who was at Amanda’s wedding.  On second thought, please don’t ask.

Leaving voicemails.  If you have ever received a voicemail from me, I am so, so very sorry.  One time, I was put on phone call duty to update and remind parents about a church event for the youth group at my church.  After multiple awkward, long paused, “Ummm’s” and stuttering voicemails, I lost it.  I couldn’t think and then I just started laughing uncontrollably.  Becca was in the room with me and she was considering having me committed.  I’m not kidding, I was laughing so hard that I couldn’t even speak and I just hung up the phone.  Immediately, I sent the parent I was trying to contact, a coherent message on Facebook hoping she would see that before first hearing the voicemail.  Then I left another voicemail following the previous one, and I think…I held it together.  So, what we’ve learned from this is…if I call you, answer your phone or I will be one of those people that will hang up the second I hear a beep.  I cannot talk to machines.

Being noticed.  Please don’t look at me.  Don’t notice my eyebrow and nose piercing with the chain connecting the two of them.  Don’t talk about it, don’t make it weird.

Following GPS instructions.  I despise them.  And sometimes, because I’m such a rebel and rule breaker and troublemaker, I do the opposite of what it’s telling me to do.  I know this sounds counterproductive but, I think I actually do better without one.  I went into Downtown San Francisco three times last year without it, so take that!…You dummy GPS.

Checking my email.  I forget.  Always.  And then I procrastinate on replying because it is the hardest thing in the world for me to do, and I know not the reason why.  …you liked that proper little phrase, hu?

Lifting weights.  Uhg.  I will run, I will swim, I will army crawl, I will ride a bicycle, I will crunch and crunch and sit up and leg lift the heck out of my stomach, I will squat and lunge, I will do push-ups and planks…but lifting weights.  Nope on nope on nope.

Wearing jeans.  When I see them hanging in my closet, I cry.  Have you ever seen a girl who happens to have a bigger hip size than her waste size, try to put on jeans?  It’s like a more spastic and less choreographed version of the Hawaiian Hula dance.  It’s unpleasant and sometimes can result in hip joints making popping noises. Again….I cry.

Drinking soda.  Yep.  I’m terrible at drinking soda.  Because I’m a lady…and my definition of a lady means: wearing camouflage shirts to church, driving a jeep, biting my nails completely off when I watch an intense movie, and uncontrollable…ear splitting, loud, louder, and loudest, burping while drinking soda.  I’m not kidding about this.  It’s uncontrollable.  I have no idea when it’s gonna come.  I never feel it ahead of time.  And it just…explodes out.  This right here, this little fact about me…is what my mom finds most endearing.  She loves it.  P.S.  I really don’t drink soda often, I’m a water girl…buuuuut you know, sometimes I go crazy.

Reading.  I love it, love to do it…but lately my eyelids having been shutting the party down early.  See, I only have time to read at night.  And two minutes after I start, my kindle usually falls on my face.  I wake up of course, and try again…and then it happens again.  And then I try again…and then it happens again.  And then I try again…and then it happens again.  And then I try again…and then it happens again.  And then I give up, because I’m a quitter.

 

Well, you asked for it.  So here it is! P.S…you didn’t ask for it.  But my dad did.  So sit down, relax, and read.  Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you…The Poop Fiasco of 2013.

 The day started off like any completely normal Monday morning.  I was sleeping until 7:30 when my dad flung my door open and reminded me not to press snooze sixteen times in row because doing that might make me late for work.  I responded that I didn’t have to go to work that day and my alarm wasn’t going to be going off.  Then….like on any given normal Monday, a very tall ladder was propped up against the wall of my bedroom, it was climbed, and hammering ensued.  I was really happy about the events unfolding because, like I said, I had no work that day and was hoping to sleep in.  My plan was playing out flawlessly…

After five minutes of trying to sleep through the hammering happening on the other side of my wall, I stumbled out of bed and grabbed my hot pink ear plugs.  Please note, I feel like it’s really important to tell you that my ear plugs are hot pink.  It speaks to my personality SO well.  The ear plugs were a terrible idea.  Who knew that they were made to block out the sound of snoring but not a hammer?  I didn’t.

At eight thirty I tearfully waved goodbye to sleep and promised to visit again sometime soon and I headed downstairs.  My mom and brother were down there, eating things like bacon and waffles and eggs freshly squeezed orange juice and French pressed coffee and just kidding about all that…but there was bacon. 

My dad was of course, working outside on the back of the house…on the wall…right outside where my head lies when I’m in my bed….and Matt was outside helping off and on holding the ladder when need be. 

Flash forward, around 9:00.  Matt came in and was going to the bathroom.  Nothing out of the ordinary…because that’s what people do.  They use the bathroom.  However, what was out of the ordinary was when Matt came out and asked my Mom: “When you plunge the toilet, is the contents inside just supposed to suck down or do you have to flush again?”

We looked at him with judgmental expressions of course and told him he’d most likely have to flush again.  Right about this time, my dad was walking inside.  We heard the toilet flush, and then something else that no one wants to hear.  “Help! The water is about to go over the edge!”  “Turn the water off!” My mom yelled back.

It took my dad only two seconds to realize what was going on before he sprinted down the hall to turn off the water…but he was too late.  Matt’s poop…and toilet paper…and poop water had flooded the bathroom and a small part of the hall. 

Before I continue with this…lovely and feminine and lady-like story.  There’s something you should know.  My dad is a gagger.  On Halloween day this year, one of the pumpkins we’d carved a few days prior had rotted.  He went to pick it up and his hand slipped through, he dropped it….and gagged probably 15 times in a matter of 30 seconds…he gags…easily. 

Back to the story!

Obviously and naturally, the first thing to burst out of Matt’s mouth during the chaos was “IT WASN’T ME!!!!!”   This, of course, confused all of us. Whose fault would it be?  Mine, my moms?  My dad began to gag as he grabbed rag towel after rag towel for he and Matt to start mopping up the water. 

Meanwhile, I was in our family room about twenty feet down the hall huddled in a corner crying.  See, there’s two reasons for this: one, I have emotional scars from accidentally locking myself inside of a unisex bathroom with a man who was in the midst of pooping. (Haven’t heard that story?)  And two, I have OCD.  And it’s not the Oh haha, aren’t I cute and quirky because I have self-diagnosed OCD?  I have the legitimate, hard to deal, hard to live with me because I’m crazy, actually diagnosed, OCD. 

My dad did the brunt of the clean-up, but when Matt had to carry the two rugs, and all the rag towels to the trash can, it was his turn to gag.  And he did.  Repeatedly.  He is my Father’s son. 

Long story short, they bleached every surface and non-surface of the bathroom and hallway, all door knobs, everything…and it still took me four days before I would enter that particular bathroom. 

Love,

I have issues.

Disclaimer:  These life events are by no means major…and by all means minor.  Please, turn back now.  Actually on second thought, don’t.  I must be heard!!

3.  I did something this weekend that I’ve wanted to do for years…years!  I bought Crest Whitestrips.  The intense kind.  When I was younger I had a skateboarding accident and ended up chipping the inside corner of my front tooth.  Because of that, I’ve never been able to whiten my teeth.  The composite won’t whiten and I’ve never wanted a yellow spot on the front of my tooth, but I really can’t stand how yellow my teeth are anymore.  So I did it! I’m going to whiten them for a few weeks and just deal (Have a meltdown every day) with how it looks and then I’m getting the composite replaced with a whiter one.  Ta-da.  So simple.  I’m actually thinking about posting before and after pictures.  Because I know that everyone’s dream is to see a close up of my teeth.  Update…it’s extremely painful and I’m a wimp.  I thought I was tough before doing this…and now I know the truth…I’m just a big baby.

8.  I finally allowed myself to start listening to Christmas music.  I’ve been semi doing this for the past month, but I knew that if I really let myself, I would go off the deep end…So I held back. But no more!!!  I am full on, belting in my car, Christmas spirit bursting out my ears now.  So please, prepare accordingly.  Christmas is my love.  Christmas and I are best friends.  Christmas makes me happier than football.  I want every month of the year to fluctuate between November and December.  Christmas and I hang.  Christmas is my homie.  Christmas and I just…get each other.

15.  My fantasy football team lost this past Sunday.  I cried and wailed and wept and I didn’t look cute.

42.  In recent months, I have become a coffee drinker.  I previously did not drink coffee often.  I would have it occasionally, but nothing regular because my body has a serious lack of tolerance for caffeine…and if I’m being honest…it has a serious lack of tolerance for alcohol as well.  Also, I am already plagued with severe headaches on the regular and didn’t want to add caffeine headaches into the mix.  So naturally, I started drinking coffee four mornings of the week and I built up a small tolerance to it! Next on the list is rum! Four days a week!…..ok I’m totally kidding about that one.

26.  I got a caffeine headache this past weekend. However, I don’t reward bad behavior so I punished my head by not drinking caffeine.  Yes, I’m just realizing how this sounds too.

6.  I fell in love with Mentos.  I cannot resist them and I’m planning our wedding.

1.  I’ve worked out three times this week…and it’s the third day of the week, so…I think it’s safe to say I’m on a roll, until tomorrow of course.

1.2.   While working out in my garage earlier this afternoon, a monster mosquito pulled a covert operation. The mission was this: Fly in undetected, extract the target, rendezvous and get out without being hit.  He was successful.

1.2.3. In related news, tomorrow my forearm will be twice the size, which is just what my arm self-esteem needs right now.  But that’s not all folks.  It will also have a lump and a scab and ooze clear liquid from the wound.  People will be running through the city screaming like Jamie Lee Curtis, trying to get away from my arm.

1.2.3.4.  Mosquitoes and I don’t get along.  Mosquitoes and I aren’t friends.  Mosquitoes and I don’t see eye to eye.  Mosquitoes and I will never take a long walk on a beach together.  Mosquitoes and I don’t hang.  We don’t have anything in common.

1.2.3.4.5.  Wouldn’t it be cool if instead of having an allergic reaction to the little suckers, they gave me a super power?  I can see it now…

My name would be Candace…I know, its way out there, kinda crazy, but I just think it suits me…I would be the normal, shy, introverted girl that no one noticed in college.  I hid my way through my classes and died a little inside every time I had to pass by the Sorority and Frat booths. Then, one day while…camping?  Sure, ok let’s go with it.  I got bit by a mosquito.  At first my body had the natural allergic reaction but then…oh, THEN crazy things started to happen.  I would wake up with a weird thirst for blood, and massive strength.  I could see way better than usual and *gasp* I could fly.  Yes, fly.

I would confide in my best friend: Wendy Washington.  With wind blown, wavy, wild and wondrous hair who wears white frequently, is wiry and witty, and has a unique interest in weather. Pop Quiz: How many W’s was in that wonderful and wordy description?

Wendy would help come up with a secret identity, my name would be Draq.

Wendy would be supportive at first, but she would eventually be overcome with jealousy and use her love of weather to turn herself into wind, wind that would disable and render me useless, weakening me to the point that I could be killed.  She tried to kill me in the end, but with the help of a scientist that I met along the way, we would capture her in wind form and keep her contained, locked away in a vault….forever.  Or…not?

In the second comic book, she would of course get loose and use her smarts to create my arch enemy.  Someone by the name of Skeeter Eater.  He’ll be four times my size and we’ll smash into every skyscraper in New York.

And uh….what was I saying?

Oh right.  I’ve built up a tolerance to coffee…..Yeah, right.

Oh hi, I just thought I would take this time to interrupt your night with some very, very important questions that I have, revolving around this photo:

Why am I wearing those glasses?  Did I think they were cool?  Did I think they fit my face?  Did I think they went well with my shirt?

Ohhhh, my clothing choice…Why am I wearing a velour jacket?  Why am I wearing jeans that don’t cover my love handles?  Did I just not feel the cold air on them?  And trust me, the air was cold.  The air is always cold in my house…Why did I not feel it?

Why do I look so happy?

Why am I clutching beads in my hands?

Why do I have glow sticks on my head?

And how, HOW did I have the time and energy to straighten my hair every day?

Hi.  It’s me…That girl that was blogging consistently for a while and then fell off the internet.  Yes, it is possible to fall of the internet.  See, I had this plan a few months ago.  It was great…I was going to water this little plant of mine that I like to call a blog, (but what is really just lots and lots of words about nothing put together in run-on sentences) and I was going to watch it grow and thrive and succeed because let’s face it, this is the closest thing in my life right now that resembles having a kid. Um….what? Nevermind.  I wanted to nurture my blog! And dag gummit, I was going to!!!!

Then I got sick.

No, it was not the flu, it was not pneumonia, it was a cold.  A cold.  A cold that took me down HARD.  A cold that made me fall off the internet.  A cold that made me go to bed at 10PM instead of 1AM, a cold that made me wonder about my nose’s ability to be rational…because what nose in their right mind decides to masquerade as a faucet?  I still don’t know what it was thinking.

I’m about three weeks into this cold, and I’m still not in the hundees when it comes to percentage.  I get better and then I get worse again and then I get better and then my body says “April fools!” to which I respond by yelling back angrily “IT’S OCTOBER!”

Right now I’m on the upswing again…and I’m hoping it’s going to stick…but who knows really?  Cause when your immune system looks like this……

Rather than this…..

Anything is possible.

I decided that since I haven’t written in a while though, I might as well catch you up on things that have been happening and things that I’ve been thinking lately.  Hold on to your hats, seats, and shoes ladies and gentlemen…because what you are about to read is without a doubt…riveting.

5.  It’s Fall now.  Yes, I know that technically it’s been fall since September 22^nd, but in reality…it has NOT.  I have been absolutely indignant with the Indian summer here for the past couple weeks.  I was pretty much determined from the beginning on wearing my sweaters, and boots, and lighting my autumn scented candles, and bundling up under blankets while watching football no matter how high into the 80’s the weather was.  However, now that it’s almost November, the weather has finally cooled off, leaving the air chilly and crisp, the leaves brilliantly red and orange, and I can successfully wear a sweater without….sweating?…I live a life of glamor obviously.  I just love this time of year.  The heater comes on and I get so excited because in my opinion, the smell of the heater is something that cannot be beat.

17.  Limiting my hours in the day from 8:00  to 10:00 rather than 8:00 to 1:00 or 2:00 really makes one prioritize…It also might make one a little more road rage-y while driving home from work….but not me of course.  It just might make….Someone be that way.

8.  I’ve tried writing a few times over the past month, and almost every time I fell asleep while typing.  I’m uh, probably the coolest.

13.  Getting out of bed in the morning is not my love language.

4.  I put Christmas music on my phone…I. Can’t. Handle. The. Excitement.

9.  This morning I spilled coffee into my eyeball.  It stung for a solid forty minutes afterward.  I felt like crying and giving myself a round of applause.  I did neither one of those things.  I might have sputtered though.

6.  I decided that I’m no longer going to paint my nails.  Because five minutes after I do it, they chip.  And usually I’m too lazy to take the polish off once I get it on.  At some points in my adulthood life I’ve probably gone 3 months with one teeny, tiny, single speck of color on a single finger nail…just waiting for it to fall off.  Like I said above, I live a life of glamor.

3.  Fantasy football is legitimately serious business.  I have never played football professionally.  I’ve been begged by NFL scouts to sign contracts and join their teams…But in the end I just really didn’t feel like any of the teams were a great fit for me.  So instead I’ve been playing Fantasy football…and I might be competitive….Like, I might have almost fought Colin over the Saints defense.

25.  I got a flu shot recently.  My arm is mad at me now.  And my immune system…

 

Is frightened.

Love,

Caffeinated eyeball.

Once Upon a time five years ago when I was a baby and thought I knew it all, I started college at MPC.  In my first semester, I spent a lot of my classes and free time with my good friend Nathan and our other friend Tee.  This was both good and bad.  Occasionally they wanted to kill me.  Ok, more than occasionally.  I was brilliant at being irritating and they both experienced the full effect of that.  One day in particular stands out to me though.  Nathan, Tee, and I had gone out to lunch, and we took Tee’s Bronco.  After we had ordered our food, we were parked in the parking lot eating and just talking before having to head back to school.  I don’t know what I was doing exactly, or why I was doing it, but for some reason I reached up from my perch in the middle seat to adjust Tee’s review mirror.  In the seconds following, there was a disturbing nails on a chalk board, gritty, gross, noise, and Tee’s whole entire review mirror was in my hand.  The ENTIRE mirror along with a chunk of glass attached to the back.  Somehow I had ripped it out of the windshield leaving a dent in the glass.  Tee stared at me in shock.  I stared at myself in shock.  I racked my brain and tried hard to remember if I’d been bitten by a radioactive spider in Chemistry class the day before, but I was coming up blank.  I had absolutely no explanation for what had just happened, and to this day I still don’t.  Here’s something I do know: Nathan died that day.  I have never seen anyone laugh so hard and silently at the same time.

Once upon a time three nights ago, my little sister hid a fake head in my bed.  I had been grumpy and tired because on Friday nights I’m an old lady and like to go to sleep early…and that wasn’t happening.  Finally at 1:00 AM I was mind numb and dizzy, and my eyes were puffy, and drool was leaking out the side of my mouth as I stumbled to my bed.  As I innocently pulled back my covers, there it was…a head.  A fake head with crazy horrible hair.  I gasped loudly and jumped about 10 feet in to the air.  I might have also said a four letter word beginning with S, but the jury is still out on that one.  As soon as I recovered, I yanked the head off my covers and marched toward Rebecca’s room.  I had plans to chuck it at her face, but I was laughing too hard to do it.  So instead I tried to stammer out that it wasn’t funny and that she really shouldn’t do it again.  I still don’t know if she’s taking me seriously about this or not, cause how stern can someone sound exactly while they’re laugh-talking with tears sprouting out of their eyes?

Once Upon a time fifteen years ago I was a middle child and I liked to keep up with the boys…wait, I’m still a middle child.  Once upon a time fifteen years ago I liked to keep up with the boys, and my Grandma had a backyard bigger than Narnia…with a pool in it.  Every year, the guys did something called a polar bear swim.  They’d get in their undies and dive in to the pool, swimming the length of it in the middle of winter.  I wanted to do the polar bear swim.  I wanted to dive in and swim the length of the wintery, unheated, icy, shark infested, chummed to the core, pool.  So I did.  I stood on a platform with my Dad, my Uncle Mike and Cousin Justin, and My Uncle John and two other cousins Colter and Daniel, and dove in.  I swam the whole length in the rude water that was relentlessly stabbing needles in to my skin.  I climbed the steps at the shallow end, found my mom, and then cried.  I was tougher back then.  Now I find my mom and cry just thinking about getting in cold water.

Hope you had a great Monday!