Slap a Stickie on it Tuesday!

Blog Makeover

Well. Got quite a lot accomplished this weekend. Blog-wise, that is. Got nada done around the house.

Na. Da.

That's Spanish for nuthin.

Anyhoo, I took Melissa's advice from momcomm.com about giving your blog a makeover and adding social media buttons, and taking away the dark background, and all the fluff in the sidebars (or some of it, anyway), and putting blogs you follow on a separate page, and lots of other stuff. Mind you, she didn't give this advice to me directly, but it was on twitter. So I did it. I like it better. Do you?

Also, I took Gigi's advie at Kludgymom.com about spicing up blog posts and doing list posts instead of boring, yada, yada posts. So that's what this is. A list post. So I guess I better get to the list then, eh?

A List Post About What I Did This Weekend

1. Gave my blog a makeover.
2. Discovered Pinterest

That's it. That's all I did. 

And while we're on the topic - Pinterest? Oh. My. God. 

Can you say TIME TAKER???  

Such a fun site. We're such a visual species and pictures are so...soul stirring. Really, aren't they? Even the materialistic ones showing cute outfits you wish you looked good in, and gorgeous jewelry you wished you owned, and rooms you wished you had to dust. It's not that we feel bad that we don't have them, it's just that we appreciate that they're out there for the taking.

So, that's my post for the weekend. And now, it's back to work tomorrow. Bugger.

P.S. So, I checked my blog stats - all 5 of them. And somebody found me by keying "adult comic online blogspot" into google search. Also, somebody keyed "Viagra Valentine's Day" and got my blog. I have no idea why, but they must have been terribly disappointed. Adult comics? Really? And anyone who thinks Viagra should be reserved only for Vaentine's Day deserves to be single.

Not So Wordless Wednesday

Yes, that's a squirt bottle.

Yes, it's hanging on my headboard. Of my bed.

And now, for a multiple choice quiz.

Q: Why is a squirt bottle hanging on the headboard of my bed?

A. I don't work very hard during sex so I sneak a couple sprays during the throes of passion to make me look hot, sweaty and sexy.

B. Hubby works too hard during sex and gets hot and sweaty (and a little asthmatic) so I spray him down.

C. I read that aliens don't like water so I keep it handy in case I'm abducted. Again.

D. Our neurotic dogs erupt in a symphony of barks in the middle of the night for absolutely no reason at all and a couple squirts simmers the little mofos down for a hot second..

E. All of the above.

Did you guess correctly? Congratulations. You've won some dogs.

This is a Wordless Wednesday blog hop sponsored by Stacey Uncorked. I was too sleep deprived to figure out how to add the linky widget thingie, so visit Stacey's blog and take a look at the other entries and link up!

Intervention

It's not always how they show it on T.V.


T.V. shows have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Usually, a happy end. In life...real-life addiction...there's a beginning, but you can't see it. You have no idea where the beginning started for the addict you love. I look at pictures of her when she was young and try to see a sign of it, but I don't see it.

I look at her pictures often. Baby pictures, elementary school pictures, junior high pictures - was there something there I didn't see? She looks happy in most of them. But that sad smile in that one 6th grade school picture - did that mean something or was it just a bad day? I drive myself crazy trying to figure it out. Trying to find the beginning.

Her father and I divorced when she was 7. That was hard on her - it was hard on all three of my kids. Is that where it started?

There were things that happened in her early teens that were tell tale signs that she didn't like herself. We put her in counseling. She would be counseled for 3 years. Almost every week for 3 years. Sometimes there was progress, sometimes not.

I  tried to keep this from happening. This. This addiction and this lifestyle. But it turns out my efforts were just hurdles for her on the path she was determined to take.

In June she turned 18. She started hanging around the kinds of people I tried for 3 years to keep her from. By Christmas she had lost weight, quit two jobs, dropped out of her community college class, and was living with a guy who looked as bad as she did.

We knew something was wrong. We knew she had to be addicted to something. She wouldn't admit to using anything besides pot. It's a helpless feeling to see your child, who is not a child, spiraling down.  It's a helpless, guilt-ridden, sad and lonely feeling.

I thought a person has to want help before they can change. They have to "hit bottom". But the interventionists say no, you can't wait until a person hits bottom to get them help. An intervention raises the bottom. You gather all the people that love and care for them and together you all show the person that they are at bottom. You show them how their addiction is hurting the people they love, and themselves.

On T.V., you get to read them a letter. Paragraph 1: You tell them all the things you love about them. Paragraph 2: You tell them how their addiction has changed them. Paragraph 3: You tell them how you can't watch them do that to themselves anymore, and you ask them to go to treatment today. You must end with, "Will you go to treatment today?" Today. It's urgent. You can't watch them kill themselves anymore. It has to end today.

We didn't get to read our letters. Maybe had she seen all 13 of us in that room, and heard our letters, maybe she would have gone to treatment. I like to think that. But part of me still believes she has to want to change. She has to be tired of the life she's living and want something more. She has to at least admit she's using.

We tried to trick her into coming over. We told her I was sick and needed help. I had a recent trip to the emergency room, so it was plausible. She wouldn't come. So, the men in the group got in the car and went to her. Her boyfriend owns a gun which he carries around with him, and we weren't sure how he would take to the idea of her family taking her to an intervention she didn't want to go to. So the men went to get her and the women stayed behind. It sounds very cave-man like, but that's how it happened.

The atmosphere at our house, while we waited for the men to come back with her, reminded me of how it is at a funeral. Not the funeral, really, but after the funeral, when everyone gathers at someone's house and they eat, and talk, and reminisce, and cry, and laugh together. It's very bittersweet.

It was like that, only minus the death. (for now at least. And only in the literal sense, for I believe some intangible parts of my daughter have died.)

It was a bit odd for me to sit chatting with my ex-husband's girlfriend of 11 years, and my former mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and one of his cousins. But there were no hard feelings or resentments that day. Just shared pain for a lost child and shared hope that she'll come back to us. I've had inklings over the years that my ex-husband's girlfriend and I could have been friends had circumstances been different. I actually think we really could now. On my side, I had my sister, my sister-in-law, my cousin, and my other daughter there. Other than my daughter, my family had never really spent time with my ex-husband's family, not even when we were married. But that day, we were all there to support one another.

Despite the efforts of the interventionist, my ex-husband, my ex-father-in-law, my brother, and my son - my daughter would not come back to the house to talk to us. As a matter of fact, she drove away and would only speak to the interventionist and her father over the phone. Had he had the opportunity, I know her dad would have picked her up and put her in the car and drove her to us. But he didn't have the chance.

What could we do? She didn't want help. The men came back to the house and all that was left to do was hug, cry, and say goodbye.

She didn't want help. She still doesn't want help. The intervention, or wanna-be intervention, happened a week ago and I haven't heard from her since. This is the longest time she's gone without talking to me. It's painful and it's difficult.

When we were planning this, the interventionist told us our daughter would go through 4 stages at the intervention. 1. Anger. 2. Denial. 3. Deflection 4. Bargaining.

It occurred to me that parents of addicts go through these same stages, although we go through them over a much longer period of time. Years, actually.

When my daughter was almost 15, and showing signs of a problem, I was angry at her for the choices she was making. I taught her better than that. The anger stage was on and off for 3 years.

After the anger started, then denial kicked in. She experimented with pot, and various pills, and cocaine, but we had her in counseling, and we were drug testing her and she was passing, so she must be fine. She must have kicked it.

Then deflection. This is the worst one. When addicts deflect, they point out the shortcomings of those around them to take the pressure off themselves and their using. Sister smokes pot. Mom drinks.

When parents deflect, it's the opposite. We turn the finger on ourselves. What did I do wrong? Why is there a hole inside my child's soul that only a fatal substance can fill? What kind of parent am I? The questions leave you awake and wide-eyed in the middle of the night and bring you sobbing to your knees when you're alone in the shower.

Then bargaining. We offer to pay for treatment if they will just go. We offer to help them get their own place after treatment, if they stay clean. We tell them we'll pay for school if they stay clean. We'll get them a car if they stay clean. We'll help them with anything they need. Just don't use.

These 4 stages drag out over years, and overlap. And right now, for me, they are my life.

On T.V. the addict agrees to get help. But it doesn't always happen like it does on T.V.

Post It Note Tuesday

Slap a Stickie on it Tuesday!

Well, I'm not sure if Post-It Note Tuesday still exists or not. But it sure is an easy way to write a post, so I'm going for it.

**Seriously, that last part, about tweeting to someone, then realizing they are, like, a genius - That happened to me on my work twitter account. I have to tweet computer programming and iphone game developer stuff, and sound smart. It's really hard. Hence, the wine. But only at the end of the day - it's not like I have a flask at my desk or something. Well, not since they caught me.

Nah, just kiddin. But really, sounding smart is hard.

In Which a Trip to the Emergency Room results in Hubby Losing HisCheeseburger

I'm attempting to post this from my phone so if a sentence suddenly makes no sense at all, it's because auto-correct kicked in. Or the pain meds.

Why am I on pain meds, you ask? (and more importantly, will I share? No.)

If you missed the riveting twitter feed Thursday, I'll fill you in. I was in the emergency room for 9 hours.

It started with a doctor visit on Tuesday for back and abdominal pain that started two weeks ago and was just getting worse.

Doc took blood and scheduled some tests. Rather, started the red tape process with insurance company to get the approval to schedule the tests.

2 days later, pain worsening, hubby increasingly more worried, sister telling me I'm being like our aunt who ignored her symptoms and died suddenly from pancreatic cancer, and no word from doctor, hubby tells me we're going to the emergency room.

Hubby leaves work early and stops at doctor's office on way home to see if they had results of blood tests. You see, hubby had his appendix burst at 20 years old, never having had a pain in his appendix at all, and after being told by two emergency rooms that he had the flu. So he may be a tad paranoid when it comes to pains in the midsection.

So paranoid hubby asks doc if white blood cell count is high and if it is, he's taking me to emergency room. Doc has to call lab for results, gets them, and tells hubby to take me to emergency room.

And here is where the story goes awry. If you were hubby, wouldn't you ask, what exactly, in the blood results, would be the reason for our trip to the emergency room? Just so, oh, I don't know, we might be able to tell the ER the reason we are there?

Hubby doesn't ask. Doc doesn't say. Hubby, bless his non-questioning heart, comes home and tells me he's whisking me off to the ER.

Meanwhile, I'm searching for clean undies and clean pants with an elastic waistband that isn't pajamas. Because if I was going to be sitting in a hard chair for hours and hours in an ER, I was damn well going to do it in an elastic waistband.

And for some reason I'm compelled to shave my legs. Only I'm in a hurry because paranoid hubby thinks my appendix is going to burst any moment, so I quickly dry shave my legs.

OMG - the burning!  You know what I'm talking about, right ladies? It burned all friggin' night.

So, we get to the emergency room. Lovely place. This one happened to be especially busy.

So as not to make this post painfully long, I'll just highlight a few things I learned that may help someone else on their next trip to the ER (knock on wood that there are no ER trips in your future):

1. Wear a bra. I thought I would be put in a hospital gown and whisked off for an appendectomy so when I was throwing on clothes, I decided a bra was unnecessary.

But what's the very first test they do? An EKG! You know, the one where you lift your shirt up and they put a bunch of sticky things on your chest, attached to wires? Yeah, it's a bit awkward with no freakin' bra.

2. Don't use the sticky tape things from the EKG to cover your nipples. It's frowned upon.

3. Expect that if you're over 45, they'll do an EKG, because, well, you're old.

4. When in the Multi-gender bathroom, with instructions to pee in a cup, make sure you understand the complexities of the door lock before sitting on the toilet. Sick people apparently don't knock. And you are likely not a pretty sight with legs splayed open, holding the pee cup against your nether regions with one hand and the little wipie packet thing in the other, trying to tear it open with your teeth. Although for some, this could be a turn on. (You know who you are)

5. While in the waiting room, listen to the things the kids say because they provide much comedy relief. Like the little girl who looked about 6 and should have had her own show. She kept telling this other kid he "had a booger." she finally got tired of the subtle approach and just told him, "Look, you got a booger on your face and boy, you need to do something about it!" I envied her directness.

6. Be aware that some people with nothing better to do will hang around hospital emergency rooms and scam others into giving them food. For added effect, they'll even sit in a wheelchair.

I know this now, because after the 3rd hour of waiting, hubby decided to hit a McDonalds for food for him and The Boy (my 21 year old son). He also went home to get me a bra, in case there were anymore tests that might involve me taking my shirt off.

So on my way to the bathroom to put on my bra, wheelchair boy asks if he can have some food. I'm a charitable soul and a bit of a sucker, so I go back to where hubby's sitting and tell him he has to share his food.

Now, normally hubby is kind and generous but something about wheelchair boy struck him as a scammer. He argued a bit about giving up his cheeseburger, but begrudgingly handed it to me.

I return to wheelchair boy, hand him the cheeseburger, and ask if he needs anything else. His answer? "Yeah, the fries."

From that moment on, he was known to us as "The Hamburgler".

For the remaining 6 hours of our ER stay, we would watch Hamburgler ask people who were there with their own sick loved ones to push him here or there, or outside, in his wheelchair. He asked families who were feeding their kids for food or candy, and got some every time. Once, he got out of his wheelchair, walked outside then back in, and sat right back down in it!

I'm still hearing from hubby about how I gave away his cheeseburger to The Hamburgler, and probably will for quite some time.

7. The last thing I learned from this little adventure is if I want information from my doctor, I shouldn't depend on hubby to get it because men just don't ask enough friggin questions! It turns out that the hospital blood tests were fine and the only reason the doc said to go to the ER is because hubby said I was still in pain.

Had I known that, I would have just stayed in my comfy bed in pain, instead spending 9 hours at the ER with Hamburgler, Booger Boy, and Bathroom Perv.

And that, dear reader, is why I'm blogging from my phone and taking pain meds. Thanks for reading this long tale. I hope I didn't bore you. And watch out for Hamburglers.

P.S. While I'm incapacitated, hubby is helping out with household chores. While I'm in the recliner, finishing my blog post, I (helpfully) text him that the laundry load is done. Here's what he texts back:

"Fixing sprinklers, then last 3 strands of xmas lights. Get to laundry shortly. Watch cartoons or something. Don't make me send you back upstairs."

Think he's still mad about the cheeseburger.

Slap a Stickie On It Tuesday!

Just A Second

I never really thought about how long a second is. It's just a snippet of time. One snippet, too short in which to accomplish anything of value. If you put several together then you had something to work with - 15 of them, or 30 of them. But just one - what can you do with just one? It's like a drop of water. What do you do with one drop of water?

Then I got this newsletter at work from an ink cartridge company (I know it sounds totally boring, but they always have good links in it) and they had a link to a video comprised of 60 1-second videos. Montblanc, a  company that makes watches, is sponsoring a contest of 1 second videos and they compiled 60 of the entries into one video.

I watched it and was struck by how much can be conveyed in 1 second. Beauty, hope, joy, pain - it just takes one second of looking to see it.

I was just thinking that maybe I skip the seconds in life and only look at the moments. I think I miss a lot by doing that. This year I resolve to see the seconds of life. Click here to take a look at the video.

Here's to Seconds.

Foiled!

Our house, Sunday, January 1, 2012. 

Yup, those New Year's diet resolutions are off to a rolicking start!

Just Start

So, I text my boss on the day of our office Christmas party and ask if I can go home a little early so that I can "gussy-up" for the party. Only, auto-correct changes it to "hussy-up". Fortunately, I caught it before I sent it, or I would have had some 'splainin' to do.

Yeah, I haven't posted in almost a year, and yeah, I'm just diving right on back into it. No explanations or apologies because, well, that's how I would really like to roll.

Thanks to Stir Fry Awesomeness chick for her post that made me realize I'm not the only blogger who goes MIA sometimes.

Happy New Year!