I'm Tired....Bored....Sick....Annoyed.....Have a Nice Day

I'm having sleeping issues.  I'll have insomnia and barely sleep for two or three days, then sleep around the clock for a couple of days.  This is wreaking havoc with my life--I'm not able to be productive in any way, shape or form.  This is especially frustrating because I recently started a bunch of projects.  It makes me wonder if I'm subconsciously sabotaging myself.

I'm reading a very interesting book titled "Finding Your Own North Star."  The basic goal of the book is to help the reader discover where their true passion and joy in life lie, and help them get to the point where they are in touch with said passions and living in line with the desires of their hearts.  All I can say is that this book is really pointing out to me is the fact that I'm very, very far from living in that state.  The things that have always brought me joy--music, art, friends, playing games, singing...I'm sadly lacking in these departments.  I'm not even sure how my life has become the sad place it is right now...I'm excited to read the rest of the book, and it will hopefully help me begin to try to get my ducks in a row.  (Btw, Jill, I know you're reading this...please forgive the injudicious use of ellipses.  I can't help it.)

My little Avon business is going pretty well. I plan to start trying to get some organizations to run fundraisers. This will be great, because not only is it a good way to earn decent money, I'll also be helping people.  Win/win.

Now for the pet peeve of my post (I think I'll start putting a pet peeve in each post.  God know I've got enough of 'em.)

Those of you who know me IRL know I've got some fairly serious health issues.  I absolutely hate having my life revolve around doctors, meds, illness, lab tests, etc.  I go to the doctor as often as I absolutely have to, but no more.  I went to see my primary care physician last week, and got verbally spanked for not coming to see her earlier.  "Why?" you may ask.  It seems that with the new Obama health takeover, the government now keeps track of how often "seriously ill" people are seen by their doctors (I don't consider myself THAT ill.) Every month my doctor is getting a letter about me, asking if I've been seen by her, and advising her to make sure I'm all right. I do get Medicare insurance because I'm disabled, along with my regular health insurance, so I understand that the government does know my bizness. But I'm just really surprised that healthcare is being micromanaged to that extent. I hadn't seen my pc for 5 months, but I've been in the hospital twice in that time period, so I've had plenty of doctorin' IMO.  Now my doctor is insisting that I have a home health nurse come to my house twice a week to do vitals, and a PT is coming twice a week....I'm sorry, but I've got stuff to do!  Plus,I don't NEED this stuff.  It's a waste of time and money.  What do you all think?  Leave a comment!

Happy Thursday :)

Insomnia, AVON, and Delusions of Grandeur

Wow...I've got so much running through my mind I don't know what to do.  First, it's 5:34 a.m. and I haven't slept at all.  This isn't actually that uncommon, as I seem to have acquired vampirish sleeping patterns (though I require chocolate to exist, not blood).  Tomorrow is going to be a busy day, so I should have slept.  Oh well, I guess that's why coffee was created.  I just want to warn you in advance this post could be extremely rambley, and I can tell already I'm gonna be making up a lot of words, because I've already used two words that aren't actually wordy (see?  There's three.)

I haven't posted for a while, but I have a fairly good excuse.  I never follow through with things.  Oh, wait--no, I meant to say that I've been really busy! :)  The school year for my son is officially underway, so I have to spend time nagging, threatening, guilting, browbeating, admonishing and blackmailing (these are my duties as teacher, as I see it).  I also acted on one of my spur-of-the-moment harebrained ideas and became an AVON representative.  Oddly enough, and somewhat out of character for me,  I actually am really working at it, and I believe I'm going to be somewhat successful.  It definitely takes me out of my comfort zone, because I'm not at all assertive and I feel extremely uncomfortable suggesting that someone buy something from me.  This particular shortcoming made me stupendously ineffective as a Mary Kay consultant bzck in the 80's, and unfortunately generated a $1,000 loss, which made me exceedingly unpopular with my spouse. I would have the Mary Kay party, which I enjoyed up until the point where I was supposed to close the sale.  I felt so guilty, because it was my friends and family that hosted the first few parties, and I knew the people in attendance couldn't afford Mary Kay.  So I would diffidently mumble my little Mary Kay phrases (I swear, they told you exactly what you were supposed to say for almost every situation.  I'm surprised they didn't have a script for how to ask to go to the bathroom!)  Anyway, I didn't succeed at Mary Kay, and consequently I consider myself someone who isn't a salesperson (not to mention my husband's opinions of my competency).

However, I'm older, wiser, and less concerned with other people, and more concerned with myself now.  I'm also selling a product that is reasonably priced, and the people I'm offering my services to aren't living at or below poverty level.  I also did some research on AVON as a company, and they are extremely active in fighting Breast Cancer, as well has having funds and education for Domestic Violence awareness and a campaign to raise awareness of teen relationship abuse (did you know that 1 in 5 teens in a serious relationship report being physically abused by a partner?  That's appalling.)  AVON also has a fabulous fund-raising program, and I'm researching ways to make money and help out some worthy organizations.   Win/win!

Next, my friend Cheryl had a fabulous idea for me to start teaching piano again and become a vendor for a couple of the charter schools.  This idea follows an event from a couple of weeks ago where another homeschool mom offered to sell me a piano (I haven't had one for almost 8 years).  I used to have 30 piano students, and that was one of the happiest times of my life.  I won't attempt that many students, but I'm thinking I could handle 10 or so.  That would be a nice little pile of money every month, and it's something I can do physically.  My goal is to acquire enough money to go to school to be a makeup artist ($3k), then start a fund to buy a house (I'm so tired of renting).  I'd like to go on a cruise to Hawaii next spring (www.vacationstogo.com has great deals). I also can have a fund raiser for my own homeschool (yep, they'll let you do that) and hopefully fund David's curriculum/online tuition. Finally, for the past 8 years I've had this grandiose dream for David and I to sail on the Queen Mary II to England, do a European tour for 3 or 4 weeks, then ride the QEII home. I would like to do this his senior year, which gives me three years to save. I know his dad wouldn't be able to take of work that long, but he can fly out and spend a couple of weeks with us if he wants. I'm going to make a trip budget, and who knows?  It could happen.

The most amazing transpiration in the past week is that something in my mind has snapped (in a good way) and I want to get healthy.  Not in the "gee, I wish I wasn't sick" way, but in the "I'm going to go to the gym and workout no matter how much it hurts, and quit eating food that will kill me" way.  I pulled out a few books that have been helpful in the past (Andrew Weil is a genius), downloaded some menus from the DLife (diabetes ino) website, researched a yoga facility (I'd really like to do yoga) and chose some classes from the gym I belong to.  Tomorrow (today, actually) I'm going to make a list of everything I need to do--all the doctor's appointments I need to make (including a couple for David--sometimes I suck so much I want to slap myself), a grocery list, etc.  This mindset doesn't happen very often, and I really want to preserve it.  I'm going to write a letter to my future self that will attempt to make my future self continue doing what needs to be done.  Does anyone else do this?  I've written myself letters a couple of times, but unfortunately my future self thinks my past self was being all holier-than-thou when they wrote the letter, and tends to blatantly ignore what the letter says and go right back to the self-destructive patterns.

I want to change.  I want to be healthy.  I want to be a healthy weight.  I want to be diabetes free. I want to be a makeup artist.  I want to be financially independent.  I want to own a house that I love to live in.  I want to travel.  I want to give David a better life.  While I'm pie-in-the-skying, I also want a relationship with a man who loves me, respects me, and doesn't emotionally abuse me.  And you know what?  I deserve all this, and more (okay, I don't really believe that, but I'm working on loving myself).  I believe all you guys would deserve all that, and more, so logically it follows that I'm just as worthy.  I need to stop doing my "'I'm not worthy" schtick and take a big girl pill.  It's time for me to grow up and take care of myself.  Now, because time is speeding so fast that if I don't grab hold now, it's going to be too late by the time I get around to it.

And now, because I'm being a good little AVON lady, here's the addy to my online store.

http://www.youravon.com/proot

If you're one of my local friends, unless you really like online ordering, feel free to call or e-mail and order directly from me.  I think it's faster than the online delivery judging from what I've heard from a couple of people.

Everyone have a WONDERFUL day, and start dreaming some galumping dreams (okay, so how many words did I make up? I'm too tired to count.  I'm also not responsible for the grammatical errors, because if I go back and start trying to make this perfect I'll never publish it.  You all will have to just love me anyway.)  Let me know in the comments what your big dreams are--maybe it will give me some more ideas!

So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains 

And we never even know we have the key.

Do You Know How Hard it is to Find a Retro Poster of a Woman Being Spanked??? Okay, not that hard.

I've been a bad, bad, blogger!

I've been up to all kinds of stuff lately.  I have an unfortunate habit of starting a whole bunch of stuff (or "plethora of au courant enterprises" if I break out the thesaurus).  My goal in the next year is to complete training to be a makeup artist.  Cosmetics fascinate me.  The act of transforming a person's appearance is a captivating experience for me.  I lose track of time--oh wait, I always do that.  I believe one of the core reasons I enjoy makeup application is because I've always wanted to be an artist.  I've painted with oils, watercolor, acrylics, japanese ink and even the Bob Ross "wet-on-wet" medium from the 90s (remember Bob Ross?  What do you think he was on?  I'm pretty sure he was taking too much of it, whatever it was.)

Although I did enjoy making "happy little trees" and "beating the devil out of" my brush, I just don't have talent.  And I'm not being a perfectionist, or too self-critical.  I don't paint well. (Although I do believe a layer of glitter sprinkled over pretty much any picture makes it pretty.)

Hence my love of makeup.  I hate to say I "have a passion" for something--I take passion very seriously.  But I will say I'm extremely fond of cosmetics, and do tend to like them for more than just a friend.  Applying makeup (or "hookering it up" as my niece is wont to say) let's me express my love of and joy in colors, shadows,texture, scent, sparkle and shine.  At the end I have a living, breathing work of art--and usually a woman who feels a little happier, stands a little taller, and has a happy little smile on her happy little face (okay, in a very few instances it might be a happy little tree on her happy little face....what can I say?  I'm an artiste!)

So if I choose to spend my time creating art AND building women's self-esteem I believe it's been time well  spent. And though I will occasionally be self-effacing and apologetic about the "frivolous" nature of my blog I don't mean a word of it.  This is very important to me.  It makes me happy, gives me something productive to do, gives me goals, and dangles that most dangerous of things in front of me....HOPE.  I have hope that I will be successful getting money for the training by selling Avon.  I have hope that I will complete my classes in a brilliant manner. And, finally, I have hope, for the first time since I became really sick, that I will have a career that I will enjoy, am able physically to do, and one that will bring me joy.  And today I can't ask for more than that.

Renovation--It's Not Just for Houses Anymore

I have a confession to make--I care what you think of me.  I don't want you to think I'm unintelligent (see, right there I was going to say "stupid" but thought "unintelligent" sounded less stupid) or boring.  I want to shed my white-trash mobile home past and be one of the cool kids.  I'm constantly spinning in circles trying to impress you, entertain you, and entice you to be my friend.

And that's where the online thesaurus comes in.  I don't want to use everyday, regular people words.  I want to use ten dollar, highbrow words.  I want to be perspicacious.

Today, as I was trolling thesaurus.com for the perfect word to express "beginning" (my first word choice had been "inception", but I thought that sounded pretentious, so I chose "beginning", but that was too simple) the word "renovation" caught my eye.  I am, of course, familiar with the word, but I found the definition to be a perfect description of what I what to do with this soggy, disheveled mess I call my life.

First, "to restore to good condition".  I immediately thought of my physical self.  It's definitely not in "good condition".  I can, and should, be more strict with my blood sugar.  If I increase my activity it will improve several illnesses that affect my body. Actually going to see my doctors would be especially helpful--I've been ignoring the medical profession lately, and possibly only seeing the doctor when I'm admitted to the hospital isn't the most healthy decision.

Next to "reinvigorate; refresh; revive."  I'm tired.  Exhausted, both physically and mentally.  My jokes are getting old, and I find myself telling the same stories over and over. I need to start getting out and experiencing new things.  I can't remember the last time I went to a concert or play (actually, I do.  It was four years ago at Christmas).  I tend to choose the same genre of books consistently.  I'm beginning to bore myself, much less anyone else.  I need something new to experience.  I need new stuff to talk about.

But now I'm back to the same old problem:  How do I make myself do what I need to do?  Why don't I do what I want to do?  Or why don't I want to do what I should do?

Hmmm....maybe "inception" was the better word.  To "begin, take in hand."  I need to take myself in hand, and begin a new phase of my life. I need to "take; seize" my present, and create the future I want, need, and deserve.  Because I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and, doggone it, people like me!