My life as a mentally ill mom

Maybe that's what this blog should be about, maybe that's its calling, its purpose; talking out about mental illness and explaining to people that we aren't all homeless, unkempt, muttering fools.  I'm well educated, I have a crazy head of hair, I'm married with one kid and I'm mentally ill.


I wasn't always mentally ill, although I've spent more than half my life dealing this condition.  Sometimes it seems like just yesterday when I came to the realization that something was wrong, that something was seriously wrong.  There became a point where I realized I was way off track and well meaning people kept asking when I was going to finish my educational training, when was I going to start working full time, when was I going to . . .  What I heard was, what's wrong with you, why aren't you the person you used to be, what happened to your drive?  You'd have thought that I would've sought help, but I didn't.  I continued to bury myself into my bed and sleep all day.  Eventually I began therapy (again) and started to see some improvement from my more ridiculous fears and thoughts.  I was resistant and fought the idea of medication.  I started and quit many times.  I wanted to give up and just live the life I had, was given, was dealt to live.


Eventually we acquired health care, which included therapy sessions and medication.  I really didn't waste much time getting back into therapy.  I was very lucky to find two excellent doctors, one an MD who handles my medication and specializes in people with my disorder, and a very patient doctor who led me through a few years of therapy.  I am in some small ways "better", but I know that this a long road with dips, giant valleys, never ending potholes and yes, even rises where I can
look out and enjoy the view.


After my therapist retired I took a break from therapy, but one morning I woke up and realized that things had gotten bad.  Not eating, not bathing, a lack of self care - this is when I know I've tripped and fallen into one of those potholes.  I started therapy again, I was asked to consider an outpatient program, I refused.  Too much mommy guilt.  I felt I was taking away something from my baby, that he needed me more than I needed to get better.  Those of you with mommy guilt know exactly
what I'm saying. 


My baby is now three and a half.  I still go to therapy, I go to group once a week, I take my medication every morning.  I try to change in small ways, I pay attention to the danger signs.  I still don't like to ask for help, but every day I'm more and more open about my life, about my disease, my condition, my depression.  I'm never going to be cured; there will always be failures where I succumb to that internal voice that tells me that I am unimportant, unloved and not deserving of loving
kindness.  There will be remissions. "Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."  "Only let us live up to what we have already attained." -Philipians 3:13-14, 16 

Thanksgiving Songs

I'd really like to teach JeffJeff some Thanksgiving songs this year.  I spent some time looking up songs and I've picked my favorites and divided them into categories:  Let's try these, Favorites and Maybe next year.  (The picture is one of Jeffrey's favorite Thanksgiving books.)

Let's try these

Turkey Chant
            (Tune - Military Cadence)
Gobble Gobble is the sound (repeat)
Of the turkey fat and round (repeat)
Thanksgiving Day will soon be here (repeat)
Then he'll surely disappear (repeat)



Pumpkin Pie (Tune - Peanut Butter & Jelly)
First you take the pumpkin and you pick it (pick it)
Pumpkin, pumpkin pie - yummy!  Pumpkin, pumpkin pie - yummy!
Then you take the pumpkin and you carve it (carve it)
Next you take the spices and you mix it (mix it)
You put it in the oven and you wait (you wait)
Let it cool and you eat it (eat it)

I'm A Little Turkey (Obviously - I'm A Little Teapot)
I'm a little turkey on a farm.
Here are my feathers, here is my beak.
When Thanksgiving comes I get real freaked,
Please don't eat me for your treat!

Thanksgiving Day (Tune - Farmer in the Dell)
(from Building Literacy With Interactive Charts by Schlosser and Phillips; Scholastic , 1992)
The ____ ran away
Before Thanksgiving Day.
He said, "They'll make a ____ of me
If I decide to stay!
Choices:  turkey/roast, pumpkin/pie, cranberry/sauce, bread/stuffing

Favorites

Albuquerque Turkey (Tune - Clementine)  I sang this as a child!
Albuquerque is a turkey 
And he's feathered and he's fine
And he wobbles and he gobbles 
And he's absolutely mine! 
He's the best pet you can get yet 
Better than a dog or cat 
He's my Albuquerque turkey 
And I'm awfully proud of that! 
And my Albuquerque turkey 
Is so happy in his bed 
'Cause for our Thanksgiving Dinner 
We have spaghetti instead!

Fat Turkeys Are We (Tune - Did You Ever See a Lassie?) 
Angie taught us this song last year 
Oh, gobble, gobble, gobble,
Fat turkeys, fat turkeys.
Gobble, gobble, gobble,
Fat turkeys are we.

We walk very proudly and gobble so loudly (Chorus)
We're not here for living, we're here for Thanksgiving (Chorus)
They stuff you and bake you and then they will taste you (Chorus)

Chorus:
Gobble, gobble, gobble.
Fat turkeys are we.

Maybe next year

The First Thanksgiving (Tune - Twinkle, Twinkle)
Pick the corn and pick the beans,
Pick the squash and other greens
It is harvest time you see
Come and share a feast with me.
Bring your family out to play,
We'll call this Thanksgiving Day.
Thanksgiving Song (Tune - Row, Row, Row Your Boat)
The Pilgrims sailed away,
Far across the sea.
They came to America
So they could be free.
The Native Americans
Helped them plant the corn.
Then they shared a great big feast,
Thanksgiving Day was born!

Love me some ABC's

I stumbled upon this abecedarium from My Outdoor Alphabet, I believe they are all by Seth Neilson, and I just adored some of the images.  They have several different alphabet's available with more to come.  You can buy them from their website http://wasa.bigcartel.com/.

C is for Compass

 

N is for North Star

Y is for Yellowstone

 

 

 

K is for Kickstand



 

 

 

Count to Twelve!

First, I did not come up with this concept, it came from the website genkienglish.com, they focus on teaching English as a foreign language, mostly in Japan.  Anyways, I had been thinking about teaching a little class on numbers for my moms group when I stumbled upon this idea:

1 -----> 12 -----> 31 -----> 60

Teach numbers 1-12

• Each of these numbers has it's own unique name.  
• This might also be a good time to start referencing the time since you now have all the hours of the day memorized.

Teach numbers 13-31

• These numbers now begin to follow a set pattern (teens, twenties, thirties, etc).
• This number range allows you to "sneak" in some calendar time by pointing out that no month has more than 31 days.

Teach numbers 32-60

• Now you can count to 60 which is the number of minutes in an hour.

Teach numbers 61-100

• I haven't gotten this far with Jeffrey, but I think the next set I would do is 100.  That is how many pennies are in a dollar and it will naturally lead into more in depth discussions on fractions and percentages.

My Pintrest pictures

Here I am again posting pictures on my blog for pintrest, stupidly I forgot to save the links to give credit for the original originator of the idea for the nail polish and workbench.

This here is a beer fridge under a wine rack.  I don't know that we'll need wine rack storage but we could really use something like that for Jason's beer.  Perhaps a wine fridge would be good so we could put some of the larger beers in it as well, guess it would just depend on what we end up getting.  I really love refridgerated drawers like that though, always wanted to have one in my bedroom for pepsi and hiding the "good" ice cream in.

Stupid blog ate my picture!  Dang you auto save.  It was a crib with a tension rod between it and the wall creating about a 2 foot space for kids to have a cozy reading nook.

 These are marshmallows dipped in frosting with tootsie rolls on top - cute for a spa party or party for your little girl.

Workbench made from a nightstand.

http://feedingmykid.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/fireman-dress-up-tutorial/
This is a woman's shirt with ribbon and patches.  It also has velcro instead of buttons.  There is an iron-on ribbon similar to this that is about $8.  I'm thinking that or some duct tape would be fine.

Travel

  I really like these letters; I'm kinda into typography and I adore maps.  I would love to have big maps up when we get a house.  Perhaps in a hallway on thin cork so that we could place pins in it.

We travel quite a bit since Jason's family is so spread out.  We've been to all our nieces and nephews high school graduations and one college graduation.  I'm hoping we'll be able to go to the next college graduation but our finances aren't all that great and I just realized we have a high school graduation next year as well.

We are trying to plan a big vacation for 2015 that would include family and possibly friends.  We're going to go to South Dakota for Sturgis!  It's the 75th anniversary so hopefully there will be lots of cool things going on.  I'm toying with the idea of putting together a slide show or presentation of some sort that will give people an idea of what's in the area as well as travel arrangements, dates and costs.  I figure the longer in advance people have notice the better they will be able to save for the trip.

Pinterest

So of course since I'm a big ol' joiner I'm on pinterest.  I had been avoiding it because I didn't want to become obsessed.  The more I think about it though, it's really perfect for me. I'm big on favorites links and this is just another way of organizing it but visually - you know, with pictures!  It's also easier to view than a list of links.

The only problem I've discovered is that you can't put your boards into other boards. I really like to have things very organized on my computer so normally I'd have a folder titled Travel with my various travel plans inside, but you can't do that on pintrest so instead I have boards titled Travel-Montana Summer 2013, Travel-New York Summer 2014, and so on.

Anyways, the whole reason I'm making this post is that I tried to pin something the other day and it wouldn't let me because it said the pin was linked to spam or some such thing.  I figured I'd just save the picture to my computer and then pin it from there but then realized I couldn't do that, I also can't pin from facebook which is where I would normally put a picture.  Then my "aha!" lightbulb went off and I remembered I could put the picture on my blog.

Okay, that took awhile to figure out but I've got it up now.  Anyways, I love these in wall storage ideas.  I was thinking that one this size would be perfect in a hallway for linen storage.  We lived in my grandparents home for a year and there was very little storage space.  Something like this in the hallway would've been super great for linen storage.  Oooh, I just had an idea!  This would be awesome in a family room for game storage!  It would work really well at my mom's house on the wall that adjoins the garage.  It would be a little different because it would extend into the garage but it would be nice unobtrusive storage.