mental blow up

Ok. So first and foremost, Im going to apologize to all of you as I havent exactly been the best bloggy buddy lately. The green-eyed monster likes to pay me a visit around the end of December when people start talking about going to visit (or having over) family for the holidays . Why? Well because my family happens to have gypsy tendencies and is scattered to the 4 corners of America so the ONLY family I manage to get to see during the holidays is my hubby's family (who all conveniently live in one place). God forbid if we were to plan a trip to see my family or my friends because somehow we'd just have to visit his family anyhow (cutting the trip to see mine in at least half). Ok, his gramma's in her 90's and frail...I'll give them that... but still. We wont even go into the fact that they ask every other phone call (and both sis AND mom call once a week each) when we're coming back in.


If the family issue wasnt bad enough, Christmastime is usually when some blogs go into high gear posting about the kids in their lives....sharing videos and pictures of little ones having a great time opening presents and joining in on the festivities. I CANT be telling others that they can't discuss these things as they're THEIR blogs and I have absolutely no right to tell others what they can and cant discuss such matters. All I ask is that you understand why, at times, I seemingly just fall off the planet. Thing is, I was married before for more than 10 years.....and there are no little ones (other than the furbabies) gracing my home. Although some days Im grateful that one didnt come along at that point of my life because the divorce would have been worse than it was, the fact still stands that Im going to be 40 this year and the clock's ticking away. I know there are a few of you out there that know exactly what Im going through.

The end of January was a little rough too. I was running on a high from my appointment and a low from the bug (discussed below) that I almost forgot a couple of very important dates. The 28th is an important date for me.....this year is Independence Day 4. On the 31st, was my daddy's 63rd birthday and my gramma's 2nd year Heavenly Birthday....man I miss her.

The last month or more hubby and I have had a cold going back and forth between the two of us. For the most part it's been lasting a day or so with me and then pops back over to spend time with him. The same bug's been going around his work as well. This past Thursday, after that wonderful appointment, I came home and wasnt feeling so well. My cheekbones were hurting and my face felt warm. I felt so unwell that I took the first dose of that antibiotic that's been sitting on my counter (it was issued to me over a month ago "just in case")...I even skipped my bike ride. Yeah, I felt ~THAT~ sick. I crawled upstairs to watch my usual Thursday night line up and ended up putting on my long sleeve night gown AND the plush robe.....and I was still cold. I ended up cancelling my shot for Friday because I cant have it if I've been on antibiotics. Friday I was still ill enough to keep me off the bike. Saturday I felt a bit better so I did a gentle ride that day as well as Sunday and Monday. I was schedulled to go to level 8 on Monday *IF* I felt well enough but when I went for my ride, I felt I better not push things. Im going to give it another week or two and see about increasing at that time. It'll all depend on the dr's appointment on Friday. The ZPak didnt seem to do too much good this time around and I suspect by Friday I'll be miserable again. I've been so out of it that I not only failed to keep up in the blogs in a timely manner (there are more than 50 I follow and some of ya'll write many times a day!!), but it was also Monday evening before I switched my tunes out in my MySpace..... Oh man...and I still have a few awards I'm meant to be posting (and then update in the Awards entry) but for the life of me I cant remember who all awarded me ones lately. If you'd be so kind and check...if you have one you awarded me and I havent posted it yet.....leave the link to the entry in my comments and I'll get to them............................I promise.

I havent written my review for Idol yet. There werent too many I was really thrilled with. Alot of "I likes" and not enough "Hell yeahs" to fill an entry...even with 3 night's worth of notes. Im wondering if this will be my last year watching ...or if I'll even make it through the whole year. So damn many plants this year. We'll see once we get through Hollywood week. The big question is, do I really want to put myself through that work again this year?

My SCSis is presently staying with her sister and mom in Ga. The last call I got was loaded with boo-hoos because she'd had a ~really~ horrid day. I wont go into details here. I will say that I finally had enough for the most part and as she was raging at all the things she wanted to do to the man (and I can understand those feelings...I had them at one point or another myself)...I told her to "shut up". Yeah...I used that term with my bestie of nearly 30 years. I told her that yeah I know she wanted to do all this mean, hurtful stuff and it's ok to feel that way BUT she shouldnt ACT on it and proceeded to tell her why she shouldnt (can anyone say stalking and harrassment with the intent to do harm?). I then gave her a suggestion to check out a certain not for profit organization that might be able to help her out, if not directly...then certainly they may have certain resources that will get her steered on the right path. I told her she needed to go sooner rather than later. She did do one thing right though....she called ME at 1230am...and NOT her x2b. Im so proud of her for that. She's also started taking steps for life after divorce.....address change and bank account changed so he has no access to her funds (not that she has any to work with anyhow). I wish she would have done all this sooner to be honest. She IS facing the fact that she's "screwed" and has actually used that term. The one mistake she made during this call was when she asked me how I'd feel in her shoes. It's a mistake because Im likely to be alot more blunt with what I say when Im feeling poorly. I was extremely blunt with her. I told her from day one I would have been packing, getting my ducks in order, changing accounts and would have been talking to a lawyer already. It would have all been done BEFORE I lost my job (not that that was expected but you have to figure if the jerk you're living with gets you thrown in jail, it's highly possible they're going to find a way to leak info to someone in Human Resources or a Co-Owner and manage to get you fired from your job )...at least I would have gotten the first meeting out of the way so I had an idea which steps I needed to take. I qualified it with a "but then again, Im much more pessimistic than you". Boiled down, I told her "I told you so" without being overly cruel about it. Yeah, I know it wasnt really nice, but it was stuff she needed to hear.

We started getting some mixed precip last night (Monday). When I peeked outside, it looked like we were getting some white stuff on the ground again. YAY. The weather's calling for a couple days worth of snow. It'll be nice if the ground gets fully covered over again.

We're on the night shift here. I havent decided if I'm going to stay up real late as per my usual or if Im going to go to bed at a reasonable hour. Im leaning towards the latter to be honest. Not today, obviously....maybe the next sleep cycle. I could use the extra sleep....

I have scads of stuff I emailled myself that I've meant to blog. With any luck, I'll be getting the email cleaned out in the next few days and get some of it put up. I think there's a game or three in there that I saw in other blogs that I wanted to do in mine....I know there were a few jokes that will be going up in the appropriate blog area.

I think that's it....if you can think of something that I didnt cover that you're wanting to know about....put it below in the comments.

Oh...and if someone could kindly talk me through those nifty little messages that some people have up near their comment boxes (Jeannie....Dorky.....someone.....anyone....)...Im thinking I'd like to add something like that to my blog as well.