Posted by Mary Diamond on 02/09/2010
Where's my puzzle?
A Mystery Wrapped in an Enigma…
Yesterday afternoon I started a 500 piece puzzle. I had hoped that Bastian and his friend from across the street would help me eventually, but they placed maybe two pieces each and then went back to playing the new DS game Bastian got last weekend. Rarely in my life have I ever actually sat down to do a puzzle… okay, let’s just call it never. They just didn’t appeal to me as a kid.
I got the frame all laid out, and the little barbarian dude in the middle who’s firing an arrow at the opposing Dragonrider (it’s glow-in-the-dark, too!). Last night and throughout today I’ve sat at the table for long stretches of time just figuring out what goes where. Charlie was leaving it alone for the most part, unless I was working on it and then he’d come up and chat for a few minutes before going back to cartoons or dump trucks.
The scene of the crime.
Strangely enough, once I got started on this silly thing I became somewhat obsessed. Throughout dinner last night I actually stared the thing down, and even when the kids did try pointing out possible pieces for the places I was working on… I guess I got a little testy. Somehow the act of working on this puzzle (or Bejeweled Blitz, or the reading of huge GRRM novels, etc.) was relaxing to me. I guess it was also a little bit obsessive now that I think about it.
About half an hour ago I laid him down for a nap. He’s had lunch, we read a story and then I turned on the space heater in there and tucked him in. The house had been pretty quiet until I thought I heard the kennel door banging and the dog was in the office with me. I stalked quietly into the kitchen to find Charlie in the kennel. But where was that puzzle I had nearly a third of the way finished? All over the goddamned floor. I could have killed him -but instead he got a hearty spanking and I tucked him in again with threats of further violence.
Maybe my obsession with this puzzle was unhealthy, because it took me nearly a solid minute of standing in the living room with clenched fists and breathing deeply to calm myself down. I know that puzzles are just a dumb distraction from whatever it is that I feel responsible for these days… but somehow I need to stop being distracted. Maybe it’s just the fact that things aren’t going the way I had hoped in my life, but I need a sort of inner spring or rebirth before I freeze up forever.
Seriously though, I know this will eventually amuse me… but I don’t know if my heart can stand it anymore. I need a vacation from this crap. The most ironic part of all is that he did fall asleep within minutes of all this -while I was sweeping up the pieces of my broken dragon duel. Go figure.
Posted in 365 pictures, House of Diamond, Kids, Rants | Tagged: Charlie, House of Diamond, Kids, messes, rage | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Mary Diamond on 02/05/2010
It’s funny how you tell yourself that you don’t feel certain things, and even make yourself believe it for a time. In hindsight, when the memories come to you and make your cheeks hot, you realize that you were just avoiding the discomfort of admitting your own vulnerability. I got fired from a job for the first time in September of 2009. I left that little windowless room without a job or a certainty of income for the future, and I smiled at former co-workers on my way down the long line of cash registers -knowing that in a matter of minutes or hours they’d all realize that had been my walk of shame. It really did hurt, now that I allow myself to think about it. I’ve still got Facebook connections with a number of my co-workers, and if I were to see them somewhere I’d be thrilled to stop and chat… but part of me feels as if I’ve been ostracized and it’s a feeling that really sucks. Sure I was frustrated with management there -everybody seemed to be- but I did enjoy the people I worked with on both sides of the counter (usually) and the future had potential. My current job hunting has been made that much more difficult by the fact that I’ve never had to explain being fired before. I’m at a loss for how to sound credible.
As a person who’s conducted employment interviews as a manager, I can say that I’d be extremely wary of anyone with that in their immediate history. Sometimes I consider the suggestions I got to write a letter to someone, using the open door policy of Wal Mart Stores, Inc. and explain the whole situation. If there were even the slightest possibility of getting my job back there would I want to? It seems obvious that I was not welcome with the people who had the authority to remove me. Former co-workers have asked me (jokingly) to return… as if that were an option. Some have even urged me to pursue legal action. As tempting as it would be to reach out and wipe away the past, putting myself back where I was six months ago, I wouldn’t do it if I could. I suppose that fate has something in store for me. Maybe this is some kind of wake up call to get my education back on track. My kids have certainly enjoyed having me here before and after school and during the evenings when they are home. My husband has not complained about having me here to prepare our family meals and keep the housework up. I have truly enjoyed spending so much time with the kids while they are young and mutable, to an extent. Still, I feel as if I’m stagnating and sometimes I just wish I could go somewhere and drop off Charlie and punch a clock. To be working, bringing income to our family and feeling a sense of self-worth earned by hard work is important to me.
I need to work harder at finding work. It’s just so difficult, though, knowing how many others are out there who are skilled and qualified and even better educated than me. I have no degree to show for all my years of schooling, and hope is quite scarce out there. Wish me luck.
Posted in Life, Rants, work | Tagged: frustration, hurt, job, work | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Mary Diamond on 02/04/2010
So this is post #1 of my new “segment” about the destruction I face on an almost daily basis. I’m raising two boys. They are not afraid of much, unless it’s inconvenient for me, and they are like constant whirling vortexes of pent up energy most of the time. Still, I love them both.
This past weekend we had houseguests, as I have mentioned, and Charlie was high on attention for practically three days. By Sunday morning he was waking up before everyone and hunting my office for something to stoke his curiousity. What he found was my crafting drawers, and specifically my beads.
I have this silver tray with boxes segmented into it that holds quite a number of tiny glass “seed beads” of 33 different colors. It’s got a thin plastic sheet that moulds to the squares to keep the beads in while it’s closed, and the lid snaps shut with a plastic latch. He managed to pull it from my drawers and open it, dumping the entire contents into my carpet where he then proceeded to run his fingers through them and work them into the carpet. Several handfuls also went into the fishtank (those fish are STILL kickin’ though!) along with some hemp twine and a few metal pendants of various shapes.
Status as of Wednesday night: most of the beads have been grabbed up by the hand ful -now I’m working about one square foot at a time picking the tiny glass beads out of the carpet fibers with my fingernails. Hey, these are perfectly good beads that I could use to make jewelry still. No sense just sacrificing them to the vacuum gods! Thanks, Charlie! <3
Posted in 365 pictures, House of Diamond, Kids, Rants | Tagged: beads, boys, Charlie, House of Diamond, Kids, parenting, stress | 1 Comment »
Posted by Mary Diamond on 02/03/2010
A friend of mine was laughing over Charlie’s latest exploits and said she might start doing the 365 pictures thing (see my tag cloud) with just things that her toddler had destroyed during the day. I think any mom can easily say she’s got at least one toddler clean-up a day, so it occurred to me that I should make that a new feature on my blog. I’ll have to come up with a catchy name for it, but it’ll basically be a segment on what Charlie has destroyed each day. Charlie Angel maybe? This morning we awoke to find him floating his swim trunks in the fish tank. I have no idea where he even found them, but I think I’ll be hitting up the local Menard’s for a cheap locking doorknob for the office.
The sabbat went pretty well on Saturday, despite all of us feeling (and admitting we were) really out of practice. Imbolc is a time to prepare for the spring, though, and to make room for the changes we hope to implement. This year we’re going to practice more and be more spiritually active with ourselves and the kids. As much as I am against forcing children onto a spiritual path of any kind (let them understand the nature of spirituality first and then choose) I do want to teach my kids what we believe. Whether they participate or seek eventual initiation as they grow is up to them. I’ve said it many times, but it’s worth repeating; the craft is not for everyone. It takes a certain kind of person and a healthy respect for the world around us to practice wicca, neo paganisim, or British Traditional Witchcraft. Far too many people, in my opinion, are practicing and do not have the necessary convictions to truly bring honor to the God and Goddess. Not that my opinion matters at all in someone else’s search for truth, or that a person shouldn’t seek to commune with whatever they believe in… I just believe that manipulating energy is serious business, and can have unexpected results for the un-prepared.
Anywho, all elitist rants aside, I’m ready for the changing days. The whole Punxatawny Phil fiasco has been so commercialized I’m surprised that groundhog hasn’t died of cardiac arrest. Coming out of your burrow to a crowd of old guys with top hats and handlebar mustachios must be pretty frightening to a tiny mammal. Weather divination isn’t something you can plan and film for the news at 9. There is, however, more than one way to skin a beaver. They say that wintry cold weather on Imbolc is a sign of an early spring, and I woke up to a white world yesterday morning. It kept coming down on and off all day, and I didn’t see the sun once. So whatever beavers may have popped their heads out around here would have seen nothing but opportunity.
Good riddance, winter!
Posted in Kids, Life, religion | Tagged: divination, Kids, sabbat, weather | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Mary Diamond on 01/28/2010
I just cannot seem to have any sort of stability in my life… and that’s probably the thing I’d love the most right now.
Money’s tight again, and we’re playing the fun “should I answer it or not” game with bill collectors and our “new” mortgage company. Ever since our bank was bought out and our mortgage got handed off to these people we’ve been entertaining what I am beginning to see as a false sense of hope that maybe this time we’ll figure out a way to stay in our home.
Rounding out the wonderfulness of the previous paragraph, I hurt my back yesterday climbing up off of the floor in the kids room. On a good note, the story I was reading did the trick and Charlie took a nice nap without my having to go back in or put him back to bed even once. Today he napped again with no trouble at all -it would appear that around 11 am is the time to lay him down. Watch cartoons (Max & Ruby is the cut off) eat some lunch at the table, and then off to nap time.
Things were going relatively well until I decided to really start in on the cleaning. I got the shower cleaned (and myself so two birds with one stone) and put away the clean dishes. Next I filled the sink with suds and started loading it up. The garbage was full and Mike’s coming home relatively soon, so I pulled out the trash and stuck it on the front porch. Then I passed Charlie leaving my office and chattering something about ‘toys in the fish tank’ and my blood started to boil. I stomped into the office in dread, and discovered this.
Bastian was completely oblivious, while using my computer to play video games, that Charlie was not four feet away from him dumping everything he could find into the fishtank. I pretty much blew my top -but not without realizing that I had to take a picture because as soon as I got my heart out of my throat I’d want to post this and laugh about it.
I removed from the tank:
1 red NIU baseball cap
2 mismatched dirty socks
1 hardcover kids book about bullfrogs
1 miniature plastic slinky (rainbow)
1 nerf gun
1 round of ammo for aforementioned nerf gun
1 red mitten
1 blue mitten
1 sippy cup (not quite empty of chocolate milk)
2 hard rubber dog toys
and several small bits of paper.
Posted in 365 pictures, House of Diamond, Kids, Life, Rants | Tagged: crazy, House of Diamond, Kids, stress | 3 Comments »
Posted by Mary Diamond on 01/20/2010
For months now we’ve been struggling in the cold, suffering with the seasonal depression that seems to affect just about every mammal to some degree. I’ve been spending my days of unemployment trolling the web for decent looking job opportunites and letting the housework get out of hand on a fairly regular basis. You’d think, with all this time on my hands, I’d be on top of all of it. Not so, my friends. Not so.
Looking around the house this morning I realized a few things. For starters, the dining room is one of the most pleasant rooms in the house as far as the view and the layout but it is the room we spend the least amount of time in. This is mostly because it is full of things that haven’t found a place to belong, or just haven’t been put there for so long we’ve assumed they’re a part of the landscape. Also, the living room is full of laundry and I have no idea how it got there. The couch and much of the floor is covered with the kids clothes, and I think it may be because they unpacked their overnight bags from Grandma and Grandpa’s house last weekend by upending them. It honestly looks like a laundry fight happened there.
Why is it that whenever I sit at the computer with the intention of blogging about something I’m passionate about, something that feels really important, I end up talking about chores and my own laziness? Perhaps I’m indirectly bemoaning my own writer’s block (which is something else I’ve wanted to write about, if only just to get the juices flowing again). In any case, this morning was an exercise in frustration and I plan to turn it all around… just as soon as I finish typing (and checking my Facebook Page, DOH!).
When I was writing for a publication, getting paid per line of story, I had a sort of thrill about everything I did. Even the stories that made me groan a little or required me to interview someone I’d normally never approach were exciting, because I knew that they’d be read by an audience of my peers and that my input was needed to put the paper together. Hell, even the impending deadlines and the threats (veiled or otherwise) from editors gave me a little rush from time to time. The news world is up to the second these days, and every moment after an event occurs is costing you timeliness that your competitors will surely be striving for. Sure it was stressful in a way… but I’ve always done my best writing on the fly or in the heat of inspiration. Where has that inspiration gone these days? Certainly not the way of the dodo or the mastodon, but it is elusive to say the least.
Once upon a time, I dreamed of becoming author and making a living just telling stories and writing pages of something somebody somewhere would really enjoy reading. The papers we were assigned in college, back when I majored in English, were always a pleasure to write because I was in my element. Books have been my constant companions since I was a wee only kid in Davenport, Iowa. Why couldn’t a pump out a few volumes of the stories that kept me entertained on long road trips or lonely nights at home? I must have seemed like some sort of changeling as a kid always staring out the window lost in my own adventures. I know I still have it in me, but there’s always a mess somewhere or a screaming child or a dog licking the couch or a phone ringing off the hook. When is it going to be my turn to dream again? Did I already miss it? God, how I want to rend my clothes and gnash my teeth thinking of all the hours I spent doing absolutely nothing in my teens and twenties while assuming that eventually I’d live alone and have enough money to buy spiral notebooks (dated myself there) and chef boyardee. Maybe I’ll be one of those “late bloomers” who doesn’t achieve fame or authorship until I’m in my golden years… or later. Should I return to writing that horrible poetry that makes me cringe when I remember the emotions and the lack of experience I was wallowing in when I copied them into a moleskin the first time?
I think not… in any case, I have ideas and stories within me that sit in blocks of ice waiting for a quiet day and a cup of coffee. I’ve got the office, and this old HP desktop still has a few legs left to keep it from crashing into oblivion. I just hope the ice doesn’t melt while I’m changing diapers and marinating jumbo shrimp for dinner. Here’s to the pencil pushers… may they all get lead poisoning. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some Diem to Carpe.
Posted in Life, You can't categorize me!, writing | Tagged: chores, depression, Life, winter, work, writing | 2 Comments »
Posted by Mary Diamond on 01/18/2010
This year, so far, has been a series of awakenings in many areas… This morning, for example, I was awakened around quarter to 3 am by my husband telling me he had pain in his chest and left shoulder, and that he was going in to the emergency room. The rest of the morning was… less than restful.
A friend was nice enough to take both of my little troublemakers off my hands this morning and I went in to the ER to sit with Mike and wait. We were out by 10:30 or so and went directly to pick up his prescription and get him into his own bed. Now I’m struggling to construct a menu for the week that’s in tune with the nurse’s suggestion to start eating foods with a low glycemic index. I still have to buy groceries to make these meals… and it looks like we’re going to be stretching the budget a bit. Isn’t it funny how we as a country are both unhealthy and unwealthy, but wholesome foods are priced high and prepared convenience foods that you take from the freezer to the microwave are cheap enough to survive on?
Good for the Body - $5
Good for the Budget - $1.88
All this time we’ve been trying to save money by shopping at Aldi’s and keep our grocery shopping at an unrealistically low budget for the week/month. How much has that really helped us when it comes time to pay the hospital bills? When I can’t run and play with my children because my size makes it too difficult, and my husband is worrying about his cardiac health at age 30?
Anyhow, Michael is resting now and I’m preparing for a lot of work in the kitchen and beyond… perhaps we’ll all walk the dog tonight: the whole family could use the exercise.
Posted in Life, exercise, fat, money | Tagged: cooking, diet, health, hospital, Mike, stress, weight | 3 Comments »
Posted by Mary Diamond on 01/14/2010
The week to date has been really good as far as motivation goes. Sunday afternoon and yesterday I worked out for 40 minutes or more, and I’ve blogged just about every other day as well. The dishes are being managed, and I made barbecue ribs for dinner last night with some red potatoes that never did get eaten.
Bastian had a Winter concert last night at the high school, and we had to rush out of the house before the veggies were done to make it on time. I guess I could have done a better job planning out the meal time and dressing time and walking out the door… but ultimately everybody got there and it went well. I’ll make up for the rushed meal tonight.
I’ve been following more news stories lately on my google reader and Facebook. When I was commuting to NIU multiple days a week I had no problem keeping up with events because I had the news radio programs to keep me alert on the drive. It helped me feel better prepared to put together the NTC News program, having a little preview of what the talk stations were plucking form the Associated Press feed before I picked through it myself in the news room. I miss that place a lot. I have honestly been re-considering the possibility of an internship at a local station lately, but between not getting paid for it and the uncertainty of getting credits that I would have to pay out of pocket for… it’s unlikely to happen.
The search for a job continues, although I’m leaning on mainly on faith for the most recent application I turned in. The job would be fantastic for me mentally and financially, but I still worry a little that if I got it Charlie would suddenly be in daycare full time five days a week. He’s only ever been home with me or with a babysitter for a few hours maximum. Daycare was great fun for Sebastian, and I think to some extent the socialization was part of the reason he communicates so well for his age.
Over the last several days I’ve been noticing that the sun is certainly getting stronger. At the gas pump the other day I actually had to shield my eyes with my hand to see the number, because a shaft of sunlight was beaming right at me. Yesterday afternoon I pulled out the crock pot from it’s shelf and it was almost hot where the corner of it was in the sunlight from the window. Imbolc isn’t even here yet and already the warmth returns… although I’m sure this is just a teaser. The temperatures this week are supposed to be highs in the 30’s which is a veritable heat wave compared to the last month or so. I’m so excited for Spring to return so I can ride my bicycle, take the kids into the woods for hiking and plan a camping trip maybe up North this year.
I think this morning I’m going to try and get Charlie fed and put back to bed for a nap by 10 am and no later. Yesterday I tried around noon and it took over an hour for him to eventually sleep. After that the day was great; I got the dishes done and read nearly a quarter of my book. I’m re-reading Game of Thrones. The whole series is so good, but we’ve been waiting YEARS for the final book to come out and I need the closure. I figure maybe if I read them again the final book will be released and I’ll be right where I need to be mentally to pick it up and finish the epic once and for all.
***edit: No nap today. Maybe yesterday was just a fluke. ***
Posted in Kids, Life, work | Tagged: imbolc, reading, sabbats, spring | 1 Comment »
Posted by Mary Diamond on 01/12/2010
It is so hard to resist the urge to describe my waiting room experience in detail. I mean, technically a waiting room is a very public place and anything you do there is in front of a bunch of complete strangers. There’s surely no expectation of privacy in the waiting room… but the waiting room at a mental health clinic is certainly entertaining. I brought a book anyway, and it ended up coming in mighty handy.
Okay, so I can’t resist the urge entirely. I went in around quarter to noon and waited in this place for probably two hours or so. In that time there were plenty of people who just sat and waited or walked in and gave the name of the person they had an appointment with. A few were twitchy, some demanding, but mostly just quiet people sitting. Normal stuff for the most part… but there was one shining example of why we were all there in the first place. She came in wearing dress pants under an actual dress over which she had a hooded sweatshirt. She carried a briefcase (and maybe a backpack, too, because she kept producing more bags). She reminded me a lot of that overly made up character from the Drew Carey show… only with shorter hair.
She wore headphones the entire time, but lifted one up when addressed directly and yelled everything she said whether they were over her ears or not. I won’t give every detail I remember, but a few highlights won’t hurt, right? This is a facility that accepts the state medical card and is located downtown just a short couple of blocks from the public safety building. Prisons and courthouses surround the place, and they have been the go-to office for suicide watch/support since I was a teenager. Basically, they are always busy. Walk-ins must wait typically between 2 and 3 hours to see a counselor for the initial assessment. I had walked in and brought a two-inch thick paperback to keep myself occupied.
This woman was informed of the wait and of course yelled “WHY DO I HAVE TO WAIT TWO TO THREE HOURS? CAN’T YOU TALK TO SOMEBODY? I’LL WAIT A FEW MINUTES AND THINK ABOUT YOUR COMPETITORS! MAYBE I’LL GO TALK TO THEM INSTEAD. YEAH, YOU SEE WHAT YOU CAN DO.” …and so on and so forth. After seating herself and her companion, she proceded to read aloud the title of every magazine, comment on the types of magazines available (Outdoor Photography, Working Mother) and how someone had hand delivered these so this must be a nice place. She implied that their unwillingness to see her must be a result of them being either too busy, too stupid, or MAYBE THEY’RE JUST SCARED! (nevermind that there are barely any seats left in the place).
After she was called to the window again they offered to call her at home for an assessment and she agreed, but not after more harassment of the receptionist and threats to steal the stapler near the window what wasn’t staffed because “Nothing’s using it” because “THAT WINDOW DOES NOTHING”.
Anyhoo, I kept my nose in my book because she had a tendency to speak to people around her whether the seemed interested or not and frankly I wasn’t in the mood for any more craziness in my life. When I finally did get called back to speak with a counselor she was very nice and we probably talked for an hour and a half. After all was said and done she had created a sort of file for me, and referred me to somewhere else. I suppose it should feel good to be told that I don’t seem to have a mental disorder, just a lot of transitional grief so-to-speak. I’ll be calling one of the references she gave me and making an appointment there to seek treatment for my attention deficit issues.
I suppose it should be a relief, and it is to some extent. I know that I’m not off my rocker completely, just dealing with a lot of things in the last five years or so that get overwhelming. Journaling on this blog helps, and I’m lucky to have a few friends who are always willing to listen. If I can just get to a place where I’m able to talk it out, I’ll eventually work though everything one way or another. Of course it wouldn’t hurt to have my brains in better order either…
Posted in ADD, Life, therapy | Tagged: ADD, crazies, depression, therapy | 1 Comment »
Posted by Mary Diamond on 01/11/2010
So today’s the big day… I’m going to the nut hut and hopefully I’ll be able to at least get started on the path to inner wellness. It’s kind of funny, I was in the pits of despair and insanity two weeks ago and today I’m feeling surprisingly positive. This doesn’t negate the issue so much as further define it, however.
I think my manic ups and downs are going to be a big part of the explanation when all is said and done. In any case, I’ve made efforts to increase my motivation and energy levels in the last couple of weeks but I still feel like I’ve just created a safety net that I can walk around on. Somewhere below, the distance varies, are the monsters still waiting to gobble me up. I have moments of lucidity and moments of complete and utter desperation… fortunately the latter tend to be more fleeting and I manage to distract myself before it overtakes me.
This post is going to be short, because honestly I should be on my way out the door but instead I’m here talking to you! When I got up this morning I felt alert and ready to start the day. This is extremely rare, but I know what today is and I went straight to bed last night instead of messing around. I made the kids some breakfast sandwiches and got Sebastian’s homework in order, sent him out the door and even got Charlie to pick up one of his OWN messes. He threw Mickey Mouse Dominoes all over the living room floor and together we scooped them back into the box. After that he actually settled in to watch cartoons and I got several fairly decent hours of study in; my preparations for Imbolc are coming along nicely.
Mike is up now, and watching TV with the littlest monster -so I’m off to the good doctors office. I hope. As soon as I’m able I’ll update again.
Posted in ADD, Kids, You can't categorize me! | Tagged: depression, mornings, therapy | 2 Comments »
