The Soda Stand

Archive for June, 2009

My day was so crazy today.  I can not even begin to express my feelings about it.  I went from scared senseless during a severe thunderstorm, to being angry at a dear friend in Vegas to depressed and in tears over some other situation.

The severe thunderstorm was so severe, the sky was greenish black, the rain was coming in sideways and the flag pole outside the firehouse was bent almost in half during most of this.  You could not see out the windows because the wind was blowing the rain into it so much you just couldn’t see it.

The anger came from a message I received on Facebook from an old friend in Vegas.  This is one of the friends that I felt had “abandoned” me several months ago.  For the better part of a year, I have been worrying and wondering and blogging and twittering about how much it hurt my feelings.

This message expressed concern over a picture from this person’s birthday party last August.   I took these pictures at this party in AUGUST and instead of just asking me to remove them, she spent 10 months not speaking to me.

While I’ve already forgiven her and I love her dearly, I’m still hurt.  And I expressed that to her in my response.

And as for the other situation, it’s just painfully obvious to me we can’t be friends anymore.  NO matter how much he says we are.  And I’m finding the acceptance level of this difficult to obtain.  I’ll get there.

My daily report…coming to ya live from the Ville!

Until next time…

After my carpet adventures last night, I got confused about one of the comments here and tried to have the person explain themselves over on Twitter.  And I still didn’t get it.   So I went to sleep instead.

Right when I was dozing off, someone knocked on my door.  It was the OTHER maintenance guy.  See, when they called me back, it was this guy J who called me back and said he would be over, but it was the OTHER guy (don’t know his name) who showed up.

J wanted to make sure things were okay and to check it out himself.  He was here for about 15 minutes and happened to mention that this apartment has had this problem before.  WTF?!  Seems that since the floor of my room is “lower” than the bushes and mulch outside the window, the water pours this way.  Awesome.  Fucking fix it now, k?

If this is the second time it’s happened, I am planning on asking them to move me to a different one bedroom, because this is unacceptable to me.  I can’t see myself having to take apart my bedroom every rainy season.  Not going to happen.  Not on my watch anyway!

So Annie pointed out in my anxiety ridden post that alcohol could have attributed to my anxiety attack the other night.  While I’ve read all the warning labels on my depression meds and what not, it never stopped me from drinking and I’ve never had an anxiety attack around or near when I’ve been drinking.  Then again, I don’t drink all that often and I had not gotten THAT drunk in quite awhile.  So it’s possible the alcohol negatively effected me 2 days later.   This gives me something to think about.

I’m already planning on talking to my doctor about different medications.  Before all this started happening, I was feeling like the meds weren’t really doing the full job they should and I had been acting self-destructively again.  Which I know is a part of my depression.

I was put on Singulair for my asthma and got so sick and then started having more of the anxiety attacks, I attributed it to that medication.   I haven’t had a Singulair in weeks and I ended up with the anxiety the other night.  Time to talk to the doctor!

Even though I owe them hundreds of dollars, they’ve yet to stop seeing me because of it – as long as I pay my co-pay at the time of the office visit.  I’m going to call today to see if I can get an appointment Friday.

I’m feeling a little edgy this morning, but that could be from the carpet incident last night, not necessarily left over from the anxiety on Monday.  Or it could be a mixture of both.  All I know is that I fell asleep pretty easily after J the maintenance man left and only woke up a few times throughout the night.  Even though I was scrunched up on my tiny little couch.

I’ve been forgetting my workout clothes each day this week.  I’m hoping I remember them today cause I could seriously use some time on the elliptical.

On that note, I’m hoping for a better day today at work and when I get home from work.  I’ll be calling the office in a few hours to check on the carpet and see what’s going on – since I can’t/won’t be here when they come over to lift the carpet and see what’s going on.

Until next time…

I woke up this morning in a fairly decent mood today.   I had a fairly decent day at work and I was in a much better mood than yesterday.

I didn’t feel the anxiety or fear of the unknown; I didn’t feel anything but mellow.  I was quite pleased with how I was feeling.

The severe storms were heading our way all day, but it appears the worst is past and/or went south of us.  I hope all our Nashville friends are okay and safe.  Scary stuff!

I walked into my bedroom to plug my cell phone in to charge and I stepped in a squishy pile of wet carpet.  WTF?!

Let me backtrack about 24 hours.  When I came home last night, I stepped in a wet spot that I thought was a spot Josie had an accident.  I treated it with my handy-dandy Spot Shot carpet cleaner and moved along.

Now, back to present day…..

After I stepped in the squishiness of my carpet, I freaked a little and walked along the wall of my room where the window is.  Sopping wet.  I felt the carpet going into my room from the wall and it was damp/wet up to the foot board of my bed.

I emailed the office, called maintenance and waited.   The maintenance guy can’t tell where it’s coming from.  There is no “rushing” or “leaking” water anywhere on the wall or from the window.

However, he said he thinks it could be the window is not sealed properly or a crack in the foundation somewhere along the baseboards.  Awesome!

He said he would need to get help in order to extract the carpet and look at the baseboards and foundation.  He asked me to move my bedroom furniture (OMFG! Have you seen the SIZE of my bedroom furniture????) so that when they come back tomorrow they can extract the carpet and see what’s what.

I took apart the queen size, cherry wood framed bed and struggled to get it all against the opposite wall.   And then I tackled the tall dresser in the corner and BAM!!! more damp/wet.  *le sigh*

So I moved everything as far as I could move it and realized the dampness was seaping into the middle of the floor.   They will most likely have to move my furniture even more to extract the carpet as far as they need too.  I’m leaving it for them.

I’m already hurting from my anxiety attack last night and then trying to recovery from it.   I’ve done what I can and I’m getting ready to get a blanket and pillow to camp out on the couch tonight.

During this whole process I was sobbing and blubbering like an idiot.  And then this vague thought found it’s way into my conciousness.   Am I on the wrong side of karma right now?

I mean, seriously, am I?  So much bad shit has happened to me since I moved here, I wonder about the karma thing a lot.  I’m making a list, not for sympathy, but to show facts and because this is my blog and I want to make a list.  LOL

• Could not find a full time, permanent job for 7 months.  I moved here in October of 2007 and did not get my current job until May of 2008.  In the interim, I worked part time for a few months and then out in Lexington for a few months.   I was completely jobless until February when I started the part time gig.
• Ran out of money in February that I came here with and started to get behind on my bills.
• My best friend and his wife, who had helped convince me to move here changed their minds about moving here.
• Continued struggling with the bills, falling even further behind.
• Finally got this job and found it doesn’t pay enough to make all of my bills.
• 11 months after having this job, Kentucky State Retirement started taking 6 percent of my pay so this causes me to….
• Scrape by, barely, living paycheck to paycheck, robbing Peter to pay Paul and I haven’t been able to pay a credit card bill or medical bill in 6 months or more.
• My car died and I had to come up with $300 to get it out of the shop.  Thank goodness for the kindness of co-workers.
• Got involved in a situation I shouldn’t have.  Have since removed myself from said situation.
• Developed allergy induced asthma and was sick for three months straight at the beginning of this year.
• Someone hit my car in the parking lot of Walmart and dented it pretty bad.  This has been fixed now though, thanks to the above mentioned BFF and his wife who came to visit in May.
• The carpet in my bedroom is flooding somehow and it’s unknown where it’s coming from.
• My cherry wood furniture may be ruined on the bottom where it was on the wet carpet (I haven’t had the heart to look at it).

And there you have it, my whole list of things I can think of off the top of my head.

I’ve been working on solutions to all of the above, slowly and steadily.  I’ve been looking for part time work to bring in more money so I can start catching up on the bills.   I moved into a one bedroom apartment from a 2 bedroom in January to help with those bills as well.

While part of me thinks it’s karma from things in my past, the other part is wondering why I’m still here in Kentucky.  Oh that’s right, I refuse to move back to Vegas.  And even if I didn’t want to live here anymore, I couldn’t afford to move across the street at this point.  So I need to ride this wave of shit and get to the end of this lesson.

Until next time….

Since June of 2005, I’ve had anxiety attacks off and on and have suffered from depression.   I’ve made sure I’m staying on my depression meds and I found that my anxiety attacks were few and far between for the last year or so.

When my finances started getting rough (understatement of the century) around the edges, I started feeling more and more anxiety.   I started meditating at night before bed, listening to meditation music that you find at most massage places (the legal kind, not the kind we discussed at ConFab, Baby! this weekend).

I found it helped tremendously to lay on my bed, do my chi-gung breathing and meditate myself to sleep.   I found I was sleeping better and felt better after a good night’s rest.

And then I gave in to temptation and did something I shouldn’t have.  I knew what I was in for.  I went in with my eyes wide open in that situation.  I also saw that coming (as did my bitches) and I fought the good fight.  I fought it off for months and months and months (close to a year).

So a few months after giving in to said temptation, I decided it was time to do the right thing and walk away from the situation.  Ya know, to save me the freaking heartache.   And I started feeling like I got punched in the gut.  I’m miserable being outside of that situation.

This past weekend was going to be my “healing” time and I did find a lot of healing there.   It could be because I just pushed the person and the situation into the back of my head and refused to let myself think about it.

And then I got snapped back to reality this morning and I didn’t like it.  I had slept like crap last night (usually do on the Sunday before payroll) and was up and down all night long starting at about midnight.

I had to deal with some crabbiness from a few colleagues today too and that made me even stabbier.   I just kept counting the minutes until 4pm when I knew I’d be okay and I could come home and relax with my baby girl.

All day long, I felt the anxiety pushing it’s way towards the front of my mind.  I pushed it back.  I didn’t want to lose my shit at work, ya know?   I took mental note of all my medications I take in the morning and knew I had taken them all like a good girl.

I got home from work, I prepared a yummy dinner of fresh mashed potatoes and bbq chicken.  I enjoyed a few cups of decaf coffee and chatting online with some new and old friends on Twitter and Facebook.  I perused the pictures on Flickr from the weekend.

And then I decided it was time to lay in bed, do some meditation and relax.  I felt the anxiety sitting there, waiting for that one weak moment when I would let it in.

I pushed it away and started my meditation.   Josie barked a few times and got me out of that meditative state and that’s when all hell broke loose.  I lay there thinking about all the shit I’m feeling and all the shit I’ve been through.  I started beating myself up for the shit I put myself through – that I let others do.  And the tears started and then the pressure in my chest and the total losing of reality.

The fear of whatever took it’s hold on me and did not let go for a good 15 minutes.   When I finally made my way back out of it, I lay there for a few minutes and knew I needed to blow my nose.   I got up and here I sit, tired, exhausted and weepy.

I had such a great weekend.  I met some really awesome people and I got to hang out with some people I already knew and all four of us were in the same place at the same time!

I was exhausted from the party, period, and then the lack of sleep and payroll shit just got the better of me.   In a moment of weakness (just a figure of speech, don’t really think it’s weakness), I lost it.  I lost my shit.

Poor Josie just laid right by my head on the other pillow, leaning into me and letting me know she was there.  I think that really helped me pull myself out of yet another anxiety moment.

I’m going to be calling my doctor to discuss not only some anti-anxiety meds (this is my third attack in a month), but to discuss the depression meds I’m on.  I think I want a medication that helps both situations.

Maybe I just need to take a freaking vacation and see my family!  Oh wait!  I AM going to be doing that in about a month.  WHEEEEEEEEEE

On that note, I’m going to go try that relaxation and meditation again.

Until next time…

I had one of the best weekends I’ve had in a very long time.  I am so happy I was able to attend ConFab, Baby!  It was fun meeting all kinds of different bloggers from across the country and even one from overseas!!!  It was a wonderful experience I will not soon forget.   Even if I tried to forget, all the pictures out there are evidence that I had a wonderful time.

Friday evening, I did not drink much at all.  I had a beer and one shot of Patron.   I volunteered to be the driver so that others could enjoy themselves and get super drunk!  I had a great time, even sober, hanging out with everyone and I even karaoked!!!  Hello!  I was sober!!!!!  And I got up on a stage and sang.  Badly, I might add.  But I sang!

Saturday was a different story on the drinking thing.   I fully intended to drink myself sober, however, I passed out before the sober part came around.  LOL

I started the afternoon with an Amstel Light at a great place called Drake’s for a late lunch.   After that, it was several glasses of Sangria, some vokda & cranberry, some vokda and pink lemonade and jello shots.  I have NO idea how many orange jello shots I did.  The orange ones had Southern Comfort in them.  LOVE SC!!!!

I karaoked again last night too.  I had such a great time.  I was dubbed cool enough to hang out with Snackiepoo!  This just made my heart swell with love cause I PPH her and to be cool enough to hang out with her is awesome!

Here I am singing something.  I have no idea who grabbed my camera and took this shot.

I was beyond drunk at this point.

I also woke up feeling a little dizzy/woozy this morning.  But thankfully, after eating a little bacon and getting some water and coffee in me, that feeling went away before I hit the road to come home.

I met my Co-Worker and her family for lunch and then we went to their house so I could pick up my baby girl Josie.   Josie did not eat much while she was at their house and she didn’t poop all weekend long.  Poor girl has anxiety when she is left with other people.   As soon as we got home, I put some food out for her and she immediately chowed and then pooped a few minutes later.

She is currently sleeping on the couch as I’m writing this.  She was stressed out most of the weekend, from what they said.  But I figure it’s because she’s not used to being around so many other dogs and people.  They have 5 dogs themselves, along with 2 kids and a few birds.  One of the birds was bigger than Josie!  Crazy!

I’m trying not to get comfortable this afternoon cause I am dying for a nap right now, but tomorrow is that dreaded day that comes every two weeks without fail and I don’t want to be awake all night long.

I believe I am going to go find food now.  Hungry again!

Until next time…

After I woke up in the middle of the night earlier this week, and posted my dream (so I wouldn’t forget it), I’ve ended up with no nightmares or night sweats. Thankfully. However, I have had a bit of insomnia, but not as bad as it’s been before.

Have you ever noticed how hard it is to do the right thing, sometimes?  Every now and then I find myself in a situation that I know is wrong, that I know is not healthy for me and yet I stay in it.   And when I finally gain the courage and strength and self worth to walk away, I end up feeling like I get punched in the gut.   And in all actuality, I’d rather feel like I got punched in the gut than continue settling for less than I deserve or want.  Ya know?

Tomorrow is THE day!!!!  Tomorrow afternoon I will be heading 70 miles to the east to meet up with several bloggers I’ve been dying to meet and/or see again!  Seriously, people!   This person and that person and him and her and her and her.  I’m sure I forgot people, please forgive me and in honor of meeting you, I’ll do a jello shot with you.

I will also get to hang out with mah bitches.  All four of us in the same place at the same time.  Holy shit!!!!  Do you know how long it’s been since THAT happened?  Yeah, me either.  It’s been so long, I can’t even remember the last time all four of us were together.

I also get to see him again and meet his lovely wife, since they will be my/our hosts for the weekend.

Imagine that.  A Yankees fan (me) and a Red Sox fan (him) being friends!  Who woulda thunk it!

I’m off to work my “Friday” and get a little overtime in there too.  I’ll be working until 7pm in the CPR center.  Working the overtime to make up for the money that the retirement system is now taking outta my checks!

Sometimes I wonder if there are any diet pills that really work? I don’t think I will ever find out because I don’t believe I need them, but I am a curious kind of person.

Until next time…

Got this from Miss Monique.  These are all my Twitter friends that I follow and they follow me.   You can click on their picture and from what I hear, you can see their tweets.   As long as they aren’t protected!  heehee

Get your twitter mosaic here.

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So there I was, standing in the middle of a substation I used to work at in Las Vegas.   I was surrounded by some GA friends, some  people I currently work with, people I used to work with, ex boyfriends (including my HS sweetheart) and some of my friends I’ve met online.

I was in charge of the payroll and I was stressed.   I had one hour until the paychecks were to be delivered and everything was going wrong.

The substation (which was later called a firehouse) was closing down due to asbestos and for some reason, most of the people milling around were hiding from officials.   I don’t think we were all supposed to be there.

I was barefoot, in shorts and a tank top, running the damn place like I was supposed to be dressed like that.

We had maintenance men come in to look at electrical issues and problems with heating and cooling.

Some kid was kicked out of the car they were in, right in front of the station.  I wanted to call CPS, but one of my GA friends said it was her daughter’s friend.

And then suddenly, it was 3pm and the paychecks had not been delivered yet.   I called payroll and they had tried to deliver them to the CPR center, and since it was closed with the Captain out of town for a week, they took the checks back downtown.   I threw a fit and finally got them to agree to try to deliver them again.

I remember saying “they should NEVER be delivered to the CPR center, they should ALWAYS be delivered here to the main firehouse.”

The checks were finally delivered, I did my distribution of them and as I was doing this, I realized the exit of the firehouse went into City Hall of Las Vegas.

I ran into several old and new co-workers as I delivered a few of the checks.  And I realized I was barefoot.

After I was done running around and panicking (because people were waiting for their checks), I realized my feet were dirty and I had to go to the bathroom.

I walked across the parking lot to the bathroom building and realized I had to go down these weird steps into a basement level bathroom/shower mix type thing.

There were no toilets, just drains on the floor and showers overhead.  I slipped at some point and caught myself on one of the shower things.  The water popped on and I was soaked.

I started crying in my dream and I woke up in the middle of one of the worst nightsweat episodes I’ve had in a long time.

Until next time…

In the last week or two, I’ve been working on the June vacation schedule at work.  It’s been tedious and a pain in my ass posting and tracking the vacations of 500 people.   By hand.

I’ve found quite a few errors throughout this process.  Some of them have been mine and some of them have been the districts.

I found one of my own errors today and it was a bad one.  I had put a vacation day on the wrong person’s record and in essence, forced this person to take a day off in January.   This person is one of three people with the same first initial and same last name.  Yeah, let’s talk about confusing shit!

I put the original December vacation day on this person’s record and this person was out on sick leave for months.  When this person was coming back to duty, I informed the Major they had to take a day.   He made her take off a day in January.   She did not complain or say anything beyond telling the Major she didn’t know why she had to take this day.   I did not even know she questioned it.  Had I known she questioned the day, I could have found the error earlier.

Either way we look at it, she is now sitting at a negative balance going into the new fiscal year because of the bad information I gave her boss.  *le sigh*

I informed my supervisor and the Personnel Assistant Chief and they didn’t seem all that upset with me (thank God!)  But this person will be getting this one day back, either this month or the next fiscal year.   If a grievance is filed, she would definitely win.   It was my huge error that caused it and I’m eating it.

It wasn’t a good day at work, it went by super slow and I beat myself up most of the day for that one error.   I finally got over it near the end of the day.

I think this weekend over in Lex is going to be just what the doctor ordered.  I’ll get to hang out with mah girls, meet some new bloggers and have a good time.

I was checking out this diet pill. I don’t know why I look at these things, makes me want to lose weight more than I know I need too. While I don’t think I’m overweight, at all, I just think I need to work it out and get in shape. Thank goodness for that elliptical at work!

Until next time…

I’ve spent the day cleaning, picking up, vacuuming, cleaning and rearranging furniture.  Oh, did I mention eating?

I also spent part of the day scouring for songs for my workshop in May of 2010.  I know it’s 11 months away, but I always start working on it early so I can have it done within a month before the actual workshop.   This gives me time for edits, burning the cd, getting the packets all prettied up and what not.

I was checking out this XBox earlier. If I was more of a gamer, I’d probably want that really badly.

I’m currently channel surfing between the Stanley Cup playoffs (Go Wings!) and VH-1’s Top 100 Songs of the 80’s.   Awesome show!

I cooked a roast today.  Holy cow!  It was good!  I have some in my freezer for future meals (thanks to my brother for that idea!)

Do you ever wonder if you’re doing the right thing?  When you are so hurt and in a lot of pain, you find it difficult to talk to the person who hurt you?  Yeah, I do too.

I’ll never be the one to blame someone else 100% for whatever situation we are in or find ourselves dealing with, but I’ll never be the one to take 100% responsibility either.  I’ll only own my own actions and behavior.  I won’t own someone elses and I find the more I obsess over someone else’s actions, the more I start taking ownership of that.   If you’re reading this, this is not about you.

I have so many thoughts and emotions going through my head and heart right now, I’m just kind of rambling.

I found myself in a situation a month ago and I’ve successfully avoided another repeat of that situation.  While it’s been difficult to say the least, I’ve been very proud of myself for staying away from a place that could find me in that same, exact situation.  Cause I don’t know if I could stop it from happening again.   Just being honest.

I’m not a perfect person.  I’m not a horrible person either.  You’ll find me somewhere in the middle.  I struggle daily with some things and I ease through others.   One minute I’ll be happy and laughing and the next I’ll be cranky and bitchy as fuck.   I can be focused and know what’s right for me one minute and unfocused and confused the next.

It’s just a part of who I am.  I accept myself 100% and I have GA and Todd to thank for that.   I accept others, as much as they let me, for exactly who they are, not what I want them to be.

My friends and I are not perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, but we are perfect for each other.   We keep each other accountable, we are there for each other when we need something.   We do not turn our backs on each other in times of trial and tribulation.   We are loving and compassionate.  Right?  I mean, to me, that’s what friends are for.   That’s what friends are supposed to do for one another, help each other up when we can’t stand on our own two feet.   Friends keep us focused.  Friends keep us breathing when all we want to do is hold our breath and lay down to die.   Friends keep us putting one foot in front of the other when we find it difficult to even take a baby step.

Thank you.  Thank you to those of you who have walked with me through good times and bad.   Thank you to those of you who have never turned your back on me when I’ve needed you.   Thank you for always being my friend.

I would hope you know who you are.

Until next time…