My Halloween costume came in the other day. Simple pieces but still cute. Robby is going as a vampire from True Blood. I’ll be going as a Merlotte’s waitress. I’ve got the T-shirt and an adorable apron. Angel is ordering some TruBlood for us. I got temporary tattoos in the mail today as well. They are to simulate bite marks.

I’ve been trying to get into the mood this year for Halloween but I guess it just doesn’t feel like it’s even that time of year. I can’t seem to get into the mode of being excited. On the plus side, Mika will be visiting us over the holiday. Yay! Girl fun!

I realized today that I picked up the wrong book. I’ve been reading the Dark-Hunter novels in order and I managed to skip three books. Oops! So I put that one down for now and picked up the correct one. I’m so used to reading several things at once that this won’t even be a problem for me. And I was only a couple chapters in to Sin and Kat’s story.

I’m still not sleeping well. I wake often even after I manage to finally fall asleep. I don’t understand it. And I feel guilty for waking up so late in the morning but I generally manage to finally get three to four hours in between 7am and 10/11am where I’m not doing the wake up and I’m wide awake thing every hours or so. It just sucks. Bleh. I got some Melatonin because I couldn’t remember how those affected me and I realized the next day that they were one of the ones that left me super groggy and like I’d been run over by a Mack truck. Soooo they’re out. Back to the drawing board.

One sick, messed up realization that I’ve stumbled upon is that I do not like to sleep. Oh, believe me, I would love to just stay in bed and sleep the day away. But there has to be certain things in place for me to actually enjoy sleeping. I need quiet. I need comfort. I need my own pillow. I need my mind to shut down.

For so many years now, I have been dealing with insomnia and I have pretty much resigned myself to it. I am a light sleeper. This only creates a vicious cycle for myself and has made bedtime a huge source of anxiety. I begin by realizing that I am tired and that I should head to bed while I am recognizing that I am becoming sleepy. From here I go through the nightly ritual and crawl into bed. I realize at about this point that my body is tense and my mind is racing. Will I be able to fall asleep fairly quickly or will I be staring at the ceiling tonight? Will it be a matter of minutes or hours of unrest and stress? What if I read for a little while, will that help?

This anxiety is only compounded by the fact that I share the room with two cats who are making noise or moving around me. My ears hurt sometimes because I am straining to hear what is going on around me. I am paranoid about something that I can’t even put my finger on. Because I am concentrating on them, I hear every noise they make. Charlie is quick to move onto my pillow ‘with me’ and takes it over completely. It doesn’t matter if I vacate it for the other pillow; he will follow me. I realize that he just wants to be close to me and he has chosen that spot and positioning to be optimal for his own nighttime comfort but he is a cat and I am a human who needs her sleep. Unfortunately, there is no rationalizing with a cat.

Because there is so much paranoia and anxiety associated with sleeping, I have come to hate my bed. Back in Pennsylvania, I hated the bed. I hated the bedroom. I thought that maybe it was because Rick was in there and snoring away or maybe it was just sleeping in the bed with him that put me on edge. I wondered if my hatred stemmed from what the room and the bed itself symbolized for me: frustration, stress, and anger. What sort of environment is that for someone to physically recharge? It was not healthy. The anger is no longer there but the stress is present and the frustration follows.

I do not even know how to properly combat this problem without resorting to finding a psychiatrist for therapy and medicine that I do not want to be on. It is not a route I want to take; I refuse to be dependent on medication. I guess I will just have to continue to suffer while I create more stress for myself and feel lost in the process. Herbal alternatives to the meds do not work for me. I have tried everything that anyone has ever suggested. I have tried things that websites have suggested. I can be exhausted physically but still be completely alert with no sign of slowing. Getting rid of the cats is not an option. I would never even consider it outside of the brief moment I would take to adamantly state that it was not an option.

I just feel lost.

Hung out with Kim and Jenn today. We hung out at the house and were lazy up until it was time to head South and pick up her sister in Tempe. We hit up Oktoberfest which was…

Well it was pretty pathetic. And there was a dust storm that rolled in. Lame! Kim and I went on the Scrambler and I got some hilarious video footage from the second half of the ride.

Tomorrow, Sarah arrives and then we are going to head North. We will probably stay in the Flagstaff area and then have a day at the Grand Canyon.

I screwed up my knee earlier when the dog got out at Jenn’s sister’s house. Massive ow. Hurts to put weight down at certain angles. I can’t raise my foot too high if I am sitting.

I’ll have to see how it holds up.

We went to Salt River today. I didn’t drink any alcohol this time but I still felt kind of queasy for some reason. I’m sure I was not any fun.

The river was higher this time so we were able to do the full length of the tubing trip. Eh, I think I’d rather skip from point 1 to point 2 next time. There was a nasty bit of rapids that dragged us over rocks. We had separations, people lost, minor injuries… Robby and I got separated from the others along with two other people from our group. Four people and only my small-ish innertube. We lost track of one, the other we saw go down the rest of the way with some random people. Robby and I made our way down through the rapids on my tube… sort of. I was on it. Robby tried to get on me but it didn’t quite work.

I got a nasty cut on my left knee from getting dragged over the rocks. I stood up and blood was ‘pouring’ down my leg. It looked a lot worse than it was. I washed it off a couple times (not that river water is any kind of sterile) and was good to go.

And of course I got sunburned. I sort of resign myself to this whenever I am exposed to the sun for any length of time. I am a redhead. I have very fair skin. It was worse this time than the last, though. My face is the worst of it. I’ve got some sexy white goggles going on from wearing my sunglasses all day. Aloe vera is my friend!

Angel and I are going to San Diego this week to see Mika and possibly Tawni if everything goes according to plan.

Side note, my purse (with wallet, credit cards, ID, and car keys) and my phone are still at Aaron’s house. We couldn’t get back into his house after we got back from the river, as anticipated. Blah. Robby will take me there tomorrow to get everything.

Angel and I got up early today (7am) and headed out for the Saturday garage sales to be found. As it was a Saturday, they were easily found. Over the years, the Sunday sales have fallen to the wayside which is why we had not had any luck last week. There were a few listed on Craig’s List and we did some sign surfing as well, randomly turning down streets when we spotted a sign.

I picked up a couple books from one sale, a couple ‘craft boxes’ that I can paint and put little things in (jewelry, spare change, etc.) and she got a small canvas stand for crafts or to put on the counter to hold fruits and/or vegetables. Then we found this adorable little bar-height table with a glass top and four chairs. Perfect for outside! We raced home to get Robby, show him the picture, and get permission (and the Jeep). $40 later, it is sitting in the living room while we wait for monsoon season to end. The set wouldn’t last outside in the raging winds that happen.

It wasn’t a bad day. I haven’t gone in so long that I almost felt rusty!

We got home and I realized quickly that the three hours of bad sleep I had gotten were not going to sustain me. As my body grew fatigued even more quickly, I started to feel a migraine coming on. I slid into bed and passed out. When I woke up, the migraine was still threatening to rear its ugly little head and I was feeling nauseated. So I stayed in bed and read for a little bit before falling asleep for another 30 minutes or so. I definitely feel better. Headache is gone at least.

Off to the river, again, tomorrow! I will not be drinking this time! No. Really. Not happening.

If you haven’t entered already, the contest is still going on!

Today was a pretty good day. Robert and I headed into Phoenix to hit up the Minute Clinic at CVS, so that I could get another prescription for the eyedrops, and then were heading to Ikea after that. It took a little longer than expected at CVS because apparently the elderly woman who went in before me was suffering from everything you can think of. At least, that is what I am assuming since she was in there for so freaking long. Oh well. I got the prescription and had it sent to the CVS by us so that we could move on to Ikea.

Needless to say, way too much time was spent there. *LOL* But it was fun! I love Ikea. And only because the Sweds have so many awesome ideas about modular designs, space saving, and things like that. They overcharge on some things but for the most part, I never feel like I’ve been ripped off. Robby and I had actually gone there with a purpose: to find some sort of rolling unit for the kitchen to keep his stuff in. You know, so it isn’t spread around everywhere and the mess can be more contained.

We found something that would work perfectly and found matching pieces that Robby could mount on the unit. They weren’t meant to be mounted but it works out perfectly. So he will have a little workspace and the spices will be moved from the counter top to where the rack will be mounted. Aaaaand then we started picking up the random stuff when we went downstairs. He was very well behaved and only “plurged” on things that were too cheap to pass up. Like the set of three wooden cooking/serving utensils for 49 cents? Yeah. Worth it. Little things like that. I got a set of two cardboard-ish magazine boxes in black and white for $3. Just something that I’ll use to hold my mail and magazines. (Don’t even get me started on those stupid things… that I didn’t even want!) They fit perfectly on the side of my desk with a box of tissues shoved between them. I’d had another idea to go along with them but I am blanking on just what that was. I will remember at some point. Oh well.

Meanwhile, I just received my check from Vanguard with the 401K cashout and, let me just say that I under-estimated what I thought I would be getting.

By, oh, a grand.

I know, right?!

Now, before anyone gets any brainiac ideas: No. I am not going to continue to sit around on my ass now that I have that extra money waiting for me. It is not a crutch. It is the thing that will keep me sane while I get a job and get settled. Whatever is left over will be going to my debts. Not even to the fun stuff. Oh. Sure. I could totally run out and go buy whatever laptop I wanted right now. But I am not going to. Because I am responsible. I’m not like some people!

Did I mention that the CVS pharmacy over by home was closed by the time we got there? We missed it by 15 minutes. Oops! It opens at 8am and closes at 10pm so I will be able to get in there tomorrow with zero problems. And! AND! I’m not stressed about the cost now. Yay!

In other news, I managed to fall over the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I fell. I never fall. I am not clumsy. Sure, I will stumble or whatever but I do not fall. The few times I have fallen, I have seriously injured myself. I’m talking contusions, massive bruising, concussions, strains, etc. I came out of this with a bruised ball of my left foot, a bruised right knee, and that’s about it. I had woken up with a sore left ankle and knee that were so bad I could not put weight on them. I also thought I had strained a muscle in my back. Nope! All is good on that front.

Still, it hasn’t been a very good last few days.

The second picture is one I found on flickr and the person titled it: Ikea National Park. Click the link for the larger image. It’s pretty funny.

Warning: I have been drinking. Just a little. But I tend to take two hours to write up a blog post when I am doing the apparently-weekly drunken EMB chat with the girls from Ecstasy MB. Wine, spirits, and fun times with some awesome ladies.

I managed to give myself conjunctivitis/Pink-eye again. What the Hell? I really think it happened because I finally did laundry the other night. I hadn’t done it since I got back from San Diego so I was handling all the clothes that were all kinds of germ-riddled. Lovely. And just my luck, right? Of course, I have no health insurance now because it ended July 31st. Luckily, I had some eye drops left over from the last time so I could at least get a jump start on getting it under control. But I will be running out as of tonight or tomorrow depending on how long I can make them last. The nearest CVS clinic is about an hour away or so. They wouldn’t just refill the prescription even though I was there two weeks ago with the same ailment. I have to go into the MinuteClinic again. And pay $69 for the visit plus whatever the eye drops are.

Times like these, I wish I had a better hook up for prescriptions. That is terrible to say because it’s not actually legal but you know what I mean. It would save me a trip to a clinic to get ‘diagnosed’ with what I already know I am suffering from since it’s the second occurrence in two weeks. It just sucks when I have no income at the moment and no health insurance.

Tomorrow I will head to the clinic to get another prescription and get some more eye drops to get rid of the pink-eye again.

I finally got my deliveries from UPS today! Silly Sears/K-Mart, though. I ordered a total of eight towels and they put one towel in each box. I had a total of TEN boxes show up. Really? We couldn’t have, I don’t know, combined things into a bigger box and saved some trees?

Anyway, I was super excited because YAY! Sheets! Comforter! Towels! And I got a couple under-the-bed storage containers.

These are just two of the hand towels to show off.

White 800-threadcount sheets!

My new comforter/bed set. Black and white plaid.

I didn’t actually buy the new mattress topper since I got it for free from my mother. But I had to show it off anyway!

So excited!! Right now I don’t have the sheets on the bed because I wanted to make sure the topper fully expanded. I threw the old comforter on top so the cats weren’t laying directly on the foam.

Man! I am so tired right now. I did not sleep well last night at all. I mean, I went to bed later than I would have liked because my D-chan and I were running around in Aion and the stupid Dukaki Peons wouldn’t drop the friggin’ Amulet that we needed a fourth one of. We had to have spent an hour on that one quest alone before I finally gave up and she lagged out.

Adam

So I went to bed late, slept very restlessly because I was aggravated when I climbed into bed. I dreamed about Aion and kept waking myself up because I realized that was absolutely ridiculous. Then I was having issues with my throat again. Took some cough syrup (with Codeine!) to help which then, of course, made me groggy. Woke up an hour later with a charlie horse cramp in my calf. It wasn’t too bad and I was able to go back to sleep. That is, until Robby’s phone went off in the loft with his alarm. It’s the sound of a rooster crowing. Over. And. Over. This went on for about ten to fifteen minutes before it got turned off. I was going on 2.5 hours of “sleep” by this point and Codeine. I was not getting up even if I had wanted to. Meh. I should sleep better tonight. New bed, for all intents and purposes!

I’ve tripped again and things are starting to get interesting. Don’t give me choices cause I can’t decide. My mind is soaked in words; I’ve come to terms with all my insecurities and purity is no friend of mine. And dreaming doesn’t do no good ’cause I don’t wanna lie that I’m okay and I’m alright. I’d rather take it and forget it. Consider this a warning. ‘Cause I’ll start another fight and you’ll say its all alright. I’ll wait for the day when you find I’m too much for you, baby. So lay your hands over me and feel what you only see. But don’t bother wasting your time if you’re trying to change me. You’re kinda cool but I know better than to break the rules of messin’ with a lesson that I’ll never learn. I’ll go from bad to worse and later back to better, but I’ll never better bridges that I’m bent to burn.

Anna Nalick – Consider This

Apparently my dad got sick from when I was at his house on the first couple of days of my sickness. He was over his within about three days. I mean, I feel bad for getting him sick at all but man! I wish mine had only lasted three days! Mine just… mutated. His didn’t. Then throw the pink eye into the mix and, well, I was the “winner” if you can call it that.

It was still good to hear from him. Apparently, when I had called, he had been thinking about me and had decided to call me after he’d eaten some lunch. I beat him to it by about five minutes or so. My dad and I have always pretty much been on the same page. I think today was the first good day I have had in awhile. Not too worn out, not completely energy deprived, not in a constant state of losing my voice.

I even went out and explored a tiny bit! I went to Chase, deposited my last two checks from AAA, and then went to KFC to pick up some lunch for Angel and I. From there I went to the post office and sent out a couple things. Then I hit up the store for some Pepsi, pens, and an energy drink. Finally, I headed home. Ta-daaa~! Okay, so it wasn’t much in regards to exploring but it was a start. And I had food in the car which was making me more and more hungry the more I smelled it. I was supposed to do laundry today and got caught up in Aion. Oops. But I remembered to bring Charlie out for more socializing.

He and Weezy even shared the couch. Sort of. For a little bit.

The two boys.

“Hey Charlie! Did you see Weezy down there?”

“Hey! When did he get up here?!”

“Um… Mom! MOM! He’s TOO CLOSE!!”

“What? I’m not doin’ nuffin…”

“.. yet.”

Weezy then proceeded to chase Charlie off the couch and into Angel and Robby’s bedroom when I ducked away to go potty. Charlie came down the hall, not even realizing that Weezy was behind him. Then Weezy just ran and pounced on Charlie, yowling like mad. Charlie finally swatted back! Jeez. Only took like a MONTH to get up the nerve to swat back. *facepalm*

At least they’re getting more used to each other?

No lyrics tonight. Too tired.

My body is definitely trying to tell me something. I went to bed last night with an upset stomach that persisted into the wee hours of morning. I slept restlessly until around 8am or so and then I finally fell into a deeper sleep for a few hours. My throat is still all kinds of messed up from the upper respiratory infection and excessive coughing. I may have managed to damage my vocal cords from all of that.

I’ve been sleeping “a lot” lately though I wouldn’t say “well”. My body is still adjusting and trying to figure out what the hell is going on, I think.

I took it easy today. Spent much of the day in bed or on the couch and reading. Tried to rest my voice, again, as much as I could. I could feel a small improvement on how my throat felt up until around the time I decided it was time to go to bed. Then the coughing returned and the hoarseness came back. So I took some puffs from my inhaler, sipped at my water, and shut up again.

Charlie is still freaked out and unsettled. I think it wouldn’t be so bad if Weezy weren’t so loud with his meowing and screeching. It really scared/scares Charlie and he’s become completely paranoid about leaving the bedroom. And I can’t leave the bedroom door open because Weezy will go in and torment Charlie anyway. (Not to mention I have to make sure there is no food out for Weezy to get into because it upsets his tummy!) I just feel bad. I wish I had a magic wand to wave that would make it all better.

I have a list of things to do tomorrow that I will hopefully accomplish. It is time for me to get my butt into gear and be more like myself.

Got up on the wrong side of life today, yeah. Crash the car and I’m gonna be really late. My phone doesn’t work cus it’s out of range. Looks like it’s just one of those kind of days. You can’t kick me down I’m already on the ground. No you can’t, but you couldn’t catch me anyhow. Blue skies, but the sun isn’t coming out, no. Today is like I’m under a heavy cloud. And I feel so alive. I can’t help myself. Don’t you realize? I just wanna scream and lose control. Throw my hands up and let it go. Forget about everything and run away, yeah. I just wanna fall and lose myself. Laughing so hard it hurts like hell. Forget about everything and run away, yeah.

Avril Lavigne – Runaway