Journal, May 12th

Work (6am to 2pm)

Nothing special.  Slow morning but it got busier and the day went by pretty quick.  I enjoy when it gets busy and I get pulled different ways because I’m good at time management and prioritizing what needs to be done, plus it makes the day go fast.  When I get through the busy period, I feel proud to have accomplished the job at hand.

Chiropractor appointment (2:45)

I’ve had 2 appointments that I missed because I kept getting stuck working 12 hours on Fridays when I scheduled them so I had this one scheduled on a Monday.  It felt good afterwards.  I haven’t had too many issues with my back but my neck has been giving me problems.  I was trying to get it fixed when I was with my previous job but I felt like every time he would adjust me, I would go back to work and it would get screwed up again so I quit going.  Now that I’m at a different job, I’m hoping he can keep it feeling better.  My body is already in way better shape working 8’s at my new job then the 12’s at my old one.  My feet don’t hurt, my legs don’t hurt, and I’m probably in a little better shape than I was.

This was a long time ago.

After the chiro, I killed an hour at home, went to pick up the kids and met Cheri at my mom’s,  grabbed Chris and we went to meet my brother and another guy from work to play some golf.  I hadn’t played yet this year and I’ve probably only played 10 times in the last 15 years.  I was wildly inconsistent.  I had a birdie and 2 pars and still shot a 46 in 9 holes.  It was good enough to tie for the win with the other guy but he played like crap because he usually beats us pretty good.  I took my brother by a stroke to keep my 37 year streak alive of never losing to him.  We tied once, but he’s never won.  It’s only a matter of time though, he’s been awfully close a number of times.

Got home around 6:30, showered and went to my usual.  The laptop and TV.  Although I think my laptop might be on it’s last leg, It’s froze up a couple of times the last couple of nights.  Thankfully, when typing out my blogs I use Windows Live Writer and when it gets shut down like that, it asks me if I want to recover what I had when it starts back up.  Otherwise, I’d be really pissed.  Cheri and I have the same laptop, we bought them together back in the fall of 2010.  That’s like 25 years in computer years.

Stats today

• Supper at home (Sloppy Joe and Mac and Cheese. 
• TV – Unforgettable, Hawaii 5-0, Bones, 24 and Friends With Better Lives (DVR)

Randomness #19

I know, I disappeared again.  I told you last weekend I was out of town all weekend.  Which included about 20 hours in a car.  I was wore out when we came home on Sunday from all the driving.  Then Monday and Tuesday were 12 hour days.  I had Wednesday and Thursday off but used those days to recover.  Then I turned around and had to work Friday, Saturday and Sunday for 12 hours each day.  So you can see, I just wasn’t really in the mood to do anything and that included even getting online for a couple of days straight.  Don’t feel like this blog was the only thing I neglected, I hadn’t posted on My Sports Obsession most of that week and once my Tumblr blogs queues ran out, they were dormant for awhile as well.  So see, it wasn’t you, it was me.

I started my chiropractor appointments last week.  I had one both of my off days and then I have 2 this week, earlier today and tomorrow.  It’s definitely different.  For those that don’t know, I don’t like to be massaged or even rubbed on my back or neck so it takes getting used to.  It really takes getting used to when I sit in the chair and he cracks my neck.  Too many movies of watching people getting their necks broken.

I do think it’s getting better, I’m not nearly as sore.  Which is good because the more I go, the less Cheri can go and she really needs it.  So I need to get fixed so she can continue.  We just can’t afford for both of us to go.

This week I have today (Monday) and Tuesday off, work Wednesday and then have the rest of the weekend off so I’m really hoping to recoup this week.  I debated on taking a vacation day on Wednesday so I could have the whole week off but with Christmas coming, I need the extra 12 hours on the paycheck.  Other than turkey day on Thursday, I really don’t have any plans all week.  I had planned to do some stuff with the kids but they chose to stay with their mom all week except Wednesday thru Thursday afternoon.  I realize that they don’t get to see their mom often, but it still hurts my feelings.  We watched Iron Man 3 last week and talked about watching Avengers and Thor this week since we were both off work and school but now they aren’t going to be around.  I had also planned on working with Samantha on her basketball skills before her season starts after the 1st of the year but I guess not.  The good news is, with all this time on my hands, maybe I’ll get some blog posts out.

Maybe!

Depression buttons

I don’t suffer from depression, but there are definitely things that get me down.  I do have days where I seem to be down on myself or my life.  I don’t know if it’s a chemical imbalance or something actually sets it off, but every so often I’ll just have one of those days where I can’t stop thinking about things that depress me.  I thought maybe if I threw some out there, maybe it will help, probably not, but I can pretend it will

1. House – My only goal for this year was to purchase a house.  The fact that it won’t happen depresses me, but more so, pisses me off.  After my divorce, my credit score dropped (it was already low to be honest) because theEx never pays any of her bills.  So pretty much any bills we had while we were together, I’m stuck paying.  I’m still paying on a van that got repossessed because she couldn’t make the payments.  On top of the reason my credit score is low, is the fact that the bank requires a certain score to be pre-approved.  When I started this process at the beginning of the year, my credit score was way low.  I paid off what I needed to pay off, my score went up a little over 60 points in 3 months which put it only 10 points from where it needed to be.  Even my banker said he was impressed at how much I got it up in such a short time.  I went back 3 months later to check my score, it only went up 2 points.  There really isn’t anything I can do to make it go faster short of buying a new car or something but who can afford that.  So now I sit here, playing the waiting game.  So it pisses me off because they can’t overlook the 8 points I was short.
2. theEx – Since I’m bitching about theEx not paying her bills above, I’ll throw this in there.  It depresses me that I do everything for the kids while she does nothing and they still love her to death.  I know that’s not going to change but I just want them to see her for what she is.  She’s got a new job recently and purchased a SUV.  Meanwhile, her kids still wear clothes that don’t fit (at her house), and I still struggle trying to support them because her whopping $27/week support doesn’t cover hardly anything.  Hell, it cost just under $20/week for their school lunches.
3. Stepkids – When I knew I was getting stepkids, I was excited because I see how much my brothers stepkids love him and the great relationship he has with them.  But apparently I screwed that up somehow.  Neither of my stepkids could care less about me.  It’s not that they hate me or even dislike me, they just don’t care.  All I am to them is their mother’s husband.  Chris and I got along when he lived with us, but apparently I wasn’t what a “father” was supposed to be in his eyes.  Now he lives in Virginia and I don’t ever talk to him unless I’m down there or he’s up here.  Skyler just doesn’t want a father, has no need for one.  Which is fine, but it would be nice to have some kind of relationship with her.  The only time I ever hear from her is if she needs me for something.  I can’t even get her to respond to text messages.  I tell myself it’s because I came into their lives when they were older (15 & 16) but then I hang out with my brother at a family function and see all his stepkids tell them they love him and give him hugs and they were the same age when he came into their lives.
4. My kids – I worry too much about my kids.  It’s not that I worry about them, all parents worry about their kids, it’s more that I worry about my kids fitting in at school.  I never fit in and I was perfectly fine with it, and I certainly don’t want my kids to follow everyone else, but I was picked on and I don’t want them to deal with that.  I worry about them getting picked on for being different but I want them to be themselves, even if that means being different.  I know, I’m confusing.  Samantha will think she’s best friends with someone just because they say hi and I foresee people taking advantage of that.  Trevor will do anything for you and I fear people taking advantage of them for being nice and polite.  I feel like I haven’t prepared either of my kids for the fact that people can be assholes.  The problem is, I don’t know if how I raised them right or not.  They are great kids, polite, respectful, behaved.  The problem is most other kids aren’t.  Maybe I’m just to critical of other people, either way I worry about it.
5. Health – Mine and Cheri’s.  We know about her health issues and I am supposed to be here for her but I seem to be having my own issues.  I’m having muscle and possibly nerve issues in my back, neck and shoulders.  I went to a chiropractor yesterday for a consultation and he seems to think that he can help.  I go back on Monday to see if he can start fixing my issues.

Those are my top depression buttons right now in no particular order.  Maybe in a year, they will change.  I suppose it would be nice to get rid of these buttons but I’m sure others will replace it.

Chiropractor

Before our disability hearing yesterday, Cheri and I went to her evaluation with her new chiropractor.  She really liked the place.  Very organized with everything.  I liked it because everything was very modern.  Everything is brought up on flatscreens, they email you info and give you links to youtube video’s about info on things you need to know.  Like I said, very modern.  Anyways, we left impressed with everything.  She went back this morning for a consult on what they found with the x-rays and evaluation the day before.  All that went normal as well.  Still very impressed with the organization of the whole office and staff.  Then they gave us a quick tour of the office and left us in the room where they actually do the chiropractic care.  Cheri was pumped because it had been so long since she had her back worked on.  He came in and worked on her, here’s a brief description in her words.  When she got up she started to twist and turn her body like she was amazed at how well she could move.  She started to cry and gave him a big hug.  I teared up a bit (told her I yawned, but I think she figured it out).  I was so happy that she was so happy.  Cheri’s not a crier or a hugger so that should tell you how happy she was, now it’s a waiting game to see how long it lasts.  She still has pain, but that was one of the areas that hasn’t had relief in years.

I hope this works out because seeing Cheri so happy, even if it was brief, was a great thing.  She has quite a few more appointments so hopefully he can do more.  I certainly don’t think she will ever be pain free, but at this point, any pain relief is cause for excitement.  He says that he can help relieve some of the pain because he believes her spine is pinching some of her nerves which makes it hard for her body to send signals to her brain, which is essentially what her lesions in her brain do.  So if he can prevent the other blockage of the nerves, it can only help.  It certainly isn’t a cure, but the fight with MS is all about management and not cure.  There is no cure.  You try to manage the pain.  You try to manage the disease from progressing.  You try to manage your life around the disease.  You try to manage the ongoing education about the disease.  It’s all about management of the disease.

So it seems to be a step in the right direction.

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