Lindsay Learns a Lesson

 How many of you read American Girl books growing up? Each character had a series of 6 books and there was always one about "Learning a Lesson" and that's what this blog post is for me. It's about my hardships and what I did wrong and right and what I've learned. Not that this is all over, it's not and I am still very much learning. There is a lot to spill and talk about today. 

First of all, I am home when I should be at work...*sigh* so...you guys know that I have a lot of stressors in my life right now. Just like everyone else, I too am dealing with the covid-19 pandemic, and all of the crap that comes with it such as anxiety about getting sick, friends and loved ones taking actions that you don't think are safe, not being able to see family and loved ones in person, all of the uncertainty. We also got super unsettling news regarding Eddie's job and are looking at huge financial hardships right now that came all at once. On top of it all, we recieved our third medical bill for several hundred dollars from my hospitalization this past summer. Despite all of the stress, I've continued to keep going to therapy, working out and eating healthy and doing lots of meditation and breathing exercises. So I felt like I should be fine to go to work this week as usual while we evaluate what we can do next. Well, I had some...ahem...we'll call them mishaps this morning. As you guys also may or may not know because I don't talk about it as much is that I have IBS. My IBS symptoms were a lot worse before I lost 70 pounds over the last year and half. I still get stomach aches most days but at least the daily diarrhea has stopped. Well, it restarted last night and was worse than ever. I have not slept well the last several nights and that can make IBS symptoms worse. I didn't think much of it and went to bed last night and slept pretty well. This morning while eating breakfast and minding my own business, I had a little "accident" and it wasn't even associated with any stomach pain or gas. You can't cry over shitty pants so moved on with my morning, took my shower, cleaned up all that good stuff. Then I'm trying to do my hair and makeup and it happens again! WTF! I had to skip my beloved ritual of morning hair and makeup and clean up and hop in the shower again. Just not a good morning. Tried to meditate but kept crying. Then I pulled my big girl pants on a left for work. I get there and my stomach is gurgling and making popping sounds. This is my first time seeing anyone besides Eddie since we got all the bad news on Friday and when I saw my boss, I just let loose (let loose the crying not more diarrhea...for clarity) and I started sobbing and telling her about my accidents this morning and how I don't feel well and also everything we found out on Friday. It's like I was spilling all of my guts and couldn't stop. I was feeling like I was outside my body looking at this lunatic girl telling people who didn't ask all of the BS going on in my personal life. I was a train wreck that couldn't be stopped. We all know how supportive my work place as been thus far for the last year and everyone was still completely supportive of me but I had to go home. So that's the second time this year I've had to leave work because I couldn't stop crying. Lovely. I'm not sure what's going on with that but so far there is no stomach pain and no fever so I don't know if I should take a covid-19 test. What do you guys think? I have had a lot of allergy symptoms lately as well. I've read tons of other people's laments online talking about how covid-19 symptoms and anxiety symptoms can be one in the same and if it were up to me I would be taking a test every single day because let's be honest, more often than not I feel sick in some way shape or form. Long story short, I feel thoroughly embarrassed and once again found myself walking downtown while sobbing but that's life!

We spent all weekend trying to continue our lives as much as normal as possible instead of dwelling on uncertainty. I decorated our house and decorated my whole dollhouse for Christmas after moving it into the dining room. I listened to lots of Christmas music too. On Saturday I got my hair done at the at a new place because my original stylist fell off the face of the planet. After I got my blonde touched up and hair cut I came home to a wonderful dinner made by my blossoming chef of a husband. We recreated the entire dinner experience at one of our favorite restaurants in San Francisco, House of Prime Rib.  All day Saturday Eddie slaved in the kitchen making each House of Prime Rip specialty from scratch:

• Prime Rib I'm not too sure about the cooking process and recipes Eddie used so if that's something you guys want in the future let me know and I'll be happy to start passing that information along! I know it takes all day kind of like a turkey. He had it sitting out on the counter all Saturday morning and then had to do several steps of baking to get it just right.
• Yorkshire pudding is kind of like a soft doughy bread that you dip into the au jus and gravy or whatever else you have to sop up.
• House of Prime Rib specialty salad is always super yummy because it has beets and other items I normally don't put in a salad. It may sound and look weird but it tastes so good. He really pulled it off! 
• Creamed Spinach I have never been excited about this part but with Eddie working so hard on it all day and it being such a success, I gave it a try (onions and all!) and omg it was sooo good! I can't believe what fantastic cook he has become!
• Last but not least is the famous House of Prime Rib lemon drop secret recipe and it's safe to say we cracked the code! You can't drink these without sugar around the rim of the glass and better believe we did that too! 

We had a fabulous evening and listened to some of my favorite jazzy Christmas music and even put on a little lipstick. After dinner I dressed up like Santa's little helper and I think you can imagine what happened next....

Lately instead of watching the news or anything else stressful we've been going for our evening walks and then coming home to get cozy and watch Christmas Hallmark movies. We watch these because they are mostly easy to watch, cozy, feel-good storylines and don't require too much thinking. Sometimes we watch silently while catching up on things on our phones or computers, sometimes we cuddle and watch intently and sometimes we get a little tipsy and poke fun at the bad storylines. Either way it's a good time. Our favorite treat lately has been peppermint ice-cream mixed in the blender with peppermint schnapps. I always add a candy cane to mine while Eddie usually tops his with whipped cream. 

I spent my entire Monday photographing and listing individual Christmas cards for sale in my etsy shop.   Now there's more affordable options for those who don't want to or can't spend more money on a 10 pack or 5 pack of cards. Lately I've been working really hard on some super complicated e-commerce issues like getting direct links to my products on instagram and facebook. and last night it finally all came together and the links started to finally work! I was so excited and tried doing a happy dance despite my exhaustion. I'm one step closer to realizing my creative dreams! It's such a relief to know that I can create a product in my craft room, bring it to the dining room and photograph it and then list it for sale in my etsy store, facebook page and instagram page all in one day! I've been daydreaming about streamlining this process forever. I just wish I had more time to utilize this process instead of looking for a fulltime job with benefits so that if Eddie's job falls through and we lose our insurance I can cover myself because paying out of pocket is not an option. 

Yes, you read that right. After much thinking and discussion Eddie and I have decided I should be looking for full time employment with benefits incase his goes down the drain. I have no clue what this will look like or if it will even happen. I know I've said before that I can't work full time due to my mental health but I have to at least try because like I said, having no health insurance coverage at all is not an option for someone like me. I am super anxious about working at a new place during a pandemic, though. One of the biggest employers in our city is the hospital and although they would probably have great benefits, working in a hospital during covid seems counterintuitive to my mental health needs and stressors. My current boss also suggested Home Depot and or Menards or Lowes as they offer pretty good benefits too. Will I be wearing an orange apron in my future? What about a hard hat? Is there such a thing as a hard hat with a hole on top for my Ariana Grandesque ponytail to come out of? (omfg you guys there is! I know this is satire but if I get a construction job or anything else that requires a hard hat, I am totally making a hole for my ponytail). Speaking of ponytail, I got a few messages this weekend about where mine is from as I was vlogging my decorating process on instagram and was wearing some cute antlers with mine.  Your girl loves her fake hair and extensions and am always happy to share what I get. My regular daily extensions are real remi human hair I bought through my stylist and after a couple years of having sew ins- I personally hand-sewed clips into the wefts so that I could take them out at night. My ponytail  is the wrap around type and it took me 3 years to realize that the key to keeping the ponytail in and secure was combining it with a pony-o. Sorry about the hair extension tangent but if you love hair and makeup as much as me, then you know....

It's time to ground myself where the mud is and not give a damn about how I look and what others think of me. I will work any job if it means being able to keep Eddie and I under a roof and to keep our health insurance. I'm not too good for any job obviously. Yesterday I applied for a job to receive the donations that come into the local goodwill and since it offers benefits I applied despite not being forklift certified like they requested. LOL!!! You guys, I hope you are laughing with me about the thought of me driving a forklift because if we don't laugh then I'll cry instead. I wish I could do something in the animal care field or beauty industry but I haven't seen any jobs in those fields that are currently offering positions with benefits. Someday I will write more about this and maybe you already know the story but last time I worked a steady full time job with salary was in 2015 and I burned out so badly that I lost my job, my friends, my bridesmaids and my sanity all 3 months before my wedding. So to say I am anxious about trying full time employment again is an understatement. but I also just have this super calm voice inside me that says, "Lindsay, you can do this. You can do this for yourself. You can do this for Eddie. You can do this for Bean.". I won't know until I try.  I just really don't want to waste anyone's time. I'm hoping to find an employer that is sympathetic to my disabilities yet understands the need for a living wage. I would take $7 an hour if it meant I could have health insurance. 

Quick story: there was this time during college when I tried working full time and going to school full time in order to have health insurance while working on my bachelors degree. Hooo boy! That was a hot mess of a situation. I didn't have the best lifestyle at the time and that didn't help but also just being exhausted from working and school and taking junior/senior level classes while commuting 1 hour to school and then 1 hour to work from school and then 1/2 hour home did not help things. After one semester of that I brought my work down to part time so I could concentrate on school. Not a good idea at the time and why was that? Well, I was also on antidepressants and medication for my ADHD and thought I could casually just stop taking my meds cold turkey and still continue to be a highly functioning 22 year old getting all As and Bs in college and paying my bills. Boy was I wrong. I was so exhausted from coming off my meds so quickly that I would drive to school in the morning and just barely make the drive without falling asleep only to be overcome with fatigue that I would pass out in my car, even in the dead of winter I would sleep in my car without the heat on because I was too tired too care. Anyway, one time I was sleeping in the backseat of my car instead of being in class because I couldn't stop falling asleep and snoring during a lecture and I found one lonely Prozac pill on the floor of my car and cried so hard because I knew one pill couldn't help but I felt like giving it a chance and took it anyway. Needless to say the one Prozac pill did not help and everything sort of slowly exploded into pieces from there. When I eventually got fired for being a super unreliable hot mess, my boss told me nonchalantly during my pink-slip meeting that she never took me off of the health insurance in the first place. I was flabbergasted. She didn't tell me and I could've been taking my meds that whole time and now not only was I jobless and now homeless due to living with a co-worker, I also royally screwed up my grades and gpa! Lesson learned: don't ever, EVER, stop taking any medication cold turkey. This isn't the only life lesson I learned involving work, medications, health insurance and how they all tie together to make life bearable but this blog post is long enough as it is.

I'm going to end this blog with the same requests I always make and that's to please, PLEASE, support other's in your life by sharing this blog with anyone and everyone because you never know who it could help. I've heard some pretty incredible stories from readers about how reading one post about my crazy true life stories have helped them feel better. Please click on any and every advertisement you see on my blog as that contributes to my pay form writing this blog which isn't a lot but it all adds up. Please share and "like" my etsy shop and any of the products. We are really struggling this holiday season with everything going on and all of my medical bills. Sharing links to my blog and etsy store help me so much! Even putting items into your check-out cart without buying help me get more traffic. I never thought I would need to be asking you to do this at the end of each blog because I thought I had more time to get my work-from-home life up and running before we had another financial disaster but here we are. Please know that I am keeping a very positive mental attitude through out this whole ordeal despite what I've written lately I am on the way back to my happy go lucky self. I can't afford to be negative at this time or any time. I am super happy and grateful for your support always. You can grantee that every time something crazy, awful, dramatic, good or bad happens to me, the next thing I will do will be to come here and tell you all about. Thanks for loving me the way I am. I love you all too. Hang in there mental health warriors! 

ponytails & antler ears