The beauty of snow

I am a native California girl, and snow just isn't in my list of things I like. In CA, especially in the valley, if you want snow, you drive to it. When you're tired of it, you drive home. Only the crazy people live in the hills where they have to live with it. ;)

This year is my fifth winter in Michigan. Every single year before this I have hated snow, with a passion. It's cold, it make driving difficult, it gets you wet. Yes, it's pretty to look at, but only if you are in a nice, warm house, watching it. Being out in it is just not fun. Even after I had my son, I still saw it only as an annoyance, and wished for spring to get here as soon as possible.

Then, oddly enough, something changed.

I was leaving work the other night, around 730 or so. The snow was falling, just the light, fluffy kind. I ignored it, as usual, until I got into my car. While sitting there, waiting for my car to warm up, I was looking out my window. For the first time in my life, I actually looked at the snow. Not just the big lumps of it, but the individual flakes. I don't think I've ever seen anything so perfectly beautiful. There, on my car window, were individual works of art. Now, I've seen decorations of snowflakes, but I've never realised they actually look like little pieces of lace. Each one different and beautiful. I think I sat there and just looked at them for about five minutes. I was oddly overcome by something so simple. Now, almost a week later, it still makes me feel different. It was like a little reminder from mother nature that there is still beauty in this world, if you just know where to look for it.

Granted, it's still cold, wet and difficult to drive in, but now I look at it differently. Had I still lived in California, I probably never would have noticed it. I guess there are good things about living where it snows after all.

Men, love and other ramblings

Okay,world, I think I've had about all I can take.

Growing up, I was the ugly tomboy with the glasses, frekels and pimples. I had a hard time getting guys to notice me, let alone date me. I had three boyfriends in high school, and only one of them was worth anything. I was an idiot and married the first guy who "loved" me right out of high school (I was 19). After that divorce I went hog wild, dating any guy who showed any interest in me, and sleeping with most of them. Why? I haven't a clue, other than I was young and stupid and desperatly craved the attention of a man. It seemed I couldn't live without one, no matter how crappy he was. Somehow being wanted made me feel like I was worth something.

I've had self esteem issues my whole life. I'm 29 and I still have them. I look in the mirror and see a chubby, flabby, pimply faced, scared, four eyed, ugly woman. I can't see beyond that at all. I mean, I know I can make myself look beautiful with the right clothes, makeup and hair. But I want to see a beautiful, worthwhile woman when I get up in the morning, messy hair, sweatpants and all. I could name five men right now that would disagree with me. Every time one of them says I'm beautiful, I could just scream. I know men check me out, and I wonder what the hell they're looking at. Are you blind?

Just stop it, okay? I'm not beautiful, I'm not sexy, and I have no common sense. If I had any, I'd join a convent. (My disbelief in god not withstanding.) The only men I will believe are my son and my dad.

Please, please, for the love of the gods, stop it. Or someone give me the strength to see what they do.

And to the men who think they love me, in any way, all I ask is why? (No, my dad and my son don't count.) How odd is it that I can question you, when I never question myself when I feel love for someone. Does that make my a hypocrite? I don't know anymore. If you all would just go away, maybe I could get my brain around some things. Hell, I can't even write a coherent blog at the moment, my brain is so screwy.

Why oh why are we doomed in this society to love only one person? My heart is so big, and there are so many wonderful people with so many wonderful traits. Why is it I have to pick one person to be "the one", while others are doomed to either be left behind or be just the platonic friend? That's not the way this world works. At least, not in Western society.

I think too much of other's feelings. If I were to run away and persue what I want for once, how many broken hearts would I leave behind? I'm worried about what everyone else thinks...friends, parents, my son. I can't win. No wonder there are still nights I wish I could fall asleep and never wake up.

Gah....life's a bitch.

The pain of being bipolar

Nearly 2 years ago I decided to try and end my own life. Obviously, it didn't work. (Either that or I'm a very solid ghost.) After that attempt I had to spend a week in the hospitals mental health unit. I was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. Basically, it's like depression, but you also get these super hyper up times, which are just as dangerous as depression. More fun, but dangerous all the same.

Since last year, I have been struggling with treatment of my disorder. I have seen psychologists, psychiatrists, been to support groups and been on a few different types of medicine. Every time it seems I've finally got a handle on it, something quits working; something goes wrong, and I never know what.

Perhaps my brains chemistry changes so fast that the medicines can't keep up. Maybe the meds aren't as effective as the doctors would like to believe. Or maybe I'm going to end up as one of those women who is locked up in a mental home for the rest of her life becuase no one can do anything for her.

An outsider would think my life is almost perfect right now. I have a home, a job, a man who loves me, a wonderful son, two cats and two dogs, and am going back to school. I have very few bills, a sharp mind, and a "good" personality. But what would an outsider know? He wouldn't know how I can look at all of these wonderful things, and not feel connected to a single one of them. How quickly I can go from feeling on top of the world, to feeling like I want nothing more than to disapear.

There are so few things I want. I want to see my son grow up. I want to go back to school. I want to be happy.

Why do I have to be one of the some two million of people in the US with this disorder? I don't understand why my brain has to be this way. As far as I know, no one else in my family will admit to having any kind of mental illness, except for a cousin (mom's side) who suffers from depression. I beleive there might be something wrong with my older half sister, who has been treated for alcoholism, as self medicating is very common in bipolars.

But it's not the same as someone else I know saying "it's okay, you're not alone."

I have one very good friend who does know, and does understand, and we lean on each other quite a bit. There's a much different perspective talking to him than talking to my therapist. I think it helps us both.

I don't feel suicidal, just tired and apathetic. I'm crying easily again, which hasn't happened in while. I think about my son and miss him so very much. I look at my loving BF and wonder if we can stay together because of how I can be. I have desires to run away and hide from everyone I know just so no one will know I'm sick.

It's days like these I miss having manias. I was just as sick, but at least those are fun.

My fantasy holiday wishlist: to be cured.

Finally, a job

I can't believe it. After bitching about not having a job, I got one.

I went to the mall today to drop off a bunch of applications I had filled out. While I was there, I also grabbed an application for the Honey Baked Ham Company. http://www.honeybaked.com/ Sure, it's seasonal, and will probably only go through the first of January, but at least it's something. Finally, some money for me.

The funny thing is I put in my application today, and the guy called me a couple of hours later and offered me the job over the phone. I didn't even have an interview! Hope it works out alright. I really need the cash right now. No Christmas gifts, no paid bills, no gas money, etc.

I hope to find something more permanat by the time this one ends. Hopefully I can finally get out of food. I'm so sick of having a job that envolves food!

Wish me luck!

The annoying hunt for a job

I hate, hate, hate, looking for a job. Every time I've had to do it, it's a royal pain in the tush.

The reason I'm looking for a job right now was because I left my old one for a number of reasons. One, I wanted to move in with the BF, who lives in a city 50 miles from where I worked. Not exactly a good commute given gas prices these days. Two, I didn't really like the job that much. I worked in a deli in a grocery store. Lack of respect, low wages and crappy work conditions will make a person want to leave. But, I could have put up with all of that for quite a while, mostly because I loved some of my customers so much it made it worth while.

Then along came Melody.

Don't let her name fool you. She's no where as nice as she sounds.

Melody and I were hired at the exact same time, and the only reason she started on a Monday, and me on a Tuesday, was because I needed medical clearence to start working, as I had been injured on my previous job. This girl and I had problems right from the get go. She's loud, obnoxious, rude and a general pain in the ass. She's worked food service quite a bit, so she thinks she knows everything. She was always "correcting" me on how I did things, talking down to me for not doing things "her" way, etc. We had basically been at each other's throats from day one.

This goes on for almost 6 moths. We managed to work together, but there was always tension between us. Then, it all finally came to a head. I was commenting on the schedule about how I got the weekend off (only my second one since working there), so I could spend it with my BF and my son for three days in a row. Melody blew up at me, saying how she was sick of the fact that I had "every single day off (you) want, and none of us ever do", which was total bullshit. Basically, the schedule is worked out a week in advance, and if you need a certain day off, or need to work a certain shift, then all you have to do is write it on the calender. 9 times out of 10 you'll get your request. She, however, never seemed to get this concept. She would, instead, bitch about how she never got the same day off, and that she always had to work around her work schedule, and none of the others (read, me) did. Now, granted, I always had Thursdays off, but I worked this out with the boss when I was interviewed, because I always have my son on Thursdays. So he knew in advance I could never work a Thursday, and it was alright with him.

Anyway, she got in my face and screamed at me for having any day I wanted off. I tried, again, explaining the way it was to her, but she got all in a tizzy and stared screaming about how I always get what I want, how it wasn't fair...etc. So I told her if she didn't like it she should quit. She yells, "fine, I quit!", throws her apron off and goes stalking off. Fine by me. She goes ranting around the store, looking for our manager so she can bitch to him about me "forcing her" to quit. She goes into the meat room and basically tells the guy that's working in there that "I'm going to punch (my) lights out." Then she comes storming past me and tells me "I would love to knock your block off right now." Of course, this has gotten me quite shook up by this point. Yelling about quiting is fine, but threatening me because of it?

Finally, she finds the manager and bitches to him about me. He of course then comes to me to get my side of things. So I tell him what happened, and inform him I will not work in a place that has employees threatening each other. His response? "How do you know she was serious? I'm sure it's just an idle threat." WTF?! What kind of response is that from an employer? To make a long story short, he basically said we need to learn to work together, because neither of us would be quiting. (He talked her into staying.) We just needed to learn to "get along".

Of course everyone was asking me what happened, because every employe in the store heard her going off about things. No one took her side, 'cause they all love me. ;) I told them all the truth, and everyone was shocked that she could be so damn stupid.

So at lunch I went to the snopes board, where I post frequently ;) , and posted about this problem. I really needed to get it off my chest, because I was pretty shaken up. That night, after work, I called my BF and told him about it too. After much thought, we decided I was going to leave the job, and move in with him a month earlier than we had planned on.

The next day was Sunday, and I didn't have to work with SuperBitch, but at the end of that day, I left my two weeks notice. I also told the kids I worked with, who were just shocked at her behavior, that I was quiting.

The next day my boss comes up to me and says "I got your notice. Are you sure this is what you want to do?" It was all I could keep from going "DUH!" in his face. I told him, yes, this was what I wanted to do. I later heard him chewing out SuperBitch because I was leaving. She was happy I was going, but pissed she was in trouble, again.

Oh well, not my problem.

So, I finally finished my two weeks of hell, and had many, many customers telling me how sorry they were that I was leaving, and wishing I would stay, and "can't you communte?", which was awesome, especially when SB could hear them! :D

So I moved, and since then, I've been looking for work. It's been a long damn two months, and I'm sick and tired of it all. I look through the classifieds online every other day, and hit the local retail places about once a week, seeing if anyone needs people. I am so sick of it. I've had two interviews in the two months. One I thought I nailed, but obviously didn't, and this other one I'm not so sure about. But, I'll keep trying.

I'm so tired of not being able to contribute anything to the household, and although he won't admit it, I'm sure it's a bit of a burden on the BF. *sigh*

I hope someone hires me very soon, I'm quite tired of this all. I'm about *this* close to applying to McDonalds, just for a job. I'd go apply at the local strip club, but they'd probably laugh me out of the door. ;)

A happy Halloween

Well my son and I had a wonderful Halloween together. Well, sort of Halloween. It was the bf's idea to carve pumpkins, and we had a wonderful time doing it. Nicholas really liked scooping out the guts of the pumpkings, and even tried helping me carve it.

That was about a week before Halloween. On the actual day of Halloween, he went trick or treating as a frog with his dad. The costume was from my mom, so it was pretty cool that he got to wear it. He looked super cute.

All in all we had a wonderful time. He loved pointing out "his" pumpkins to his day when he came to pick him up!

We had his birthday last weekend too. My baby boy is three now! I can hardly believe it. Time goes by so fast, but he's such a wonderful kid, and I just love watching him grow up and learn new things. I'm blessed to have such a great kid.

The begining

Well, so here I am starting a blog. I had another one, but didn't like it too much, so here I go again! Gee, I don't really know what to say about myself. I'm 29, and have a beautiful 3 year old son. I live with my boyfriend, and we have two dogs (his) and two cats (mine).

I dunno what I'm going to post on a regular basis, as I spend a lot of my time posting on the snopes board, but it's nice to have somewhere else to get things out.