Today is beautiful. 60F, sunny, breezy. I've been doing all kinds of stuff. I slept until DH needed to go to work about 10:30 and then I came home and had some tea, then painted the shelves I'm making for the cats and started rotating plants outside to be thoughrally watered and enjoy the real sun for a couple of hours. I have planted some seeds and refilled the bird feeders and put down pre-emergent on the lawn. At one point I noticed my legs weren't doing a very good job of holding me up, so I stopped and had lunch, then watched the Oklahoma Gardening episode for this week. Then I potted up the cannas I bought. I also put the corned beef in the crock pot to cook. None of this is really in any order, by the way.
I want to put the carpet on the cat shelves, then bring the plants back in, then I need to wash the dog and shower and clean the floors. They are really bad. But my muscles are kinda wobbly again. I'm wondering if I should take a nap for a little while. I realized a little bit ago that I hadn't had any water all day because I've been too busy to think about it. So I have water now. I did have two cups of my darjeeling tea and that was good. I've had 3 of the 4 and they are all yummy. Only the green tea is left.
Yeah, I think I'll rotate the plants again and then take a nap. It's almost 3 so I think I have time.
There are so many things that my newly unstressed brain wants to do and my poor body just can't keep up!
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Friday, February 24, 2012
Well, it's now Friday morning. I can't sleep. I tossed and turned and dozed until about 2:30 and I've been playing with photoshop since then. Wednesday was kind of surreal. Even though I was going to be done with those bosses and everything, I still was concerned about the inevitable confrontation. So I wrote a letter and put it on the Area Manager's desk while he was out. I said a quick goodbye to the people I saw on my way out and that was that. Yesterday I slept in. Mid morning my new boss/manager/partner/M called and wanted to have lunch so we could exchange some stuff. So that was fun. She told me about why she picked me over the other guy that applied. He had really good experience and lots of contacts that she could follow up on, but she said it was like pulling teeth to get him to give her any information. I didn't have the experience but she felt I could learn quickly and she knew I'd have a better relationship with her and the clients because I was better socially. I got the job because I have a brilliant personality! Lol! I don't often have a better personality than other people!
I passed the physical but we're still waiting on the drug test for some reason. I didn't take any drugs so I don't know what's taking so long. We're also still waiting on the handbook. That's supposed to get here this afternoon and I can go pick it up and look over it this weekend. Saturday I do the defensive driving class and hopefully I'll actually start working Monday or Tuesday.
After lunch I went to my favorite plant nursery since I was in the area. There were lots of neat things but I don't have places or money for them right now. Someday I want a witch hazel tree. They are so cool. I was tired when I got home but I puttered around a little, ran the dishwasher, etc. Then DH called and wanted to come home to get some work done. I guess people were hassling him too much at the office. He had me call old work to see if my last checks were ready. They were. He was very sweet and went in with me because I was still nervous about the confrontation and awkwardness. I can never prepare fully for what those situations bring and I clam up and it is just a bad deal. But DH reminded me that it is because of my disability and it isn't my fault. He was there to support me just like I'm there to drive him around because he can't see. The Good Lord knew I was freaking out because there was a guy there picking up an order and he had a sweet little chihuahua with him. I got to love on the dog and it calmed me down. The Area Manager came out with my checks and all he said was, "I wish you'd have said something sooner." I said I couldn't risk being fired and turned around and left. I don't know if he was talking about the disability or the lack of notice of quitting but the response worked either way. With the way they've treated me over the last year, I had no way of knowing they wouldn't can me on the spot when they found out I was "disabled". If you can't treat a person with dignity before you know why they act different than you, you're probably not going to treat them better afterwards. Humans are either nice to other people or they're not. Sometimes they can pretend for a while but sooner or later the true nature reveals itself.
So anyway, as soon as we pulled out of the parking lot I broke down and let out all the stress that had been building up inside. DH was so sweet and just let me cry a little. He tried to find something to say to make me feel better but I let him know that just being there was plenty. There were only a few tears and I was done. By the time I got home I felt lighter than I have in ages. DH noticed it.
So my brain has been full of possibilities since then and I couln't sleep. I started some more seeds, looked for shelf brackets online, thought about the garden and the decorating and all the happy things that I just couldn't get interested in before. DH got up at 5 to work some more and sent me to Starbucks for breakfast. Yum!
So DH's job is really going well. All the cops and other DA's and other agencies all respect him and want him to work on their projects. He's got several really cool things going on. So that's why he's been saying that Everything's Coming up Motsy. He kept asking me if I felt that way too, and now I do.
Everything really is coming up Motsy. :-)
Here are some pictures.
I passed the physical but we're still waiting on the drug test for some reason. I didn't take any drugs so I don't know what's taking so long. We're also still waiting on the handbook. That's supposed to get here this afternoon and I can go pick it up and look over it this weekend. Saturday I do the defensive driving class and hopefully I'll actually start working Monday or Tuesday.
After lunch I went to my favorite plant nursery since I was in the area. There were lots of neat things but I don't have places or money for them right now. Someday I want a witch hazel tree. They are so cool. I was tired when I got home but I puttered around a little, ran the dishwasher, etc. Then DH called and wanted to come home to get some work done. I guess people were hassling him too much at the office. He had me call old work to see if my last checks were ready. They were. He was very sweet and went in with me because I was still nervous about the confrontation and awkwardness. I can never prepare fully for what those situations bring and I clam up and it is just a bad deal. But DH reminded me that it is because of my disability and it isn't my fault. He was there to support me just like I'm there to drive him around because he can't see. The Good Lord knew I was freaking out because there was a guy there picking up an order and he had a sweet little chihuahua with him. I got to love on the dog and it calmed me down. The Area Manager came out with my checks and all he said was, "I wish you'd have said something sooner." I said I couldn't risk being fired and turned around and left. I don't know if he was talking about the disability or the lack of notice of quitting but the response worked either way. With the way they've treated me over the last year, I had no way of knowing they wouldn't can me on the spot when they found out I was "disabled". If you can't treat a person with dignity before you know why they act different than you, you're probably not going to treat them better afterwards. Humans are either nice to other people or they're not. Sometimes they can pretend for a while but sooner or later the true nature reveals itself.
So anyway, as soon as we pulled out of the parking lot I broke down and let out all the stress that had been building up inside. DH was so sweet and just let me cry a little. He tried to find something to say to make me feel better but I let him know that just being there was plenty. There were only a few tears and I was done. By the time I got home I felt lighter than I have in ages. DH noticed it.
So my brain has been full of possibilities since then and I couln't sleep. I started some more seeds, looked for shelf brackets online, thought about the garden and the decorating and all the happy things that I just couldn't get interested in before. DH got up at 5 to work some more and sent me to Starbucks for breakfast. Yum!
So DH's job is really going well. All the cops and other DA's and other agencies all respect him and want him to work on their projects. He's got several really cool things going on. So that's why he's been saying that Everything's Coming up Motsy. He kept asking me if I felt that way too, and now I do.
Everything really is coming up Motsy. :-)
Here are some pictures.
 |
| Bones on the afghan, showing the fluffiness of it. |
 |
| The completed afghan |
 |
| Matt's Christmas lights |
 |
| Matt's Christmas Lights |
 |
| Matt's Christmas Lights |
 |
| Daisy, photoshopped a little |
 |
| Lillibutt. She turned 8 yesterday! |
 |
| Pretty bluets |
Everything's Coming Up Motsy
I started this on Sunday.
Background: DH's work friends call him Motsy, a play on our last name. I am, therefore, Mrs. Motsy.
So lots of things have been happening but they've been either too stressful to think about in a blogging sense, or not appropriate to discuss on the public interweb at this time. But I think I'm to a point that I can make a post.
First, the little things.
I just ordered some tea! One day I was listening to The Splendid Table on NPR and they had this tea expert who lives in Minnesota. He was really cool and so I visited his website (www.teasource.com), which also was really cool. I have wanted to order some tea for a while from him but I had enough here at home that I couldn't really justify it. But I've been drinking the tea I have and I'm running out. What a pity! I have to order more!! I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to order, but that's not a problem because he has tea samplers! I got the rare tea sampler that has Namring Upper State Darjeeling, High Mountain Oolong, Dark Green Needle, and Black Bud. I'm the least excited about the green tea because I prefer black teas, but I'm also open to the possibility that I've never had such a high quality green tea. It may be very yummy. $20 with shipping for about 40 cups. And I think that's for one steeping each and I like to have at least two steepings from each batch of leaves. With regular grocery store tea bags, the second cup can be bitter. But high quality loosleaf teas have lots of neat subtleties that come out on subsequent steepings.
Subtleties is a very awkward word to spell.
Today I'm going to plant some onions. I don't exactly know WHERE yet, but whatever. They'll probably end up in Bed 3, in the front. I would love to revamp my vegetable bed in the back but I don't think it'll happen this year. I do have some ideas for my veggies this year that will hopefully allow me to actually get fruit, unlike last year. Stupid record breaking heat and drought. I'm going to shade the tomatoes, and remember to fertilize them on schedule. I'm going to grow some bush pattypan squash under cover and hand pollinate, and the other half I'll try wrapping the stems with foil, or maybe strips of row cover. With the vining squash, I'll do the wrapping thing. And also, some of them will be in the container garden, that has weed mat underneath. I'm trying as many Squash Vine Borer preventatives as I can because I'm determined to get squash! In the future maybe I can be more scientific about it but this year I just want squash. I'm going to put the fertilizer schedule in my phone calender so I remember to do it.
I tried to move my giant Datura a few weeks ago but the roots went under the foundation of the house. I'll just try to keep it pruned. If that doesn't work, I'll just kill that one and plant another somewhere else. I want to buy some seeds of the blackcurrant variety and put them somewhere. They are gorgeous! Deep purple and kinda frilly.
I also bought my first rain barrel. I have been looking around for months and doing a bunch of research to find the best deal. I found it at Sam's. 65 gallons for $78. Can't beat that anywhere. Well, maybe if I wanted a big underground thing I could get a better value but I can't afford that. I had to stay in the $100 range. I even looked at homemade options but none matched this one. I hope to get that installed today or maybe this week while it's nice out.
This has been sucha wierd winter. Looking back, I could have kept cool season crops going pretty much the whole time. But I don't think I would have kept up with them even if I had planted them. Too much other stuff going on.
I went to the Neuropsychologist and had cognitive testing. It was quite enlightening. The first notable result was that the stress of the past year or so has impacted my effective functioning and my IQ result was significantly lower than previous scores. I'm still in the high average range, but that is lower than what I've always been before. It was a very blatant reminder that long term stress is very, very bad for you.
I scored in the superior range for simple speeded attention, vocabulary, manual dexterity, and motor speed, and the ability to solve everyday problems. The tester lady said I had one of the best times she's ever seen on the dexterity test, with both hands. I was in the 99% on the problem solving thing, although I'm not exactly sure what that means.
Now for the interesting part. My attention tests were all over the place. Sometimes I was superior and others I was below average. Mildly impaired semantic verbal fluency, moderately impaired phenomic verbal fluency, "the latter scores appear to reflect a slowed speed of verbal information processing." Finally, I showed moderate levels of depression, and profoundly elevated levels of longstanding nervous tension.
My diagnoses were PDD-NOS: Sensory Processing Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. It explaines why I showed many of the characteristics of the Autism Spectrum.
From sinenetwork.org: Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD, formerly known as "sensory integration dysfunction") is a condition that exists when sensory signals don't get organized into appropriate responses. Pioneering occupational therapist and neuroscientist A. Jean Ayres, PhD, likened SPD to a neurological "traffic jam" that prevents certain parts of the brain from receiving the information needed to interpret sensory information correctly. A person with SPD finds it difficult to process and act upon information received through the senses, which creates challenges in performing countless everyday tasks. Motor clumsiness, behavioral problems, anxiety, depression, school failure, and other impacts may result if the disorder is not treated effectively.
So basically, my brain recieves all the input all the time and can't control how much of it I'm aware of, or how I respond to it. I get overwhelmed easily and kind of freak out. The main problem at my current job is what happens when I'm acutely stressed out by a boss yelling at me in front of everyone. I freeze up and start crying. Then I get in trouble for crying. And that makes me cry more. I can't find any words with which to defend myself. I'm overwhelmed by the fact that I'm in trouble and I don't really understand why. It's just bad.
Needless to say,this disorder has made me a prime target of bullying and harassment for the past year or so. It is easy to bully the one who is different from everyone else, especially if that person cries easily. It is easy to get behind and support a bully when the target is obviously so weak and incompetent.
Except that I'm not weak OR incompetent. I ran that bindery for about two years. I just process things a little differently and have unusual weaknesses. Having unusual weaknesses means I have unusual strengths. That I'm no longer allowed to utilize at my job.
The neuropsychologist, along with my primary care physician and my endocrinologist, have encouraged me to find another job. So I did.
One day I went onto monster.com and looked at the two openings related to my degree. I posted my resume and cover letter to the first one and was working on the second. Fifteen minutes after I posted the first application I got an email from the company requesting a phone interview. I emailed back and thirty minutes later I was talking to my future new boss. He was very excited and had me set up an interview with the branch manager. I did that later in the week, she thought I was awesome (her words) and we had a final dinner date interview with the both of them the other night.
First, I just want to say that this feeling of being wanted professionally is really indescribeable. Already, my friends and family have noticed a difference in my dimeanor and I am happier, walking lighter and taller, and more confident.
They want me because of the way I see the world, the way I probe all the way to the bottom of a question, the way I research things as a matter of course. They want me for my organization skills and my streamlining skills. They want me because my lifestyle of continuus improvement is the same as their business model. They want my for my passion, not only for the environment, but for helping and supporting other people. They want me.
My job title is Field Sampling Technician but I get the feeling that there's a huge amount of other things involved. From my conversations with them, it seems that the field sampling part is pretty tiny and the business support part and the customer support part and the research part is the bulk of my job. But I won't really know for a few more days.
Today, Monday, I took a vacation day and did the pre-employment physical. The physical therapist joked that I was applying to be a body builder. She said it was the most involved physical she's ever done.
First, I lifted 8 pounds from the floor to my waist 4 times. No big deal. Then I did it with 12 pounds, then 15, 23, 28, 33, 38, 43, 48, and 53 pounds. That was tiring. Then I did the same reps and weight progression but this time from my waist to my shoulders. I only got to 43 pounds that time. By the time I had to climb the ladder to the 4th rung and back 4 times, my muscles were jello. Then I got to carry 60 pounds around for a few feet, squat for 5 minutes and kneel for 5 minutes. She had to monitor my heart rate the whole time too.
I hope I didn't fail because I was too tired to lift 48 and 53 pounds from my waist to my shoulders 4 times.
Did I mention I was sore from gardening yesterday?
Oh, and also, when I tried to take a nap yesterday I couldn't because my heart wouldn't stop pounding. I finally clocked it at 120 bpm. Tachycardia is anything above 100 while resting. After about 2 hours of that I finally called the doctor and he called in some beta blockers. He said I probably got a bottle of thyroid meds that was concentrated too much. Apparently that happens with Armor. I'm supposed to take half a pill until my next appointment. So my body's a little off from that as well.
By the time I got home I was mush. I laid down on the couch and didn't move. Correction: couldn't move. DH started freaking and I had to explain why this was an unusual series of events and I'll be fine and whatever else I could think of. He's not always good with perspective. I napped for a while and feel a little better, albeit sore. Work will be fun tomorrow. DH said I can quit Wednesday. Yeeeee!!! No more that job!
Oh crap. I just remembered I have to make cookies. Good thing I have a hand mixer! No way I'm hand-creaming the batter tonight.
I think I'm going to wait to post this until I do leave my current job. DH wants me to make as much money as I can so I don't need them firing me before Wednesday...
Background: DH's work friends call him Motsy, a play on our last name. I am, therefore, Mrs. Motsy.
So lots of things have been happening but they've been either too stressful to think about in a blogging sense, or not appropriate to discuss on the public interweb at this time. But I think I'm to a point that I can make a post.
First, the little things.
I just ordered some tea! One day I was listening to The Splendid Table on NPR and they had this tea expert who lives in Minnesota. He was really cool and so I visited his website (www.teasource.com), which also was really cool. I have wanted to order some tea for a while from him but I had enough here at home that I couldn't really justify it. But I've been drinking the tea I have and I'm running out. What a pity! I have to order more!! I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to order, but that's not a problem because he has tea samplers! I got the rare tea sampler that has Namring Upper State Darjeeling, High Mountain Oolong, Dark Green Needle, and Black Bud. I'm the least excited about the green tea because I prefer black teas, but I'm also open to the possibility that I've never had such a high quality green tea. It may be very yummy. $20 with shipping for about 40 cups. And I think that's for one steeping each and I like to have at least two steepings from each batch of leaves. With regular grocery store tea bags, the second cup can be bitter. But high quality loosleaf teas have lots of neat subtleties that come out on subsequent steepings.
Subtleties is a very awkward word to spell.
Today I'm going to plant some onions. I don't exactly know WHERE yet, but whatever. They'll probably end up in Bed 3, in the front. I would love to revamp my vegetable bed in the back but I don't think it'll happen this year. I do have some ideas for my veggies this year that will hopefully allow me to actually get fruit, unlike last year. Stupid record breaking heat and drought. I'm going to shade the tomatoes, and remember to fertilize them on schedule. I'm going to grow some bush pattypan squash under cover and hand pollinate, and the other half I'll try wrapping the stems with foil, or maybe strips of row cover. With the vining squash, I'll do the wrapping thing. And also, some of them will be in the container garden, that has weed mat underneath. I'm trying as many Squash Vine Borer preventatives as I can because I'm determined to get squash! In the future maybe I can be more scientific about it but this year I just want squash. I'm going to put the fertilizer schedule in my phone calender so I remember to do it.
I tried to move my giant Datura a few weeks ago but the roots went under the foundation of the house. I'll just try to keep it pruned. If that doesn't work, I'll just kill that one and plant another somewhere else. I want to buy some seeds of the blackcurrant variety and put them somewhere. They are gorgeous! Deep purple and kinda frilly.
I also bought my first rain barrel. I have been looking around for months and doing a bunch of research to find the best deal. I found it at Sam's. 65 gallons for $78. Can't beat that anywhere. Well, maybe if I wanted a big underground thing I could get a better value but I can't afford that. I had to stay in the $100 range. I even looked at homemade options but none matched this one. I hope to get that installed today or maybe this week while it's nice out.
This has been sucha wierd winter. Looking back, I could have kept cool season crops going pretty much the whole time. But I don't think I would have kept up with them even if I had planted them. Too much other stuff going on.
I went to the Neuropsychologist and had cognitive testing. It was quite enlightening. The first notable result was that the stress of the past year or so has impacted my effective functioning and my IQ result was significantly lower than previous scores. I'm still in the high average range, but that is lower than what I've always been before. It was a very blatant reminder that long term stress is very, very bad for you.
I scored in the superior range for simple speeded attention, vocabulary, manual dexterity, and motor speed, and the ability to solve everyday problems. The tester lady said I had one of the best times she's ever seen on the dexterity test, with both hands. I was in the 99% on the problem solving thing, although I'm not exactly sure what that means.
Now for the interesting part. My attention tests were all over the place. Sometimes I was superior and others I was below average. Mildly impaired semantic verbal fluency, moderately impaired phenomic verbal fluency, "the latter scores appear to reflect a slowed speed of verbal information processing." Finally, I showed moderate levels of depression, and profoundly elevated levels of longstanding nervous tension.
My diagnoses were PDD-NOS: Sensory Processing Disorder, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder. It explaines why I showed many of the characteristics of the Autism Spectrum.
From sinenetwork.org: Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD, formerly known as "sensory integration dysfunction") is a condition that exists when sensory signals don't get organized into appropriate responses. Pioneering occupational therapist and neuroscientist A. Jean Ayres, PhD, likened SPD to a neurological "traffic jam" that prevents certain parts of the brain from receiving the information needed to interpret sensory information correctly. A person with SPD finds it difficult to process and act upon information received through the senses, which creates challenges in performing countless everyday tasks. Motor clumsiness, behavioral problems, anxiety, depression, school failure, and other impacts may result if the disorder is not treated effectively.
So basically, my brain recieves all the input all the time and can't control how much of it I'm aware of, or how I respond to it. I get overwhelmed easily and kind of freak out. The main problem at my current job is what happens when I'm acutely stressed out by a boss yelling at me in front of everyone. I freeze up and start crying. Then I get in trouble for crying. And that makes me cry more. I can't find any words with which to defend myself. I'm overwhelmed by the fact that I'm in trouble and I don't really understand why. It's just bad.
Needless to say,this disorder has made me a prime target of bullying and harassment for the past year or so. It is easy to bully the one who is different from everyone else, especially if that person cries easily. It is easy to get behind and support a bully when the target is obviously so weak and incompetent.
Except that I'm not weak OR incompetent. I ran that bindery for about two years. I just process things a little differently and have unusual weaknesses. Having unusual weaknesses means I have unusual strengths. That I'm no longer allowed to utilize at my job.
The neuropsychologist, along with my primary care physician and my endocrinologist, have encouraged me to find another job. So I did.
One day I went onto monster.com and looked at the two openings related to my degree. I posted my resume and cover letter to the first one and was working on the second. Fifteen minutes after I posted the first application I got an email from the company requesting a phone interview. I emailed back and thirty minutes later I was talking to my future new boss. He was very excited and had me set up an interview with the branch manager. I did that later in the week, she thought I was awesome (her words) and we had a final dinner date interview with the both of them the other night.
First, I just want to say that this feeling of being wanted professionally is really indescribeable. Already, my friends and family have noticed a difference in my dimeanor and I am happier, walking lighter and taller, and more confident.
They want me because of the way I see the world, the way I probe all the way to the bottom of a question, the way I research things as a matter of course. They want me for my organization skills and my streamlining skills. They want me because my lifestyle of continuus improvement is the same as their business model. They want my for my passion, not only for the environment, but for helping and supporting other people. They want me.
My job title is Field Sampling Technician but I get the feeling that there's a huge amount of other things involved. From my conversations with them, it seems that the field sampling part is pretty tiny and the business support part and the customer support part and the research part is the bulk of my job. But I won't really know for a few more days.
Today, Monday, I took a vacation day and did the pre-employment physical. The physical therapist joked that I was applying to be a body builder. She said it was the most involved physical she's ever done.
First, I lifted 8 pounds from the floor to my waist 4 times. No big deal. Then I did it with 12 pounds, then 15, 23, 28, 33, 38, 43, 48, and 53 pounds. That was tiring. Then I did the same reps and weight progression but this time from my waist to my shoulders. I only got to 43 pounds that time. By the time I had to climb the ladder to the 4th rung and back 4 times, my muscles were jello. Then I got to carry 60 pounds around for a few feet, squat for 5 minutes and kneel for 5 minutes. She had to monitor my heart rate the whole time too.
I hope I didn't fail because I was too tired to lift 48 and 53 pounds from my waist to my shoulders 4 times.
Did I mention I was sore from gardening yesterday?
Oh, and also, when I tried to take a nap yesterday I couldn't because my heart wouldn't stop pounding. I finally clocked it at 120 bpm. Tachycardia is anything above 100 while resting. After about 2 hours of that I finally called the doctor and he called in some beta blockers. He said I probably got a bottle of thyroid meds that was concentrated too much. Apparently that happens with Armor. I'm supposed to take half a pill until my next appointment. So my body's a little off from that as well.
By the time I got home I was mush. I laid down on the couch and didn't move. Correction: couldn't move. DH started freaking and I had to explain why this was an unusual series of events and I'll be fine and whatever else I could think of. He's not always good with perspective. I napped for a while and feel a little better, albeit sore. Work will be fun tomorrow. DH said I can quit Wednesday. Yeeeee!!! No more that job!
Oh crap. I just remembered I have to make cookies. Good thing I have a hand mixer! No way I'm hand-creaming the batter tonight.
I think I'm going to wait to post this until I do leave my current job. DH wants me to make as much money as I can so I don't need them firing me before Wednesday...
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