Hi Everyone, I am not even going to lie – I feel a little lost without my bullet journal. Especially with the holidays, and trying to plan and keep track of everything. I have been thinking a…
No Words…
I know that is a funny or odd title for a blog post that is composed of words. But that is exactly how I felt yesterday when I woke up and found out that our President-elect is Donald Trump. I wa…
Source: No Words…
No Words…
I know that is a funny or odd title for a blog post that is composed of words. But that is exactly how I felt yesterday when I woke up and found out that our President-elect is Donald Trump. I watched my Facebook feed with a very heavy heart as mutual friends unfriended and blocked each other; acquaintances spewed vitriol for the world to see; and other friends expressed anger and fear of being targeted for their ancestral heritage, choice of dress, or even their religion. A friend of mine expressed fear, hurt, and anguish as she shared the decision that she and her husband made about her removing her hijab because they were afraid of her being targeted. This woman is one of the most beautiful, kind, and gentle souls I know and would not hurt a fly. There is no reason for her to be targeted as a “radical Muslim”. It broke my heart to see her profile picture change and I miss seeing her beautiful face.
Then I wake up this morning and see this photo:
GREELEY, CO – OCTOBER 30: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump holds a rainbow flag given to him by supporter Max Nowak during a campaign rally at the Bank of Colorado Arena on the campus of University of Northern Colorado October 30, 2016 in Greeley, Colorado. With less than nine days until Americans go to the polls, Trump is campaigning in Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
My heart sank. This photo is wrong in so many ways. 1) The flag is upside down. to a LGBTQ person this is the equivalent of walking around with the American flag upside down. Or so I understand; please someone correct me if I am wrong. The writing on the flag is right side up so that shows that it was written on the flag while it was upside down. This shows an ignorance of what the flag means. The Rainbow Flag, now commonly known as the Pride Flag, was created by Gilbert Baker after gay leader Harvey Milk challenged him to design a symbol for the gay community.Wikipedia
You see, among my friends that were so terrified and angry yesterday are many that belong to the LGBTQ community. My second child is one of those. She was born as my son, came out to me at 17 years old as Bi-sexual, then Gay, and then came out to me as transgender at 24. She has been undergoing hormone therapy for a couple of years to assist her transition from male to female, with full familial support. She is currently a full time student at college and getting her life in order.
I worry that my daughter won’t be able to marry because of the gender on her birth certificate. I worry that she won’t be able to get the hormones that she needs to complete her transition. I worry that she will be targeted in a hate crime, especially now that she has taken a job on third shift in a convenience store. The job in itself was bad enough but adding that she is transgender makes me worry even more. I do know that Trump’s running mate, excuse me the Vice President-Elect, is very openly anti-LGBTQ and Trump has said that he is “traditional”.
And the hatred has already started. A quick Google search on “hijab” brought up this article about a woman that was beaten, robbed, and had the hijab literally ripped from her head by a man in a white “Trump” hat. The same article talks about another woman in California that had a similar incident happen to her. Both incidents happened in BROAD DAYLIGHT. Neither incident has been listed as a hate crime, but they should be.
Prepare for the worst but hope for the best is all I can do at this time. And Pray. All of us need to pray.
Making Time to Plan
Life is a Journey – Planning is the Road Map – Anonymous
To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time. – Leonard Bernstein
Making Time to Plan – The alarm goes off at 5:30 am. You groggily roll over and hit the snooze button. (unless you are one of those annoyingly chipper people that bounce out of bed looking fabulous and singing songs from Mary Poppins). You finally roll out of bed at 6 am and go get the kids up. You set up the machine that delivers that absolute necessity of life – coffee. While you are waiting for this magical elixir to brew, little Susie is pulling at our robe – “Mommy, I still need that costume for dress up week today! I am supposed to be a butterfly!” You face palm yourself because you were supposed to take her shopping…
View original post 1,259 more words
Making Time to Plan
Life is a Journey – Planning is the Road Map – Anonymous To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time. – Leonard Bernstein Making Ti…
Source: Making Time to Plan
Reflection
As I sit here this morning drinking my coffee, I am faced with two dreaded tasks – checking my blood pressure, swallowing this handful of pills I take every morning, and refilling my pill box. Ok , that is three but you get the idea. I get to visit my pill box FOUR TIMES A DAY. I have heard that there are people who are worse, but I have not yet encountered this mythical creature. This is the bane of my existence, my arch nemesis, my friend, and the reason I can survive with some semblance of normalcy.
It’s kind of pretty, isn’t it? With its pastel hues of yellow, pink, blue and violet it does its level best to encourage and be cheerful. But, alas, it also has four compartments per day that have to be filled, and some of those compartments are barely large enough to hold all that I put in them!
You see, I suffer from something that is not well understood or comprehended by other people, even family members. I have not one, but six – yes you read that correctly, SIX – Invisible Illnesses. Hypothyroidism, Fibromyalgia, Major Depressive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Attention Deficit Disorder, and High Blood Pressure.
This is a list of the symptoms of all the diseases and disorders and Syndromes that I deal with EVERY DAY. Some of these symptoms are general and are represented in each Syndrome. I am not even going to try and type all this, nor will I subject you to the boredom of this laundry list of stuff that is going on in my body. I will touch on the most common ones and the one or two, or more, that scare me the most.
Fatigue – EVERY. DAMN. DAY. You wake up tired, you go to bed tired. You spend the day sitting in the chair because your body hurts and you are STILL TIRED. Sometimes you have stuff to do and people to take care of and you force yourself out of bed. Or sometimes you hurt too much or have a migraine or your legs are so weak that you can’t stand or…. And it goes on and on.
Pain – All the time. Every day. Sometimes it is muscle aches so bad that you want to die. Sometimes it is shooting pains in your legs that feel as though someone touched a nerve with a lit match. Sometimes it is both. Sometimes it is a migraine so severe that you claw at your face and pull your hair and sob to your husband “I don’t want to hurt anymore” as he stands beside you and holds your hands so you won’t hurt yourself (yes, this has actually happened). I will address migraines later. The pain is so bad that normal over the counter drugs won’t touch it. The only thing that truly will touch it is an opiod medicine that no doctor wants to prescribe because they are so addictive. And the pain makes the fatigue worse and the fatigue makes the pain worse so you are on this endless hamster wheel of crap. Loss of energy goes right alongside with fatigue. You have low or no energy so you feel tired and when you force yourself to do something you are more depleted AND more fatigued.
Migraines – The stuff that some masochistic beast bestowed upon certain members of the human race. Cold sweats. Light and noise sensitivity. Nausea. Vomiting. Tunnel vision. Complete or partial vision loss. Feeling as though you want to cut your head off because that makes it feel better. Pain that intrudes, even upon your sleep. Most people have the occasional migraine. A day in bed and you’re OK. Chronic migraines like I have though? You learn the warning signs, also known as an aura. The flashing lights, the increased volume of your tinnitus, the wave of nausea. You learn exactly how long you have to get home, or get to someplace where you can be in a horizontal position for an extended period of time. You carry your migraine medications with you EVERYWHERE. And you learn to deal with losing approximately a quarter of your life each month to pain.
Generalized Anxiety and Major depression and ADHD – what a combination. You feel worthless. You worry about EVERYTHING; all the time. You jump into commitments without thinking things through and that can lead to lots of marital trouble or multiple marriages. I know of someone that has been married seven times and is working on number eight. You can’t sit still. You have difficulty concentrating. You can’t prioritize so you end up doing the fun things first because, well, they are fun. Then you are confronted with the sinkful of dirty dishes, the house is a wreck, your son has no clean socks, your child needs new shoes but because you impulse buy, you have no mony to GET him new shoes, not even the cheap ones at Walmart. You forget to do things like take a shower – you are either wrapped up in something fun that you don’t want to stop or you feel so worthless and bad about yourself that you just don’t care. You get startled very easily and because of that, you don’t watch horror movies even though your husband loves them. You are Anxiety Girl, who can jump to the worst conclusions in a single bound. You have a vivid imagination, so you carry every little decision to its worst possible conclusion. You worry about worrying too much. And it goes on. And sometimes it builds to the point that you lay in bed crying because you feel like you are going to fly into a million little pieces.
I saved the best for last – Fibromyalgia. Yes, you have the pain and muscle aches and confusion and the fatigue and all those other symptoms I have already talked about. But you also have bouts of cataplexy, or the inability to find words. I am not talking about something as simple as remembering that song they played at a party that you liked. This is difficulty in finding any words at all. You can’t speak and are in a state of confusion. It can come on quickly and go away just as quickly. Or it can hang around for a few hours. I have never had a period of cataplexy that lasted longer than ten or twenty minutes but I am afraid of any episode. Sometimes it manifests as the inability to speak or having to start a senyence three times, or when you are trying to say hello, and what actually comes out is chicken foot. Or the other jewels that go with Fibromyalgia. The feeling that you are urinating on yourself, when in reality you aren’t. The temporary paralysis and loss of muscle function. The good thing is that it is temporary. The bad thing is you don’t know when it is going hit. So you always carry a cell phone and you know how to stop a car if all of a sudden your legs don’t work. Tremors… Sometimes so bad you feel like an earthquake is happening in your own body. Loss of coordination. Pins and needles in your feet – the painful kind like the ones you get when your legs are asleep and they are “waking up”. Tinnitus. All. The. Damn. Time. I don’t know what silence sounds like. Even when it is quiet at home, I have this insistent whine in my ears. Sometimes louder than others, sometimes so piercing that your ears hurt.
This has been a very long post I know. The truth of it all? Without that pill box, without refilling it every week, I would not be who I am. I would be miserable and more than that, I would probably be dead – from suicide, as all the disorders and syndromes and what not are Chronic, not Terminal – they just make you wish you were dead.
So I am thankful that I have these dreaded tasks every morning, evening, and week because doing these reminds me that I ALIVE. I AM ABLE – maybe not to do everything that I want to do or not everyday but I CAN do them.
Kick Butt Laundry Soap
I have gotten into making my own household cleaning supplies. There are lots of reasons but mostly it is because it is super cheap. The laundry soap I make costs me $37.00 and change for the ingredients and it will last me and my family for over six months. Using just 2 tablespoons per load, this recipe makes enough laundry detergent for approximately 500 loads of laundry. The most work that you have to put into this is grating the soap! Here is the recipe. You will need:
3 bars of Fels Naptha soap
1-76oz. Box of Mule Team Borax
1-55 oz box of Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda
1-4 lb box of Arm & Hammer Baking Soda
1-7.22 lb box of Oxi Clean powder
1-48 oz bottle of Purex Crystals, you choose the scent
Being in Animal Rescue as I am, I tend to go through a lot of cat litter. I was looking for a way to store my soap and wanted something that would be easy to get into. I took an empty bucket of Tidy Cats cat litter and washed it out. Being who I am, I didn’t want it confused with actual cat litter, so I found some pretty contact paper, chalkboard labels, a paint marker, and scissors and went to work. The contact paper was a pretty brocade pattern I found in the dollar spot at Target. I am all about contrasting colors so I thought the black and white would look very nice against the yellow of the bucket.
Measuring was a bit tricky but I managed to get the bucket covered and labeled.
I tend to mix my laundry soap in a doubled garbage bag – it’s just easier. So I opened my garbage bags and started the easy part, dumping everything into the bags. No measuring required. Just open the Oxi Clean (save the scoop, you will use it later), Baking Soda, Washing Soda, Borax, and Purex Crystals in the bag. Now comes the elbow grease. I use a small grater to grate the soap.
Open all three bars of soap and start grating. It will take elbow grease and it will get tiring. Some people have used a food processor and 1 cup of borax but I just use my arms and get a work out. Once all three bars are grated, twist the top of the bag shut and tumble it a few times to mix the soap thoroughly. Once the soap is mixed, just pour it into the bucket.
On the scoop from the Oxi Clean, there are four lines on one side labeled A, B, C, and D. The B line is a perfect measurement for 2 tablespoons. To make it easier, use the paint marker and draw a line at the B line and extend it all the way around the scoop. Then you just drop the scoop in the bucket. Easy Peasy!
And that is it folks! That is all you have to do to make 500 loads worth of laundry detergent! This stuff is great! I have never used a commercially made soap that cleans as well as this does. I will never buy laundry soap again! If you make some, please leave me a comment and tell me how it went and if you like the soap!
My Planner…
Yes! It’s happened. I have fallen into the “decorate your planner” trap. I started collecting Washi Tape and Sticko stickers and fun colored pens. I was never a very “girly-girl” growing up and didn’t like the hairbows and that sort of thing. I have always preferred more clean, classic lines over the uber-frilly and girly type of home decor and clothing. Then I started seeing all these decorated planners on Pinterest and my brain exploded. My inner “girl” came out. So. I am going to take you from blank week in my planner to fully decorated spread. The planner I use is one that I printed myself. I found the template at www.passionplanner.com. It seemed to work for me and I may choose another planner next year or I may design one of my own as I like to have space to write and decorate as well. I just haven’t decided yet. I will keep you updated on that. I printed my pages on 28 lb paper as I am a bit of a paper snob and like a very heavy, smooth paper. Then I put it in a binder that is my favorite color, and decorated the front. Et Voila! My Passion Planner was born. The search was then on for highlighters that don’t smear inkjet printing. I found those and the pens that I use here. The highlighters are by Sharpie and in an 8 pack and the Pens are Pilot Frixion Gel Erasable pens. I bought the knock off and they work just as well as the name brand and have more colors. You can find those here. Now you don’t have to use as many colors as I do but I am a bit OCD and love to color code. I also use a Bullet Journal in addition to my planner, which goes with me everywhere I go while my planner stays at home. You can read more about the Bullet Journal here. This system works for me even thought I don’t have a very complicated life. I also don’t often stick to my time blocks as I have to stay flexible due to my health. However, this has become so much a part of my habits that if I DON’T decorate or “do” my planner for the week, I am all out of sorts.
The steps in decorating my planner are pretty simple. I choose a theme from the Sticko stickers that I have on hand. I get them from Walmart or you can also find them here. Once my theme is chosen, I match what Washi Tape I am going to use in my Bullet Journal to my theme. Sometimes it is a coordinating theme for the Bullet Journal and sometimes it isn’t. I get most of my Washi tape from Amazon. There is a great variety and prices are fairly reasonable. Once all this is done, I grab my pens, stickers, Washi tape, highlighters, and a cup of coffee or glass of tea and sit down and create!
So, once I have sat down with my planner, sticker, Washi tape, and all my highlighters and pens, the first thing I do is color block my days. I use specific colors for different tasks. Pink is for my routines; Blue is for Bullet Journal tasks; Yellow is for important appointments or errands; Orange is for meals; Red is weekly cleaning; Berry is for Free Time; Green for money tasks; and Purple is bedtime. I do this first so that the time blocks are completed. Sometimes the stickers cover up the time blocks and that just drives me nuts.
Once I have the time blocks colored in, then I start placing stickers. Sometimes the stickers are wider than the area I have but I don’t let that stop me. I try to keep the placement even and proportional and fill in gaps with either dialog balloons or expression stickers. The stickers and theme I have chosen for this particular week is BBQ as we are having our monthly pot luck on Saturday.
That is pretty much what I do. I write in appointments and important errands while I am doing my color blocking.
When I get to my Bullet Journal, I just trim the top and bottom of the pages with Washi Tape that either coordinates with my Planner theme or contrasts with it. Once the pages are trimmed, They are numbered, dated, and relevant information from my Planner is written in. On a day to day basis, I compare my Bullet Journal to my planner and record any changes that I have written in.
Since this is the beginning of a new month, I write my index pages for the month. Then I turn to my weekly spread.
That is all I do. It has gotten to the point that I can’t go without decorating my planner. It has become a habit.
allaboutbetti 