What the heck happened to the WordPress PC app? My editor is all the way to the left now instead of in the middle. I don’t like it! I buck all change by default, but there is just too much coming at me at once.
Should it look like this or am I going crazy? Possibly both.
Whatever. One positive change I have made in my life (there aren’t many) is I stopped drinking Mountain Dew a few years ago. I drank it for years and it was my and Mom’s favorite thing to drink. I would drink 10-12 cans a day! One day, I just got tired of it. I was like, “I don’t want to drink this anymore, I’m going to quit,” and I did. I started drinking Lipton Diet Green Tea Citrus and drank that for a long time until my psychiatrist prescribed Wellbutrin. I don’t know why but that medicine changed my taste (a rare side effect) and that tea was terrible from that point on! I had to give away what I had stocked up on.
I switched to diet raspberry tea because I love raspberry tea and the diet version is acceptable. My absolute favorite tea it the peach bellini raspberry tea that Olive Garden has!! I want to be able to buy that in the store so badly! It would actually be a good move for OG because they are struggling; perhaps not as bad as their sibling restaurant Red Lobster.
I now drink Dr. Pepper Zero Strawberries & Cream, which is so good! I have never liked diet or zero sugar pop, but this stuff is yummy. It keeps my sugars in check as well, which is always a plus. I’ve discussed with my husband how fake sugars have improved over what used to be used. I hate the taste of Splenda, but they now have Splenda monk fruit and I cannot tell the difference between that and sugar when I cook with it.
I went off the rails here a bit, but my answer stands that I made a positive change in my life by getting rid of sugary pop in my diet.
I’ve re-read a lot of books because of my love of reading and hyperlexia. My most-worn books are Now That Andi’s Gone and Don’t Die, My Love. I read a lot of sad YA books growing up 😂. I also really liked My Darling, My Hamburger and read it a few times, as well as The Lovely Bones. I think my absolute favorite re-read is I Am Ozzy by Ozzy Osbourne. That’s a weird choice for me, considering I was never an Ozzy or Black Sabbath fan, but the book is awesome. I’ve listened to his solo stuff since (although I do love Changes).
I think I answered something similar before. Regardless, I was incredibly attached to my Pillow People person that my grandma got me for Christmas when I was around 3 or so. She got all 9 grandchildren a different one. I have the one with blonde hair and pink “dress.” My brother had the boxer with the black eye. I named mine Susie after a dear friend’s mom and would not sleep without her, especially because her feet were silk. If I left her at a family member’s house, I would throw a fit unless we went back, much to my dad’s dismay and anger.
I still have Susie and she is on the bed right now. She’s been washed, lost her sewn-on socks and yarn hair, has been restuffed, had her legs reattached, restuffed some more, and most recently, Neville tore her handle/strap off and I had to perform back surgery on her 🤬🤬. I’ve had her for over 3 decades and not once has she been assaulted by a pet. Her material is very fragile now and I don’t know if she would survive another round in the washer. I’m not good at sewing, so she is looking pretty rough. I didn’t do so hot on her back surgery, either, but she’s not losing stuffing, so I can’t complain.
That is a good question I’m unsure how to answer. I can get very creative when something breaks or I want to do something but don’t have the correct tools or instruments. Helping Phin (the blind one) around the house has brought out my creative side because I have to make sure he can get up where he wants to go and get down without hurting himself. One place he likes to go is on the refrigerator, and he has jumped down from it before, but I’m so afraid he is going to hit the table or chair if he miscalculates his jump.
I’ve been taking apart furniture I want to get rid of and saving the wood in case I want to make something, so I took some shelves from an old bookshelf and got some brackets and Adam fashioned some shelves that go from the fridge around the wall and onto a cupboard. Theo loves them and gets on the fridge now, but Phin won’t use them even though we’ve spent time helping him find a safe way down using the shelves🙄. Now, when he wants down, he meows and Adams gets him. I can’t reach the top of the fridge so Phin’s stuck until his daddy comes.
Another thing I came up with was a sling for the babies when they were tiny because they wanted held a lot, and mostly when I was working. I took a couple of Adam’s crew socks and a COVID face mask and sewed the mask to the socks. The babies loved it and I was able to work. Theo still likes to be held from time to time so I bought an actual sling for small animals, but he loved the one I made until he outgrew it.
A great solution unless both babies wanted held at the same time
Otherwise, my creativity comes out through words. Words, spelling, and grammar make up my special interest, so it’s not a big surprise. I’ve been writing stories and poetry since I was very young and I’m definitely the writer in the family. I can draw if I’m looking at something (like the AristoCats below), but writing comes easily to me and is what I’m most passionate about.
The AristoCats
When I decided to return to college, I tried to major in something that would benefit work or lay the foundation for a new career path, but that just resulted in me switching majors four times. After my brother died and I started school again, I decided to stop denying myself and go with my passion. My studies in poetry class reignited my love for poetry, which I was hoping for, so I chose poetry as my concentration under an English creative writing major. I didn’t care for screenplay writing at all 😝. Oddly enough, I don’t really like reading poetry, especially modern poetry like Frost, Whitman, and Dickinson. I’m extremely unrefined. Dr. Seuss hits the spot for me, and I’ve only recently been learning how to forego the rhyming and do some free verse. I did discover Rupi Kaur and like her poetry very much.
Speaking of, my book of poetry will be coming out in 2024!! I am so excited, scared, and proud, and kind of sad. Mom really wanted to see me published and I hate that she is missing the chance, but she is my driving force and I know she would be proud of me. I gave myself until December 2024 with the Library of Congress because I want to take more poetry classes and get some more poems written. I have a bad habit of throwing stuff away, and that includes poems I’ve written over the years, so my collection sits at around 50 poems.
I would love to be the poetic JK Rowling, but I don’t have those expectations and am wanting to do this for myself and Mom. I keep telling Adam that my writing won’t get recognized until after I die, which is shockingly common with poets. Sometimes it feels like poetry is a lost art, but I see such great work online and really love that it’s alive and well.
What Can You Do Today to Instantly Lift Your Mood?
Okay, so this is an easy one. All of my kiddies instantly lift my mood, unless they are the reason I am Captain Cranky Pants. I mean, look at Willow! When she is not on my keyboard, she is a total sweetheart. She is a Daddy’s Girl, but fortunately, all our kiddies love both of us; they just have their preferences. For some reason, my boy, Phin, has been spending a lot of time with Adam. I don’t know if it’s because I keep moving things around and making it difficult for him to navigate the home or what. He makes himself right at home on Adam’s chest after Adam gets up and wants to stay there all day. He became super attached to us after Merlin died, who was his bestest buddy.
Sweet Silly WillyMy baby boy with his lone white whisker.
Unless Adam is the reason I’m in a bad mood, he can instantly lift my mood. He hates when I am sad, upset, overwhelmed, etc., so he tries to cheer me up, usually by being funny. One time, when we hadn’t been dating very long, he was performing “surgery” on my toe and it hurt to the point that I was crying. He got up near my face and said or did something that made me laugh and I accidentally spit tears and snot right in his face. It was so embarrassing!
Okay, so I didn’t know the 30-Day Mindset Journal Challenge was going to focus on one theme a week at a time. I don’t know if my ADHD self has it in me to wax poetic about the same subject for seven days. Needless to say, we’re still talking about gratitude, and I’m all gratituded out. Also, I am incredibly tired of waiting for the exciting thing that is coming up and I just want it to be now. I’m failing my challenge spectacularly and not writing every day, but I am working and going to school full-time, so I expected as much. My 30-day challenge may take me 60 days but I’m cool with that 😂.
Day 3: Gratitude
What Makes You Happy?
I’m not really a happy person but some things do make me happy. Water makes me very happy. When I went to Niagara Falls with my ex when he was an OTR truck driver, it was the most awesome, peaceful experience I had ever encountered. Just standing there watching the water was crazy soothing for me. I’ve always loved water; seeing it and being in it.
Oddly, I cannot swim on top of water, like Michael Phelps, but I have been swimming underwater since my dad threw me off the diving board before I could walk. I didn’t ask him to do that but it worked 🤷♀️. I love watching the little waterfalls on the side of the mountains in my state when it rains, I love rivers and streams and ponds. I love the sound of water. I think I should have been a fish.
I’m not sure if it was the happiest I’ve been, but the most peaceful and exhilarating thing I’ve done was riding the Slotzilla Super-Hero Zoom Zoomline in Las Vegas. This was after Mom died and I decided to book us for the zoomline on a whim when I was planning our vacation. It’s quite odd because I don’t do well with heights at all. I get dizzy and nauseated standing on a chair or stool. Adam had to come help me off the side of Mom’s garden tub when I was painting and could not put my hand on the wall for support because I had just painted it. I hated going up in the arch in Missouri and had to go back down almost immediately after getting up there. It’s bad.
I was feeling a bit reckless after Mom died, and I was excited about the zoomline until we were halfway to the loading platform. We got strapped in, Adam was in his harness across from me, and I made the mistake of looking down while lying on my harness. (Shrek? I’m looking down!) Instant tummy rumbles and vertigo. Adam or the guy fastening me in noticed my anxiety and told me to look out in front of me and not below me, so I did and the vertigo ceased. Then, we were off!
Still having doubts before we go!
It. Was. Amazing!! It was so freeing and calming, and I’ve not experienced anything like it before or since. I could have spent the week doing nothing else but flying over Fremont Street. I was able to look down while I was in motion and could see people waving up at us but even briefly closing my eyes and taking in the feeling of flying was so cool. That was in 2015 and I still remember how it felt. I don’t know if the zipline, which is another option, would have been the same for me and I’m glad I chose the former.
The worst thing about our vacation aside from us both getting sick halfway through was flying. We flew with Spirit, and the plane was much smaller than what I had been on prior (I didn’t like that flight, either, and was wrapped around my mom’s arm until we landed) and the turbulence was worse in a smaller plane. The Spirit flights were only 4 hours each way and felt like forever. It was Adam’s first time flying and he wasn’t phased.
Other things that make me happy are Adam, the kiddies, my cousins, concerts, reading, pink, music, the smell of Febreze, and more that I can’t think of at the moment. I think falling in love is a pretty awesome feeling and it’s something people in long-term relationships kind of miss. I mean, I’m totally in love with my husband, but it will never be like it was in the beginning with the anticipation and butterflies and missing him five seconds after he leaves. It’s a different kind of happiness now.
The Taylor Swift concert movie is coming up and I haven’t started on my friendship bracelets yet! I’ve never made those before but Adam is going to make some with me and I told him he would be tying mine 😂. The kit came with fishing-line-looking line that you tie or put clasps on and it’s so slick, I don’t know how it will stay tied. I guess I should get cracking on those and not wait until the last minute. Our friend who just took us to see Blue October again is going with us. I will be pretty upset if we are the only ones with bracelets to hand out.
It seems like an unspoken rule that only concert-goers trade bracelets, but there are so many of us who couldn’t afford tickets or transportation to the closest venues. I’ve never been able to afford going to a concert because it’s not just the tickets that cost money. Our closest stadiums or amphitheaters are hours away, so there is the cost of gas, hotel rooms, any concessions, and unplanned expenses. I’ve attended concerts with my aunt since we like the same music and they were fun but she paid for me. We were lucky with Blue October because they performed very close to us both times we got to see them, and even then our friend paid our way as a wedding gift and then an anniversary gift.
Day 2 of the 30-Day Mindset Journal Challenge from Seeking Serotonin focuses on gratitude, like Day 1. I don’t know what more I can say about gratitude but I guess that’s why it’s called a challenge! I’ve always been a Negative Nancy but that doesn’t mean I’ve never been grateful for anything. Sadly, I became more grateful for my mom after she died, but I don’t think that’s uncommon. I did learn to appreciate her once I became an adult, but the guilt and regret I feel for being a kid are still there. I know it’s irrational, I was a kid, but I still feel bad for how I treated her while growing up. I think that is a big part of why I never wanted kids. I knew how I acted and I know I couldn’t and wouldn’t tolerate a child who behaved like I did. Well, I couldn’t tolerate any children regardless of how they behaved. I don’t have the maternal chip, which I am totally okay with. Let’s get on with Day 2.
Day 2: Gratitude
What does gratitude mean to you?
Gratitude is a pretty straightforward concept. Having/showing gratitude means you are grateful for something or someone and you feel blessed to have that something or someone. It can be as simple as someone helping you up from a fall, giving you something you need, helping you out financially, giving you a compliment when you’re feeling down, and on and on. In my last post, I mentioned being grateful for my mom and my husband, but I’m grateful for many things and people.
I’m grateful for my psychiatrist for working with me and trying different medications until I no longer felt overwhelmingly suicidal. I am grateful for the medications that keep me alive and the insurance that keeps those medications free for me. I’m grateful for my professors who teach me even though they get terrible pay. I’m grateful for SNHU allowing me to continue school after I had to take breaks due to my brother dying and my depression. I’m grateful for my three jobs. I’m grateful for each and every kiddie that chose Adam and me to be their parents. I’m grateful for my family. I have had a hard go of it since Mom died but I’m grateful to still be here to fight through another day.
Outside of wine, which is merely a rumor to me since I don’t like wine at all, I would have to say nostalgia gets better with age. Five years out, there’s a small yearning. Ten years, there’s some mild embarrassment and what-was-I-thinkings? Fifteen and twenty, you’re digging the past and feeling the tugs. After that, it’s full-on bliss and the utmost desire to go back to that particular time, even at the expense of sacrificing the convenience and comfort that technology and modernity have afforded you. Like the pain of child labor, any pain has been dulled and turmoil erased, so it’s never quite an informed want.
With that answered, I have been wondering if giraffes ever get tired of being asked to perform tall-people tasks 🤔🤔.
I have actually thought about changing my name. My dad chose my first name, the title of a popular country song, and he was a loser. I was in the same grade as 6 other girls with my name, with my graduating class being just over 55 students. If I had to change my name, I would choose Cari Esta. My mom wanted to name me Samantha or Carrie Esta, and I like the latter (with a small spelling change). If I ever wrote a book, that would be my pseudonym. My name’s not bad; I’ve just never cared for it, personally. Better than Hashtag, though.
Cari R Esta 