Sunday 'fess up - Not such good news after all

Hey everyone!

You know how last week I was so excited to go back to work, right? Well if you've read my blog post from Thursday you'll see that I'm not back at work like I wanted to be. I've had to quit my day job permanently because of my health. If you're really that curious, ask and I'll tell you privately. Otherwise I'm not going to talk about it anymore here.

Himself and I got into a discussion this week on how, now that he's bringing in a steadier income from his business, I've gotten into my old habit of "spend, spend, spend" again. He's right. I have. And that's proving troublesome because I can and will run us out of money. All the bills still get paid, but the rest of it is spent on frivolous things. That's partly because I want nice things and partly because of the bipolar. I need to work hard on stopping this habit before it leads us too much further down the road of ruin. We've already been there enough times in our lives. I don't want to visit that place again.

On the writing front, I'm slowly making my way through the timeline of major events in the world of Aleran. I realized, after a discussion with Himself, that I need to know the history of the world I'm writing in because events in the past will color the present of my characters. So I'm working on that. Then I'll work on the outline for Cracked World. Then I'll see about starting that one over again. I'm also polishing three of my short stories that are interconnected with the intent of self publishing them and getting them on Amazon and Smashwords for sale. We'll see how well that one goes.

Sunday 'fess up - Some good news at last

So, this week started on a good note and ended on a good note. On Monday, I heard back from my HR representative. I was cleared to go back to work. She'd get in contact with my manager and either she or my manager would call me back. I was thrilled with that.

Then I didn't hear anything from anyone all week. So Thursday I called my manager and left her a message. She called me back Friday morning and asked if I was coming into work Friday afternoon. Needless to say I jumped at the chance to get back to work. So, now I work Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. My Sunday shift is 1-6. My weekday shift is 4-9. I'm only part time until November. Then I get to go back to work full time. I'm excited though. It feels good to be back to work, even if it's at the same soul sucking job I left a year ago with no intention of going back.

I have a new appreciation for my job, now that I've been out of it for a year. I realize it is a hard job and that it's not for everyone. But I know I can do it. I've had a year to think about it and realize just what I want to do with my life. Right now, what I want to do is pay off all my debt. I need a job to do that. So I'll work and pay off my debt and eventually I'll be debt free again. That is my goal now.

On the writing front, since I've scrapped Cracked World, I haven't done as much writing this week. I'm building a timeline of historical events, since those are going to shape the world. And then I'm going to do a timeline/outline of events in Cracked World so I have some direction for the story. This also means I'm probably going to have to rewrite some major sections of Marked too but I'm not worrying about that right now.

Nothing much else to report this week. I expect I'll have more to say about the day job next week, after I've been back at it for a week.

 

Sunday 'fess up - It's about damn time

Remember last week how I was grousing about not getting my paperwork filled out in a timely manner? Well it finally happened this week. But not without a lot of hair pulling on my part.

My clinician left the practice a little over a month ago. I was seeing an intern in the interim because I'm being seen pro bono. Well, that intern couldn't fill out the paperwork so she was going to pass the information on to her supervisor. Well, her supervisor thought it was all about more counseling so she was ignoring me. I finally started calling her directly and eventually got things sorted out. Or so I thought.

The day before the paperwork was due she called me back to tell me that she couldn't fill it out because I wasn't seeing any of her people regularly enough for them to make any sort of judgment call on my ability to go back to work, or even the validity of my original diagnosis. So it looked like I wasn't going back to work after all. Then I had an idea.

I called my regular doctor. I've had other problems crop up that he's seeing me for so I decided to see if he'd fill out the paperwork. Not only did he fill it out, he resolved some of my other issues for me too. So we got the paperwork faxed in and now I get to wait and see if it's good enough for my employer to accept it.

In other news, I've been slowly making progress on Cracked World this week. I've been having some trouble in getting into the main character's head but I've been able to work around that. I'm looking forward to getting to a certain point in the book, so I'm really working hard to make it there. I doubt I'll make it before I go back to work, but I'm going to try anyway.

I've played a little Sims 3 this week too. There was one day where I was just too stressed to even think about writing so I went and did something completely different. I love Sims 3. I wish I had the money to get all the expansions and all the stuff packs. There's 20 of the buggers now. I have Sims 3, World Adventures, Ambitions, Generations, Supernatural, and Pets. As soon as I get some money to spend, I'm going to buy another one of the expansions. Or maybe one of the stuff packs. As that will be some time from now I've got the time to make up my mind.

That's it for this week. Keep your eyes on the blog. I'll be updating everyone as soon as I hear back from my employer when I'm able to go back to work. If I'm able to go back to work. If my regular doctor, who wasn't the one who signed me out of work, is sufficient enough to get me back into work. Crossing my fingers!

Sunday 'fess up - Anni's a little disappointed this week

Well, this week didn't end the way I intended it to.

It started out all right. I've been making progress on Cracked World, even though I pretty much started over from scratch because I didn't like how it was going. I like it well enough, even though I still think I'm taking too long with the beginning. I'll have to see how the story plays out.

I think I've made it pretty clear I was intending to go back to work. I've talked about it enough this past week. Well Thursday I went to my med doctor and got something to help with the anxiety that's inevitable at my job. Life was pretty good up to that point.

Then we got to Friday. Friday was the day I went into see my clinician. She'd fill out the paperwork and fax it in and I'd be all set to go back to work by the end of next week. Easy, right?

It didn't go that way. Because my clinician is an intern, and a summer intern at that, she's not "qualified" to fill out the paperwork. I now have to wait for someone else in the office who doesn't know me to fill out the paperwork. I don't know when that's going to be. I do know it has to be soon or I'm going to lose my job. They'll only hold it for so long and so long happens to be September 10th. After that date, I will no longer be employed at the bank. I'd rather not lose my job over something this stupid, so I'm going to keep hounding them to find out what's going to happen.

So that kind of derailed my plans for next week. If I haven't heard by Wednesday, I'm going to call and pester someone to get me an answer. Because I need them to fill out the form so I can go back to work.

I did hear from my boss on Saturday. The problem there is she may not be my boss anymore. They did another shift bid while I was out on disability and if there isn't a position on her team, I'm going to have to go back to someone I don't know as well. At least, I hope it's someone I don't know as well. There are a couple of managers that I'd rather not get again. Talk about personality clashes. I'll know more on Monday. Another thing she told me was that we're losing the smaller accounts I was working with, probably going to another center, and gaining one large account to work with. Should be interesting when I go back.

So that's my week in a nutshell. How was your week?

Here's the music videos for your amusement.

Not my best day

I went back to work on the 1st. Yesterday (the 3rd) after 2 hours, my boss hauled me into her office and told me I was worse than I'd been before I left on my leave and that she wanted me gone until I could come back as my normal self. So it's back to the rounds of doctors and issues with Met Life and problems with finances until I can get things sorted out. I am not looking forward to this.

I guess, on the plus side, I'll have more time to write. The problem is I've had nothing but time to write since I went on my leave in September. Yes, I'll be able to finish NaNo this year. Hell, if I do end up taking a continued leave of absence I'll be able to finish it before the end of November.

But I don't want to take a continued leave of absence. I wanted to go back to work. I was tired of being stuck at home, worrying about money, and being bored off my ass. There's only so much I can do when I'm stuck within the same four walls.

We'll have to wait and see what happens tomorrow when my doctor's office is open. I also have to call Met Life and see what their procedure is for me continuing a leave that I was just released from. I need to find out if I can even do that or if I have to start the process over again. Which would suck, but at least my doctor knows the procedure now.

To be honest, I didn't manage to work my full shift on Thursday. I had a hard time even working my few hours that I agreed to come in and work on Friday. Maybe I wasn't ready to go back to work. I know I've talked to those around me (Himself and roommates) and they agree with my boss that my mood has been all over the place and I'm worse now than I was before I went into the hospital. So I probably need to take some more time off until I can get the med situation worked out.

As for the ROW 80 update, I'm keeping up on my personal goal of exercising. My writing goal of working on the novel is going well. I seem to have failed spectacularly at my work goal so I'm back to square one on that one.

De-stressing, an admission, and another #ROW80 check in

Let's start with the first admission: I'm horrible at de-stressing. I can stress myself out with ease. But when it comes to unwinding from the stress, I find it difficult to achieve that calm state. I've had to learn fast over the last couple months because there has been literally NOTHING I could do about Met Life being arseholes and dragging their feet about my short term disability. (Yes, it finally came through. That was a huge relief to me too.)

Let's start with the definition of stress. Merriam-Webster online dictionary has an excellent and comprehensive definition of stress here. We're most interested in two of the aspects of this definition: a physical, chemical, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension and may be a factor in disease causation and  a state resulting from a stress; especially : one of bodily or mental tension resulting from factors that tend to alter an existent equilibrium <job-related stress>. 

Stress can be a cause for a lot of short term problems. Tension headaches, back aches, neck aches, body aches in general. It can cause loss of appetite, sleep loss, tension between people. It can also lead to a depressed immune system because of the physical depredations on your body caused by the stress, which opens you up to every sickness out there.

Now, if you're like me, being sick stresses you out too because damn it, you don't have time to be sick. There are books to be written, chores to be done, people to be dealt with. Life has to go on and you don't have the time to deal with being sick on top of it. Yeah, that doesn't help you any either. It just makes the sickness linger longer, I've noticed.

De-stressing is a must in these kinds of situations. I'm not a person who de-stresses easily but I've found that these specific things work best for me. First, shut off all the damn electronics. Yes, even the cell phone. Yes, the laptop/computer/tablet. Everything. Turn out the light. Bury yourself under the covers. Take a nap if you feel like it. But if you don't, spend some time just curled up in the dark. If your mind has a tendency to wander to topics that stress you out in times like these, force your mind away from these thoughts. Make them go to something else. For me, I made it go to one of the books I'm writing. I worked my way through several scenes that way and it helped relax me.

Music. I know it's been said before to listen to music. But you have to pick the right music. Music that increases your heart rate is not going to help you de-stress. Pick music - or some kind of nature sound if that's what you prefer - that is going to lower your heart rate and soothe you. I recommend Ed Van Fleet's "Oceans". It combines the sound of the ocean with gentle music. It's very nice and soothing if you like that style of music. While you're listening to it, try not to think of anything. Just focus as hard as you can on the music. It's hard at first. Your brain wants to run through everything that's stressing you out. But don't let it. Focus solely on the music and let your body relax. It'll help.

Tea or hot chocolate. Try for non-caffeinated tea if you can find it. Caffeine does drive up heart rate, which can lead to a higher stress level. I know chocolate has caffeine in it. But the caffeine level isn't as high as it is in say green tea or black tea. Besides. chocolate triggers all those lovely endorphins in your head which lead you to happy places so hot chocolate is beneficial in that way too. Forego the coffee when you're stressed, or go for decaf which has less caffeine in it if you must have coffee. But try for something with as little caffeine as possible.

Finally, find something that makes you happy and do it. Writing can be stressful for us writers, so sometimes we have to put the pen/word processor away and move on to something else. I knit, so when I got really stressed out this past month I dug (and yes, I do mean dug...the stuff was buried in the bottom of my closet again) out my knitting and started knitting a scarf. I need a new scarf anyway and it gave me something to do that kept me busy but helped me relax. I watched movies. I read books. I knitted. I steered clear of being online or writing. And it helped. Sometimes unplugging is a good idea to help with your stress.

These are only the things that work for me. There are so many books, self-help gurus, podcasts, vlogs, blogs, etc. out there on how to do this that I'm sure you'll find a hundred different tips on this. These are just what have worked for me. Please find your own and use them to help you out of stressful situations. If you've got one you'd like to share, please do. I'm always looking for new ideas to try to help with de-stressing.

I'm feeling much better these days. My stress levels dropped significantly when I was able to pay my bills. But by de-stressing I was finally able to start to shake this nasty cold/allergy/thing that's been lingering for the past month and a half. I actually feel better today than I have in weeks and part of it is due to the fact that I'm no longer as stressed as I've been. It really does help. The main thing you need to keep in mind while de-stressing is it isn't going to work all the time. Sometimes you're just not going to be able to shut down the stress receptors. In that case, practice your de-stressing techniques to minimize the stress and try to get past it faster.

ROW 80 update is below. You don't have to read on if you're not interested in that.

A second admission, and this to the ROW 80 crowd...I've missed the last couple check ins. It's had to do with the stress levels in my life being so high I haven't wanted to be online much and I'm sorry. I'll be making the regular check ins from now on.

Writing - NaNo is fast approaching so I'm anxious to get started on that project. That's the novel I want to start that's the first in the series. I decided to start with it for NaNo as a kick in the pants to get it done. Jaelon's story is started but not finished. I've tweaked a few thins in Mkai's story again because I've altered a few details in the world building. Taereah's story got completely deleted because I realized in order to write her story I need to have the outline for CRACKED WORLD written out so I know where she comes in with that story so I can figure out what I want to write with her. I kind of need the same thing for Jaelon's story because both of them tie into CRACKED WORLD and the as of yet unnamed novel series I'm working on starting in November, so I need to have past and present details worked out before I can work on their stories.

Personal - I didn't follow through with vocational rehab. It just didn't feel right, and they told me the best they could do for me was find me a job that paid me $8-$9/hr. I need something $10+ just to survive these days so it wouldn't have worked out. I'm still forgetting my afternoon dose of pills so I've started setting an alarm in my phone. It'll be easier once I start back to work because I'll have an afternoon break and I'll be able to take the pills regularly on that break. I'm mostly just stretching every other day when it comes to exercising. It's not much but at least it's something. I haven't wanted to do much of anything lately because of how crappy I've felt but I've made myself go through the same stretching exercises they taught me in the hospital so I'm doing something.

Work - I've talked with my boss about a few new developments. The big one for me is they're changing our schedules which means I'm losing my shift differential (that's almost $100 per paycheck). There was a shift bid, which I would have missed if not for her, that was due on the 23rd. She emailed me the shift bid and I sent back my preferences. I'm not likely to get what I want since I'm low man on the totem pole because of my stats but we'll have to see. I'll know the first week of November, which is right after I go back, and we won't actually have to make the change to our new shifts until January. They're getting rid of most of the night shifts and putting us all on days. Blech. I like my night shift, thanks. Practicing my anti-panic attack exercises now so I've got them down for when I go back to work.

Sunday 'fess up...Anni is alive

Hey everyone!  Long time no post.

Life has gotten a little better and a little worse all at the same time.  I'm no longer in danger of separating from Himself but we're in danger of becoming homeless.  Twitchy is still jobless and is in danger of losing her house.  If she loses the house we're out on the street with nowhere to go except some really cheap ass hotels because we don't have anyone who can afford to take us in.

Writing is going okay.  I've done another edit on ONLY A NAME and it's out to my last remaining beta reader, who plans on getting to it at some point this month.  I'm in no hurry but I'm grateful she's willing to take a look at it for me.  I especially think the ending is weak and needs help.

Work is work.  I'm out of customer service again and back in collections where I was happier.  I'm hoping I'll start doing well at work again.  I'm excited and scared at the same time.  Things have really changed since I left and it's a whole new world that I'm coming back into.

Nothing much else to report so here's some music videos for you to enjoy.