On Monday, Blake’s cousin’s wife succumbed to cancer (very young, it’s a very sad story that’s not mine to tell) so he left for Michigan on Tuesday and won’t be back until Thursday night. This means I’m home alone with both children without a car.

He left me $40 in cash in case I needed it and yesterday I needed it. We were out of milk and potatoes, among other things and Wes is sick and needed cough medicine, so even though he said “we have like, no money so if you don’t have to spend it all, don’t”, I did, because cough syrup is expensive stuff, especially in this very small town where you pay for convenience and limited shelf space in every store.

So yesterday when Judy got home from work, I asked her if she would drive me to the store and the pharmacy, which she did and she came in with me both places so I didn’t freak out. I bought her Chapstick instead of giving her gas money because she’s out, with no money and she’s a Chapstick fiend like me. First we went to the pharmacy, which went fine, then we went to the grocery store where I zipped around grabbing all the things we needed as if it were a gameshow so we could get the fuck out of there as soon as possible. She grabbed the 2 cases of Coke Zero, I grabbed the groceries and bag of potatoes and we walked out to the parking lot towards the car. Well, all of a sudden the end on one of the cases of Coke split open and Coke cans flew everywhere! A man helped us “catch” the ones that were salvageable while we left the ones that were punctured and spraying everywhere. We were damn near pissing ourselves laughing at these stupid Coke cans spraying all over the parking lot with such force some of them were actually spinning. Normally this would be a situation where, if I was alone, I’d probably freak out and cry, but because Judy was there and she was the one carrying the Coke cases, it was okay and laughable and after we rescued the rescuable, Judy drove us back to her house and then she helped me carry everything back to my house. JUDY IS A GOOD FRIEND.

So that was my adventure last night. Because he needs cough syrup every 6 hours, I’ve kept Wes home for the last 2 days, but I think I’m going to send him to school tomorrow because he doesn’t seem to be coughing as much (he was coughing so much he was throwing up yesterday) and if I give him syrup before school, he should be okay until I can give him more after school. Really, I kept him home today and yesterday because what the hell would I do if I get a call from the school saying he’s sick and has to come home? I have no car to come pick him up and Judy’s at work! But I think he’s fine to go in tomorrow.

Madison took out the garbage last night so we didn’t miss garbage day, which is a miracle because I don’t do garbage so I don’t even know when garbage day is to begin with let alone when it is after a long weekend.

Last night I made turkey pot pie with our Thanksgiving leftovers and Pilsbury crescent roll dough and I gotta say, it turned out to be really amazing. Judy suggested it and wanted to make some herself but she didn’t have any Pilsbury dough. They were on sale last week, 3/$4 so I happened to have 3. She only needed 1 and I only needed 2 (I made mine in a bigger dish than hers), so I gave her one and it worked out perfectly. I’m going to feed it to the kids again tonight unless they’d rather have grilled cheese or Kraft Dinner because I don’t feel like cooking. I’ve done a LOT of cooking this week already and dammit, I can have heat-in-the-over spring rolls for dinner.

Speaking of food, Wes hooked up the Wii Fit for me this afternoon so I could weigh myself and I’m down almost 2 whole lbs. The last time I weighed myself with it was about a week ago where I’d lost 1 lb. Maybe my shrink and Blake were right about this whole “eating protein for breakfast” thing, which I’ve been doing pretty religiously even though eating so soon after I wake up often makes me feel nauseous. That’s the only thing that’s changed this month, I haven’t been doing more or eating less, I’ve just been having breakfast pretty much every day at least 2 hours after I wake up and it’s always eggs. Luckily, eggs are one of my favourite foods, so it’s unlikely I’ll get sick of them any time soon.

The other thing that’s changed, now that I think about it, is that I’ve been going to bed and getting up earlier most days. I’ve been going to bed around 12:30am and getting up around 9 or 10am through the week, only staying up retardo late on the weekends. I don’t know if that makes a difference when it comes to weight, but I think it might be making a difference in regards to mood. I’ve been stable, with the exception of one bad day involving a stupid amount of coffee, and in a good mood pretty much non-stop for the past month & a half, which I chalk up to my shrink upping my meds. Unfortunately, in doing that I’m in a creative rut and I don’t like that, but I’m not really sure what I can do about that. I’m going to call her next week and ask. The last time this was an issue, she upped my Welbutrin to counterbalance things (after upping my gabapentin and ziprasidone, which is what she did this time too) so I’m going to remind her of that and see what she thinks.

I’ve also been very good with doing my light therapy. I tend to skip it on sunny days because I don’t see the point in doing it when the sun’s out, but I’ve been doing 30 minutes just about every day for 6 weeks now and I’m fairly certain it has a lot to do with my perpetual good mood, as much as I hate to admit it and as much as I feel stupid watching tv or reading with this glaring light in my face. But really, there’s no other explanation.

I’m feeling more and more like myself every single day, except for the creative drought I’m in. That’s not like me. Usually I have ideas practically leaking out my ears and right now I don’t have a single one. I’m still stuck on that painting that’s been on my coffee table for about 6 weeks and I’m at the point where I think I’m just going to put it in the closet and not even think about it anymore. I know more or less the execution I’m going for and until I sell a painting and have money to blow at Michael’s and Curry’s on stuff that “might” work for it, I think it’s time to stop thinking about it and move onto something else.

I’ve been kind of walking around the pile of wood that’s been sitting on my floor since last winter so I think when Blake comes home and children aren’t demanding my every waking moment, I’m going to get a piece out to play with & see what happens. I’m reading this book called Living the Creative Life, as I’ve mentioned before and some of the artists in that book talk about having to touch their materials before an idea comes to them and I’m curious to see if that’ll work for me too. I’m normally an “idea first” kind of creator and “play” isn’t really in my vocabulary unless we’re talking Sims, so it’ll be interesting to see what, if anything, happens.

This week I’ve been besieged by cramps. My body knows it’s supposed to have a period in about 5 days and is letting me know, but what it doesn’t know is that I’ll be starting a new pack of birth control pills right away tomorrow instead of letting myself bleed and I’m curious to see what my body will have to say to that. When I was 16 I went on the pill for a year straight with no breaks for periods but it was so long ago I can’t remember what it felt like so I have no idea what to expect with this, besides potential breakthrough bleeding.

Anyway, that’s all I really have to report. Blake’ll be home tomorrow and the dogs will have to find a new place to sleep and things will be normal again.