My entire life I've dealt with varying degrees of depression.
In high school, I survived a suicide attempt.
After Bugster was born, I dealt with postpartum depression. I began feeling suicidal and started having horrible thoughts about hurting our baby. It scared me to death. I got help and worked through things until I was out of trouble, but it's something of which I've always been acutely aware, because I never, ever want to get to that point again.
A few years ago, I found out that I had a severe Vitamin D deficiency. Since I started supplementing with Vitamin D, I've found I don't go as deeply into the depths as I have in the past, and I'm so very grateful for that. The antidepressant I've been on for several years has helped as well, but the Vitamin D definitely had more of a positive affect on me than it did.
I know that depression will always be a part of who I am, and I know that there are certain situations, and unfortunately, certain people I must avoid to keep my head above water. I struggle with having to limit my friendships with certain people, because I do know that everyone needs a friend, but I also know that I can't always be it. It quite literally is for my own self-preservation.
When I was dealing with the postpartum, I had a friend who lived across the street from us. She and her husband were having marital problems, and she constantly harped about how horrible he was. I don't recall her saying more than a handful of positive things about him or their relationship. Granted, neither my husband nor I had a really high opinion of him, but that wasn't the issue. The issue was that the more I was around her the more I found myself finding things wrong with my own husband. Things that I used to just take for normal quirks and differences soon became arguing point.
I was shocked when I realized how contagious negativity was for me and how I had allowed myself to be drawn in. I slowly started to distance myself from her, because I didn't want our friendship to interfere in my marriage. Thankfully, we moved away less than a year later, but before we had a chance to get out of there, my 'friend' cheated on her husband and ran off with another guy.
I felt like I had betrayed my husband's trust by talking with her, by venting to her about every little thing about my husband that annoyed me, and it devastated me knowing I played an active part in it. I know the postpartum played a role in all of it, but it was still no excuse. I allowed myself to be drawn into her train wreck, and our marriage could have easily become a casualty.
Don't get me wrong. I know that not all marriages are good marriages. And sometimes, people need to vent. To confide that things aren't going so well, because they're scared, and they need advice, and they want reassurance. I get that. But there's a huge difference between an occasional venting and someone being negative about their spouse with almost every word they speak.
I knew then that the only way our marriage would work would be for me to stay away from people who were willing to regularly trash their spouses. It makes my heart heavy, and I want to help, but I can't. My husband and our marriage means the world to me, and I just can't go there. And to be blunt, Hubster is much more important to me than their problems and even than the friendship in which I may have an investment.
I made that mistake once, and I'm never going to allow it to happen again. My husband and our marriage is always going to come first. Because we really are that good together, and because he means the world to me.
Because we are worth it.
It's all a matter of self-preservation.
Showing posts with label honesty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label honesty. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Friday, October 29, 2010
It's all in the genes?
I know it's been said there might be a genetic component to hoarding. That at the very least, it does appear to run in some families. Whether it be a learned behavior, it's in the DNA, or it's a combination of the two, there is definitely hoarding in my family. But just because a person has a predisposition to alcoholism, drug addiction, hoarding or the like, it doesn't mean a person should just surrender and say, "There's nothing I can do about it, so I'm not going to fight the urge, and I'm just going to allow it to control me and use it as an excuse for everything that's wrong in my life." So I will continue to fight with every breath that is within me to get through this dehoarding process. I don't want to leave a mess for my husband and children to have to deal with and fight their way through when I am someday gone.
My grandmother was a hoarder. She was an antique dealer, and she owned gorgeous pieces over the years. But she also had a difficult time getting rid of useless things and often lumped some of her best pieces in boxes that also contained clothes, both dirty and clean, dirty dishes, newspapers, brand new towels, mail, jewelry and curlers as well as the occasional dried out piece of dog poop. Each box seemed more horrifying than the next, and we would literally just shake our heads in disbelief, as we'd try to make sense of her thought process as we filled trash bags and sorted through boxes of stuff.
Several of us, usually aunts, cousins, my mom and I would get together and go as fast as we could to clean as thoroughly as we could, so she could have people over for the holidays. We would spend several days cleaning, sorting, and purging as much as we could get through before her out of town company would show up for the holidays. We would do what we could to make her guests feel comfortable, but we were in it alone. She would sit in her chair with a cup of coffee often looking off into space, sometimes engaging some of us in conversation or answering the occasional question.
She would have bags upon bags of unopened things that she'd gotten for gifts for her kids, grandchildren or great grandchildren that sat waiting to be wrapped and sent off to her loved ones. There were scores of items she'd picked up at garage sales or thrift stores and lots of gift wrap that never seemed to be put away. There was just tons of stuff everywhere.
I wasn't there for any of the last holiday scrambles where we'd gather to clean, as we lived several states away, but I'll never forget what it was like. It was hard to catch your breath, because the air was always thick with the smell of rotting food, dog poop and urine, since the dogs had free reign of the house and frequently used the floor as their personal restroom. We'd occasionally find maggots and mold in the rotting food in the kitchen, and there were always moths of some sort in the canisters of flour or in the tins of cookies.
Needless to say, we didn't eat anything at her house unless we brought it or prepared it from fresh food we opened ourselves. We went through the cupboards each and every time and emptied out all the old food and the bulging cans. And we thoroughly washed and dried every canister in the house before replacing the flour, sugar and other baking goods. We cleaned out the refrigerator and freezer, bleached all of it out, so it was nice and clean, and then went shopping to get fresh groceries, so she'd have something to eat.
Once all the major cleaning was done, and we'd vacuumed as well as possible, we'd shampoo the carpet. At some point, someone talked her into getting a carpet cleaner. We'd scrub the carpet until the water came out as clear as possible. We'd use a commercial carpet shampoo like are used in restaurants to get some really heavy duty stains out, and it helped tremendously. I don't think we ever cleaned the carpet with fewer than 5 passes per section, and even though we would try to get to the point that the water that we were extracting from the carpet came out clear, a dull gray was as close as we ever got.
I know that toward the end, many of her issues stemmed from her age. She was over 100 years old when she died, and she lived alone well into her 90s. She'd had several mini strokes over the years, so it was harder for her to keep things up, and she probably should have been in a home years before she was. But the hoarding started decades before the incidents which I write about happened. Horrific and indescribably atrocious things happened to her when she was a little girl, and I'm sure much of her mental illnesses stemmed from those things. I don't feel at liberty to discuss them here, but I honestly don't know how anyone could be 'normal' after going through what she endured.
I have no doubt that my grandmother's house would look like those on the hoarding shows, if we didn't intervene on occasion. It still took no time at all for things to pile back up and for the carpet to need to be scrubbed again. I'm in no way condoning the way she kept house, but knowing some of the things that happened to her as a child I can understand where the mental illness began and that this was her way of somehow trying to maintain control over her life. It was a coping mechanism that failed her.
I'm hoping that by recognizing the tendencies I have to hoard, like my grandmother did, and consciously choosing to address those tendencies on a daily basis, that I'll never fall into the trap that so tightly ensnared my grandmother.
My grandmother was a hoarder. She was an antique dealer, and she owned gorgeous pieces over the years. But she also had a difficult time getting rid of useless things and often lumped some of her best pieces in boxes that also contained clothes, both dirty and clean, dirty dishes, newspapers, brand new towels, mail, jewelry and curlers as well as the occasional dried out piece of dog poop. Each box seemed more horrifying than the next, and we would literally just shake our heads in disbelief, as we'd try to make sense of her thought process as we filled trash bags and sorted through boxes of stuff.
Several of us, usually aunts, cousins, my mom and I would get together and go as fast as we could to clean as thoroughly as we could, so she could have people over for the holidays. We would spend several days cleaning, sorting, and purging as much as we could get through before her out of town company would show up for the holidays. We would do what we could to make her guests feel comfortable, but we were in it alone. She would sit in her chair with a cup of coffee often looking off into space, sometimes engaging some of us in conversation or answering the occasional question.
She would have bags upon bags of unopened things that she'd gotten for gifts for her kids, grandchildren or great grandchildren that sat waiting to be wrapped and sent off to her loved ones. There were scores of items she'd picked up at garage sales or thrift stores and lots of gift wrap that never seemed to be put away. There was just tons of stuff everywhere.
I wasn't there for any of the last holiday scrambles where we'd gather to clean, as we lived several states away, but I'll never forget what it was like. It was hard to catch your breath, because the air was always thick with the smell of rotting food, dog poop and urine, since the dogs had free reign of the house and frequently used the floor as their personal restroom. We'd occasionally find maggots and mold in the rotting food in the kitchen, and there were always moths of some sort in the canisters of flour or in the tins of cookies.
Needless to say, we didn't eat anything at her house unless we brought it or prepared it from fresh food we opened ourselves. We went through the cupboards each and every time and emptied out all the old food and the bulging cans. And we thoroughly washed and dried every canister in the house before replacing the flour, sugar and other baking goods. We cleaned out the refrigerator and freezer, bleached all of it out, so it was nice and clean, and then went shopping to get fresh groceries, so she'd have something to eat.
Once all the major cleaning was done, and we'd vacuumed as well as possible, we'd shampoo the carpet. At some point, someone talked her into getting a carpet cleaner. We'd scrub the carpet until the water came out as clear as possible. We'd use a commercial carpet shampoo like are used in restaurants to get some really heavy duty stains out, and it helped tremendously. I don't think we ever cleaned the carpet with fewer than 5 passes per section, and even though we would try to get to the point that the water that we were extracting from the carpet came out clear, a dull gray was as close as we ever got.
I know that toward the end, many of her issues stemmed from her age. She was over 100 years old when she died, and she lived alone well into her 90s. She'd had several mini strokes over the years, so it was harder for her to keep things up, and she probably should have been in a home years before she was. But the hoarding started decades before the incidents which I write about happened. Horrific and indescribably atrocious things happened to her when she was a little girl, and I'm sure much of her mental illnesses stemmed from those things. I don't feel at liberty to discuss them here, but I honestly don't know how anyone could be 'normal' after going through what she endured.
I have no doubt that my grandmother's house would look like those on the hoarding shows, if we didn't intervene on occasion. It still took no time at all for things to pile back up and for the carpet to need to be scrubbed again. I'm in no way condoning the way she kept house, but knowing some of the things that happened to her as a child I can understand where the mental illness began and that this was her way of somehow trying to maintain control over her life. It was a coping mechanism that failed her.
I'm hoping that by recognizing the tendencies I have to hoard, like my grandmother did, and consciously choosing to address those tendencies on a daily basis, that I'll never fall into the trap that so tightly ensnared my grandmother.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Which came first? The chicken or the egg?
Mom said that when I was a kid I was fastidious at keeping my room clean. Everything had a place, and everything was where it should be. I was a neat freak. I would apparently get very frustrated with my sister who was more lax in her efforts to keep the room clean. Now, however, it would appear as though my sister and I have changed places. She is the neat freak, and I am...well...not.
What's funny is that I remember having problems with keeping things well before I even made it into my teens. One of my brothers had won a 6ft long stuffed snake at the fair for me. Actually, we had two of these snakes. He gave one to me and one to my sister. Mine had yellow and light green spots on it, so of course it was the one he picked out for me given my affinity for yellow. I remember having a love/hate relationship with it. I loved the fact that my brother had thought of me when he won it, but I never really knew what to do with the thing.
I believe I hung it from the ceiling at one point, because it didn't take up as much room up there as it did on my bed. I'd try to get creative with it and coil it up, but the thing was so stiff it didn't coil. . And it was so full of stuffing that it didn't even bend in half unless forced. When I finally got a toy net, it hung along the back of the toy net so it's head hung out the one side with it's tongue sticking out, and that was as close as I ever came to having a permanent place for it. As a toy the snake was rather useless. I couldn't cuddle with it, because it smelled dusty. It always made me want to cough, which I'm sure is because of the asthma I've had my entire life. We'd hang it outside on the clothesline to try to air it out, but even that didn't help much. It didn't really work as a weapon, although it may have, if Mom hadn't put an end to our attempts at battery. It was simply a thing to display.
The thing is...I think I may still have it. I think it's out in the storage pod in a box of things I didn't know what to do with that I packed up several years ago. If it is in a box, it's because after 30 years it is finally creased in places it was never meant to bend. If it's not there, then I may have finally donated it after agonizing over what to do with it one too many times over the years. I do know that I hung onto it for far too long, because I didn't know how to give it up. I didn't know how to let it go, because it symbolized the love my brother has for me.
I still have the Orange Blossom perfume another of my brothers bought me when he went to Ft Lauderdale, FL for Spring Break one year. I was probably about 8. It doesn't take up very much room. The bottle is only about an inch high and 3/4" wide. I kept the seashell it was wrapped in for years and years. I have no idea what happened to it, but I apparently parted with it somewhere along the way. The last I remember seeing the shell was before we moved into this house 9 years ago. This summer I finally parted with the long sleeved Ft Lauderdale t-shirt he got me the following summer, but it was really, really hard.
I guess my point in all this is that I've had hoarding tendencies all my life.
Even when I was a neat freak, I had trouble letting go.
What's funny is that I remember having problems with keeping things well before I even made it into my teens. One of my brothers had won a 6ft long stuffed snake at the fair for me. Actually, we had two of these snakes. He gave one to me and one to my sister. Mine had yellow and light green spots on it, so of course it was the one he picked out for me given my affinity for yellow. I remember having a love/hate relationship with it. I loved the fact that my brother had thought of me when he won it, but I never really knew what to do with the thing.
I believe I hung it from the ceiling at one point, because it didn't take up as much room up there as it did on my bed. I'd try to get creative with it and coil it up, but the thing was so stiff it didn't coil. . And it was so full of stuffing that it didn't even bend in half unless forced. When I finally got a toy net, it hung along the back of the toy net so it's head hung out the one side with it's tongue sticking out, and that was as close as I ever came to having a permanent place for it. As a toy the snake was rather useless. I couldn't cuddle with it, because it smelled dusty. It always made me want to cough, which I'm sure is because of the asthma I've had my entire life. We'd hang it outside on the clothesline to try to air it out, but even that didn't help much. It didn't really work as a weapon, although it may have, if Mom hadn't put an end to our attempts at battery. It was simply a thing to display.
The thing is...I think I may still have it. I think it's out in the storage pod in a box of things I didn't know what to do with that I packed up several years ago. If it is in a box, it's because after 30 years it is finally creased in places it was never meant to bend. If it's not there, then I may have finally donated it after agonizing over what to do with it one too many times over the years. I do know that I hung onto it for far too long, because I didn't know how to give it up. I didn't know how to let it go, because it symbolized the love my brother has for me.
I still have the Orange Blossom perfume another of my brothers bought me when he went to Ft Lauderdale, FL for Spring Break one year. I was probably about 8. It doesn't take up very much room. The bottle is only about an inch high and 3/4" wide. I kept the seashell it was wrapped in for years and years. I have no idea what happened to it, but I apparently parted with it somewhere along the way. The last I remember seeing the shell was before we moved into this house 9 years ago. This summer I finally parted with the long sleeved Ft Lauderdale t-shirt he got me the following summer, but it was really, really hard.
I guess my point in all this is that I've had hoarding tendencies all my life.
Even when I was a neat freak, I had trouble letting go.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Baby steps and all.
Taking a break right now and watching Biggest Loser. It's incredibly inspiring, and I desperately need inspiration to keep going on the treadmill. It kills my back especially after not having been on it for 2 years. In fact, I had to take pain medicine and a muscle relaxant when I was done walking tonight. I'm hoping that as I lose weight and build my core muscles my back pain will go away or at least lessen enough I don't need steroid shots anymore. Eventually, I'm likely going to need surgery, but there's no way they'll touch my back at this weight. I easily have over 100 pounds to lose.
So tonight, my second night on the treadmill, I did 15 minutes instead of only 10, and I increased the incline to 2 for part of the walk. It's not much at all. I used to be able to walk miles with no problem. In junior high and high school I was in track. I often ran the mile or two mile, and even though I wasn't the best, I did it. It will likely be awhile before I work up to a mile on the treadmill. The doctor has told me I need to only be on it for a few minutes at a time, so I don't overdo and hurt my back even more.
The main thing is that I need to be on it regularly.
I've at least started.
And at least we've put the treadmill in it's own separate room with other workout equipment, so it can't get covered with clothes, papers or books.
I will do this in spite of myself just as surely as I will finish the process of dehoarding the house. It will happen.
So now that I'm done with the pep talk I needed to give myself, onto other things.....
I was able to finish the last coat of paint on the majority of the bookshelf/entertainment center today. I will hopefully be able to finish it up completely tomorrow, so it can sit on the back porch to air out for a few days before we take it downstairs. I have well under half of it left. It is looking really nice. I'm pleased with it, but I'll tell you something...it's a lot harder to paint bead board than it looks! The paint has to basically be forced down into the grooves. It doesn't go in willingly.
When I was done with the painting, I went downstairs to work on the outlets. We need to replace the outlets in the workout room and a couple in the family room. We also have to add spacers to some of the outlets, because they're recessed so far back into the walls. You see, the outlets in the outside walls in the basement are in concrete. And whoever put the paneling up on the walls likely did it, because the outlets would be recessed, if drywall was used. And since we chose drywall, we need to extend the boxes the outlets are in by at least an inch and a half.
I was able to get two of the outlets finished, but right as I was finishing up the 2nd outlet, the light went off. I think it overheated. It's a halogen treble light. So I guess I'll have to work on them during the daylight when I can see a little better without artificial help. I was going to work on replacing all the outlets in the workout room and the few I have to do in the family room, but I can't find the box of new outlets, either. We used them recently when we installed the ceiling fan in Scooter's room and replaced her outlets, but for the life of me I couldn't find them when I looked today. I'll look again tomorrow or go buy more. We have enough outlets that still need replaced that we'll use the ones in the box eventually anyway. I just want to get them finished.
I'll be going to bed early tonight, because the muscle relaxant is going to kick in hard and make me really sleepy soon, I'm sure. It's probably a good thing. I still need to get on that elusive schedule.
Instead. I sleep like a baby.
A few hours here.
A few hours there.
So tonight, my second night on the treadmill, I did 15 minutes instead of only 10, and I increased the incline to 2 for part of the walk. It's not much at all. I used to be able to walk miles with no problem. In junior high and high school I was in track. I often ran the mile or two mile, and even though I wasn't the best, I did it. It will likely be awhile before I work up to a mile on the treadmill. The doctor has told me I need to only be on it for a few minutes at a time, so I don't overdo and hurt my back even more.
The main thing is that I need to be on it regularly.
I've at least started.
And at least we've put the treadmill in it's own separate room with other workout equipment, so it can't get covered with clothes, papers or books.
I will do this in spite of myself just as surely as I will finish the process of dehoarding the house. It will happen.
So now that I'm done with the pep talk I needed to give myself, onto other things.....
I was able to finish the last coat of paint on the majority of the bookshelf/entertainment center today. I will hopefully be able to finish it up completely tomorrow, so it can sit on the back porch to air out for a few days before we take it downstairs. I have well under half of it left. It is looking really nice. I'm pleased with it, but I'll tell you something...it's a lot harder to paint bead board than it looks! The paint has to basically be forced down into the grooves. It doesn't go in willingly.
When I was done with the painting, I went downstairs to work on the outlets. We need to replace the outlets in the workout room and a couple in the family room. We also have to add spacers to some of the outlets, because they're recessed so far back into the walls. You see, the outlets in the outside walls in the basement are in concrete. And whoever put the paneling up on the walls likely did it, because the outlets would be recessed, if drywall was used. And since we chose drywall, we need to extend the boxes the outlets are in by at least an inch and a half.
I was able to get two of the outlets finished, but right as I was finishing up the 2nd outlet, the light went off. I think it overheated. It's a halogen treble light. So I guess I'll have to work on them during the daylight when I can see a little better without artificial help. I was going to work on replacing all the outlets in the workout room and the few I have to do in the family room, but I can't find the box of new outlets, either. We used them recently when we installed the ceiling fan in Scooter's room and replaced her outlets, but for the life of me I couldn't find them when I looked today. I'll look again tomorrow or go buy more. We have enough outlets that still need replaced that we'll use the ones in the box eventually anyway. I just want to get them finished.
I'll be going to bed early tonight, because the muscle relaxant is going to kick in hard and make me really sleepy soon, I'm sure. It's probably a good thing. I still need to get on that elusive schedule.
Instead. I sleep like a baby.
A few hours here.
A few hours there.
Friday, May 21, 2010
The Bugster*, Hopper and Scooter.
I have to say that I really struggled when I wrote the post about the code enforcement issue. It's such an embarrassing thing to have them called on you. You know? But I am wanting to be honest about being a hoarder - even the hard and embarrassing things. Because I need to remember them, so once I've gotten my house cleaned out I never go back there again.
And I have to say thanks to all of you who have supported me through this and haven't judged me for being in the mess I'm in. It's not been easy, but all of you have made it easier for me to make the changes I need to make and to know I can go on and reach my goal.
I've made a decision to change something about my blog. Instead of constantly referring to 'our oldest daughter', 'our middle daughter' and 'our youngest daughter', I will now be referring to them by their nicknames. It just gets a bit too wordy the way I've been doing it.
Our oldest loves ladybugs and always has. Thus, she will be 'The Bugster*'. Besides, she's really good at bugging me, so it fits on two levels.
Our middle daughter will now be referred to as 'Hopper'. We can be downstairs, and all of the sudden we hear her hopping on the floor above us. It's totally random. I usually have to say something at least 4 times before I catch her attention and get her to stop. Still. It's a cute quirk she has, and she loves when we call her by her nickname.
And our youngest scooted for years before she could ever sit up. She did the backstroke to get from room to room. As a result, she had no hair on the back of her head. She had it on the tops. She had it on the sides. And she even had some under the bald spot on the back of her head. I used to pull it all together for a long, but quite thin pony tail to sort of cover up the lack of hair. That is until Hopper was 3 and grabbed her by the pony tail and dragged her like a little cavewoman into the kitchen, so I would get finished with the bottle I was feeding! Shortly after that I cut her hair, but she still kept scooting. Thus, she will henceforth be known as 'Scooter' on my blog.
Tomorrow, The Bugster is coming over to help fill the holes in the baseboard trim and the crown moulding in the basement. She'll be coming on Sunday to help finish it all up. I'm hoping it will be all finished by then, anyway. It just kills my neck to look up all the time, and it kills my back to get on my knees to fill the baseboards. So I'm thrilled that Bugster is going to be helping me out. In return, she and her new hubby get the china hutch we bought when she was little. I think she thinks she's getting the better deal, and I think I am. so I think it's a pretty fair trade.
She helped me out a bit tonight, too. Since it's been so warm since I painted the umbrella planter except that we got torrential downpours for a solid hour about 3 hours after I put the second coat on). Bugster helped me get the clematis started up the pole again. I lost several shoots from it which is upsetting, but I'm really hoping it just causes it to grow in overdrive. It stretches about halfway up the pole now, and there are several buds waiting to spring open. I'll get pictures and post them when it starts blooming. I'd love to see it grow all the way up the pole and go down the tines eventually. I think that would be absolutely gorgeous!
We'll be taking Hopper and Scooter to get their TB tests read. So far they're showing not showing much of a reaction at all. Although Scooter seems to possibly be getting eczema at the injection site. I'll ask about it in tomorrow. I'm just praying that they both have negative tests. The antibiotics that they would have to take, if they tested positive are some pretty serious and nasty drugs.
When we're done there, we'll be dropping off some stuff at a friend's house. Just things from the girls' bedroom that I think they can use. So we'll be completing a bit of dehoarding tomorrow by getting it out of the house. That always helps.
And then we'll stop at Home Depot. We've got a gift card we need to use, so it doesn't expire. I'll be buying tomatoes and peppers and strawberries, if they have them. If they don't, I'll be getting some bare root strawberries somewhere else, if I have time to get them planted. I'm thinking of just drilling extra holes in some of the bucket planters I use for the tomatoes and peppers. Not sure exactly what I'll be doing, but I'll be doing it with a smile.
I'm just glad I'm going to have a mini garden this year. There's something so fulfilling about it, and it helps take the mind off the neighbors!
*Edited after the comment by Amanda. Didn't even think of that, since I'm not from England, but thanks for pointing it out. I thought of a couple other names for her to choose from (The Bugster and Buggerina), but she didn't care which I used. So her daddy got to vote, and he liked The Bugster best. So our oldest will now be known as Bugster or The Bugster from now on, because truth be told, she's always loved all bugs and not just ladybugs. :)
And I have to say thanks to all of you who have supported me through this and haven't judged me for being in the mess I'm in. It's not been easy, but all of you have made it easier for me to make the changes I need to make and to know I can go on and reach my goal.
I've made a decision to change something about my blog. Instead of constantly referring to 'our oldest daughter', 'our middle daughter' and 'our youngest daughter', I will now be referring to them by their nicknames. It just gets a bit too wordy the way I've been doing it.
Our oldest loves ladybugs and always has. Thus, she will be 'The Bugster*'. Besides, she's really good at bugging me, so it fits on two levels.
Our middle daughter will now be referred to as 'Hopper'. We can be downstairs, and all of the sudden we hear her hopping on the floor above us. It's totally random. I usually have to say something at least 4 times before I catch her attention and get her to stop. Still. It's a cute quirk she has, and she loves when we call her by her nickname.
And our youngest scooted for years before she could ever sit up. She did the backstroke to get from room to room. As a result, she had no hair on the back of her head. She had it on the tops. She had it on the sides. And she even had some under the bald spot on the back of her head. I used to pull it all together for a long, but quite thin pony tail to sort of cover up the lack of hair. That is until Hopper was 3 and grabbed her by the pony tail and dragged her like a little cavewoman into the kitchen, so I would get finished with the bottle I was feeding! Shortly after that I cut her hair, but she still kept scooting. Thus, she will henceforth be known as 'Scooter' on my blog.
Tomorrow, The Bugster is coming over to help fill the holes in the baseboard trim and the crown moulding in the basement. She'll be coming on Sunday to help finish it all up. I'm hoping it will be all finished by then, anyway. It just kills my neck to look up all the time, and it kills my back to get on my knees to fill the baseboards. So I'm thrilled that Bugster is going to be helping me out. In return, she and her new hubby get the china hutch we bought when she was little. I think she thinks she's getting the better deal, and I think I am. so I think it's a pretty fair trade.
She helped me out a bit tonight, too. Since it's been so warm since I painted the umbrella planter except that we got torrential downpours for a solid hour about 3 hours after I put the second coat on). Bugster helped me get the clematis started up the pole again. I lost several shoots from it which is upsetting, but I'm really hoping it just causes it to grow in overdrive. It stretches about halfway up the pole now, and there are several buds waiting to spring open. I'll get pictures and post them when it starts blooming. I'd love to see it grow all the way up the pole and go down the tines eventually. I think that would be absolutely gorgeous!
We'll be taking Hopper and Scooter to get their TB tests read. So far they're showing not showing much of a reaction at all. Although Scooter seems to possibly be getting eczema at the injection site. I'll ask about it in tomorrow. I'm just praying that they both have negative tests. The antibiotics that they would have to take, if they tested positive are some pretty serious and nasty drugs.
When we're done there, we'll be dropping off some stuff at a friend's house. Just things from the girls' bedroom that I think they can use. So we'll be completing a bit of dehoarding tomorrow by getting it out of the house. That always helps.
And then we'll stop at Home Depot. We've got a gift card we need to use, so it doesn't expire. I'll be buying tomatoes and peppers and strawberries, if they have them. If they don't, I'll be getting some bare root strawberries somewhere else, if I have time to get them planted. I'm thinking of just drilling extra holes in some of the bucket planters I use for the tomatoes and peppers. Not sure exactly what I'll be doing, but I'll be doing it with a smile.
I'm just glad I'm going to have a mini garden this year. There's something so fulfilling about it, and it helps take the mind off the neighbors!
*Edited after the comment by Amanda. Didn't even think of that, since I'm not from England, but thanks for pointing it out. I thought of a couple other names for her to choose from (The Bugster and Buggerina), but she didn't care which I used. So her daddy got to vote, and he liked The Bugster best. So our oldest will now be known as Bugster or The Bugster from now on, because truth be told, she's always loved all bugs and not just ladybugs. :)
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