Productivity Bonanza - Monday

Unpleasant mornings have begun to become ordinary.
I woke up yet again for breakfast, and had to sleep until 12pm because of a high pulse and chest pains.
I'm sure somebody reading this is thinking, "You're probably a fat lard-ass and you don't know why you're having heart problems?!? LOLOLOL"
...except that I'm 5'4", female, and 120 lbs, which is a perfect weight for someone my age/height/gender.
So yeah, I really have no damn clue what's going on.

Well, after waking up to Jon returning from class (he came back super early), I ate lunch and took a refreshing shower.
I wrote my blog entry, and then got to work.

When I organized my craft supplies, I found all these blue beads that I didn't even know I had.
Not sure where I even got them from.
I knew I had to do something with them, along with all the UV beads I purchased a couple years back but never actually did anything with.

Since my fish fiasco on Friday was a bust, I decided to do something with the rest of the pawprint cane slices I had made, once again, a couple years ago.
I started to string up some beads and designed a pretty snazzy bracelet, and then proceeded to repeat the whole process 4 more times until I ran out of the tiger's eye beads.

I'm pretty proud of the finished result, and I even glued the ties together for extra strength.

RECAP:

• Wrote blog post
• Made 5 bracelets with a possible value of $10 each

Not too shabby for a shortened day's work!

I just really wish I could feel better in the mornings though.

Productivity Bonanza - Friday

Yes, I'm late with this entry, but for good reason.
Something is really not right with me.

I've been waking up with Jon like I'm supposed to, but when I do wake up I have chest pains and my pulse skyrockets up to 90-110. It usually abates after a while, but for some reason it was really bad yesterday.
I slept almost 16 hours yesterday and had a persistent headache. Really unpleasant.

Anyway, enough with my continuing health issues. (Can't I ever get a break, though?)
TIME FOR PRODUCTIVITY!

So, on Friday I had a bit of a difficult morning. Once again, chest pains and a high pulse...
...so I decided to sleep until 10am again.
Well, things didn't want to work out that way. My high pulse lingered and kept me awake, so I gave in and decided to give myself until 12pm. Thankfully I did manage to fall asleep, and waking at 12pm did help me a bit.

I had a small lunch, washed up, wrote my blog post (Thursday's), and then got to work.
My mission was to make some things out of some scrap clay I found.

At first, I was pretty much set on using some salmon-colored clay (I mean the color of real salmon, an orange... not the so-called "salmon" color) to make some fish. While organizing my supplies, I found a ton of blue-colored beads, so I thought making some small fish charms would be great for creating some bracelets.
Well, turns out making fish is a boatload (hahaha) tougher than it seems.
When I tried pinching near the tail, I'd warp the whole fish. No matter what I did I could not get that darn fish shape. Finally I tried working on a larger scale and managed to make a fish that could only be a necklace charm, which of course was not what I had intended to do at all.
I stopped trying to make fish after that.

Frustrated, I decided to go much simpler, and make some oranges for post earrings.
Well, okay, maybe making the orange itself is easy, but those little leaves were a pain.
All I could think as I pinched off microscopic bits of green clay and formed tiny leaves was "I hope nobody quit their day-job for something like this."
Being a crafter is fun, but most of the times you're really not paid based on effort.

After making a random pair of peach earrings too, I switched to making my famous (not really) wacky birds. I only had enough time to make two of them before Jon showed up and we ran off to get pizza. (Mmm, pizza.)

So, let's look at what got done...

RECAP:

• Thursday's blog entry written
• Approx $47.50 worth of clay goods created (when finished, of course. I still need to bake, glaze, attach to earring posts or whatever, and actually put them up in my currently non-existent shop.) 

Maybe not as much as I wanted to get done, but it's still a lot more than I do on a regular basis.

All I know is that this stupid health issue needs to resolve itself, or I... well, I don't know what I'll do. I guess I'll go to the doctor. Again.

Goddamn it.

It's upside down and I'm too lazy to flip it.

Productivity Bonanza - Thursday

So, Thursday was my first day of following the game plan set out for me by my therapist.
(If you're confused, read the previous blog entry, it won't kill you.)

Thursday morning I woke up confused and half-asleep to Jon's phone alarm. I really didn't want to get up, so I told him to go take a shower first and wake me up when he's about to eat breakfast. He did exactly that, and I deliriously ate some Cheerios.
When it came time for him to leave, I said goodbye, and then realized how awful I felt. I was getting dizzy and it seemed like my heart was about to burst out of my chest. Thankfully my dad has one of those blood pressure checkers, so I tested myself.
I had a pulse of 93, and I didn't do anything so that was definitely abnormal. My blood pressure was also slightly elevated from normal.
I concluded that I had to go back to sleep, at least until 10:00am, so that's precisely what I did.
When I woke up I proceeded to shower, check my phone, and change into actual clothes rather than PJ's.

At approximately 11:45am, I officially started my day.
First thing I did was attempt to fix my glow-in-the-dark glass gauge that I stupidly wore into the shower a week back.
(It had fallen from my ear once it got wet, and one of the tips shattered. I managed to find a little shard of glass, and after being absolutely confused where the other bits were, I felt a sharp pain in between my toes. Yep, there was the piece I was missing.)
I took out my jewelry glue and started to work, but the first piece was slightly off-center.
Oops, too late, this shit is like super glue.
Oh well, it's back together but it's not perfect.

After I had finished the repair (if you can even call it that) I walked into my room, pondering what I should do next.
I thought about doing some clay work, but then I saw a lonely box on top of the piles of school crap littered around my room...
...THE SCRAPBOOK.
See, about two years ago (perhaps even more) Jon and I had purchased a scrapbook from Michael's Craft Store. We thought we'd start a scrapbook documenting our adventures during our relationship, and eventually be able to chuckle over it when we're old farts with false teeth.
That was all good and fun to think about, but once we bought it neither of us really got around to doing anything with it. It just kind of sat there until I randomly decided to make the cover drawing and first page, and it never really progressed any further.

I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to not only give Jon a nice surprise when he returned home from a long day interning at the police department, but also do something that I'll be thankful for years from now.
I grabbed my laptop, the box of supplies and photos, my set of markers, and a Snapple Iced Tea (diet lemon, of course) and plopped myself on the deck table under our umbrella.

4 hours later, and just as my glue-dot roller was running out of tape, Jon came back home. He was tired, but seemed genuinely surprised and glad to see the scrapbook finally coming together.
I only managed to get through about half of our freshman year together (we have a shitload of photos) but it's a start.

The rest of my day consisted of watching episodes of North America, eating dinner, and screwing around of World of Warcraft.

RECAP:

• Repaired my gauge (kind of)
• Completed 11 pages of the scrapbook (That's 44 photos glued, 44 captions written/decorated)

I'm pretty damn happy with that. Here's to a productive day today!

Productivity Bonanza - PROLOGUE

I try my best to stay strong and not let difficult situations get me down, but sometimes it's a lot harder than usual to cope with things.
This past month or so really got to me, though.
Between familial issues, friends leaving for other schools, my own school problems, and my own health taking a downturn, things have just absolutely sucked.

The thing that really did the trick was my anemia getting out of control once again.

If you've been reading this blog for at least 3 years (which I highly doubt, since my life isn't all that interesting) you'll know that in 2010 I had to leave the University of New Haven due to a bad case of anemia.
My hemoglobin levels were down, my iron levels were down, my red blood cell count was down, the sizes of my red blood cells were inconsistent... I was a mess. 
Worst of all, I had to leave college to recover, and lost my scholarship.
You can imagine how painful and upsetting that was for me. I didn't go back to school for a year, and instead moped around for 5 months until I finally got off of my butt and got a job.

Well, it happened all over again two weeks ago.
I started to nod off during class, had shortness of breath, heart palpitations, and dizziness. When it led to confusion that's when I got really scared... I quit my summer class, got a blood test, and sure enough my iron count was low again.
Once again, I fell into a period of feeling useless and upset. I started to stay up late, get up late, and generally do nothing.

This Monday was the final straw.
I stayed up until 5am, accidentally woke up Jon as I climbed into bed, and he couldn't fall back asleep. To make matters worse, he had to leave for class... On about 6 hours of sleep.
I felt so guilty for that, and told myself I had to start going to bed at a normal time... So I drugged myself to sleep with some ZzzQuil and somehow found myself sleeping for 13 hours.

Yesterday I had a psychiatric appointment.
I've had a psychiatrist for the past 7 years. Once again, if you've been reading this blog (which I doubt) you'll know that I've had major depressive disorder from approx. 2002-2008. I started getting psychiatric therapy in 2006, though of course I haven't had the same psychiatrist since. (I've had two.)
Even though I'm technically "better," you never really recover from depression 100%. You're still left with some emotional "scars," some painful memory triggers (which eventually just become annoyances rather than sources of pain), and of course, problems adjusting to being "normal" again.
One of my "scars" so to speak is a feeling of guilt when I don't live up to other people's, or even self-imposed expectations. That was a prevalent feeling when I was depressed, and I still react badly to it. (Of course, I just feel sad now, not an I-wish-I-would-die kind of feeling.)
I'm pretty sure it's guilt for having to quit my summer class, and that Jon is off doing something awesome every weekday that had me spiraling into a sort of mini-depression, so it was a relief to be able to blab to my psychiatrist about what had happened and what was going on.

The result of that appointment was a game-plan to help get me out of this spiral downward, and get back to being happy and proud of what I'm doing.
The plan is:

• go to sleep when Jon goes to sleep
• get up when Jon gets up
• when Jon is at class or at his internship, work on crafts or videos or anything useful
• NO NAPPING, no matter how tempting it may be
• make a blog post of my progress at the end of each day

Since I obviously am running out of time (Jon is already asleep, but he went to bed much earlier than usual) I'm going to make a blog post of the previous day's happenings each morning.

I hope that by following this "plan" I can stop feeling so useless. I know having this list given to me by my psychiatrist sounds kind of silly, and almost juvenile, but I've always held adults in high regard... So when an adult tells me to do something, I listen. 

I know I'm technically an adult myself now, but I guess I mean I respect my elders. 

And by elders I mean people older than me. 

Or something.

Here's to hoping this works in the long run.... I feel a lot better today, to be honest.

That's a start.

Sometimes You Need to Slow Down...

Last week I was dissatisfied with the amount of time I spent doing unproductive things, like grinding levels on World of Warcraft, napping, and watching TV.
I really thought that setting goals for myself and trying to work harder would help me be more productive.

You know what?
I was wrong.
Turns out that pushing myself did absolutely nothing, because I was fighting against forces that are simply unbeatable.

When Thursday came around, I managed to get significant work done in Ceramics. At the end of the day however, Jon came and picked me up and everything hit me at once. I was exhausted emotionally, physically, everything.
I was way too relieved to have a shoulder to lean on, and didn't bother doing anything. For once this week I felt like I could just let go.
Even so, the weekend nights were filled with nightmares, 4am wake-ups, and lying awake while my entire body ached. At least two nights I had to repeat my waffle adventure in the middle of the night, because my limbs and muscles hurt for no reason and I'm unable to take an Advil on an empty stomach.
(Last time I had Advil on an empty stomach, I threw up at a family friend's day-after-the-wedding party... into a garbage can right in front of the bride and groom. Not fun at all.)
I managed to spend about an hour and a half on Saturday glazing a shot glass set, but I didn't realize that the school closed at 5pm on Saturday so I had to leave early. Other than that, I didn't really do anything of any significance.

Many people don't realize that stress isn't just an uncomfortable feeling.
Stress is a monster hiding beneath an emotion... Something that affects you emotionally, physically, and mentally.
Only now do I really realize that my recent lack of productivity had nothing to do with laziness, but just me trying to cope with the immense amount of stress I'm facing right now...
...And now that my stress is starting to manifest itself in nightmares, body aches, and lack of sleep, I'm okay with not being as productive as I used to be.
I'm doing the best I can under the current circumstances I'm facing.

What could possibly be stressing out a part-time, unemployed community college student?
I'll try to list off a few causes.

• I will be in school for AT LEAST 4 MORE YEARS if I want to become a vet tech. As if that isn't stressful enough...
• I don't know which schools I'll be going to after I get my Associates of General Studies
• Only certain schools offer American Veterinary Medical Association certified degrees (one is required in most states)
• I'm graduating with my Associates of General Studies at the end of Fall 2013. Jon graduates with his Bachelors in Criminal Justice at the end of Summer 2013. What Jon is going to do during Fall 2013 while I'm finishing my degree is up in the air. If his summer internship...
• ...leads to a job, then he will need housing. My house is a zoo, and probably would not be a suitable place for him to get the rest needed for a criminal justice job. Apartments in the area are expensive as hell though.
• ...doesn't lead to a job, he'll probably have to get a different job here or in Delaware, meaning we're...
• ...either not seeing each other for about three months.
• ...back to the housing issue.
• FAMILIAL ISSUES. Nuclear family, outside family, you name it. I can't go into detail because I have to respect the privacy of my family, but basically things are absolutely maddening. I feel the need to move out, but...
• ...I'm not graduating until Fall 2013, so that's more time stuck at home
• ...Apartments here are expensive, remember?
• ...OH YEAH, I don't have a driver's license yet, so even if I wanted to get away for a DAY, I can't.
• My YouTube and Etsy aren't making money like they used to. I also don't have the time for a job without sacrificing my schoolwork. Jon doesn't have a job either. We're a young, broke couple basically.
• I've gotten attached to dog from Bully Breed Rescue, and it's saddening me horribly that I have pretty much a 0% chance of moving out in time to adopt this dog.
• I have no job and apartments are EXPENSIVE here, remember?
• He has to be an only dog, so even if by some insane miracle my parents offered to adopt the dog for me until I move out, they wouldn't be able to... because we have a dog.

To make a long story short, nothing is certain, I'm trapped in a place I no longer want to be, doing things I no longer want to do, and not doing things that I wish I could do but can't.

It's taken such a toll on me that I think it's honestly best if I just keep doing what I'm doing, because for now that's good enough. No productivity week, no goals other than just getting to school, doing my work, making a new video every time an event hits, and bringing home good grades.
It's good enough.

Productivity Week: Day 3 - Allergies and Sleep

I got up early at 8:15am today to get ready for my 10am class, Art Appreciation.

Let me tell you... that class is the WORST.

I love art. I love making things, being creative, and seeing other people's work. This class, however, is the most annoying bombardment of useless information possible. Basically the whole class is looking at styles and techniques of art, which wouldn't be half bad if we didn't have to hear all of three times over... Once in the reading, once in the homework, and finally all over again in the lecture. The third time through, you kind of want to throw something at the teacher just to get her to shut up.

Today we were looking at how churches were designed. I've already had a feeling that my teacher is Jesusy just from some of the language she's used in past classes, but today really took the cake.

Seriously, WHY do I have to know about all these different parts of churches? And you're going to talk about churches for AN HOUR?

Yeah, no thanks.

So yeah, I was pretty much nodding off in class as it was, but then I slowly started to feel my breathing becoming heavier and my eyes itching...

...ALLERGIES, NO!

This seems to happen every damn year. I miss summer so much during the winter, and completely forget about that little stretch of time called SPRING.

Allergies, sleepiness, AND sitting through an hour-long lecture about flying buttresses? 

Once again, no thanks.

After class I checked to see if the kiln was open (which it wasn't) so I pretty much decided that between allergies and not having anything to glaze, I'd just go home.

I took some Benadryl, passed out until 6pm, and then started PRODUCTIVITY!

Today I...

• Made a 35 minute Blood Brothers video, updating information from my previous vid and answering some viewer questions
• Put together a quick twitch.tv streaming set-up (sadly I had to scrap some of it because I made some wrong measurements)
• Streamed about an hour and a half of World of Warcraft while practicing non-stop blabbing (because you have to talk to be an interesting streamer... It's a LOT harder than it sounds)

So... I really didn't get much done today at all.

I blame allergies.

Tomorrow will be an AWESOME day however, and I say this because THE KILN OPENS!!! Nonstop glazing for 3 hours, YYYEAAAHHH!

...Don't look at me like that, it's damn fun!

Anyway, that's it for now.... Now SLEEP TIME.

Productivity Week: Day 2 - Ceramics and Derp

Leave it to me to let my stress spin out of control.

Last night I went to bed at 1:30am, only to toss and turn until 3:30am. I was cold, stressed, and hungry, so I did what any sensible person would do...

I made myself a waffle.

Aaand then I proceeded to do something a sensible person WOULDN'T do, such as searching the web for apartments, colleges, and job requirements.

Needless to say, I didn't get back to sleep until 5am, but not until I had a sparring of words with my dad before he left for work. He basically told me that I'm aiming too low in my career choice and that I'll never be able to live off of the wage it pays.

(I've decided I want to be a vet technician after the realization that if I don't do something involving animals, I'll be shooting myself in the foot because I won't be following my passion. But that's a DIFFERENT story.)

Imagine not being able to sleep because of stress, and then being told you're pretty much going to be baggage to your boyfriend because of your low yearly wages. 

THANKS DAD.

Well, enough of me bitching and griping about the future and all the stress that comes with moving towards it.

IT'S TIME TO TALK PRODUCTIVITY.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are my busy days, so I don't really have much time or strength to do things outside of class itself. Because of this, I tried to get as much done in Ceramics class as humanly possible. Unfortunately my teacher, Joe, didn't fire up the kiln since last Thursday, so I didn't get to glaze anything new. Ah well, he started it up today, and I'll have 10 new things to glaze on Thursday!

Here is what I did today:

• Made two pinch pots
• Made two more poison mushrooms (one "replacement" in case the other comes out wrong, and a mini mushroom)
• Made an oddly shaped vase, kind of like a triangular cylinder thing with a stretched top and weird texture (it's hard to explain, blah)
• Started my slab project, which I'll talk about more in another post... It's going to be something special!

After Ceramics, I had to read for my next class, Individuals in Society. The book is called Disposable People, and it's probably one of the most depressing books I've ever read.

Basically put, it's a book exposing modern day slavery by giving examples, retelling the experiences of the author on his mission to gather information to write the book, and explaining all the different motivating factors behind each country's system of slavery. 

I haven't even finished the book half way, and I already find it nauseating.

Apparently in the hilly northern regions of Thailand, families sell their daughters into prostitution so they can afford a color TV.

This, of course, is not seen as immoral to their families, because of religious and cultural attitudes towards women there. According to their form of Buddhism, if you are born a woman, you have sinned badly in your past life. Not only that, but you have to repay your parents for birthing you. In some cases, this means being sent to be a sexual slave in the city.

Terrifying stuff.

Anyway, I struggled through the book for an hour and a half, and then went to class.

I somehow managed to get a solid A on my essay, which I literally wrote the day before it was due, and the day of. 

(I know I'm a slacker, but hey, I got a damn A.)

At 7pm I finally arrived at home, had some dinner, and officially shut my brain off. I watched mindless television for about three hours rather than do anything useful. (Seinfeld, Hell's Kitchen, and Unusual Suspects, if you really need to know.)

Maybe not the best end to a day that's supposed to be part of a "Productivity Week," but taking into account that I'm sleep deprived and stressed out of my mind, I don't think it's half bad.

Anyway, it's time to go do my Art Appreciation homework before I pass out.

Let's hope the kiln opens tomorrow!

Productivity Week: It's BACK.

Well, I've realized that I have a shitload if things to do, and I'm not managing my time and stress very well.
The only thing I can do is do what I did before... declare this week a "Productivity Week" and GET THINGS DONE.
Every day I'll list the things I've gotten done, so that way if I slack off I hopefully embarrass myself and feel ashamed.
HOORAY FOR SELF-SHAMING!
(Hey, if it means I'll get stuff done...)

• Stayed after class to work on Ceramics
• Scraped down hard edges of unfired pieces
• Glazed poison mushroom for my mom
• Glazed drinking goblet with dinnerware-safe glazes
• Constructed another ikebana dish
• Made a Blood Brothers video for my YouTube channel
• Managed finances
• Sent refund request for broken external iPhone battery
• Paid Etsy bill
• Paid credit card bill
• Blog work
• Scheduled updates for Demented Doodles until August (click here to visit)
• Updated -this- blog

Aaaand there we go. I hope I can be as productive tomorrow.

Productivity Week - Day 5

Time to write up Friday's little accomplishments and whatnot.

Friday morning we left the house at around 8:30am to drop my sister off at school, and then drove to pick up Jon. Needless to say, I was absolutely thrilled to be able to see him. Even though we're apart for only 4 days, it sometimes feels like an eternity.
When we got home I showed him my new work and began the glazing process. Unfortunately my glaze is starting to get excessively thick, so I thought adding some water would remedy it. Well, it turns out that things don't work like that, and though it did make the glaze thinner, it dulled the shininess of the glaze.
I had to glaze it all over again to make the glazed surface uniform in sheen, but all three are finished and ready to photograph/upload.

I didn't really do anything else the whole day... I could go on and on and talk about how we watched The Biggest Loser with my family, how hilarious it is to watch Jon play Mortal Kombat, and the horrible customer service both eBay and Etsy have, but I'm much too lazy and those subjects would probably be much too boring.

Until next time...

Productivity Week - Day 4

Day 4 is over, and I'm feeling better than ever.
I could have never imagined what a sense of well-being could be achieved just by... well, achieving things!

I started out my day pretty oddly. I somehow woke up at 7:30am and couldn't for the life of me fall back asleep. My body was aching and I felt like I absolutely needed to just leap out of bed and start my morning.
Needless to say, that's what I did.
To be completely truthful, I have no idea what I did this morning. Maybe my brain is just fuzzy from it being late at the moment...
From what I DO remember, I kind of just messed around with Creatures 3, chatted with Jon through Steam, and tried to clear some space on my hard drive. (Apparently World of Warcraft won't run if you have less than 7GB free. Weird.)

Being the optimist when it comes to gaming, I decided to try out the new dungeon again.
I had a 15 minute wait time in the dungeon queue, which is nothing compared to the pre-patch wait times. (50 minutes waiting to play, oooh boy!)
All seems to be going great as we hack and slash some trolls, but once we get to the first boss encounter, we realize there's a problem.
See, the first boss is a troll adorned in vestments that look like an eagle. He's able to summon the powers of the eagle god, which allows him to control a bunch of eagles to do his bidding, and lets him create violent lightning storms. In other words, when you engage him in combat, you get divebombed by dozens of brown eagles, one of your teammates will get picked up carried around by a giant albino eagle (with very pointy talons), and then there's the occasional deadly storm.
We were doing great until it was storm time. During the storm summoning, he'll lift one teammate into the air as a "lightning rod" to draw the storm's power to the surrounding area. If you aren't directly below the hapless floating teammate, you're going to get fried.
Our healer and another team member failed miserably and got roasted... not once, but TWICE. This led to the rest of the group not getting any heals, leading to lots of dead bodies around a happy eagle man.
After the second wipe, the tank and another member bailed. I followed suit.

So I tried again.
11 minute queue this time, which was quite refreshing.
We die no more than once on particular bosses, but the first boss fell like cake to a fat kid.
Some people go, some people come... by the last boss, the only original members were me and the healer.
I might also mention that I had lost every loot roll to that damn healer, who didn't even NEED it as a healer. He just wanted it for his damage-dealing set. Me on the other hand... I play a hunter. All I can DO is deal damage, therefore I should have had first priority. That's proper WoW etiquette right there, and when you do win at least 2 rolls, you usually pass the third so the the other person gets something. Nope.
But I was willing to let that slide. WE WERE AT THE END!
We jumped into the battle, and unfortunately we wiped. We tried again and...
DISCONNECTED.
We all log back in swearing and cursing, and I just shut off World of Warcraft and storm upstairs with my tray of polymer clay.

So here's where the productivity actually begins.
I was really bummed that I had wasted nearly 3 hours in that darn dungeon, but I had tons of clay before me.
IT WAS TIME TO CREATE!
So I decided that today was the day where I'd finally try working on a larger scale. No little quarter-sized charms. I'm talking 3 inch tall figurines!
...okay, that's still quite small, I know. But you have no idea how much easier it was!
I really ended up enjoying myself, and it amazed me how much more detailed I could make my work.
When working on a small scale, it's easy to accidentally squish or deform the clay you're trying to shape. A perfect circle can easily become flat-sided with just a small amount of force.
When working on a bit of a larger scale, the clay is thicker, leading to less mess-ups. You can also attach parts a lot more easily since you don't have to worry about squishing something else in the process.
I ended up making a strange little quail popping out of a half-eggshell, a lily with two leaves that I want to turn into a pin, and a strange rooster.
I was overjoyed with the amount of artistic liberty working on a larger scale gave me, and immediately popped them in the oven the moment I was done making them.

Even better... while I was working, I got a phone call from the person who had posted the job listing for the part-time nanny job.
He told me that the position was already filled since it was posted more than a week ago. He had, however, read my email and noticed that I live in the same town, and that proximity was of high importance. If things with the person who currently holds the position don't work out, he said he would definitely give me a call.
So, I didn't get the job... but I am basically next in line if anything goes wrong.
And who knows? Maybe the nanny can't show up one day, and they need somebody on short notice... it could happen, and I could work for the day!

So today, progress has definitely been made.
I have a faint hope of getting a nanny job, and I made some interesting clay pieces!
They're currently sitting upstairs unglazed, but that'll change tomorrow.
Best of all, though... Tomorrow Jon comes for the weekend!!!

That's all for now! Time for sleep, at last...

Productivity Week - Progress by Day 3

A quick update on the progress I've made this week... so far, at least!

Things I've done:
- Glaze clay items
- Look at Craigslist to find some possible jobs
- Make a resume
- Apply to 2 jobs
- Photograph new clay items and Jon's LOST DVD sets
- Post LOST DVD sets on Ebay
- Post clay items on Etsy
- Upload birthday photos to Picasa and Facebook for relatives

Things I still want/have to do:
- Go through old notebooks to find drawings to edit on the computer
- Try to make sprites for a plant for Creatures 3
- Try making larger clay pieces
- Make something for next month's April's Army charity sale
- Post my daily progress on this blog! DERP!
- Try drawing on paper again
- Hook up tablet and try drawing on the computer again

- Read a book

Productivity Week - Day 3

Okay, so Day 3 was yesterday.
Yesterday was pretty busy and stupid at the same time, but I did get a little bit done in terms of the list. I also made some strides on a more personal level.

I woke up at 11am, don't ask why. I don't have a clue either.
I had a 1:45pm appointment with my psychiatrist, so I had breakfast... err, lunch... brunch.... yeah, and got washed up and ready to leave.
My psychiatrist appointment went really well.
No, I'm not crazy.

I've been seeing a psychiatrist since I was 16, when I got tested for a multitude of learning disabilities and my IQ after complaining of having trouble at school.
I initially was diagnosed with pretty intense ADHD, inattentive type. I was referred to psychiatrist for both therapy and medication, but within a month I was sent to the hospital for a heart ultrasound. Needless to say, ADD meds did not get along with me, and did some crazy things to my heart rate. The chest pains were pretty bad too.
About a month or two later it was apparent that my problems were worse that imagined... I had severe major depressive disorder, the fancy name for depression. Therapy and psychiatrist visits became more frequent, I had to take and test a lot of medications, I had a brief stint in a psychiatric hospital, blah blah blah.
Eventually my psychiatrist retired, but he felt horrible for not being able to cure me. I was referred to a new and younger female psychiatrist, and she had an idea to try a medication that tackled two different neurotransmitters. During the summer of 2008, I was finally cured.
Of course, having lived a portion of your life with depression still has some lasting effects.
My life's timeline often confuses me because your mind simply deals with memory differently when you're depressed. You remember a lot of the horrible things, but can't remember any good things. You still have lingering emotions that emerge when reminded of the past. Most of all, it's hard to figure out who you truly are when you find yourself again.

I see my psychiatrist a lot less often now, only once every two weeks. She is more of a mentor now, and I look to her for advice regarding my troubles in life. She's the one who has really pushed me to find a job, and this week was no different.
This past month we have been working on two things: reducing my medication, and figuring out what is holding me back from moving forward.
I've dropped my medication from 250mg to 200mg, and am going to now reduce it slowly over the next two weeks to 150mg. There have been no adverse affects, so I'm delighted that I might be able to live without medicine. I've been taking the same medicine for 3 years, and I'm glad to see that something has changed in me.
We also had a long talk yesterday about why I am so hesitant to get a job and move forward in my life.
A lot of people think psychiatry is bullshit, but they really know how to bring out emotions that you subconsciously have buried in the back of your mind. They ask tough questions you've never thought to ask yourself.
Through talking I realized that the thing holding me back is an intense fear of failure.
After dealing with depression and problems in school and college, I really am scared of not being good enough. I'm scared of not living up to my parents' expectations, and embarrassed in front of my friends, family, and peers.
The worst part is that the more I fail, the more I start to believe I'm a failure. That makes me feel like my only option is to give up.
The thing is, I WANT to move forward in life. It's like two sides constantly warring...
If I put myself out there, get a job, go to work, there is a chance that I'll be happy and successful. There's still that fear of doing horribly and getting fired, though. I've failed in the past, haven't I? That's what my mind keeps saying...
So this week I have to really try and shut out those doubts. I need to try instead of saying that I will try, and putting it off because of fear.

I came back home at 3pm, feeling better having been able to uncover that fear. I vowed to face that fear... later in the day. At least it wasn't later in the week.

I hopped on World of Warcrack... err, Warcraft, to test out the latest patch release.
It was a lot of fun, and we were on the second to last boss in the new Zul'Aman dungeon when we all got disconnected.
When all my group members logged back on, to our horror we were no longer in a party together, meaning we would be kicked out of the dungeon.
A lot of swearing took place, and we all dejectedly said goodbye to each other knowing that we had done a huge portion of that dungeon all for nothing.
I managed to leave with a shiny new piece of wrist armor and a ring, but the other people weren't as lucky.
That was the end of my little gaming break.

At about 6:30pm I finally decided to keep to my word, and I checked Craigslist for local jobs.
I have to admit, I had a bit of a panic attack.
All of the jobs had an experience requirement, a degree requirement, or just were jobs that I wouldn't ever want to do, like line cook or telemarketer.
In my panic I realized that I didn't have a resume. Thankfully Jon sent me his, which I used for a template to make my own. (Thank you Jon! <3)
I managed to find two jobs to apply to: a local part-time nanny job, and Crumbs Bakery.
I submitted my resume, and am awaiting a reply. Yay!
So that's 4 jobs that I've applied to... Gamestop, Barnes & Noble, Crumbs, and a nanny.
Let's hope I hear back from someone soon...

So that's about all for Day 3.

Productivity Week - Day 2

Being productive isn't very easy this week...

I woke up at about 9:30am this morning, and was feeling pretty zombie-like.
I had an 11:20am doctor's appointment, so went and got washed up, had breakfast, and listened to music during the 20 min drive.
The appointment went well, and we got out at about 12:25pm. From there we went immediately to my sister's school to pick her up, then back home.

Let me tell you... today was BEAUTIFUL outside.
It was a comfortable, sunny 78 degree Fahrenheit day, so I decided that today would be perfect for taking photos.
I photographed all of my new clay items except for the snocones, which needed another layer of glaze. (I'm still unsure if it'll work, or start another chemical reaction over time... It seems to be working, but who knows how it'll be the next morning.)

By the time I was done taking photos, I was exhausted from the bright sun, heat, and just being awake.
I plopped down on the bed downstairs at about 2:30pm, and took a nap...
...only to wake up at 6:30pm.
You can just imagine my dismay when I found out I had slept 4 hours of the day away. (Too many unintentional rhymes, ahh!)
After spending some time with my family, I ran downstairs to my laptop and began the tedious process of posting things on Etsy.

You can see the new listings over at my Etsy shop right now!

Mmm, delicious!

That just about wraps up Day 2 of Productivity Week.

Got another doctor's appointment tomorrow, so probably won't be accomplishing anything major tomorrow either. 

Ah well, such is life.

Productivity Week - Day 1

Well, it's REALLY been getting to me that I basically do nothing all day. Obviously complaining about it isn't going to do me any good, so I've decided to push myself to be productive this week. In a way I'm testing the waters by trying different things, and in a way I'm just trying to prevent myself from feeling any more useless.

So! Today was the first day of my Productivity Week.
I didn't do too much today, but at least I got something done.
My day started out with having to drop Jon back off at UNH, so by the time we made it home, it was about 11am.
I only got about 6 hours of sleep last night because my crazy and restless mind wouldn't stop its nonstop train of thoughts, keeping me from falling asleep for a while. As a result, I was dead tired when I got home. I tried to stay awake as long as possible, but ended up passing out until 2:30pm.
When I woke up I immediately set up my laptop to play music, and got to work on something I've been putting off for a while... glazing my latest batch of clay goodness.

Glazing seems simple, but it's really a pain in the rear.
You paint the glaze on one side of the clay piece, put it down, wait for it to dry, flip it over, glaze the other side, wait some more... and usually you have to put a second coat on, or fill in parts that you might have missed.
In other words, it's time consuming, and best to do when you have a lot of things to glaze. That way you glaze a bit of one piece, move to the next, and just continually rotate through all of them until they're finished being coated.
Unfortunately I was a bit impatient, and got myself in a few... sticky situations. (Pun totally intended.)
I flipped over pieces that weren't completely dry, had to glaze over a few fingerprints from touching wet glaze, and basically had glaze-coated thumbs by the end of it all.

Overall, everything came out okay except for my snowcone earrings.
I tried glazing the tops of the earrings and dipping them in salt for realism, but it seems that the salt and glaze had some weird chemical reaction rather than dry together.
The glaze is now cracking off and has become greasy. Definitely not good.
Unless I can get some glaze on top of the layer of glaze/salt mix and get it to dry, they're most likely not going in the shop.

At 8pm I was finally done. (I had spent some time talking to my boyfriend as well, so I really wasn't working for 6 hours straight... that would be brainmelting.)

So that's about it for today.
Some other things on my list for this week...

Things I NEED to do:

- Look at Craigslist to find some possible jobs
- Photograph new clay items and Jon's LOST DVD sets
- Post LOST DVD sets on Ebay
- Post clay items on Etsy
- Try drawing on paper again
- Hook up tablet and try drawing on the computer again

Things I WANT to do:
- Go through old notebooks to find drawings to edit on the computer
- Try to make sprites for a plant for Creatures 3
- Try making larger clay pieces
- Make something for next month's April's Army charity sale
- Post my daily progress on this blog! DERP!

That's all for now. Sleepy time for Maddie...