anxietyandstress

Thanksgiving is only two days away, so I guess I can list some things that I’m thankful for, although I’d much rather whine and complain.

1.  The Judge retired today (and I behaved myself at the luncheon).

2. That I have enough money to eat. I may not have as much money as I want, or a tiled shower, but I am well-fed.

3. That my anxiety and phobia have been tolerable this year and I’ve had less than 10 panic attacks since January.

4. That my dog is healthy.

5. That my husband still hangs around.

6. That my family is still there for me and healthy, and things seem to be looking up for my brother.

So that’s my list for the year. I’m going to visit my parents for Thanksgiving, and then we’re doing Black Friday shopping. I can’t wait - it’s the one time of year when I love the pushing, angry mob in front of the Best Buy.

This week is going to be tough. I have to get through the Judge’s retirement luncheon without making catty remarks about him, I have to drive five hours to see my parents and get up at 4:00 am on Friday, I have to go to the casino and I can’t smoke there, and now I’m sick too. Sniff!

I’m not sure whether it’s allergies or a cold, but it’s miserable. The sinus pressure is terrible. I’m waiting for the bridge of my nose to explode clear off my face. I really hope it’s just allergies and will subside. I didn’t take anymore allergy medication though. I took some last night, and I was a zombie all day today. The big boss is coming to our office tomorrow, and I can’t be walking around with an allergy hangover.

I guess I’ll take it one day at a time. Step one includes getting through the retirement luncheon without saying anything mean within earshot of people who could hold me in contempt.

My husband and I started putting the Christmas tree up yesterday, and we’re going to finish decorating it today. It looks like I’ll have plenty of time to do that since ChaCha is completely dead. I’ll never get my 200 questions this week with the Thanksgiving holiday.  I just need to do ChaCha until the shower is paid for, so I would love if the system could just cooperate for a little while longer.

My allergies are driving me nuts again today. I can’t believe that I’m still sniffling and sneezing in the middle of November. It’s gotta be because I quit smoking. I guess it could be worse….I could be having a panic attack.

Gonna go wait for ChaCha now.

This week was extremely long. I’ve been very stressed because of the shower expense, and work has been crazy. The Judge we have is due to retire next Wednesday, and he’s taking advantage of every opportunity to be a jerk to us. I keep telling myself I only have to deal with it for 3 more days. I’m getting my microderm done tomorrow morning, so I will be red-faced and unable to go out in public. That’s okay, my husband and I are going to put up our very first Christmas tree! It should be fun. After that, I’ll probably try to work some more.

ChaCha is improving a bit. I got about 40 questions tonight, which is a huge improvement. If ChaCha doesn’t work out, I may have to do pizza delivery, which I hear pays okay, but I know it’s somewhat dangerous. The reason I know this is because I’ve had several clients who have robbed the pizza delivery man. Well, maybe I could meet with them about their case while they’re sticking me up to get my pizza.

The tile guy just called us with the estimate to have the shower tile imported from Turkey and installed. I knew it was going to be bad, but not quite this bad. I thought it would be about $300 less expensive than it actually is. Since ChaCha is moving at the speed of a stalled freight train, I need to find some more money making ideas. I just want to take a shower in my own bathroom, is that too much too ask? Oh, and this price isn’t even counting the shower door. At this rate, I’ll shower without the dang door if I can just get the tile in and pay for it.

Still not smoking. It will be 6 months on November 29. I quit May 29, 2008 using Chantix. The Chantix made me feel nauseated for the first week, which really bothered me. I was eating Pepto-Bismol like candy. But the Chantix also made the cigarettes taste nasty, so it was easier to stop. I don’t think I could have quit initially without the Chantix, but I’ve been off Chantix for almost 3 months and still haven’t had a single puff. So that means I had something to do with it!

I’m convinced though, that quitting smoking has made my allergies worse. I’ve always had mild seasonal allergies, but this fall I’ve been sniffling and sneezing since September. I think it’s because I can actually smell things now, and unfortunately the things I smell bother my allergies, like cologne that’s too strong. Of course, the junkie part of my brain says to just start smoking again and the allergies will go away. Hmmm… after all I’ve went through to get where I am, I think I’ll go to the doctor to get info about allergy meds instead.

Work was NOT fun today. I’m a public defender in an overpopulated, underfunded county. Today, I was in court dealing with parents who have abuse and neglect cases open with DCFS. Even less fun. It was fine (well, same crap different day anyways) until I had my hearing this afternoon. It was a hearing so I could request that my client’s child be moved to a different foster placement. Now I know this kid’s foster placement is probably fine, and half of mom’s problem is that she hates the foster parent, but there are some minor problems with the foster home, so I file a motion. At the hearing, it becomes a 5 to 1 battle. The attorney for DCFS, the attorney for the foster parent, the State, the attorney for the dad, and the attorney for the kid, all ganging up on me. Okay, people - enough!! I understand my motion is crap, I understand that I’m going to lose, but is it too much for you to simply let me do my job and represent my client? I guess it is, because I spent two hours with the DCFS attorney and the foster parent’s attorney jumping all over me like white on rice.  Apparently they thought I had a chance at winning the motion - maybe they weren’t listening too closely. So I’m sitting here feeling like I’ve gone five rounds in the wrestling ring, getting beaten by five different opponents.  But I still haven’t smoked. It’s been close - I’m typing while chewing 3 pieces of gum with another pack of Extra beside me, but I’m still not smoking. Good for me.

Work was uneventful today. In fact, I could barely drag myself through the day. It’s such a Monday! And the fact that it gets dark so early now just saps all of my energy. I put in my eight hours at work, and hurry home so I can work on ChaCha and keep on paying for the shower. I’ve been on ChaCha for 90 minutes, and I’ve gotten two searches. Two!  Good thing that’s not the only thing I’m doing on the computer.  It’s starting to make me crabby. The ChaCha slowdown has been going on for over a week, and I can’t make any money this way!

I was talking to a friend at work who had recently quit smoking. I’ve been quit for almost six months, and she was telling me how she still has problems dealing with her emotions. I think we have problems dealing with our emotions because we used cigarettes to blunt them since we were teens. You know - You get mad, you have a cigarette. You have a bad day, you have a cigarette. You finish a task, you have a cigarette. A lot of smokers (EX-smoker for me, thank you) never learned how to cope with their emotions in any way other than having a cigarette. So not ony do I have to deal with the physical and psychological addictions, I also have to learn how to react like a normal human being without cigarettes. Oh well. No one ever told me this was going to be fun. At least that explains why I’ve been so dang crabby on and off since my quit date. I thought I was just turning into a hag.

I’m not doing much today. My husband is gone for a seminar that starts tomorrow, so it’s just me and the dog at home. I have great intentions of doing 200 ChaCha searches today. For anyone who works for ChaCha, you are probably laughing uncontrollably right now, but keep in mind that I’ve got all day long!! Even though the system is moving along at the speed of a turtle. Currently, I’m making about $200 per month on ChaCha, although that may change with the recent system issues. I’m using my ChaCha money to pay for the shower. Since the shower is going to end up costing a mint, I need every ChaCha search that I can get. I also need to keep my Top Guide status.

ChaCha’s not hiring right now, but they will be soon, I think. ChaCha is a human powered search engine that allows people to text in questions on their mobile phones, and Guides find them the answer and send it back via text. If you want to work from home and make a little extra money and you don’t mind answering endless sex questions from 13 year olds, ChaCha may be a gig for you. The ChaCha doorbell is ringing, I need to answer someone’s burning question about whether sharks blink.

Well, obviously I haven’t been keeping up with this blog. My bad. I am going to try to do much better.  Things have been crazy around the house lately. The toilet has been fixed, but we’re still working on our other project, the shower, and we’re hitting every possible bump in the road. We went to order tile for the shower, and picked out the only tile that came close to matching our bathroom. The salesman tells us they don’t have enough of that tile, but they’re only a little bit short. I ask them if they will check other stores, and they agree. Then I get a call from them saying that they found my tile, and it will cost another $200, and they found it in Turkey! Turkey!!!! It would be just my luck that the only place I can find this tile is halfway across the world.

So my husband and I went to the tile store to pick out some different tile, because we didn’t want to spend $200 to get it from Turkey. Of course, I’m at the tile store nearly in tears over this whole project. Everything has gone wrong at every turn, and I haven’t had a shower in my bathroom for 5 months. After I had a near meltdown in the store, my husband finally said that we would just pay the $200, because we couldn’t find anything close to matching. The tile is currently on order, from Turkey!

At least we can tell our friends that we have high quality imported Turkish tile in our shower.