It’s been a rather crazy week and my brain is a bit scattered, so I thought I’d just babble about what’s gone on.
1) Dolores O’Riordan’s death hit me very hard on Monday. She was one of the formative artists of my adolescence. I wrote a tribute for her on Facebook and Instagram, so I won’t repeat it here, but I will say that she’s one of the only celebrities whose death has hit me on such a personal level. I admit, I cried. And I put on the first album of hers that I owned and danced. Jason changed his mind about his special birthday dinner and instead put on an Irish dinner as a send-off (she was pretty important to him, too).
2) San Antonio had another of those bizarre winter storms. We got down to into the teens for temps, which is so unusual that I don’t think I’ve ever seen it happen in all my years living here. There was freezing rain on top of that, encasing the cars in ice and basically shutting down the city. Snow was predicted but it never came to my part of the city. Just black ice, which is no fun. The boys were home on Tuesday because of it, and barely made it to school on Wednesday.
3) Ever since early high school, there are three times of year that seem to hold particular mental health struggles for me. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize that this is depression and anxiety spilling out from early trauma that’s been stored in my body. Mid-January is one of these times. The date is flexible, but it’s often January 17th that I fall apart. I don’t know which particular trauma caused this particular trigger. I just know that every year since I was 15 or so has blindsided me around this date. No different this year. I did not feel well already on the 17th because I was nervous about all the ice. Then I was home alone, dealing with anxiety, and I fell apart. Hard. I spent the rest of the week trying to deal with the lingering anxiety and fear. It probably doesn’t help that my doctor just changed the dose of my medication. I’ll adjust, no worries.
4) Jason won an Amazon Echo Show at work this week, so we now have an Alexa to hang out with us, haha.
5) My middle son starts driver’s ed tomorrow. !!! My oldest will hopefully start in April, provided he’s cleared for it (he has some mental health issues that have prevented him so far).
6) My youngest son has started doing yoga with us this week!
7) OUR HOUSE IN WISCONSIN SOLD!!! We found out late Friday evening that everything had gone through. Since it’s all being done through a third party (the relocation company), we didn’t know when it would happen, though we’ve been in progress on the whole thing for a while now. I hadn’t wanted to mention it publicly until it actually went through. So many crazy things happened around the sale of this house and I’m so relieved that come February 1st, we’ll only have one house payment due. Maybe now we can start working on getting out of credit card debt and back on level footing after four years of moves! Yay! We celebrated all day yesterday – family Wii bowling, library (where I got to sit with the book club for a bit!), Half Price Books, then a movie at one of those places that serve you dinner during the film. We saw The Post, which was excellent. And I’ve now officially seen more films in theatre this month than I usually do in a year. Heh. Today we need to go back to budgeting hard, but it was really nice to have a day to celebrate.
The Zen Leaf 
So awesome about your house selling! And I wish I were there to go with you to book group — which library did you go to?
I went to see The Post on Thursday and there was a base-wide power cut about 10 minute in! The screen went blank, then we had audio only. They tried to reboot but they had to give everyone refunds. Of course the movies changed the next day so I’ll have to wait until it comes back around for the second run. Harrumph. But I’m glad you got to see it and enjoyed it.
LikeLike
It was just Semmes. We were only planning to pick up holds but I got there about ten mins before the club ended and they were reading a book I’d read (Alif the Unseen) so I joined. Randi is leading the group, and Carlos was there! So maybe I’ll continue going next month, even though weekends are often hard for me on time. As for your movie experience – gah! How often do they change the films? I miss you here Karen!
LikeLike
Congratulations on one mortgage payment again!! That has to be a HUGE relief to not have that burden hanging over your head anymore.
LikeLike
It is! I found out we might still have to pay February’s payment, but even still, to just have it done with after that will be great.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh wow, I’m so happy for you all that the house sold! That must feel like heaven.lol. I think it’s fantastic the kiddos do yoga thats so bomb! Have a great day and thank you for the great content as normal!
LikeLike
It’s so funny to watch him do yoga because he complains the whole time, haha!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lmao life has it’s little bonuses!
LikeLike
Congratulations on the sale of your house!! It’s interesting the 17th is a negative date for you. July 17th is an awful day for me. I have another friend who said June 17th is always a terrible day for her.
LikeLike
Huh. Maybe the 17th is the new 13th. 😀
LikeLike
Wohoooo, congratulations on selling your hose, that must have been such a relief! And you celebrated it well, I see 😀 Very cool!
Not so cool about the storms and snow.. ugh.. I can’t imagine it at the moment. We are having a couple of over 40 degree days here in Melbourne and then the next day it drops 20 degrees.. it’s all over the place! Perfect headache-weather -.-
My parents in Germany had a really bad storm last week as well… A brick landed on their car window and smashed it and school was off for the kids as well. The storm was so bad, people were literally flying off!
LikeLike
I have a friend who lives in Melbourne who complains about the weather especially in spring, because he suffers terrible hayfever. The rollercoaster temps are what always do me in! And that German storm – wow! That’s crazy!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m sorry – I can’t get over the fact that your boys are old enough to drive now. Where did the time go???
Congrats on getting your house sold! That must be such a relief!
I’m sorry this time of year has you feeling awful. I actually had our picture come up on my FB ‘memories’ a few days ago saying that it had been 3 years around this time that we met. ❤ Love that.
LikeLike
I had that memory come up too! It was definitely a bright spot that January. I don’t think I had a crash that particular year because my situation was already so awful. I remember your visit as being one of the only good things to come out of the month.
LikeLike
That’s great that you sold your house. 🙂
LikeLike
It really is such a relief! We’re hoping to get all the paperwork done quickly to get any money back from the sale and get the budget reorganized!
LikeLike