Zoloft and a little help from my friends!

These past few weeks I've been in crisis mode on more than one front. Then my brother Michael came to visit and took some of the weight off. I realized that when I'm in crisis mode, I can no longer think of new ways to make the little things better. It's just survive, not thrive—just get through it.

I think what we all need when we are in crisis mode and not thinking outside the box, is our people. Whoever they are, family or friends or both. We need them to listen and then softly peer into our lives and whisper, "Huh. I wonder if this might work?"

When Michael was in town, he went to see our family a bunch, taking lunches and dinners to Mom and Dad which was a big help. Because our guest "bedroom" is in our loft, he was (sadly) up as early as we were. Getting ManChild off to school starts at 5:30am. School starts at 7:25 and the carpool lane takes almost 30 minutes to get through. By Thursday night, we were all toast, none of us getting the necessary amount of sleep to optimally function. He left Friday morning and by then had dropped a half dozen ideas upon us:

Maybe we could wake up 45 minutes later if we made breakfast the weekend before and froze it. I'm thinking of these hash browns, egg, cheese, bacon muffins to start. He could eat a couple in the car while waiting in the carpool line! If we made ManChild's lunch the night before, that would speed up the morning as well—honestly things we had talked about before school started but being in panic mode made it impossible to even remember!

May we all learn to relax a bit and roll around in the grass like the Polar Bear:

Also, how can her legs be on one side and her head face the other way??

Another upcoming change is that I've decided to sell some of our goats. Don't worry, I will of course find really good, loving homes for them! So, the boys will both go, along with 5 of the 10 girls. We will stick with our OGs (original goats) Snickers, the sisters: Raven, Denali, Alaska, and of course Alaska's baby Tiny Dancer.

Know anyone who needs a beautiful baby making machine? Our buck Heart, is a registered and disbudded (no horns) Nigerian Dwarf and so very sweet. He's actually black and white but has this other uh...coloring...because it's the rut. Meaning he's peeing all over his beard to attract the girls. Gross I know but this is just what they do! He is Tiny Dancer's dad. I'm going to miss breeding goats and his silliness but maybe I'll get to come back to it someday. I feel very lucky to have gotten a Heart baby out of this year. He's pretty special.

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I never suspected I'd be the mom that had to tell her kid to stop doing schoolwork and go take a nap or play some video games—he's hard on himself. Hmmm...I know someone else like that too... A Colorado friend posted this:

Sigh. Yeah. I get that.

Like so many pandemic kids getting back to in-person school, ManChild got off to a rocky start for 9th grade but is slowly finding his groove. Before school started, we talked about how the first month is always a transition month and that we couldn't base a whole year on what the first month of school looked like. In the thick of it, we were just surviving, barely. The circles beneath his eyes were dark smudges, it made me sad to see.

But now it's starting to gel a bit. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. There are more smiles, less stress and anxiety. Yesterday because of the looming hurricane, schools closed. So, with last Monday's teacher workday, ManChild had a 3 day week. I was giddy with joy! He could sleep in! Have you ever heard the saying, "As a parent, you are only as happy as your saddest child."

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The other day I went out to do evening chores and found this:

Yep, that is naughty Sweetness on the outside of the pasture! OMG! He's upping his getting-into-trouble game lately! (Actually Brad forgot to chain the gate. I'm surprised that the horses weren't with Sweetness!)

He's started grabbing hold of Wynter's feed bucket, trying to knock it off the fence so he could have a meal too. Donkeys are really meant to eat scrubby stuff, not the rich food that Wynter gets because he's an old guy who needs some weight. Donkeys are also kinda like me, even look at chocolate covered cherry and gain weight lol  So Sweetness gets a few horse treats while the horses eat their meals but he doesn't get a bucket like they do. He is not happy with this situation!

So he's figured out other ways to get around my rules:

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Mom and me, 2016

My Mom got the news none of us wanted to hear: The chemo isn't working anymore, there are no more to try, the cancer has started to grow again. Palliative care is next, then hospice. The first goal is to get her back pain to calm down—she has DDD—Degenerative Disc Disease too. I have had so many people say, "When it rains, it pours." this past week. It can stop raining any time now.

It's funny, because usually I can write about things and feel better. It doesn't seem to be that way lately. It's that frozen brain thing. It's the grief thing. The anxiety thing. The depression thing. So, I saw my psychiatrist on Thursday. The one who's been helping me figure out the ADHD stuff. I went to talk about an SSRI.

I don't like medications, I'd rather deal with things naturally if at all possible—mostly this is because I'm super sensitive to medications. But with anxiety and depression popping up, it's time to look at something different. Enter Zoloft! The smallest dose in a pill is 25mg and since I usually take a quarter of the smallest dose I was planning on cutting that pill into teeny tiny pieces. Instead, the psychiatrist has given me a liquid version so I can see how much works for me, how awesome is that?! Another option is to ask if you can take it every other day—yes this will take longer for it to take the full effect but might be a good thing to try if you are super sensitive like I am. I'm thrilled that this woman is taking me seriously (which is why I only go see women doctors, it's more likely) and is helping me explore ways that drugs might help me feel better in the short term.

I'm pretty good now at having a good day and expecting another good day but not crashing if it's not. Rolling with the punches so to speak. What I was learning before all this hit, was, when I had a bad day—letting it wash over me and being okay with it. Knowing it was temporary. That was a newer skill, over the past couple of years. However, that skill is not working right now so I'm hoping that the Zoloft will help :-)

I already do therapy, have an energy worker, do neurofeedback, journal, exercise, paint, use essential oils, and take all kinds of good supplements—but currently life is overwhelming all that I do. If you have some new natural magic, please shoot me an email! And if you're the praying sort, the energy sending sort, the good thoughts sort, please send them my family's way! If you like to have names to pray for: my parent's are Judy and Stan and my aunt/my Mom's sister is Katy, my brother Michael, ManChild, B-Rad, and me :-)

MEMES OF THE WEEK:

This is my favorite this week! Haaaaa!!!!!:

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