Art & Life of SwarDrawS

Exactly a week before she turns 7, Miss Hollace lost her first tooth. I tried to prepare her that she might see blood but don't fret.

It happened at school. She knocked it out with her tongue onto her desk. There was some blood and she did cry but she said that was because it hurt just a little.

It is now sitting under her pillow waiting for the tooth fairy.

Tonight I was trying to make it to my first Weight Watcher's meeting. I thought they had a meeting at 7pm but it was really 7:30 so I went home. I would of got home after Hollace went to bed and since she lost her tooth it was special.

Now I got to remember to be the tooth fairy before I go to bed tonight. Oh and I will try again with the WW next Monday even thought it is Hollace birthday

Posted by swardraws at 09:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Never underestimate the powered of a little exercise for your state of mind. I have been walking on my new treadmill for several weeks. I try to walk every day. Yesterday I was feeling a little overwhelmed with all that I needed to do (had to create, print, trim, address and mail Hollace's birthday invites) I skipped my 30 minute walk.

Last week was that time of month and I was surprised that I didn't get moody or paranoid like I have been lately. I credit the exercise. Today however I am in a funk and I blame that on the lack of exercise.

Seriously though I have been in a low level funk for awhile. I have been feeling overwhelmed with nonsense. I have a to do list a mile long. Most of it is projects I put upon myself, not something I have to do. I really need a redesign of my website and the Artworks one. Hmmm, I can't remember any other things on that list right now (I am at work, not home).

I desparately want to hook up with a therapist to help with coping stuff and for social anxiety and to help Hollace follow my lead. I can't find the list that the work therapist gave me so I guess I have to go throught that process again which I shouldn't complain, it is 6 free therapy sessions. Maybe anti depresants are the answer. I so really don't want to go there but I have a feeling it could be the answer to everything.

I think we all at home are in a rut. I need to light a fire under RAW to get some of these house projects done. He is wasting valuable time while Hollace is at school to do something. I am starting to feel resentful so i better open the lines of communication now.

Posted by swardraws at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here I am wasting time again, valuable weekend late night time. I can only write so many lists on what I should/could be doing but I ignore them. I feel safety in my lists. I realized the other day that I spend a lot of time thinking up ways to self improve myself. Right now I feel like I can't focus, I can't. I feel like I have adult ADD but I really thing that is a lame cop out for adults or at least in my case.

I need to learn how to meditate without falling asleep. I need to find that list of therapists the work "therapist" gave me. I need to do something. I am sure I could stand some medicating. Is there a personality pill?

[tangent....I just realized I don't even know the url for this blog anymore, what is it? ;-)]

Anyway let me step off the deep stuff for a moment to fill you in on the 2 weeks of 2006.

After a cold snowy December, January has prematurly awaken spring fever in me. I don't thing we have spent one day under freezing yet and one day last week was 57! I also spent the first two weeks of 2006 thinking I was dying (oh wait, about to get deep again).

All of December my fat self ate with reckless abandon all the holiday treats. Pretty much 10 lbs worth. I am now 20 lbs short of where I was before I lost 90 lbs a few years ago! Makes me sick. In December I got heartburn pretty regularily. I also began to notice that food seemed to get stuck in my esophogus. I wondered if only a month of acid reflex could damage my esophogus. You know what? I think I wrote about this already. Let me continue on where I left off.

Last Friday, seems things were worst so I called my doctor at lunch for an appointment. I was shocked that they could get me in with him on Monday. Usually to see him and not someone else in the office, you wait. Anyway I fretted all weekend that there was no way i can get out of this situation without getting "scoped", an upper GI. The whole idea freaked me out totally. I needed to rule out cancer like killed uncle Dale. I started to recall shortly after his death, mom getting panic attacks and dad saying that she was all freaking about cause she thought she had a lump in her throat. I think now that I am experiencing exactly what was going on with her.

On Monday I went to Dr. Clark and said my esophugus is irratated and spasming. Actually that day I seemed to swallow just fine. He gave me a prescription for acid reflux blockers and said I could call this gastro guy and consult with him. Then he said I should probably do that regardless in which I assume was to take responsibily off of him in case it is serious.

I haven't had the problem since I seen the doctor and I now chalk it up to spasms from December's irritation as oppose to cancer. Since I don't have heartburn anymore, no more irritation, no more spasms. All is well again.

Tonight Hollace had a birthday party to go to at the mall. She said she had a great time but the boy's mother was worried that she didn't. I felt like Hollace was a burden at this party and actually cried when things didn't go her way. How I wish she wasn't a carbon copy of me. I have been wanting to fix me so bad to avoid her copying me but it is too late. So while I am trying to still fix me, I need to fix her too. Shit, where is that therapist list? I so wish I had social skills so I can teach Hollace social skills. I am so afraid she is starting to alienate kids her age. She said she hasn't played with anyone at recess lately because all they do is run around like "chickens with their heads off".

Hmmm, I just thoght of something. Carroll had Shannon in some kind of therapy playgroup to help her after her parent's nightmare divorce. That might be something to look in for Hollace. I think that and maybe a day or two in the after school program at school which is for parents who can't get to school in time to pick up their kids are in order. Hollace loves it when we have her there the two times we have.

RAW started a part time job this week. He is working at a car wash. Not big money to say the least but some spending cash. It is primarily a weekend job but that won't last long as he is going to need to get to Indiana and it will squash our summer camping thing.

I think I will close for now and email Carroll about the playgroup thing

Posted by swardraws at 11:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I suppose I should put a little down on Christmas this year (if you read the last post, you can see I just found another thing to procrastinate)

The weekend before Xmas, we went to Fort Wayne with a car sick Cloudy. Went to RAW's 2nd cousin's house for a family get together.

For the actual day of Xmas, we stayed home as usual. We went to St Bedes for Xmas eve service. We sat in the balcony whicch would of been nice if it wasn't for the 2 year old up there who if wasn't whining, was trying to jump from the edge. Oh that kid made me nervous, more nervous apparently than her mother.

Some of what Hollace got this year was an Easy Bake Over, her Pet Shop Playground (what she has been asking for for months), a Hot Wheels pirate track, a monkey baby puppet (she now knows that Santa shops at Rain Forrest Cafe) and Madagascar, the movie. I got RAW a lantern that he really likes. He got me a Russian, German, Polish cook book. Huh? I hate Russian, German and Polish food. Really the Kitchen Aid mixer was his gift to me and the surround stereo for the TV was my gift to him.

On Tuesday we headed out to Crown Point to see my side of the family. As usual, I didnt coordinate with my sisters. I had to go back to work on Thursday so Wednesday was the only day I got to hang with them.

Now that I am old, I stress out over comfortable sleeping arrangements. The last few times we went to my folks, we got a hotel (oh how grown up). This time we didn't. I brought the air mattress and bed and a down comforter and our own pillows and made the best of it. It wasn't too bad.

We left Hollace in Crown Point to hang with her cousins until they left on Saturday (yesterday). We picked her up when they passed throught town to go back to Wisconsin.

When we got home, we found that Cloudy knocked down the Xmas tree and broke a red bulb which I quickly swooped down on and photographed.

On Friday night me and RAW tried to take advantage of our childnessless and went to Red Lobster (mom gave us a gift certificate) then to Target to spend a GC I had from my birthday, then to Menards for a closet door for the computer room, the to Border for a GC that RAW had. Then finally to the video rental place. We rented Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie) Cute movie.

Last night was New Years Eve. I made the yearly cheese ball and cheese dip and grabbed our confetti sticks and rang in the new year fairily typical.

Posted by swardraws at 12:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am procrastinating writing my personal goals for 2006. All day I had that in mind. It is now after midnight and I am getting closer to writing it down. So close that I realized I haven't written in my blog for awhile. So here I am. As soon as I finish this I will write my goals.

I guess I can outline what I will write out here. First and foremost is to cut my nails! It sure is a bitch trying to type this entry out right now.

I bought a three subject notebook so I will section out my goals as this

Creative/Artistic

Family/Misc

For the creative/artistic one I really need to think about what I am doing with my photography and why. I am still addicted to Flickr but something is changing for me there. I signed up with nearly 200 groups there and just went through culling it down to about 20 groups. The Utata group is really the only group that fits me nice. They are the cool artsy crowd and I want to be associated with them. I really got to get with the quality over the quantity.

This year I really like to, need to, redesign Swardraws.com. I never update the site with anything except my Christmas cards once a year and my daily photoblog. For Hollace's page I need just link it to a Flickr set since that is the only place I update photos of her. For gossip page, I need to set up a blog that my family can log onto to post family news. My photoblog needs work. I still haven't dealt with the archive pages and I really need to. I am just not sure how much time I want to invest in it. I don't think anyone would notice.

With some Christmas money RAW's mom gave me, I found a nice kaleidoscope kit which as awaken the kaleidoscope bug in me. Could this be the year I get into it? At the very least I should do at least one more digital scope so I can have six in the series. With the rest of the money Dorothy gave me, I got a 7" DVD player. I will keep a copy of my kaleidoscope DVD in the bag to show. Speaking of which, I should check it out there to see how well you can see it. (second thing on the list after cutting the nails to procrastinate my list after this entry)

The biggest, most important category is personal/health. I am {} this close to regaining all the weight I lost a few years back. It makes me sick. I got a nice new treadmill a couple weeks ago that I still haven't touched. Now the holidays are over I will get on the thing and sweat, starting tomorrow, I promise. Also an eating plan is necessary.

For the first time ever, I am worried about my health and this extra weight. I have a bit of heart burn, not much or often but I suspect I have already caused esophogus (never tried to spell that word before) damage. I was kind of freaking out a couple weeks ago cause this was the downfall of my uncle Dale. He got cancer of the esophogus that spread to his liver before he knew anything was wrong. Acid reflux damage can cause cancer of the esophogus. RAW gets an upper GI every other year himself to keep an eye on his esophogus damage.

The other big part of the personal/health category is state of mind. I need to start meditating or something to help focus (I am hoping the treadmill will help here too). Work has been torture lately trying to focus and keep on task. Also I really need to crack down on the social anxiety thing. This year I hope to find a therapist to start seeing.

As for family/misc, there are a few resolution/goals for Hollace I need to help her work on. Eating is the biggest thing. We let her get away with poor eating habits and that is being irresponsible parents. I got to figure out how to make this as painless as possible. Another Hollace thing is a result of being an only. Socialization. That compounded with my social anxiety isn't a good combination. I need to get her out and experiencing new things and in playgroups or something. She is a chip off the old block, she is a clone and that scares me.

On Friday's, it will be family game night. I hate games and so does Hollace which makes us party poopers at parties. We will get over it.

The house. Are we going to sell this shack and move into something bigger. The thought of process to do that scares the hell out of me. Something else to get over in 2006

This the main jist of my list. There are lot of little things I need to get down. As soon as I quit this entry, trim my nails and check on that DVD, I willl work it all out on paper, I promise!

Posted by swardraws at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)