unreasonably rational

This is when I could be doing school work. Or I could be telling you how easy it would be for me to slide back into work as usual and forget about trying to find a new job... But instead, I want to tell you about my files. I've been cleaning them out. So today, I talked the Writing file. I glimpsed OCD here and there, particularly the honesty stuff - I was afraid of writing true stories because I might not get all the details right, but obviously the story is more pleasant with some details. And I can see that I was very into my spiritual life, whether part OCD (probably) or not. And then I got to my teenage years. During high school, in a letter never sent (possibly it is a copy and I sent the real one, but more likely I just never sent it, I wrote, "This is a week when I wish I was in heaven, not here on earth. I don't want to go on! But my Master wants me here." Yeah. Not a healthy sign. I feel cheated of a piece of my adolescence. I guess I'm a little ...

The sun and blue sky is so beautiful out today. Really, delightfully bright. I just finished my edited draft of my part of the research paper. It is due on Friday, and I will be relieved to have it turned in where my OCD mind can stop fretting about plagiarism. This time, I'm pretty sure it is OCD, even though it doesn't feel that different from last time. But there is a big difference. Thus far, my fellow team members (and this is a smaller group, so there are just two others) have proven to be good workers and the sort of people you want on your team. But I started worrying even about my own writing (and why am a surprised yet again?). Check the sentence. No, recheck the sentence. No, check it one more time. For the most part my OCD leaves numbers alone, but there is something easier about stopping after the third time. Perhaps I should attack that habit. How, by checking four times? Because once I've done three, I've done three and I can't undo it. Second thoug...

It has been quite the second half of a week. A disagreement at work, getting my hours significantly reduced, looking for a new job. Great, just great. Just what I wanted, more stress in my life. Right now. I did enjoy having Friday off. I worked on a number of stressful things, but I still felt more rested when I got up Saturday morning than I usually do after working Friday. So hopefully that will help. And, mysteriously enough, I'm even getting excited to work again Monday with my little kids. On a positive note, I rented a plot in a community garden! I live in an apartment, so I'm really excited about this opportunity. It is a 4x8 foot raised bed, and I can plant corn (doesn't always grow well here, but it is pretty) and carrots and peas and beans and lettuce and flowers! I love flowers. In a lazy kind of way, since I usually don't go out of my way to work with them. But this summer, I'm going to have a garden! This should also help with socialization. I...

Issue 1: Well, I "should" be working on my research paper. Hey, I don't even have to write the whole thing, because it is a group paper. And I've started it. Then I got this brilliant idea to ask the other two members of my group to upload what they had so far, and I uploaded mine. The good news? They had something; they were started. This paper should be a success. The bad news? I quickly concluded that they were doing better research and better writing than I was. I haven't touched my paper since. Oh, well. The paper will still be there tomorrow (and even if the paper isn't, the deadline still will be). Or in a "few" minutes when I get around to it. Issue 2: I was asked to fill in and play guitar and sing with the worship team on Sunday, yesterday. I did. Technically (i.e., Wednesday night last when I agreed to do that), I'm happy to help, happy to serve, and even enjoy playing with a group. Practically, it was not pleasant. I was havin...

My biggest problem with taking naps in the middle of the day is not that I might not fall asleep as soon when night comes. Because that has been hit or miss. And besides, loosing an hour or two at night in place of an hour or two in the day doesn't sound too bad (and that is as much as would likely happen). No, my biggest problem is getting upset with myself and simultaneously anxious about not getting to sleep, often resulting in not even trying to go to sleep. Yup, those are my problems. Oh, and sometimes feeling half asleep/out of touch with reality afterwards. So yes, I took a nap today and have almost forgiven myself. But how do you change your opinion of yourself? "Self, I'm okay with your taking a nap." - well, my brain was okay with it, but not my emotions. "Self, I'm not upset with you for taking a nap." - That isn't true! Afraid I can't change my feelings about myself by snapping my fingers. Now, a glittery wand might be a differe...

  Above is my "girls' room." I hope to put a crib in for the baby. The new additions to this are most of the playmobile (bed, shelf, guinea pigs and cage), the sponging on the walls, and the "carpet," as well as the mirror, which hasn't been attached yet. It blends in more than I wanted it to, though, so there is a chance I'll find a different mirror to stand out a tad more.   This is the master bedroom. The recent changes are the carpeting and the bed. I didn't make the bed; it came that way from the dollar store. They have other furniture there, too, but it is all to a different scale (I don't know why the bed is a different scale, but hey, it worked out well for me).  Here is the new couch! I finished it last night. Below, you can see it in a couple scenes. I'm planning to make a loveseat to match, and maybe even an arm chair. The loveseat is already started.

I think that I'm coming down from my near two weeks worth of nervous energy. I'm tired, and have been most of the time, but now it isn't offset by nervous energy. It is offset by reading blogs, though. So I guess that makes me a bit happy. I tried doing my writing ERP exercise yesterday on the scrupulosity issue, but was unsuccessful at making my anxiety rise. I really just wanted to move on to something else. I think that is a good problem. Hopefully I've pretty much won this round with the OCD monster. And with the quoteless quote fiasco in the past, and the last two days at work not having so many kids, well, life is almost peaceful. As long as depression doesn't swoop in. I'm also cleaning out files. I'm not sure why that activity attracts me more than my dollhouse activity, except that I feel more successful at it. My dollhouse couch pieces are sitting on the fake buckskin, waiting for me to risk messing the whole project up by cutting into the fabr...

I was doing a little research on emotional abuse and have come to this opinion; OCD is emotionally abusive. Talk about showering someone with guilt and shame, holding unreasonable expectations, demeaning a person, manipulating, lowering their self esteem, etc. That OCD monster is really a bad character. On to other subjects. The group project FINALLY resolved the word-for-word quoteless quoting problem, at least the areas that I recognized. Is it a superior example of research? No. It is in the grey area on taking quotes to support its theory - a number of articles had information on both sides of the issue, and were quoted on the information on the chosen side. But at least some of that as well as the word-for-word unquoted quotes were fixed. Now for the grade... But really, now for forgetting about it. I'm done, okay? The scrupulosity issue... well, I filled out my FAFSA, which was another exposure. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. And I'm planning a writte...

Life is an ongoing exposure right now. First, there is the scrupulosity issue from last week. I thought I had already won the issue, until Sunday evening, when I was crying on the couch, feeling like going to jail would be better than living with a "guilty" conscience. In the moment, I wondered if all the anxiety I had been feeling was my guilty conscience, if maybe I really had sinned, if I should try to fix my "sin". Or if it was OCD. There were a few clues that it was OCD; the urgency; OCD guilt is very urgent, makes putting it aside very, very unappealing. And... well, the anxiety felt very much like anxiety, straight, chemically related anxiety. I actually went ahead and called a friend. I wasn't too worried about it giving me assurance; I asked for confirmation of my foundational assumption that most Americans would think what I had done was fine. She gave me that. But she also talked about times she had felt guilty and treated it as real guilt... it e...

And now for venting. You know how much I worry about plagiarism with my beloved OCD companion. But then I get to help proof-read for my group's work. And there were a number of unquoted quotes. That makes me kind of really angry. Really, cowriters? Don't you care about citing quotes right? Aren't you at all afraid of getting an F if we plagiarize? Don't you think blatent quotes should be blatently quoted? Well, I guess I can give you credit for not switching two words out and calling it a paraphrase. But please, please, please, please, please put in those quotes. Do I need to check every statement in here? Because I can if I need to, but I shouldn't have to. Writers, an accidental quote, that is what a proofreader should catch, not repeated, word-for-complicated-word quoting without quotes. That is your job! So now I'm worrying because I didn't go through and check every single sentence for unquoted quotes. Instead, I asked the group leader to have the w...

It has been a stressful week, and I think I'm feeling it. It was a week of triumphs, but that doesn't translate into an easy week. Despite the fact that most of my tax papers and files have been returned to their places, and the fact that I got through one of my biggest intentional exposures, I'm tired. Some of it probably would be there anyway. Who knows, maybe all my tiredness would be here anyway. But maybe being so tired after such victories feels like a letdown. I washed my dishes again today, maintaining the miracle that started last Sunday when I cleaned them all up. I cleaned half my bathroom (I usually do it in fractions), cleaned my guinea pig's cage, vacuumed, and took the garbage out. All minor miracles, emphasis on the miracles part. But I still feel done in. Maybe like I let my stress level get too high so that the depression could sneak back in. That, of course, wasn't my goal, but seems to possibly be the result. Of course, I know that high stres...