How on earth did I get to this place anyway?

There is a concept called internal or external locust of control.  If you are a word collector, a more psychoanalytic way of saying this is alleplastic or autoplastic.  The both mean the same.  Do you feel a sense of control over your life and destiny (Internal locus of control or autoplastic) or do you feel as if life happens around you and are just a victim of your circumstances (external locus of control or alleplastic).

I think I have always felt that I pretty much get to decide what happens to me.  At least I did until I got diagnosed with MS.  Now I realize that the only thing I really and truly get to control is my response to given situations.  Of course, you can and absolutely should plan things.  Do what you can with what you have from where you're at every moment.  Then sit back and hope that all your ducks are in the right row and that the  best possible outcome will happen.  But also, expect that some of your ducks will wander into a different row and that something unexpected will change everything.  Hey!  It happens!

But this is supposed to be a blog about my journey up to now.  So make with the wavy Scooby doo backward-in-time-lines, and here we go again.

My first job in the "field"  was as a summer relief worker a Day Care Center.  The day Care was a part of the children's home run by my Dad.  He really struggled with having me work there (nepotism and all that), but I applied, and, Bob's your uncle, (Look it up, its a real expression), I was hired.  I got to be the  summer relief for the teachers and the cook while they were on their vacations.
 I started as an aid, then cooked for a month, and finally had my own classroom.  I think I was 20. The best things about that job were that I got to go to the pool everyday, so my hair was platinum blonde and I was so tan.  I have funny skin.  I am pretty white.  (Shockingly Caucasian.  I glow in the dark.)  But, I get a pretty good tan.  I guess I shoulda been born in California.  Here is me at my sister's wedding that summer.

Me and my sister,  She is the gorgeous one and I am the short one with the platinum hair and killer tan

  I also really liked being the cook, because I got first dibs on everything.  The real cook had planned the menu before hand and had super easy stuff for me to make.  We also got donations for afternoon snack.  It was usually stuff like peanut butter cracker or applesauce, but once we got boatloads of Twix Bars.  That was a little dangerous for me. I really like sweets!

The kids were the real best part of that job.  They were all cute.  I had a few favorites,  There were two sets of twins.  Both sets were boys.  One set were named T-Wani and D-Wani. We called them T and D and they were ALWAYS in some kind of trouble.  The little girls were no angels.  Once they were told not to put water in the sand tray, but the sand mysteriously got wetter and wetter.  The girls were taking big swigs of water in their mouths and spitting on the sand to get it wet.  EWW! But very resourceful!.  I have pages of pics of those kids.  they were all great kids.  I still remember their names even!  In hind site, I can see which kids were probably being neglected and which were potentially victims of abuse  It warmed my 20 year old heart when the kids asked to go home with me, but now I would see it as a pretty significant warning sign that maybe there was a reason they didn't want to go home.

It's funny to think of them now.  That was 32 years ago!  They are all grown up with kids of their own....  maybe even grand kids!
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Overall, I think the Day Care was a pretty tame intro into the world of direct service.  It gets a lot hairier when you see the big picture and become a little less naive about people's intentions
But that will have to wait til next time!

So til next time, farewell to social services until after graduation from UMKC.

A  life worthwhile

I struggle with the question of what makes a life worthwhile.  Or, more specifically, what makes my life worthwhile.

In college, my friends and I would buy The National Enquirer just to look for the most outrageous stories, (Years before the internet and Stumble Upon!).  I ran across a story about how much the human body is worth,  As in: how many precious metal and  minerals are in there or what could you get for selling all you internal organs.  Stuff like that.  And I know that car companies have a dollar amount designated for each human life so they can get a ratio of how worthwhile it is to recall a part on a car versus getting sued and paying settlements. And,  if you are Betty Grable, you can say that just your legs alone are worth a cool million!

So I guess, if nothing else, you can say that every life has a dollar value.But I am more concerned about what makes our conscious life worthwhile.  I absolutely believe that an alive person is worth more than a prematurely dead person.  I absolutely believe that everyone breathing the same air and having the same energy burning in their bodies is connected and contributing just because of those things.  I would tell my clients that very thing  I would tell the parents of a special needs child that very thing.  I have told people that had a son is killed in a gang shooting or who's sister is dying of MS because she has no insurance those very things as well.

So why am I different?  Who do feel the need to validate my existence with achievement and impact?
Sometimes, that is even what keeps me from writing! I rail against feeling that I "have to" in order to feel worthwhile!

So I have decided that I will stop trying to fight the the need to validate myself by reviewing small ways that I may have impacted on the world.

When I wrote my essay for grad school, I got all dramatic and soppy and wrote something about only needing to impact on one person to make the hard work of getting a degree worth the effort.  I'm surprised they let me in!  However, if I really felt that way, I have to see if I have made an impact n that one person, and if it was truly worth the effort.

So in future posts,  (to keep you in suspense,)  I am gonig tp review my life's work and identify interesting cases.

Have a writing goal gives me the motivation to keep it up, as well!

mid life crisis part 36

When I am not in front of the computer, the ideas are ready to be thought and placed on the page.  When the page is available, I can think of 25 (non-productive) thing I would rather do.

Today, I am just going to put words down in a free form way, and hope for the best.

I am completely aware that my weird sort of mid-life crisis is well underway and shows no sign of dissipating any time soon.  I am ambivalent about my practice, and I don't trust myself to become a writer.  I have to quit thinking that I can override the MS fatigue, the inability to walk, my numb hands,...my depression and become something or someone else.  I am not reinventing myself in the game.  I am prematurely exiting the game.  I am calling what is happening, an early retirement, but it is really, a physical and emotional inability to keep on keeping on.

So I am probably going to let the practice, as it exists now, die a lingering death.  So now what?  That the question and I am allowing the confusion and not-knowing-ness to be my current reality.

I am aware that a big chunk of the failure to thrive of my practice has everything to do with this attitude.  If I am not putting the intention and effort in making something happen, it won't happen.  The problem is, that I don't believe it will happen for me.  I believe that even if I put in a lot of effort to make it happen, that somehow, it wouldn't happen anyway.  I hear about therapist's who run into a perfect deal with a referral source, by chance, or they get recruited to a group practice or a dream job because they are so out there and so good at what they do.  That kind of thing doesn't happen to me.  Or maybe it does, but I'm not able to see it, because, maybe I'm really not the therapist I always hoped I was.


So who I am I without that role?  I have been attached to the role of "Therapist" for so long, that I am not sure who this new person is!  Maybe, I can reframe for myself and see this as an exciting new adventure into the unknown.  Or I could quit being sappy and just decide that I am tired and am just moving into a lazy ass resting mode.

I'm always going to wonder about a whole plethora of what ifs, missteps and wrong decisions along the way.  But the bottom line is, this is where I have landed.  It is not so bad.  Dana is successful enough that I no longer have to worry about how we will pay the bills.  Any fear or anxiety is all ego feeling as if I am not leaving my mark on the world. Or , at least, not a big enough mark,

I am going to quit with lingering doubt and anxiety and let thing play out.  You know, things have always been playing out.  Things are always beyond our control.

I like those quizzes on Face book.  You know, What state should you live in?  Which famous dictator were you in a past life?  and my fave Which Harry Potter Character are you?  I always get Luna Lovegood, even if I try not to!.  I stumbled upon  quiz on Stumble Upon that was a little different.  You were supposed to answer questions regarding how you would feel in a variety of situation.  The last question was "You are lost in a deep fog in the woods.  What would you  do?"  My response was, to move forward slowly and enjoy the mystery.  The question said your answer indicates how you feel about death.  I love my answer.  I am going to choose to use that answer , not just abut death, but about ythe rest of my life.

I am going to move forward slowly and enjoy the mystery of what comes next

Here are some pictures from DC, just as I promised!

Botanical gardens.  Ellen (who looks just thrilled to be there!), me and my Mom in full 70"s regalia

Me and the Capitol.  I am the one in red

Me, my Dad (My skinny dad,), and my brother ready to boogie board!

Me, my brother and Ellen in front of The White House

The Washington Hilton and pool

Just a word about these pics.  No doubt about it, I was thin and almost athletic looking, although I never was, and never will be that.  That red tee shirt, worn with gym shorts, (which were a stylish thing at the time!  I swear!), was from The Pooh Company which you may remember from earlier posts.  My hair was not always that blonde, but it got pretty bleached out every summer

I should be doing paperwork or something else productive for my private practice.  But, I have had so many conflicting feelings about my career, that I think I will save the heavy thinking for some other day, and write a little more about family vacation memories.

This one is from when I was 13, so the memories, while still probably not exact, are a little more fleshed out.  I have rather visual way of memorizing.  While it is not "photographic", it does recreate memories as little Super 8 films in my mind.  Maybe that is how everyone's memories work!

Our trip to Washington D.C. and the outer banks of North Carolina was memorable for other reasons as well

1).  This was our first family vacation without my sister.  She was working as a tour guide at the Capitol building and or was touring with the Lion's band (Marching band.  Not cool garage band btw).

2).  I have pictures from this trip

3). My Dad was working (sortof)

The reason we were in DC, was because my dad was a delegate to the General Synod, which is the  governing body of the United Church of Christ.  So he spent most of his time in meetings while we were there.  The conference was in The Washington Hilton.  It's claim to fame is that it is the same hotel that President Regan stayed when he got shot several years later.  The place was huge!  And it had a great pool.

One of the reasons I remember so clearly that I was 13, was due to an incident at that pool.  I was reading The Exorcist.  I was too young to see the movie, but I could read the book!  I was sitting on a lounge chair by the pool when this...hippie chick, I guess you might call her, came to sit in the next chair.  In hindsight, I am pretty sure she was under the influence, but maybe she was just a spaced out, in-the-groove kind of girl.  She was in a bikini that was a little too small and she lolled languidly on her towel.

She struck up a conversation.  She asked where I was from and I told her Jefferson City which she, of course had no clue where THAT was.  She asked what I was reading and when I told her, she said, "Wow! That's really heavy!"  I'm sure she made some small talk and then she asked how old I was.  "Your only 13? Wow!  You really have your shit together for only 13"  That was the nicest thing anyone ever said to me.  She talked some more about stuff I do not recall, but I do remember her telling me that I should meet her brother and that I would like him because he looked just like Jesus.

Because my Dad was working, sort of, my Mom, brother and I did all of the touristy things.  We were hanging with another women and her daughter.  I know the daughters name was Ellen because I wrote it one the back of some picture with her in it.  We went to The Smithsonian, the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, all the usual stuff.  I love that we were in an actual city because, despite it's name, Jefferson City is not one!

The rest of that trip accounted for our real vacation.  One where my dad didn't have to work.  For this phase, we drove to the outer banks of North Carolina.  We did some touristy things like visit Kitty Hawk, but mostly we hung out at the rental cabin by the shore and swam and hung at the beach.

I want to put up some pic, but the scanner is being obstinate, so look for them in another post.

I could write more about vacations and trip memories,but I am going in a different direction for awhile.  Be prepared to shift again!

 I already fell off the "write everyday" wagon.  Here is my excuse.  On Saturday, I actually saw client which took up most of the day and had me away from a functioning computer. Then we were trying to go to this Italian place for dinner. My car had a flat tire, so we were taking my husband's car.  I drive a Nissan Cube.  Don't laugh, it is really roomy on the inside.  Even my 6'2" father says it is easy to get in and out of that car.  We were driving the Honda Accord instead.  Significantly nicer, but not nearly as easy for me to enter.  When I was maneuvering my way in, my son (who has no trouble climbing in the back), slammed his door shut with my pinkie finger still in it.

It is amazing how many thoughts go through your head in a split second.  After the initial,"Oh my God!  What the...? That really hurt"  I thought, "Oh.  My pinkie is in the closed car door."  Then "I'd better not move, or I will break/tear off my pinkie"  The thought were not in any particular order.  they included "Damn, I wanted to go eat out." " Damn, I don't want to go to the hospital." " Oh look, my necklace fell off.  I'd better wait til my finger is free before I pick it up.".  I heard my husband yell at Eli to open the door, which he did.

When my finger was free, I got in the car and took a look at my poor little pinkie finger.  I was interesting to see it sticking out at a right angle to my palm. I reached down to smooth it back into place with my husband yelling "Don't touch it!"  But too late.  I pulled on it the tiniest bit and it really and truly just straightened itself out like a good little soldier.  I wiggled it around, bent it, and compared to my other pinkie.  It wasn't even swollen!

We went ahead to the restaurant, discussing how we thought we would be on our way to the ER rather that eating fish tacos and chicken mole. (The Italian place was packed. so we ended up eating Mexican)  My son said, "There's rubber around the door for a reason  My husband said, Yeah, to keep out the rain!"   I guess that cushioning for a wayward finger is strictly a fringe benefit.

If I were am Evangelical Christian, I'm sure I would think that the fact that my finger was not severed or smashed was proof that all that prayin' and church-going was the reason.  However, scientifically, I am sure that it was probably not all that uncommon of an event.

So all of that to say give me a break for not writing.  The poor little guy is still pretty sore and stiff.  I just glad it was only my pinkie!

Here's what I've noticed. 

My post have three, maybe four, distinct themes: waltzing down memory lane, kvetching about MS, professional type topics, or religion.  The last two sort of go together, so it's really just three.  Oh yeah, I get political sometimes, too but not very often.

Since it continues to be a major deep freeze right now, I think I will stick with memories of warm climates.

My mom clarified that New Orleans and Texas/Mexico were, indeed, one trip.  In New Orleans we stayed with my Dad's cousin, John and his family.  Relationship-wise, that makes him my first cousin once removed, and his kids, James and Christa are my second cousins.  There''s a lesson in familial relationships for ya!

I'm pretty sure James was a toddler and Christa was an infant,  I remember John's wife, Beth, pushing a baby carriage, so someone was an infant!  Beth was so beautiful to me.  John was a professor at Tulane at the time, and they lived in a beautiful walk-up brownstone-y apartment (my memory may completely off here.)  I thought they were the epitome of cool!  I remember that we bought a boatload of gulf shrimp for dinner, and I think we had enough for everyone to have a whole pound to themselves!  I'm sure that was the only time I got completely stuffed after just eating steamed shrimp!

I'm not sure how long we stayed, but it was long enough to have breakfast at Brennan's.   I had something call eggs sardou  (according to the Brennna's menu that is:  crispy artichokes, Parmesan creamed spinach, choron sauce)   Even though it was breakfast,we had banana's foster for dessert.  Boy that make me want to steal the cookbook my mom brought back and I'm sure she still has somewhere. ( Watch your cookbook shelf next time I visit, Mom!)

I also remember Bourbon Street.  While I remember trying to divert my gaze from the debauchery of naked girls swing from the upstairs windows, I mostly remember that I found a little shop that was playing the soundtrack to the Wizard of Oz!  The shop clerks must have thought I was a weird , white girl shop-lifter or something, because I just wanted to hang out in the store and listen to Dorothy and friends made their way down the Yellow Brick Road!

After new Orleans, we went to Texas.  We went to Brownsville where my dad grew up.  People there called my dad "little Bobbie " even though he is now 6'5".  From Brownsville we made a quick hop to Mexico for just a few hours. It was very touristy there and we shopped a bit then ate lunch.  You know how the water quality is just a little suspect in Mexico?  My dad insisted that the restaurants that catered to tourists probably had water that was just fine, so I didn't hesitate to drink away.  I thought the waiter looked a little surprised to see this very obviously Caucasian family asking for more agua.  I don't know how long it took, but I know we were at a museum when it hit me.  I spent a whole lot more time seeing the bathroom than anything cultural.  My dad insisted that is was all the fresh oranges we had been eating that were wrecking havoc with our systems.

Going through the border check coming back to Texas also sticks with me.  My sister and I had bought some marionette puppets.  One of them was a mustachioed mariachi player.  I kept singing the Frito bandidto jingle (which I am sure was suspiciously racist, but it was the 70's and we were from the midwest!) until I am sure my parents wanted to throw me out the window. I'm pretty sure I would have kept singing that little ditty right through the border check if my parents hadn't stopped me.

My parents  had bought a case of wine in Texas before we went into Mexico.  I think there was a moment of touch and go when they weren't sure whether or not the border patrol would either confiscate it or make them pay a huge fine.  Oh, the excitement of being an outlaw and sneaking an American domestic product in and back out of Mexico.

These posts say more about the nature of memory than they do about actual events.  Maybe I'll write about that sometime!
But, next time, I am venturing in Washington D.C.

Why , oh why do I not live somewhere just the weensiest bit warmer?  I may as well be living in Alaska..or Fargo.  Well, it's a moot point so I will just relive memories of warmer places.  Cue the Scooby do hand wave....

Those vacations/road trips always included boredom, lots of fights in the back seat and tons of singing.  My sister and I literally (not figuratively) sang 100 bottles of beer on the wall all the way through 100 to 1.  We started to go into negatives, but my mom put her foot down on that one.  Instead we played a round of "See who can be the quietest"  This was an obvious ploy for a blessed moment of silence, but it  just resulted in us kids trying to make each other laugh so we would "win".  My mom's a saint.

We played a lot of the alphabet game-trying to find a word on a bill board that started with each letter of the alphabet in order.  This is a good game for urban areas, where there are lots of billboards.  Not so great for those long stretches of rural nothingness with only mile markers and exit signs.  Burma shave signs would have been great, but I think they quit being a think by the 70's. We also tried to spot license plates from as many states as possible.  Never did see one from Hawaii.  Go figure.
At least once we made up our own song. Iowa is a beautiful state, but we were driving through the flattest part where the only break from monotony was trying to figure out whether we were driving through corn fields or soy beans.
So, we wrote a song that  went like this

" We took a boring trip on day
Tra la la la la la la lay
Nothing interesting came our way
Tra la la la la la la lay
So we all decided to say
Boring !!! "  (with the lat boring  drawn out with a trill, ala Joanne Worely on Laugh-in )
Obviously none of us ever hit the big time as lyricists

I also remember having to have all of the tires on the car replaced.  Apparently our steel belted radials decided to warp,  Knowing my dad, they were likely the very cheapest tires available, and they did not stand up to the hours of driving in the heat of the south.  I'm pretty sure that was the Tennessee trip.  So four new tires later, our vacation budget was seriously depleted, and we had to stay in the very cheapest hotels we could find. Oh, wait.  That would have happened anyway.  

That's my limit for the day.  I may write more at one time in the future, but my goal is to write everyday,  not to write prolifically everyday

It is negative 4 degrees outside.  That is not the windchill Tat is the temperature in Fahrenheit in the Midwest for crying out loud.  That gets me thinking about vacations, preferably to somewhere warm.

My family was a vacation family Mostly, we went camping at The Cabin in the woods.  It was way fun when we were kids and didn't care about things like electricity or flushing toilets or not finding mouse turds on your pillow.  However, we did take some actual vacations to other places occasionally.

We always drove to ny destination anywhere we went.  The highlight trips I remember the most are a trip to the Smoky mountains in Tennessee, a trip to Washington DC and the outer banks of North Carolina, a trip to New Orleans, and a trip to Texas and into Mexico.  I actually may be thinking those trips were separate, but maybe we did Louisiana and Texas all in one.  Anyway, I have very specific memories f each.

Tennessee must have been a pretty early one, because memories of that one are a little sketchy.  I remember visiting some of my mom's relatives.  I was totally enamored with my cousin (2nd or 3rd or once or twice removed)  because she had a really cool rainbow painted across the wall in her room.  I also remember that there was an international grocery store or something along those lines,  My dad bought some smoke, canned octopus tentacles.  This product bore no resemblance to calamari.  I remember having little suction cups sticking to my tongue while we were trying to chew them.
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Ialso remember going hiking in the mountains.  While I am sure it was beautiful the thing that was the most memorable (sorry Paul) is that my brother really, really, I mean REALLY had to pooh.  and seeing as how we were on the (semi) pristine side of a mountain, there were no little rest stops in the general vicinity.  Eventually, my dad took him off the path and returned with a much happier, and more comfortable, little brother.

After yesterday, I was thinking I wanted to write about lies, (The kind you tell and that George Washington did not).  But I have been sleeping a lot lately and my leakage issue (figure it out.  I am not expounding) has been out of control.

You may think that extra sleep is a good thing, and normally I think sleeping well is highly underrated.  However, I have been close to narcoleptic in the evening, and after nearly  pulling an old lady all-nighter ( only having to get up once to pee), I am sleeping till 6:30!  If I was going to bed super late, that may be acceptable.  But I am basically falling asleep on the couch watch TV at 7:30 or 8.  I 'm not talking about a light snooze, either.  I'm talking full-blown REM-wake-up-up-knowing-where-you-are type sleep.  Sometimes I feel too tired to go to bed!

My worry, as always, is that the insidious worsening of scar tissue in my brain is again making a ploy to make living life even harder.  I have already graduated from a cane to a walker.  No one ever questions my need for handicapped parking, and I have become a connoisseur of incontinence products.  I'm 52, and I see ads for AARP with women in high heels and mini skirts, or men climbing around on rocks, or couples dancing  the night away and I get pissed.  Even if I could do any one of those things, I couldn't stay awake long enough to enjoy them.

I am aware that, in the grand scheme of things, I am pretty lucky.  I have truly amazing, caring doctors.  I have a supportive family, and I am able to drive and maintain a semblance of independence.  I am aware of other people with MS who struggle through sub-par healthcare and unrestrained symptoms.  But sometime, I just want to whine.

I'll got off the pity pot tomorrow and tryto be interesting.

I love it when things are empirically validated!

Empirical validation means that someone somewhere did some kind of study and found that the resulting information, within a good range of certainty,  supports or does not support something that people want to know such as global warming is real and trickle down economics doesn't work.

Here are some of the things that have been empirically validated that I personally think are really cool

1).  Marijuana is not a gateway drug.  Actually, you can't prove a negative so what is really empirically validated is that there is no evidence to support that pot is a gateway drug.   So smoke away.  Unless you are a teenager.  It is also empirically validated that early use of marijuana is correlated with development of schizophrenia as an adult.  Of course corelation does not equal causation, but why take the risk?  Put down that joint, you preteen kids who shouldn't be smoking anything anyway!

2).  Complaining is good for you.  It helps you to get things out of your head and examine them.  It actually lets other people know that they aren't alone in their dissatisfaction and that can lead to camaraderie and connection.  Of course, maybe t's not such a good idea to complain about your boss to your boss.  But complaining about your boss to your co-workers lets you feel more in charge of the situation and your feelings and can lead to finding solutions or some resolution to manage the situation differently. But be aware that...

3).  Classic brainstorming doesn't work very well.  Group brainstorming is having everyone bring all their ideas to the table and then have everyone mull them around.  Everyone is supposed to let lose with all of their ideas no matter how crazy.  The problem is, people are not necessarily going to let everyone hear that their best solution is to have a singing gorilla deliver a telegram to let someone know they are fired, or that the thing to do with all those extra donated office chairs, is to paint them and auction them off at the next dinner dance. (That one was my idea that no one liked).  People don't want to expose themselves , and people think that, when they are in a group, it is someone else's job.

I could come up with a billion things that have some kind of empirical evidence.  Some things are useful. some are not.  It is also possible to go overboard.  In my field everyone is all about best practice.  That's great, but it means that some types of interventions are discredited and others are put on a pedestal.  Other types of treatment become so obsessed with being done correctly that they become lost as viable options.  People have let me know that Play Therapy doesn't work because it has not been empirically validated.  So does that mean that everything that has not had a university research-based study done to prove that it works, actually is ineffective?

You also must look at who did the research and what is their motivation to do it.  Did a cigarette company do research to support that smoking actually does make you look cool?  You also have to look at risks outweighing benefits.  Are you willing to look cool at the risk of developing cancer?

Also, don't forget that correlation does not equal causation thing. Kids who love to read have been highly correlated with having parents who own lots of books.  However, that doesn't mean that if you want your kids to read,  you should fill your living room wall with shelves of encyclopedias and romance novels. Remember that things being correlated does not mean that they is any relationship to causality.  I love to read, but I don't ever remember seeing my Dad's book collection and thinking "Oh, maybe books are fun!"

So, be aware that some of the thing that are accepted as true may be proved wrong through research (like telling kids they are smart all  the time is just settiig them up to be neurotic about failure)  Some research is crap (like the guy who found that vaccines cause autism admitted to faking data and outcomes), And finding out something is empirically validated, doesn't necessarily make it better than something else or mean it's good for everyone. I probably wouldn't take my 98 year old grandmother for her yearly mammogram, or tell her to quit smoking even though those things are absolutely proven to have positive benefits,

In the long run, research is important to make life better and make thing work for the good of all. Now, can someone please empirically validate that binge eating chocolate chip cookies while watching a Harry Potter marathon in you pajamas is actually good for you?

Today is a day for taking down Christmas decor.

My  husband has a vendetta against stuff.  He is always on the lookout to throw stuff away, especially my stuff.  Now his problem with stuff has latched onto my Christmas stuff.  I don't even unpack a lot of it, and he still thinks we have too much.  I will admit I'm a pack rat and tend toward being a hoarder, but when I lived by myself, I always managed to keep my clutter limited to a spot on the kitchen counter or my desk.  My office tends to be messy (the playroom part) because I don't always have to energy to put everything away after each session, but the kids don't mind.  The other clutter is confined to a box under my desk, or in file cabinet, and it is otherwise pretty orderly.

Much of my clutter...er, stuff is relegated to the guest room, because the only storage space in the house is the garage since we have no basement.  However, the garage is now my husbands workshop and office so there is effectively no storage at all.  The Christmas decor is in a small storage shed in the back yard.

This year, we have all new storage boxes, and I am pretty sure that anything that doesn't fit will be fodder for the trash, and I am worried.  Many thing have mysteriously disappeared in the past.
I had a giant blowup Godzilla that I bought for five dollars at the now defunct Cut Rate Toys (may it rest is peace).  It was a fabulous Halloween decoration.  It was probably 7 feet tall, and I am sure it was a movie theater promotional prop or something.  I had it for exactly one Halloween, and the next year it was not in any of the Halloween decoration boxes,  I am fairly certain, he went straight into the trash, with the hope that I wouldn't remember I had him at all.  How does one forget a 7 foot blow up killer Godzilla?

Eli had this fantastic set of wooden blocks in a bag.  I think they were a gift from my sister.  Now, if anything screamed "future play therapy toy" that was it.  However, during a spring cleaning of Eli's room, they were a victim of an over-zealous trash-bag-filling rampage.

I could list many times when I will say "Where is that such and such I had in this closet, or on this shelf, or in that storage bin?", only to hear, " Uhhh, I ...never touched it.".  This probably means he used tong or something to throw it away rather than his bare hands. He thinks that, because he has no memory of my stuff, that I don;t remember it either!

I trust my husband with my life, but not with my stuff.

So now, he has sort of begun to understand that, if is not his, he absolutely must ask before he tosses.

We are going to go through the  Christmas decorations.  I am going sincerely ask myself if the item has meaning, or if it is just around because it's always been in the box of Christmas items.  I am going to make a concerted effort not to smack my husband, and I am going to appreciate that he told my son that nothing gets thrown out without mom's approval.

Ahh!  Progress!

Here is my husband's website.  Watch the video to see my former garage.  http://www.danahoferbrassrepair.com/

It's only the 2nd of January and I am already on a slippery slope of not wanting to write. I woke up late, (for me) and had physical therapy early, so my morning routine was all discombobulated.  And, truth be told, I am not all that interesting a person.  In other words, I ain't got much to say.

However, a goal is a goal, and I aim to make this one a habit.  I have heard conflicting info about how long it takes to form a habit- anywhere from five days to several weeks, but regardless of how long it takes, it won't happen unless it happens!
Since I am out of ideas, I think I will just talk about my new years goal of figuring out my career goal.

I love being a therapist.  I love connecting with people.  I love getting into their heads with them and sharing feeling and thought.  Sometimes, when I tell people what I do, they say,"Don't you get tired of listening to people's problems?"  Listening to people's problems is really the smallest part of what happens in a good therapeutic session.  A good session is so much more about relationship and empathy and unconditional positive regard.  Of course, it is also bout listening and knowing what questions to ask, and understanding human psyche.  A smaller part is understanding psychological theories and systems and how to use them.  Even though our whole system is geared toward treating a particular diagnosis, and you can even find books that tell you EXACTLY what to do for particular problems, it will never be effective if there is no real relationship with real empathy and genuine connection.  Of all the things that a good therapist needs, the ability connect and form a relationship is the most important.  This is the piece that cam't really be taught.  You either got it or you don't.

I am a pretty good communicator.  I'm a good student.  I can memorize and spit out all kinds of crap (except math).  I like to learn new information and I am fairly open minded about new stuff.  All of those thing help me a good therapist, too.

What I am not good at, it marketing.  I am not organized enough to keep track of billing crap and other things you need to be good at to run a successful business.  This is the stuff that I told me ex-business partner from the start.  This what I trusted her to manage.  This is the stuff she got mad at me for not doing.  Go figure...

Now I am at true crossroads. I love being a therapist.  I hate bushiness crapola.  I have a chronic illness that makes me tired keeps me from being able to maintain a public sector mental health job.  (Not to mention the fact that I wouldn't necessarily want to back to a 9-5 type job anyway.)

So right now, I am maintaining my tiny private practice in my smallish office, If there comes a time when no one wants to come any more, I will have to figure out what to do from there.  Then I will have to figure out what to do with what I am good at doing.  Until then, I will have to keep figuring out what that is, and trust that I will be able to make the best of whatever the future holds

Happy new year morning

It is frigid outside, but at least the sun is shining!

I have decided that I am not making any new year's resolution  (Resolution defined::a firm decision to do or not to do something.)  That seems too harsh and extravagant. .
Instead of making firm resolutions, I am setting goals (Goal defined;  the object of a person's ambition or effort; an aim or desired result.) That seems more manageable to me.

So here are my goals:

!.  To write something everyday- (you already knew that one) 

2. To be more organized by being more mindful and focused (Zen)

3.  Maintain my exercise routine  (Personal trainer on Monday until my sessions run out,gym on Tues, Yoga (since I found a class I love) on Wed., gym in tha a.m. on Thurs and yoga on Thurs night, physical therapy on Fri, rest on Sat, and Yoga on Sunday.  Seems like a lot, but I want to stay on my feet and out of a wheelchair as long as possible.  Not scraping my knuckles on the ground is also appealing.

4.Go digital with my calendar since I still use a date book.  Hello 21st century

5.  Do a Spanish lesson on Duolingo or Babble for at least 15 minutes a day.  I got through high school and college without ever taking a foreign language.  I would like to be able to say more than, "mi casa es su casa".

6.  Figure out what I am doing with my career.  Commit to it or get off the pot!

There are zero other-focused goals on this list, so I need to add one about service or giving or something.  Since my attempt at volunteering was cut off by the shingles, I want to figure out some other way to give back.  

I think I would really like to speak to people about something inspirational or informative, but I would have to make sure my body is up to it.  I really miss speaking to an audience.  Does that make me a little odd?


Anyway, I will try to keep you informed of how I am doimg with reaching my goals!

Have a very happy day