And the hits just keep on coming...

Magpie has hand, foot, and mouth disease, I think I told you. It is the suck. Seriously. She is/was on the upswing from that though. It was running its course, but she has been so freaking miserable just about this entire trip.

Tuesday, her fever returned. And then she stopped drinking. Not totally. I think I mentioned that the other day, too. Only about 1/4 of what she normally drinks. Wednesday morning the ibuprofen hadn't brought the fever back down really, and she woke hot and dry. We ended up in the pediatric ER here. They were great; I'll give them that. She got a beautiful crocheted blanket and a really nice teddy bear. She also do a urinary catheter and a throat swab. The catheter sucked. Since there was no respiratory congestion or distress, her ears were clear, her throat is healing from HFM (but we did the strep swab to be on the safe side, which came back negative), the only other infection the doctor could think with her symptoms was a UTI. That came back negative, too. So, absent of bacterial infections, she has apparently picked up another virus. Fortunately she was only mildly dehydrated (not enough to cause concern at the moment), so we didn't have to stick her with an IV. She's had as much fluids in the last 24 hours as she's had in just about the last 2 days, so that's a grand improvement. She did not eat one bite of food yesterday, but ate a huge breakfast and her regular lunch. And going to sleep has gotten significantly less difficult. All things I consider to be amazing improvements. I wish she were drinking more, but she's been chugging water when she wakes up.

The one thing that really calms her right now, too, is being outside. Did I have room in the car for a stroller? No. Did I just now order one off Amazon and am having it shipped here tomorrow so that for the next 4 days I can make her more comfortable? I did. (And this is why it will take me forever to pay off my bills and whatnot, but that's another story). I figured this one folds up to about the width of my suitcase. I have all my clothes in compression bags. My clothes will just go under the seat or in the cargo in the trunk, and my parents will bring my suitcase back with them if need be. Will it make packing trickier? Indeed. Will it make the Magpie more comfortable for the next week and a half? Yes. And since nothing makes me feel like more of a failure as a mother than having a chronically sick baby that I can't comfort or help, then well, we will just have two strollers. One for traveling and out and about stuff, and one for jogging around the neighborhood and going to parks. Maybe that makes me ridiculous, and maybe it makes it clear that I still, after 14 months, have no idea what I'm doing yet.

In other news, the house in Home City? FINALLY ON THE MARKET! Yippee! And it's getting three showings this weekend! Hot damn! Fingers crossed that we're out from under that soon because oh my god, to have that money back which would be enough to cover our living expenses just for the summer. Oh to be out from under that house. J's ex-step mom, for all of her faults, is apparently one hell of a realtor, and it's not costing us anything to sell it, so yay.

This was supposed to be a nicer visit to the parents. We were supposed to go out and do things with the Magpie, but oh well. I didn't even need to pack 3/4 of the clothes I packed--I've been in my pjs pretty much the entire time I've been here. It's been too exhausting to even contemplate getting dressed for the day. At least I've been able to CF everyday since we've been here except yesterday and Sunday.

Anybody out there know how to boost a baby's immune system? She gets organic, grass fed meats, a decent variety of fruits and veggies, and we had started probiotics once she stopped the antibiotics, but since she's been on a bunch of medicine again, we haven't started them back up. Sigh. And you know, I can't help but to feel this is all my fault because I couldn't force her out and she ended up a c-section baby and then got hit with another whammy when I couldn't nurse her. This all just sort of reaffirms  the feelings of failure I've had since day one. Poor Magpie. I wish I could do better for you.

End of Summer Blues

Well, so okay, this week has not gone according to plan at all! A couple of disappointments this week, some major exhaustion, a slightly pulled muscle (which, thanks to the oxymoron "rigorous stretching" is significantly better now), a total breakdown on Thursday afternoon resulting in lots of tears and wine (I have been exceptionally good about only drinking on Saturdays so I feel good and can get up early during the week). And well, you know, there it is. It's Saturday, and I'm trying to regroup. I need to get back into academic mode, and I'm resisting it whole-heartedly right now because I'm a) not ready for summer to be over; and, b) need more summer because I feel like I've failed in every aspect of my life this summer. I did not meet a single goal on any front at all this summer--not in terms of my health and fitness, not in terms of my scholarship, not in terms of my fall prep, not in terms of my finances, not in terms of anything on the home front either. And classes begin in 13 days. The house is a mess. I have too much stuff that I don't know what to do with. Some of it should be given away, but it's stuff I can't let go of, which is problem number 1--I should start with clothes--I really need to get rid of some clothes in a major way. And shoes. I need to donate some shoes, which is *really* hard for me because you know what if I get rid of something that comes back in style in 8 years? Then where will I be?

I have a stack of shredding that is seriously like up to my armpits.

I feel bombarded. This was supposed to be the summer of great things, the first summer where I actually accomplished something! Anything! On any front! This was the summer I was supposed to accomplish A LOT so that I could basically focus on teaching during the year and the next big project. I wanted to get shit done this summer so that this year would be a little bit less stressful. But, ah, once again. Not the case my friends.

Without sounding too melodramatic (because I am NEVER one for melodrama or histrionics, right?), I feel like I must now pick up the millions of pieces of my shattered summer dreams and figure out how to assemble them all in a sane way during the year.

First and foremost what needs to happen though is that my living space gets in order. That really needs to be part of today's project. Clothes need to be put away. Clothes and shoes need to be donated. My reading/work space needs to be set up. And the office needs to be cleaned out and what not. Maybe I can put the J to the task of shredding all this crap, and he's got bills and paperwork that's his that he needs to go through. Of course, he can't get to any of it because I've got the office in a holy hell state of a total mess.

Sigh. Now I'm overwhelmed just thinking about this. It's driving me batty.

what I need to do is what I did last winter and spring. I started making calendars. And while I didn't follow them to the letter, seeing that I had specific time blocked out for specific tasks helped keep me from feeling overwhelmed. Even if there were a lot of things on the calendar, just being able to see, with time blocked out, that there was enough time to do what needed to be done and still be able to you know, cook, watch t.v. with the husband, work out, etc., I think really kept me from going bananas. Plus, the satisfaction of crossing things off, right? The instant gratification of of x-ing off something on the list totally helps the stress level.

All right, well there it is. I'm going to start working on the calendar for the next two weeks here and see if I can't make myself feel better about getting some stuff done.

Light at the end of the tunnel.

I have decided that today will not be a marathon grading session.

I will get through as many drafts as I can during my office hours. And then I will finish them tomorrow. I'm hoping to get through at least 10.

I have a marathon draft commenting day on Thursday. I'll save my energies for that.

Today we look at an essay. Tomorrow we finish the movie and talk about it in context of today's essay. Wednesday is a short essay we read. Then from here on out, all I do is look at drafts. No more prep.

The end is in sight.

While I didn't get hardly any sleep last night, I feel okay this morning. Okay enough to go for a run before class since it's like 100 in the afternoons now, there's no way I'm running after class.

Also, I think there may have been something going around over here, contributing to my exhaustion and its accompanying depression. One of my friends has been sick all week and battling a 101 degree fever! And the husband said there were a couple of cases of strep throat at drill. And a few of my students have been sick enough to end up in the doctor's office--a couple twice already! So maybe I had a bug. I'm glad it wasn't worse than it was! Although I did feel like the world was ending.

All right. I'm going to enjoy my coffee, contemplate my day, and then run, teach, grade, and then consider cleaning and putting things away when I get home, since I'm not going to kill myself grading this afternoon. I feel like I need the house clean so that I can focus on writing that little article that's due in a week.

Exhausted.

I feel like I may indeed be close to the point of exhaustion. Clearly I think if I had full on actual like clinical exhaustion, I wouldn't be able to get out of bed. But I'm not there yet. Even though I had been diligent about grading essays the day they came in, that is like finishing them within hours of collecting them, I am going to take a break today. What this means then is that I'll end up, the last week of classes then probably collecting essays on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, but I'm willing to put that off for the sake of my sanity and health right now.

Part of the problem is that I'm not sleeping well at all. And that's just exacerbating the problem. My body is reacting to the stress right now in very weird ways. No cause for alarm, really. Everything that might be classified as out of the ordinary has one common explanation--exhaustion. Plus add this bout of anxiety and depression, and voila! There you go. And honestly, even though I've been blowing off academic and teaching work in the afternoons when I get home, when I get home, I end up spending an hour cleaning the kitchen or grocery shopping or cooking or something, so when I come home, I don't always rest like I should. What I need to do is just take a long nap. But since I haven't been sleeping well, I haven't been letting myself take naps during the afternoon because I don't want it to further disrupt sleep. But for the remainder of the quarter, I'm not going to be so stingy. And I'm just taking this weekend off.

If I get a good night's sleep tonight and feel good and rested in the morning (which may or may not be possible) then I'd like to get up, work out in the morning (I haven't been able to work out, even slightly since Tuesday), like maybe just a slow 30 minute run to do something, and then grade for an hour--just so I'm not so totally overwhelmed on Monday. Then I'd like to repeat on Sunday before getting to the g'parents' house. While I should just take the whole weekend off to rest/not grade, I know if I have the entire stack waiting on Monday, then I'm going to feel overwhelmed coming into the week, and the drafts I pick up Thursday *have* to be done by Thursday afternoon because they need to be able to start working on the final drafts in class on Friday morning.

Sheesh. This exhaustion is partly my fault. I set a crazy ass pace for this course. No wonder I'm feeling like death on a cracker my friends. But, what am I supposed to do? four essays in six weeks with revision opportunities is a lot.

And I can tell you, what will probably happen is that I will grade some this afternoon because I don't want the drafts hanging over my head. But I really want to go to the movies first this afternoon, like right after class is over. And I will. I'm dying to see Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter as you may or may not know that I'm a HUGE fan of the book and of Seth Grahame-Smith. I waited to see Prometheus for when the husband had about 36 hours of leave time, but I told him I was going to AL:VH without him because I can't wait another week or so to see it. I *MUST* see it today friends. And while I should come home from class and nap rather than going to the movies, I'm going to go to the movies.

And probably what's going to happen, because the thought of those essays being around all weekend, is that as soon as I take the dogs out, I'm going to start working on them. I think what I needed to do was give myself permission not to do them to make myself feel better, and in doing so, I'm probably going to just bust right though them. I just don't want to have to think about them all weekend. And if I'm up and not able to work out, then I should see how many drafts I can get through before class starts. I don't really want to, but I may as well.

ETA: You know what? Now that I'm showered and have had breakfast, I feel like I'm thinking more clearly. I am going to take the day off. I thought I'd sit and grade for 70 minutes or so, teach, go to the movies, come home and grade maybe for an hour and then call it a night. But no. I'm helping a friend move tomorrow and I should clean the house tomorrow too since I didn't the last time the husband had a brief amount of time off. So no. Aside from teaching, I'm taking the day off. So I'm going to read for fun!! right now and enjoy my coffee before it's time to go teach. I have to say, I already feel a little bit better. And we're watching a movie in class today, too, so it's low impact all around. I am going to relax.

Summer Blues

Argh! I am so incredibly freaking depressed right now! And it's frustrating and a giant pain in the ass folks. It is seriously like a constant freaking struggle every single damn day. It's exhausting and annoying. I'm doing everything I should be doing. I am going to bed at a decent hour. I'm getting 7-9 hours of sleep a night. I'm cooking super healthy meals at least 5 times a week (triple that to include breakfast and lunch), and while my workouts have been slipping because I'm so freaking ass depressed, I'm still getting at least four workouts in a week even though some mornings I wake up and I want to cry. AND I'm taking my meds again! I'm keeping up very admirably I might say with the class--like I grade drafts or comment on drafts the moment I pick them up so there is same day delivery because they need to get them back so they have time to revise if they want and so I don't have a gazillion drafts to grade the last week of classes. I'm doing everything right! And yet, I've been watching Scrubs and Friends for the last two weeks weeping during every.single.episode. That's just like sadness wrapped in shame right there friends.

Generally, I'd be freaking out. Especially since I have oh a little article due on July 1st. The one I had been struggling with. Yeah, I haven't touched it since classes started. I guess that needs to be a priority this weekend and next week. It needs to be priority at this moment, but I don't have the energy.

I am one hundred million percent just burned out. Just totally and completely burned the fuck out right now. I mean, I am totally and completely fried. I never ever ever want to *have* to or *need* to teach over the summer again. I think it might be different if this were like gravy, like extra, like we were going to use the money for vacation or to pay off a credit card or something. But that fact that we need this to pay our regular bills aggravates and depresses me. Yes, I'm thankful that I get summer teaching. But no, I don't want to do it.

The thing that's the most frustrating is that there are things that I want to do right now, things I feel like working on, but I'm actually pretty much incapacitated. Like it feels like a physical barrier actively pushing me down that I can't quite overcome to get done what needs to get done. Like yesterday I finally went to the grocery. I was so overwhelmed with grocery shopping that I nearly broke down in the store.

I need this quarter to be over. Pronto. I'm glad I had enough foresight to make the end of the quarter as easy for me as possible while still making sure that the students learn what they need to. And that's the thing--they're a good class. Better than I expected for the summer quarter. And I feel bad that I don't have more energy to give to them. I feel like I should reprepping all the stuff I just taught a few weeks ago in the Spring (which is ridiculous, and I chose a lot of the stuff I did in the spring to make it easier on me). I haven't felt this way in a while. Yeah, I was totally frustrated with last quarter's 101 class, like totally resentful of their attitude because it really was just a shitty class and I know that now because I'm doing all the same things that I did last quarter, I'm actually depressed this quarter, and I have better student engagement, better productivity during group work, and an overall better attitude about the class. What's changed? Not my teaching style, but the students. Anyway, I don't think that they think they deserve more at least. But I haven't felt like this in a while. This is more like the dissertation writing funk I was in. It's different than how I felt in Fancy Town--there I was just miserable on top of depressed and I didn't give a shit about being productive or really cared toward the end of the year last year about anything really (except my friends). But during the dissertation you know, I just felt incapacitated. I wanted to work but physically couldn't. And that's how I feel now.

Sure, just like then if I had spend the time working that I have on this blog post then I might have accomplished something this morning, but that's different. I am trying to accomplish something with this post--psyching myself up to face the day.