However many sort of semi-long takes this happens to be

This post was started two years ago, but I wanted to remember some of these thoughts so here it is.

With a nod to 7QT or “Seven Quick Takes” hosted by Kelly at This Ain’t the Lyceum. (2023 Edit: I don’t think she is hosting this anymore, but check out her site anyway!) By the way, GO ORDER HER BOOK! 🙂 I honestly haven’t read it yet, because I can’t read a book anymore without feeling sick, but I’m sure it’s great because she is a great writer and a wise woman.

So here are my unrelated ramblings. 🙂 It just sounds better when I call it “Seven Quick Takes.”

~1~

Last week I watched The Truman Show for at least the third or fourth time. I’m obsessed with it because of how much it feels like my life, and I think I watch it for therapy. As a midlife adoptee, somewhere along the way I woke up to how “strange” it was that people made decisions in my life to hide my true identity and “pretend” that I was their biological child. Add in several very important people in my life that were huge gaslighters to get *their* needs met, and you have Amy Truman, LOL. (Spoilers ahead, skip if you want to watch it someday.) Seeing Truman break free at the end makes me want to jump around my room cheering for him! A man commented on a Facebook question – “What is one thing that wasn’t supposed to be scary that scared you anyway?” with “The Truman Show is the scariest movie ever made,” and I don’t think he was kidding. The thought of living that life can be terrifying for some. So if normal people can’t even “go there” in their minds, it makes me feel better that I had trouble living it. The video below touches on the tragedy of a person living a fake life, even if it was a “good” life.

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~2~

Our dishwasher story – many months ago our dishwasher died. We lived with that fact for awhile and then started looking for a replacement. I asked everyone online what they recommended and the overwhelming winner was Bosch. Well, with Covid and other issues, there were no Bosches to be found. So we ordered a Whirlpool. The workers came and removed our old dishwasher, and tried to put in the new one. It didn’t fit!! We were told it would fit, it was not our mistake. So they took it away. We ordered a new one, but the only one in stock that fit the odd space was a GE – which we were told to keep away from. Sigh.

Well, the company said they’d be out in a few weeks to deliver and install. Fine. They cancel the night before. We schedule for a week out. They cancel again. A few weeks again — they cancel a THIRD TIME. We call and complain, and lo and behold, the GE’s now aren’t in stock and the only one we can get is… a BOSCH. Yay! We schedule, they cancel, and we tell them to DELIVER THE BOSCH even if they won’t install. LOL, we wanted it in our possession at this point. So this is where we stand, with the beloved dishwasher in our garage, and an installation scheduled yet again, for a few days from now.

This story reminds me of how even though I’m going through hard things, they are the things that are instrumental to getting what I want (or what God knows I need). The way it all played out, it really feels like God orchestrated it all — even the inconveniences and disappointments, to get the right dishwasher for us. I will say, I believe our attitudes about it all contribute to this happening — not throwing a hissy fit when things went wrong, but being calm and thanking God for what we did have, and knowing it would all be ok. It feels like the Bosch is a reward for that, because it’s not the first time things have happened that way. (Thinking back, I think my timing is off on all of this, but my point is real.)

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~3~

So I’m taking Disulfiram, aka “Antabuse,” a drug designed for alcoholics to make them sick if they drink alcohol. I’m using it off-label (see, that is a REAL THING, using drugs for reasons other than their original design – *cough* I-ver-m3ct1n *cough*). I’m taking it for Lyme disease. I’ve had to revamp my diet yet again, as one cannot eat anything with alcohol, vinegar or other fermented food (i.e. soy sauce and most store bought sauces and mayo), also no really ripe fruit, no standard vanilla or other extracts, and a huge handful of other things. Apparently we can’t even smell alcohol or vinegar.

A full dose of disulfiram is 500 mg once a day. Right now, I can only handle 30mg once a week!! I use a pill cutter, and by the time I get to an 1/8 of a pill I’m basically pulverizing the thing and licking the dust off my hand as my dose. 😀 Apparently many Lymies can only tolerate very small doses, as it creates die-off of the Lyme and co-infections, which their body can’t release properly. I’m amazed that “disulfiram dust” can put me out for a week. I take it on Sunday or Monday, and feel sick from that night and for at least 4 more days. If I do nothing else that week that sets me off, I get one normal day before having to start all over again.

(2023 edit: I lasted four months, couldn’t get past 1/8 of a pill once a week, and I broke out in a rash that told me I probably have bartonella, which is aggravated by disulfiram, so I stopped. I feel much better off things than on anything.)

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~4~

The other day I boiled some veggies and thought I should use the cooled cooking water to water my pea and carrot seedlings, because it adds nutrition back into the soil. But isn’t that a little gruesome? “Here my pretties! Drink up! Here’s the water in which I boiled your cousins.” 😀

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~5~

I don’t typically suffer from outward anxiety anymore, but my body still seems to be on high alert 100% of the time. I thought this video had some good exercises and information so I’m sharing it here.

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~6~

How much the Facebook and Instagram algorithm triggers me: they seem to be telling you something about yourself –“look you are so popular” or so “unpopular” but in the background THEY are the ones pulling the strings to show or not show that post to people. It reminds me so much of narcissistic abuse. Abusers say “look, nobody likes you,” — but they are the ones going behind your back to badmouth you to others.

At the same time sometimes the algorithm works in my favor. For some inexplicable reason, my Highly Sensitive Homeschooler Facebook page has had over 90 new “likes” in the last month, bringing it from around 100 to 200. I don’t promote it anywhere, I barely even post there, but every day there are a few more likes. For comparison’s sake, my other page (HSP Mom) maaaaaybe gets one or two a month, if that, and I treat them exactly the same. So it’s some sort of weird glitch in the matrix.

~7~

The neighbors behind us are cutting down their weeping willow, and I’m…weeping. I love that tree. But the benefit is that the tree company is going to hop their fence and take care of a few of our trees for a discount because they are already here.

~8~

From a Facebook memory: Things I never thought I’d say: Go sit on your bed, we don’t throw saints at peoples heads!

Let that be a lesson to you. 😉