The day of Awesome

Yesterday totally rocked!


Rei, Ian and I all woke up early and went to Therapeutic Horsemanship in Anthony, TX. Rei had a super time. She made some art while she was waiting for her turn to ride the horses. Then, she got to ride for 45 minutes. She even participated in the equestrian events which she's never done before while riding.

Then, she got to hold a baby chick. Ian was conquered by a baby chick, as you can see in the photo. The chick wins!

Then we drove back towards El Paso and had lunch in the Franklin Mountains. We hiked around a bit until Ian got too tired to walk and fell asleep in my arms. We saw a ton of butterflies, two large beetles (genus Eleodes?) and two large hemiptera bugs (they were huge) and a funny little toad.

We drove home and then later on, went to the Día de los Muertos festival downtown. Rei danced and we saw a lot of great altars and heard traditional music from Michoacàn.

Totally awesome! The Día de los Muertos festival is going on all week. Tomorrow, there's a workshop to make candy skulls. I am hoping we can go. ;)

Up/Down, Up/Down, Whee!

I've been on an emotional roller coaster! Whee!

The up! I've gotten some great feedback on my writing. The thing about my stories, is that while I know they're not perfect, they really have a lot of 'me' in them. I use a lot of my own experiences and write about things that bother me so that I can work them out. Like, I'm bothered by death. I'm bothered by cruelty. I think about morality and how people relate to one another. Stories help me make sense of my thoughts.

I think that people think in different ways. I tend to think in stories. It goes back to how I was as a kid. I remember driving in the car, a story in my head as I'd stare out the window. The best times I had sometimes were sitting in the car, working a story through my head. I can't say they were good stories. They were crap! But all the same, that's how I think.

And I'm an observer, too. Honestly, my observations have gotten better since I got onto anti-depression medication. I find that I'm able to pay more attention to details and that's helped with my art and, in a more practical way, fixing things around the house. *grins*

The down! :(

My daughter is making me crazy!

I don't know what's up with her recently, but the past week or so she's been just awful at home. The thing that gets me, is that when I talk to her teachers, I find out that she's a perfect angel at school. She listens, cheerfully works and enjoys herself very much. At home, she seems angry all the time.

It has made me wonder what I'm doing wrong. I have tried to come at this from many different angles. I figured, maybe she's tired. My daughter is 3 1/2 and she goes to school 8 hours a day! She's in a special autism program. I changed her bedtime to an hour early. No dice. She just woke up in the middle of the night instead and ended up sleeping in my room, which is what she does when she wakes up. I don't even know she's crawled into bed until the alarm goes off in the morning. That's how sleepy I am. :P

Then, after that didn't work, I figured, maybe she needs to go to bed later. At first that seemed like it was working OK. This Saturday morning started off great! Then the badness started... every time I said no, there was a meltdown. Then my son hops on the bandwagon and when Rei cries, he cries. Soon I had 2 crying, screaming children.

I'm having trouble getting her to eat anything besides Quaker Rice Quakes, cereal and chicken nuggets. She doesn't want to use the potty anymore and so that's a battle. Bleh.

One extra cool thing happened though: Rei can now put on her own socks. She bitches about doing it, but she can do it. Finally! I'm really proud of her.

I know that she tries hard and I think, in the final analysis of the situation, that she's just tired and stressed out. Today, taking that perspective, I let Rei watch a ton of her favorite movies (Baby Einsteins and Shrek). I also taught her how to play Dead or Alive on the X-Box. That was pretty cool, too actually. She has always liked karate and stuff. She liked the background with the underwater glass building the best and always picked the same character. I can't remember her name, but the chick wears denim. I put the game into sparring mode so she didn't have to compete. She just had to figure out what the buttons do. By the end of it, she was able to do a tag-team match and was showing me what buttons to press. Pretty cool.

Yep. But I didn't draw all weekend. I thought my brain was going to explode most of the time. But it didn't. Cool school. :D

Feeling better!

I got sick over the past week or so. I lost my voice and my nose was like a faucet. My daughter was on fall break, too, so it was kind of hard getting any rest.

But I feel a lot better today. Still have some sniffles, but doing better.

I tried tie-dying some stuff and it turned out OK. I wanted to learn to dye since my daughter is constantly ruining her clothes by getting paint and markers on them. Sometimes, I can get the paint out, sometimes I can't. I figured, that if I could dye over the paint and hide it, then her clothes would still be good for school. :)

It's cheaper to buy some RIT dye than to buy a new wardrobe. LOL

Rei is talking much more! It's in a sort of stereotypical way, in the sense of autistic kids... she has a set of phrases that she uses to communicate. She says, "I want ____" or "I need ____." She can also say, "I can't." or "Not right now." She has conversations with me and other people with more garbled words. A few I catch now and again. It's interesting how she thinks about things--I think the way she uses language is a clue to how she thinks about things. In some ways, she is a very rigid person: certain things should be done certain ways. In other ways, she is flexible and creative.

She loves to dance and we rented the movie: Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses. It's a good movie for kids. I am actually a big fan of the Barbie movies. They all show women in a good way. Barbie's characters are strong, determined and in some movies, rescue the prince! She uses her brain a lot in the movies. And of course she dances a lot. The dancing is based on real ballet, though, and I'd like to have Rei take lessons. I think she might be ready for it.

Depression

Maybe you know, maybe you don't. But the truth is, that when I seem to drop off the "online" radar, it's because I'm dealing with depression.

I have a serious depression disorder and take medication for it. Most of the time, I do OK. Last week, however, I screwed up pretty bad. I forgot to take my medication all week! I got off track since my schedule was messed up. I need to do things in order every day to remember to take my medicine. I didn't realize I'd forgotten to take it until I was shopping at Wal-Mart and wanted to cry (OK, Wal-Mart usually makes me want to cry, but this was different!) When I finally took my medicine, everything came back into focus. I was able to organize the house, finish up some sketches... it's almost like magic. The medicine really makes a difference with me.

So, I just wanted to explain that this is a big reason why I get behind with work and art. It's tough being here alone, with my husband far away. I have no family in town and only a few acquaintances. Some weeks, I don't talk to another adult (even by phone) except for maybe one or two times.

I spend a lot of my energy on my kids. When I run out, art gets pushed aside. My daughter isn't easy to work with, but I try. I do love them both. I hope I am able to do enough for them. I am glad that my husband believes in me. :)

So that's what happens. Lots of people have depression and everyone handles it a different way. I'm glad that I got treatment for it. I'm glad I have the Internet. It makes me feel less alone sometimes.