heatheranastasiu's Xanga

Love

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 20:12:51 GMT

So, I have the most amazing and beautiful husband in the world. He is so kind, gentle, caring, funny. It just strikes me all the more in times like this, when I am not feeling my best, and he not only picks up the extra slack on the household chores and child-care that I am too tired to do, but he also is an emotional support to me, letting me cry and holding me, talking things through with me, even in the middle of the night. Sometimes I don't understand how anyone can be so good.

I take him for granted, as anyone is wont to do after 7 years of being married, but I am just struck all over again by this human who loves me so much, and who is just so strong. So strong, he never freaks out or runs away from that hard stuff of life, but gets through it, and not only that, but helps bear me through it too. I feel guilty for how much he has to put up with and do each day, but he tells me that is silly. He is SUCH a good father too, he is just this rare, amazing man. And together we both even find happiness, even in the hard times, happy moments in each day. His soul is so beautiful that it just overwhelms me how much I love him, and being loved like that in return.

Happy Day Tuesday (I know, I'm shocked too)

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:43:53 GMT

So, Operation Survive The Week (overly dramatic much, who, me? ) is going suprisingly well. Swimingly, even. I didn't work yesterday, and enjoyed a self-medicating day of sleep and reading, determined to do nothing necessary except rest and go to work this week.

I was still feeling in the shits this morning when I went in for my shift, but it went surprisingly well. Like, I felt better after a few hours than I had when I walked in! Now, granted, there was a 5-shot Americano and lots of Advil involved, but still. It was wierd, considering how exhausted I've felt for the past week now. And my eyes didn't hurt when I was done, after having worked almost 7 hours, and I was just like, what the crap?! I felt fine driving home, picking up Joseph, having dinner with the fam. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad, but I just wish I knew what to expect from my freaking body day to day. It can drive a person a little nuts, as if you couldn't tell.

Other than my schizo-multiple-personality body, things are going really good. My kiddo has been an absolute, melt your heart and squeeze-out-your-insides-with-joy sweetie the past couple days. My mood really started lifting on Sunday after he and D got home and Joseph and I were just laughing, and laughing, and laughing. After a spontaneous family pillow-fight and snuggle fest, the world seemed ridiculously brighter, regaurdless of health, you know? And yesterday I was just really happy. Tired, resting, drinking coffee, and reading while it rained outside (which generally simply DOES NOT OCCUR in Texas summers) - I mean, this is Heather's fair definition of heaven, let me tell you.

And to top off this Blog Entry In Which Heather Does Not Whine And Is Actually Happy, here's a moment that was so fucking sweet last weekend, with my brother holding and playing with my son in the local river:

Avoiding Old-Person Complainy Syndrome

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 14:53:23 GMT

Hey all. Sunday and I've been resting this weekend. I'm going to try not to just constantly talk and whine about being sick here on the blog in the next few weeks. It's like the Old People-always-talking-about-thier-rheumatism-and-sciata-and-ingrown-toenails syndrome. No one really wants to hear it, and it just makes a person feel icky and want to flee, because it's all Old Person wants to talk about. I think it's just because whether you are 80 or 18, when your body just starts crapping out on you, it is this HUGE thing in your world, and feels like it should be making NATIONAL NEWS how crappy you feel all of the sudden!! And then you don't understand why people don't want to just listen for hours and hours about the minutae of your symptoms!

It took me about six years to realize this, and try to embrace a little more humour about the whole thing, if only because it makes talking about it a little more palatable. SO. I'll update if anything happens, and in reality, prone as I am to whining, I'm sure I'll talk about it more than I intend, but I'll try to keep it brief.

I think in a couple of weeks, after I get into the groove a little more at work, I'm going to see if our insurance covers this one doctor in Austin who specializes in CFS. The only thing is his website seems all promise-y promise-y about CURING you! Magic! and that always makes me hugely skeptical going into anything. I haven't gone to him at this point because I was feeling pretty good, and figured I'd try him out if I started feeling shitty again (not wanting to mess up a good thing, you know, until it got bad again). I've been sick for 7 years so I've put up with my share of BS. But I figure I'll just go in being all my normal pessimistic self and if he makes any crap talk about making me 'completely better', I'll just be like, cut the BS, I'm willing to try some shit here, but don't try to sell me.

Update

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 16:42:21 GMT

So, the job is completely kicking my ass. As in seriously. Kicking. My. Ass. Not the job so much, I mean, it's pretty easy, totally do-able, it's just that my body is not cooperating and is seriously pissing me off. I'm just too damn tired. Too tired to realistically be doing all that I was hoping to do. I've been sleeping 12-14 hours a night hoping it would offset all the activity I've been doing, but I just totally crashed last night, was so tired after work I could barely walk and so tired I felt like throwing up.

THis freaked both me and the hubs out, becuase I haven't been like that since the bad times with my illness and it just made us have to stop and take stock. I can't work and go to school at the same time, at least not maybe more than one class at a time. I just have no energy after my five or six hours at work. So after being all weepy, weepy for awhile, decided I just needed to take things slower.

So what I'll do is NOT take summer school, and stretch out the 3 pre-req's I have to do over the fall AND spring semester, and start my Master's NEXT fall. This really is probably better, and this way I can still most likely work too, and save up some extra cash. THen when I start my master's in fall 09, I'll stop working all together so I can focus on school. It's a good thing, really, just a little bit heartbreaking. I hate having my body limit me when I am so motivated to push forward.

It makes me have all my mind/body philosophical conundrums again, how absolutely crappy it is that we can't just be unfettered minds, continously actively thinking and taking in information, processing, experiencing, reading, reflecting. The five senses are overrated.

Brother visit

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:30:25 GMT

So, my brother Mark visited with his girlfriend E over the weekend and it was SO freaking awesome to see the guy - hadn't seen him in two and a half years. It was fun just catching up a little, but mainly just falling back into the brother/sister goofy routine of yore which is apparantly like riding a bike - you just get right back into it no matter how many years have passed in the interim.

And his girlfriend is a cutie, and fun, smart, is also an artist, likes to bike - basically they are pretty damn adorable together. Though it's wierd to see Mark as adult-in-relationship mode too, and try to think of him as an actual person with larger roles than just my goofy brother. I know, siblings, as actual people? Who knew. One thing I can say, is that is so damn cool seeing siblings as adults. And seeing Mark play with my own kiddo was pretty special too.

I really hope we'll be able to move into the northwest in a few years so we'll be close to both my super brothers, and Joseph can grow up getting to know his uncles a little bit, because (and I'm completely unbiased here), I have the two most interesting and awesome brothers in the galaxy.

Other than that, life has been mucho loco between old job, new job, other tons of stuff going on that all seemed to compound in this one week, but I promise as soon as I can to catch up with all my beautiful xanga folks!

I got the job!!!

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:26:08 GMT

So, the interview went great and I got the job! I start tomorrow! I gave my two weeks notice at the hotel (which works out to really only one more week of me actually on the schedule - just two more days next mon and tues!)!!!!! I'll be working normal human hours 12-5 Tues-Friday, and this is thrilling my socks off, doing phone/email customer service at this groovy little company where I can even keep my pink hair! And my brother and his girlfriend are visiting this weekend! It's an explosion of crazy around here!

I know, too many exclamation points. I'm just a little excited, if you can't tell.

Ahhhh, Friday

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 16:42:23 GMT

What a freaking crazy week this has been. On the go, go, go, and then going some more. Spending time with a houseguest, B, and trying to help them find a summer job, trying to find a new situation for myself as well, lots of resume action all around, plus just hanging out and catching up with B. Not getting enough sleep.

This afternoon, I'm at the coffeeshop and I finally, finally, FINALLY got together my act and did a bunch of work on my TS Eliot paper, I think I finally have the meat of it written now. Which is the best feeling in the world, because I'm happy as a clam doing editing and finding other sources to add in the rest of the content, but it is such a relief to have the basic down, and this time I think I've actually SAID something, actually thoughtful reflections on The Waste Land, which I'm appreciating more and more as I read and study it.

Phew. And I got two books in about orphanages in Romania and different first-hand accounts, so I'm going to read through those now to give me a more accurate picture for my novel about life there. Hugs to all!

Brain Pain

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 05:49:51 GMT

My brain hurts from wrestling with The Waste Land. Remember how I talked about how I completely hated this poem and didn't understand it all the first time I read it (well, that was actually the second time), but I sat down again tonight, and it all seemed much clearer (which is still to say, not very) - but it seemed more cohesive, and I could just enjoy the beauty of it, and of course, the terrible desolate barrenness of it. And the way it seems so epic, switching between prophecy and the mundane, and tying it together with this kind of epic narrative of searching for water, or life, of roots trying to stretch down and find any nourishment, but there is no water. And how that all ties in with the emergence of Modernism, and the wars and corrupt society which led to the feeling of this generation as the Lost Generation.

Anyway, I've decided to write my paper on it. In theory. Though it all seems to much to think about, much less put down on paper. I just need to get this damn thing written, and have no idea why it seems like an unmanageable beast, other than that it is the obstacle I must get over, only then to begin the second HALF of the course, which I am behind on my timeline and BAH! looking for another job and company coming to visit and my head is going to explode and this paper, of course, is never going to get written.

Books, and Poets, and Modernism and Homework Avoidance

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 06:44:32 GMT

Determined to accomplish a very many things while at work tonight, now my shift almost over and I have done - nothing! Bah! Too many things thinking about - I have discovered within the last two weeks that I am tired of working the night shift (after having done so for over a year), and so am searching for a position in some kind of day job. My friend P is coming from Russia, and I'm picking her up from the airport later this week and can't wait to see her. Then the next week my brother is visiting.

I've been abandoning homework this past week because the novel has been burning to be worked on, so I've been spending 4-5 hours a day on it, whenever I could sneak, steal or borrow moments here and there. And yet the homework remains to be done, if I could just finish (and, well, actually start) this paper, which gains monumental impossibility the more I overthink it (I already wrote a ton on one topic before finally discarding it because it simply would not work!). I did read about half a biography on Ezra Pound tonight, which has been pretty cool and giving insight. Modernism was such an interesting period for writers. Their desire to create something NEW is admirable.

Separate from my class (which is all American lit, not Brit) I started reading Of Human Bondage, which is surprisingly readable, though I really didn't love the first two hundred pages, now in the middle of it the insights are just pouring over each other in that really clear way that Maugham has for seeing the honest motives behind why humans tick the way they do (I first encountered him in The Painted Veil, and picked up Of Human Bondage and it was sitting on my bookshelf for awhile). I love how in this book, Maugham talks about the struggle of the main character to deal with the discrepancy between all the idealism of books he read growing up, and the reality he meets in the actual world. This is a theme very near and dear to my heart.

Other than that, just a lot of thinking going on about different things, but at least lately I'm sleeping better. Okay, randomosity knob turning off now.

Trying to avoid doing my homework & PICTURES!

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 03:16:47 GMT

An avid procrastinator, I find myself run out of dumb internet sites to look at tonight, and forced to sit down and do my actual homework. So then, I thought, wait, I haven't blogged today! Yay, another procrastination opportunity found!

The bear I'm facing tonight it trying to fight my way through this damned paper about Modernism. I've done a bunch of research, taken notes, got a ton of quotes, all remaining to just WRITE THE ACTUAL PAPER. I even wrote the intro. But the fusing of all the info and quotes together into a witty and cohesive whole - yeah, extremely unmotivated to get off my intellectual ass and THINK.

Speaking of school-y stuff, Dragos' first sesson summer class got cancelled because of too few students enrolled. Sucks big time. If D can't do two classes next summer session (because of work), then he might have to put off grad school for another semester, which would just suck beans big time. We're still optimistic that we can work it out - July will just be crazy busy, peudo hellish month.

In yet other school news, today we closed on a home equity loan with which we plan to pay for all aformentioned school! Yay! Bring on the debt, baby!

EDIT: 4 hours later, and I fought with the fraking paper all night long. I wrote a bunch, but still don't know if I've SAID anything. Bah! Anyway, to offset my bitching in this post, I'm adding pictures of my adorable, adorable cutie pie (and in the second picture, with Amy's cutie pie too). He just seems so much older lately - getting taller and more lanky - less squishy toddler and more grown up boy. Hard to think that in Octobor he will be 4!

Can you believe that Evie is only 1 1/2?

And from D and Joseph's recent camping adventure: