It's raining, it's pouring.

Last summer, in order to help with my depression, I took up cycling. I got to the point where I could ride more than 25 miles straight (through the lovely one-horse town of Hamilton City, California, and halfway to Orland, the podunk town beyond that, then back to Chico to collapse for the rest of the day...and oh yeah, that was on a 95+ degree day). This time last year I'd have been riding already, to work and back, or wherever.

But this year, it's still raining. Raining on an irregular enough basis that I can't ride to work. Today was laundry day at our house - five loads of laundry at the not-really-close-by laundromat I go to because they have wi-fi and because it was the first place I went to and because I hate change and am not interested in figured out a different laundromat. When I walked in, it was sunny; when I was done, it was raining cats and dogs, (insert weather cliche here).

Since I haven't been able to start biking yet, I've started gardening. Jeff and I have talked about getting fish, but I was afraid - I can hardly grow plants, how on earth will I keep a little life, even just a Betta fish, alive?? How will I deal with that? I've felt that anxiety even with my plants - I started a morning glory plant indoors, watched it grow, it was three or four inches tall, and I guessed that it was ready to move out into the Big Wide World.

Apparently not. It was destroyed by insects within a few days.

Describing what I felt as "heartbroken" was hardly an exaggeration, as sad as that may seem. My grandmother had a beautiful mound of morning glories in her yard every year, and I was looking forward to having it climb up the pole that holds our mailbox. I felt like I was letting Grammy down.

Thankfully I'd planted multiple seeds at the same time. The second one isn't as tall as the other one was when I moved it outside...but that one wasn't ready. I'll wait longer, until it's a bit taller, better able to withstand the Big Scary Bugs.

And now it'll have a plastic velociraptor and a glass saint to guard him, relics from the house's previous occupants that I found in the garden.

We all need someone watching out for us.

I'm not as young as I used to be.

My 25th birthday is Friday, and my husband and I are throwing me a birthday party.

I haven't had one of those is nine years; for my 16th, I invited all my friends over and we had a very mundane sleepover in my much-too-small bedroom. I think we were all asleep by 11, thanks to my mom ushering us upstairs so we wouldn't keep my kid sister awake. I remember singing Limp Bizkit's "Faith" very obnoxiously.

Good times.

Today, though, I realized that I'm not as young as I used to be. Unfortunately this realization came with the onset of a massive sinus headache that slammed into my face at 4PM. A 45 minute visit to the post office didn't help. I normally love the post office - I love any kind of predictable bureaucracy. Today, though...multiple people in front of me with multiple heavy packages headed to Mexico; an annoying man with an eBay business; and a maid-of-honor with her friend's wedding invitations arguing over postage (heaven forbid you have TWO stamps on the envelopes!).

I don't know what annoyed me more, though - the people who did nothing wrong other than be in front of me in line, or the headache that was clawing at my skull. Either way, it made me feel old.

I skipped class. I laid around on the couch and enjoyed being with my husband instead.

Maybe being old ain't so bad.

Well hello there

It has recently been brought to my attention that I'm amusing. Not the first time I've heard this, I'll admit--the first therapist I stuck with told me he looked forward to my sense of humor.

Four years later and I'm still not sure if that was a compliment. (He wasn't a particularly good therapist, but if nothing else he made me feel like I had a good sense of humor).

This blog won't be all rainbows and kittens, I'll warn you of that right now. As I mentioned above, the "you've got a great sense of humor" therapist wasn't the first one, nor the last...even the last one I saw probably won't be the last...which is too bad, because saying "My last therapist was Dr. Quinn." Yes, really, like the show...but without this guy:


to distract me from "treatment." I've been dealing (or not dealing) with depression off and on since high school, with increasing levels of anxiety over the years. It alienated me in high school, contributed greatly to my early departure from the Air Force, and trapped me in a dysfunctional relationship for much too long.

But I'm trying hard. Harder, actually, now that the times, they are a-changin'. I got married last June, bought a house last December, and I'll graduate from college in May. Big changes are triggers for me, and I know that, and I'm trying to prepare. Thanks for coming along for the ride.