Well, goodness. Didn't mean to drop off the face of the earth, leaving everyone to wonder if the anti-depressants had failed and I'd been hauled off to the nearest mental health facility. Because I know that's what y'all were thinking, every last one of you. Don't lie.

Anyway, I figured I owed a good, long update on the state of things in Maryworld (Location: inside my own head. Population: One.) I'm warning you, this sucker is long. LOOOOOOONG. Have I mentioned it's long? You actually may want to wait for the audio book version to come out so you can listen to it in the car during your commute.

Consider yourselves warned. Click below to read the Jolly Green Update.

I know I have a nursery rhyme to live up to but this is ridiculous. Whatever anyone else wants me to do or whatever I'm supposed to be doing, I am guaranteed to want to do the exact opposite.

Case in point: We have lived in this house over a month now and there are still boxes everywhere. I have spent a lot of time around the house and have not yet been inspired to get any unpacking done.

Well, just a little while ago I was in JZ's room and felt a sudden inspiration to get in there and get it organized and put away just how I want it. The problem?

We are having a garage sale tomorrow and I have six bags/boxes worth of stuff that I absolutely HAVE to price today so it will be ready to take over to the old house for the sale.

Why, why, WHY is it the one day I have something else I actually MUST do is the day I actually feel like doing unpacking?? I know me and I know my game and I can tell you exactly what will happen. By the time I've priced all the sale stuff the urge to unpack will've passed and who the hell knows when it will be back?

Mad krazy, y'all, I'm telling you.

What I've done so far today:

Got up at 6:45. Got Madalyn up and dressed for school and on the bus. Showered. Got JZ up. His diaper had leaked so I had to strip him and hose him down in the shower. Got his breakfast, managed to get myself dressed and hair fixed, got JZ dressed, took him to preschool. Went directly to the newspaper to place yard sale ad, then to the lab to have a blood draw, then Home Depot for more water and then on to Walmart to pick up some things. Came home, unloaded the car, put groceries away, and headed down to Madalyn's school to have lunch with her. Robert was here when I got home and we realized our only option was for me to drive him down to C****, where he was due to make P.A. announcements at the basketball tournament and then broadcast one of the games later tonight. Drove down with him (30 minutes) and back (30 minutes). Went straight to old house to let in housecleaner and pick up some boxes of things to price for the sale and then came home. Unloaded car, changed cats' water, cleaned up cat puke. Now I'm "resting," if one can call it that. I have been sitting down for approximately 5 minutes. In another ten minutes or so Madalyn's bus will arrive. I will have to fling her dance outfit on her, jump in the car, blaze down to the preschool to pick up Johnny, then drop Madalyn at dance and find something for myself and JZ to do for 45 minutes. I'll pick her up at 4 and we will come home, but, oh, it doesn't end there! Robert needs to be picked up, you see. So, at his suggestion, we are going to head down there about 6:30, have a bite to eat at the restaurant, and come see the boys' basketball game, after which we will all come home together, arriving probably close to 10 p.m. No rest for the wicked, I guess.

Anyone realize how much of this could've been avoided if we only had a second car? Oy.

So, here's the deal. If there's anything anyone can say about me it's that I am honest when I write. I don't sugar-coat things and I don't go around trying to make people think things are wonderful when they aren't. That doesn't mean I print every single little irritation and stress I have; sometimes I don't talk about certain situations at all. But it's not for trying to hide it -- sometimes I just don't feel like hashing things out. Sometimes I do feel like laying it all out and this is one of those times.

I've decided that I need to go see a doctor and get on some anti-depressants.

I have been having issues with depression on and off for a number of years. The first really bad one I had was right after Madalyn was born. I am still convinced that particular episode was a side-effect of my thyroid which had gone raging out of control. However, I've had bouts with it since then and my thyroid is perfectly stable. Up till now I've managed to convince myself it's outside factors: stress from the money situation, being overweight, being far away from my family, not having a car and being confined to the house since last summer, etc. And, while I'm sure those factors contribute to stirring things up, the bottom line is that I probably have a chemical imbalance and need to be on medication.

When I'm depressed it's like a psychoses grab-bag. What symptom will she manifest this time? Fun for the whole family! Sometimes I do actually feel sad and depressed. Other times I don't feel particularly down but I lose interest in the things I normally enjoy and even getting showered and dressed and leaving the house seems like more trouble than it's worth. A lot of times I become truly, in my heart, convinced that my life completely sucks and there's nothing to look forward to. Still other times I get angry. I'm super-irritable and everyone annoys me and I'm in a perpetual bad mood and dislike everything. A combination of the latter symptoms is what I experienced Sunday night and most of the day Monday. Kids? Annoying me no matter what they did. Robert? Wanted to kill him. Upcoming plans? Didn't care; wasn't excited. Life? It sucked. It sucked and the future was bleak and I had nothing to look forward to. Even the Beatles couldn't reach me. They held no appeal. Now here is the part where I get really honest and where people who actually know me in real life get up and tiptoe away in horror. I was actually entertaining thoughts of picking up and going back to California. I didn't think I could live with the guilt of taking the kids away from their dad, though, not to mention not being able to support them, so my next thought was that the kids don't like me, anyway, so they'd probably be okay if I left them here with Robert. That's how convinced I was that my life stunk. I only thought about that for a little while -- ten minutes, maybe -- and then I did realize that I couldn't do that....but then I felt even more depressed because I had no way out. And it all seemed totally legitimate to me; there was no part of my mind that piped up, "Hey, you are being really melodramatic, here." That's the thing with it - when I'm in it it all seems completely rational.

This morning I woke up feeling a bunch better and it suddenly hit me: that is NOT normal. That's not just being in a bad mood. Maybe if it only happened once but I have been up and down with depression for years. Sometimes it only stays a day or two; other times it's months. And then it will go away for even up to a year and I think everything is peachy and then something like this happens. I'm just tired of it. I'm tired of not feeling normal.

And that's another thing -- I think I am at least slightly depressed a lot more of the time than I realize. I am a pretty irritable person and I think that could be mild depression that I'm just not recognizing. I am sick of yelling at the kids for stupid stuff and getting annoyed at them for things that needn't be annoying. My kids are great kids. They are very well-behaved about 80% of the time. Yet here I am getting irritated at things like Madalyn saying "I'm hungry" as soon as she walks in the door from school. Who does that? Who gets annoyed at their child for asking for a snack?

There have been a few times since Madalyn was born where, looking back, I now recognize I felt completely, 100% normal. It was sheer bliss. The first time was starting when she was 6 months old and I finally got my thyroid under control, which, in turn, made the depression disappear. I suddenly realized, looking back, just how bad off I'd been. I didn't realize it when I was in it -- like I said, it all seems perfectly rational while it's happening. I had just thought life sucked and there was nothing I could do about it. Then, to come out of that and feel, not ridiculously elated all the time, just NORMAL, was amazing. I want to feel like that again. I'm sick of the ups and downs and of trying to find things that will make me feel better and only do so temporarily (shopping, trips, etc.) I still want to do all those things but I don't want those things to be the only saving grace of my entire week, or month.

So there we have it. It's off to the doctor I go. I'm hoping a low dose of something with few side effects will do the trick for me. I am also hoping I can get in to see someone and get my prescription before I head to California. It would be very, very nice to be able to return from my trip and not have a post-trip crash like I often have had in the past.

Wish me luck.

I really wish I could think of something witty and urbane to post but I just can't quite manage right now. I'm having one of those "I hate everything" phases. Does anyone get those besides me? I'm just....blah. I'm bored, the stuff I normally do that perks me up is failing to impress me and things just seem sort of flat. There are various things I'm feeling sort of down about and not much I can do to change any of it, which doesn't tend to improve one's state of mind. I have things coming up that I should be really excited about but, instead, all I can think of is how fast it will go by and then it will be over with and I'll be back to nothing again.

Ah, nothing like getting the week off to a positive start, hmm?

Thanks to the generosity of someone from our Sunday school class I get to take Madalyn to see Peter Pan, starring Cathy Rigby. The play is in Oklahoma City this week. I had wanted to take her but didn't think it was feasible and then this opportunity arose.

The show isn't until 7:30 which means we probably won't be home until 11 p.m., at the earliest, but Madalyn sleeps well in the car so I'm not worried about it being a school night. She has elected to skip dance that day so we can leave earlier and have enough time to both eat dinner AND go to the mall to play on the indoor playground for a while before showtime.

It's been way too long since she and I had some one-on-one time so I am really looking forward to this. I think she will enjoy it very much -- at least until Friday morning when she has to get up at 6:50 to catch the bus!

Congratulate me, blog-reading-people. I am pleased to report I am down 8.5 pounds as of yesterday!

I am also pleased to report (but embarrassed to admit, all the same) I am finally beginning to resemble a mere fat girl as opposed to a fat girl who is 5 months pregnant. This is an improvement as I've spent much of the past couple of years holding random objects in front of my stomach for fear someone would ask me when I was due. So progress, it is being made. At this rate I will be smoking hot when my trip comes around at the end of May. Not that I need to be smoking hot since I don't plan to pick up Beatles impersonators or anything. It just makes me feel better, is all.

I finally updated my Blogroll. I axed a few blogs -- basically anything that no longer exists or those things which haven't been updated in months and months. I also added a few new links. Check 'em out, if you are so inclined.

We're going to California next month! We're really really going!!!

I just booked the tickets today. It's a done deal. No last-minute backing out, which is what happened the previous two times we were supposed to go (Christmas and my friend's wedding).

In order to get the lower price we are having to stay a few days longer than I'd originally planned. Yeah, I'm real broken up about that. Madalyn will miss five days of school, total, but she is at the head of the class so it shouldn't set her back any.

We will be going March 8th and coming back March 22nd.

By the time I get out there it will have been 8 months since my last visit. That is a new record for the longest amount of time since I've been there since I moved away over 9 years ago. The previous record was 6 months. I am NOT okay with how the time between visits has been getting longer and longer over the past couple of years. Hopefully this wil be the last record set in this category.

I had some initial guilt over spending the money. Robert JUST deposited it in the bank this morning and it was gone in a flash. Plus two years of being broke has conditioned me to want to sit on money as long as possible. But we really can spare it right now; it's not taking food off the table or preventing us from paying the rent. And I'm rapidly overcoming the guilt when I think of being HOME and eating at all my favorite haunts and just resting.

Oh, and one more thing? We are flying from Oklahoma City to San Luis! Let me spell this out for those who don't know. My parents live halfway between San Francisco and L.A. The nearest airport to them is a small, regional airport in San Luis Obispo, 15 minutes away. Being a small, regional airport the prices to fly into there are usually prohibitive; or have been since we've been broke. This means I usually end up flying into Santa Barbara (2 hour drive), San Jose (3 hour drive) or, worst of all, LAX (4 hours). Also add to it the fact that I have been flying out of Dallas lately to get there, and that is a 2.5 hour drive, so you're looking at up to 6.5 hours in the car along with your 3-4 hours of flying. For any childless readers out there, allow me to inform you that this, with a 2-year-old and 5-year-old in tow, is Not Fun. Even the hallowed portable DVD player can only go so far in taking the edge off before it, too, must fail. So imagine my delight that, this trip, we will drive a mere hour-and-fifteen minutes to get to the airport and be facing only a 15-minute drive once we arrive. BIG sigh of relief.

Have I mentioned yet that I expected 2006 to be thousands of times better than 2005? We're definitely starting out on the right foot (knock wood).

Zzzzzz......

Tired....packing.....unpacking.....settling in......gaaaahhhhh......

I'm here. Perhaps not 100% mentally present but I am at least thinking about blogging. That's something, right?