It's overcast and cold today, there are squirrels on the fence eating Black Oil sunflower seeds as are the birds.  Have you noticed the Christmas commercials?  What happened to Thanksgiving?  Mom and I are planning to stay home and cook a chicken; bake a yam, have some pumpkin pie or custard.  Just rest.  Hopefully.  Holidays are always a little bit scarey for me.  I'm always waiting to the other shoe to drop: the gift that is broken, medical emergency, the news of death (either eminent or already here).  Mom is getting older (She will be 80 in February) and has some heart problems, one of my brothers has Hepetitis C and is an untreated psychtocic; the other brother lives a rough life in Arizona.  I'm about half way through my Christmas shopping, so that is going well.  Mom and I alway discuss what we want and exchange lists and mark catalogs.  She is easy to buy for as she is a fibre artist and spins yarn and knits.  We will put together care boxes for the boys, and for DeLoy, my brother-in-law.  We will probably get the pastor and his wife something, and every year I get myself one gift.  It is kind of a way to express good will/peace/love for myself and the multiple personalities that live here with me.  This year The gift was an aqurium kit for triops, which are small, aquatic animals similar to horseshoe crabs in appearence.  I havn't set it up yet, maybe I'll do that today.  Well, I've rambled on long enough for now.  I hope all of you are doing well... 

Hi all;  haven't been here for a while, just plodding along trying not to slip into a state of complete inertia.  It would be so easy to just stop moving, doing...breathing; I won't though, it's not just about me; there's a couple of dogs and a cat that like me pretty good, and I would not leave my mother a nasty mess to clean up.  I'm taking another stab at learning to draw-going back and learning the basic shapes used in sketching: cube, triangle, circle etc.  We'll see how it goes.  A storm front is moving through: lots of wind-not much moisture.  It sounds like our hospital may close. If it does it will really hurt this already struggling community.  The nearest medical care will be sixty mile away, and alot of people will die because they can't get help in time.  It will also hurt our chances for growth.  Always something.  I'm happy for the most part; I know that God has everything already figured out, but still I just want to be on the computer and watch TV.  I don't want to deal with the harshness of reality.  Take care all...

So my hours have been cut.  I don't work at all next week, then call the boss and see if I should come back to work.  If and when I do get back to work it will only be for 5 or so hours per week.  Now I'm trying to think of ways to try to make up the difference.  I really like to read the journals.  There are a lot of brave people on this site.  I hope all of you have a good day tomorrow.

It really feels like fall here; guess it is getting close.  Do any of you hunt?  It's a big deal here in Idaho; we had our first wolf hunt this fall, I don't know if it is still going on or not.  At least one wolf was taken.   I don't hunt, but I'm not against it.  Wild animals don't have the habitat that they once had; they don't have the natural predators either, so they tend to increase to the point where the land can't support them anymore.  Then starvation and desease set in, an there are people everywhere: hunting is the most humane way to keep the wild populations healthy (as long as it is done right of course).   That's enough of one of my soap boxes for now.    The business incubation center has a certified kitchen that people can rent by the day or half day or longer if they want to.  I've been looking into renting it for a day to make banana bread to sell at the festival of trees.  I make it just a little bit different and in several diferent flavors.  Anyway, in order to use the kitchen to make food to sell I have to get a food sellers lisense from the health department, so I need to go apply for that and find out how much it costs.  It's all very exciting to me.  I like to cook if I can use good ingredients and take my time, and I am allowed to make a little extra money on the side, so have been looking for that one job that I can do anywhere and make enough money to stretch my state money as far as possible, and so if I should lose my job I'll be alright. The banana bread just might be he thing.  I've been painting my mother's bedroom.  I can do a little each day and it works out okay.  Well, it's time to think about walking the dogs and seeing about dinner, so I'm outta here.  Thank you all for your support;  I hope you are all doing well; take care...

I'm sorry for not answering the mail I've gotten from you--I will answer, I promise.  It's just that I have been so busy, and depressed, and my head has been kind of mushy.  I'm taking steps to reclaim my life--hopefully soon I'll be back amoung the living.  Thank you for your comments, and I hope all of you are doing well.  Take care...

It is windy, and overcast, and feels like fall instead of late summer.  I like it.  I like the creepy atmosphere borne of years of scarey movies and trick-or-treating on Halloween an growing up on a haunted farm.   I always feel more creative from September to about the middle of November. The story I'm workng on is going well--not fast, but good.  We have had a few lookers on the house, but no offers.  If this place does sell, we did find a tiny little place on a huge lot kitty-cornered from the pastors house.  The house only has four rooms.  It would be tight for both of us, a cat, and two dogs, but just the right size for me if mom crosses over before me.  Also, we might be able to build on.  It was suggested that I tell my story here awhile back when I was thinking about leaving the group.  I might, I told part of it before, and it isn't much of a story considering what some of you have been through.  It's funny (exhausting) how this sort of thing is never really over.  Pastor told me once that it happened a long tme ago and doesn't affect today.  But it does.  It infects everything you do for the rest of your life.  If you are lucky you build some kind of life around the past--it might even be a really great life (I have a very good life); but there is always this other thing lurking in the background, screaming in your ear.  Have any of you ever felt that way?  I hope you are all doing well--take care... 

It's cloudy today, but still hot and muggy.  Mom has been out all afternoon playing cards down at the center.  She gripes about it sometimes, but she also enjoys being with other people and playing cards.  I had good intentions, but they didn't go very far; did some laundry, set the water, ran the dishwasher.  My ankle is unhappy today, and hasn't liked being up and about.  About a month or so ago I passed out in the bathroom and somehow on the way to the floor I injured the ankle--don't know if it was a sprain or mild fracture--and it didn't heal right or something.  Oh well.  I'm writing on a regular basis, and the story is moving along at a steady pace.  When I become fractured about whether I should be writing or making art I tell myself that writing is one of the purest forms of art.  Seems to help.  Mom came home alittle while ago; we had an argument (not serious) about me hiring a house keeper.  I just can't deal with the house, and it's got to be cleaned every week.  I have 85.00 "spending" money out of my state check that I can use to pay the housekeeper.  It isn't much, but it's all I have.  Anyway, we'll get it sorted out.   I hope everyone is doing well; take care...

It's another beautiful day; I worked until noon today, then came home.  I am making some miniature tack for my model horse, and working in such small detail has reawakened my artistic tendencies, so I am going to spend some time improving my skills.  My artwork did well at the fair, and I may try to enter the State Fair.  We have a new family member:  a snow white miniature schauzer named Jackson.  I had a doctors appointment the other day and while I was there one of the nurses asked me if I wanted another dog.  After talking to her for a little while I agreed to take him.  He is a very sweet little dog.  Well, I hope all of you are doing well, and having a great week.  Take care...

The fair starts tomorrow.  My friend Paula will pick me up on her way to the fairgrounds, and after I get everybody (my plants) entered I'll sit one of the sign-in tables and help others get their entries signed in.  I think that lasts until 7:00pm.  Judging of the plants is on Wednesday (I think).  A few years ago there would have been only one or two container plants--now there are many.   There will be cage fighting on Saturday evening after the fat stock sale.  Something new for us...  I'm having a lot of pain around the base of my neck, across my chest, the center of my back, and under my shouldar blades.  The weather has been changing a little bit so that is part of it.  Any change in the weather is very painful.  Could also be some nerves being pinched somewhere; or a bone out of place.  Note to self:  go back in time about twenty years and don't get thrown from that horse.  Bad mistake.  I hope all of you are doing well; take care...

Okay, so color me stupid.  I thought that if I started doing better I was supposed to leave.  No?  If I don't have to leave, then I won't!   I like to read the journals, an try to respond to them.  I like knowing that there are others out there who have similar problems--that I'm not alone.  You guys are the bravest people in the world.  So the fair is next week.  It's the county fair, and I'm on the board.  I like it: I have always loved fair time--as a kid I entered rabbits and guinea pigs; chickens and horses.  Now I show plants and enter handicrafts.  The fair here has always been small and struggling, and I've always kind of worried about how long it would survive.  Now I am helping to make it better.  I can actually make a difference.  This year only one of my African Violets is going to be in bloom, but the arailia tree is in good shape, an I have two grape fruit trees that will go.  I've started writing again--a fiction story that will be kind of a fantasy mixed with a murder mystery/thriller.  I think it will be one of my best pieces yet, if it works out the way I think it will.  I might also get to enter the State Fair this year: something I've wanted to do forever.  Well, I've prattled on long enough.  If it's okay I will hang around for a while...hope all of you are doing well; take care...    

This will be my last post , at least for a while.  You are all great people.  I have so enjoyed visiting with you all.  I hope that all of you will eventually find peace.

I am on a different antipsychotic and finally starting to feel like I'm alive again.  I've been working out in the garden--it's wonderful to be able to do that kind of work again, although I still have to be careful because of my spinal trouble.  I was born to work the land, and now I feel like I still can on some level.  Even if we don't sell the house, there is enough land right here to homestead pretty good.  We have raspberries, strawberries, bush cherries and some types of herbs as well as flowers and houseplants.  All of these can produce cash crops, and eventually I could maybe get some chickens for eggs.  It wouldn't be the same as living a semi-isolated life out in the country, but it would certainly provide a lot of my own food, and some to sell.  I'm sewing again too which is also a marketable skill.  I could do all of that and still live right here in town, just like I like.  I hope all of you are doing well; take care...

Thank you to everyone who commented on my last journal entry.  I really appreciate you guys.  Well, today should be interesting:  Somebody from a mental health outfit up in Mackay (20-25 miles away give or take) is coming to the house this afternoon to talk to me about them taking over my mental health care after Mary leaves.  After that I have to go up to the clinic and see Dr. Madden about my Prozac, and explain to her why I don't need the antipsychotic she wants to put me on.  As we say around here, I'm in for a major ass chewin'.  She doesn't like it when patients cross her and think for themselves.  I'll be glad when my meeting with her is over.  On a brighter note:  The Breeders Cup is coming around soon; I'm going to place a bet on Mine That Bird.  I can hardly wait!  You all take care...

I'm having a hard time figuring out where I fit in the grand shceme of things; I know that it isn't any of my business,and in the long run it doesn't really matter.  It's just that I have always been a busy and productive person.  On the farm I carried wood, tended livestock, fixed fence, moved water, help butcher chickens, sheep, and ducks, as well as harvesting fish from the canal when it was turned dry for the winter.  I also did housework and helped out in other ways.  I loved the farm.  I loved working with the animals and mucking out the chicken house and sheep shed and the bull's barn.  And sometimes, when I would be weeding the garden, and the woods along the river were green and lush, and clouds drifted across the clear blue sky--it didn't seem like there was anything better to do in the whole wide world but pull weeds and work the land.  I always thought I would always have the farm; that I would tend livestock and work the land in the old ways until I died.  It was what I was born for.  What I had trained for.  And then it was gone.  I went to work in a resort town; met a man who I thought would be my husband and my life would move on to the next stage: wife and helpmete.  Then it was over.  I tried my hand at college--get a degree, earn a living.  I thought I was doing what I was supposed to be doing, but then that was gone too.  Now I am a companion for my dear mother.  I have been a writer for the past many years; published only rarely.  I've tried to do marketable crafts, but I've never been very crafty.  I raise plants which is the closest thing I can get to farming and tending livestock now.  I contribute to the community by being active on the fair board, giving blood, and trying to be a good citizen.  I feel displaced.  Like I'm trying to learn how to live in some kind of foreign country.  My health has declined, my mind is a chaotic mire that is hard to navigate...I'm not complaining; I have a good life, but it is not the life (any of the lives) that I thought I would lead, and it seems like I should be "Doing" something like what I did on the farm.  I just can't shake it.  I hope all of you are doing well; take care...

Hello everyone, I hope all of you had a good day today.   I'm okay, but very tired.  our friend came over for dinner this evening and stayed to go through some large boxes of fabric.  I love Paula, but dealing with people is just so exhausting.  Now my chest hurts and I am almost desperate to lay down.  I'll go to bed soon--it will be wonderful.  In other news:  my counsellor is going to move to Oregon in September so she is helping me get a new payee,  my bosses son told me that they are planning to move, first to Arco, then back to California.  These are very important people to me, and it saddens me that one day they will disappear from my life.  Mom told me yesterday evening that she thinks her heart if finally wearing out, and I believe it: she has really showed her age this summer.  She hasn't been gardening like she usually does, and she doesn't have the energy to do things she has always done.  We took Lucy (mom's dog) to the vet to be put to sleep earlier this week.  The cancer finally caught up with her and the last few days before she was pretty miserable.  Life always changes.  Our house is for sale, and I've been remembering the old days.  I miss them.  I miss the farm and the livestock and the feeling that almost anything was possible in the future.  I will be glad to leave this place.  There have been some good times but it has always been a chaotic and painful, cold hateful place.  Not all of this life has been bad, I have seen some incredible things.  But I am tired.  Just a shadow. 

It's a beautiful day; the office is closed today in honor of the Fourth, so I'm wearing a little pink dress and a hoody and trying to get some writing and other stuff done.  I'm supposed to be packing up the house so it is clean and ready to show, but it's such a big job that I'm completely overwhelmed.  I just need to break it down in to manageable pieces, but there is just so much of it.  Mom and I are going to go to a wedding Sunday afternoon.  The wedding is for a friend of mine who is going to school to be an artist.  The wedding is going to be in a junkyard; she thought it would be an artsy contrast.  Anyway it will entail travelling an hour and ahalf one way in a car load of people, and having to deal with people all afternoon.  I love people, I really do, but being around them too long is exhausting.  well, I hope all of you are doing well...  

Good day today. My brother, Douglas called this afternoon and mom and I both got to talk to him.  He is a long haul trucker and has a troubled soul.  I love him, and wish I could see him more and help him to feel better.  Our weather has turned  hot, we have to wait until 8:30-9:00pm to walk because it is just too hot until then.  I hope all of you out there are doing well and have a great 4th of July; take care...

Three good things about this day:  1)  was able to shower and get dressed this morning;  2) I still have the use of my arms and legs;  3) I have the priviledge of going to church without free.  I don't have any right to feel "Bad".  The Lord has blessed my life and shown me many marvelous things.  I will go to bed tonight with a full belly, and warm blankets, and my little dog.  I have clothes to wear, and the likelyhood of being attacked sometime during the day is slim.   But I still can't shake this depression.  Not this time.  Before there was a reason to fight depression; there was something on the other side.  Not this time. 

So three good things about today:  1.  We got rain.  I love the rain, and living in a desert moisture in any form is gratefully appreciated.  2.  I got dressed.  3.  My dog likes me.   Pretty lame "Good things" , I know, but it's a start.  I watched one episode of NCIS and felt comforted a little.  The people on TV actually feel more like friends than real people.  It feels a lot like when the most precious person in my life--all the precious people in my life have been killed.  I see the characters on NCIS and the kinds of relationships they have and I wish I could be there with them.  I know those aren't real people.  Nothing much has changed since my younger years when my best friends were the farm dog and my saddle horse.  A cold wind still blows across my soul; the pain is still fresh.  Iv'e tried over the years to be a friend to others, and there are those who are classed as friends; but there is still such a gulf between us.  Always people coming in to my life for a little while, then they go away never to be heard of since.   I've walked alone since forever, and will continue to do so, but oh it hurts.  It hurts so bad, and there isn't anything can be done about it.  It was better with the antipsychotic meds; I didn't feel the pain so much.  I could work around it.  Now though I just want to sleep.  Sleep and watch TV.  I would gladly sleep forever if I could.  But I can't.  It isn't about me.  Anyway, good week all... 

Hello everyone;  This is the first time I have written a journal in a while.  Truth is I just couldn't face it.  Since finding out that I can't afford to buy the antipsychotic medication I've been in a blue funk.  People who are not depressed or have some other mental illness don't have a clue as to how much emotional pain we feel.  I've had broken bones that were much less painful.  Infact, I walked home on a broken ankle once; and did chores with broken shin and neither one of those times were as painful as undetoured depression.  I had thoughts of suicide over the last couple of days, but of course that won't happen as long as mom is alive.  After she is gone I don't know.  I hate feeling like this.  I hate the feeling that life is like trying to swim in a mixture of cement and super glue.  I know that if I can just break the inertia (And writing this journal is a step in the right direction), I can break the depression enough to be able to live.  I'll get through this rough patch; but some day...well I always have plan.  More than one actually, any one of which can be brought in to play at any time.  Well enough of that drival.  I just want a normal life, you know: a pretty house that is a beautiful yellow with white trim, a well kept garden and white picket fence.  And a husband--a good man and a christian. And children, with all their magic and sense of fun.  I'd like to have a career,  and live by the ocean.  Instead, I'm just waiting to catch the train.  anyway, it doesn't really matter.  This to shall pass.