Hoo, boy....

You may never see this post.  If you do see it, it means that things in my household are even weirder than normal, and this blog is going on hiatus for a little while as we prayerfully attempt to get things sorted out.

If things settle down before this goes to publication, I'll delete it and put up something much funnier in its place.

But if you're reading this, we appreciate your prayers and good thoughts.  I'll be back with something in hopefully a few weeks.

Take care, friends, and God bless.

Thankfulness

I hope I don't come off as whiny or complaining on this blog.  It's my attempt to share some of my family's life, made a little interesting by some challenges and complications many families don't deal with.  We really do try to keep a sense of humor and perspective about things, not to mention trusting God to help see us through.

So today, in honor of Thanksgiving, I wanted to list some things I'm thankful for.

1. First and foremost, for my Savior and Lord Jesus.
2. For the hope of Heaven, by the light of which all the things of this age fade into proper perspective.  I'm going to live forever and my troubles are going to fade away.  I can OUTLAST them.
3. For the joy and laughter my family and friends bring me.
4. For the many beauties and wonders of the world.
5. For the ability to walk, talk, work, and rest.
6. For the chance to make a difference in the lives of others.
7. For plenty of food to eat and clothes to wear and a safe, warm place to sleep.
8. For....sunsets, puppies, babies, chicken salad sandwiches, libraries, waterfalls, Mythbusters, hardware stores, working vehicles, store window displays, churches, Irish folk music, community theater, photographers, the military and police officers, baby hedgehogs, bad jokes, comic book superheroes, desk toys, Christmas lights, toy shops, woodcarvers, fairy tales, Pixar movies, oatmeal raisin cookies, road trips, National Geographic, Slinkies, sidewalk chalk, playgrounds, duck ponds, walking trails, power tools, computers, art exhibits.......

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

The Driving Day

Reblogged from my Facebook post:  This was my day while Adored Wife was unable to drive due to a sprained ankle.

1. 6:30 AM. Drove daughter to work.
2. Drove back home.
3. Drove son to school.
4. Drove to work.
5. Drove home for lunch and to cheer up housebound, severely-ankle-sprained wife.
6. Drove back to work.
7. Drove to daughter's work to pick her up for a doctor visit.
8. Drove to doctor visit.
9. Drove daughter back to work.
10. Drove to bank.
11. Drove back to work.
12. Drove home. Got to have supper with severely-ankle-sprained wife.
13. Drove to pick son up from friend's house.
14. Drove back home. Did some chores and chatted with severely-ankle-sprained wife.
15. Drove to grocery store for milk and bread.
16. Drove to get daughter from work. Daughter pulled extra hours today for a sick co-worker.
17. Drove. Back. Home. Arrived 9:03 PM. Daughter's kinda tired.

Very, very glad that Adored Wife is driving again.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Chinchilla Sitting

We're currently keeping a chinchilla for a family friend, who I'll refer to as Muppet Dude, because he and I share a fondness for Jim Henson's creations.

The chinchilla's name is Machias.  I'm not sure how to spell that.  Neither is Muppet Dude.  He's never written it down.  MD started out as Social Hurricane's friend, but he very quickly became a family friend and is one of those great guys you give open door and refrigerator privileges to.  He's helped us out a lot over the past few years and we've become something of a second home to him.

ANYWAY, he's in the middle of some housing transitions and needed a place to park his chinchilla for awhile.  Adored Wife and I are thinking, well, we're not sure about this, but this is, after all, Muppet Dude, and if he needs some help we're there for him.  Social Hurricane is thinking "I will go clear some space in my room RIGHT NOW.  We're getting to keep Machias!"  And she gleefully boogies off and rearranges lots of things.

So SH has Machias in her room and has assumed total responsibility for his care, which I am absolutely, totally, completely cool with.  Last night was his first night at our home.  MD had told her that if Machias wasn't happy with something he would make some noise.

Which she had assumed would be an irritated little chittering.

But no.

Apparently about two A.M. today the fluffy, cute little chinchilla turned into Megolith, fell beast from beyond the abyss.  Social Hurricane was awakened by this high-pitched, keening banshee wail.  She turned on a fan, stroked him a little, and gave him a treat, and he settled back down.

This morning she told me the story.  She's going to have a little talk with Muppet Dude about how he didn't properly prepare her for Machias' unhappy noise......

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Addicted to Snacking

This is not an abnormality.

LOTS of people deal with this one.

Okay, here goes.  My name is Henry and I'm....a snackaholic.

I'm not exactly sure how overweight I am, but let's say 25 pounds as an easy number.  If I could magically and instantly lose four newborn babies' worth of weight I might still find that I was two to three pounds too heavy, but I honestly don't think it'd be much more than that.

Ask me why I'm carrying the equivalent of a hundred cheeseburgers in my gut.  (That tends to be mainly where I store it.)  Go ahead, ask me.

I'm glad you asked.  I'm overlarge by about the weight of a decent-sized cocker spaniel because I have chosen to be.

That's it entirely.  It wasn't one choice, oh, no.  I couldn't gain twenty-five pounds as the result of one choice if I wanted to.  It's been the result of a thousand choices, to eat unhealthy when I didn't have to, over and over and over and over and........

And if I want to take the weight off, then it's going to cost me a thousand good choices.

Here goes.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Social Hurricane Sees Things

Social Hurricane has occasional visual and auditory hallucinations.  Not often--a few times a month, typically.  She's asked me to NEVER ask her to describe them, because that gives them more reality, and I'd certainly never press her.  She did tell me once "you know the monsters that lives in closets?  I've seen the one that lives in mine."

She takes a fair amount of medication already for various thingies, and her psychiatrist has offered to prescribe her a pretty potent antipsychotic that should take care of the hallucinations.  She doesn't like the list of side effects, though, and prefers to deal instead with the ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties.

I think she's starting to revisit the issue a little bit, though, because she's had a few bad days at work, and she hasn't always been able to distinguish between the "imaginary" noises and the genuine calls for help from a resident in distress.  (She works as a CNA.)  She's going to talk to her doctor about it.

You might say a prayer for her.  It can't be an easy thing to deal with.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Halloween Evening

I'm writing this while waiting on trick-or-treaters.  The lights are on, the jack-o-lantern is lit, the big honking bowl of candy bars is ready.

Canada Artist and Harbor Master are ready up in Montreal.  It's the first year Harbor Master has ever given out candy, but CA has talked him into it.

Graphics Magician is downtown with a friend, helping to take his little sister and cousin around trick-or-treating.

Social Hurricane is dressed up in skull face and cape, and is off to a small party with some friends.

Adored Wife and I are here, doing various little odds and ends.  It's the closest thing to an unscheduled evening I've had in a few weeks, and I'm kind of enjoying it.

Don't know where the cat is.  Sleeping somewhere, I suppose.  Little varmint was howling for breakfast at 5:00 AM this morning.

Fairly low-key day at work.  Staff meeting, correspondence and phone calls, some charitable aid work, shopping for the food pantry, some odds and ends of calendaring and scheduling, moving some paperwork around.  SH had the day off and slept in and did some household chores (and some video games), GM was at school, and AW was doing various household projects.

I don't think I've mentioned that she's applying for "jobs you can do from home on your computer."  It's pretty cool and she's made a few bucks already.  I'll have to devote a blog post to that.

Update:  the cat was sleeping on the stool, but all the joyful cries of "trick or treat" woke him up.  We had thirty-nine trick-or-treaters, a respectable number for our neighborhood.  Not too much leftover chocolate.  Things failed to gel in Montreal, and Canada Artist is now stuck with a bunch of Smarties and Tootsie Rolls and lollipops because Harbor Master is new to this and didn't understand about quality goodies.  CA says that next year SHE's buying the candy.

Hope all's well, friends, and God bless.

Kinda Tired Now...

After this post, I'll get back to talking about my oddball family again, because hopefully I'll be done with all the interesting stuff about myself.  The depression is under control, which is great.  I like medication.  This blog is about wrapping up a community theater show, and then my life really ought to settle down a little and I can get back to focusing on my wife and kids.

I don't know why I do this to myself.  Theater is a time-consuming hobby.  I do enjoy it, and evidence suggests I'm reasonably good at it, but, ay chihuahua, does it eat up the discretionary time.

The final weekend was exceedingly full.  I won't go into all the details, but with work, performances, family obligations, and cast parties, Friday I hit the ground running at 5:30 and didn't get to bed until nearly midnight, Saturday, same thing, Sunday, hit the ground at 5:30, actually made it home after the cast party a few minutes before ten, told Adored Wife that I was sorry, but I was absolutely done, and fell into bed about eight minutes after ten.  I vaguely remember brushing my teeth.

So, I'm pretty much done with acting in plays for at least a year, probably longer.  I did two shows this year, which is a lot and that'll have to do me for awhile.  I'll still help with set building, but that's fun, is healthy exercise and good socialization (and the occasional witnessing and ministry opportunity), and doesn't involve any great time commitment.

Plus, I can wear my wedding ring again--it felt really odd not having it on my finger.  I was playing a single man, and leaving it on during the day would have just made it likelier that I would forget to take it off for a show, so I left it off for the entire run.

Regarding facial hair:  I shaved my beard for the play, and Adored Wife, who has NEVER liked me clean-shaven, said I could do so only on the condition that I grow it back as soon as it was done.

And then, the last week of the show, she decides that she's used to how I look now and that I should keep shaving for awhile.  Go figure.  I've always given her the deciding vote on whether I went bushy or smooth, and it looks like we're going with naked upper lip and chin for now.  I'll probably miss it when the weather turns cold, but otherwise I've never much cared one way or the other.

Hope all's well out there, friend, and God bless.

Adored Wife Sprains An Ankle

Adored Wife is recovering (actually pretty well) from a nasty ankle sprain (or "strained perineal tendon with significant joint effusion.")

She's still not sure how she did it, but the doctor has found some bone spurs and he thinks that may have aggravated the tendons, depending on how she's been moving.

He wants to send her for physical therapy.  AW doesn't particularly want to go to physical therapy.  They both looked at me in the examining room and I said that I was just the chauffeur and I wasn't getting in the middle of this.

I think the doctor's going to prevail.

She's moved to smaller and less restrictive brace so she can start driving again, but it doesn't provide the support of the great big boot thingy, so she's having to be more careful how she walks.  She may swap them off a little bit.  They're both complicated contraptions to put on.

I'm looking forward to her driving again.  I can't say I've been doing all of it--we've had some great friends who have stepped up to help--but I've been doing a lot more of it than I've been accustomed to.

Prayers for her in recovery would be appreciated, friends.  Take care and God bless.

Feeling More Myself

Hi, friends!

My brain is WORKING again!  Yay!  I've hit a therapeutic level of medication, and I'm feeling much, much, much more myself.  Sleeping better and everything.

There are a couple of side effects that haven't quite gone away.  Still sweating more than usual, and a few minor issues of an (ahem) personal nature.  I am going to quite cheerfully put up with them, because I am so very happy that my brain is working again.

I am actually quite happy that I'm able to BE happy about things.  I'm sleeping mostly through the night, I'm once more waking up in a pretty good mood, the creativity is back, I'm once again interested in things.

It's pretty cool.

But, man, have I lost a lot of traction.  I feel like I'm months behind on stuff.  It's going to take me a little while to get my momentum back and get caught up.

But I'm just so very, very happy that I'm feeling more myself.  Better living through pharmacology.

I'll look forward to a much more regular posting schedule again.  Thanks for bearing with me.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Renaming the Artist

Good morning, friends, and hope all is well.

This marks, hopefully, a return to my regular Monday and Thursday posting schedule.  Now if I can just get the rest of my life back on track.....

(Things have been a little crazy, even by our standards.)

In celebrations, I shall confer upon the young-woman-formerly-known-as-Basement-Artist a new nom de blog.

I can't very well call her Basement Artist anymore, because she's not living in my basement.  She's living with her new husband, Harbor Master, in Montreal. 

BUT, she's still very much an artist, and has shared with us, by the miracle of the Internet, many wonderful examples of her whimsical artwork.

Therefore, I shall now refer to her as (ba, ba, bum) Canada Artist.

We talk and message regularly, but, yeah, I miss her.  This is the way it works, though.  We don't own our children; we only keep them in stewardship a little while.  I'm happy and proud that she's off making her own life and having adventures.

Including taking an injured seagull in a cardboard box on the subway.  But I'll have to tell you that story another time.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

(P.S.  I'm considering renaming "Graphics Magician" as "Moody Adolescent."  But, of course, that would be redundant.)

A Quick Catching Up

Okay, so here's where we are.

1. I think I'm at a good level with the antidepressive medication.  I'm no longer waking up staring into the abyss in desolate melancholy, and I actually had the other night a not-wholly-unreasonable facsimile of a decent night's sleep.  Further bulletins forthcoming.

2. The play I'm starring in is in production.  I have absolutely no idea why I do this to myself.

3. Adored Wife has a nasty ankle sprain or, as she prefers me to call it, a "severely strained perineal tendon with significant joint effusion."  She said that as bad as it hurts we're going to doggoned well use the big words.  It's her driving foot, which is kinda complicating things right now.  More bulletins forthcoming.

4. Social Hurricane actually seems to be doing pretty well, all things considered.

5. Graphics Magician (or whatever I've decided to call him these days; it's been so long) is having some adjustment difficulties with high school and being fourteen.  He'll survive.  We might.

6. The former Basement Artist and her husband Harbor Master are enjoying newlywed life.  They've assembled furniture, confronted bureaucracy, gone for lots of long walks, and rescued a seagull.  I'll look forward to telling you more about that.

7. I am so far behind on my writing projects and blogging and household chores and family obligations it's pitiful.  But maybe the end is in sight.

Hope all is well, friends, and God bless.

The Weekly Excuse

Haven't forgotten about the blog, just had everything going on.  A settling down of sorts is in sight.

I'll tell you all about it when I get the chance.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Still Over Here

Haven't forgotten about the blog, honest, I haven't.

Still getting the neurochemistry sorted out, I'm in crunch time for this play I'm in (this is the stage of the process when I wonder why I do this to myself) and I've made a few poor decisions regarding priorities and use of time.  I could blame the depression, but that'd be a cop-out.

This WILL get back on track.

All's doing pretty well, honest.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Creativity? WHAT Creativity?

We don't yet have the "major depressive disorder" under control.  We're playing around with medication.

One of the BIG problems with depression is that my creativity seems to have mostly vanished, along with my interest in my hobbies and most of my energy.  Hence, the lack of blogging.

No worries, we get the brain chemistry sorted out, I'll be back.

So, I'd wanted to post an update, and probably should have done so before now, but I was afraid it would sound all whiny and complain-y.

And I didn't want to do that.  I have a lot to be thankful for.  A loving family, a roof over my head, plenty to eat.  My physical health is good, God loves me, my sins are forgiven.  There are LOTS of people much worse off than I am.  A few things are difficult right now, so what, no big deal, right?

So, please don't hear me complaining.  But keeping up with my blogging is, just being honest, a little tough right now.  I'll make more of an effort to keep it up.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

New Posts Will Return!

Taking a few days off of the regular posting schedule, friends.

New posts will return!

Side Effects! Whee!

New medication for depression.

I've gotten, I think, every side effect on the list.

Thankfully, not all at once.

First two days:  Headache and nausea.  Dry mouth.
Third day:  No headache.  No dry mouth.  Nausea, dizziness.  Nervous energy in the mornings.  Shakes and stammers.  Excessive sweating.
Fourth day:  Very light nausea, no dizziness.  HUGE problem with nervous energy.  Couldn't sit still, concentrate, hold my hands steady or speak without stammering for a couple of hours in the morning.
Crashed out in the afternoon.  Couldn't stay awake.  Excessive sweating.
Fifth day:  Nervous energy about the same, no nausea.  Crashed out in the afternoon.  Still sweating, yay!
Sixth day:  Nervous energy still noticeable, but seems to be tapering off.  No headaches, nausea, or dizziness.  Sweating seems to be not so bad.
Seventh day: Nervous energy excessive in the morning.  Other side effects seem to be diminished.
Eight day:  Side effects very light.  A little edgy and nervous for awhile in the morning, but that's been about it.

Sleeping--haven't slept well in weeks.  Third night after taking the medicine, best night's sleep I've had in a long time.  Otherwise, fitful sleep and strange dreams.

On the depression front itself, actually feeling better.  I wake up apathetic and with feelings of extreme sadness and pessimism, make myself get out of bed and take my medicine.  I start to feel better within about twenty minutes and am pretty up for most of the day.  I can feel it wearing off in the evenings.  Bizarre--I can actually feel my brain gearing down.

I'll keep you posted.  The side effects seem to be winding down as my body gets accustomed to it, which the doctor said would likely happen.  He said it'd be a solid week to ten days before I really started to feel better, and it's only been six days and I'm noticing improvement already, so that's very encouraging.

Adventures in pharmacy.  Yay!

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

It's Official. I'm Depressed.

Okay, the doctor has confirmed it.  I'm depressed.  (He was prepared to give a lot of credit to Adored Wife's diagnosis, but I checked a lot more boxes than that.)

Let me just throw this out to get it out of the way.  I am NOT, emphatically NOT, suicidal.  It's not even on the table, haven't even considered it.

I'm going on maintenance medication for the depression, maybe for a short term, maybe for the rest of my life.  No shame in that--it's an imbalance in my brain, not something wrong with my personality or character. The fine tuning needed to find the most effective prescription combination is expected to be a bit of a pain, but that goes with the territory.

I'm actually a little relieved.  It's nice to have something concrete I can blame the bad mood on.  And Adored Wife is VERY relieved, because she's hoping I'll start acting more like myself soon.

The doctor was pleasantly surprised that a Christian and a minister would be so open about admitting to depression, and there is still a lingering societal stigma, but maybe I can do something to help change all that.  I've never been all that covert about the depressive episodes I've had, and, yes, you do run across a few people who think being depressed means that your prayer life needs to be more active.  But they're in the minority.

So, new stage in the journey.  I'll keep you posted.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.

Where I Was on 9/11

For some reason I'm mindful that today is the sixteenth anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, in addition to a third intended attack on an unknown target that was foiled by courageous and quick-thinking heroes in an airplane.

I don't tend to make much of these anniversaries. We live in a sin-stained world, it's going to get worse before it gets better, but we do have the hope of Heaven to look forward to, and the presence of Christ to sustain us in the midst of this "valley of death."  Our job is to love God, be good to one another, and spread joy, peace, and truth where we can.  Not too much point dwelling on the bad stuff.  Fix what we can, and don't let the rest of it defeat us, you know what I'm saying?

But today, it's on my mind.

I was pastoring a small church in West Virginia sixteen years ago.  We had a (completely unrelated) power outage in the village, and I was walking to the post office when a neighbor came out and told me there had been attacks.  The phones worked and word was getting around that way; lots of people in the neighborhood were going and sitting in their car with the radios on--kind of an odd sight.

I wasn't much of a television watcher, then or now, but that evening, after the power was back on, my family and I spent a few hours watching the news of the day.

How did I feel about it?  There was no personal tragedy.  I don't have any stories to tell of friends or family who were caught in the attack, although I knew people who knew people who knew people--that sort of thing.  But, yes, the world did look a little different the next day.

If you or someone you know was directly affected by those horrible attacks sixteen years ago, my condolences and sympathies.  History will eventually work its healing magic on it, as it has on so many tragedies and evils that have befallen the human race.  But it's still something to never forget.

But there is coming a day when all the aches and heartbreaks of this world will be literally meaningless, their power to hurt us forever quashed, when every tear will be wiped away.

Looking forward to that time.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless,

Depression Revisited

Okay, well, this is something new, and I don't think I like it.  But it looks like I'm going to have to accept it.

I commented a couple of posts ago that I was wondering if I was in a depressive episode.  I'm not. My "episodes of clinical depression" have definite symptoms and certain very specific tell-tale signs.  Feelings of despondency, lethargy, apathy, and pointlessness, tremendous lack of creativity and initiative, no interest in usual pursuits or pleasures, waking up early and being unable to go back to sleep, somatic preoccupation (means "fiddling with things for no reason"), eating patterns change, unable to be cheered up.

That's what a depressive episode looks like.  It's pretty bad.  I get them about every year and a half, and they last for between two and three weeks typically.  The last one was in May of  of 2016 and it was moderately severe.  I'm due for one around November.  Not looking forward to it.

However......

I've been "down" for the last couple of weeks.  Definitely not a depressive episode.  Generally pretty functional, without the indicators that let me know that "yes, I'm depressed."  I've just been in a bad mood, and I've attributed it to the external stressors of which I have my fair share.

But Adored Wife informed me the other night that I was, indeed, depressed.  And when people who live with you tell you there's an issue, you ALWAYS listen, because they often know better than you do.

So, yes, I'm depressed.  And this is new, because ongoing depression is NOT something I struggle with.  I take St. John's Wort daily (it's an herbal supplement with clinically proven effectiveness in treating mild depression) just as a preventative and it's always been pretty effective.  I've increased the dosage significantly, and I'm feeling much better.

But this means that I've entered a new stage in dealing with depression.  I really need to talk to a doctor about it, because it does tend to get worse with age, I have a family history of it, and if my baseline is to be mildly depressed, a full-blown depressive episode could be.....um.....bad.

It's entirely possible that I'll wind up going on some kind of prescription for it.  There's no shame in that--it's a neurochemical imbalance; it doesn't mean I'm a bad person.

But it's something new.  And I don't like it.  But I'll learn to live with it.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.