Hunger Strike

I can't think about anything, but my sick Kimchi Kitty*. You see that face right there? That face is sick. He won't eat, drink or purr.

We've been to two different vets, an emergency clinic and our regular critter care giver, and neither knows what the heck's the matter with him. In the last three days, he's had x-rays, blood work, something for an upset tummy, something to stop the vomiting, antibiotics, a fluid shot that made him look like a kitty camel and still...nothing. He just mopes around the house, sleeping and hiding under the bed.

I feel responsible, and I don't even know what's wrong. I'm so afraid we've done something to make him sick, a household product I've used or something. He only eats healthy digestion kitty food, vegetables and maybe a piece of wheat bread crust now and again. I have no idea what he could have eaten, or what could have bitten him. I just don't know. He's an only kitty, and he lives in the house. I've gotten no new house plants, and none of the ones I have appear to be nibbled upon. I just don't know! Hairball? But that should have shown up in the x-ray.

Today's vet visit ended in them keeping him for more blood work, and hooking him up to fluids. I don't know if they're going to keep him overnight, over the weekend or if I'll go out of my mind from worry. The last time I took a mysteriously ill critter to the vet for blood work I never saw them alive again. It was my Pontuf Bunny, and this feels all too similar.

Kimchi's always so happy and lovey, but he feels like death right now. Will those of you who pray, please remember my kitty next time you talk to God? Thanks.

*If you happen to read/reread that post, notice the "I don't enjoy obsessive posts about pets. So, for your one time viewing pleasure, here's Kimchi!!" part. Ahem. Soooo...maybe I posted about him more than once, and I have issues with punctuation. Meh.

Follow Me, Please.

I've posted at Shannon's today, folks! It's Foto Friday over there, and you should definitely go pick a favorite photo! For me?

Now, for those of you that aren't familiar with the amazing lady that is Shannon, or her gorgeous photography, you should be thanking me for that link up there. She and her HB (Honey Bunches) are two of the best people you'll ever have the pleasure of knowing. They're bright, caring and just all around awesome.

What are you doing reading here still? I'm not blogging here. I'm not. This is not a post. Were it an actual post, I would keep typing...

Future's So Bright...

Here we have photo documentation of the joyous occasion that was meeting Shannon and Megan. Strolling around the very charming streets of downtown Asheville, NC we snapped a shot or two, talked about all manner of things and my husband (Mr. T for Todd) and I decided we needed to take them home with us. Alas, they have lives and bright futures of their own, so we can't steal them. Le sigh.

How many of us twenty-somethings posted about community in our swappy little guest posts (however briefly due to sleep deprivation) this past week? We're all talking about community in the blogosphere all the time, aren't we? I guest posted about that very thing, but I wasn't really feeling it.

You see, it's really easy for me to feel like I'm only here for others. I get so wrapped up in keeping up with everyone else, commenting, and being supportive and caring, that I just let blogging become a one-sided thing. I become drained, disconnected and discouraged, and totally forget what communication is all about.

I've been desperately in need of a refresher, and this wonderful little trip of ours has done just that. Meeting the two aforementioned lovely ladies has reminded me what blogging is all about. It's about people taking time to peek into one another's lives, you know, in that invited/non-creepy way. It's about communication and being human, and it's awesome.

Short, Sweet & A Little Fuzzy

The above image has severely damaged my post writing capabilities. I should have avoided meandering on over to Cute Overload, but I just needed a little pick me up. Aaaaaand now, over an hour later, all I can think about is how much I love bunnies!!! Thank you, Cute Overload.

I'm hoping for a real post tomorrow, complete with photos of people and things Mr. T and I encountered on the first two days of our mini-vacation, including the lovely, lovely, lovely Shannon and Megan. Simply. Adore. Them.

Wait, did I even tell you peoples my husband person and I were on a mini-vacation?! Well, we are! Taking North Carolina and Tennessee by storm, folks. I ♥ Mountains! More on all this after I sleep! Sweet dreams, jelly beans.

Bloggity Blog Blog

Oh, my poor little Mimsy has been neglected so lately. Life has taken on a new hectic, an exciting bit of chaos really. Only problem is, my head is spinning all the time, and Mimsy waits. She waits as I consider all the things I could post, as I decide I need to but really don't want to because people expect it, and as I fall asleep because my brain is exhausted. Well, Mimsy...wait no more! 

Thanks to 20 Something Bloggers, the old blog is getting some much needed attention as Carlee, from Living in Place, guest posts here today! Aaaand I'm over at her place, folks. Please come comment, so I don't feel like a complete blog slacker that no longer has followers?

I've only been doing this blogging thing for a short while now. Six months ago I probably didn't even know what blogging was or what it really meant to be a blogger. It's actually really hard to even remember what I was thinking before I took the leap into the world of regular blogging because the entire blogging experience has changed my life that much.

First, a little background about me and my blog: My name is Carlee and I, too, am a 20-something blogger. Over at my blog, Living in Place, I’m trying to find my niche and my passions by writing what I observe and experience around me. So far that’s mostly been any Gen Y (or Millenial) issues especially related to work, career & technology with a few reviews of local events thrown in there.

So I want to share with you, my audience-for-a-day, some of the reasons why I love blogging and “being a blogger”.

• This isn’t my personal diary anymore. When I write something for my blog, people actually read it, consider the ideas, and respond. It is such an amazing feeling to know that even near-strangers care about what I’m thinking and saying.
• I would even go as far to argue that bloggers grow as people faster than non-bloggers. Who else can say they have an audience of readers supporting you and giving you constructive critical feedback. Friends and family are too close to me to really give me the feedback I need to grow professionally and personally.
• People know me before I even know who they are. Actually, that’s a little unsettling sometimes now that I’m experiencing it more and more often. It really helps with networking when I’m meeting someone for the first time and they say, “Oh yea, I really love your blog” or “I’ve been sending that one post to all my friends”. Seriously, it makes it so much easier start and continue conversations.
• Community. I know everyone says that, but it’s so true. One of the best things about being a blogger is our potential to create a community or a group of followers who care about the same things as we do. Or just the ability to meet so many different people online—people that we probably never in our wildest imaginations would have thought we would have met.

Like this community—I didn’t know last week that I would be guest posting on Heather’s blog over here. But how awesome is it that I’ve been able to share my ideas with a completely new and mostly anonymous audience (at least to me) today? I hope that all the other bloggers reading this will share what they think the best thing about being a blogger is, and if you’re reading this and don’t blog, why not? 

Thanks, Carlee!

"The Time Has Come," The Walrus Said,

The Walrus and the Carpenter finagling the Oysters, as illustrated by John Tenniel.*

"To talk of many things." Not shoes, ships or sealing wax, but things I've avoided long enough.

Do you ever get the feeling that the entire world handles life better than you, and it would just seem incredibly abnormal to admit that you're having issues? I know we all have stress, and I'm not the only one to be affected by it, but still. When it's happening, it kind of seems like the rest of the world can't possibly be that well medicated, and that I must be one of the few faulty models that desperately needs to be recalled.

When I was eleven I started having episodes where my heart would feel like it was going to beat out of my chest. Sometimes it would happen when I was running around playing, other times it would happen when I was lying down. It didn't really seem to matter what I was doing, my heart would just spaz the heck out. On several occasions I told my mother, and once I even went to a gym teacher. Both trusted adults felt my heart, and responded by having me go lie down. Sound advice, no? So that's how I dealt with it...for the next 16 years.

In my teens it seemed to happen less, but still regularly. It became more frequent after I started college, and having learned about panic attacks, I self-diagnosed. I assumed my racing/pounding heart was just a stress related thingamawhatsit, and I got used to it. I'd scramble to find a secluded place to lie down until it passed, and try stealthily to go unnoticed.

Deep down, I think I felt responsible for my stressful past. Why else would I feel embarrassed for being emotionally, verbally and sexually abused, or witnessing my mom withstand verbal and physical abuse? There are a lot of terrible things that I always tried to hide, and I can see no other logical explanation. I was ashamed. I'm not anymore.

I have no reason to cover up the things that plagued my childhood, the fact that I was sexually abused for a span of about five years, the mean things my mom's boyfriend would yell at her, or the lies he'd whisper under his breath to me about my dad, how it terrified me when we'd try to leave and he'd chase us in his truck, how scared I was when he'd hit my mom, yank her around and throw things at her, how I'd hide under my bed with my dog, crying and praying for him to drop dead. I can talk about how every Easter, I'm reminded of waking up to him in my closet, slicing up my Easter dress, (I still don't know why he did that.), or how old rotary phones remind me of him crawling under the house to cut the phone lines before coming in to start an argument.

Everyday there's something to remind me, and there isn't a single reason on God's great green Earth for me to feel ashamed. None of it was my fault. I didn't choose any of that for myself, and it's a huge factor in the equation that is ME. I'm balancing out quite nicely, thank you very much, and am incredibly thankful.

As an intelligent adult, I realize what a wonder it is that I'm functional at all, and I'm blessed that things weren't worse than they were, that I learned from others' mistakes and that I have a happy marriage and healthy relationships. Still, no matter how much I vent, no matter how tightly I wrench that positive twist into it, I have nightmares, an occasional racing heart, constant reminders of a less than pleasant past and huge people-pleasing issues. I don't know if I'll ever get those monsters stomped out, but I know telling people where they hide makes them less likely to rear their ugly heads.

Alllllllll that being said, I took my fluttery, spastic heart to the doctor's office with me a few weeks ago. I shared what it was doing, and how long it'd been doing it and the next thing I knew I was getting a very frigid, very gooey echocardiogram and wearing a heart monitor. Turns out, there's nothing structurally wrong with the old ticker, no blockages or anything like that. I have an arrhythmia that allows my heart to be, well, bipolar. It goes from beating 70 beats per minute to beating 130 times a minute when I'm sleeping. It jumps up even higher when I get stressed during waking hours.

Needless to say, that's not good for me, so I'm on a medication to keep that rate steady. It seems to be working, and I'm feeling pretty good! I do hate taking meds, though. This is the only one I'm on, but I still hope to battle this arrhythmia with super human good health, so I can stop taking it.

Aaaaand speaking of good healthy things to do, venting is a must. I suppose I don't really need to tell a bunch of bloggers that, but maybe I do. It's been a while since I've talked about my past here on the old blog, or anywhere. It takes a lot of energy, and I often times feel like a big downer, but it turns out that it's something I need to let out now and again. Maybe you should, too.

I don't know what "many things" you might be hiding away, but I can pretty much promise you that it's a good idea to let it out. Don't let it fester and rot. Tell someone. Talk to God, tell a friend, or call your mom. Me? I plaster my depressing slop all over the interwebs. Well, not all over, just here. Point being, it's nothing to be ashamed of and you don't have to hide it.

*image credit