[Soupe du jour]

Innerzone, good for you for standing up for yourself! It's so important.

Nammu, BethRags, Miguel'sMom, thanks for the well wishes and suggestions. My husband does take an antidepressant for unipolar depression, but maybe he does need a little more. He takes Wellbutrin XR. I will say that the days we've gotten out of the house have been restorative, but now home he's literally gone to bed before 8 pm. He needs the rest. As I wrote in my post further above, he's wanting to escape some realities.

Whatever2013, I meant to write yesterday that I found fat-free milk to be a great tool for my past weight loss. I used to drink skim milk lattes or cappuccinos daily, in the morning. They really filled me up. I hope that if you switch back to regular that your tummy will be fine. My husband's lactose intolerant, but he can't eat cheese anymore. Luckily in Czech Republic the lactose free products are reasonably priced. They also sell a greater variety than they do even in the US.

Christina, I hope your bloodwork is OK. I would think if there were very concerning results you might have heard something by now. In any case, I hope you continue to enjoy your time with Gus and the weather. I think such positive therapeutic gifts do wonders for wellness.

buddah1too, I'm glad you have your pdoc appointment coming up. You definitely need the extra support. Hopefully with a little tweaking and support you can stop this negative mood trend.

[*Beth*]

Originally Posted by buddha1too

Feeling kind of raggedy. I have a pdoc appointment on the 29th.

Probably feels like a long time, but it'll fly by the way the days do, especially as we get older. What do you plan on discussing with your pdoc?

[*Beth*]

Originally Posted by Nammu

It’s 5:30 Saturday morning. Couldn’t sleep and was doing so much tossing and turning I was burning up. So decided to see what’s on tv. Beverly hillbillies, Batman bugs bunny ToM and jerry. They brought back the classics.

Caught part of girl interrupted and it bought back memories of state hospitals, kept popping up instead of letting me sleep.

I've seen Girl, Interrupted so many times. When it first came out I really enjoyed it...it seemed kind-of moderately heavy, but not overwhelming. Funny thing is, I watched it again recently (after not having seen it for some years). The movie affected me much more deeply this time, almost to a point of not being able to enjoy it.

[*Beth*]

Originally Posted by Soupe du jour

Me knowing birds as well as I do, I can confidently say that they are loud because they are also pissed off about the noise.

I hope you get some peace and quiet soon. More in the post just below.

I love the sounds of all the birds around here. I so wish I could name them all. My mother-in-law used to give tours at a local university arboretum; she knew all about the birds. It was fascinating!

Thank you for the pics! The cemetery is amazing, isn't it.

[Nammu]

Soupe I’m glad you got out and that it was a restorative. The pictures are lovely thanks.

[Soupe du jour]

Originally Posted by BethRags

I love the sounds of all the birds around here. I so wish I could name them all. My mother-in-law used to give tours at a local university arboretum; she knew all about the birds. It was fascinating!

Thank you for the pics! The cemetery is amazing, isn't it.

I'm fairly knowledgeable about New Jersey birds, but not at all about Czech ones. I imagine the arboretum had some beauties in it. Was that in CA or NY (or other place)? I know CA has oodles of wonderful birdies.

Czech Republic has some attractive birds, but the ones I see near my house are all quite plain-looking. Plus, they piss us off that they refuse to eat the seed from our bird feeder. I tell my husband that they dislike it because it is too modern-looking (like a Frank Lloyd Wright house). Maybe they only go to places that look like European cottages . There are a few birds in CZ that I'm familiar with, but the doves make a slightly different cooing noise than the ones in New Jersey. Strange. Well, they speak a slightly different language here.

We could only view part of the cemetery today because of covid closings. In any case, what we saw was amazing and it is in a beautiful, quiet hilly area. One of the oldest Jewish cemeteries, outside of Israel, is in Prague. It's a major "must see" for anyone, but particularly people of Jewish heritage (The Wikipedia entry on it is interesting: Old Jewish Cemetery, Prague - Wikipedia).

[Moose72]

My friend is getting into something called "bullet journaling". I watched a couple videos on youtube about it and ended up just being more confused than when I started. It's so convoluted- put all these things here, and all those things there and put down every thought you have and you can come back to it... etc. It's SUPPOSED to help organize your thoughts so you can organize your life- I THINK!- but I haven't tried it; for one thing, I don't have an actual tangible journal. (The kind with blank pages.)

N3 should be just about finished getting his second covid shot. His appointment was at 2:20. He works tonight and I asked him if he feels bad is there anybody that can come take over for him and he said yes so I hope that's true. I hope it's all going smoothly. My mom took him because he's just home from that trip to Utah for a week and they went a lot of places so my mom figured better her- fully vaccinated- than me- partially vaccinated. I had to drive to N3's place earlier to bring him his vax card! He definitely wouldn't have gotten far without it. I had it for safe keeping, which I hope he'll give it back after this shot. Hmm.. This is not good. I just tried calling my mom and she didn't answer. She can answer when she's driving with a button on the steering wheel,, so it can't be that they're driving. So much worry!

I haven't printed any more pictures for my living room so that's good. I'm getting kinda low on money after printing all those this month! Hopefully, it all will be okay. At least my mom has my Disney trip money where I can't get to it so I know that's going to be all set. I just hope the kids are saving so they can go! N1 said she definitely is up for a trip so I am pretty sure she will have the money. N2 I'm not sure of and N3 is a toss up too. Well, there are still 330 days until we go, so that's a lot of time.

I made another TikTok video but it's no good. It's just me saying how long the drive-thru line is at Starbucks and it wasn't really that long to begin with! And especially not by the time I got half way through it and decided to make the video!

Earlier, I thought I heard a dog baying from inside my bathroom. I mean, *I* was in my bathroom and thought I heard this wistful siren of a sound that could've been from a dog. Then when I went out in the hall to get my shoes on before I got N3, I heard it again. So I dunno if that's a lonely dog or if it's a dog at all. The one across the hall from me just barks- I know what it sounds like.

Last night, there seemed to be a fight in the parking lot outside my building around 1 a.m. Several cars next to each other with their lights on and people being quite loud. I couldn't see them without going outside as there is a big bush between my apartment and where they were. I never know if something is bad enough to call the police and then I think if I did that that they police would probably want to talk with me and I certainly am not down with that; all I wanted to do was go back to sleep.

It's so quiet in my apartment right now. I was watching a Tim Tracker video earlier. That is always fun. He was in the Magic Kingdom giving some updates about construction there and a few rides that are closed and/or changing.

I hate it when there's not much to do during the day. But I also didn't get up until 11:00 so now it's 3:30 already! I suppose I could put away the paper towel and kleenex and toilet paper I got. Right now it's on my dining room table.

My mom just called and said N3 is done and back home and he's going to take a nap before work tonight as he works the overnight shift on the weekends. I'm crossing my fingers that he doesn't have any side effects from this second shot tonight! And if he does, that he's smart enough to go home. (He can walk home from work; he'd need to call in another employee to take his place, of course.)

[Nammu]

Oh joy. 😔 mum is in a nervous energy mood and moving stuff from here to there making a mess. As I didn’t sleep last night I have zero energy and just want to sit and stare at the tv. Mum is so irritating today. Oy!

[Meadowdale3985]

I don't think depakote does anything for my depression either.

[Victoria'smom]

I slept.... a human amount of time.
if this is what normal feels like I've never had that! I'm still super sensitive and if I'm not doing anything for long I fall asleep, and the energy through out my body though I can feel it I don't have a preoccupation with releasing it. I'm hardly thinking about SH. My head only has thoughts of what I'm currently doing. It's amazing. Everything isn't over the top. I feel like I can do normal things. Like I can stay home by myself, maybe teach like I wanted to, this is such a weird feeling, there's so much I want to do. My husband wont let me buy things which is vaguely annoying for my future class I want to teach. If I don't I could always give it away to operation Christmas child but he says no still. I hate having shared $. I want to spend money on what I want. It's a small investment.

[Nammu]

Does anybody know how to get rid of old electronics safely? I don’t want some hacker to. Find my info but I’m nearly tech illiterate. I have an old heavy duty lap top and a an old second generation iPad. So old that it wasn’t worth selling back to apple.( when I bought my new one they offered $10 for it! ) Mum is raising a holy Fuss today about getting rid of stuff. Of course everything she wants to get rid of is mine. I’m paranoid about security of old electronics. There’s a drive though at the fairgrounds to dispose of electronics but how safe is that? If I took them apart what needs to be removed to make I’d theft impossible?

[Moose72]

Originally Posted by Nammu

Does anybody know how to get rid of old electronics safely? I don’t want some hacker to. Find my info but I’m nearly tech illiterate. I have an old heavy duty lap top and a an old second generation iPad. So old that it wasn’t worth selling back to apple.( when I bought my new one they offered $10 for it! ) Mum is raising a holy Fuss today about getting rid of stuff. Of course everything she wants to get rid of is mine. I’m paranoid about security of old electronics. There’s a drive though at the fairgrounds to dispose of electronics but how safe is that? If I took them apart what needs to be removed to make I’d theft impossible?

Remove the hard drive? I'm just flatly guessing here...

[Victoria'smom]

I'd factory reset then smash the drive. Easiest way is to take the hard drive out. That would take the "brains" out and all your information. and get rid of the rest of it. Yes you would have hard drives sitting around but you'd still have all the information and no one could get it. That's what I would do if not for H. If you want to get rid of the drive all you really have to smash is the main board of the hard drive. You can drill 2 holes through the drives.

But my h would use software to DOD wipe the computer 3+ times so he could used the hard drive later.

[Nammu]

What does the hard drive look like?

[*Beth*]

Originally Posted by Soupe du jour

I'm fairly knowledgeable about New Jersey birds, but not at all about Czech ones. I imagine the arboretum had some beauties in it. Was that in CA or NY (or other place)? I know CA has oodles of wonderful birdies.

We do! All sorts of birds - although not Cardinals, which I've seen in Texas. The arboretum was just 13 miles from where I live.

Czech Republic has some attractive birds, but the ones I see near my house are all quite plain-looking. Plus, they piss us off that they refuse to eat the seed from our bird feeder. I tell my husband that they dislike it because it is too modern-looking (like a Frank Lloyd Wright house). Maybe they only go to places that look like European cottages . There are a few birds in CZ that I'm familiar with, but the doves make a slightly different cooing noise than the ones in New Jersey. Strange. Well, they speak a slightly different language here.

How strange that they don't eat your seed! Also, that the doves sound different. There must be different types of doves, maybe more than we know of.

We could only view part of the cemetery today because of covid closings. In any case, what we saw was amazing and it is in a beautiful, quiet hilly area. One of the oldest Jewish cemeteries, outside of Israel, is in Prague. It's a major "must see" for anyone, but particularly people of Jewish heritage (The Wikipedia entry on it is interesting: Old Jewish Cemetery, Prague - Wikipedia).

Originally Posted by Soupe du jour

I dream of visiting Prague. My son and DIL travel every chance they get; he absolutely loved Prague.

Thank you for the link! Entirely captivating. Astounding history. The U.S. is such a baby when compared with most of Europe and all other continents, really.

Funny, my oldest sister's Hebrew name is Faguela, which means...bird!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Victoria'smom]

This is what a hard drive looks like.

Well, my experiment worked: I can drink regular milk! Yay! It should help a lot with my food budget. It was a nice day and in addition to our short walk over to the river i revived my "Fitness Pacing" exercise. Our private dog park is long and narrow so it takes a bit to walk the length of it. It's nice because the comfy lawn-chairs are right there for me to collapse into when i've had enough, not like a walk where i have to commit to the whole thing and if i get tired, tough. Plus there's no traffic, the mulch surface is soft, it's private and my dog gets to run loose til her heart's content. I pumped my arms and they are sooooooooo weak! This is the third day for no-potato-chips-and-Nutella and i don't miss them. I'm thoroughly enjoying my veggies!

I didn't go to my ZOOM social hour as it's been so disappointing so often. I'm having a nice time alternating soaps, the radio and jaunts outside and i feel the better for it.

Still sleeping fine on my benzo taper. Next week i'm in "One-derland" -- the single digits.

@Soupe du jour: Glad to hear milk was helpful in your diet. I'm expecting good things from it too. An easy source of protein. Nice pictures! You put a lot into life and you get a lot out.

[*Beth*]

Originally Posted by Meadowdale3985

I don't think depakote does anything for my depression either.

Hi Meadowdale! I see this is your 1st post. Welcome! I didn't know that Depakote was prescribed for depression. Are you on any other meds?

[*Beth*]

Originally Posted by Miguel'smom

I slept.... a human amount of time.
if this is what normal feels like I've never had that! I'm still super sensitive and if I'm not doing anything for long I fall asleep, and the energy through out my body though I can feel it I don't have a preoccupation with releasing it. I'm hardly thinking about SH. My head only has thoughts of what I'm currently doing. It's amazing. Everything isn't over the top. I feel like I can do normal things. Like I can stay home by myself, maybe teach like I wanted to, this is such a weird feeling, there's so much I want to do. My husband wont let me buy things which is vaguely annoying for my future class I want to teach. If I don't I could always give it away to operation Christmas child but he says no still. I hate having shared $. I want to spend money on what I want. It's a small investment.

I'm sorry about the $ - but the rest is amazing! Is it the thorazine that's helping?

[Nammu]

I’ve been googling how to destroy hard drives and there’s some pictures. Interesting stuff on destroying them.

[*Beth*]

Originally Posted by whatever2013

Well, my experiment worked: I can drink regular milk! Yay! It should help a lot with my food budget. It was a nice day and in addition to our short walk over to the river i revived my "Fitness Pacing" exercise. Our private dog park is long and narrow so it takes a bit to walk the length of it. It's nice because the comfy lawn-chairs are right there for me to collapse into when i've had enough, not like a walk where i have to commit to the whole thing and if i get tired, tough. Plus there's no traffic, the mulch surface is soft, it's private and my dog gets to run loose til her heart's content. I pumped my arms and they are sooooooooo weak! This is the third day for no-potato-chips-and-Nutella and i don't miss them. I'm thoroughly enjoying my veggies!

I didn't go to my ZOOM social hour as it's been so disappointing so often. I'm having a nice time alternating soaps, the radio and jaunts outside and i feel the better for it.

Still sleeping fine on my benzo taper. Next week i'm in "One-derland" -- the single digits.

@Soupe du jour: Glad to hear milk was helpful in your diet. I'm expecting good things from it too. An easy source of protein. Nice pictures! You put a lot into life and you get a lot out.

I love milk, always have. I wish I loved veggies as much as you do. Fruit is wonderful, but I have to make myself eat vegs.

GREAT news on your benzo taper! Wow, you've just clipped right along with it!

[Moose72]

Watching Girl Interrupted. Never seen it before. Whoopi Goldberg is in this? Huh!

I think I've eaten too much today. Had three meals- in an odd order-but I feel like I ate too much. I've gained 9 pounds since October when I moved in here.

[*Beth*]

Today was running errands day. With laundry included. It's incredible to have my car back! That was a strange 10 months; I'm so used to being a driver.

My mood is odd, and has been for quite a while. It's stable, but blah. I ask myself if this is what "normal" feels like? I don't think it is, I'm pretty sure that people feel normal as being more connected to others, and to life.


I posted, in mid-February, about my sister-friend C. dying so unexpectedly (she was 58). This past week her mother died. I loved her mom, she was a very stable, consistent figure in my life when my own childhood home was terribly chaotic, violent, crazy. She was 86...I think she simply died of a broken heart, only 2 months after losing her daughter.

I suppose I'm still in shock.

[Nammu]

Originally Posted by Meadowdale3985

I don't think depakote does anything for my depression either.

I missed your post the first time.

[Moose72]

Originally Posted by BethRags

Today was running errands day. With laundry included. It's incredible to have my car back! That was a strange 10 months; I'm so used to being a driver.

My mood is odd, and has been for quite a while. It's stable, but blah. I ask myself if this is what "normal" feels like? I don't think it is, I'm pretty sure that people feel normal as being more connected to others, and to life.


I posted, in mid-February, about my sister-friend C. dying so unexpectedly (she was 58). This past week her mother died. I loved her mom, she was a very stable, consistent figure in my life when my own childhood home was terribly chaotic, violent, crazy. She was 86...I think she simply died of a broken heart, only 2 months after losing her daughter.

I suppose I'm still in shock.

So glad you got your car back!

I'd be in shock if my friend died and then her mother died not long after, too. A good friend from high school's father died when we were seniors and then her mother died a few months later. They left her the house and some money. I remember shopping for houses with her right out of high school.