Couch 104 - The Couch Without A Catchy Title

That does rather make a difference...

I suppose they would. I don't know much about jewelry. I don't have very much of it to start with and what I do is mostly costume.

I was thinking something like what they did here - take old and create new.

I'm sure any major jewelry store probably could help re-create something. I have some of my great-grandmother's jewelry that I've thought about doing (one would be a redesign of a redesign. She took diamonds from her engagement or wedding band and then put it in a different setting with a star sapphire that she acquired from somewhere.

My oldest is babysitting my nephews tonight. My youngest and the boys are feeding energy into each other and driving us all up the wall. DD1 just came in saying "I'm either going to eat half a cake or a whole kid." I voted kid!

Lola so sorry to hear of your grandmothers passing. I dread the day my grandmother passes. Hope you take good care of yourself.

In the interest of scientific inquiry - I put the puppy's ear in my mouth today.
The puppy being the only animal who would not either think I had gone mad(other dogs) or leave me with a bloody nubbin(cat).
The appeal of such an activity is still lost upon me.

LOL, stopdog!!!

hahahahaha

Sorry, but i love that you did that!

I sometimes kiss/gum my kitty's ears because THEY ARE SO CUTE. I definitely have never really had an urge to bite him though. I do like to scoop him up and hold him like a baby against his will and kiss him on his mouth, so there's that...

Hey, at least you dipped your toe in the water!

Next thing we know you will go off and find a mule to see if that works better for you.

I draw the line at kissing animals on the mouth.

Once I wrote that out, I thought to myself "Hmmm....this probably isn't normal," but i love his little mouth. Its so cute. Plus, he never actually lets me kiss him on the mouth because he's generally straining away from me going "COME HERE JACK. LET ME KISS YOUR MOUTH" WHATEVER, KITTY.

The eight year old has the older kitty trained to kiss her. She gets annoyed at the younger one because he refuses to humor her. I'm not big on kitty kisses myself...

(((lola))) i dont think i can even imagine what that would be like.

Omg, how did your kid do that?! Why didn't I think of training my cat to do that when he was a kitten? I did train him to play fetch, which is still amusing to this day...but I should have thought of more!

I believe it involved some actual licking. This child will not touch vegetables, ewws if she finds a loose hair on herself and complains that all sorts of normal things stink, yet she will lick a kitten on the mouth. Go figure.
And yes, the cat was really young. I think only about 6 weeks old when we got her.

I am just imagining a small child licking a cat on the mouth, trying to give it kisses!
Does the cat go up to your daughter and "ask" for a kiss, or does your daughter go to the kitty and signal him/her somehow?

I just find this fascinating. My friend trained her cat (who is about 9 years old) to tap her twice when she needs to be pet. Which is a little ridiculous, especially because this cat is already spoiled and gets pet often. Anyway, I didn't believe it, and she tried to get the cat to do it to me one night, and she sort of put her paw on me, but I was on the fence about it.

Last week I was over there, and the cat was all around me meowing, and I kept trying to get her to hop on my lap, but she wasn't having it. I went on to watching the movie, when she was sitting next to me. I look over, she puts one paw on my leg and literally tapped it twice, and I screamed at my friend "OH MY GOD. SHE JUST TAPPED ME." My friend just goes "Well. pet her then."

haha. Animals are funny.

She'll pick up the cat and make kiss-kiss noises and the cat will lick her on the mouth. She tries the same thing with the other cat and it's hilarious to watch him squirm away. You can almost see him curling his lip with disgust

That's too funny about your friend's tapping cat

People are kissing cats again? LOL couch. I admit to being a person who has given a cat a belly raspberry just to see the look of shock and indignity on kitty's face.

I had a terrible week at work like a bad nightmare. I found some old citalopram that I had squirreled away and took about 40mgs. Feeling spacey now. Kind of pissed at my medical team--my MD never has time for an appointment and the young psychiatrist I met with was expensive and useless. I feel like I'm becoming medically depressed again. I'm much more open right now to the idea of medication because every day I cry and the crying doesn't make me feel better. Work just makes me feel constantly angry.

Even for those of us w/a decent salary and health insurance, psychiatric care and options really really suck. Hospital care for a crisis is horrible and traumatizing. Yes I feel like I am heading towards needing crisis help. Any ideas?

Growly I hope things turn around for you. Hospitals are good for 2 things in my eyes: a) safety(so long as you are learning skills for when discharged) and b) drastic medication changes that need to be done under close supervision. However, if you feel a crisis warrants hospitalization for whatever your reason...GO.

My anxiety is thru the roof about going to work this afternoon. I cant sleep and it is 2 am.

DD you work so hard I admire your ability to take on so many jobs.

I've been debating what to do. I'm having nights where I'm not sleeping either!! Thanks for sharing your perspective.

For Artemis-

Found this in another forum and maybe you will find it as helpful as I do ---it is a brain training game that helps one ignore social negativity----it mentions call center people specifically in the study "In another study we asked telemarketing operators to play the game each day for a week, before starting their daily shift. By the end of the week of dealing with people angrily hanging up on them, operators in the control condition felt -as you might imagine- stressed. Among operators who played the game before their shift, by comparison, they felt less stressed and more confident. Plus by the end of the week they had lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their system. "

Game can be found here as well as research info on its effectiveness: Materials

I am dealing with a lot of negativity at work and I thought I'd try this. If you try it let me know if you find it effective!

I just royally embarrassed myself to my T. hate this. I hate everything. I'm a freaking adult but feel like such a child. So alone. So confused. I need something but don't know what and everything inside hurts. I'm sorry couch I just needed a place to let it out.

((Ellahmae))

Feeling embarrassed in therapy probably means you did something brave, like say something really hard? Anything you want to talk about here?

Just emotionally exploded more than I ever have via text to t. It's late. I feel so much. Woke up from a flashback and can't get myself together. I can't stop crying and all I want is my T. I want her to sit with me right now. I need her to tell me it's alright and I'll be okay. I told her I needed her. I've never told anyone I've ever needed them before. It feels wrong and I just hate all of these feelings and memories and everything I feel like I've ruined my relationship with my T because I told her I needed her. She'll wake up to a gazillion texts that I wish I could unsend or delete from her phone before she sees them.

I'm sorry. I'm whining and it's dumb. I'll get over it. Things just keep getting harder and I wish I could find an air pocket to catch my breath but I just keep drowning. I'll stop crying on the couch now. Sorry, all.

((Ellahmae))