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A Staircase Descent

Jen — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 13:26:33 +0000

Her virgin blood drips
From one step to the next
A staircase descent into mankind

Torn feathers drift
Back and forth
Making their way to the floor

She will never get them back

A golden oh
A broken symbol
Of her eternal freedom
Hits the richly stained wood
Ting
Ting
Ting
Followed by a resounding ring

She lies in her purity
Grasping with her red fingers
She holds nothing
It slips away

The breath of life
Rises up into the barren trees
Circling around the rugged branches
Interlocking fingers
Then letting go

It carries the black bird
To the nearest horizon
In search of its loved ones
Then off to anther land

Day 12

Jen — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 07:04:04 +0000

Well I fell asleep last night around 0230. I had taken 3 melatonin. I woke up this morning in excruciating pain at 1000. I stayed in bed till 1130. I had a doctors appointment at 1250. It didn’t go so well. Just the same old “how are your eyes, have you been to an optometrist? Are you eating? Have you tried pt? Maybe you should go to pt, you have some muscle tension.”
Yeah if you were in pain every single day of your life, you might be a little tense, too. I am so frustrated.
My head is POUNDING. And strangely, it’s my whole head today. He prescribed me Maxsalt today. I took one about an hour and a half ago… For a moment I thought it was helping, but now I realize that was hopeful placebo effect. Gonna take another in half an hour. I can only take three a day. I dont know what I’m going to do if after three my head is still pounding. He doesn’t want me to take any more exedrin. I can’t take nothing. If my head is still dying by tonight, I think I’ll have to go to the ER. Sigh…. I’m surprised they don’t recognize me by name there.
I sometimes worry that one of these days they’re going to accuse me of that making up things syndrome 9.9 munchowsins? Maunchaosins? Maunchousens?

Day 9

Jen — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 01:36:05 +0000

The last few days went pretty well. The only frustrating thing was that I couldn’t sleep so I started taking four melatonin at night falling asleep really late and sleeping really late. I went back to taking two and resumed my normal sleeping schedule pretty quickly.
Now today. I woke up this morning reeling in pain. Terrible terrible headache. VERY light sensitive. My eyes hurt. My jaw hurts. My kneck guts. My brain feels like its too big for my skull, causing a massive amount of pressure. Moving my head hurts cause it feels like my brain is sore and bumps against my skull. I took my morning pills- 1 Zoloft and 1 Cipro, plus 2 Exedrin.
At night I took 2 melatonin, 1 Cipro. I also had 1 drink consisting of approx 1.5 shot vanilla Smirnoff vodka and 1 vanilla coke. Went to bed, did NOT go to sleep. I got really, really sleepy, and I wanted to go to sleep. But sleep never came. I tossed and turned until just after 8:30am. Then I woke 5 and a half hours later…

Day 4

Jen — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 12:22:02 +0000

Yesterday was a really good day. I had more energy than usual and took advantage of that by cleaning the bedroom. Unfortunately it took me all day, but I got it done.
Today made up for yesterday. I have had an AWFUL headache all day (left side). I am light sensitive right now. I’ve been in bed basically all day.
I have a doctor appt on the 27th at 1230. Crossing my fingers that I actually go.
**update: it is 12:08am and I have now taken 1800mcg of melatonin. I took 1200mcg (4 tablets) around 9pm and couldn’t go to sleep. I just took 2 more.
**update2: it is 2:30am. Still awake.
**update3: finally fell asleep around 4:30am

Went to the cabin for valentine’s day

Jen — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 09:40:48 +0000

Mt Fuji

Jen — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 09:32:20 +0000

Mt Fuji at sunset from across the runway.

Day 2

Jen — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 09:11:15 +0000

Today was sadly one of my better days. I woke up around 10am. I have had a ringing in my right ear most of the day. Barely an appetite. Arron made me food at 1pm because I had not eaten anything. It is 6pm now and I’ve been nursing a growing headache for about an hour or so. Today it is on the left side. Behind the left eye, left ear and left side of the neck right where the bottom of my skull meets my spine. It is a dull, throbbing pain.
I still have not made a doctors appointment. I think I’m afraid of being told “we don’t know, much less really care…” again.
But I suppose how can I expect doctors to care when, for all intents and purposes, I don’t seem to care. I do care. It’s just I’m running on 20% battery life 90% of the time.

From the heart

Jen — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:31:38 +0000

My first quilt was a gift for my mother. They said I couldn’t get it done by Christmas, especially since I had never quilted before, but I was determined to prove them wrong. I bought all my supplies from a little, local quilting store- Tiny Stitches – and picked their brains for every tip and scrap of information I could garnish. When the sweet ladies at Tiny Stitches heard that I was planning to HAND QUILT my “starry sky” lap quilt by Christmas, I could see the corners of their mouths begin to twitch and desperately resist the urge to curve skyward. I didn’t have the slightest clue of what kind of a ride I was in for, but I was resolved. Praise the Lord, when my Grandmother heard of the new adventure I was embarking on, she gave me the wonderful gift of a brand new Singer sewing machine as an early Christmas Present. Bless her soul!
So with (I believe it was) three weeks to measure, cut and stitch these “fat quarters” together into some semblance of a beautiful lap quilt, I set myself up in the living room, and a tad in the kitchen, and little bit in the bedroom, and got to work. I fought with the sewing machine for several days until I had tamed it- or beat it, rather- into submission. I made a few mistakes here, bought some new tools and fabric, made a few mistakes there, fixed them, and before I knew it, I had somewhere around 18 perfect squares, all sewn together beautifully, pinned to batting, pinned to backing. Ready to go. Ready to be a quilt!
And a week left. Maybe less.
I took my squares back down to the store so the ladies could inspect (and cross my fingers admire) it, and wouldn’t you know it, she says “okay….don’t get too upset…. you’re going to have to redo this. See, you have (Charlie Brown) *wha-wha-wha-wha-wha-wha* because you have to *wha-wha-wha* before you *wha-wha-wha-wha-wha* in order to *wha-wha-wha-wha-wha-wha-wha*.” My eyes began to glaze over…. I only had a week left, maybe less, and I felt like I’d gotten nothing done! I had been working so hard and yet I was running in place! My proverbial tires were spinning!
Frustrated and feeling defeated, I returned home to fix my mistakes. Which in retrospect were not that bad or difficult to fix, it was just my pride that had taken a beating. I was privately hoping to be some young quilting prodigy, incapable of making mistakes, and my dreams had not come to fruition. But I hit the ground running again, and even as I fixed the problems and began moving forward, I felt my pride returning! This was still a possibility! I got all the pins correctly placed, cut my edging out properly, and worked right up to Christmas day, right until the very middle of our family Christmas party (which was not a little awkward, mind you….) until I sewed the very last stitch.
I PROUDLY brought my quilt into the family room, held it up for the entire family to see, and said “well mom” with a sigh of relief, “Merry Christmas!”
And that very day, my mom learned how to pretend to be cold.
Love you, mom

Cleaning cleaning cleaning

Jen — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 11:32:33 +0000

So, we got a puppy. *grimace*. I’m going to stop you right there– it was ARRONS IDEA. He wanted a puppy, he picked it out, he named it. It’s his puppy. And I swear I’m gonna kill that dog. He’s three months old and offers from all of the puppy disorders. Chews on everything. Poops on everything. Cries about everything. Pees on everything. I took him out to go potty today, spent about fifteen minutes outside, he pees once, i take him inside, he runs in a circle and poops on the carpet. How can that not be a vindictive plan? He’s learning the opposite of the lessons I’m teaching him. I popped your nose for pooping on the carpet, NOT for pooping outside. It’s totally worth it to see the way arron interacts with him though. A-freaking-dorable. It’s so surreal to see a super-serious airman turn into a human being at the sound of a puppy whimper. There’s a sound I should master, haha.
Anyway, I did my first PCS clean today. Good night, you never know a person till you clean their house. That should be our business motto. An hour in, I texted arron and said “you BETTER appreciate me.” I thought I was slovenly before today. How wrong I’m a neat freak by comparison! These people have NEVER vacuumed, NEVER, mopped, NEVER cleaned their windows, never even cleaned their sink! How can someone live like that? Does it not bother you to walk into your kitchen and be knee deep in spaghetti, dog slobber, dog fur, and a strange, black fungus?! I would be embarrassed! I would be cleaning just to have the cleaning service in the house! I understand arron now, and more importantly, I understand what my mother was feeling all those years. I spent TWO HOURS, just on the kitchen. And I kept coming back to it after I finished it. I just couldn’t believe. I wanted to take a before and after, but I didn’t want to get caught “taking pictures.” not for fear that they would get mad, I just didn’t want them to be embarrassed that they’re such slobs, a house cleaner couldn’t resist taking pictures. gosh, how mortifying.
But, I made a quick hundy, so that’s nice. One or two cleans a week and I’ll be doing pretty well. The rest of the time I’ll just be supervising, or whatever my job is. I’m interviewing two people tomorrow, probably hiring one of them. After the job fair coming up, we’ll hopefully have 2 or 3 employees to do some of the cleans. We’ll do the ones we want to do and pass the others off on the employees. Ladida.
In other news, kiko is trying to scratch straight to her skull. Not sure why. Stress maybe? Food allergy? Doubt it. I think it’s stress. But when we got the puppy supplies, I picked up a (TWENTY DOLLAR) cone, and some anti itch ear cream for her, so she’s been wearing the cone for two days now. I feel so bad for her and I love the little kitteh but OH EM GEE, it is HILARIOUS. she still doesn’t realize that where she goes, the cone will go. She literally high steps everywhere. She still tries to back out of it, or crawl through it. I feel so bad for laughing so hard at her misery. But it’s for her own good. I wish it wasn’t funny but for pete’s sake it is! Another day or two and I’ll probably be able to take it off. I want to make sure that she is good and healed before taking it off because I think the healing itself is itchy.
Well that’s all that’s gone on lately.
Oh and the dog’s name is trigger.

things happening here

Jen — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 02:55:19 +0000

Well there is a tropical storm blowing through this weekend. hopefully it won’t be too bad. i think that we will have a storm party at J’s house, maybe do a star wars marathon. or back to the future. that would be cool.

J and I are starting a house cleaning business. she ordered the starter kit and they should be in any day now. we already have a bunch of customers lined up. as soon as we start getting a little profit stash built up, we’re going to add pet grooming to the business, which i will do. washing dogs, clipping nails, that sort of thing. we’re also painting the walls back to neutral when families PCS. that ought to make some decent money.

i dyed my hair back to dark brown last night. i really like it. i’ve been getting into couponing lately (i know right….) and i had a coupon for the hair dye, so i got two boxes for really cheap. my hair is pretty long now, so it takes two boxes.

next weekend (the 8th of septembre) J and I are going on a trip to a town outside of Sendai to help clean up after the tsunami. arron doesn’t really want me to go, but this is something i have been wanting to do for a long time. he thinks i will get cancer. i don’t think i will. we will only be there for one day, and we’re not going to Sendai, we’re going to a town outside of Sendai. and if something were to happen, i would rather it be helping than, say, smoking cigarettes.

well, i think that’s all the updates for now. until next time.