Advent, Day 10

How about some Pearl Bailey? Whozat? Go back and look at your game shows of the 60's and 70's. She's all over them, squeaky clean and smiling.

But she got her spurs singing jazz and telling jokes, back in the day. She put this one little ditty to vinyl back then as well.

And it hasn't aged much.

Pearl Bailey - 'A Five Pound Box of Money'

And for food, I stumbled across this .pdf link from the King's Hawaiian Bread company. Go print a few copies....

King's Hawaiian Special Occasion Bread Recipes

See you tomorrow!

Advent, Day 10

How about some Pearl Bailey? Whozat? Go back and look at your game shows of the 60's and 70's. She's all over them, squeaky clean and smiling.

But she got her spurs singing jazz and telling jokes, back in the day. She put this one little ditty to vinyl back then as well.

And it hasn't aged much.

Pearl Bailey - 'A Five Pound Box of Money'

And for food, I stumbled across this .pdf link from the King's Hawaiian Bread company. Go print a few copies....

King's Hawaiian Special Occasion Bread Recipes

See you tomorrow!

Advent, Day 10

How about some Pearl Bailey? Whozat? Go back and look at your game shows of the 60's and 70's. She's all over them, squeaky clean and smiling.

But she got her spurs singing jazz and telling jokes, back in the day. She put this one little ditty to vinyl back then as well.

And it hasn't aged much.

Pearl Bailey - 'A Five Pound Box of Money'

And for food, I stumbled across this .pdf link from the King's Hawaiian Bread company. Go print a few copies....

King's Hawaiian Special Occasion Bread Recipes

See you tomorrow!

Monday, Monday -

One thing I am certain of.

Jim is NOT going to find his presents by accident this year. Bwahaha.

--

People might be mildly amused that I am giving my grumpy younger brother a HUGE bag of Coach's Oats (oatmeal) for Christmas. If he's going to be a crotchety old fart, might as well get treated like one.

Beats a pair of socks, you ask me.

Do I think any members of my family know about this LJ? Not a chance. Closest is my niece, who has a MySpace (WHY) - if I showed her this one, she might plotz. Then laugh. Who knows.

I often refer to LJ as "MySpace's saner older sister."

Weekend totally unproductive. Well, if you exclude installing the wireless router. And keeping it up. It was everything I had dreaded and put off for over four years. Nice to know I hadn't over-estimated the PIA-ness of the thing.

I was then motivated to see what adding it would change.

Turns out I can see the iTunes on the Mini on the laptop if they share the wireless connection. This was good until I found out I couldn't put anything from the Mini on the laptop's playlists. BOO. Or do much remotely. BOO HISS.

And the machine serving the wireless router? Not at all. Oh well.

I am also making the dreaded mix CD for giving to friends - I may also make it downloadable. So far, I haven't used a fraction of my bandwidth doing the advent calendar. For ONCE I'd like to have Earthlink fear me. Fat chance.

--

Something I have been reminded of lately - and take this as kindly as you can, because it isn't nice.

When I was at my sickest, depression-wise? I didn't get any passes for it. The whole idea of a "panic attack" hadn't been coined.

I was simply considered defective. And expected to improve as quickly as possible.

You'll find that I may be sympathetic - to a point. Empathy in spades.

But I will also start directing - watch for it. The one thing I wanted more than anything was to be normal enough to "pass" again. And I had a very good idea of what normal would look like - and worked in that direction.

Loved, but not liked. Hated it. So, when I'm discussing depressive illness, and I appear curt - there's the origin.

I truly believe that saved me. I didn't waste time with things that "might" work - or anything where I wasn't in direct control of what was done to me. Cognitive therapy was a perfect fit for me - even when the medications of choice to go with it were not SSRIs, but the valium, libriums and so forth of their day. I turned them all down.

Your mileage may vary. But keep in mind - I know how I felt. And I hated it and did whatever I could to get out of it FAST. I went back to work as soon as I could, I went back to dealing with people as soon as possible (and considered it re-training myself on how to do it properly), and went through many, many legal pads and pencils.

I've said I never stop thinking. Chuck that into overdrive. But thinking alone didn't do it.

I worked. Wrote it down. Challenged a lot of thinking.

But never, ever accepted it as my due. I wanted OUT. I deserved my life, and I deserved a GOOD one.

And I'm still angry at my family for assuming I was defective. At any point.

But - I think that's what saved me.

Monday, Monday -

One thing I am certain of.

Jim is NOT going to find his presents by accident this year. Bwahaha.

--

People might be mildly amused that I am giving my grumpy younger brother a HUGE bag of Coach's Oats (oatmeal) for Christmas. If he's going to be a crotchety old fart, might as well get treated like one.

Beats a pair of socks, you ask me.

Do I think any members of my family know about this LJ? Not a chance. Closest is my niece, who has a MySpace (WHY) - if I showed her this one, she might plotz. Then laugh. Who knows.

I often refer to LJ as "MySpace's saner older sister."

Weekend totally unproductive. Well, if you exclude installing the wireless router. And keeping it up. It was everything I had dreaded and put off for over four years. Nice to know I hadn't over-estimated the PIA-ness of the thing.

I was then motivated to see what adding it would change.

Turns out I can see the iTunes on the Mini on the laptop if they share the wireless connection. This was good until I found out I couldn't put anything from the Mini on the laptop's playlists. BOO. Or do much remotely. BOO HISS.

And the machine serving the wireless router? Not at all. Oh well.

I am also making the dreaded mix CD for giving to friends - I may also make it downloadable. So far, I haven't used a fraction of my bandwidth doing the advent calendar. For ONCE I'd like to have Earthlink fear me. Fat chance.

--

Something I have been reminded of lately - and take this as kindly as you can, because it isn't nice.

When I was at my sickest, depression-wise? I didn't get any passes for it. The whole idea of a "panic attack" hadn't been coined.

I was simply considered defective. And expected to improve as quickly as possible.

You'll find that I may be sympathetic - to a point. Empathy in spades.

But I will also start directing - watch for it. The one thing I wanted more than anything was to be normal enough to "pass" again. And I had a very good idea of what normal would look like - and worked in that direction.

Loved, but not liked. Hated it. So, when I'm discussing depressive illness, and I appear curt - there's the origin.

I truly believe that saved me. I didn't waste time with things that "might" work - or anything where I wasn't in direct control of what was done to me. Cognitive therapy was a perfect fit for me - even when the medications of choice to go with it were not SSRIs, but the valium, libriums and so forth of their day. I turned them all down.

Your mileage may vary. But keep in mind - I know how I felt. And I hated it and did whatever I could to get out of it FAST. I went back to work as soon as I could, I went back to dealing with people as soon as possible (and considered it re-training myself on how to do it properly), and went through many, many legal pads and pencils.

I've said I never stop thinking. Chuck that into overdrive. But thinking alone didn't do it.

I worked. Wrote it down. Challenged a lot of thinking.

But never, ever accepted it as my due. I wanted OUT. I deserved my life, and I deserved a GOOD one.

And I'm still angry at my family for assuming I was defective. At any point.

But - I think that's what saved me.

Monday, Monday -

One thing I am certain of.

Jim is NOT going to find his presents by accident this year. Bwahaha.

--

People might be mildly amused that I am giving my grumpy younger brother a HUGE bag of Coach's Oats (oatmeal) for Christmas. If he's going to be a crotchety old fart, might as well get treated like one.

Beats a pair of socks, you ask me.

Do I think any members of my family know about this LJ? Not a chance. Closest is my niece, who has a MySpace (WHY) - if I showed her this one, she might plotz. Then laugh. Who knows.

I often refer to LJ as "MySpace's saner older sister."

Weekend totally unproductive. Well, if you exclude installing the wireless router. And keeping it up. It was everything I had dreaded and put off for over four years. Nice to know I hadn't over-estimated the PIA-ness of the thing.

I was then motivated to see what adding it would change.

Turns out I can see the iTunes on the Mini on the laptop if they share the wireless connection. This was good until I found out I couldn't put anything from the Mini on the laptop's playlists. BOO. Or do much remotely. BOO HISS.

And the machine serving the wireless router? Not at all. Oh well.

I am also making the dreaded mix CD for giving to friends - I may also make it downloadable. So far, I haven't used a fraction of my bandwidth doing the advent calendar. For ONCE I'd like to have Earthlink fear me. Fat chance.

--

Something I have been reminded of lately - and take this as kindly as you can, because it isn't nice.

When I was at my sickest, depression-wise? I didn't get any passes for it. The whole idea of a "panic attack" hadn't been coined.

I was simply considered defective. And expected to improve as quickly as possible.

You'll find that I may be sympathetic - to a point. Empathy in spades.

But I will also start directing - watch for it. The one thing I wanted more than anything was to be normal enough to "pass" again. And I had a very good idea of what normal would look like - and worked in that direction.

Loved, but not liked. Hated it. So, when I'm discussing depressive illness, and I appear curt - there's the origin.

I truly believe that saved me. I didn't waste time with things that "might" work - or anything where I wasn't in direct control of what was done to me. Cognitive therapy was a perfect fit for me - even when the medications of choice to go with it were not SSRIs, but the valium, libriums and so forth of their day. I turned them all down.

Your mileage may vary. But keep in mind - I know how I felt. And I hated it and did whatever I could to get out of it FAST. I went back to work as soon as I could, I went back to dealing with people as soon as possible (and considered it re-training myself on how to do it properly), and went through many, many legal pads and pencils.

I've said I never stop thinking. Chuck that into overdrive. But thinking alone didn't do it.

I worked. Wrote it down. Challenged a lot of thinking.

But never, ever accepted it as my due. I wanted OUT. I deserved my life, and I deserved a GOOD one.

And I'm still angry at my family for assuming I was defective. At any point.

But - I think that's what saved me.