Yes. This. Meds often have side effects for the first few weeks and if you have to switch sometimes tapering off of them is terrible too. So you can spend a month taking a med that doesn’t work or you don’t tolerate well, and all that guess work takes its toll.

I lived in FL when my dh and I met. He came to see me for the first time, and said\, "Why does everything in FL look like it's a swamp?" And I said, "Thats what FL is. One great big swamp." We've not been back since we married. We're definitely mountain people. And yes I remember the bare sand, patchy green stuff. MY parents didn't care much about lawn care, but they cut whatever green stuff grew. Our yard was a mixture of sandspurs and bare sand. We NEVER went barefoot in FL. In fact, we seldom played outside if it wasn't a park or something like that.

For me, the art/writing helps me release those emotions. They end up all out there on paper so I don't have to have them swirling in my head and I can move on. If I don't get them out, or if I am unable to get past the emotions despite pouring them out multiple times over a period of time, I end up depressed, unable to feel anything. ETA: The biggest moment of irony in my life was the day after a completely devastating event happened .(worse than a death...the harsh, personal, rejection of someone you care deeply about is, IME, worse than a death of a loved one) I wrote the most hilarious, beautiful piece of comedy I've ever presented. Everyone who's read any of my material agreed it was fabulous and the best I've ever done. I have no idea where it came from because I was not in a mood for light amusement. When my drama kids presented it, it was up till the dress rehearsal before anyone could do the whole thing without cracking up in laughter. But perhaps, my soul needed the deep belly laughs that that material provided. Maybe I was hysterical? Anyway, I've not yet duplicated that bit of writing.

Yeah you have to adapt to what your climate is. Tropical places just have different needs. Florida was originally a swamp so unless you want nothing but swamp plants you have to adapt.

Yes. Most of the time I can get what I need for what I want to cook. So perhaps it’s coming for your area soon.

There are also other ways to participate in someone's passion besides doing it personally. For gardening, buy some plants or equipment. For shopping, buy a gift card and meet at the mall for dinner at a restaurant. etc.

For meals, can you have a 7 day rotation. It might get boring, but from time to time you could substitute in something else for a day. I find that actually shopping for and thinking up food stuff makes me grumpy. That would also allow your dh to build his cooking skills.

I've told my kids that when they are parents, they can do Mother's Day however they like to celebrate it. They are the ones doing the hard work mothering so if they want to come see me, fine, if they want to nap and enjoy the day with their own kids, fine. Please give me a call though! When I am no longer actively mothering my kids, it will be nice that they acknowledge my efforts but young moms are TIRED and working very hard. Their families should be giving them what THEY want to do with the day. I think some older moms or grandmothers feel at a loss about their usefulness once their kids are grown. Perhaps they struggle with the transition to having adult kids who don't necessarily rely on them. Some women just thrived on being the mom and don't know how to move on to have their own lives separate from their kids. Those are the grandmothers who I think get all manipulative about mother's day. Some women are just glad to be a queen bee and feel that Mother's Day it's their right to behave as such when on other days their families won't put up with it as much. However, some older women are just lonely and really want their families around them, so they use mothers day as a way of forcing that issue. NOTE: The following statement is full of generalizations. I know that. I've just seen some patterns and yes, I know that it's not ALL mothers of sons. In my experience, mother's of sons often really struggle with things like this, thus the mother in law stuff. (not all of course, but enough that I've noticed the pattern) Men generally are less sentimental so these Hallmark days just don't register with them in the same way. And a grown man may typically "need" his mother less or might feel weird about acknowledging his tie to his mom. Women typically don't mind those kind of emotional ties to their parents. So the mother of a son may miss her son, feel unneeded and insecure, thus be a witch about Mother's Day. And there is the "Some women are just very sentimental." aspect of this dynamic.

So this week, I got serious. Tracking food on my fitbit app. Getting in intense workout 3-4 days a week. Monday and Tuesday, I was so sore, I could hardly walk so yesterday, I just did normal fitbit steps and some stretching. Today, I'm going to go do another intense workout. I'm doing well with food. Basically, I procrastinate breakfast until 11 am (I do have coffee) and have a largish breakfast. Then a decent snack at 3-4 pm. And supper. And that;s it. I've lost 2 lbs this week, but I'm sure it's only water. I've found that if I eat much more than 1400 calories a day, I gain weight. Which makes me sad, but that's the nature of being 40 I guess. I just love to eat food. Love it. IT's super annoying because my dh literally can eat three times more than me and maintain, despite the fact that he never exercises. And he's 5 years older. It's not fair.

I always think you're in Los Angeles, despite reading multiple times that your LA is Louisiana. For whatever reason it's stuck in my brain as your being a California girl and that's that.

Welll... our pandemic purchase was septic line. Thankfully it was just a connecting line (which was clogged with sewage) and not the whole set of field lines. So we only spent $1500 instead of $3500. flushing is nice.

I am totally trying to give grace to people who are out and about, bending the rules, or maybe not as careful as they should be. My experience with mental illness tells me that many families suffer through this stuff silently and they have to do what keeps them in a good place.

It was like this in many rural areas of the South though. My great grandparents were first cousins. They lived in a town with a family name, such as Smithville where everyone in the town was related in some way and many had the last name of Smith. I think it likely depends on the time the family immigrated to the US from Europe or other places and how isolated the community was. In many places in the South the roads and mountains limited the mobility of so many families. Even now, in Appalachia, communities have become so isolated, that the idea of moving away is incomprehensible. They just can't imagine a life outside of the "holler." I've heard Alaska is the same way.

Yeah, she did do better when there were some classes to wrap up. She felt that she was working toward something, and now, she's just dead in the water, waiting for...something. I have been allowing her some limited get togethers with a few low risk families. One my my kids struggles with severe mental illness. That colors my decisions about keeping my kids in good places mentally and emotionally. I've been down the dark road of depression and anxiety with a child and I don't want that pit opening up again. I know that it's a CV19 risk, but with our family history, bipolar, depression, and anxiety is just as big of a risk. We're going to pay to fix her car. That's a problem we can solve for her.

She was supposed to graduate this spring, so far She’s managed the disappointment ok. Prom possibly in September. Fine, gives us extra time to finish the dress. Didn’t want to walk at graduation anyway. drama play postponed till...when? Actually just filming for YouTube. Fine. Ok. Whatever. she hasn’t been getting any work at the tea shop where she works. They’re doing curbside so less business and hours for everyone and her coworkers need their paychecks more that she does. Ok fine. She loves them and understands but has really looked forward to getting back to work after Memorial Day. theres been some whining about friends here and there but overall it was ok. today she ugly cried. She heard that the tea shop dining room is closed indefinitely. They’ll still be doing curbside but being at 50 percent capacity just won’t work for a shop that holds 50 customers maximum. So nobody knows when they’ll open up normally. Her plan was to learn to serve this summer, work as many hours as possible to provide flexibility in her financial needs for when college starts in the fall. not possible. It all hit her at once, so many disappointments, and even as she was sobbing on the couch she was saying “I know it’s not that big a deal, and I’ve got a place to stay and all but I just wanted to go back to work.” ugh. her car needs work, she hasn’t heard from any of the scholarships she’s applied for, she’s worried about paying for books and things this fall. what a crappy spring.