Up at 2:30...

It's me again... awake at 2:30 this morning.  I have become quite the middle-of-the-nighter.  Not sure what that's about, but I think it's time to call my doc.  I see her in a little over a week, but I might need to see her sooner.  This can't go on too much longer.

Plus, my jaw still hurts.  Either, my TMJ is really flared, or it's a med reaction.  It started right after I started taking one of my new meds... so...

I'm going to try my chiropractor again; hopefully that'll help.

Have I mentioned that I hate that I have to take meds.  Yeah, I do.

As I've mentioned before, my doc and counselor are considering me to have Bipolar II... and this includes extreme highs (hypomania) and extreme lows (depression).

One of the things that I'm going to talk with my counselor this week is "what does hypomania really look like?"

I've read that typically hypomania... is extremely energetic... more talkative than usual... inflated confidence... increased assertiveness... flying from one idea to the next... decreased need for sleep... increase in goal-directed activity... racing thoughts...

I feel like I'm going through this right now.  Though, even though I don't get much sleep, I wouldn't say it's a decreased "need," I'm just awake.  I typically have to lay back down at some point.

My day yesterday looked like this:
I got up and went to church (went to our Coffee House and loved it!).  I came home and Robert and I made lunch.  We ate, then I went running.  I came back, cleaned up, and waited for my daughter's friend to come over.  They played while I got to work.  I baked homemade bread, made some gluten free cinnamon raisin bread rounds (mostly because the gluten free versions were easier and I had almond flour), boiled eggs, sliced fruit, made little homemade Starbucks protein bistro boxes, sliced veggies for lunches (broccoli and carrots), set up overnight crockpot oats, made lunches for the kids for the next day (forgot that they didn't have school!), worked on prepping the raised beds a bit (moved some of the manure from the chicken coop into the beds), blogged/chatted with friends, bathed the kids, worked with Ethan on some school work, kept the house cleaned up (constantly picking up and sweeping), worked on the budget, and played a game with Robert.  


To me, that's just a productive day.  But in the world of Bipolar II, this may seem like I'm in a hypomania episode, which is then typically followed by a crash.  Since I'm on new "mood stabilizing meds," I'm hoping that this is just a productive day.

Here are a few pics of my productive day :-).

I forgot the cheese before I took this pic :-).  I put a little "Tillamoo" in it (Tillamook cheese in little packages).  Now that I'm not working full time, next time it'll just be a slice of cheese ;-).

I've stopped grinding my flour, but this is homemade bread.  It is super yummy.

On another note... Last weekend, I spilled coffee on my computer and it killed it.  In the meantime, we pulled out our old computer (it's an IBM!), and I started getting back on Quicken for my budgeting/checkbook stuff.  I paid bills, got it all set up, etc.  Then, I realized that it was way off... I can't figure out what's going on, but at some point in the past, it got way off and I never fixed it.  We have less money than I thought :-/.  Time to take my application to Trader Joe's.  It's all good.  I think it would be fun to work there, and it would give me something to do... and I can contribute to our family's finances without working full time.  The benefit of somewhere like Trader Joe's (or Sprouts or REI if TJ's doesn't work out) is that I can leave work at work.  No more bringing work home with me.  We'll see what happens.  Ultimately, God is in control.  My thought about working part time is that I'll still have plenty of time to work on my childbirth education class and take care of my family.  I will do my best to try to get my CBE stuff up and running by summer.  That's the plan anyway :-).  I just emailed my trainer and ask her to keep me accountable to getting it done!

I'm going to go spend some time with Jesus, then work on a workbook that I got when I was in inpatient.  It's very helpful, but I actually had forgotten about it :-).  


Until next time...