Wow, over a month since my last post!

I've been really busy, but not in the way you would think. I've finally started one of the giant princess diamond paintings from Diamond Art Club, and I'm working it REALLY slow. I started Aurora first and I probably should have started one of the smaller ones in my stash first instead of the practically life-size ones, but oh well. I don't really have pictures because I'm not taking pictures routinely like I do with cross stitch.

I've also been filming videos for my upcoming YouTube Channel, but I haven't learned how to edit videos yet, so I just have a hard drive full of vids. Well, technically, I have memory cards full of vids...I haven't transferred them over to the hard drive I bought to store them yet. Follow through hasn't been my strong suit lately.

I have started weening myself off the zombie drugs. My therapist has me seeing a nurse practioner now and she has me on other stuff too (non-zombie). The NP wanted to talk to my neurologist about pulling me off the zombie med, but I just felt that I didn't want her involved and I didn't want to piss him off, so I figured I deal with it myself. She thought that meant I would call him and get his advice, but I meant I would work my way off of them myself. She won't like that, but oh well. She won't find out until it's too late anyway.

So, speaking of the videos I've been filming, I have been travelling a bit to film them, but it hasn't been easy, and there have been side effects. The first trip I took was short and small, but I was down for three days because of it (thankfully, I had taken a week off of work, so I didn't have to call in sick). The second trip was longer, but it took me two days, and the third trip (back to the first location, ironically), was even easier, but again, the after effects were stronger than the first time, only I didn't get the three days off-time. That caused almost catastrophic effects at work, but I did make it through. I apparently was so stressed during a situation, that I managed to cramp my whole body up so tight that I now can barely move, even over a day later. I'm still sitting on a heating pad now. Funny that, how you can make your entire body sore, like I worked out for hours or something, just from stress.

On the flip side, therapy is still ongoing. No better, no worse. Meds are still in my system and they are still tinkering with dosages and other meds, but no help or relief. About the only really good thing is that I've been paying my credit card debt down like CRA-ZY! I have five paid off and only three left to go, although two of those are the "big two". Once those are done, I'll be ready to start working on building my house. I am so laser-focused on that, I can't really think about too much else.

I will say though, that just filming these videos, whether or not I ever edit or post them, has been quite therapeutic. Weird that. It's almost like a little therapy session with myself or something! I took two trips to the cemetery where my paternal grandparents are buried to find them (yes, it took two trips, even after getting a map from the funeral home), but once I found them, things got really weird and I wanted out pretty quick. I had fun roaming around up until then. I also FINALLY took my long-awaited Kansas lottery excursion, although I wasn't able to stop at a lot of the places I wanted to. I did stop at a few places though.

Despite the fact that, on all three trips, I didn't run into a single, solitary soul (other than the check-out girl at the gas station where I bought my lottery tickets), I did still have a lot of "issues" from the trips like I mentioned before. I typically have a "down" day where I can't really function, then I have a "sleep day". The one day I got a third day, I had a "mood day", where I was in a serious bad mood. At work, it just transferred to me sitting in my office with the door closed, daring someone to bother me (they didn't...sometimes I think my moods are displayed on an invisible board or something on my door). I think that's why this week I have a "pain day", because I had something at work where I didn't get the "mood day", so I just transferred it internally.

But I just wanted to say that I'm still here (Hi guys!) and I'm still not ready to stitch yet (I've got to get this HUGE diamond painting out of my way first and work on figuring out how to edit videos). I think my hold up on the video editing is that, once I start posting to YouTube, it will have to be routine and I'm not sure if I'm ready for that kind of commitment yet. I may just be building up a catalog of trips, so I have something to post for weeks to come, while I build up more trips. After all, I do still have a full-time job and can only travel on the weekends. As much as I would LOVE to quit and travel full-time, I actually have to start making serious money on YouTube, and that could take years and luck. If I manage to keep my attention span up long enough for the years, luck has NEVER been on my side!

I do need to start posting some of these pics to Instagram though (my pictures I'm taking while filming vids are also still in the camera...that memory card hasn't even made it out yet, let alone been edited), so that's a whole other ball of wax! UGH! When I think about the dedication this channel will be, I really start to chicken out! Oh well, I'll try not to stay away for so long, and hopefully I'll be able to give you guys some pictures soon!