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Dystopia Here We Are
I went to bed last night at almost midnight with a pit of apprehension in my stomach. I woke up at 4am to be slapped in the face with the greatest of all my fears coming true. Another four years of staring into the abyss and wondering what fresh hell awaits us. I couldn’t go […]
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Who Needs Sleep?
I mean really, who needs sleep anyway? 🙄 So insomnia has been a companion of mine for quite some time. My particular friend comes in many different forms, just to keep things interesting. Sometimes it’s a “can’t fall asleep” kinda thing. Sometimes it’s a restless sleep/vivid or uncomfortable dreams kinda thing. Sometimes it’s a “wake […]
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Growing Pains
I think one of the hardest parts about having kids is not knowing when it will be the “last time” you do something. Most things kinda sneak up on you, and one day you just suddenly go – “Wait, when was the last time I picked him up?” Or “when was the last time he […]
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A New Beginning
It’s been over a year since I’ve written anything other than blog posts. I just haven’t felt inspired at all, and I’m the kind of writer that can’t just write for the sake of writing. I have to have an idea for what I’m going to write. But in the middle of the night a […]
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No Title
I have no title for this one. I tried for almost a day, but I couldn’t come up with one. So let’s just call a spade a spade, and let’s not even try anymore. There is no circumstance, regardless of the details, in which talking about someone passing away will ever be easy. My oldest […]
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Stories Of The Besties
There are many reasons why having a bestie is super awesome and important. Being alive is hard y’all. There’s responsibilities and expectations and requirements. And that’s all a bit overwhelming. Also – even if we travel through this space we call life with people who are close to us, we rarely find ourselves in the […]
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Tales Of The Unemployed
Being unemployed means I can basically do whatever I want to do whenever I want. (Okay, that’s not entirely true because I still need to take care of Eli/Dave/Ollie, but it’s mostly true.) If I want to nap, I nap. If I want to craft, I craft. If I want to read, I read. And […]
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A Year In Review
So today marks seven years since that horrible day when it all nearly came to a screeching halt. The year’s been full of it’s up and it’s downs. This year is the first year I am able to say that I’ve been home for the whole year. I’ve enjoyed my time being my own tremendously, […]
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Happy Puppy Gotcha Day!
It was one year ago today that Daisy came into our lives! We lost Tikka in the winter of 2022. It took us almost a year to be ready to even consider another dog. She’d just been with us for so long that it was hard to imagine anyone in her place. But when we […]
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Busy, Busy, Busy
Needless to say, many of my days can go by without much fanfare. Get up, make breakfast for the boys, chill, make dinner, rinse and repeat. It can get a little monotonous. So some things are a foot. First, I started doing lunch every week with an old friend of mine. Sadly we have to […]
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Hindsight is 20/20
This post has been bopping around in my head for a while but I’m still struggling to fully get my hands around it. Let’s give it a try anyway. So, work. It’s been almost a year and a half since I left. Honestly that first year is kind of a blur. Most of it was […]
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Up, Down, and Sideways
January (into early February) has been a bit of a month. I know I’ve been lax about posting weekly like I promised, amongst other failings these past few weeks. But it all kinda came to a head the last few days and I’ve been paying dearly for shoving stuff down and away for too long. […]
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To Read Or Not To Read
I’ve been a reader since second grade. I fell in love with the Little House on the Prairie book series, and when that was done I just kept reading from there. Reading defined me through most of my child, preteen, teen, and adult-hood. I used to get in trouble as a kid for reading too […]
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Away and Back Again
So this week saw Eli and I once again without Dave as he set off to California for work. He was basically gone 5 days this trip, but honestly, both Eli and I agreed, for some reason this time it felt so much longer. We’re just glad he’s home. I slept better last night than […]
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A Rollercoaster Week
It’s been a kinda of up and down type of week+. Last Thursday was a lovely evening of visiting a multi-display train garden and dinner out with a friend. Dinner was at this little hole-in-the-wall Hawaiian place that was really fantastic. It was a perfectly wholesome evening of holiday fun – a great way to […]
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Tradition, TRADITION!
Like most families (I’m guessing) we have a few Christmas traditions. The Christmas Tree: decorating the tree in the Panek household is a very specific affair. First, there MUST be John Denver and the Muppets A Christmas Together playing (a tradition carried over from Dave’s childhood.) No exceptions. Also, there are “generic” ornaments anyone can […]
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Give A Little Love
I did a thing today, and the details aren’t important, but it’s got me thinking a lot and I wanted to share my thoughts. Why don’t we choose kindness more often? Like, why does it have to be so damned shocking when someone does something kind? Especially when it’s just the right thing to do? […]
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Leave It To Fate
We don’t always choose who we love. I’m inspired to talk about this as I sit here and pet my cat, Tybalt. I didn’t want him. Oh don’t get me wrong, I wanted a cat. We had gone to look at a rescue kitten I was VERY interested in. I have always wanted a long-haired […]
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It’s Starting To Look A Lot…
Yep, it’s starting to look a lot like Christmas in the Panek household. The tree and the outside decorations have been up since Thanksgiving weekend. There’s nothing like coming home to Christmas lights on the house. It just gives me so much joy. And sitting in the living room with nothing but the light of […]
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The Hardest Decision
Having pets is the greatest joy, and most horrible pain of your life. I couldn’t image life without our furbabies. They are a complete pain in the ass sometimes, but they have such awesome little personalities, each totally different. Interacting with them, and having them interact with me, is such a serotonin boost (and boy […]
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To Sleep?
My battles with insomnia are well known to anyone who knows me or reads this blog. The strangest thing I find about it is that it is not consistent over time. Like, I always have SOME form of insomnia, but the flavor changes itself up from time to time. Sometimes it’s the “can’t fall asleep” […]
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Giving Thanks
As I sit here VERY early on Thanksgiving morning (thank you Daisy for all the barking), I pontificate on all I have to be thankful for. I am so grateful for: A husband with almost unending patience. I am not always an easy person to love, but he does it without fail every day. A […]
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What’s The Secret?
Today marks 24 years since the day Dave and I got married. I think I can safely say no one thought we’d make it this far, back when we were just kids and getting married (because boy were we just kids!) But here we are, as happy as we’ve ever been in 24 years of […]
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Welcome November
My very favorite month of the year has come to a close. November is my second favorite, but it’s still always hard to see October, with all it’s Halloweeniness, go. Halloween this year was nice though. We carved some great pumpkins, and as usually Dave’s takes the cake – who doesn’t love baby Yoda?? And […]
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Tada!
So as I mentioned previously it was time for a change with my hair. I ended up have to put off getting it done because of the covids, but this past Friday I finally got to make it to the salon. So this is where I started: My hair grows so fast, it had even […]
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In Poor Taste
So as you may know, loss of taste and smell is a pretty common side effect of a covid infection. Dave managed to escape its clutches, but both Eli and I got hit with it. Thankfully it only lasted a couple of days for Eli. He still can’t smell much, but he says he can […]
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An (Un)healthy Week
So it’s been one heck of a week in the health of the Panek household. On Monday we found out our cat Alton needs major eye surgery. He’s had a problem with his one eye for quite a while, and despite multiple trips to the vet, it just keeps getting worse. It went rapidly down […]
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FASHION!!
So, I have very little self esteem and generally hate clothes shopping. But when I find a place that has cuts/sizes/fits that work for me, I am obsessed. My prior site du jour – eShakti. And I haven’t given up on them. Their clothes are amazing and being able to give your exact measurements for […]
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Checking In
I had made up my mind that I was going to try and write something here every week, just to check in with y’all. And then two weeks went by. Oh well, best laid plans of mice and men and all that jazz. When we last left off on this adventure called life I was […]
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A Year In The Life
In just a few days it will be one year since I left my job. It seems impossible to believe that – wasn’t it just the other day??? I think one of the hardest things about realizing how long it’s been is this sense of – and what do I have to show for it? […]
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Happy, Happy
So often when I write here it’s about not good stuff, but I’ve had a good run of days so I thought I’d share some positivity for a change. It all started 2 weeks ago with what could have been a disaster. I had 5 days in a row of peopleing to do, and two […]
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Bittersweet Symphony
I spent and this past weekend at my brother-in-law and sister-in-law’s place in New Jersey for a “cousins weekend.” A day of chilling out with Dave’s cousins, and siblings, and sibling-in-laws, and nieces and nephews, all just hanging around the pool. We do this every year and it’s always a lot of fun. Music played […]
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I (Did) Survive
So Eli and I survived another week with Dave away for work. We managed to only have two mishaps while he was gone, which is pretty good for us, lol. The pets’ water fountain stopped working and the dog knocked over the ENTIRE gravity feeder full of cat food onto the floor. So the water […]
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Kitty Time
Our status quo for years has been having three cats. They all get along well, they all behave well, it’s been our baseline. We did babysit two cats for 3 months, then again for another month a few years later, for a total of five cats in the house. Ironically there really is no difference […]
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Driving Me Crazy
I find myself scouring my memories to figure out when my brain got even more fucked up in the last few years than normal. Why? When? How? Because of…? As I mentioned in a previous post, I have become very fearful of driving. Riding in a car is also difficult, but driving is a serious […]
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A Little Bit of This & That
I realized it’s been a while since I just did a general update on life. So I figured I’d do a little bit of a brain dump. So yeah, there’s a book. If you don’t know that you’re new here ‘cuz it’s all I’ve been talking about forever. So yeah, go buy that. No need […]
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The Wait Is Over – Maybe?
The wait is over, the book (well the paperback at least) is published and on sale. I’ve done it. The Kindle version? Well that’s another story entirely so let’s not focus on that for now. *sigh* We had the book release party this weekend and that was great. Almost every one of my local friends […]
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Modern Miracles
I wasn’t always a terribly anxious person. Depressed, yes. But anxious? Not really. Somewhere along the way that changed and I don’t know exactly when or exactly why. But it has gotten pretty bad over the last three years or so. Crowds: I’ve never liked them, but I tolerated them to do things I loved […]
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So Real, Yet So Far
I finished the initial edits of the last two chapters of the book yesterday. Technically my next job is to review the book in its entirety and make any final changes before I send it off forever. And so I have reached a bit of an inpass…. I am super excited about the book finally […]
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Time Marches On
Well here I am with my annual “tradition” – posting to you about my survival day. On Easter, no less. I feel like there is some sort of irony there. So it’s been six years. And these days? What that really means is that it’s been almost six years since the book began. The book […]
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Welcome to the Family!
So as some of you may know, we lost our 18-year-old dog, Tikka, a year ago in January. We’ve pretty much always had three dogs, but losing her was very hard and it took us a really long time to consider getting another dog, but we finally did. But oh my gosh, it has been […]
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Is It Me Or You?
So in the book you get to go down the rabbit hole of my life living with anxiety and depression. Sometimes it’s hysterical, sometimes not, but you’re getting to relive those moments with me. This blog on the other hand is more about real-time insight into my mind… and just barely in time for St. […]
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We’ve Got You Covered
After multiple weeks of working with Amazon, the cover art is finally complete! I love it. Between the punchy, eye-catching yellow color and the meaning behind it, it’s perfect. Meaning wise, the whole idea is that when you have anxiety and depression you often “put on a happy face” and pretend everything is okay, meanwhile […]
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Fuck you Covid
I went to a birthday party today for friends of mine’s child. The first birthday party since his first, cuz fuck you Covid. It was nice to see friends again after so long. But their darling little boy, upon our entering, said “What’s your name?” And his mom nearly cried. You have to understand – […]
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Shit’s Getting Real
So a few days ago I made a huge decision. Really kind of out of the blue. I was chilling at home on a random weekday when I suddenly started thinking about my book. And just thought, let me go ahead and look into publishing through Amazon. (I know, the Devil.) I easily found the […]
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Sat on the Park Bench Like Bookends
Thank you Simon and Garfunkel for the reference. So I have a friend… At this point in my life a friend that I am closest to and that I share the most scary and intimate points of my life with. I don’t know what I would do without them. However… they have an addiction problem. […]
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Ghost of Christmas Past
I was perusing some old posts and stumbled across this one. In the spirit of the Christmas season, and the fact that it’s freaking hilarious, I decided to share again in case you haven’t seen it in a while, or maybe ever. Enjoy! http://thetangentgirlvolumes.com/index.php/2017/12/18/merry-tribblemas/ P.S. sorry about the glitchy text sizes. Can’t seem to figure […]
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Everybody Hurts, Sometimes
Thank you, credit to REM for the title. Feeling melancholy tonight. I’ve had about a week’s worth of weird dreams which have left me less than rested when I wake up. Not sure what that’s all about, but it’s been most unpleasant. And then “A Thing” happened. I think you all know I left my […]
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Colorado Rocky Mountain High
Thanks to John Denver, this is still a song lyric-linked title. Let’s keep it going baby!! So it’s been a bit – it’s time to catch you up. First of all, my last post was about cooking. I promised to update you on the status of the pork roast I planned to make. Except, I […]
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Eat It
Yes, here we are. Still a song reference for a title. Thank you Weird Al!! So, I love to cook. But I cook off the fly – I just MAKE stuff. I’m so happy I have the time and energy (and necessity since we no longer have my income) to cook pretty much every day. […]
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