Tag: stress

Dare I Say it? Bah HumBug

~ JodiLea

Let me explain.

Every year I worked my butt off to make the holidays happy for all. Everyone loves Christmas, yet nobody wants to help decorate the tree, make food, go shopping, clean the house, prepare the bedrooms for visitors, or write Christmas cards.
It is exhausting, thankless, and stress-ridden. I started to dread the holidays. I have enough to do without getting on the holiday hamster wheel. I felt guilty and Scrouge-like. Christmas is in your face starting in October. Even if you don’t go into retail stores, radio stations play Christmas music starting the day after Thanksgiving. Some of them play holiday tunes ONLY for the remainder of the year. You see Christmas displays, sale signs, elves, Santa, and toys everywhere you look.

Television advertising is annoying enough without the jolly jingles and mini-stories geared to tug at your heartstrings and your wallet. Hallmark once produced emotion-provoking ads that entertained. These seemed to have gone to the place where clever Super Bowl ads went.

While studying the Bible with Jehovah’s Witnesses, I learned why they do not celebrate Christmas. I won’t go into details here, but there is a good article on JW.org that does *. That year was the best holiday season ever. Why? I was free to not get involved with the holidays at all. No one expected me to do anything. My family still celebrates Christmas, but I don’t have to.

Click HERE to learn why Jehovah’s Witnesses do not celebrate Christmas*.








Brain, Interrupted

~ JodiLea

I realize I am stressed out by the way others react to me.
Daughter: “Chill, Mom.”
Granddaughter: “Can I help you, Grandma?”
Husband: “Calm Down.” (the poor man has not learned in 35 years)

I can no longer blame my job for the stress because I’m retired. Truth be told, I am the cause of my own stress. It doesn’t matter what I am stressing about – it’s everything. There is way too much clutter spinning around in my brain. I decide I will do these things today and get them done. I write these things in my daytimer. I should look at my daytimer more often during the day. The day somehow gets away from me, and here I am, rewriting the tasks for tomorrow.

For example, take yesterday. Things began well. I virtually attended the Sunday meeting because I had issues with my denture. I rushed to get out of my jammies and into one of my favorite summer dresses. When the meeting ended, hubby wanted to turn in the patrol car he had signed out for the weekend. This meant I had to drive downtown to the fire station and pick him up. Great! I should have mail at the post office next door to the firehouse. And I did.

My little PO box was full of mail, a dress, and an undergarment. 2 lockbox keys yielded 3 large boxes from Amazon. I chastised myself for not waiting to get the mail until I had picked hubby up. I made 3 trips to my car because I had to carry my keys in one hand. I knew my dress had pockets, but I could not find them. This was because my dress was inside-out. Sigh. What else was wrong, I wondered. I never even looked in the mirror before leaving the house. Disheveled is a kind way of putting it. Of course, hubby did not comment. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary to him.

When we got home I was exhausted. All that brain activity wore me out. I had planned to quilt and do some organizing, but had to move those things over to today. So far I am writing and waiting for the dentist’s office to call me back. At least my dress is right-side out.

Oh, in case you are curious, I decided on shopping.

What Does Stress Mean to You?

~ JodiLea ~ 2 Comments

Final exams? Public Speaking? Drama at Work? Children? Responsibility? Acne?

Each of the above, at one time or another, meant stress for me. The worst stressor, to me, is Dread. Do not confuse dread with fear; that is totally different. Dread is that dark cloud hovering over your head of something to come. You know it’s going to happen. Maybe you don’t know when exactly it is scheduled, but soon. You don’t know how things will go or what realities are involved. The only thing you know for sure is that it will be extremely painful.

No one sat me down and told me, “it will be extremely painful.” I know from experience that it will be painful because I have survived many of these surgeries on a much smaller scale, and they were very painful to recover from.

The Dread (my cloud of doom) began last summer after discussing with my dentist and implant surgeon the best course of action for the bone loss in my jaw and my broken teeth. I would have one or two implants yearly, which did not cover the damage. This was only playing catch-up. We were all sick and tired of my oral trauma. Yet, the solution was horrifying. It was decided last summer. The scheduling messed up in August, so months later, the Dread is monumental.

Tomorrow afternoon the prep for the next day’s surgery begins. No scalpels, just drills. Every implant crown and bridge has to come off before the surgery. The ones in the front will make my two front teeth the only teeth at the top. This look is so cute on little girls. I doubt I will post a photo of this look on myself because I doubt I will get any good drugs tomorrow, no matter how much I deserve them. I’m sure I will rant on that subject in the near future.

Because I like to write “sagas” of crap I have to deal with to work it all out from my head, my next few posts [categorized “Jaws”] could involve details that folks already afraid of dentists may find disturbing. For brave souls that want to find out the truthful impact and the recovery process, for future reference – Please join me. It will be educational. Depending on the comments posted, it could be amusing as well.

TTFN