An Apology

It is 4:30am and I have yet to sleep a wink since the sun set last night. I have about 5 or 6 different things laying heavy on my heart, and I believe one will be lifted if I make an apology. 

So, here it goes. 

In the past few weeks some faults on my part, as well as some misunderstandings, were brought to my attention from several different sources. I won't go into much detail here. 

If you have ever felt uncomfortable around me, or like I was judging you, I'm sorry. I was definitely not trying to make you feel this way and had no idea my attitude was coming off as judgmental. 

If it ever seemed like I was being fake, or like I was only being nice because I "had to", I'm sorry. Again, this was unintentional.  I have always thought of myself as a kind person and easy to get along with. So I apologize for my attitude suggesting otherwise.

Really, if I have ever done anything to hurt you it was unintentional and I was oblivious that anything was wrong. (or I would have apologized sooner)

I love all my family and friends, and it has been weighing heavily on my heart since I found out I had hurt or offended any of you. I would prefer to speak with all of you face to face, but it may be a while before I see you again. So please accept this as an apology. I was oblivious to the fact that any of this was going on. So thank you for bringing it to my attention. I will try my best to figure out a solution so I can avoid this in the future. 

Love you all! Have a great weekend!

I am a Fighter! I am a daughter of The King!

I am not proud of what I am about to tell you. In fact, this is the third time I have written this post. The first two attempts were quickly deleted before I posted them, because I was just too embarrassed to let the world read about my failures.

But I finally decided that if I tell you about it, maybe it will become easier to regain control of the situation if I have friends and family helping me out...so I'm not deleting it this time... I WILL post this! 

Here's what's going on...

All my life, for as long as I can remember, I have had a very cheery disposition. Always happy, always smiling. My mom called me "Cheerful Kristin".

I was a happy person. I prided myself in being such an optimist; always finding the good in every situation.

That is, until all these health issues started happening to my body; and with those problems came negativity, sadness, and a grumbling spirit.

Looking back over the past six years of my life, I remember all the bad times, all the times of hardship, and basically all the things that make for a really awesome pity party!

Over the past 2 weeks, for reasons I have yet to figure out, these negative thoughts and pessimistic attitude have made their presence known in my life 10 fold.

I can pinpoint the main cause, which for most people in 2012 is the same...finances. 

Stressed is not strong enough of a word.

There are days when I don't want to open the mailbox because I know there will be another bill...another late notice...someone else wanting money that I don't have.

And the stress from that has seeped its way into every little nook and cranny of my life. Parts of my life that have nothing to do with finances are being knocked flat by this horrible attitude that I have had. 

Grumbling because my laundry room smells like cigarette smoke and I can't figure out why.

Yelling at Sadie because she has to bark at Every. Single. Car. that passes the apartment. 

Cursing the horrible old carpet in my apartment, and the new kitchen floor I was supposed to get that has somehow been forgotten about.

No vacation this year...or last? ssspphhh Who needs vacation anyway?


My list goes on...and on. I have not been a happy person. In fact I've been down right horrible, and probably no fun to be around.

Even looking back over my Facebook status updates for the past few weeks I realized how negative and miserable I sounded. 

I missed church on Sunday, mainly because I was just having one of those days where I didn't feel like being around people. Nothing to do with my church family, because I love them! ...it was just people in general.

Well, I woke up Monday morning feeling horrible. I was mad at myself for missing church, feeling horribly lonely, and just wanting to crawl into a hole and stay there for a while. But I knew that was no good. 

So, I tried my hardest to think of something positive to do.

Hmm, well, I've been hiding out in this apartment for the past 48 hours...how about getting outside in the sun! It's so nice out, and I love feeling the warm sun on my skin. I'll go out and pull all those nasty weeds around my front stoop and flower pots. Yeah, that's a positive thing to do.

ha

I wasn't 2 minutes in to pulling weeds when my horrible attitude started showing. 

My landlord's power of attorney was supposed to send someone over here to clean this all up...but has she done that yet? nooo. And who has weeds for a front yard? Why can't I live somewhere with a yard? A beer bottle? C'mon people...if I find one more beer bottle under this bush I'm gonna stand guard here every night until I catch you...I'm not sleeping at night anyway.

"Sadie! Quit barking at the neighbors cat!"

Pull a weed.

Complain.

Pull a weed.

Complain.

Check behind me...pile of weeds is getting quite large...complain about all the weeds again. 

Pull a weed.

I wish those guys in the auto mechanic place next door would quiet down.

Pull a weed.

AAhhhh! It's the mailman! Please don't stop here, please don't stop here.


People, it was bad. I was so wanting to pick up my little garden shovel and dig that hole so I could hide for a few days.

And then it happened.

I turned around to check on my mountainous pile of weeds again, and there stood Sadie right in the middle of the pile, peeing all over my weeds. Not just a little pee. Drenched my pile of weeds.

Count to 10.  1...2...3...4...5...6...7.......

See, my normal cheery self would probably have laughed, but this Negative Nancy that has taken over me the past few weeks just did not see the humor in the situation. That's when I realized how utterly miserable I was making myself. Yes, it took my dog peeing on a pile of weeds, but hey, whatever works. 

So I'm trying, I'm really trying to fight all the negativity and my horrible attitude. So please, friends and family, if you notice me being especially negative, or having a nasty attitude please tell me.

I'm trying really hard to find my cheery disposition again...I will not let my current health situation take that away from me! Satan is trying so hard to get into every part of my life, even my attitude, but I will not let that happen. He has been attacking for over 6 years now, and there have been so many times that I just wanted to give up, but by God's strength I carry on. 

I will get my life back.

I will do awesome things for God.

Satan has no idea what he's got coming. He may have knocked me down and be laughing at the state my health is in right now, but once I'm back on my feel he better watch out.

he will not win this one

 I am a fighter! I am a daughter of The King!

I absolutely love this picture.
Isaiah 41: 10,13
Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. 
Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. 
I will strengthen you and help you. 
I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.
For I hold you by your right hand - 
I, the Lord your God. 
And I say to you, 
‘Don’t be afraid. I am here to help you. 

In a pickle

In a Pickle: "In a quandary, dilemma."


Yes, I am in quite the dilemma, and I'm praying that someone who reads my blog has been in the same place before and can share some advice and wisdom on my situation. Here's whats happening...


My doctor has be on a few different meds right now. The main one, and most important, is what gets me through the day. If I forget to take it...well, lets just hope I don't ever forget to take it =] No problem here, this part is not what is giving me trouble.


It's the other two...


One is just a mega dose of vitamin D. Such a high dose that my doctor gave me a prescription for it, because you can't buy it off the shelf. Basically, if I don't take it I have 0.0000 energy. Like, can't make it out of the house kind of energy. HAVE to take this!


The other one he gives me is to counter act the first two. Both my regular med and the vitamin D give me such energy that I CANNOT SLEEP at night! So he gave me a 'sleep aid' to take so I can actually sleep, like a normal human being. Sounds logical, right?


Well, this natural sleep aid that I take Knocks. Me. Out. Within 20 minutes of taking it I'm out like light bulb. And don't expect to see me anytime soon, because after taking this I could sleep for.ev.er. Literally slept 24 hours straight last week because I took HALF a pill. 


I've tried taking it at different times of the day, not taking a whole dose (like a mentioned before), only taking it a few times a week.


Nothing seems to be working. 


So if I don't take the sleep aid I'm up all night, falling asleep around 6am, and then sleeping until 2 in the afternoon. Kind of like tonight, when I'm blogging at 1am instead of sleeping, because I feel quite wide awake!


If I DO take it, the fire department may just have to come blow their whistle outside my bedroom window to wake me up.


So, anybody out there have any brilliant ideas? I have to take the Vitamin D, no questions asked. And it would be nice to actually sleep at night, so the natural sleep aid would be nice if it worked properly.


Please help! I've got to get this figured out so I can actually live my life.

The Waves Are Crashing In

It is no secret to anyone who has been reading my blog for a while that I deal with anxiety and panic attacks. If you want to read the whole story on that, you can find it under the My Story tab at the top of this page. 

Well, several years ago when I first started having these anxiety/panic attacks, I tried my best to hide them from people; I didn't want any one to know I was weak. This was obviously a 'pride problem', and it even took me quite a while to tell some of my family about everything.

I realised after a while that this was a huge mistake. I have so many prayer warriors in my life, and keeping this from them was keeping powerful prayers from my life.

So, I had to step down off my high-horse and admit that I, Kristin Skidmore, have problems with anxiety....panic....stuff that I don't like to talk about.

The prayers that went up for me during my roughest of times really helped teach me that when you have a need, take it to people you know will pray and intercede for you....Prayer really does work, people! I felt such a difference in my life when I knew my Christian family was praying for me.

Well it has been a while since I have had any really bad episodes.....until last Tuesday.

The wave hit me again, and its trying so hard to pull me under. I can feel myself starting to lose my balance, and have had anxiety attacks almost every day this week.

I'm taking all my herbal supplements...even started some new ones I thought might help. I've been exercising and doing everything I can think of to help the ease the symptoms. 

And while all this has helped some, this past week has been my worst week for quite some time.

So, blog readers....prayer warriors.....I'm asking you to pray for me!

Pray that the state of anxiety will be gone.

Pray that I can sleep tonight...something that doesn't come easy during these times.

The good part is that I think I know what triggered the attacks this time, so I'm going to be trying my very best to knock that boulder out of my way....I have a life to live!

The bad part is that this is a large boulder; one that will come up many times in my life, and rightly so. I just need to find my way around it, so when it shows up again I don't even have to hesitate in my path.

Also, pray that during any future anxiety/panic attacks (which hopefully will never happen!) I remember these 3 simple thoughts. Seems easy enough, until you're in the midst of one.

Every Day

Making these song lyrics my prayer this week, and weeks to come. Remembering how much He loves us, even in the trails and pain; He is still God. I've learned in the past (almost) 8 months how much His power still reigns in my weakness.

Some days its hard, but knowing He has ordained Every Day brings that perfect peace that can only be found in His name.

The song lyrics read:

In Your grace You know where I walk

You know when I fall

You know all my ways

In Your love I know You allow

What I cannot grasp

Tor bring You praise

Thank you for the trials

For the fire, for the pain

Thank You for the strength

Knowing You have ordained

Every Day

Your great power is shown when I'm weak

You help me to see

Your love in this place

Perfect peace is filling my mind

And drawing my heart

To praise you again

In my uncertainty, Your Word is all I need

To know You're with me Every Day

Furnace vs. Face: Round 1

This post is not for those with weak stomachs. Please skip this post if your are easily nauseated.

There I lay all snug is my bed; and yes, visions of sugar-plums were dancing in my head. When all of the sudden there arose such a clatter....sorry, I'll stop now, but the first part of my story fits so well with this poem!

I'm woken up by the sound of my brother bursting through the front door yelling, "Kristin, wake up! I need you! Kristin!" I sit myself up in bed quite confused. I wasn't fully awake yet, and I knew I must have heard something wrong, for how many times to you hear a brother yelling to a sister, "I need you!"  :-]

As I clear the sleep from my eyes I see my brother run past my bedroom and into the bathroom with his hands cupped under his chin.

I'm a little confused, because I hadn't even heard him leave for work. When I checked the clock and saw that it was still only 7:53am and he hadn't even been to work yet I was really confused.

"Oh, please don't be sick!", I thought.

Yes, I am a CNA, and I worked in a pediatricians office during swine flu season last year, but I'm still not fond of seeing people vomit.

As I run into the bathroom, there stands Wray leaning over the sink. There is blood running from the top of his face all the way down to his chin, and dripping onto the white sink (yes, I had to mention the white sink.....it just makes this story more dramatic )

Honestly, my first thought was, "Oh good, no vomit...just blood!"

Wray is panicking slightly, and when I check his face it's hard to tell whats wrong since there is so much blood. I really couldn't tell where it was coming from. He also had blood in his mouth, and after checking to make sure all his teeth were still there, we assume it was just from the force of the hit.

He explained that as he was fixing the fire in our outside furnace, the 2x4 that he was using to prop open the coal box lid slipped. With the weight of the lid pushing it down, it hit him quite hard right on his face.

He said he could feel himself starting to pass out, but was able to fight it and stay conscious. After realizing what had just happened, he just figured he was going to have a headache all day, and started up toward his work truck in the driveway. 

A few steps towards his truck he suddenly noticed lots of blood dripping from his face. Not knowing where it was coming from he ran towards the house. That's how he ended up bursting through the front door as described above.

So, back to the bathroom. We clean his face off enough to see that the gash is on his nose right between his eyes. I give him some ice to avoid swelling, and Ibuprofen goes down the hatch.

This thing refuses to quit bleeding though. When he pulls the ice pack away I get my first real good look at it, and it was a lot deeper that I originally thought. With every facial expression he makes this gash just keeps getting nastier. He asks if I think its going to scar, and I said, "Actually Wray, I think that's going to need stitches."

We called his work to let them know he wouldn't be in today. Because of recent circumstances, Wray wasn't too fond of having to go to the emergency room, and I wasn't looking forward to going back there either.

I called a local urgent care center, but they informed me that since the injury was on his face no Doctor in the office would be able to stitch it up in fear of scaring.

So, off to the ER we go. It's snowing pretty bad outside, and the roads were pretty nasty. I kept telling him he could have picked a better day :-]

We make it to the ER, where they promptly take Wray to a room.

After a few CNAs and a Nurse check his wound, a Physicians Assistant comes in to check him. She orders an X-ray to check for a broken nose, and says he will probably need 2-3 stitches.

The X-ray confirms that his nose is broken, and they numb his poor nose so they can clean it and stitch him up. A few stitches in to it she calls me over to the bed and says, "This is a lot deeper than I thought. I think he may need 6 or 7 stitches."

As a look down at his face (sorry if this grosses you out) I see my brothers nasal bone and all that other nice stuff. Yea, I think he'll need a few more stitches.

A broken nose, a slight concussion, an antibiotic, pain meds, 1 Tetanus shot, 2 hours, and 7 stitches later we're headed home.

Needless to say, that's not how either of us thought our morning was going to go. Poor Wray! His nose looks so painful, although he said the pain medicine is working pretty well.

Keep him in your prayers, as he has to get trough the weekend with some pain and stitches right in between his eyes.

Lesson learned: Well, you'd have to ask Wray that, because I've never been in a fight with a furnace!

The Count Down Begins

Oh, Happy Day! This is the post I have been waiting and longing to write since the day it was decided I would start coming off my medicine.

Here it is: I am exactly 15 days away from being done with this stuff forever! Yes people, count it out....that puts me at Christmas Eve! What a fun Christmas present!

I'm so excited to be closing the page on this chapter of my life, even though my heart is breaking that Mom isn't here to share it with me. I almost feel like I'm leaving her in that chapter, which is why I've been dragging this out longer than needed.

Honestly, I could have been done with my medicine by Thanksgiving, but it is just so hard to do without her by my side. I stretched the dosage out a little, and delayed closing this part of my life; I feel like it keeps me closer connected to Mom. 

I can't keep myself in that pit though. I need to move on, and let me tell you, this will be huge! Once this chapter is completed I'll feel like a whole new person...so free...so ready to move on with my life...so ready to find myself again.....and that would make Mom happy!

I would ask that you keep me in your prayers, however. I'm petrified that I will end up right back where I started once I'm off the medicine. The past few weeks I've been having some of those same symptoms/feelings again, and it has me spooked. It was never a guaranteed thing that cutting the medicine would be my 'fix all' and I so hope it doesn't back fire on me!

Keeping the faith that this was the best decision! Mom thought it would be best, and she was right about 99.999% of the time....but hey, what Mom isn't? :)

Life's Pot Holes and Speed Bumps

I hit one of those this week, although I'm not sure which one.

Usually when you see a pot hole in the road you swerve to miss it; it sets you off your original path for a short time.

When you come upon a speed bump, your foot moves to the brake and you gently slow the car down.....unless you're going way to fast to begin with, which is when you slam on your brake and send everything from your back seat into your front seat. The latter is the type of speed bump I'm referring to.

Not much detail is needed at this point, just know that my life didn't swerve fast enough and ran through some pot holes, and it didn't slow down enough for a few speed bumps . I've been set off my original path for a short while, and it definitely slowed me down.

Not sure how to get around this one. I would definitely appreciate any prayers that are sent up in my behalf in the next few days.