After I spent a couple of days last week lying in bed, crying, and not doing much else, Hubby asked me if I was having a nervous breakdown. I just kind of shrugged my shoulders, because I’ve never been completely sure what that meant. But it sounded pretty feasible. He tried to get me to go to the doctor, but I refused. I’ve been going to monthly appointments, and that has put a big enough strain on the budget. The weather was bad and the roads were icy as well, so I convinced him that it was not necessary. It wasn’t like I was a danger to myself. So I spent the rest of the week in much the same state.

Yesterday and today I’ve been able to do more, and haven’t been constantly in tears. I got my Internet back this morning and started contacting clients, letting them know what was going on and hoping they would be understanding. (For the most part, they were very much so.) And in between that, I did some research on nervous breakdowns.

What I found was rather interesting. As much as you hear about nervous breakdowns, they are not an official diagnosis according to the medical community. According to Wikipedia, the closest official diagnosis to what most people call a nervous breakdown is a type of adjustment disorder. If you want to spare yourself some of the formal medical mumbo jumbo, however, I prefer this little snippet from Mayo Clinic. I’ve experienced every single symptom on that list, so I guess I qualify.

At any rate, most of the other stuff I’ve read links the idea of a nervous breakdown to depression and anxiety. And I’m already on medication for that (although it would appear that it’s not exactly doing its job). For now the plan is to just hang in there and hope that I don’t have any more serious episodes before I get back to the doctor. And that when I do go in for my next scheduled appointment, that she either gives me something that works or refers me to someone who will.

The only thing that does seem to make me feel older than I should is thinking about my oldest nieces being in college already. My sister had her first daughter when I was 11, though, so I became an aunt much earlier than most people do. Besides, my sis is 10 years older than I am.

Both of her oldest girls have good heads on their shoulders, and I think they will go far in life. I know they’re adults now, but I just don’t even want to think about them having kids. That would make me a great-aunt, and I’m definitely not ready for that. I hope they don’t have kids until I’ve got enough money to buy them lots of expensive stuff for their baby showers, like designer baby clothes and Bob revolution strollers. And heaven knows that won’t be any time soon, unless of course Hubby wins the Powerball jackpot.

I’ve really got to stop thinking about such things. Now I am starting to feel old.

We had it all planned out. We were going to put the entertainment center along one wall, the couch along the opposite wall, and experiment with the chairs until we found the right places for them. The only thing holding us back was lack of a suitable electrical outlet where we wanted the entertainment center, and we came up with a couple of temporary fixes for that until we could install one.

But then Hubby’s brother pointed out that if we arranged things that way, there would be cords running across the floor in front of the front door when they played their precious video games. They don’t have wireless controllers for them, and it would cost more money than we could pay right now to get them. So I guess the whole plan is out of the question.

So I guess it’s back to the drawing board. One of these days I’m going to give the living room a complete makeover, with new paint on the walls, hardwood or laminate flooring, and maybe even some faux wood blinds on the windows. But for now, I would just like to find some other way to arrange the furniture so that things wouldn’t seem so cramped.

I’m hoping the Prozac that the doctor put me on is finally starting to work its magic. I’d rather not have to take antidepressants, but if they help, I’ll do it. I don’t feel like I need to go to drug rehab just because I need something to help me maintain some resemblance of sanity.

One good thing about it is that I haven’t had much in the way of those dreaded Prozac side effects. I did have a few days when all I wanted to do is sleep, but that has subsided. I’m still tired a lot, but I was like that before I started taking it.

Anyway, I’m hopeful that the stuff is finally starting to make a difference. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the good mood holds up.

I had mono, and I started breaking out in hives. I had never really been allergic to anything (except a reaction I had to too much vitamin C as a kid), so I figured it must just be a weird mono thing. But then I noticed that shortly after I drank Mountain Dew, the hives got worse. The doctor put me on steroids to clear up the hives, and I gave up Mountain Dew for years.

At some point, I started drinking a Mountain Dew every now and then, and it didn’t hurt me. I didn’t get back into the habit of drinking it regularly until I started a night shift job. Then I started drinking a 20-ounce or two each night to help me stay awake since I didn’t like coffee. All was well until one night when I woke up itching like crazy. I got up and looked in the mirror, and I was completely covered in hives from neck to knees. Yikes!

So I once again quit drinking Mountain Dew. I don’t think I even took another sip of it until a month or two ago, when I was thirsty and Hubby had one. That sip didn’t hurt me, so I took another one a couple of weeks later under similar circumstances. Then last night I took a sip of a Mountain Dew Throwback that he brought home. This morning, I woke up with spots of hives on my belly and back.

So I got online and started searching for ingredients I could possibly be allergic to. The only thing I found that was noted for allergic reactions was yellow #5. And that doesn’t make much sense, because on the occasions when I had severe reactions to Mountain Dew, drinking cola would also cause an increase in symptoms. So it seems like it would be something that most sodas have in them but Mountain Dew has more of. I’ll have to investigate further.

At any rate, I think I’m done with Mountain Dew for good, particularly after reading this. According to that article, Mountain Dew can cause everything from bromide toxicity to obesity that will scarcely respond to the most effective diet pills. Not good.

I love the taste of Mountain Dew, but I guess it will just be a sweet memory from now on. Because being all broken out in hives is no fun, and the less noticeable effects don’t sound too appealing either.

After we got our water running again, we ended up with a leak going to the washing machine. Hubby wasn’t here when I discovered it, so I had to turn the water off until he got home. He finally got that fixed, and then yesterday it rained a lot and the basement flooded. Not only did we have the obvious problem of getting the water out of there, it also turned over our new pressure tank and tore up some pipes.

So once again, the water was off all day yesterday while we were pumping the water out of the basement. And it’s still off while Hubby and his brother are down there trying to get the plumbing fixed. This sucks!

In addition to all that, the phone keeps ringing this morning, and I just don’t feel like talking. Whether it’s bill collectors, family delivering the latest news from back home or a friend calling to ask about the best prenatal vitamins, I’m just not interested. I’ve got work to do and things to worry about, and I just want to be left alone.

When I was much younger, I made resolutions every year. And every year, I broke each and every one of them. So I decided to try making resolutions that were the opposite of what I really wanted to accomplish. For example, if I wanted to lose weight, I would resolve to gain weight. But that didn’t work out as planned, either.

So for the past few years, I haven’t made any resolutions whatsoever. No promises to myself to get in better shape, or get an online bachelor degree, or give more to charity. It has worked out pretty nicely, because I haven’t had to deal with the disappointment of not reaching my goals.

Yes, I know, goals are important if you want to get anywhere in life. But especially right now, I just don’t have the energy to even make them, much less try to reach them. I’m working on it, though. Really, I am.

Anyway, Pumpkin asked if I would like to play with her earlier when I was away from the computer. I told her I wasn’t feeling well, and she told me to take a pill. And that made me feel that much worse. I always hoped that she wouldn’t take my frequent trips to the medicine cabinet as a sign that pills are the solution to everything, but I’m afraid that she is. And that’s a very bad thing.

So I had a little talk with her. I told her that you should never take medicine unless you really need it, and that pills aren’t the solution to everything. And that if there’s a change you can make in your habits that will fix the problem, that you should try that before turning to medication. I mean, you could take the world’s best diet pill and still not lose any weight if you sit and eat ice cream all day.

She said she just thought I had a headache and should try taking some Tylenol or Aleve for it. And that’s good advice, because I know my headaches and know that I need to take something at the first sign so that they don’t get so bad that nothing will help. So hopefully I was just overreacting. But I also hope I made an impression on her, because I really don’t want her to grow up thinking that she should be taking pills all the time.

If we weren’t so broke from fixing the plumbing, I would probably be seriously looking into Cancun vacation packages right about now. But we are, so I’m not. At least it’s gotten a little bit warmer for the past couple of days, and if the weatherman is right, it should stay that way for the rest of the month.

I’m not a particularly outdoorsy person or anything. I just despise cold weather. It presents problems that wouldn’t otherwise be a concern (like frozen pipes), and it makes fixing those problems more difficult or even impossible. If Hubby weren’t so deeply rooted in the mountains, I probably would have tried to talk him into moving somewhere warmer a long time ago. But that’s not happening, so I guess I’ve just got to deal with it. At least it won’t be quite so chilly for a while.

I’m not sure how the previous owners of my house managed to keep everything copper. If they had as much trouble as we have with the plumbing, they would have had to replace some things at some point. But every bit of the pipes that I’ve seen appear to have been there for eons. Copper pipes are pretty much impossible to find any more, so we’ve had to replace everything that’s had to be replaced so far with pex piping.

Every time we have a little trouble with the copper, we have to spend a lot more on fittings and such than we would with some other type of piping. And pex is flexible and durable, so you’re much less likely to have trouble out of it. Maybe one of these days we’ll be able to afford to get it all redone with it.