Entries Tagged 'personal' ↓

I’m going through a mammoth spite of insomnia recently, and there’s only so many times I can watch Top Gun or pretend to read the same ebook page before finally admitting my brain has gone to the zoo. These are the times I turn to a few relaxing hands of Hold ‘Em (with play money, when playing for real you have to have your wits about you!)

Unfortunately my friends in the US aren’t as lucky as me. My government still believes in freedom. We believe consenting adults have the right to spend their money on playing online poker if they want to. So long as an addiction or compulsion (very rare) doesn’t develop, where’s the harm? Congress disagrees.

A friend of mine at uni (college) used to like to go to the local casino a couple of times a month. He liked the atmosphere, the tension and the thrill. But he was no fool. He’d worked out that going clubbing he’d normally spend between £30 and £50 on food, drink, door fees and cabs, so he’d simply get out £50 ($100), leave his cards and chequebook at home and walk down to the casino. And the jammy so and so, he’d often come home a few quid ahead! Now what could possibly be wrong with that? Okay, at online casinos you don’t get free drinks, but you can still have a good time while betting very little, and often make a friend or two.

Luckily for people who live in the gambling-hating US, Kaushal Sheth has found a few casinos who are still accepting US players. So, if you want to have a bit of fun, have some room in your budget visit his guide to the top US online poker rooms.

visit site

I had a lovely update post.

It was funny.

It was detailed.

It had paragraphs longer than one sentence.

Honest.

It did.

But alas it has gone to the great happy archive in the sky. Suffice to say: girlfriend flying over, energy up and steadier, pain blah, and some nice opportunities on the horizon now that my brain has finally kicked back in a bit. Been learning a lot from some really lovely people.

Hope everyone out there is having a great day, sunny with a slight chill up here. I’m off to have a rest, then do something funky on Squidoo.

birthday round-up will be posted tomorrow. Exhausted to the point where coordinating my hands enough to butter toast is a major challenge.

As I was making myself a sandwich just now, my cat Minnie comes up to me and starts squeaking and looking at the back door. Being a frail and stupid male human, I took this to mean “let me out please”. Oh how wrong I was.

I scooped her up, unlocked the door, put her down and nearly got knocked down by the cat going about 90 miles an hour to get back inside. She ran to my bed and glared at me in the way cats do (as in “I’d kill you right now, but it’s too much effort, please come back later”).

I bribed her with a little piece of cheese.

She loves me again now.

Sometimes in life you just have to curl up with your cat and loaf in bed all day. This has been one of those days.

I’ve spent some time looking into ways to ease my way back into working, by doing a few sponsored posts and articles. Doesn’t pay brilliantly, but only requires minimal amounts of energy and brainpower - perfect for a worn-down sponnie.

You know, the trouble with staying in a bed all day is, no matter how tired you are at bedtime it’s really hard to get to sleep. And trying to sleep is an exercise in futility.

Hopefully tomorrow will come with more spoons.

(References to spoons will be explained. Deep in the fabric of the universe, there is a reason. Oh yes.)

Living with anxiety and depression is hard work. Especially if you live alone, like I do now. But, things have to be done, and things have to change.

The best long-term treatment for anxiety disorders right now isn’t drugs, it’s Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. Mouthful, right? All it means is working out what thoughts produce what behaviour, and then looking at how to change some thought-patterns to get different results.

One of the exercises I like doing - its worked for me in the past - is something the shrinks call “safe exposure”. It’s a way to train the body out of the panic response by repeating a scenario that you know is safe but still worries you. So, to help conquer my fear of the outside I am going to

1. Take a bus journey once a week, just to do it (free - thank you Scottish Executive!)
2. Go to a pub once a week and have a drink (lime & soda, approx 15 pence)
3. Go outside at least 4 times a week just to stand and be

I’ll report back how I do next weekend, and I might just take my camera with me on the bus and snap some shots of the area.

I’m a bit hazy today (new meds), but here’s a quick update on where things stand, nath-wise.

•  Got divorced
• Moved to the Ayrshire coast, Scotland (which is lovely)
• Am suffering from severe pain & fatigue and the wonderful twins of depression and anxiety
• Accidentally deleted this blog and foobared all the backups, so a fresh start is needed!
• Loving my friends over at butyoudontlooksick.com
• Am wondering where the year went. It’s only 13 days to my birthday - when did that happen?

So that’s the basics. I’ve probably missed some things, which I’ll cover later.

Today: Pain 6/10, anxiety 7/10, depression, 5/10, fatigue 7/10

I’m back blogging. It’s been a long time, but there are reasons. I’ll post an update on what’s been going on in my life soon, but first I’ve got a load of blog contest entries to get through!

All my previous posts have been lost, which is a shame. Take this as a lesson to test the integrity of your database backups. Oh well.

Onwards and upwards!