All is Well

This is the sign the apartment complex puts up at the entrance/exit to remind us to do what we can so that our water pipes don't burst. Notice the sheet of ice below the sign, which are drips that froze before they hit the ground.

Last month, when I got my qwater bill, it was 50% higher. It is because of the nightly dripping. So now I work with the faucet until it is a very slow drip. It is harder for moving water to freeze.

I did recieve an email from the Contingency Planning case worker - stating that she did not have a letter from Dr. Peris that contained the quote I sent. She asked me to fax it to her. But I did have an email stating that she had recieved something from Dr. Peris 1 day before the deadline. Rather than go for the symbolic victory of asking about what she had recieved before, I went ahead and just sent the fax.

I was getting real tired from worry. It took me 5 times to send the fax. I kept putting the paper in the fax with the wrong side facing up, and kept messing up the lead in digits of the fax number. (In Texas, sometimes you begin long distance with an 8, or a 9 or a 1 - depends on where you are and what type of phone you are using).

She responded quickly, and I got ocnfirmation from the head of contingency planning that my assignment would be changed.

I felt exhausted most of the day, but stayed at work. The chapter I had read in "Mental Health through Will-Training" was about how, during depression, the brain is interpreting the bodies input as weariness, but you are not really tired. I have thought that this was an illusion for decades, but it seems so real. It was good to get confirmation from a professional source. So I stayed on task all day - actually worked 10 hours. It was very hard to do. Fortunately, I had a repetitive task to do which didn't require any deep thought. I was in a state where I would get easily confused. I was doing a series of short database queries to collect information about how the data was strustured in the tables, so i could use those metrics to construct a model of the database. I collected all the data, so now I can begin the layout to reconstruct the database model.

I am going to the Temple today - realy looking forward to it. I allowed myself to sleep in 2 hours, so I may not have time to go to an endowment session and to the baptistry - which is what I had planned.

I did not keep my promise to myself and go for a walk yesterday - so I will keep that promise for sure today - before I go to the Temple. The high is going to be 72 DEGREEEES - YES!

This is an adendum entry to the blog. I just got back from my walk. I walked to a pharmacy to do some shopping. 4 blocks each way. The sun was bright, and there were no clouds. A Glorious day!

The presedent of AT&T sent out an email yesterday that I thought showed real class. He has asked all the top management to forego wage increases this year, and he also decided to give back his yearly bonus (which would probably be something like 7 million dollars). I think he did this for 2 reasons - so that the company doesn't have to layoff as many people, BUT also to give the union employees the warm fuzzies, so that they may decide to continue to work in good faith if the contract negotiatons go beyond the contract end date.

after using my mood light for an hour today, my mind was really working well. I got a 20% higher score in text Twist than my highest score.

Starting to Worry

I have not heard back from the contingency planning team at AT&T, so I am not sure if the matter has been re-opened, or if it is closed, and I have to do the current work stoppage job assignment. I am trying to maintain peace, but it is getting to me. I woke up early again today, but this time it is from anxiety.

I have been trying to taper off the anxiety meds, but I think for the next few days, I am going to use full dosage.

I will give this issue #1 priority today. I am considering calling the case worker and speaking to her supervisor, or to the case worker for my disability (same group) and prompt her to offer her opinion as to the veractiy of Dr. Peris's recommendation in his letter.

We are having a temple excursion this Saturday - where the members of the ward are asked to spend time at the temple. I have volunteered to work in the baptistry, but I won't be going into the water. That starts at 3PM. I think I will also attend an endowment session in the morning, then come home and rest. I need to take my mind off of this.

I am doing my Saturday chores tonight so I can free up time. I did several chores last night.

I have started a new practice of listening to music while I eat at home. I read an article in a magazine about how to bring joy into one's life, and one of the things it said was to sing along with recorded music. So now I am singing along to the songs as I drive my car. It is fun.

My training at Recovery, Inc. is really helping me right now. Normally, I would not even be in a state that I could make this bolg entry, and probably would have stayed in bed hoping for more sleep (and to avoid the world).

WE WILL GET SUNSHINE TODAY and even more TOMORROW. YEAAAAAH! I will definitely spend time outside.

Feeling Good

I feel good today. I only slept 6 hours, but not because of worry or preoccupation. My body just wants to get up now. I don't feel super rested or wonderful or anything like that. But I am ok with it.

And the few extra hours wil come in handy - especially since I have an 8:30 AM meeting. I might be able to attend that meeting AT WORK - so I can see the documents and data being discussed over the company intranet.

I am putting the camera back in the car so I can take pictures again.

I responded to the denial for a change in job for my strike duty. I feel like my respose was strong and professional.

We had an ice storm yesterday. I was housebound until 3PM. It was too slippery top walk anywhere, even over grass. The roads were real bad. Fortunately, I had prepared for it unknowingly, so that I could do a full day's work at home. I had stored a lot of data and info on my laptop hard drive just the day before.

I have been doing 30 minutes of cardio every day for 7 days now. I have a plastic exercise step - 6 inches high. I do a pattern - lead t=with right foot- both feet up, lead with right foot - both feet down, lead with left foot - both feet up, lead with left foot - both feet down. repeat. I vary the speed. I did 934 steps t0day in 30 minutes.

I am so ANGRY

The contract witht he CWS Union and AT&T expires on 1 APR 2009. This means that people like me get to study hard to do a strike related task while the union workers are absent, should the union declare a strike. While I was out on disability, I was assigned strike duty as a faciliuty coordinator. The purpose of that job is to be face to face with picket captains in negotiations over how the strike would be conducted and still be considered lawful. It would be my job to arbitrate between workers and strikers, and to encourage workers not to retaliate against strikers as they cross the picket line. Further, I would be the coordinator of a team that monitors the picket line for any unlawful act - such as entering private property, not allowing passage through the picket line, vandalism and sabotage. I would be taking video, images and recording witness statements when such things occured so that the perpetrators would be identified if law enforcement was necessary.

I petitioned for a new strike assignement, and got all the letters from my health care professions in on time. I recieved an email confirming that my assignment would be changed.

Yesterday, they informed me that my assignment would remain the same. My normal reaction would be to get totally depressed and just let them take advantage of me. That is not what happened. I sent an email copied to 3 individuals iunvolved in the reassignment, and told them that I accept theiur decision but warned them that if I had a relapse, or if someone got hurt as a result of my inability to perform these duties for medical reasons, AT&T and these 3 people would bare some accountability for that result.

That got their attention.

It is obvious to me that they only listened to my primary care physician and ignored my psychiatrist and therapist completely. I have email confirmation that the case worker did recieve the letter from my psychiatrist well before the deadline.

The head of "Contingency Planning" was one of those I mentioned by name. She emailed back that if there was more medical information needed, it was my responisibility for providing it. I emailed her back that I already had confirmation from the case worker of recipet of the letter from Dr. Peris - and that I would bring it to work today and quote what I believe was being ignored.

The head of COntingency Planning emailed back - sounds reasonable.

I am so angry about this, I have a hard time containing it. I have awakened after only 4 hours sleep. Part me wants to believe that the ignorance of my psychiatrist's letter and my therapist's letter was done intentionally. The only thing that keeps me from screaming at the case worker is that I recognize she was propobably overworked, and forgot about the additional letters, since most petitions have only 1 letter - from a primary care physician. Since she didn't know what my strike assignment was, she may not of thought it was important to pass along his restrictions. In my brain, I do not believe this is the case - I think it was deliberate - but I am going to give her the benefit of the doubt - for now.

freezing raining

weather.com says current temperatures here is 30 degrees abnd feels like 26. The high will be 33.

I slept 10 hours, and still feel a bit tired. I was able to wrk a normal day - 8 hours. I did not feel odsessed about working longer.

I have started reading "Mental Health through Will-training". The first chapter is about indecisiveness - which those of you who konw me well know that I have this weakness. I felt like the author was speaking right to me - it was so right-on.

New Coat

I bouht a new coat - a top coat to go over my suit when I go to Church. I also bought a nice hat to go with it. I looked in many stores. In clothing stores, they were too expensive - the cheapest was $300. Most of the other stores like Sears, Wealmart, Target and Ross didn't even sell them. I felt impressed to ask the cashier at Sears wear I could find a top coat. She said - right across the street, at the Burlington coat factory. There prices were much lower, and I got this coat for $75. So I bought a hat too.

I went to a Single Adult Family Home Evening yesterday evening. I am realy glad I went. The hosting family fed us dinner. The lesson was about cultural patterns of thought - teaching us the difference between asian, arabic, latin, german, english and british communication patterns.

For example, asians do not speak directly about the topic, they talk around it, getting closer and closer to it, using personal experience - so oyu develop a realtionship with them. The example given was the statement: My aunt called me, and I went over to her house on the other side of Hong Kong. I was so glad to see so many of my cousins. Then we ment to my aunt;s friends house, and met many of her family Then we all helped the friend move into a new apartment. (The main point is never mentioned - that we should all work together)

another example was personal space - asians have a large personal space - meaning that they stand far apart while speaking and their is less touching. Latins have little personal space, and speak to each other sometimes nose to nose.

antoher example is property. Latin cultures have a more expanded concept of group ownership, which oft times interpreted by English culture as stealing.

Another example is the deaf community. Since their means of communication has so much overhead, they are brief. A culture has arisen from this that is very blunt. It is not considered rude to be very blunt.

The point of the lessons was that this is a global Church now. We have 15 langauges spoken in our ward. We need to be aware of this, to help us feel more unity - so we don't take opffense when none is intended.

About 50% of the people in the lesson took this to heart, and really tried to understand this. The others were adamant that this is an english culture, and these people should not only learn english, but adpat to all our cultural ways as well.

I taught my first sunday school lesson yesterday. It went very well.

Good day

I had a great chat with my brother Ron on the phone yesterday. We really shared, and I felt close to him.

I had lots of energy today - but still was tooo tired by mid afternoon to do the vacumming.

I attended a baptism, and gave the gift of the Holy Ghost to an 8 year old boy, the child of new converts. The father had just been baptised a month ago, and only last week reviceved the preisthood as a priest - so he could baptize his own son. It was a great meeting. Their name is Archibong. He has been out of work for a long time. IEven though there is a hiring freeze right now, I am going to get an application to AT&T for him. He is from Africa - and perhaps his language skilll could get him a job - if he knows how to use computers.

I had a hard time falling asleep - but I did sleep 9 hours - longest I have slept in a week. I think it was because of the meeting I went to. My bodu needed time to resist disease. I am taking airborne every time I leave the house.

2 years ago, my the toenail of my right foot came off while I was putting on a sock. I didn't even feel it. I saw something poking upwards under the sock, so I took it off. The nail grew back, but never looked very healthy. I look at my toes every day to assess them. Today, that toenail is a bluish color, and there is infection all around it. I should feel pain when I press on it, but I feel nothing. I am going to the doctor tommorow to have him look at it.

I did it again.

I worked 15 hours yesterday - couldn't stop myself. Very tired today.
I finished the data model, only to learn that it is the wrong database.

I also learned that the tool I am using to reverse engineer the model is old, and is not built to interpret the current design practices in databases today - heavy use of VIEWs, etc.
I tried for 6 hours - could not get it to work.
I have a few more ideas to try.

I erally wabnt it to work because there is a serious need for this.
Over the last year, I have been asked several ties for models of databases outside our group - for the sources of where we get information. They don't exist, and our system engineering, IMHO, is crippled without them. I have to find a way to make this work.

MY BOOKS ARRIVED - in just 3 days. I choose the free shipping option, and it was suppsed to take 2 to 4 weeks. I am reading a biography of Orrin Porter Rockwell now, but need to stop that this weekend. I got the book to give it away to a re-activated Church member. He was a marine, and he expressed his concern about how he feels he doesn't fit into the church group because "once a marine, always a marine". We have introduced him to other LDS marines in the area. The ward mission leader asked me to find a book on Orrin Porter Rockwell to see how men of action are an integral part of the church - we don't all have to be scriptorians and counselors.

I slept 8 jours, and has thought I'd sleep more, but my body woke up. I am rotating laundry now, and using the mood light as I type this.

There is a baptism today, and I was asked to give the gift of the Holy Ghost to an 8 year old boy. He is from a new family of converts, and I want to serve them. I can't go into their home because the Mom does daycare, and the exposure to the kids makes me ill. When giving the gift of the Holy Ghost, one places both hands on the head of the one recieving the gift. The ward mission leader is concerned, and gave me opputunity to back out - but I am going to try and see what happens. I just need to remember to take "Airborne" before I go to Church, and wash my hands as soon as possiblke after touching a child. I don't want to get sick again - it tok 10 days to get better.

Part of the problem is that I can no longer use echinacea and pycnogenol to assist my immue system, as I have done for the last decade. I did homework on the WWW to see if there would be any interaction with my prescribed meds - and didn't find anything. But there was a reaction. It caused me to retain water. The swelling in my ankles was too much, and I had to stop.

I got an email at work - MY STRIKE DUTY ASSIGNMENT WILL BE CHANGED. Anything owuld be better than that one. I was chosen to be head of strike security monitoring at a building. I would be the one directly interfacing with the strikers, keeping them off private property, bringing workers through strike lines safely, gathering evidence when the strike assembly became unlawful - pictures, videos and witness statements. I AM SO GLAD IT IS BEING CHANGED. I will not know my new assignment for 2 more weeks.

I blew it

Yesterday was great. I felt like getting up after only 6 hours sleep. I did a full morning - exercises (including 30 minutes cardio). I got to work at 9. Morning also included reading scriptures, Sunday School manual (I teach the investigator class now), and a bigraphy of Orrin Porter Rockwell.

I really enjoyed my work today, unscrambling a reverse-engineered model of a database for a co-worker. It is like unraveling a know in 2 dimensions. It is really hard, and I really enjoy it. Too much so. I worked 12 hours. I had had breakfast (oatmeal), and during the day I ate 2 apples and 4 clementine oranges. I skipped lunch (didn't realize I hadn't eaten it.)

So today I feel awful.

I have purchased/downloaded a game called Text Twixt. I really like it. I do it for 45 mionutes each moring while using the SAD light. My brain was hardly functioning when i started. Now my thoughts are fast. I knew the light made me feel better, but I didn't realize how quickly it afffected my brain. I still feel yucky, but I am wide awake.

It is going to get to 70 DEGREES today. I am taking it easy today, and going for a walk outside at work. There is a nice park with a walking path next door - I am going to explore it today.

I keep getting the feeling I should call a new member of our ward (Church group) who has been sick. I will do so tonight.

starting again

It is time to start porting again. Even a few lines is better than none. I am back to work full time. I am working on the front end - meaning that I help find sources of data and veryify they are complete and undertstand all the relationships within the data.

I am liking this much more than what I did before.

I am still waiting to hear about getting a new strike assignment. Depending on what it is, I may hove lots of training to get. I have decided that if I don't get a new one, but they have me keep the old one that I will do it. The Facilitiy I would be coordinating is 2180 N. Glenville Rd, Richardson, TX. I checked on google earth - small building - 2 stories. Only 150 cars in parking lots, max 200. So I may only have to deal with 100 strikers. I would feel a lot better if there was a fence around the property. One of my responsibilities is to monitor the strikers to make sure they don't molest people's cars - slash tires - sugar in gas tanks, etc.

I overheard a 20 year AT&T veteran that since the economy is so bad, there may not even be a strike. The bargained-for employees might continue to work in "good faith" without a contract while it is initiated.

For the last 7 days, I have awoke at 4:30 AM after only 6 hours of sleep. I hae been taking more anxiety meds and going back to bed. Today I have no respoinsibilities in the evening. I was thinking of attending a meeting of CODA. I am staying up today to test if my body is telling me it does not need more sleep.

I have put in 2 eight hour days at work in a row. I do feel tired afterward, but not exhausted. I am watching it though - I can feel th old habits wanting to come back - taking shortcuts with my self care, ao I can "do more".

I have attended Recovery-Inc for 3 weeks now. I like it - it is helping. I have ordered the 2 main books, and will begin studying. The books are by Abraham Low: Mental Health Through will-Training and Manage Your Fears, Manage Your Anger. It is a simple process, but one needs to memorize it and be diligent about practicing it. Maybe I will finally learn how to relax.

Posting once again

I should start posting again. Saturday was 69 degrees. Today was 32. Wednesday will be in the high 60s. There was been a constant light rain all day. I cicles are forming at the bottoms of all street signs.

Things are confusing at work. No one will decide what I should work on. In the meantime, I have to find something to put on my timecard.

My thinking is getting a little faster.

A good friend of mine in AT&T in California got laid off today. She was heart-broken.
They informed her about it through email. Bastards!

This is my last week of psych Intensive Outpatient Therapy. I need a support group, so I will be attending something called Recovery International on Tuesday nights. I will also attend Codependents Anonymous on Wednesday Nights, when I am not out with the Missionaries.

I woke up early today, and did a full 45 minutes of cardiovascular exercise all at one time.