I've been really busy and stressed out lately.  But I don't seem to be getting much done.  I got the muffler fixedon the car, but I still need to get the oil changed and some repair work done.  I am finished with Mom's and my taxes, which involved a trip to Grandma's lawyer to clear up the last bit of her estate.  I managed to take Mom out to lunch to visit my brother, sister-in-law, and their kids.  We had a lot of fun.  But I didn't manage to go to my niece's birthday party yesterday.  I'm still packing up the old house, moving one box at a time.  I have made some progress, but it still seems never-ending.  I spend two or three sessions a week at the old place and I still never seem to get any closer to finishing.  I've been working hard at both jobs, maybe too hard.  And the environment at school is pretty tense lately.  Our lovely school board has decided to turn the elementary school I work at into a Spanish Language Immersion school, even though the staff, parents, and taxpayers all think it's a stupid idea.  If the board manages to ram the idea through, four of our teachers will be "involuntarily reassigned".  They might get other jobs in the district, but they won't be at our school anymore.  All for our very own version of the Bridge to Nowhere.  It's really sad.

I'm also trying to figure out exactly what to say at my upcoming appointment at the poor folks' clinic.  I've been having panic attacks thinking about it.  The last time I went there for my fibromyalgia, two or three years ago, I was treated like a drug-seeking hypochondriac.  The nurse's words were polite enough but her body language and tone of voice were awful.  It was obvious that this woman wanted me to leave her office and that she thought I was a waste of her time.  Her lousy attitude took me from slightly nervous to horribly panicked and crying in less than a minute.  And of course she refused to believe that I wasn't depressed.  And she also refused to believe that I wasn't sitting on my ass eating bon-bons all day long because I'm not able to work full time.  She refused to even DISCUSS pain management with me.  She also thought my pain was all in my head.  She told me that fibromyalgia is an emotional problem, and depression (which I didn't have) is an emotional problem and all I really needed was more exercise.  She was absolutely convinced that her own personal exercise program would cure me.  She told me that I had to walk outside twenty minutes or more every single day.  She didn't care how much exercise I was already getting.  I couldn't break it up into more than one session.  I couldn't exercise indoors.  It had to be walking not any other form of exercise.  Walking, outside, twenty minutes or more, no matter what the weather was like.  She was absolutely irrational about it.  And the woman thought I was crazy!  

The nurse practitioner I'm seeing this time is a different lady.  So I'm hoping that things will be different this time.  But to make sure, I'm trying to write an organized list of symptoms and what I expect her to do about them.  Because God knows I won't be able to speak up for myself when I get there.  If I'm panicking now in my own home, it's going to be so much worse on the day of my appointment.  I've been trying to write the letter and also get my old symptom log system up an running again so I can show how it affects my day to day life.  And I feel like I'm spinning my wheels, not getting anywhere, not knowing what to say to convince this near stranger that I'm not faking or crazy, and that I'm deserving of this nurse's time and assistance.  It has been very stressful.

I've also been working off and on on my testimony, trying to write out how I became a Christian.  I've made it through my childhood and getting kicked out of college number one.  I'm kind of stuck on college number two.  I was saved watching the 700 Club around that time.  But I hadn't realized just how disillusioned and resentful I still am about the way they treat donating to their ministry as some kind of a get rich quick scheme, and the way they pretend that everybody who gets saved through their program will have some sort of miracle.  I also found their information for new Christians to be completely useless in finding a church home in my town.  It is actually very common for TV, radio, and online ministries to lead people through the sinner's prayer to salvation and then leave their new converts alone to rot.  If we're lucky, we get a phone number or a brochure full of platitudes instead of real discipleship.  It makes me sad and angry to think of all the new Christians without any guidance while the folks who "lead them to salvation" are patting themselves on the back.

And we had a lovely spring blizzard this weekend, Thursday night through Saturday morning.  I wish I had been up for a trip to Lake Superior.  I bet the waves were incredible.  We had gusts of 60 mph or more.  We didn't get much snow, though.  The lake wind protected us from snowfall for about half of the storm.  The snow blew right through our neighborhood and landed somewhere else.  We only got a few inches and that mostly melted today.  That's the one good thing about spring storms; the snow doesn't stick around very long.  And of course, this weekend I started coming down with a cold.  I have a sore throat and a stuffy nose and I'm coughing now.  Yuck.  I suppose I'm not surprised considering all the stress I've been under lately.  My immune system can't be working too well right now.  So I need to slow down and take care of myself, but I don't know how much I can.  I wish I had someone who could take care of me for a while.