Long Time No Hear!

Hello there!

Long time no hear! I'm not even going to check the date of my last post.

Okay, okay…I looked.

And – Oh my, it's been that long? And really, it hasn't even been a year since my last post. Still, I guess time flies when you're not looking.

I can't say the usual ‘time flies when you're having fun’ because it's hardly been all fun this year. Mr. Janney and I did our job switch and tried our hand at being a lease/owner operator. It wasn't an epic failure, because we learned lots. It will be a while before we try it again, for many reasons I won't address at this time.

Mt Ranier

I did get to see the Rockies again, and the St. Louis Arch. Spent a bit of time on the West Coast. California and Washington. Got a better picture of Mt. Rainier than I did the first time we did over the road work. Still not as good as the one I took of Mt. Shasta, but a decent enough picture. It was amazing to see it as I drove to that particular Shipper, especially when I realized I was getting closer than I ever had before!

We almost got to see the Pacific ocean. There was a sliver of blue through the trees that might have been the ocean, but it was a short patch, and we were going just fast enough that we really couldn't say for certain.

It was a valuable experience and had things at the end gone differently, I'd probably still be out there. Mr. Janney has a problem with following distance and the truck's cameras dinged him one too many times. He was politely invited to quit. I'm not sure I agree with how the company handled the situation, as there was some miscommunication over a previous safety ding (the company doesn’t like you exceeding their personal speed limit even if you’re still in the legally posted limit). I drove Solo for about a month or just over.

We almost lost our home. Still on the verge of losing the Nissan Rogue that was supposedly a birthday present a few years back.

Oh, and I almost died last summer.

No, I'm not being overly dramatic by saying that. Only mildly dramatic. Do I tell that story now, or make it a post of its own? It would be a little mean to mention it and not elaborate. Even though I am quite clearly still alive to tell the tale.

Well, to make a long story short, I was unable to get my weekly diabetic shot. And the longer I was off, the higher my blood sugar climbed. I may have been able to compensate by becoming stricter with my diet, but there were quite a few days where I was eating 0 carbs and my sugar wasn’t going low enough. It finally did though, and once I was able to get my medication again it all smoothed out.

However, I am in that ‘no health insurance’ place again for a little bit. The new insurance should kick in at the beginning of March, but I don’t know exactly when I’ll be able to get the shot. It’s a miracle drug as far as I’m concerned. More about that another time.

Let me know if you want the longer story and I’ll make it into a separate blog post. For now, I think I am going to sign off. I’ll edit this post, pray I get all the typos, then post. Ever since I began journaling back in January, I’ve had ideas for blogging and I’ve finally decided to make the leap. I have a literal list made up! Mr. Janney did say he wants to see me get back into writing, and journaling & blogging is a good step in that direction.

Until next time, I bid you ado!

Robin Janney

x

More Venting

 

As I mentioned in my previous post, my health has been giving me some issues this past year. From a knee scope in January just to be told I need to lose weight before I can have a needed total replacement done, to thyroid meds working overtime. I even fell over a month ago and because I didn't want to land on that bad knee, I tried going down on an angle and instead managed to sprain that knee.

I've been diagnosed with IBS. We've been playing with my diabetic meds, some of which play havoc with the digestive system so it's twice as much fun.

The irony of this, is that one of the many reasons I wanted to switch to driving local was to get a handle on my health issues. It is very hard to eat healthy driving over the road; not impossible, but I was not managing well. When there's a constant push to keep the truck moving, fast and easy was the usual go-to. My sugars were running high, and I was gaining weight.

And then I came home and my knee began bothering me, making both issues harder to manage. I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle. My self talk has gotten horrendous. I can't seem to stop eating, self medicating the depression, so I've begun asking myself if the food is worth my life ... literally asking myself 'Do you want to die?' every time I go for something sweet. It doesn't help.

To be honest, I'm sick of vegetables. I take a baggie of raw veggies along with me when I drive, and by the second or third day - I just can't stand them anymore. And I'm taking veggies I like and/or can tolerate. There have been many weeks that by the end, I'm just carting the baggie around. I'll eat the small bag of snacks I've brought, pita crackers and nuts, and  my protein bar, and that'll be it.

I'm also tired of cooking and meal prep in general. But I'm the only one here that will cook, so If I don't make something, we're gonna go hungry. I have a hard time standing for any length of time, so I make a lot of quick meals that I don't need to stand over the stove for. (looking at you Pampered Chef Quick Cooker) But even that is trying my patience.

I've begun going to the local bariatric center for diet help. But I don't feel like I'm being heard, so I don't know.

For so many reasons I can't go into online, I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle.

A Year Later

Here I am  opening up blogger to try and write a new post finding out that it's been a whole year since I've posted something. Almost to the day!

And as usual, I have no idea what to write. My original idea vanished as soon as I saw the date of my last post because it was like, no I can't just start talking about ... well, anything after all that silence.

I have the same problem with my blog that I do with my YouTube channel ... I'll have all these great ideas in my head, and then as soon as I turn on the camera or the computer, it all goes POOF.

Not sure what my hang-up is, depression mixed with pain probably. Between the arthritis in my knee, my lower back, my shoulder, and my Achilles tendons, I feel like I take a bath in Voltaren gel. An ineffective bath at that.

I take prescription meds for both the depression and the arthritis, but sometimes I feel like they cancel each other out. When the pain doesn't go away, it's hard to feel peppy and motivated and shit like that. Mr. Janney commented yesterday that it looked like I was walking better...and what I should have said out loud was "That doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt, I've just learnt how to compensate."

And that's what it boils down to. Learning how to live with the pain and the depression so that I can remain a functioning adult because life shows no mercy for anyone ... oh wait, it's Cobra Kai that show no mercy ... no, no, I'm sure it's life ... lol

I can't tell if I'm feeling sorry for myself ... or if I'm legit overwhelmed and in need of help. Maybe I just need fully caffeinated coffee. In the summer, I had to go through some hoops to pass my yearly physical for my CDL because the doctor thought my resting heartrate was too fast. Had to go through a battery of tests just to determine that my thyroid meds were doing too good of a job! Better safe than sorry, but one of the things I've tried incorporating in my life to keep my heart rate lower is less caffeine ... and let me tell you, life without caffeine is no joke. When I say that, keep in mind that during my work week my 'get your ass out of bed' alarm goes off at the ungoldy hour of 1:30AM! Even if I've managed to get to bed by 5PM, and asleep before 6, it's still hard as heck to stay awake driving that early.

And yes, I see that spelling error up above and am deliberately leaving it in there. ;)

Okay, enough venting for now. I'm going to publish this, then work on another post for later.

A Year In Review - Part 1

Snug as a bug

A year ago I posted a poem expressing my depression and then I ghosted my blog. It's not the first time and it probably won't be the last time. Life is unpredictable.

Also just over a year ago I started medication for my depression. It seems to help. I'm not always jubilant, but neither am I experiencing as frequent 'end of the world' lows. That alone is worth it.

According to my pictures, just over a year ago Mr. Janney and I were in southern California. Our truck was in the shop because the city horn wasn't working, something we need to be considered legal. We spent a few days in a pet-friendly hotel. When word came that the truck was done, we checked out and returned to the terminal...only to discover that the shop never actually fixed the horn. So it was back to the terminal. We were there just one more night.

To get more active on my blog, I'm going to chose a picture or two from the past months and go from there. This posts first picture up above is my beloved dog Jaclyn, snuggled up on the hotel bed with me last November.

The second photo to the right is the view outside our hotel window. Well, I took it standing outside on the walkway, but it's all the same thing really.

Last year, we spent Thanksgiving out on the road. I'm not sure which state we had our turkey dinner at, because there aren't any pictures in Photos.

We came home for Thanksgiving this year, even though we didn't go anywhere or have anyone over. I fixed us a ham dinner that will probably be feeding us for the rest of our home time. I guess there's nothing wrong with that, it'll save me a lot of cooking the next few days!

I have my novel The Farmer's Daughter for Kindle on a countdown sale all this weekend. Catch it while you can!

I'm almost ready to re-release the second in the series. I'd like to hold out long enough to update the cover, but I might have to wait until later to do that. I'll keep you all updated.

Book three is nearing completion, just not fast enough.

To not overwhelm myself, I'm going to commit to posting every other week. So, see you then!

Grinding Gears

It's been a while. I feel like I've been grinding gears...I'll begin a blog post, have to save it to walk away and do something else - and then never get back to finishing it! Like this one - I don't remember when I started it...

But I'm finishing it today.

In the middle of November, Mr. Janney and I started Truck Driving School. We had two weeks of intense classroom study - intense because they're trying to shove all this information into us in a short amount of time. Their main goal is to help us pass the road test, so it's really only scratching the surface of everything we'll need to learn. Whichever company we end up driving for will have a 4-6 week training/orientation period to train us in their preferred method for things like paperwork.

what my days off have looked like...

We've both had 4 out of 11 'drives'...Mostly in their range - which is a parking lot that could stand to be a hair bigger when there are two drivers in there each trying to learn the backing maneuvers. Backing up was always my biggest weakness when I was a school bus driver years ago, and it is still my biggest weakness. I can almost hear my old boss saying 'if you have to back up, don't do it - but if you have to, picture me in the mirror scowling at you...'

It is a thousand times different in a combination vehicle because the far end of the trailer goes the opposite direction of your steering wheel. I haven't been able to wrap my head around it completely yet, but each time in the practice yard it gets a little easier. Back at that part tomorrow morning bright and early.

Last night we 'practiced' out on real roads. As my brother said on Facebook, once you're on the road, it isn't practice anymore - it's for real. The first part of the night was 'easy' enough...they have some roads that don't get a lot of travel that form a loop and they kept us on that for about an hour, though they had us switch direction in the middle of that. Then 'well, do you want to get out of here and try some real roads?'

Sure. why not?

I'm not sure exactly where I was, just that I was in Binghamton NY somewhere. The streets seemed sooooo tiny and cramped! The turns even more so. There was one time, I slid into the 'straight' lane...to have people slide into the 'left turn only' lane to pass me!!! I realize the speed limit was 30mph, but with all the traffic lights, there's no way anyone should be doing that speed through that section. Oh well, I was doing as I was supposed to and they were the ones breaking the law and putting our lives in danger.

I don't have a plan yet for how to handle my writing and blogging and the like when I'm on the road as a professional driver. It's going to be something I'm going to have to make up as I go and I hope all my fans will be patient with me as I figure things out. You've all waited so long for a new book, but I promise you that it will be worth the wait.

Going to end now so I can run through the things I need to remember for the pre-trip inspection.

Until next time, much love!

Squirrel!!

Medically relaxed before surgery

Boy, I sure do distract easily! I work on keeping these blogs active, then have one little surgery and blammo..."What's a blog?" My hubby picks on me all the time because just like the dog in Up I distract rather easily...hence the title!

That was back on March 7th. And here it is 2 months later. I have done a lot of binge watching different tv shows thanks to Ion, USA and WeTv. I have finished the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy by Tad Williams and am all set to start the The Last King of Osten Ard by same.

I have written a few words in my work in progress, but I am probably going to have to do the same as Mr. Williams did when he began to write his new trilogy...read the first books to refresh my memory.

Still off work at Easter but well enough to travel, Mr Janney and I took my mother to her sister's for the weekend. The biggest challenge I had that weekend was sleeping on our air mattress...getting back up was the hardest part, especially trying to do it without waking Mr. Janney. I never was able to, even though that one time I simple rolled out right onto the floor! Each time one of us even shifted, the other felt it. Still, it was a good weekend and worth that irritation.

I returned to work in mid April, probably a little too early but I was willing to give it a shot. I think if surgery had been my only issues I would have been able to soldier through it. But my life is never that simple. A few years back, at my previous job, I had some foot issues that kept me out of work for a few months. Guess what??? Different issues, same foot. It's probably both feet, but we only did MRI's on the one. When the doctor came in to discuss the results of said MRI's his leading line was, "It's probably be easier to list what's NOT wrong with your foot." Not very encouraging to say the least.

Everything from possible ganglion cysts to tendinitis to a chronic sprained ankle. Oh, and arthritis. Just regular arthritis - thankfully I tested negative for rheumatoid arthritis! And don't let me forget the fact that I apparently have an extra bone in my foot! I feel like a genetic freak sometimes. I'm in the middle of my second week of physical therapy, and the doctor and I will be talking about work on Wednesday.

Regardless of all that...my top two wisdom teeth will FINALLY be coming out on July 5th. They've been bothering me for a few years now and I decided I'd had enough. Since I've been getting everything else done, might as well just do it and get it over with.

"Really Mom...another picture?"

There have been a few other things I've been up to while I've been off on medical leave. But I think I'll break them up into a couple posts. Myself, I don't like reading overly long blog posts, so I try not to write them. I will say that my beautiful doggy Jaclyn has been very spoiled these past few months having both of us home (Mr Janney has been unemployed since February - more about that another time). I was working on organizing my desk earlier and found her laser light so I'm sure that'll be coming out and keeping her entertained sometime tomorrow.

Never giving up!!

One thing I'm going to be doing for a little bit, to save myself some energy, is copy and pasting these blog posts so that both of my blogs are kept active and hopefully relevant. And I'll still be posting pictures on Wednesday. Just because I like taking pictures, much to my husbands amusement. I have been using my Instagram quite a bit recently, as well as getting into Tumblr a little bit.

For now, take care and never underestimate me...I keep plugging away hoping to blossom just like my mom's dormant daffodils! I just hope I don't go through a decade long dormancy like they did! They've been steady for about 8 years now.

Never giving up!