Why Start Blogging Again?

Especially if all I'm going to do is unload my emotional baggage instead of giving you updates on my writing?

To get my voice working again.

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.

Indie Woes

Hi All!

I've been working on making my first two novels available in hardcover through Amazon. I only just realized this was possible a few weeks ago. And let me tell you, it isn't a simple matter of just uploading the same file I used for the paperback and E-version. No, of course not! That file has too many pages for the size I'd chosen - imagine that.

So I chose the next size up, found a pre-formatted word file for that size and did a Copy/Paste from the current file to the new one. Annnnnd that simple change messed up the formatting. So I've been proofing and fixing The Farmer's Daughter for the past few days. One little change leads to another.

And another reason why I hate proofing and formatting is I get caught up in the story. Even though I've read through it a bazillion times, I'll see the words and go 'oh, I love this part...' I lose more time that way than any other.

But I have managed to finish the file for Farmer's. I have Amazon working on a physical proof copy for me even though I ALSO need a newer file for the book cover, I have the order put in for that as well but for the time being I have a temporary cover cobbled together through Amazon's 'Create a Cover' program.

I don't know that a hardcover version is actually needed, but the last three books I've managed to buy recently have been hardcover so I know there's still some kind of market for them even though they're more expensive. I love the convenience of Ebooks, but I also love the feel of either a hardcover or paperback in my hand.

I know, I know. I should be focusing on the 3rd book in the series. I swear though, my husband has some kind of radar that detects when I'm trying to work on anything related to my writing and for some reason he thinks that's a good time to need me to do something else. And it's never anything FUN. Never anything ROMANTIC. Always something else.

Like, 'have you researched health insurance yet?' or 'have you ordered a new camera for the security system?' He has NO idea that these are not simple tasks. Ugh. I know we need to so something for health insurance. The crap we have through work is NOT good. I just dropped over $200 at the drug store the other day, for 4 prescriptions. And I have more than 4 total prescriptions (I'm a hot mess, remember?)

At any rate, I'll be switching to The Ring of Fire files so I can do the same for it. Since Bigger than the Beetles is still 'not quite done' hopefully that won't be quite as frustrating.

Keeping it short and sweet for now.

Until next time, stay safe peeps.

Robin Janney

Two Steps Forward...

 And one step back. That's how the old saying goes, right? Or is it one step forward and two steps back? Or maybe, the farther ahead I get, the farther behind I fall?

That last is the sentence I've expressed to my husband most frequently the past couple of months. I'm not sure why I thought changing to a local driving job would make my life easier, because I sure was wrong. When we were being recruited, we were told that most of the runs would be 10-11 hours or less, and in the beginning they were. But as the company has been growing and adding runs, more and more we're being stuck with runs that come close to running our 14-hour clock out.

For those who don't know, a truck driver has two clocks they need to be mindful of during their day. A 14-hour clock, which is the amount of time we can be On Duty - from the time we 'clock in' to the time we 'clock out' for the day. During that time period, we can only drive on the roads for 11-hours, the other clock we have to be aware of. Driving on customer properties don't count against the 11-hour clock if we remember to change the status on our log. A local driver can utilize a 3rd clock once a week if needed, and that would be a 16-hour clock - which only adds to how long we can be considered on the clock, but not to how many hours we can drive. Twice now I've been pushed into using that 16-hour clock, and both times due to circumstances beyond my control I was illegal. One day was almost 17 hours long, so I took the next day off.

Honestly, I was doing fair before that first 16 hour day. I say fair because I've been struggling with torn cartilage in one of my knees since before that.  I get a cortisone shot this afternoon to tide me over until my crappy health insurance can get around to authorizing a different shot treatment. "Fair" may be a slight exaggeration, but even though I was in pain I still had energy and wanted to do things. Ever since that first too long day, I've been plagued with low energy. It may have more to do with the pain in my knee, but for whatever reason I connect the fatigue to that day.

I've been struggling with writing, formatting, and remembering things. I'm still not sure what I wanted to talk to Mr. Janney a few days ago, but hopefully it wasn't anything important. That could be brain fog, but who knows?

My endocrinologist has been changing and adjusting my meds, so it's possible that none of this has anything to do with work - or not as much. Because let's be honest, the hours they work truck drivers are a bit insane. But anyways, the Endo added a thyroid med, changed one of the shots I take for my diabetes and when that failed to do as good of a job, she added another. I legit have a string of alarms in my phone to remind me when to take my meds...and I still forget the shots once in a while. I am one hot mess!

But I keep plugging away. I have no choice! Life keeps demanding my attention.

That's enough venting for today. I've been quiet online recently because no one likes a whiner, even when the whiner has legit reasons for their whining. But I refuse to sugarcoat things online because I believe in being 'real' online. Bites me in the butt sometimes, but hey - that's life, right? I don't believe in sharing everything, but when I do share I want it to be honest. As honest as I can be when I self-edit my language and eliminate all the 'lols' I want to add...lol!

If you're reading this, then I've decided to hit publish. I'm not sure yet, especially since at this point I don't have any photos thrown in to catch the eye and break up the reading blocks. Pictures are always so much work to add in because for some darn reason they mess up the formatting and I have to work harder to fix it...which, if you're reading this, I gave up and the goofy formatting errors around the Shutterstock photos will just add to the charm today!

Stay safe, my peeps.

A New Chapter Closer to Home

Some time before Jaclyn died, I had a long talk with Mr. Janney about how I was feeling burnt out from our job. Constantly being on the road as an over the road trucker, and getting little sleep in the sleeper bunk was wearing me down. I expressed my desire to find a local driving job so I could see family a little more often and be closer to home in case of emergencies. And to sleep in a bed that didn't move! He said he understood and while he was disappointed not having me along, he'd be okay if I found a local job.

What new sights will we see today?

So I began the hunt somewhat half-heartedly. I did enjoy seeing the country and being with my husband even if I didn't get to see him except at shift changes, and having my dog along. And then, as you know, Jaclyn died and my heart left me. I had this huge hole that felt as though someone had scooped it out with a dull spoon.

Jaclyn loved traveling with us, but she also loved coming home. She didn't care where we were, she just loved being with us.

Mr. Janney thinks I would have found the job I did no matter what, and he may be right since it was really kind of a fluke. I mainly looked at Facebook job ads, applying to ones that looked like they'd be worth the job change.

So, long story short, for those who don't know me on Facebook, neither my husband or I drive over the road any more. Initially he wasn't going to come with me, but there was a little accident at the end of May. I still have a mark in my armpit from where I was tossed against the truck dash due to a very slight but very sudden stop. If you've ever been injured on the job, you can imagine the nightmare that made our lives. We were already in a financial hole due to our truck being broken down for over half a month and being reduced to one income for just over a week hurt it even more. Between that and how I was treated by the worker's comp department, Mr. Janney decided to make the job move with me. I don't thing the worker's comp people did anything wrong, it's just the person who I dealt with had very little patience with an injured person in severe pain.

The new job has changed our lives for the better. Better pay, for less hours. Most of the time. Occasionally we have a long day, but they happen much less than they did over the road. All we do is drive to a distribution center to deliver a loaded trailer, switch it for an empty one and drive back to home base with it. We don't get the scenery we did out west, but being home at the end of each shift is worth it.

We now have a five day work week and two days off. While our weekend is actually Thursday and Friday, it's not too bad. We started out working nights, running from 7pm to finish. It was harder for Mr. Janney, but even I had trouble feeling sleepy after midnight regardless of having a good day's sleep beforehand.

A local sunset. Just as pretty as anywhere else.

But that has changed and now we start at 3am. While I'm not impressed with the poor communication and execution of the change, I think once we get used to the new schedule it'll be a good change. While the traffic tends to suck more during the day, heavier and stupider, it is better driving in the daylight. Once the sun comes up. Those early morning hours are still dark, and as we approach winter sunrise will be later and later, but it's easier to face those hours at the beginning of the shift rather than the end. I think (hope) we will have more energy after work, and hope that it will restart my writing my work in progress. More about that another time.

Another difference between jobs is we've downsized from driving a sleeper rig to driving what's known as a day cab. It's weird having windows behind us rather than a sleeper bunk, especially if we have to bobtail (drive with no trailer attached) because during dark hours headlights from other vehicles can shine in! It can be startling sometimes. Hopefully less of that now that we're on days.

The different rig means that I had to get used to backing again. Mr. Janney had to as well, but he was always quicker/better at backing than I was. I struggled with it for...okay, I still struggle with it. But it is easier to back with a day cab than a sleeper once you get the hang of it and I've gotten better than I was in the beginning. I think Mr. Janney was more worried about my backing up alone than he was for himself. We'd always had the agreement out on the road that if we needed someone to spot for us in a tight spot it was okay to wake the sleeping partner up.

Also, it is TONS easier backing in the daylight rather than the middle of the night. Not all of the lots are well lit, including our home terminal. And, if we're going to the same place we're usually there around the same time as each other and can help each other out if needed. When we were on nightshift, there was one time he came back to the drop are with his rig and empty trailer just to shine his headlights on the empty spot I was in so I could have some light...the lights in the lot weren't on for some reason, the night after this they were, go fig.

As I write this, we have an unexpected day off. In place of the text message giving us our run information this morning, we received one saying we were off. Since we are guaranteed a certain amount in our paycheck each week, this is no big deal. We get a free day and still get something for it.  After sleeping in a bit, Mr. Janney is gaming, and I'm finishing this post while Star Trek: Deep Space Nine plays in the background. I have book three's file open, and hope to do more than just scan what I've already written and tweak it. One can hope.

Until next time, stay safe!

Life Without Dog

She's always by my side here.

My intention was to write about the last few weeks we had with our dog Jaclyn before we had to put her down. I've tried, I have a post mostly written. And I just can't finish it. Maybe I will someday and post it. I don't know yet. I just know that like in life, I need to start moving forward here on my blog just as I have been doing in my daily life.

And let me tell you, that has not been an easy process. Even almost 5 months later, there are days when the loss is as fresh as the morning dew.

The initial depression was almost crippling. I had no choice but to continue to get out of bed, out of the sleeper berth back then, and go to work. Sleeping was harder than usual. Breathing was harder than usual. Trying to write was harder than usual, especially given that one of my secondary characters is a dog. Okay, an angelic being in canine form, but still.

I even messaged my doctor asking about how long I should wait before I should be concerned about the depression. She told me not to be, really. That there is no set time limit to grieving and to grieve for my dog just as I would a human being. Which for me, is remembering her and talking about her.

Which honestly is easier in the privacy of my own home, because there are people out there who would be like 'get over it, it's just a dog'. But, she was MY dog. In so many ways, she was the center of my world. I had to get up because she had to be walked. Even out on the road, I walked her more than Mr. Janney. I had to budget in the price of her food, her bed, her toys. I had to be mindful of her water dish, her food dish, her bathroom needs, cleaning up after her if I didn't catch those bathroom needs in time. She was never very good at actually asking to go outside. Probably because I often just took her outside to go every so often, which was easier at home than on the road. But where ever, if she was asking to go out - her need was great and one of us had better be taking her out...NOW!!

You can see one of the things I have done to help myself remember her in the photo at the top of the post. I've set up a little area on my desk for her remains, a few of her toys, a picture I rotate out every so often from the photo album I've started putting together for her. I have a bazillion photos in digital form, and have started having them printed off a few at a time. I'll sit at my laptop with Google Photos open and flip through the album to see which ones I haven't gotten yet. It no longer hurts as much as it did in the beginning, and has become almost a joyful project. I'll look at some of the pictures and laugh aloud at the funny memory connected to it.

I almost retold the stories from my previous post! I'm glad I looked back and discovered this or you would have read about the time she was honking the rig horn again! Instead, I scrolled through Google Photos to find another story to tell.

It's not a long story, but the photo above shows a time when she was frantically pawing at the bottom of our hutch. I sat in my recliner, watching in amusement and wondering what she was doing. No doubt I even asked her. I don't know why I didn't get down and look, perhaps I was afraid it was a mouse she was after. But no, when Mr. Janney looked at a later time, it turned out her tennis ball had been lost underneath it! We hadn't been playing at the time, so I'm not sure how it got under there.

My photo album project has expanded to include photos of humans too. I put them in a separate album though. A recent picnic my family held inspired me to make sure I label my photos too. Who's in them and the like. I had asked my sister to find some older photos of our mother since the picnic was in her honor, celebrating her 75th birthday early and honoring what would have been her 50th wedding anniversary. Well, since she's never remarried I guess it IS her 50th wedding anniversary regardless of dad passing on back in 1995. Any way, the end result of my request was that entire photo albums were brought! And one of the remarks someone made that day was how not all the pictures were labeled, older black and white photos especially. I was so inspired by this that I went through an entire album I'd already put together of my wedding reception picnic and labeled the backsides of every single picture. That was a late night well spent!

It has also expanded to hanging photos I've taken around the house. I ordered this canvas print of Mt. Shasta without really knowing where I was going to hang it. We recently rearranged our bedroom due to a new bed and I found the spot to hang it. It looks a little lonely, but I'm not sure if I'm going to print off more of my mountain range pictures to hang around it or do random photos from out on the road.

It's just not enough for me to have the photos only on my phone anymore. I have this need to have more visible reminders of happier times. The photo of Mt Shasta in California was taken on a very windy day back in March from the rest area where I had decided to park to wait it out. It was so windy, that when I walked Jaclyn the force of the wind surprised her so much she staggered, and when walking back to the rig after doing her business those adorable ears of hers where blown straight back - I'm afraid if her ears had been any wider, she'd have take off! Even pictures she's not in include memories of her.

Alright, this post has gone on long enough. I have other things I need to get done today, though I promise to post again sooner rather than later. Until next time, stay safe and be well.