Marsia's Diary

It's good that you are feeling the anxiety & letting it go. You & K sound like such a good team & great company for one another xo
 
Glad you had fun with the other mums picking out Halloween costumes. And yes, she can always change majors. Finding the right house/location is probably the key thing.
 
Thanks Cate and Em! It feels really good to let go of all the stress and feel normal now sometimes even. It feels like both K and I will be such different people by the time we are done with this phase in our lives. I am really happy with how much K has matured and learned and how much she has healed already. I agree with you Em about the right house and location. I have a whole new list of places that I am looking into and it feels really good not to settle at all.

We went on a nice bike and skateboard adventure. We were too lazy to put the bike rack on the car and fix the other bike tire, so loosened the bike handlebars on K's bike so it would fit in the car, and K took her skateboard and we went along the bike paths by the Kiawah golf course. It was designed by a famous golfer and is very pretty and looks really hard. There are intricate sand traps and water features everywhere. Cate, why are there sets of colored balls that look like polished croquet balls in places? Is that to show where to stand to hit the ball for the different handicaps? I was impressed by how long a bike ride it is from one hole to the next - lots of good walking exercise!

When we got home I made ramen with some fresh shrimp I got at the market and really good ramen from the Asian market. I should not have saved the canned chicken and canned salmon water to put in the ramen. I thought I was being frugal and adding nice flavor to the ramen, but seeing my weight this morning, I think I just added a ton of salt. Yow! That does not count for having to calorie count because my weight was down before this yesterday, and I could not have gained 3.5 pounds in a day. Darn, well at least the weight should come back down in the next few days.
 
You sound like you are both ready to start your next phase of life all fresh!
Working through the issues with yoga and counselling and breathing stuff while you prepare for the next phase all sounds so good.
Very nice about the bike and skateboard adventure!
 
Wow, M. I just looked up Kiawah golf course (there are quite a few) & am amazed at the cost to play. At the start of each hole, you have different coloured markers. At our course the blue markers are for men (or for men & women in pennant), the red is for women & the white for social golfers, not playing in a comp. Fancy courses have fancy tee markers. Golf here in Tassie is not an elitist sport. My course annual fees are only $450 +$150 PA to store & charge my electric buggy. Even someone just turning up to play only pays $20 green fees. We pay a small comp fee ($8 for the women & $15 on a Saturday) & still, some people complain it's too much. I'm in a couple of women's FB groups & most people are in the US. It seems to be so different. The clothes are amazing & they seem so enthusiastic. I think you would need to be well off to play though & here, almost anyone could play.
I love hearing how you & K are going. You will both be much better than OK. :grouphug:
 
I hope so Liza! Cate, we are in the strangest area. There are pieces of land with families on them where a whole group of people own the land cooperatively because they are families of ex-slaves who shared a piece of land, so there will be a few houses disintegrating back into the land, and a few fixed up, and everything in between. Then a few properties down the road will be a million dollar house with a dock into the river. Kiawah Island is a gated community where Oprah and some other celebrities have huge vacation houses and Biden and his family visited recently. There is a public beach on the first part of the island that is our neighborhood beach and is just before the gate to keep us common folk out. But you can use their lovely bike paths anyway. So I don't think the fees for these golf courses are representative of normal-people golf courses. This is definitely the elite. Thanks for the explanation of the croquet balls. They were intriguing! I do think we'll be better than ok, too!

Today was taken up by these endless forms to fill out online for K's individual and group therapies. I probably filled out over 30 forms today, and K probably filled out 15. We just took a nice walk in the cool night breeze and sat by the river and listened to dolphins surfacing and making nice blow-hole noises and splashing while surfacing in an arc - you could just see the dark arc of them coming up and their fins showing in the not-as-dark water. That was so peaceful and nice. We did a little yoga and Wim Hof breathing today and I ate well. I think we're exhausted from beaurocracy and will sleep early and have a more productive day tomorrow. The individual therapist mentioned a backstage volunteer position at a local theater for high school students so K could make some new friends here. I have to look into that. It's only 8:30pm and I'm so exhausted. I hope I can keep my eyes open another half hour at least!
 
Marsia said:
We just took a nice walk in the cool night breeze and sat by the river and listened to dolphins surfacing and making nice blow-hole noises and splashing while surfacing in an arc - you could just see the dark arc of them coming up and their fins showing in the not-as-dark water. That was so peaceful and nice.
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Oh that sounds so magical and wonderful!! Very nice to take that time after all that paperwork.
That volunteer position for K sounds like it would be really good!
 
What a lovely way to blow out the bureaucratic cobwebs. Dolphins are magical creatures, as are whales. I have never seen them in the wild. Lucky you. I hope you are sleeping soundly xoxo
 
Thanks everyone! We've only seen dolphins in that river once, so it was a nice surprise hearing so many playing in the water! I did get a nice sleep, thanks Cate! I do have to remember to look into the theater thing for K soon. Filling out all the forms for therapy (and then going to an initial visit to a group leader for a teen therapy group for K) overwhelmed K. She has had to tell her history so many times, and it stirs everything up for her again each time. I am relieved all this intake stuff is over. She now has group therapy and individual and an advocate who is coordinating family therapy for everyone. I had to arrange 4 therapists (the advocate, K's 2, and mine) and am so over paperwork and bureaucracy now. Plus it is rather painful telling each therapist in great detail what happened and then repeating it in endless paperwork where they ask the same questions we already answered in person. But K now has a really nice young group leader and a really experienced individual therapist (whose rates are astronomical - I really hope she's darn good!).

We did a longer more serious yoga video last night and I am sore, but in a good way, now. Everything's so up in the air we are considering casually looking for colleges while we look for where we want to live next, but not necessarily applying to colleges yet, and giving K a gap year to get her bearings again. I got out essential oils for K. She is really calmed by wearing them and really liked the sassafras, which was also my favorite when I was young.
 
All that therapy prep work does sound like it would be emotionally exhausting. Excellent though that K is now set up with a good therapist and group. A gap year sounds like not a bad idea at all. Especially if K is into exploring just work life for a bit.
 
The backstage position at the high school sounds great!! :) I hope K goes for it, it could be a great experience and it will be nice for her to hang out with her peer group again.
 
How wonderful that you got to see the dolphins. All that preparation for therapy sounds absolutely exhausting. I hope you can have some time to really relax & not think about anything much in between the looking. It would be very hard to make any decisions when you have so much going on in your lives. I'm glad you have your meditation & yoga & one another xoxo
 
Thanks everyone! We had a good day today. K applied for the theater thing and just needs to do an interview for it soon. We got a lot of school done including K doing a really good rough draft of her college application essay, and I worked on my resume. We're not sure if she will be applying to places and getting accepted and then asking for a gap year or just applying next year, so since we already read so much on how to write the essay, we're just doing one and seeing how things go.

We did a really good yoga video for the back that is a nice long one, and went to the ocean and swam just before sunset. There were big blue-black storm clouds everywhere except for where the sun was setting, and the sun illuminated the waves in this way where all the bubbles in the foam glistened and sparkled. There were little fish jumping out of the surf here and there, too. The sunset was really beautiful, and it was hard to get out of the water because it's cooled down now and the water was warmer than the air. The ocean is just slightly on the warm side now, so soon it will be cold to swim in. We have to get to the beach on warm days and get all the swimming in we can. the lady at the park entrance was really surprised when she saw that we went swimming in the chilly afternoon. She's really happy and always fun to talk with.

Ate well. Made a huge baked sweet potato with bacon and sour cream for lunch, so I'm skipping dinner. I'm still really full!
 
Therapy is exhausting and the stuff needed to get started is even more so. Good to have put that behind you. A gap yeat sounds like a good idea on the one had, because everything you guys are dealing with is so exhausting, while on the other hand college would probably be a way for K to get back into a regular schedule with a built-in community, which can also be helpful. I'm sure the two of you will find the right solution - if only because none of the options are wrong to begin with.
 
Lovely that K applied for the theatre job--I hope she gets it! The yoga followed by that lovely swim sounds perfect! Yes good to enjoy it while the water stays warm enough.
 
I hope K gets the theatre job too. It would be good for her. Just practising applying for colleges & seeing what pans out will be an interesting life experience. Things will work out.
Your swim sounds magical ✨ I just read that out to G & I said I love how you describe things as I can always picture them xo
 
Thanks everyone! I think you all are right - college would be really good, but it also depends on how things work out schedule-wise and also work out financially as far as having the funds for where she is accepted. Everything is just so up in the air that we can only be flexible and hope for the best. I think Llama's right - there isn't really a wrong option, just freedom ahead of us.

I was so surprised by the little sparkling bubbles in the ocean. It looked like when champaign is illuminated and you can see the little bubbles break on the surface - well, that plus animated sparkles. It really looked like we were in an animated movie.

Today we went to Folly Beach which is a nice surfer town and the most like the west coast of anything we're likely to find in the South. The little downtown was fenced off for a car show and craft fair, and they had live bands, but I didn't want to spend money to go in, so we studied in the motel lobby overlooking the ocean which had nice live music in the restaurant next to us which we enjoyed. Then we walked along the pier with all the fisher-people and back through the town. We stopped for some groceries and had a lovely drive back home through the marshes over little bridges and through nice lush forests. It's becoming one of my favorite drives. We got a pumpkin to make our own pumpkin pie. I haven't had the appetite to cook much, so wanted to make my autumn pumpkin pie because I have a recipe with just the right spices including powdered ginger, and it's so good. I have fresh ginger, too, and will make some curry pumpkin soup with the left over pumpkin.
 
Roasted pumpkin is so nice. I'm glad I don't always have to buy a whole one because I'd never use it up before it went bad but cubing and roasting 4-5 portions and then just tossing them into meals for extra veg is delicious.
 
Marsia said:
Everything is just so up in the air that we can only be flexible and hope for the best. I think Llama's right - there isn't really a wrong option, just freedom ahead of us.
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& how good does that sound?
I must be hungry. All this talk of pumpkins & beetroot (in Vic's diary) is going to make me put them on my shopping list. I am also going to plant some pumpkin seeds that I saved last year & plant them out tomorrow. Curried pumpkin soup is the best as is baked pumpkin. Yum! :pumpkin: 😋
 
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