🎥 A Most Unreliable Narrator🧠 Issue #199 I love you berry much

This week: snow bibs, fiverr, and suicide ideation

Logo made by Tom!

Dear Internet,

It’s almost October dammit! The leaves aren’t turning and it’s pissing me off. I know this is what Midwesterners refer to as “second summer” but ugh, I have a very expensive beanie I bought in Switzerland to wear!

Also snow bibs.

In preparation for this winter in Michigan, Mr. Lisa and I bought snow bibs. There are a lot of trails in the county that we like to hike so why not hike them in the winter? I’m also super pumped to snowshoe with Kristin this winter. Lots of wineries offer snowshoeing cheaply for you to tromp through the vineyards.

One thing neither Mr. Lisa nor I are looking forward to is the cut sunlight hours. I think Mr. Lisa said 7 or 8 hours of sunlight a day at the cabin during winter? If we’re lucky? At the height of summer in Michigan, sun is up at 5:30 a.m. and goes down at 10:00 p.m. I remember last fall at the cabin before we came back to Kentucky for the winter how dark it was in the morning and how dark it got as the afternoon ticked on.

The entirety of the front wall in the cabin is floor to pitched ceiling of windows. I think when we got the glass replaced, they said it was 20’ from floor to the ceiling pitch? LOTS OF OPPORTUNITIES FOR LIGHT. But! We are under a canopy of trees so not as bright as you would expect. Plus, the interior of the cabin is cedar wood which is not a light wood. We hung fairy lights across the beams which we keep on 24/7 so it’s not so drab at night and I don’t break my neck in the middle of the night when I need to go to the bathroom.

Why am I complaining?! Am I complaining though?

Mr. Lisa is concerned about how his depression is going to do up in Michigan. I worry, too, about both of us. All the years of taking 5000 IUs of vitamin D as a supplement for my depression and now I have too much so my intake has been cut in half. Mr. Lisa can’t take it due to this current health issues. We’re both on antidepressants. Exercise, of course, does help, but it’s hard to get motivated when you’re depressed.

I am not taking these things lightly for our move. I told Mr. Lisa that much of the behaviour he projects will happen in Michigan is already happening here in Kentucky. While we have 15’ ceiling at the condo and one wall has 10’ of windows, a hotel was recently built across the street and blocks the afternoon sun, so the condo goes dark after 1 p.m. even in the height of summer. It’s not unusual for me to turn on a lamp in the living area later in mid-afternoon to get some light in.

Sure, being in Michigan this winter is going to be a massive adjustment after the wussy winters in Kentucky. I told Steph that I’ll have to re-learn how to drive in snow, but it’ll be fine. The MINI is All Wheel drive and we got beefy as fuck tires. We’ll be fine.

There will be lots of pictures, I’m sure.

Nerd Girl Industries

This week’s issue of Nerd Girl Industries Presents is the history of my nearly 30 years in tech and how NGI came to be. Also is the are the weekly picture of Thursday, a social media tip, and meme of the week on top of the essay.

A new friend who does similar work as I do pointed me to Fiverr to start selling my wares. I futzed around building my portfolio for a few weeks before going live when she emailed me and said, “Hey. I’ve got a client I’d like to pass on to you.” This kicked my ass into gear, and I spent all of Friday getting my profile and portfolio up and running. Fiverr verified my identity and status to work in the US so I’m good to go! I’m offering intro packages at cut rate prices compared against other sellers if you want to give my services a whirl.

Now that I’ve got the hang of using Fiverr, I’m going to create more gigs to sell my wares.

I approached the admin of a writing group I’m active in on doing my social media presentation for them for free as a test run before I start presenting my course next spring and selling on Udemy. She LOVED the idea so that’s set before Thanksgiving.  I have roughly two months to prep and write the course and it’s going to be a lot of work.

But I’m loving it.

I keep up with industry news and social media management/marketing are always changing on the fly. One day Instagram wants you to do up to five hashtags for organic reach and then Linkedin says no to hashtags, its search goes against keywords. It sounds so easy to do social media management. You just write up some shit and post. But it’s not that easy. You are part graphic designer / part wordsmith / part marketer / part photographer / part videographer to do a decent job. Hell, my videos over on TikTok, which are no longer than 10 minutes, take an hour or two after filming and refilming, light editing, captioning, writing up the post content, posting, and in some cases, scheduling.

I’m picking on a few things I’m good at and beefing up those qualities rather than spread myself super thing.

Even though money is low on the ground, I feel like I’m contributing to the world and I’m being productive.

The income will come, I’m sure of it.

Mental Health

I attended my first group therapy for my brain this week in months. At least two, I reckon. Between regular therapy, OA, friends, and Mr. Lisa, I easily get exhausted emotionally and mentally. Having a support system is great but to keep that support system going, you need to keep them up on how you’re feeling. I know I’m lucky and I try not to take it for granted, but sometimes it’s just too much.

If you skip on the  last “Lisa Writes Stuff” issue (which is FINE), I posted a link to my essay on bipolar rage over at the International Bipolar Foundation’s website. The editors loved the essay and asked me to make a regular commitment which I plan on doing. I’ve asked for their requests rather than pitching and for October they want a piece on group therapy.

I’ve made no bones over the years that group therapy is a godsend in many ways. Having a support system is great but sometimes you need to be with others who are like you. I go to offer support and get the community. I wish I could connect one on one with some of my peers, but the group settings don’t allow for that to happen.

With the emotional vomit with OA lately, I’ve not been going to the bipolar group therapy. I can only mentally do so much. But I’ve been missing it and when IBPF asked me to write an essay on group therapy, I decided it was high time to head back go group therapy.

Last week’s session was triggering. We do our check-ins (Hi, my name is Lisa. Fun fact with me is I’ve read 100 books this year. I have bipolar one, adhd, borderline personality disorder, general anxiety disorder, and PTSD. I’m a walking DSM-V. Ha ha.) and then the group opens to whatever we want to talk. A woman, F., in her check-in said she was having suicide ideation and the moderator said, “Ok, if you’re up for it, we’d like to talk about this more after check-in.” F. agreed and we spent the rest of the hour giving her support, grace, and kindness. I wanted so much to say, “hey. I, too, live with suicide ideation. Also like you, I don’t want to kill myself but sometimes being dead sounds pretty good! I also want to live to be a 100. My brain is on fire.” But I didn’t want to trigger anyone else that living with suicide ideation was okay.

Is it a cry for help? Should it be addressed? How do you tell people you think about it but don’t have a plan?

I read a wonderful essay years ago that I can no longer find that spoke about suicide ideation was like a warm pool of water that you floated in. You’re aware of it. It’s part of your life. You acknowledge it. But you know there is something greater than you that is keeping you going.

That’s how I live, mostly, day to day. I have flashes of insight into the world before me and I want to see that world. As long as I acknowledge the darkness, the lightness becomes easier to grasp.

Wonderful Thing

Mio Water Enhancers

I was digging around my pantry here in KY the other week to see if I had single serving Crystal Light packets when I saw that I had Mio drops instead. I had quite a few bottles and no single serving Crystal Light packets so I filled up my tumbler with ice and water, squirted a few drops of berry pomegranate, and was hooked.

I drink a lot of water, and I went through those bottles pretty quickly and restocked on our last grocery trip.

I like regular water but I like flavored water better. We even did the Soda Stream for a while but that fizzled out (hah!) and I was stuck with four bottles of diet root beer flavor after donating our Soda Stream. Mio hits the spot of being a liquid (no clumpy powder like Crystal Light) and they have a metric ton of flavors. Right now, berry pomegranate and orange tangerine are my fav.

Sparklingly yours,

lisa x