jan 2023

 I feel like i never update this but i solidly check in about once a month it seems.

So where are we now? 

I got my insurance license and along with it a raise putting my new job's salary at a much higher level than where I'd be at if i never said fuck this and left my cushy work-from-home job. And the work is easier imho. More pleasant. im still learning but its an easier day all around, normal biz hrs and I can theoretically have a life outside of work now.

with that license came a lot of stress gone now i dont have to study and i dont have to worry about passing the test or doing all the things and more training after that to be able to do the new things at work that are getting me the more money. 

Which will pay for what I still owe from the whole awful flea-spray incident that turned my whole life upside down and made me live in some perpetual horror in which i was being attacked by an unseen unknown enemy for over 2 years.

But the good news is that after much suffering and throwing money i dont have at a problem I couldnt quite nail down, I do seem to have some answers.  I figured out about a year and a half ago that it was nerve damage i sufferred and it wasnt really in the air but that this stuff attacked my nervous system and was effecting all my systems.

But what I didnt know until after i got the new washer and dryer, which btw is an awesome set and im loving having laundry in my house and these machines rule... well i got sick of having the laundry smell like nothing for using the clear detergetnt so i got some new stuff that smelled like an old bf, which i didnt like at all, so I used some old detergent and i'll be damned if THE SMELL didnt come out of the machines with the clothes.

Sooo basically this makes everything make sense. The flea spray made my skin hypersensitive and gave me nerve damage, which i figured out a long time ago. I understood the clothes with that smell were hurting me, but what I wasnt connecting is that it was the detergent i was reacting to.

Follow me here.. so i moved to the apartment and was using clear detergent, then when I tried to move back and failed..... i had grabbed the old detergent and took it to the apartment with me and i was using that to wash clothes there which is why the smell was on the things at the new apartment. I thought I had somehow gotten clothes mixed up and infected everything... 

but now.. whats it like a year and a half after coming back home again because the apartment wasnt any better... after many laundry experiments.. trying to wash it out of a load of laundry something like 10x and failing... after not being able to get the smell out of the machine downstairs after washing the hairdye towels in there for a year... after calling this evil stuff so insidious that it somehow gets worse when you get it wet when i'd try to handwash the smell out in the apartment........... it seems the very easy and obvious answer i'd missed the whole time is that i was having a reaction to the detergent.

I still got the nerve damage in the first place mind you, that was all real.

but in the worst of it at the apartment i was having bad reactions to literally everything including but not limited to lidocane gel which should have numbed me. that was so painful and one of the worst things. i was having reactions to soaps and lotions and anything and everything. 

I just forgot because i started using the clear detergent and i guess that worked. and i was slathering on huge amounts of lotion and i guess that worked. until i washed the clothes in the old detergent.

In fact i was at my last job and i felt like my back was getting bad again at some point. i hadnt been using that detergent but id been wearing these scratchy shirts so i got some softer ones and thats really helped. but it goes to show you that my skin is still very sensitive to everything. 

anyway I washed a few loads with the old detergent before i got it. new machine is HE so i dint use that much but it seems like THE SMELL lodged in certain types of fabrics. Not in everything in the whole load but you can smell it in some of my socks and one of my workout tops for example. So i got some ivory detrgent which has a nice smell but its meant to be for sensitive skin and I like the smell and I'm feeling good about everything.

I picked up that workout top yesterday that smells like THE SMELL and it was terrifying. That smell induces fear and panic in me now. It means suffering and i put it in the hamper to wash. If i can wash the smell out, that means i can bring back probably everything in the garage. Most of that stuff hasnt been touched by the stuff or the detergent so most of its probably safe. I'm gonna try and wash the load i washed 10x adn couldnt get the smell out with a different detergent (duh) and see if the smell comes out. may need to wash it more than once idk but i feel like if i can rescue those clothes im good. 

I feel like theres no reason i shouldnt be able to wear everything in the garage. theres at least one or two peices of clothing that were directly touched by the flea spray but its been 2 1/2 years now and if i wash it at the laundromat with a different detergent i bet it'll be fine. I'm very optimistic i can have my clothes back now ive finally figured all this out.

So now i need my body back so i can fit in them. 

I'm working on that. been on my january diet strict , counting calories working out for 3 weeks now. I'm losing about 1 lb a week, which is nothing i recgonize but i lose slow and by next fall i could be the size i want to be if i keep doing this. and frankly im eating a lot better and i want my body to be strong again. it sucked being out of shape and my back being messed up.

I'm just getting to the part where i'm starting to get strong again.

and my birthdays coming up and im gonna wear goat pants to bockfest. 

at this rate ill be around 189lbs then which is for sure more than i want to be weighing but also less than 190 which is not where i've been in a very long time so thats what im shooting for.

February jazzercise challenge is coming up and that usually makes me leaner and stronger so january is about increasing my fitness level so i can go hard in feb. then end with birthday partying.

By then ill know how to do my new job for real and the whole issue with the conversion of systems will be done so itll be easier and ill be better at it and people wont be calling asking for explanations of weird things the system did.

and the weather will be nice and ill get the hot tub back out and life will be grand.

Thank goodness that whole awful episode is over now finally

even though my skin is still messed up and its still healing, i still owe money

i still need carpet and i still have my clothes in the garage

but i'm working on that part. all of those parts.

and if i made it somehow to here i can totally do all that stuff

Feels good to feel settled again. 

Every day im so thankful to be living in my hosue with my cats where we all belong. im so glad we all made it through that and we are all still together. the pandemic just made it all the more bizarre. and gave me nothing else to focus on but working to pay the bills which somehow brought me to this new job which is kind of my dream job.

good hours, good boss, good pay, down the street, doing work that comes naturally to me and just basically chatting with people all day about nothing and everything. coming home for lunch every day. working from home on snow days. it just rules.

and finanacially i should be caught up in probably a year give or take, and debt-free not long after that. My orignal pre-pandemic plan was to be debt free by next year. Thats not happening but it will happen a few years later and thats fine. 

and then i can think about doing some improvents on the house and when im done with all that i can retire. and just live happily ever after. 

People who say everything happens for a reason might point out this whole awful thing led to me making a lot of improvements in my situation, i upgraded a lot of things in my house and for sure upgraded my income and found a dream job. 

but fuck those people. suffering is terrible and if i never suffered any of that i was still working a job i liked fine and i think i would have my bills paid off sooner and i would be making the improvements to the house after that without any nerve damage or feeling sick for over a year or losing so much of my clothes and furniture and wasting money on things i was swapping out just becuase i couldnt understand what was happening to me and all i could do was spend money on guesses. 

there was no bright side to that and i refuse to look at it as such.

I landed where I did because *I* kept on trying to improve my situation.I didnt stay down. I didnt give up. I just kept on doign what i could. every day . making decisions based on what information i had. Trying to figure it out. Trying to figure out how to get back home, tryign to figure out how i could get back to my happy life.

I did it.