What a gorgeous day to live in south-central Kansas! No really, I mean it.  I am still kinda amazed at how content I am in my home and in the town.  Being so near my parents has it's plusses and minuses,  and fortunately the good things outweigh the bad.  They've been instrumental in providing some last minute care for G when things have gotten wonky at work.

Despite wonky...I love my job.  I feel like there are like-minded and interesting people working here, and I really find things in common and the ability to empathize with far more of the people that are clients here than I'd like to admit.   It's really great focusing on recovery, and the idea that people can and do recover from mental illness...even if it's just overcoming, eliminating, or working around symptoms.  

Love to see Friday get here, will have a little OT for the week as there are a couple of open positions waiting to be filled.  I am looking forward to picking up G a little early and going to the park to read my Kindle play with Grace. 

My Amazon report over the last couple of months...either purchased or just getting around to reading:
Meditation for Busy Minds

Black Betty mp3

Bridesmaids, Unrated

Voices of the Great Plains

Unwasted (I can loan this to anyone on Kindle)

The Paris Wife

What's New, Pussycat? Mp3

That's the excitement here... Octoberfest and having visitors from Lawrence was awesome.  I'm settling into an early morning schedule, and I'm amazed at all the things I can do in my car.

Things I may or may not do in my car while commuting...I'm not saying I do them all the time, but a few of them HAVE occurred. 

-Roll down the window & take pictures
-change a dvd in the portable dvd player with one hand reaching in the back seat
-rescue a princess crown from the backseat floor
-make calls to people
-file my nails
-put cuticle treatment on my nails
-polish my nails
-words with friends
-listen to podcasts like The Moth and This American Life and Freakonomics
-listen to Laurie Berkner
-peel a clementine
-open various snack packages
-stop to watch deer crossing the road
-stab juice pouches without poking the straw thru the other side
-hold hands with Grace
-play "I Spy" and the Alphabet Game

It's a long day to drive at sunrise and sunset every day, although it's an advantage for a directionally-challenged person like myself, I always know what direction I am going.  

Poll:   Deer Whistles on the car or not? 

please comment.

Things To Do:

I am a list maker and goal setter. Perhaps not always so good at finishing , but I do have lofty goals and big plans. My best friend used to make fun of me for making detailed “To DO” lists complete with the estimated time it would take to complete each task and at exactly what time it would be when I was finished. Each task had a box to check as it was completed. He would find these lists around the house with the first item or two checked off, and I’d be curled up on the couch happily reading a book. I think it was a coping skill through the years for not having a good sense of how long it would take to do things, how much I could accomplish in a given amount of time, and keeping myself on task. I have a strong idea of what I want and a tough time staying on the path to get it.



Having started a new job about 2 months ago, I find myself enjoying it immensely for a variety of reasons. A) I like the people I work with. B) I like the agency and its mission. C) I like the clients, I am slowly getting to meet them face to face but I have a deep respect for the fact that each of them, in their own way, is trying to manage the symptoms of a mental illness in one way or another. Whether is means trying to drag yourself out of the house in the face of depression, learning self-care to minimize the impact of bi-polar disorder, overcoming substance abuse, childhood trauma, or psychosis it still takes an amazing amount of energy and focus to work on these things. And if the person is coming to The Center, seeing a psychiatrist, taking meds, participating in group or individual therapy, and getting support in daily life through case management then they are, in fact, working and struggling to manage a problem that is getting in the way of their ultimate happiness. Granted, some people put more effort into the process than others, some get to this point through their own means or as a result of circumstance. For most people it is a combination of these things.


No one wakes up one day and decides to become mentally ill, in fact it is hard to recognize, label, and treat for professionals, even harder still for an individual to recognize not only the problems they are facing but also to see the potential solutions. That is our role as case-managers of one type or another, to help someone take an active role in the process of getting better. A case manager helps the person with things like applying for public assistance, getting out of the house, accessing resources, cultivating successful relationships and support systems, and getting needs met in whatever way is feasible and acceptable for that individual.


I’ve been a case-manager for a long , long time, and in any location, agency, or population, one thing is constant: the job description changes every single day. Rather than having a routine set of tasks and duties, one must determine the course of each interaction with a client or professional with nothing but a few state mandated rules and a huge overriding principle of doing good work on behalf of others, in a manner that is helpful, effective, tough, empathetic, or kind at any given moment. It’s all about helping people to set goals and then encouraging them to stay on the path that will help them attain those goals. It really doesn’t matter who the person is or what their particular challenges are, what matters that you are attempting to support them in taking steps toward making their lives feel right to them.


This is not so different from how I feel on a daily basis in trying to create a life that feels right for me. For us. Grace is, of course, the biggest factor in our daily happiness and future plans. I am amazingly content here in Hooterville. Grace has Gomie and Gopa nearby and we see them most every day. They are as supportive as they can be about helping out with Grace and with finances and all the little icky details of daily life. It’s nice to have backup if I need it in getting Grace to and from school in Great Bend, being able to work late if I have late meetings, and being able to get out of the house once in a while to do something with other grown-ups. It’s working out… it’s not perfect, I still wish I had more time with Grace and then the evenings when I do want to leave for an hour or two would not be quite so traumatic for her. That could be a stage, as well…but she’s really clingy to me and doesn’t want to leave me much more of the time than I recall say…6 months ago. The ironic part is that she wants to be with me all of the time but doesn’t often remember what “No!” means, has selective hearing, and wants what she wants when she wants it, by any means necessary.


I hear a lot of people who commute back and forth to work say that they use that time for “me” time, or to unwind. I chose to take Grace to school in Great Bend each day so that we could talk and sing and play I-Spy on the drive there and back, giving us a couple of hours together each day that we otherwise would be missing if she were here in Hooterville all day. I forgot, however, that this would result in very little “me time” in the car, where I do love to listen to music not sung by Laurie Berkner, National Public Radio podcasts, and books on tape. Ah well… eventually we will strike the balance that feels right for both of us. We replaced the melted portable DVD player so that will allow some extra entertainment for Grace in the car for part of the drive. My goal is to make each drive about half interaction time and half entertainment time. We’ll see how that works out. I have lofty goals sometimes.


Another goal is to keep our house nice so that we can enjoy the space we are paying for as well as have people over. I just wish I had more than 2 friends. They are pretty entertaining friends, so that is a good thing. Unfortunately I don’t have as much in common with a lot of the people here that I knew years ago… we have led very different lives for the past 24 years. In the meanwhile, I’m staying open-minded and I am hoping that, as I’ve found to be true in most situations, we have more in common than not. This weekend is the town’s annual Octoberfest, and I am looking forward to the festivities. Several friends from Lawrence are coming in to town to partake in the fun, so I get a double bonus of seeing lots of people here in town and spending time with some of my best friends from Lawrence as well.


I’m working from home today organizing a medical assistance system for my job as well as syncing all of my calendars and making sure that I have dates and times scheduled for October in order to make sure I “make productivity”… basically I am working on doing at least 100 hours of billable activities in the month, and that’s harder than it sounds. In my job, as in life, there are a million little details that I can get bogged down in that actually don’t mean much to the daily well being of my clients. Or myself. Or my daughter. These details may help make life run smoother… a more effective system of managing a portion of my job, a clean house, clean car, clean kid, paid bills. I need these things to be organized and systematic in order to get to the big things: the stuff that really matters to me. At work that means doing concrete things that will make someone’s day a little brighter, easier, or saner. At home that means doing things that are good for Grace, good for my well-being, and which lead to a better life for us both.


I’m off to a 3-day conference today in Wichita for mental health professionals across the state. I’m looking forward to learning more about specific areas of this field. I’m excited to eat at some nice restaurants with my co-workers and to get to know them better. I’m happy that I don’t have to worry about my kid as she will be well taken care of by Gomie and Gopa, and frankly, I’m looking forward to the break in routine. A few days of minimal driving, grown-up conversation, and interesting information seems like a vacation to me right now. Getting paid to do it is just a bonus. In other news our cat is still missing, presumably consumed by a hungry coyote seeking sustenance in town due to the drought. The dirt is flying around here with the farmers plowing fields, the sunflowers are endless, the sand hills and prairie grasses are lovely shades of autumn, and the trees are on the verge of turning. The sky is so blue it makes my eyes water and my nose itch. So okay, everything may not be perfect, but the big stuff is good enough right now and I think we are on the right path or at least close to it.

Leaving home...

The summer of 1987 I turned 18 and split the small town where my parents lived after attending 3 years of high school there. I had a jam-packed red mustang, my dorm room assignment and Welcome to KU packet, and a crumpled road map that I didn’t use until I realized I’d gotten on the interstate going south instead of north and ended up in El Dorado.

This past Saturday I got on the highway going the right direction, only this time it was to head away from Lawrence… in a 30 foot U-Haul PACKED with stuff…5 friends, 4 other vehicles, 2 cats, 1 child, and 1 fish. Everyone survived the trip; even the fish.

As I drove the truck toward the toll booth to get on I-70 heading west, I couldn’t help but be amazed at how bittersweet the past month had been. I was feeling grateful and even undeserving for the most wonderful July in Lawrence, where we attempted to enjoy every single social event possible, to see as many friends as we could, and somehow also managed to pack our stuff, plan a birthday party for Grace, and survive the record heat-wave.

The planets aligned and I was able to see almost everyone I wanted to see before leaving. The friends that I don’t deserve were there to help clean, pack, encourage, support, and listen. Even more mind-blowing to me was the fact that 5 of my top 10 favorite friends actually agreed to go along on this adventure in moving. I felt that Grace and I were carefully brought to Stafford, tucked in, and told a hopeful bedtime story that we are doing the right thing and that the connections that we made through the years in Lawrence are connections that will last despite the four-hour drive.

I’m really excited to see the house taking shape now… I had so much help that it’s farther along than I ever would have expected after just a few days. I already feel that I have my living areas and bedroom just as I want them, and my parents decorated Grace’s room prior to us arriving so she is also happily ensconced in her canopy Princess bed with pink walls, princesses, feathers, and a pink chandelier.

Tomorrow I have a job interview in Great Bend, which is about 40 minutes away. It’s the type of job that I have many years of past experience with, and that I really feel could be a good fit for me. Getting started in a new job at approximately the same time that Grace starts pre-school would be wonderful for both of us to get used to me working 5 days a week and establishing our evening and bedtime routines.

Regardless of how much unpacking gets done right away, and whether or not I get this particular job, an added benefit of moving away was the outpouring of help and hugs…it makes me appreciate even more the people that I became close to during the years. I’m hoping to use this opportunity to write more consistently here in this blog, and I’ll be posting lots of pics as well…there is something about looking through a camera lens that makes you see things differently and that is part of what this adventure is all about. I want to take a couple of years to look at things in a different way, to renew old friendships, and for Grace and I to spend more time with my parents.

I needed to get unstuck…for the past couple of years I have not worked, instead I went back to school to fulfill requirements to apply for nursing school. Alas, my GPA was just below requirements (the late ‘80s & early ‘90s haunt me still)and I didn’t get in to the school I wanted on my first attempt. I was living in a situation that some would call emotionally unhealthy, but we made the best of it and enjoyed the positive aspects of that as well. Becoming ill in 2005 and surviving a life-threatening illness made me aware of just how important my family of origin AND family of choice are to me. Perhaps it was because I was an only child, somehow I have ended up with more sisters than I can count, and a whole bevy of friends near and far. I began to see that life is a journey and I had choices, always, about how I was going to live that life, rather than waiting for things to “happen” to me.

Lately I have felt that I had had reached a plateau…no job offers despite lots of searching, months to wait to apply again for a nursing program and parents with health problems of their own that compelled me to get up and make a huge life move. That, and the fact that I feel that I owe lots of money… the cheaper rent/cost of living here will allow me to get caught up after the past couple of years. I would like to note, however, there is something about being in a small town that makes you want to drive to another town’s “Walmarts” and spend like crazy. I will resist that urge. From now on.

Perhaps getting a new perspective will help me sort out what is important to me, who I want to be involved in our lives, and how I can be the best mom I can be. Living here will put a minimum 30 minute drive on most work opportunities, spending opportunities, and opportunities to be involved in the fellowship that I have come to depend on so much. You win some, lose some…and other things you just have to work harder for. I’ll be doing that.