job

Labor Day quickie.

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I find the title funny because I am now employed! I am back in the labor force and am going to be stocking shelves overnight at a big box store. My family is in need of a little extra income to make it through the month and pay some bills off. I really wanted to be able to make my blog work on donations or my convention work to pick up the slack but that is not the case.

I hope everyone remembers to treat others as humans this weekend and not like robots. I do believe in good karma and treating our fellow man as a person and not a cog in a corporate machine. As you encounter people working this holiday weekend, go out of your way to say thank you. Make them feel special. You could help save a life.

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Picking up a med pack.

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I am doing better. Thank you all who were concerned. I was running a fever into the 100s and as for the 2 worse days, I don’t have any memory of them. Brain stopped working and my whole body was aching. It was a REALLY high fever. Still, I am on the mend and picking back up on life.

There was some big news that came out. I GOT A JOB!! (cue fanfare). I am now a website evaluator for companies like Google, Bing and Yahoo. It is part-time and work from home. It is a perfect fit for me and my family. Thank you all for your prayers and concerns

I will hopefully in the next few weeks be able to get some things in order and be able to commit to writing bigger better longer pieces. Also stay tuned for some upcoming guest appearances at conventions!

Peace and love to you all.

#hugapony

Gone baby gone.

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I have been so sick I don’t remember the last 2 days. I have been trying to sleep but a fever has kept me in the mid state of sleep/not sleeping. Not my favorite way of enjoying myself.

I did want to share that I have been hired by a subcontractor company for Google as a website reviewer. I passed all the testing and I can’t be more happy.

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. I am going to go eat for the first time in forever.

Second Prances

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This is a quick post as life has turned VERY busy. I love writing in this blog and I have so many posts to finish but I am having to put this further down on the list. I was given a second chance at a job that I had applied for here recently. I am hoping it doesn’t error out on me again causing me to fail. My dearest wife has started a second job (YAY!) meaning I have more time at home with the kids.

#stayathomeDAD

I want everyone to know I am alive and well and even more amazingly, I am hopeful. It is rare that I get this way. It is very fragile and I hold hope very dearly. It can be strong and powerful if it comes to life for me. Until I have a chance to post what I have and life gets uncrazy, please stand by.

#hugapony

#stuffedtherapy

PS Yes I stole all the title from the most recent My Little Pony episode. I hope you bronies who follow caught that.  Hasbro please don’t sue me 🙂 

Failure

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It is 3 am and I cannot sleep. Thoughts flowing through my head as I think back at what today was. I started today hopeful, yet it crashed.

Hard.

I had an amazing job opportunity. It was a contract run for a subsidiary for Google. It was parttime, work at home, with some amazing pay. I could stay with my girls, still watch the kid that I babysit, keep the house clean, and Gail would be still able to do her job.

Unfortunately it was not to be.

The application process was pretty straightforward. I had quite a few verification checks on my credentials as far as the position. It required tons of social media experience and website design experience which, while I did not have schooling, this blog is more than helped me be able to say I have experience running a website and knowing what to look for in one. And of course this blog is helping me with social media connections that I have made.

I then had a test that I was required to take with three parts. With this test came a large training manual that I was supposed to study. I was given a week to be able to go through the study materials and take the exams. Two of the major warnings about the test. First, once you begin the test you were not able to stop. Second, if you failed any single part of the test you could not move on to the next part of the test and you would be removed from the program and not able to reapply.

Ever.

But it seemed fate was not on my side this day.

I spent most of the day studying a good 8 hours or so. I did all the right things. I made sure to have Alpha brain wave study music going. I made sure to study when there were minimal distractions. And it’s been quite a while since college so I have not used to study as much as I used to be. Still, I did all I could to ensure a proper study regime.

As I was finishing this first day of study in the training material they had a “Here’s the website you’re going to be using for your work and to take the test button. Click on it to check it out.” When I clicked on it and inspected the website as they had instructed me to do so, everything decided to make a turn for the worse.

The website decided to go ahead and launch this test, with me only being less than a day prepared for a 7-Day examination. My heart raced as I realize that I just started a test I could not stop. I started working through the test and to my surprise, I felt I was doing well. I understood the material that been given to me. The questions were true/false questions, not my personal favorite but they still were not as difficult as any essay questions that I had taken.

At the end of the test I hit submit and thought I had done the best I possibly could have and felt pretty good about it.

I had a 15-minute wait for an email would be sent to me to inform me that I could start the next part of the exam which should have taken another day or two to prepare and go through it. As I was reviewing the material and going through my information for the next step I received the email.

I had failed.

For the life of me, I don’t understand what questions I had missed. It was an open book exam and the answers that I had given were taken straight from the textbook. Even thinking back on it now I still don’t know what questions I got wrong and unfortunately the test providers would not give me the answers I sought. I was informed that due to security reasons, I could not be told my result other than a pass/fail.

For someone with anxiety, failing a test I think is one of the worst possible things that you can experience. Especially one that you studied and think you’re going to do well. When you’ve studied and you have prepared yourself and you feel a little bit confident (a rare thing for me) that you know the material. It gives you a sense of pride because you’ve done the best you could possible. It is a rare feeling for someone with anxiety because so rarely do we experience pride or that feeling of preparation. For me to fail this test felt like someone had taken the rug that I was standing on and pulled it out from underneath me.

And then came the guilt.

This has been the best opportunity I’ve had in quite a while to be able to support my family in this fashion. I even had the great opportunity of it being in a field that I am currently in with blog writing and the like. This is also was to be a great boon as my family looks for a new place to live and having a nice consistent paycheck with a decent pay was going to be a particular godsend for us. As my mind slowly turned against me I thought about how much I failed my wife and my kids.

This horrific side effect of anxiety is the one that just deeply troubles me the most. It’s where your brain uses all its resources to convince you, you are your worst fear. Most people think that depression and anxiety can be the same thing at times. Depression is the absence of feelings inside you, emptiness. Anxiety is the feeling of everything wrong with you and it’s your fault.

Having both of them as hell.

I went through my regular progression of dealing with my anxiety. I grabbed one blanket I grabbed my pony and I curled up on my bed and just tried to block out everything. I did not have anyone to distract me because everyone had gone to church to leave me to study. Being alone was probably the best thing for me at that moment. Tears welled up in my eyes as I thought of how stupid of a person I was then I couldn’t pass an open book exam. My brain continued the mutiny against me.

My wife came home concerned because I had turned off my phone and she couldn’t reach me. She always does the best she can when I’m in anxiety fit. She got my daughter’s ready for bed made sure I was left alone and make sure that if I need anything just to ask. My roommate at this time came in and saw that I had failed the test on Facebook. He took a moment to pray over me and I really do thank him for taking the time to think of me.

It just takes a few small moments with loving people to break you out.

It’s been a hard day my friends. I hope you have better news soon. All I know is that I have to keep trying and I plan to continue to do so.

Hug a pony my friends.

#stuffedtherapy

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Oh day of days continuum.

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I guess I should have waited to post yesterday. Life it seems was not done with me that day.

After getting home from the doctors, I was able to eat, calm down, and talk to my wife. She and I talked about how we were going to get through the weekend.

After we both had calmed down, she took the kids to the park and I sat down to rest. I was destressing and remembered that I had a rescheduled doctor’s appointment. I also had to let them know my availability for this next month as I have a few Conventions and thanksgiving coming up as per my agreement when I was hired.

I called them up and speak my boss and gave him the rundown of what was going on (he had been concerned earlier that week). I told him that I need Monday off for my appointment and the select other days off. He said ok, he understood my situation but that due to my lack of availability due to my kidney stones and the rest of my Conventions, he was going to have to fire me.

I was stunned.

I asked what had changed as we had agreed to my schedule being flexible and I was told they changed their plans and were needing a full time position and that with my needs they couldn’t keep me.

I stuttered and was confused and I asked if I could maybe work make up days to help cover or something. He refused and he thanked me for my work and that he would have liked to keep me but with all the stuff going on with me, he couldn’t keep me.

I thanked him for his time, he wished me the best and hung up.

I stood for a second, and then fell to my knees.

I didn’t know, I still don’t know what to do.

Ponies might not be enough…..

I am trying my friends. I just don’t know anymore.

Rolling stones.

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I had a fun weekend. I managed to pass another kidney stone (that’s 2 so far for those keeping score). I was able to pass it without the extreme pain (fortunately). Still the discomfort was there and I did not the energy to do anything else but sleep.

Its been disappointing because I really had things to do. Places to go. People to see. Instead I was stuck sleeping 12 straight hours. While it sounds great, I woke up even more tired the next day.

I was not a happy camper.

My co-workers have been sympathetic to my pain. They have increased their water intake by 3-fold. While I am glad to promote such a healthy life style for them, I don’t believe the cost of pain was worth it.

Still, work is going well. I have been acclimating myself to office work (new to me). It is a whole different style of work. The fact that I can go to the bathroom whenever I need to has been a major plus. I hope it helps with this rocky problem I have been having.

Hug a pony my friends.

It is always darkest….

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I hit a rock bottom for me today. This was a low of a low today. Dark could not begin to describe my mood or my whole day.

Today started with me still in pain from not getting my medication due to the pharmacy issues. Me, being foolish, decided not to take my dose before going to bed and woke up in serious pain. I had slept horribly.

Not a great way to start the day.

I had not been in pain like this for weeks, since I started the new meds. I had forgotten how bad it was and I was reminded in the worse way possible. I realize now how bad it was and is and can be.

But I wasn’t the one hurting.

My wife has had a few car accidents in the past. Her family also has a history of spine and neck problems. There are days that it acts up. There are bad nights were she sleeps on it wrong. This was one of the dark days were it was bad. She woke up crying from the pain. She had been up most of the night. The pain was so bad, she had thrown up a few times. Any medication, food, even water she could not keep down. It was a bad moment.

I don’t do well with family being in pain. I can help others and deal with other people, but the moment it is my immediate family, it becomes different. I was not able to help her in this. I still had work and asked her if she wanted me to stay home. She told me no, that she would handle it. I got ready for work and on the way out told my daughters to behave and be good for mama.

I went to work feeling horrible and proceeded to have the same result there. Massive amounts of returns (almost half of that days sales to be exact) the same rude customers and more. I tried to pick myself up, the meds started kicking in, and I was struggling to deal with everything. My wife called me later that evening. She informed me that she had to get out of bed because my girls were tearing up the house, screaming, fighting, and becoming uncontrollable. She asked me to talk to my oldest daughter and calm her down.

I sighed and stepped into my backroom and proceeded to try and calm my daughter down. She is uncontrollable at times and this was one of those times. I have what is called their “getalong shirt” were I make them fit into one of my shirts with arm holes cut out and they have to do everything together.

They hate it, but it teaches them (hopefully) to get along.

She would not listen to me. I tried to talk but she kept interrupting me and would not let me talk. I snapped and told her I would be home in 5 min (I live very close to my store) and that she and her sister was in the biggest trouble they could imagine. I hung up on her, clocked out for lunch at work and drove home.

What awaited me at home was rock bottom.

I came home to a locked door that I could not open. I banged on the door when the key only unlocked the one lock. My oldest answered with the nervous scared look on her face. I told her to go to her room and I would be in there in a moment. I looked around to a disaster of a house and went to check on my wife. She had thrown up again and still couldn’t keep things down and she could not help with the girls. I came out and could not find my youngest daughter. I turned to my oldest and asked where she was. She told me she had told her sister to hid.

I was confused.

Why did you tell her to hide? Where is she? What is going on?

My daughter told me that when I had hung up, she had told her sister to hid so she wouldn’t get in trouble and that way I couldn’t hurt her.

I was dumbfounded and hurt.

Let me be clear, I have never hit, punched, kicked, or maliciously hurt my children in ANY way. There has never been a moment in anger where I have deliberately hurt them. There was no justification that I could think of that would provoke this thought.

I asked her to go get her sister and called them both in the living room. I had one of the hardest conversations in my life. I asked why they thought I would hit them. They told me that they had heard it. I asked where from and they couldn’t tell me. I told them in very clear words that I would never do that. I would protect them and that I loved them and that they could always come to me. I told them that it hurt my feelings that they would think that.

This was a new concept for them. Hurt daddy’s feelings? We talked about that and what would happen as punishment. I took away the TV privileges, the few video games and anything electronic. This was two-fold as I believe even the shows I allowed them to watch and kept an eye on what they were watching, was teaching them bad things. I asked them to get along for mommy’s sake. We spent a few moments crying and talking through things.

I then had to go back to work as I was late getting back. I left them instructions, and checked on the wife and went back to work. The pain that I had been avoiding all day decided to hit me once again, reminding me that, yes it was still there. I finished the day and could not wait to get off.

It was a terrible day.

I needed my pony.

I have a follow up to this post coming soon, I ask that you hold any questions about how we are doing. I have taken a day or two to compose my thoughts on this so I am writing it after the fact.

Learning.

/ Daniel/Codefreak / 1 Comment

I have not forgotten this blog, dear reader. I have been busy. I have started in the journey for knowledge. I have to keep this post short as time for me is almost gone at this point, but I believe it is for a good cause. I have not even had time for my two favorite pastimes, reading and video games.

People have been asking me what I have gone back to school. I have been asked this question a LOT so I will come out and say it. I am in a online Tech school for CISCO certifications. I have decided to pursue my career in computers (something that I enjoy and love).  I hope to finish my Basic in about a month or so. I am very excited.

I hope you will bare with me through this time, post here will be shorter. I hope you can stay with me and I will try and keep you posted. I have a few articles I want to get to and some other life changes coming.

Hug a pony my friends.