Name That Image

No one guessed this. These are clackers. I used to have bruised knuckles from playing with these. My grandpa even made me a set. Here is the modern, safer version (cheaper, too, I bet, because they are made of plastic):

Let's try another toy. Name the toy and the T.V. program that made them famous:

Here's the boy/girl version:

Have a great weekend!

Peace,

~b~

Today Is A Good Day

Peace,
~b~

Wordless Wednesday

Jumbled Tuesday

I have to do something today that I don't want to do, that I know I need to do, that I really don't want to do, that I know I should do, that I really do want to do but am scared, that I really don't want to do., etc., etc.

So please pray for me because all these Kit-Kats, Hershey's caramel kisses, and Reese's peanut butter cups I am eating are not helping my diet one bit!

If you want to know what it is that I am going to do, please e-mail me, and I will send you to my more private blog.

Peace,
~b~

The Greased Pig

I am not really a counter. I can tell you there are 21 slats on the mini-blinds in our bedroom, but that's about all. My thing is patterns: patterns on walls, floors, ceilings, etc. I tend to count items in a pattern, rearrange patterns on wallpaper, make sure patterns are even, etc. Thinking back, I believe it all started the night I was initiated into Rainbow Girls.


All the girls were dressed in long, flowing, beautiful white dresses. I was told to wear a church dress that night. I was asked to wait outside of the assembly room before the initiation and count the ceiling tiles. I was told that when I entered the assembly room, they would ask me how many ceiling tiles there were and that I was probably going to be required to ride a

greased pig.

I was 12 years old at the time and pretty smart for my age, I guess. In the back of my mind I knew it was not logical that I was going to have to ride the slippery beast. The assembly room was lovely. Why would they risk having a filthy animal running around ruining everything? The thought probably occurred to me that they might take me outside to do it. I don't know if I thought the possibility of riding the pig had to do with my correctly counting the number of tiles or not, but I remember sitting out there counting like crazy.

Okay, does anyone remember these?

I was not raised in a Montessori school. These yellow area pieces were 2-D, in my math textbook. I am sure that some teacher somewhere had to have taught me the formula for area, but I never used it; I'm not sure why. Oh, sure, a rectangle is easy - base x height. A triangle is easy - 1/2 base x height. But when the pieces were presented in the above manner, I would freak out. The way I calculated area, then, was by first counting all the square cubic units and then adding up in my head all the 1/2, 1/4, 1/8/, etc. pieces on the edges to try to come up with whole units. When I got close to the multiple choice answer, that's the one I picked. Pretty smart, huh?

So that is how I counted the ceiling tiles. First, I counted all the whole ceiling tiles, then went back and added up the halves, fourths, etc. So that's my first memory of noticing patterns, if you want to call ceiling tiles patterns.

From then on and now, especially when I am in someone's bathroom, you know, on the throne, I look at the wallpaper pattern. If the pattern is flowers, I go to the edges and find the half-flowers, quarter-flowers, etc. and try to match them up as wholes. Not just the edges of the wall but the edges where the paper or border comes together. Like I said, this is not counting, but it is a way in my mind of making things even and appear right. It is very time consuming and can explain why I am gone for awhile when visiting someone's bathroom for the first time. I must say, my wallpapering skills are impecable, though, if anyone needs assistance in that area.

Is this OCD? I don't know. I think we can sometimes get bogged down and blame every little quirk we have as OCD. My partner won't eat the ends of pickles and won't throw an empty toilet paper roll away, even if threatened with her life. Does that mean she has OCD? To me, if it calms you down or you have to do something over and over until it feels right, even, whatever, that could be an OCD tendency. I am constantly leaving drawers open. Is that OCD? No, not to me. What are your "quirks" and your "compulsions"?

Going to Galveston on Saturday with my kids.

Have a great weekend, everyone, and don't go riding any greased pigs!

Peace,

~b~

OCD Wordless Wednesday

The Popper

You may have read my post about The Clapper, the idea of clapping when an intrusive thought is coming into your head and you are trying to keep it from repeating. Well, clapping has not worked for me at all at work. There are too many people around. I probably looked like I was chasing mosquitoes.

So my therapist suggested wearing a rubber band on my wrist and to pop that when I get a thought. Rubber bands are not stylist; see above photo of mine. It looks tight because I have it above my wrist so that it is out of view under my jacket.

I think I should design an OCD rubber band to sell; what do you think? Anyway, I was going to try to find a breast cancer bracelet or some other rubber bracelet for a cause, but I still would not be able to wear something like that to work and they would be to tight to move up my arm.

Going to go visit family today. Have a good weekend!

Peace,
~b~

Therapy Meme

Here are some questions about your therapy.

1. What is the one thing that you like most about your current therapist? She remembers everything. My first therapist always took notes during therapy; my current one NEVER does. I used to think, "Don't you need to be writing this down?"

2. What is the one thing you don't like about your current therapist? Nothing I can think of.

3. Do you sit on a couch, chair, lie on a couch? I sit on a couch.

4. Do you do phone therapy sessions? Yes.

5. Is your therapist the same or opposite sex? Same.

6. If you see a woman therapist, would you consider seeing a male therapist or vice versa? No.

7. What was the strangest therapy session you ever had that you can say here? With my first therapist, I would sometimes pay her for me to sit in her office for an hour in silence just to have some time to myself.

8. If you had a different therapist in the past, why did you change? I have had two previous therapist and they both moved away.

9. How long have you been in therapy? Too many years to count.

10. How long do you think you will continue? Until I figure out life.

Thursday Blah Humbug!

Today I go to therapy and not wanting to go. I am so bummed right now. I know, that's when you're supposed to go, right?

I lost 6 lbs in less than two weeks. This week I have gained - here it comes - 3 lbs! I have been exercising practically every day. I only missed Monday because I fell asleep on the couch the minute I got home.

I am feeling rather bloated, but 3 lbs? Yes, I went of the diet Friday and Saturday, but got back on the horse Sunday, plus all the exercise! 3 lbs? I know my thyroid needs to be checked again, but like I was saying - 3 lbs? My least favorite number is now 3!

I am going to try to drink a lot more water the next few days and see if that helps and cut my portion size down even more. Am also going to try to find us a food scale this weekend.

I know today is Thankful Thursday, but right now I'm not feeling very thankful. Just tired, hungry, and fat.

Peace,
~b~

And again...

I read somewhere this week that exercise is supposed to help your OCD and also help you sleep. I excercised a lot this weekend and my OCD is raging and it hasn't helped my sleep, either. I woke up at 3:51 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep. I had every intention of getting up an hour early to do said exercise, but since I couldn't sleep and today is a 14-hr day for me, I didn't go.

Last night I had another grim reaper dream. This time I went to the home of a long-time family friend. She and her husband have known my parents since I was a kid. I haven't actually seen her in about 30 years, but I talk to her daughters on Facebook once in awhile.

Anyway, when I got to her house it was very obvious that she was sick, REALLY sick. She had - you know - I can't even type the word. She had the Big C. Now I'm thinking I shouldn't have even typed that but I'm going to leave it up to challenge myself. So now I am fighting the urge - again - to tell her daughters to take her to the doctor to have her checked out for the above mentioned disease. I am probably going to see this woman in September at my parents' 50th wedding anniversary party. Not sure I can even look her in the eye, if she's alive, that is.

Peace,
~b~

Do You Ever Feel Like You Fail At Therapy?

Name That Image!

There is a less dangerous version of these nowadays!

Dead Bodies

When I Googled images of dead bodies, I was afraid of what I would get and if I could handle the pictures. The past two nights and days I have been dreaming and thinking about dead bodies. In last night's dream, there was a dead body sort of like the one above, and everyone was waiting around day after day to see if it would look "more dead" as time went on.

Two nights ago, I had an extremely violent and bloody dream of people being murdered in a house. One of the people was a friend of mine I haven't seen in a year or more. Her little girl and I were dragging the bodies out of the house and stacking them in a car. Suddenly my friend opened her eyes and moaned to let me know she was still alive. So the little girl and I were just about to drive her and the dead bodies to a hospital, when all of the sudden, the murderer came back and we were forced to leave on foot to hide. When we came back hours later, my friend was dead.

Now, I know this dream is silly, but ever since yesterday morning I have had to force myself not to give into the urge of calling my friend and just remind her to "be careful." I by no means believe myself to be a psychic, but if anything should happen to her in the very near future or even distance future, I will hate myself for not having warned her.

It's like when I kept "seeing" Kaylee Anthony" buried near a picnic table. I actually had to force myself not to call the police to tell them to dig near a picnic table. She was, as you may recall, found in a park, not buried, and nowhere has a picnic table been mentoned.

Anyway, I am stuck with guilt feelings right now for not calling my friend because I don't want to look stupid and I don't want her to perceive that I think I know everything.

Thankful Thursday

I notice that some of my followers do "Thankful Thursdays", so I will give it a whirl. I could list all of the usual things most people say they're thankful for, i.e. family, friends, life, etc., but I am going to list some little things that make my day.

1) Parking Garages - I move from one parking garage (condo) to another (work) without getting wet! I love this! Living in Houston, we can go from completely dry streets to a flash flood in a matter of 30 minutes.

2) Our church - This one is not so superficial. Never, ever, anywhere in my life have I felt so loved and so accepted by a group of people.

3) Sonic Drive-Ins - I am addicted to Route 44 Diet Coke with regular cherry syrup. It can literally make or break my day if I don't get one. Unfortunately, we no longer live near a Sonic, so Whataburger is attempting to supplement, but they don't have flavorings!

4) A person who recognizes my voice on the phone without me saying my name. I love this! It makes me feel important and special, although I guess I could also take it as I am a pest and keep calling the person over and over again!

5) Slotted spoons. What a great invention! That's all I have to say about that.

6) Post-It flags in various colors. They make organizing my novel so much easier!

7) Days when the boss leaves early. No explanation necessary.

8) Site Meter - lets me know that more people are coming to my blog than I originally thought. Gives me self-confidence to keep trying to blog!

Peace,

~b~

Wordless Wednesday

BeZombied Game

This is my newest addiction. I play it on my phone whenever I can. It is like Bejeweled except that when you get a row of three or more, the phone vibrates, and I absolutely love that feeling, and that is what I am addicted to. I've only made it to the fifth level, but I don't care. I just start over so I can feel that vibration in my hand.

The Hidden Compulsion

Do any of you have hidden compulsions? I have one. Only J and my therapist know about it. I guess it started about four or five years ago. Even though it is hidden, it is my worst one. It effects me the most and is the most self-damaging. My therapist had addressed it with CBT, but for some reason, we stopped. In fact, we have basically stopped CBT altogether. I wonder why that is? I digress.

If I had no other compulsions, no one would know about my OCD because no one actually sees me doing this. So I guess what I want to say is this: don't automatically assume that someone does not have OCD because 1) you can't see what is going on in their head, i.e. obsessions and intrusive thoughts, and 2) there may be a hidden compulsion that you are not aware of.

My "Do you have your keys" question has gone away, thanks to J jingling her keys as we're walking out the door. It used to be, "Are we okay?" Now, I need to work on "Are you mad at me" before I drive her crazy.

As Gilda Radner used to say, "It's always something." He he.

Peace,

~b~

The First Dermatillomania Interview on TV

Dermatillomania = compulsive skin picking