Happy Thanksgiving!
It's officially 7 minutes past midnight, so I'm not even doing the day early wishes. I hope you all have awesome days surrounded by people you enjoy (whether that's family or not) and eat lots of good food.
This entry may be kind of random or back and forth or whatever, just bear with me. This is actually the calmest I've been all day.
So, most of you reading this know that I had a bad reaction to some pain medication. Prescription. Homegirl doesn't do recreational drugs, doesn't judge those that do. But in my case, these were prescribed for my pain management. I'd noticed a couple of months ago that I just didn't feel like myself. I noticed I was easier to get wound up. Agitated. Impatient. And then at times, so sad I just couldn't see the positive in anything. And that's soooo not me.
Well, it came to a head and I had to make an emergency appt with my doctor to find out what the hell was wrong with me. Even in his office I broke down. I was shaking like a chihuahua and started crying and I am normally VERY careful to always present myself in a "together" fashion around other people, at the very least. He was like "Whoaaaa....." What happened was, I've always had very slight (as in so slight it does not require medication or therapy or anything, doesn't affect my life) Bi-Polar or Manic/Depressive tendencies. This medicine just totally monsterfied it, and gave me SUCH an extreme case of it that I damn near lost my mind.
It's been a rough road, and it's a road I'm still on. Unfortunately, I was taking a high dose of these meds, and they aren't meds that you can quit cold turkey. You have to wean off very slowly. It wasn't certain which medication was causing this, but it was one of two, so what the hell... let's just wean off both of them at the same time. LOL
So, not only am I severely manic/depressive, but I have also acquired a nice case of OCD. No worries, both of these will be gone when the meds are out of my system. I'm not crazypants. No more than before. But I'm also going through detox, which is absolute hell. I hope you never have to experience it, seriously.
Anyway, today has been NUTS. What started as "We do not want you cooking Thanksgiving dinner because you're sick." has ended up with me going ape shit cooking way too much. We were going to have it catered, but I could never get one lined out. Anytime I called to set it up, I got the village idiot and when I threw them all off by saying I wanted ham AND turkey, I'd just say I'd call back later and thanked them. They couldn't even tell me how many sides came with the dinner, and how much it would cost to add more. I asked "What kinds of sides do you have?", and the poor girl was all "Ummmm....". Seriously? You work in the deli. That's all you DO is handle that food. And I know damn well that tons of people are ordering from there, so I can't be the first person to have called. I guess I just got the winner in the deli dept.
So during the "no cooking" intervention (just like on tv, no shit), I tearfully said "I want to make my sweet potato casserole, because nobody else makes it like I do". Everyone agreed that that would be alright. We went from that step, to somehow me committing to a turkey breast (no room in fridge for a whole damn turkey), a half a ham, sweet potato casserole, mac and cheese, yeast rolls, and Paula Deen's Gooey Butter Cake. You can make lots of variations with her recipe, and this time I'm doing for the first time the chocolate topped with chocolate chips and pecans. If you don't already have this recipe in your stash, google it. You won't be sorry. I know of 5 people making the EXACT cake that I am making and 2 more making the pumpkin version. Crazypants!
So here's the funny(ish) part of today. What's been going on with me, is I either feel like I'm on some type of speed (I don't know a lot about drugs, but if there's one that causes you to be CRAZY hyper and wound up and just out of control... that one. Meth, I think can do that. Tweaking.) So I go to sleep last night at 4:30 a.m. and wake up at 8:30 a.m. and I could tell I was in a manic state. It hasn't let up all day. It's kind of funny, because I have gotten SO much done since I'm insane. It's really not funny. I know I was freaking my mom out, and she doesn't even know it, but I was TRYING to be low key because I knew she'd get upset if she saw me as truly manic as I was.
Brought all my cooking stuff up to my fella's house. I did not even THINK about the fact that I'd need/want to clean his house before I started anything. So I unloaded tons of stuff, then dug in. I've swept, mopped, dusted, scrubbed, scraped, laundry, dishes, swept leaves, etc. The I immediately launched into cooking. I knocked out the gooey butter cake first. As soon as it came out of the oven, the sweet potatoes went in. And then since I always think the cake is raw in the middle, I put it back in. I'd sit down every once in awhile, feeling the "high" fading fast. I just prayed I could get to a stopping point before a true "low" hit, because when those hit, the world has to stop for me. I have no choice. I lucked out. Got the cake and sweet potatoes done. I'm trying a new recipe with the turkey breast, and it's in the crockpot on low overnight. I'll just keep it warm til lunchtime tomorrow. I was tripping out about the ham... I had in mind a very small ham, and when she went to the store, the big half ham that I love was the same price as the possibly not great ham that I imagined. But for some reason, just seeing that big ham was freaking me out. And ham is so easy! I coat it in liquid smoke and black pepper and just heat it on low for several hours. But I just could not get my mind wrapped around the face that it'd not be hard. So Mom took the ham home. And she's making the dressing and the cranberry sauce. The girls want other stuff... deviled eggs.... mashed potatoes.... but as it is, we're only feeding 5 people this year. I don't want to have leftovers for days. SOME leftovers are great. But I don't want so much that we can't eat it before it ruins.
So the moral of my story is: Manic/Depression can be a good thing if you're in the manic phase and have a shitload to do. This girl is slam wore out now though, and I'm gonna catch up on email and crawl in bed with my guy. Tomorrow I'm making mac and cheese (not even homemade.... Velveeta shells and cheese, the girls' favorite) and yeast rolls (again, not homemade... it's a kind I've used for ages and they taste as good as my homemade ones, but all I have to do is stick the pan in the oven). I also have to vacuum. I'd do that now, but since the bf's asleep that may not be my brightest idea.
Honestly tomorrow after people are fed and gone (I used disposable pans and have those thick oval disposable plates)I am not going to do a thing. Seriously. I will probably put my pj's back on and I'm gonna lay on the couch like a lump and just try to relax and find some point in between the Tazmanian Devil and that little sad guy in the Prozac ads.
X's and O's to you all.
