Between Bipolar is a blog about living with mania and depression. I can help people with their own mental illness, offering advice, a voice and support.
You will learn how I have coped with these and other stresses of my life. As an advocate I have written and chosen selected material to help aid in your health and financial well being and learn something new that may help you in your own personal journey. Having a disability doesn't mean your life is over.
What is it with me lately? I have been so bored and have found no interest whatsoever in things I usually like to do. I have been a hermit for the past few weeks and just staying home and being very bored out of my mind. I am going crazy it seems.
Life has become very dull and except for our move in a month, all I have been left doing is puttering around the house and packing boxes and throwing things once treasured out in the trash. Nothing seems to matter to me lately and I think it is getting worse. I mean, I don't want to hurt myself, no, I just wanna sleep or go away from this feeling. I feel stuck. Annoyed with how I am feeling inside. My therapist tells me that feelings don't stay and that this too will pass, but I wish it would go away now.
The only joy I have found is searching online for music for our long drive to Florida. I went on www.ijosephtv.com to find joseph and his friends dancing to remixed music. I have thought about buying a nice video camera to do something similar with my partner, but haven't decided if it will be a phase or something I really want to do. Recording myself singing or actually lipsyncing to favorite dancesongs really inspires me, just to bring my mood up and makes me smile. In the past we have recorded our voices on CDs and sometimes video taped ourselves singing as well. But this would be a great next step to be able to record ourselves, edit the tape and make something creative out of it and place the skit or whatever it may be called on YouTube for the world to see. I think this might aid me in my fight against this terrible illness which takes away so many good times in my life and shortens the time I like spending doing something enjoyable.
If I were to get a great editing program and a better camera to record us singing that would be wonderful. I think I would get a kick out of creating such a masterpiece and it would be fun. Excitement even for a temporary time period.
I would have to invest in some sort of screens for the backdrop, a tripod, a nice video camera, and maybe some wigs like Joseph uses to play along with the role of the star singing along side the musical talents of the real musician. I really am inspired by Joseph's quality and happiness that he seems to portray in doing what he does, and as music inspires me to also want to do lipsyncing and dancing to music I want to express my greatest joy in really watching him act out and have fun. He represents someone in me that I used to be when I went out clubbing. I miss the scene but not all the drama that accompanies it. I miss the music and movements that help to stay fit and exercised and just overall mood that the night of music brings into my soul. Sometimes I wish the Frontrunner club was still open, especially since I live in Manchester now.
Yesterday was Thankgiving and it was a great day. I celebrated this event with my girlfriend's family at our house. We had turkey and all the fixings. I love spending time with family.
Family means a whole lot to me. Ever since I got ill I have spent more time communicating with my family, especially my parents. I use Skype to see and talk to them down in Florida. I am so thankful for the technology we have today. Using the regular phone seems pointless nowadays with the advent of this viewing technology. I am thankful for so many things this season.
My girlfriend has been an inspiration to me because of her kind heart and her sense of giving. She truly made Thanksgiving special because she likes to make sure the house is clean and perfect. She wants the cooking to come out just right and her attitude towards the holiday is just second to none. She loves family just as I do.
I am thankful for my pets. All of them are still very healthy and are doing well. I feel bad for my girlfriend because it has been 2 years since she lost her dog and cat. She feels they are all alone buried in Derry, NH. She is right, but I keep telling her that they are with the earth now, where they came from. She just misses them a lot.
I am thankful for being able to write. I have learned a lot about how to blog. I am thankful I have a resource I can escape to and be able to express myself. I find it very helpful to keep track of my moods and overall health as time progresses. It definitely aids in my awareness of my attitude from day to day. Plus it keeps track of what has been going on in my life.
I thought I would write a little bit about Alison Moyet, one of my favorite musical artists. I am listening to her as we speak. Her Hoodoo album is playing in the background as I type. She has really inspired a lot of emotion and love of music because of her songs. She is a definitely a great vocalist, singing with a distinct low voice. Haunting and mesmerizing is all I can think to describe some of her recent songs.
She recently teamed up with Vince Clarke this last year to do a special Yazoo tribute which I have viewed from YouTube, which is just as good as seeing her live I suppose. I don't like crowds usually, still which can be a hamper on life, but I prefer solitude as I guess I am a loner.
Alison has provided a staple of music for me since I was a teenager when my friend Aron first introduced me to her. It was that mix tape he gave me which had a few songs from that friend of his, a female which I cannot recall the name at this point. But ever since I heard those songs I had to get her music, starting with her album Alf and Raindancing. I then got Hoodoo and Essex. She then came out with some albums featuring her hits and singles. I got those too. I downloaded her album Hometime and she came out with a more recent album for which I haven't heard much from. I really liked her Hoodoo album, that's when I was going out with Jessica in highschool.
I've written several poems with Alison playing in the background, helping me focus on the words I needed to place on paper. I love the song from Hoodo, called House. It's so haunting, again that word which describes a lot of her vocal style.
She recently lost a lot of weight, as I have the software program called Ilike and saw her on one of her recent interviews which she also sings, this being in England. She is married to a man, which I first thought she was a lesbian, but I was wrong. It was good to see her with a thinner figure, as she was kind a big before. Not that it matters to me all that much, cuz he bolted out great vocals either way.
She toured in the USA I think last year as well, but I read in an article that she doesn't have a great following in the USA or something like that and cannot afford to play in America so that she is focusing on just playing in England. I would love to see her at a concert in the future before I die. I'd love to see her with Penny sometime if we and we should travel overseas. I would like it very much.
Alison Moyet provides me with such moving music and became one of my favorite female artists alongside Madonna. She really is that ecclectic singer which everyone secretly is fond of but no one really knows her. She is that woman to me.
I love her music because she is clearly singing from her heart and you can hear her voice so beautifully. You can follow the words and understand them easily......"Wishing you were here"....the song which she is singing right now.
I just saw a flea that landed on me, talk about a killer of a mood. We already sprayed the house, furniture and gave the cats and dogs a flea shampoo bath, medicated their backs and put flea collars on. I hope that what I just sprayed again will kill whatever was here. They must have hatched from eggs and didn't get killed from the previous treatment. I swear, we better not be going into a house where they will flourish in Florida. I will be so disappointed. That will ruin my mood for quite some time. I wish I didn't feel that flea ......I saw it, but didn't kill it cuz I wondered what it could be, then it jumped off my skin. Arggh.....
Anyway, I am gonna close this blog for now and think about what our next plan of action will have to be to kills these fleas.
When we finally move down to Florida in few weeks it will be right on the cusp of the new year. This undertaking will generate a new feeling side of me - a rejuvenation to enable me to start some old traditions like making resolutions each year.
I have some ideas that I would like include in my 2010 new year's resolutions such as being more active by exercising daily. At least use the WiiFit for 30 minutes each day to stretch and then perhaps ride my bike (after I get the tires inflated) every other day. I would like to swim too if my girlfriend joins a gym I could too and we could both swim. That would be fun.
I want to continue to write on a regular basis, first in this blog and then once in a while to add more content to some of the non-fiction books I would like to write including the one titled "Between Bipolar". I want to continue to record my poetry on the computer so that I can publish my next set of poems, that will be a challenge for me in the year 2010. I wouldn't mind having a second book printed.
Having all the pictures of our family when we grew up will encourage me to soon scan them into the computer so that I can send them to various memebers of the family. I think that would be near to accomplish, so that eventually I can just store the family photos and not worry if they get lost or damaged cuz I will have them on a CD or DVD.
I definitely want to make sure that I unpack all my boxes at the new house, but being sure to store the empties in the basement of the house. I don't want to have to get boxes again and again and again. This way we won't suffer or have a high out of pocket cost to get more boxes - at least the ones with covers on them like our medium and large boxes that we got from usedcardboardboxes.com. Getting cardboard boxes from this place is much easier than traveling from store to store searching for the right type of boxes with tops to them instead of having to buy them. But I find that going online and ordering them is much easier, they come with packing tape and is just more convenient. I just don't want to spend the money and have to do this all over again, so we definitely are saving these boxes when we unpack them.
I know that in the past I have been reluctant to unpack anything because of the chance of having to move again, but I hope to break this habit and just go with the flow and make our house a livable home because we need to enjoy our surroundings for the next 365 days - or in our case minus the 2 months we won't be there.
I want to also concentrate on my relationship to make it stronger than ever. I want to buy a diamond ring for my girlfriend so that she has a symbol of my love with her always. I also want to travel one other time other than the trip we have planned to Cancun as soon as we get to Florida (a little vacation after we drive down to Florida and unpack some of our stuff) - perhaps on a cruise with my girlfriend and my parents somewhere together.
These are some of my desires to accomplish this next year, if I push myself a little I am certain that these can be done and maybe more. I really want to concentrate on my health this next year, perhaps stop smoking after we drive to Florida. We'll see.
I haven't written in a while mainly because I got bored with writing. As usual, my bipolar tendancies of not being consistent seemed to take over. I got tired of the daily blogging life, even after 19 posts. A lot has transpired since my last posting however.
There is a lot of work that goes into moving and that's what my girlfriend and I are about to do next month. Costing over $7000 for packing material and hiring a moving company to load and unload a truck full of our personal belongings, that's quite a bit of money to spend, but overall I think the cost would be the same everywhere I look, so I decided to stay with one company and not search out several quotes. I have found a great consultant in Nationwide Vanlines and would highly recommend them for any of your moving needs on the east coast. They are located in Florida. I found them through realtor.com when we found a home quite close to my parent's home in Hudson, Florida.
The house we are moving into was on the market to be sold, as well as being rented. The stipulation is that they house would be taken off the market while we were renting it and didn't want to go through what we are experiencing right now with having to move early because the landlords decided to want us out so they could sell the property. Anyway, it is a great house, great view of the gulf of mexico across the street. If there was a hurricane directly to the west of Hudson, we would get hit pretty hard, although we are kinda high off the ground. Not sure if we are high enough for any flood waters that might overtake the house though. It is a 3 story building. Deck outside of our bedroom, nice and big. Will be great, lots of privacy with trees on either side of the deck in the front of the house.
We have been going through all of our stuff and getting rid of old belongings. My girlfriend has to box a lot of her boxes into ones that have tops to them, but it shouldn't be too much longer before we finish the packing. She has lots of clothes and we just ordered spacebags from spacebag.com and those items should help eleviate some of the bulkiness of her clothes. She had a lot, I mean a lot. We just bought a Dyson vacuum which will be great for the carpet in our new house in Florida. Carpeted bedroom and living room and dining room areas. Also in the inlaw apartment too.
We hope to perhaps buy this home in the future. We aren't quite there yet for being able to use our credit to get a mortgage, but we hope that by the end of 2011 most of my debts will drop off my credit report and I will regain control of my life and be able to apply for a mortgage again. By the end of 2012 my credit should be restored to normal from before 2004 when it went awry. I am hoping and praying that the credit reports that I am receiving are telling the truth when it comes to dropping off. They are supposed to by law after 7 years of nonpayment drop off your credit report and if they don't you can force them to. I just don't want to go through the hassle of dealing with that for another year. Fighting for my rights once again to regain control of my life. I really hate that I screwed it up. I never predicted that I would be in this kind of a mess. But that's what drugs and an underlying illness can do to you if you aren't prepared. I would say I was half prepared, because I had in place some insurance protection for my income and the potential loss of my ability to work.
When we move to Florida there are some changes I would like to implement in my life. Seeings how it will be a new year I want to make some new year's resolutions. More on that in a future post.
I hope that we won't have to move from this location for a while. At least give us 2 years. Enough to catch up with our credit so that we can potentially buy it from the landlords. They would like to sell it to us but right now is not the best time for them to market the property because they will be losing money. I think that with my income and my girlfriend's potential income from opening a restaurant will allow us to put a hefty downpayment on the property. I am hoping we won't have a mortgage payment anywhere near what our rent will be. If we have to move again to purchase a house with a pool in a community, I am all for it. However, my girlfriend has reservations because she wants to stay near water if we live in Florida. I just will not want to pay $1200/month for a mortgage and then an additional $500 a month just for home owner's insurance. That's what it would cost as we found out from the realtor. The cost for fire, wind and water insurance is about $2000/yr for each separate protection. That's crazy high. I would rather like to stay but I want to stay away from a high mortgage. I want to be able to afford it on my income alone. But we have to consider the taxes and upkeep for the property (which isn't a ton, and it was built in 1998, so that is newer than this house in NH). I make $2500/month but that will soon be lowered in 2015 when I lose my disability income of $600 a month. So as long as my girlfriend has a job or the restaurant does real well, we should be able to manage owning the property. I have saved quite a bit of money that I want only as an emergency and downpayment on a house, but I do want to put some aside just as savings so that I won't stress financially. I have a fixed income and I don't ever want to put myself in the position of not having enough money to make ends meet ever again. I do worry overly too much but that is another symptom of my mental condition.
When my girlfriend had her restaurant before she was able to generate about $100000 in income in the first year. I an hoping that we can invest $75,000 of that amount into a home of our choosing - perhaps the one in Florida, as a downpayment so that we would have a mortgage of about $200,000. I could kick in about $25,000 and that would leave me with a hefty amount still in savings.
My girlfriend wants to eventually buy the house next door to us. Bob's house. We want to be snow birds and live up in NH in the summer and in FL in the winter. We could have vacations along the eastern coast and throughout the Bahamas region with cruises in the future. We really love to travel and see new things. If Bob's house goes up for sale in 5 years let's say, then we might have the time to be able to afford another property if the restaurant does well. Our focus should be to maintain Florida as our home state and find a house that will do us good 1/2 of the year. We don't have to buy the house we are moving into because it will be expensive, the insurances alone! It would be crazy to have two mortgages totaling $600,000. I just don't see that happening. It would be great if it were possible. I think we are going to dream about be able to do this for real, so I am up for the challenge. I just know that there would be 1/2 a year worth's of no income in one property when we aren't even there. What if it gets vandalized? I am not worried about Bob's house, this neighborhood we live in now is quite a good quite family neighborhood. The one in Florida has a lot of houses that look run down on our way to our house, it is close to a marina, and there are two other nice houses across the street from us, so we have a little niche of greatness at the end of the peninsula that we are moving to in Hudson, FL.
I would like to own one house outright, preferably in Florida and it doesn't have to be an expensive home although I would like cathedral ceilings and perhaps a pool in the yard too. It would be nice to be on the water, but they are quite expensive. Unless we find a river similar to the one in Manchester, NH where we live now. I would like to spend perhaps $150,000 on a property in Florida....carry a small mortgage of $75,000 and then if the restaurant does well, buy Bob's house for about $250,000 and carry a mortgage of $200,000. So a total of $275,000 wouldn't be unreasonable. We could rent out Bob's house every two years to help pay for the mortgage and only come up to New England every two years instead of every year. Hire a real estate company to manage the property or perhaps Steve, my girlfriend's stepfather and save some money this way, kick them out each at the end of the first year but still have a lease. Or better yet, rent it out for about 3 years and then take it over for the next year or so and do it that way, so as to keep renters coming and not have a reputation of kicking out renters and have the neighborhood talk about it to them...increasing the chance that the rent won't be paid when we try to kick them out. We just gotta do it right and make sure they know that at the end of the lease or close to it, that they will have to move. If we do this, it might be prudent to put the house in my girlfriend's name in NH and just my name in Florida, that way we can just say that we are moving back into the property, so the law will be on our side, when it comes to evicting them for reasons of needing to move back in the home.
The other thing my girlfriend wanted to do and we both discussed this was perhaps own a flower shop down the road in NH close to Manchester, NH where we want to have our second home. We have already had practice with that type of business and although it starts out pretty slow, we just have to find a small outlet building where we only have to pay $1500/month in rent to afford the business. We have so much stuff in storage that I personally don't want to bring out the cooler and drag it to Florida so that we have one for the restaurant just because we have one now. I would rather pay the $1200 in rent each year to the storage company and take our chances in the future when we know better what we want to do. It would be hard to compete against Chaliflours in Manchester, although we don't have to set up shop in this city, but we have surrounding ones as well. Two businesses are better than one, and the restaurant could carry the second business until it got settled after 2 years of business and then grow from there. Or maybe have another restaurant up here, that is what I think would happen in the future. My girlfriend could get her restaurant back up and running in Concord, NH and we can take the chance of publicity in the paper and endure the wrath they may inflict once they get wind of my girlfriend owning another restaurant in Concord. We would just have Halloween decorations and some Christmas decorations taken out of storage to make the spot look festive is all. That seems more reasonable, cuz I know she loves the restaurant business and knows it too well to give it up as her passion.
So many thoughts, so many directions we can carve our future path - but who knows what will lie ahead. I am just glad that I have a girlfriend, that we love each other, and that we will never leave each other. My main goal is to make her happy and in turn it will make me happier. That might very well be the secret to my life becoming greater, is to make her happy.
Wish us luck in this move! Taking a dog, 5 cats and a bird in our cars will be a challenge when we drive to Florida, but I think we will do all right.
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