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Donations, SSDI Backpay & More

| marandarussell

First off, I wanted to share that I got another monetary donation to my blog! Thank you so much! It looks like the donation came from China, which is really cool, I didn’t even know I had regular readers in China!

Also, I finally got my SSDI payment for last month…and even more exciting, I got all my backpay!!! We plan to use the backpay to do some repairs around the house and on the car, replace some electronics and appliances that are breaking down, and hopefully build a porch onto our house! I love spending time outside, but being directly in the sun for very long makes me physically ill (vampire genes?), so having a porch with a roof will really help.

I also got a new phone with a much better camera, so I am hoping to be able to make more YouTube videos and maybe do some YouTube livestreaming. We’ll see though. I already have a lot on my plate, but I do have over 3,000 followers on YouTube and would like to communicate with them more. Here’s a cute pic from when I was playing around with the new phone last night:

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My Four Day Migraine – Ouch!

| marandarussell

Well, my one-day migraine from Wednesday turned into a four-day migraine that I finally had to go to the emergency room to get rid of this morning. They pumped me full of a bunch of drugs that did take the worst of it away, although I must admit I’m scared it will come back once those wear off. They did give me a steroid shot to help stop rebound migraines, so hopefully that will work.

I’m exhausted and somewhat depressed about the whole situation. I went at least a couple years with barely any migraines and then this just pops up out of nowhere. I can’t help but think part of it might be all the stress about my upcoming SSDI hearing. I try not to consciously think about it, but that doesn’t work so well for obsessive minds like mine.

I’m sure you guys understand that this will be a short post since I’m not feeling too great, but here is a picture of an extremely ugly, grumpy stuffed lion for you to enjoy:

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Christmas and Family Forgiveness

| marandarussell

Yesterday my husband and I traveled over to Indiana to meet my mom and her husband for Christmas dinner. We all decided to meet at a truckstop that is about halfway between us, so that neither of us would have to cook, clean up, or drive too far:

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I genuinely had a good time and am glad I’ve been able to spend more time with them recently. Those of you who have followed my blog for a while, may remember that there has been a lot of water under the bridge between my mother and myself over things that happened when I was growing up. She made some huge mistakes, and as is often the case, my sister and I had to pay for many of those choices just as much as she did…maybe more in some cases.

She genuinely seems to be regretful and is trying to make things better between us, so although I am always going to be cautious and protective of myself, it feels good to be able to embrace forgiveness for my own peace of mind and well-being. Forgiveness doesn’t mean that what we went through was ok, or that the damage wasn’t done, but it does mean that it doesn’t have control of my life, my mind, or my heart anymore. I can move on.

I am somewhat a believer in the saying “When we know better, we do better”. Some of us take a long, long time to “know better”, but healing and wisdom are ours once we finally do face the truth.