Shopping for a Good Cause and Dealing with Societal Expectations

I had heard from a neighbor about the "ReStores" ran by the charitable organization Habitat for Humanity where they sell building materials that have been donated in order to raise funds for their mission of building homes for people in need.

I needed some supplies, including an exterior door and a window, so I went with the family, first to one of these stores in the historic district of Collinsville, about 10 miles away, and then to a larger store of theirs in the Central West End district of St. Louis, just blocks from St. Louis University.

I did find a good deal of what I needed, for a rather reasonable price, and it was good to know that the money was going to a good organization (The St. Louis store says that their chapter has built 325 homes in the city of St. Louis), but there was something that happened that rather annoyed me when I was there.

As usual, my mom and dad were talking to the cashier about rebuilding the house, and how there won’t be a mortgage on it, since I paid cash for it (though I owe her money for some of the rebuilding of it), and most people find it incredible that I saved up that much money. The cashier, though, said something that really got to me: “you have a house, then next will be kids, right?”. My mom agreed, but said one of her favorite phrases “…but there needs be a good, godly wife first”.

Never mind that awful “good godly wife” comment, but why does everyone feel they have the right to make decisions for my life, but I don’t? Why do people have such expectations for me to follow the normal American formula for life? Get a solid job, get a house, get married (spouse must be opposite gender of course!), and have 3 or 4 kids.

Lottery Balls and Superheros

It’s been 10 days on Cymbalta now, and it seems like it has taken full effect already (see my last post A Full Bottle of Pills and an Empty Wallet if you haven’t already). It was rather fortunate timing that I got on the medication when I did, because due to some circumstances beyond my control, I can’t access my Google + or Blogger account very often (I won’t discuss it publicly, but I’ll let some of my Google + fans know what is going on in the next few days). Between that, and the many hours I have been putting into rebuilding the house I may only be able to log on 2-4 times a month from now on.

It’s highly disappointing, my followers both on the blog and on Google + have been a great support to me over the past year as I have opened up about my past, and my current life. I feel like a recovering alcoholic that can’t get to their AA meetings. The lack of support would have truly caused me to lose what little I have left of my sanity had it not been for the medication. It’s made a world of difference in my life.

The chronic fatigue I used to deal with is gone, I still don’t have the energy levels that someone who is 24 years old should have, but I can wake up in the mornings fairly easily, and I don’t feel tired all the time. The pain and stiffness has been greatly reduced, I don’t get the stiffness in my arms and legs anymore, and the pain in my lower back has been greatly reduced, I don’t usually notice it unless I have been moving around a lot that day.

One of the best aspects of being on Cymbalta is that I now not only don’t have to deal with the physical symptoms hardly at all, but my mind has calmed down quite a bit. MY mind used to race all the time, all these conflicting thoughts trying to process all at once, competing for my attention, causing anxiety, making me worry that in all the chaos, I was going to end up forgetting something along the way, and leading to a lot of obsessive habits.

 If you could have looked inside my mind at the time, it would have looked something like when the numbered balls bounce around in the round plastic container during a bingo game or a lottery drawing, thoughts bouncing around, crashing into each other, just like those white plastic balls, so loud and chaotic, and hard to watch. I’m so glad I don’t have to deal with that anymore. I’m still somewhat obsessive (occasionally I still pace back and forth, which annoys people to no end, but not nearly as often), but my mind is so much clearer, my memory actually works, and I’m so much calmer. The Cymbalta has given me what fundamentalism always promised but never delivered on: peace of mind.

Rebuilding --- In More Ways Than One

Rebuilding an old foreclosure house is becoming a job in itself. So many hours (and money) put into it, and yet decent progress has been made, even though I only closed on it on June 20th. It's starting to resemble a house now, much of the major essential problems (plumbing, etc) have been taken care of, now it needs plenty of drywall and new windows (well, a new fence and siding too, but that can wait).

The house has had it's problems, both from the previous owners, and from rather odd  (to say the least). I live in a rather old suburb of St. Louis, which is very industrial, the city is literally built around steel plant that is now owned by the corporation, US Steel which has a rather interesting history in it's own right.

Most of the neighborhoods in this town, Granite City, were built in two phases, one phase was between the 1920's to just before World War 2, and the second phase was post World War 2/"baby boomer" rebuilding from the late 40's to the early 60's. Very few homes in the community exist that were built after the 60's, and most of those are in a small number of new subdivisions on the outer edges of the city limits. 

From what I can tell, from helping my dad work on his house (built in the 1920's), rebuilding a house for a relative who is a landlord, and now working on this house, it's glaringly obvious that building codes apparently didn't exist, or weren't enforced until the 1950's. When you start tearing out walls and floors in homes that old, you find some rather screwy things that make you wonder, "What kind of idiot did this?". 

Walls that aren't even in height, length, etc, compared to equivalent walls in the same room, and all kinds of bizarre construction methods used to build them. I remember putting down laminate flooring in my dad's kitchen, and realizing that the same wall in the kitchen was angled at such an odd angle lengthwise that it went two inches farther into kitchen at one end than it did at the other. We had to cut the laminate planks at an angle down the whole length (that was a pain). 

This house is no different, when I tore out the drywall, I found the regular studs supporting the wall that have apparently been there since when it was built, but then there was extra studs, put in shortly after. That created some headaches putting in insulation, (it didn't even have insulation in the walls in the first place).

 Not only did I have to cut the insulation to fit since it's made to fit the standard 16 inch spacing between studs that is common throughout the US, but some of the extra studs weren't even straight, they are in an angle, leaning to the left, some only slightly, others rather heavily.