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The depression has crept back in (pretty bad)… it’s been back for a while which somewhat explains my absence from here… I’m just so tired of being down and being sad (well, if I’m not sad I’m extremely happy- the perks of being bipolar)… it seems that there’s a lot going on right now and most of it makes me sad… it seems the good things are few and far between… the restaurant isn’t making any money, it’s not even paying for itself… we’re still having to borrow money to keep the restaurant open… and we can’t keep borrowing money much longer…we are about tapped out… but we did have another price increase over the weekend which should help… R and I have talked about the restaurant and that we can’t keep borrowing money so I kinda feel like this might be our last big push or effort to keep the restaurant going… I hate to even say this… it makes me feel like a failure… and I know R would feel that way… I just keep thinking, what were we thinking? Before we opened the restaurant things were so good… we were almost debt free (except for our house) and now we’ve gone right back to where we were in the beginning with all our debt… he’s really trying hard to make the restaurant work since we’ve had our talks and it breaks my heart because I’m so scared it’s not going to work… on the good side though, not owning our own business would be so much more stress free… I wouldn’t have to work all weekend long… R wouldn’t be as stressed as he is now… and he would be bringing home a paycheck which means we wouldn’t just be living on mine… I miss him, the old him, I miss doing stuff on the weekends, not being so tired and stressed all the time, I miss the way things were…
Which leads me to moving… I would really like to move to iowa park but I’m not sure if that’s going to happen… right now we’re still waiting on an offer on our house… we’re in contract on one in iowa park but it’s contingent with us selling our house… I’ve read that home sells slow way down before Thanksgiving and don’t usually pick back up again until closer to Spring… I’m stressing that… our realtor is having an open house on Sunday so maybe that will generate some interest… I’m stressing that because there is so much stuff that we want to do to the house before the open house but I feel like we have no time… and a lot of it is stuff that I can’t do… moving furniture and stuff like that… I am going to try to get some stuff packed up in boxes so maybe that will help…
As you’ve probably picked up from earlier, our finances are super tight… living on just my income is extremely hard… to be honest, I have no idea how we’ve made it as long as we have… last week I opened the mail up and discovered that even though my back surgery was in network apparently some of the doctors in the operating room were out of network (which I didn’t know, I assumed that since the hospital and my dr. were in network everything/everyone else would be) and now I owe the back institute a little over $8,000 on top of the other medical bills I’m trying to get paid off… I’ve got a little over $11,000 to pay off, just for my back… and I am stressed!!!
And to top it all off, R and I aren’t getting along so good… ok, things have actually been really stressful and we haven’t been getting along good at all… Sometimes things will be ok but for the most part it’s been hectic… we’ve talked… he’s not happy, I’m not happy and I’m not sure what we need to do to make us happy… I said I just want things to go back to the way they were before and he said that he doesn’t think that’s possible… so I have no idea where that leaves us or what to do…
All I know is that lately I feel like a failure, like I can do nothing right and my whole life is crumbling down around me… I know it’s not and that things can always be worse but right now I’m having a hard time really embracing that… so here’s all my “dirty laundry”… keeping it in wasn’t helping so maybe getting it out will help…

Here and There

things have been very busy lately but that’s ok, everything is starting to calm down… the 2nd tax deadline is over Monday, the 15th… so there’s not too much more of that left then it will just be keeping books for km…
yesterday was Kris’s funeral… it was good but sad… I liked what the Pastor had to say and the way he said it… it was very fitting and comforting…
our house is still showing… this is a good thing… we just need a buyer now!!
Last night I looked out the back door and there were 2 BYK’s laying on the concrete… it still breaks my heart… I just try not to look at them…
The first Saturday in October there’s always a Knights of Columbus dinner that T invites everyone up here too… km and her husband met r and I there… they have door prizes and then 4 “big” drawings… the grand prize drawing was a $750 gift certificate to united supermarkets and a $750 gift certificate to walmart and guess what?!?! I won it!!! on top of winning 2 door prizes, a $25 gift certificate to olive garden and then another $25 gift certificate to on the border!!! Km and the hub won 2 door prizes too!!! I am so dang excited about winning the grand prize… that’s like someone giving us $1500!! I can buy groceries at united and then when we move I can buy paint and anything else that we might need at walmart! Now how perfect did that work out?!?!
Last Wednesday I went to the dr. for a bacterial infection and am still not feeling better… she gave me a steroid shot to help kick out the infection along with antibiotics but I’m not feeling any better… in fact, I’m feeling worse… I’m going to stick it out as long as I can, see what happens… she did blood work and her nurse called me on Friday to ask me some questions… one of her questions was if I was taking a water pill… I’m not even sure what a water pill is… she asked how much water I drank a day and I told her between 100 and 120 oz. at work plus whatever I drink when I get home which is almost always unsweet decaf tea… she told me that I didn’t need to drink so much water… it’s not good for you… apparently I was flushing out my electrolytes and all the “good things” that my body needs and of course an electrolyte imbalance weakens your immune system… so did my surgery… so now I have been instructed to drink Gatorade each day… my only thing, I’m not working out and I’ve heard that if you’re not working out and you drink Gatorade it can make you gain weight… I’m not sure if that’s true or not but that’s just what I heard… then I found out that you can actually die from drinking too much water! What is that all about?!?! Anyways, I’m just doing what I’m told…
And I have got to start walking again… since I’ve been back at work I haven’t been walking… I’ve had a lot of stuff going on but after the way my back has felt lately and the 3 hours of sleep I got last night I have decided that come hell or highwater the walking is going to start again… last night I couldn’t even move without waking up in excruciating pain and I could not get comfortable… It reminded me of Charlie horses but all of my belly/mid-section and my legs... bad!… the kitties normally walk all over us during the night but last night mazzy put her paw on my leg and I came up out of the bed so fast it was scary… it’s a different kind of pain than what I had before… I can tell this is from not walking… so tonight I am walking!!! I need some sleep and some good sleep on top of that!!
I suppose I should actually do some work now… not that I’m really wanting too but I suppose I should… maybe I can get everything done then try to reconcile the restaurant’s checking account… nothing but fun!!!

Ups and Downs

Lately my mood has vacillated between happy and sad… I don’t know if it’s because there’s such a “variety” of things going on or what… so, the list of goings on:
• The BYK’s (back yard kitties) are gone… a decision was made to stop feeding them since we’re trying to sell the house so I quit feeding the kitties… I saw two of them out there last night waiting for me and it broke my heart! Tonight when I was coming home there was a kitty in the street… (not alive)… just laying there… and that really upset me…
• I’m in the process of getting over (read: taking antibiotics) for a bacterial infection… sinuses? I don’t know, I don’t know what that means and for once I’m too lazy to actually look it up… normally that’s the first thing I do… she said I have a lot of fluid on my ears… makes sense since I haven’t been able to hear!!
• I haven’t been walking because I’ve been so busy and haven’t been feeling good… I started feeling really bad Sunday and since then my walking has pretty much been non-existent… and I can tell too… my back is stiff!! I mean!!! I’ve had my walking shorts and shoes with me this week in case I got a chance to go walk around the lake but didn’t get the chance…
• It’s already the beginning of October and we’re still in the 90’s… last night at 10:00 it was still 78 outside… that’s just nuts, but that’s our weather for you! I am ready for fall though!! Ready for cooler temperatures!!!
• I’ve been helping out with Round 2 of tax season… if you filed an extension then your tax return is due October 15th… so that’s what we’re working on now… I’ve started keeping books for km but right now it’s tax time… it’s just really nice to get to work over there with them… it’s like working with family… everything is so relaxed and comfortable…
• We came to an agreement on the house we like in I.P. We made an offer, he countered, then we countered and now they’re making the changes to the contract so it will all be “legal and binding”… we came up $4000 from our original offer and he came down $3900 from his original price… exactly where I wanted to be!! Now all we have to do is sell our house!
• Our house has been showing like crazy… I would say it averages one showing a day… and considering the housing market right now that’s pretty good… no offers yet but when the right person comes along it will all fall into place..
• Here’s the main thing that’s been on my brain this week though…

ABILENE -- The Abilene Police Department has requested assistance from Texas Rangers for the investigation of the death of a 27-year old man who was brought into police custody after 5 p.m. Monday on a public intoxication charge. Abilene Police arrested Kris Rupe after they were called about a disturbance in the Quail Hollow Family Housing. Police say Rupe was aggressive and throwing bricks and they had to use pepper spray to restrain him. Police also say that Rupe had to have his feet restrained in the patrol unit because he was still combative. During booking at the Taylor County Jail, the suspect began having breathing difficulty. An ambulance took him to the hospital, where he died. Rupe’s body has been taken to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy. Police would not say whether Rupe's death was drug-related.
"At this point, that is just speculation," said Sgt. Joe Tauer, APD's public information officer. "But there is suspicion as to whether he was under the influence of some kind of intoxicants."
According to his driver's license, Rupe's address was in Wichita Falls. Abilene police said they did not know if Rupe had moved to Abilene, if he was in the U.S. Air Force, or if he was staying with a friend at the apartment complex. The Dyess media relations office did not immediately return a telephone message Tuesday afternoon.
Assistant Chief Mark Moore said investigators with the Texas Rangers, a division of the Texas Department of Public Safety, often investigate deaths of people who die in police custody. Ranger Juan Lozano will lead the investigation. Abilene Police and the Taylor County Sheriff’s Office are cooperating with the Texas Rangers investigation

According to news archives, the APD's last in-custody death occurred in October 2006, when Jeffrey Trotter, 27, died after police found him rambling and in possession of methamphetamine. **very odd**very similar situation**

GIRL!’s (aka kb’s) husband and r had known kris for years... they were the friends you still keep in contact with, maybe just on occasion but sometimes not… hindsight is 20/20 and I guess looking back you could see from about age 12 that he wasn’t going to have a “normal” life… there is so much history there… in this one person… the number of people he affected in both so many good and bad ways… I honestly had no idea that his death would really make me stop to think about a lot of things… we always joked about how something crazy would happen to him… but that’s the way it would happen because that’s the way he lived… he was cracked out, literally... But, I honestly believe he was a “good” guy… there was good in him… wasn't there??

I was “talking” to one of my friends about this and this was our conversation:
Me: I guess it makes me think about all the friends I have that could be in that situation…
S: You just have to remember that 90% of people in situations like that put themselves there through the choices that they’ve made.
Me: You are exactly right (not a big surprise) but it still makes me sad for them… and then the people they’ve “left”… too soft-hearted huh?
S: No, not too soft hearted. You never stop caring for them, you just realize that you can’t always save them.

That's exactly what I needed to hear. Now, that's what I just need to know and understand, you can't always save them.