preparedness – Jamie DeBree

Hi! I’m Jamie, and I’m an “overthinker”.

It sounds like it should be some rare, mysterious ailment, doesn’t it? It’s not, of course…just ask any anxious or control-freak person out there, and they’ll tell you. Why do we tend to overthink things? I can’t answer for anyone else, but in my case it’s simply fear. Not really fear that the worst might happen (because trust me, I have a plan of some sort for that), but more than one of the myriad smaller things that require more time and effort (and money, sometimes) to resolve will spin out of control.

This actually serves me well at work, where testing and retesting and thinking and thinking again makes all the tech I deal with run better and I end up with less technical “misses” that result in panic-type situations (it happens, and it always will on occasion, but it’s the exception rather than the norm).

Not so much at home, where the top two things noodling around in my head are getting the van ready for our first overnight trip next week, and what to do with the dogs while we’re gone. The van is already way, way over-provisioned for the one-night trip we have planned, and my parents will be coming over to watch the dogs for us, but the details are spinning about the dogs and the fact that I’m very much a night person (it’s nearly midnight as I write this), and my dogs are used to that schedule, but my Mom is not.

I also get up to feed the dogs around 6:30am every morning (I go back to bed on the weekends), which is not something my Dad, who is a night person, would appreciate having to do. My dilemma is whether to have the morning person stay over and possibly have to let Athena out at 1am (when I’m normally headed to bed), or have the night person stay over to make sure they get their late-night snack and another potty break, but also have to get up at 6:30am the next morning to give the dogs breakfast too?

Or should I ask my dad to cover the late-night snack/potty break, not have either of the parents sleep over, and have my mom cover the breakfast shift.

I’ve been going round and round about this in my head, and still haven’t come to a decision, because the consequences of getting it wrong could be nothing, or they could be torn up couch cushions & doors, to say the least.

The truth is, both schedules will probably work just fine, and I just need to accept that I can’t control everything and I am really looking forward to getting out for another drive, some more bookstore shopping (and a museum!), Pokemon in different places, and our first night spent in the van. Oddly enough, the one thing I don’t overthink (and probably should) is travel (though as I mentioned, the van is over-provisioned just because we both like our creature-comforts).

Are you an overthinker? Is it situational, or general? What do you do to talk yourself out of or around it (if anything)?

We are leaving Thursday and back Friday, so there probably won’t be a post next week, but after that, I think it will be time to settle into a more set routine. And I’ve figured out my blockage with my Magpie heroine (who is not an overthinker, to her detriment), so that is moving onward again too!

Until next time,

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Of Stretch Marks, Cold Medicine & The Apocalypse…

I think I might be the only woman on the planet who looks in the mirror after a shower, and celebrates new stretch marks. It means I’m losing girth around my stomach/hips, which means I’m losing fat, and that’s far more important than whatever number the scale happens to say. Sure, they’re not the prettiest things in the world, but it’s not like people actually see my stomach/hips (aside from my husband and he’s contractually obligated not to care about how they look).

In any case, fat lost, skin shrinking, good stuff. Motivation to keep working out, walking the stairs and watching portion sizes/carbs.

If only eating (mostly) healthy and working out were all it took to keep from getting common ailments like…say…a cold. Friday night, I felt a sore throat coming on, and it even swelled up a bit, almost like an allergy. Except all the normal stuff I’d do for an allergy didn’t work. Finally late that night, I made up a batch of my favorite cold medicine, which includes a big dollop of honey, a couple dashes of apple cider vinegar (the real stuff with live cultures), a pinch of turmeric and a bit of fresh ginger all mixed up in a mug of warm water. It doesn’t taste all that great (but better than chemical-laden meds, IMO), but it seems to knock stuff out quick, and it did take care of my sore throat by the time I woke up the next morning. Had another cup later in the afternoon when the sore throat threatened to come back, and I was fine all day Sunday. One more cup late Sunday night/early Monday morning, and I should be good to go. Fingers crossed!

I’ve been watching several sci-fi shows online lately – most of which are set in a post-apocalyptic world. I’ve watched as many free episodes of “Defiance” as there are available on Amazon Prime, I’m anxiously awaiting the return of “The 100” on the CW, and I’m working my way (quickly) through the second season of “Falling Skies” on Amazon Prime. All of these shows tend to make me think about what I would need to survive (minimally) in those types of environment, what I would want if possible to carry it, and perhaps more importantly, who I’d want to connect with and who I’d want to avoid. It’s a valuable thought-exercise, I think…moreso than the ubiquitous “if you were stranded on a desert island” question. I think it’s valuable too to think about what kind of skills you’d want to have in that situation – things a lot of people don’t cultivate any longer, like seed-saving, and a working knowledge of what kind of plants are poisonous vs. edible in different environments. Suddenly people who do certain types of crafts like spinning and soap-making from scratch are people who might be on that list of people to connect with in case of an apocalypse…

…and maybe those would be good connections to foster before some sort of major crisis happens. Just like some of those skills you might need might be good things to cultivate in advance, just in case. The odds of something happening to send us back to the dark ages is pretty remote, but…maybe not as remote as we’d like to think.

Seems kind of fitting to be thinking apocalyptic thoughts on a Monday morning, eh?

Jamie DeBree

Writer | DBA | Dog Wrangler

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Overthinking Overthinking

Of Stretch Marks, Cold Medicine & The Apocalypse…