Maria Diaz

Love this place (Taken with Instagram at Pump House Brewery)

Coffee cream. It means what it says.

Through out the universe, in perpetuity. (Taken with Instagram at Denver International Airport (DEN))

Things I have recently googled in preperation for more time up north:

a. Bumble & Bumble, Canada (available)

b. Amazon prime (not available)

c. Kerrygold (not available, except some kinds of cheese I guess?)

d. psychiatrists (we shall see)

e. pre-paid phones (like we’re on the wire or something)

f. Sephora (available)

One thing’s for sure: 2012 will not be boring. 

Saint john, the port city. (Taken with instagram)

Canadian for beer (Taken with Instagram at Churchills Bar & Pub)

milesjai:

Québécois version of tgi Fridays (Taken with instagram)

Quebec to new Brunswick, hours upon hours of staring at this. (Taken with instagram)

Montreal metro (Taken with instagram)

Local Quebec beers! Wheat beer with hibiscus & an IPA. (Taken with Instagram at Auberge Place d’Armes)

Quebec city (Taken with instagram)

Happy new year from this joint. (Taken with instagram)

kiamatthews:

Saw this on Facebook. I need to know the open bar and food situation before I decide if I’m going. Because everything else about this sounds like everything I’ve ever wanted. 

Also a guest appearance by a Q-List celeb would really set this shit off.

When I was diagnosed last year, I read a shitload of self-help books and pretty much every major website that is devoted to psychiatry or psychology. Overwhelmingly, the number one non-pharmaceutical piece of advice that is given to bipolar folks is to get a routine and stick to it. The best book I read on the subject, Break The Bipolar Cycle, describes BP as an inability to handle stress and emotion. And I will say that is essentially what I have found. All of my symptoms flare up when I make major changes, which have all corresponded with med increases. 

What I am saying is it wasn’t the best idea to completely change my routine in a winter month, at time when I need to be on my A-game, all day, every day. And for all the self awareness and journalling and obsessing, I have been in a fog, especially with my mother being sick. 

I feel pretty awful, but trying to get out of the circle of anxiety. It’s rough. It’s not easy. Medication does not fix it all. Not in the least. 

The only sane living being at my family’s Xmas eve party. (Taken with instagram)

The ice queen. (Taken with instagram)

I wrote something about psychiatric medication. This will be my last social media promotion of it. The response has been worth it. 

(via It Happened To Me: I Take Lithium | xoJane)

My mother had a procedure on Friday, and my whole weekend has been wrapped up in staying on top of her post-op med regimen and helping her late at night. I didn’t feel the enormity of the situation until after the procedure, when I had to help her get her clothes on. 

My mother is an extremely strong woman, who doesn’t believe in days off. She’s always tackling a project, always active. She rarely drinks and almost never eats out. She keeps a completely spotless house, which she always re-decorates seasonally (she made all the curtains as well). She is exceptional at saving money and is always on top of her finances. She loves to talk on the phone, and keeps in touch with many friends and family.

When she travels to Dominican Republic, she’s practically a socialite; when we call her there, she’s never around, always off visiting folks and taking random trips with her brother or other close friends there. I think that if she were more technologically minded and were of the facebook generation, she’d love Twitter parties and would have hundreds of friends on social media. (She doesn’t give a shit about anything tech-y, but my ultimate goal is to get her on an iPad because I think she may enjoy that.)

So, it has floored me to watch her be taken down by the pain of this operation. She moans for her own mother at these points, who passed away 29 years ago and there is nothing I can do. I am powerless.  

I know it is just her body healing and eventually the pain will subside and she won’t be in a haze of Percoset anymore. She’ll be back to her old self, running the house, watching her Brazilian soaps at the end of the day (those are her favorite because they are either historical romances and provide some educational value or they are much better written and edgier than the Mexican ones that dominate Univision), and never slowing down. 

Kim Jong-Il (1941-2011)