Back to Sleeping

Thanks to all who helped me through a very difficult period in November—perhaps the worst thing I’ve ever experienced! Second-guessing our whole house purchase/sale episode from the summer turned into a bout of anxiety, which unbelievably got so bad I entered an irreversible state of “fight or flight” where adrenaline surged through my body 24/7 for days. It rendered me completely useless in every capacity, from work to parenting. And it kept me from being able to sleep. Insomnia was a byproduct of this adrenaline, and no sleeping med or prescription med would cut through it. I even went to Urgent Care twice and the ER once. It was awful. In the end it took an actual change in mindset to get out of it. I literally gave up one night while not sleeping and decided I didn’t care anymore. And that’s what did it. I had tried thinking that way all throughout it and it didn’t work until I actually believed it. During the episode I lost over 10 pounds and then gained it all back upon recovery. The whole thing was so much weirder and more dramatic than I’m willing to write about. I will say this—at my low point, I was trying to sleep in the backyard grass with two frozen chickens taped to my legs at 4am to curb the adrenaline raging through my lower body. (It didn’t work!)

First Career Over-Fence HR?

I played in a fundraiser softball tournament at Balcones on Sunday from 11-4, three games. It was the first time I’ve played an organized game of softball or baseball in many years. The first game was a group of coaches vs. a loaded team of Balcones alumni. We predictably got our asses kicked, 32-7. I went 0-2 in that game with a couple groundouts and strained a lot of leg muscles badly trying to run out grounders. I pitched one scoreless inning and one terrible inning. In the second game, the coaches divided up and played each other, with my team winning 12-2. In that game I went 4-4 with an actual out-of-the-park opposite field home run—the first time in my life that I can remember that I homered in a game over the fence. In the finale, the coaches played the alumni once more, losing 20-3. I went 1-3 in that game. All in all, 5-9 on the day, with many accolades for my first base defense and speed. Not bad!

Thanksgiving with the Glanzers

Mom, Dad and Ed made another big trek down to visit us from South Dakota in November. We were eager to welcome our first out-of-town guests to the new house! While visiting, we went out for a couple great meals (Mama Betty’s and Stiles Switch BBQ), did some hiking, roller skating, and bowling, and of course hosted Thanksgiving dinner. Lauren did the vast bulk of the cooking.

Christmas Outlook

Since we dropped so much money on the new house this year, we have decided to stay local for the holiday season. If we hadn’t done the house stuff, we’d have traveled. Mark my words—we will visit SD and MN for Christmas 2026! It has been too long. This sounds like it would have been the year to go, too, with so much snow. The kids would have loved it. Instead, we are coming up with activities to do in Austin, and maybe a quick trip to San Antonio or Dallas or someplace.

As for presents, the kids do not need anything, as usual. They can’t even really come up with things they want, they just “want to be surprised”. We have decided, seemingly like every year, to gift “experiences” over “things”. But Edie still believes in Santa and will be crushed if there aren’t any presents to open on Christmas morning. And if Edie has presents to open, by god John had better have the same number. So until she’s fully off Santa, I suppose we will have to continue with gifting them some physical things.