Chars Life and Times

As I mentioned the other day, my depression was getting the best of me. I was depressed and terribly tired all day long. I don’t know how many times I fell asleep at my computer. I would wake up after having slept for about 8 or 9 hours, only to eat my breakfast and then be sleepy again. After about five more hours, I would finally be awake enough to get some work done. That would last for about eight hours and I’d go to bed again. 

I went to my doctor on Thursday and he really dosed me up. He raised my Welbutrin XL from 300 mg a day to 450 mg a day. He wanted to up it to 900 mg a day, but the pharmacist advised that that amount was too high and that 450 mg was the maximum allowed otherwise it could cause seizures and I sure don’t need that.

He also started me on a seven day trial of Provigil. I got a coupon from their website and was able to get the seven pills for free. He said that if it worked, I could call and get a full month prescription. It has definitely worked wonders. On Friday, I was able to get up, eat breakfast, take my pills and I stayed awake!!! That felt so good! I take half a pill when I get up and the other half about halfway through the day. It feels so good to not be dopey and sluggish all day. I love it! Also the medicine doesn’t make me anxious, nervous or anything.

I’ll let you know how it goes the rest of the week.  

On Friday, January 09, 2009, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to impeach Governor Rod Blagojevich. This is a first for an Illinois governor. The vote was 114 to one in favor of the impeachment. The individual that posted the no vote was Chicago Democrat, Milt Patterson. Patterson said that he read the report and didn’t feel at ease to vote against Blagojevich since he had “no first-hand knowledge of any of the evidence.” It does seem strange that there was only one no vote and everyone else voted to impeach our Illinois governor. It sure would have been nice if it had been unanimous but we’ll take the vote as it was given. 

Blagojevich still assures us Illinois voters that he has done nothing wrong. He feels that he will be shown as innocent when the vote reaches the senate, which is the next step in the impeachment process. Blagojevich thinks that the House had it in for him and he said he wasn’t surprised at all at the vote. Of course, almost since the moment he was reelected into the governor’s office, he has been scrutinized on what he was doing. Before he was arrested in December, many legislators have been trying to get him impeached. I think they were just waiting to obtain enough evidence to convict him. 

The senate plans to meet around January 26th to have the impeachment trial. Hopefully Blago will be gone from the governor’s office after that. 

A very historic and momentous event happened on Wednesday, January 8, 2009, President-Elect Barack Obama met with our current President Bush along with the past presidents that are still living. The great men attending were President-Elect Barack Obama, President George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. The event was held at the White House and they shared lunch and stories together.

I think it is great for Obama to meet with the current and past presidents and share information. They are the only men that can tell Obama what it is really like to be president. I’m sure they also discussed raising children in the White House and what it was like for each to be president. Obama was given tips on handling the office of president and their opinions and ideas about the state of our current economy and current issues. 

All of them expressed their desires for President-Elect Obama to have a rewarding and successful presidency. Obama said that he hopes to be able to stay in touch with these gentlemen through his presidency. 

As most of us know, Roland Burris, the person our scorned Illinois governor appointed as senator for President-Elect Barack Obama’s seat, was turned away in Washington when he tried to get sworn in. The reason being was that our Secretary of State, Jesse White, refused to sign the proper paperwork required by law to allow Burris to be a senator. I truly believe that Roland Burris is a fine choice for senator and would have been proud to have seen him sworn in, if Blagojevich would not have been the person choosing him. 

Burris met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Majority Whip Dick Durbin Wednesday to see what could be done to allow him to become senator. Reid, after the meeting with Burris, said that the Illinois Supreme Court might be able to assist in helping Burris take the Illinois Senate seat. Reid said that he is awaiting the ruling from the Illinois high court to see if Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White actually has to sign the certificate of appointment for Burris. This ruling should come down within the next week. 

I realize that is a strange title, but I wanted to talk about today in my life and also Roland Burris and the senate seat. 

Roland Burris was the man that our Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich appointed to President-Elect Barack Obama’s senate seat. Burris was turned away today when he appeared in Washington for the newly elected senate swearing in. All he could do was go back outside and visit with the vast amount of media waiting to talk to him. Since our secretary of state would not sign for him, technically his records were not in order for him to become our senator. Burris said that he will now confer with his attorneys to see what the next step is. So I guess we have to see what happens next with that.

With regards to my life, first of all I want to say that I did indeed order the electronic cigarette starter kit and also one for my husband. I don’t want to say where I ordered them from because I ended up going for a more reasonably priced E-cig and once I get it I will blog more about it and how it goes. 

My husband also found out last night that it might be awhile before he can go back to work. The last day he worked was the night before Christmas Eve. The plant where he works at was then going to be shut down for the holidays and they were told to come back to work on January 5. Hubby got a call the Thursday before from his employer and was told not to come back to work until January 12. Well of course that sucked since he would not be paid for that week. After hubby talked to a couple of friends he worked with, he found out that he might not get to go back to work even then. He also found out that some of his co-workers filed for unemployment, and he was told to do the same. He went down to the unemployment off this afternoon. So we will see what happens with that also. Darn recession!

I just found out about this fantastic invention by Njoy that is a smokeless electronic cigarette. I’ve been smoking for 30 years and smoke about 2-3 packs a day. My doctor would love for me to quit smoking. 
The above video shows a demonstration of the electronic cigarette that you can use in places that do not allow cigarette or cigar smoking. I am not promoting any product and I don’t make any money off of this! I just want to inform you that there is a product available that you can smoke in public places. It does not have any tar in it and it doesn’t “smoke”, it just gives off vapor. 

It supposedly helps the smoker to still get the satisfaction of holding a cigarette and inhaling, but it does not throw off second hand smoke. You still get the nicotine. Since my state of Illinois became smoke free over a year ago, I have mostly stopped going to restaurants and eating in because I’m not allowed to smoke there anymore. I do mostly carry out and drive-thrus and just bring the food home to eat. I like to have my cigarette between my salad and my main entrée and especially at the end of my meal. I detest having to get up and go outside to have my smoke. If these work, I might feel that I can go back to eating out in restaurants again. 

The starter pack is about $80.00 so I’ll have to save up the money to try this, but I sure am going to think about it. If you are interested in learning more about this electronic cigarette, click here. 

Poor Rod Blagojevich doesn’t seem to have any friends left among the lawmakers who will vote to impeach him or not. The vote to start impeachment proceedings was unanimous. Blagojevich’s attorney, Ed Genson, even asked the committee if there was anyone going to stand up for Blagojevich and there was silence. Nobody wants to play with our Illinois governor. 

There was talk of impeaching Blagojevich way before he was arrested back in December. He was losing friends before it really became public all that Blagojevich was up to. There is a lack of trust in the office of governor, and he has brought it all upon himself. 

I think Governor Blagojevich thought he really found a friend when he named Roland Burris to take President-Elect Barack Obama’s seat in the senate. However, Burris has been very cautious and has not in any way defended the governor. Burris has also been asked to testify in front of the impeachment committee that hopes to wrap up the impeachment proceeding this week and give an opinion to the House, whether to impeach or not. They only need a simple majority vote in order to impeach Blagojevich. I see no problem with this since pretty much everyone feels that the governor should be impeached and out of office as soon as possible. It would then require a two-thirds majority vote in the state Senate. 

About two weeks ago, I was feeling really depressed. I was so bad that at times I just wanted to go to my room, shut the door and go to sleep-like all day long. I was tired all day long but couldn’t sleep most of the night. Some days I didn’t even know if I fed the dogs or not. Even my hubby was concerned about me and he pleaded with me to call my psychologist. 

Every year around Thanksgiving and Christmas, I have a hard time getting through the holidays. I know this and try to get by the best way I know how. This year, I evidently did not do a very good job. 
I talked to my psychologist and she made an appointment for me with the psychiatrist. I went to see him and told him what was going on, and he changed my daytime depression medicine and added to my night time medicine so I could sleep at night and feel better during the day. 

I’ve been on this medicine for about a week and a half and I’m afraid I’m going to have to call him back on Tuesday. I’m sleeping great at night, in fact too good. I can sleep 10 hours get up, eat something and then be so sleepy for the next five hours. I am falling asleep in my computer chair and I’m not getting anything done! It seems after the five hours are up, I’m not depressed and feeling much better, but this can’t go on. I thought it would get better because the doctor said to give it two weeks and call him if I wasn’t better. Well, since he is not in on Mondays, I will give him a call on Tuesday and see what can be done.

Such is my life with depression. It seems to never stop. 

After writing this blog for almost two months now, I have realized I cannot continue writing about my life without including depression.

I was diagnosed with depression about 25 years ago when my son was very little. I was working full time at an office job at the time, along with trying to raise a small son and living with an alcoholic husband. I started to see a physiologist that was referred to me by my internist. I started on medicine and it seemed to help a lot at the time.

Over the years, my son has grown up and is now 26 years old, and I divorced the alcoholic husband and am now on disability and not working outside the home. I am married to a very caring man and have been for almost 10 years. I am on disability because of the depression and also because of a degenerated disk in my back that causes me extreme pain at times.

Depression affects most days of my life. I will give more details on how it affecting me at the present time tomorrow.

As everyone probably already knows, our illustrious Illinois Governor, Rod Blagojevich, defied everyone and appointed Roland Burris to the open senate seat left by President-Elect Barack Obama. I feel that Burris is probably a very good and deserving person for this job, but Blagojevich had no right to do this. He’s been arrested on federal corruption charges and is still operating the governor’s office as if nothing is wrong. Blagojevich will not vacate the office of Illinois governor because he still says that he has done nothing wrong. 

The senate had previously asked Blagojevich to allow the job of the senate seat appointment to someone other than himself. By Blagojevich going ahead and appointing Burris, is like slapping the citizens of Illinois in the face. 

To make things even worse, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has filed a motion looking for a 90-day extension to return an indictment against the governor of Illinois. Normally, they only have 30 days to file an indictment; however, because a multitude of new witnesses have cropped up, they need more time. I wonder if that means that Governor Blagojevich will be spending even more time in office to make changes and appointments that he is not worthy of making.