Sometimes little things drag me down in a big way. I got sucked in, and might as well been pushed under a bus this morning. I am not going to elaborate in detail, not on this blog. I might start writing a book. Anyhow, this is not the way I want to live, in chaos and criticism. I certainly don’t want my son to grow up with the same bad social skills I have.
It got above freezing today. That is always a good mood lifter. It only melted the snow a little. It is a start. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. I am looking forward to it anyway.
I don’t need to plan anything, I have been to Boston many times before. What I do need to anticipate is one handed driving for an extended period of time. I have only done that once since my stroke. This trip will be a few hours longer. I don’t leave for a few weeks. Meanwhile, I have nothing new and exciting to look forward to.
I made it to the school to walk today. My knees hurt. I hope I wake up refreshed. There is no walking tomorrow because of a school event. I will have to escape from here to do something. I still need to get some more pictures. I hope the snow stays away, so I can do something.
I am glad I did not get caught up with television today. I still did not accomplish much. I had to run some paperwork to the doctors. I cleared a few inches of snow off my car before I left. I stopped at the store. Someone keeps drinking all my OJ. I feel like I ran a marathon, but I did not. I could not even walk a marathon right now. I could sleep through one easy.
I let another day fall by the wayside. I slept in late. I cleaned up a little, and did laundry. Not much, but looking out at new snow while eating breakfast is depressing to me. I was lucky my young son cleared off my car, yet it sits unused. It is supposed to snow more tonight. I hope they are wrong. I have things to do tomorrow.
No big progress with my arm usage. My next therapy session is not until Wednesday. It will be February already. I am still waiting to walk in green grass by a warm lake. I also am looking forward to planting mini gardens in containers. Just a few more months, my prison sentence will be over.
I am surfing the net, trying to come up with something new to write about. It is not happening. I am scared out of my seat. The wind keeps gusting so loud, and strongly. I swear it is picking up the house, or maybe just the roof. Something is definitely creaking louder than normal, and moving. I thought best just to get my post up before we lose power or worse.
I did find a new word I learned today, Gabion. It is like a part of retaining wall, wire mesh, filled with rocks. I have seen it around once or twice in the real world. Today, I saw it in the design world, on Pinterest. I tried to link up, and add my Pinterest button to my site here. Alas, I can not figure it out. Not yet.
Well, I forgot to link up a pretty Gabion in action too. The picture I did throw up looks very similar to previous posts. I took several at different angles. It might be one I used before, if so, I will fix it someday. I have no new pictures. I am stalling on all fronts. I am holding steady at the same weight. Even after reducing my sweets and trying to work out more. I tried to crochet again. I think I ripped out more stitches than I managed to complete. My clumsy left hand does not want to help. I have not completed a single painting. My old photos lie waiting to be developed. I have books to read. Medical receipts to file clutter my table. I am totally occupied with trying to come up with new projects, when I can’t complete what was previously planned. Is the saying plans are made to be broken? No, that is rules.
Here is what I did accomplish today. Slept in until lunchtime. Had breakfast for lunch. Showered. Made homemade pizza crust. Made pizza. Ate pizza, and dropped some all over clothes. (why I like to eat at home) In between, I spent sitting in front of the computer, surfing, reading, dreaming, getting lazier. Tomorrow will be more of the same, as long as we have electricity.
Yo. We’re the Chick and the Dude, and we’re here with a very special announcement! And no, it’s not about the newly pink walls in our office / den / dog play room.
See these awesome new bowties and matching collars we’ve been gifted? That means that we’re a Really Big Deal and that we have important news to share, so listen up!
Sirius Republic — creator and purveyor of the cutest dog collars ever — has teamed up with our rescue group on ten brand new collar designs! We were all out on the back patio having a nice martini on the adirondack chairs when they came in the mail, and when mama first opened them, we started bickering over who got to keep which ones — we thought there were five for each of us, one for each workday!
When I woke up yesterday my legs were sore. I thought it was from walking, even though I did not walk more than I usually do. When I woke up today, they were hurting pretty bad. My calf muscles the worse, and the bottom of one foot was sore. I did not go walking today. Not because of the soreness, walking more around the house actually helped them feel better. I finally made it out to the next town over to find things at two different grocery stores. Certain things I can not find in this town. Salt free bouillon is one, I found it today. I still did not find tofu. I walked around both stores. It was not as long of a distance as walking at school. It was inside, and since everything is coated with ice around here, that is a good thing.
As we passed the park where they build the ice castle every year, we saw they are preparing this years feat. I hope the weather is not as bad as they predict tomorrow. I would like to go take some pictures of how they cut the ice from the lake. If the weather blows, at least I will get over there after it is completed. I have therapy tomorrow, at least physical therapy.
I still did not find out if my insurance is going to continue covering the OT. I am trying not to stress about it. It is not really helpful that health insurance is not straightforward. From the moment you try to choose it, until you try to use it, every answer is vague. Even when they approve a treatment on the bottom of the letter it says not a guarantee of payment. Really? I remember when they used to tell you the amount they covered, then we had the option to pay the difference or not be treated until we had saved the difference. I get bills and statements that are from 10 months ago. I don’t know what I owe or to whom. It is beyond annoying and stressful. So, I have to keep myself sane and stress free. My answer is to pile my paperwork up and start a fire. Nobody will let me have that fun. I could always use it as the base of my mulch for my garden. I could shred it all and start a worm farm. I can wait for them to find me buried under the avalanche of papers. I don’t want to be remembered as that bad smell. I wonder if anyone else gets annoyed with insurance baloney? Maybe I am special after all.
I was taking my morning nap when I received the call from Clarkson. They are going to have me do the intensive therapy I was told about. It will be six days over 2 weeks. I don’t have to be there until 1PM. That is perfect. It will take me an hour each way to drive there. I am glad it is not a longer day than it is.
I made it to walk at the school tonight. I did my usual laps. I rested once since my right knee was killing me. I have to remember to take my daily aspirin before I go. One guy came in and asked me a few questions. He then said something about needing more snow. I said no way, I told him I wish it would melt. He then said something about the local economy needing the snow. I never considered it. I did not grow up near here. I don’t plan on staying here much longer. This town is a tourist town. Camping in the summer, skiing in the winter. The ski trails are not that great, with the little bit of melting and not having a large base to start with. They also do not have snow making equipment, like some areas have. I feel bad for the local business people losing their winter haul. Mother Nature has been unfair in the past. I think it would be prudent that they did not put all their eggs in one basket. They might as well invest in gambling. This area would be ripe for more progressive industry to step in. Inventive solar, wind or other alternative energies should be able to gain hold in many depressed economies. There are plenty of people waiting to work. They should build large greenhouses near here to grow local food. The growing season is so short, I don’t think anything in the stores around here are even from this state. That is for these local mountain people to sort out. I will get out of dodge. I am not a mountain person. I just have to make it six more months.
We got the shaft with the weather forecast again. It hovered around freezing, instead of melting more. The snow came down in little round pellets. They reminded me of the inside of a beanbag. They were far from comforting.
I did well on my eating and therapy goals today. I had OJ and a banana for breakfast, apple and baby carrots (raw, no glaze) for lunch, peas (about two servings) and half a serving of ravioli and a small dinner roll for dinner. I must confess this left me starving with my stomach growling. I had to cheat. I had a chocolate whoopie pie and a cookie after lunch. I had a few mini Reeses peanut butter cups after dinner. Next time I will eat more fruit. I also need to get back into my popcorn habit. If only I could keep my eyes on the prize for a few months. My Buddha belly is annoying. I need to break downwards through the plateau I have been on for over 10 years.
I made it to school to walk. I lost track of how many laps I did. My knees told me I did enough. I also tried to walk faster. I envision myself running this year. I need to at least lose the hobble. I have been walking almost all the time without my cane at home. I am concentrating on standing straight, heel to toe gait. It just is not happening on my left foot yet. At least I am rid of the damn brace. I was talking today about how it attracted negative attention. Another goal is to get rid of the geriatric looking cane and just carry a walking stick.
Talking about goals, I was finally accepted into Pinterest. I be pinning.(Like we be jammin’) I only have a few things now, but I am trying to add all the projects I want to do. My stone cottage, or maybe a dome home is a long range goal. Repurposing some furniture will happen when I move into my own place again. Eventually I will illustrate my bucket list. I am not ready to kick the bucket anytime soon.
It is starting to melt, yay! It started raining this afternoon, so it should melt faster. I am hoping. There is still a layer of ice under the snow that makes for interesting walking.
The rain also put a chilly dampness in the air. My son was in a bad mood when I picked him up from basketball practice. He was in better spirits by the time he went to sleep. He still would not tell me what was wrong. I did not make it to walk tonight. I had a slight mishap while cooking my dinner. I made my son scrambled eggs, that went without a hitch. I proceeded to heat up the toaster oven, in preparation for my fake pizza’s. I call them fake because I use bread slices as the crust. Anyhow, after they were all assembled I went to pop them in the toaster oven. That is when I noticed the bag of leftover hotdog rolls melting on the top of the toaster oven. I pulled them off before the plastic melted all over. It was just a few spots on top, after I peeled all I could off. Of course this is not the first time this has happened. I know the spots will come off with nail polish remover. I am mad at myself, because I made a mental note to clear off the top when I turned it on. It did not register in my brain that there was a plastic bag there. I also get mad because it is not my kitchen. I would have heated the big range oven up, to warm the house up. I used the toaster oven because my mother thinks it uses less electricity. I also would have not put leftover stuff on top to start with. Damn, I need to be more diligent about cooking. I can’t get used to not trusting my own brain.
My fake pizza’s were good. They had baby spinach, red and green peppers, fake cheddar and a little mozzarella sitting on top of rye slices with spaghetti sauce. I love rye. I envisioned myself making rye pizza dough in single serve size pizza crusts and freezing them for a quick meal. It would also be better with real cheddar. I am just trying to keep my sodium and cholesterol at a minimum. I used to put cheddar on everything pre-stroke, and extra mozzarella on my pizzas. I can tolerate less cheese with more veggies and spice.
I hope to get to a larger store where they sell tofu tomorrow. I never cooked with it before. I thought I would experiment with a few recipes. I also need to work my arm out more since I won’t be able to go back to OT until they hear back from my insurance. My PT is still on schedule, so I went there today. My legs felt stronger today. They did not hurt so much on the weight machine. She had me do a lot of balancing and different step patterns. It is really difficult for me to step backwards. I had to step sideways and backwards at the same time. It was nerve wracking. I did stumble, but never fell.
I ordered a few seed catalogs yesterday. I will be busy moving at the start of summer. I will have at least a few container gardens going by then. I can’t wait. I missed out on last year big time. I could barely walk, let alone take care of a plant. When I think along those terms, I see how far I have progressed. My grip strength in my left hand went from 0 (not moving at all), to 2 in October, now it is up to 10 pounds grip strength. That sounds like I am a light weight, but I am working on it. I have a 60 pound dog I need to walk. I am hoping I can use just my right hand to walk her, and have a back up leash attached to my leg or something creative. She is very strong. She walks like a perfect angel once we get going. Her excitement is hard to contain at first. It would be fun to hook her up to a pony cart, I know she could pull it with no problem. I am looking forward to seeing her again next month.
Tomorrow it is supposed to get warm enough to melt some snow. I love it when it melts in a day. That is being overly optimistic, but I will take any melting over below 0 temps.
In Sync With The Universe 