A Big Break

So I have mostly been off line since the end of July. I stayed in one house which had no wifi and iffy cell phone service at best. Then I went on vacation with my husband and stayed in more hotels with iffy wifi and sometimes cell service. You know the two-three bar places where if the wind is blowing in the right direction you can actually connect. The most important thing I used my phone for was for directions and as a back up we had a paper map.

This meant I was really behind on emails by the time I got home. I also hadn't been on facebook or here on my blog. And I didn't get a lot of phone calls or messages. Best of all I could pretend I was a healthy person and I DIDN'T HAVE A SINGLE DOCTOR APPOINTMENT. It was awesome.

I recommend it for everyone. I couldn't remember what day of the week it was, never mind the date. I went into a store last week. I looked at the hours on the door and it said 'open 9-1' and it was 2:30. But then some people walked out of the store so I figured the sign was wrong. When I went in, I asked the woman if she was still open despite the sign on the door. Her response was 'its Friday, not Saturday'. That was great.

I need more of that in my life. I didn't have to run from the gym to a doctor appointment to anything else. I didn't have to worry about anything. The two of us had a blast - except for the day it was clear we had spent too much time in the car together so that there was a very quiet period for the better part of the day.

My non-doctor prescription is that everyone take a disconnected vacation.

Thoughts on Not Blogging

I get up every day and say to myself 'I am going to blog this morning before I do anything else'. As you can tell this hasn't been happening. Why? Well there are lots of reasons

• I have been distracted by spring time and gardening (finally).
• I have been routinely over doing things which has tired me out (because I was trying to have fun). 
• I have been lazy.
• But the biggest reason is I haven't felt an overwhelming need to blog. My blog was set up to give me a way to express my thoughts on issues relating all my medical crap. I guess I haven't had huge medical crap to deal with right now.

On the plus side is I really have not had horrible medical crap to deal with and have been feeling less stressed about things. Finally spring is here so I can get outside and play in the garden which makes me very happy. But it does make me over do things and then I need to rest. 

My medical crap has receded to the background. I had a month long break from appointments recently and now I am in the middle of another two week break. Not having to go to the (damn) doctor for a week or two is always good for me since I average more than 50 appointments each year (not counting PT - as of now, I have 29 appointments in the first six months of the year).

But I have been doing okay these days. My biggest medical issue is that I have given up on my damn CPAP machine. I can't sleep with anything on my face and that's not going to change anytime soon. But I did hear about a newer option for apnea that might work for me. And it is so low on my priority list that I have given up stressing about it.

So I am enjoying myself for once and not blogging about it. But I should be able to post pictures of my garden as it grows.

I Took A Day Off

My husband has a long weekend so yesterday we took a day off. Together to just hang out and relax. It was nice.

We drove up to the ocean. It was high tide , windy, and cold. But we walked a little on the beach. I made a big mistake and turned my back on the ocean . (NEVER turn your back on the ocean.) A wave came up behind me and I got sea water and sand in my shoes. Not a good idea. But then my husband got the bright idea to put my socks on the dashboard in the sun. And I turned on the defroster and dried my socks. And dumped the sand out of my shoes.

Then we did a little shopping, had an unhealthy late lunch with  view of the ocean and came home. We just needed a day together.

It was a nice day.

When all else fails

Go to the beach.

Yes that is my plan for the day, or at least the morning. I could be doing a thousand other things, packing, moving stuff, grocery shopping, cleaning up, and many more. I could even have gone to work. But I am opting to go to the beach.

Why you ask? Because I want to and I can. And there is a limit to what I can do on a given day. And its a birthday present to myself. Yes today is my birthday (and I am 37 again if you must know).

Back in my 20s I worked for a company which gave all full time employees a paid floating holiday to take on the birthday. Since then, I have always avoided working on my birthday. And today's weather forecast is for an upper 80s perfect summer day and going to the beach is recommended. So I am taking their advice.

I will contemplate life as I gaze out at the ocean. That is my prescription for  life at its best.

As my health goes down my appreciation for living longer improves and incentivizes me to stop and 'smell the roses' so to speak.

A day for me.

The last few weeks months of my life have been crazy. Too busy, too tired, too rushed. No time for me, sleep, food, gardening, knitting, seeing friends and all that kind of stuff. Today was about me. I had lots of things I should do - laundry for example, which is sort of happening but it is taking a very long time. There are also things I want to do - catch up with friends. Finally there are things I did do which I greatly enjoyed.

This morning I slept until 9am and felt rested. I find that if I get up earlier I am too tired and really need to sleep until 9 at least a couple days of the week. You say - why don't you go to bed earlier? I say I think 9 pm is a darn good bedtime. So yes sometimes I get around 11-12 hours of sleep (and it makes me a much happier person).

Then I decided I needed some time for me. I went to a whole bunch of yard sales to feed my inner crap shopper. I look them up on Craigs List and make a plan so I am not driving in a hundred different directions.

I ended up buying (are you ready?): a box window fan for $7 - brand new in the box, never used. A queen sized cotton blanket - brand new, original packaging for $5. Ten skeins of yarn for a total of $10 - several are some good quality yarn. Two boxes of cookie cutters that I will use for felting and a roll of fancy ribbon for making fascinators for $2. An entire brown paper bag of assorted lightbulbs for $1.

Then I went to the crafts store and for $8 bought enough to make 6 fascinators in varying shades of purple. Finally, I came home and ate lunch, did some gardening, processed more laundry, and rescued the neighbors dog from our basement (he tried to meet our cat unsuccessfully earlier), looked at more laundry.

Now I am sitting on my completely unmade bed, realizing that is is 245 in the afternoon and I have not gotten together with the friend I wanted to see because I took so much time for myself. But I feel like a better person for having taken time for me.

Before blogging I read a few other blogs and realized two things: Tomorrow is National Cancer Survivors' Day (feel free to join me in not giving a shit about it - for some reason I really don't care this year). And today is exactly seven years from my breast cancer diagnosis. And for some reason I don't really give a crap about it as well.

But I guess I am still here and that is what is really important. Go me!

PS What is a fascinator? Its one of those fancy hats on a headband that the princesses in England wear but are quite fashionable as an accessory for holidays and the Kentucky Derby.

I took a step back

Even though I only work part time, sometimes I feel as if I am rushing from one thing to another all week long. Recent weekends have included family and other events where I have not had the downtime.The problem is at the end of the weekend I do not feel rested physically or emotionally.

This weekend we ran away. Yesterday had a predicted high around 47. Based on that and the fact that it was low tide at 1030am, we ran away and walked on the beach for an hour. It was a sunny day. It was low tide. There were people with horses all over the beach. It was amazing. It was what we needed. You will note the snow on the dunes in my blurry picture.The water temperature was 36 so we opted not to go in.

We stopped for an unhealthy meal of fried seafood and came home and relaxed and had a healthy dinner. Yesterday topped out with a high of 55.
Today I slept in. I feel much better physically and emotionally.

Tomorrow will be a long day. I am having an EMG in the morning to test for carpal tunnel. That is a not fun test of needles and jolts. I wont feel relaxed after that. And then I will go to work if I can. Ick. Not fun. I will just ignore that until tomorrow.