Tuesday 28 August 2018

Waking Up Is Hard To Do

There are a lot of mornings I do NOT like waking up.  A lot.  This was one of them.

I'm off right now (as in "holiday" time I booked to go somewhere I didn't end up being able to go... sad sigh) so I can sleep in if I want.  Which I do.  But does my body agree that I should?  Apparently not.  I mean I *feel* like I'm sleeping in because I've been semi alert for a while (the light in the mornings really really "helps" with that I think) but I tell myself "no, I'll sleep in!"  And then I'm not quite asleep but certainly not awake and I'm rolling over to get comfier that way (but hoping not to trigger my shoulder/arm issue) and then onto my back.... then the other side and the whole time I'm trying to enjoy just sleeping but then it sort of creeps up on me... the .... whispers of WAKEUP NOW.  So I keep trying to just stay asleep and dozy and cozy and then I eventually go... well, ok, I guess I'll start my day and I roll over to see how long I've managed to stay in bed and  HI IT'S JUST ABOUT EIGHT O'CLOCK!

Y'all.... sigh.  It'd be fine if I was waking up "early" like that and feeling rested but I wake up and get out of bed and just want to go nap.  Which I don't but... sigh.  This waking up stuff is for the birds.

Which also sometimes don't help me sleep in!

Edit:  By the way, this post was amazing and wonderfully written when I was half asleep in bed this morning, just saying!  (I guess waking up ruined that too) 

Thursday 23 August 2018

Well Then

You may remember that I've said I have a hard time not finishing books.  (Which can be painful at times!)

I also mentioned that I'm re-reading my old books, to see if there are some I no longer want to keep, and I have realized... I do not feel the need to finish them this time!

Like I was re-reading whichever book and meh it was dragging.  But I kept going before I realized, you know what?  I've read this already.  I have no need to re-read it.  I don't enjoy it enough to keep it, and I don't need to finish the book to know that!

So I put down a book half way through and picked up another and the fact I've jumped a few chapters ahead and am still not engaged means I think this one is going to go bye bye as well.

Yay!  Saving time and making space!

Tuesday 21 August 2018

Dear Youngsters

Dear Children and Those Not Yet "Old",

Please, please, don't rush to "grow up".  Don't rush to be older.  Not only because we really think you're quite adorable when you're little tiny things, but also because being an adult has a whole lot of not much fun.

To quote myself "adulting sucks."

Like, sure, I can, in theory eat as much junk food as I want, but you know what?  Then I get a sore tummy.  So.. it's only fun for a little while.  And there's some weird thing that happens where it starts to taste less good.  (Plus Halloween?  All that free candy you get?  Well, not as an adult, just saying!)

And I mean, sure, I can, in theory, go to sleep when I want, but.... turns out I can't really function the next day if I don't go to bed at a reasonable hour.  And it's not like my body will really let me sleep in anymore.  Enjoy those days of sleeping in, ok?

And it's not just that.  It's the bill paying, the waiting on hold for ages with this company or that company when this goes wrong or that doesn't happen.  It's being frigging responsible.  FOR EVERYTHING.

You really have no idea what all you are not having to deal with right now youngsters, so please, please, don't rush to get where we are.  I'm not a huge fan of this whole "adult" thing.  Just saying.

Monday 20 August 2018

Hey

Am writing this from the comfort of my couch (well, that's where I almost always do my writing but it's less dramatic to say so!)  I booked the next couple of weeks off in case I was going to Burning Man but I'm not going to Burning Man so here I am.  Couch.  Relaxing.  Smoke-filled skies.

I mention that last part because my neighbour's smoke alarm keeps going off and when I checked on here there's no smoke in her place... we're pretty sure it's just the smoke in the air from the surrounding wildfires.  So I'm half waiting for mine to go off and really hoping it won't.

For any of you who live elsewhere in the world our province is yet again in a state of emergency from wildfires.  And then the next two states down from us... well, most of this coast to be honest is also dealing with way too many wildfires.  Not that there's a "good" number of them, but you know what I mean.

I'd talk about the weather, but it's just... not really there behind the smoke.  It's weird and uncomfortable and disheartening.

But, I'm home, happily on my couch so....

Friday 17 August 2018

You Maybe Had To Be There

So there are these "bake at home" pizza crusts you can get at a grocery store here and Jason offered to make us one the other week.

We bought some ingredients and he was slicing them up when he turned and looked on top of the oven... where he'd placed the pizza.... while waiting for the oven to heat up. (Do you see where I might be going here?)

Well, that was the day we learned that even a little bit of heat (ie the heat rising up from an oven pre-heating itself) is enough to start the dough rising!

We barely got the lid off of the container and the pizza didn't quite turn out the way it was meant to but damn if that wasn't a funny few moments of "UH OH!" when he saw the pizza was already well on its way to being fully risen!

Thursday 16 August 2018

So Different

One of the things I forgot to mention in my Monday post about the weather shift is how quickly it made a really big difference to things.  Like me drying my hair.

Most days this summer I wash my hair and it's dry within an hour, give or take.

On Sunday?  The second day of "cooler" and "cloudier"?  I headed to bed at eleven and it still wasn't dry from several hours earlier.  Like for or five.

I don't know much about weather (I just really like it!) but something something humidity I figure?  It really was quite surprising.

Wednesday 15 August 2018

So Much Ow

I hurt my shoulder.

But not my shoulder.  Like my entire upper arm/shoulder area?  Sometimes down to the elbow, I don't even know?

And uh, yeah, I hurt it like... well, a while ago.  As in, for sure last Fall.  Ahem.

I have no idea what I did.  I just know that it started being restricted in range of motion and I was working with a trainer at the time so we just tried to avoid things and adapt but I didn't really know what, if anything had happened (there was no injury or moment of OW or anything I noticed or recalled) so I didn't ... know what to do or not to do.

And it got... uh... bad.

Like, unable to sleep on that side.  Or even lie on it for a minute.  Unable to use it for, say, pushing up off the couch.  Extreme pain when I used it accidentally (like catching my phone when it slipped out of my hand).  As in, I would be crying from the pain and unable to move kind of pain.  Yeah, it was bad.

But RIGHT around that same time my doctor retired.  Which is my excuse for not going in to talk to my doctor about it.  (The doctor saga is a whole other story but has pretty much resolved it just... sucked for a while in terms of any care.)  I did talk to my massage person and the trainer/phsyio person but I also have to admit I just kind of left it and hoped it would get better.

Well, it did and it didn't.  And for the last few months my massage person has been saying that I need to get my doctor to refer me to a specialist because it hasn't resolved.  And, well, I didn't.  But I did go see a physiotherapist.  Who wants me to get an ultrasound done to make sure there's nothing really not good going on.  So I'm waiting for that to happen.

And then I remembered another not-physio type person I went to ages ago and so long story kind of short I'm finally seeing some progress.

I can lie on that side now.  Sometimes.  For a few.  I can roll over in bed without pain.  I can lie on my left side without pain (I had to prop the right up on a pillow for a while to be on that side)  I wake up without pain (I had to have an extra pillow around in bed for when I woke up as the arm would be in extreme pain upon wakeup.)  It's still hard to put my hair up in a ponytail but I'm now able to put my bra on again (knock on wood.... there was a while where it would bring me to tears... or I had to do it up really weirdly and then adjust it... no kidding.) I have no real idea how I let it get so bad except to say I was very much distracted with things I haven't talked about here and I kept just hoping it would get better.

The Dr (he's a doctor of Chinese medicine and we call him "Dr Magic" because he is) says that he thinks a lot of what I'm dealing with now is the results of not having dealt with it oh, say, nine months ago.  And that the area needs circulation to come back and blood flow and to reduce inflammation and get the range of motion back and he says it's similar to a frozen shoulder in some ways.  But having had that for a time many years ago I can say it's not actually similar in any ways I can tell.  Perhaps just in the restricted motion.

Dr Magic says that if anything in your body isn't healing or healed within two weeks that's when it's time to see a doctor; that the body wants to heal and things shouldn't take more than about two weeks.

So... you know... not eight months.  Or seven.  Or even six.  Ok?

Ok.

And I keep on being reminded that nothing in the body "goes wrong" in isolation.  Because as we work on readjusting things to how they should be (ribs were out, pulled "out" by the contracted muscle which was pulled by the etc etc) something else gets irritated and suddenly my leg is sore because my shoulder is getting better.  You know?

The leg bone's connected to the... thigh bone, and all that.

But man oh man have I ever missed sleeping and lying on my right side.  I learned this last few months that it's my absolute go to for comfort and relaxing.  Come back to me right side, I miss you so!

Tuesday 14 August 2018

Sorry?

I keep thinking to myself "did I write about this already?" and then thinking I should check, or apologize for repeating myself but I think I'm just going to write anyway and so here's a blanket apology.

I'm sorry if I'm repeating myself.  I can't remember what I have or haven't babbled about or told you or whatnot.  So.... sorry if I'm repetitive.  Sorry if I'm talking about something that makes no sense because it's the first you've heard of it.  Just, you know, sorry!

Monday 13 August 2018

Weekend

We got a break in the weather this weekend, which was lovely.

Except then it kind of wasn't.

We got cooler temperatures and some rain, which was wonderful and such a nice break.  But they came with lightning... which started more wildfires.  So... not lovely.

Woke up to unexpected cool yesterday, which turned out to be that orange haze of smoke cloud.

It's weird to complain about the heat and lack of rain when in another flip of the year we'll be missing the heat and wishing for a break from the sun.

But yeah, change in temp this weekend was nice.

Just saying.

Wednesday 8 August 2018

No Thank You

You know how sometimes you want a break from being an adult and having to deal with things and then you wake up to a bath full of someone else's bath water?

Yeah, that!

Tuesday 7 August 2018

Waves Hello

Hope you had a good long weekend if that was something where you live.  Or a good regular weekend if not.

I'm coping and managing and not super thrilled with life or health but enjoying the longer, bright days and marvelling at how much of a difference a few degrees makes temperature wise.

Hope you're well.

Saturday 4 August 2018

Oh My Gosh!

Y'all?  I met a malamute yesterday!

I mean, I didn't know it was a malamute until I got home and googled, because I thought I'd met a wolf!  THIS THING WAS HUGE!

I've heard how big wolves are and I've met huskies, so when I saw this "dog" approaching I thought "wow, that's a big husky" and then as it got closer, I realized I've never seen a dog so big.  Sure, some of it was fur, but I'm more talking about the height and the size of its face.  IT WAS SO BIG!

It was super sweet and I kind of wanted to take it home and snuggle it forever and ever, and I wish I'd had more brains in my head to talk to the owner but really, all I could think of at the time was a combination of AWWWWW and THIS IS SO BIG I THINK IT'S A WOLF BUT IT'S ACTING LIKE A DOG WHAT IS THIS BEAST?

Man oh man that was a big dog.  (Or dog-like-wolf)  I think I'm in love!

Friday 3 August 2018

Turn Left Back There

I will occasionally use google maps on my phone to help me get places.  I'll even turn it on when I'm walking somewhere just to remind me where it's located or whatever.

So I learned the other day that if google maps thinks you're walking when you're driving... you're going to have a very odd time!

I can't remember where I was going, but it was somewhere I'd been many times, like say my parents' place or something.  I think I just kind of typed in the address as a bonus helper to make the trip maybe a little faster rather than going what might have been a longer route (my brain-routes are often out of the way because I know certain streets better than others and weird stuff like habits!)  So I'm heading down whatever street and the google maps thing is like... lost.

It'd announce a street well after I'd passed it and then correct itself with another street and then it even told me to turn left on a street that wasn't there and I was half laughing but mightily confused as google had never led me astray like this before.  Ever!  (I even used it ON TOP of my own GPS unit on my solo trip to Nevada.)

You can't, of course, touch your phone while you're driving, so I couldn't even silence the thing, I just had to keep driving with it being very confused and confusing.  Turn left on street .. turn right... turn ... go straight.  I was really confused why it was working so badly!

I pulled over after a few minutes of this and took a look at the app to see it hadn't switched out of "walking directions" to "driving directions" and so it had been valiantly trying to direct me to walk to my destination and I guess my driving speeds had given it way too much to think about!

So if you ever don't have to be anywhere and want to amuse yourself, try having google maps in walking mode as you're driving.  It probably won't be as funny since you know what's happening but still.  "TURN le... turn left..."  Poor google, tried so hard!

PS  I told my parents once I got to their place but they didn't think it was that funny either.. maybe you had to be there.  Or maybe you had to be me!

Thursday 2 August 2018

All Fingers Crossed

My computer has been on its last legs for a while now.  I think I made it worse a year or so ago by attempting to glue a little leg/foot/rubber thing back on, because a technician when I took it in for something told me that something had been glued to something else.... and there was nothing he could do.  So I often use an ice pack underneath my laptop.... because that's my normal!

Last week, however, I put down my glass of water a little too firmly and a splash or two jumped out and fell on my trackpad.  I wiped them off, no big deal.  But then everything started working... not at all well.

It took about 48 hours for things to "dry up" enough to function, and I was able to use my drawing pad thing (USB plug in device) to have a functional "track pad" but I've found that in the mornings (when it is cooler?) it's still not working and, well?  I simply can not afford a new or new-to-me computer right now.  So... I'm doing what I can to help my computer keep limping along.  It's not the ideal situation but it's the situation I have so there you go.

I do keep regular backups (although I could be more regular I suppose) but really I'd just like for things to not get any worse and then for money to fall out of the sky in copious amounts! 

But let's not jinx anything and pretend I didn't say anything at all about keeping anything alive with hopes and crossed fingers, ok?

Wednesday 1 August 2018

I Don't Even Play One On TV

I am not a doctor.  So when I talk about my health, I do not mean to say anything other than "this is what happened with me" or "this is what did/didn't work for me."  I mean, that goes for anything I write, really, other than perhaps some basics (BE NICE! DRINK WATER!)

I am hesitant to talk about my experiences with my mental health not only because it is such a sensitive subject but because I do not want anyone to think they should take anything I say as advice.  If you are struggling in some way, seek help.  That's all the advice I really have.  The rest is just me talking.  Sharing.  Venting.  Letting it out.

I don't want to dive too deeply into it but I will just say that yes, I have tried pharmaceutical medications and they did not work for me.  Alternative routes have (yoga, acupuncture, etc.) but they are not "mainstream" or particularly well accepted.  And, I'll be honest, they are not cheap.  Or covered by my extended health coverage. 

Healthcare in general can be pretty cookie cutter.  There are reasons for that.  If your leg is broken, there is fairly standard treatment for that... although even then I bet we could debate physical therapy and bone healing methods... and so on and so on.  Illnesses that are less "simple" are even more complicated and complex to treat.  What works for one may not work for another.  So it goes with mental/emotional health.  There are standards and protocols and the medical model has a fairly specific approach to mental health but even then... so many options/varieties/choices.  Even when it comes to counselling or therapy, there are different approaches and different reasons why which may or may not work better for person X, Y or Z.  And then each practitioner is slightly different in their personality, training, beliefs, and the list goes on.  It can be overwhelming.  (As with all illnesses.)

One of the reasons I haven't talked a lot with ANYONE about my health this last while is that I don't want their advice.  It is so well meant, but I find it overwhelming.  Well, that's almost a funny statement in itself... because really, with anxiety like this... everything is overwhelming.  (sigh)

But I'm babbling somewhat just to say, just because something did or didn't work for me doesn't mean you should or shouldn't try it.  This may be "Advice From A Single Girl" but I'm so not giving out health advice.  Nope, nuh uh, no Sirrie.