Day 347: on being somewhat useful

I felt rather good today, so I agreed to help Himself with the recycling. Between what we had and what he had brought home with him from the Alano Club, we got ourselves nearly $31, and for recycling, that's pretty good!

After that, we washed the car down and vacuumed it out and cleaned it rather well. I helped out a bit there too, then started to feel a bit overextended. By the time we finished with a spot of grocery shopping, I was rather overextended. Just because the heaviest part of my Moonflow was behind me didn't mean I was free and clear. Once I put together dinner for the Queen Mother, I had a nice lie-down on the bed.

Himself wanted to go out to dinner, and I felt rested enough - and hungry enough, to join him. We went over to Red Robin, one of the places where they serve Impossible Burgers. I had a Mushroom-Swiss burger with an Impossible Burger substitution.

Full disclosure: I have been a vegetarian for ten years. I haven't had red meat since my college years - nearly thirty years if I'm counting right. The last hamburger I had made me horribly sick. When I first bit into this burger - Oh. My. Goddess. I was convinced that it was beef. My mouth was absolutely convinced I had been tricked. I asked the waiter, who assured me it was an Impossible Burger. I waited to get sick, but my stomach said Plant Material - okay to digest! I was beside myself. Indeed, it was Impossible! :-)

If you're into Organic Everything, though, this is not the burger substitute for you. There is some genetic modification involved to make this taste more beef-like, but it doesn't have any meat added to it At All and is 100% Plant Based. I did the research.

Himself dropped me off and went to his meeting, and I rested. I'm feeling much better. This is a good thing, because the next appointment the Queen Mother has is tomorrow, when we follow up with her doctor. Yes, she has her list. We will see what happens. I am planning to ask if bringing a geriatrician on board would be a good move, not that I don't trust her doctor, but it might be time for a fresh set of eyes to look at her.

Day 346: on one more day

I'm no longer feeling Super Tired, but I'm not back up to snuff just yet. So I had another quiet day. The one thing I managed to do was to put away the medications he picked up from the VA Pharmacy yesterday, and made sure his medication regimen for the week was up to date.

Speaking of - Himself did his laundry today, saving the recycling for tomorrow in case I feel like I can help him. He was also totally lovely in picking up the Queen Mother's prescription for Zofran, which helps her with her gallstone episodes. She has a doctor's appointment on Thursday and she says she's going to "write a chart" of all of her maladies. This will be interesting.

I had a Trader Joe's dinner tonight: Veggie Biryani with a salad (of baby greens, mushrooms, artichoke hearts, and one olive), with some Mango Sticky Rice rolls (and a syrup dip) for dessert. Very tasty all the way around.

I might actually be a little more useful tomorrow. I feel like I'm beginning the Ascent. We shall see...

Day 345: on deep resting

Another brief post, as I have spent most of the day resting. Immediately before and during the first half of my Moonflow, I all but can't do anything except rest. I did have to grab some towels to sop up another toilet overflow in the Queen Mother's bathroom, and plunge that sucker three times to make sure it would flush, but flush it finally did. Himself wants to do some laundry tomorrow, so I'm going to see if we can piggyback the washing of the icky towels with drying out his clothes. I believe there are one or two other things that I will be taking care of as well. More on that tomorrow.

And now, back to the bleeding. 

Day 344: on doing before the flow

I have felt the introversion building all day as I get ready to bleed in earnest, most likely starting tomorrow. Even so, I managed to drive Himself down to the Alano Club, then return home and get the necessary groceries and do the necessary laundry. Not only that, my Very Tired moments were just that today...Very Tired. I didn't find myself jumping down any rabbit holes of Depression. Yay for me.
tired.

Being Very Tired, though, I am going to be brief this evening, and leave it at that. 

Day 343: on making an effort

I didn't have to wake up when Himself did this morning, but I did, and received some rare Quiet Time to sip my tea and write most of my Morning Pages undisturbed. Himself had some business to attend to, and needed to make an early start of the day, which I used to my advantage.

Today was a day I treated myself by cooking for myself: egg sandwiches for breakfast, and an Asian-themed dinner of cream cheese wontons, veggie gyoza (dumplings), ramen noodles, and mango sticky rice rolls for dessert. I added a salad to my dinner for the greens. Granted, mostly it was a matter of heating and eating, but I enjoyed taking the time to prepare my meals today.

Before the feasting was some cleaning, of taking out the trash, two bags of recycling, and putting the right items in the right boxes. We are going to have some bottles and cans of our own to add to the recycling Himself brought home from the Alano Club, so we might get some nice change out of this at the start of the coming week. I capped off all of the tossing and sorting with a nice long shower, quite refreshing after a hot day.

After some discussion with Himself, I am keeping the car tomorrow, dropping him off at the Alano Club and coming back up to dry our laundry at the laundromat and do a bit of grocery shopping. We are going to see if we can attend our Sunday Support group first. It will be a kinda busy day, but not a crazy busy one. 

I made a list this morning of all the things I needed to do this weekend. Checking things off one at a time is very satisfying. :)

Day 342: on a "freya power day"

I call Friday the 13th's Freya Power Days: Friday is "Freya's Day," for the Norse Goddess. 13 is a traditional Power Feminine number as there are 13 moons in a year - and it was the tracking of the moons that led us to start charting time in the first place. (Google the Earth Mother of Laussel for more on this.)

I found this day to be rather prickly, energetically; I found myself easily thrown off by changes in plans. I called this a "Porcupine Day" as I felt ready to fluff out defensive quills in every direction. So I took it extra easy today, staying home and helping the Queen Mother with her shower, not making too many plans. I was called by my sponsor and welcomed the opportunity to converse with her; afterwards, that seemed to be the stabilizing event that I needed. It didn't hurt that I declared this a Comfort Food day and indulged in some mac-n-cheese tonight for dinner.

I'm feeling a lot calmer and at ease tonight, looking forward to staying home again tomorrow and taking care of the trash and recycling. Yay for Huswifery! ;)
(I'm only sightly sarcastic here...)

Day 341-ish: speaking of oopsies...

I didn't even realize I had not blogged yesterday until right before I went to bed! I thought briefly about turning my tablet back on and dashing off something quick, but I let it go and promised myself that I would pick up where I left off tomorrow, and here I am.

I might have been a bit perturbed for about thirty seconds, but I realized pretty quickly that it was actually a reflection on how good my Self-Care had been yesterday: keeping my exposure to ALL media at a minimum, as I am in a rebuilding and recentering process right now, and I really didn't have the bandwidth to witness any explorations of Collective Grieving and Angst at this time. Next year, I will share my story, because I do have one. If you live in the US, for sure you have one, and I saw one or two of them briefly today.

Though I was pretty well offline yesterday, I was not totally sequestered at home. I accompanied Himself to the VA Medical Center in La Jolla for his Neurology follow up appointment, which came at the perfect time, so we could discuss what was going on with his leg with the new resident. After some Q & A and evaluation, our current working hypothesis is that his leg issue doesn't have anything to do with his cholesterol medication at all, but is instead a pinched nerve that starts just below his abdomen and moves down into his thigh. That would explain 1) why he had cramping in just one leg and not the other one, as well as 2) the "Mystery Pain" he had earlier this year. He has a short-term solution (a new medication and an injection into his nerve to dampen down the signals) that will help him work on his long-term solution of Exercise to drop his weight and create some new blood vessels in his leg.

The Queen Mother has also been keeping me on my toes. Besides having another gallstone episode today, she has been complaining about the arrangements of the cushions and pillows on the couch. If you are familiar with the story of "The Princess and the Pea," you have an idea of what I'm talking about. The only difference is that the "pea" is her nerves that express constant discontent in sitting still on the sofa, and one group of nerves or another fires off - and she still strives to find the Perfect Arrangement of Soft Things that will shut them up, if only for a few hours at a time. At least she seems to be letting go of the cats being "imprisoned" indoors, at last!

I had one set of plans for today, and Himself had another set of plans. He fulfilled his, while I stayed home to watch after the Queen Mother (due to the gallstone episode I mentioned above). I move my plans to Saturday, and wait to see if I will actually get to them. Tomorrow looks to be a bit of a busy day, but I'm not 100% sure about that. It will depend on the Queen Mother's health.

I will be picking up where I left off, and look forward to completing the challenge of this Daily Blogging next month. :)