Day 177: on a sunday with some swerves

We made it to our Support Group today, despite Himself scaring the bejeezus out of me a couple of times en route. He drove a cab for 20 years, off and on, and let's just say it shows significantly now and again. Our group, as usual, was lovely. One of the members now brings an assortment of squishy stress balls, some more squishy than others, and I have taken to using them to decrease my stress, and increase my hand strength.

Then Himself and I got into discussing our schedule for tomorrow, and what needed to be done tomorrow, and I went into a full-blown panic attack, once again envisioning trying to stuff ten pounds of (scheduling) potatoes into a five pound sack. I settled down somewhat after eating dinner, and after further discussion, we agreed to tackle part of that to-do list today instead of waiting for tomorrow. Except for the cable company's office being closed today, we were successful.

The source of my panic was seeing my desire to visit the ocean being steadily chipped away by all of the errands that needed to be run. I know that I need a break, especially after today, not even 24 hours after decompressing from the previous week! My challenge is to prioritize my Self-Care and holding it as something just as important as any appointment or errand - if not MORE important in some cases. With the shifting of some of our errands to tonight, I am now back on track to visiting the ocean tomorrow.

So, I will be looking over everything once more, and plotting accordingly. Himself has appointments tomorrow and Tuesday, and then the days are free for the rest of the week. There is also a chance of rain in the forecast starting on Wednesday, so we have a very good reason for shifting from an outward focus (appointments and errands) to an inward one (tackling the kitchen and maybe some more decluttering). 

With any luck, Himself's VA attorney will be presenting his case before the Board of Veteran's Affairs tomorrow or Tuesday, so we can start that final ball rolling - and calculate just how far away the summit of the mountain is. Pray for us, if you would. 

Day 176: on a very simple saturday

Today I chose to take a much-needed Mental & Emotional Holiday. Aside from the laundry, the only thing I did of substance was finish coloring a mandala.

Still in "holiday" mode, so will save my words for tomorrow.

Day 175: on a friday that capped off a wild week

I'm glad I made it to today.

I had to remind myself that I didn't need to make any phone calls this morning. Instead, I was able to focus on Tea and Morning Pages, then Dear Abby and the funnies over breakfast. Then I took a shower and geared myself up to go with Himself to his vascular study appointment this afternoon. He was hoping for a little extra support, and as I was simply along for the ride, no problem.

The vascular study was, as I had suspected, an ultrasound. I didn't see any blood clots in Himself's veins, and neither did the technician. I'm a bit surprised that she shared that with us, as they usually don't want to say anything before the "actual" doctor reads the results. At any rate, this narrows Himself's mystery pain down to two things: either something about his skin (not likely, as there's no rash or other discoloration on where he says it hurts), or his nerves (way more likely). His next pain clinic appointment is in April, and he has a Neurology appointment in May. Between the two of them, something might get figured out.

Before we went to the VA Medical Center, we took a moment to celebrate the Queen Mother's birthday. She "opened" her bestie's present (it was all in a bag), and pulled out: two kitchen towels with owls on them, a small scented hand sanitizer, a box of M&M's, a box of Reese's Pieces, some LED light bulbs for the dining room (which will come in handy when the ones we have now start to go out), and a stuffed bunny doll. The Queen Mother and her bestie have exchanged birthday presents for years and years, just fun little things, and kitchen towels because they're relatively cheap. Mom was happy.

Thanks to a bit of Himself's magic, and some timely Travel Pay, we were able to fulfill the Queen Mother's birthday wish - fried chicken breast. We didn't get it to her in time for dinner, but she will be able to enjoy it over the weekend. ("Travel Pay" is what the VA pays himself as a mileage reimbursement, one way, between the various VA offices and our home.)

We went to the synagogue afterwards for Shabbat services, which we were going to do last week, but plans changed. We will be attending, and most likely helping out with, Passover services next month. We're blocking this out now in our calendars.

If I feel anything tomorrow like I do today, I don't know if I'm going to be any good for any sort of Doing. I can safely say I feel mentally fried, and am really not wanting to do anything except sleep, thanks to the arrival of my Moonflow. I just might go ahead and let my body take the lead, and worry about all the things later. I don't have any immediate fires to put out this weekend.

With that, I'm going to sign off for the evening. We'll see if I feel any better tomorrow. At least it's supposed to warm up and feel very nice. 

Day 174: on a simplified thursday

I finished the last of my "distateful" phone calls today, and took a few deep breaths afterward. Not the way I wanted to disentangle myself from the situation, but I'm hoping that we've bought a little more time to allow for the influx of cash to arrive. Now I can concentrate on the "everyday" bills and dole out money to the various parties.

Speaking of, Himself and I paid a visit to AAA, then to Cox Communications. Our intention was to switch things around to have him pay these bills until the above mentioned cash influx arrives. It turns out we were trying to overcomplicate some rather simple things: for AAA, it would be best for him to give me the money until the policy renews in June, then we can make the necessary switches. For Cox, since it's not an automatic payment, it really doesn't matter which of us makes the payment, as long as it's made. So, life was simplified.

We then journeyed down south to visit the abode of the Queen Mother's bestie, to pick up a couple of packages. It will be the Queen Mother's birthday tomorrow. She got a pair of birthday cards in the mail today, and some others might arrive over the next day or two.

I come to the end of the week in much better shape than I was at the beginning of the week. I have handled my challenging business, and am feeling okay about it. I have short list of things to do over the weekend, but no worries; Monday is going to be another day at the beach, perhaps this time with an actual picnic lunch!

Now I just have to find the Queen Mother's birthday card... :)

Day 173: on a forward-looking wednesday

Today I could lift my head out of the murky waters I'm swimming through, and consider the immediate and near future.

Tomorrow I will be finished with all of the "distateful" calls, and I can put them behind me. I wrote in my Morning Pages before making today's calls, and it helped to recenter me; moreover, I was able to give voice to some of the deeper emotions I was feeling just under the surface stress, so that was good.

After breakfast, Himself went to re-sign up for the MOVE clinic at the VA Medical Center. MOVE is an acronym for the VA's weight management program, though I forget what the exact acronym is at the moment. Nevertheless, he had just completed their initial eight week course in 2016 when he was diagnosed with his cancer, so whatever else they could have offered him was put on hold. After talking with one of the nurses affiliated with the program, we all agreed that a Refresher Course would be a good idea, and we could go from there.

In as much as I'm able to, I am going to do the course alongside him. I can stand to drop some weight myself, as the last few years have not been kind to my waistline, nor to my dietary habits. To be completely accountable, my goal is to drop 50 pounds by the time I reach my 50th birthday, which will be in 2021. I have some time to accomplish that. :)

After we were done at the VAMC, we went "across the street" from the UCSD campus to the Jewish Community Center. They have a decent gym and a lovely swimming pool, and their rates are way more reasonable than any of the mainstream gyms around. We are going to do their free one-week trial while we wait for our monthly "stipends," and then Himself will finagle a way to pay the dues.

On the way home, we figured that once Himself received one (or both) of his cash influxes, we need to refurbish the condo after paying the bills. We will probably bundle up the Queen Mother and the cats and stay at a Homewood Suites while the condo is being redone. The diswasher going kaput is only the latest minor calamity that's happened in the condo, and a total refurbishing would do us a lot of good.

Speaking of the dishwasher: We went to Lowe's to price some new dishwashers, and saw that hand washing would be the norm for us for a little while. (FYI: the best prices are available on both July 4th and Black Friday, per the agent in the Appliance department.)

Though I'm feeling tired - as it's just about That Time of the Month - I'm also feeling hopeful for the first time in a while. Starting to see a future in which I am functioning reasonably well again, with some goals to match, gives me just enough buoyancy to keep on swimming, at least for today.

Bonus points if you notice that today's metaphor is different from yesterday's. ;)

Day 172: on a (mostly) salvaged tuesday

I got the phone calls I needed to take care of out of the way this morning. One of them required me to get up at 7am to wrangle, but I did it, and went back to bed after feeding the cats. I'm amazed they let me sleep in till 10am; I guess Inkblot has learned his lesson, and is not so obsessed about making his morning rounds.

Thirty minutes before the alarm goes off, I'm willing to make an early start to it and enjoy Quiet Time. Three hours before our usual wake up time, not so much.

Once I was finished with the calls, I found myself unclenching and coming up for air. The worst is behind me. I still have some "distasteful" calls to make, but I'm spacing them out in order of priority, and they will get easier as I go. Thus do I ease out of "Survival Mode" and re-anchor myself in a more pleasant reality.

Himself's Cognitive Behavioral Therapy appointment was today. I like the doctor Himself was assigned to. Were it possible, I would be asking this doctor to be my therapist, but that's not his gig. He does set a nice standard for me to use in finding one, though.

We went directly home today, in order to avoid the afternoon/evening commute traffic, and were mostly successful. We stopped at Trader Joe's for a hot minute, then came home. Imagine my surprise when I spied a grasshopper staring at me from behind one of the glass panels of our back door! He was hiding from a marauding Huntress, and with some trial and error, I helped him make his getaway. The cats were disappointed. Oh well. ;)

I had a late lunch/early dinner, got the Queen Mother's dinner together, then brought order to a bit of chaos over by our computer desk. Most of it went into the recycling bags. I took a bit of satisfaction in my effort.

While the Queen Mother watched her usual hour of news, I did a bit of informal meditation. The first track that came up when I brought up Pandora happened to last half an hour, so I rested and did some deep breathing along with the music. It focussed my attention quite well, as I observed the usual mental chatter was staying muted in the background. I paid it no mind. (ha ha)

I wound up having some lentil soup and a salad for supper, then loaded up the dishwasher, turned the knob - and nothing. Himself checked the circuit breaker, came and turned the knob - and still nothing. Our dishwasher has given up the ghost. We've made initial plans to do some tag-team dish washing on Thursday, when Himself has a breather between appointments. Good thing I had meditated earlier!

The mountain is getting steeper and more challenging to climb. I'm hoping this means I'm getting closer to the top.

Day 171: on a monday for the compost pile

Well, all of that lovely effort at decompression that I put in over the weekend ultimately went for naught. Today was definitely one of Those Mondays...

We made it back to the DMV, Queen Mother in tow, and learned that the records for a driver don't go back twenty-odd years at the field office. We needed yet another copy of the form we'd filled out initially and send it to Sacramento, with a slightly larger fee, because this would need to be copied from a microfilm entry. I put down the year I needed, explained One More Time why I needed this information, enclosed the fee with the form, and sent it off to Sacramento.

The only good thing about that trip was that it took only an hour in total, and we were able to bring the Queen Mother home in plenty of time for Ellen, as in Ellen DeGeneres' variety/talk show, which is on mid-afternoon here. This is must-see TV for her.

So when I had filled out the form, Himself and I went to the credit union to see if I could stop some automatic payments I had arranged. If I had set them up through  the credit union, yes; BUT since I had set them up with the companies, I would have to call them and request stoppage of said payments. If they tried to force them through anyway, then I could dispute them, and that would be another matter. Okay fine. I needed to make some calls anyway, so I would just fold this into my mission.

By the time we were finished with errands, I was starting to get hangry. I got the Queen Mother's dinner together, then went to make the first of the Important Phone Calls, and a paper that I needed was Nowhere To Be Found. I can safely say that I finally, truly, lost my mind for a short time. I'm happy to report that it came home when I called it, smelling oddly like soy sauce and dragging a bit of toilet paper under one foot. 

I eventually found another piece of paper that had the information I needed, made the phone call, and got my business done (in what probably sounded like as "Don't Mess With Me or I'll Reach Through the Phone and Slap You" tone of voice). Then I chose to set Everything aside and concentrate on having some dinner. By the time I was finished, I was calmer, and my mind was settling back into my head. 

Needless to say, I'm hoping for some Resolution sooner rather than later to all of the dangling situations, so I can get my life onto a more positive and consistent track. In the meantime, I will focus on the rest of the business that needs to be done this week, while giving some serious side-eye to that unrepentant Mercury Retrograde!