That’s All Folks!

Hey everyone! Welcome to my weekly wrap up where I write about what this past week was like.. 

And…….not much to write about today.. I didn’t do a whole lot. I didn’t go out much either. It’s my PMS week, yes I know, TMI but hey, this is my life and that is well, sadly, a huge part of it.. So my body isn’t feeling up to ‘par’ not that it ever is but it’s not feeling up to.. hmm……half the par it usually does? Do ya’ll know about the ‘spoon theory”? If not you can read about it here.

The gist of it is, people who have chronic illness, disability of some kind etc have limited amounts of energy so, we get a certain amount of spoons to use each day. This represents our energy. Each thing you do each day will cost you a certain amount of spoons. When you’re spoons run out, you should be finished with whatever you are doing and ready to rest. The reality is for most of us, we run out of spoons before we are halfway through with our day. Meaning, there are never enough spoons in the day just as people who aren’t sick say “there are never enough hours in the day”.

For me this week my motto is, “I’m always a day late and spoon short” see what I did there? It’s usually, ” I’m always a day late and dollar short” but since I don’t have any dollars either I just replaced it with spoons. Cleaver, yes I know.. Today, Friday, I discovered the art if you call it that, of listening to audio books. I want to try and finish the crochet blanket I’ve been working on for my husband for the last eight months before the cooler weather gets here but I can never seem to make myself sit still long enough anymore. I tried watching YouTube videos but can’t crochet and try and watch an interesting video at the same time so this morning I hunted for a free app on my phone and found one. It’s called LibriVox. I chose Jane Austins “Pride and Prejudice” not that I haven’t read and seen the movies a hundred times but I like it. I began listened and crocheting and ya know, I liked it! I found it very relaxing and it’s a good way to keep myself active while I can’t be active if you know what I mean. 

I did go out on Thursday to take my two old boys Jake and Matty to the vet for check ups and nail clippings. I did get the results of Matty’s blood work today. It was not what we expected but, that’s a post for another day. I have the feeling my body is going to be keeping me it’s prisoner this weekend so I will be a couch and bed potato listening to my new found enjoyment of audio books and working on my husbands blanket when I can.. Yes I know, just so exciting my life is.. 

How was your week? What are your weekend plans? 

 

That's All Folks!

Hey everyone! Welcome to my weekly wrap up where I write about what this past week was like.. 

And…….not much to write about today.. I didn’t do a whole lot. I didn’t go out much either. It’s my PMS week, yes I know, TMI but hey, this is my life and that is well, sadly, a huge part of it.. So my body isn’t feeling up to ‘par’ not that it ever is but it’s not feeling up to.. hmm……half the par it usually does? Do ya’ll know about the ‘spoon theory”? If not you can read about it here.

The gist of it is, people who have chronic illness, disability of some kind etc have limited amounts of energy so, we get a certain amount of spoons to use each day. This represents our energy. Each thing you do each day will cost you a certain amount of spoons. When you’re spoons run out, you should be finished with whatever you are doing and ready to rest. The reality is for most of us, we run out of spoons before we are halfway through with our day. Meaning, there are never enough spoons in the day just as people who aren’t sick say “there are never enough hours in the day”.

For me this week my motto is, “I’m always a day late and spoon short” see what I did there? It’s usually, ” I’m always a day late and dollar short” but since I don’t have any dollars either I just replaced it with spoons. Cleaver, yes I know.. Today, Friday, I discovered the art if you call it that, of listening to audio books. I want to try and finish the crochet blanket I’ve been working on for my husband for the last eight months before the cooler weather gets here but I can never seem to make myself sit still long enough anymore. I tried watching YouTube videos but can’t crochet and try and watch an interesting video at the same time so this morning I hunted for a free app on my phone and found one. It’s called LibriVox. I chose Jane Austins “Pride and Prejudice” not that I haven’t read and seen the movies a hundred times but I like it. I began listened and crocheting and ya know, I liked it! I found it very relaxing and it’s a good way to keep myself active while I can’t be active if you know what I mean. 

I did go out on Thursday to take my two old boys Jake and Matty to the vet for check ups and nail clippings. I did get the results of Matty’s blood work today. It was not what we expected but, that’s a post for another day. I have the feeling my body is going to be keeping me it’s prisoner this weekend so I will be a couch and bed potato listening to my new found enjoyment of audio books and working on my husbands blanket when I can.. Yes I know, just so exciting my life is.. 

How was your week? What are your weekend plans? 

 

Day In The Life – Tuesday

Happy Fat Tuesday!  Have any idea why this Tuesday out of the year has so many names including Fat Tuesday? It goes way back many many years. It’s the day before Ash Wednesday and Fat Tuesday is because Catholics, and other denominations of Christianity are supposed to get all their gluttonous (yes gluttony is a sin) eating because Ash Wednesday is a day of fasting and repentance. There’s a little history for you that either you wish you didn’t know about or you’re fascinated. It’s up to you.

My Fat Tuesday had a couple of wrenches thrown in it, none that were too bad but I would have rather not had to do them but alas since I did I will share. My plan, ah yes, there’s that plan again.. My plan was to stay home, get some paperwork done, begin our taxes and, remove and clean all the bedding and clean up any clutter that was laying around because the woman who comes to clean every two weeks will be here tomorrow. Yes I clean before my house cleaner comes.. Well, I don’t actually clean, clean, rather I pick up anything laying around so she doesn’t have too and can focus on cleaning. At 7 AM I heard the hubs was awake so asked him to make me some eggs which he gladly said he would then the next thing I heard was, 

Hubs: honey?

Me: Yes?

Hubs: Um, did you buy any egg beaters when you went food shopping? (egg beaters are all I can swallow in the morning)

Me: Um, no, you went food shopping

Hubs: I don’t think they were on the list. You don’t have any.

This was before my feet were even out of bed. So the hubs made me some very and I mean very soft scrambled eggs out of regular eggs and poured the rue I make over them. While he was cooking them I was asking God not to let me choke on them. (yes thats part of my health issue’s). Well, hubs made them really good but despite the love he put into them, because they had egg yolk in them they were too sticky even with the sauce I make and I had a hard time getting them down. I was only able to eat a little bit of them so breakfast for me was a bust. I did however have a chocolate cookie around 9:30 AM with my coffee.

Last night I asked the hubs if he would go to the store so I didn’t have to. He agree’d to so but as the morning wore on I realized I would have to go out anyway because not only did I need to get myself some egg beaters, I had to drop my down comforter off at the cleaners and then I wanted to run to the dollar store to get a glass bowl. I don’t have one and I need one to melt off the gel nail polish I had put on last week because it’s lifting already! It’s not supposed to be from what I’m told and if this is all it’s going to last on me it’s not worth the money for me to be paying to have them done. I will melt it off and do my nails at home again. Wow , that was a bit long winded huh?

While at the Dollar Tree I noticed they had these pretty glass jars and I wanted to get rid of the yucky looking plastic ones I had on my counter so I bought three of them, labeled them and put them on my counters. I think they look much better than the plastic ones. 

I bought one for Bailey’s cookies too.

I did manage to get the bedding all washed, sheets changed and I put an older comforter on my bed until my down one is finished at the cleaners. Don’t mind the clutter on my end table. It’s my everyday stuff and it stays there. 

It’s very cold outside for here in South Carolina and with the wind it feels even colder. The weather is supposed to be like this all week so I decided to pick up my crochet again despite the pain and swelling in my hands and wrists (yes I think have carpel tunnel syndrome) , put on my wrist brace and finish the blanket I put down months ago. This is how I’ll be spending the rest of my night.

I hope you had a good Fat Tuesday! 

 

Something Yet Nothing….

Today was the same kind of day that I seem to be having for about the last two weeks. Lots of things I could accomplish yet I accomplish nothing. Although, I did manage to do a few things today one of which sadly, turned out to be a waste of food and energy but I had to try.

As most of you know and for those who don’t, I lost my ability to swallow solid foods fourteen years ago. (cause unknown despite many tests). Because of this I survive on very little nourishment (thanks to God) and a lot of soups but I still have issues with spices, gluten etc. So, cooking for me is not an easy task and when I find something that tastes good, I can swallow and sits well on my stomach I stick with it. The problem with this is it’s very repetitious and after eating it so many times you literally can get to the point that even the thought of one more spoonful is enough to make you projectile vomit.

Today I tried a new recipe for a gluten free cauliflower and quinoa soup. The good part, it was easy to make, quick to cook and would have, yes I said would have, tasted awesome! except for one thing. The recipe called for Thyme. I’m not a big fan of thyme but I made it according to the recipe although I only put in a quarter of the thyme it called for. Unfortunately that was enough.. it ruined the whole pot of soup. All you could taste was thyme and it left and after taste of thyme. I ended up pitching the whole pot down the toilet. Food, time and energy wasted although maybe it wasn’t all a waste because now I know for next time, to skip the ‘thyme’…

And then there is …..Toby who I am slowly beginning to call Dennis as in “Dennis the Menace”

He’s only a baby and needs the attention of a 9 week old pup and of course we are potty training. Lou had to run out to the store today to get his medications and so that left me with the little ankle biter for a while. Im beginning to think he waits for Lou to leave before he starts his menacing. I”ll skip the details but lets just say it included some carpet cleaning.

Then….

Jake here decided to bleed and I had blood all over the tile floor. At first I didn’t know where it was coming from but quickly (thank you God) found the source. Jake has a little wart type thing on one of his back feet and he must have chewed it and it bled. For something so small it sure bleeds a lot. I stopped the bleeding and cleaned up the floor.

One of the highlights of my day was a nice long(until I saw the blood) phone conversation with a good friend(thanks Trish). That was a nice break from all the thoughts floating in my head as of late. Another was, I didn’t have to cook dinner. Last night I made a huge ham and invited Billy and Linda (our best friends) over for dinner and there is plenty! for left overs.

Once I got all the dogs fed, the dishes loaded in the dishwasher, counters and stove top cleaned up I made myself a nice cup of coffee , sat down, turned on a cheesy Halloween horror film from my childhood and worked on my crochet some.

And that there folks was my day… Tomorrow I did want to get out and run some errands but because of the soup that flopped today I’ll have to stay home tomorrow morning and cook again. I”ll be trying another soup. This one is a gluten free white bean and ham soup. I’ll let you know how it turns out!

Robyn

XO

Life Interrupted.

Wow! It’s been a REALLY long time since I’ve put up a blog post.. Which, leads me to the subject I wanted to write about in this post..

I guess it was about a year ago I felt the need to make my life easier, much simpler. More peaceful.. I thought, it would be an easy task.. I mean c’mon.. How hard could that be right? It’s not like I’m trying to move a mountain or anything or… is it? I began the usual way most people do which is purging items we own.. in a word.. stuff!.. Just a side note, I am still doing that believe it or not and I’ve gotten rid of a lot of stuff already.. I digress..

In the last months or so I realized that I don’t do the things I used to like to do such as , reading, needle work, watching old movies, playing a game of cards with my husband, “put posts up on my blog”. Things like this.. Simple things.. I asked myself why that was.. Did I suddenly dislike these things? No.. Did I now find them boring? No..So just what was it that was preventing me from doing the things I’ve so enjoyed in the past. After some long thought , no I’m not a fast thinker most times, I came to the conclusion.

I need to “unplug”.. For those who don’t know what I mean by “unplug”. it means I need to step back and far away from all things social media. Facebook which is supposed to be “social” but really when you think about it is “anti-social”. I will explain more why I say that if you’d like. I need to back away from Twitter, and a newly acquired online addiction, YouTube. Now don’t misunderstand me, I am in no way “anti-social media” but for myself and I am sure for a lot of other people, social media has taken over my life..Where I used to take time to de-stress by knitting, reading, watching a movie, praying, etc. I have now taken all the time I spent on those things which helped me in more ways than one and replaced it all by staring at screens of some sort or another most of the night..

Because of this pattern I’ve gotten myself into, I can also say I’ve lost my inner peace. My mind is constantly running amok from one thought to another. I can’t seem to concentrate on anything for more than 5 minutes at a time. Im always checking “statuses” “Tweets” “Selfies” Videos”. And… it’s got to stop.  I have in the past been trying to pry myself away but it almost seems like an addiction. It works for maybe an hour at which time I am usually watching one of my favorite TV series on my DVR but once the show is over, I go right back to my laptop or phone.

So my questions to you are, Do you have this problem? How are you breaking the chain?