While I'm scanning the pictures, I'll continue chatting with you a bit. Here's how my morning went today, which is pretty typical. I got up and made sure I got all my morning non-oral meds (Nasonex, QVAR, Restasis). Then I pulled out my baggies of today's meds and supplements, and got out my pre-breakfast mini pill-baggie and heated my coffee in the microwave. While that was heating I got out my big glass of water and set up my stimulator and got some homemade crackers out to help me take my pre-breakfast pills. By that time the coffee was ready, so I sat down at the computer and hooked up my stimulator to wherever was hurting the most, which is often my neck, shoulders and back, as it was this morning. Then I sat down at the computer for the 45 minutes that my stimulator is set for (by my physiatrist's Rx instructions to the manufacturer). After that I could finally have breakfast, so I heated up my homemade oatmeal packets (I think I'll share the recipe with you soon) and sat down at the computer again. Only after that did I start cleaning up and getting dressed. I still haven't cleaned the nose piece and water container of my CPAP though, so I need to do that soon. After I was presentable I went out to my little garden to see how my babies (i.e., plants) were doing, I moved the hose and also noted that the food container for the stray cats was empty so I filled it and their water dish too. I just took, my temperature and it 99.3F. Grrr...
I've been fighting this bug since December and every time I undergo some treatment for it it gets better, then within a month or so it gets worse again. I see the infectious disease doctor next week, and I understand she's going to have some more tests done to try to figure out what's going on. It seems everyone's agreed though that it's something viral.
My brother in NY (we'll call him "Dr. brother) would look at me and see that I can do thus-and-so, so I must be healthy. Thankfully, though, he's not my doctor and I WON'T give him access to my medical records (although he'll later say "But I didn't know that..." He can just keep on no knowing, because he's already got a track record with me and I don't trust him any more.
Yesterday I told you that I was the maid of honor for a friend, and here's a picture of her with her bridesmaids. I'm the one to the left of center. I've since learned more about what a bridesmaid should do and I feel badly because I probably wasn't the best bridesmaid. She's very gracious though, and has never said or done anything to make me feel that way.
This next picture is taken at the buffet party I told you about where people came from north and south just for the evening gathering. Here are two friends, one from Seattle and the other from Vancouver, BC. I don't remember what they were discussing about but it sure looks like they found something of mutual interest to talk about. They didn't know each other before theatevening though.
This picture just shows both of the completed Doodle Art picture I told you about. The poster on the left is the one my friend and I were working on in yesterday's picture. I'm not an artist by any means, but I at least have a sense of color and can color within the lines.
I'm holding a pillow my first roommate made for me my freshman year of college. That roommate was really smart; she never hardly had to study but always got A's and the real frustrating thing was that she didn't particularly want a career, not that homemaking couldn't be thought of a career, but I mean one that you have to study and go to college for in order to enter the field. I think I just dug myself deeper in that hole. I'm a bit of a feminist, but I don't have any problems with women wanting to be homemakers, as I think that's very important. I just don't like it when all women are sort of stuffed in a mold and expected to be the same. Last I knew she was happily married and had something like 5 children, and I'm sure her studies helped her as a parent. But I still found it frustrating that it came so easy to her. Don't get me wrong - I'm not stupid by any means, but I'm also not a genius and have always had to work for my grades. Certain subjects, like languages, did come easier to me though than others.
This picture is my Swedish friend from high school. She was just in the States one year, but this picture is taken when she and a friend of hers came to the States a few years later and they visited me while I was in Bible school in the Midwest.
Last, but not least, here are a few friends from church from when I was in high school, on a light hike/walk that I sort of organized. Some of us were more physically active than others, but this was a walk that we could all enjoy and have fun together on.
My favorite hike of all time is Indian Henry's Hunting Ground on Mt. Rainier. Here's a link to a description of it: http://www.attrition.ws/index~Hike_Review~Indian_Henry's_Hunting_Ground_Mt._Rainier_National_Park_Washington~page~hikeoverview~HikeInstanceID~42.cfm . One time a friend from Seattle and I met my friend in Olympia there and we hiked it.
Another great hiking memory I have is from when I was in Vienna, Austria. This is actually sort of amusing, although it wasn't exactly so at the time. I invited a gal I was working with over and we were going to go for a hike in the Wienerwald (Viennese Forest), which was just about 1/2 a mile from my apartment, and then when we came back to my place we'd have a nice big bowl of chili. The only problem was that I never really figured out the trail marking system there, which I think is similar to other systems elsewhere in Europe. So we ended out getting lost. We finally came to a road and there was a sign what had a telephone number on it that we knew to be of a suburb were some of our colleagues lived! We had walked clear to another suburb of Vienna! It was getting dark by that time too, so it's a good thing we at least made it out of the woods by then. I think we ended out taking a bus back to my place, but we were really tired and hungry by then. Not one of my more successful entertaining ventures, I must say.
This was one of my fears about mushroom picking alone in Russia when I lived there. I mean, can you imaging getting lost in the Taiga - the huge expanse of Siberian forest? When I got the urge to go alone I generally stuck within ear-shot of the road between sectors of the city (a 20-25 mile long stretch of pretty much nothing but forest, with a few exceptions here and there). Needless to say, that was a well-walked trail and was already picked-over, so I never got many mushrooms on those jaunts. But that's another story...
The day is marching on, so I'd better go for now. I'll leave you with this word of wisdom: whatever you do today, try not to get lost.
~ Meg
