Cooking

It has been really cold here lately and I've been in a lot of pain.  I have been doing a lot of sleeping or just laying in bed and I'm really tired of it.  I have been trying (really hard) to focus on crocheting a fairly simple hot pad.  It has been three days and I still have to add the border.  I didn't print the instructions though and the website isn't loading right now.  I'll have to wait a while and try again later.

Travelling Rubbermaid Style

My husband and I flew to Anchorage so I could see a Rheumatologist there.  Hopefully, that doctor can figure something out that will help me.  They took blood and did some x-rays and now I just have to wait.  I did have some fun while we were there.  My husband and I went to some good restaurants and did a little shopping.  I definitely got some exercise from walking around.

Happy birthday to you the dog got sick on your shoe

It wasn't my birthday.  My youngest son turned 18 on the 19th of January.  So that means it is official now.  I am old.  I've been looking at lots and lots of pictures of him (I always do this when one of my boys has a birthday) and I feel like I've had an army of kids.  They change so much at each stage of their lives and I always think I really miss when they were a baby or when they were 2 or 4.  They were both very special at different ages and I feel sad when the stage is over and that child is gone. There was always a new wonderful older child in their place that I enjoyed getting to know.  They both have such wonderful personalities.  Now that they are both grown I miss all of those children they used to be.  It makes me sad but now I have these two young men that I love and I am proud to call my sons.

Made it through the fire

I had a horrible.... really terrible horrible no good (3) days.  It was a fibro flare up that had me begging for mercy.  It finally let up and even though I'm still achy the worst of that pain has lifted. I hardly slept for that time or slept poorly but I finally crashed and slept hard for a long, long time.  I woke up feeling so much better.  

I have been up cleaning in my kitchen and cooking the best snickerdoodles EVER!  I love snickerdoodles and anything cinnamon.  I used this recipe here.  I wasn't as happy with the first batch because my son yanked them out of the oven as soon as the timer went off and they really needed another minute or two.  They were just too doughy inside for me.  I just cooked another batch (since the kid is at school now) and this time I put a sheet of parchment on a tray and sprinkled it with a little of the cinnamon-sugar.  I put the cookies on that and then sprinkled them with some more sugar and then put them in the fridge to chill.  It coated the cookies so much easier than the first batch that were cold already.  I cooked these cookies 10 to 11 minutes (the tray on the bottom took a minute longer) but they are oh so very tasty!

Scratch & Sniff

Crisis averted

So a few days ago I turned on my computer and noticed it was running really slow.  It had been doing that for a while and I deleted a few things to see if it helped.  I restarted and after just a few minutes I got this blue screen of death.  The windows 8 version of the blue screen of death even has a frownie face like this ---> ; (  So did I.    My husband was leaving for work when it happened so he saw it but he had to go.  He works in IT so I was so sad to see him go.  Anyway, my computer restarted and after about a minute it crashed again and wouldn't turn back on.  This was early in the morning so I had all day to find things to do.

Happy New Year and Sore Back

Wow, so I think I'm going to live.  I caught a cold at Christmas time and I've been sleeping so much since then.  You would think I'd look as good as sleeping beauty.  I haven't been able to do as much as usual and that has been frustrating.  I spent a lot of time with yarn and crochet hook in my hands but not actually making anything.  I just stared into space and occasionally blew my nose.  At least that time that I was sick gave me time to think about things I need to change.

Good morning afternoon

So I woke up today at 3:40 pm. It was already pretty much dark outside.  I live in Alaska so it gets dark early here.  The lights were all off except the Christmas tree with just white lights and lots of sparkly clear ornaments in the shape of snowflakes and ice cycles.  I just turned on some soft music and enjoyed the atmosphere.

Happy 2015.  I'm determined to have a better year than last year.

My main goal this year is to lose weight and get healthier.  I need to work on muscle strength.

I know that everyone pretty much has that same goal but for me it is different. I have been gaining weight because of the chronic pain and not being able to do a lot of things that I used to.  When I exercise I get flares of pain and then later or the next day it is even worse because I get a fibromyalgia flare up.  I try very hard to limit myself so I don't cause a flare up but it is hard to know when is too much.  People like to tell me "no pain no gain" and I just want to sock them in the head because they have no idea what they are talking about.  Pain from muscle soreness is way way different than this.

Anyway, I got some resistance bands and I'm going to use those to help build up some muscle.  I am very weak so I easily pull muscles I didn't even know I had.  The worst is when I pull a muscle in my ribs or I get muscle spasms all over the place.  I am going to start very very small and just work my way up from there.

My secondary goal is to work on my house and organize and purge a lot of junk.  I already started some in December.  I had all these different tubs of Christmas ornaments in different color schemes. I donated all the red and gold ornaments except my old fashioned style ones.  My favorite color scheme is blue and silver/white.  I can't really do much with the tree anymore and my boys are too old now and just don't want to.  It just doesn't feel right to make them decorate the Christmas tree. It kind of kills the spirit.  So really, what is the point in going through all the work in they don't care.  I realized it is just for me now.  I like having a Christmas tree.  So I am slowly working my way through the decorations I have and donating a ton of it.

I've decided to do this yearly challenge again from a website called Home Storage Solutions 101. I've done it before but not entirely.  I just skipped around and did a few things.  A lot of the time I just can't do anything because of my health so I can only do what I can.  They do have a monthly calendar with missions and things so this year I plan on putting it on the frig so the rest of the family can help too.  Last time I was just doing a screen print and making the current month my desktop image.  I hate printing everything and having to deal with all the papers and where to keep them.  This year I'll welcome the help and I'm sure my husband will be all for it.  They even have a new facebook group for this years challenge.

So there ya go.  I am just like everyone else who most likely has the same two goals.  These are not resolutions though.  I will not feel like a failure if I don't lose 20 lbs or finish the organizational challenge.  I'll feel good just knowing I tried and did the best I could.