It's Christmas morning...

and I don't know why I feel sad and empty.  It's almost 2 am and I'm still awake. 

I think part of my problems is....  feeling so useless. 

My husband's family always opened presents on Christmas eve for some reason so we did that too.  When the kid's were little they opened the presents from us and then in the morning they got the presents from Santa.  Anyway, our little family opened presents on tonight (Monday night) and it just made me miss my little boys.  I miss my babies and kissing their fuzzy little heads.  I miss my toddlers and how they were so sweet in completely different ways.  I really miss those 4 year olds... that was my favorite age for them both.  Most of all, I miss being needed.  I miss being missed. 

My baby will be turning 22 on Jan 19th and I often feel like our roles have reversed.  He picks up the house, cooks, and tells me to put away my books....  and I whine and say I'm too tired.  I am always so tired and so achy it hurts to move.  I am always forgetting everything.  Maybe it's the fibro-fog, maybe it's all the medications they have me on, or maybe I'm just getting old but I am always forgetting.  Oh well, at least I'm still alive and I've got my family to remind me when I forget. 

I am really hoping that the Keto diet will eventually help lower my inflammation levels and I'll start to feel better.  I've been having a lot of pain lately.  I have been trying to do at least 15 minutes on my treadmill every day but sometimes I just can't stand up for more than a minute or so.  I always try though.  Some days the walking helps but some days I just can't do it.  So far it seems I can't do more than 15 minutes but if I rest a while I can sometimes do another 15 minutes.  I just have to break it up.  I have to be careful not to try to do too much or go too fast or I won't be able to get out of bed the next day.  That treadmill is definitely the best present I could have gotten for my birthday though.  I'm glad I asked for it. 

It is almost the end of December now and I have have lost 15 pounds since Nov 1st.  I am going to keep working at it through the next year and see how far I can get.  I'm right at the edge of being able to go down a size.  My 2x clothes are big but I'm waiting before buying anything.  I still have a few XL tops that I want to get into before doing that.  I also have some size 16 jeans.  The leggings I have should fit okay for a while too.  I really just want to wait for spring and summer to buy new clothes because I hate the dark, gloomy colors they have out right now.  I don't want to wear black and gray.  I want to wear colors and flowers! 

Okay, I really need to try to get some sleep so I don't sleep all day tomorrow. 

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas Day!

DJ

A happy November

In October my sister told me about the Keto diet.  She and her husband had been doing it and they had both lost a lot of weight.  I was feeling really bad right then so I told her I'd look into it but I was very skeptical.  Then I heard my brother was doing it to and had lost 70 lbs!  My sister said it was supposed to help reduce inflammation and thought it might be able to help me.  I'm always so skeptical about these things.  People are mostly out to make money and profit off of people who are suffering.  After I talked to my sister I kept hearing more about it and did some googling.  I finally found a site that outlined what you can and can't eat.  While you can't eat bread, sugar, fruits etc you can have fatty stuff like meat and bacon.  I like veggies so that's not a problem.  Once I realized I could eat food I liked I decided to give it a try.  I started on November 1st.  Now it is the last day of November and I have lost 12 lbs!  I've lost 1.2 % body fat and my lean muscle mass has increased by 16.3%.  I've lost 4.5 inches off my waist. I even lost 1.25 inches from my neck!  I still have a long way to go so I really hope I have the will power.  Thanksgiving and my birthday sure were hard.  

For Thanksgiving I had planned out some yummy stuff for me to eat but it was still hard seeing the pies and corn on the cob etc.  I love corn!  Then my husband went to a poker party and we ended up with one of those assortments of cheese cake in our fridge.  OMG!  I was so so close to just wolfing one of those down.  I even had it in my hand but then I looked at the label and knew how bad it would set me back.  I put it away and put something in front of it to block it.  I've been bribing my kids to eat it.

Earlier in the month, I decided I wanted a new hair do to go with my new me.  My gray was starting to show at the roots and my cut had grown out.  My bangs were past my ear.  I saw a music video and liked the highlights the woman had.  I looked through lots of pictures before I finally decided on what I wanted.  It wasn't really like any of the pictures so I ended up explaining it to my stylist, who is amazing, and she did a perfect job.  I'm allergic to PPD (p-phenylenediamine) so I have to be careful with hair color.  I had her just clean up my ends a little and kept my hair long with no bangs.  It feels really good to have a new hairstyle.  The color looks darker in this picture but there is gold and a warmer brown blended in with my normal color.  The gold doesn't show up in that picture for some reason.  

My birthday was Tuesday the 27th.  My husband bought ordered me a treadmill so I could walk during the winter when it's too cold and slick.  It arrived on the 28th so I've only had it a few days.  It's a nice one that folds up easily and lowers itself when you push this bar with your foot.  That's great because I hate having to rely on other people to do things for me.  Right now it is in my kitchen so we still have to find a better spot for it.  I think I'm going to move it over by out front window so I can look out the window while I walk.  

Anyway, I've had a good month.  I've still had some flare ups when it snows or the atmospheric pressure drops but for the most part I'm feeling better.  I didn't have a single IBS flare up this month which is crazy since they told me it was caused by eating fat.  I was avoiding fats and oils for a long time but still getting really sick about once a week.  I didn't even think about that when I started the Keto diet where you decrease your carbs and increase the FAT!  Sometimes my colon would start spasming on the right side and it was like watching a baby move in a pregnant woman's belly.  That also didn't happen this month.  One person thinks it could be that I'm not eating wheat anymore but I can't really be sure.  Whatever it is, I'm glad I'm doing better.  

DJ

Feeling a little better

I have been dealing with some depression lately.  I felt like I'd fallen into a dark hole.  I know many people don't really understand depression and usually assume the person who is depressed feels sad.  It isn't always like that.  For me at least, it is more like a "suppression" of emotions.  I feel switched off.  I didn't feel sad, I felt nothing.  I didn't feel like doing any of the things I usually enjoy.  I deal with a lot of chronic pain and I use crafting and reading to get through the difficult times but for a while now I haven't felt like reading.  That is very unusual for me.  I usually read at least 4 books a month and never go anywhere without a book in my purse.  In both August and September I only read one book and it was a challenge to get through that one book in the month.  This month it is already the 12th and I've only read one chapter of a book.  I have been enjoying my newest hobby, cross stitching, but when I finished my last project I didn't feel like starting anything new.  The only thing I felt like doing was watching TV and that is unusual for me.  I've never been a big TV watcher since I prefer reading. 

Well, I have been trying desperately to find a way to get out of this funk.  I thought about making a doctor appointment but I wanted to try a few things first.  I started taking Vitamin D3 and that may have helped a little bit.  Another thing I like to do when I feel this way is make something to donate.  If I can crochet or knit something that can help someone else, that gives me something to focus on and also helps me to feel better.  Helping others always helps me to feel better.  I have a blanket I was working on in the spring to donate to a retirement home and I could pick that back up but I wasn't feeling it.  Then I saw some videos on youtube by Caroline of  Off the Grid Needlearts.  She decided to teach a friend to knit and put together some instructional videos.  One of the patterns she used was for a hat.  I knit the hat and found that I really enjoyed it.  I decided to make a bunch of these warm hats to donate to the ER for those people who come in without proper winter gear.  Here in Alaska we get very cold weather in the winter and there are a lot of homeless people who get frostbite.  Often they don't even have socks, let alone warm winter gear.  I am making them these hats with worsted weight Lion Brand Wool-Ease yarn because it is a Wool/Acrylic blend.  That yarn is warmer but doesn't require any special care.  I have two hats completed and have started another one.  I feel like this is doing me a lot of good and hope that I will eventually start feeling like my normal self again. 

My oldest son Jared modeling my 1st hat

My younger son Riley modeling my 2nd hat

My younger son Riley has a larger head and the first hat didn't fit him.  I was able to adjust the pattern to make a larger hat that did fit.  I'll make some of both sizes to donate.  There is also a mitten pattern and I think I'll try those next. 

Happy Anniversary to Us

Tomorrow, Sept 1st, is my 27th anniversary.  My husband and I are going to Denali, Alaska.  I love driving there because the scenery is so beautiful and sometimes we see wild animals along the way.  I love this time of year with all the fall colors starting to show.  It has been colder this year so there are more yellow leaves than usual at this time of year. 

We are going to stay the night there and check out all the little shops and wander around.  One year we took the train there and that was nice but it was also really long and noisy.  I have a lot more fun when we make it a road trip and we can rock out to our own tunes and stop whenever we want to.  That way we don't have to sit at tables with tourists who are freezing in their full length coats and all freaked out that we aren't... or calling a moose an Elk and arguing when you try to set them straight.  My husband has this huge list of music on his phone and we sing along and have a great time.  I love it when we stop to get out and move around and I can check out the flowers and see if I find any cool rocks.  I hope we see a moose this time or maybe some Dall sheep on the mountain sides. 

I really hope I will feel okay and not be too tired.  I have been having a lot of pain in my left arm from the Ulner nerve entrapment and also having a lot of joint pain.  I've been having a hard time sleeping at night and then end up sleeping all day so I'm trying to get to sleep soon.

Kickin' back today

I'm feeling odd today.  It might be caused by the new med I'm having to take but not really sure.  I told my doctor I didn't want to take gabapentin anymore since it made me feel drugged all the time even when I took the lowest dose only at night.  He decided to switch me to Lyrica but my lovely insurance company decided to screw that up.  They have 3 other drugs they insist people try before Lyrica and I've only tried 2 of them.  So I have to try Flexeril for 90 days.  It has only been about 3 days and I already don't like it for the same reason I didn't like the Gabapentin.  It turns me into a zombie.  Today, I am having trouble with my tremor acting up and I don't know why.  I don't consume anything with caffeine so I don't know what is causing it to be worse today.  I wanted to work on my cross stitch but my hands are shaking too much and I also can't write very well.

It is a beautiful day today but I'm just chillin' in my bed watching youtube videos.  I'm trying to catch up on some flosstube videos for a few people I have started to watch.  I always have to start at the beginning so I'm watching videos from 2015.  I really want to paint my toe nails but they are too far away and I just don't have the energy.  Maybe later...

I did venture out to the mailbox successfully and got two books in the mail from paperbackswap.com. I requested a book from this person and since their whole family loves to read and their house is full of books they let everyone pick a second book for free.  I got Fablehaven by Brandon Mull (book #1) and Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith.  I've read Fablehaven before and I loved it but it was a borrowed book and I want to read it again.  I did read another book or two in the series but I really can't remember now which ones I've read.  I'll just start over.  For The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency I have only read the first book.  I already had the 2nd book and I think the one I got is the third in the series.  The title of that book is interesting.  I guess there is no Morality for plain or ugly girls.

I am usually reading all the time but I haven't read anything for a week now.  I did start a book yesterday but thanks to my new drug I fell asleep and forgot what I read.  I'll just start over.  This book is a light read so I'm hoping I'll be able to keep tracking.  Usually I finished them the same day I start them or soon after.  My drug brain may take longer.

Feeling wonky

I don't know what is going on with me but I have been so tired lately.  I have slept for the majority of the last two days and slept at night also.  I haven't been feeling like doing anything.  I am not stitching anything or reading even!  It is very rare that I don't have a book going.  I has been very hot lately and we are not used to this kind of heat here in Alaska.  We don't have AC because we usually don't need it.  I only have one ceiling fan in the living room.  We usually just open the windows when it is hot and maybe pull out a fan or two.  Now we are having temps in the 90's and with no air moving outside so opening the windows doesn't help.  At least we don't have high humidity.  I am not sure if it is the heat making me not feel like eating or if I am getting sick or something because I have lost 4 lbs in the last few days (since it has been hot.)  I have been drinking a lot of water so I am very hydrated.  I really hope I start feeling more myself soon or I'm going to see my doctor and see what they think.

My newest addiction

I am now hooked on cross stitch and also really interested in learning other types of embroidery.  For now I am just doing cross stitch but I did buy a kit that has some blackwork in it.  I really love the way that looks, especially in color.  I initially started in the last few months of 2015 when I made a few small Christmas kits.  I kept at it through November and then I quit for 2.5 years.  I started again this year in May and I seem to have been bitten by the bug.  I can't think of anything else now. 

Here is my first finished cross stitch that I completed this year.  It is now framed and hanging on my wall. 

I started a new blog for just my cross stitching so I won't keep posting about that here... unless I want to show off something I finished.  I love that frame I used for that cross stitch and I found it at a thrift store.  The mat came in the kit.  The mat looks darker there than it actually is.  It is a teal color.  I didn't want to use that mat since it has a crease in it on the right side but it looked good and my husband said I should use it.  For once, I listened to him.  

Buddy tried to help me a lot when I was working on that.  I worked at the kitchen table and he would jump up and snag something off the table and run off to play with it.  A few times he stole my pattern and took off and a few times he grabbed the actual piece.  When he took the cross stitch he would run somewhere away from me and stand there look at it like he wanted to know what was so interesting to me that I couldn't pay attention to him.  I had to wash it to get the dog slobber off.  

I will put a link to my blog somewhere on the sidebar of this blog.  I have to get up and move around now.  My left arm is causing me trouble.  

Sad

I've been up all night.  I just can't get to sleep.  I have been knitting and listening to music and seem to only find sad songs.... 

I think I need to make an appointment with someone.  I feel depression creeping back in.

Why do I feel so down right now?  At first when I tried to figure it out I couldn't think of a reason but then I remembered...

A friend of mine just lost her spouse to cancer.  I'm really sad for her.  I've been thinking of how I would feel if I lost my husband.  I would be completely lost. 

I've also been having dreams about having a baby and every time something goes wrong and I wake up distressed.  My boys are grown and don't care much about me anymore.  I miss spending time with them.  I miss talking with them and getting more than one word answers.  I miss my babies.  I miss my toddlers.  I miss my little boys and I miss my teenagers.  I miss being needed.  I miss having a purpose.

Also, mother's day is really doing me in.  Every website had a mother's day promotion.  Every email has a mother's day theme.... but not everyone has a mother still on earth.

Good day, bad day(s)

Tuesday I had a doctor appointment in the afternoon and afterwards my husband and I went to eat.  I had a surf and turf and it was so good.  It was nice to spend some time with my husband.  After that, we went to Walmart to look for bulbs.  I was hoping to find tulip bulbs but they didn´t have any yet.  They did have some other bulbs though.  I bought some gladiolus and lilies and a few other ones I don´t remember the name of.  I need to look up online to learn about planting those.  Hopefully the stores will be getting some tulips soon.  One of my sons works at Fred Meyer so he will watch for them there.  The snow is melting fast so I hope they arrive soon.

After Walmart we went to Joanns to get some charm chain with leaves I needed to make a necklace to match a bracelet I made.  I wore it that day and wished I had a necklace to go with it.  I´m glad I had it on so I could make sure to find the same leaf charm chain.  I was glad they still had some and I also found some elephants and seahorses.

Now I really want to make something but I´ve been in bed all day.  I am in a lot of pain today and have been exhausted.  I woke up around 10 am but couldn´t stay awake.   I feel back asleep and was still sleeping when my husband came home around 7 pm.  I did some Restorative Yoga at home to see if that helped.  Now I just need to rest and hope I feel better tomorrow.  

Computers, I just want to kill them when they die

Of course, it hard to kill something that is dead.

My laptop died and I knew something was wrong with it.  I had even mentioned it to my husband (my IT guy).  He said I should back up my files.  Of course, I hadn't done that yet when it died.  My younger son gave me another laptop to use until that gets fixed but it is so different than mine that it was making me crazy.  It also kept updating forever!  It was either windows 8 or 7 so it updated to windows 10 and then there were a few more updates.  I couldn't get a few other things to work and ended up downloading drivers.  I still can't get my wireless earbuds to work with it though.  Grrr.

I impatiently waited for someone to look at my laptop.  Everyone here is good with computers.  My husband works in IT and my oldest son is working on his computer science degree to do the same thing.  My younger son learns by doing and googling.  When I have a problem my youngest son usually fixes it.  If he can't than I ask my older son but he is taking classes and working full time.  If he can't fix it than I ask my husband who never wants to work on computers after working all day.  So I ended up waiting till Saturday.  I let my husband sleep in.  I made him breakfast.  I waited when he took a nap.  Finally, my oldest son came out and I asked him if he'd look at my computer.  He opened it up.......... and it just worked.

On Saturday morning, before I asked him to look at it, I opened it up just to see if it was doing the same thing still and it was.  I got a black screen with the message that it was running a repair thing and that I should not turn off my computer.  Before, it would do that forever and then it would just go totally black.  I've left it on for hours with no result.  Right after it died my younger son downloaded some program online and ran a diagnostic on it and it downloaded some files (maybe drivers) and did something but he said it didn't seem to be fixed.  That last time on Saturday morning when I saw the message I just closed the laptop but it would have stayed on.  It would stay on for a little while before eventually going to sleep.  When my oldest son opened it and asked me what my password was I was surprised because it never showed that.  I just logged in and it worked.

Now my files are backed up and I am so glad!  I'm still a little nervous about using that laptop though.  I'm currently using the one my son loaned me.  I got used to it and the Edge browser so now I think I want to keep this one in my room so I can use it in bed.  Some days I feel too bad to get up so I stay in bed and rest.  I can keep my other one in the living room and have them both plugged in so they won't die.  Before, if I had my computer in my room I had to get the power cord and the only outlet that can reach is behind my headboard.  Now I can keep this one plugged in and my other laptop can stay in the living room.  This one wasn't being used.  My son had planned to return it but he never did.  So I ended up with two laptops.

Back with Babbles

I know this will be a huge surprise but I have decided to get back to writing here.  I thought I would keep an actual paper journal this year but it doesn't seem to be happening.  I do have a cute blank book that I bought at Joann's that is cut in the shape of a letter D.  I decided to use that as a journal and use colored fine tipped sharpies to add quick journals and doodles.  I planned to add something daily but as it turns out I have too many days where I feel bad and don't get out of bed.  I never like to write about feeling bad because that's too depressing.  When I feel bad I want to think about positive things to keep my spirit up.  Sometimes that is very hard so I just listen to music in bed and rest and I don't journal.  I have been working at keeping my mind blank and stopping the constant chatter in my head.  I just listen to music and try to relax.  Sometimes I read a quote and try to focus on that.  That is why I sometimes only write a quote in my journal with no notes about it.  It is really hard to write about anything when I'm in a lot of pain.  It is even hard to talk when in pain.  Many people don't understand how difficult it is to just form sentences when in a lot of pain.  You have to think about what you are going to say too and thinking is totally out when pain is to the roof.  That is why I don't want to talk or text or anything when I feel bad.  I just want to zone out.  

Anyway, I have found that it is easier to let my thoughts flow freely here.  I am going to work at writing here more often.  Sometimes I do fall to the negative and type out of bunch of stuff and then just delete it.  It does help to get that out of my system but then deleting it is freeing.

I was just thinking that I am so glad that I can fall hopelessly in love with anything I want to and it doesn't matter what anyone thinks about it.  It is like how you can fall hopelessly in love with someone famous, like Brad Pitt, and it doesn't matter.  It isn't like he is going to care or even take notice.  He has no choice in the matter actually.  Not that I like Brad Pitt but his name was the first to come to mind.  I'm actually hopelessly in love with my husband and it is really amazing how I can keep falling more and more in love with him.  He is constantly surprising me and becoming more and more loving and sweet with age.  I am so blessed.  

So, currently, I am hopelessly in love with beading.  I can't think about anything else.  I love to play around with them and often spend hours tinkering with beads, putting different ones together to see how they would look and then trying a different combination.  Sometimes I never end up making anything with them but I enjoyed the play.  I have been posting pictures of things I have made on Instagram.  

I have a stack of beading books and I am just getting started learning what I can do.  I decided to start with a book called Beading Basics by Carol Rodgers.  This is definitely a book for totally new beginners.  It has instructions for the most basic aspects of beading so someone who has already been beading would find it useless.  I also found that the page teaching peyote is not even correct or complete so I learned that online.  I did learn a lot from it about the various beads and findings, bead looming and various bead weaving stitches but I usually end up looking up the various things mentioned to learn more about them than was in the book.  I have been learning a lot from Beadaholique.com.  They have a lot of great videos showing how to use the products they sell and project tutorials and beading tips etc.  Their videos are on youtube so you can look up their channel and subscribe to be alerted when more are added.  I am working my way through the projects in the book Beading Basics now.  I have to say, this is the book I started with because I had it already on my shelf but I am sure it is not the best beginning beading book out there.  I have been frustrated several times because of information I didn't find, like the size of beads in some places and mistakes in others.  I really think, before someone writes a book like this, they should sit down with a group of people wanting to learn beading, teach them, and take note of their questions for the book.  One thing I wondered that I had a difficult time finding the answer to was how beads were measured.  I know beads are measured using a caliper which you close down over the bead and it measures the bead or the hole etc.  What I wanted to know was, in a pattern that says to use a certain size bead, do they measure from top to bottom (hole to hole) or the other direction?  This is important if the bead is not round or square. The first pattern in this book was for a single strand necklace and it specified which beads to get.  The problem was I really didn't like it (because I'm not 80 yet) and wanted to use different beads.  Since the pattern did not say the actual finished length of the necklace I wanted to find beads I liked that would be the same size so when I followed the pattern it should work out.  I did not find the answer to this online by searching but I found a beading forum on facebook and asked the question there.  I was told the beads were measured top to bottom, hole to hole.  This is the type of question that might seem obvious to people who already bead but not to someone completely new to it.  

My necklace, and the matching earrings for which I did not follow the pattern in the book, turned out nice and more my style.  

I'm not sure if I will still be so hooked on beading as the weather gets warmer and the snow clears.  I am really itching to get outside and walk again.  Right now it is actually nice enough but the ground is very slick.  I have a hard time just walking to my mailbox without falling so I'm waiting for the snow and ice to melt.  I can't wait to see the first peaks and green and flowers.  My youngest son has been taking Buddy the beagle for walks though since it is warm enough for him.  He loves to run so it is difficult for me to control him.  I certainly couldn't do that and keep from falling so I'm so glad he is taking him.  

Later gaters,