Long time no post

I know I haven't been posting and I'm not sure why.  I just haven't though of it.  I haven't been watching Bones either so haven't been looking up music from the show.  If I were I'm sure I would have been posting about that.  I haven't been watching any TV shows really.  I'm just not into it.

I've been keeping myself busy reading this year.  Ever since I saw the Rheumatologist in Jan and started taking Plaquenil I started feeling better and sleeping more.  Sometime in March I started to feel more clear-headed and decided to read a book.  Usually I can't focus on anything and keep reading the same line over and over.  Anyway, I started reading and never stopped.  I've read 38 books so far and have stacks more ready to go. 

Even though I had big plans for my garden this summer I had too many days where I was in pain or so fatigued I couldn't get out of bed so my garden was a fail.  I did enjoy my perennial flower beds though.  I started a bunch of flowers from seed and then I set them outside to start hardening them off and then fell asleep for a long time.  I ended up being stuck in bed for 3 days or so and just couldn't move my body.  I think it was a reaction to the new drug.  I had to cut back on it and increase slowly. Several of my seedlings died so that was a bummer.  I did enjoy the ones I got planted though.  I love the bright blue Royal Ensign Morning Glories.  I was just bummed that they are not the climbing variety.  I always plant morning glories of some type in a planter at the front of my porch and there is some lattis for them to climb up on.  I just had to loop the vines in the lattice here and there and I missed those curly tendrils.  I also planted some deep purple carnations and actually got one to bloom.  It was a really strange summer that was unusually hot and dry for the first half.  We had some nasty fires so even though the weather was nice we stayed inside to keep out of the smoke.  Then it started raining and didn't stop...  making up for lost time I guess.  My lilies didn't do as well this year. I had a lot less blooms than usual and my bleeding heart barely bloomed at all.  I hope next year is better.  

I've been busy keeping up with my freshwater fish tank too.  I bought 5 painted variatus platies and didn't expect them to have billions of babies.  Now I have to figure what to do with them all.  My fish tank is getting too full.  I guess I'll have to take some to the fish store for adoption although it is so hard to part with the cute little guys.  They said they love to take the babies.  Hopefully I can get there there without them freezing.  It's cold.  brrr.

  

Bit by the garden bug

I've been dreaming of summer and gardening since February.  I have been watching youtube videos on gardening and dreaming of what I'm going to plant this summer.  Last summer was very nasty and rainy the entire season so I never planted the seeds I got.  When it is raining my fibromyalgia flairs up and I usually can't get out of bed.  I found the seeds I bought last year and I started some sage and some sunflowers.  I also spouted some apple seeds and some lemons from store bought fruit. Yesterday I had an avocado and you know I planted that sucker too.

I was looking at seed catalogs but I wasn't finding what I was looking for.  We have a very short season here in central Alaska.  I read online about Siberian tomatoes that are more hardy and only take 48 days but they weren't in the catalogs.  I found some on ebay last night and ordered some.

This year my goal is to try to plant less so I can focus on those things and maybe be able to handle the garden myself.  I want to plant peas and beans (which are pretty easy I think) and tomatoes, some loose leaf mixed lettuce and maybe carrots.  I've never had luck with carrots so I'd like to try again.

I also want to add some new things to my perennial garden.  My whole front yard is all perennials so even though I wasn't able to do anything in my garden last summer the flowers in front took care of themselves and looked great.  The lilies are amazing.

oh I just can't wait.

Watching the Snow Fall

The last several days have been warm and the snow is melting a little.  I haven't been able to see the sun shining for a few days since we have been getting snow.  The sky looks a solid white/gray with no clear spots at all.  This afternoon the snow started to fall and we had some wind that was stirring it around so it looked like the snowflakes were dancing in the air.  I always want to take pictures of the snow falling but it just doesn't capture well so I took a video.

It wont be much longer and we will be seeing that snow melting into puddles.

Building Bridges

This is what I do.

When I think of all the things I want to do I feel like I'm standing at the edge of a giant ravine and what I want to do is on the other side.

It can be very depressing if you let it.

I've changed my thinking though.  It hasn't been that long since I got this inspiration.  I can change the way I do things, break things down into smaller projects or tasks and in the process I build a bridge to the other side and accomplish my goal.

The sun is shining and I am loving it so I'm slowly cleaning my house one wall, one window, one square of carpet at a time.  I used to chose a room or two to clean each day but now I know my limitations.  I think of what would make the biggest impact for me at the moment and do that.  When the sun was streaming in the window the other day I cleaned the window and put plants over there. That was the most I could do that day but it made a huge difference.  The next day I took it easy and rested. I have to recharge but I had one of my boys here so he helped.  I just had him move some things for me and take some bags of donations outside to be picked up.  He also cleaned up the entry way for me.

Today I'm vacuuming a little, dusting and running the vacuum because it has a hepa filter built in.

My living room looks great now so I am ready to move on to the kitchen/dining room area next.

I've been thinking about gardening a  lot lately too.  It seems warmer than usual right now and the sun is melting the snow.  The branches of the large spruce trees are full of snow that is slowly melting and dripping water.  From where I sit on the couch, looking through the trees, it looks like it is raining.  We usually have spring thaw in April and March is usually really sunny but still cold.  I think this is going to be a good year.  

I'm starting to plan how I will plant my garden outside.  My husband is going to get some wire fencing for me.  In the front yard we only put a decorative rail fence around the right side and planted grass in there since the neighbors on the left had something encroaching on our property.  That got moved before they sold it but the new neighbors don't seem to realize that half of what they thinks is their driveway is our yard.  I want to define that corner better and put up some wire fencing that I can plant vining plants up like sweet peas and scarlet runner beans.  I love how that looks.  I could also plants some other things over there but it is a bit of a slope.  The property is gradually sloped down towards the road and on the sides to allow water to run away from the house so I shouldn't really change that.  It could still be fixed up to look nicer.

I would also like to plant some sunflowers.  I'm going to look online to find a good variety to grow here with our short season.  I'll also look for tomato, beans, peas and lettuce.  There are so many things I'd like to plant but I really need to just pick a few things and focus on taking care of those.  I don't want to get in over my head.  My husband can't always help since he has to work.  My boys can help but they are usually not very willing helpers when it comes to yardwork.

We didn't even use our backyard last year since it rained so much so I'm anxious to get back there and clean up.  My boys mowed it but the trimming didn't get done like it should have.  My shrubs need to be cleaned up and pruned.  I want to set up an area for composting. I've watched Ray on the Praxxus55712 channel make compost and he makes it look like something I could do.  I even got a tub to try composting in the garage.  I got one of those tubs with the two hinged lids that meet in the middle so that lets some air get in there.  I put plant clippings in there and veggie scraps from the kitchen.  Oh, and coffee grounds.  My oldest son goes through a LOT of coffee.  I just can't wait to get out there.  Can you tell I'm chomping at the bit??

Spring Fever

The sun was out and shining beautifully today.  It is March in Fairbanks, Alaska so we will still have snow for a while.  I have definitely been bitten by the spring cleaning bug.  I decided I wanted to have more clear space in the living room so I had the boys haul off the old coffee table and an end table.  That really opened up some space and it looks nice.  There was another piece of furniture that we used to have below the front window but we moved it at Christmas time to put the tree there. Now I don't want it to come back.

I almost hate to say it...

.......but I think I actually feel better starting this evening.  I just made a stirfry for me and my older son.  I have been feeling like doing more and that is really nice.  I am thinking I might make the m&m cookies my older son requested.

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.