2020

Wow, a new year and the end of a decade.  I've been thinking a lot about all the things that happened in the past decade.  My boys grew up and are now men.  My trusty and furry companion that got me through many painful days passed away and my heart still hurts after 3 years.  I got a new puppy and now he's three and while he's very sweet and cute he just isn't the same.  You can't replace the ones you loved and lost. 

I've been thinking a lot about what the new year will bring but I don't make resolutions.  I make some goals but mostly I just wing it.  I plan to do a lot of reading, knitting, crocheting and stitching. 

This last year I made a goal to read 75 books but I didn't quite make it.  I got to 73.  I was reading furiously on the 31st and ended up falling asleep before finishing the book I was reading.  I did my best.  I made my goal the same for this new year and I am determined to make it this time. 

I'm currently reading Summer Knight by Jim Butcher and it is REALLY good. 

As far as my health stuff goes I have a new doctor that made some changes a few months ago.  She change some of my meds and she referred me to physical therapy.  I've been feeling better after the med changes but for a while there I was quite the mess.  Cymbalta was a hard drug to get off of.  The new drug seems to be working well.  The physical therapy is helping but most of the time I really don't want to do.  I am glad I have been going since I have learned how to do some stretches that help certain areas when I'm in pain there.  So things are okay and seemed to have improved some since I got this new doctor.

Okay, ready or not..... here we go.

Welcome to a new year

Currently reading: L is for Lawless by Sue Grafton

I am hopeful for this new year and ready for the blessings it can bring. Every year I choose a word and phase to focus on and this year I've chosen "Move" and "Get up and move!" I print up images to put in places around the house to remind me. This year I really want to focus on pushing myself to move more because I really need to lose weight. It is so hard to exercise when just regular movement hurts but I have to do it or I will keep gaining and not losing. I have been trying to lose weight for years and only managed to hold steady, however, a new drug I started taking causes weight gain and I found myself losing the fight. I started to gain even though I've been careful about what I eat and how much. That medicine is actually working so I am pushing myself to move more and build up muscle that I've lost. I started this week and I feel the muscle soreness plus the extra pain from the Fibromyalgia but it isn't the worst pain I've had. Getting the inflammation under control has helped the worst of the pain and I have more energy and want to clean up. I found myself wanting to do some super early spring cleaning and started yesterday on my kitchen. I'm feeling ambitious but know I have to hold myself back and take breaks so I don't over do it.

I looked back at my reading goal from last year and the books I read and I'm happy to say I did meet my goal. I did play it a bit safe since I know how frustrating it is when I can't focus to read because of bad pain or fibrofog. I set my goal at 24 books with the stipulation that half had to leave the house to make room on my shelves. I actually read 31 although a few of those were children's books or other short books. I am upping the challenge a bit this year by setting my goal at 40 with needing to be books I already have and those books have to go.  I am also choosing to read more historical fiction this year. I have only read a few and I really liked them.  I think it will be good to broaden my reading horizon. I also really want to finish reading the Sue Grafton Alphabet series. I have all but 2 of those. I also want to start over again reading the Blossom Street Series by Debbie Macomber.  That is one of my favorite series and I noticed that there were more books in the series that I never read. I've been acquiring those though Paperbackswap.com and I am anxious to reread my old favorites and see what the other books are like. I'm not big on romance so I hope the newer once don't get too far into that territory.

My little Buddy is getting big and seems to be close to full grown though he still looks like a puppy in the face. I love him so much. He is not at all like my old friend Blue that I lost who was a sweet mellow lady. Buddy is hyper and loves to play. He loves everyone and doesn't bark at everything like Blue did. He is really quite and the only times we've heard him bark or yip are rare, only one bark each time and he seems startled by his own voice. Everyone in the house stops to play with him every day and my youngest son spends the most time with him. Buddy loves him so much and looks for him every day. Yesterday my son wasn't feeling well and slept in late and Buddy actually moped about watching his door or laying by it. He was so happy when he finally came out. It is so sweet to see how much Buddy loves Riley but he loves everyone else too and squeals with joy when anyone comes in the door and loves to see new people too. He's brings us so much joy and that is good since our hearts still hurt missing our old friend Blue. I know I think of her a lot and miss her presence.

Happy 2016!

I just killed all the dust bunnies on this blog and shined it up so I can start posting again.  Okay, I don't kill things, not even dust bunnies.  I just set them free in the wild.

So last year was a bit rough on me even though I had some good things happen as far as my health.  I started seeing a new Rheumatologist in Jan and he's helped me some.  Then just recently I got a new primary doctor and he's already helped me too.  Now if I can just stay awake I might be able to live a little more like normal.  It seems that all drugs that help me make me sleep forever.  Now I'm like a vampire who never sees the daylight.  Hmmm, maybe it would be cool to have a cape.

I'm hoping 2016 will be a better year for me as I get a better balance with the drugs.  I want to be able to get more exercise and lose weight.  Pain makes it so hard to exercise.  I started a program in September I think it was and I lost 8 lbs but I had so much trouble with pain and sleeping so much.  I really want to do better, exercise more, keep eating healthy food and build back some of the muscle that I've lost.

In 2015 I read 44 books.  I'd been having such a hard time focusing that I barely read any books.  In 2014 I only managed to read 5.  On Goodreads.com I set my reading goal for 2015 at 12 books (which is pretty sad but much better than 5)  Then in January 2015 the Rheumatologist I saw in Anchorage put me on a drug called Plaquenil to bring down inflammation.  That helped a lot with my pain but I had to start at a really low dose and slowly build up to the dose I needed because it really made me feel drugged.  I totally understand the meaning of the word psychedelic now.  Anyway, around March I suddenly felt like reading and for a while I didn't do anything else.  I was rarely on the computer or facebook and didn't crochet or knit anything (which is very strange for me).  For Christmas my husband bought me a book light I wanted that is rechargeable.  That is something I put to use that same night and it is the best gift ever.

So this year I set my reading goal at 24.  That is low but I'm hoping to be outside more this summer. I have a new bike and want to use it.

I started a new hobby at the end of the year too.  I started cross stitching.  I was always buying little kits to try but never got far with them.  Sadly, I have a few kits that I started and ended up losing the pattern or other things to them.  When I started pulling out Christmas decorations I found a few ornament kits and actually made them and finished them and even hung them on my tree!  It was not even hard since I read the instructions.  Now I'm addicted.  My husband even bought me a few kits since the ones I had where mostly Christmas kits.  One of my doctors told me I needed to sit in a straight back chair instead of the couch because a muscle in my back was really tight so I started sitting at the kitchen table and cross stitching.  Now my back is fine.  I actually enjoy sitting at the table to work on cross stitching, especially when the sun is shining in the window.

Well, that's enough for now.

Here's too good health in the new year!

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.