Bringing it back to life

 Okay, I have been feeling the need to resurrect the blog. It has happened sporadically the past few years. So much has been going on that I did not have time to sit down and try to make a post. Now I have to relearn how to do this and post pictures. Pictures will be posted after I download them from my phone. 

As a matter of fact, it had been so long since I last posted, that I did not have this site on my favorites list. That has now been remedied. But right now, spring is peeking out and I have the itch. Especially since I toured the backyard yesterday and found a bluebonnet blooming already. Got to get the pond cleaned up and ready for a new season of fighting algae. 

So hang around as I get my sealegs back and start posting more often.

 

In which I update on the craziness going on...and good stuff

Well hello there. Things have been happening around here. 

First off, I went back to my Pain Specialist with the hip pain and tailbone pain. It was getting out of hand and constant. It was very hard living on only a couple of hours of sleep at a time and maybe racking up 4 hours a night. I got tired of spending my nights on the front porch rocking or pacing. He thought it was still my back and recommended another round of steroid. After the good results with the first round, I was all for it. Yep, before I was through my 6 day pack, the hip pain was almost none existent.  Who knew. Well, except for the doctor who could read the subtleties of an MRI report.

Now if someone could just figure out the electric shocks.

Oddly enough, I found a pain medication that gives me relief on the worst of nights, like when a front comes through or I am flat worn out from not sleeping. I had gone to my peridontist to get prepared for my implant. The bone graft had taken, so he drilled into it, put in the post, and added more bone graft to cement it in. I should be getting the temp at the end of October. He had put the post off for a few months to make certain it had taken well. Turns out it took really well and he likened it to drilling in granite. He sent me home with Tylenol #3 (with codeine). There was two nights I took it to make sure I did not wake up in dire pain. I ended up sleeping like a log those two nights. Light bulb moment. Since then, I have experimented with take half of one a couple of times a week. Works a charm. I think my body had gotten used to the half an Ultram and it no longer worked as well. This is a good change out to try to undo the resistance to the Ultram. 

In other news, my youngest wanted me to get a book for him to use when he got home. He had heard about it on the Christian radio station he listens to. It is Clutter Free Home by Kathi Lipp. I started reading it when it got here and something about it clicked. There was none of that put everything in a pile to sort, or crazy schedule they want you to adhere to. Clean, simple terms and ideas that I can take a bit at a time as it comes to me. 

In doing the purge and organize, I have a few strikes against me. First is the past year mending a broken right wrist and the limitations of it mending wrong along with it being a couple of years before I can get it repaired properly. Next is the year I have spent in so much pain with my back and the resulting lack of sleep. I have to take it slow and build up my stamina again. And last but not least, my ADD brain that gets shorted out when I try to puzzle anything out too long. I have to sort one thing, one drawer, one cabinet, one area, then let my brain rest and reset. Too much at once and my brain shuts down in confusion. Too much info will short circuit my brain. Small bites works. This book gives me that space. I also have a spiral journal that I write down notes, prompts, and areas I think of to work on later so that I can go back to it when my brain is rested. I can also tear out pages as I am done with them. Sure I have no record of what I have done, just a neat, organized home where I can find what I need. 

Case in point, when I had the kitchen totally redone two and a half years ago, I had one section of base cabinets set a few inches shorter than the norm because I am short. I wanted an area I felt comfortable working at, like kneading bread, rolls, pizza dough. I had stuck most of my baking ingredients in the cabinet, but other things had snuck in there in the rush to get the kitchen back to working order. Some of my ingredients were in a cabinet in the coffee room. I was wasting valuable real estate and steps. I have been in the process this week of sorting all of that out. Combining containers of flour, sugar, etc into one container and clearing things out that were not baking ingredients. I also have some top cabinets that I can only access by my footstool that are almost empty. I will put infrequently used things up there. Things only used once or twice a year will go into the back kitchen. 

And then there is the Salad Shooter saga. I bought one when they first came out and used it to the ground. Already had to order a shredder cone to fit it when I broke the other. Now the new one is broken and i realize it is over 15 years old. In clearing out the back of a base cabinet in the coffee room, I found a brand new one I had maybe used once. I pulled it out and stood there staring at it. What a dweeb. I had been using the old broken one when I had a brand new one I had bought well over 5 years ago. Old one was tossed in the garbage and new one went in a top cabinet at eye level. This is what I am up against. 

It will be slow going, but things will be easier to find when I am done. And every so often I hit another unorganized spot and make sense of it too. If I spend too much time in one area, I risk brain short circuiting again. So I try to mix it up so it is all fresh again. 

That book may not be for everyone, but it works a charm for me. Hubby asked me about one area, and I told him it was on my list of places to hit, but had to clear out a place for what I will keep after I weed through what I don't need anymore. As long as I am making progress everywhere, I think he will be patient. The last thing I need is to overload myself while I have the vision of what I want and need to do. 

So watch this space. Good things are coming, I just know it.

Laters 

Test results

Earlier in the month I saw a Pain Specialist that my Chiro got me in to. This doctor ordered an MRI. It was a week later that I had the appointment to find out the results. Well, pinned my ears back. But the most important part of the report was that I had a small tear in between two lumbar vertebrae. One option, which was a last resort on my part, was an expensive and painful steroid shot in the disk. Cheaper and easier first try was a steroid pack taken daily. The first day was about 6 pills and declining after that to the 6th day taking one. After the 4th day, I was almost doing a happy dance because it was working. I am done with the pills now and feel so much better about things. The tear seems to have mended.
Which gave rise to the second problem. Arthritis in my back and hips. I now need to find out from my Primary what will help with the arthritis. I can't get off the painkiller yet because my hips are in agony all night. Back to the 4 hours sleep I manage to catch.
Last night might have ended up with more sleep...cuz painkiller and all....but Fred the giant cat had a bellyache or something and laid at the foot of my bed whining all night. It might have been that bug I saw him eat yesterday. At 25lbs, he is like a toddler in that everything goes in his mouth.
Of course, if I try to take a nap and neglect turning my phone to silent, I start getting scam calls in the afternoon....just as I doze off. I don't answer them, but that does not stop them from trying to scam me anyway. The other night I got a text at 1am. The next morning I found out it was a "Nigerian Scam". By text! Only difference was claiming to be from County Down Ireland. Right. Still bad English and sentence formation.
Today I got my hair cut. It was my regularly scheduled appointment and I was starting to get a bit shaggy. Now that I finally got the nerve to cut my hair off this year, I have gotten spoiled at how much cooler it is.
Oh, and hubby figured out he had made a slight mistake on his unemployment application. So he has sent in an amendment. Now we wait. With no money coming in, it's getting scary.
And the heat has hit with a vengence. At least the dust has moved on for the most part. But it did not take the humidity with it. I hate this time of year. And they have banned anyone from cooling off in the lake, rivers, or pools...unless it's a private pool. I am sure they will figure out a way to ban private pool usage soon.
Have a wonderful 4th, if possible. The city closest to me had a news article about fireworks sales being up due to people choosing to stay home. Choosing? Strange choice of word for being ordered to stay home and not even look up in the sky in the same direction to enjoy fireworks from afar. I don't think anyone was given a choice. But the rant about having all our Rights and Liberties taken from us is for another time.
Laters

Let's try again

It's been a couple of years since I touched this page. There have been a few things going on that I could not, or cannot, bring myself to talk about. Painful family things. I have often kept a journal and have not really even touched that even. This will be my attempt to catch up on some things.
One of the dominant things is my health. Right now I am on a steroid to try to heal my back. I am praying that this round of meds does some good. We cannot afford to go further in treatments. I have a small tear in one of the disks in my lower back. One little tear that causes me exquisite pain. Of all things, my chiropractor got me in to see a pain specialist, who ordered an MRI. This led to an avalanche of problems setting up.
So, first up is to try to cheaply and easily alleviate the tear. At night I take 1600mg of Gabapentin, plus half a dose of Ultram, and a muscle relaxer. Sometimes this helps. I get more sleep with this combo than otherwise. Nothing worse than being up all night with pain, then trying to carry on a halfway normal life in the daytime. It wears you down. Now I have even more sympathy for when Kim had two disks blown almost 20 years ago. He had to have cages put in to replace the disks. We had insurance back then. Not anymore. That is a long story that I will not get into because it leads to finger pointing and hurt feelings. I have learned to just let that go.
No job because the oilfield crashed in an unprecedented way this year. We are two years too young for Social Security or to start drawing from our 401's. Kim has applied for unemployment, but that branch of the government is just as screwed up as the others. We got 4 letters in the mail...two for each of us. One letter said we qualified. In the same envelope, another letter said we didn't make enough money to qualify. What? How is that even possible? Without going into details, that is totally impossible. Of course, they do not answer their phones at the unemployment commission. They have an automated system that sends you down a rabbit hole. Kim has not only faxed a letter to them, but for a month, takes the time to dial the number 20 times or more. Every day for a month! They refuse to answer the phone. Guaranteed that if he spoke spanish, they would answer. The incompetence is astounding. Luckily for us, Kim had been saving some cash over the past few years because he had a bad feeling about things and tried to prepare. I have no clue how we are supposed to last for two more years on this stash, but that is what is expected, I suppose.
Anyway, that is the tip of the iceberg right now. I need to work on inserting pictures into the blog and relearn how to use it. On top of that, they want to change everything. So Old Dog, New Tricks. Ugh! Sometimes I hate technology. I need to go sew and escape from the world. Lord knows I can't buy any clothes that I need, so to the sewing machines I will have to turn.

Ahhh...a picture loaded! This is a ring I had made before everything went to hell in a handbasket. I love how it has a Medieval look to it. It is white gold. The blue stone in it is a blue star sapphire I got when I was 15. You can't get them anymore. To each side, in a gold cage surrounded by wee diamonds, are two Thames River garnets. They were sent to me by a wonderful man in London, Simon Bourne, who picked them up on the foreshore. They are not native to that area, so no one knows how they got there. But being as a tidy sum of my heritage comes from there, plus that is my birthstone, they are very special. They are rough, not cut, thus they are in gold cages. I am very pleased with how they turned out. A matching pendant is being made with the remaining garnet that I will post a picture of when I get it. My last hurrah from when we had an income.
Anyway, now I will see how this looks posted and work on tweeking it to be more readable. Thanks for looking in on me. I will post more later. I have thought about this blog the past couple of years and needed to revive it. Here I am.
Stay tuned.

Lost and Found

hello Blog. I lost  you in a nasty computer crash. I am hoping to revive you. I missed you.

Spring has sprung!

We had a rough week with subfreezing temps and a dusting of snow, but then it warmed up until it has been in the 70's and even low 80's this week. I am pulling plants out of the house and starting to dig in the ground. It's exciting to watch what comes up around here. Like this little surprise...

There are eight to ten of these sprouting in the back bed. I may have to get more. I didn't know daffodils would grow here.

 These are the Aggie Maroon Bluebonnets I planted this fall. They made it through winter. I can hardly wait to see them bloom!

 And the little bit of Autumn Joy sedum that I brought is sprouting. This is from the plant that I bought the spring after my first granddaughter, Autumn Joy, was born. I hope to get the rest of it soon.

 One of the Sago's I brought with me and planted seems to have had a malfunction in it's frost cover. It looks like it is still alive and will sprout when it gets warm enough. It's just going to be smaller for a while.

 I don't know what that strappy green plant is. It's sprouting out front. I guess I will have to wait and see. But you can see little bits of green on the ground there...that's bluebonnet sprouts. The bluebonnets are coming up everywhere. Watch this space for some spectacular pictures next month!

 Of course, I hit a plant store or two. There are two Yews, 3 Indigo Spires, Mexican Feather grass, 3 Chinese Fringes, 2 Euryops, 2 Asparagus ferns, and a Firecracker plant, which will go into my huge Mexican pot. And the wee pots in front right are tomatoes and jalapeno peppers. I am going to grow peppers for Kim.

 On this side you can see Gazanias, Gebera's, 3 Cordylines, a Joseph's Coat, a Carolina Jessamine, and a pot of flowers that I can't recall right now what they are. I nearly always get a pot of them each year. I also bought two hanging red geraniums.

 and this is either the apricot tree in bud, or one of the peach trees. The pear tree is looking similar.

 And I leave you with a pretty pansy face, dewey with today's drizzle, and a yellow skipper happily perched on it.

Snow in the Hills

It was iffy, off and on, and totally unknown as to what would happen last week. Somebody in south Texas was going to get snow...they just weren't sure who and how much. They said Houston could get a few inches. Houston got zip, except for ice. Now imagine tropical dwellers on ice. yeah, like that.
I woke up friday morning to a quarter of an inch of snow. It is a rare occurrence in this area. They shut down schools and most business....and I-35 through town. See...the snow had an ice layer underneath, and most of 35 through town is overpasses. They also shut down I-10 through San Antonio. What was really fun was that after a couple of days of subfreezing temperatures, my water froze. Somebody intelligently put the pvc pipe from the well to the house totally outside for about 2 feet. No cover or anything. I managed to thaw it out with an electric blanket and blankets on top of that. But this is what the water looked like for hours after it thawed.

Lovely. Also, since Father In Law's room is not finished...as in, no insulation, it was icy in there. For some reason his heat/ac unit wasn't putting out much heat. I got out two space heaters and got him warmed up in no time. Also put a fan between him and the house, blowing into the house, which exchanged warm air for cool....and dug up a very warm quilt. He was cozy.
So...on with snow pictures.

 Matt was able to smash the dry powdery stuff together for a tiny snowman on his truck hood.

 The backyard was a snowy wonderland.

 View out my bathroom window.

 At the road, looking up the drive toward the house.

 From the balcony, looking toward the road.

 The front yard from the balcony.

 Poor little froggy froze too. He usually spouts water. The pond froze over too, but the movement of the water from the pump and filter kept a section open for gasses to escape so the fish wouldn't be poisoned.

 The back of the house.

The front of the house. It wasn't much snow, I had almost a foot 3 years ago in Sonora, but it was just enough to satisfy a snow lover. It melted off the next day.