Treats

Feb. 21, 2015

What makes a treat a treat is that it’s something enjoyed only occasionally. 

We had dinner tonight with the Friends we do dinner with every couple of months. I posted the last time we met, when I hosted – this is the Friend who appreciates eating healthy and well, so we enjoy eating good food together. Last time we included Daughter and Son-in-law and it was such a good dynamic that we all did it again this time around, at Friend's home. Being with all of them fills me with joy, and I realized that even though I would be elated to hang with them every day, part of the reason getting together like this is so sweet is because we don’t get to do it very often. I’m grateful for treats.

Energy Crisis

Feb. 8, 2015

The Friend who prompted me to start writing this journal inspired me with a positive way of viewing disappointments: “When something goes wrong in your life, just yell, ‘Plot twist!’ and move on.” Excellent advice for people who have normal energy stores. What I’ve come to learn, though, is that Plot Twists take a lot more energy than I ever realized. No one thinks about how much energy each daily activity takes until the energy tank is on empty.

When I try to explain to people that I’m not up to doing something, that I can’t do anything late in the day, or that I can’t do anything physically or intellectually strenuous, they either think I’m making excuses or they just don't get that I can't do those things.

I think of it like this: I wake up each morning with a small pocketful of coins; most other people I know start out with a wagonload of coins. When you have more coins than you’ll ever use in a day, you don’t realize how much you spend on every little thing like showering, drying your hair, dressing, fixing breakfast and cleaning up your dishes. Every step, every movement, even every thought process costs a coin or two. When the coins are gone, they’re gone. That’s it. The bank is empty until tomorrow. If you don’t sleep well, you wake up with even fewer coins. When you know you have only a few coins to spend, you plan and budget very carefully. You try to minimize steps and economize all your movements; you have a meltdown when you drop or spill something because you know cleaning up the mess will use up precious coins. Pain is very expensive, so you avoid things that cause it at all costs – for me, that's sitting or standing or doing anything for very long, as well as physical exertion, which results in muscle aches.

Aside from other energy-destitute people, few understand why something as routine as fixing a meal is such an ordeal for me. I don’t like food prep and cooking to begin with, so that’s a coin right off the bat. But consider the process, then imagine doing it after having run a marathon:

1. Coming up with a meal idea in the first place - not one dish, a meal
2. Making a shopping list
3. Going shopping, and in my case, sometimes having to hunt for Paleo ingredients – add Candida diet restrictions, and shopping becomes an exhausting proposition
4. Finding a parking space close to the door is a priority, not because I’m lazy, but because I desperately need the energy for the actual shopping
5. Hauling said groceries to the car – even more of a chore if I haven’t nabbed that coveted parking space near the door
6. Driving home – read: navigating traffic and staying alert while operating heavy machinery
7. Hauling said groceries into the house, where they sit on the counter while I drop into a recliner to regroup for a while; then I dig out a few more coins to bribe my brain into doing the puzzle that is moving food in and out of the fridge and pantry
8. Getting out ingredients, pots, bowls, utensils, then measuring and mixing everything – always frustrating because my mind has a hard time sorting and keeping things straight. I have never in my life been able to memorize a recipe or even figure out from experience how to put a dish together.
9. Cleaning up the mess
10. Starting all over again in about three hours (minus the shopping, unless I’ve forgotten an ingredient or two)

Meal prep costs me almost all of my day’s coins, which is why I don’t make lunch, why dinner is the worst part of my day, and why make-and-freeze prep for several meals at a time is a great time-saving solution for those with wagonloads of coins, but for me it simply isn’t possible.

And that’s just meals! Laundry is a coin or two, cleaning a bathroom is about five coins, having to deal with an insurance claim is a good 10 coins, and doing even small household repairs take a few coins; if they start to pile up, just thinking about tackling them can empty the pocket. Even fun things like going to visit a grandchild or a friend use up almost a day’s worth, so you don’t plan anything else for days with costly activities. 

A Plot Twist uses up a lot of coins because you have to figure out how to reroute (brain processing is often more costly than physical movement) and then physically carry out Plan B. Multiple Plot Twists in one day can easily use up all your change and land you in bed, or in a crying heap on the floor. 

It’s hard for energy-rich people to comprehend what it feels like when you run out. The closest comparison to which most people can relate is having the flu – the aching joints, the weakness and inability to move much less get out of bed. But as the term implies, Chronic Fatigue never ends. So you constantly budget your energy with as much miserly care as the financially poor budget their money, reluctant to spend on anything unnecessary. But there is no energy overdraft protection. If you’re in the middle of something when it happens, you have to try to keep going on fumes, but it’s not very pretty, and you can’t do it for long. You suddenly get irritable and irrational because your brain won’t work, you drop things and bump into things because your sense of space is off kilter. You feel like you’re melting into the ground, and “melting” is an apt metaphor, because you’ll be acting like the Wicked Witch of the North; at this point, you are quite literally shutting down. 

If functioning without energy and brainpower isn't maddening enough, you are misunderstood by strangers and friends alike. They think you're a grouch (and you are but you don't want to be), that you're lazy, that you're a hypochondriac. They begin to avoid you because within moments you can swing from feeling OK and being nice to crashing and acting irrational, snippy and even mean. But no one would know you're crashing because you look fine.  Even your friends stop calling because after you decline social invitations several times, they think you can't ever go play, or they decide you're no fun. 

I've been writing this post for several days; ironically, today Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is all over the news with the release of a year-long report. Get this:

The National Institute of Medicine on Tuesday declared chronic fatigue a legitimate disease that plagues "millions of Americans." It was also given the new name of systemic exertion intolerance disease.

I’m so relieved to know that what I’ve described in this post is now legitimate. And that giving it a different name will make it all better. 

But this is a gratitude journal, so I'm grateful if a respected institution is able to convince mainstream doctors to listen to patients who complain of debilitating fatigue and perhaps learn how to help them. I will be even more grateful if the medical community recognizes that drugs don't cure everything and if they open their minds to alternative treatments like diet, supplements and mind-body practices like Tai Chi.

Mistletoes

Jan. 3, 2015

The Happy Holidays are over ... at last. Too busy to write in December, but here's my list of Christmas things I'm grateful for:

• The reason the world shifts gears, hangs lights on trees and eaves, redecorates everything from homes to streets, and even tries a little harder to be kinder: the celebration of the lowly birth of Him who descended to mortality to live a perfect life so that He could offer Himself as a sacrifice for everyone else's sins.
• The music - Handel, carols, and even some secular Christmas like Mannheim Steamroller, Amy Grant and some of the Oldies. I'm grateful for those whose gift it is to make and perform it, grateful that my parents let me take piano lessons so I can play it.

2014 Christmas cards from friends near and far

• Christmas cards. All these friends - rushed and busy like me - took time to sit down, sign and address a card, some with a 2014 recap note, and spent 49 cents to send it to Husby and me. A few are friends we see often, and our cards are a tangible affirmation that our friendship is a treasure. Others are friends who have moved away, and although the holes left by each others' absence quickly fill up, the Christmas card is the thread that keeps us connected - like a web of little strings anchored to points on the map with pushpins. If either of us were to stop sending our Christmas card, we would lose contact. Well, there's Facebook, you say. Ah, but I'm not on Facebook because it's superficial and narcissistic, and it doesn't count. Seriously. There's just something about the act of making or selecting a card, writing a note, signing your name, writing a friend's name and address on the envelope, licking same envelope (that's love) and placing a stamp in the corner, that says, "You're my friend, and you mean so much to me that I'm sending this!"
• Visiting with friends. I take them treats, they bring me treats and we visit. One friend has a party every Christmas, so we get to visit with lots of friends all in one place and eat her husband's to-die-for authentic Italian meatballs.
• Going to The Polar Express at the Omni IMAX theater with Grandson #1 and Daughter. He had seen the movie dozens of times, but never at the theater, and certainly not on a 120-foot screen. And the Omni makes it a pajama party, with "Polar" activities and hot cocoa before the show.
  
  It was Christmas magic to see all those children in pajamas with their big gold train tickets, and sweet Grandson held his ticket all through the show. 
  
• Lights. Lights everywhere, making the night glow. I love our family tradition of driving around town to look at lights; Daughter brought Grandson #1 one afternoon, and we visited & played, mostly in the family room in the glow of the tree lights. After dinner Daughter wanted to go look at lights together. As we cleaned up dinner, Grandson made the seat assignments and gave me my smile for that day. Mommy would drive, Grampa would ride shotgun and Honey would sit in the back next to him. Grampa asked why Honey got to sit by him; he wrapped his arms around me and said, "Because she's my best friend!" I'm grateful that our family tradition now includes grandboys. And that brings me to my next and most important blessing:
• Family. All the music, greetings, decorations and food would feel a bit hollow if I didn't have family with me on Christmas day. Christmas is brand-new to Grandson #2 who gets opening gifts but not the occasion for gifts. After all the gifts were opened, we worked on our Christmas stockings; we called him over to see what was inside, and seeing a very large "sock," he lifted his little leg to try to put it in the stocking. Smile for that night. 
• On Christmas day, I told Grandson #1 I would have to get him under the mistletoe sometime that day. A bit later, standing under the mistletoe, he called me over and gave me a sweet kiss (which he doesn't do much any more). Later, when we were sitting around the table having a snack, he said, "Hey! We could have mistletoes all over the house, and then we could kiss all the time!" I love mistletoes and little boys.

Cake-and-Bagua Walk

Sunday, Nov. 9, 2014

It's the time of year to be grateful, and not just in the sense of November and Thanksgiving: for shirtsleeve-cool, not-humid air, for sunrise late enough to actually see and enjoy (never have been an early-morning person!). This year I'm particularly appreciating the season, as I've been doing my morning Tai Chi on the back deck. At 7:30 or so, the sun isn't yet in my eyes but is a warm orange glow just above the fence line. One morning this week after a rain the night before, steam was rising eerily off the fence as the sun began to warm the air.

Look closely - see the steam?

I breathe in the cold morning air, which burns my nostrils, but beyond the cold, the experience is so much more invigorating outdoors than inside that I relish every day I can do this in the back yard. A few weeks ago it was too warm and muggy, and soon it will be too cold. Fall mornings are a treat worth waiting 10 months for; starting a Fall day with focused Tai Chi is a particular gift.

With daily practice, Tai Chi movements have become somewhat more natural, and thus our classes have advanced beyond choreography to focusing on energy movement. As we do the forms, we envision energy flowing out from hands or feet, and we do feel a difference in the hand and feet positions when we feel that energy. Theoretically, when energy blockages break up and energy flows as it should, healing occurs. At a class last week, Sifu said he was skipping Qigong that night because of the weather. That was a new one - but he quite often surprises us with nuances of the practice. He explained that Qigongs are intended to gather energy from the earth and get it moving in the body in an organized, health-giving way. When a storm is brewing or in progress, atmospheric energy is chaotic and can upset the body's energy if brought in through Qigong. Further, he said that early morning is the very best time to do Qigongs, when the day's energy is new and fresh. 

The next day, he taught us how to do Bagua, or Circle Walking - for those inclement-weather days when walking outside isn't practical. The basic pattern is to visualize a spot on the floor and walk in a circle around it; not as simple as walking in a circle, as it requires the outside foot to actually make an arc that keeps the pattern in a uniform circle. He taught us four hand positions, in each of which both hands are kept in a certain position on the inside of the circle as the feet walk. To begin, Sifu told us to take 20 steps in each direction, in each hand position. We tried it, and it's tougher than it looks - and oh yes, it does make you warm, if not hot!

More Gratitude for the week: I celebrated a birthday with people I love, both in-person and far away. Husby planned a full day, including a visit to the Kimbell art museum to see Impressionistic works on loan from the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, followed by lunch with Daughter and Grandson #1. They brought gifts and a hydrangea for the table; Grandson said he was thrilled I was turning 30. (I think one time this year he asked how old I was and I probably told him 29). Husby gave me a potted calla lily plant with amber flowers I had admired at Central Market last week and other thoughtful gifts. I received cards and calls from dear friends & sisters who remember my little day. Dinner with Husby, and then Son & family came over for paleo carrot cake, I gift I made for myself. 

Paleo carrot cake - wow, 10 eggs!

The cake itself tasted just like my old favorite recipe and had good texture for a flourless cake but was a little wet (Tres Leches carrot cake?). The mock-cream cheese icing (made with palm shortening, ghee, cashew butter for the cheesy flavor, and apple cider vinegar/lemon juice for the tang) was a pretty credible substitute, and I'm a cream-cheese icing lover!

But pretty, right?!? Especially on my mom's milk-glass cake stand.

 

Smile for today: I sat by Son, D-I-L and Grandson #2 in church today. At the end of the meeting, I said to Grandson, "Are you going to nursery now?!" He nodded, pacifier firmly in mouth. I stood up and reached for his hand, which he put in mine and we headed down the aisle. He has never wanted anything to do with me - pulls away if I get too close, certainly won't let me hold him, and only recently gave up screaming fits if left alone with me. So I looked down at him, thinking he must have thought he was holding his daddy's hand. Nope. He knew it was me, and we were walking to nursery together - and he was just fine with it. Finally!

Roses

Oct. 23, 2014

If lunch with two more high-school friends wasn't splendid enough, M's hubby appeared at our table with three bunches of roses - one for each of us. How do I even express how that felt? I'm grateful for Friend and that she's married to such a sweet, thoughtful guy. 

I'm thankful that on a day, following two other days this week when lone-wolf guerrillas are taking it upon themselves to hurt and terrorize innocent people in American cities, other people like M's hubby are going about doing things to uplift people and make them happy.

My circle of friends in junior high school started with these two girls, and I'm so grateful that they were the nucleus from which it all sprouted.

You Have a Friend

Oct. 18, 2014

Back in Utah today, I met three good high school friends for lunch. I will meet two others next week. This is always a nurturing experience, as I love these girls so dearly. They were good girls and they are amazing, strong and good women. We often express our gratitude and amazement that we not only found each other back in 7th grade but that our friendships have remained through our adult years. Today, though, as I reminisced with A, who arrived before the other two, a profound thought came. Would anyone argue that high school years are turbulent, the time when we experience deep insecurity and self-centeredness as we try to figure out who we are and what we want? How is it, then, that the friends we make during that time are often friends for life? I don't know many people who go back to college reunions, but we go back to high school reunions, often until all the class members have passed on. I believe A nailed the answer: the choices we make in high school are pivotal; most significantly, the friends we choose quite literally determine who we will be as adults. As I swam the social sea of pre-teenhood, I mingled with various types of kids, some of whom were already making choices that would lead them in sad paths. How incredibly grateful I am to have gravitated to these friends, who ended up being a group of more than a dozen. They are smart, talented, successful, optimistic and wise. I am the person I am today in large part due to these blessed girls. 

We were so busy enjoying each other yesterday that we forgot to take a picture. Gratitude journals have room for regrets, too.

Doctor, My Eyes Have Seen ...

Sept. 17, 2014

* Note: I wrote this entry and forgot to post it the same day, so it's out of sequence, but that's how Freddie works a lot of the time!

Trials can serve to show us what we really have, which came home to me with a rather spectacular light show in my left eye in January. I woke up the morning of Husby's surprise 60th birthday party ready to hit the road running. As soon as I got out of bed, I noticed dark spots in the line of vision in my left eye. I've had floaters before and they go away after about a day, so I thought I'd lie back down for a few minutes and see if they dissipated. They didn't, and I had a party to put together, so I went to the closet to get dressed. That's when I saw a display that looked like a confetti spray of silver glitter inside my eye. As pretty as it was, I knew it couldn't be good. I called my optometrist's office and they could get me in within the hour. Driving was a little scary. 

My optometrist did the requisite tests, then she wanted to dilate my eyes for a good look inside. I asked her if we could wait until Monday to do that because I couldn't spare the downtime today. With genuine compassion, she said, "I'm sorry - this trumps a birthday party, as important as that is." She said a display of bright lights can indicate a detached retina, and if the retina was involved, it needed to be addressed immediately. Her exam indicated the retina was not detached, but she saw blood pooled at the back of the eye and scheduled an appointment with a retina specialist in the afternoon. I was so put out.

The retina doc dilated my eyes again, took probably 100 pictures of the inside of both eyes, and infused dye in my arm to see where in the eye the blockage was. That one appointment pretty much covered all the things I hate: needles, having my eyes dilated, and seemingly endless bright flashes directly into my eyes. The verdict, after all of this, was that a small piece of cholesterol blocked blood flow in the main vein off the optic nerve, causing an aneurysm. In the films, I could clearly see the blockage and an area surrounding it that was light yellow. The doctor said the light area was where the pooled blood destroyed nerves in the retina, and the dark spots I was seeing in my line of vision were the areas of the retina where no information was being transmitted to the brain. He said I essentially had a stroke in my eye, that nothing could be done but to wait and watch for symptoms to improve or worsen. His only recommendation was to get in to my primary-care doc ASAP for tests to determine if there were any more blockages floating around in my neck or heart. Oh great! He told me all this as nonchalantly as if I should go home and take some aspirin for a headache. I spent the whole weekend terrified that I would have a stroke before Monday and wake up to live my mother's nightmare of incapacitation.

Well, here's the point of this story and why it's my object of Gratitude for today. The last month or so I've had to work harder to see, so I visited the optometrist today for a prescription adjustment. How amazing is it that eight months after I sat in her office facing possible vision loss, today my eye is healthy, save some small blind spots on the retina?!? I saw a lot of the retina doc in the months following my "cardiovascular event," but by the third visit, the eyesight in my left eye had improved to almost 20/20. It took a few months, but the swelling went completely down, the pooled blood was absorbed, and the area turned pink and healthy again. The affected nerves are dead and don't regenerate, but instead of seeing dark opaque spots, now it's like looking through water spots on a lens. 

BUT - I can see! I haven't taken that for granted for one moment since the incident. I didn't lose my precious sight and I didn't have a stroke or heart attack - in fact, my echocardiogram and doppler neck scan were completely clear. My farsightedness means my perfect vision has deteriorated more over the last few years than that of nearsighted people, so it takes more and more effort to see anything anymore. Now with the blind spots, I have to work even harder, but my brother-in-law, who did have a detached retina several years ago and lost the sight in that eye, is now going blind from glaucoma in the other eye. I feel so much more empathy for him now, and I appreciate how difficult and dark life would be without sight. Despite this little trial, I'm so very grateful that I can still see my grandbabies and how they grow and change, the hummingbirds in my back yard, the beautiful world, and that I can drive. And I know that if I were blind I would somehow have to find blessings in my life, because finding things to be grateful for is what keeps faith and hope alive.

Another blessing in all of this: I first started seeing Fibro Doc #3 two weeks before the eye stroke. I checked with both him and my PCP about what tests they thought we should run. Fibro Doc requested a Homocysteine test, in addition to the cholesterol test, echocardiogram and doppler neck scan my PCP wanted. Fibro Doc knew what "mainstream" docs don't know or won't acknowledge: that elevated homocysteine levels are highly associated with stroke (a flaw in the methylation cycle, which also correlates with autism, ADHD, and ding-ding-ding - fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. See my post, "I Can Do Hard Things" for more info.) My Homocysteine was high, but after taking B-12 injections, SAMe and 5-MTHF for a few months, it dropped to well within normal range. My family doc wanted me to start a statin drug even though my cholesterol numbers were within normal range because "once you've had a cardiovascular event, you need to be on them, period." But removing cholesterol from the blood doesn't address why extra cholesterol is there anyway, which is because it's trying to protect the lining of the veins from inflammation. And statins have known side effects, including a link to Alzheimer's. When I asked the family doc about antioxidants and anti-inflammatory diet, he said there's no evidence that they have any real benefit. Well why would you make dietary changes when you can take a pill every day to make the numbers look good? 

I feel like the eye stroke was God's finger giving me a firm tap on the shoulder - too serious to ignore, serious enough to alert me and my new doctor to something that could be addressed before it became deadly, but not so serious that it sidelined me. Spending the morning at the optometrist and the whole afternoon at the retina specialist nearly derailed Husby's surprise birthday party, but God even took care of that. With a few adjustments, it happened as planned and we got to celebrate Husby's milestone along the timeline of his great life with family and dear friends after all. It's all good!

M' Love

Sept. 14, 2014

Thirty-eight years ago today was a glorious autumn day in Salt Lake City. Couldn’t have been a more perfect day for a wedding. September in Texas is still summer, and our first year here we celebrated our 10^th anniversary. And Husby was out of town on business. He got home the evening of our anniversary, so I got my neighbor to keep the kids, and I set a candlelit table and had a beautiful dinner ready when he arrived. Not what I had in mind for the decade marker, but it was quite lovely after all.

This year’s celebration was low-key; experiences are the best gifts these days, and we are due a getaway, but when it comes right down to it, overnighters aren’t really a treat due to Husby’s loud snoring, so we decided to do some daytime activities together. A couple of movies are playing that are actually worth seeing, so we thought we’d do that Friday, but the day got consumed with things that had to be done that day. I wanted to take the watch he got for his 25^th work anniversary for a battery replacement that morning. Here’s why that could be considered a gift fit for an anniversary: the jewelry place is in the mall. I loathe malls. Husby hates them even more than I do. But I did it, and the watch now has a lifetime warranty on its battery. 

That done, I needed to do some cleaning-out in my sewing room (Lighten Up!!!) and box it up to take to the church for a swap-and-shop event the next day. The swap-and-shop is a brilliant idea conceived and executed by my Lighten Up friend who inspired me to start writing this gratitude journal. She oversees the women’s organization of several wards (congregations) for our church in a certain geographical area. The event is on Saturday, so  people bring stuff for which they no longer have a use on Friday, then my friend and her helpers sort it and set it out to display. The next morning, anyone can come and take whatever they like. Anything that's left at the end goes to Union Gospel Mission. I didn’t go to the actual event because Heaven knows I don’t need to bring home any more treasures – the idea is to lighten up, not replace stuff with more stuff! I gave away the items that represent the hobbies in which I invested so much time and which provided therapy for so many years. Letting go of things like that is hard. Letting go of anything is hard for me, let’s face it. So this was a good step.

From the church drop-off, Husby and I went to get shelving to organize and make functional my sewing room. So that’s what we did instead of going to a movie, but at this point in my cluttered life, Husby and I agree that celebration of life together sometimes means doing things that are just plain good for us. That might be a trip, a movie, a nice dinner, or getting rid of clutter that bogs us down (well, my clutter does invade his space, too, I’m sorry to say). We did eat dinner out, though – and we had a very nice dinner the next night to properly celebrate. Husby gave me flowers and a mandoline, which I’ve been wanting now that I’m preparing all our food from scratch. Not romantic, you say? Anything that makes my life easier in my quest to be well is a gift of love! The best thing he gave me, though, was a love letter that no material gift can touch. And here’s how great he is: he reads my blog and saw that I didn’t find English Toffee on my mom’s Heaven Day, so he went and got a Heath bar. Just so I could have one little bite for Mom. 

I wrapped up his watch, gave him an e-book that surprised him and made him laugh, and made Danielle Walker's blueberry waffles for breakfast. (From her cookbook, Against All Grain.) Husby had church meetings all over the Metroplex beginning at 8:30 this morning, but when he got home I made Danielle’s burrito bowls – yummm.

We went back to yet another church meeting later in the day, where I saw a friend of many years who I don’t see often any more because they moved further away. We hugged and I asked her how she was doing, and she told me she and her husband are divorcing. It didn’t register for a moment, and I had absolutely no words. They seemed to be such a solid family, and you wonder, if it can fall apart for them, who is immune? For this devastating news to come on my own anniversary makes me just that much more grateful for Husby and what we’ve had for 38 years, and what we have today. 

Bon Apetit!

Sept. 6, 2014

Today’s smiles: 

• A surprise rain storm and cool front this afternoon. The day started out hot and sticky, but dark clouds rolled in rather quickly in the late afternoon and dumped substantial but gentle rain. It was beautiful! Straight-down rain - no wind - intermittently for a good four hours or more. Flowers and grass know the difference between hose water and the real deal, and the begonias in the front beds changed from transparent-looking pale green to the deep amber their leaves are supposed to be after drinking up that dose of heaven-sent moisture.
• Having a dear friend and her husband (who we’re getting to know and love) and my daughter and her hubby for dinner tonight. I spent the whole afternoon cooking – cutting endlessly, and cleaning up lots of sticky juice and small chopped items that inevitably wind up on the floor, and washing a thousand dishes and utensils. This is not enjoyable to me. However, eating really fresh food prepared from scratch and sharing it with people I love and who nurture my spirit is so worth the work and aching back! And I learned something new in preparing a citrus habañero salsa: what a “supreme-style segment” is and how to prepare it. You slice the rind off of a citrus fruit, taking just the peel and rind, then slicing between the segments so you end up with just fruit sections, no skin of any kind attached (yeah, there's an artful technique to this, and I'm sure really good knives make it much easier). Oh my, juice up to my elbows! But wow, this salsa looks great and should be yumm-O on the citrus marinated fish fillets!

About my friend: She’s a couple years older than our daughter and attended church with us while she was working on her doctorate degree. She’s smart (obviously), and she has such a good heart, is generous and considerate - beautiful in every way. She loves to cook good, healthy food, so we enjoy eating together. She became like a daughter to us, and in fact, she and our daughter could be sisters. I have girls’ nights once or twice a year, and one time I invited her and my daughter so they could meet. As predicted, they hit it off. Friend married a nice guy and they moved into his house on the north side of town. We’ve made it a point to stay in touch with them; I meet Friend for lunch every so often, Friend & Hubby had us for dinner in the spring, so it’s our turn to treat tonight. It just makes my heart smile to be with these kids. Bon Apetit!  

A Week's Worth

Sept. 5, 2014

I have some catching up to do! Gaps in my posts don’t mean I haven’t noticed things I’m grateful for, just that I haven’t gotten around to writing them down. So here are a few from the past week: 

• This summer I have diligently kept my hummingbird feeders filled and clean, which means making nectar at least once a week and emptying/cleaning/refilling the feeders every 2-3 days. I can see the level of the nectar going down in the tube feeder, but I never see any birds sipping from it. Since I see it going down, I keep up the routine, and I was finally rewarded a couple of days ago! While eating lunch, I looked up and a hummer was at the feeder right outside the window. He perched and drank for the longest time, then flitted around to each of the holes. He must have stayed for five minutes. Later in the day while in the pool, I saw hummers, or maybe the same one, at both feeders, again for quite a few minutes. Definitely a smile for the day!

• While shopping at Costco last week, I got in line behind an elderly woman and her daughter, who looked quite a bit older than me (which says how elderly the elder woman was!). Mama had a rebate check to cash, so her daughter went on the “customer” side of the checkout to pay for their order, and Mama went on the “cart” side to cash her check and apply it toward the purchase. She was having a hard time figuring out what to do, then figuring out how to sign the check, then she couldn’t understand that she needed to show her Costco card so they could start ringing up her items. She told the checker she’d really like a cart, and checker said, “But you have a cart right here!” “No, I want one of those carts you can ride on.” Daughter was getting impatient and whispered to the clerk, “No, she doesn’t, she’s fine.” A second clerk looked around and told Mama apologetically that all the riding carts were taken. When they finally got her and Daughter through the line, they started on my order, but Mama hadn’t quite moved beyond checkout stand. I wrapped up my checkout, and Mama was still standing there blocking the road, with a shoe in her hand and was now having trouble getting it back on. The clerk motioned for me to meet my cart on the other side of Mama; I smiled at her and hurriedly made my way for the door. (Tai Chi hasn’t broken my hurrying habit yet, I’m afraid.) Coming toward me was the second clerk at the checkout, riding toward Mama on a cart and calling out to her, “Hey, look what I found for you!” I wanted to laugh and cry all at the same time, and to sandwich-hug the clerk, Mama, and Daughter.

• I got myself into playing the organ for church this Sunday, kind of a musical chairs of substituting for someone who substituted for another organist last week. At any rate, I haven't touched the organ since Easter Sunday because playing the organ is stressful for me, and at about that time I elected to remove as much stress as possible to allow all the therapies I'm doing to actually work. Here's the thing with the organ: it is not like playing the piano, which I'm fairly good at. On organ, you don't get a sustain pedal to help you play legato - you have to actually hold each key until the next tone plays, so you have to meticulously plan - and write out - fingering, until you get really good at playing. To make it work, the left hand has to take some of the right-hand notes, which is confusing to a normal brain, but to Freddie, it's pure, intense frustration. Oh, and add feet playing pedals, often in opposing direction to hands, and it's ... stressful. Add in stage fright, and well, I had to leave organ playing behind. So back at the church practicing several times this week I was reminded of what sitting on a hard wooden bench with arms raised to play on two different manuals (higher than a piano keyboard), chin tipped up to see the music does to my body. It helped somewhat to remember the Tai Chi visualization of head pulled up by a string, the rest of the body suspended and relaxed, but even so, my hand muscles were in a cramp last night from using hand muscles that haven't been used in months, I felt the tension in my neck and shoulders, and my ribs are hurting really bad. But here's what I'm grateful for: The swimming pool - again. I came home from each organ session barely able to move, my hips, torso and legs were so stiff and painful. In the weightlessness of the water, I feel no pain; I kick, stretch and move, and the water figuratively and literally washes away tension and pain and refreshes body and spirit. I'm also grateful for Tai Chi, which is giving me actual relaxation tools to use during and after stressful events; and for sacred music that I do love so much (just not playing it in front of other people); and the opportunity of having learned how to play the organ - and not having to do it every week!

• And today's smile: Talking to my BFF from third grade for more than an hour this afternoon. She's one of those few people I absolutely trust, and when either of us just needs to talk to someone, we are the Someone we both think of first. We live thousands of miles apart now, but we meet up for a girls' weekend occasionally, and although we don't talk weekly or even monthly sometimes, when we do talk, we pick up right where we left off. We can say what we honestly feel and we know that neither of us will think less of the other one. She would come this minute if I needed her, and I would do the same for her. How precious is the gift of that kind of friend?!

Letting go doesn't equal burial!

Aug. 5, 2015

Today I’m grateful for the good friends who have crossed my path and especially for those who have come into my life and stayed here. Truly, “living” becomes “being” when your heart connects with another’s, and you give and share and grow because of it. Hard times are doable with a good friend to help bear the burden; ordinary days become bright when you feel loved; and I’m pretty sure heaven is made of those good times when more hearts than your own share an experience.

I do like change – as long as I initiate it! When I connect with someone who becomes a friend, I take it hard when they leave me standing there on the stage of life like a lone actor trying to ad lib lines. A few friends have betrayed me, and I carry around resentment and anger like a backpack full of rocks. Many more have simply read their lines at the appropriate time in my drama and then moved to the wings. For those, I carry around sadness and maybe a little anger, questioning why God would give me good friends who become part of my soul and leave a gaping hole when they fade away.

Well, here’s what a lighter Me thinks. God does give us people who fill a particular purpose at a particular time. Or maybe we fill a particular purpose for them at a specific time. He knows some few of those people we will need for the duration, and those soul mates stay with us no matter to what ends of the earth either of us move. No matter how long they are with us, they are our friends. No past tense. I thank God for sending them to help me and enrich my life, and I pray every day for them, that they are well and happy and that they always have happy thoughts of the times we shared. Instead of mourning previously perceived holes, I try to imagine a rich, lovely fabric with some patches where certain friends wove a small unique pattern into the continuous weft of my life.

Now, betrayals are a little harder. We learn lessons from every experience and every person we encounter. If someone hurts me – or if I allow them to hurt me – the only way I can empty that load of rocks and move toward forgiveness is to think of what that person taught me, and understand that in the traffic jam of life, sometimes we’re going to collide and get injured. If a person hurts me purposely, that’s their choice, and I can’t fully know all that influenced their actions. I have the choice to let go and move on. (Plot twist!)

There are some people on my stage who I didn’t invite to be there, and I wish they would move to someone else’s stage! It’s harder to let go of people who irritate or purposely hurt you over and over and who are always in your face. Here’s the imagery I’ve tried the last few days, and it helps a little; I think it will take lots of practice before it really sticks and becomes permanent:

I imagine myself in a hot-air balloon floating upward. The people who are weighing me down are clinging to the basket, but as I will myself upward, they lose their grip and float (no, I’m not mean enough to let them crash!) to the ground, and I continue upward, floating above them – and the angst they cause me.  

And then there are the people - a small, precious group - who have been on the stage for most of my life, who have proved over the long-term to be absolutely loyal, who love me in spite of my humanness, on whom I can count no matter what. Some are family, some are friends who pick up a conversation after months or years without skipping a beat. The thing is, they are always there, and today, my smile is because of them!

Plot Twist!

Aug. 1, 2014

Doctors say I have fibromyalgia. Once it became my constant, though unwelcome, companion, a friend suggested I give it a name, with the idea that a pet name is less clinical and “whiney” sounding than the medical term. So until I can arrange a divorce or at least a separation, my mate is "Freddie." 

In the course of a seven-year journey, I have become convinced that fibromyalgia is not a condition as such, but a name concocted for a collection of symptoms that the medical community has been forced to recognize as real, but for which no one can agree on a cause, much less a cure. After having worn myself out chasing the magic bullet, I have further come to believe that peace, if not a cure, comes from positive energy – from uplifting thoughts, from gratitude, from association with people we love. One of those people reminded me just this week:

·      My condition does not define me – in other words, I have fibromyalgia (plug in any condition here) – I am not fibromyalgia. I also have fingernails; I am not a fingernail.

·      I do not win or lose – I win or learn.

·      When something goes wrong in my life, just yell, “Plot twist!” and move on.

So this gratitude journal begins because of insights that came all at once this week, thanks to tender mercies from God (little discoveries or feelings that let me know He's aware of me), to my friend who shared inspired thoughts, and to a professor and mentor at college who encouraged me to write about Freddie. At my first Tai Chi class this week, we began with deep-breathing relaxation, which at one point included thinking of something for which we are grateful, which makes us smile. I’ve been thinking every day since that moment of things that make me smile. Those smiles should be recorded – for my own memory when it’s hard to see the sun – and perhaps to lift others who suffer. And along the way, I’ll attempt to tell what I’ve learned about fibromyalgia from doctors and my own research.

Today’s smile:
Watching a Cardinal Couple – literally, a bright red male and a brown female with a red beak – courting in my back yard. They started on the fence, then flew one at a time to the crepe myrtle tree, where they sat side-by-side on a branch for quite a while before flying out of the yard together. But they came back again and again while I was in the pool (another thing to be grateful for!). How can you not love that?!