1/7/15. The post where I appreciate my patient, long-suffering husband.

1/7/15: I woke up feeling exhausted this morning and my health monitor confirmed it.  Lots of REM sleep, very little deep sleep.  I think the improv class wound up my brain, and coming home after class and trying to go straight to sleep was probably not a good idea.  Fortunately, today was not too mentally taxing, because I don't think I would have been up to it.  A big cold front came in today, which made me nervous, but my foot felt better than I expected.  

I had a late afternoon manicure/pedicure appointment, thank goodness.  With the long holiday break, I had gone longer than usual between appointments, and between cold dry weather, packing and unpacking suitcases multiple times, and generally paying little attention to them, my nails looked like I had tunneled my way out of prison.  But my manicurist is a genius and within an hour and a half, she had me looking human again.  ("Russian Navy" from the OPI Russian Collection, which came out in 2007.  I doubt a Russian collection would be as popular a marketing idea today. But it's an awesome color.)

After my appointment, I was off to help my patient, long-suffering husband put the final touches on a dinner he was cooking for a church function.  He has spent the last two days working on shrimp creole and chicken and sausage gumbo for 50 people.  In addition to doing his normal job.  With virtually no help from me.  Because he is brilliant.  The best part for me?  I got to swoop in at the last minute, do a few minor kitchen chores (like tearing lettuce leaves for salad - I'm talking minor), and then bask in the glory.  Everyone raved about the meal, which was delicious.  Anytime 5 year-olds and 75 year-olds both come back for second helpings, you know you've cooked a crowd-pleaser.  And then we went straight to choir practice, which also went well, despite the fact that nearly everyone was bloated and groaning from the fantastic meal.  My patient, long-suffering husband had an A+ kind of day.  I think he's earned a pass tomorrow.  

1/6/15. The post where I do improv.

1/6/15:yes, that's what I said.  I did improv tonight in my acting class.  And it was a lot of fun.  It's the first time I've done it in nearly 30 years, but it's just like riding a bike.  And I think I burned just as many calories as I would have done riding a bike.  I had forgotten how physical it was.  Or maybe it just felt more physical than it did 30 years ago.  There were a few times I noticed that my foot hurt and thought about turning up the stimulator, but then I would get busy again and forget about it.  Which means this is probably just what I needed.

1/5/15. The post where go back to work.

1/5/15: not enough sleep for the last night before going back to work, but I managed to drag myself up this morning and ride my bike on the trainer. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that in all my holiday debuachery I had only gained half a pound, so I decided to get back on the diet wagon and see if I can keep making progress.  Because eventually I want to be able to buy a pair of shoes again.

It was a busy catch-up day at work, but I got through it.  And I only had two employees crying in my office, so I considered it a success.  Some of my work is cyclical, and I am about two weeks away from starting a really busy four-to-five month cycle. This will be the first such cycle I've gone through since my diagnosis, so I am trying to stay as far ahead of the game as I can.  So far, so good.

When we drove through the remains of the ice storm on Saturday, there was a lot of debris in the road.  Rather than using sand or salt to de-ice the road, it appears the highway department used gravel and broken glass, so in addition to a filthy car, we came home with a ding in the windshield.  And when my patient, long-suffering husband took his car to the car wash today to remove the layer of icy road grime, he made a more gruesome discovery.  There are hundreds of chips in the paint all over the front third of the car and the front headlight covers are completely dinged up.  The hood feels like a cheese grater when you run your hand over it.  Thank goodness for insurance.  For the price of our (relatively low) deductible, the windshield and headlight covers will be replaced, half the car will be repainted, and my patient, long-suffering husband will get a free rental car while the work is being done.  While it's not what we'd hoped to be doing with a three month old car, it could be worse.  Much worse.  Much, much worse.  

My foot didn't feel great today, but it didn't feel horrible, either.  And I turned down the amplitude on the stimulator yesterday (because it was driving me nuts) without it getting appreciably worse.   It's pretty cold this week, and we are forecast for quite a bit of rain over the weekend, so we'll see how it goes.  I have a doctor appointment in a couple of weeks, and I suspect I'll have lots of information to share with him.

1/4/15. The post where I realize it is a new year.

1/4/15:  woke up very refreshed after a night in my own bed.  No choir this morning, so I took advantage of the opportunity to go to the early service.  I went straight home and got cracking on chores. 

I was in Tasmanian Devil mode all day - unpacking, opening mail, doing load after load of laundry, and putting away Christmas decorations. We brought the cold weather back with us and as a result, my foot didn't feel great today, but it improved this evening.  It was a long, tiring day, but I feel organized and ready to get back to real life for awhile.  Not for too long, though.  After one day at home, my patient, long-suffering husband and I are already looking forward to the next trip. 

I realized tonight as I was writing a check that it is a new year.  Yes, I know, I just celebrated New Year's Eve, but somehow the actual date change escaped me.  I just went back and corrected my blog posts for the past three days.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised.  What do Tasmanian Devils know about calendars?  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c54SvkgQ04A

1/3/15. The post where we make it home...finally.

1/3/15: with our change in destination last night, we knew our drive today was going to be two hours longer and we would have to contend with a time change that should have happened yesterday.  However, there was no point in getting an early start, because part of the road would not be passable until the temperature got above freezing and the sun came out to melt the ice.  So we waited awhile and left mid-morning.

The ice was gone, but there was still a slushy wet mixture for much of the morning that was making everyone on the road skittish.  As was the vehicle carnage in the shoulders and medians.  There was a steady stream of cars, RVs, and 18-wheelers that were overturned, jack-knifed, or simply abandoned.  We felt like geniuses for stopping early yesterday.

By early afternoon, the sun had completely dried out the road.  However, it was still pretty obvious there had been a storm the previous day.  The road was covered in sand and gravel, and filled with filthy vehicles driven by nervous and frustrated drivers.  We stopped in the only decent-sized town for about 100 miles to eat a late lunch and put gas in the car.  We, and everyone else on the road.  After a longer-than-expected lunch, we made the very disconcerting discovery that nearly every gas station in the town was out of gas.  We drove from station to station, reading the "out of gas" signs on the pumps as our fuel gauge dipped dangerously close to "empty".  The only station that still had gas was a truck stop on the edge of town, and there was a line at the entrance that gave me a flashback to the gas rationing of the '70s.  We started to consider the possibility that we might have to stay in town until more gas was delivered, whenever that might be.  Running on fumes, we got in line and hoped neither we nor the station ran out of gas before we got to a pump, while I worked on a plan B.  And a plan C.  

An hour later, we were on our way with a full tank.  We were pleasantly surprised at how well-behaved and orderly everyone seemed to be, and we hoped the gas supply held out for the long line behind us. The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful and we made it home just in time to unpack the car and collapse into bed, because my patient, long-suffering husband has to be at work early in the morning.  I hope they are not expecting greatness.  

And speaking of expectations, we were in the car for about four hours longer than we expected to be, a fact my foot pointed out to me rather emphatically.  Slowly but surely, I am starting to come up with a list of things that irritate my foot, which is helpful, but I sure wish that list were shorter.

1/2/15. The post where I keep thinking I'm having a bad day, but I am mistaken.

1/2/15: yesterday was the perfect start to a new year.  A fairly lazy day with football, a little tourist activity, and some homemade comfort food.  I meant to get to bed early, since today was an early travel day, but that didn't happen.

I set an alarm on my phone since I had to get up early to pack and see my parents off to the airport. I slept horribly, sure my alarm would malfunction.  I had several dreams in which my alarm didn't go off, and I woke up multiple times checking the clock.  Finally, I got up about 30 minutes before my alarm was set to go off, sure that I wouldn't sleep any more.  The first thing I did was check my phone to turn off the alarm, and guess what?  There had been some sort of technological malfunction in the night and my phone had done a hard reset.  No alarm.  Not sure if it was dumb luck, or if somehow I knew subconsciously, but I guess losing a little sleep was worth it.  

Since I was awake, I decided to double check my hotel reservation for tonight.  No real reason to do it.  I had a specific recollection of making the reservation, but I figured it couldn't hurt to verify, and guess what? No written or electronic confirmation that I had a reservation.  Seriously???  No worries, though.  We were driving through a small town on January 2. How hard could it be to get a room?  

Pretty hard.  I checked their website, and every room was booked.  I wasn't even supposed to be awake yet and already it was a bad day.  I started to work on a plan B and checked the weather on our route.  Yikes!  The town where we planned to stop was forecast to have an evening ice storm.  Good thing I didn't have a reservation after all.  After a brief consultation with my patient, long-suffering husband, I made a new reservation at the same hotel we stayed in on Christmas night, a couple of hours closer and not in the storm path.  Problem solved.

We got my parents to the airport, packed up the car, and were on our way.  My patient, long-suffering husband suggested I call the first hotel to make sure we didn't have a reservation, and it's a good thing I did.  Because we did have a reservation.  They had just failed to send me a confirmation.  While I was glad to know that I hadn't dreamed making the reservation, I was still frustrated.  But all was well.

Since we were staying in a different town, we decided to make the most of it and searched for a good restaurant on the World Wide Web.  The good news - it just so happened one of the best restaurants in town was two blocks from our hotel, so we made a reservation.  The bad news - we did not have appropriate clothing.  (Yeah, I know.  First world problems.)  This was easily resolved with a quick stop at a department store just off the freeway.  Which, coincidentally, was having a fantastic sale.  Just like every store in the country.  We got back in the car, where I discovered I had lost my sunglasses...or so I thought.  After I totally retraced my steps through the department store, I returned to the car to find they were in my purse after all, just not where they should have been.  One of the dangers of being an obsessively organized person. I'm not accustomed to things going awry, so when they do, I am ill-equipped to deal with it.

Late in the afternoon, about 70 miles from our plan B destination, it started snowing lightly.  Then it snowed a little more.  Then it snowed like I imagined it snowed in the blizzards when I read "Little House on the Prairie" as a young girl.  I started to hope I had enough layers of clothes to sleep in the car comfortably overnight.  But, it stayed just warm enough that nothing stuck to the roadway, and we got to our destination with no trouble.  Plus, it was beautiful.  Much better than driving in the rain.

We got to the hotel to find we had been upgraded to a suite.  Score!  We cut the tags off our new clothes and dressed for dinner.  A short, cold walk, and we had another wonderful meal.  Probably the last one before a long and serious diet, so we enjoyed it thoroughly.  A short walk through the historic downtown area, and then it was off to bed...or so I thought.  During the walk, one of my earrings had caught on my scarf and my patient, long-suffering husband had to untangle me and find the earring.  However, when we got back to the room, I discovered it was more complicated.  What he had found was actually my pendant, which had also gotten tangled, and the earring was still gone.  Ever the dutiful husband,  he bundled back up and retraced our steps to try to find it, but with no luck.

If the worst thing that happened to me today was losing an earring, I will feel very fortunate.  We just read about hundreds of people stranded on the freeway near our original destination, and local residents are trying to bring them food and blankets.  I am sitting in a cozy historic hotel suite with a full stomach from a delicious gourmet meal.  As it turns out, I had a very good day.  My foot might disagree, but I am not speaking to it right now.  I consider it to be a first world problem.

12/31/14. The New Year's Eve post.

12/31/14: today was an unexpected cold, rainy day, but we still enjoyed it.  A lazy day spent watching football and peeling and drying citrus.  Just like every family, right?

We had a fantastic celebration tonight.  Dinner at a lovely restaurant overlooking the city and dancing afterward at the club below the restaurant.  If you had told me nine months ago, or even two months ago, that I would spend a wonderful New Year's Eve with my patient, long-suffering husband, my parents, and my parents-by-love, with everyone in (relatively) good health...well...that would have been good information to know.  It was a great night.

And now that I've had some time to reflect over the past year, I have special messages for 2014 and 2015. (You are welcome to listen in if you'd like.)

Dear 2014:

SCREW YOU!!!!  You tried to hurt me and my family.  It was a rough year for all of us, physically and emotionally, and we are all at different stages on our personal roads to recovery, but guess what?  You are gone and we are all still here.  In fact, thanks to my precious niece, my family is ending the year with a net gain of one. So there. 

You also tried to break all my stuff. (Now that I think about it, you actually did a pretty good job of breaking all my stuff.)  But guess what?  It's just stuff.  And I have replaced it with new stuff.  Some day, I may even finish paying for all the new stuff.  But even if I hadn't been able to replace it, it wouldn't have mattered.  Stuff isn't important.  Having family and friends I love, and who love me, is important.  And you can never take that away.

Dear 2015:

Let 2014 be a cautionary tale. It threw everything it had at our family, but we didn't give up, and we won.  You are only here for a year, so you might as well make it easy on yourself.  Things will go a lot more smoothly for you if you will just be cool and let us live our lives.  That is all.

Thanks to all of you for playing along with me over the last year.  I wish you a happy 2015 and I hope it brings joy, peace, and good health.  I think I have scared it sufficiently to keep it from messing with you or me.