Baby tomato blog

The day I got back, I got to help a friend prepare for a Humane Society fundraiser.

Mom likes to see my smiling face sometimes. (And hey, the Shiva shell necklace!)

Gus is an adorable hellion.

My new phone can take pictures without bright sunlight!

My boss went to the Grand Canyon and was showing me their hiking path. I was so impressed that rock slides are so common that they put it on the map.

Ok, so here's what the blog is for. It's a big deal for me to get to the point where I can buy these things, and my income has not changed significantly in four years. I got the first two done around the holidays, which was no easy feat, and I did not see a way to do the last one anytime soon. I've been paying my own way on Dad's plan for a while now, but I leave the upgrades to him. Tracy told him he needed to take a good look at my phone while I was out there this time. He did, and directed me to the Sprint store to see what we could figure out. I got a deal I can afford and a phone that receives all texts and takes nice pictures. I'm excited and grateful and it made me think about my list. I didn't expect to cross that off until late this year at best, and I was proud that I'd crossed off two. Thanks to Dad for sharing his plan with me, thanks to Tracy for speaking up when I wouldn't, and thanks to the universe for taking care of that. ❤

I'm gonna try hiding eggs in a post again. I'll put that up here too. 

2018 San Diego

Captions to come

Snug as a pug in a jug

This has been an interesting week.

First of all, my sister and brother released an album.

Their name is Hearses Don't Hurry, and here's the link to their single:
Gaslight

The album is called Shiver, and is available on iTunes, which is pretty neat.

Hearses Don't Hurry Facebook page
Hearses Don't Hurry Bandcamp page

It's pretty awesome and you should listen to it! This is so neat, Tracy!


Mom and Marty left for France, and I already feel the need to call her and ask stupid questions, but thankfully Tracy is willing to field those for me. They'll be there for a long visit and Tracy and I get to go visit them. If you were hoping to visit them too, that's too bad because they already have enough visits planned, so you'll just have to go and cook yourself an egg!

Sunday I went to see The Dark Crystal with Sarah, who had never seen the movie. She said we should go see it together just because she saw I was excited about it. 💓 It was neat to see the movie in the theater with people of all ages, and to find new appreciation for it from a different perspective.

I had a bunch of interesting meetings on Monday, including one about interesting concepts of trading some job duties. It was neat to see what duties people volunteered for, in addition to what they wanted to get rid of.

My favorite massage therapist is now doing home visits, so she came and worked on my feet for a completely reasonable price and I'm so thrilled to have her back. She's looking for more clients, so let me know if you're interested. What a treat to not have to go anywhere after a massage.

My class was interesting as always, with some neat conversations, and afterwards I ran into many people I don't see often, and they all seemed very happy to see me, which felt really nice. Then I saw my therapist, and talked to her about this frustrating problem of not being able to incorporate information well. I have all the pieces, they just do not seem to connect. I see this as a failing of mine, but she said something kinder and fairer than I had considered. She thinks I keep so many things in my brain at once that I'm bound to drop some, and we talked about how to put some of those down.

Yesterday it was cold and rainy with a threat of snow, and I went to the dentist and was told my teeth look immaculate, which I never thought I'd hear from a dentist ever. I still got my teeth cleaned- no waiver on that. My neighbor got to the laundry room before me and thwarted my evening plans so I was free to meet A&N for sushi. I even managed to avoid hyperglycemia.

I got a one hour weather delay for work today, and felt like I accomplished a lot, even though there's a lot more to go. I asked to work late, but my boss said the roads were too bad already and sent me home with an invitation to come in if I'd like to this weekend.

One of the maintenance guys came by today and completed my workorder list:

• Tighten the shower faucet
• Unclog the bathroom sink
• Replace the bathroom light bulbs
• Change the smoke detector batteries
• Change the air filter
• Retrieve the chocolate bar that fell between the oven and the counter

It's been snowing nonstop for hours and I was happy to reschedule dinner with friends rather than potentially wreck my car, so I sat at home and watched a movie, did laundry, and cooked my own dinner.

Gus had a really hard day today. His adoptive mom wouldn't let him eat the freshly hawked up hairball on the carpet, and then she made him go pee in the wet snow. Midway through his daily nap, he was woken up for what he thought would be a long walk in the sun, but instead was put into the evil car and driven to the vet. He tried to hide under his mom's arm, but he got a shot anyway. Then he came home in the evil car and found a strange person working in the bathroom. That freaked him out a little, but then the smoke detectors were making a really loud, scary noise and that was worse. Later, his mean mom carried him way out into the snow and wouldn't let him come back in until he pooped. He finally got to eat dinner, but not as much as he wanted, and he gets stabbed in the neck every time he eats anyway. After dinner, he was curled up all comfy on the couch when the cat started batting his nose. He doesn't like being picked up, he doesn't like the car, and he doesn't like the snow, and he had to deal with that unpleasantness all day. As a final humiliation, he was sleeping soundly in his comfy spot when he was woken up, carried outside, and put directly into deep snow because his mom didn't realize how deep it was, and then she laughed at him and carried him further out to a spot where you could still see the ground.

Thankfully, now he's safe and warm and in for the night, and looking forward to better adventures tomorrow.

Nevermind

I climbed all the way up there and rang the bell. Then I climbed up the next one over and rang that bell too. I'm so impressed with myself right now, but I need to go take ibuprofen and a bath before my muscles figure out what I did.

Something new

I am so excited to tell you that we are not playing kickball again this year. Lots of disclaimers, yes, but it felt almost as anxiety-inducing as softball after a while, and it didn't help that most of the teams were ridiculously competitive. I would think they could scale it back and let us play a little once they had a ten point lead, but no- all their fun came in slaughtering us. As I complained about last year, there were a good number of these teams that consisted of 6 or 7 athletic guys and the league minimum of 3 girls. Some of those girls could and would kick, but a seriously sad number of them only did weenie bunts. It was also not giving me a whole lot of exercise, but it was a good source of pulled muscles. To hell with diamond shaped "recreational" leagues. Give me some friendly drunken barbecue Wiffle Ball.

So guess what I'm going to do tonight?

Sarah got us a rock climbing lesson. Oh god. I'm starting to wonder if there is anything I have no anxiety over that other people dread. If you know of any, please tell me to make me feel better. I am not looking forward to this, but it's a class for women and beginners. Apparently we're going to spend a while tying knots, but it's a 2 hour class. I'm going to feel so much better about this tomorrow, but I'm going!

Leaving some room

It does make me sad. But I think that's a good thing.

I normally have it tucked away somewhere in the back, and I really don't take it out that often to think or talk about it. It is hard at some points, but those moments allow me to honor what's there. I let go for a moment by myself, and just let it hurt. Then I put it back down and keep going- genuinely ok.

Less poopy

I just want to come back here and tell you that things are better. It helps so much to be able to vent and see a little perspective and make myself laugh, but also I went to the doctor and I didn't even have to be patiently insistent- I just asked for what I needed and got it. It worked out in a way that it shouldn't have, maybe, because it seems like the stars just aligned, but they were very kind and helpful and I am ridiculously grateful.

I came home from that to walk Gus before I went to work and he pooped another puddle, but there was a... well, I'll spare you, but let's say a glimmer of poo hope. Then I went to work and was a busy little bee and that felt nice. I worked and worked and then at about 20 min to go, my blood sugar hit the floor. I had to have a bunch of sugar and got an instant migraine. I came home, took Gus out, then the animals and I curled up in bed and I dreamt of a bunch of sea lions all happily piled up in a pen. I don't know why they were happy.

I got up to find that I still have the headache, and I had to make Gus food for tomorrow, so this time I made two pounds worth of ground turkey. I have been doing this so much that I have gotten really good at eyeballing the amount of water needed for the rice. This time I made 3 times what I normally do and got it perfect! Well, rice may not be a perfectly measurable thing. This is important to me because I am not normally that good with spatial intelligence tasks.

Also today, I got encouraged to pursue some resources to help with the poopy coworker. That, along with the book I'm being asked to read, ties in beautifully with this need for assertiveness that I was writing about yesterday. I mentioned this to my nonpoopy coworker, and he told me he thought I was very good at being assertive. How nice is that? I'm not, but I'm glad it at least looks that way sometimes.

This is probably a really boring blog, and I'm sure yesterday's wasn't much better, but man... this is just a rough time! Even the good stress is still stress, and I am longing to sit in the sun with a book, like I used to do with Riley when I got home from work. We don't even have weather, just cold, and sometimes wet and windy. I should not ask for snow, but the obligatory Reno resident motto is that we need it. Then you have to clarify that "We don't need snow down here, we need it in the mountains."

So I had this great idea about how to help a friend and I was busy beating myself up for not thinking of it sooner, and I was going to try to figure it out tonight and had to just stop and try to reason with myself. It's better late than never, and you probably shouldn't make yourself a pest in the process, so just chilllll and do it as soon as you have time and no migraines. It will be welcome and helpful when it happens.

Tomorrow is my class and I was actually thinking about that walking to my apartment when a neighbor asked if I am a teacher. I had no idea how to answer that, and when I see her tomorrow I will talk to her more. I know I wanted to be a teacher when I was little, but I always thought that was because I had a limited understanding of the options. It's funny how things come around. I am already excited about this class and what we can do in it, even though I have been feeling stressed about teaching it again. I think I just feel like it's time to do something new, but this morning, one of my former students left her desk and walked all the way around to come out and hug me. She recently started this job and says it's thanks to me and this class. I automatically reject those statements, but it is so cool to see people do what they never thought they would, regardless of why.

Tomorrow we're talking about goals, stress, life, and mindfulness. I have some things in mind and I am so excited. This will be fun, and I will be well rested and headache free. I also have a yoga teacher in there with me, ready to do some mindfulness exercises. How cool is that? Don't worry, we will be burning through the concrete stuff soon enough, but we've been restructuring the class to talk about goals and move towards them all the time. I know what mine is, but one of the biggest things that's surrounding me right now is enduring and even embracing discomfort. Because- damn, what else is there to do?