Hi It's Me

Colors, Emotions, New Dawns, Breathing Deeply

My color is aqua blue today - not green blue but blue green if you're thinking 120 box of Crayons.

I discover a day's color usually only if I have attended yoga practice. I find it in Savasana (shah-VAH-sah-nah) - that last delicious pose of relaxation and letting go. It's a tough one - eyes closed almost finished with practice and trying so hard not to let your mind wander to the rest of the day. What's next? What will I eat? Who am I meeting?

The color finds me. Some days I have to hunt for it in my mind. Sometimes there are lots of colors and I have to still my mind to settle on the one.

This all began during a meditation that followed yoga one Tuesday night on the beach. Debby was teaching and it was my first meditation. She guided us through it beautifully. And ever since, I find my color after class no matter who is teaching. It's lovely and something I look forward to. It's calming or energizing or smile making.

Today's color was calming.

I needed it. Much has happened (good and bad) and not happened since my last post oh so long ago and I'm trying to look toward the future and find focus. I'm struggling. Also, today is inauguration day - a day of trepidation, hope, uncertainty for the coming four years when there is a new president - and sometimes when there is not.Good things: 

• Visit to Rochester, NY, with B for Christmas with his family. It was a lovely Christmas. He's a good egg. Perhaps the best egg. I got to meet Maeve - B's niece who I have adored in pics since she was born. She's even cuter in person - so much fun.

• Came home from my trip and my sister Heather and her family had arrived with our parents. Love those kiddos of hers - and love her and her husband too! Heather, Matt, Ana and Alex went home after a week but now my parents are nearby until May. That's nice.
• So many Christmas wishes and cards and love. Grandaddy sent me  a lovely necklace. He's the bestest best egg of them all. Then my dad. Then B. :)
• I had my second leg surgery - all healed from that now. May have to have some tweaks.
• New Year's with friends and family - spent the day watching Kentucky basketball (Go CATS) with family. Spent the evening with B, Karl and my Chicago "family" - the Bothwells.
• On my birthday, I felt loved and cherished (Jeri, Bev, B, Mom and Dad, family, Courtney, Stephen, The Cookies, Erin, Karl, Dougie, Squid Bits, Brad, Karen and so many more including special guests down from Wisconsin - Kristen, Chris and Jess).
  
  And then I felt sick. I spent the early morning the day after in the ER (this part goes in the Not So Good Things list).
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  

  Heather, Matt, Ana, Alex

  
  

  

  With Lynn and Karen

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Not so good things:

• Being sick on my birthday, having to leave birthday dinner early, spending evening miserable and in pain, spending 4 hours in the ER, finding out the antibiotics I was given weren't for what I had and had to go see primary care for something new that actually made me feel better soonest.
• The ER charging my debit card $1,000 instead of the $100 copay was I was supposed to be charged. Between the ER, the holiday and the bank, it caused a lot of stress, annoyance and troubles.
• Fighting lab company that tells me insurance won't pay while insurance says it never received a bill and it would be covered 100% - it's in collections. Advocate helping me sort it but it's another layer of stress and exhaustion.
• THE lawsuit. Ongoing annoyances with clerk's office and confusing legal stuff ('nuf said).
• Never-ending brokeness. It's just stressful. I keep trying. One day I will get it sorted. I will.
• And finally, I broke Washington D.C. So sad. I liked watching it snow in the capital.
  
  
  
  

More good things:

• Did some serious purging and cleaning and reorganizing in my place - mainly so Nomee (who had to cancel a planned visit) and Jess and Chris didn't have to climb over boxes to get to the guest bed, but it feels good too. Really starting to have a homey vibe around here.
  

  

  Hanging things, setting up the bar

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Lots of visitors in February to look forward to.
  
• Oscar.
  
• I think I'm mostly well.
  
• Little things are joyful - like dolphins jumping, the 90-year-old (at least) man riding a 3-wheeled bicycle today, pictures and letters from my many nieces and nephews, seeing the babies faces and videos. B showed me one of Maeve using a Bills sippy cup the other day and my nephews Lincoln and Jackson were bouncing around with my brother Bob on Facebook last week - loved it.
   Amanda, feel free to send lots of videos of the boys!
  
• Sunsets - I honestly get grumpy when I miss one.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Colors.
  
• And this from today's presidential inauguration: 

KEEP FAITH, KEEP WATCH, 
TAKE HEART, TAKE COURAGE, 
GUARD MIND, GUARD SPIRIT. 
FEED LOVE, FEED LONGING - The chorus of an original song written for the Missouri State University Choral to sing today.

http://blogs.missouristate.edu/inauguration/2017/01/19/the-lyrics-of-an-original/

I'm certainly taking heart. I'm good at that - I'm yellow.