Life Without Cheese

And Other Events Since July 18 (For Real This Time)

Happy Solar Eclipse Day! This is perfect for today - I'm talking about cheese and my path - perhaps my path of totality.

Moon made of cheese, Total Eclipse

Once again, it has been more than a month since I have posted. Ugh.

I have written pages and pages in my head but haven't been able to make myself sit down at the computer and type. I'll say this: pneumonia recovery is intense; pneumonia recovery with the stress of borrowing money to pay bills, meeting with attorneys to discuss lost job and severance docs and attempting to file for unemployment benefits (mostly an exercise in frustration) is painful and overwhelming.

I'm going to try to not make this a whine fest. I'm struggling with that lately. I'm letting everything get to me and feeling like a failure most days when most of my life I have been an upbeat, positive, glass half full, PollyAnna Glad kind of girl.

Since my last post, lots and lots of ups - improvement in my health. I still sleep 9-10 hours a night (this for a lifelong 5-6 hour a night sleeper sounds crazy) but I haven't been napping during the say along with that sleep. I want to most days but it's not required as it was for two months. I turned a corner about a week ago - more energy, more color in my face and the lung exerciser (you know the weird plastic contraption where you have to keep the ball between the lines while getting the plunger to rise) is much easier now and stairs no longer cause a panic.

I have run - well walk/run - 3 times this week. Two to three miles. I'm as sore as if I had run a marathon - not kidding. For my running friends, I walk downstairs sideways. At night, I am coughing more, but from what I have read, I will likely have mucus created by the pneumonia for several months. Mucus is the enemy of asthma so I'm watchful of my peak flow numbers and how my lungs are feeling. B is incredibly watchful - he is very observant of my breathing and my purple lip when it shows up and takes better care of me than I do of myself. 💓

Eating - here's the cheese part. I miss cheese. I'm pretty sure I will always miss cheese. Dr. Trudy says I will likely not be able to have it again - at least not without consequences. I don't think I will get over not having cheese. I likely will get over having wheat and gluten - though I Do miss sandwiches and beer. As of Aug. 13, I made it two months on the elimination diet and ultra supplements including my daily shake (sometimes twice a day). I was supposed to only have one month left before the great adding back experiment began but Dr. Trudy thinks because of the pneumonia-steroids-antibiotic gut set back, I should add another month before I start the experiment. The experiment involves eating three servings of a banned food in one day and waiting 72 hours for any effects. You might remember I have 34 banned foods. If each food only takes the three days (in that it doesn't make me so sick I need more time to get over it), that's 102 days.

There are worse things and I feel better. My gut feels better. My brain feels better. My body is on the mend. I imagine I would be feeling pretty tremendous by now had I not gotten pneumonia.

Other happenings

My other sailboat is dead. My wooden sailboat - named Sloopy but I had another name chosen. I won't share it because I never put her in the water and conducted the name changing ceremony. I had to destroy her and throw her away. I went to move the boat from one storage spot to another and she had rotted out. My friend Karl and I figured out how to keep her local by chopping her up and dropping her at the local recycling center. That was July 19.

Since then, I have seen some beautiful sunsets; taken a couple of boat rides; had a couple of meltdowns - over feeling like a failure, questioning my existence, upset I still have barrel belly; made some fun food, watched a lot of HGTV and FOOD; discovered a decently yummy but weird vegan gluten free mac and cheese; had some very nice chats, texts, prezzies, coffee visits, boat visits and words of encouragement from lovely friends; packed and unpacked from my missed trips; celebrated B's birthday; and found more restaurants and kind chefs to put up with all my eating restrictions.

I have figured out a new path or a new path to begin the path of totality - more on that later. I'm excited and nervous. It's not traditional. I can keep getting well and do it. I might need a part-time job for a bit to go along with it. That's enough information for now. 

I made quinoa and roasted tofu stuffed poblano peppers

Those are sun dried tomatoes

From Jeri

I made edame hummus stuffed endive with seared tuna and scallions

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. 

When You Hit A Wall, A Complete Hair Style Change Can Boost the Spirits

Happy Hair - Happy Moment

A new hair cut. A new color. Why not both?

It won't change your life, but it will definitely change the moment - and sometimes that's all you have control of. Ask any of my friends, they have all seen my cuts and colors - from University of Kentucky blue (GO CATS!) to purple to pink (breast cancer awareness fishing tournament) to the current pinkish/red.

Unhappy about the election? Can't change the outcome. All you can do now - happy or not about the result is to affect the policy changes by voicing your opinion AND by remembering we are all human beings living on this earth and we should be nice to each other regardless of race, creed, accent or hair color.

Can't get the credit cards down enough to refinance your home? Be patient and work hard for the future - and get a hair cut NOW.

Have to work on Thanksgiving? I don't this year, but some colleagues do and everyone at Publix does, and Oscar at Wake Up Marco, and my friend Dougie at Pelican Pier - and so do a lot of people in this country including those serving B, his parents and I at dinner at the Marriott this year (Thank you). Make the best of it and be nice to those who ARE working.

Don't get a long weekend like nearly everyone else you know? (I don't). Do it with a smile and wish everyone else you are working with a happy day!

Stuck in a relationship you want out of? (Not me I'm very very happy!)

Stuck in a house you can't finish? (That IS me, as you know).

Sick of Facebook and rising health care prices? Who isn't?

Missing family? Need a new car? Need a new job?

Best friends moving far far away? (Sniff Sniff)

OK, you can't change these things right this second. I can't change the things above that affect me right now.

But you can change your hair! I did!

This seems so simple and silly, I know. But I'm silly, for sure, and simple things can change my mood, my outlook in a minute - or 90 as it took for the new cut and and color.

I gave my friend and hairdresser Jess carte blanche after I said I was bored with it long and without any real style and was open to color - the pink was fading from the fishing tournament (that my team mate Barb put in a couple of days before the tourney in October).

Jess got a twinkle in her eye and I could almost see the light bulb above her head. She mixed the color and put it on without telling me her plan. She rinsed and washed, showed me a hint of reddish/pink and began to cut.

It turned out to be by far my favorite hair cut and color combo of my entire life. Well, possibly the Dorothy Hamill cut in the third grade is close - very close - to my favorite. But as an adult, THIS is it.

Thank you Jess!

It has breathed new life into a worn-down me.

Sending love and wishes of  joy, peace and kindness into the universe.

Unstoppable

Theme Songs, Running, Friends, Funk, Coffee, Hog Nose Rays

I feel my life has a theme song that changes each day.
Some days, my theme song is obvious, other days I have to choose it and make the day fit because I want or need it to. Today, I went for a run in search of endorphins and chose to listen to a hockey locker room playlist I made in 2012 - an excellent mix if I do say so.

At first, I thought today's theme song was Wall of Voodoo's Mexican Radio:
I wish I was in Tijuana
Eating barbequed iguanaI'd take requests on the telephoneI'm on a wavelength far from homeI feel a hot wind on my shoulderI dial it in from south of the borderhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyCEexG9xjw


Then as I ran on a damn near perfect running day - 65, sunny, humid, slight breeze - I let my mind unwind and the real theme song played in my headphones - Kat Deluna's Unstoppable:
You can talk all you want but my skin is really thickI'm the leader of a crowd and my game is really slickI'm unstoppableUnstoppableUnstoppableUnstoppable


Save your pity for tomorrowWhen I smash it like a ball in the clubOn the news, I'll be rockin' like a rockstarI'm unstoppableUnstoppableUnstoppableUnstoppable
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NW40rfp7aoQ


That's more like it or it's more like what I'm going to make it. 

Pre-run selfie. It was 57 here after all

So lucky to have this to run next to

Happy surprise along my run

A visit to the still untouched wooden sailboat

I have definitely been in a funk lately - mystery pain and sickness so I've been to a few doctors and had a few tests that show nothing  but we're still searching. My quality of life dropped off. I hadn't run in over a week and work was suffering - weekday and weekend work. And I have been whiny - ask anyone - yesterday, I was a grumpy monkey for sure.
As Nina Simone sings:
Sun in the sky you know how I feelBreeze driftin' on by you know how I feel.
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life for me yeah
ouh
And I'm feeling good
Blossom on the tree you know how I feel
It's a new dawn
It's a new day
It's a new life
For me
And I'm feeling good

Birds flying high you know how I feel

River running free you know how I feel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5Y11hwjMNs

Some things that help with this idea of a new dawn, a new day include running, yoga, daily texts and sharing between friends - Jess, Kate, Lisa, Tim, Courtney, Dougie, Bev; daily coffee visits to chat with Oscar and get my vat of caffeine; the glorious sunshine; visiting friends Brad, Karen, Lynn and their lovely children, along with Elana - sweet, funny, positive, quirky, smart Elana with her endless energy and her wonderful new family; Jess's mom Erin - kind, thoughtful, insightful and a pistol; new friends; new acquaintances; the idea of house and sailboat projects and getting them done; power tools; flip flops; sunrises; sunsets; daytime moons; and daily surprises such as thousands of hog nose rays showing up at the marina last weekend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LEWFOzJUWg

Cownose Rays at Pelican Pier

Full moon rising

Pine tree pose

Flip flops and basketball season!

Ugly fish in the shrimp tank

Ready to cut through some drywall

Weeding Out the Dead Leaves to Make Room for New Growth

November Might Be The New Renewal Month

I was over at my parents' house last night watering the plants, getting mail and generally checking on things while they are away. |

As I pulled the dead leaves off the plants I'm trying to keep alive for Mom and Dad's return next month, I thought "I need to do this in my life more regularly."  I need to discard the dead leaves to make room for new growth - in my head and in my heart. 

"Take from the past only what you need," as my yoga instructors say. This is an encouragement when moving from Warrior 2 or Virabhadrasana II pose into reclined warrior. I should repeat this line and the movement over and over.

Reclined Warrior

Because of friends and family and some focus on me, I'm feeling stronger and more confident. Possibly strong enough to tackle this idea and mantra starting now - in November. November in previous places I lived was always a time for gray skies, cold rain, falling leaves and darkness. Here on my little island, palm trees are shedding leaves while flowers start to bloom after the hot summer, and the burrowing owls search for mates to start nesting.

Feels like perfect timing for renewal and not throwing away the past but keeping what I need from it and moving on from the things I don't.

The past is going to need some reflection.

I awoke on Nov. 1 - after a wild and fun Halloween - and felt the beginnings of a renewal, revival even, and determination. November is going to be busy - some reflection and grounding will be good.

The snow birds are arriving - quadrupling the population here. I have to be in Miami for 7 days to work in my company's officer there during the busiest time of the quarter. I am determined to get my kitchen finished this month - somehow, some way. I picked up the Sunfish today - I hope she doesn't need a lot of work to get her in the water but I'm going to need some work and some time to learn how to sail her.
In addition to all of this, I am going alcohol free for November - just taking a little break, though I am going to allow myself red wine on Thanksgiving. Living in mini Margaritaville here, it's easy to find yourself with a happy fruity drink in your hand often - with an island of vacationers and we locals just feeling happy and celebratory because of the ever-present sunshine and the beauty surrounding us. 

I will still see my friends and have fun and enjoy paradise, but I really want to focus I want to be useful to others.

My sister Summer, who is incredibly encouraging and thoughtful and writes the loveliest comments on my blog, is wise beyond her years. She wrote this to me recently:

Being useful to someone is a great goal. And super obtainable, I think! You are useful to Mom and Dad when you check on the house. You are useful to your friends when you say encouraging words. You can be useful to strangers by helping someone carry groceries, commenting on a pretty outfit, or even a smile. We all need kindness in this world and it doesn't have to be super big if you are not up for that at the moment. Just keep trying daily and look for those opened doors, and something you are being called to will make itself known. Love you and remember your thoughtfulness and kindness to me is always useful :D

I have the most amazing siblings - smart and thoughtful, sweet and kind.

Onward November! There's growing to be done.

Paradise

Residents Beach

Boat Ride With My Parents

Weekend Job

Vacationing Friends - Some of the Best

Halloween Fun and A Bit of Empowerment Through Costume

Allen and El Jefe - xoxo

Yoga Morning

The Girls of Marco - So Blessed to Have Them

Sisters Heather, Summer, Kyle