Moving on

Naya may have come from Georgia, near Atlanta, but she loves the ocean.  She is not afraid of getting wet.

We took a little trip, just to get away for a bit.   Naya and I walked about 10 miles in two days.

My porch has been cleaned, and organized.   Bubba Lee's recliner is gone, and the table with her "tote" bed underneath, gone too.
The porch looks much better, but I miss her, I'd rather have her back, and a crappy looking porch to keep her happy.

About three weeks ago, I apparently forgot my age and condition, and rototilled the garden, plus two other areas, and weed whacked for a couple of hours.  Needless to say, I paid the price.
I know, I know......dumb.
But it brought me to the realization that  trying to hack back the sumac in the back of our property every single year is hopeless, and painful.
So that big machine next to the chicken coop is leveling the whole area behind the garden and behind the chicken yard, sumac and all.

Sometimes ya just gotta spend the money.

The big excitement in my life last week was going to my grand daughter's kindergarten class to read to them.

As you can see, she has laid claim to me.

Nothing like 20 five year olds to make you feel like a rock star.

So there are two cats at my house now.......Queen Sydney, who lives inside.......and Goldie, who lives outside.

I'd really like to keep it down to two cats.

Is that possible?

It's the time of year to eat lunch on the porch.

It's also time for rhubarb.
Two pies for now.
Two pies in the freezer.

The Union rug loom is gone...it was kind of like ripping a bandaid off, selling it, but once it was done, I was relieved.

I am still trying to sell all the fabric accumulated over the years.  That may take some time.

The "rug room" is now my yoga room, and home to the warping board, and the warping mill.

Somehow, it all feels right.  It was time to let go.

I had company the other day, and while I was sewing my daughter's jeans, my grandson pushed this chair over and got as close as he could.   "Help?  Help?"

Yes, dear boy, you can help.

But unbeknownst to me, my grand daughter decided to change all the settings on my Serger.

I guess those colored buttons are pretty tempting.  But when I went to use it the next day, all the threads broke, and I had to rethread and reset the whole thing.
We have to have a talk.




Our first show is in two weeks.

I have been busy sewing.  Making things from scraps in my scrap stash.

This beauty turned out way better than we expected.  I wound this crazy warp, and Lois put it on the loom, and did the weaving.  I picked out this funky metal thread for the weft, and this is the result.  It is light and airy, the whole thing only weighs a lb.  She did a great job weaving it, then I sewed it up.
It really is stunning.

Banana nut muffins today..........only because I get so annoyed that bananas get soft SO fast, and I
already have a freezer full that I use for smoothies.


This recipe is a keeper.

I threw together this rice dish tonight......with broccoli and asparagus and peas, and it was so good, that I am actually going to write it down.

Keeping busy, as usual, headaches the worst early morning, and then they let up.

Grateful.

I'll say good night with this.

My new fave cup.

Expectations

Yesterday was a quiet kind of day, as my three children were otherwise engaged.
It was different, as we usually get together on Mother's Day, but this year it just didn't work out.

I read someone's post on FB, about not being appreciated on this holiday, and someone else's comment about how the day was fraught with expectations, her exact words were "an exercise in unmet expectations".   Another comment said there was too much pressure to have a "nice day".

At any rate, I had made a plan in my head, that I was going get some things done, and have a nice, uneventful, productive day, and that I wasn't going to get sucked into that vortex of feeling bad because the day wasn't Hallmark card perfection.
 It was OK.

So the very first thing I did, was the thing that had been on my mind for a couple of weeks.  I cleaned the outside porch.
I sent my daughter a photo, with the explanation that it was as good as I could do, given that Bubbalee's heated bed is under that table, and her "chair" is an ugly, green recliner that she spends 16 hours a day in.  And God knows, I didn't want to upset Bubbalee's routine, little diva that she was.

More than ten years ago, Bubbalee appeared at my house.  Wild and untouchable.

 She lived in the barn, and had two litters of kittens, which we caught and found homes for, before we could catch her and put an end to her childbearing years.

She lived between my house, and the neighbors, until a few years ago, when she chose to  permanently stay  at mine.

See her on the roof ??

She had very distinctive white socks.

Here is she when she was very pregnant for her last kittens.

In the solar house.

In the last couple of years, she has stayed very close to home.......she never wandered far from the house, the labyrinth, the chicken coop, the barn.
She met you when you got out of the car, she followed anyone who was outside.
And after years of being fearful of any human contact, she finally decided that she loved attention.
And she got it, from everyone she saw.

She loved to be petted, but never contained.   When I tried to put her in the cat carrier to go to the vet, I ended up in Urgent Care with an infected hand.

But I forgave her.   She just lived life on her own terms.

 I have no doubt that she was happy here.

She ended up being very loved, and loving us right back.

And she was very vocal.

Dale loved  her, called her Bubbalicious.

Cooper followed her around.

Ava wanted to take her home.

 Last night, when we came home from dinner, she was laying in front of the chicken coop.   Because she was quite deaf, I reached down to touch her, and that's when I realized that she was gone.

I don't know what to say.

Bubbalee.   We will miss her so much.  She was part of our days, a constant presence.  

I woke up this morning, and my first thought was, oh my God, Bubbalee's not out there.  When I went out to feed Goldie, it felt so strange.

I am pondering how quickly life can change.  In an instant.   We don't, and can't, know the future, on any given day.

Which is why, once again, I have to remember to "stay in the day", to make it a good day, one that resonates with me.  One that registers on the good, the plus, the positive, as much as possible.

It is truly all we have.

I guess now I'll go move the ugly green chair.

Pain

It's a good thing that we don't know, when we are young, what pain awaits us in our old age.
Why worry us?   Right?
No, when we are young, we are blessedly oblivious.  If we are healthy, we have occasional bouts of discomfort, from this or that, but we have no idea of the daily pain that accompanies our bodies going south.

We romp around like these two, blissfully ignorant.

In my particular case, most of it is arthritis, inherited from both parents.......and because I have lived a fairly industrious (ok, straight out workaholic like) life, and have expended a great deal of energy doing what I wanted to do, I have arthritis is just about every possible place there is to have it.

I especially have it in my neck, where the surgeons poked and prodded and readjusted me three times.
One thing that the doctors don't tell you,  is that when they fuse your spine, ANYWHERE, that the discs below it get angry and funky and start to become a problem.

Ah, so the gist of all this.    Pain.   Mostly in the morning.  Pure unadulterated pain.....my neck, my aching back coming right through to my chest,  my hips,  and last, but never least, my ********ing
 head.
We don't like to admit to it, do we?   We look around at a restaurant, or in a store, and we see other older people, and they don't seem to have any problems, they don't look like they are in pain.  But then, do we look like we are in pain????   How do we know if they are, or they aren't? 
We don't.

I don't think I am alone in this.   I do think that some of us are unluckier than others......but I do not imagine that I am the only person getting older that hurts like hell.

I started taking the CBD oil at bedtime, because a good friend, who also suffers from arthritis, and fibromyalgia, too, swears by it.
So far, I've taken in for a couple of weeks, and I am not seeing much of a difference in the level of pain in the morning.   However, I am sleeping better than I have ever slept in my entire life.
So there's that.
It may be worth taking, just for that.
And the dreams, by God, they are entertaining........which tells me that usually, I don't sleep deep enough to dream.   Interesting.
With the CBD oil, instead of tossing and turning because my body hurts in every position, I sleep for 5-6 uninterrupted hours, deeply,  before I wake up.

So the good side is this:   after a couple of hours, the heating pad, a cuppa coffee, I start to move around, and eventually, I come alive and the pain eases up, either that, or I just move to some level of stubborn-ess and persistance, where I take over anyway.  That may be more likely.

Then there are days, like yesterday, when an added attraction appears.

Lois and I were finishing up putting a hand dyed warp on the AVL, when the jagged light appeared in my eye.  It lasts for 20 minutes or so, and no matter what I take for the headache, it descends like one of the Game of Thrones dragons, and I am toast.

The rest of the day was pretty much a waste.  I slogged through it.  Seriously, slogged.

So does she have a point here, you ask????

Well, there are articles galore about living your best life as you age, but where is the discussion about living with the weight of daily, depressing pain??????  And to be clear, I don't believe pain meds are the answer.  You can take a truckload of Ibuprofen (Advil), or Naprosyn (Alleve), but then you'll just rot your stomach out.   Narcotic pain meds don't really address arthritic pain, they would just make you so dopey, you didn't give a damn.  Not for me.  Acupuncture doesn't work for it.  I've tried it.   I've tried about everything.

It's no wonder, really, that people of a certain age are perfectly content to say sayonara.  Enough already.


It does bring me back, to that place years ago, when I learned some valuable lessons.

About "one day at a time", about "staying in the day", and mostly, "acceptance is the answer to all my problems today".

And always, I think of those who suffer infinitely worse things than I am, those who face worse things on a daily basis, and I do that old slapyourselfonthesideofyourhead thing, and I tell myself it's time to start practicing gratitude, for what I have.

I am still on my feet.   I can still weave.   I did some outside work the other day without ending up totally crippled.   I can still read, and dream, and write.
I still wake up with inspired thoughts about what I want to do today, I am able to make plans, and implement them.   I don't wear diapers, or need anyone to feed me, or get me moving.

I have a home that I love, family, friends, my best companion ever, that white ball of fluff, Naya.

I am fortunate, still.
I am alive.
I will get through the pain, so help me GOD.

If ever I feel like quitting, I will go see these two.

Case closed.