The mind is willing...

but the flesh is weak.

Especially today. And yesterday. And this past week.

Hoping for a break from the asthma flare and the back spasms now that I'm done with the flu. I'm ready to get started!

Maybe watching Baby Bug tomorrow will pull the kink out of it! She will at least put a huge smile on my face!

What a spaz.

It's cold downstairs. Cold enough that when I'm working down there I often have to have a space heater going in the cooler months, or I ache for a few days. The laundry room is the worst, because it has unfinished cement floors. I can't handle being in there for very long, if I am not wearing my shoes. Would't you know that the other day I spent several hours working in the laundry room in nothing but my slippers? 


You would think I'd learn, but... 


The last couple of days my back has been spasming as a result. I'm not letting it keep me from accomplishing things, but I'm not able to do as much as I'd like. Maybe tomorrow will be the day it decides to stop. Regardless, I will be wearing my shoes down there from now on. 


In the meantime, I've been cranking out the laundry and trying to get it finished up once again. I am hoping I'll finish up tomorrow, but then again, I've said that the last few times I've posted, and it hasn't happened. That's why I don't like giving myself deadlines. Instead of them inspiring me, I feel horribly guilty, if I don't meet them. I know the laundry room will get done eventually. Soon, even. But life happens in the meantime, and finishing the laundry room is just not my top priority. 


Besides, I'm still making good decisions and processing things. I've been able to let go of things that I wasn't able to even a year ago. I didn't think there was even enough in the laundry room to fill 2 trash bags full to throw away, but I surprised myself and made it happen. I tossed things like old paintbrushes and rollers, buckets that I realized I really didn't need, and old clothes that I realized were just taking up space and weren't good enough to give away. I feel as though the weight upon my shoulders gets lighter each time I'm able to get rid of even one more thing.


The biggest thing taking the weight off the shoulders? Mom seems to be doing better now that she's home from the hospital. Further testing is needed, so we know what the next step is, but we're all just very thankful she's doing better right now. 


Now if I could just figure out how to stop the political calls. And to think we have months left before the election. 

Meh.

Ever have one of those days when you just can't seem to think straight? 

Yeah. Today's been one of those days. 

I slept wrong again last night, and my back has been killing me all day as a result. I was able to get a bit of paperwork done, but that's about it. I was able to get 3 bags of shredables ready to go out the door, but then I forgot to send them with Hubster. I won't add them to the list on my sidebar until they're out of the house.

I'm hoping to get a better night's sleep tonight and get my back to relax a bit. And I have to admit that I'm very thankful that my back doesn't bother me this much very often. It only happens a few times a year, but it pretty much knocks me to my knees.

Hoping to be back up on my feet tomorrow.

Boo! 2

Went to the doctor yesterday. She put me on steroids. She felt it was my asthma and not bronchitis. I feel quite a bit better, so maybe she was right. I guess I'll know in by the time I'm done with the meds. 


My back is spasming a bit tonight. I overdid a bit when I was trying to help Hubster bring in a small entertainment center in from the car. It's going in the workout room to store a few more of Hubby's books and such, because the entertainment center we have down there for his books already isn't going to be quite big enough for everything. This one has 4 drawers to hold the miscellaneous stuff that won't go on a shelves. 


It was so heavy, so we tried using some of those straps that help with moving items by using leverage. I guess we should have read the instructions a bit better, because we didn't use them quite right, so it really wasn't much lighter than carrying it in on our own. It wouldn't have been so bad, if I hadn't just been hit by a huge wave of perspiration that happens to me every single time I am on steroids. So I was soaking wet when we went out into the frigid air to bring the center into the house. By the time we got the piece in the house, my muscles had already started to seize up a bit. 


It's probably a good thing I'm on the steroids for my asthma. They will likely help my back a bit while they're at work. In the meantime, I'm really thankful for my heating pad and muscle relaxants tonight. It will be easier getting it down the stairs tomorrow, (we can slide it down on its back or side), and then we can put a piece of cardboard under it to slide it to where it needs to go. 


We're still hoping to get the rest of the boxes of books unloaded down there tomorrow, but we'll be happy, if we can get at least 80% of them done. Hubster would be able to finish the last of them without my help, and with 80% of them put away, I'd be able to get to the workout equipment that I need to use. It's a win/win.


Had a little more fun with the girls tonight. I'd asked Scooter last night, if she wanted to scare Daddy tonight before she went to bed. She was thinking about it all day long and would periodically just start trembling with excitement. It was adorable! I clued Hubby in without her hearing me, so he'd know to act surprised, and we set things in motion.


I helped her in the bathroom and then we ran into her bedroom and hid behind her closet. Hubster asked Hopper really loudly, if she knew where Mommy and Scooter were. She told him we were in the bedroom and tried telling her daddy that we were going to try to scare him. She was laughing so hard that it was difficult to understand her, so Hubby just kept going.


In the dark bedroom, Scooter and I were hiding behind the door, and she couldn't stop giggling. Because she's non-verbal, she isn't very loud, but Hubster said he could hear her out in the hallway before he even came in. She was about ready to explode with anticipation, so when her daddy finally made it in the room, and I yelled, "Boo!" she jumped about 3 feet in the air and couldn't catch her breath from laughing so hard. She had the biggest smile on her face and was still giggling, when we turned out the light and shut the door. Hopper thought the whole thing was hysterically funny, as well. I'm sure we'll all be talking about it again tomorrow.


I love it when the girls are happy like that. They make me smile. :)

What to do? What to do?

I'm in a bit of a quandary.


My back has been spasming more often as of late, and I'm thinking I may need another series of epidural cortisone injections to get the pain under better control. I haven't had any for a few years, because they seem to lower my immunity, and I can't seem to fight off anything that comes my way once I've had them. 


I've already been struggling the last few months with my health. I get every cold that makes its entrance, and I've just felt drained. I don't know that I want to add to that. But I am so incredibly frustrated at how my back pain limits my progress around the house. It's really hard to concentrate on what needs done, if I take something stronger than ibuprofen for the pain. The ibuprofen doesn't really do much, yet I can't stay awake, if I take anything stronger. 


I am trying to weigh the pros and cons of getting injections again. 


I'm desperate to get some significant dehoarding done. 


Hopper had a bit of a rough day. Even though she thoroughly enjoyed 'work', she started sobbing when she got home. It's really sinking in that she can only go to work one day a week, and it makes her so sad. Our hearts are breaking for her. It's times like this we'd love to be independently wealthy, so we could afford to send her to her day program 5 days a week, but we can't even come close to affording the $1500 to $1700 a month. 


Hopefully, she'll get used to only going once a week, and then she'll just be happy and pleasantly surprised when funding comes through, or some generous benefactor shows up, and she can go more often.


And hopefully, I'll be able to figure something out to make my back stop spasming, my health to improve, and to help Hopper be happy with going to work only one day a week. 

Hi Ho. Hi Ho.

It was a bit too cold to work outside on the painting today. The weather wasn't too cold to actually paint. It was too cold for me to be out there. The cold makes my back spasm. So I decided to work inside today.

I got a couple loads of laundry done and got caught up on the dishes. Well, almost. There are a few dishes that wouldn't fit in the dishwasher, so I'll stick them in tomorrow. Or I'll just handwash them. I'm not sure. The only thing I am sure of is that I'll be doing them tomorrow and not bothering with them tonight. I've been busy with other things.

Several days ago, I decided I was going to rearrange the furniture in the living room, but then things came up, so I put it off. I've been working on it for the last several hours. I've been cleaning and dusting along the way, so what I have gotten done looks nice. I even took the Swiffer to the top edge of the wall and the ceiling to take care of any cobwebs that were haning around, and it looks so much better. However, the couch and loveseat still have stuff piled on them that I need to go through. A lot of it is just Scooter's stuff that she tends to pile, and there's some of Hopper's stuff, too, but some of it just stuff I need to go through. DVDs that are out of place. Little bits of Christmas stuff that never actually found their way to the rightful box when the decorations were put away. Just. You know. Stuff.

I moved the fireplace to the wall perpendicular to where it had been and moved the couch to where the fireplace had been, and I switched the lamps around, so now there's light in ever corner of the living room, instead of having one dark corner. It's much easier on these old, tired eyes. It looks good. I like that there will be plenty of room for the Christmas tree on either side of the fireplace. We'll have to move a lamp and a plant out of the way, but we should be able to get it up without much of a problem.

I'm just glad I'm getting a good start on the holiday cleaning now. It will make it so much easier to not have to rush around and do deep cleaning right before Thanksgiving or Christmas or even right before the surgery. I hate waiting until the last minute to do the cleaning, and yet it seems as though that's what I've done ever year in recent memory. It makes the holidays exhausting and not as fun as they should be. I'm looking forward this year being different.

I will likely try to get the curtains washed before my surgery, if I can. I hate dusty curtains, and I try to wash them at least twice a year, but sometimes I'm lucky, if I can get it done once a year. I did at least get them vacuumed off, but they're still pretty dusty. Eventually, I'd love to get new curtains or drapes for the living room, but for now these are okay. At least I can toss them in the washer and dryer when they need cleaned.

I'll do what I can to go through some of it tonight and finish up what I can, but I'm okay, if I have to wait until tomorrow. My back is spasming again, and I don't want to push it tonight and cause even more problems, so I'm not able to function tomorrow, so I may just be done for the night. I'm okay with that, too.

Poor me.

I didn't start this post out as a 'poor me' post, but it appears to have morphed into one. Sorry about that...


I'm so discouraged.

My back has been killing me the last few days once again. It's nearly impossible for me to accomplish much of anything when it's hurting like this. Twenty six years ago, I ruptured a disc in my lower back. I've struggled with pain from it ever since. Then three years ago when my dad died, I ruptured the one right below it. I also managed to move one of my vertebrae forward three to four millimeters at the time of the second injury. The only toe I've felt on my left foot in the last three years is my big toe. The other four are numb due to pinched nerves.

I have gotten several cortisone shots in my lower back to numb the pain for awhile, and while it works for a time it's not ideal. I don't like the fact that the shots lower my immunity. It's the last thing I need during the winter months when I'm already apt to catch everything the girls bring home from school and hubby brings home from work. I purposely didn't get any cortisone shots last year, because we were so sick the way it was. There just wasn't any use it making things worse. So it's been almost two years since I've had one. I would really love the relief, but I'm not willing at this point to put my health in jeopardy to get one.

However, if things don't change, I may have to give in. The way it is, I'm taking medicine daily for the pain. I fluctuate between three different pain medicines and a muscle relaxer, so I don't get addicted to any one medicine, but often times the meds knock me on my behind. I don't like taking medicines that mess with my head when the girls are home unless The Hubster is available to take over. I feel like I need to be 100% available, should they need me. As it turns out, the most effective pain meds for my back are the ones that knock me out, so I'm in pain most of the time.

It's discouraging on so many levels, because when I'm in pain, the dehoarding pretty much comes to a full halt. I feel like I've accomplished something on high pain days, if I get a shower in and am able to feed the girls and do the dishes. Lately, I haven't been able to do any dehoarding or working on paint projects or anything, although the painting came to a halt because of my asthma and the weather.

It's supposed to be much warmer tomorrow than it's been over the last few days, and my breathing is much better, so I'm hoping to finish up the painting projects tomorrow or at least work on them. I can sit down to work on it, so I can give my back a bit of a break. I'd just love to get it finished up.

It would at least help me feel like I'd accomplished something.

Bob, bob, bobbin' along.

I've been doing the whole bobblehead thing again tonight.

I overdid it on the treadmill again yesterday by pushing myself to do 30 minutes, and I'm really paying for it today. My back is killing me. I'm back on pain meds again today. I can't stand having to take them, but I really don't have any choice. I need to slow down on the treadmill and not do anymore than 10 to 15 minutes at a time for awhile. I'm going to have to make myself stop pushing myself, if the result is being out of commission for several days afterward.

I was able to make one of the scrub tops for Bugster today. It was the wrong size, though. She wanted the bigger size for extra room, since the ones at school are so small, but the pattern is much roomier than they are. I tweaked it a bit by taking each side in 1.5" and putting a couple of 1" stays in the back. It looked better and more fitted, but it was still too big. She still wore it. Just said it was super comfortable. She apparently also got lots of compliments on it and a request or two for me to make tops for some of the other students. Ha. Like I have time.

I sent the sewing machine and all the tops that had already been cut out home with Bugster. She wants to do some of the sewing, and it will free me up to do some painting this week. I really need to do what I can to finish things up while the weather is still so cooperative. Once the stuff is painted and dry it can still sit outside for awhile to get rid of the smell, but I can't paint it when the humidity gets too high or the temperatures get too low.

At the end of the last week, I was able to get several pieces of the furniture I'm painting sanded, wiped down, and painted with the primer. I've decided to put 2 coats of primer on the furniture in the hopes I won't need as many coats of paint. I only used one coat of primer on the entertainment center thing I painted a few weeks ago, but I ended up having to do 3 to 4 coats of paint. I don't feel I have enough time to do that many coats of paint with the weather starting to turn. It's supposed to be in the 70s and 80s this week and dry until the end of the week, so I'm hoping I can finish up out there.

I need to take my bobblehead self to bed right now, though.

Hoping I'll eventually catch up on blogs and comments and such.

Five Green Apples A Hangin' on The Tree.

The painting is finally finished on the bookshelf we'll be using for an entertainment center downstairs. There may be a couple of small areas that need touched up tomorrow, but there also might not be any areas needing touched up at all. It's good to know it's done. It will have to sit outside for a week or so to try to let the smell dissipate a bit before we bring it inside, but I'm so glad it's done. Now I'll be able to work on other paint projects in the coming weeks. I definitely need to take advantage of this beautiful weather that's expected to continue for some time.

My back is really bothering me. I'm thinking I may have overdone a little on the treadmill. I think I'll only get on it every other day until my body is used to working on it a bit better. Between the treadmill and standing on the concrete of the back porch to paint, I'm very much feeling the need for pain meds. I don't like needing pain meds, so I was glad when my husband thought of something while he was at work today that might help.

A year or so ago, the place my husband works was going to throw out some anti-fatigue/stress floor mats, because they'd replaced them with new ones. So he brought 3 of them home to put on the front stoop to help Scooter feel safe when she got off the bus in bad weather. She gets really tensed up, if her footing is even slightly compromised, and with her back totally fused, she can hurt herself so easily. But the weather is fantastic right now, so Scooter doesn't get tensed up when she's walking to the door.

After talking with me from work today, Hubster remembered the mats. He asked, if I thought they would help, if he put them on the back porch for me to stand on while I'm painting. I'm so glad he thought of it! It will absolutely make a huge difference in how my back feels, if I can stand on them while painting or working out there. He'll be moving them out tomorrow, so he doesn't disturb the paint while it's still wet on the bookcase. I should be completely done with painting projects by the time the bad weather and snow hits, so we'll be able to move them back up front by the time Scooter needs the stability.

Did I mention that I'm really glad he thought of it?

Worked on paperwork in the living room today. I made a small dent but a dent nonetheless. I'll take it.

We'll be picking apples off our apple tree this weekend. We have friends coming by who will be picking some and taking them home for their families, too. There are thousands of apples on the tree. They're not very big, but there are lots and lots of them, and they are so tasty. They're little green apples with a slight tartness to them. Some are starting to turn a bit yellow in places. We think they're Yellow Delicious apples, but we're not sure. They're more tart than I'd expect a Delicious apple to be, so I really don't know.

I think they'll make a good pie or two, though, so I'll try my hand at that in the next week or two. I'll probably make some apple butter, too. Or maybe apple sauce.

Something appley, anyway.