A little of this. A little of that.

I've been a bit out of sorts lately, but I think I'm back on track.


My Christmas gift has been in the shop for 3 of the last 4 weeks. I finally got it back last week. The Hubster was a bit frustrated that they didn't fix my netbook the first time it went in (when they replaced the hard drive), but he's glad they fixed the touch pad, and I have it back. It means he gets to use his again whenever he wants, since I used it while mine wasn't available. I'm really glad to have my computer back and in good working order again. And I'm superdeeduperdee thankful that Bugster figured out the password for the network, so we didn't have to reset it, and I can access the internet again!


Bugster, Bubster, Hopper, Scooter and Frank surprised us with a gorgeous arrangement of 25 roses that Bugster made for us for our 25th wedding anniversary. She did an amazing job, and they are still gorgeous a week later! Then Bugster and Bubster came over to our house and hung out with Hopper and Scooter, so we could go celebrate.
                            



We spent the day enjoying one another's company and got some much needed alone time. We did a little shopping, went out to eat at a Greek restaurant that was out of this world, and went to the movies. But our favorite part of the day was spent at a paint-your-own pottery place where the customer paints the piece, and the shop fires it for you. We've gone to this little place a few times over the years for our anniversary, and I have to say it's one of my favorite ways to spend time with Hubster. There's no stress, pleasant conversation, and one on one time with my favorite guy. It's a win-win all the way around.


We didn't get to the shop in time to finish the painting in one sitting, so we'll get to go back and spend some more time together at some point in the upcoming weeks. We're very much looking forward to having that time together and seeing our finished creations. I'm definitely looking forward to finishing our mugs and picture frame, but I'm most looking forward to seeing the necklace Hubster makes after the beads he painted have been fired!


We did a lot of sitting the day we went out, and my back has bothered me ever since. I've been having problems with nerve pain in my legs and feet again lately. It happens when I'm in the middle of a fibro flare, and one started up a couple of weeks ago for me. I took a medicine I'd been prescribed quite some time ago, and it took care of the neuropathy pain within an hour. I felt so much better, but the pain started up again the next day, so I tried it again with good results. However, the third day when I took it, I made the mistake of taking it on an empty stomach, and I couldn't seem to stay awake for the next 2 days. If I sat down, I dozed off. So I stood. A lot.


I'm feeling a bit stupid for not trusting myself to stay away from the medication that I'd stopped taking once before. I won't make that mistake again. If I am as out of it as I've been after only 3 doses, I know that it's not a medicine I can ever take again. I just have to try to figure out how to keep the fibro from flaring, so I don't have the neuropathy issues as often.


I am hoping to get some help this weekend to make a raised vegetable garden bed, so I can get my tomatoes and peppers in the ground. As much as I love my umbrella planter, I don't think I'll be doing upside-down tomatoes in it anymore. I don't think they get quite enough sun to really flourish, so the tomatoes and peppers are going to go in the ground this year, and I think I'm going to try flowers in the planter. The strawberries looked great last year in them, and they did okay, but they didn't come back this year, so they're out, too. I can't afford to buy new strawberry plants every year.


Right now, I'm going to go work on pinatas and dishes and laundry and such. Maybe if I get something done, my head will stop aching. 

One can hope.

It's that time of year again.

Time to make pinatas!

I've been up to my elbows in papier mache paste today working on a pinata for another nephew who is getting married soon. He's always been a huge fan of Mario Bros, so I'm making a Mr & Mrs Yoshi for them. He will be blue. She will be pink. And they will both be adorned in wedding attire. It will be interesting to see how they turn out.

I'm also contemplating making one for Hopper for school. This is her last year, since she'll be 21 in the Fall, but she's not going to walk for graduation. She has a severe social anxiety disorder, and I think she's have a heart attack waiting for her name to be called. Then she'd likely have a major meltdown, and she'd never make it up and across the stage. So she will quietly end her school career, and I'll send out graduation announcements to close friends and family explaining the situation and that she would love to get a note in the mail from them.

It's sort of a hard situation to figure out how to handle. I am not even sure what sort of an announcement I'll send out. But the occasion does need to be marked in some way. And I will be calling the school tomorrow to ask, if I can make a pinata for the class to commemorate Hopper moving on. If I can, I'm going to have to hustle, since school ends in the next couple of weeks.

My mind is getting sort of fuzzy from some pain medicine I had to take for my back, so I think I'll stop writing while I'm still sort of making sense. 

That is, if I'm making any sense at all. :)

Uff Da!

I've been meaning to write more often than I have since Mom went back home, but I've been busy, and by the time I sit down to write, I'm either so tired I fall asleep, or I can't put my thoughts into words. It doesn't help that we've all been sick around here, and I've had daily headaches for over a week. But blogging has helped me work through things by talking about them, and I need to make it a priority again. I may just have to switch up the time of day I sit down to blog and see, if that helps.

I've been working on the boxes of paperwork that came in from the garage. I've gone through 6 or 7 boxes so far. I've thrown out a gigantic black bag full of trash, and I've gotten 10 bags of shredables from it all, so it's definitely progress. It's really exciting to know that I won't have to ever sort through the stuff that has gone to the shredables or out the door to the trash. What a relief!

There have been some adorable things I've come across, like Bugster's drawings from when she was tiny. She was just under a year old when she drew her first face, so some of these drawings are absolutely amazing and precious, both. I'm glad I dated so many of them at the time she was drawing them. Some of the cards she made when she was about 5 are precious. She says how much she loves one of us on the front of the card, fills the inside of it with Xs and Os or with hearts to make sure we know they're full of love, and then she writes, "The End" on the backs of the cards. 

And right now, I just can't throw them away. If I do ever get to the point I do throw them away, I won't do it before scanning them into the computer, so I have a digital copy of them. They're absolutely precious, and I can't bring myself to part with them just yet.

That being said, I am simply amazed at some of the things I saved over the years. Not only did I hang onto the little pictures Bugster drew, but I can't count how many pieces of paper I came across that only possessed a scribble or two. 

I can tell how stressful our lives were at the time each box was packed away based on how many things I find that I failed to give myself permission to throw away. Some boxes correlate withe exceptionally stressful times in our lives and are full of page after page of scribbled papers, proofs of purchases and UPC codes that take up as much as 1/8 of the box of paperwork. 

I also realize that I didn't throw a single receipt from a doctor's office over the years, and I kept each explanation of benefits that we received from the insurance companies, as well. I wrote before about not knowing what I was supposed to keep and save from paperwork, and while I have tossed the vast majority of these in the shredables, I wish that I'd at least kept track of the dates of service to put a timeline together of the doctors' visits over the years. It would have been staggering. If nothing else, it would have been interesting to put together a timeline of hospitalizations and trips back and forth to Norfolk, and I still may try to piece one together from the paperwork I've saved, but I am not going to try to dig anything out of the shredables to do so.

I've come across used gift wrap that I found pretty at the time and for whatever reason found irresistible enough to squirrel away. I'm sure some I saved for craft projects, but I allowed myself to let it go. I've already started a second big black bag for trash, and the gift wrap has found it's way to the bottom of the bag. 


I know that some of the paperwork has been saved, because I was overwhelmed at the time it was tossed into the box and I didn't have the time to sort through it. Most boxes so far have contained everything from newspaper articles to shut off notices from the utility companies (paying the bills were the last thing on our minds when Scooter and Hopper were in the hospital, and we didn't know, if they were going to come home or not!), to candy wrappers and greeting cards. And none of that really came as a surprise, because it wasn't uncommon for a table or counter's contents to end up in a box when we were getting ready for a birthday celebration or the holidays.


There have been a few things I've found that took me off guard. Like poems I'd written in junior high and high school that make it very obvious looking back that I had depression issues. Like my little red vinyl wallet with the blue heart on the front from elementary school that still had pictures in it of kids I knew growing up. Like mildewed black and white portraits of me, 1 of my sisters and 2 of my brothers that I'd salvaged in the hopes of getting them restored.


But nothing quite prepared me for the last thing I found carefully placed in a sandwich bag....

Scooter O'Shea's belly button!