Mother Nature is a Bitch

My inner kid wants to do some complaining about what a pain in the ass it has been dealing with this blood clot. There continue to be issues getting my coumadin levels in range and I had one bleeding incident this past week. Fortunately, it resolved itself and I am fine now - except I am left with the near constant dread that something could happen or go wrong at any moment. It's not fun.

Bruises from the lovenox (the other thing is the insertion site for my insulin pump); what you can't see are the speckles from every single shot I've had to give all around my abdomen.
My doctor: "I've seen worse."

But I am also tired of complaining about all this, so that's all I'll say about that.

Couple of things I wanted to talk about:

1. We had some CRAZY storms come through the city yesterday - crazy as in tornadoes, many trees down, lots of power outage, etc. I was actually in Durham when it happened. When I came home, at first I didn't even realize much had happened. There was some debris and small branches in the street but nothing major. Then I took a walk around the neighborhood... the streets behind us got hit really hard - a giant tree tipped over and crushed a pick-up truck; a tree fell across the road; a tree crushed a storage shed and another fell over a big power line. It was pretty crazy.

Big tree that fell over and crushed a pick-up truck about a block from our house

Fortunately, my nagging Todd to get our trees trimmed last January really paid off. We had no major limbs down in our yard, no trees, and, luckily, we did not lose power. (See my FB page for more photos from the 'hood.)

In a neighborhood a couple of miles from us, some of our friends were not so lucky: one friend had a tornado come through her back yard. Two trees fell on her house but she was okay. Another friend had trees down, a storage shed flipped over, fence destroyed and neighbors on both sides had damage to their back decks (one almost destroyed.) Everyone I know over there is without power.

2. I spent Thursday, Friday and part of Saturday attending the Full Frame documentary film festival in Durham. I LOVE documentaries. Our friend works on the committee and has generously given me or me and Todd passes for the last several years. Unfortunately, two years ago we either had our ceremony or were in Ireland; last year I went to go visit my dad after he'd gotten out of the hospital; so I hadn't been able to make good use of the pass until this year. I really experienced the festival - went to 3-4 movies on Thursday, 5 on Friday, 1 on Saturday (I was getting very tired by then.) :) There were some amazing documentaries and I am so thrilled that we have a festival like this so close to where I live.

3. After my Saturday movie, while Raleigh was getting pummeled with storms, I had a chance to meet up with a long-time online friend with CF named Melanie. I have probably known her for 6-7 years I would guess. She lives in CO but has moved to Durham for health reasons in the last year. I think we both knew that we would hit it off, and we totally did. We had a really enjoyable, relaxing time together. I look forward to seeing more of her now that we have connected.

I usually don't like to make my posts super long, but I had to tell you all that stuff! What I was originally going to write about was my "Goals for 2010" that I created last year on the sidebar of this page:

• Paint all the rooms inside my house
• Clean out the attic
• Exercise or yoga 5-6 days/week
• Simplify! Don't buy stuff I don't need
• Be punctual
• Check out other yoga studios around Raleigh & save for yoga teacher training
• Start selling our soap!

You will notice the list has been replaced by a new list for the coming year. However, to reflect on these a little... I did not paint all the rooms in my house; however, I did paint our bedroom an amazing shade of blue that makes me very happy. I have a plan for our bathroom, which is the next target. I still want to paint my office purple. I am formulating a plan for the house - like what to improve/in what priority vs. do we fix up basic stuff and then someday move - but I am making progress on that as well.

After I painted the bedroom

Attic: this is something that simply must happen soon. The reason is that one of the next home improvement things I want to do is add insulation to the attic, and all our stuff will need to come down to do that. So I want it to be as organized - and paired down - as possible. I would call Todd a pack rat, but it's really just laziness..he's a lazy rat lol. But I love him. :)

Exercise: certainly this goal has waxed and waned. Suffice to say that when I am feeling well, I usually do a pretty good job with this. Right now I am staying really active, I am happy with my weight - I have not ballooned up since my last infection - and it feels great.

Simplify/Punctual: I still have room to go with simplifying, but I have been a lot more conscientious about it - and I think as a result of that I have made better purchasing decisions. My punctuality has improved a lot. I am hardly ever late for work; appointments I could still be better about.

Yoga: I did find a studio that I like - yay! But I have not attended as many classes there as I would have liked. Still need to work on finding a weekly class that fits into my ever-changing schedule. The teacher training I have decided to hold off on. It's not a commitment physically or financially that I am willing to make at this time. Plus, I just don't feel the desire like I did before. Maybe sometime.

Elaine's awesome marbled bars

Soap: Well I think you all will agree that I have knocked it out of the park on this one! Our soap selling at Father & Son has been a big success. We have been able to make a small profit which surpasses our original goal of being able to break even. We have met some great people that are part of the Raleigh art scene. Most importantly, we have remained true to our motto of "Keep it fun!" There were definite moments of feeling out the best direction for us to go in order to keep it fun for both of us. What can I say, Elaine and I are great partners and work really well together. We respect each others' wants and needs and we have been able to maintain an operation that provides us both with a much needed creative outlet.

Here's to a great 2011!