Author: Jen Rios

My Mom took this picture of Leia this morning and she took it just after a bunny who was hiding beneath the leaves right under her nose, scurried out and that picture is her realizing that she missed it!:

I really like this picture of Leia! She looks so shiny! She has switched over fully to her new food which is salmon and grain. The best part about this fact is that it is $60 cheaper than her last food!!! I was able to swing that for an entire year and it has gotten pretty expensive with inflation; but it’s looking like I won’t have to anymore!

I had a choking spell today. This one made me a little bit nervous! I had to beep my horn to get my Mom to come and pull me forward by grabbing both of my hands and pulling me forward until I caught my breath.

This choking spell really made me nervous But as I caught my breath and started to breathe easier, I saw that Leia was right by my side! She is beautiful!!! When I sufficiently caught my breath, and my Mom had left to put laundry on, I thanked her for coming to [my] Rescue!

So, I have been experiencing ‘real time’ ability loss. The loss that I am currently experiencing is a little bit different than constantly dropping my pen in my last classroom where I would tell the student who sat there that they would have to pick up my pen a lot. This is MORE than that!

I think I really noticed it a few days ago and my Mom kind of got irritated until I explained to her what was going on. What I am experiencing now is more complete hand strength deterioration. I cannot hold on to basically anything now!

I was realizing that I was having a problem with my hand strength because brushing my teeth was becoming extremely difficult! I was brushing my teeth too hard so you can figure out what was happening when I spit.

I ordered an electric toothbrush last October and it ended up dying because I was holding it and pressing too hard on my teeth. Now, I have a new electric toothbrush, (that my brother bought for me) because I can’t afford another one seeing that I am on a fixed income.

But yesterday, I had to fill my pillbox. I talked about a modified pillage which was me very slowly putting each pill in its proper place. That process is extremely deliberate now so much so that Leia gives me the ‘poop face’ as I do it because it has been a couple Saturdays since I have dropped any pills.

Any movement with my hands is very deliberate now and I have been squeezing my therapy putty all year. So, I have to be deliberate whenever I am holding anything. I guess my whole life is modified now! I’m really not sure how I feel about that…

I pillaged by myself today but I have a movie to watch now so I will explain myself tomorrow. I didn’t spill any of my pills! Not a one!!!

Last night, I thought about when I bought my house and how my light switches had to be switched out. I was going to write a whole long story about the reasons for changing out my light switches but it’s raining today and it is cold! The barometric pressure is no joke!

I hope that I will remember what I was going to write about soon because this pressure is horrible!!! My body feels awful!!! As I said watching Hocus Pocus, I had to just groan multiple times because the feeling in my body was and is too much to handle!!!

I especially do not like it because tomorrow it’s ‘go time!’ I will crash on Thursday night but may be all right about it by the weekend…

I think it was a couple years ago when Sean was here when I was taking my contacts out. I was having difficulty just like I had just now.

It was a simple statement of how things used to be and it kind of give me a tinge of sadness. It was just an offhanded comment. He told me that he remembers when I would use my nails to pop my contacts out of my eyeball.

I did used to do that! In our apartments! When I was young, I used to buy my nails but then I stopped when I was about 12 because I wanted to polish my nails. I am blessed with good genes for nail growing. Everything else, not so much but my nails used to grow pretty long! I would just let them grow until one broke and then I would cut all of my nails down to the nub and start over.

When Sean made that comment that really meant nothing but for me, I used to do that and now things are so different! I keep my nails cut down to the nub all of the time now! I get my nails cut every other Monday unless it gets difficult to take my contacts out, in that case, I will have my Mom cut my nails earlier.

I thought about Sean‘s random comment today, this evening, when I was having difficulty removing my contacts. They are out now so I can write a blog post. Oh, how the times have changed… This all is really big and a little bit scary!!!

So, I have changed my profile picture on both Facebook and Twitter four times but I just want you all to know that I wanted to actually wear the shirts I bought at the last T-Shirt party I went to hosted by my Facebook friend Jennifer Lavender-Shott. And here are the shirts I bought back in July I think:

I saw this shirt the previous party so I had to get that especially when the new one just came out!!!

I am not my son, Sean, the only person I know who looks good in orange but this is a Halloween color so…

I wasn’t even wearing my Contacts or even my glasses when my Mom took this picture!

I was bummed when I received this shirt from Jennifer‘s party last year but this shirt is so comfortable that it didn’t really matter that I couldn’t read it but I still rocked it anyway! Now I can add these three new shirts to my three old shirts from my Facebook friends to my illegible one that is still so comfortable!!!

I still have MORE than two weeks of movie watching but I am ahead of the game that I have already broken in my new shirts!

***By the way, my Mom is an EXCELLENT photographer! She ALWAYS makes me laugh!!!