Category: A Bit Of Randomness

This category is full of randomness that really doesn’t fit nicely into any of the categories having to do with my road to walking.

Hashtag Simple Pleasures

I opened my eyes this morning as my Mom walked into the doorway of my room. She asked if I was awake and because I had just awakened, all I could do was raise my right hand and give her a “Thumbs up” because I could not get the words out of my mouth at that point. She pulled the covers off of me and rolled me over to my side to get me into an upright position after a number of steps in that process. I groaned when she did this and wondered if today was going to be as bad as yesterday was for me. Once I was in my wheelchair, she tilted it back to get me seated properly in it and continued to grunt. These are we’re not good signs and it made me concerned. As my legs got fully extended and I turned my wheelchair toward the bathroom to wash my hands, I smiled. I reminded my Mom that it’s Monday!

I had recently had this cheese and it was perfect for me because it was soft enough to just about melt in my mouth which is very helpful for me now. I recently learned that this cheese was available at Target. I ordered four of them and had Sean pick them up for me. I figured out that I can have half on Thursdays (my FAVORITE Day of the week) and I decided to space it out on have the other half of the cheese ball for lunch along with my protein shake on Mondays because who likes Mondays?! I have a number of reasons to NOT like Mondays and the biggest one is that my Dad died on a Monday. The least I could do is have that’s really good cheese mark that day for me!

I’ve written before about the fact that I really dig simple pleasures. This is a simple pleasure! I would title of this post #SimplePleasures but I had already titled a post that. I recently read a tweet that said when you write a hashtag, you should capitalize the beginning of each word to make it more inclusive for visually impaired people and then it would be read aloud properly. I always thought it was just me being OCD and picky but it’s inclusive! And, to say that I do not sing this song in my head every time I think of simple pleasures would be a lie!!:

A Pain Pill

I think I first noticed this occurrence about seven years ago. The season change is rough on me with all of the moisture in the air. It hurts! Add seven years of disease progression through this and A second knee surgery into the mix and it’s pretty much unbearable!

I’ve written about the, ‘March Meltdown” back during my days of going to Barwis. But it’s not even March yet and I am feeling the effects of the “Meltdown” now. This is a precursor to the upcoming “March Meltdown.”

I noticed my knee hurting a little bit yesterday during our routine but today it was even worse. So, adding up 20 years of MS discomfort and pain with the pain of a repaired meniscus that still hasn’t properly healed because having MS for so many years, is not allowing for that healing to take place.

I guess this is a precursor to the “Meltdown” but I can’t just suck this one up and I caved and took a pain pill. Mostly for my knee because 20 years of MS pain I am used to but it’s only been a little over four years for my knee.

Absalom

I saw this meme on Facebook yesterday and showed my Mom and we both laughed!

We laughed because I am definitely the mouse with the knot in its tail and my Mom literally makes my bed and her bed every morning! I sit in my wheelchair with the same face that mouse has while she does this. I used to make my bed every morning in both of my apartments and I used to help Sean make his bed in our second apartment. I think that I stopped making my bed probably seven or eight years ago because I can no longer walk around the bed.

This morning, as my Mom made the bed, I had to ask her to stop and “Spot me.” As soon as I am seated in my wheelchair, I have to put my hair in a ponytail because I cannot stand hair on my neck at all! Gathering my hair into a ponytail has recently proven to be difficult for me. (t’s another reason why I normally have short hair!)

So, what she will do is gather any hair that is left on my neck to help me put it into the ponytail. I pull it out only halfway the last time I feed my hair through the ponytail holder to make sure it stays off of my neck. With the update of this blog, I cannot post the pictures of my hair growth for the last year of not having a haircut but this is the picture my Mom took of my hair growth:

Another reason that I do not LOVE my hair length now is that when my Mom washes my hair (because I can no longer do that because I have a hard enough time having my hands over my head to put my hair into a ponytail) I sit on the toilet seat so she can use the bathroom sink to wash it.

So, as I am blow drying my hair, (which takes a really long time) I feel like Absalom with my long hair getting caught between the toilet seat tank and my back. Absalom was king David’s third son who died when his really long hair got caught up in the branches above the mule he was riding. The mule got away and he was run through with spears by his enemies who wanted to kill him.

PS – My hair is now in a fold-over (or rather, fold-UNDER ponytail so as not to have hair on my neck!

The 2nd Friday of Lent

I have had undiagnosed PBA for about a decade now. I am extremely comfortable with it though. Laughing is easier to explain to people then crying but that seems to be the case now as my PBA has progressed. I am still okay with it.

Given that today is the second Friday of Lent, I watched Jesus Christ superstar again which is what I do because I cannot attend Stations of the Cross at church. I looked up why people watch the same movies over and over again which I do and I came across some pretty interesting information:

I liked that explanation very much. I looked it up a bunch of times in the early hours of this morning as sleep escaped me, yet again but it was nice to read the reinforcement:

Reading these things made me feel better but I also read this one which made me take pause:

Reading this, I thought, what do I have to be depressed about?! It’s not like dealing with constant pain daily and loss of abilities is difficult or something! Right?!

But I watched it for a second time this Lenten season and this time, I cried a lot more from the very beginning until the very end! I found it quite cathartic!:

I focused on Judas this time through. For my entire schooling in a Catholic school, I always thought he was just a horrible person but I watched him and saw how conflicted he was and my heart went out to him!


This moment got me the most:

And this song comforted me even though I don’t know the accuracy of it:

I have never seen the John Legend version and maybe I will have to watch that one next Friday if not before then.

REVISED #SimplePleasures Continued

I was extremely frustrated with my final blog post today. I wanted to straighten it out now as I lay in my bed without my contacts. My eyes got pretty wonky today and, if I’m being honest, that really scared me!

What I was trying to say (and the pictures got messed up because I don’t like the updates here) is that I never noticed how much chapstick I wore until I was at Barwis and Eric commented on it because I was staring off into space and constantly applying it. I stopped when he said something about it but my lips NEVER felt overly greasy while I worked out there.

It wasn’t until recently that I noticed a lot of posts in my MS support groups where the question was posed asking what remedies we have for extremely dry and cracked lips. I guess that is a thing with MS. Over the years, I have accumulated quite a stash:

Since being sheltered in place with my Mom, I have actually used four complete tubes in their entirety.

This one was completed on August 3, 2020:

This one on November 8, 2020 :


This one on January 7, 2021:

This one the morning of February 27, 2021:

So my chapstick stash looks like this now:

I will have to restock next fall-winter favors because I have my spring-summer chapstick flavors still available. I will never use Açaí Berry unless I am at Barwis. I started using that one when I was working out at Barwis and it reminds me of that time. I can’t wear that without working out at Barwis. I think I have like 10 in a bag in the basement that I ordered and received just before my meniscus was torn.

I think it’s time to queue up by Bobby McFerrin because it REALLY is all about simple pleasures and not having dry and cracked lips makes me happy!:

“Cheese Day” OR “Birthday Month” Day 1

Today is, “Cheese Day.” Meaning, that I will have fresh mozzarella cheese for lunch with my protein shake and cashews:

I have only had cheese like this at a restaurant once in my life. I went to Andiamo with The English Department, my friend Lauren, and the School Leader. He ordered the appetizer with fresh mozzarella, fresh tomatoes, and basil? It was delicious! And not until now that I realized that I can get that same kind of cheese at Target. A Facebook friend posted a couple days ago that the restaurant in Dearborn, (the one I went to), is closing because of the pandemic.

I don’t like tomatoes but these tomatoes were really good when eaten with the cheese and the basil? I have never liked tomatoes but my Mom‘s friend told me that if I ate a bunch of tomatoes that my hair would turn red and I have always wanted red hair! I forced myself to eat the tomatoes for a while until I realized that my hair was not going to turn red. I was a kid! Now, tomatoes are inflammatory which is something I do not need having MS!

So, today, being the first day of, “Birthday Month’ and the fact that St. Patrick’s Day is so close, I watched, The Quiet Man. I am a, “Wanna Be” Irish person and I LOVE Irish accents!!! My son’s name is Sean!!!

But, I love this movie and it reminds me of my Dad! I bought him the Collectors Edition of the DVD probably when I was 16 or 17. My dad liked John Wayne and I love Ireland so it was a win-win situation for both of us. My mom told me that I can’t have the DVD back until she dies:

I think this scene is one of my favorites:

So, overall, I am diggin’ “Birthday Month” Day 1. It’s pretty good. And I have a few other Irish movies I can watch until St. Patrick’s Day!

“Because It’s Gross!” OR “One of Your Songs”

I was on the phone talking to Sean and I asked him if he had seen the new Diet Coke commercial. I texted it to him last week:

He laughed after he watched it and we talked again after that. I told him that I didn’t do anything with a Diet Coke in my hand and he agreed and said, ”Because it’s gross!” I laughed and told him that, “If it were Cherry Coke Zero, then we could talk!” He started to laugh then because he knows that is my pop of choice!

We continued to talk and he told me that he has been listening to, “One of, ‘Your songs’ a lot lately.” I didn’t say anything and waited to hear what song he was speaking of. He let me know that it was, “Hard to Handle.”:

I laughed and told him that Shake your Money maker was a great album! I remembered listening to it in the car on loop when he still sat in the backseat because he was so young. He told me that he has never listened to the album as a young adult and I told him that it’s great and he should listen to, “She Talks to Angels”!:

I told him the first line of a verse ”She has a lock of hair…” and he finished the verse for me! I laughed and told him that he HAS heard the album before and he corrected me by saying that he has heard the song over and over again when he was a kid and it was when I was listening to the album! I guess I did raise him listening to some really GOOD music!

“Birthday Month” Day 4

First of all, Disney+ needs to get their stuff together and be compatible with Xfinity!!! I did watch my fourth Irish themed movie yesterday though, it was on Disney+ and it was from 1959, Darby O’Gill and the Little People. I haven’t seen this movie for about 33 years and all I remembered about it was the girl’s stupid bangs, and the banshee. I remembered a little bit about the king. But I watched it yesterday on my Mom’s laptop. It was actually a pretty good movie filled with Irish accents, greenery, ruins on a hill, and Sean Connery singing!!! I seriously forgot about that!!!

No traditional Irish dancers, but instead, leprechauns!!!

But, alas, “Birthday Month” or not, it does NOT excuse me from having an MS-y day and 20 years in, you think I would be used to it but that is just NOT the case.

The 3rd Friday of Lent

So much of the movie, Jesus Christ Superstar really gets to me! I chose to focus on Jesus today. I still cry every single time I hear the songs!

As I watched this movie today, I chose to take advantage of not reneging on my Lenten promise and I had two dark chocolates today because I received a mug in the mail today. My Mom bought it for me for my birthday:

I still wish I was Irish and forewent watching an Irish movie today because I had to feel close to God and Jesus even though I can’t attend church right now.

Reading the note that came in closed with my order let me know I’ll couple things: The first being that my blog is FAMOUS and the second thing that was reinforced is that I have GREAT taste in music! 😂😂😂