Today is, ”Cheese Day” and I am MOST grateful for that. I’m grateful for that and for it being a Thursday because that’s my favorite day of the week. I received this email 43 days ago:
Today is 43 days from May 19. It is the first day in 16 years so I will not be a certified teacher. I was certified to teach seventh grade English in 2005 and I was certified to teach reading in 2010. This kind of breaks my heart because I always thought that I would retire from teaching in my 60s. It’s terrible that MS has changed all of that:
I used to be a teacher. Now, I am uncertified. It really bums me out!!!
Last night, as I put my chapstick on before I went to sleep, I felt the sharp plastic edge beginning to come through the chapstick. I continued using it today as well because, “My Mama didn’t raise no fool!”. There’s some thing about using an entire tube of chapstick until the end. It’s a big deal! I like being able to do that because it’s a simple pleasure that I can accomplish easily! My lips get really chapped now and I constantly put on chapstick all day long! This is what my chapstick looks like another one just bit the dust:
I was just finishing up a Pomegranate chapstick. I figured that I could use it up before I started my summer flavors. Now, these are my chapsticks for the summer:
I like to watch random documentaries on TV. Last night, my Mom was laying down because she is so exhausted from the cleanup from her house, so I started watching, “The Eighties” on CNN. I like watching that because although I was born in 1982, many of those songs were super familiar to me having my oldest brother, Ray, being 9 1/2 years older than me. My second oldest brother, Steve, is seven years older than me.
My Mom eventually woke up about halfway through the documentary. I thought it was crazy that VJ,s that I remember seeing 25 years ago look so much older! My Mom, without skipping a beat and with a statement that would make my Dad proud, said, “Get off that channel!” When I heard that, I started to laugh because it was 80s music on MTV that my older brothers were always told to change the channel!
I saw myself laying on the green carpet in my Parents’ living room close to the cable box under the TV so we, one of the “three little ones” could change the channel when one of my Parents walked in the room. She just heard the music and I wasn’t even watching MTV! But, I’m 39 years old, I think I can watch it if I wanted to!
I bought Leia this feeder shortly after we got her:
But, after her check up where she was called, “A Chunk,” I bought her a puzzle feeder to get her weight down:
Purchasing this puzzle feeder was a little bit difficult for me. The puzzle feeder only came in purple! Purple is MY color! Her’s is pink! I decided to let that slide because I want her at a healthy weight as well! The puzzle theater is on the floor in the kitchen by her other feeder.
My Mom will still fill her water bowl in her feeder and she drinks after she eats her food out of the puzzle feeder. The people at the vet told my Mom that she is going to be very thirsty and drink a lot. My Mom fills both bowls with water now. She has to fill them both three, sometimes four times a day! No, here’s the, “Too cute” part:
Often times during the day, I will hear her lapping up water from her bowl. I happened to turn my head to see her drink out of one bowl, pause, drink out of the other bowl, pause, and then go back to the first bowl! Well, they are both for her! I think it’s good that she’s using all available resources but I think it’s too cute and maybe that’s just because she’s our dog
Last night, my Mom took Leia with her to clean her house. She came in and went to the bathroom to wash her hands as I was seated in front of my TV, she comes out and grabs my head with both hands like she’s a Baptist minister! I was shocked I didn’t know what to say so. She lifted up her hand on the right side of my head but then clasped her hand back down almost like a slap. I didn’t understand what she was doing until she said, “Oh, I hate them!“
I knew that she had to be talking about a mosquito and I kind of laughed that she grabbed my head. She looked at me and then scurried back to the bathroom and came back with the toothpaste tube and glopped on my forehead, or more so my temple. I actually forgot about it and went to sleep with it still on the side of my face. It’s a good thing that I sleep on my left side. She wiped it off this morning and took this picture:
I suppose that I am somewhat allergic to mosquito bites as well. I think it’s strange that this happened because my porch is filled with mosquito plants because my Mom hates mosquitoes so much!
Sean texted me this yesterday and I have decided that I really like it:
I never owned any Rob Thomas CDs but this one got A LOT of radio play! I’m sure we heard it in the car often! I really like that he is old enough to recognize, “A mom song” and one that is not one of my top three! My top three favorite performing artists are: U2, Gavin Degraw, and Sara Bareilles. My Mom says that I listen to, “Wah-wah, cry-cry” songs.
Thinking about it now, I suppose that it’s true but for a good reason! I couldn’t allow myself to be an overly dramatic young woman dealing with heartbreak while raising my son by myself! I chose to feel and express that sadness vicariously through songs!
I started my summer flavored Chapsticks July 3. My original Summer-y flavor post last year, had these flavors:
But I discovered that although it looks like a fun rainbow selection, the yellow one is really the original peppermint flavor. That one is a little more wintry for me! I changed out one Chapstick for another one and this is my new Summer-y flavor selection:
I changed out the yellow Peppermint one and added it to the container with all of my Cucumber Minty that I got not too long ago. So this is how it works, I can’t waste the flavors so I’m using them until they are gone. The flavors I have in this container are: Pomegranate, Strawberry, Watermelon, Sweet Mandarin, and Cucumber Mint.
So, I started with Pomegranate on July 4 and like I did last year, I only use a flavor for one day. I apply my chips to quite liberally! I didn’t really understand why I was doing this at first but now I see tons of posts about people complaining and asking about getting chapped lips to a point where they crack and bleed. So I guess that’s an MS thing, dry lips.
I can easily remedy this by using Chapstick. The fact that I have 1 million different flavors it’s just for my own enjoyment. I looked on Taarget’s website and they don’t have the package with all of my winter flavors out yet but I did see a Strawberry Sorbet that sounded interesting! But, it was $3.49 and I have other chapstick that I HAVE to use before I can use my Cucumber Mint all of the time!
Given that Thursday is my favorite day of the week, I stop the order and only use Cucumber Mint on Thursdays! I do like to have Order in my life still and the fact that I can do this makes me feel like I have order even though so much of my life has been affected by having a MS, at least I have soft lips with my Summer-y flavors!
I have done this numerous times but let me take it one step further, Back in the days of listening to CDs. Once I bought a CD, I would listen to it in its entirety ready to fully get the Full experience before I listened to the specific song I’ve bought the CD for.
But now, rather than listening to CDs, have playlists on Apple Music, it’s a little bit different. To be fully immersed in the artist, I will hit, “Shuffle” and just wait for my song to come on! But then there are days like this where I haven’t heard this particular song in a really long time so, I will just post it here and then I will be able to listen to it whenever I want because I am the administrator of this website.
I’ve been really thinking a lot about this today. Today marks eight years from the first day I went to Barwis Methods. A friend texted me this a while back:
I feel so far removed from my time training at Barwis. This year, it really is hitting me harder! I meant that when I said that my diamond virus was the happiest time of my life. Aside from academic goals and the birth of my son, that was up there, FOR SURE! I was only there for a span of 1,196 days.
I was so hopeful back then when I first started going to Barwis. I was hopeful that I would be up and walking eventually. Then I was injured and recovery from an injury is long and difficult! I remember every day I spent at Barwis with fondness!!!
I am enclosing this picture because it’s two of my trainers who I don’t talk about a lot. Megan Sonstrom and Mike aMorphitt:
That day was my photo shoot with the MS Society. When I left that night, I had my Mom take a picture of me and Sean because I had gotten my hair and make-up done. I love this picture of us!:
This shows how much things have changed since then because I asked my Mom to cut my nails a couple days ago because they were getting too long. I Took these pictures today and yes, I still have the same sweatshirt!:
The first pictures showed up on my phone which made me think about having long nails. Adam used to call them, “Claw Nails” when I was at Barwis because they would get so long. When one of them would break, I would cut the all.
But, fast forward a year and a half and I no longer have enough control of my hands to make it work for me. My long nails used to pop my contacts out of my eyes quickly. But now, I ask my Mom to cut my nails every two or three weeks because they hurt my eyes as I tried to put my contacts in when there is the slightest bit of nail sticking out above my finger..
But I think is that, ”Claw Nails 2” is a bust because I no longer can keep my, “Claw Nails’ when they grow.
