Goodbye 2010

What will the new year bring us?  Last year was pretty busy.    In no particular order, I

1.  Bought a new car.  Good times.

2.  Lost my job.  Bad times.

3.  Moved to a new city, Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

 

 

 

4.  Started a small (yet modestly successful) business designing and making jewelry.

5.  Reconnected with a great friend from high school.  Hi Maria!

6.  Traveled to North Carolina for a family birthday celebration along the Laurel River.   Sublime!

 

 

 

7.  Traveled to Wisconsin and celebrated Halloween with my son and daughter-in-law.  We also went to a rock shop, and visited the Audubon Society nature preserve where he works.

8.  Read 8 books.

9.  Accomplished a lot of virtual farming in FarmVille.  Belted cows are a very good thing.

10. Lost 38 pounds.

11.  Took a class in wire wrapping.  Used one of the rocks I bought in Wisconsin.

 

 

 

 

12.  Nursed a very sick cat back to health.  Charlie used one of his 9 lives.

13.  Made 15 trips to the hospital for immunoglobulin infusions.  Yeah St. Louis University Hospital!

14.  Photographed orchids, children, trees, animals, jewelry, and heaven knows what else.

 

 

 

15.  Applied for social security disability and was approved on the first try.

16.  Successfully avoided unhealthy exposure to the sun and UV light.

17.  Witnessed first hand the damage and devastation of a F3 tornado.  This one was on New Year’s Eve.  A 50 ft. white pine tree uprooted and crashed through my ex’s home.  Nobody was injured.

 

 

 

18.    Adjusted to life out of the fast lane of full-time employment.  That was a challenge.

19.  Celebrated my sister’s retirement.  Actually, we’re still celebrating.

20. Learned not to feel guilty about getting 8-10 hours of sleep every night.

All in all, after a rocky start and a scary ending with a tornado, 2010 wasn’t too bad.  This year I’m looking forward to a less stressful life, managing my health and living with lupus in the slow lane.    Despite everything I remain optimistic and determined to live in the present.  Stay tuned.

Life in Cape

The moving expedition to Cape Girardeau was crazy.  Note to self … moving on the hottest weekend of the summer is not a good idea.  However, I had no choice.  Armed with the physical and emotional help of friends, family, cold bottled water and the welcoming arms of my sister, I started a new chapter of my life.

The procession of boxes going in and out of my house seemed endless.

Almost reminds me of a procession of bridesmaids.  Except for the boxes.

The best photo-op came when my queen size box springs was taken out of the bedroom via the balcony, as it was too big to fit thru a narrow stairwell.

At the end of a very, very hot and sweaty day the crew was happy to pose for a picture.

I’ve been in Cape  for a month.  Living with my sister is great.  We have established a routine of sorts, and my days are productive.  When I’m not taking care of the house, I’m busy making jewelry, which   I’m planning to exhibit my work at a local arts and crafts fair in November and am designing all sorts of fun earrings.  In a couple months I’ll host a wine and cheese “premier party” for my jewelry line, called Harmony Beads. At some point, I’ll have a Facebook page for Harmony Beads that will feature more inventory.

Designing and creating jewelry at home provides me with a creative outlet. It’s a very lupus-friendly activity. Because I have lupus, working at home lets me control my environment, especially when it comes to temperature and light.  I’m also able to take breaks when I am tired, and get up and move around when my joints get stiff.  These type of accommodations are not typically found in a traditional work setting.  In the meantime, my sister is providing me a home.  I am able to contribute somewhat with my unemployment check.  I should find out about my disability application soon.

Change is hard.  I didn’t ask to lose my job and move to another city, but I’m dealing with it. Every three weeks I return home to receive IVIG infusions and visit with friends.  I now have the opportunity to travel and visit my son in Wisconsin, my brother in Colorado, and my niece in North Carolina.  I may be unemployed and living with lupus, but I’m a tough cookie.

So many things in life are out of my control, yet I remain optimistic.  Lupus will continue to throw me some nasty curve balls, but I work hard at being thankful for the blessings and abundance in my life.

Boxes, Bins and Flowers

One week from today I’ll be living in another city.  I’m up to the task of moving and the adventure that comes along with it.

The Moving Tower of St. Louis

This week I had a semi-surprise goodbye party hosted by The Ten-Thirty Singers, a church music group I’ve been singing with for over 25 years.  Today I enjoyed a goodbye lunch with some great gal-pals … the PMS Girls (which stands for Peggy, Pam, Mary Anne and Sue).  Nothing like a 3 hour lunch on a Saturday to motivate you to take an afternoon nap.  I’ve been toasted, gifted, regaled with flowers and hugged to the max!

Next week I am hosting several packing parties at my place.  Amazing the things some people will do for a free lunch.

Boxes and bins are my new best friends.  I’ve acquired quite the selection of plastic bins with locking handles.  I even went so far as to delegate colors for certain rooms.  The pink ones are storage, blue for my bedroom, green handles for dining room, and purple handles for linens.  They stack and won’t fall apart.  They will never end up in a landfill because I like them too much, so in a way, I’m “going green” … or pink or blue.  I never thought I’d be one of those people who color coded anything.  I used to laugh at them.  Now I’ve become one of them.

At first I was strolling down memory lane while sorting all my worldly goods.   I was getting nothing accomplished.  Now I am ruthless about what stays or goes.  Goodwill has been happy to see me recently.  What I don’t keep is going to charity.  I have no patience for selling stuff on Craig’s List.

Surviving a move when you have lupus or any chronic illness is a tricky little game to master.  So to keep sane I work in small increments of time, sandwiched with a bit of  rest, like writing this post.    I try not to do more than 5 hours of work a day.  Hopefully, my joints will not protest and my vascular problems will remain quiet.   You won’t seem me outside much on Moving Day.  It will be hotter than hell and I will have the assistance of my son and a couple of his strong high school buddies doing all the lifting and shoving.  Having physical limitations can come with some benefits, such as help from others and I have no problems letting people move heavy stuff.

I did have a bit of a situation while cleaning last week.  I kept smelling something yucky in the living room.  At first I thought it was food or cat barf but the smell wasn’t constant.  Then I thought that maybe it was ME, as I was sweating up a storm and was possibly stinking up the house.  Finally, I decided to move the furniture around to look for the source of the by now, rancid smell.  So under the couch I found the source of the problem.  A dead bird.

Natural born killers? Not so much.

I immediately grabbed some paper towels, threw it out, and fumigated my house. Then I started wondering just where in the hell did it come from?  I mean really, how did it get inside my house?  Did the cats kill it?  If they did, why didn’t they eat the damn thing?  That’s what cats are supposed to do.

My only concern with the cats at this point is the 2 hour drive to another city.  They are not fans of cat carriers and car rides.  I’m expecting them to howl and shed all the way to Cape.  Who knows what will happen when we arrive at our new home.  Stay tuned.

I’ve moved a total of nine times in my life, most of them as a single mom.  By my standards, that’s a lot of moving, but I know people who have moved a lot more than that.  Moving sucks, but on the other hand, if I lived in one place all these years I would have accumulated too much stuff.  At least moving forces me to clean up and throw out. And by now, I’ve learned a thing or two.

One, get yourself some bins and forget the boxes.

Two, if you must use boxes, go for the paper boxes with lids. 

Three, don’t pack everything too soon, or you’ll be digging through your kitchen stuff to make dinner, like I’m doing tonight. 

Four, hang on to wrapping paper … my friend MaryAnne gave me 5 enormous bags of white paper left over from her move a couple years ago.  What a lifesaver! 

Five, and this is the most important, let people help you.

When the dust settles, I’ll start blogging again and fill you in on the details of my great adventure.