Tag Archives: enjoyment

Early morning snuggles to prep for careful commutes.

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So with the weather this time of year, things often change last minute. This morning appointments are bumped back because of slick roads, so I get a few extra cuddles before needing to head out the door for an extra cautious commute.

I’m enjoying the extra time with not quite awake Katherine.

I’m not usually very supportive of police because in big cities here in the US they tend to be very discriminatory and over bearing, especially to low income populations and minorites. However, Lawrence PD posted a funny but very appropriate disclaimer for the weather of the season, so I wanted to share that, especially since Nathan is going to be doing extra chauffeuring today.

Our unpacking yesterday got us off to a great start. I was able to nearly finish construction on my new closet custom fit desk. I have yet to finish assembly on the drawers (IKEA $60) but I did get the main desk surface and extra shelves cut and installed (boards from home Depot $35, plus hardware I already had).

I’m very excited to get the computer back up and my desk stuff unpacked. I’m so looking forward to my office being completed and functional. Happy dance!

We also made great headway on our living-room. Boxes are not unpacked yet, but furniture is setup again and it’s starting to feel like home with a few pictures being hung.

Still in chaos, Anya assembling side tables. She generally dislikes her picture being taken- ever; regardless of where it ends up, even if that’s nowhere.
This shot shows the recliner before I recovered the torn sections (a hazard of small children and older furniture).
Here you can see the recliner post reupholster. Also, the futon in this picture is ultimately going to end up downstairs in the large basement room, but I wanted to see how it would fit to accommodate a large gathering or meeting.

All in all, I’m happy with the progress we made yesterday. Nathan even got the washer dryer hooked up and running, so we’ll have clean laundry to put away next!

May you all feel comfortable in your home. May you find just the right combination of things to fit your needs and give your experience good character. May you find the colorful bits of your experience enjoyable, and make things colorful when they’re not already. May you have safe travels and appropriate time off. May you have quality time with kids and family. May you enjoy your days more often than not.

Siva Hir Su

Joyous celebrating.

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Today I had another forced fasting, and probably tomorrow as well. Hangover induced from wedding celebrations. Man I pissed my liver off!

The wedding was wonderful, I was able to help my little brother setup and tear down a beautiful celebration. It was not expected by him, as they had planned everything as meticulously as I would have. However, I showed up with gusto and my ready, willing, and able attitude. So he allowed me to assemble their archway and help setup chairs. I was more than happy to oblige both.

The night before, and during the day of the wedding, my mom and eldest brother thought it great to get everyone schnooked. I can only speak to myself and my observations. I know I was fully inebriated at least 4 times, and it seemed to me I wasn’t alone. During the reception when speeches started, mom looked around our family table and asked: is anyone sober enough to give a congratulatory speech to them. My eldest brother having years of military drinking under his belt conceded that he was likely best able even when drunk. It was a too funny moment, but his speech was as wonderful as any.

I was very glad to see my youngest brother have a wonderful wedding and glad to see the family together. I wished him well many times over and gave him as many hugs as I could inflict on him. (My family is not exactly touchy feely and Nathan and I usually push those boundaries a bit.) It’s worth it though. I got very mushy several times over.

The only one not present was dad, and we all knew why. I was slightly sad because my dad really has no clue why most of the family ignores him. My eldest brother and I are really the only ones that keep in contact with him and do our best to keep track of him. We’ve both come to our own understanding that though his methods were least desired by us children, he was merely doing what he knew how, what he thought he was supposed to do. He really didn’t know any other way, and we really could have fared far worse, he’s on the shallow end of the spectrum of abusiveness. I have forgiven most of my traumatic moments in an effort to retrain myself to a better way. One by one I forgive, and work on rewiring my brain to reach for better choices in my equivalent moments; which I’ve addressed many times over as being an ongoing process with many failures on my part. It’s not too late for me, but it seems by situation and ongoing choices, it may be so for dad. I know he will see and understand when he rejoins our maker.

Anyway, tangent aside, there were good conversations and time shared as family. That was very welcomed. Also, the many jokes and good natured jabs at each other was good relief for the emotional system. Katherine stole the show a couple of times simply being an adorable toddler dancing to music and trying to figure out the guitar the bride’s nephew played. It was simply a good time all around.

However, I did get far too much alcohol, gluten, and dairy, and thus my system is ultra angry and working on serious detoxing. Today was a good start, being I consumed 1 Lara bar, spread over the whole day, and 1 bowl of very light veggie soup at dinner, with as many ounces of water as I could stomach throughout the day. The queasy angry liver was by far the biggest deterrent to consuming anything in any significant quantity. By this point most of the queasy feeling has subsided, so I’m hopeful I’ll be able to hydrate better tomorrow. I’m not worried about consuming calories yet, mainly because I ate in 3 days what I would normally spread over a week, and as I previously mentioned pretty much all my major allergens were consumed, which spiked my sugar horribly. I have probably an extra 200 calories just floating around in my blood stream 🤣.

Seriously though, laughing aside, I’ve decided weddings- though wonderfully joyous occasions- are not good for making healthy decisions. If anyone knows a solution there, I’m all ears- feel free to leave comments as such. That would be good to know even if there aren’t many weddings to anticipate in my family at the moment.

May you all have joyous celebrations which are easy on your system. May you all feel the love and find life partners to experience joy with. May you all have good times with family and experience a feeling of belonging. Finally, may you all have just what you need and enjoy yourself in ways gentle to your system.

Siva Hir Su

Spring and happy adulting.

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So this week brought a few just plain stupid things at work: proof I work with 40+ year-old teenagers. Boxes appearing where they shouldn’t be, a red pot I put in storage a week ago getting left on a table outside my office, things getting moved, and a decoration being hidden until the day after I took all the rest of the St. Pat’s day stuff to storage. Not to mention being privy to an outside provider’s jacket being hidden from her and other just plain mean actions.

It makes me realize how much I prefer being kind and considerate towards others, even or especially when those others might be cognitively delayed or naive. It takes far less effort to be kind than any one of those pranks took. And kindness never hurts.

I did laugh today. One of the mean girls used a new phrase intended as an insult to the employee most recently fired. Granted that person had caused inconveniences by changing paperwork that should have been left untouched by company policy. However, my laughter was not about who the phrase was directed to, more the rediculosoty of the phrase itself and the way it was said. It was an over the top insult fitting of the personality of the person delivering it. My response was “that’s a new one” with a good laugh. Sometimes those moments are needed, laughter is good medicine, but I had a moment after the fact where I wished it hadn’t been at another person’s expense, and especially that I hadn’t contributed to fanning mean girl flames. There’s more than enough of that to go around to begin with. Perhaps the universe can deliver me some more healthy comedic moments.

Anyway, what the universe did deliver was sunshine and warm enough weather for a wonderful walk. I took pictures of new growth, green beautiful things, Katherine exploring, and Birch trees catching the setting sun. Then when we got home Katherine danced and sung along to a song that SoundHound thought I should listen to. It was a very good spring evening.

Busy working or hardly working?

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I’ve been so busy I haven’t been able to do that feel good update. I promised pictures of my veteran’s day service and craft projects I’ve done lately, but I’ve been busy decorating the building at work and so many other things that I never got to it. So, I guess I’ll just have a picture heavy post today.

Veterans day – I only received 2 from my coworker I can post. I’m not allowed to use any pictures where you can tell who the residents are. So these ones are okay, being you can’t see full resident faces. That’s me at the podium, and the gentleman in the blue shirt was my younger veteran volunteer handing out the certificates.

Crafts:

First decoupage platters made with paper napkins…

My first 2 (I’ve since done a third I don’t have a picture of yet):

Finished resident projects:

Sharpie art:

Mine:

I only had a couple of resident examples of the sharpie dye art, but it seems I must’ve used a different device to take those pictures, as I can’t find them now.

Finally, I finished most of the building decorations today, so here’s pictures of my handy work. Everyone loved my “flower” arrangements and holiday trees. I’m glad they liked my work.

It was very fun decorating such large trees. I had never decorated a tree even the size of the smaller one, and the larger one was 2 or 3 feet taller and much wider.

I even dressed up a couple of year round arrangements…

And made a cluster of mini-trees for our Angel Gift Tree. Next week they will be covered in Angel tags for residents donating gifts.

As for home, we are still getting settled, so decorations have not even been attempted, but our living room and bedrooms are to comfy stage, enough unpacked to feel like home.

May you all have a pretty, creative, comfy, and joyfully busy holiday this year.

Oscillating again.

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I’m having a devil of a time attempting to stay buoyant these days. Between the discouraging lack of affordable decent housing, and being unable to let go of and move on from the boy, I keep finding myself in the hole. It doesn’t help that my depression puzzle pieces keep falling out of place, not all at the same time, but it seems I struggle to keep 3 or 4 of the six together at any given moment. It definitely contributes to my down-ness.

Anyway, this post is intended to get my mind on happy thoughts for as long as I can, so it might end up being long (apologies in advance).

 My goal is to show what I would love for the inside of my home to look like. Right now I’m really, really far from my desired look, and no one picture or item conveys the complexity of what I want. So I’m going to show as many elements as I can and describe what I like about them or why. 

My examples are pulled from online(google), and there’s a bunch of pictures, so I didn’t cite their sources. However, most of them, the screen shots caught the descriptions, so you’re welcome to get to them that way. I just want to clarify that these are all found images that I happen to appreciate, I take no credit for their existence.

So to start, I wanted to show furniture styles that I have always liked. I love furniture that looks clean and simple, but also is very functional. These pics are things that represent styles I’ve always liked. The qualifier here is I also like color, so even though these are muted colors, I’d rather have beautiful shades of reds and greens and blues. 

The sofa I love because it’s not only a guest sleeper, but it has a huge storage compartment under the chaise, and it’s affordable.

Chairs: I still like clean lines and simple designs, but I much prefer high back chairs for good back and neck support.

Chaise: I don’t know why, but I’ve always wanted just one of these. Perhaps it’s because several of my favorite novels from years back had one in their story lines.

Bedroom happiness: more clean lines, more organization. Color, in the bedroom, for me, falls in linens, curtains, and wall colors, so I’m OK with neutral colored furniture. I usually prefer lighter neutral furniture, but I do think I’d like to try having the dark woods in my own bedroom for a change. The more easy storage the better, it helps reduce and eliminate clutter.

I’d love to have a huge closet with built in customized shelves and drawers, but the more realistic, regular life solution is the very affordable Ikea beauties I like below. Mmmm that  would be nice.

Finally the environment: I do love color. I have always loved color like you find in Mexico, Greece, India, and China. At one point I thought it would be amazing to have a room decorated with each feel in mind. I also thought it would be great to have color themed bedrooms like castles in England… ” you’ll be staying in the blue (or green, etc.) room, just down the hall, first door on the left”. I’m not sure I’d actually go that far, but it’s a nice idea. So, with that in mind, here are some color schemes I found that I like.

The first three images, I also love the open spaciousness and simplicity. I love that they look clean, and homey, but not filled with clutter. Just enough artwork to be  interesting, but not too much for the eyes to take in.

More themed color and great storage.

These last 3 I really love the colors, but they are a bit more busy and cluttered looking than I’d like.

So now, you have a good idea of what I’d love for my home to look like. I’m sure there’s more I could elaborate on, but this is definitely a good start, and spending the time looking for pics and writing about the results definitely got my mind in a better place. That much was a great success. Here’s to more up moments, and hopefully to a great birthday soon as well.

Joyous Hana-kwanza-chrisma-yule-ness

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It’s the holiday season. Joyful happy wishes abound. Hallmark channel will sure help lift the mood. That or a thousand classic holiday movies.

We’ve had a tiny Charlie-Brown-Esque celebration this morning, for us technically a belated Yule celebration being I worked the last several days. It’s followed by a trip to friends for the misfits Christmas party this evening.

I’ve had a mild head-cold all week, and I’m just run down from working too much, but I’m doing my best to stay buoyant. Sleeping in with cute kitties was a bonus.

( I’d show pics of the rest of our celebration, but Nathan and Anya did all the photo taking so I’ll get those later on.)

My day off started at about 7pm last night. Despite very much looking forward to my time off and being in generally good spirits, the boy has weighed heavily on my mind. 

I felt him all day yesterday and though it was nice to feel him, especially in my heart being afire, I couldn’t help but wish I’d hear from him or even see him. It’s very confusing to feel him like that periodically, but not have anything else. He’s only ever validated the connection once and though I know that should be enough I can’t help but wonder why he didn’t talk about it, and why he’s quit communicating all together. My natural inclination is to blame myself, but I constantly work at reminding myself it is much more complex than that. I’ve resigned myself to loving him as I can, and knowing that some day, maybe after I die, I’ll understand fully.

So I pushed him out of my mind and slept mostly well, save for a scary dream about Nathan and health stuff. He’s actually doing OK, as far as current doctors are concerned. He’s working on the low kidney function, brought his sugars back down, and his blood pressure is getting there. He’s even finally got the black lines diagnosed. Apparently, if it had been the scary melanoma there would have been other symptoms with the line. The doctor was sure it was a fungus that produces a similar line and has started an anti fungal treatment with caution to watch for the other symptoms of the melanoma or the lines failing to dissipate. So essentially Nathan is, as far as we know, getting better.

That is a blessing. Our tiny celebration is a blessing. I had a good laugh over the kittens finding great fun in new cat toys and some catnip this morning. We’ve even been told of some possible houses that are coming open soon. So things are generally OK to hopeful.

Amidst laughing over kitties and having sweets with kids, I suddenly felt funny like I was going to pass out. Nathan immediately took my blood pressure and discovered I was very low. Kind of a good thing, but I need to keep it from being so low that I actually pass out. So the last few hours I’ve been downing liquids with electrolytes added and attempting to get my salt intake up, and I took a couple of extra iron supplements just in case. Also a blessing. Low is better than high in pregnancy and much easier to control. A couple of days of diligent liquid and iron intake and I should be fine.

And baby didn’t seem to mind she/he kicked several times during and has been very active  since. I’m sure baby is enjoying the electrolyte boost as much as I am. I’m grateful that I’m feeling baby more and more these days. It makes the efforts worth it. I finally am starting to actually feel pregnant, now that my belly is unmistakably showing it!

I hope everyone reading can find their blessings and happy moments and feel improvement on its way. May the spirit of the holidays bring you peace, joy, and hope. Be well and many blessings.

A lost twin?

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Apparently due to my lingering symptoms, things that aggravate them, and things that alleviate them, my midwife thinks that my miscarriage may have been a “lost twin”. It’s apparently fairly common, and she’s not concerned in the slightest (or at least as she seemed to me) she does have a really good poker face.

Essentially, she thinks I’m still pregnant and has instructed me to act as such until we can get bloodwork completed. 2 rounds approximately 2 days apart. The results will tell us for sure. HCG levels drop, it equals one miscarriage, and I’ll stick it out until symptoms go away. HCG levels rise, I’m still pregnant and proceed to develop healthy baby.

I was supposed to have round 1 drawn today, but she was called to a birth. So, I wait to hear back from her, and will probably get drawn tomorrow. That means I’ll have results by early next week at the latest.

So, I’m eating every 2 hours, small quantities of extremely healthy foods. The nausea comes in waves if I wait too long to eat, or if I eat a known food trigger. My sugars are good, but not the perfect I shot for with Ian, I will do better. I know part of it is because I’ve slipped on my exercise regimine.

So, to begin to solve that problem, I’ve taken an hour walk in Antioch Park. It’s a very nice city park in Overland Park, Johnson County, KS. Walking trails, playground equipment, a play size old west town, fountains, flowers, and benches & pavilions galore.

I took lots of pictures. I love the birds, and Lily pads. It was very relaxing (much needed for my current stress levels), and a great way to get today’s exercise in. One object stuck out for me, a metallic S or 2  shaped balloon that seemed to be for a dog (bone at the bottom), it definitely caught my Ooo Shiney reflex, but I wondered if it was a message in my version of this giant illusion. Who knows for sure, right!

So my pictures:


This (below) was my second heron in a little over a week. Remember the Great Blue Heron from the not back to school picnic. Well this is a young adult male Green Heron. & the last pic where he’s on the grate, he flew over to sit near me, the grate was about 15 ft from me, and after sitting a long while watching each other, I stood and inched closer getting about 4 feet from the grate, maybe 8 feet from him. I told him thank you for letting me get close enough for a good picture.


I rather enjoyed my walk through Antioch Park, and especially the bit of time I sat enjoying my bird friend and all of the nature. I’m feeling much better and less stressed. I think everything will be OK, regardless of the test results.