Notes from Tuesday

New grey color on the porches 

It's pouring rain outside. It rained quite a bit last night too. Unfortunately... the Whine Cellar has been leaking again. Not as much as previously but enough to make me fear I will never have legitimate carpet down here. At.... any rate.

The painters were back today. I noticed when I went outside to take a picture this evening that the gray paint makes our house look older. But not old in a bad way... like an old lake cottage with lots of porches... it reminds me of my great-grandma's house but I have no idea why. I think her house was all white.

Today I have not done much. Well, I have studied Italian UH-lot and watched a lot of episodes of Jane the Virgin. I took Austin to the Dollar General to get some necessities (cigarettes and bottled water for him, mini-starburst for me). I guess it's just another one of those days that feels so much like other days that it doesn't feel productive. I learned about sixty new Italian words and reviewed about three hundred. That's a lot. I write all the new words and their meanings in sharpie on notebook paper and keep them carefully organized in binders according to the different courses. I write the words out in advance so that when I am learning it goes faster. I wrote out two new chapters of a course today which was about... six hundred words. So it was a lot, now that I think about it.

My fig bush, hope these babies mature into edible figs!

My shoulder is killing me. Too much writing. My tailbone/lower spine feel like there's a hot poker pushing through my skin. That's the bulging discs, probably. I've had a headache again today, still not as bad as before surgery but still enough to be a distraction. And evil gut pain... it's not as evil but it's still there, despite all the parts they took out.  Sometimes I stand up and I feel like I've been kicked in the gut. I just feel like I can't get a break from pain. I know that sounds redundant. I've pulled away from daily blogging because details like pain ARE the same every day for me. I guess I make a point to mention it because it is my reality. For people who don't understand what chronic pain really means, I think it's important to say, "yes, I'm in pain again today". And for those who DO battle chronic pain, I like them to know they aren't alone. It's not for sympathy (although I appreciate your concern and most importantly your prayers) it's just my reality. Every day I'm in pain. I'm in pain every day.

The dock post pressure wash, pre-painting - looks so different!

Food wise today... salted caramel flavored Chobani greek yogurt with little pretzel pieces and chocolate chips in it for breakfast. I'm thinking that's not terribly healthy but that's what I had. I also had some fresh cherries, they're still in the stores and are still pretty sweet so I buy them. For lunch I had caramel flavored rice cakes (a theme, I guess) with peanut butter and banana. I fixed two and only ate about half of one because the rice cakes were stale and... it just wasn't what I wanted. I couldn't figure out what I wanted so that's all I ate. For dinner we had the last of the frozen meals from the bakery. This one was called "country chicken bake" or something like that and it wasn't my favorite. Just mashed potatoes with some random chicken pieces. It had a weird texture. My luigis mango italian ice cups are defrosting a little bit. I'll have those in a few minutes. Halloween candy is starting to be put out at Dollar General but they didn't have anything I particularly wanted. I'm just in a blah kind of mood where there's not a lot of pleasure in anything. I like eating, I just don't know what I want to eat.

Yesterday after I blogged we got the car back from the mechanic. I am not even sure what the problem was but apparently it was a quick fix. Last night I Facetimed with Ollie and Cody. I had the best time with Ollie. He is BUSY. Busy, busy, busy. He goes from one thing to another. He is so animated... makes sounds for all of his cars... mimics things I do on the phone like sticking out my tongue... he's just hilarious. They're coming to visit this weekend, hopefully. I asked if Cosette could come over long enough for us to get a few photos of the babies together and her mom wasn't sure what they were doing that day. We are missing so many milestones with her... I just want to capture *THIS* stage of life for the two little cousins. My mom goes to the doctor tomorrow for the follow up on her low blood pressure. And I'm still pretty much enjoying an open calendar this week although I have a pain doctor appointment this month and can't find it on my calendar so I need to figure out when that is.

And.... that's my life today. Hope you had a good one. Love and hugs and thanks for stopping by!