Halloween 2013

It is a dreary, damp Halloween night. Thankfully, Trick or Treat hours were on Sunday when it was nice out and the neighborhood kids could run around without getting cold and wet.

Wild Man also got to be all Halloween-y over the weekend by performing on the “Haunted Trails”, an “interactive theater experience” put on by the Weyauwega-Fremont Choir and Drama Club. Actors in costume were stationed along a trail in the woods behind the school. The people who wanted to be scared would be led into the woods, all holding onto a rope so they would stay together, and a story would unfold as they walked the trail. Wild Man was “SlenderMan”. If you don’t know who that is (i.e. if you’re an adult), you’ll need to Google it, because I still don’t completely understand why this dude is scary. Well, except for the lack of facial features. That’s pretty weird. Thankfully, they decided not to do any performances tonight because of the bad weather.

It’s also nice for Wild Man that they aren’t performing tonight because he has a paper due. Every Thursday, he has a paper or paper revision due for his WriteAtHome online class. Unfortunately, tonight is a brand new paper, albeit just a first draft. Between the Haunted Trails over the weekend and the choir performance earlier in the week, though, he hadn’t started the paper and is just now writing it. He has till midnight. One thing I’m learning about homeschooling, though, is that I need to stay out of these independent classes. This is between him and his writing coach. Although I am about to tell him to GET OFF FACEBOOK!!

So, the winter drearies are starting early, it appears. We haven’t seen the sun in a couple of days and the weather forecast isn’t looking promising. PWM and I both need sunshine for our mental health. Barring that, bright light will have to do. We turn the lights up during the day around here. We also take Vitamin D and try to get some exercise. PWM has a really bright light that he keeps over his desk that he turns on every morning. Here’s hoping that our moods stay up this winter!!

PWM and Wild Man had their flu shots this morning. I had mine last week and it really hurt, but I had a significant local reaction to it. I had an area of redness and induration that was about 2 by 3 inches that took a full week to resolve. PWM and Wild Man are both complaining of more pain this year, too, but I don’t think they have the skin reaction as well.

PWM has two sock classes to teach tomorrow. I doubt I’ll be awake and alert enough to help him with the 8am class, but I’ll be in the 6pm class with him as long as I don’t have a bad headache. I love knitting socks, but I’m not nearly as good a teacher as PWM. I can help one-on-one, though. And it’s always nice to help people learn a new skill.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Last night was the first time we got to hear Wild Man’s high school choir perform. He actually joined the choir when his arm was broken and he couldn’t do much in band, so he’s only been in the group for about six weeks. The choir performed in The Fox Cities Choral Music Festival at the PAC in Appleton along with choirs from Hortonville and Kimberly.

We were a little concerned when the first two choirs performed with the guys in tuxes and the girls in matching dresses because we knew that the kids from Wega had their robes with them, but didn’t have matching dress clothes. And we were just hoping that no one had sneakers on. (Weyauwega is a rural community of farming and industrial families – not exactly suburbia here.) They wore their robes for the whole performance, individual choir performance and combined choir performance. And no sneakers to be seen.

Most importantly, Wega-Fremont did a great job musically. And the combined choirs were wonderful. During the combined choir performance, Wild Man and another of Wega-Fremont’s young men pulled out some hand drums and played them during the African song. Needless to say, PWM and I were quite proud.

Today has been one of those kind of blah days. I woke up with a headache that made me uninterested in doing anything useful. And, I got up late, so I missed the Wednesday morning knitting at the shop. But, I had finished reading Pastrix by Nadia Bolz-Weber (a great book, by the way) and A Storm of Swords was waiting for me at the library, so I decided to risk a nice, slow stroll to the library. Books are always worth getting out for.

Wild Man is keeping up with the schoolwork I’ve assigned him, but I’ve made it a light week because he had extra choir rehearsals on Monday and Tuesday. He also spends from 4pm till evening on Wednesdays at church for youth group. So, tomorrow and Friday, he is going to have to do some extra work on Biology and Spanish. Unfortunately, those are subjects that require my direct input. I need to not have a bad headache tomorrow. Really.

I’m watching the World Series right now since PWM is out picking up Wild Man from church. I’m noticing that there is a lot of facial hair on these two teams. I don’t think these guys have shaved in the post-season. Their faces. There are some very bald scalps. They’re starting to look like the guys from Duck Dynasty.

And what’s the deal with singing “God Bless America” during the 7th Inning Stretch? I’m not opposed to singing that song at anytime, I guess, but it appears to be a new tradition and I missed the start of it.

Denial–October 29, 2013

I’ve had a rough couple of weeks. I’m about two weeks late for my Botox and my appointment isn’t till next week. The headaches have been pretty intense and haven’t let up much at all. Not only does this make me unhappy, but it tends to mess up things at home, as well. I’m not available to cook, clean, or help Wild Man with his schoolwork.

I have had a couple of decent days scattered in among all the bad ones, though, and I’ve made a discovery. When I feel OK, I pretend that I don’t actually have chronic pain issues. I clean the house, cook meals, school the kid, etc., but I don’t do the things I should to keep myself healthy. I don’t eat well and make sure that there are healthy foods around for the next bad day(s). I don’t exercise, or if I do, I’m likely to overdo it and cause more pain for the next day.  I’m not likely to journal or meditate, practices that have helped me when I can do them consistently and are easier to do when I feel well.

When I feel well, I deny that I’m really sick. I don’t know if I’m the only one who does this or not. Migraines are easy to hide when I don’t have a bad one. And, really, I still feel like there’s some kind of stigma on them. Which is kind of crazy because I’ve sat in exam rooms and told patients that there is no reason to be ashamed of their chronic pain. But that’s another story.

Tonight, Wild Man had a choir concert in the Valley. I had awakened with the same headache that I’ve had for the last two weeks (and which is driving me and PWM up the wall!). I got desperate and finally took 600mg of ibuprofen, something I can only do a couple of times a year because of my chronic renal insufficiency (which was caused by chronic NSAID use). My headache was much, much better this evening and I was able to have an enjoyable evening.

I have no idea what tomorrow will be like, but whether my headache is bad or not, I still have chronic headaches. My first priority needs to be to take care of myself and then I’ll be better able to take care of my family and home.

No more denying my illness because I’m having a good day or two. I need to put forth the effort to take care of myself on good and bad days. No one is well-served by this fiction that I’m only sick on the bad days.

7 Quick Takes Friday–October 4, 2013

I’m finally home!! I realized that my last post talked about Mom doing well and anticipating and uneventful recovery. Well, that didn’t happen. Mom’s surgery was three weeks ago. After about three days, she developed c. dif. colitis, which extended her hospital stay about about a week. It also left her significantly weakened when she did come home. I ended up staying an extra week to help out both in the hospital and at home. But, she’s doing much better and she’s almost back to her usual, energetic self, so I came back home to PMW and Wild Man.

• It’s rainy here in Wisconsin, but it is wonderfully cool!! The constant heat and humidity of South Florida just about did me in. I found a great bathing suit at Wal-Mart for just $6 (on the discount rack), so I did make good use of my parents’ swimming pool.
• Knitting, knitting, and more knitting!! I’ll probably do a post on The Knitting Nest blog about my current projects, but suffice it to say right now that I’ve got a lot of my knitting plate. I am almost done with a pair of socks for myself that I worked on in Florida. I’m doing a hat for someone with a hair-losing illness. I’m  doing a knit-a-long on a sweater with a Wednesday morning group and probably doing a colorwork project on Thursday nights. Let’s just hope my fingers don’t fall off.
• I finished two of my three library books while I was down South and found that the third one was a very dry read that I knew I wouldn’t finish. So, off to Barnes and Noble I went and got A Game of Thrones. And I am loving it.
• Wild Man and PWM got to see Rosie Girl on two of the three weekends that I was gone. She came home one weekend and Family Weekend at the University was the other weekend. Bummer.
• To make up for not seeing my Rosie Girl for a month, she and I had lunch today. During our discussion at some point, I finally had to change the subject to keep her from telling me too much of the plot of The Game of Thrones. She hasn’t quite finished the first one, but she loves it and desperately wants to share it with me. I guess I’d better get reading!!!
• While I was gone, Wild Man decided to join the high school choir. He is singing bass and is really excited about it. He walks around the house singing in Latin. Pretty entertaining.
• Between starting that, his broken arm (with doctor’s appointments), and PWM handling the store and schoolwork and the house, Wild Man’s schoolwork got a little mixed up. My task for this weekend is to sort things out. He is caught up on Sonlight, so I need to figure out where he is in Biology, Bible, and Spanish. I think it was the last week that I was gone (the unanticipated week) that got things off. In any case, I’ll sort it out.

How was your week? Check out 7 Quick Takes to see what others have been up to?