Issa LorenLeave a comment

A touch of the feels

So. Didn’t make my 11 day streak for posting–so I suppose all one can do is try again. I was going to post this weekend, but had birthday party and other things happening related and it ended up taking up most of the weekend. Still re-building the energy reserves. I mean, don’t feel bad, cause I didn’t even make my bed– and that is one of the two things I generally require of myself to have a successful day. I did feed the dog, so I didn’t completely fail.

I am also going to be real here and say this this weekend was emotionally difficult (hence the title of this post). I think I mentioned before that I don’t have children. Not for lack of trying. All three of my babies have only ever opened their eyes in heaven. This is a state of being that I didn’t want or plan for but it is where I am in life. Folks, not knowing my history, assume that I don’t have children because I don’t want them. With good intentions they say things like, “You’re so good with children!”, “You would make a wonderful mother!”, “Children are blessings from the Lord.” Well yeah, of course they are. Something that is difficult for many people to accept in the Christian life is that — not all of the Lord’s blessings are meant for all of the Lord’s children. Faith-wise– it is a battle between what we want and what the Lord has. Good things become idols when we place them above the Lord. We see it in Abraham’s life as well. I’ve seen a few professing Christians turn from the faith because they could not have children.

Anyway, around these parts is back to school time. I see people around me getting their children ready — everyone from kindergarten through to dropping their kids off at college for the first time. I can’t help but think of where my babies would have been at this point if they had made it. It makes my heart hurt because it just naturally moves beyond the present into the future. The big birthdays, the big events, the every day frustrations where they just want mom. Exhausting times, indeed, but worth it in the long run I think. I assume.

It isn’t a mindset I dwell in, but it does come and go with the flow of life. I don’t dwell, but it does take a few days to get through. That’s the important part that I try really to be cognizant of: don’t push it away and let it fester. Deal with it now so the next time it isn’t an overwhelming wave of pent up frustration. I think the roughness this past weekend is also because of the transition I’m in already with re-establishing roots. Every year before now, I’ve always been at a distance. The kids (Nieces, nephews, bestie kids, friends kids, church kids) were always far away and I was only tangentially involved with their lives because there was no other choice. Now, it’s a mixed bag. My siblings (and therefore, my nieces and nephews) are still long distance; however, everyone else is part of my every day living. It is so much fun, and yet it is low-key painful as well. I am super excited to see and help them learn new things and figure stuff out. To be a person some of them can talk to, but also just share random silly things with— even if they earn me eye-rolls and giggles. This past weekend, I got hugs just because. Those are the moments that lessen that pain, and the moments–I suppose– that will now act as the balm to soothe in the long term.

There is no real great way to end this posting. So .. til the next time.

Issa LorenLeave a comment

Unda Press-shha

I hope you have the song in your head LOL.

It took me a quick minute this morning to get myself on here. I am practically done with the cup of coffee for the morning.

What finally got me here?

Welllll.

I have to clean The Mill and do the laundry. Since I believe I mentioned that I am a huge procrastinator, it should be no surprise that I am avoiding do it. It also is partially because I am trying to build a habit with the regular posting. Actually, I am really very tired today. Even though I was mentally ready for sleeping last night—I didn’t actually fade off until after 1 or so in the morning. Animals and plant life who occupy the Mill with me, also don’t care that I’m not feeling good so if I would so kindly feed and provide the facilities. Everything in my neck and shoulders and hips were adamantly against sleep- even after the meds were taken.

This flare really want to get going and I really don’t want it to. So this is the silent Battle at the Bee.

Yesterday, had to ship back faulty front door lock so I’d not be charged for the replacement and decided to stop by the mall because a young lady in my life is having her first double digit birthday, so I wanted to get her a gift different than the toys and whatnot she would usually get. I remember, when I was young (I never needed any ooone….ok I digress) I looked forward to the double digits. I have no idea why. In my little mind, I believed it to be some sort of threshold. That until I passed it I wasn’t truly growing up.

Ahh. To be young and foolish. Adulthood is super over-rated. I also have thoughts on this that I may or may not expand on in the future.

Dang, I should start writing a list.

Back to the mall. I haven’t actually been to a mall in quite some time. Not because of any particular issue, but because I don’t really feel the need to most times. I rarely (though that seems to be changing lately–ahem–body weight–cough cough) buy clothes or other things. I did a bit of window shopping first. Get the lay of the land. See what she might like. Wanting to balance her still being young with the sense that she is moving into a new phase of life.

My default answer: Books.

So that’s where I went. And the bookstore was having a sale too! I spent a number of hours perusing the kids section and was not overly satisfied with what I saw. What has happened to children’s literature?! I know the answer to this question from a previous life within the publishing world some time ago, but I am still astonished at the majority of what is deemed good reading for the age group. Looks like I’ll be sticking with the used bookstores for purchasing tomes.

So I stuck with the classics. Grabbed her the first two books of the Narnia series. She likes animals and adventure. It will ease her into the genre of the fantastical– and move her into more challenging books. Her parents got her a kindle for her birthday–but there’s something about holding a book and flipping the pages. The entire process that just doesn’t happen with an e-reader. Believe me, I have had a kindle since it came on the market (I’ve also been an Amazon member since they only sold books LOL), but I still buy my real books.

Speaking of which, I did not leave without a few for myself. I got a huge book of biblical maps. It is actually really informative, which I found out as I was flipping through it last night. An insight into one of my book buying habit is:

If it is a thick book, and there are maps, I’ll probably buy it. Genre? Doesn’t matter. Author? Doesn’t really matter either. Lol.

A huge disappointment was the philosophy section. Literally it was the last little portion on a row of non-related books. In this small section, I saw a book that caught my eye called Good Thinking. I figured, “hey, we can all use critical thinking in our lives”.

A book like this should be objective. However, the author poisons the well on the second page (the first full page of text), in the added in preface. I don’t know if he thought “No one is going to read this anyway so I’ll just shoot myself in the foot to push my own agenda”

Gads.

It has irritated me. So the book is on the shelf until I can mentally shift gears and categorize it as biased work. It won’t be too long, and it won’t stop me from reading it. I just hate that it presents itself as objective when it isn’t.

Anyway, I should probably go and, you know, actually do something.

Oh so before I go:
Anyone know if I can add a bookshelf widget of some sort to this place?

Issa LorenLeave a comment

A little… Pizzazz… (or Not)

I just realized that pizza is right there in front of the word. I am laughin and also wondering why I am hungry so early in the morning!

And now, I’ve distracted myself and can’t remember what I was goin to go on about.

Such is life. It’ll come back to me at some point.

So another note: My face is being weird all of a sudden. Yesterday, I was replacing the front door deadbolt here at the Mill after replacing the flag bracket in the front when stuff started catching on my eye lashes. I had grease on my hands, So I kind just tried to brush it off with my wrist.

You guys.

When I got back and looked in the mirror, there was a huge patch of peeling skin…right there in the middle of my forehead! I am fairly consistent with my skincare, but have been a bit lacking in motivation for the last few days so I’ve just kinda thrown some water on my face and some leftover lotion from my hands and called it a day (you know, like most dudes would LOL). To be honest, I did too much the week previous and didn’t plan for my days away appropriately, hence, I am at the beginnings of a fibro flare and trying to stave off a spiral.

Even though I’m not feeling so hot, I did look back mentally at how these flares used to go. I say go because it was almost never-ending. My body was so out of control that I was constantly at about an 8 on the pain level scale. I was always in the spiral so it wasn’t even a thought on “Oh, I need to step back before this starts to turn”. I remember it being so bad… that I was deep in the fibro flare and right behind that the CFS was following. I was in so much pain that the least painful position was standing because only my feet touched the floor. My clothes hurt, my underwear hurt. The air moving across my skin– hurt. I was also so tired— the fatigue was so bad that it was not unusual for me to sleep 20/24 hours in a day. Now, something like a decade later, I have coping mechanisms that work. Enough medication to take the edge off on the daily. Exercise and nutrition in general are important to maintain as well (which I am getting to). In my immediate fatigue I let even the most simple of my coping mechanisms go so I really need to get back on the program

As for pizzazz, I think I was going to try to add some visual interest to the general layout here–but I don’t know what I want to do (yeah, I know. I say it a LOT). I don’t want gauche or gaudy, cause that would annoy me. This, just as an insight, is where my indecision stems from perfectionism.

OHH, you know what. I’ll try and work in here the results of the personality test I recently took. Since I am on a “Know thyself” journey— I figured I should probably start with how much I really know my own personality.

And let’s just say, I wasn’t surprised at all.

OHH. OHH. ANNNND…

Been getting things ready for the whole exercise restart and I’ll be posting on the program I decided to go with probably before the end of the week. I am excited and a little bit nervous. Nine months is a long time to not really do physical activity. Trying to ease into things but I just may fall on my face.

Wow, I’ve been typing for a little bit now, and I actually have errands to run today so toodles people who get this far 😀

Issa LorenLeave a comment

Pre Planning the “comeback”

And because I have a jukebox of a brain, I now have the song “Don’t Call it a Comeback” rollin’ around up there in my head. AHH, such is life.


I think I said at the end of last week or over the weekend that I am using the first 10 of my next 100 day plan to actually get ready to jump back into physical fitness. A bit of background on that would be that last year, I was actually planning an international move to South Korea (yay! Love the country and the people–we go waaaay back to the 80’s) all the way into Mid-October before it all changed. The particulars of that story are definitely going to be addressed at some point but 2020 was gnarly on many fronts for me and picking through it should prove to be interesting.

Anyway, that is for another time and another blog posting.

Back into how I got to where I am right now. So October, not moving internationally, but have to now move as the lease for the house we were in was up in November. When situations this unknown slap ya in the face, things drop off, know what I mean? I am sure anyone reading this has some comprehension to some point of your life (and I’m willing to bet at least one of them also happened in 2020, because well…it was 2020). Physical fitness was it for me. It is not that I got lazy (which is not beyond the realm of possibility, but not applicable in this case), its just that I was way too busy.
As a side note, I also have fibromyalgia and what used to be called CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). CFS is called something else now, but I can never remember–M____ something or another. I should maintain some pretty strict activity boundaries to save myself future pain. This was not something I could regulate in that way though because of time constraints.

I also lost my medical team in this whole transition (not unusual in a regular PCS move–but this wasn’t to be a regular PCS move). Not just the team, but the parameters of insurance also changed (this will be ranted about in a future post—believe me—I am HHHHHOT on the subject). My heart decided it wanted to do weird things and so I was told by new medical team that until they could figure what was happening (It had already been determined that I had a hole in there, but worry was that it was larger)–no exercise.

I was doing somewhat well— gaining weight, sure, but not too badly. The thing about my body is that I am (or can become) what others would deem as “skinny fat”. I remain pretty steady on the weigh-scale–but my body fat starts to shoot up.
I am not particularly attached to exercise itself, but I also seem to have this impulse in my brain that is like, “You aren’t supposed to–but I’m sure you can a bit” so I picked up a mobility and flexibility program (cause– you know— aging)

Had to stop it all.

But now the heart docs say I can start up again. My body tells me I absolutely need to start up again. My Mind tells me “Where the heck do you start?”

Thought about it yesterday, and I think I should probably start again with the mobility and flex program–to rebuild a good foundation and so I don’t hurt myself in the future.

Then two weeks after that—I think I’ll start working in a toning program. Get the metabolism going. Start actually cooking my meals (I can count on two hands how many meals I’ve actually made here in The Kitchen @ The Mill).

I’ll try and figure out how to keep track of my measurements (Cause, lets face it, I’m not posting pictures for comparison on the internet LOL).

Be prepared for a lot of moaning and groaning—with some progress on the sides.

Anyone else out there getting ready to start (or re start) a healthy life journey? Are you making plans or just winging it?

Gonna finish my cup of coffee and try to get something done (probably won’t, but I’m tryin here folks!).

‘Til I share again!