Fired Up

Wow, another week has whizzed on by and it's almost Friday again.

I am all fired up for a productive weekend, so many things I want us to accomplish around the house this Saturday and Sunday. My plans are for a de-cluttering extravaganza, LOL, and reclaiming back another room that - over the years - has become a dumping ground for stuff I'm trying to move from somewhere else. Added to which there are things, no longer in use, and in too poor condition to be recycled, that need to be dumped. One of which is the doggie love seat, well and truly the worse for wear, but now they are all old and unable to get up on it (except Mystery, but she no longer does as she wants to be near the others who are plonked all over the hallway and bedroom). To the dump! To the dump! Out! Out, I say!

We are also planning on changing our window air conditioners around. We will be getting a new one for the bedroom, putting the bedroom one into the kitchen, and the kitchen one into the laundry room.

Hubby is going to mow the front yard if the weather is good enough, and we will be taking down Sadie's  pen, now that she is no longer with us. I have to cut all the zip ties to the blankets we secured around the outside, to shelter her from the elements. Then we can reclaim the back porch another weekend.

This afternoon when he gets in from work, we will be heading out to make an AVON delivery to a very sweet customer of mine. She is such a treasure despite dealing with near--blindness and being hard of hearing. Then we'll be grabbing Culver's for dinner, yeah I fancy my fish and chips, ha ha.

We have an awesome Thursday! Make it so!!

It feels good to have my hubby home!

Such a beautiful morning to wake up to, and hubby snoozing next to me on his first day off after working 21 days straight!

I didn't say anything on social media about him being gone, as being disabled and alone might have made me a target for an opportunist who might have thought we might have something worth stealing.

He had called me from work one day and asked me if I thought I could manage without him for a week. Having my granddaughters reasonably close by, and knowing I could call them if I needed to, plus 3 or 4 friends who are nurses (so that if I had a medical issue, I could call them and ask for advice ) I told him yes.

By the time he got home, that afternoon, it was 3 weeks.

As he was due to leave on the Monday (the 4th), we tried to do as much as possible the weekend before he left. Delivering AVON to a customer who has moved to Anderson, on the Saturday, we met at the gas station on Highway 8, where my graddaughter Jel works. There, in conversation, she asked him how long e'd be gone, and he said 3-5 weeks, and I was like  "what????"  LOL. One week, then 3, now possibly 5? I did doubt my ability to cope, if it came to 5 weeks.

It has been a struggle BUT I managed and, in many ways, accomplished with aplomb. Much to my own surprise. Things may have been difficult, and taken me longer to do than they would a normal person, but I managed to get them done. Well, most of them.

The trash mounted up, and recycleables, and we will be taking those this morning, and I had my little helper, Sarah, come to help me do my living room as I cannot do the standng up to dust the shelves and my Mrs Albees.

It's good to have my hubby back. He knows he was missed. Angel greeted him with big wags of her tail and puppy-like excitement, and Snuggles had her night pillow to snuggle on again.

Who'd a thunk it?

Happy Saturday everyone, hope it's a calm and peaceful one

When I look back on my life, some parts definitely seem like I'm watching a movie about someone else, and that it wasn't me at all. Some parts, I wish had never happened, but then I'd have lost the good things that came out from the bad things, and that would be too high a price to pay for eradicating the pain.

That I was an odd child is something that I'm ok with now, and most of the time, was ok with in my youth. I was quite happy to curl up with a good book and just block the rest of the world out, and escape.

Back in the early 60s, one of the things that set me apart was having 2 fathers. My dad married my mum when I was 2, and adopted me when I was 7. The adoption day coincided with the zoo trip that the top 2 classes in the Infants went to, before going "up" to the Juniors. In the case of George Tomlinson, it really was "up" as the Infants was on the ground floor and the Juniors, upstairs, although having different entrances. Thus, my original illegitimacy became a matter of knowledge after that. The only other oddity in my class was a lass named Linda Bray, whose mother was single, and I can't remember whether it was by choice or divorce, but back in 1962/63 it was def not the done thing.

In the Juniors, my first teacher, for 2 years, was Mrs Stark. She was strict and I don't think she liked me very much. I wrote stories in my "journals" and she told me once I must have been reincarnated and lived during Victorian times as my stories were so detailed. I was 7 and 8 during her classes, but read mostly Dickens, and the Brontes (Charlotte's Jane Eyre was my favourite, read and reread over and over) as well as horsey stories like Sewell's Black Beauty and the then-contemporary My Friend Flicka books.

The second 2 years, I had Miss Lynes as the teacher, and despite having a reputation as a "stickler", she was actually really nice. I had a seat near the window, in her class, but since I loved school, my daydreaming happened on my own time, not in class.

I loved George Tomlinson though, and flourished there. My best friend was Stephanie Baum, and our mums went shopping together on a Friday evening at Fine Fare down Leytonstone High Street. Us kids (she had 2 sisters, Judith and Elaine) and I had 2 at that time, Stephanie and Theresa, would play on the sides of the stairs leading up to the cafeteria. They were polished wood, about 9" wide, the perfect size for our little bottoms to use as a slide.

Some weekends, and during school holidays, I spent with my nan and granpop, who I'd lived with when I was little, and when my mum had first got married. I went to live with my mum when my parents bought 47 Southern Drive, Loughton. I was about 4 and my sister was born shortly afterward.

My nan and granpop spoiled me, but I was a good kid. I had to be quiet as they lived in an upstairs flat above an old lady who'd bash on the ceiling with a broom when my nan used the roller sweeper on the rugs. It wasn't a big deal for me, I had dress up dolls, colouring books, Ladybird and I-Spy Books on no end of subjects, I knitted and sewed doll's clothes for my 3 teenage dolls there, Candy, Sandy and Mandy.

Some days we'd walk to Riddley Road Market, some days to my granpop's work at King and Scarborough, on Kingland Rd alongside the canal. My nan took me to museums and art galleries, or we went to Clissold Park where there was a talking Mynah bird in one of the big cages there, his name was Charlie.

I had a pretty good childhood but then my late teens and early 20s kind of went awry. The bad stuff, well it was really bad, but with God's grace, I made it through and now that I'm older, I can look back and see that, although it was terrible at the time, as a part of my life, it's actually quite a small fragment of the years that I've lived.

I look back and see how far I've come, and it's a definite "who'd a thunk it?"

Aah my body ... tricks that work for me

To say the past 18 months have been an eye opener for me has proven to be an understatement. Don't get me wrong, I've always thought how amazing our bodes are, with all that they do. I just didn't realise how finicky they could be about some things and, believe me when I say, that THAT was an education in itself.

So, the one drug I take for my blood pressure slows the heart rate. When mine was getting to 48, 46 or thereabouts bpm, it would start the weird sickly feelings and go into A-Fib, missing beats as it felt like it, making me get those dream like "falling off a cliff" gasping moments. 

However, the rest of my body didn't like that, and the feelings that I had when it happened, my blood pressure would go sky high. I'd end up going and pedalling on my elliptical bike for 10 minutes or so to raise my heart rate slightly, out of that "danger zone" for me. But I had to be careful, as - if my heart rate went too high - the racing side of the A-fib would start, which was just as scary and resulted in panic attack type feelings and was rather scary. So, I learned to pedal carefully, so as to just raise my heart rate by about 10 bpm, to take it out of one danger zone and keep it away from the other.

A visit to the ER (lovely way to blow almost $1700 on a co-pay, if ever there was one ... and I'm STILL making payments on) resulted in them halving the dose of the pill that lowered my heart rate, and making one of my "emergency" meds into a regular once daily one.

That has helped. However, then - without warning - I would still have my heart rate drop real low. I finally realised it happened when my body felt cold to the touch. It didn't even have to really be cold, nor (funnily enough) did I have to "feel cold" in myself. I'd start getting the A-Fib feelings, rub my arm or my leg and sure enough, they were icy.  I'd end up in bed, clothed, under the covers, with just my head sticking out, "walking" my legs sideways to start raising my heartrate whilst waiting for my body to warm up and my heart rate to regulate itself back to a better number.

Odd how that coldness just happens out of the blue even in hot weather, and also, even when I'm feeling hot in myself, and sweating, as I'm trying to get my skin to warm up.

I've always believed one should know one's own body, and to a point, I'd work with mine pretty well over the years, always preferring natural ways where possible, but also recognizing that - sometimes - drugs are a necessity. 

I'm thankful that I'm beginning to get back onto a somewhat even keel again, albeit that thhere are still episodes but that they do seem to be lessening, and physically, I seem to be improving.

Continuing the Breast Cancer Crusade

Breast cancer affects so any families, my own husband lost his mother to this awful disease in 1976, when he was only 12. That's one of the reasons I feel so passionately about this.
 Regular checks are a must, as the sooner anything untoward is discovered, the greater the chance of survival.

Cute video from AVON, sung by Paula Abdul

Another new month is upon us! 

Am I the only one who sees it as a fresh chance to improve myself, whether by building on my exercise regime, growing and revitalizing my business or learning new things? 

I make goals for each week, and actually love my Mondays because they, too, are a new beginning, a fresh start to work on things I may have felt disappointed about the week before.

So, in June, I have 30 new days to use any way that I will. I'm excited at the prospect!

Today has started well, although I would have preferred to sleep in as hubby has alternate Fridays "off" and today is his "off day". It didn't happen. Despite the alarm being switched off, my body is used to waking just before 5am, and this morning was no exception. They say "no rest for the wicked" so I guess I must have been really bad about something.

However, I have worked well so far. My day is off to an awesome start. I did some recognition to AVON team members in my facebook team group, made some advertising posts, posted on my AVON business page and group, posted on my WATKINS business page, sent an email to a new AVON business enquirer, and did some seated exercises (I don't stand or walk very well, so have had to find other ways to work on my body). All in around 3 hours.

Methinks I can call that productive!

In about an hour, I'll be in the shower and then heading out, as I have a load of errands to run, with hubby. It's a long list, so we'll do one lot, come home and unload the groceries, take a break, and then head out again, to do the rest!

Enjoy your day!

#June  #productivity  #goals  #freshstart  #team