Going Blind

Stray cat on the main island of San Juan.  J and I actually went to the animal shelter on San Juan to inquire on how to take care of the stray animals in our neighborhood.  We were told to get in touch with our shelter/clinic here and ask for a trap so that we could bring them in for a check up.  So I guess just random feeding of the stray cats is not a good thing.  As soon as we get a chance we'll stop by the vet clinic here and ask about their have a heart traps and why we need them.

Before I get into the title of my blog post for today I'll say that I took some much needed me time for myself today and dyed my hair.  I'll get back to work later today.  I'm trying to make as much stock as possible for my shop for the holiday season.  I like to give my customer base a nice choice of items.  J finally finished another chain maille bracelet that I'll be photographing and posting at a later date.  I have more jewelry and baby items to list too.

I forgot to take a picture of the roast last night.  J was fairly salivating last night as he walked in the door.  I have to admit, though I'm not a beef eater in general, it did smell good.  It tasted even better. 

J actually helped with the making of the gravy.  After I removed the roast from the dutch oven and strained out the vegetables I prepped the corn starch with the water and added it to the drippings of the marinade.  J was more than happy to stir until it came to a slight boil and thickened.  He has never made gravy from scratch before but doesn't mind learning.  Truly he isn't a gravy person at all but he does love my sauces.  Not sure what he was used to at home, maybe the jar stuff?  I know my mom would often make up the jar stuff too.

I boiled down and mashed up red skin potatoes to go with the braised beef, carrots, and onions.  Plenty of leftovers for J to nosh on tonight and tomorrow from the 4 pound roast.  Hey the meat was reduced for quick sale so I couldn't pass up the 50% off price.

Okay I guess I procrastinated enough on the post title.  So okay I'm going blind.  Don't panic I'm not going to.  It isn't going to happen fully for a long time, or I hope it won't.

I have two blind spots in the left eye.  I rather knew they were there as well I can't see out of the two spots!
My buried optic disc drusen is slowly progressing.  I now have a thin spot on both eyes with a thickening on the opposite side.  The calcification hasn't gotten worse yet but I do have to go back in a year to make sure things aren't getting even worse.

Here are a few links on the subject to tickle your brain:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22446716

http://bmctoday.net/glaucomatoday/2012/02/article.asp?f=optic-disc-drusen

http://www.albanyeyecare.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=eyecyclopedia.main&Criteria=Results&ID=194

Because I'm still young, not yet 60 when this usually hits, and the fact that my father is blind in both eyes the optometrist is worried.  Seriously there is nothing I can do about this.  Why should I worry.  I take plenty of vitamins and try to eat healthy.  Sometimes shitty things just happen. 

If I go blind at age 90 I'll be content in knowing that I've seen most everything I want to see in life.  1.6% progression rate is normal.  So it will hopefully be a while before I do lose my vision entirely.

Happiness is Making a Sale

I listed this pretty Yellow and Binkie print striped baby 0-3 months size crocheted hat in my shop this morning.

I woke up to a sale over night.  It made me smile of course to know that someone out there likes what I make enough to want to purchase  the item.

I've always had an inferiority complex growing up.  What ever I did was never good enough for my family.  It wasn't me that was the problem but the fact that they were hard to please.

Yesterday I made the above hat and I made this hat too.  I kept really busy.  Usually I can only make one hat a day with everything else I have to get done.  I put in more hours yesterday on crafting and less on the internet promoting.

The most time consuming part of having a small business is the advertising.  I would rather spend more time crafting.  With that in mind it looks as though I'm going to end up paying out for advertising so that I can spend more time creating.

I'm not being cheap. I'm being frugal. I have a really small business and I want to keep the overhead costs down.  I think it is also being wise to rationalize the business expenses and remind myself of the goal of using the funds to pay for donor eggs or adoption.  However, with the holidays almost upon us I have rationalized that having an advertising budget would be quite wise so that I can keep up with the potential client requests.

Well it is time for me to finish up this post and get back to the advertising and creating portion of my daily program.   Wishing everyone out there much happiness today.

CD 8

The line is growing darker today.  Yay!  Unfortunately in the past two days I've gained 1.6 pounds.  Seems like I might have an issue with fluid retention which could mean the cyst is still there on the right side.  Well the pain is bilateral so I can only guess right now.  Tomorrow's appointment will hopefully yield a few answers.

I forgot to trim the strings back on these baby booties before I took photos of them.  I noted said trimming in the item description on my ETSY shop.  J loves these booties.  I'm waiting for him to ask me to make him a pair of crocheted slippers from the same yarn.

Today I listed just four pairs of baby booties.  Go have a look see.  I still have several more pairs in different colors to list.  I finished another hat last night and will create another today.  I'll probably list more baby items on Wednesday.  Tomorrow I'll list more of my jewelry.

J ticked me off this morning.  I had just weighed myself and found out that I had gained 0.8 pounds overnight.  I asked him to bring the two full laundry baskets to the laundry room so that I could do the wash.  (Yes, even with my severely sprained ankle I'm still trying to do things around the house.  And yes it hurts like heck.)  He dropped a pair of my panties on his way to the laundry room.  His comment was, "I thought the basket felt light.".  Oh my I saw red.  My comment to him was, "do you want me to slap your face for that insult?".  I of course did not do him any violence but I let him know that I wasn't going to take his insult.  He of course immediately back peddled and said he didn't mean to insult me.  Sure. Sure.  I know when he insults me.  I'd rather he just tell me that I'm getting fat than to insult me.  My pelvic region is sticking out, looking like I'm nearing my second trimester, from the bloat.  Like I said in the first paragraph I'll find out the probable cause of the weight gain tomorrow.

I'm So Full Of It

This morning a migraine woke me up.  So I thought the photo to the left would be appropriate.

While taking a nice warm shower this morning and acetaminophen, hoping that the migraine would leave me, I came up with a blog post idea.  I thought I'd tell you all a bit more about myself.

I really am full of it.  No, not shit though there are days that I get constipated that one would think so.  But I am full of knowledge.  I just can't access it like I want to due to the fact that I have fibromyalgia.

J will be leaving soon and I need to find one project in particular that will occupy most of my lonely time.  When J left for basic training through the time he was on an isolation tour to Korea for a year, so that would be 1.75 years all told, I had my online shop to keep me busy.  When J was deployed to Iraq I took a class.  This time I'm not so sure what I'm going to do to keep myself busy.  I've been given quite a few suggestions and I have a few ideas of my own but some of the projects will eventually bore me.

Now as for what I did during the last deployment to keep me busy.  I took a year long theology class and became a certified deacon.  That's right folks I could perform marriages, baptisms, and death rites oh and probably start my own church but that is way too time consuming.

I could probably, if I had the gumption take the chemistry class that I neglected to take in college the first time around.  I do have a B.S. in English which sounds odd because most folks get a B.A. in English.  Why the B.S.?  Well its because I took the following classes: Medical Microbiology, Microbiology, Anatomy and Physiology, Immunology, Immuno-heomotology, Geology, Ecology and the required freshman year two semesters of biology.  So yes that is why I earned the S of the B.S.  Now I know enough to annoy most of my doctors and they have asked me on more than one occasion where I had my medical training.  Its not really medical training but more like life experiences of being clumsy that have earned my knowledge as I do have memory recall issues due to the fibro fog.  Or perhaps my doctors are implying that I don't know Jack and are quite tired of me telling them that I know my body better than they do, case in point, yesterday when they didn't think I needed to come in and that if I just took two Tylenol and called them in the morning I'd be better.

This deployment I'm thinking of more short term classes than anything more demanding.  I'm thinking that I'd like to take a class in glass blowing.  I might take a class in pearl stringing as I do have two strands of pearls that are broken and the equipment to fix them but no real knowledge of how to do it all properly without make a huge mess.

If you have any suggestions on what might occupy my time let me know.  I'm not one to spend all day on the computer wasting my life on video games while I wait for my spouse to get home.  No, I'm one of those gals that has to keep busy so that the lonely hours don't creep up over me and strangle me when I'm not looking.

My Day Thus Far with a bit of weekend review

Friday I secured a list of Respite Providers and started calling them.  One called back but her schedule would not have worked out with mine.  Today I awoke to a phone call, it was the staffing place wanting to know if I had found a provider, of course I  haven't yet.  I find it totally rude that when I take the time to leave a message the recipient of the message does not call back in a timely manner.  Who would not want to be employed for twenty dollars an hour just to help me out around the house?

Today on my second phone call I finally spoke with a human.  This woman seems very excited about the prospect of working with the staffing place and being out sourced to me.

Maybe I should back track a bit and explain how I am able to qualify for this respite care.  The respite care is not actually for me but for my soldier.  Getting up at 0500hrs five days a week and not getting home most days until 1800 hrs tends to tire him out.  Geez I wonder why? (sarcasm)  Because of these hours he is usually too tired to do much more than vegetate.  But the house has to be cleaned.  When the weather is bad with cold wind and cold rain my body aches too much for me to be doing the light housekeeping.  This is where the respite care comes in handy.  I qualify for twenty-eight hours a month of help because of my debilitating conditions.  So with any luck I'll have a respite care provider by the end of the day.

Over the weekend I was moved a few things about the house and picked up stuff that had to be put away. Picking up the four hand weights, two five pound weights and two three pound weight, that had been used and left out was a bit too much for my carpal tunnel issue.  I now have a bruised left foot and holes in the tile floor from dropping  the hand weights.  This morning I called in the work order to have the tiles replaced.

Yesterday I went to chapel.  My husband and a few others carved pumpkins.  Four were set, one at each direction, two others were placed in front of the altar.  This week some time we will get around to carving our own two pumpkins.  For now the orange fleshy globes reside out-of-doors awaiting their timely slaughter.  I love carving pumpkins.  I would buy more decorations than what I have now for this fun holiday but with the Army I must remember to keep my decorations for each holiday to a minimum or risk having to give them all away each time I move.

So fingers crossed that I'll have someone to help out around here with the little projects that involve chemicals at the very least.  I prefer continuing to breathe.