• a whif of sandalwood (I had to go make sure that the misspelling was theirs and not mine. It is. Theirs, not mine, that is).
• happy mitts
• tropic waters
• what’s in my bag vitamins/pill case
• allowing myself a little pleasure

Happy Mitts is a product by the way, although paired with “allowing myself a little pleasure” folks might start to get the wrong idea about the content of my blog.

And then I found this: encrypted_search_terms

What? Someone used encrypted search and was directed to my blog? What non-socially-acceptable terms did they use and how did it connect to my blog?! What did I say to draw this kind of crowd?

And then, when I moved to a different page to look at the total last month’s search terms, it disappeared.

Clearly, I am being Monitored, mostly like by a federal office that uses three letters to spell their name. *shifty eyes*

(Also, I don’t want to embarrass anyone, but products is spelled with an O. Just sayin’.)

Oh, and I now have another doc who recommends that I see a GI. Whee. It’s been added to the list, yes, there really is a “new specialist” list.

My x-rays apparently are fine, so no new joint damage. Yay! The bump up in my prescription dosage is helping my daily pain levels, so that’s pretty awesome. Not doing anything for fatigue though; that’s another fight.

I have finally made an appointment to meet with a therapist starting in March. Perhaps I’ll write about this, perhaps not. Suffice to say, many of my struggles recently have been about dealing emotionally with all of this. I was finally able to admit that I needed outside help, and DID something about it. This is a big, big step for me.

Hair is still falling out, which pretty much narrows it down to stress. I have more blood tests coming up in a week or so to check on my thyroid, just to be on the safe side.

In good news, I walked two miles on Monday and will walk another two miles today (if it doesn’t rain on me). Getting back on track is hard, but I know that the results will be worthwhile.

I am dealing with more paperwork than I care to think about, between changes to my employer’s prescription plan and getting used to my medical flexible spending account. Working on taxes we checked my medical for last year to see if it was worth itemizing. It wasn’t which is kind of good. However, I realised that I paid only 10% of costs- the 90% that my insurance covered was fairly horrifying. I could have bought a cheap, new car with my total medical costs last year, and it was a pretty mild year. I am SO grateful for insurance!

My personal task for myself is to get back in the habit of posting  good things more regularly here. I am run-down and overwhelmed- need to remind myself that I have a lot of good and happy in my life and to appreciate it.

Have nothing…that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. ~ William Morris

Zazen is the self being itself by itself. ~ Kodo Sawaki Roshi

I cannot make my days longer so I strive to make them better. ~ Henry David Thoreau

As you breathe in cherish yourself. As you breathe out cherish all beings. ~ Dalai Lama

Every day is a new chance to be our very best. ~ Bryan Elliott

You earn points by interacting on the forums and completing daily challenges, and then you can turn in your points for specialty tracks. Tomorrow I’ll start the Flexibility and Posture track, since that is an area that I really need to work on (see Wednesday night’s charley horses). I also like that you can form a “pact” with someone to do five challenges together for bonus points- it’s a good way to get me to check in over the weekends!

If you’re doing the Daily Challenge, please let me know! Do you like it? I’ve been doing it for nine days now- the Everday Wellbeing tack (where everyone starts) has been a little *too* general for what I wanted- I’m looking forward to working on my physical challenges!

Wednesday hubby and I went to our favourite seafood place (Boston’s) for a “just because” dinner. Yum! Crabmeat stuffed mushrooms and the “mini” sampler, which was still way more food than I could eat. I love fresh, fried clams so much! Om nom nom nom… They also had red velvet cake, but I had no room. Of course, now I crave red velvet cake. Silly hubby told me someone brought one in to work and he’d have brought me home a slice if he knew I liked it.

My response?

Duh. It’s chocolate.

Now he knows better, heh.

At work, my leadership training continues well and I’m bringing quite a bit of it back to my team. The repurposed desk arrived for my new hire… and we found that it didn’t fit in the space. But my desk did. So I now I have a larger desk with a modesty panel, through no action on my part part. Yay!

Unfortunately, despite being as hands-off as possible I managed to aggravate my legs, and woke up in the middle of the night with a double charley-horse. Hubby helped me through it, but I can barely hobble today, so probably no walking today. We’ll see. If I can loosen up some it could be good, but I really don’t want to go through that again tonight, also.

Realised that I have become hyper-sensitive to one of my co-workers commenting on my cane. I dreaded her asking “What did you do NOW?” and spent more time and emotional energy trying to come up with a response that wasn’t angry or left me in tears than I care to admit. Of course, she didn’t say it at all and I was worked up about nothing, but obviously this is a sore spot for me right now. It’s so hard to explain that if I never did anything then I would still risk flares and injuries, so I might as well try and live my life. *sigh*

Another negative test result has taken some wind out of my sails. I’d really like to know what’s going on. Thankfully, no reactions in almost a week. *fingers crossed*

I bought myself a carnation on campus from a student group raising money for breast cancer research. Did you know that February is Heart Health month? The most common symptom of a heart attack is chest pain or discomfort that can be mild or strong, but not all heart attacks start with chest pain. Visit http://www.heart.org/HEARTO… to learn the other symptoms of a heart attack.

I used to add a shot of chai syrup to my hot chocolate. I’m trying that with an unsweetened chai but it’s a little harsh (the chocolate isn’t sweet enough to balance) so I added a shot of almond milk… which actually turned out to be almond/coconut. It’s an… interesting… taste combination. I’ll try tweaking it some more tomorrow.

Well, duh! Just noticed I had accidentally bought the “no sugar added” chocolate! No wonder, lol!

My sinuses are in a uproar- I never managed to vacuum over the weekend and my body is still readjusting to antihistamines again (either that or spring allergies are kicking in and/or I just have a sinus thing happening- whee!).

I’m currently taking a leadership training workshop series and we had a choose a word that reflected our value. I chose “simplify”. They then asked if people who recognise that this is one of my values, and I had to be honest I’m nto doing a great job of living my values, so I’m working on key areas. For example, I spent almost two hours cleaning off my desktop at home last night. I caught up on bills, filing, and gave it a good wipedown. I immediately feel  more relaxed with an organised desk- I don’t know why I have to let it get so cluttered before I do something about it. Also unburied a half-finished book, so that’s my bedtime reading for the next few days.

Someone brought in a bunch of little plastic horses and hid them around the office. No idea who, just magically appeared one day. We’ve since been taking turns moving them around the office to appear in new and surprising locations (on top of the bulletin board outside my office):

A friend gave me these Froggie gloves- I adore them! It’s been very cold here the past two days, never thought I’d wear them so much in Florida!

I sometimes suspect that I do not do well on the red colour spectrum, because everyone seems to think that my hair is redder than I do. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just occasionally bewildering…

I did a crock-pot turkey breast. It was excellent, if a bit salty. Cleaning the crock-pot is a  major job, though. I then did a creamy chicken soup. Next time I’ll make it a bit thicker and stew-like and add the peas later.

I am making things, woo! No pictures yet, since I haven’t actually finished anything, heh.

This weekend’s adventure was going down to Tampa for a friend’s b-day. Great to catch up with people- I’ve really fallen out of touch and huge things are happening that I wish I had known about to offer support. I’m trying to get better on focusing on key relationships- slowly whittling down the noise-to-signal ratio. Closed my G+ account and cut both Fb and Twitter lists in half. It’s nice to keep up with day-to-day things, but “likes” and comments aren’t real conversation, and I’m working on quality. Family and distant friends stay, since it’s our primary way of keeping touch (I’m still terrible on the phone).

Waiting for x-ray and test results…

First off, Google Maps was a big old fat lying liar. I finally found the office after almost 40 minutes of hunting… less than a mile from my office. Seriously. Of course, it would have helped if I’d had my phone on me- forgetting and leaving it at home is becoming a chronic problem (I forgot it again today, too). I am going to move my charging station in hopes that will help. They were super-nice once I got there, but it took me a while to calm down and my blood pressure was pretty high.

I think I did a good job of summing up a life history of allergies in a reasonable amount of time. We then did prick tests for foods and environmental (I managed to get “coffee”, “beef” and “lamb” taken off the list since I don’t consume those, ever). My greatest fear going in was that I would show a reaction to *everything*. Instead, I reacted to nothing except the histamine control. This was both reassuring and a little puzzling (we did not test my fresh garlic allergy, because I really didn’t want an ER visit). We then did molds and spores, which were actual needles and in my arm. Still no reactions.

Basically, I walked away with a diagnosis of strong non-allergic rhinitis and an appointment for bloodwork this afternoon to check on that and possible gluten allergy. At this point I’m not sure what I’m hoping for. I mean, I am very worried about Celiac disease, but if the tests come back negative then I’m not sure where to go from here, so I’ll just wait for the results and see what happens.

• If you do not change direction, you might end up where you’re going. ~ Lao Tzu
• There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle, or you can live as if everything is a miracle. ~ Albert Einstein
• The great essentials for happiness in this life are something to do, something to love and something to hope for. ~ Joseph Addison
• Our life is always all right. There’s nothing wrong with it. Even if we have horrendous problems, it’s just our life. ~ Charlotte Joko Beck
• The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot. ~ Michael Altshuler
• The things that one most wants to do are the things that are probably most worth doing. ~ Winifred Holtby
• We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds. ~ Aristotle Onassis
• A good traveller has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving. ~ Lao Tzu
• Besides the noble art of getting things done, there’s a nobler art of leaving things undone. ~ Lin Yutang
• Not appreciating what we have now, robs us of our abundance even when it exists. ~ Marshall Sylver
• If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete. ~ Buddha