Picking Up the Slack

The ESWL and the laser ablation on the same day, along with a stent still in my left ureter, have left me pretty tired and sore. To be honest, I am more tired and sore than I had anticipated I would be. That means I haven't felt like doing much of anything and Dave has had to pick up the slack.

He's be awesome.

He's run errands.

He's washed dishes. This is a huge one because we still don't have a dishwasher so all dishes have to be handwashed. And it is amazing the number of glasses and dishes three people can use.

He's done laundry. Carson has been a help here since he has been paying attention on how to sort laundry and can give Dave guidance so shirts are shrunk and whites stay white.

Dave is the man and I love him a whole heck of a lot. He takes really good care of me.

A Long, Hot Bath

So that unrelenting left flank pain turned out to be an 8 mm kidney stone that decided to leave its comfortable home in my kidney and venture down the ureter. I tried many different things to relieve the pain but discovered that the only two things that really worked was Zofran (an anti-nausea medication) and a hot bath.

I took so many baths this past week that I wasn't quite sure that my skin would return to a non-pruney state before the next bath. Now, I love my soaking tub and I enjoy taking baths but sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. I think I might have hit my limit of enjoyment of baths. But if taking a bath meant not needing to take the pain medication that's what I did. I have decided that the havoc that pain meds wreak on my GI tract is way worse than the pain of a kidney stone.

Fortunately the stone is now gone. I had it broken up this afternoon. The original plan was to have an ESWL procedure but because of the location of the stone the doctor had to go in with a laser and break it up that way. I wasn't thrilled when I woke up and found out that had happened because that meant I had to have a stent placed. So it's back to the bathtub for me until I turn into a prune so that the spasms from the stent won't be so bad.

Speaking of prunes, I think I'm going to send Dave out for a year's supply. I might eat them all in the next few days to counter-act the effects of the anesthesia. I'm hoping that I'll have another five year stretch before I get to have this much fun again. And I hope that it doesn't happen during "love" month because this has made it a little challenging to find "lovey" things to blog about.

Home for Lunch

I love that I live close enough to work so that I can come home for lunch. Sometimes I need that 30 minutes of absolute quiet to recharge. Actually, by time I get home it's more like 20 minutes, but it's enough.

Today was a day that I needed lunch at home. I made a simple lunch of peanut butter toast and then sat on the kitchen floor in the sunshine. As I sat there I dozed off a little bit. I haven't slept very well since Friday night. Persistent left flank pain is the biggest culprit in keeping me awake. A story for another time I suppose.

The doze was interrupted by my heading nodding forward, waking me up. I finished up the peanut butter toast and enjoyed the last few minutes in the sunshine. Recharged, it was time to head back to work to finish up the day.

Natural Beauty

Liberty Lake County Park, Thanksgiving 2012

There is so much beauty in this world. When I was young and lived in Tucson, I loved the desert. The sunrises and sunsets were amazing, with vivid reds and purples. The hues of the sky as the sun was disappearing were almost unbelievable. The desert floor in the spring with bloom of flowers was like an explosion of color on a usually neutral landscape.

Then we moved to Western Washington and I got to appreciate a different type of natural beauty. We lived close to the ocean so we enjoyed the patterns the wind made in the sand dunes. The annual rainfall, while challenging to deal with for someone who worships the sun, did bring such unreal shades of green to the area that it did often appear that I lived in a very real "emerald" city.

College life was in Utah surrounded by the Wasatch front. The mountains towering over the BYU campus were awe-inspiring. Hiking up Provo Canyon during the fall when the aspen leaves were golden yellow was a soothing experience. Escaping to another small canyon on the way to Spanish Fork allowed for some wonderful star-gazing. So many stars!

Now in my grown-up life I live in the Inland Northwest. We are surrounded by mountains, but only a short drive from rolling hills filled with wheat fields. I love where I live. The view out my back door offers vivid sunsets, geese flying in formation, girl-crazy drake mallards chasing the female, families of quail, an occassional moose, deer munching on the grass, and so many other things. I do my best to capture some of these images in photos, with varying degrees of success.

The older I get the more I appreciate the natural beauty of the world around me. I am "glad that I live in the beautiful world, Heavenly Father created for me."

Sunset as seen from my backporch, October 2012

Sunshine

I'm home sick today which isn't lovely, except that I get to enjoy the sunshine streaming through the sliding glass door in my kitchen.

I love the sunshine. Spending most of my growing up years in Aberdeen (Washington, not Scotland, although the weather is similar) helped me truly appreciate the sun. The year we moved from Aberdeen to eastern WA, it had rained 117 inches in Aberdeen. That is a lot of dark, dreary, rainy days. And even on the days when it wasn't raining, the marine layer often stayed hanging over the Harbor until late in the afternoon. There wasn't much sunshine to enjoy.

When we moved I thought, "Yes! Sun!" and for the most part this is true; however, the winter here can be pretty socked in with fog. Matter-of-fact, most of January was nothing but fog and it has been foggy for the start of February.

But today? Today the sun is out and it is glorious. If I were feeling better I would take a walk. Or at least lay down on the kitchen floor in the sunlight that is streaming in through the door. But laying down is not good for the cough or congestion so I'll just enjoy standing in the doorway basking in the sun. And loving it.

Invigorating

It's the first day of "love" month and I'm going to blog about yesterday. Yesterday was an invigorating day...

AT WORK!

I don't remember the last time, let's be real, I don't know if there has ever been a time, when I would have described my work as invigorating. Mostly it's monotonous paper-pushing with a few interactions with kiddos. I'm trying to have a better attitude about work...you know, just being grateful for a job and the opportunity to work.

Yesterday helped. The funny thing is that it wasn't any real mind-blowing event that occurred that seemed to put a spring in my step and breath of fresh air in my lungs. It was simply an early-morning meeting where we actually got something accomplished. We clearly defined the goals and objectives before starting the meeting. We did not foray into too many conversational tangents. We dismissed on time. It was fabulous I tell you. And it left me feeling invigorated for the whole day.

I have to blog about it so that I can have evidence that there are days when I love my job and the work I do.