Really?  Both, although I’m more likely to be awake for the latter rather than the former, unless I’ve been up all night.  Which happens a lot more than I’d like.  Not my picture here, it’s sunrise at Nauset Beach, Orleans, Mass.

I love, love, love living in Massachusetts, and especially in my own little town.  Where I’m meant to be.  We are a good state, very progressive in spite of  sometime having idiot Republican governors, and it’s a great little town to live in.  Very user friendly, if that makes any sense.  Oh, maybe I’ll stick on a picture.

Photo by Bob McKeon

Here’s one from maybe the 1940’s?  I’m lucky to have found that my town has it’s own Facebook page, where people post a lot of old photos.  Memories.  I lived here when I came to New England, for about seven years.  Where I’m meant to be. Then we moved to NH for work and lived there for twenty some years, then I got to come home again.  You can see where I live in this old picture.  Down the street from the school, all the way on the corner on the right.

I am angry at life today. Relatively pain-free, which leaves room for actual life stuff.  Angry Jean is angry.  Not going into details, just angry and frustrated and hopeless.  I’ll get over it.  I always do.  Not that anyone cares anyway.

I don’t chew come.  My doctor asked me if I did, I said no, she said, “Well, don’t start.” Okay, doc.  🙂  When I did, back when I was a kid, this is the gum I loved.  I can still taste it and feel that powdery texture when you first put it into your mouth.  Ah, the good old days.  Who can blow the biggest bubble?  Me, me, me.  LOL  Gum is terrible today, anyway.  It’s like it’s made out of flavored plastic or something.  Ewwww.

A miracle has happened.  I swear.  Saw the rheumatologist Tuesday, as I mentioned, and he gave me a cortisone shot in my really painful shoulder.  Didn’t sleep well Tuesday night, which is never good for pain and in spite of taking the trazadone.  But woke up at 7am  (SEVEN. A. M.)  Relatively pain free.  Everywhere, not just the shoulder.  My lower back always hurts because of a bulging disc, and the torn rotator cuff shoulder was just a bit achy.  Went out for lunch with a friend, even kept up with her walking, which I am normally very slow due to ow, ow, ow everywhere.  Slept last night in spite of NOT taking trazadone, woke up virtually pain free and no stiffness and feeling well-rested.  As I said to my friend Tess, there are three possibilities.  1. I got the really good cortisone  2. There was something going on that the current antibiotic is fixing  or 3. Miracles Are Back.  Whichever it is, I plan to just revel in it for however long it lasts, even if it’s just today.  I have not felt this much like a real person since maybe four years, when I had the prednisone withdrawal thing.

To top it off, the humidity has taken a hike and it is an unbelievably gorgeous day.  Yesterday was great, today is spectacular.  Wednesday was like stepping into a sauna as soon as you went outside.  So finally, something good.  Hooray. All my blood tests came back great as well.

The thing with Trazadone is it works.  A very small dose, but I get to sleep and sleep well.  The problem is that after three days or so, my brain gets really fuzzy, my coordination goes to hell, walking into things, dropping things, etc., and I have to not take it for a day or so which means not sleeping.  Fun. And then there’s the ‘everything work for a while if it works at all, and then it stops  working and never works again’ thing. Chronic illness if fun, folks.  Really.  Nope.  But if you check out the first sentence of this post, which I am not correcting for the example, this is what trazadone does.  A completely different word than I meant to type, although this one does sound the same as gum.  And yes, I get the double entendre there.  If that’s the word I want.  Made me laugh, anyway, when I proof-read.  Drugs are weird, people.  Really, really weird.

I do not own these shoes, but DD does.  Her SO calls them her ‘sasquatch shoes’.  I used to wear a pair of Totes my other DD gave me.  Everywhere.  Now I wear 14.00 Payless shoes from the mall and I love them.  They are so comfortable.  Interestingly enough, everyone I come across says ‘Oh, I love your shoes.’  Cheapo sneakers.  I don’t do ‘outfits’.  I wear my jeans and my shirts and I never go anywhere that involves dressing up.  I am a happy camper.

Been exceedingly under the weather for awhile, but getting slowly back on track.  Saw my doctor and due to various things am just starting my third course of antibiotics this month.  Saw the rheumy today, and had shoulder xrays, a cortisone shot for pain in said shoulder, and he is running blood tests for everything known to man, I think, in case I have developed something else besides fibro.  He’s been bugging me for awhile to have a sleep study, and today he just kept mentioning it between every other subject.  So I finally gave in.  I did tell him ‘You can be a real pain, you know?’, and he just laughed.  I can just see me sitting there all night reading my on my Kindle, while the techs are saying, ‘Go to sleep already.’  Yeah.  Probably not going to happen.  I can’t sleep in my own bed til 5am at least, so it’s not going to go well, I’m sure.  Oh, well.  LOL

They finally finished gutting the Tedeschi’s after fifteen days of work.  Friday to second Friday.  Two weeks is fourteen day,s except when it’s fifteen.  They did nothing for three days after and now it’s finally open.  Oh, the excitement.

Trees starting turning four days ago.  Autumn approaches.  I do like autumn.  It’s my favorite time of the year.

COMING SOON

The 100 questions are getting lamer and lamer, so I may just give up on them, even though they do get me writing.

I think I mentioned I signed up for Goodreads a while back, and have been inspired to read the 200 or so fiction books on my Kindle, sprinkled through the fan fiction on it.  I keep the non-fiction on my Kindle Fire.  I read a lot.  🙂  So I moved all the books to a Books folder.  I am just so darn clever.  I don’t think I’ll ever get a job as a book reviewer, because I can’t always find my words.  Anyway, this is the latest book I read, and here’s the review.

The Illegal Gardener by Sara Alexi

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book starts out small and almost seems uninteresting. An illegal immigrant trying to get day-labor work, and as you continue reading, it sort of blossoms out, like a flower. Growing from the small beginning into a beautiful work that keeps growing, layer after layer. The narrative is mesmerizing, I felt drawn further and further into the story. I think this is the only book I’ve given five stars. Get past the first chapter and you won’t be able to put it down.

View all my reviews

Are you implying I’m some sort of criminal?  I’ve never broken into any place.  So there.

My new ergonomic desk chair came today.  The ups guy actually brought it to my door. All other delivery services, including the post office, just dump stuff in the outer lobby, and never even buzz me to let me know it arrived.  UPS is the best.

Now I have to take it out of the box and put it together.  Amazon will put it together for you, for a minor fee of around one hundred dollars.  Thanks, but I’ll manage.  I hope.  Traci used to help me with assemblage.  She loved doing that sort of thing.  I’m not sure Marie is the put-things-together type.  So…looking forward to the unboxing. Should I make an unboxing vid?  Nah.  Didn’t think so.

Went from 5 to 4 1/2 mg prednisone today.  Hoping I don’t have a major increase in the miseries, but time will tell.  The lower you go, the harder it is, so they say.  I’m already in a lot of pain most of the time, so keeping my fingers crossed this goes well.

Another nice day.  Yesterday was the a/c, but windows open last night, and it was very comfortable.  I know I keep saying this, but it really is a fantastic summer, weather wise.  At least right in this one spot.  I keep reading about horrid heat everywhere else, record temps.  It was 107 in Oregon.  Oregon?  We seem to be in a little good weather pocket here, and usually miss the worst storms, too.  NOT complaining, Mother Nature.  Not even a little bit.

I am trying to eat better, after virtually not eating at all for a few weeks there.  Having more meat, which seems to help how I feel, not just because of protein, but I am anemic and have always been anemic and take iron supplements.  Meat seems to help more than the pills ever have.  Besides, Market Basket has the most fantastic Black and Blue burgers.  Blue cheese mixed in and each burger is edged with cracked black pepper. They are pretty fat free and oh do they ever taste fantastic.  I just have the burger.  I tried the whole bun and fixings, but that just detracted from the fantastic taste.  The blue cheese amps it up unbelievably.  You could probably skip the pepper, but I love pepper, too.  I really wish MB was closer, so I could send my homemaker there to shop, instead of the local Stop & Shop, which has gone so far downhill it is actually unpleasant to just go in the door. let alone wind up with crap produce which starts to go bad before you even get it out of the shopping bag.

I need to figure out which pain pills to go for today.  The ones that work destroy your stomach if you take them too often.  Yay.

Still working on the new 7-11, too.  It better be amazingly spectacular inside when they’re done.  It’s a convenience store.  What are they doing that’s take so long?  We’ll see.

Been putting this one off, because there is somebody who knows my secrets, and I know theirs, but I’m not sure were actually still friends anymore.  It’s one of those people who disappeared gradually after I got sick.  Oh, well.

Still working on the new 7-11.  I have no idea what’s going on in there, but they must be redoing the inside from scratch, because when Tedeschi’s bought out Lil Peach, it changed overnight.  A new sign was the only difference.  This is the fifth day they’ve been working over there.  They even worked part of Sunday.  Going to check it out if it ever actually opens.  🙂