What if the tendency to make a short story long is not a flaw but a gift to be embraced?? What if the explaining of one’s experience in all the ways possible is useful rather than redundant? I’m pondering these thoughts but also, practicing brevity with haiku.
Life of a writer
So many thoughts in my head
Swirling all around
Garbage Day
Y’all, I just get so overwhelmed sometimes by all the information. My email is constantly overflowing with news, memoir training videos and articles about writing. Today I woke up from my mid-day nap and declared today a day to clean house. Decluttering my office corner, I scanned, I shredded, I deleted. I feel so much better!
Until it creeps up again, of course. I’ve been working to systematically unsubscribe from a lot of the emails I get regularly and fail to read, but it still builds up. I have to be honest with myself, these emails I think I’m going to read? They are causing way more stress than joy. So I’m Mario Kondo-ing that crap. Monday is my weekly “garbage day” because the truck comes on Tuesday mornings to pick up our trash, so this action was fitting. And it sets me up for the rest of the week. Now I think I can relax… maybe? It’s always a struggle for me. Oh, the irony that I always have to try so hard to relax. IYKYK. I’m going back to work. Just wanted to pop in here and say hello with that random update. Have a wonderful day, folks.
A day in the life…
I had my husband drop me off for my infusion this morning. It went well. I met some new-to-me staff, Kelsey who is a nurse and the clinic manager and Lyndsey, who is also a nurse. Kelsey started my IV and I swear I didn’t even feel it going in. She must be a witch. A good witch, of course.
My ride home was a whole other thing. Per the usual. Spec-tran was really late picking me up, I think 45 minutes from the start of my pickup window (11:29-11:44) and the driver was so apologetic. She said they were really short-staffed, and they kept adding pickups to her manifest. So she had one drop off north of my infusion center, two pickups to the west to be dropped off closer to my house, which was south (like, way south). It was a lot of riding around, getting a thorough tour of the area but eventually it was my turn! I was home at 1 pm. The driver said it was an hour after I was supposed to be dropped off, and she thanked me for being so patient about the whole thing. I knew it was out of her control and I honestly wasn’t mad, just hungry.
When I got home I heated up some leftovers (working on cleaning out the fridge without wasting) and sat to listen to a podcast while I ate. It’s been a tiring day, but it’s also sunny and 65 degrees so I can’t seem to muster any frustration about it all. Just happy to not be in pain from the cold. My body is so relieved to be feeling warmth all the way through (and not in a perimenopause hot flash kind of way). I’m eager to return to regular outdoor running, for real!
All about the pie
Last weekend I ran the Pi Day 5k with my sister, her boyfriend, and a friend of mine (who has run this race with me for the past 4 years). None of us were running alongside each other, but you know what I mean. We all ran the same race and got our pie and medal at the end. This race is local, on trails I am familiar with, so I’m always comfortable running it alone.
I had originally signed up for the 10k, when I saw they had added that option. A few weeks prior to the race, it had become apparent to me that a 10k was a bad idea. I hadn’t been running much over the winter, and I also had developed some significant foot pain. I believe it’s plantar fasciitis, but I’m tired of calling it that. It just feels like two weird words paired together and I always feel like such a poser saying it out loud. I don’t want to sound all hoity-toity so let’s just call it foot pain. I can withstand a little foot pain for 3 miles of pounding pavement, but not six. So, I contacted the race director and downgraded to the 5k, and when she responded in the affirmative, almost a literal weight was lifted from my back. Seriously. Instant relief. The race went fantastic and though I had pain, it was minimal and easy enough to ignore for the majority of the race. I only tripped on my foot a few times, but had zero falls. That’s always a win.
As part of our race package, we were given t-shirts with a cute drawing of a slice of pie on the front and it says “Keep your eyes on the pies.” I’m not generally a fan of t-shirts, but this one is super duper soft. So when I put it on yesterday, I really wanted to love it. Great material, a fun pun, what’s not to love? Well, that cute graphic on the front was not properly centered. I took one look in the mirror and cringed. It’s not super obvious, but it’s enough to drive me bonkers if I keep thinking about it. I considered changing my shirt, but I was so excited to wear it to Bible study that morning that I decided to just let it go and move on with my day.
The problem with this though, is that I believe it set the tone for my whole day. In the morning I was making an egg salad sandwich for my husband’s lunch and as I slapped the second piece of bread on top of the salad, I noticed the shape wasn’t lined up with the bottom slice. Like a savage made it. Later that evening, I was preparing some Caesar dressing with “freshly grated parmesan” (a phrase I love to say). I opened up a brand new wedge of cheese, cut off a piece to shred, then set the remaining wedge down with all the other prep tools on my cutting board. When I was done with my preparations, I moved the entire cutting board to the kitchen sink, cheese wedge and all, and left it there, not having seen my mistake. I only became aware of it after dinner, when my husband was rinsing off his salad bowl and he turned to me and asked, “What’s going on here?”. I got up, looked into the sink, and cursed. “Oh, f*&$!” My precious parmesan was ruined.
Stuff like this happens to me a lot due to my low vision. Most days I can laugh about it but there are times when it really angers me. This was one of those times. I had just had enough of it. That whole day felt whackadoodle. Some kind of low-key curse was upon me and I blame that damn shirt. But at least we still had pie.
Not a panic room
My husband and I experienced our first escape room adventure with a couple friends who have done countless escape rooms. I was really nervous leading up this, not knowing what exactly to expect. I kept accidentally calling it a panic room, which was kind of funny. I knew that I probably wasn’t going to be a lot of help in solving the big puzzle, mystery, whatever you want to call it. It involves a lot of visual clues that I just can’t see. As it turned out, the skills I brought to the table were of jiggling handles, unlocking padlocks, and holding a flashlight. Not much else I could offer, but I had a good time. We did not escape in time, but we were very close! If we only had 5 extra minutes, I think we would have made it. When the attendant came in, she revealed to us the few steps we had left to solve the puzzle, and remarked that this was their hardest game. That made me feel pretty good, because this is definitely something I would consider doing again, if I felt I had a chance at winning once in awhile.
Brunch at my house!
Every time I make a frittata, my husband likes to jokingly call it Nelly Frittata (a play on the singer, Nelly Furtado). Last night I made a frittata for dinner. It had bacon, potatoes, green peppers, onions. It turned out so great, my husband and I both went back for seconds. There were zero leftovers! I didn’t use a recipe, I just followed my gut. I cooked with my heart. I was so proud of the dish, I’m renaming it: MELLY Frittata.
Emerging from the fog of four weeks of fatigue
Is there another word for emerging that starts with F? Something about alliteration soothes me. I know I’m weird. I’ve embraced it.
I’m popping my head up, finally. Happy new year! I had a good holiday season. A lot of relaxing and spending time with my family. My son was home from college for an extended period of time, so that was nice. After he went back to school his absence was almost palpable. He is the energetic extrovert of our family, so without him we resumed our antisocial ways, only peeking out occasionally from our caves to eat food and play with the dogs.
The reason for my four weeks of fatigue was an unfortunate timing of events. In mid-December, we learned my husband’s employer was switching to a new health insurance company, in order to keep it affordable for everyone. I’m not mad about the decision, I understand the necessity, but the timing of it was not ideal. Most of our medical providers participate with the new insurance, but my infusion center did not. This forced me to move to a new infusion center. Which involves getting new authorization and approval. My infusion was due on January 1st. The new insurance went into effect on January 1st. This obviously did not allow enough time to make the transition. It was a big ‘ole mess, and I spent several weeks on the phone fighting to get approval and get scheduled for my infusion. I finally pulled a “Karen” and demanded to speak to a manager. Surprisingly, that actually worked! Within 2 days of talking with this manager I had my approval and was scheduled for my infusion. It was almost 3 weeks late, which had me worried some, but aside from extremely debilitating fatigue, I had no new MS symptoms. Knock on wood. It was my usual week of fatigue I get prior to each monthly infusion, plus 3 bonus weeks. 1 + 3 = 4. FUN.
So now that I’m coming out of that fog, I’m loving the feeling of NOT dragging. Remember when you think about doing something and you just get up and do it? You don’t have to take deep breaths and talk yourself into it, one painful baby step at a time. Like showering. Remember that? It’s here! It came back! Now you have three weeks to catch up on everything before the next bout hits. But beware, you don’t want to wear yourself out so be careful. Don’t rush in. Be intentional. You’ve got this.
So that’s where I’m at. I’m so thankful to have made it through that hiccup, and just praying my health stays stable going forward. Now that my head is out of the fog, I’m refocusing on some basic yet important things, and I have a list (of course):
1) Drink 2 liters of water a day – I actually set an hourly timer on my phone to remind me to drink. We’ll see how long that lasts. 
2) Eat more fiber – daily chia pudding or overnight oats with fruit have been my latest obsession.
3) Write memoir – I’m still plugging away at this gargantuan project. The process isn’t pretty but it’s moving forward at sloth pace. What I’ve been doing to work on this could fill a whole post of it’s own, if I get around to it. No promises, but I’ll think about it.
4) Running – yeah, I haven’t been running, but I need to. It’s good for my health, my legs, my fatigue levels. And, I have a 10k in just under 7 weeks so I need to get my tail back in gear, pronto!
That’s it for today’s update. Thanks for tuning in and I’ll see you next time!
Trouble Waking
I’ve been sleeping late, as I tend to do in the winter months. I get up early to feed the dogs and see my daughter off to school, and then I usually head back to bed. Getting out of bed for that second time is significantly more difficult for me, and it takes a good amount of willpower to do it. Usually it’s my bladder that urges me up. Today it was the mental reminder that I needed to put a grocery order in for my daughter to pick up after school.
I got out of bed, put on my cochlear processors, and queued up a 90s music station to pep me up a little. The song that played first was R.E,M., “Everybody Hurts”. Not really the motivator I was looking for, but at least now I feel seen! Michael Stipe always gets me. If you know, you know.
Anyhoo, I’m up. Not super peppy, but I’m ready to work. Coffee in hand, I’m gonna go knock out that grocery list!
Brain Dump – Winter Edition
You guys. I’m neglecting this blog. I do apologize. I’ve been hiding. Hibernating a little. But still active! Just not feeling the urge to broadcast my life. I’m still making the super slow shift from “over-sharer” to “intentional storyteller”. Finding where I want to hold boundaries with my writing and the sharing of it with others.
Part of this hesitation with writing is that I am becoming more aware of the reasons I do things. Why do I write? Why do I blog? I’ve been blogging off and on for over 20 years, and I think for the majority of those years it was just to clear my head, share funny thoughts as they came. It was a great way to add some whimsy to my dull life working in offices and crunching numbers. It was FUN.
Until it wasn’t. When I became disabled in 2013, I considered dropping it altogether. Through a series of events and gentle Holy Spirit nudges, I felt called back to it. To share what I was going through as I adjusted to a new life. So I picked it back up and stayed with it happily until 2020, when the sh** hit the fan, as they say. My long term disability insurance representative had combed through my blog, my medical records, and notes from our phone calls, then twisted all my words and used them against me to cancel my monthly benefits.
I fought to regain those benefits and eventually won, but it took over a year. I was cautioned by my attorney to be careful what I put on social media, if anything at all. It was some time before I felt safe enough to return here, and I’m still a little gun-shy about everything I post.
All of that to say, I *want* to be here. I want to post updates on my life. I want to encourage others to never give up when life knocks you down. I’m just not super awesome at the consistency of it. But I’m working on it. I haven’t forgotten you!
So here’s a running update: I haven’t been doing any running because it’s cold and icy outside and I refuse to run in the basement on the treadmill. It’s depressing, okay? However, I’ve been keeping up with small daily exercises, thanks to an online group that helps keep me accountable. I have a 10k race I’m signed up for in mid-March, so I intend on picking back up with running after the holidays.
A Writing Update: I’ve been working a lot on my memoir, again. This time it feels like it’s actually going somewhere. I went down the rabbit hole of memoir training for a while there, but I did eventually land on a method that works for me and am excited to feel like I’m making real progress. Now that I have a structure and a plan, my intention going forward is to write 500 words per day. Yesterday was my first day and I wrote twice that amount, but I don’t expect that to be the norm. I almost finished a whole chapter and that was pretty exciting. I have a note above my desk that reminds me *not* to edit while writing, because I can’t be creative and critical at the same time. I joined a writing group that meets every weekday on Zoom, and I enjoy having that time and space to focus solely on the manuscript. I’ve only been going once a week so far, but if things slow down on the homefront I may try to join more often.
Other than that, I’m just blissfully busy with my husband and kids. Taking care of the home, preparing meals, keeping us all healthy. Super mundane stuff that we all take for granted, but that I am grateful to be able to do. What are you grateful for these days?
Beer Nuggets
I have had an aversion to sand and flour for as long as I can remember. I love to bake, so I have always avoided recipes that call for rolling and kneading. If I had to touch the flour with my hands, it was a deal breaker. Drop cookies and batter breads were the lanes I stayed in.
This changed in 2020, after a trip to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula when I stepped into the sand and surprised myself by uttering, “oh, that feels nice”. I know, I was just as shocked as you. Ever since then, I’ve been playing around with recipes that were formerly taboo. Cinnamon rolls, pizza dough, breadsticks, and my latest favorite: calzones.
I made calzones for the family last week, but my pizza dough recipe was more than we needed, so I left it in the fridge to use later. A day later my sister texted me and my husband with a picture of a menu item that strongly resembled a treat she had made for us many years ago: beer nuggets. Now, this wasn’t her invention. This was something my husband had told her about, and she recreated it for us. His stepbrother went to college in Dekalb, Illinois, and this is where they were born (according to a quick internet search I spent no energy in verifying). All I remember is that he would talk about these beer nuggets as if they were the best thing since sliced bread. So when we received this text I started asking if there was a recipe, because as we all know I’m an expert with dough and can make these sorts of things now. Apparently, it’s just deep fried pizza dough. Which I had in my fridge!! Hot diggity dog, we’re having beer nuggets for dinner, folks. No beer required. I think they just call them that because I’m sure in a college town like Dekalb the nuggets were always consumed with beer.
So, lacking only one ingredient for this dish – a crap ton of vegetable oil – I sent the hubster to the store. I filled a pot half-full with the oil and started heating it up while I fashioned my dough into nuggets. Once my oil was up to 350, I started dropping the little guys into the oil and watched them cook. This was so much fun! I wasn’t sure how long to keep them in but I kept watch on the color (what I could see) and followed my gut instinct before pulling one out to check for doneness. The first one was a teensy bit underdone, but no worries, I’ll just leave the rest in a bit longer.
Easy peasy, within minutes I had a dozen beer nuggets hot and ready for consumption. I prepared a simple green salad because seriously, we can’t just eat pizza dough and call that a meal, can we? Warmed up some leftover pizza sauce from calzone night and announced, “Time for dinner!”
These beer nuggets were so easy to make and turned out so delicious, in the following days my brain went down some rabbit holes. What more can I do with this newfound super power? What else can I fry? I’ll be honest, I didn’t have to go far down the rabbit hole to arrive at my next planned adventure: fried donut holes. Stay tuned!!
Little M.S. Runner 