cheerleading

Easter has come and gone and still the days are cold… This morning I took the dogs out and had to have the hood of my winter coat pulled over my head. The wind was brisk and chilly. The sun was out but I could see clouds to the west and south so knew the sun wouldn't shine much longer.

Yesterday we made the trek to Kirsten's for a lovely Easter lunch with some of the family. Kirsten made salmon asparagus quiches that were fantastic! I've never made a quiche before but I'm inspired to try… although maybe it can be Kirsten's special dish :-)

It was also Shenna's birthday yesterday so we also got to celebrate with her… 2 kinds of cake for her, and millions of chocolate eggs from the Easter bunny. Kirsten had strategically placed bowls of various kinds of chocolate eggs throughout the house… it seemed that anywhere I stood, a bowl was within arms reach… OR could it have been that I subconsciously made sure that there was one nearby at all times 😀 By the time I rolled into the car to go home I had a slight jittery sick feeling of having had too much sugar. But it was worth it! (and I'd do it again today!)

Last week was mostly quiet. I'm still trying to recover from my crash and it's taking a bit longer than I hoped. My energy has somewhat returned - I'm no longer staying in bed for most of the day, partially disabled with brain fog and fatigue, but it is still a struggle to get through my exercise, and did scale back a certain amount for a few days after I was able to start back up. All said, I wasn't sorry to take a break yesterday. I'm still a bit fragile emotionally so it doesn't take much to knock me back down but I'm like one of those punching bags from the 70s that pop back up with every punch, although a bit deflated!

It probably doesn't help that my sleep is still messed up - short nights are not good for my mental health. The quickest way to screw up my brain is to have a few sleepless nights and unfortunately I've been waking up with the sun and not falling back to sleep for weeks (months?). I don't have the energy to get out of bed so I end up ruminating which is not helpful AT ALL! I have to time my emergence from under the covers to be between hot flashes! Ugh!

Carm has been a big support through all of this with never a complaint when I can't get it together enough to make more than a salad or soup from the freezer for supper. We've eaten A LOT of soup! One of Carm's greatest traits is how easy it is to feed him - he loves soup and can eat it day in and day out. I've mostly been making a sort of bean minestrone without the pasta - I do all my prep in the early afternoon when I have the most energy and then later pile it all into the instant pot so it's ready for supper. I ALWAYS cut up way too many vegetables and sometimes have to cook them separately then add at the end. But it makes 8 huge servings so that's dinner for 4 nights! Not in a row! I'll label a few and pop them into the freezer for another time.

On Wednesday, Carm went with Pat to negotiate for a new car! We are excited for her 😀  There's nothing like that ‘new car smell’ (hmmm… I wonder which chemicals are being released…)

I just had a chuckle when I wrote down the entry in my awesome list about adding another rep. I am my own best cheerleader and can stoke myself up at the tiniest improvement! It took years of practice to get halfway good at it but it's worth the effort! 

Awesome!

“all the ice from the pool is melted”

“ducks in the pond”

“adding another rep! 10 now!”