chickwhorides

SPF - Lone Star

2012-09-21T22:29:00.001-05:00

This was at Corpus 2 summers ago. Lovely getaway.

A letter from my dog!

2012-09-17T21:25:00.000-05:00

I found this on my computer when I got back from a weekend away- Martie had a friend coming by to see her, but I guess she missed me anyway. When I left, I had been itchy, thanks to multiple spider bites...My dog is awesome. Her spelling skills, not so much...

April 12, 2011

Dear Mom,

This is Martie speaking, and I just wanted to formalize that fact that I missed you, Mom. You left and I thought about hiring a taxi to come pick me up to find you, but then I thought better of it because I cannot pay him in slober. I thought about hi-jacking an airplane, but they do not understand the nuance of a bark so my threatening tone would be lost on them. I have now rethought my idea of inserting a tracking device into your skin so that I may know your every move, all those spider bites are my test spots.

I have a friend outside, it is a new grey cat, did you get this toy for me? If so it is very realistic and I find the meow’s even to be in authentic cat dialect. I am now deconstructing “Meows”….now you know how sad I’ve been.

I tried drawing you a picture but my lack of opposable thumbs makes it hard, it ended up turning out to be a mutant green been, so I decided on this love note.

I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU! I’M SO GLAD YOU’RE BACK!

-Martie!

2012-09-15T14:25:00.000-05:00

Finally done wrassling with this monster. Except now I gotta fill it. Now I wish I had another one- One to load up and one to cook!

SPF

2012-09-14T02:05:00.001-05:00

Does anyone in the blogosphere still do SPF? No? Then I'm going to bring it back. But I already broke the rules, since this is me and my pup...

Self Portrait Friday

Most of the time I feel like a dumpling.

2012-09-13T14:24:00.002-05:00

3 Fortunes for the price of two!

2012-07-25T05:00:00.000-05:00

Vichy in a sweeter moment.

2012-07-23T17:54:00.001-05:00

Vichy the Demon contemplating the heat.

2012-07-08T16:46:00.001-05:00

Its hot. Its summer. But some of us are so damn cool...

2012-03-29T01:12:00.000-05:00

Thanks for teaching me CPR and AED, tiny red dude! After several hours on my knees on a hard cement floor, I was achey as hell. Hope you are doing all right...

2012-03-27T01:19:00.000-05:00

Rainy days are mastiff napping days.

2012-03-25T01:07:00.000-05:00

Peeps!

(Sorta) Done

2012-03-22T18:58:00.001-05:00

After 24 months, I'm finally done with massage school. Mostly. I still have a 90 minute massage to give, but that's just a matter of scheduling. I'm so happy to have my mornings back. Of course I haven't done much constructive with all this sudden free time, but I think I can take a week off without sliding into sloth. Maybe. Next step, apply, pay, and study for the licensing exam. Starting next week...

Roughin It.

2012-02-12T11:18:00.000-06:00

The power went out recently during a storm. 4 Candles to read by. I'd be a horrible pioneer...

panic time.

2012-01-06T04:25:00.000-06:00

PTSD, you suck. you gnaw on the edges of me, and leave me empty and sore and aching.

on a more positive note, if La Muttomba couldn't get any cooler than she already was, she has really blossomed under the loving care and attention of Doggy Day Camp. She has been going a couple times per week since late October, and its really added some quality interactions for her-she enjoys the dog park so much more, and makes friends faster than ever. Plus, the stamina increase has been hundred-fold!

I took her to Mexia with me for the visit to JJ's grave. She behaved so well, and was best friends with everyone she met. I got her a room with her own bed, but of course she had to share my bed with me when the lights were turned off. The love I have for this dog runs deep, and I have never felt as loved by anyone the way she loves me.

2011-12-31T23:00:00.000-06:00

things I'm grateful for:
finally having a better paying job
Martie's excellent snuggling talents
Mexican shade grown coffee beans
the end of the holidays
secret Santas who bestow Starbucks giftcards on me

Vacation. too long ago.

2011-11-07T01:42:00.000-06:00

The view from our hotel room. We can see all the way to San Marcos!

St. Patrick's Day edition.

2011-03-17T22:00:00.000-05:00

La Muttomba prefers to sit on the green sections of grass. She may be an English gal, but I think there's a little Irish in her, too. She gets it from me, I think.

Martie exhausted after yardwork- all she did was chase the lawnmower and attempt to kill the shovel! We have been spending a lot of time working on the yard and getting my garden back into shape. I'm excited that its coming along so well. My irises, mountain laurel and wisteria are blooming.

I'm still hacking up bits and pieces of lungs, but I'm getting better. I really wish I had insisted that I get the pneumonia vaccine when I was getting my flu shot last December. I'm impatient and I have begun walking again, trying to hit my 5 miles per day goal, and doing other activities. Its been difficult, but I'm slogging through it despite the fact I know I should have spent more time building up to walking that much everyday. Did I mention I'm impatient? I figure it will help harden up my lame foot, which is needed, because I go back to work in a matter of days.

2011-03-07T13:30:00.000-06:00

Happy 200K, my beloved car. Please keep going for another 100K. I can't imagine life without you.

Not a morning dog

2011-03-05T06:36:00.002-06:00

She does this if I get up before her and turn on the light. I know how she feels.

Only La Muttomba could pull off this.

2011-03-01T06:30:00.003-06:00

It takes a certain amount of panache to wear a waterproof coat over fur. Martie Muttomba has all she needs, and more.

I am CURSED!

2011-02-27T13:16:00.000-06:00

Seriously. After I wrote that last entry, the occasional cough I had since going to the barn at the Stock show? Suddenly decided to morph into pneumonia. OF COURSE. Right after I get my bodybugg and start logging my food and getting real time information on my calorie expenditure. Right when I start feeling like I'm going to make some forward progress.

Some would just shake this off as a random illness. I do agree its random alright, but its my history to be derailed by illness/injury out of my control. Another setback in a life filled with setbacks. I didn't used to be this pessimistic, did I? Is it depression? Is 7 months of chronic pain? Is is because all the crappy parts of life keep flagellating my already raw abraded skin down to the bone?

Last summer, when I'm finally feeling better and able to work in my yard and exercise more*? I break my leg and dislocate my foot. WHILE I'm working in my garden. A break severe enough for the ortho surgeon to say he hasn't seen a break that bad in 10 years, and never from a fall. More like a car accident, or a motorcycle accident.** A break severe enough that I'm STILL not at work or back at school, and still suffering from nerve damage. Insert "GRRRR" here. No more gardening for me for months- cursed!

Last spring, when I finally find something to get excited* about, enrolling in massage therapy school, and I'm enjoying it? I get sick. Then a little better. Then sick again. Then better. Then sick again. Bronchitis. Then Pneumonia. Finally, my doctor says no more massage- just watch for a few weeks. Apparently I'd miss a day, then return back to school and the massage would dump all that illness out of my lymphatic system and back into my blood stream, and I would get sick again. Fever for 3 days. Then better for 2 days. Massage school doesn't want you there with a fever. Learning massage therapy is equal parts lecture and hands on learning. By this point I have missed so much school, the enrollment director and I decide that I should drop out for now, and re-enroll next session. You know, the one that started in August? Oh, wait, that's after I broke my leg and I wasn't even walking without crutches at that point- cursed! Another "GRRRR" here.

I could go even further back, and remember that last February when I had an asthma attack that turned my lips blue and sent me to the ER clinic after a co-worker doused himself in cologne. Or mention the emergency gall bladder surgery the day before I'm supposed to return to work from my bereavement leave, or the pneumonia I went home from the hospital with after losing my daughter.

Setback after setback. I KNOW, the advice is just to pick myself back up and keep going. But after 3 years and no steps forward, and many backwards, there must be something better I can hold on too. Because just picking myself up and continuing on is just not inspiring at all. I'm finding myself filling with panic at the thought of being back at work in less than three weeks, and I'm too weak right now to walk to my mailbox. I'm on a nebulizer, for fucks sake. My biggest fear is that I will have an asthma attack now, when I already have so many drugs on board (antibiotics, solumedrol, advair, and the albuterol in the nebulizer) that the inhaler won't work. My smaller dread is the number on the scale, because I know that the big honking doses of steroids I've had have plumped me right up. My "fat" clothes? Do. Not. Fit.

So, I don't know. The alternative to picking myself up and get back on track is? Not to do it. I can safely say that I'm not ready to do that. If I didn't want to try for another baby so bad, then I would just give up. I wish I had more reasons to want to go on, get healthier, but if I'm honest, I really don't have any right now. The part of my brain that calculates stupid shit figures that I should at least outlive my dog, then I could die. Dying of obesity related complications, in my current deteriorating physical health is almost a given. Unless I fall and break my neck. But I'm cursed. I fully expect to die a lingering, painful death.

*As prescribed for depression! Proof that I was trying!

**By the way, when I rode motorcycles? Only one accident- I separated my shoulder when I laid my bike down at about 30 MPH. Always wear your helmet, boys and girls.

En Fuego!

2011-02-24T10:05:00.001-06:00

My outdoor fireplace...i should light a fire more often. I think I enjoy my chimenea more than I would an indoor fireplace. Easier clean up, and less anxiety about setting my house on fire. We roasted marshmallows and cuddled up to this one cold night. I really enjoy this.

2011-02-23T15:25:00.000-06:00

What a life..

Optimism Begins to Return

2011-02-16T23:44:00.000-06:00

I made it to the gym tonight, but all I did was swim 10 laps, and do some stretching in the jacuzzi. It took me 16 minutes to backstroke 10 laps. My entire body is exhausted now. I may just hit the pool for awhile until I get motivated to do more. I on disability until March 18, and I'm really beating myself up about the fact that I could be at the gym for several hours per day. I would love to say its cuz I'm so busy with other things, but I don't think sleeping until noon counts as busy. I was up reading until 5am, so that might be why I sleep too late.

I'm optimistic that my motivation is about to get better- I finally broke down and spent my meager tax refund on a BodyBugg. I think it will help me get a real idea of what my calorie burn is, and help hold me accountable for logging my intake. Since I was sedentary after the leg surgery for so long, I think I've lost an incredible amount of muscle mass. I thought that with my mom gifting me a gym membership that I'd be working out more and rebuilding that muscle mass, but its coming along much more slowly than I want, of course. I think the calorie counters on the gym equipment and available online are not accurate for me and my post-injury status.

So I'm excited, and I keep checking UPS to see where it is. It should arrive tomorrow. I'm going to struggle with not staying up all night to read up on it- and I have TONS of things to get done tomorrow and the next day. So wish me luck with finding balance between setting up my new toy and taking care of my obligations! Plus add in the attraction of all 11 library books I have checked out, and I'm trying to get done reading them before they are due- I'm already turning in "I am Number 4" 5 days late. Ooops!

Anyways, all this to say that while I'm not particularly excited about returning to work, I am looking forward to earning money again, to put towards IUI. I lose the weight I gained with the leg, and the additional 30 pounds the RE wanted off so I can start a last ditch effort to have a baby before I get too old. My ovaries are approaching 41, so its getting close to do or die time.

Only the digits change

2011-01-09T00:54:00.002-06:00

I have no idea what I'm doing in this space. In these spaces. This blog, this world, this life. I have no forward motion anymore- my life centers around my fucking leg, my patient dog, and the DVR. I realized that I have been in pain for about 6 months now. I could up my vicodin, but the pain never completely goes away, just the 'edge' is taken off.

I walk so slowly and it frustrates me. To the point where I wish I were back in the comfort and confines of my house. If I don't push myself to walk, then I will never get past this point. But its difficult for me to force myself to do something for my own good, if there's no immediate reward. I have no drive to do anything that doesn't feel good to me right then.

I think this goes hand in hand with my lack of self control, too. If I have soda or junkfood in the house, I will drink them one after the other, even if I tell myself I should only have one per day or whatever the self imposed limit is- whatever I think it "should" be. I can't adhere to any self imposed rules I set up for myself. When it comes to sugar, I'm a 3 year old kid. With no parent to tell her no.

I can tell myself I need to journal, and that I want to, but after my first entry, I haven't been back. I want to regain some of my writing skill ( did I ever really have any?) and practice it here, but I go for months without writing anything more taxing than a grocery list. This would be ok if I were out IRL living it, but again, I'm stuck in the lame ass leg rut, complaining about having nothing to do, or lacking the stamina to do anything, so I could be here updating, but I'm not. I've been off work for six long months, and I have nothing to show for it.

I don't even know why I still bother trying.