TMJ follow up

Well that was for nothing. Ate ONE freaking meal ONE and my jaw is right back where it started. Well two but the first was hard boiled eggs for lunch, that barely counts. 

What the actual BLEEEP? 

So I’ve been tortured for nothing. Now my jaw feels too far forward and still hurts like a mother on the right side. I can barely chew and it’s just a sucky time. Sigh. 

I called the orthodontist office and he’s left to go out of town today. They said he was closed on Friday and was leaving town but nope he’s gone now. 

Soooo sucks but I’m back to just having pain when I chew because he pissed off those muscles in the left. Sigh. 

TMJ is no joke

TMJ is no joke. 

The orthodontist set my jaw back in place and it hurt like a MOTHER. I’m icing now and have a “splints to wear for THREE days.

Liquid lunch today (NOT booze) and maybe even for dinner. 

(ice pack in place cause it HURTS!)

Changes in art around the house

I moved the art from the living room to the guest bath. I kind of like it in there. It’s fish. 

I got two “Shirley Baker Little” paintings. This is the Daffodils one that I love 

The ONLY history I can find on her is:

Epiphany Gallery and Arts opened for business on Main Street in Lansing July 9. The owner, Shirley Baker-Little, began her first professional work at age 15. Later, after marriage and the rearing of three children, she earned honors degrees in art, biology and nursing. She then began to devote herself to impressionistic and abstract painting, studying abroad and creative writing. She has taught painting for 36 years along with operating her own galleries.

How they look in tandem

The painting on the bottom is one that had been to the left of the door and relocated here with my teeny tiny flower. 

I have one more tiny one that I want to find a home for :)

Day of rest *(arm update)

Yesterday I took a day of “rest” which cracks me up as I worked all day, went to physical therapy for an hour on my shoulder, then grocery shopping for an hour ($300 and NO meat. What up with prices!!)…and I consider that rest. What is wrong with this picture???  The only “rest” I had was not doing water aerobics. I should have gone but lost my mojo after physical therapy, a run to the PO and on my way home to get my suit I lost the mojo out the window - why didn’t I take my suit with me?? Well therapy was at 3:00. Who thought it would go to 4:00 plus?  Not me!

What did they do? Tests then they did some acupuncture then exercise then electro shock therapy (tens unit). Then sent me home with exercises to do at home. 

On that note I AM going to “rest” and craft and laugh with some wonderful women this weekend. I’m goi g to a women’s retreat. Most will be sewing, some will be scrapping. I will be listing things on eBay, eating, sleeping and a few card kits. I’m also going to try to use my Big Shot this weekend to see if I really want to keep it or sell it to Mike. 

Oh yeah, that’s another update. I sold the whole lot of scrapbook supplies to a person in Florida. He and his friend do scrapbooks. They have classes and everything. They will have a ball with all the stuff I sold them. This is what went out the door!!

Why YES that is a LOT of paper. But let’s be honest. I was never going to use it. I have made exactly two scrapbooks in 5 years and I felt obligated to do them for the Europe castle tours. 

WHAT are these you ask?  Invitation blanks. What did I use them for?  Christmas cards. Yes, they make great blanks for cards. No one likes or commented on the ones I made the last time. I DID get comments that they missed my kid picture cards. So. Harumph. Guess that was not a good idea and with invitations going electronically now, they’re rather useless to me. So OUT they go!  Pretty or not!!

These are embellishments. Lots and lots of embellishments!!. 

Washi tape overload!!

Card blanks. 

Kits because let’s face it. Not gonna. Happen!!

Calendar blanks. And stuff more stuff!!

ALL have a happy new home in North East Florida. 

Florida Family time

It’s been a while since these boys got together!  

This is the only picture from the weekend. It was fun seeing Donald and Robin and spending time with them. We had a few great meals out enjoying Florida when it wasn’t raining. Surprisingly we had a few days of rain over the weekend. We sat around and visited and just enjoyed catching up. 

We got some sun in the late afternoon’s - which is opposite of what it normally is. Normally it’s sunny throughout the day and rainy in the afternoon as heat sucks all the moisture into the air. Nope. Rain in the morning clearing in the evening. 

Sally got a new pool deck - it’s so pretty!  I took this picture for Liz as we bought her the two plants on the corner earlier in the year and planted them. They are doing great!

Fun relaxing weekend. A few things done around the house for maintenance and headed home later on Monday. 

Results on the arm…and other doctor visits

The orthopedic doc says I have a spur in the top of my shoulder and that is causing impingement syndrome. Uhm OK. What do we do about that?  PT and some anti inflammatory drugs. Fun times. 

PT will start on the 7th

My regular doc said that he wouldn’t reduce my BP meds. In fact he did something weird when I said I pee too much (aka I pre every hour or more - NO it’s not diabetes - I drink about 24oz of water in that hour. Sooooo he increased my water pill. Doesn’t that seem counter intuitive?  I commented that my girlfriend noted I peed ok the way to Ocilla (1.5hr drive) dug through a pool house in the heat. Sweating to the point of using my shirt to mop my face - drank maybe 15 oz water while there and STILL at myself before I could get into the house!!  Like FULL bladder deal. Horrible I know, but I have issues with control and, well, it is what it is. She drank as much as me, sweated as much as me and did not have to pee. What gives?  Frustrating 

So I will take the new drugs. See what they do then go back. Oh and they had an abnormal EKG on me while I was there and said they would let me know. That’s been a few days now and no news. No news is good news?  Who knows. I swear you go in and then find all this stuff “wrong” with you. Sigh. BUT we will do what they want for now and see what comes of it. 

Oh and while waiting on the regular docs office I thought “ok this is the time to make your follow up with Dr Harrington for my hernia. Yeah, they need a referral. Uh, you had one in December when I first went in - she said lose 50lbs, I did, so????  Yeah needed another. Fine. I happen to be in a drs office, he wrote up my referral. One less thing to do. 

The count is:

See regular doc for blood pressure  ✅

   Have him see other concerns ✅

Go to appointment for ortho ✅

  Have follow up in four weeks ✅

Get physical therapy set up ✅ 

   (Starts Sept 7th)

Waiting on TMJ appointment ✅

   (Sept 19th)

Repairs thrifting

What I do with my time in the evenings?

Repair work on those items deemed worthy. 

This one is/was

Before. Can you see the janky way they used old ornament wire to wire the crystals to the lamp?  Yeah. That looks HORRIBLE. So I ordered some jump rings and replaced the one by one… 

Here we are “in progress”. It didn’t take too long it was just tedious work as some of the crystals needed two jump rings to get it where I needed it. 

But the finished product is worth it I think. 

The gal (Lynda) who sold it to me is one we revisited THREE times an hour and a half away. Yep. She had lots of goodies. My friend Barbara went four times as I was in Utah visiting with Mom when Lynda reached out to us and said she was putting it all on sale $1 a piece. Yes. $1 each no matter the size. Barbara even revisited when I went the last time and bought more ;) we are addicted!!

But isn’t she gorgeous?

A trip to Utah

 I finally made it out to Utah and had an adventure of a trip!

I left out on Friday a bit earlier than the last flight I took - I switched to the 6:30pm flight vs. the 7:45pm flight - lesson learned on that last one where I petered out just as I hit St. George and could NOT drive any further and got a hotel!  

Just coming into the someone area after a VERY smooth ride in!



Big storm front!!



Landing in Ontario California. Fun fact Liz was in LA at the time ;)

It would have been a great flight IF we didn't have a record breaking typhoon Hilary coming into California.  What an adventure.  We spent about an hour or more circling to the east of Las Vegas waiting to be released to land IN Las Vegas.  Las Vegas, however, was having it's own issues at the time.. they were having lightning strikes and rain.  They would open and close multiple times in that hour, however we were in a line of planes to land, so never got the chance.  We were then running low on fuel so we landed in Ontario California of all places.  Yep.  We sat in the airport for an hour or better, getting refueled and waited.  I had NO idea what we were going to face, would we get stranded in California overnight?  would we make it to Vegas?  Who knew?  The good news is our pilot was well within his hours to continue to the wee hours of the morning... so we waited.  We eventually got BACK in the air and had a bumpy ride to Las Vegas and landed about midnight.  YAWN.  This is now 3am my time AND I had cancelled my rental car not knowing when I would make it into town.... so off to rental cars I go.  I made a reservation on line while in the LONG line to the rental place - it was about 5 or 7 bus lengths long... seriously LONG line - who rents a car when coming TO Vegas, really?  I would think Uber and Lyft would be much cheaper than renting a car, but what do I know, maybe these folks were all doing what I was doing and going on from there.

Weeee hours of the morning driving north. Yawn. I think I had my coffee in hand by now!

Anyway, I made a reservation with Hertz, get to the front of the line and they tell me that they are NOT honoring last minute reservations... what the what?  Why not just NOT take reservations if you don't have cars silly people.  So to Avis I go and make a reservation while in line going there as well... THEY honor it... but they were telling everyone they only have trucks.. so I am prepared for a truck.  NOPE, I got offered a Charger or a Jeep Hybrid.  I chose the Jeep.  It got horrible gas mileage by the way!  Oh, well, I had a car... but it's NOW 1:30 am Vegas time... 4:30am my time... double yawn.  I was going to rent a hotel room but had issues getting a room for a few hours and paying over $100 - nope.  I drove over to the Orleans and slept in my car.

The GOOD news is that I had a duffle full of blankets to sleep with/on/use as pillows as I was taking 4 blankets to Linda to use as batting for quilts.  Bonus.  They were soft and I got about 4.5 hours of sort of decent sleep tucked in the back seat of the Jeep..  They are narrow so there was no stretching out, but it was good enough for what I needed.  I kept praying that rain would start and I would have had that nice sound to fall asleep to, no such luck.  Oh, well.  I got some much needed shut eye to the point I didn't hear the car pull up and park next to me.  I was under a street light, but honestly don't think anyone looked in the back of the car... either way I woke a few times, switched positions and went back out.  I got up about 5am and headed north.  Well, got a coffee then headed north :)  The coffee was from a truck stop and had a LOT of grounds in it so was apparently pretty strong - ha!  Worked for me.  I went straight to Mom's house, played some rummikub with her and waited for the rest of the crew to get ready for breakfast.

We went to breakfast Saturday and Sunday mornings and lunch or dinner as well, so that was nice for mom to get out and about.

We also picked veggies and berries out of Linda’s garden

What I picked that afternoon before the rain came in



Linda was still out there diving deep into the raspberries to get all she could!



We picked beans too but then forgot the in the garden in the rain. They got a good rinse! 

We also admired Sorensen memorabilia and tried to identify it all



I know there is a word for the style this is. They are Czech glass and enamel with beads embedded into the enamel. Very pretty and sparkly in the sunshine. 

This one is possibly Fostoria chrysanthemum pattern lemonade set. Regardless it is old and is lovely and has been in the Sorensen family for a long time. 

These were painted my my grandmother Leona Coles Sorensen  very pretty!  

Back to the travel pet of all this!

I was supposed to travel home on Monday and wouldn't you know it that was the date that the Typhoon Hilary was to hit Las Vegas.  After my last experience on the "practice storms" as they called them, I opted to change my flights (and with mom's convincing).  I rebooked first thing in the morning and about 3 hours later Delta came out with a notice that allowed me to change (yay me, ahead of the game!).  I altered my rental car with a click of a button and a bit of money as well.  Yay me, and extra day to hang out with mom.  

I had left overs from the Sunday's breakfast, so went to Mom's Monday morning and ate breakfast with her and played games most of the morning.  We went to the Nursery and got her a pot to replant her African Violet and then headed to lunch with Linda and Mike.  We also went grocery shopping and running around town all weekend so by the time Monday afternoon rolled around mom was beat.  She went to bed after a final round of rummikub and I went back to Linda's for a later dinner and visiting with them before bed.

The trip to Vegas was uneventful and the flight back was very nice with an extra seat between myself and the gentleman in the isle seat.  All in all a great weekend trip despite the snaffu on times and returns.  It all worked out like it was supposed to!

And the BEST news was when I got home I had a TON of boxes to go out in the mail!  Yay for eBay sales while I’m away!!

Ten sales while I was gone for those 5 days. Yay me!  Now to sell more!!

After MUCH procrastination…

I went to the dentist the other day for my 6 month cleaning. During that cleaning I had to admire that I had yet to make any efforts other than a bite guard to  resolve my possible TMJ. Yeah. Procrastinating is a problem. 

So I have an appointment for my jaw with an orthodontist to be looked at AND this drive me to FINALLY made an appointment for my arm because you know, THAT has been going on for the same timeline if not more. At least since January. Sigh. I thought “maybe exercise will make it better or worse after I joined water aerobics in March. Yeah, no it didn’t make a bit of a difference. Not better, not worse. It STILL wakes me if I lay on of at night with pain. Fun times as I’m a side sleeper. Sigh. 

So Dr appointment for arm done and because the regular physician can’t DO anything so sent me to an orthopedic doctor to do an MRI on the arm. They suspect that the ligament from shoulder to upper arm has an issue. 

Sooooo appointment has been made for the orthopedic doctor as well.

While at the regular doctor I asked about reducing my one medication for blood pressure after the weight loss (60lbs as of now) as it didn’t spike until the weight gain. So I’m hopeful. I am taking 1/2 my pill per day and measuring my BP daily to prove its not an issue anymore (hopefully!). I also found out I had an appointment in a week that I had no knowledge of!  Whoops!!  Oh well I know now!!  It was great timing for my requests for to this!  

So, 

Checkup scheduled for all blood work ✅

Asking to reduce BP meds ✅

Asking about my arm ✅

Asking about my jaw ✅

How my day typically goes

Ok so maybe not THIS bad but here is how my day CAN go if all is moving well

What is all this??  The white bag holds items to go to Blue Moon as I sold some items from there. Yay me!  

The boxes on the seat are multiple boxes to be mailed at the post office. And the black bag is my water aerobics bag with suit and towels and such. The timeline is this: 4:00 finish boxing sold items 4:10-15 get it all in the car and off we go!!  Drop at PO, drove to Blue Moon and reset shelves. Get back in car and drive to the OTHER side of town for the gym, get changed and get an hour in with water aerobics. The pool heater is STILL broken. Very COLD water at 70ish degrees. Force myself to get in and get it done. I’m proud of myself as it’s been FIVE months that I have been going!  There are days I have to force myself to go. More lately as the water is cold. 

That white bag also held another mirror to put on the back of the shelves. 

Here are the shelves at Blue Moon as of yesterday!

Just a few changes. I sold my set of brown grape bowls ( large salad bowl with 5 smaller bowls ).  I wasn’t sure about them but I got them for what I labeled as $.19 for the bunch so why NOT buy them, right?  I got a huge box of items from a store going out of business. I paid $5 for the box of items. I have sold 5 things from that sale already making that a great purchase!  Other than that I’m not sure that this store has been good for me. I have sold a few things but it’s just paying the rent at this point. I’m trying another approach this week and listing my new items on marketplace as well as in the booth to get it sold and more traffic to the actual booth. S

Well see if that works. 

Other than that I’m making progress in getting organized a bit better as seen from the prior post. Progress even little is good!

The only other hiccup in my world is my Fitbit died. I was so sad!  I have had it just over a year and I had my doubts I would like it and really didn’t use it as intended for the first half of its life BUT after starting my weight loss and health journey I have really liked having it. I MISSED it so I orders another. I didn’t pay for the first one as it came with a study I was participating in for cancer healing. BUT I got a 20% discount on a new one so I went ahead and purchased another just like the one I had. I will lose some data but who cares really?  For now, not me. We shall see once I get the new device. 

What’s the thing I miss most?  Being able to see the time in the middle of the night!  I wake up to pee and can glance at my watch and see the time but cannot see it in the background of my phone. Silly I know but little things like that. 

Next to get off these blood pressure pills and see if the weight loss was enough to take care of that pesky issue!!it didn’t start until I topped out on my weight so I’m hoping the 60 pound weight loss is enough to have taken care of that new health risk!

Storms

This last few weeks have had a LOT of BIG storms!!

One day when I was @ the gym for water aerobics and we didn’t get into the pool and exercised on ground. That sucked!!  The storm was full of lightning. 

One of the things I bought while out estate sailing was a wine holder. I had bought a different style but liked the looks of this one. It works out well!


And I started to work on my office this week. I pulled a LOT of stuff out of the office and into the hall. I bought a three level cart as well that is in the very back. It looks like this when not full of boxes!

I didn’t quite scan to the top of the top boxes because there was a lot of stuff in the hall. :)2

The hall as of a week later. Getting better!!


Funny thing. I got a box in the mail and o could NOT remove for the life of me what i ordered…


What was it?  It was an extension type duster. I left my last one in Germany as it was worn out. So… this is what was in there. With zero padding just that little thing kitty corner in the box. 


Too funny!!