Winter is almost here

I heard from my friends in Westcliffe that the mountains down there are covered with snow already.  I sure do miss that.

Still have family issues that aren't resolving but we continue to work on it.

Camp BowWow tells me that Mia has shown some aggressive behavior.  They say they will watch her carefully and if happens regularly, she will not be able to come back.  Hopefully it was an isolated instance.  They were putting down a bowl of water and she wanted a drink but another dog got there first and she snapped.  No big deal yet, but something to watch.

I almost bought a house in a gated senior community -- only people age 55 and up can live there.  It had a golf course, indoor pool, outdoor pool, clubhouse, tennis courts, etc. etc.  I stopped and talked to some of the residents and they all say they love it there.  And I loved the house.  I gave them a check and filled out the application -- and got approved -- but at the last minute I realized that it was way out of my price range and I backed out.

Today I had my annual visit to the dermatologist.   I have a lot -- A LOT -- of those age spots.  If they would all just grow together I would have a beautiful tan!  The dermatologist says they are Seborrheic Keratoses.  (My dermatologist back in Illinois called them "Senile Keratoses.")  What a comedian.

But I also had about 7 or 8 "pre-cancers" on my face and he froze them off.  Ah, the things we do in the name of getting older.

Our weather has been in the 50s and I kind of like it.

And I am attaching a RARE photo of my three animals napping together.  That never happens.  They even stayed there while I went and got the camera.  So darn cute.

I'm back

For the past several months, our family has been dealing with a few issues that I'm not at liberty to broadcast in this blog.  So I haven't been in the mood to write.

But life has kept on going.  Mia goes to a trainer twice a week and she has been really improving.  But her outdoor behavior is still a little crazy, especially where rabbits are concerned.  We will keep at it.

I've been dealing with my HOA and that's always challenging.  I'm just trying to do simple things like spiff up the front of the townhouse, but they have told me I can't do it, so I give up.  Today I got a letter from them telling me I was in violation of the covenants by having a shingle that is coming loose.  They included two photos, one of the front door showing my address, and the other of the shingle that was coming loose.  They said if I didn't fix it in 7 days I would be fined.

Interestingly, however, the photo they sent of the loose shingle was green and my shingles are yellow.  Good grief.  So I called them and after a stupid conversation, the guy finally said to disregard the letter.  I hate HOAs.

I haven't been to the rec center in quite a while.  I'll try to get back in the groove soon.

I've been doing a lot of retail therapy (shopping).

The motorcycle sits in the garage gathering dust.  I need to do something with it but can't bring myself to part with it.  It has too much Marshall in it.

I still get together with a few women from the grief group and that is very comforting.

Coffee

I have now been off of caffeine for one whole week.  The shakes have calmed down and the other symptoms have almost disappeared.  But boy, do I want a cup of coffee. I have a hard time getting my car to drive past a Starbucks without going in.  :)

On Wednesday my knee felt so good I went out and did a bunch of errands.  That was the wrong thing to do.  I should have waited another day or two.  By the time I got home I could barely put any weight on that knee.  So I guess I'll give it more time.  It is so frustrating.  But as Bette Davis said: "Old age is not for sissies."

My patio has been overrun by centipedes and I am so scared of bugs.  I sure miss Marshall.  He was Chief Bug Killer.  But I guess every time I have to do something that freaks me out -- like spraying for centipedes -- it builds character.  Right?  So I sprayed twice and now when I go out the door there's a bunch of dead centipedes.  Still yukky but not like seeing the live ones.  I hope I have gotten rid of them.  So far I haven't seen any in the house -- thank goodness!!

There was a wasp's nest on the garage side of the townhouse and I've never had to get rid of a wasp's nest before (again, where is my Chief Bug Killer?).  But I guess I built more character.  I sprayed the nest for three consecutive nights and all the wasps are gone.  But I just can't bring myself to actually remove the empty nest.  Spraying was a little easier because I could do it from 20 feet away.  But I just can't get close enough to remove the nest.  Some day somebody will drop by and I will be able to talk them into doing it for me. (ha) In the meantime, I don't linger when going in and out of the garage.

July 22, 2015

Tomorrow is the 2nd anniversary of Marshall's death.  💔

Arthritis

Well, it turns out that doing a lot of kneeling in a 90-minute yoga class can cause a swollen bursa that brings a lot of pain.  I've been babying the right knee but finally went to the doctor for x-rays.  The right knee has two bone spurs on the right and one larger bone spur on the left and the bursa is swollen.  The doctor said the swollen bursa is normally caused by kneeling and the only kneeling I've done recently was in that yoga class.  The doctor advised me to stay away from yoga for the time being.

And last week I decided -- for the millionth time -- to give up coffee because it is causing me to have extreme tremors.  So I stopped coffee around the same time I took the yoga class.  Over the course of the next few days the tremors stopped, but I also developed extreme joint pain -- especially the hips -- and when I did some internet searches one thing that I came up with was caffeine withdrawal.  Caffeine withdrawal can cause a myriad of side effects that can last 7 to 14 days.  The sciatica has let up a bit so I'll wait it out and see what 14 days brings.

I did a bit more "surfing" and came up with a blog of someone who gave up caffeine and they were recording each day of withdrawal.  Sciatic pain was at the top of his list.  But he included a little blurb that I thought was hilarious:

Once upon a time everyone woke up and all the coffee in the world had vanished. In the next week all companies went bankrupt except panadol and ibuprofen. Everybody got divorced or killed someone. Nobody blogged or did any study. Children took over the world and the remaining parents didn't care about that or anything else. The end.

Yoga

I took a yoga class for seniors today and it was perfect.  So I will be going back.

I had a session with my personal trainer yesterday and that is also going well.

A dear friend of mine died this morning.  He died exactly like Marshall.  Prostate cancer caused by Agent Orange in Viet Nam.  He's been fighting it for several years just like Marshall did.  So sad.

Now, on to the topic of skin cancer.  I've been going to a dermatologist regularly (mainly because my mom died of skin cancer) and there have been a few of what they call pre-cancers and they froze those off.  But there were two spots -- one on the nose and one on the cheek) that they wanted me to use Efudex on.  Efudex is a chemotherapy cream.  You apply it to the designated spots every morning and night and after two weeks if nothing happens except for some redness, it means that those spots are just normal actinic keratosis (I think that's how it is spelled).  What is fascinating about this cream is that you can put it on areas of your skin that are perfectly clear and if there are cancers hiding that haven't surfaced yet, this cream will bring them out.  In a way, that's kind of scary, isn't it?  

Well, if after two weeks, those spots get all ugly looking, that means it was either pre-cancer or cancer.  Well, my two spots got all ugly looking.  So I will have to make an appointment for a double check to be sure this cream got rid of it.

I did a little research on this cream and it appears that some people -- if they can get a prescription -- will apply this cream to their entire face and when the redness clears up, their skin is all brand new and younger looking.  Boy, that seems a little excessive... and dangerous.

Mia and Artemis

Mia's trainer wanted to get Mia out in public today so that hopefully we might encounter other dogs and we could see how Mia reacts.  It was a very hot day so we met at the lake at 5:30, hoping that it would be cooler.  Cheyanne brought her pit bull Artemis again.

Mia continues to get along with Artemis (it's unbelievable the progress she has made).  Here is a picture of Mia getting "re-introduced" to Artemis.

 So we went on our walk and Mia and Artemis were walking side by side beautifully.  Incredible.

However, after a few minutes, Mia started panting and wheezing and having extreme difficulty breathing and her body felt extremely hot.  Cheyanne had water and poured water on Mia's body and forehead and that helped a bit.  We immediately headed back to our cars and Cheyanne carried Mia.  When we got back to the car, I got the air conditioner going and put out water which she devoured.  She started improving immediately.  By the time I got her home she was acting normal again.  She sure scared me.  I'm sure that was a reaction to heat.  I guess we will limit walks while the temperature stays so hot.

I had a session with the personal trainer this morning and that is really progressing nicely.  I see him again on Thursday.