Anxiety

There is a bottle of valerian root by my bed if I start to get anxious. I have water too right? The stuff works, I'm so surprised by this. The melatonin I figured out on my own, and it also works, but the doctor suggested the valerian root. They both make me sleepy, but the valerian seems to be calming more than sleep inducing. I can take it at 3:00 AM and still get up at 5:50 AM. This morning I slept right through to about 5:30 though. That felt good.

I have the entire morning to myself. Maria time. Seems the perfect temperature in bed. The sheets are slightly cool, the air outside is crisp. I can breathe when it's crisp. Jovi is still sleeping. That is good. She even went back to sleep when I asked her to turn her alarm off. The dog is barking. I'll let him out so she can sleep more. The morning is all mine.

It's 7:30 AM and the sun is out. I've got to water the garden! A morning in the garden sounds perfect. No thinking about what the afternoon might hold. The new medication seems to be taking care of some of her manic behavior. The  morning is mine.

Pet Noises

Should my rabbit snore?

Dandelion Greens

I dreamt this morning that my brother was adamant I let his boys try to find dandelion greens in my back yard. I kept saying to him that I thought the boys wouldn't like them, that I'd heard they were too bitter to just eat. He got frustrated trying to convince me that they eat them all the time and they love them and would I just let them try to find some? I told him I would, but we'd already gotten rid of them.

This perplexes me. My Monsanto buying, Round-Up spraying, weed killing brother trying to convince me that his children find dandelion greens delicious? I've wanted to try dandelion greens since the time I saw Colleen frying them. For some reason I just haven't done it. What did my dream mean?

There's sun outside. It could be gone any minute now.

Blank

Yeah, um, no thoughts lately when I wake up. In fact, I usually wake up several hours earlier than I have to and lay in bed ruminating on things. Not lately. Sleeping until the alarm goes off, waking up groggy and stumbling to work. Hmm. What's with that? OK, so this morning I did dream that I overslept and people showed up to our house expecting us to be gone already. Well, at least I seem to be sleeping through the night, but I do miss my brilliant AM ideas. Sleep or "brilliance"? Sleep.

Breast Stroke

Why is it that I can't get my legs in sync with my arms and adding my head is an additional complication? Swimming lessons as an adult who loves swimming are harder and I think it's mostly due to muscle memory. When you have no idea how to do something, it's so much easier to learn to do it correctly. How frustrating to be able to visualize how to do something, but your body says, "No this is how we've always done it!"

Monday I became absolutely convinced of the truth of muscle memory. When I tried to share my login for a database with someone and couldn't do it. I tried 4 times to login on his computer with my login and couldn't get it to work. When I went and sat down in my chair and at my own computer, I typed it in correctly first try. If I tried to slow down and pay attention to what I was typing, I couldn't do it! I couldn't generate my login. When I just started typing without thinking, I got the damn thing right each time.

Muscle memory. Amazing.

Anxiety

3 AM. Not time to get up. What wakes me up at this hour? Thoughts about going back to Missouri for Mother's Day weekend quick trip.  I've been excited to go and I want to go. It's so easy though to think things are on the up and up when I'm all the way out here. It's easy to focus on work when I'm out here. I don't want to see mom and see how much weight she's lost. I don't want to doubt the progress she's made. I want to keep believing whole-heartily. I know I also won't want to get back on the plane when it's time to return. I know that's going to be difficult. I don't want to go to work this morning. I don't want to get out of bed. I don't know if I'll be able to get out of bed. I don't want to face the barrage of my typical day before a four day weekend. If I go to work I don't get a chance to think about anything else. I could go to work right now. I'll just count. Focus on the numbers and the breathing. A little meditation on numbers to distract my mind. I'll just count.

Random Things

Today is treatment day for mom. She's probably already up at the hospital getting her blood check and such to determine if they will "let" her have treatment today. I'm hoping to also hear from her that she hasn't lost any weight since her last treatment. That will be a major milestone. I hardly even want to articulate that I also hope she maybe gained a few pounds?? That would be a touchdown against her cancer! Well, I'll be very pleased to hear she didn't lose any. I'll have to text her soon. We text on her treatment day while she is in the hospital. That way we can keep in touch when she feels like it and without disrupting other folks getting their treatment.  Crossing my fingers this treatment goes at least as well as the last. One day at a time, but these are big days. Pump on today, off in two days.