Me

Somewhere at some point in the past year and a bit I have lost my whole heart. I have lost every inch of joy. I went from getting up early and walking 10km a day, going for lunch, loving life and everything in it, to "this". I am not even sure what "this" is. I have no desire to even get out of bed in the mornings.

Yes fibro is part of it, but I have struggled with that my whole life, even with the first brain injury I was still excited for life.

Now I can't get out of bed in the morning and even leaving the house is almost impossible. My body feels weird all the time kinda like its there but not really, shaky like I am having a hypoglycemic episode.

I had given up! I haven't found my mojo just yet but today I did something I have never ever done in my life, I took a yoga class and did it ALONE!!! no best friend by my side because she is really sick. Jess is my go to, she is the one that I feel safe with since my brain injury. She always goes with me when I need her to.

I had contacted two yoga places in Sarnia and decided to go with "My Yoga Sarnia" I was supposed to start before Christmas but didn't get a chance to. She knows about my brain injury and was happy to have me in class. I have never taken a yoga class before, I always taught stretch yoga at the end of a kickboxing class but thats about it.

I get to class today and I am unsure, normally this is where I would chicken out and not even go in the building but something in me today didn't even think about that. I get inside and there are women and even 1 man all on yoga mats the instructor introduces me they all smile and say high. Its people my age and older all different body types!!! Even the instructor doesn't have the "perfect" yoga body that everyone thinks of which is great! I love instructors who are real! Not what I had pictured in my mind lol.

I am on the floor the lights get turned off soft mediation music is playing, there are white Christmas lights offering a pale light in the room.We are in a circle on our mats and we start today we are focusing on our ankles and hips. oh wonderful is my thought process when we get to the left side because of the nerve damage I can't feel my left foot other than serve pain. Well I get it going and I am not doing to bad. We finish up with a sharka cleanse and that is it. No standing on my head with ankles behind my shoulders, gentle yoga!

I am dizzy after class and still dizzy a few hours later but I don't feel as heavy as I did, I can take a full breath in!!!

In class as I am learning to focus on my body and not allow my mind to wonder to other things (harder than one might think) I learned that I am always holding my body tense, I can't relax it, well thats because as soon as I do the fibro spasms are horrible and I always worry if others can see or even notice it. Well in class I did my best to allow the spasms to happen so I could relax enough to release all the horrible crap I have been hanging on to.

I feel better, not 100% yet but I will go back on Tuesday and Thursday next week. I know the full answer isn't yoga that I have to deal with the crap in my life that made me feel this way in the first place, but today I feel better about me, I feel lighter and I didn't feel judged at all in class!

The feel in that class room today was peace, acceptance and patience. It is a wonderful atmosphere and that is half the battle when teaching a group class.

What are you reading?

Reading has always been a passion of mine, listening to audio books isn't the same and I don't retrain much of the information because it allows me to do other things while I listen so its just background noise.

I have at least 20 audiobooks in my app audiobook on my phone. I listen to it on when I am driving alone (which isn't often) and that is about the only time I actually retain any of the information I am taking in, which for me is important. I am reading to learn 90% and 10% of the time its a Jennifer Fallon book and I want to retrain that information for when I read the next book in her series.

Right now for instance I have an audio book playing in my ears while writing this in our local coffeeculture and I have 100% no idea what he is talking about other than self esteem because he has said it a million times and his tone changes when he says the word.

I used to be able to finish a book in a couple of days, and move on to the next one no issues. Since hitting my head this time and causing yet another brain injury I can barely pick up a book or find the focus to sit and read it. Today I started to read the book “The out-of-sync child has fun” this is a book I got a few months a go and wanted to read it right away to have activities to do with Blaine that would fill his buckets without driving me crazy this winter, while “winter” is here and I have just started it. I got a few pages read this time but that is the most I have read in months from a book.

My book list is still a mile long with books I want to read, need to read and should read. I am hoping after a little bit more recovery time I can get back to reading and learning new things (and hopefully retraining them).

This is my current started to read but haven't finished book list!

Girl Wash Your Face, I actually just started this one and read half the book in one sitting. It is an awesome book.

The Out-of-sync Child has fun, I am about 10 pages in on it and just can't focus on reading it.

The Myth of the spoiled child its an audiobook I have been working on forever.

What does your book list look like?

New recipe chicken and gravy

A rut....when it comes to dinners I get stuck in the same rut month after month, I try not to make the same thing twice in a month but each monthly meal plan contains the same things over and over again. I always want to try new recipes and I “PIN” tons of them on Pinterest but normally I don't get around to trying them because they “look” hard or I am not sure they will turn out etc.

Well I have decided to try a new one at least each month, either from one of my many PINS or from one of my millions of cook books.

The first one of have tried so far was from Pinterest and I had been meaning to try it for months but I kept forgetting to get cream of chicken soup or I would worry about putting the chicken in frozen. I do not thaw my meat in the microwave EVER!

Well I decided the other day to give it a go I was stuck for a meal, it was a bad pain day and I didn't get it in until 10am and yes the chicken was frozen. Of course the instructions said 7 hours on low, well that just isn't going to work over here as we eat at about 430 so here we go I will cook it on med, and worse case it doesn't turn out and we have left overs from the freezer.

This is the full recipe HERE.

The recipe calls for:

2 packages of chicken gravy

1 can of cream of chicken soup

pepper

1 ¾ cup of water

Chicken breasts (I used thinner cuts of chicken so it cut my cook time)

Next time I will add a box of that stuffing mix I think it will help out the recipe a lot.

Mix everything expect the chicken together in a bowl until its semi not lumpy

Put chicken in crock pot

**put stuffing in at this point too**

cover in this mix

cook on low for 7 hours

***I cooked on Med for 4.5 hours***

I served with potatoes and mixed veggies.

I didn't get photos oops, it turned out pretty good but like I said next time I will add the box of stuffing to give it that little bit of extra. Everyone else approved except Blaine who didn't touch it.

I do have to say the blogger who posted this recipe has the best blog name EVER, "The salty Marshmallow"

Home School Week 18: Penguins

This is one of my all time favourite animals, but really how can you not love these cute little guys. I actually learned something by reading on the penguin books to Blaine that he got for Christmas. I had no idea that they lived all over the world not just Antarctica.


We will be using the same two work books we have been working through for a little but now. They are morning starters an educational workbook that I found at Dollar Tree and my first book of color craze, which was also found at Dollar Tree. The book we are working on this week is called "We are Animals" by Scholastic. We have also started doing our letters on paper this week we will be covering B, C, D he loves that after he finishes doing each row of letters he gets to do a letter in his own name! Our science experiments came from "The USBORNE big book of Experiments".

Day 1

Workbook, ABC mouse, Sight word "Go" handmade flash cards, writing, book, Penguin video.

Outing: Play group

Day 2

Workbook, ABC mouse, sight word "go" work sheet, science, book, penguin parts work sheet.

Outing: Office/Skating

Day 3

Workbook, ABC mouse, sight word "go" flash cards, writing, book, penguin book

Outing: Acts of Kindness

Day 4

Workbook, ABC mouse, sight word "go" work sheet, science, book, penguin count

Outing: Shopping

Day 5

Workbook, ABC mouse, sight word "go" flash cards, writing, book, penguin video

Outing: Library

The Mule

Do not watch this movie if you take issue with "old man humor"


3D and AUX 3D movies will be the death of me I am sure of it. I have always had issues with watching 3D but since the brain injury 2 years ago I can't watch them at all as they cause, headaches, nausea and days of recovery. Yes I have tried again when Venom came out and same thing happened all over again.

With that being said the movies that come out that are not in 3D are very limited which is okay I guess means I spend less money at the theater.

This month I got lucky, "The Mule" came out in non-3D. I love Clint Eastwood movies he has always been a great actor.

We there earlier than normal, which turned out to be a good thing, because the theater was packed by the time the movie started. As we sat watching previews and watching the crowd come in, Connely says "we are the only younger people here", it was a slight over statement. There was a lot of an older crowd but that is to be expected with a Clint Eastwood film.

The movie is funny, I laughed A LOT. DEA Agent to "tata": "I like talking to people like you" Clint: "what do you mean people like me?" DEA: "So old you don't have a filter" Clint: "Never knew I had one"

As we watched I was shocked at the big name cast members and how they all fitted together perfectly.

https://people.com/movies/clint-eastwood-makes-his-return-to-acting-after-6-years-see-him-on-set/

It is a slower movie, no explosions, limited gun firing etc. I wasn't sure if it was going to be a movie I would like with how little action there was in it, but in the end with the humor and it actually had a proper movie ending, it didn't just randomly end (most annoying thing EVER), I really enjoyed it.

One or two times it was a nail bitter, funny the whole way though, it makes you think about what you are really missing out on, "old people" sweet and of course lots of Clint Eastwood wisdom.

Would I say its worth it to pay $23.00 for tickets and 29.00 for popcorn? No, but it would be a good stay in for the night movie if you want to laugh.

When I go see a movie, I don't read ANY reviews, I go off my own thoughts and feelings when I read the blip and see the photos (I rarely watch trailers because I think they give too much of the movie away)

Homeschool Week 17: Continents

With New Years and everything else it works out to be a short week this week which is fine for use as we get back into the swing of things.

We are using two work books this week. One is My first book of color craze, and Morning starters an educational workbook PRE-K. Both books I found at out local Dollar Tree 
We are also using The Usborne Big Book Of Experiments and reading This Pig Can Fly by Scholastic.

Week 17
Day 1

Sight word "be" handmade flash cards, workbook, ABC Mouse, continents video, read, science.

I watched all of the continents videos for his age group and found that this one was the one I liked best.

Outing: Play group


Day 2

Sight word "be" worksheet, workbook, ABC Mouse, continents colour map, read, science.

Outing: We are going to do a couple of our kindness acts.

https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/432275264215001369/?lp=true

You can make a difference everyday!

https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/wonderful

I don't care if there was sex stuff found in her journals or not, she is a women of wonderful inspiration, wisdom and hope!

I have now written this quote on card stock and placed it on the wall and each day I write on it how I have started to improve the world, even by one single act!

Every day we wake up we have the chance to make a difference in the world and in the lives of others, even from our tiny place in this giant world.

Rich or poor, living large or just getting by we each have the power of change at our finger tips!

I HATE the words "I am just one person", "You are only one person" well if every person said that nothing would ever get done, nothing would ever change and we would all be where we were when we lived in caved!

Yes you are one person, but one person can change the world I promise you that and history has shown that over and over and over again!!!!

How you can make a difference for someone else!
-Smile
-Say hello
-Hold a door
-Share a snack
-Listen
-Buy a coffee
-Offer a helping hand
-Give a hug

How you can make a difference for the world!
-Recycle
-Vote
-Pick up trash on walks, while fishing, at the park
-Grow a garden
-Plant a tree
-Help with projects that support the enviroment
-Volunteer
-Reduce Waste
-Compost
-Write your local government representative on causes that you are passionate about
-Spay/Neuter


YOU, that one single person can do simple things to change the world, so get your arse in gear and go hold a door.

Today I made a change! Today I am using a Brita filter jug and a Brita reusable bottle instead of water bottles. This is a HUGE change for me. Yes I double filter my water. Until a week ago I went through 24 bottles of water a week, yes I recycled them but even with doing that it was still creating waste and pressure on the world. Just this full week I have saved 24 water bottles from going to land fill. I HATE tap water, wouldn't even use it to brush my teeth, double filtering it for me has allowed me to reduce waste, make a difference (even a tiny dent) in the world and still drink water that doesn't taste like ass or smell like chlorine.

One person doing something simple to make a big difference in the world!

What is your change today?