April 2017 Daily Stepping

[inspiresuccess]

Yay! The guitar went to exactly the right person. Guy from craigslist who ends up living right down the street from me. He knows how to fix it and his neighbor gives guitar lessons to little kids. He's going to fix it and give it to a kid.

And yes, he showed up exactly on time!

I'm so glad it went to someone who actually knows how to fix it. It might have ended up in someone's closet or landfill if a person didn't know how to fix it.

He offered to fix it for me for free and give it back and I said no. It's time for me to play piano. I guess I didn't mention in the ad that it comes with a case, a stand, strings, capo, tuner, etc. I gave away everything related to the guitar except 3 books and 1 DVD on how to play. I got rid of lots of other ones and just kept the best ones.

Boy, I feel light!

I woke up this morning feeling so depressed. It's partly because of really bad insomnia. I see the acupuncturist tomorrow. I hope he can help.

I found a Medi-Cal dentist and have an appointment on Monday. Medi-Cal stopped paying for dental several years ago. That's why I stopped going to a dentist. During the time they weren't paying I had to have 3 molars pulled. All that Medi-Cal would pay for was emergency dental services. I had several molars on top pulled because of that. I'm left with only one molar on the top the chew on.

Then they started paying again but I couldn't get it together with being in the hospital, moving, being in the auto accident, and other things. Two of them have been turning black for 3 years, but they didn't hurt so I did nothing.

I hope this dentist I found will be good. Once I got my new glasses I took a look at the worst tooth in a magnifying mirror and was horrified to see that one half of the tooth is completely gone - totally rotted away. Yikes! That will be the main focus on Monday. The teeth are one of the main things on my to-do list for years. I hope all goes well. I know I have more than the two black ones that need help. One step at a time.

[Elaine Glimme]

Loved your watch and guitar stories. Sometimes you should look a gift horse in the eye.

[Elaine Glimme]

I made my 40,000 word goal. I want to try to get to 50,000 words before the end of April. And I'm feeling a strange reluctance to write anything worth while. I think I go work/play in the garden and write later.

[inspiresuccess]

I made my 40,000 word goal.

Congrats! Way to go, Elaine!

[Lynx]

Hi steppers,

Congrats all around, Ins, for finding the right home for the guitar and EG for reaching yr 40K goal. I even made my Camp Nano goal of never missing a day and 64 hours of time on task. Even have three days left, so I'll drop my low-bar time to 10 minutes a day.

I'm also using Never Miss a Day to keep the crunch on for other things, mostly on the Yuck List, I have to attend do. NMAD abbrev.

One is, coincidentally, dental. Time for a cleaning. Best for me to get 3 a year. During a spell when I thought I'd be winning enough to be hired by someone with this as a benefit, I let it slide. Didn't happen. So I called the local teach Univ and set up my intake appointments. That took an afternoon. They did one of those deep cleaning things and wagged their academic fingers at me. That took 4 visits. Went back in Feb for a cleaning. Only one visit.

Called to set up the next ... and this is the biggest problem with public care. I have to do all the work of making appts. They don't profit from me, so they care less whether I make regular appt or not. Private doc had me on their reminder schedule, even set up the next appt at the close of the current one.

Called to set up the next appt and, hm, I've maxed out my Obama care benefit (only one cleaning per year, one set of X-rays in 3 years). No fan of being zapped, and they want to do a full set of these things, $135, and cleaning now, $100.

So, I'm shopping around at the hygiene schools. This is where NMAD helps. I seem to take about a day to get my nerve up, a day to make a call or get information or leave a message, and a day to recover. Reason is my body must have a past life being tortured in the mouth because my gums are extremely sensitive to being tampered with. I really don't like doctors, clinics, and being lectured at, etc. The only gene modification I might be on board with is getting the gene from sharks that replaces teeth for life. Not this one time deal. Who voted for that?

Today my NMAD was to call one school and ask about only getting a cleaning. Left message. ✔︎ haven't missed today!
Lx

[Elaine Glimme]

A Nanowrimo friend wrote this poem:

SPRING CLEANING


For years I felt superstitious about Spring
inheriting this little quirk
due to the early deaths of Grandma, Granddad, and Mother
and her grandmother
on dates of the third thrice, then the thirteenth

Spring on its own swept away such fears, this year
with green, with growth, and with hope
looking upward through apple blossoms
at clouds and endless blue skies
watching nature pair off in love

and despite my dark thoughts
I may not die on the third

but I will shave my legs on the second
just in case

By Rose

[inspiresuccess]

...Pleasant Streetan hour ago...

What does that mean?

[Elaine Glimme]

...Pleasant Streetan hour ago...

What does that mean?

Pleasant Street is my friend's logon. An hour ago meant that she posted it an hour before I saw it and copied it. It should not have appeared in the poem. Thanks for the catch. I deleted that bit, so anyone reading this now won't see the it.

And she gave me permission to copy it. I thought it was funny. Lynx and Lyndon probably won't appreciate the humor, but I do.

[inspiresuccess]

I thought it was funny. Lynx and Lyndon probably won't appreciate the humor, but I thought it was pretty funny.

I loved the line about shaving her legs just in case...!! It reminded me of the 1950's and how women were told to wear pretty underwear at all times in case they got in an auto accident. Do you remember that? !!

[Lynx]

Hi ev'1, re: clean underwear —

I remember those instructions. Then I learned what the body does when stressed or it can't control, and stopped worrying. Wear clean undies because I like the feeling.

I thought it was just in case ... she met a lover ...

Lx

[Elaine Glimme]

I think the clean underwear is so that the doctors and nurses at the hospital wouldn't see me in dirty underwear and I'd be embarrassed. Actually, it was my mother who would be embarrassed, not me. It was my mother's generation who worried so much about what other people thought.

Lynx, you have a point about what happens to underwear under stress that I hadn't even thought about.

On a different note, I made my 50,000 words. This has been my best Nanowrimo.

[inspiresuccess]

Some good things. I've been taking Ativan every night for about 5 nights and I'm sleeping through the night. I will try half a pill tonight and see how it goes. Insomnia creates depression. I wake up depressed and it affects my mood all day.

Here's a really big thing. I finally started organizing the bedroom as my art studio space. I've been putting that off for years. I decided to give more stuff away on freecycle that is taking up space. The living room is wall to wall with stuff I moved out of the bedroom but I think it looks worse than it is.

I've decided to risk using my car repair savings to get the apartment done. I bought a new, smaller vacuum cleaner yesterday that works great. I didn't realize how useless my old one was until I saw how much stuff the new one picked up. It takes up less space in the closet, works better, and will help my allergies when I'm doing yoga on the floor. All around good decision. Let's just cross our fingers and hope I don't need car repairs. Last time I tried to buy the TV, 3 car repairs came up within a 6 week period and the TV plan got dumped.

The plan today is to continue working on the living room mess and trying to get things put back in the bedroom in a more organized way.

I've been so depressed that I've done nothing for days, weeks, months so this is a big deal. Also, I haven't had plans, as you might have noticed, because there's no point in having plans if I can't do anything.

I'm cautious about saying things are better. Let's just say I'm working on the bedroom, giving things away, and cleaning closets. I don't want to predict the future and say, "Hey, everything is great again" just because I had 2 good days in a row.

One day at a time. One hour at a time. One step at a time. I'm back to steppin'.

Congrats to all on Nano writng. Sounds like everyone is benefiting from it. Way to step!

[Lynx]

Insp, so good to feel your energy, no matter how small or tentative. One step, then another,

Just finished camp nano. 67 hours, and not a day missed. Also just cranked down to 0 0 0 my inbox, sent, & spam folders.

Long list of things to day that I puttered into. Actually, looking at it I see 2 more emails to send.

Gotta go,

Lx

[inspiresuccess]

Long list of things to day that I puttered into.

Lynx, thanks for the support. I'm glad to see you're still "puttering".