Reporting in and other things

I got all my reports back.  Everything was good.  My cholesterol and blood pressure were on the high end of normal, but not a concern at this point.  He said exercise would improve both.  My heart tests were all good and although they can't give a for sure report, the chance of me having a "heart related incident" in the next five years is very low.   So, that's all good.  Let the exercise regimen begin.  He recommended that I walk, so walk I shall.

There was something else I was going to post about but I have completely forgotten what it was.

I got my echocardiogram images and movies, but not my gamma-ray photos.  I will post those when I get them.  They were awesomely beautiful.  I can't figure out how to save my echo images.

That's all for now.

The affect of gamma rays

On me (not Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, although I do remember that book/play from my high school days.  I don't think I ever read it, but I liked other books by that author, Paul Zindel, specifically My Darling, My Hamburger).

Remember these?  There was another one to go with this one that
had a picture of a nuclear power plant thinking "no cows"

I had a nuclear stress test last week.  Interesting stuff.  Especially interesting because I came of age during the "no nukes" era, and I was big into no nukes. Went to protests and everything, and had lots of buttons and pins (that I still have somewhere in the depths of my basement) that I wore with zeal.  I was also a card carrying member of the question authority brigade. Those were the days. But, I digress.

On to what affect these tests had on me.  For starters, it was kind of scary.  Everyone was really kind to me, but it was stressful.  Maybe that's why they call it a stress test?  For starters I had an echo-cardiogram of my heart.  It was awesome.  I had a screen right in front of me, and I could see my heart the whole time.  Have you ever seen your heart at work?  It was truly an incredible experience.  Spiritual even.  I have been having some irregular heart beats for quite a few years and it was really wild to see them happening.

Next, I went to see Mary and she injected me with something radioactive.  She assured me there was no danger, but it was kind of freaky.  I had to sit and wait while the radioactivity worked it's way to my heart, and then she took me in to the "gamma" camera to lie still and have pictures taken of my heart.  I actually almost took a nap.  The cameras are all around you and it would be hard if you were claustrophobic, but I'm not really.  The pictures were really pretty.

Next, I had to go do the treadmill.  They hooked me up to all kinds of monitors and the doctor, a technician, and Mary were in the room with me.  I am not in great shape, but the exercise part went fine, and I had no chest pain. They kept asking me, but I was fine.  When I got to my target heart rate, Mary injected me with more radioactive stuff and then after a minute or two I could stop.  I went  back downstairs and got to nap again while she took more pictures of the radioactive stuff in my heart.  I worked up the courage to ask her if I could get some pictures of my heart -- they were so pretty and I thought it would be cool to make some art using them.  She actually told me I could get a whole cd of my heart images.  I'm so excited!!!  When I filled out the paperwork for it I told the lady I was going to make art with it.  She stared at me like I was nuts.  I laughed nervously and said I was sure she heard it all.  She continued to stare at me like I was nuts.  Maybe she doesn't hear it all.  Haha.

And now for the affects this testing has had on me.

Well, I'm trying harder than I ever have before to treat my body as a temple.  I don't think I ever really thought that much about that concept, and I've always taken my health for granted.  As soon as I get the all clear, I've decided I want to be a runner.  Not a fast runner.  I really was the last person chosen in elementary school when the "captain" got to choose relay teams.  But I want to run.  I crave the freedom that running represents for me.

Another affect is that I'm trying, really hard, to give other people a break.  I had gotten really intolerant of people doing what I felt like were stupid things.  Specifically people in cars, but not necessarily.  I've decided to work even harder to see the good in everyone I meet or see.  It's not easy, but this experience makes me want to try harder than ever.

I've also been humbled by my health.  Spending time in medical clinics is really eye opening.  You see people going through great personal crisis and trauma, and it makes you more aware of the many blessings in your life.  Well it did me, anyway.

Sorry I'm so wordy tonight.  This isn't even all I wanted to say.  But I'll save the rest for another time.

I caught this happy virus last night while singing beneath the stars. It's remarkably contagious. ...So Kiss me! 

-Hafiz

The Amazing Race

Do you watch that show? We have kind of gotten into watching it, off and on, as a family. It's kind of fun, kind of silly, kind of annoying (at times).

I was thinking this week that life is really an amazing race. We don't all get to hike in Nepal, or go to Cinderella's castle in Austria, but our lives are really amazing. Each and every day.

I'm dealing with some things right now. Nothing I'm ready to go into here, but it's made me very contemplative. Thinking about what matters, and having faith.

And it makes me really think how important it is to view each and every day as amazing. We are given so much. Sometimes it feels like too much. More often, though, we want more. Usually more of something that we can't have. Money. Time.

I'm trying to take the time to enjoy more moments of this amazing race called life. I'm trying to be more positive, more aware.

Join me? I'll race you!

That's so random

This makes me happy. I could just look and look and look at things like this. Do you know what it is?

Ellie used my glitter, which was also something that I could just look at and be happy.

That's probably a good thing. It was wasteful to just have it and not use it. But I liked looking at it. It made me happy.

My new watch makes me happy too. It's hard to see here, but the little circles are swarovski crystals. It's like magic. I don't understand at all how it works. But it makes me happy.

That's all I need to be happy. This glitter and this watch. That's all I need. I don't need one more thing.

I need this! (Name that movie and I'll give you a sticker).

Ok, enough whining

Or whinging as my New Zealand friend says.

It's a new year. I've made resolutions. Of course, I want to be healthier. If that includes losing weight, that's awesome. I do want to exercise more often, but that was something I wanted to do way before the new year. Hopefully I will get it done though.

My main resolutions are to:

1) Make more art. I don't mean crafty stuff -- I do plenty of that, and I love it -- my knitting keeps me sane, but I mean real art -- drawing, painting, collage, etc.

2) Be a nicer person inside my head, and inside my car. I tend to call other drivers IDIOT quite often. I was trying to be kind to everyone before Christmas, and I let people in front of my several times at the Walmart parking lot, but I also ended up calling several of them IDIOT. My mom said that undid my good deed. She's probably right. I'm going to try being nicer on the inside this year. I think my outside self is pretty nice to pretty much everyone, but I'm not always nice inside my head or my heart. I want to be.

That's it for now. I have lots of things I want to do with my life. Be more organized, make long term lesson plans, de-clutter my house. But they are way too much to think of all at once!!!

I'm not ready

We had a wonderful Christmas. Really. And now I am totally freaking out. I am realizing that it's once again time for the letting go to begin. And I'm not ready. This time as parents of children who live with you goes too fast. There's no other way to put it. Next year at this time we will have two children living at college and not living with us except at holidays.

To put it lightly, I'm freaking out. Not outwardly. And I'll be fine. We'll all be fine. It's what we do these years of parenting for.

But trust me, it's not easy. I don't want to let go.

So Merry Christmas to all, or whatever holiday you might celebrate during this time of year when light is hard to come by (although here in Kansas we have had beautiful sunlight to balance out the dark nights). I understand and appreciate the many, many blessings in my life. And I know that in the big picture this letting go is easy compared to what many mother's deal with daily. But that doesn't make it any less gut-wrenching for me.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

I am so bad at this

I don't know how long it's been since I posted here. A long time. Life is busy. I read a quote last night in the book I'm reading that struck a cord.

"Imagine you dream of the things you might become--maybe a doll maker or a singer or you just want to travel one way to another country and see what it's like to live there. And at some point, you notice years have gone by, years of spending your days doing these trivial things you aren't even interested in. And you wonder what happened to your dreams? What happened to the you who might have been?"

-- From "Up from the Blue" by Susan Henderson

It just made me think about life, and how fast it goes by, and wondering if you really get the things done that you wanted to, that you dreamed about when you were young.

I don't know the answer. I know that a lot of the things that have taken up my time are nothing I ever dreamed, but I love them, because they made me who I am now and they brought the people into my life that mean so much to me. And helped me appreciate the ones that were already here.

I turn 52 tomorrow. I thought of making a list of 52 things but that kind of overwhelms me right now.

I'm going to go out tonight and watch the meteor shower with my family. And tomorrow I'm doing a "painting" birthday party for a friend and her daughter, who is one of my students. I'm excited about that.

I read a blog post about a woman who, along with her children, did 35 random acts of kindness for her 35th birthday. If I'd have read it sooner I would have tried to do that. Maybe we'll do it another day.

I always used to say fall was my favorite season, and it is a beautiful season, but I've decided that it's melancholy. I don't know why, but it feels that way to me. I know when my grandma died it was fall. That was the first death that really hit me, as an adult, and made mortality real. Her funeral was on my birthday. I remember vividly the funeral home director telling us that she was a lovely corpse. Even in my grief I couldn't believe it. Do you really tell people that???? Seriously?

Random post, but at least I posted for a change!
Be well.