When you're torn between two big developments

Yesterday I went to training for my insulin pump trial. On my way home, I learned my dog has cancer on his liver and is looking at a maximum of two months left to live.

How else do you introduce two stories that inspire such opposing emotions?

On the one hand, I'm still not sure how to feel about the pump. It's a small weight attached to me at all times, and has already gotten on my nerves by preventing me from rolling after aikido.
On the other hand, I feel sad and distracted about Acer and trying to decide if and at what point to put him down. It's a constant psychological weight in the back of my mind.

I want to go into a discussion about both of these, but in focusing on one I feel like I'm not doing the emotions and gravity of the other situation justice. With the lack of photos to share, I'll just leave it with this:

• I have two weeks until I learn to use the CGM. In the meantime I'm going to try my darndest to really acclimate to this little purple pump. 
• I don't know how long I have with Acer, but we are planning to spoil him with car rides and treats this weekend, culminating in a small barbecue for him on Sunday, where he will get his own helping of steak and watermelon (I've never seen a dog like watermelon so much). 

Sorry for the lack of meat in this post. I wanted to say something about it while it was on my mind, but I'm having a hard time focusing.

In which I become a cyborg

I don't talk about diabetes very often here. Every now and then it comes up, but even in my every day life I don't bring it up a whole lot.

But tomorrow I start an experiment in my own care.

Tomorrow I go in for training on how to use a pump I've signed up to do a six-week trial of.

My doctor has wanted me to consider a pump almost as long as I've been seeing her (so two or three years now). A couple months ago I was poking around the Medtronic website and found a signup for the trial. Fast forward a month or so, montage a bunch of missed phone calls and voicemails and discussions, and here we are.

Oh goodness...

I finished the booklet reviewing the basics of pump therapy that came in the package I got Monday, and am taking a quick reflection break before I move on to the "Getting Started with the MiniMed 530G Insulin Pump" booklet.

It would be a lie to say I wasn't a little overwhelmed when I unpacked the boxes. I knew precious little about pumps, much less this one. From the discussions with the Medtronic rep, I knew it had been designed to be user-friendly to first-time pumpers and incorporates a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) in the setup.

It's PURPLE!

Past that, I didn't know how to load the insulin, how to correct for highs, what button does what, or anything. But going through the overview I learned some interesting things.

For instance, they have a Bolus Wizard in the pump that calculates a correction for high blood sugar or a given number of carbs consumed based on rates you put into the machine (which can be adjusted).

Equations. Long time no see.

The calculations aren't difficult to do, but having a machine do it for you saves the awkwardness of pulling a calculator out at each meal.

*silences judgmental Audrey*

So, as I head to the Getting Started booklet at almost 11 p.m. (hello Procrastination, my old friend), I decided to reflect on what may or may not be a positive change in a big part of my life I often pretend is not a big deal at all. I have a lot to learn to tomorrow, as well as questions about what to do with it during aikido, but I hope to update with the ins and outs I learn with my first experience on insulin pump therapy.

I haven't died!

Holy cow. Spring officially started but Audrey has been silent? No needlessly detailed posts about my scatterbrained gardening ventures? No reflections on my current life status?

I didn't drop off the side of Texas. It's just been a busy couple of months. Since the visit to NOLA, Brian and I have both been busy with our jobs, including working several weekends for me. We helped some friends of ours pack up to move to Washington in February.

We miss these people...

Then I had my birthday a couple weeks ago (which was a really great couple of workdays and weekend off). I got myself a hair cut for the occasion, as is my yearly around-birthday tradition.

 Coworkers made me and the manager (we have the same birthday) wear sashes all Thursday. Friday I left early and chopped about seven inches off my hair. 

Brian and I took Acer to the vet the day after my birthday. We'd intended to go to the range in Pflugerville afterward, but getting the dog in to be seen took a lot longer than we anticipated, so we stopped in Georgetown and visited the first Second Saturday street fair of the year instead. We showed up late, so got some great deals on pastries from one stall.

This guy was promoting his school. But the claims seemed to be a bit puffed up. *badum tish*

This weekend we stayed at a seedy hotel in East Houston to visit a new satellite dojo of our club in Killeen. They have a pretty nice location and are just trying to gain some more members to study with. If anyone is reading this near the Highlands/Crosby areas and interested in tomiki aikido, here are the links to their Meetup and Facebook pages. It's a good group of guys studying the art but not neglecting the martial.

After a good three hours of playing with the katas, we got to meet up with some of my old friends in the Houston area, which I'd been needing for some time now.

I was thrilled to see Carlos, Steph and Matt (not pictured, as he had to go to work) This was taken in a parking lot around midnight, right before a security guard in a golf cart stopped to stare at us until we dispersed.

Before heading back yesterday we swung through Lufkin and Nacogdoches to get my pine tree fix. We got food at Pepper Jacks and, after some mis-routing from the GPS, ate at the lake. Brian found some twin pinecones he was very enamored with.

Aren't they cute?

Soo, now we are back home. I ended up with a surprise four day weekend because I'm scheduled to work this coming weekend, so I'm trying to get caught up on things. Once I'm through here I need to get cracking on the taxes and an oil change I'm overdue for. BUT, I want to ensure all that my gardening ventures will continue into 2016. These are some dated photos, but I'm still working! I'm actually narrowing my focus to herbs this year, and the Grow Your Own Cocktails kit I got for Christmas has been interesting for that.

This was taken Feb. 28. The big ones are blue borage, which are now in a big pot. Everything but the mint and lavender has also been moved to larger temporary or permanent homes.

I'm also trying some more kitchen scrap experiments. These carrot tops are sharing a pot with a single radish from last year that decided it loves the cool weather we've been having lately.

I also got a pink bush-like plant from Jacque for my birthday. It's currently shedding it's pink leaves, as it's wont to do, but should re-grow them over the next month. She also surprised me by anonymously dropping off a strawberry plant one morning last week. I didn't know where it had come from for two days. I'm kind of excited about strawberry plants. I've wanted them for a while, but just never got them for myself. I'll enjoy them for sure.

My attempt at a compost bin has been nice. As it's mostly old potting soil with the addition of kitchen scraps, I feel it kind of had a head start, and I've already been using it for repotting sprouts.

Two pepper plants from last year, one bell, one banana, have survived the winter and are growing new leaves. I'm hoping they'll to better now that they're a little older and, possibly, more established.

So here's to a slightly more narrowed focus in plants this year. Maybe it will help to be less scattered. I also got a pretty windchime for my birthday from Korri, I'll bet its rainbowy magic will do well for my little green experiments.

I really do love this. I just have to get up really early to get the sun hitting it favorably and haven't 

managed to do that since getting it.

Attempting something new

It's finally happened. The result of dissatisfaction in customer service and not using my degree and professional experience to work for me has led to creating a profile on a ghostwriting job site.

I did a little reading before setting up the profile. Ghostwriting is obviously not the place to go for public recognition of ability and isn't steady work for a newcomer. But I miss writing. Lack of blog posts aside, there's a creative buildup in me that Pinterest, reading and cooking haven't been able to alleviate. I want to create something again. My first attempt at NaNoWriMo was a gigantic flop, I admit, but it did make me realize how much I miss creating stories or informing people through the written word.

There is also a secondary reason for pursuing the ghostwriting opportunity. The amount of money that goes from my earnings into paying off debt has begun to bother me. Several websites suggest securing a second income and devoting all earnings toward paying off debt. If I can start getting gigs writing things for other people, it would be a nice way to start really chipping away at student loan or other debts.

So while I wait for my profile to be reviewed, I'm browsing the job posts, seeing what might be easy to break into, while visions of creative bliss and freed-up income dance in my head. Goodnight!

Short post about a short trip

I've had a case of wanderlust for the last few years, and this past weekend I finally got to indulge it a bit. Brian got some time off work and I took off  coordinating days for a trip to the French Quarter in New Orleans.

We had intended to take an Amtrak package deal and ride the train out there, but the schedule (and price) didn't really line up for what we were looking for, so we did an a la carte trip ourselves. It was a ball.

 This dude was sure ready to party.

In the interest of not driving in an unfamiliar area, we stayed in a hotel on the Quarter and opted to just see what we could from walking everywhere. We arrived after midnight Sunday evening, and there were still people wandering the dark, rough roads. I could only imagine what it would have been like if it had been February.

Mardi Gras decorations were already going up and folks were gathering up Christmas lights in Jackson Square the next morning. We were out early enough to see the art vendors and fortune tellers just setting up their tables.

We wandered into the cathedral, where several other tourists were looking around and workers were picking up poinsettia plants and trying to sweep up all the dead leaves. I'd never been in a Catholic church before, and the grandiose-ness was more than I'd bargained for.

Brian asked a tour guide to tell us "everything" about the church, so we got about thirty minutes with him telling us about the history of the city and the church, including it being rebuilt several times, lessons on the portraits and statues all around, connections to the convent a few blocks away and the meaning of a lot of items in the sanctuary that us non-Catholics didn't recognize.

We tried to go to the oft-mentioned Cafe du Monde after leaving the cathedral, but the crowd was bigger than I anticipated for late on a Monday morning, so we kept wandering around. We booked a ghost tour for that evening and eventually found the Mississippi River.

Cheesin'. 

We tipped a man playing gospel on a guitar who sounded (to me) a lot like Willie Nelson, and eventually found our way to a French Market Cafe. It was cold, so we went in.

Being late morning we weren't sure whether to go lunch or breakfast, so we ended up with a  latte, gyro plate and side of red beans and rice to split. Of course, everything was quite good.

Myself and the latte.

We talked a little to the waiter, who told us his family was Nicaraguan, but he lived his whole life in N.O. and loved it. The first of a few friendly faces we met there.

Near the cafe was the actual French Market. Unfortunately the farmers market wouldn't set up for a few more days, but there were a lot of food and souvenir vendors set up. If we hadn't been so full, I'd have sampled a lot of the interesting looking food.

There were a lot of apartments around the Quarter, and we learned

later why signs like this were actual selling points.

We perused a few souvenir shops, including a vampire boutique, and eventually went back to the hotel to relax a little before dinner and ghost touring. In seeking out souvenirs before dinner, we ended up buying some fudge from a shop and snacking on it while we figured out which restaurant to eat at. We decided on a place called Coops for the rabbit jambalaya. It wasn't what I anticipated, but Brian loved it enough to order a second helping.

Taking our (very strong) rum-and-cokes with us, we went back to the hotel to finish them before heading to the meeting place for the ghost tour. A man from Las Vegas with a degree in French and Spanish history led us around the Quarter telling stories from N.O. history and locations. Some sent actual chills down my body (that were unrelated to the brisk evening), like the story about the Sultan's Palace massacre and the story of a man leaping from a rooftop bar following the Hurricane Katrina tragedy. But all in all, it was a very colorful lesson in local history that was interesting to compare to the version we learned at the cathedral earlier in the day.

The next morning Brian found himself in a political discussion with a man from Indiana and a man from Florida. We had to excuse ourselves to check out in time. On the (NINE HOUR) drive back to Texas, we stopped at a specialty meat market and picked up some hot sausage, rabbit and alligator (for Jacque), as well as a cooler to keep it all frozen.

But New Orleans was a fun time. If I were to go again, I'd take more photos of the residence architecture, sign up for home, vampire and/or voodoo tours, and try MORE food. I will never regret trying more foods, and there were an awful lot of ads for pralines and bread pudding that I never sampled.

On dancing

I am not, and probably never will be, a dancer.

Well, a partner-type of dancer. I feel pretty awesome breaking it down solo to some 2000's pop-punk music.

More or less like this, but with lots of directing my hands at the dog. 

However, throw in a second person with some expectation of synchronization, and it all falls apart. This is something I discovered with Brian after watching a few seasons of Dancing with the Stars. Watching the celebrities struggle with their partners to learn different styles of dance, he would tell me about the steps and rhythm of waltz, quickstep, salsa and whatever other dance was on the show. Then he would try to show me.

It's not as much a "two left feet" kind of thing as much of an "I can't tell what your motions are telling me to do" sort of issue.

However, unlike the plethora of other things that I'm really really not good at, I still pursue dancing. I love grabbing Brian's arm at events, while cooking or when a good song comes on and making him dance with me. Just now, when the Avicii version of "Hey Brother" started, I decided it was time for him to put down Skyrim for a couple minutes and dance with me.  Even though I constantly miss the cues to turn under his arm or step on his feet, I spend the whole time laughing. It's one of those weird things I enjoy being bad at, which confuses me, because most things I'm bad at I simply avoid as much as possible.

I'll never be a dancing queen. I'll probably never feel like one. But for some reason, in this instance, that's okay.

Looking toward the 2016 gardening season

Well hello there, and good evening. It's about 10 p.m. two days after Christmas 2015. I'm getting groggy after traveling back from Fort Worth today, then jiving on over to Moody for a second Christmas meal. The new sets of purple cookware I received from my mom are sitting around the piano, along with the rest of the stuff I haven't bothered to unpack and Brian is watching Lethal Weapon 2.

I wasn't interested in watching a movie this cold, rainy evening, so I've been Pinteresting. Upon reflection on my Christmas gifts and hobby interests of late, I've had to admit to myself that I'm just one of "those" Pinterest people; the ones interested in cooking, decorating, sewing and gardening who are really only good at showcasing their best-looking results on the internet for others to aspire to repeat.

Don't pictures like this just make you sick? None of these appear to be 

returning in 2016, if it makes you feel any better.

 

My gardening ventures this year were mostly failures. Yeah, I posted a lot (and with plenty of enthusiasm) as I was getting started, but all I got were two bell peppers about the size of walnuts to show for everything. I didn't even bother taking photos of them, I was so disappointed. My tomato tree was kaput by September. About three rounds of radishes were eaten by rabbits before I finally got some to grow, then I never went back to check on the pot, so who knows what ever happened to them? The garlic bulbs died, the fancy purple flower plant died and the pea vine made two pods then also died. I managed to kill the first basil plant I'd had any luck with in two years about three weeks ago as well. Soo... yeah, I still have a lot to learn. 

 

 

I actually did shed some over some plants. What can I say, you get attached.

All of this said, I still found myself looking through the pins of others for wintertime gardening tips and ideas. I'm still dead-set on composting, but I need to find a way to convince Brian it won't be as stinky as he's convinced it will be. There are also grand-brainstorming-stage-plans of taking the raised bed from last year and converting it to a table-height bed to both move it into a sunnier location and avoid having my precious sprouts consumed by local vermin. 

With all the failures of this year, I am taking away some lessons. 

ONE: Fertilizer isn't necessarily just an indulgence.

With only one of four pepper plants making fruit, there had to be some reason and inadequate nutrients is my first guess. The plants were not as leafy as plants I'd grown in the past, though they stayed green well into November (one even made blossoms). I would like to try them again, but utilize epsom salt, as recommended in a variety of articles, and perhaps some liquid vegetable fertilizer on a schedule. 

TWO: When starting from seed, start way earlier.

Again with the peppers, I started my seeds in late February. It took until almost October to see fruit, as measley as it was. So this year I will locate and start my seeds in January. Plants are easy to keep indoors at that point, so I don't anticipate a problem waiting until March to move them outside. 

THREE: Buying established plants isn't something to be ashamed of.

While I enjoy the process of germinating seeds and nursing sprouts to become fully-fledged plants, I can appreciate the convenience of buying plants that have already been through the slow startup stage. It's really a crapshoot, in my experience, on which has a better success rate, so I might as well use up the seeds I have and buy plants for other items I'm interested in growing. 

So I have some starting pods a friend sent me last summer, as well as a few seeds that never made it to the dirt last year that I will try to plant next month (yes, I'm familiar with the "packed for" dates on seeds, but you never really know unless you try). I'll also try to plan for an update from raised bed to REALLY raised bed and attempt some indoor gardening with an herb set I received from the same friend mentioned above for Christmas this year. 

It's strange to me that failure -- even repeated failure -- in gardening has not caused me to shy away from the task. I go into it with the goal of produce in mind, but enjoy the process of planting and growing so much that the lack of results doesn't really ever bother me. I guess if I just keep getting a few victories each year, eventually I'll have that bountiful harvest everyone on Pinterest is apparently so adept at getting.

Here's the goal: actual amounts of food I can do something with.