11/10/2013

I want to record that on this day I woke up feeling FANTASTIC! It has to do with having no pain. Sciatica is not a huge life-threatening problem. What it is is constant low or medium level pain. I have been free of it for almost a week. AND this morning I walked from the bedroom into the kitchen without a cane! AND stood up for a while while I was fixing breakfast. {These last few weeks I have been using stools when I was in the kitchen} PT works!

I made a chicken, well, for want of a better word, stew yesterday and it was amazing. It had chicken {of course} chopped tomatoes, chopped onion and lots of spicy spices. It was supposed to have rice, too but after I had started it, I realized I had no rice so I added potatoes. It was different, but good. I ate two bowls yesterday and there is enough for two bowls today. The recipe says four servings so when {note–not "if"} I make it again, I will half the ingredients. It made the whole apartment smell good and I could even smell it faintly this morning! I am appreciating food, especially spicy food because, I suppose when bits of my colon are cut out, for a while I will be back to the "Jello is my best friend’ diet!

Tasks for today:

• Put all the recyclables together on one bag. {At the moment, they are in three smaller bags around the apartment. If it is easy to reach a recycle bag wherever I am in the apartment, I am much more likely to get it to the correct dumpster. Recycling is not mandatory here as it is in Vermont.} Tie up the nonrecyclables, which are already in a bag and drive them both the dumpsters.
• Finish the last of the laundry. I washed and dried the non-bleachable clothing yesterday and over the course of the day I folded and put away. The white clothes are not as many so I will add them to the list for today.

An emotion is only an emotion.

It’s just a small part of your whole being.

You are much more than your emotion.

An emotion comes, stays for a while, and goes away, just like a storm.

If you’re aware of that, you won’t be afraid of your emotions.

~Thich Nhat Hanh

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. — Marcus Aurelius