A Slew of News but Nothing New

 I should be in bed. It's nearly midnight and here I sit. No, I don't know why. It's almost as if after 9 p.m. I wake up. I'm tired all the time but there seems to be a window when I actually want to sleep. This is not it. 

There is something else, though. I'm troubled in my spirit. So many things have happened in the last two months. August and September were nightmare months, and September isn't even over yet. 

Unlike all the YouTube and TikTok prophets, I'm not predicting the end of the world. I think there will be a shaking of the planet. We're entering a dangerous phase, when anything can happen and most likely will occur. There's enough end-time prophets without me joining the que. Make no mistake, the Bible is very clear on this. 

Matthew 24:36 Amp, "But of that [exact] day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son [in His humanity], but the Father alone." 

So, it doesn't matter what they dream. God does not reveal war plans to anyone. 

This may seem like it belongs on the Rendered Praise Blog but I don't have a special topic. It's just me sitting here, needing to go to bed. 

I'm in a lot of pain sitting these days. The "sit bones" are extremely painful. Walking hurts too. I'm trying to get in to get a shot but I'm not looking forward to that. My hands are giving me a lot of trouble, so if you see more errors, and Mike doesn't catch them in editing,you know why. It's mostly the right hand. Driving has been difficult, particularly trying to turn corners. The rotation of the wrist is stiff and swollen. Hurts like a devil.

My sister is improving, but I don't know the long-term prognosis. She has kept her foot but I'm not sure how things will progress. I don't think the foot doctor thinks this is just going away. He indicated to me that a second bone, next to the one that came out, will work it's way out as well. So.... 

Mike is doing OK. We're having trouble getting his BP down to reasonable levels, and that's scary. He could have another stroke. Mike has a brain disease called Moya Moya. No one here knows anything about it and we know of no treatment. I don't know where the nearest doctor for this is even located. 

I was overwhelmed by seriously ill people, and that prevented me from researching. They're getting better, but now I'm exhausted and running on fumes. My body is striking back with inflammation and an inability to sleep when I got to bed. My brain will not shut down without a concerted effort on my part. I have to recite a kind of mantra. It works, but it's frustrating. 

For now, I'll close this post. If you are familiar with Moya Moya, please comment or shot me an email. We'd like to find people who are familiar with it. Even it is just to get some idea of what we're up against. I will research eventually, but I'm still in shock over the whole thing. You don't always feel better when you know something. 

Another Unproductive Day - At Least I Wrote

 I sit here, wishing I could get my head clear and recover some energy. No matter how much sleep I get, it seems I’m always short. I need to do some real writing but can’t focus enough to do anything productive. I’ve been doing crochet and I enjoy it but even that is difficult. I had to rip out rows last night several times and recount stitches. I finally gave up around midnight. Frustration was high because I rarely have to rip out that much. 

Until recently, I wasn't aware that in crochet they refer to ripping out stitches as FROG. I don’t know why. When I looked it said when you rip out stitches, people think it sounds like a frog saying Ribbit. I will have to pay attention next time. To me, it sounds like wasted time. 

I’m still practicing on this iPad keyboard I bought. It works well, although a bit small. I frequently hit the wrong keys, and the backspace is difficult to reach. It’s close by, just incredibly tiny. Still, I notice I’m getting better at it. I miss my documents here. I can write but anything I’m working on is on the PC. Still would like a laptop but my money won’t go that far these days. 

What I should do is exercise. My body is going to lose any ground I made when I went to the gym regularly. I can already tell some of my strength has declined. 

I have been studying my Bible more and trying to pray more. I missed church on Sunday because I overslept. I’m so tired all the time, and that’s worrisome. I can’t shake the fatigue. Whether I sleep five hours or 10, it doesn’t seem to matter. I wake up tired. 

I’ve been drinking Tart Cherry juice for a week now. I do have less inflammation than I had a month ago, but I took steroids for three weeks. Of course, I didn’t get a tremendous amount of relief from that. I was still pretty fatigued, and I had joint swelling. Right now, I have no pain to speak of, not even the hand that usually hurts. I’d been having a lot of pain in my hand prior to this last week. Even steroids didn’t seem to help with that. The hip pain that had driven me to ask for steroids went away after I finished the steroids, but it took several days. 

I hope and pray the juice works as well as the hype says it does. So many things haven’t worked. I’ve experimented so much on myself out of desperation that I am considering adding “lab rat” to my resume. 

I believe I am done with this post now. I have done nothing, so I have nothing to write. Sarah will be home on Saturday and I’m glad. I cleaned the house on Tuesday and hurt my back and my other hip. I can't vacuum and sweep. They just kill my hips and back. Once finished, I have to rest for hours until the pain lessens and I have no energy left for the day. 

So I wish you a blessed day. Keep in touch, please. It’s a comfort to know people are out there. I don’t know why you stopped by, but I thank you. There’s less loneliness when I write. And if I see someone else was here, it lifts my spirits. So thank you.

Flight of the Week

I don't know where the week went. I've been so busy at work that I simply turned on the auto pilot and let the thing fly itself. We've landed, safely, at the weekend. I'm actually feeling physically better since they gave me the steroid. I have no idea what it has done to my blood sugar or triglycerides but I'm not thinking about it at the moment. It is nice to have practically no pain at all and feel as if I'm in my right mind for a change.

I've got plans. I work Monday and I'm off Tuesday. That will leave three days in the week to push through. They will be horrendous days of shoveling massive piles of files from one side of my desk, by way of entering the data into the computer, to the other side of my desk.

 On Monday night, the 11th, I have an Online Writers' Asylum meeting That's always fun. Agenda is sent out already.

On the 16th I'm driving down to Atlanta to visit my aunt and uncle. Monday, the 18th, is another holiday and I took Tuesday and Wednesday off. So, I'll stay until the 19th and come home on the 20th. I'm going alone. Dave will have Sarah that weekend and I'll miss that but he's got a friend who will be in town with her two little girls and they'll be doing things together. It will be good for both of them. And he needs to have time with Sarah to himself because he needs to know how to deal with it.

Then, I'll have Thursday and Friday to try and make up for the five days I didn't work. Just in case you didn't realize it, February is already a very short month, as months go, in regard to the kind of work I do. I have approximately 15 days in which to process what normally takes a full 30 day month. So, this will be a feat to rival the Augean Stables. Just so you know, I am not Hercules.

I've been messing around tonight trying to get my home network back online. I can do it one way but not the other. I mean, I can see and access files in my shared folder from the desktop but I can't do the same from the laptop. I think some settings still aren't right, despite the repair. As soon as I can sit down and make sure I'm backed up on the important stuff, I'm resetting everything to factory settings. I'd like to do it this week but if you read over the previous paragraphs you will realize that it is probably not going to happen. Then, I think I'll upgrade to Windows 7 while I still can.

On the 16th I was supposed to meet with a group of local NaNo writers who want to start meeting once a month. Then I realized I had this trip to Atlanta and so I've had to push that back to the last Saturday in February.

Compared to this past week, I suspect that the coming week will reach Mach speeds. Next flight is boarding now. Buckle up.