I was going to title this “How Betty Got Her Groove Back” but I haven’t quite got it back yet. I’m working on it. Things have been….rough for pretty much the last year or so, even before I lost my job, but that certainly didn’t help things any. I’m trying hard right now to acknowledge that I haven’t been at my best, and working on doing things to improve my state of being. BUT, I may actually be able to get my Demented Betty groove back, even if it’s just for a little while.
Our neighbors and friends are celebrating the Bat Mitzva of their youngest daughter on the Monday of Labor Day weekend. They are self-catering a dessert reception and have asked me to help them out, with both setting the menu and the actual baking. All the baking has to be done at their house and with their equipment, as it is kosher. I wonder how much work it would be to kasher a Kitchen-Aid stand mixer? So I’ve started to think about different things we can do, keeping in mind that this is to be dairy free and mostly gluten free. I think we’re going to try to go with French macaroons for the centerpiece/main dessert. She’s not really a sweets kind of kid, so it’ll be fun to see what else we settle on. I’ll also have the pleasure of working with her older sister to get this all done, and she is already an amazing baker as a teenager!
We’re having some friends over this weekend and I’ve decided to make some ice cream for us, and candied cherries to go with them. I should probably make some chocolate sauce too and maybe some whipped cream. (Oy. This is where the demented comes from. I get going down that slope, and just keep going…..) Add that to the brownies I’ll make just before they come, and I think I have desserts handled. I’m making a white chocolate ice cream and also an orange creamcicle one. I love being able to keep my ice cream bowl in the freezer! I’ve made the orange one before, and I’m really looking forward to the white chocolate with the cherries. Hopefully the weather will be conducive to grilling, and we’ll get some beef burgers and salmon burgers going. On Thursday and Saturday I’ll go to the farmer’s market and stand and get fixin’s for a farmer’s market salad, with a local maple balsamic dressing. I’ll get some cheese and crackers to nosh on, and I think I’m good to go.
Health and etc wise, things are a mixed bag. I still don’t have a job. I still have issues with my health impacting my day to day life. But I’m trying to manage and do the things I need to, even through the pain.
For the more detailed version….
So things are still painful, in every sense of the word. But I think I finally have a team of doctors and medical professionals I can work with, and things that I can and should and am doing to help improve what I can. There’s a new neurologist in town who is wonderful, and we are working on getting my chronic daily headaches under control. The migraines mostly are, and I can generally manage when I get one. The low-grade, nauseating, throbbing that comes and goes (or not) is getting to be bothersome, to put it mildly. But we’ve got a plan and I have options to research while we slowly increase one of my meds.
The lower back/leg/sciatica-not-sciatic that I have had since a year ago February is still present and painful. I’ve started to go back to yoga class, and hopefully that will help loosen things up and help overall. There’s one more injection in my back to try and then I think we’re done with injection options there; there may be some more options around my leg itself, but I don’t know about that yet.
Everything else still hurts more or less much of the time. The tramadol seems to be working with no side effects now which is nice; now I just need to see if my dr will rx some more.
And I still can’t get a doctor to approve medical mj, even though I have at least two who say it would probably benefit me. Meh.
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