Inside Outside Upside-Down: yesterday was a good day

I know I post a lot of doom and gloom around here. Things are just . . . hard. And it just happens that some of that spills out into here, as I am prone to share just about anything and everything, as long as I feel well enough to do it. haha.

But - yesterday was a good day.

And just what constitutes a good day in my life these days?! Let me tell you.;)

1. I woke up to find that my profile was featured on an Instagram group called NothingIsOrdinary. They do a Meet New Friends Wednesday and if you post a self portrait with an introduction they might choose you to feature. And they picked mine as one of them! So, throughout the day I had dozens of nice people liking my photos and leaving sweet comments and encouragement and introducing themselves to me. Silly to say, perhaps, but it completely made my day.

2. I scored these impressionist painting prints (from the National Museum of Art) from an online yardsale site. That painting on the left is Child in a Straw Hat by Mary Cassett and is my very favorite painting. So I am very very happy about that.

3. The date of my high school reunion was confirmed so I can start looking at plane tickets to fly back to my beloved VA this summer. Kind of excited about seeing some of my friends again that I've known since kindergarten (they better be there!!!). :) And, despite the crazy awful traffic and oppressive summer humidity, I always love and crave a chance to be back in my homeland. It's still home.

4. I stayed awake all day long. That never happens. I usually start to lag around 11 am and am struggling to stay awake at least by 1. I nap every day. But yesterday, although I did rest in bed for awhile, I didn't sleep!! It was kind of amazing.

5. It was the First Day of Spring and I made lemon bread to celebrate. It is sooo good. I've also started counting my calories these last couple weeks and it was absolute torture to realize how many calories are in this stuff and to tryyyy to have self control. That was hard. But I managed to make my cake and eat it too, or stay within my goal anyway. Phew, that was difficult!!

(I will try to post the recipe for this for a few of my facebook friends who have asked for it. Really, I will try).

6. Speaking of which, I have also started making myself exercise (which I also did yesterday). In fact I did my very own zumba routine at home. I can mostly remember the routines, and I've collected a nice bit of a zumba playlist, so that was kind of fun. Exercising hurts me. Hurts my face, esp my eye. Sometimes my head. It's not easy. But I'm just making myself do it. My muscles just need it, plain and simple (and this past year of meds and fatigue and pain and not moving have just not been kind to me, at all). Ugh.

7. The pain was bearable yesterday, which made everything else better. Or vice versa. Who knows. It is almost impossible for me to tell if medications are working or not. I've been stable on a dose for a while and the pain still kind of flares up worse sometimes than others. I have a neurology appt next week so we'll see what the next step is. But for a lot of the time this week, the pain has been at a tolerable level. Hurting all the time, but lower level or with stabs and stings that come and go. It's so hard to explain. No migraine yesterday either. That's always a plus, since I am averaging about 18 migraine-pain days a month. Sheesh.