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A Relentless Need

These past few weeks have been a gift and I catch myself wondering where it came from? I mean why all of a sudden I can do things that for the past months, and years, caused nothing but frustration and usually failure.

I am on a roll and feel a relentless need to get everything in. Driven to cram everything into a day I can. Since I have not a clue as to why I am able to ride my bike, hold my guitar without dropping it, and how my balance has improved I also have no idea when it will all disappear.

Is it the last hoorah before the doom and gloom of the MS Monster hits me over the head?


Social Confusion ROCKS!

Social-network

Social networking sites are great to catch-up with friends, share photographs, music and links but it seems to be a great time suck.  I do not even blog everyday anymore so why am I joining all these sites?

First out of the gate that leads to confusion is setting up each one. Sounds easy and it should be. After all I am not a complete dummy although sometimes I wonder. I sometimes think that I wake up each day with way less brain power than the day before.

How many networks can one person join? How many different identities can I  manage before I mess up and cross the line between my real life and my Internet one?  What I mean is, I have places where I converse with people I know in person and site where I hold back some info.  I really do not want certain people goggling my name and ending up here – like my parents for example.  It is not that I spend a lot of effort trying to hide my identity but . …

Then there is the problem of making sure that the setting in each social network site are set up so I do not end up having double of triple updates.  Augh – my pea brain is smoking on that one – smell the smoke?

I shudder to think how crazy all this would get if I tried to join every network that others use. So for right now I am keeping it with Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, and my blog here. I do use blip to listen to the tunes and library thing where I am trying to make a list of all my books.

The distinction between blogging and social networking is going to be hard to maintain in future I think. With blog posts forwarded to different social sites and comments from social site showing up on blogs – yikes! Technology is designed to condense things.   Many articles I have read and personal friends relay of dislike of the internet connection to share believing that it is the ruin of interpersonal communication.

It is  important to stay  connected to people on a person level  rather than just through technology. Human contact is wonderful!  I just do not find myself getting out as much.  Social isolation is not a good thing eh?  Acquaintances have start to shy away when  they do not understand why I am not up for outings at a drop of the hat anymore. There are days fatigue stops me cold.  Then there are other things too (uh huh the mother nature calls). Who wants to hang out with someone  whose main goal while site seeing is the location of all the restrooms. On hot days I flounder.  Some days formulating coherent conversation is near impossible for me.

Multiple sclerosis has left me in the dirt socially.  Oh wells, that is where blogs and social sites ROCK for me.

Onion of Time

onionThe past week can only be described as crazy.  Crazy fun getting to enjoy the special people in my life while throwing me into a crazy blur of confusion 😉

Our little townhouse/condo has three bedrooms. One is occupied by our roommate and the other is set up as a  quasi office/computer room. The main bedroom has our bed.  So what the heck do you do with three adults and one teenager guests?

When Billy, Trish, and Brandon stay they usually just pump up the air mattress and move the coffee table over and crash in the living room. Add Anthony to the mix and the situation gets a bit more cluttered. We found our other air mattress and Anthony graciously dealt with the cluster f mess in the computer room.  Sleeping situation solved we still had the logistics of everyone cramped into our small cluttered home. Eek gads.

Billy and Trish were here with the goal to help us clear out our large storage space. KRP is a pack rat and getting her to let go of anything is like pulling teeth. My goal was to find one box that I knew was in there somewhere containing things from both my grandmothers, my childhood memorabilia, and family photos.  Brandon’s goal was to go fishing and shop for fishing equipment while Anthony wanted to call everyone he could think of before he left country.

After two days of going through box after box the storage unit is empty – Yeah!  Clearing it out was like peeling an onion marking the times of our lives.  The deeper in we got the older the stuff.  Near the end I found myself getting in kind of a funk.  It was hard enough dealing with the fact that I was not able to help much with the physical aspects that come with humping boxes and boxes out and going through them and added to that I was looking at photos and mementos of what I used to be, what I used to do. Very in my face reality of how MS has changed my life along with getting older. Peeling onions does make your eyes water.

Now everyone is gone and the boxes of pictures etc. are freaking here more clutter, more crap to navigate around UGH.  Trish will help me next weekend try and get them put away but until then . …

I hung in there and made myself participate.  To the bass pro shop in Manteca, hunting for football jerseys for Ryan at second hands stores, getting the boat out of storage, going to Marysville to watch the races, all things I enjoy but I am exhausted as I kind of thought I would be.  Today walking is a chore, my brain is in dumb dumb mode, and I am generally down for the count.

It scares me that in future onion peels I might not be able to participate, that no matter how hard I try or force myself I will not get to share in the fun things.  I don’t want to be remembered as the stick in the mud who was pushed around in a wheel chair but as the one who took us fishing, camping, and was fun to be around.

My onion peel from last night will show me screaming and cursing at the races, betting on the winners and the losers, letting the kiddo buy the sodas and keep the change (a family tradition) the elephant was there but all of us managed to ignore it.  Super to have great family and friends – suck- o to have multiple sclerosis.

One Steak, Two Steaks, and A Good Time

bbqNothing like all the kids and women getting to sit around while the guys BBQ.  Lots of steak, dogs, kielbasa, corn on the cob, pork . …

Lucio and Cruz have BBQ’n down to an art. The kids spent their time tossing around a ball, playing with the dog, and riding the three wheel Big Wheel? Anywho, great time all around.

It was great to get out and about amongst friends. Lucio and Kara’s son Alex is growing and Baby Cruz is not a baby anymore.

This is so great now that Mike and Michell live in a larger house in a good neighborhood.  Kara (their daughter) and her husband Lucio live with them now too. Steven their son was there with two of his sons too.

I was teasing Kara that she was not already reading to Alex yet. Ok, I gave her until he was 6 months old but then I am getting back on her about it. I guess I will be on the lookout for kids books at the Goodwill. Do they publish Dr Seuss in Spanish? I am thinking that would be cool – to get the same book in Spanish and English so Alex can read in both languages.  Hah they do! I see One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish and Un pez, dos peces, pez rojo, pez azul in someones future . …

Well that is all for now cause I am getting sleepy.