Last physical therapy appointment today. Neck feeling so much better. Never want to stop going.

Saw a bee. It flew right by my face and it smelled like honey. Amazing.

Perfect Tommy’s vacation is over. He starts school next week. Swears he needs at least one more week of vacation. Ha!

Good news is that my blood pressure is low/normal, I have more energy and endurance on my walks, and I’m feeling stronger.

Bad news, I’m not losing any weight!

But I’m not gaining any more weight, either, so that’s good?

I think I may have to really take a look at what I’m eating/not eating because I’ve had HORRIBLE heartburn for the last week and rather than suffer through it without indulging, I chose to indulge in a cheeseburger, a milkshake, pancakes, and a bottle of wine over the weekend. The heartburn wasn’t as bad.

STUPID MIXED SIGNALS.

My favorite thing to eat for breakfast right now is a 1/2 cup of greek yogurt mixed with 1/4 of wheat bran and 1/4 cup of flax meal. So yummy, so filling. If I have to give that up I will cry.

Also, I think I may have to start schlepping out to the organic hippie store in Palm Desert for my produce. The selection that I can get in the regular markets is not good enough, same with milk and eggs. But cheese? Everyone has excellent cheese. Go figure!

Today my left hip really hurt so I supplemented pain meds with chocolate chip cookies. Sometimes, it has to be done.

I tried to do 12 of 12 today, but I forgot to take pictures after a certain point and I can’t find the USB cord for my camera… such is life!

In health updates, last week I started another round of physical therapy. It’s at a different clinic and they have a slightly different approach than the first clinic I went to; less massage, more strength training and I think for me and my injury it’s a better approach. My range of motion has improved significantly in one week and my pain level has dropped from what I would call a 7 to a 5. THIS IS SUCH AN AMAZING DIFFERENCE.

I also got a spinning kit from the Yarn Pirate – now I just need a spinning implement and I can teach myself to spin! Hooray!

I got back from vacation a week ago, perfectly affordable vacation; perfectly delightful, perfectly perfect.

But I want more! I can’t stand being at work right now. I’ve worked here longer than anywhere I’ve ever worked and it’s DRIVING ME NUTS. I’m thankful to at least be underemployed when so many people are just unemployed, but how long can a person go on doing shit they have no interest or investment in before they climb up to the top of a clock tower and start picking off the stragglers?

We could use a large windfall right about now. The house has been bleeding our savings slowly, and the improvements aren’t happening fast enough for me to feel like the value is there. So I feel like we have no money and nothing to show for it.

And at the same time, I feel like I’m drowning in the brick-a-brack of my life, and I so want to do a give-away. Just pile it all in the driveway and let people come and take what they want. No charge.

I had an IUD inserted this morning; I’ve had cramps off and on all day. The actual procedure wasn’t that painful, but I can imagine that it was and will be more painful than a vasectomy (based on conversations with men who have had them). I’m just sayin’ to the men out there, you don’t have something called a “uterus holder” pulling down on your internal organs when you get your vas deferens snipped. Also, men get local anesthetic – I got bactine on my cervix.

I got the Mirena IUD because of its magical hormonal properties that should also help with my PCOS in addition to keeping me from having babies (not that you can make babies easily when you have PCOS…).

For a long time the conventional wisdom was that women who hadn’t had children couldn’t have an IUD. I asked the Licensed Nurse Practitioner who is my OB/GYN provider about this and she said that it only really had to do with the difficulty of inserting the IUD in women whose “birth canal isn’t stretched from pushing a watermelon out of [their] vagina.” (Yes, she really said that.) She also said that she only knew of one woman in her many years of practice that had the IUD come out (she had been pregnant before). She isn’t aware of any of her patients that became pregnant while using an IUD or suffered ectopic (tubal) pregnancies.

So, one day in and I’m feeling pretty good about this decision. IUDs for ladies who don’t want to get pregnant for a very long time (or ever); Tiny American flags for others!