We had my mom, brother, and aunt over for lunch yesterday (Sunday). It was a lovely afternoon, so we sat out on the patio and ate lunch and chatted and joked around. It was nice to see everyone. My mother brought a shawl she had crocheted for me in nice soft colors. (I put it over our new chair until it gets cooler because the colors go well with all the gray in our living room.) During and after lunch, we had our fill of nature, everything from the clouds of bees from the nearby blooming goldenrod trying to join us at the lunch table to the vivid red velvet ant who came out to bid everyone goodbye. David even got my aunt and mom to try both fresh and dried jujubes from our jujube tree and we sent my aunt home with a pot containing a volunteer datura plant.
For our lunch, we ordered Mexican food. I had menudo, chicharrones, and a tortilla, my favorite combination ever (though I usually get crackers with my menudo because that's how my grandmother used to serve it). My brother had sent a chocolate cake and my aunt showed up with a cheesecake *and* I had ordered sopapillas as well, so we were set for dessert. I had part of a sopapilla and shared a bit of caramel cheesecake and chocolate cake with Dave. (I'm still trying to stick to my diet, even though no real weight is going anywhere.)
I saw the pulmonologist last week. My lungs are fine, my diaphragm less so. I'll have to stay on supplemental oxygen when I'm up and moving around for the time being. (Just sitting here on my computer, I'm fine, but my 02 sats drop precipitously when I get up and move around quickly.) I also started pulmonary rehab last week. With a little work, I may be able to reduce my oxygen use as my cardiopulmonary fitness increases. I am planning this week on ordering a portable oxygen concentrator because dragging an oxygen tank around with my everywhere sucks. I end up not doing as much as I want to do because it is such a burden to have to do that.
Of course, thwarting my efforts at doing the rehab exercises is that I did something to my right ankle. I don't know what, but it has been sore for about 12 days now in a way that feels like some kind of nerve damage plus physical injury. I've been wearing compression socks to help with the pain and I tried using a cold pack on it, but that made if feel like someone was stabbing the inside of my ankle with knives made of ice. I am trying to rest with my foot elevated from time to time throughout the day and I am not putting as much weight on it when I'm standing or bending it back behind me when I'm sitting (a hard habit to break because I'm just slightly too tall for most chairs and I don't cross my legs). It feels like it might be getting slowly better, but it's also maybe just wishful thinking that it's getting better.
Ah, so I was talking about continuing with my diet and I am, but it is slow going. (This is a hallmark of weight loss efforts during perimenopause when hormones are going crazy.) Despite this, The Brain has been trying to sabotage me at every turn. Recently, The Brain has become addicted to candy making videos on youtube. I started watching hard candy making on a channel called Lofty Pursuits and from there I started watching another channel called Hercules Candies. Of course that led to The Brain wanting candy, so we placed an order from Hercules Candies for chocolate-covered cherries, chocolate-covered animal crackers, milk chocolate potato chip bark, and milk chocolate s'mores bark. All of that should arrive on our doorstep on Wednesday and after a quick sample, Dave will have to hide all of it from me and dole it out a bite at a time.
What else is going on? I've been sewing. I am currently working on three quilt tops, the Sunbonnet Sue, the Grandmother's Nonlinear Garden Path, and a third of prairie flower blocks. The Sunbonnet Sue quilt top is put together (alternating the Sue blocks with four patches made from random scraps) and one round of borders added (a two-and-a-half inch border in an Aunt Gracie print of blue kewpie dolls). I'll add a second, larger border (the same Aunt Gracie print but in red and another red print from Timeless Treasures that looks cute until you get up close and see that instead of Kewpie Dolls, it's skulls and bones). Then it will be ready for quilting. Today though, I finished up the sashing on the prairie stars. I sashed the purple, green, and yellow-orange (Tula Pink's "nacho cheese") blocks in a darker orange ("marmalade"). I'll add a border to that (another shade of orange? pale green?), then possibly another, then it will be ready for quilting.
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