I apologize for my long periods of silence over the past few weeks. I’ve been busy with appointments, both planned and unexpected. Friday, there was a rushed visit to my optometrist after I called to tell them I had been seeing lightning strike like flashes for several days along with dark shadows out of my left eye. It wasn’t painful, just irritating and threw me a bit off kilter. I had a friend who lost her sight from a torn retina (hers was completely dislodged) so I knew the symptoms. After a thorough exam, Dr Vine told me that the vitreous material in my left eye has broken loose from the back of my eye and is pulling on the retina but thankfully has not torn it yet. I’m suppose to be resting it but was able to go for my workout with Josh Friday afternoon. The doctor told me just to avoid any bouncing or jerky movements.  I’m thinking now, maybe I shouldn’t have done the mountain climbers but hind sight is twenty-twenty....unlike my actual vision right now. The difference between the vision in both eyes is not extreme but it is making it difficult to read or do up close work. 

More news for the Not Great column, I’ve gained five pounds! So much for my out of control eating, I need to get back on the diet straight and narrow. I admit, I’ve been eating pizza, for the last month, like it was going to be banned at any moment. It doesn’t help that Friends is being removed from Netflix so I’ve been binging on it as well. Some of that TV time has been while doing other tasks and moving about but a good portion has been sitting on my butt with a bag of (healthy???) chips in hand. So, the five pounds is not totally unexpected. 😕

I’m not freaking out over the weight gain because I know it will take just a few habit tweaks to get me back on the right path but I do see two doctors for follow ups this week. With one of them, I’ll be right where I was six months ago when she last saw me. With the other, I will have gained five pounds since my last visit. I guess, she won’t be calling me Skinny this time. 

It’s not all discouraging news. Kendra, the physical therapist, has me down to once a week and she said, I’ve improved so much in the last two weeks, I shouldn’t have more than three weeks left. She attributed my great progress to my workouts with Josh, whom she’s bragged on numerous times for knowing what he’s doing and being great at his job, and doing the exercises on my own that she assigns. I’m just grateful to be able to not only move better but to sleep pain free at night. And, happy dance, Kendra said I could start taking yoga again in August!

More good news, I have a plan for getting back to work sooner and adding the needed structure to my life. I’ve been looking at this all wrong and also totally ignoring Steve’s good advice. Lol. I thought I needed to get the master bedroom finished before I could turn our current bedroom into my new studio. I’d put everything else on hold until that one room was done. Months have passed and I’ve made absolutely no progress towards accomplishing this goal. Steve had suggested many times that I combine my office space and studio space. I stubbornly refused to listen because, ever the planner, I had a set idea in my head of exactly how each space was supposed to look, right down to the art work on the walls. When I finally opened my ears and my mind enough to embrace this idea, I realized it was a quick and fairly easy solution to many problems...several of which were of my own creation. 

Of course, being me, I had to complicate things. I’ve decided to move our bedroom to the office space and make the room with better light my new office/studio. There is still lots of work to do to make these hopes for changes reality. I have to clean out both rooms and in the process, want to clear out unnecessary clutter. I also want to repaint both rooms and my work bench and drafting table need new paint. I have new lights that need to be hung in both rooms and that will require Steve’s help. I want to get new chests to go beside our bed and I’ll need to paint those (I will post photos of that project). I don’t plan to put down new flooring yet. These rooms will wait until we do the rest of the house. I know that cleaning out my workshop and getting it back in working condition will take some time but I really would love to be back at work on my art by the second week in August. I’ll keep you updated on my progress.