SELF IMPOSED LIGHT DUTY!

I have been experiencing a couple of days of high pain levels which began yesterday with general neck and back pain which did not take long to radiate to a huge headache due to pressure.  I carried on with what I needed to do hoping that the activity would help loosen the muscles, but no luck all day.

By late afternoon I just wanted to rip my head off of my neck and slap it around a little but refrained from doing so ~ opting instead for some heat which did not work along with stretches which also did not work! After dinner ~ thankfully sauce is better the second day ~ and after whipping up a few meatballs to change it up from the night before ~ I heated up the heating pad and went to lay down to see if that would work and got a few minutes where the headache went away.

I rotated the heat to six different place which had pressure points of pain which did nothing for my headache pressure until I placed the heat on a spot in my middle back which increased the brain pain!  Sounds odd ~ but I think I found the core.

After a bit of heat in the general area of my middle back the headache did subside and I got some sleep finally.  When I woke up my brain pain seemed to be gone and I was thankful.  My back and neck and shoulders are still reeking havoc so I know I am not out of the woods yet.

I decided to play the day by ear ~ knowing I only had two real places to stop today.  Of course when I took my shower to get ready the water on my back triggered the start of the brain pain again so I decided to make it really okay and limit my activity to only what I needed to do.

The fresh air felt good and there was a nice breeze as I headed down North to the pharmacy ~ scoring on a good price on  Lipton tea at Rite Aid ~ always a bonus especially when I am on my last half dozen tea bags ~ if you know me you know that is only tea for two days tops.

I decided to continue my errands after the pharmacy and walked all of the way down North Street and cutting through what was once the dirtiest scariest alley in Pittsfield that has been revamped into a clean and well lit alley with a nice little courtyard to a restaurant and some nice music playing and a hell of a nice wind tunnel when the wind is blowing in the right direction.

I took the alley and cut down between the bank and the parking garage where they have built a nice little walkway with some pretty nice landscaping and which saves me a little bit of time down to my bank across from the supermarket.

I looked at the supermarket from the bank and decided that it was not worth the trauma on my neck and back to carry anything ~ nothing I absolutely had to have which I wanted to sacrifice myself for.  I headed back the way I came and made it back upstreet in no time.

I cut down one of the side streets and had to smile to myself at the luck in timing as my friend Diane and her dog Sheyna were beginning their walk.  We caught up for a minute and I had to decline the invitation to join them on their walk as by that time I was pretty much ready for my house and relaxing.

I can only feed my son pasta and sauce so many times before he gets sick of it ~ and myself as well, so I had to take something out for dinner.  I made myself some Buckwheat noodles and a tea and thought about it so long that I forgot to take anything out!

Now I have chicken thawing in the sink with water running over it.  I hate using the microwave for cooking or defrosting ~ which, let's not kid ourselves is what you get when you defrost ~ if you can successfully defrost without cooking whatever it is that you are thawing ~ more power to you ~ I am not one of those people!

Not sure yet what I am going to turn this chicken into ~ it is boneless so there are so many options.  I may just take the easy way out and make some chicken tenders.  I have not done any deep frying in a couple of weeks and I have plenty of oil and both cast iron skillets are clean and ready to go.

We have a long weekend here in the United States for Labor Day ~ which most people do celebrate with picnics and parties.  It marks the end of summer and the children going back to school.  I do not have any children in school anymore, and I wait for Indian Summer before I declare summer over personally.

It will be pretty low key here.  I am regretting not hanging on to at least one of my cars before I moved back here.  Lessening my carbon footprint and all that.  I am beginning to recognize it as one of my biggest show of flawed thinking on my part, one of a couple that I have noticed now that the shock of losing everything is becoming easier to accept.  I have had a car since I was 16 so I do not know what I was thinking!

There are a couple of openings I would like to check out this weekend so maybe the universe will provide a solution.  I also saw a pretty cool job listing the other day which would suit me just fine but one that you need transportation for.  I have definitely added a vehicle right up there next to straightening out my financial problems!

I am glad I am getting some perspective so that I can move forward!