Wellness Wednesday – Support System

Posted on March 7, 2018 by Thistle

One of the big reasons my health has suffered so much the last four years has had to do with a lack of a support system. I’m a social creature at heart, and I don’t do well going it alone for things like weight loss and fitness. Take, for instance, the beginning of my weight loss journey in November 2009 compared to when I actually began losing weight in 2011. In 2009, I had a spark of motivation and a couple things I worked on. For about four months, I lost a little weight and felt good, but eventually I just stopped. It was too hard doing everything on my own, and I went back to maintaining the small loss (20 lbs) that I’d managed. Then I began again in 2011. It likely would have been the same, except for two things: For a month, a group of friends and I had a weight loss team competition, and after that, I discovered Sparkpeople, a social network for weight loss.

(Spark Jump Rally – Sept ’11)

That first competition helped me to have constant contact with seven other people trying to lose weight, including my husband. Then, once that was over, I immediately met a whole new group of people, both online and in person, and gained access to a lot of weight-related information I hadn’t had before. I had a platform to tell my story (long before I ever shared via this blog!), and I had people to support and who could support me. We participated in 5Ks, attended dinners and fitness events, trained for a walked half-marathon together, had online challenges, joined fitness classes, and more. All of the constant support and reaching out helped me to stay on track until my food and fitness habits were so well-ingrained and my weight loss journey so far in that I could keep going on my own if necessary.

(Sparkathon Jan ’13)

And I did. Sparkpeople wasn’t always very active as members came and went, and there were times when my brain was focused elsewhere as well. But I still kept going, and eventually hit my goal weight, and continued to maintain that goal for a long time afterwards. Even when stress and adversity hit, I did fine- until we moved. Suddenly, my entire support structure – not just people, but familiar neighborhoods, routines, weather, etc – fell apart. I tried to reach out to the local Sparkpeople groups in Boston, but they were nonexistent at the time. I still had my San Antonio Sparkpeeps, but there were no more meetups, shopping trips, group walks, dinners, or coffee dates. My virtual world was still there, but in the physical world, I was alone.

(Riverwalk meetup Dec ’12)

I’ve been that way ever since. Sparkpeople has essentially disintegrated by now. Almost everyone I knew there is gone now. The local team is completely inactive. The focus of the site is now on a communal public thread somewhat similar to twitter, and I’m just not interested. My online yoga community was nice in January, but since the TRUE challenge finished, there’s almost no one there anymore. None of my family struggles with weight or health issues, so I’ve found they can’t really help me at home. I’m alone in this, beyond my virtual friends.

(Spark dinner, March ’13)

As a social creature, this is hard for me. I do still have friends in town, of course, but many live much further away now, or have moved away, or are wrapped up in situations that don’t allow for morning walks or weekend 5Ks or other gatherings. The Yoga With Cats weekly meetup is nice, but it’s not (as of yet) something that resembles a support group or a potential new set of friends. This all makes me feel a bit  hopeless, like I’m left to my own devices and I’m unsure if I have the strength to do this all alone. I know I need to find something, but I’m at a bit of a loss at the moment.

I do, however, want to thank the small group of online folks who are ever-supportive of me on this journey. Y’all are my lifeline at the moment, and I really appreciate you!

Posted in Wellness | Tagged | 12 Comments

The Boy on the Bridge, by MR Carey (audio)

Posted on March 5, 2018 by Thistle

As this is a prequel to The Girl with All the Gifts, I don’t want to say much about the story that might give away spoilers from either book. Scaled back to the bare bones, this book details the journey of the Rosalind Franklin and her crew in a world that is only ten years into the new world. If you haven’t read either book and that sentence makes no sense, I highly recommend reading the first book and/or hopping back to my review of it (see link above) to get a better sense sans spoilers.

The Girl with All the Gifts was one of my favorite reads of 2016. I didn’t know a prequel existed until last month, at which point I grabbed it on Audible. Notably, while I call this a prequel and it does take place in a time period before the first book, the story seems to operate on the assumption that the reader has already read the previous book and is familiar with this world. I’m not sure how it would read as a standalone or first book since I didn’t come in from that perspective, but I’d recommend starting with TGwAtG.

Setting that aside, I was unsure (despite my impulse grab) that I would enjoy the book, for two reasons. First, I tried another book by Carey last year and while it was interesting and well-written, it was so explicitly gruesome that I had to quit reading. Second, I saw a lot of reviews complaining that this book was nothing but a rehash of TGwAtG, nothing new, nothing to add, and unlikable characters. I’m happy to report that both of my concerns were pointless, as it was never too gruesome and definitely in no way a rehash of the original. This was an excellent book that broadened my understanding of an interesting world, brought up a lot of fraught ethical dilemmas, introduced many nuanced characters, and closed off with an epilogue that rounded off both books beautifully.

Honestly, there’s not much more I can say here without giving away plot points for either book. I can just say that if you had any questions left at the end of TGwAtG, this book should eventually round them out for you, and if the hopelessness of its ending chilled you, you might enjoy the threads of hope that go into this book. Additionally, if you’re an audiobook junkie like I am, Finty Williams does another spectacular job with this book, particularly the way she handled the stilted and oddly-shaped narration of a fifteen-year-old autistic savant on board the Rosalind Franklin. I highly recommend both book and audiobook.

Posted in 2018, Adult, Prose | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Sunday Coffee – Birthday, Pop Con, Jojo

Posted on March 4, 2018 by Thistle

March has started out with a bang, y’all! Lots of fun stuff happening over the last few days, which is nice considering how rough February was on my family. It started with my birthday!

My birthday’s on the first, and this year it was very low-key. Normally my family goes all-out on birthdays, with themed parties and such, but I haven’t had one of those since 2014, before we began moving. (It was a great one, too – a “vice” party and a spa date with four of my extended family members – see picture below.) Next year will be a big one too, when I hit 40 and get my family’s famous buzzard party that I’ve literally been anticipating since I was a teenager. Ha! My brother already told me he’s started the planning. But this year was low key.

(Spa day 2014)

Jason made me scones with clotted cream for breakfast…mmm…and then he spread my gifts out through the day: yoga dice, Wires and Nerve Vol 2, Stranger Things Season 1, and these adorable individual ramekins that became part of dinner and dessert. Our tradition is to have one night eating out and one cooked special meal for our birthdays, and I chose laban ummo, a Middle Eastern dish of beef and onions stewed in yogurt and served over rice. I almost never get to have this one because my boys aren’t fans. So we had that and cherries jubilee for dessert, in those ramekins, while we all watched Murder on the Orient Express (excellent!).

It was a good day, and a great opener for March, followed up by Pop Con yesterday. The San Antonio Public Library hosted this con, which included a lot of stuff, but most significant for me being the group of authors gathered there. In particularly, I was really looking forward to meeting Robert Jackson Bennett, who authored the Divine Cities trilogy that I loved last fall. My friend Stephanie and I went to the event together. We saw lots of costumes, folded origami Totoro dolls, met a lot of authors and artists, and indeed got books signs by Bennett. We only stayed for a couple hours because of time constraints of both of us, but those few hours were awesome and I hope the library puts something like this on again next year. Stephanie and I both want to cosplay Sanderson characters for it, if we can get decent costumes together in time!

Lastly this weekend, we have officially adopted Jojo. I haven’t mentioned this yet, but our foster-kitty is semi-feral. He was on the streets for a couple months before someone brought him into the shelter, and it’s easy to see that those months weren’t kind to him. There are a couple sections of his tail that look like they’re missing hair, as if he had strings tied to him. He’s skittish and terrified of anyone holding something while standing near him. He struggles between his instincts for affection (<–) and to attack. Now that he has plenty of energy, we’ve been working hard to socialize him. Gavroche was about the same age when we rescued him, and had been living on the streets, but his experience was obviously a kind one as he was immediately loving and trusting of everyone and everything, much like his namesake. Jojo…not so much. He’s going to take a lot of training, but he’s already getting better, and I hope in time his instinct for affection will win out.

Posted in Book Talk, Personal | Tagged | 7 Comments

February in Review

Posted on March 2, 2018 by Thistle

So…between grief, illness, the Olympics, and fostering a sick kitten, there really hasn’t been a lot of time for other things this February. To recap:

Goals
Um…I didn’t make any progress at all in my goals this month. I suppose I did get a few lines of my afghan sewn on, and finally got past the giant block of black squares. Six lines to go! Otherwise, nothing.

Health
February did me in. I talked about this in more depth in my previous post. As for the numbers, they were sad, sad, sad this month. I exercised on 19 days and only for a total of 981 fitness mins (January was 1699!). I did 18 yoga sessions, and only walked 21 miles. My poor step average was a mere 8054/day. As for my weight, if I compared from Feb 1st to March 1st, I only gained a fraction of a pound. The real story comes when I average out my weight for the month, which shows a two-pound increase. Maybe not much in the grand scheme of things, but definitely not the direction I want to go.

Books
February was split into a couple sections, reading-wise. There was the early part of the month, when I read my favorite book of the month, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. Then there was a couple weeks when nothing I tried to read appealed to me. I culled a bunch of books from my list. Then I switched focus onto mysteries and thrillers at the end of the month. I skimmed through a few formulaic ones (didn’t fully read, so they didn’t make it onto the blog) and had a couple good ones shine. My reading was just as scattered as my health and brain this month it seems!

Highlights of February
This of course is a hard thing to write, because there was so much grief here. But I know my grandmother would have wanted my family to celebrate the good things, so I will.

  • Making a difference for Jojo. He very possibly would have died without our foster care.
  • Buying my new car, Gordon!
  • The fun, personalized engraving Jason got for me on a wine bottle for Valentine’s Day. –> (It won’t make sense to anyone who hasn’t read Oathbringer. The guy doing the engravings said it was the most interesting request he’d had that whole day.)
  • Hosting a Super Bowl party for a big group of friends
  • Jason receiving his personalized wedding ring

Coming up in March
March is birthday month in my family. All told, we have six birthdays in the extended family, including my own. Plus there’s spring break, and Morrigan takes his first SAT, and I might have a chance to meet Robert Jackson Bennett at a library event. All that shapes up to potentially be an awesome month!

Posted in Crochet, Personal | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Wellness Wednesday – A Disruptive Month

Posted on February 28, 2018 by Thistle

I haven’t talked a lot about my health this month, because honestly, there hasn’t been much to talk about. Nutrition and fitness took a backseat in February. There was just so much else to cope with. First, my grandmother passed away at the beginning of the month, then we had flu run through our house. I spent a lot of time watching the Olympics as a way to occupy my brain while grieving. And then Jojo came home with us mid-month, and I spent a lot of time nursing a sick kitten. I didn’t really have room in my brain for anything else!

Then there was the weather. February has been wild here! It’s rained almost every day (extremely unusual) and the temps have been a roller-coaster. One day it’ll be 75 degrees and so muggy that it feels much hotter than the temp, and the next it’ll be in the 40s with a wind-chill in the 30s. The abrupt weather changes kept causing recurring illness, even after flu was over, and the rain kept me indoors. I couldn’t do my normal neighborhood walks a couple times per week, and MAN it gets dull walking in circles around your bedroom. Plus, once you have a kitten quarantined in your bedroom, it’s difficult to do any walking, as he tends to run after you and attack your feet or get stepped on. Sigh.

My family ended up eating out a lot this month also, and eating a lot of pre-made foods while everyone was sick. It’s just what we had to do to survive the month, but it certainly took a toll on us all. And of course, with everything else going on, I didn’t have the time or energy to pay attention to my calories or sugar grams or anything else. Other things were just too important this month, and my nutritional health suffered. I keep a record of how I’m eating through the month – a tiered colored calendar of good, okay, and bad – and this month my bad days outnumber the okay days and are more than double the good. The bad days are also twice the number they’ve been in any month since I’ve tracked this way. So yeah, it’s been a bad month!

But I need to get back on track now. I’m tired of making no progress. My old maintenance anniversary just passed last week, and of course I haven’t been near my goal weight for a couple years. The difference between 2013 when I first hit my goal and today, five years later, is frustrating.

Tomorrow is my 39th birthday. I need to lose 70 lbs to be back where I was all those years ago. That won’t happen before I turn 40. The most I’ve ever lost in a year was 54 lbs and that was before I developed full-blown PCOS. But I would like to be able to make some decent progress this year, and to accomplish some things over the next year, health-wise and otherwise. I’ve created a list for myself, 40 things to do before I turn 40, and I hope y’all will wish me lots of luck and motivation on these!

Posted in Wellness | Tagged | 14 Comments

Sunday Coffee – Jojo update and the Olympics!

Posted on February 25, 2018 by Thistle

I have Jojo news! He went to the vet again on Friday, and he’s up almost a pound this week. Yay! They’ve ruled out FIP, and have started him on a new medication for his digestive troubles. He also has ringworm on his face, so he has to be quarantined for another eight weeks. Oy. But he should get healthy, the vet says, he should make it! Hopefully he’ll become officially ours soon.

***
I’ve been watching the Olympics over the last few weeks. I’m not usually a huge winter Olympics person – I like the figure skating but don’t get into much more than that – but I watched a lot more as I was trying to process through grief and deal with a lot of illness in my family. Consequently, I ended up watching a whole heck of a lot more TV than normal, from 1-2 hours per week to 5-6 hours per day! I also got to experience a lot of the fun little moments throughout the events that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

I admit: I’m not a huge fan of the mentality in a lot of sports, especially on the US team. There’s a lot of “I’m the best” boasting, with complaining if they don’t win and smugness when they do. I tend to cheer for the underdogs, and to enjoy the more human stories of the games. There were a couple moments that stood out to me in particular this time around.

The first involved the Tongan skier, Pita Taufatofua, who is mostly known for his whole shirtless, oiled entry into the Games. What I really liked was his story, the way he seems to be a really kind person who cares more about what he can do for others and for his country than in winning personal glory. He didn’t do great in his event – 114th out of 119 skiers – but after he crossed the line, he waited until the last person came across, and hoisted him on top of his shoulders. How great is that??

The second was all about the upset on the Super G women’s course by Czech snowboarder Ester Ledecka. If y’all didn’t watch this, you should look it up. NBC had already announced the winners for the Super G and cut to a different event. All the rest of the skiers left were ranked very low and had no chance of being “true” competitors. Ester Ledecka trains in both snowboard and skiing but is far better at the former, and she was ranked something like 43rd in this particular event. She crossed the line one hundredth of a second faster than the woman who’d already been declared the winner. Then she just stared at the board, bewilderment across her face (see pic), as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. Which, apparently, she was, as she admitted later that she thought it was a mistake or that she’d missed a gate or something. She kept waiting for it to be corrected, and when it turned out she actually did win, she went to her press conferences with her ski goggles on because she wasn’t wearing makeup and didn’t prepare for interviews, thinking she had no chance of winning beforehand. Ha! I totally loved that moment.

***
Otherwise this week…I’m sick. I’m struggling to sleep and breathe (probably bronchitis), I’m coughing tons, and it’s unfortunate because the funeral services for my grandmother are this afternoon and tomorrow morning. Wish me luck. I don’t want to get anyone else sick, but I also don’t want to stay home, you know?

Posted in Personal | Tagged | 6 Comments

Stillhouse Lake, by Rachel Caine

Posted on February 23, 2018 by Thistle

Imagine that you discover that your husband of almost a decade is a serial killer. Imagine finding yourself accused of being an accomplice. Imagine that once you’re acquitted, no one believes that you’re innocent, and the internet trolls at large come after you and your (definitely innocent) children. That’s the world for Gwen Proctor, aka Gina Royal, who has been on the run for four years from the strangers who want to harm her and her family. They’ve landed in a backwoods town in a house at the edge of a lake, and it seems as if her family might finally settle…until bodies start to appear.

So I’m always on the fence about thrillers, and this one? This one lands on the side of excellent. This one has a mystery of course, but the focus is on the psychology. What would it be like to discover that your life was a lie, and then to have no one believe you, and then to have the internet come after you in force, never relenting? What would it be like to receive the kind of hate that Gwen receives, photos of her children’s faces doctored into other situations (from tortured bodies to child pornography to her ex-husband’s victims)? How would the constant paranoia and running affect you and your children? What if you could never trust anyone again? This is what I found most compelling in Stillhouse Lake. So compelling, in fact, that I actually flipped ahead to find out the secrets so that the mystery wouldn’t distract me as I read.

The pacing was excellent. The characters felt human, flawed and nuanced. The psychology – of Gwen, of her kids, of the various people who try to hurt, help, and/or dig into the mystery that is the Proctor family – is all well-researched and spot-on. The thriller is layered and builds tension without resorting to cheap shock-value twists. The novel was definitely a human story – a person caught up in a nightmare world, pushed to the edge of reality, gaslit her whole life and unable to trust her own judgement. Sure, there is murder and a killer and a threat, but that was layered into the bigger story of Gwen’s personal hell and how she pushes through it. That was what really made this book wonderful.

This is the first book in a series. Unlike the last mystery I read, I felt this one firmly wrapped up one story, while opening a teaser to the next in the larger series plot. It was a perfect way to end, and I’m not sure if I’ll move on to Killman Creek immediately or wait a bit to get my bearings first.

Posted in 2018, Adult, Prose | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Jojo’s Story

Posted on February 21, 2018 by Thistle

As I said Sunday, Jojo’s story begins last Tuesday during Yoga With Cats at the San Antonio Cat Cafe. It was the first time I’d met him, and he walked right up to me, climbed on my feet, and curled into a ball. –>

He stayed by my side the entire night, and after the yoga session, he nestled into my neck. I fell in love, despite having no desire to adopt another cat, especially a kitten. I went back to the cat cafe on Wednesday to get adoption paperwork, then brought Jason to meet him on Thursday. That’s when I found out that Jojo – then named Shadow – kinda curled up with everyone. In fact, he was bony and kinda lethargic and very cold. Since he was a stray originally, we figured he was just underweight. I fed him while holding him and he ate greedily, and I had the worried feeling that he was avoiding the food bowls in the cattery because there were so many other people and cats around.

We were chosen to adopt him, and scheduled to pick him up on Saturday afternoon. When we arrived, however, the owner of the cafe said she had some concerns. Jojo had been losing weight steadily since they brought him in a few weeks earlier, and he had a persistent cough that sounded like he was trying to get up a hairball. The latter didn’t worry me as much since he’s medium-haired, but the weight loss was definitely worrisome. The owner was concerned that he might have a disease called FIP, which is 1) incurable, 2) fatal, and 3) easily spreadable to other cats. Which meant that if we brought him home, he might infect our other three cats with an incurable, fatal disease, and he might die in the next few weeks anyway.

Now, FIP is a rare disease – around 1% – and the only way to diagnose it is to rule out all other options. That’s expensive and uncertain, and I personally had a strong feeling that Jojo’s background as a stray (who seems terrified of people standing over him or holding objects, indicating he met with some Bad Things in his short life) made him particularly susceptible to stress. Jason and I talked, and we decided to spend a few weeks fostering the kitty. We would keep him to our walk-in closet, with a separate food and litter area from our other cats, and wash up really well when we go between our room and the rest of the house. That way, if he does have FIP, he won’t infect our cats, nor will he infect the other cats at the cafe. We can also monitor his weight closely (currently weighing him twice a day) and watch his litter for signs of other problems (like tapeworm).

(Like all cats, he loves crochet…)

As soon as we got Jojo home, he began to come out of that lethargic, shivering, curled-up state. He began to play for the first time. He jumped around to different shelves in the closet, began purring loudly, explored the rest of the bedroom. He immediately started eating and drinking and using the litter box, so the problem is definitely not one with swallowing or something. He had some intestinal upset in the beginning as well, but nothing to indicate tapeworm that we could see. Otherwise, Jojo was immediately friendly toward everyone, though scared whenever someone stood over him or carried something above his head, and he bonded with me immediately. I think he recognizes my scent, because he perks up and runs to me whenever I enter the room.

We took him to the vet on Monday morning, just in case. He had no fever, and his heart and lungs sound fine, and there are no signs of parasites in his stool sample. But the diarrhea is worrisome, and the vet mentioned FIP before we brought it up. She also said it’s possible that the constant change in food might have been upsetting his digestive system, so if we keep his food consistent, he might improve. We’ll see. There are a few hopeful signs, like the fact that he can jump much higher than he used to and he’s begun that kind of restless constant play common in kittens. I really hope these next few weeks at home with us make all the difference to his health!

Posted in Personal | 9 Comments

Truly Devious, by Maureen Johnson (audio)

Posted on February 19, 2018 by Thistle

Eighty years ago, there was a kidnapping and murder at the Ellingham Academy, a special school for individual learning in Vermont. Stevie Bell, a new student at Ellingham, is determined to solve the cold case. Then a new mystery arises, with a warning: the supposed former culprit, Truly Devious, is back.

This book was a lot of fun. It alternates between excerpts from the past and current-day events through Stevie’s eyes. Stevie is a fun character, a misfit in her family that suffers from severe anxiety and is obsessed with criminology. Her anxiety disorder and coping mechanisms are spot-on, as well as her awkward attempts to fit in with other students. The other characters and students at the academy are well-written, too, and I love seeing all the different kinds of people walking around the campus. (It was fun to casually meet a nonbinary character, even if they were only a side character!) The mysteries were also well-written, and the book had a great suspenseful pace that didn’t let me put it down. (Metaphorically, since it was on audio.) At the end, after getting to know more of the details, I had to go back and reread.

There were only two things I didn’t like about the book. I didn’t particularly enjoy the audio narration by Kate Rudd. Nothing against her – generally I’m just not a fan of the way YA books are read on audio. However, I think it’s a testament to the quality of the story itself that I not only kept listening, but listened twice. The second was about closure. This is the first in a series, and I’m okay with that – however, the book ended without any conclusion at all. I would have been fine had one of the two mysteries been solved and another new possibility opened up, that kind of thing. This felt like it just stopped in the middle of a story, though, and it’ll be quite some time before the next one releases. I’ve heard some people say that they wish the book had been a standalone, and I understand that sentiment because it really does feel like I’ve read 3/4ths of a book and was unable to read the rest. That’s frustrating. I’ll likely reread it when the next book comes out and head straight into that one.

Posted in 2018, 2020, Prose, Young Adult | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Sunday Coffee – Valentine’s Week

Posted on February 18, 2018 by Thistle

It’s been another one of those crazy weeks. I’ve been quiet on the blog because I haven’t had much to talk about. Since reading Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (twice), I was unable to settle to anything else for almost two weeks. I culled half a dozen books off my list and I’m now down to an almost zero queue again. I guess that’s a plus and a minus about reading a really great book – you don’t bother with “just okay” books afterwards, but you also might end up with little to read…

The week has also been crazy busy because of the Olympics. I’ve been trying to record segments and watch them later so I can skip all the sports I don’t care about, but it’s still a lot of content to sort through. I do love the Olympics so I don’t mind, especially since my books have been lackluster! Plus it gives my brain something to do while I sort through personal and national sadness.

We finally replaced my van this week! We bought a used Nissan Rogue through Carvana and got to do that whole stick-a-coin-in-the-slot vending machine thing, ha! Our van was getting dangerous to drive, so I’m happy we were finally able to do something about that. The no-dealership thing was a real treat, too. We named our new car Gordon, because he looks and sounds cross.

The water heater also finally got replaced this week. Unfortunately, right after we did that, we noticed a spot on the kitchen ceiling that was pooling with water. The good news is that these two things didn’t end up being related (whew!). The bad news is that a part of our roof has pulled away from the rest of the house, causing the leak, and we now have a two-foot hole in the middle of our kitchen ceiling. We had our insurance company come out to look. Again, it’s good and bad news. They’ll pay for all the interior damage, including retexturing and repainting. They won’t, however, pay for a new roof, and we will definitely need a new roof in the very near future. So right after paying off all the debts last month, we’ll acquire a new giant one. Sigh. This is the third roof we’ve replaced in the last six years or so…

(Meet Jojo!)

Then there’s the kitty news. Laurence joined me for Tuesday’s Yoga With Cats session, and a cat adopted us. Yup. A 3-month old black kitten (that could be a twin to our Ash) went right up to me and wouldn’t leave my side. He curled up on my feet and later my jacket (so I could do the yoga!) and later nestled into my neck. I went back to see him on Wednesday and he curled right back up again. He growled at me when I tried to put him down, until I let him back onto my chest. The darling. I brought Jason to meet him on Thursday, and filled out the adoption paperwork. There was a hitch in the adoption, though, which I’ll write about in its own post later this week. For now, we’re fostering him.

Valentine’s Day was nice this week, too, though Jason and I didn’t go out until the next day due to various appointments etc. We went to the cat cafe so I could introduce him to the potential future new addition to our family. Ha! And I think that pretty much sums up the week because I really don’t want to get started ranting about politics and school shootings and how the issue is guns AND mental health care, not either/or, and you can see why I don’t want to get on the soapbox and rant here! I’m de-stressing at home, curling up with the foster-kitty, enjoying my morning coffee…

Posted in Personal | Tagged , | 10 Comments