A few of my favorite things...

Lou was kind enough to tag me to write about my favorite things. But I wanted to give a health update since my last post was this morning when I was trying to eat a graham cracker so that I could take 2 aspirin and go to work. I couldn't do either! I knew something was seriously wrong when I couldn't even force a cracker to be chewed up and swallowed. I couldn't take the aspirin. I couldn't get the headache, chills, nausea - and other digestive problems I won't mention - to go away. I ended up calling work and trying to tell them I would be in later... I was told to Please Stay Home. I have had both the seasonal and the H1N1 flu shots - and I have no respiratory symptoms. I don't know what the heck this is. Frankly, it feels just like a hangover and it is horrible. I cannot imagine doing this to myself on a daily basis which is precisely what I used to do. I was in bed most of the day - not even reading. Just sleeping. By this afternoon I felt well enough to get out of bed.

So my favorite things may be tainted by my not feeling really great, but I will give it my best shot.... In no particular order:

1. Getting into bed on a cool summer night - the first night of clean, white, freshly starched sheets, with the window open, the crickets making their racket and the breeze blowing through the cotton sheers.

2. Walking into an AA meeting, stopping for a moment before I walk in the door, to smell the coffee and listen to the sounds of my friends talking and laughing. It is a wonderful thing. I actually miss the smell of cigarettes which used to be an integral ingredient in an intoxicating scent.... the smell of an AA meeting, coffee, cigarette smoke, perfume, and body odor. Oh, it was good!

3. Roses. I love roses. I love the way they smell. I love the way they look. I love growing them. I love the way the rose hips look in the winter. I love purchasing roses in the winter and placing them on my table (see photo above). But there is nothing like getting my clippers out of my drawer and going outside in the summer and clipping roses I have planted and grown and bringing them indoors to enjoy.

4. Running. I am old and I am slow - beyond slow. But I have great endurance. I love to go out in any type of weather except for "hot" and just run. Sometimes when I head out the door my mind feels like a pile of tangled spaghetti, and by the time I get home - without any effort - it all makes sense and isn't tangled at all. My thinking is seldom troubled while I am running. It is free and unlabored.

5. Praying in my church during the times set aside for silent prayer. To sit or kneel with others in perfect silence, together, but separately, with a common goal of being closer to our Creator is a wonderful thing. It is a restoring peace. This is also when I light candles in the church for people. I love the thought of a big candle burning throughout the week, burning with a prayer for a person. That's probably a pretty specifically Catholic thing, but that is who I am.

I could go on and on, but I better go to bed instead so that I can go to work tomorrow. I have a presentation to write that normally takes me several days. I am hopeful that there will be many people missing from Medical Executive Committee on Wednesday and therefore it will be more low key than normal. But my hopes are not always my reality.

Oh - I am tagging Pammie, Scott, Daave, Ed G., and Any Edge. But as always with any alcoholic, if you don't feel like doing it, don't feel obligated. OK? Thanks. XXXOOO.