"You could stand here sick with ten illnesses today, and tomorrow have no evidence of any of them. Your body has the ability to replenish itself that fast. But most of you do not have the ability to change your thoughts that fast. So the amount of time that it takes between sickness and wellness is only the amount of time that it takes for me to figure out how to let it in — for me to figure out how to feel good, when I'm looking at something that makes me feel bad."

Well, here it is, almost 6 weeks since I got "the shot" in my hip... It's still better than it was before the shot, but it's not feeling as well as it did a week after.  BUT, I think there's a good chance I will continue to have improvement.  An observation: I have good days and bad days.  It can change from hour to hour.  I can be hobbling around, close to tears thinking "OMG, it's wearing off and I'm going to be right back where I was..."  And a few hours later, I'm all but walking normally with minimal pain.  This is surely some kind of sign of SOMEthing happening in there.  It was just pain-pain-pain all the time before.  Maybe something is mending.  I need to ALLOW it to get better.  As I've always said, it's so hard to be upbeat, positive, cheery, joyful when pain is screaming at you at the top of its lungs.  And having the pain settled down helps me to focus on joy, and THAT is what it's going to take to recover from this - focusing on JOY.  

And I have a lot to be joyful about.  Let me just have a rampage of appreciation here...

My kitties... Pearl and Bella are now 7 years old and still best of buds.  They still nap together occasionally.  Bella has turned into Mark's sleep-buddy and spends most nights with him in his chair.  Of course, she hangs on my lap in the evenings while I watch TV, but as soon as I go to bed, she settles in with Mark.  Pearl, on the other hand, is my sleep-buddy.  I spend most of the night in my recliner and she's almost always right there on my lap.  They were my blessing in 2008, when I got them as kittens from Liane after nearly 3 years in a cat-free environment.  In 2005, I lost Samantha, a kitty extraordinaire, who I knew would be a hard act to follow, which is why I waited so long to get another.  Anyway, here are the wonderful Pearl and Bella:

And then there are the other two - Spike and Cleo.  I refer to Spike more often as "Little Man".  He is MY sweet little muffin-man.  He is so loving and sweet to me, and he more or less tolerates Mark.  But another human being enters this house, and he is GONE.  If it wasn't for his veterinarian records, I'd be hard-pressed to prove he exists!  Cleo is not as super-loving as Spike, but she's a sweety nonetheless.  She's coming around more and more every day, and she even kind of likes Mark.  She and Bella are nap-buddies during the day, and I think because Bella likes Mark so much, Cleo is sort of "dipping her toes in the water" with Mark, to see if she can "trust" him enough to sleep with him and Bella...  Both Spike and Cleo are masters of the swishing around your legs as you walk, so we have to be SO careful around them!  Not just for their sake, but... geez, it would be easy to go down!  Anyway, I got them from Chuck & Karen (from the cactus club) right after Wes died, and they were such a blessing during a time that I was feeling so sad.  As 8 week old kittens, they made me laugh and filled my heart with joy - I always felt Wes brought them to me because he knew with kitties around, there is no room in your heart for sadness...  He was always so smart!! (Still IS!!)

Lucy... Sometimes, I'm not so sure I can count her as a blessing.  She's such a pain in the ass...  She barks at EVERY LITTLE THING and it's just annoying!  But, I try to remember that a lot of this isn't her fault.  She came to us at a bad time - just a couple weeks before the whole saga that ended in Mark losing his leg.  So her early development was during a time when Mark was in a LOT of pain, on drugs and half here, half not, which was making me worry, the future looked scary... we were all on edge, and she was sensing all of this, which I think is what made her a little bit... well, deranged may be too strong a word.  She's hyper, she's jumpy, she's a little crazy.  But she loves people.  We've had lots of strangers in and out of the house over the last couple years, with remodeling and things getting done, and though she greets at the door like a bear about to eat them, once she gives them a "sniff", she's fine and will even settle down in her chair for a nap.  She's too much dog for us to handle at this point, but she's a good girl and she loves the cats and they love her, so she IS a blessing.  She's 9 now, so I imagine she won't be with us a LOT longer.  Smokey was 9 when we lost him, and Remo was only 8.  But she seems in good health, other than a hip that hurts her, so who knows?  She may have a few good years left in her!  Here's Lucy:

My house... The only thing I would change about my house is the location.  I'd like to be a block or two further west, just to be away from the sounds of busy 42nd Street.  Or even better, I'd love to plop it down in a smaller town, maybe even Papillion - just away from the heart of the city.  But other than that, I love my house.  It's perfect in size - not too big, but not small.  Oh, don't get me wrong... there are a few things I would change about it.  Maybe a slightly bigger kitchen, and a little bigger bathroom.  But there's a lot to be said for efficiency (which is what we'll call the "smallish" bath and kitchen!)  Less to clean, less to maintain, less to remodel!  We finally got the bathroom remodeled in 2013 - it was a long time coming.  My Dad died in 2004 and I got a little inheritance I set aside specifically for that - time passed, we were busy, I had other things I wanted done first, then the economy collapse of 2009 hit and our finances went to shit.  Mark was off work from then on, and we were surviving on my income and our savings until he got on disability in 2012.  So it got put of presumably because there was a good chance that would be "living" money.  When he got the lump sum from Social Security, it replace most of the savings we'd blown through and I decided it was time for me to get my bathroom done, BEFORE another financial hardship took that money away.  So we got 'er done, and it took all of that money and about another $4000, but oh my it turned out awesome!  And I now have a nice jetted tub that really does help when I have achy bones...  And then earlier this year, I got a nice porcelain tile floor in the kitchen, and beautiful glass tile backsplash.  Got a new stove about a year ago, still need a new fridge and a good paint job in the kitchen.  And I'd like to get the dining room and living rooms painted soon, too...There's always a lot to be done when it comes to maintaining a house, but I love this old house and I feel utter joy living here.  I have no desire to "move up".  If I won the lottery, I would only move to get away from the city, but I think I would keep this house to come spend time in when I wanted to "get away."  Oh, and when I went looking for another house in a small town - I'd be looking for something very similar, something not too big, something old, or I might just spend the money to try to duplicate this house EXACTLY with just those two changes - a little more size in the bathroom and the kitchen...

My plants... Growing things is a great hobby!  Living in the midwest, with our harsh, cold, bleak winters, it's so awesome to have things growing and lush and even blooming while it's so ugly outside.  I'll admit that I probably have way too many, but I really do enjoy them and I try to keep it from looking like I'm a hoarder.  The greenhouse is pretty packed full, but in the rest of the house, I think I keep them very neat and tidy looking, more like window treatments than just a bunch of plants slapped in front of windows.  I'm very good about keeping them groomed so there isn't dead plant material under them.  Let's just say the hobby brings me lots of joy...

The internet and the online community... I'm grateful to live in a time when the world is such a small place.  I've never been a social butterfly.  I don't have a lot of friends because I'm more of a homebody and I'm not terribly comfortable in social situations.  I have plenty of conversation in me, but I find the "getting to know someone" phase really awkward in a face-to-face situation.  But I'm a good typist and a good writer, and I find it very easy to "get to know" people on line.  Now, I know many would say your REALLY don't know someone in this avenue, but I don't think that's entirely true.  Back in the day, the letter-writing day...  you know, when it was too expensive to talk on the phone for very long... I had friends I would write to every couple of weeks or once a month.  Long, hand-written letters.  It was so exciting to get letters and to write back.  And you felt close.  I feel that way about a lot of my "e-friends".  I have many that we've shared a lot of personal information, a lot of thoughts and opinions...Some have been more superficial, but in almost every case, I feel like I've made a friend I can go back and chat with.  I have Annie from NY, a lady around my Mom's age - after I sent her some plants years ago, she sent me some REAL maple syrup.  That was cool!  We still "chat" occasionally - usually about the things going on in politics or our pets...  There's Lavonn in Oklahoma - we exchanged some plants, then became e-friend.  When we "met", her husband was dealing with prostate cancer - he passed away and it was heartbreaking to "see" how hard it was on her.  We've remained friends and still chat about plants now and again.  Karen in NY - we came to know each other on GardenWeb and exchanged plants.  She's a quilter, and I commissioned her to make baby quilts for each of my nephew's first babies.  In fact, I was the FIRST to commission a blanket with her...  And there are/have been many others.  The Hoya community knows I'm always open to chit-chat, and it's wonderful.  They kind of see me as the "old Hoya queen" because I've been growing them for so damn long!  LOL!  Anyway, I see the internet as a blessing for SO many reasons!

My Mom... I feel particularly blessed that, first, I still HAVE my mom.  So many people lose their parents much earlier.  Mom was under 20 when she lost her dad, and she was only in her 30's when she lost her mom.  Both of her older sisters died in their 50's.  So I feel very lucky she's still with us.  And I'm so grateful that she's in good health.  Not good health, but GREAT health!  She's 74 and gets around better than I do!  She has aches and pains, and she takes a nap pretty much every day.  But she still drives, she goes to the casino once a week, she still works some, and she enjoys her great-grandchildren.  She lives just a couple blocks from me, which is nice.  And we've been going to the gym 3 times a week, which is great for both of us.  We get along great, which is something to be thankful for.  I know sometimes, girls never get over that crappy teenage relationship they had with their moms.  Once I got out and away from home, Mom was always good about treating me like an adult and not like a child, and it was probably what made it easy for us to transition to friends and actually liking each other.  Sometimes, I think it's hard for parents to let go of that parent role and they continue to try to control their kids' lives, which makes it impossible to move their relationship into the next phase...  I think that's where Mark's mom went wrong - she wanted to comment on his beard or his hair, or tell him how he should be living, etc.  She was a wonderful lady, don't get me wrong.  But some people just can't let go and let their kids BE who they are.  I know they want the best for them, but you can't force a square peg into a round hole!  

Well, that was a pretty good rampage!  I have a lot of other things to be thankful for, but I'll get on to other things for now.  Yesterday, I was perusing my plants in the sunroom and had to snap some photos.  Here's a few looking quite good!...

I turned Hoya vitellinoides, and what a beautiful display I've been missing!...

Hoya mindorensis grows but never blooms =(...

 Rippled-leaf finlaysonii is in the south window and still seems happy as a clam in that small pot!...

 One of the lobbiis growing in hydroton, sitting on the file cabinet...

 (That plant next to it is a carnosa ssp. carnosa also growing in hydroton...)  Merridithii x crassicaulis is looking quite happy in the sunroom!...

 Merrillii has been in the same spot for YEARS, growing in a Chinese teapot.  It decided to put on a spurt of new growth in the last couple months...

 And last but not least, surigaoensis has been in the sunroom, sitting on the chest of drawers in front of the south window now for about a year, and it has developed some massive leaves!!...

 There is something about this spot... it must have some super-charged energy.  This is where my macrophylla was when it developed leaves that were out of this world BIG!  Everything that grows here seems to do extraordinarily well...

That's it for today!