Currently… August 2023

It’s time for my quarterly “currently” post, so it’s time for some randomness!

 

I’m currently…

Making: Plans for fall… all the things!  Georgia games.  Fall outings.  High school football games.  School events.  Time with friends.  Our calendar is filling up rapidly and I’m hoping to squeeze out every ounce of goodness that the next few months has to offer.  This year hasn’t been my favorite (to put it nicely), and I’m hoping that somehow these last four months can redeem it for us. 

Cooking: Lots of easy meals for the most part.  This vertigo has been hindering me from doing lots of normal things, and cooking was one of them for a while.  Cooking has gotten easier with time, but I’m still keeping things easy for now until I heal completely because I’m trying to let my brain have a break whenever and wherever I can.  Doing anything that requires lots of concentration isn’t working right now.  With that said, I’ve been doing lots of turkey and cheese biscuit sliders, and we recently bought some Hawaiian rolls so we can change them up a bit with a different kind of bread.  I’ve also been doing easy pasta recipes like my beef and parm pasta and Jacob’s favorite Cajun chicken pasta.  And breakfast for dinner is always a crowd pleaser and it’s easy peasy.  We eat it almost every week for dinner.

Drinking: Just the usual… water all day, every day plus 1-2 cups of hot cinnamon tea each day + various alcoholic beverages thrown in on the weekends.  I actually haven’t been drinking very much alcohol since my vertigo started, though.  I didn’t have any alcohol for the first three weeks because I was worried it would make the vertigo worse, but once I had a glass of wine, I found that it actually seems to help with the vertigo, probably because it helps relax my neck muscles, which we’re thinking are the culprit.

Eating: This seems kind of redundant since I just talked about what I’m cooking.  Haha.  So, see above for what we’re eating for dinner.  For breakfast, I eat one egg with a sprinkle of cheese every morning, and then I usually follow that up with some kind of bar – Belvita, Nature Valley Biscuits, Nature’s Bakery Fig Bars, etc. – and a cup of cinnamon tea.  For lunch, I’ve been doing random combinations of some of the following items – turkey slices, cheese, strawberries, apples, blueberries, avocado toast, kale and spinach salad, etc.

Reading: I haven’t been able to read much with vertigo, so I haven’t been reading a lot.  I can’t look down, so reading anything sitting on a table in front of me (hello, Bible study) just doesn’t happen much right now.  I can now read things that are right in front of my face, so I just started Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult, but it’s slow going because my arms get tired of holding the book straight up in front of my face.  I’m also still trying to make my way through Winning the War in Your Mind by Craig Groeschel, but like I said, it’s just hard to read a lot right now.  And, of course, I had literally just started The Bible Recap the day before my vertigo started, but that’s on hold until I can stop being so dizzy.  I was able to read an entry the other day, but most days, it’s just too hard.  I do read my daily devotional every single day, and I also read my daily verse in my Bible app, but that’s it for now.

Wanting: To pull out all of my fall décor!  It’s going to happen soon, y’all!  The weather may be screaming SURFACE OF THE SUN but my heart is screaming FALL and my house is about to be screaming that, too. ;o)     

Looking: Forward to more visits with my new physical therapist!  As I type this, I just got back from my first appointment and the girl who did it is really great.  I actually went to school with her in kindergarten through third grade and we both remembered each other even though we haven’t kept in touch since then!  She’s always been very intelligent and kind, and she was very thorough today at my visit, which is important for my particular case since there are so many variables to this illness.  My case also isn’t “textbook” so that makes it more challenging as well.  She really loosened up my neck at my visit today, and I’m hoping that between all of the neck stretching and strengthening + the vestibular rehabilitation exercises we’re doing that she’s going to be able to get me back to normal.

Playing: A random assortment of music.  I listen to music nearly every waking second when I’m not watching TV in the evening.  Lately I’ve been on a 90’s R&B kick!  I have a ton of different playlists on my phone, and my 1998 R&B playlist is soooo good.  It’s one of my favorites.  Fun fact, I started working at the movie theater (my favorite job ever) on September 10, 1998, and all of the songs in that playlist remind me of working there.  Since I started working there around this time of year, I always get in the mood to listen to that playlist at the beginning of fall.  (And yes, I know we’re still technically more than a month away from actual fall, but as I said before, it’s already fall in my heart.)

Wasting: Nothing? 

Buying: Not much right now, honestly.  We just got done back-to-school shopping, and we’ve had a lot of expenses these last couple of months, some of which were unexpected (a new car payment since Brian had his wreck, lots of doctor bills from this vertigo issue, etc.) and some that were expected (new contact lenses for me, an increase in the kids’ school tuition, an increase in Olivia’s dance tuition since she added a class, etc.), so I’m trying not to spend money unnecessarily right now.

Sewing: Absolutely nothing.  Why do I still have this prompt in this post?

Wishing: That this heat would go away.  We had a nice start to summer, and our spring season was actually quite long and lovely this year, buuuut now we’re paying for it.  The last couple of months have been brutal and I’m ready for a cool-down.  Sadly, we probably won’t get that for at least another couple of months.

Loving: That football season is starting in just a couple of weeks!  It’s my favorite time of year, and we’re looking forward to Saturday mornings with ESPN College GameDay and afternoons and evenings with college football.  We’re also looking forward to visiting Athens at least two or three times this season.  As a diehard Georgia fan, I'm concerned with just one thing this season… is Georgia going to get the Threepeat this year?!

Hoping: That this vertigo goes away soon.  Ugggghhhh.  I’ve had it for nearly six weeks now.  The actual vertigo (spinning sensation) has subsided for the most part, but I’ve been left with this constant dizziness every waking second of every single day and it’s not fun at all.  The dizziness is causing major brain fog and there are days where it’s so bad that I literally can’t make sense of long sentences when people are talking to me.  I’ve also been terribly off-balance which is making me unsteady on my feet, and that’s been awful as well.  I handled it pretty well in the beginning, but the fact that it just keeps dragging on with no resolution started wearing on me a couple of weeks ago, and now my anxiety has kicked into high gear, making all of it a thousand times worse.  It’s like a vicious cycle now – dizziness causes anxiety which causes more dizziness, and around we go.  I’m hoping so much that this new physical therapist can get me back to 100% again… and SOON.

Marveling: At the fact that I chose the word CONFIDENT for 2023, and little did I know when I chose that word that I would be needing that more than anything this year.  When I chose the word, I was thinking more along the lines of having confidence in social situations and having confidence in showing my face more on social media, and having confidence with these new braces, etc.  You know, mostly shallow stuff.  Haha.  Little did I know, I was going to need it for much, much more this year.  Keeping my confidence through all of this vertigo and anxiety as well as my breast cancer scare at the beginning of the year plus a few other things that have happened has been a huge challenge.  I guess God knew I was going to need it, so that’s why He put it on my heart late last year.  Honestly, it’s giving me déjà vu from 2020 when I chose the word CONNECT and it was literally impossible to connect that year because of Covid.  It seems like every year when I choose a word, I’m challenged tremendously in that area.  I guess next year I need to choose carefully.

Needing: To hurry up and book a couple of (cancelable) hotels for our potential trip to New York City at the end of this year.  Hotels book up shockingly fast there in December, so we already have pretty slim pickings at this point.  We’re not even 100% sure we’re going on this trip, but we’re reeeeally hoping to make it work, and therefore, we’re going to go ahead and book a hotel that can be canceled should we decide not to go. 

Smelling: Peppermint oil in my showers each morning and vanilla and lime in my diffuser occasionally.  With this vertigo, I’ve had to be careful about scents because some scents make my dizziness even worse.  On September 1, I’ll be making the switch to my Cinnamon and Clove oil in the diffuser, and I cannot freaking wait.     

Wearing: My summer uniform – tanks and cutoff jean shorts on repeat.  Always and forever.  Comfy, cool, effortless, simple, affordable style. 

Praying: For so, so much.  Goodness gracious, I’ve been praying more this year than ever.  I have so many friends and family members who are fighting cancer, navigating health scares, struggling with infertility, grieving losses of loved ones, and walking through so many other hard things right now, and I’ve been praying for them so much.  I’ve also, of course, been praying without ceasing for this vertigo to go away or for me to somehow find peace in the midst of it.  I know God doesn’t ever tire of us, but if He had a list of people that He was getting tired of hearing from, I think I’d be near the top right now.

Noticing: That I have a LOT on my plate these next few months.  In addition to all of the typical back-to-school, fall, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas things, I am also serving on our school’s Home and School Advisory Board again, and I’m co-chairing Grandparents Day in September as well as our Reindeer Run in December.  I also have to organize class donation baskets for our annual fundraiser before Thanksgiving (we’re doing it early this school year… usually we don’t have to worry about this until April), and I’m planning a potential trip to New York City in December with my Momma, aunt, and cousin… plus keeping the blog rolling along and trying to squeeze in all of the goodness that goes hand-in-hand with my favorite four months of the year.  Whew.  It’s a lot.

Knowing: That Christmas is going to be here before we know it, and no matter how far in advance I start planning and prepping, it still sneaks up on me every year.  This year, I’m determined to knock out a whole lot of stuff really early so I can relax more during the actual Christmas season.    

Thinking: That I hope this vertigo/long-term dizziness doesn’t turn me off of riding roller coasters and other rides at Disney World going forward.  If for some reason I’m still not better by the time we go next year, I definitely won’t be riding anyway, but even if I am better by then, I’m not sure I’ll be able to bring myself to go on anything that gives me that sensation anymore.  I’m afraid I’m going to have PTSD from all of this and I’m going to want to avoid anything that could possibly make me have these feelings again.      

Opening: All of the class syllabuses and beginning of the school year paperwork and emails for the kids.  One of our school’s greatest strengths is communication (which is the absolute most important thing to me in pretty much every aspect of life), but man oh man, are there are a lot of things that need to be communicated at the beginning of a school year.  I swear, it gets more and more crazy the older the kids get.  And this year Jacob has to do a science project that is going to take up the entire first half of the school year and I’m dreeeeaaaading it.  I have always HATED a science project, and this one is going to be a lot.

Giggling: At not much right now.  Honestly, the last couple of months have been really hard, and it’s been really tough for me to keep my peace in the midst of all of it.  My mental health has been slowly deteriorating (mostly because of this vertigo), so not much has been making me laugh lately.  I’m ready for some levity amidst all of the heaviness.   

And that’s what’s on my mind right now.

Happy Monday, y’all!