Category Archives: Challenges

Half Day

03 Tuesday Oct 2017

Posted by in #sitsblogging, Blogging, Challenges, Health, Humor, Me, Random Thoughts

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The paperwork has finally arrived from the Doctor. I return to work this afternoon.

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I am almost afraid to see what awaits me. I haven’t been there since September 20th – twelve days or eight working days.

At last glance, my work emails were up to 250. I need to go through all of them. There will be a few junk emails, but most of them need processing. They all get saved to the document management system and added to the work network. Some will need to be printed, and I’ll have to find the files and put the file in to our docketing process. Others will need my personal attention and responses.

I also have a full in-box to deal with and a bookshelf full of files that need my review. I have to draft emails for all of those.

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No, I have no illusions of an easy afternoon, but it’s a start, and I have to start somewhere.

Images courtesy of Pinterest

2017 – Not a Good Year (so far)

30 Saturday Sep 2017

Posted by in #sitsblogging, Animals, bird feeder, Blogging, Challenges, Eastern gray squirrel, Health, Humor, Inspiration, Me, Nature, Photography, Random Thoughts

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One of my squirrel friends this morning, sniffing a peanut I had just tossed out. He has nothing to do with this post. I just thought he was cute.

In my family, usually when we arrive at year-end, we tend to look back on the year that has passed and ask whether or not we are sad to see it go or glad that it is finally over.  So far, for me personally, 2017 has been a “stinker” of a year. I will be ecstatic to see it end.

April was particularly bad. March wasn’t that great either. I visited the Dentist early in the year for a cleaning, and I was told that the one tooth I had that was mostly filling and little tooth finally had deteriorated to the point that I had to deal with it. It needed to be crowned.  The first crown appointment was scheduled for March, and when I arrived and told the dentist that the tooth was hot and cold sensitive and generally a huge, aching pain in the ass, he said I needed a root canal. Getting in to see a specialist that didn’t demand thousands of dollars up front even though my insurance eventually covered the procedure in full proved to be a hassle. I did end up with a wonderful endodontist who made the root canal procedure simple and easy. The end result was a crowned tooth that no longer bothers me.

Six days after the root canal procedure I had my car accident. Actually, it was the little, old lady driving into me incident. I was minding my own business, mostly past her on her left, when she decided to drive into my rear passenger side door. That little fiasco ended up with me having to repair my car and replace a door, and while I wasn’t ticketed, I was listed by the police officer as a “contributing factor”. Why? Because she couldn’t stay in her own lane and decided to share mine? 

My poor baby (in April)

June brought me a jury duty summons for three months of Federal Jury duty service from mid-July to mid-October. I got out of it until September when I was called to appear. I then got excused when I showed them my doctor’s note asking to be excused for health reasons.

Which brings me to August and September. Anyone who follows me knows what happened in August. I ended up in the Emergency Room on August 16.  I had a colonoscopy on August 25. I had an upper endoscopy on August 28. I had a CT scan on August 30. I had a repeat CT scan on September 22. I was admitted to the hospital and spent five nights there from September 22 to September 27. All of this was thanks to diverticulitis.  I am on disability at the moment, and I have paperwork that needs to be completed and signed by the doctor before I can return to work.  I saw both my gastroenterologist and my primary doctor this week. I am on a low fiber, low residue and lactose free diet. Go ahead and Google that. There’s not much I can eat right now. I have been told that diverticulitis messes with IBS big-time, and it may be months before I am back to normal (for me).

Me, tucked comfortably into my hospital bed, with my best friend, the combination remote control-light switch-nurse call button on my shoulder

Unless I win the lottery in October and really, really great things start happening in November and December, I can safely say that 2017 sucked big-time. I will be more than excited to kick it out the door on December 31st. I am also hoping that by year end I will feel more like myself again. Fingers crossed, guys.

The Stress of Coding

10 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by in #bookreview, #sitsblogging, Blogging, book blogger, Challenges, Me, School, Technology

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Recently I’ve become an ARC  reviewer for three authors. I’ve begun posting release blitzes and reviews on the authors’ time schedules and with their instructions. All have similar but different requirements. 

My humble, little blog isn’t fancy. I know how to write HTML code; I went to school for it. I just choose not to use it. Coding by hand is complicated and never easy so I opted out and use the “easy” way of posting. I chose the format that’s the least complicated. Coding is challenging, and it’s a headache. If one closing tag is missing or if there’s a typo in the code, things don’t display properly. And reading code is eye-crossing, often stressful and just tiring!

Most authors’ representatives send HTML code, and they send a word document with the text. The images are all separate attachments. I have yet been able to get the provided code to work right the first time. It should be a simple cut and paste process where I drop the code into my post and it should display properly. It doesn’t. There are either errors in the coding or an incompatibility with the theme or structure of my blog. 

One of the latest posts I did came in to me at the last minute and I didn’t have the time or the energy to create the post by hand. I elected to post the HTML as it came in. At 11:30 at night I was bleary-eyed and crawling through lines of code trying to fix missing tags. I was pleased I could still do it, but I felt as stressed as if I was back in school again, trying desperately to make a webpage work for a homework assignment. 

There has GOT to be a better way to do this. Perhaps it’s just because this is the first time around for me. Posting items created by others is surprisingly stressful, far worse than doing my own free form postings. Don’t get me wrong. I want to help other authors out. When I eventually get there myself, I want to know I can rely on the kindness of others spreading the word. I don’t mean to fuss over something I’ve volunteered to do, but Geez Louise, this stuff is nerve-wracking. 

I never thought my knowledge of HTML would be put to use promoting books for others. I always thought I’d create websites as a sideline and maybe supplement my income. I guess I should be glad I’m at least using the skill. My money wasn’t totally wasted!

Who knows? Maybe I’ll even get better at coding. 

Forward Momentum 

15 Saturday Oct 2016

Posted by in #sitsblogging, #truckerswife, Challenges, Fitness, Health, Humor, Inspiration, Me, Progress Report, Weight Loss

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I wish I was brave enough to give you my numbers. Maybe when I’m farther along and want to brag about how far I’ve come, I’ll do that. I’ve spent the past week learning how to behave myself again. I know the routine; I just have to buy into it again.


Unrelated image, but banana twinkies. Dear God, why???  Ewwww. 

I started and stopped Weight Watchers this week because points don’t work for me. I went back to using my Lose It! app and counting calories, and I faithfully logged everything that went into my mouth all week long. I put exercise back into my week. Because I’m fat and arthritic and have been having health concerns, I’ve taken it slow, but I am moving again. It feels great to be held accountable again. 

I know that sounds weird, but I’ve always been a checklist sort of person. I like to have a to-do list and check things off as I do them. It makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something. I currently have two apps I’m using for tracking health-related items. I’m using Lose It! to track food and exercise (calories in and calories out), my measurements, weight and blood pressure. It ties to my Fitbit to track my steps, too. I use the FOOD mySymptoms app to track my sleep patterns, medications I take and other bodily functions (it was originally used to track my IBS-related symptoms). I like that I can use it to easily track my medication doses to ensure I don’t miss them or forget them. 

My most recent weight-in at home was Wednesday, October 5th. I was trying to prepare myself for my doctor’s visit the next day. I knew it wasn’t going to be good when I got onto my doctor’s scale. I was weighed mid-morning at the Doctor’s office on October 6th. Her scale read one pound higher than the reading I’d taken at home. Because I like to weigh in first thing in the morning, I re-weighed myself Friday, October 7th to get my first at-home early morning tracking number to give me a starting point. It was three pounds less than it had been at the doctor’s office, and (Yes!!) two pounds less than it had been two days earlier at home. 

For my first week of my new lifestyle, I’ve been faithfully weighing and measuring food portions and tracking my intake, drinking lots of water (thanks to the new blood pressure medicine my doctor so kindly added – yes, that’s sarcasm, folks) and increasing my exercise. The new medication is a diuretic (water pill) meant to deal with fluid retention and lower my blood pressure. I weighed in again today (for my weekly weigh in). 

I’m down three pounds from what I was one week ago at home and 6.6 pounds less than I was at the doctor’s office. My first week is usually a big drop. Most of it is water weight loss, and that’s certainly true in this case because of the new pill. 

I feel a bit better. My knees are not so achy, and my clothes are not strangling me so tightly. I’ll take it and work hard to continue to progress. The hard part is the forward momentum.  


Quote from Pinterest