It was my first morning outside in sooo long. I was sitting on my little deck, and so enjoying the fresh morning air. I had my computer, my kindle, and my phone outside with me. It had apparently rained overnight, so everything was a little damp, glistening in the bright morning sunlight. I wiped down the chairs on my deck and sat down, with my pillow and an icepack.

Ahhh, someday I’ll be able to forego the icepack. It’s been a constant companion to me for months now. Anyway, I came inside for a few minutes, oblivious to the dark gray cloud that was hovering to the west. I can’t remember what I was doing, but I didn’t look back outside for about 10 minutes. When I opened the back door, to head back outside, it was POURING! One of those 5 minute cloudbursts that dumps a ton of rain very quickly, and then is over. The only problem was that my computer, Kindle, and phone were still out on the table, though I’d had the presence of mind to set the pillow that I put in my chair on top of the computer when I came in. The Kindle has it’s own cover, and the phone, well…It’s an Iphone, supposed to be good for 30 minutes in water my son told me when he worked for T-Mobile.

I ran outside as best I could. It is only a couple of steps but I am not actually able to run, or even walk quickly. The running outside was all in my mind. But I quickly retrieved the 3 electronic items, then went back for the pillow, and the icepack. I got it all dried off, and it all seems to be working, thank God. Now all the chairs were wet, again. And the tables too. I have one coffee table that is made for outdoors, and 2 small folding tables. The folding tables I use to put fans on, for the days when my friends come over for coffee or wine, depending on the weather. It it’s hot, it’s in the morning, and we have coffee. If it’s not too hot, we wait til afternoon and have wine and weed, So, today is not that hot, relatively speaking. It’s in the low 80’s, which in Florida is ok. The humidity is high, I think from the rain.

So one of my friends is coming over this afternoon for a little while, so I dried everything off again when the rain stopped. Of course now, an hour later, I look out and it’s raining again….for a few more minutes. Another cloudburst. Even though the radar shows no more showers here, in Gulfport, it shows them all around, so I will wait til she gets here to decide where we will sit and to dry the stuff off. Maybe just at the kitchen table. We can socially distance there, and we will mask up, being inside, but I hope we can go outside anyway, I hope the rain that wasn’t supposed to be here, ends. But that’s Florida for you, especially by the coast, especially by the Gulf coast, with that warm Gulf of Mexico water feeding the clouds.

I had such a bad day yesterday. I did PT on Friday, and by late in the day I was in so much pain. I couldn’t get it to settle down, so I took one of my real pain meds, and finally, it subsided. I didn’t take another when I went to bed, but I woke at about midnight in pain, and took another, mind you it was 8-9 hours later. Then I woke yesterday morning to an upset stomach, and a TON of pain. I ended up going back to sleep on the couch for a couple hours. Ate a lunch that I didn’t like so didn’t finish it, and laid back down and fell asleep for a couple more hours.

I was a little depressed. Partly because I was alone, again. Dan called me but offered very little in the way of sympathy. It was very cloudy outside, and supposed to rain, so I didn’t want to go sit on the deck, because I was in no shape to get the stuff inside quickly if it should start raining. I tell you this not to whine, at least not much, but to explain why I got depressed. I was just sick of hurting, sick of not feeling well, sick of the election crap all over the news all the time, and all over FB.

So….I went to my default, which is gratitude. To be grateful that Dan was good enough to take care of me for so long. Grateful for my friends, who have taken my garbage can out, and picking up my mail, and picking up my prescriptions, and just dropping by so we can visit, and share whatever we have. By evening I was feeling better. At least my back/hip/leg thing. I couldn’t cook though, so I ordered Chinese delivery, and even though it was good, I could only eat a little of it. And really, I’d hardly eaten during the day but whatever. Stomach was still not right. A few hours later I realized that I COULD eat an English muffin with peanut butter, so I did, and that was it. I’ll have the Chinese food tonight.

I woke this morning feeling pretty good. The pain was manageable, the stomach was normal so that’s a good day. Texted with some friends, and then one of them decided to come over this afternoon. It is good of all of them to come here, since it is a chore for me to get out. They all say they love to come here…so that works out for all of us.

As for Dan….He asked for a few days off, off from taking care of me, which I obliged. I won’t go into detail about his issues, but he has been taking care of me, his mother and his brother. His mother I get, she is 93 years old and doesn’t get around real well. His brother? He’s my age, and basically incapable of doing much for himself, but that’s another story. I think he thought I would be there a couple weeks, even though that was something he made up for himself, no one ever told him that I’d be able to walk in a couple weeks. Considering my left leg could not hold me up, I have been working just to get it strong enough to do that, and to walk. I can now walk around the house cane/walker free. But the knee still buckles on me occasionally, so I take the cane with me everywhere. The walker I don’t use much. Mostly just to cart things from room to room, as it has a canvas basket on it that I can put stuff into, so it saves me multiple trips from room to room.

Still….I found that once again, looking for things to be grateful for helped me to climb out of the hole I was falling into. I guess it was simply not feeling well in any way, and having no one I could lean on yesterday. After I started feeling better my son called, and we talked for almost an hour. His girlfriend and her daughter were in California visiting her family so we had a nice chat. Miss that kid!

I hope everyone is having a good weekend. Love and light to all.