This Month: July 2017, part 2

I picked up an awful cold and have been feeling miserable for the last ten days or so. And I've still got the kidney stones! Those other posts are still coming, I promise, but on a whim I started a new series earlier tonight: MS on TV.

The view from here:

road trip cloud vibes

the traditional road trip stop at this one Qdoba

this temperature did NOT make me happier, I assure you. it maxed out at 106.

look at this dog I call Mr. SimonPants casually leaning on his "elbow" against me in a super chill way.

a Nebraska sunset

my swimming buddies

do you like my sweet new shirt celebrating the Biebs?
(I did not buy this shirt.)

her reaction to seeing my shirt

getting my first tat

this guy is a miracle worker who saved my butt from computer doom

Mario Kart with grandma

THIS GIRL IS GOING TO PLAY HORN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(I'm just a little excited about this.)

look at this cute family

this is how I roadtrip: podcasts and origami

new card design

under the sea!

A new thing I started doing this month:

I'm using the app 1 Second Every Day. Here is my July, minus the first 8 days:

A post shared by Kayla (@nelsonkl23) on Jul 31, 2017 at 8:33pm PDT

This Month: April 2017, Part 1

Relapse Update
In case you missed this post last week, I'm having an MS relapse/exacerbation/flare-up. Yay. Since I wrote that, things got quite a bit worse. Namely, my right leg joined BFF left leg and became super weak. Also, the nerve pain I have all the time (to varying degrees of intensity) in my feet and below-the-knees legs became REALLY BAD and was now affecting ALL of my legs. Then, some good news. The spasticity and the spasticity-specific pain improved significantly, though not fully. And the weakness has been improving somewhat as well, though not fully. Walking is probably 90% better, though I'm still walking pretty slowly. The full-leg nerve pain is still extremely bad much of the time, making it very hard to concentrate. In sum, things got worse, then some things got much better, but some things are still quite bad. It's been just over a week now. MRIs are tomorrow.

The improvements (despite the continued issues) are a HUGE relief as I start symphony rehearsals this week. I'll have to carefully modulate my meds centered around rehearsals and performances for an optimal blend of pain relief and mental focus. Hopefully, that will get me through. Hopefully, things will also continue to improve so that my pain goes back to "normal" levels.

The view from here:

Facetiming with someone with even weirder sleep positions than me.

more springtime cheer courtesy of my friend Ramona's garden

Message from my niece that I DO NOT SUPPORT, having once gone
in the ditch from a last-week-of-April snowstorm 6ish years ago.

Anticipating April giving birth.

flowers brought by a sweet friend upon news of the relapse.
they brought much-needed cheer to the room during an awful week.

imposter spotted ;-)

Finally!

This Month: February 2017, part 1

Somehow it is already halfway through another month! And I've done zero posts. :-(

Sorry, readers. I really do have some great MS posts planned. It's just finding the time to get them done.

Some MS content from others I enjoyed this month:

Correlation Between MS and Harry Potter Characters is Pure Magic [I don't think I knew that JK Rowling's mom had MS.]

Good Guy Ted Cruz Congratulated a Woman on Having Multiple Sclerosis [Obviously, I didn't "enjoy" this one. In trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, what he really meant was probably something like "good for you, fighting the good fight, and looking 'so good'" which is potentially annoying and patronizing in and of itself, but the way he said it was SO AWFUL. IT'S HIS JOB TO TALK IN PUBLIC. IN THIS CASE ABOUT HEALTHCARE WITH REAL PEOPLE. HE HAD TO KNOW THERE WOULD BE PEOPLE WITH STORIES LIKE THIS AT A TOWN HALL ON THIS ISSUE. HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN PREPARED TO HANDLE IT BETTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!]

10 Things I'd Like Help With on the Bad Days of Multiple Sclerosis

The view from here:

opera fun

I've been playing Words With Friends lately. This was a TERRIBLE letter selection!

Favorite card I've made, a punny collaboration with my sistar from The Daily Quipple.

What I think every time I see this sign at the post office.

Horn love.

Best ever pop-up valentine's card from occasional MS Muse commenter "anonymous." ;-)

Mood lighting on V-Day with my one true love in the opera pit.

That's a sunrise, you guys! Something I am only awake for a few times a year.
I thought this frost in the foreground was cool.

All the heart eyes emojis in the world!!

Horn love with friends.

This Week in My Life: Week 18 of 2016

The view from here:

Let the light shine in.

A church in the neighborhood always leaves a little May Day gift at the houses in the area.
This year it was these pretty flowers, freshly transplanted into a backyard flowerbed.

That bush that I was worried about missing its bloom finally bloomed.
It was a lovely 2-3 days. Wish it lasted longer.

Flowering tree at the library.

That new Spring green against the blue sky. Ahh.

Drove by one of my many dream homes today.
At least 3 of my regular readers might know where this house is. Any guesses?

What I made this week:

A few different versions of this delicious frittata with lots of
veggies, herbs, and plenty of ooey-gooey pepperjack cheese.

Elephants for a wedding.

Cats for a wedding.

So many white elephants. Seen here in progress while a passenger in a car.

some finished cup holder elephants

Amazing thing that happened this week:

Related to the origami pictures above, I had an amazing week of origami sales. Two large-ish wedding-related orders, and then a HUGE order to a luxury hotel. Over $1000 in sales of ORIGAMI in ONE WEEK. What?! That's something I never could have imagined in a million years, either as a 10 year old struggling to learn how to fold a crane from a library book or the adult me of a few years ago who started folding again for stress relief and then decided to open an etsy shop in part just to get rid of the huge piles of paper animals I'd created. I hardly expect that this kind of sales week will be a regular occurrence (though the huge hotel order will probably be a recurring one), but I am heartened at the possibilities for what I can do with this little hobby side business. And this week's sales are a major blessing coming after several months in a row of unexpected financial burden and just before the summer semester of teaching, which pays less than the rest of the year. I can breathe a sigh of relief after this week. 

What I read this week:

Early One Morning

What I learned this week:

To say that I'm not a morning person is an understatement. So, having almost never been outside during the early morning hours, I had NO IDEA that dandelions closed up at night. I was baffled this morning when I headed out to the car and walked through the backyard (that just yesterday had been a sea of yellow) but saw no dandelions. Kinda blew my mind to learn this little fact that most of y'all probably already knew. But in case you didn't....dandelions close up at night!!

On the MS front:

Nothing to really report. The bladder situation has significantly improved, and no other weird things have been going on. I hope it's been a similarly MS-problem-free kind of week for the rest of you as well!