Why would you willingly risk becoming like me?

I'm so baffled by vaccine reluctance, especially in populations old enough to remember polio. Covid causes long term damage and disability in a devastatingly high proportion of the infected. Severe-acute-respiratory-syndrome-Coronavirus-disease-2019, aka SARS-COV-2, AKA Covid-19 attacks the organs, blood vessels, and nerves. It's not just a respiratory infection, it's a systemic disease. We are seeing data …

Time to say goodbye

We have to move out of our house. We received notice back in March and have until June 14th (we can leave sooner, if needed). I don't want to go. I love this house. I love the area. I love my room and my bath. I love the view from my bed, and the sunny …

The danger of feeling good

I'm having a good day today. Days like today are dangerous. I woke up groggy but feeling ok. The sun was shining and the weather warming up. I've been sleeping better, making myself stick to a "normalish" day/night cycle. I have also been eating a little better lately, making a conscious effort to undo the …

I’m out of lockdown, so now you can buy me a coffee.

While the rest of the world is seeing continued growth of COVID-19 cases, I'm safe in my bubble in the South Pacific. New Zealand spent 5 weeks in what appears to be one of the strictest lockdowns worldwide, a few more at what seems to be the most common version of lockdown, then 2 weeks …

Artsing it Old Skool

My husband was performing some music at our former school's spring fair. I knew I'd need to find something sedentary to entertain myself if the activity got to be too much, so I took my sketch kit... sure enough, I started to wilt. We made our circuit of the stalls in fits and starts before …

Inktober 2019

For the last few years, my husband has participated in Inktober. This year I decided to join him. Inktober is an annual drawing event which was started in 2009 by an artist, Jake Parker, as an exercise to improve his inking skills. The rules are simple: for the month of October you draw something, in …

I want my life back.

Feeling low. I know my vit D dose is due tomorrow, so some of it will definitely relate to that. So tired. So anxious... Sad... Scared... Tired... Frustrated... Sick. Everything hurts. I can feel almost normal after sufficient rest, but doing something as little as sitting up and eating puts me back into ME mode …

How Mari Kondo’s system helped me grieve the life I lost

I've seen a lot of criticisms of the Konmari method of decluttering your life. Most of the criticisms I've read are either based on the idea that it's supposed to be one size fits all, that it suggests that everyone should be decluttering and living a minimalist lifestyle, or that throwing stuff away is bad …

Adding life content: happy father’s day

Like yesterday, today was a beautiful spring day with glorious sunshine, very little wind, not too hot or too cold, and not a cloud in the sky. The last week has had a lot of those, so I'm making the most if it while I can... read: totally overdoing it while I feel ok. We …

Virtual ME sanity

I was having a conversation recently about how isolating ME can be, especially for my severely ill friends, when the person I was speaking to said something that got me pondering: "Social media must have made life so much more connected for people who are unwell. I can't imagine the isolation prior to email, computers …