Well, after the drama of the past few months, this last month has been relatively free of drama. Thank heavens! I am fairly stabilized now on the drugs and I guess this is my new normal. I have more energy than I did when this journey started, but am not where I was before. I can only work every other day for a couple of hours. After that I cannot concentrate. Just can't be done. Maybe that will get better.
The big excitement around here has been the Army stuff that JR is doing. He was involved in an exercise here at Fort Lewis, and so we had all the guys over for dinner, some each night, not all at once. And then a bunch also came over for Superbowl Sunday and I made a bunch of bar food for them. I also sent all the dinner guests back to their hotels with leftovers for lunch the next day. Which made those who had not been invited yet very jealous! But everyone who wanted to came for at least one meal. At the end of the week, JR came home with a plaque for me! I was awarded a "Hero of the Battlefield" for outstanding culinary fitness and boosting the morale of the troops during a pivotal battle exercise!!!! I got my first Army award!
Then JR was doing Army stuff in Camp Parks, California and I flew down to meet his friends the Andersons, who have the most amazing children on the planet! Very very cool family. And JR and I spent Valentine's Day in Monterey. We stayed for three days and then drove home together.
As we were driving home, I got an email that invited me to go to Camp Parks myself! The army is having an FRG training course (Family Readiness Group), and I am the FRG Leader for the north unit (like being a den mother for the spouses). So JR is going for an exercise, I am going for my training, the army is paying to fly me down, and there is a Military BALL to attend. How cool is that???? I have to go evening gown shopping this weekend. Oh boy!
I have also been invited to Maryland to be in a CML focus group that the drug company is holding. Again, I will be flown down at their expense and put up overnight in a hotel. It is only for the one day, and then I would fly home again. It is a LOT of traveling for just one day of work, but if it helps other people with this disease, then I feel obligated to do it.
I have been doing a little bit of work to the trailer as well. I finally managed to prime the inside and get it ready for paint, and tonight I recovered one of the bench cushions with the new mod fabric that I got that will pull all the weird colors together! One more bench to go, and I will be six inches short if I do it the same way as the first bench, so I may have to be a little more inventive with the second cushion. I don't want to have to find more of the fabric. Yikes!
I dream of camping and finding mushrooms.......sigh.
Happy dreaming to everyone.
