It’s been a rough few weeks. Not so good health & pain-wise. Cycle of over-doing, paying for it, repeat. Spent a whole week recovering from the jaw spasms I got after spending 2 hours trying to get some information from an insurance company for a patient. Brain doesn’t work so well when I’m exhausted & in pain.
So, I’ve decided to put my medical license on inactive the end of this month. Besides the physical toll my practice has taken, my medications & brain insults from chemo, meds, concussion etc add up to my brain not being as sharp as before. Scares me. When I’m really tired, I lose words. I’m not going to be responsible for making a mistake on someone’s prescription or anything else that could have adverse consequences.
I’m glad I’ve already gotten rid of most of the work. there were days I was completely wiped out. The migraine I got after the Blue Cross/Blue Shield day of the complete run-around was a real day-killer. Luckily I could spend the day resting. Wouldn’t have been able to do this before.
Another advantage of my lowered stress levels – the return of some artistic creativity. Something besides finding funny gifs for my blog, I mean! I made some great mixed media bookmarks, cards & boxes for our temple’s annual bazaar. OK, I’m tooting my own horn, but they really are lovely. When I get a little more energy I’ll put up photos.
Because I’ve been down a lot & working on the bazaar project (when I had energy) for the last 2 weeks AND Kat came home for a week of extended fall break, I haven’t been able to tend my on-line business. I have SO many things I need to list before the Christmas buying season ends – really need them up in the next couple of weeks. My first priority is the group of stuffed toys I listed last year, have photos but when I pulled the listings didn’t think to copy the wording onto notepad… so now I’ve had to weigh and measure each one again! Here’s one of my favorite toys – a lovely custom-made white teddy bear with a gorgeous custom made lined white plush coat with great details:
That’s what I did this afternoon – after I slept for 2 hours in what was left of the morning/early afternoon when I got up at 11….We had the bazaar yesterday & it really wiped me out.
So – it’s toys, Christmas jewelry & collectibles and then my gorgeous vintage hats. Hats are a new venture for me – I’ve been doing my research; have some great ones, including a couple Mr John Classics. Here’s one of the gorgeous Mr Johns – the green wool felt & veil really complemented Kat’s red hair – I wish I had a photo of her wearing it!
My listing hold-up has been finding a good hat head for photographing them. I have that plain styrofoam head & one of my wigs from chemo days. That will probably do if I can make it stand up! It wasn’t made for the weight of a hat, so I need to stabilize the bottom. Some of these hats weigh a couple of pounds – Yeah! Really! I can’t believe women actually wore some of these things…
Got some more vintage ties too. This time most of them are really pretty – including a batch of wool ties from Scotland, Ireland & England. Those should be great for the Northern winters. Nobody around here in NC would even think of wearing a wool tie!
Life goes on. Nik and i were able to make it back to 2 SCA meetings!! YAY!! I had Nik do some research on Aristophanes. I was inspired by Tony Blair mentioning “cloud cuckoo land” in a speech before Parlement. Nik found out about “The Birds” & the political climate in Athens at the time as well as the format of Greek “comedies”. All by himself except for a discussion at the end of the day when we discussed what he’d found. He’s such a great kid!
Yesterday he was explaining a moss bonsai to a lady at the bazaar. He mentioned he’d been studying moss recently and she wanted to know where he was doing that. She was probably thinking which school class. He simply explained he was home schooled & decided to see if he could grow moss under out back deck to prevent erosion – studying which grew best, what growing conditions were ideal, which propagated itself most freely etc. Think it scared the heck out of her to hear this coming from the mouth of a young teenager.
Unschooling or “child led education” is working extremely well with Nik. He’s interested in so many things that he’s providing himself a liberal arts education! Did I mention he is studying classical painting & has Thomas Constable as his current favorite? We’re working on his writing problem with his blog. Slowly, he’s increasing the amount he’s writing and decreasing the amount of whining. Eventually he will learn to write a research paper; I’m content with him finishing most of Algebra 2 and being ready to start on Trig. If he were in the 8th grade (as he would be), he’d never have even heard of a Greek play….
Life is changing. A lot. Again. Always something new to do, to learn & to discover. I guess I’ll roll with it 😀
Brain Damage in the Fast Lane 