Long time, no see

Good morning everyone! How was your holiday weekend?

My past week has been pretty good. I went to the meeting, which was actually pretty interesting. I didn't always know what they were talking about (what for instance an "SWC" is will always be beyond me), but there were a lot of fun presentations. On Thursday, all of the folks at the meeting went to do work at a non-profit in Sonoma. The Children's Village is an alternative to normal foster care or group home situations. Our group did a lot of manual labor in the hot sun. Being not up to snuff, I was on the hospitality committee and served lots of water and salty snacks to very hot people. The social work presentation, which I was there for, was good - we shared success stories and even had some tears in the audience.

By Friday, I was exhausted. I drove home and slept for several hours. S joined me for the evening and stayed over at my place. The next day, I cleaned a bit. I ran a fever all day, but I was feeling a lot less fatigued than I've been.

I met up with S & SS on Sunday. We went to the Farmer's Market and had lunch, then walked around the park. I ended up taking a nap in the afternoon, then we went swimming in the late afternoon. It was wonderful. I didn't feel hot and I felt light and floaty. Swimming is really wonderful. SS has a lot of fear in the water. She had some nasty experiences as a young child and sometimes panics. I hadn't realized how lucky I am to feel so comfortable in the water.

We went back to S' place after dinner and set about making apple pies from scratch. S has an apple tree so we had to harvest, then peel, then make the dough. I spent most of the time dozing. We ended up finishing up with the rolling of the crust and baking on Monday morning.

After a post-baking siesta, we headed off to celebrate Labor Day with labor...literally, we were at an event hosted by several of the major unions in the area. Our bbq dinner was served to us by the fine men and women of the Hayward Fire Dept. Pete Escovito was the musical act (lovely latin jazz) and we had speakers...the most memorable being Barbara Lee.

Then it was back home for an early evening in. I watched the season premier of Antique's Roadshow, did some dishes, started thinking about packing for our Reno trip this weekend, then went to bed.

You may have noticed that I'm much, much more active lately. I really feel like I'm on the upswing. I still get fatigued - this morning was challenging - and I'm still running fevers some evenings. I have aches in my hands and elbows, and sometimes my toes and knee, but it is nowhere near what had been the case. I'm trying to be aware and take naps when I need to, but it certainly does feel wonderful to be able to get out and do things again.

I got a call from HippyChick last night. BeeDragon has not been feeling well, and they are investigating some scary stuff. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers.

I'm off to see what needs to be done here before I leave for Reno on Thursday.