Sick but emerging from the travel fog…

So how on earth did I manage to not blog here at ALL throughout the month of January? This is completely unlike me! And I've had my LJ since 2004 so it's not like this is a new habit or something! Well part of the reason was purely being physically run down this month. At the beginning of the month I was mainly dealing with a really painful/numb-ish left arm (my doctor said he'd refer me to a neurologist but I haven't heard back. I'm still waiting on a hematologist referal so I'll continue impatiently waiting… I just hope for answers before I am no longer a student and will likely have to stop using the University Health Centre). That's mostly subsided by now, thank goodness. At some points it was quite honestly painful to type of all things, and given that I was starting to get back into a mode where I could actually get stuff accomplished with reference to thesis and whatnot (this is the big thing that looms over me, the thesis work that has honestly gone nowhere over the past year — as much as I've tried), and it still acts up for no seeming reason on occasion but doesn't seem to be as severe as to interupt all computing forcing me to be essentially couch bound and less than useful as a cashier to boot…

Well at that point I flew to Indianapolis for the SLP conference, which was a great weekend balance of hanging out with great friends whom I see all too rarely, meeting new Kiwanis folks, talking with Hazel and Cory from my own district, and learning things (both about changes within Kiwanis and about CKI administrator stuff and other things to help with my volunteer jobs). It was a great weekend with good food (well lots of it too!), and fabulous karaoke to cap things off! (yes I may have made a fool of myself on the dance floor, but I don't care and haven't yet seen photographic or video evidence of this so whatever).

I made it back to Edmonton for three shifts at the store… the first of which being subpar because my flight home was delayed enough that I had to take a $65 cab ride home. Ugh. Regardless I essentially came home to work and didn't even get caught up on the internet tasks that I had before me due to travel before departing again this time for a much smaller and less fancy conference with great people from Key Leader (also a Kiwanis conference). This meant a good balance between mediocre hotel food, fast food runs (two trips to Steak 'n Shake! one trip to White Castle [which I'm not sure I would repeat but was worth doing!]), and getting things done. I'll admit to have learned a ton about Key Leader, my roles and responsibilities (much of which is linked to my frustrations in people not registering online to do what they promised, or even messaging me back about Key Leader things) [by the way does anyone want to be a female chaperone for a camp March 23-25? I will need to know ASAP]. It was an invaluable conference. These conferences do a ton to reinvigorate myself, I think I've learned that now and need to stop making other excuses for why they're not of great use value, they really are. Particularly in the winter, particularly when I've really been struggling for whatever reason.

By the time I returned to the Indianapolis Airport I was starting to get nasal congestion and craving veggies really badly. I've spent the majority of this week in bed as a result. I haven't had a cold hit me this bad in… forever? I mean, it's a cold but I think I was feverish for a couple of days (mild fever). I've been sleeping most of the time (and I called in sick to work twice. I HATE calling in sick to work) so I really hope I'll be up to working at 7am tomorrow, honestly I had better be! After all, I've been out of bed for more than 6 hours today, sitting at the computer, so I'm not utterly useless anymore, I guess. The only two things I managed to do this week were on Monday and Tuesday nights (Kiwanis meeting and Edmonton Girl Geek Dinner) when I was feeling much healthier than I am even now. I've been eating but not huge amounts (though the Girl Geek Dinner was huge and lovely and oh so delicious and healthy and….!), and I've felt pretty weak as a result, but I'm super happy I made leftovers and froze them when I made a lentil rice veggie dish before I left for the second trip, meaning I have something to eat now.

So suffice to say I'm tired of being sick, but I'm finally starting to catch up with the real world and trying to deal with the oh so many things that pull me in far too many directions these days. CKI and Key Leader stuff still potentially stress me out, but they're slowly being taken care of and I'm getting a handle on all the little fires that need putting out, so to speak. And well one of these days I'm really going to tackle the thesis thing properly. I will. Sitting in this stupid limbo with a thesis hanging over my sick head has been no fun. Real physical illness is no fun. I need to take better care of myself than that, and so I look forward to filling my home with yummy foods, to re-engaging with the world and getting stuff done! Plus now that I'm not like laid out with this darnned cold, I'm going to try to be social again…