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“Do the needful” is an expression which means “do that which is necessary”, with the respectful implication that the other party is trusted to understand what needs doing without being given detailed instruction. The phrase is common in Indian English; … Continue reading
It’s fall. Fall is what I have missed so incredibly badly for 14 years while I learned what I needed to learn in Texas. Texas has a lot that I will very much miss. Butterflies in December. Ladybugs in… well… December… My little boy who is very much not little any more.
But I was so homesick for October for so long… this weekend was something that I very much needed. I didn’t have to carry my backpack. I carried my work phone but I didn’t have to worry about it ringing (much, anyway). My whole weekend all I did was carry my electronics in my fanny pack and carry my camera.
We went to the Revenna Balloon A Fair. It was too windy for anything but a few of the burners to ignite. No balloons went up. But it was a nice festival and a really pretty day. Downtown Revenna the street was closed and stands lined the street. Music and dancing and amazing people watching. At the fair grounds, there was food and more music and thousands of people waiting to watch the balloon launch that never came.
After, we went to Canton to Factory of Terror. If you want a truly scary haunted house, I highly recommend it. Scared the crap out of me. They DON’T tell you “if you don’t touch them they won’t touch you”… for good reason. They touch you. And they have an electric fence fencer set up on the walls of one of the mazes so if you actually DO what they tell you to do (feel the walls to find your way) the walls bite.
This is not a fabulous thing for someone with RA… especially if your hands are being bitchy. By the time I got out of that house, my hands were screaming and I was nearly in tears. Good haunted house? Yeah. But there are some nasty surprises.
Today, we went to Cuyahoga National Park picture taking and walking through the fall. It was really a beautiful fall day today. I wish I could have captured the smell of the day. Everything was just perfect for fall. The trees are turning. The wildflowers are blooming. Tonight it is raining and it promises to get a bit chilly.
We stopped at a fall festival at an apple farm. We bought a scarecrow kit and stuffed him full of straw. He is sitting on our front porch watching the day seep out of the day. Apples, apple cider, apple butter and peaches.
I had plans of getting a good bit accomplished this weekend. Turned out that I really didn’t. But it was a golden weekend. A weekend to treasure.
It’s back to school season. Yellow school buses with red and yellow lights have joined the morning queues. Soon the few leaves that have started to tint their way to autumn colors will be joined by thousands of their brothers and sisters… red, yellow, orange, and brown. Now that I’m back in the north east, I’m very much looking forward to fall colors.
With the changing seasons, changing ways to cope. I’ve already broken out my fingerless gloves and am looking forward to this season’s batch of them to hit the stores. It’s interesting to see how technology has changed them.
I’ve added disinfecting wipes to my desk at work. With heaven knows how many different fingers pushing how many different buttons on the elevator, door knobs, etc… I’ve taken to using more and more of them. With kids being back to school and in closer proximity to other kids, colds will start making the rounds all too soon.
I’ve started seeing things about bolstering your immune system on TV to help us to stay healthy and even touted on facebook as a way to help with RA symptoms. Forgive me here, but… the last I checked… the reason that our bodies are pissed off at us is that our immune system is entirely too bolstered, in fact it is in overdrive and it is attacking us from the inside out. I’m not sure trying to bolster it would be a great thing. And many of us are taking drugs designed to dumb down our immune system. We are taking disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDS) at the very least and many of us are taking biologics in an attempt to trick our immune system into not attacking our bodies.
We need to be mindful, but not paralyzed by, those germs, viruses and bacterium that are likely to be waiting out there where you least expect them. Avoid when you can, disinfect when you must. Enjoy the season.
I love fall. Even in a place where there really isn’t any fall, I love fall. The low last night was 47 degrees. The windows are wide open (the cat is deliriously happy) and the sounds of the night are creeping into the house. The smell of the rain creeps in with it. The wind makes ghosts of the curtains. And, when dawn comes, the feel of being outside in weather that doesn’t stifle every breath is amazing.
And I’m sitting here working, feverishly, to finish a pair of wool arm warmers that will come down over the ends of my fingers if necessary while warming my fingers (raynauds… gotta love it) with HotHands hand warmers. I’m thinking that it might not be a bad idea to go soak my hands in hot water. Sometimes (like this morning) I think longingly of one of those amazing hot wax baths that you can use to ease the pain.
This is the time of year that speaks to my heart. And reminds me that I’m not the person I used to be when I was jumping into leaves and raking leaves for my kids to jump in. Now I fight back the cold that settles into my hands and feet and fight to really enjoy the day, every day.
Coffee cups double (only double… the coffee is always what matters most) as hand warmers. Wool socks over warmed feet hold in the heat most of the day. And I stock up on these handy dandy hand warmers to help when other things don’t.
It’s fall, creeping quickly up on winter. Enjoy the beauty of the season!
Posted in motivation, pain, Raynaud's Syndrome
Tagged autumn, cold feet, cold hands, colder weather, fall, hand warmers, Raynaud's Syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, weather change
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