Jeph Has Titled This Post: aAwwssde43333wea

Hey all. Time to read about my life again!
I'm on track to graduating with honors! I've gotten A's on every assignment so far and I'm beyond proud of myself. I've been working ahead when I can and letting myself take breaks during my flare days. I'm about a month ahead after I finish the section I'm currently working on. I've had several flares, but because my time management skills have been A+, I've been able to completely take that time off and just rest and recover and let myself breathe.
I've decided I'd like to become a Canine Good Citizen Test Evaluator. First, I need to work for two years with many different breeds and many dogs and then take an extra course through the American Kennel Club. In order to become a Therapy dog, dogs must pass the CGC test and in many programs, service dog candidates must pass this test as well. I think it's a good way to get involved with those communities while I save up money and time to do Service Dog Trainer courses and decide which organizations to look into.
I've been using what I am learning with Baby Jeph and he is responding incredibly well to it. I am very proud of the little guy and Ray is bursting with pride over both of us.
My sweet Riley started feeling ill a few weeks ago and I noticed almost immediately that something was wrong. She was growling at Jeph and sleeping all the time. She was also very reluctant to turn left and seemed to be almost hopping at times. We took her to the vet and my suspicions were confirmed. My little girl is starting to have hip dysplasia issues with her left hip. A surprise was that she also has a torn ACL in her right knee. She's on strict rest and no working for a few weeks while the knee heals and then joint supplements for life for her hips. Her right hip was a little swollen, but the left one has started deteriorating. Because of this, I feel like Jeph's training needs to take an even faster track. I'm not sure how long Riley will be able to work and I want to be able to go places with a Service Dog, as it does make a world of difference for me. It's honestly breaking my heart because I can't verbally explain to Riley that she gets to take it easy. She thinks I'm being unsafe in leaving her and asking her to rest instead of work. The looks she gives me are hurting my soul. She's honestly saved my life many times and I wish I could explain to her that I'm trying to return the favor. The good news is that the joint supplements have helped already and she's a much happier little girl.
I have a billion and one appointments with specialists coming up in the next month. Currently, I've finally found a muscle relaxer that helps me. It puts me to sleep, but I've been healing because of it. My new Internal Medicine specialist is absolutely fantastic and a dream come true. He found the muscle relaxer for me and has been attentive to all my needs and answered my many questions and phone messages promptly. He's also fought with my insurance company on my behalf...and won. Multiple times. He's my primary care doctor now so I'm in very, very good hands.
Speaking of that, my husband remains amazing. As if there was ever any doubt of that. He's always taking care of me and our fur kids (and now also our scaly lizard kid, Krit). I'm even more in love with him now than I was when I first fell for him, and even more now than our wedding day.
I let Jeph title this post. He did so by hitting the keyboard with his paw and dropping his Kong on it. Inspiring. Maybe I'll start him his own blog.

So Many Adventures

So this blog is entitled "The Grand Adventures of Abby" and it's funny because I've been too busy having grand adventures to write a blog post for the blog about my grand adventures.

I went to a Korn/Stone Sour concert. It was a religious experience. Absolutely phenomenal. I had chills, tears, I felt like I was floating, and I stared at the hazy sky above the outdoor stage, saying "Thank you," internally over and over again.

Husband and I keep making it a point to find new places to eat. We tried Rebel Donut, the donut shop that invented a donut based on the meth made in Breaking Bad, and it was delightful. I had one with black frosting and my teeth and tongue were dyed an inky tone for several hours. I regretted nothing. We also went to a local pizzeria which has been featured in many magazines and TV shows and it was lovely. The people obviously cared about their food and we dined by a signed autograph by a young Tom Selleck.

We also experienced our city's fair. It was...pretty bad, actually. Really underwhelming and all the rides were overpriced. But we enjoyed the free circus (which was abysmally small but still fun).
I took my husband on a one-night getaway because this month is our wedding anniversary. And also because we really needed it. We had a lovely time at an adorable hotel that had a water park connected to it.

The dogs were boarded together for that one night at our favorite boarding kennel. They've taken care of Jeph since he was a wee pup. I was so scared to board Riley, as she's never spent a night away from me since I got her. But every nervous phone call to the boarders confirmed that the two of them were having the time of their little lives. And when we picked them up, we noticed that they'd worked through some of their issues. Jeph no longer bites Riley under her face and she knows how to tell him to go away when she wants to sleep. Riley's gotten a bit more needy, but we expected that.

Another reason my baby girl is needy is because we added yet another member to our family. Kritopher "Krit" Wignarajah is a baby bearded dragon, just out of the egg. The name "Krit" is from a really terrible romance novel I read when my husband and I were first dating. We agreed it was the stupidest name we'd ever heard, and decided one day we'd have a pet with that name. Krit's been with us for just a few short weeks and already has established dominance over both dogs and eaten over 100 small crickets. He likes to sleep on my shoulder. Bearded dragons have the cutest tiny snores! We got him because we wanted a low maintenance pet that could keep me company while I studied but that I wouldn't have to play with and get distracted by. We thought about fish, but I honestly hate fish in tanks and bowls. It gives me anxiety to think of them trapped in that tiny enclosure and internally screaming their whole lives. But Krit does not internally scream. He internally judges everything we do. He thinks he is the king and everyone else is beneath him. The looks he gives us are hysterical!

Jeph is learning really quickly now. He sleeps at the bottom of our bed now, but sometimes he needs to go back to his kennel because he gets too rambunctious at strange hours. He is almost 90% loose-leash trained, but is afraid of cars, motorcycles, weed-wackers, lawn mowers, small children, and the occasional smell he can't identify. He's slowly becoming a "good boy," and we couldn't be more proud!

I'm so afraid of failing at this school thing. I can't seem to focus the way I could pre-brain surgeries. And I can only take notes for fifteen minutes at a time. It's frustrating, but hopefully I'll figure it out.
I'm a little scared because I had crawled my way out of that awful depressive PTSD trauma episode and today I suddenly felt...like I was in a dark tunnel and it was closing in on me. I actually said, "No, no no!" out loud. I feel like I am teetering on the edge of this nasty cliff after finally making it back up to the top. To try to help with this, my husband suggested I take tonight off from studying. Hopefully some extra rest will help. I am worried. I cannot afford to not be able to do my school work due to another crippling episode.

Love to you all. Stay safe. Stay here. I care about you.

A New Adventure Begins

I am officially enrolled in a program that, when I complete it, will let me obtain my Dog Trainer License. That's right, folks. I'm turning my hobby into a profession. My love for dogs is going to carry me through these intense classes and into a career I can tell I'm going to enjoy.
Not going to lie, this program scares me a bit. I wasn't at all worried about it until I looked over the material. This is definitely an in-depth program that is designed to ensure only the absolute best reach the end and graduate with their license. I really want to be a part of that elite.

My husband took me to buy school supplies. I've always forced myself to buy practical supplies, but this time I let myself indulge a bit. I do have normal pens, pencils, and erasers, but I also have a glittery zebra binder, a glossy pink folder, a shimmery planner, and a pretty golden notebook. My fellow EDS-ers can appreciate the zebra binder. It's mint green with glittery gold zebras.

Once I finish my book learning portion, I get to work with shelter dogs as part of the school's outreach program. I'm going to work with the dogs who really need it with the goal of getting them adopted. Both of my fur babies were shelter dogs, so I am ecstatic over this opportunity to help other doggos find forever families. I will then get to shadow a mentor and eventually teach classes under their supervision.

Those of you who know me know that I have a tendency to rank academics as #1 in my life. This means I will sacrifice sleep, food, family, friends, health, love, everything and anything for the grade. And not just any grade, the top grade. The one thing I have been scared about is that this program will ignite that toxic part of my brain/personality and that this toxicity will take over my life as it had for so many years. I am determined to not let that happen. Part of that is that I could start studying tonight, but I am forcing myself to wait until tomorrow. I went ahead and looked over the material, but then made myself log out of the online Student Center and I'm blogging and watching America's Got Talent and World of Dance (Fik-shun is a contestant and not a judge?? What is this??) and playing with my dogs. I also made myself stop and eat supper when I realized that I was so absorbed in looking over the material that I was ignoring my stomach pains. Many people don't realize that my GPA was my life for so many years that when I graduated college, I didn't know how to define myself anymore. I didn't know how to measure my success. It took years to get over this awful way of viewing my life, and I'm still not entirely over it. I don't think I ever will be. But I do know that being aware of it means I can make conscious efforts to not let this toxic mindset back into the driver's seat of my life. I will complete this course and I will graduate. I am determined. But I am equally determined that this will not be at the expense of my life, health, and happiness.

My baby Jeph is my "project" dog. I get to take videos of our training sessions, proving I can apply the lessons I'm learning to a real-life canine. Mr. Jeph is unsure as to how he feels about this. He'd rather climb on the kitchen counters and explore trash cans. But he will learn. He's a smart little guy.

To summarize: I'm so excited and so intimidated and so ready. Bring on the pups!

The Porch Theory

Y'all, I had a dream two nights ago and I just can't stop thinking about it. This dream has radically changed how I think about my life. I woke up today thinking about it again and it's been three hours and I can't sleep or stop thinking about it so I think I'll share. Bear with me as dreams are weird and hazy and confusing, but hopefully you can follow along.

In my dream, I had a session with a famous therapist. Famous therapist's name was Sally or Susan or something like that. My brain isn't super original when it comes to names. Anyways, I was in her office with my husband and I was crying and telling her all about my life and talking about how nothing I'm doing seems to be working. She nodded gravely and told me it was because all I was doing was re-painting my porch. Stay with me, guys. This is where shit gets real. I was like, "This sounds like another mindfulness exercise that isn't going to help," and she told me that those exercises helped you recognize the chips in your porch paint and the other general wear and tear. What the heck, right? She gave me a workbook and told me I needed to do the homework before she saw me again the next day. In my dream, I went home and grumbled about having to do some more pointless analogy therapy that ultimately would do nothing for me. I then opened the workbook and what was in there was fascinating.
The Porch Theory is this idea that your life is built like a porch. (I need to add here that I am not a carpenter, have built stage set pieces, and am fully aware that what follows is not actually a good way to build a porch.) There is a poured foundation made of concrete. On top are four main support beams. Covering those are the long pieces of wood that make up the porch. Then comes the stain/paint and the decorations. Each part of the porch represents something different. The foundation is what your every action stems from. This is the root cause of everything you do. Then the foundation beams are the four main focuses your brain has. The long pieces of wood are your values that stem from those main focuses (which are influenced by the foundation). And then comes the paint/stain, which is the actions that you do and your outward symptoms, caused by the values which stem from the focuses that are influenced by the foundation.
In my dream, I did two written exercises. The first was to analyze my life starting from the paint and working my way back to the foundation. Then I labeled a diagram of my current "porch" with what I had written. This exercise took a long time, even in dream world. I ended up skipping around to the different parts of the "porch" as I tried to make sense of everything. The end result was me staring at this "porch," feeling as though I had been laid bare onto paper. My paint, the outward manifestation of my inward life, included like "people pleaser," "excessive apologizing," "panic and anxiety attacks," "sobbing," "anger towards my health," "shame over needing mobility devices, medications, etc," and "going to countless doctor appointments even though I know this doctor isn't the one for me." I could go on, but you get the point. The long pieces of wood, the values, were things like "religion," "putting family and friends above health," "getting the highest education possible," "being the best," "keeping a clean house at all costs," "forcing my body to stay healthy as much as possible," and "working a good job". The four main support beams were "Not wanting to be abandoned," "Not wanting anyone to regret being around me," "Not wanting to be a burden," and "Thinking everyone else deserves more/better than I do."   My foundation was Fear and Worthlessness.
After I did this exercise, I found myself back in the dream therapist's office, sobbing and holding my husband's hands as I told her all about my porch. What could I do? This seemed like a horrible life I'd created for myself, and I felt hopeless about it.
She told me that yes, this is a terrible porch. It is, at its foundation, flawed. She told me that I couldn't expect a beautiful life when my thinking was all stemming from places of fear and worthlessness the same way that I shouldn't expect a porch with a nasty, cracked foundation and rotting wood to be an amazing place to have lemonade and iced tea during the summer with my husband. She told me it wasn't my fault that my porch is shit. She jokingly told me that with the life I've lived, she was surprised the whole damn house hadn't fallen apart. I couldn't stop crying. She got down on my level, looked me in the eyes and quietly asked me if I was ready for a new porch. I told her yes, but how the hell do I do that? She nodded solemnly and said, "Renovations."
She then had me do the second exercise in the workbook. The second exercise was, "Describe your dream porch (aka ideal life/values/etc.). My dream porch's outward appearance were things like "singing in the shower again," and "smiling," and "enjoying time with friends," and "happiness," and "baking" and "painting". My porch boards, my values, were made up of "Living in the moment," "Gratefulness," "Finding contentment," "Loving friends," "Relationship with husband," and others I can't remember right now. The four beams were "mental health," "healthy marriage," "physical health," and "hope." And the foundation? It was Self Love.
Sounds great, right? But how to get there? SallySusan the Dream Therapist was a little hazy on this one, but told me that every time I am having an outward symptom or thought that echoes the nasty porch, to think of the ideal porch and try to follow along with what I think that would look like. For example, if I find myself crying over how messy the house is, I should take a step back and realize that this comes from that gross foundation. I can then try to remind myself of how I want to be thinking. AKA, "Yes, the house is messy but it actually isn't hurting anyone and hey, isn't it great that husband and I have been resting and going places and having fun and yeah, we haven't had time to clean the house but look at all we've done this week!" or "Yes, the house is messy but it actually isn't hurting anyone and if it is, I can ask husband for help because I don't have to do it all by myself and it isn't horrible to ask him to help and we could play music and it could actually be fun!" or "Yes, the house is messy but no, you haven't 'done nothing' all week, you've taken all your pills on time and rested your joints and remember that one time you pet your dog? That was pretty awesome! And it's okay to focus on your health. Remember those beams on your dream porch? It's okay." She told me that I was going to need to go right down to the foundation and change it and then the other changes would follow.
My dream therapist told me that this was going to be nasty, messy work. She told me to think of it like any renovation. There will be setbacks. She told me that any time I experience a setback while working toward this "new porch" and feel like I'll never get there, to just think of it as a construction issue and forgive myself. There might be termites living in the wood of the porch, waiting to be exposed. The renovation crew might take unexpected holidays and leave me with a shattered mess to work around for weeks. Maybe there's some electrical wiring that needs to be replaced. Perhaps we'll get the porch built and realize that the foundation was never actually touched, the crew just said they did it and we have to tear the whole thing apart again. She told me that just as re-making a foundation for a house or porch is ridiculously hard and irritating, re-making a foundation for my life will be, too. And just like porches continually need weather-proofing, the occasional board replacement, re-painting, and other regular maintenance, keeping myself healthy will require constant work. But she told me to look forward to the days when I can sit out on a nice porch, sipping iced tea on a lounger next to my husband and watching the sunset.

Although it was a dream, I'm going to follow along with the Porch Theory and see if it works. Feel free to join me. If you'd like, you can share your own "Dream Porch" with me in the comments or on my Facebook page, Instagram, or Twitter.

Clouds

The clouds are slowly parting. It's been several days since my last sobbing breakdown. I have appointments with doctors to see what is going on with my neck and spine. We're not sure if there's an issue there that needs to be addressed, or if this level of pain is my new normal. I get about 8 hours of awake time, and I can walk around and do things for about an hour total a day. The 8 hours are broken up into a five hour segment and a three hour segment, approximately. I sleep for the other 16 hours. And I'm "resting" for seven out of the eight hours. Sometimes I can "rest" sitting up, watching TV or reading a book. Those are good days. Other times, I need to be in bed, flat on my back, willing my neck muscles to relax, completely drugged on anti-nausea and other such meds. Because my husband works the night shift, I'm awake from around 10 PM until 1 AM (give or take a few hours either way). Then I sleep until he comes home and I'm awake from 8 or 9 AM until somewhere between noon and two. It isn't a totally strict schedule yet, and the dogs are having some issues adjusting to this new "sleeping while it is light out in the afternoon" schedule. Also, I keep having to erase whole sentences of this post because a very eager Jeph seems to want to blog by hitting the keyboard with his paws. I think he thinks I'm playing with a toy and he wants to play, too! One of these posts, I'll have to let him guest post.
Part of the clouds parting is that after a sobbing fit, I fell asleep for 19 hours and missed some doses of a medication that I'd been put on a couple of weeks prior to my meltdown. When I woke up, I felt like myself. It was like a fog of awful had been lifted. I thought perhaps it was exhaustion, but it turns out that particular medication was making me worse. I stopped taking it under close supervision by my husband. Finally, I'm starting to be able to calm my brain and heal. I've been able to begin to convince my brain that it is safe here again.
I am now finally able to look at my mental health care objectively and realize that I am not currently receiving the care that is best for me. I'm starting the process of making a change to a different care team. The person who has been diagnosing me and prescribing medications for me is not an actual Psychiatrist. She is a Licensed Nurse Practitioner who works alongside the Psychiatrists at the mental health clinic. Nothing against Licensed Nurse Practitioners, but I need a Psychiatrist. She even has continually admitted that she has no idea what she's doing with me and is stumped by me. And I've found out that the medication that I've stopped wasn't even for any of the symptoms I've been experiencing. Also, the Psychologist that I've been seeing also told me this past week that she has no idea what to do with me going forward and that my symptoms are severe enough that they are out of her realm of expertise. So here we go, trying to get a new care team.
I had a three hour long, several phone call evaluation from my insurance. They're trying to get me enrolled in their Case Management program so that I can have someone working with me side by side to get all the specialists and referrals and help that I need. It was quite a depressing evaluation, as I had to go through all my symptoms and all my different systems and explain how and where and why they are failing. But after the phone call, I suddenly felt strangely empowered. No wonder I'm breaking down! No wonder I sleep 16 hours a day! No wonder I need a wheelchair! No wonder I can't do what everyone else can! Look at everything I deal with on a daily basis! Look at all I manage to do in spite of this! Look at how I can still drink water, take the dogs out, change the laundry, keep up with personal hygiene, and more. Sometimes, I can even make myself sandwiches or heat up leftovers. And you know, I'm going to go back to being proud of that. I'm going to work on being proud of myself again.
And speaking of being proud, I just looked up from my screen and my dogs are so proud of themselves because they found a rip in an old dog bed and have scattered the stuffing all over the living room floor. They are so happy destroying their bed. I hope they'll continue to be happy with they realize that they are responsible for that bed getting thrown in the trash.
Until next time, friends. Stay safe,

Everything Is Grey

I'm in the midst of the worst mental health breakdown I have ever experienced. I say this honestly. I say this not to solicit sympathy or pity. I say it because I think that honesty goes a long way with those of you who have come here to read about my life. I do not have an Instagram-perfect life. (If you follow me on Instagram, you know everything is heavily filtered and mostly is pictures of my dogs). I'm not one of those military wives who writes about attending military balls and taking advantage of all the opportunities that military life has to offer. I have zero things against those types of military wives. Sometimes I wish I was one of them. I envy them and their ability to wake up and get out of bed and walk more than a block without having to sit or ride in a wheelchair. I admire their ability to cook for their families, decorate for holidays, keep their kids dressed and alive and healthy, etc. In contrast, today I brushed my hair for the first time in seven days. I'm not joking when I say that this was a monumental task. Talk about knots. It was pretty gross. Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to use a lot of conditioner and a hair mask before attempting to unsnarl the mass that my ponytail had become.
My Psychiatrist told me that I need to treat this like the flu. Lots of fluids, lots of rest, watch a lot of movies and TV, and be nice to my body. I bought a bunch of food that I usually love, because otherwise I can't attempt myself to swallow even one bite. My poor anxious stomach can't handle the idea of a full plate or even a half-full bowl of cereal. I've dropped at least five pounds in the past few days and it's not a good kind of weight loss. I've slept for over eighteen hours a day every day and I'm still so exhausted that my entire body is pretty much constantly shaking and I'm seeing double.
I won't go into what is going on in my brain simply because it is too triggering to me and to others who have similar issues. Let's just say it is hell and leave it at that.
I'm safe. I have 24/7 monitoring and I have to show my husband my pills and show him me taking those pills and I have an action plan and lots of resources when I need them. I say when, not if, because I 1000% need them. Believe me, this is not an "if" time.
My Psychiatrist also told me that I'm actively going through new trauma right now. I also looked up my medications and they're medicating me pretty heavily, apparently. It seems as though the combo that I'm on is used to treat some real nasty things. She looked at my eyes and saw me losing my mind sobbing and told me I need to get into intensive treatment as soon as possible. She called my insurance company and is working with them to get me into a Partial Hospitalization Program and a DBT program. She helped me set up the safety plan and the action plan and if those fail, she told me she wants me in the hospital. Right now they seem to be working okay, so that's nice I guess.
We had people over for a barbecue and it was actually really nice. Lots of laughter. I felt like I was playing the part of a happy person, but even that was nice. It forced me to take a shower and put on real clothes and talk to people. I didn't have any energy to do makeup or care about outfits or anything, but it was still good for me to try to interact with normal humans. It was exhausting, and I'll probably be more "sick" tomorrow, but I still think it was good for me. And it was definitely good for my husband to laugh and grill and tease and eat with his friends. He's been so steady and supportive this week, and it was comforting to see him let go and have a good time.
I'm wearing my new PTSD bracelet constantly. A local first responder makes these bracelets as a way of coping with his PTSD and as a helpful tool for the PTSD community. The beaded bracelet has a bunch of normal beads and one skull bead. The skull bead represents the trauma. The rest of the beads represent blessings. You're supposed to go around the bracelet, naming all the blessings in your life with each normal bead and reflecting on the trauma in order to let it go when you reach the skull bead. It's actually a rather helpful visual, as it is obvious that the skull bead is hopelessly outnumbered by the blessings beads. Even though it is horrifically difficult for me to name blessings right now, the act of forcing my brain to try to think of positive things is healing.
I'm not sure when I'll be writing another post. Thank you all for bearing with me with the sporadic posting of the past few months. I'm afraid I can't be certain of when I will have the energy to write again. Hopefully this nastiness passes soon, but everyone is warning me that it can last for a month or more. I think I'll run out of shows to binge-watch by then. Stay safe, friends. I'm off to hide under a blanket, watch Masterchef, and use up another Kleenex box. Love.

I'M A PUBLISHED AUTHOR (and other news)

You guys! I am a published author! I'm an official contributor to The Mighty! And I'm currently on the front page as a Featured Story. I'm over the moon, dancing on air, etc. etc. Read the story here and give me a like and maybe a comment if you like it. I wouldn't hate it if you share the article with your friends, either.

My parents are coming for a visit this week and I'm very excited to share my home and my city with them. My husband and I have come up with a list of mini adventures to take them on. We'll try to take some pictures for you all, but we'll more likely be too busy enjoying the moment to capture it on camera.

I currently have a cold, muscle spasms, and viral pink eye in both eyes accompanied by a sore throat. I went to the ER last week for two IV bags of fluid, as my body wasn't processing the water I was putting in it and I was severely dehydrated. I ended up in the ER for the second time in two weeks with a left eye so swollen I couldn't see. We met with an amazing doctor and he gave me eye drops that already have reduced the swelling almost completely. I do enjoy medicine when it works well. My husband has told me that this is my body's way of making me take the rest that it needs. He has been urging me to take days off for weeks, and now I am forced to rest and sleep and not touch anything, as the infection is incredibly contagious and I have two dogs and a husband I could infect if I am not careful. I'm actually grateful for this, in a weird way. I cannot get the manic side of me to let me rest unless I have no choice. And now I have no choice. Take that, manic tendencies!

I wish you all could have the joy of watching baby Jeph discover the wonder of squeaky chew toys. He loves to cuddle with them. He loves to chew them. He loves to lick them. He loves to roll around on top of them on the ground. He loves to fight over them with Riley. As I type this, I am slowly going deaf from an extremely happy pup chewing on his orange plastic squeaky bone on the couch next to me.

Mr. Jeph is learning very quickly. And I'm learning how to work with him more effectively. He needs a very different type of training approach than Riley did. He is full of energy and eager to please. And, bonus points, he is very food motivated! He will do whatever it takes to get that training treat. But since he is a puppy, sometimes he thinks that whatever it takes to get that training treat means attacking the hand with the treat in it, barking at the hand with the treat, rolling around on the floor, and various other adorable antics. It is hard to not get frustrated with him at times. But, just like a human student, if an approach isn't working, the teacher should try a different approach. He has learned "Sit," "Wait," "No Voice (a variation of "Quiet"), "With Me (a variation of "Heel"), "Leave It," and is starting to understand "Lie Down." He also knows to wait quietly for me to take his leash off when we come home from a walk or the dog park. He knows to sit and wait for his food at mealtimes. He understands the humans do not like being chewed on. He is beginning to understand Bedtime, and even voluntarily goes to his kennel when he is tired. He has made great strides with his confidence around other dogs. He no longer pees on me when he sees another canine, but he does take refuge between my feet when overwhelmed. He has been to the mall, an auto parts store, and a grocery store. He is also beginning to get wheelchair trained, as my new ride Priscilla (my manual wheelchair) will be a permanent fixture in our house now. And the accidents have nearly disappeared! After such a long time, I think it is safe to say that our potty training problem might be nearly solved. Jeph does keep having small accidents when he is asleep, as his body completely relaxes and he leaks. But overall, we are making strides and we will get to our goals eventually.

For months, my husband has been talking to me about me finding a hobby I can do. My old hobbies are not available to me with my current health state. He has also drawn out of me my love for Barbies. I used to be an avid collector. I had hundreds of Barbies, Skippers, Stacies, Kellys, and all their houses, zoos, doctors offices, animals, farms, cars, basically anything I could get my hands on. I would spend hours staging the houses with little utensils and plates perfectly placed on the dining table, the rubber ducks sitting on the side of the Barbie tub, and the living room arranged for maximum entertaining potential. I also loved creating outfits out of scraps of fabric, paper, yarn, anything I could find. For Easter, my husband surprised me with four Barbies from the new Fashionistas line! This is the line with four body types! They are: the original Barbie proportions, a "curvy" doll, a "petite" doll, and a "tall" doll. I'm just so excited because these Barbies are really amazing and their proportions are true to life! And just like that, my new hobby became clear. I'm going back to my old hobby with a twist. I'm going to be creating doll clothes for these new real-life-proportions Barbies! I'm just absolutely in love with the idea of creating fashion for these little dolls with my own hands. And I'm marathoning Project Runway for inspiration. And who knows, if I get good enough, I could sell some. But the point of the hobby isn't to make money, it's to have fun. And I'm so ready to have fun!

I think that this is all the updates for tonight. I'm off to take a nap and take some more virus medication. Love to you all!