Saddest Face Ever. And a Picnic! Yay!

This has been an eventful week.

I woke up way too early this morning and am feeling all stiff and foggy and GRUMPY AS HELL. I'm supposed to have plans tonight, but the kitchen is trashed and I am so wiped from a 7.6 mile bike ride yesterday, that I really have no idea how I am going to do it all without melting down.

Speaking of melting down. That 7.6 mile bike ride was to our local Aid office to try again for food stamps. We were issued a card many months ago, but we only got to use it once before it was deactivated due to budget cuts. It was very sad. So, we went to the office and the worker said that we may not qualify for it after all but she is going to "look into it". It may or may not help that my boyfriend is trying to get all my medical expenses together as proof of broke-ness. We'll see how that goes. We opted to go ahead and take pictures and fingerprint while we were there, to save me another trip if nothing else. I had full earplugs in, a hat on, and was constantly guzzling water, so I was doing pretty good until they needed to take my picture and I had to remove my hat. As soon as it came off, and those fluorescent lights hit me in my weakest spot, I crumbled into tears. The woman tried to take the picture anyway and ended up with a pic of me making the saddest crying face ever.

I drew a really terrible picture to portray the saddest crying face ever. My hair is long and brown and sticking up wildly. It is labelled "hat hair". My eyes have stress lines drawn around them and so does my zig-zagged mouth. There are blue drops falling from my eyes and they are labelled "visible tears". Another label points at the head vaguely and says "Saddest face ever" In case it was unclear.

She gave me a minute to try to compose myself and I managed not to bawl through the next attempt but I didn't even look at the picture. It can't have been pretty but I could not have cared any less at that moment. So, then we went to a very close park and had a picnic with the lunch we'd packed. This gave me time to medicate and calm myself, drink more water and stretch the tension out of my body.  I took out the earplugs and relaxed. Decadent. I definitely needed the break before throwing myself back on a bicycle and back into traffic. It's like Frogger out there. But it's amazing what some down time will do for my head because after about an hour or just being quiet and focusing on the moment (trees! tuna salad!), I was ready to go. I must have done something right because the ride home was much easier than expected. But I'm still so tired I could fall over.

I made some glorious zucchini and sun-dried tomato enchiladas which you can read more about here.

I made a new internet friend. I do have a few real life people with whom I can discuss my health, and I love and appreciate them for supporting me as best they can, but very few have chronic pain, and even fewer have migraines. My new internet friend knows the chronic migraines well, and it's been really fantastic comparing stories and sharing ideas. I highly recommend it. It's like blog-reading, but more interactive.

And I am finally on an effective antibiotic for that stubborn UTI. It's still not gone, but it's finally improving.

My head? Nothing exciting. There's been pain, but it's been manageable with mindfulness, meditation, and meds. And ice, but that just ruined my nice alliteration.