Happy December 1

My mind has been a bit foggy lately, but I was coherent enough to recognize that the date on my watch was wrong, before I signed and dated something "11/31/04" this morning. I take that as a good omen.

It was a big struggle, but I got myself out of bed and into work in time for my 9 a.m. meeting this morning (I blew off the 8 a.m. staff meeting that is a complete waste of time anyway). This flare of FM is the worst, most consistent pain I've had so far. My shingles pain (officially, post-herpetic neuralgia) also joined the party. The pain meds help take the edge off, and moving around helps a little. It's just wearing on me emotionally now. I caught myself on the edge of tears 3 times so far today, and it's just lunchtime. Yuck.

I am getting really stressed about how to keep up with my work responsibilities and still take care of myself the way I need to now. So, I e-mailed our human resources rep to investigate an alternative work schedule (maybe some from home) or part-time schedule for a little while. This goes against my former obsessive work ethic, but I'm realizing that this fibromyalgia is going to affect my life whether I want it to or not, and I'd better find a way to deal with it.

Tomorrow evening, Mom and I are going to attend a memorial service conducted by the funeral home that handled my Dad's arrangements. They have clergy from the town's churches and have a Memory Tree on which we can put a picture of our loved one. I think it will be a good thing to do for both of us.

I'm thinking real hard about how much Christmas decorating and fuss I want to do this year. I'll put wreaths on the door and George will probably put up outdoor lights, but I don't know how much stuff I'm going to pull out for inside the house. The idea of decorating our usual large tree, especially with a kitten in the house, is not appealing to me. I may just put our our Nativity set and a small ceramic tree that my Mom made. Simplify, simplify, simplify!