Ups & Downs

Wacky, emotional, roller-coaster day yesterday. Barely controlled panic, out-of-character mood swings, too-loud laughter, snippy snipes with Bill, sudden tears during dinner.

PMS or just more assimilation? I wish my hormones weren't so whacked out while I'm trying to deal with this. I don't know where I am in my cycle anymore, because this was looking like it was going to be my final menopausal year. Oddly, one study shows slightly better long-term survival rates when this surgery is done in the latter-half of a woman's cycle, but I suppose it's one of those stupid statistical facts that really doesn't mean much. I will have the surgery when they can schedule it, and it probably has no bearing on what hormonal phase I'm in...I'm certainly not able to re-schedule it at this point, even if I did know. And while I'm thinking all this, I know I'm making myself crazy.

Preparatory changes and grim realities probably had more to do with my mood yesterday than anything else. Moving our bed downstairs, also symbolic of our life changing. Going to the bank to get serious papers signed and notarized (Power of Attorney, Health Care Proxy, Advance Care Directive). Necessary, but icky to think about.

And strangely, a great creative burst in the kitchen for dinner, using just leftovers and a slab of ribs from the freezer. I oven-roasted the ribs. I took one big, leftover baked potato and cubed it, cut the kernels off one ear of cooked fresh corn, and sliced a handful of grape tomatoes in half. I minced some fresh rosemary & parsley with 2 cloves of garlic and the skin from a half a lemon. I sauteed the potatoes in olive oil, tossed it with the corn & tomatoes and herb mixture, sprinkled it with salt and pepper and squeezed the juice from the half-lemon in while everything browned. It was SO good, and it tasted just like I had imagined it would--fresh and light and a stellar accompaniment to the sweet-sticky ribs.

So it was perfect, it was delicious, and we ate while making little happy-yum noises, and then I burst into tears while clearing the table. Bill leapt up and held me while I wailed and snuffled, saying "I don't know what's wrong with me today!"

?

Something's going on there, I just don't know what.

Sleeping in the new room, on a new side of the bed was odd. I don't think I've slept on the starboard side of our bed since we lived in Hawthorne, when Juli was an infant, so that's 24 years? But I slept well through the night, just waking up a little disoriented this morning. It's cold in the morning, 63 in the house when I got up at 6:30.

Today, we have friends coming! Bill's cousin (and my friend) Jean and her daughter, Paige, and their dog are driving down from Kentucky for a weekend visit and for the Rogersville Heritage Days festival that starts today. It gives us all an excuse to clean the house a little, cook a little, play a little. Jean's a "doer," so we will have some extra motivating energy helping us along on our chores. Bill will get a kick out of showing Paige the fish-feeding. The dogs will do dog things. Jean and I will enjoy each other's company and go downtown for the music and the crafts.

One day at a time. Breathe.