Saturday, August 30, 2008

Justin at the pet shop

Here he is at the pet shop. So cute!
He was so small he fit in your hand.

Justin

Justin arrived at my home approximately one month ago. As you can see, he loves soft things like towels and pillows. He's usually making a mess of things while I'm working on my PC. When he exhausts himself after a play session, he finds the nearest soft spot and relaxes.

Justin's a chihuahua and miniature dachshund mix breed. I fell in love at first sight.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Good days

Today I wake up feeling a bit lazy and tired. After all, I've been designing every day for the past week. Combining that with all my work and taking care of my doggie, I have a really busy day. However I'm feeling great and never felt better than I've felt in a long time. A couple of things I'm doing that's making a world of a difference. I have a routine that I try to keep to. My day starts out with lying in bed, imaging the day to be a good day with perfect health. I then do a 10-minute yoga routine to wake up my body. I consciously prepare my breakfast and eat it slowly without any distractions. I concentrate in each bite I take savoring all the flavors. After all that, and only after I've done all that, I check my emails and transactions online. I then feed my dog after taking care of his doo-doo. Play with my doggie for 20 minutes or so. Then I take a shower and get ready to start my day of work.

Depending on what's planned for the day, I take care of clients, design clothes or do translation work. I focus on each moment and enjoy every minute of my work. If I find that I'm starting to become negative, I stop doing it if possible, to recharge by stretching or having some tea or taking a short walk around the block. I also manage to do some household chores during the day. I usually have at least, one load of laundry to do. I also must vacuum the apartment everyday, since my dog arrived. I wash the dishes that my boyfriend never washed. Yesterday I also scrubbed the bathtub and cleaned the toilet and sink area.

I eat mostly macrobiotic and stick to fish and whole grains. I make sure to participate in some form of exercise during the day, no matter how busy I get. This is always a priority.

I always end my day with a 10-minute yoga session to relax and prepare for sleep. I make myself some herbal tea and go into bed and read for about 10 minutes before falling asleep.

My days are full and yes, they are very busy. However I make sure that no matter how hectic it becomes, I remain happy and focus only on good things throughout the day. This is what I have been doing and I'm noticing that my body takes care of me while I take care of my body. Today is the third day in a row with no panic attacks. I still feel funny now and then, but I don't focus on those negative feelings. I really feel better and know I will continue to feel better.

So anyway, that's basically what I've been doing. hehehe

It's raining outside today, by the way. It's cool and the rain is making the summer weather rather pleasant.

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Tuesday update

Ok, it's been a while since I've posted. Too many things going on in my life. I needed to start taking control of my health and personal time. While my health is going through a very hard period in my life, I've decided to be pro-active about it and am forcing myself to change my lifestyle habits. I also have to face the fact that I need to relax and generally slow down my pace of life.

Fortunately, my doctor told me that I don't have to worry about my condition being vasculitis. You don't know how happy I was when I heard that. I was all ready for my brain biopsy and just psyched myself up for the surgery and all. In the end, everything turned out ok. However, symptoms still remain and now I'm seeing all sorts of doctors on a weekly basis. ENT doctor, neurologist, psychiatrist, anesthesiologist and I'm getting MRIs of the brain and neck, EKGs, numerous blood tests and more! They cannot figure out why I'm getting these pains in my face and neck areas. My panic attacks are getting sort of worse and now my psychiatrist is thinking that it may be something else other than a panic attack. It's funny because that's what I've been trying to tell my doctors for the past 7 years. Anyway, I generally feel worse these days then I ever have and I'm having a difficult time trying to explain my symptoms because they are just too numerous to list. Tomorrow I go to see another doctor...he wants to check out my bones or something.

Anyway, what have I been doing for myself to help me cope with this shit? Well, like I said, one is to take it easy and relax. I know I have tons of things to do in real life and Second Life. However I have to remember that real life always must come first. After that's taken care of, take care of Second Life. If I don't do that, I risk my mental health as well as my physical health. I'm going to be good to myself and do as much as I can and enjoy it while I'm doing it. I've heard so many stories about people quitting Second Life because it just got too much and I'm not that far away from that point. I don't want to get to that point so I must balance. I must also try and remember to enjoy logging in to SEcond Life. Yep, for awhile there I always felt immense stress everytime I logged in. Not a good sign at all. So how will I run my Second Life business while keeping myself sane?

I already know what I need to do. I will have to create a business plan ASAP so I can start working better and even start to enjoy Second Life again!

Back to real life...I'm working on thinking only positive thoughts in order to give out positive vibrations throughout the universe as to attract good things and only good things. If negative things happen(which they do more often than not), I just look for the positives in those experiences and go on. Now, I've been doing this for most of my life but especially with my health not cooperating, it's pretty hard to stay upbeat. However this, I realize is of upmost importance to my road to recovery of all my ailments so I need to constantly work on this. I also have been doing yoga as well as working out generally on a regular basis. No matter what kind of work I'm doing, I log off my PC to give myself a couple of hours to take care of myself.

I love doing yoga these days. I've been thinking about the people I love, what I'm thankful for in life and simple stuff like how green the trees look outside my window. I learned that you should be thinking of these things as you're doing yoga. I notice that when I do that, my yoga session goes much more smoothly, my body becomes more limber and my session just seems more enjoyable. I also feel much more refreshed at the end of my sessions.

I've been eating mostly macrobiotic lately, except for the occasional dessert, which I treat to myself once in awhile. But these days, I like to start my day off with a bowl of miso soup with lots of veggies. I only eat brown rice and for noodles, I stick to whole wheat pasta or buckwheat noodles. I mostly use extra virgin olive oil and buy only the freshest produce in season. I'm teaching myself how to make some sweet desserts with natural and wholesome ingredients using nothing processed. I made some black sesame scones the other day that tasted pretty good upon baking them, but tasted sort of chalky a day later. Well, like they say, practice makes perfect!

My dog Justin arrived into my family about a week ago. He's a cute little puppy that has unlimited energy. Because he's a puppy, I need to watch him most of the day of every single movement he makes. It's pretty tiring but I actually love doing it. By the end of the day, with the combination of my puppy, work and my health just being in less than great shape, I'm ready to just sleep. But I love Justin so much and I made a promise to him that no matter what happens, I will take care of him forever. hehehe

Ok, tomorrow is another day and good things await me I know. I will get a great night's sleep and have a fabulous day tomorrow.