Hey everyone, it's been a while. I haven't been on here in nearly a year.

If you recognize my username, long time no see.

If you don't, that's ok. I forgot what it was too.

If you have no idea who I am, nice to meet you.

So I survived Texas. I moved back to Pennsylvania about 2 months after the storm that nearly took out the grid last year. That was the last straw for me.

I reconnected with my mother. My dad died and she's become a pleasant person to deal with. When toxic men leave or die, women do better. Imagine that.

We are living together and helping each other. We even went to a Genesis concert together. We are triple vaxed and that was just as Delta started. But we were afraid Phil might die before we got another chance so we took the risk. It was awesome. 

There are still challenges. She's honestly like a kid in a lot of ways. I have to show her how to do simple things that you'd think a 64-year-old women would know to do and remind her to do things like she's a teenager. But it's still 1 million times better than it was when dad was alive. It's frustrating but she does to the best of her ability. She's used to my dad doing everything. I told her that's not me. We've talked a lot and are helping each other. She's trying but she's still like a child. She was always emotionally immature. She also has bipolar disorder but seems to be on the right medication now that it's been properly diagnosed and treated. 

When I tell her she's expecting too much from me, she makes adjustments. No abuse. No mean words. I see now how much dad's abuse affected her. She's profusely apologized and it willing to do therapy together. We haven't done it yet but it's a possibility. She's encouraging and respectful. She tries to help me when it's hard for me to physically do stuff. But shes' also got health problems so it's basically two half functional people trying to manage. We do, mostly.

Fibromyalgia is still kicking my ass and I still feel like dung. Nothing new there. Though I am going to restart aqua therapy here. I got the referral from my doc. The weather is freezing right now so I'm waiting for it to warm up a bit again. (It's indoors but I don't want to drive far when it's this cold and with the ice.)

I just got hired to be a substitute teacher in my new district. I do training in February. I plan to go back after aqua therapy in late Spring. I hope the world is still turning by then. I was trying to wait until the pandemic subsided. I don't see that happening unless this omicron actually is the last major wave. Either way, I'll see how it goes. 

As for fibromyalgia...

Medical cannabis is legal here so I get my medical card next month. I have been using my own this year but I'm really glad to have that option here. Texas has some allowance for medical cannabis but only for one or two conditions like seizure disorders. I don't have those conditions but I have a few that qualify in PA. 

I'm using gabapentin, tizanidine, and occasional OTC pain meds with it. Cannabis and CBD too but not all at the same time. That would render me unconscious. 

My dog Lexi is doing good. She had emergency surgery a little over a month ago but now it's like nothing happened. She was never spayed even though the shelter told me she was. And she's never been in heat or bled. But something happened to her uterus (that nobody knew she had) so she had surgery to remove it and recovered quickly. 

So that's my update. I'll be checking in here more. I hope you are all well and staying warm.