(Note: I started this post on the 5th of September, last Saturday. It took me a bit to finish, but, here it is.)

So, it’s Saturday afternoon. It’s sunny, here, in Florida, but, not hot. Today is a bit different. My daughter and I both noticed that we can smell fall in the air. We can hear it, too. It’s a long-ways-off sound from distant trucks and other urban noise. It may have something to do with the Florida Gators, our hometown football team, opening their season tonight. There’s always a bit of a buzz around this town on game days. I love being a fan, especially, since the Gators have a spot for the SEC Championship award slotted on their office wall – permanently. LOL They’ve won back-to-back titles AND the basketball championship, all at, or around, the same time. We’re spoiled! LOL

See! Even the “big guy” upstairs gets in to the act on game day! LOL

I do believe that my last surgical procedure was in vain. What I thought was going to be a much-needed reprieve from pain, for a little while, is just not to be. Doc doubled my med dose – duh-oh! LOL And, he is sending me to a specialist this week. I don’t know what will happen. I haven’t cried so much in years. I am not that old. Yet, I can’t do anything! What is troubling me the most is that it feels like my body “speed” dropped down to ‘turtle mode’, or something. I couldn’t hurry if I had to! I don’t know what it is. It’s like each and every movement I make, I have to gauge myself so much more that it takes me forever to do anything. What is up with that!?? I can understand people slow down, but, this has come about in the past couple of months.

I guess what is really bothering me is that I thought I had accepted my turn in life. I have spent plenty of time on my spirituality and coming to know myself. Every step of the way has been pure bliss. Things flowed so smoothly for me for such a long time. Then, this back trouble stirred up again. I had been managing to get by with very few medications. Instead, I have learned meditation, relaxation, anything and everything I could, in order to carry on with my life in as much comfort as possible. I had accepted my plight and that I may, one day, lose my ability to get around as well.

I don’t know what happened. I’m sure not handling it very well, here, lately.

UPDATE:
Since I started this post, I paid my visit to the new doc. This dude thinks there is something else going on besides those chards. He seems to think the place between my hip bone and my tail bone, the sacro-iliac, has issues. This is the area:

This is the FIRST time a doctor has zeroed in on the spot that has caused me so much pain! He knew right where to press on my backside. I’ve had neurological tests and every ‘scan’ there is. They have been hitting close to the area and easing some of the discomfort. But, never has the exact spot been identified. Praise be to Dr. Tom! NOW, maybe we can get somewhere. I hope.

When I get so bogged under with pain, I tend to be forgetful. Who wouldn’t? The main thing I forgot, this trip, was to cope. My ways of coping are, generally, meeting life head-on. No sense in hiding from it – it will find you. I normally shield myself from any negativity and I’m quite good at it. It just got the best of me, this time. I owe a multitude of THANKS to my friend, Snowraven, and the other good ladies at MagickalScraps. Snowy reminded me that there is always ‘hope’. I never really thought about it before, but, having hope takes me out of the moment in which
I feel stuck. Like a dose of ‘good medicine’, hope can take the futility out of a situation like nothing else. It is so simple, why has it been so elusive? LOL So, THANKS be to Snowy AND Pandora.

Finally, I have a kit to share. I did this one for the September Colour Challenge at MagickalScraps. Rather than giving us a colour palette, Snowy asked that we choose our own colours, but, one each of the four primary colours, red, blue, green and red, and one brown. The colours could be light or pastelle, or dark. Then, we were to use the colour palette in a kit with a late summer theme. First, a little ‘back story’ on my inspiration for this kit.

This time of the year, late summer, reminds me of summer afternoons, in the country, as a young hippie chick. LOL The old farmhouse we would hang out at was a friend’s family’s, but, they used it only occasionally. So, we took up residence, almost, every summer. As the days wore on, we sought respite from the sweltering Florida heat. The Santa Fe river was only a mile away. We’d load up in the van and go for cool swims in the springs, there, on the river, known as Rum Island. (Years ago, a hidden island, inset from springs area was a hide out for rum being brought up the network of inland rivers from the Gulf of Mexico.) Once in a while we would go over to the beach and camp out in the dunes. Somebody always had a guitar, there was usually plenty of ‘herbals’ and I had my bottle of Strawberry Farm. LOL We were never at a loss for something to do to cool off. A watermelon was just a hop over the fence. I miss those days.

Without further adieu, “Late Summer at the Farm”.
(Click on each image to go to 4Shared for that download)

Elements

Papers
Thank you for your interest!

Have a hearty and rewarding Mabon.

Su