Saturday, August 29, 2009

A Great Weekend

My husband and I went to the Taste of Greece today. The weather was perfect. Not hot at all. Sweater weather with a jacket for evening. We ate some interesting food (spanokopita, saganaki, chicken kabob, gelato) listened to some Greek music, and watched some Greek dancing and a belly dancer. She was not skinny and she was not young but she looked great. All her plumper areas were in the right places and jiggled nicely. She was very graceful and the dance was not overtly sexual. Fun.

The circle dances that those with Greek heritage (and a few without) danced were fun to watch and I loved seeing the Greek costumed dancers do their thing. We also saw the Jesse White tumblers. What a treat. Those kids just flew through the air and wowed the crowd.

It was just plain fun. We were going to stay home and do nothing but then I found out this was happening and we decided to go, spur of the moment.

Its so important to incorporate fun stuff into your life. Spontaneous or planned, it sure beats staying home and smelling the mold drifting up from your basement.

Last night I went to a Tastefully Simple party. I knew there would be some former colleagues attending as well as a few current colleagues. I wanted to connect rather than stay home another Friday night and watch lint grow in my navel. Well, I don't actually do that, but sometimes it feels that way.

So both times I had some food outside my food protocol, but I did not overeat. The band is not meant to keep me from participating in life, and good food is part of life. Its just meant to stop me from going overboard and it did its job.

Meanwhile, my blood pressure continues to drop and I was so excited to wear this really cute pair of jeans I picked up at a thrift store a month ago when they were still too tight for me. Now they're just right. I haven't worn flattering jeans for such a long time. I had a really pretty lavender sweater (that matched the flowers on the jeans) that I picked up at a resale shop a couple of weeks ago--a never worn Ralph Lauren.

Tomorrow morning I'm subbing on a praise team at our church. I haven't hardly sung all summer at church and I was so happy to be asked to sing. I'm probably going to get to sing tenor instead of alto, at least on some songs, and that's exciting, too.

I've been hibernating most of the summer, doing a few fun things here and there but limited by my surgery and getting my food protocol established and, of course, having very limited funds with every extra dollar being spent on getting my basement fixed.

This is just a great weekend.

Last night there was an incident that could have sabotaged some of it, but I spoke up for myself and salvaged a good night's sleep. I had been awakened by neighbors playing loud music and talking and laughing loudly at 4 a.m. in the morning. This house has been empty for over a year but it was recently purchased and the buyer has his kids rehabbing the place. Well, one of the kids decided to have a party. I debated what to do and finally decided to put on my housecoat and flipflops and talk to them. It took a lot of pounding on the door before they even heard me.

Fortunately, the girl was quite embarrassed for waking me up and grateful I hadn't called the police. She immediately turned the music off and made everyone shut up. Maybe they all went home. Anyway, I was able to go back to sleep and, for the first time in a long time, I actually was able to sleep in on a Saturday morning. I had taken extended relief Tylenol the night before in addition to my anti-inflammatory and slept and woke up without pain for a change.

If I hadn't taken the Tylenol, even though the kids had quieted down, I would have had trouble getting back to sleep because by then it was almost 5 a.m. and that's when the discomfort normally starts waking me up.

So I get to sing praise to God tomorrow morning early (7:45 a.m. practice) but I should still be well rested. My blog post is finished and I can go to bed on time. Its only 10:30 p.m. instead of 12 midnight, which is when I usually finished posting all summer long.

God is good, all the time.

All the time, God is good.