Let the decluttering begin...

Sympathy...

I have always had sympathy for people with chronic pain, but now I REALLY get it.

Over the past year I've had pain in my joints.  Usually it's just a dull achey sort of pain with intermittent periods of sharp pain.  It never bothered me enough to go to the doctor, though.  I hate the doctor.  It takes A LOT to get me in to a doctor's office.  Over the past several months it's gotten worse, though, and now my muscles are giving me trouble.  It's pretty much constant pain all the time, and if I sit, stand, lay down, walk, lift, bend, or stretch too much I'm in tons of pain.  

I have tried going to the chiropractor (who has helped my neck, but not the muscle pain in my back), frequent visits to the hot tub, and massage...none of which has done anything long term.  So finally I relented and went in to see my doctor last week.  She thinks it may be a side effect of a medication I'm on, but just in case she took 10 (yes TEN) vials of blood to test for various things.  She doubts those will show anything and told me to go off the medication and wait for six weeks.  SIX WEEKS?!?  Ugh.  I'm hoping that's what it is because I don't think I could deal with this for the rest of my life.  It sucks.  So to everyone out there who is living with chronic pain?  Kudos to you. 

Sunday Adventures

Okay, so once everyone flaked out on me for the May Day Parade I decided I needed to get out of the house and figured I would just start driving and see where I ended up.  I got on 94E and found myself crossing the border into Wisconsin (I'm going to apologize for the quality of photos right now...they were taken with my phone while traveling 55-75 mph).

After awhile I saw signs for Crystal Cave and decided I needed to see what that was all about, so I exited.  Another sign, off the exit, told me to go 6 miles.  I did.  And then 7 and 8 and 9.  No other signs, no directions as to where to turn to find the mysterious cave...so I turned around and went back to where 6 miles was and turn down a road.  After awhile I turned down another road and another.  Eventually I decided that I wasn't going to find the cave and turned around again...except I must have missed a turn somewhere because I wasn't finding the main road again, and I had no idea where 94 was.  I did see lots of trees, though...

And I saw (and smelled!) lots of cows...unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of them.  They moved too fast ;)

**Photo Comment**  Kristin sees a smiley face in the clouds in the photo above.  I see a monkey.  Either way it makes me happy.

Eventually I found myself back on 94 and decided to continue the adventure by heading even further east.  Next I saw a sign for a bison meat store and gift shop and figured I needed to stop there.  I was all set to buy some bison meat for a good ol' bison burger until I saw how cute they were...

So I left the bison ranch empty handed.  I figured I needed a little more adventure, so I headed east again until I reached Menomonie.  I'd never been there, so I decided to take a drive around town.  I promptly got lost which up until this trip has never really been an issue for me...

Eventually I found my way back to 94 and decided I should probably head home (although a trip to Eau Claire and Madison seemed tempting).  The ride back home went quickly and was quite uneventual...but I did learn a few things:

1.  Bison are cute.

2.  I'm addicted to Diet Coke.

3.  Either I don't have as good of sense of direction as I thought or Wisconsin roads and signs are screwy.

4.  Next time bring the good camera.

5.  I need to do this more often.  

School Update

Well, I finished the second trimester of the year about a month ago.  Yay!  That trimester seemed a little rough compared to others - part of it was the classes themselves and part of it was just me being completely unmotivated.

I am all done with my fieldwork classes for this year, although I am still doing the fieldwork.  The internship at CPA continues to go well, but I find myeslf wishing I could just be done with my 200 hour commitment.  I have about 165 hours, so I'm well on my way to finishing, but still have another month or so before I'll be done.  

My Communication and Interviewing class was a good one, but I didn't feel like I got a whole lot out of it.  Mostly it just felt like a lot of writing without much learning.  I'm not sure if this was my fault or if it really just wasn't helpful.

This semester I'm taking a Working with Groups class as well as a Social Policy for Social Change class.  Initially I was certain I would love the groups class and hate the policy one.  Now that I've gone to three sessions of each I've decided I hate the groups class and love the policy class - go figure.  

I can't believe a year from now I'll be done!  Granted I'll most likely be starting grad school soon after, but after 13 years and 7 colleges I will finally have my BSW!  Yippee!