Originally posted by kalijean at Boosting the Signal - Project Save Annabelle (otherwise known as I need help)

I forgot to mention yesterdays Drs appointment.

I have lost a total of 30lbs, thanks to the glyburide and metformin, my sugars are consistently 100-130, a normal healthy range, and the Dr. believes that if I keep this up by the mid to end of this year I could reach my goal. Which is to live medication and diabetes free.

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To those of you with mothers--good mothers who laughed at your jokes, hung your pictures on the fridge, cried with you for your first heartbreak and cried for you through out the bad decisions youth makes...For the mothers who starve, who work themselves blister-footed, for the mothers that work through their own demons: addiction, alcoholism and more...

For the mother's in combat fatigues..
In waitress' uniforms,
in power business suits,
in yoga pants with grass stains,
scrubbing crayons off the wall,
putting food on the table and life in the bellies of sons and daughters...

For the mothers that try and screw up and try again and for the children that love them--

Happy Mother's day.

For those of you in the Motherless tribe, Happy Mother's memories day. Don't be sad too long. She's gone but not far. In you remains her pride, her love, her joy, her laugh, the dust of stars. She's within us.

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I'm trying to write something for my mother's Eulogy for my father to read this July, when he takers her ashes to rest beside the grave of her father.

Writing it is...

I'm wondering if there's such a thing as a good, free Speech to Text (lots of Text to Speech, I don't need that) software for me to try so I can just talk at my computer. I go over what I want to write in my head but when I sit down to type it, it's not working.

I walk around the house talking-it-out to myself and it sounds so much better there than when I sit down in front of Word to try and make it work.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a good note-dictating computer software or speech to text?

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My father wants me to write my Mother's Eulogy for when he places her ashes next to her father in Nova Scotia.

Of course I said yes.

But I wonder how anyone could possibly sum up any human being in any writing. How I could possibly go about telling a group of people about what a wonderful woman she was in life when they are staring at nothing more than a container?

I have until July, where I have to pack in 50 years of humanity in the cold, blank white of a Microsoft document.

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HOMG fae_pendragon donated toward my strange, silly lust for level 50 pink wings for my Eylos character, Desinadre on Aion.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!

I am SO HAPPY you don't know. I am this close--thumb and forefinger pinch--to being able to get the 1600 NCsoft points I need to get them! In the mean time, my little Eylos is only level 27, so I have time to wait 'till maybe using left over birthday monies to seal the deal, get the points I need, and have me some fairy wings.

In the meantime, I have convinced one other person I know to give Aion a try, and found a great guild of older peeps to run with on Tiamat.

The game is great for a free one, and gives me something to do in the spaces I used to RP in while I try and keep my house clean and deal with the side effects some of my medication gives me. :/ I won't type it there, as it's TMI. But, yeah...

At any rate, I can log in when I want and log out when I need a break. I can spend hours gathering or hours questing. Some of the game is very Korean/Grindy, but they've added so many go here, kill x, kill y, come back, go there quests I can at least feel like I am getting somewhere. A lot of people there focus on PVP only and mock PVE, but I think a lot can had out of the game doing either now.

Friday is Grandma Pence's birthday. She'll be 90 years old--around the age of my own grandmother. We're going over tomorrow to see her (as Shawn works friday) and give her a card and gift early.

I'm worried about her a little. Her mind seems to be meandering off more than often and the last time we spoke she told us that she talked with Shawn on the phone for a long time. ...The thing is, Shawn hadn't called her. We don't know who she talked to--but it wasn't Shawn.

In semi-related random health news, my sugars this afternoon were 173. This is a fantastic number for me, as for the last month my sugars wouldn't go down past 200. 200 is still a very high number.

Also, my head still feels fucking fantastic. I am amazed, still, and I don't think that feeling will wear off in a long while.

I'm still waffling over getting back into writing, but I suspect that's my own fault and will have to push myself soon--or get back into it this July during Flash Fiction month. I missed April's NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Month) and feel a little bad about it.

Those of you who MMORPG, what have you been playing?

P.S. have a shot of my character in Aion for giggles:


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I don't know if you've heard, but Aion went free to play.

You can play up to level 55 for free, no restrictions (other than normal in game ones) on your cube (inventory space) and warehouse. Can wear any gear you get, no limit (other than the level 55+ places) you can go--and on top of that, they have a cash shop.

In that cash shop, they have these:

Glorious Black Cloud Wings


I want them. For no other reason other they are a) pink and b) my character is pink and c) I am pretty sure they will complete my gaming life as I know it.

The way NCsoft set up their cash shop is weird and neat. Instead of paying for each individual item, you pay for points. The points pay for the size of the "cube" you get to put cash shop items in. Small cubes can't fit the wings into, medium can. Medium cost about 1200 points. But of course you can't specify the amount of points to buy.

I need about 1600 NCcoin. That's roughly $20 dollars. My paypal just happens to be elf_fu@2phatgeeks.com >.> <.< You know. In case you want to help pay for my pink addiction. :O That's not the ONLY thing that $20 will buy. A medium cube is enough room for me to get myself a pet and a lot of pink dye too. Just in case. There's a...pink shortage. Yeah, yeah...that's the ticket!

Okay, fine, my life is still complete without the wings. But we wants them precious, yes we do. And I figured that I'd just ask the internet and my fellow internet/gamer/pink addicts to make it happen.

P.S I am SO GOOD OMG. Came back from a doctor's appointment and we talked about how good my head space was, but how bad being way more tired than usual was. He didn't want to take me off the Celexa since I was doing so good and I agreed. He's going to try a baby dose of glyburide with my metformin to see if we can get my sugars down to around 130-160. Oh, and I randomly lost seven pounds.

PINK.

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My head space is wonderful. My body space, still not-so-much. Struggling with no motivation to move and do things, and finding myself sleeping way more than eight hours--sometimes eleven or so and waking up feeling like I didn't get any sleep.

The sleeping pills can make me fall asleep at any time, 20 to 60 minutes after taking them. I took them one night early after sleeping in too much in hopes of getting me to bed and thus, awake early. Instead I ended up sleeping far too long again.

I've mentioned this tired-ness to the doc and he's noted to check thyroid somethingsomething via blood tests before. But I've had no word back, so I assume my brain gland is doing fine.

It's so weird to feel fucking great! mentally, and still have the energy and motivation of a salted slug.

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Very, very, very belated (some with extra "very"s, some not-so-much) Happy Birthdays go out to:
kalijean, gramina, yshaloo, brigidsdaughter justbeast and rsmronda.

I have never been terribly good at remembering, I am sorry.

I hope the days were good to you, even though they are long past. I hope that life this year gives you love.

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