Getting Outside

I finally had that picnic with my 10yo that we've been planning for weeks. It was just too hot to enjoy being outside and then I had to babysit or I was just to fatigued or had an appointment or something would come up. It rained the other day, and yesterday, I was busy and tired. But today, despite not sleeping at all last night, decided we would get this done finally.

Originally, I wanted to get out early (before 11am) and go to the waterfront park before it got busy, but I wasn't quite awake by 11am (got up around 10) so had a second cup of coffee. I was working on my cross stitch project and decided around noon that when I finished the color I was working on, I was going to start packing for the picnic. Surprisingly, I did.

We left around 1pm but only walked up the hill to the little green space in the neighborhood. Luckily, no one was out so we spread our extra-large beach towel out in the middle of the scratchy grass and had our sandwiches and snacks (carrots and pineapple and White Cheddar Cheetos). My son started reading from his book (the original plan weeks ago was we would go somewhere and he would have to read to me for practice) while I sat uncomfortably on the ground. I'm way too fat for that any more. My back and hips were killing me and my feet kept going numb, so we moved to one of the benches.

We sat there for quite a while. I finished up one of the square and got about half way through the next in the ugly sweater I'm working on. The only snag in the plan was two of our cats--Leo and Lilah--followed us up the hill (as they often do when we go for walks). They were just lounging around when suddenly Leo sprints away. We were confused until we noticed the guy with a dog trying to toss something in the trash can which happened to be where Lilah was laying. Lilah hates dogs. HATES them. We had a dog briefly, and she terrorized the poor thing. I've seen her stalk dogs that walk past our house.

I warned the guy and we ran down the hill to try to distract her before she went after the dog. All of our male cats will run away if they see a dog, but Lilah is freaking crazy. But the guy and the dog made it through unscathed. Lilah eventually calmed down and went to hang out with Leo again, and we went back to our bench.

I'm not sure how long we sat there, but eventually we went for a little walk (taking a round-about way home), leaving painted rocks for people to find along the way. It was really nice. I'm thinking we need to do it more often--just the hike up the hill and sitting while he reads and I knit. Of course, summer is almost over now and the rain will start. There's such a short period of time where we can do stuff like that here, and I wasted most of it this year.

Anyway, we got back and I was wore out so worked on my cross stitch. Got pretty far in it but have developed a lovely new symptom of something. I have my head tilted down and looking below the edge of my glasses to work on the fabric. Whenever I lifted my head, the entire room would spin. It felt like I was on a merry-go-round or something. It was nauseating. I was hoping the feeling would go away once I stopped working on it. I nearly fell over when I got up because the room tilted. Complete vertigo. I felt better after moving around a bit, but now, any time I look down for more than a minute, I get the feeling.

This is really going to suck. It means I can't really do anything with my hands (including knitting/crocheting). Like I need more issues.

It's now 9pm, and I'm really sleepy. Not sure if it's from the meds, eating, or I'm just physically worn out from today (even though I didn't do much). I should probably go to bed early tonight. I really didn't sleep at all last night.