Saturday, February 27, 2021

Creative Construction: Building Something New Out of Something Broken

 The good news is that my back is better today than yesterday. Yea! It's not good by any means, but it's good enough I don't need any little pills to be able to hobble around.

So I took full advantage of that and sat around all morning working on my computer haha!

No really, there was lots of writing and editing in the beginning and then I decided it was time to get as creative as possible and create an entry way "table". So I hunted and hunted through the few things that aren't cardboard boxes that I wasn't already utilizing to find something I could put together to make a table high enough to actually be able to use.

What I 'created' I'm extremely happy with for the pieces I had available to use. 

All that was left in the apartment was a very dirty squarish plastic flower pot that I had stored outside because it was so filthy and cracked in multiple places. I partnered that with a broken plastic crate I used to use in my car trunk for all my car tools but it's so broken it doesn't work for that anymore. So I had brought it inside and it has been holding books I'm not currently reading along with my tiny sewing kit. It has done well at that but I decided to see if I could get it to work better as a table topper. 

I succeeded! It is far from the prettiest table ever, but it is very useful and I now have a place to set things when I walk in the door, first, and second, I have a place to keep my hand sanitizer and garage door opener that I always want as close to the door as possible. It's a little precarious to put much on top that's heavy, but I have a way way better bookshelf now for my books. An Amazon envelope and sturdy piece of cardboard provided sufficient surfaces to be able to use it as such.

There is now only cardboard boxes left with which to 'build' whatever construction I fancy next. Luckily the apartment is quite small so there really isn't much space left for any 'building'!

I guess that means I can't procrastinate my writing by rationalizing my cleaning habits haha. But hey, I enjoyed my day and will continue to enjoy my entry table for months to come, I hope.

Now how pretty and ingenuous is that?


Friday, February 26, 2021

Which Way Does Your Fridge Door Swing?

My back didn't handle today as well as it did the last few days. I went for a half hour walk and reclined, as opposed to sit, to avoid putting so much pressure on my tailbone, but I'm back on my little pill to make it through the night. It probably didn't help I had an hours worth of dishes to wash and I was spontaneously desired to reorganize the kitchen....just a little.

The current apartment I'm in only has what I call a dorm size fridge. It's the fridge style with the freezer inside it which means you can put a couple of ice trays and that's about it. Granted, it is slightly bigger than the dorm fridge I had in college, but still...

Anyway, I'd been planning and had arranged with the landlord to purchase a used, adult-size fridge for the apartment. But I've learned a new cultural norm about Mexico.

THEY ONLY HAVE FRIDGE DOORS THAT OPEN FROM THE LEFT!!

No, seriously. I'm not kidding. Too bad if your fridge space is against the wall on the left side of the kitchen (like mine is). You'll just have to rake your knuckles against the wall every time you want to open the door and you'll have to open it all the way just to reach inside. Then you'll have to take one item out at a time to walk it around the fridge to put it on the counter. I seriously am still shocked. I thought it was just standard that fridges came with the possibility to change which side the door opens. They have had that option all my life. And I thought people just knew that. Even the appliance store workers in Mexico have never heard of the possibility of switching doors, let alone the regular population. It's a true unsolved mystery. 

Anyway, I started looking for fridges that opened from the right side first. There's plenty of those normally: not in Mexico. Once I realized fridges that open from the right are an anomaly in Mexico, I thought, "Well, that's not a big deal. I'll just change the fridge doors to open from the right." Hah! 

The fridges aren't actually manufactured to be able to do that here either. 

I finally found what I thought was the perfect fridge. It was an adult, large size, good brand fridge with the predrilled holes to change out the doors in the pictures. So I made an appointment with the owners and was preparing to buy a fridge. I got to the house. The fridge was fantastic. It was huge! And even better, it was clean!! I was stoked. I checked the extra holes in the middle between the freezer and the fridge, yes. I checked for the pivot hole in the fridge door, yes. And then I got on my tip toes to check the very top for the three holes to change the bracket to hold the freezer door on to the box. Nope. No holes. Not a one. They weren't covered or painted over. They'd never been put in by the manufacturer. 

I was devastated. 

I looked for another week and eventually gave up. The next however many months I'm in this apartment will be lived in a constant state of fear that I can't fit something I buy in the fridge or freezer and having to unpackage everything to make it fit and moving things around every single day to make it all work. 

Because I thought I was going to have an adult size fridge I decided to go ahead and prepare the kitchen for it. There was a 4 tier bookshelf I was using for paper towels, fruit, extra bottles, oil, etc. that was in the fridge space next to my dorm fridge. The two are so small they fit side-by-side in the same space for an adult fridge.

In preparation, I removed the bookshelf to the living room and relocalized all my bottles to various awkward locations.

With the reality setting in that I will not have an adult size fridge, I decided to go ahead and put the bookshelf back in the kitchen. There are only 3 upper cabinets and 1 lower so I'm super cramped for space. I cleaned the bookshelf of the items I'd collected in the living room and put it in a new location in the kitchen and restocked it with my fruit and bottles and napkins and paper towels. I can see my kitchen counters again and I can completely close the kitchen cabinets too!

I will definitely miss having a full size, adult fridge for the foreseeable future, but it is really nice to have some organization back in my kitchen. 

The even better news, is that if a right-side opening fridge falls in my lap for the right price, I have space for it because I relocated the bookshelf. It's always good to keep your options open! But I'm not longer fridge hunting. I've spent too many hours on it already and know it's a needle in a hay stack here to find what I'm looking for so it's time to move on to other priorities. 

Here's to organized kitchens, more counter space, kitchen cabinets that close, and refrigerators that open from the right side!!


The bright yellow 'cabinetless' wall with interesting African(?) art decor . (I rent).

Thursday, February 25, 2021

Walking Through Back Pain

Many years ago now, I tore my lower back doing a simple lift at a Cross Fit gym under the direct supervision of its owner, who never realized I tore it coincidentally. I suffered for weeks unable to walk and then graduating to using two canes and eventually just one in order to get around. I couldn't stand up straight and it hurt to sneeze, laugh, couch, etc. It also hurt to sit down in a chair or go anywhere in a car. It was a terrible experience. 

After that, I began training in Insanity again and learned a lot about using correct muscles while I retore and rehealed and retore and rehealed my back. I finally recovered (technically you never do) and kept at the workouts but with a new found knowledge of muscle use in exercise.

Fast forward to recently and somehow I reinjured my back. There was no, omg ouch!, moment. I just realized at one point that my back really hurt and very quickly after that, it went from it hurts to I can't move. Once again I was practically bed ridden. I did nothing for a few days other than hobble from the bed to the bathroom to the couch and back. The pain didn't improve, nor did my mobility. So I started taken muscle relaxants (just over the counter ones, but strong ones-thank you Mexico), and slowly but surely I've progressed. 

I have no bath to soak in so I counted on those little pills to relax my back enough to walk. I couldn't stand up straight for about a week and it hurt to cough, sneeze, or laugh again. 

With the little pills though, I was able to walk around my place and one day (I don't even remember why, but I'm going with I needed food) I had to walk to the store. When I returned my back was aching horribly and I could barely stand up. I thought I'd really screwed up going for the walk. But the next morning, turns out my back was better; not perfect, but better. I took more little pills and laid around on the couch all day thinking it would be good to rest it after such a trialing day before. But the following morning my back was no better. "What in the world?" I thought. 

So yesterday I took another super duper, Ronda turbo speed, almost two hour long walk and yes, when I got back my back ached. Granted, I'd done that walk with Denny Crane comfortably resting in his fancy backpack on my back because he can't keep up with my pace for that long and I didn't want him molesting the neighbors by barking for 2 hours either. That night I decided not to take a pill and see what happened this morning. 

Turns out, my back is better this morning. No, it's not perfect. It still hurts if I sneeze or cough, but getting up and down from a seated position, or standing up straight no longer hurts or is impossible. I was also able to crack my lower back which really hurt but also felt intensely satisfying and relieving. 

I still have no idea what I did to cause my back to suddenly go out, but I am glad to have learned that if I can walk through the pain, I can wake up renewed and restored!

I spotted this beautiful bright red cardinal (?) on my walk.


Wednesday, February 24, 2021

Too Early For Coffee

 Today I'm up so early (for me) that my computer is still in night mode. All the blue lighting to help ease me to sleep at night is very low and I feel like I'm sleep typing just looking at the screen.

It's still too early for coffee. My body doesn't want anything yet. No sensory receptors are ready to function: no sound (except my keyboard), no food or drinks, no candles or aromatherapy diffusers, etc. I'm still sleeping!

Wasn't my choice to wake up this early as I set no alarms and I didn't have any nightmares, but things happen sometimes. Trying to use the time wisely because going back to bed only results in tossing and turning and light sleep patterns where you end up more tired than you began.

Yesterday was a good day for productivity though. Happy to have made as much progress as I did in so many things. Now I just have to stick to my guns and do it all again today! 

Here's to making it a good day.

Working from bed still...



Tuesday, February 23, 2021

Alive & Dreams

 The title won't make any sense probably, if you didn't see my last post, but I'm going to make the crazy assumption you're here because you enjoy catching up on my strange life, even though I haven't been good at posting for a long long time.

Truth is, I'm not inspired to post when I'm not really happy so it hasn't been a writing season for quite some time. And even less so during the fun newish, now oldish pandemic.

Trying to find a new me and learn a new life and all of that has shown me: 

  • I need to sleep until at least 9am no matter how many hours of sleep that actually is.
  • I am now a coffee drinker more than a yerba mate drinker even though I don't like the taste better.
  • I need in-person/live people-watching to survive a quarantine.
  • Shaunt T is still the man for exercise inspiration!
  • I am able to learn a lot about relationships and communication by watching The Amazing Race.
  • Lamps are amazing things. You never know what you will miss until you don't have it anymore.
  • I've never been unemployed for so long in my life since high school.
  • Wearing makeup during a pandemic doesn't help you feel more alive; more like silly.
  • I hate cooking. This is not something new. Just something verified by pandemic cooking 3x/day.
  • Video calls are more stressful than helpful. I'm old school and still prefer voice calls.
Ok, I think that is enough sharing for now. You get the idea. 

In the process of trying to find the new Ronda while not completely losing the old Ronda so that I can find work again one day (Who knew that violinists aren't commodities in the 'real' world and businesses aren't interested in the skill set of dedication, perseverance, focus, accurate and precise work, responsible autonomously, and fast learning required to be a professional violinist.), I'm hoping, yes hoping, to write more in the blog.

I can't guarantee the future and I'm big on not making promises I can't keep, so I will do my best to write a whole lot more :)

When I traveled the world for a living (yes, that was an awesome job), I had so much material I couldn't get it all written down. With life seemingly the same, churning out a mundane existence moving from one couch to the other, I'm not so inspired with fantastic tales of adventure. But, I do live in Mexico with a Dachshund of unparalleled personality, so I'm sure I can find something worth writing about once in a while, right? Well, that's the goal. 

I aim to write much more often here on this blog and if you feel so inclined, responding to me (respond to the blog email if you're a subscriber, comment on my blog, message me on fb, etc.) would be a wonderful way to inspire me to keep writing right now.

Hopefully I will have continuing reasons to keep writing and blogging and reimagining Ronda!

How is he so photogenic? I mean, he steals the shot every time! I am obsessed with my new watch band however.
Who knew 12mm quality watch bands were so hard to come by in Mexico?!