Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday…inflammation and camping

Tuesday June 11, 2024

Dear Diary,

I woke up at 5 am, I wrote blog until 6 am. I woke Angel up and she went into the house. I got up and let out the chickens, ducks, kittens and geese. I put fresh water in their pool and went in the house. I greeted Christopher and fed Bits. I made a watermelon and frozen grape smoothie and hung laundry on the line. Angel got ready to go with me and we headed out to my first cleaning opportunity. Bits came with us today, he was able to come inside the first house with me and I messaged 2 friends to see if he could play at their house the rest of the day. My friend Kim responded back right away and said she was happy to have him. 

Angel was supposed to be doing schoolwork while I cleaned but she didn’t want to. I told her she could choose not to but she couldn’t play on her phone until it was done. Angel is doing school in the summer because she gets a lot of time off throughout the school year, when we travel and even when we are not traveling, she usually only does school 3 days a week. She said she wasn’t going to do school today and didn’t care about being on her phone. I said ok and she went out to look at the horses and play with the dogs while I cleaned. 

I finished cleaning my first house and it was tough. My right arm was swollen and ached where the wasp had stung me yesterday evening, my right knee was aching and I could barely lift my left arm from my rotator cuff acting up. I dropped off Bits on our way to my next house. They had a new female golden retriever puppy and Angel thought that was really great. The puppy was 6 weeks old and very cute. Angel played with her almost the whole time I cleaned, though she did manage to get one page of her math done. 

My next 3 houses were uneventful. My body was hurting even worse and I was tired by the time I finished them all. I picked up Bits and headed home. On the drive home I developed a slight headache. At home I greeted Christopher and made myself some tea. I laid down in the banana hut and rested until it was time to call one of my coaching clients. Our session went great and my slight headache was gone by time I got off of the phone. 

I noticed Bits was itching a lot and had little spot on him. I showed Christopher and he said they were hot spots. I had just given him a flea pill a few days ago and I wondered if that’s what was causing the hot spots. I looked it up and it definitely could be the cause. 

Christopher had dinner ready and I ate a salad he had prepared. I thanked him for making it for me. After I ate, I took an outdoor shower with Bits. I washed him with hot spot shampoo and after drying him off, I put diluted apple cider vinegar on him. I got dressed and drove to town to go to a board meeting for the Kay theater. I called my friend Tracey on the drive and as always he was very encouraging and uplifting. The board meeting went great and was finished within an hour. I stopped at the store and filled my truck up with gas, then headed home. It had been a long day and I was really tired. 

At home, I did the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, brought the laundry in off the line and put it away. Angel and I put the kittens away in their crate for the night and closed up the birds in their coops. We went in the banana hut and cuddled in bed while I read Angel 3 chapters from The National Park Mystery Series book 4. Then Angel watched the Kratt brothers on PBS kids while I wrote my blog. I turned off the light and we fell asleep at 10 pm. 

Wednesday June 12, 2024

Dear Diary,

I woke up at 4:30 am. I had slept good. I wrote my blog until 6 am. Angel woke up and went in the house to get ready to go with me. I let out the ducks, chickens, geese and kittens and put fresh was in their pool. I hung up laundry on the line and went into the house. I greeted Christopher, made tea and fed Bits. It started raining and I got a few clothes off of the line and hung them up inside. 

It started raining harder and Christopher said he got a text that his work was rained out. When Angel heard this, she said she wanted to stay home with him. I told her it was story-time at the library today and she said she would rather stay home. I figured she wanted to stay home so she wouldn’t have to do school. I told her she still had to read one of her storybooks for her school but that’s all. Reading is what she needs the most practice at. I got a book for her and had her read it to me while I made my smoothie. She read through about half of it before it was time for me to leave. I had her sit next to Christopher to read the rest of it to him. 

I had only one house to clean today and I was really grateful for that. The drive to town was slower than usual because it was raining so hard. It is such a blessing that we are getting a good amount of rain this year. I arrived at my cleaning opportunity and chatted with my clients while I cleaned. When I finished, I picked up Ms. M and since we weren’t going to story-time we took a drive around town before going to the Rockdale Reporter to wait for the papers to arrive. 

When we arrived at the Reporter, it was still pouring rain. I got my umbrella out from behind the back seat so Ms. M wouldn’t get wet walking into the building but the umbrella was broken. We both got really wet and Ms. M said she was cold. I sat her down in the front with her suduko puzzle and told her I would get her a jacket out of the truck. She said she was feeling warm now and didn’t need it. I sat where I could see her and wrote my blog waiting for the papers to arrive. The papers arrived early and they were their regular size again. Last week they had been big and heavy because they had the FYI insert and it was large due to it being Rockdale’s sesquicentennial year. It was a great insert but I was glad the papers were back to their normal size. 

The route went great. I was grateful to be able to take my time. The rain had stopped and the air smelled fresh and clean. I had fun chatting with people and Ms. M seemed to be enjoying riding all around town. When I finished, I took Ms. M to her house and stopped at the store to get a few things for camping before heading home. I was leaving to go camping with the homeschool co-op as soon as I got everything packed up. I was not taking my pop-up camper. I want to get new tires for it before taking it on a trip. I will be taking a tent, which is much simpler than taking the camper. 

On the drive home, I called Christopher and asked him to get a few things ready for the camping trip. He said he would and was waiting with the items when I arrived. A few minutes later my grandson Finn’s other grandma dropped him off so he could go camping with us. Christopher helped me get everything packed up. I told him thank you. I organized the bed of the truck and we headed to McKinney Falls State Park. 

I enjoyed the drive to the state park. I listened to inspirational music while the kids played on Angels phone. Even though the state park is close to Austin, traffic wasn’t backed up and we arrived at around 5:30 pm without any issues. I really liked the campsite I had. It was fairly secluded and was more private than a lot of the other sites. The kids played while I started setting up camp. Angel and Finn helped set up their little tent. My friend Rachele arrived with her 2 boys shortly after me and her campsite was right next to mine. Our other friend Leslie arrived with her 2 girls a little while later and her campsite was right across the road. 

When our camps were set up, we got the kids ready to go swimming. Rachele and I walked to upper falls with our kids. Leslie drove and met us there. The walking path to get there was chip sealed and very rough. The kids were excited and running down it. Angel tripped and fell and got some scrapes. A little while later Finn fell and got some scrapes. Neither were serious injuries and I gave the kids a talk about only walking and paying attention. I told them I understood they were excited but they wouldn’t get to swim if they got injured badly. They calmed down and there wasn’t anymore incidents. I had the kids taste some greenbrier tips and Rachele and I identified plants along the way. 

To get to the beach area we had to walk on a narrow path that had poison ivy growing on one side of it. I told everyone we would need to scrub down with a washcloth, using soap and water when we got back to camp in case they got poison ivy on them. (If you wash it off within twelve hours there usually isn’t a reaction to it.)

The swimming hole was great fun. We swam and played for 2 hours. I floated on my back some of the time and fully relaxed my body. It still had inflammation and the water was helping a lot. I had brought apples and oranges along for the kids and we all enjoyed snacking on them on short swim breaks. 

Rachele and I walked back to camp and all the kids rode with Leslie. It was a peaceful relaxing walk. Rachele and I enjoyed each others company. We identified more plants and talked about what plants I can choose to talk about during my presentation on July 7th. 

At camp, we all washed our arms and legs and ate dinner. We got a campfire going and I asked the kids fun questions, such as, “if you were an animal which one would you like to be”. Then the kids came up with their own questions and each of us took turns answering. We all had a lot of fun. At bed time, Finn and Angel slept in her little tent and I slept on a cot in my tent next to theirs. The kids fell asleep right away. I wrote my blog and fell asleep at 11pm. 

Thursday June 13, 2024

Dear Dairy,

I woke up at 6 am. I slept good but my body was hurting worse than ever. Especially my left rotator cuff and my right knee. I had eaten some cheese before bed and at the time I was eating it, I received a knowing from the Holy Spirit that my body has been experiencing inflammation more and more since I’d added cheese back into my diet. Ok, cheese was out again. It wasn’t worth all of this pain I was experiencing. 

Rachele’s kids came over and her oldest son started the fire going. Rachele had borrowed a single propane burner of mine last night. I went and got it so I could make the kids breakfast. I couldn’t get it working and I was getting frustrated. I didn’t want the kids getting too hungry and a lot of the food I brought for them needed to be cooked. Rachele came over and I told her my issues. Her propane stove wasn’t working either because it was missing a part. I went in the woods to get kindling to build up the fire so I could cook over it and I got covered in beggars lice. It was all over me, knotted up all in my hair and my pj’s were covered in it. I was not happy about this. I got hair conditioner out of my suitcase and put it all throughout my hair. I started slowly pulling the beggars lice out and Rachele helped me. I changed out of my pj’s and got ready to go to the camp store to see if they had any propane refill for my other camp stove and to get some ice. Rachele stayed with the kids and pulled all of the beggars lice out of my pj’s. Thank you Rachele. The camp store was tiny, they didn’t have propane and they said they couldn’t sell me ice because their computer system was down. They said there was a store I could go to about 3 miles away. I thanked them and when I went outside, I saw there was a long line of people leaving the park. I didn’t want to get in that line so came back to the camp and made a breakfast of scrambled eggs and cheese over the campfire. Everyone had already been snacking all morning and hardly anyone ate any of it, I didn’t eat any of it except 2 bites and I immediately felt my body reacting. I fed it to Bits and I laughed at my drama, telling Rachele I had gotten all worked up about making breakfast for nothing. 

I made myself a smoothie and noticed that I really did need ice as my coolers were getting warm. I drove to the nearest H‑E‑B and I was glad I did. I got ice and healthy snacks for the kids and unhealthy marshmallows 😂. For myself I got some fresh squeezed OJ. Yum yum! My body was feeling better from having the smoothie earlier. It’s amazing how much fruit reduces inflammation in my body. It’s magical. 

When I arrived at camp we all went swimming at lower falls. We drove there since it was farther away. When we arrived there were a few people there but it wasn’t crowded. A lady there had 2 large German shepherds running around off leash. There were signs all over saying that no dogs were allowed off leash and that dogs were not allowed to go swimming. I understand why, since it’s a public swimming area and it’s for safety, not all dogs are friendly and not all people like dogs. The dogs were swimming all over among the people and I could tell that a lot of people were uncomfortable with it. I asked the lady if the dogs were supposed to be in the water. She said they weren’t but they got off their leashes and she couldn’t stop them. One dog started going over to Bits who was sitting on the shore with his leash on. I saw Bits was beginning to freak out. I ran over and picked him up. The lady said that her dog wouldn’t hurt him and I told her that Bits gets scared of big dogs he doesn’t know because he thinks they will hurt him. I stood on the shore holding Bits and her dogs continued running all over and swimming among the people. People were trying to stay away from the dogs and after a while of watching this and holding Bits, I called the park and told them about the dogs. They said they would send someone out right away. No one came but about 20 minutes later the lady left. 

I set Bits back down and joined everyone swimming. A few of the kids jumped off the cliff where the waterfall was. Angel thought about jumping off of it but changed her mind once she was up there. I wanted to do it but I’d done cliff jumping from really high heights too much when I was younger and now it messes up my ears if I go down too deep. I found a waterfall I could sit under and I got an incredible back massage from it. I did a lot of stretching in the water and floated on my back some more. My body kept feeling better and better. On swim breaks the kids ate fruit and granola bars and I drank my smoothie. I sat near the shore and skipped rocks for a while, my dad taught me to skip rocks when I was a kid and we would skip rocks together for hours. I love skipping rocks. 

We swam for a few hours and went to camp to rest for the afternoon. As soon as we got to camp, Angel went in her tent and fell asleep and I took a 20 minute nap in the hammock. When I woke up, I cut up some watermelon and cut up some more watermelon and cut up some more watermelon. The kids ended up eating a whole watermelon before they were done. I was glad they were eating so much watermelon because I knew it would keep them from getting dehydrated. Angel woke up and had a slight fever. She drank some watermelon I had blended up and sat on my lap. I was all set to pack up and head home but Angel insisted on staying. Whatever she had, we had already been exposed to and Rachele and Leslie weren’t concerned about their kids getting it. So I decided we would stay. Angel laying around here wasn’t much different than Angel after about an hour laying around at home.

After about an hour, Angels fever broke and she was ready to go swimming again. We drove to upper falls and everyone swam for a couple more hours. When we finished swimming and arrived at the campsite. I got my propane burner working and made cheese quesadillas and grilled cheese sandwiches for everyone. Then the kids roasted marshmallows over the campfire. Angel’s slight fever returned and she put herself to bed. The rest of us sat around the fire singing campfire songs until it started to get dark. I tucked Finn into bed and wrote my blog until I fell asleep at around 10 pm. 

Thank you for reading my blog and being a part of my life. I appreciate you. 

Love,

Victoria 

P.S. This blog post was inspired by the Holy Spirit.


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