A tough day

I've been exhausted and restless the last few days. My sleep pattern has been erratic and I'm having trouble falling asleep despite being completely worn out. I tossed and turned for hours last night, finally falling asleep as the sun came up. The nightmares came back with a vengeance. I woke gasping and irritated. I'm trying not to let it ruin my day. I keep a notebook and pen by my bed and have been writing them down as soon as I wake which helps me to let them go.
In other news, my melon vines have been flowering and one has produced several tiny watermelon which are about the size of a bean. I will post pictures as soon as I can. My dad will be setting up the trellis this weekend for the vines to climb. I plan to grow them vertically to save space and keep the dog from trampling them.
I am very weak and tired today, my muscles aching. So I plan to do as little as possible and maybe I'll feel a bit better tomorrow.

It's 4:37 pm and I just received my 2nd harassing phone call from a new debt collection agency. This guy pulled out all the stops, intimidation, swearing etc. I should have asked him who peed in his cheerios this morning....hehe. I have decided to stop answering my phone unless I recognize the number and communicate with these agencies strictly via mail.

Paaaaiiiiiinnnn

I have been in severe pain in my ribs and spine the last two days which becomes excruciating when I twitch. It hurts to breathe, move, sit still etc, and feels as though I've been punched hard in the back several times. The pain had me in tears throughout most of yesterday despite downing ibuprofen - I took 4 over the course of the day. I am very sensitive to it and generally a 200mg tablet will relieve my pain for at least 12 hours. But yesterday it was not even making a dent. I distracted myself while lying down by calling friends, sketching and writing a bit of angry poetry. The pain is not as intense today, though I still feel as though my ribs are bruised. My guess is that it is a result of my twitching episode on the 10th. Since I've been ill, my body is slow to react, so it makes sense that it would have taken a few days to show up. It feels as though I really overdid doing backward sit-ups - the soreness being in the muscles. I've decided that today I will focus on completing, mailing and filing paperwork, which has been a bit neglected lately. I can do this while in bed (aside from the mailing part *wink*) so that is good.

As I watered my garden this morning, I noticed that some little critter had chomped away at my cantaloupe vines...nearly obliterating one and nibbling on another. I'll do some research and call my friend who manages a farm and see if she has any ideas.

Whacky sleep schedule

OK, my sleep schedule is all whacky. After sleeping 14 hours yesterday then being up til 4am, I slept for only 4 hours and cannot get back to sleep despite being very tired and shaky. It's very strange, and feels almost as though I've had some sort of stimulant like caffeine.

I decided that as long as I'm awake, I might as well be productive. So I had breakfast, watered my garden and made a few phone calls. My peppers, cucumber and zucchini have not sprouted yet, but my watermelon and cantaloupe are growing like weeds. One week ago I posted a picture of the first watermelon sprout. Above is that same sprout today.

Bird!

I finally caught one of our palm tree nesters on camera. (If you look closely you'll see it perched just above the hole in the tree, worms it it's beak)I'm still not sure what kind of bird it is.....I don't recall seeing it before this year. I think now there is only one baby bird in that nest. It poked it's little head out and squawked the other day. It was pretty big, and I'm not surprised considering how many bugs the lil critter eats!

I've been pretty busy keeping up with paperwork and my garden, which has expanded to include cucumbers and zucchini. My health is still poor but is levelling off. I'm just grateful I'm not getting worse at this point, and can still walk around the house and take care of basic things.

Little bird

Meows (sister's cat) caught a small songbird yesterday. She trotted into the kitchen with it and I picked her up and walked her back outside while she squirmed and fussed and eventually dropped the the bird who landed with a 'plop' on the ground. I set the kitty down and picked up the tiny bird who was breathing hard, mouth open gasping for breath. I then placed it on a small landing of sorts in our mesquite tree while I set up a cozy bed for it to lay on inside the cat carrier. It was very late, and my dad had already gone to bed, so I scooped up the little bird, fed it some water with an eye dropper before placing it inside the carrier which I set in the laundry room to keep the lil fella warm overnight. I had planned to ask my dad to take it to a wildlife rescue group this morning, but when I woke and went in to check on it, it had passed :-(
I'll wait til the sun begins to set before going out to find a nice burial site for the little critter.

I found a nice burial site and laid the bird to rest. Then I went a little nuts digging up the garden to plant some peppers. I found a really huge grub and took a pic of it..not really sure what kind of beetle it's gonna be, but it sure was interesting.