Climbing up the mountain!

My breathing numbers are IMPROVING!!!  I don't quite know what to feel.  Of course I'm happy!  Yay.  But my victories require so much effort that I stop caring by the time something good happens.  I've been exercising 2.5 hrs almost every day for two months now.  It's not that much, really, if you consider it takes me twice as long to burn as many calories as a healthy person can.  I don't move very quickly.  I don't think the exercising is helping the breathing, I think the increasing lung capacity is helping the exercise.

My low was an FEV1 of 1.09 in October.  I have blown a few 1.28s recently.  Had to be sure it wasn't just a fluke.  That's 41% lung capacity for me.  The clinic measured 1.17 (38%) the past two months.  A few percentage points increase is awesome!  I have spirometry on Friday.  Here's hoping I do better than 1.17.

I have to temper my excitement with the knowledge that even if I make it up the mountain (let's say I DO see the 25% average increase that reflux people can see...) I know when I get to the top there will just be another ogre waiting to knock me back down and I'll have to start climbing a new mountain all over again.  That's just the way my life works.  Maybe I can hug the ogre so he won't be so mean :-)

Yeah, I took a pic. Haven't seen that since last August!!

Learning the violin is going to be a riot.  My teacher's name is Ken.  Of course it is.  He was super happy that I can read music and we could skip all of the super basic stuff.  Steep learning curve, though.  Good grief.  He also liked my violin :-)

Oh, and the best part?  In order to clean the rosin off your strings the interwebs recommends using a wine cork.  I LOVE this.  I had fun sorting through corks to find a cool label to use.  I might use a champagne cork when my current cork wears out.

There are little community orchestras all over San Diego.  Mr. Ken said the lady who was getting a lesson before me has been playing a year and a half and is in one of those little orchestras!  How cool!  I would love to be in a little orchestra.

So Jeff again proves himself as the best hubby ever.  He sent me a mahogany (cherry? who knows- there was no invoice) music stand for Valentine's Day.  It was a total surprise and way better than flowers or chocolate.  So much prettier than the black metal folding one I bought!  I had to get creative since it wasn't level (has NO ONE heard of six sigma? Gah) and I would probably hurt myself if I broke out the saw and wood glue since I'm a freakin' disaster... but this girl's got smarts.

See how crooked it is? The cardboard wad pushes it back level.

I walk around straightening pictures everywhere I go.  I even installed a level app on my phone so I know things are really level.  OCD?  Nah...  Weirds people out?  Maybe.  Nothing's worse than going to a hotel and seeing that they screwed the pictures (all 4 corners) onto the wall crooked!!  Drives me crazy.  Maybe I should wonder why I'm in hotels that require that the art be screwed to the walls... Maybe I need to start bringing a Leatherman so I can fix them.

And these guys?  They make my 3 mile walks around the neighborhood much more fun.  They have two albums and I think they're fantastic.  Probably best known for their cover of Smooth Criminal.  This concert was in Croatia in July 2013.  Stacey and I have been to Croatia in July.  It was SO flippin' hot.  That's all I remember.  The sweltering heat and the hell of PH.  Yuck.  

Hopefully the flashing lights don't give you a seizure... but these dudes are crazy!

Here's another slower one with no flashing lights.  Because... well... Electric Cello :-)