Live a Good Life, Enjoy Your Life

If you can enjoy your life, you will most likely consider you are living a good life.

A life made up of many stresses and strains will never be a good life. Stresses and strains make it to hard to find enjoyment. Living a simple life, and being happy with whatever you have, make it so much easier to have fun and enjoyment.

So if you're fighting to get the new best thing, maybe you could think clearly about it. Will that thing truly make you happy for long, or only for a short while. Then the next new best thing will pop up and you'll be stressing and straining to get one for yourself.

I find pleasure in being at one with Nature, and in other simple things in life. I truly am living a good life and enjoying my life!

Practicing Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the practice of being in the present rather than thinking about the past or the future. People who practice mindfulness tend to be calm people who live with minimal stress.

This is the way I try to live my life. I try not to worry about things, and I try not to go over and over the things that go wrong in my life. Being mindful helps me to stay open to all of the good things in my life.

The sun is shining, or the stars are, the winds, the rain, the many creatures living near me - all of these are things that are good in my life. I have issues, the same as everyone else does, but I don't allow these issues and bad thoughts to damage my life.

While I am alive and able to see the good things, I can remain happy. Being happy brings actual physical benefits. Happiness can help you to live longer. There was a study of nuns in America which showed the happier nuns lived longer and more joyful lives.

I'm aiming at living to be as close to 100 as I can, and I want to remain as well as I can, and happy too. I'm not halfway there yet in time, but I'm certainly there in terms of happiness!

One thing I love to do is to sit outside and connect with Nature. I watch the insects and birds, I watch the clouds and the trees and I just sit and watch. I concentrate on my slow, slow breathing, innnnnnnnnnnnnn, outtttttttttt, innnnnnnnnnnnnnn, outtttttttttt. My mind slows with my breathing and worries don't invade my peaceful place. Nature is my guide and my god. When I sit with Nature, everyday worries disappear for me. This is my way of mindful meditation.

This is what works for me to stay as happy and healthy as I can. I hope everyone else can live a happy and healthy life too!

Time for a Health Update

In my last post here I mentioned my doctor taking foot scrapings to send off to be tested. Yesterday I saw a doctor to find out the results. It wasn't my usual doctor because she wasn't available, it was the other doctor who works there.

This doctor is funny, and seems to do a good job too. We chatted about my writing, and various things, then he asked to have a look at my right foot. I took off my shoe and sock and showed him my foot. He had a good look, said it looked OK and told me to keep up with the treatment I was doing.

This is Klonea ointment rubbed in, once in the morning and again at night. He added another point - I was to not go to bed straight away after the night treatment, but to leave my sock off for at least half an hour before bed. This, I think, is to makes sure my foot has the ointment rubbed in and then gets dry before my sock goes on. Dryness helps a lot if you have fungal issues.

I asked about the test results from the skin scrapings, expecting that it showed that I did in fact have a fungal problem. That wasn't the case though. The test was negative for fungal things when looked at with a microscope. He continued on to say the scrapings were put aside to grow a culture to see what came up. There may be a result from that within a fortnight. I'm to check back again then.

This is a kind of creepy thing, when you think about it. Someone I don't know has taken a part of me to try to create a living organism. I'm thinking science fiction and mad scientists here! Spooky!

Have you ever thought about these things? Ever had a doctor doing things to you or with bits of you that seems weird? I like my doctors, but still, it got me thinking!

I'd love to hear what you think about it all!

Keeping Going so I can Keep On Going!

Well, I've gone quite a few days without falling, so I'm happy about that. I've been to see my doctor about a test result and to let her look at my foot rash. The test result was good, and dr and I both agreed the rash looks like it's getting better.

At least with both agreed it didn't look as bad as it did the last time she saw it. Dr hasn't made any guesses about what has caused the rash, apart from saying it might be fungal, so I've been rubbing Klonea into my right foot twice a day. The itching is getting a bit better, so that could well be the answer.

When I saw her on Friday, she took some scrapings from my foot to send off the check whether that is indeed what the rash is all about. There has been nothing said about why I may have got this rash. I've had itchy feet before, but I've certainly never had a rash like I've had on my foot for the past month.

It doesn't really matter I guess, it's just another weird thing my body has done to me. I certainly haven't read about foot rashes and multiple sclerosis. I suppose not everything that occurs to me is necessarily related to MS. It's just that MS is at the forefront of my mind so often.

Over a year ago, I could go for a walk, have a lovely warm bath and never have to worry about becoming incapacitated. Well, that may not actually be quite true. In the several year lead up to my MS diagnosis, I did have a few nasty falls. I simply put it down to one of those things and never considered there may have been an actual reason for the falls beyond clumsiness.

Now, I realise the falls may have been a sign that all was not well in my body. Now, I tend to look at everything that happens to me as a sign. I'm not sure which is worse - my former cluelessness, or my current over-attentiveness. I wish I could forget about MS and just go back to how things used to be.

Falling Over and Getting Back Up Again

Well it's been a funny kind of week, this past seven days. It started out last week with me feeling quite well, and deciding to do some watering of our garden.

This went well until I took the hose and nozzle out to the front of our place. The hose got caught up with a wheelbarrow lying over on its side, stopped me suddenly and then CRASH, over I went, landing on my right knee and palm of my right hand.

I got up, brushed myself off and considered the damage... hmm not too bad, and the hose was pushing out the water still. I picked up the nozzle to start watering the plants on the front veranda when CRASH, down again, on my well padded bottom this time.

I got up again, a little more slowly, but it seemed all of my bits were still working OK. So I watered the plants on the front veranda, ferns, cactus, some kind of arum lily, muntrie plants, pelargonium, and more cactus. I filled up the bird bath which is about twenty metres away, watered the two salt bush trees forty metres from the front door, then headed to the back yard to turn off the hose again.

After that, I took the well earned rest I needed and had a think about the whole thing. I felt a little shaken up, but not too badly damaged. That was all OK and the next couple of days continued on, with me remaining standing when I was meant to and only sitting on my bottom when I wanted to.

By Sunday, I was feeling fine. I had a slight bruise on my right knee, and that was it. I was excited because that afternoon was a poetry event at my favourite library, the Tea Tree Gully Library.

I drove to the library with the two poems I wanted to read there and had a great time greeting my friends. There was the launch of two friends' books - Helen Lindstrom with 'Cold Comfort' and Sharon Kernot with 'Wash Day Pockets'. The books were beautifully launched by Louise Nicholas, we all had a short break and the poetry readings began.

The poems read were all fantastic, and I was feeling so pleased that I'd gone along for the afternoon. Then the MC, Gary MacRae called my name. I left my walking stick at my seat and only took my poems with me. I thought I wouldn't need my stick to walk that short way to the microphone. I was wrong.

CRASH, again, over on the same poor right knee. My poems fluttered down with me and I stayed down, briefly considering staying there and crying. It was only very brief though, people, my friends, asked if I was OK and whether I needed any help. I said I was OK, accepted help from a lovely lady whose name I don't remember, took my poems someone had picked up for me, and proceeded to the microphone.

A friend brought me my walking stick and I spoke to the crowd of people watching me, my audience.

'Now that I have your attention...' I began, to relieved laughter from all.

I settled into reading my work, relieved that it was all going well, and so glad that I'd been able to turn my near disaster into something more, something empowering almost for me.

I have an illness, multiple sclerosis (MS) which upsets my balance and makes these kinds of incidences happen, but I'm proud of the way I was able to get up again, and do what I had to do with humour and grace.

If I can keep my sense of humour, and act in a way that shows the good things I can do then I will stay happy that I'm living my life in the very best way possible.