Goodness I'm Slow! 2014 already!

As you can see, I've not been very good at blogging. But I'm determined to begin doing so more often. A lot has happened in the last year regarding my SLE (Lupus). I had a tough year. Lost a lot of weight, from 109 to 86 pounds & was dangerously close to organ failure. However, with the help of my doctors & family I was able to get better & gain almost all weight back! I was in the hospital with acute pancreatitis. Then in hospital again with what they found was stomach & esophagus ulcers. All this due to Lupus. The Summer of 2013 was unseasonably HOT. heat, sun & Lupus do NOT get along! I pushed myself to try to go visit some beautiful state parks in Oregon but in doing so, even covered up and my big hat, the heat & sun landed me in bed. I didn't even touch my bass. 
When 2014 came, I promised myself to quit being stubborn & to take good care of myself by eating right, resting, exercise when I can. It's working so far. 
Unfortunately after my weightloss incident, I've got kidney damage. So I'm working on that. I picked up my bass guitar about a month ago & found that my joints & finger pain was the worst it's been. But I pushed through it & I play the bass every now & then. I had to quit playing bass in the worship team at church as I could stand for long & just too fatigued to make it through rehearsal & the Sunday morning services. All because of my bad weightloss incident. 
What is good however is I finally accepted my Lupus SLE diagnosis & started taking better care of myself. Resting more, learning to say "no" & reducing stress. 
There's no doubt that Lupus Sucks & I hate it but it's here to stay so it's up to me to listen & learn from my doctors, fellow "Lupues" and listen to my body. 
I am SO ADD!! I've started making jewelry, but made two sets of earrings & one bracelet & all the supplies are in a box in my bedroom!! Then I decided I'd start photography. I ended up with 400+ photos of mainly flowers, the same three mountains I live by and numerous photos of my two grandsons! But at least I still have the "want to" in me!!
There are so many great Apps for learning to play guitar & I'll share those with you soon.  
Life is a blessing & Lupus is just an obstacle course. My goal, as always, is to make it through it!
Susie

My first day of blogging - Portland IS Weird

This is my very first BLOG! Since this blog is about my views on people, places & things it is pretty personal. It might piss people off or make them laugh. But that's me. 
I'm in Portland right now. I do not like Portland so why am I here? No one is nice, I've been here off & on for 12 years & the only people I'm friends with are my great nephew Michael & his wonderful partner, Joshua. Funny thing is, they are from Redmond as I am. I think we are all homesick. 
But here I am, make the best of it. 
People here that I know are selfish, immature, clueless. Most live in their parent's home & they are all over 35 years old. They call each other "dude" and talk excessively about themselves. Life sucks for all if them according to them. They have absolutely nothing positive to say about anything. They know everything & have an opinion on everything based on what they don't know. You can't talk to th because they don't care to listen. They only like listening to themselves talk. 
I've done more, been more places, had more experiences than all of them combined so I find it funny to sit & listen to their views. I've decided to just keep my mouth shut & listen. It's amusing. 
The music scene here is the best because there are hundreds of bands & they ALL think they are on the verge of getting a record deal so they have t-shirts made to sell to their fans. The metal bands are the best to watch. They all are self described bad asses (however they are in their mid 40's & 50's). So they dress & try to act like Dave Navarra. Long hair, thinning at top. A leather wrist cuff. Black combat boots. Some old tshirt that has AC DC or Judas Priest on the front. Many have a big black wallet hooked to a big chain that hangs down. It reminds me if the chain on the lead rope of my steer's halter. 
Some can play their chosen instruments but I've yet to hear a good vocalist. But that's beside the point, they are bad ass therefore they will "kick your ass" with hard driving riffs. Riffs that are annoying. Sort of like all the fire detectors going off at once in your house. Ughhh. The fan provides the needed hair blowing as they play their riffs. With one foot on a monitor. Bad ass....yawn. 
It's part of the "dude, 80's were great, you suck I don't" mentality here. 
I'm sure there are hundreds of wonderful people here but so far all I've seen are cop cars speeding through intersections, strip clubs on every block, homeless people, news of shots fired everywhere, many slow Asian drivers (I'm not a bigot, it's just a fact), rude people, crazy driving and RAIN. 
Why am I here? More about that layer.....