Anyway, my apologies for disappearing without notice. Real Life (that bastard!) decided to take a crack at me again.
How to sum it all up?
I joined a local community group called Urban Farming Tasmania. It's all about sharing local produce and crafts, mapping fruit trees on public land for people to harvest from, sharing knowledge, building a local seed bank, and creating a better community via organic gardening. Since I started that, I've been to the Students on Sustainability conference (twice), spoke at the Meander Valley Food Connect (twice), participated in the Pop-Up Veggie patch event at the local mall (we filled four of the planter boxes with herbs and veggies, courtesy of NRM Tamar and the city council), spoke in the Grow Your Own category for the NRM Tamar Sustainable August kick off day (Urban Farming: Small Gardens Grow Better Communities), spoke with a friend who has at least two groups of refugee status immigrants interested in a place in the community where they can feel safe, wanted, be provided with locally grown produce and plants for their own gardens, and interested in bringing their own skills to bear on the subject, as well as a group of people from my community garden interested in UFT doing a blitz on the place in order to get it in working order for spring again, as well as having us assist the elderly who still want gardens but who are having a hard time getting around, building raised beds, planting trees, etc. It's not over yet, either, as I help keep the market going every Monday, and my next big debut will be at the Uni Open Day on the 25th, where I'll be speaking about seed collecting, and how easy it is, as well as tending the market stall.
*gasp*
That's one thing I've been occupied with. The other is my health.
I've recently determined myself to be gluten intolerant (not full blown celiac, but even then, it's extremely hard to get tested for that sort of thing, and they very often fail to find anything.) My health overall didn't start improving until I went gluten-free, so a lot of systemic issues have cleared up for me, and weight loss of the sort I need to concentrate on has become easier. Thankfully, I have managed to lose 12 kilos (about 26 pounds) lately. I was very pleased to see that number on the scale.
Then, I got my heart issue checked out. Apparently, I am one of the unlucky few who are aware of ectopic (premature) heartbeats. They are when the heart sends off a beat too soon, then spends a longer time filling, so when it beats again, you feel a jolt, rather than a normal beat, or being unaware of it completely. This started around the beginning of the year, and after a ECG and an ultrasound, they determined everything was fine, and I'd just have to live with it. How annoying. Hopefully it goes away. (I was also diagnosed with sinus tachycardia, but it's likely because of my weight, so I'm hoping that will come down as I continue to shed the kilos.)
Then, my back finally got so bad that I gave up and went in to a chiropractor to get looked at. After a consultation, and a set of full spinal x-rays, it was determined that I have a slightly shorter leg, which has produced a tilt in my pelvis, which has echoed all the way up my spine to my skull, exacerbated by a case of functional (functioning?) scoliosis (it's a very clear wave through the column; the chiro said there was an apex in my lumbar area, and an apex in my thoracic area, so you can probably picture how that looks). My neck is in a phase 1 stage of "degradation" (the natural, normal crescent curve of the neck bones has straightened out, and actually bend the opposite way, giving it a humped look in the x-ray). There is a narrowed space in my neck that could be pressing on some nerves (which may be why I experience shoulder pain), and some wedged/slightly narrowed inter-vertebral discs, but no bone spurring or signs of arthritis, so that's good news. The guy thinks it can be corrected, so I have 6 weeks of appointments and posture alteration to look forward to, and am adding ibuprofen and chelated magnesium to my diet, as the adjustments hurt more than my back did before I started this.
God it's no wonder I feel like a train wreck all the time!
I hope to get a break from everything in about...*checks calendar* 12 days, we'll be going home to the States for 2 and half weeks to visit my family and friends.
Anyway, I hope to be back at it, but I may just have to be attended by the warning that I'll be a slow poster, because I just can't seem to keep it up like I used to a few years ago, and I've had so much on my mind it's hard to focus on other things, and unfortunately, role playing is one of them.
Again, I am sorry about my absence, but I hope to make it up to you eventually.
Do you have to do something for height difference? Sole in your shoe or something? Or is that irrelevant at this point?
It also means I can get to know my community, and share ideas that I have been privately entertaining for a while now.