Living within my changing limitations.

Is working out good for me, I'm not missing out and my life isn't dull. Finding I'm happier and healthier by not pushing past the point of what I'm capable of, because the price is too high. Learning I have more time then energy, pushing pass the pain to get a task done sooner only makes my recovery time so much longer ranging from weeks to as long as a month instead hours to a day maybe two. By doing what I'm able to knowing I'll get done what needs doing. Having stopped living on a time table I'll admit was of my own making. Kind of silly with limitations that are  changing to set time table's, when I'm not sure what I'll have to work with the next day, finding a balance isn't always easy, if I don't at least try I'll end up on a the M.S. roller coaster ride, that's hard to get off. So I have fun by being more able to do most of things I enjoy. Within the progression of M.S. and getting older, I'll push a bit too far to fast and pay for it. The difference now is I don't get back on the M.S. roller coaster, by slowing down a bit and learning what my new limitations are and begin working within them. Doing this is really helping me enjoy the little things that turn out to be the big things. The things I can't do are increasing, however what I'm able to do with what I got to work with, is growing by learning new and different ways of doing things, it will take longer I've got the time, to learn how to use the energy I have more efficiently. Makes more room for the fun stuff I love doing. Yes M.S. has slowed me down faster than just getting older has that's true enough, but it's also showed me wonders I would have never seen. Like watching a bud growing into a flower. Seeing a baby bird that failed to fly and watching as other birds bring it food showing it how to hop up into to a bush for safety at night, to seeing it take it's first flight, hearing birds seemly praise it as it flies into the tree to join them. Little things that I would have never had the time to notice, if not for M.S. my focus has changed from what has been taken from me, to all I've gained in spite of what M.S. and aging have taken from me. So far life been a learning experience of all I don't know and trust me that's a heck of a lot! Are all the things I've learned important Nope most just make me smile.

It's not about what I can't do anymore

It's about what I'm able to do with what I have to work with

Before I end yes, there always is a balance of good verses bad and light and dark. For  me I take the lessons learned from both and find my balance. 

     

Spring, birds putting it altogether.

Hi from Minneapolis, Minnesota. After a long mostly brown and warm winter. Getting some much needed moisture in the form of rain, everything is greening up nicely. The birds are building their nests the frozen ground is long gone and it's only mid-March. This is happening way too early, 95% of the time here we still have snow on the ground until mid-April; it's happened before if my memories servers but not happened in my life time. Of course I could be wrong that's a given! Planting season here normally starts after Mother’s day in May as well as 60+ degree high temperatures and low temperatures in the 40's. Record highs and lows are breaking or shattered, it happening all over the mid-central U.S. The southern states saw more snow and cold then we did, it seems to me that we had more rain than snow this winter, didn’t use the snow blower once. After last winter didn’t mind that one bit, this time last year I still had snow piles 8 feet tall. What does this all mean heck if I know! Maybe Mother Nature felt sorry for us after last year, however I doubt it! Just hopping we don’t have another summer of being stuck in the HOUSE like last summer! So where am I going with this nowhere, knowing I can’t plant my garden just yet because, we could have another hard freeze, been there done that more than once even if the trees are all leafing out, not willing to risk all that hard work!

Many of the summer birds are already back at my feeders, even had a pair of European Starling shooed them off! A very aggressive and not a native bird still in its winter colors with white speckles, known for displacing, woodpeckers and other cavity-nesting birds by destroying eggs or young. Not a nice neighbor at all to have around and very loud! Okay I admit it; I’m not going to let them take over my birdfeeder so no other kinds of birds would come if I did.

So yes I lied before because I didn't think two kinds of birds’ lived in the city. Now that both have come to my feeders, I must draw a line for who is welcome at my birdfeeders it’s the European Starling and the Brown-headed Cowbird is the only parasitic bird in Minnesota. They can and have decimated song bird populations in some areas, of Minnesota and Wisconsin because of laying eggs in host birds’ nests, leaving others to raise its young. Many song birds’ don’t reject the eggs they incubate and raise them to the exclusion of their own. Cow-bird young are twice the size of the song birds and warblers when attempting to raise more than 2, the host birds will die trying to feed them. Wiping out a generation or two of host birds’, needless to say I am not a fan. Having squirrels does help to keep Cow-birds away. If not the only way I know of to keep them away is to stop using birdfeeders altogether. When I lived in Wisconsin I had to do that, not just because of Cow-birds, a bear had come twice bending the shepherd hook, to the ground to eat the birdseed. The front door was about 15 feet away, sorry but that was way too close for me. The Brown headed Cow-bird is a member of the blackbird family. Of approximately 750 species of parasitic birds worldwide. It’s the only one found in Minnesota and Wisconsin. At one time cowbirds followed bison to feed on insects attracted to the animals.