Appreciating Small Moments of Beauty

Last year, winter lasted into May.  I remember posting a photo of myself and a little snowman I'd built on May 2nd or 3rd after one of the many spring snowfalls we had.  Well winter is moving in again already and it's November. We've had both rain and snow this week, and are supposed to get snow three more times before the weekend.  I hate rainy socked-in overcast days, but I don't mind snow and I love sunny days with snow on the ground and on the trees.

Ice and slush forming on a local creek

 Speaking of winter, I've been enjoying going to Churchill to watch the polar bears.  "What?", you say, "You aren't well enough for that kind of travel!"  So here's the deal, if you click on this link (during the day time which is short up there), you can watch livecams of wild polar bears.  I've seen two and a raven.  http://explore.org/#!/live-cams/player/polar-bear-cape-churchill-cam

For my friend Teagan, no water is too cold

There is something so cool about seeing them in the wild (I realise you can watch zoo cams, but for me it's not the same).

It has been a fairly relaxing low stress autumn for me, at least compared to last year.  My health hasn't been too bad (this is all relative, I'm still mostly home bound). Also no c. difficile since January!  That alone makes life easier.  

This past week I have been living here just the dog and me.  I've had to do more errands than usual. 

For one, I ran out of dog food.  I had a medical appointment and a blood draw last week.  I also had to pick up a prescription and a few groceries.  

Now to a healthy person, this might not sound like a lot, but for me, it was A LOT.  The groceries were the worst as I ended up waiting in line and it was everything I could do not to sit on the floor and/or cry from weakness and dizziness and the flu waves.  I tried not to berate myself for feeling so ill.  

Having my roommate away makes me realise all the little things that she does that make my life so much more bearable.

Having three days with outings in a row put me into a bad way both physical crash-wise, and then emotional (I felt so sick and terrible my mood plummeted).  I spent the weekend home mostly on the couch or in bed, I ordered in food so I wouldn't have to even cook, and two days solid rest seemed to bring me back to my normal.  My throat is still swollen with the yellow blistered patches I get the more 'viral' I am.  

It opened my eyes to how limited I am.  Sometimes my little world almost feels normal, but a few outings reminded me how difficult it is to function with this level of illness.  A good reality check I guess, although sad.

Having watched the polar bear cam, I started thinking about the 'nature' I see just looking out the window.  For example, this week I saw a squirrel, sparrows, a nuthatch, crows and sea gulls all from the comfort of home.  I think for myself anyways, one of the gifts of chronic illness, is that I've been forced to slow down.  I truly believe this has opened me up to appreciate some of the smaller, but beautiful, aspects of life.  For example, watching the snow swirl on the road this morning from my easy chair in the living room, watching the sun beams of light on the wall as I lay in bed, the sparrows play and fight by the feeder, the rain drip off the awning over the window by my bed.  Sometimes I am in awe of the beauty in this world.

If you are ill, what has being forced to slow down opened up for you?