Queen of Small Things...and Headaches

I'm sorely overdue for a post, aren't I?  

Life seems to be rushing by at a mad pace these days.  One day feels like the next.  The reality is that lately my life consists of work (my engineering job) and terrible chronic daily headaches.

I've had a rather poor outcome from the Botox therapy and in fact have suffered increased head and neck pain since having my shots.  I've had moderate to severe headaches most days and have been lucky to get through the day at work most days, thanks to the grace of God, stupidity and a hell of a lot of perseverance on my part. 

I refuse to let these headaches win and I refuse to go on disability, but some days I wonder how I can do another 5 minutes, let alone another 4 hours.  I work at an elite research centre and struggle some days to keep up with my brilliant colleagues, let alone excel.  To illustrate, these are people with walls of patents in their offices who invent molecules, and others who do hard core math all day every day.  Some days it's nuts.  And I have two students to mentor.  The only solace is knowing that if I can keep up with this kind of head pain, I must be a frigging genius.  Really.

All I can do now is wait for the botox to wear off and hopefully go back to "bad" headaches instead of "severe" ones.

At home, evenings are a writeoff in terms of productivity. I am dead after struggling to act normal and think clearly all day.  So I've been doing little in the evenings, other than helping David with dinner and trying to exercise a little.  That is a serious chore I tell you, since I also have bad back pain with the headaches.  But I don't give up.

Ok, enough lamenting!  Thank you for reading this far.

So here's what's been going on when I am not totally miserable with pain.

1. We had some friends over for a Sunday lunch.  These are lovely friends who have moved back to Calgary after a long time away. I made three kinds of sandwiches and two salads and served wine and homemade chocolate cake.  The table was pretty with hydrangeas from our garden:

2. I put out my blue pottery which I haven't used in a while and stole a bright pink mum from the big urn on our front step...

3. I snapped this photo while the table was in progress.  I love my Limoges plates and platter (from the Vanves market in Paris).  The floral table cloth was a gift from my mother and is a prized possession:

4. A couple of weeks ago we went to a big fall harvest sale and bought these:

As you can imagine, I am all pear'd out now.

5. I took pictures of the cat who is very dashing and slept all day every day I was home:

I think he could be a model, sitting on his little tea towel (which I put over the chair to prevent it getting totally furry):

6.  I also tested dining room curtains last week.  These linen sheers from Crate & Barrel were a lovely soft brown colour but very low quality. They went back to the store...

7. I also hung a sample 84" brown curtain from Restoration Hardware in the dining room and really liked it.  Once I paint the window moulding (I keep putting this off), I will buy a new drapery rod to hang higher than the current one and put up a nice set of taller silk drapes at this neglected window:

8. We're also making the sofa decision this week (do we really need it? I am getting "good enough" syndrome and think the stuff we have is just fine).  I am pondering this endlessly, looking at dimensions, fabrics, and the reality of needs versus wants...

 Next week, my dear David heads off for a little civil war trip to Virginia, part two of the trip we made last fall.  When he returns I leave to visit family for 10 days out east.  I dislike taking separate vacations but really wanted to visit family again (and he needed a little getaway so I didn't want to drag him along)!

How are you?