Thrihyrne

Yesterday was my last day at CompView. I gifted myself with two days off in order to have some down time before transitioning to full-time work next week. As a super-special gift to me, evannichols also took Friday off, and I'll be taking him to a belated birthday breakfast at Slappy Cakes. He also generously gave me a decorated envelope that said "Kristi's Massage Fund" so that I can get a much-needed full-body massage during my time off. Portland is full of places to go, and since he knew I'd have a much better idea of where I'd like to go than he would, he gave me the self-created gift certificate Tuesday evening as a part of my sleepover. I had a stroke of genius thought Wednesday morning, which was to contact another massage therapist friend (I did get to know a few during my time living with Julia, who ran in acupuncture and massage therapy circles due to her career) and I was able to schedule an appointment with a lovely woman named Karla. I'll simply go to her apartment this morning where she has her own treatment table and get my very sore body worked on.

I've managed to sustain some mystery injuries, including my right shoulder (no idea) and hips (probably from a combination of the jogging and lots of inner- and outer-thigh work), the omnipresent knots and tension in my upper back, and being generally sleep-deprived and continually sleeping on a mattress with only 3 slats. Anyway, this morning I treated myself to a hot soak in the tub with epsom salts, something my massage therapist friend Joseph has recommended for literally years. They had the salts at the dollar store, which at last prompted me to do this. I'll plan to have another soak post-massage on Friday in the upstairs bathroom at evannichols's house when his sister and her family are out for the day. Self-care. What a concept! I'm not sure what to do about my innards, though; I'm still suffering from a loud stomach, often unhappy bowels, but thankfully no actual pain. Today I think I'll stick to jello, yogurt, a banana and oatmeal. Maybe I'll lighten up on the celery, too; I thought it was innocuous, but perhaps not. And maybe switch to tea for a few days, rather than my beloved coffee.

Soon I'll put on casual clothes and walk up to the closest grocery store to do my recycling and mark that off my list. Shouldn't be too many other people there around 6:50 a.m.!!

So this was week two of having Mr. Fabulous Massage Therapist come over at 9:30. He'd mentioned cupping last week and I knew of it- so we did that today, in addition to some more serious body work, but also Swedish massage, which is more theraputic. The cupping effects were very interesting: as you can see by pics below, there's something major going on in my left rotator cuff, which is very dark.
( cut for my bony spine and cupping circles )

So I took a shortish hot soak in epsom salts and now am thinking about lunch and writing (two stories now! :D) and knitting. Here's a pic of my the current status of my work in progress Celtic-braid bottomed cardigan:

The 'helper' is my dæmon (a la Philip Pullman), Gymnopedie. My youngest stepsister is expecting her first child in a week or so, and I'd not busted myself to knit something for her because she, too, is a knitter extraordinare. But then it occurred to me that I had plenty of the colorway yarn of the baby sweater I knitted for my brother and I could knit a cute hat that would be its partner! And I checked my yarn stash this morning and I can make this hat, the one in the bottom left.

So I'm having a fabulous Monday. And you all? ♥