Mural in Nova, med food, earrings, Jodi/Bill + Puzzle

Today I’m not overwhelmed with editing the photos! I sent her them! And afterwards, I felt solid posting a picture of us on my Instagram, which I had edited days ago but was waiting to post until I turned in all the photos. Liam took the picture of us, because the one that Hannah had tried hours before in better lighting wasn’t focused correctly since I have it on manual and you have to press a specific button to focus the camera.

Let’s get to today! In the morning I went to mock trial practice at Nova because first I’d started walking to Methodist for the Saturday food giveaway, but then realized it wasn’t happening today. Must be a different day. I thought it was the third Saturday of every month or something. Damn, I literally just looked at a calendar and realized that it was last week, when I was going to the mall with Heidi getting ready for her wedding. So, I went to mock trial today, and was able to give comments to a few kids that I felt were pretty helpful. Tryna not get too detailed here, like including the kids’ specific names too. This morning, while I was at mock trial, I literally changed the title of my blog from something about TBI recovery to “Anya’s Photos of the Day.” I already say TBI recovery in the site URL, so it’s not a big loss to not have it labeled that as well. On the way back from mock trial, Papa had to stop at Trader Joe’s, and he also grabbed me a frozen pizza and one of their special yogurts I like as a backup for taking meds. Then for the rest of the afternoon I saw mom briefly and organized a bunch of stuff.

I also had a whole bunch of “non-depressing thoughts” today, like ones that help bring me outta depression generally. I’ll try to summarize...

1. It’s kind of amazing that I’ve been able to some incorporate some things that had been “reminders of the TBI" before, more fully into my current life, like my blog.

2. I believe that in a way the TBI has caused minor benefits, in that I’d never ever have wanted to write everything down before, and now I do that specifically because of the TBI.

3. I’ve been able to incorporate a lot of the cancer med requirements more well into my life. Like today, I had a hot pocket for breakfast and some orange chicken for dinner, both with the meds. That’s why I kind of don’t hate this new requirement that you take the meds with fat. In a way, having to deal with that has kind of helped me recover from the TBI, since it's given me something I HAVE to track every day, and I might be eating better too.

4. I’ve really been enjoying when I can introduce myself to new people online and kind of “redefine myself." When I redefine myself, it’s pretty much always focused on Spanish, and it’s often in Spanish too. I’ve been collecting a list of some important thoughts in Spanish on Google drive. I just love being able to communicate in a different language, and in a way telling people WHY I love speaking it more now is a fantastic intro into the TBI, or as I’ve called it before “a serious injury that affects my memory.”

Not gonna really go into my time seeing Jodi and Bill at night and doing a puzzle of pictures of beer. The relevant piece of that is that we figured out what I’m going to do for a lot of my Christmas presents. I’m not gonna say what the big idea is so it’s a #surprise, but it definitely looks like it’s gonna use some of my skills.