I have a menagery of books from the libary:  books on wildflowers, sci fi, a guy flying with geesse, Okinawa diet, a book about a primate using sign languare, and a few other odds and ends.   

 I have tried to read today;  my eyes and attention are not easily convinced to pursue the hardship of seeing to read.  The menagery of books I randamly pulled from the library shelves have not been  interesting nor well writen to keep my interest.     I tried to read three sci fi books and within a few pages and even trying to skim to find some meat to the story I set the book in the pile to return to the libary.  My eye brain tired ,I picked up one more book "The Children of Men: by P.D. James.  I was only able to read a few pages but the story has me interested enough that I look forward to returning to the book. 

I have poured over the book on wildflowers.   I am interested in including more native plants in my garden. 

Growing up we called these lovely spring early yellow bloomers buttercups.    

I could not remember the difference between daffodils and jonquils so I looked it up again.

The name daffodil is reserved for the large, normally yellow, single trumpet flowered cultivars of Narcissus pseudonarcissus.  The wild species known as "the lent lily" or "early daffodil." It's considerably smaller and earlier than its modern cousins with pale yellow petals around a gold cup. And like all daffodils it has thick, flattened, blue-gray foliage

True jonquils (Narcissus jonquilla) have dark green, round, rush-like leaves and cluster of small, fragrant, early, yellow blossoms. Almost all yellow cluster flowered Narcissus are lumped into this group including jonquil hybrids.

The common name narcissus usually refers to the early blooming, white, powerfully fragrant, cluster flowered varieties of Narcissus tazetta. This includes, but is not limited to, what we commonly call paperwhites (Narcissus tazetta papyraceous).

The info on narcissus came from:  http://www.plantanswers.com/arcadia_pages/Narcissus%20jonquilla.htm

We watched the trailer for an upcoming movie " The Iron Man".  I am looking forward to seeing this movie.

http://www.firstshowing.net/2008/02/28/another-full-iron-man-trailer-launches-holy-sht/

Have you ever set a goal and then beat yourself up for not meeting it?  As a survior of a tbi (tramatic brain injury) my whole set of life goals had to be changed to cope with the here and now.  I have had to come to terms with the lose of many things of use to do.  In time some things I may regain the ability to do but there are some things that no matter what i do not matter how hard I cry or beg the heavens I will never be able to do again.  So with that I have had to change my hopes, dreams and life goals.   My main goal right now is to work on physically getting  well.  I call this time "being on island time" 

Sometimes we are in such a hurry to get well and get on with our lives that we forget to have some fun and we really should try to fit in as much fun as we can.  Life is life so we are here; let's make the best of it and stuff it will as much good as we can because the bad will come and be there and drag on and on.  But we can strive for those wow and fun, and moments in life that make us smile.   The day is full of moments;  a few bad minutes does not have to negate the rest of the day being all bad.  Just that one rotten moment is bad; let us move on to the next moment and while we pout we can hope to make the next one better.  smiles.  

Setting goals is on going.  Sometimes i reach the goal and sometimes i make it half way more or less; and what feels like most of the time, I do not reach the goal but only frustrations.    

Just a few of the big isssues are:  I am not able to drive,  I am legally blind,  my right side is weak and have trouble understanding numbers.

I counter these with asking friends for help with errands.  My goal is to at least get out of the house once a week.  I do well of mind if i can get out twice a week.    ONe of my goals is to paint most days or dabble in my art room.   I exercise at least three times a week with a friend to help strengthen my body and help my balance with practicing tai chi.

I had set a goal of being well in a year.  we now are laughing at that idealistic idea. and it makes me sad too.  So i reset the goal and gave myself another year.  At year two i realized I am only half well.  So looks like i will give myself another year off to 'Island time".   From what i pick up on the boards recovery takes 5-10 years just to get over the worst of the trauma.   

I am active in my healing.  I encourage my body and mind to find ways to heal, adapt, and find a path in this new way of living.  

I painted before my accident and it is the one thing I try to hold on to.  I paint very different now; and i have had to accept that.   

I reward myself for accomplishments.  Just little things.  a pair of socks, a couple of flowers, a tablet of special water color paper, a toy,  a cat toy, flower seeds,....  

Right now i have a bottle of vitamins i have to take. I am having a very hard time making myself take them.  So when i finish the whole bottle I get to order a hoard of art supplies.  I am more motivated! smiles.  

Goal setting is meant to help me be successful.  I set myself up to have a successful meeting of my goals.  And many times the outcome is not what I had planned but what happens; i have to accept what happens at the end;  that one was just practice.  I may have to practice many times to get the results i want.   

I remind myself of the story of Edison who created a long lasting light bulb.   He spent over 50 years tying to make it; it tryined over 3000 fliments to find one that would burn long enough to produce a lasting light source.

How many times to i try something just once and give up because I did not do it well enough on the first try.  Being good at life takes practice.
Recently I tried to knitt a scarf and I was determeind to make it and do a good job it.  I had to start it over 8 times before i finally was able to get it right.   Ran out of yarn and had to get more then, Once i was half way through the scarf and messed up majorly and had to start all over.  I keep reminding myself I have not even tried 100 times yet.   As it turned out I had success at the eighth go of it.  I totally gave my mind and attention to the scarf and making  each stitch.  I got the power of I am going to do this no matter what it takes.   It has been a good lesson and I am so proud of the scarf.  It was so hard to make and so worth it.   

Just trying to count for the sake of relearning to count is for the birds.  So i found a way to make counting important to me.  I like to crochet.  Have to be able to count the stiches.  I started with a small project that required only counts of three. Then i worked on a project that only required counting to 30.   I have counting to 30 down.  Now I am working on counting to 50 with another project that I really really want to do.  

I know living with a tbi is hard; everyday is a challange added to the already challagne of living.  I get tired of being creative in every situation to have to make things work out;  But at the same time it makes the impossible possible.    Hang in there.  Try something new this week.  Do something for yourself this week; and buy yourself a little something speical that makes you smile. 

Not much going on.  I have been feeling better with less to no pain.  About a third of my pain is caused by a bad new bed.  We have been though a couple of new mattrises and they are just expensive junk.   The furnature store I bought the bed from does not seem to be able to get a better bed.  So another problem hovering on and on.     I am not in a good mood today.  But overall things are better; less pain in abdomenal area.  Coping with another brain change.  Got cought in the middle of painting a 9x11 picture of tulips... sigh... I am trying to finsh it...  

Hob's is laying on top of a skeen of yarn I am crochting with at the moment.  This will play out fun.  He is so cute.