Well, I really don't want to go on and on about the Miracle of Having Enough Iron, but I do have to mention a few things:

** On Friday night I went to bed around 12:40. On Saturday morning I woke up at 8:30 am - and then couldn't get back to sleep. Lately, if I go to bed at 12:30, I wake up at 11 am. And then, around 1:00 or so, I've been taking a nap. Until I had a reasonable night's sleep on a weekend, it never occurred to me that my sleep patterns have been unusual for a long time.

** And then, on Sunday (which was warm and sunny), I got up and washed the kitchen and bathroom floors (Shock #1), watched the afternoon hockey game, then, prior to going out with Louise, I took a bike ride (Shock #2). For a change, I went willingly out the door to exercise. I've been skiing a few times this winter, to be sure . . . but when I've gone, I've come home and collapsed, pretty well done in for the day. And truthfully, I've had to talk myself into going; I thought it was just a function of getting older that I didn't look forward to physical activity the way I used to. And that has been going on for a long time. Maybe over a year.

** I am amazed at the number of things that I can once again shoehorn into the corners of an ordinary day. Things like: washing the floors (see above), sewing on a button, running the trash up to the dump, a load of laundry here, a load of laundry there . . . for quite a while, it seems, I've not been doing any of the little extras that mean that things really get done around the house. And for the past two months, I would say that I have been carefully planning what I can accomplish with my available energy. At the end of last semester, there were days when I just couldn't make it to my evening Chinese class; I really worried about whether I'd make it through this semester. It's funny how that crept up on me (and I guess that's not uncommon for iron deficiencies).

Well, anyway, I'm glad it's being treated. Just a week, and already I feel So. Much. Better.

In other news, here's a video of Pavel. It's four minutes long; I can happily watch the whole thing over and over, but I must admit, after a minute or so, you see where it's going:



And here's a video I took for my buddies in China - it's taken while I was waiting for the bus one day. (I thought they'd get a kick out of the fact that there is NO TRAFFIC.) There were birds chirping; unfortunately, the camera mic was not sensitive enough to pick them up. At the end, there are a few seconds of crunching snow for Peter, who has never been anywhere cold enough to hear it (I don't think) and for Steph, who misses it. But it's nearly all gone now, alas . . .



More soon . . .