I can hear Mother Nature laughing maniacally right now...

We've had the most screwed up weather this year. We went pretty much from Winter to Summer with only a blip of Spring in between. I had our heat on one day, only to have to flip it to the AC the next. Not an exaggeration. And the rain. So much rain. Right now, my Weather-dot-com page has seven, yes, seven flood warnings. We're safe, so don't worry about that. We live uphill from the river and if it gets so high it reaches us, we'd already be on the ark.

Shockingly, in the past week or two, the near-constant rain and thunderstorms haven't caused me to be in agony. In fact, I haven't "felt" a storm coming in all that time. Normally, a weather front will bring a flareup with it, causing me to whine and awkwardly twitch and outwardly bitch about it. Don't get me wrong, I still have the muscle pain and stiffness. After sitting still for longer than a few minutes, I'm so stiff I can barely move. And I have those hot spots (right now, left hip, left ankle, left foot). And if I try to lift anything, I have that sharp, lactic-acid-like pain in whatever muscle I'm exerting.

That sounds terrible. But it isn't, really. I can function like that and usually I can function like that without the benefit of daytime pain meds. One thing that the ever-changing weather has done for me is keep me utterly exhausted. The fatigue that comes along with fibrofuckingmyalgia is almost zombie-fying. Add to the top of the mind-numbing exhaustion the dogs who are terrified of thunderstorms. The last three nights, Gypsy the German Shepherd who will eat your face has been so freaked out, she pulls the gate down and comes upstairs. She braves the cats to get to my bedroom. Yes, its true. Gypsy will eat a person's face if she perceives them as an intruder and that very same dog is terrified of the cats. Keep your giggling to a minimum, she's sensitive about it.

So, for the last three nights, I've been awakened at various times by a terrified German Shepherd strong-arming (strong-pawing?) a well-set, metal-barred gate to get upstairs. The Chis are afraid of thunder too, but they're also more afraid of the cats than Gypsy. You would be too if the cats were bigger than you. Let's turn you loose in the savanna and see how thrilled you are when a tiger decides you look delicious. Yeah, now you feel bad for laughing at them, don't you? (don't... I laugh at them too).

While it seems I've gotten a respite in the flareup side of things, Mother Nature has given me the zombie exhaustion. And... the itching skin. And this itching isn't just that "millions of hairy-legged tiny spiders trying to breakdance out of my body through my skin" feeling. No, this millions of hairy-legged, breakdancing spiders are also on fire. My skin feels hot to me, but when I actually touch it with my hand, it feels normal.

Since the dogs woke me up at 3 AM today, I'm going back to bed for a nap. (and it isn't even 6 AM here yet!).

One thing that Mother Nature's menopausal mood swings have brought is macro raindrop photos. Enjoy. I know I enjoyed the momentary distraction from the fibro to shoot them. (there are more, if you click the photo, it'll take you to my Flickr where most of my photos are).