New Life Part Two

It's been a long time since my last post.  A lot of what I'd been planning to write about in my next post is old news now.  This is the perfect time though because I am literally reinventing my life again and starting anew.  Is it really Part Two?  or Three?  Six?  I've lost count.

Thursday was my last day of work at  Child Advocates in Milpitas. It was bittersweet in that I loved working there, both because of the work and because of the people (and the steady paycheck wasn't too bad either), but the commute was getting harder and harder for me as my fatigue level was increasing.  I've spent the last 3 months training my replacement so I leave confident that they are in good hands.  I came in to work on Thursday to gifts and cards, a goodbye lunch in a nice restaurant, and tearful hugs and promises to keep in touch.

The good news is that I've already started my new business of techno tutoring.  I have two regular clients, a  new one that I'm seeing for the first time on Tuesday, and another couple of clients that have booked me for the end of November and who will also be ongoing clients.  This is all without having done any marketing or promotion yet.  They're mostly referrals from friends, but the one next week is from a neighborhood website where I'd posted my profile.  I also have several leads on the bookkeeping business.  I am feeling very confident that I will be able to support myself with these two businesses and at the same time be able to work around my sporadic relapses and bouts of fatigue.  AND be able to travel, which had become a problem at Child Advocates - I needed to be there at certain times to do payroll and end of the month financial statements.  More about upcoming travel later.

While still talking about my new business, I've had another wonderful thing happen as a result of my iPhone having been stolen last April.  I think I've already written about all the freebies the manager of the Palo Alto Apple store has given me to make up for the bad experience I had when I went to purchase a replacement phone.  He had also talked me into installing the new operating system Lion onto my used Macbook, even though I usually like to wait until all the bugs in a new operating system have been fixed.  He gave me Lion for free, but I immediately started having problems - my mail program kept crashing, etc.  After several visits to the store to have them try and fix it, he finally emailed me and said to bring in my 2009 used Macbook so that he could upgrade it.  Well, what he did was swap it for a brand new Macbook PRO with double the storage, double the memory and double the speed along with updated software.  For free!  I was astounded.  Especially once I realized how important this was for my business.  Apple has discontinued the Macbook.  None of my clients have the Macbook, they all have either the Macbook Pro or the desktop iMac, and I would not have been able be the expert that I am advertising myself as.  It would have cost me around $1500 to get one new so I could keep up with my clients.  Everything is working out perfectly.

Now about future travel.  In March my good friend Marv Rubinstein will be celebrating his 90th birthday.  He is legendary for his exotic birthday parties (a Circle Line boat circling the island of Manhattan with dinner and dancing, dinner in Paris and brunch in Versailles, the Awahnee hotel in Yosemite to mention a few - I attended the first two) and this one will be in Puerto Vallarta.  I had promised Marv I wouldn't miss another one, and I'm not.  I'm going to this one, along with Brenda, and we will be staying with JoAnne Rockower, whom I have been promising to visit since she moved to Puerto Vallarta.

Then in April one of my high school classmates who lives in Palm Springs is putting together a fantastic weekend for around 35 of us from Great Neck - cocktail party at his house, private docent led tours of the Palm Springs museum and Imago Gallery, meals in local restaurants, private tour of Sunnylands (the Annenberg Estate), brunch at his house.  That weekend is definitely going to be a highlight of my new life.

And to cap it all off, Carla and I are finally going to France - to visit my cousin Martine, my friend Rick, and just to satisfy our deep seeded love of all things French.  We haven't fixed a date yet - hopefully next Spring.

I'll end with an update on my health.  The new oral drug, Biogen BG-12, has finished its third clinical trial with outstanding results.  I am definitely going to take it once it's available.  It's the first disease modifying drug I've been willing to take.  I am still taking the oral drug Ampyra, which is not a disease modifier but does help with symptoms like fatigue and walking.  It no longer helps with my walking and doesn't help as much with my fatigue, but I'm still taking it.  I have recently purchased Trekking Poles which are now being used for stability and balance issues as well as for hiking.  I've gone out walking with them once so far (see photo at left) with great success.  They collapse like my cane does so I will be traveling with them.

So I think you've got the picture of my new life - new businesses, new drugs, new computer, new poles, new travel - not too bad for an old lady of 66!