For the past few weeks and over the weekend I was so exhausted all the time and felt horrible. Then suddenly Monday afternoon I started to feel more like myself. As I've said before, I have fibromyalgia and sometimes this happens but it had been about 3 years since I'd felt that bad. Achy all over and lots of stuff. But now this flare seems to have passed and I am so happy about it.

Over the weekend, I was just grateful Wednesday would be a day off and I could sleep a lot. But since I felt better Tuesday I thought maybe it wouldn't be so bad. I don't go to the 4th of July parade very often. It's usually too hot. Yesterday thought it was raining pretty good for about 45 minutes at 7 am. I was a little concerned that the parade might get rained out and two of my granddaughters had plans with their grandfather to go to the parade and the park afterwards and I didn't want to see their day spoiled, and the day of all those who look forward to the activities so much. But before 8 am it had stopped raining but was still overcast. So I took the girls to their grandad and made arrangements to pick them up later. He lives very close to the parade route. After I took them to him I ran to Walmart to pick up a few things. When I got home and got things put away it was about 10 minutes after 10 and the parade was scheduled to start at 10. I live not too far away from the parade route, and knew it would go down through town and up another street to circle around. So I took off walking. It's about half mile to where the parade would be ending and I walked down there then walked the parade route the way it would be coming from, so I could meet the parade and go through town and see if I saw my granddaughters. I didn't see them but I walked all the way through town and up to where the parade was coming from, near the park where it also ended. Then when it was over I walked around the park once to see what vendors were there (not too much I was interested in although the food smelled so good. But when I look at the prices the temptations go away. I don't want to spend $5 for a funnel cake or $8 for a turkey drumstick because I'm cheap. So I resisted any temptation LOL). Then I left the park and took a slightly different route back to my house. It was still cool and overcast or I wouldn't have walked down there. It was in the low 70's instead of the mid 90's we've had lately. But it didn't rain on the festivities. A little after I got home the girls called and wanted to bring me to bring them shorts and tops because they had insisted on wearing dresses and now wanted more comfortable clothes to play in. So I drove over and parked about 2 blocks from the park, which was about as close as I could get, walked around trying to find them and their grandpa in a very crowded park, walked them over to the bathrooms to change, then back to their grandpa and back to my car. About 45 minutes later they called tired and wanting to come home so I parked 2 blocks away again, went and found them, and walked back to the car again. So I got a lot of walking in, more than I had in about 3 weeks and I was tired but very happy with how much better I feel. Just relaxed the rest of the day and fell asleep in the evening but woke up when I heard the fireworks the city puts on, because they are set off less than half a mile from me so they were loud. But I'm glad the didn't get rained out either. Until just a few days ago it was qestionable whether the city would put on the fireworks display because of the extreme fire danger. But we've had a little bit of rain the past few days and so the show went on.

I was a little disappointed in the parade though, which is why I don't get too excited about it. Our parade had about 76 entries I think the paper said in it, which was about up from the 50-some last year. The reason I think is that it's electrion year and there were a lot of political candidates with their cars and trucks in it. There were other groups too. But I miss the days when people around here really decorated floats for the 4th of July parade. Now it's mostly trucks with banners and some people on it or cars, or flatbeds pulled by trucks. I remember working on a float when my kids were little for a group I was involved with where we made flowers out of kleenex for days and days and tied them to a chicken wire frame for a real decorated float, like others did at the time. I appreciate the fact that people get out and celebrate the freedom we have, and I know money is tighter and it's cheaper to put a banner on a pick up, but I still miss the real decorated ones where you waited in anticipation to see how pretty the next one would be and would it be prettier than the one that just passed. Oh well, times do change. The most interesting item in the parade to me was a dog that was marching along with a group who looked fairly old with a lot of white whiskers proudly carrying two flags between his teeth, end to end so the stick part was in his mouth. He was cute.

Anyway, I'm glad that I'm getting back to my usual self. I'm still really tired by evening, and have to try to avoid the heat, but that's usual for me in the summer. But the severe, down to the bone, exhaustion is so much better.

This morning I went out for an early walk. I have a lot to do for work today and have one new client I have to do an initial assessment on at their home and tons of paperwork. So back to the usual routine LOL!

Have a great day today!