A Life Update: Mistletoe Tree Branches, Health Improvements, and Other Life Related Things

Well, it’s been a few weeks since I posted a lot! Despite my absence, I was monitoring this blog and other social media websites. Since I’m starting to write and publish posts after my vacation, I wanted to give an update about the things I plan on writing about and any other updates I wanted to mention online.

First, I wanted to mention that I’ve been very busy for the past few weeks. Both my work and personal life have kept me busy. Also, I found out I’m suffering from an extreme eczema flareup in December 2023. Since then, I have been working on getting the flareup under control. This “flareup” has been bothering me for many, many, many years, but doctors I went to didn’t give me an answer about what was wrong or how to remedy it. Since I suffered from it for so many year, I feel pretty embarrassed and ashamed to admit to myself and others how long this has been going on. Now that I understand the doctors I went to didn’t help me even though I brought attention to the eczema, I feel better about my part of letting my skin problem go untreated for so many years.

Getting my eczema under control hasn’t been easy. I’m allergic (Or at least very sensitive) to steroids. This made it hard to treat. I have found a cream that works for me that is steroid free and is available without a prescription. It is expensive, but it works really well. I also needed to change my washing habits and use different body washes and soaps. I also conferment that the type of laundry detergent I’ve been using, which is for sensitive skin, is the perfect detergent for me to use. I have also omitted as many fragrances in things I apply to my skin as I could. It makes me sad to not use my favorite spring fragrances, but I hope to return to using them next year!

All the work I’ve done to my skin has made swelling reduce dramatically. I won’t say online how much it has reduced, but it is enough to make me feel less pain and feel able to move more freely than before. I also found out I am more swollen and inflamed than I would’ve ever imagined I am. This discovery made me both happy to know why I am so swollen, but sad because it explained some very serious issues I have with certain people I grew up with and the comments about my looks. (Which weren’t very nice!)

Now that I am getting my eczema under control, as well as the swelling and pain I have in my body and skin, I am starting to become more active. One of the more unique ways I am getting more active is to cut mistletoe from trees surrounding my relative’s property.

As I type this, there are more homes currently under construction in the areas near where my relative lives. Even though I know the landscape is changing, I wanted to take care of the trees that are in the area. Many of them have mistletoe in them, so I decided to start cutting the infested branches off. I am also sawing these branches off by hand using a saw on an extension pole. So far I have cut off at least seven branches from these trees. It feels good to see the trees growing thicker leaves after their infested branches are removed, but I am also a little sad. I believe many of these trees with be removed as soon as more homes are built in the area. Even though there are new homes that will be coming to the area, the land is still looked after and cared for by my relative. Removing the infested branches is not only taking the stress of caring for the area off my relative’s shoulders, but it also gives me one last chance of enjoying the natural desert before it is gone forever.

Removing branches has been very hard. I have the physical strength to do it, but boy, do I get sore afterwords! Yet, I wouldn’t be able to do this type of work unless I took care of my eczema. Even though I still have a long way to go before I can be considered eczema free, and there is a chance I never will truly be free of eczema, but everything has improved so much I can now go out and do yard work without needing to worry about my energy levels so much. And that includes cutting branches!

Another thing I’ve been working on is decluttering my things. I have too many things I don’t want to keep, yet I haven’t gotten rid of! I planned on doing a major deep clean and declutter of my things many years ago, but I became too sickly and busy with work and school do actually do it. As I’ve been deep cleaning, finding all the things I wanted to get rid of back then nicely stacked and ready to be moved out was something that made me feel better about my current declutter!

So far I’ve been donating a lot of things. I’m not sure if it is because I am more introverted than extroverted or I’m just embarrassed I have so many things, but donating them hasn’t been easy. I don’t mind letting these things go. Yet, I am embarrassed by the frequency I need to visit donation centers! I’m not going to lie, I worry anyone who sees me donating at such a frequent basis may think I’m a hoarder. I know they probably don’t, but, after years of calling myself a hoarder, it’s finally making me wonder why I was so hard on myself for all these years. Especially since I had health problems and other priorities that robbed me of time and energy to declutter.

Well, that’s all for now! Thank you for reading!