Happy Monday, party people! I hope you had a good weekend.

Today, so far, has been a good day. It’s been storming like the skies are angry at the ground this morning, but it’s all good inside this apartment.

I spent the morning catching up on all the Facebook madness that I missed over the weekend. I ended up buying a present for my sweet new nephew Alex from a very talented friend. I’m excitedly looking forward to getting a Lissa Lou original fashion for him. 🙂 I’m sure Laura and Tony will love a onesie with suspenders and bowtie for the little one. Who doesn’t love a fashionable baby boy? I mean, really!? 🙂 Bowties are cool.

Anyway: After spending far too long on the site that sucks time, I got down to business on taking care of making my personal life a little better and finally called CTA/Pace to get ADA certified. I stayed on hold 10 whole minutes, just to find out that I was in line for an answering machine. Let me tell you how excited I am about that. I’m wondering if I’ll ever get a call back. I certainly hope so. Otherwise, how am I supposed to become certified so that I can do Dial-A-Ride?

The process to become ADA Certified is seriously difficult. First you have to call 312/663-HELP (4357 voice) and get through so they can send you an application, then you have to complete an in-person interview where you have to bring the application and a picture of yourself along with info about your disability, and after that, you might have to complete a 45 minute bus ride so they have proof that you can’t ride the bus by yourself. I’m actually truly worried that even with MS and a seizure disorder that I might not be “disabled enough” for their standards when I can’t drive by myself and I regularly have seizures in the car. To be fair, I’m probably being a pessimist.

Still, it’s definitely worth getting certified because I’d much rather dial-a-ride weekly to get to Treehouse Humane Society than take an hour-long bus ride where I have to change buses. I have to go through a whole rigamarole to try to get reduced bus fare too… so tomorrow, I’ll be paying $5 for the privilege of volunteering. And that’s just to get there. I’m really hoping I don’t have a seizure on the bus, and that I get off at the right spot and don’t get lost. I’m trying really hard to be brave and adult about the whole thing.

Today, the only real work I have on my plate is to fold some clothes and clean the kitchen and living room, and that’s totally self-imposed. Whenever Adam and I spend any real time together in the apartment, with the open floor plan we have, it tends to look like some kind of plate-napkin-and-food bomb went off. Fortunately, I don’t hate cleaning. I like the feeling of empowerment that it gives me when I’m done. The hard part is just getting started, and that just takes the monumental effort of getting off my lazy tuchas.

Speaking of getting off my butt, I totally did that this weekend! We helped our friends the Fosketts move from their home in Aurora to a new one in Lisle on Saturday (though truly Adam did a lot more work than I did), and then on Sunday, Adam and I went for another Sunday “hike!” That’s 2 weekends in a row now! I’m really proud to say that I walked an entire half mile nonstop. My legs may have been jello at the end, but I did it! And so did Brisco! Poor pup was whooped at the end.

So things in life are looking up. I’m taking a lot of personal responsibility for how I feel and for how much of a life I do or don’t have. And I think that’s a good thing.