Catching Up: New Year’s Eve 2023

I’m tired, y’all.

[+] I’ve been super flattened since getting over COVID. All the respiratory crud is gone, and I was able to chop off 6 inches of hair at the beginning of November. I finally got my flu and COVID vaccines in mid-November, so I’m currently double-protected for COVID thanks to having both the vaccine AND leftover antibodies from having the virus three months ago. Said antibodies will probably be gone in the next few weeks, so getting vaxxed was important.

[+] I’ve been doing lots of crocheting on prayer shawls as several people in my life have been diagnosed with breast cancer. Two of them had surgery this fall, and the cancer was caught early. Please get your mammograms, ladies. Two of them were in their late 30’s/early 40’s.

[+] My nephew was entranced by the snowflakes my mom was giving to put on our Christmas tree, so I made him his own set. This stretched into making them for Daniel’s staff and for my A/V people at church. Good thing they crochet up fast!

[+] Daniel got a weird virus at the beginning of December. It was rhinovirus, but he was puking. We had to go to the ER for fluids, and there was nobody in the waiting room when we got there! We had a room within 20 minutes, a doctor 5 minutes later (who did what I told him to do… after examining Daniel and realizing that I knew what I was talking about), and a nurse placing an IV within another 10 minutes! What could have been a 6-hour ER visit was probably around 3. We had lots of trips to Stanwood for meds (which included albuterol for a nebulizer… which is massively backordered elsewhere), and that meant me eating a lot of Mediterranean food from the restaurant across from the pharmacy. 🙂

So, onto all the New Year’s stuff:

[+] Saint of the Year: St. Anthony the Abbot, who is the patron of amputees, animals, butchers, domestic animals, epileptics, graveyards, hermits, monks, and against skin diseases. (Given by the Saint Name Generator created by Jen Fulwiler.)

[+] Word of the Year: I got the word create from the Word of the Year generator created by Jen Fulwiler. My word last year was steadfast.

I’ll probably post resolutions in the next few days…

Catching Up: November 2, 2023 Edition

So…

[+] COVID was hateful. I had two weeks of sinus infection/bronchitis symptoms and the fatigue has been insane. Last week, the asthma exacerbation kicked in. I got a chest x-ray at Urgent Care to rule out anything scary, and my lungs were clear. Cue a steroid inhaler. I’m not up to singing with the choir yet, but I’m reading the names of the deceased during Communion on Sunday.

[+] Daniel continues to adjust to high school. We found out at conferences that he prefers the male staff members to the females. He is getting really cranky toward the end of the school day, and we’re not sure why. Non-verbal kids are hard because of this. The hitting is also increasing, which is not making me happy.

[+] The job hunting has resumed. I had to suspend it during COVID, and I’m honestly kind of happy for the break. My tutoring job burned me out for the last two years, and it was nice to have the space to actually be sick and not have to be made to feel guilty for not being able to work through a migraine or have to turn off my phone to avoid students with no sense of boundaries.

Catching Up: COVID Edition

It was a nice 3 1/2 years avoiding COVID…

[+] After masking up, quarantining, and getting vaccinated, my turn for COVID finally came. I likely got it from Dad, who got it at a small family gathering. I knew I’d probably get it if someone in the house got it–my immune system is crappy. The test showed the COVID line almost immediately, and was brilliant red.

[+] We’ve been partaking of DoorDash and a local food delivery service since Dad got sick because quarantining while cooking is hard. Parishioners have promised food and chicken soup. I don’t really have an appetite though.

[+] What is this variant like? Well, it’s like a head cold, post-nasal drip, and a chest cold went speed-dating. I’m having to write down when I take meds so I don’t take anything that interacts. I’ve gotta say… if this is the mild version that vaxxed people get, I’d hate to have gotten the variant that was out there before the vaccines were developed!

[+] Just pray for me, y’all. I can’t sleep and it feels like I just tried to run through a brick wall.

Catching Up: Two and a Half Months Edition

Wow… two-and-a-half months of silence.

[+] Work. My contract with the college ended on June 30th. I knew it was coming, and I spent last quarter working on my LinkedIn profile as well as creating ones on Glassdoor and Indeed. I’ve got a couple of stop-gap temporary measures in place until I can find a a more permanent remote job, but I’m still living pretty modestly and I am getting a little frustrated with the amount of scammers out there posting positions. There are some days when I honestly feel like I’m playing “Scam or No Scam”, and I have other friends in similar situations.

[+] Health. My appointment with gastroenterology is next week, and it cannot come soon enough. My stomach is angry and eating is unpleasant. I’m willing to deal with an endoscopy and colonoscopy at this point if they can figure out what is happening.

[+] Daniel. Kiddo is at least five inches taller than me, and he is in the middle of puberty. The mood swings are epic. School starts again in a little more than a month, and I think both Daniel and I will be excited for that to happen.

Catching Up: September 17, 2022

It’s been a mentally tough few weeks since I posted. Summer Quarter burned me out to the point where I spent a few weeks just playing Cross-Stitch World on Facebook because I was so mentally drained.

Daniel started school, so I’ve had some guilt-free naptime after getting him on the bus. He also had an Audiology appointment this week which went well. He liked the audiologist we saw as well as her assistant, so we got a good hearing test. They’re repairing his hearing aids, so we’ll probably have them back next week.

I have my schedule for the quarter, and I will be on campus three days a week. I’m kind of stunned by this because I’m “getting my life back”, but it’s tinged with some bitterness because the last 2 1/2 years have shown me the utter selfishness of people who are angry because they’re being mildly inconvenienced by having to keep others safe. We could probably have been back to “normal” sooner if people had quarantined, worn masks, stayed home, and gotten vaccinated.

Catching Up: August 19, 2022 Edition

It’s been hard to have something to write about because I’m literally working, watching YouTube, and sleeping.

[+] Kiddo had an ADHD appointment last week. He is now 5’3″ and has doubled his weight since his g-tube surgery 4 years ago. Unfortunately, he is really constipated, so life is full of suppositories and Miralax.

[+] Next week is finals week, and I’m actually looking forward to it. It’s been a bit of an intense summer, and I’m kind of burned out. Interpersonal Communication is a tiring class to tutor, and I’ve got three sections of it on my tutoring roster. None of the instructors teach it the same way either. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m having to answer every question with the words “I don’t know. Email your instructor.”

Catching Up: July 29, 2022 Edition

TGIF…

[+] This week, I discovered Steel Magnificat, the blog of Mary Pezzulo. I had seen friends link up stories from her blog before, but I wish I had taken the time to read her blog before now. She is an amazing writer and an even more incredible person.

[+] We’re having a church picnic at a member’s farm on the 7th, and I spent this week arranging to *NOT* have to figure out how to put worship online that Sunday. I’ve been out there before and the part of the farm we’ll be at is kinda primitive. I would probably have to record worship and upload it later… and I don’t have the space on my phone to record a 90-minute service. Broadcasting it off of my laptop would require really dedicated Internet access, and I really don’t think they have it in that part of the property. Also… I haven’t had a service off from running things and doing Zoom (we’re talking Sundays, Holy Week, and funerals) since April 25, 2021. I think I (and everyone else on the committee who switches around from Sunday to Sunday) can use a Sunday off.

[+] Daniel had an ADHD appointment scheduled for Wednesday morning at 8. My alarm didn’t go off and Daniel woke me up at 8:22. I called them apologetically and rescheduled it. They were cold to me on the phone, and I don’t blame them one bit because I know how much of a headache it is from working in a clinic when people are no-shows.

[+] One of my new guilty pleasures is Code Blue Cam. It is videos from police body cams, and it’s interesting to see the job from that perspective. I am not an ACAB person by any stretch (as I have relatives in law enforcement), and I am absolutely in favor of police having body cams that are not allowed to be turned off. (A lot of jurisdictions have civil and criminal penalties for officers who do so.) The department that seems to have the majority of videos right now is the La Crosse Police Department, and one fo the things that surprised me is that they have to put their guns in a lockbox when they head into the station.