Currently, and currency
March 20, 2017
Everything is quite unsettled right now.
- We haven’t found any suitable place to make an offer on yet. And the possibly-apocryphal (but I doubt it) tale is that it’s taking upwards of ten offers to get one accepted.
- We are in selling limbo until we buy.
- I’ve got several moving pieces at work that needs 150% of me and my attention but as Dr. Temperance Brennan would point out – that’s not possible.
- One of those moving parts may shake out to be quite bad for me, potentially ruining a big and expensive summer plan, and there’s absolutely nothing I can ethically do to affect the result. I’ve briefly considered the non-ethical options but nooo. I can’t be that person.
It’s a little weird that the not moving part of life bothers me so much, considering I quite like our home right now, and we’re only moving under duress. It’s less weird when you consider that I’m both a Type A personality (very little of the home buying process is under my control), and that I’m a homebody, so feeling like my home is going to shift at some random unknown point in time is incredibly unsettling.
All this adds up to a pit in my stomach the size of a watermelon.
I’ve gone from stress-cleaning to stress-cooking to stress-feeling frazzled and frozen. Back to stress cleaning this week, if I can muster the energy.
One of the benefits of stress-cleaning is that you go deep. And deep de-cluttering turns up gems. Like the discovery that your comic collection is pushing 100 lbs. Or a huge pile of cash.
(Except it’s not huge, and it’s not American dollars but other than that…BOUNTY!)
- Singaporean dollars, and I don’t remember when I was ever in Singapore.
- Hong Kong dollars, I do remember when I was there (briefly).
- A small handful of Thai Baht. Boy do I ever miss authentic Thai food.
- Some Taiwan dollars, when did I lay over in Formosa?
- Way too many expensive GBP, obtained at the worst possible exchange rate – go me.
- An absurd number of Canadian dollars considering I haven’t been there in at least a decade.
I’m working on finding my Zen again. The discomfort of needing to move shouldn’t overshadow the comfort of loving the home we are in right now, especially since there’s so much about it we do love.
There’s nothing I can do to change that possible-summer-ruiner but I can work on mitigating the ruination.
There’s very little I can do about the fact that my pain is at an all time high this week except take medication earlier and make the most of the few minutes’ break when JuggerBaby has a nap.
Ultra high pain also means that depression is nibbling around the edges of my brain again. I can’t just ignore it, but I can’t tell it to go away again. I can try to only see the good in front of me, or focus on what I need to do, and most optimistically, try to fit in a massage this week. It’s been put off because of this darn congestion. There’s nothing less relaxing than being hyper aware of your mucosal state while trying not to gross out your massage therapist.
If 300% of Vitamin C a day doesn’t do the trick this week, I welcome other cold-busting suggestions!
UPDATE: That bad work thing? It’s happening. And the effects won’t be in the summer, it’ll be now through summer, and walloping my personal calendar something fierce.
Since you are hankering for Thai (?), I highly recommend Tom Kha Gai soup for the cold. 🙂 I am basically obsessed with Thai food.
I have successfully (for me, at least) made/recreated Thai yellow chicken curry at home twice now with a variation of this recipe (http://pinchofyum.com/thai-yellow-chicken-curry-with-potatoes). It is easier than I thought it’d be. I’m SO STOKED.
Thailand was the first foreign country I visited as an adult, but I almost immediately got some terrible bug, so I need to go back to truly enjoy the food. Loved it otherwise.
Chile is my new favorite country. I also LOVED Japan. Australia is, obviously, amazing. NZ is gorgeous. Vanuatu is OK. Prague, Czech Republic was surprisingly beautiful (I’m not usually a city person for travelling; only for living!). I saw only a tiny bit of Germany (need to go back); the bit I went to for work was a dump. Rio, Brazil, was pretty but sometimes dirty and sometimes scary (I researched too much). Loved England and all its history…
Uncertainty gives me ulcers and insomnia–esp. when my home life is threatened, as yours is right now! Remember when my apartment was sold and I ended up “evicted” a few years ago?! I was a mess. I don’t have an easy answer for coping with those situations. I need to work on those skills. I’ll be following the answers here.
Do what you need to do to feel better! 🙂 Hugs.
Tom Kha Gai sounds so very good. Coupled with this rain, I’m awfully tempted to just hop on over for a few vats of soup. Our local place used to do it Tom Yum Goong perfectly but then they changed their ingredients and now I guess I have to make it myself.
You really have to go back to Thailand so you can really taste the food!
I really need to go to Australia and NZ, of course.
I do remember that apartment situation! I had a pit in the stomach for you, trying to figure that out!
I treat my colds with a lot of ginger-lemon tea with honey. I’m able to take cold medication (not everyone can), so I do that when I need to–most often at night and in the morning, but less regularly during the day.
I hope you feel better soon, and I hope you find a new home soon.
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Thank you! The good wishes are warming.
Stress and uncertainty generally push me into retreat…which is not so much of an option for you when you’re looking for a new place to live. Colds and pain do the same.
If the weather cooperates, a little UV exposure might help as well. Sunshine generally cures the stress and can help my colds feel better, at least when it’s warm.
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Those are my reactions, too, except we have to stay active and get out. Darn adult life, anyway.
We had a blast of sun last week so I soaked it up, back to rain this week so I’ll have to fake the UV exposure another way.
With everything else that’s going on, your cold should be polite and go away already! I’m guessing that didn’t help it, either. Drat, I’m out of ideas, then. ?
I’m awful with the unknown. I can’t concentrate on anything. The only thing that seems to help is writing out what I’m thinking, all the possibilities, and then trying to do something productive. It works sometimes. ?
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*waits*
*waits some more*
Dang, I hoped that would work. Because you’re right!
Same for me – unknowns are COMPLETELY distracting. Thank goodness for blogging 😀
Ooo, I love Tom Kha Gai soup for a cold. Lots of water and rest, and I take OTC cold drugs if I have to get stuff done.
It was a couple years ago now, but I’ll share one bright story, which is that we got the first house we made an offer on. We came in second place, but the first buyers fell through. 10 offers seems on the high end, but most we know made several offers.
Uncertainty and the unknown are not my friends, and I’ve gotten a lot better about sitting with uncertainty over the years – but really big stuff (like where will i live?!) is still hard. Just keep reminding yourself that whatever happens, you can handle it, just like you handled all the other stuff in your past. I saw a cheesy quote on my Facebook or instagram this past week – “A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because her trust is not on the branch but on it’s wings”
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That is a nice story! I like that one.
And cheesy though it is, I do like that quote. It’s a good reminder.
That is quite to loot of foreign currency you’ve amassed! Perhaps it is time for a trip to Canada to utilize the currency. Or maybe, to the bank to exchange it.
Got caught up on your housing situation. Such a disgraceful display of humanity being provided to you. I hope your new place – wherever that is – provides a warm, fresh start for you and your family.
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Or maybe I need to go to Canada and eat a month’s worth of poutine!
Thanks for the good wishes.
Soup! Hot soup! Waaay back when I lived in my first apartment in Chicago in a crowded, but diverse neighborhood, I used to pick up Tom Yum soup on my walk from the el station to my apartment on those days I was feeling sick or under the weather. Man, I miss that neighborhood. In walking distance from my apartment I could get Korean BBQ, Persian, Middle Eastern, Thai, and Mexican restaurant food. There was a Middle Eastern bakery that make the most amazing pastries (dozens of variations of baklava and pastries made with phyllo and nuts) that was responsible for the roughly 10 lb weight gain I had in the years I lived there. I also had an awesome fresh market where I could get ingredients to do home cooking of any of those dishes at great prices. It was an epic location. Anyway, maybe some Vitamin D will help, too? I think it helps me stay well most of the time.
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All of those foods sound wonderful right now.
My massage therapist can actually do amazing things for my sinuses when I have a cold. It’s not always pleasant in the moment but it helps a ton. Then again I totally trust her and know she cannot be grossed out. I hope you can find those few small things that will get you through.
That sounds like a dream therapist, I never thought to ask if they could do something about sinuses. But also I feel kind of weird asking 😀
I’ve gone back & forth with the move between so much stress that I teeter on inaction & eating chocolate in my bed, to energizer bunny mode. Neither are good. Balance is great, but super hard to achieve when you moved into a new house this week, worked 60 hours, and have stacks of things everywhere & 50 projects required to get the house in full scale mode.
I realized this week how very much I enjoy a peaceful retreat at our house. Unfortunately, we’re a long way from that & I need to bite off reasonable pieces at a time.
I also have bags of currency, but mine are: Canadian (M apparently had like $30 from when he moved. . . 25 years ago?), Korean Won, Japanese Yen. Probably $25 worth of the other two. I was just in Japan a week or so ago, but forgot my money.
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I was thinking of you and your move and wishing you all the luck with getting your new house settled!
Once we get settled, we should do a bit of travel and spend our money 😉
Oh gosh, my whole life is a pile of uncertainty. I deal with it with whiskey.
Just kidding. Sort of.
I hope this season in your life settles down quickly. I know it can be real rough when everything’s up in the air.
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*pours a glass* I can’t drink this whisky, someone should! 🙂 Thanks.