About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
Breakfast: PiC whips up GF pancakes for me, and regular just-add-water flapjacks for the rest of the gang before we venture to IKEA to buy some gifts.
Lunch: We end that epic visit with lunch in their restaurant and an ice cream cone. (Don’t eat the cone! he warns me. I know, I reply sadly.) Most of their food has gluten but the salmon fillet with veggies plate is quite good, and GF! I feel full for the first time in days. Not sure if that’s because I’ve been inadvertently eating less or because I don’t feel full without six carbs for breakfast.
Dinner: We have leftovers for dinner again – those ribs make excellent tacos!
Pain/Discomfort: Hands are swollen badly, but I can still bend the fingers on my left hand. Cannot lift my arms above elbow level – it causes searing tendon pain. Back, hip, ankle, knee, shoulder pain is low.
I let PiC pick my new phone because he wasn’t really picking for me – he was picking his future phone. I have to learn to use whatever phones we get first so that I can troubleshoot them because I am IT, and I don’t much care about which phones we use as long as they’re functional and not Apple, now. (I refuse to give Apple any more money on principle. I find their confession to throttling older phones, and their excuse, to be fishy. Also, I HATE iTunes and iCloud and all the proprietary, frustrating as all get out software, and Apple ID, with a hot fiery passion and never want to have to see it again. Ever.)
Then again, since he inherits my now “old” phone which has quite a lot of use left in it, I’m destined to spend a few more years with them.
He was debating the Google Pixel and the Samsung Galaxy, and I decided in favor of the Pixel 2 since I would like the option to go to Project Fi in the future to save on monthly costs. We’re still getting service from T-Mobile but we’re paying more than I want to for cell service.
I don’t like buying new phones but it was originally to give us some flexibility as to our phone plans earlier on. Now, while I’m happy to sell our old phones, I am doubtful about buying used/refurbished – what if we get a lemon? Transferring phones is already a colossal PITA buying new, is buying used another layer of risk? Maybe no more than it is with a car which we DO believe in buying used.
I need to hunt down a verified reliable source for refurbished phones for the future. This time we simply didn’t have the luxury of waiting because his phone suddenly made the acquaintance of a large rock with extreme force and prejudice. Actual chunks of the screen were falling out when he got home from that run. Given the choice, I’d prefer that he temporarily lost it again but clearly the choice wasn’t mine.
Quick review: The phone is fine, though too big for my hands, but I HATE the Android WordPress app. It’s so bad that I’ve stopped blogging on it so that’s going to seriously slow down or cut into my blogging.
Fabulous finch story starts with … “Every year the same pair of finches returns to the bush outside my office window, and every year they have the same debate about whether or not to build their nest in exactly the same place. It is like an Avian Love It or List It.”
Beyonce and Beychella – making hearts sing: “I was supposed to perform at Coachella before, but I ended up getting pregnant,” she explained to the crowd of diehard fans who exchanged knowing laughter and cheers. “So I had time to dream and dream and dream with two beautiful souls in my belly,” she continued, “and I dreamed up this performance.”
I’ve been seeing research that suggests that a gluten-free diet may help the effects of my fibro and rosacea, not just anecdotes like I’d heard in the past and finally had to start considering that it might be something worth trying.
I hated the thought because oh how I love my carbs but I’ve lived with high levels of pain for most of my life. If a simple change in diet might help, I’ve got to try it.
I planned to wait until after our summer vacation to start because that would give me time to use up the gluten-ful ingredients we have stocked and phase in GF foods instead over the course of several weeks. Instead, PiC convinced me to start early because if it could help, why not find out earlier rather than later?
My order-loving soul is grumpy about it but his argument has a certain amount of logic. It takes at least two weeks, according to the experienced, for all the gluten to exit the system so I have to try this for at least 6 weeks to get any real sense of whether this will help.
I’m not a fan of people and one of the reasons is this: people can be remarkably ignorant, judgmental, and downright crappy. In general it doesn’t matter because I avoid them as much as I can, but in one aspect of my life, it can matter a great deal.
My illness, the incurable and constant pain and fatigue, has been bad for years. It’s debilitating. I find ways to work while fogged with fatigue and aching constantly because it’s important to earn while we can and we’re just not wealthy enough for me to rest on my laurels, but that the amount of energy eaten up by work is not going to my family and life and that sucks.
It also sucks that I’m doing as much as I reasonably can to live my life in a healthy way and what little improvement has resulted is incredibly incremental. That doesn’t do a heck of a lot for morale, I can tell you that much!
I’m very lucky not to struggle constantly with depression – that old specter has only haunted me a few times. I’m also very lucky not to be wheelchair-bound yet – that would pose a whole host of other accessibility problems that I’m not prepared to navigate. (more…)
These attitudes about women and childbearing have got to go. Assigned childbearing shifts???
What would you spend on if you saved too much in your Dependent Daycare Account? I’m absolutely no help there, I’m just staring wide eyed at the idea of not spending a full $5000 in the DDA for a quarter of the cost of daycare. And frankly somewhat terrified at having to add “summer logistics” to my brainspace.
TSA, get it together. Now they’re thinking about telling us we can’t carry food on planes?? I’m not ok with this. We never travel without food lest one of the three of us become hangry.
We’ve talked failure resumes before, I haven’t done mine but look at Jim’s!
We want to make the most of our time together this year but still get things done around the house. There’s a ton of work still left to us, we only paid for work we absolutely needed completed before we moved in.
Despite (or because of) the massive derailment that was last year, we’re taking a more structured approach to planning our year. Admittedly, it’s a bit late in the day to be planning for the whole year, this is the kind of thing I would normally have done in October of last year. Holy dang it’s April already!
What we planned
Take one at-home home maintenance weekend per month.
Take Seamus to Fort Funston at least once a month so he can romp and meet other dogs. We’d love to do Point Isobel but crossing the bridge on the weekend is definitely a no go.
JB gets one or two playdates a month (includes birthday parties).
Host a dinner with friends once a month.
PiC and I loosely agreed to using the library’s Discover and Go venues at least 4 times this year. I was all kinds of enthused about this, applying for new library cards for both of us. Ours have been expired since JB’s arrival. Disappointingly, it turns out that almost all of the family friendly locations suck in some way: they require 1.5 hour drive one way, the discount is only for the child and parents have to pay for parking and $30 admission, or it’s in SF proper which means traffic, terrible and $$$ parking and walking miles just to get to the venue thereby burning up my valuable energy before we even make it in the door. This may have to be two weekend trips this year instead.
Week 2
I’ve been seeing research that suggests that a gluten-free diet may help the effects of my fibro and rosacea, not just anecdotes like I’d heard in the past and finally had to start considering that it might be something worth trying.
I’m not a fan of people and one of the reasons is this: people can be remarkably ignorant, judgmental, and downright crappy. In general it doesn’t matter because I avoid them as much as I can, but in one aspect of my life, it can matter a great deal.
We want to make the most of our time together this year but still get things done around the house. There’s a ton of work still left to us, we only paid for work we absolutely needed completed before we moved in.