If you think growing up is tough, then you're just not grown up enough...

 

The songs I get stuck in my head (and therefore use as blog titles) always make things sound so much more dramatic than they actually are.  Maybe that's why I keep using them.  Insert laughter here...

Today's title is from another Barenaked Ladies song, called Baby Seat.  It's kind of inspiring, actually.

You can't live your life in the baby seat,

You've got to stand on your own; don't admit defeat.

It's from the album Maroon (2000).  That was a good tour.  That was the first BNL concert we saw, I do believe.  That was many, many BNL concerts ago.  For serious; we've seen them so many times, I've lost count.  That's how good they are in concert.

Well -- that's how good they used to be in concert.  That was a long time ago, and at a large venue -- I think it was at the Target Center in Minneapolis?  The good news is that you can now see BNL in smaller, more intimate settings -- I believe the last time we saw them was at Mystic Lake Casino, from the third row.  

The bad news is that they're not really BNL anymore.  Not since Steven Page (former co-lead singer) left.  The side-bar good news from that is you can also see Steven Page in smaller, more intimate settings -- we've seen him twice at the Dakota in Minneapolis, and I actually much prefer his solo stuff to the "new" BNL stuff that's out -- but I digress.  This is not what I came here to write about.

I came here to write about that it is, indeed, tough growing up.  To give a quick update from my last blog post, my Dad "finished" rehab at the nursing home and was cleared to be discharged back home.  

What a joke that turned out to be.

So, he was discharged on a Saturday. I drove into town (it's so funny that I call St. Paul "town" now) to pick him up and bring him back to his house.  My mom had said that she personally had seen him stand up on his own without assistance and without any problems, up out of his wheelchair, many times, right?  And that was the hurdle to going home, was being able to transfer himself, and being able to walk a few feet at a time with the use of his walker.  All of which he could apparently do in physical therapy.  

The first red flag should have been that it took us like half an hour to get him transferred from the wheelchair into my car.  Mostly it seemed like he just didn't want to, which seemed more like a dementia thing than a physical thing.  But no, we were determined to get him out of there, so we pushed forward.

The second (and third and fifteenth) red flags should have been when we got him back to their house, and it took like literally an hour or so to get him from where the car was parked in the alley, to the back door of the house.  He just had, like, no strength in his legs. He was getting frustrated, my Mom was getting frustrated, I was trying to keep it together and figure out how to get him inside and NOT get frustrated like everyone else was.  He literally made it like 10 steps out of the vehicle and then we ended up getting his 4-wheeled walker, the kind that has a seat on it, and sitting him in there in order to wheel him up to the door.  Oh, I just made that sound waaaaay simple!  I forgot to mention that this involved going down a slight sidewalked incline, and that it was a hot day so we were all sweating, and I was trying to hold my Dad up and keep him from falling while also directing my Mom on things to grab because apparently, in her frustration, she completely lost the ability to formulate any sort of critical thought whatsoever.  And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

I mean, I still had faith that once we got him in the house and in the air conditioning, maybe rehydrated and fed and rested up, that he'd be okay again.

I'm a daughter first and a nurse second.

So we got him to the steps to go inside.  Three steps. That's it.  Sounds easy enough.  Except we were all exhausted and frustrated by that point.  My mom and I are both giving my Dad directions on what to do and trying to help, I'm kind of lifting him from the back to keep him from falling backward and she's trying to guide him from the front, and our directions are often contradicting each other and my Dad is usually doing something else entirely. And, once you get up the three steps, immediately to the left is the steps down to the basement, which my Dad is now terrified of falling down -- as we are all terrified of him falling down as well.  But, even though I've basically just lifted my Dad (who weighs about 250#) up the three steps and got him somehow into a kitchen chair at the top of those three steps (one of those kitchen chairs on wheels because my parents have had the same kitchen set since the early 80's), I don't feel like I could lift a feather, I know in my heart of hearts there is no way I'm going to let him fall down those stairs.  (Spoiler alert: don't worry, I didn't!)  

Reliving it now, just to write this, makes my muscles ache again.  

So no, he didn't fall down the stairs.  And in the interest of time, we did get him in the house the rest of the way.  Got him fed, rehydrated, eventually got him changed (into some summer clothes, he was still in sweatpants) and after a while, tried to get him settled into his new power lift recliner.

I knew I had the inner strength in me somewhere, because even though I was dead tired I knew I would've kept him from falling down the steps if I'd've had to.  So when it came time to help him transfer to the chair, and he just got tuckered out again after walking to the living room and we had to grab the walker again for him to sit on, and my grand idea to just have him pivot transfer to the recliner didn't work so well and I thought, no big deal, if I can just get him in the recliner, I can pull him into a comfortable position, everything will be alright.  Right?  I mean, this is what I used to do, working in the hospital.  Um, with assistance, of course, which I basically didn't have (yes, my mom was there, but she wasn't much help by that point) but if I could get him in a close-to-good spot, I could then pull him (with the help of gravity -- that new chair almost goes into trendelenberg!) into a better spot, et voila. Mission accomplished!

Except, no.  My inner strength failed me.  I couldn't move him an inch.  I tried so effing hard.  We got him into the recliner but couldn't boost him up where he needed to be.  My mom finally succumbed and called the paramedics for a lift assist. I hate calling the paramedics for a lift assist.  Three strong guys showed up and it took two of them 5 seconds to do what I couldn't do.  I'll quit beating myself up over that now.

Because the next morning, bright and early, my Mom called me and said she couldn't get my Dad out of the chair. Again.  And that she didn't know what to do.  That if she called the paramedics, he'd end up right back at the hospital and right back at rehab again and she didn't want that.  She said she was going to call and have him taken to the VA instead.  I eventually convinced her that if she was going to call the paramedics, she should still go to the local hospital and not the VA (I'll get into that another time). So that is what she did.

Short story long...they/we spent a few hours back in the ER, ruling out any acute causes for his weakness.  Again.  Nothing was wrong this time -- no new heart issues, no UTI, everything came back good.  The consensus was that he was still too deconditioned to go home without help in place because my Mom can't help him transfer/ambulate.  

So, I'm gonna speed this up a bit, or else I'll be telling the story for two weeks.  Ha, ha.  He was admitted as observation to the hospital, with the plan being he'd stay there until home health care could be in place to begin the day he was discharged back home.  But there were issues with that, and he ended up in observation for like a week before he was admitted to another unit while plans changed and he was awaiting placement back at the nursing home again.  This time in long-term instead of rehab.  For how long, we're not exactly sure; but, that's the plan.

And that's where we are right now.  Told you I was going to speed the story up.  ;)  About a week and a half ago, we moved my Dad back into the same nursing home he was at before, only this time he's in the locked "memory care" unit.  I have all kinds of feelings about that, which I will share at a later time.  He was in the hospital for about 3 weeks before going there, and that wasn't very good for him, either.  Believe it or not, this is actually better.  Maybe not for us, emotionally, but definitely for him.  

I feel like I've aged about 30 years in the last few months.  I don't know if 30 years is accurate; I don't know how old I feel, exactly. I just know I feel older. Like I've lost some of my youth.  The thing about dementia, in case you haven't had the pleasure of experiencing it yourself, is that you lose your person in stages.  

I remember the first time I realized I'd lost part of my Dad.  I don't remember exactly how long ago it was, probably 5 years or so?  I had been at their house after work, probably to go out for supper and visit and such.  And it was one of the first times that my Dad kept repeating himself in conversation with me.  I don't remember the exact question, it was probably something trivial like what my husband was up to or something, but when he asked me the same question less than five minutes later and I realized he was dead serious and didn't remember that we'd just had that conversation, I felt a cold chill go through my body.  Like a slap upside the head or something.  Like a confirmation, yelling at me, HEY IDIOT!  You know how you've been trying to deny that your Dad has dementia? TAKE THAT!!

I cried on the drive home that night.  Not for what had happened, necessarily, but for what was to come.  And for the first realization that I was starting to lose my Dad.  And ever since then, shards just keep falling away, slowly.  Sometimes in clumps, like in the last few weeks.  It's awful.  

My very first job in nursing, as a brand-new nursing assistant back nearly 30 years ago, was on a locked dementia unit.  I don't have time to ruminate right now, but I've always had a soft spot for people with dementia, and at the same time I've always prayed feverishly that none of my loved ones would ever be afflicted with this terrible illness.  And here we are.  

You can count on me to mess it up

No, not really.  Maybe.  It's from a song.  Because (and here I'm about to let you in on a little secret as to how I come up with these wildly imaginative blog titles) I just re-read my previous blog entry in preparation for writing this one, and the closing said something about "next time" which brought to my mind the Barenaked Ladies song "Next Time" which is now firmly embedded in my puny human brain.  So my first inkling was to use the chorus as my title, and I had actually even typed it out, but "You can always get it right next time, next time" didn't look as good in print as it sounded in my head, so I went with the first line of the first verse instead.  

You can count on me to mess it up, 

You can count on me to let you down again,

And in time you'll see that I'm your only friend.

But I don't want y'all to think I'm feeling down on myself at this very moment, hence this wordy over-explanation.

Remember that one time about a year and a half ago when I was blogging from my parents' house because I was staying with my mom because my dad was staying at a skilled nursing facility temporarily for short-term rehab after having been hospitalized for generalized weakness?  Deja vu!  That is exactly where I am right now, and for the same reason!  I was hoping to not make a habit out of that, but at least this time my mom isn't also recovering from emergency hip surgery, so that's a huge bonus.

The short-story-long version is that in late May, my Dad spent a few days inpatient at a local hospital for exacerbation of CHF.  He was basically refusing to get out of his recliner so my mom eventually ended up calling the paramedics to transport him to the local hospital for evaluation.  They ended up putting him on IV lasix and getting about 10 pounds of fluid off of him before deciding he should go to transitional care for rehab before going home.  I'm leaving a lot out on purpose.  My mom begrudgingly agreed.  He hadn't been getting around so well lately, prolly on account of all the fluid in his legs and feet making it hard to move.  (Again, I'm leaving a lot out. They're in the process of getting home health care set up but the people who have been coming out to see him don't really know his baseline yet, so, IDK. Bad timing I guess. IDFK.  I can see both sides of this argument so I'm going to stop myself right here.)  So for the last 2 weeks he's been at a...a...a nursing home.  Not the VA one where he was last time; this one is actually closer to home, and it's about a 6 minute drive from my office.  How handy!

And, we're not in the midst of a pandemic, and my mom is completely ambulatory and mobile, and there isn't a COVID outbreak at said facility -- so unlike last time, we can actually go and visit him all we want.  Unlike last time when we had to go a whole month without even seeing him, and I was sure that was going to be the death of both of my parents. 

Not that this has been what I would call "easy". If what we went through before was an 80 on a scale of 1-100, with 1 being the easiest and 100 being the hardest, this time is a solid 55 on a good day, and 65 on a bad day.  The worst part was when my mom realized that "TCU" and "short-term rehab facility" were just synonyms for "nursing home".  The second worst part was me seeing my dad in a nursing home.  I still haven't cried about it yet, but I'm going to, one day soon.  I used to cry about it, when I was a CNA working in a nursing home, taking care of people just like what my dad is like now, praying to God that my parents would never, ever, ever be in that situation.  Because, while I knew I was a caring, kind, respectful, empathetic CNA who treated people with dignity and compassion and talked to them like they were people and not just "work to get done", I worked with so many others who weren't like that, and it broke my heart.

But I digress, for now.  In case I haven't mentioned it yet, my dad has dementia.  So he doesn't make his needs known very well.  He's slow to answer and people get impatient and frustrated with that.  He doesn't understand what's going on or why.  My mom has anxiety and doesn't do well being away from my dad, nor does she really understand a lot of the things....well, a lot of the things that I understand. IDK how else to say it. 

And I have to get back to work for a second.  TTYL.

What did the momma tomato say to the baby tomato? Catch up!!

 

Here's a fun and totally irrelevant fact: when I was a kid, I loved eating plain ketchup.  You know how if you have fries or tater tots or whatever, you typically make a little puddle of ketchup next to it for dipping? I would do that, but then just eat the ketchup with my fork. And my parents would let me, because I was a picky eater. I don't have confirmation of this, but looking back on it, I suspect it was one of those cases where they were just happy that I was eating something.  

I used to do the same thing with grated parmesan cheese, when we had spaghetti.  I liked spaghetti noodles, but I didn't like the sauce.  My mom always made her own spaghetti sauce and put canned mushrooms in it, and I've never been a fan of canned mushrooms. She'd put other things in it, too, but I don't remember what else, and it's irrelevant anyways because I couldn't get past the mushrooms. So I would have noodles and grated parmesan cheese, but I didn't like them together (because the cheese doesn't really stick to the noodles if there's no sauce on them) so I'd have noodles and then a little pile of grated cheese.  

Changing subjects now, I decided that trying to play Catch Up and retrospectively write about everything I didn't write about as it happened over the end of 2022 until now just will not work for me.  This isn't my memoirs, it's a blog.  It's where I write about how I feel about what is happening here and now, not just a historical documentation of what happened in my life and how I recall feeling about it months later.

Although I will touch on the highlights quickly.  My hubby built two new rooms in the basement and we had new carpet installed down there just before Christmas -- it turned out awesome! Our basement was officially finished before, but it was basically one big 1000-sq-ft. room that the previous owners had set up (or at least staged for showing) as a big party room with a dry bar.  We didn't need that, so we turned it into a workroom for the hubby, a craft room for me, and we still have a generously-sized living room area (with a gas fireplace that was already there).  We had my parents and the boy over for Thanksgiving, and then we had my in-laws over for Christmas.  It was actually really fun! We had the house somewhat decorated and everything.  In January, my baby boy turned 25, and a week later he and his roomie came down with the 'Rona :(. I missed it that time, but about a month later, the weekend before Valentine's Day actually, the hubby and I caught it again.  (The first time we had it was in October 2021.)  It was not fun.  I will just say that it wasn't as bad as it was the first time, but it still sucked and I still would not wish it upon my worst enemy.  At least I didn't end up in the ER this time!  The coughing wasn't nearly as bad this time, but I was so incredibly tired.  I think I slept for like 3 days straight.  

What I've really wanted to come here and write about is that my new PCP (primary care provider) started me on Ozempic a few weeks ago.  That was actually a completely unexpected move.  We found out at the end of last year that our previous PCP (yes, the hubby and I used to have the same PCP) was leaving the clinic, and that the clinic was going to be making some major changes, undergoing new management.  I was really bummed because I liked our PCP and, more importantly, I liked the cocktail of drugs she let me get away with had me on and I didn't want to mess with that!  *ahem*

So I did what they suggested and made an appointment right away -- virtual, of course, because it was more convenient -- with one of the other practitioners.  And then, that practitioner cancelled my appointment the day before, stating that they wouldn't see me because I live in Wisconsin, and that they won't prescribe one of the medications I was taking.  (The living in Wisconsin thing is bullshit; even though the visit was virtual, when making the appointment they stated I would have to physically be in the same state as the provider and I said I could do that. I could do the video visit from work or even just drive across the damn border to be in Minnesota. I run virtual visits from the practice side all the time, I understand how that works. But nooooooo, suddenly that wasn't good enough?!)  So I was like, forget it, I'm going back to a "real" clinic.

Let me explain that real quick. It's not like our old clinic wasn't a "real" clinic.  It just wasn't affiliated with one of the big well-known health systems, KWIM?  It was technically a private wellness center, which was actually really nice because the co-pays were already taken care of so we didn't have to pay anything out-of-pocket when we went there, and they could do on-site labs, and send referrals for imaging and other diagnostic testing when needed, and they also had their own on-site pharmacy for which we didn't have co-pays, either.  (Which is another thing -- with the new year and the new management, the on-site pharmacy with no co-pays was going bye-bye.)  I will admit that I was leery of it at first, because I liked my hometown clinic where I knew the providers and the system and the routine, but I got used to the wellness center and driving into the cities just to go to the doctor, even though it was a pain in the butt, but it was kind of on the way if I had to go to work anyway.  However, with all of the good parts starting to crumble, as I was starting to say, I decided I was going to go back to the hometown clinic where I know the system and the routine.  We've since moved to a different town so I don't know the doctors anymore (and even if we hadn't, I haven't worked there for over 7 years so not many of the ones I knew before are even still there anyway!) but that's OK.  Fresh start and all.  

As it turns out, there's a clinic in our network about 10 minutes away from home.  Perfect!  Because let me tell you, there is not much else that is 10 minutes away from home out here.  And I feel better just knowing that the next time I'm sick or if I get hurt or something and feel like I should go see "my doctor", I can just zoom into town instead of trekking to the cities.  

So, I met her for the first time a few weeks ago.  And, I mean, it's no secret that I'm overweight. I can't exactly hide that, and if you're reading this you probably know me in person or have at least maybe seen pictures of me on FB.  So long story short, while we were going through meds and stuff - and I remember this clearly because it wasn't on my mind as something to discuss -- she busts out with, "Do you want to try another medication for weight loss?"  Because yes, I was on a medication for weight loss at the time, but it wasn't doing jack squat for helping me lose weight.  It made me feel GREAT!, and I wasn't gaining weight while taking it, but I wasn't losing, either.  But I digress...

"Um...I would not be against that," or something along those lines, is what I think I replied.  It may have been a resounding, "YES!" or I may have been trying to keep my cool, I honestly don't remember.  

I'll have to finish this later. Break's over. 

============================================

Ha ha ha, break was over about five days ago.  Such is life.  So to pick up where I left off, my new PCP offered to start my on Ozempic. I hadn't heard much about it until then, honestly. I went into that appointment resolved to be completely honest with my new PCP, provided that I felt comfortable with her (which I did), and committed to being open-minded with whatever she suggested, but honestly I thought it would go more toward adjusting my mood meds.  

And let me just take a moment here and say that even though I myself am what they call a "health care professional", I am NOT one of those people who will go into an appointment and say, "My problem is this, and I need this."  It is not in my scope to diagnose.  :)  I might internally self-diagnose, but for the record, I am leaving that to the more educated professionals.  I'm their patient, after all.  

So...yeah.  We had a good long discussion about the GLP1 class of medications and how they work, and I agreed to start this new medication, in place of one of my previous medications.  

GLP1 stands for glucagon-like peptide 1. Ozempic is a GLP1 agonist (although the term "agonist" is frequently left off in casual discussion) meaning that it mimics the action of a hormone called, guess what? Glucagon-like peptide 1.  The generic name for the main ingredient in Ozempic (and Wegovy, and the oral formulation called Rybelsus) is semaglutide.  Semaglutide was originally developed to help people with type 2 diabetes, because it helps stimulate the body to produce more insulin after eating, which helps lower blood sugar levels.  However, it was found that people also lost weight while taking semaglutide.  Apparently researchers aren't exactly sure why yet; it is known that semaglutide slows gut motility (the movement of food from your stomach to your small intestine) which makes you feel fuller faster and longer.  It's also been shown to lower the risk of heart disease in people whether they have diabetes or not.  People have reported decreased appetite while taking semaglutide.  So, it is also now prescribed for weight loss -- and embarrassingly, for serious weight loss only.  Not just to drop 20-25 pounds. 

However, there are a couple of issues, as there always are with medications.  For one thing, Ozempic and Wegovy are once-weekly injections.  I mean, I personally don't have a problem with that, but I'm a nurse; I've given countless subcutaneous injections, to others.  I didn't have a problem signing up for something that meant giving myself injections once a week.  I especially love that it's only once a week, and I can get rid of a daily medication (that I was worried I was addicted to, anyway) in it's place.  Problem number two is that it's only brand-name right now, so it's pretty expensive, even with good insurance.  Problem 2a, we'll call it, is that Ozempic is not FDA-approved for weight loss, but Wegovy is, and during our discussion my PCP said those two words that no one who works in healthcare wants to hear: "prior authorization".  

Turned out not to be an issue. :) And no, I don't have diabetes.  I don't know what happened on the inside, all I know is she sent my prescription to the pharmacy at almost 5pm on a Friday, and with my knowing how the whole prior authorization thing can work from the clinic side, I figured that it wouldn't get approved until the next week, maybe Tuesday or Wednesday.  So imagine my surprise when I got a text from the pharmacy on Saturday afternoon saying my prescription was ready to be picked up!  Cue the choirs of angels singing, that was truly a miracle!

Anyhoo, I'm rambling now.  That was about 5 weeks ago.  I'm not incredibly open about this in real life, but then, it's not like I tend to go around in real life saying, "Hey! Guess what medications I'm on?!"  I did tell my two officemates at work because I was pretty nauseated at first and I wanted to let them know I wasn't down with something contagious.  I told my parents, because I have dinner with them once a week or so and wanted to explain why I suddenly had no appetite.  Oh, and I, um, decided to start documenting my journey on TikTok because I wanted to document it somewhere with photographic evidence, and quite honestly, I did look at some FB "support" groups but they were all total and complete rubbish.  So I guess I am open about it in real life, but not necessarily to people I interact with every day in real life.  If that makes sense.  

But I want to document it in writing, too, because I'm just more comfortable in writing than I will ever be at monologuing.  Is that the right word? Vlogging? Talking to an imaginary audience? Whatever. So here I am.  

And again, another break is over.  I'm going to post this, though, otherwise it's going to sit for another five days without being updated, and I'm going to change my mind and not publish it.  I'll share my updates and side effects next time. 

TTFN!

Rona Round 2...but first, look what cat I dragged in!

Ugh. That is all.

Except it's not "all".  I haven't written in here since November, I'm not going to just leave it at "Ugh". 

Let's see...the last time I wrote in here, we had just brought the horses home.  Nothing else major to report there.  Everything has gone fine.  I believe the last line of that blog was something like, "...and I didn't even get to tell you about the new cat!" so that sounds like a good place to start.

We have a new cat! 

Ha, ha, ha.  I crack me up.

Alright, alright.  Well, if you're friends with me on FB, you've already "met" Sierra.  The Monday night before Saturday we had scheduled to move the horses, I was at Monday Night Bible Study (which is 100% online) and one of the other participants -- whom I didn't know very well at the time -- asked if anyone needed a cat.  What timing! I still don't have the tabby twins here (which is another long story) (not really but...well at least you haven't missed anything there) and I just had it in my head that I had to have horses and cats here at the same time.  So I said -- Sure, we can rehome a barn cat that needs a new barn to call home!  

Because that's what she was at the time.  A young cat that someone had apparently dropped off and had found her way to my friend's barn, and was trying to be friendly with the resident barn cats, who wanted absolutely nothing to do with her.  So my friend wanted her to find a new home, because she couldn't stay there.  And that's how we got a Sierra.  

Sierra was a very friendly little cat at first.  She loved everyone, especially Maxwell, and the horses.  She had no fear of anything.  She'd rub all upon the horses and around their legs and she'd follow Max around the yard like his shadow, and every chance she'd get she'd try to get into the house, but we were adamant that she was a BARN cat.  She had to stay outside.  

Most of the time. 

Except that sometimes during the day, if I was home, I'd let her inside for a little bit.  She was fine, she just followed Max around, and when he curled up to sleep, she'd curl up next to him. And when he wanted to go outside, she'd go outside with him, and they'd both do their thing out there, and come back in.  

One Saturday, Sierra was up by the house, trying to follow us into the truck as we were getting ready to leave. I don't remember where we were going.  I had to actually kick her out of the truck and close the door quickly before she could jump back in, and I watched her in the rear view mirror as we drove away. She looked so forlorn and abandoned.  Goofy cat, I thought.  Just go back to the barn with the horses, you'll be fine.  

However, I didn't see her for about three days after that.  Which was very strange, because as soon as you even touched the door handle, she would be on the other side to greet you.  If she somehow missed that cue, you only needed to say her name or "kitten!" or the like, and she'd come bounding out of the shadows of the barn to rub up against your legs and beg for pets and scritches.  So for there to be no sign of her at all after we got home, it made me sick to my stomach.  I didn't know if she got carried off by a hawk or an eagle or an owl or a dog or something, or what.  I just knew that the more time that went by, the more I missed her.  

You'd think I'd know better than to get attached to barn cats by now.  But nope.  If I feed you, and name you, and you purr at me, that's it.  It's done.

So...imagine how I felt a few days later when I was scrolling through FB, and on the local town group, there's a picture of a cute little grey tabby cat with a caption that said, "FOUND: Very friendly female cat. Gets along with other cats and dogs. Found at [name of our road] in [name of our town]."  It was like 10 o'clock at night and I'm all, THAT'S MY CAT! THAT'S SIERRA! THAT'S MY CAT!! So of course I messaged the person, and it turns out to be the girlfriend of one of my next-door neighbor's sons.  And poor Sierra, I forgot to mention that she'd had a yucky upper respiratory infection at the time that she was on antibiotics for, so she was also all sneezy and wheezy and goopy and she showed up on our neighbor's deck looking all cold and pitiful, and they took her in thinking she had been dumped by someone, or something, because they didn't know us very well yet and didn't know we had just adopted this cat not even a week prior.  She was literally next door the whole time.  And I hadn't even met the neighbors yet because we're all introverts, but my need to get this cat back overtook my social anxiety and I actually went over there (the next day after work...) all by myself to collect my kitten, and chatted with the neighbors for a while, like we exchanged phone numbers and everything, and it all turned out really well.

And then I went home with Sierra in my arms, and walked in the house and set her down in the living room.  And my hubby said, "So you're putting her back out in the barn now?" and I said, "Nope!" and that's how Sierra became a house cat. :D

Max has adjusted.  He's been an Only Dog and the Only Inside Pet since September 2020.  He's coexisted with the barn cats just fine -- that is, without Luger.  (Luger was our other dog, who died in September 2020. Luger H-A-T-E-D cats. When Max was with Luger, Max would also hate cats. But without Luger, Max is fine with them. Go figure.)  As I mentioned before, Miss Sierra has loooooved Max since day one.  He wasn't quite sure what to make of that, especially once she stayed in the house all the time.  It's been a few months now, so he's pretty much used to her.  She seems to think the world of him and he's like -- meh, okay. Whatever. 

It's weird, though. We haven't had a house cat for a while.  Not since shortly after we got Luger, anyway! She's a good little cat.  She just got spayed last Friday (today's Monday) which is awesome because she was going into heat like every other week.  She seems to have allergies or something because she's still kind of sneezy and wheezy, but we'll work on that now that she's spayed.  

Alright, that's all I have time for now.  I'll get to the rest later. TTFN

And on this farm we have some horses, E-I-E-I-O....

 With the one-year anniversary of our closing date inching nearer and nearer, our little home sweet home received a major upgrade this weekend 😍  From "house in the country" to "house in the country, with horses"!  

At first I wrote "...to FARM!", but that doesn't quite fit, and I think that's something I've been kind of sad about for the last year.  I suppose, it might have been a stretch calling our old place a farm.  It had been a dairy farm at one time, and it had a cool old dairy barn on it when we first moved in.  It had (has) a silo.  It had the words "hobby farm" in the listing.  It was a farm without animals until we put up fences and built a few stalls and added a couple of horses.  (And, later, chickens.)  It has farm history.  I have the aerial picture from about the 60's  or so, I'm guessing, to prove it!

(Actually, I don't have it. The boy has it. It's in the house. It was in the house when we bought it, and you can't take something like that with you when you move!  And on a side note, there are old aerial pics available online as well...)

All this reminiscing just to announce that we finally brought the horses home this weekend!  I will absolutely positively NOT point out that when we first moved in, the plan was that we'd move them in the spring...or maybe early summer, at the latest.  As soon as the ground thawed, and we could get the posts in the ground, and the hubby could get the addition on the pole barn put up.  That wouldn't take very long, right?  MAYBE mid-summer, but not much longer.  

Definitely NOT almost a year.  

Hey kids, guess what?!  Life happens.  You make plans, other things happen that get in the way.  In this case, to make a long story short, my hubby (who does all the building of things in this household -- I'm not very productive in that area) got called to work on a few other projects before he was able to complete the pole barn project.  I mean, he didn't absolutely have to, but he wouldn't have declined, which is just another reason why I love him.  And the horses were fine at the boy's place -- heck, they'd been there for 17+ years, what was a few more months?!

Anywho, the big day was last Saturday.  Of course, it was a cold, windy, snowy, crappy day, and a part of me wanted to cancel and wait until Sunday for better weather.  I barely slept the night before, worrying about all the things that could go wrong.  What if the trailer wouldn't work?  (I had arranged to borrow a horse trailer, sight unseen, from some good friends...who weren't completely sure it was going to be what we needed but said if it would work, we were welcome to use it.  Do you know how rare that is? To be able to just use someone's horse trailer like that?  It's very rare. I am very, very thankful for our friends and the huge favor they did for us!)  What if something went wrong with it, if a tire blew, or the floor was bad, or the doors flew open while we were driving?  And the roads were crappy, and I've seen enough pics of horse trailer accidents online to have all kinds of nightmare-ish images going through my mind all week night.  

But, I'm getting ahead of myself, because to even get that far, I'd have to get the horse into the trailer.  Sounds easy enough, right? But do you know how many things can go wrong just trying to get a horse to load into a trailer?!  For one thing, neither one of my horses has even seen the inside of a trailer in at least 16 years.  Suddenly, the advise of a riding instructor I once had came back to haunt me: "You should trailer your horse every now and then, just to get her used to it, because you never know."  Thanks, Kare...RIP.  A lot of good that does me now because I adopted Nicker like 20 years ago and have never owned a trailer in that time, but I digress.  So many things can go wrong. They can refuse to get in. There are literal weeks-long workshops and videos and training programs whose sole intent is to help you train your horse help your horse trust you enough and learn how to feel comfortable getting into a trailer and standing there, trying to balance inside this strange little closed-in area with it's unfamiliar sounds and smells, for God-only-knows-how-long, while you pull it down the highway in what has to be a terrifying ordeal for a horse who is used to being in her quiet, familiar, predictable environment.  Especially a 29-year-old chestnut mare who likes to act up on windy days.  I reminded myself so many times that *I* had to remain calm and confident, because horses totally pick up on insecurity and fear in their people.  So, I did my best.  

And my beautiful, beautiful 29yo boss mare walked into that trailer like she does it every day of her life.  I love my horse!!

The original plan was to take the back roads home, but the back roads hadn't been plowed yet, so it was actually safer to take the main roads.  I was nervous about that, going faster than I wanted to go, but at the same time I wanted to go fast so we'd get home sooner.  Oh, and I wasn't driving -- that job went to my hubby.  If the weather had been perfect and there'd been no snow or ice on the roads and it wasn't windy, I like to think I could've done it but still would've been nervous about it.  Do you know how many things can go wrong with horses?!?!  So I felt better with our safety in his hands for that drive.

The drive actually went well.  Uneventful.  I rode almost backward the whole time, watching Nic's silhouette out the back window.  Then we got home, and faced a bit of a dilemma.  She walked into the trailer like nobody's business, but...we haven't done groundwork in a long time. She used to back on verbal command, but it's different when she's stressed out and can't feel any ground behind her to step on (no ramp on the trailer).  For a moment I thought she could turn around and walk out, but nope, she was just a bit too long to turn around in the trailer.  Finally, after a few minutes of coaxing, she agreed to step out backward, even though it was a little slippery, and I breathed the biggest sigh of relief ever.  Well, it felt like it, anyway.  Maybe it was just another big gust of wind.

You may have noticed this story was all about Nicker, and you may be astute enough to recall that I actually have two horses.  The trailer was only big enough for one, so we had to make two trips.  I was planning on having to make two trips anyway, unless the trailer had a divider, because...let's just say Nicker doesn't get along with other horses, especially in small spaces.  Not even Shasta, who has been her pasturemate for the last 16 years.  Are you kidding? Just this morning, Shasta stepped too close to Nic while they were out in the pasture and Nic pinned her ears back and nipped at her.  After 16 years together.  

Anyway...I wasn't nearly as worried about trailering Shasta as I was about Nicker. For one thing, Shasta's a lot smaller.  Which isn't to say that things don't go wrong with smaller horses, too, because they certainly do.  I don't know how to explain it, exactly.  I just realized I'm more concerned about getting hurt by Nicker than I am by Shasta. Maybe because I actually have been hurt by/with Nicker and I haven't been hurt by Shasta? I don't mean maliciously, of course; but, you know, (or maybe you don't if you're not a horse person), but you do stupid things like fall off or stand where you shouldn't and get bumped into or stepped on or kicked, etc., or get your pride hurt, or whatever.  It's a whole thing.  Horses aren't toys, they're living things with emotions and moods and personalities.  Anyway...I digress, again.  After going through the first trip and knowing more about what to expect, I wasn't as nervous when we went back to get Shasta.

Except that the little shit doesn't like to be caught.  I was hoping that she'd be so distraught about the fact that I'd taken her best friend away, that she'd be pacing the fence (like she does when I take Nic out of the pasture without her and she can't see her) and would let herself be caught easily, because it was really cold and I wasn't in the mood to go chasing a crazy pony across the frozen tundra.  But noooooooo, little miss had other plans!  She does this thing where she stands still and lets me get like five feet away from her, then she charges off.  I know, I know; I should work with her and build up the trust so she doesn't feel the need to run away, yadda yadda yadda.  I know.  Short story long, it only took about 5 minutes of "chasing" her (I put that in quotes because it's hard to explain to non-horse people how you "chase" a horse, because you don't chase it by running after it;  you chase it by trying to push it toward where you want it to go, basically.) before I could catch her.  She did fine in the trailer -- she's so short, she couldn't see out the windows, and the drive was again uneventful, and now they're both safe and sound in the pasture (I don't know what else to call it.  Is it a paddock? A pasture? It doesn't seem big enough to be a pasture, but too big to be a paddock or a pen. Hmmmmm.) and settling in just fine.  

Alright, that's all the time I want to spend writing for now.  It's just nice to have them here.  I feel complete!  And I didn't even get to tell you about the new cat, but I'll save that for next time! :)

It's all in my head.

 

Recently, I have written so many beautiful, eloquent, insightful and informative essays (in the form of blog entries)...I mean, honestly. Sometimes I just amaze myself with the things I come up with.  And to think, thanks to the wonder of the internet, I can share my thoughts with all the world!  What a great time to be alive!

Unfortunately, all of those essays (excluding the present) have been exclusively written in my head.  So the "beautiful, eloquent, insightful and informative" may be a bit of a stretch.  It's more like bits and pieces of occasional wonder and borderline brilliance that pops into my mind and ruminates from time to time, with the best chunks generally hitting me at the most opportune times (she says, the sarcasm so thick and tender you could cut it with a butter knife), like when I'm driving home from work, or trying to fall asleep.  

It's hard to remember everything a person needs to remember.

And so this is Christmas, and what have you done?

 

PSYCH! Happy April Fools! It's not Christmas, it's only September! 

...and I've been a most neglectful blogger.  "Neglectful" doesn't feel like the right word, but I'm going with it for now.  

September is my happy month: the month of my birth!  For 21 years it was My Month and mine alone.  And then, on my 22nd birthday, I did a crazy silly* thing: I got married, to my one true love, my soul mate, the man with whom I still want to spend the rest of my life, my best friend and (then future-)father of my child. Whose birthday is the very same day as mine.  Yep, in case you didn't already know, you read that correctly: my hubby and I were born on the very same day, in the very same year, and even in the very same city.  So of course we had to get married on that day!  The birthaversary. I've probably written about it before.  (*Just to clarify: the crazy silly part is that we got married on our birthdays, which means we celebrate EVERYTHING on the one day, and that's it.  If I had to go back and do it all over again, I would still do that, but sometimes my inner child throws a hissy fit because my birthday isn't a day all about ME anymore.  That's the "silly" part.  No matter how old I get, my inner child can still be a bratty, stereotypical youngest sibling sometimes.)

This year, we spent our birthaversary camping in the woods in northeastern Wisconsin with our dog.  We had our camper, but didn't have electricity or water hook-ups. We had limited running water (the camper has a solar panel but we basically only use that to try to keep the battery from dying so we can keep the fridge running) and very spotty cell phone service. The weather was just about perfect and we had a lakeside campsite, and no deadlines to meet or places to be.  Perfecto!  Couldn't have asked for a better time, even though I slept like crap every single night.  I'm getting teary-eyed thinking about it right now.  The relaxing fun parts, not the sleeping like crap parts.  I'd actually forgotten about that until just now.  That, and the fact that we didn't have quite enough sunlight to actually keep the battery charged, so we weren't actually able to shower like we'd planned...lol.  

And so I learned that my personal threshold for days I can go without showering is 4.  I don't know if my hubby would agree with me, I didn't ask him, but for my own personal comfort and ability to tolerate myself, it's 4.  😇  Granted, the temperature was under about 85*F for three of those days, and the humidity was also, I don't know the exact reading, but it wasn't horrendous for three of those days, so that number would change depending on the weather.  This wasn't planned; see, with the camper, and the solar panel keeping the battery charged, we should have been able to use the hot water heater and the shower and take "camper showers" for lack of a better term -- not full, luxurious showers like you'd take at home, of course, but a sufficient and refreshing cleansing of one's entire body (including scalp) with soap and as little hot water as possible.  However, our campsite had just enough shade that the solar panel didn't get quite as much direct sunlight as it needed, and the battery died about halfway through our stay.  Have you ever tried to take a shower with cold water?  I'm pretty sure everyone has at some point, for some reason or another.  If you haven't, count your blessings!  It's not fun. It's not refreshing. It's at least cleansing, marginally, but it's not something most people would choose unless absolutely necessary.  And in this case, it was not absolutely necessary.  For the sake of this story, there were other ways to charge up the camper battery so we could keep the fridge running -- by hooking the camper back up to the truck and running it for a while. Not ideal, because who wants to sit next to a running vehicle at their relaxing campsite? And who wants to just let their truck sit there and idle, knowing how much gasoline costs? Anyway, the moral of the story, kids, is that we really liked the campground except that the campsite was too shady. But that wasn't even the end of the world.  We had some food in the freezer that thawed, but it was almost the end of our trip anyway, and it wasn't a big deal.  The end.

But the shower I took after we got home and got everything unpacked was probably The Best Shower I have ever had in my entire life...oh, my, lanta!!  So nice. 

And now, in what seems like a few blinks of the eye, September is almost over.  The Minnesota State Fair has come and gone. It's officially autumn. The leaves are changing colors and falling off the trees. I'm pretty sure the hummingbirds have migrated away, the amount of feed in the feeder hasn't changed in over a week now and I should probably take it down before it starts to ferment.  The camper has been winterized and is packed away for the season (well, technically it's been un-packed away temporarily, so the hubby can put siding up on the new addition to the pole barn where the camper will live when it's not being used, but for all intents and purposes, it's packed away for the season).  

Speaking of packing and un-packing, can you believe we've lived here almost a year already?!  I was trying to figure out when exactly our offer on this place was officially accepted. I purposely didn't write about it on social media or in here, which has made figuring that out a bit more difficult for me, ha ha.  I mean, I could just look at the paperwork, because I know exactly where it is, but that would be too easy.  I'd rather stumble across it in a FB post or a blog entry so I can remember the emotions I was feeling at the time.  Or...perhaps I don't want to remember the emotions I was feeling at the time!  😁

It's funny, how many times we'll be driving somewhere and I'll randomly think, 'Hey, we looked at a house that was down this road!'.  We looked at a lot of houses last summer.  

But, I digress.  There actually was a FB post that came up in my "Memories" today that made me think the acceptance date is coming up very soon.  It was one year ago today, and I'd written, "Remind me to ask our realtor if we can invent a Buyer Anxiety Clause stating that the buyer has severe anxiety and needs to know ASAP if the seller is going to accept the fricking offer or not...#PrayingTheThirdTimesTheCharm".  I think, if memory serves (which is iffy), this was the third place we put an offer on, so this could very well be the transaction to which I was referencing one year ago.  Which still means our closing date anniversary is still two months away, but that, my friends, is another story...

I suppose I should sign off and get some housework done. My hubby is out of town this weekend, and I don't know why but I'm on a cleaning kick.  Actually, I do know why! Yesterday (Saturday), he had to be at the airport by 6:30-7am'ish for an 8am flight.  Bless his heart, he does believe in arriving way early so there is plenty of time to get through security and everything.  I grumble about it, but in my heart I appreciate it, too, because I tend to underestimate the amount of time needed to get places, and flying/going to airports heightens my anxiety three billionfold, so his foresight in planning is a blessing in disguise because the thought of missing a flight really sends my anxiety through the roof...but I digress.  The airport is about a 1.5 hour drive from our place, so we had to leave at 5am, so we got up about 4am, ON A SATURDAY mind you, and so by the time I got back home it was just before 8am.  Our Saturday morning Bible Study group meets (online) at 9am, and I didn't want to miss it, and I knew that if I sat down or laid back down I would fall asleep, so I started Doing Things.  Not normal typical things like the dishes or the laundry, I started Projects.  Like hanging up things on the walls. then I decided I was going to tackle the boxes that still need to be unpacked that are in the guest bedroom, which lead to some minor re-decorating in my office (since most of the things in the closet were framed photos).  Anyway, long story short, I ended up with one bag for the Goodwill, two bags to the garbage, a few more decorations thoughtfully placed throughout the house, and the huge satisfaction of ticking a long-standing project off of my To-Do list. Today I shall catch up on the housework I usually do on Saturdays, and I've already got a good start on that, and it's only 1:30pm!  Wow.  Despite being tired last night (because, hello, I had to get up at 4am!), I don't sleep well when the hubby isn't home, and last night was no exception. So today I somehow still slept in until about 10am, but I'm all groggy and discombobulated and feel like I should be cleaning and organizing instead of sitting here writing.  

So, with that, I leave you. For now.  See you next time!

Wake me up when September ends-- oh, that's NEXT month. Sorry.

 

August makes me sad. I don't want summer to be almost over!  July needs to march itself right back here and stick around a while longer, I tell you what.  I went to one of the local artsy-craftsy boutique-type places this weekend and while I was utterly delighted that the summer décor stuff was on sale (because that's what I was there to purchase), I wasn't ready to face the onslaught of fall décor yet.  I'm not ready for pumpkins and colorful leaves and apple cider and sweaters!  It's NOT fall, y'all!  It's still very much summer (it's supposed to be in the 90's this week, thank you very much) so I'm just going to pretend I didn't see all that other crap yet.  Fall will be in October.  It's barely August.  Hold your dang horses.

And before you start telling me that autumn technically starts in September: I know, I know.  But September is my birthday month and out of respect thereof, we shan't mention such things.  Capisce?

I took the hummingbird feeder down last week to clean and refill it, and haven't put it back up yet, and I swear they know.  Two times now, as I've been sitting here in my office on the computer, a hummingbird has come up to the window, hovered there for a few seconds as if looking in at me, and then flown away.  I should note that the window I'm sitting at is not the window where the feeder is usually located, and that I have never seen hummingbirds at this window before, either.  

Next year I need to get shepherd's hooks or something to get the bird feeder (the one that holds bird seed, not the hummingbird feeder) farther away from the house, though. To keep the deer from eating the hostas that are closer to the house.  Did I tell you?  I planted some hostas around the one tree in the yard, because I love the way it looks when there is a ring of hostas around a tree so I started a "ring" with like two hostas around one of the smaller trees in the back yard.  Anyway, that turned out to be a bad idea because the deer ate the hostas.  At first I was like -- Oh well, they ate the leaves, but it should still come back next year.  But do you know what those dang forest rats did?  They dug up those hostas and ate the roots and everything.  So no, the new hostas won't come back next year.  !!!!  Except the new striped ones I planted in the front yard next to the trees by the driveway.  For some reason, those are invisible to deer (so far).  And the ones I planted out in the front by the road by the fire sign, I'm pretty sure they ate those, too.  So what I've learned this year is, if I'm going to plant more hostas, I have to protect them from the deer.  There's not much room left to put them right by the house.  IDK.  I'll think on it and see.  

We planted some lilac trees, too, and I'm really hoping those take!  Otherwise I haven't really done much gardening-wise this year, just kind of watched to see what's come up and where.  We had a bunch of asparagus but by the time we realized it, it was too late.  (Did you know asparagus can get to be 6-8 feet tall?!)  We have a whole bunch of berries out there that I'm watching closely because I do love me some berries (raspberry and blackberry), but there are so many birds and deer that I don't think I'll get to them before they do.  

And...this is about what I've been up to lately.  Trying to identify plants and trees around our place, trying to keep up with housework (actually doing pretty well on that front!), working -- sometimes from home, sometimes making the trek to the office for the day.  I've discovered the absolute joy that is listening to audiobooks 😍 Yes, I'm a little late to the game sometimes!  I actually don't know why I didn't try this sooner, other than the fact that I just really, really love music.  It's not that I don't like books -- I do!  I love reading, and I've missed it, I just worried that it would be too distracting to listen to a good story while driving.  It's not.  I mean, I did try listening to some lectures on neuroscience and those are maybe not good to listen to while driving, because I did end up rewinding a lot when I missed an important part when traffic got bad or something.  But stories like the one I'm currently listening to (Where the Crawdads Sing) seem to be ideal. 

Alright, I suppose I should grab something to eat and then get back to work.  TTYL!

The incredible, edible egg.

Wasn't that just the best tagline ever? "The incredible, edible egg."  There's simply no better adjective for food than "edible".  And it rhymes with "incredible".  Win-win!

I don't like writing about my own personal weight loss journey, because it's been a two-steps-forward, five-steps-back process over the last 20 years.  Ha, ha.  

But a few years ago, I found something that actually worked.  Remember?  I lost around 60 pounds on a program that I won't name, not because I don't like it (au contraire, it obviously worked very well!) but because this isn't a commercial and it also wasn't a good long-term solution for me because once I went off it I, um, kinda gained all that weight back.  Easy come, easy go, as they say.  Only it was the opposite in this case. Easy go, easy come back.  

Anyway, I've found something that works again, and it's not a program that I won't be able to keep up this time.  Well, I mean, maybe sometime the effects will wear off, but hopefully by that time the better habits will be fully ingrained and I'll continue to make better decisions.  To be fair, the program I was on before had a component where we were supposed to be learning how to make better decisions so that we didn't gain all the weight back, but I glossed over that part because I didn't want to have to buy my food online from a certain website for the rest of my life.  

I'll tell you what started my current "program", but I don't recommend it for anyone playing along at home: COVID.  More specifically, losing my senses of taste and smell due to COVID.  When food stopped tasting right, it really made me stop and look at what I was eating and why.  Especially the junk food.  I used to hate the fact that I binged on junk food when I was stressed out because it only made me feel worse about whatever I was stressed out about in the long run.  But when I could no longer taste the yummy goodness of whatever I was bingeing on, it was really like, Why am I doing this?  This hurts.  I don't want to do this anymore.  

And pretty much just like that, something clicked and I stopped doing that.  Pretty much. I can look at junk food that I used to binge on and it just doesn't look appealing anymore, because I know that it won't taste good like it used to, and I know that it will only hurt me.  I can still have some sweet things (my kryptonite) in moderation, but I don't binge on them any more.  So far.  I'm always afraid I'm going get my old sense of taste back and relapse, but I'll deal with that if it happens.  One day at a time, right?

So, that's my secret.  That, and being on mood-stabilizing medications that also have appetite-suppressing side effects.  :D  And drinking lots and lots of water.  With food not tasting right anymore, I'm more mindful about what I'm actually eating.  It's easier to cut back on carbs this way.  I think I had to eat 10 dozen eggs to lose 15 pounds, but hey...whatever works. 

I'm not talking about it now to get attention.  I don't like drawing attention to myself. I just wanted to take a few minutes to write about the little things I'm noticing, like how my pants are fitting better again.  And my shoes, too.  It's weird, I know, but apparently I lose weight in my feet when I start losing weight.  I know, it's probably edema, but I'll take it.  And my elbows don't hurt anymore already. That's a new one, the elbow pain thing.  My elbows had NEVER hurt before, and it was starting to get annoying. So I'm glad that's starting to go away.  

I'm also amused by these little things I found on the internet that equate a weight in pounds to number of random objects.  That's the real reason I wanted to share.  15 pounds is the same as 10 dozen eggs.  It's a darn good start.  My birthday is in about 5 weeks, and I hope to be at 25 pounds lost by then.  I also hate giving myself goals like that, but, we'll see.

TTFN!

It's like a heat wave!

I just went to Google, searched on "current temperature in [name of my town]", then went to Images, and this is the first picture that came up.  

I don't understand how a cute little tiny baby deer standing on wood chips is supposed to portray how hot it is right now, but I don't feel like digging any further, so, there ya go.  It's so hot that little tiny baby deer (yes, I know they're called fawns) would apparently prefer to stand on wood chips than blacktop.  I wouldn't blame them.  It's hot.  According to the WeatherBug app on my phone, it's currently 91ºF outside but feels like 91ºF.  

I'll take their word for it. I'm currently working from home inside, where the thermostat is set to 78ºF which might sound hot but it actually doesn't feel hot.  I don't have the data to back this up, but I'd say it feels about 72ºF in here.  But that's literally just my word.  I'm sitting at the computer desk wearing shorts and a t-shirt and not sweating.  Max is sleeping on the floor in front of the fan and not panting.  We're good.

You know what's weird about COVID? Or should I say, post-COVID?  Sometimes everything smells the same, just in varying degrees.  This morning when I woke up, I could smell popcorn.  Not buttery hot yummy popcorn, but just plain, white popcorn with maybe a hint of salt.  I don't know how else to describe it.  I wasn't anywhere near food at the time.  It wasn't overwhelming or bothersome, it was just like -- oh, I smell popcorn. How interesting.  It varied in intensity for a bit, and now I just noticed that it's gone. I don't smell anything now.  

Sometimes I smell the correct things for a short time. Yesterday we were driving around in the rain and I could suddenly smell the wet earth. It was actually amazing!  It reminded me of how frustrated I was when we went camping Memorial Day weekend, and I couldn't smell the campfire. One of the simple joys of camping -- one of the simple joys of living, is the smell of wood smoke.  Anyway, for about 10 seconds I could smell rich, earthy, damp soil, and it made me feel alive and renewed, and then it went away.  

On Saturday, the hubby was frying fish on the back deck.  I couldn't smell a dang thing.  I sat about 10 feet away (or less) and could not smell a single solitary thing at all.  I'm not complaining about this one, I just like to prove that it's not such a bad thing sometimes.  Hee hee hee!

Also on Saturday morning, everything smelled citrus-like, for no apparent reason.  We don't have any citrus fruit in the house, no citrus-scented soaps or anything like that.  It was there for a while, varying in intensity, and I went to several different places Saturday morning where there were several different smells but all I could smell was citrus.  Until I couldn't smell anything anymore.

What the heck is going on in my brain!?!?

Anyway, I had my annual physical last week. I'm overall pretty healthy, at least according to my blood work. My lipid panel, hepatic panel, CBC, CMP, and A1C were all normal (except my fasting glucose level which has been annoyingly mildly elevated for the past few years).  My BP was even textbook normal, 120/80 on the dot.  :D  

Alright, time to get back to work.  TTFN!